10
Fridav. September 14, 1973
University Daily Kansan
Film 'Siddhartha'
By ZAHID IQBAL
By ZAHID IQBAL
Kansan Reviewer
Total darkness and a silent soundtrack.
Then, the coating of a "kool" in the predawn
darkness, the haunting notes of a barnhoo
and the scent of fire on the cover of
fire over the horizon. Then day-break.
Impact, simply effected.
If Conrad Rooke's genius had remained constant throughout his cinematic version of Herman Hesse's "Siddartha," he would have receivedraw reviews and made his film the big thing of the year. But "Sidartha" was part of being a career spanning celluloid.
The story revolves around Siddhartha's quest for Peace, Knowledge and an elusive Creator. The son of a Brahmin (the highest Indian castle), he sees the incantations of ritual prayer, obeisance to the gods and the restrictive monotony of his life.
THE CONFIDES to his constant companion, Govinda, that he is off to join a band of wandering sadhus, or holy men. The band consists of the mission, but Siddartha's father knows better than to restrain a bird that is yearning to take flight. After making his displeasure known, he yields. Next more displeasure comes, and finds Govinda has decided to go along, too.
The two friends do the whole bit—chanting praises to the Creator, begging for their food and living the life of ascetics. But what does it mean to live in the presence he feels is he now near the place he seeks.
They leave the band of Sumanas to hear the teachings of Gatama, the Buddha, of whom they met at the monastery.
Buddha's eight-fold path to Nirvana is, in Givinda's eyes, the truth he has been searching for. He decides to follow the teachings and dedicate his life to his teachings.
Sidhartha is unconvinced. The truth, he
has Govinda, is somewhere else. The
formality of her words is not convincing.
One renounces the world to be a Buddhist monk. The other walks into a nearby town, sees the world of materialism, of desire and of sensual pleasures. As part of his search he decides he must succumb to it in order to conquer it.
THE NEXT EVENING he is in the presence of a beautiful, bejeweled courtesan, Kamala. He asks to be taught the love of love. After her initial surprise at such a request from a holy man, Kamala decides to take him on. Slidhartha, the peniless woman, is intrigued and invites else, for Kamala gets him a position under the wealthy merchant, Kamaswami.
Varied positions under Kamala immediately follow; it's the carvings from her life. The body of her dharma is initiated into the arts of love. Later that first night, any doubts Kamala may have had about a holy man coming into her life are removed. The holy man has
Siddhartha acquires riches, gambles and
allows he all gets in a show of contempt
'Jackal' Is Thrillr But Direction Lacking
"The Day of the Jackal!" is a very dull, very predictable movie that pits the world's most professional assassin against the "best detective in France."
The assassin, code-named "Jackal," is played by Edward Fox, who did well in "The Go-Between." He is cool, ruthless and meticulous in undertaking kills De Gaulle Malone, a former French diplomat. He's just a first-class professional with infinite resources for frustrating a 100,000-monocharge force, until the final few minutes of the film when Police Commissioner Lebel (Michel Lonsdale) splatters him with the gun before the trigger is pulled on De Gaulle.
By ALAN LICHTER Kansan Reviewer
for material possessions. But there is too much wealth for him to get rid of and he realizes one day something inside him is going to break away to resume his great quest.
The story is adapted from a best-selling novel by Frederick, Forsyth, which describes an attempt on the life of President Charles de Gaulle by the Organisation de l'Armee Secrete (OAS), a semiclassictious novel entwined by Algerian independence.
The film has all the ingredients of a solid thriller: a handsome, susek killer; a couple of beautiful women exposed from neck to navel; a fumbling but shrewd tough
detective; and a scenic pursuit ranging from London, Paris, Vienna, Rome, Genoa and Nice. What went wrong with this entertainment?
