The Bothersome Man (2006)

***NOTE: The following analysis/review may contain MILD SPOILERS regarding some detail in the film, but not to the extent of making the film viewing experience any lesser.*** 

The titular bothersome man by the name of Andreas arrives at a strange looking, isolated location, with a welcome sign put up especially for him at a solitary gas station. He looks around, appears lost, but doesn't question anything outright. His confusion and perplexed stares don't last very long and before he knows it, he has a fine job, a fine apartment and a fine girlfriend in a plush, polished city that looks spectacularly ideal....on the surface at least!

Very soon, Andreas begins to realize that there is something grossly amiss, and a lot is quite sinister in this new place. The food lacks any real taste, the alcohol doesn't get him high, and everyone around him, including his girlfriend, is rather emotionally sterile! So what's really going on here?

Norwegian filmmaker Jens Lien delivers the clues but doesn't give straight answers to Andreas' situation in his "The Bothersome Man" (2006). Lien's film is a darkly comic, surreal meditation on urban alienation and a frightening vision of a society desensitized by a consumerist culture.

Andreas finds himself in an overwhelmingly stoic world that he attempts to adapt to, but can't help but carry a perpetually baffled look. Actor Trond Fausa Aurvåg displays this with an  accurately comical expression of bewilderment and a lost sense of reality, similar to an insomniac Edward Norton in "Fight Club" (1999). Everything around Andreas is rather robotic. A couple at the train station engage in a sloppy kiss with blank expressions, devoid of any real emotional connect. People seem to carry fake plastic smiles all the time, and even when they are joking around lunch or dinner, they are merely discussing what furniture to buy from a catalog (in another nod to "Fight Club").

His girlfriend becomes his girlfriend rather casually, and they engage in a ridiculously mechanical sexual act. All she ever seems to care about is furniture and interior decoration. Every scene she is in, she is either talking about or is around some decorative piece of furniture. And when she isn't doing that, she is seen watching furniture ads on TV! Even when they have guests at home, all they talk about is the home decor.

Andreas begins to get increasingly bored of this single-track mentality and a total disinterest in any other more meaningful talk, or any kind of exchange on a personal level from anyone around. A man who apparently jumps to his death is found stuck to a fence, his intestines sticking out. This scene is received rather calmly by the individuals around. No one seems to care. In a movie hall, during a very sentimental scene, it is only Andreas who seems to be quite touched, while the others look on like zombies!

In a Bunuel-esque exaggeration, fitting to the surreal nature of the narrative, Lien does not keep the lack of soul limited to the people. He extends it to the environment and practically everything contained in it. The food they consume is bland; the alcoholic drinks they down seem to lack any effectiveness. And shockingly, all this seems to bother only a handful few, Andreas being one, and one other mysterious individual rambling away in the toilet.

When another girl at his office, who initially seems warmer, reveals herself to be just as insensitive, Andreas gets weary and realizes that he doesn't belong there. But there seems to be no escaping his situation, as is illustrated in a hilariously freaky, but disturbing sequence involving a subway train. The subway scene, and the central theme of a man who finds himself in a nightmarish universe is reminiscent of Adrian Lyne's brilliant psychological thriller "Jacob's Ladder" (1990).

So what is this peculiar place, really? One way to look at it is that it's a myth-breaking representation of paradise, a paradise that everyone seeks, but one that isn't really the most ideal place to be. Or perhaps it is what Andreas achieves as a result of his quest for a personal utopia. It is the manifestation or the final shape attained by his desires, although it doesn't quite turn out to be in tune with his envisioning. What he got instead, was a tasteless world, a world with life sucked out of it.

He ended up with an outcome of a pursuit that was really meaningless and empty; a pursuit of a false happiness through worldly desires, materialistic gains, something that doesn't really spell happiness in the end. While most others in this society, thrive on a false sense of security achieved through these very material gains, content that they have found their utopia, our protagonist is awakened, and seeks to escape to find his own utopia which perhaps, doesn't exist anymore. In the process of chasing the so-called good life, he has left behind the actual good life, which he now longs to go back to.

And therefore, does the discovery of a mysterious hole in the wall give him new hope? A crack that oddly resembles a vagina, an opening that emanates a pleasant smell and lilting music, and somehow seems to give vibes of life. The hole is perhaps symbolic of a gateway to the womb, back into a quaint little motherly kitchen, with the golden sun shining bright, sounds of chirpy children in the background, and a sweet tasting cake lying on the table. What's more, the location of the hole is an apartment building occupied mostly by old timers; suggestive of the last link to the old school! Perhaps Andreas yearns to go back and start over; reclaim the lost paradise, taste the real good life again.

