Kundiman ng Lahi (1959)

Kundiman ng Lahi (Lamberto Avellana, 1959)
English Title: Song of the Race

The first image we see in Lamberto Avellana's Kundiman ng Lahi (Song of the Race) is the rhythmic grinding of grain to fine flour. There are no extravagant visuals or swelling music to accompany the opening credits. Just that, the sound of repeated pounding and the image of the mortar and pestle being utilized. It's a beautiful introduction, very simple yet appropriate in detailing the overall thrust of Avellana's film wherein a barrio lass who is dealt with fate's repetitive pounding, and despite such, survives triumphantly.

We then hear the beautiful melody of Nicanor Abelardo's song. Through the narration by Isang (Charito Solis), we learn that it is the town fiesta. We see Isang with her sweetheart Tonyo (Eddie Rodriguez) in gleeful celebration before being dealt with news of the impending death of her mother. Orphaned, she is left to the whims and cruel shrewdness of her aunt (Rosa Aguirre) and step-uncle (Joseph de Cordova). In order to pay for her mother's debts and the mortgage attached to the land she has inherited, she first sews, before being lured into the cabarets, wherein she retains her moral uprightness despite the seediness of her profession.

Avellana's approach is clearly genteel, but never prude. There's a subtle sensuality to Avellana's filmmaking: the way he dresses and imagines Isang to complete the picture of nubile and seductive innocence (after the mother's death, you first see Isang dressed in a sexy black dress, her cleavage peeking and her wavy hair overflowing with sensual invitations), enough to make the step-uncle's insistent gestural innuendos (a curious tapping of his fingers in Isang's naked arm, or the momentary yet stolen glances of Isang's cleavage) understandable, and even forgiveable. It is that difficult balancing act that makes Kundiman ng Lahi engrossing: that the sexy vixen is the personification of well-regarded Filipina virtues of domesticity, propriety, purity and innocence.

Avellana also masterfully captures the allure of progress. Jaime (Vic Silayan) takes Isang for a ride to Manila. We see the rapid yet memorable images of the city through the car ride (the bright lights and the rows of car), and more importantly, the fascination of Isang (as shown by Solis' sparkling face and her apt narration). Also, Tonyo forgoes the slow income of working the land to the monthly salaries and the huge machineries of a rock quarry. Avellana depicts progress as an inevitable change that is happening.

How do these Filipina virtues factor in a nation that embraces progress and materialism? We witness Isang traverse the all-too-familiar path leading to corruption (extreme poverty, cruelty by her guardians, being employed in a cabaret, having a rich, urbane suitor). We also witness how she has always survive through the trials by clinging on the same virtues (her regard for familial and marital ties) that is so easy to discard amidst the calls of modernity. Avellana (and of course the very righteous stance of LVN Studios) seems to be establishing that such virtues are not antiquated by progress or the several beatings and hardships that accompany modernity.

The film closes with Tonyo and Isang reunited, with her reformed aunt and their baby. We are reminded of the opening image; that notwithstanding the ease and allure progress has provided them, there's no better way to make flour than by pounding the grain with meticulous rhythm, difficult and painstaking as it may seem. Life is not very different.

Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959)

Kaagaz Ke Phool (Guru Dutt, 1959)
English Title: Paper Flowers

I initially thought Pyaasa (Thirst, 1957) is the greatest musicale ever made, until I decided to watch Kaagaz Ke Phool (Paper Flowers) again. These two films by the great Indian filmmaker Guru Dutt have affected me tremendously. While Pyaasa is the more perfect film between the two, Kaagaz Ke Phool is more poignant, more memorable, and more beautiful to look at and listen to.

The opening is probably the most tragic entrance ever put in celluloid. An old man (Guru Dutt) passes through the gates of a film studio, stops by the imposing structure of the film studio. The framing of the old man's entrance to the studio shows the man made minuscule by a statue that marks the building. The man finally enters the studio. Beams of dust-littered light give the studio an eerie, forgotten atmosphere. The old man climbs up a flight of stairs, then starts singing of his fate. We become aware that it is not the studio that has been forgotten, it is the man who has been forgotten by the studio, the industry, the crowds that once adored him and his work. The old man, Suresh Sinha, used to be a very successful film director. Superimposed on his defeated teary face were moments of his former glory, with the elegance of the cinema where his film is met with applause by a crowd of cheering moviegoers.

Despite the successes in his field, there is something that is lacking in his life. Estranged from his wife (Veena) and daughter (Kumari Naaz), he focuses on his craft, with a project of adapting the tragic tale of Devdas. One rainy night, he chances upon Shanti (Waheeda Rehman). He offers the girl his coat, which she then returns to him one shooting day. Sinha notices virtues of innocence and simplicity in Shanti, requisites to the Devdas heroine and thus recruits her to star in the film, unknowing that he is starting to fall for her.

