Water

Blog: Who among the reviewers did you agree with more and why?
***Optional Blog query: View Deepa Mehta’s other highly controversial film Fire and post a reaction to it.*** http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060504/REVIEWS/60315003/1023

Another great tear-jerker. After watching the wrong version of Earth (mine – Ukrainian farmers join together to purchase their own tractor while trying to become independent of a wealthy landowner…a Silent film from the 30’s…sigh.) I rented Water, and am glad for it.
Set in India in 1938 during the rise of Gandhi, Water, by Deepa Mehta, tells the story of a child bride who has become a widow very soon after her marriage. She is sent to live in an ashram by her father, where she soon has her hair cut and shaved, and told that because her husband is dead, she is half dead as well and must live like a corpse. She can only eat once a day and must live in self-denial. We later learn that besides living in self-denial (living chaste and not remarrying) she could have been burned with her dead husband (good grief) or married his younger brother.

Ever the radical, Gandhi sets tongues wagging by saying things like ‘widows need love, too’ and ‘it’s ok for widows to remarry’. The other widows can’t take it when the angel in their midst, the beautiful Kalyani, decides to remarry tall dark and handsome Narayan. As the plot unfolds, we find out that Kalyani has already met her future father-in-law, but between the sheets, earning money to keep the house for widows going. Augh! Shamed and afraid that she can’t marry with honor, she drowns herself in the Ganges River.

Shakuntala saves Chuyia by sending her with Narayan to live and learn with Gandhi. Shakuntala transforms in this film, initially schooling Chuyia on how to behave like a good widow, to questioning the rules to which they must adhere, to saving Chuyia from a certain fate of being a child call-girl.

So many things were frustrating in their conditions, such as the fact that there was a LAW that said widows may remarry, but under the guise of religion were shuffled to the home so there could be no property disputes, but it was especially frustrating to see that widows in India, numbering 34 million in 2001, still endure “social, economic, and cultural deprivation”. I thought it surely must have ended or slowed down after Gandhi. It’s simply an utter disgrace.
This film was protested in India after two days of production, and had to be shelved, removed and recast. I’m glad it finally was made.

Roger Ebert says he would have been content if the film had shown only Chuyia’s story, I believe that it is fuller for showing Kalyani and Narayan’s frustrated love affair. The taboo of their love heightens the awareness that they shouldn’t even be seen together. This tension increases the dramatic irony that if this were happening in the West, it would be a simple love story, and Chuyia’s story would be non-existent, or if it were happening, then several adults would be in jail and she would be in therapy.

I absolutely loved this film.

Indochine

Our mission: Respond to the following assessment of Indochine by Panivong Norindr: "Critical and popular acclaim notwithstanding, Wargnier’s representation of Indochina exerts a dangerous fascination precisely because it brings visual pleasure without questioning or subverting any preconceived ideas about French colonial rule in Southeast Asia. Indochine merely displays beautiful images and should only be remembered as a symptom of the current French fad for things exotic." Do you agree? Why or why not?
“Melancholic Nostalgia, Collective Memories, and the Cinematic Representations of Nationalistic Identities in Indochine,” by Marouf Hasian and Helene Shugart, Communications Quarterly, 49 Fall 2001: 329-349; “Filmic Memorials and Colonial Blues: Indochina in Contemporary French Cinema,” by Panivong Norindr, Chapter 6 in Phantasmatic Indochina: French Colonial Ideology in Architecture, Film, and Literature: 131-139; “Review of ‘Indochine’” by Rita Kempley; and “Indochine” by Roger Ebert

I was drawn in by the love story and the beautiful landscapes, to be sure, but shocked and saddened by what French colonialism wrought on the people of Indochine/ Viet Nam. The cash crops of rubber trees cemented the natives’ dependence on the French and turned them into children to the patriarchal settlers. I don’t agree with Norindr who says that the film is too beautiful to be taken seriously. In fact, I think that the film’s beautiful landscapes and scenery make the viewer want to watch, and we subsequently are forced to look within ourselves and at the seemingly benign practice of ‘colonialism’.

I thought it was interesting that the character of Catherine Deneuve, Eliane Devries, confessed that she wanted to be a boy when she grew up. In every scene, whether it is going out on the town or in the fields working or trying to rescue her daughter from the prison camp, Eliane is a model pulled from the runway with her very elegant ensembles, put together with hair and makeup that seem never to show her unease. I think she succeeded in mimicking the typical male colonial behavior, though: she adopted her daughter, and while I’m sure her initial response was well intended, she immersed her in Western-European culture and beliefs and was able to control her until she (Camille) fell in love with Jean-Baptiste. Eliane beat the worker who tried to run away, and he apologizes by essentially saying she is his parent. She was relentless in her bid for the painting with Jean-Baptiste, and although he had the more legitimate reason for wanting it, she ultimately won because that is who she is. A person who collects art and things like the people she has surrounded herself with, and so to her compatriots.

