Cinema Canada (Jul-Aug 1975)

cannes Filmcrumbs from Cannes This is the leftover article: the one about films or film areas not covered by either Len Klady or Marc Gervais, and tailored for voracious readers with eclectic taste. A festival as huge as Cannes allows people to watch scores of movies in or out of competition and wind up with completely divergent views of what it was all about depending on the batch of films they happened to see. Most journalists end their two weeks with frantic searches for a Theme to make sense of this annual madness descending on paradisical Cannes. Soit goes.... The most prevalent phenomena among critics consisted of complaining that there weren’t any films worth seeing while spending hours discussing movies with plots like: Stud meets Nymphomaniac withtrucksfull of Violence dumped between couplings. Such films are considered Meaningful Statements on Twentieth Century Western Society. Soon, they will replace the ‘‘No Smoking”’ signs with ones requesting audiences to deposit their hearts and minds outside theatres. Lacking the peculiar insight necessary for appreciating such serious cinema, I nonetheless saw many fascinating, strange, beautiful and exciting films. Some of the most vibrant coming from the ‘‘Third World’’, which still reflects a human contact with life painfully lacking in many western films. From Brazil, O Amuleto de Ogum opens with three thugs attacking a blind singer who starts telling astory to save his life. The ballad follows a young man’s exploits from the poverty of his village through a gang of hired killers, through becoming a folk-hero (for his immunity to bullets), through joining a spiritual community in Brazil’s jungles, to returning to confront crime and corruption, through death, and finally 32 Cinema Canada From “Chac’”’ to resurrection! When the story ends, the thugs resume their brutal attack only to be successfully fought off by the blind troubadour who goes on his way singing, ‘‘ Those who wish, may learn from my story .. .”’ ReminiscentofJamaica’sexcellent The Harder They Come in fast pacing and pulse, Amuleto’s flavour is distinctly Brazilian. When asked whether his film was a popular success, the director replied, ‘‘Until recently, you still had to wear a black tie to go to the cinemas in Brazil — and this ina country where 90% of the population has no shoes?”’ Another Latin American feature depicting the confrontation between native culture and Western pressures was Mexico’s Nooyesladrar alos perros? (Don’t you hear the dogs barking?) A Chamulas Indian is carrying his son through the mountain villages looking for a doctor to save the boy’s life. To keep him conscious, the father teaches his son the basic truths handed down by the Mayans while the life the boy would have had as an Indian in a major city is intercut. Past and future tenses, fantasies, legends and delirium, traditional Indian life and the squalor in Mexico’s major cities are all skilfully woven in this challenging film. A deeper insight into Mayan traditions is presented in Rolando Klein’s fictional feature, Chac — A Prayer for Rain (Chac being the Mayan god of rain). Klein livedin the Mayan village of Tenejapa for several months before bringing in his film crew, and all the roles are played by the Tzeltal Indians themselves. The resultis a beautiful, fascinating film creating reality from within the Mayan’s esoteric heritage. The themes of the story are universal, highly dramatic and so believable that I broke into tears during the climactic ending. There have been very favourable responses around the world