Sunday, September 11, 2011
Sunday, March 21, 2010
INGLORIOUS BASTARDS
Inglourious Basterds is a 2009 war film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino and starring Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Eli Roth and Mélanie Laurent. The film tells the story of two plots to assassinate the Nazi Germany political leadership, one planned by a young French Jewish cinema proprietor (Laurent), and the other by a team of Jewish Allied soldiers led by Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Pitt).
Development on Inglourious Basterds began in 1998, when Tarantino wrote the script for the film. Tarantino struggled with the ending and chose to hold off filming and moved on to direct the two-part movie Kill Bill. After directing a part of the 2007 film, Grindhouse, Tarantino returned to work on Inglourious Basterds. The film went into production in October 2008 and was filmed in Germany with a production budget of $70 million. Inglourious Basterds premiered on May 20, 2009 at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival, where it competed for the prestigious Palme d'Or. It was widely released in theaters in the United States and Europe in August 2009 by The Weinstein Company and Universal Studios.
The film was successful at the box office, grossing $320,351,773 in theaters worldwide, making it Tarantino's highest-grossing film to date. It has received multiple awards and nominations, including eight Academy Award nominations. For his portrayal of Hans Landa, Christoph Waltz won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival, the BAFTA Award and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
PLOT
In 1941, SS Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) arrives at a dairy farm in France to interrogate Perrier LaPadite (Denis Menochet) about rumors he is hiding the Jewish Dreyfus family. Landa persuades the farmer to confess to hiding the family underneath his floor. Landa orders the SS soldiers into the house to shoot the floorboards where they are hiding. The entire family is killed, with the exception of the teenage Shosanna (Mélanie Laurent), whom Landa allows to escape.
In the spring of 1944, Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) recruits a team of eight Jewish-American soldiers in Italy for a mission to get behind enemy lines and bring fear to all German servicemen. He tells the soldiers that they each owe him a hundred Nazi scalps. They operate with a "take no prisoners" attitude and come to be known as the 'Basterds'. One survivor of an attack by the 'Basterds', Private Butz (Sönke Möhring), is interviewed by Adolf Hitler (Martin Wuttke). Butz's account of the attack is shown in flashback: his squad was ambushed and his Sergeant was beaten to death with a baseball bat by Sgt. Donny Donowitz (Eli Roth), known by the Germans as "The Bear Jew". Butz then reveals that Raine carved a swastika onto his forehead with a knife.
In June 1944, Shosanna has assumed a new identity as 'Emmanuelle Mimieux' and is operating a cinema in Paris. She meets Frederick Zoller (Daniel Brühl), a German sniper whose exploits are to be celebrated in a Nazi propaganda film, Stolz der Nation (Nation's Pride). Zoller is attracted to Shosanna and convinces Joseph Goebbels (Sylvester Groth) to hold the premiere of his film at Shosanna's cinema. Shosanna realizes that the presence of several high-ranking Nazi officials provides an opportunity for revenge and resolves to burn down the cinema during the premiere by using a large quantity of flammable nitrate film. The British also learn of the premiere and dispatch Lt. Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender) to infiltrate the event aided by the 'Basterds' and German film actress and double agent, Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Krüger). Hicox and two of the 'Basterds' meet with von Hammersmark at a tavern where a Gestapo Major (August Diehl) notices Hicox's odd accent and that he gives the wrong three-fingered order for drinks. The resulting standoff erupts into a firefight, leaving everyone dead except von Hammersmark. Raine interrogates von Hammersmark, and upon learning that Hitler will be attending the premiere, devises a plan where he, along with Donny and Omar (Omar Doom), will pose as von Hammersmark's Italian escorts at the premiere. Landa later investigates the tavern, retrieving von Hammersmark's shoe and an autographed napkin.
At the premiere, Landa asks to see von Hammersmark privately, where he makes her try on the shoe. He violently strangles her to death after proving that she is in league with the 'Basterds'. He then orders Raine and Private Utivich (B. J. Novak) to be arrested. Landa makes a lucrative deal with Raine's commanding officer to be granted a full military pension, immunity from his war crimes and American citizenship, in exchange for allowing Donny and Omar—still seated in the cinema—to kill the Nazi high command. During the film, Zoller goes to the projection room to see Shosanna and angrily protests about her rejecting him. When his back is turned, she shoots him multiple times, but he manages to shoot her dead before succumbing to his wounds. The film is then interrupted by an inserted close-up of Shosanna informing the audience that they are going to be killed by a Jew. At the same time, Shosanna's employee and lover, Marcel (Jacky Ido), who has locked and bolted all the exits of the cinema, ignites the nitrate film stacked behind the screen. Omar and Donowitz begin to shoot the Nazis, with Hitler and Goebbels among the casualties, until the timers on their bombs go off and destroy the cinema, killing everyone inside.
Landa and his radio operator drive Raine and Utivich to the American lines, and according to the deal, surrenders to Raine and hands over his weapons, allowing Utivich to handcuff him. To Landa's dismay Raine then shoots the German driver dead and carves a swastika into Landa's forehead, proclaiming that "I think this just might be my masterpiece".
Inglourious Basterds
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
Produced by Lawrence Bender
Written by Quentin Tarantino
Starring Brad Pitt
Christoph Waltz
Michael Fassbender
Eli Roth
Diane Kruger
Daniel Brühl
Til Schweiger
Mélanie Laurent
Cinematography Robert Richardson
Editing by Sally Menke
Studio A Band Apart
Zehnte Babelsberg
Distributed by The Weinstein Company
Universal Studios
Release date(s) May 20, 2009
(Cannes)
August 20, 2009 (Germany)
August 21, 2009
(United States)
Running time 153 minutes
Country United States
Germany[1]
Language English
French
German
Italian
Budget $70 million[2]
Gross revenue $320,351,773[3]
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Peppermint Candy
Peppermint Candy (2000) is the second feature film from South Korean director Lee Chang-dong. The movie starts with the suicide of the protagonist and uses reverse chronology to depict some of the key events of the past 20 years of his life that led to his death.
The film was received well, especially in film festivals. Spurred by the success of Lee Chang-dong's directorial debut, Green Fish, Peppermint Candy was chosen as the opening film for the Pusan International Film Festival in its first showing in 1999. It won multiple awards at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and won the South Korean film industry's Grand Bell Award for best film of 2000.
THE PLOT
At the beginning of the film, in the year 1999, the main character Yong-ho wanders to a reunion of his old student group. After causing some general mayhem with his deranged antics, he leaves and climbs atop a nearby train track. Facing an oncoming train, he exclaims "I want to go back again!". What follows is a series of prior events in the main character's life that show how he became the suicidal man portrayed in this scene.
The first flashback takes place only a few days before Yong-ho's death. At this point he is already clearly suicidal, confronting his former boss and ex-wife Hong-ja before the husband of his teenage crush Sun-im pays him a surprise visit. Yong-ho is taken to visit a comatose Sun-im in a hospital.
The next flashback shows Yong-ho's life five years earlier. At first glance, he seems to be a rather successful businessman, but the problems in his life become clear when he confronts his wife, who is having an affair with her driving instructor. Yong-ho is unable to claim moral high ground, since he is also shown having an affair, with an assistant from his workplace. Finally, Yong-ho is shown along with his wife at their new house, having dinner with his colleagues, where it becomes apparent that the marriage isn't working.
On the third flashback, Yong-ho is shown as a police officer in the year 1987. At the beginning, he is shown along with his pregnant wife at a mundane scene. After this, he is shown apprehending a witness and brutally torturing him for information about another man's whereabouts. This leads Yong-ho to Kunsan where he along with his fellow police officers capture the wanted man. While in Kunsan, Yong-ho is distracted from his work by fruitlessly trying to search for Sun-im and instead ends up on a one night stand with another woman.
The following flashback shows Yong-ho when he is just starting his career as a policeman and is pressured by his peers to torture a crime suspect, presumably a student demonstrator. Shortly afterwards, he is visited by Sun-im. Yong-ho coldly and cruelly dismisses her by feigning interest in another woman, his future wife Hong-ja. At the final scene of this sequence, Yong-ho is shown sleeping with Hong-ja, whom it is shown he never truly cared about.
During the next flashback, it's May 1980 and Yong-ho is performing his mandatory military service. While Sun-im is trying to visit him, his company is taken to quell a student demonstration. Yong-ho gets shot in the leg and is told to stay behind. This leads to a scene where he confronts a harmless and presumably innocent student, whom he accidentally shoots (and kills).
The last flashback shows Yong-ho as a part of the student group that reunited at the beginning of the movie. This is also where he meets Sun-im for the first time. The scene poignantly shows the innocence that Yong-ho had, before his country molded him into the violent and jaded man he is at the start of the film by pitting him against his friends.
ANALYSIS
The events of Yong-ho's life shown in the movie can be seen as representing some of the major events of Korea's recent history. The student demonstrations of the early 1980s leading to the Gwangju massacre is shown as Yong-ho becoming traumatized in the shooting incident.[1] The tightening grip on the country by the military government during the 1980s is mirrored by Yong-ho losing his innocence and becoming more and more cynical during his stint as a brutal policeman. Similarly, Yong-ho losing his job during the late 1990s mirrors the Asian financial crisis
Directed by Lee Chang-dong
Produced by Myeong Gye-nam
Makoto Ueda
Written by Lee Chang-dong
Starring Sol Kyung-gu
Moon So-ri
Kim Yeo-jin
Distributed by Shindo Films
Cineclick Asia
Release date(s) 2000 (South Korea)
Running time 130 minutes
Country South Korea
Language Korean
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Jafar Panahi
Jafar Panahi (Persian: جعفر پناهی , born July 11, 1960 in Mianeh, Iran) is an internationally acclaimed Iranian filmmaker and is one of the most influential filmmakers in the Iranian New Wave movement. He has gained recognition from film theorists and critics worldwide and received numerous awards including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.
