SAIFF ’10: Anima and Persona

Evidently, Tamil gangsters are much like those found the world over, measuring their worth by their swagger. Unfortunately, when one aging godfather loses his potency, it indirectly precipitates all sorts of trouble in Thiagarajan Kumararaja’s Anima and Persona (trailer here), which screens this Saturday at the 2010 South Asian International Film Festival.

A captive trophy, Subbu does not want to spend a lot of quality time with Ayya, a big boss in decline. His inability to perform only makes his mistreatment of her worse. Already aware he is losing a step, he resents the goading of his chief henchman Pasupathy. Ostensibly agreeing to Pauspathy’s plan to pull a fast one on their competitors, he intends to dispatch the uppity soldier during the course of the operation. Of course, the disposable henchmen can’t get the job done, which forces them to take Pasupathy’s girlfriend hostage as a consolation prize.

The super bad Pasupathy is a dangerous enemy to have on the loose. Ayya also has to worry about the missing drug shipment he expected to appropriate and the rival gang from which it was swiped. Into this inter-gang skirmish wanders the comic relief, a bumbling villager and his sharp tongued young son, who desperately need a big score themselves, but are way out of their depth when the hot potato lands in their laps.

Anima is a Tamil film, but it features the established Bollywood star Jackie Sheroff as Ayya. Though there are no musical numbers here either, it is closer to the spirit of commercial Bollywood than other Indian films in the festival, particularly in its scenes involving the forbidden romance blossoming between Subbu and the apprentice henchman Sappai, as well as the slapstick of humor of the father and son country bumpkins.

Though the international title oddly invokes Jungian analysis, Anima is best when dramatizing Paupathy’s zen-like theory of gangsterism. Indeed, Sampath Raj emerges as a fantastic anti-hero protagonist, grittily intense and physically imposing throughout the film. Yasmin Ponnappa is also quite interesting to watch as Subbu, the femme fatale-in-distress. However, the low comedy of Somasundaram’s bumbling hick Kaalayan gets old quickly and rather clashes with the Pulp Fiction-like tone of the rest of the film.

Still, Kumararaja proves to be quite adept at juggling story lines, tying them all together rather cleverly. Though often quite cynical, Anima should prove to be a crowd pleaser at SAIFF, largely thanks to the very cool presence of Raj. An engaging gangster film with a few inventive narrative wrinkles, Anima is definitely worth catching when it screens at SAIFF this Saturday (10/30) at the SVA Theatre.

SAIFF ’10: Between Two Worlds

Sri Lanka is both a beautiful country and an ugly country. Young, listless Rajith appears to be making it uglier. He is not alone in that respect. Yet, one should not always trust the evidence of their senses in Vimukthi Jayasundara’s reality defying Between Two Worlds, which has its New York premiere this coming Sunday at the 2010 South Asian International Film Festival.

We first see Rajith literally falling from the sky into the ocean, but our earliest sense of who he really is comes as we watch him kicking a defenseless man while he is down. We have cut to the city, where there is a riot going on. Rajith is not one of the cooler heads, but for some reason the driver of a white van offers him an escape from the melee. He is all over his fellow passenger, an attractive Chinese woman. Since she was raped by Rajith or a man who looks much like him, she understandably prefers the attentions of their driver, which in turn provokes a violent outburst from Rajith.

Wisely ditched by his companions, Rajith sets out for the remote home of his late brother’s widow, but his violent fantasies persist to the point of intruding on reality. Indeed, notions of time and linearity get a thorough working over in Worlds. This is deliberate art cinema that has earned Jayasundara frequent comparisons to Apichatpong Weerasethakul. However, unlike the Thai auteur’s dark, murky looking Uncle Boonmee, Jayasundara’s images are bold and beautiful, arrestingly lensed by cinematographer Channa Deshapriya. From his rain speckled oceans to his wind-swept verdant hills, it is easy to get caught up in his visual poetry, even while he plays hide and seek with the narrative.

