A selection of intelligent cinema from around the world that entertains and provokes a mature viewer to reflect on what the viewer saw, long after the film ends--extending the entertainment value
“Have any of you read Pirandello?” asks a senior priest in a Sicilian seminary to his junior priests
“I read him in secret, then I confessed” replies a junior priest meekly, with penitence, “I have read one novel--The Old and The Young.”
“Do you remember the inscription? It reads –To my children: young today, old tomorrow” adds the senior priest, a Pirandello admirer
--conversation between priests in a seminary within the film Leonora addio
Paolo Taviani collaborated with his late elder brother Vittorio on 20 feature films until Vittorio’s demise in 2018 at the age of 88. Their first feature film was released/made in 1962. The two brothers had a unique method of directing their films. Each directed alternate scenes with the other watching but never interfering. That formula worked. The Russian film maestro Aleksander Sukorov, in an interview given to this writer, said it was very rare and commendable for two creative persons to collaborate as directors on feature films for a long stretch of time (he was referring to Grigori Kozintsev and Leonard Trauberg of Russia who worked on a much shorter list of films than what the Tavianis made together.) Two of those Taviani collaborations won the highest award at the Cannes (Padre Padrone) and Berlin (Caesar Must Die) film festivals over the decades. Many of their films are geographically related to Sicily in Italy. All the Taviani films have either original or adapted screenplays written by the brothers. Paolo Taviani has made two feature films after the death of the Vittorio—the first of the two was based on the jointly written screenplay of both the brothers. Leonora Addio, the latest work of Paolo Taviani, made at the ripe age of 91 is the sole work where there is no official contribution of the late elder brother—but in the title credits, soon after the film’s title, are the words “...to my brother Vittorio.”
Leonora addio is not a mere tip of the hat to Vittorio from Paolo. It is also an acknowledgement of the brothers’ admiration for the Italian playwright, novelist and poet Luigi Pirandello, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1934. Though controversial as a supporter of Mussolini’s Fascism for a while, he was admired and respected, not merely in Sicily but all of Italy and the world as people became increasingly aware of what he had written and published. The Taviani brothers had made a fascinating 1984 film titled Kaos (released as Chaos in USA) based on four short stories written by Pirandello. In Leonora addio, some scenes from Kaos are included, or rather, recreated.
Years later in 1998, the brothers made another feature film You Laugh based on two Pirandello stories. Pirandello was indeed close to the hearts and minds of the two Sicilian brothers.
While Sicilians respect Pirandello, they are superstitious and refuse to fly on a flight with his ashes on board
Pirandello's ashes arrive in Sicily in a Greek urn and are transferred to a white coffin meant for a dead child, while Pirandello's admirers peek at the activity
The comedy of Pirandello rubbed off on films of the Taviani brothers. In Leonora addio, Pirandello’s ashes are carried in a white coffin of small size meant for a sinless child because “the town has run out of adult coffins.” A child who witnesses the stately procession of the coffin asks her father innocently, “Papa,has a child died?,” evoking spontaneous laughter from the grieving adults.
In this dreamlike sequence, a nod to Kubrick's final sequence in 2001-A Space Odyssey, Paolo Taviani recreates an old man (Pirandello?/Vittorio?) on his deathbed as the door opens to reveal three children who emerge and age fast to elderly adulthood
Later in the film, when the final resting place for the ashes is decided after a 15-year search for an appropriate final resting place, there is a leaping leg-clap by the individual who located it, recalling Carol Reed’s musical film Oliver!, where the leg-clap is beautifully executed by actors Ron Moody and Jack Wild walking into the sunset at end of the film!
Leonora addio may not be appear to be a perfect film on a casual viewing but it provides perfect entertainment for those familiar with the works of Pirandello and of the Taviani brothers. Much of the film deals with the relocation of the jar containing Pirandello’s ashes to the area in Sicily where the writer was born and grew up. That process of relocation is described with considerable respect which mingles with wry humor, typical of most Taviani films. Most of all, one has to respect the effort of a 91-year-old director showing his love and respect for his elder brother and colleague, as also to a great Italian writer that both brothers admired. Implicit in Leonora addio arethe decisions taken by people in the evening of their lives and how those decisions are dealt with by those who survive the person who has died. The film constantly deals with children and the elderly--"young today, old tomorrow."
Leonora addio's second segment is Pirandello's The Nail, where an affable Sicilian immigrant boy (in Brooklyn) who can dance to music while working as a waiter. In Taviani's earlier work Kaos, Sicilian boys dreamt to emigrate to USA
The immigrant boy waiter who dances, later kills a girl who was fighting another seemingly "without purpose." Taviani's earlier film Good Morning, Babylon was about two Sicilian brothers who emigrate to USA and find work with D W Griffith in Hollywood
It is thus not without purpose that the first half of Leonora addio, dealing with the relocation of Pirandello’s ashes as per the writer's wishes, is shot in black and white, which is followed by a Pirandello story titled The Nail set in Brooklyn, USA, filmed in contrasting lush color, This segment also deals with death of a little girl with a large nail and her killer’s frequent trip to place flowers on her grave on a regular basis, after his release from prison. When the killer is asked why he killed the girl, he answers that he killed the girl because she was was fighting with another “without purpose.” The viewer could reflect if the growth of Fascism under Mussolini was "without purpose" as well.
The most intriguing trivia is that the title Leonora addio is indeed the title of a written work of Pirandello that surprisingly is not discussed within the film. So why did Paolo choose the title of that Pirandello work as the title of the film? There must be a reason and there is one that fits logically. There is a Pirandello play called Tonight We Improvise, which is part of the Pirandello trilogy of plays better known as ‘Theatre within Theatre.’ In this play, a famous opera singer describes the physical theater to her children, who have never seen it, while singing parts of the opera ending with the duet Leonara addio, she apparently dies from exhaustion only to get up later and seek the forgiveness of the audience.
