Auteur cinema’

                                

hannah-arendt

This is an interesting film because it has aspects that fall within all four of the categories set out by Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino in their manifesto Towards a Third Cinema. The film was directed by Magarethe von Trotta and co-scripted by her with Pam Katz. Thus it can be placed in the first cinema or ‘authors cinema’. It is as a work by a noted European filmmaker that the film is marketed and distributed. And it bears the marks identified by Cahiers du Cinéma as a work by an established auteur. It is also an example of the second cinema filmmaker, i.e. ‘trapped within the fortress’. It focuses on Arendt’s coverage of the trial of Adolf Eichmann by the Israeli State in 1961. It is also part funded by Israeli institutions. So it relates to attempts by the Zionist State to develop a ‘national cinema’: despite actually comprising a settlement on the land of an oppressed nation. And, finally, because much of the film is set in Palestine, it also relates [negatively] to the developing Palestinian cinema. This setting of the film, in the occupied territory of the Palestine, would be properly addressed by a Third cinema approach, i.e. a film ‘that directly and explicitly sets] out to fight the System’. The system is, of course, neo-colonialism.

The film has been produced in an English language edition with some non-English dialogue and sub-titles. Its style bears the hallmark of mainstream commercial cinema [i.e. the dominant mode in the industry], notably in the treatment of archive footage: much of the archive material from the 1960s period [including televised material] has been cropped and possibly occasionally stretched to fit the modern ratio of 1.85:1. This particular technique is presumably used for another exhibition life on video and television.

In one sense the film is a biopic, of the famous German and Jewish intellectual Hannah Arendt. But the plot focuses on a short period in 1961 when Arendt was commissioned by ‘The New Yorker’ magazine to cover and write a series of articles on the trial in Israel of Adolf Eichmann. Eichmann was part of the Nazi administration responsible for organising the mass murder of millions of Jews, both from Germany and other European countries occupied during the war. Her articles were later published as a book, Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963).

The press room for the trial

Hannah Arendt was born in Hanover in 1906. She studied philosophy at University. In 1933 she had to flee Germany and later settled in the USA where she became a citizen in 1950. She was married to fellow philosopher and German refugee Heinrich Blücher. At the time of her ‘New Yorker’ commission she was a visiting fellow at Columbia University. She was also extensively involved in Jewish organisations, including those assisting immigration to Israel. She had already written on the Nuremberg War Crime Trials. Her most famous work popularised the notion of ‘totalitarianism’.

The film follows events round the commission and trial and subsequent controversy when the articles appeared. It also details her relationships with her partner and with Jewish friends in the USA and in Israel. The majority of the latter take exception to the stance in her articles, in particular to her open criticism of the collaboration of Jewish organisations with the Nazi regime. In the 1960s this was a fairly courageous stance to take: whilst she was factually correct this was something that was extremely difficult for Jews as well as Zionists to admit. Less clearly expressed in the film were her questions about the legitimacy of the trial: Israeli agents secretly kidnapped Eichmann who was taken to Jerusalem and tried by the Israeli State, a state that did not exist when the crimes were committed and which were committed in Europe.

The film also includes flashbacks, in particular to her relationship with her philosophical mentor, Martin Heidegger. Heidegger later acted as an intellectual front for the Nazis. This aspect of the film fills out the psychological and intellectual portrait of Arendt. It suggests both a sense of guilt felt by many Jewish survivors over the millions who died. But it also sets out intellectual principles that motivated Arendt, including her writings on the Eichmann trial.

Arendt is played by Barbara Sukowa, a regular collaborator with von Trotta. And the film is recognisable in the style of that director’s work. It has a fine mise en scéne, which adds to the sense of the characters: Arendt and her partner clearly have a comfortable life style in the USA. And the placing and filming of characters is carefully judged to develop their emotional stances. Thus Arendt’s partner [Blücher – Axel Milburg) seems to have a more openly critical stance on the Israeli trial than Arendt and in several shots she is positioned midway between him or her more pro-Zionist friends. The conflicts are even more noticeable when she visits Israel: a scene of welcome in a comfortable Israeli home of Kurt Blumenfeld (Michael Degen) is different from a post-article visit where her dying friend lies in a sterilised hospital environment.

The major style problem with the film seems to be the abuse of archive footage. Cropping the 1960s material to 1.85:1 is very noticeable. Much of it is taken from the television coverage of the actual trial: in the 1960s this was still very similar to the Academy ratio, 1.37:1. And one particular shot emphases this. As an accredited journalist Arendt is able to watch the TV footage from a pressroom. At one point we have a close-up of Arendt followed by a point-of-view shot of the television footage, in 1.85:1. The technique is partly occasioned by there being one scene reconstructing the trail in colour and widescreen: but the majority of the coverage is in the black and white ‘4 x 3’. This seems to me to be a political as well as an aesthetic problem. How you treat not just the past but the artefacts of the past speak volumes about the historical stance taken.

But my major problems with the film are political. I should first allow the point that as a Marxist I do not agree with much of Arendt’s writings. Her famous concept of totalitarianism does not take account of political economy. Her conflation of the Soviet Union with the Third Reich does not address the different economic structures of the two societies. In fact, Arendt writes philosophically and historically, but she does not discuss in any detail the economic base. Moreover one of her main points regarding a totalitarian society is the claim that there was or is, ‘An Alliance Between Mob and Capital’. This begs the question of ‘class’. A historical account of the Third Reich shows that class was central to its mode of operation: indeed one of the points that Arendt makes in Eichmann in Jerusalem is the difference in treatment by the Nazi of ordinary Jewish people and ‘prominent Jews’. However, Arendt’s style tends to the discursive so it is tricky to pin down her thought and argument in pithy quotes: and her writing tends to lack, simple definitions.

Richard J. Evans provides a summary of her critical position in the Eichmann articles in a Guardian book review:

“Time and again she raises questions that provoke and disturb. The abduction of Eichmann from Argentina was illegal; the trail was a show-trial; Israel’s marriage laws were similar to the racist Nuremberg laws of the Nazis; Eichmann’s crimes were crimes against humanity, so international law should have dealt with this case.” (Reviewing Eichmann Before Jerusalem by Betina Stangneth, October 18th 2014).

So in Eichmann in Jerusalem early on we read a paragraph that follows caustic comments on Ben Gurion’s ‘show trial’.

“Hence the almost universal hostility in Israel to the mere mention of an international court which would have indicted Eichmann, not for crimes “against the Jewish people,” but for crimes against mankind committed on the body of the Jewish people. Hence the strange boast: “We make no ethnic distinctions,” which sounded less strange in Israel, where rabbinical law rulers the personal status of Jewish citizens, with the result that no Jew can marry a non-Jew: …there certainly was something breathtaking in the naivete with which the prosecution denounced the infamous Nuremberg Laws of 1935, which prohibited intermarriage and sexual intercourse between Jews and Germans.” [Arendt, 1963: actually she presumably means between ‘German Jews and Non-Jewish Germans’].

I do not think that the film gives a proper account of Arendt’s analysis and arguments in the articles. One point is the question of the legitimacy of the Israeli trial. In the film the points on this are made by the partner. Arendt seems to be sympathetic but does not voice agreement. One example is the scene that has her sited midway between Blücher and Jewish and pro-Zionist friends Hans Jonas (Ulrich Noethen) and Lore Jonas (Sascha Ley).

Another scene with Heinrich on the left and Hannah on the right.

Of even more concern is the almost total absence in the film of Palestinians. There is one shot outside the courtroom of an elderly man [likely a Palestinian] with two youngsters listening to a radio, apparently providing coverage of the trial. That is it. Yet the film does include comments on the racism of early 1960s USA. The house servant in the apartment block where the couple lives is an Afro-American, . We see him on three occasions and his repeated appearances seem a subtle comment on the way that the contemporary USA treated its black citizens; Arendt and Blücher always treat him courteously. Palestinians receive no equivalence.

But Arendt must have been aware of the Palestinian refugees and the requirements on Israel by the United Nations to permit the return of the refugees driven from their homes. This is an issue she does not discuss or possibly deliberately avoids in the book. But her references to the ‘marriage laws’ clearly relate to the ‘apartheid’ style discrimination of Palestinians.

As the credits note the film is jointly funded and produced from Germany, Luxembourg, France and Israel. Germany is, of course, von Trotta’s home state: and European co-productions are common. Among the ten production companies given in the credits we find the Israel Film Fund and the Jerusalem Film & Television Fund. One can understand the interest and financing from these two agencies: and the film uses Jerusalem as a major location. But as agencies of the Israeli state they would seem to be tied to the particularly interpretation which is essentially Zionist. And it is difficult not to deduce that this had a major impact on the stance taken in the film.

