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Eyes
are the window to the
soul, a tool for a perceiving the outer world. For Pilar, a rather
unobtrusive homemaker of Toledo, Spain, in the film Take My Eyes,
her world revolves round her husband Antonio and seven-year-old son,
Juan. Even then, she is compelled to flee her home with Juan, even
forgetting to change her bedroom slippers, to her sister’s place,
unable to bear the repeated physical and mental abuse of Antonio. She
discovers a new world as she starts working in a museum. Her sister
pleads her to leave Antonio. Yet Pilar retains hope, her love for
Antonio still intact. So she gives in when he cajoles her, asks for
forgiveness; he even goes to anger therapy sessions. But it takes only
a short time after return for Pilar to discover that Antonio was as he
was, still abusive, still inhumanly possessive — not allowing her to
work, not allowing her to find her space. It opens her eyes, and she,
at last, dares to defy him, leaves her home forever. A familiar scenario?
Replace Pilar in an Indian locale, change the name to Shalini or
Shabnam but the story is the same. Pilar personifies the domestic
violence scenario universally recognised as one of the most rampant
abuses in the world. Take My Eyes
directed by Iciar Bollain was one of the films screened as part of the
18th European Film Festival held in Kolkata in collaboration with Cine
Central, one of the oldest film societies in the country. The theme
was "Celebrating Women" and hence, the stories revolved
round women protagonists in various moods, various situations. Many of
these films have featured in international film festivals and won
prestigious awards. In Beyond (Sweden),
the protagonist is Leena who comes from a home of violence with an
alcoholic father and working class mother. Despite her best efforts to
hold onto her family, and look after her brother, the social security
department takes away the children because of this traumatic domestic
scene. Leena is a happily married woman today with a loving husband
and two daughters. But she shuts out her past; she never forgives her
mother for not leaving her alcoholic father and for the death of her
brother due to drug abuse. And now, as she suddenly is informed that
her mother is on the death-bed in a hospital and wants to see her, she
is in a denial mode. Only through the understanding husband who bears
stoically her tantrums and seeing the state of her mother, Leena
manages to put to rest the demons that haunted from her childhood.
Excellently enacted by Noomi Rapace in the lead role as a disturbed
Leena (and also Tehilla Bled as the younger Leena), the film resonates
with dilemmas of families with skeletons in the cupboard; but also,
how people learn to accept an unpleasant past and move on. Eva in The House
(Slovakia) wants to move out of her home in a little village in the
beautiful countryside and make a new life in London. She saves money
doing odd jobs to fulfill her dream. But her conservative strict
father Immrich has other ideas. An apparently boorish man has only one
mission — to build two houses for his two daughters, though he would
rather not keep in touch with his elder daughter, who married against
his wish cutting short her education. The domination, the
constant emphasis on saving money for the house puts Eva off; her
father even takes away her savings to buy bricks. The unhappy,
rebellious Eva falls in love with the new English teacher, a married
man, which creates a scandal in the village. Eva runs away but returns
and slowly realises that her father had the best intentions for his
daughters. After she finishes school, he gives her money from his
savings so that she could go to London. As she leaves, Eva looks at
the half-finished house from the bus window, she realises that she
would always come back to this house built with love. Basically, it is
a coming-of-age film but Immrich’s sacrifice for the family, his
worry for the future of his daughters, rings a familiar bell back
home. Portuguese film Eccentricities
of a Blond Hair Girl, directed by Manoel de Oliveira is about
young love but with an unexpected end leading to a heartbreak.
Macário falls in love with the beautiful Luisa he sees everyday from
the window of his office in his uncle’s fabric shop, fanning herself
with a pretty Chinese fan. His uncle opposes his marriage plan and
throws him out. Almost penniless, Macário manages to find work and
saves frenziedly so that he could marry Luisa. But, as he tells his
story to a sympathetic co-passenger in a train, it was only an
illusion. Luisa was not what he imagined. Oliveira was 101-year-old
when he made this movie. There is an old-world charm, and the hint of
mystery that many yesteryear films had that makes the blond-haired
girl enigmatic to the end. Little Girl Blue (Czech
Republic) directed by Alice Nellis is a story of self-discovery of
middle-aged Julie. It is like a page of a diary with all actions
crammed into one day in Julie’s life. One morning at the
breakfast table in the posh house, the family has just moved in, the
news channel announces the death of legendary jazz singer Nina Simone.
Julie feels a vague stirring, sadness and nostalgia coupled with her
rather dissatisfying married life with Richard. On an impulse, she
decides to buy a piano. Richard is surprised, their teenager daughter
is dismissive as she thinks her mother is in one of her moods in the
manner of self-absorbed teenagers dismissing the elders. But Julie is
determined; she used to play the piano once. She finds the piano she
wants, discovers her husband was having an affair, that she is
unexpectedly pregnant, cuts off her relationship with her lover.
Roaming the streets of Prague — meeting different people, different
crisis, Julie remains curious, trying to discover what she wants, and
why the piano is so important to her. Director Nellis is an
accomplished flautist and the musicality in the movie is unmistakable. If looked closely, it
would seem that all these women have a desire to move beyond their
confines seeking answers to some inner yearning.
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