238. Italian maestro Roberto Rossellini’s film “Stromboli, terra di Dio” (Stromboli) (1950) (Italy) (Italian, English): A slightly different perspective of the classic nearly 70 years after the film was made--atheism vs. theism

Many cineastes are aware of Roberto Rossellini’s famous work called Stromboli. But how many are aware of its complete title Stromboli, terra di Dio, which translates asStromboli, land of God? The full title is essential to grasp what Rossellini as its director and its original story writer wanted to state through the film he conceived and made for us to enjoy and appreciate.

The bulk of the critical analyses of the film considers the story outside of the film’s narrative—the extramarital affair between Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman and Rossellini, which led to the birth of three offspring and a brief self-enforced exile of Ms Bergman from Hollywood. Ms Bergman, while working in Hollywood, had expressed her desire to work with Rossellini after viewing his two films prior to Stromboli—Paisan and Rome Open City—by writing this brief and famous letter to him without having met him.

Dear Mr Rossellini,
I saw your films Open City and Paisan, and enjoyed them very much. If you need a Swedish actress who speaks English very well,who has not forgotten her German, who is not very understandable in French, and who in Italian knows only "ti amo," I am ready to come and make a film with you.
Ingrid Bergman

Ingrid Bergman as Karin

It is quite conceivable that Rossellini wrote the story of Stromboli, terra di Dio withMs Bergman in his mind to play the role of a Lithuanian prisoner-of-war who had an affair with a German army officer during World War II. In contrast to Alfred Hitchcock, who made films (three of those with Bergman in the lead roles) with detailed scripts and precise words to be learnt by rote and spoken by the actors, Rossellini merely wrote a story sketch and developed the spoken lines as he went along, just as Terrence Malick made films many decades later.  The volcano on the island of Stromboli was not expected to erupt during the filming and the entire volcanic activity captured in the film is real and not faked or recreated artificially. The denizens of the island knew what to do if and when the volcano erupted and knew the procedure of taking shelter in boats cast out to sea but well within view of the island.

The simple, hard-working fisherman Antonio (Mario Vitale),
husband of Karin

Antonio falls in love with Karin, a Lithuanian prisoner of war,
exchanging few words with barbed wire separating them 

Rossellini wrote the story/script that tossed the lives of the main characters against a very unpredictable and life threatening natural calamity. Being an Italian, Rossellini was influenced by the Catholic Church and evidently he was quite familiar with the Bible and consciously included the character of a Catholic priest with a significant role within the film’s tale.

Rossellini’s familiarity with the Bible is evident when the film opens with a quote chosen from theBible—The Book of Romans, Chapter 10, verse 20, which reads “I was found by those who did not seek me. I was made manifest to those who did not ask for me. ” The passage is attributed to Apostle Paul writing to the Romans in the New Testament where the “I“ refers to God. Interestingly, the passage itself is a cross reference to the precise words of the prophet Isaiah stated earlier in the Old Testament within the Book of Isaiah Chapter 65, verse 1. 

It is immaterial whether director Rossellini and actress Bergman were staunch believers in God—what matters is that the title of the film Stromboli, terra di Dio includes the word “Dio” (God) and the film begins with an important quotation in the Bible, which incidentally appears twice in the Bible.

Karin is found lacking in modesty by the elder womenfolk of the island

The biblical start of the film gains importance towards the end of the film when Ms Bergman’s character Karin in the film utters the final words of the film “God..my God..help me,  give me the strength.. the understanding .. and the courage.  God, God, God, merciful  God. God, God. God.” Prior to those words are Karin’s words of epiphany “Oh God! Oh God! What mystery, what beauty!”  after the volcano settles down, and the smoke withdraws to show birds flying against a clear sky.

The last words and the ending of the film are in stark contrast to the words spoken earlier by Bergman’s Karin to the priest on the island that God had not been merciful to her and had left her desolate. (“With me, God has never been merciful” ..“These black rocks, this desolation, that...that ‘terror,’ the island drives me mad, Father!”)

Karin finds the population of the island "horrible"

Karin, as Rossellini etched her character, is able to comprehend that she has sinned in the past by having an affair with an officer of the invading Nazi German army (“I was trapped like all the rest .I..I have sinned but I have paid”) Karin is also a woman who threw out an image of Virgin Mary that Antonio’s (Mario Vitale) dead mother had kept in the house  while renovating  the meagre dwelling, much to the chagrin of Antonio, when he realizes what his wife Karin had done. Even if Karin has no respect for images of Virgin Mary in the house, Karin who calls the villagers of Stromboli “horrible,” for  describing her to be lacking in modesty, self realizes with magnanimity during the volcanic eruption that she, Karin, is worse than them.“They don’t know what they are doing. I am even worse.” Some of the theology in the film can be attributed to Father Felix Morlion, who was consulted by Rossellini while writing the script.

