The Guardian has an article on cinema from largely Muslim countries. Tariq Ali does a quick review of cinema in countries from Indonesia to the Soviet inflected style of Tajik films. Regarding films in Pakistan, Ali mentions that Indian films were banned in the 50s and 60s, but Pakistani popular cinema never took off:

Bosoms could heave but had to be carefully covered and, even at the beach, actresses had to swim fully clothed. Cinema proprietors in Pakistan decided to spice their shows with a “tota” (strip). In Lahore, touts would parade outside some movie theatres and whisper to bystanders that a “one-minute strip” was being shown at the late-night performance. The prowling males would pack the show and halfway through some boring movie, a minute or two of porno-flicks would appear on the screen. After this the cinema emptied.

Ali has a lot more appreciation for Iranian film (the Guardian also has an interview with Abbas Kioristami), though he has nothing to say about Arab films. If you’ve seen Egyptian films on cable, they are quite a bit like Indian films, at the very least in terms of their sensibility in melodrama, but then these are older films, so I don’t know how things have changed since the seventies and eighties. Films from Lebanon, from the few I have seen, have been something I have never seen before. They have a loony style that is quite remarkable. I have been told by knowledgeable friends that the poetry coming out of Lebanon has quite a bit of crazy experimentation going on as well. Though can you call it “Islamic” cinema? I guess the term doesn’t make much sense anyway.

Going back to Bollywood, for a very illuminating account of watching Indian films in Bangladesh go to Shobak.org the essay tell you how Indian cows became symbols of neo-colonialism.

I saw Conventioneers at the Tribeca Film Festival yesterday. Set during the Republican Convention in 2004, Conventioneers is the story of an affair between a delegate and a protester. The filmmakers threw their actors into the real events happening during that period, and shot their scenes being jostled by the protesters and delegates. They even managed to get arrested while shooting a scene. It gives the film a very special energy which is quite different from the thousands of extras type choreography of a Gandhi or Lawrence of Arabia.

One of the interesting aspects of the process of making the film was that the filmmakers and actors got involved with working on the protests as part of their work on their roles. One of the actors who is supposed to be a member of One Thousand Coffins, has actually ended up becoming an active member of that group. This blurring of preparation and real life involvement really worked for this film, for one thing, the performances were very good, and it saved the film from becoming a soap box or one of those “backdrop” films like The Year of Living Dangerously where the characters are trying to “find” themselves, against some cataclysmic political event they don’t quite understand, usually in the Third World, after all who can understand anything “about those people.”

The film has a few independent film rough spots, but well worth watching. It will be screened a few more times the rest of this week, so if you show up early you can still get tickets.

The 1960 Madhubala and Dilip Kumar film is in theaters today in the US. It has been restored to its technicolor glory, and one of the best examples of “Mughal nostalgia/historical extravaganza” for the lack of a better word. Umrao Jaan and Razia Sultan was probably the dying gasp of that genre. Though Umrao Jaan should technically be considered the last gasp, since it had memorable songs, a defining feature of these films. I suppose making films replete with Urdu poetry and idealized visions of “Mughal” culture wouldn’t be possible today. Who wants the Hindutva goons to go on a rampage on your set for being “anti-Indian”? The historical/nostalgia films seem to be currently situated in Bengal, what with Devdas and Chokher Bali (though not so much). I wonder if we’ll start seeing “nationalistically correct” extravaganzas with stories set in Baji Rao or Shivaji’s court. Films like Lagaan don’t really fit the bill, they don’t have the right tone of melancholy that these films require.

Update: We saw it. Its excellent! the colorization really works, (I was wrong about it being originally in technicolor, just portions of it were in color). Not everything has been colorized in the frame. Eschewing realism, the restoration leans towards expression, a good choice for a film where the aesthetic is one of tableau vivant, with characters striking stylized poses and declaiming elaborate and literary dialogue. Unfortunately, some songs have been cut from this version, bringing the three and a half version to three hours.

The winner of the short documentary Mighty Times: The Children’s March is being criticized for using dramatic recreations that merge seamlessly with archival footage. Frieda Lee Mock, the chairperson of the prize committee is quoted in the New York Times:

“Ultimately, it’s an issue of credibility. And the question is, why wasn’t it disclosed to us, the academy members voting?”

The filmmakers claim on their website:

In order to distinguish ‘faux doc’ from archival footage, we stripe the borders of reenactment scenes with film sprockets. The net result is honorable both artistically and historically, making very clear which footage is new and which is not.

The academy received enough complaints that it got John Else (producer of Eyes on the Prize) to examine the film. NPR has an interview with him. It seems that the copies that the academy got did not have those tell-all sprocket holes.

Re-enactments have been used by documentary filmmakers since the time of Flaherty, and in our own times, news is faked with impunity, with male prostitutes posing as journalists, so its hardly shocking that two very successful “documentarians” would do the same, not to equate the “truth value” of this documentary with deceptions of the Bush administration, but it does bring up some very interesting questions about certain forms (the news report, archival footage) becoming the repository of credibility . I haven’t seen this film yet, but from the film’s website it looks as if the filmmakers are much more concerned with producing a very effective and glossy piece of work, rather than having something to say about history and its representation, or the practice of faux documentaries, which has a venerable history from Zelig to This is Spinal Tap.

We saw The Devil Doll by the incomparable Tod Browning today. I am a big fan of Browning’s Freaks, and this is the third film I’ve seen by him. Its got a bizarre premise: A man wronged by his partners seeks to revenge himself by using people shrunk to a doll’s size who do his bidding.

I suppose there is something pure about revenge. One is willing to believe that a character can think of nothing else but revenge for seventeen years, and the Gods or in the movie’s case, a mad scientist will send an instrument along for the purposes of justice. He seems to have been among the early directors who used double exposure in his films (A technique pioneered by Melies) and the film is a wonderful example of this technique. Devil Doll has a great performance by Lionel Barrymore as a transvestite avenger. The film’s merry disregard for realism and its grotesque flair are vintage Browning.

Wikipedia has a good entry on Browning, including an account of his last years, which were spent in seclusion, he even refused to meet family member’s at his brother’s funeral. I also found an odd site, which has a copy of his death certificate and a picture of his gravestone. Browning was born in 1880 and really did run away from home to join a circus, unlike Fellini who claims he did. And you can tell the difference. Browning is at home with his carnies and “freaks” and doesn’t actually dwell on their grotesquerie, unlike Fellini whose circus freaks are usually outside the the main character’s self, and become images of their internal dialogues.