P. D. Ouspensky - Wikipedia

P. D. Ouspensky - Wikipedia

P. D. Ouspensky

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P. D. Ouspensky
Born	Pyotr Demianovich Ouspenskii 5 March 1878 Kharkov,[1] Russian Empire
Died	2 October 1947 (aged 69) Lyne Place, Surrey, England, UK

Pyotr Demianovich Ouspenskii (known in English as Peter D. Ouspensky; Russian: Пётр Демьянович Успенский, romanized: Pyotr Dem'yanovich Uspenskiy; 5 March 1878 – 2 October 1947),^[2] was a Russian esotericist known for his expositions of the early work of the Greek-Armenian teacher of esoteric doctrine George Gurdjieff. He met Gurdjieff in Moscow in 1915, and was associated with the ideas and practices originating with Gurdjieff from then on. He taught ideas and methods based in the Gurdjieff system for 25 years in England and the United States, although he separated from Gurdjieff personally in 1924, for reasons that are explained in the last chapter of his book In Search of the Miraculous.

Ouspensky studied the Gurdjieff system directly under Gurdjieff's own supervision for a period of ten years, from 1915 to 1924. In Search of the Miraculous recounts what he learned from Gurdjieff during those years. While lecturing in London in 1924, he announced that he would continue independently the way he had begun in 1921. Some, including his close pupil Rodney Collin, say that he finally gave up the system in 1947, just before his death, but his own recorded words on the subject ("A Record of Meetings", published posthumously) do not clearly endorse this judgement.^[3]

Contents

• 1Early life
• 2Career
• 3Later life
• 4Teaching
  • 4.1Fourth Way
  • 4.2Self-remembering
• 5Published works
• 6References
• 7Further reading
• 8External links

Early life[edit source]

Ouspensky was born in Kharkov, today modern day Ukraine, in 1878. In 1890, he studied at the Second Moscow Gymnasium, a government school attended by boys aged from 10 to 18. At the age of 16, he was expelled from school for painting graffiti on the wall in plain sight of a visiting inspector. From then on he was more or less on his own.^[4] In 1906, he worked in the editorial office of the Moscow daily paper The Morning. In 1907 he became interested in Theosophy. In the autumn of 1913, aged 35, he journeyed to the East in search of the miraculous. He visited Theosophists in Adyar, but was forced to return to Moscow after the beginning of the Great War. In Moscow he met Gurdjieff and married Sophie Grigorievna Maximenko. He had a mistress by the name of Anna Ilinishna Butkovsky.^[5]

Career[edit source]

During his years in Moscow, Ouspensky wrote for several newspapers and was particularly interested in the then-fashionable idea of the fourth dimension.^[6] His first work, published in 1909, was titled The Fourth Dimension.^[7] It was influenced by the ideas prevalent in the works of Charles H. Hinton,^[8] which treated the fourth dimension as an extension in space.^[9][10] Ouspensky treats time as a fourth dimension only indirectly in a novel he wrote titled Strange Life of Ivan Osokin^[11] where he also explores the theory of eternal recurrence.

Ouspensky's second work, Tertium Organum, was published in 1912. In it he denies the ultimate reality of space and time,^[12] and negates Aristotle's Logical Formula of Identification of "A is A", concluding in his "higher logic" that A is both A and not-A.^[13] Unbeknown to Ouspensky, a Russian émigré by the name of Nicholas Bessarabof took a copy of Tertium Organum to America and placed it in the hands of the architect Claude Bragdon who could read Russian and was interested in the fourth dimension.^[14] Tertium Organum was rendered into English by Bragdon who had incorporated his own design of the hypercube^[15][16] into the Rochester Chamber of Commerce building.^[17] Bragdon also published the book and the publication was such a success that it was finally taken up by Alfred A. Knopf. At the time, in the early 1920s, Ouspensky's whereabouts were unknown. Bragdon located him in Constantinople and paid him back some royalties.

Ouspensky traveled in Europe and the East — India, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and Egypt — in his search for knowledge. After his return to Russia and his introduction to Gurdjieff in 1915, he spent the next few years studying with him, and supporting the founding of a school.

