“I left forty lira at home, the family is hungry now.”Umut [Hope] (Yılmaz Güney & Şerif Gören, 1970)
Dec
30
National Resolution Planning Day
Hasan (Tuncel Kurtiz) and Cabbar (Yılmaz Güney) planning their next step sitting atop of the pit. DP: Kaya Ererez.
Discussing an elaborate plan on National Resolution Planning Day (USA)
Cabbar (Yılmaz Güney), an impoverished, illiterate phaeton driver, loses his already half-dead horse when a rich man crashes into the cart. Now destitute and burdened with feeding his six children, wife and grandmother, Cabbar is offered several ways out. While winning the lottery is not in his stars, his friend Hasan's (Tuncel Kurtiz) and imam Hodja's (Osman Alyanak) wondrous plan to go out into the Kurdish wastelands to dig up an illusive treasure may be his only escape.
– Cabbar
Umut is Turkey's early venture into Neorealismo. Banned by the national board of censorship – the display of abject poverty, characters not observing morning prayer etc etc – the film was smuggled out off the country and into Cannes, where its screening urged the Turkish government to reconsider its decision. It's now seen as one of Turkey's most important cinematic masterpieces.
drama
“Time to empty our slop pails and run a little water over our faces, then back to our cells for the entire day.”Un condamné à mort s'est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut [A Man Escaped] (Robert Bresson, 1956)
Dec
29
slop
A man's hand holds a spoon at a perpendicular angle. DP: Léonce-Henri Burel.
– Fontaine
– So what is your goal in life then? – Satisfaction of the present. The sword, and nothing else.剣 (小説) [Ken / The Sword] (Kenji Misumi, 1964)
Dec
29
Tick Tock Day
One of the kendōka kneeled on the floor in gruelling punishment faces a clock on the wall, while the other students continue their training. DP: Chikashi Makiura.
A clock face for Tick Tock Day, USA.
After World War II, the Japanese martial arts of #kendo was banished by the occupying forces in an attempt to “remove and exclude militaristic and ultra-nationalistic persons from life”. With that in mind, it makes complete sense that nationalist author and former kendo practitioner Yukio Mishima wrote a short story – Sword, originally published in literary magazine Shincho in 1963 – about the art.
Both the story and Kenji Misumi's 1964 film adaptation follow arrogant kendo student Jiro, played by sublime kabuki actor Raizō Ichikawa who also appears in an earlier Mishima adaptation, 炎上 [Enjō / The Temple of the Golden Pavilion / Conflagration] (1958).
“In the land of the legless, the one-legged woman is queen.”A Zed & Two Noughts [Z+00 / ZOO] (Peter Greenaway, 1985)
Dec
27
Visit The Zoo Day
A zebra in a cage with the word ZOO in large blue lit capitals in the background. In the background a man. All but the lettering is black-and-white. DP: Sacha Vierny.
A zoo for National Visit The Zoo Day (USA)
飼育 [Shiiku / The Catch] (Nagisa Ōshima, 1961)
Dec
26
offerings
An altar with two rotund, smiling stone statues – possibly Jizō, a bowl of rice with chopsticks stuck into it, and a Japanese soldier's photograph. The position of the chopsticks tells us that the soldier has died. DP: Yoshitsugu Tonegawa.
Празник [Praznik / The Feast] (Đorđe Kadijević, 1967)
Dec
25
Christmas dinner
Soldiers eating bread at a set table. DP: Aleksandar Petković.
Colloque de chiens (1977)
Monique (Silke Humel, R) spending Christmas Eve in a bar, looking for a way out. She's speaking to an elderly man in an expensive tuxedo. Is this it? DP: Denis Lenoir; still photographer Patrice Morere.
December 24: the night before Christmas (Christmas Eve)
Colloque de chiens (Raúl Ruiz, 1977)
“Nobody knows why Monique, the cold and dry voiced whore, bears in her eyes the sadness and tiredness of her past.”
Filmed during an actors' strike, Raúl Ruiz's Colloque de chiens consists for the most part of still photographs with mixed in stolen moving footage of unsuspecting bystanders and stray dogs. Told in fotonovela format, we follow the pitiful account of Monique, who as a young girl, learns that her mother is not who she thinks she is. Rejected, she throws herself into a life of vice until she meets Henri, a handsome young television repairman. Together they buy a small café, and are happy for once. But the cyclical nature of life determines her faith.
Raúl Ruiz's work is, like Henri's modus operandi, determined by maps and patterns. Even in the short comically melodramatic breathe of Colloque de chiens, the map has been laid out for Ruiz's later, much more complex narrative.
Colloque opens in a barren landscape. There are the skeletal towers of a nearby city, and the endless barks of abandoned dogs. Obscured by tall reeds, a blown-up photograph of a young man. The face, soft and familiar, a distant memory.
“He wanted to be returned to the world of his childhood and to this woman who was perhaps waiting for him” –Chris Marker, dialogue from La Jetée (1962)
Amongst bare winter bushes a large photo of a friendly, young, familiar looking man. In the background against a grey sky multiple white apartment buildings.
#Bales2023FilmChallenge #RaúlRuiz #SilkeHumel #EvaSimonet #RobertDarmel #JorgeArriagada #DenisLenoir #PatriceMorere #drama #crime #melodrama #ShortFilm #photography #animals #gender #prostitution #France #1970s ★★★★☆
“He's a peasant. Without looking into his situation, words are all he has.”شكاوى الفلاح الفصيح [El-Fallâh el-fasîh / The Eloquent Peasant] (Chadi Abdel Salam, 1970)
Dec
23
National Farmers Day – India
The peasant (Ahmed Marei) in a stone temple, flanked by scribes. DP: Mustafa Imam.
Farmers for Kisan Divas [National Farmers Day] (India)
4000 years ago, Egypt, Middle Kingdom. A peasant, leading his mules past a stream of water, is tricked. With his animals gone, he pleads to the Pharaoh to restore Maʽat, harmony.
Chadi Abdel Salam is not only this film's director, but also a trained architect, later set and costume designer. His eye wordlessly speaks the passing of time in the smallest of details. The withering of ferns, desert sand staining linen, the Sun merging with skin. At once, the universal presence of the gods becomes visible.
“We'll go back to Nice tomorrow. The Bay of Angels brings us luck.”La baie des anges [Bay of Angels] (Jacques Demy, 1963)
Dec
23
pears
A blonde Moreau at a restaurant table with a man seen from the back. There are several semi-empty wine glasses and pears sliced lengthwise on a plate, covered with a napkin. Jeanne's character Jackie Demaistre is holding a small sheet of paper with a schematic drawing of a roulette wheel while throwing the man a sceptical glance. DP: Jean Rabier.
– Jean Fournier