Weeknote #18 [W26.05] - Attending another film festival, on interviews, and small talk

Attending another film festival not as good as IFFK

I went to BIFFes on the weekend.

I had already been to IFFK in December, so watching as many films as possible wasn’t particularly high on my agenda. I ended up watching only 3 films over the two days. All of them were nice.

This was my second time at BIFFes, and the thing stood out to me most was how much better organized IFFK is in comparison.

The first screening I went to started 15 minutes late, and they abruptly cut off the projector before the end credits rolled. At another screening, they turned on all the lights with 5 minutes left, people started leaving, only then to realize that the film wasn’t over. The film’s emotional climax still playing out on a half-visible screen.

A certain amount of chaos comes inevitably with large crowds. And while the organizers at BIFFes did seem to be trying to manage the situation, there was an obvious lack of forethought. They were reacting, without preparation, to problems as they arose. Over the course of two days, I overheard more angry exchanges between attendees and volunteers than I did over an entire week at IFFK.

The management at IFFK, in contrast, is mostly invisible. Things largely work because they’ve been planned well in advance and good planning like that is barely noticeable.

I think what bothered me most about the overall experience here was the general lack of consideration for the audience’s experience.

A good interview should bring out the interviewee’s unique perspective

I also attended a talk with Anurag Kashyap at BIFFes on Saturday. He was being interviewed by the critic Baradwaj Rangan.

The quality of conversation between the two was trite. Most of the 30 minutes was spent by Kashyap lamenting on the present state of things (audience inattention, studio interference, etc.) and glorifying how things used to be better before.

The low point was when Kashyap complained about his driver watching his films on a mobile phone rather than a big screen. Because “the film wasn’t made for that medium,” and “you will miss so many details on a small screen”.

Respectfully, who cares?

I have little sympathy for these normative notions on how a film should be watch, which fail to realize how elitist and exclusionary they are.

There will always be more value in a film providing casual entertainment to someone after (or during) a long day’s work, than in a room full of relatively affluent audience gushing over the moody lighting, the sound design, or the craft of filmmaking.

Regardless… Lamenting about the present, and glorifying the past is only natural to the human condition, and one’s tendency to do so increases gradually as they grow older. I complain about how so many things — the internet, the TV, and whatnot — was so much better 15 years ago when I was growing up than it is today myself (and I still have a lot of growing old left to do).

Those are, I think, fair enough things to say. But that’s precisely why a good interviewer has an important role to play. A good interviewer has a job to move the conversation along to other — more interesting and insightful — topics. And Rangan didn’t come prepared to do that.

When we listen to someone being interviewed, what we really want is access to their singular experience. Anurag Kashyap is an interesting enough filmmaker. There’s nothing particularly interesting, however, in hearing him complain, in vague generalities, about the “second screen phenomenon”. A stronger interviewer might have steered the conversation toward what makes him who he is, rather than allowing it to drift into familiar complaints.

As with the screenings themselves, the quality of conversation offered here was also a failure of responsibility towards the experience of the audience.

I can’t small talk

On the metro back from Lulu Mall to Electronic City, I was reading Vaclav Smil’s How the World Really Works. A very friendly woman standing next to me tried to start a conversation by asking me about the book.

After briefly explaining to her how the world really works, I asked her if she likes to read. “Only self-help books,” came the answer.

That was the moment when an involuntary and unconscious sense of what can only be described as my own snobbishness kicked in. My ability to physically engage in further conversation evaporated. I tried very hard to think of something polite to say — anything, really — but no words came to me. She smiled, said “you please carry on,” and looked away. Embarrassed, I did the same.

While I’m quick to argue that people shouldn’t be judged by how where they watch films… I am not beyond hypocrisy.