By Harsha Man Maharjan
Irani films
Abbas Kiarostami’s Taste of Cherry, The Wind will Carry Us
Majid Majidi’s Color of Paradise, Children of Heaven
Boman Ghobadi’s A Time of Drunken Horse, Turtles can Fly
Nepali
Ama(Mother)
Janayudha(People’s War)
Balidan(Sacrifice)
Sano Sansar(Small World)
Basudev
Taxi Driver
These are some names of Irani and Nepali films. What we see during comparison is that Irani film’s names are fresh and poetic. Their cinematography is poetic too. They are full of color.
Among six Irani films I have named here, I have seen all, except Ghobadi’s A Time of Drunken Horse. So what I am writing here is applicable to five films.
How miniscule is the plot of Taste of Cherry? It is story of a man, Mr. Bardi who is searching for a man who can bury him after he commits suicide. The director gives no importance to reasons of suicide. At last a taxidermist agrees to do what Mr. Badi ordered to do but we have inkling that Mr. Badi will regret to commit suicide. Actually the taxidermist himself once tried to commit suicide himself he dropped his plan after tasting cherry leaves.
Ditto is the plot of Turtles can Fly. This film is not about turtle as I wrote in previous posting. It is about children who have to shoulder burden as turtles do. It tells a tale of thirteen year boy, Satellite, the organizer of the cleaning minefields, whose life changes when he falls for a girl with her toddler and a disabled brother. Only girl and her bother know that the child is the result of the rape during war. The girl’s sad face speaks women’s plight during war. It is children and women who suffered the most in war.
Opposite to them, Nepali films have long plot and story. They cover stories of two generations or more. Basudev is the example of this. There are few exceptions like Mukundo.
But all of six Nepali films I named above all sound stale. They are lifeless. They lack spark. Their names are not poetic.
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