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Okay, just for the record, Mystic River didn’t endear itself to me as much as it did prior to my having read the brilliant novel by Dennis Lehane it is based on. But once I realised that its well nigh impossible to compress a dense 450-odd page book into a 2-hour movie, and stopped comparing, I agreed to the fact that this is a damn good movie all right. Companionship of three Boston buddies got silently torn apart when one of the boys got picked up by two strangers; and now a couple of decades later, Sean, a police detective, Jimmy, a former convict, and Dave, a recluse forever scarred by his past, are forced to come together when Jimmy’s teenage daughter is found brutally murdered. The movie boasts of two awesome performances by Sean Penn and Tim Robbins, as the devastated dad and complex man-boy, respectively, with competent supports by Kevin Bacon, Laura Linney and Laurence Fishburn. The relentlessly dark and brooding movie, with its fair share of fatalism, and disturbing albeit compelling references to the vicious cycle of violence, guilt and retribution, has been given a shot in the arm by the ominous tone of the script, arresting cinematography and narrative pacing that has defied genre conventions with gutsy bravado. Agreed, the movie isn’t without its flaws and omissions; nonetheless, this will rank very high among Clint Eastwood’s oeuvre.
Director: Clint Eastwood
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Urban Drama/Mystery
Language: English
Country: US
Hunger, directed by Steve McQueen (no, not that Steve McQueen), is based on the last few months of IRA (Irish Republican Army) member Bobby Sands’ life in a British prison. He and his fellow-members demanded political status, and when denied despite several efforts, he decided to go on a hunger strike unto death. The most interesting aspect about the movie is that, despite never taking sides with either the British government or the IRA, or for that matter, the camera hardly ever leaving the claustrophobic prison setting, the movie has the ability to evoke strong reactions from its viewers – it is that lacerating and passionate a portrayal of the brutal struggle between the two sides. This stark, moody, intensely visceral, superbly paced and thoroughly engaging movie has made exceptional use of silences and long takes – in one brilliant maneuver, there is one single, static take where Sands and a priest engage on a lengthy dialogue over a plethora of cigarettes, which lasts a staggering 20 minutes! The movie, which doesn’t really have any plot per se, received a shot in the arm thanks to an absolutely terrific performance by Michael Fassbender (in the role of Sands), and great editing which managed to ensure a languorous pace while at the same time retaining the raw edge of the powerful script.
Director: Steve McQueen
Genre: Drama/Prison Drama/Political Drama
Language: English
Country: UK/Ireland
Zodiac, like his earlier Seven, happens to be a terrific achievement for David Fincher for the simple reason that, despite being in essence a serial killer movie, it has managed to be far more than the narrow conventions of the genre. Based on the unsolved case files of a cryptic real-life serial killer called Zodiac who left a trail of bodies in the 60’s and 70’s California, the movie follows the consequent effects on the lives of four individuals – a geeky cartoonist working for San Francisco Chronicles (Jake Gylengall), a cynical and alcoholic crime reporter (Robert Downey Jr.), a quietly competent police detective (Mark Ruffalo) and his soft-spoken partner (Anthony Edwards). Intensely moody and insanely gripping, it is an incredibly dark, meticulous and compelling examination of human obsession, and a chilling account of the publicity-crazy society we live in. Despite what the plot suggests, violence plays more of a thematic role than a physical one (most of the time existing just outside the camera’s vision); thus what has emerged is a riveting character study that is far more cerebral than the kind of visceral movies we’ve come to expect from Fincher. The movie has benefited immensely from the exceptional, tour de force performances by the lead actors, and the interactions they share onscreen. The soundtrack does very well in capturing the zeitgeist of the times, and the brilliant atmospheric visuals make for an exhilarating viewing experience.
p.s. This happens to be my 300th review here. Let me raise a small toast to that.
Director: David Fincher
Genre: Psychological Thriller/Mystery/Ensemble Film/Docu-fiction
Language: English
Country: US
Fatih Akin’s The Edge of Heaven is a morally and psychologically complex tale on human nature – the inherent fallibility in human character, and his futile attempts at reconciling with his life and love. Given that Akin is of Turkish origin, but was born and brought up in Germany, political and cultural diasporas of both the countries form the perfect setting for the rich, temporally fractured tale of three sets of unconnected parent-child pairs brought together through subtle interventions of ‘fate’ – a short-tempered hard-drinking Turkish immigrant and his quiet, educated professor-son; a prostitute living on the streets of Hamburg and her anarchist daughter who’s part of a radical political outfit in Turkey; and, a disapproving German lady and her rebellious daughter. Coincidence plays a strong role as the six fiercely independent yet lonely individuals (incidentally or accidentally) embark a tragic collision course through the vicious cycle of love, loss and their various repercussions. Continuing on the theme of death and bereavement, the emotionally charged movie is gritty like Head-On (though certainly not as much), with an elegiac tone that is deeply affecting. The acting, it ought to be mentioned, is very good without ever being flashy or spectacular.
