Dying Days of The Music Room

A performance in ‘The Music Room’ by Satyajit Ray

This is a weird place to start, but after watching ‘The Music Room’, I realized I have an unconscious bias against most of  Indian Cinema. This realization has nothing to do with ‘The Music Room’ itself, which I expected would be great and was great. It has to do with my knowledge that Satyajit Ray was a master filmmaker on par with his peer Akira Kurosawa of Japan, and then the reputations of the two countries' film industries diverged greatly after they helped lay the foundations. Japan has produced numerous internationally acclaimed and recognized filmmakers in the decades since, whereas India has been mostly associated with Bollywood blockbusters and flashy stars. Ever since I’ve been into movies I could go to any art theater throughout the year and catch the latest critical darling of Japanese cinema, while I had to seek out the Indian cinema, if there was one, and see one of the 3 or 4 Bollywood films currently playing. Indian cinema was separated and almost acknowledged as it own populist thing in America, whereas Japanese cinema sat alongside all of the other arthouse, independent, and foreign film fare. Being the good student of cinema that I am, I discovered the name Satyajit Ray early on as an important name in world cinema history, and then not much else after him that easily came onto my radar. The impression all of that left on me I now realize is that Indian cinema as a a serious art form pretty much died after Ray in favor of populist escapism for the masses. 

However, after the film I searched for the best Indian films in history and found a whole list of films and filmmakers that are a whole lot less known, even among film fans, but are regarded for the excellence and significance in shaping Indian cinema. I have a whole lot of films to check out before I can pass such a simplistic judgment on the cinema history of an entire country. As a film lover, I do not think the bias I had casts me in a good light nor am I particularly proud to share it, but I think it’s always important we acknowledge our biases and where they come from when they come to our awareness so that we ourselves, and others can learn from them. India has probably the richest and most unique artistic and cultural heritages in the whole world, so of course I want to see that represented and reflected in their films because it is my favorite art form. Maybe it is because my standards are so high that I allowed vague impressions of modern Indian blockbuster cinema to color my perceptions of over a 100 years of Indian cinema history outside of Satyajit Ray, who I accepted merely because I knew he was anointed by the critical consensus. That is sad, and I have a lot of educating myself to do by starting with my new list of must watch Indian classics. 

Now let’s finally enter ‘The Music Room’ and discover what revelatory melodies Ray and his cast have to play for us. Mr. Roy is a nobleman living in an isolated crumbling mansion in the Indian countryside. His profound love of music demands he have a special music room for private concerts to be performed by the best musicians in the region for special guests at his pleasure. It is not only a way to take pleasure in his love of music, but to demonstrate for his special guests the incredible nobility, wealth, and sophistication he possesses. Unfortunately, his wealth is rapidly diminishing at the same time as his working man neighbor’s wealth is just as rapidly increasing. This threatens him so much that he feels an even stronger need to display his nobility and sophistication, which he knows his neighbor cannot match. And when his neighbor proves his sophistication by inviting the most renowned classical dancer around to his own gathering, Mr. Roy later desperately hires the same dancer while clinging on to his only advantage: his nobility, his blood, the one thing he can never lose, but also the one thing he did nothing to gain. This is what’s at the heart of Ray’s curiosity in ‘The Music Room’, old money vs. new money, the nobleman vs. the self-made man, pedigree vs. accomplishment, the past vs. the future of India. 

These ideas were very much in the consciousness of India at the time as the country started to rethink some vestiges of the past, such as the caste system, and to embrace a more modern economy and culture. It’s interesting because America is one of the few countries that never really had this concept of royalty and noble blood built into its foundation, however, we have since assigned a similar status to the wealthy and politically powerful which gets passed down to the children through generations and creates a different kind of favored bloodline, and we have in turn passed that on to India as part of the modern economy and culture they are adopting. In modern India, finally, anyone can have the status of royalty, as long as they can buy it. Now that’s the American way! But back in 1950s India, poor Mahim Ganguli, the neighbor, can never buy that social status no matter how rich he becomes, and someone like Mr. Roy will not let him forget it until his dying breath. Because with his dwindling wealth, crumbling mansion, shrinking guest list, and the sudden departure of his wife and son in a terrible tragedy, his noble blood and the airs with which he carries himself are the only things he has to distinguish himself within the society. So the musical recitals and parties must go on, money be damned, until the last cent is spent, and then he knows there is only one way out, because he cannot live a second of his life undistinguished. 

