The Children's Hour(1961)

About a week ago, I finally got down and corrected one of anomalies on the blog. Despite of all my admiration for Audrey Hepburn, I never wrote anything about her on this blog. I finally did that last week. After watching a documentary The Audrey Hepburn Story(2000) based on her life, I decided this is the opportunity I needed to rectify my mistake and took it with both hands. However, before doing that I went through her filmography once again to check what have I seen and of the remaining movies, what do I need to see? Fortunately, everything I wanted to see was readily available and within a week I ended up watching 4 Audrey Hepburn movies - I decided to let the fifth one go. One of them was The Children's Hour(1961). If you have read my Audrey Hepburn post, I said there as well that in my opinion this is one of the most criminally overlooked movie whenever someone talks about Audrey Hepburn's career. For some reason, I had never heard anywhere of this movie before and if I did not go digging into her filmography, I probably would not have seen this movie for a long time. I can only say that I certainly am happy I did go looking out for this as this is a fine piece of cinema which deserves much more attention that it is usually given.

Based on Lillian Hellman play by the same name, directed by William Wyler and starring Audrey Hepburn along with Shirley MacLaine in the role of two close friends Karen Wright and Martha Dobie, since college who have combined their forces to run a small boarding school for girls. There are only 20 girls in their school and these two are sharing all the responsibilities at school - they are teachers, they are headmistresses, they are wardens as well as cooks too. They both have put a lot of blood and sweat into this place to make it worth any reputation and slowly but surely their hard-work looks like is paying off as they are just about starting to make their school profitable. And as it would require for two people to get this far together, they have great understanding and trust between them. Both the girls have put quite a few years of their lives in this Dream Project however, they both have reached a point where it has become necessary to take certain decisions in their personal life that they can not postpone any further. Karen has been engaged to the local doctor Joe Cardin for couple of years now and they need to get married soon, even Joe is staring to be little restless now whereas Martha really needs to find someone and settle down as soon as possible. After some deliberation, Joe and Karen decide that this indeed is high time and they should get married after the end of current school term. Martha reacts to this news rather unpleasantly as she feels that this will mean Karen ignoring the school a little and further increase in her responsibilities, even though Karen and Joe both assure her that will not be the case. However, being a good friend and inherently good person, she keeps her issues aside and is happy for her friend.

Martha also has an aunt named Lily that lives with them and gives them a helping hand in school as well. Lily actually wants to be an actress on Broadway but can't really get past odd role here and there. Now this aunt Lily is a character and is meddling and rather cunning. While arguing with Martha once, she accuses her of being jealous of Karen and having an unnatural kind of relationship with her, she even goes ahead and ascertains that it has always been the case. Unfortunately, two of the schoolgirls overhear this conversation in the other room and off course go on to tell their other room-mate at night. Now, this other girl is Mary - a natural troublemaker who both Karen and Dobie believe is bad influence on other girls and because of her attitude gets punished quite often. However, more importantly, she is granddaughter of Amelia Tilford, one of the most influential and respected families in town. She is also an aunt to Joe. Mary being punished for anything and everything she does has a kind of spite of both her teachers and wants to get rid of them or from them as soon as possible. After hearing about the conversation between Lily and Martha from her friends, she decided to use it against them to get her out of there. So one day, she quietly sneaks out of her school and goes to her grandmother. At first Amelia disregards this as ridiculous but Mary seems to be persistent and also Lily, who is been asked to leave this place as Martha has had enough of her, unknowingly acknowledges of making any such remark. This puts Amelia in very uncomfortable position and she not only decides to take Mary back home for good, she also passes on a word to the parents of other girls in school that Karen and Martha might be lovers. One by one, all the girls start leaving the school leaving Karen and Martha to wonder what exactly happened ? and what follows turns their lives upside down completely.

I am not gonna lie and say that there was any other reason I saw The Children's Hour or even went looking out for it than Audrey Hepburn. Off course, having one more recognizable name, Shirley MacLaine that is, in the mix made it even more desirable but still I probably would not have watched it had it nor been for Audrey Hepburn. So, let me start with her. It is one of those movies where her acting is of much more relevance than her looks and charms and yet again she proves that she does not need them to please the audience, she is quite capable of doing it through her acting. Working yet again with William Wyler who apparently saw an actress behind that pretty face and gave her roles like The Nun's Story(1959) and off course her breakthrough role in Roman Holiday(1953), she does a great job indeed as usually calm and pleasant but determined and straight-thinking in face of an adversity Karen. Shirley MacLaine as Dobie has more dramatic and little troubled role and I am sure that none of us has ever had any doubts of her acting prowess. It's just good to see 60's Shirley MacLaine that I was stunned by in The Apartment(1960). I should also mention James Garner as Joe and Miriam Hopkins as Lily as well. But if someone really deserves to be mentioned here, it is Karen Balkin as malicious and rather bossy among her friends Mary. Mary is just a kid and all she wants is to escape from school where she thinks her teachers are being unnecessarily hard on her. She doesn't really fathom the implications of her actions and keeps on playing the same card to keep her from being punished yet again, this time possibly by her grandmother and this storm blows completely over her head.

