The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant

Fox and his friends was my first Rainer Werner Fassbinder movie but it didn't click for me. Barring some scenes in the last reels, it left me cold. So I thought to give Fassbinder another try with The Bitter tears of Petra Von Kant and now I realize why they say Fassbinder is one of the greatest film makers ever.

The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant is adapted from a play that Fassbinder wrote and it shows since the movie is almost theatrical and there is no effort to reduce that effect. There are stay-still camera angles, camera never searches for characters but characters find their place to fit in whereas the camera rests! With minimal camera movements, no outdoor scenes, six female characters out of which one never speaks and four have small screen times, overlong conversations, set in a claustrophobic apartment, no action as such, one might suspect how this movie is going to bind you. But The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant works on different level and all this stage-like setting and acting works wonders for it.

The Bitter Tears is a piece from the life of Petra Von Kant, a successful fashion designer just divorced from her husband because 'He stank of man'. In the beginning of the movie, she is shown as a manipulative career woman busy with her work and bosses with her assistant cum slave Marlene, expressionless girl who doesn't utter a word in the whole movie and is just like many of the mannequins lying here and there in Petra's apartment, except that she obeys Petra's orders all the time.

As the movie proceeds, Petra falls in love with a young girl Karin and promises to help her to become a model. But Karin care least of Petra. The treatment that Karin gives to Petra is almost like what Petra inflict on Marlene. Petra breaks down when Karin leaves her for a her husband. There is not much of story but here we see human relationships in darkest and bleakest form. Petra's definition of love was based on dominance, possessiveness and dependence., but when Karin flies away leaving her heartbroken she realizes the importance of freedom. One of the story dialogue movie goes like 'People need each other but haven't found a way to live with each other'. Petra has been in many relationships, all were failure and her one sided affair with Karin devastates her to realize the need of freedom and equality in a relation and as a sign of the change she lets Marlene go. Petra who once says 'Everyone is dispensable' realizes the shallowness of the statement much later. Petra starts out as someone who is strong and can manipulate people and their emotions, turns into a inconsolably helpless fellow by the final reel. Her act of freeing Marlene can be seen as a redemption of all she has done all the years to Marlene and the likes without having an idea that it could happen to her. Petra character has shades of humility but a closer look tells us they are all selfish, inorder to gain love of Karin. Her treatment to Marlene and Karin are too contrasting, suggesting that we treat people differently depending upon what they can offer to us. Petra later realizes that all the relationships cannot work in the terms of being master or slave and how painful it is to be on the receiving end. The bitter helplessness of Petra is evident when she asks Karin 'Do you love me', Karen reluctantly replies 'I love you in my own way'. She could have said no too, but she needed money that Petra can only provide. Here the manipulations of relationships seems so clear and brutal.

The other strong point of the movie is superb performance by the all-female cast. Margit Carstensen is Petra is nothing short of brilliant and Irm Hermann as Marlene has a ghostly presence. There are some of the shot that are exceptionally excellent, one of them is the final breakdown of Petra, nicely-dressed but devastated waiting for Karin's call sitting on a velvety carpet on her Birthday with a mural in the background.

The Bitter Tears of Petra Van Kant is about one of the pet themes of Fassbinder which he referred to as "Fascism of everyday life". Here Fassbinder paints a bleak picture of life, where every relationship is inherently manipulative and our 'potential use' is our only worth, sooner and later we realize that not only we are used by someone, but we also use others from time to time in the name of noblest emotions of love and friendship.

Acceptance

One of my self-admittedly depressed friend told me that the only way to fight it is to accept it. Later when I saw some people who were really depressed, I realized how my friend was romanticizing depression and wearing it on his sleeves. He also told me often that his feelings are hurt and he is very emotional, which confirmed my theory. But he had a point, the point of accepting. I have always found hope in the idea of accepting. I also associate some sort of grace to this idea, idealizing it. Its heartening to accept that your time has come. Its graceful to succumb and fall without grudge. As crying lightens your heart, acceptance lightens the struggle, things clear up and you see the futility of fighting the wind and the whispers. Grace of a dilapidated tree is just enough to remind that it was accepted the fate. It has accepted the rain and the sunshine. It may have even realized that they nourish it too, while withering it in the process. The wrinkles on tree trunks are sign of grace, not resignation. Its not the acceptance of the wrong or the right, it’s the acceptance of cycles of life. If a big tree can talk to a smaller one, it will say, stay there.

