“What is that? What is that I hear? Where's it coming from? I hear a siren, but I don't see any fire, I don't see any smoke. Whenever there's a siren, it means there's a fire, but I don't see any smoke. That siren. Where is it coming from? Where's that sound coming from?”

– Santa Claus

Perumthitta Tharavad: based on a folk tale.

“I regard [Govindan] Aravindan as one of the most poetic filmmakers in the world. He is a poet who writes in the language of cinema and silence. Watching his films is like a meditative experience.”

– Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, Film Heritage Foundation (source)

Set during the Hindu rice harvest festival Onam, Kummatty tells the story of the seasons through the eyes of a mischievous boy. After teasing the temple guard – possibly Thamma – she warns the boy and his friends about the arrival of Kummatti (here unfortunately translated as the bogeyman but actually the name of a performer of a mask dance called Kummatti Kali). As faith wants it, Kummatti does arrive and accompanies the children in song and dance while the seasons change, rice is ready for harvest, and characters shift. To a certain extent, there's an interesting parallel with Frank Perry's Ladybug Ladybug (1963).

Celebrating human rights on Human Rights Day: the right to work

“Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.”

– Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations General Assembly

A Mauritanian immigrant (Robert Liensol) too starts anew in Paris. But first, he'll need a job.

– I've never seen a film like this before.

– Oh, it's different, alright.

A caregiver*

 

A woman is brutally murdered and taken home by a young man. This man – this angel – takes away her wounds, returns her to life, and nurses her. They fall in love.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for December has a few dateless themes. This is one of them.

 

“I accuse you of having trampled on the cross, of having ridden to the Sabbath, of throwing the Holy Cross of our Saviour into manure so that the skies grew dark, and the rain fell upon the earth!”

– Albino

A movie set in the woods or mountains*

“Anderntags hat man sofort getauft, weil jede Mutter lieber ein «Gotteskindli» auf die Arme nahm.”

– Gisler-Arnold Babette, midwife (via)

Murer describes the people from Switzerland's gorges in three movements, along the lines of a symphony

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for November is, again, not date-based, but follows a sloppy schmaltzy all-American Thanksgiving-y narrative. Trying to make it work my way.

A movie about community*

“Early one morning, just as the sun was rising, I heard a maid sing in the valley below; ‘O don’t deceive me, O never leave me! How could you use a poor maiden so?”

– Early one morning, via

A sort of Wicker Man visits Mon oncle, this painting of an old England is. Painter filmmaker David Gladwell's impressionist work takes us to a small Suffolk community that, like all other communities, is both frozen in time and unable to escape its progression. The churchyard's caretaker, amongst the living and the dead, watches, works, and knows.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for November is, again, not date-based, but follows a sloppy schmaltzy all-American Thanksgiving-y narrative. Trying to make it work my way.