FILM AND CULTURE

FILM AND CULTURE

by Armen Pandola

A nation's films tell us a lot about it. In almost every movie, a piece of a nation's culture is revealed. We have been exporting American culture throughout the world and for much of the 20th century, American movies, TV and music dominated the airways. That is changing.

The WE ARE ONE film festival allows us to look at the movies of other cultures and two of them reveal cultures as different as India and Israel.

In Prateek Vats' Eeb Allay Ooo, Anjani (Shardul Bhardwaj), plays a young migrant in New Delhi who has the job of monkey repeller - yes, you read that right, monkey repeller. In India, monkeys are treated as messengers from god and are sacred. As such, they roam New Delhi's government center with impudence and must be repelled - but gently. Anjani must mimic aggressive langurs, the monkeys' natural enemies, with langur sounds - ”eeb,” “allay,” and “ooo.” Anjani lives in a village outside New Delhi with his pregnant ill nourished sister, (Nutan Sinha) and brother-in-law cop (Shashi Bhushan). Their tiny home serves as his sister's workplace, bagging spices for sale. The squalor of their lives is matched only by its uncertainty - each of them is desperate to keep their employment in a place where unemployment means almost certain death. Their employers know this and it is not unusual to see a boss physically reprimand an employee.

Eeb Allay Ooo shows us a world unlike anything in America. It does so with a mixture of comedy and drama that mimics the lives it portrays, full of laughter, fear and despair. This is not the new India with a booming tech economy, but the India of over 1.3 billion people and a GDP per capita ranked 139th in the world. It's a vibrant dangerous place where mobs can kill a person who dares injure a monkey. It is a place much like the rest of the world outside of our western world bubble. It's time to take a look.

Dover Kosashvili's Late Marriage is an Israeli movie about love, family and passion. Zaza (Lior Ashkenazi), a 31 year old PhD student at Tel Aviv University has never grown up - he studies philosophy and is totally dependent on his parents (Moni Moshonov and Lili Kosashvili - the director’s mother) who shop him around to dozens of prospective brides. Meanwhile Zaza is having a passionate affair with Judith (Ronit Elkabetz), a Moroccan divorcée with a six-year-old daughter (Sapir Kugman). When he rejects another potential bride, his family decides to confront the truth and that's when the movie really begins.

Late Marriage shows us a world very different than our love-is-all fairy-tale marriage one. It's a culture that prizes family and tradition above individual happiness - or rather a culture that believes strong family ties and upholding traditions is the only true path to happiness.

Taking a long look at the world outside of our own helps us to keep our vision clear - like looking at faraway horizons helps maintain healthy eyesight. Try it - you'll never look at things the same.