Back in the day, when the ideas were ideas, thinking was clear and fun. Now things are muddled up. Experience changes the simplest of ideas, either dulling or dazing them. Being a father now and watching my 9 month old daughter’s reaction when we eat together, I realized what an old song means when it says “aap khaye thali mein, munne ko de pyali mein” (you eat in a big plate, and give me a small cup!). I love the way she can communicate her displeasure, sometimes subtly, other time not so. She totally assumes that we will get it, and most of the times, we don’t. Babies always cry, don’t they. I love the bubble in which that experience exists, these ideas change daily when a new language, a new life enters yours. You listen and realize how stupid you were, and you are. Accepting that your pillar of understanding are so weak and fluid is a difficult thing. What can you say, if things change with every experience and so does your understanding of them. The trick is to follow it, not try to get it. It’s not about defining truth, but chasing it, and staring it in eyes, for fraction of a second. Kafka says meaning of life is that it stops. Bunuel says that he sides people who seek truth, but part ways with them as soon as they say they have found it. Either it is a continuous search or a full stop. I think Kafka knows the truth, but does not know how to live with it. But Bunuel can manage life. The acceptance that life has meaning only till you keep looking is again a difficult thing to digest.

One of my old roommate’s girlfriend, threw a birthday party for me, she wrote cards, bought cake and flowers and but the whole time she could not hide that she is uneasy with something. These moments clouded her often, which she tried to wash with odd smiles. One evening she bought those ready-made kits to make paper dolls, and sat near garage door fixing it. I chatted with her a little and asked about the doll, she told me that she used make similar dolls as a child. She kept adding something to the doll and saw it again and fixed it little more, all the while seemed disinterested in it. She was just distracting herself from something. She was visibly sad. She was trying, but cannot move ahead. She was smiling, but her smile was like bad makeup, it highlighted what it should conceal. I left the city and later learned from my ex-roommate they are not together anymore. He said explaining she had lots of her own problems to sort. Her image with the doll rolled past my eyes. She tried, celebrated other people birthdays, baked cakes, and fixed paper dolls. In the mornings, I saw her so many times resigned and angry, and as if to cheer herself she would take us out for breakfast. She was trying her best, but it is very difficult to accept your own sadness.

If I meet my friend now, I will ask him, does he think the same about some of his old theories. I will tell him more details about my ex-roommate’s girlfriend and few more poor souls. I will tell him about myself. I will tell him about my borrowed ideas of meaning of life and the truth. I will let him talk and give me some more half-baked ideas, if he still have any. I will discuss them. I will have a good time.

Easy

Lets me start with an easy thing. Before I start, I should say that things are easy because they are not thought through properly. Easy and lazy rhyme too. Before I get into this mess again and not write for years, let me start with easy things. Easy things are sometimes just easy, and sometimes even directly from heart . ahh, here you go, you sentimental fool. Can easy is just plain easy, without interpretation, without shame or sigh. Plain like green of leaves, smell of flowers, easy to see, easy to touch. Ahh , again…. Lets start again, My easy idea was how memories are cruel, and how they change themselves to patronize you. Easy. Childhood memories are a bully. My adult life is often burdened by the goodness of my childhood. When I am perfectly happy, a harmless memory of a childhood lane with two porches and a tree during dusk come running, fitting itself as a Van Gogh in an All state art competition gallery. How can I ever match that goodness, it breaks my heart several times over. Poetically, I even thought to saying if my heart did not break a million time in that moment, it’s a god-damn stone. While driving in perfectly beautiful New Hampshire, I am haunted by the goodness that is my childhood in Muzaffarnagar. I remember that day when I wasted the whole day with nothing, and it seems so good in retrospect that I can be sure that memories trick. As an Indian, I have never understood what coming of age means, I am more used to cutting chords and corners. In college, one of my friends told me that life around me has outgrown me, though he said much more eloquently in Hindi like a film punch line where it cuts to the birds in sky or flowing river. As he said, I was intelligent enough to instantly realize that it will be a constant part of the soundtrack of my life. Seeing my melancholy reaction, he added, I feel the same. A good friend can lie for you.