“Time must pass and carry us away with all the scenarios of life” is a Pirandello quote spoken in Leonora addio. The film allows us to do the same recalling both Pirandello and the elder Taviani. All this adds to the details inter-mingling the memories of the works of Pirandello with the past works of the Taviani brothers and other works of Italian cinema shown in clips within the film.
Leonora addio’s depth of communication will be lost on those viewers who are not sufficiently exposed to the films of the Taviani brothers or the written works of Pirandello, significantly his most famous play Six Characters in Search of an Author and its related concept of “theatre in the theatre.” It can argued that Pirandello’s “theatre in the theatre” laid the foundation for the more famous concept of “theatre of the absurd” of Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco and Arthur Adamov. However, for those who are familiar with all that, Leonora addio provides quality entertainment. If we look closely at the title credits, the title of the film followed immediately by the dedication, is a personal message from Paolo “Leonora addio.. to my brother Vittorio,” which a lover of good cinema and literature would relish and approve of.
P.S.Leonora addiowon the FIPRESCI prize at the Berlin international film festival in 2022 and was nominated for the Golden Bear. The Taviani brothers' film Caesar Must Die (2012) has been reviewed on this blog. (Click on the film's title in this post-script to access the review). Paolo Taviani is one of the author’s favorite 15 active filmmakers in the world. Two of the Taviani films are included in the author’s list of top 250 films: Padre Padrone and Kaos.
"You think you can go on a
pilgrimage and come back clean as a whistle?Only God can forgive you, sir."
--Turgut, an honest former employee of Hasan, branded as a thief by Hasan, when Turgut procured less price from a buyer of Hasan's produce, a buyer who was only ready to pay that lesser sum
Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Semih Kaplanoglu are the two most important internationally recognized contemporary film directors who make films of very high standards.
Commitment Hasan is the second film in a row from Semih Kaplanoglu (it follows the 2019 film Commitment or Baglilik Asli) with the key word “Baglilik” in Turkish language (or “Commitment” in English) in the titles of both films. Kaplanoglu watchers can assume this film is possibly a part of a second trilogy in the making–the first one being the Yusuf trilogy of “Yumurta” (Egg) (2007), “Sut” (Milk) (2008), and “Bal” (Honey) (2010), made in reverse chronology of Yusuf’s life. All the five films are original tales/screenplays of director Kaplanoglu, with Honey winning the prestigious Golden Bear for the Best Film at the Berlin Film Festival. After the Yusuf trilogy, Kaplanoglu made Grain (2017), a science fiction film in black and white in English language, which won the best film award at the Tokyo film festival, but faced a possible undercurrent of opposition from the pro-GMO lobbies that led to poor distribution in many developed countries. Kaplanoglu’s interest in farm life, agriculture, apiculture and horticulture is evident in his body of work—mainly written by him with a few exceptions.
The farmer Hasan (Umut Karadag) is a calculating man, ensuring that he got the best part of his father's property by going to court, while alienating his brother
The two “Baglilik” films are comparable studies to each other but not connected. The first is a character study on Asli (a Turkish affluent, working lady) being attitudinally transformed by the actions and life of her baby-sitter (from a lower-economic strata). The second film is a character study on Hasan, a calculating male farmer transformed by his wife Emina’s considered advice, who finally has her dream wish of a pilgrimage with her husband to Mecca looming on the horizon, after ensuring that there are no debts to be paid and seeking the blessings of Hasan’s near and dear ones before undertaking the pilgrimage. Both Emina and Hasan seem to be made for each other, squeezing money out of every little transaction they make. Emina, despite all her flaws, wants to make the perfect pilgrimage with her husband and be blessed.
Hasan's wife Emina (Filiz Bozok) drives hard bargains with poorer folks than her, but wants her husband to seek forgiveness from those he has wronged, before going on a Hajj pilgrimage
There are remarkable common elements in the two “Commitment” films. In both films, it is a female character that is the catalyst for change, not a male character. This is very significant within a male dominated scenario of Muslim Turkey. The second and the more trenchant element pronounced in Commitment Hasan is the importance of forgiveness in Islam, which was underscored in the recent Iranian film Ballad of a White Cow as well. In the Turkish film, it is a key male figure that has been wronged and refuses to forgive the wrong-doer; in the Iranian film it is a key female character that in a similar situation refuses to forgive those who request forgiveness.
Is it dementia or is it more than that? Hasan is not recognized by his brother Muzaffar, on meeting him after 2 years
The two brothers, one seeming to not recognize the other, captured in silhouette by cinematographer Ozgur Eken, as he had done in certain scenes in Kaplanoglu's earlier film, Milk
One can note the influence of Andrei Tarkovsky’s films in those of Semih Kaplanoglu (the shot of rear head profile of Tarkovsky’s mother sitting on the fence in Mirror reprised in Kaplanoglu’s Milk) or the sudden rains in Tarkovsky’s/Zvyaginstsev’s films reprised as an unreal rain of rotten apples in Commitment Hasan. A shepherd, who Hasan encounters for the second time, this time on the road, tells him that Tugrut, Hasan's former diligent worker, who Hasan is hoping to meet is waiting for Hasan at the coffee-shop. Earlier in the film, Hasan had been rude to the shepherd for letting his sheep graze on his land without permission. Surprisingly for Hasan, the shepherd knows Hasan is preparing to go on a Hajj pilgrimage and possibly even conjectured the reason Hasan wants to meet his former worker. Kaplanoglu thus infuses elements of magic realism and unusual abilities in personalities poorer than Hasan to read Hasan’s mind and purpose. There are extra-ordinary aspects of Kaplanoglu’s original screenplay that connects the chopped tree in Hasan’s dream, the shepherd’s comments while sitting under the tree that is not chopped as dreamt by Hasan, and the chain of events that follow. Kaplanoglu expects the viewer to connect the dots and get the larger picture of repentance and its importance before seeking a blessed outcome of a costly pilgrimage.
