The Past: Struggle to pass over

In his recent French film The Past (2013), Academy award winning Iranian director Asghar Faradhi, carefully constructs a world of conflicted characters and fragmented relationships. Reminiscent of the Oscar award winning A Separation, this movie delves into the lives of a soon-to-be-divorced couple and explores the ripples created by their estrangement.

In the film, a French woman, Marie (Berenice Bejo) and an Iranian man, Ahmed (Ali Mosaffa), have been separated for four years.  The impetus to finalise their divorce occurs when Marie starts a new relationship with an Arab man, Samir (Tahar Rahim). While the relationship between Marie and Ahmad shows the flickering sparks of being an old married couple who have grown apart, the relatively nascent romance between Marie and Samir is tenuous and fraught with uncertainty. 

The strained dynamic between these three individuals is compounded by the fact that Samir is married and his wife is comatose. Furthermore, Marie’s daughters from a previous marriage (preceding her marriage to Ahmed) and Samir’s son are caught in the fray, struggling to grapple with the choices of their parents.  As the characters in the film negotiate their present realities, they are paralysed by their own pasts.

Faradhi peels off the layers of every character to expose the fears and truths that lie at their core. The characters in the film are inextricably bound to each other and their seemingly simple acts prove to have catastrophic consequences.  The director skilfully offers the audience a vantage point from which to explore these individuals and their revelations.

The French-Argentine actress Berenice Bejo (who gained renown for her role in The Artist) displays her versatility as the distraught and melancholic Marie. Ali Mosaffa’s character Ahmed is eager for resolution and evokes sympathy, becoming the perfect foil to Bejo. Elyes Aguis, who plays Samir’s young son Faoud, also delivers a heart-wrenching and noteworthy performance.

Director: Asghar Farhadi

Farhadi is a masterful storyteller with a flair for showcasing the nuances of human sentiments. What differentiates Faradhi’s film from the works of his directorial predecessors of the Iranian New Wave like Majidi or Kirostami, is that he extracts his protagonist (Ahmed) from the Iranian homeland. The movie unfolds in a quaintly French setting but maintains Iran as a motif. Farhadi creates a world where he explores the ideas of love, loss, remorse, tragedy and hope. His camera work, like that of Jon-Luc Godard, is unobtrusive. His portrayal of characters, like the films of Jon Renoir, is deeply humanist.

Subtle symbolism punctuates the movie. An ongoing renovation takes place in Marie’s home throughout the film, symbolic of the repairs that are due in her own personal life. In another scene, glass chandeliers jolt precariously in the back seat as Marie and Samir drive their car, representing the fragility of their relationship. Lastly, as Samir visits his wife in the hospital, her life hangs in the balance, as does the future of all the relationships between the various characters in the film.

Film clip

The Past fortifies Farhadi’s position as a ground-breaking film-maker with a definitive perspective on the human condition. It is Iran’s entry to the 86th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. Whether or not it earns Farhadi his second Oscar award, it remains a testament to his directorial prowess.   

- Parinitha Shinde

Sarah’s Key: Lessons from history

“We are all products of history,” says a dying father to his son William. The scene is from the poignant narrative film Sarah’s Key, a 2010 French-English film directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner.

How true! Of course we are all products of our history, whether we like it or not. History may be the thing of the past, but no one must forget history and history must shape our present and put us in right mode for the future. The difficulty is when we refuse to learn from history and make the same mistakes over and over again, as it happens in the world today.

Director: Gilles Paquet-Brenner

Film Clip

The film is about a journalist’s (Julia played by Kristine Scot-Thomas) quest to go behind history to know the truth about the deportation of hundreds of French Jews to concentration camps in Auschwitz during the Second World War. Most of them died there, though one of the two little girls who escaped the camp managed to survive. The journalist takes it upon herself to find out where and how that little girl Sarah, who escaped in 1942, is in the present. Her journey takes her to different places and different people. She has also to face the reality, though with a little relief at the end, that her family too is somehow connected to the whole episode of that deportation. Does she find Sarah? How does she confront her? The answer to these questions makes the crux of the whole narrative and is depicted with utmost precision, raising curiosity at each stage.

The film goes back and forth between 1940s and 2009. This also adds to the poetic narrative, though very heartrending in certain places. However, nowhere does the director attempt to portray a melodramatic tale, even as the issue is painfully stark and inhuman. He, rather, tries to draw an optimistic tale.

The Second World War and Hitler’s Anti-Semitism have inspired many films. This film is unique in its portrayal of the sordid tale as it dances between melancholic pessimism and incorrigible optimism. 

- Melwyn Pinto SJ

The Chorus - education through music

There have been several films which have teacher as the protagonist. To Sir With Love and Freedom Writers come to mind immediately. But this 2004 French film The Chorus (Les Choristes) is unique, because here the teacher uses music to tame and mould a bunch of impossible boys. Thus music is the second protagonist in this film.

Director Christophe Barratier

Film Clip

Clement Mathieu played by Gerard  Jugnot, though looks like a dumb guy, is an exceptional teacher who can very well read the minds of the boys. In fact, he is a genius, which the boys realise but slowly. While their Principal, a Hitler style terror, thinks punishment is the best way to train boys, Mr Mathieu has other ideas. He uses music to engage boys and to discipline them.

Among other things, the music score composed by Bruno Coulais is just superb – it’s sensitive and it’s heart-warming. Further, young Jean-Baptiste Maunier who plays Pierre Morhange is indeed impressive as the gifted singer.

The film, no doubt, raises many a question about the present day education system worldwide, which is bereft of attention to students’ overall well being and focuses largely on dry academics and discipline. While students need to learn discipline in life, there is more than one way to master and impart it, which not many educationists understand. Helping students engage in activities their heart is in and allowing them to discipline themselves would be a far easier way to educate students than the hard way of screams, yells and brickbats. The Chorus seems to suggest just that.

Director Christophe Barratier has been more than successful in brining the best out of the crew to make a well crafted art work that stands out for several reasons.

- Melwyn Pinto SJ