I really do not want to be political in my writing, but it is impossible not to picture Trump in this role. He has been exaggerating his wealth while hiding the truth behind a smokescreen of bankruptcies and investors and mysterious tax returns for years just to name the obvious, and he is now clinging so desperately to his image as a powerful, successful, and rich businessman that he will say and do anything to stay in power, to stay relevant, to stay in the media, because he knows deep down that his image is forever tarnished the second he leaves office. Love him or hate him, agree with him or don’t, but one thing is undeniable: before he ran for president his public image was almost universally positive as a successful and rich celebrity businessman (despite evidence that was freely available that this positive image was mythical already), and now after his presidency it will be at best hugely divided between positive and negative, and at worst it will in time become universally negative. That means he was willing to risk his entire legacy and that of his family just to increase his status and public image in the present, to do whatever it takes and cling on until the last moment that status and power remains in his grasp. That is what Mr. Roy is willing to do for his music room and the lifestyle it represents, because he too knows that when the money runs out and he is gone, it’s his entire family legacy that he is tarnishing, and that will be HIS legacy. So live it up while you’ve still got it, because it’s going to slip away, and soon.

I Want L'Argent, It's What I Want

L’Argent by Robert Bresson

I must admit before I begin that I have long considered Robert Bresson a spiritually minded director by reputation, which is my favorite kind of director, and ‘L’Argent’ is a film I have been wanting to watch for years. It’s hard to write about this film without that context, because it is nothing like the expectations I had for it, which makes it hard to process and discuss properly. I try to never write traditional reviews in these essays or say whether I like or dislike a film, and ‘L’Argent’ is clearly a classic film artfully made, but it definitely threw me off with its aesthetic style and the narrative direction it took. It has a very disaffected feel to it, and none of the characters in the film show emotion or possess redeemable qualities. The very nature of the film is transactional, as we follow several characters attempts to lie about, steal, or reclaim money. As the title suggests, it is all about the money. 

Given my own personal assumptions and expectations about the film and its director, I expected to get some sort of uplift by the film’s end, but instead it almost wallows in the darker side of human nature. The camera itself often focuses in closely on objects and bills reflecting the characters’ focus on them above human relationships. It is also focuses in a lot on doors and drawers, specifically handles and locks, and how people use them to separate themselves  or their possessions from one another. It also portrays the city as a cold and unfriendly place, an anonymous playground where other people also become objects for one’s own aims and thoughts of the consequences on others rarely seep in. To me, it presented modernity itself as nihilistic, without redemption. Even when we receive a reprieve from the oppressive coldness of the city, it is only to watch the way the disease of city life spreads and infects the unspoiled countryside through one of the main characters who has been spoiled by the city. While I can agree with most of the philosophical points I believe the film to be making, and I tend to love a lot of dark and depressing films, even I found it hard to sit through so much coldness without a light at the end of the tunnel.

That leaves me to ask, what is about this film compared to other heavy films I have loved that keeps me at a distance? For one, I believe it must be the blatant and intentional focus on object over character, especially in its visuals. Another major emotional turnoff right from the start was the entitlement of the two characters who set the whole chain of events in the film in motion. They are the young and spoiled offspring of wealthy families who pass off a counterfeit bill that is the downfall of many other characters simply because the allowance one boy receives from his father is deemed insufficient compared to his friends. I am not one to complain about entitlement, and in fact I hate that word entirely because I loathe listening to the actually entitled people in America, the wealthy and privileged, bemoaning the entitlement of millennials in order to deceive the public and distract from the negative effect their own greed and self-preservation has had on the world. However, these two young men come from exactly that kind of family where their entitlement is learned and enabled by their parents, who give them money and also use money to buy their way out of trouble. Thus, the two characters who do the most damage with their careless behavior face the least consequences of anyone. It is something we see everywhere in America and the rest of the modern world, and I believe it is a large part of what is driving the current frustration around the globe, which is then being exploited by those same people who are causing it. I guess seeing that reflected so clearly in this film and the trickle down effect it has on the poor and underprivileged characters is a bit too real given where the world is at right now to allow for an enjoyable experience for me personally.

