THE WHITE BALLOON

.................................
by Jafar Panahi and Parviz Shahbazi
.................................



This is so very special !!
This is definitely cinema..
Plz don't call it cerebral..
or Iranian.film.. ...
It's about an expanding universe.
Its about time and space..and us.
It's about inevitable exploration humanity makes
It's about PEACE.
....so it's a Heart Thing !!
Coz
2 Xpand The Circle.
You have to have that all necessary "SPLASH".
In the precious pot of yours.
THE BIG BANG !!!!
Imagine the splash
in lil girl Razia's heart.
At the desire of a fat bridely gold fish..




&
POP!!!
Open's an Universe ..
and the film begins
The real market..
Which is so different.
When perceived from the home .
That's the dilemma of being cerebral...
Clarity (white Balloon) ...
The lil Afghan seller achieved
is untouched by all the market buzzers
even the veteran soldier of war.
So Why ???
What is so special about him ????
That makes him retrieve the 500 tommahs (bucks)
for the lil girl which all others could not??
It's perhaps his precocious perspicacity.
That can only come from
the innocence of a
wandering
young
brave heart .
Rhazia's brother,the lot in the market or even the soldier could not come to the girls rescue.For it seems they are confined to their circles.
But not this BOY.
He is a different breed .
This guy can zoom in,
narrow down the circle
& focus
on the problem .
win the lil war
for the lil Rhazia
Then Zoom out
Xpand like any thing in sync with time and space.
As the new year begins
& crisis ends.
Now lets play this game of circle which PANAHI plays with such aplomb.
I promise it will be such fun.
.........................
RINGA RINGA ...
..........................

(1)Small circle
the fish tank in the house with skinny goldfishes
mother & the gal
Gal and the brother
Big fat gold fish in the market
(2)Big circle
The unseen father who makes his presence felt through mere diktats and scolding
(3)
Bigger circle
The market
Smaller circle with in the big circle
The Tailor
The snake charmer,
The soldier

(4)Huge circle
The Earth making rounds

(5)The expanding and shrinking circle
The Afghan boy selling balloons .


............................................
Panahi zooms in and zooms out from the start of his 80 min + something film.He is searching,grappling and thus confused & helpless.Like Razia (with a cute pout)who losses her 500 tommah twice in the frenzy of the market.Where circles of various universe make infinite intersections.Adding to the confusion.All circles big or small are so rigid that they add to the problem.
Except for 1.
The Afghan teen.
The balloon seller.
The hero emerges
and clenches the issue
for the little girl ,
for Panahi,
for Iran ,
for the world.
The frame freezes with the Afghan boy to end.
As time moves forward in a circle.
That is beyond us to change.
.............................
THE GAME PLAY
.............................
This is not cerebral guys don't be put off by such things people tell you.Do please see this stuff.COZ it says something really important.
Panahi don't have the luxury of freedom.Iran is a closed rigid society.With so many forbidden issues.So he has to device the film such .It's a game of circles he plays to avoid the wrath of society.
In fact he believes that there are no evil characters.
Speaking against Evil with out believing in it's presence is an unbeatable idea
VERY !!VERY !!RADICAL !!!
Renders the devil impotent in the first stroke.

Its all about circle we live in.
He argues instead.
So he brings in the problem
through the desire of a little girl
and
solves
with the lil Afghan.
Such a sweet !! sweet !! stuff.
Even the DEVIL Can't oppose.

Intellect is not the sole answer.
May be the so called cerebral (what ever it might be)
are but a part of the problem.
Iran is typical example of it or for that matter the world at large.
Iranian society is an intellectual construct (a rigid circle)
in clash with another concoction , The western ideology .
Which is again a stiff rigid circle.
Panahi captures this crisis in Iranian society at bazar scene.
YUP it can be about
Women liberation
Iranian society
or
The humanity.
The answer lies in the essence of the Afghan teen with lucid visions.
Definitely there can be a solution to the current division.
Created by the so called play of cerebral intellect.
The passion to
Xplore Possibilities
Problem Solving
&
2 do Good
comes not merely from intellect
but
from the "SPLASH".
And the answer is
the white balloon.
PEACE
As the planets makes a way to another circle.
The only circle that cant be changed.