Director: Fatih Akin
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Political Drama/Ensemble Film
Language: Turkish/German
Country: Turkey/Germany
Clerk is a rapturous, mightily engaging film with distinctly arthouse sensibilities. Boldly experimental without ever being inaccessible, newbie director Subhadro Choudhury has shown the kind of audacity you’d generally expect from a seasoned filmmaker, and the remarkable ability to probe deep into the troubled and complex psyche of his protagonist. The movie stars Prosenjit Chatterjee, in what could be one of the most telling roles of his career, as Biplab – a (possibly schizophrenic) man with a ‘Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde’ kind of dual personality. By day he is a laconic, mild mannered employee in a fast-crumbling company – the kind of ‘chhaposha’ or very ordinary, middle-class Bengali man you wouldn’t look twice at if you were to meet him on the street. However, when this severely lonely, friendless man returns to his small, seedy, decrepit apartment, he gets enmeshed in a fantasy celluloid world, where, over a few drinks, he involves himself in long lovelorn monologues with popular film actresses. The film’s surreal storyline has been superbly aided by its mesmerizing cinematography – the dark, phantasmagoric, hallucinogenic interiors of Biplab’s otherwise dank apartment makes for a memorable viewing experience.
Director: Subhadro Choudhury
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Urban Drama/Avante-Garde/Experimental
Language: Bengali
Country: India
First French film by acclaimed Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Flight of the Red Balloon was inspired by and is a loving homage to Red Balloon, the much loved 1956 short film by Albert Lamorisse. True to that short, a red balloon forms the motif and the quiet driving force for this restrained and tender look at a Parisian family. The movie opens with Simon, a seven year old kid, trying to woo the balloon to come within his grasp, but he fails despite his best efforts. As we are slowly introduced to his family, comprising of him and his mercurial single mother (expertly played by Juliette Binoche), we think of, at first glance, any other quotidian family. But we soon realise that the first scene was a subtle summation of the family too, where undercurrents of failed hopes and dreams are just about masked by a seemingly ‘normal’ exterior. Like good French wine, this leisurely-paced, contemplative and emotionally rich arthouse character-drama too slowly yet surely grows onto its viewers. The wonderfully soothing cinematography and the melancholic classical-based soundtrack add to the beauty and pathos permeating the movie.
Director: Hou Hsiao-Hsien
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Urban Drama/Family Drama
Language: French
Country: France
Werckmeister Harmonies, made by master filmmaker Bela Tarr, isn’t really a movie to everyone’s taste, what with its lumbering pace, non-narrative structure and complex philosophical overtones. Nevertheless, I feel everyone must give it a try, even if it’s just for the experience. As bleak and disturbing a movie as the frozen Hungarian town in which it is set, the movie follows our protagonist Jancos (perhaps a stand-in for the auteur himself), a soft spoken and gullible young man, who works at a post-office and also runs errands for an elderly researcher on music. He marvels at the cosmic harmony in our universe (the opening ‘bar’ sequence is something to be watched to savour) and stares with wide-eyed wonder at the strange bounties ushered by ‘God’ on earth. Meanwhile, the ominous arrival of a traveling circus show has led to the growing murmur, madness and chilling mayhem in the otherwise peaceful-looking town. Set to a haunting, though sparsely used, score, the movie managed to mesmerize and spellbind me with its austere yet devastatingly beautiful black-and-white photography. The most awesome aspect about this epic lies in its brilliant use of gargantuan long-takes (including ones lasting over ten minutes!) that, on one hand, display audacity of the rarest kind, while on the other, intoxicate the viewers by teleporting them right to the desolate, near-surreal landscapes.
