the soul of a man . cat soup. offside . taking woodstock . day for night.

i have managed to arrange it such that i can now watch movies in my room with the huge sound system. the system was inaugurated by ‘the soul of a man’- wim wenders film for the martin scorsese series ‘the blues’ that follows early blues artists like blind willie johnson, skip james and j b lenoir. the music was divine. the film tried some clever tricks but most of them were not so pretentious that they took away from the heartbreaking voices of the singers- whether the original or the new versions by contemporary artists like bonnie raitt and beck.

in ‘cat soup’ death plays too much of a role to be a children’s film. the narrative includes a dead sister, a broken arm, a frightening magician. the connections made are random, surreal, beautiful.

still more films to record here- this time from after the leh trip. the first is ‘day for night’ which madhu had recommended for its ‘behind the scenes’ narrative. truffaut plays a version of himself as he tries to make a seedy family drama about a love affair between a father in law and his sons wife. the action behind the camera becomes as torrid as that in front. somewhere in between in truffaut’s adoration of the process of film making itself- the movement of the machines, the madness, the horrors, the insecurities.

jafar panahi’s ‘offside’ was a sweetheart of an almost real time look at a group of football crazy girls and their attempts at entering a football stadium to watch a match that i going to seal irans entry into the world cup. so gentle and sweet, but still not cloying.

which cannot be said about ‘taking woodstock’ ang lee’s recent family drama about breaking away from the loneliness and heartbreak to ‘find yourself’- this time helping organizing the love fest ‘woodstock’ provides the catalyst- the ‘peace man’s, the tie and die shirts and more than a little help from some acid. nothing much happens, not that it had to.