269. Canadian film director Denis Côté’s tenth feature film “Hygiène sociale” (Social Hygiene) (2021) in French, based on his original script: An unusual film that serves to entertain verbally and visually as a dark comedy, without sex or violence

The title of the film Social Hygiene will remind viewers of the Covid pandemic’s cardinal rule to avoid infection—maintain social distancing to avoid infection. In fact, no two characters make physical contact in the entire film and maintain at least a 12 feet distance between each other. There is no mention of Covid or even wearing of masks in the film. Simply put, though the film was made during the pandemic, the film has nothing to do with it. Further, the film’s original script was written by the director Denis Côté in 2015, much before the onset of the pandemic. 

 

Antonin (right) spars verbally with his love
Cassiopée, while her new admirer silently watches 
in the background

The film is built around the pivotal character, Antonin, married, but staying away from his wife, Eglantine. Where? In a friend’s Volkswagen! Antonin, we realize is prone to making up unreal stories, is well read, deft with language wordplay, and is a thief, vandalizing cars in the process. The director/screenplay-writer Denis Côté’s central character encounters four ladies apart from his wife Eglantine. He meets with his sister, Solveig; his secret love, Cassiopée; a lady named Rose from the Ministry of Revenue tracking him down to coerce him to cough up his unpaid tax dues; and finally, Aurore, who has been also tracking him to get back a jacket and a computer he stole from her car, and some compensation for smashing its windows to steal those items.   

Antonin talks to his wife Eglantine

Antonin talks to Rose (note she wears pink),
the tax collector who can send him to prison

All the meetings with the five ladies are staged like a Samuel Beckett play with two or three characters (always including Antonin) in open grassy fields, often on the edges of forests. There is minimal movement from the characters often rooted to the same spot; only wordplay ensues with pregnant pauses between spoken lines. The only exceptionally active scene is Aurore dancing by herself in the forest to music, the source of which is never revealed. Why and what provokes Aurore, a theology student who works in a McDonald’s outlet, to suddenly dance or decide to take an interest in criminals is an amusing conundrum. To the casual viewer, the social criticism of Facebook, internet and taxes in the script may not be obvious. All the characters have lines to speak that refer to the ills of contemporary society and lifestyles.   

Antonin interacts with Solveig, his sister,
after she states that she found a lover at a restaurant
Note: She is still holding her wine glass 

Côté’s Antonin (mostly captured by the static camera in long shots, with a rare close-up towards the end of the film) is revealed as a filmmaker struggling to complete his script, and responds to Aurore’s revelation that she is a student of theology thus: “I believe in myself. I believe I can find the keys to my enigmas in my life by myself.”  

Antonin returns the jacket he stole from
Aurore's car to her. Note: Aurore's dress differs
 from those worn by other women

When asked about when and where he met his wife, Antonin wittily replies “I met my wife in a zoo, by the cage of the hyena. The rest is a long quiet river.” 

In Côté’s interesting script, the best lines are not invested with Antonin alone. Antonin’s love Cassiopée calls him a narcissist and says “You are 100 times dead. I love you as a zombie....Men are like mushrooms. The more handsome they are the more poison they contain.” The cocky Antonin pleads and buckles under Rose’s threat “I have the key to your prison cell at the edge of my pen,” to pay his taxes. To Aurore, Antonin agrees to return the jacket and computer. His sister, Solveig, finally finds a lover over tea and long tales, uttering the words “Carpe Diem.” His wife, too, leaves him for another lover. The once confident and witty Antonin is completely “socially distanced.” 

Antonin holds a flower he wishes to present to his love
Cassiopée (center, background) while his wife (left)
notes it all and decides to leave her philandering husband

Denis Côté, the filmmaker is essentially a charming, absurdist playwright, who stages his written work in natural open surroundings with clearly demarcated stage markings for his actors in grassy patches with distant bird, animal, and traffic sounds on the soundtrack. The rare body movements of most characters are in sharp contrast to Aurore flexible body movements during her dancing spell in the film. 