Jafar Panahi was ten years old when he wrote his first book, which subsequently won the first prize in a literary competition. At the same age, he became familiar with film making. He shot films on 8mm film, acting in one and assisting in the making of another. Later, he took up photography. During his military service, Panahi served in the Iran–Iraq War (1980-90) and made a documentary about the war during this period.
After studying film directing at the College of Cinema and Television in Tehran,[2] Panahi made several films for Iranian television and was the assistant director of Abbas Kiarostami's film Through the Olive Trees (1994). Since that time, he has directed several films and won numerous awards in international film festivals.
Panahi's first feature film came in 1995, entitled White Balloon. This film won a Camera d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. His second feature film, The Mirror, received the Golden Leopard Award at the Locarno Film Festival.
His most notable offering to date has been The Circle (2000), which criticized the treatment of women under Iran's Islamist regime. Jafar Panahi won the Golden Lion, the top prize at the Venice Film Festival for The Circle, which was named FIPRESCI’s Film of the Year, and appeared on Top 10 lists of critics worldwide.[3]. Panahi also directed Crimson Gold in 2003, which brought him the Un Certain Regard Jury Award at the Cannes Film Festival. It went on to win a number of best film awards and received excellent critical acclaims.[citation needed]
Panahi winning the Berlin Silver Bear award for his achievement in film in 2006
Panahi's Offside (the story of girls who disguise themselves as boys to be able to watch a football match) was nominated for competition in the 2006 Berlin Film Festival, where he was awarded with the prestigious Silver Bear and the Jury Grand Prix, 2006.
On July 30, 2009, Mojtaba Samienejad, an Iranian blogger and human rights activist writing from inside Iran, reports Panahi was arrested on Thursday at the cemetery in Tehran where mourners had gathered near the grave of Neda Agha-Soltan.
Panahi's style is often described as an Iranian form of neorealism.[citation needed] Jake Wilson describes his films as connected by a "tension between documentary immediacy and a set of strictly defined formal parameters" in addition to "overtly expressed anger at the restrictions that Iranian society imposes".[5] His film Offside is so ensconced in the reality that it was actually filmed in part during the event it dramatizes – the Iran-Bahrain qualifying match for the 2006 World Cup.
Where Panahi differs from his fellow realist filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, is in the explicitness of his social critique. Stephen Teo writes that
"Panahi's films redefine the humanitarian themes of contemporary Iranian cinema, firstly, by treating the problems of women in modern Iran, and secondly, by depicting human characters as "non-specific persons" - more like figures who nevertheless remain full-blooded characters, holding on to the viewer's attention and gripping the senses. Like the best Iranian directors who have won acclaim on the world stage, Panahi evokes humanitarianism in an unsentimental, realistic fashion, without necessarily overriding political and social messages. In essence, this has come to define the particular aesthetic of Iranian cinema. So powerful is this sensibility that we seem to have no other mode of looking at Iranian cinema other than to equate it with a universal concept of humanitarianism."
Panahi says that his style can be described as "humanitarian events interpreted in a poetic and artistic way". He says "In a world where films are made with millions of dollars, we made a film about a little girl who wants to buy a fish for less than a dollar (in The White Balloon) - this is what we're trying to show."
In an interview with Anthony Kaufman, Panahi said: "I was very conscious of not trying to play with people's emotions; we were not trying to create tear-jerking scenes. So it engages people's intellectual side. But this is with assistance from the emotional aspect and a combination of the two."
filmography
* The Wounded Heads (Yarali Bashlar, 1988)
* Kish (1991)
* The Friend (Doust, 1992)
* The Last Exam (Akharin Emtehan, 1992)
* The White Balloon (Badkonake Sefid, 1995)
* Ardekoul (1997)
* The Mirror (Ayneh, 1997)
* The Circle (Dayereh, 2000)
* Crimson Gold (Talaye Sorkh, 2003)
* Offside (2006)
Awards and honors
Jafar Panahi has won numerous awards up to now. Here are a few representatives:
* HIVOS Cinema Unlimited Award (2007)
* Podo Award, at Valdivia Film Festival (2007), for his life-time artistic accomplishments.
* Silver Bear, Berlin Film Festival, 2006.
* Prix du Jury - Un Certain Regard, Cannes Film Festival, 2003.[7]
* Golden Lion, Venice Film Festival, 2000.
* Golden Leopard, Locarno International Film Festival, 1997.
* Prix de la Camera d'Or, Cannes Film Festival, 1995.
Iranian Filmmaker Jafar Panahi Arrested In Tehran
by Peter Knegt (July 30, 2009)
Iranian Filmmaker Jafar Panahi Arrested In Tehran
Jafar Panahi at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival, where his film "Offside" was screening. Photo by Brian Brooks/indieWIRE.
AFP is reporting that prominent Iranian director Jafar Panahi (“Offside”, “The Circle”) was arrested today, along with his wife and daughter, at a ceremony where mourners gathered to commemorate slain election protesters. AFP notes that “Panahi is a vocal critic of Iran hardliners and his movies have been banned for a decade from domestic cinemas despite their international success.” Several other mourners were also arrested by Iranian riot police. They were marking the 40th day since the death of Neda Agha-Soltan, a woman “who came to symbolise the protest movement against the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.”
The Times Online is also covering the events, while The New York Times is running a constantly updated blog on the protests, including information about Panahi.
Jafar Panahi, born in 1960 in Mianeh, Iran, was ten years old when he wrote his first book, which subsequently won first prize in a literary competition. It was also at that young age that he became familiar with filmmaking: shooting films on 8mm, acting in one 8mm film and assisting in the making of another. Later, he took up photography. On being drafted into the military, Panahi served in the Iran-Iraq War (1980-90), and during this period, made a documentary about the War which was eventually shown on TV. After his military service, Panahi entered university to study filmmaking, and while there, made some documentaries. He also worked as an assistant director on some feature films. After his studies, Panahi left Tehran to make films in the outer regions of the country. On returning to Tehran, he worked with Abbas Kiarostami as his assistant director on Through the Olive Trees (1994). Armed with a script by his mentor, Kiarostami, Panahi made his debut as a director with The White Balloon (1995), and subsequently went on to make The Mirror (1997) and his most recent film, The Circle (2000).
On the surface, Panahi's films offer a variation of neo-realism, Iranian-style, by capturing, in his own words, the "humanitarian aspects of things". But watching the director's latest film The Circle (currently doing its rounds on the international film festival circuit after winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival last year), one can't help but feel that his humanitarian cinema is a cloak, masking an even greater obsession. His motif of the circle - the camera beginning from a single point and revolving around characters only to return to the point where it began - aptly describes that obsession, expressed as much as possible through the form of the plan séquence (a long uninterrupted take). The circle is both a metaphor for life as well as a form that the director has subscribed to as his most representative style. Stressing the equal importance of both form and content, Panahi asserts that his work is about "humanity and its struggle", or the need for human beings to break through the confines of the circle.
In his own rather startling way, Panahi's films redefine the humanitarian themes of contemporary Iranian cinema, firstly, by treating the problems of women in modern Iran, and secondly, by depicting human characters as "non-specific persons" - more like figures who nevertheless remain full-blooded characters, holding on to the viewer's attention and gripping the senses. Like the best Iranian directors who have won acclaim on the world stage, Panahi evokes humanitarianism in an unsentimental, realistic fashion, without necessarily overriding political and social messages. In essence, this has come to define the particular aesthetic of Iranian cinema. So powerful is this sensibility that we seem to have no other mode of looking at Iranian cinema other than to equate it with a universal concept of humanitarianism.
The Circle works on the level of interpreting "humanitarian events in a poetic or artistic way," as the director himself defines his own version of neo-realist cinema. But the film is a far bolder work than most recent Iranian films; and one measure of its boldness is the fact that it is banned in Iran. It chronicles the stories of seven women, not all of whom are connected to each other, but whose fates are invariably interrelated through a circle of repression. The film works as a riveting, compelling testament about the lowly status of women in Iranian society, and about the subtle means with which Iran as a whole exercises its repression over the female sex. Panahi is, however, ambivalent about the political content of The Circle. In the following interview, it comes as no surprise that Panahi prefers to accentuate the human dignity of his characters - a human right that seems trivial in the context of Western society but one which is readily denied in unexpected circumstances and situations, as Panahi himself found out, to his cost. On his way to the Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema on 15 April, 2001, after having attended the Hong Kong International Film Festival, Panahi was arrested in JFK Airport, New York City, for not possessing a transit visa. Refusing to submit to a fingerprinting process (apparently required under U.S. law), the director was handcuffed and leg-chained after much protestations to US immigration officers over his bona fides, and finally led to a plane that took him back to Hong Kong. As far as is known, this incident was not reported in any major US newspaper (1), even though The Circle was being shown in the United States at the time (another irony: for that film, Panahi was awarded the "Freedom of Expression Award" by the US National Board of Review of Motion Pictures. His letter to the Board is published in this issue.
This interview with Jafar Panahi was conducted in Hong Kong on 11 April on the occasion of the 25th Hong Kong International Film Festival, which presented The Circle, among other new Iranian films. On being invited to the Festival, the director encountered problems in securing a visa from the Chinese embassy in Tehran to enter Hong Kong (a fact that he made known to his audience whilst introducing The Circle). He was granted a visa only upon the intervention of the Hong Kong Festival which made clear to the embassy that Panahi was an eminent film director and that his visit to the territory was purely a cultural one. Clearly, the case of Jafar Panahi illustrates a modern paradox: his nationality is no guarantee of decent, "humanitarian" treatment outside of Iran (the country being demonized by the international community, so to speak), even though Iranian cinema - with Panahi himself as one of its most distinguished exponents - is perhaps the most humanitarian in the world today.
