It's been a culturally enriching week to say the least. A slew of new movies, a Broadway show (the superfragalistic Lion King which is a genuine work of superior imagination and skill), art openings and several film-maker friends from Bombay dropping in on the Big Apple. And the season has just begun.Lars Von Trier's Dancer in the Dark, starring the Icelandic singing enigma Bjork, is a film that should not be missed. This latest venture in the Dogme Collective series is a film so complex, dense and disturbing that it can only be compared to the Bollywood genre. The do-re-me story of an immigrant woman in America who is going blind and her struggle to raise enough money to ensure that her son can get his genetically impaired vision fixed is given such a brilliant treatment and provides such powerful drama that I am still numb from the onslaught, some 48 hours later. The film is a musical, but von Trier has so subverted the content of the form that it takes the viewer by surprise even as it tells its story in a linear narrative. And Bjork! With a performance that is bound to win her an Oscar as it won her the major prize at Cannes earlier this year she transcends the character and takes us to a plain that socks you in the stomach, while kissing you on the lips. The film also has excellent turns byCatherine Deneuve, and Joel Gray and is the first feature to utilise the 100-camera technique to shoot the musical numbers. Shot on Digital Video (and blown up to 35 mm) with von Trier as principal camera operator, the film goes beyond Veriete to take us as close to the director's minds-eye as has been possible.At the other end of the emotional spectrum is Billy Elliot, the huge box office success from UK, which is a six hankie feel-good film that is so empowering in its mission that it should be recommended viewing for all ages. It's a coming of age story of a boy in Thatcher-versus-the-Coal-Miner era that wants to learn ballet instead of boxing. This is David Copperfield meets Red Shoes and what would have been a cloying tale in less sensitive hands here becomes a film that supersedes the standard of David Lean or Powell-Pressburger. Director Stephen Daldry who has had a charmed career in the theatre makes his feature debut in this film that is produced by the team that brought you Elizabeth and Four Weddings and a Funeral.Thirteen-year-old Jamie Bell also makes a remarkable debut as the eponymous hero and is surrounded by a cast of characters reminiscent of the glory days of Ealing. The always fabulous Julie Walters gets a role to revel in as the down-and-out ballet teacher, while Jean Heywood (much loved in Miss Marple and other quaint English countryside serials) is marvellous as Billy's dotty grandmother. This is a film with heart that opens up a story that is universal yet so particular to its place and time. I hope both these films and others like Spike Lee's Bamboozled and Jon Shear's noir thriller Urbania make it to a theatre near you. Otherwise, I guess there is DVD.Inner VoicesSuma Josson, the untiring documentarist, journalist and artist flew in to NYC after a triumphant screening of her feature narrative Janmadinam at the International Women's University in Berlin. Curated by indophile Dorothee Wenner and Stephanie Schulte Strathaus, the programme titled `She's Got It' screened over 60 films directed by women from around the world. Josson's film a wonderful existential poem on the day of birth, and set against the backdrop of the 1993 Bombay riots was the only Indian entry and the director was invited to also be part of a panel that produced a special film for the festival. "Five of us, from Asia, America, Europe and Africa, were invited to examine the concept of female visions in the year 2000. We were asked to shoot footage in our own countries that expressed scenes and projected thoughts under the heading of `The Body'. These scenes were then woven into a framework plot when we all met in Berlin. My segment depicted inner space of a woman formed by myths and histories, aswell as an international female consciousness". Currently in the US, Josson is being invited by universities and film societies to showcase her insightful and personal vision.Film master Govind Nihalani is currently camping in the Big Apple, auditioning actors for a part in his latest feature. Based on a play that is set in a futuristic Bombay (Bombay 2020!) and dealing with the tough issue of the business of human organ trade, this is Nihalani's first foray into reaching an international audience. Of course, his prodigious work has already reached millions globally over all these years. Given his amazing previous films (Ardh Satya is still the best urban Indian film ever made), one can only wait with bated breath.Also in NYC is Jangu Sethna, the bon vivant landscape artist and interior designer and petulant short film-maker. Sethna who lived in NYC for a considerable time in the '80s commented to me about the changes the city has gone through. "It's much cleaner for a start. So many of the old dilapidated neighbourhoods have been upgraded. The subways work better and there is more order in the traffic. Also, there are fewer homeless and crazy people out on the streets. But what's wonderful is that the undying spirit of New York is still the same. The beat hasn't lost its rhythm. The continuum rocks." Now maybe I could be a character in Nihalani's futurist Bombay setting and sprout the same lines. Oh well! One lives on a hope and prayer.(Riyad Wadia, an avant-garde film-maker, is at home in New York)
