Reading "L'Avventura"

Michelangelo Antonioni is a director that continually pursued the development of films that focused around the nature of relationships between human beings. L’Avventura (1960), and particularly the extract in which this text will focus, are no exceptions, both focusing on a group of couples and their love relationships. These will form the basis which will allow Antonioni to explore the thematics that interest him, such as, the existential anxiety, the perilous state of emotional life, the incapacity of communication between human beings, and others. All these themes are directly related to characters and their subsequent relationships. Therefore, this text will attempt to critically explore how does Antonioni treats them through the use of a particular filmmaking style that encompasses a vast range of elements like the characterization of characters, the narrative events construction, the use of dialogue, the environment settings, the use of music, the use of the camera and the editing/pace of the scenes.

“Un Pecche Canne!” – the extract begins, hence triggering a set of expectations on the spectator associated with the ‘shark’. However, the film couldn’t be further away in both story and theme from a film about a shark. As the spectator goes on to discover in the following scene, the shark is no more than a lie, and is completely inconsequential to both the characters and the latter events in the film. This point leads me to one of the central aspects of Antonioni’s films that can also be evidenced in this extract. The events that constitute the narrative of a film do not necessarily have a cause and effect link between them. Hence, at a first viewing many scenes might seem disconnected from what the spectator virtually outlines as the central line of the story. However, upon a more thought reading, these events will reveal other dimensions to their meaning. Firstly, they could function as platforms for subtly revealing character’s inner consciousness that are reflected in the event’s symbolic meanings. Secondly, they could work as opportunities to, through the use of secondary characters, comment on the problems that torment the main characters, or even serve as a social comment.
The incident with the fictitious shark is an example of the first case. Anna (Lea Massari), who tells the lie, confesses to Claudia (Monica Vitti) in the following scene that it was all an act. Asked why, she is incapable of answering, not because she doesn’t want to reveal the reason behind her act, but because she genuinely doesn’t know - she just did it. This reveals two things: firstly, the enormous boredom that fills Anna’s life, suggesting a sense of meaningless existence – she has no purpose, no goal in life, in short, she has no clear motivations; secondly, it symbolically suggests an implicit need to escape, not the literal shark, but rather the social prison in which she is – she needs to escape for her life, and that is what she does a couple of scenes later in the extract, although the spectator is never again informed of her outcome.
The scene between Patrizia (Esmeralda Ruspoli) and Raimondo (Lelio Luttazzi), as he arrives from diving, is a good example of what I mean by an inconsequential scene that serves, in this case, both as a comment about the main characters and a social comment. The central feature of this scene is the nature of the relationship between Patrizia and Raimondo, while Claudia is watching them. He has an obvious physical attraction, or better, sexual need for Patrizia, who in her turn does play along his requests. However, the striking characteristic is that neither of them is passionate about it, they apparently are both bored with the situation, and any excitement that they might feel is barely noticeable, even in the case of Raimondo. They are dead for feeling. It is more of a mechanical action, like when Raimondo consensually touches Patrizia’s breast, while she indifferently lights a cigarette, bored to hell. Even when Patrizia acknowledges that Raimondo amuses her, she does it in comparison to her dog, as if Raimondo was a puppet that you could call upon to perform some kind of trick to amuse you, but towards which you don’t have any genuine type of feeling. The nature of their relation might be seen as suggestive of the future that lies ahead for Anna’s and Sandro’s (Gabriele Ferzetti) relationship, as well as, constituting a clear critique to the type of relationships existing between people of the Italian higher-class society.
This emotional sickness, so called ‘maladia dei sentimentti’, is extended to all the characters, whose relationships are marked by indifference, boredom, and incapacity in communicating or showing any kind of affection. In the crucial scene between Anna and Sandro (Gabriele Ferzetti) – lovers and engaged – one would expect, even if in an argument, the characters to reveal emotions towards one another. This couldn’t be further from what is shown. Anna tries, during the course of the scene, to tell Sandro that she no longer wants to marry him, at least not at that time. Then, she contradicts herself saying that she would die only to think of being separate from him, but at the same time she cannot feel him. She says all this, however, without ever showing any kind of emotion. She is rational about her feelings, and despite acknowledging their existence in no moment she reveals them. In opposition to her, stands Sandro. He also does not express any emotions in the scene, but he takes the state of their relationship a step further down – he is even incapable, and refuses to talk about their feelings. Basically, there is no communication between the two characters, and it will be this ‘prison of unspoken words’ that will lead Anna to run away.