Apparently, Panahi is very much focused on this paradox, taking every opportunity to decry the poor treatment (either perceived or real) that he has received when travelling out of Iran (in Hong Kong, he voiced his discontent with the Chinese embassy during interviews with the press; and similarly, the director has spoken out against his "inhuman" treatment by the US immigration authorities in JFK Airport). Through his films, Panahi expounds the humanity of all his characters, good or bad, expressing the fundamental need for decent, humanist behaviour on the part of all. An indication of his focus may be gleaned from the interview itself. For instance, I began the interview by asking Panahi to define the aesthetics of Iranian cinema as he saw it. Perhaps a bit put off by the more intellectual tone of my question, Panahi went on to say that the aesthetics of Iranian cinema was married to the realistic, the actual: "the humanitarian aspects of things." Although the interview was conducted with the help of an interpreter, I could sense Panahi's stalwart personality, his total conviction about "humanity and its struggle", and his pride over what he has achieved in Iranian cinema. The case of Jafar Panahi will not be closed for a long while yet.
*
Stephen Teo: I would like you to begin by talking about the aesthetics of Iranian cinema. What I am struck by in all the Iranian films we have seen is the fact that they are very close to being a kind of documentary reality of Iran. But on the other hand, they're very beautiful to look at, unlike most realist-based cinemas - beautiful in the sense that they're not rough, shot with hand-held cameras with no lights, such as the neo-realist style of Italian cinema after the war. Could you give a definition of the aesthetics of Iranian cinema? How does it differ from the neo-realist style, for example?
Jafar Panahi: The Iranian cinema treats social subjects. Because you're showing social problems, you want to be more realistic and give the actual.the real aesthetics of the situation. If the audience feels the same as what they see, then they would be more sympathetic. Because you're talking about the humanitarian aspects of things, it will touch your heart. We talk about small events or small things, but it's very deep and it's very wide - things that are happening in life. According to this mode, it has a poetic way and an artistic way. This may be one of the differences between Iranian movies and the movies of other countries: humanitarian events interpreted in a poetic and artistic way. In a world where films are made with millions of dollars, we made a film about a little girl who wants to buy a fish for less than a dollar (in The White Balloon) - this is what we're trying to show.
Whatever shows the truth of the society, in a very artistic way - that will find its own neo-realism. But this depends on the period. In Italy, neo-realism was defined by its time after the war. And now in Iran, that kind of neo-realism is disappearing.
ST: I would like to ask about your use of the idea of the circle, in The Circle and also in The White Balloon. As in The Circle, The White Balloon also uses the motif of the circle. We watch in the beginning something happen and then it's like drawing a circle, it connects with a character, an event and then it comes back to the circle. So what is it about this use of the circle that appeals to you?
JP: In the first plan-séquence in The White Balloon, the camera starts from those people who're playing the tambourines as they enter a shop. Somebody comes out of the shop and the camera follows him and then there's a jeep and the camera follows the jeep. The camera then arrives at a woman who goes to a balloon seller. If you have followed anyone of these people, you would have arrived at the same point. It is like a wall within which they are living together, and their lives are intertwined. That little girl is like an excuse, that all these lives can be touched. But these are the lives of children. Through the eyes of children, it's a much nicer world that they see, because children are in a world where they are not really aware of the difficulties of adults. They're trying to achieve their ideals. But in the life of adults, like in The Circle, the characters come out of idealism and they're more realistic - they are the same children but now they have grown up and they see the world with realistic eyes.
All three films, The White Balloon, The Mirror and The Circle, are like full cycles - or circles - where the characters are facing up to problems, and they are trying to get out of their boundaries. In The Circle, we're specifically talking about, addressing, these cycles. The form also has become like a circle. We start from an opening and we go back to the same point. We start from a birth and we go through darkness . in this movie we start from one birth, the birth of a human being, and we go back again to this same point. I had the idea of this form from a racetrack, like running a 400m relay. The runners come back to the first point. If they win they win together, if they lose they lose together. But in reality it's the victory of one person.
Coming back to your first question: why is Iranian film so beautiful? When you want to say something like this and then you add an artistic form to it, you can see the circle in everything. Now our girl has become an idealistic person and thinks that she can reach for what she wants, so we open up a wide angle and we see the world through her eyes, wider, we carry the camera with the hand and we are moving just like her. When we get to the other person, the camera lens closes, the light becomes darker and it becomes slower. Then we reach the last person, there's no other movement; it's just still. If there's any movement, it's in the background. This way, the form and whatever you are saying becomes one: a circle both in the form and in the content.
ST: So the form of the circle is both a metaphor for life as well as your own style of filmmaking?
JP: Yes.
ST: When you have this circle, there's a lot of repetition. You watch the characters doing the same thing every time. And this is something that appears not only in your films but also in many other Iranian films that I've seen, for example in Kiarostami's films: he always repeats and repeats.
JP: Normally, an artist has one thing to say, and this is being expressed in different ways. But you don't see this as all being in the same shape. I'm making films about humanity and its struggle. This human being is trying to open up the circle that he encounters. Once when he is a child, and sometimes as an older person. This is what is being said in The White Balloon, that is, the understanding of a child. There might be ten other movies like that: they all have the same theme but you will enjoy each of them in a different way. In literature, there is also the same thing - for example, Garcia Marquez of 100 Years of Solitude. He's always talking about the same subject but in a different way. All artists are the same: we talk about one subject but in different ways. This is not repetition. This is the way they express it.how they see the world.
ST: I take your point, particularly when I'm watching your films. I see characters reacting, showing different emotions; so although there is repetition within the circle, I see that the characters, their emotions and gestures are different. Are you more concerned with human behaviour or are you more concerned with the narrative?
JP: We must contain all. It's what we accept from this that is important. It's both of these that make an identity. Two different things: the things that are said and the things that are acted are two different things. Sometimes they're similar. This is how you understand the personality of the person. You have to focus on both of these so that you get the character.
ST: In The Circle, which character do you identify with most?
JP: I like all of them in different ways, that's why I created them. The first girl who is young and very idealistic. It's what comes out of her age. Or the last person who has come to the end of her life and has accepted the conditions of her life. All of them are very important. But I myself don't like to think of a person accepting his or her conditions in life. I prefer that even in a closed circle, they still try to break out of that circle. But I accept that I have to be realistic. I have to accept that in a society there are people who accept their conditions.
ST: The subject matter of The Circle is controversial. You mentioned that the film is still banned in Iran. In fact when I was watching the film, I realized that through the characters, there's a lot of fear about the system, the establishment, the police. The women can't smoke; they have to wear the Chador; they seem to want to hide every time. This is all very clear from watching the film. Did you deliberately want to make a statement about the political situation in Iran?
JP: I have to tell you again that I'm not a political person. I don't like political movies. But I take every opportunity to comment on the social issues. I talk about the current issues. To me it's not important what is the reason for what has happened. Whether it's political reasons or geographical reasons: these are not important - but the condition, the social issues. It is important to me to talk about the plight of humanity at that time. I don't want to give a political view, or start a political war. I think that the artist should rise above this. Political movies have limited time. After that time, it doesn't say anything anymore. But if the whole thing is said in an artistic way, then it doesn't have a time limit. So it doesn't really serve a political purpose. Then it can be everlasting, for always, and it could be for anywhere. But I know that politically, with the film authorities, with any kind of film that has some political background in it, they would disagree with. And for this reason, that is what the problem is.
ST: Still, your film makes a very strong statement about the problems that women face in Iran.
JP: Yes, I agree with that.
ST: So that is humanitarian of course, but it's also political.
JP: Yes, I agree with that. It has the elements. It all depends on how you look at it. If a person has only political views, then he will only see the political. But if you are a poet or an artist, then you see other things as well in the movie. If you are a socialist, you see political or economical or whatever different points of view. You mustn't look at a film with only one point of view. If you want to see The Circle as political, then it is one of the most political movies in Iran. By political, I mean partisan politics. But even the police, I didn't want to show them as bad. In the first instance, you are afraid of the police. Because you are looking at them from the point of view of someone who is now in prison. And normally you see him in a long shot, but when they come nearer and you see them in a medium shot, you can see their human faces. Then it comes down to "Do you need any help". But he goes back again and becomes frightening. If I were being political, then I would always show the police as dangerous or bad persons.
ST: In a long shot.
JP: In a long shot.I would show them rough. A political person can only see black or white. But I intertwine the tones. This is where the humanitarian eye comes in. I don't want to bring somebody down or say, "Death to this, or life to that."
ST: I've seen The White Balloon and The Circle: they're both films about women. Obviously you feel a lot about the problems of women.
The Mirror
The Mirror
JP: I don't really know - but probably it was due to the fact that my first film was made with a very low budget, and I thought it would be easier to work with children. I thought that filming with children would meet with fewer problems with the censors. Perhaps too, at that time, I had my own children, and it went automatically down that road. I have both a boy and a girl and I can see that the girl can strike up relationships in an easier, milder way. So I thought that a girl could give a better impression. Then when I finished the film and I started The Mirror, I began to think about what happens now that the girl has grown up in society. And then automatically, it became a movie about women. It started unconsciously but now the question is settled.
ST: So now you have made a trilogy about women. They are all linked.
JP: I agree.
ST: Shall we talk a bit about the process of making your film? You use both amateurs and professionals?
JP: I haven't really tried to be either this way or that way. I just choose. I just try to see what roles I have and who they would fit. I look for the person who fits what is in my mind. I know that to bring the professional and amateur together is very difficult. The acting must be on the same level. At this point, normally it is more difficult for the professional, because the professional has to come down and adapt to the level of the amateurs. The amateur is not role playing but doing what comes naturally. So the professional has not to give a performance, but to learn how to be more natural.
ST: So how long did it take to make your film?
JP: 53 days from beginning to end. In the middle, there were about 18 days when we didn't work, either because the weather wasn't good or .There were 37 days of filming.
ST: Were there a lot of rehearsals?
