Tussling with Tibet

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16 August

Many years ago, a friend strongly urged me to read a book about the 14th Dalai Lama and how China had overrun Tibet. It was a small book, I liked my friend, so I did. I felt anger, and hurt for the Tibetan people and what had become of their culture

Nothing I have learnt, then or since*, prepared me for the level of content portrayed in When the Dragon Swallowed the Sun (2010**) : the politics of whether the Tibetan Government in Exile should still be seeking independence, or, as the Dalai Lama announced in Strasbourg in 1989, autonomy, alone are complex.

Dragon succinctly shows, by choice of speaker and judicious interviewing and editing,  how the stances operate not merely to create division between those advocating each aim, but differences of approach in how best to achieve them. Some say that one should claim independence in the hope of being granted autonomy, others that, in accord with the constitution of the People's Republic of China, there is a right to autonomy. Others still say that independence had always been fought for, but had not achieved anything, or that those who claim autonomy have not a single lawyer amongst them to argue for it.

Before Dragon, it had been tempting to believe that everyone (except the Chinese government) accepts that the forces of occupation had not, apart from in some bogus sort of way, been invited in to liberate the Tibetans from serfdom. However, we even hear some Han Chinese in dispute with protesters in San Francisco, who are campaigning for a free Tibet, and hoping to embarrass the Chinese government on the world stage at the time of the Olympic Torch, prior to Beijing 2008.

The Han Chinese want to challenge Tibetans as to whether they have ever been to China or Tibet (the Dalai Lama had left in 1959, and others had left whilst they still could), and so whether they have a right to a voice (an argument used both for and against, as far as I could tell). None of this stopped Bishop Desmond Tutu from making a personal appeal for how the Dalai Lama deserves respect as a great human-being, or Richard Gere from endorsing the justness of the cause, but the Chinese wanted to say that the Tibetans do not pay tax, and that, unlike the Tibetans, they can only have one child.

Looking beyond the issues, there are gorgeous views, some in stunning time-lapse, of Tibet (the mountain and the monasteries), shots of its people, and scenes on the street in Tibet and in China, and of protests in Delhi, again at the time of the Olympic flame. (We likewise see Beijing and its Olympic buildings and new shopping centres / malls, and there is a contrast with the 2008 Tibetan Olympics (presumably held in northern India).)

Again, there is disagreement about how the protests had been mounted, and whether it would have been possible (and, if so, why it did not happen) to register an incident, by extinguishing the torch, to bring international attention and pressure to bear on Tibet.

Inevitably, with a subject where genocide is alleged, there are shots of corpses and wounds and footage of people being hurt or telling how they had been tortured. As this is a complete view of the Chinese occupation, we are in doubt how difficult it is for people to envisage change, not least those who are settled in India and, between marches and commemorating dates such as 10 March, have to get on with their lives. Some spoke of being accepted in India.

Amongst other things, dance, music, chant, Buddhist tradition and garb, and lovingly composed shots, for example water streaming off the edge of a roof, make for a richness of feel to this thought-provoking documentary. It does not tell you what to think, but makes clear how many people are thinking in different ways about Tibet under Chinese rule.



End-notes

* In more recent times, I have also seen folks such as Michael Palin visiting Lhasa, and meeting the Dalai Lama in Dharmsala, India (and also heard Palin narrating his own book of Himalaya).

** Though the credits say 2011...


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Lack of Drive ?

This is a review of Drive (2011)

More views of - or after - Cambridge Film Festival 2011
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

14 October

This is a review of Drive (2011)

* Contains spoilers *

It took me a long time to seek to work this one out:

The lack of impetus for a review that I have experienced comes from no lasting impression of Drive (2011), in terms of thoughts that arise from it. It's not that one cannot choose to think about it, because I can, say, summon Carey Mulligan's face and demeanour (as Irene) to mind quite easily, but there is nothing in superficially recalling the fact that I have seen this film that makes me want to.

As with seeking to review Drive, it's not exactly that I have to force myself to revisit it, but that the film just doesn't seek me out unbidden and remind me of it (unlike, dare I say it, Tirza? - or Dimensions?).

Not that I think that anything is necessarily wrong, or, indeed that this isn't a good film (or that I wouldn't watch it again), because, unless there is a long list to be critical about, I would not find it natural to write as much about most documentaries than about most feature films - but without implying any superiority of one type over the other. Not having anything to say does not mean much, as the film may be eloquent enough on its own account (as is Charlotte Rampling in The Look, for example).

