Dekalog 4: father-daughter drama

                            

As a 20 year old, what do you do, and how do you feel, when you suddenly discover the man who you have always loved and thought was your father, apparently is not. Dekalog 5 is one of the most convincing of these short films as it depicts perfectly the complexities of an adult/ child relationship. Michal, in his nuanced and understated way, is thoroughly credible as the ‘father’ figure, and Anka is equally assured as the mature but emotional young woman battling to cope with what’s before her.

The issue of the existing letter with “To be opened after my death” marked on the front of the envelope has the potential to destroy their relationship. Both have known of its existence, but have ignored it for years. It is a final letter from Anka’s deceased mother for Anka’s eyes only. Lately her father has been leaving it lying around. He wants his daughter to finally confront whatever news she has, but doesn’t know how to bring it up. He suspects it might be about issues of paternity.

The beginning of the film depicts their strong emotional bond. It is a tradition on Easter Monday, it seems, that they pour cold water on each other when each person is unsuspecting. For Michal, it occurs when he is asleep in bed. Anka cops it when she is in a sheer nightie, about to take a bath. It is playful and charming, but it also suggestive of the games that lovers’ play. It adds an intriguing element to the relationship. They can’t, at this point, understand why, but there is no doubt that there is more than just a filial bond between them.  Both, for example, are jealous of each other’s partners. “I hate it when you go away” she says to him at the airport. Both admit to feeling guilty or unfaithful when having sex with their choice of partner. Anka has trouble playing a romantic lead opposite a boy for her drama rehearsals.

After Anka tells Michal she has read her mother’s letter, and spills the beans, they have a lot of sorting out to do. There is a long sequence where they looked trapped, in a lovers’ tryst, in a claustrophobic lift. It builds tension beautifully. Shortly after, in another beautifully realised scene, the two are sitting in the half dark with two bright candles. It is Anka’s idea to say that whoever’s candle goes out first has the right to ask a question. It is exactly what someone like Anka would say. It is far too dreamy and romantic for Michal to come up with.

                    

The most important sequence in the films takes place with little background noise and in a dimly lit room with close-ups of faces. It is reminiscent of Ingmar Bergman, particularly in its depiction of the emotional charge coming from a parent and a child (like Bergman’s ‘Autumn Sonata’). This is until Anka removes her t-shirt and is bare breasted. She invites her father to become her lover. Not being his daughter, it is a choice they can both make. The emotional and physical pull toward each other is undeniable. In the end, the burning of the letter tells them both that the past does not really matter. Of all the ten films in Dekalog, the relationship between Anka and Michal is my favourite. It’s complex and moving and very real and Kieslowski’s camera is assured and he takes the right amount of time to unfold an intriguing story.

 

              

DEKALOG 3: the return of the past

IMPORTANT relationships are hard to forget. Dekalog 3 is another film about a couple who have supposedly moved on from a former relationship, but still, and always will have, a strong affection due to a former intense association. In this case it is unbalanced because Janusz is in a new marriage with loving kids and it appears to be a strong relationship. Ewa, on the other hand, is alone, and has been for years, and it is cold, and it is Christmas Eve in Poland, and she is feeling sad and regretful. It reminds me a little of the end of ‘The Umbrellas of Cherbourg’, although Guy’s marriage is presented as stronger than Janusz’, and Genevieve is still married to Roland, and has her little girl, and she comes across as merely wistful in that film.

                   

Ewa is a bit unstable, and she plays games in order to be able to survive Christmas Eve, ensuring  her former lover is with her the whole evening, and into the morning. Janusz is with Ewa helping her with her problems, instead of being with his wife and children. “Thou shalt remember the Sabbath and keep it holy” is the commandment here, although Janusz is hardly to blame for missing the family event.

 

               

Initially, Janusz has the look of being burdened by events from the past. Ewa tells him her husband, Edward, has disappeared, and the whole evening is spent looking for him in places like casualty wards in hospitals. Janusz seems to somehow warm to his mission, and soon it becomes clear that he still has feelings for his soft-faced ex-lover. He is a willing accomplice in her games, and at one point, in her apartment, they almost kiss, until they come to their senses. Ewa is the classic femme fatale with her watery eyes and helpless looks ,almost  begging Janusz to be with her. Later she admits her deceit, and explains that her husband left her years ago, firmly establishing her lonely, displaced state.

