I saw this today and I thought I would share it with all of you since it is so similar to what happened with Paradise Now, only in a different way. Some people in India do not like the way Slumdog Millionaire portrays shantytown dwellers. I haven't seen Slumdog yet so I can't comment on it that way. Have a read below. Original source is at the bottom, but I found this lovely little factoid via ohnotheydidnt.
NEW DELHI (AFP) - "Slumdog Millionaire," the runaway hit film that has charmed audiences around the world, seems to have hit a sour note with one Indian activist a day before its release in India.
Tapeshwar Vishwakarma, representing a slum-dwellers' welfare group, is suing the film's music composer A.R. Rahman and one of its stars, actor Anil Kapoor, for depicting slum-dwellers in a bad light and violating their human rights.
Vishwakarma objected to the use of words such as "slumdogs" to describe the millions of inhabitants of India's cramped shantytowns, and filed a defamation case against the duo in the east Indian city of Patna, according to media reports Thursday.
His lawsuit alleges that the very name of the movie is derogatory and an affront to the dignity of India's many slum-dwellers.
The Golden Globe-winning film tells the rags-to-riches story of a young orphan from Mumbai who defies expectations to win the Indian version of the popular gameshow Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
It has won accolades in India and abroad, and is viewed as a possible contender for next month's Oscars.
Vishwakarma told the Times of India that he is only suing Kapoor and Rahman because they are more familiar to Indian audiences than the film's British director Danny Boyle.
"Vishwakarma made it clear that he hardly expected anything positive from a British filmmaker as their ancestors described us as 'dogs'," Vishwakarma's lawyer Shruti Singh told the Indo-Asian News Service.
"But what hurt him was that even Indians associated with the film hardly bothered to object to calling us a 'slumdog'."
The film's co-director Loveleen Tandon is quoted in the Mail Today newspaper as defending the movie, saying "the title is really not meant to be taken as insulting or offensive."
The Patna court will hear the case on February 5.
Source
25 January 2009
24 January 2009
Gaby's Official Story
In response to the blog query: Write a brief biography of the young girl in Official Story; she would now be in her mid-late 20s.
I was asked the other day to tell you the story of my youth. “What is youth?” I answered. Is it those years where one is too young to eat or cloth themselves without assistance? Or is it when they are filled with ideals about life, that the world is full of possibilities?
I would like to tell you about my family, but I do not know which one to tell you about. I had a mother and a father once, but my memories of them are very slim. It shouldn’t matter. They weren’t my real parents, anyway. I remember a flat with a maid in a pink dress. She would feed me meat and tuck me in at night with my dolly at my side. I remember my mother with her long brown hair, and my father who always had a pinched expression on his face. They are the ones that named me Gaby, and it is the one tangible reminder that they were a part of my life once. My last few memories of them consist of screaming matches and tears. I would listen to them from my bed, and sometimes my mother would sleep with me, wetting my hair with her tears. My mother would look at me like I was the last hope in the world, and near the end, my father wouldn’t look at me at all.
My grandmother told me that they weren’t my real parents, that my own had died during the Dirty War, that these people had bought me from the government. Did they kill my real parents? I don’t know.
When I was five, my mother had picked me up from my grandparents house (well, I had thought they were my grandparents) and dropped me off with Grandmother Rabello. She said I was to live with her now, that she was my real grandmother. I didn’t understand her, and I remember crying for her. Where was Daddy? Did they not love me anymore?
I will always remember her last words to me.
“Oh baby, I love you so much. More than you will ever know. You are the love of my life. Some day you will understand. Someday, baby. Go with your grandmother, Gaby. Go, baby, she needs you.”
I don’t remember what my last name used to be, and Grandmother Rabello never mentions it. I still live in Buenos Aires, and every once in awhile I will see someone that looks so much like my mother I can’t help but stare. I think it is her, and I think she sees me, too, but she is always gone by the time I make it through the crowd, hoping against hope that she will be there when I make it.
I was married last year, and this year I am expecting my first child. I hope it will be a son. I have been spending time in the biblioteca using their computers to see what I can find out about the Dirty War, about my history. I know what happened to my real parents thanks to Grandmother Rabello, and I am hoping my search will lead me to my adoptive parents. I was a desaparecido once. The more I learn about the time of my birth, the more I want to see the woman that sent me back.
I may be found, but I once was lost. And in being found, I have lost so much. I would like my son to meet his grandmother, the one that loved me and cherished me and gave me my name.
I feel blind. I would like to see.
I was asked the other day to tell you the story of my youth. “What is youth?” I answered. Is it those years where one is too young to eat or cloth themselves without assistance? Or is it when they are filled with ideals about life, that the world is full of possibilities?
