Films: Entertaining, Enlightening, Experiencing, Experimenting
K S Sivakumaran
 Having
seen 41 films in Goa and 33 in Kerala (two states in India) during the Festival
of International Films held by the Central Government and the State Government
of that country respectively during November 22 - December
02 and again from December 12 to December 19, I returned to Sri Lanka on
December 21,2008. I spent 40 days in the Indian subcontinent having visited the
states of Thamilnadu, Puthuvai ( a separate State, south of Thamilnadu), Goa,
Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala. My visit to Chennai, the capital of
Thamilnadu also included a journey to Kanchipuram, a suburban town, a few miles
away from Chennai and Coiammuththoor. and Thiruchirapalli. I spent some time in
Goa (Panaji) and Karnataka ( Bangalore). I made a trip to receive the blessings
of Sri Sathya Sai Baaba in Puttaparthi in Andhra Pradesh. My last destination
was the capital of Kerala (Thiuvananthapuram)
What have I gained by this memorable journey?
Experience while facing unpredictable situations, splendid feeling in bright
pleasant atmosphere and situations; meeting different colourful personalities
from various parts of the globe ( academics, intellectuals, artistes, artists,
teachers, knowledgeable cineastes, and finally acquiring new knowledge on Cinema
etc.
Talking about some of the best films in the international scene that include
those from India itself, one feels gratified.
However it is impossible for me to write detailed analysis of all the 74 films I
had seen.
Nevertheless I could see some significant themes in these films:
In line with the contemporary reality the films try to portray misguided
politics and the resultant damages to life and property, clogged perceptions and
clueless and chaotic administrations, racial and ethnic tensions, upsetting
traditional basic human values, criminality, horrible violence, free and cheap
sexual behaviours, drug trafficking and the like took the centre stage in films
produced in India and elsewhere.
The two Festivals focused on seriousness and artistic films as far as possible
from Asia, Africa and Latin America as the films of Europe, America and
Australia were few in number. Such films were categorised under Retropectives
and Tributes etc.
The Directorates of these two Festivals had rightly selected packages of films
that had the segments mentioned above,
However, as a Lankan witnessing for more than a quarter century the continuous
ethnic violence, I personally dislike the replay of violence and the injustice
caused to people who fell victim to the onslaughts. And these people belong to
the protagonists and the antagonists.
At the same time one noticed that in almost all the films the underlying
positive aspect in most of the films was Love and Truth. The kind of love was
not only romantic or sexual, but also lost love regained, bonds and re-
reestablishment of basic decency and human values. This had a subliminal
response within me.
Apart from the content the filmmakers of international cinema, especially the
cinematographers take you to places which you have not had the opportunity to
visit some distant places in the far end of the globe.
Slices of life and living educate me and make me more empathetic towards humans
and even animals that struggle to exist in dire adverse situations and worse
predicaments.
I enjoyed most the films that gave a psychological interpretation of characters
that figured in the stories and dramas in the medium of artistic cinema. I was
enthralled with films that had music as the central component in films.
I shall select a few films that spells out the themes mentioned as illustrations
on another occasion.
sivakumaranks@yahoo.com
Ultra-Nationalism, Racism leads to
Terrorism
K.S. Sivakumaran
 After
seeing the Cuban film- The Scent of Oak- at the Russian Cultural centre
in Colombo during the Cuban Film Festival last week, it was easy for me to
rationalize that Ultra -Nationalism in the name of Patriotism could lead to
Racism and ultimately to Terrorism. In this film Hatred instead of Love pervades
among the French rulers in Haiti. A Liberal German in that country is targeted
with his black lover whom the rulers contend that the blacks are evils who
resort to witchcraft. All this is due to ignorance of the real
potentialities of the 'other'.
Such people also have a conditioned mindset of assumption that the 'other' is
inferior and therefore the 'other' should be hated. Such people have a 'pseudo
superiority complex'. To their surprise they are overwhelmed by a shocking
realization that superiority complex could not be perpetrated when the 'other'
is in fact not inferior as they assumed. In fact they had to accept the fact
that the 'other' is in fact even better than 'them'.
But such people cannot bear their own showdown and become furious as if they
want to annihilate those whom they hated. This results in an act of barbarism
and gruesome killing of their enemies. That is tantamount to terrorism.
A brief review of the film would explain what was meant above.