It happens anytime, mostly during driving, sometimes while listening to music or talking to people. In fact, no time is safe. My life have burdened me with a perfect childhood that nothing can top. It has taken its own life. Sometimes I remember similar events differently intermittently blurred and focused to hit the right note, causing occasional lumps in emotional fool throat. The other time, a present feeling of happiness, is inadvertently compared to a similar thing in infantile past and is declared faded in comparison. My present is sepia and past Technicolor. The imperfections of past are like an odd-shaped stone, all the more collectible. The sun was better, and don’t even get me started on cheap ice and soda. Those are the mascots of simpler time, the alpha and omega of pure bliss. June sun and those cheap icecreams. Ahh. Well, I should not curse them, or blame them so heartlessly. They might leave me if I bad mouth them, I fear that . They are what a funny face or a loving kiss are to a sulking child. An instant nudge to some sort of elation – a shortcut to ecstasy, a trick nonetheless, but a sweet one. Those are like pennies for that big hole in my heart. All are lucky pennies, but the heart is out of luck.

Call it the emptiness of our better worlds or the a hearts tendency to flip-flop, it all is so warped with my daily life that calling it names here seems like a slight perversion. I love train journey’s – sleeper class – but who does not love them. Even the smell from toilet in the morning from your berth just seems special (a similar proximity on an airplane irritates you). The best are the times, when other people talk about their pennies and their faces glow as the hole in their hearts fill with bliss of perfect and imperfect pasts. As they tell tales. As they tiptoe on past like sunshine on tree leaves. A pattern emerges, we are all doomed, more or less. The life always hangs on a slice of life – real, imagined, reconstructed and re-evaluated. The images shutter past. The train cuts through a green pasture, and stops at a deserted station where you step down to get a quick sip of water, all the while keeping an eye on the train. As the you finish and see the train moving, time stops for a moment before you run and catch the train. I am talking about that moment. Easy.

Film 2009: The List

What is point of doing year end lists? Vanity for one, or may be a logical demarcation of time and effort, a scale to weigh in goodness and greatness over days and dates, and may be an excuse to name what you think should be seen by all and even more importantly to reveal false gods and fake idols (by omission or admission), and if you are lucky, get a discussion started by someone somewhere about movies - their heart and health.

This year was particularly eventful for me. I met Himani in June and married her in Oct. Moved to a small town in New Hampshire, with limited access to films. There are few good theatres nearby, which show good films, if you are willing to drive a little. These developments made watching movies little more difficult and a lesser priority in the sundry list of things to do.

In Dec, I managed to catch most of the movies, locked myself and saw movies back to back, and was very glad to find some great films. As last year, my emphasis still is silly, weak, futile, hysterical heart rather than boggling mind and more importantly the therapeutic power of films. Not a brilliant jig-saw puzzle and its oh-so-brilliant final solution, but a flow of many rivers, their turns, the trees nearby and a delta of fertile silt and soil, and the Man who still is human and its handling by an artist infused with humbling power of spirit, moral inquiry and quiet rapture.



I have intentionally waited for few weeks to post this, so that the newly watched films are digested properly, but there will always be second thoughts and re-evaluations. Here you go, as vanities toss and turn.

Top 12 (in rough order)
Revanche (Götz Spielmann)
You, the Living (Roy Andersson)
Two Lovers (James Gray)
A Serious Man (Ethan Coen, Joel Coen)
Treeless Mountain (So Yong Kim)
Moon (Duncan Jones)
Bright Star (Jane Campion)
Lorna's Silence (Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne)
24 City (Jia Zhangke)
35 Shots of Rum (Claire Denis)
The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow)
Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)

Honorable Mention
Tokyo Sonata (Kiyoshi Kurosowa)
Coraline (Henry Selick)
Julia (Erick Zonca)
The Cove (Louie Psihoyos)
Still Walking (Hirokazu Kore-eda)
Where the Wild Things are (Spike Jonze)
Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson)
Sita Sings the Blues (Nina Paley)
Summer Hours (Olivier Assayas)
Of Time and the City (Terence Davies)

Disappointments (of various degrees)
Tetro (Francis Ford Coppola)
The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke)
Police, Adjective (Corneliu Porumboiu)
The Headless Woman (Lucrecia Martel)
The Limits of Control (Jim Jarmusch)
In the Loop (Armando Iannucci)

Worst Film
(500) Days of Summer (I haven't seen Up in the Air yet)

