Coluna Claquete - February 13th, 2017 - Movie of the Week: "Tanna"

 

 

Newton Ramalho

 

colunaclaquete@gmail.com - www.colunaclaquete.blogspot.com - @colunaclaquete

 

Movie of the Week: "Tanna"

If anyone ever ask what for the Oscar is, we can say that, at least in the category of Best Foreign Film, it allows us to have access to productions that hardly would reach the commercial circuit. Of course, when they are not boycotted by their own governments, as was the case of our "Aquarius". But if we are not represented in the competition, worth check the others, and find some rare gems, as is the case of "Tanna", the representative of Australia and Vanuatu.

The film has little to do with Australia, where the original inhabitants were massacred or marginalized by the British colonizers. To be honest, I had to search in the internet to find out where the story happened, and I discovered that Vanuatu is a former Franco-British colony, with little time of independent existence.

The country is an archipelago in the South Pacific and Tanna is one of 83 islands that compose it.Although it is one of the most populated islands, with twenty thousand, Tanna has an area a bit bigger than the city of Quebec, with 550 km².

Although these geographical data appear to have little to do with the film, they show a place where modern civilization could not destroy the local behavior, where live people who follow their own traditions and beliefs existing since immemorial times.

It is in this unique environment that lives Wawa (Wawa Marie) a young woman who is completing the transition between adolescence and maturity, a situation which is celebrated by the whole tribe, though with the usual charges.

Wawa loves his people and his family, especially her bratty little sister Selin (Marceline Rofit) that never seems to stay quiet.But Wawa also has a special feeling for Dain (Mungau Dain), the grandson of the chief of tribe, her friend since childhood.

The Yakel, the people of Wawa, has a great veneration for Yahul, an active volcano easily accessible, which is for them the divinity that brings them wisdom. When Selin and his grandfather make a visit to the volcano, they are attacked by two Imedin warriors, one of the tribes of the island.

The aggression brings a lot of anger and desire for revenge to the Yakel, but the chief of the tribe receives a divine message through a song that says that revenge leads nowhere, except for destruction.The case is brought to the board of all tribes, and an agreement is sealed, where the young Wawa will be offered in marriage to strengthen ties with Imedin tribe.

The problem is that neither Wawa or Dain accept this fate and they decide to escape to live their love. But the world of Tanna is small, and there seems no place for innocent lovers.There seems to be no outcome except a tragedy.

One might be tempted to think of this plot as an aboriginal copy of Tristan and Isolde or Romeo and Juliet. But the fact portrayed really occurred in 1987. It sparked a change in thinking on the island's traditions, something unthinkable until then.

The film is surprising in many ways, especially in cast performance, most real islanders without any scenic knowledge, but that bring realism and charm to the scenes.

The movie's photography is fantastic, exploring in a exquisite way the beautiful and strange island landscapes, including volcano, forest, desert plains and lush coastline.

The film is spoken in Bislama, the island's dialect, which does not affect the beautiful dialogues rich of humor and teachings on the art of living together.

"Tanna" is a very interesting movie with many layers to understanding and discussion, and showing how the human condition is rich and varied, even in this strangely globalized world.

Original title: "Tanna"

Coluna Claquete - February 6, 2017 - Movie of the Week: "Hidden Figures"

 

 

Newton Ramalho

 

colunaclaquete@gmail.com - www.colunaclaquete.blogspot.com - @colunaclaquete

 

Movie of the Week: "Hidden Figures"

It is an unfortunate coincidence that the premiere of the film "Hidden Figures" (2016), an account of the United States races segregation time, coincides with a return of the world to a sea of ​​intolerance that seems to defy any rational explanation.

In the period following the Second World War, the world was divided between a group of countries aligned with the United States, and another led by the Soviet Union. This state of constant tension was called the Cold War, and although there were some moments of real danger, there was never a direct confrontation between the two powers.

The dispute, however, happened in several other fields, with the main purpose to win the propaganda war.One of the areas where it happened the fierce dispute was the space race. The two blocks were amassing fortunes with fledgling technologies to achieve the laurels of a feat to take the man into space.

For some time the Russians took advantage, putting into space the first artificial satellite, Sputnik, the first living being, the dog Laika, and later the first man on a suborbital flight, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.

These achievements left in turmoil Americans, who ran after the injury. The United States had other problems being evident, the most serious the racial segregation.

It is really strange that the country that was called the bulwark of democracy internally maintained a policy where racism was formalized in laws prohibiting even interracial marriages. Everything was absolutely separated, libraries, bathrooms, drinking fountains, seats in buses, houses, etc ..

Segregation also happened at work. In 1961, NASA, the newly created US space agency, was a faithful portrait of the rest of the country, with distinct offices, dining areas and bathrooms for blacks and whites.

In the administrative center of NASA in Langley, among thousands of other employees, worked friends Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughn (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe).The three women were hired as computers, professionals who did the tedious calculations behind any engineering design, using only mechanical calculators and their own knowledge.

Each one stood out in an area. Katherine, who since childhood surprised teachers with the ease that dominated mathematics, was a brilliant mathematician. Dorothy ran the whole group of black computers women without being recognized his leadership work. Mary, in turn, had great facility for practical engineering issues, though she never managed to enter the university.

Katherine had the opportunity to show their talents when she was called to work for the team led by Al Harrison (Kevin Costner), which calculated the launch and re-entry trajectory of rockets, one of the delicate points of the space program, which had been the reason for many failures of experiments.

In addition to technical difficulties and lack of support from colleagues, Katherine still had to deal with the security classification that prevented her from having the basic data for the calculations. Items such as mass, speed, launch sites and rescue, all this was considered secret, and denied from his eyes.

Dorothy had its own problems, since the arrival of a brand new IBM computer threatened the jobs of computers women, as it would in seconds made calculations that they all would take days to complete. However, not even the technicians could do the machine work, and Dorothy, realizing that the future layed in that strange machine, sought to empower themselves on their own.

Mary, in turn, wanted at all costs to become an engineer at NASA. However, for this she needed to go the university, which only accepted white people. To overcome this, she had to go to court, to claim a feature considered impossible at the time.

The film shows, in a romantic way, as the effort to achieve a common goal brings people together and overcome differences. However, the recognition of these women, who had to win the double prejudice of race and gender, it would take decades to be done.

"Hidden Figures" seeks to show not only the huge effort made to bring man into space with incipient technologies and high risk for astronauts, as well as the cruel face of segregation, something regarded as perfectly normal for white people.

The film is technically very well done, with good performances, especially Taraji P. Henson, great recreation of the time, and an engaging soundtrack. Some poetic liberties happens, like the utilization of Fortran language to run the computer.In fact, the operation was done in machine language, as Fortran was a high levell user interface.The site imdb.com lists dozens of factual errors and continuity, most linked to cars, but they do not interfere with the good understanding of the story.

"Hidden Figures" is nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, Supporting Actress (Octavia Spencer) and Adapted Screenplay.The film won the cast extraordinary performance award at SAG Awards, the Sindicate of Actors of Hollywood.

We hope that when seeing bad things of the past people come to their senses and realize that intolerance is the worst of ways for humanity, and that the closure of borders and building of walls will never help a man to get anywhere, either in space or good relationship with the other.

Original title: "Hidden Figures"