Re: Pari

Subject: Re: Pari
From: Will Hochman (hochman@southernct.edu)
Date: Sun Feb 03 2002 - 05:22:55 GMT

The video tape of Pari arrived and had enough Iranian stuff on it to
make me of interest to the FBI so I'll try to be interesting here,
too.

  The tape was made from a tv and vcr of questionable quality. It had
very speedy subtitles that were often incorrect (Pary?) and flashed
at viewers in ways that demanded very quick reading and even that
didn't work sometimes. Nonetheless, I had a positive viewing
experience. I didn't mind the walking and driving shots that reminded
me of student films I made in the seventies because I've never been
to Iran and liked the idea of getting to see it as Iranians portray
themselves. Iran is an obvious place for a drama about spiritual
questing and I enjoyed both city and rural backgrounds while
"meeting" Franny, Zooey, Buddy, Seymour, Muriel, and Bessie in a sort
of Glass family saga that draws on all of the Glass stories. I didn't
think that Salinger would flip out over this because the director was
trying to do some fairly insightful things with his main character's
quest for negating the naysayers and dealing with her vision of
Christ?. I don't think an American could take the same elements and
manage to do something I could tolerate, but somehow, this film kept
me pretty excited. I guess I know that in all likelihood, that
"somehow" is that I simply enjoyed picking out the salinger stuff in
the foreign film because I know it and love it. I did the same things
with a lovely potato and vegetable casserole my wife made last night.
Somehow, the serving spoon kept coming up with potatoes only. So I
admit I liked Pari as a way to be in an imaginary world where knowing
the Glass stories removes some layers of translation that go way
beyond good subtitling. But the actor who played Franny was very
interesting and her desperation mirrored Franny's well. I didn't like
Zooey and thought it was strange that Seymour burns himself in a
house, but there was a nicely done scene by the river with a sybil
character and I liked the idea of switching the fat lady to a lady
with a vase of water on her head. And the Franny character got hung
up on "I could not thank you the least" which I'm still wrapping my
mind around.

We don't watch a lot of videos but I had to rent The Luzhin Defense
and I mention it in this post for a few reasons. It was a film based
on the story by Nabakow about a chess master in love who jumps out of
a window in the end. He's played by John Turturro and his mad
brilliance seemed quite a bit like Seymour's, I imagined. In some
ways, that video was a closer telling of APDFB than the part that
Pari used. oK, oK, I suck as a film reviewer. I'll be quiet now, will 

-- 
	Will Hochman

Assistant Professor of English
Southern Connecticut State University
501 Crescent St, New Haven, CT 06515
203 392 5024

http://www.southernct.edu/~hochman/willz.html

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