"A Journey Through All Terrains"

YOL

Year: 1982
Country: Turkey/Switzerland/France
Language: Turkish, Kurdish
Number: 686
Director: Yilmaz Güney, Serif Gören
Starring: Tarik Akan, Halil Ergün, Serif Sezer, Meral Orhonsay
Cannes: Golden Palm, FIPRESCI Prize, Prize of the Ecumenical Jury
IMDb: 7.9
RT score: N/A

In 1974, the famous kurdish actor and director Yilmaz Güney was arrested for the charge of murdering a judge. These accusations was of course false, he was basically arrested because of his political views that provoked the Turkish government. But the imprisonment didn't prevent him from keep on fighting. He actually directed three films, or in this case gave instructions to other directors, and the last one is probably his most famous and most provoking, Yol which in english means "the road".

Yol tells us the story about several Kurdish prisoners who is granted a furlough, only to find themselves lost in a place they don't recognize anymore or are not welcomed, some of them find their home occupied by Turks. For instance one of the prisoners, Mehmet Salih is become a dishonor for his wife's family after running away from his brother-in-law during the heist he was arrested for, a man that was shot and which he could have helped. And when he comes back, her family is not afraid to kill him at the spot. An other prisoner is Seyit Ali, who travels by horse to his home up in the cold mountains only to find out that his wife has been unfaithful to him by working as a prostitute. His family have kept her in chains until the day Seyit returns to kill her because of her disloyalty.






There's a lot of stories, some big, some small, but they all shows us the Turkish society from a Kurdish point of view. The problem is not only about the Turkish militant repression but also about the Kurdish family law and culture. Honor killing is quiet acceptable, but it's not only the Kurds, there's also honor killings in many culture inside many different religious branch. Yol was actually banned in Turkey until 1999 because of it's view towards the Turkish treatment of the Kurds, and the religious themes.

Yol is a great film. It's not only a honest film, (though I expected the Turkish prisons to be as brutal as in Midnight Express) it's also a great poetic and beautiful film, beautiful landscapes and cinematography, that really brings forth the Kurdish mythology. It's as mind blowing, as if we should have been in Russia. Like with the films most famous scene where Seyit carry his wife who is suppose to freeze to death but Seyit change his and tries to save her, but it's to late. Another great scene is when Ömer is playing with a dog is a meadow and having fun, he then stops and turn his eyes towards his village, when he suddenly hear shots. As beautiful photographed as a David Lean film and as political as a Costa-Gavras film, this is a must see film.


Grade: A


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"Fassbinder's Reincarnation"

HEAD-ON

Original title: Gegen die Wand/Duvara Karsi

Year: 2004

Country: Germany/Turkey

Language: German, Turkish

Number: 1029

Director: Fatih Akin

Starring: Birol Ünel, Sibel Kekilli, Catrin Striebeck, Meltem Cumbul
Berlin: Golden Bear, FIPRECSI Prize
IMDb: 8.0
RT score: 90%

Germany and Turkey, two countries, one with no identity and the other one with a strong one. Two quiet different cultures with different traditions and rules. There's four million Turks living in Germany, and one of them is Fatih Akin who made this film called Head-On which is a film about the strong Turkish identity and how it's affecting them in a country that is far from their native mother land, and how it don't prevent them from following the religious dogmas and rules about family honor from their country.

Cahit Tomruk (Birol Ünel), an alcoholic homosexual Turkish immigrant has just ended up in a hospital after a failed suicide attempt where he drove a car right into a wall. On the hospital he meets a young Turkish girl in her early twenties, Sibel (Sibel Kekilli). She's also there because of a suicide attempt, in order to escape her extremely traditional parents. She then ask Cahit to marry her so that she can get her parents of her back. Cahit is against it at first, but agree's on the condition that they both can live their separate lives. But after all Cahit begins to develops real feelings for her, and she does the same, but one day Cahit hits Sibel's former lover with a bottle out of anger, and he ends up in jail, while Sibel who is now a dishonor to her family is in danger of being killed by her own brother. She then escape to Istanbul to live with her cousin Selma, but her longing for Cahit makes her want to ease the pain by using narcotics. How will it end? Is there any light in the end of the tunnel?

Head-On is a heavy lightning down to earth dark film about individuals who have given up on life and have sunken as low as possible. It sort of reminds me of a Rainer Werner Fassbinder film in that way that we follow the lowest creature in the Hierarchy, pretty much like in Fox and His Friend where a young hustler who finds himself in company with a bigger elite, and is out of touch with this community and don't fit in. It's the same in Head-On, only this time it's all about Cahit's Turkish identity that is the question when he's involved with a family of Turks, while Cahit's Turkish is kind of rusty. He is out of touch with his own Turkish Identity, basically he doesn't belong anywhere.

