Awake in the Dark

Because I am a guest at the festival,I get to stay at the designated hotel and hop on to the transport shuttle when I can. So,in a sense,I am already locked into the ecosystem of the festival,but even if I werent,this is where I would be every year,at MFF time. And thats because the programming is getting sharper and stronger every year,rivalling that of the always excellent International Film Festival of Kerala which happens in December.

The lack of a constant venue is a bugbear. Last year,the MFF was triangulated between the NCPA and the INOX theatres in Nariman Point; this year,the films are showing in south Mumbais famed Liberty and Metro theatres,and the Cinemax multiplex in Versova for those who live in the suburbs.

Festival director Srinivasan Narayanan is aware of the shortfalls. During a late-night across-the-town cab ride conversation,he says he knows the difficulties of moving locations in a city as traffic locked and scattered. That the programming has a few deficits is also something he acknowledges. It is difficult to programme 12 really good Indian films every year,because that kind of film neither arcane and arthouse nor an out-and-out blockbuster but straddling the middle ground has just started being made,and you can see that in the selection,and there will always be a few prize international catches that will get away. But he is also clear that he will live with what he has: I am alright being a nomad,and making my programming stronger every year, he says.

Cannes Palme dOr winner Blue Is The Warmest Colour is one of the ones MFF got. It is a deeply affecting love story,which has been talked about for its graphic love-making scenes. To sit next to a stranger and watch such a film can be a challenge at the best of times I heard many people shift uneasily but a film festival is just the place to test and stretch your boundaries. I liked it enormously because of the way it tells us that love can be enriching and destroying and life-affirming all at the same time.

The sex in Francois Ozons Jeune amp; Jolie feels more gratuitous,more ,well,French,as it tells the story of a 17-year-old from a good family who becomes a hooker. Not Ozons best,but a solid festival choice.

The other highlights of my MFF you could have a completely different festival depending upon what you manage to catch have been the strange and weird films of Leos Carax. His universe is an endlessly shape-shifting,genre-bending smoke-and-mirrors thing where you never know where you are at. I bump into him at the hotel lobby,where he stands with his companion. I tell him how much I loved Holy Motors. He cracks a very faint smile,eyes hidden behind those trademark dark glasses. And he has them on in all the screenings I see him at. He doesnt take them off even during his wonderful Qamp;A session he refuses to give interviews. To a standard what is your inspiration question,he says he has no idea where a film starts,and its maddening. But anger is very inspiring. Id rather be angry than nostalgic.

And then there is Costa Gavras,whos received the Lifetime Achievement Award,but whose sartorial choice of red socks teamed with a grey suit shows you just how au courant he still is. You can see that his has been a lifetime at the movies when he says,sweeping a great wide arc through the six decades he has been at it,Everything has changed,the way we make movies,the way we see them,but what hasnt changed is the reason why we go to the movies: to laugh,to cry,to experience human emotion.

How do you,indeed,see and preserve and conserve in the age of the digital? I rush,in between films,for a talk on this subject by a group from The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. I cant stay for all of it,but I come away wondering if anything can match the magic of film,or are we now doomed to digitisation?

I also manage to catch the Coen brothers Inside Llewyn Davis,which is the Coens doing their usual schtick of quirky characters in quirky situations. It will not be right at the top of their repertoire for me,but it is still a Coens film and even a lesser Coens is more than most. The music its about a character who wants to be a folk singer back in the day folk singers were considered viable and listen-able is magnificent,though. You can just as easily listen to this movie.

The other interesting segment is the one in which you can catch emerging Indian voices,and the stand-out for me has been the Marathi Fandry which means pig in a dialect spoken in Marathi-Konkani,directed by Nagraj Manjule. Without belabouring the point,it tells forcefully and poignantly the story of a man and a boy and a pig,and something much larger: how caste and power are such determinants in the life of an Indian. The performances are all good; see the terrific Kishor Kadam become Kacharu Nana.

There is a bunch of others which were interesting Katiyabaaz,about the dismal power situation in Kanpur and an endearing bijli chor is a full-length documentary,Mastram,about a porn writer in the early 80s whose lurid prose became hugely popular,Qissa,about the Partition and Punjab and a lonely ghost. But as it happens in a festival this size,with its films and panel discussions and master classes,and yes,the post-movie dos,you win some,you lose some. I saw several others,but of those,later. Im running late,and theres a queue I have to join. See you on the other side.