Reviews

I would like to endorse some of the above comments and add a few points not yet touched upon. Firstly the idyll setting of a country estate set amongst lush fields gently sloping down to a bend in a river gave an impressive backdrop to some wonderful cinematography. The brilliant acting, already mentioned, where every player was 'note perfect', complimented this setting to provide a top notch film.

If I hadn't already known it was Chekov, I would have guessed about ten minutes in as it has all the hallmarks of his style. The fact that it is little known is in all probability due to Chekov reworking many of the themes in later works. The mix and match of family relationships reappeared as The Seagull and to some extent Three Sisters. The minor nobility gradually falling into genteel decay reappeared as The Cherry Orchard.

Near the beginning of the film some of the characters are chasing each other through the grounds of the estate in in a state of what can only be described as pure bliss. Later we are to learn how hollow many of these people are and their happiness is shallow. As more guests arrive for the festivities and the evening meal a young boy is brought along by some neighbours. As his character develops he plays some pranks on the adults but whilst he is a child behaving like a child, the adults prove themselves to be immensely more immature in their pomposity and childish ways. Chekov plays a trick on us here by introducing a mechanical piano during the festivities. Platonov's new wife Sophia, who is regarded as a bit of a dullard by the others, has an attack of the vapours when she sees it playing by itself and takes centre stage whilst she is revived by the family. Chekov's little joke is that the mechanical piano of the title refers to the assembled group of characters. We are led to believe that at some time in the past, ancestors had done something to earn their nobility but as generations have gone by, the descendants have become increasingly desultory and just keep repeating the same actions like the mechanism of the mechanical piano without any sense of purpose in their lives. The evening meal degenerates into a number of petty squabbles and empty gestures as befits the people they have become.

After a failed suicide attempt following the reawakening of feelings for an old flame, Platonov's beautiful but somewhat dull wife, who was never quite sure of her position in the group, provides him with the answer that all the others can't see. On a personal level it is better to have respect for each other whilst doing something lowly but significant rather than lofty but irrelevant.

Platinov's old flame we finally see asleep, in the cold, with her husband in an open carriage without horses. A future that is going nowhere.

At first I was a bit puzzled by the final shot of the innocence of the young boy sleeping. Now I realise it was an open question of "Wil everything be as it always was" with the mechanical piano repeating the same familiar tune ad-infinitum or will the new generation do something to stop the decay of a social class rotting from within.

Tonia, a singer in a sleazy night club is arrested by Poland's Stasi style security forces, the UBeks. Although it takes her many months to find the reason for this, it turns out to be a case of guilt by association. She was a social friend of a military officer thought to be a foreign agent.

This film deals with the power relationship between security forces and their captives. It deals with the methods of persuasion and torture used to obtain forced confessions for 'crimes' real or imagined. In this case the film is set in Poland under the control of Stalinist Russia but could also have been in any other country in the world, for instance in South America; Central America; Central African Republic; Germany; Japan; Cambodia; Abu Ghraib; Guantanamo Bay or Camp Iguana. For those unfamiliar with Camp Iguana, it is a special section of Guantanamo bay where the same harsh treatment is meted out to prepubescent enemy combatants. We know from such docu-dramas as Andrzej Wajda's Katyn and Elem Klimov's Come and See that neither one side nor the other is any better in this respect.

Tonia's main interrogator was so high ranking he wore a three piece chalk stripe suit instead of military uniform but his desk was in such a poor state he couldn't get the drawers to open properly. When he tried to find writing implements for Tonia to sign a fake confession, what he found inside would disgrace the school pencil case of any six year old. This film shows the tasks undertaken by the UBeks as so routine they would bore any factory machine minder. The only bout of real emotion by the interrogator is near the beginning of Tonia's captivity and its purpose is to establish the relationship between the two of them. But because of their brutal methods and unaccountability to anyone except the Party Chairman, they are accorded an elitist reputation. Their interrogation and torture continue unceasingly.