Sibel is like Cahit, a rebel. But she doesn't have the same background, plus she's also more pubertal, because she's grown up in a more liberal society than her parent's. She wants to brake free from her family traditions, or as she herself put it "I want to live, I want to dance, I want to fuck... and not only with one guy". But she also get to see for herself what to much harm freedom can do to a person.




What's so special about Turkish/German films is that their Motherland is always in their mind and is sort of like a place for escapism. Head-On is a strong film about this Turkish identity and how it effects people's lives. It show us how low a person can sink because they want to deny who they really are. Head-On clearly shows this in a brutal way by drug abuse and adultery. It's a strong film, well crafted by a great screenplay and some marvelous realistic acting, specially by the two leads Birol Ünel and Sibel Kekilli who have such a great chemistry that every actors should have.


Grade: A


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"The Little Fish Who Learned to Swim"

CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS

Year: 1937
Country: United States
Language: English, Portuguese
Number: 104
Director: Victor Fleming
Starring: Freddie Bartholomew, Spencer Tracy, Melvyn Douglas, Lionel Barrymore
Oscar nom: Best Actor (Spencer Tracy), Best Editing, Best Picture, Best Screenplay
IMDb: 7.8
RT score: 92%

Victor Fleming's adaption of Rudyard Kipling's Captains Courageous is the story about the young Harvey Cheyne (Freddie Bartholomew), a spoiled rich kid who uses his power to get what he wants because of his father's (Melvyn Douglas) influence. But one day when he's traveling with one of his father's cruise ships to Europe, he accidentally falls into the water and is rescued by a Portuguese fisherman named Manuel Fidello (Spencer Tracy) who takes Harvey with him back to the fishing schooner. The crew aboard says to Harvey that they can't go back to land because they are in the middle of the fishing season and they have to stay there for six mouths. This makes Harvey very angry at first, and he finds out that he have to work for a change. He later learn to love the life as a fisherman, and has found a father figure in Manuel. But what will happen when the season is over?

Captains Courageous is a great film, with some great performances, specially Spencer Tracy's Manuel with a thick Portuguese accent. You might have taken it for stereotypical, but his affection, his loss and love for life makes him indeed very believable. A wonderful performance. And there's the other fishermen, such character actors as Lionel Barrymore and John Carradine gives us the seance of actually being out on the sea, without overdoing the characters. It's a great story about the joy of life you misses if you are soiled and self-centered. A wonderful adventure of listening to others and makes the whole state of mind better for all. 


Grade: A


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"The Great Escapism"

ZABRISKIE POINT

Year: 1970
Country: United States
Language: English
Number: 520
Director: Michelangelo Antonioni

Starring: Mark Frechette, Daria Halprin, Paul Fix, Bill Garaway
IMDb: 7.0
RT score: 61%

Michelangelo Antonioni's Zabriskie Point is his second of three pictures he filmed in english. Many critics says Zabriskie Point is his least impressive work. Wow, if this is his least impressive, then Antonioni must be a cinematicall wizard. But I actually this one is his best, even better than Blow Up.

Zabriskie Point takes place in the late 1960s, in the hippie era, in Los Angeles. A bunch of college students has their own radical meeting where they discuss "politics" while they are young and high. In this group there one individual named Mark (Mark Frechette) who's tired of all the conversations, which leading nowhere. He has the same political view as all the others, but he want to go even further, more drastic, use of sharp ammunition against the conformists. He get himself a hand gun. But he rather chose to steal an small air plane and flies it to the Death Valley in southern California where a young pot-smoking secretary named Daria (Daria Halprin) who's on her way to her employers summer house. On a weird coincident both Daria and Mark meets in the middle of the desert, and later make love in a desert formation called Zabriskie Point, where a lot of couples have made love before them. They forget all their worries, all about the world outside, the only thing there is, is love. A place where one could have stayed for ever and ever. But it is possible to actually do that? And I think the answer in obvious.








Zabriskie Point also have some good songs by Pink Floyd, which just fit so great with the events on the screen. One example is the opening scene where we follow the student meetings, where Pink Floyd's music is all we here, and there's no audible dialogues, to symbolize the facts that all of the students are doing drugs, not discuss politics. Another good example with use of Pink Floyd's music is when Daria is imagine that everything in her world is exploding. Zabriskie Point is a wonderful break from reality, as long as it takes us merciless back to earth.


