Rowan Sullivan, Author at FilmRoot

391

Ahlaam (Iraq) – Experience the Horror of the Iraq War

Amazingly, this film was the first film shot in Iraq following the end of the Iraq War. Even more amazingly, it does not hold back at all from showing the devastating effects of the war on Baghdad and it’s citizens. If you haven’t seen an Iraqi film before, go watch this one! But beware, it’s not something you can sit back and relax to with a big bag of popcorn.

Why Watch Ahlaam?

To watch a film from Iraq! How many Iraqi films have you seen?
For a chance to learn a bit about the effects of the war in Iraq
Experience an Iraqi wedding complete with music and lots of ululations
Witness the fall of Iraq from the eyes of regular Iraqi citizens

The Breakdown

Ahlaam starts with bombs falling on Baghdad 3 days before the fall of the city. Inside an asylum, the patients are startled and scared by the exploding bombs. It is obviously not a pleasant situation to be in.

The film follows the true story of three Iraqi people as the Iraq war starts. One is a soldier for the Iraqi army. Another is the happy fiancee of a local man. The last is a man training to be a doctor. They are all based in Baghdad and all lead happy lives in what they describe as a ‘beautiful city.’

Of course, from what we unfortunately now associate with Iraq (war), we assume their happiness is not going to last. The director, Mohamed Al-Dara, does his best to foreshadow the bleak future. Firstly, there’s the snippet of the patients in the mental asylum at the start before the film jumps back to before the start of the war. Secondly, there are just too many nice statements. When you hear someone say ‘Baghdad is beautiful,’ and another say that ‘one day military service will be but a memory’ it’s obvious that Baghdad will not be beautiful by the end of the film and the army will be ever present. It’s like Chekhov’s gun, when you introduce a gun, it will be fired.

Conclusion

By the end of the film you will see the effects of war on the regular citizen of the world. It’s well worth a watch, but probably not the best option for your first date!

392

Wild Strawberries (Sweden) – How Did You Live Your Life?

Wild Strawberries Film Difficulty Ranking: 3

Do you have a grouchy grandpa or a grumpy old friend? Well this is the perfect film to watch with them. It reminds of us of our mortality and explores the meaning of life. Are we better off grumpy or friendly – watch and decide. I admit, it’s not a barrel of laughs, but it is thoughtful, beautiful, and worth every minute of your time.

Check three reasons to watch it below. Then watch it here on YouTube.

Why Watch Wild Strawberries?

For the perfect introduction to Swedish maestro, Ingmar Bergman
To explore the meaning of life!
It’s one of the greatest road trip films (although it is completely different to the extroverted Hollywood road trip films)
To see some scary dreams and visions

The Breakdown

Wild Strawberries starts with Isak, a 78 year old professor about to receive a doctorate. He thinks how he has become lonely in his old age (in an inner-monologue that we hear from a lot in this film) before he introduces us to his family and goes to wake up his maid. He is ready for a road trip!

It doesn’t seem like anyone really likes him though. In his old age, he has become lonely because he doesn’t like hanging out with his family or community. To add to that, he is plain rude. Whilst driving, he chauvinistically tells Marianne to stop smoking because she is a woman, and feigns forgetfulness when she brings up how rudely he dismissed her relationship with his son.

Luckily, he begins to change as he starts to look back on his life. One particular dream sets him on this path. In this dream Isak stops outside a house with boarded windows. He anxiously walks to the left of the house, but doesn’t walk more than 10 steps (the camera stops him). He walks to the right, but stops himself again. He looks up at the town clock, but there are no hands on it to tell the time. Then he sees a hearse approaching. As it moves closer, one of the wheels of the hearse gets stuck on a lamppost and the coffin falls out. As Isak moves closer to close it’s lid, the hand of his own corpse tries to pull him inside. Is he already dead?

Conclusion

Wild Strawberries is one of Ingmar Bergman’s classics. It takes a grumpy old man who doesn’t care for his family or community and shakes him with dreams and visions to try and change him. The road trip is his journey to understanding the meaning of life.

393

The Exterminating Angel (Spain) – Bunuel At The Top of His Game

The Exterminating Angel Film Difficulty Ranking: 3

Ever had a party where the friends you invited just don’t go home? They’ve stayed for dinner, stayed the night, and even though you’ve fed them breakfast in the morning, they’re still here! Well that’s what happens in Bunuel’s Exterminating Angel. It’s intriguing, entertaining, and Bunuel-level absurd. You’ve got to love it!

