So what have you learned? Who have you heard of? How many have you actually seen? I thought so. Lets crack on with the next 5 then, I do hope you are enjoying this at least somewhere close to how much I am.
Sita Sings the Blues (2008) – Nina Paley — Paddy Mulholland
Simply put, Sita Sings the Blues is among the most joyous, entertaining experiences that the world of film has produced so far this century. You’ve seen a lot like it, in little bits and pieces, but nothing at all like it on the whole: an animated adaptation / discussion / re-imagining of something or other – real life, parable, fantasy. If Sita Sings the Blues is all of the above, it wouldn’t surprise you, so complicated is Nina Paley’s conceit. Yet it functions with the smooth simplicity of the most finely-finessed Old Hollywood capers, an example of intricate construction bearing forth a multi-faceted product with a single, superb purpose: to make you smile! Animated in a variety of styles, each one delightfully rendered despite a minuscule budget, taking on a variety of storytelling forms, each one as charming and persuasive as the last, and set to the most fabulous soundtrack, buoyed by a selection of Annette Hanshaw classics, you’ve truly seen nothing like Sita Sings the Blues. So see it, and love it!
The Selfish Giant (2013) – Clio Barnard — Thomas Pollock
The Selfish Giant is a British film, directed by Clio Barnard, telling the story of two 13 year-old boys in a working class neighborhood. They try to make money by trying to sell things to a scrapyard, which begins to have consequences. This is a bleak and emotional charged film that boasts social realism. The acting from the young performers is convincing and impressive, drawing you in to their lives. This is a story of social class, childhood and friendship. Partly inspired by the Oscar Wilde story of the same name, Barnard tackles the issue of what can happen to lesser-fortunate children in broken homes. A gritty and honest film that is likely to stay with you after viewing.
Earth (1998) – Deepa Mehta — Asif Khan
Deepa Mehta is the Indo-Canadian film director and screenwriter. She is mostly notable for directing the Elements trilogy which includes her controversial Fire (1996), Water (2005) which is her career best effort, also nominated for foreign language Oscar, and of course Earth. This period drama is based upon the Bapsi Sidhwa novel “Cracking India”. Earth is a story set before and during the time of India’s partition in 1947. This is a film that doesn’t require you to read extensively on the topic of the partition, its a touching tale of different characters caught in unfortunate turmoil with messages easily heard and talked about. It is narrated by actress Shabana Azmi as the adult Lenny, the young girl in the film with polio played by Maia Sethna. Lenny is from a wealthy Parsi family, loved by her family and her caretaker, a Hindu woman named Shanta (Nandita Das). Shanta is friends with Dil Navaz (Aamir Khan) and Hassan (Rahul Khanna) both Muslims who have feelings for her. The community lives peacefully and together, as friends and co-workers with awareness of the rising tensions and strains in the country. Tragedy ensues as violence and division threatens to tear these people apart. It features good performances from the ever-lovely Das and the brilliant Aamir Khan as the Ice-Candy Man. Earth is a moving, dramatic telling of partition through effective plot devices such as love, friendship, family and togetherness. Apart from the trilogy, some of Mehta’s work includes Sam & Me, Bollywood/Hollywood and Heaven on Earth.
Beau Travail (1999) – Claire Denis — Steve Schweighofer
Claire Denis’ study of maleness is not-so-loosely based on Herman Melville’s homoerotic novella, Billy Budd, and she (and her camera) produce a fascinating study of men that is both physical and psychological. Instead of at sea, Denis sets her story in the patchwork microcosm that is the French Foreign Legion, stationed in an African outpost. Recruits hail from all over the globe, none of them with a past, and Denis creates a dance of obsession, jealousy and military hierarchy under the hot and sweaty African sun, all set to the music of Britten’s opera, Billy Budd, and the Turkish pop singer, Tarkan. What more can be said about Denis Lavant – he thrives here under Claire Denis’ direction as Galoup, the buttoned-down sergeant whose mundane routine is overturned by the arrival of Sentain, played by Gregoire Colin. Sentain’s likeability among the other soldiers causes jealousy in Galoup and his beauty, an unexpected obsession with which Galoup cannot reconcile. Galoup resents the attention Sentain receives from his own superior and, of course, tries to break the recruit, but Sentain proves to be stronger and this ultimately leads to the need to destroy him. The barren and grey Djibouti setting allows Denis to direct our focus on the expressions and physicality of the men as they perform their duties and interact with each other, eventually to the point of a standoff. Here she veers away from Melville in action, but not intent. Claire Denis is so adept at communicating visually that Beau Travail could easily have been a silent film and still maintained its impact.
Agatha and the Limitless Readings (1981) – Marguerite Duras — Paddy Mulholland
Acclaimed author and filmmaker, the inimitable Marguerite Duras’ canon remains to this day something of a cult quantity. An artist of unparalleled skill and gifted with extraordinary, idiosyncratic insight into the human mind, her work often amounted to as pure a representation of her philosophical enquiries as one can imagine – films not only rich in both text and subtext, but in the presentation thereof, visually, sonically, structurally, thematically, allegorically. She produced many films as oblique as Agatha and the Limitless Readings, her 1981 meditation on / examination of humanity’s relationship with time and its reflexive influence on our perception of it, but few of those transcend the challenges this difficult film sets its audience. It’s a film that insists on an attentiveness that’s admittedly beyond most of us – yet commands the attention nonetheless – and wilfully requires many repeat viewings in order to be deciphered. And yet, like so much of Duras’ artistic output, it defies the process of deciphering, instead existing as a symbol of obliqueness, to be interpreted only as each member of its remarkably tiny audience to date determines. I interpret Agatha and the Limitless Readings as a masterpiece.
Originally posted August 2015.