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timcolebatch
Reviews
Mrs. Carey's Concert (2011)
Why private schools succeed, this time in music
contains spoiler
The first review in this section is such a Rant against Authority that it provokes me to write a rejoinder.
This documentary will particularly interest lovers of classical music, because the film is full of it, and really good music too, edgy music from early 20th century composers (Ravel's string quartet, Vaughan Williams' Variation of a Theme of Thomas Tallis.
It will particularly interest those who have an interest in how kids grow up, and acquire the discipline to achieve things that were once beyond their reach.
And it will particularly interest those who are curious about how interventionist schools shape their students, and why the elite private schools of Australia, Britain and presumably other countries achieve such success in academic and artistic areas.
MLC (Methodist Ladies College) is one of the elite girls' schools of Sydney, with expensive fees, a strong culture of achievement, and a policy to apply this to music. The annual school concert in the iconic Sydney Opera House = Mrs Carey's Concert = is one of the highlights of the school year, in which every student, musical or otherwise, interested or not, is obliged to take part.
Chinese girls make up outsized part of the school's musical talent, and the film strikes a nice balance by focussing on two of them: one who is the school's outstanding violinist, Emily Sun, and another, Iris, who is the cool, defiant one, determined not to take part.
Yes, the girls are pushed to achieve things, to play complex music that at first, and even close to concert night, seems beyond them. But they get swept up in it, push themselves, and they make it. You live it with them, and you share their excitement when the concert comes off.
Reviewer 1 up above was aghast that this is achieved by a subtly authoritarian culture, where it is drummed into the girls that their music must come first in their lives. Well, whether it's football coaches or law firms or financial traders, that is how success is achieved, how promise is translated into achievement. That is why private schools are so good at what they do, and why these teenage girls, by the end of it, belong on the stage of the Sydney Opera House.
After the Deluge (2003)
one of the greatest Australian films ever made
If you only have 8 reviews of this, I'll add a ninth, just to tell the rest of the world that this is a movie to see if you ever get the chance. A psychological drama full of real people, coping with the real world difficulties of life, with the tragedy of their father's Alzheimers juxtaposed with the dramas the three sons are living through. A terrific cast, wall-to-wall quality performances, with Ray Barrett taking the honours as the old man battling the infirmities and indignities of his helplessness, and clinging on to the memories he most treasures. Rachel Griffiths was also at her best in this one. It's so absorbing, the three hours pass all too quickly. Loved it.
Charulata (1964)
a slow, beautiful, subtle and exquisite film of tragic love
This is one of the most beautiful and memorable films I've ever seen. Like all Ray's films, it moves slowly and gently. No one says what they think or want; it's all implied in the action. The cinematography is superb. There's a memorable scene where Charulata is swinging gracefully under a huge shady tree, singing a Bengali version of Ye Banks and Braes of Bonnie Doon - so incongruous in Calcutta, but beautifully capturing the way the family was at the cutting edge of the cultural collision between traditional Bengali values and the new world of their British rulers - while Amal, the younger brother-in-law who pays her the attention her husband doesn't, is lounging on the grass reading, dappled in sunlight. Love is everywhere, yet not a word is said. The story is based on Rabindranath Tagore's novella Nashta Nir (The Bird's Nest), which in turn is based on real life, a tragic event in Rabindranath's life. His elder brother Jyotindranath, a playwright, painter and failed businessman, found too little time for his wife Kadambari, who was Rabindranath's age, childless, and infatuated with literature - a very unusual combination for a Bengali woman in that age. (The Tagore women were pioneers: they showed themselves in public, loved the arts, one was the first woman to ride a horse on Calcutta's Maidan, its inner city park, another the first Bengali Hindu to wear a blouse under her sari). The young Rabindranath was Kadambari's companion, and she his Muse, to whom he dedicated his early books. How far it went is not clear, but eventually his father married Rabindranath off to a child bride, and a few months later Kadambari committed suicide.