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Volume
II
Issue 12 April 2000 |
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Michael Nicolella previews new French cinema
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Memo from the World: Journeys, Forward and Back by Michael Nicolella [Our reviewer attended the Film Society of Lincoln Center's New Directors/New Films Series, which took place at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, between 24 March and 9 April 2000, and featured works from across the globe.]
Journey to the Sun
Mehmet Kara divines leaking water pipes under the streets of Istanbul using a long brass stethoscope with which he is able to tell the distance of coming tram cars and the weight displacements of ships passing in the Bosporus. After watching a football match in a bar, he is involved in a brawl that gradually, ineluctably draws him into Turkey's civil war and the oppression of its Kurdish minority. The film is shot mostly on location and the extras are non-actors. The plainfaced realism is not jarring, although it extends to the simultaneous affection and isolation that the characters have towards each other. Mehmet is dating Arzu, a young woman who works in a laundry with a shy cousin and a nagging boss. During the brawl, Mehmet meets Berzan, a dashing street vendor who sells cassette tapes from a pushcart. Berzan is Kurdish, a victim of oppression, and Mehmet is of indeterminate origin, with suspiciously dark skin, from a small town in Turkey. Hanging unframed over their lives are immense questions related to motivation and morals.
Newroz Baz in Journey to the Sun The people of the film stake a tenuous claim on existence. Contemporary Turkey is shown as a confused swell of streets and public transit. Mehmet, Berzan, and Arzu have few material possessions and little money. However, Journey's Turkey has none of the abundance of western nations shown in overtly political films. The few status symbols in the film have an urgent necessity. Istanbul is teeming, its buildings tired, and the surrounding landscape is exhausted and strewn with trash. The film juxtaposes the minarets of towns and cities with the watchtowers of Turkey's east, near Iraq where the Kurdish insurrection had been taking place. This and similar instances are spread delicately throughout the film. The charged security situation sets soldiers and bureaucrats in a turmoil that parallels and skirts the situations of the dissidents, bystanders, and refugees throughout the film. While the military is ubiquitous in its shoddy black uniforms and armed check points, violence is so pervasive that it never occurs through the barrel of a gun but rather through instances of daily life. The economy, the military, and politics are well-described through allusion and situation, so that what verges on being a polemic resolves itself as a quiet and efficient character study. The ending of the film builds strangely and convincingly, and the final moments are stunning.
Two Women
Two Women portrays a meeting between Fereshteh and Roya, two friends from Tehran University who lose contact during the Islamic Revolution and meet again during the present day. This is one of those films like On the Waterfront that depicts an individual in the thrall of a national era. In this case, Fereshteh is forced to return home to her family, while Roya becomes a successful architect with her husband, also an architect. Fereshteh reinitiates contact with Roya early in the film, when her husband is hospitalized with a heart problem, and the film proceeds to enact Fereshteh's years at home in her small town. All of the major male characters in the film are portrayed as willful, vain eunuchs. Fereshteh, bright and attractive, is stalked by a Burt Reynolds type (circa Deliverance) with a motorcycle. Fereshteh's father, in particular, undergoes a transformation over the course of the film, from an overbearing father at the beginning to a humble man who wants desperately for his daughter to be happy. She is married off to a handsome, well-to-do lawyer with a sports sedan, who cannot understand her as a human being with private motivations. Fereshteh's problems as a housewife are never related directly to the Islamic Revolution. The strife of Two Women is partially taken for granted as human nature in a particular set of circumstances; however, one cannot help but notice some discreet criticism of the past twenty years in Iran. Fereshteh's ambition and attractiveness are viewed as especially troublesome for the small town where she has been raised and is forced to return to and live in. The wounded pride of the men throughout could come from any number of American novels. The women are forced to become things of unworldly beauty. One wonders whether the arch-conservatism that the film shows fading from Iran is not so inexplicable after all.