Aurore dances in the forest, the only character
in the film who moves a lot physically

While Côté presents verbal sparring that will interest most viewers, there are details that some could miss. The clothes worn by all actors are period costumes a century old, with the sole exception of Aurore’s clothes that are contemporary. Thus her clothes and her dance movements are in interesting contrast to all other characters. Is Côté suggesting that Antonin’s appropriate love interest should be Aurore, not the characters wearing century-old costumes? Antonin does confess he finds Aurore attractive. 

Antonin (Maxim Gaudette) levelled by all women:
The only close-up shot in the entire film

Then there is a deliberate smudge in the static vision to the left corner of the First Act in the countryside with Antonin sparring with his sister possibly to accentuate the picture postcard shot, because Solveig retains her hands-on-the-hips pose for a long while. When the static camera moves, there seems to be a purpose to intervene in the social distancing of the actors and the camera. Denis Côté’s film provides unusual entertainment for those who can appreciate good playwrights and a totally fresh approach to the medium that is visually and verbally witty. A very interesting filmmaker setting a new style! 

 P.S.  Social Hygiene won the Best Director award at the Berlin Film Festival’s “Encounters” section and the Best Director award at the Fajr Film Festival in Iran. This film is one of the best films of 2021 for the author.

255. Japanese director Takashi Koizumi’s film “Hakase no aishita sushiki” (The Professor and His Beloved Equation) (2006), based on an award-winning Japanese novel by Yoko Ogawa: Melding the magical world of numbers and mathematics with invisible eternal truths existing in the universe, for adults and school-going students alike

 

 

To see a World in a Grain of Sand,

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the Palm of your Hand,

And Eternity in an Hour

                       ---opening lines from William Blake’s poem 

                           “Auguries of Innocence”

Some people don’t like numbers or mathematics but many do. Whether you belong to either category, the 2003 Yomiuri-prize-winning novel by the Japanese lady Yoko Ogawa called The Housekeeper and the Professor (the English translation has been published by Picador) and Takashi Koizumi’s film The Professor and His Beloved Equation based on that novel lead you gently into the mystical world of numbers that have captivated great minds like Pythagoras and Descartes over the centuries. What Ogawa and Koizumi achieve is to make an average person look at numbers with respect and realize that numbers were not created by human beings—they existed in the universe, we humans merely discovered them and are beginning to comprehend a small segment of the universe as we know it today. Both the book and the film motivate all and sundry to learn mathematics without being intimidated by numbers and equations. Ultimately, the film suggests a beautiful equation is like nirvana or the bliss of cosmic understanding described by the lines of the American poet William Blake at the end of the film.

Schoolteacher 'Root' resembles the root sign

                                 

The mystical connection

The book and the film introduce a young male schoolteacher who is commonly known by the name “Root,” the mathematical symbol, ever since an elderly mathematics professor associated Root’s somewhat flat head and a stubborn tuft of hair to one side (when he was a lot younger) with that symbol. That professor’s memory was impaired following a brain damage caused by an accident, and subsequently could think clearly only for a slice of 80 minutes at a time before forgetting what had transpired before that. He, therefore, pins reminders on his jacket to jog his memory after each segment of clear recollection. For all practical purposes, the professor adopts Root as own child and gradually instils his love for numbers, mathematics, and baseball in the young boy. Root, in his turn on growing up, very gently infuses the same love for numbers and the mystical association between them to his school students.

The professor (Akira Terao) meets Root's mother

                            

How does the film generate unusual interest in the viewer for numbers and mathematics? An introductory conversation between the Professor and his new housekeeper begins with a question about her shoe size, which she answers happens to be 24 centimeters. He happily informs the perplexed young lady that 24 is a “noble” number and a factorial of 4. He then explains how a factorial is calculated, which is in this case 1x2x3x4. He then asks her phone number and is overjoyed because that happens to be the precise total of “prime” numbers up to one billion. Then, as the film progresses, the viewer learns about "perfect" numbers and “amicable pairs” of numbers such as 220 and 284 and why they are called that. All this is not fiction but scientific facts to entertain and instill curiosity in minds to know more. And who discovered the first pair? It was Pythagoras, the Greek mathematician, who lived in the 6^th century BC. Even this factoid is mentioned in the film. Then you learn about “transcendental” numbers and “imaginary” numbers later in the film. All facts, not fiction!