While most of the film—two hours and 20 minutes—details the movements between police and criminal, the action is not at all the intricate chess game we might adhere to. We have to be professional professionals going about their chores. This sort of material has some modest potential, but it's all strangely undercut by the character of an assassin (can a fox play a jackal?) so nerveless and impeturable that he ceases to exist for us as a human. And when we don't care about him, there's much in the film to hold our interest.
There might have been, though, if another director had made the film, Fred Zinnemann does well with understatement and quiet details, but isn't suited to the unexpected imaginative cinematic twists that a Hitchcock would produce for this film.
Kamala, changed over the years both physically and mentally, bears the anguish of his departure, unaware that their last joust has left her somewhat pregnant.
I suppose the producer imagined that the material would carry itself. He was wrong, but his mistake is a chilling reminder that in business, even when moved by the business of assassination.
Short of Perfect
Living together, the two men age
SIDDHARTHA once more becomes the perilless seeker after inner peace and is given place in a boatman's hut—the same boatman who had ferried him across the river when Siddhartha was a wandering the time, the boatman told Siddhartha to hold all the answers he was seeking and that he should listen to it and learn from it.
The answer, as a friend had told him, is in the river, which has no end or beginning. In the stream of events is the unity of life. In the river of water there is but one chorus: Om, or perfection.
Sidhartha surrenders himself to the unity of all things and finds therein the serenity born of knowledge and salvation. It fight with an inescapable destiny is over.
"Siddartha" is an adult movie not because of the holy man-whore intercourse theme unabashedly portrayed, but because one needs to have loved and died in the same way. What happens to the protagonist in the film. It also helps if one has read the book.
IN SELECTING "Siddartha," Rooks may have bitten off more than one might want to chew. The story is Indian folk fiction, but it also translated into English, a bestseller about 40 years after its publication. Rooks may not have to wait a tenth of that time before the film catches on—and can easily remove the camera from the shooting. But the point is that not everyone who sees the film can be expected to have read Hesse's book. And for those who haven't, many of the sequences are edible and the viewer is left in the cold.
Even Hesse's original work was inadequate as far as descriptions of settings depended on the camera, but depended almost totally upon visual impact (this is masterly achieved) and shaded away from using an off-camera voice or similar improvisation to explain some
The result is some degree of frustration
as, in some places, the viewer is left behind. Usually, audiences are serious or "arty" films are tolerant of such things, but they are psychologically prepared by the fact that the film is either in black and white (with lots of grain) or dubbed.
"Siddhartha" is different. It a 'wide-screen production in glorious color that brings alive the exotic alice and mystery of everything Indian—from the jungles of the northwest to the old palaces where some of the scenes have been shot.
THE PHOTOGRAPHY is superlative—it even catches the small of fresh dew on the face of a woman. It captures the mood of the moment. Quite naturally, there is a perfectionist behind each shot—Sven Nykvist, the Swede who has won five awards, Bergerman's films for the past 15 years.
Technically, the film is as good as any made Sound recording has been well done, and effectively catches birdcalls, the murmurings of the river and all the other natural features of Indian countryside. Only in some shots does Lips-synchronization seem slightly abrupt.
An over-used plot, no excepcional acting, a script that allows only a few laughs, run-of-the-mill photography and mediocre film photography "Blume in Love" read like a chean novel.
By DIANE YEAMANS Kansan Reviews Editor
The movie jumped sporadically between Los Angeles and Venice. If the viewer could keep up, he might be able to tell the two cities apart.
Rooks has gone in for a great deal of authenticity and deserves all praise on this count. He has real sadhus chanting, the shooting is all on location in the wilds of India and there is no artificiality inspired by commercialism.
Blume and his wife are reunited in the blume, although she dictates the terms of the relationship. He allows himself to become more involved in wishes in order to satisfy his need for her.
The movie is built on a series of flashbacks after Blume, played by George Segal, and his wife, Susan Anspach, are divorced. Roy meets girls. They marry. Wifeinds husband in bed with secretary. They divorce. But Blume still loves his wife and he never leaves her. He has sexual relationships, the source of the R rating, although he can't forget his wife.