Furthermore, related to character’s relationships, it is important to quickly re-mention the scene between Anna and Claudia in the boat. This is the only moment in the extract where two characters share a sense of complicity. They feel for each other. Claudia and Anna friendship is obvious and filled with an underlined sexuality between the two. Most of the camera work in this scene contributes towards a sense of unity, resulting in two-shots of them side by side, and long takes that move from a close-up of Claudia to one of Anna and vice-versa. This visual imagery records and gives prominence to their shared looks and smiles, that clearly reveal a highly emotional relationship between the characters. The fact that the only moment in the extract where there is clear evidence of the presence of feelings is between two women is of little surprise because Antonioni believed that only women are still capable of accepting feelings. As Seymour Chatman writes:
“Western civilization, Antonioni thinks, has left to them alone [women] a modicum of the capacity to acknowledge feelings, a capacity virtually lost by men, especially intellectual men.”
The scene of the argument between Anna and Sandro marks a crucial turning point in the extract and in the film. After this event, the other characters, led by Sandro and Claudia, endeavour in a search for her through the island. However, this search is rather peculiar. All the characters, apart from Sandro, seem to forget the intention on the search very quickly, and are then only occasionally reminded in a rare call for Anna, or question about anyone else having found her. Their search is right from the beginning portrayed as a vain and futile effort, as indeed it turns out to be. Very important to this sequence is the very rare use of music that Antonioni employs through almost the whole of the search. The clarinet and the double bass soundtrack convey a sense of unavoidable failure in the characters actions and, I would suggest, even a dark mockery comment about their mini-quest. Consequently, the characters dwell as pitiful lost creatures accompanied by the allusive music. Even Sandro seems lost. After a few initial moments, where he seems determined – like when he first starts ascending the slope of rocks, and the camera, from a low angle, films him set against the immense rocky structures that represent his undefeatable antagonist but to which he heads nonetheless – he becomes lost and starts moving around without a clear direction, without and intention behind his acts. Therefore, his actions become pointless similarly to everyone else’s.
There are two elements that also caught my attention in terms of composition and mise-en-scène in the search sequence. Firstly, Sandro is twice framed against the background of the sea and an island in the middle of it – once at the beginning of the search sequence and once just after Claudia asks if he has found anything, right at the end of the extract. Similarly, Claudia is also once framed against a similar background of sea and an island. At a first reading, in the light of exclusively the extract, one might see these shots as indicating an isolation of both Sandro and Claudia now that Anna, his fiancée and her friend has disappeared. However, if taking in consideration, for a moment, the rest of the film, it becomes also possible the reading of these images as drawing Sandro and Claudia together, by giving them a visual unity. Secondly, there is a moment when Claudia sits down on a rock and contemplates two similar white straws – one that is untouched, and the other that is broken and hardly resists the strength of the wind. Again, two readings seem to me plausible. The first reading concerns the symbolism of the two straws as representing both Claudia and Anna – one that still stands, another that has already broken. Another, where Claudia contemplates the broken straw as a premonition of what might be of shall she fail to escape like Anna, and instead allows herself to be engulfed by the social world that is surrounding her.
The complexity of Antonioni’s visual imagery and narrative structure could lead to an enormous amount of different readings, even when focusing on a short extract of L’Avventura, which could not possibly be encompassed in this text. Nevertheless, I think that all the elements of the film work towards a similar goal – the exploration of character’s relationships and the lack of motive in their lives, which is a central preoccupation throughout the whole of Michelangelo Antonioni’s body of work.