As the film develops, we are treated to an incident of what has become known as the Stockholm Syndrome. At one point, as the relentlessness of the interrogation continues, one of Tonia's captors lets her sleep instead of continuing the constant assault of her mind. This act of kindness results in a physical bond forming between them.

The only purpose of torture is torture for the sake of torture. The UBeks administer this quite implacably and if this is really how they get their rocks off, then they never show any emotion about it. This intolerable pressure is continued even after outside circumstances have eliminated the original reason for Tonia's arrest. An elitist organisation cannot admit to having got it wrong so they just carry on doing what they do best. Forced confessions have no real meaning and in this sense the security forces have little real practical purpose. As the material that came with the DVD expresses it, their true purpose is the rape of the human mind. This doesn't work, in Tonia's case and in the end we are left with the hope that she can reunite her family around her. This leaves her main captor with an intolerable decision.

Are the actions of the UBeks normal behaviour under any circumstances. Unfortunately, the Stanford Prison Experiment would suggest that they are, albeit in societies which are organised from the top down, as most world societies are. Those few which have been organised from the bottom up have never known such conditions.

Thomas Jefferson once said "Those who would trade freedom for security deserve neither" The purpose of a film like Interrogation is to say to those who purport to have our security and best interests at heart "We know who you are and we are watching."

According to some reviewers here, there are two sorts of people who comment on this film, those who 'get it' and award it high points and those who don't 'get it' and denigrate it. My problem is that I 'got it', I understood the symbolism and mostly what the director was trying to say but I still thought it was a crap movie. That wasn't where my difficulty ended though. I was trying to decide whether it wasn't a good film or if I just didn't like it. To explain explain my point further in musical terms, you might like the music of Beethoven and Bach or maybe your taste is for Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman or perhaps for Miles Davis and Tubby Hayes. If you are an affection-ado of classical music you may say the music of Keith Emerson has little merit or you may say Keith Emerson has talent coming out of his little finger but I don't like what he does. And so it was with Possession. Did it have little worth or was it personal preference?

Let me get into the movie a little bit. The Sam Niell character Mark was weak all the way through. He was besotted beyond the point of rationality. "Yes you can have your lover just so long as you don't leave me." The Isabelle Adjani character Helen showed what a fine actress she can be when directed properly. For her Anna character, Zulawski wanted serious overacting and that is exactly what he got. Full marks to Adjani for making a career call and deciding to do it. It was like a classical trumpet player performing in a bad Mardi Grass band. The monster, which wasn't all that frightening or even creepy, represented Anna's (or Zulawski's) depressed state of self loathing. The miscarriage scene where the bad acting reached its zenith, was Anna (and Zulawski) exorcising their demons. Not being a woman and never having witnessed a miscarriage, I do not know if women do actually bleed from the mouth at such times. I suspect it is highly unlikely. The scene reminded me of a bad John Wayne movie where even if he gets shot in the leg he still bleeds from the mouth.

Having said that, there were some fine pieces of cinematography in the film. The shots of deserted streets around dawn representing Anna's feelings of isolation and loneliness. The buildings austere facades mirrored her feelings of sinister unease.

The film ends with scenes of death and redemption. We always assume that knowing what we do, we will make a better job of things the next time around but that may not always be the case. If there is reincarnation it might not be for the better. The sons actions at the end of the film foresee a state of hopelessness that the granted re-run of the situation will not fare any better than the first.

Zulawski has confronted and raged at his own daemons with this film. I thought The Third part of the Night was more difficult to follow but a better movie overall. Possession was somewhat of a curates egg, good in parts but generally not. My vote is 4/10

This is a film ostensibly about a young woman's quest to revisit the land of her childhood experiences. It deals more however with the complex relationship between her, her mother and the black house boy who is used at various times as a servant; a substitute father and substitute man of the house when her father is away doing administrative governmental work in other areas of the country.