The differences between the films of Ceylan and Kaplanoglu are very thin. Kaplanoglu’s religious commentary is obvious for the viewer, while Ceylan prefers to discuss religion obliquely (e.g., the concept of free will discussed by two imams in The Wild Pear Tree).
Kaplanoglu’s films have slightly more interesting performances than those of Ceylan. Both directors take great care with the cinematography (the giant tree in Commitment Hasan and Ceylan’s The Wild Pear Tree image are remarkably similar as are the water-well sequences in both films). The final sequences of Commitment Hasan with the two brothers are visually not far removed from the end sequence visuals of Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life—but one film ends in silhouette shadows, the other in light. Kaplanoglu’s Milk had employed the silhouette effect (see my review on this blog) which is not surprising as the cinematographer of the two Kaplanoglu films is the same person: Ozgur Eken.
Finally and very importantly, both directors do not use music on the soundtrack of their films, which make their filming so refreshing compared to most other films from other parts of the world. There is heightened use of natural sounds but their films are almost bereft of composed music, unless the script requires it.
P.S.The film Commitment Hasan won the Best Foreign film at Sao Paulo International Film Festival; the Best Cinematography Award at the Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival; and Audience Awards for the Best International Film and the Best Actor at the Golden Rooster Awards, China. Kaplanoglu's earlier films Milk; Honey;Grain; and Commitment have been reviewed earlier on this blog. The other films referred in the above review: the Iranian film Ballad of a White Cow; Tarkovsky'sMirror; Malick's The Tree of Life;and Ceylan's The Wild Pear Tree have also been reviewed earlier on this blog. (Click on the names of the films in the post-script to access the reviews of that particular film.)
“A sound like a rumble
from the core of the earth”
—Jessica (Tilda Swinton), a Scotswoman and a
scientist, describing the sound that woke her up one day from slumber in Colombia, a sound that she wishes to identify and understand
(words spoken in the early part of the film)
“Why are you crying,
when they are not of your memories?”
—Jessica’s new-found acquaintance
Hernan (the metaphoric “hard disk," as he describes himself”) says to her, after
Jessica (the metaphoric “antenna”, in Hernan’s words) physically connects with
Hernan by Jessica placing his palm on her arm (words spoken towards the end of
the film)
Memoria is a film
that recalls Carlos Reygadas’ opening and closing sequences of his Silent Light (2007), approaching
metaphysical mysteries using sounds and visuals. It was not surprising for this
critic that Reygadas was one of the many thanked by the filmmakers in the film’s
credits. Memoria equally recalls
sequences from Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1972 film Solaris (Kris’ sequences on earth outside his home before
travelling into space and Kris viewing the liquid world of Solaris from his
spaceship window) and Stalker (the
child watching the glass tumbler moving off the table, aided by external
vibrations). Viewers, who found Silent
Light, Solaris and Stalker
boring, would find Memoria
exasperating with almost negligible spoken words compared to those films and
mysteries deliberately left partially explained. However, for a viewer who
loves the films of Reygadas and Tarkovsky—Memoria
would be a strangely rewarding and exhilarating experience to view, mixing
science and the history of Colombia, where director Weerasethakul detects
parallels in recent times with his native Thailand. Those parallels become more
apparent if the viewer has watched two of the director’s films Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
(2010) and Cemetery of Splendor (2018).
Jessica (Tilda Swinton) becomes the antenna of "hard disk" Hernan (Elkin Diaz) by placing his palm on her hand
The archeologist Agnes (Jeanne Balibar) encourages Jessica to touch the manmade hole in the head of a skull of a girl who lived in Colombia 6000 years ago.
Director Weerasethakul
had spent time in Colombia to research and grapple with the parallel histories
of Colombia and his native Thailand before he decided to write the original
script of Memoria as an extension of
ideas he had developed in his earlier films
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives and Cemetery of Splendor. His fictional character Uncle Boonmee could
recall the past lives, so too in Memoria
can the mysterious elder Hernan, who claims he never left that village, as he
removes the scales of fishes to salt and dry them. In Memoria, there are several references to the dead being excavatedin tunnels byroad builders possibly referring to the dead bodies of the battles
between Marxist Leninist FARC activists and the Colombian militia as well as
the skeleton of a girl who had lived 6000 years ago in Colombia with a manmade hole
in her skull indicating the way she died. In Cemetery of Splendor,comatose
Thai soldiers were kept in hospital wards (over lands where Thai kings were
buried) with bright colorful lights to induce good dreams in the still alive
but comatose soldiers. None of these facts are mentioned in Memoria explicitly. It is left for an
intelligent filmgoer, familiar with the director’s past works to figure out why
Jessica’s eyes well with tears when she connects with “hard disk” Hernan, who
knows all the past lives of the people of Colombia.
