Wrap up

Well, today was the last day of the 12th Annual Calcutta Film Festival. This year I had made a conscious decision to watch a small number of films. Last year was my first ever attendance of a film festival and I watched as much as I could...in the end it turned out to be too much sensory input...not that I didnt enjoy every single moment of it-I did. I could not wait to watch more even as my eyes screamed for much needed rest. But this year was different. I needed to watch less films so that I could make sense of the filmmaking. As one of our lecturers aptly put it, we cannot hope to have the audience's pleasure principle while watching films anymore. Or can we? I watched a total of 17 films- 2 shorts, 1 animated short and 14 full length feature films. But thats for later. So how was this year's festival? Considering the sheer number of films they had managed to bring this year alone, it was awesome. But the main problem was that this year it lacked focus. This year, there were films ranging from the early films of Griffith and Lang to the very latest Lars Von Triers. The time span was too great and the collection became garbled. Another insult was the festivals refusal to pay tribute to Sven Nykvist. The great cinematographer passed away a little less than a month ago, and when the festival director was requested to consider changing the programme to pay tribute to him(the films shot by Nykvist were already being brought in, all they needed to do was create a category in the announcement in their publication), he obviously did not agree. We were a little riled up about that, but considering what a fool he made of himself on stage during the film festival, I guess he got his just rewards. My experience of this years film festival is definitely a few notches below last years' experience. Last year we had the fortune of watching Dekalog on print! Of course, there were many other films that were wonderful , like getting to watch Downfall in the biggest screen in Calcutta, watching Talk to Her and All about my Mother in the big screen. Oh well, one cant live in the past.

This is the list of films that I saw this year. The films that I really like, I will write reviews of them later...the rest I will waste few words on.

Sunday
The Last Days (Germany)
Metamorphosis(Russia)
The Absolute Moments(Greece)
The Road to Guantanamo(UK)

Monday
Through a Glass Darkly(Sweden)
Sophie Scholl :The Final Days(Germany)

Tuesday
The Buried Forest(Japan)
The Beat of the Street(Spain)
The White Masai(Germany)

Wednesday
Rules of the Game(France)
The Italian(Russia)

Thursday
Damnation(Hungary)
Mother of Mine(Finland)
All People is Plastic(Austria)
Adam's Apples(Denmark)

Friday
My Right to Ravage Myself(South Korea)
Manderlay(Denmark)

I had plans to watch more, but some films I unfortunately missed and others well, just couldnt see them due to unavoidable circumstances. I will write about all these films in my next post which I intend to put up in a few days. Now I need to watch some serious brainless masala films. Aah, maybe I will watch some Vin Diesel...or perchance Hrithik ? Heh, God forbid, if that day comes when i actually seek out Hrithik & Vin's films, I have made arrangements that my friends will shoot me and put me out of my misery. See you soon.