But the film also suffers from mainstream conventions. Von Trotta has addressed the European Holocaust in an earlier film, Rosenstraße (2003). This also dealt with the marriage laws of the Third Reich and involved an investigation into the situation of non-Jewish women married to German Jewish men. The film is structured around flashbacks to the protest in 1943 by the women when their husbands are arrested and taken away to the extermination camps. The flashbacks are from the point of view of survivors now living in New York. And one of her other major films dealt with Rosa Luxemberg (1986), a major communist intellectual and activist in Germany in the first part of the C20th. Both the earlier films seem to have a different agenda from Hannah Arendt. Moreover both the earlier films follow the conventions of European art cinema: Rosenstraße uses a quite complex flashback structure to present the story: and Rosa Luxemberg relies on montage in the Soviet sense. But the three flashbacks in Hannah Arendt are far more conventional, detailing the ‘patriarchal’ influence of and sexual adventure with Heiddeger. Moreover the film opens with a dramatic version of the kidnapping of Eichmann in Argentina by Israeli agents: drama to open the film. This is the sort of ‘art’ cinema produced by the Weinsteins.

At the climax of the film Arendt (Sukowa) makes an impassioned defence of her articles and her arguments in the articles. Several Jewish characters walk out. However, we also get close-ups of a young woman student following the lecture. The camera returns to her several times. A ploy that proposes a relationship of mind and values that supports Arendt: a common trope in certain mainstream films.

Hannah Arendt is a fascinating portrait, which brings out the intellectual character of its protagonist. But politically it remains within the dominant cinema: and it has to remembered that this cinema, especially Hollywood, has fairly uncritically presented the Zionist representation of the Palestinian occupation.»

Two films by Mira Nair.

This article is part of the argument set out in Diaspora Cinema and globalisation.

Mira Nair was born in India, but had studied documentary in the USA. She made several short documentaries, which dealt both with India and with the diaspora in the USA. Her first feature,  Salaam Bombay! (1988), was jointly funded by the National Film Development Corporation of India in conjunction with Doordarshan (the State-owner Indian Television Network), Channel 4, and supported by grants from the Pinewood and

and Rockefeller Foundations. Mira Nair started the film’s Production Company, Mirabai, Films Inc. Since its inception, Mirabai Films Inc. has produced the following of Nair’s films, Mississippi Masala, The Prez family, Kama Sutra, My Own Country, The laughing Club of India and Monsoon Wedding. Salaam Bombay won the prestigious Camera D’Or and Prix du Publique at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival.

Salaam Bombay! tells a fictional story, the experiences of a young boy, Krishna, in the slums of Bombay. Parts of the film are quite melodramatic in a manner not that distant from mainstream Hindi cinema. Thus, the narrative involves Krishna in the fate of women caught up in prostitution. One is Rekha, mistress to a district drug baron, Baba. Her daughter Manju is one of Krishna’s earliest slum playmates. The other child/woman is Solasaal known as ‘Sweet Sixteen’, a Nepalese virgin being groomed for sale. Their dramatic situations and fate are important in the narrative.

Other parts of the film are much closer to western docu-drama, as the audience is invited to follow an observational camera. This is especially true of Krishna’s involvement with a group of street boys, who sell, barter, and occasionally steal to survive in the slums. The theft leads to Krishna being placed in a children’s remand centre. The Remand Centre, like the brothel used in the film, was an actual one in Bombay. And in a similar fashion most of the street boys were actual street children from the city. Mira Nair used a workshop approach to develop the children’s performances in the film. Scenes, such as the occasion when the boys act as waiters and helpers at a sumptuous wedding reception, emphasise the poverty, hardship and the social chasm of their situation. The final credits carry a dedication to the street children of Bombay. These aspects of the film stress the sense of presenting and commenting on an actual world of deprivation and exploitation.

The film’s climax is more dramatic, using conventional scenes familiar from mainstream film stories. Krishna escapes from the remand centre and returns to find Sweet Sixteen, now fully trained, being despatched to a customer. Rekha has lost her daughter, who has been placed in a female remand centre. She decides to leave Baba, and when he attempts to stop her, Krishna knifes him. Rekha and Krishna are parted and she is lost in a surging street crowd. The film ends on a close-up of Krishna, alone and presumably fated, a shot that echoes The 400 Blows.

Monsoon-Wedding-1

Mira Nair’s film, Monsoon Wedding, won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival. It has been a crossover hit in India, in Europe and the US in both Art House Theatres and in Multiplexes. The script was written by a student Mira Nair met on a Columbia University Masterclass in Film Direction that she taught. The cast mixed established film actors, pop stars and non-professionals, and Nair once again used workshop methods to develop their acting.

If the railway is a central motif in Salaam Bombay! then Monsoon Wedding is very much set on the other side of the track. The celebration is that of an upper middle class Delhi family. The wedding and its preparations take up the whole of the narrative. Nair and her production team created a world of vivid colour for this ritual. They use some conventions of Hindi

popular film music to good effect, whilst avoiding the mere recreation of masala musical numbers. And the complex web of characters and relations in the film is filled out with vivid detail.

The Vermas are preparing for the wedding of their eldest daughter, Aditi. The bridegroom to be is Hemant, a young engineer from Huston. Aditi, who has already enjoyed an affair at the TV studio where she works, is uneasy about this arranged marriage. The celebrations are truly global, including relatives from the USA, Gulf and Australia. Among these is an affluent brother-in-law, Tej, who helps Lalit financially, and who is contributing to the costs of the forthcoming wedding. In the past he made abusive advances to Lalit’s nice Ria. Now adult, Ria’s lack of involvement in men would appear to result from this early trauma and the more recent death of her own father. She observes what appears to be a repetition of her own experience in Tej’s interest in the 10 year old Aliya.

These tensions and contradictions are resolved when Aditi confesses her affair to her fiancé. Initially angry, Hemant accepts her regrets and an arranged marriage becomes a love match. Ria exposes Tej’s paedophile proclivities and Lalit, despite the financial consequences this will involve, orders him to leave the ceremony. The wedding proceeds as the Monsoon breaks. The final reception shows the Verma family celebrating as the rains fall.

Unlike Salaam Bombay!, Monsoon Wedding offers little sight or sound of the poor and dispossessed of the great city. The plot does include a romantic interest between the maid Alice and Dubey, the contractor organising the wedding preparations. Dubey lives in the slum area of the city. But his appearances in the film are mostly restricted to his official and unofficial activities at the Verma house. The one sequence in his own house follows a setback in his wooing of Alice. While he is disconsolate, his mother discusses whether or not to sell their shares. He and Alice form a second wedding couple at the film’s end. But their future would seem to be on the Verma’s side of the track.

Even when the family go shopping in the central urban area, they (and we) glide past the rich mix of classes, urban bustle and slum poverty in a series of tracks and pans. Our focus is firmly on the upper side of the track. And whilst Lalit has to make a difficult decision regarding his wealthier but more corrupt brother-in-law, it no way matches the stark choices faced by Krishna and Rekha in Salaam Bombay!

The feminist perspective is stronger in this later film than in Bend It Like Beckham, As with Salaam Bombay! The narrative centres on the sexual exploitation of women. Young Aliya is saved from a fate parallel to that of Solasaal. In some ways, Ria’s actions in facing up to Tej’s oppressive behaviour play a narrative role similar to Rekha’s. But this safely constrained with a world that remains patriarchal. The film parallels Bend It Like Beckham in the actions of the father. He is crucial in overcoming the central problem, in this case faced by Ria. A key moment is when Lalit embraces Ria, acting as substitute father, with that familiar phrase, ‘let’s go home.’ And in similar fashion this film manages to combine the tradition of arranging marriages with the more western notion of a love match.

Monsoon Wedding does offer something for its women characters. There are a number of important scenes for female bonding and female support. More so than in the UK film. Monsoon Wedding’s complex narrative is closer to that of Art Cinema and offers space for multiple strands. Bend it Like Beckham clearly follows that familiar to multiplex audiences, clearly linear and tightly focused on the actions of the heroine. But Monsoon Wedding still creates a world of the family that is to a great degree divorced from the social network and the city. In some ways the characters and their actions are more influenced by the impact of the relatives from abroad, especially the USA, than by local forces. Indeed, Hemant and Aditi intend to make their new life in the USA.