Prior to 1914, Ouspensky had written and published a number of articles. In 1917, he updated these articles to include "recent developments in physics" and republished them as a book in Russian entitled A New Model of the Universe.^[18] The work, as reflected in its title, shows the influence of Francis Bacon and Max Müller, and has been interpreted as an attempt to reconcile ideas from natural science and religious studies with esoteric teachings in the tradition of Gurdjieff and Theosophy.^[19] It was assumed that the book was lost to the Revolution's violence, but it was then republished in English (without Ouspensky's knowledge) in 1931. The work has attracted the interest of a number of philosophers and has been a widely accepted authoritative basis for a study of metaphysics.^{[citation needed]} Ouspensky sought to exceed the limits of metaphysics with his "psychological method", which he defined as "a calibration of the tools of human understanding to derive the actual meaning of the thing itself". (paraphrasing p. 75.) According to Ouspensky: "The idea of esotericism ... holds that the very great majority of our ideas are not the product of evolution but the product of the degeneration of ideas which existed at some time or are still existing somewhere in much higher, purer and more complete forms." (p. 47) The book also provided an original discussion on the nature and expression of sexuality; among other things, he draws a distinction between erotica and pornography.^{[citation needed]}

Ouspensky's lectures in London were attended by such literary figures as Aldous Huxley, T. S. Eliot, Gerald Heard and other writers, journalists and doctors. His influence on the literary scene of the 1920s and 1930s as well as on the Russian avant-garde was immense but still very little known.^[20] It was said of Ouspensky that, though nonreligious, he had one prayer: not to become famous during his lifetime.

Later life[edit source]

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Ouspensky's grave at the Holy Trinity Church in Lyne, Surrey, England, photographed in 2013

After the Bolshevik revolution, Ouspensky travelled to London by way of Istanbul. In London, a number of eminent people became interested in his work. Lady Rothermere, wife of Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere, the press magnate, was willing to promote Tertium Organum. The influential intellectual and editor A. R. Orage became deeply interested in Ouspensky's ideas and promoted their discussion in various circles. Prominent theosophist and editor G. R. S. Mead became interested in his ideas on the fourth dimension.

By order of the British government, Gurdjieff was not allowed to settle in London. Gurdjieff eventually went to France with a considerable sum of money raised by Ouspensky and his friends, and settled down near Paris at the Prieuré in Fontainebleau-Avon.^[21] It was during this time, after Gurdjieff founded his Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man in France, that Ouspensky came to the conclusion that he was no longer able to understand his former teacher and made a decision to discontinue association with him. He set up his own organisation, The Society for the Study of Normal Psychology, which is now known as The Study Society.^[22]

Ouspensky wrote about Gurdjieff's teachings in a book originally entitled Fragments of an Unknown Teaching, published posthumously in 1947 under the title In Search of the Miraculous. While this volume has been criticized by some of those who have followed Gurdjieff's teachings as only a partial representation of the totality of his ideas, it provides what is probably the most concise explanation of the material that was included. This is in sharp contrast to the writings of Gurdjieff himself, such as Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson, where the ideas and precepts of Gurdjieff's teachings are found very deeply veiled in allegory. Initially, Ouspensky had intended this book to be published only if Beelzebub's Tales were not published. But after his death, Mme Ouspensky showed its draft to Gurdjieff who praised its accuracy and permitted its publication.

Ouspensky died in Lyne Place, Surrey, in 1947. Shortly after his death, The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution was published, together with In Search of the Miraculous. A facsimile edition of In Search of the Miraculous was published in 2004 by Paul H. Crompton Ltd. London. Transcripts of some of his lectures were published under the title of The Fourth Way in 1957; largely a collection of question and answer sessions, the book details important concepts, both introductory and advanced, for students of these teachings.

Ouspensky's papers are held at Yale University Library's Manuscripts and Archives department.

Teaching[edit source]

After Ouspensky broke away from Gurdjieff, he taught the "Fourth Way", as he understood it, to his independent groups.

Fourth Way[edit source]

Gurdjieff proposed that there are three ways of self-development generally known in esoteric circles. These are the Way of the Fakir, dealing exclusively with the physical body, the Way of the Monk, dealing with the emotions, and the Way of the Yogi, dealing with the mind. 

What is common about the three ways is that they demand complete seclusion from the world. According to Gurdjieff, there is a Fourth Way which does not demand its followers to abandon the world. The work of self-development takes place right in the midst of ordinary life. Gurdjieff called his system a school of the Fourth Way where a person learns to work in harmony with his physical body, emotions and mind. Ouspensky picked up this idea and continued his own school along this line.^[23]

Ouspensky made the term "Fourth Way" and its use central to his own teaching of the ideas of Gurdjieff. He greatly focused on Fourth Way schools and their existence throughout history.

