With
What Time Is It There? Tsai provided
a ravishingly beautiful, deeply haunting, richly moody and quietly affecting
meditation on temporal and spatial interconnectedness, or lack thereof. Sterile
concrete jungles, claustrophobic apartments, incessant increase in distances
between people and resultant loss of connection, and ensuing ennui, loneliness,
urban alienation and existential crisis, formed the key thematic elements in
this marvelously composed and meticulously crafted gem. The film’s parallel
strands focused on two lonely, idiosyncratic and affectionately etched
characters residing on the fringes of the society – Hsiao-kang (Lee
Kang-sheng), a street vendor who sells watches, and Shiang-chyi (Chen
Shiang-chyi), a young woman who’s travelling to Paris. Shiang coaxing Hsiao to
sell her the dual-time watch he’s wearing kicks off the storylines of these two
characters grappling for human contact, albeit in vain. Hsaio’s recently widowed
mother (Lu Yi-ching), unable to accept her husband’s death, is convinced of the
presence of the deceased man’s ghost and reincarnation in her grief-stricken
infatuation, while he becomes obsessed with setting all clocks and watches,
including a massive clock attached to a skyscraper, to Paris time; meanwhile
Shiang, unable to speak French, finds herself increasingly isolated in a
strange world. Dark humour, irony, ambiguities and absurdist developments
played fascinating roles in this delightfully concocted, profoundly melancholic
and ultimately tragic exploration. In one bravura sequence, intercuts are used
for showing socially deviant sexual situations of the 3 characters – the mother
pleasuring herself through fantasy bordering on necrophilia, Hsiao with a
prostitute in his cramped car, and Shiang tentatively kissing a lady she’s just
met. Jean-Pierre Léaud made a cameo appearance in the film as did his 14
year-old avatar in a clip from The 400 Blows.
Director: Tsai Ming-Liang
Genre: Drama/Social Satire/Black Comedy/Psychological Drama
Language: Taiwanese/Mandarin/French
Country: Taiwan
Vishal
Bharadwaj wrapped up ‘Shakespeare Trilogy’,
his laudable and ambitious adaptation of the Bard’s plays to Indian settings and
contexts, which also comprised Maqbool
(Macbeth) and Omkara (Othello), with Haider. Based on Hamlet and set in the violent political turbulence of Kashmir which
had reached a bristling crescendo during the 90s, this dark, brooding, edgy, nihilistic and
gripping film very well traversed the political and the personal threads of the
tragic tale while emphasizing upon a number of key elements like revenge, jealousy,
lust and a complex mother-son relationship with subterranean guilt
arising out of Oedipus Complex. When his doctor father (Narendra Jha) gets
arrested by the army on charges of sedition for housing a separatist leader, and
is made to disappear without trial, his son Haider (Shahid Kapoor), a
university student, returns to Kashmir in search of him. Upon returning he
realizes that his mother Ghazala (Tabu), instead of grieving for her missing
husband as he’d anticipated, is embroiled in a relationship with his paternal uncle
Khurram (Kay Kay Menon), a sly and unctuous wannabe politician who’s hand in
glove with his journalist fiancée Arshia’s (Shraddha Kapoor) father who’s in
the army. Meanwhile Roohdar (Irrfan Khan), a wanted man involved in the freedom
struggle, reveals Khurram's role in getting his father caught, which
sparks obsessive desire for revenge in him, and propels his mental
disintegration and the eventual carnage. Hauntingly scored, atmospherically
photographed and brilliantly enacted, the film expertly portrayed the violence
and political quagmire the war ravaged Valley is entrapped in, and showed the nefarious
and draconian means employed by state machinery for subverting the popular uprising,
while chronicling a compelling personal story in the process.
