NETFLIX recommendations (3)
On Body and Soul (2017) by Ildikó Enyedi
Although somewhat unclear to me if and to what degree this title is available on Netflix, particularly within Europe, this Hungarian film deserves to be brought to your attention anyway. Enyedi had an earlier international success with her 1989 film My 20th Century. On Body and Soul won the prestigious Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival 2017.
It is a rich emotional drama, asking questions about the duality between soul and body, the spiritual and the physical. The physical reality and setting is a slaughterhouse with its extreme violence as a daily routine. Maria is the new hygiene inspector and between her and the plant’s manager Endre a love story evolves. But that happens in the alternative universe of their dreams, which represents the spiritual realm. In these dreams they are both deer wandering in a snowy forest. It reminds us that even in the most mundane, gruesome ”body” circumstances there is a noble, elegant ”soul” reality, at times deeply submerged, but never annihilated.
A Sun (2019) by Mong-Hong Chung
A Sun is a family drama of the Taiwanese director Mong-Hong Chung. Chung shows in his films a fascination with the life of lost men and boys. Earlier in films like Doctor (2006), The Fourth Portrait (2010) and Soul (2013) this theme of male lostness was launched and in A Sun he continues this theme. It is a story of two sons, the older one a top student getting all the attention and appreciation of his parents, particularly of his father, and the younger one a disappointment to his parents, sinking deeper into delinquency. The convincing script makes surprising twists and turns, but is always telling and compelling. The development of these characters captures your complete attention throughout the full two and a half hours it takes and leaves you behind with lots to discuss about human emotions, about anger and happiness, about depression and resentment, about lack of closeness and communication. A beautifully crafted story!
Court (2014) by Chaitanya Tamhane
My third choice for this week is a much awarded film from India, featured in 2015 at the Gothenburg Film Festival where Court was nominated for the best debut award. The film portrays contemporary India with its caste prejudice, injustice and its sometimes absurd juridicial system. An elderly folk singer, a ‘people’s poet’, is arrested on the charge of having caused the suicide of a sewage worker through his song texts. It is soon clear that the police wants to get rid of a man who advocates change and who speaks against corruption and greed. His trial is devastatingly ridiculous with a court case that never ends and keeps the old man in prison. A great and powerful film debut of this Indian director!
When you’ve watched a film please leave a comment below; just a simple response to “what struck you?”
Rinus, April 2020
Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash
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Films with a Common Theme: Difficulty in Close Relationships
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I found myself mesmerized by the “On Body and Soul” film and watched it again the following day. In contrast to the shadow of emptiness, loneliness and fear there is also desire, mutual attention and hope. I found the way this movie holds in tension the contradiction between body and soul to be quite inspiring, since I also see this in myself. This movie made me appreciate the “noble, elegant soul reality” that you refer to.
I really was captivated by the second film pick, A Sun, by the Taiwanese director. The complex family dynamics got me to think about “seeing” people for who they are and not for who we want them to be. And what is then our responsibility to them. How do we relate to people when they disappoint us and what kind of affect does that have? This film kept me thinking all the next day. Thanks for the recommendation
We watched Of Body and Soul a few days ago and the film has lingered in our minds ever since. My wife works with children on the autism spectrum and our minds entered into the question of how Aspergers fits into the director’s vision of body and soul. We were fascinated how the director brings out the realities of Maria’s body and her difficulty connecting her internal world to the external world. Counselling, roll playing, and sensory exercises are methods used at my wife’s school. This is, however, not a film about Autism. Endre, the other half of the love story, also suffers from a crippled body that has also separated him from his soul. In no way am I left thinking the film is about two misfits who find each other. It is the struggle we all share to live as whole people, body and soul together. Quite often it takes a bit of magic, an impetus that move us to be more vulnerable, in order to foster this connection, especially when love begins to stir in our hearts.
If I had to characterize the film A sun, by Mong-Hong Chung (2019) I would say that it is like a roller coaster. A story where things get worse and better, alternatively and surprisingly, but in a very natural way. During its development, the lives of the members of a family are folded before the viewer, their interactions affect each other, but there is not any real contact between them. They share the place, but not their lives. Only the kind, deeply human character of the mother manages to keep the delicate connecting wires during this turbulent history about, difficulties, isolation, effort and hope.