.PEACE.

..........................................................................
SO HURRY UP WORLD !!!
Give the Afghan teen a chance.
Before it's too late.
..........................................................................
In response to my Lil Bro

LIL PETITE'S ENDLESS GOLD FISH

Drft...wud.

HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE

.........................................................................
This stuff is magical realism.What one make of it ?
A lot. Probably 1 would fail to state how much 1 may try.
Anyhow
Here's my shot at it ..
Well Marquez paints in every paragraph he writes.
That's why it's a slow read.In fact it's more like seeing a painting being done realtime .Give it your best lazy moments of the day.So that you get all it's magical hue surfacing till it fills up the canvas.Then go to the next para.And don't try to finish this stuff...becoz it can't be done.
Confused !!!
But then some stories are not meant to end.
This is one such.


........................................................
MOCANDO :THE UNIVERSE OF MAGIC
........................................................



Paul Gaugain's Swineherd
.......................................................




He paints an universe that don't exist in reality.
Conjures up Mocando and all it's fascinating characters.
It has a Wizard,a Rebel poet (prince),Lusty Brutes, Faithful followers,Gypsies,Mothers,Lovers ,Angels,Ghosts,Fantastic creatures that are mix of Ammadillos and Pigs.....everything.
Love,
Rebellion,
Pain,
insanity,
Ecstacy,
Orgy,
Brutality,
Entrepreneurship,
Epidemic,
Pragmatic stoicism,
Brotherhood,
Vengeance
Adventures
Amnesia...
..
.
in an infinite unending yearn spun by Marquez.
............

In the end he swipes off this magical universe.
Just like that.With an astounding finish...
It is cataclysmic in effect of rousing magical proportions.
The canvas which was pulsating with all sorts of teeming creatures,emotions & events gets sucked up into the Black Hole of Oblivion.
It blanks out with vicious abruptness.
Like an act of magic coming to an end.
With an Unforeseen Brutality.

....................................................

The church at Auvers Van Gouge painted in the last years of his life (1890)
....................................................

The story thus ends suddenly.
Leaving you kinda stupefied.
As if you are awakened from a siesta.
Like the reminiscences we have of our early morning dream.
Marquez fantasia ebbs back in.
Every time you are alone with yourself.
Making real sense of the Marquez magic.
In this bewitching Picture Book of His.
One starts to think...
Goosh !! it's so real !!
Coz It's a story about ME.
My relations
My lover
My neighbour
My enemies.
And Mocando
The fantastic village is but my Bonafide Turf.
A corner I call Home.
Where I Live,Fight,Make love,Make off-springs,Date angels and demons.
It's where I will Die someday.
And will comeback again in unending continuity.
To repeat the story once again.
Coz I am never tired of this story.
Can one be ????
Are You ????

Marquez wrote a story about My Real Universe...
And it's a magic I am living he tells me.
It's a Magic I wish to continue.
MOST DEFINITELY ,Yeah !!!
.....................................................
Marquez won a noble in 1982 for MOCANDO and FOR ALL THE FANTASTIC CREATURES THERE.
.....................................................
Too little a honor for
Little Aurillino,
The Failed Son
The Failed Lover ,
The Failed Rebel,
The Failed Poet...
Shy lil creator
of infinite sparkling Gold Fish..
for His Lil petite
Remedios Moscote.

....................................................

...................................................
A Brief Sigh !!
For what seems like
Cien años de soledad(100 years of solitude)
...................................................



Phew !

...

BLUES IN A SUGAR LUMP

..........................................
Drft...Wud
..........................................