Now, if the viewer accepts the theological undercurrent of the film, it is most amusing that in USA the film was released as an 81 minute version (in contrast to the restored 107 minute version) bowing to the call of church groups, women’s organizations and US legislators who wanted the film to be banned solely because of the publicity of the extra-marital affair of Ms Bergman with Rossellini and the birth of their illegitimate child rather than the contents of the film. A Colorado Senator called Ms Bergman “a powerful influence for evil” (Ref. Stromboli film on Wikipedia). The  81-minute US version that did not have Rossellini’s approval had an ending that implied Karin was returning to her husband Antonio, which is never assumed in the restored 107 minute version. (Ironically, Ms Bergman was re-accepted and lauded by Hollywood years later for her role in Anastasia.)  In contrast to the negative reception of the film Stromboli, terra di Dio in USA, the longer Rossellini film version won the Rome Prize for Cinema (the best Italian film award) in 1950.

Now, if the viewer were to be an atheist, the film can be appreciated differently. Karin is obviously a woman who is not respectful of the religious artefacts kept by husband Antonio’s dead mother and throws them away to renovate and redecorate the house. She is an attractive woman who wants and enjoys attention from male personalities that she encounters—including a Catholic priest who tries to help her adjust to her husband but resolutely rebuffs her advances.

Karin is an opportunist wanting a life more interesting than what she had in Lithuania (her hope there was the German army officer), more interesting than Italy (she wanted to emigrate to Argentina), escape the life of a POW in Italy (she succeeds in marrying an Italian) and after being in Stromboli for a while, she yearns for a better life by leaving her devout, simple husband and escaping to the other side of the island. But the protective woman in Karin emerges briefly in the film when she is upset viewing a trapped rabbit being killed by a ferret.  Visually it is clear that Karin, after the volcano has stopped erupting, is as concerned about the child in her womb as she was with the rabbit. She aspires for a better deal for herself and her unborn child, in another geographical location, even though she is penniless and without a change of clothes (reminiscent of the final pages of John Bunyan's book The Pilgrim's Progress written in 1678) .  What she does or rather what she intends to do is never clearly stated.

Karin escaping her life with husband Antonio and the erupting volcano 

Rossellini leaves the ending open ended for the viewer to interpret–a treatment rarely accepted in commercial cinema worldwide.

The greatness of this work is the depiction of conflicts of man and nature without employing special effects or cinematic tricks which flood cinema today. Rossellini’s filming recalls the world of Robert Flaherty and his classics Man of Aran (1934), shot in Ireland, and Nanook of the North (1922), shot in USA. Like Flaherty, Rossellini used the real population of Stromboli, except those employed for the major roles. Thus, the real tuna fishing sequences can be termed docu-fiction taking a leaf out of Flaherty.

The exhausted Karin falls asleep as the violent eruptions
of the volcano subside, the profile of Karin seemingly mimicked
by the now quiet volcano, while the moon shines at both

The effort of Rossellini to craft the final half hour of Stromboli, terra di Dio is commendable while some detractors will fault the film’s details such as the lack of grime on Ms Bergman's body. This film is truly one of the best works of neo-realism ranking alongside Olmi’s The Tree of Wooden Clogs, made without professional actors decades later.

P.S.  Ermanno Olmi’s The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978), reviewed earlier on this blog, is a neo-realist classic that won the top honour at Cannes film festival and one of the author’s top 10 films. Few are aware that the then Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was so impressed by Rossellini's work that he invited him to come to India and invigorate the state-run Films Division's documentaries. Rossellini accepted the invitation only to fall in love with another married woman, this time a Bengali lady, Sonali Dasgupta, create another controversy, and eventually marry her! The influential journal of film Sight and Sound's Critics Poll lists Stromboli, terra di Dio as one of 250 greatest films of all time.

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237. Italian maestro Ermanno Olmi’s feature film “La Leggenda del Santo Bevitore” (The Legend of the Holy Drinker) (1988) (France/Italy): One of the finest examples of magic realism in film history and the importance of making the right choices of appropriate background music

Ermanno Olmi (1931-2018) is not often discussed on the same plane as Orson Welles or Andrei Tarkovsky. Yet they have certain similarities in their body of film output.  Olmi made 20 feature films and bagged over 50 international awards. His best work The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978) is as awesome as Welles’ masterpiece Citizen Kane (1941). Olmi’s film was based on his own original script, which he directed, cinematographed, edited and for which he personally picked an array of non-professional actors. For Citizen Kane, Welles had co-written an original script with Herman Mankiewicz, directed, produced, acted in the main role, and chosen his own cast of professional actors (most of them making their film debuts) and crew.  Olmi’s film won the Golden Palm at the Cannes film festival for the best feature film; Welles won a solitary Oscar for the co-written original screenplay. Olmi and Tarkovsky have common streaks, too; both are evidently theistic, Olmi a fervent Roman Catholic, Tarkovsky a resolute adherent of the Russian Orthodox Church. Both Olmi and Tarkovsky chose their music for their works with considerable deliberation, a fact missed out by many of their respective fans.