Jessica with young sound engineer Hernan (Juan Pablo Urrego),who was never real, presenting her the precise recorded sound
Memoria is a film
on sleep, dreams, death and life. Jessica is woken from “sleep” by the strange
sound and is eager to know how the elder Hernan can “sleep” without memories
and watches him sleep for a while. Dreams play a part in the film as Jessica’s
sister Karen claims she was affected by a strange illness after she did not
feed and take care of a stray dog that had come to her doorstep. When Jessica
recounts the dog story back to Karen who has been cured of her illness she does
not recollect it. Who is dreaming--Jessica or Karen? The viewer learns from the
sparse conversations that dot the film that Jessica has lost her husband in the
recent past. Whose death certificate is Jessica asked to sign by Karen’s
partner? When Jessica connects with
“hard disk“ Hernan,Jessica’s ”antenna”
allows Jessica to “recognize” her past childhood items “visible” in the room.
However, earlier Jessica dreams that her dentist has died but her sister Karen
and her partner assure her that he is alive and well.
Memoria
communicates with its viewers using sound, silence and a visual magnetism rare
in cinema. That sound that Jessica and the viewer hears for the first time,
which is central to the film hits one after a long period of silence.That thud is recreated with amazing sound
engineering of the young Herman with inputs from Jessica and his studio
equipment. Later on in the film, Jessica and the viewer accost other denizens of the
same building where the sound engineer had worked who convince Jessica that no such
person as the young Hernan ever worked there or is known to them when Jessica
describes his physique. When Jessica hears the same sound on the street, one
Colombian, is startled and runs for his life while others are not affected. In
open areas in Colombia, the strange thud also scares a bird but no other human
seem to have heard it or is affected. The strange sound switches on a wave of
alarms in parked cars that subside as it started indicating it is not a human
action.
Jessica had come to Colombia to study the effect of a fungus
on orchids and eventually the strange sound opens her eyes to hidden histories
of the land and extra-terrestrial communication. When Jessica goes to a doctor
seeking a cure for her “affliction” by the strange sounds, she is refused
medication but instead advised to take an interest in either art or God to cure
her current state.
The cinematography of Mukdeeprom, capturing still life, as in a painting, with birds in the far background, uninterested in the fish, even when the characters stop speaking
Jessica recalls objects in the room as parts of her childhood memory
In Memoria, director
and original scriptwriter Weerasethakul
comes close to the world of Tarkovsky and the Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw
Lem whose ideas were distilled in Solaris.
Weerasethakul is aided once again by
the cinematography of Sayembhu Mukdeeprom, who captures the beauty of Colombia’s
natural resources as though the scenes were still life paintings recalling the cinematography
in Terence Malick’s films: The Thin Red Line, Days of Heaven, and the bison
sequence in To the Wonder. Those who care to note the details of the
exterior sequence of Jessica and “hard disk” Hernan, will note crow-like birds
in the distance, birds that surprisingly do not seem to be attracted by the
fish being dried out in the sun. Therein lies clues to the film’s narrative
that unfolds in the last 15 minutes of the film.
Memoria, which
won the Gold Hugo at the Chicago film festival, was given the following
citation for the award: “.. for its sense of
cinematic poetry and humanism. In this profound and meditative film, the
director creates a story that emphasizes the connection people have to the
places that they live, to the past and the present, and to the terrestrial and
beyond. Tilda Swinton’s note perfect performance embodies Weerasethakul’s faith
in cinema, in science, in secular mysticism, and in the possibilities of
cross-cultural empathy and understanding.” The comprehensive citation captures it all. Memoria is a film that will exasperate many but be treasured by those who can pick up details in a reflective narrative and string them all together.
A majority of film critics and viewers tend to dismiss
Andrei Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky’s films in their initial assessments, especially
in recent decades. Why is that? To answer that question, one needs to know some
key facts about Konchalovsky and the three phases of his career.
Who is Konchalovsky?
Few know or recall that Konchalovsky was partly responsible for the
early masterpieces of Andrei Tarkovsky—The
Steamroller and The Violin; Ivan’s Childhood; and Andrei Rublyev. As a screenplay-writer, Konchalovsky collaborated
with Tarkovsky (his film school classmate) as a co-scriptwriter on these films
as well as for other directors’ films: Shaken Ajmanov’s The End of the Ataman (1971) and Tolomush Okeev’s The Fierce One (1974). He also
contributed, as a screenplay-writer, to his half-brother Nikita Mikhalkov’s
film A Slave of Love (1976). Many of
these films dealt with children and childhood. This was the specifically highlighted in his own debut film as a director and co-scriptwriter, The First Teacher (1965), a film that won the best actress award at
the Venice film festival. Then he directed Siberiade (1979), which won the Cannes Grand Prize of the Jury (essentially, the second-best
film in competition at that event in 1979). These accomplishments mark his
first phase evolving from an important screenplay-writer into a notable film director,
winning international recognition at major film festivals.
Then his second phase begins when he moves to Hollywood
directing a string of impressive films in USA: Maria’s Lovers (1984), with his
screenplay, nominated for the Venice Golden Lion; Runaway Train (1985), based on a re-worked screenplay by Akira
Kurosawa, winner of the best actor Golden Globe, and nominated for the Cannes
Golden Palm and three Oscars; Duet for
One (1986), based on his co-scripted screenplay and nominated for a Golden
Globe; Shy People (1987), based on
his original story and screenplay, winner of the best actress award at Cannes, and nominated for the Golden Palm at that festival; and Homer and Eddie (1989) winner of the Golden Seashell award for the
best film at the San Sebastian film festival in Spain. This was followed by a critical
and commercial disaster called Tango and
Cash, made the same year. It was a disaster primarily due to the studio’s
(and possibly actor Sylvester Stallone’s) interference with the director’s
plans at every stage triggering the exasperated director’s return to Russia. This
second phase re-emphasized Konchalovsky’s talents as a director (when there was no studio interference), a screenplay-writer (in three films in this phase) and, more importantly, as a
director who could extract award-winning performances from his actors.
