TEAFF 22: Let us see what Day 4 showed us

TEAFF 22: Let us see what Day 4 showed us

Delayed in reaching the venue, I arrived too late for the first film of the day. Iran’s In Other Words (Mohammad Mahdi Katirachi), which was part of the Asian Spectrum. In other words, I missed the film. For me, the screenings began with the second film, scheduled for 12 noon.

Kathakar Ki Diary (India: Anwesh)

This film, too, was selected for the Asian Spectrum. It is listed in the festival catalogue only under its English title as The Story of Ordinary Lives, which might cause confusion. Literally translated, the Hindi title would read, The Diary of a Story-teller. You could call it an experimental film, with four stories, partly connected, compressed into 86 minutes. The characters range from a toddler and his single mother to a transgender woman to a boxer to a cancer patient who is also a photographer. Director Anwesh, who studied at the Bhatkhande College of music, Lucknow, joined the Indian Revenue Service and currently serves as a Joint Commissioner of Indirect Taxes, Pune. The film is crowd-funded. Written, produced and directed by Anwesh, it should be seen in the context that the it is crowd-funded and all the dialogue is improvised. Casting is not convincing, with the actor playing the Khasi tribal boxer from North-East India, neither looking the part nor speaking like his character would. Anwesh means search, and I did search a lot to find cinematically engaging content in this debut effort, as I sat through till the end, but it was in vain.

Rating: * ½ (one-and-a-half-star).

Oslo-A Tail of Promise (India: Isha Pungaliya)

A film promoting tourism in Norway? Banish the thought. Oslo is the name of a dog, and the film is the story of Oslo and its latest owner, Pooja. Pooja is a Pune-based woman who loves all animals, runs an open animal shelter near the National Defence Academy, but is devoted to Oslo. A descendent of wolves, Oslo is the life and soul of Pooja, who even takes him for annual trips to very high altitude snowy regions, since he is a fluffy, furry breed, native to such reasons. Cleverly re-enacted and projected scenes of the past are seamlessly inter-mingled with archival footage and stills, in various magnifications. Like in almost all documentaries, a few friends, the family and well-wishers of Pooja, talk about her, and her passion, and we see how she breaks down when she returns from a trip with Oslo, to find another of her pets, who was sick when she left and who she calls the mother of the farm, has died. Pooja’s marriage lasted a mere three years, but her ex-husband, also an animal lover, is still close to her. She was present at the festival, though her director could not make it. Oslo, which will wow animal lovers in general and dog lovers in particular, was screened in the Special Section of the festival, as was Pappa Sanga Kunache, the only two documentaries featured in the festival. With John Abraham as one of the producers, Oslo preaches a moral too: Please do not buy animals or birds; adopt them instead. It insists that animals and birds are sentient.

Rating: ***

Maya Satya Bhram (India: Samik Roy Choudhury)

One might translate the title as (desirous, attractive) Illusion, Truth and Delusion. It sounded intriguing and full of maya for a movie-buff, and I was eager to see how the makers have depicted these three facts of life. It began with the disappearance of a child at a city (Kolkata) fair, where his mother had taken him, to have some fun, though nothing like the formula film and ‘kumbh mela’ separation. The father is a Police Sub-Inspector, but the search for the boy yields no results. After a few weeks, the case is all but closed. As part of his duties, the police officer is investigating the disappearance of a Swedish journalist, who was last seen interviewing a Baba (mystic healer with magical powers). There are thousands of fake Babas in India, and the cynical officer believes that this Baba, Trilokdarshan, is of one of them. While he tries to interrogate the Baba about the woman’s disappearance, his wife lines-up outside the Baba’s house, to get help in finding their lost son. The wife accuses her husband for not doing enough to trace their child, but he informs her that he has been taken off the case, which has since been assigned to another officer. In terms of footage and prominence, the Baba is the protagonist of the film. The police manage to get access to the Baba’s interview recordings, which were done in phases, and, in a series of flashbacks, we learn about the evolution of Baba, from an urchin to one who can get into the souls of dad persons and talk in their voices, to help bring closure or to provide vital information to his devotees about their near and dear ones. One sees clear influences of the 1997 film, Men in Black, wherein Agent K and Agent J investigate a series of seemingly unrelated criminal incidents, related to the extraterrestrials who live in secret on Earth, as humans, but when their skulls are cracked open, we discover living forms that are distinctly unearthly. An imaginative premise, the film suffers from too many unnecessary flashbacks, and after tracing the Baba’s life from a young age, suggests that he was either possessed by aliens or was always one. Investigating a disappearance or kidnapping, the police would first of all interrogate and record the statements of the persons who had last seen him. In this case, besides the mother, there were three, two women and a man, but we do not see the police questioning any of them. A crisp film, well-mounted, but disappointing in the open, ambiguous end.

Rating: ** ½

Tiger (Japan: Anshul Chauhan)

India-born Anshul Chauhan, who has been living in Japan for the last 15 years, and has some coveted awards to his credit, had the distinction of being the first Indian to direct Japanese feature films. Tiger, judged by its name, is not about a tiger, but a gay masseur is Tokyo, who is called ‘Taiga’ (the Japanese probably pronounce it this way) by his friends. His main asset is his huge manhood, and he is not averse to offering sexual favours to selected clients. Not content with his present job, he wants to graduate to being a porn star, and goes to a famous porn producer’s office, for an interview. The producer and his star performer are dumbstruck at the sight of the naked Taiga, and agree to offer him a job if he can impress the star with his performance audition. Did I need more to decide ‘enough is enough’? No. Classified as the Best of Busan, it would do better with a category like ‘the worst of TEAFF’. Okay, so some audiences might have actually liked, and other might actually like, this Tiger. But I refused to let it prey on me, and walked out.