Silent struggles

The Battleship Potemkin  (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)

I used to always rent this book from the library on world cinema and that's how I got interested in foreign films. Though I didn't have the means to view them, the readings quite sustained that interest. Two directors and their films intrigued me the most. One is Luis Bunuel, who debuted as a filmmaker through his groundbreaking experimental short called Un Chien Andalou, which I saw earlier this year as well as the social realist Mexican film called Los Olvidados. The other one is Russian Sergei Eisenstein whose The Battleship Potemkin has been hailed as one of the most, if not, the most important film in earlier cinematic history. As one of the articles I've read says, Eisenstein's Potemkin "wrote the grammar of cinema".

The most popular reference to the movie is the sequence which has been touted as the most copied - the Odessa steps sequence. The closest reference I had of the film then was Brian de Palma's The Untouchables. De Palma's version of the sequence very much resembles the original where you have an infant in a cradle rolling down in a lengthy staircase. While the character of Costner saves the baby and kills the bad guy, the original Odessa steps however, leads up to a brutal ending of the Odessa Massacre episode in the five-part Potemkin.

Potemkin was banned in several countries even at one point in its Russian roots. The film achieved a landmark status that Eisenstein was commissioned to an American film outfit but failed as did his other attempts in the commercial arena. Reportedly, there was much contention also as to the accuracy of the retelling of the story which is based on the 1905 Potemkin mutiny. Eisenstein has structured the film into five parts or episodes which depicts in memory the events of that failed uprising. The first part, Men and the Maggots, introduces us to the miserable conditions of the sailors aboard the ship. Indeed, the unrest brewed from the meat with maggots (and the soup that was made of it) being force-fed to the hapless proletariat.

The Drama on the Quarterdeck shows us the memorable character of Vakulinchuk who can be seen as the symbol of what cruelty and injustice has brought upon them. Vakulinchuk courageously shouted to the officers ordered by the captain to kill the disobedient sailors, "Brothers, who are you shooting at?" Mutiny ensued and Vakulinchuk was shot. His body fished out of the sea where he was thrown was laid in the shore of Odessa. The people, also long-oppressed under the czarist regime, trooped to see the dead body and soon a massive unrest (The Odessa Steps episode) filled the city but was violently ended by the Russian militia. Meeting the Squadron, the last episode, a celebratory ode to the victory claimed by the sailors upon successfully passing a Russian fleet without being fired.

Having seen it now, The Battleship Potemkin is indeed a powerful film, notwithstanding the time and social conditions when it was made. After all, as Eisenstein intended, it is a revolutionary call and works as a cautionary tale on one hand. It is important though as a material not just for political discourse but the dialectic of film editing. Each episode is masterfully shot with the basics of juxtaposing images to create force and tension, particularly the montages of episodes 4 and 5 leaves a big room for discourse for anyone interested in the film language. It's the first silent film I saw (or I think I can remember seeing). Despite the short dialogue - a definitive call to action - read in title cards, and the score to help supply the tension and drama, Potemkin doesn't leave you quite unstirred.

The rebel comes of age.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix  (David Yates, 2007)

The fifth installment to the Harry Potter franchise, Order of the Phoeix, cuts down on the overbearing special effects that normally wows kids (there’s even no Quidditch), tones down unnecessary “wizarding” histrionics, goes straight to the heart of the matter, but still packs a wallop. If not for Cuaron directing Prisoner of Azkaban, I would have easily picked this one as the most grounded and best adaptation in the series. Here, we see Harry elevated into a different playing field, one that tests the essence of his unique personality and gift.

Newcomer David Yates replacing last year’s Mike Newell did an impressive job on such a daunting task. By the looks of it, the fanaticism attached to the series was never raised to the fore; you won’t feel a filmmaker’s compunction to giddily meet his audience’s expectations, especially those who have closely followed the book. Similarly, just like the book, Order of the Phoenix is a departure from childlike fantasies and machinations of the imaginative mind. Hello emotional crisis and adolescent nuances (and the proverbial kiss). Thus, Potter 5 marks Harry’s coming-of-age.

Glumly waiting for his entry into fifth year, he is faced with the threat of expulsion after using a Patronus spell within the sight of a Muggle (his burly cousin Dudley). But of course it is for a reason: Dementors, ghostlike creatures which suck out the al the happiness in you, attacked the two forcing Harry to cast the spell. He is put on trial by the Ministry of Magic led by its shadowy minister Cornelius Fudge. This unjustly-dealt matter with the improper use of magic is the beginning of the intervention of the Ministry with the academic affairs at Hogwarts, primary of which is the designation of a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher Undersecretary Dolores Umbridge (played with menacing delight by Imelda Staunton). The school becomes a guarded castle where numerous (some pointless) educational decrees that is suppose to curb academic corruption is issued at the slightest behest of the High Inquisitor Umbridge.  