What I will say is this: Dirty Harry; restraint erupting into violence; Clint Eastwood. Those are all things that echo, not so much through Ryan Gosling's performance as Driver, as the character himself. A review in the Festival booklet TAKE ONE, of which I was a little and (I hope) no more than gently mocking, drew attention to the fact that, although we (I?) could swear that we hear him called something, we do not: Ryan Gosling is credited simply as Driver. (By contrast, in 1971, Eastwood was the Harry of the film's title.)

Does the lack of a name say more than Driver's prepared speech? Definitely, the speech is where I came in with thinking of Harry Callahan and his famous 'Do I feel lucky?' spiel.(Moreover, Harry is relatively nearby in San Francisco, where he is seeking a gunman calling himself Scorpio: and what is the emblem on Driver's light-coloured jacket?) For anyone who knows Harry, I cannot believe his formulation would not have been a touchstone for Driver's own, either because, as with Travis Bickle, Driver has modelled a persona, or (or as well) because the film is nodding to that sort of territory:

We first hear the set speech (as a recalled voiceover) where Driver is very much in control, dictating the terms; when we hear it again, he is trying to pretend (to himself, as much as anyone?) not only that he is still in control, but also that he knows what he has let himself in for - which he (clearly) does not. (Though there has been a foreshadowing of the violence in the scene where he is accosted, when drinking in a bar, by someone who recognizes him as having driven for him: it had not gone well for that man's accomplice and him, but he is told quite clearly where to get off when he makes a proposition to Driver.)

But is the attempt to be in control linked to, and just an aspect (albeit a central one) of, the namelessness? I think that it may be (don't worry, this isn't a review of the Eastwood film - trust me!): Harry asserts himself, asserts the role of chance, in confronting another man with a weapon that may (or may not) be out of ammunition, but does so through a set pattern of words - a mantra, a prayer, it doesn't matter what it is, it works for him, and that is what it is intended to do. After Driver's second utterance of his speech, he is more and more on his own in making choices, planning, seeking to regain control, to protect and survive.

Whatever his life exactly has been before, he has survived with work in the garage and, relatedly, driving. Yes, he does different sorts of driving (and there is a neat misdirection with the scene where he is about to do a stunt, and is dressed in LAPD uniform), but there is no detail, no feeling of a life led other than by a cipher.

When Irene asks him, he says that he has recently moved to the - unfurnished, unpersonalized? - apartment around the corner from her, but, after a hesitation, he continues that he is not new to Los Angeles (as becomes evident - from where he works, and from how he knows where he is going when he drives). (Yet, with the stunning night views of the city, I almost feel that we know LA better than we do Driver.)

So is what the film wants to say that meeting Irene and her son Benicio changes his life? - and, not necessarily for the better, vice versa? He wants to help and protect her - but in his chosen way, which involves exposing her to an epsiode in the lift that will surely gain a life of its own. However, as things happen (not entirely outside his own making - a self-destructive streak, consistent with the nature of the night driving that he does?), he cannot be with her, cannot do any more than further conceal his identity and who he is.

Maybe, if anywhere, that's where there is scope to wonder: what does he really see in Irene, and what is his vantage-point? Yes, she seeks his company (and, in doing so, is not being strictly honest about what her intentions are and what is possible), and she would - might? - not have sought it, if she had known the truth about him. He does more than go along, clearly enjoying spending some time (the film is vague as to how much or for how long) with Benicio and her, and becoming aware that they may be exposed to risk.

Regarding the timing of the second time that we hear Driver's speech, and where everything really starts to change, he tells Irene that he had offered to help Standard, her husband. That may or may not be true, as Standard is shown playing a line in innuendo and low-level menace that suggests that he thought ill of Driver's recent attentions to his wife and son, and that appearance seems more consistent with his having 'suggested' that Driver should help Standard with his problems.

In any event, whether he is free or not to do what he does, he assuredly does it for Irene and for Benicio, not for Standard. Maybe it seems likely that he would, maybe it doesn't, but he does, and that is just another part of his unknowability: the tender (but quiet) times in Irene's company, contrasted with the explosions of violence. Maybe more of Travis, along with Harry, after all...?


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