As a child, the girl had difficulty making relationships with her peers and there is a restrained attraction between the mother, Aimee and Proteé, the house boy. Suppose a sexual relationship had developed between Aimee and Proteé, what then? The simmering tension is removed to be replaced by what? Clearly Aimee is not going to kick her husband out and set up house with Proteé and where would that leave him? To remain a servant and be picked up and put down, as the 'Lady Boss' saw fit. He would be in a worse position than before but without his dignity. In a situation where a hierarchy exists then sometimes it is better to not have what you want. The obvious answer is to get rid of the hierarchy which is what the end of colonialism was in theory moving towards but this also removes the family's reason for being there anyway. A telling scene not mentioned by others is when Aimee makes a subtle play for Proteé whilst he is drawing the curtains at the end of the day. Without saying a single word he brings her out of her reverie and leaves her in no doubt as to the nature of their relationship. Because she leads an unfulfilled existence she accuses her husband of being 'too nice' when in fact he has done nothing wrong.

The film ends with the clear conclusion that whether they are subjugated or not, westerners are definitely the black mans burden and it doesn't matter on the colour of your skin; whether theirs is the only culture you have ever known or how much you empathize with them, if you are not black and born there you are never going to be one of them. A distinct example of inverse multiculturalism.

In the final scene where the airport baggage handlers get caught in a tropical storm, it would have been nice if they had actually got wet. But, hey, life is not always about getting what you want.

I missed this when it was originally shown on Channel 4 but heard so much about it at the time that when I found it on DVD from one of the mail order companies I ordered a copy. I was not disappointed by this little gem. It has the authentic feel of the times it portrayed although in many cases boys' and girls' schools were not combined until the advent of comprehensives many years later.

This is a true rights of passage movie in the same way as "The Summer of 42". The difference is subtle but films like Kes are coming of age movies where the subject attains an emotional maturity by becoming passionate about an interest.

So far as the title and language the boys use to each other goes, this has long been used as a form of cohesion between members of a group and a dividing line between generations. Some of you may be old enough to remember Cookie from 77 Sunset Strip. He was a hipster who did grunt work on the street for two private detectives. Now and again a situation would occur where the bosses realised their phones were being tapped by the bad guys and would say "Scramble it Cookie". Cookie would then go into the verbal jive of the time, which we all understood, of course but left the villains looking nonplussed at the receiver. Take a simple word like 'Good' and see how this has changed over time. In the days of Elvis it was 'hip', 'cool' seemed to last a few generations through. When the Beatles came along it was 'fab' until the Mods changed it into 'maximum' before it morphed into 'mega'. I am going from memory here so there are probably a few in between I have missed.

When the girls voted on their choice of dishiest guy in the class, our hero Duckworth was the nerd left standing against the fence after everybody else had picked their teams. Geoffrey wins the poll and is making a play for heroine Ann. "I don't do P'tang yang kipperbang" he says with disdain but when he tries to be sophisticated by saying to Ann " Manyana doesn't come soon enough for me" he just comes over as a pretentious Pratt.

Early in the film we see Alan Duckworth laying in bed praying to God to let him kiss Ann. Even though it is obvious he also has sexual thoughts, a kiss is all he wants from her. Later, when the boys are playing cricket by the canal there is a very knowledgeable conversation about prostitutes. They discuss how much they charge and that some want extra money for kissing and some just don't kiss at all. This, they rightly decide, is because kissing brings an emotional element into the otherwise functional tasks they perform. There is a very good piece of psychology towards the end of the film when Ann feels rejected by the class nerd. If the class nerd is passing her up then what hope is there for her. When she feels no longer in control, she leaves her comfort zone with Geoffrey to chase after Duckworth. She then finds him interesting because he has a real point of view, in that he wants an emotional relationship first and a physical relationship second which shows a maturity above his years. Ann is warming to him but does Quack Quack Duckworth seize the main chance when he has it in his hands? You will have to watch the film to find out.

It's Winter and life is hard in south Tehran, especially when through the quirks of fate, you find yourself at the bottom of the pile and those above you take pleasure in kicking you off the end of the social ladder just because they can. It's a tale of hard working without the expected rewards; of not being able to quit and loose the little you have in order to survive. It is a tale of desperation and not knowing what to do next; of the other man's grass always being greener and history repeating itself on the merry go round of despair.

