Movies: Truth in cinema or Cinematic truth?

Three weeks elapsed without blogging. Admittedly blogging is an innovative modern way of expressing ones inner feelings. Even three weeks is a long period without it. I thought of writing about some good movies I watched over last few years. I am not a fan of typical Hollywood model of movies. They usually try to tell some serious story with lot of puzzles in the middle. All those puzzles are solved in the logical ending (if the movie is GOOD in Hollywood standards). On another side we have Bollywood movies that are complete entertainment packages containing glamor, action, horror, romance, humor, etc. Both models are well suited for today's consumer-centric world where a movie is a product consumed by people who expect a thrilling experience in return for their money.

However, there is a totally different third model of movies developed particularly in Europe and Iran. Few less popular Hollywood movies also fall into this category. While still being consumer products under the capitalist economy these movies are significantly different from Hollywood and Bollywood movies since they are not made to be entertainment packages. If a typical Hollywood movie lover watches one of these movies he may blame the producers for wasting his money. Some common characteristics of these movies are long and silent scenes, illogical screenplay, irrational dialogs, unattractive characters,  less usage of music and technical gimmicks. This category has been my favorite for a long time.

When in Sri Lanka I watch movies either in the computer or in occasional film festivals (thanks to embassies that organize them). When I was in Sweden there were some theaters that showed only this type of movies and I made the maximum use of it. There were many good movies among these and like many other viewers I had my own criticism after watching each one. I only have a fake memory on them now. I try to assemble those broken pieces before forgetting them forever.

1. The Piano Teacher [Michael Haneke]

This is one of the best movies I ever watched. It's about a middle aged piano teacher with pervasive fantasies (well, we all got them, huh). She is unmarried and lives with her mother. She is an excellent musician and a tough teacher. On the other side of her life she maintains an absurd relationship with her mother and does many things that even a typical European woman would not do (such as going to watch erotic movies in public places). She gets paired with a handsome young student of her. After a certain period of this relationship she tells him that she needs him to humiliate her severely. The guy becomes sick after knowing this. 

2. Eyes Wide Shut [Stanley Kubrick]

This is a long great movie. An upper middle class american man jeopardizes his psychological balance after participating in a sex ceremony. The story is anti-logical and the plot contains many excellent symbolic meanings.

3. Dogville [Lars von Trier]

This is a very different movie. It revolves around the concept that people do not really need physical things to concretely stand for meanings. The complete movie is shot in a stage representing a village. Houses, roads, environment, etc in the village are represented by lines drawn on the stage. Actors play as if those lines are real things.

4. Last Days [Gus Van Sant]

Van Sant is a director who introduced a new type of movies into the world. His movies contain long still scenes with nothing significant happening. Scenes are not logically connected and in some places the same scene is shown many times in the perspectives of different people. You will not see a great story or enjoy a thrilling experience by watching his movies. It's only a unique cinematic experience. I have watched many of his movies and "Last Days" was the best of them. It is centered on the last days of the life of Kurt Cobain, the lead singer of the rock band Nirvana.

5. The Castle [Michael Haneke]

This movie is based on a novel with the same name by Franz Kafka. A person named "Mr. K" enters into a village with the intention of going to a nearby castle in which he got a new job. However, strangely he is not allowed to enter into the castle. The plot is full of his attempts to get into the castle. The events in the plot have absolutely no meaning. They are completely ridiculous. Like in all writings of Kafka, the story centers on the concept that all serious things in the world, at their roots, are purely ridiculous and meaningless.

6. Brown Bunny [Vincent Gallo]

This is another Van Sant type movie by a different director. The plot is about a guy who desperately tries to recover from a broken relationship (the reason is unclear). The director tries even to go beyond Van Sant in the screenplay. This is a movie full of emotions. A great one to watch after having a drink.

7. Crash [David Cronenberg]

Cronenberg is one of my favorite directors. I have watched many of his movies. Another good one is "M-Butterfly". But this one is unique. It's about a small cult in US where people experiment to find the greatest sexual pleasure. They assume that it should be similar to the feeling of a victim of a car crash just before death. They simulate reported car crashes and get injured too. They think that one needs an accident to feel the greatest sexual pleasure. In the last seen of the movie, a guy crashes his girlfriend's car deliberately to see whether he gets the "maximum sexual pleasure". However, he feels that this too is not the maximum pleasure. While having sex with his wounded girlfriend he says "May be the next time". Fatally this is what we also say after feeling that what we achieved at the end of a long chase is not the pleasure expected.

8. Children of Heaven [Majid Majidi]

This is a beautiful Iranian movie (a must watch in my standards) centered on children. A kid misplaces his little sister's only shoes which she is supposed to wear to school. They belong to a poor family and the kids are afraid to tell this to their father. The movie is about their struggle to handle the situation in their own way. This way, which makes us laugh and cry at times, is common to any child in the world I guess. The movie is beautifully plotted around a simple story. The beauty stems from the honesty of the film maker in bringing elements of humanity to the screen. Pedar (Father) and Baran (Rain) are two other very good movies by the same director that I can recommend.

9. The Girl in the Sneakers [Rasul Sadrameli]

This is another very nice Iranian movie I watched in a film festival. A girl belonging to a rich family in Iran gets friends with an interesting guy in school. He talks rebellious things that amaze the girl. She gets fascinated when he says that he hopes to walk to infinity someday. The girl is bored by her lonely life at home under strict rules by parents. She decides to leave her family and does that by escaping after the school one day. After a long journey with ugly experiences she finally manages to meet the guy. The things change after that. The guy tells that walking to infinity is easier said than done and begs that she goes back to her family. The guy who talked rebellious things looks far less brave than the docile girl who had guts to leave her rich family.

10. The Pervert's Guide to Cinema [Sophie Fiennes]
This is a documentary starring the well known philosopher Slavoj Zizek. He talks about masterpieces in world cinema by directors like Bergman, Tarkovsky, Kieslovsky, Hitchcock and Lynch. His psychoanalytic perspective is superb and is several levels beyond the ideas of conventional critics. It's an enlightening 2 1/2 hours. He formulates the idea that cinematic masterpieces try to bring a cinematic truth which is unique to cinema rather than trying to represent an already existing truth in the everyday world.