Once Upon a Time in Gaza [2025]

 Directed by Nasser Brothers – identical Palestinian twins Tarzan and Arab – Once Upon A Time in Gaza is what the seemingly hackneyed title suggests, viz. a wacky potpourri of politics and meta-references. It’s made in the veins of a revisionist Western – populated with crooked characters, crumbling moralities, wry ironies, stylized dynamics, grimy landscapes and random violence – and set in the titular city which has been under a draconian siege for decades. It’s particularly shaped by the brothers’ intent in capturing life – with its idiosyncrasies, inconsistencies and arbitrariness – beyond the blockade, apartheid and genocide that informed its backdrop, and strongly recalled the great Elia Suleiman’s films. Divided into two disparate halves, the first was led by Osama (Majd Eid), a gregarious and amoral hustler who runs a small falafel outlet and peddles in smuggled painkillers on the side; he employs the unassuming Yahya (Nader Abd Alhay), and faces a deadly face-off with Abou (Ramzi Maqdisi), a nasty cop wanting a pie of the drug trade. The focus shifts to Yahya in the second half where, traumatized by Osama’s murder by Abou (who’s now grown in power), he’s offered to star as a martyred revolutionary in an agitprop action film sponsored by Gaza’s Ministry of Culture. Though the two halves felt disjointed – sardonic slice-of-life followed by deliberately self-reflexive events – they together carried a free interpretation of the good, the bad and the ugly personas from Sergio Leone’s iconic spaghetti Western. Majid was captivating, as were the grubby locales, subaltern subtext and deadpan humour. Filmed in Jordan by the exiled brothers, it also featured snippets from the subversive, over-the-top movie-within-movie, and operatically-scored funeral processions that nodded at Kalatozov ‘s magnificent I Am Cuba.

Director: Tarzan & Arab Nasser

Genre: Black Comedy/Political Satire/Crime Thriller/Buddy Film/Neo-Western/Action

Language: Arabic

Country: Palestine

Sirāt [2025]

 Óliver Laxe’s existential road movie Sirāt was both an unconventional film and a film made unconventionally. Combining the hellish journey of outsiders with nothing to lose (except their lives) in Clouzot’s Wages of Fear – or perhaps more appropriately, due to their tonal likeness, Friedkin’s remake Sorcerer – and the dystopian, post-apocalyptic landscapes of Mad Max, with the monomaniac quest of a father for his daughter who’s switched sides with the “philistines”, so to speak, in Ford’s The Searchers, it formed an elemental and sensorial experience. The latter aspect was heightened by its hyper-saturated realism, a visceral audiovisual palette counterpointing a stripped-down narrative, and its embracing of a techno-trance world where music is for dancing rather than listening to. Set in the harsh and visually stunning deserts of southern Morocco – captured through electrifying cinematography and accompanied by a pulsating electronic score – its primal setup followed Luis (Sergi López), a middle-aged man who, along with his adolescent son Esteban, joins a subaltern group of nomadic misfits residing outside societal boundaries – and whose raison d'être is to reach transcendence through hallucinogenic music and drugs – in search of his missing daughter. They meet at a throbbing rave held in the desert, and when that’s dismantled by the cops, they embark on a crazy ride that evolves from thrilling and immersive to tragic and shocking, to reach another illegal rave – Luis, hoping to locate his daughter, and the eccentric gang for music that never ends. This was, therefore, a story that begins in media res and ends just as abruptly, and the arbitrary violence, meaninglessness and breakdown of civilization that they encounter served as proxy to the third world war that blazes outside the frames.

Director: Oliver Laxe

Genre: Psychological Thriller/Neo-Western/Road Movie/Adventure/Epic

Language: Spanish/French/Arabic

Country: Spain

Killers of the Flower Moon [2023]

