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Reviews
The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond (2008)
Classic Tennessee Williams study of inner personal growth
Brilliant film.
So Fisher comes home from attending the Sorbonne in Paris - home of Hot Jazz in the 1920s. Her horizons have been widened by her experience in the metropolitan liberal culture and she may now be said to be like a fish out of water. She has no problem walking down the street in a black area, but she knows she does have a problem in having to submit to the venal, spiteful meat market of the wealthy southern 'debutante season'.
She also knows that the grandson of Governor Dobyne has so much more to offer than the rich kids around her. She knows he had a scholarship to 'Ole Miss' but is now reduced to poverty by the fate and failings of his parents.
Tennessee Williams shows us all of this. The spiteful teasing comments routinely aimed at her; the puerile games of Postman and patty cake; the shallow social scene of the wealthy socialite ladies. Fisher wants something better than all that!
Both Jimmy and Fisher have to fight their inner battles, and find their best selves. Ultimately each of them resolve their inner conflicts, understanding that sometimes perfection is the enemy of the good.
Technically? First class!. Design, wardrobe, lighting, acting. I loved it all!
Ashani Sanket (1973)
So much deeper film than recognised
Ashani Sanket is one of the most beautiful and thought provoking films ever made, and I agree with most of the reviews here.
Satyajit Ray's theme of famine, and its effect on ordinary people is well understood, but there is so much more.
He did not set the film in the city, where he said himself he saw the dead and the dying on the streets every day. Instead, Ashani Sanket is set in a country village.
Consider the very opening shots of the film. Images of plentiful water as Babita expresses her wonder at being able to bathe. Again and again, all around the area we see plentiful, lush green growth as the women of the village forage for food. The only indication of trouble ahead is the roar of the planes overhead. It is "distant thunder", far away and little understood. The village elders debate the rumours of war in some unknown 'pore or other. The debate and worries about the distant war increase. But still the land itself remains green and lush.
The reaction of the merchants to the rumours is to ration their sales, and to guard their stocks using a repulsively disfigured chowkidar. But the rice is there. Hidden in old broken down buildings.
Not for nothing is the Bengal Rice Famine described as 'man-made'. Satyajit Ray's observation of human fears and frailties is so typical, However, he shows us not just the reaction to the shortage of rice, but the contribution of misunderstanding and fear to the causes of the famine . We should not overlook it here.
Enigma (2001)
Nope, not for me!!
I gave up after 10 minutes.
This is wartime!!!! The staging and direction simply made me laugh. Thick crowds of people rushing around Trafalgar Square (in wartime?). Even the extras wearing beautifully tailored and pressed clothing (in wartime?). Men billetted away from home in pristine white starched collars (in wartime?). Ladies with perfectly styled glossy hair (in wartime?)
No, I remember post war Britain, and even then it was drab and depressing, This portrayal is a joke and completely destroys any possibility of the suspension of disbelief.
Just one star for the presentation of the enigma machine.