27-07-2008

9 AM

AT SAVITHA THEATRE

ERNAKULAM

Ekantham -

On the pain of loneliness (2006)
MALAYALAM/COLOUR/35MM/

Director Madhu Kaithapram

Producer Antony Joseph

Cast Murali,Thilakan

Editor Venugopal

Camera man Radhakrishnan M J

Lyrics Kaithapram

Music director Kaithapram Viswanathan

Screenplay Alankode Leelakrishnan

Life is never uncomplicated. The reasons for one’s insecurity maybe many. But the eventual outcome of feeling hopeless and lost is common, especially among the oldies.
Ekantham tackles the subject of old age issues. The feeling of being left out and paranoia is common in many elder citizens. As we said, the causes vary.
Madhu Kaithapram through his debut film Ekantham has tried to go the parallel way of schemes and has etched out a better film. The film with its title which means “Solitude" is a sensitive creation based on the loneliness felt in old age, with no one to take care off. The thing about Ekantham is that it doesn’t get into polemic of doesn’t pontificate; it just showcases the problems of two different individuals.
Opening with aged Achutha Menon performing the last rites for his deceased wife Saraswathy, the film follows his loneliness since he has no children and no immediate relatives. Being a big beaurocrat, he had never taken care of his family in his home village. Tiring of his lonely life, he decides to go to his younger brother Ravunni, who lives in their native village. Ravunni too is a widower, but has a son Viswanathan and a daughter Chandrika, both of whom are settled in the city with their respective families. Since he is suffering from a severe ailment, his daughter and son visits him at regular intervals. Both the brothers meet after a long time, they cherish the memories of old times and are happy being together.
As Ravunni's health deteriorates further, his son and daughter decide to shift him to the city for better treatments. But on the advice of his friend Captain R.K.Nair, Ravunni decides to move to 'Kaarunyam Pain and Palliative Care Centre' a place that provides holistic treatment.
And once at the centres, the two brothers come across a bunch of very different characters like Velayudhan, Dr. Sunny, who is in charge of the centre, Dr. Sophie, who is working there and is deeply in love with Dr. Sunny. All the incidents in the centre is a relegation to Achutha Menon, who is also staying back with his brother. A world of uncanny human relationships opens before him, who decides to look into them in a novel way that he never had experienced before.
Thilakan who plays Achutha Menon once again proves why he is the best in these kinds of characterizations and does it with ease, while Murali is also in his usual self. Salim Kumar as Velayudhan has a small but beautiful role to keep in his records. Manoj K. Jayan as Dr. Sunny and Meera Vasudev as Dr. Sophie are also good.
The highlight of the movie is M.J. Radhakrishnan's cinematography, which captures the mood and feel of the film at its best.
Madhu Kaithapuram has adroitly just put a mirror to the happenings in life and used it to craft a sensitive film. Having been a assistant to Jeyaraj, he understands the subtlety and softness make for good cinema.
The cast comprising Thilakan, Murali, Manoj K Jayan,Meera Vasudev,Indrajith,Salim Kumar,Subair,Ibrahim and Bindu Paniker

NEW OFFICEBEARERS

NEW OFFICE BEARERS

The annual general body meeting held at Adhyapaka bhavan on 28th June 2008 , elected the following persons as the new office bearers of the society.

president
PROF.C.S.JAYARAM
vice presidentRENU RAMANATH
secretarySURESH MARUTHUR
joint secretaryT.N.MOHAN KUMAR, K.B.SABU
treasurerV.A.BALACHANDRAN
executive committee members
T.KALADHARAN,
P.N.VENUGOPAL,
K.N.SHAJI,
V.A.PRADEEP KUMAR,
KUTBUDDIN,
P.U.NOUSHAD,
ANEESH JOSEPH,
AISHA SALIM,
D.BINURAJ,
DR.BIJU PAULOSE,
V.D.AJAYAKUMAR

22 - 07 - 2008
6 .30 pm
at
cochin media school
near south over bridge
ernakulam

Our Family
Doc/56 mins./ Tamil with English Sub Titles / 2007.
Directed by K.P. Jayasankar and Anjali Monteiro



