“The cinema is always as perfect as it can be”

Much of the rest of the film world is directing its attention across the Atlantic to some other film festival, but here in Pittsburgh I’m thinking about the three films I saw last weekend at our very own Silk Screen Asian American Film Fest and looking forward to the five or so films I plan to see this weekend.

I couldn’t make it to any of the opening night events, so my festival started on Saturday with Takva: A Man’s Fear of God (2006), a production of Fatih Akin’s Corazón International that has done well on the festival circuit (description). I’m glad I saw Takva first: its theme, how to be a good person in the modern world, is present to varying degrees in the other two films I saw last weekend, allowing me to (try to) think of the three of them as a sort of thematic trilogy.

Takva is refreshingly open-minded in the way that it criticizes organized religion without condemning it. I wasn’t keen on the ending, which is abrupt, somewhat clichéd, and seems like a cop-out; it’s as if the film is missing its entire last act. Mostly, though, Takva impressed me, especially for a first feature. I loved Erkan Can’s performance as Muharrem. He manages the difficult feat of bringing to life a character who is a simple man, but still a complicated human being. Recommended. (Takva plays again on Saturday at 8:30pm at Melwood.)

I saw Amal (2007) about 30 minutes after Takva at a suddenly packed Regent Square Theater. Although Amal isn’t the strongest movie of the three I’ve seen, this screening was the most fun I had all weekend. The film, an official selection of the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival, tells the story of a rickshaw driver named Amal (Rupinder Nagra) who, unbeknownst to him, is bequeathed a fortune by a wealthy eccentric named G.K. Jayaram (Naseeruddin Shah) he briefly encounters on the latter’s last day on earth. The catch: the executors of Jayaram’s will have to find Amal in 30 days or else the money goes to Jayaram’s apparently greedy, unloving sons. Unfortunately, the man responsible for finding Amal is Jayaram’s partner Suresh (Roshan Seth), who stands to benefit from arranging to fail to track the rickshaw driver down.

There are problems with the film, certainly: The voice over narration by Shah which bookends the film, for instance, is distracting, the filmmaking technique is solid but unremarkable, and many of the characters are one-dimensional. Amal is engaging throughout, however, and aided by one or two exceptionally strong scenes (like Shah’s brief musical number) and the laughter of an energetic and appreciative full house I found myself warming to it, so that by time the lights went up I was quite looking forward to the Q&A with Nagra and director Richie Mehta that followed the film.

I often find Q&As tedious, but this one sold me on the film. As Mehta talked about what attracted him to the story Amal is based on (I don’t think I’m “spoiling” anything by quoting Mehta on the film’s ending: “He’s [Amal’s] smiling and I’m not–what does this say about me?”) I grew increasingly impressed by what he has accomplished with this film. Like Takva, Amal is about what it means to be a “good”; where that film tells the story of someone trying to be virtuous, though, this film offers us a moral spectrum of characters ranging from the very clearly bad (Jayaram’s son Vivek [Vik Sahay]) to the almost saintly good (Amal) and asks us to decide where on it we want to be. Interesting. I’m glad to have seen it.

The Edge of Heaven (2007), the latest feature by Fatih Akin, whose Head-On (2004) was my favorite movie of the year in 2005, was the film in this year’s lineup that I was most eager to see. I want to see it again before I decide just what exactly I think about it (this is a compliment of sorts), but I can say now that’s neither a disappointment nor a revelation. Catherine Wheatley’s Sight & Sound review includes a full synopsis of the film’s ambitious plot. Everything makes sense, which is itself an accomplishment, and there’s a nice symmetry to the whole thing, although it occasionally feels too neat, like it was forced into a predetermined shape.

I say that as if I didn’t spend all week trying to describe The Edge of Heaven in terms of my chosen theme of “how to be good,” which really isn’t appropriate to it. I do like the way the characters’ decisions are never clearly “right” or “wrong.” Here are links to two writers that weren’t afraid to properly tackle this film: Katja Nicodemus at signandsight.com (translated by Meredith Dale) and Thomas Elsaesser at Film Comment. (The Edge of Heaven plays again on Friday at 8pm at Melwood.)

On tap for next week: two “Nikkatsu Action Cinema” films at the Warhol, Tuya’s Marriage (2006), Half Moon (2006), and Chop Shop (2007).

Feed on comments to this Post