The connossieurs and commoners. The practitioners and proponents. The aficionados and acolytes. The avowed and awed. Why the diaspora of every hue and habit. All found common cause over weekend. Drawn in droves converging to champion, catch up, chat on and celebrate marvels and magic of moving images. Everything past three days was 24 frames per second of discovery and debate. From digital to documentary to age-old celluloid 35 mm spools it was flashback time as though cinema was reborn as it did over a century ago in 1895 thanks to Louis and Auguste, the Lumiere brothers.
Giving truism to prophetic statement that “Great films are made when there is a great audience” of Andre Malraux — French author and statesman, signature tagline of Suchitra Film Society, the first three-days of 2nd Bangalore International Film Festival or Biffes 2008 was abuzz with activity centred around films, films and films.
Vision Cinema Campus as also K H Patil Auditorium on K H (Double) Road and Suchitra Film Society auditorium at Banashankari teemed and thronged with people zealously feasting upon as much films as possible. They came, they saw and left bedazzled by variety of auteur ouevres on show rooting for every film ruing there was not going to be an encore of those they missed. Habba, habba, idu cinema habba, could form the litling lyric of new movie’s composer.
The common thread of conservation among cinephiles was did you watch heart-tugging On the Wings of Dreams, or surreal sizzler The Bothersome Man, mesmerising and magical Hukkle, Malayasia’s own Bend it like Beckam girlie move Goal Posts & Lipsticks or Istvan Gaal’s The Falcons or Bahman Ghobadi’s Turtles Can Fly. While those lucky to gamble their way to these scintillating stealers sported halo those that didn’t rued opportunity sorely missed turning misty-eyed.
Those having second thoughts about festival films now that word has passed around there is more to award movies than soporific stuff here’s your chance to catch up with lost time as four more film-filled days beckon better late than never starters. Here are flicks you could try out: Abu Sayeed’s Nirontor, with Ritwik Ghatak type social family saga, Zhuang Yuxin’s Teeth of Love, that tracks the trials and travails of a teenage girl set against country’s social and economic change, Remi Bezancon’s romantic comedy My Life in the Air, Finnish film Upswing on an IT couple conned into non-existent holiday, the much-talked Pakistan film Khuda Ke Liye, Lin Chih Ju’s The Wall, Robert Favreau’s A Sunday in Kigali, Bernard Emond’s Summit Circle, and last but not the least closing German film The Lives of Others. Of course there’s not forgetting documentaries, DVDs and retros, country focus and homages to binge on.
If you are game for some movie mania stir out to Vision Cinema Campus. Have a tantalising trip as you trek down beauteous cinema boulevard and its bounteous bouquet of celluloid beauties. After all “What is Cinema? Film, like life, is made of moments; moments in time, held aloft for our perusal, imprinted on our soul... brought back .. from time to time as a memory — by an event, a vision, a sound, an emotion. Films are not to be digested simply as they unfold... created by light and celluloid, they live only in our minds and in our hearts, savoured both during and after the fact. Projected into our consciousness, where they are replayed over and over.....” as Glen Norton film philosopher so succinctly sums it.
