I watched the World Premiere of this film at the Cape Town International Film Festival, and the director took questions and answers after the film. The Q & A was like stand-up comedy and I wish the writer added more humour like that into the film. Don't get me wrong, there were some funny moments in Woodwind, but it was mostly a very serious movie, a very serious subject matter that gets quite philosophical, very deep on a metaphysical level. For such a heavy night, I feel a little more humour would've lightened things up.
The scenes with the police were hilarious, not laugh out loud funny but a bit of an acquired taste at subtle comedy. Ultimately, this was not a comedy and wasn't labelled as one so I won't be too critical for the lack of jokes. When you go to the theatre you often hear the audience laughing along but I think in this movie, everyone had their hands on their chins, stroking it deep in thought.
During the Q & A, the director spoke about how the ability to have questions mean that we're awake and thinking, and he's not going to feed us with his answers after the film, and what's important is our answers. An audience member spoke about the awakening of his composer character, Bonifaz. An awakening from program music. So, in a film that stimulates questions, I have a list of questions and here are my SPOILERS:
SPOILER ALERT
Who was the lady at the end? Was it Agna, Alina, Bonifaz's mother or a random Buddhist stranger? If it's his mother then is Bonifaz dead and when did he die? If it's a dream then I can't believe that this could be real? Could he/she be a mythical God/Goddess?
In the same way, who was the voice? Was it the ghost of the old Indian musician? Was he dead or sleeping? Was the voice Alina/Agna/the mother or a figment of Bonifaz's imagination? Was Bonifaz schizophrenic, mad or hearing/hallucinating a real/imagined angel, demon, ghost or God?
This is a film that allowed me to interpret how I wanted it all to be. I prefer to think that this was an inner journey for Bonifaz, that he was looking for himself and that's what he found in the end. Does it mean that I find it difficult to believe in the supernatural? Maybe. I was glad there was no forced Hollywood happy ending with Bonifaz's chosen romantic interest.
Woodwind wasn't a romantic story anyway and I was glad for that too. Though, early on you wonder whether it could go into that direction. But everything is different in this film. It doesn't turn out the way I would've thought but the story evolves in a very surprising way.
I heard a few people in the audience after the film, say that this was a spiritual film, being set in Varanasi and Bonifaz going on an epic journey to the mountains in India (it's easy to say that) but I like how Woodwind doesn't specifically take the side of one religion directly. We hear (I think) the sounds of all religions in the background in the locations which tells us that we are in the reality of today, but the movie doesn't preach to us with any one, narrow view.
It's the same with the questions where you have so many possibilities and I was satisfied with the Bonifaz that I wanted, even though it might not be your Bonifaz. Having spoken to others, they saw another Bonifaz. That is what I think is the strength of this film, using Eastern wisdom but without clichés and with ambiguity. This is a film that made me think and that's rare in cinema today.
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