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Showing posts from October, 2017

212. Czech directors Jan Kadar’s and Elmar Klos’ film “Touha zvaná Anada” (Adrift) (1971) (former Czechoslovakia): Third film of an important European film trilogy (based on a Hungarian novel by Lajos Zilahy), rarely discussed or appreciated

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My heart pounds, my strength fails me; even the light has gone from my eyes. --Psalms 38:10 ( Epigraph/quote that opens the film, before the titles ) A drift is the third film of a rarely discussed but important trilogy of director Jan Kadar (1918-79) that includes the Oscar-winning The Shop on the Main Street (1966) and The Angel Levine (1970). Elmar Klos was the co-director of two films of the trilogy: The Shop on the Main Street and Adrift.  Hence, the trilogy can conveniently be considered as the Jan Kadar spiritual trilogy on human beings’ tendency to lose things dear to them due to their own follies. In all the three films, the male central character is the pivot of the story and a major female figure dies as a result of the male character’s actions. As Kadar was a Jew, the references within the trilogy relate to the Old Testament of the Bible. (In contrast, the wife of the central character is an ardent Roman Catholic, with paintings of Mother Mary over her bed—a contrib...

211. US director Sofia Coppola’s film “The Beguiled” (2017) (USA): An interesting but “amputated” female perspective of a quaint but intelligent American novel

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I t is imperative that when a director adapts a novel into a film that one ought to compare how that effort changes or enhances the entertainment of the viewer/reader. That exercise is further compounded if an interesting earlier film had been made—making it useful to compare the three creative products—the novel, the original movie and the remake. The Union Corporal (Colin Farrell) and Alicia (Elle Fanning)  Sofia Coppola’s film The Beguiled is an adaptation of a novel and a remake of a 1971 film of considerable importance. Ms Coppola won the Best Director award at Cannes in 2017 from a jury that did not use that perspective but merely evaluated its strengths compared to the 20 odd films in competition at that edition of the Festival.  The tale is set during the American civil war. An injured Union soldier is given refuge in a seminary/boarding school in a southern Confederate state inhabited by religious women/girls of varying ages. A series of unfortunate incidents lead to...