Director: Bela Tarr
Genre: Avante-Garde/Experimental/Psychological Drama
Language: Hungarian
Country: Hungary
The epithet used most often to depict Danish auteur Lars von Trier is ‘provocateur’. Because of it, or perhaps even despite it, his most defining feature, for me, is that I find each of his movie as unique, as daring and as distinct as his other movies that I've watched. Yes, in Dogville too there’s a woman suffering at the hands of her tormentors/circumstances as in his Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark or Antichrist. What sets this epic film apart are the stripped-off art décor and set pieces that have given the movie the look, feel, aesthetics and character of a stage play; so does the narrative, which has employed extended, at times rambling, but downright brilliant voiceover of John Hurt, coupled with the deliberately theatrical acting of the terrific cast – Nicole Kidman, Paul Bettany, Stellan Skarsgard et al, to tell the downbeat, philosophical, provocative and Biblical story of societal hypocrisy and double standards. Nicole Kidman, as Grace, an enigmatic woman on the run who seeks refuge in Dogville, a small mining-town in Depression-era America, doesn’t just look ravishingly beautiful, but also fragile and vulnerable, in one of the most nuanced performances of her career. Pictures of that tragic era, shown during the end credits, are extremely evocative.
Director: Lars von Trier
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Avante-Garde/Experimental Film
Language: English
Country: Denmark
Their first directorial effort since the much acclaimed The Son, Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne’s L’Enfant is a more emotionally charged and less morally ambiguous, albeit as psychologically complex tale when compared to the former. Filmed with the kind of stark and grim realism that has become a hallmark for the Dardenne brothers, the movie comprises of a strong social commentary in the story of Bruno, a young small-time hustler who realizes the kind of reverberations that an act of utter ethical and moral callousness – th of selling his new-born baby in the gray market, can cause. His comeuppance becomes really profound not just because Sonia, his girlfriend and the baby’s mother, is expectedly mad at him, but because, perhaps for the first time in his life, he is having to face the immaturity and irresponsibility that have come to define his very existence. Thus, by the time of its powerful final scene, Bruno has become a more rounded person from being just another surface-deep crook. The acting of the two principal leads has helped in exploring the moral chaos that typifies life in a colourless urban jungle. As with The Son, the movie has been filmed in an unspectacular cinema verité style and is devoid of any background score – as if the Dardenne’s camera is just a silent bystander observering life.
Directors: Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Urban Drama
Language: French
Country: Belgium
WALL-E is rated by many a film critic as Pixar’s best work till date. Pixar has established such a reputation with its groundbreaking behind-the-scenes work that one has almost come to take technical virtuosity in their movies for granted. Hence, suffice it to say, WALL-E doesn’t really surprise in that its 3-D animation is a visual delight. Nonetheless, it still managed to be exhilarating by slightly raising its already exalted standards. But what really interested me most was the level of maturity displayed. In fact, the first half-hour of the movie, which is sans any vocals, is, on one hand, a unique and enthralling visual poetry in motion, and on the other, a quietly disturbing view of a dystopian, post-apocalyptic future where the earth is filthy, desolate and uninhabitable. All we see is ‘Waste Allocation Load Lifter – Earth Class’, aka WALL-E, a Chaplinesque robot, quietly going about compacting garbage, and striving to preserve few moments of solace and serenity in its otherwise mundane existence. And then he (it) falls in love with an Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator, resulting in some hilarious gags. Only when ‘humans’ come into the picture does the movie veer towards a cartoonish setting and a more traditional kind of storytelling, which is even heavy-handed at times, thus causing (quite regrettably) the initial brilliance and the ensuing wonderment to sag considerably.
Director: Andrew Stanton
Genre: Animation/Comedy/Satire/Sci-Fi/Adventure
Language: English
Country: US
Aparna Sen was a successful Bengali film actress, and has transitioned as one of the most respected directors of India. Though not very prolific in her output, she has made up with sheer quality, with Paromitar Ek Din ranking as one of her finest directorial efforts. The movie opens with Paromita attending the final services of her former mother-in-law Sanaka, and as memories start filling her mind, elaborate flashbacks are used to reveal her marriage into the family, the slow disintegration of her marriage, and the simultaneous burgeoning bond with the severely lonely Sanaka, over a period of 14 long years. Observant, sensitive, nuanced and profoundly affecting, the movie has managed to capture the various layers that define human relationships – one’s inherent loneliness, fleeting moments of platonic friendship, and the numerous moments of heartbreak that lie in between. Brilliant, devastating performances by Rituparna Sengupta as the serious and reserved Paromita, actor-director Aparna Sen as the Paan (betel leaf)-chewing Sanaka, and Ray favourite Soumitra Chatterjee, as Sanaka’s quietly melancholic childhood friend, and the terrific, elegant cinematography which has managed to capture the distinct flavour of North (old) Calcutta even though nearly the entire movie occurs inside the family’s ancestral home, played their parts in making this an exquisite human drama.