...................................................................

BLUE by Kislowski.
First film of the French trilogy
...


COLORS
BLUE,WHITE & RED
of the French tricolor
Symbolizing
Freedom,Equality & Fraternity.


Blue attracts tremendously.It is aloof. It is strange .It is cold .It is severe. It is secluded. It never welcomes you in.But you feel it's magnetic draw sometime inescapable.Perhaps it seems to suggest truth and love, that comes with absolute freedom & clarity.The more you like it ,the more it inflicts melancholy and pain.Something unattainable,nonexistent and thus abstract.
..................................................



..................................................
Kislowsky seems to argue absolute freedom( which signifies BLUE ) is perhaps impossible to achieve in a collective. French govt funds the film .For nationalistic ambitions.They at the same time try to portray individual freedom as its ideal.It is an impossible combination.Kislowski have to work in the same restricting confines as in communist Poland. Thus state irrespective of ideologies always seems to shares common inspirations.
Most of the times as it happens.It's the state that calls the shot.But Kislowsky didn't compromise on individual freedom in BLUE.Methodology he adopts is through abstract visual poetry.He takes it to extreme.In the final scene he brings the apparent contradiction between The individual,The state and The church.
His central character Julliet develops desire for individual freedom.This is after she loses her husband and daughter in a car crash.She disposes off her fortunes, she provides for her husband's concubine ,she forgives the boy who stole from the crash site,she gives up her aging mother ;she gives off her husband's title,she gives her body to the lust of the lover, she even gives up the only passion left ,the script of the master-piece her husband worked on.
But society tries to draw her in ,into it's fold.Make her give up the quest for absolute freedom.In her words she won't cry, she would not play into THE TRAP again.The trap from which she has been accidentally released due to the car crash.
The contradiction begins. The past returns to her again and again.
As an metaphor
.........
The dead husband
..........
returns in the form of The original score,The flute,The flute player in the street,The pregnant concubine mothering her husbands baby.







...........
The lover
............
in The color red,in endless chase,The mattress they first made love.
.........
The child
.........
in the form of The prostitute ,The suckling mice,The blue chandelier.





........
The mother
........
in the form of The water pool,The Mother rat,The mother at hospital without a memory,The rope in the TV show of bungee jumping and rope walking,The old women in the street.



.......
Every thing returns to haunt her again and again. She fights back with intense cold,unemotional,detachment one associate with Blue.Much like the cat she borrows to kill the rat.But in the Penultimate scene she is trapped,forced to surrender.

...........................................
THE PENULTIMATE SCENE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmQ88PWzvR0
...........................................


Julie has finally cracked the code of final score.It belongs to the Concertino.Which her enigmatic genius husband has left behind.It was the Concertino which would unify Europe. With frantic swishes of her BLUE PEN she writes it down.Freedom !! But it is very transient...
She ring's the assistant of her husband (the lover).Remember the color in front of the assistant's desk ? Bright RED, of Lust,Greed & Pretensions.He refuses to compose the original final score.He does so, in order to have it named as his own Conertino.Just by making little adjustments on the original score.Which he admits would be a bit heavy.And defeats the real motive.
This is Kislowsky's abstract reminder of individual freedom sacrificed to greed at the pretense of society.
She hangs up.She is trapped finally.As her aspiration of individual freedom comes crashing down.She is defeated ,unceremoniously dragged into concocted reality again.With no way out.Remember how she tells her servant that she won't cry because she don't want to fall in the trap.
Gives up ,Rings again returns to the lover leaves behind the BLUE PEN.Goes to the lover(assistant).Makes love and the frame turns red.
Remember how the love making scene was .It was tortured ,awkward with no joy or love or freedom .Restricted and suffocating as her face seemed to be plastered on the glass.It looks more like struggle then lovemaking.With the lover in the background enjoying her surrender.
But!! Was it not a forced surrender on unequal grounds.
In the end the Concertino soars
Surprise !! Surprise !!
It's not her husband's concertino
It's the blunt verses of virtues from Corinthians, chapter 13 OF The Book of Revelation Bible.
Of course how could it be!!!
It has never been sung or made till now ! But its every where .Anyone (I stress ONE) can invent it. This is what the flute player in the street said to Julie.But it's the Corinthians we will hear.Something builds within us.Our ear longs for the Concertino's flute...but still we keep hearing verses from Bible.
LAST scene you see a human's naked back reflected in Julie's cornea.From inside her bed room.While she stares out THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS..into the BLUE.Which seem to caresses her face draw her in . But then there is an intervening windowpane with reflections of other hues also.An incidental tear drop rolls down Julliet's cheek.She is TRAPPED again.
..............