 Martin Scorsese’s bravura adaptation of the acclaimed nonfiction book of the same name by David Grann – for the 44^th feature-length film of his storied career – is a bleak, brooding, engrossing and sprawling meditation on evil, greed and the capitalist excesses. It simultaneously delved into the rotten core of settler-colonialism, and specifically, the genocidal “birth” of a nation-state at the bloody-soaked expense of indigenous populations. This ambitious work – that freely worked in equal measures as revisionist Western, slow-burn crime, black comedy, existential horror and historical epic – delivered a macabre retelling of the serial killings – bordering on extermination – of the Osage people, who’d discovered oil in Oklahoma and became incredibly wealthy upon their forced relocation there, by white supremacists who wanted to seize control of the massive oil money. That Native Americans were patronized as sub-humans, made it easier to carry out the massacre with impunity, braggadocio and untroubled conscience. In a remarkable reworking of the book, which had primarily chronicled the proto-FBI’s investigations into the crimes, Scorsese focused instead on the perpetrators – specifically, the calcified and slimy William Hale (Robert De Niro), an affluent cattle rancher whose seemingly genial attitude towards the Osage community masks his monstrous heart, and his dim-witted and easily manipulated nephew Ernest Bucharest (Leonardo DiCaprio) who enters into a “poisonous” marriage to Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone) as part of his uncle’s elaborate nefarious and murderous scheme. Both Scorsese regulars were outstanding in their embodiment of the grotesque underbelly of American history. In a formally blazing and politically audacious finale, the tragic saga is transformed into a lurid radio opera, thus providing a cutting commentary on how popular media cynically repurposes historical injustices into kitschy consumerist fodder.

Director: Martin Scorsese

Genre: Revisionist Western/Crime Drama/Docufiction/Historical Epic

Language: English

Country: US

Nope [2022]

 Jordan Peele constructed Nope like a multi-layered cake – wryly revisionist Western, acerbic satire on insatiable consumerism, and delightfully original sci-fi thriller that resorted to clever reworking of hackneyed genre tropes. It was also ecstatically permeated with metatextual elements through ironic references to movies and showbiz spectacles – through the recurrent motif of the camera’s gaze, audience’s voyeuristic impulses and exploitive nature of the industry – while resonant political readings were consciously invested into the narrative; the latter aspect made it particularly interesting for me, having watched it in succession with Kimi and Emily the Criminal over a long flight, given how the scripts were charged with topical political subtexts, even if, in this case, the scope was broader, the form more complex and the commentary subtler. Peele, therefore, displayed considerable audacity in composing this film; and, even though its zany ideas and moving parts didn’t always combine into a coherent whole, that never made it any less enjoyable. The brooding, taciturn OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and his sister Em (Keke Palmer), who has bundles of dramatic flair, are struggling to keep their family business afloat – training and handling horses for film productions, out of their ranch in rural California – and therefore the legacy of being descendants of the nameless black man in Eadweard Muybridge's pioneering Animal Locomotion, after their dad mysteriously dies of a metallic piece that falls from the sky. Having had to sell most their stable to a former child actor (Steven Yeun), who’d faced a horrible experience while shooting and now runs a kitschy theme park, they decide to capture on camera – as their foolproof ticket to the wealth – a sinister UFO that’s been stalking the desolate, breathtaking place.

Director: Jordan Peele

Genre: Sci-Fi Horror/Western/Mystery/Showbiz Satire

Language: English

Country: US

Dry Ground Burning [2022]

 Dry Ground Burning, as the title indicated, was scorched, grimy and incendiary, and – as a ferociously feminist, bleakly dystopian and boldly political film; cinema of resistance; an exercise in agitprop; grungy, revisionist Western; speculative thriller; “ethnographic sci-fi”; and a work of docufiction – operated, with formal suppleness, in the shifting intersection of multiple genres. It simultaneously captured Bolsenaro’s toxic, right-wing politics, and evoked a nightmarish “what-if” scenario wherein the country has devolved into a post-apocalyptic police state and carceral society, leading to underground dissidents defiantly seizing pockets of control. And what a brash defiance it was! An all-female collective of outlaws and residents of the impoverished Sol Nascente favela in the outskirts of Brasilia – comprising of Chitarra (Joana Darc Furtado), a single mother and the voluptuous leader of the gasolinheiras; her nonchalant half-sister Léa (Léa Alves da Silva), who’s recently been released from jail; and Andreia (Andreia Vieira), who’s founded the Prison People Party with the aim to provide voice and empowerment to people, especially women, who continue to face terrible discrimination and impediments on account of past incarcerations – have taken control of an underground pipeline from which they extract crude gasoline, refine it into oil and sell that to a motorcycle gang for distribution. The film’s three gangsta protagonists – whose lives, in a blurring of boundaries, mirrored that of the respective actors –, therefore, formed a fearless vanguard and represented a proud future that “isn’t just female: it is Black, lesbian, profoundly matriarchal.” Its most scintillating moments included Andreia’s rap-canvassing of her political manifesto, and a hypnotic pan within a Bolsenaro rally where the crowd of smug conservatives was the very antithesis of this film and its three heroines.