The film is beautiful. V. K. Murthy's cinematography adequately captures the film's melancholy and sadness through evocative framing and purposeful lighting. Giant shafts of light are utilized during the film's resonant moments such as during the film's love theme Waqt ne kiya (sung by Geeta Dutt), wherein Sinha catches Shanti knitting alone one early morning in the film's studio. The two at once recognize themselves as two lonely people who uniquely understand each other and such recognition, and given their difficult circumstances, becomes for them "sweet calamity," in a way that social norms and their respective fates prevent themselves from being with each other. Murthy's shafts of light give a quietly hopeful quality to the film's doomed lovers. It visually makes the aches more poignant as a tinge of unnatural beauty is revealed for an equally beautiful relationship prevented by the cruelty of human life.

Accompanying Murthy's grandiose visuals are the music composed by S. D. Burman, with lyrics written by Kaifi Azmi. One of the more notable songs is performed by Shanti, who relates to a group of kids a story about how the numbers kept on fighting to the detriment of the youngest number (1), forcing it to meet up with a same-fated number (0) to create a ten, which is again forcedly separated by other numbers. The melody, which is utterly simple and gratifyingly jovial, actually sounds like a nursery rhyme. However, it is burdened with the task of summarizing the entire film to little children. The result is a fascinating summary that is successful, embarrassingly too simple that the children relate to the message, singing and dancing along the happy rhythm of the song. Yet, it feels like that simplicity cannot exist in a world that is more interested in fame, success, class structures, and norms, something still alien to Shanti's wards' innocent minds.

If there is such a thing as imperfection in a film that perfectly captures the treacherous movements of life, more specifically life that is involved in movie-making, it is the side plot of Rocky (played by wonderful Bollywood comedian, Johnny Walker), Sinha's brother-in-law who constantly travels to Mumbai to race horses and hang out with movie people. He is disdained by his family for his unusual ways. Walker gives a welcome comedic air to the tragic affair but his inclusion in the film itself is more of a distraction rather than a pertinent entry. Seeing the film again, my initial reactions to Rocky's side plot remains. However, this narrative hiccup (by director Dutt and writer Abrar Alvi) makes the film mysteriously interesting. For sure, Rocky is that single character that connects the two impenetrable classes. He's the only important character who's free to choose his fate, certainly unlike Sinha or Shanti who are trapped with their tragic fates, and persistently evades anything that will take that freedom away.

Kaagaz Ke Phool is Dutt's most personal film. It is prophetic as it is autobiographic. Pyaasa may be the better and more coherent film, but if I were asked point blank without given any time to think, I would probably say that this film is my favorite of Dutt's films. It is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, film about filmmaking ever made.

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This is my contribution to the Movies About Movies Blog-a-Thon at goatdogblog.

House on Haunted Hill (1959)

House on Haunted Hill (William Castle, 1959)

It is most unfortunate that William Castle's haunted house film House on Haunted Hill has been remade into an abysmal update by William Malone complete with overdone make-up, special effects, a ghastly musical score, among other things. Interestingly the 1959 House on Haunted Hill was done with a budget that would seem minuscule compared to the remake, but is infinitely more effective in producing mystery, plot interest, and more importantly, horror.

Millionaire Frederick Loren (Vincent Price) has invited five strangers to his reportedly haunted house for the birthday celebration of his wife, Annabelle (Carol Ohmart). They are offered ten thousand dollars in exchange for staying in the house the entire night. All of them took the bait with different reasons and excuses. While aviator Lance Schroeder (Richard Long), news reporter Ruth Bridgers (Julie Mitchum), psychiatrist Dr. David Trent (Alan Marshal) and Frederick Loren's company employee Nora Manning (Carolyn Craig) are in it primarily for the money, the fifth guest Watson Pritchard (Elisha Cook) is most certain that the house is haunted and has more personal and pressing excuses to accept the invitation.

The most fascinating thing about House on Haunted Hill is that during the entire film, there is hardly an image of an actual ghost that invades the screen. The actual terror doesn't come from the fact that the house is haunted (Castle leads us to believe it to blanket the treacherous schemes of some of the erstwhile residents of the house), but from the idea that there's something clearly troubling when you trap inside a house five strangers whose primary motivation for being there is greed, and to add to that, you have a couple who are so sick of each other that it won't be surprising if they stabbed each other to death.

William Castle introduces the film with a deathly shriek in the dark and then, an eerie image of Pritchard telling a slight background on the house and the many murders that ensued there. Then, attention is given to Frederick Loren who gives a short backgrounder and some hints on the different guests he has invited to his guests. It's a clever introduction, I think. The introduction effectively bathes the entire film with a supernatural feel and also puts an air of danger in between the guests, who according to Loren's backgrounder, have the need and the capability to murder for money (especially since they'd allow themselves to be locked up inside a mysterious haunted house for a night).

There are really frightful moments within the film, but those are just there to keep you in the edge of your seats. The real centerpiece of the film is the clever designs of treachery and paranoia-inducing that the guests and the hosts are staging for and by themselves. The film showcases several twists that caught me unaware and are most satisfying given the fact that I kept on expecting a ghost or a ghoul to pop out of somewhere.