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 FOUR
FILMS WIN AWARDS
The Board of Directors of the Political
Film Society met at 8481 Allenwood Road, Los Angeles, on March
4 at 7:00 p.m. and counted ballots to determine which films
of 1999 were voted the best political films by members of
the Society. The winners are as follows:
DEMOCRACY:
The Insider
EXPOSÉ:
Boys Don't Cry
HUMAN RIGHTS:
The Green Mile
PEACE:
Three Kings
Click
here to see previous year's winners.
THE
TERRORIST IS NOMINATED FOR AN AWARD ON PEACE FOR THE YEAR
2000
What motivates a terrorist and what
can get a terrorist to give up terrorism? This question is posed
in the Indian film The Terrorist, directed by
Santosh Sivan, which reached Los Angeles in February 2000, although
the Indian release date was 1998. The identities of the enemy
and the terrorist group are not specified in the film, but we
soon surmise (with dialog in the Tamil language) that the terrorists
are Tamil separatists in Sri Lanka, and the enemy is the Sri
Lankan government. The heroine of the film is nineteen-year-old
Malli (played by Ayesha Dharkar), whose brother was presumably
killed unjustly by the Sri Lankan army. Uneducated, Malli is
easily recruited by the terrorists, who provide room and board,
brainwash her with stories about the glory of martyrs to the
cause, train her to fight with modern weapons, and give her
assignments to kill the enemy on various occasions. When the
film begins, a traitor to the cause is being tortured, and masked
Malli pulls the trigger to execute him. Next, she is assigned
to assassinate an important political leader. When Malli reaches
her destination, she is trained to follow a script in which
she will put a garland on the leader, bow down for a blessing,
and then push a button that will set off explosives on a hidden
belt. Malli, of course, will also die in the explosion, and
her assassination and martyrdom are expected to advance the
cause for which she has dedicated her life.
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Pretending
to be an agricultural student, Malli is housed with a family
that is unaware of her mission. Yet her experience with the
family opens her eyes to other scenarios for her life. Vesu,
the elderly head of the family, philosophizes that people
fall into two categories -- optimistic seeds that grow and
flourish, and pessimistic seeds eaten by birds. Since Malli
is pregnant (from her dead boyfriend), townspeople encourage
her to enjoy motherhood. Vesu's mother, in a coma for seven
years, fascinates Malli, since she sees the comatose state
as a paradigm for her own life. But as Malli is about to enact
the scripted assassination, the mother comes partly out of
the coma to grasp her hand tightly, as if to say that she
should not act foolishly. Then, when the time comes to push
the button, Malli demurs. For the first time in her life,
she decides to make her own decision and opts for a much happier
life than following orders and ending up on a funeral pyre
at an early age. According to the director, curiosity about
the "suicide bomber" who assassinated former Indian Prime
Minister Rajiv Gandhi inspired the story, which could apply
to almost any terrorist conspiracy. Sadly, the film reveals
that poor girls in India and Sri Lanka are in effect sold
by their families to terrorist training camps because they
cannot afford to pay for their education or even their marriage.
Not revealed in the film is the reality that when the girl
dies, her family will doubtless receive monetary compensation
from the terrorists, so she is actually helping her family
by offering the ultimate sacrifice. For the revealing portrayal
of the causes and possible cures for terrorism, The
Terrorist has been nominated for an award as the best
film of 2000 on peace. MH
WAR
HORN FILM/VIDEO FESTIVAL
Members
of the Political Film Society are invited to patronize the
upcoming War Horn Film/Video Festival, which is designed
to meet the needs of the ever-growing number of student filmmakers
of color by promoting the unification of this community and
providing a forum for the exchange of ideas that may change
the face of Hollywood and independent cinema. The website
for the festival is located at www.geocities.com/warhornfestival.
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