Then comes his third phase when he returns to Russia and
films The Inner Circle (1991), with
his screenplay, and wins a nomination for the Golden Bear at Berlin; Ryaba, My Chicken (1994) with his
original screenplay, and wins a nomination for the Golden Palm at Cannes that
year; and follows those two films by directingHouse of Fools(2002) this time again with his original
screenplay,which gets nominatedfor the Golden Lion at Venice, winning the
Grand Special Jury Prize and the UNICEF award. Konchalovsky followed these
three major nominations at the big three festivals with another set of three top-notch
films that have actually won him better and more significant laurels: The Postman’s White Nights (2014), Paradise (2016), and Dear Comrades (2020). The first two were winners of the Silver Lion
for the Best Director and the third a winner of Jury’s Special Prize all at the
Venice film festival, with all the three screenplays co-scripted by Konchalovsky
and his new collaborator, Elena Kiseleva.
The third phase, thus, marks the amazing contributions of
Konchalovsky as director and screenplay-writer while collaborating on many films with
his actress wife Vysostkaya and his new found co-scriptwriter Kiseleva—a wonderful, winning
combination.
What is most exciting
is that Konchalovsky is currently working on rebuilding afresh the Tarkovsky
filmThe First Day,destroyed in 1979 by the Russian Censors,
which was based on the script written by Konchalovsky. Both Konchalovsky
and Tarkovsky have a close affinity with the Russian Orthodox Church and
evidently Tarkovsky’slast film project in the USSR, The First Day, upset the
atheist doctrines of USSR in 1979, and contributed in part to the destruction
of the completed footage of the film project. That ill-fated Tarkovsky-Konchalovsky
film project had followed Konchalovsky’s collaboration on Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublyev. The destruction of that
Tarkovsky film resulted in the self-exile of the director. The timing of the destruction of the film coincides with the year Siberiade was made--the last film of Konchalovsky in the first phase, before he makes films in USA instead of his homeland.
The numerous nominations and accolades of Konchalovsky over
the decades at the big three film festivals of the world—Cannes, Venice and
Berlin--are rare feathers in the cap for any film director from any country. Thus,
it is rather odd when an awarded work such as House of Fools is hastily dismissed by many..
Assessment ofHouse of Fools
“Why is man happy when he kills another? What is there to be
happy about?"—Leo Tolstoy, recalled by a Russian army officer (played by a famous Russian actor,
Evginiy Mironov) in the film
Several critics, who assessed this work of Konchalovsky,
compared House of Fools with Milos
Forman’s famous US film One Flew Over
the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) and found the Konchalovsky film to be a disjointed
and unimpressive work. Yet the only common factor between the two films is that
both revolve around inmates of a mental asylum.
Yulia Vysotskaya plays an asylum inmate, Zhanna, who adores Bryan Adams, and dreams that he drives the train that crosses the bridge each evening, near the asylum
There are major differences between the two films. Forman’s
film is an adaptation of novel by Ken Kesey about a criminal who hides in a
mental asylum. Konchalovsky’s film is
based on real events and the screenplay is original.
House of Fools is
a film on good humans with mental problems. These patients are incarcerated in a mental
asylum, run by an efficient doctor, who is dedicated to the well-being of his
patients and caring. On the not-so-obvious side--it is based on true incidents
in Chechnya (Russia) during the Second Chechen War of 1999-2000. For those
unfamiliar with Chechnya, it is a constituent republic of Russia with a
predominant Muslim population. Russians predominantly belong to the Russian
Orthodox Church. Konchalovsky has proven his Russian orthodox credentials in
all his cinematic works.
In this film, the inmates of the asylum include patients of
both faiths living in harmony. Outside the asylum, there is war (between the
Muslim Chechens and the Christian Russians). Konchalovsky's script underscores
the camaraderie between the warring factions when they fought side by side in
Afghanistan saving each others lives. During the Chechen war, some soldiers of both
sides recall that they were once friends and show respect for each other.
When the asylum is bombed by the Russians, many of the inmates “cross”
themselves out of fear of impending death--indicating the majority of the
inmates are Christian. Ahmed, a Muslim Chechen and a pacifist, incarcerates
himself with this motley group of inmates as he finds safety, anonymity, and friendship
among the "crazies" who accept him as one of their own.
Zhanna assumes the actor-turned-Chechen soldier, Ahmed (Sultan Islamov), intends to marry and dresses in white attire, contributed by various inmates for the bride-to-be
During the war, many of the support staff flee to save
their lives. The good doctor, who alone has to care for some twenty-odd
patients, is worried for the safety of his patients and goes out of the hospital
to find a bus to transport the inmates to a safer zone, Significantly, even
then, they do not wish to leave the hospital, quite unlike the Milos Forman’s
film and Ken Kesey’s novel, where troublemaking patients are not sensitively cared for but lobotomized.In Konchalovsky’s film, the doctor in charge
of the hospital listens to and cares for his wards, in contrast to the
Hollywood film. House of Fools is a
humanist film where a Chechen ultimately seeks the solace of the asylum
compared to the world outside. Most importantly, the film is secular, where the
doctor and his patients help and love one another irrespective of their religions. This is where House of Fools is considerably different from the Forman film.
Another facet of the film that will surprise many viewers is that many of the patients in the mental hospital are real mental patients who were working alongside professional actors. Not many directors would attempt such a feat; Konchalovsky did it, with elan.