Notable Performances
Jeremy Renner - The Hurt Locker
Abbie Cornish - Bright Star
Juliette Binoche - Summer Hours
Diane Krüger, Christoph Waltz and Mélanie Laurent - Inglourious Basterds
Michael Stuhlbarg - A Serious Man
Johannes Krisch - Revanche
Tilda Swinton and Kate de Castillo - Julia
Joaquin Phoenix, Vinessa Shaw - Two Lovers
Sam Rockwell - Moon
Arta Dobroshi, Jérémie Renier - Lorna's Silence
Gina Pareño - Serbis
Hee-yeon Kim - Treeless Mountain
Kyôko Koizumi - Tokyo Sonata

Blind Spots
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Anvil!: The Story of Anvil
The Beaches of Agnès
Sherlock Holmes
Adventureland
Tulpan
The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans
Broken Embraces
Antichrist

See last year's list here.

Films I am dying to see
35 Shots of Rum
White Material
Where the Wild Things Are
Lorna's Silence
You, the Living
A Serious Man
The Milk of Sorrow
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Book I am dying to read
The Original of Laura

Kate Bush - The Sensual World

I dreamed a dream - Susan Boyle

Even Reality TV and Talent shows have their moments. Does not she remind you of one of those chirpy women of Terrence Davies' films who sing their life away. Wonderful. Here you go!

Delhi 6

Few things about Delhi 6.

1. If an artist wants - a confident and cocksure artist, the type we all know - he can make a miniature painting with bold strokes and still feel good about it. Similarly, for the directors who cant help but think big, everything becomes mini-India, so we have standard Hindu-Muslim characters, standard dadima, standard sweet-bitter relatives (large hearted ones have big breasts or big smiles), standard kids (two types - with glasses, without glasses) and other associated clichés but remember that the mini-India of our serious and good-hearted directors is not quite complete without the holy grail of goodness and that can only come from an NRI (preferably man, preferred age 25-27, must be good at heart and good looking too - as they go hand in hand - , must be doing quite well in US, preferably a software engineer, scientist or son of an Indian male, who is doing very good in US, preferably a doctor and married, - as they go hand in hand). He comes, he sees and he reforms us. Whether he stays back or carry on his journey is quite immaterial (or rather depends on whether he gets a girl here. The girl should be fair, preferably long hair. She should be of a kind which should make India look cool - now coolness really depends on director's definition of it. There are basically two types of coolness - Traditional coolness and hip-coolness. Typically girl adjusts to whatever NRI wants. The romance between NRI and girl must follow normal Bollywood standards. The first encounter must be little rough (The only tussle they have is whether they should kiss Bollywood style or Hollywood style, here the guy loses usually), rest goes smoothly. I repeat girl should be fair or become so in due course of romance). We all know and understand that an NRI is the closest approximation to a white man you can find in our family, so it is nothing but natural for us and our film makers to be drawn to them. They are as white as we can ever get. "Son of an NRI" is even cleaner than the NRI, in moralistic terms. Technically he never left the country. He is godlike- if I may say so - with no Original sin. He is a kid, he observes with a zeal of a teenager. He is so young, innocent and beautiful that the whole theatre must feel bad if someone slaps him tight. His voice of reason, his ok-ok Hindi (like the dubbed Tamil and Telugu of South Indian heroines exported from Bombay), his untainted ideals and his open-minded feminism (and he will definitely get chance to show it few times in the film), his goggles, cell phone, laptop and a wiser and purer (if not cleaner) brain. No wonder, he becomes friends only with Dadima and kids, he is beyond (or out of) his time, just like god. His inability to express hints to his innocence, his childlike gaze becomes his purity of observation and his smile becomes the mirror of his pure white soul. NRI (or son of an NRI) is at once, pristine and philistine - a godsend for Bollywood.

2. Nothing irritated me more than the use of Ramlila sketches to push the tick-mark narrative points forward. The worst abuse was made of Sabri's story. Its was like watching a low-intellect children story where references to an age old saga are so badly needed to validate the point that it does not fear from trivializing the story itself. The last best use of Ramleela was done in Rajkumar Santoshi's Lajja where drunk Sita (Madhuri Dixit) refuses to go to Agni Pareeksha and argues onstage with both Ram and Lakshman. It was one of the last instances of feminism in commercial Bollywood. It was much better than when ramlila was used to extreme ends to bring director's point across like in Deepa Mehta's Fire. Attempts like Fire or Delhi 6, use the epic for their narrow ends, but efforts like Lajja's ramleela scene flip-flops it to make us think.