Grade: B+

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"Stuck in Cuba? "

MEMORIES OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT

Original title: Memorias del Subdesarrollo
Year: 1968
Country: Cuba
Language: Spanish
Number: 484
Director: Tomás Gutiérrez Alea

Starring: Sergio Corrieri, Daisy Granados,  Eslinda Nunez, Omar Valdés
IMDb: 7.7
RT score: 86%

Tomás Gutiérrez Alea's Memories of Underdevelopment is one of two cuban pictures that is listed in 1001 movies you must see before you dies. For being a communist country one could have the idea that they would delivered a lot of international successes like they did in the Soviet Union. Castro's Cuba had have very few. But one of them is this one, and it even deals with the revolution itself, and is not a propaganda film, but a story about the common man, in a strict and also religious Cuba. 

Memories of Underdevelopment takes place in Cuba from 1960 to 1962, during such events as the Bay of Pigs Invasion and the cuban missile crisis. Our protagonist is Sergio Mendoyo, a writer who'm wife have divorced him and gone away to the States. Sergio tries to contain such a normal life as possible. He sleeps with some girl, he reflects over politics, reflects over Ernest Hemingway summer house he had in Cuba. Reflects over the cuban people's underdevelopment, a word that is used multiple of times in this film. 

Memories of Underdevelopment is more of a reflecting movie, more than a plot driven film. It's a feature of every day boredom in Cuba. Sergio is in many way very much like Fellini's protagonist Marcello Mastroianni in La Dolce Vita. When it comes to the technical part in this film its average, it's full of interesting still images. But it's not more special that any other art movie. Some of the scene can be to long. Surprisingly enough  it's not an anti-capitalistic nor a pro-communist film, but a honest one. 

Grade: B-

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"A Real Stomach Ache"

DIARY OF A COUNTRY PRIEST

Original title: Journal d'un curé de campagne
Year: 1951
Country: France
Language: French
Number: 238
Director: Robert Bresson
Starring: Claude Laydu, Jean Riveyre, Adrien Borel, Rachel Bérendt
Venice: International Award, Italian Film Critics Award, OCIC Award, Golden Lion
IMDb: 7.8
RT score: 92%


Although Robert Bresson made three films before he made Diary of a Country Priest, this is called his first film because it's the first one where we see his famous trades mark that is so highly admired by many filmmakers, with it's realistic humanistic themed films, with natural lightning, sound and use of amateur actors which he call models.

This is the story about the young priest, who is remained nameless who arrives as the new towns priest in a small village named Ambricourt where he faces many challenges and seems not to fit in or understand the towns inhabitants. He's also don't feeling very well, his health is getting worse, while at the same time just eating bread and wine which doesn't makes it better.

To be honest I didn't think to much about this film. It was slow, and the dialogue and acting seemed kind of hallowed, I didn't feel very much watching it. I though it would be more realistic and more naturalistic. I think the narration makes it even more less, by giving it the same frame as the classical Hollywood model.


Grade: C-


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"The Eclipse of Destiny"

KANDAHAR

Original title: سفر به قندهار (Safar e Ghandehar)
Year: 2001
Country: Iran
Language: English, Persian, Pashto, Polish
Number: 982
Director: Mohsen Makhmalbaf  
Starring: Nelofer Pazira, Hassan Tantai, Sedou Teymouri, Hoyatala Hakimi
Cannes: Prize of the Ecumenical Jury, Golden Palm
IMDb: 6.7
RT score: 88%


Kandahar is an extraordinary story about Nafas, an afghan woman who fled to Canada during the soviet invasion. She have gotten a letter from her sister who was left behind that she is gonna commit suicide when the next full moon occurs. So Nafas decides to go back to her native country to pick her up before it's to late. But the Taliban ruled Afghanistan isn't a safe place, specially for women who have to wear burqas all the time. A place without law, poverty and diseases.

Kandahar is a good film which set the great mood, with all the amazing cinematography, colors and music. It also feels authentic with all the local resident which I highly suspect isn't actors at all but are who they are. It's also the case with the character Tabib Sahid a doctor who helps our heroine. He is an African-American who converted to Islam and came to Afghanistan to fight against the Russian. After the war he decided to help out by being a doctor and help the needy people. Sahid is played by Hassan Tantai who is in fact an Islamic terrorist. That kind of give us a little chill, because he's performance in the film, where he play are more helpful and understanding character. But isn't it like that if a person is to perfect he got to be a serial killer.

But enough about him. Kandahar is a great film, a journey into a different world. This film was released before 9/11, we see an Afghanistan that is split and out of touch with the world around it, and I think that this movie with make it easier to understand this society.


Grade: A-


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