I
don´t want to reveal to much from the story, because these are first
notes.
At
the beginning as much I have to reveal when Mrinalini
intends to commit suicide and recapitulates her life through memories
I thought of Max Ophül´s last film LOLA MONTEZ. The aging Mrinalini
may be tired in life, but Aparna Sens film is the opposite. If I have
to find terms for the always refreshing vitality of Aparna Sens films
in the last 10 years, than I ´t hesitate to think she is one of the
few contemporary filmmakers who give cinema back what it is in danger
to loose forever.
Aparna
Sen said that she felt like experimenting with a more popular genre.
It is not just a flirt with mainstream, it is quite a daring
experiment. ITI MRINALINI is a good example that you have with
Aparna Sens films always the chance, enjoy intelligent and
sophisticated storytelling , enjoy like in most of her last 4 films a
firework of cinematic ideas and reflections on cinema in general or
just enjoy both and you have one of the richest harvest, contemporary
narrative world cinema has to offer.
As
the film deals with memories of an aging film diva, her memories are
often fragmented and at the end we have to put the puzzle together.
Opposite to Aparna Sen herself, Mrinalini is an actress who never
made own films and who never got the chance to work for Satyajit Ray
or Mirinal Sen, not to mention the Super Nova of Indian cinema,
Ritwik Ghatak. But at the beginning when Mrinalini is looking at old
photos or things which evoke memories in her, she is “editing”
her life and reflecting on the images she has of her life like a
filmmaker has to edit the images of her film.
Says
Bengali film critic Pradip Biswas, “the film is crafted in a manner
that might hurt your critical sensibilities” In his superficial and
very arrogant pamphlet on ITI MRINALINI in the online magazine “The
Scape” he already sees THE JAPANESE WIFE and this film as examples
for the decay in Bengali cinema. The texts sounds too much like the
Bengali pendant to Jim Hobermans equally dull review on Malicks
masterpiece THE TREE OF LIFE. Both are judging on films they have not
even half digested not to mention – not understood. In their eyes I
must be stupid or shizophrenic, because I saw a lot of wonders in
this film. I am not so much angry about the fact Biswas and his
american pendant Hoberman have not the same taste like me. I am
rather in rage because they blame the films they judge in the same
way they blame the films for. If there is something like a “left
machosim” in film critic I can name two exemplares.
Does
ITI MRINALINI works as a whole film?
Of
course it does – and in the same way CITIZEN KANE by Orson Welles,
LOLA MONTEZ by Max Ophuls or SAIKAKU ICHIDAI ONNA (The Life of Oharu)
by Kenji Mizoguchi does. It is as reflective like CITIZEN KANE, as
restless like LOLA MONTEZ and as elegant like Mizoguchis film.
The
long tram travel with the young Mrinalini (played by Konkona Sen
Sharma) and her first boyfriend , a Naxalite reveals in me the famous
tram scene in Murnaus SUNRISE with the difference the landscape which
passes by is real and not reconstructed in a studio. You have the
choice to focus on the dialogue between the lefttish boy and the
young woman who wants to become an actress or just looking out of the
tram windows or you can have both and it will be an unforgettable
experience very rare in narrative cinema.
Truffaut
wrote once in his collection of film critics “The films of myx
life” that there were often very small moments which makes him
falling in love with a film. In ITI MRINALINI there are four
encounters of the young Mrinalini with other women which stay in my
mind as some of the great moments in Aparna Sens films with me
forever. One with the german girlfriend of her brother Julia (Suzanne
Bernert), one with an aging actress, a lomg conversation with her
daughter who is adopted by Julia and her brother and this incredible
emotional impact when she encounters the crippled woman of her
dearest friend. Some of these person have limited screen time but
that are shining bright and I can never forget them.
There
might be sympathy from Aparna Sen for her and Sen Sharmas character
but despite Aparna Sens own experiences as filmstar, her attitude to
this mosaik of some different characters has again the Ozu-like
justice to all her figures. Just remember the small but intense scene
between Konkona Sen Sharma and Suzanne Bernert on the beach or the
long walk and conversation between Mrinalini and her her daughter.
Both scenes have the beauty of a scene from a film by Ozu. Mrinalinis
encounter with Chintans crippled wife has the intense of a scene from
a film by Ritwik Ghatak.
Of
course Konkona Sen Sharma offers again one brilliant performance. But
the quality of Aparna Sens directing is a kind of decentralisation.
All the persons in Mrinalinis memories have a life on its own.
As
far my unsorted thoughts. It is one of these films which become more
beautiful after every time I see them.
Rüdiger Tomczak
Rüdiger Tomczak