Others here have faithfully and excellently reviewed the content of the film. What interested me more in this particular case, was how accurate this film was of life within one of the richest oil states in the world. Does this state of affairs really exist when President Ahmadinejad stands before the United Nations and berates the Unites States for its lack of fair play. There are not that many sources of information on the day to day life of ordinary Iranians. One that I turned to was the documentary "Rageh inside Iran". Early in this documentary, Rageh asks his Iranian friend a similar question and receives the following reply. "There is lots of money in this city but it is not shared in a fair way, some people are so poor they crash themselves to the wall. One in seven Iranians live below the poverty line of less than one dollar per day. Ahmadinejad promised them a share in the oil wealth but they are still waiting."

After visiting glitzy shopping malls in the north of the city and talking to both ordinary Iranian people and some self made business women, Rageh befriends a taxi driver and in a private conversation asks what life for the young is like in Tehran. The reply is quite illuminating.

"You have to be cautious in Tehran now, you can't trust many people here. You should be careful choosing your friends and the people you do business with. If you try to live an upright life you will make many enemies who make plans against your money or your life. You might find someone is interfering with your business and you loose out. You could loose your job, your livelihood; you could be framed for a crime, you have to watch yourself." When pressed about whether this is a recent problem or a governmental failure he answers in the following way. "The population is increasing, there is unemployment amongst young people and poverty creates prostitution. The government could do a lot of things to help young people, they could make it easier but it is a fact that kids are turned out into the streets and are exploited in sweat shops."

Rafi Pits has said that men are the dreamers and it is the women who are left to deal with the practicalities of life. In Iranian society, though, there is an ambivalence towards women. Some have been successful in making a career for themselves and the official line is one of equality. Many young women talked freely when interviewed as a group in the shopping mall however there were occasions when asked a direct question in front of their men or male colleagues they seemed confused as to how they should answer. Another aspect of this is that since the form of government is a theocracy, to question a political decision is to question God and this is simply not on. For example the official line is one of gender equality however women are forbidden from riding motor cycles but you may not publicly say this. Instead you must say that only men ride motor cycles which implies it is a matter of choice by women not to ride them. A further complication is that the administration wants to make all creative works, writing; art and film making positive towards Islam. This gives film directors a problem of finding a self regulating line of truth without criticism. Thus making a film of the harsh conditions in the dilapidated south without counterbalancing it with a view of the prosperous north is a fine balancing act. Towards the end of the film, Marhab asks all the right questions without providing any of the difficult answers. Here is some dialog.

"What's the point. To know a trade and be unemployed – what's the point." "I've worked all my life, I'm a technician, I can fix anything – I'm a mechanic I will repair anything, why go through all this trouble". "But I don't like to work, well sometimes, not always. I prefer a good time. Too much work ruins you. Am I right? It's obvious, especially if you are not given your rights and no one is there to see it". After all the work why are you still here? I was just beginning to settle down after a rough, homeless, restless life. The bastards won't let me".

Was this little tirade directed against the administration or his employers. It is so hard to say and that's where the permitted ambivalence comes into play.

This is a film which highlights the problems without providing any of the answers and is probably as far as Rafi Pits thought he could go.

With Iran's administration preferring to trade its oil wealth with its friends in the east but this depending on the construction of major pipelines it may take a little time for the problems outlined in It's Winter to become eradicated.

