The blog and the Community

Hi all !!
Welcome to the Cinema-Club blog. We have decided to open this as our own web space and to invite all of you to participate actively in the organisation of the Welcoming Cinema Club.
You can enter and add all your opinions about the viewed movies and also make suggestions for the forthcoming. We hope that you will take the best out of it !!
See you at the screenings!

Sunday 19 December 2010

December 23rd "Rashomon" (Japan, 1950)


"Rashomon" is a master piece in the history of cinema, directed by the legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa and awarded many prizes.  
The film depicts the rape of a woman and the murder of her samurai husband, through the widely differing accounts of four witnesses, including the bandit/rapist, the wife, the dead man speaking through a medium (Fumiko Honma), and lastly the narrator, the one witness that seems the most objective and least biased. While the stories are mutually contradictory only the final version is unmotivated by other factors. Accepting the final version as the truth (the now common technique of film and TV of only explaining the truth last was not a universal approach at that time) explains why in each other version "the truth" was worse than admitting to the killing, and it is precisely this assessment which gives the film its power, and this theme which is echoed in other works.

The story unfolds in flashback as the four characters—the bandit Tajōmaru (Toshirō Mifune), the samurai's wife (Machiko Kyō), the murdered samurai (Masayuki Mori), and the nameless woodcutter (Takashi Shimura)—recount the events of one afternoon in a grove. The first three versions are told by the priest (Minoru Chiaki), who was present at the trial as a witness, having bumped into the couple on the road just prior to the events. Each of these versions has a response of "lies" from the woodcutter. The final version comes direct from the woodcutter, as the only witness (but he did not admit this to the court). All versions are told to a ribald commoner (Kichijiro Ueda) as they wait out a rainstorm in a ruined gatehouse identified by a sign as Rashōmon.

Director: 

Akira Kurosawa

Writers: 

Ryûnosuke Akutagawa (stories), Akira Kurosawa

Stars:

 Toshirô Mifune, Machiko Kyô and Masayuki Mori

December 16th "Monster's Ball" (US, 2001)

Unfortunately we were not able to screen "A Prophet", instead we screened "Monster's Ball" from United States.

After a family tragedy, a racist prison guard reexamines his attitudes while falling in love with the African American wife of the last prisoner he executed.

Director: 

Marc Forster

Writers: 

Milo Addica, Will Rokos

Stars:

 Billy Bob Thornton, Halle Berry and Taylor Simpson
for more see imdb.

We had a very fruitful discussion after the movie. The topics we have discussed are as follow:
  • examples of humanity and brutality in the movie
  • story of a man with a long life struggle and ignorance who finally achieved success
  • three different generations in a single family and their attitudes towards black people
  • death penalty and its impact on the society through the characters of the film
further question you can ask and discuss
  • What significance does the line from the film 'it truly takes a human being to really see a human being' hold for the film in general?
  •  Discuss the central themes (racial segregation, family relationships, self reflection and deep loss)
Thanks to Jen for suggesting this movie and providing us with these good questions.

Tuesday 7 December 2010

December 9th 2010 "The Return" (Russia, 2003)

"The Return" happens in the remote Russian wilderness where two brothers face a range of new, conflicting emotions when their father--a man they only know through a single photograph--resurfaces.



Director: Andrei Zvyagintsev
Writers: Vladimir Moiseyenko, Aleksandr Novototsky
Stars:Vladimir Garin, Ivan Dobronravov and Konstantin Lavronenko
For more information click here.