Director: Joana Pimenta & Adirley Queiros

Genre: Drama/Sci-Fi/Revisionist Western/Crime Drama

Language: Portuguese

Country: Brazil

The Power of the Dog [2021]

 The Power of the Dog, Jane Campion’s first feature in a decade, is a film that’s bound to keep one unbalanced – for its genre subversions, psychological interplays and character dichotomies. It’s a spare, moody and stunningly composed revisionist Western, but it’s temporal setting, locational vistas and stylistic archetypes aside, it’s almost an anti-Western in how it’s focused on complicated relationships and anachronous thematic explorations. It’s a brooding, and oftentimes ferocious, meditation on a man’s complex relationship with his brother, demons, vocation, identity, garbled notions of manhood, and most importantly, conflicted sexuality. Phil Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch) is the quintessential Western anti-hero – tough, macho, taciturn, gruff, unpredictable, with natural-born leadership qualities and a sinister penchant for violence; and yet, ironically, he was academically brilliant, has a talent in music, is emotionally bound to his brother George (Jesse Plemons) – whose plump, soft-spoken, gentle demeanour, and intellectual mediocrity couldn’t make them more antithetical – to the point where it’s discomfiting, and is ravaged by a scalding sense of conflicts, guilt and vulnerability. His brazen and brutal self-assuredness, therefore, are profoundly affected when George marries Rose (Kirsten Dunst) – a widowed and emotionally fragile single mother bordering on alcoholism – and brings her to their home; and if his brother’s love getting divided isn’t enough, they’re joined in their arid cattle ranch by Rose’s frail and artistic young son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee), who Phil torments to start with but takes him under his wings with feelings bordering on homoerotic, the way he’d once become a protégé to his dashing late mentor he hero-worships. The oblique and gripping tale bordering on the gothic – laced with ambiguity and simmering melodrama – is led by a terrific, smouldering turn by Cumberbatch.

Director: Jane Campion

Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Western

Language: English

Country: New Zealand

Breaking Bad [2008-2013]

 Breaking Bad possibly ranks – alongside Sopranos and The Wire – as one of the most acclaimed American crime TV series of the last few decades, in terms of both popular and critical consensus. Though it took time to garner viewership – its creator Vince Galligan, in fact, had to pitch the idea to multiple networks before being hesitatingly accepted by AMC – by the time it concluded its run of 5 seasons, it was among the most watched, discussed and awarded television shows of all time. The distracting fandom/hype surrounding it aside, it does remain a smart, compelling, brilliantly written and superbly realized show that slowly grows on one thanks to its original, unconventional storyline – albeit using a frighteningly real scenario as its springboard –; blend of multiple genre elements – crime, black comedy, family drama, morality play, Western –; a protagonist who one roots for even though he transitions into a fiendish antagonist; and interjections of ingenuity, dark undercurrents, ethical wranglings and violence into an otherwise deliberately paced narrative. The basic premise involved middle-aged high school chemistry teacher Walter White (Bryan Cranston) – bitter, proud, overqualified, underpaid and suffering from mid-life crisis – who, upon being diagnosed with stage-three lung cancer, gets into crystal meth production and distribution in order to pay for his treatment and secure financial security for his family. Cranston displayed a gripping screen presence, and was ably supported by a fine support cast – notably his headstrong wife Skylar (Anna Gunn); emotionally vulnerable meth addict and Walter’s partner Jesse (Aaron Paul) with whom he shares a complex relationship; incredibly capable DEA agent Hank (Dean Norris); deceptively vicious druglord Gus (Giancarlo Esposito); unctuous, resourceful and hilariously crooked lawyer Saul (Bob Odenkirk), etc.

 

 

 

 

 

Directors: Vince Gilligan et al

Genre: Crime Drama/Western/Family Drama/TV Series

Language: English

Country: US

Wind from the East (Le Vent d'Est) [1970]

