SATYAJIT RAY AND THE RESILIENCE OF HUMAN BEINGS

If one was forced to pare down Satyajit’s Rays most famous films to one word, it would be resilience.    

In his most famous works the Apu trilogy and DISTANT THUNDER, the characters and those around them go through terrible loss due to man-made famine.  In PATHER PANCHALI, the first installment of the Apu trilogy, Apu, the boy hero, loses his sister after episodes of grinding poverty. In APARAJITO, the second installment,  he loses first his father then his mother while trying hard and achieving good grades in school.  In APUR SANSUR, the third instalment, he loses his young wife but that film ends with a note of hope as he takes the young son he hasn’t known into his arms and away with him to a new life.

Ray’s secret is twofold 1.) Knowing when to stop piling on the unfortunate events on his characters – Too much would seem like overkill and resilience in the face of overblown tragedy would not be believable. 2.) Making a clear, out front message that is total in every aspect of the story, that the human spirit (and by spirit I mean nothing supernatural, only our core, what makes us who we are) is flexible and can repair itself and bounce back from everything.

Of course, it’s all couched in the portrayal of a hard life in a third world country, India in this case, the India of 40 or 50+ years ago.  Ray is as much a realist as Vittorio De Sica but he is nowhere near complete in his destruction of characters hopes and leaving them stranded in their hopelessness no matter how realistic that is.  There is always a glimmer of hope after moments of tragedy in Ray’s films and that glimmer is the magnification of the human spirit.

Otherwise, how would people get through lives in poverty, in overcrowding, in horrible conditions knowing nothing else but each other, some kind of religious faith, and overriding humanism unspoiled by Western cynicism, the providence of spoiled materialists.

I think you could even call his endings, happy endings in some cases because the potential of the human spirit is shown to be great even when it faces tremendous loss and personal tragedy. 

       

TOM CRUISE IS RIDICULOUS

Tom Cruise is ridiculous.  His movies are ridiculous (with the exception of RAINMAN.  His great movies consist of RAINMAN and....RAINMAN).  BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY is a decent film but Cruise had neither the depth nor the range to play such a role so it became ridiculous.  The rest including his most recent films are ridiculous.  The way he fits into their pre-set plots like a toy, an action figure is ridiculous.

Tom Cruise is ridiculous.  I don’t know if he’s gay or not but suing a publication because they call you gay is ridiculous.  His excessive public displays of what are deemed heterosexual activities such as motorcycle riding and piloting a plane are ridiculous.  His three marriages are ridiculous. His public scolding of Brooke Shields and argument with Matt Lauer about issues related to mental illness is ridiculous.  His belief in scientology is ridiculous.  Scientology is ridiculous – a made-up religion by a science fiction writer as a joke, a con.

His profession of love for Katie Holmes on the Oprah Winfrey show is ridiculous. His jumping on the couch is ridiculous.  His fake hair and fake teeth are ridiculous.  His attempt to hang onto youth as a Hollywood star is ridiculous.  Hollywood in 2013 is ridiculous perhaps more so than it’s ever been.

The fact that Tom Cruise is one of the biggest movie stars in the world is ridiculous.  The world is ridiculous.  On second thought, the enduring popularity of Tom Cruise is not ridiculous as much as it is sad.

FOUR FILMS - RESOLUTION, THE FALLOW FIELD, IT'S IN THE BLOOD, IN THE DEVIL'S COURTHOUSE

I’ve said it before and I'll say it again horror movies are where it’s at in the 2010’s.  Mainstream movies have utterly lost all intelligence and originality.  Here are four horror movies seen recently from best to worst.

RESOLUTION

Two great performances emphasizing the well-handled friendship of the main charcters is what drives this carefully plotted ghost story and although it takes until the end to realize this, a ghost story is what it is.  RESOLUTION is thoughtful and full of foreshadowing and foreboding, weird characters most of which are red herrings, with each new detail edging closer and closer to the truth although what finally happens is open to interpretation.  An intelligent horror film that will leave you thinking about what happened afterwards.

THE FALLOW FIELD

A variation on Stephen King’s PET SEMATARY that isn’t afraid to go full grotesque nor to throw in some black humor.  A bigger budget might have helped but the story is greatly aided by a wonderfully menacing performance by Michael Dacre as the villain.

IT’S IN THE BLOOD

Lance Henricksen should be on Mount Rushmore.  He does great here, showing terrific range, as a father on a hunting trip to see if he can repair a damaged relationship with his son.  The monster they encounter perhaps embodies what splintered their relationship to begin with – a traumatic incident.  Short and simple, perhaps too short and simple an okay film made better by Henricksen’s presence.

