Movies That Touched Me..., Baran.....A film that transports us !! Options

[simplefable]

Though i am indeed a movie buff, i was never serious about reading reviews..or following it up. I just went around randomly in the movie world, like a child lost in a library. I started seeing other foreign language films too like french, spanish, german and other asian countries. Some of them are not worth sitting through and some, i found , made me sit up and watch. I just want to write something about them here, to share my thoughts about those wonderful films. Though Madhavi did ask me to write down about movies i like, i shied away thinking that i might never fit into the world of her reviews.. I found her extremely knowledgeable and her description of a movie is always much better than any review in papers. But I got this urge to write up about some of them, and if i can make atleast one person to see a movie basing on review, i think I made it.
Today, i watched a German film.. Leben der Anderen, Das , released in USA as The lives of others. It moved me so much i thought i should write a few lines about the film.
The scenery is set in East Germany in eighties, before the fall of the wall. As every one knows, there were serious restrictions on all media in that country under the communist regime. We can never imagine that world of totally curbed fundamental rights. The people perpetually live in fear of Stasi, the state security police, who are akin to Gestapo of Nazi germany.
The story revolves around three characters..the author...Georg Dreyman, His Girl friend and superb Actress Christa..and the officer assigned to cover their lives and activities Gerd Wiesler.
Georg is under suspicion that he might be involved in aiding anti state activities and the Corrupt minister orders an enquiry into his activities. Wiesler supervises the team which fixes the mikes all over the home of Georg and sits in the control room in a twelve hour shift to monitor every word spoken between those four walls. Wiesler is supposed to be the best man in the business and hence the critical role assigned to him.
Christa is one of the best actors in the Country but her existence is threatened by the minister who is totally besotted with her.
Though Georg is initially neutral, the suicide of his close friend and a brilliant director moves him beyond any reproach as he starts to aid the anti state activists. His writings make the head lines on the other side of wall, as he narrates how many artists have committed suicide in East Germany. Though he is not credited for that works, for obvious reasons, he becomes suspect numero uno in the eyes of Stasi. The Minister too, piqued by Christa's denial, orders her arrest on flimsy reasons. She is given a choice of becoming a state evidence in revealing the culprit's name.
In this tense, surreal world of honest truth and love and loyalty and harsh realty, the most surprising element turns out to be the Prosecutor Wiesler himself.
How far can one go for a cause? One he believes in, he trusts is correct and finds it so fulfilling to stick to it, inspite of dire consequences ? this is to be seen on this beautiful film....I just could never get off my seat for the entire length of time i watched this film. The ending obviously moves us beyond words, so poignant as it can be, as films wrought a magic on us like nothing ever could. Trust you find this somewhere in a stores near by......or else, i am always willing to give the rapidshare links to this film.





Weisler...the Captain of Stasi





Georg and Christa...the people under microscope




This post has been edited by simplefable: May 10 2010, 11:04 AM

[simplefable]

When I sat to watch this film in the dead of the night, I was almost sure that I would fall asleep in the midst….how wrong I can be !
This film is a celebration of life …in a nut shell. Celebration need not mean well fed people and happiness all around. It is all about relationships and consciences from close quarters. It is about a blind boy with his father and grand mother and two sisters who wants to know that he is loved by them.
It is about Mohammed a blind boy who tries to decipher life in his own way..with open hands and grappling fingers clinging to anything that passes by. Even the wind passing through his fingers is a source of amazement to him. He trusts God explicitly so much so that he never doubts Him but tries to find the meaning of His preachings. His face wrapped up in a gesture of smile is a pleasure to watch…all along.
His father, a hard working widower with two girls and the boy Mohammed is haunted by loneliness. Ofcourse life is a long winded road and who doesn’t wish for a mate ?? But to be able to grasp that happiness means he should get rid of his son Mohammed, as a handicapped child is a definite disadvantage for a re-marriage.
Then, there is loving Grand mother of Ahmed who is so happy to be with her grand son. If one thing she is sure of, it is that Mohammed will always come triumph in life. Her only worry is for Mohammed’s father, who according to her is losing compassion for his son as he stands in the way of his re-marriage.
In such a drab setting, we find life and it’s myriad colors as never before. If you think you are going to see a little boy drowned in self pity and doubts, you are wrong. You get to see a wonderfully vibrant, compassionate ( so much so that he dares to climb a tree to replace the little birdie in a nest from which it fell ) person with a mind all of his own. What ever he sees, ..it is through his touch. As his fingers grovel and search, we feel like putting our hands up and touching him…! Such was the force of life and happiness in the little boy. In the end, we do feel sorry for ourselves as we never get to see this colorful world as Mohammed saw in the first place…
Try as we might, we cant hate the father of Mohammed either. He is after all, a simple hard working peasant. His life is full of pathos as there is never a pot of gold at the end of rainbow for him. We get to see him working in various jobs, to earn enough money to present to the girl’s family to marry her. We cant say that he doesn’t care for Mohammed either. He takes care and enrolls him in a school for the blind. He does take Mohammed to a Blind carpenter to enable him to learn a trade for living. But all along, we can see that he is so desperate to get married that he comes to loathe his son, as he is the only obstacle. It is heartbreaking as we get to see him lamenting his destiny and unfairness of life….
The Grand mother stands as a pillar of rock in the foreground, with every crease in her face telling a story of life and a well lived one at that.
I always had the opinion that Iran is a dry and drab place and never counted it as a place to visit. But how wrong I was …The picture I saw was of lush forests surrounded with lots of mountains draped in lifting veils of mist all around… and added to this we get to see a very colourful country side.
In this backdrop, as fate would have it, there comes a moment of truth and realization for all..in a quirk of nature. In an extremely touching climax I have ever got to see all doubts and hesitations are washed away in a fast flowing stream …

So, in the end, it all comes down to one single point. What is the point when you start realizing that a relationship has to be cut off ? And is it worth it ??
Illogically, I recalled the song of Sahir from Gumraah where he proclaims…

� Chalo ek baar phir se ajnabi banjaye hum dono…
Woh taluk bhoj banjaye , us ko todna achha…
Woh afsana jise anjaam tak lana na ho munkin……
Use ek khoobsurat mod dekar chodna achha..�.

But can we break a relationship when it becomes a burden ? And what is burden in the first place ? Is it what prevents us in attaining our happiness ? And the million dollar question remains….� Can we be happy after we get rid of our burden ?�.

I don’t want to spoil your pleasure and so will stop here. I can only say that I could express only ten percent of what I felt when I watched the film. I would be more than glad to give the link for a torrent file to download this beautiful film…a gift of life indeed.
The filming is impeccable, almost bereft of background music and not even a frame wasted. The background music when it comes, is a melody to be heard and understood by heart and heart alone.
Needless to say, I can never thank enough, the dear friend who pointed out this film to me in the first place. This one happened to be my first Iranian film and am going to see a lot more, I guess.

















This post has been edited by simplefable: Mar 31 2010, 10:24 PM