***
Directed by Rigoberto López Pego in 2002 this film is Spanish-speaking with
English subtitles.
Although the credits in the films said that the story was imaginative, some
sources said that it was based on a true story.
" Scent of Oak is set in the plantation world of 19th century Cuba. Cornelio
Souchay, a recently immigrated German merchant, and Ursula Lambert, a beautiful
and distinguished black business woman from Haiti, fall in love and join their
fates in the productive venture of their coffee plantation Angerona. Both their
love relationship and their more humane way of dealing with slave labor are
counter to all the social norms of the time."
The erotic scenes were beautiful but I felt that some scenes might have been cut
to respond to Lankan morality. The cinematography was marvelous. The scores of
classical music of Hayden and Mozart were lyrical in consonance with the nature
in the backdrop. The animosity of the ardent French nationalists could not bear
to see the native black people could have an orchestra playing western classical
music. They felt that a 'black is black' and could not aspire to be 'white'.
Hence the hatred and animosity.
Further the German's cousin becomes jealous of a black woman with Grecian
propensity of beauty could be sexually attractive because she felt that with her
aristocratic manners and beauty her cousin should love her. So she plans to have
sex with a young muscular black man and induces him to make love to her. After
having satiated with her carnal desires she accuses another black man (because
he did not want the real person who had sex with her to die) and makes him
killed.
The film ends in tragedy.
Critics said that this is another profound film from Cuba that explores power
relations in a society marked by race-based slavery. I agree.
While my reactions to the film as started above remain, I would like the readers
to know the story in full as told in a UNESCO release from the socio-political
perspective.
***
"The film is inspired by real persons, a mixed couple who in the 1800's in Cuba,
set up one of the most important café plantations on the Island - Cornelio
Souchay, an idealistic German businessman, portrayed by popular actor Jorge
Perugorria, and Ursula Lambert (Lia Chapman), a Creole from the Island of
Hispanola, later divided up into Haiti and Dominican Republic, as an independent
textile shop merchant.
Their fates cross paths when Souchay spots her around town, finding out where
she works and then purchases some cloth in her store. It is clear from first
glance, that he is strongly besotted with the proud and elegant Lambert,
pursuing her around the colonial city until she succumbs to his genteel
courtship and 'old world' charm.
The street-wise Ursula coaches him into staking their (promising) luck on the
lucrative coffee trade and establishing a plantation named Angerona, after a
pantheistic divinity she believes in (although she frequents the Catholic
institutions at hand, as well). Their premise is to create a sort of utopia farm
where black workers and slaves are treated with respect and encouraged to
cultivate themselves by forming a classical orchestra proficient in Hayden,
Mozart and the great European composers. In the way it is run, the observance of
humane principles by Cornelio Souchay and Ursula who physically pitch in with
the work at all stages too, the endeavour blossoms into a successful and happy
venture for all, where the blacks are given hope for the future. But envy and
greed arouses in power figures of the local council and neighbours due to the
unconventional nature of the project and soon runs afoul with local farmers,
Spanish bureaucrats and even members of Souchay's own family - an snobbish
blonde female cousin visiting from Germany, who turns out to be the worst
imaginable pest, all betraying his friendship, hospitality and all out for his
and Ursula's hide.
"The film is a metaphor", explains the director. It is not to be taken
realistically and those who only perceive it as a film against racism, miss out
on other important messages such as pettiness, persecution of non-conformity
with what society deems the norm or 'model role' and stereotyped way of behaving
: intolerance.
Both the camera takes and music (by the super-talented Cuban Vitier brothers)
produce a refined and polished ambiance of an old Colonial country setting, with
breathtaking photography of the slaves mainly dressed in white, playing Hayden
in an orchestra in a cave with onlooker workers and the corrupt 'rich guys'
perched on ledges on the rocks, contemplating them with awe.
Some details, however, border on pure camp such as when Bertha Hesse, Cornelio's
cousin, lures a young black gardener into her bedroom. The bare-torso,
broad-shouldered slave gleams in the dark, his muscles oozing with packed-on oil
as he stealthily creeps up the stairs.
Near the end, as belligerent bailiffs sent by the court to witness if the black
orchestra is real, progressively massacre with a single gunshot, the musicians
playing Hayden, seeing them fall one after the other, with no reaction nor
resistance, is a tad difficult to stomach. After a career of documentary
filmmaking, "Scent of an Oak" is Lopez Pego's first feature film - on the line
of the historical Cuban blockbuster with a strong political message: intolerance
of cultural differences and racism.