Bibliography:
• Brunette, Peter; The Films of Michelangelo Antonioni; Cambridge University Press, 1998.
• Chatman, Seymour; Antonioni, or the Surface of the World; University of California Press, 1985.
• Nowell-Smith, Geoffrey; L’Avventura; BFI, 1972.
• Rohdie, Sam; Antonioni; BFI, 1990.

"Bringing Up Baby" and Gender Roles

Bringing Up Baby, directed by Howard Hawks in 1938, shares a similarity to many other films in his body of work. The existence of the so called, among the film studies discipline, Hawksian woman. Indeed, Susan Vance (Katherine Hepburn) does have several characteristics of this type character, like being heavily determined and following her goals assertively. The focus of this assignment will be related to her characteristics and the way she plays alongside the male character, David (Cary Grant). I will explore how does the film, specifically concentrating my analysis on a short extract, subvert the ideological dominant view over gender relationships, in such elements like courtship patterns and role reversal. Furthermore, I will examine how does the construction of both the male and the female character is shaped in the extract, and influenced by the social context in which the film was created and that configured the codes and conventions of screwball comedy.
The American society in the beginning of the 1930s demanded for a renewed view over marriage and the male-female relationship. This introduced a new set of values into the middle class couple and had implications over the expectancies of people regarding love relationships and marriage. This change was greatly driven by entertainment mediums, and screwball comedy played an important role in it. Many of these new values can be evidenced in the extract of Bringing Up Baby.
In the extract sequence Susan and David search for George (the dog) that has stolen the brontosaurus bone and for Baby (the leopard) that has ran away from Susan’s house. They run around the Connecticut woods while Susan tries to lure David into a love relationship with her. This setup serves perfectly for the emergence of the redefined values of couple relationships. Firstly, it provides the background setting for a courtship marked by adventure, excitement, romance and even peril, all of these being central to the conventions of screwball and the newly established social model. Secondly, Susan and David work as a couple taking a joint endeavour, which will potentially set them in a ‘love-companionship’ type of relation. Thirdly, this endeavour will eventually allow them to achieve an understanding based on shared experiences of fun and play.
The female character, Susan, is very much constructed based on the star factor of being Katherine Hepburn playing it. She is in many ways the real life impersonation of Susan Vance, as she is often seen as a symbol of a re-defined model of femininity in the 1930s. Susan, the character, is shown in the extract as having an androgynous side to her. Her clothing is very plain, and she reveals an easiness in relating to the male gender that, even considering the changes in society that were occurring, would not be expected from a high-class young woman. However, she does have a very particular femininity and she is very aware of her sexuality, playing with it to her advantage. Susan is also a very anarchic character, constantly pushing the boundaries of social conventions. Furthermore, she is very determined, self-minded and aware of her ultimate goal, without ever stopping to be playful and enjoyable. This strong character profile provides her with the necessary qualities to assume the active role in the courtship ritual, and indeed fight towards making David fall in love with her, and ultimately marry her.
These characteristics are in complete opposition to those found in David. He is mostly passive and powerless before the stunning energy that Susan displays. He is the archetypal character of the intellectual professor/scientist. He is excessively rational and in a way it is as if he is ‘dead for life’. He doesn’t enjoy his life, and it is through the shock relation with Susan that he will learn to liberate his tensions and have fun. The extract shows exactly this moment. It is the catharsis sequence that will set him free of social conventions and imprisonment. However, this process is not an easy one for the character and it will be based on a series of humiliations that he suffers throughout the sequence. For example, upon an initial intention to lead the search for Baby and George, David quickly misjudges his movements and accidentally falls, sliding down a slope. This event immediately triggers an outburst of laughter in Susan, which further contributes to mark his failure and humiliation. It is important to refer that this laughter, a typical characteristic of the unruly woman, will mark the whole of the sequence and stress each of David’s humiliations and progressive loss of power in relation to Susan. Following this event, Susan assumes the lead of the enterprise to find Baby and George.
In the extract there are several evidences that suggest a clear symbolism between characters and animals. Again, the very action of the sequence - Susan and David searching the woods for Baby and George - sets up the possible symbolisms. The passion of the dog for the bone and David’s obsession for it, immediately suggests the symbolic link between George and David. Furthermore, both share a similar characteristic – loyalty. Contrarily, Susan is symbolically linked to Baby (as the name itself implies) and its wildness. Also, the presence of two leopards, with opposite characters, also hints at the fact that Susan, and in this case women as a whole, are potentially deceivable because they have double character. As Kathleen Rowe writes:
“Women, it [Bringing Up Baby] suggests, can be gentle like Baby pr dangerous like Baby’s double, and their appearances are deceiving. Yet the alternative is worse, and life without the danger Susan brings to it resembles something like death.”
. Moreover, there is also a symbolism between Susan and Baby/the circus leopard that expresses a role reversal in courtship patterns. Both the leopard and Susan do the hunting after men, that run away incapable of facing them. Susan is also clearly associated with the whole setting of nature. Unlike David that is utterly lost, and unease about it, Susan reveals total integration with the natural setting of the woods.
The reading of the extract also revealed the presence of several Freudian symbolisms. Particularly important is the obvious connection between the water and the sexual tension that, by then, clearly underlines the relationship between Susan and David. Furthermore, it doesn’t seem plausible that Susan went into the water with David accidentally. Considering the easiness and control with which she relates to the natural environment, it seems more likely that she intentionally lead herself and David into the water. This event results in a subsequent scene where another symbolic element is very prominent – fire. Here, Susan dries hers’ and David’s clothes near a fire. Having already managed to get David half undressed due to the water, and now to the possibility of getting the clothes dry, she goes further by getting some of his clothes burnt by an ‘intentional accident’. Other symbolisms can be seen in events like: Susan and David watching while George and Baby engage in a courtship ritual that manifests a strong opposition between the two animals, suggesting a kind of ‘battle of the sexes’ that draws back to Susan’s and David’s relationship; or, the moment when Susan literally catches David with a net.
The end of the extract, similarly to the ending of the film, does undermine all this construction of Susan as the powerful character in the relation. In the last scene of the extract Susan turns herself into a powerless figure and assumes a strategy of emotional blackmail, in a desperate attempt to lead David out of his incapacity in acknowledging any feeling for her. By playing the conventional helpless feminine character she eventually succeeds in getting David to mention the fact that he likes her company. The underlying message of this appears to be that only by eventually giving the power back to men, can women achieve the emotional response that they desire. Furthermore, the very basis of Susan’s character motivation premise might cast doubt on the true power of her actions. Throughout the whole film she is driven by the ultimate desire to make David fall in love with her so that they can marry, and implicitly she can become a mother and housewife.
In conclusion, Bringing Up Baby as a whole and specifically the extract under analysis plays extensively with role reversal and inverted courtship patterns. However, I would suggest that the main reason behind this is probably more related to the potential comedic effect that events based on this role-playing might have, rather than an attempt to invert the cultural norms and conventions. This becomes established at both the end of the extract and the film, when the characters assume their positions within the conventional roles of male-female relationships and the dominant patriarchal ideology is re-affirmed.

