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Chocolat (2016)
The cauldron of our antecedents finds a voice and a vision.
'Chocolat' A review by Deena Padayachee. directed by Roschdy Zem and starring Omar Sy and James Thiérrée. This film is a devastating indictment of the imperial caste system in imperial France. You see this tall black man walk into a circus ring hand in hand with a monkey - to the derisory hoots of the conquerors. That's the kind of thing many black people had to do to survive in those trying times when we were the descendants of the conquered and our children had little hope. These broken semi slaves were often forced to run a horrifying gauntlet and they experienced the most excruciating pain and indignity just to be allowed to draw breath. Chocolat's father saw his son watch him the old man was forced to to behave like an animal and accept crumbs from the Master's table. The 'chocolate' man later became one half of black and white circus act at the beginning of the 20th century. He is usually the clown who is booted, slapped and punched by the white actor. A shroud of humiliation and mockery beset him every waking minute. Perpetual stress and depression was part of his permanent tomb as a plaything in the heart of the French empire. Virtually his only source of happiness emanated from the beautiful white women who were willing to enter his ebony world and love him. At one point he is told, "For white people, a successful black man is a great insult." Trying to work and survive in the land of 'liberty, equality and fraternity', it was inevitable that his very presence was seen as an affront by many French. In what appeared to be a contrived stratagem, Chocolat is arrested and tortured for 'not having an ID document'. This atrocity predated the Apartheid dompass system. A dark skin instantly criminalised one in the eyes of many light skinned people. The imperial legal system was there to terrorise, torture, undermine, sabotage and murder black people who dared to utilise their gifts and become the peers of white people. This film is an exceptional exposition of the terrible trials and tribulations of the conquered caste in the era before the world wars between the empires - wars that helped to free, to an extent, the conquered world. From childhood I used to wonder why so many non white people behaved so badly when they had the choice to behave decently. A tragedy of infinite proportions is the fact that millions of descendants of the conquered will never know that this film exists. When I saw the film, most of the audience was white. Ours is still very much a conquered, colonised world. But many do not know that.
Much Loved (2015)
The film has been produced with a fair amount of sensitivity and concern.
DIFF: Much Loved This is a carefully portrayed account of the life of a group of courtesans in Marrakesh, Morocco. This sort of life-style has a long history in Arab, Indian and other traditions. The film has been produced with a fair amount of sensitivity and concern. The social ostracism that the beautiful women and their families experience is starkly portrayed. They experience rejection, embarrassment and humiliation from parents, children and their lovers. It is all done with a surprising amount of panache and humour. Even lesbianism has a look in. As always, the customers do not come off looking too good. There are no gangster pimps in this scenario except for a taxi driver who transports the women. We are all aware that there are cops who prey on women of this kind. Morocco is not exempt from this sort of challenge. As with all foreign films of lands which do not usually feature in mainstream cinema, I found the Moroccan street scenes, the social environment, body language, customs and homes authentic and very interesting to analyse. As expected, the film is banned in Morocco but I found the film worth seeing. In the same way that unproven medication and fake doctors should be banned, illegal prostitution should not be allowed. I think that properly controlled (by the authorities) prostitution should be legal. That protects both the customers and those who wish to exist in this way. In this age of HIV/AIDS, Herpes and other devastating venereal diseases making prostitution illegal is illogical and irrational in my opinion.
The March of the White Elephants (2015)
This film focused mainly on the building of stadiums for the FIFA world cup in Brazil in 2014.
DIFF: The March of the white elephants Unfortunately I only managed to see this film on Sunday, 26 June, after the closing ceremony of DIFF. You would have to be made of stone if you were not affected by the way in which some governments abuse the revenue of their countries and flagrantly neglect their responsibilities, especially to the disadvantaged and the relatively powerless. This film focused mainly on the building of stadiums for the FIFA world cup in Brazil in 2014. Our Moses Mabhida stadium also gets a look-in. Dennis Brutus and Patrick Bond were among the local luminaries who commented on the debacle. The terrible Brazilian shack settlements and poor health facilities mirror the challenges in our own country. Our medical registrars often have to train in other provinces because our health sector is financially embarrassed. Vital drugs including certain antibiotics are not available at certain health facilities. Doctors are counselled to avoid doing X rays and even some of our MRI scan machines are often not in working order at our larger hospitals With Brazil about to host the Olympics while the Zika virus is threatening the health of people, it was good that DIFF decided to screen this important film. Schools which are able to do so, should offer this film to their learners. In our time films like 'The Sound of Music' made a great impression on us with its portrayal of how war mongers violate families that are trying to survive their every-day vicissitudes.
Shadow World (2016)
It details the close links between giant arms manufacturers and governments.
Seen at the Durban International Film Festival: Shadow World
Director: Johan Grimonprez
Shadow World is based upon the 2011 book by South African, Andrew Feinstein, 'The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade'. Andrew Feinstein is a South African now living in London who was an ANC MP. He was revolted by the shenanigans of the South African arms deal and finally resigned from the ANC. He wrote a book about the trauma he and our country experienced during that era in his book, 'After the Party'.
This is yet another must-see gem that many will appreciate. It details the close links between giant arms manufacturers and governments. Huge revenues are acquired, often from very poor nations who lose the plot. They focus on arming themselves instead of emphasising health, education, crime prevention, the police, civil servant salaries and housing among other priorities. They are the authors of their own civil unrest and destabilisation. That plays right into the hands of the wealthy countries of the world, many of which had conquered most of the planet in the last few hundred years - and still dominate it.
Mega bribes are all part of the package with this 'trade'. The film focused on the Saudis. South Africa also came in for its share of the opprobrium. Telling commentary from intellectuals and others illuminates the mind. Eduardo Galeano says that he was told, 'Lying sucks, and getting used to lying sucks, but worse than lying is teaching to lie.' We are introduced to the minds of great authors like Jeremy Scahill and Vijay Prashad as well. Here are some fascinating comments from the film: 'The US has privatised the ultimate public function, War.' An arms dealer called Riccardo made the point that 'munitions have a sell by date.' Yes, I wrote, munitions are expensive. They need wars. They need human flesh, human misery. We all live in a cloud of various degrees of mendacity and truth. Lies make people speak and behave stupidly. May we be part of the process that disseminates the truth.
Song of Lahore (2015)
This unusual and beautiful documentary is like a work of poetry.
Song of Lahore
Indians and music go together like curry and roti. Unfortunately, music has been officially suppressed in some countries across our world. Lahore was once the jewel of the Punjab and the Sikh empire. The Sikhs had resisted the ferocious, rapacious, plundering Mughal hordes who had swept across much of India with fire and sword.
Izzat Majeed and his comrades established Sachal studios in a brave effort to resurrect the region's traditional musical roots. This unusual and beautiful documentary is like a work of poetry. It brings together the jazz of the USA and the sitar of India. In that meeting there is a great ejaculation of audible magic and iridescence.
The film documents how these musicians get together to develop their talent and how they liaise with overseas musicians. During the fascist era, anti Apartheid writers were the targets of the Neo Nazi establishment and their 007s. Co- incidentally, my first prize winning literary work was also published in New York after being turned down by South African publishers. The architecture and ambiance of Lahore contrast quite starkly with the buzz of the 9/11 city.
The tragic thing about this documentary is that not many will get to see it as those who appreciate this kind of cinema are not well organised.
Le tout nouveau testament (2015)
this is a delightful, rather human depiction of a 'God' who plays on the computer with people's lives.
Brand New Testament: Durban International Film Festival Belgium: 2015 Review by Dr Deena Padayachee
I think that most of us have wondered about the All Mighty (plural?) that plays with our lives and creates havoc everywhere. I've often thought about those brilliant Germans who created such gorgeous classical music, who tend to be so organised and are so efficient and manufacture such exceptional machinery, yet allowed a Hitler to rule them and eviscerate them.
Anyway, this is a delightful, rather human depiction of a 'God' who plays on the computer with people's lives. It is this 'God' that ensures that the phone rings when we are in the shower, that the jam bread tends to fall on the jam side on the floor and so on. :) 'God' is middle aged, has a mouse of a wife, (who is for ever vacuuming), and a little spunky daughter, Ea, who, in true earthling fashion, questions everything. 'God' is a rather grouchy old man who bullies his family and even beats the daughter. 'JC' is the the girl's brother. We all know about his fate. Ea lets the the people of the planet know of their time of demise - via sms, nogaal! Most of the people depicted are white. Imagine exiting this divine abode via a washing machine! 'God' actually gets hungry, and gets ill, eating from rubbish bins! Ea sabotages the computer and escapes - and writes a new testament while recruiting a motley crew of six apostles. They include an abandoned house wife, a sex maniac, a serial killer, a beauty who has lost her arm and so on. There is much that happens in life that one should question, examine and even refute and sometimes lampoon. I am glad that there are human beings still willing to do so, and others who are not offended when some do so.
The Redfern Story (2014)
certain Aboriginal intellectuals responded in a manner similar to our response in South Africa
The Redfern Story: Durban International Film Festival Australia: Darlene Johnson: 2014
Redfern is where about 10 000 Australian Aboriginal people (many appear to have some infusion of European genes) came to live in Sydney. That number burgeoned. Depression, stress, low self-esteem, alcoholism, drug addiction and an increased incidence of suicide is the lot of many conquered, dispossessed and impoverished people. These problems also precipitate a great deal of internal friction and internecine feuding as well.