JP: The first plan-séquence was repeated 13 times.the shot from the hospital to the street. The cameraman would film the scene and take the shot back to the laboratory to check it and then he would re-shoot it again. This was repeated 13 times until we got what we wanted. This is one of the difficulties of doing long sequences like this. If I had wanted to break it down, I could have done it in half a day. That sequence took about five days. There were seven to eight such long takes in the film.
ST: Who conceived the script?
JP: Myself. Took about a year. Then, I wrote the different characters - where they come from and where they go to, which took about two months.
ST: Was it based on a story or a novel?
JP: Original script.
ST: And all your films are original scripts?
JP: Yes.
ST: That's very remarkable. What about the photography? Do you handle the camera?
JP: I have a camera operator. But I do the editing.
ST: There are many elements in the film that remind me of folk culture. Like the end scene, where the prostitute is in the prison van and there's a fellow prisoner, a man who starts to sing, reminiscent of folk music or folk culture. And also in The White Balloon where the girl comes out in the street and there's the snake charmer. Do you consciously want to show all these elements?
JP: When you see the film with subtitles, you don't understand the original language. If you could understand, you would know that everyone has a different accent, like a folk song or folk dance from a different part of Iran. These accents and these tones of folk culture also help to make the film more attractive. Tehran is a very big city and there are people from all over Iran living in the city. This is one of the features of a big city. The people in the film help one another so that they are believable and true, and sometimes I do this purposely - like the three girls who were playing their guitars - they're speaking in the Azerbaijani language, and the young girl who is one of the three women in the beginning, also has an Azerbaijani accent. And when she's sitting in front of the painting, and talking about the countryside that she sees in the painting, she's actually talking about Azerbaijan. So there are all kinds of connections. That painting was something from Van Gogh, for example. I chose it because it was not a specific geographic place.it could be anywhere in the world, but it was inspired by an actual painting by Van Gogh. I wanted to say that where you want to be could be anywhere in the world.
ST: I want to ask about the three female characters in the beginning. I'm not sure what exactly they went to prison for.
JP: It doesn't matter. It could be anything you want. That's not important. It's a very delicate point. If I had decided to give them some crime that they were guilty of, like something political or because of drugs, they would become specific persons. But they are not specific persons. You can have anybody there. Then the problem is a much larger problem. Maybe if it were a specific person there would be no censorship. But when it's open to interpretation, then it's more difficult. If it was a specific person, the censors can then say this person has this kind of crime, then it's not a problem. Because I wanted the audience to think for themselves, I left it open to interpretation.
ST: What is your next project?
JP: This was such a difficult film for me. We wanted very much to show this film. In the past six months from the start of the first showing, I've always been travelling. I've been to many different countries in Asia, Europe, America, Africa.long trips. I haven't had time to think about the next project.
ST: Having travelled all over the world now, do you think that being a filmmaker in Iran is much more difficult than in other countries?
JP: Every country has its own difficulties. In some countries, it's a budget problem. In other countries, it's political problems. And in some places, it's a lack of knowledge about the movie industry. In some places, there are tools but there are no people. In other places, there are people but no tools to make films with. There are problems everywhere, in different shapes.
ST: Just to focus on Iran. For example, what are the censorship problems that you face?
JP: There's censorship in Iran and China - both closed countries and closed societies.
ST: Is it much more difficult to want to make a film about women in Iran?
JP: It is a problem, but there are about sixty movies made every year in Iran, and ten or fifteen of them are about women. We have women directors, making movies about women. In a society governed by men, these problems do exist.
ST: Do you practise self-censorship?
JP: Never. Whatever I want to say, I try to say it. If I were my own censor, then I may not have any problems. At first they didn't allow me to make the movie. We took about ten months. In the end, they gave me permission to make the movie. They gave me a letter and in the letter they said that after the film was made, they would evaluate it to see whether it could be shown. I forgot about the letter. I thought that I would make the movie first and then I decide what to do about the situation. If I had paid attention to the letter, I would have to be my own censor and maybe then, I would have been able to show my film in Iran.
ST: Would you call your film a documentary or a drama?
JP: It's a drama that has become a documentary.
ST: Have you heard of the term "docu-drama"?
JP: I make my film, then you name it.
Jafar Panahi was ten years old when he wrote his first book, which subsequently won the first prize in a literary competition. At the same age, he became familiar with film making. He shot films on 8mm film, acting in one and assisting in the making of another. Later, he took up photography. During his military service, Panahi served in the Iran–Iraq War (1980-90) and made a documentary about the war during this period.
After studying film directing at the College of Cinema and Television in Tehran,[2] Panahi made several films for Iranian television and was the assistant director of Abbas Kiarostami's film Through the Olive Trees (1994). Since that time, he has directed several films and won numerous awards in international film festivals.
Panahi's first feature film came in 1995, entitled White Balloon. This film won a Camera d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. His second feature film, The Mirror, received the Golden Leopard Award at the Locarno Film Festival.
His most notable offering to date has been The Circle (2000), which criticized the treatment of women under Iran's Islamist regime. Jafar Panahi won the Golden Lion, the top prize at the Venice Film Festival for The Circle, which was named FIPRESCI’s Film of the Year, and appeared on Top 10 lists of critics worldwide.[3]. Panahi also directed Crimson Gold in 2003, which brought him the Un Certain Regard Jury Award at the Cannes Film Festival. It went on to win a number of best film awards and received excellent critical acclaims.[citation needed]
Panahi winning the Berlin Silver Bear award for his achievement in film in 2006
Panahi's Offside (the story of girls who disguise themselves as boys to be able to watch a football match) was nominated for competition in the 2006 Berlin Film Festival, where he was awarded with the prestigious Silver Bear and the Jury Grand Prix, 2006.
On July 30, 2009, Mojtaba Samienejad, an Iranian blogger and human rights activist writing from inside Iran, reports Panahi was arrested on Thursday at the cemetery in Tehran where mourners had gathered near the grave of Neda Agha-Soltan.
Panahi's style is often described as an Iranian form of neorealism.[citation needed] Jake Wilson describes his films as connected by a "tension between documentary immediacy and a set of strictly defined formal parameters" in addition to "overtly expressed anger at the restrictions that Iranian society imposes".[5] His film Offside is so ensconced in the reality that it was actually filmed in part during the event it dramatizes – the Iran-Bahrain qualifying match for the 2006 World Cup.
Where Panahi differs from his fellow realist filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, is in the explicitness of his social critique. Stephen Teo writes that
"Panahi's films redefine the humanitarian themes of contemporary Iranian cinema, firstly, by treating the problems of women in modern Iran, and secondly, by depicting human characters as "non-specific persons" - more like figures who nevertheless remain full-blooded characters, holding on to the viewer's attention and gripping the senses. Like the best Iranian directors who have won acclaim on the world stage, Panahi evokes humanitarianism in an unsentimental, realistic fashion, without necessarily overriding political and social messages. In essence, this has come to define the particular aesthetic of Iranian cinema. So powerful is this sensibility that we seem to have no other mode of looking at Iranian cinema other than to equate it with a universal concept of humanitarianism."
Panahi says that his style can be described as "humanitarian events interpreted in a poetic and artistic way". He says "In a world where films are made with millions of dollars, we made a film about a little girl who wants to buy a fish for less than a dollar (in The White Balloon) - this is what we're trying to show."
In an interview with Anthony Kaufman, Panahi said: "I was very conscious of not trying to play with people's emotions; we were not trying to create tear-jerking scenes. So it engages people's intellectual side. But this is with assistance from the emotional aspect and a combination of the two."
filmography
* The Wounded Heads (Yarali Bashlar, 1988)
* Kish (1991)
* The Friend (Doust, 1992)
* The Last Exam (Akharin Emtehan, 1992)
* The White Balloon (Badkonake Sefid, 1995)
* Ardekoul (1997)
* The Mirror (Ayneh, 1997)
* The Circle (Dayereh, 2000)
* Crimson Gold (Talaye Sorkh, 2003)
* Offside (2006)
Awards and honors
Jafar Panahi has won numerous awards up to now. Here are a few representatives:
* HIVOS Cinema Unlimited Award (2007)
* Podo Award, at Valdivia Film Festival (2007), for his life-time artistic accomplishments.
* Silver Bear, Berlin Film Festival, 2006.
* Prix du Jury - Un Certain Regard, Cannes Film Festival, 2003.[7]
* Golden Lion, Venice Film Festival, 2000.
* Golden Leopard, Locarno International Film Festival, 1997.
* Prix de la Camera d'Or, Cannes Film Festival, 1995.
Iranian Filmmaker Jafar Panahi Arrested In Tehran
by Peter Knegt (July 30, 2009)
Iranian Filmmaker Jafar Panahi Arrested In Tehran
Jafar Panahi at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival, where his film "Offside" was screening. Photo by Brian Brooks/indieWIRE.
AFP is reporting that prominent Iranian director Jafar Panahi (“Offside”, “The Circle”) was arrested today, along with his wife and daughter, at a ceremony where mourners gathered to commemorate slain election protesters. AFP notes that “Panahi is a vocal critic of Iran hardliners and his movies have been banned for a decade from domestic cinemas despite their international success.” Several other mourners were also arrested by Iranian riot police. They were marking the 40th day since the death of Neda Agha-Soltan, a woman “who came to symbolise the protest movement against the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.”
The Times Online is also covering the events, while The New York Times is running a constantly updated blog on the protests, including information about Panahi.
Jafar Panahi, born in 1960 in Mianeh, Iran, was ten years old when he wrote his first book, which subsequently won first prize in a literary competition. It was also at that young age that he became familiar with filmmaking: shooting films on 8mm, acting in one 8mm film and assisting in the making of another. Later, he took up photography. On being drafted into the military, Panahi served in the Iran-Iraq War (1980-90), and during this period, made a documentary about the War which was eventually shown on TV. After his military service, Panahi entered university to study filmmaking, and while there, made some documentaries. He also worked as an assistant director on some feature films. After his studies, Panahi left Tehran to make films in the outer regions of the country. On returning to Tehran, he worked with Abbas Kiarostami as his assistant director on Through the Olive Trees (1994). Armed with a script by his mentor, Kiarostami, Panahi made his debut as a director with The White Balloon (1995), and subsequently went on to make The Mirror (1997) and his most recent film, The Circle (2000).
