Fall 2010 Film Screenings
by
The Literary Theory Committee
THE SEVENTEENTH PARALLEL by Joris Ivens, one of the most important documentary film directors of the 20th century. What is important about this film is that it was made in Vietnam in 1968 and documents the involvement of women in the Vietnam War from a North Vietnamese perspective. This film has never been available in the U.S., only in Europe and Asia. (Tuesday, October 19, 2:30-4:30, Bradley Hall Ballroom).
THE TENTH MONTH COMES HOME ( 1985) by Dang Nhat Minh, one of Vietnam's most important film directors. It's about one woman's struggle with loss and sacrifice during the Vietnam War. (Tuesday, October 26, 2:30-4:30, Bradley Hall Ballroom).
MR. AND MRS. IYER produced by N. Venkatesan, written by Aparna Sen (2002): A bus carrying a diverse group of passengers, among them a Tamil Brahmin woman and a Muslim man, is attacked by militants. The man and the woman manage to survive by protecting each other despite their deep-seated hatred toward each other’s religion, but in the end their journey together helps them see deeply into each other and themselves. (Tuesday, November 30, 2:30-4:30, Bradley Hall Ballroom).
1 comment:
Two images that impressed me, among several, in The Thirteenth Parallel, were a)the women persevering to have an ordinary life in the middle of the chaos of war--gathering at the well, singing in the fields, continuing to plant rice and potatoes, combing their hair, and doing the household tasks and tending to the harvest--and b) the contrast between the cultivation of the land (stretches of rice paddy and dancing banana leaves fanning the roads) and the violence brought upon the land (huge craters dug by the B-52 bombs, the devastation of whole villages). The last scenes were particularly compelling (also because of their universality)--the sweet, innocent faces of the children mouthing "Hands up!" as they learn the language of war, the language of othering and hating.
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