Mephisto might
be Istvan Szabo’s most internationally reckoned work, but Confidence was the Hungarian filmmaker’s personal favourite. The
alternately gripping and affecting psychological drama was a telling narrative
on the kind of tragic arcs wartime scenarios set individuals on, thus making
the romantic angle in its storyline deeply poignant. Set in Nazi-occupied
Budapest, the film begins with the world that the simple-natured Katalin
(Ildiko Bansagi) has known crashing down around her. When about to enter her
house she is stopped and informed that her husband, who she’s told is a member
of the Resistance, has gone underground, and that she must lead a false life in
order to escape being caught. Thus, with a fabricated identity, she begins, on
a deeply tentative and uncertain note, a fake married life with János (Peter
Andorai), who too belongs to the Resistance. While the emotionally vulnerable Katalin
is on the verge of a breakdown at any time, the hard-bitten and cynical János
is wary and suspicious of everyone around him in order to stay alive. Yet,
because of this strange circumstance, and on account of the hopelessness and
fear surrounding them, the two slowly start falling in love as they only have
each other to cling to. The film let loose on the melodrama on a few occasions, and the
theatrical device of soliloquies seemed tad intrusive at times;
however, for all its flaws, it succeeded in painting a gut-wrenching picture of
love in times of war, with the beautifully done finale providing the icing.
Both the actors managed to lay bare the insides of their characters, and the
muted, washed-out photography made it visually beautiful too.
Director: Istvan Szabo
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Political Drama/Romance
Language: Hungarian
Country: Hungary
Hondo might
not rank as the best film John Wayne had been part of, but it sure is a
contender for the most entertaining movie he acted in. Like Shane, which was released in the same
year, it too had a laconic and enigmatic, but essentially good man, with a
possibly violent past taking up the responsibility of protecting a family, and
like a number of John Ford films, had a strong presence of Native Americans as
part of its storyline. Also, interestingly, it was made in 3D which surely was
a marvel at its time. The eponymous protagonist (Wayne), a mysterious stranger,
makes an unplanned stop at the small ranch at the middle of where Angie
(Geraldine Page) and her young son live. Unable to move out with him as this
happens to be Indian territory and the Apaches happen to be on a collision course
with white folks on account of the latter having breached certain agreements,
he goes off to the nearest town. However he returns when he realizes of the
grave danger they are in, and when captured by the Apaches, their Major (Michael
Pate) mistake him to be the lady’s husband and release him as he has, in the
meantime, decided to spare the family’s life. And thus begins an initially
tentative but ultimately tender romance between the world-weary man who has
never settled down in one place and the sad, homely lady, while also becoming
the father that the kid that never had. The spectacular battle sequence between
the US Cavalry and the natives rounded up this exquisitely shot and gently
affecting film. Both Wayne and Page gave fine turns too.
Director: John Farrow
Genre: Western/Romance/Action
Language: English
Country: US
Trailblazing Japanese New Wave filmmaker Nagisa
Oshima’s seminal second feature Cruel
Story of Youth was a pioneering work of the movement, and provided for an
interesting parallel with the French Nouvelle Vague’s most iconic film, viz.
Godard’s Breathless (both released in
the same year). Its iconoclasm, youth rebelliousness, depiction of the marginalized,
and anti-establishmentarian stance, set the tone for the fascinating movement. At
its centre were its Bonnie & Clyde-type
protagonists – Kiyoshi (Kawazu Yusuke), a delinquent young man belonging to the
lower strata, and Makoto (Kuwano Miyuki), an adolescent girl who wants to break
free from her middle-class family. When a middle-aged man tries to take
advantage of Makoto after agreeing to give her a ride in his car, the brash
Kiyoshi who was passing by the area beats him black and blue. And thus starts a
topsy-turvy, volatile and destructive love affair between the two. While
Makoto’s mild-mannered elder sister (Yoshiko Kuga), who is now anything but
what she had in mind for herself during her younger days, attempts in futility
to gets her back from Kiyoshi’s shack apartment and grungy life, the two embark
on a dangerous route for sustaining their lives. Their plan comprises of Makoto
luring men to make advances at her and then Kiyoshi turning up to fleece money
out of them. Their calculations, however, goes haywire when the fragile Makoto
is shown genuine fatherly affection by a wealthy elderly man. The film, in a
rough, jagged style devoid of finesse or subtlety, provided an undiluted, edgy
and yet quietly poignant portrayal of the underbelly of post-War Japanese
society, with its dysfunction, estrangement, aimlessness, hollow dreams and
disillusionments.