The scruffy vagrant Andreas (Rutger Hauer), living under a bridge

A stranger and benefactor (Anthony Quale) offers Andreas a "loan"

Olmi’s 12^th feature film The Legend of the Holy Drinker,made 10 years after The Tree of Wooden Clogs, won the Golden Lion award for the best feature film and another minor award at the Venice film festival.  In this film, Olmi made a couple of departures from his usual trademark style—he chose to mix professional actors (Dutch actor Rutger Hauer of Blade Runner fame, British actor Anthony Quayle of Anne of the Thousand Days fame, Dominique Pinon of Delicatessen fame) with non-professional actors (the enigmatic Sophie Segalen who plays the Polish woman Karoline, and Jean-Maurice Chanet, who plays the Polish boxer) who never returned to the world of film. Olmi made another significant departure in this film: he chose to adapt a novel written by Austrian writer Joseph Roth, instead of writing his own original script as in most of his other films. Olmi co-wrote the adapted script based on Roth’s book with Tullio Kezich (who had earlier played the role of the psychologist in Olmi’s earlier film Il Posto).

Andreas can look somewhat distinguished when he can afford a shave
(and has a roving eye for women)

Sophie Segalen, who plays Karoline, a nonprofessional actress picked by
Olmi, who never returned to the world of film 

The tale is deceptively simple.  Andreas is an alcoholic, unemployed tramp with a Polish passport, living homeless under bridges along the river Seine in a rainy Paris. His passport bears a stamp stating that he has been expelled from France. For a vagrant, he is unusual. He wears a necktie and believes in looking respectable when he can afford a shave. His looks and demeanor indicate that he is a “gentleman” tramp, which is possibly why men and women trust him and are only eager to help him.  He is reluctant to accept money (a sum of 200 French Francs) from a stranger as a gift but agrees to take it when the generous stranger states that he could consider it as a loan. Andreas is resolute in his intent to repay the loan, when possible, not to the stranger but to the vicar of the church of St Therese of Lisieux in Paris, who the stranger had indicated will know what to do with the returned sum.

Andreas is not overtly religious—merely a gentleman tramp, with a roving eye, but always ready to help a friend in need.  As the film progresses, we learn that in school, Andreas would let his classmates, who were not as bright as he was, copy his answers in the examinations.  The film, if you examine it closely, is less about religion and more about being morally upright and being good to those less fortunate. The film propounds magic realism to underscore to the viewer that good deeds will eventually lead to amazing blessings from unexpected sources.  The film suggests in a fabulous magical sequence of epiphany involving a poor elderly couple who magically transform to Andreas’  recollection of his parents—a sublime sequence indicating that Andreas is indebted to his parents for inculcating fine traits in him that have held him in good stead. It is a sequence that has so many similarities with Tarkovsky’s Mirror where magic realism is employed to recall the role of parents and in his later work Stalker where a girl observes a glass on a table moving on its own accord, aided by external reverberations.

Repaying the loan of 200 French francs, finally as agreed

Olmi and Kezich crafted the script of The Legend of the Holy Drinker where the spoken words are minimal. The tale is communicated with visuals (read cinematography of Dante Spinotti), editing, and musical score (the last of which is lost on most viewers because the other two elements dominate).  While other directors and scriptwriters would have wasted spoken lines on the inconsequential sexual encounters of Andreas, Olmi and Kezich reduce them in one sequence to mere furtive glances and the closing of curtains, without a word spoken.  When words are spoken in The Legend of the Holy Drinker  it is to indicate the integrity of the tramp:  when a stranger offers him a drink at a bar and a job, his acceptance is sealed with another round of drinks that the gentleman tramp insists on paying for with the meager possession of coins with him. That the tramp was not religious is indirectly inferred by a cryptic statement he makes to an old friend from Poland “These last few days I have started believing in miracles.” He should. He buys a wallet, and finds money in it.  Then a policeman returns him his wallet, with more money in it. Andreas believes in returning his “loaned” money several times in the film, but is distracted near the church each time by extraneous interventions.  He wishes to return the loan, but the goodness and grace that embody every little action of his seem to prevent his fervent desire to repay the loan. One can assume the connection between gracious actions and unexpected rewards are from Roth’s book.  