Despite my own reaction to the film, I do not want to leave you with the impression that this is a bad film by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, for me to have such a reaction the film must be a quite astute and technically impressive piece of art. I have never seen a film shot and edited so precisely to highlight the material objects in our lives and how they drive us to act badly. Of course it is not the objects themselves that create this response in us, but our relationship to them. The way the film favors the characters’ relationship to these objects and physical spaces over their relationships to each other is a feat in itself, and colors the way we see the world of the film. I started by questioning if this film had any spiritual nature to it, but of course spirituality cannot be properly understood and appreciated without the absence of spirituality. By highlighting a world without spirituality, in a way, I suppose ‘L’Argent’ could be considered a spiritual film. 

M, The Rise of Fear

Fritz Lang’s ‘M’ starring Peter Lorre

There are so many ideas packed into Fritz Lang’s noir thriller ‘M’, his first to utilize sound, but there is one pervasive theme that stuck to my ribs like a black tar suffocating my soul: the power of fear. When thinking about this film, it is impossible to ignore the reality of 1930’s Berlin and the fact this film was shot less than 3 years before Hitler completed his rise to power. It opens with children singing a playful song about the child murderer who is on the loose, and we soon learn the depth of fear that has spread throughout the city as police have failed to catch the killer. What follows is many scenes of police raids, interrogations, and wild finger pointing pitting neighbor against neighbor and friend against friend. It expertly shows how fear and the propagation of fear can cause everyday citizens to willingly cede more and more freedom and power to the authorities in the hope of alleviating that fear. It is particularly disturbing to watch knowing the looming specter of Hitler and fascism was already beginning its rise at the same time audiences were watching this film in cinemas around Berlin. Sadly, it also echoes the finger pointing, fear mongering, and mob mentality that has been on the rise in America and around the world as more and more leaders with fascist ideas have come into power. What is it about humans that cause us to act out the same tragedies over and over again? They say that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, but sometimes I wonder, are we simply doomed to repeat it no matter what? Is it merely part of the cycle of life, and it’s only the methods and means by which it plays out that evolve, but not the reality itself?

‘M’ also exposes the hypocrisy and duplicity that pervades all institutions in a large scale civil society the likes of which exist in major cities around the world. This monster that everyone can project all of their fears and their problems onto allows not only the police to come together in pursuit of justice, but also the entire criminal underground of the city. There is one long scene where Lang intercuts meetings between the heads of both the police and the city’s criminal organizations as they desperately attempt to hatch plans to catch the killer. They are on opposite sides of the law, but their behaviors and motivations are exactly the same, to protect their own organizations from public scrutiny and disparagement. Similarly, the tactics of each group disregards the rights and freedoms of the everyday citizens in favor of catching the killer at all costs. However, it is one of the leaders of the criminal underground that lays bare just how hypocritical both groups are being in their actions. He decries how this monster of man is hurting their business and giving all criminals a bad name, basically likening what they do as a necessary and normal part of society that is threatened by this killer who is acting outside of the norms of society. This is an idea you can hear repeated again and again in different forms to this day, the idea that financial crimes are not really crimes because they usually don’t include physical harm, and when they do it is only a side effect and not with intent, so it is not as bad. We have learned to let the rich and the powerful off the hook because of this very idea, even if their crimes ruin the lives and livelihoods of hundreds or thousands of people, while we demonize individuals with serious mental health issues or major socio-economic disadvantages who commit violent, and sometimes even non-violent, crimes against individuals. 

