Going beyond Hollywood - what's stopping us?

Recently, I watched a few Bengali movies – which were surely among the some of the best that I have seen. I particularly liked Satyajit Ray’s Jana Aranya (The middleman), and Rituparno Ghosh’s Utsab (The festival). I was wondering why movies like these do not get a wider audience. Couple of reasons sprang to my mind.

The first one is the marketing and distribution muscle that regional movies (or even movies from developing world) typically lack. The converse of the same reason explains why Hollywood flicks are so popular all over the world – despite a lot of them being mindless assaults on your senses (particularly the ones that trickle down into Indian theatres).

However, there are some studios like The Criterion Collection  which aims to release on DVD such rare gems from all over the world. Ray is exactly the kind of director whose movies Criterion would typically bring out – his movies are world-class, have not been widely distributed, most discs that are available are of bad picture and sound quality – things that Criterion does a good job of rectifying. But even they seem to have studiously neglected Indian movies. I wonder what may be the reason – piracy? 

One other reason behind relative popularity of movies from different countries may be rooted in the communication styles of those countries. While I was watching the Bengali movies – I was noticing that there are plenty of subtleties in communication that I will miss if I do not know the language. There are obviously local references that work only if you know that culture and language intimately – but I mean something more than that. More often than not, in Bengali movies – communication is implicit, messages are often left unsaid, the words are unspoken. Contrast that with the American way of communication – messages are direct, explicit. Even if you are from a different culture, you have no problem following the nuances.

Over time, however, this cultural imbalance is gradually being bridged. Studios like Criterion are helping, so are online stores like Amazon where search features and buyer reviews make such movies much more easy to find. Now even in Landmark stores you can see a section on DVDs of world movies.  Sathyam cinemas in Chennai used to have something called Pure Cinema, where they used to screen good movies from all over the world once a week (they seem to have scrapped this now – not sure why). We also have World Movies channel over cable – which does have some good foreign language movies. Hope we see more commercial initiatives like this – if there is a good movie to watch, or a good book to read – language should not a barrier!

Fear eats the soul

Do you find it easier to connect to an idea when you know the person behind it well? I often do. For example, the fact that John Maynard Keynes led a colorful life made me more interested in his economic theories. (he was a speculator who lost most of his money in 1929 crash, but recouped again later, he married a Russian ballerina). The fact that renowned game theorist Von Neumann died of cancer due to his exposure to radiation during the atomic bomb tests and was the inspiration behind the famous Kubrick character Dr Strangelove – makes me more interested in game theory. I guess this has some implication for learning (and consequently teaching) – where abstract ideas can be made to come to life by connecting them with the people who created them.

Actually, it is a movie that started this train of thought - ‘Ali: Fear eats the soul’ by German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. I read a short Fassbinder biography somewhere a few days back – he died at the age of 37 through a cocktail of sleeping pills and cocaine, he was bisexual with many failed relationships (with one male lover actually hanging himself in jail) and had a fairly troubled childhood. In between all of these, in a short career, he managed to direct a prodigious number of films and TV series. It all sounded intriguing – and I thought I must watch some of his movies that I have in my collection.

This resulted in me viewing ‘Ali: Fear eats the soul’ – one of his more famous movies, during the last weekend. The story was about a German widow, falling in love with a younger man from Morocco – and facing wide disapproval of society. Even though this uses the context of another time and another country, but the theme is pretty universal – we would have seen plenty of Hindi movies with similar themes for sure. It was handled pretty efficiently and clinically though – there is a not a wasted moment here in this movie. You would certainly expect that from a director who has been this prolific.

Nice introduction to Fassbinder – may be I will watch some of his other movies next weekend.

The Decalogue

This is a movie I am currently watching (actually, a series of 10 movies – 50 mins each, originally made for Polish TV). These are short films by the Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski – loosely based on the ten commandments, but basically more on the lives of simple people, often facing difficult choices. There is no overt moral, ethical or religious discussions – but just simple stories of people that we immediately identify with.

It is highly critically acclaimed – Stanley Kubrick said that the Decalogue is the only masterpiece that he could name in his lifetime – and it is not difficult to see why. Till now I managed to watch 5 episodes – and each one of them pack a lot of story and drama within their 50 mins, than an ordinary movie will do in 2-3 hours. The drama is never overt, dialogue-based, or based on racy action – it is just tightly knit human stories. I would soon finish the other 5 episodes, but I do not want to rush through them – just want to relish them at a slow pace.

This film gets a very high rating of 9.2 from IMDB. I would not talk about the stories here – there are many forums which give the stories and some sort of review. My personal favourite is the review of Roger Ebert – I take the liberty to quote from what he has to say:

“These are not characters involved in the simpleminded struggles of Hollywood plots. They are adults, for the most part outside organized religion, faced with situations in their own lives that require them to make moral choices. You shouldn't watch the films all at once, but one at a time. Then if you are lucky and have someone to talk with, you discuss them, and learn about yourself. Or if you are alone, you discuss them with yourself, as so many of Kieslowski's characters do.”