On the surface, Panahi's films offer a variation of neo-realism, Iranian-style, by capturing, in his own words, the "humanitarian aspects of things". But watching the director's latest film The Circle (currently doing its rounds on the international film festival circuit after winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival last year), one can't help but feel that his humanitarian cinema is a cloak, masking an even greater obsession. His motif of the circle - the camera beginning from a single point and revolving around characters only to return to the point where it began - aptly describes that obsession, expressed as much as possible through the form of the plan séquence (a long uninterrupted take). The circle is both a metaphor for life as well as a form that the director has subscribed to as his most representative style. Stressing the equal importance of both form and content, Panahi asserts that his work is about "humanity and its struggle", or the need for human beings to break through the confines of the circle.
In his own rather startling way, Panahi's films redefine the humanitarian themes of contemporary Iranian cinema, firstly, by treating the problems of women in modern Iran, and secondly, by depicting human characters as "non-specific persons" - more like figures who nevertheless remain full-blooded characters, holding on to the viewer's attention and gripping the senses. Like the best Iranian directors who have won acclaim on the world stage, Panahi evokes humanitarianism in an unsentimental, realistic fashion, without necessarily overriding political and social messages. In essence, this has come to define the particular aesthetic of Iranian cinema. So powerful is this sensibility that we seem to have no other mode of looking at Iranian cinema other than to equate it with a universal concept of humanitarianism.
The Circle works on the level of interpreting "humanitarian events in a poetic or artistic way," as the director himself defines his own version of neo-realist cinema. But the film is a far bolder work than most recent Iranian films; and one measure of its boldness is the fact that it is banned in Iran. It chronicles the stories of seven women, not all of whom are connected to each other, but whose fates are invariably interrelated through a circle of repression. The film works as a riveting, compelling testament about the lowly status of women in Iranian society, and about the subtle means with which Iran as a whole exercises its repression over the female sex. Panahi is, however, ambivalent about the political content of The Circle. In the following interview, it comes as no surprise that Panahi prefers to accentuate the human dignity of his characters - a human right that seems trivial in the context of Western society but one which is readily denied in unexpected circumstances and situations, as Panahi himself found out, to his cost. On his way to the Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema on 15 April, 2001, after having attended the Hong Kong International Film Festival, Panahi was arrested in JFK Airport, New York City, for not possessing a transit visa. Refusing to submit to a fingerprinting process (apparently required under U.S. law), the director was handcuffed and leg-chained after much protestations to US immigration officers over his bona fides, and finally led to a plane that took him back to Hong Kong. As far as is known, this incident was not reported in any major US newspaper (1), even though The Circle was being shown in the United States at the time (another irony: for that film, Panahi was awarded the "Freedom of Expression Award" by the US National Board of Review of Motion Pictures. His letter to the Board is published in this issue.
This interview with Jafar Panahi was conducted in Hong Kong on 11 April on the occasion of the 25th Hong Kong International Film Festival, which presented The Circle, among other new Iranian films. On being invited to the Festival, the director encountered problems in securing a visa from the Chinese embassy in Tehran to enter Hong Kong (a fact that he made known to his audience whilst introducing The Circle). He was granted a visa only upon the intervention of the Hong Kong Festival which made clear to the embassy that Panahi was an eminent film director and that his visit to the territory was purely a cultural one. Clearly, the case of Jafar Panahi illustrates a modern paradox: his nationality is no guarantee of decent, "humanitarian" treatment outside of Iran (the country being demonized by the international community, so to speak), even though Iranian cinema - with Panahi himself as one of its most distinguished exponents - is perhaps the most humanitarian in the world today.
Apparently, Panahi is very much focused on this paradox, taking every opportunity to decry the poor treatment (either perceived or real) that he has received when travelling out of Iran (in Hong Kong, he voiced his discontent with the Chinese embassy during interviews with the press; and similarly, the director has spoken out against his "inhuman" treatment by the US immigration authorities in JFK Airport). Through his films, Panahi expounds the humanity of all his characters, good or bad, expressing the fundamental need for decent, humanist behaviour on the part of all. An indication of his focus may be gleaned from the interview itself. For instance, I began the interview by asking Panahi to define the aesthetics of Iranian cinema as he saw it. Perhaps a bit put off by the more intellectual tone of my question, Panahi went on to say that the aesthetics of Iranian cinema was married to the realistic, the actual: "the humanitarian aspects of things." Although the interview was conducted with the help of an interpreter, I could sense Panahi's stalwart personality, his total conviction about "humanity and its struggle", and his pride over what he has achieved in Iranian cinema. The case of Jafar Panahi will not be closed for a long while yet.
*
Stephen Teo: I would like you to begin by talking about the aesthetics of Iranian cinema. What I am struck by in all the Iranian films we have seen is the fact that they are very close to being a kind of documentary reality of Iran. But on the other hand, they're very beautiful to look at, unlike most realist-based cinemas - beautiful in the sense that they're not rough, shot with hand-held cameras with no lights, such as the neo-realist style of Italian cinema after the war. Could you give a definition of the aesthetics of Iranian cinema? How does it differ from the neo-realist style, for example?
Jafar Panahi: The Iranian cinema treats social subjects. Because you're showing social problems, you want to be more realistic and give the actual.the real aesthetics of the situation. If the audience feels the same as what they see, then they would be more sympathetic. Because you're talking about the humanitarian aspects of things, it will touch your heart. We talk about small events or small things, but it's very deep and it's very wide - things that are happening in life. According to this mode, it has a poetic way and an artistic way. This may be one of the differences between Iranian movies and the movies of other countries: humanitarian events interpreted in a poetic and artistic way. In a world where films are made with millions of dollars, we made a film about a little girl who wants to buy a fish for less than a dollar (in The White Balloon) - this is what we're trying to show.
Whatever shows the truth of the society, in a very artistic way - that will find its own neo-realism. But this depends on the period. In Italy, neo-realism was defined by its time after the war. And now in Iran, that kind of neo-realism is disappearing.
ST: I would like to ask about your use of the idea of the circle, in The Circle and also in The White Balloon. As in The Circle, The White Balloon also uses the motif of the circle. We watch in the beginning something happen and then it's like drawing a circle, it connects with a character, an event and then it comes back to the circle. So what is it about this use of the circle that appeals to you?
JP: In the first plan-séquence in The White Balloon, the camera starts from those people who're playing the tambourines as they enter a shop. Somebody comes out of the shop and the camera follows him and then there's a jeep and the camera follows the jeep. The camera then arrives at a woman who goes to a balloon seller. If you have followed anyone of these people, you would have arrived at the same point. It is like a wall within which they are living together, and their lives are intertwined. That little girl is like an excuse, that all these lives can be touched. But these are the lives of children. Through the eyes of children, it's a much nicer world that they see, because children are in a world where they are not really aware of the difficulties of adults. They're trying to achieve their ideals. But in the life of adults, like in The Circle, the characters come out of idealism and they're more realistic - they are the same children but now they have grown up and they see the world with realistic eyes.
All three films, The White Balloon, The Mirror and The Circle, are like full cycles - or circles - where the characters are facing up to problems, and they are trying to get out of their boundaries. In The Circle, we're specifically talking about, addressing, these cycles. The form also has become like a circle. We start from an opening and we go back to the same point. We start from a birth and we go through darkness . in this movie we start from one birth, the birth of a human being, and we go back again to this same point. I had the idea of this form from a racetrack, like running a 400m relay. The runners come back to the first point. If they win they win together, if they lose they lose together. But in reality it's the victory of one person.
Coming back to your first question: why is Iranian film so beautiful? When you want to say something like this and then you add an artistic form to it, you can see the circle in everything. Now our girl has become an idealistic person and thinks that she can reach for what she wants, so we open up a wide angle and we see the world through her eyes, wider, we carry the camera with the hand and we are moving just like her. When we get to the other person, the camera lens closes, the light becomes darker and it becomes slower. Then we reach the last person, there's no other movement; it's just still. If there's any movement, it's in the background. This way, the form and whatever you are saying becomes one: a circle both in the form and in the content.
ST: So the form of the circle is both a metaphor for life as well as your own style of filmmaking?
JP: Yes.
ST: When you have this circle, there's a lot of repetition. You watch the characters doing the same thing every time. And this is something that appears not only in your films but also in many other Iranian films that I've seen, for example in Kiarostami's films: he always repeats and repeats.
JP: Normally, an artist has one thing to say, and this is being expressed in different ways. But you don't see this as all being in the same shape. I'm making films about humanity and its struggle. This human being is trying to open up the circle that he encounters. Once when he is a child, and sometimes as an older person. This is what is being said in The White Balloon, that is, the understanding of a child. There might be ten other movies like that: they all have the same theme but you will enjoy each of them in a different way. In literature, there is also the same thing - for example, Garcia Marquez of 100 Years of Solitude. He's always talking about the same subject but in a different way. All artists are the same: we talk about one subject but in different ways. This is not repetition. This is the way they express it.how they see the world.
ST: I take your point, particularly when I'm watching your films. I see characters reacting, showing different emotions; so although there is repetition within the circle, I see that the characters, their emotions and gestures are different. Are you more concerned with human behaviour or are you more concerned with the narrative?
JP: We must contain all. It's what we accept from this that is important. It's both of these that make an identity. Two different things: the things that are said and the things that are acted are two different things. Sometimes they're similar. This is how you understand the personality of the person. You have to focus on both of these so that you get the character.
ST: In The Circle, which character do you identify with most?
