MIFF 2004 FILM FESTIVAL NOTEBOOK

By Joel Johnson

DAY 9

It is Day 9 and the last weekend of the festival is here. We decide to forgo the day’s four opening films and start our day with Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, this year’s 210- minute Bollywood extravaganza. We then decide we have to forgo seeing De-Lovely in order to see the film Nothing Like Dreaming, by Vermont filmmaker Nora Jacobson, and the film we missed the night before, Travelers and Magicians. This is a tough choice as several have been during the festival when two or more very desirable films have been scheduled for the same time. Despite the attraction of the film’s screenwriter Jay Cocks, we know that De-Lovely is scheduled to return to Railroad Square Cinema within a few short weeks. We suspect that this opportunity could be our only chance to see the other two films.

KABHI KHUSHI KABHIE GHAM
India, 2001; 210 minutes; 35mm; in Hindi with English subtitles



Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (known as K3G by Bollywood aficionados) is a gloriously over-the-top epic romantic musical dramedy. Bollywood—named for the combination of the Indian film capital Bombay and the world film capital Hollywood—is a unique and entertaining film genre. This genre has hallmarks, and one is that lovers in a Bollywood film are kept apart usually by parental interference in their children’s lives due to class distinctions and/or family rivalries. However, despite the parents’ role in thwarting their children’s love lives, parents in a Bollywood film still retain a level of respect and affection that far exceeds what would be accorded in an American or a European film where the parent likely would be vilified and scorned. This film’s tagline seems to summarize this respect: “It’s all about loving your parents.” This film has a rather simple plot, and while last year’s MIFF Bollywood entry Devdas signaled fairly early that the film would chronicle the prolonged downward spiral of the title character, this film tips its hand that probably things will eventually work out for the film’s lovers. Bollywood films, liberally filled with music and dancing production numbers, usually provide an intermission to allow filmgoers to have a bathroom break and to replenish their supplies at the theater’s concession stand. Unfortunately, the showings of K3G in the festival do not have an intermission. Though I do not find myself especially inconvenienced by this, I know others do. With an intermission, it would be easy to refer to the first half of the film as belonging to Bollywood heartthrob Shahrukh Khan. Khan, whose likeness from Asoka adorned the Railroad Square lobby throughout this year’s MIFF, was the star of both Asoka from MIFF 2002 and Devdas from the 2003 edition of MIFF. Here he plays the adopted older son Rahul Raichand who rejects Naina (Rani Mukherjee), his father’s choice for his bride, and instead falls in love with Anjali (Kajol). Naturally, all this courting and romantic longing is played out in spectacular production numbers. Despite the obvious deep love between Rahul and Anjali as well as Naina’s good sportsmanship, Rahul’s godlike father (Amitabh Bachchan) cannot be placated. He withholds his blessing on the lovers’ marriage and disowns his son. The second half belongs to the Raichand family’s younger natural son Rohan (Hrithik Roshan). Though a younger sibling might rejoice that an older sibling has lost favor, clearing the way for his own ascendancy in the family, here Rohan nobly takes on the task of healing the wound that has rended his family. This takes him to London where the film incorporates English actors into the production numbers, and the music becomes a fusion of Western and Eastern musical influences. It is probably best not to bother worrying about how so many of the English became proficient in singing in Hindi. Rohan also has his own romance with Anjali’s divalike, totally westernized younger sister Pooja (Kareena Kapoor). The casts of Bollywood films are very attractive, and it is easy to understand the appeal of the stars. Another hallmark of Bollywood movies is the infectious energy of the musical numbers. While traditional Broadway musical theater might have a single character sing a solo, nearly every Bollywood number seems to eventually become a big production number. The 210-minute running time might scare off many filmgoers reluctant to sit through a movie that long, especially without an intermission, but the energy of the music and the performers makes that feel like a much shorter film than many others that are actually half as long.

