Released in 2004, Swades captures the essence of Bollywood cinema with its happily nationalistic spirit and epic panoply of subgenres (romance, melodrama, comedy, etc.). In such a “masala”, or mixture of spices, the full meaning of dharma is explored, thereby raising the bar of character for spectators of any nationality. The story begins when protagonist and NRI(Non Resident Indian), Mohan – no other than Sharukh Khan – impulsively returns to his native soil in order to check up on his elder Godmother, Kaverri Amma, who now is in need of care. Although originally planning to take Kaverri back to America, Mohan is caught in the net of his homeland, instinctively unable to resist the draws of shared identity. While away from the USA for about a month, he somewhat fantastically develops a strong loving bond with Gita, the caretaker of Kaverri. In fact, he grows closer to everyone in the Indian community, that which is unfortunately become the victim of a caste system, poverty, illiteracy, overpopulation, corruption, and power outages. Pragmatically, these many issues are not insurmountable; and so pose as the proper challenges for the self-discovered hero, Mohan.
With love as his inspiration, and songs in the air, Mohan leads the village to prosperity. He and Gita work to dissolve the caste system in order that more people attend school. Mohan, with his technical NASA background, also taps the local hydropower to provide a network of electricity for the village. Although previously uncommon, it is not surprising that his suitor, Gita, has taken a similarly assertive role, not only in the schooling of her children, but also in the refusal of a husband who would not allow her to work. The year 2004 was a time of more rights for women in traditional film than ever before. Together, Mohan and Gita influence villagers, such as the lower caste cook, to stay in India and improve the nation in which they live rather than leave for the USA or depend on the government to take first steps.
With such big stars of Bollywood, it is not surprising that the mise-en-scene is elegantly up-beat. The costumes, with the exception of Mohan in the beginning, all seemed traditional or colorful; the set was generally illuminated with low contrast lighting. Such made Swades an optimistic, homogenized, nationalist film with a simple but powerful message about the triumph of good over evil.
The editing, on the other hand, is not at its prime. Incongruous rhythms occur every now and then; sometimes a song will arise unexpectedly, as in the case of Mohan and the homeless man singing and dancing together. Once too, a man in a ceremony produced a bow out of thin air. This jump cut was disorienting to say the least, but perhaps contributed to the syncopation of the sequence.
When isolated from form, the Bollywood content fits both national and global molds. Swades is about the struggles of a country in which technology advances grassroots movements that are truly essential for their use among the villagers. Globally, Swades sends the message that Western conveniences – cell phones, cigarettes, bathing without clothes – are vices for the Indian public. This is a common trend among Bollywood films in general; but really, the greatest meaning of this movie is much simpler – one person with a vision can make a huge impact, hopefully for the better.
Amores Perros is an intriguing film detailing the struggles and complications of love. The English title of the film is Love’s a Bitch, a rough translation and a fitting title for a film which details numerous relationships with both dogs and people. The film is set around the events leading up to and after a car crash that drastically affects the lives of three main sets of people.
It starts off focusing on Octavio and his friends as he wins money dog fighting to help his brother’s wife. The next part of the film focuses around Daniel and Valeria, a magazine publisher and a model. Their love is tested while Valeria suffers serious medical issues causing her to question whether she will ever model again. Their relationship is further tested after Valeria's dog gets into trouble. The third focus of the film is on a man named El Chivo. He left his family when his daughter was only two and was forced to live the lie that he was dead to his daughter. After getting out of jail he lived his life in a shack taking care of dogs. He is also becomes a hitman and his hired to kill someone's brother. When he finds out the relation between the man that hired him and the man he was supposed to murder, he decides to turn things around and test the two of them.
The film is written and edited in a style similar to the popular movie, Crash. While Crash's goal was to show the ugliness of racial stereotypes and and prejudices, Amores Perros focused mainly on the up and downsides of love. Both films, however, start near the beginning with a car crash and show several stories explaining what happened before the crash. Amores Perros goes farther than crash and spends almost half the time after the car crash and using the crash not as an ending, but as the cause for several of the main characters' problems.
