[ExI] election stuff

Amara Graps amara at amara.com
Fri Jan 11 21:01:25 UTC 2008


Keith Henson:
>Have you ever thought about the function of elections?  It isn't what
>it seems.  As for confidence, heh heh, look up "Landslide Johnson."

I rented and saw last night an independent film, called  _Secret Ballot_
(its English title).

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0290823/plotsummary

"[...] a young woman disembarks on the beach. To the soldier's
bafflement, it turns out that she is in charge of the mobile electoral
seat and voting on the islands; therefore the soldier is obliged to obey
her orders and escort her with his rifle and army jeep across the
desert, where the woman obstinately intends to collect the votes. During
the day, stressed by a series of absurd events, the two learn to get to
know each other. At sunset, when the young woman leaves, the man
realizes that the secret vote contained much more than he had ever
imagined."

It has a slow pace, with a comedic undercurrent: the elections 'agent'
is a Muslim woman, carrying her ballot box in the desert chasing
tenaciously after potential voters, with her misplaced army soldier, who
is ordered to assist her. The casting of these two characters was
exceptional. While they are chasing after the potential voters and trying
to convince them to vote, we are forced to consider what hopes and dreams
_we_ have, what do we each want in our lives to move forward, when people
vote in an election. Voting becomes a projection of our inner selves
(or _their_ inner selves in that particular Iranian society).

More about the film and in particular, the filmmaker here:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2002/08/11/PK77897.DTL&type=movies

"Payami filmed "Secret Ballot" on the Persian Gulf island of Kish, which
is 10 miles from the Iranian mainland and is a popular destination spot
for divers. He cast nonprofessional actors in the roles, including
Nassim Abdi as the elections worker and Cyrus Ab as the soldier.
Remarkably, Payami had no rehearsals for the actors, whom he lionizes
for teaching him "much more about real life" than he taught them."

Note:  non actors in the film! Like the amazingly luminous film "The
Wind Will Carry Us" by Abbas Kiarostami:  (highly recommended)

http://www.filmjournal.com/filmjournal/reviews/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000697218
http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A15283
http://www.villagevoice.com/film/0030,hoberman,16663,20.html

Amara

-- 

Amara Graps, PhD      www.amara.com
Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado



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