I would like to tell you about my family, but I do not know which one to tell you about. I had a mother and a father once, but my memories of them are very slim. It shouldn’t matter. They weren’t my real parents, anyway. I remember a flat with a maid in a pink dress. She would feed me meat and tuck me in at night with my dolly at my side. I remember my mother with her long brown hair, and my father who always had a pinched expression on his face. They are the ones that named me Gaby, and it is the one tangible reminder that they were a part of my life once. My last few memories of them consist of screaming matches and tears. I would listen to them from my bed, and sometimes my mother would sleep with me, wetting my hair with her tears. My mother would look at me like I was the last hope in the world, and near the end, my father wouldn’t look at me at all.
My grandmother told me that they weren’t my real parents, that my own had died during the Dirty War, that these people had bought me from the government. Did they kill my real parents? I don’t know.
When I was five, my mother had picked me up from my grandparents house (well, I had thought they were my grandparents) and dropped me off with Grandmother Rabello. She said I was to live with her now, that she was my real grandmother. I didn’t understand her, and I remember crying for her. Where was Daddy? Did they not love me anymore?
I will always remember her last words to me.
“Oh baby, I love you so much. More than you will ever know. You are the love of my life. Some day you will understand. Someday, baby. Go with your grandmother, Gaby. Go, baby, she needs you.”
I don’t remember what my last name used to be, and Grandmother Rabello never mentions it. I still live in Buenos Aires, and every once in awhile I will see someone that looks so much like my mother I can’t help but stare. I think it is her, and I think she sees me, too, but she is always gone by the time I make it through the crowd, hoping against hope that she will be there when I make it.
I was married last year, and this year I am expecting my first child. I hope it will be a son. I have been spending time in the biblioteca using their computers to see what I can find out about the Dirty War, about my history. I know what happened to my real parents thanks to Grandmother Rabello, and I am hoping my search will lead me to my adoptive parents. I was a desaparecido once. The more I learn about the time of my birth, the more I want to see the woman that sent me back.
I may be found, but I once was lost. And in being found, I have lost so much. I would like my son to meet his grandmother, the one that loved me and cherished me and gave me my name.
I feel blind. I would like to see.
19 January 2009
Machuca Reviews
Below are links to various reviews about Andres Wood's 2004 film, Machuca.
BBC
Slant Magazine
Salon.com
BBC
Slant Magazine
Salon.com
06 January 2009
Judging Paradise Now
Concerning the petitions that occurred to remove the film Paradise Now from Oscar consideration because of its subject matter, I agree with the counter-petition, more or less. I believe both the original and counter-petitions amount to no more than a schoolyard fight of “did not – did, too” and should be treated as such.
Everyone has a right to be heard and to give an opinion. By suppressing one’s opinion on any given event, whether real or make believe, is just that – suppression. What gives someone the right to judge another and their beliefs? To tell someone they don’t have the right to exist?
I am of the firm belief that the majority of the people who signed the original petition never actually watched the film themselves. Instead, they took the word of “one side” as the correct version of events. It was a petition meant to inflame the public by giving a personal account centered around the death of a beloved son as well as blaming the bombing of the Twin Towers in New York on the Palestinian people (last I looked, Al-Qaeda did that). Since the petition was meant to be read by a group consisting of mostly Americans it only accounts as inflammatory in its conjecture. Just like a lawyer cross-examining a witness, it doesn't matter if the opposing attorney objects to a statement and the judge sustains, it was still said and heard.
On a completely separate issue, film is considered another form of art, of expression, and for that reason alone would it be considered as a nominee for an Oscar. It was very well made and beautiful. To take it out of contention for an art based award just because of its subject matter would have been blasphemous and completely ignorant.
Judge not, lest ye be judged.
Everyone has a right to be heard and to give an opinion. By suppressing one’s opinion on any given event, whether real or make believe, is just that – suppression. What gives someone the right to judge another and their beliefs? To tell someone they don’t have the right to exist?
I am of the firm belief that the majority of the people who signed the original petition never actually watched the film themselves. Instead, they took the word of “one side” as the correct version of events. It was a petition meant to inflame the public by giving a personal account centered around the death of a beloved son as well as blaming the bombing of the Twin Towers in New York on the Palestinian people (last I looked, Al-Qaeda did that). Since the petition was meant to be read by a group consisting of mostly Americans it only accounts as inflammatory in its conjecture. Just like a lawyer cross-examining a witness, it doesn't matter if the opposing attorney objects to a statement and the judge sustains, it was still said and heard.
On a completely separate issue, film is considered another form of art, of expression, and for that reason alone would it be considered as a nominee for an Oscar. It was very well made and beautiful. To take it out of contention for an art based award just because of its subject matter would have been blasphemous and completely ignorant.
Judge not, lest ye be judged.