Dogs are used throughout the film almost as substitutes for humans. Each main section of the movie has a character in love with their dog, loving it almost like they love the other humans in their lives. The dog fighting throughout the film, but particularly in Octavio's section, is used to show the violence between humans. The savage way in which the dogs are used to attack each other and the humans compete with their dogs is similar to how the movie is trying to display society as a whole. A disfunctional mess.
The film does an excellent job making the actions and storyline seem realistic. The mise-en-scène created by the film by the lighting, costumes, and sets allow the audience to understand more about the characters than what the narrative tells them. The mise-en-scène helps display the wealth and struggles the characters have to go through. The editing of the film weaving the main and side characters into each others subplot also made the film more interesting. The inclusion of El Chivo in the first two stories and the chance shot of El Chivo seeing Octavio's brother and his brother's wife helped further show how connected everyone in the film and in the real world are. Although the film is long, the three subplots and their interwoven stories with deep depictions of the many types of love make Amores Perros a great film.
A Comparative Analysis of Ratings, Classification and Censorship
Making a livelihood for oneself and a family may seem stressful at times; but compared to the first Homo sapiens, a civilian of a developed country in the 21st century has it pretty easy. With the luxuries of developed commerce, education, technology, and justice systems, however; the life a person seeks to preserve may feel dampened considerably. According to Freudian psychological theory, humans retain subconscious feelings of fear, guilt, desire, and aggression – feelings of all practicality in the world of a harder time – that need to be experienced in order to feel alive. In today’s society, people can experience and express these natural feelings through art. For example, in two graphic war films, Pan’s Labyrinth and Full Metal Jacket, actors become agents and objects of violence, fear, and horror. As members of the audience sympathize with the actors and their pitiable conditions, they achieve a mental balance, or catharsis. The Greek philosopher, Plato, would disagree with such a claim. According to his theory, people who are naturally inclined to imitate the baser nature of art, mimic evils portrayed through art, ultimately degrading civilization. There is some truth to Plato’s claim, especially when considering the young who may not have been socially conditioned to understand the acceptability of artistic material. Imitation is a mode by which the young learn; therefore, if exposed to vile action, speech, and thoughts, they legitimately might consider such to be acceptable in today’s culture. Censorship today does its best to keep art age-appropriate, but the balance between age and cognitive psychology varies from nation to nation.
As it happens, the two films mentioned previously, Pan’s Labyrinth and Full Metal Jacket, are rated “R” in the United States and “C” in Mexico. With a rating of “R”, both films may be screened to people 17 and up in the U.S. The movies are restricted to a greater degree in Mexico, the “C” rating only allowing people 19 and up to watch. There are many theories for the discrepancy in censorship. One might say that it is due in part to overarching social conventions of each national cinema. In this way, Mexico would restrict viewing privileges to an older age, preferring to condition its young more slowly. Then too, the government might simply want a higher level of control over its people, with the opposite said about the United States and its lower viewing age. On another front, the viewing age divergence could be related to the socio-political nature of the respective sponsoring agents. In this way, Mexico’s “Federal Cinematography Law” (Brand), a federally funded institution, would exert a tighter grip on the movie industry than the MPAA, a private censorship institute based in the United States. After all, socialization of the young is one internationally recognized function of government. All this said, a censorship gap of two years(19-17) is not enough to draw any major conclusions. Catharsis must be examined irrespective of particular age, but in terms of general maturity. Therefore, the true controversy of the above-mentioned-films is whether they should be shown at all.