Director: Nagisa Oshima
Genre: Drama/Urban Drama/Social Drama
Language: Japanese
Country: Japan
At a convention on Spanish cinema held at Salamanca in 1955, under the
draconian Franco regime, Bardem had launched a
now-famous scathing attack on its then status. Released in the same
year, Death of a Cyclist, despite the
era of heavy censorship, managed to be an arresting distillation of everything he wanted films to be. This simultaneously psychologically incisive, emotionally
affecting, politically conscious and stylistically dazzling film provided a
terrific portrayal of guilt, fear, deceit and the feeble attempts at
reconciling with oneself, and a searing indictment of the regime’s bourgeois
collaborators. It begins with a stray cyclist being accidentally hit by a speeding car
and the man left to die on the road. The occupants of the car are the
adulterous couple Juan (Alberto Closas), a professionally failed mathematics
teacher, and the incredibly alluring Maria (Lucia Bosé) who’s married to a
wealthy businessman (Otello Toso). The prime driving force for him turns out to
be the deep sense of guilt – not just for their dastardly act, but also because
of the choices he has made in his life, particularly those relating to his
socio-political inaction, lack of will in challenging the status quo and for
having compromised on his ideals; his guilt, therefore, is the guilt of an entire
class, and not just that of an individual. For her, however, it is fear – the
fear of losing her comfortable and cocooned lifestyle, compounded by the presence
of a grotesque looking journalist (Carlos Casaravilla) who loathes the vacuous
and complacent privileged class. The film’s social realism was brilliantly
counterpointed by its noirish style and fatalist mood, emphasized by the
fabulous cinematography replete with expressionistic visuals and low-angle
shots.
Director: Juan Antonio Bardem
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama
Language: Spanish
Country: Spain
Boetticher’s The
Tall T, like the other two films belonging to his "Ranown Cycle" that I’ve watched, viz. Decision at Sundown and Ride Lonesome, was a taut, muscular and crisply timed B-Western. However, unlike
the other two, obsessive quest for revenge didn’t drive the protagonist here –
at least not directly. This adaptation of an Elmore Leonard story begins with
Pat Brennan (Randolph Scott) agreeing to bring candies for the kid son of a
station manager while on his way to the town; he then loses his horse in a
stupid wager – these two random incidents end up forcing him into a deathly
entanglement as he is held hostage, along with a newlywed couple, by a gang of
ruthless outlaws. What follows, more than anything else, is a game of
psychological one-upmanship between Brennan on one side, and the deceptively
dangerous leader (Richard Boone) and his two henchmen, one of whom is a
psychopathic sharp-shoot, on the other. Brennan, despite his hulking appearance
and laconic nature which might make him seem like the kind who shoots first and
talks later, realizes that brains, rather than brawns, are required for him to
escape – and this is what made this briskly paced and tightly plotted Western a
darn engaging watch, despite the lack of thematic and psychological overtones
that defined the other two Ranown films named above. Scott suited his part, but
it was Boone as the weary and seemingly fair, but essentially a brutal
criminal, who stole the show. Boetticher managed to build a good amount of
tension and moodiness into the proceedings, and that further added to viewing
experience.
Director: Budd Boetticher
Genre: Western/Psychological Western
Language: English
Country: US
