Film Review: Nandita Das - Firaaq (India, 2008)

Nandita Das - Firaaq (India, 2008)

Indian cinema offers a lot more than Bollywood and while people in America and Europe are currently discovering the pleasures of watching acting scions Shah Rukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai at work, there are also films that deal with the reality of India.

Nandita Das’ debut and to date only film deals with the 2002 riots in Gujarat when the ever present tensions between Hindus and Muslim reached a boiling point and several thousand Muslims were murdered in communal riots. A blanket of silence is being spread over the actual events, in reality as well as in the film. We see only the peripheral events and the aftermath as we follow the interwoven stories of several protagonists, Hindu and Muslim alike. But contrary to much of real life India, where life as usual continues in the face of tensions, riots and bombings, Firaaq attempts to grapple with the issues and to show that they, indeed, leave a trace.

The film opens with two men who are digging a mass grave, sighing prayers as they work, shoveling earth and shifting bodies. They are Muslims and so are the corpses. A delivery truck comes and the sight is greeted by dismay by the two men. As it unloads its freight we can see why – stacked on top of each other like sacks of rice, more corpses tumble out of it as soon as the back doors are opened. The men continue their work, until the older of them sees something. One of the bodies is the corpse of a Hindu woman. He loses himself in a fit of madness and makes to beat the woman dead again with his shovel and to strangle her with his bare hands. He is barely held back by his partner and breaks down in sobs.

Indian reality is something that is very hard to come to terms with and closing one’s eyes to anything but the issues that immediately concern oneself is a normal reaction to it. I am grateful for this film which tries to deal honestly and openly with topics that are usually swept under the rug quick as they come.

One strand of the story shows a regular middle class Hindu family. The husband is a greedy, nationalistic man who enjoys sitting around with his crony brother-in-law and talking about money while they are being served by his wife, who is also taking care of his invalid father. But she is inexplicably distracted and keeps opening the door when nobody knocks, her thoughts turning her away from the moment. It turns out that she is haunted by the memory of a Muslim woman who appeared, beaten and bloodied, in front of her window and implored her to let her in before they would kill her. She has ignored the woman and the memory comes back, tormenting her over and over again. She sees a chance for redemption when she encounters a small Muslim boy while she goes shopping and so she takes him with her, pretending that he has been sent by a friend to help out and changing his name into a Hindu name so nobody would become suspicious.

Deception is a common thread in all the stories, but usually the deceivers are acting out of impulses of love and protectiveness. The servant of an elderly Muslim singer keeps news of the rioting away from his master, because he does not want to shatter the old man’s world. This is perhaps the most touching of the stories – the singer has an artist’s hope and faith in the world, something that is worth to be preserved. It’s an astonishingly sensitive portrait.

The friend of a young Muslim girl presses a tilak on her forehead to make everyone think that she is a Hindu when they go to apply Henna to the hands of a newlywed Hindu bride and her friends. The girl herself is despondent and seething with anger – the house that she had lived in with her husband and child has been burned down and she distrusts her friend and neighbour, even as she is trying to protect her, because she refuses to tell her who burned the house down.

The Muslim husband of a Hindu wife gives his wife’s last name when given a receipt by two pandits asking for temple donations. The couple is planning to move away from Gujarat and to Delhi, to flee from the oppression and uncertainty that he feels.

A group of young Muslim men, among them the grave digger and the husband of the Henna artist look for a gun that a shopkeeper has hidden. Once they find it, it becomes the supreme symbol and tool of their vengeance – they file down the single bullet that they own so it fits into the gun and make grand plans of revenge. But as they realize the limitations that their new tool of vengeance offers them, they almost immediately begin to quarrel. It’s only one bullet, so who gets to use it?

As bleak and unremitting as the start of the film is, by the end there is a lot or at least a little of hope for many of the characters, as they see the crisis as an opportunity for change and even growth. The film feels raw, at times almost like an attempt to exorcize all the demons it evokes. Some are there to stay, but others can be chased away by remembering humanity and finding courage.

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Film Review: Joel & Ethan Coen - True Grit (America, 2010)

Joel and Ethan Coen – True Grit (2010)

The second foray into the Western genre for the Coen Brothers proves to be much more lighthearted and old-fashioned than their first, but also packs significantly less punch. While No Country for Old Men can be seen as a bleak meditation and a modern Western, True Grit is a very straightforward film, a classical throwback Western. It’s much better than the horribly cynical A Simple Man, their last outing (although the sublimely creepy dibbuk introduction sequence of that film might be one of the best things the brothers ever filmed and makes me wonder what they would do with something like The Golem by Gustav Meyrinck), or the empty and revoltingly stupid Burn After Reading.

By the end of the film I was surprised that it had taken a sudden and rather unexpected turn into classical Hollywood cliché when it tried to up the ante needlessly during what was already a tense resolution sequence. For a moment all the smart and skilled characterization was thrown out of the window to make the protagonists appear more heroic than was needed or simply to get them from one place to the other – it jarred with the rest of the movie, which was kept realistic and interesting by the three excellent leads.

I don’t know the John Wayne original, so I cannot comment on any departures in plot or character. Hailee Steinfeld is excellent as the street-smart fourteen year old Maddie Ross who sets out to find the murderer of her father by all means available, balancing effortlessly between preternatural wisdom and daring and childlike touches. A couple of scenes even seem to play subtly with her maturity and ripening sexuality, which considering that it is an American mainstream feature might not be entirely intended but is still engaging.

Jeff Bridges has a lot of fun with the role of grouchy Marshall Rooster Cogburn, who is kept well this side of realism and is more of an archetype than a true character. Still, few American actors can do this as well as him and he doesn’t slide into the Dude in a Western territory and chooses not to emulate the role that fused him and the Coen brothers together except in little details. Perhaps this is unavoidable, but it doesn’t distract.

Matt Damon plays it relatively safe, but competently so. The banter, with him usually ending up as the butt of the jokes, is often hilarious. He plays the thankless role of straight man with aplomb.

The most effective sequences are the surreal and often exceedingly funny parts for which the Coen brothers are rightly known. The hanged man and briefly afterwards the dentist in the crazed shamanic bear costume must rank as absolute highlights. The darkness is kept to a bearable minimum, mainly because of the absence of cynicism. I found A Simple Man which has zero violence to be so much harder to watch because of the total absence of anything resembling humanity. The actors of True Grit infuse the film with humanity and warmth and turn it into an exciting, if occasionally quirky, mainstream action Western which can almost be considered a family film. Nothing too exciting or daring, True Grit remains a serviceable fare.

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