However in the 1970s, certain Aboriginal intellectuals responded in a manner similar to our response in South Africa during those terrible, humiliating racist times. They began a theatre movement. That reminded me of the theatre of TECON, Athol Fugard, Saira Essa, Welcome Msomi, Ketan Lakhani, Kessie Govender and Ronnie Govender etc. A number of pertinent points were made during the film. "Our literature says we exist." "Police harassment politicised us." "The police cells were called 'Abattoirs'. " There was a bookshop called THIRD WORLD BOOKS in Sydney. The white owner finally asked the Redfern people to please give him a list of books that they wanted. He would get them for the people! The Redfern people's lives mirrored so much that we experienced in South Africa. One lady spoke about how she tried to keep her children away from the rampant racism to which they were exposed. As the police and Australian society as a whole, had criminalised their very skins, the indigenous people resorted to 'spying on the police'. They would record what the police were doing to their community. Volunteer lawyers helped them as they did in South Africa during Apartheid. But of course we all had to jump up and down in the cauldron of racist laws designed by racist lawyers to keep the conquered shackled. The indigenous also set up Aboriginal medical and legal services. A satirical cartoon about a ship loads of white conquerors and their families flooding into Oz certainly drew a few knowing nods: "We need a more restrictive immigration policy," was the caption. In one of my short stories, 'The Guests', I wrote about there being no 'Mighty Mouse' to help us when the Neo Nazis terrorised us. In the Aussie film a character called SUPER BONG is depicted. When he tries to change into his super-hero uniform in a hotel, he is not allowed in! Bobby Merritt wrote a script while in jail! The theatre people had to collect revisions etc from the prison! One of the scripts depicts a person called, 'Sergeant Burn Blacks.' Sadly, most documentaries are not screened at your usual cinemas. So the millions who would empathise with this film will never see it. : ( There is a great need for an independent cinema that can screen documentaries and other films that are not palatable to those who love Apartheid, our humiliation and racism.
Trumbo (2015)
The black-listing of humanity's best
Trumbo
Like most people, I had never heard of Dalton Trumbo. However, many of us have seen films like Spartacus, Exodus and Thirty seconds over Tokyo.
The film dramatically depicts what can happen to writers who decide to be true to their country and to their souls but then run foul of those whom the masses have elected to control their country. In the time of Trump, this is more than a salutary caution for the USA. When the unconscious masses are shackled intellectually and have their minds replaced with dogma and doctrine, they will shackle genius and they will undermine their own lives.
There are many parallels with what happened to the intelligentsia of our own country during Apartheid and in the neo Apartheid era. Many of our greatest leaders were terrorised by the full might of an unfettered, undemocratic state. They included Ismail Meer, Dr Yusuf Dadoo, Bram Fischer and Moses Kotane who were members of the communist party in the 1940s. So was Trumbo, a person of Swiss ancestry who felt that the Party had the concerns of the working people at heart.
Like some communists, Trumbo had a upper middle class life-style; he and his family lived on a country estate which boasted both a lake and a farm with horses. His group was supported by the actor Edward G Robinson who sold his Van Gogh so that he could support the 'communists' who were being hounded by the state.
Trumbo had one huge plus working in his favour. He had a family which, while it sometimes rebelled against the gigantic demands that he placed upon them, was loyal and believed in what he was doing. They lost their home thanks to ruinous lawyers' fees, but still they stuck together and gave their all for the cause of America.
"The chief internal enemies of any state are those public officials who betray the trust imposed upon them by the people." - Dalton Trumbo
Seeing true, patriotic sons of the soil being tormented and persecuted in this way really rankled for me. But that is quintessentially the story of mankind and, I am afraid, of America.
Criminal states tend to criminalise those who fight for human rights. Trumbo and his group refused to testify before a congressional committee and were found guilty of contempt, He served almost a year in prison as a result.
Trumbo was a dedicated and a very driven writer. That's what he did, virtually all the time. At times he wrote in a half-full bath-tub with a shelf which held up a type-writer. He must have loved cold water. He and his friends were black-listed by the govt and its agencies who put unbearable pressure on the heads of the movie studios. Being forced to oppose the will of the state puts ordinary, decent folk in a very precarious and awful position.
Forced to write and edit 'B' class movie scripts, Trumbo would not leave his bathroom 'desk' even for his daughter's birthday party. He worked to support his family, to keep a roof over their heads, and to keep his sanity. But he seldom eschewed a smoke or the booze. He and his nine friends had been designated 'enemies of the state' and they experienced hell for who they were and what they did.
In 1957 his screenplay for The Brave One—written under the pseudonym Robert Rich—received an Academy Award. But nobody could find Robert Rich.
Trumbo's nemesis was a Los Angeles Times columnist, Hedda Hopper, played with relish by a caustic, Nazi-like Helen Mirren. Hopper was the the darling of the wealthy, capitalist establishment; she exulted in bullying everybody from billionaire studio heads to gifted actors and brilliant writers to get them to toe the govt line. She had the power of the state and all its security services supporting her so she 'officially' ruined many a writer in ways we see being perpetrated even today.
This film gives one significant insight into the life of John Wayne It also sees Kirk Douglas and Otto Preminger come out in support of the heroic Trumbo. This helped to end Trumbo and his comrades' black-listing. They were able to put their names to the great work that they had done.
Then there is a magical scene where JFK goes to a cinema to see Spartacus - and is interviewed when he does so. That under-wrote the final shattering of the shackles of the great writers whose lives had been eviscerated by the fascists.
This fascinating film will keep you enthralled with its edge-of-the seat entertainment, its incisive insights, its depiction of flesh- and-blood, fragile human beings willing to take on the American colossus in Vietnamese style; it is a tale of the great and gruelling hell that some of America's greatest talent was forced to endure because of a fearful capitalist class.
Trumbo's life work helped move humanity in a more civilised direction. He died of lung cancer in the year of Soweto. However one can argue that the paranoia and the mindless aggression that drove the US to destroy its greatest, most caring citizens was similar to the kind of paranoia that got them to impose sanctions on Cuba and invade Vietnam.
Suffragette (2015)
This film was an eye-opener in so many respects.
Suffragette
This film was an eye-opener in so many respects.
I am eternally grateful that I speak English and that some 'English' customs are a part of the way in which I savour my life. I think most of us try not to be caricatures of the surviving arrogant, racist herrenvolk who still try to behave as if they occupy the moral high ground, as if they are 'superior' to the rest of us and think that only their way of doing things is the 'correct' way.
Understandably, the British have tried to hide much of their history from the gaze of their own people as well as those whom they had conquered. They still influence, and to an extent control, via our esteemed senior pedagogues, the kind of curricula that our children study and that which appears in our newspapers and on TV.
Some of us exist in a cloud of mendacity: we have erroneous notions about the British, the 'Free West' and especially about ourselves, our conquered selves.
In 1912 the British were beating up a great many people in various parts of their empire (where they had imposed their laws which enabled, among other things, the extraction of the wealth of the conquered territories) as far afield as Iraq, Egypt and India and as close as Ireland.
What many of us did not know was that some of the British also 'officially' beat up some of their own women folk when these valiant citizens rallied to get the right to vote.
The film is set in 1912 when the upright British kept all their women folk (Even though they had a Queen as their sovereign for most of the 19th century) legally disenfranchised. They imposed this restriction upon some of their males as well. I think that it is wrong to give away the plot of a film - I will only give you impressions. I think that this film is well worth seeing. Most of the subject matter would not have been covered in the 12 years of schooling of even our post Apartheid institutions.
We see this era through the eyes of a naive, ignorant, young washer- woman who, (in a manner which was similar to the way in which we were conscientised by Apartheid) is gradually made aware that much of the way in which females were being treated was utterly immoral, unethical and wrong.
In the manner of Orwell's '1984', the movie is done in dark and sombre colours which depict a dank and shabby working-class England at a time when the British were the wealthiest people in the world. However the British empire had many unethical laws which violated the human rights of their own ladies.
I was amazed to see, in the heart of the British empire, shop windows being deliberately broken by the Suffragettes, post boxes being blown up, telegraph cables being cut and Lloyd George's summer mansion being destroyed. George was Chancellor of the Exchequer in the British government at the time. He became Prime Minister in 1916.
The police and their spy agencies were shown doing everything in their power to break the movement. These clever fiends tried to find weak links in the Suffragette movement and recruit them as informers. The government also tried to get the newspapers not to publicise the struggle. Up to a point, they were successful.
The 'total onslaught' response of the authorities to the civil resistance had a terrible effect on families, especially the innocent children. Many of the women lost their jobs, the males were coaxed to 'rein in' their women - and, if the women were not compliant, sometimes families broke up. Back then, the men often got custody of the children. One man actually gave away his child for adoption once he was separated from his wife. Women who rose up against disenfranchisement were thought by many to be 'not right in the head'.
The very harsh working conditions of that time, the endemic sexual harassment and the discriminatory salaries which were the norm, are all in your face in this stark story about the war against state terror; a war against one of the strongest empires in the world. In some ways, the resistance of the women reminded me of the heroic, diminutive, delicate, Vietnamese and their valiant resistance against the American invaders.