"Ladri di Biciclette" and Realism

“Ladri di Biciclette certainly is neorealist’.”
Ladri di Biciclette is often considered together with films like Roma, Città Aperta and Paìsa as the one of the most representative expressions of the Italian Neo-’realist’ film movement of the 1940s. In my assignment, based on the last sequence of Ladri di Biciclette, I intend to explore and analyse how might the nature of the subject of the film, be it the subject as in the protagonist character or as in the thematic subject matter, and the way in which the director constructs the treatment of such subjects be read as ‘realist’. I think that it is important to reinforce the idea that despite the film being ‘realist’, as most of the arguments in the course of this assignment will support, it is nevertheless a director and writer’s construction, even more because Ladri di Biciclette is a fiction film in which an enormous amount of time was placed in developing the script, contrary to what is sometimes said about many of its scenes being improvised.
Before I move into a closer analysis of the film and the extract, I believe that it is important to establish clear meanings for ‘realism’ or ‘realist’, as they are central words for the discussion in this assignment. First, ‘realism’ or ‘realist’ can be seen as a method of representing objects, characters or events as faithfully as possible to their real equivalents in terms of their appearance. Second, ‘realism’ can be seen as a conscious commitment to understanding and describing psychological, social and physical forces in our world. In other words, unveiling the truth behind the surface of things.
Ladri di Biciclette came out in 1948, three years after the end of the World War II, in the same year of the victory of the Christian Democratic Party over the Popular Front in the general elections in Italy. The historical context of the film is then one of political instability, filled with corruption in all the government institutions, and with enormous ruptures and disequilibrium in social classes. The unemployment rate was very high and there was immense poverty among the people. All these aspects are permanently present in the film and shape the world of the action where the main character, Antonio Ricci (Lamberto Maggiorani), desperately searches for his stolen bike together with his son Bruno (Enzo Staiola). Because of this realistic portrayal of the society as it would have been during the aftermath of the WWII, Ladri di Biciclette has been praised, particularly by Andrè Bazin, as being a relic or index of pro-filmic events. In other words, due to the accuracy of the representation of historical and social facts, the film encapsulates a trace of reality. Following on from the same way of thinking as Bazin, Susan Sontag writes:
“It [a photograph] is also a trace, something directly stencilled off the real, like a footprint or a death mask.”
In the film, the protagonist is an ordinary working-class man similarly to many other thousands, and the problem that he faces, the search for his stolen bike, is, as the film suggests, a problem that also affects many other people from the working-class. As Andrè Bazin suggests, these two aspects render the film as ‘populist’ .
However, contrary to what would be expected from a character of this nature, the film often puts Ricci in opposition to the masses - the individual versus the collective. This is what happens in the last sequence of the film, which is set just outside the Olympic Stadium in Rome, right after a football match. In this sequence, Ricci fights the difficult moral choice of either stealing a bike and being able to provide for his family, or not stealing a bike but become once again unemployed. He decides to take the immoral choice of stealing a bike, but is quickly caught by a violent crowd that humiliates him and has no interest in trying to understand his situation. I believe that this conflict between the individual and the masses suggests a criticism from De Sica of the fact that, despite the working class being in a very precarious social situation in Italy at the time, people do not share the expected sense of co-operation and solidarity.
This sequence, which starts with Ricci and Bruno wandering in the streets of Rome before arriving at the stadium, can be considered as ‘aesthetic realism’. Among several elements that could be read as supportive of this point, I want to draw attention to four. Firstly, the predominant shot sizes in the sequence are the Long Shot (full figure) until they reach the stadium, and the Medium Shot (waist up) during the long moment when Ricci ponders on his dilemma of whether to steal a bike or not. There is no use of close shots, where only the face of a character is shown, even in highly dramatic moments such as the crying of Bruno when he sees his father being caught and humiliated. Secondly, many of these shots are accompanied by either pannings or travellings, which allow for the possibility of creating more naturally-flowing shots, as well as shots that can follow the action for a longer time. Thirdly, the screen duration of the shots is quite long, and these have usually great depth of field. Fourthly, there are a considerable number of subjective shots of Ricci, which place the audience in the character’s ‘physical’ position, rendering the events as more realistic.
Nevertheless, there are elements that oppose the ‘realism’ to which I have just been referring. Among these I believe that the most obvious one is the way in which the soundtrack for the scene is constructed. The soundtrack, I would suggest, is not bound by ‘realist’ choices, but rather by dramatic ones. The use of ambient sounds is present, but of secondary importance in relation to the use of almost continuous music; this is built on multiple variations of the theme of the film, as well as the use of specific instruments that punctuate the crucial dramatic moments of this sequence. Particularly significant is the use of a soprano saxophone to intensify the moment just preceding the stealing of the bike, and the use of an alto saxophone that plays a tune along with Bruno crying, just after he picks up his father’s hat. Besides the soundtrack, I also found that there is a use of effects in the cuts in the first part of the sequence, particularly the use of two dissolves and a wipe. Like the soundtrack, the reason behind the use of these effects is a dramatic, rather than a ‘realist’ one. The effects contribute to create a continuity of mood, despite the fact that there is no continuity of either space or time between the initial shots where Ricci and Bruno wander in the streets. Lastly, there are also some travellings that do not have an action motivation. They are only used to visually dramatize specific moments: the travelling forward that follows the passage of the cyclists, by moving in to Ricci’s medium shot in order to underpin his emotional reaction.
As a whole, despite the obvious use of a realistic filmmaking style, dramatic motives are, ultimately, more important for Vittorio De Sica than an obsession with realism as an end in itself.
Lastly, I think it is important to go back to the issue of the subject of the film. Despite the criticism of Italian society implied in De Sica’s treatment of the film’s subject matter, the fact that Bruno is a child is crucial to the impact of De Sica’s message of an underlying hope for a different future. This is reinforced by the fact that Bruno has some characteristics that hint at a more conscientious generation to come: in several moments of the film he appears to be more mature than his father, like the fact that he has a job, and the fact that he anticipates his father wrong-doing as is aware that it is a morally incorrect action. In addition, Bruno assumes a protective role towards his father, against the people that are humiliating him and he also has the ability to forgive and accept his father as a human being who commits mistakes, but is still lovable.
In conclusion, I think that Vittorio De Sica is trying to create a work of ‘realism’ in the sense that he is trying to explore, understand and offer a truth about the historical and social context of Italian society in the aftermath of WWII. Nevertheless, I think that one should always look at this type of ‘realism’ with care and awareness, because there is no such thing as the truth. Ultimately, it is only a partial truth, one that represents only one version and point of view.


