Tools
dir. Daisy von Scherler MayerBollywood movies, with their kitschy melodrama, elaborate Hindi song-and-dance numbers, and treacly paeans to (usually chaste) love, have inevitably developed a growing cult following among certain segments of the cognoscenti during this era of globalized entertainment. It was only a matter of time, then, before someone tried grafting Bollywood elements onto an American sex farce. Voila! Meet The Guru. Here's the general idea: hunky Indian dance instructor (Jimi Mistry) comes to America seeking fame and riches, and meets eccentric porn star (Heather Graham) prone to dropping pearls of tantric wisdom along the lines of "My pussy is the window to my soul." Then, hunky Indian guy hoodwinks spoiled rich girl on a quest for spiritual fulfillment (Marisa Tomei) by recasting porn star's philosophical pronouncements, and so begins a lucrative career as sex guru to New York's sensation-hungry hoi polloi. Various hijinks ensue, until... it's not really important. The cringe factor in this flick is a tad too high, and the larfs a mite too few, though by the closing credits the movie almost--but not quite--attains a goofy charm. There is a pretty funny send-up of Grease (done as a full-on Bollywood number), but tidbits like that just left me hankering for the real thing. SANDEEP KAUSHIK
Gaza Strip
dir. James Longley
Thurs Jan 30-Sun Feb 2
at the Little Theatre.Two major factors distinguish this almost unbearably powerful documentary, which examines the social and psychological conditions of life in the 28-mile Palestinian territory whose borders are Israel and hell, where bombs, bullets, and gas are as common as Seattle's raindrops. The first is that, unlike most political video journalism, Gaza Strip employs no voiceover, so the subjects are left to speak for themselves while the images coalesce into desolate poetry. The second is that the filmmaker has made no attempt to "balance" his story with opposing viewpoints; the documentary is adamantly subjective, depicting life only on one side of the wall. Though this lends credence to the predictable claim that Gaza Strip is a piece of anti-Israel propaganda, and therefore anti-Semitic--a charge laid by an Israeli official--it also protects the integrity of the film's perspective and ensures director James Longley's stated goal of showing a side of the second intifada typically overlooked by Western media. But if Gaza Strip fails to portray the complexity of the situation (i.e., any mention of Palestinian provocation or accountability), it succeeds at rendering the awful everyday truths of life in the region--as gory as gas attacks and as pedestrian as closed roads.
Though his camera captures many incidents of damning violence against civilians, Longley is after more than mere reportage. What he's looking for is a clue into the inner life of Arab children growing up under incrementally oppressive occupation. What he finds is chilling: sweet-faced kids hardening into pre-terrorists, full of hatred and impotent rage at having to watch their friends and family killed and maimed by an enemy who savagely flaunts the upper hand, an enemy against whom they are all but defenseless. What's remarkable, however, is the absence of despair in the face of such a hopeless situation. Beset on all sides with governmental corruption and the constant threat of random death, the young subjects are far from surrender; energized by the fury of the oppressed, they throw rocks at tanks, curse the Jews, declare their desire for martyrdom.
