IIFK Day-3 Evening

Gods must be crazy
All the films (except the first film: French Fried Vacation) I have seen in this festival extracted thunderous applause from the audience. But Whispering Of The Gods received noisy boos and howling, for it apparently hurt the moral sentiments of many ready-a-boo viewers. As far as I am concerned the jury is still out whether it should be booed or not. Let us settle on the argument that if a director has the freedom to make film of his liking, the viewers also have the freedom to boo for showing their dislike.

But anyway, I did not like the film. First, it lacks an aesthetic refinement one would expect. Second, the director has taken the satire too far. The film reminds you of Dharmapuranam (Saga of Dharmapuri, in English), O.V. Vijayan’s scathing satire against power. The film exudes raw and untamed energy that certainly laid bare the high moral ground of the Christian church. The film also explores deep into people’s mindset towards power. Sex is used as a symbol to denote power. The film will give any blue film a run for its money in terms of blow jobs and hand jobs. In fact, the film opens with a priest seriously reading Bible to his pupil. As the camera zooms in, we realize that the pupil is giving a hand job to the priest. The film also raises some interesting questions about moral issues, good and bad, and even god. Too bad the film is titled Whispering Of The Gods; must have been something like The Gospel According To Satan.

Tomorrow I am going to office; so no chance to attend the festival. Some reputedly good films are to be shown tomorrow, like Full or Empty by Abolfazi Jalili and Sawdust and Tinsel, an all-time classic of Ingmer Bergman.

Tail peice: Another thing is that the film Whispering Of The Godsshows almost every action of the hero in graphic detail. So when a nun in the convent tells him that she is pregnant we tend to wonder: “When? We haven’t seen anything for that to happen?”