Bibliography:
• Barsam, Richard; ‘Reality perceived and recorded’ in Nonfiction film: A Critical History; Indiana University Press, 1993.
• Bazin, Andrè; What is Cinema? Vol.1; University of California Press, 1972.
• Bazin, Andrè; What is Cinema? Vol.2; University of California Press, 1972.
• Curle, Howard & Snyder, Stephen (eds.); Vittorio De Sica: Contemporary Perspectives; University of Toronto Press, 2000.
• Marcus, Milicent; Italian Film in the Light of Neo’realism’; Princeton University Press, 1986.
• Sontag, Susan; On Photography; Picador, 2001.
• Williams, Raymond; ‘Naturalism’ & ‘‘realism’’, in Keywords; Fontana, 1976.

"Divine Intervention" as a Realist text

In a world where we are constantly invaded by images that claim to be ‘realistic’ - through film, television, Internet and newspapers - it has become imperative to step back and evaluate its meaning. The meaning of ‘realism’ is a complex and sometimes contradictory one. Moreover, it is important to understand that realism is a product of a specific time, society and culture and therefore evolves and can radically change in different moments of history or in different societies. In relation to realism in art, I think that there is a basic principle that is present in the majority of the Realism Theories: the ambition to understand and expose the underlying social forces of society.
The subject of this essay is the analysis of Divine Intervention, Elia Suleiman’s feature about the daily struggle and difficulties that Palestinians living in Occupied Territories face. In order to achieve this and support the view that Divine Intervention has a plurality of influences, with elements that comply to different realisms and theories, I will have to engage in the analysis of theories like: André Bazin’s ‘Naturalistic’ Realism; Georgé Lukacs and Critical Realism; Bertold Brecht and the Brechtian Realism or so-called Anti-Realism. Moreover, I will also concentrate on Post-modernist ideas and how these influence Divine Intervention.
Post-modernism is a term with an extensive range of meanings. Therefore, it will be necessary to discuss the relevant ones before using them in relation to Divine Intervention. Firstly, Post-modernism conveys a sense of alienation and scepticism: once corner stones of our society fall, and emptiness replaces a valued meaning in life, leaving society in a chaotic loss of direction: what comes next? This is linked to the flaws in long-standing universal values that have been revealed through historical moments in the late 19th century and in the 20th century, particularly during periods like the World War II. These values include science, reason, progress, emancipation and the writing of History itself. This leads to the second point, which is the existence of a sense that everything is constructed - a fabrication by Humans - and thus also subject to major flaws that sooner or later will emerge. This sense of constructiveness and disillusionment is transmitted into art, or in this case film, by the creation of highly fragmented works, and by a recurrent nostalgic re-use and pastiche that are then amalgamated into a discursive and highly conceptual grid of meanings. Thirdly, there is the frequent presence of reflexivity, by which attention is called to the process of creating the works of art in itself. This strategy keeps calling the attention of spectator to the fact that everything is constructed: the work he is watching; what he assumes as real; the world.
Divine Intervention uses many Post-modernist ideas and aesthetics to create this sense of fragmented reality that I will summarise. Firstly, the film does not offer any solutions to the problem it exposes: the Palestinians’ daily life in Occupied Territories. The film has an open-ended plot structure without the creation of a specific and definitive message.
Secondly, it frequently uses references from other clearly identifiable sources, such as artistic works, political figures and religious iconography. Examples of this are the use of a version of the cover song “I Put a Spell on You”, the clear reference to the Matrix in the last IDF scene and the inflation of a balloon with Yesser Arafat smiling on it. These and many other references have a relevance that goes much beyond their textual meaning, such as cultural and political ideologies, and hence create an intricate intertextual network.
Thirdly, the narrative structure is fragmented. There is no arch element that drives the film as a whole, as seen in classic narrative structure. The film is instead based on several sketches and moments that are linked together by the question of how do these people [the Palestinians] experience the daily life in Occupied Territories.
Fourthly, although not very noticeable, I believe that it is significant the existence of reflexivity in the film. Particularly in the scenes where Elia Suleiman’s character and the Woman (Manal Khader) sit side by side in the car, facing the check-point barrier and touching hands. It is important that they not only look at each other, in a shot-reverse-shot structure, but also straight at the camera. Of course it could be argued that the camera is in a subjective position and therefore the characters are actually just looking at each other. However, I would suggest that they tend to look in the direction of the camera: when the camera is in a two-shot position from the front of the car, they both look straight ahead; on the contrary, when the camera is at their side, they bluntly stare at each other and at the audience. This is even clearer when Elia Suleiman inflates Arafat’s balloon and then both he and the balloon look at the camera. For me, this is an obvious example of an authorial comment, pushing the spectator’s attention into questioning who Arafat is, what he represents, and what he is doing for the Palestinian struggle. Furthermore, the fact that Divine Intervention extensively draws on intertextuality and references also sustains this sense of reflexivity. As Robert Stam writes:
