for those who dont know me much or havent paid attention to my profile, i am currently recovering from a slipped disc. i was on bed-rest/house arrest for 2 weeks. to preserve my sanity under such circumstances i took the aid of my DVD player and nearby 'dial-a-wine' shop. most of my waking hours of those 2 weeks was spent between sips of 'white' and watching world cinema by some of the great auteurs of modern times. let me examine 3 of my favorites.Krzysztof Kieślowski, the first one is the late polish director and the man behind 'Color trilogy', 'Decalogue' amongst other greats.
he was probably one of the most unique minds in the history of movie-making. this view of mine comes purely from the subjects/ideas he chose for his films (i am not even mentioning the art of movie-making here). let me try to illustrate this with a few examples:
No End (1984) : the film opens on the close-up of a man saying that he died two days ago and one starts to think about films like 'ghost' (from hollywood) and 'truly madly deeply (from UK) and realizes brain behind this big idea - a dead man moving around to see and hear the grieving people he has left behind...totally unique!
Blind Chance (1981) : this one is on the various 'what ifs' we all keep facing throughout without realizing it most of the time. it begins with a young man trying to catch a moving train. the rest of the movie (well...actually 3 movies) unfold depending on wether he catches the train or not and the following set of circumstances he gets into. the detailing of the all the three films is impeccable. and yes, you guessed it right this movie inspired the recent experimental hit, 'run lola run'.
Camera Buff (1979): an ordinary family man turns into an acclaimed and obsessive movie-maker and it all began with buying a movie-camera to shoot the growing up of his daughter. a film-making project from the company he works for gets him interested in the art of movie-making and he realizes his calling. in the process he gets distanced from his family (the very first reason he got the camera for), but he doesnt mind it. took me back to 'moon and the six pence' by somerset maughum, the book based on the life of the famous painter, 'gaugin'. the film also has autobiographical shades.
i havent yet begun talking about '3 colors' or 'decalogue'...maybe sometime later. my next posting will be about the other director i mentioned earlier. in the meantime, try watching something by 'keislowsky'...you will enjoy it. and dont forget to add some white wine to the experience...it works beautifully!
7 comments:
great going liked your article on baleno thing....i agree to your point...welcome to the world og blogging...
thanks man...it feels good to be in the 'blog country'.
I found silence to be bergman's greatest work, something absolutely different from anything ive ever seen, also i think federico fellini's 8 1/2 is heavily influenced by bergman and his greatest work, try it if you haven't
Camera buff is probably the most heart-tugging of Kieslowski’s works. Before watching this, I had the feeling that his creativity has placed him on such a high pedestal that he cannot identify with ordinary mortals. Hence you have movies like blue, red, blind chance which are just tales, not a part of our lives, they can never a part of someone’s’ lives as they are too complex and too simplistic at the same time, which an ordinary persons’ life can never be. The presence of life like characters, and life-like episodes, in all those movies, somehow seems more patronizing than tolerant, case in point being the stripper in Blue, or the grossly overboard culmination sequence of White in which karol finally manages to get back at dominique, on top of it, has a sugary sweet cry-babyish exchange across the prison window, probably the only stupid idea to come out of the great brain or maybe i didn't appreciate the thot behind it and am being presumptuous.
With ‘white’ it becomes crystal clear that great minds should stick to their brilliance , their imagination is so fertile that even ordinariness takes on a garb of being special and is ultimately discarded as being special and the unremarkable falls into the real m of the substandard.
i dont know if i'm making sense
anyway went off the track, all said and done, i was quite touched watching camera buff, after quite a while did a movie spawn such a surge of emotions
even i watched the movie again while making my young and uninitiated girl-friend watch it. one of my favorite scenes from the movie:
the wife is all set to leave, yells at him and turns her back towards him to move and our man starts framing her while she leaves. she turns back for some reason and he tries to hide the fact that he was finding this personal a situation worth filiming. detatchment of an artist, superbly depicted.
am in agreement with your views on red, blue and white. they are all very fantastic (filmy) situations represented via the genius of keislowsky....where as a camera buff is how it can be with one of us....
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