Life’s little coincidences are delish, aren’t they? Here I was, on seemingly two extremely different trips, fanboi-ing on Alan Rickman on one end and starting Discipline and Punish (today) with Partha Chatterjee on the other. Who knew the next Rickman movie on my downloaded list would be Closet Land? Actually I knew that, but what would I have put the odds at of finding Closet Land screaming of young film student, thinking young film student, going angsty with Foucault? None. I mean, you have to admit: the timing is cute.
I have NO idea if Radha Bharadwaj, the director of Closet Land (Indian origin reflecting in occasional table use in the background score. Predictable, Ms. Bharadwaj, but what can you do if the table just happens to sound nice, eh?) was fresh out of film school when she made this film because that’s an impression that stayed with me throughout- the conscious stage-play effect, the melodrama, the exaggerated attempts at subtlety. Felt kind of forced, BUT the acting is outstanding. Alan Rickman, duh. Madeleine Stowe could have made a complete hash of the character she was playing by overdoing the already overdone drama (I’m not saying that’s a problem universally: that’s just my problem. I dig understated, not overstated) but she was pretty brilliant.
Discipline and punish. Government. “You can break my body but you cannot break my mind”. Escape into fiction provides both resistance and agency to the subject, and escape into fiction threatens the state. Art, power, resistance. Was that your triad, Ms. Bharadwaj? Is the artist your way out of Foucault’s powerpowerpower? Torture doesn’t discipline, it produces the prisoner who says no and thereby breaks the exerciser of power? Is art the only threatening thing with the power to challenge, to resist and to be an alternative? Or did you mean imagination?
This is a film that takes itself too seriously, in my oh-so-humble opinion. Kind of like of like a few productions typical to the English Dramatics Society at my alma mater (does that term only apply for school?), LSR. Win a fair few prizes, the aantel crowd raves about its intellectualism and then we all go parteyh.
Watch Closet Land if you’re a fan of Alan Rickman. You won’t be disappointed, he is EXCELLENT as the sadistic interrogator. (At one point he plays three people simultaneously. The man is a genius. Madeliene Stowe is pretty awesome too. Whoever did the casting did a perfect job, aye.) As for the message, ah, the handling could have been less heavy handed. And I don’t mean the torture sequences.
Post-script: This is what Radha Bharadwaj has to say about her film. (I was right about the fresh out of film school bit, it turns out...)
Post-script: This is what Radha Bharadwaj has to say about her film. (I was right about the fresh out of film school bit, it turns out...)
So, you have familiarised yourself with the Calcutta lingo? yet, 'aantel' crowd is to be found no where save in calcutta because no where else would the undertone of mockery in the etymology of the word...talking of alan rickman, you surely have watched 'Sense and sensibility' in which a grizzled Rickman falls in love with a young Kate winslet, have you not?
ReplyDeleteOh yes, I've seen a shit load of alan rickman movies now :D Still downloading, I intend to watch them all. Best of all would be if I could somehow manage to see him live in theatre.
ReplyDeleteAs for aantel, I've been exposed to that word since childhood courtesy my mum :) Why would you want to imprison the poor word to Calcutta only?:)
Good to see you back on blogosphere. Does this mean you have a new post up? Going to check...