Meeting the masters
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The on-going Italian film festival at Sarathi Studios offers a brush with celluloid genius.
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THAT ITALIAN cinema has had a great effect on our filmmakers is a known fact - from Satyajit Ray and Guru Dutt to Raj Kapoor, the effect of Vittorio De Sica and company are there for all to see from the framing and themes to the ubiquitous train thundering by. The festival of Italian films organised by Hyderabad Film Club is a not-to-be-missed chance to catch these great masters of celluloid.
A little problem with the courier service saw a reshuffling of the programme but it was all for the best as the opening film was Vittorio De Sica's "Miracle in Milan." This 1950 film tells a charming allegorical tale of Toto, who Lolotta finds in a cabbage patch. Lolotta cares for Toto and after her death; Toto is put in an orphanage. When Toto is 18, he leaves the orphanage and stays with squatters in a little shantytown. His sunny disposition and amiable nature inspires the squatters to better their living conditions. However, when they strike oil, the owner evicts them to claim the oil. When the toughs come to get rid of the squatters, Lolotta appears to Toto and gives him a magic dove, which helps repel the goons. As the squatters celebrate, they begin to ask the dove for favours. The wishes get more and more extravagant and when one of them demands that the sun rise, angels come and take the dove away. Without the dove, the owner is able to get the better of the squatters and as they are being herded away, Lolotta appears with the dove to give Toto and his friends one last chance at a better life.
De Sica, whose "Bicycle Thief" redefined the grammar of film, is in fine form in this sociological fairy tale. The film, which won the grand prize at Cannes, has had many social, political and religious readings imposed on it, though De Sica has always held the film is a simple fable about the triumph of good over evil.
Coming to terms
"The Son's Room," which won the Palme D'Or at Cannes in 2001, is a wonderful intimate film on the anatomy of grief. Directed by Nanni Moretti, who also acts in the film, the film tells the story of a close-knit family whose lives come apart in the face of a tragedy. Moretti plays Giovanni a successful psychoanalyst, happily married with two lovely children. When the son, Andrea, dies in a diving accident, the family is shattered. Giovanni is irritated with his patients, his wife Paula alternately lashes out at him and clings to him, while Irene, the daughter, shows her rage by getting into a fight in a school basketball game. A chance letter by Arianna, a girl Andrea met at summer camp, shows the path to reconciliation and recovery.
Moretti says he began writing "The Son's Room" when he discovered his wife was expecting their child. The movie uses a feather light touch to deal with a subject that could have so easily turned manipulative.
Life as a joke
Enough was been written and said about Roberto Benigni's monstrously successful, multiple award winning Holocaust drama, "Life is Beautiful." Benigni plays Guido, a Jewish Italian writer who courts and marries Dora. Life is beautiful for the family till they are sent to a concentration camp. Wishing to protect his son from the horrors of the holocaust, Guido pretends their internment is just a game with a tank as the grand prize.
The Nazis captured Benigni's father Luigi in Albania in 1943. He worked in a labour camp for two years and later when he would recount his incarceration, he would talk of it in a humorous manner. In an interview Benigni said, "Like in my movie, my father was telling us like it was a fable. He was afraid to make us fearful. He was protecting us like I am protecting the son in the movie, because this is the first instinct - to protect the son."
Art house Mafia movie
"One Hundred Steps" (2000) is the distance from Peppinno Impastato's house to the house of the Mafia don Tano Badalmenti. Peppinno refuses to walk the distance - instead like all youngsters, he challenges authority which in this case is the Mafia. This is the Seventies when everyone roundly denied the existence of the Mafia. Peppinno sets up a radio station and broadcasts his views. He even decides to stand for elections but two days before the elections in 1978, he is killed. The police try to pass it off as a suicide and it is only after concerted efforts by friends that more than 20 years after Peppinno's death, the case is reopened and Tano is accused of ordering the assassination.
Director Marco Tullio Giordana says, "This isn't a film about the Mafia. It is more a film about energy, about the desire to build, about imagination and the happiness of a group of kids who dared to look to the sky and challenge the world thinking they could change it." The film has a wonderful retro feel with all the right music (Len Cohen and Janis Joplin among others) and the spirit of the swinging sixties right down to the scooters zipping down the breathtaking cliff roads.
Music to the eyes
The final film of the festival to be screened tomorrow is an aural and visual treat. Directed by Guiseppe Tornatore ("Cinema Paradiso") "The Legend of 1900" has Tim Roth playing the improbably named Danny Boodman T.D. Lemon 1900. Called 1900 after the year of his birth, he is found by deckhand aboard a luxury liner "The Virginian." 1900 lives on board and soon becomes a very gifted pianist. He never leaves the ship but his fame as a pianist is so great as to prompt the famous jazz musician Jelly Roll Morton to challenge him to play off.
The moment of truth comes when 1900 falls in love and almost leaves the ship only to retrace his steps up the gangway. While the philosophy might sound like a load of mumbo jumbo, the film is brilliantly shot - being in English allows you to soak the marvellous visuals. A great looking movie, keep your eyes peeled for the set piece where 1900 plays the piano as it careens wildly around the ship during a storm.
Then the play off is fun in a show offy manner and Tim Roth looks like a holy angel.All in all the festival is a magnificent package.
MINI ANTHIKAD-CHHIBBER
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