In the Iranian film of moral dilemmas, The Songs of Sparrows directed by Majid Majidi, Karim (Reza Najie) has a job as an ostrich farmer which seems to be going well. However, after an ostrich runs away, it runs away with his job. He then is forced to try to find another job due to his daughter’s hearing loss. So, he takes passengers to and fro in the Tehran, while collecting secondhand materials. Along with the self-centered city way of life he is forced to see his own selfish ways of living.
While I was watching this film, I kept thinking that it seemed like a documentary. The director may have wanted it to be that way; showing that there is more to Iran than oil. Even then the richness in Karim’s life was shining through to the audience, but not to him. The cinematography was a gateway into this richness. With shots of the full desert holding what would have been Karim’s “gold.” The “gold” may have been the ostrich that escapes and its eggs or Karim’s family. For me, being far from home for the first time, it would be the family. This is also for Karim because family “issues” cause the greed and his self-centered ideas. His daughter’s hearing loss also hits close to home. I, myself, have been deaf in one ear. Unlike the character of the daughter, I had surgery on my left ear to correct the deafness. It was successful but I do know what it feels like to lose a thousand dollars worth of hearing aid. The pain I felt when I lost it in the playground 12 years ago and the way the daughter was handling the situation of hers dropping in the water was the exact same. We did not want to put our families through any financial pain. The lose of her hearing aid is what started the turn if events that make this film. Yet, as you watch it, you start to forget that he is in the city to earn money for the hearing aid. It is not until he talks to his daughter when he leaves Tehran that he begins to realize why he was getting the money in the first place. It all goes back to family, and the bond that they share. Throughout his ordeals, the family is still going on greeting him and loving him through his misfortunes and his triumphs. They love him, no matter what. That is the deserts “gold.” His home, family, and there love for him.
I give this film 4 out of 5 Film Reels
3 responses so far ↓
1
Ann Hartsock
// Jun 29, 2008 at 4:05 pm
The Trial is an adaptation of a novel written by Franz Kaufman. Orson Welles directed and developed the screenplay in 1962 choosing to film in back-and-white. This film is reminiscent of the film noir period popularized in the 1940’s through the use of lighting techniques to achieve stark shadows and an overall dark feeling of impending doom. I expected this film to be very entertaining and full of cinematic effects because of Orson Welles’ and his respected works, such as Citizen Kane. I was disappointed to say the least.
Anthony Perkins stars in this film as Josef K., a man accused of a crime that is never revealed. Jeanne Moreau is featured as a drunken, older woman, Miss Burstyn, who plies her trade at a strip club and is frowned upon by the landlady. She and Josef K. live beside each other in a building. They share an odd, disjointed relationship that is never resolved nor revealed. When he tells her that he is accused of “something”, she throws him out of her room and subsequently moves away. The rest of the movie is extremely disjointed and surreal as it moves from one absurd location to another. He meets an odd assortment of characters including Orson Welles as a lawyer or “advocate”. I found it impossible to understand what I was watching after a while and I decided to study the cinematography instead. I appreciated this aspect of the film because I found it quite good. The shadows and effects made me feel as if I were in a nightmare and I suppose that is the look that Orson Welles was trying to achieve. The acting throughout the film is very good, though.
This film is described as being Kafkaesque because of the heavy use of German expressionism. I would describe it as grotesque because I really found it hard to watch and I never could understand where it was going or what it was trying to say. Apparently, it did not have a message. The best part of the movie was the end, where they blew Josef K. up with dynamite in a rock pit. It was a good effect and also the end of the movie. I expected this film to be very entertaining and full of cinematic effects because of Orson Welles’ and his respected works, such as Citizen Kane. I was disappointed to say the least.
2
Craig Robinson
// Jun 29, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Craig Robinson
Intro to Media Technology class
Professor Tomlinson
Pellissippi State Technical Community College
29 June 2008
EASY RIDER
movie review
Wyatt and Billy use a drug sale to fund a chopper-trip across 1960’s America. Their chrome horses carry them on a drug-fueled exploration into iconic cultures that are clashing in history, and the beautiful cinematography is a fitting backdrop to their search for ultimate freedom.
