HA3901 au23 | final take-home exam
So, by now you know what to do. Write like crazy, using full sentences but not bothering with the niceties of formal composition (no introductory comments, no restating the question, no having a concluding paragraph, etc.). Feel free to abbreviate the longer film titles. Most importantly, use specific details from your lecture notes, readings and the assigned films to support your arguments.
For your safety and peace of mind, please compose your answers in a word-processing program, not within the Assignments section of Carmen, where a disruption of internet connection in the middle of your session could prove disastrous. Save the final version of your responses in a single document file, convert this file into a PDF and submit that PDF via Carmen’s TurnItIn program within the Assignment section for this course.
You have until December 3rd at 11:59p to submit your responses.
Choose and answer three of the following questions: [WORTH 33 POINTS APIECE FOR A 100-POINT MAXIMUM SCORE]
1. Dhobi Ghat and My Winnipeg could not exist apart from their urban settings. Pick one of these films and discuss how the filmmaker utilized specific locations within Mumbai or Winnipeg to make observations about their characters’ relation to the larger world?
2. Complex female characters contend with troubled memory in The Headless Woman, Hive and Ida. Pick two of these films and discuss how Lucrecia Martel, Blerta Basholi and Pawel Pawlikowski conveyed Vero, Fahrije and Anna/Ida’s struggle to recollect traumatic events. In addition to their stories, how do the films’ visual design evoke the characters’ uneasy relation with past events?
3. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days has been called both a pro-choice and a pro-life film, but the topic of abortion is only part of the film’s exploration of decisions and behavior. within the ethical realm. How does Cristian Mungiu complicate the central problem posed by Găbița seeking an abortion? Is this more likely to change or confirm a viewer’s original opinion of abortion?
4. For being set in one of the world’s most volatile, polarized geopolitical regions, The Time That Remains manages to depict in light-handed, even humorous ways the day-to-day lives of everyday people who navigate the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. How does Suleiman manage this diplomatic feat?
5. Discuss Tsai Ming-liang’s peculiar handling of time in Goodbye, Dragon Inn. How does it contribute to the film’s overall meaning? In addition to detailing the various chronological manipulations, you should consider their significance, whether as entertainment, perceptual experience, philosophical idea, or consequence of where and when this film was made.
principal characters:
Dhobi Ghat: painter Arun, banker/photographer Shai, dhobi Munna, videographer/suicide Yasmine
The Headless Woman: Veró[nica], domestic Josefina, husband Marcos, aunt Lala, cousins Rosita + Tere, niece Candita, lover Juan Miguel, victim (Changuila’s brother)
My Winnipeg: Guy Madden, Mother, Father, sister Janet, brother Cameron, Mayor Cornish, Althea Cornish, Citizen Girl
Hive: Fahrije; father-in-law Haxhi, daughter Zana, son Edon, business partner Nazė, Emine + Lume + other latecomers, pepper merchant Bahr
Ida: novitiate Anna (born Ida), aunt Wanda, musician Lis; farmer son Feliks + father Szymon
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days: Otilia, Găbița, Mr. Bebe, Adi, Adi’s parents and their friends
The Time That Remains: ES (as child, teen, young adult, and Elia Suleiman playing his middle-aged self), father Fuad, mother, Aunt Olga
Goodbye, Dragon Inn: ticket-taker, projectionist, Japanese student, the female nutcracker, original Dragon Gate Inn characters and actors