PM Review

Before browsing   Chaplin’s  A  Countess from Hong Kong [1967] on the internet, I did not know Marlon Brando was in it. Moreover, I didn’t have any prior knowledge that Chaplin wasn’t in it. I think it was one of the biggest cinematic slid that the world was deprived of having both of them in the same movie. What a great loss, what a boundless sorrow it was!   This first and last color feature film was one of his most intellectually tight films based on contemporary issues whose background started back from World War I and stretched to after World War II, begun with the Russian revolution and continued with the refugee crisis in America. As Macabee in A King in New York [1957] stated that if you need a passport as mandatory to travel the world then it is evident you are not free. This very identity crisis linked with nationalism was played and screened with full fledge.   The narrative of Russian countess, played by Sophia Loren as Natacha and of American a...

A King in New York [1957] was the first film Chaplin made after being banned in the USA and the movie released in the UK. It is another utopian film after The Great Dictator [1940] in which he realized the Hitler’s absolutism in Europe. The tendency to absolutism is parodically exercised also in a modest way in A King in New York [1957]. With the prior one he almost predicted the possible horrendous European crisis resulting from Nazism, with the later one he actualized it’s not so easy as we think of that we could be free in democratic setup without seamless state surveillance.   I was nearly as stoned as to hear when king of Estrovia, Shahdov ( Charlie Chaplin ) got a bold and firm reply from Rupert Macabee ( Michael Chaplin ) when he answered, “ Should I be a communist to read Marx.” It is a false consciousness universally believed that you are what you do. If you listen to the Bishnu Stotram or Shiv Tandov Stotram, you must be a Hindu but when you listen to Elvis Presl...

  [I] The famous moustache of Tramp has vanished and still Charlie is fantastic on screen.   [II] Chaplin ’s Limelight [1952] is another fabulous rendition of his autobiography. It is also a representation of how he had been transited from his childhood to his adulthood as a clown.   [III] If anyone wants to grasp the kernel of the first of 20 th  century, one can easily get it from Charlie’s life.   [IV] How Calvero [Chaplin] imitates the blooming Japanese flowers is stunning! It is one of his best pantomimes that is only inborn.   [V] The conversation between Calvero and Thereza [Claire Bloom] on life’s ups and down. Upon that I have just got a sense that life is not a pursuit for meaning and happiness but life is a journey of desires. It's about inspiration and sacrifice in life that make it a graceful one either it is a success or a failure.   [VI] Thereza [Claire Bloom] as a ballet dancer was outstanding and heart touching mostly because of h...

  When I was reading the heart-wrenching descriptions and narrations from Charlie Chaplin’s  My Autobiography [1964], my eyes just froze at the line, “There  were patches everywhere, on the elbows, trousers, shoes and stockings.” [4] Afterward, While I was watching Chaplin’s “The Kid” (1921), I found a verisimilar costumes and moods & expressions on the faces of the Tramp (Charlie Chaplin) & the Kid (Jackie Coogan) who is the one of the most expressive child artist I have ever seen.   It is beyond doubt that no other filmmakers than Charlie Chaplin could, as far as I know, apply and make art from the autobiographical extractions so elegantly and truthfully. I could barely differentiate the deep feeling of vulnerability a single mother could have when I saw the mother ( Edna Purviance ) who abandoned his newborn baby both being deserted by her man, the artist and being burdened because of child’s identity and economic destitution with Charlie’s...