Although Full Metal Jacket – a Vietnam war story – might’ve been too controversial in the United States close to the time of its release (1969); dirty language, sexual implications, and gore are filtered through the historical conditioning of Vietnam in American culture today. For example, when the protagonist takes a ride with a helicopter gunner who repeatedly shoots down what seem to be innocent Vietnamese citizens, “even women and children”, what reckless insensibilities and esteem for an American’s country might’ve been lost had he or she not firstly been conditioned by said country that killing was bad, and secondly had a chance to examine the context of such actions within the war. The lighting on the gunner is low key, producing a harsh lighting on the man’s arm – the one area illuminated in the entirety of the figuratively dark helicopter. When watching the beast, one feels pity not only for the military’s dehumanization of a person, but also for the people whom he destroys. Such is also the cause for another man to take his own life, after having been ridiculed constantly for likeable characteristics. The character is chubby with a weakness for doughnuts. He is not physically cut out for training, and the sense of humor he does exhibit as a coping mechanism eventually becomes warped. In this scene, one might imagine himself dying if placed under similar circumstances. It is difficult to live in a world of black and white, as evidenced by such the bathroom shot. With thirty years elapsed since such a time, Americans have been conditioned to objectify what was happening to their nation and people during the Vietnam War. With logic to shape emotion, Americans today can cope with the film without getting too emotional. This, of course, is not to imply that emotions are bad; rather, emotions are very beneficial when expressed in a tempered fashion, which comes through a higher degree of event understanding. Having been released internationally, Full Metal Jacket would have had dramatically less cathartic merit in Mexico. Although the country had little to nil involvement in the Vietnam War, it has been approaching a modernized state nonetheless. With a historical appreciation for the war, it has today what Atkins refers to as “shared vulnerability”, a main component of catharsis. This feeling relates an international past, and in turn strengthens the catharsis to a more globally appropriate level. In this way, time has helped to balance American and Mexican mimesis and catharsis. The irony, of course, is that the rating hasn’t changed.
Pan’s Labyrinth is rated “C” for violence and language. Unlike Full Metal Jacket,it has never threatened an inappropriate amount of catharsis. When it was released in 2006, Mexico’s federal censorship institution trusted that people 19 and up could sympathize with Ofelia, a girl who lived in the dark, magical reality of 1944 Spain during Franco’s dictatorship. That trust was well placed. Having conditioned its people for 60 years about the incongruities of fascism, Mexico successfully flourished its artistic masterpiece. Even with tragic foreshadowing, violent deaths of many characters, dark lighting, and frightening phantasmagorical creatures, this film was highly appreciated not only in Mexico, but in Spain, and America too, as manifested in the awards it received(IMDB) In one scene, a suspicious ‘faun’, that somewhat resembles a demon in costume and voice, comforts the protagonist as means of persuasion to do a mission for him. Here it becomes clear that no matter if Ofelia lives in real life or fiction, she will be confronted with characters of false identities, secrets, and hidden motives. With historical context concerning political and economic turmoil, the apprehensive nature of their encounter is more easily understood and expected. Therefore, one does not relate completely with a complete fear of all surroundings, but more so with the girl who finds the situation distressing. Between the movie’s release and the end of WWII, nations across the globe had allocated plenty of time to educate and condition their people about the dangers of fascism. The magical realism with which Pan’s Labyrinth was made, however, does inflate the menial catharsis of this horror-thriller when considering the era of its release. The movie was created in the age of technological progress (2006) – a time where anything, even something imaginary, might just come true. In this way, the catharsis stays at the appropriate level for its audience, so that it can be experienced positively.
Even as both films, Pan’s Labyrinth and Full Metal Jacket, are of cathartic merit
today, such merit has, is, and always will be changing. That of Full Metal Jacket started off with a higher degree of controversy nationally, and global cathartic indifference. That of Pan’s Labyrinth started with a similar low level energy similar to that of Full Metal Jacket in Mexico. Over time, the merits of both films have approached the level by which they shall be most enjoyed, and should continue to do so as long as history is taught and conditioned into the younger minds. Looking to the future, finally, it will be important to standardize means of censorship. Already the internet has breached national borders, and is not limited by censorship.
Bibliography/Works Cited
Atkins, Kim. “Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005)”. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2006.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/r/ricoeur.htm#H4
Barsam, Richard. Looking at Movies: An Introduction to Film. Second Edition. W. W.
Norton and Company. New York, NY. 2007.
“Biography for Guillermo del Toro”. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0868219/bio.
Brand, Jeff. “A Comparative Analysis of Ratings, Classification and Censorship in Selected
Countries around the World”. Centre for New Media Research and Education.
The only constant in German history is change. German borders have continuously been reshaped over the past centuries. It is only since 1990 that Germany, as it exists today, has been a country, and the changing borders throughout the years have not come without a cost. Only through wars and struggles has the country taken on its current day shape. As one might guess, wars and struggle lead to pain. For a nation and its people to fully come to terms with the past, old atrocities must be made apparent, openly discussed, and forgiven. This awkward process of reconciliation is made difficult because of its first steps. What is the best way to begin the discussion about difficult topics? How do two sides peacefully come together and work towards a peaceful accord? Perhaps the most acceptable medium to answer the two questions is answered by art, or more specifically, film. After all, audiences approach film expecting to be engaged.
