The Stoning of Soraya M
Directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh
Written by Cyrus Nowrasteh and Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh
Mpower Pictures, 2009. 116 minutes
In Farsi, English, and French
Stoning is bad, but not because of the stones
Communities have sentenced offenders to stoning for several thousand years. The Egyptians and ancient Greeks utilized the punishment, and stoning appears in the texts of the major monotheistic religions. Stoning was, in short, a typical feature of the first Western civilizations. Strange that today stoning is not seen as civilized but barbaric — the United Nations has condemned stoning as a form of torture. Nonetheless, the practice continues around the world, although stoning has been most frequently noted in Islamic cultures adhering to Sharia law.
What is stoning?
The most memorable on-screen stoning — up to now — may be found in Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979). In that scene John Cleese hilariously tries to organize the stoning of a criminal by a group of women disguised as men, only to be stoned to death himself. But real stoning is much worse. A typical stoning requires the victim to be buried up to the waist so as to restrict movement. The executioners then hurl stones from behind a line until the victim perishes.
In The Stoning of Soraya M, a young French-Iranian journalist traveling to the Iranian border is forced to repair his car in a secluded mountain hamlet. It is the early 1980s, and the Shah’s regime has fallen just a few years before. Stricter, more conservative interpretations of Sharia law are emerging. As the journalist (Jim Caviezel) haggles with a mechanic, he is accosted by a mullah and the town’s mayor, who invite him to tea. A mysterious, crazed woman named Zahra (Shorhreh Aghdashloo) warns him not to consort with the men, and the journalist politely declines the invitation. The woman then convinces the journalist to tape record the sordid tale of the event that happened the day before his arrival.
Read the full review of this phenomenal film here.
Rebirth of a Nation
Written, Directed and Produced by Paul D. Miller a.k.a DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid
Starz Media/Anchor Bay Films, 2008. 100 minutes.
Screening at the MOMA from June-22, 2008
DJ Spooky, né Paul Miller, has plunged deeply into hip-hop, produced films, and explored the art of graphic design. He is now a spokesman for ‘remix’ culture, which attempts to celebrate the proliferation of digital media by mashing-it-up. He has sampled everything from Bob Marley tracks to the flow of ice crystals across Antarctica. Not all of his work is successful, but most of it brings a few a-ha moments of enlightened discovery.
The Rebirth
Paul Miller first remixed The Birth of a Nation in 2004. His creation, The Rebirth of a Nation, then toured the world with Miller providing live accompaniment. He revisited the work in 2008 and embedded the soundtrack in the film so that it can now be screened on its own.
The resulting film is another courageous exploration by one of the most exciting creative artists working today.
Read the full review of his latest film here.
All images credited to DJ Spooky. Rebirth of a Nation, 2008. Courtesy Anchor Bay Films/Starz Media
Tarzan Radio Shows
Stardust, 2008 (re-released from original 1930s shows)
A museum in Paris has opened an exhibit that celebrates the legacy of Tarzan. The character was created in 1912 by the American author Edgar Rice Burroughs in a series of novels. Tarzan, the son of British aristocrats, was orphaned while his parents were marooned on the coast of Africa and then raised by apes. He learned the ways of the jungle, slinking amongst the wild cats and giant serpents, behaving more animal than man until he met the lovely girl Jane (who, incidentally, was also marooned). The couple began a sultry love affair in which the devoted Tarzan protected Jane against the perils of the forest — and against the basest European men. Anyway, I’m sure you know the story.
Tarzan was popularized by the Olympic swimmer Johnny Weismuller in film. There is an undeniable appeal to the character: a man who harmonizes himself with the most brutal forces of nature and harnesses them along with a ‘modern’ wife.
A BBC article suggests that the perceived anti-African stereotypes that make people squirm today were overstated in Hollywood, and that Burroughs was surprisingly tolerant for his day. I won’t dispute this.