The film “our family” elucidates what it means to free oneself of the social construct of being male and explores life beyond a hetero-normative family.
Set in Tamil Nadu, the film brings together excerpts from Nirvanam, (Liberation) a one-person performance, by Pritham K Chakravarthy and a family of three generations of trans-gendered females—Aasha, Seetha and Dhana, who are bound together by ties of adoption. We see them cutting a birthday cake, visiting the temple, playing seven stones and talking about their dreams.
Aasha Bharathi, is the president of the Tamil Nadu Aravanigal Association, Chennai. Seetha, her adopted daughter, lives with her male partner Selvam, in Coimbatore. Dhana, the youngest and the most starry-eyed, is Seetha’s adopted daughter, who shuttles between her adopted and natal families. “The local residents have accepted Seetha as one of them. We had a good rapport with them, so when we shot in public spaces there were no issues,” says Jayasankar, who along with Montero has made 30-odd documentaries that are “off the beaten track”.
“We decided to make the film when we met Aasha through Pritham, who is our friend. We wanted to do it as a collaborative project, not one that dictated terms to them,” says Montero.
The film juxtaposes the ‘normality’ of their existence with the dark and powerful narrative by Pritham, a well-known dramatist in Tamil Nadu. Nirvanam quotes an incident from the Mahabharat where Lord Krishna marries and sacrifices an Aravani on the eve of the battle with the Kauravas. This ensures the Pandavas’ success on the battlefield: a symbol of the violence and exploitation faced by Aravanis.

Perfume: Story of a Murderer

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006)
Directed by: Tom Tykwer

Written by: Patrick Suskind (novel), Andrew Birkin, Bernd Eichinger, Tom Tykwer
Cast: Ben Whishaw, Dustin Hoffman, Alan Rickman, Rachel Hurd-Wood, Jessica Schwarz, Karoline Herfurth, John Hurt, Corinna Harfouch, Simon Chandler
Cinematography: Frank Grieb
Editing: Alexander Berner
Running time: 147 min
Language: English

In the 1700's, well before the French Revolution, a young man is brought before a rabid crowd. His name is Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Whishaw) and he is a convicted murderer. His sentence to death is read off: In two days hence, he would be executed.

Flashing back to when Grenouille was a baby. His mother gives birth to him in a fish market in France. She tries to hide the child under the table so he would die. When Grenouille gives his first cry, it alerts the other people to his presence. The woman tries to run away but she is caught and hanged afterwards. The baby is sent to an orphanage. The children there fear the baby and try to suffocate it. Madame Galliard, who owns the place, beats the children for their attempt to smother Grenouille.

The child grows up in the orphanage, not being able to speak until after 5 years of age. Instead, it is discovered that Grenouille has an extraordinary sense of smell. He is able to tell different things by their scents. When Grenouille turns 12 years old, Madame Gaillard decides that he can no longer stay at her orphanage so she sells him to a tanner. Shortly afterwards, she dies after being robbed of the money she gained from the sale. Grenouille stays with the tanner until he is a young man.

One day, Grenouille is taking deliveries to Paris when he wanders off to smell the different scents of the city. While standing outside of Pelissier's perfume shop, his nose picks up a scent that he feels compelled to go after. He discovers a young girl selling plums. Grenouille startles the young girl and starts to smell her deeply when she offers him a plum. She runs off, and Grenouille chases after her, following her scent. When Grenouille finds the plum girl, she screams out in fear. He covers her face to keep her quiet and ends up suffocating her. Grenouille then strips off her clothes and breathes her scent in deeply until it vanishes.

One day, a perfumer, Giuseppe Baldini (Dustin Hoffman), decides he wants to replicate Pelissier's famous perfume, Amore and Psyche. He experiments all day, trying to find out which essential oils make up the perfume. Later, that evening, Grenouille shows up at his door, making deliveries of leathers. He reveals to Baldini that he knows that Baldini is trying to copy Amore and Psyche and that Grenouille knows the ingredients. He then mixes the oils (with methods which horrify Baldini) to produce an exact copy of Amore and Psyche. Then Grenouille states that the perfume is poorly made and he can make it better. He does so, and then asks Baldini for a chance to learn about perfumes.

The next day, Baldini buys Grenouille from the tanner. Later that evening, the tanner celebrates his good fortune by getting drunk. He gets so drunk, that he ends up falling and drowning in the river.

