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]

BARAN..............Majid Majidi film ..Iran




`Don't you go letting life harden your heart . . . we can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder. We always have the choice.' ...The Dalai Lama

How apt is this quote for the story of the film!

This is a love story. A simple love story, where the boy and girl never express what they feel for each other, where the boy never talks to the girl. While the boy morphs into a warm human being, the girl sheds her aloofness to give a glimpse of a smile…

The backdrop is Tehran where a building construction is going on. Afghans who suffered the successive regimes of Russians and Talibans flee to Iran to work illegally. They neither have the identity cards nor any work permits, which sure makes their lives miserable.

The absolute and abject poverty of the people and the places in the film hit me. The appalling living conditions and working conditions in Iran made me realize how fortunate we are to be where we are.

Then the magic of love starts revealing and we wish we were there..to be those characters for just one moment ! Such is the subtle narration weaving a magical world in front of our eyes…

Memar, the construction contractor surreptitiously hires Afghan labour. The boy, who cooks for the labour troupe and tends the stores department, is Lateef, a seventeen year old Iranian. His responsibility is to supply the usual refreshments to the labour as they work. He is just another frustrated kid who has no place to go. For him, his secretly hidden perks and the year long savings with Memar are the most precious things. He likes to remind Memar time and again that he (Memar) does owe him money. Always spoiling for a fight at the drop of a hat, Lateef is not very popular out there.
One day, Najaf, a mason in the troupe falls off a ledge and fractures his legs. Then another mason Soltan brings a boy Rahmat introducing him as the son of Najaf and requests Memar to employ the boy on a trial basis. As the boy is unable to do the chores of hard labour, Memar orders the boy to take the position of Lateef. Lateef is in turn asked to work under a mason doing heavy manual labour.

Needless to say, Lateef is miffed. Not only is his job taken, he is also put on hard labour. And to add insult to injury, people start praising Rahmat as a much better cook than Lateef. So Lateef tries to make life miserable for Rahmat in any possible manner.

It is by sheer chance that Lateef one day realizes that Rahmat is infact a girl Baran, the daughter of Najaf.

Totally taken by surprise, Lateef has got nothing but remorse for his conduct. He starts taking sides with Rahmat by standing by him when situation demands. One day, when the Labour inspectors chase Rahmat as he is an illegal Afghan worker, Lateef lunges on the inspector enabling Rahmat to escape. But the Labour inspectors impose a fine on Memar and warn him to not to employ any Afghan labourers. Rahmat (Baran) loses his (her) job and is forced to leave with her father

The smitten Lateef makes a visit to Soltan’s village. There he sees Baran working hard to sustain her family. To help them out, Lateef collects all the savings he had with Memar. He gives the money to Soltan requesting him to offer it to Najaf as if he (Soltan) himself is giving it. The day next, Lateef comes to know that Najaf has refused accepting the money and that Soltan, who has an ailing wife in Afghanistan has taken the money and left to be with her !
One day, he sees Najaf asking Memar for some loan, which Memar declines saying that he is broke, Najaf says that he needs money with in a day or two. Overhearing their conversation, Lateef desperately wants to help Najaf and Baran. But what has he got to sell? The most precious of all Iranians…their Identity cards which will fetch a handsome price in black markets!!

So Lateef sells his ID card and gives that money to Najaf saying that the money is given by Memar. Only to get to know from Najaf that he is leaving with his family to Afghanistan the day next ……..

What happens then is for everyone to decipher…I wouldn’t like to spoil the ending for those who are interested in watching….
There are some beautiful moments in the film worth a treasure. As usual, the background music is almost absent except for some poignant scenes, where the music conveys more than any spoken word…

The essential question remains as to what love is and what it can do to a person…As the quote of Dalai Lama (I stole from Imdb ) says, it is a choice. We can either make it change our lives for the better by knowing the true happiness of benevolence.. Or we can shrink up and look at the whole world with a pessimistic view…

We feel so glad that Lateef picks up the former choice and turns out to be a warm human being.

Personally I felt that love is HOPE. Hope that lives can change, Hope that things are going to be better, Hope that tomorrow is going to be a happy day…And nothing shows it better than this Film….Dont miss it. It is going to make your day, as it did mine.