Pierre Bezuhov - War & Peace

In War & Peace, Tolstoy carves an interesting personality of Pierre Bezuhov. A short summary goes here. This is a work in progress.

Summary till 1/4th of the story(as of 28th July 2018):

Pierre is the bastard son of the wealthy Count Bezuhov. He is highly educated and indulges in books and abstract theories of politics and battles. He is good hearted and stays out of conflicts. Ironically as happens in people of good nature, he is of weak character and gets into a bout of drinking and gambling if provided a chance. Until his father’s death, no one paid attention to him. Even if they did, it was for mocking him.

After his father’s death, he became the sole heir of the immense wealth. Overnight, everyone’s attitude changed. As a result of his naivety and shrewdness of people surrounding him, he eventually becomes the husband of Ellen. She is a beauty, Moscow talks about. As one can expect, Pierre’s house becomes the center for attraction - especially for men. Ellen does not oppose inappropriate advances of men in front of her husband. She further insults him as a fool who has no trace of social skills. There is a dangerous rumour floating - Fyodor Dolohov has become her lover. Pushed by all the circumstances, Pierre ultimately injures Dolohov in a pistol duel.

Little by little, Pierre’s weakness of character is negated. He has never hurt a person nor used a pistol before the duel. With horror, he realizes that he despises his wife. He recognizes the falsehood of their marriage and the futility of the duel, he fought for a wife who doesn’t deserve it. Ellen on knowing about the duel, starts her train of insults. This time - Pierre loses his temper, picks up a marble slab with his immense strength and tries to hit her before stopping midway. He is still good at heart. A week later Pierre gives all revenue from his Russian estates to his wife, before leaving for Petersburg.

(There is a confusion, whether Pierre filed for a divorce. I guess not, as divorce was not socially acceptable at that time.) After all, Pierre is a good man and won't ruin his wife's reputation even after giving her enough money to last a lifetime.

Summary till 1/2nd of the story(as of 29th September, 2018):

With the help of Fyodor Dolohov, Anatole(brother-in-law of Pierre) makes an amusing plan to elope with Natasha Rostov. Natasha was the betrothed of Pierre's close friend, Andrei Bolkonsky. When Pierre comes to know about the baseness of Anatole, his attitude towards both Natasha and his wife, Ellen takes a negative turn. Natasha did a feminine folly of believing such a stupid fellow as Anatole. Ellen, who was full of vice tried to destroy Natasha by throwing her married brother to fool around with her.

Natasha's current guardian, Marya Dmitryevna asks Pierre to make Anatole leave Moscow. Natasha's reputation will be ruined and there will be further complications when Andrei Bolkonsky arrives.

Pierre's rage is already building up. He searches for Anatole in the club houses of Moscow. He finds the fellow in his own house. His wife, Ellen as usual is entertaining guests. Without greeting his wife, he tells Anatole to follow him into a room. As soon as the door is locked, Pierre grabs Anatole by the collar and demands an explanation for his treachery. When he tears a button from Anatole's uniform, Pierre lets go off his temper. In his stupidity, Anatole demands good behavior from Pierre as he is honourable(!). In his good nature, Pierre accepts the demand and gives money to Anatole for leaving Moscow. (Anatole goes to Petersburg).

Pierre's transformation is still pending. Though little-by-little, he is waking from a dream with more spine than before. Since he had known Natasha from when she was a child, he tried to comfort her with new found tenderness in his heart. His heart is climbing over this vileness and foolishness of Earth. When he sees the comet of 1812, among a field of stars - a new religious feeling grabs him.

To be continued....

Review - Eternity and a Day

Eternity and a Day is a film by Theo Angelopoulos. It won the Palme d'Or in Cannes 1998. Angelopoulos is known for making complex films touching upon history and shared culture of the Balkan region.

The description read that the Greek movie was about a poet and a kidnapped boy from Albania. Before that, I had not known that Albania and Greece share a border. I also didn't know about Ottomans, Communists and refugees in context of Albanian-Greek historical relations. So, my expectations were that the film would be in line with a father-son story. It was greatly naive on my part.

The subtleness of the story being told was evident from the beginning. We see the poet remembering his childhood and his fascination with sea. The sea goes on and on - following it takes one to the remote parts of the world. He also lives in an apartment block facing the sea. The music track he plays is reciprocated by another neighbour who lives in an identical apartment across the street. Who is this neighbour? What is his motive in playing the same track? The poet makes the conscious decision of not meeting the mysterious neighbour as he prefers to fill his ignorance with imagination.

We now see the failing health of the poet. His plan is to get admitted to a nursing home in two days. He has already relieved the house's caretaker(Ourania) of her duties. His illness is making him weak and lose control of his body. He is also dejected as he is not able to finish his projects. Better to take refuge in a hospital rather than suffer. He laments about his suffering to his now deceased wife, Anna. He misses her and life seems bleak without love, inspiration and good health.