The worst atrocity was realizing that the family we’d come to know with Camille in her travels was hanging near the edge of the water, bound by the necks or shot, like their child. That I knew them made it all the worse and personal, but that is the trick of knowledge. When the horror is more personally felt, it is all the sharper. The shock and horror of this scene awakens the viewer to the fact that this is not the world they thought knew, but something far more heinous, contrasted with the backdrop of green mountains and vast expanse of water, it is a nightmare.

I did however, appreciate the transformation in Jean-Baptiste, from one who would obediently follow orders like a good soldier to one who would become a revolutionary with a woman who shot an important (even though I did not cry when it happened to him) man. He is the most transformed in the film, and I believe Eliane is the least – stubborn to the last, not seeing the implications of her actions, she is free to go on controlling another human in her grandson.

Roger Ebert discusses the inconclusive ending that leads up to a final meeting that never takes place. I believe that this points to the power Eliane wields over her grandson, she embodies France here in this film, while Etienne is Viet Nam, and his allegiance to her despite the fact that his birth mother, a hero in most respects, is in the hotel waiting to meet him. Like the dependence that France created for Viet Nam, we see the dependence on Eliane that Etienne feels. Eliane has extended her air of entitlement, lording over all she owns, and they walk off together. She has won again.

Paradise Now

Our mission: Do you agree more with the petition to have the film removed as an award nominee or with the counter-petition? What are you reasons for favoring one side over the other?

http://www.uncg.edu/~jwjones/world/film/ParadiseNow.doc

Wow. I certainly sat down to watch this film with my own set of biases: suicide bombers are crazy, wild-eyed fanatics who look for glory in the hereafter in the form of seven virgins and will destroy everyone around them without any regard for human life. They are devoid of the necessary skills of logic or reasoning and cannot be viewed with any sympathy.
Does it ‘glorify Palestinian suicide bombers’? Absolutely not. Should we really turn our heads the other way because ‘..we don’t need to understand it. We don’t need to excuse it’? (Arab-American peace activist Nonie Darwish, via Aljazeera.net) Again, absolutely not.

I am one of the most tree-hugging, vegetarian pacifists that you will ever meet, but I do not agree with the idea that this film should have been removed from the list of award nominees. It was tragic that that Asaf – Yossi Zur’s son died in a suicide bomb attack, but are we to ignore the history and reasons behind what drove these actions? This film doesn’t seek to sanction the actions of the bombers, it seeks to show a side with which we may not be familiar, and it deserved recognition for its honest look at what drives suicide bombers to action. It reveals the anguish and frustration of the inhabitants of the West Bank under the occupation of Israel. It reveals the trappings and failings of human life and lives lived in despair. We can’t ignore history because it is uncomfortable or painful.

Paradise Now invites us to look at the lives of Said and Khaled, friends who work together as auto mechanics in Nablus. Opening with a Cheech and Chong rip-off opening, Said seems to be the more reserved, reflective of the two, while Khaled seems to be the impulsive trouble-maker. We see that Said suffers the humiliation of having had a father who was a “collaborator” when a patron of the restaurant suggests ‘tearing apart’ all collaborators and their families by dragging them through the streets.

Jamal requests retribution for an unseen character, as Said and Khaled have been chosen for the mission. Jamal does a great job of impersonating a pyramid salesman indoctrinating a new salesman to invest in the product, spewing his propaganda at every turn. I thought Said saw through it, but was going through with his duty, and that Khaled was in hook, line and sinker. After their Last Supper, they head out.

After things go wrong, we see Suha again, Said’s customer/love interest, who seems to speak for the world when she exasperatedly asks ‘is there no other way to resolve this?’ I noticed in this sequence, the film seemed to explore the question, “What if we could pause real life?” as the characters explore their options and delve into their own rationale for their actions. Suha smacks Khaled and says ‘Paradise is in your head’, but the irony is that paradise is actually in Tel Aviv. I was astonished at the vast difference between Nablus, West Bank, a virtual wasteland, and Tel Aviv, Israel, which looked like Paris, France or Manhattan, New York, with its high-rises, trendy shops and smartly-dressed inhabitants. Of course the Palestinians have every right to the same freedoms the Israelis enjoy. Why should they need a work permit, or have to suffer road blocks/checks and the threat of the military shooting them down? They are living under ‘house arrest’ and it seems insane.

In the end, their roles are reversed as Khaled changes his mind and abandons the mission and Said gets on the bus. As the screen goes white, we see that Said feels he is left with no choice: without hope for the future, he sees no reason to go on, or to allow the status quo to continue.