Director: Vishal Bharadwaj
Genre: Drama/Political Drama/Psychological Drama
Language: Hindi
Country: India
Made
soon after Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, Bird, Orphans and Fools, like so many fascinating films made during
and post Prague Spring, was banned upon its release and saw the light of day
only after the collapse of Soveit regime. This lesser-known Czech New Wave film
provided a fascinating look at socio-political alienation through its bleak
portrayal of a dystopian world laced with absurdism, ironies, black humour, anarchic
spirit and sharp underlying commentary on the then political climate – no
wonder it earned the wrath of the draconian ruling force. The 3 protagonists of
the allegorical tale – the aggressive and volatile Yorick (Jiri Sykora), his
introverted buddy Ondrej (Philippe Avron) who’s never had a relationship with a
female, and the beautiful Martha (Magda Vášáryová) whose entrance adds
simmering undercurrents – are orphans living in a dilapidated church in a
fool’s world. Their idea of freedom is discarding the kind of rational behavior
expected of adults, and their need for escaping the dreary, crumbling environ
they’re living in is to reject the various tragedies surrounding them through
childlike philosophy of unbridled fun and nonsensical attitudes. Closing one’s
mind to the world one is living in, however, is hardly a sensible way to exist,
and reality, as can be anticipated, catches up with them leading the film to a
chilling climax with shuddering violence, in the form of Yorick’s meltdown following
a sudden arrest, putting an end to their carefree lives. A gaggling old man,
also living in that church, added comic interludes to this otherwise
relentlessly dark film; the absurdist elements and exuberance for most parts
was followed by a somber tone in the end, thus making the representations all
the more powerful.
Director: Juraj Jakubisko
Genre: Black Comedy/Social Satire/Avant-Garde/Experimental Film
Language: Slovak
Country: Czechoslovakia
Though
the bustling capital of Taiwan has been a key personality in Tsai’s filmography,
his 1st 3 films, viz. Rebels of the Neon God, Vive L’Amour and
The River, specifically earned the
nomenclature of ‘Taipei Trilogy’. Despite
the mushy-sounding title, this was a rather anti-romantic film courtesy it’s
stark tone, stylistic choice that was minimalist to the point of being nearly
skeletal in terms of emotional or aesthetic ornamentations, and long takes
which are bound to make the characters’ loneliness, intense urban alienation, disillusionment,
extreme ennui and lack of any direction utterly palpable. The curious slice of
life tale comprised of 3 human characters – Hsiao-kang (Lee Kang-sheng), a
young and suicidal gay salesman, May Lin (Yang Kuei-Mei), a beautiful
real-estate agent, and Ah-jung (Chen Chao-jung), a dandy street hawker; and an
inanimate one in the form of a lavish duplex apartment. When Ah-jung starts
following May, she, on an impulse, takes him along to the empty flat she has
the keys to, and the two engage in casual sex. In parallel, Hsiao, who’d got
hold of a key to the place, plans to indulge himself in the luxurious flat
before slashing his wrist in a failed attempt to kill himself. Over the
remainder of the film, the three characters keep frequenting the empty
apartment which becomes a symbol of their emptiness and a place to escape their
mundane lives. In one bravura moment near the end, a bizarre
and idiosyncratic, but quietly poignant ménage à trois gets staged. The
final scene, where May’s deep-set despair finally breaks through her façade,
was striking for its stripped-down display of emotion.
Director: Tsai Ming-Liang
Genre: Drama/Urban Drama/Psychological Drama
Language: Mandarin
Country: Taiwan
Post Mortem formed the middle chapter of ‘No Redemption Trilogy’, Pablo Larrain’s
bravura, intensely bleak and disturbing examination of Chilean dictator Augusto
Pinochet’s regime. While Tony Manero
focused on the disconcerting directions life took under Pinochet through
sociopathic extremes of an obsessed dancer, and No chronicled the unprecedented referendum that led to Pinochet’s
ouster, this film took one back to his overthrow of Salvador Allende’s
democratically elected government through a bloody military coup. The
protagonist, Mario (a memorably deadpan Alfredo Castro), is a lonely, introverted, apolitical middle-aged
civil servant who works as an assistant to the head pathologist in a Santiago
mortuary. The only spark in his otherwise dull, drab and uneventful life is his
neighbor Nancy (Antonia Zegers), an attractive but anorexic cabaret dancer, out
of favour with her boss for not being voluptuous, he’s completely besotted
with. When he finally garners the courage to approach the lady and possibly
develop a relationship with her, they get embroiled in the brutal and momentous
1973 crackdown that leaves the city in utter disarray and chaos – her home is
ransacked and her family disappears for being vocal supporters of the Socialist
government, whereas he gets sucked into a morbid vortex on account of the
piling corpses and, in a grim rejoinder, to transcribe the cooked up post-mortem
of Allende whose murder Pinochet’s henchmen want to paint as suicide. The stark
and dreary tone, lack of background score, grainy visuals, and deliberate
pacing, did a terrific job at highlighting the tragic and macabre storyline –
uneasy attempts at a much delayed romantic life against the horrific political
backdrop, leading to an ugly but logical end to the personal tale.
Director: Pablo Larrain
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Political Drama
Language: Spanish
Country: Chile