Now, I am not going to lie and pretend to say that The Children's Hour is a masterpiece. I wouldn't even say that it is a movie that everyone has to watch. It is a decent enough film with little different story than we usually see with two strong and commendable center performances. But, my only problem is this movie deserves a lot more recognition from everyone than it seems to get. And that is the only reason that I have spent all this time on writing this post - to do my part in helping it get that recognition. Hopefully, this will make you want to watch it and it will soon be there.

Rating(out of 5):

Breathless

During moth of June, I took it upon myself to watch as many foreign movies from 60's from '1001 movies' as I can. There were multiple reasons behind it. Firstly, I watched very few foreign movies in the month of May, so I wanted to make up for it. Secondly, I had seen very few 60's movies from 1001 list, even fewer than 50s and I thought I can rectify that before putting up that list on the blog. So, I started looking around on all possible sources - Netflix, YouTube. Fortunately Ruth@Flixchatter also wrote this article at around the same time which also helped - actually I saw the concerned movie from the same link. Even though I am still working on it, I saw around 10 movies that can fall in the category above. One of them was Jean-Luc Godard's first directorial effort Breathless(1960) which is also considered as one of the first and most influential movies from French New Wave period. Most importantly known for innovative techniques used and its style, it is easy to see the impact it might have had at the time of its release.

Michel Poiccard is a small time criminal who is on the run from Police. On his way to meet a girl he is in love with, he steals a car in Marseille and is on his way to Paris with Police are on his tail. In an attempt to get rid of them, he panics and has to kill an officer. After coming to Paris, he gets hold of a girl he has come to meet in Paris - Patricia Franchini, an American journalism student selling New York Herald Tribune on streets of Paris. He wants to go to Rome and he wants her to come with him. However, she isn't convinced that she loves him as yet and hence is reluctant to go with him. This pretty much is all the plot there is to it and most of the film is about him trying to convince her to go with him and her rejecting him. As the movie goes forward, it becomes very clear that all this plot is not really much important to the movie. We don't learn much about pasts of either lead and even story doesn't seem to be in hurry of going anywhere. As we go forward, Michael keeps on getting himself in more and more trouble with Police tightening their grip around his neck as with a murder of police officer, he is in much serious trouble. At one point, even Patricia learns about all his escapades which should make the final consequences intriguing. However, there is much more emphasis on their multiple conversations between the two leads walking around, driving in various stolen cars or in Patricia's tiny apartment and let me say it right here that I found that to be the most fascinating aspect of the story. Both the actors, especially Jean Seberg, carry out their duties poignantly. Their conversations touch upon a lot of obscure topics but what takes center stage here is not their dialogues but sexual tension that keeps on building between them. Personally, first 10-15 minutes of the movie felt like too much of randomness, we are being thrown into middle of something without any knowledge of what's happening. However, soon enough with entry of Jean Seberg, it settles down pretty nicely.

French New Wave basically was a bunch of film critics, who found the traditional way of movie-making rather formulaic and instead of lamenting about the state, they decided to make movies themselves to break these shackles and set the example in front of everyone as to how to do it. Since this is one of the pioneer and most influential movies of new wave, these aspects are certainly very much visible throughout the movie. Micheal seems to reflect Humphrey Bogart in his classic noir characters, being slick and detached from everything around him and also his physical appearances with tilted hat and cigarette on lips. And so is Patricia who keeps on denying Michael pretty much just because she can and because she doesn't feel as much emotionally attached as him, two predominantly male characteristics.  Fellow New Wane director Francois Trauffaut who wrote the script for it does a masterful job here to keep this rope taut throughout the long takes of conversations. Trauffaut incorporated whole bunch of cultural references in his script - one I was happy to catch was reference to Jean-Pierre Melville's Bob Le Flembeur(1956). I am not exactly sure if that was intentional or not but since Melville was still in good books of both Godard and Trauffaut then, maybe it was as he even played a small part in it as well. However, this New Wave was not only limited to breaking the norms of story-telling. This also introduced lot of different norms in movie-making as well. Use of hand-held camera almost throughout the movie, use of crowded streets to shoot with horde of people around, minimal use of artificial lights, improvisation of scenes and dialogues while filming is just to name a few. Most of these techniques may not be very revolutionary now, however what counts here is thinking outside the box to achieve significantly different and even better result.

