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A Serious Man (2009)
Questions logic in different ways
Throughout their career Coen Brothers' films travel back and forth with humour and seriousness. Their 'A Serious Man' is maybe a metaphor of their career. Our protagonist Larry struggles to be "a serious man" but his life gets down with every kinds of absurdity. This irrationalities form their humour in the film.
Film starts with a prologue, a Jewish man named Velvel living somewhere in Europe encounters a relative and invites him home to thank for his help. When Velvel returns home and tells that to his wife Dora, he finds out that the relative he met died 3 years ago. Man walks in and after a strange conversation, wife stabs the man in the chest to prove that he is an undead. Before leaving, the man asks Velvel: "As a rational man: Which of us is possessed?" Scene means nothing but little by itself and just create questions like 'Was the man really dead?', 'What is the significance of this scene?' but as the movie goes, this prologue gains more sense and meaning; and creates even more complicated questions: 'What is rational anyway?', 'What to do against what we don't explain?'
This bleak comedy introduces us with Larry, a professor who seems to be okay with his life. He is living an ordinary life in a 60s suburb with his family and brother. And somehow everything falls apart. He starts to have problems with his gun-crazy neighbour, he finds out that his wife Judith is having an affair with a friend of his -Sy Ableman- thus wants to divorce, his foreign student blackmails him for a bribe he didn't accept, his brother gets accused of sodomy, his promotion gets uncertain. So what just happened?
Fate (or just coincidences) has its own very distinct character in this film. After some point, events happening to Larry doesn't feel like simple misfortunes. It feels like through the film somebody was just tormenting Larry using that "fate" and of course I would give that credit to Coens for which they mentioned during an interview too.
Larry consults 2 rabbis. The first rabbi advises nothing but a new perspective to look at parking lots (which gives nothing); but the second rabbi tells a very interesting story about a Jewish dentist. Dentist experiences an unexplainable incident which led him to question reality and fate; and when he comes to see the rabbi, advice he gets is to move on and then the questions will eventually go away like a toothache. Does that remind you of something? Remember the quote from Rashi in the beginning: "Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you." Coens actually give the advice before the prologue. Things get normal for the dentists but not for Larry, even when he accepts to 'receive with simplicity' more will be coming for him. Coens bend reality by making these incidents happen in the story and when things slowly gets back on the trail, they just bend reality again. So what we have on our hands as Larry's life? A loose train maybe.
The incidents makes us give up on our faith in natural way of working of things (if such thing really exists). Which is really strange because our main protagonist relies everything on what is natural. He tries everything to keep his life ordinary, he works as a physics professor; he might be the only rational man in the film. Then everything he counts on is taken away from him even physics and rationality.
There are lot to question in the film. Sy Ableman always shows an unreasonable sympathy to Larry. Ableman and Larry had simultaneous car crashes; Ableman died, Larry lived. How did Larry lived through a car crash in the midst of all those misfortunes? We don't have an explanation for this coincidence. Then I remember the classroom scene in which we see Larry explaining Schrodinger's Cat. An experiment that puts a flask of poison and a cat in a box, it is about whether the flask breaks and kills the cat or doesn't. That creates a scenario that cat can be simultaneously both dead and alive, an uncertainty. We see that uncertainty in the crash scene, both Larry and Ableman could be dead or alive, Larry was the lucky one. Then I look for a reason; why wasn't Larry the one that died? Apparently, It is just because. About this film, I can just say that it was coincidence. I could stop questioning because I would just 'received with simplicity' all the events by leaving the uncertainty outside.
Now I think I can get something from that prologue. Old man could be a dybbuk or a normal human being; the important thing is not what he is, it is the uncertainty. Velvel approaches the man with caution as he isn't sure what he is, and tries to understand the situation (something only Larry would do in the main storyline) while Dora is sure about what he is despite the fact that she is seeing him in flesh and knows that the right thing to do is to get rid of him. After Dora stabs the man in the chest, man asks Velvel: "As a rational man: Which of us is possessed?" The one allegedly is a dybbuk or the one that stabs someone without knowing anything for sure, which one? The man may be possessed by a demon but Dora is possessed by simplicity; she is obviously not able to question, nothing is a mystery for her and she just leaves the uncertainty outside. Rabbi Nachtner would put it like: "Was the man a dybbuk? We don't know. Did he succumb to his wounds? We don't know. Moving on? Wouldn't hurt."
Simindis kundzuli (2014)
Nature in Cinema
George Ovashvili's Corn Island is an auteuristic work that finds its balance between men and nature. Through the lives of an Abkhazian grandfather and his granddaughter, we find our place in the cycle of life. First you work the soil to feed yourself, then when you die you become part of the nature. This cycle reminds me of a Kim Ki-Duk film "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring" which is a brilliant film that attains nature from its characters' lives.
An Abkhazian peasant (Ilyas Salman) and his granddaughter (Mariam Buturishvili) are living on one of many islands created by Enguri River, the river stands as boundary between Abkhazia and Georgia. As they try to harvest enough corn to survive the winter, conflicts from outer world affects their lives. Girl finds a wounded soldier who have hidden himself in the corn plants. Old man and his granddaughter helps and hides him while his enemies searches for him. Conflict between two small groups of soldiers is an effective use of minimalism on clashes between Abkhazia and Georgia. But the film does not touch political issues, it takes the subject with an artistic point of view.
Old man has a lot of resemblances with titular character of Akira Kurosawa's "Dersu Uzala" as they both are living close to nature and away from "human". That made the watching interesting for me as I like Dersu Uzala and I think secluded characters are profound features of a film in terms of spirituality.
Generally I think director/co-screenwriter George Ovashvili take inspiration from directors Akira Kurosawa, Kim Ki-Duk and Jean Renoir (La Grande Illusion). Film has nearly no dialogue yet the cinematography of the film by Elemér Ragályi seemed like it was talking with images, I think Ragályi has a style close to Emmanuel Lubezki and Christian Berger.
It is not a masterpiece but this slow-burning film has a somber beauty, art-house fans will like it.