Touching the Void

This is one of the nicest documentaries that I have seen. In fact, this can very well qualify to be one of the awesome'st films that I have seen. Truly weird that this story is a depiction of a real-life incidant.



Joe and Simon are two hot-headed mountaineers who want to win over Siula Grande, an unscaled mountain in Peru. In the process, Joe breaks his leg. Simon faces the difficult choice of a life-time. And miracles happen as Joe survives, battles with his sanity and then descends the slopes.



The tagline of the movie is - The closer you are to death. The more you realize you are alive. Need I say more ? Kevin MacDonald is the director and the real Joe Simpson is the writer. Kudos.

Smultronstället

I finally got to see the movies of Ingmar Bergman. There was a film festival of sorts in the local movie club and they screened 8 of his movies. I got to watch 5.

Of these, I have decided to blog about Wild Strawberries because it is the first one that I have seen. And also, it is a little different from the rest.

I have always thought of the medium of film as a medium of story-telling (I am a huge fan of George Lucas) But to Ingmar Bergman, a movie is a totally different medium. His movies are like photographs, actually photographs of loneliness. People and objects move, true, but the movie ultimately conveys one single emotion; and usually, that emotion is the loneliness and the misery of people.

I always like movies which show change. Which show how the character gets morphed into a different personality through the course of time.

But Ingmar Bergman refuses to use the dimension of time that this medium offers for showing change. Instead he concentrates on creating brutally honest and violently haunting pictures of people. Bergman actually is a supernatural geinus for making pictures like these. I have become so depressed after seeing a couple of movies that have decided to skip watching some of them.

For example, take the case of Persona - a movie with only 2 characters, a nurse and a patient who was an actress. Of these 2, the second character does not even speak in the movie. How could anyone make a movie with only one character talking. But there - Bergman does a brilliant job of this.



Wild Strawberries is a little different from the rest of the movies. It is a little bit more jovial and has a multitude of scenes that happen. The first thing that has to be mentioned in this movie is the absolutely brilliant acting. But brilliant acting is such a commonplace thing in Bergman movies that it doesn't have to be mentioned at all.

An aging medical professor is going to get an honorary degree. On his journey, he is tormented by several dreams and memories of his past life. In the movie, not even a single frame is wasted without raising questions about death, loneliness, human-ness etc.. I am a mere mortal and I cannot talk about the supernatural ability in which these issues have been handled. You cannot appreciate them without watching the movie, (actually without watching the movie several times; I have seen it only once).



A special mention goes to Ingrid Thulin. I should mention this one particular scene in which the camera shows a close-up of her face, as she watches in horror over a rigid, lonely, old woman. I was shocked to see the screen. I was thinking "Who is this !!! Why is she staring at me !! Is she acting or did she just walk out of the screen into the world !!" Without a doubt, this actress, is the most brilliant actress that I have yet seen. She appears in several of Bergman' s movies and I have seen perform in a more outrageous manner in Winter Light

Cidade de Deus

Drugs, guns and poverty - a very deadly combination. But sadly there are millions of people in the world today who live sorrounded by such a climate. The City of God is a movie about those people. But this is not a documentary - but a work of art and a brilliant piece of story-telling.




Cidade de deus is a slum (favelas) in the city of Rio de Genero. This movie traces the stories of a few children who grow up in this violent and drug-ridden neighbourhood. The protagonist of the story finally becomes a photographer and successfully escapes the inevitable destiny of becoming a mafia hoodlum. But all the other characters succumb to this eventuality - get dragged deep inside this vicious cycle of killings, arson, drugs, moral depravation and death.




Fernando Meirelles, the director, won rave accolades for the movie. (He deserves each single iota of them). The movie is a harsh picture of reality, but the director manages to give an artistic feel to all the frames. The credit also goes to the cinematography, the music and not the least, the superb acting by all the actors. I watched this movie today, and was later browsing about Brazil. I found out several interesting things - that Sao Paoulo, the economical capital of Brazil, has the highest number of helicopters per capita than any other city (the rich people use helicopters to shuttle between the offices and their residences, thereby avoiding the crime-ridden slums) - that the favelas exist right in the middle of the city (economically and racially seggregating the poor.. sounds a little like Mumbai) - and that Sep 7, i.e today, was the independance day of Brazil !!