Students

Among his students were Rodney Collin, Maurice Nicoll, Robert S. de Ropp, Kenneth Walker, Remedios Varo and Dr Francis Roles.^[24]

Self-remembering[edit source]

Ouspensky personally confessed the difficulties he was experiencing with "self-remembering," which has later been defined by Osho as 'witnessing'. The present phraseology in the teachings of Advaita is to be in awareness, or being aware of being aware. It is also believed to be consistent with the Buddhist practice of 'mindfulness'. The ultimate goal of each is to be always in a state of meditation even in sleep. 'Self-remembering' was a technique to which he had been introduced by Gurdjieff himself. Gurdjieff explained to him that this was the missing link to everything else. While in Russia, Ouspensky experimented with the technique with a certain degree of success, and in his lectures in London and America he emphasized the importance of its practice. The technique requires a division of attention, so that a person not only pays attention to what is going on in the exterior world but also in the interior. A.L. Volinsky, an acquaintance of Ouspensky in Russia, mentioned to him that this was what professor Wundt meant by apperception. Ouspensky disagreed and commented on how an idea so profound to him would pass unnoticed by people whom he considered intelligent. Gurdjieff explained the Rosicrucian principle that in order to bring about a result or manifestation, three things are necessary. With self-remembering and self-observation two things are present. The third one is explained by Ouspensky in his tract on Conscience: it is the non-expression of negative emotions.^[25][26]

Published works[edit source]

• The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution. Online.
• Tertium Organum: The Third Canon of Thought, a Key to the Enigmas of the World. Translated from the Russian by Nicholas Bessaraboff and Claude Bragdon. Rochester, New York: Manas Press, 1920; New York: Knopf, 1922; London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1923, 1934; 3rd American edition, New York: Knopf, 1945. Online version.
• A New Model of the Universe: Principles of the Psychological Method in Its Application to Problems of Science, Religion and Art. Translated from the Russian by R. R. Merton, under the supervision of the author. New York: Knopf, 1931; London: Routledge, 1931; 2nd revised edition, London: Routledge, 1934; New York: Knopf, 1934.
• Talks with a Devil (Russian, 1916). Tr. by Katya Petroff, edited with an introduction by J. G. Bennett. Northamptonshire: Turnstone, 1972, ISBN 0-85500-004-X (HC); New York: Knopf, 1973; York Beach: Weiser, 2000, ISBN 1-57863-164-5.
• The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution. New York: Hedgehog Press, 1950.
• Strange Life of Ivan Osokin. New York and London: Holme, 1947; London: Faber & Faber, 1948; first published in Russian as Kinemadrama (St. Petersburg, 1915). Online (Russian).
• In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1949; London: Routledge, 1947.
• In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching London, Paul H. Crompton Ltd 2010 facsimile edition of the 1949 edition, hardcover.
• The Fourth Way: A Record of Talks and Answers to Questions Based on the Teaching of G. I. Gurdjieff (Prepared under the general supervision of Sophia Ouspensky). New York: Knopf, 1957; London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1957.
• Letters from Russia, 1919 (Introduction by Fairfax Hall and epilog from In Denikin's Russia by C. E. Bechhofer). London and New York: Arkana, 1978.
• Conscience: The Search for Truth. Introduction by Merrily E. Taylor. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979.
• A Further Record: Extracts from Meetings 1928–1945. London and New York: Arkana, 1986.
• The Symbolism of the Tarot (Translated by A. L. Pogossky). New York: Dover Publications Inc., 1976. Online version.
• The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution and The Cosmology of Man's possible Evolution, a limited edition of the definitive text of his Psychological and Cosmological Lectures, 1934–1945. Agora Books, East Sussex, 1989. ISBN 1-872292-00-3.
• P. D. Ouspensky Memorial Collection, Yale University Library. Archive notes taken from meetings during 1935–1947.