The caring doctor (Vladas Bagdonas) who returns after his unsuccessful trip to get a bus to evacuate the asylum patients, is worried that the Chechen soldiers have harmed the innocent Zhanna
The participation of rock singer Bryan Adams as an actor and singer in the film
is Konchalovsky's masterstroke along with the soothing words of the song Have you ever really loved a woman? sung
by the singer. The crash of a helicopter
and it bursting into flames within the hospital’s grounds during the war show
the intensity of the conflict while the innocent Zhanna plays her accordion oblivious of the gangers with a a few feet of her.
Other important trivia, the lead actress Yulia Vysotskaya is
the director's wife of over 20 years. Her acting capability is showcased in a wide variety of roles she has subsequently played in her husband's films--most importantly
in Paradise and Dear Comrades.
The film is further strengthened on the aural front beyond Bryan Adams by the
music of composer Eduard Artemyev. Artemyev's contribution is often bypassed by the fans of
Tarkovsky (in Solaris, Stalker, Mirror), of Konchalovsky (in Siberiade, The Inner
Circle, Homer and Eddie),of Mikhalkov (in The Barber of Siberia, A Few Days in the Life of I. I. Oblomov), etc.
The crux of the film lies in the quotation of Tolstoy "Why is man happy when he kills another? What is there to be happy
about?" recalled by a Russian army officer (played by a famous Russian
actor, Evginiy Mironov,) in the film towards the end.
The Chechen soldier Ahmed acts as if he has fallen for the accordion-playing Zhanna and blurts out that he will marry her, little realizing the consequences
Conclusion
When Konchalovsky writes his own original screenplays (as
opposed to when he is adapting an existing written work) few aspects emerge:
his firm Christian roots, his wide reading, and his love for Russia. While each tale could be set
in different locations--a remote marshy forest in USA (as in Shy
People), a mental asylum (as in House
of Fools), or a remote village in Russia (as in The Postman’s White Nights)--step back from the obvious tale and you
will spot a metaphor that is critical of the current state of the director's homeland.Those are his unique strengths.
P.S. House of Fools wonthe
Grand Special Jury Prize and the UNICEF award at the Venice film Festival in
2002. Konchalovsky’s films Runaway Train, Shy People, The Postman’s White Nights, and Paradise, have been reviewed on this blog. (Click on
the names of the films in this post-script to access each of the reviews.) Konchalovsky is one of the author's top 15 active filmmakers.
Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s
Drive My Car will appeal to
different folks for totally different reasons. Those familiar with Haruki Murakami’s
written work flock to watch cinematic adaptations of his written works such as
the Korean director Chang-dong Lee’s Burning
(2018), Japanese director Anh Hung Tran’s Norwegian
Wood (2010) or the Japanese director Jun Ichikawa’s Toni Takitani (2004), among the nine such feature films already
released.Drive My Car is the latest cinematic adaptation of the nine films
and is based on a short story with the same title as the film.
The film Drive My Car
is equally interesting for readers who love Anton Chekov’s famous play Uncle Vanya. They will be pleasantly surprised
that it still can be staged in myriad ways, though purists will find Andrei
Konchalovsky’s 1970 film version of Uncle
Vanya with Innokentiy Smoktunovskiy, Sergei Bondarchuk and Irina Kupchenko,
as the definitive cinematic adaptation.
However, director Hamaguchi leaps beyond the original tales
of Murakami and Chekov with a stunning screenplay melding both the literary
works. Those who have read Murakami’s short story will easily spot that
Chekov’s play is barely discussed in the short story, while the film discusses
the casting, the rehearsals and the staging of the play in considerable detail.
There is a reason for it. More on that later.
Kafuku's wife Oto (Reika Kirishima), an actress-turned-playwright, who appears only in the prologue
Evidently Hamaguchi had the tacit approval of Murakami (who
is credited as the second among the three co-scriptwriters, the third being
Takamasa Oe). Murakami’s tale is essentially of the happily married middle-aged
couple, Kafuku (a stage actor who eventually becomes a stage director) and his
wife Oto (an attractive stage actress flowering into a playwright over the
decades). The couple have an active sex life and Oto gets her creative ideas as
a playwright post-coitus, narrating it to her husband before writing it on
paper. (This aspect of the tale is incorporated by the scriptwriters from another
Murakami short story called Scheherazade.)
Both thespians are in love with each other. Some 20 years before, a child was
born to Kafuku and Oto, that did not survive beyond 3 days after birth. Both
grieved and mutually decided not to procreate another child. In spite of their
mutual love, the wife has trysts with other actors on the sly, which the
husband had sensed and discovered to be true. As the uxorial love between the
couple was not affected, the husband opted to never confront his wife with his
knowledge of his wife’s infidelity. One day, his beloved wife of 20 years dies.
In the film, Drive My Car, Oto’s
death is unexpected. In the short story, the husband and wife knew Oto had
cancer; Oto was hospitalized and only allowed Kafuku, Oto’s mother and Oto’s
sister to visit her—no one else.
