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Film Talk, December 11
I couldn't see The Wind That Shakes the Barley when it premiered in Cannes Film Festival this year, but I caught it running alongside hundreds of films in Toronto film festival a few months later.
- Mohammed Rouda
- Published: 23:35 May 3, 2009
- Reel bad Arabs.
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I couldn't see The Wind That Shakes the Barley when it premiered in Cannes Film Festival this year, but I caught it running alongside hundreds of films in Toronto film festival a few months later.
Now we meet again in Dubai, as it will be shown during DIFF.
It's a good movie with scenes which really grab you, even if actors do little but talk about the future of armed resistance in early 20th century Ireland. That tells you few things about the director Ken Loach's strength as an actor's director on one hand, and his ability to capture the attention of his audience on the other.
And while he's talking politics, he keeps an eye on the love story, on the little hidden stories of his characters and on the wider scope of the country at large.
Not for everyone
But not all audiences are fond of Loach type of films. I watched the film in Toronto next to director Brian De Palma (His latest is The Black Dahlia) and he seemed deeply focused in the beginning. After the first hour mark, he started to shift from one side to another, and by the arrival of a scene in which the lead characters start to debate about whether they should tax a wealthy man extra for his role in standing against the revolutionaries, Mr De Palma couldn't take it any more. He jumped out of his seat and passed me in a hurry.
Incidentally, the De Palma film, The Black Dahlia is not a bad one. It's also not his best. Based on a novel by film noir writer James Elroy, which is itself based on true events, the film deals with the unsolved murder of a soft porn actress who was found cut to pieces on the side of the road. Well, that was in the '40s when stardom had a bit of a different flavour than today. Every pretty girl seemed to be wanting to break into the Hollywood zoo. Elizabeth Short (as played here by Mia Krishner) was one of the unlucky. She was killed trying.
Hollywoodland
Here in DIFF we got the better film: Hollywoodland by Allen Coulter. It also revisits old-time Hollywood through another story of death. In 1959, actor George Reeves was found dead. He was beloved by millions who used to watch him as Superman on TV. Suddenly, he was no longer a superman — except his mother didn't believe that her son committed suicide.
This film is worth seeing not only because it's a better film (directed by a newcomer) but also because it's one of three films which were produced this year revolving around the making of a star. The third one is Mary Haron's The Notorious Bettie Page.
Hollywood as a subject
I didn't mean to talk about the dead today but it just hit me that Hollywood can make a lot of films about Hollywood that can be very interesting. Who knows, maybe next year we can hold a tribute to films that try to explore the myth and the facts of this metaphoric city.
But DIFF has another film up its sleeve which looks at Hollywood. And this time it's not about the glamorous side of it. Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Villifies a People is a film whose title speaks for itself. It's a documentary based on a book by Jack Shaheen, by the same title, that became some sort of an event itself a few years back.
Besides being the only film in history to use the word “villifies'' in the title, it's also the first film to deliver the lowdown on how Hollywood has misrepresented Arabs since silent cinema. It looks at how Hollywood has stereotyped the Arabs through out history showing them as villains, untrustworthy and very, very dim.
I stood with Mr Shaheen, the author, for a little while before the gala opening last Sunday. He was waiting for his liason who had a ticket for him. We talked about the book a little then I mentioned that I know Mr Mostapha Akkad, the Arab producer-director who was killed by a bomb planted inside of an Amman hotel just over a year ago. We felt very sorry for the loss of a man who helped put Arab cinema on the international screen and whose two films (The Message and Lion of the Desert) reflected real Islam as it should be known and understood.
Hollywood conjures up all kinds of impressions — glamour, fame, fortune — but what is really fascinating is the darker underbelly of the this industry of illusion. Several films showing at DIFF take a look at the other side: Hollywoodland, starring Ben Affleck, and Reel Bad Arabs, which examines how US cinema misrepresents a people.
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