For over half a century, the Berlin International Film Festival has sought to place an emphasis on political films and this year’s festival continues that tradition. But what looks political isn’t always so, while true politics sometimes makes its entry into a film by the back door.
A case of the former is the Indian film A THOUSAND DREAMS SUCH AS THESE (Hazaaron khwaishein aisi), directed by Sudhir Mishra. It tells the tale of three friends from college who follow different paths through a tumultuous period that begins with leftist students demonstrating for workers in 1969, continues in 1973 with a movement by a smaller cadre of radicalized students to organize low-caste agricultural workers in the remote countryside in 1973, and concludes in the violently repressive months of 1975 when Indira Gandhi turned herself from elected president to ruthless dictator with the flourish of a pen.
While each of the friends partakes of different aspects of the perilously fluid India in ways that, individually, would ring true, taken as a trio they are too emblematic. Siddharth (Kay Kay Menon) is the most ideologically committed and most ready to man the barricades. But as the scion of a well-to-do family, he has grown up a bit arrogant and his radicalism has an air of noblesse oblige. In contrast to Siddharth, Vikram (Shiney Ahuja) grew up lower-middle-class and his main interest lies in grabbing as big a slice of the burgeoning Indian economy as he can, no matter that it means getting involved in political corruption. Finally, as you might have guesses, there’s the beautiful young woman who tempers her leftwing politics with a practical, non-revolutionary perspective. Geeta (Chitrangda Singh) is, however, more drawn to the fiery Siddharth, even though it’s the loyal Vikram who often gets either one or both of his old friends out of jams.
The political backdrop is really just that, psychic scenery, and the political leanings of the characters are there only as personality indicators. Mishra isn’t much for anything beyond loose close-ups, medium shots and modest establishing shots, and the ensuing TV look reinforces the notion of television miniseries that the action already has suggested.
INFERNAL AFFAIRS III, on the other hand, does boast a true political strain, although ultimately its interests are profoundly psychological. The final entry in Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s police-triad epic, it was shown the day after the grand Gotterdammerung of part II and differs from it in several respects. Most simply, it occurs several years later and although it covers a more compact time period than part II, just 2002 and 2003, its flashback structure is far more intricate. Lau and Mak make the audience participate in the action to the fullest by beginning to use, but then ceasing, and then reusing, subtitles that mark the exact period when the action occurs, not just with dates, but by the deaths of various characters.
The cream of Hong Kong action stars – Leon Lai, Andy Lau, Tony Leung, Eric Tsang and others – play those characters in an intense study of what happens to double agents when they spend years at their jobs. Both the Hong Kong police department, now under mainland rule, and the triad, which is making its adjustments with mainland gangs, are permeated by moles sent by the other side. Some of the moles surrender to their disguises, actually ´becoming what they pretended to be (which can be good or bad depending on the circumstances. The worst fate is the entire disintegration of personality that can ensue when an double agent can no longer reconcile the contradictions in his life.
These fractures of personality are mirrored by the complex, and carefully fractured editing scheme. And while part III is nowhere near as physically violent as part II, the psychic damage it depicts is at least as harrowing. Together, INTERNAL AFFAIRS II and III account for a major achievement.
Bosnian-born director Nina Kusturica’s Austrian film, AUSWEGE (Sign of Escape), sets us right down in the middle of movie-of-the-week territory. In the space of 90 minutes, Kusturica introduces us to three women victims of spousal abuse, depicts how they get help, and whether they are able to make use of it.
Two of the women face familiar problems. Austrian Claudia has a physically abusive boyfriend who rapes her within earshot of her two daughters. Sladjana is a Bosnian immigrant whose husband not only regularly hits her, but who is able to grab their kids and run back to Bosnia when she seeks help.
Kusturica’s most imaginative creation is Margit, a woman of late middle age who is being brow-beaten to death by an emotionally abusive husband (a school principal, wouldn’t you know). Unfortunately, Margit’s situation gets only a fraction of the screen time the other two women receive. One inevitably thinks back to R.W. Fassbinder, who would have built a domestic epic around Margit.
For the second night in a row, Korean cinema scored a coup, this time with an adaptation of “Dangerous Liaisons,” UNTOLD SCANDAL (Chosun Nam Nyo Sang Yeol Jisa). Director E J-Yong has actually made a wittier, more melancholy, and absolutely sexier version of the tale than either Stephen Frears or Milos Forman managed to do with their efforts.
The noble cousins competing to corrupt a chaste 27-year-old widow (who never got the chance to sleep with her husband) and the 16-year-old virgin promised to their local lord, have been given bigger erotic stakes this time out. Sir Chow San is not only a rake, but a painter specializing in nude portraits of his lovers and books of prints depicting, in strict detail, episodes of their lovermaking.
Lady Jung’s interests are represented by her impending sexual devaluation. The 16-year-old will be replacing this practiced courtesan as the lord’s prime lover, and the idea of being replaced by an inexperienced virgin drives her wild – if emotion buried under a tightly reined, placid surface can be called wild. And of course, there’s the undercurrent of mutual attraction between the two cynical cousins.
Yong has a great time contrasting the prim code of manners prevalent in 18th-century Korean court life (apparently far more rigid than anything in France) with the flamboyant misbehavior of its more fun-loving members (there’s a considerable amount of nudity). The pace is fast, yet the ending, in which everyone is served the deserts they so rightly deserved, is as tragic as the material demands. UNTOLD SCANDAL is a literary adaptation of a very high order.