Nov 27, 2012

1st Dec 2012; Art Documentary : Da Vinci: Lost Treasure


Contemplate and Konangal
Art Documentary Screening


Da Vinci ; The Lost Treasure
A BBC documentary presented by Fiona Bruce
Saturday , 1st Dec 2012; 5.45 pm
Duration: 1 hour
Contemplate Art Gallery 
2nd floor, Rajshree Ford Building
Opp. PSG Krishnammal College, Avanashi Road


Leonardo da Vinci is considered by many to be one of the greatest artists who ever lived. Yet his reputation rests on only a handful of pictures - including the world's most famous painting, the Mona Lisa.  As the National Gallery in London prepares to open its doors on a remarkable exhibition of Leonardo's work, Fiona Bruce travels to Florence, Milan, Paris and Warsaw to uncover the story of this enigmatic genius - and to New York, where she is given an exclusive preview of a sensational discovery: a new Leonardo. Locked away in a secret location in New York is a painting believed by experts to be a Leonardo, thought to have disappeared centuries ago. Fiona Bruce meets the people behind this sensational discovery to learn how it came about, and is given an exclusive preview of the picture, never filmed before.


Fiona begins her journey in the small town of Vinci in Tuscany where Leonardo was born. She follows in his footsteps to Florence, the jewel of Renaissance Italy, where Leonardo was apprenticed to work with the master painter Verrocchio. In the Uffizi gallery there she sees the first glimpses of the hand of Leonardo the painter. In Florence Leonardo was feted as an exceptional talent . But it was here too that Leonardo was accused of the crime of homosexuality - punishable by death.
In Paris, Fiona is given a private view of the Mona Lisa and learns the secret of how Leonardo achieved the extraordinary effect that the picture has had on generations of art lovers: by meticulously applying layer upon layer of paint thinly mixed with oil to produce a smoky, mysterious finish.  (From – BBC )




Nov 23, 2012

25th Nov 2012; Ozu's Early Summer



EARLY SUMMER
A film by Yasujirô Ozu
1951/Japan/124 mins
25th Nov 2012; 5.45 pm
Perks Mini Theater

As far as cinema is concerned, Ozu was ahead of his time, and Early Summer is a great example of the way his films show us the inertia of change in the lives of extended families slowly disintegrating in the wake of modernization. In this installment, a mother and father are trying to find a proper husband for their aging daughter so that they can retire to a rural town.
 Matchmaking conversations and strategies at work and home strain the already creaking structure of this extended family, and through the cracks we begin to see the startling differences between each of the three generations involved.

Ozu is fascinated with all the things that we lose as time progresses through generations, war, and the disorienting march of modernization. In Early Summer, these reflections take the form of balloons slipping away, caged birds, or a broken loaf of bread. His slow pacing gives us time to explore this curio shop of gestures, images, and unspoken reflections on the quiet bonds of family.


Several times, Early Summer also slips out of Ozu’s typical low angle, and wide shots of the sea or fields of barley punctuate the film with the grace of simple geometry. This list would be incomplete without Ozu’s formative reflections on what happened in the middle of the 20th century, the fallout of which has settled across the way we see ourselves as part of families, societies, and the patronizing pace of progress.






Yasujiro Ozu

12th Dec 1903 - 12th Dec 1963

"I have formulated my own directing style in my head, proceeding without any unnecessary imitation of others." – Ozu