References[edit source]

1. ^ https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/1002/2wwii_2275916-3561?pid=7408124&backurl=https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?dbid%3D1002%26h%3D7408124%26indiv%3Dtry%26o_vc%3DRecord:OtherRecord%26rhSource%3D7579&treeid=&personid=&hintid=&usePUB=true&usePUBJs=true&_ga=2.175087010.1858548494.1562085269-1684422689.1541013528
2. ^ "Ouspensky Foundation". ouspensky.info. 2002. Archived from the original on 20 July 2018. Retrieved 7 March 2014.
3. ^ Miller, Timothy (1995). America's Alternative Religions. SUNY Press. p. 260. ISBN 0-7914-2397-2.
4. ^ Shirley, John (2004). Gurdjieff. Penguin Group. p. 111. ISBN 1-58542-287-8.
5. ^ Moore, James (1999). Gurdjieff. Element Books Ltd. p. 73. ISBN 1-86204-606-9. The meaning of life is an eternal search.
6. ^ Geometry of four dimensions by Henry Parker Manning
7. ^ P. D. Ouspensky, The Fourth Dimension, Kessinger Publishing, 2005. ISBN 1-4253-4935-8.
8. ^ Rucker, Rudolf, editor, Speculations on the Fourth Dimension: Selected Writings of Charles H. Hinton, Dover Publications Inc., 1980. ISBN 0-486-23916-0.
9. ^ Scientific Romances by Charles Howard Hinton
10. ^ A new era of thought by Charles Howard Hinton
11. ^ P. D. Ouspensky, Strange Life of Ivan Osokin, Lindisfarne Books, 1947. ISBN 1-58420-005-7.
12. ^ Ouspensky, P. D. (1912). Tertium Organum (2nd ed.). Forgotten Books. ISBN 1-60506-487-4.
13. ^ Ouspensky, P. D. (2003). Tertium Organum. Book Tree. p. 266. ISBN 1-58509-244-4. A is both A and Not-A
14. ^ Gary Lachman In Search of P. D. Ouspensky, p. 174, Quest Books, 2006 ISBN 978-0-8356-0848-0
15. ^ Claude Bragdon, A Primer of Higher Space, Omen Press, Tucson, Arizona, 1972.
16. ^ A primer of higher space (the fourth dimension) by Claude Fayette Bragdon, plates 1, 20 and 21 (following p. 24)
17. ^ Rudolf Rucker, Geometry, Relativity and the Fourth Dimension, Dover Publications Inc., 1977, p. 2. ISBN 0-486-23400-2.
18. ^ A New Model of the Universe: Principles of the Psychological Method in Its Application to Problems of Science, Religion and Art. Translated from the Russian by R. R. Merton, under the supervision of the author. New York: Knopf, 1931; London: Routledge, 1931; 2nd revised edition, London: Routledge, 1934; New York: Knopf, 1934.
19. ^ Josephson-Storm, Jason (2017). The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 123. ISBN 978-0-226-40336-6.
20. ^ Gary Lachman In Search of P. D. Ouspensky, pp. 177-8, Quest Books, 2006 ISBN 978-0-8356-0848-0
21. ^ Alex Owen The Place of Enchantment, p. 232, University of Chicago Press, 2004 ISBN 978-0-226-64201-7
22. ^ Brian Hodgkinson (2010). In Search of Truth. Shepheard-Walwyn (Publishers). ISBN 978-0-85683-276-5. p. 34
23. ^ Bruno de Panafieu-Jacob Needleman-George Baker-Mary Stein Gurdjieff, p. 218, Continuum International Publishing Group, 1997 ISBN 978-0-8264-1049-8
24. ^ "1947–1960 Dr F.C. Roles: New Beginnings – Ouspensky Today". www.ouspenskytoday.org. Retrieved 2017-09-12.
25. ^ P. D. Ouspensky Conscience, p. 126, Routledge, 1979 ISBN 978-0-7100-0397-3
26. ^ Gary Lachman In Search of P. D. Ouspensky, p. 121, Quest Books, 2006 ISBN 978-0-8356-0848-0

Further reading[edit source]