 Wind from the East, the first formal collaboration between Godard and Gorin (the release years for the collective’s films are often difficult to pin down, on account of having been made outside studio, distribution and theatrical systems), was a straight-up, unadulterated and undiluted exercise in polemics more akin to a political pamphlet / lecture vis-à-vis a more involving discourse. This rather drab, uninviting work – filled with lengthy diatribe – was also a rarity in the French iconoclast’s canon for being nearly bereft of his off-balancing, tongue-in-cheek humour. And yet, a film of his is never formally dull or intellectually trite or lacking in confrontational posturing, as evidenced by its sly mix of disparate images, genre subversion, outspokenness and lashing critique on both bourgeois hypocrisy and revisionist tendencies. And, like Le Gai Savoir, he also posited his revolutionary ideas on cinema – therefore underscoring DVG’s manifesto about not just making political films, but films politically – albeit without the earlier film’s impish playfulness. It operated along two planes – one real and in the present, while the other in a staged, "metaphorical past – with both deconstructing conflicts between the bourgeoisie, revisionists and militants. The former strand postulated the contrasting interpretations to a factory strike by the three groups – the capitalist class is derisory and hostile, the party bosses advocate moderation, while radical agitators are antithetical to compromise. And this dynamic was then enacted through the parodic artifice of a mock Spaghetti Western filled with types, ideological pedagogy, metatextual devices and interweaving harangue advocating violent counteractions to fascism, racism and oppression. Anne Wiazemsky aside, this experimental featured Italian thespian Gian Maria Volonté who was as known for iconic roles as for his firebrand left-wing affiliations.

 

 

 

 

 

Directors: Jean-Luc Godard & Jean-Pierre Gorin

Genre: Drama/Spaghetti Western/Essay Film/Agitprop/Experimental Film

Language: French

Country: France

Nomadland [2020]

 The most absorbing aspect of Chloé Zhao’s restrained, layered and painfully beautiful neo-Western Nomadland – adapted from Jessica Bruder’s acclaimed non-fiction book – lay in how it was imbued with seemingly contradictory aspects; grand in its narrative scope and yet intimate in its portrayals, underlying political observations vis-à-vis humanist overtones, and docu-fictional form. This last aspect especially stood out considering that Zhao essentially crafted a fictionalized central tapestry in an unambiguously real setting. And, with its fierce, painful story of a woman – drifter, rebel and outsider who’s fallen out of the grid – it made for an excellent companion piece to the likes of Varda’s Vagabond and Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy. The tale’s protagonist Fern (Frances McDormand) is an alienated middle-aged woman who lost her life and livelihood when the US Gypsum plant in Empire, Nevada, shut down – turning the place into a ghost town – and the death of her husband whose memory still haunts her. These, exacerbated by the devastating 2008 economic meltdown, has meant that she now earns pittance through part-time gig employments; and she’s complemented that with the radical choice to live a defiantly rootless life out of a campervan. In the course of her cross-country journeys she befriends people – including such fascinating real-life nomads playing themselves as the freebird Linda May, the fearless Swankie and vandwelling guru Bob Wells – learns survival skills, combats loneliness, experiences epiphany, briefly reconnects with her bourgeois sister and finds tentative companionship from a soon-to-be granddad (David Strathairn). The stunningly photographed vistas, elegiac score, brilliant naturalist turns and meandering structure, made the film’s existential inquiries and melancholia all the more eloquent; some, however, have complained about Zhao’s downplaying of the book’s bristling political commentaries.

 

 

 

 

 

Director: Chloe Zhao

Genre: Drama/Road Movie/Americana/Neo-Western

Language: English

Country: US

First Cow [2019]

 Two interrelated conversations marvelously defined the politics and understated brilliance of Kelly Reichardt’s eloquent deconstruction of the romanticization surrounding free enterprise and American Dream in First Cow. King-Lu (Orion Lee), a Chinese immigrant on the run, informs Cookie (John Magaro), a penurious cook just released from a group of travelling fur trappers – the two drifters who’ve serendipitously met in 1820s Oregon Territory and are exploring ways to a better future – that entrepreneurship relies on either capital or miracle or crime… and that the choice is rather clear as the former two are impossible to come by if you’re poor. And thus they start baking and selling delicious cookies that the locals get hooked onto, leading to a fast growing booty for them; just that, unbeknownst to all, they rely on an illegally procured ingredient, viz. the milk of the first ever cow brought to that region by the wealthy Chief Factor (Toby Jones) of the British Colony. In another key sequence – one of the rare expositional moments not filmed from the two men’s POV – the seemingly benevolent Englishman, who too has fallen in love with the cookies, reveals his menacing side – and in turn the noxious underbelly of class privilege, colonialism and slave capitalism – when he confides to a fellow Brit that it’s prudent to execute a worker who cheats, because the enhanced productivity that this elicits in the workforce amply compensates for the loss in capital. The gently languorous pacing, wryly satirical tone and sharp performances made this such a delectable watch, even if the prior knowledge of the protagonists’ conjoined fates – established through a prologue set in present day – imbued doomed inevitability and tenseness in the proceedings.

 

 

 

 

 

Director: Kelly Reichardt

Genre: Drama/Western

Language: English

Country: US