The reaction of Andreas on meeting "Therese" at the
restaurant near the Church where he has to repay the loan

Olmi’s distinct contributions are the visual complements of the cinematic craft at key points in the film: the smiling “Therese” in her third appearance in the film approving the repayment of his loan shown through a door slightly ajar edited into the film—a private communication between the two, another epiphany.

Olmi chose three pieces of music written by Stravinsky—not his famous Rites of Spring. The three pieces are Divertimento, Symphony in C, and Sinfonia di Salvi per Coro—Salmo 40 or Psalm 40. The last of the three Stravinsky pieces is very significant. Psalm 40 in the Bible is King David’s song of praise “I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry.  He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire. He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand….” 

Tarkovsky’s choice of music in Solaris—Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in F minor and The Little Organ Book: Ich ruf zu Dir, Herr Jesu Christ—are conscious decisions, too, to complement the visuals in specific sequences. That the film The Legend of the Holy Drinker won the Golden Lion at Venice from a jury headed by Sergio Leone whose films used music so eloquently is possibly a nod to Olmi’s musical selection in the film that Leone could perceive.

Olmi’s films always deal with deprived sections of society.  More so Olmi’s protagonists (e.g., Il Posto, The Tree of Wooden Clogs) are far removed from the reflecting, philosophizing intellectuals we encounter in Tarkovsky’s films—here they are honest, hardworking, principled individuals, often losing out to the machinations of the rich or unprincipled folks, akin to scenarios that we encounter in the films of Ken Loach and his scriptwriter Paul Laverty.  

A painting? Cinematography of Dante Spinotti,
capturing light and shadows

Olmi chose to work with Italian cinematographer Dante Spinotti for the first time in The Legend of the Holy Drinker and later in yet another film The Secret of the Old Woods (1993). Spinotti had a similar effect on Hollywood director Michael Mann, who was so impressed with his work on Manhunter that their collaboration extended to other more impressive films: Heat, The Last of the Mohicans, The Insider, and Public Enemies.

Few cineastes might be aware that The Legend of the Holy Drinker won several national awards in Italy for direction, cinematography and editing while competing with Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso. The Olmi film is a gem that can be appreciated beyond Joseph Roth’s tale.  It is a rare example where tools of filmmaking—direction, appropriate casting, music, cinematography and editing--prove their subtle prowess.

P.S. The Legend of the Holy Drinker is one of the author’s top 100 films. It won the best Golden Lion award for the best film and the OCIC award at the 1988 Venice Film Festival. Actor Rutger Hauer won the Best Actor award for this film at the Seattle International Film Festival. Several films mentioned in the above review, the Olmi film The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978) and Tarkovsky’s Solaris (1972)and Mirror (1975) have been reviewed earlier on this blog. (Click on the name of the film in this post-script for a quick access to those reviews on this blog.)

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227. Italian director Valerio Zurlini’s last film “Il deserto dei tartari” (The Desert of the Tartars) (1976) (Italy), based on the Italian novel "The Tartar Steppe" by Dino Buzzati: An unforgettable film where cinema proves to be almost as effective as the novel

“In life, everyone has to accept the role that was destined for him” 

–words spoken in the film The Desert of the Tartars, words that best describe the essence of the film

The film Desert of the Tartars, when released in 1976 did not win accolades at film festivals outside Italy, not even being nominated at the prestigious Italian Venice Film festival. Over the decades, it has gradually been recognized as a classic and, 37 years after it was made, it was restored and screened at the 2018 Cannes film festival as one.

One could argue that the importance of the film is primarily due to its adaptation of a major literary work The Tartar Steppe by Dino Buzzati published in 1940 in Italian and subsequently translated into English.  Like the movie, the novel bloomed with time. In 1999, the prestigious French daily Le Monde, in its poll, ranked Buzzati’s book as the 29th best book of the century.  The book had become an iconic example of “magic realism” in literature. The book went on to influence the writings of major writers including the Nobel Prize winner J E M Coetzee, the Lebanese-American statistician and financial analyst turned author Nassim Nicolas Taleb (author of The Black Swan, described by The Sunday Times of UK as one of the 12 most-influential books since World War II) and the Booker Prize winner Yann Martel (author of Life of Pi).

