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Dostoyevsky Delight: "WHITE NIGHTS"

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Gopa B. Caesar:
Le Notti Bianche (English: White Nights) is a 1957 Italian film directed by Italian neorealist Luchino Visconti. The movie takes its title and basic plot from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s 1848 short story, White Nights.

A lonely young man, Mario, meets a lonely young woman, Natalia. Mario (Marcello Mastroianni) is lonely for social reasons; he is a stranger and a newcomer to town. Natalia (Maria Schell) is lonely because she has always lived in isolation, even in the heart of the city. Her loneliness is intensified because she is in love with a man (Jean Marais) who may not ever return to her, but who continues to occupy her heart to the exclusion of any other possible relationship.

In turning the Dostoevsky story into a film, Visconti eliminated the first-person narration and made Natalia less of an innocent, and at times something of a hysteric and a tease. For his part, Mario rejects obvious offers of romantic attention from other women in the story, holding on to a fruitless obsession.

Mario thanks the young woman for the moment of happiness she has brought him. However, he is left alone at the end of the film, befriending the same stray dog he met at the beginning. He is back at square one, and has put more energy into pursuing the fantasy of an obsession rather than any prospect of real love.

Gopa B. Caesar:
Chhalia is a 1960 Hindi film. Directed by Manmohan Desai it stars Raj Kapoor, Nutan, Pran, Rehman and Shobhna Samarth. Raj Kapoor plays his stereotyped "simple guy with a heart of gold" role yet again. Laxmikant Pyarelal were the assistant music directors; they would go on to be music directors for most of Manmohan Desai's films. The story is loosely based on the "White Nights" written by Fyodor Dostoyevsky but is focused on the issue of estranged wives and children in the aftermath of partition.

Chhalia was shot in black-and-white and had has some songs such as "Chhalia Mere Naam" and "Teri Raahon Mein Khaden Hain Dil Thaam Ke".

This film is not to be confused with 1973's unrelated Chhalia. The 1973 film was shot in colour, and it starred Nanda, Navin Nischol, and Shatrughan Sinha. It was directed by Mukul Dutt; music was by Rahul Dev Burman.

Gopa B. Caesar:
Four Nights of a Dreamer (French: Quatre nuits d'un rêveur) is a 1971 French drama film directed by Robert Bresson and starring Isabelle Weingarten. The film was entered into the 21st Berlin International Film Festival.

Like several other films made in various countries, the film is loosely based on the story White Nights written by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

The film begins in Paris with Jacques, an unidentified young man, trying to hitchike a ride. He travels to the countryside with a family and spends the day walking alone. He whistles and rolls somersaults. The scene cuts back to traffic at night in the city, and the opening credits appear. The next scene is of Marthe, standing at a bridge, at the brink of suicide. Jacques is walking by and stops her. He urges her back onto the street, indicating a police car stopped nearby. They sit by the bridge and chat about their lives. The scene cuts to flashbacks.

Marthe is a young woman who lives with her mother in a flat. To make ends meet, her mother rents a spare bedroom to male boarders, the most recent of which is a graduate student. In one scene during the flashback, Marthe stands nude in front of her mirror, either scrutinizing or admiring her body. While doing this, she hears the boarder knocking on her wall. She ignores him at that point, but eventually Marthe and the boarder become lovers, without her mother knowing. Sadly, immediately after their affair begins the boarder has to move to the United States to study at an American university for a year. The lovers promise to be faithful to one another and reunite at the end of the year. At the present time, Marthe has learned that her lover returned to Paris several days ago and has made no attempt to contact her, leading to her despair and suicide attempt.

Jacques' story is also told in flashbacks at this time. He is a young artist who lives alone in a desolate little flat that doubles as his studio. In the present time, Jacques comforts Marthe and advises her to write to her lover. Marthe says she will, but she asks if Jacques might take the letter for her to friends of her lover and return with his response the following night. When Jacques wonders how the letter could be procured so quickly, Marthe pulls her letter, addressed and ready, out of her pocket.

During the daytime scenes of the movie, Jacques works on his paintings. Part of his artistic process involves recording himself on a tape recorder telling the story of meeting Marthe and loving Marthe. He also records himself repeating Marthe's name. While he paints, he plays his recordings. He also listens to the recordings while delivering Marthe's messages and, in one scene, while riding a bus, scaring two middle-aged women.

Jacques' canvases are large, around 6ft by 4ft. He paints with them flat on the floor, crouching over them. He uses broad strokes and primary colors. The paintings are abstract, and he works on two paintings at a time. Jacques acts as messenger between Marthe and her lover. The lover never writes back to Marthe, and she is devastated. But by the fourth night, she professes her love for Jacques, who loves her as well. They kiss, and he buys her a red scarf.

Marthe and Jacques are walking down the street, arm-in-arm, when they run into Marthe's former lover. Marthe runs to her lover and kisses him. Then she runs back to Jacques and kisses him. Finally, she returns to her former lover, and they walk off together, leaving Jacques alone. Jacques returns to his flat and paints, listening to his recordings.

