2012 MUBI World Cup Voting, Match #4: Czech Republic (Happy End) vs. Morocco (A Thousand Months)
humour is a treasure. you can keep your profundity if it needs all the bells and whistles attached
I actually tend to find profundity when I’m laughing the deepest, but that might just be my disposition.
And I agree with magpies, the tone of A Thousand Months was really the same throughout. I think it just can take a while through the film to discover what it really is over our preconceptions.
The director himself admits to intentionally changing the tone. Read kuxa’s intro thread.
Somehow I got confused and started thinking that Lipsky was also the director of Who Wants to Kill Jessie? And I was thinking as I was watching it that I liked it, but not as much as Who Wants to Kill Jessie? When I realized that they were of course directed by two different directors, I think my esteem grew a bit more. Along with all of the great and at times more serious films by Vlacil, Chytilova, Forman, and the others either contemporary with the New Wave or a part of it, the farcical comedies deserve a tremendous amount of attention as well. I was somewhat lukewarm on Happy End as I watched it, but it has stuck with me a lot more than A Thousand Months. (I’m with the posters above in not noticing any real change in tone in A Thousand Months.) I didn’t feel blown away by either one but only one is still here with me, so…
Czech Republic (Happy End) 1 – Morocco (A Thousand Months) 0
Rohit, are you referring to this quote?
“I like to lure the audience along a path that seems to be marked out and reassuring,” Bensaïdi says, “only to make them lose it instantly. The centre keeps shifting and what seems to be the margin becomes the magnet that attracts all the rest to it, only to disappear and be replaced by other peripheral elements.”
He doesn’t mention “tone” in there anywhere. That’s what I think the issue is. I think what he is doing is surprising us with the direction of the plot and maybe even the structure, but I think the tone is relatively consistant.
Yea, so that tone of melancholy with slight bouts of humor becomes a tone of predominantly farcical humor almost forgetting the melancholy at the end. Isn’t that a change in tone or direction or whatever you call it?
I think the descriptions of melancholgy and farce are appropriate ones. What I would contend is that the farce is there from the beginning and the meloncholy is still there at the end. Some people don’t connect the two in everyday life I think so it’s hard for them to reconcile them both being together there at the same time, so when they start sensing one more than the other they disregard the other one and feel like some abrupt shift has occured. For me it feels much more natural. I think it depends on a person’s general outlook on the tone of the world in general and if they have affinity for Bensaïdi’s outlook on the tone of the world.
I’m not too excited at the prospect of seeing the Czech national anthem typed backwards, so…
Czech Republic (Happy End) 0 – Morocco (A Thousand Months) 1
agree the melancholy is still there at the end. the farce just became more pronounced
I didn’t see anything farcical about the scramble for the chicken on the prayer mat, it just felt like kids having a bit of a giggle well that’s all I can recall about it anyway. I don’t think actually anything earlier in the film would be harked back to as farce had not the humour veered well towards that at about the time of the arrival of the new kaid, a rather absurdly drawn character (which did feel like a change in tone to me until then it felt more like a village showing a few eccentric characters as every village has them sort of thing) and the growing preoccupation with the chair – the collection expedition for the chair, a goat here, a petrol deal there (so you can’t pay now but Lakhtir will come by for petrol every now and then) the vain attempt to extract something from poor old obviosly penniless Houcine, running along after the car in slapstick mode, the silly little tantrum scene between the new kaid and his half brother over the latter’s mother being insulted, the wedding descending into rabble, then the mounting of a posse to hunt down the chair selling offender (with silliness eg "this is your house! " – “all the doors look the same!” etc) the jilted lover bleating in the street to the tune of a “wedding singer” standing beside him and so on.
There is absolutely no missing the pathos that is right there until the end surely – the grandfather’s stern announcement that he would not tolerate a scandal and would take the boy, Mehdi’s mother selling her wedding ring (how wonderful the director resisted the temptation to have her say “is that all?” as seems always to happen in every single pawn shop scene ever, she meekly acqueises (can’t spell that) – then being denuded of her cash and collapsing, poor Houcine’s suicide, all these things happen in parallel to the growing deteriorating (it was to me anyway) on the humour side of things.. then hot on the heels of the farce is the moonlight departure a final note to reflect upon the beauty of the bleached landscape, loss, and acceptance as life moves onto its next uncertain phase. So not sure how anyone could have lost sight of the melancholy. A couple of scenes I liked…
I’m not too excited at the prospect of seeing the Czech national anthem typed backwards, so…
HAHAHA
I don’t think actually anything earlier in the film would be harked back to as farce had not the humour veered well towards that at about the time of the arrival of the new kaid (which did feel like a change in tone to me) and the growing preoccupation with the chair
From what I remember the chair was there at the very beginning, for no apparenty explination. A kid just walking around with a chair everywhere he goes! You are telling me this isn’t farce from the start?
It was odd, and made one wonder…why? was it symbolic for something, what is it meant to convey to us, but no I didn’t think of it as farce at that stage and I wonder if the director had played it much straighter, later, if you would be thinking of that as “farce” at all?
i agree with meg. and i loved that mirror shot u posted xD
score is now 6-7 morocco
good match!
It was odd, and made one wonder…why? was it symbolic for something, what is it meant to convey to us, but no I didn’t think of it as farce at that stage and I wonder if the director had played it much straighter, later, if you would be thinking of that as “farce” at all?
It’s not fair to ask of “what ifs” without actually having an example of different or reedited footage to concretely compare. You say “straighter” but that doesn’t really define specifically what it would be. If it was different in any way it would be a completely different film. I can’t really speculate, what I would say in that situation, but I can say that the seeds were sown from the beginning and I found there to be consistancy which is something I often prize.