• Bob Hunter: "P.D.Ouspensky, Pioneer of the Fourth Way", Eureka Editions, 2000. [www.eurekaeditions.com] ISBN 90-72395-32-8. Later republished as: Don't Forget: P.D. Ouspensky's Life of Self-Remembering, Bardic Press, 2006. ISBN 0-9745667-7-2.
• Cerqueiro, Daniel: "P.D.Ouspensky y su teoría Espacio-Temporal Hexadimensional". Ed.Peq.Ven. Buenos Aires 2010. ISBN 978-987-9239-20-9
• Gary Lachman: In Search of P. D. Ouspensky: The Genius in the Shadow of Gurdjieff. Quest Books, 2004, ISBN 0-8356-0840-9.
• J. H. Reyner: Ouspensky, The Unsung Genius. George Allen & Unwin, London, 1981, ISBN 0-04-294122-9.
• Colin Wilson: The Strange Life of P. D. Ouspensky. The Aquarian Press, 1993, ISBN 1-85538-079-X.
• The Study Society: The Bridge No. 12, P. D. Ouspensky Commemorative Issue.
• Gerald de Symons Beckwith (2015). Ouspensky's Fourth Way: The story of the further development and completion of P D Ouspensky's work by Dr Francis Roles. Starnine Media & Publishing Ltd. ISBN 978-0-9931776-0-6.
• Centers~ Influences From Within: The Essential Wisdom of Mindfulness and the Fourth Way by Cheryl Shrode-Noble (2017) ISBN 1974034062

External links[edit source]

Wikiquote has quotations related to: P. D. Ouspensky

• Ouspensky Today: Includes an archive of material and images celebrating Ouspensky’s life and work.
• The Ouspensky Foundation
• www.ouspensky.org.uk (2007, An Appreciation by James Moore; Bibliography by J. Walter Driscoll)
• Ouspensky's Historical Choreography
• Tertium Organum (full text at sacred-texts.com)
• Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution (full text at holybooks.com)
• New Model of the Universe (full text at Internet Archive)
• A Brief Discussion of Ouspensky's Thought by Michael Presley

Violin from Mexico - World Socialist Web Site

Violin from Mexico - World Socialist Web Site  

Part 1: For honesty and urgency in filmmaking - World Socialist Web Site

San Francisco International Film Festival 2007

Part 1: For honesty and urgency in filmmaking

David Walsh

12 May 2007

This is the first of a series of articles on the 2007 San Francisco International Film Festival, held April 26-May 10.

The recent San Francisco film festival, its 50th edition, screened some 200 films (108 features) from 54 countries. The largest number of films from any individual country, by far, came from the US, followed by France, Germany, Italy and Canada. A relative handful of films came from Africa, some of them important, and a somewhat larger number from Latin America, whose cinema is showing new signs of life. Asia contributed its share, but without, in general, extraordinary distinction. There was one film each from Iran and Taiwan, reflecting in some fashion the impasse that the film industries in those countries have reached.

Festival organizers bestowed various awards on filmmakers Spike Lee and George Lucas, screenwriter Peter Morgan (The Queen), actor Robin Williams, film historian and preservationist Kevin Brownlow and documentarian Heddy Honigmann.

Well-known theater and artistic director Peter Sellars delivered the festival’s annual “State of Cinema” address April 29. According to a press account, in his remarks, Sellars “came repeatedly back to the rise of fascism in Europe to underscore the challenges facing art and humanity today. Stressing how digital media empower global voices in the new century ... he ranged over millennia and continents in pursuit of his theme, touching perhaps closest to home with reference to California’s runaway prison industry and draconian immigration policies, which Sellars laid out in the starkest and most chilling of terms.

“‘At this moment,’ he argued, ‘where all over the world governments are the problem not the solution, we need to create as artists another possibility for a new set of states to which we can belong, adhere, subscribe, and that does have something deeply to do with what we believe in, hope for, and care about.’” (SF360)

A day earlier actor Danny Glover appeared at a press conference before a public screening of Bamako, the indictment of IMF and World Bank policy in Africa directed by Mali’s Abderrahmane Sissako, on which he served as executive producer (see WSWS review here). Glover spoke about “the growing debt, the growing inequality” in Africa and the devastation wrought by current “neo-liberal” economic policy.

In response to a question from a WSWS reporter about the current deplorable state of the American cinema, Glover praised such films as Good Night, and Good Luck and Syriana, then spoke about the need for a “real democratization” of the US film industry. He criticized those who were “married to a paradigm of success” that only measured box-office results. “We need to look beyond the media for a real picture of the world,” he suggested.

The most interesting films at this year’s San Francisco festival were the honest and urgent ones, works that attempt at least to show in an artistic fashion how people live and what they think and how they feel (“our life of three dimensions”), and what their strengths are and also their shortcomings.

The artists of course can do whatever they like, but to create work that has a profound impact and that endures, they need to bring important realities to bear, the truly indispensable realities. People are curious about everything, they love spectacle and drama. This can take morbid and cheap voyeuristic forms (and too often does at present), but it needn’t.

