Colonel Rhel (Hungary, 1985)

War films always fascinates me, the reason is history is my cup of tea. Even Though Colonel Rhel is based on a fictional work, but the fiction itself is based on Alfred Rhel. Smoke without fire!

Who is Alfred Redl ?

Oberst Rhel or Colonel Rhel is a kind of Alfred Rhel’ bio-pic, who served for Austria-Hungary Imperial military as a Colonel before the World War I. History buffs will know it was the assassination of Franz Ferdinand of Austria that led to the World War I. Our hero Alfred Redl served under Ferdinand, in fact he was directly reporting to him.

Smart, shrewd, hard working Alfred Redl (Klaus Maria Brandauer) raises though the army ranks by his innovative methods in war tactics. Tensions are rising between Austria and Serbia. A war is in sight, but who will blink first is the question. They need a trigger event. Ferdinand appoints Alfred to find a good scapegoat who will betray them. Ferdinand thinks by scarifying the scapegoat a war can be started with Serbs.

Despite of loving his country Alfred Redl gives inside information about the Austria-Hungary army movements to Russian spies when he is blackmailed that his homosexuality will be reveled. So the person who is appointed to find the scapegoat is now hunted down and put behind the bars. This act of treason costs his life and the rest happened is the history.

Seen somewhere this guy, Klaus Maria Brandauer. He played as Nero in the famous Quo vadis and in Mephisto.

The film is not preachy or doesn't take a stand whether Redl is good or bad, but it emphasizes that Redl played an important role in instigating the war, even without his knowledge. 

If you consider this film as historically accurate then this is a treasure film for conspiracy theorists.

What is your favorite world war film ? 

The Seventh Continent ( German - 1989 )

***Very Depressing Story. Read at your own risk.***

Language - German | Director - Michael Haneke | Country - Austria | Genre - Drama Year - 1989

Before seeing any movie I always read a one-liner of the film, not even the trailer, just the poster is enough. I picked this film, when the IMDb one-liner said “A family trying to escape to Australia are caught in daily routine and plan something sinister”. This was the first film of Michael Haneke, the director of Amour, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2013.

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The film title started with the automatic car washing scene, we can see the silhouettes of a family inside the car. The entire washing is shown, I thought “It’s OK, the director is establishing something”. Then, next morning, Georg Schober (Husband) wakes up at 6 AM (of course we can see the clock alarm). We see Anna Schober (Wife) getting up, she then wakes their daughter, Eve Schober. All three goes into their morning chores, everyone gets ready for their respective daily routine (Work \ School) and have breakfast. All three get inside the car, Georg drops Ann in her work place and Eve in her school. All this happens in a day in 1987. The director goes into details for every movements they make in home, in car and in work. 

The movie has ran for some 30 mins now. Cut to 1988. Same things as show before are repeated, get up, get ready, work, shopping and the night ends with dinner. The Ann invites her brother, Alex for dinner. This time Ann breaks down, when Alex asks about the food recipe, we assume Ann thought of her mother. Again everything is shown in details.

Cut to 1989. No wait, please!!!, I paused the film. 65-mins into movie, nothing substantial happen, there is no plot, no “what next” factor. I couldn't bear any more. I jumped to internet to read what happens in film on 1989.

Now, I am back to the movie, started it from where I left, 1989. It starts with Georg family visiting his mom and dad. They travel back to the city. The next day starts as usual and a voice-over of Georg writing a letter to his parents, that he is going to resign his job and they are going to move to a different place. Georg closes their bank account by withdrawing all money and sell the car. He then buys cutting tools, hammers, chainsaw. Ann while coming from work gets exotic foods. 

Looks like they are going for some big one. That night, after having good food, the family, using the tools cuts-pulls-thrashes-hammers down every bit of things in their house. TV’-Music Systems are smashed, clothes are torn, mirrors are smashed into pieces. Remaining money is torn up and flushed, even the coins. Eve is poisoned by some kind of drink given by Ann. Ann then swallow pills and commits suicide. Georg, injects himself with poison and dies. THE END.

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This film is based on a true story in Austria, the case is closed as “unsolved”. No one knew why the family took this decision of self annihilation. The film too doesn't give any reason, the director just left it so open that we have to assume and make our own story of it.

The Story Of The Weeping Camel (2003)

It’s a typical documentry-style film, no where there is an emphasis on the cinematography or dialogues.

This is a documentary-style movie taken in the Central Asian country, Mangolia. The Story Of The Weeping Camel.  As the country is known to its nomadic life style (not sure if it’s so), the movie is about the nomads, their legends and the myth.

The film starts with an elder nomad Shepard saying about the legend of why the camel always gazes the horizon. It’s breading season and there are new born colts (camels) all around. The last of the colt is born, which is a cute little white colt, unfortunately the mother camel dislikes it, doesn’t feed the white colt. It grows impatient when the nomads take the white colt near the mom.  Now they want to fix this situation else they will lose the white colt.

They are in the arid land, somewhere in the great Gobi desert. The elder nomads decides to do a ritual, called Hoos, for which they need a violinist and send two of their kids to the nearby Armic Center, a kind of town.  The kids travel on the camel to the Armic center and inform the situation to the elders over in the center. A violinist is sent to the nomads, he then performs a brief score of the ritual, and we can see the weeping mother camel, which unites the white colt.