BUT...Yes there is a but even here. I bet you did not see this coming. But there are few things that did bother me and worst part of it is they are enough for me to prevent it from being one of my personal favorites. Firstly, I do not understand what is the big deal with so called breaking up the fourth wall ? I am little biased here because I have been brought up on constant fodder of Indian movies since I was a kid and there it was always done very cheaply. With that as a background, I always associate this 'breaking up fourth wall' stuff with being incredibly cheesy. I agree that either here or even in most of Bergman movies, it is done to much better and serious effect but I still don't see what's the big deal. Next and little more importantly, Jump Cuts. There is an interesting story behind this. Godard wanted to reduce the run time as he thought it to be too long for distribution and instead of cutting down whole scenes, he decided to cut little bits from the scenes itself, giving it jerky and sudden feel. He did one more really important thing to highlight this, that is background music track is continuous even though scene looks like jumping forward a bit. I am sure that this is really smart, especially from technical aspect. However, it bothered me a little while watching it, especially during the car conversation of two leads. I read all this after watching the movie and even though I do realize the importance and influence of this, I can not shake off the fact how much it bothered me while watching it.

Third and certainly the most important thing actually has to do with French New Wave as a whole than just this particular movie and probably was also highlighted by the fact that, as I stated before, I was watching other foreign movies from 60s as well, particularly Antonini's L'Avventura(1960) and La Notte(1961). I can not shake off the feeling that all these French directors(I saw Jules and Jim(1962) and Last Year at Marienbad(1961) right around at the same time) are trying little too hard to be taken seriously, to be considered intellectuals. Maybe it's just me but it felt like they try to make their movies purposely obscure to the verge of being pretentious and as a result end up isolating, disconnecting them from their viewer. Reason I bring Antonini's trilogy in discussion is because even he handles lot of esoteric subjects in his trilogy but I did not feel disconnected from either of the movie. So, unfortunately, Breathless turns out to be another movie in what I call myself to be 2001: A Space Odyssey category. I know the importance of it in the grand scheme, I even understand and appreciate it. I really know that what it's most important achievement is it created a path for many more movies to follow and is instrumental in where movie industry is right now, just like 2001: A Space Odyssey. However, despite all that Breathless has to be the movie that I respect and appreciate the importance of, but personally do not get the appeal of.

Rating(out of 5):

All things Audrey !!

I feel like being repetitive, maybe I have said this before but I will tell you this again anyways. When I was in College, somewhere around my junior year, one of my very good friends used to talk very fondly about a movie called Roman Holiday(1953). Back then, I didn't even know there was a film by that name. She used to say that it is one of the loveliest movies she has ever seen and she is been trying to get hold of that movie but can't seem to find it anywhere. I was in the infancy of my film obsession or shall I say Hollywood obsession since most of my effort then was concentrated towards Indian Film Industry then. Even though I didn't know first thing about it then, that name left a mark on me. Few years later when I come to US, one of the first things I did was to try and find it. Out here, it was easy enough, I found it in the first library I looked - in my own university. I even went home and eagerly saw it. Now, to put the things in perspective, I am not the kind of person who goes head over heels for an actor or an actress. If you ask me, who is my favorite, I can give you a list but for life of me, I will not be able to order them. However, after watching Roman Holiday(1953) one thing changed, probably for the first and only time in my life, I had an absolute favorite Actress - Audrey Hepburn. This was almost 3 years ago. Since then, I have seen about a dozen movies she did and by now with every passing movie, my fondness of her has almost turned into a devotion.

Why do I bring all this up now, you ask ? because, the other day I stumbled upon something called The Audrey Hepburn Story(2000) on YouTube. To tell you the truth, I was looking for How to Break an egg scene in Sabrina(1954) - ohh, absolute bliss that scene is. I didn't find that but did see this. It's a made for TV movie with sort of biographical story of Audrey Hepburn, played by Jennifer Love Hewitt, since early in her childhood till she goes to the top of Hollywood. I probably won't go too much into the details about the movie as I find it hard to fathom that every single person she met was as enamored, as devoted to her charm as I am - someone rightly used the term Lady Jesus on one of the IMDb forum discussions - even though that is exactly what I expected. But this is a first time I have seen something about Audrey Hepburn besides her movies and this gives me a chance to do something I have been meaning to do for long time - write about Her. Audrey Hepburn wasn't just beautiful, there was something soothing, something beatific in her beauty that would touch your soul. It might just be me but every time I see her on screen I take a deep breath, close my eyes for a second and it feels like all my worries just evaporate into thin air. As shown in the documentary, she always thought of herself as non-attractive person, she rather used to think of herself as scrawny, tall with long neck and big feet. But even then when it all came together, it made extraordinary impact on screen. Since this documentary, I have been watching a lot of interviews of and about her and almost unanimous opinion seems to be she wasn't conventionally attractive but the way she carried herself made a lot of difference. Well, that and how soft spoken and modest she was.