There is a lovely Christmas feel about this episode- a suffused glow of coloured lights, soft, downy snow, some scenes of Christmas lights seen hazily and romantically through muted windows. It helps us feel Ewa’s pain. This is, however, not the strongest of the Dekalog films. I felt there was something intangible missing. An interesting exploration of relationships but perhaps not as intelligent or complex as most of the others.

                             

 

 

 

DEKALOG 2: the sanctity of life

                          

This, the second instalment of Kieslowski’s one hour films loosely based on ‘The Ten Commandments’, involves an ageing and world weary doctor who lives alone in his apartment with his bird and some fish for company, and occasional visits from his friendly cleaner. Lurking nearby, or in other words living in a nearby apartment, is a youngish woman name Dorota who is three months pregnant. Her moral dilemma is that she is pregnant to a man other than her husband. Her husband, Andrzej,  is in the doctor’s hospital, possibly dying of cancer. Part of her would like to keep the child- she has had difficulty getting pregnant- and therefore be with her lover if her husband does in fact die. Otherwise, if he were to live, abortion would be a better bet. Being three months pregnant, she needs to decide soon, and meanwhile she needs to know for sure as quickly as possible whether or not the cancer is imminently terminal. This dilemma inadvertently becomes the doctor’s dilemma, as she begins placing pressure on him to guide her as to her husband’s prospects. “Tell me if he’s going to die: I just have to know” Dorota implores. “All you can do is wait” the doctor tells her.  He becomes a reluctant God-like figure, or at least a priest, because any hope he provides as to her husband’s fortunes increases the likelihood that her unborn child will die. He later tells her with some false certainty that her husband will most likely die- he says this emphatically- it as if he is worried that any good news will result in the dreaded abortion. “He hasn’t a chance” he tells her. She has made an appointment for the abortion the next day. She even makes him swear it is the truth.

 

            

To further emphasise this fact, Kieslowski has built in, in very subtle fashion, the doctor’s past- a photo of a woman and her children. Near the end he tells the housekeeper of a tragic event related to a bombing.  It encourages us to speculate that perhaps the life of children is more sacred to him than it would be for the average person (we saw this in Dekalog 1 with the drowning of the young boy).

There are close-ups of images, as is often the case in Kieslowski’s films, that cry out for interpretation. The way that the camera lingers on them for a long time suggests this. The destruction of an indoor plant, by peeling off its thick petals, and twisting its stem. The way the water drips and leaks from a tap as the cancer-ridden patient lies suffering close by. The most effective one of all is at the end. Andrzej lies in bed, life or death hovering close by, we don’t which of the two it will be. He watches a bee submerged in a drink, madly scrambling away from the liquid, an incredible struggle to the top of the glass via a straw. He makes it. Consequently Andrzej does as well. He appears, ghost-like, at the doctor’s doorway. It feels incredible to be alive. “I can touch the table” he says. What’s more, even though he will live, Dorota is going to keep the baby.

The film ends with the survivor asking his doctor “Do you understand what it means to have a child?” The doctor replies “I do” and you can tell he really means it. What’s more, it is he, the doctor, who is responsible for the fact that they will be sharing a child. It is only his lie that his patient will surely die that ensured the abortion didn’t happen. It is a stirring end, and so it becomes a film about the sanctity of life, the importance of preserving the life of an unborn child, as well as the need to cling to life and to hope when your frail health is failing you. It reminds me that it is a Polish film, it reminds me of the Holocaust, and those camp survivors who argue against euthanasia every inch of the way.

 

           

 

 

DEKALOG 1 : FAITH versus REASON

It’s my birthday and I have spent the morning watching the first instalment of Krzysztof Kieslowski’s DEKALOG. I am captivated by his cinema in a similar way that I am captivated by Bergman’s films. They are full of ideas and meaning, about the big issues in life, so you feel you are not wasting your time.

