Unit 3: Bandit Queen

In 1983, legendary female bandit Phoolan Devi surrendered to authorities.

Director Shekhar Kapur’s film Bandit Queen is based on an account given during her eleven years in prison and covers the years from her marriage at age eleven to her surrender. The years between are filled with rape, violence, gang warfare.

Just how close the movie comes to historical fact is subject to debate. (Phoolan herself sued to keep the movie from being shown in India.) In reviewer Damian Cannon’s words, the film “…doesn’t provide the exact truth but an interpretation which shows what the reality was like.”

I do not think that the director intended Bandit Queen as a “…powerful indictment of Indian society…” as a whole, which is Cannon’s conclusion. Instead, the remote village setting and the surrounding stark hills suggest a world outside of contemporary Indian society.

I do not agree with reviewer Scott Rosenberg’s opinion that Bandit Queen “…is pretty clearly a feminist film…” While it is tempting to regard this as a feminist film, Bandit Queen fights back against such a pat label. Phoolan is marked as someone – some thing - less than others by her caste as well as by her sex and the subject of caste is a much tougher one for a non-Indian and non-Hindu to grasp.

I agree with Damian Cannon that Phoolan Devi is not portrayed as a feminist and that “…her fight back against repression is a personal obsession, fuelled by the white-hot rage of human suffering.”

Unit 2: Lamerica (1994)

The two main characters in Lamerica are Gino, a cynical young Italian con man and Spiro, a man in his seventies who has spent the last fifty years as a political prisoner. Gino and his partner, Fiore, have come to Albania to set up a bogus corporation and fleece their investors as well as the Albanian government. When they learn that one of the officers of the corporation needs to be Albanian, they find a old man to serve as chairman of this corporation and sign the necessary papers.

When Gino is left in charge of the old man he learns that Spiro is not Albanian at all but an Italian named Talarico who cannot come to terms with the fifty years that he lost in prison. Convinced that he is still in Italy and that he is twenty years old, Spiro/Talarico sets off on his own for his native Sicily.

Gino goes in pursuit and soon begins to lose everything with which he has defined his own life. Stripped of his possessions and identity, he becomes just another one of the displaced persons that are trying to flee Albania for promise of a better life in Italy.

Gino's journey from con man to refugee is set in 1991, during the period in which Albania was struggling to make the transition from Socialism to Capitalist/Democracy. As part of this process the country has become open to foreigners and foreign ideas and, although this offers the promise of a brighter economic future for Albania, it also creates opportunities for predators.

In Leo Goldsmith's review of the film, he proposes that Gianni Amelio's Lamerica portrays capitalist globalization as "...merely the next in a series of socio-political structures that exploits the poor and makes the life of the individual all but redundant". Seen in this light, Gino and Fiore are not just a pair of small-time con men. They are also players in a much larger culture of exploitation that includes corrupt bureaucrats as well as foreign capitalists.

Ooops!

Unit 2 post was meant for another board but I will leave it here, anyway.

The writing assignment that was meant for this blog will be posted shortly!

Unit 2: Lamerica

My reaction to the film...:

Lamerica was a very thought provoking film and - even as I write this - more and more things come to mind. For the sake of brevity, I'll stop at two.

First is that anyone can become a displaced person. Governments fall, wars rage, economies collapse and natural disasters occur. It can happen to anyone. It has happened, at one time or another, to most American families. It's how many of us got here.

Second is the hope that sustains the emigrant/immigrant. In the film, this hope is rarely rooted in reality. An Albanian's fantasy of becoming a football star is no more grounded in reality than Spiro/Talarico's dream of seeing his infant son, yet the dream sustains both through hardship.

...and the reviews:

In Goldsmith's review, I was intrigued by his discussion of the director's portrayal of capitalist globalization as "...merely the next in a series of socio-political structures that exploits the poor and makes the life of the individual all but redundant." Approached in this way, Gino and Fiore become more than just two small-time con men and their plan to exploit the desperate circumstances is revealed as part of a greater culture of exploitation.

In Berardinelli's review, I was struck by the description of the way in which the issues raised in the film are depicted in a series of vignettes. Like Gino, we encounter the Albanian situation in bits and pieces, which is reminiscent of the bits of newsreel footage that introduce the movie. The scope of the situation is not seen through Albanian eyes but is revealed in fragments glimpsed by an Italian.

Based on the film I would characterize 1991 Albania as...

...in a shambles. Following years of isolation in the wake of WWII, the country is changing from Socialism to Capitalist/Democracy. Poverty is widespread.

Some of the norms and social pressures apparent in the film are:

The poor economy has created a large number of displaced persons, many of whom are trying to escape the country to Italy. Prior to the Socialist period, Albania was controlled by fascist Italy and the Albanians are shown as obsessed with Italian popular culture and the lure of the affluent life they see on the TV screen.

One significant hold-over from the Socialist era is bureaucratic corruption.

Some of the changes that are underway are:

As part of the transition process, the country's borders are open to foreigners and foreign ideas, while remaining in place for the Albanians, themselves.

The government is trying to put an end to the corruption.

How do some of the key characters react to the changes that are underway?