IN THE DEVIL’S COURTHOUSE

 Killer bigfoot devil monkeys, bad gore, terrible acting.  This is great fun although I think the forest chase scenes go on a tad too long.  It’s amateurish and poorly made but a fun bad movie not a bad bad movie like most crap Hollywood produces.  

 

ANDREI TARKOVSKY'S STALKER AND CHERNOBYL?

Andrei Tarkovsky’s STALKER came out in 1979.  The Chernobyl nuclear accident happened in 1986.  However, the first thing that entered my mind when I finished watching STALKER is how it functions as a powerful statement on Chernobyl.

The Zone is an uninhabited area forbidden from trespass by army troops who governs its borders.  How it came into being is subject to several theories – Aliens? Meteorites? War?.  Inside the Zone which seems to be mostly made up of wrecked buildings and overgrown vegetation is a room.  Whoever enters this room will have their greatest wish granted.

Stalkers are people with a special ability that allows them to traverse the zone and find their way around without succumbing to its many traps.  They are paid large sums of money by those who want to be guided to the room.

The hero is one such stalker.  Recently released from prison for prior stalking activities, he has been hired to guide “the writer” and “the professor” to the room.

Why I think there is a Chernobyl foreshadowing connection to this film….

We see a wrecked, destroyed landscape full of bombed out buildings, polluted rivers, and forbidden areas.

The stalker has a deformed daughter who at the end of the film we see has telekinetic powers.  It’s hinted that exposure to whatever created the Zone caused this.

No one can live in the Zone as they will die.  The environment is hazardous to the health. 

The Writer is seeking inspiration while the Professor actually wants to blow up the room as he feels it has the potential to be a negative force on mankind much like nuclear weapons.

The room represents man’s forbidden knowledge (like the creation of nuclear weapons) but more importantly man’s will to use them.

One of the last shots of the film is three nuclear silos in the distance as the stalker walks by with his family.

STALKER is not an action oriented film.  There are lengthy conversations about existence, birth, death, creation, free will.  The Zone is in color while life outside the Zone is a dull gray – conversation follows suit.  The traps that are supposed to litter the Zone and make it deadly for anyone who isn’t familiar with the terrain are more in the mind.  The Zone also reminds me of the TV show LOST – I imagine there is some influence there.

In the mind is the potential for man to do the most harm to himself.   

  

8 1/2, FEDERICO FELLINI, AND NARCISSISM WITH INSIGHT

If one was judging Federico Fellini’s 8 ½ by the films that copied it (Chief among them Woody Allen’s STARDUST MEMORIES and Bob Fosse’s ALL THAT JAZZ) then we would consider the film a failure, a self-indulgent mess, the narcissism of a film director out of control on the screen for everyone to see.

But the films that copy 8 1/2 only get right the part about noting the details of the director’s life than multiplying it times the maximum number of ridiculous surrealist imagery.  What’s missing is any insight into the film director, into the artist himself.

8 ½ does have that.  We understand the motivations of the director because we see his hectic life as well as a few select fragments of his childhood.  We see how everything overlaps on everything else.  It’s a form of sensory overload assisted by Fellini’s grab bag of visual tricks such as wide-angle shots, odd landscapes/scene staging etc.  Fellini shares equally with Bergman the way of framing a scene for mood that would become especially influential on perfume commercials in the 90’s

There are parts of 8 ½ that don’t work.  I’ve never cared for the fantasy scene where the director is the master of a household containing all of his lovers and potential lovers.  But what ties it together and make it ultimately a successful film is the ending in which the director metaphorically kills himself but then starts a new life joining together his past and present in a circle literally and for now putting off any big decisions about his life.  The realm of fantasy finally breaking through and merging with the real and this being a positive thing.

It helps of course in a film like 8 ½ (which is despite the wildness of its imagination intensely personal) for the director to work with an actor who he has simpatico with, who mirrors him and Marcello Mastroianni is that for Fellini.

Fellini had three phases to his career.  His early films were made in the Italian neo-realist style of Rosselini (who he wrote scripts for and with) and De Sica but slightly more light-hearted, his genius middle period where he still utilized the visual style of the neo-realists but combined that with wild far flung surrealist imagery, and his later period wherein he started making movies in color that had no restraint, no connection to neo-realism and which I personally don’t care for.

The films of his middle period LA DOLCE VITA (my favorite Fellini film), NIGHTS IN CABIRIA, LA STRADA, and of course 8 ½ are all worth seeing.  I would also add JULIET OF THE SPRITIS made in color and at the end of his middle period but thematically more in control and more like the films which immediately preceded it.