 

                                   

Dekalog 1 is called ‘Thou shalt have no other God’s before me’, which must be the name of the first of the Ten Commandments. The title sums up the message of the film perfectly. A young boy, Pavel, lives in the city of Warsaw with his father (all the films use a massive apartment block as the physical landscape), and is visited sometimes by his aunt, his mother living elsewhere. Like the little boy in Haneke’s ‘The White Ribbon’, Pavel asks questions about the meaning of life, and ponders over, and is confused  by, the sight of a dead dog he was fond of, found freezing in the ice. His aunt offers him hope in the form of her Catholic point of view, however his father’s message is somewhat, gently, bleaker. The aunt tells Pavel that his father believes that ‘measurement could be applied to everything.’ As a professor at the university, his philosophy is the use of reason an scientific method. He tells his students ‘a properly programmed computer… may have its own aesthetic preferences…a personality.’ In his universe God has been replaced therefore b y technology. Faith and mystery subside, and intellect and reason triumph.

 

       

Unfortunately, his computer tells him that the frozen pond at the back of the flats should be solid enough to withstand three times his boy’s weight. Pavel  receives his new Christmas ice skates with glee, and ventures off to test his father’s theory with tragic consequences.

I love seeing parallels in films. There are obvious ones here with the famous drowning scene from ‘Don’t Look Now.’ In both films the father of the doomed child is busy at work, and an ink bottle is spilled, and dark ink is spread across his work (the ink is a blackish-blue in this film, and a blood red in the other). The spreading seems to work as a grisly portent to tragedy. In ‘Don’t Look Now’ by contrast, the father sees his child dead in the water, and drags her out, helplessly. He then roars in a private grief, howling into the atmosphere. In this film, in a chilling few minutes, Pavel’s father watches absolutely helplessly as his son’s boy, and that of a friend, is dragged by rescuers from the thawed pond. So much for science, and for his scientific calculations.

 

             

In destructive harmony with his beliefs, Pavel’s father desecrates the altar at the church and prepares for a newer, bleaker existence. The film seems to be endorsing the value of faith, although it can be seen that the faith-filled aunt is filled with sorrow, too. Perhaps her response is less fraught in some way.

Kieslowski likes to use symbols in his films. The frozen water bottle is a good example. Pavel has left it out overnight. It is frozen solid, but the bottle itself is cracked. It seems to be representative of the boy’s fragility. He is curious and intelligent and his future at this point holds so much promise.  There is a lovely scene, too, in which Pavel, like any other child, is mesmerized by his new skates, and can’t sleep through thinking about them, and the promise they hold. He lays in his room, in a lovely blue light, and tells his father he is watching them gleam.

Sylvia Plath in a BBC radio interview in 1962 ruminated on what she saw as the important themes poetry should explore:"... I cannot sympathise with these cries from the heart that are informed by nothing except a needle or a knife, or whatever it is. I believe that one should be able to control and manipulate experiences, even the most terrific, like madness, being tortured, this sort of experience, and one should be able to manipulate these experiences with an informed and an intelligent mind.  I think that personal experience is very important, but certainly it shouldn't be a kind of shut-box and mirror looking, narcissistic experience. I believe it should be relevant, and relevant to the larger things, the bigger things such as Hiroshima and Dachau and so on."

             

 I think Kieslowski endorses these ideas too.

 

              

 

The view of the street from your window pane

VAN MORRISON’S highly underrated record of the early 80’s, ‘INARTICULATE SPEECH OF THE HEART’ featured a catchy tune called ‘The Street Only Knew Your Name.’ In the song Van sings about the streets of his childhood, a theme he eludes to time and time again. We can deduce a lot from his time growing up in Orangefield, East Belfast, from this particular song:

 

'Your street, rich street or poor

Used to always be sure, on your street

There's a place in your heart and you know from the start

Can't be complete outside of the street
Keep moving on through the joy and the pain

Sometimes you got to look back to the street again

Would you prefer all those castles in Spain

Or the view of the street from your window pane
And you walked around in the heart of town

Listening for that sound

And the street only knew your name

Well the street only knew your name, your name.'

                              

 It makes me think about my own past, my suburb and street in particular, and the house which my parents still inhabit, who knows for how much longer. The house is in a bit of disrepair, and the backyard is largish. A good recipe for future flats.

 

Chauvel Street, Reservoir, is a reasonably long street with ordinary suburban houses on either side. My parent’s house is next to the corner at the northern end. The road is not too busy, so we could play tennis on the road many years ago. Also football games where the goals were the space between the gap in the front fence at the top of the driveway. There was also chalked-in hopscotch if I recall correctly, outside the front fence, pre-teen.

