No dubbing, please
And then the magic of Rome strikes again.
Aside from the season being beautiful beyond belief (it's as if the Sun refuses to allow the Clouds to hang around), the day after I complained about the Ozon retrospective featuring dubbed films, I discovered the Asian Film Festival: new films from China, India, Kazakhstan (no not Borat!), Iran, Japan, etc. All of them subtitled, and all of them for a cost of 3 Euros.
Last night I saw "A Few Kilos of Dates for a Funeral", a new film by a young Iranian director (Saman Salour) who was also present at the screening. He's no Kiarostami, or even Panahi (who is?), but he's got potential.
A black & white meditation on loneliness, the film is closer to poetry than to prose. A postman on a bike who everyday asks for an "upgrade" to a scooter. An undertaker who looks for bodies buried in the snow. Two men at an out-of-the-way filling station, one who writes love letters to a woman who doesn't read them, the other who talks to a corpse buried in a car, under snow. And the snow, the blinding snow under the relentless sun. The snow that is prayed for by the corpse-talking man...
But this is the case with most Iranian film. And the thing that seems to confound most audience members. They look for whys and hows and some sort of "normal reality". One audience member actually asked "why were there no women in the film?" Well, let's see.... maybe the director wanted to show what life is like without women? Cold, lonely, gray, and maybe even a little desperate? (Of course it could also be because it would be easier to get past the censors....)
But I shouldn't harp on that -- plenty in the audience did enjoy the film, and were glad to be able to tell this to the director in person. The audience was also given the choice to vote on the film with ballots that were handed out beforehand. I failed to read the piece of paper given to me, and so didn't vote! I place my vote now: 3 (out of 4) stars.
Aside from the season being beautiful beyond belief (it's as if the Sun refuses to allow the Clouds to hang around), the day after I complained about the Ozon retrospective featuring dubbed films, I discovered the Asian Film Festival: new films from China, India, Kazakhstan (no not Borat!), Iran, Japan, etc. All of them subtitled, and all of them for a cost of 3 Euros.
Last night I saw "A Few Kilos of Dates for a Funeral", a new film by a young Iranian director (Saman Salour) who was also present at the screening. He's no Kiarostami, or even Panahi (who is?), but he's got potential.
A black & white meditation on loneliness, the film is closer to poetry than to prose. A postman on a bike who everyday asks for an "upgrade" to a scooter. An undertaker who looks for bodies buried in the snow. Two men at an out-of-the-way filling station, one who writes love letters to a woman who doesn't read them, the other who talks to a corpse buried in a car, under snow. And the snow, the blinding snow under the relentless sun. The snow that is prayed for by the corpse-talking man...
But this is the case with most Iranian film. And the thing that seems to confound most audience members. They look for whys and hows and some sort of "normal reality". One audience member actually asked "why were there no women in the film?" Well, let's see.... maybe the director wanted to show what life is like without women? Cold, lonely, gray, and maybe even a little desperate? (Of course it could also be because it would be easier to get past the censors....)
But I shouldn't harp on that -- plenty in the audience did enjoy the film, and were glad to be able to tell this to the director in person. The audience was also given the choice to vote on the film with ballots that were handed out beforehand. I failed to read the piece of paper given to me, and so didn't vote! I place my vote now: 3 (out of 4) stars.
posted by donatoroma at 5:28 AM
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