Baldini sells Grenouille's scent as his own, bringing his dying business back to life. Grenouille makes more perfumes for Baldini. Baldini then teaches Grenouille how to mix up a perfume properly and about the the number of notes that makes up a perfume. He tells him that perfume are made up of three layers: top, middle and base. Each layer is made up of 4 notes. However, legend has it that there is a 13th note that ties it all together. He then tells Grenouille of the legend, that in Egypt, a remarkably beautiful perfume was discovered in a tomb. Twelve notes were identified, but the 13th remained a mystery. Baldini then teaches Grenouille about distilling oils from plants. Grenouille then tries to distill oil from metals and a cat, all of his experiments meet with failures. He makes himself sick afterwards, fearing that he will never again have the scent of the plum girl (who was a virgin when she died). Baldini fears the worst and has Grenouille setup in his own bed, hoping to make him better or at least record down any of his perfume formulas.

Grenouille then asks if there are any other ways to capture scents. Baldini then tells him about enfleurage and that he can learn it in the city of Grasse. Grenouille miraculously recovers and then asks Baldini for journeyman's papers to Grasse, in exchange he will give Baldini 100 perfume formulas and Grenouille will never return to Paris. Grenouille then departs for Grasse. Later that same evening, Baldini's unstable house collapses, killing him and his wife.

Grenouille decides to go to the hills instead of Grasse, enjoying his solitude. This is broken after a seven or eight years when Grenouille discovers that he has no scent of his own. He then remembers his mission to capture scent for good and goes to Grasse. Along the way, he picks up the scent of another virgin, this being Laura Richis (Hurd-Wood), the daughter of Antoine Richis (Rickman). Grenouille then becomes employed by Madame Arnulfi, learning the techniques of hot and cold enfleurage. Afterwards, Grenouille begins his experiments.

Grenouille kills a co-worker and tries to extract her scent using a hot enfleurage technique. He finds this to be failure. He then kills a prostitute and is able to extract her scent using a cold enfleurage technique. He finds that he is able to capture her true scent and test it on her dog, who recognizes his mistress's scent. Grenouille sets aside 13 bottles and then starts killing virgins and capturing their scents. The townspeople are in a state of fear and panic when young girls start turning up dead, naked and shorn.

Richis fears for the life of his daughter Laura (since two of the murdered girls were kidnapped from Laura's birthday party). He tries vainly to find the killer. Word travels from Grenoble that a man (not Grenouille) has confessed to the murders. Richis discovers this confession to be invalid since none of the details from the confession match up to the actual murders. The village feels relieved but Richis does not. Later, at night, Richis discovers that someone (Grenouille) broke into Laura's room. He spirits Laura out of town, using a decoy to go to the north while he travels to the south. This does not fool Grenouille however, as he tracks them down, using Laura's scent.

Richis and Laura arrive at an inn, as the only guests. Richis rents out every room and has Laura placed in a room where the windows have a very high drop. Back in Grasse, the prostitute's dog digs up her clothing from the floor of the workshop where Grenouille sleeps. The townspeople find the hair and clothing of all the girls that were killed buried beneath the dirt floor. Later, back at the inn, Richis locks Laura into her room so she can be safe. Grenouille sneaks in during the night, steals the key for Laura's room and enters it. Richis wakes in the morning and finds her dead.

Grenouille finishes his perfume finally with all 13 notes. He is then captured by the authorities and tortured until he confesses. Richis swears that the last thing Grenouille will see before he dies is the disgust in Richis' eyes.

On the day of his execution, Grenouille is brought before the crowd, while wearing the perfume made from the virgins' scent. This essence of love and beauty induces the executioner and the crowd declare him to be innocent. Then the scent overwhelms the crowd until it falls into an orgy. Grenouille flashes back to the plum girl and imagines himself making love to her. Tears start to fall from eyes. Richis then approaches the scaffold to try to kill Grenouille but cannot. He begs for forgiveness from Grenouille instead. Grenouille is released later and Druot (the lover of Madame Arnulfi) is convicted and hanged in his place.

Grenouille decides to go back to Paris, to the fish market where he was born. He knows he has a great power in his hands, but he realises that people will only love him because of the perfume, not because of who he is. "He possessed a power stronger than the power of money, or terror or death. The invincible power to command the love of mankind."

He then approaches a group of low-lives huddled around a fire. He pours the entire bottle of perfume over himself. The crowd declares him to be angel and they devour him. The only thing that is left in the morning is Grenouille's clothes and the bottle of perfume. The last drop of perfume spills out of it into the street.