During the tortuous era of resistance against the vicious Apartheid decrees, some of our lawyers played a crucial role. In this film, not a single lawyer is seen helping the resistors.
A Suffragette was shown at the Epsom Derby being knocked down by the King's horse, Anmer. She was Emily Wilding Davison. The Empire could no longer conceal its sinful laws from the world. Perhaps the film should have interwoven a tale of an enfranchised jockey who had his life in front of him, and a troubled, angry, young woman who chose to put her life in the way of the imperial juggernaut.
The work concludes with a historical note about when the women were legally able to vote in various countries. New Zealand led the world in 1893. All German males were enfranchised when they marched to war in 1914. Universal British male suffrage was a reality only after World War I. British women were able to vote in 1928. In 1944 the French females followed. I could not help thinking of the lady who holds up the flame of freedom: the statue of liberty which was sent to New York by the French!
The credits state that Indian women were enfranchised in 1947. But that important advance was not contextualised. That is upsetting. Indian women could vote only once their country was liberated from the British and India became a democratic republic.
Concussion (2015)
This outstanding film is about how doing the right thing, even as a medical doctor, can get the doctor into all sorts of very serious trouble.
CONCUSSION
This outstanding film is about how doing the right thing, even as a medical doctor, can get the doctor into all sorts of very serious trouble.
In a normal African country, news about this kind of film about a heroic African doctor would be shouted from the roof-tops. The publicity from the mega movie distribution houses, cinema chains and media would be in your face all the time.
However, Dr Omalu was made to feel like a criminal. The doctor had crossed the line and cared more than he was supposed to.
A public service Pittsburgh pathologist with many medical degrees, Dr Bennet Omalu, dared to expose the cerebral damage that was being suffered by American football players when they head-butted and engaged in other dangerous activities in the course of participating in their aggressive sport.
The trauma is often intra-cerebral and is not detectable with CAT scans. Doctors at that time were mystified by the bizarre behaviour, memory loss, headaches, depression and sometimes violent, irresponsible acts of these former professional sports stars when they reached their forties and fifties. Macroscopic examination revealed virtually nothing to the pathologist.
The quietly spoken, dignified and professional Dr Omalu is very thorough and meticulous; an 'alien' Ibo from Nigeria, the Black African doctor was always under the microscope. His ability and findings would always be unashamedly questioned and doubted; he would always have to try much harder to have his work and himself accepted. Disgrace and deportation is but a hair's breath away for many such professionals who are non white immigrants doing very difficult work in a 'white' country. He worked in the state sector; his working methods upset some of his colleagues as his professional output would be less.
Omalu has great respect for the deceased and he wanted to know about the kind of lives that they had led before they ended up on the mortician's table. Having that kind of attitude meant that he would question why young football players would behave as they did before they died prematurely, and why some even committed suicide. Dr Omalu decided to do histopathological slides of the brains of the athletes - at his own expense with money from his savings. The Public Service would not allow such expensive procedures being undertaken on the presumption that there might be pathology detectable in a brain. That's when he saw the intra-cerebral bleeding and other damage that led to the premature deaths of revered, national sporting heroes.
Sadly, many whites and even other doctors had a problem with addressing Dr Omalu by his professional name in a professional environment. We see too much of that in South Africa as well. These privileged Americans saw that he qualified in Africa. How could he be a 'real' doctor?
The doctor responded by studying almost continuously; he would not even switch on his TV and, for a long time, he did not marry; he accumulated a vast array of impressive medical and other qualifications. But of course, that meant nothing to antipathetic racists. One reviewer of CONCUSSION even called Omalu's achievements 'comical'. Despite all this opprobrium and lack of understanding, Dr Omalu was prepared to go out to bat, with an extraordinary zeal, for the people of his adopted country.
This foreign graduate had to convince the American establishment that his findings were accurate. His article was published in a medical journal, finally, but this was just one case. Many more athletes had to die in similar circumstances before the American public could be alerted. The NFL behemoth fought our modern day Don Quixote all the way, tooth and nail.
Opposing a wealthy, all powerful establishment which is abrogating its responsibility, is nothing to be undertaken lightly.
The ogres in power have access to all manner of resources including the wherewithal to undermine (sometimes via the media and biased, traitorous, embedded journalists) the doctor's reputation, his career, his family life, threaten his home and make a social pariah of the doctor even among his colleagues; they are happy to use gangsters to harass the doctor and his family and generally make his life and the lives of those he loves an absolute, living hell.
Being a medical doctor is stressful enough. Acting on behalf of the public is far too dangerous. When the doctor is not even an American citizen, and is courting deportation because of his ethical deeds, then one can see how brave and honourable this Ibo doctor was.
Dr Omalu naively thought that the NFL would welcome his discovery of CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy) and that they would try to make the game safer.
From threatening phone calls to being undermined at work to having his family life disrupted, Dr Omalu knew it all, but still he persevered. His greater allegiance was, in the manner of a Dennis Brutus, to an unknowing and anonymous public; their well-being and welfare was being undermined by a greedy, rat-like cabal who tried, like the cigarette manufacturers, to keep the people ignorant.
FBI agents raided the office of Omalu's boss, and questioned that doctor's use of stationery and even his use of the fax machine! hey also threatened Omalu. The pressure was unremitting.
The NFL held a conference to examine Omalu's claims but would not allow Omalu to present his findings. Instead a white doctor (played by Baldwin), (who had joined Omalu in his fight against the NFL) who had been a Football Team doctor, was called in to testify. Omalu's claims were dismissed as injuries caused by 'other factors' like 'diving into water' etc. Eventually, Dr Omalu and his family relocated to a job in California.
After many years, the US dept of health invited Dr Omalu to take a prominent position with them. He declined the offer.
I thoroughly enjoyed this film.
Wazir (2016)
In its essence, this film is about love and respect.
WASIR The title translates to 'Queen' A review by Dr Deena Padayachee.
Everything about this film is superb from the intelligently worked out script to the dialogue to the sensitive acting to the music to the editing and the carefully crafted scenes. The movie begins with a brief love story. An angelic woman with a stunning smile and a handsome man are introduced. And a child is born. I do not think that it is ethical to give the rest of the plot away. With a film like this one, it would spoil a marvellous movie for its audience.
However one of the lines from a song which will remain with me is when the man says,
'his heart does not beat because of his heart; it beats because of her.'
In its essence, this film is about love and respect. Especially the love and respect many men may have for their families and friends, and how that love, which can be so deep and all consuming, may consume and, indeed, devour them.
Amitabh Bachchan personifies sheer genius as always. I mentioned to my friends that in North Indian cinema I am not aware of another actor anywhere close to his calibre. The intensity and skill that he brings to a character has one savouring the privilege of watching him. Bachchan plays a legless chess maestro who teaches chess; whose life is all about chess. This is an exciting film about how life can be like a game of chess, and how some hapless people can be pawns manipulated by master tacticians and others can be ruthless castles, directed to devastate.
"Bishops never come at you directly." That was a telling line from the film.
The film is about patriotism; the patriotism that Muslims can feel for India. It is also about great duplicity and about the gullibility of the multitude who fall for appearance, largesse and words. The villain is played by Manav Kaul who bears an amazing resemblance to Omar Sharif.
This is easily one of the best films that I have seen for over a year. It is right up there with Veer Zara, Jab Tak Hai Jaan and Cheeni Kum I am so grateful that I saw this master-piece.
Jurassic World (2015)
I saw this film as a symbol of how puny humans are set upon by the terrifying ogres who dominate our world
JURASSIC WORLD: IMAX 3D Executive producer: Steven Spielberg. Review by Dr Deena Padayachee.