But is there a way back? Or is he trapped in a state of no return, in a never-ending search for a paradise that he may never see? Another journey commences, another transportation, ending up in a world that seems to be a lot more colder than this; and a blizzard seems to await him! Will it ever end for Andreas?

"The Bothersome Man" is a challenging but fun film that is entertaining, visually enticing as well as thematically rich, enough to please any hardcore cinephile. Screenwriter Per Schreiner and filmmaker Jens Lien give us lucky viewers a lot to chew on and a lot to admire in this finely crafted, enigmatic gem.


Score: 9/10

The White Meadows (2009)

***NOTE: The following analysis/review may contain MILD SPOILERS regarding some detail in the film, but not to the extent of making the film viewing experience any lesser.***

 

"The White Meadows" (2009) is a rather strange offering from the Iranian neck of the woods that, believe it or not, got its writer-director Mohammad Rasoulof and his editor and filmmaker Jafar Panahi arrested! Both were sentenced to six years imprisonment for film-related activities that were considered propagandist and went against the interests of national security. And then it boggles the mind as to how a film of such visionary magnitude and sheer poetic beauty could tick off the powers that be.

This bizarre tale unfolds in the form of an allegorical fable, and despite its surreal nature, it is clear from the content that the message of the film is very much rooted in the stark reality of a nation that thrives on repression and censorship. "The White Meadows" is a slyly veiled critique of various issues in contemporary Iranian society. Not everything that happens in the film can be taken literally, and yet the meaning that is revealed beneath its many layers, shockingly mirrors real life scenario. This is a testament to the state of a society that is suffocated by religious extremism, dogmatism, misogyny, and grave injustice in the area of arts and creativity.

Brace yourself for an outlandish plot that revolves around a middle-aged boatman, Rahmat (Hassan Pourshirazi), with his briefcase containing tiny glass flasks. He moves around landscapes that resemble something straight out of a heavenly dream; large water-bodies that contain almost desolate salt-encrusted islands, filmed on location at Lake Urmia. Well, it all looks like heaven anyway, but the life in these parts is hellish! 

The islands are all sparsely populated, seemingly self-sufficient habitats to some of the biggest simpletons and most superstitious folk who follow and believe in some of the craziest ancient traditions and lores. What does Rahmat do for a living? He is a collector of people's sorrows! Literally, he collects their tears in his flasks as they mourn their dead, or lay bare their deepest emotions. What he does with these tears, no one knows, except there is a myth going around, that he converts them into pearls! "Tears should be treated with respect. They are valuable. Not a single drop can be wasted", he explains.

Rahmat is a quiet observer and a listener, yet not one to intervene. He witnesses the worst kind of stupidity, unfairness and barbarism on each island he visits, but never gets directly involved in their businesses. He is not a saint either, as we soon learn. He is a practical man, however, and often insensitive. So while he lends an ear to little man Khojaste, who is supposed to carry glass jars filled with confessions down to a deep dark well in order to appease a disgruntled fairy, he insists that he go ahead with the task, for people were all waiting for it to reach its conclusion. 

But who would really look out for the poor bloke who could be marching towards certain death, thanks to a ridiculous tale cooked up by a senile old lady who insists that the water is salty because the fairy is angry! What of these glass jars? They are heavy with words that are actually petitions of the inhabitants to the fairy. But as clear as the transparency of the jars, is the fact that there is nothing in them, really. Much like how voices are unheard, written protests and complaints mean nothing and hence are invisible to an authoritarian fundamentalist regime.

Circumstance puts Rahmat in charge of a young boy who wants to travel across the waters to find his father, whose brain dried up and he went missing! Nothing else is known about this lost father except his name, yet his son sets out anyway. Perhaps his father also escaped the salty prisons, much like his son now did, in order to get away from the rigours there, in search of an air of freedom, but possibly perished in the attempt. The boy's presence puts a reluctant Rahmat's job in jeopardy and hence he is asked to pretend to be deaf and dumb in order to stay on. Isn't this the fate of most common folk in the Islamic Republic of Iran? Practically everyone who wants to belong, has to be mute and conform, else face the consequences. How ironic then, that eventually God works a miracle and puts a stop to the boy's pretense! But Rahmat is least concerned with the boy's woes, so much that he doesn't do a lot to heal the boy's wounds, but doesn't miss collecting that single tear that trickles down his cheek.

