Films as an art form

Ahhh, term six in IIM Ahmedabad. Unlike the first year (and especially term 1 and 3) where you are over loaded with work, this term has lot of time for relaxation, and pursuing other passtimes.
Yeah so besides playing carrom, lazing around and general chit chat, we also watch movies. Though most of the movies are of the 'masala' variety, of late ive come across a few good meaningful movies, and the credit goes to the MAD (Movie A Day) club secretary Gavaskar Gadalla (aka Gava on campus)
On the server inour campus i saw a couple of Stanley Kubrick Movies, Dr. Strangelove and Clockwork Orange, of which the latter one definitely made an impression on me.
The idea of conditioning the human behaviour to avoid crime and behave well, making them behave like machines running on clockwork precision and the pitfalls of the same is a revolutionary concept.

But coming to the point, Gava has organized a film festival 'Anachronism' with help of the agency Dhrishya. Drishya is run by two gentlemen (Chiranjeeb and Sunetro) from Calcutta, who have promoted film as an art form and literature by showing some international classic movies to not only college students but also to slum children and corporates. They really promote meaningful cinema (unlike the Yash Chopra and Barjatya movies who simply have too much drama)

Though I missed the first movie, the second day there was the screening of A bout de Souffle (Breathless) a movie by Jean du Godard, which is regarded as a revolutionary film for its film making techniques, and the movie which i saw today was simply a classic. It was an Iranian movie, "Bacheha-Ye Aseman" (Children of Heaven) by Majid Majidi.
As Chiranjeeb explained before the movie screening that in monarchies and stictly religious countries like Iran where there is extreme censorship by the state, the film makers usually choose non controversial topics for their films, and this movie as the title suggests is about children. It deals around the life of a brother and sister and how much importance is there for a simple pair of shoes.
It not only describes the life of poor working class people in Teheran (which i strongly belive would be the situation in India as well) but aslo subtly comments on the political situation and the divide between the haves and the have-nots on the society.
The movie highlights the joys experienced by children over siple things, and even a pair of sneakers, which to most of us seems so trivial, makes a world of a difference to these siblings.
this Film was nominated for the best foriegn film for the Oscar awards in 1998, but unfortunately lost out to Roberto Begnini's 'Life is Beautiful' (In my honest opinion this movie is just as great if not more)

Now i also look forward to a film by Satyajit Ray and another one by Aparna Sen.
Frankly speakign i had never thought film as a part of literature, considering it more as a form of popular entertainment (given the kind of cinema is churned out in india)

Hopefully i shall have enough motivation to blog about the other movies as well, till then i hope all of you might get an opportunity to see this movie.

Note: All links provided are in wikipedia, where hopefully you might be able to read more and form your own opinions.