La Moustache (2005, Emmanuel Carrère)
Time as Möbius strip?
Is he crazy or is everyone else? Perhaps he is trapped in an alternate past or future and has to find his way back? If time is a river, all the time spent on ferries to various places an attempt to find his way back to the river he knows? (Shaving off his moustache left him unanchored to his time and space. This drifting the reason why everything gets more different with increasing rapidity until he abandons his river/timeline to find another?)
I also attended a forum entitled "Where are the stories of Islamic people on our screens?" Thpanelel and audience managed to conclude (well, I concluded from their statements and comments) the following:
1. The lack of Islamic stories on screens is not due to an anti-Muslim/Arab attitude in the industry itself, but the audiences often fall victim to governmental anti-Muslim rhetoric.
2. There is a dearth of trained people within the Muslim communities. Also, industries like the media industries are often considered haram and, therefore, something to be avoided by observant Muslims.
3. Stories of Islamic people will continue to be placed in poor time slots, if they are seen at all, until they are told in a more engaging manner that can draw in the laymen as well as the already converted.
4. Islamic/Arabic filmmakers have trouble getting work for the same reasons other people have difficulty: those who fund films demand high return on their investment, so they are more likely to back established directors, known plot formulae, and are very risk averse.
The best comment of the evening came from a Muslim man in the audience who works in advertising (if I recall correctly) who said that the current productions, despite being good productions and doing their part, are like a webpage where the links lead to nowhere. They do not link back to the greater Australian or white Western culture, and without this, they have little chance of being seen by a greater audience on mainstream TV.
3 comments:
Hm. Did they discuss any of the leading international Arab directors? Or was this just focusing on films made domestically?
It was focusing on domestic content solely. There was mention of the wider Arab and Muslim world (with emphasis on Muslim != Arab alone and wanting to look at Indonesia, the Balkans, and other places for stories), but the majority of the talk was Australia specific.
I suppose it would almost have to be considering not too awfully long before (a year or so) there had been a decently large dust up between the Lebanese part of the community and the rest of it (mostly white Australians) over a particular beach. It was still very salient in many people's minds because the animosity was still there (people seem to take great offence when the beach's lifesavers are assaulted).
Hm.
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