3. Surprisingly, I was alright with the Kala-bandar theme. I know its more or less like Panchtantra, that we all have a kala-bandar inside (Banality of evil for kids and toddlers), but it was done with some humor so it works in parts. But I was most embarrassed by Amitabh's role. Do Bachachan's come in a package. ek ke saath ek free. One can not help but think of Abhishek's reply when the director/producer asked him to work in this film, "Papa ke saath", he would have replied. Amitabh and his tribe (who so ever calls him Amitji, Amit Uncle or Papa) are in so many films now-a-days that one can safely say that there is a Kala-bandar inside every film.

Short Notes on 2008 Disappointments and a Recommendation !

Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt). Very honest and one of the most serious films of 2008 but so cold that it could not even justify the use of medium. The stack of stark images does not bundle up into something that seems to strike an emotional chord here or there as if the director is scared of emotions. I am more disappointed here because it is otherwise a glorious attempt in a sober voice.

Milk (Gus Van Sant). In preparation to watch Milk, I saw Rob Epstein's excellent documentary, The Times of Harvey Milk and in the commentary track of the documentary the director says that they consciously did not name it The Life and Times of Harvey Milk, because they wanted to capture the struggle in times of Milk not his life per se. The motion picture Milk tries to capture both and thats where it fumbles because it is not necessary that the personal life of a person be as interesting and important as his political life.

My Winnipeg (Guy Maddin). For me, Guy Maddin's films work when he mixes nostalgia not only with genuine sadness but with irony, surreal humor and perverse fantasies that are uniquely his. My Winnipeg works great in pieces but what spoils the whole experience is Guy Maddin's overemotional voice over, it pampers and plunders the images and their irony. You never know what to believe, Maddin or his images.

Alexandra (Aleksandr Sokurov). I am not too sure about this film but this is definitely Russian version of hate the war but support the troops, which is nothing wrong, but the grandmother character is overly patronizing and when we get the feeling that she is actually supposed to represent both mother Russia and director’s alter ego, the whole exercise, even if heartfelt, looks not only nationalistic but rather simplistic.

Encounters at the End of the World (Werner Herzog). This is one attempt where from the very beginning director promises to explore the other side of the world "differently", there is supposed to be nothing usual here (Herzog himself says that he is not here to film penguins) but even if it is not arrogant its immodest promise and more length of the film is devoted to ridicule others than to show us things with new eyes. It is definitely a minor effort from Herzog. May be thats why it was nominated for Oscars.

Paranoid Park (Gus Van Sant). Van Sant use of Christopher Doyle's excellent photography, Nino Rota's music and a cryptic narrative seems to cancel out each other in their stylistic excesses. It is one example where a bunch of good things does not result in anything better.

The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan). Self proclaimed harbinger of chaos and menace, the anti-establishment Joker's big-budgeted explosions looks meticulously planned and staged. In a strictly back and white sensibility, Joker's irrational lunatic evil does not go hand in hand with the bigness of his sophisticated misadventures or vice versa. Its just too layered. On the other hand the two face metaphor is overly clean cut, The face, the coin, the film divided in two halfs. And thats the problem with this film. You just can not have it both ways. Also, the cut after Joker's fall was too abrupt.

Dear Zachary (Kurt Kuenne). This is a heartfelt personal documentary but highly manipulative so much that one starts feeling that the director does not trust his audience's emotional responses and so he packs them with enough arsenal to illicit a powerful but expected response.

Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman). What you will think of a person who fantasizes of staging an artsy-fartsy funeral for himself. Thats exactly what I think of this film. Its self-indulgent in a very morbid way. But Samantha Morton's performance is quite good.

Silent Light (Carlos Reygadas). This is essentially the textbook of art house cliches. This film reminded me of Cartman's Christian Rock Album cover where he asks Token to point away from camera because this is how album covers are. Also, the director should go to confession for trying Dreyer so poorly.

Slumdog Millionaire (Danny Boyle). My biggest problem with this film is the end dance sequence. Its so shoddily choreographed, its worse than mediocre - a half-hearted sham, lip service to Bollywood.

Now the recommendation, Abdel Kechiche's The Secret Of The Grain is long and intense family drama that brings different ends of a family together when it engages in opening a couscous restaurant. And look out for marvelous Hafsia Herzi. Ebert compares her to Isaballe Huppert.