While it's tempting to view all this (and I do mean all of it) as the inevitable byproduct of the insanity of religious belief, Gaza Strip makes it clear that despite the ancient nature of the conflict, the suffering is entirely modern, and demonstrably one-sided. Longley set out to make a documentary about Palestinian stone-throwers. What he has wound up with is a portrait of a brutalized collective psyche, and a convincing argument that death is more appealing than some versions of life. SEAN NELSON
Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
dir. Stanley Kubrick
Fri Jan 31-Sun Feb 2 and Tues Feb 4-Thurs Feb 6 at the Grand Illusion.You could argue that Dr. Strangelove represents, if not the birth of contemporary irony, then certainly its most successful prototype. Informed by the hysteria of nuclear-age brinkmanship and fueled by caustic absurdism, the film's satire of bureaucracy also contains a desperate pessimism about the state of statesmanship--so desperate that all you can do is laugh and wait for the bombs to drop. Now that modern warfare is again at the front of the consciousness, it seems a perfect time to revive Strangelove's inspired nihilism. But somehow, watching it again recently, I was struck by how quaint the humor seemed, and how shallow and obvious the irony. Like every other Kubrick devotee, I've seen the film dozens of times, having discovered it in high school, where I embraced "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the war room" as profound wisdom about the insane nature of modern warfare and governments. It was profound, I think, in 1964--and maybe even in 1990. But the other day, I heard a college kid quote the line at a bus stop, and it made me want to puke because it sounded so complacent. It's difficult to gauge whether the picture's evolution away from timelessness has more to do with its familiarity--its centrality, even, to the contemporary sense of humor--or with the inconvenient complexity of the current state of international affairs. Either way, Dr. Strangelove has changed. Or maybe it's just gotten impossible to stop worrying. SEAN NELSON
Blackboards
dir. Samira Makhmalbaf
Fri Jan 31-Thurs Feb 6 at the Varsity.Samira Makhmalbaf's second feature, Blackboards (2000), is not an easy film to watch. It's visually oppressive. The faces of the men, the boys, and the one woman are all weatherworn, weary, lacking any other expression other than severe misery. No one smiles, laughs, or is attractive. The one woman is as ugly as the old men; the old men are as ugly as the boys; the boys are as ugly as the one woman. Not one face offers the viewer relief from (or contrast to) the monotony of the film's rugged setting: the rocky, mountainous region between Iran and Iraq.
Though all the action takes place during the day, the sunlight is sinister. It has no warmth or regenerative qualities; it instead breeds death-birds and turns every living thing into a dead stone. Why would anyone live--or, as with the unemployed schoolteachers, search for pupils--in such a place? The only valuable instruction a teacher could offer a soul who happened to call this inhuman geography his or her home would be on how to get out of there, how to get to a town or city--any place whose landscape suggests Earth rather than Mars or Hades.
Blackboards opens with a group of men walking through a mountain pass with blackboards on their backs. Blackbirds swirl over the teachers, who themselves look like a flock of lean blackbirds. And when an army helicopter (Iraqi? Iranian? American?) suddenly appears in the bleeding light of the sky, the teachers flee to a mountainside and huddle beneath their boards like pathetic crows. When the coast is clear, the teachers resume their bizarre search for students. But whenever they come across mountain peasants, their offer to teach language and mathematics skills for next to nothing (nuts or shelter) is flatly rejected. Indeed, no amount of education could improve the lot of these peasants. Life for them will never be more than basic: finding food and drinking water, avoiding death.
Several critics have described Blackboards as Kafkaesque, because of the teachers' surreal and symbolic quest. But what makes Blackboards truly Kafkaesque is not so much its nightmarish symbolism as its profound pessimism. This has to be the most pessimistic Iranian film ever made; there is zero hope for those who are lost in this rocky region. The teachers will never find pupils; the peasants will never need teachers. CHARLES MUDEDE
Darkness Falls
dir. Jonathan LiebesmanThe premise: A ghost is haunting the town of Darkness Falls. Said ghost is that of Matilda Dixon, an old bat wrongfully slaughtered by the town over 100 years ago. And how does she exact revenge? By killing children who have lost their baby teeth (along with unfortunate bystanders, et cetera). This ghost has an Achilles' heel, however: light, which (for some reason) keeps her threat at bay. A creepfest supposedly ensues as the town of Darkness Falls--surprise!--loses its power.
Darkness Falls is your average thriller/horror film. It's no better or worse, it just is. As in, Zzzzzzzzzz (which is probably why it's bowing in the barren month of January). Devoid of any real frights, other than the standard misdirection/"BOO!" jumps routinely found in current horror films (and always, always overused to the point of predictability), the resulting 90 or so minutes slump before your eyes on screen. The bulk of the picture can be summed up in a single sentence: Why the fuck do flashlights always fail when you need them the most? At the risk of repeating myself: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. BRADLEY STEINBACHER
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