Off course, one of the major reasons behind this Audrey Hepburn fever is her films. What started, more appropriately floored me, with Roman Holiday has become a full fledged obsession after close to dozen films by now. Roman Holiday isn't a revolutionary movie in any sense but her enthusiasm, her innocence in it is extremely infectious. Will you believe me if I tell you that since then I have always tried to say 'Thank You' the way she says in this movie. Would you also believe that I saw Sabrina(1954) because of her and not because of either Billy Wilder or Humphrey Bogart. It was actually my first Wilder or Bogart movie. There are a lot of movies that become instantly better just because she is in it - Charade(1963), Love in the Afternoon(1957), How to Steal a Million(1967). There really isn't anything wrong with them at all but at the same time there also isn't much in them either; except Ms. Hepburn off course. It's almost as if she carries these movies with her charm and I am sure there might me few more that I haven't seen yet. I have even set through never-ending atrocity that was War and Peace(1956) because of her. And how can I forget My Fair Lady(1964). If I am not wrong, I believe I had seen this even before Roman Holiday because I remember borrowing it from the same friend that told me about Roman Holiday but all I could remember was one song. So, when I saw it again I really had to convince myself that this is the same Audrey Hepburn that I have been seeing all this time. She was almost unrecognizable in her role of that flower girl initially. I am well aware of all the controversy surrounding My Fair Lady and even I think Julie Andrews probably was more suitable for the role, but Audrey Hepburn does a fine job here as well and I will not hesitate a moment to say that she was criminally overlooked for an Oscar nomination for that role.

However, it isn't just her charm, innocence and charisma that has won me over every time. She may not be considered as one of the best actresses ever, but if you ask me she has definitely made enough movies to make a strong case for her. First movie that made me stop my fan-boyish ogling and take her seriously as an actress probably was Breakfast at Tiffany's(1962). Even what they say in The Audrey Hepburn Story above strengthens my belief. After watching Roman Holiday - which mind you is a great piece of acting in itself and she does have an Oscar to prove it - I actually went through her biography on her IMDb profile to look for some of the other essential movies in her career and Breakfast at Tiffany's was one of the most prominent in it. I was already adoring her but since that day, I started respecting her as an actress. If you need any more proof of her acting prowess, try and see The Nun's Story(1959) which is a great example of her restrained acting. Throughout the movie she is in Nun's costume, covered from head to toe with minimal make-up and off course no accessories to accentuate her beauty. By giving one of the finest performances of her career here, she proved to me that even though all these factors added to her screen persona, she was just fine without them. Or even better, go and watch World's Champion Blind Lady in Wait Until Dark(1967). Seriously, watch her pull off that role of a recently blinded lady and tell me that she is not a good actress, just a pretty face. Even The Children's Hour(1961) with her and Shirley MacLaine - This film is so criminally overlooked every time anyone talks about Audrey Hepburn's career that I think I will go ahead and right full review of it soon, just to do my part for it. Only thing that is left for me to watch now is Two For the Road(1967), Paris when it Sizzles(1964) and just because it was her last film Always(1989) maybe.

My adoration for her goes beyond her beauty, it also goes beyond her acting talent. What makes me admire her even more is she seems to be a genuinely nice and polite person. Only reason I say seems to be is I have extremely limited resources - this documentary, few videos here and there and IMDb Trivia section. But there isn't a single person who has one complaint about her. Well, according to the documentary, Truman Capote had something to something to say about her but by the end, she even won him over too. Now, as I have been saying, this documentary may not be the most reliable of the sources - after all, they released Sabrina before she won her Oscar. But even then the gist remains that she was a universally loved character. After being in the industry for almost 40 years, I do not know of any controversy she was involved in, neither do I see any blemish on her character. For someone who is considered to be one of the most famous actresses of all time with such a beautiful face and lot of fame very early in her career, she had every reason and a long history of colleagues to misbehave but this blue-blooded actress never did. In another scene in that documentary, very early in her movie career, she says that "Ohh, I would love to misbehave. But I wouldn't know how" and I can't help but think Isn't that the story of her life ?