In terms of her career Mira Nair has been more successful than Gurinder Chadha has been. She has made a number of mainstream films involving Hollywood money and stars. She has also more films to her credit. More recently she has directed several literary adaptations. There was Vanity Fair (2004), a major production with stars like Reese Witherspoon and Gabriel Byrne. Then there was The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2013), a film I thought fairly reactionary in its treatment of the neo-colonial situation in Afghanistan. All these films are resolutely mainstream offerings: they still offer some strands reminiscent of the films and cultures of Asia, but their values are resolutely Western. The exception is 11’ 09’ 01 / September 11 (2002), Alain Brigand’s portmanteau film which offers a response to the general run of media coverage of the attack on the Twin Towers in New York. Like the other films in this compilation Nair’s contribution critiques the chauvinist and at time xenophobic focus of mainstream films However, this is an independent which offers a different approach both in style and content. It also has a different sense of the Diaspora from dominant cinema

chinese-and-indian-diaspora-groups-the-economist

Jean-Luc Godard famously claimed that “a zoom is a political statement': His comment may appear to have little relevance at a time when many films are seen as only entertainment. Yet it should be clear that even the most anodyne of action films do reflect and refract the values of their time and place. Unfortunately, the type of film Godard advocated is rare. That is, films where there is conscious articulation of political points of view. One factor, which explains this, is the growth of what we call the global economy and the global market. This is an era when the commodity dominates social life, when there is an economic and social emphasis on the individual consumer.

In The World Remade by the Market (in Race and Class, April 2002), Jeremy Seabrook offers a description of the new global dispensation, and comments:

“The richer we become in the market economy, the greater the space of individual self-expression. Sharper differentiation occurs between people. We no longer see our shared social predicament as a common fate. To get out, to be yourself, to locate a self that has become abstracted from place, becomes the aim of the young. Previously unseen barriers and separations divide generation from generation: new, impermeable divisions arise between those who had seen themselves as bound by a shared destiny. Members of the same family, who had always seen each other more or less as an extension of themselves, become aware of their own private, individual needs. They become preoccupied with their own uniqueness. They cultivate features and characteristics that distinguish them from others, rather than submerge these in a common pool of human belonging.”

For me, this paragraph immediately conjures up a host of films where the self rather than the social provide the dynamic. In this article I want to discuss films that seem to me in some way to illustrate this. I have taken two pairs of films by different directors. In each case, I feel that there has been a shift in thematic concerns between a film made late in the last century and one made early in the new one. The development that Seabrook discerns underlying the phenomenon of the new global world appears to provide an interesting perspective in analysing these films.

The first pair of films, directed by Gurinder Chadha, is Bhaji on the Beach (UK 1993) and Bend it Like Beckham (UK 2002). The second pair, directed by Mira Nair, is Salaam Bombay (India/UK 1988) and Monsoon Wedding (India/US/France/Italy 2002). All these films share common themes and motifs. Both earlier films deal with journeys, dislocation and the problems that Asian women face in the sexual arena. The latter pair share these themes to a degree and are both structured round the colourful rituals of a Punjabi wedding. Both these directors might be considered as auteurs. However, my argument is not directly concerned with the individual filmmakers, except in that they provide the ‘occasion’ for analysis. Whilst both directors clearly have a distinctive character, one can argue that career success has enabled them to ­develop that distinctive character: but careers bring their own pressures. Both directors are women, important in terms of the themes of the film. But the developments are not to do with gender but their professional environs. I would reckon one could analyse similar tendencies in male directors, for example, Abbas Kiarostami or Asghar Farhadi. We need to look at the films, the filmmakers and their context.

In their famous polemic for a political cinema among oppressed peoples the Argentinean filmmakers Fernando Solanas and Octavio characterised an ‘authors cinema’ as only reaching ‘the outer limits of what the system permits’ (i.e. mainstream cinema and dominant societies). They foresaw it as becoming the institutionalised as ‘the youthful, angry wing of society.’ Whilst this suggests a cinema of protest, it also suggests a cinema that is constrained by the dominant values and which, in time, (like the bourgeois rebels of 1968) is accommodated within the system. My argument is less that such a development can be seen in the directors’ careers than that their most recent film work is within conventions that preclude certain concerns and approaches. Thus it is about industry and institutions socialising the filmmakers rather than the particular predilections of individual filmmakers.

Both of these filmmakers belong to another phenomenon of the global culture, Diaspora Cinema. That is, they relate both to the Asian culture, which is the object of Seabrook’s comments, and to the western imperialist culture, which is home to the contradictions driving these developments. Like ‘global’, ‘diaspora’ is an ambiguous term. When the BFI organised the ‘Imagine Asia’ celebrations the organisers tried to compile a list of films from the South Asian Diaspora: apparently the ensuing argument over definitions was never fully resolved.

In The Global Film Book (2014) Roy Stafford offers the following: “describes both the process of migration or ‘dispersal’ of large numbers of people from one country/region to another and the community of immigrants in the new host country.” Presumably films from the diaspora have a foot in both camps. But in a global world both camps are subordinate to world capital.  Certainly the two filmmakers discussed, and their four films, are clearly indebted both to South Asian Cinema and to Western Cinema. To varying degrees all the films display stylistic features and conventions from popular film in both cultures. The question is what values dominate these intertwined cultures and cinemas.

The two more recent films by these filmmakers seem to privilege the family unit as the centre of their social worlds. Each film ends with the family united, having overcome the

contradictions that drive the earlier narrative forward. From this point of view they do not exactly fit the analysis offered in the quotation from Jeremy Seabrook. However, I would argue that these are families powerfully moulded by their function as consumption units. Both films include scenes of shopping, and what are presumably deliberate product placements.

The central ritual in both films, the Punjabi wedding, whilst embodying a long-standing tradition, is also the site of conspicuous consumption. This is especially true in Monsoon Wedding, where much of the narrative tension and humour arises from the problems in completing the preparations. Moreover, the narrative closures in both cases are posited on the virtues of the choice of the individual consumer. In Bend It Like Beckham, the two main women characters, Jess and Jules, are leaving for the USA to join both the world of education and the world of US commercial women’s football. And in Monsoon Wedding the final ritual joining of the central romantic couple, Aditi and Hemant, would seem to seal their position as privileged members of the new global elite. Whilst the serving couple, Dubey and Alice, appears destined to cross the tracks into this middle class milieu.

In is in their sense of closure that the recent films depart most clearly from the earlier pair. Bhaji on the Beach and Salaam Bombay! ended with unresolved contradictions and problems, leaving the audiences to consider the characters and their situations. Bend it Like Beckham and Monsoon Wedding are much closer to mainstream conventions in the way that they carefully tie up the different threads of the narrative. In Bend it Like Beckham, the penultimate scene at airport not only shows Jess and Jules setting off to achieve their ambitions, but also offers the promise of a future romance between Jess and Joe [the football trainer]. Then, just before the credits, we see Jess’s father playing cricket with Joe. Joe has been accepted into Jess’s Asian family. It is also a compulsory scene for viewers, in the sense that it shows the father reversing his early exclusion and his own vow, ‘never to play cricket!’

Monsoon Wedding ends with the celebrations in the garden as the Monsoon rains fall. This eruption by nature is like a clearing of the air after the conflicts and problems within the family. As the rains fall the newly-married Dubey and Alice are invited into the wedding tent. Alongside this abolition of difference is even a hint romance for another family member Ria, as she exchanges glances with a late arrival, Umang.

Yet both closures are really about escape. Jess and Joe, Aditi and Hemant, are all leaving for the USA: Dubey will certainly leave the slums. The larger problems raised in the narratives have not gone away. The cultural and sexual conflicts remain. But they are outside the family units. And the protagonists have left them behind. Such a closure fits the films’ status as commodities. Having been consumed they have provided the expected value: nearly two hours in the cinema or in front of the television screen. Whilst the two earlier films also provided this to a degree, they resist being put away after consumption. Their social dimension is likely to remain with viewers for some considerable time after the completion of the act.

That this tendency continues can be seen in more recent examples. The Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami made a series of films that offered detailed examination of the culture but which drew in commentary of the larger culture. Through the Olive Trees (Zir-e darakhatan-e zeyton, 1994) follows a film production and focuses on a young couple in a rural area. The film ends in a long shot / long take of the couple about whom the audience must now decide. His most recent film, Like Someone in Love (France / Japan, 2013) is set in Japan. I found it lacking in that larger social dimension. The final shot of the film seems to sum this up – we see a window, hear an angry voice, but not one of the characters is visible onscreen. Asghar Farhadi achieved praise with two films, Nader and Simin, a separation (Jodaelye Nader az Simin, 2011 and About Elly (Darbareye Elly, 2009 – they were released in reverse order in the UK). Both films focus on the lies characters tell, lies that are symbolic of the larger society. But his most recent film, made in France, The Past (Le Passé, France / Italy, 2013) also featured lies but they seem to remain strictly at the personal level. One can see continuing themes in the work of both directors but the sense of the relevance of a specific time and place seems to diminish. There are films that provide a critical response in all parts of Diaspora culture, but there is a marked tendency for cinematic travel to lead to a greater degree of hegemony.