After the screen credits, the substantive main tale of the
film is presented. The Saab car is an interesting subject for both the
film and the short story. In Murakami’s tale, the Saab car is yellow; in the
film, it’s red. In the prologue, Kafuku’s fondness for this vehicle recalls novelist
Robert Pirsig’s hero and his philosophical fondness for his motorbike in his
famous autobiographical novel Zen and the
Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: an inquiry into values. Kafuku, who loves
his car and is a careful driver, involuntarily involves it in an accident due
to a blind spot in his vision (real and metaphorical), soon after discovering
his wife in bed with a lover. It is the red Saab that links the prologue, the
main tale and the epilogue—hence the Pirsig connection. Not even Kafuku. In
fact, Kafuku is “physically absent” in the epilogue. Kafuku’s love for his Saab
is as strong as his love for his dead wife Oto. When Kafuku, is invited to a
Japanese city of Hiroshima to direct and present an experimental Uncle Vanya, with performers speaking different languages, we are
indirectly made to realize that considerable time has passed after Oto’s death
as Kafuku has evolved from a famous actor playing Uncle Vanya in the play to be
respected at that point of time as a famous director of the Chekov play. Thus,
it is in the main portion of Hamaguchi’s film that we encounter for the first
time Kafuku’s female driver Misaki, suggested by the drama company funding and
contracting Kafuku to stage the play. As per their rules of that company, all
major creative figures are not allowed to drive cars, during period the play is
being rehearsed and performed publicly. This would not seem out of place for a
viewer who has not read Murakami’s short story. However, Murakami’s short story begins with
Misaki being employed by Kafuku soon after Oto’s death and the Saab accident, at
the behest of the garage owner who repaired the Saab, following the accident.
The Saab car flanked by its owner Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima) (left) and his personal driver Misaki (Toko Miura) (right)
Hamaguchi’s film now reintroduces Oto’s final illicit lover,
Takatsuki, briefly shown in the prologue twice, once having sex with Oto and
then at Oto’s funeral where Takatsuki condoles Kafuku. Takatsuki is picked by
Kafuku in the film to play Uncle Vanya, a role Kafuku had perfected as an actor in earlier
stage productions in Japan—despite Takatsuki being too young to play the role. Kafuku’s
ulterior design is to get to befriend Takatsuki to figure out what attracted
Oto to Takatsuki for a brief period.
Kafuku (right) engages Takatsuki (Oto's lover, left) in conversations relating to Oto
The deliberate switching of chronology and changes in the
introduction of the driver Misaki serves a bigger role in Hamaguchi’s film than
in the short story—he introduces two new characters that are not part of the
Murakami story. They are a male official of the drama company and his Korean wife
who is an actress, who cannot speak but communicates in the sign language. These
two important characters are not part of Murakami’s story. The Korean actress is cast by Kafuku in an
important role in the experimental production accentuating that the world is a
global village. These additional characters are creations of co-scriptwriters
Hamaguchi and Oe, without tampering much with Murakami’s original creations of
Kafuku, his wife Oto, his driver Misaki and Oto’s last lover Takatsuki.
Further, the unusual rehearsals and performances of Uncle Vanya in the film Drive My Car that take up considerable
screen time of the 3-hour filmare
not even a part of the Murakami short story. In the short story, there is no
mention of Takatsuki’s arrest by the police midway for crimes barely discussed in the film during a rehearsal of the Chekov play—all these
are creations of Hamaguchi and Oe. So is the entire trip of Kafuko and his
driver Misaki to Misaki’s house where she and her mother lived, before her
mother’s death, opening up parallels in their lonely lives. The lonely Misaki and the widower Kafuko realize the difficult years of their past and that like Sonya and her Uncle Vanya need to move on with positive ideals. Both love driving
the Saab car with its manual gear shifts, without literal or metaphorical jerks.
To the credit of Hamaguchi and Oe, their additions to the
Murakami tale lifted up the story to a new level. Their stunning minimalist
epilogue urges the viewer to figure out much of the tale that is left for the
viewer to figure out and savour. For one, the epilogue is set in the
pandemic—so the time has moved forward from the main portion of the film. Secondly,
the concept of the experimental version of the play with characters speaking in
different tongues, with a written script projected above the stage to help the
audience, in many ways reflects Chekov’s hope and dream when he wrote the
play after visiting Siberia that ends with the words of Sonya to Uncle Vanya: “…We will live a good life. We will look back
on it with a smile. My sweet uncle, we will hear angels, see the riches of
heaven, and look down on earthly evil. All our suffering will become good that
covers the earth. I believe it. I believe it.”
The plain and physically
unattractive driver Misaki, in the film and in the story, listens to the
recording of the play as she drives Kafuku around and identifies herself with
Sonya of the play, who like Misaki is not physically attractive. Thirdly, and
most importantly. the epilogue is not set in Japan but in Korea. Misaki, the red
Saab, and the dog that belongs to the Korean actress (who communicates through
sign language) have moved on to Korea. (If you can’t read the two different
languages, you will note the side of the road they drive on has changed in the epilogue from the main film) Hamaguchi forces
the viewer to connect the dots and figure it all out at the end of the film. A reflective viewer would note the wider connection between a play performed in different languages and the Corona virus pandemic that affected all parts of the world (indicated by the masks worn in the epilogue). This
is undoubtedly one of the finest, complex, and mature adapted screenplays in
recent times. It’s a also a good example of a film that cajoles a lazy film viewer to
read the original written work to appreciate and compare both mediums. If one reads Murakami's short story, any intelligent viewer will be able to grasp the importance of a creative and well-adapted screenplay, which leaves the original tale, to the extent shown in the film, almost intact. Thus both Murakami and Hamaguchi would be pleased with their distinct products in two different mediums.
P.S. Drive My Car is one of the author's best films of 2021. The
film won the Best Screenplay award, the FIPRESCI prize and the Ecumenical Jury
prize at the Cannes Film Festival; the Silver Hugo jury prize at the Chicago
International Film Festival; the Kieslowski award for the best feature film at
the Denver International Film Festival; the Golden Globe for the Best Motion
Picture in a non-English language at the Golden Globe Awards and the Oscar for Best International Film. It is expected to
win more accolades. Andrei Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky’s Uncle Vanya (1970) can be
accessed with English subtitles on YouTube free of cost.