My 1st Foray Into Russian Cinema: The Return

I have said this before that since I started writing this blog, if there is one change that has happened prominently in my movie watching habits, that is the amount of foreign movies I have been watching since then. Not that I never saw any foreign movies before, but with the help of fellow bloggers my knowledge and interest in the foreign cinema has risen exponentially over last year or so. I believe that by now, I have seen glimpse of film industry of almost all the important or influential countries in movie world. However, even then I had one stone unturned - Russian movies. I am not sure how I manage to stay clear of any movie from biggest country in the world however I have been on the look out for something to start with for quite some time. Movies made by legendary Russian director Andrey Tarkovskiy were often thrown into the mix but till now his films have eluded me successfully and call me ignorant but I never knew that classical films like Battleship Potemkin(1925) and Ivan: The Terrible(1944) were Russian. However, when fellow Indian blogger Murtaza Ali@A Potpurri of Vestiges recommended a film called The Return(2003) which happened to be in my Netflix queue, I jumped on it as soon as I could.

The Return(2003), debut film for the director Andrei Zvyaginstev is basically a story of two brothers and a week they spend with their father when he returns home after absence of 12 years. Two brothers Andrey and Ivan (or Vanya, that part confused me a little) are used to their life without their father and have built their own world around each other and their mother and grandmother. With the return of their father, lot of unasked questions that lay dormant for 12 years start to surface and ripple the seemingly calm lives of these brothers. Of the two, older Andrey seems to be more welcoming of his father and starts looking up to him almost immediately, Ivan however is troubled. Their father, who isn't trying to bridge this 12 year gap with dotage and is rather brutal and officious with boys, isn't helping the matter much. Even though he readily agrees to take them on a fishing trip the boys are very much interested in, he is not in winning their hearts over, he is rather being a usual father figure which for boys he is anything but. Question that troubles Ivan is why their father decided to return now when both their lives were returning to normal ? They don't need him now, he certainly doesn't need them and he can not shrug this feeling off as easily as Andrey seems to. He starts to hate his father, question his every intention, defy his every order. This only results in more clashes and increase in drift between father and son.

 

An interesting thing about The Return is director Zvyaginstev doesn't look like trying to solve every riddle he puts forward and even more notably, it feels like it is done purposely. We never know anything about what their father did for 12 years he was missing. Throughout their trip, you can not help but question if their father is really taking them on this trip because boys wanted to or does he have some hidden agenda ? There is also no explanation to where they are going and why ?  On the island, their father is shown to be digging something and then he brings some kind of box back on the boat. That end is kept loose as well, never tied to anything else in the story. Another interesting thing is, during the middle hour, it feels like it is not going anywhere. However, during this time, very poignantly, it gets the stage ready for the last half hour which comes absolutely out of the blue and transforms the story. This movie is full of allegories and it is very well possible that I missed few references to these situations mentioned above but even then without those references, none of these unanswered questions are game breakers especially because of the excellent use of penetrating silence. However, those few missed references pose an interesting question to me - does a movie have to have an different underlying meaning to mean something or whatever the superficial meaning is enough to make it through ? In my case at least, those missed references did not make this any less of a movie.

While watching The Return, it reminded me of couple of films - first, Majid Majidi's Children of Heaven(1997) or any Majidi film for that matter because of the phenomenal use of children as two central characters and Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring(2003) for it's serene atmosphere and spotless cinematography. It actually scores a lot on technical aspects. Right from the very first scene of water, it looks crisp and beautiful, camera work is unique and different which keeps on lurking behind almost like an extra character. I even felt that it was very different in its sound department, mixing as well as editing. However, single most strong-point of The Return has to be the two stars and their great acting. It is very interesting to see both the kids assuming very different roles based on the situation. When they are with the their father, Ivan is the aggressor and Andrey immediately takes the supporting role or that of a mitigator. However, in the lieu of the tragedy in the end, Andrey immediately slips in the role of big brother, takes the charge and so does Ivan in the role of follower. Their father, played by Konstantin Lavronenko who later became first Russian to win best actor award at Cannes for Zvyaginstev's second film The Banishment(2007), also does a fine job indeed.

With an excellent start like this, I am sure that I will look forward to dig deeper into Russian movies. Not only Tarkovskiy and Einstein with their exemplary contribution to the world cinema, this movie has got me more interested in Zvyaginstev's career as well. I am sure that I will try and get hold of his other movies like The Banishment(2007) which as mentioned above was even recognized in Cannes and probably also his latest Elena(2011).

Rating(out of 5):