WARNING: There are so many shocking scenes and heart-stopping moments in this film, that perhaps those who have Angina and ischaemic heart disease and are potential heart attack victims should skip this film. It will definitely precipitate tachycardia! As usual, I have not detailed the plot of the film as this would spoil the movie for you. One might as well get the best experience possible with a film like this one, so I took along my old 3D glasses. The lady at the entrance of the cinema told me that I needed IMAX 3D glasses. She was right. The women selling the glasses did not seem to understand me and sold me glasses costing R 8. I saw that there were three sets of glasses and explained to them which film I was going to see; then they sold me the correct set of glasses which cost R10. They made all the difference. The film is utterly graphic and larger than life. Anybody who has visited Disney world will empathise with the way in which the film rolls out, but be prepared to be terrified, absolutely terrified! This is like watching a runaway, alcoholic, Askari, irresponsible, scurrilous, mayhem-creating, rumour mongering/'prejudiced/ biased/ racist, prostitute, propaganda- 007 'academic'/ 'journalist'/ 'lawyer' in action. Only it is much worse. (If that's possible). When Umhlali Saw Mills and all their workers were in such monsters' sights, there was little that could be done to save the old firm (established 1942 burned down by arsonists in 1996) which had done so much good for our country, created so much employment for largely self taught artisans and built so many schools and homes without so much as having a municipal water supply or anything more than Earth roads. We were destroyed by the privileged part of the Ballito municipality in a macabre replay of that which the 'free West' did to poor countries across our planet from Vietnam to India to Burma to the Congo. It was horrific. This was like watching a greedy, devilish, family- destroying adulterous spouse and her demonic, lesbian lawyer on the money- grabbing trail, hunting for everything that they could steal and dismember. The results are horrendous. One just had to see the children weeping. The owner of the theme park is an Indian who has to recoup his gigantic investment. The conscienceless scientist who had created death and terror in Oppenheimer style (Remember the A Bomb) is Chinese. This came across to me as an anti Asian depiction. This sort of thing was quite common right through out the era of western cultural dominance, (remember the 'Indians' who were shot down by the hundred by murderous cowboys whose guns never ran out of bullets?) through the Ian Fleming 007 era and beyond. Nowadays shameless, brainwashed journalists continue the crude propaganda of the 'free West' and actually are fans of James Bond! The Indiana Jones character who fought off human eating dinosaurs is a tough American (of course) who did not appear to have invaded Vietnam lately. The overwhelmed, preoccupied theme park executive is drop-dead gorgeous. The film plays out through the lens of two youngsters whose parents are in the process of getting divorced. The older lad said something that really struck a chord. Lange style, he said, "All my friends' parents are divorced; what's new?" At one point a genetically manufactured, devious (in Apartheid spy-style) beast (who engineers his own release) frees a whole swarm of flying predators who swoop down on hapless humans. That was a horrific sight. They reminded me of Luftwaffe Stukas as they pounced on people, picked them up and tore them to bits. By the way, the film is replete with Mercedes vehicles. I do not think that that was an accident. I was very impressed by just how REAL the dinosaurs and other fierce shark-like creatures looked. In a larger sense, the film dramatised for me just how helpless and hapless most people are when they are picked on by the ogres of the state or large corporations. We all know bureaucrats, even health officials or call centre agents who won't do their job or will target on you. (The one predator reminded me of a technician called Mervin, the other reminded me of a Dubious Pit-her journalist scoundrel; a beast made me think of a Portia it has been my misfortune to encounter.) Think of the chaps who loot the state and then use thugs to torment those who call them to account. Our world seems to be about the GIANTS who violate the ordinary and the diminutive. We are so small, so alone and we have so little power, really. We can be picked off with the ease by the giant, sly demonic organisations which control our country and the planet. We are in the gun-sights of not only the hijackers, burglars, drug lords, rapists and savages who shoot people through toilet doors. We are in the cross-hairs of greedy, flawed 'journalists' who look for foibles in people (sometimes they even invent them) so that they can sell their newspapers; we are in the gun-sights of 'technicians' and even professionals who lie, cheat, mislead and steal. We are in the gun-sights of lawyers who will goad you to litigate (as happened with me with Pat Poovalingam) so that they can steal even more loot. We are in the gun sights of magistrates and judges who are happy to do lots of Nazi-like 'ethnic cleansing', but are soft on those whom they are delighted have been destroyed. The list is actually endless. It's the kind of stuff which barely has a look- in, in the school syllabi. Anyway, this was an amazing cinematic experience which I thought was well worth seeing.
Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-leela (2013)
Flamboyance, gusto and great energy, this film is intrinsically electrifying.
Ram-Leela
A review by Deena Padayachee
The world celebrates Gujarat as the land that spawned Gandhi, perhaps the greatest human being that ever breathed: the person who helped change some of the ways in which the world thinks, behaves and is governed; the Indian who helped the world become a little more civilised.
However we know that inter-religious violence has plagued this Indian state for hundreds of years. And we know that while Gandhi was a lawyer, many lawyers are rather different in the way they approach life, other people's human rights and the way in which behave towards their clients.
So it was with a sense of puzzlement that I watched two rather childish gangs in this Gujerati town shoot each other down like modern day murderous cowboys. The director, Sanjay Leela Bhansali is a genius. He depicts these rogues, bullies and blood-thirsty villains with a panache and an exuberance that lights up the screen with blood, fire and brutality that is completely at odds with Satyagraha and all the Gandhian concepts that have made Gujarat world famous.
It was quite clever to set this modern romance between people from feuding clans in a land which has spawned modern peace movements and has helped free the oppressed across the planet by using non violent means.
This film shows another side to Gujarat. I have noticed that some of the South African Gujerati can be as harsh, and as loud and short- tempered as any other South African group, so the violence that wracked this village of gun-runners, smugglers, brutes and vicious gangsters was not entirely out-of-character. There was nothing peaceful about the way in which they resolved their problems.
The flamboyance, the garb, the dance and the anti-establishment practises of these villains reminded one of the Roma whose vagabond behaviour and root-less life-style had brought them into conflict with nations across Eurasia. One remembers that the Roma migrated from North West India, ie from an area which includes Gujarat. By a strange coincidence, the Jewish Holocaust centre is hosting an Austrian specialist who will be speaking about the fate of the Roma in World War II on 19 Nov 2013.
Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone are incredibly brilliant young actors and are at an incandescent peak with the calibre of their performances. I was in complete awe with the way in which they portrayed the loves and the lives of their characters. I have not been impressed by many of the younger Indian actors and I used to wonder what would happen once sensitive and top actors like Shah Rukh Khan, Kareena Kapoor and Preity Zinta were no longer available to portray young people. That anxiety is no longer there. There must be others who come from this great school of acting.
The Ram-Leela film is simply in a class of its own. As with West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet, the protagonists come from feuding clans but the flavour here is completely Indian. The passion and the romantic repartee is simply entrancing and mesmerising.
Rama and Sita were the couple that were split apart by Ravana who captured Sita. This couple fall in love virtually immediately when they meet. She wants to marry. He is puzzled. So soon? 'I've waited for you all my life,' she says. 'I am not going to wait any longer.' He has the girls chasing him while she has to get away from a silly, forced arranged marriage.
When they come together again after one of their many enforced splits, she asks him why he has come back? There is far too much working against their union. His reply is a reply that any person who has been fortunate enough to be or have been in love will know. 'How do I keep away?' he asks.
When Ram is asked what is so special about Leela, he says, 'At Holi, she did not throw colours at me, she kissed me; she did not give me her heart, she gave me her life.' This film is going to break all box-office records.
The passion between the pair comes across as utterly authentic. Indian cinema is justifiably world-famous for the way in which it depicts romance, emotions and feelings, but this film is way up there with Veer Zara and Bhagban; this is a movie which is among the very best that this humid and red-hot land has produced.
Everything about the film is superlative - from the calibre of direction to the quality of the acting to the script to the editing to the cinematography. You want to savour the thoughts, the poetry, the dance, the music the scenes, again and again and again – I cannot wait to get the DVD and go through some scenes again, slowly.
What a movie! India has certainly arrived as a nation capable of producing the very best cinema that the world can ever hope to see. It is unique, magical and stunning.
This film is absolutely first-class, and world-class! I find that Indian cinema simply gets better and better. The film runs for two hours and forty minutes but I must say that the editing was so good and the film was so magnificent that I barely noticed the passage of time as we moved from one fascinating and superb scene to the next.
This is easily one of the best films that I have been fortunate enough to see this year.
Jolly LLB (2013)
The grimy, greedy anti human rights outlook of many lawyers is exposed.
Jolly Llb
This is not a jolly film at all. It probes the murky undercurrent of the legal world with a very sharp scalpel, exposing the most frightening secrets and the most dastardly deeds.
We expect that those who act for the human rights of all to be absolutely honourable, morally and ethically upright characters. After all, how is a person supposed to have confidence in anything less than the most ethical and careful of beings to defend their human rights? One expects such highly schooled experts in the law to be fully conversant with all aspects of the law and to act always in the best interests of their clients, not in the best interests of their bank balances. We expect them to be students of human psychology, to understand human beings and not to play with their clients' careers, lives and families so that they can get more wealthy.
We expect lawyers to behave with a sense of very great responsibility and respect, not only for their clients but for themselves, their profession and their country as a whole. They should not behave in a manner that brings their profession into disrepute.
Well, we all know that, often, all that I have written does not happen. Many people are terrified of lawyers, and with good reason. From the days of ancient empires – whether Babylonian, Assyrian, Egyptian or Roman, tyrants have used clever, wily lawyers to create a strait- jacket of decrees and laws to keep their subject populations in check and pliable. They have used these beagles to extract the wealth of their subjects and destroy those who offended them. Sadly, most lawyers have over-valued themselves and over-priced their services. The Gandhis and Mandelas have been exceptions to the general rule. One must not be conned by these exceptions.
The sum result is that the legal profession has often been at the sharp end of denying human beings their human rights and keeping them manacled. It all turned on power and money. Lawyers acted not upon on what was right but what was in their best interests. And we suffered. Boy, did we suffer.
The depiction of India's legal profession in this film was graphic.
Lawyers are shown in open-air 'offices' working on antiquated type- writers and in the most deplorable of circumstances – literally on the street. In the evenings they have to lock their equipment in steel trunks enclosed in chains. That's a lovely metaphor. And all around them, there is evidence of the dire poverty that is India, today – the filth, the disorder, the lack of planning, and the wretched souls who try, somehow, to survive.
From this fetid cess-pit some men of the law, some men of words, like rats in a sewer, have been able to claw their way up to higher positions – but that was often done only by the most foul of means. Their means of survival are the tiny wealthy class that many societies sport all over the world. The off-spring of that class, spoilt,badly reared, arrogant, used to abusing everybody and having their own way, are the lawyers' meal-tickets.