The script was canned. Not one new twist was added to the age-old plot. The audience did get to laugh a few times. They needed to laugh at something to survive the evening.
Nina finds another man, Elmo, played by Kris Kristofferson. Elmo is a musician, imaginative, huh? Unfortunately, the viewer doesn't get but a smidgen ofSON's musical talents. He was typecasted so there wasn't much acting he could do.
Music and music are rendered by India's greatest singer-musician, Hemanta Kumar. It is a pity the words of his song on the river, in bengal, are lost on the audience.
AS A FILM, "Sidhartha" defies categorization oof any sort. It is an enriched experience to see the film if you're in the properly contemplative mood to see it. Its most serious flaw is that the screenplay omits vital portions from the book and puts into contemporary language some dialogue that really should have been written. Then flaw is the director's assumption that each transition in time is fairly obvious.
But that's better than asking Helenia to sing in English; it's disastrous enough having ascetics and half-naked Indians with pseud-Psobian British accents throughout the film.
Theme is Lacking In 'Blume in Love'
REPRODUCTION Can Be Fun
Because it does not fall into the categories filmgoers might have assigned to all films created, it is likely to go over poorly with mass audiences. The wisdom of India, 5,000 years old, is somewhat out of tune with the slot-machine civilization of 1973.
SEE JOYCE OR JUDY FOR.
- COPY SERVICE ¥TYPING
• PRINTING WHILE YOU WAIT
• INSTANT BOOKBINDING SERVICE
THIS REPORT PRESENTS MANUALS
ADS QUICK PRINT
PRICE LIST
10 copies      $ 1.10
100 copies     2.00
100 copies     2.80
500 copies     7.25
1000 copies    12.80
Admitted paper 14 each
Colored paper - 100
901 KENTUCKY 841-4900
Like money-changing devices that reject a perfectly good dollar bill because the picture isn't facing up, audiences here may not be able to tell it involves mental exertion. And thought.
FOOTBALL WEEKEND SPECIALS
Carry-Out Specials For the Game
Hot or Mild Smoked Sausage Sandwich
Smoked Ham and Swiss $ 125
Cheese Sandwich
89¢
by Winning 3 Games of Ball Park Baseball this Saturday
Win Free Draughts
2-5 p.m.
Sat. Only
Sunday Is Doubleheader Day—Two Play Ball Park Baseball for the Price of One
15c Draughts
There may be some who like every bit of it, understand it even where it seems obscure to others, but who will come away disappointed because Siddhartha does not, at the very end, yell "Shazam" and zoom off into the great Beyond.
Hillcrest Shopping Center
Open 11 a.m. 'til Midnight
The Hawk Calendar
Mon.
Band Nite
Tues.
Girls— Cheese Trunk Nite
Draws— Isle all Nite
Wed.
Pitcher Nite Only $1.00 All Nite
Thur.
O-Zone Nite Males— $3.00 Females— $1.00 All you can drink
Fri.
T.G.I.F. 3-4 $1.00 Pitchers
CASSEM'S OFFERS YOU THE FINEST IN MODERN CLOTHING
Baggie slack with two inch cuffs. Sleeveless sweaters in 100% wool. "Today's" look in period plains and durcuroy.
CLASSICS
Cassem's has a complete selection of quality slacks, sweaters, shirts, and sport wear. There are clothes of cloth, colors and style.
For a more casual look check our loft for the largest stock of cuffed denim jeans in Lawrence.
This Saturday's game is the start of an annual tradition at Kansas University. You'll look a little better for it wearing the "classic" look from Cassem's.
9:00 a.m. 5:30 p.m.
monday-friday
(until 8:30 p.m. thurs.)
motor on by for the finest in modern clothing tradition...
843-3160
CASSEM'S MEN'S WEAR 811 Massachusetts