This paper will attempt to show that German films, especially those appealing to international audiences, chiefly address WWII themes. Der Untergang (The Downfall) is set in the 1940s, and carefully chronicles the fall of the Nazi party. The dialogue generated by this film is important to reconcile Germans to one another. In addition, this paper will argue that German film must begin to address new issues to remain a relevant force. For example, the 2006 film Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others), explores life in East Germany during the 1980s, a particularly oppressive time. In the 80s, the State turned neighbor against neighbor and created mass paranoia. One never knew if he was being watched or not. By tackling this topic, the film took a step in a new direction for German cinema, and was wildly successful. One reviewer comments, “it’s almost shocking to see a German filmmaker finally cut loose from the stock monsters of National Socialist and the Holocaust and get to the new ear of crimes against humanity during the Communist East German Chapter” (Jacobsen 71). By combining both of these perspectives into one essay, this paper will offer a brief cultural study.
It is particularly important to note that many German struggles of the past have pitted German against German. For example, WWII was a time where German troops executed many of their fellow countrymen that were deemed undesirable. Hitler pitted friend against friend, and fear drove people to commit unspeakable atrocities. At the end of the war and as a form of punishment, the country was divided into different occupation zones, again turning neighbors into enemies. By attempting to flee from the East to the West, many citizens lost their lives at the hands of national police. This inter-country violence has bred hatred in the hearts of citizens - a hate that is difficult and painful to address. Its power to generate dialogue on taboo topics makes the German film industry vitally important.
Discussing conflicts becomes easier as years pass, which helps to explain the vast popularity of movies set in Germany during or immediately following World War II. Non-Germans are interested in the personalities of the leaders and nations that could have committed such heinous acts. German nationals, on the other hand, appreciate the excuse to raise topics otherwise considered awkward. It has been found in a survey that, “41 percent of Germans believe that the country should continue to grapple with its eastern Communist past. (Boyes 33)”
One such example of a film that addresses difficult topics is Der Untergang (The Downfall). The two-and-a-half hour long flick follows Hitler through the 10 days leading up to his suicide. Interestingly, the notable aspects of this film do not stem from the movie’s actual plot. History is typically told as a sequence of specific actions carried out by specific people. This format is devoid of personalities. Der Untergang presents history in a much different light. By following Hitler through his final moments, moviegoers become intimately familiar with Hitler’s plight. In taking such a detailed glimpse, the cold, hard man becomes almost human; it is this approach to portraying German history that has sparked criticism and discussion. One author proposes (and hopes) that, “though [Hitler] and the Third Reich will not and cannot be forgotten in Germany, he is being starkly, realistically, and humanly, portrayed precisely in order to more fully and finally lay him to rest” (Bendix 72).
("Uncle Hitler" enjoying the singing of children.)
Another film that makes the same attempt to humanize the sterile events of the past is Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others). This film tells the story of a writer and his actress girl friend, who are under round-the-clock observation of the Stasi. (Stasi is an abbreviation for Stadt Sicherhiet, which translates into state security.) However, Georg Dreyman, the writer, loves his socialist state and gives the Stasi little reason to doubt his devotion. It is in the character of Gerd Wiesler, a Stasi captain following the pair, that a transformation occurs. He goes from a rigid, emotionless character filled with hatred for enemies of the state to a man that breaks laws to protect those he is monitoring.
Just as with Der Untergang, Das Leben der Anderen has, “stoked a debate about how the country should digest the Communist legacy of the East” (Boyes 33). What effect does the humanization of Stasi officers have on how moviegoers interpret the past? It may be that giving evil characters a personality incorrectly portrays the hate that was pervasive in the 80s in East Germany, and this angers critics. One critic offers that, in “The Lives of Others, there’s no Hitler, no Goebbels. […] Von Donnersmarck is dealing with entirely new generations, the children and grandchildren of the purification dreamers” (Jacobsen 71).