Director: Aparna Sen
Genre: Drama/Family Drama
Language: Bengali
Country: India
That this movie doesn’t belong to the genre of suspense thrillers is amply clear from its title. Yet, such is the successful culmination of the director’s audacious vision and the beauty of the addictive screenplay, that despite the title also serving as its synopsis, the movie manages to make one watch every frame with bated breath. Courtesy its lazy pacing, elegiac tone and the breathtaking splendour of the vignettes captured on screen, this epic revisionist Western about the assassination of the legendary outlaw by a greasy wannabe manages to be brooding, contemplative and insightful look into violence, brutality, death and man’s obsession with celebrity culture. Mesmerizing in its ability to slowly grow on the viewers (even after the end credits have rolled) and incredibly haunting to look at, the movies has been as generously helped by its splendid recreation of the wild West days that is almost nostalgic in its intonation, as by its talented motley crew of actors. Brad Pitt, as one of the fist icons of America, is especially brilliant in his powerful portrayal of an enigmatic man whose mournful exterior masked a psychotic gunman within; Casey Affleck, too, is really good as the queasy and complex young man whose hero worship of Jesse James is gradually replaced with cold jealousy that leads to what the title informed us well in advance.
Director: Andrew Domonik
Genre: Drama/Western/Epic
Language: English
Country: US
Morvern Callar, Lynne Ramsay’s follow-up to her acclaimed debut feature Ratcatcher, a hauntingly beautiful, intensely moody (even angry, if you will) and highly visceral poetry on celluloid. Only that, unlike the latter, lyricism has been replaced with a more grimy approach, thus making watching the movie a strangely liberating, albeit claustrophobic experience. Morvern Caller (played with astounding subtlety, maturity and fearlessness by Samantha Morton), is a working-class girl who, one not-so-fine day, wakes up in her apartment to find that her boyfriend has slit his wrists and is lying in a pool of blood. However, contrary to how one would expect her to act a situation such as this, in a case of reverse nervous breakdown, she decides to start “living” her life by going on a vacation with her best friend to Spain, and even decides to pass off her beau’s unpublished novel as her own. Ramsay has displayed tremendous confidence in her ability as a visual storyteller by presenting the disquieting and emotionally naked tale of existential grief and angst with a barrage of psychedelic images and lighting, sprayed with an intoxicating expressionistic splash, which in turn have been aided by a superb hip-punk soundtrack.
Director: Lynne Ramsay
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Road Movie
Language: English
Country: UK (Scotland)
The title of the French movie A Christmas Tale, by Arnaud Desplechin, is deliciously misleading, and reminded me a lot about another brilliant movie, Rituparno Ghosh’s Utsab (The Festival). Both the movies are about the getting together of a large family on the occasion of the most important festival of the respective community (Christmas in the former, and Durga Puja in the latter). However, the inherent joy and celebration surrounding the festivals form the perfect springboard for each director to put the respective family under scanner and open a can of worms in the process. The matriarch of the Vuillard family has been diagnosed with cancer, and hence the entire family – her daughter and two sons, along with their respective spouses and/or fiancé, as well, her nephew, have decided to forget their personal problems and differences for once and celebrate Christmas together at their family mansion. Alas, amidst all the brouhaha and fun, familial strains and conflicts become that much more pronounced in this irreverent, cynical and darkly comic, yet surprisingly humane movie, that hasn’t shied away from making biting observations at topics ranging from alcoholism and unrequited love to illness and death. The acting is wonderful throughout; yet special mention must be made of the stately Catherine Deneuve and the amazing Mathew Amalric.
