Death of a Bureaucrat, directed by Cuban filmmaker Alea right before his
international breakthrough Memories of Under development, was a trenchant and tar black satire on how incessant and
mindless government bureaucracy, protocols and red tape can literally drive even
the sanest person crazy. Though made in the context of Castro-ruled Cuba, even
someone like me belonging to a separate era and diametrically different time
zone could savour the farcical humour, barbed observations and pointed jabs at
the very foundation of the system. The absurdist story begins with the death of
a party loyalist who invented a machine to mass-produce statuettes of José de
San Martín and dies in the process. Heeding to the silly wishes of the grandiloquent
priest and the few mourners who attended his funeral, his identification card
is buried along with him, and this dumb decision lands his ageing wife in a
fix, as the card is needed in order to avail pension. And thus starts a
Kafkaesque odyssey for the dead man’s young nephew, as his experiences with the
government departments drive him to his wit’s ends and land him in a series of
darkly hilarious scenarios which are enough to push anyone off the edge. Though
replete with memorable gags, including some straight-out homage to silent
comedies, the underlying ordeal of a common man and the ludicrous ironies he’s
made to endure ad nauseum wouldn’t be
lost on anyone. The fine score added to the film’s charm. In a cheeky move, Alea dedicated the film to everyone – from Harold Lloyd,
Buster Keaton and Laurel & Hardy, to Luis Bunuel, and even Marilyn Monroe – since the days of Lumiere Brothers.
Director: Tomas Gutierrez Alea
Genre: Comedy/Black Comedy/Social Satire/Political Satire
Language: Spanish
Country: Cuba
In El, one of the darkest products of his Mexican
period, Bunuel provided a disturbing
look into obsession, jealousy, paranoia and passion bordering on sadomasochism. And,
like only he could, the aforementioned aspects were seamlessly linked to the character’s
belongingness to the bourgeoisie and upper class, and his Catholic upbringing, as
opposed to something more primal. Don Francisco (Arturo de Córdova) is a
wealthy middle-aged aristocrat who falls in love at first sight with the young
and beautiful Gloria (Delia Garcés). Even though she’s engaged to a friend of
his, he uses his charm, persuasive skills and guile to win her over.
However, trouble begins soon after their marriage as his latent inner devils
make him increasingly suspicious of her chastity and fidelity. It starts with
small instances, but gradually takes the form of raging lunacy. Yet, most
interestingly, he never loses grip on his sly and manipulative nature all the
while, including at the magnificent but disconcerting finale. And his madness
for Gloria was brilliantly counterpointed with his crazy pursuit for a land
that he feels belongs to him. The film’s structure was also noteworthy, as the
initial and final few scenes were from a third person’s perspective, while the
middle section, narrated via an elaborate flashback, was from Gloria’s POV as she’s torn between her social “duty” as a compliant wife
while her intelligence suggests otherwise. The brooding B/W
photography and baroque set-pieces perfectly accentuated the film’s tone and theme, while Córdova’s powerful
performance made it all the more discomfiting. The bell tower sequence here, by the way, might just have been the inspiration behind an eerily similar sequence in Hitchcock's Vertigo.
Director: Luis Bunuel
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Marital Drama
Language: Spanish
Country: Mexico
Drifting Clouds,
the first chapter in Kaurismaki’s ‘Finland
Trilogy’, was a droll and darkly comic, yet also a gentle and affecting,
examination of the effects of recession and the ensuing unemployment of the working
class. Understandably, it was filled with disillusionment, existential crisis
and increasing hopelessness, and the central protagonists were what one might
club as ‘losers’; yet, strangely, it was also among Aki’s most uplifting works
on account of the compassionate portrayals and the understated optimism. Ilona
(Kati Outinen), the head waitress at a restaurant, and Lauri (Kari Väänänen), a
tram driver, are a taciturn but happily married couple. Misfortune strikes,
however, when both find themselves without work. With the possibility of a new
job reducing by the day, most of their belongings mortgaged, and their little
savings fast dwindling, they find themselves in an impossibly fix. Things get
worse when Ilona gets a job at a shady joint and Lauri gets badly beaten up for
trying to in the process. Her attempts to start a restaurant of her own, too,
ends in disappointment as there’s no one to back her up in front of the bank,
and they lose their last cent by trying to gamble out of their troubles.