It cannot be underestimated how important it is to attach personalities to events in time. German history has left the country with multiple events that are difficult to handle, and dialogue between oppressors and the oppressed must occur before the country can move on to a happy future. Attaching personalities to events convinces the moviegoers that people can change and that they are good at heart. Captain Wiesler for example initially comes off as a man set in his ways. There does not appear any hope for his character to exhibit any emotion, but the audience witnesses his transformation. In one shocking scene, movie viewers see Wiesler shed tears for his enemy. As a Stasi officer who makes the decision to cover up the truth, his career path is forever altered; he is relegated to the perpetual task of opening and delivering mail.
(Tears roll down Wiesler's face as he sympathizes with the enemy.)
(Wiesler being told that his career is over.)
Through the lens of Das Leben der Anderen, the necessity for German cinema to move on from WWII is apparent. This step is needed, as the painful post war occupation period has been neglected. Opening new discussion may open old wounds, but the discussion leads to healing. The vitality of the German nation in the future depends on this healing. Jacobsen phrases is beautifully saying, “The proposition that The Lives of Others puts forth […] is both rehabilitative and romantic: that by shining light on the German people’s second go-round at “socialism” the reunified Germany can begin the new century at last” (72).
Works Cited
Bendix, John. "Facing Hitler." German Politics & Society 25.1 (Spring 2007): 70-89. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. 11 Mar. 2009 .
Boyes, Roger. “Ostalgia Made History by Film Expose of the Stasis.” The Times (London) 15 May 2006: 33.
Jacobson, Harlan. "The Lives of Others.” Film Comment 43.1 (2007): 71-72. Research Library. ProQuest. 11 Mar. 2009 .
Crime is a global idea familiar both to people in the richest and poorest sections of the United States and in Italy. The American film The Departed and the Italian film Gomorra are two highly regarded films that show crime in their respective cultures. Each attempts to show the life of crime and tries to persuade the viewers that crime does not pay. While The Departed and Gomorra present their stories in very different ways, there are many global elements present in both films that help a foreign audience understand the criminal actions that are taking place. Both films, however, are also shaped by their character’s culture and background. The Departed and Gomorra have different approaches in showing the consequences of criminal activities, but each tap into global and national themes to create detailed and complicated storylines.
Both Gomorra and The Departed focus not only on crime, but also on a group of criminals. Gomorra focuses on five separate stories, each shown intertwined throughout the film. These stories present different groups of people either trying to be better than the mob or trying to be accepted by the mob. The way Gomorra mixes these fairly unrelated sections becomes confusing and makes the film hard to follow, particularly for an audience that does not speak Italian and needs to rely on subtitles. Even though Gomorra progresses slowly, it contains a very strong message and makes the audience feel an attachment to the citizens of Naples, the setting of the film. Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian agrees, saying “After the final credits, it is hard to escape the fear, even the despair, that this whole area - all of Naples, all of southern Italy - is suitable only for a rain of fire from the heavens, or maybe a 1,000-year quarantine, like an ethical or indeed literal Chernobyl.” The Departed also involves a criminal gang. The story involves the Massachusetts State Police planting a rat in a criminal gang and the gang planting a rat in the Massachusetts State Police. The story unfolds as each group discovers the other has a rat and attempts to discover it. A big difference between how the two films are laid out is the existence of one mob boss in The Departed and the spread out nature of the mob activity in Gomorra. As Bradshaw states of Gomorra, “It is not a mob film in the classical vein, because there is no Scarface or central boss figure with whom we are tacitly allowed to become fascinated. There are just scattered villains and victims, filmed with loose, freewheeling energy and attack. “ Both films are long, nearing two and a half hours, however The Departed is suspenseful throughout the film as the action and drama build. Gomorra takes a long time to build each scene and seems to accomplish little in the long time the film plays. Part of this may be due to the lack of background music, which helps to pass the time and keep the audience interested in The Departed, along with the large amount of buildup required to support the five different storylines displayed throughout the film. The methods used by the directors to display their films also differ. Gomorra tends to use more long shots and full body shots with a damp, limited color palette.
A typical scene from Gomorra showing subdued colors in the background background
The Departed, on the other hand, uses more medium shots displaying the focused characters and incorporates more vibrant colors. This makes for a more high quality looking film and allows the action to pop out more than it does in Gomorra.