This theme of Cuba's national identity is a subject frequently dealt with in
that country and has been previously explored by greats such as Tomas Gutierrez
Alea and Humberto Solas. The film comes full cycle again at the closing sequence
when we once more see the two modest tombstones standing next to the solid oak
tree, which is bleeding now, as the light casts down on the demise of the
Angerona plantation and vanquishing of its occupants.With this first feature,
Rigoberto Lopez, here signs a meaningful and universal look at the past,
inviting us to review our own individual intolerances and perhaps do something
about them.
Helen Dobrensky at UNESCO, April 2008, Festival Itinerante Del Caribe. The film
is inspired by real persons, a mixed couple who in the 1800's in Cuba, set up
one of the most important café plantations on the Island - Cornelio Souchay, an
idealistic German businessman, portrayed by popular actor Jorge Perugorria, and
Ursula Lambert (Lia Chapman), a Creole from the Island of Hispanola, later
divided up into Haiti and Dominican Republic, as an independent textile shop
merchant.
Their fates cross paths when Souchay spots her around town, finding out where
she works and then purchases some cloth in her store. It is clear from first
glance, that he is strongly besotted with the proud and elegant Lambert,
pursuing her around the colonial city until she succumbs to his genteel
courtship and 'old world' charm.
The street-wise Ursula coaches him into staking their (promising) luck on the
lucrative coffee trade and establishing a plantation named Angerona, after a
pantheistic divinity she believes in (although she frequents the Catholic
institutions at hand, as well). Their premise is to create a sort of utopia farm
where black workers and slaves are treated with respect and encouraged to
cultivate themselves by forming a classical orchestra proficient in Hayden,
Mozart and the great European composers. In the way it is run, the observance of
humane principles by Cornelio Souchay and Ursula who physically pitch in with
the work at all stages too, the endeavour blossoms into a successful and happy
venture for all, where the blacks are given hope for the future. But envy and
greed arouses in power figures of the local council and neighbours due to the
uncongenial nature of the project and soon runs afoul with local farmers,
Spanish bureaucrats and even members of Souchay's own family - an insufferably
snobbish blonde female cousin visiting from Germany, who turns out to be the
worst imaginable pest, all betraying his friendship, hospitality and all out for
his and Ursula's hide.
"The film is a metaphor", explains the director. It is not to be taken
realistically and those who only perceive it as a film against racism, miss out
on other important messages it vehicles such as pettiness, persecution of
non-conformity with what society deems the norm or 'model role' and stereotyped
way of behaving : intolerance. Both the camera takes and music (by the
super-talented Cuban Vitier brothers) produce a refined and polished ambiance of
an old Colonial country setting, with breathtaking photography of the slaves
mainly dressed in white, playing Hayden in an orchestra in a cave with onlooker
workers and the corrupt 'rich guys' perched on ledges on the rocks,
contemplating them with awe.
Some details, however, border on pure camp such as when Bertha Hesse, Cornelio's
cousin, lures a young black gardener into her bedroom. The bare-torso,
broad-shouldered slave gleams in the dark, his muscles oozing with packed-on oil
as he stealthily creeps up the stairs.
Near the end, as belligerent bailiffs sent by the court to witness if the black
orchestra is real, progressively massacre with a single gunshot, the musicians
playing Hayden, seeing them fall one after the other, with no reaction nor
resistance, is a tad difficult to stomach. After a career of documentary
filmmaking, "Scent of an Oak" is Lopez Pego's first feature film - on the line
of the historical Cuban blockbuster with a strong political message: intolerance
of cultural differences and racism.
This theme of Cuba's national identity is a subject frequently dealt with in
that country and has been previously explored by greats such as Tomas Gutierrez
Alea and Humberto Solas. The film comes full cycle again at the closing sequence
when we once more see the two modest tombstones standing next to the solid oak
tree, which is bleeding now, as the light casts down on the demise of the
Angerona plantation and vanquishing of its occupants. With this first feature,
Rigoberto Lopez, here signs a meaningful and universal look at the past,
inviting us to review our own individual intolerances and perhaps do something
about them.
Helen Dobrensky at UNESCO, April 2008, Festival Itinerante Del Caribe.
sivakumaranks@yahoo.com |
Pathivugal ISSN 1481-2991