“As the negation of ideas of veristic transparency, reflexivity is crucial to both post structuralism and post modernist, both of which share heightened sense of problematized referentialility. Within this context of postmodernism, reflexivity evokes the quotation-like aspects of pastiche art, the hyperreal world of media politics, and the incessant self-consciousness of contemporary television programming, in short the referentless world of the simulacrum, where all of life is always already caught up in mass-mediated representation.”
All these aspects lead to an “immanence of meaning, whereby the spectator has to work out the meaning of the play [or film] of contradictory voices in the text” . This brings me to the issues of spectatorship, which are central in Brechtian Realism. Within this idea, Brecht, similar to reflexivity, suggests the need of rejecting voyeurism and of the “fourth wall convention” . Another strategy to keep the spectator critically engaged and not overwhelmed by the narrative power of the story is the use of what he calls verfremdungselfeckt, i.e. the use of alienation effects that will portray the events not naturalistically, and hence call rational attention upon them. Both these aspects are present in Divine Intervention, being the alienation effects particularly noticeable in scenes like the blowing up of the tank, or the final IDF scene. Moreover, in the film, it is possible to identify other Brechtian Realism elements such as the fact that the film doesn’t construct a ‘totalising aesthetic’, where all elements contribute to the creation of a single message or feeling. Rather it uses image, sound and different narrative sub-plots to create a plurality of messages. Also Brechtian, is the fact that Elia Suleiman’s character, the nearest the film offers to a traditional character, is in effect a contradiction of the ‘typical’ character – he is an individual without any specific goal; a character without purpose, who dwells in a meaningless existence. Finally, the key aspect in Brechtian Realism which is clearly present throughout the film, is that works of art should strive to expose the casual network that underlines and controls the social and cultural mechanisms.
This desire to uncover, through some kind of ‘realism’, a truth about the power mechanisms of society, is similarly present in Lukacsian Realism. However, this is not the only element in Divine Intervention that can be pointed as suggesting a Critical Realist influence. I think that the film can be seen as having a kind of intensive totality. In other words, the geographical, social and historical limited frame where the action takes place, allows the film to give space to an analysis of the social forces operating within this context. Besides, this also permits the exploration of several points of view, and hence offers a dialectical reading, which represents another key element of Lukacsian theory. Finally, I think that despite not offering an alternative solution for the conflict present in the film, as would be expected in Lukacsian Realism, the film does offer an alternative in terms of attitude towards such conflict. The film through the posture of Elia Suleiman’s character, suggests that determination led by reason is the central attitude that Palestinians should assume. Even in the last scene when the Woman fights the IDF agents, it is crucial that she does not attack them; she is attacked and only defends herself. J. Hoberman writes:
“(…) she comes to life, rises whirling into the air, makes a halo of their bullets, and protected by a shield in the shape of Palestine, turns unstoppable ninja – a David to their collective Goliath who turns their weapons back on them”.
Elia Suleiman himself sees the film as a meditation on the Palestinian situation, “I hope it [Divine Intervention] is a meditative image that is free for interpretation.” There is a generalized sense of people waiting for something to happen, something to change, even in the weirdest of situations, like the Police van that, despite having a prisoner inside, is casually parked in the corner of the street; or the fact that Elia Suleiman and the Woman sit in the car for hours without anything happening. The camera itself assumes a contemplative and meditative position, with long-shots where very little action happens, or on the other extreme, where actions are performed repetitively, suggesting a lack of purpose in the characters’ lives and at the same time an alienation with reality. Each one lives in a closed, sometimes schizophrenic world, and communication between characters is almost non-existent.
This leads me to Bazin’s theory on Realism and specifically his idea that film can work as an indexation of pro-filmic events. In other words, the film medium has the ability to capture some kind of truth of the reality that was in front of the camera. In this sense, bearing in mind the prominent relevance of the Palestinian situation, through the use of the ‘contemplative camera’ to portray contemplative and purposefulness characters, I think that Divine Intervention can be seen as being an indexation of pro-filmic events.
In conclusion, Divine Intervention can be seen as using a vast multiplicity of aesthetical and ideological approaches, such as Post-modernism, Brechtian Realism and also minor elements of other realisms, like Lukács’ Realism and Bazin’s Realism. All these converge into the construction of Divine Intervention. Hence, if Realism is the ability to portray the complexities, paradoxes and derangements of the Palestinian and Israeli situation, then, I believe that the Divine Intervention succeeds in conveying it.