There were families on all sides and around the corner. My gang, growing up, played cricket in the summer diagonally opposite on the corner across the road, where Chauvel Street ends in a ‘T’. None of us were very good, although I considered myself excellent at the forward defensive block. Most of the time it was amicable, but Wayne had his moments. He was a bit older than the rest of us, but not quite an adult. Unemployed, he drank quite a lot, Coke especially, wore a ‘Far Canal’ t-shirt that made our eyes pop out of our heads, and even had tattoos (way before trendy women got them). He also had his own Stuart Surridge cricket bat. We only had one bat at this time. We were supposed to run with it after a single, and hand it to our partner to face the next ball. However, I continually forgot, and would drop the bat after I took off like a hare for the single. Wayne would tolerate it a couple of times, but by the third time he completely lost his temper after having said, twice, “don’t drop the bat!!!” He marched aggressively to the middle of the wicket, grabbed the bat, and stormed over to the nearest telegraph pole. Here he smashed his precious bat into several pieces, splinters flying everywhere, announcing with venom “right, now no-one’s going to play!” This is just one memory of Wayne. Most of the time I was in a kind of awe of him, and felt a certain gratification every time he spoke to me, even though I knew I didn’t want to turn out like him.

I felt very differently about little sister Leanne.  I say ‘little’, although she was slightly older than me, and freckled and probably quite plain, but I found her enchanting all the same. Looking back I think I sort of fell in love with her, from the ages of about eight to thirteen, if that’s possible, when we were close.

 

The sibling I saw the most of was Craig, the youngest in the family, but not much younger than me. Craig looked up to me for my supposed academic ability (I went to the high, he went to the Tech), and I liked him for his sturdy character, his mischievousness, and above all because he was happy and uncomplicated.

 

That wasn’t all of the ‘A’ family. An older sibling with glasses I had little to do with, and two parents that did fix themselves firmly in my mind. Mrs A was a stay at home mother, unhappy, suffering, struggling, but always polite. Her husband was a plumber whose life, it seemed, was out of control. He would get home from work late, often roaring drunk, and agitated like an abusive Roddy Doyle character, and take it out on his poor wife. The language was obscene to my tiny, innocent ears, and I wondered how the children coped. There were times when there was yelling and screaming, and the smashing of plates, whilst Craig and Leanne and I were in the bedroom playing Monopoly. Manic disturbances would erupt from the lounge or the kitchen, meanwhile Craig or Leanne would roll the dice, simultaneous pleasure etched on their faces, as they landed on Mayfair or Park Lane exclaiming “I’ll buy it!” I was bewildered.

 

So the three diverse and intriguing ‘A’ siblings would lounge about at night and on weekends on the street corner where our beloved bitumen cricket pitch was. Other sons (not daughters) would frequently migrate there, including the Italian boy Luch, whose mother would scream out something about ‘mangiare’ around dinner time every night. I guess my mother must have called me for dinner as well, except sometimes I would sneak out after the rest of the family were in bed. Late at night the ‘A’ clan were still out there. They didn’t seem to be encumbered by rules. I would pretend to go to the toilet. The loud flushing sound would drown out the sound of the key scraping in the back door lock, and I was away, for hours at a time. One time my father also went to the toilet this same night, and must have checked the back door and discovered it was unlocked. I had to go around to my bedroom window at the back of the house. I shared this with my brother whose sleep I disturbed. He promptly woke the whole house. Mother was in a state of semi-rage.

 

The other pleasant memory in regards to the corner gang was the times when I would be home, engrossed in adolescent reading, and I would stream out the front door in an exalted mood, full of news of the book I had just read, eager to tell my generous, expectant audience. The ‘A’ family didn’t read much, but somehow they found the fact that I did, interesting in some way. One time I specifically remember it was ‘Ten Little Niggers' by Agatha Christie. A tremendous story to re-tell, almost like you were entrapped on the island yourself.

 

                    

 

The reading of books was a little one-sided, but we were all music enthusiasts. It was Suzi Quatro V Melanie, and I was hopelessly outnumbered. ’48 Crash’ seemed brash and discordant to me, much preferring the lyrical softness of ‘Little Bit Of Me.’