A shot from The Departed using brighter colors and more action
Crime is understood globally as activity that violates the law. Both films include criminal activity such as cocaine usage and shootings, two highly illegal activities in almost any country in the world, particularly in the United States and Italy. Gomorra shows a broader view of crime and as Cosmo Landesman describes,“[the] mob influence extends beyond the familiar world of drugs and weapons, seeping into the world of high fashion and celebrity". Although fashion and celebrity are not two things globally associated with criminal gangs, they are globally understood themes and a global audience is able to understand how the Comorra criminalizes these areas. The generalities of criminal gangs are also understood well throughout global societies, although the specifics of how each particular gang operates are not well known. The Departed has many globally familiar criminal aspects because it is based off the criminal world in foreign countries. Todd McCarthy describes how the film is a remake in his Variety review and says, “From a plot point of view, ‘The Departed’ closely follows its 2002 progenitor, ‘Infernal Affairs,’ a big Asian hit and crime buff fave.” The ability for The Departed to use roughly the same plot as Internal Affairs for a different national audience shows its strong use of global themes. Rahul Hamid points out another global aspect of The Parted in his article, saying “Just as other gangster films by various filmmakers have portrayed Italian-American life, The Departed gives us an overwhelming sense that everyone in the film is related, that bonds of common ancestry and culture supersede any newer, or perhaps more artificial, designations, like cop or criminal.” The two films use these commonly understood themes and attempt to demonstrate the consequences of these on a local level.
The national aspects of each film are what define both The Departed and Gomorra. However, Gomorra relies more on national identity as a basis for its storyline. In fact, explaining some of Italy’s lesser-known mafia activity is part of Gomorra’s purpose. The film’s depiction of a powerful criminal group named the Camorra, known mainly in Italy, shows the many illegal activities the group is involved with. From dumping waste, demanding protection money, cheaply copying designer fashion, and intimidating teenage wannabe mobsters, the Camorra is involved in a large array of illegal activities. Much of the film’s setting takes place in a classic old-style Italian village with narrow streets and short, compact homes and shops.
The Departed includes national themes from both The United States and from Ireland, where much of the Boston police department, criminals, and citizens are from. National identity is not as important here as in Gomorra, but it is still used in developing the storyline. This identity is shown both through the accent used and the way the Irish characters carry themselves. The Irish characters in The Departed are meant to depict toughness. All of the Irish on both the police and criminal sides are depicted as very tough individuals. A comment is also made in the film to the psychologist that the Irish are the only group psychologists have problems helping because they won’t open themselves up. This national identity also explains the motivation behind the criminal organization. Frank, the leader of the criminals in this film, acknowledges that he could live a perfectly comfortable life without having a life of crime, but he states that he still does it because he likes the thrill, the challenge, and the power. The United State’s national identity is also shown in The Departed when referring to the many different police organizations in the film and how they compete. Although it may be common for countries to have multiple police forces, the different levels in the United States, including local levels, state levels, and the national FBI, have had difficulties communicating with each other and sometimes flat out compete with one another. The possibility of this is revealed subtly throughout the film until it is fully disclosed as the film wraps up This local knowledge of the system is used to provide twists in the movie and create more confusion. This is partly used when the film reveals the FBI might also have a mole in the criminal organization and that Frank, in fact, is an informant for the FBI.
An example from The Departed of the length the movie goes to to make the Irish appear tough. This scene shows Irish throwing insults and curse words in their dialog in order to appear tougher to everyone else watching them
The films Gomorra and The Departed are both well-made films with two separate methods for depicting local crime for both a global and national audience. The films’ each had the goal to show how bad criminal group, however their plot and storyline were different because of the criminal groups they used to prove their points and the outcomes of the crime the film’s chose to focus on. The Departed shows the affect of the crime on the police agencies, while Gomorra shows the affect of the crime on locals and the downside it has on the general society. Global elements of crime are used in each film to appeal to a global audience while each film uses specific national elements to refine the story and in the case of Gomorra, to show Italian elements to a broader, foreign audience.
Works Cited Page Bradshaw, Peter. "Film review: Gomorrah." 10 Oct. 2008. Guardian.co.uk. 12 Mar. 2009. Hamid, Rahul. "Cineaste: Review: The Departed." Cineaste. 12 Mar. 2009. Landesman, Cosmo. "Gomorra - The Sunday Times review review | Film Reviews - Times Online." Arts & Entertainment News, Features, Interviews | Times Online. 12 Oct. 2008. Times Online. 12 Mar. 2009. McCarthy, Todd. "The Departed Review." Variety. 12 Mar. 2009.
