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Jun. 6th, 2010 11:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tiggymalvern
Two more films since the last update, an Indian comedy and a documentary about a WWII spy.
Peepli Live. Two brothers are about to lose the family farm to the bank during a drought in India's rural Peepli region. They learn of a government scheme that compensates the families of farmers who commit suicide due to the difficult conditions, and Natha decides to kill himself so that his family can keep the farm. The discussions between the two brothers are overheard by a local journalist, whose story then piques the interest of a TV reporter, and the entire national media descend on one dusty village. But it's also election time, and where the media go, politicians both local and national are sure to follow.
The film is billed as a comedy, and while there are certainly amusing moments that had the audience laughing, I would find it difficult to categorise as simply comedy. There are events of great pathos in there too, and the film is a commentary on the self-serving nature of both journalists and politicians. The end credits give the real statistics on the plight of India's small farmers. A light-hearted look at some serious issues; not an outstanding film, but entertaining enough and with food for thought. 3/5
Our second recent outing was to a screening of Garbo the Spy. Garbo was the name the British gave to a double agent, who between 1941 and 1945 pretended to be spying for the Nazis, while actually passing on to them a mix of false and real information carefully selected by the Allies. His code name was chosen because his MI5 handlers considered him to be the slickest actor they had ever met. Very few people knew who Garbo really was until the 1980s, when an investigative reporter discovered him to be a Catalan businessman whose life was forever changed by the Spanish civil war.
This documentary is entertainingly clever and innovative. How do you make a documentary about a man who, by very definition, was secretive, a man of whom there exists almost nothing in the way of video footage and photos? Yes, you can interview people, and the film does, but pure talking heads would be boring. Answer - you not only raid archival film, you rip footage from any number of WWII and spy films to illustrate the sheer ludicrousness of the espionage business. Garbo created a network of more than 20 collaborators who were the supposed sources of his information for the Germans, all of them with detailed backgrounds and motivations for treachery, all of them entirely fictitious (cue Alec Guinness in 'Our Man in Havana'). MI5 had to create a convincing way for the Nazis to get money to Garbo and his 'network' to pay for their services, money that then went directly into the funding of British intelligence work. When you examine those kinds of realities, what else can they be but funny?
I did have some issues with the film - the interviewees are not identified until half way through, which leaves the viewer wondering who on earth these people are, and what qualifies them to speak about Garbo. Maybe the film-makers thought a little mystery would be appropriate for a spy film, but it's just annoying. The musical score sometimes works well with the material, but has moments when it is overly loud and intrusive. There is a lot of fact in the film, but almost nothing about Garbo the person, about what made him do any of the things he did. I can predict the difficulties with trying to go there - the man was an extraordinarily convincing liar, how could you ever trust what he said to anyone? It would have been interesting to delve more into his personality, but I can understand why the decision was made not to. Overall, all four of us thought it was a good, well-made, unexpectedly entertaining film. 4/5
Peepli Live. Two brothers are about to lose the family farm to the bank during a drought in India's rural Peepli region. They learn of a government scheme that compensates the families of farmers who commit suicide due to the difficult conditions, and Natha decides to kill himself so that his family can keep the farm. The discussions between the two brothers are overheard by a local journalist, whose story then piques the interest of a TV reporter, and the entire national media descend on one dusty village. But it's also election time, and where the media go, politicians both local and national are sure to follow.
The film is billed as a comedy, and while there are certainly amusing moments that had the audience laughing, I would find it difficult to categorise as simply comedy. There are events of great pathos in there too, and the film is a commentary on the self-serving nature of both journalists and politicians. The end credits give the real statistics on the plight of India's small farmers. A light-hearted look at some serious issues; not an outstanding film, but entertaining enough and with food for thought. 3/5
Our second recent outing was to a screening of Garbo the Spy. Garbo was the name the British gave to a double agent, who between 1941 and 1945 pretended to be spying for the Nazis, while actually passing on to them a mix of false and real information carefully selected by the Allies. His code name was chosen because his MI5 handlers considered him to be the slickest actor they had ever met. Very few people knew who Garbo really was until the 1980s, when an investigative reporter discovered him to be a Catalan businessman whose life was forever changed by the Spanish civil war.
This documentary is entertainingly clever and innovative. How do you make a documentary about a man who, by very definition, was secretive, a man of whom there exists almost nothing in the way of video footage and photos? Yes, you can interview people, and the film does, but pure talking heads would be boring. Answer - you not only raid archival film, you rip footage from any number of WWII and spy films to illustrate the sheer ludicrousness of the espionage business. Garbo created a network of more than 20 collaborators who were the supposed sources of his information for the Germans, all of them with detailed backgrounds and motivations for treachery, all of them entirely fictitious (cue Alec Guinness in 'Our Man in Havana'). MI5 had to create a convincing way for the Nazis to get money to Garbo and his 'network' to pay for their services, money that then went directly into the funding of British intelligence work. When you examine those kinds of realities, what else can they be but funny?
I did have some issues with the film - the interviewees are not identified until half way through, which leaves the viewer wondering who on earth these people are, and what qualifies them to speak about Garbo. Maybe the film-makers thought a little mystery would be appropriate for a spy film, but it's just annoying. The musical score sometimes works well with the material, but has moments when it is overly loud and intrusive. There is a lot of fact in the film, but almost nothing about Garbo the person, about what made him do any of the things he did. I can predict the difficulties with trying to go there - the man was an extraordinarily convincing liar, how could you ever trust what he said to anyone? It would have been interesting to delve more into his personality, but I can understand why the decision was made not to. Overall, all four of us thought it was a good, well-made, unexpectedly entertaining film. 4/5