We see a lawyer from Meerut come to Delhi and tout for business. He is no paradigm of virtue. He notices another lawyer doing well by courting the media and the TV stations. So he does the same by delving into a case involving a young dilettante. A film which documents the clash between the young, aspiring lawyer and the experienced, sly, vicious, older senior counsel is the stuff of best-sellers and block-buster movies.
However, this is South Africa. There were just six people in the cinema the night that I was there; at Gateway, the film was whipped off the circuit in double-quick time, no doubt to the relief of the legal beagles here, many of whinge about how they do so little business.
The female lead, such as she is, is stunningly beautiful as Indian beauties can be – and she is loyal despite the penury of her beau – as long as he is ethical. More than that, she is, amazingly ethical and not materialistic at all. When her husband acquires cash by illegal means she promptly deserts him. She helps turn him away from his path of legal parasitism onto the road less well travelled. There might be females like this somewhere. I must say they are a rare breed.
This is a film well worth watching and I savoured every moment of it as lawyers did all the things that we all know so well: steal from their clients, get their clients into further trouble so that they can benefit, give bad advice, and manipulate matters so that they can appear like supermen when, in reality they are vultures preying on those in trouble, those who are weak and those who have strayed from the path of the straight and narrow.
Are there really so few in our country who are like me, and find such a well made film well worth watching? What kind of South Africans are we? Why do so many prefer to spend thousands at the casinos, at restaurants etc, rather than on supporting something well worth supporting.
Ours is indeed a strange, often bizarre country.
We have come through one of the greatest struggles for human rights in the world; we have made our mark on the history of the world and our planet has been the better for it, but, somewhere along the way, many seem to have lost their souls.
La passante du Sans-Souci (1982)
The past is part of the present and affects our future. Love pervades this film like luminous light in an overwhelming darkness.
The past is part of the present and affects our future.
That is the thread that runs through this beautifully produced and brilliantly directed film. This is an idea that is vehemently denied by Neo Nazis in my own country, South Africa, even now.
The actors are simply superb and the story is very well written and one becomes totally absorbed as one follows the machinations and plot twists in the film; when one sees what happens in a country where human rights and their violation are at the whim of thugs.
The theme music is haunting and memorable as is Romy Schneider's performance in twin roles. The great love that the lovers demonstrate is but a dream for many people - that makes the separation and the loss all the more acute; one feels for the protagonists as they try to overcome the enormous challenges with which they are faced by a brutal, racist Nazi state which demands total subservience and which destroys minorities and the untermenschen quite pitilessly.
The film is rich in ironies. One is faced with many questions as one sees a wealthy person risk his life: the organisation he has founded challenges the violation of human beings in the Apartheid state, in northern Ireland, in South America and across the planet.
A recurring theme is that of lovers looking frantically for each other... and missing each other; the anguish and the emptiness that fills one as one searches for the one human being with whom one feels whole.
The fate of the two loving couples in this tale fills one with emotion. If this was based on true experiences, even partially, one just keeps saying, NO!, NO! NO!
The love that human beings can come to feel for other human beings is a divine emotion. It is a love that ensures the immortality of Homo Sapiens. When authoritarian states interfere with, and undermine that emotion then they undermine themselves.
This should not happen to any human beings; people who love, who care, who are kind should not have endured this - innocent people who just want to love and follow their careers and nurture them families should not be tormented like this.
The film shows Germans who write and publish against the Nazis in a similar manner to how whites, Africans, Indians and coloureds did the same in Apartheid South Africa. Germans caring for brutalised Jews is a recurring theme in post war German films. In my opinion not enough films can be made about that theme.
The state might be evil. People do not have to be.
The Book Thief (2013)
Life in Nazi Germany as seen through the eyes of young people, German and Jew.
I have never seen a film which is introduced by Death in quite this way, but that spectre speaks at the beginning of this film. It is set during the hey-day of the savage Nazi era. How very appropriate!
The film is about an illiterate child who is given to strangers who are paid to look after her.
The woman abuses and humiliates her husband publicly and openly. Somehow, he maintains his equanimity despite the relentless provocation and stress to which he is subjected.
Into this cauldron comes a vulnerable young girl who quickly becomes attached to the surrogate father. She is pretty and is befriended by Rudi, a pleasant little blonde boy who escorts her to the new school.
Nazi 'ethnic cleansing' is at its height. The little, uniformed children sing 'Deutschland uber alles' and racist songs at school. The young ones parade in smart, brown uniforms boasting Nazi symbols. Huge Swastikas in red and black festoon the town of 10 000 or so inhabitants.
Jews are driven out of the town. Everybody has to espouse racist values otherwise they would get into trouble. A man who is discovered to be a Jew (whose son is at the front) is hauled out of his shop, beaten up and taken away. Old Pappa is conscripted into the local German army as punishment. The scenes are surreal.
Rudi's father, is conscripted. The scene depicting the uniformed soldier's departure as he says goodbye to his wife and children outside his home is heart-wrenching. This is how it has been for millennia.
Was it like this when US soldiers left to invade Vietnam,Iraq, Grenada and Afghanistan? The Germans come across as very human – they're afraid, they're trying to conform, they're vulnerable, they're even delicate. They are a far cry from the Teutonic caricatures on which I was force-fed as a child.
Geoffrey Rush as the adopted father (Pappa) plays his role with insight and warmth and wins everybody over. Gradually, young Liesl learns to read – helped along by Pappa. And she tries to find books.
The Burgomeister's home has a huge library. Liesl wants to read all the time. The mistress of the house allows Liesl to read the books but they cannot be borrowed.
In Stanger, the non white library had a tiny book-stock which was stashed in a cellar-like structure located at the side of a steep hill. The pristine white library was part of the municipal complex of buildings.
I had not realised that many of the books which I was able to access espoused Neo Nazi perspectives and values and I was being indoctrinated.
Pappa plays an accordion which belongs to a soldier who saved his life in World War I. A Jew. When that Jew's family has to flee a son ends up being hidden in Pappa's home. The Jew's mother does not have papers so she cannot escape.
The essence of this movie is in the sibling relationship which develops between the older Jewish refugee (who appears to be in his twenties), so wise, educated and mature and the young Teutonic teenager. The Jew talks about how Aristotle said that 'the memory is the scribe of the mind'. Finally, when he has to leave, he consoles her by saying,
'Write. You will always find me in your words.'
Most people are aware that Vietnamese, Iraqi, Korean, Afghan, Balkan and many African homes have been bombed within our living memory. We have been helpless as innocent families and their homes and amenities from hospitals to schools to police stations have been reduced to rubble. We have seen Vietnamese children maimed by napalm, we have seen families dismembered. And we have been helpless.
The people have to hide from death in cellars. Sometimes, there is no warning. We see the every day life in the village and we see all the love that keeps the village surviving.
The love that the teacher has for the children whom she teaches, the love between parents and children, the love that service providers have for the people whom they serve... the enormous love which enables a village of some 10 000 souls to survive. But they have been 'anointed' with the shroud of Nazism and they have been forced to imbibe Nazi values. And so Death has more recruits here... As the Germans were being bombed in the film I thought of Warsaw, Moscow,Amsterdam and London that they had bombed. I thought of Delhi, Peking, Shanghai and Rangoon that the free West has bombed. And I thought of the diminutive, poor Vietnamese children and women that some Americans were happy to bomb and dismember.
Rudi is infatuated with Liesl and at times he wants to kiss her. Every lad (and most girls) knows about the effect that these lovely young girls have on us. Many young boys have surreptitiously kissed giggling school girls through out eternity. Liesl is not so enamoured and tries to push him away at times. Then, in the end, she kissed him when he was unable to kiss her back.
This is a moving and beautiful film which will stay with me for a long time. The theme music by John Williams is apt and the cinematography and the attention to detail makes it so authentic. I loved it.
I thought that it was well worth watching as a piece of history, as a document about the effects of racism, as a guide on how not to behave, as a depiction of how people grow and survive despite the savage policies of a government gone mad. I am so grateful that I was able to see this film.
Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (2013)
A South African who changed the course of history
You cannot govern people without their consent. All forms of government have elements of tyranny. However, for people to accept the vagaries of human personalities, the inevitable abuse and the violations that occur in any country, one must feel that one can suggest laws and oppose laws. One must feel that one's country is being ruled justly and that one can access justice.
This is a beautifully produced, well dramatised and excellently scripted film which brings to the screen very difficult and important aspects of the history of our country, our people and a South African who must rank as one of the greatest human beings who ever breathed. The director and all concerned, I feel, tried their very best to be fair to all concerned.
Gandhi's tipping point was shown as the moment when he was thrown out of a first class train compartment by a white South African, That moment spelt the beginning of the end of the British empire. Mandela's moment came when he could not get justice for a friend who was beaten to death by police. A white legal person tells him that the deceased had 'died because of syphilis'. The fact that Mandela has medical affidavits that indicated how the prisoner really died is ignored. Lawyers have to work within a system just as doctors do. But when the lawyer sees the legal system as unjust (and simply as a way to manacle the conquered) what does he do? Can he continue to work within such a system - and in essence be a collaborator?