...............



THE END.

............................................
IT IS EVERY WHERE as KIZLWZ used to say.It needs some one to pick it up.
............................................
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HMT7MnRcQw
...........................................
See where Julie's quest lead.
Summarized in the LAST SCENE
The thief is transformed,
The assistant is successful in having his love,fame and fortune.
The mother gets back traces of memory again from Alzheimers,
The prostitute gets back her childhood,
The concubine cradles the husband's baby in the womb. She is on her way back to womanhood.
...................
You wonder !!!
As the collective gains,
At the cost of individual consciousness .
Is it Julie a metaphor of Kislowski the individual ????
...................
Who are unceremoniously made to lose their individual freedom.
In the name of love as per Bible...or in the name of state here FRANCE.
...................
Mean while the film picks up a crescendo
as the verses from Corinthians ,Chapter-13 soars even higher in the background ......
Verse 13 is sung as the climax reaches its zenith.
Contradictions now appear to this seemingly impregnable idea about greatest human aspiration .LOVE.
It is now .
A MOMENTOUS REVELATION occurs .
About our illusory existence.
Holy logic don't seem to hold that thing .
The thing that had been growing with in us all the while.
Now.
All you want to hear is Julliet's concertino only.
Or
The flute in the street.
But it is never sung and the flute never played again.
Need not be.
Because ....
It is everywhere now
The audience picks it up .
Even though it is physically non existent.
......
......
.
There's a REALITY SHIFT here
.
....
.......
The unification is thus complete with Concertino of jullie.
And we start finally to experience the surreal called BLUE..
A SINGULAR CONSCIOUSNESS.
It brings the SELF/BIBLE/SOCIETY together in a New Light
The absolute joy of being alive.
Which was unattainable a moment ago .

Just like a bubble that breaks the surface .
Or
Like the sugar cube soaking up the coffee
Drops..plop !
dissolves .
......
Jullie's metaphysical music is everywhere.

YOU START TO HEAR VOICES beyond the apparent.....
SEEING THINGS
Looking at unassuming..irrelevant..
meaningless
You find it's there
THE GHOST unreal
you used to call Abstract .....
Do you get it on your face..
The REALITY.
More importantly
Do you now see Who you are.
Oh !if you can see innocuous
surely you can find it out
No big deal now !!

Kislowsky thus brings in NEW LIGHT on The French Govt's petty ambition and The church's preaching.
With his dazzling individuality.
Champions individual freedom.
The SELF/BLUE which don't recognise state,time or form.....
...............
BLUE IS EVERY WHERE YOU NEED TO PICK IT UP.
EVEN IN A SUGAR LUMP.
...............
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HMT7MnRcQw
...........

A NON TRAGEDY


Did he make film after color ??
NO HE DIDN'T ..
WHY THE FCUK SHULD HE.
He died in 1996 a MASTER.
Thank You !! MASTER KIZLWZ.
FOR GIVING ME THE EYES.


It has been a joy writing his Obituary .

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References:
.......................................................................
http://mysterymanonfilm.blogspot.com/2008/09/visual-storytelling-kieslowskis-blue.html