OUR FAMILY

28-06-2008
7 PM
ADHYAPAKA BHAVAN
KARIKKAMURI CROSS ROAD
ERNAKULAM

OUR FAMILY
2007, 56 mins, Tamil with English subtitles

CREDITS:
Performance and Interviews: Pritham Chakravarthy
Editing, Sound Design and Subtitles: K.P. Jayasankar, Anjali Monteiro
Location Sound: Elangovan R.
Camera and Graphics: K. P. Jayasankar
Script and Direction: Anjali Monteiro,K. P. Jayasankar
Produced by: Centre for Media and Cultural Studies,
Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai 400 088, India

In a radical alternative to notions of the State, community and family, filmmakers Anjali Monteiro and K.P. Jayasankar, professors at the Centre for Media and Cultural Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai attempt to change our notion of the family. Their film, 'Our Family,' subverts all ideas of the family whether they are patriarchal, biological or heterosexual, to give it new dimensions and dynamics.The film, set in Tamil Nadu, sways between the lives of the family of three generations of three extraordinary trans-gendered women – Aasha, Seetha and Dhana and their friend, Pritham K. Chakravarthy who used the aesthetic form of dance to craft out the passage of Aravanis. Pritham dramatically re-enacts her poignant and exemplary journey to becoming a trans-gender. Her expressions, gestures and words to recreate the pain and joy to discovering the gendered self in this polarised world of male and female, are visually stimulating.

The use of the 'feminine' mirror can be seen as a metaphor of the many layers of this journey from masculinity to femininity and also reflects the conflicts between the gendered selves at the point of Nirvanam or liberation. When Dhana says that Nirvanam for her means that she can no longer choose to wear male clothes at midnight and walk on the streets at midnight, and that she can't do the same as a female, mirrors the dilemmas that both men and women face when boxed and viewed in fixed, stereotypical roles. What was exhilarating was the natural formation of the unconventional family, a family that defied blood and heterosexual ties and when Aasha Bharathi, president of the Tamil Nadu Aravanigal Association in Chennai says that hers is a small family of four, it also brings the debate of family planning and reproduction as forced versus natural.

In a free-flowing multiple narrative, the film breezes through as an engaging and thought-provoking glimpse that feelings of belonging, family and community are transcendental. What is commendable is definitely the careful portrayal of the community, without any hints of exoticism. 'Our Family,' is a well-edited movie, without much technical detailing. It also takes you to the Pal Utru Vizha or the 40th day of celebration of Nirvanam, with meanings of alternative terms typing out on the screen. The end, which sits through a discussion of what this closed-knit community requests from society, is very simple – that we see them as human beings.

About The Directors

Anjali Monteiro is Professor, and P.Jayasankar is Professor and Chair, Centre for Media and Cultural Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. Monteiro has a Masters degree in Economics and a Ph.D. in Sociology. Jayasankar has an M.A. in German language and a Ph.D. in Humanities and Social Sciences. Both of them are involved in media production, teaching and research. A presiding thematic of of much of their work has been a problematising of notions of self and the other, of normality and deviance, of the local and the global, through the exploration of diverse narratives and rituals. These range from the stories and paintings of indigenous peoples to the poetry of prison inmates. Jointly they have won twenty one national and international awards for their films. These include the Prix Futura Berlin 1995 Asia Prize for 'Identity - The Construction of Selfhood,' a Special Mention of the Jury at MIFF '96 for 'Kahankar: Ahankar,' the Certificate of Merit at MIFF '98 and Best Innovation, Astra Film Festival 1998, Sibiu, Romania for 'YCP 1997,' the Second Prize for 'Saacha,' at the New Delhi Video Forum 2001 and the Best Documentary Award at the IV Three Continents International Festival of Documentaries - 2005, Venezuela, for 'SheWrite.' Their most recent awards are the Special Jury Award at the Signs 2007 Festival, held in Thiruvananthapuram, Certificate of Merit, Mumbai International Film Festival 2008, Indian Documentary Producers Associuation (IDPA) Gold for Best Sound Design, Gold for Best Script and Silver for Editing for the film 'Our Family.' They have several papers in the area of media and cultural studies and have contributed to scholarly journals such as Cultural Studies. They are both recipients of the Howard Thomas Memorial Fellowship in Media Studies, and have been attached to Goldsmith’s College, London and the University of Western Sydney. Monteiro has been awarded a Fulbright visiting lecturer fellowship for 2006-07 at the University of California, Berkeley. They also serve as visiting faculty to several leading media and design institutions across India, such as Asian College of Journalism, Chennai, National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad and University of Hyderabad and Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai. They are both actively involved in ‘Vikalp‘ and ‘Films for Freedom’, which are collectives of documentary filmmakers campaigning for freedom of expression. They are also associated with various media and voluntary organisations.