 

I received my first pushbike, a metallic coloured Malvern Star, when I was thirteen. I was an eager frequent flyer around the streets of Reservoir, whizzing by in my brown cords and any number of Miller shirts I owned. I had a little tool kit I never quite mastered, and loved the bold, black tape on the curved handlebars. I once lost my head and rode all the way to Brunswick. I rang my parents pretending I was lost. The real reason I rang was because I wanted them to share my awe of riding as far as Brunswick. The fastest I rode was down the hill on Rosenthal Crescent, from the massive roundabout that connects Hughes Parade. Reckless and dangerous, a kind of bungy jumping of its time. Nowadays I would be second guessing emerging cars.

 

                          

 

The only shops in the vicinity of Chauvel Street were (and still are) the ones in Gellibrand Crescent. The shops there have changed so much over time. There was a fish’n’ chip shop way back when, two rival milk bars, and a service station on the corner block which is now a kindergarten. Each little shop featured its own little intrigue. The first milk bar was my preferred one. Craig and Leanne and I used to buy a bottle of milk and ask the shopkeeper to open it and pour some flavoured topping into it. We had an early and delicious version of ‘Big M’ before ‘Big M’ even came out. We also gorged ourselves on lollies, icy poles and football cards. Sunnyboys were a favourite. Sometimes, like a mild version of the lucky ticket in ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’, there would be gold writing inside the Sunnyboy telling you that you had won a free one. They were very generous with their give-aways in those days.

 

I loved being out on the streets. I felt free and the conversations were always buzzing. It all ended, for me, when I got to about Year 11. I had my first girlfriend then, living in a completely different part of Reservoir. She and I were inseparable, and I forgot all about the Luch and the ‘A’ family. I guess they survived without me.

 

      

THE UNTOUCHABLES- SUGARY FRENCH FARCE

I HAVE been watching quite a lot of ‘GET SMART’ lately, for old time’s sake. And it has dated quite a bit, as you might expect, and the jokes are repetitive-

‘Have you got all that Max?’

Not all of it 99.’

‘Which bit do you want me to go over?’

‘The bit after you say ‘now listen carefully, Max.’

                                      
              
At least it’s clever humour, and clever in how ridiculous it is, and unpretentious, and full of odd ball, loveable characters like Larabee and Siegfried. Watch ‘From Russia With Love’ again and it makes ‘Get Smart’ even funnier. Sean Connery’s little quips are nowhere near as good. There’s even a ‘Get Smart’ episode called ‘Dr Yes.’

As a contrast I saw a new French comedy last night, at the Westgarth, in Northcote. It is called ‘The Intouchables.’ It is about an unemployed young black man named Driss (Omar Sy), who lives in a poor part of Paris, seemingly headed for a life of drugs and crime, with nothing really going for him except for his humour, brazenness, creativity and entrepreneurial skills (in other words, loads), all of which offer him a chance to avoid his bleak future. He gets the unlikely job of being a full time carer for a fabulously wealthy, highly cultured older white man Philippe (Francois Cluzet), who deeply loves his music and art. As a full time carer, Driss occupies the accompanying room of a highly ornate mansion. There is any number of jokes about how uncomfortable Driss is about looking after his patient, who needs a lot of looking after, as he is paralysed from the neck to his toes after a hang gliding accident. The classic odd couple warm toward each other fairly quickly, and throughout the course of the film Driss deeply enriches Philippe’s life by helping him rediscover a sense of fun, adventure, and even romance, after it seemed that music and literature and art were all that were left for him to enjoy. And of course, in learning how to look after someone else, and living in such fertile circumstances, the black carer has his life enormously enriched as well.

         

The premise of the film is lovely. And I can see how attractive Driss is to Philippe- he is funny, irreverent, and above all doesn’t take pity on him, and even refreshingly makes lots of jokes about being crippled, incapable, and so on. A scene that takes place at the opera, in which Driss laughs uproariously at the singing and costume of the actor below him on the stage is funny. It’s send up of the earnestness of the rich and the theatre crowd in general reminded me of the Marx Brothers irreverent humour and their wonderful digs at the Establishment.