However, when she serendipitously runs into her former boss (Elina Salo), we finally
see a ray of hope. Dedicated to the memory of Matti Pellonpää who died a year
earlier, nicely enacted, filled with deadpan humour and a fine soundtrack, this
was a film on urban financial adversities and its social implications, as well
as a melancholic look at how one needs to move with changing times in order to
remain relevant.
Director: Aki Kaurismaki
Genre: Comedy Drama/Black Comedy/Marital Drama
Language: Finnish
Country: Finland
There aren’t many documentary films that have
been as canonized as Errol Morris’ The
Thin Blue Line; after all, how many artistic works have managed to help
free a wrongly convicted man! On 27th November 1978 in Dallas, a
police officer on graveyard shift was shot multiple times without any
provocations by an unknown occupant of a car, and he died as a result. Two men
turned out to be the principal protagonists of this shocking incident - 28-year
old Randall Adams who had made a chance stopover in the city and didn’t have
any criminal records, and 16-year old delinquent David Ray Harris who had
stolen the car from which the shooting had taken place and was on a crime
spree. Even though logic might suggest that David should have been the prime
suspect for the massive investigation that followed, the burden to prove
innocence fell on Randall. Number of investigational, legal and procedural anomalies
and shortcomings later, he was sentenced to death, which was subsequently
turned to life. Morris made the interesting decision of doing away with voiceovers,
and instead relied just on first-person interviews of all key players, and, by
employing ‘Rashomon Effect’,
recreation of the incident from multiple perspectives. Though all the
interviews were highly illuminating, those of the two men, in particular, were
deeply affecting for their disarming candidness, and the ensuing insights into
their minds and lives was quietly devastating. Though largely devoid of any
larger commentary and comprising of a few choices that were tad distracting, the
excellent score, tightness of the narrative and disquieting effectiveness of
the interviews, made this an emotionally engrossing watch.
Director: Errol Morris
Genre: Documentary
Language: English
Country: US
Nearly a decade after his most influential days Antonioni
spectacularly returned to form with possibly his last masterpiece, The Passenger. It contained all his
distinctive thematic concerns and stylistic choices – urban alienation, deep
existential crisis, a fatalistic sense of ennui, and leisurely pacing. In a
symbolic expression of the protagonist’s barrenness and disenchantment, the
story begins at a desert. David Locke (Jack Nicholson) is a successful TV-journalist,
and is in Chad for a documentary on the country’s political rebels. However he’s
so utterly bored with his life and job that, in a moment of sudden inspiration,
he switches identity with a dead globe-trotting businessman he shares an eerie physical resemblance with. However, as it turns out, the man
was an illegal arms dealer to the same rebels he’d been documenting. Meanwhile,
while his separated wife (Jenny Runacre) starts joining pieces of his “death”,
he embarks on a journey with an equally directionless architecture student
(Maria Schneider) he meets in Spain, and that ends up adding what he’d been
missing all along, viz. a sense of purpose, which makes his desire to hold on
to his false identity that much stronger. But, getting lost, he realizes, isn’t
that easy. Nicholson’s remarkably understated turn as the quintessential
Antonioni protagonist, and the narrative arc his character undertakes, were reminiscent
of his unforgettable turn in Five Easy Pieces. The film was a technical tour
de force, and deceptively so. In one early scene, the present moves to flashbacks
and back to present within a single take. And the bravura penultimate scene, comprising
of an incredibly complex single-take dolly shot, needs to be seen to be
believed.
Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Existential Drama/Road Movie
Language: English/Spanish
Country: Italy