At a hippie commune they experience the spiritual disillusionment with mid-20th-century patriarchal establishment. The juices and vibes flowing through the commune speak of the nation’s turmoil, the Vietnam War, and the sexual revolution that would spearhead the drive to change America.
Unfortunately for “the loners”, their tragic destiny as martyrs pulls them back onto the road to face all that was wrong with post-World War America. Dennis Hopper writes a merciless script that excoriates the worst of rural American bigotry. The bikers tangle with the dark side of Norman Rockwell’s America, where decency and patriotism have warped into a hybrid from hell: murderous hatred masking an ingrained fear of things different. In a scene too often underestimated, the bikers and their new friend George are caught in a diner with hostile locals. The tension is overwhelming, and their nervous exit is an effective indictment of America’s problems at the time. The scene has strong attachments to the civil rights struggle, the feminist movement, and the breakdown of government in Washington D. C. Indeed, the identity of the mob that attacks their campsite that night is a no-brainer, whether Hopper intended it or not. The assault with baseball bats takes George’s life, but only emphasizes his last drug-induced spiel on society’s problems. “Oh, they’re not scared of you. They’re scared of what you represent to them…Freedom.” The sobering commentary is the film’s climax. From there on out, the road spirals downward toward New Orleans, and Wyatt senses it. With a fortune in his gas tank and saturated in freedom, Captain America concedes defeat: “You know, Billy. We blew it.” Their search for the real thing deteriorates into a nightmarish LSD trip gone bad amidst tombstones and prostitutes.
Their shotgun deaths come abruptly as they hit the road for Florida. The bloody, fiery scene is chopped and sliced together with discordant, unskilled editing. But the technical flaws have become enshrined with time, as if Wyatt and Billy’s end could not have been expressed better. The burning bike, the unsatisfied disappointment, has become a perfect ending for such a provocative film.
Produced by Peter Fonda, directed by Dennis Hopper, and written by both men, the counter-culture film is driven by it’s soundtrack. Steppenwolf, Jimmy Hendrix, and Bob Dylan populate the score with music born for Easy Rider. The story and the music are one, expressing the wild and controversial generation that America loathed and misunderstood. For many, they stand condemned as the worst America had to offer, victims of their society’s collapse. For others, they’re the front-runners of a wave that forever changed America for the better, even as their flawed lives were sacrificed for it. Because of them, America embraces diversity as her life-blood. It is who we are, who they were, and what we are to become.
3
Craig Robinson
// Jun 29, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Craig Robinson
Intro to Media Technology class
Professor Tomlinson
Pellissippi State Technical Community College
29 June 2008
movie review
Shirley Clarke’s The Connection
Shirley Clarke’s first feature film The Connection blew the doors wide open for an emerging independent feature film movement in New York City. 1962 was not the time to celebrate a drug subculture, much less a woman producing independent film. From the start, Ms. Clarke had clashed with an arrogant Hollywood, loathing chauvinistic directors who clearly “didn’t have any idea who the f— I was. Clearly he couldn’t be talking to an established filmmaker who had gotten prizes and stuff. He didn’t know who I was at all. He wanted me to shoot his script…”
Jack Gelber’s play of the same name was bound to attract her attention, with it’s ensemble of urban cool-cats passing a hot New York day waiting for, of all things, a drug dealer. Never mind her complete naivety with drugs. Shirley was hooked. “I knew nothing about junk and cared less. It was a symbol—people who are on the outside. I always felt alone, and on the outside of the culture that I was in.”
The kid character who wants to document the surreal subculture is out of place, and soon, out of line. The Cowboy wants nothing to do with the intruder. As with all outsiders, he must become an insider to experience the true identity of his documentary subjects. The creative juices flowing in the loft mix rhythm and funk into an atmosphere scored to the music of back-alley jazz clubs; spontaneous creativity. The world can have it’s awards. “I was embarrassed for years to let anyone know I had won an Academy Award for The Connection,” Ms. Clark confessed in 1985. “That wasn’t really a prize I wanted to win. I was happy to say that The Connection got a prize at Cannes.”
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