02 January 2009
Learning Lessons
In response to Joan Chen’s Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl, I try to imagine what my life would have been like, not only experiencing what Xiu Xiu went through, but if I were a girl that grew up in China after the Cultural Revolution, listening to the stories of her and others sent into the countryside to be re-educated by Mao Zedong and his government. Xiu Xiu tried to defy the government in the only way her limited education and experience taught her – by using her body as a something that could be used in lieu of payment for her freedom. The basis behind her being sent to the grasslands along with thousands of other youths of her generation was for Mao to regain control of a campaign that had exceeded his expectations in fighting his opponents and was currently destroying what authority was left within the Chinese government. Besides the sadness one cannot help but feel at Xiu Xiu’s predicament, one cannot also help but feel the despair at her simply being forgotten out there in the grasslands. No one was coming for her, and no one would be.
If I grew up listening to her story, and I lived in China during the more recent political battles, I would like to think that I would take part in them. Xiu Xiu went willingly to the grasslands where she and countless others believed it was the appropriate thing to do for their family and their country. Xiu Xiu had the misfortune of coming across people who used her patriotism against her, people that preyed on her naivety and ignorance of the ways of life. China is not perfect; no country is perfect, and I would like to believe that I would not so ignorantly just sit by and let them take advantage of me in the name of patriotism.
If I had the opportunity to take a part in the student riots of Tiananmen Square, I would willingly oblige. The riots of those times were remarkably similar to those of the Cultural Revolution – people fighting against a political policy/economy/authority that did not follow with the beliefs of the majority. However, the riots of the 1980’s lacked one crucial element that drove the Cultural Revolution to the conclusion it had – the charisma of Mao Zedong. Mao was able to persuade the people into believing and acting the way they did. Without him, no “campaigns” reigned forth over China. Uprisings rose and fell with the times, but no all out propaganda ruled China the way it had previously.
If I was a young girl, and my parents had told me the story of Xiu Xiu and the Cultural Revolution, I would consider it my duty to make my voice heard. If they felt the need to impart such an important lesson to me, it would only be my duty to listen to it. I may not take part in the riots, but I would be with them in spirit. She was a young girl, just like me. I must learn her lesson, or her fate would be my own.
23 December 2008
The Earth is flat.
As a film, I found Earth by Deepa Mehta to be on average a mediocre bit of storytelling. On first viewing, I could understand why Zarminae Ansariy found it so unforgettable in their review. If you aren’t looking for any depth into the motives of the characters and only look upon it as a dramatic way to kill time, you will find it breathtaking in its simplicity. When Lenny witnesses a man dismembered in the streets, she re-enacts it upon one of her dolls at home. Her tears after Cousin Adi asks “why are you so mean if you can’t stand it?” only emphasizes the devastation witnessed all around her. However, this one moment cannot save the lack of depth in the rest of the film. For that, I primarily agree with reviewer C.J.S. Wallia.
Deepa Mehta’s script lacks one crucial element - believability. These people act this way because that is the way history tells us they should, and as such, they will be stereotypical portrayals so there will be no confusion. We will have a group of friends from every major religion discuss and debate the war taking place around them. We will have them scream at each other, attack each other, and eventually kill each other, but we will not give any reasons as to why. The script attempts to give us a little depth every once in a while, but it comes across more as a surface skimming, like a rock skipping across a pond. We see splashes here and there, but for the most part the surface is smooth.
While the majority of the film is given, and narrated, from the viewpoint of a small eight year old girl named Lenny, there are times where she is nowhere in sight for her viewpoint to exist, such as when Ice-Candy Man is waiting for his sisters to come on the train, or the Masseur’s visit to the Shikh. How could this film show the memory of someone when they were never there to experience it in the first place? Is this memoir supposed to be her romanticized version of events?
Earth is meant to be a film of romance and melodrama on one level, and a pseudo-documentary on another. There is no doubting the history shown within this 101 minute film. The dividing of India into the countries of India and Pakistan did happen. The riots between the Hindu and Muslim faiths did escalate into murders. Friends and families were split apart. Homes were fled for safer climates. However, as a film Earth was lacking. Until the perspective started to change, there was no real depth to the film, and even then the motives and reasonings behind some characters decisions made little sense. When it ended upon an adult Lenny finishing off her memories in a cemetery, it was startling. Who is this woman? Why is she here? Oh, are we back to that?
Humph.
We were better off without her.
Deepa Mehta’s script lacks one crucial element - believability. These people act this way because that is the way history tells us they should, and as such, they will be stereotypical portrayals so there will be no confusion. We will have a group of friends from every major religion discuss and debate the war taking place around them. We will have them scream at each other, attack each other, and eventually kill each other, but we will not give any reasons as to why. The script attempts to give us a little depth every once in a while, but it comes across more as a surface skimming, like a rock skipping across a pond. We see splashes here and there, but for the most part the surface is smooth.