There are more detailed analyses of the films in separate postings. All of them are taken from an article published in Media Education Journal (Spring, 2003). My thanks to the Editor for the agreement to post these.

the-reluctant-fundamentalist

This is a new film from director Mira Nair. She has been described both as a ‘transnational filmmaker’ and also as a filmmaker working in Diaspora Cinema. She has directed films both in North America, including Hollywood, and in India. Her films have included mainstream films in both continents and more independent films likely to be seen in Art House Cinemas. She certainly fits the contemporary usage of auteur. But what set of values dominate her films?

The Sight & Sound review [June 2013] describes the film as ‘a tense thriller that also manages to provoke thought’. The title itself suggests a film that addresses one of the most loaded words in contemporary politics. The ‘reluctant’ protagonist of the film is Changez Khan (Riz Ahmed). He is now a Professor at the University of Lahore in Pakistan. However, previously he has been a successful student at a US Ivy League University: and then a financial analyst with a major Wall Street consultancy firm. Much of the film is taking up with the back-story that explains how he came to lose faith with the values of US capitalism and to present radical criticism of US imperialism to his University Students.

The plot structure of the film [somewhat changed from the source nove by Mohsin Hamid, 2007] is a conversation between Changez and US journalist ‘Bobby’ [Robert Lincoln played by Liv Schreiber). This is an interview in a Lahore teahouse favoured by the radical students. In the course of it Changez tells Bobby [and the audience] the story of his career and of his disillusionment. There is his work with the Wall Street company: and we see him in one sequence organising a ‘rationalisation’ of an Indonesian factory, leading to substantial lay-off s of the workers. He develops a relationship with a young New Yorker, Erica (Kate Hudson), the niece of his overall boss. And we see the sudden change caused by the ‘9/11’ attacks on the New York’s Twin Towers, glimpsed on a television screen. From this point Changez suffers increasing suspicion and hostility from co-workers and US citizens. We see him strip-searched at an airport. And finally he appalled when Erica uses photographs of him in an exhibition, which includes crass comments on Islam and South Asian culture.

The subsequent breach with Erica appears to be the ‘last straw’ that sends Changez back to Pakistan and in a more radical direction. However, she is also a part of an interesting contrast in the film between the USA and Pakistan. Most of the flashbacks to Pakistan in Changez’s story concern his family. Family values are central to his identity. At one point, when he is still a successful Wall Street analyst, he returns to Pakistan for his sister’s wedding: but also to secretly give money to his mother to pay for the ceremony. The hold of family and Islamic culture is suggested even when he is completely embroiled in his new world: at a barbecue in Central Park with colleagues he surreptitiously drops the sausage [presumably pork] into a waste bin.

Family values are consciously lacking in the world of New York. Erica suffers guilt over her involvement in the death of a previous boyfriend; she is luke-warm when Changez talks of marriage and children. We meet her father, but her mother seems absent. Jim Cross (Kiefer Sutherland) is Changez’s mentor at the Wall Street firm. We see him once outside the office at his flat: where he and his servant/partner are coded as gay.

One strand in the story is Changez’s need for father figures. There is his actual father in Lahore, Abu (Om Puri). Jim Cross acts as a father figure as he rises up the echelons of the Wall Street firm. And at a crucial moment in the film Changez meets a Turkish publisher in Istanbul, Nazmi Kemal (Haluk Bilginer). Changez is there with Cross to close down a firm that is losing money. Nazmi talks to Changez about his cultural loyalties [as a cultural father] and through the metaphor of the Ottoman Empire’s use of the janissaries  – [Christian boys recruited and indoctrinated to be warriors for the Ottomans in the late medieval period] – the way the young man has become a subaltern for the exploiters. This is the point that Changez refuses to implement Cross’s dictates and returns to Pakistan, to his family, and to a radical ‘anti-USA’ position.

These contrasts are emphasised by the colour scheme. New York is all cool colours.  For much of his time there Changez is hemmed in and blocked by screens, doors and furniture. These latter increase in the post-‘9/11’ climate. Lahore is a much warmer and more vital place: there are rich unsaturated colours. It is here that we see the most vibrant sequence, an evening of Urdu singing, markedly different from the upmarket exhibition space for Erica’s photographs. This opening sequence is great, but it also includes crosscutting with a kidnapping in a nearby street. And Lahore is also full of dark corners and noirish shadows, presaging the later stages of the film.

The Sight & Sound review mentioned a number of other ‘9/11’ movies. One missed off this list, Lions for Lambs (2007) struck me as the clearest parallel. Both films use conversation/s as a way of filling in a character story and as a way of explaining the film’s plot. The conversation/s also enable some presentation of arguments for and against the war in Afghanistan. And both films use an approaching event as a way of developing an escalating tension. In The Reluctant Fundamentalist this plot device [apparently not in the novel] is the kidnapping of a US Professor at the University by Islamic radicals. Because of his views and his connections Changez is seen as likely to have some knowledge of the whereabouts of the victim. As the conversation continues, with flashbacks and return to the present, the suspicion grows that Bobby is an actually a CIA operative. Thus the complexities increase. And this helps racket up the tension as a CIA listening post is following the conversation.

The Reluctant Fundamentalists struck me as like Lions for Lambs in another respect, its political project. Both films appear to offer critical comments on recent US foreign policy, in both films this is exemplified by the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. Both films present what one might call ‘Neo-liberal’ characters that represent the exploitative and negative aspect of the USA. But both films are at pains to distance themselves from any sympathy for Islamic fundamentalism. And in both cases the rather generic representation of this fundamentalism shades over into the traditional conventions of Hollywood, with Pakistani and Islamic characters mainly seen as both ‘the other’ and a threat. It seems likely that this is a much stronger emphasis in the film than in the book. Among the differences is that the ‘Bobby’ character changes from tourist to CIA operative. And we both hear his voice and see from his point-of-view: entirely absent from the book. A crucial shot is of Changez on his mobile, watched by Bobby with the audience aligned with Bobby.

This become clearer when one lists the actual violence depicted in the film. On the Islamic side we have the ‘9/11’ attack on the Twin Towers: the kidnapping: a murder: and the violent radical mob in which Bobby is caught up. On the US side, we have a single shooting, which whilst it results in a fatality is presented as accidental rather than deliberate. The shooting also reinforces the sense of misunderstanding by characters rather than deliberate manipulation. Cross believes that Changez has tipped off the Islamist [as he saw him on his mobile phone]: later, in the CIA car, he realises this was a mistake.

Liv schreib

The key moment when the clash of the values of Neo-liberals and Islamists is central to the story is the moment when Changez meets an Islamist leader. He uses the word ‘fundamental’ and an interior flashback recalls Jim Cross using the same word, ‘fundamentals’, as he tutors the would-be analysts at the Wall Street offices. It is clear at this point that Changez recoils from both types of ‘fundamentalism’. The problem with such a comparison is that these are very different types of fundamentalism. Cross represents the operation of contemporary capitalism and thus his ‘fundamentals’ relate to the economic base. The Islamist’s fundamentals, in which he mistakenly attribute the clash between Islam and the USA to a religious conflict, is part of the superstructure. Several comments in reviews on this point use the term ‘ideological’. But from the Marxist perspective they represent different aspect of ideology. Cross’s use of the term is part of the dominant ideas in a capitalist system. The Islamist’s use of ideology represents seeing only the surface appearances but not the underlying social relations. And this is what the film itself does in its representation of the cultural clash: which at base is economic. I am pretty sure that despite his training in economics the character of Changez never explains to his students how imperialism operates or the economic structures that it creates and maintains.

Endings tend to be especially important in the projection of a particular project and of the values embodied a film. The Reluctant Fundamentalist ends by crosscutting between Changez and Bobby. Changez, with his followers, stands at the grave of his dead colleague, reiterating a message of non-violence. Bobby recuperates in an Afghanistan facility with a wounded leg. He starts to replay the tapes of his conversation with Changez: with the implication that he may revise his responses to Changez position and arguments. This fits with the comments made by the director: “Liberal humanist” does sum up Ms. Nair’s perspective and intentions. “The book is about the mutual suspicion that the two men and the two countries, America and Pakistan have of each other,” she said. “In my film, we use the enigma of the situation — is he a spy, is he a terrorist, are neither, are both? — as the springboard for a dialogue, a bridge connecting them, and connecting us, making each of us see ourselves in what we had regarded as ‘the other.’ ”

Such a comment and such an ending ignores the economic imperatives that drive the imperialist activities of the USA and the economic imperatives that drive capitalist Wall Street.