Few would abandon a life which pays so well in order to live the life of a hunted fugitive. Mandela and his friends realised that they had to do everything possible to free their legally tormented people.
The days immediately before Mandela was arrested were, unfortunately, left out. Nelson visited Nobel Peace Prize winner, Albert Luthuli and then spent his last free night in Durban. Like Biko, many years later, the police chose to arrest Nelson while he was driving on a highway. The white man whom Nelson was 'chauffeuring' is not depicted at all.
I was grateful that great emphasis was placed on Nelson and his comrades' experiences on Robben island. From the mentally-devastating solitary confinement to the abuse dished out by the prison guards to the stupid breaking of stones in a limestone quarry, we see the humiliation and the agony that was endured in such a stoic and heroic manner.
Outside prison, Winnie is arbitrarily violated in her own home, detained without trial, banned, kept in solitary confinement and tortured. I am glad that the film gives one insight into what Winnie and women like her endured when the state let loose its thugs upon them.
The film is full of significant vignettes. The newspapers made great play about how Madiba would accept nothing less than unconditional release in 1990. When asked to renounce violence before he might be released, he said that the state had to first renounce violence. When the state began to negotiate with him, his fellow prisoners voted unanimously against that.
In a brave move, he went against his comrades. The Apartheid state decided to negotiate with Nelson because they thought that they had in their power a 'tame, emasculated Bantu'. While many people were unhappy about the power-sharing and the economic deal that was arrived at, Mandela managed to get South Africans to realise that he was the leader of ALL of them. That is something that no leader before him or after him has been able to achieve.
Mandela was told that he would be flown to Joburg and released in a formal ceremony. Mandela realised that every moment that he was incarcerated shamed the vicious legal system. So he says, 'just open the gate, and I will go.'
The murder of Chris Hani has unfortunately been left out. Mandela is shown on TV saying that the only way forward was to stop fighting. At the election the people could express themselves. They did.
Gunday (2014)
A tale of two outlaws, of two friends; a tale of deceit and treachery
Gunday (Outlaws)
A review by Dr Deena Padayachee.
The trauma of orphaned children growing up in a predatory world is highlighted in this beautifully made production.
Illiterate, and without families, the boys have to somehow survive; all they know are criminals; the good Samaritans are few and far between. They learn how to be criminals from other criminals. As one of them says, 'when we were little you did not give us books, you gave us guns.' (A hoodlum uses them as gun-runners)
Central to the film is the heart warming comradeship between the lads as they help each other selflessly so that both might survive.
The movie begins at the birth of Bangla Desh, after the war which freed the country from West Pakistan. Today, Bangla Desh is one of the poorest countries of the world but the boys escape to Calcutta, India where they eventually take over the underworld from the incumbents.
But they are called 'refugees' time and again as xenophobia rears its ugly head - spewed by lilliputian, inadequate minds
The great friendship between the two men (Ranveer Singh and Arjun Kapoor) is undermined by their love of the same woman, played with flamboyant finesse by the gorgeous Priyanka Chopra.
I loved the photographic technique employed, the thought and care that went into filming so many scenes and the wit and intelligence displayed in so much of the dialog.
The police inspector, played with sinister professionalism by Irfan Khan would be so helpful to our local detectives as he infiltrates and undermines the gunday brilliantly.
The acting is superb all round and the script is certainly not dull or boring. There are sinuous surprises and exquisite romantic moments to make this a film well worth seeing.
What Maisie Knew (2012)
How do we stop loving our children?
What Maisie knew
I wish I could ask every parent who wants to divorce to see this film. I wish all divorce lawyers, social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists would see this film.
Having children and trying to keep a family together is not easy. I remember the terror I experienced when, as a child of about eight I thought that my parents might divorce. To be suddenly homeless as a child has to be the most horrible experience.
We have so much more, materially and financially, than our parents had, but somehow, somewhere along the way, we appear to have become so very hard of heart.
We have become cold, unfeeling and even cruel. How do apparently normal adults, neglect, violate and abuse innocent children who did not choose to be born? What happens to our sense of responsibility? How do even apparently religious, morally upright and ethical people put their own careers and spiritual needs ahead of their children's?
Our children are part of our DNA. Yet, somehow, many seem capable of separating themselves from their children, ignoring them and become uncaring. In many parts of the world including S A, babies have been raped, violated, physically assaulted and even murdered. In Kwa Dabeka a 7 yr old child was decapitated about a decade ago.
While Homo Sapiens' knowledge has increased, while we have tens of thousands of gadgets that enable our lives to be so much easier, we seem to have retained the primitive and savage behaviour of our primeval antecedents; only, we cloak it better than they did. But it seems that it is still there.
This film is unique because it looks at a home coming apart through the child's eyes. We see the bickering, raging parents, the selfish careerists for whom the child is a burden, an unwanted ball and chain. The parents do not physically violate the child, she does not often weep, but the agony of a home disintegrating is there, in her eyes...
The people that the child eventually wants to go to,the love that she eventually receives is what this film is all about.
This film was heart-wrenching but for me it added a dimension that we adults might have lost along the way as we aged.
A review by Dr Deena Padayachee.
Emperor (2012)
An analysis of the psychology of the Japanese and the Americans as the conquerors decide on the fate of the Emperor
Emperor
Japan still had over six million soldiers under arms when their empire surrendered after the dropping of the second atomic bomb on the country – on Nagasaki on 9 August 1945. This film details how the decision about the fate of emperor Hirohito was arrived at. Japan's cities and industrial base had been virtually bombed out of existence and Russia had invaded part of its empire as well.
This film should resonate with South Africans as it is about the transition from fascism to democracy - and how certain leaders were saved to lead that democracy.
The way in which the American troops apprehended the top Japanese leaders (like General Togo) in the course of one night made me think about how the Apartheid police used to descend simultaneously on our leadership in a short space of time and eviscerate our liberation movements swiftly and with Teutonic efficiency. I'll never forget fortuitously meeting Dr Farouk Meer outside Dormerton post office one morning after one his spells of detention. I mentioned to him that the South African Medical Council's approval of segregated medical facilities rendered that organisation unfit to do its job. He repeated what I said. There was a fasciculation on his face and his speech was a bit slurred. I felt for him.
He told me that the Apartheid police were now not just targeting the leadership – they were going for the second and third tier of activists as well. The ubiquitous informer network kept people under tight surveillance. There was little one could say or do back then that they did not seem to know about with alarming alacrity – and they harassed you.
The Americans held the view that the emperor of Japan had authorised the war against the American, Dutch, French and British possessions in Asia; these Western empires had conquered much of Asia including countries like the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaya and Burma. Therefore he should be hanged as a criminal.
There is a telling scene where a Japanese leader tells the American investigator, General Fellers, (played by Matthew Fox) who leads the team charged with deciding on the fate of the emperor that none of the US, British, French or Dutch leaders had been tried for bombarding, terrorising and conquering Asian countries which had then become part of their empires. The West had held onto their conquests by preventing the growth of democracy and by denying the conquered their human rights. The Japanese male says that the European empires' example was simply being emulated by his country. The American had no answer.
Interwoven in this sensitively told, well thought-out and interesting story is a tale of love – the love that the investigator (who had written a pre-war report on the psychology of the Japanese soldier) had for a Japanese student whom he had met at an American university. One can deduce that the American was a senior member of US Military Intelligence.
Japanese culture values very highly the ethic of hard work, a sense of honour and responsibility, order and cleanliness, a sense of duty, loyalty, respect, patriotism, dignity and protocol, even if in preserving these values, death might ensue. Japan was ruined after World War II and one would have expected that the country would take generations to recover, as happened with so many countries which had eventually won their freedom from the Free West. Perhaps some of the values that the Japanese hold dear helped them to finally reject the martial path that had led to disaster and to rebuild their people, their education system, their economy and their country into what it is today.
At the end of World War II, the Allies were desperate to ensure that the defeated fascist powers would be rebuilt and again become bulwarks against the communists (but this time fettered bulwarks). The Reds were undermining the strangle-hold that the 'Free West' had on most of the planet and its conquered peoples; the West had in its clutches most of the world's resources from gold to diamonds to oil to platinum. At the end of the day, the victorious western European empires were not all that different from the blood-thirsty fascist empires that they had crushed.
The Americans, headed by General MacArthur, (portrayed with flamboyant panache by Tommy Lee Jones) were in a very difficult place. It was amazing for me to see the American investigator walking alone through the rubble of bombed Japanese cities and among gaunt, haggard, hungry Japanese families.
During the pre-war period in both Japan and Germany, those who had opposed the war-mongers were often bloodily murdered and the people of both countries were terrorised into submission; brainwashed and conquered populations became pawns in the grimy hands of the villainous dictators and the gangster elites who were determined to destroy and loot other countries and empires. Now the Japanese thugs stayed their blood-stained hands and did not seek revenge on the lone American. (He is, however, beaten up when he drinks alone in a Japanese bar).