One of the keen interests that people have, or can develop—if encouraged!—is a fascination with history and the nature of their own society. This may take the form of novels, plays or films that concentrate in their individual stories the most challenging moral dilemmas of the day.

Cinema at present often falls far short of satisfying or even addressing humanity’s broader interests. We experience too much narrowness and self-involvement and egoism, lacking in depth and breadth.

Some of the more successful films in San Francisco included Rome Rather Than You (directed by Tariq Teguia) from Algeria; The Old Garden (Im Sang-Soo) from South Korea; Strange Culture (Lynn Hershman Leeson) from the US; Love for Sale: Suely in the Sky (Karim Aïnouz) from Brazil; Fish Dreams (Kirill Mikhanovsky) from Brazil-Russia-US; Sounds of Sand (Marion Hänsel) from Belgium-France; Violin (Francisco Vargas) from Mexico; A Walk to Beautiful (Mary Olive Smith) from Ethiopia-US and The Rape of Europa (Richard Berge, Bonni Cohen and Nicole Newnham), about the Nazi looting of European art.

There were remarkable moments in After This Our Exile (Patrick Tam) from Hong Kong-Malaysia and The Yacoubian Building (Marwan Hamed) from Egypt. Singapore Dreaming (Yen Yen Woo and Colin Goh) from, naturally, Singapore and Fresh Air (Ágnes Kocsis) from Hungary deserve some mention as well.

Rome Rather Than You

In Rome Rather Than You, Kamel and Zina are two young people in Algiers seeking a way out of a dysfunctional situation. “Come with me to Rome,” he says. “Marseilles, Barcelona, Naples, America.” He adds ironically, “Hurray for globalization!” She’s more skeptical about departing. She works in a clinic, including doing the mopping up. In a restaurant, he reads a newspaper with the headline, “Massacre near Algiers.” In the bloody struggle between the bourgeois nationalist establishment and Islamic fundamentalists from 1992 to 2002, 160,000 people died. Nothing has been resolved.

The pair go looking for a man who can provide false travel documents. All they know is he lives in a house with “concrete pillars and a garage.” They drive around a non-descript suburb, where the houses look alike and many appear unfinished. There are no street signs because “they don’t put them up until everything is built.” They ask about the individual in question, adding, “We’re not here to assassinate him.”

Kamel goes into a bar, still searching for this man, while Zina waits in the car borrowed from his uncle. Kamel meets someone he knows. They talk about life. “The best thing is a drunken sleep on the shore.” “Who said that, Cheb Hasni [famed Algerian popular singer, murdered in 1994 by fundamentalists]?” “No, Rimbaud—they understood each other.”

Independent, even a little pouty, Zina wanders down to the sea, the two men approach her. Kamel upbraids her for not waiting in the car. She says, “We were going to the beach, but you brought me to this lousy neighborhood.”

In the best (and lengthiest) scene of the film, while sitting in a café, Kamel, Zina and his friend are descended upon by a bunch of policemen. They know that Kamel is looking for a smuggler and phony papers, although he admits nothing. The cops are bullying, insulting, they work as a team. Their leader wants to intimidate Kamel and Zina, but he also philosophizes. He asks rhetorically, “In your opinion, has America a point of view on the world, or only interests?” He goes on about the US, “Coca-Cola and hijab [woman’s head-scarf], Coca-Cola and tight jeans, but always Coca-Cola.”

The cops take the trio to the police station, and hold them there for a few hours. After their release, they drive around, lost. And there’s still a curfew. They stay the night at the house of someone they know. Everyone is at loose ends, or fairly depressed. An ex-journalist tells Kamel, “They don’t print my articles.”

When they’re alone, Kamel tells Zina, “Come on, be brave, and I’ll take you to Antwerp.” “I don’t want anything,” she says. The question of a forged Swiss passport comes up. Zina points out, “How can we be Swiss?” She goes on, speaking of emigrating to Europe, “Am I supposed to live there as an illegal?” He replies, “How do you live here?,” and she has no answer for that.

Kamel can be romantic too: “I want to hear your breathing. The breathing of a living girl.”

Out of the blue, or perhaps not, tragedy strikes.

Rome Rather Than You is intelligently and sensitively made. One gets a sense of the mood and feelings of a certain generation, or one portion of a generation: young people who want no part of either side in the civil war, and who perhaps want no part of Algeria either. Nor do they have great expectations of what they will encounter in Europe. The film doesn’t condemn or condone, it considers their difficult situation.