Once Were Warriors is a very emotionally powerful movie. While watching this film your emotions will surface. You will feel for the characters and their terrible situation. As a viewer you will get to see what happens when one character tries to strip another of their spirit.
The film is centered on a "holy child" that left her tribe to marry a man that they did not approve of. This man turns out to be a very shady and selfish character. He (Jake) and his wife (Rena) have four children together and he does not appear to care about anyone but himself throughout this film until the very end. The family lives in a very beaten up house, that no one takes care of and they are also extremely poor. The "holy child" is very depressed throughout the film, but in the end she takes a stand and brings herself back to life.
The main issue in this movie deals with the growing issue of the treatment of women in relationships in general. Especially in America, there is a very high divorce rate. A lot of the problems in relationships that lead to divorce are that women feel as if they are being taken advantage of. The fact that women are treated less equally and without any type of respect in Once Were Warriors proves that this is not only a problem in America. Others films that our class has view have also shown the lack of respect that men give women. Nine Queens is an example; Marcus talks his sister into having sex with a man that she does not know so that he can get a deal made.
The treatment of women has definitely turned into a global issue and is brought up in a lot of films in today's world. If enough of these films are made, and people start to understand that this treatment of women is not okay, then hopefully things will change.
War, corruption, and public ignorance give a different look to the beautiful countryside between Bosnia and Serbia. In this absurdist film, Bosnian film director, Danis Tanovic, lands a cold slap in the face on anyone who considers the Serbo-Bosnian war to be a sane endeavor. As far as getting out of this conflict, Serbia might as well be stuck on a land mine.
Set in no-man's-land, the trench between the crossfire, two soldiers from opposite lines find one another in a stalemate. Nonetheless, they bicker about who's country started the war, behaving like kids with play-guns. The startling fact of the matter is . . . these aren't the play-kind. Even with the U.N. coming to rescue the soldiers, neither will submit his honor to the other. When tension escalates, careless violence almost instantaneously ensues. When a second Serbian is found to be alive in the trench, apprehension escalates further. It is this man, Ceri, who tries to talk some sense into the other two. As all three wait on the U.N. for liberation, it becomes clear that no soldier will ever come out truly liberated. Next time they see each other, they agree, it will be through the eye of a gun sight. The tragedies of war and ethnic cleansing will forever haunt these men, even if they live through the war.
The chances of living at all seem to sink further and further. Dubois, the head man at the local U.N. office will not dispense a rescue team until he's pressured to do so by a journalist and her press squad. This icon of internationalism, is therefore portrayed as the epitome of corruption. Lounging at a desk with a trophy girl, he commands the Frenchman on the phone to "tell [the press] anything you like" in order that he not have to send a rescue mission. This international insufficiency relates not only to the peace attempts during the war, but to the genocide in the region as well.
In order to achieve the most cynical criticism for the Serbo-Bosnian war, Tanovic combines a sardonic script with cool cinematography. Soldiers like to throw verbal punches at one another; at times, it seems that is the only aspect of life keeping them sane. When Ciki, the Bosnian, makes conversation with Ceri, his immobile Bosnian friend, Ceri mentions that he enjoys not being able to move, that he can't wait for the news crews to film him shatting his pants. Obviously, he is a bit ill humored about his fate, and that of his country. Cool cinematography parallels this kind of sarcasm when the viewer watches soldiers get mowed down by artillary fire at dawn, in a green field, and under a blue sky. It would appear as if the film squad were practicing for a gloomier day; but yet, this is the cool realism Tanovic aims for. Before the camera establishes a loyalty to one character or army line, a reverse shot takes perspective of the enemy with his gunsight outlining the figure of an enemy's head. Tanovic does not mean to give a one sided argument about who started the war. His aims to criticize those who aim to maintain it. Such a group seems entirely too large, but also establishes this film both nationally and globally.
Much like that of Becket's tragedy, the time frame for No Man's Land is one day. Catch 22, another absurdist novel, comes to mind for genre comparison. The genre shared among other countries is yet another reason why this film is acknowledged internationally.