While the majority of the film is given, and narrated, from the viewpoint of a small eight year old girl named Lenny, there are times where she is nowhere in sight for her viewpoint to exist, such as when Ice-Candy Man is waiting for his sisters to come on the train, or the Masseur’s visit to the Shikh. How could this film show the memory of someone when they were never there to experience it in the first place? Is this memoir supposed to be her romanticized version of events?
Earth is meant to be a film of romance and melodrama on one level, and a pseudo-documentary on another. There is no doubting the history shown within this 101 minute film. The dividing of India into the countries of India and Pakistan did happen. The riots between the Hindu and Muslim faiths did escalate into murders. Friends and families were split apart. Homes were fled for safer climates. However, as a film Earth was lacking. Until the perspective started to change, there was no real depth to the film, and even then the motives and reasonings behind some characters decisions made little sense. When it ended upon an adult Lenny finishing off her memories in a cemetery, it was startling. Who is this woman? Why is she here? Oh, are we back to that?
Humph.
We were better off without her.
21 December 2008
Schadenfraude in Lamerica
In Gianni Amelio’s film Lamerica, we see a country stricken with poverty brought on by communist and fascist governments, greed and corruption. The characters of Gino and Fiore, Italian businessmen filling the role of modern day carpetbaggers, enter Albania to start a puppet company in hopes of swindling money out of their investors. However, in order to even reach as far as grants and financial talks, they need to appoint a native Albanian as company chairman. What could only be described as a dark comedy of errors they choose a homeless man held as a political prisoner, so old and downtrodden he barely remembers his name, let alone how to spell it. To further complicate this mad scheme, when he does remember, he remembers not the past fifty years in Albania, but the first twenty years of his youth - in Italy.
While this film was not meant to portray anything remotely humorous, it cannot help but do so as we see Gino chase his chairman Spiro across Albania after the man regains the memory of his youth and leaves for his remembered home in Italy. This is not a happy go-lucky humor but more a schadenfraude for the mishaps Gino encounters on his journey from egotistical executive to humble peasant. At each instance he parks his jeep to look for Spiro or find a bite to eat, you can see the naivety in his belief that nothing will happen to him or his possessions. For a con artist, this naivety is utterly endearing and makes him a character we can’t help but root for while we laugh at his predicament. We want him to see the despair and poverty around him, to become one with it, for only in experiencing it himself can he understand the people he is attempting to exploit. For him to learn on his journey that he has lost his job with his manufactured company brings a happy chuckle deep in the belly. He is taken for what he is, stripped of his nationality by means of his confiscated passport, and becomes one of the proverbial Them - the evacuee’s, the refugee’s, the Albanians.
Amelio may not have meant for this cinematic schadenfraude to occur, and for most people, they may not even see it there. The stunning cinematography, the careful background score mixed with moments of silence make the carefully crafted pictures of Albanian despair heartbreakingly beautiful. Nowhere Spiro and Gino go do we not see street children begging by the dozens or the old silent in their contemplations. One feels dramatically for the Albanians in their hope for a better future in Italy, but through it all, one cannot help but chuckle at the man who learns the hard way what life is like for them. And in his youthful arrogance, Gino most assuredly does.
While this film was not meant to portray anything remotely humorous, it cannot help but do so as we see Gino chase his chairman Spiro across Albania after the man regains the memory of his youth and leaves for his remembered home in Italy. This is not a happy go-lucky humor but more a schadenfraude for the mishaps Gino encounters on his journey from egotistical executive to humble peasant. At each instance he parks his jeep to look for Spiro or find a bite to eat, you can see the naivety in his belief that nothing will happen to him or his possessions. For a con artist, this naivety is utterly endearing and makes him a character we can’t help but root for while we laugh at his predicament. We want him to see the despair and poverty around him, to become one with it, for only in experiencing it himself can he understand the people he is attempting to exploit. For him to learn on his journey that he has lost his job with his manufactured company brings a happy chuckle deep in the belly. He is taken for what he is, stripped of his nationality by means of his confiscated passport, and becomes one of the proverbial Them - the evacuee’s, the refugee’s, the Albanians.
Amelio may not have meant for this cinematic schadenfraude to occur, and for most people, they may not even see it there. The stunning cinematography, the careful background score mixed with moments of silence make the carefully crafted pictures of Albanian despair heartbreakingly beautiful. Nowhere Spiro and Gino go do we not see street children begging by the dozens or the old silent in their contemplations. One feels dramatically for the Albanians in their hope for a better future in Italy, but through it all, one cannot help but chuckle at the man who learns the hard way what life is like for them. And in his youthful arrogance, Gino most assuredly does.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)