The presence of the Hogwarts Hitler that is Umbridge compounds the tumultuous fifth year when Harry seems to be experiencing a sudden shift of personality brought about by the later-prophesied connection between him and Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes). He is greeted with jeers from the students, even his fellow Gryffindor housemates, when The Daily Prophet denounces him as a liar for believing that the He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is back. He constantly dreams of a dark alley that seems to be the Department of Mysteries and strongly feels he resembles the serpent in his dreams, one time attacking Mr. Weasly. The dream turns out to be true, for at that time Mr. Weasly was assigned to guard the door – one of the tasks that the Order of the Phoenix, a group of Hogwarts alumni who has fought the Dark Lord, has set out to do.

One of the strongest qualities of the Potter franchise is its strong casting (not just because it’s like a big British thespic showdown, but yes because of that too). Hogwarts mainstays Maggie Smith as Professor Minerva McGonagall, Robbie Coltrane as Hagrid, Michael Gambon as Albus Dumbledore, David Thewlis as Professor Lupin, Emma Thompson as Professor Trelawney, Alan Rickman as Professor Severus Snape among others stretch out their thespic muscles despite the limited time. Gary Oldman as Harry’s godfather, the only remaining familial bond Harry has, returns as Sirius Black and it also introduces new characters that are worthy of attention: Death-eater Bellatrix Lestrange, the deranged cousin of Sirius who escaped Azkaban along with other death-eaters, is portrayed by Helena Bonham Carter, and the character of Luna Lovegood, an eccentric Ravenclaw (?) junior who joins Harry and the rest of Dumbledore’s Army gang. More screen presence for the character of Neville Longbottom.

As any other film version of the series, the risk of taking out portions from the book is a necessary and challenging task. The transitions in narrative sometimes seem to be abrupt and awkward and non-readers are faced with the task of digesting the meat from the screenplay, which I believe could have helped more, particularly the Ron and Hermione character dynamics present in the book as well as putting more weight into Harry's disillusionment to the much-revered stature of his father James, will probably give more impetus to Harry’s emotional turmoil. I cannot complain much as to portions skipped because as a totality, I felt Yates gave justice to the whole theme. The political subtext is slightly drawn but it also helped complemented to the series’ transition into a darker and serious level. The enthralling magic may not be the same as watching the first three but the heart is there, and Harry is ready to tread on mature grounds, something that is worth anticipating for.

Love, (complicated) actually

Manhattan (Woody Allen, 1979)

The Zafra synopsis was quick to point out the George Gershwin score as an astounding clue, one that could really make you clinch the which-one-is-which dilemma, given that you knew who Gershwin is. Mr. Gershwin, aside from his musical acclaim, is the one responsible for putting up the orchestra sound that opens up the film carefully melding into the different scenes of New York in black and white. Woody Allen’s reluctant but familiar voice would soon enter the background amidst the early morning fog, traffic and the usual hustle-and-bustle of New Yorkers. He was saying something about Chapter One, the book he is supposed to write about moral decadence in the urban setting. He never finishes a complete thought that would ultimately give us the book’s idea but such uncertainty will provide the fitting orientation into the mess that is Isaac (Allen).

While cringing at the thought of the publication of a book which chronicles the break-up of his marriage with her lesbian ex wife (Meryll Streep), he tries to recover and mask his self-doubt by having an affair with a seventeen year-old girl Tracy (Mariel Hemingway). When he meets with Mary (Diane Keaton) the woman his married best friend Yale (Michael Murphy) is trying to hook up with, the wounded opposites attract and not long after we see Woody spiraling yet again in another emotional rollercoaster. The situations and emotions hit the ground and it hits us because of how real these situations play out. And we laugh incredulously at the comedy of our own childlike immaturity, indecision and insecurities.

We know that the complex situations would go nowhere by normal-people standards and the exposition of the stereotypical attachments to each character would, in the same way, mirror our own. The concluding scene, where Isaac runs to catch the girl before she boards off to London (when she was previously being shooed off by Woody’s character), will probably invite us to respond differently, and reckoning from Woody’s strokes on love, we shake our heads at this complicated, complicated world.