Director Tariq Teguia, in his notes, explains, referring to his two main characters, “No, the girls don’t all lower their eyes in the street; yes, many young Algerian men wish to get out! Not only for material reasons—work, housing—but as a rejection, even an unconscious one, of an imprisoning society.”

He also writes that the film is “as much about politics as girls, cigarettes and terrorism, false papers and water cut-offs, in the language of those who pass through it. All arranged in a disorderly fashion to better understand what the social situation prevents the characters from having ... ”

It is not a demoralized work, although aspects of the situation it presents are potentially demoralizing: the oppressive atmosphere, the ubiquitous police, the fundamentalist Islamic presence, the lack of economic opportunity, the wasted political opportunities, the sense of being hemmed in and vulnerable to attack from any number of sides. In Algeria, the director explains, there is no “zone of open conflict. Violence is brief, even if it so happens that it takes the bloodiest forms ... A daily event, violence is no less present. It is not extraordinary, it is the ordinariness of everyday life.” Nonetheless, Teguia speaks of his hope “of bringing to life the joy lodged under the weight of the violence.”

The characters and their words ring true. They speak directly, but not simplistically. A good deal is said or implied about their situation without shouting or straining. This Algerian film has a level of moral and social sophistication that is sadly lacking in most American and most European films at present.

Films from or about Brazil

Something similar might be said of Love for Sale: Suely in the Sky from Brazil. Its story is even simpler. Hermila returns to the town of Iquatu—in the extreme northeastern part of the country—from São Paulo, with her infant son in her arms. Her husband, Mateus, is meant to follow her. “It’s expensive in São Paulo, we decided to come back.” She stays with her somewhat disapproving grandmother and her aunt, waiting for Mateus to show up. She makes regular trips to the pay-phone: “I love you too. I miss you. When are you coming?” It becomes painfully clear to us, and later to Hermila, that he is not coming. In fact, he vanishes in the city.

Hermila tries to get by, washing cars and selling raffle tickets. She takes up with an old boy-friend, but that relationship holds limited promise. She too wants to get away, to another part of the country and make a fresh start (she asks at the bus station for the name of the farthest possible destination—“Write that down, please”). Her best friend is a prostitute, Georgina. Hermila decides to raffle herself off. The holder of the winning ticket will get “A night in paradise.” She adopts the name “Suely” and begins selling tickets around town. It causes something of a scandal, her grandmother throws her out of the house, but she’s determined to go through with it.

Here too are more or less straightforward events and a sympathetic approach. People’s great difficulties as well as their pleasures are taken seriously. Director Karim Aïnouz (Madame Satã) explains, “When I look around Brazil, one question haunts me: what kind of future awaits a young woman from humble means, especially if she also has a child to raise and a body bursting with desires and aspirations?”

He notes that “Iguatu is a place of intense heat, unforgiving sun and vast blue skies. It is a remote small city in the middle of an extensive, deserted plain. It is a city where more people leave than stay. It’s a place of passage where the 21st century seems to arrive in small pieces, in fragments that echo a distant future. For most, it’s a place of departure. ...

“I wanted to portray its daily life, without exoticizing it. The Northeast of Brazil [the director’s birthplace as well] is a region that is also notorious for the amount of people who leave. Since the quality of life there is not very favorable, a lot of its young population leave to Rio and São Paulo searching for work.”

Why is “Suely” (Hermila ) “in the sky”? Because, writes Aïnouz, the sky “is a faraway place where anyone can be happy. The sky is everywhere and nowhere. The film is Hermila’s steps on how to get there.” That her hopes are mostly illusory and that things won’t be dramatically different in another town are not insignificant matters.

Also set in northeastern Brazil, though made by a Russian-born and US-educated filmmaker, Kirill Mikhanovsky, Fish Dreams takes the lives of its characters seriously as well. Jusce, a young fisherman and an orphan, dives every day 30-40 meters, illegally, for lobsters. He’s in love with Ana, a young woman desperate to leave. Ana and her family watch a favorite soap opera religiously.

The boss deducts expenses from their wretched earnings. The fishermen are angry. “It’s not fair.” He says, “I’ve got a family too.” Jusce is saving up to buy his own boat. At a meeting, an official tells the men, “Diving for lobster will continue to be illegal.” They say, “We have mouths to feed,” “If I stop diving, my life is over.” They go on breaking the law, dangerously. In fact, Jusce’s father died in the ocean.