JP: I like all of them in different ways, that's why I created them. The first girl who is young and very idealistic. It's what comes out of her age. Or the last person who has come to the end of her life and has accepted the conditions of her life. All of them are very important. But I myself don't like to think of a person accepting his or her conditions in life. I prefer that even in a closed circle, they still try to break out of that circle. But I accept that I have to be realistic. I have to accept that in a society there are people who accept their conditions.
ST: The subject matter of The Circle is controversial. You mentioned that the film is still banned in Iran. In fact when I was watching the film, I realized that through the characters, there's a lot of fear about the system, the establishment, the police. The women can't smoke; they have to wear the Chador; they seem to want to hide every time. This is all very clear from watching the film. Did you deliberately want to make a statement about the political situation in Iran?
JP: I have to tell you again that I'm not a political person. I don't like political movies. But I take every opportunity to comment on the social issues. I talk about the current issues. To me it's not important what is the reason for what has happened. Whether it's political reasons or geographical reasons: these are not important - but the condition, the social issues. It is important to me to talk about the plight of humanity at that time. I don't want to give a political view, or start a political war. I think that the artist should rise above this. Political movies have limited time. After that time, it doesn't say anything anymore. But if the whole thing is said in an artistic way, then it doesn't have a time limit. So it doesn't really serve a political purpose. Then it can be everlasting, for always, and it could be for anywhere. But I know that politically, with the film authorities, with any kind of film that has some political background in it, they would disagree with. And for this reason, that is what the problem is.
ST: Still, your film makes a very strong statement about the problems that women face in Iran.
JP: Yes, I agree with that.
ST: So that is humanitarian of course, but it's also political.
JP: Yes, I agree with that. It has the elements. It all depends on how you look at it. If a person has only political views, then he will only see the political. But if you are a poet or an artist, then you see other things as well in the movie. If you are a socialist, you see political or economical or whatever different points of view. You mustn't look at a film with only one point of view. If you want to see The Circle as political, then it is one of the most political movies in Iran. By political, I mean partisan politics. But even the police, I didn't want to show them as bad. In the first instance, you are afraid of the police. Because you are looking at them from the point of view of someone who is now in prison. And normally you see him in a long shot, but when they come nearer and you see them in a medium shot, you can see their human faces. Then it comes down to "Do you need any help". But he goes back again and becomes frightening. If I were being political, then I would always show the police as dangerous or bad persons.
ST: In a long shot.
JP: In a long shot.I would show them rough. A political person can only see black or white. But I intertwine the tones. This is where the humanitarian eye comes in. I don't want to bring somebody down or say, "Death to this, or life to that."
ST: I've seen The White Balloon and The Circle: they're both films about women. Obviously you feel a lot about the problems of women.
The Mirror
The Mirror
JP: I don't really know - but probably it was due to the fact that my first film was made with a very low budget, and I thought it would be easier to work with children. I thought that filming with children would meet with fewer problems with the censors. Perhaps too, at that time, I had my own children, and it went automatically down that road. I have both a boy and a girl and I can see that the girl can strike up relationships in an easier, milder way. So I thought that a girl could give a better impression. Then when I finished the film and I started The Mirror, I began to think about what happens now that the girl has grown up in society. And then automatically, it became a movie about women. It started unconsciously but now the question is settled.
ST: So now you have made a trilogy about women. They are all linked.
JP: I agree.
ST: Shall we talk a bit about the process of making your film? You use both amateurs and professionals?
JP: I haven't really tried to be either this way or that way. I just choose. I just try to see what roles I have and who they would fit. I look for the person who fits what is in my mind. I know that to bring the professional and amateur together is very difficult. The acting must be on the same level. At this point, normally it is more difficult for the professional, because the professional has to come down and adapt to the level of the amateurs. The amateur is not role playing but doing what comes naturally. So the professional has not to give a performance, but to learn how to be more natural.
ST: So how long did it take to make your film?
JP: 53 days from beginning to end. In the middle, there were about 18 days when we didn't work, either because the weather wasn't good or .There were 37 days of filming.
ST: Were there a lot of rehearsals?
JP: The first plan-séquence was repeated 13 times.the shot from the hospital to the street. The cameraman would film the scene and take the shot back to the laboratory to check it and then he would re-shoot it again. This was repeated 13 times until we got what we wanted. This is one of the difficulties of doing long sequences like this. If I had wanted to break it down, I could have done it in half a day. That sequence took about five days. There were seven to eight such long takes in the film.
ST: Who conceived the script?
JP: Myself. Took about a year. Then, I wrote the different characters - where they come from and where they go to, which took about two months.
ST: Was it based on a story or a novel?
JP: Original script.
ST: And all your films are original scripts?
JP: Yes.
ST: That's very remarkable. What about the photography? Do you handle the camera?
JP: I have a camera operator. But I do the editing.
ST: There are many elements in the film that remind me of folk culture. Like the end scene, where the prostitute is in the prison van and there's a fellow prisoner, a man who starts to sing, reminiscent of folk music or folk culture. And also in The White Balloon where the girl comes out in the street and there's the snake charmer. Do you consciously want to show all these elements?
JP: When you see the film with subtitles, you don't understand the original language. If you could understand, you would know that everyone has a different accent, like a folk song or folk dance from a different part of Iran. These accents and these tones of folk culture also help to make the film more attractive. Tehran is a very big city and there are people from all over Iran living in the city. This is one of the features of a big city. The people in the film help one another so that they are believable and true, and sometimes I do this purposely - like the three girls who were playing their guitars - they're speaking in the Azerbaijani language, and the young girl who is one of the three women in the beginning, also has an Azerbaijani accent. And when she's sitting in front of the painting, and talking about the countryside that she sees in the painting, she's actually talking about Azerbaijan. So there are all kinds of connections. That painting was something from Van Gogh, for example. I chose it because it was not a specific geographic place.it could be anywhere in the world, but it was inspired by an actual painting by Van Gogh. I wanted to say that where you want to be could be anywhere in the world.
ST: I want to ask about the three female characters in the beginning. I'm not sure what exactly they went to prison for.
JP: It doesn't matter. It could be anything you want. That's not important. It's a very delicate point. If I had decided to give them some crime that they were guilty of, like something political or because of drugs, they would become specific persons. But they are not specific persons. You can have anybody there. Then the problem is a much larger problem. Maybe if it were a specific person there would be no censorship. But when it's open to interpretation, then it's more difficult. If it was a specific person, the censors can then say this person has this kind of crime, then it's not a problem. Because I wanted the audience to think for themselves, I left it open to interpretation.
ST: What is your next project?
JP: This was such a difficult film for me. We wanted very much to show this film. In the past six months from the start of the first showing, I've always been travelling. I've been to many different countries in Asia, Europe, America, Africa.long trips. I haven't had time to think about the next project.
ST: Having travelled all over the world now, do you think that being a filmmaker in Iran is much more difficult than in other countries?
JP: Every country has its own difficulties. In some countries, it's a budget problem. In other countries, it's political problems. And in some places, it's a lack of knowledge about the movie industry. In some places, there are tools but there are no people. In other places, there are people but no tools to make films with. There are problems everywhere, in different shapes.
ST: Just to focus on Iran. For example, what are the censorship problems that you face?
JP: There's censorship in Iran and China - both closed countries and closed societies.
ST: Is it much more difficult to want to make a film about women in Iran?
JP: It is a problem, but there are about sixty movies made every year in Iran, and ten or fifteen of them are about women. We have women directors, making movies about women. In a society governed by men, these problems do exist.
ST: Do you practise self-censorship?
JP: Never. Whatever I want to say, I try to say it. If I were my own censor, then I may not have any problems. At first they didn't allow me to make the movie. We took about ten months. In the end, they gave me permission to make the movie. They gave me a letter and in the letter they said that after the film was made, they would evaluate it to see whether it could be shown. I forgot about the letter. I thought that I would make the movie first and then I decide what to do about the situation. If I had paid attention to the letter, I would have to be my own censor and maybe then, I would have been able to show my film in Iran.
ST: Would you call your film a documentary or a drama?
JP: It's a drama that has become a documentary.
ST: Have you heard of the term "docu-drama"?
JP: I make my film, then you name it.
CRIMSON GOLD
PLOT:
For Hussein, a pizza delivery driver, the imbalance of the social system is thrown in his face wherever he turns. One day when his friend, Ali, shows him the contents of a lost purse, Hussein discovers a receipt of payment and cannot believe the large sum of money someone spent to purchase an expensive necklace. He knows that his pitiful salary will never be enough to afford such luxury. Hussein receives yet another blow when he and Ali are denied entry to an uptown jewelry store because of their appearance. His job allows him a full view of the contrast between rich and poor. He motorbikes every evening to neighborhoods he will never live in, for a closer look at what goes on behind closed doors. But one night, Hussein tastes the luxurious life, before his deep feelings of humiliation push him over the edge.
An interview with Jafar Panahi, director of Crimson Gold
By David Walsh
17 September 2003
Jafar Panahi, Iranian director of Crimson Gold, was interviewed at the Toronto film festival by David Walsh.
David Walsh: This is an Iranian film with an obvious international significance. In the US such tragedies happen everyday. Unfortunately, one almost becomes accustomed to them. What was it about this particular incident that caught your attention?
Jafar Panahi: It’s true that when you live in a society like ours things like that happen all the time, but there are certain times, certain moments, certain days, when you hear what happens, the pain hits you so hard, you think about it seriously. It’s like when you take the same route from home to work every day and one day you notice for the first time something that was always there. You focus on it. It causes you pain and you think you have to do something about it.
So as a filmmaker, when I heard what happened it struck me and I had to do something about it. We were going to [director Abbas] Kiarostami’s photographic exhibition. When he told me what happened, I could not stay at the exhibition any longer and I felt I had to do something. I can’t even remember what kind of emotional feeling I had that day.
The party scene in the movie [the police raid] happens all the time, and young people are always struggling with the problem and they get arrested, and their parents sign papers that they won’t do it again. Three weeks ago, something happened in Tehran...although it was a very sad thing, I felt pleased that I had exposed this in my movie. Three weeks ago, after a party, the police followed a boy and girl, and fired at them, and the boy was killed. As a social filmmaker, I respond to whatever is happening in our social life.