Before he gets admitted, he must leave his dog in someone's care. He tries to find if his daughter(who lives with her partner) can take the responsibility. Within few moments of meeting her, she says that her partner doesn't want animals in his house. As he gives Anna's letter to their daughter, he again falls into the depths of his memory. He recollects the beach house, his wife, his mother, family and the newborn daughter. After he wakes up from his thoughts, he finds out that his daughter and her partner has sold the beach house and a bulldozer is scheduled to demolish it tomorrow. He finally realises that his daughter is no more his daughter. Her character, priorities and thoughts are entirely different from what he expected. He leaves her house taking the dog with him.

While on road, he witnesses some young boys cleaning the windshields of cars. The police lie in a hideout and chase them. The poet saves one boy by giving him lift in his car. If caught, the police would have forcibly deported the boy. For some reason, the poet didn't want it to happen. After this first introduction to the boy, the poet drops him at a street corner and the boy joins his gang again.

Few hours later, from a medicine shop - the poet notices the boy getting kidnapped. Again, a sense of mission kicks in and he follows the kidnappers' vehicle. He reaches a run-down building. There is evidently an illegal orphanage racket going on. The kidnappers sell the children to wealthy clients. The poet joins the clients and finds the boy. He rescues the boy by emptying his wallets before the goons.

The poet's sense of mission is fully concrete now - he must send the boy to his own home. The boy informs him that his grandmother is in an Albanian village on the other side of the border. While walking to the bus that goes on to the border, the boy starts singing a hymn. The poet was not able to complete his earlier projects as the words have left him. Now, he is blown away on hearing a new word("my little flower") from the boy's mouth. Eventually, the poet decided to take the boy to the border himself.

"Hey! Here's some food"

The poet and the boy reach the border. Again, the boy starts talking. The subject is about how his friend Salim and he crossed a mine-littered passage before coming to Greece. The boy showed how Salim threw a stone into the minefield, reached it and threw it farther before eventually crossing the entire length. The border is visually different. There are armed guards on towers who are hidden in a fog. There are people climbing at different positions on the fence. On seeing the poet and the boy, the checkpost opens and a military officer marches forward. The boy quickly confesses that he has lied about his grandmother - there's no one left in his village after the armed gangs plundered it. The poet and the boy run back to their car and beat a hasty retreat.

They stop at a food trolley. The boy orders a sandwich and offers it in the same way, the poet did earlier. When the poet refused, the boy asks him whether he even eats. The circle is complete - the boy has made a bond with the poet. The poet then starts the story he has promised earlier to the boy. The story is about Dionysios Solomos and how he bought words for money. (I didn't grasp the fable when I saw it.) The poet was trying to finish Solomos' poem as his last literary work before deciding for the nursery home.

As break from the original story, the poet hands over his dog to his former caretaker Ourania. Her son is getting married. We have a beautiful portrayal of a Greek tradition of marriage. The musicians play their instruments(prominently an accordion) and follow a bride to the church. As she reaches the groom, the onlookers grow excited. Then, the groom begins a tapping sort of dance. The bride follows suit. They dance together and reach a bigger area, where the feast is planned. The poet interrupts the proceedings and hands over the dog.

"Goodbye, my loyal friend"

In the next development, the poet finds that the boy has lost his friend Salim. Salim has been ran over by a bus. To reclaim Salim's belongings, they go to the undertaker. The boy checks the dead body of his friend(*footnote in the end) and then runs away with his friend's jacket and boots. Along with the rest of the children gang, he starts singing a hymn for his beloved friend("Hey Salim! Where are you going? To Naples, Versailles? Hey Salim! Why don't you talk to us?"). Finally, the boy sets fire to the jacket and the boots as a sign of cremation.

The poet leaves the boy and visits his mother at an old-age home. She is ill and her mental faculties have degraded. He laments before his mother that when he had time and youth, he didn't spend them with his family. He was always lost in thoughts, hungered for knowledge and the world outside. Now with all his familial relations vanishing, he realises how important they were for him.

As he stands outside, the boy again meets the poet. He is scared of the boat he is taking tonight. The (unknown) destination and what lies in store in the journey scares him. The poet replies that he is scared too - he is submitting himself to the care of a hospital. The two end up in a warm embrace and decide to take a bus across the city. On the bus, they witness different people. One is a tired protester with a red flag, another is a couple who is in midst of an argument, the poet Solomos and a trio of classical musicians.

The music and the audience

The time of departure arrives. The boy has to board a ship for his destination. Before going he speaks another word("very late at night"). The duo have a teary farewell. Such an experience rejuvenates the poet. He returns to his old home(for which the bulldozer is scheduled tomorrow). The imagery returns to his old days. His wife calls him to dance. He walks the ramp and begins to dance. He tells her that he is not going to the hospital tomorrow. She says that tomorrow lasts "an eternity and a day" and lefts.

The movie then ends with the same music as was used at various points in the story. The film weaves a story in memory, present conflicts and the lives of two distinct individuals. The film has many layers and the narration seems to imply that "new forms of expressions" is desired in art.

The poetic quotient in the film was truly a joy to experience. Every single scene was meaningful as they were serious sketches of life. It made my night memorable and thoughtful. I recommended it highly for the treatment of story elements.

Note: I caught the movie through a screening at Suchitra Film Society, Bangalore on 6th July, 1830hrs.

[*]Theo Angelopoulos' father was taken hostage when he was a child. He searched for his father among dead bodies. That had a lasting effect on him.