Some World Cinema:

Pixote (1981), directed by Hector Babenco.  This exercise in neo-realism is harrowing. It follows the development of a young Brazilian child brought at an early age to a reform centre for youth. Life in the reform centre is truly ugly, brutal and, for some, short. Here young Pixote learns to smoke dope and sniff glue. He confronts abuse of various kinds, the worst kinds imaginable. What we see reminds me of the many prison movies from Hollywood, only with children and youth instead of adults and with a brutality and a filth barely touched on in the American films. The scene in which Pixote cleans a toilet is well-nigh impossible to watch. In the film’s first half inside the reform school, we have an indictment of the reform system in Brazil. Scenes are dark and grubby and closed in to accentuate the sense of entrapment and hopelessness. Halfway through the film, a group of children escape from this hell-hole. Outside is brighter with sunshine and even ocean vistas after a few of the youngsters ride the rails to Rio. Free to explore the world, they learn new trades such as thievery, pimping, and murder. The film is unrelenting in its look at the lives of the impoverished street kids of Brazil. In a brief prologue prepared for audiences outside Brazil, Babenco shows us the home of the lead actor in Pixote, Fernando Ramos De Silva. And in a short introduction to the restoration of the film, Martin Scorsese tells us that this child never did learn to read and therefore could not continue an acting career, and that he was shot and killed at the age of 19.  Learning this makes the experience of the film even more troubling than it would be without such information. 

After the Curfew (1954), directed by Usmar Ismail. This film from Indonesia tells the story of a resistance soldier returning to civilian life after the war for independence against the Netherlands. Things do not go well. What especially interests me is the way this story plays out because it is close to several films noir we see coming out of Hollywood at the same time. The returning soldier who finds himself caught in a web of intrigue and violence is a familiar noir turn. Here the focus is on the trauma the soldier has suffered from the war, and also the miserable lesson that plus ca change plus c'est la meme chose. The soldier’s back story in the war comes to us in flashbacks. We also have dark city streets and a collection of people whose dreams and desires will go unfulfilled, and also a few unsavoury people who manage to turn things to their monetary advantage. This is cinema that combines seriousness of purpose with a pulp turn. 

 

Soleil O (1967), directed by Med Hondo. This is the first film of the Mauritanian film maker, Med Hondo. He made it over some four years for about $30,000.  It follows the travels of a Mauritanian immigrant to France and he encounters people and their bigotry in Paris. Early scenes are striking in their pointed commentary on colonialism, a commentary that is both humourous and stylized. Indeed, humour travels throughout the movie, and without it what we see would be wrenching. Well, it is wrenching, but the humour and the music work to give us some hope that what the young man from Mauritania experiences is, as Peggy Lee says, not all there is, my friend. The narrative, such as it is, gives us something of a picaresque adventure, the various scenes stitched roughly together, but somehow they manage to cohere. I was reminded of Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep (1981).  I was also reminded of Welles’s Othello (1952), filmed over a three-year period. I might also add that this is one of the first films from Africa.

 

Dos Monjes (1934), directed by Juan Bustillo Oro. This is an early example of Mexican cinema, and it shows the influence of Murnau, Weine, Lang and the rest of the expressionists. Stark lighting, sets that have twisted and fluid decor (clocks, furniture, doorways, etc.), menacing hallways and statues, canted angles all deliver a film that borders on the uncanny. The narrative gives us two accounts of the same story with significant changes in each telling, something of an early practice-run for Rashomon. This is an impressive combination of horror, romance, social drama, and gothic atmosphere. A commentator interviewed for the DVD asserts that the film reminds him of Citizen Kane in its delightful experimentation with form. I like this suggestion because Dos Monjes (Two Monks) gives the viewer so much to see. This is pure cinema. Although this is a sound film, it could easily be silent because its delights are so intensely visual. Dare I say, it is deliriously visual. This is a film I knew nothing about, and I am pleased to have stumbled across it.