This film implies a distance in regarding the opposing values of the Neo-liberal and the Islamist. But on closer examination this leads to the taking of sides, and predictably the side of the dominant class. Julio Garcia Espinosa, in For an Imperfect Cinema, comments “What is it, then, which makes it impossible to practice art as an ‘impartial’ activity? … There can be no ‘impartial’ or ‘uncommitted’ art, there can be no new and genuine qualitative jump in art, unless the concept and the reality of the ‘elite’ is done away with once and for all. “  Despite relying on funding from outside the main Hollywood system The Reluctant Fundamentalist clearly remains within the purview of the dominant class.

Mira Nair [who has lived in India, Africa and North America] is also quoted as saying: “The beauty of living in two or three places is your worldview is forced to expand,”. This does not mean that the worldview expands beyond the limits of the dominant system. One can journey from imperialism to resistance: but one can also travel from criticism to acceptance.

This is a new documentary directed by Ken Loach with the subtitle of The Labour Victory of 1945 – memories and reflections. It is a historical investigation with a clear political message to the Britain of the Coalition’s policies of ‘austerity’. Loach has a long pedigree of political films, both fictional features and documentaries, that address contemporary and historical Britain from a left position. This cinema of Loach and his collaborators is a cinema of opposition. Some writers on Third Cinema have tended to include oppositional cinema in the imperialist countries as a constituent in the larger discourse of “making films that directly and explicitly set out to fight the system’. In fact, Solanos and Getino in their seminal manifesto refer to such examples: e.g. “Cinegiornali liberi in Italy”. But they also follow the analyses of Mao tse Tung and Franz Fanon when they call for a ‘cinema of decolonisation’.

One could place Loach’s film in the category of second cinema: ‘trapped inside the fortress’. And it is true that his films rely on the distribution system of that cinema. But it is fair to distinguish his work from that of the ‘auteurs using ‘non-standard language’ [first cinema]. As Lenin argued, categories are always dynamic, the boundaries are always slippery. Ken Loach’s new film, with its overt political message directed at the current activities of the British bourgeoisie provides an interesting case study to assess his politics and their place in a movement of real opposition.

The Spirit of ’45 focuses on the five years, [1945 – 1950] of the post W.W.II Labour Government led by Clement Atlee. The Labour Party won a surprise landslide victory in June 1945. It then proceeded on possibly the most radical restructuring of British economic, political and civil society of the C20th. The coincidence of the death of Tory Leader Margaret Thatcher during the film’s current distribution provides a telling set of parallels. It also provides a contradictory position to the hype that has tried to elevate her to the top in UK Prime Minster ratings.

This contrast is deliberately presented in the film. It is constructed around to set of polarities. The first is between the 1930s, Auden’s ‘low decade’, and the late 1940s. The 1930s were the decade of the great depression and of the Tory dominated National Government. The levels of exploitation, poverty and deprivation are only now being matched in the current austerity.

Later the film sets up a second set of polarities, between the 1945 Labour Government and the 1979 Conservative Government. They are indeed polar opposites. And 1980s saw the start of the destruction of the Welfare State created under Labour. It should be noted that the destruction has taken longer than the erection, and that the obverse is usually the case.

The film is constructed mainly from archive footage. There should be a word of praise for archivist Jimmy Anderson, who has researched and supplied a rich and varied selection of film from the 1930s through to the 1980s. Interspersed with the archive footage are a series of interviews with people who lived through or have studied these different decades. Many of these are working people with direct experience of the 1940s and indeed the 1930s. There are several ‘experts’ and few representatives of the political classes. All are filmed in black and white by Stephen Standen, matching the predominately black and white archive footage.

The interviews are the strong centre of this film. The witnesses are clear and direct, often extremely eloquent. They provide both evidence and personal testimonies to support and enrich the archive material. They are also often moving, as for example the woman who recalls her grandfather carrying round in his wallet the letter informing him of his first council house. A doctor recalls calling on a working class family who, counting the pennies, only advised him of one sick son when there were two. He told the mother; ‘from today it’s free!’

There are also moments, of humour, some grim some satirical. A conservative MP reads out a letter from a constituent who fears that the British Army’s Current Affairs Education Programme late in the war is both subversive and in danger of creating demobbed soldiers ‘all pansy-pink.’

The style is recognisable from Loach’s other work. There is frequent use of overlapping sound. Parallel editing creates significant and signifying contrasts. The interviews are almost uniformly shot from a frontal viewpoint in mid-shot. However, on just two occasions the camera cuts to a side-angle and close-up: in both cases the witness is remembering a traumatic death. In the first instance Bert remembers realising that his mother has died from a miscarriage and the lack of proper medical provision. In the latter Ray remembers the death of a fellow miner due to the lack of pit props in the seam where they were working.

Unfortunately one technical weakness is that the 1930s and 1940s film footage has been cropped to fit the 1.85:1 frame of the digital release. I was surprised at this act in a Loach film. I wondered if it is down to one of the funders, Film Four, who will sooner or later transmit the film on television. It does show a lack of respect for the footage so carefully selected. And it is quite obvious on occasion, as with newsreel footage where titles are often only partly visible.

A much more effective technique is colourisation, the first time I have approved of such manipulation. The film opens with celebrations by people on VE day 1945. We see them singing, dancing, cheering in the streets and in iconic setting such as Trafalgar Square. At the film’s end the footage re-appears, now in colour. The contrast achieves a fine, upbeat sense. And it fits with the thrust of the film, which is that the loss sense of community of the 1940s is actually re-achievable today.

In both the coverage of the 1940s and of the 1980s there is detailed film on the policies and actions of the two governments. As one might expect, this is a series of oppositions. The Labour’ Governments major achievements are dealt with in turn – nationalising the mines, transport, housing and centrally the National Health Service. And it is in this iconic achievement that the destruction of the later governments is most forcibly made apparent.

The film is not unalloyed praise for the great 1945 reforming Labour Party. In particular the experts offer some critical comments. These include Tony Benn, who was both a participant but who also looks back and examines. Two points in particular emerge as criticism of the Labour Governments implementation of their policies. One is the dominance of centralisation: the other is the lack of any sort of control by the working class. A particular example of this is the new National Coal Board. Its head was an ex-coal owner who had led the opposition to nationalisation.

But there are important aspects of the 1945 Labour Government that the documentary omits. One ‘elephant in the room’ is Finance Capital. In fact one of the early nationalisation in the 1940s was the Bank of England. But the Government went no further, though nationalising the top 100 companies including the banks was a policy supported by grass roots activists. This failure becomes more obvious when our gaze [which the films prompts] comes forward to the current crisis. It is worth noting that the reforming Labour Government was constrained in the same manner as the current Coalition Government. The need to placate the banks and the markets so that they would fund the debts to pay for government action. The UK was a substantial recipient of monies in the USA ‘s Marshall Plan, and pressure from across the Atlantic was clearly a powerful factor. One commentator in the film suggests that the USA aid was partly motivated by the fears of radical change or even revolution by the British working class.

There is the another ‘elephant in the room’; Britain’s membership of what became the Western Imperialist front [NATO], led by the USA. Nowhere in the film are the policies of imperialism, colonialism and neo-colonialism addressed. Among the important issues from the 1940s would be the suppression of the democracy in the Greek Civil War: the handing back of Vietnam to the French colonialist: covert support to suppress the movement for Independence in Indonesia: and the creation of a settler Zionist State in Palestine. Notable also was Bevin’s insistence on the development of a nuclear option. The government saw the empire / Commonwealth, particularly Africa, as a source of cheap resources: the groundnut scandal was not about economic independence for Africans but bailing out Britain’s own faltering economy.

These omissions may seem surprising. Ken Loach in earlier films has addressed the Republican war against fascism in Spain (Land and Freedom, 1995): the War of Independence in Eire (The Wind That Shakes the Barley) and resistance to US neo-colonialism in Nicaragua (Carla’s Song, 1996). However, only The Wind That Shakes the Barley actually addresses British colonialism and the central focus of that film is the Irish Civil War.

These lacunae carry over into the treatment of the UK class struggle. Loach’s film completely fails to deal with one of the most potent factors in the politics of the decade, the arrival of large numbers of black people from Britain’s colonies. This was underway during the 1940s, partly due to the need for additional labour. The Labour Home Secretary opined that ‘he would be happier if the intake could be limited to entrants from the Western countries..”. Part of his motivations were questions of ‘tradition and social background’, partly the possible problems of deportation if needed. The Trade Unions were often hostile, as Bevan reported to the Cabinet in 1946. By 1949 there were occasional racist riots, but the Government ‘sat on its hands’. By 1950 a review was underway to “check immigrants into the country of colonial people from the British Colonial territories”. [See Race & Class 1984].