Why Watch the Exterminating Angel?

See more of Bunuel’s dark view of human nature (watch Viridiana for more)
To laugh at the aristocracy just like Monty Python’s Twit of the Year
For surrealism at it’s finest – there are bears and sheep wandering through the house, floating hands, and chicken legs in purses!
To learn how to small talk and ditch someone you don’t want to speak to anymore onto someone else

The Breakdown

The film starts with guests arriving in their fancy cars at the gates of a mansion in Spain. As the guests are entering the house, the servants are trying to leave like rats from a drowning ship. But what is the problem with this house?

Well it’s full of the aristocracy that’s why. The guests have their fancy dinner, and continue to have drinks, and then coffee, then go to sleep. At this party, the guests just don’t leave.

In the morning, the host tries to get them to leave after breakfast, but his plan fails. None of the guests leave. In fact, in a surrealist twist, none of them can leave. They are somehow all confined to fight for survival in the morning room of this giant mansion.

Yes, this film is absurd. But it’s also intriguing and entertaining enough to keep on watching. As for the political allegories, Roger Ebert puts it best:

“The dinner guests represent the ruling class in Franco’s Spain. Having set a banquet table for themselves by defeating the workers in the Spanish Civil War, they sit down for a feast, only to find it never ends. They’re trapped in their own bourgeois cul-de-sac. Increasingly resentful at being shut off from the world outside, they grow mean and restless; their worst tendencies are revealed.”

Conclusion

This is vintage Bunuel. Just like in Viridiana he subtly makes fun of Franco’s Spain. In this case he makes fun of the aristocracy who are trapped in their upper class bubble (their own oversized mansion).

394

Viridiana (Spain)

Viridiana Film Difficulty Ranking: 4

Who said you couldn’t make fun of a dictatorship whilst living in under a dictatorship? Luis Bunuel proves us wrong by returning to Spain to deliberately make this film that satirizes Franco. Would anyone dare do this today?

Check out this sleepwalking scene for a mere taste of the controversy.

Why Watch Viridiana?

Get to know one of the dark side of one of the most famous directors of the 20th century: Luis Bunuel
To see a film that savagely pokes fun at Spain under Franco, dictator from 1939 until 1973 (the film was banned in Spain until his death in 1975)
For a ‘Last Supper’ scene which got it banned in the Vatican
If you like laughing at human nature and the absurdity of life

The Breakdown

We meet Viridiana in the courtyard of her convent talking with her mother superior. She is told to go visit her uncle before she takes her vows to become a nun. A strange request as she hardly knows him. In a Bunuel film, this can only mean trouble.

Sure enough after Viridiana arrives at her uncle’s house, she is fetishised by Bunuel (meaning she is made into the object of her uncle’s sexual fetish). Bunuel shows her taking off her stockings and nun frock in one scene and has the uncle’s maid spy on her through a key hole.

Bunuel makes it even weirder when the uncle asks Viridiana to wear his dead wife’s wedding dress (she died on her wedding night). Sure enough she looks just like her.

Bunuel’s depiction of the weird uncle is a satire of the aristocracy under Franco. He paints them as perverted and stuck in tradition (his house is full of old artifacts and looks like Mrs.Faversham’s from Dickens’ Great Expectations).

But Bunuel does not just satirize the aristocracy. Everyone is a victim in this film!

Conclusion

Bunuel has a pretty dark view of humanity. No one in this film gets away without being made fun of from the creepy old uncle to the group of beggars Viridiana takes care of. Even Viridiana is made fun of with her saintly actions.

One scene which perfectly depicts Bunuel’s world view is a scene in which Jorge (the uncle’s son) buys a dog that is being dragged along on a lead under a running horse cart. He buys the dog to free it. However, as he walks off with the dog, he does not see another cart drive past with another dog being dragged along under it.

395

What is Slow Film and Why You Should Care?

Film Root’s Introduction to Slow Film

Image result for slow cinema

Watching slow cinema is a completely different experience to binge-watching your favourite TV show. When you’re binge-watching TV you can just sit in your seat and let the TV tell you a story. In contrast, when you’re watching slow film you have to do more.

Slow film is pretty much another art form within the world of film. So I’ve tried to help you understand what it is and why you should care in our first Film Root film introduction to slow film right here.