Although the people living in that society are totally used to what happened at the party, it is necessary to expose it and show it again as a real problem.
Because the Iranian government is based on religion, any relationship between boys and girls—if they’re not married, if they’re dancing together at a party—is a crime. So they have to do something about it. Sometimes they have the proper papers and they have permission to raid the house. And sometimes they wait outside for people to come out—they can also catch more people like that.
DW: Is the question of social inequality a subject that is discussed by filmmakers, journalists and politicians in Iran? It is a major fact of life in the US, but hardly anyone talks about it or makes films about it.
JP: Inequality exists in every country of the world. But a certain point can be reached...there is no middle class anymore, because of wrong political decisions or economical problems. And then the gap between poor and rich gets bigger, and that’s how it is right now. That causes violence and aggravation. And the various people who are struggling with this problem react differently. Hussein was not a thief; if he had been, he would have stolen from the rich man. He wanted to defend his humanity against humiliation. We don’t want to say whether it’s right or wrong. But we say that’s how it is.
DW: The film showed me many things about Iran for the first time. We have never seen such wealthy homes before. Was that deliberate, to show such wealth?
JP: Yes, and that’s the way it is because of the gap that’s getting bigger between rich and poor. And the characters in the movie don’t even compare to the really wealthy people in Iran.
DW: There is not simply the economic effect, but the psychological and emotional impact, and not only on the poor. Did you also want to speak about the consequences for those with money?
JP: I want to show people at every level of society, and I want to show their problems. I don’t want to say that people at one level of society are better or worse off. We have about 4 to 5 million Iranian people who live outside Iran; they left the country after the revolution. Most of them were children when they fled the country, and they don’t have any real knowledge about what’s happening in Iran now. But as they love their country, they always want to go back and try to live there. But when they come back, they can’t relate to people and they suffer. That’s why he invited Hussein in, so they could talk about the problems. And we feel as bad for the rich guy as we do for Hussein.
DW: Hussein seems terribly injured, both by war and the economic situation. Do you feel that many Iranians have been wounded in this fashion?
JP: There is a saying that we think insane people are more fortunate, because they don’t really see what’s happening around them. But if you really see what’s going on around you, it’s going to make you suffer deeply. And that’s Hussein’s situation; he hardly talks, but he sees much, and when he sees something, he really sees deeply into it. And he is ill, and he suffers both physically and emotionally.
DW: Yesterday at the public screening, you described yourself as independent filmmaker. That is often a misused term in North America. What do you mean by “independent”?
JP: Independent from any kind of dependency and coercion anywhere in the world. Independent from any belief I think is not right. Refusing self-censorship and believing any movie that I make is, in the end, exactly what I wanted to say. A lot of times, when you say you’re independent, it means economically, that you don’t get paid by other people. But where we are, independent means more like independence from politics. That’s why I don’t make political movies. Because if I were a political filmmaker, then I would have to work for political parties and I would have to go along with their beliefs of what’s wrong and what’s right. But what I say is that art is much higher than politics. Art looks like politics from a higher end. You never say what’s wrong or right. We just show the problems.
And its up to the audience to decide what’s wrong or right. A political movie becomes dated, but an independent artistic film never gets old and is always fresh. Although I’m making my movies in Iran as a geographical area, my voice is an international one. That’s what I mean by “independent.” Whenever I feel pain, I’m going to respond, because I’m not dependent on any party, and I don’t take orders, and I decide independently when I make my movies. I try to struggle with all the difficulties and make my movie. If I weren’t independent, I would say yes to anyone. But when I want to make a movie, I’ll do anything it takes. And that’s not what government officials like. And the pleasure is much greater.
DW: I congratulate you on your criticism of the situation in Iran and your refusal to come to New York because of US government policy. What is your attitude toward the invasion of Iraq?
JP: People in the Middle East aren’t really optimistic about America. And all the ordinary people think that everything America does is to suit itself. And to serve its own self-interest, the US government disregards international opinion and law. We were in a war with Saddam for eight years, and America was supporting him the whole time. Saddam bombarded us with chemical weapons. But suddenly, when America saw its own interests threatened by Saddam, then they attack. We saw this in Afghanistan. When they wanted to invade Afghanistan, we had to laugh because we knew they would never find bin Laden. There is always going to be a scapegoat that American can use.
Hussein (Hossain Emadeddin) is a guy pretty down on his luck. He's an ex-soldier who was somehow injured, and now delivers pizza. He has a hulking presence about him, and pretty taciturn. Jafar Panihi (The Circle, Ardekoul) uses Hussein to show the imbalance in Iranian society; how some people get ahead economically but others get left behind. It's a pretty moving tale, albeit a thin one. This divide is large enough to cause Hussein to hold up a jewelry store, as he does at the beginning of Crimson Gold. Panihi and screenwriter Abbas Kiarostami (The Deserted Station, Ten) then flash back to show the events leading up to Hussein's actions.
Like other films in Persian cinema, Panihi uses non-actors. This brings a sense of realism to the roles, since the viewer is watching ordinary people do ordinary things. The one drawback is that these people are not trained to come across as natural, so their delivery is sometimes clumsy. For Emadeddin, it is hard to tell what he is thinking, because Panihi gives him so few lines. He moves slowly and deliberately, and the only obvious emotion he shows is annoyance at the people around him. Hussein lives in a run down apartment, and the only time he glimpses the upper class is along his pizza delivery route. Each delivery brings a tantalizing glimpse into spacious, opulent apartments that he will never be able to afford.
He finds a receipt for an expensive necklace and goes to visit the jewelry store. The owner (Shahram Vaziri) doesn't even let him and his friend (Kamyar Sheisi) inside. He returns later, dressed in a suit looking for jewelry. After a quick conversation, the owner suggests he find some cheaper jewelry elsewhere. Although he looks relatively unfazed, it is clear that this bothers him. Hussein wants some sort of recognition from Vaziri. Recognition from one of these members of the upper class would be a sort of redemption for Hussein. It proves that he is somebody, that he exists.
Hussein later ends up in a magnificent apartment, where he can see close up just what he does not have. Is it fair that he fought for his country, only to return to toiling away for nothing, while a spoiled kid can get so much? The world is passing Hussein by, and the more he thinks about it the more it bothers him. Crimson Gold is also a nice look at a segment of Iranian society seldom glimpsed in film; the affluent, successful part. They shut their doors to their countrymen, creating an artificial divide between the classes. For Panihi, it's an interesting study. It doesn't quite go anywhere, but it is interesting nonetheless.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Çağan Irmak
Çağan Irmak
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Çağan Irmak (born 4 April 1970 in İzmir, Turkey) is a Turkish film director, producer and screenwriter. He graduated in Radio-TV and Film Studies from the Ege University.
He managed to attract a wider audience in Turkey as a successful writer and director. He is mostly famous for the TV series Çemberimde Gül Oya and Asmalı Konak, and for the movies Mustafa Hakkında Herşey, Babam ve Oğlum and Issız Adam. The soundtracks of his movies are celebrated as well.
[edit] Filmography
Movies:
- Bana Şans Dile (2001)
- Mustafa Hakkında Herşey (2004)
- Babam ve Oğlum (2005)
- Ulak (2007)
- Issız Adam (2008)
- Karanlıktakiler (2009)
Short movies:
- Bana Old and Wise'ı Çal (1998)
TV series:
- Şaşıfelek Çıkmazı (2000)
- Asmalı Konak (2002)
- Çemberimde Gül Oya (2004)
- Kabuslar Evi (2006)
- Yol Arkadaşım (2008)
Monday, October 19, 2009
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (UK: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter... and Spring) is a 2003 South Korean film about a Buddhist monastery which floats on a lake in a pristine forest. The story is about the life of a Buddhist monk as he passes through the seasons of his life, from childhood to old age.
The movie was directed by Kim Ki-duk, and stars Su Oh-yeong, Kim Young-min, Seo Jae-kyung, and Kim Jong-ho. The director himself appears as the man in the last stage of life. The quiet, contemplative film marked a significant change from his previous works, which were often criticized for excessive violence and misogyny.
The film is divided into five segments (the five seasons of the title), each segment depicting a different stage in the life of a Buddhist monk (each segment is roughly ten to twenty years apart, and is physically in the middle of its titular season).
SYNOPSISSPRING
The wooden doors of a gated threshold open on a small monastery raft that floats upon the tranquil surface of a mountain pond. The hermitage's sole occupants are an Old Monk (OH Young-soo) and his boy protege Child Monk (KIM Jong-ho). While exploring the world in and around their secluded idyll, Child Monk indulges in the capricious cruelties of boyhood. After tying stones to a fish, a frog, and a snake, Child Monk awakens to find himself fettered by a large stone Old Monk has bound to him. The old man calmly instructs the boy to release the animals, promising him that if any of the creatures die "you'll carry the stone in your heart for the rest of your life."
SUMMER
The doors open again on Boy Monk now aged 17 (SEO Jae-kyung) who meets a woman (KIM Jung-young) making a pilgrimage with her spiritually ill daughter (HAYeo-jin). "When she finds peace in her soul," Old Monk reassures the mother, "her body will return to health." The girl awakens desire in Boy Monk and the sensual flirtation between the two of them culminates in passionate lovemaking on pond-side rocks. After a furtive but tender tryst in the abbey's rowboat, the lovers are discovered by Old Monk. The girl, now healed, is sent back to her mother. Forsaking his monastery home, the infatuated Boy Monk follows her.