Twenty Four Eyes is a story of platonic love and childhood innocence and the maintaining of this love particularly when the innocence is lost to the reality of the world. This love exists between the teacher and her students and also between the students and the teacher. By modern standards it is melodramatic and sentimental in parts and I am sure the traditional Scottish background music played on a violin orchestra would sound as strange to Japanese ears as traditional Japanese music would sound to ours. Most who watch this film will be touched by a time we all long for but know in our hearts we will never see return. Its attraction is the brief opening of a window into this world. There is sadness. Some of the boys are lost in the war and through the circumstances of life many of the girls do not attain the life that they are capable of achieving. Even the teacher's personal life is torn apart by the events of the war. She is even subjected to Japan's own version of McCarthyism but instead of succumbing to anger and sadness she returns to the classroom after a break of many years in order to teach the next generation. Those who are left, gather to show the love and respect that this particular teacher has touched in their hearts. Whilst watching this story unfold I kept asking myself "What happened to Japanese innocence and after offerings such as Severn Samurai and Tenko, did it ever exist? As a story of hope against all the odds it is up there with the Shawshank Redemption and Steven Soderburgh's King of the Hill. This was a very worthwhile film and I am sure it did its part in restoring the Japanese identity after the end of the war.

What this film appears to loose in its measured pace it makes up for in its multilayer's of meaning. Everything is symbolic, from the dousing of the stove in the opening shot foreshadowing the removal of warmth and comfort to come, to Janos walking from the light into darkness as he leaves the bar. Workmeister Harmonies is an in depth reworking of the police captain's speech in Satantango with particular emphasis on order. "The strange thing is there is nothing to fear about freedom... order, on the other hand, can often be frightening."

This film explores both natural order and social order. Natural order in the motions of the planets giving explanations to the eclipse showing modern mans superior knowledge over the animal kingdom. The musical scale has imperfections. Harmonic intervals on a piano tuned perfectly in one key give discordant intervals in a different key. That is why Werkmeister modified the tuning of stringed instruments to give the best fit over a range of keys. The question then arises why a perfect God would create an imperfect system. This leads on to Eszter's statement that (the imperfections in the tonal scale) "Is a philosophical question…the tonal system has led us ultimately to a test of faith in which we ask on what do we base our belief? …We have to speak of a deception."

As with other Tarr films, things of significance happen in the by goings. When Janos collects his morning deliveries the woman in the sorting office is relieving her boredom by talking to herself and addressing the room in general. Here is where the link between natural order; social order and superstition occur. "If a family is ordered it disappears without explanation. The world has gone completely mad. Now it's not down here but up there where something's gone wrong. There is no coal and it is 17° below. There is a circus and a prince who makes a speech nobody understands and suddenly the broken church clock starts working and trees are split so their roots come out of the ground (A reference to the miracles of Jesus - perhaps). Nothing is sacred, statues are pulled down and gravestones stolen. How can you explain it in normal terms? People bolt their door and tremble dreading what is to come. It is certain something is to come."

Janos never doubts his faith. "All is well in the cosmos", he says. The whale, I think, represents the unknown, and because his faith is intact he has no problem to look into its eye. There he sees only the wonder of the Lord's creation. Mr Eszter and those who gather in the town do not want to discover the unknown themselves but want others to see it for them.

The fundamental question that was alluded to but never asked and therefore never answered was 'Why, when the temperature was minus 17°C was there no coal in the region'. Was it a failure of natural order or was it deliberately withheld to destabilise the social order? If it was the latter then the prince is an agent for those who have the social order under their control. If the prince is a false Messiah then that is why he says of his followers, "What they build and what they will build; what they do and what they will do is delusion and lies." "What they think and what they will think is ridiculous. They think because they are afraid and those who are afraid know nothing."

The police chief cannot control his own children let alone the town. Aunty Tunde is not as benign as she appears and is there to organise the military. The military do her bidding so she is on the side of those who control the prince. Is it helpful in understanding this story if we change the name Gyorgy Eszter to that of Winston Smith? When he is pushed by Tunde into organising action against those who are gathering in the town he says "When the town is under threat we have amusements in chaos (compare to endless sport and reality TV). We need solidarity, common sense is important. We cannot remain passive; to retain order we have to take action." This is a prime example of what we often meet in modern life; attacking the symptoms of a problem and not its cause. If Eszter really wanted to cure the problem he would find a way of providing more coal, not just clearing the destitute out of the town. But this is just what he is charged with doing – so that order can be restored but order for whom? Here, even the innocent are the guiltiest. As he says earlier, "We have to speak of a deception".