Finally, going back to theme of justice that was also explored in The Passion of Joan of Arc, both the police and the criminals claim to be in pursuit of justice on behalf of the people, but we have already seen through their actions that they have no clear consensus on what justice is. In fact, it is the criminals who put M on trial in a makeshift underground court, complete with lawyers, judges, and jurors of their own choosing. To see a bunch of criminals mimicking the same unjust systems that the state has imposed upon them is so absurd and ironic as to make the appeals of M for mercy and understanding even more surreal. He feels so out of the norms and society and so misunderstood that it is clear to him not even they can understand his obsessive compulsions. It is truly shocking to the system, because it is clear that Lang’s message is one against capital punishment, and he chosen the most horrifying of subjects intentionally to make his case. As a viewer, we are so disgusted by his appeals for understanding because of the vile nature of his crimes that we still want to fall into the same mob mentality of everyone else and see him torn apart for his crimes. So again we must ask, what is justice? Who decides? How can something that seems like it should be absolute be so murky? Do we feel good letting these people we’ve seen be so hypocritical and disdainful of the ‘commoner’ decide on justice? Do we feel satisfied seeing him handed to the same police who tolerate these normal criminal elements of the city and who happily subvert the people’s freedom in pursuit of their brand of justice? Can we tolerate M living in a mental institution receiving care for his mental illness and possibly being set free again one day? There are no satisfying answers, only the dark realities of human nature and the human mind. 

In addition to these ideas, ‘M’ visually sets the blueprint for two whole sub-genres of cinema that will later become wildly popular: the hunt for a serial killer movie and the heist movie. The film shows off evidentiary and psychological investigative techniques that feel way ahead of their time as both the police and the criminal underground use every tool at their disposal to capture the killer. It also takes great thought and care in its 2nd half as the criminals break into and office building in search of the killer, showing their skills of intimidation, thievery, and surveillance. We see images of fingerprints, blueprints, police reports, locks and alarms at the same time as we hear discussions of motive, psychological profiles, burglary and escape plans. The time and care taken with all of these details is very meticulous for a film that is really focused on much bigger ideas about society, and you can see how these visual techniques have been repeated endlessly in these two sub-genres of cinema all the way up to today. Also the use of shadows and empty spaces to build suspense and create tension is done masterfully and is a staple of all film noir to come. How one film can help set precedents for so much of film history almost beggars belief.  ‘M’ may lose a bit of focus and momentum towards the end, especially compared to today’s standards, but it is undoubtedly a masterwork of film that has a lot to teach us about human nature and modern society that is as relevant today as it was then.

Still Walking, Still Longing

Still Walking (2008) by Hirokazu Koreeda

There is a scene early in “Still Walking” where Grandma is frying fresh corn fritters and she recounts an oft repeated family story about stealing corn from the neighbor’s farm right after moving in to their house 2 decades ago. She recalls how the neighbor later brought over corn as a welcome offering, and how their oldest son Junpei quickly jumped in to say “Mom, we didn’t have to go buy corn at the green grocer’s”, cleverly explaining the cooking corn to save his mom the embarrassment. After she finishes the story, Grandpa chimes in with, “He could be so smart that way!”, as younger son Ryota sits listening awkwardly to this story he’s heard told the same way a hundred times. Much later, Ryota lashes out at his father and tells him that the famous Junpei line from that story that he always finds so clever was said by Ryota, not Junpei.

This one simple interaction tells you everything you need to know about the family dynamics and relationships in an instant. You see, Junpei died 12 years earlier, and they are remembering him on the anniversary of his death. And Junpei was a doctor who was going to step into Grandpa’s shoes after retirement, unlike Ryota, who is a lowly art and cultural artifact restoration specialist. Naturally, Ryota has always felt like a disappointment while Junpei has been honored and revered by the family in death. So it is a real twist of the knife to hear his father lavish the praise he never gives Ryota onto Junpei for something that Ryota said. It is these careless ways in which family members hurt one another that is really at the heart of Still Walking.