This would seem to be a broader issue that has never been squarely confronted in Loach’s output. His films do feature positive black characters, but only in subordinate roles. Given his output is almost entirely devoted to issue of the class struggle in Britain, the absence of a film that centrally deals with what is termed “race” is surprising. More generally whilst Loach’s film focuses on and supports the struggles of the working class it is debatable whether it fully confront ‘the system’. The continuing strand that runs through most of his films is the sense of ‘betrayal’. This is the message that appears at the end of the very fine series for BBC Days of Hope (1975). And it a feeling that figures in The Spirit of ’45. The film’s main analytical conclusion centres on the failure of working class control. This begs the question of what are the politics of that control.

A number of screenings of the film have featured a Live Satellite coverage of a Q&A following a screening at Brixton’s Ritzy Cinema. There was Ken Loach, Dot Gibson, Owen Jones and Jeremy Hardy. Dot is interesting because she recalled being expelled from the Labour Party in the 1950s for belonging to a group that promoted the policy of nationalising the banks! The central theme of this discussion was a new political movement, Left Unity. This offers the appearance of being a new, more democratic, more radical version of the Labour Party. This also begs the question of the political line required to effect actual, real change. Britain’s Empire was a factor in enabling the British capitalist class to make concessions to the working class. Certainly socialism is not compatible with imperialist power or imperialist ambitions.

Third Cinema’s perspective requires not just addressing policies of interest to exploited and/or oppressed people but the politics of overthrowing the basic capitalist and imperialist structures. Loach’s film appears to address reforming the system rather than advocating what it ‘cannot assimilate’. So The Spirit of ’45 remains “trapped inside the fortress”. However, I think it should be clear that Ken Loach and his colleagues do not really fit into the concept of auteur as presented in the pages of Cahiers du Cinéma. Towards a Third Cinema refers to ‘author’s cinema’ and ‘expression cinema’ and ‘national cinemas’. In the examples that follow they include cinéma novo, presumably because of the influence on that strand of the Nouvelle Vague. However, for example, the work of Glauber Rocha seems to me to be a long way from the French New Wave, especially in terms of the politics of the films. This would seem to be a premise of the manifesto that needed more thought and development. However, I do think that the general comment, ‘the outer limits of what the system permits’ does provide a distinguishing line.

A friend identified this film [directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan] and the 2011 Iranian film Nader and Simin A separation as the outstanding releases of the last two years. I was so impressed with Once Upon a Time in Anatolia that I saw it three times and I now think it is the outstanding film so far of the century. Like Nader and Simin it is a film about the human process: beautifully crafted and full of complexities that repay several visits. However I think Anatolia has the greater complexity of the two films, especially in its address of class. The film comes out of the director Ceylan Bilge own experiences in the area of Anatolia in modern Turkey. However, it is not actually set in the past [even if the time is indeterminate}: a misapprehension created by the UK trailer for the film.

The plot is simple: we follow a Prosecutor with a police team and army personnel as they drive round the countryside with two prisoners seeking the grave of a murdered man. The drive is interrupted at one point when the men stopped at a village for rest and refreshment. When the body is finally found the group return to the nearby town where the suspects are imprisoned and an autopsy is carried out on the body.

These events in the plot are the occasion for a close scrutiny of the main characters, who themselves offer a reflection on the larger Turkish society. They include Doctor Cemal (Muhammet Uzuner), who has moved from larger city to work in this relatively remote area. He talks frequently with Prosecutor Nusret (Taner Birsel), the most important official here, and a man who we learn is haunted by the past. The Police Commissioner Naci (Yilmaz Erdogan) also has a burden, a son with an unidentified but serious illness and disability. Naci has an assistant Arap Ali (Ahmet Mümtaz Taylan), who has married a woman from the village that they visit. And there are the prisoners, two brothers, Kenan (Firat Tanis) and Ramazan (Burhan Yildiz): Ramazan is clearly slow-witted. There are several assistants and a jeep of Gendarmes. Finally there is the corpse Yasar (Erol Erarslan), about whom we learn quite a lot in the course of the search.

This group offers a cross-section of the local society – bourgeois, petty bourgeois entrepreneur, state functionaries, urban and rural proletariat. Class differences clearly impact on their relationships, though these are also affected by ethnic and regional factors. There is deference shown, but social antagonism also seep into actions. But parallels also cross the class divide: there is a potent shot of Kenan in the rear sit of the police car which is matched in framing and lighting by one of Prosecutor Nusret much later in the film.

And gender is another potent factor. For what is immediately apparent is that the main characters are all male. Women do appear, and in fact, they are central to the focus of the story. But they are always presented as subordinated to the men. In fact, the four important women in the narrative hardly speak at all. The only words by a woman are from the wife of the murdered man, Gülnaz (Nihan Okutucu): a yes and a couple ‘ah-hums’ in response to questions at the autopsy. All the other women are kept both completely silent and mainly hidden from view. Cemal’s love, from whom we learn he is now divorced, is seen only in some old photographs. Nusret’s wife appears merely in his reminiscences, though he tells Cemal [and us] what she said and did. And Naci’s wife is only a voice on the other end of a cell phone.

The one other woman that we actually see is Cemille (Cansu Demirci), the daughter of the Mayor or Mukhtar (Ercan Kesal) of the village where the team and their prisoners stop for refreshments. They [and we] see her only by the light of a lamp as she serves drinks: then briefly in the dark outside. She is beautiful but mysterious. She is in fact the first woman seen onscreen in the film. And her appearance launches and demonstrates how potent is the suppressed femininity of this society. Following her appearance Kenan sees an apparition of the murdered man. This is followed by a fuller confession by him to the Prosecutor and the Police Commissioner. A sort of motive emerges here for the crime, as Kenan claims that he is the father of the son born to Yasar’s wife. Ceylan’s film offers seemingly unrelated incidents that are full of allusions: during this sequence Arap sits by a fire, behind him a moth circles and then flies into the lamp previously held by the mayor’s daughter.

Similar opaque allusions occur during the drives and search for the corpse. At one point Cemal walks up a hillside as thunder and lighting crackle overhead. The flashes reveal a large carved headpiece on a small rock wall. All we learn is from Arap, who remarks that they are common in the area. At another point the convoy stops above a slope with several trees and a small stream running through them. After an important conversation between Cemal and Nusret [in term of the plot] the Prosecutor has to upbraid Naci who loses his temper with the prisoners. Meanwhile Arap surreptitiously picks apples from one of the trees. His actions cause several apples to fall to the ground: one slowly rolls down the slope and a little way along the stream. The camera carefully follows its roll: it is an exquisite shot, which seems to speak volumes on the protagonists and their activities.

Whilst the film is extremely serious, it also offers moment of humour and irony. Early in the drive Naci and the other policemen discuss the qualities of ‘buffalo yoghurt’. At the place where they finally find the corpse there is an argument over who has forgotten the body bag, resulting in it being wrapped in a car blanket. The team has a struggle to fit it into the boot of one of the cars. Then, Arap who has picked up some melons in the field nearby surreptitiously places these alongside the corpse in the boot.

The Sight &Sound review remarked that the film was more ‘talky’ than Ceylan’s earlier work. And the conversations between the characters are absorbing and extremely important in interpreting the film. However, Ceylan and his team also raise ambiguities about these. There is an extended conversation between Cemal and Arap at one of the sites searched. Cemal sits by a car door, Arap stand alongside the vehicle. When I saw the film again I realised from the camera angles that they do not actually appear to be talking to each other. Is this a reverie by one character: are there two separate internal monologues: or is Ceylan positioning us to have to rethink our response. There is a similar moment at the hospital. Cemal is waiting to commence the autopsy and he is remembering times past. Suddenly, with a cut to a new shot, he is talking with Nusret who sits opposite him. Is this an ellipsis? Is Cemal really talking to Nusret? By the end of the film it is the past that haunts Nusret that seems to figure largely in the film’s resolution. However, it is clear from the sequence where Cemal looks at old photographs that he is too haunted by a past. The line that elides the memories of Cemal and Nusret seems rather ambiguous.

This is not to suggest that Ceylan’s film offers a resolution that can be read innumerable ways. During the autopsy there is a discovery by the technician Sakir (Kubilay Tunçer) and Cemal that alters their [and our] perception of the crime and the perpetrators. Yet this is followed by a series of relatively long takes as Yasar’s widow and her son leave the hospital and return home. Whatever the men have decided has to be seen against the context provided by gender and class. This ending has all the resonance that was also created in the final long take of Nader and Simin: an ending that positions the viewer to consider carefully the story and characters they have watched over two hours.