NOTHING LIKE DREAMING
USA, 2004; 95 minutes; video; in English



When Nora Jacobson’s earlier film My Mother’s Early Lovers came to MIFF in 1999, my wife and I were unable to see it during the festival. We had another one of those tough decisions that happen in festivals, and we decided to see something else. Five years later, I cannot remember what the other film might have been. It turned out that the Vermont filmmaker hit a chord that resonated with the festival audience, and her film about choosing lovers and life partners as well as the legacy of abuse won the audience award at the 1999 MIFF. It, therefore, was with curiosity that I considered Nora Jacobson’s Nothing Like Dreaming. It was also just a little bit intriguing that her film would feature something that I had never heard about—a fire organ. How well a story fits into the amount of time the filmmaker has allotted (or has been allotted) is one of the ways that I evaluate it. There are some films that begin as sketches that last a few minutes on a program like Saturday Night Live and then try to transform this story into a 90 to 120 minute feature-length film. The result often is a film that doesn’t have quite enough story, and the audience will generally begin to recognize that there’s a lot of filler around the story. Nothing Like Dreaming has the opposite problem. This is a film that has too much story. It is, ultimately, disappointing that the result is a film that is so cluttered with storylines and ideas that none is handled in a way that is fully satisfying. The film has two main characters who have their own separate lives that eventually intersect. One is a teenage girl, Emma (Morgan Bicknell), trying to deal with the loss of her best friend. The other is a middle-aged man named Sonny (George Woodard) coping with a plethora of internal voices. The film has two major themes. First, how do parents and society address youth experimentation with potentially dangerous alcohol, drugs, and sexuality? Should a supportive and protective setting be established to allow this, or should these behaviors be aggressively discouraged by parents and law enforcement? Does providing a safety net encourage dangerous behavior? Can overzealous efforts to prohibit such behavior result in greater danger? Second, what is the intersection of individual freedom and the protection of society when the individual has a mental illness? Should society be able to force the affected individual to undergo treatment that he or she does not want? Each of these could by itself be the subject of individual films. Onto this the film adds a potential storyline of guilt, responsibility, and reconciliation. A key scene that would help resolve this either was not filmed or ended up on the cutting room floor. Does Emma’s mother’s depression help us to better understand the situation or a particular character? Does it just seem like an added complication without really adding much to the story? The film refers to the contentious decision to legalize civil unions for gay couples in Vermont—related to the larger issue of gay marriage that has started to be addressed across the nation. The sexuality of certain characters and their being targets of abuse because of their sexuality is definitely mentioned, but this isn’t developed. The film provides footage shot within the Vermont statehouse and even recruits a few legislators to appear as themselves, but the story of youth being involved in the process of making laws is not convincing. What is convincing is the scenes of the building and use of the fire organ. However, its spectacle threatens to overshadow the film’s storytelling. George Woodard is convincing as the unconventional artist with all sorts of voices trapped inside his head. Mr. Woodard had also played a key role in My Mother’s Early Lovers. Young Morgan Bicknell, in her first film role, is convincing as a compassionate and talented young woman who wants to make a difference—she just isn’t exactly sure how to do that. John Griesemer is very convincing as Emma’s father who is so overwhelmed with serving as a legislator that he struggles in his roles as father and husband despite his obvious good intentions. The film boasts several professional actors in its cast, even if no one is yet well known. There are, of course, performances that are uneven, but most of the actors acquit themselves fairly well. The film’s biggest problem results from an overly ambitious script that sought to address too much. Between the somewhat assaultive soundtrack through which a cacophony of hallucinatory voices was liberally distributed (the director did report that she was still working on the film’s soundtrack, so this clearly may not reflect the finished product) and the cluttered story ideas, this film with a modest feature-length running time of ninety-five minutes feels long. Despite wishing to award a more glowing review to a regional filmmaker, my rating is only two stars.

TRAVELERS AND MAGICIANS
Bhutan, 2004; 108 minutes; 35mm; in Dzongkha with English subtitles

1/2

The alluring title of Khyentse Norbu’s second feature film and the charm remembered from his first film The Cup made seeing Travelers and Magicians a strong enticement for both my wife and me. In our second attempt, we were able to get in fairly early and get a terrific seat in the theater. Travelers and Magicians tells about a young man named Dondup (Tsewang Dandup) who wants to leave the rural Bhutanese village backwater in which he functions as a government official and head off to the United States. He wants to leave because he wants to be able to earn more money in the US doing whatever rather than doing a responsible job serving the people in Bhutan. He is desperate to share in the material riches and meet beautiful sexy women in the U.S. The first step on his journey to the United States is to make it to a city in about three days so he can start making the necessary travel connections. Lying that he wants to head to the city to take part in a major religious festival, he heads off to pick up the decrepit-looking bus. Delayed ever so slightly by having to wait for a special gift from a woman who is participating in a local celebration which features a huge replica phallus, he misses the bus by just seconds. He eventually finds himself waiting around with a handful of other travelers. One is a monk (Sonam Kinga) who shares a story about a reluctant magic student (Lhakpa Dorji) who skips class only to end up lost in a forest with an aged farmer and his beautiful much younger wife (Deki Yangzom). The monk’s story of the magician-in-training is intercut with Dondup’s ponderous travel arrangements to get to the city he needs to reach by a specific deadline. Dondup, who had complained of there being no interesting women in his village, meets an attractive young woman (Sonam Lhamo) who would be relocating there to care for her widowed father. He is attracted to Sonam, but not enough to forsake his plans to go to America. There are recurring themes of responsibility and destiny. The ending is ambiguous, with it being unclear that Dondup is still able to make connections to get to the U.S., and it being fairly clear that he is not quite as anxious to leave. The film’s stories have a meandering quality, as if they want the listener to be sure to have time to think about their messages. The actors, an amateur cast, do an effective job. The biggest star in the film is the natural beauty of Bhutan. The Buddhist faith that underlies the spiritual life of the Bhutan people has resulted in a film that seems less interested in making quick conversions than in gently making the viewer reexamine what to do. This type of approach probably will result in favorable, if less than passionate reviews, like this one.

 

<< Day 8                                                                 Day 10 >>

5 1/2" x 5" 2009 Wolf Moon Calendar just $11.00 each
More Info

More Info

More Info

© Wolf Moon Press 2002-2008 all rights reserved.

Submission Guidelines