Czech Republic (Happy End) 1 – Morocco (A Thousand Months) 0
Czech Republic (Happy End) 0 – Morocco (A Thousand Months) 1
liked them both but A Thousand Months much more.
Some really interesting discussion about A Thousand Months!!! I will answer with my views tomorrow after some sleep!
Odd, but I find myself ruminating on A Thousand Months more now due to some of these thread comments. Bensaïdi’s quote on the changing emphasis he liked to employ during his work, from the core to the peripherals, also helped me watch his style change throughout, but not really the themes—i.e., hypocrisy in those who outwardly follow the stringent village ethics, be they religious, tribal, familial, marital, gender-based, romantic, in opposition to modernity’s offerings. We’re guided through many characters, each possessed by a need to break with bondage of tradition on the verge of modernization (the beauty of the lights going on at sunset all at the same instant). It could be from need: the grandfather selling the chair; or it could be from desire: the teenaged girl using lipstick, smoking cigarettes and going to progressive political rally’s as much for the adrenaline rush of defying authority as for a larger political necessity.
I have a problem with the ending of the film, feeling the director’s choice of a conflagration, although cinematic, was an all too-easy method of solving a difficult problem. He chose the wedding sequence in the tent as his setting for resolution, however we really only address the grandfather’s guilty secret being publicized (returning to the chair, and its weight of symbolic resonance). A drunken brawl, pandemonium, and a wagon filled with new beginnings escaping into the night seemed to fulfill the director’s aims. However, I felt cheated to some degree. In essence the story called on a big, beautiful tent fire—call it an Atlas Mountain Village “Death Star” explosion—as a vague consummation of all the interesting questions posed by the film, many just left dangling as the wagon clangs its wheels along the packed dirt road through the darkness toward exile in Marrakesh or Casablanca or Fez. As we know, in the history of Morocco, this approaching liberalism would be met with a rise in fundamentalism, contrary to the hope of the film, perhaps giving its tone a bittersweet feel, even in light of some of its humor and near-absurdist havoc.
None of this means I disliked the film, on the contrary I liked it very much and am grateful I was able to see it. But I did wonder if his story became expansive with too many characters. Granted they showed different examples of village life, and also personified different tics of moral quandaries. It’s just difficult in a 2 hour film to sum up all those persons, particulars, problems, let alone solutions for each (story solutions, not necessarily intellectual or psychological answers). Perhaps I feel the film may have benefited from a smaller cast of integral characters. Such a limitation may have tightened the focus of the story on the major participants, allowing more depth in presentation, characterization, and more clarity in story resolution.
Czech Republic (Happy End) 1 – Morocco (A Thousand Months) 0
Czech Republic (Happy End) 1 – Morocco (A Thousand Months) 0
Just saw Happy End and while I guess it’s kind of a gimmick, it’s the kind of gimmick I can really get behind, especially when it’s clever and well executed like it is here. Humorous and fun, it’s an absolute joy to watch! And while you can’t do like the protagonist did (changing the whole meaning of his life in retrospect from tragedy to comedy), it still is a reminder that even when life sucks a positive outlooks can do a lot towards making it better.
A Thousand Months looks like it could be masterful, I’ll have to see, this could be the most difficult match yet!
I’m glad it’s a close exciting match. We’ve got well over a day left, so I hope a lot more people are seeing and enjoying these films. I’d like to dish out a few more grins. :)
Czech Republic (Happy End) 1 – Morocco (A Thousand Months) 0
Czech Republic (Happy End) 1 – Morocco (A Thousand Months) 0
Czech Republic (Happy End) 1 – Morocco (A Thousand Months) 0
Happy End is an enjoyable romp. 1000 Months is crap generic filmmaking.
12-8 czech republic
i must admit i’ll be happy for an excuse to watch more of their films xD
@ Riss yes fair point, I was focused on defending my position that there was a distinct change in tone but upon reflection perhaps it is more accurate to say a startlingly sudden growth spurt (of said seeds sown) towards farce which – rightly or wrongly – I had not seen coming as prior examples given did not feel to me, in and of themselves, particularly aligned to farce. They could have sprouted in a number of different directions (making for a different film as you say )eg the chair might have been smashed to smithereens by Mehdi in a rebellious gesture in the footsteps of his father or the burdensome irritation of it might have been used to bring the tensions on the domestic front to flashpoint – Ahmed didn’t have much time for it and suggested he use it to ward off the dog, as in putting it to some practical use.
I had sympathy for magpies comment about profundity but without the bells and whistles and at first dismissed ATM along those lines, but reading up on it and thinking about the farce being used to ridicule & deride meddlesome inept officials, and as a metaphor for social chaos – underpinned and balanced out as it is by the gravitas of the ongoing desperate seriousness of the story – I can view more as having a different status and validity in the film, and hence am able to not only appreciate it but enter into it and enjoy it.
call it an Atlas Mountain Village “Death Star” explosion haha
Here’s some more scenes I liked! I get very taken up with visuals and will often be amazed at people’s comments about a soundtrack which I won’t have noticed much! at all, yet will have a vivid memory of a sparrow on a branch, I also often have to go back and re-listen to dialogue.
Thanks for keeping us abreast of the score Ruby!
I had sympathy for magpies comment about profundity but without the bells and whistles
well, actually i was thinking more along the lines of tootin’ ole wagner or the like there, not a thousand months :P
toodead
humour is a treasure. you can keep your profundity if it needs all the bells and whistles attached.
also…i didn’t see this abrupt change in tone in a thousand months….it was there from the start, no? unless no one else sees anything farcical about a chicken wandering across a prayer mat.