Our relationships with members of our family are always the most complex and complicated ones, especially those between parents and children. Our patterns of emotional and behavioral response are ingrained from birth for children, and for the parents, they are inherited from the previous generations. I think most of us have experienced how we can change and evolve as adults and be completely different people in our adult lives, yet when we get home around our parents we can so quickly revert right back to the same emotional and behavioral responses as in childhood over the tiniest little thing. When you add that reality to the unique responsibilities that come with the parent-child relationship, it is nearly impossible for parents and children to communicate openly and honestly in a way where both parties feel heard and understood, even as adults. For many, these patterns of interaction never evolve and so the relationship does not either. How easy it is to carelessly hurt someone we love when we haven’t taken the time to really hear them and understand them as merely a human. In fact, Ryota at one point ends a defensive diatribe to his parents with a soft plea to be heard and understood by saying, “we’re only human”.

As proof of the complexity of family relationships, I have devoted so much time only scratching the surface of how 4 of the family members relate to one another, and yet there are so many more familial dynamics at play to explore. Ryota also has a sister with an immature husband and 2 rambunctious children who want to move in and help take care of Grandma and Granpda in his place since Ryota has no interest in that responsibility which traditionally would fall to him after Junpei’s death. There is also Ryota’s new wife, a widow and mother of his new stepson, desperately trying to be accepted by his family. And of course there is the strange boy-man they invite over every year, the one whose life was saved by Junpei, the one who the family blames for Junpei’s death. All of these dynamics are at play in one house on one day. But of course what makes this film so beautiful, and what makes a lot of classic Japanese cinema beautiful, is that you understand everything about this family through the visual storytelling and their interactions, but nothing is made overt. It is a realistic and subtle reflection of the cultural family dynamics specific to Japan that of course any Japanese person will recognize, but that I also think anyone from any country will recognize. While the manifestations these dynamics take from one culture to the next may change, they themselves are quite universal. However, not many modern filmmakers reveal them through film as elegantly as Hirokazu Koreeda. 

I’d like to end with a quick conversation about Koreeda’s aesthetic style as a filmmaker, and why he is such an elegant and subtle storyteller. The advice I have most taken to heart as a filmmaker myself is the old adage, “show, don’t tell”. The most powerful thing about film as an unique art form is the ability tell a story through moving images. When working in a visual medium, why have a character or a narrator explain something through dialogue when it can shown through character action or emotion? Koreeda is a master of “show, don’t tell”, from the way he frames still shots within a space to reveal only and exactly what he wants you to see, to the way his actors give you so much information about their emotional state through their actions, their posture, and their reserved but revealing expressions. He also is brilliant at mixing in brief moments of absolute cinematographic beauty into the more intentionally mundane but expertly composed shots of everyday family life, better mirroring the rhythms of real life. Koreeda has proven himself a master visual storyteller over the past 2 decades and I highly recommend you check out any of his family dramas to gain insight into Japanese family cultural dynamics while also possibly gaining a new perspective on your own family dynamics.

The Passion of Joan & The Silencing of Women

Maria Falconetti in The Passion of Joan of Arc

I chose Joan of Arc as the first film I would watch because I’ve long heard that it is a groundbreaking work of visual storytelling and performance, two qualities I value greatly in film. However, I never expected how eerily relevant it would be to today and what’s been happening with the #metoo movement and the response to it. We begin with Joan on trial and being judged by a panel of religious old men as to the veracity of her story. It couldn’t help but evoke the image of the testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford in the Brett Kavanaugh hearings. Throughout history women have been subjected to this cold reality of being harshly judged by a cabal of old men on everything from their appearance, to their actions, to their words, all the way to the core of who they are as a woman. And this classically absurd image of a group of unattractive old men, raised up onto a higher level so they can look down on the woman they are judging, commenting on her appearance and questioning every detail of her story, is so perfectly captured in these opening scenes of The Passion of Joan of Arc.