Spiro/Talarico was forced to abandon reality a long time ago. He now tries to pick up his life where it left off fifty years earlier. He cannot come to grips with the passage of time yet, even in his deluded state, he still manages to dream and to survive.

Gino loses everything that he has used to define himself until he has lost all of his possessions and even his own identity and becomes a displaced person. He will arrive in his own country as a refugee. Goldsmith describes this journey as Gino's going "...from cynical opportunist to sympathetic observer to bewildered victim."

Unit 1 (continued)

Analyze at least three different, specific scenes that you find particularly important or revealing? Why are they significant and what do they reveal?

The first scene that I've chosen is when Katya and Lyudmila are walking from the workers' dorm to the steps outside a French film festival. As Lyudmila sees it, the women have to meet men with some city sophistication and avoid the ones who share their own rural origins. This sets the stage for the pair lying about their identities in order to attract desirable partners. This lie will shape their destinies.

The second is when Katya, impatient with how long it takes to get a fitter to service the punch press that she operates, takes the initiative and learns how to do it herself. This initiative will later lead to her becoming a fitter. It will also ultimately lead to her position as director of the facility. This is not the future that she has seen for herself but it shows that she is willing to work hard and show initiative. These are things for which she achieves recognition on her own.

The third also takes place in 1958 at the factory when Katya is being interviewed on television. The man behind the camera is the man she deceived when she and Lyudmila were posing as university students. As an interviewer begins to ask her about her job, Katya has to come to grips with having her lover find out about her before she was able to face telling him herself. She becomes very candid and outspoken with the interviewer. She refuses to give the prepared answers with which she was supplied. Suddenly free from the lie, the real Katya emerges.

Were there any aspects of those scenes or the film as a whole that you find confusing or unclear?

There is a very pivotal argument scene in Katya's 1978 kitchen when she, Alexandra and Gosha are talking about Gosha's use of physical force in dealing with some men who wanted to beat up Alexandra's boyfriend. Katya does not approve of Gosha's behavior and tells him that he is never to do anything like that in the future without talking to her first. Gosha agrees but tells her to never speak like that to him again or he will leave.

It's a taut scene and helps to set up his sudden departure from her home which actually occurs when he finds out that she makes more money than he does. Clearly, Gosha's pride is wounded but I feel that I'm missing something significant in the translation. They are, after all, at her table and Alexandra is her daughter. Katya doesn't even know Gosha's proper name and he doesn't know what she does for a living. Their relationship, up to this point, has been a romantic fantasy. I'm not clear whether the argument over the fight is still part of this fantasy phase and he is acting out his idea of head of the family or if it is one of the reasons that he does take off.

If you had to rewrite the ending, how would you change it?

It would be hard to rewrite the ending because it is a romantic comedy and the ending is to be expected. Once Gosha is found and persuaded to return to Katya, he takes his place at the table. As they begin to eat, Katya gazes at him and asks him if he knows how long she has looked for him. They do not fall breathlessly into one another's arms. They eat.

Happy as the ending is for the characters, I am uncomfortable wiith the way that Gosha walks in and asks Katya if supper is ready. It seems clear from the question that, whatever Katya's rank or paygrade, Gosha will outrank her in her own home. Given her strong character, it seems odd that she would accept this sort of arrangement.

Unit 1: Moscow Does Not Believe In Tears

First, a quick synopsis of the movie for those who have not seen it.

The story is divided into two parts separated by a twenty year interval. The first half takes place in 1958 when Katya and her friends, Lyudmila and Antonina, are living in a workers' dormitory in Moscow and making plans for their futures. Lyudmila is anxious to meet interesting and sophisticated men, going so far as to try to persuade the woman at the front desk to answer the dorm phone as if it were a private residence and not a dorm for factory workers.

When Katya is asked to apartment-sit for her uncle, the professor, Lyudmila seizes on this opportunity to stay in a posh apartment. She suggests to Katya that they pose as the professor's daughters and invites several interesting gentlemen over for a dinner party. Katya goes along with the plan and meets a tv cameraman who has a grand vision of the future of television. Soon, however, the same cameraman is sent to the factory where Katya works and the deception is revealed.

The relationship ends but Katya has become pregnant and gives birth to her daughter, Alexandra.

The story resumes in 1978 and picks up with the lives of these women as they have turned out, often in contrast to what they thought they would be like. While Antonina is happily married, Lyudmila's marriage to a star hockey player ended badly when he became an alcoholic.

Katya is still at the same factory but she is now its director and a successful business woman. Her daughter, Alexandra, lives with her but she is now an adult. Katya is now middle-aged, still single and involved with a married man. Although she is successful in her career and as a single mother, her personal life has run a distant third.

That is, until a chance meeting on a train brings Gosha into her life. Their romance flourishes until it is threatened by Gosha's discovery that Katya has a better job than his own. Further complications arise with the arrival of Alexandra's father. In the end, all ends happily around Katya's table.

Welcome!

First of all, a little housekeeping:

1. If you've wandered in here from my other blog, please note that this particular blog is tied to my graduate studies. My classmates will be reading this. My professor will be reading this. So, no horseplay and no glass containers around the pool.

2. As this blog is available for the public to view, I ask you to refrain from calling me by name.

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