On another island, Rahmat sees a beautiful young girl about to be sent off to become the bride of the sea. That entails, of course, a ritualistic sacrifice by drowning her after testifying that she is a virgin! This episode is perhaps the most infuriating of the lot. Rahmat can't do much about this either. He just momentarily pities her by saying, "It's fate"; then proceeds to do his job by opening up his flask for the mourners who are congratulated by the attendees of the ghastly ceremony. The ritual itself could be an exaggerated version of some unknown custom, but this vignette speaks volumes of the condition of women in a male dominated society.

The most blatant attack on the system and its censoring ways comes in the vignette of the painter who paints the sea red. This attracts the ire of the elders who won't accept that the sea isn't blue. But the painter insists that he sees it that way; it's his vision. Perhaps he sees the salty water soaked in the blood of the victims that have been long perishing in it and the ever growing sea, consuming the people trapped on the islands. Two other young men are ordered to subject the painter to some treatment to cure his vision. 

This includes some atrocities like forcing him to look at the sun and pouring animal urine in his eyes, until he begins to see that the sea is blue again! Nevertheless, the artist in him refuses to relent. He always sees red, or some other colour. Anything but blue; far from pleasant! Eventually it leads to his banishment. This vignette in many ways reminds of filmmakers and artists who dared to rebel with their works and faced bans and imprisonments in authoritarian societies. The great Sergei Parajanov comes to mind along with several other modern artists, and ironically, in a prophetic twist of fate, the maker of this film himself!

The same episode features a supplement in the form of a mini circus of a monkey dressed up in a bridal costume, chained and trained to entertain people. This strange but pertinent snippet serves as a connecting bridge between the the previous episode of the sacrificed bride and this one of the corrupted artist! The bridal costume brings to mind the sacrificial bride, made to dance on the whims of her masters. Likewise, isn't the monkey also a performer, an artist, but actually a trained puppet whose strings are pulled by its master? 

Perhaps that is the plight of all artists, essentially. No free speech, no freedom of self expression, but a forced way of life, imposed by their rulers. We see another chained monkey later in the film; shortly after we see some prisoners on an island, shackled in similar chains! On this same island, weeps an old man who dreams of fleeing to a place where the water is fresh and the land is not a salty marsh. Perhaps the old man echoes the voice of every other individual who feels trapped in an inescapable nightmare of an oppressive regime.

The weirdest events happen in the final scene when the viewer is finally made aware as to the fate of the tears collected. In this same scene which takes place, seemingly at some socially well off property, we come across a painting on the wall that looks like that of an island in a vast, red sea! And then there's a woman that bears a striking resemblance to the bride of the sea! There are various ways to interpret this puzzling scene, but the symbolic giving away of the girl to some higher power manifests literally here, and that the same kind of painting for which its artist faced banishment, adorns the wall of this large abode, perhaps, revealing an inherent hypocrisy of the places higher up? 

"The White Meadows" commands the viewer's attention, even though it may leave him/her baffled with more questions than answers. Yet, a lot of the intricacies will gradually reveal themselves once the viewer decides to submit to the sheer power of a cinematic product such as this. Films like these don't get made very often, and anyone who is up for something challenging and thought-provoking is bound to embrace it with open arms. Others who don't care to dissect or analyze may still find some beauty to behold in its visual and sonic brilliance.

The fate of the filmmaker of "The White Meadows" is unknown as of now, but the fate of this film lies in the hands of the reader of this post. This haunting masterpiece, a criminally underseen work of art with a subversive edge, is actually the voice of its creator, Mohammad Rasoulof begging to be heard across the globe. And it is up to us, to experience it and spread the word.

Score: 10/10

Ashik Kerib (1988)

"I am a minstrel, and this is my lute." 

These are some of the recurring lines in legendary Soviet-Armenian artist and filmmaker Sergei Parajanov's last completed film, "Ashik Kerib" (1988), which is yet another oddly whimsical odyssey, a fantastical folk tale, told in signature Parajanov style. This time, it is Parajanov's personal vision of Mikhail Lermontov's Turkish fairy tale of the same name.

