Taare Zameen Par

Aamir's Taare Zameen Par is India's official Oscars entry

Aamir Khan's tryst with the Oscars continues. Khan's directorial debut Taare Zammen Par has been selected as India's official entry for the Oscars.
Taare Zameen Par released in India on 21 December, 2007 and bagged rave reviews from audience and critics alike. The film has been produced by Khan in association with PVR Pictures.
It stars Aamir Khan, Darsheel Safary, Tisca Chopra, Vipin Sharma and Sachet Engineer. Khan is currently shooting in Ladak for Raju Hirani's 3 Idiots and is expected back in Mumbai tomorrow.
In an official statement Aamir Khan says, "Am really happy that TZP been selected to represent India at an international forum like the Oscars. It is a film that is extremely close to my heart. It's a film that first sensitized me as a parent and as person and then went on to have same effect on all the audience in India and across the globe. I hope that it has an equally strong impact on the members of the Academy as well."
The movie has won various accolades at awards functions in India this year in categories of best film, best director, best story and more.Film Federation of India (FFI) chairperson Suneel Darshan led this year's committee for the Oscars nomination. Other jury members include Bijon Das Gupta, Aruna Raje, Ravi Kotharakara, H M Ramachandran, Sudarshan Rao, Mahesh Kothare, Jagdish Sharma, B R Ishara and Manoj Chaturvedi. A total of nine Indian movies were contesting this year for the Oscar nomination, of which Bollywood had the highest share with movies like Taare Zameen Par, Ashutosh Gowarikar's Jodhaa Akbar, Neeraj Pandey's A Wednesday, Nishikant Kamat's Mumbai Meri Jaan, Abhishek Kapoor's Rock On and Subhash Ghai's Black & White. The two Marathi movies that were in the running were Tingya and Valu along with one Telegu movie Gamayam.Speaking to Businessofcinema.com, Darshan says, "It was a difficult task to choose from the nine movies.

The Pianist

Directed by Roman Polanski
Starring: Adrien Brody, Thomas Kretschmnn, Emilia Fox, Frank Finlay
Running Tim2:28
CountrPoland/UK
Year: 2002

A talented Polish Jewish pianist escapes deportation. He is transferred o the Warsaw ghetto, from which he escapes to find refuge in the ruins of the capital. From one hideout to another, he gets help from people, and unexpectedly from a German officer who is struck by his genius.

Three years after the poor Ninth Gate, Polanski returns with very traditional direction. The Pianist is the academic and literal adaptation of musician Wladislaw Szpilman's memories. This fictional reconstitution of a tragic episode of the Shoah doesn't shine by its formal inventiveness, at least in the first part. Admittedly, Polanski thoroughly describes the inescapable process of dehumanization implemented by the Nazis. Jews are slowly relegated, deprived of the most elementary rights and humiliated before being exterminated. Divided between incomprehension, fear and absurdity, the protagonists quietly undergo the Nazi oppression, before revolting: it is the famous episode of the Warsaw ghetto's resistance.

Adrien Brody (already noticed in Bread and Roses) lends his slender silhouette and emaciated face to this pianist genius. Through the portrait of a musician caught into events, arises of course the theme of the place and usefulness of art during wartime. Deprived of his instrument, the artist is nothing. However, he owes his survival to a haunting performance in front of a German officer who's discovered his hideaway. This scene, one of strongest of the film, restores Szpilman's integrity as an artist, while bringing a dash of humanity to the German officer.

Unfortunately, you have to wait 110 minutes before getting to the most successful scenes. The film becomes truly enthralling when, isolated, the pianist must ensure his survival in the ruins of Warsaw (haunting sequences of devastation). With fear and hunger in his belly, he's anguished to be uncovered. Polanski renders this fear palpable. The lack of food also becomes a dramatic stake.

In spite of an accumulation of stereotyped scenes, the film is successful in the point of view adopted by Polanski: the war is seen only by the small end of the spyglass. Indeed, Szpilman is a character who hides and flees throughout film. He sees war only through windows, half-opened doors and holes in the walls.... Even the few days of the resistance in the ghetto are seen through a window. Some explosions and shots: this is how Polanski approaches this glorious episode: with stupefying scarcity. He could have chosen to show the desperate fighting of the Jewish resistance, but here the fiction gains in intensity.

The audience is put in the same position as the hero, sharing the same vision of the event. It is regrettable that the accuracy of the direction does not carry the whole film from beginning to end.