But here’s what I will say: I bought the re-released radio shows from the 1930s, which Burroughs co-wrote. The shows offer some creative sound effects but a horrifically plotted storyline in which the characters spend perhaps ten episodes locked in the cabin of a boat. The Africans pound their drums while making cannibal soup and Tarzan learns how to read in a few minutes. Tarzan also seems to wage war with every beast in the forest. He does not, in other words, toot a kazoo with the parrots like Mowgli in Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book. He kills the parrots.
The N-Test
The Tarzan radio shows score about a 25 on what I call the ‘N-test’. That is, the amount of time it takes a pre-civil rights story to call a person of African descent a ‘nigger’. 25 minutes. Given that the episodes were quite short, this is not a horrific score. Admittedly, Tarzan doesn’t use this word because he merely grunts and ullulates, but neither was Burroughs a bastion of tolerance. (Just to show my tolerance, Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises was my favorite novel for decades, and it received a much lower score on the N-test.)
If you’re in Paris right now, check out the exhibit at Musee du Quai Branly. And please have a bit of quiche for me. I like quiche.
–Deji Olukotun
Beyond Rambo
A wide gulf separates Rambo from the new terrorist thrillers. In Rambo movies, the disaffected (and slightly tweaked) Vietnam vet John Rambo dispatches terrorists with guns and explosives, all extensions of his — and America’s — manhood. The terrorists drop like flies, he gets the girl, and all is right with the world. Until the next time.
Far easier to make a Rambo movie than any nuanced thriller, and let’s face it, Rambo goes better with beer. He also lends a certain logic to a rainy Sunday afternoon.
Thankfully, the new terrorist thrillers offer a staggering leap of creativity beyond this Manichean, good-versus-evil viewpoint.
Our obsession with terrorism in the 21st century can be directly traced to the attacks of September 11th. Before the attacks, our former president played golf and chainsawed wood on his ranch, and Hollywood was producing a delightful coterie of the next great threat — aliens.
But terrorism has shaped American policy in this decade more than any other single issue. So it is with relief that two films have transcended Rambo’s bandoliers, and taken terrorism seriously. Rendition (2007) and Traitor (2008) aren’t perfect but they make a real effort to address terrorism head-on, while still letting you reach for the popcorn.
Read the full reviews here.
The head of the United Nations World Food Programme has written an interesting article about soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo. Ronaldo, a Portuguese wing midfielder, is current FIFA World Player of the Year and is slated to be transferred from Manchester United to Real Madrid for a fee reaching into 80 million Euros. His salary may round out at well over 500,000 Euros per week.
Read the press release here: http://reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/EGUA-7SXLWJ?OpenDocument&query=ronaldo.
The author’s point is that the fee could cover the entire operations of the World Food Programme and overcome several shortfalls in funding in humanitarian hotspots. He implores Ronaldo to join Brazilian football star Kaka in advocating for the World Food Programme.
I definitely agree with the sentiment of this article, but don’t feel that these goals are incompatible. Ronaldo is a dazzling soccer player, one that I love to watch, but above all he is just a product. Real Madrid hopes that he will increase television broadcasting rights, ticket sales, and merchandising revenue for Real Madrid. He should generate more revenue than he costs. Soccer is entertainment and entertainment is business.
The author’s comments do put the sum in perspective, however, and rightly make us question our values.
Here is another solution: the U.S. should pay its $1.5 billion debt to the United Nations. That will pay for a whole lot more food than a team full of Ronaldos.
For a cool book of essays about soccer from around the world, check out The Thinking Fan’s Guide to the World Cup, by Sean Wilsey and Matt Weiland. Authors including Dave Eggers and Nick Hornby contribute.
UPDATE: Sepp Blatter, president of FIFA, has since weighed in on the debate — with an entirely different spin. Instead of comparing Ronaldo to hunger, he likens him to the cost of a Picasso painting, except that fans from around the world get to watch him instead of his being stashed in a private collection. So now we’ve got Ronaldo v. hunger, and Ronaldo v. Picasso. Anyone want to take on the task of arguing for Picasso v. hunger?