Gopa B. Caesar:
Iyarkai is a 2003 Tamil film directed by S. P. Jananathan and produced by A.E.Gunasekaran. The film stars Shaam, Arun Vijay, Kutti Radhika and Seema Biswas. This film was a low-budget production and the soundtrack was composed by Vidyasagar. This love story is set against the backdrop of a lost ship on an island. It enjoyed relative success in the Kollywood box office. The soundtrack was a great hit but most importantly, the film won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Tamil for 2003, competing with Virumaandi and Pithamagan as that year's submissions. This movie is loosely based on Dostoyevsky's "White Nights".

yarkai is a familiar love triangle that plays out in unfamiliar surroundings. It revolves around a girl and the two men who love her but by placing the happenings in a port town of Rameswaram, the director manages to give the proceedings a fresh feeling.

Marudhu (Shaam), an orphan and sailor, lands in Rameswaram and decides to give up his sailing life and settle down there. He develops a liking for Nancy (Radhika), who sells fruits and other items to sailors on ships that have arrived at the port. But Nancy still holds a candle for the captain of a ship that docked there three years ago. The captain (Arun Vijay) had promised her that he would return in a year but three years later, Nancy has still not given up hope.

She is in a dilemma whether to choose the captain or Marudhu and finally selects the former leaving mixed feelings of joy and sorrow.

    Director: S.P.Jananathan
    Story/ Dialogue / Screenplay: S.P.Jananathan
    Cinematography: N.K. Ekambaram
    Music: Vidyasagar
    Producer:A.E.Gunasekaran

Gopa B. Caesar:
Ahista Ahista (Hindi: आहिस्ता आहिस्ता, translation: Slowly) is a Hindi film starring Abhay Deol, Soha Ali Khan and Shayan Munshi. It was released in August 2006. This film marks the directorial debut of Shivam Nair with a story much closer to the Fyodor Dostoevsky's short story, White Nights, on which an earlier Raj Kapoor film Chhalia was also based.

This story is woven around aimless youth Ankush Ramdev (Abhay Deol) who scrapes a living by acting as a witness in Delhi's marriage registrar bureau and a girl Megha (Soha Ali Khan) who has run away from her home in Nainital, to get married to her love Dheeraj (Shayan Munshi).

Fate intervenes and Dheeraj does not show up at the Marriage Registrar's Office. Dejected, Megha is forced to rely on Ankush's generosity. Ankush helps Megha by getting her a job at a local old age home so that she has the security of a roof over her head. As time passes Megha begins to realize her potential as an educated girl who had earlier dedicated her life to her boyfriend and that relationship, thinking that there was nothing more to her. She realizes that she was wrong, and finally there comes a day when she tells Ankush that she is glad Dheeraj stood her up at the Marriage Bureau. Else, she would have never known who she really was.

At the same time Ankush realizes that the meager amount he earns each day is not enough for him. He still has to repay the loan he had taken for Megha's sake. So he starts working as a bank's representative who opens bank accounts for a commission. Slowly he starts increasing the number of hours working at his new job and reduces those spent at the Marriage Registrar's Office.

A day comes when he is able to repay the loan he had taken for Megha. On learning of this Megha reprimands him for doing so much for a girl who was a stranger for him. But now Ankush is earning 5 times more than he was before. He has a much more respectable job and a future. Ankush believes he has changed because of Megha and her faith in him. Life progresses well for Ankush. Soon he gets an offer to join the same bank as an Area Supervisor, at a handsome salary. Ankush hesitates, as fluent English is a pre-requisite.

Megha inspires Ankush giving him the confidence to realize that all he needed was an opportunity in life to succeed. A relationship develops between Megha and Ankush. Megha decides to leave her past with Dheeraj behind and embrace the future with Ankush by her side.

Everything seems to be falling in place for Ankush when Dheeraj returns. He is persistent in his search for Megha and Ankush's new found happiness crumbles.

Ankush tries to force Dheeraj to return to Nainital. He tries all his wits and energy to do this, but does not succeed. He even shows Dheeraj the death certificate of Megha, so that he can return, but Dheeraj has complete faith in his love and Megha.

One day Ankush's friend gives Dheeraj the whereabouts of Megha. This is on the same day Megha and Ankush have planned to get married. On seeing Dheeraj in the mirror, she gets angry at him and asks him to leave. Dheeraj agrees, but he also insists her to listen to what had happened to him when he was coming to Delhi from Nainital. He was preyed in a plot of RDX in the train. He somehow escapes from the plot. Megha realizes that what Dheeraj did was not intentional and was just a situation in which Dheeraj was trapped.

Megha talks to Ankush and tells him that she cannot live without Dheeraj and finally Ankush realizes that he is just a friend to her. In the end Ankush becomes the witness of the wedding of Dheeraj and Megha but asks for his regular fees, severing all connection to Megha and Dheeraj love story.

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