IFFK 2008 – Day 2 – Evening

Postcards from a lost generation

Postcards from Leningrad is a brilliantly crafted film. The film deals with the plight of the guerilla fighters and their family members of Venezuela in 1960s. The situation was pretty similar across the whole of Latin America during that era, in which most of the countries were under some sort of dictatorship or military rule.

There is no structured storyline in the conventional manner in this movie. The whole film is narrated though the eyes and memories of two children. But the director, Mariana Rondon (who appeared on the stage before the screening and was extremely humble in her talk), superbly employs a zigzag narrative to portray the incidents.

The first scene after the titles itself gives an indication that you are going to watch something special. A child is lifted up from between the legs of the mother. That girl child is the narrator of the events and her cousin brother is the other kid who used to receive postcards from Leningrad (it refers to the letters children write to their jailed (or killed) parents and the letters they receive from the parents from jail). She was born to a young guerilla fighter who had fallen in love with another fighter during their battle with the military in the mountains. Their lovemaking scene when a gun battle was going on in the surroundings is a memorable one.

Footage of another documentary shot within the film and the commentary by the child are cleverly interspersed with “normal” cinematic incidents in the movie. Graphics are also used to good effect. In one particular scene, a guerilla fighter is shot and the blood comes out of his body becomes a flower.

IFFK in blogosphere

There have been an increasing number of blogs and websites providing variety accounts of IFFK (at least on the first day). The most notable among them is the post by Thushar on passion of cinema. The reviews are very detailed and excellently written. In another website, Satyaki Roy was not that much impressed with the first day and hoped for a better second day. And Haree, the famous film reviewer in Boologam (for those who don’t understand the meaning of the word, it is Malayalam blogosphere), has this report about the first day of the festival. Other blogs that I could find through a quick search on Google include tvmtalkies, varnachitram, playingwithsid, and viewfinder. Feel free to suggest any other blog or webpage that captures the spirit of IFFK.