Young Root is 'adopted' by the professor

                                

And what is the “favorite equation” forming the title of the film? It is a variant of Euler’s equation now called “Euler’s identity.” It is an amazing fact that even today famous contemporary mathematicians call that particular equation/theorem of the Swiss mathematician (1707-83) to be the most elegant or beautiful theorem ever conceived. That is the connection to Blake’s poem ending the uplifting Japanese  film.

While Ms Ogawa has published over 50 books of fiction and non-fiction, in 2006 the year Koizumi released the film, the author brought out a book entitled An Introduction to the World’s Most Elegant Mathematics, in collaboration with mathematician Mashiko Fujihara. But who are the persons responsible for the film The Professor and His Beloved Equation? Director Koizumi was the assistant director to the late Japanese maestro Akira Kurosawa on five of his final major films: Ran, Kagemusha, Dreams, Madadayo, and Rhapsody in August and was an uncredited assistant to the director on a sixth one Dersu Uzala. The Kurosawa connection to the Koizumi film continues. The cinematographer Shoji Ueda too was the cinematographer of five of those films, the actor Akira Terao (who plays the professor) was a lead actor in Ran and Madadayo, so too, actor Hisashi Ogawa (who plays the brief role of the housekeeper agent) is a stock Kurosawa actor. Even though Kurosawa had nothing to do with this film, his trusted collaborators were the principal contributors to The Professor and His Beloved Equation. Kurosawa would have been proud because the film apart from mathematics briefly introduces Japanese culture and the essentially Japanese Noh theatre to any uninitiated viewer as well.

 "...as difficult as proving the beauty of a star"

                          

While the film is essential viewing for those who love numbers (and their mystical attributes), mathematics, physics and metaphysics, it perpetuates a minor fallacy. While the film attributes the discovery of amicable numbers, after Pythagoras had discovered the first set, to the European mathematicians Fermat (1601-65) and Descartes (1596-1650). It now well known that the Iraqi mathematician Thabit ibn Qurra (826-901) had invented a method to discover them (ref: Wikipedia on Amicable Numbers). Several Arab mathematicians used that method between the 10th and 17^th centuries to discover more amicable numbers but the popular Western belief attributes the findings to Fermat and Descartes.

The philosophy behind a straight line

                                

The Professor and His Beloved Equation may not be widely known as an important film, which it is. When it does get further traction cineastes who don’t read books are likely to recall the film and not the book on which it is based. How many Andrei Tarkovsky fans attribute even a fraction of the brilliance of his films Solaris and Stalker to Stanislaw Lem and the Strugatsky brothers, respectively? Only a few demarcate a film and its source material.

 

P.S.  The Professor and His Beloved Equation won the best director award at Fajr film festival in Iran and an award for its music at the Mainichi Film Concours in Japan.

244. Iranian director Reza Mirkarimi’s film “Ghasr-e Shirin” (Castle of Dreams) (2019) in Persian (Farsi) language: An amazing screenplay with a sophisticated ending embellishes a film with remarkable direction and performances

It is rare when a feature film competes in an international film festival and wins not just the top honour for the best film but two other major awards (one for best director and one for the best actor) as well. That’s the accomplishment of Reza Mirkarimi’s Iranian film Castle of Dreams at the 2019 Shanghai International Film Festival.

While Mirkarimi’s previous feature film Daughter (2016) dealt with a father-daughter protective relationship, Castle of Dreams also looks at another relationship within a family. The family relationship explored in Castle of Dreams is a more complex one, as it involves a broken family where the mostly absent father is forced by circumstances to realize that he has to take care of his two biological children whom he has neglected for long, when his wife passes away in a hospital after a sudden critical illness.

Jalal (Hamed Behdad) with his sister-in-law

A simple subject, one could surmise.  But the amazing screenplay plays out from start to finish as a thriller forcing the viewer to stay riveted to the plot to see how the unusual social predicament would resolve itself.  There is no hero in this film, only an anti-hero Jalal (Hamed Behdad), who has separated from his wife, Shirin,  (never seen on screen) and has had minimal interaction with his two kids for a minimum of 3 years.

