Road tripping
Classic road trip movies are always about discovering yourself. We take a look at two heartfelt films from West Asia, which reinvent the genre to tell tales of love and redemption in times of war.
Here are two things which you wouldn’t think would mix— serious movies from the West Asia, the most troubled region in the world, and road movies, a genre that includes Wild Hogs and the work of Rob Schneider. While modern road movies are often mauled for their inanity, there are plenty of high calibre films like Thelma and Louise and Little Miss Sunshine, which are essentially about self discovery and the freedom of wide open spaces. When you shift the premise to the West Asia, the whole thing becomes more heroic, given the region’s conflicts.
War is obviously a core feature of this genre, but even then, the treatment is radically different. Archetypal Hollywood war movies range from the phantasmagoric (Apocalypse Now) to the banal (Pearl Harbour). They tend to shy away from a candid portrayal of the fears and frustrations of the innocents caught in the crossfire. Most films from countries like Iran, Palestine and Lebanon tell stories of common people as they take a journey through turbulent times, either to look for companionship (Taste of Cherry) or even as conflicted terrorists (Paradise Now). Whatever the story, these films tie together themes beautifully, which one doesn’t think would hang together.
The first West Asian filmmakers to garner acclaim were Iranian masters like Mohsen Makhmalbaf and Abbas Kiarostami, with films like Kandahar and Taste of Cherry, both of which involve a journey of self-awareness and understanding, whether political or personal. Their successes went on to inspire a second generation of filmmakers, like Bahman Ghobadi, who has carved out a distinct niche with a unique cinematic language. His earlier movies like Turtles Can Fly and A Time for Drunken Horses displayed a startling mix of the absurdist, the tragic and the blackly comic moments that lie under the ordinary life lived by the divided Kurdish people in the stunning and stark landscape of Northern Iran and Iraq. Ghobadi paints a compelling picture of the hopes and desires of people bound on all sides by daunting mountains, biting cold and unsympathetic governments.
In his film Half Moon, Mamo, a legendary Kurdish musician and his ramshackle bunch of fellow players take a rickety school bus and travel to Iraq despite being warned by an old seer that great danger awaits him on the 14th day of the lunar month—or the day of the half moon. Negotiating repressive Iranian laws and trigger-happy American soldiers, this captivating film is a celebration of music and a spiritual quest. In 2006, Franco-Lebanese director Philippe Aractingi was in Lebanon when Israel started a mini-war in the region by carpet bombing the southern part of the country. To get a feel of the tragedy and to tell a “tale about the suffering of the innocents” as the director put it, Aractingi got together a crew and shot Under the Bombs on the spot. The tightlybound story is about two different Lebanese—a haughty, wealthy émigré Muslim woman Zeina and the louche Tony, a Lebanese Christian man who dreams of emigrating himself. Zeina has learnt that her young son is trapped somewhere in the smoking rubble and is determined to find him. She persuades Tony, who is a taxi driver, to accompany her to a southern Lebanese village. Her fear and determination opens up a deep wound in Tony and he begins to feel for this strange (to him) woman and her search.
Both Half Moon and Under the Bombs are available from Excel Home Videos
Price: Rs 499 each
The first West Asian filmmakers to garner acclaim were Iranian masters like Mohsen Makhmalbaf and Abbas Kiarostami, with films like Kandahar and Taste of Cherry, both of which involve a journey of self-awareness and understanding, whether political or personal. Their successes went on to inspire a second generation of filmmakers, like Bahman Ghobadi, who has carved out a distinct niche with a unique cinematic language. His earlier movies like Turtles Can Fly and A Time for Drunken Horses displayed a startling mix of the absurdist, the tragic and the blackly comic moments that lie under the ordinary life lived by the divided Kurdish people in the stunning and stark landscape of Northern Iran and Iraq. Ghobadi paints a compelling picture of the hopes and desires of people bound on all sides by daunting mountains, biting cold and unsympathetic governments.
In his film Half Moon, Mamo, a legendary Kurdish musician and his ramshackle bunch of fellow players take a rickety school bus and travel to Iraq despite being warned by an old seer that great danger awaits him on the 14th day of the lunar month—or the day of the half moon. Negotiating repressive Iranian laws and trigger-happy American soldiers, this captivating film is a celebration of music and a spiritual quest. In 2006, Franco-Lebanese director Philippe Aractingi was in Lebanon when Israel started a mini-war in the region by carpet bombing the southern part of the country. To get a feel of the tragedy and to tell a “tale about the suffering of the innocents” as the director put it, Aractingi got together a crew and shot Under the Bombs on the spot. The tightlybound story is about two different Lebanese—a haughty, wealthy émigré Muslim woman Zeina and the louche Tony, a Lebanese Christian man who dreams of emigrating himself. Zeina has learnt that her young son is trapped somewhere in the smoking rubble and is determined to find him. She persuades Tony, who is a taxi driver, to accompany her to a southern Lebanese village. Her fear and determination opens up a deep wound in Tony and he begins to feel for this strange (to him) woman and her search.
Both Half Moon and Under the Bombs are available from Excel Home Videos
Price: Rs 499 each