Indeed, he indulges in some serious gamesmanship with Worlds’ circular structure and problematized nature of reality. Yet, sometimes the narrative playfulness is interesting (if a bit obscure), like the strange tale the Zelig-like fisherman has to tell. Still, it is a bit off-putting when Jayasundara completely chucks away any semblance of ostensive reality in the final reel.

Intriguingly, the writer-director throws audiences a bit of a change up with the character of Rajith. We might expect the archetypal young man on a journey with its time honored coming of age and end of innocence themes. However, Rajith is no babe in the woods, even though he might have just fallen out of the sky. He may or may not be many unappealing things, but it is safe to say he is rather self-centered. Thusitha Laknath is quite effective projecting both the petulance and the latent dangerousness of the deeply flawed youthful protagonist. Though her early scenes are somewhat difficult to wholly buy into, Huang Lu is also quite haunting as the fragile unnamed Chinese woman. Still, this is a director and cinematographer’s film much more than an actor’s showcase.

Jayasundara truly has a painter’s eye for visual composition, but his pacing is not exactly zippy. This is definitely a festival film for those seeking an immersive, tactile cinematic experience. Recommended to the adventurous yet patient, Worlds screens during the SAIFF this Sunday (10/31) at the SVA Theater.

SAIFF ’10: That Girl in Yellow Boots

Legitimate massage therapists undergo rigorous training in human anatomy and physiology. However, Ruth Edscer is the sort of masseuse that gives the profession a bad name. She is not the sort of person who would ordinarily perform such dubious work. She just needs the money from her extra services to find her prodigal Indian father in Anurag Kashyap’s That Girl in Yellow Boots (trailer here), which screens this Wednesday as the opening night film of the 2010 South Asian International Film Festival.

Edscer comes from a broken home—shattered might be a better word. After her sister committed suicide, her father abandoned his British family for his home country, leaving his surviving daughter behind with her moralizing mother. Running away from home in search of the father she hardly knew Edscer finds herself immersed in the seamy side of Mumbai, while seeking elusive clues to his whereabouts. It does not help matters when her junkie boy friend runs afoul one of the local drug gangs. This might not be the romantic India Edscer envisioned, but at least she can accessorize.

Boots is so not Bollywood—and not just because it lacks a musical number. While not exactly explicit per se, it addresses sex and drugs in uncharacteristically frank terms. Of course, nobody is likely to spontaneously break out into song in the scummy red light districts Edscer navigates. (If you don’t know what she means by a “happy ending” you definitely shouldn’t be going to massage parlors by yourself.) Indeed, Kashyap creates a visceral sense of place that might not be to the liking of Mumbai’s tourism authority.

Though actually French-Indian, Kalki Koechlin looks and sounds the part as the British Edscer. It is a pretty fearless performance, as she endures some quite realistic looking humiliations with a pathos that is hard to shake. Likewise, the great Hindi actor Naseeruddin Shah supplies the film’s heart as Divakar, Edscer’s only straight client, making the most of his relatively limited screen time.

Boots also forgoes the easy redemption of most Bollywood melodramas, opting instead for a grim naturalism. Though the film has the odd thriller elements, Kashyap (and co-writer Koechlin) are clearly more interested in exploring Edscer’s character. They spare her little, making Boots an exhausting film. Yet there is something unsettlingly poetic about its closing scene.

In a sense, Boots is a bold selection for SAIFF’s opening film. It is not a feel good movie, nor is it an enticing showcase for Mumbai. Still, Kashyap has an international reputation to attract cineastes and fans of Indian cinema will certainly recognize Koechlin and Shah. Indeed, their work here is quite powerful, making Boots the sort of film that lingers with you well after the ending credits roll. Recommended to patrons of international cinema, provided they understand not to expect Bollywood, Boots opens this year’s SAIFF Wednesday night (10/27) at the SVA Theatre.