Bibliography:
• Bazin, Andrè; What is Cinema? Vol.1; University of California Press, 1972.
• Fahim, Kareem; Stateless cinema: Palestinian film and oscar eligibility, in Village Voice [http://www.villagevoice.com/film/0304,fahim2,41328,20.html]
Hallam, Julia and Marchment, Margaret; Revisioning history: realism and politics in Realism and Popular Cinema; Manchester University Press, 2000.
• Hoberman, J.; God on our side, in Village Voice [http://www.villagevoice.com/film/0303,hoberman,41149,20.html]
• Lukács, Georg; Writer and Critic; Merlin Books, 1978.
• Stam, Robert; Film Theory: An Introduction; Blackwell, 2000.
• Stam, Robert; Film and Theory: An Anthology; Blackwell, 2000.
• Williams, Raymond; ‘Naturalism’ & ‘‘realism’’, in Keywords; Fontana, 1976.

Love, sex and relationships in CLOSER.

“What’s so great about the truth? Try lying for a change – it’s the currency of the world.”, says Dan, Jude Law, revealing one of the messages that is explored throughout the film, Closer, between lies and truth - between revealed and hidden feelings.

The film offers a redefinition of the conventional representation of sexuality and romantic affairs in mainstream cinema, where sex assumes an exclusive prominent position, and feelings are as volatile as the passing wind. They come, tear everything apart, and are gone without any hint of explanation; and the person that once filled someone’s life with joy and desire, becomes someone to be avoided, forgotten and if preferably to never find us again. Moreover, the film breaks away from the traditional filmic notions of romance, love and happiness by suggesting, through one of Larry’s, Clive Owen, lines – being this even more relevant by the fact that he is the only character in the film that gets what he wants – that not everybody wants to be happy, referring to his wife Anna, Julia Roberts, - “Depressives don't. They want to be unhappy to confirm they're depressed. If they were happy they couldn't be depressed anymore. They'd have to go out into the world and live.”