Director: Arnaud Desplechin
Genre: Drama/Black Comedy/Family Drama/Ensemble Film
Language: French
Country: France
Antichrist might not be Lars von Trier’s best movie, but it might just be the one he would like to be remembered by. This movie has world cinema’s enfant terrible at his most unapologetically and unflinchingly provocative – a movie that has divided the house right down the middle. Technically the movie belongs in the horror genre; but any work by the Danish provocateur never really sticks to any genre conventions, in the same way that he gives the feather to the fact that moralists love to scorn him, as here, for his disturbing, often shocking, and at times even outrageous display of explicit sexual content, violence, nihilism, and misogyny (the latter, quite inappropriately, always seems to be stuck to his movies). Yet, for all its detractors, the movie is also an audacious, angry, disturbing wildly inventive, and even deeply poetic exposition and unraveling of the darkest corners of the human psyche. In fact, the movie’s prologue, shot in slow-mo black-and-whites, was to me filmmaking at its most ravishingly beautiful and devastating. Charlotte Gainsbourg, as a woman inconsolably grieving her infant son’s death, and William Defoe, as a psychotherapist and her not-so-grieving husband who takes his wife on as his patient, are fearless and brilliant. As a reviewer rightly put it, Antichrist is a movie that is to be experienced rather than explained. And that, had Alfred Hitchcock been alive, he would have loved to make this movie himself.
Director: Lars von Trier
Genre: Horror/Psychological Drama/Religious Drama
Language: English
Country: Denmark
The refreshingly offbeat movie Barking Dogs Never Bite, by Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho, has all those thematic and stylistic aspects, quirks and trademark tar-black black humour that would reach memorable heights three years later in his Memories of Murder. Like the latter, this darkly funny movie managed to make me laugh and cringe simultaneously by gleefully throwing sharp, pointed jabs at the darker aspects of human nature and society. With an aptly discordant yet snazzy Jazz soundtrack as accompaniment, the movie presents the ordinary-as-hell lives of a dog-hating university lecturer married to a nagging wife and hoping to someday find enough money to bribe his way to a long overdue promotion, and a neurotic young girl who spends all her days doing tidbits of community service in the hope that someday it’ll earn her fame and recognition. The director, through his whimsical comic placements, ironies and searing observations, has made these two otherwise utterly mundane characters – in essence fringe personas of the society – unique, distinctive and utterly commendable through generous interjections of idiosyncrasies in their personalities and in their interactions. And like Ameros Perros, I'd strongly advise dog lovers & PETA activists to stay away from this one too.
Director: Bong Joon-ho
Genre: Comedy/Black Comedy/Social Satire
Language: Korean
Country: South Korea
Pedro Almodovar, who, like Rituparno Ghosh, is often known as a women’s director, has for once made a movie for the male counterparts with Talk to Her. Almodovar certainly knows how to turn a tale of offbeat, curious relationships into a stirring, even haunting ode to love, longing and loneliness. The movie follows the development of an unlikely friendship between a male nurse and a journalist – the former in silent unidirectional love with a comatose patient he is taking care of with singular devotion and the latter in a burgeoning relationship with a famous female bullfighter which comes to a screeching halt when she gets maimed on one not-so-lucky day at office. The movie is difficult to explain, especially in the kind of concise reviews that I write, as it is less about what transpires on screen vis-à-vis what goes within, unsaid and implied. Hence, though we may be able to seemingly distinguish between the real and surreal, the two, in essence, blend and get juxtaposed quite fluidly, thus creating a dream-like world, albeit comprising of undeniably physical people. The acting is natural without going overboard, thus ensuring that the complex emotional quotient at interplay between the characters manages to be powerful in its silent impacts. And thanks to the classical structure of the movie, the pathos in the characters and their interactions is all the more somber and perceptible.
Director: Pedro Almodovar
Genre: Drama/Romantic Drama/Psychological Drama
Language: Spanish
Country: Spain
The Royal Tenenbaums is Wes Anderson’s ode to oddball characters and a surreal poetry in motion. Quirky, irreverent, whimsical and mordantly witty, the movie’s humour content is remarkably intelligent and darkly funny, but it never borders on cheap parody. Rather, by infusing in subtle yet palpable layers of humanism and pathos at just the right places, Anderson has shown his remarkable gift at entertaining and insightful storytelling. The movie, which is about a dysfunctional family comprising of an outrageously idiosyncratic bunch of members (played with deadpan brilliance by its ensemble cast spearheaded by Gene Hackman, and including the likes of Angelica Huston, Ben Stiller, Gweneth Paltrow and Luke Wilson, with able supports from Bill Murray, Owen Wilson and Danny Glover), which breaks apart, almost irreparably, when the family’s patriarch Royal Tenenbaum announces his separation from his wife. Now, 20 years later, he decides to do some damage control, resulting in hilarious gags as well as moments of soul-searching beauty. The movie, like the equally oddball The Darjeeling Limited, also boasts of a terrific, nostalgic soundtrack.