However I became tired of the predictability of the whole thing after a while. There were the same sorts of jokes all the time, with Driss trying very hard and slightly grating on me towards the end, when other sections of the crowd were warming more and more to him. It was the clumsy and half-hearted attempt to build pathos into the film that irked me as well. There was a ‘serious’ sub-plot about Driss’ family lurking in the background. I felt that the scriptwriter’s weren’t sure what to do with it. Perhaps they felt the film needed something else, which it probably did, but it wasn’t dealt with well. And I didn’t believe for a second in the romantic past of the white man either.

Everybody seems to love this film. But for me it’s too sugary and sweet. I have never gone for crowd pleasers. Much prefer the murkiness of a Mike Leigh film. Every single frame seems hell bent on trying to extract a smile from its audience. And of course, as it seems to be saying, black people are funny and beautiful, even those from the Parisian wrong side of the tracks. Well, I kind of know that already, but of course they’re not all cute, funny and loveable. And wealthy white cripples can be grumpy and full of self-importance. But you know what? Underneath it all, if given the chance, they really do have the capacity to be fun loving rascals. Well, now I know.

                              

Romanticising Melanie

MELANIE

 

VAN Morrison begins his moving and meditative 1986 album ‘No Guru, No Method, No Teacher’ with a song that typifies his compulsion to relive the past:

‘When I was a young boy back in Orangefield,

I used to gaze out my classroom window and dream

Then go home and listen to Ray sing

“I Believed In My Soul” after school.’

Lately I have been doing the same. Except not with Ray Charles, who is still a fairly much undiscovered pleasure, and not even with Van, who I didn’t really get to know until university with ‘Moondance.’ When I was a young boy dreaming about music in my classroom and looking out the window, it was Melanie Safka I was thinking about.

No doubt Van would have been listening to Ray Charles on an old record player, or perhaps tuning into Radio Luxembourg. For me, now in 2012, too dreamy and tired to think about reading, and totally disinterested in TV, I have been watching Melanie on youtube. The headphones of yesteryear have been replaced by a skinny white set of earplugs courtesy of Apple. And there is a whole magical wonderland of not just music, but images of Melanie and live recordings to go with it. The visual becomes just as significant and enjoyable as the aural.

So I have rediscovered the music that is still in my bones. Her charismatic and original voice stirs me as much as it used to. It soothes and is of great comfort. Perhaps it reminds me of less complicated days. Songs half- forgotten like WE DON’T KNOW WHERE WE’RE GOING and STOP I DON’T WANNA HEAR IT ANYMORE stir in me a soft and seductive melancholy. I learn for probably the first time that they are on a soundtrack to a Stanley Kramer film called ‘RPM.’ The languid song JIGSAW PUZZLE is another that’s half-forgotten, but the images are familiar- the world of outcasts and tramps, and even a ‘methylated sandwich.’  And there it is- it is originally a Rolling Stones song on ‘Beggar’s Banquet’- I’m not sure I ever knew that. Again, it is news to me that she sang another Stones song, WILD HORSES, and that there’s even a Randy Newman cover called I THINK ITS GOING TO RAIN TODAY.

I can hear all of my favourite Melanie record- STONEGROUND WORDS- on youtube. Miraculously, it is a recording of the album, with its familiar tiny screeches and scratches:

‘I'll go to the garden that follows the seasons
Live in the field where the healing grass grows
Go to the mountains where air's clear for breathing
Clear is just another way to see
I feel to know.’

Melanie is there live singing ‘Chords of Fame’ at Montreux (so is the original Phil Och’s version which seems to me to have very little of the soul that her version has).  She appears on various ‘Tonight’ programmes- the ubiquitous Johnny Carson and Johnny Cash; variously talking about Woodstock; after her comeback from having children circa 1974; and appearing during my favourite Melanie phase in 1972 singing ‘DO YOU BELIEVE’:

‘Do you believe it's morning
I'm alive but that's the last thing on my mind
If our night time words mean good-bye
Let our morning words be kind
Didn't your eyes say you'd never change your mind
Didn't my eyes say I do believe your eyes
I do believe them, I do believe your eyes.’

Another great feature of youtube is that you can read what other people have said about the song and clip you have just listened to. It makes you feel a part of something. Seemingly it’s not just you in the lounge room with your senses awake and your eyes closed. You have shared this experience with hundreds or thousands of people worldwide. And Melanie comments are never sleazy or idiotic. It tells you that you are on to a good thing.