Crimes and Misdemeanors, one of Woody’s most ambitious and haunting
works, was a marvelous blend of his life-long penchant for witty and humorous
dramedies on urban neurosis, with his growing interest in dark, bleak and chilling
examination of morality and existence borne out of his admiration for Bergman. It
comprised of two loosely-connected, inter-weaving stories each of which could
have been expanded into full-length features – Judah Rosenthal (Martin Landau),
a wealthy, ageing family man who’s renowned as an ophthalmologist and a
philanthropist, is secretly plagued by his emotionally unstable mistress
(Anjelica Huston), thus forcing him to take assistance of his brother (Jerry
Orbach), who has contacts with the underworld, in order to be released of the
quagmire, only to be left deeply troubled by the moral consequences of what
follows; Cliff Stern (Allen), a documentary filmmaker struggling to complete
his pet project on a little-known philosopher (Martin S. Bergmann), reluctantly
agrees to direct a profile on the successful but incorrigibly smug and pompous brother
(Alan Ada) of his wife (Joanna Gleason), with whom his marriage has hit rock
bottom, whereupon he meets and starts falling for a lovely and intelligent TV
producer (Mia Farrow) on account of their shared interests and tastes. The rich
tapestries and emotional profundity of the two contrasting and yet mutually
reinforcing storylines – brilliantly photographed and incredibly enacted by the
ensemble cast – powerfully touched upon such themes as crime and punishment, guilt,
redemption, personal reconciliation, disillusion, marital breakdown, unrequited
love, existential dilemma, and crisis of faith.
Note: My earlier review of the film can be found here
Director: Woody Allen
Genre: Drama/Comedy/Crime Drama/Psychological Drama/Existential Drama/Social Satire/Romantic Comedy/Ensemble Film
Language: English
Country: US
Saura
began the 70s, easily the most explosive and devastatingly brilliant decade of
his illustrious career, with The Garden
of Delights. An absurdist, allegorical, subversive and trenchant
socio-political critique of the Franco era, and the callous, self-serving
allegiance of the bourgeoisie towards the dictator’s draconian regime in
particular, the film served as a fabulous pre-cursor to his ‘Trilogy of
Memories’, and the masterful Cousin Angelica in particular, in its incisive infusion of surrealism
and memory as a dominant narrative device. Antonio (José Luis López Vázquez), a
middle-aged man, and formerly a powerful businessman, residing in a palatial
mansion, has become afflicted with amnesia, partial paralysis and speech
impairment after a road accident, prompting his ageing father (Francisco Pierrá),
his wife and his children to participate in a grotesque and elaborate game of
recreating key incidents from his life in order to revive his lost memories. As
is eventually disclosed, the reasons aren’t strictly borne out of familial love
and care; rather, in order to recover the key to where his wealth is stashed
as, post his handicap, the family’s fortunes have taken a nosedive taking them
close to bankruptcy, even though their elaborate lifestyles might suggest
otherwise. The hypocrisy, self-centeredness, superficiality and corruption that
pervade their lives, and in turn Franco’s anti-Fascist stance, was laid
threadbare in this brilliantly concocted work. The marvelously staged sequence,
where Antonio’s communion at the hands of an orthodox and parochial priest is
brought to a halt by a mob of rebels at the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War,
was the film’s indictment of Franco’s pet institutions at its most decisive and
memorable.
Director: Carlos Saura
Genre: Drama/Social Satire/Black Comedy
Language: Spanish
Country: Spain
The
aptly titled Swedish psychological drama Force
Majeure provided a pointed jab on the social construct and presumptions
that form the basis of the conventional definition of a family. The split-second
choice that results out of a sudden and unavoidable catastrophe was used by the
director Ruben Östlund to launch a potent commentary on the patriarchal nature
of our social fabric, with husbands and fathers playing the traditional role of
protectors and saviours, thus making this both an effective marriage drama and
a sly social satire. Tomas (Johannes Bah Kuhnke), a wealthy Swedish
businessman, while on a 5-day skiing vacation in the incredibly scenic and
tranquil French Alps with his wife Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli) and their two kids,
panics, in a disastrous choice, flees, when a controlled avalanche goes awry. Even
though, eventually, the moment of panic seems ill-founded, the very fact that his
survival instincts had gotten the better of his judgement start slowly eating
away the very foundation of their marriage – it starts with little itches and
gradually evolves into a full-blown crisis which takes them dangerously close
to marital collapse until, in another unanticipated, but in this case
fortuitous development, an act of masculinity and courage restores his place of
honour in the family. In one brilliantly staged sequence, the relationship
between their friend Mats (Kristofer Hivju) and his young girlfriend (Fanni
Metelius), experience a mini-crisis when they become inadvertent witnesses to
Tomas and Ebba’s growing marital breakdown. Heavily recalling Haneke’s
cinematic style, the stark, blinding white visuals marvelously captured the film’s
wry and cold tonal palette, and its unsettling critique of bourgeois banality, hypocrisy
and conflict.