The movie is produced by a student named Tobias Siebert and directed by Byambasuren Davaa, might be due to the monetary constraints, it doesn’t have background score other than the violin in the ritual. The cast seems to be original to the nomads. It’s a typical documentry-style film, no where there is an emphasis on the cinematography or dialogues. The take away of the film is the innocence of the nomadic people and their simple approach to life. But in the end a TV set enters the nomad tent, with the insistence of the kid (whose sees the TV in the Armic center) and the elder nomad saying, “You won’t do anything; all day you see will see this thing”.

Further Readings:-

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/weepingcamel/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_the_Weeping_Camel

The Last Laugh (1924)

A silent German film from the dawn of cinema

History claims that this film was the first to use the dolly shots

F. M. Murnau

After watching Tabu: Story of South Seas (1931) I was captivated by the silent film maker F. M. Murnau, Tabu was his last film and the director lost his life in a car accident at the age of 42. Prior to this Murnau has made a silent film named “The Last Laugh” (1924), which doesn’t even have an inter-title which was common in those silent era films.

It’s a story of an ageing doorman in a star hotel who is demoted to a meaner job as a washroom assistant. The doorman and his family members are proud of his uniform, this is the era of war and its natural for lower class bourgeois  section having proud of their uniform. Unable to bare the humiliation caused by the neighbours after the loss of the doorman job, he steals the uniform and get caught by the night watchman while returning it. The watchman takes pity on him and wraps his coat on the doorman in the washroom. Here the story ends with the card as below.

Only inter-title in the film

As the director took pity on the doorman and doesn’t want to end the story as a grey-tale, the doorman hits a fortune, by inheriting the wealth of an American millionaire. The story continues with the doorman and the night watchman enjoying a feast where caviar is thrown away as peanuts in the same hotel and leaves by tipping the entire staff.

Camera and Art work:

The script is very simple, but no the cinematography. The camera travels all the time, up, down, left and right, it also swings sometime in the air. The history claims that this film was the first to use the dolly shot, Point of view shots, playing with shadows and lightings. The scene in the revolving door where the ageing doorman enters and the new doorman exiting is an apt POV.

Also the opening shot which travels through the elevator (which is open as in olden days) follows through the hallway and exiting to the main door. Sometimes the camera is unmovable, like when the doorman is shocked due to an irate customer, the camera stands still with the swinging door coming in and out.

Miniature scene

This has to be a first film to take a miniature set, like a train passing through the camera with the hotel in the background. It seems the entire set of the bourgeois buildings were constructed real time.

Expressionist:

Ageing doorman is played by Emil Jannings, ever shot in the film follows Emil, who gives the expression which is easily decipherable. It’s not only Emil all the character in film gives expression which is easily comprehensible by all. Considering the dream sequence in the film the German expressionist played a profound role in the film.

The film will make you to revisit it again just to enjoy the fantastic camerawork and the acting.

Come and See (1985)

The film was written and directed by Elem Kilmov.

Klimov did not make any more films after this one, leading some critics to speculate as to why. In 2001, Klimov said:

“…….. I lost interest in making films ... Everything that was possible I felt I had already done……” -Wikipedia

This is a Russian World War II movie, film told in the view of a young boy named Florya, set in Byelorussia, known as Belarus. He lives in a tiny village, which is in the way of the march of German Nazi solders in the pursuit of capturing Moscow. One day Florya finds a rifle and leaves his mom and sisters in the village and join the Soviet partisans, who are going to stop the Nazis. In the partisans camp he is left behind and not taken to the frontlines, disappointed Florya finds a girl named Glasha in the camp. Shortly the German bombers attack the empty camp, leaving both in a shocking state and Florya to deafness.

Florya and the girl goes back his village and finds its deserted, at one point they see a heap of dead bodies, Florya comes into conclusion that some of the villagers are hiding in a nearby island which is in the swamp. The both cross the muddy swamp, which turns us and the actors in a weird state. The both see other villagers there, Florya sees his uncle who is in his death bed and almost fully burnt by the German solders. This experience leaves Florya into a shocking state. With people starving Florya and some four guys leave in search of food.

In the quest of finding food, they get a cow, but in this adventure all die including the cow, but Florya escapes in the early morning mist. He goes to near by village and witness the atrocities done by the Nazis. The villagers are burnt in the barn, women get rapped, babies thrown away. After a grueling German rage filled moments the partisans arrive in capturing and killing the Germans.

In the end Florya is left with his rifle and a Hitler portrait in the muddy water, takes his rifle and starts shooting the portrait, every gun shot is interleaved with an actual footage of Hitler, the footages are shown in reverse time. The portrait is torn apart and the final footage is the young Hitler in the lap oh his mother. The film ends with Florya joining the partisans and camera pans to the open sky

• In the scene where the cow and group encounter the German bullets, its real bullets which are flying just a foot above their head and the cow is actually killed!!
  

Considered one of best WW movie ever made, the final shooting of the Hitler portrait I consider the best of scene ever, it had some much to tell. The footages are shown in the reverse time effect, so bomb which is actually dropped from a plane goes into the plane, a building which actually collapses by the bombing will de-collapse, I thought the director mean to say that everything will become “fine” and “ordered”. In the final footage where Hitler is sitting on the lap of his mother, I felt the film maker was trying to ask the mother “Why you gave birth to such an evil guy”.