Niki Karimi, left, and Merila Zare'I in Two Women Tahmine Milani, who authored the script as well, is one of Iran's new generation of female directors. All of the performances in the film are strong, and in particular Karimi, Pesiani, and Khandan. Two Women is scathing and concise in its portrayal of men who act like boys, and the dynamic is resonant with our contemporary culture of liberation. I must admit that the film became a bit shrill after a while, between men screaming about their wives and daughters and women complaining to their husbands and sneaking phone calls to each other. But this is the atmosphere of oppression between the sexes. I was disappointed that the film takes a rhetorical slant towards its end, rather than delve more deeply into the situation of Fereshteh and her two sons. However, this is excusable given the film's unique circumstances.
Martin
Martin Zaidenstadt was a Polish prisoner of war who was detained in Germany's Dachau concentration camp from 1944 until the end of the war. Retired, he now spends his time walking around the camp, which is administered as a memorial by the German government, where he tells visitors how the camp was during his time there as a prisoner. The film is shot as a narrative documentary about the filmmaker's experience as he travels to the town of Dachau and meets Martin. Dachau is a staid, small German town with little that would distinguish it except for the name association with the concentration camp that was on its outskirts during World War II. Townspeople have accepted their town's fate as an international monument to human cruelty. Citizens alive during the war claim that the camp was only known to be a gunpowder factory until the Americans liberated it. Martin ended up staying in the town and marrying a local woman after the war. The writer/director, Ra'anan Alexandrowicz, is wandering through the camp with two friends and a camera when he meets Martin.
Martin Zaidenstadt, in Martin Genocide is the defining tragedy of the modern era, and in personal faiths and public record all achievements are measured against this great counterpoint. After some Holocaust studies through books, a visit to the strange and devastating Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, and studies of genocide taking place currently throughout the world, one could only attempt to imagine the doubt and trauma of a concentration camp survivor. Most of the buildings in the Dachau camp have been torn down. Alexandrowicz admits to being underwhelmed during his first visit to the camp. The facilities are clean, with semi-descriptive signs in the crematorium and walkways. Most of the grounds appear to be intact but have been left in a state of ambiguity and preserved rest. Martin points out several areas of the camp that have been sanitized since he was there as a prisoner, whether out of respect for the victims, shame, or something in between. He is not welcomed by the camp museum workers - including the docents, guards, laborers, and the curator, a respected Holocaust historian - all of whom are interviewed. He tells stories about people in camp and graphically demonstrates how camp equipment was operated, thereby reviving long-running arguments. Alexandrowicz shows much discernment and honesty in his depiction of Martin, his critics, and his own frustration with the camp and with Martin. Questions of veracity surround all of the characters and situations of the film, especially Martin himself. He substantiates many of his contradictions of the official history but is often obscure and irascible. Alexandrowicz was present at the screening I attended and fielded more reactions to his work than any other director has gotten in screenings I've attended. He admits that his documentary film has what I call a storytelling conceit, the terminology of which he did not address: In the film, he says that he came to the Dachau concentration camp on the suggestion of a friend he was visiting in Munich and never would have thought to do so himself. At the screening, however, he said that in actuality he was riding a train that stopped at Dachau and the name made him curious about the town; and he never said how much he initially knew about the camp's history. Audience exchanges were confused, and viewers questioned his casual research of Martin's claim of survivorship, which I think the film depicts well enough that any put-on would have to involve a cast of masterly unknown actors. An exchange during the discussion: Audience Member: "Don't you think it's questionable that he says he's a survivor, and lives in this town all these years, and his kids never know about him being in the camp?" Director: "Well-" Second AM (elderly lady, standing up quickly): "I was a concentration camp survivor and I never discussed it with my kids!" (Murmuring) Director: "Well, he says he never told them about it, but I, uh, think they knew about it...." Elsewhere, Alexandrowicz defends Martin as a marginalized victim. The film delves deeply into the spaces in these people's lives and manages to present itself without tugging on heartstrings or being vindictive. Very thoughtful. Resources: The Film Society of Lincoln Center's New Directors/New Films Series is described in detail at its website. http://www.filmlinc.com/ndnf/ndnf.h tm Some of the films featured in the festival will be released in the United States and worldwide. check local listings. |
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