The idealistic Lt Drago (Jacques Perrin) arrives on the outskirts of the
Fort Batiani where he will serve for years seeking glory that will elude him

Italian director Valerio Zurlini saw of the opportunity of adapting the novel on screen when its value was lesser known than it is now, realizing the potential of subtle visuals and music on screen to bring the magic realism of the words in the book. Actor Jacques Perrin had procured the film rights of the book from Buzzati. Zurlini corralled the talents of music composer Ennio Morricone, the elegant cinematographer Luciano Tavoli, and a stunning array of top-notch international actors (Max von Sydow, Jean- Louis Trintignant, Vittorio Gassman, Fernando Rey, Jacques Perrin, Helmut Griem, the spaghetti western hero Giuliano Gemma, Philippe Noiret, Francisco Rabal, etc). So were some important Iranian actors of the day included in the film such as Mohamad Ali Keshavarz, who is not listed in the IMdB credits for the film but this fact appears on the Wikipedia page of the Iranian actor.

Lt Drago introduces himself to the officers at Fort Bastiani. The empty chair
is for him.

The Desert of the Tartars, the film, is an almost all male film, save for the initial sequences of the film showing Lt. Drago at home with his mother as he wakes up from sleep to dress up into military uniform. He enthusiastically rides out of town on a Tartar horse, to report at a far away post of the Italian army in the year 1902. It is his first posting in the army.  The brief initial sequences reveal that the young man belongs to a rich and influential family and is respected by another horse-rider on the streets, who accompanies him up to the edge of the town, apparently knowing Lt. Drago’s intent. Not a single other human being or animal is shown in the town. Zurlini intentionally does away with unnecessary social farewells and family. The horse and its rider are the only objects that matter until the rider meets other military men on his journey. 

Lt Drago (right)  interacts with Lt Simeon (Helmut Griem) atop the fort 

Zurlini’s film shows Lt. Drago leaving his town early in the morning without food/provisions on horseback and arriving at the fortress with just a gulp of water/wine provided by Captain Ortiz (von Sydow) whom he meets en route possibly within a day. Drago’s horse drinks water from a stream once. Yet we realize the Bastiani Fort is very far from Lt Drago’s town or any town for that matter. Time is compressed—magic realism is at work.

Zurlini’s major winning decision was the choice of the location to film the story—a fort on the edges of a desert. It was not in Africa on the edges of the Sahara, or even in Ethiopia. The filming was done in Iran while the Shah of Iran was in power, in and around a real fort made of clay—the Bam citadel (Arg-e Bam)—built in the third century AD. The impressive structure—a UNESCO World Heritage site-- was almost totally destroyed by an earthquake in 2003, but the Islamic government of Iran rebuilt it to match its original grandeur. 

(See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arg_e_Bam for the images of the fort as the Zurlini film captured it and how it appears now after restoration post the 2003 earthquake). 

Apparently, Zurlini chose this location after seeing the painting La Torre Rossa by an Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico. All those decisions taken by Zurlini contributed to make The Desert of the Tartars the film classic it is today.

One of the officers at the fort is Maj. Dr. Rovine (Jean- Louis Trintignant),
an enigma treating the maladies of the militia posted at the fort

Not unlike Franz Kafka’s books The Castle, the Buzzati tale is a quixotic look at human desire to achieve glory in life. Lt. Drago, born into a distinguished family, hopes to attain glory in military life, as he is chosen by fate to serve the Italian army at an obscure border station, a castle on the edge of the desert expecting invasion night and day by the Tartars.  Zurlini, who was a Communist, underscores the social divide by looking critically at the at the lives of officers living in luxury and riding horses, while foot soldiers drag heavy  material on command and are punished severely when they step out of line. Time is a critical element that does not seem to exist throughout the film. Only graves and death of soldiers bring time into focus. Officers and soldiers continue to be billeted at the fort for months and years for the sake of being promoted and hopefully gain honour in battle when it happens. There is almost no contact with their families. Any attempt to get a transfer is subtly thwarted, not unlike Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line that followed several decades later, The Desert of the Tartars is less a film about battles but more about battles of the mind and conscience. At the fort, the viewer learns that there was no battle fought so far. Yet as Lt. Drago arrives he sees graves of soldiers with reversed guns or sabres on top of them, according to their ranks. How then did so many die?

Lt Drago is introduced to the General (Philippe Noiret)
by Col. Fillimore (Vittorio Gassman) (center)

The depth of both the book and the film The Desert of the Tartars emerges from the lack of action in a military setting .The questions the film throws up are existential in nature. The idealistic Lt Drago is an anti-hero joining a group of military men, all trying to prepare for battle against a perceived foe, an army that cannot be seen or even confirmed to exist. Buzzati was possibly making a veiled reference to Mussolini’s military campaign in Ethiopia in 1935.  A close examination of Buzzati’s book and Zurlini’s film reveal that the tale is not based on real events but is merely an allegorical and psychological tale.