What has changed between the beginning and the end of this story is that the civil administration has been replaced by a military one. "……Order on the other hand can often be frightening."

I am giving this film high points, not as some have suggested because I want to be in with the in crowd but because I really enjoyed it and even after a month of seeing it I am still thinking of the significance of various parts.

In my view, the reason the film is so long is because Bela Tarr wanted the viewer to be the characters, to feel what it is like to live their lives, squalor and all and not simply be a voyeur to the unfolding of the storyline as in other conventional films. The reason I don't in this case have a problem to give spoilers is that the Police Captain's speech when Irimias and Petrina are summoned before him is the heart of the matter for most of what follows. It is listed above in the Memorable Quotes section but so you don't have to go looking for it I will C&P it here.

"Captain: Not that human life was so highly valued. Keeping order appears to be the business of the authorities, but in fact it's the business of all. Order. Freedom, however, has nothing human. It's something divine, something... our lives are too short for us to know properly. If you're looking for a link, think of Pericles, order and freedom are linked by passion. We have to believe in both, we suffer from both. Both from order and freedom. But human life is meaningful, rich, beautiful and filthy. It links everything. It mistreats freedom only... wasting it, as if it was junk. People don't like freedom, they are afraid of it. The strange thing is there is nothing to fear about freedom... order, on the other hand, can often be frightening." This is so profound that most of the important themes in the film flow from this short speech. Probably the most important one is the observation (paraphrased) that people like the concept of freedom but they don't actually like to be free. It is usual to hear that people who, to one degree or another, live under oppression want to throw off the yoke of whatever system it happens to be but when they actually have their freedom they don't know what to do with it. In the film there is much talk about clearing off with the money from the sale of the farm, either fairly or unfairly divided and living lives of their own making. What follows is that Irimias appoints himself as the group's leader and everybody falls in line thus voluntarily placing themselves in a hierarchy.

The other major theme from the Captain's speech is this. "But human life…..links everything". Every living thing is connected to every other living thing. Do you remember the voice over following the little girl's death? It talked of this connection existing between her mother; her brother who cheated her out of her savings; the cat the doctor and herself and she knew that after she was dead her angels would protect her. We then move forward towards the end of the drunken scene where we are presented with the analogy of the spider weaving a web over all of the drunken people. If a single strand in the web moves then the spider knows. In real life this could be a look backwards to the operating methods of the KGB. Also forwards to such things as the Patriot Act which legalised wire tapping and social networks like Facebook which was conceived by the CIA to farm information about individuals which could not be found in any other way.

If someone has control over another living thing then they use that power without remorse. Examples of this are the little girl and the cat; Irimias and the group and the police captain and Irimias. Compare this in real life to what happened in the Stanford prison experiment.

Without self discipline and left to their own devices people will become immoral. Examples of this are Irimias representing some unwholesome elitist class; the Schmidts planning to abscond with the money; The little girls brother stealing her savings; Mrs Schmidt with Futaki; the little girl's mother, no different to the cattle in the farmyard. The Police captain using Irimias for spying; the police gathering apparently useless information; the doctor's spying.

We should be on our guard to beware of false prophets of hope. In the film this was represented by Irimias and Petrina. When the silver tongued Irimias gave his speech he moved seamlessly from "This event is tragic beyond all comprehension" to "You can achieve a better life by giving me your money". In everyday life I would include most off planet redemption religions together with our political leaders who by and large represent themselves first, lobbyists second and for the represented they do just enough to get re-elected.

Beware of false prophets of doom. The man banging on the pipe in the ruined church shouting "The Turks are coming" when there were quite clearly no Turks in any direction.

My interpretation of the incredibly sad final scene is that if this is the way we choose to group as a society, sandwiched between false prophets of hope and false prophets of doom and without any self discipline then there is no light at the end of the tunnel. if people had self discipline combined with freedom and self order, as the police Captain suggests, there would be no need for authority but since they don't they are confused between these false prophets of hope and false prophets of doom, therefore all attempts to continue as a workable society are ultimately bound to fail.