The story of Ashik Kerib is a very simple lore of a poor minstrel, Kerib, who plays his lute, and is in love with Magul, the daughter of a rich merchant. But the merchant, obviously rejects Kerib and his family, calling them paupers. A vow is taken by the couple and Magul promises to wait for a thousand days and thousand nights for Kerib, as he decides to go away to get rich and return to claim her hand again.

Parajanov being Parajanov, adopts an esoteric style of narration in the vein of Azerbaijani folklore and his own cinematic tropes. So expect a disjointed, episodic screenplay in the form of tableaux vivants and vignettes, plenty of still images of cultural icons and artifacts, an abundance of music, dance and songs, colourful costumes, exotic set designs...the works! This film is far more outlandish in its storytelling approach in comparison to the earlier "The Legend of Suram Fortress", especially considering how simple the tale actually is.

"Ashik Kerib" is an exemplary work of a free-form narrative and goes all over with its idiosyncrasies and oddities as the events get increasingly bizarre. Very surprisingly, there is a generous dose of comedy as well, in an otherwise serious story, showcasing Parajanov's fine comical flair. For instance, the way Magul's father expresses his disapproval of Kerib by literally throwing up and jumping around like a clown, is as shocking a scene as it is funny! Adding to the comical tone are some hilarious absurdities and totally oddball characters that come and go in Kerib's strange adventure. This includes the outrageously funny Nadir Pasha with a fake moustache, and the mistresses by his side, carrying toy machine guns, in an off-the-wall anachronistic trope!

The magical realism in the tale exudes even more magical qualities, thanks to the touch of Parajanov who seems to be having a ball here. He probably was in a joyously playful mood when he wrote the film, but the child in him seems to be at its most energetic best, as seems the case in sequences such as these. It is very much likely that some of the sequences were improvised. An experiment in flippancy, incorporating unlikely humour and really going way over the top, Parajanov literally toys around with a multitude of ideas!

The dialog in the film is off-kilter and poetic as expected. It is never straightforward. In many of the sequences, characters speak, but their lips don't move. The voices are dubbed over, giving any scene a strange, surreal quality, as the characters appear to mime, and converse with their thoughts and expressions! This facet may seem off-putting to some, but it works exceedingly well in the film's favour, given its theatrical nature. Music dominates almost every episode. In fact, some of the vignettes only have music, songs and dance, but no dialog! The music is quite evocative of the Azerbaijan culture, as are the other visuals.

The emblematic pomegranates make their appearance at various junctures and even change their colours as per the mood reflected in a scene! When Ashik Kerib is falsely declared dead by the evil Kurshud-Bek, his mother wails, goes blind and just as that happens, the image on the screens starts to blur and pomegranates turn black! In another happier sequence that seems to reflect a kind of liberation, and a new beginning, the fruit appears white.

One of the freakiest parts of the film, (apart from one nightmarish sequence of a two-headed tiger and its constantly rolling head!) is the marriages of the deaf, dumb and blind where Ashik Kerib is invited to play! Both these ceremonies take place in some unreal, open locations. Especially in the marriage of the deaf and dumb, the minstrel seems to become one of them when he suggests through sign language that he can't speak or hear! Could it be a hidden reference; Parajanov's own reflection on his state of being as a visual artist who felt handicapped owing to the cruel Soviet authorities' and their diktats on his work and subsequent imprisonment? 

After all, the story itself is of a music artist on a forced exile of sorts to please the people at high places! Interestingly, the handicap manifests in a tangible form when Nadir Pasha sends Ashik Kerib to the War-like Sultan! Kerib is shackled in this scene and he says he isn't able to play anymore. While his hands appear to be considerably mobile to at least pluck a note, the strings on his instrument literally appear to be missing, and hence, not being able to produce any music!

As crazy as it may look and sound, you cannot ignore the oeuvre of Sergei Parajanov, an artist unlike any other. Parajanov's methods were the most unusual, and his film outputs were the kind you couldn't possibly club or compare with any other, stylistically or otherwise. It is difficult to fault this film, unless the style itself fails to appeal to the viewer. Those who do find appeal though, would be able to embrace the film's astonishing qualities and soak in its enchanting, mythical universe. A visually ravishing, charming and aurally pleasing musical, "Ashik Kerib" is a sublime work of art that is a fitting swansong, a great ending to a brave career of the man who set new benchmarks in cinema.

Score: 9/10