The film is also graced by exceptionably fine anamorphic cinematography and sound design: Gökhan Tiryaki and Thomas Robert respectively. The films open with a pre-credit sequence, the only scene where we see Yasar alive, drinking and socialising with Kenan and Ramazan.  The sequence of shots shows us the trio through a window, then an interior mid-shot, and then exterior long shots. The dark gloomy atmosphere is depicted in shadowy twilight images with the ever-present thunder rumbling on the soundtrack. A passing lorry on the road effects a cut as the credits roll. Then the main narrative opens as the headlights of the convoy are picked out in a dusky road and darkened landscape. The effect is luminous. The film is shot on 35mm though some reviews suggest digital: in fact the film has circulated on DCP in the UK.

If the style of the film illuminates the landscape and setting’s then the scripting illuminates the characters and their situations. The screenplay was written by Ercan Kesal, Nuri Bilge Ceylan and the latter’s wife Ebru Ceylan. I find it difficult to believe that the film could deal so directly but deftly with gender with out her input. All the major characters face a crisis of emotion and conscience in the film: in particular Nusret and Cemal find that the past is inextricably connected to their actions in the presence. Ceylan in interviews has mentioned his admiration for the writer Anton Chehkov. In fact, whilst watching the film I was reminded once or twice of one of Chekhov’s masterpieces, The Seagull. Late in that play Kosta tells Nina “You have found your right path, you know which way you are going – but I’m still floating about in a chaotic world of dreams and images, without knowing what use it all is …” [translation by Elisaveta Fen].  One feels that several of Ceylan’s characters could utter this line, though by the resolution there is a suggestion that one or more has found [like Nina] the ‘right path’. The reviews of this and earlier films clearly place Ceylan as an auteur. However, it should be noted that his films cross over strongly with other work from Turkish cinema. Kosmos [2010] shares the terrain with Ceylan’s earlier Climates (2007): and there are parallels in it exploration of region, class, gender and ethnicity. Both these films also seem to reference the work of Yilmaz Güney, in particular his 1982 film Yol. Turkey is a society involved in rapid change and development where social contradictions and social values are thrown up in the air: I feel sure that this is one factor in the quality of much of its recent cinema.

This is the most recent feature in a cycle of Iranian films that have now impressed for over two decades. The films that enjoy recognition in the west are not a popular Iranian cinema but more akin to European art films. They endure strict control by the Iranian government, and several seen in the west have not been screened in Iran itself. These are predominantly films in the great Neo-realist tradition that developed in Italy in the 1940s. They frequently used actual locations, and often non-professional casts, show a tendency to longer shots and longer takes than in the mainstream cinema, offer stories set in everyday life, and follow simple, recognisable events. Most notably, the great neo-realist films [like Roberto Rossellini’s Paisà (1946) or Vittorio de Sica’s Umberto D (1952)] display an immense compassion for their protagonists. It is the last quality that struck me most forcibly in the film written, produced and directed by Asghar Farhadi. In fact, it lacks some of the other characteristic that often grace neo-realist films: a non-professional cast and an open script that can include improvisation. A Separation enjoys a mainly professional cast [but some are family members] and the scripting is clearly very carefully drafted and implemented. The film does offer the long shot and long take, but interspersed within a highly mobile camera, with at time frequent cuts and noticeable close-ups. But what these display is an everyday world, with the events, conflicts, emotions and responses that audiences will recognise from their own lives, [allowing for the distinctive facets that are part of an Iranian story].

It is not a militant film: indeed few Iranian films are. So it is clearly not Third Art or Cinema in the sense discussed by Franz Fanon or Fernando Solanos and Octavio Getino. However, Third Cinema is a dynamic category, and like all cultural movements, it has a dialectical relationship with society. One important manifesto on this type of cinema is For an Imperfect Cinema by Julio García Espinosa, the Cuban filmmaker. He described ‘mass art’ as ‘leftovers to be devoured and ruminated over by those who were not invited to the feast.’  He then argued: “We maintain that imperfect cinema must above all show the process which generates the problem. It is thus the opposite of a cinema principally dedicated to celebrating results, the opposite of a self-sufficient and contemplative cinema, the opposite of a cinema that ‘beautifully illustrates’ ideas or concepts which we already possess. … To show a process is not exactly equivalent to analysing it. To analyse, in the traditional sense of the word, always implies a closed prior judgement.”

This seems to describe exactly the treatment presented in A Separation. Most critics have commented on how the film does not offer a judgement on the characters and events depicted, but leaves this to the audience for consideration and reflection. In line with the neo-realist tradition the story is very simple. Nader  (Peyman Moadi) and Simin (Leila Hatami) have submitted a divorce petition to the Iranian court. They have a daughter, eleven year old Termeh (Sarina Farhadi), but neither is willing to concede custody to the other. The fourth player in this conflict is Nader’s father (Ali-Asghar Shahbazi) who has Alzheimer’s and require constant care in their relatively affluent apartment. Simin returns to her family home. Nader hires the working class and traditionally religious Razieh (Sareh Bayat) to care for his father during the day. Razieh wears the full chador. She comes with her daughter Somayeh (Kimia Hosseini), who is younger than Termeh.  Returning one day Nader finds his father alone and collapsed. on the floor. When Razieh re-appears there is an argument and Nader pushes her from the flat. Later her husband, Hodjat (Shahab Hosseini), takes out a complaint against Nader when the pregnant Razieh has a miscarriage. So a new court case intervenes in the process of the original divorce case.

What one notices first is the feel of complete authenticity of the range of characters. The film won the coveted Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival: it also won the Best Actress Award shared by the female cast, and the Best Actor Award shared by the male cast. And the film enjoys ensemble acting where even minor characters are convincing. Apart from the courthouse, [for which permission for filming was refused] all the settings are actual locations. The colour palette is often subdued, with greys and drab blues. The camera work at times uses relatively long shots and long takes, but for much of the character interaction it becomes very mobile with frequent and sometimes very telling cuts.

This is a film of exchanges and looks: in some ways reminiscent of Ingmar Bergman’s work. Characters talk, they look and frequently there is a close-up which remains on one character. There is a powerful moment as Termeh opens the door of the apartment to see the fallen Razieh on the stairs. She remains for a time, framed in the doorway. On two occasions Nader and Termeh stand in the apartment and watch as Simin leaves in her car. Somayeh watches her mother on a bus journey when Razieh starts to display symptoms of illness. And most tellingly, towards the end of the film the families met to discuss possible payment of ‘blood money’.  The meeting breaks down and in a final moment Termeh and Somayeh, young victims in the process, exchange a glance.

There are also many moments when a character is framed alone, frequently betraying emotions repressed in company. So we see moments in which all the characters are caught crying. Simin in her car as she leaves the apartment: Termeh several times as she witnesses parental conflict. And Nader, after the argument with Razieh, cries as he washes his invalid father. Razieh and Somayeh both weep after particular traumas. And Hodjat, an aggressive character, weeps in frustration as a possible solution evaporates in conflict.

The editing is also very precise and effective. The film works by letting the audience gradually discover the complications in events. In that sense it works like a judicial hearing as we acquire greater knowledge. Cuts also increase the impact and comment on the action. Thus there are short inserts of Razieh travelling to and from her work. There are shots of one character edited alongside that of another: as in the case where we see the differing responses to crisis by Simin, Termeh and Nadir. And there is a really effective moment, late in the film: there is a long shot of Simin at the close of an evening class, she stands and adjusts her head scarf [maghna’eh], and the camera changes to a shot of Razieh, adjusting her chador, at home preparing for the meeting of the two families.

The travails that afflict these characters are not melodramatic but as series of tiny mistakes, and misconceptions that gradually build the conflict. Termeh believes, and I think the audience is likely to agree with her, that neither of her parents really wants the separation. She herself seems genuinely torn between them. Razieh’s situation as a carer gradually slips out of control. Hodjat’s aggression springs from a class-conscious sense of secondary treatment: in work, in society and [crucially] in the court process.

And none of the main characters are exactly innocent in the conflict that develops. We see scenes where Nader is obviously attempting to explain and justify his conduct. Nader also accuses Simin of  ‘all your life  … you’ve [either] run away …’ We cannot know whether this is fully justified, but it does describe Simin’s behaviour at time in the film. It becomes apparent in the film that both Razieh and Termeh tell a formal lie, though the former’s is probably more serious. Somayeh inadvertently undermines her mother’s testimony. And Hodjat responds with aggression on nearly every occasion.