It can take a few minutes the adjust to the style and pace of this silent era film which uses simple text on a black background to convey dialogue between scenes, but once you settle into the different rhythm it is easy to get absorbed by the emotional drama of the story. This is heightened by the intimate closeups that are used constantly throughout this film, especially on the face of Maria Falconetti’s accused Joan. The lighting and cinematography is so impeccable in these shots that her face almost shines and we can see every emotion and every doubt that she experiences in her trial and punishment. I will venture a guess that this was the first film in history to use such an intimate style of closeups as a major feature of the storytelling, and it is a risk that really pays off, thanks in large part to Falconetti’s performance. We see her always looking up at her judges, as the camera also looks up at these men looking down on her and the viewer, judging her and judging us too for being aligned with her. There is no escape from her predicament for the audience, no relief from the endless pressure and prodding by the judges, instead we are forced to wrestle with the magnitude of her struggle in a very confronting way.

And with that I must return to the parallels between the character of Joan and the universal struggle of women to be believed when they share their truth, especially when it comes to an issue that is challenging to the status quo of a male-dominated society. Every answer Joan gives to the judges is followed by a question intended to undercut her response and undermine her credibility. We see this time and again in public discourse with sexual assault victims, and we see it in a hearing like the one Dr. Ford took part in. Of course there has been a lot of progress made between then and now, but we can still do a whole lot better. I certainly believe we can reach a place of empathy, belief, and affirmation of women that can change the culture and change the way men think about their relationship to women in the world. And I think watching films like The Passion of Joan of Arc that do a good job of putting the viewer’s feelings and experiences in alignment with the female victim of persecution can help bring about that change.

Joan is a true believer in God. Her understanding of God and his message is in direct opposition to the leaders of the Church who are judging her crimes. Thus God plays a crucial role in her story. I have never had a personal relationship with God nor have I needed his word to guide me. I think this is the case with many people today, especially younger generations. However, I think we all have a sense of Justice and a faith that it will be carried out over the long arc of history. Joan uses God as her source of strength to speak out against the Church and speak up for the French people. We use our faith in Justice to speak out against those in power who abuse that power, like the men in power who want to silence women speaking out about sexual assault. But God and Justice are both intangible, we can neither see nor touch them. So everyone can interpret them in their own way and argue with one another over who is right. And when your sense of God or Justice does not agree with that of those in power, they will do anything to silence or discredit you. It is the very men who represent God that discredit and punish Joan for her beliefs. And it is the highest court of Justice in America where Brett Kavanaugh was placed by the men who tried to silence and discredit Dr. Ford. 

So where does this all take us? For Joan, it took her to the stakes to be burned in public as warning not to speak out against the Church. For Dr. Ford, it put her abuser on the Supreme Court in a position to make future legal decisions that could affect a women’s rights regarding her own body and how America adjudicates sexual assault cases in the future, which I could argue is also a message to women to think twice before speaking out in public against powerful men. For the rest of us, it is hard to say where we go. While both God and Justice can give faith and hope to victims who suffer these horrendous ordeals, and both can serve as a source of strength and inspiration within people who doggedly push for and pursue systemic change, they are not enough. The cold realities of the world require us to keep pushing for systemic change and cultural evolution, because if no one pushes, the world will never move. And while God and Justice may serve some in this pursuit, they are not prerequisites for creating change. Dialogue, challenging those in power, speaking our truth, listening to others, and trying to extend empathy and understanding to even those most opposed to our beliefs so that they may do the same, these are the tools we all must use, regardless of our belief in God or Justice.

Joan’s faith in God moved her to act, but it was belief in her story and empathy for her plight and fate that gave many more people in France strength and inspiration. I don’t know if Dr. Ford, or any of the other accusers that have come forward en masse during the #metoo movement, came forward out of a sense of Justice for themselves and other women, but whatever their source of strength to endure the public backlash, the simple act of speaking up and speaking out has inspired and given hope to millions of women that change can come. The confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh was a disheartening outcome for many, just like Joan’s death was for the people of France. It’s what we do in response to that outcome and future outcomes that determines what change will come.

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