FALL
Long absent from the monastery, Young Adult Monk (KIM Young-Min), now a thirty year old fugitive, returns to the abbey raft still consumed by a jealous rage that has compelled him to commit a violent crime. When Young Adult Monk attempts penitence as cruel as his misdeed, Old Monk punishes him. The Old Monk instructs Young Adult Monk to carve Pranjaparpamita (Buddhist) sutras into the hermitage's deck in order to find peace in his heart. Two policemen arrive at the abbey to arrest Young Adult Monk but thanks to Old Monk, they let Young Adult Monk continue carving the sutras. Young Adult Monk collapses from exhaustion and the two policemen finish decorating the sutras before taking Young Adult Monk into custody. Alone again, Old Monk prepares a ritual funereal pyre for himself.
WINTER
The doors open on the now frozen pond and abandoned monastery. The now mature Adult Monk (played by director KIM Ki-duk) returns to train himself for the penultimate season in his spiritual journey-cycle. A veiled woman arrives bearing an infant that she leaves in Adult Monk's care. In a pilgrimage of contrition, Adult Monk drags a millstone to the summit of a mountain overlooking the pond. As he gazes down on the pond that buoys the monastery and the mountainsides that gently hold the pond like cupped hands, Adult Monk acknowledges the unending cycle of seasons and the accompanying ebb and flow of life's joys and sorrows.
... AND SPRING
The doors open once again on a beautiful spring day. Grown from a child to a man and from a novice to a master, Adult Monk has been reborn as teacher for his new protege. Together, Adult Monk and his young pupil are to start the cycle anew...
ABOUT THE FILM
The exquisitely beautiful and very human drama SPRING, SUMMER, FALL, WINTER... AND SPRING, starring director KIM Ki-duk, is entirely set on and around a tree-lined lake where a tiny Buddhist monastery floats on a raft amidst a breath-taking landscape. The film is divided into five segments with each season representing a stage in a man's life. Under the vigilant eyes of Old Monk (wonderful veteran theatre actor OH Young-soo), Child Monk learns a hard lesson about the nature of sorrow when some of his childish games turn cruel.
In the intensity and lushness of summer, the monk, now a young man, experiences the power of lust, a desire that will ultimately lead him, as an adult, to dark deeds. With winter, strikingly set on the ice and snow-covered lake, the man atones for his past actions, and spring starts the cycle anew...
With an extraordinary attention to visual details, such as using a different animal (dog, rooster, cat, snake) as a motif for each section, writer/director/editor KIM Ki-duk has crafted a totally original yet universal story about the human spirit, moving from Innocence, through Love and Evil, to Enlightenment and finally Rebirth.
DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT
"I intended to portray the joy, anger, sorrow and pleasure of our lives through four seasons and through the life of a monk who lives in a temple on Jusan Pond surrounded only by nature." -- KIM Ki-duk
ABOUT THE SET
The hermitage that is the stage for SPRING, SUMMER, FALL, WINTER... AND SPRING is an artificially constructed set made to float on top of Jusan Pond in North Kyungsang Province in Korea. Created about 200 years ago, Jusan Pond is an artificial lake in which the surrounding mountains are reflected in its waters. It retains the mystical aura of having trees more than hundreds of years old still growing within its water. LJ Film was able to obtain permission to build the set after finally convincing the Ministry of Environment through six months of negotiations.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
A unique, visionary voice within both South Korea's ongoing filmmaking resurgence and contemporary world cinema, 43 year-old acclaimed director KIM Ki-duk is a virtual autodidact. "I have been accustomed to a life quite different from other filmmakers," he says. Indeed, without benefit of a formal film school education, Mr. KIM has beaten his own path to a position of rapidly growing filmmaking eminence at home and abroad. After a customarily brief rural primary school education, he worked in factories until called for military service. During a five-year stretch in the South Korean Army, Mr. KIM developed a committed passion for painting. Upon completion of his military service, Mr. KIM moved to France, studied fine arts in Paris and sold his paintings on the streets in the south of France.
"One day," he says, "I woke to discover the world of cinema, and jumped into it." After collecting awards and accolades for his screenplay, A Painter and A Criminal Condemned to Death, Mr. KIM made his directorial debut, Crocodile in 1996. Since then KIM Ki-duk has, at the impressive speed of one film a year, created a series of films characterized by both an unblinkingly perceptive view of human behavior and a powerfully lyrical visual imagination. His films also have reflected and addressed the intersection of Mr. KIM's varied life experience with many of the questions confronting modern South Korean and world society or, as he says, "the borderline where the painfully real and the hopefully imaginative meet."
1997's Wild Animals explores North and South Korean enmity and reconciliation through the volatile friendship of two Korean exiles living in Paris. Birdcage Inn (1999 Berlin International Film Festival, Panorama Selection) probes class schisms even on the very fringes of society. The Isle (2000 Venice Film Festival, 2000 Rotterdam Film Festival, 2000 Moscow Film Festival Jury Prize and winner of the Sundance Film Festival's World Cinema Award) is an intoxicating and challenging contemporary love story set in a near-mythic locale. Real Fiction (2001 Moscow Film Festival) is an ambitious real-time, multi-format experiment and Address Unknown (2001 Venice and Toronto Film Festivals) takes an unusually intimate and non-judgmental look at the fifty year US military presence in Mr. KIM's homeland.
KIM Ki-duk's newest film, SPRING, SUMMER, FALL, WINT... AND SPRING, is a potent visualization of the passions inhabiting the human spirit and the understanding and acceptance which form the very substance of our lives. Mr. KIM is currently working on his 10th feature, a revenge story entitled Samaria.
KIM KI DUK FILMOGRAPHY
THE COAST GUARD (2002)
2003 Karlovy Vary Film Festival
BAD GUY (2002)
2002 Berlin International Film Festival
2002 Helsinki International Film Festival
ADDRESS UNKNOWN (2001)
2002 Venice International Film Festival
2002 Toronto International Film Festival
REAL FICTION (2000)
2001 Moscow International Film Festival, Competition Selection
THE ISLE (1999)
2000 Sundance Film Festival, World Cinema Award
2000 Venice International Film Festival
2000 Moscow International Film Festival, Special Jury Prize
2000 Rotterdam International Film Festival
BIRDCAGE INN (1998)
1999 Berlin International Film Festival, Panorama Selection (Opening)
1999 Moscow International Film Festival, Special Panorama Selection
1999 Montreal World Film Festival
WILD ANIMALS (1997)
1998 Vancouver International Film Festival
CROCODILE (1996)
Pusan International Film Festival
Film Review
By Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter . . . and Spring
Directed by Kim Ki-duk
Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment 03/04 DVD/VHS Feature Film
R - some strong sexuality
Welcome to a small Buddhist monastery situated on a raft floating in the center of a mountain pond. An old monk (OH Young-soo) is trying to pass on his wisdom to a child monk (KIM Jong-ho). His teachings are connected to the four seasons, and they accrue over the years.
The student still has some rough edges. In "Spring," the first part of the film, the boy and the master go to gather herbs from the forest for use in their healing arts. Off on his own, the boy plays a game in which he ties stones to a fish, a frog, and a snake, laughing as his victims move away slowly with their new burdens. The next day, he wakes up to discover that the Old Monk has tied a large stone on his back. He is told that he must find and release the animals and if any of them is dead, "you'll carry the stone in your heart for the rest of your life." The lesson burns its way into the boy's consciousness.
In "Summer," the young monk (SEO Jae-kyung) is 17 and just getting interested in the outside world. He is quite excited when a woman (KIM Jung-young) arrives at the monastery with her sickly daughter (HAYeo-jin). After some time spent in prayer, the Old Monk tells the mother, "When she finds peace in her soul, her body will return to health." The young Monk's desire is aroused from contact with the girl, and they eventually have sex. The Old Monk does not chastise his protégé but warns him that lust awakens the need to possess, and this can lead to even greater troubles. But the young Monk cannot hear the words and after the girl is sent away healed, he follows after her taking a Buddha statue and his few possessions.
In "Fall," the Old Monk brings a large white cat to be his companion on the raft. The Young Adult Monk (KIM Young-Min) returns to the monastery as a fugitive from the law consumed by anger. To calm him down so that he can tap into the peace within, the Old Monk orders him to carve Buddhist sutras into the deck of the hermitage. Two policemen arrive to arrest the Young Adult Monk, but they allow him to finish his penance. When he collapses in exhaustion, they help decorate the sutras before taking him away. This is a beautiful scene and a rare one — a visual metaphor for the impact of sacred teachings upon a small community.
In "Winter," many years have passed, and the Old Monk has died. Ice covers the pond when the mature Adult Monk (KIM Ki-duk, also the director of the film) returns to pick up where he left off so many years ago in his training. To make sure that his mind and body are fit, he practices a martial art on the ice. A woman who has covered her face with a purple cloth arrives at the monastery with an infant. Then, after leaving her child behind, she falls through a hole in the ice and drowns.
The Adult Monk takes out a statue of Kwan Yin, the Goddess of Compassion, then attaches a millstone to his body with a rope and drags it the top of a mountain. With this act, he carries in his heart all the suffering he has endured as well as the suffering of those he has come in contact with. From a place overlooking the pond in the distance, he meditates on Kwan Yin. Then he returns to pick up the cycle of the seasons. In "Spring" again, he begins training the child to be a monk, even as he was trained in the wisdom of Buddhism and the healing arts
This sense luscious film written and directed by KIM Ki-duk is one of the best films of the year. It is a luminous meditation on the wisdom of Buddhism and the cycles of human life as they are played out in the pristine beauty of the natural world. The images of the monastery floating on a raft are perfect in that they enable us to see the transitory and impermanent qualities of the world we live in day by day. Using the four seasons as a backdrop for the spiritual teachings of compassion, suffering, loss, desire, attachment, and transformation works perfectly. We loved feasting our senses upon the 300-year-old tree, the ripples of the pond, the varied animals at the hermitage, the mist that shrouds the pond in mystery, the monks' daily devotional rituals, and the many excursions to shore where a gate opens to the wider world that lies beyond. Everyone who experiences this extraordinary film will savor the complex emotions that make life such an exquisite spiritual teacher.
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