Ozu was born on December 12, 1903 in Tokyo. He and his two brothers were educated in the countryside, in Matsuzaka, whilst his father sold fertilizer in Tokyo. Ozu developed a love of film during his early days of school truancy, but his fascination began when he first saw a Matsunosuke historical spectacular at the Atagoza cinema in Matsuzaka. Ozu's uncle, aware of his nephew's love of film, introduced him to Teihiro Tsutsumi, then manager of Shochiku. Not long after, Ozu began working for the great studio—against his father's wishes—as an assistant cameraman.
Ozu's work as assistant cameraman involved pure physical labour, lifting and moving equipment at Shochiku's TokyoThe Sword Of Penitence that became his first film as director (and only period piece) in 1927. Ozu was called up into the army reserves before shooting was completed. No negative, prints or script exist of The Sword Of Penitence—and, sadly, only 36 out of 54 Ozu films still exist. studios in Kamata. After becoming assistant director to Tadamoto Okubo, it took less than a year for Ozu to put his first script forward for filming. It was in fact his second script.
Days Of Youth (Wakaki Hi, 1929) is Ozu's earliest extant picture, though not especially typical (and preceded by seven others, now lost) as it is set on ski slopes. Stylistically it is rife with close-ups, fade-outs and tracking shots, all of which Ozu was later to leave behind. Three years later came what is generally recognized as Ozu's first major film, I Was Born, But... (Umarete wa Mita Keredo..., 1932). This moving comedy/drama was a great success in Japan both critically and financially. It was one of cinema's finest works about children.
Thirty years into his filmmaking career Ozu was making films which, like Kurosawa's Ikiru (1952), questioned the sense of spending your whole working life behind a desk—something that many of his audience must have been doing.
Ozu's films represent a lifelong study of the Japanese family and the changes that a family unit experiences. He ennobles the humdrum world of the middle-class family and has been regarded as “the most Japanese of all filmmakers”, not just by Western critics, but also by his countrymen


Nov 13, 2012

18th Nov 2012; Andrey Zvyagintsev's THE RETURN


The Return
A film by Andrey Zvyagintsev
2003/ Russia/ Col/ 105 mins
18th Nov 2012; 5.45 pm
Perks Mini Theater
http://konangalfilmsociety.blogspot.in/


The Return is the stunning feature film debut of Andrey Zvyagintsev, a 39-year-old Russian director who here renews the grand tradition of Russian cinematic mysticism epitomized by Andrei Tarkovsky.
 With a story line at once enigmatic and psychologically acute, "The Return" draws on biblical motifs to tell a story of Vanya (Ivan Dobronravov) and Andrey (Vladimir Garin), adolescent brothers who have grown up in the care of their mother (Natalia Vdovina) in a small, depressed town, their father having disappeared sometime after Vanya's birth. 

 The boys come home one day to discover that their father (Konstantin Lavronenko) has returned without a word of explanation. He is a hard, independent man with skills that suggest a military background. The father — remote, impossible to please, harshly judgmental and violently punishing — is a godlike figure to the boys, and possibly to the director as well.
Visually the film is a marvel, full of unsentimental images of a living, pulsing natural world. The boys' mysterious trip takes them from one body of water (a relatively benign-looking lake, where their mother is still in charge) to another (a treacherous, roiling sea, which the father)
Mr. Zvyagintsev creates a most moving tension between his archetypal themes and the bristling specificity of his characters. The film, is at once highly naturalistic and dreamily abstract, playing out its mythic themes through vibrantly detailed characterizations
Source:  New York Times




Andrey Zvyagintsev 

Andrei Zvyagintsev - Russian actor and film-maker noted for his exceptionally successful debut in directing with award-winning drama The Return (2003). Born on February, 6, 1964 in a northern city of Novisibirsk, he graduated from the Novosibirsk Actors School in 1984 and started to play on stage in provincial theatres. In the early 1990s he came to Moscow - the centre of film industry - with ambition to star in movies. Moscow was tough for a newcomer. 

As Znyagintsev put it later in one of his interviews: "I was hungry, in need of work, I auditioned for everything. I even did not have money to buy a bus ticket." From 1992 to 2000 he appeared as "extra" on numerous TV series and feature films but with no positive results. Suddenly his friend offered him a job as director at REN TV, an independent production company that makes cop shows and day-time soaps. When he got his chance to direct, Zvyagintsev did his best, he directed several episodes for popular TV series and impressing producers with his skills, he got the offer to direct a feature length. 

The Return - a low budget, artful family drama- turned out to be a great success for Zvyagintsev and an international triumph for Russian cinema. The film won the Venice Festival's Golden Lion in 2003-the first Russian film to be awarded such an honor for a number of years.When Zvyagintsev returned in Moscow from Venice, he was given a hero's welcome. He unexpectedly found himself in the centre of a media storm and after a series of interviews and appearances on TV he became a recluse.
- IMDB