Officers and soldiers on the look-out duty sometimes spot rider-less horses and riders on horseback. Are they real or imagined? Why are known soldiers killed if they do not know a critical password? Why is the camaraderie of foot soldiers not appreciated by the officers? The film is equally critical of the lives of army officials and their egos of differing nature.

Here are important excerpts of an Italian journalist’s interview with author Buzzati on the Zurlini film

Author Dino Buzzati: "If I were the director - for the soldiers of the Fortezza Bastiani I would not choose a single uniform, but all the most beautiful uniforms in history, as long as they were slightly worn, rather like old flags. I am thinking of the uniforms of the dragoons, the hussars, he musketeers encountered in the pages of Dumas, the Bengal Lancers, like the ones used in a film with Gary Cooper...Of course, together with the uniforms, also different helmets, caps and badges. In other words, a regiment that has never existed but which is universal."

Italian journalist Giulio Nascimbeni: "Which uniform would you have Lieutenant Drogo wear?"

Author Dino Buzzati: "I should dress him up like a Hapsburg officer because Drogo's life is pointless, but full of pride."

(courtesy : trad.Interpres-Giussano) (Ref: http://www.payvand.com/news/03/jun/1165.html)

What were the major departures that Zurlini made in the film from the book? The book discusses the ravages of time in the world outside the fort, the fate of Lt. Drago’s family and friends. While Lt Drago became Capt. Drago at the fort, some of his friends and family have died, some have married in his town. When an officer dies in the fort, his body is transported on a gun carriage and taken home to his family for burial. Time stands still within the fort and the film, while in the book the time takes its toll on the denizens of the Italian towns. 

It is well known that David Lean wanted to make the film but one doubts if he could have created the bleak, existential and lonely world of Lt Drago and chosen Bam for the main location. Zurlini made his perfect swan song.

P.S. This critic watched The Desert of the Tartars for the second time after a gap of more than 35 years and was convinced that it belonged to his top 100 films list. It is now listed there--a film that never won a major award outside the country of the director. It is a film that belongs to the world—to Italy, Iran, France and Germany in particular.

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226. Italian/US director Andrea Pallaoro’s film “Hannah” (2017) (Italy/France/Belgium): A film with minimal spoken words and yet providing a subtle, complex and visually informative narrative, aided by an award-winning performance, intelligently captured by the camera

Hannah is the second film of Italian director Andrea Pallaoro—and, according to him, it is the second film of a trilogy of films he is making which appear to be having a common  thread of  a woman  internally reassessing her relationship to her family members over time.  One would often expect a female director to grapple with such subjects but here is a male director getting inside the female mind.  All three films in the trilogy are original scripts, all co-scripted  by him and his friend Orlando Tirado, a team that has worked not only on the trilogy but also on an early short film called Wunderkammer (2008) again on that very theme.

His debut film and the first of the trilogy was Medeas (2013) which won him awards at Venice, Tbilisi, Marrakesh, Nashville, and Palm Spring international film festivals.  His cinematographer Canadian/American Chayse Irvin won the prestigious Cameraimage cinematography prize and a Special Jury prize at the Nashville film festival for his contribution in Medeas. Pallaoro’s direction of Colombian actress Catalina Sandino Moreno won her an acting award at Nashville. The third film has the title Monica and is under production.

Hannah (Rampling) alone and sad riding a public bus,
reflecting on her predicament

With an interesting recognition of his debut feature film Medeas, it is not surprising that Pallaoro’s second feature film Hannah almost replicates some of the remarkable achievements of his debut film.  Hannah’s lead actress Charlotte Rampling won the deserving Best Actress Award at the Venice film festival. Once again, cinematographer Canadian/American Chayse Irvin won an award for his work in another Pallaoro film, this time a Silver Hugo for Hannah from the Chicago film festival.  The citation for that honor is very appropriate and insightful and reads as follows:

"Hannah tells the story of a very guarded woman and is itself a guarded film, refusing to spell out the motives or contexts behind a lonely woman's behavior. The images, then, must convey feelings and ideas that the screenplay and character will not. Through meticulous composition, unexpected framing, and a finely calibrated color palette, they do just that."

The color captured by cinematographer Irvin,
for a shot where Hannah is briefly recalling her good times

Bleak, muted colours for an important sequence as Hannah walks to throw
an important incriminating item in the garbage, when apartments
appear to suggest prison cells 

The team of Andrea Pallaoro, Orlando Tirado and Chayse Irvin obviously constitute a talented trio and they are getting well-deserved international recognition. (That Hannah has got a low IMDB user rating is arguably not a fair indicator of its innate quality as good cinema.)