“Your pain is
pathetic. It is pathetic because it is relative. It is also not pathetic
because it is part of you, and that’s why I love it.”
---The
android Tom created by algorithms and constantly capable of processing new
information and thus evolving and responding constantly to be the designed perfect
partner of Alma, a human archaeologist, ironically studying how people have
changed over 4000 years by studying cuneiform scripts.
Maria Schrader’s film I
am Your Man is a fascinating sci-fi (science fiction) film. The film progresses
from the milestones set by the talking and scheming computer HAL of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A space odyssey (1968), to the crafty
gynoid (a female android) of Alex Garland’s Ex Machina (2014), to the algorithm-oriented holographic spouses of
the sci-fi play by Jordan Harrison and its adapted movie version of Michael
Almeyreda’s Marjorie Prime (2017) to
eventually introduce us to director Maria Schrader’s Tom—a perfect android, very
smart, handsome, affable and totally benevolent to humans. In Kubrick’s 2001: A space odyssey,HAL the computer had become so smart
that it began to give malevolent advice to misguide humans and even went to the
extent of turning off the life-support system of three crewmen surviving in
animated suspension, killing them instantly, in an effort to control the human crew of the space ship. In Garland’s Oscar-winning Ex Machina the near-perfect gynoid Ava
locks up her human friend and leaves her mortally wounded human creator’s
scientific facility to blend with the outside world of humans—yet another but
more sophisticated variant of HAL. In Harrison’s/Almeyreda’s Marjorie Prime, while the holographic
spouses cannot be touched they provide psychological and benevolent comfort to
humans suffering from Alzheimer’s disease but can recall the memories of those
suffering from the disease and thus provide succor. But one of the holograms does
trip up to upset the near perfect scenario. Thus both Maria Schrader’s I am Your Man andAlmeyreda’s Marjorie Prime
take the viewer to the distinct possibility of recreating memories of past love
in humans with the intelligent use of artificial intelligence in the not-so-distant
future. Schrader’s film scores over
Almeyreda’s film because the android Tom in
I am Your Man is physical, protective, affable with all humans, and good
looking. Screenplay writers Jan Schomburg and Maria Schrader reveal towards the
end of the film that even the name Tom is connected with Thomas, a childhood
sweetheart of Alma, the archaeologist—evidently information sourced by the
company that manufactured Tom by delving deep into the memory of Alma aided by her brain scans. (Actress Maren Eggert, won the Best Actress award at the Berlin
International Film Festival, 2021, for her performance as Almain
I am your Man.)
The android Tom (Dan Stevens) observing Alma (Maren Eggert) to pick up minute details to please her, in her apartment
In the film I am your
Man,Alma the archaeologist,
faces a fund crunch for her scientific project and to augment her depleting
financial resources she agrees to participate in a 3-week evaluation of an
android boyfriend developed by a company by assimilating her past memories with
the aid of a brain scan among other sources of information to suit her dream
spouse--intelligent, handsome and somewhat exotic. The evaluation period of Tom
includes a 3-day live-in period when the pair does have a sexual encounter that
satisfies the needs of Alma.
Tom and Alma outdoors--Alma loves the companionship
Alma is touched by Tom waiting the rain to meet her as agreed earlier
Tom and the android company's representative (Sandra Huller)
Alma is single, middle aged and successful in her field of archaeology.
She has had a recent affair with her boyfriend that unfortunately resulted in a
miscarriage. Soon he starts dating another woman and that woman is now
pregnant. Alma is pushed into a fragile psychological state: her ability to
conceive is in doubt and her boyfriend has found a new flame. Her father is battling
dementia. Evidently, Alma does not want to die alone. When she asks Tom what is the saddest thing he can think of, Tom responds as Alma would have done in an honest moment: "Dying alone." Tom, the android watching Alma work in the lab, is able to absorb the
basics of her work, search the internet and warn her that another set of
scientists in another part of the world is ahead of her and on the verge of publishing
their results before Alma’s team would be able to do the same. Tears well up in
Alma’s eyes, while confronting these facts. The reaction of Tom to that situation
is his profound analytical response: “So the
tears in your eyes only relate to you yourself and your career? They are
egotistical tears.” Tom even
graciously suggests an alternate paper that Alma could put together with the
work she has put in thus far. Alma is hurt and packs him off to the android
factory that manufactured him.
Wild animals may be wary of humans; not so of androids
After dispatching Tom off back to the factory that made him in
egotistical anger, Alma writes up her evaluation of Tom, who is “not human” and
is “not flawed in any conventional sense” during the 3-week period. Lines from
her negative evaluation include “Are humans
intended to have all their needs met with a push of a button? It will create a
society of addicts who decide to not challenge themselves and endure conflicts.”
A key scene between Tom and Alma
The delightful end of this unusual film is quite
unpredictable providing the viewer with a cocktail of light entertainment,
science, and thought-provoking questions about humans and machines programmed to
improve themselves in a positive way, quite unlike “HAL”, “Eva”, and “Marjorie Prime”
who preceded “Tom,” in cinematic chronology. Congratulations to the filmmakers
and the short-story writer!
P.S. I am Your Man won the Silver Bear Award at the Berlin International
Film Festival for Ms Maren Eggert who plays Alma. It has also won the best
fiction film and the best director awards at the German national awards and is
Germany’s submission to the Oscars in the foreign language category.. It is one of the best films of 2021 for the author.
The sci-fi film Marjorie Prime(2017) has been reviewed earlier on this
blog.(Click on the colored name of
the film in the post-script to access the review.)