Xiu-Xiu the Sent Down Girl

http://www.reelviews.net/movies/x/xiu.html
http://www.uncg.edu/~jwjones/world/film/Xiu-Xiu3.pdf
http://www.popmatters.com/film/reviews/x/xiu-xiu.html
Our task: Imagine that you are the daughter of one of Xiu Xiu’s female compatriots at the village where they started out. You were born in 1975 in Beijing, and you have grown up there hearing the story of Xiu Xiu from your mother and her friends and acquaintances. When the Tiananmen Square protests begin in 1989, you are thirteen. Do you take part in the protests? Why or why not? What are your thoughts about the protests against the backdrop of what you know of China’s past, especially the Cultural Revolution and Xiu Xiu’s experience?

I have read several reviews (see above) and I am now questioning whether I saw the same film. I thought Xiu-Xiu was married to her husband, 'Wanglai' who owned the shop and cheated his customers but was in love with the sapling farmer 'Fulin' since she wanted to run away with him? I thought it was strange that he (W) paid $5,000 for her, but...Is it possible there are two films with the same title? Maybe I shouldn't take notes while watching these films :)

At any rate, I will address Dr. Jones' query.

Yes I would go to Tiananmen Square to protest. Based on the accounts I'd heard, I would know that the government doesn't always have its citizens best interests at heart, that the Cultural Revolution failed and that our voices needed to be heard. I would protest for those in the forgotten generation who left the cities and went into the countryside to serve their nation. Many women were taken advantage of and this fact had and has been largely ignored by the Communist Party. The protest was a threat to the CCP because this time, not only students were involved, but also the workers. Trying to address party corruption, wealth inequalities, inflation, and unemployment, I know that I would be frustrated and ready to be heard.

At the same time, I know this would result not only in public confrontation, but also inner turmoil. The culture, to date that is, is about the collective, and not the individual. In China, every reference from art, history, religion and family matters is to the environment of the whole, not the individual. I would have to overcome the teachings of my family and ancestors in order to engage in a possibly humiliating and shameful (for me and my family) protest in the very public Tiananmen Square. I know that I speaking as an American trying to imagine a day in the life of a young Chinese girl can imagine doing this very heroic act, I am not too sure it is very realistic.

Yet it was realistic for many, since so many students and workers died or were arrested that day the tanks rolled in and the government stopped the protest.

Lamerica

It was with great interest that I watched the film Lamerica. I had no idea that there were tensions between Albania and Italy, and it struck me as especially poignant since I’ve traveled to Italy and learned a little bit of its history. Since most of the reading focuses on the Balkans, Kosovo and Serbia, I learned a lot more in this film and the information provided in the review by James Berardinelli.

This lens in the film focuses on the period after the agreement was signed between Italy and Albania ‘in the name of Fascism”, we are told early on. The film is set in 1991 Albania, where we are shown how hard life has been and is in Albania, and many people emigrate from Albania to Italy in hopes of having a better life. Ironically, Italians do not want Albanians immigrating to their country, and have stiff laws that say Albanians cannot even leave their country. …”why would people need to leave?’, one character says to the ‘investors’ at one point in the film. Indeed, why would they stay? Paisa (my notes on the film say “Paisa”- I thought that was his name until I read the review…Gino it is) is told time and again, ‘maybe there will be water tomorrow’ on his journey with the homeless man turned chairman, and there is never any food in the restaurants. Their entire existence sounds miserable. I learned that America isn’t the only land of opportunity in this film.

I couldn’t immediately tell if the homeless man, Talarico, was insane or deaf, but was surprised to learn that he was also Italian. I believe Gino cannot fathom Talarico being an Italian either, because then he will have to confront the fact that this all to easily could become his fate. I also found it interesting that Spiro/Talarico had to hide his identity in Albania or risk execution as a deserter, but now with Gino, he is a revered Italian.

I noticed that when Gino almost missed his lorry, the other Albanian passengers immediately helped him onto the truck, but he regards them as beneath him. He says that he doesn’t need anyone’s help at the height of his journey, almost completely stripped of all his possessions, still not broken, but realizes very soon this is the sentiment of the rich and powerful. This is something that cannot be uttered by the Albanians, because they are without either money or power.

I was struck by the image of man and certain members of mankind as ignorable when a passenger dies on the trip. Instead of covering his body, they leave him on the truck, not saying anything, as though he were just another piece of freight to be delivered. Perhaps they all knew that risk.

The class struggle and ethnic tensions soon become a point of role reversal when Gino finds himself without a passport and on a ship to ‘America’ – he is powerless and at the mercy of someone else. He is now one of them, whether he likes it or not, on the ship to ‘America’, reduced to immigrating like the hated Albanians.

Hello and apologies

Good morning, classmates...
I finally have my blog up, and I wanted to apologize for the delay. My father died on the 26th and I am now back in town after laying him to rest next to my mother where they were born in West Virginia. My mortality has never been so fully realized for me as it is right now, now that the people who brought me into the world are gone.

And onto more cheerful subjects... these depressing films!

Rosemary