Director: Ruben Ostlund
Genre: Drama/Marriage Drama/Psychological Drama
Language: Swedish/English
Country: Sweden
Like
Jia Zhangke’s masterful hyperlink film A Touch of Sin, Wild Tales is that
rare anthology film where every segment packed as much punch as the other, and
rarer still given that all the episodes have been directed by the same
filmmaker. This lacerating satire, set in contemporary urban Argentinian
milieu, provided a brutal, pungent, wickedly funny and powerful critique on the
discomfiting ironies, hypocrisies, self-centeredness, corruption and
destructiveness amongst human populace, with revenge being the connecting motif. The film comprises of 6 terrific shorts
of varying lengths each of which could have been elongated to feature lengths –
in ‘Pasternak’, the shortest of the
lot that superbly set the tone, passengers aboard a doomed plane discover a
carefully orchestrated link between themselves; in ‘The Rats’, the waitress at a diner discover the chance to get even
with a brutish politician thanks to a sociopathic cook; in ‘The Strongest’, a vicious segment
reminiscent of Duel, two men driving
cars on a highway go to ludicrous lengths for the sake of one-upmanship; in ‘Little Bomb’, reminiscent of Falling Down, a demolitions expert reaches a state of breaking point when his
car keeps getting towed away for no fault of his; in ‘The Proposal’, a wealthy business man, on his sleazy lawyer’s
advice, devises ways for saving his son who has accidentally killed a pregnant
lady while driving; and in the Felliniesque ‘Until Death Do Us Part’, a boisterous wedding party turns rather
ugly for all concerned. The film’s Kafkaesque, jet-black humour, along with the increasingly
farcical and unexpected turns that the tales take, brilliantly counterpointed and
mercilessly projected its bleak and cynical social commentary, and in turn constructed
a fabulous microcosm of our society.
Director: Damian Szifron
Genre: Black Comedy/Social Satire/Anthology Film
Language: Spanish
Country: Argentina
Tales
of marginalized and delinquent youths living carefree lives filled with
violence and crime, and by their own moral codes governed by ‘here and now’ and
a royal disregard for the powers that be, only to be eventually consumed by the
ambit of crime and punishment, has been a theme covered memorably on numerous
occasions, in noirs and counter-culture films of US, Japan and elsewhere. Deprisa Deprisa, the film that Saura
began the 80s with and a final tryst for the time being with socio-political
commentary before he dramatically changed gears with Blood Wedding, provided a distressing but lyrical portrayal of a
socially and morally displaced generation, and evoked memories of Oshima’s Cruel Story of Youth, among others. The
film comprised of a quartet of young adults whose quiet and sensitive natures
are in direct contravention to the world of crime around them – Pablo (José
Antonio Valdelomar), his pretty sweetheart Ángela (Berta Socuéllamos), his
buddy Meca (Jesús Arias) and an import to their group Sebas (José María Hervás
Roldán). Though they keep making quick money through armed robberies and have
good times in between, it’s obvious that their presents are as fragile as
illusive are their dreams of a settled future. Their actions soon catch up with
them when a bank heist goes horribly wrong, leading them to tragic, albeit
anticipated, comeuppance. The washed out visuals, minimally used electronic
score and liltingly captured themes of love, friendship and camaraderie, were very
well juxtaposed with their harsh, bleak and unsustainable lives in the
post-Franco void, thus further emphasizing the grand tragedy of their brief
existences.
Director: Carlos Saura
Genre: Drama/Crime Drama
Language: Spanish
Country: Spain