Kadaltheerath

28-06-2008
8 PM
ADHYAPAKA BHAVAN
KARIKKAMURI CROSS ROAD
ERNAKULAM

KADALTHEERATH
SHORT FICTION BY
SHERRY

(Based on the story by O.V.VIJAYAN, 'Kadaltheerath,' won the Best Film Award in the Fiction Category in the First International Video Film Festival held at Thiruvananthapuram)

SCRIPT WRITING WORKSHOP

Cochin Film Society is conducting a Script Writing Workshop

from May 15 to 17 at Ernakulam.

The Workshop will be led by

Prof. C.S. Jayaram,

artist, art writer and

member of Kerala Lalithakala Academy.

Prof. Jayaram is also a Visiting Faculty of leading film Schools in Kerala.

The course fee is Rs 700 and is inclusive of lunch on all three days. Those who are interested in participating may contact any of the following numbers. As there are only limited seats, registration has to be done on or before May 13. Ph: 2378795 Mob: 9388602724, 9447414433.

EUROPEAN FILM FESTIVAL

EUROPEAN FILM FESTIVAL

AT

ADHYAPAKA BHAVAN

KARIKKAMURI CROSS ROAD

ERNAKULAM

***

15.05.2008

6.30 PM

SATYRICON

***

Fellini - Satyricon (1969)
Runtime: 2 hrs 11 mins
Director: Federico Fellini
Writing credits
Petronius (book. "Satyricon")
Federico Fellini (writer) &
Bernardino Zapponi (writer)
Brunello Rondi (additional screenplay)

Cast
Martin Potter
Hiram Keller
Max Born
Salvo Randone
Mario Romagnoli
Magali Noël
Capucine
Alain Cuny
Fanfulla
Danika La Loggia
Giuseppe Sanvitale

‘Satyricon,’ (‘Fellini Satyricon’) is a 1969 Italian film by Federico Fellini. It is loosely based on the Petronius novel Satyricon, a series of bawdy and satirical episodes written during the reign of the emperor Nero and set in imperial Rome.

Petronius's original text survives only in fragments. While recuperating from a debilitating illness in 1967, Fellini reread Petronius and was fascinated by the missing parts, the large gaps between one episode and the next. The text's fragmentary nature encouraged him to go beyond the traditional approach of recreating the past in film: the key to a visionary cinematic adaptation lay in narrative techniques of the dream state that exploited the dream's imminent qualities of mystery, enigma, immorality, outlandishness, and contradiction.

Though the two protagonists, Encolpius (Martin Potter) and Ascilto (Hiram Keller), reappear throughout, the characters and locations surrounding them change unexpectedly. This intentional technique of fragmentation conveys Fellini's view of both the original text and the nature of history itself, and is echoed visually in the film's final shot of a ruined villa whose walls, painted with frescoes of the scenes we have just seen, are crumbling, fading and incomplete. Fellini's interest in Carl Jung's theory of the collective unconscious is also on display with an abundance of archetypes in highly dreamlike settings.

A year prior to the release of the film another ‘Satyricon,’ film (directed by Gian Luigi Polidoro) was already released, hence the addition of "Fellini" to the title.

***

16.05.2008

6.30 PM

PUNARAKHYANAM

(MAL/DOC./SPECIAL SCREENING)

PUNARAKHYANAM ( THE RETELLING )

( Documentary / 30mts / India /2007 / Malayalam )

Script & Direction : Madhu Eravankara

Synopsis
Sex-work is not a sin. For many it is just like another profession. But they live as outcasts and naturally end up in streets. In Moovattupuzha, a small Municipal town in Central Kerala, an organization, Swaruma, took initiative to mobilize sex workers primarily to make them aware of AIDS. As they worked together, some of them felt the need to give up their despised present and rewrite a life anew. Moovattupuzha Municipality rose to the occasion and helped them with a laundry unit set up in the Taluk Hospital. At least ten of them formed a group and got along with the project to eke out a living. To augment their meager income the Municipality came forward again to offer them a unit as part of Clean Kerala Project. It was a metamorphosis for them as now they earned their bread through their dignified toil.

'Punarakhyanam,' ( The Retelling ) portrays the story of triumph of these empowered women , who melted into mainstream regaining the lost glory of womanhood.