Hannah views a beached whale,
a metaphor of her own life at this juncture

The worth of Hannah as a mature work of cinema is apparent in its ability to unspool its tale by leaving bits and pieces of visuals (sometimes as understated reflected images) and few spoken words (sometimes of people you never see but only hear) peppered across the film. An aging husband is preparing to be incarcerated in a prison for unstated crimes, leaving behind a devoted and elderly wife, in an apartment where their only other companion is a pet dog.

The obvious questions for many viewers would be what was the crime that led to the prison sentence of an old and seemingly affable man?  Why are the director/ scriptwriters not revealing it up-front for the viewers? Don’t the old couple have any progeny? When they do not speak much or show emotions, what are they thinking?

Pallaoro’s style is very close to Ingmar Bergman’s, with one major difference.  While Bergman would have tended to give considerable emphasis on spoken words in the screenplay, Pallaoro’s and Tirado’s style uses minimal spoken words and emphasizes communication through body language, visual clues, reaction of the title character to strangers and children (such as  Hannah’s sudden decision to stop swimming when children enter the public pool). Both directors use theatre as a secondary element in their film. Theatre rehearsals and mime are important in Pallaoro’s film as well as it is in many Bergman films.

Hannah (Rampling) breaks down in the closet toilet reprising
Bibi Andersson in Bergman's The Touch (1971) 

Hannah is like a mystery film, say an Agatha Christie detective tale, where clues are subtly revealed to the viewer without much dialogue. The viewer is forced to become the detective connecting the dots—mostly visual and a few spoken lines, often by characters that occupy only  fragments of screen time.  An astute viewer will be able to figure out the crime of Hannah’s husband without it being spoken. The viewer learns the aged couple do have a son and grandson.  The grandson wants to meet his grandmother but the son forbids that. The viewer has to figure out the reason by picking up the clues provided in the film. The viewer has to figure out why Hannah does not have any friends or why the film begins with a scream. There have been major films that ended with an anguished scream (Skolimowski’s 1978 film The Shout and Lumet’s 1964 film The Pawnbroker) but Hannah reverses the effect, introducing the viewer to the scream followed a rather quiet film in contrast to it. The scream, of course, is pivotal to understanding the film as is the long purposeful walk towards the end recalling the walk of Eddie Constantine in Godard’s Alphaville. The walk and the end of the walk state more than what Bergman would have achieved with long conversations. That’s the power of Hannah, the film.

On trains and buses, Hannah witnesses cameos of couples who are breaking up:
in one, the female openly accuses the male of only having interest in sex;
a reflection of what Hannah could have been in the past

If there is one film that Hannah could remind you of, it would be the 1971 French film director Pierre Granier-Deferre’s The Chat, another film about an elderly couple (played by Simone Signoret and Jean Gabin) where they hardly speak to each other in their small apartment they share with their cat. (In Hannah, by contrast it’s a dog,)

Hannah's only friend her pet dog--which she gives away to new owners.
Human friendship has been lost, possibly because of her past inactions

When the actors don’t speak much, the acting capabilities are naturally pronounced to the eye. In Hannah, Charlotte Rampling is awesome from the seminal scream captured in close-up to the final silent shot in the metro taken appropriately in a long shot. Her body language speaks a thousand words. Ms Rampling’s works on screen are varied but always stunning. Cavani’s The Night Porter, Visconti’s The Damned, Ozon’s The Swimming Pool, Andrew Haigh’s 45 years are unforgettable films considerably due to her contributions. Age certainly does not wither her, picking up best actress awards from Berlin and Venice within a couple of years, touching the grand age of 70. The scream in Hannah would have won her an award in most festivals.

Hannah is very European in style. While the film is likely to be remembered for Ms Rampling’s performance, the film belongs to the trio of Pallaoro, Tirado and Irvin. Watch out for them; they are indeed talented.

P.S. Pierre Granier-Deferre’s French film The Cat  (1971) discussed in the above review has been reviewed in detail earlier on this blog. That film won the Best Actor and Best Actress awards at the Berlin Film Festival, just as Rampling won for Hannah at the Venice film festival.

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208. Belgian directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s film “Le gamin au vélo” (The Kid with a Bike) (2011) (Belgium) based on the directors’ original screenplay: Painful yet uplifting film that forces you to re-evaluate human behaviour and your own actions

"We tend to think that the closer one gets to the cup, to the hand, to the mouth whose lips are drinking, the more one will be able to feel something invisible—a dimension we want to follow and which would be otherwise less present in the film… Perhaps by filming the gesture as precisely as possible you can render apprehensible that which is not seen.” —Luc Dardenne, “Taking the Measure of Human Relationships”, Cineaste (Summer 2003)

“We don’t believe that music should come from the movie. Music is above the film actually. It will descend into the film thanks to Samantha (the character). For us, music represents everything that is missing to Cyril (the character): love, tenderness, and consolation. It’s hovering, waiting, and the audience would like to see it enter the film. We’re not against music. It’s not present in our other movies only because we didn’t see the necessity for it.” (On using music for the first time in their movies.) --Luc Dardenne’s response to interviewer Ariston Anderson in Filmmaker Magazine.