His former friend, Rogerio, has a dune-buggy and a bit of money; he attracts Ana’s attention. Jusce has to take dramatic steps to win back her interest. Meanwhile one of his comrades dies in the water.

Again, there are clear and honest images in Fish Dreams. Things are not invented merely to impress or show off. We see people’s believable acts and their believable consequences. This film is a little more distant from its characters, but this may be an inevitable result of the director’s ‘foreignness.’

Mikhanovsky says about his work: “Fishermen pushing a boat in the water introduces the film’s key leitmotif—effort: it is through the efforts of Jusce, a young fisherman, both at work and in love (his l’amour fou extracting the greatest effort of all) that we tell a bigger story of one man’s struggle that goes so far that the sense of one’s acts is no longer discernible. ...

“I tried, to the best of my abilities as a director, to show the beauty and nobility of the work of fishermen by means of delving into their daily routines and rituals. The patient and respectful visual treatment of the specific details of their labor and their relationships was critical in order to convey the dignity and nobility of their profession and their lives.”

In this at least he has succeeded.

Violin from Mexico is a more explicitly political work, 

a story of military brutality and popular ingenuity during the peasant revolts of the 1970s. Don Plutarco is an aging musician, who lives with his son, Genaro, and the latter’s family. Plutarco plays the violin, Genaro the guitar and they make a meager living out of it. They also participate in the guerrilla struggle and when their village is taken over by the military, they have to devise a means of recovering the ammunition hidden in a corn-field.

Plutarco wanders back in the village, nothing but a harmless old man (missing part of an arm) with a violin. He engages the local army commander and his men with his music. The commander insists that he comes back every day to play. Meanwhile, Plutarco has to locate the ammunition and transport it to the fighters. Unfortunately, the military man is no fool.

Francisco Vargas has constructed a convincing drama, with a nonprofessional cast. Violin begins with a horrifying scene of torture carried out by the military against rebel prisoners. The film’s sympathies are clear. The scenes in the town, where the weapons are obtained, are well done. Don Ángel Tavira, born in 1924 in Guerrero, a musician himself and from a long line of musicians, plays Plutarco with considerable dignity.

What inspired director Francisco Vargas to make the film? “I’ve always wanted to write a screenplay about an ignored reality in Mexico, what Luis Buñuel in 1950 called Los Olvidados [The Forgotten Ones],” he explains. Moreover, “Through its deliberate realism, the film does make reference to those guerrilla conflicts which frequented the Mexican political scene of the 20th century.”

The film is not a tract, it offers a sobering view of Mexican social reality, past and present. The traditional music is haunting.

Reticence

The filmmakers mentioned here, with the possible exception of Vargas, are reticent about making any general pronouncements. Aïnouz, in fact, goes out of his way to explain that he wanted to look at the Brazilian situation “without making any generalizations.” Teguia also emphasizes the particulars, explaining that it was his intention to film “not a big story, just a landscape of events.”

A kind of social-aesthetic dogmatism will not help anyone. It’s good to be careful, but not to such an extent that one accommodates oneself to a bad atmosphere or a terrible social situation. These filmmakers are forthright and honest. They are not intentionally accommodating themselves to anything. The world disturbs them.

But one can also accustom oneself to the present political difficulties, the deep sense of a lack of an alternative to the status quo. In Algeria, the population seems trapped between the bankrupt secular bourgeoisie, corrupt and privileged, and the reactionary fundamentalist elements. Lula, the champion of the Brazilian working man and woman, has turned out to be another defender of the rich and powerful. There is no immediate solution to the political impasse in Mexico and the cruelty of the present system.

The artists don’t yet see a way out anywhere. So there is a tendency to treat the present situation—disastrous for the mass of humanity—as quasi-inevitable, as “life” itself, and the search for improvements or social progress as perhaps beside the point.

So, Teguia writes, “But, if one has to say tragedy, it is to be reminded that something persists, something consubstantial with disaster, life, nothing less. So making a happy film, what does that mean? A film without guilt, about the simple joy of being alive even if the life here only amounts to a supposed good mood of the characters who cross an urban desert.”

In any event, there’s no reason to speak about “guilt” and “the simple joy of being alive” is fine, but one should not cross the line where this process becomes a means of making a virtue out of necessity, or rather, what is precisely not necessary, the existing wretched social conditions.