However, the characters don’t see themselves from this perspective, since they are all obsessed with their quest for true happiness and true love. This however is never achieved because, they truly don’t know what they want, or else are permanently changing their minds and hearts about it.

At mid way through the film I thought that Alice, Natalie Portman, the main protagonist, was the exception to this uncertainty and constantly changing feelings. She is the only character that right until the climax scene has been consistent and faithful to her feelings for Dan. She is the only character from whom one could eventually conceive an ever-lasting love, due to it’s proven endurance throughout the film: resisting time spent together, betrayal, and time spent apart. However, the spectator is, together with Dan, struck with immense brutality when Alice, unexplainably reveals that she has stopped loving Dan, and that he should leave immediately, giving as only explanation the fact that she suddenly realised that there was no love between them: “Where is this "love"? I can't see it, I can't touch it. I can't feel it. I can hear it. I can hear some words, but I can't do anything with your easy words.”
Love is then represented as both volatile and extremely fragile, while sex is treated as a key and determinant element in a relation, as it is seen with Larry and Anna, that were apart but following a blackmailed sexual intercourse, rediscover a new path in their relationship, mainly from Anna’s point of view.
Returning to the issue of whether people truly want to be happy or not, I think that Closer supports the view that people don’t want to be happy, or better, don’t want to conform to the happiness that is offered to them. In other words, the characters of the film seem to desperately strive, almost animalistically and in the brink 'death', for the love of the person with whom they are in love, at a certain point in the film. However, when they finally manage to attract their loved one’s love back, the enchantment is broken and they lose interest in who once was the object of breathtaking desire. That person ceases to represent a challenge, and they quickly undergo a new search, a new adventure, a new desperation and reason for suffering. This suggests the existence of an unconscious desire for platonic love and consequent suffering, as it may be illustrated by this verse from a song: “Cause there’s beauty in the breakdown”.*

I read somewhere about the film that it was ‘Hollywood getting real’. And the question that I arouse is: does this representation of relationships and love affairs reflect the truth that we live in our society? and thus, can it represent a trend that will now become more and more significant in Hollywood cinema?

* “Let Go” in the album Details, by Frou Frou.

Welcome to the Tortoise Movies Blog

Hello fellow filmmakers, film-lovers and friends!!

It is with great pleasure that I sit down for the first time at my friendly computer to write the first lines for this blog. The idea of creating a discussion forum where film topics can be discussed with both enjoyment and seriousness has been in my mind for quite some time, and being now finally doing it is extremely exciting.

This blog appears within a context of a website for my production company Tortoise Movies and is aimed at basically everybody that loves films and is willing to discuss issues around them, be it the stories, the characters, the directing, the photography, production curiosities; well... basically whatever captivates your mind.

The complete Tortoise Movies site will be functional until the mid of February.

The initial motivation that led me to the creation of a blog was the feeling that there was very little discussion, among we - young filmmakers - about stories and screenwriting. Thus, this blog appears as a place where ideas can be confronted and analyzed, where suggestions and problems can be expressed; a place that will elicit the mind, and eventually open the doors for new thoughts to sparkle.
To achieve this discussion about specific scripts and stories in general, there will be a page within the Tortoise Movies site where scripts can be submitted and will then be uploaded and available for general reading*.

A second motivation was the aim to create a page where a showcase of small filmic works like shorts, could also be uploaded and available to general viewing**. Then, from this source material, again, through the blog, create a discussion about such works – their qualities, difficulties, problems and eventual possible solutions.

Moreover, I wanted to create a space where more general issues around the filmic language could be approached because, it is my belief that, we are now living the beginning of a new era in Cinema and, ultimately, it will be up to the new generations to work towards an evolution and crystallization of the filmic language.

Lastly, this blog is a space for any discussion surrounding films to arise and be shared with other filmmakers and film-lovers.

Besides the blog, the films' showcase and the scripts section, the site Tortoise Movies will also have a section of projects that will be a reflection of the projects that Tortoise Movies has, and is currently, undergoing. Being Tortoise Movies a personal production company, its main aim is to facilitate and develop my personal projects. However, co-productions and partnerships are welcome, and might be a path to follow in the near future.

My next post will be around the recently released film, Closer, so if you haven't seen the film and don’t like spoilers, don’t read it right now.


* the scripts should be sent to: scripts@tortoisemovies.com and will then be promptly uploaded. The format should be in PDF.
** the video clips/trailers/complete shorts, should be sent to videos@tortoisemovies.com and will then be promptly uploaded. These should be sent in one or two qualities, being the best quality with a resolution of 320*260, in QuickTime movie. Any info that is to be uploaded together with the clip should also be sent.