Director: Wes Anderson
Genre: Comedy/Social Satire/Black Comedy/Ensemble Film
Language: English
Country: US
Despite returning from a long hiatus – 12 years to be precise since he made Titanic, James Cameron has yet again shown his unsurpassed ability in making larger-than-life blockbusters with Avatar, a project that had been gestating for quite a long time. The movie is of epic proportions, and it screams to be seen (and preferably in 3-D), though it should not be taken as seriously as the director perhaps intended it to be. Cameron certainly hasn’t forgotten how to enrapture his audience, even though the visual extravaganza and technical virtuosity of the, well, preposterous end product, surpassed its intellectual or artistic merit or the pseudo-emotional content by a very long distance. This Matrix-meets-Last of the Mohicans-meets-Arthur Conan Doyle’s Lost World-meets-Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, Avatar, which is about power-hungry plutocrats trying to colonize a far-off plant named Pandora and its indigenous inhabitants called the Na’vi, and which could easily be seen as a political allegory to George Bush’s annexing of Iraq for oil, albeit in the name of ‘war against terrorism’, is a stupendous spectacle that one will enjoy despite its wafer-thin plot and shallow script.
Director: James Cameron
Genre: Sci-Fi/Action/Fantasy
Language: English
Country: US
The epithets that might closely define Fatih Akin’s Head-On are, in my opinion, grimy, brooding and bare-assed. Akin completely stripped off any sugar-coatings while displaying human frailties and loneliness at their rawest and most naked – both literally and otherwise. The movie concerns the unlikely emotional connect that develops between two severely self-destructive Turkish immigrants residing in Germany – Cahit, an angst-ridden, hard-drinking 40-something widower living in a state of perpetual disarray, and Sibel, a suicidal young girl whose free, rebellious spirit is at complete odds with her restrictive and conservative family – both roles passionately and fearlessly performed. Despite its content of intense emotions, the movie never plays out as either sentimental or exploitative; rather, it is disturbing, downbeat, provocative and unabashedly erotic. In fact, by using a Turkish folk-song as a motif and to loosely divide the movie into various chapters, it seemed to me structurally quite similar to Lars von Triar’s devastating masterpiece Breaking the Waves. And by mixing punk and grunge rock tracks with exotic Turkish numbers in the score, Akin has managed to be unflinchingly brutal yet surprisingly humane in nearly every frame of the movie.
Director: Fatih Akin
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Romance
Language: German/Turkish
Country: Germany/Turkey
The Squid and the Whale is one of the most incisive looks into the breaking-down of a marriage and its various repercussions. Yet, despite the topic being a ready-made recipe for a deadly serious tone, or a pungent black comedy for that matter, Noah Baumbach managed to do the near impossible by seamlessly traversing a fine middle ground. The prime reason for his being able to do that, and in managing to infuse sensitivity and humanism and not just sharp wit, might be the semi-autobiographical nature of the story – the director’s parents too went through a similarly acrimonious divorce proceeding when he was in his teens. The movie revolves around the gradual disintigration in the marital relationship of an erudite once-famous writer and his wife, who, to his dismay, has grown in popularity as a budding writer (they are the intellectual equivalents of an aristocrat and a nouveau riche, respectively), and the damaging effects on their two kids – a teenager who has taken after his intellectually-inclined father, and a 12-year old who, declaring himself a “philistine”, (not so subtly) sides with his mother. The standout performance in the movie belongs to the surprisingly brilliant Jeff Daniels, while the kids and the ever reliable Laura Linney, too, are quite exceptional. The movie also boasts of an exquisite pop-soundtrack.
Director: Noah Baumbach
Genre: Drama/Family Drama/Coming-of-Age
Language: English
Country: US
Fulltime Killer is Hong Kong filmmaker Johny To’s unabashed expression of his love affair with the action genre. In fact the movie abounds in scenes and sequences that pay homage to a range of thumping contemporary action flicks like Terminator I & II, Heat, Desperado and Assassins, as well as earlier-era masterpieces like Rear Window. Further, it is a decent blend of stylish action sequences and fast-paced editing, and Adrian Lau’s turn as a psychotic killer is really fun to watch. However, despite the plethora of references and the reasonably entertaining watch, the movie certainly falls short of any lasting impact. By trying to aim at too many things, the director has failed to make any of the subplots of this kinetic take of one-upmanship between two assassins (a laconic, unparalleled hitman, and his younger and brasher rival) and their vying for the attention of a shy, beautiful girl, anything more than just about moderate. The movie, quite unfortunately, has followed a downward curve – it starts off really well with the look of an existential and fatalistic tale of contract killers, perhaps something like Le Samourai or A Bittersweet Life, but by the time it ends, it is hardly any better than the over-the-top, farcical climax.