Credits
Script& Direction. MADHU ERAVANKARA
Produced by MAGIC LANTERN
Co-production THOMAS DAVID (USA ) JOHNS ( KSA)
Cinematography M.J.RADHAKRISHNAN Editing VIJAYAKUMAR
Music CHANDRAN PARIS Sound HARIKUMAR ( Chitranjali )

Festivals
2nd Hyderabad International Film Festival-2008
National Short & Documentary Film Festival-2008, KarimNagar, AP
2nd Montage International Film Festival-2008, Manjeri, Kerala
Filca International Film Festival-2008, Thiruvananthapuram
Ist International Video Film Festival of Kerala-2008, Thiruvananthapuram


Print Source
MAGIC LANTERN, MEGHANA, ERAVANKARA.P.O, MAVELIKARA
KERALA STATE- 690108
INDIA
Phone. +91-479-2305024
Mob. +91 –9447802075
Fax. +91-468-2325223
E-mail. eravankara@gmail.com

Madhu Eravankara

Madhu Eravankara is an internationally acclaimed film director, film critic and writer.

He was the member of jury in Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF) – 2003 (International & National Section ), International Documentary Film festival-2005, Yamagata, Japan, Brisbane International Film Festival-2006, Brisbane, Australia and the 27th International Istanbul Film Festival-2008, Turkey (as FIPRESCI Jury).

He has directed the feature film ‘Nankooram,’ and fifteen other documentaries including ‘Nishadam,’ (IFFK-2004, CFF-2004, DFF-2004 & BIFF- 2005) and ‘Victims of Silence,’ ( Eritrea ) that have received local and international acclaim. He is the recipient of President's Gold Medal & National Film Award (1999), State Film Awards ( 1999 & 2003) and Film Critics Awards ( 2000, 2002 & 2003). He has also been awarded a Senior Fellowship for Outstanding Artists, from the Indian Government’s Department of Culture, to research on Indian Literature and Cinema and a Fellowship from National Film Archive of India to research on Malayalam Literature and Cinema.

‘Snanaghatangal,’ ( Stories), ‘Malayala Cinemayum Sahityavum,’ ( Film Study), ‘Alivinte Mandarangal,’ ( Film studies ), ‘Shalabhayatrakal,’ ( Travel ) & ‘Samskaram,’ ‘Yukti,’ ‘Samooham,’ (Amartya Sen Translation ) are the books to his credit.

A regular contributor to the Malayalam Press as well as to National and International publications, Madhu Eravankara also serves as a Faculty in Film, in many of the State and National institutions.

He is a member of the International Film Critics Federation (FIPRESCI), Panel Director of Kerala State Film Development Corporation ( KSFDC) and Director Board Member of Kerala State Encyclopaedic Institute.

Hailing from Eravankara in Alappuzha district, he is at present the Head of the Department of Chemistry at the Catholicate College, Pathanamthitta.

***

16.05.2008

7.00 PM

THE TIT AND THE MOON

/ Teta i la lluna, La (1994)
Director: Bigas Luna
Stars: Biel Durán, Mathilda May, Gérard Damon, Miguel Poveda, Laura Maña

Review
The Tit and the Moon is a 1994, Spanish /French film, directed by Bigas Luna.

For a movie with such a blatant mammary fixation, Bigas Luna’s fable surprisingly isn’t crass but charming. It’s the Catalonian director’s most engaging film, drawing upon his own childhood and personal symbolism. Little Tete (Biel Durán) is annoyed since a new baby brother means he can no longer suckle at his mother’s breast. He fixates upon amble-bosomed, new arrival Estrellita (Mathilda May), a ballet dancer with the travelling circus, and fantasises about her breasts squirting milk straight into his mouth. Tete’s pre-adolescent yearning for Estrellita is hindered by her marriage to Maurice (Gérard Damon), “the Flame King” with legendary farting prowess. Worse, Tete’s friend Miguel (Miguel Poveda) falls madly in love with her too.

