Made during the heydays of Nouvelle Vague, Le Mépris is
one of those films that feature regularly during discussions about Godard’s best
works. His first professional tryst with a big-budget producer (Carlo Ponti)
and star (Brigitte Bardot), the film worked on multiple levels – modern-day
allegory for Homer’s The Odyssey, sly subversion of the medium of cinema,
scathing critique on the conflict between art and commerce, and a subtly
personal peek into his rocky marriage with his muse, Anna Karina. The movie
begins with a moment of compassion between Paul (Michel Piccoli), a struggling
playwright, and his strikingly beautiful wife Camille (Bardot). But, their
marriage starts experiencing severe doldrums when Paul accepts the job of a
screenwriter for a screen adaptation of the Homer epic, to be directed by German
legend Fritz Lang (played by Lang himself), and produced by a hilariously
incorrigible and arrogant American producer (Jack Palance). Paul wants to earn
money that the job has to offer, and is ready to not just sacrifice his
credentials as an artist, but also pander to the producer’s leering gaze towards
his wife – and thus begins their irrevocable path towards marital breakdown. Godard’s
apathy towards big budget Hollywood-style filmmaking where intrusion by a
producer into a director’s creative space oftentimes happen (something he
experienced, to his severe irritation, during the making of this film), was
brilliantly portrayed in it, as also his disconcertingly frank observations on
the moviemaking business. The film was replete with deliberate
self-reflexiveness and his customary playfulness with cinematography (colour
filters), editing (jump cuts and sudden ruptures of chronology), voiceovers
(the cheeky opening credit sequence), etc., thus underscoring the inherent
artificiality of cinema.
Note: My recent review of the film can be found here.
Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Genre: Drama/Marriage Drama/Showbiz Satire/Avant-Garde
Language: French/English
Country: France
Made at the behest of the newly formed Algerian
government soon after securing independence, based on the memoirs of an FLN
commander, and promptly banned by France upon its release, The Battle of Algiers remains as one of the most incredible,
authentic, polarizing and devastatingly brilliant portrayals of violent
revolutionary struggle, and a cornerstone for political and agitprop filmmaking.
Made in cinéma vérité style and
imbued with a remarkable here-and-now feel, the film’s ferocious intensity and
explosive anti-imperialist statement needs to be seen to be believed, and its
content is as disturbingly relevant today as it was back then. The loosely
structured storyline gives us an account of the formation of the National
Liberation Front (FLN), its violent collision with the French forces over a
period of 3 years, and the eventual iron-fisted crackdown by the army. Notably,
despite its partisan stance, the film on the whole felt surprisingly neutral in
spirit and tone – the mayhem and massacre caused by both the sides were shown
in unflinching detail, and the French Colonel leading the charge against FLN,
contrary to what one might expect, was depicted in sympathetic light and as a
three-dimensional character. The grainy, high contrast black-and-white
photography, on-location shooting, awkward camera angles, and jarring, hand-held
camera movements, gave the film such documentary realism that it was difficult to
believe that no newsreel footage was used in it. The pulsating soundtrack and
the use of non-professional actors further emphasized its neo-realist aspects.
In summation, this film stands as the cinematic equivalent of Che Guevara’s Guerrilla Warfare,
viz. a revolutionary anthem for the
oppressed class.
Director: Gillo Pontecorvo
Genre: Drama/Political Drama/Historical Drama/Docu-Fiction/War
Language: Arabic/French
Country: Algeria
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, qualified by some critics as Britain’s Citizen Kane, was the most celebrated
film of the Powell-Pressburger directing duo; it also earned the wrath of
Winston Churchill and his cohorts. Adapted from a popular cartoon strip, the
film chronicled several decades in the life of an army man (from Boer Wars till
WWII), along with providing a mildly amusing peek into British traditions,
mores and mannerisms. It also provided a fair share of commentary on the
realpolitik of war (as opposed to its more gentlemanly counterpart). But most
importantly, this was a film awash with nostalgia about, in absence of a better
phrase, the ‘good old days’. The film began, however, on a very different note –
the superb opening sequence (which takes place in the ‘present’) gave it the
feel of a witty, funny and biting satire on war. But, as the narrative moved to
an elaborate flashback mode, chronicling the life and times of the erudite and
mild-mannered British officer Clive Candy (marvelously played by Roger
Livesay), both its tone and theme underwent dramatic reversals, thus ensuring
that it never managed to sustain its initial brilliance. Nonetheless, the film
does remain noteworthy on account of its epic scope and sepia-toned, albeit overtly
sentimental, look at changing times. The temporal shift of
Candy’s life from ‘present’ to 40 years back was accomplished in a memorable
single take, and Deborrah Kerr played the roles of three separate ladies in
Candy’s life; interestingly, Angelopoulos employed both these cinematic devices
in Ulysses’ Gaze, which could possibly be construed as an
expression of the film’s importance in his eyes.