While Polanski manages to evacuate a certain number of stereotypes from his story, the film is nevertheless consensual. A passionless Palme d'Or was awarded to The Pianist.

Malena

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Italy/United States, 2000
U.S. Release Date: 12/25/00 (Limited)
Running Length: 1:32
MPAA Classification: R (Nudity, sexual situations, violence)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1

Cast: Monica Bellucci, Giuseppe Sulfaro, Luciano Federico, Matilde Piana, Pietro Notarianni, Gaetano Aronica, Gilberto Idonea
Director: Giuseppe Tornatore
Producers: Carlo Bernasconi, Harvey Weinstein
Screenplay: Giuseppe Tornatore, based on a story by Luciano Vincenzoni
Cinematography: Lajos Koltai
Music: Ennio Morricone
U.S. Distributor: Miramax Films
In Italian with subtitles

Malena, the latest film from Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore, is a curious mix of whimsy and tragedy. Tornatore's blending of the divergent tones is not entirely successful - there are several jarring moments - but, on the whole, Malena works as an affecting coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of Fascist Italy and filtered through the memories of the narrator. Along the way, Tornatore sticks to the same basic style that served him well in his 1989 international hit, Cinema Paradiso, by employing equal parts nostalgia, comedy, and drama.

The year is 1940 and the place is the picturesque (and fictional) town of Castelcuta, Sicily. 13-year old Renato Amoroso (Giuseppe Sulfaro) is about to experience his first major adolescent crush when he catches a glimpse of Melena Scordia (Monica Bellucci). Melena, the daughter of Latin teacher Professor Bonsignore (Pietro Notarianni), has come to Castelcuta to care for her father while her husband is away at war. As Malena walks by, every man's head turns and women's tongues wag with scathing gossip. Then Melena's husband is killed in the war and she becomes free to pursue and be pursued by Castelcuta's male population. Meanwhile, Renato, whose infatuation develops into an obsession, begins spying on Malena and, in the process, learns that the "real" Malena is much different than his idealized portrait of her.

Ultimately, this is really Renato's story. He is the narrator (gazing back through the mists of decades at his childhood) and the emotional focus of the story is on how his perception of Melena helps him to develop into a man. When the film begins, he is in short pants (a sign of childhood), but, before it ends four years later, he has made the symbolic transition to long pants and burgeoning adulthood. Through it all, his obsessive interest in Melena is a constant companion, even though he never speaks to her. For Renato, she represents the unattainable, and his affections are clearly unrequited. Nevertheless, as her reputation in Castelcuta deteriorates and she is branded a prostitute, he feels betrayed by her because she is unable to live up to the mental image he has constructed of her.

Malena begins as a lighthearted drama that recalls one of Federico Fellini's best-known works, Amarcord. Tornatore does not have Fellini's deft hand, however, and the story eventually takes a dark turn, with some of its themes and ideas recalling the late Krzysztof Kieslowski's A Short Film About Love, in which a young voyeur comes has his fantasy picture of a woman brutally shattered by an encounter with her. The shifts in tone may make some viewers uncomfortable (especially one scene of graphic brutality that depicts what happens to Malena when she is subjected to the justice of the women of Castelcuta), but they work if we consider that the story is being presented as a series of conflicted and at times incomplete memories of someone who saw Malena as everything from a Madonna to a whore.

Malena isn't really a character; she's a vision to enflame Renato's imagination (not to mention other parts of him). As such, the key achievement for model-turned-actress Monica Bellucci is to look stunning - something she has no difficulty with, whether clothed or unclothed. Bellucci does a good job of making Melena seem aloof and stand-offish (which is how she appears to Renato), except during one or two scenes when her dire circumstances show her vulnerability. For his part, newcomer Giuseppe Sulfaro, who was discovered after an extensive casting search, does solid work portraying a boy whose guide through puberty is an untouchable woman. (When his father brings him to the local brothel to be initiated into the world of sexual maturity, Renato chooses a prostitute who strongly resembles Malena.)

One of the most powerful elements of Malena is the music, by frequent Tornatore collaborator and legendary composer, Ennio Morricone. Combined with cinematographer Lajos Koltai's sweeping camera work and beautifully photographed vistas, the music gives Malena a glorious backdrop against which the story can unfold. This is not the writer/director's most accomplished feature (Cinema Paradiso is a more complete and emotionally satisfying experience), but it offers a strong central character, an interesting historical subtext, and a coming-of-age narrative that most people will be able to relate to on one level or another.

© 2000 James Berardinelli