A gentle, dreamlike story, beautifully shot in soft pink, blue and golden hues, the film tackles the delicate subject of a child’s burgeoning curiosity about sex. Its rambling, episodic narrative befits the daydreaming hero, with frequent bursts of playful fantasy: Tete imagining himself an astronaut, his dad as a Roman centurion, and women gleefully offering their breasts. The subject matter might trouble some, but Luna and his characters display tolerance and understanding. Luna continues his satirical swipes at Latin machismo. Indeed this is his most wide reaching satire of Catalonian culture. “Show some balls”, is Tete’s father’s constant refrain. The emphasis small town traditions place on masculinity is slyly sent up. For Luna overtly macho behaviour masks men’s powerlessness before feminine sexuality, driving their neurotic need to posses women utterly. Poor, lovelorn Miguel is a playful send-up of the Latin lover. He woos Estrellita with traditional love songs, competing with Maurice blasting records of Edith Piaf. A hilarious scene that becomes rather moving because Miguel Poveda (an accomplished singer) performs so sincerely.

Thankfully, Luna doesn’t reduce Estrellita to a pair of breasts. Though beloved by bad movie aficionados for her naked space vampire in Tobe Hooper’s Lifeforce (1985), this is Mathilda May’s finest performance. She touches each male character in different ways, captivating as lover, surrogate mother and spouse. Her ballet sequences (May is a classically trained dancer in real life), set to Nicola Piovani’s lovely score are magical highlights. Quirky in her own right, Estrellita is turned on by Maurice’s spectacular farts and collects men’s tears. Like Luis Buñuel, Luna accepts weird kinks as part of human nature. There is a touch of Federico Fellini about the provincial setting, cartoon characters and fantastical flourishes, but touching performances (including future director Laura Maña as Tete’s mother) and generosity of spirit prevent them becoming simple grotesques.

The moon represents desire, love’s young dream, something to reach for, to spur you on towards maturity. In the end it’s love, pure and simple, that everyone yearns for and each character finds some aspect of it by the fadeout. It says something about Luna’s humanity and makes this strange, funny, enlightening fable a wholly beguiling experience.
(Reviewer: Andrew Pragasam)

***

17.05.2008

6.30 PM

BLACK CAT, WHITE CAT.

Directed by Emir Kusturica
Written by Emir Kusturica, Gordan Mihić
Starring Bajram Severdžan,Srđan Todorović,Florijan Ajdini,Branka Katić
Music by Nele Karajlić, Voja Aralica,Dejo Sparavalo
Cinematography Thierry Abrogate
Editing by Sveltely Zach
Running time 135 min
Country France/ Germany/ Yugoslavia
Language Romany/Bulgarian/German//Serbian/Italian

‘Black Cat, White Cat,’ is a Yugoslavian Romantic comedy film directed by Emir Kusturica in 1998. It won the Silver Lion for best direction at the Venice Film Festival.

The literal translation of the title is actually ‘Black cat, white tomcat.’ The movie characters speak in Romani, Serbian and Bulgarian - frequently switching between them.

Synopsis: Matko is a small time hustler, living by the Danube with his 17 year old son Zare. After a failed business deal he owes money to the much more successful gangster Dadan. Dadan has a sister, Afrodita, that he desperately wants to see get married so they strike a deal: Zare is to marry her. But none of the two care much for an arranged marriage: Zare is in love with Ida, Afrodita is waiting for the man of her dreams…

STEALING BEAUTY

29.05.2008 , 6.30 PM

AT COCHIN MEDIA SCHOOL,

NEAR SOUTH OVERBRIDGE,

SAHODARAN AYYAPPAN ROAD,

ERNAKULAM

STEALING BEAUTY

(1996)

118 min /Italy France UK
Director:Bernardo Bertolucci
Writers:Bernardo Bertolucci (story)Susan Minot (writer)
Cast : Carlo Cecchi , Sinéad Cusack , Joseph Fiennes , Jason Flemyng
Anna-Maria Gherardi , Jeremy Irons ...
Lucy Harmon is a 19-year old American girl who is the daughter of poet Sara Harmon. After Sara commits suicide, Lucy travels to Italty and visits her mother's friends, Diana and her husband, Irish artist Ian, where Lucy wants a picture of her painted. Lucy decided to return to Italy to reunite with Nicolo Donati, a Italian boy she once fell in love with four years ago, when she last visited Italy. But reuniting with Nicolo isn't the only reason why Lucy decided to return to Italy, Lucy is on a personal journey, as she sets out to solve a mystery in her Mother's diary and discover who her father is who conceived her 20 years ago. Lucy's journey leads her to befriend Alex, a play-writer who is dying of cancer whom Lucy thinks may be her father or her father could be the artist who makes statutes from trees and sets out to loose her virginity as Diana and her daughter Miranda's boyfriend Richard become intrigued by her.