The movie demonstrates a remarkable degree of respect for the challenges faced by both the Japanese and the Americans. During the era of total European hegemony ie. the pre war period and even the era after that, the non Europeans were regarded by many Europeans as filthy, rather retarded, servile, nauseating, primitive apes: not quite human; not quite 'normal'; certainly not 'civilised' (what-ever that might mean). Many non whites were, and are, rather ashamed of who they are – and even more ashamed of the people whose colour and culture they happen to share. They appear to derive great pleasure from denigrating and dishonouring the non white peoples to whites whose respect they crave. They spend much of their time trying to escape their skins.
I am so glad that I saw this film.
Gori Tere Pyaar Mein! (2013)
A pair of mis-matched young lovers find that indeed, they do have something in common after all.
Gori Tere Pyaar Mein
A review by Dr Deena Padayachee
This film was, for me, worth seeing. There are so many parallels with our own country. If you would be bored by a tale of pampered, romantic young activists choosing to live rough and trying to cope with arrogance, corruption, inertia, and thieves and saboteurs, then perhaps you should stay well away from this sparkling movie.
This superb sub-titled Hindi film is about a Tamil lad, Sriram, who has an arranged encounter with a beautiful Tamil lass whose heart has already been snatched by a Sikh. However Sriram has also fallen for a glamorous, but older North Indian social activist who playfully calls him, 'Sridevi', who is a great Tamil movie actress.
I thought that this was going to be a boring tale, till suddenly the story took an unexpected turn and lands in Gujarat.
Now, like many of you, I am accustomed to encountering light-skinned, hyper-intelligent, super-wealthy Gujarati, some of whom have the unerring knack of happily making you feel very black, stupid and irrelevant. However it was quite a surprise to see a side of Gujarat with which I am completely unfamiliar. The roads depicted, if anything, were worse than South Africa's and the public transport system made one feel that this state has entrepreneurs who would fit in very well in the more venal corridors of some South African govt complexes. The other surprise was that many of the villagers were not particularly light skinned. The village is replete with animal excrement and the most basic amenities from electricity to tap water are a problem. And they are not all that noble either!
What a surprise this aspect of Gujarat was! The parallel with the corruption-ridden Transkei was over-whelming. Gujarat spawned Gandhi. The Transkei gave birth to Nelson Mandela. But both states are in a particularly parlous state. The behaviour of the current crop of thieves and politicians is so disrespectful to the legacy that has been bequeathed by such great leaders. I am sure that most of have read how brand new Transkei schools have been dismantled right down to the toilets and children have to be educated out-doors. Even ambulances have been stolen.
The Gujarati children have to traverse a dangerous, delicate rope bridge in order to get to school. The corruption, arrogance and the nauseating, irresponsible, child-like, ubermenschen attitude of the elected officials made one think, inevitably, of the local variety we know so well.
Imran Khan plays a young Bangalore person, Sriram - the kind of South African clone that one often encounters – an irresponsible, immature, rudderless, materialistic, childish fellow (very much like many of the off-spring of some of us) who cares not a hoot for the achievements of the heroes who gave their lives for Indian freedom; he certainly does not have any respect for his antecedents and simply wants to enjoy women, wine and song – simultaneously. Then, in Gujarat, thanks to Dia, he encounters politicians who are as materialistic, selfish and as irresponsible as he is. But Sriram lives in this Gujarati village and he begins to develop a conscience and even a sense of love for his country and his people – a poor, brutalised, exploited people whose blood is his blood. It reminded me of a then unpublishable tale I wrote in 1988 called 'A Letter to the Mayor' which had the Mayor of Durban deciding that he needed to stay in a disenfranchised township as he needed to share the woes of his people. He moves to Phoenix.
The dialogue is intelligent and the acting is superb. Kareena Kapoor Khan plays Dia whom a venal politician dubs 'Mother India'.
There is even a scene where all traffic is brought to a complete halt by vacuous cops (in military-style uniforms) so that politicians can drive by in a convoy like royalty. Dia deals with that in a feminine way and had us guffawing. I think even Gandhi would have smiled – and been appalled by the behaviour of the supercilious big wigs who feel they can do just about anything and get away with it.
Nothing happens easily or quickly. From politicians who could not care less to gargantuan egos and Lilliputian minds our heroic pair encounter the full gamut of obstacles as they try to do the right thing but are obstructed at every turn. Love is certainly a bizarre phenomenon. This older woman is so much trouble for our hero but he does not give up. Sriram is loyal, loving and zealous. He's quite an inspiration. He constantly comes up with ways to over-come problems and wins Dia's heart. Oh, the clever women do love the clever guys!
This film reminded me of what I encountered in Phoenix back in the 1980s when I tried, in that voteless era to get various leaders to address and interact with our violated people. They included the Medical superintendent of the Phoenix Community Health Centre (Dr Charles) to a Zulu economics professor from the U of Zululand. Once a middle-aged Indian stood up at a community meeting and proclaimed proudly that he was 'the agent of the National Party in Phoenix' The misguided fool was not lynched. Most of the people at the meeting had lost their homes because of the Apartheid Group Areas Act.
Gori Tere Pyaar mein has a rustic charm and a refreshing honesty that should appeal to most people. The snippet I particularly savoured was when Sriram and Dia hurl home truths at each other. They are both from relatively wealthy families and she chooses to devote her life to the disadvantaged; however, at that stage of the story she still lives in her comfortable apartment. Sriram's taunt has her making a full commitment to the people of her country.
Windtalkers (2002)
Windtalkers is about a hidden aspect of World War II - how Navajo Indians paid a great price in the Pacific combat zone and helped defeat Japan.
W i n d t a l k e r s
Directed by John Woo
The heroism of certain illustrious representatives of the species Homo Sapiens has never ceased to amaze me. Growing up as a boy in Umhlali I had heard people speak with pride of the incredible courage of people like Mahatma Gandhi and Fatima Meer and Alan Paton. I did not know then of the astounding bravery of people like Ismail Meer and Nelson Mandela or H. A. Naidoo or Dr Goonam or the Rev Beyers Naude. Why all this?
I have just seen Windtalkers with Nicholas Cage directed by John Woo, possibly the best war movie I have seen this year. It is certainly up there with GLORY! and Saving Private Ryan. It is a superlative effort and has all the true grit of reality. Woo pays meticulous attention to detail and his camera pays loving homage to the American South West with its stunning landscape and its unearthly vista.
This movie had been panned by certain critics. Since it is a movie about the indigenous American Indian contribution to the war effort against Nippon and since, like most South Africans, I had grown up on a diet of John Wayne and Alan Ladd, I decided that I needed some balance.
I had also seen how some of the critics had panned brilliant epics like Michael Collins, The Patriot, The Legend of Bhagat Singh etc. and I suspected that they had another establishment agenda. So I decided to ignore the critics' comments; and seldom have I been happier with following my own Spirit!
The film depicts both Japanese and American heroism - and American racism. The Navajo volunteered for this War - and there is honour and glory in the movie even though Ben, the one code warrior actually names his son, George for George Washington - it reminded me of a South African Indian who named his son, 'Clive'. He, of course, didn't know the significance of Robert Clive in India's history - and didn't care to know.
One of the American soldiers talks of how his father remembered how the Indians were hunted like gophers and $3 was paid for each Comanche ear that was brought in. The devastation wreaked on flesh and blood by steel and explosive is demonstrated here in all its heart- wrenching reality as human beings behave worse than any force of nature, whether volcano, tornado or earthquake. These soldiers are not supermen, just very human men, trying to survive, trying to win, trying, in the end, to be human beings despite all the terror unleashed upon them by forces outside their control, forces which manipulate them like toys. This is a movie well worth seeing if one is interested in history and the kind of experiences our forebears went through. Victors always write history, but at last something of our own history is being written and shown. In a sense, that means we are winning too. And those uncomfortable with our history will always condemn what we know and what we write.
Review By Deena Padayachee
Der Ruf (1949)
How do people cope when much of what they believed in is proved to be immoral and unethical?
DER RUF – THE LAST ILLUSION
1949, 100 min., dir. Josef von Báky (Münchhausen), starring Fritz Kortner, Lina Carstens, English subtitles
A review by Dr Deena Padayachee
Recently I saw this ground-breaking, honest, courageous film which examines German attitudes after the country had been defeated and occupied in 1945.
A Jewish professor who has been hounded out of his job at a German university during the Hitler era is invited back to lecture. His first lecture is about Plato and Virtue. He has returned to a state that had incinerated around 6 million of his fellow Jews but he has personal reasons for returning.
In his inaugural lecture he does not hold back about the lack of virtue of the Hitler regime and the need for virtue now.
There are so many interesting parallels with our own country, South Africa. Many of us did not know the true nature of those who had imposed Apartheid with such zeal and who had tried so desperately to prolong the life of that vicious system by supporting it 'on the border' and in every way possible. They had benefited very greatly from those racist policies and they had been schooled to think of us as inferior, ignorant and backward. Many of them did not suddenly change after 1994 and become civilised whether they were professors, journalists, judges or lawyers. Many are still convinced that how they were and how they are is correct and the only way to be.
The laws may have changed but many of them certainly have not.
That is what this German film depicts and it makes your blood go cold as you realise just how difficult it is to educate human beings whether they are Nazis or Americans who killed Vietnamese peasants by the thousand or South Africans who enjoyed being racist bosses under Apartheid.
