The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : IFFK films draw praise

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Saturday, Dec 15, 2007
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Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

IFFK films draw praise

T. Ramavarman

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: As the eight-day-long edition of the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) drew to a close here on Friday, the delegates parted expressing high appreciation for the films it showcased from across the world.

The Chinese film Getting Home by Yang Zhang; the Mexican film Pan’s Labyrinth by Guilermo tel Torro, the Turkish film Bliss by Abdulla Oguz, the Russian film Banishment by Andrey Zvyagintsev, the Spanish film LastMoon by Miguel Littin and the documentaries Whose Song is This? by Adela Peeva from Bulgaria, and Aime Cesaire by Euzhan Palcy were some of the favourites of film-lovers. However, almost all the 235-odd films screened at the IFFK were greeted well by the delegates.

Tracing some general trend visible in those “remarkable films” screened at the IFFK, poet K.G. Sankarapillai said a key refreshing aspect of most of the films was their attempt to reassert the basic human values of love, camaraderie, commitment, sacrifice, freedom, and the urge to struggle against all forms of dehumanisation.

Even while strongly asserting the dissent against the exploitative nature of globalisation, these films also unravel the dehumanising traps that the organised rebellions fall into unwittingly. They thus become attempts to evolve a new humane and organic paradigm of dissent, relevant to contemporary world situation, Prof. Sankarapillai said.

The return of nature as a backdrop is another vibrant dimension of the films. This is in sharp contrast to the situation in the serious cinema of the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties which had the visible forms of aggressive capitalistic developments.

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