The Belgian film The Kid with a Bike (2011) is outstanding for several reasons.

The Belgian directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne are able to elicit an exceptional performance from young actor Thomas Doret, who plays the 12-year-old boy Cyril, abandoned by his biological parents in an orphanage of sorts. Doret brings on screen the life of Cyril, who loves and misses his father in the orphanage like facility and craves his father’s company. He brings on screen his violent and disobedient side of his character. The viewer does not like him but the director script a tale for the viewer to gradually empathize with Cyril until you begin to love the kid anew. The Dardenne brothers are adept at getting amazing performances of their lead actors: one would recall the amazing performance of Marion Cotillard in their recent work Two Days, One Night (2014). The difference is that Ms Cotillard is an adult and an experienced actress, but young Thomas Doret was an early teen making his first film appearance in The Kid with a Bike.

Cyril (Thomas Doret) with his bike, riding a bus

The second important facet is that the tale is an original script written by the directors. It is not an adaptation of an existing written work or even a true event. The script is so well crafted that you almost believe you are watching a documentary.

Thirdly, the Dardenne brothers mirror the social problems of contemporary Europe in The Kid with a Bike—the toll on the children of broken marriages the parent refuse to acknowledge, the importance a single parent gives to economic survival over parental responsibility, the knee-jerk reaction of another parent to protect a son who might have killed another, the inability to accept an apology.. The list goes on. What is amazing is that this directorial duo is able to make films that reflect contemporary problems with original scripts—film after film.

Finally, the duo makes films where the visual detail is paramount while the soundtrack records diagetic sound almost all the time. In The Kid with a Bike, for the first time, the directors use the music of Beethoven briefly.

It is, therefore, no surprise that the film won the Grand Prix of the Jury at the Cannes Film Festival and the Best Screenplay honor at the European Film Awards.

Cyril meets up with his father who tells him
 that he should not try to meet him again

Many critics have connected the film to two famous film classics: De Sica’s The Bicycle Thief and Truffaut’s 400 Blows. These are misplaced comparisons save for certain common factors. The Italian film is about a father searching for a stolen bike in the company of his son. The Kid with a Bike, on the other hand, is the son searching for a bike originally gifted by his father, then eventually sold by him, then a similar bike is purchased by a foster parent figure only to be stolen again for a while. The Italian film has an unbroken bond between father and son, which is not the case in the Belgian film. The French film likewise has a kid with a mother and a non-biological father faced with a troubled childhood as a result of the parents’ behaviour towards him.

The Kid with a Bike is thus different and unique.  Most of all it has an angelic beautician named Samantha (Cecile De France) who becomes Cyril’s foster mother—the first significant female figure in Cyril’s life. Samantha buys Cyril’s bike from her own savings. She tries to protect Cyril and even chooses a life with Cyril over a life with her existing boyfriend.

Cyril with Samantha (Cecile De France), the foster mother,
who gives up her boyfriend for bringing up Cyril

For the Dardenne brothers, the women figures seem to be important. The men are interested in their survival, but women are often shown as the caring and relatively balanced figures.

Cyril rides a bike--the symbolic connection with his father, only to realize
his father had sold it off without his knowledge.
Cinematographer Marcoen at work.

Films of the Dardenne brothers might be on troubled subjects but their effect on the viewer is generally uplifting. Like the British director Ken Loach, the Dardenne brothers primarily deal with the working class. There is no sentimentality, with minor details captured visually. There is a third important member of the Dardenne team contributing to their notable films--cinematographer Alain Marcoen, often relying on hand-held cameras--a contributor few have noticed and rarely lauded. And he is good. A fourth regular on their team is editor Marie-Helene Dozo. It is is interesting to note how the best directors today (Andrei Zvyagintsev, Andrei Konchalovsky, Ken Loach, etc.) work with a close-knit team, film after film, and their products are all award-winning films that make you think. The lovely scripts of the Dardenne brothers include hard-hitting spoken words. Very few filmmakers today make films like they do while eliciting immaculate performances, film after film, from their actors to boot. 

P.S. This critic has reviewed the Dardenne brothers 2014 film Two Days, One Night earlier on this blog.(You can access each review by clicking on the name of the film). The Dardenne brothers are among the top 15 favourite active filmmakers of the author. (The full list can be accessed at http://www.imdb.com/list/ls064262544/)

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