In this conflict the nearest to innocents are the daughters Termeh and Somayeh. It seems important that neither couple has a son. In what is a frequent representation in Iranian cinema men are frail and ineffectual. Nadir seems not only unable but also unwilling to compromise. There are at least three major points in the film where his conduct pushes on the conflict. Hodjat’s behaviour follows a parallel, though he lacks the education and sophisticated behaviour of Nadir. And Nadir’s father is stricken by Alzheimer’s. The two married women, Simin and Razieh are not completely innocent. But in both cases there is a point when they face up to the conflict and offer a possibility of resolution.It struck me that this gender discourse is re-inforced by the Iranian judicial system presented in the film. Whilst it uses draconian punishments, for example, the blood money option, at first glance it seems humane and fairly even-handed. However, it is also part of male dominance apparent in the society. We see one judge and hear another. Both are clearly male. In the case of the divorce the law takes Nadir’s side. In the case of involving Razieh the hearings are completely dominated by the two men. The women’ evidence, including Termeh and her tutor, is subordinate.

There is a telling moment at the opening of the film. We hear that the petition for divorce is because Simin wishes to leave the country, but Nadir wants to stay and care for his father. Evidence about the visa that has been obtained suggests that initially Nadir was willing to emigrate, but his father’s disability has changed his mind. And now the conflict involves the fate of Termeh. There is a hint that the idea of emigration is as much about Termeh’s future as it is about Simin: she responds to the judge by saying that she would ‘rather [Termeh] didn’t grow up in these circumstances.’ Simin then fails to answer the judge’s question about ‘what circumstances?’. In one sense, the rest of the film demonstrates that even at the personal level, the domination of a male centred society inhibits and restricts women.

But the film is less developed in terms of the class dimension. I assume that the film’s stance reflects the experience of the director in that its prime focus is on the professional family. Whilst there is a degree of empathy for the situation of Hodjat and Razieh, we do not get the close presentation of their situation. The film opens and closes on Nadir and Simin. To the extent that there is a resolution in the film it is one that leaves the future of Hodjat and his family hanging in the air.  This could be argued to be a reflection of the auteur approach of the film. A production that had a greater collective involvement might well have given more attention to the working class characters.

Of course, that is my interpretation. As Espinosa suggests, avoiding the convention of closure puts the audience in an unusual but rewarding position. These final minutes of the film feature another long take, with the position of the characters speaking volumes about their situation. As in classic neo-realist films this moment is both extremely moving but is likely to leave the audience thinking deeply.

Note: The are many specific Iranian inflections in the film. One particular issue is that of ‘blood money’. Nader can avoid punishment in the court case if he can reach a settlement with Hodjat. The official rate is 15 million, but Simin proposes 4 million. It is not clear whether this is the Iranian Riall or the Tomin, a note of ten Riall. It was quite hard to find an exchange rate on the Internet, possibly due to sanctions. I think 15 million is near to £10,000 whilst 4 million is about £2,500.  This seems to fit as at one point Simin offers to sell her car to raise the money.

Franz Fanon in his The Wretched of the Earth writes of the phases through which artists and intellectual develop towards a revolutionary consciousness. In the second of three phases he describes how:

“the native is disturbed: he decides to remember what he is. This period of creative work approximately corresponds to that immersion which we have just described. But since the native is not a part of his people, since he has only exterior relations with his people, he is content to recall their life only. Past happenings of the bygone days of his childhood will be brought up out of the depths of his memory; old legends will be reinterpreted in the light of a borrowed aestheticism and of a conception of the world which was discovered under other skies.”

The key point here is the last sentence, the failure to break away from the conventions of mainstream art [film]. Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino in their Towards a Third Cinema comment that even auteur cinema remains ‘trapped inside the fortress’.

Both comments would seem to apply to the two films directed by Rachid Bouchareb, [the first part of a fairly open trilogy was Days of Glory / Indigènes 2007]. He seems to enjoy the status and commercial support of an auteur whilst he uses the conventions of mainstream narrative and genre in his films.

Outside the Law offers a story of Algerian migrants in France working for the liberation struggle led by the Front de Libération Nationale [FLN]. The three central characters are brothers, and their story uses the familiar motifs of family and gangster genres. Bouchareb explained in an interview:

“The Godfather was a big influence because I wanted to analyse the discipline of maintaining a revolution and also the aspect of family and community in the Paris suburbs during the war.”

Spanning the decades from the 1920s to the 1960s, the film depicts events and offer political stances that even art cinema tends to avoid. The film opens in Algeria in 1925 as a local leader complicit with the French colonialist evicts the family from their land. We then cut forward to 1945 and the massacre of protesting Algerians by French forces and French colonial civilians. I think this is the first time that notorious event has actually been depicted by a non-Arabic or African film.

As such powerful political images continue as we see one brother [Messaoud] enlisted in the French colonial army in Vietnam listen to the speeches of solidarity by the Vietnamese for other political struggles when he is captured and imprisoned. The political story continues in metropolitan France as two of the brothers [Abdelkader and Messaoud] work for the FLN under conditions of secrecy. The conflict involves them both struggling against the Algerian-based MNA [Mouvement national algérien, subservient to the French] and the subversive Red Hand gang organised by the French security service.

The last brother [Saïd] is determinedly apolitical and involved in small time crime and then becomes a boxing promoter. Saïd is the only one of the brothers to survive at the film’s end.

The penultimate scene is of violence meted out to Algerians by the French police. The film ends with footage of the celebration of Algerian Independence.Compared even to products of European art cinema this film offers a powerful and a political narrative. It also dramatises events in European colonial history that have been suppressed or at least ignored. The latter point seems to be the reason for the demonstrations against the film by reactionaries in France. It is definitely a film to be seen if you have an interest in the struggles against colonialism and neo-colonialism: and it is a good exercise if you a feel under-informed about this area.Even so it remains a problematic film in terms of that struggle. The review in Sight & Sound is one example of how a sympathetic review of the film fails to grasp the key political issues. What the media described as ‘terrorist acts’ feature in the film and are committed by both the French security forces and the Algerian volunteers. However, in this review the only use of the term ‘terrorist’ is with reference to actions by the FLN. Later the writer suggests that, “While Bouchareb is too sophisticated a filmmaker to come down on either side of the argument, one can’t help but suspect that his sympathies lie with the youngest of the brothers.” [That is, the least political]. Other comments by the director suggest that he supports the struggle led by the FLN. However, I suspect that ordinary viewers may well respond in a similar fashion to the S & S critic. Viewers relate to the film in terms of their own experiences, so I did not feel in the same way as S & S. But in producing a film that is very much within the conventional mainstream Bouchareb seems to want to address those viewers.

Comparisons have been drawn with The Battle of Algiers (1965). Though both films deal with the Algerian Liberation struggle, they are very different, not just in their politics, but in their form and style. I think a good film for comparison would be Ousmane Sembène’s Camp D’ Thiaroye (1988). In some ways this is closer to Bourchareb’s initial film Days of Glory – both films deal with Africans fighting for the French in World War II. Sembène offers a recognisable narrative and individual characters with whom audiences can make some sort of identification. But he avoids the conventional treatment of, say, the war film. The apparently central character is Sergeant-Major Diatta, a cultured non-commissioned officer who speaks French and understands French literature. His situation eventually exposes the way that accepting the dominant values of the colonialists renders resistance impotent. In fact the key character turns out to be an ordinary soldier called Pays [country]. Pays has been a victim of the fascists in a German concentration camp, an experience that has rendered him mute. Without Diatta’s sophistication, he has through experience learnt to understand and recognise European racism. He is the only African soldier to foresee the ruthless massacre by which African resistance is suppressed. It is this type of analytical narrative that is lacking in Outside the Law. The conventions of the gangster film leave little space for such political treatment.

Outside the Law is a very good film, and a rousing one. However, it effectively ends in defeat: though an end title looks forward to Independence. This is also true of Camp D’Thiaroye, but in the latter case the films presents a consciousness which is necessary for a different ending in the next stage of the struggle. Sembène’s film would seem to fit what Fanon terms ‘the fighting phase’, “the native, after having tried to lose himself in the people and with the people, will on the contrary shake the people. Instead of according the people’s lethargy an honoured place in his esteem, he turns himself into an awakener of the people; hence comes a fighting literature, a revolutionary literature, and a national literature.”

[Fanon uses the masculine pronoun generically. However, in Sembène’s films it is clear that he takes the issues around gender very seriously. The lack of address on this issue of women, despite their actual historical contribution, as depicted in The Battle of Algiers, is another problem in Outside the Law].

Source : filmsite.org