The early introduction of Jalal in Castle of Dreams presents many of his negative aspects of his character upfront making the viewer to abhor this lout. The events that follow let the viewer to perceive a gradual change in this individual as he is forced, much against his original plan, to take on himself the responsibilities of a father.  As the film progresses, the audience witnesses a gradual change in Jalal’s behaviour and attitudes, prompted by a series of events  involving peripheral characters and a series of short conversations with his own kids.  The viewer is able to glimpse what the late Shirin, evidently a smart lady, saw in this man Jalal to marry him after he had repaired her broken down car and continued to acknowledge his positive traits, long after  he had separated from her and continued to neglect their children. Shirin consciously painted fictional tales for her offspring to admire their absent father instead of exhibiting bitterness. Shirin tells her son that his father lives in a castle (hence. the title of the film) and that the bicycle that she has bought for him with her own savings had been gifted by his absent father Jalal.

Jalal with his cute little daughter

Jalal with his son and daughter on the road trip

The fascinating original script written by two little known scriptwriters (Mohammad Davoud and Mohsen Gharaie)  keeps the audience guessing how the tale would end, somewhat like a thriller, while characters seen (Jalal) and unseen (Shirin) are slowly revealed in depth as the film progresses.  It is not surprising the film won the best screenplay (Crystal Simorgh) award at the Fajr Film Festival in Iran. These character developments are facilitated by actions and spoken words of the two kids of the two principal characters.  The first child is a cute, innocent girl called Sara and the second is her elder brother, who is savvy enough to operate an electronic notebook, ride a cycle, and use a debit/credit card with ease.  The interactions of these young kids with their father, who they have not seen for years, are crucial vignettes in the film.

Facts tumble out as the film progresses. Jalal had come to Shirin’s house merely to pick up his car—not to interact with his kids or even visit his wife Shirin lying in a critical condition in a hospital. Shirin, we learn as the film progresses, is a smart woman who teamed up with an elderly rich man to grow flowers in a greenhouse and the resulting business model is thriving. The proceeds of her business are sufficient to support her financially as a single mother of two kids. We also learn from conversations that she is very much still in love with her estranged husband Jalal.  She possibly knew she was terminally ill and therefore left a loaded debit/credit card with her son, planning in advance for the eventual bleak scenario.

Jalal re-evaluates his relationship with his Azei lady fiend

Jalal, we learn is an Azeri (from the original Azerbaijan) not Persian and is planning to live with an Azeri lady. (Azeris are a significant minority in Iran who speak the Azeri language and even Ayatollah Khomeini who led the Iranian revolution was an Azeri Iranian).  When Jalal does not want his kids to hear conversations with his lady friend they speak in Azeri language as the kids can only comprehend Farsi.

Both the kids have been encouraged to love animals by their mother Shirin.  The small girl has a turtle as a pet and the elder boy is an animal lover.  These factors play a strategic part in the interesting script at crucial points to transform their father during a short road trip after their mother’s demise (evidently not revealed to the kids).

Director Mirkarimi (with cap) directs his lead
actor Hamed Behdad during the filming

The film is in some ways reminiscent of the Russian director Andrei Zvyagintsev’s 2007 film The Banishment, where too the father of the nuclear family transforms after the death of his innocent wife and has to take care of his two kids, a boy and a girl. That film, of course, was an acknowledged adaptation of William Saroyan’s novel The Laughing Matter.   Both films Castle of Dreams and The Banishment have one common facet: the viewer is forced to re-evaluate the major male character as he transforms in attitudes and character.

Castle of Dreams presents one of the most sophisticated screenplays with an ending comparable to that of Arthur Penn’s existential thriller Night Moves (1975). Castle of Dreams is definitely one of the remarkable films of 2019 and possibly the best work of the Iranian director Reza Mirkarimi.

(The film is showcased at the on-going Denver Film Festival, USA.)

P.S.  Reza Mirkarimi’s film Daughter (2016), a film focussing on a father-daughter protective relationship within a patriarchal conservative Asian framework has been reviewed earlier on this blog. Andrei Zvyagintsev’s 2007 film The Banishment has been reviewed earlier on this blog.  (Click on the film’s titles within this postscript to access the review.) The author’s best Iranian films is listed here with rankings. Castle of Dreams is the best film among the top 20 films of 2019 for the author.