The film is very intelligently scripted and is, in my opinion, a master-piece. In South Africa many pretend that suddenly the old racists are all non racist 'liberals' but often just a little interaction reveals something very cruel and vile underneath. They are just very good at creating an often well-mannered chimera that fools many people.
South Africa has not yet produced such a film and I doubt that it will be made in the foreseeable future as the old racists still control so much in that industry. They still manage to produce films set during the Apartheid era which don't show Apartheid in anything approaching the ugliness of that brutal era. Sometimes not even one Europeans Only sign is shown on a beach!
This is not a film which most of those who control the movie-hire stores will be in any hurry to acquire. As expected, the film was, and is, not celebrated in the media or in Germany but it was flighted at Cannes.
It is through great films like this one that one will gradually acquire an understanding about what this planet we dwell on is really all about.
The 'Free West' goes to very great lengths to ensure that they continue to occupy the moral high ground. They continue to sit in judgement of us and they continually highlight the short-comings of our leaders while they themselves conceal and indeed cloak many important aspects of their unsavoury past and pretend to be civilised today.
Most of us are duped.
It must have taken great courage and indeed an almost reckless bravado to flight a film like this one to millions of Germans who had fought with everything they had to preserve the Nazi regime. It's amazing that the film was made at all.
Paradesi (2013)
A harrowing account of life in a conquered country
P A R A D E S I
A Review by Dr Deena Padayachee
Not long ago, I read Orwell's perceptive and brilliant Burmese Days. The book had belatedly given me the best insight that I had ever seen about how Empires operate, how they destroy the souls of the conquered, and how they help the venal to flourish while they eviscerate the most noble (few and far between, as they are, among Homo Sapiens) among the conquered. Orwell shows how empires inevitably corrode the spirits of the conquistadors, even though, since they control the media, they might fool themselves and the defeated, that what they are doing is moral, upright, ethical and even religious.
There is a movie on circuit at present which should strike a chord with most of my readers as it dramatizes living conditions in rural southern India in the early twentieth century and shows us the challenges faced by workers on a typical British-owned tea plantation.
The poets among you (and even some of the rest of you) will love the poetry which spices up the exquisite songs and elevates this movie to a higher level, so that it becomes more than a simple narrative. The music is haunting and for me, absolutely gorgeous. This is a film which I have to see again. It is that good.
PARADESI is a subtitled Tamil language film which is a carefully crafted master-piece set in British-occupied Dravidian India. The writer/producer is called Bala. What struck me is that for Bala, there are few, if any, 'noble savages'. The often primitive peasants are as cruel and unfeeling as any plantation manager or pampered lord. The movie centres around a big buffoon, Rasa, (He looks like a laid-back, sub-normal clone of Kumi Naidoo) who is the butt of everybody's jokes; he is the twit of the village.
Amicable, despite being violated by just about everybody (including the woman who secretly likes him), the muscular wretch is like a caricature of India. There is something infinitely tragic and sad about the way this amiable giant allows so much abuse to be heaped upon him.
He is a metaphor for most of the planet that was owned by the 'free West' at that time – before the Germans, Italians and Japanese were let loose upon them.
Then there are the cunning, devious, sly Indian collaborating class whose existence depends upon their being treacherous traitors, spies, informers, whores and pimps in the rape, exploitation and destruction of their own country and its wretched people. They reminded me of a few venal local academics, journalists and even writers who cozy up to the oh-so-clever white academics in the hope of getting the odd smile here and the crumb there.
The plantation manager has his whores among the workers in the tea plantation. The English did something similar to the conquered Scots and other numerically disadvantaged, defeated peoples in the British isles and elsewhere. A newly married woman is coveted by the white manager and he decrees that 'she must not have sex with her husband but she must be given to him'.
When she resists, the white manager's fury is unleashed on a horrible, venal labour recruiter; the Indian collaborator/pimp has to implore the white Master, in the most servile and nauseating way, to allow him to 'set matters right'. He will get the married woman to be a whore.
What a metaphor about what happens to a conquered country! Metaphorically and sometimes literally speaking, that sort of thing happened in most conquered countries.
There's a biting, satirical vignette about an Indian doctor, married to a white, who is Christian. When they drive up to the plantation, the Indian who greets them automatically assumes that the white is the doctor. They try to convert as many souls as possible while they are healing the ailing. They dance (most hilariously) for the benefit of the Indians and the naive peasants are converted wholesale.
As usual, the whites, as in most Indian movies, are pathetic, wooden actors; the voice-overs are worse than amateurish.
Most of our young are not going to see this film; most are really young and arrogant and will not want to acknowledge that they have any sort of link (no matter how far back) to a macerated country like conquered India.
Then there are the haughty, relatively well-off and often light- skinned 'modern' Indians. (they love to hiss, 'my great grandfather was a white, you know'). Will such South Africans want to see such a well- produced, well directed and beautifully acted film? I seriously doubt it.
On the evening I saw the film there were about 12 Indians at the cinema. The place has a capacity of about 120. There was a white couple there. They sat at a similar spot – about half-way down, on the left- hand side and all by themselves. They nicely isolated themselves from us, dark people.
One of the best aspects of this film is the fact that many dark- skinned actors have a part in the movie. That is most unusual for an Indian film.
Will Vivian Reddy hire the cinema and get his entire work-force to see this film as he did with that spy film, 'Skyfall'? I can't see that happening.
Will the great author who writes about Apartheid cops having 'hearts of gold' (and who, in his book, attacked those Indians who were anti apartheid)see this film? A BIG FAT NO. Will his side-kick, the elephant cliché, watch this film? No, not till Jehovah has a birthday.
Will their embedded journalists see this film? Definitely not. Will the unethical Indian academics see this film? It's unlikely.
However I am so glad that I saw this cinematic stunner. It is magnificent.
Lincoln (2012)
Some births are long and bloody
LINCOLN
A review by Dr Deena Padayachee
The legal end of slavery in the USA occurred in Feb 1865, but it was a close run thing - only two votes secured that decision, one of them by the Speaker of the House in the American house of Representatives. Fifty six representatives did not think it dishonourable (in Stiebel fashion) to vote against this amendment to the American constitution which had been put forward to end slavery.
There was no secret ballot and this 13th amendment aroused a great deal of vile, racist vitriolic even from those who voted for it. These Americans did not believe that all people are created equal and were not ashamed to say so quite unequivocally. They raged, 'where will all this end, with women getting the vote?'
The war was fought to keep the USA united and free of slavery but in order to free the slaves and make slavery illegal, the US constitution had to be changed. The majority which was needed might not be attained if the slave states were voting again in a united USA. So the lawyer, President Lincoln, had to plan cunningly and move very fast, before the South surrendered.
Just think, if slavery had not been ended, it would have been impossible for Obama to become President of the USA. The British empire ended slavery almost a generation before the Yanks. For most of human history, conquered peoples and others have known the scourge of slavery.
Spielberg has brought to life a vital, and indeed a great and seismic time, in U S history. His characterisation of the main participants is a tour de force. Thank you so much, Steven. Lincoln is portrayed as a charming, elderly, dynamic gentleman with the ability to relate, as most great leaders are able to do, to the average human being while winning the confidence of even the most cantankerous trouble-makers.
At difficult moments in a debate he was wont to break the tension with a delightful homily about something that had happened in his life which might have a bearing on the subject being discussed. The actors, Daniel Day Lewis as Lincoln, Sally Field as his wife, Molly, and Tommy Lee Jones as an articulate, acerbic left-wing orator in the House of Representatives give the film a rare life – a life which marked a turning point in the history of the 'land of the brave and the home of the free.'
Watching the film was like being in a Spielberg time-machine as we saw history unfold before our eyes.
Lincoln is shown as a man willing even to lie to Congress and even bribe congressmen in his desperate attempt to get the amendment passed. And all the while he has the 'everyday' problems we all have – he has a strong-willed spouse who is determined to keep her son out of the army and he has other domestic responsibilities.
The bloody, mud-splattered opening sequence is a trade-mark Spielberg battle-scene. If Apartheid were still legal we would not have been allowed to see it, as it depicts black soldiers often getting the better of the confederates - and even sticking dirty big boots into their muddied white faces. A black soldier speaks of how they were paid (like we were during Apartheid) less than white soldiers while both races served in the Union forces.
In my teens, when I was learning to type from an American tome, the typing exercise involved typing Lincoln's Gettysburg address.
'Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent...'
Soldiers quoted that address back to Lincoln in a scene and I found myself recalling those memorable words. Some births are very long and very bloody.
One came away from the movie with a sense of amazement that two sets of very racist, very unethical, very unjust human beings can actually be cajoled and eventually forced into giving up power over people. (It reminded one of how South Africa eventually came to be enfranchised) If there's one thing that the film shows, it is that, actually, there was not all that much difference in the racism deeply embedded in the north and the south.
Homo Sapiens has certainly come a long way, despite the Stiebels who still, with South African government funding, unethically discriminate against dark-skinned, historically disadvantaged human beings who triumphed despite all the odds stacked against them.
This is a movie full of intricate legal argument and lots of furrowed pondering on weighty matters. Sadly my experience was spoiled by my alarm company's persistent phoning me as my lounge passive was repeatedly activated. However I stayed till the end and all was well at home when I got there.
A review by Dr Deena Padayachee