Thursday, July 10, 2008

Cinefan notes: Schlondorff, Shakuni, Carriere, Oskar

It’s spooky how the Mahabharata has started inveigling its way into everything I watch these days, even the stuff that’s completely unplanned. Just returned from seeing Volker Schlondorff’s latest film Ulzhan at Cinefan. I knew very little beforehand about the film (the catalogues weren’t available at the venue today) and saw it only because of the director and because it was on at a convenient time. My interest was further piqued by the discovery that the screenplay was by the veteran French writer Jean-Claude Carriere, whom I’ve met for interviews a couple of times (including at Cinefan two years ago).

Ulzhan turned out to be an engrossing, nicely shot series of episodes built around a drifter making his way across the Kazakhstan wilderness for reasons that are gradually revealed. It’s very much a contemporary tale too, so imagine my surprise when Charles, the protagonist, runs into a talkative character named Shakuni! I immediately wondered whether Carriere (who also scripted Peter Brook’s fine screen version of the Mahabharata) had anything to do with this development. Quite probable, though I couldn’t see much connection with the mythological Shakuni (except that this character was silver-tongued and enigmatic).

To add to my unsettlement, the actor who played Shakuni looked very familiar but I was unable to place him. It was only after coming back and doing an online search that I realised it was David Bennent, who played the role of young Oskar in Schlondorff’s celebrated movie version of The Tin Drum – a film I had watched at the same Siri Fort auditorium more than a decade ago. What a twisted series of connections – Ekta Kapoor could make a 500-episode soap out of them.

11 comments:

  1. i havent checked out the mahabharat yet... but the way it is all over ur blog i think i will have to watch it ASAP :)

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  2. Do, do, but this post was mostly about the Schlondorff film (I hope!).

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  3. any tips for cinefan? any movies to look out for?

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  4. yes yes it is... just that mahabharat and ekta kapoor have been overpowering ur blog off late and that is also a subject that i enjoy making fun of ;-) the film is also added to my watch list

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  5. I think you need a bit more sleep ;)

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  6. Do you in any case write for other blogs because the material found at this link
    http://bigdhamaka.wordpress.com/2008/07/07/ektas-mahabharat-a-must-read/
    is a verbatim lift from your orignal Ekta ki Mahabharat post.

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  7. Dhananjay: thanks for the link. Looks like another of those many plagia-blogs that lift heaps of content from all over the Internet and then put up ads hoping for pay-per-clicks. I've sent them an email asking them to remove the post, but I doubt they'll respond.

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  8. achal: depends on what sort of films you're interested in. This year I don't know much about the new films in the competition sections (Indian and Asian-Arab) so will probably decide based on convenience of time, etc. Otherwise, the films I'll try to go for are old favourites that I haven't seen on the big screen - the silent classic Greed, Antonioni's The Passenger, Fellini's 8 1/2, Govind Nihalani's Aakrosh.

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  9. "...nicely shot series of episodes built around a drifter making his way across the Kazakhstan wilderness for reasons that are gradually revealed."

    Could it be Borat of the Bizarro World? :-)

    I had seen Tin Drum too at SF back then. Can't remember what film festival it was. I must have begged & begged the daroga to let me in!!!

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  10. Tipu: do you remember if the hall was stinking that day? Strange question, I know, but just in case we saw the same screening, you'll know exactly what I mean. It severely affected my experience of the film at any rate.

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  11. Can u Guess ekta kapoor Website
    as ekta kapoor every thing start with so it also with
    its
    http://www.kapoorekta.com
    Interesting na
    Intersting Links in Websites are

    Ekta Kapoor Profile
    Ekta Kapoor Film
    Ekta Kapoor Review
    Ekta Kapoor Mahabharat

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