Director: Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
Genre: Drama/Historical Epic/Romantic Drama
Language: English
Country: UK
Ulysses’ Gaze,
the second chapter in his “Trilogy of
Borders”, can be seen as a culmination of Theo’s body of work. Aesthetically
challenging, deliberately paced, inherently ambiguous and metaphorical, and
clocking at nearly 3 hours – this might not make for easy viewing, but a
satisfying one nonetheless for those accustomed to Theo’s style. A Greek filmmaker
(Hervey Keitel), residing in the US for long, has returned to his country of
origin purportedly to screen a movie of his. But the real reason for his homecoming
is to unearth three undeveloped reels by the pioneering Greek filmmakers, the
Manakis brothers. And thus begins an audacious and fascinating journey – a
journey that is as deeply spiritual as it is excruciatingly physical – during
the height of the devastating Balkan War. The journey, moving seamlessly
between past, present and alternate realities, also takes him back to the days
of his long-lost childhood. In one astounding sequence, the changing fortunes
of his family, over the course of a number of years, are shown in a single-take.
The most unforgettable moment in the film, though, would easily be the
transportation of a gigantic statue of Lenin through Danube. The thematically
complex film, therefore, was as much a lamentation over the horrors of war, as
it was an elegy on history, memory, time and lost innocence. The hauntingly
beautiful images and the melancholic score made this a ravishing audio-visual
experience as well. Keitel distinctly looked like an outsider in the film,
which, methinks, was Theo’s intent on casting him in the first place. It also had
Maria Morgenstern portraying three distinctly different ladies, and the Swedish
thespian Erland Josephson in a small but vital role.
Director: Theo Angelopoulos
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Political Drama/Road Movie
Language: Greek/English
Country: Greece
Ugetsu
wasn’t just Mizoguchi’s most acclaimed work along with Sansho the Bailiff, it easily remains as one of three most
internationally renowned, seen and widely discussed Japanese films ever made,
alongside Kurosawa’s Rashomon and
Ozu’s Tokyo Story. Based on tales set
in 16th century feudal Japan, the film was a haunting, lyrical,
meditative and deeply humanistic treatise on the intrinsic human traits of
greed and lust, in the garb of a mystical ghost story. The film follows the
tragic journeys of two men blinded by ambition and riches – Genjuro (Masayuki
Mori), a potter whose business has suddenly flourished on account of the raging
civil war, which eggs him to leave his wife and son in order to seek greater
fortunes, and Tobei, his dim-witted brother, who dreams of becoming a samurai.
Though essentially good men, their burning desires for greater glory come at
great personal costs. Genjuro falls under the spell of an alluring and
mysterious lady (Machiko Kyo) with wealth and aristocratic lineage, thus
forcing his helpless wife to experience terrible grief and pain during the
period of abandonment; Tobei too achieves success and glory, only to find that
his wife is now a prostitute at the brothel he stops for rest while on his way
home. Mizoguchi merged realism with surreal and supernatural elements with
élan, and imbued the storyline with somber moodiness, poetic beauty, pathos and
dark commentary on male ego and our inherent inability to draw the line for
happiness. The atmospheric and eerily beautiful photography and camerawork (the
bravura homecoming sequence was one of many indelible moments) further
reinforced the film’s ethereal, dream-like quality.
Director: Kenji Mizoguchi
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Fantasy
Language: Japanese
Country: Japan