Directors: Johny To & Wai Ka-Fai
Genre: Action, Thriller
Language: Mandarin/Japanese
Country: Hong Kong (China)
Dardenne brothers’ The Son is a difficult movie to classify, and hence assess in a few words as I do here. A complex and quietly unsettling character study, the movie is about revenge and catharsis – only that, like Revanche, the revenge never happens, and the catharsis is muted to the point of silent implosion. Oliver Gourment, a regular in the Belgian siblings’ movies, has given a deeply layered and restrained, yet undeniably breathtaking performance as Oliver, a middle-aged and laconic carpentry instructor who, incidentally or accidentally, comes in contact with a young apprentice who in turn, many years back, was responsible for his son’s death. The fist half of the movie is about his growing albeit fidgety obsession with the boy, while the second lies in his trying to come to peace with his own mind, once and for all. The camera movement, which continually follows Oliver from his back, makes watching the movie a deeply disorienting and onerous experience; yet, strangely, it paves way to a feel of immediacy and passive attachment to the withdrawn protagonist who might not have been as accessible to the viewers otherwise. This arthouse movie might thus be relentlessly bleak, disquieting and demanding, but the end product is a powerful, layered and enriching work of art laced with grim realism, religious symbolisms and metaphors.
Director: Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama
Language: French
Country: Belgium
Ratcatcher, Scottish director Lynne Ramsay’s exceptional debut feature film (she was earlier into making award-winning short films), is an exceedingly bleak yet hauntingly lyrical coming-of-age story of a 12-year old resident of Glasgow. Set during the 1973-strike of garbage-workers, working-class Glasgow here is a picture of squalor, decadence and grunge. And amidst a plethora of rats and an equally filthy group of hooligans resides James, a frail, socially inept and emotionally withdrawn boy (more so because of his role in the accidental death of a neighbourhood kid), who lives with his parents and siblings, forms an unlikely platonic-relationship with an older, troubled girl, and dreams of moving into their new house in the countryside. On one hand, the movie might not be easily palatable for its grim subject matter, and disconsolate, dreary and disturbing portrayal of poverty, juvenile delinquency, broken homes and self-destruction; on the other, it boasts of moments of absolutely stunning visual beauty that is almost heartbreaking in its candid depiction of the world through a child’s eyes. The movie isn’t so much about its plot as it is about its imagery and characterizations. And in its daring (and at times, even poignant) portrayal of not-so-innocent children, Ramsay kick-started her tryst with cinema in quite memorable fashion.
Director: Lynne Ramsay
Genre: Drama/Urban Drama/Coming-of-Age
Language: English
Country: UK (Scotland)
Hit List, Sandip Ray’s first foray outside “Feluda” movies (adapted from stories written by his late father Satyajit Ray) since the wonderful Nishijapon, has yielded, at best, mixed results. The movie was touted as a thriller, and it opens quite spectacularly with a murder that is almost Hitchcockian in its fine buildup. However, it would be more prudent to consider the movie as a psychological drama reminiscent of lowbrow film noirs – yeah, those iconic low-angle shots are there in plenty. The executive director of an advertising agency, on unraveling a corrupt deal by four colleagues of his, get bumped off and his body disposed such that his death looks like a case of drunken driving. However, as the saying goes, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”, his lovely wife (played with surprising élan by Koel Mallick), who is bloody pissed off, decides to get even-steven with the scot-free culprits. The acting is decent throughout if not spectacular; Saheb Chatterjee was especially impressive, though Dhritiman Chatterjee, in my opinion, was wasted. Perhaps a whodunit structure might have worked better as the similarly styled (though far superior) Shubho Mahurat, by Rituparno Ghosh, did. Agreed, the movie didn’t manage to match our high expectations – in that sense it’s a disappointment. However, despite a few loopholes here and there, I wouldn’t be so highbrow as to call it a failure.
Director: Sandip Ray
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Mystery
Language: Bengali
Country: India
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