Sherlock Jr. was
a hilarious physical comedy alright, but more importantly, it was an astounding
reflection on the medium of cinema itself, with all its illusions and
artificialities. It starts with Keaton as a movie projectionist, an aspiring
detective, and in love with a girl, only to be falsely framed by the film’s
villain. Though decidedly funny till now, this is the point where the movie
jumped to a different level altogether. Sad and heartbroken he falls asleep
while projecting a film, and in his dream, he finds the movie’s characters
replaced by the girl and the villain, and he, now an accomplished sleuth, enters
into the movie by seamlessly blurring the ‘fourth wall’. Armed with skills,
resourcefulness and infinite luck, he is now invincible, and through one deliberately
impossible move after another, he beats the bad guys and wins the girl. The
movie comprised of a host of incredibly dangerous stunts – he even broke his
neck (albeit, not fatally) during one such stunt! It was also filled with brilliant
slapstick comedy, deadpan humour, wit, and ironies, making it a laugh-riot.
However, what spectacularly stood out was one breathtaking montage that was
jaw-dropping in its ideation and execution – as he enters into the screen, with
the bemused audience watching on (making the self-consciousness of the situation
blatantly obvious), he suddenly finds himself at the mercy of a series of rapid
cuts accompanied by drastic changes of locations. Such audacious yet loving
techno-philosophical subversion of the medium has rarely, if ever, been achieved in the
history of this artform. And yes, one must also watch the movie to realize what
a terrific pool player he was.
Director: Buster Keaton
Genre: Comedy/Slapstick/Fantasy/Silent Film
Language: English
Country: US
Amarcord
was to Fellini what Fanny & Alexander
was to Bergman, Radio Days was to
Woody and The Mirror was to Tarkovsky
– a deeply semi-autobiographical, coming-of-age film. At once carnivalesque,
gleefully ribald, riotously funny, bitingly self-deprecatory, decidedly
anti-authoritarian, warmly nostalgic and quietly heartwarming, the film
chronicled Fellini’s growing up in a closely-knit coastal village called Rimini
in 1930s Mussolini-ruled Italy. The film’s principal protagonist is a libidinous
teenager and is narrated by a likeable old man (stand-ins for, respectively,
Fellini’s younger self, and his wizened older self looking back at his life); the
story comprised of a host of colourful, over-the-top and unforgettably etched
characters – the hilariously short-tempered father, the unabashedly vulgar
grandfather, the lunatic uncle, the gorgeous lady the whole town is crazy for,
the enormous-bosomed lady he secretly lusts after, the poker-faced street
vendor, the deadpan church priest, the neurotic school teachers, the loser
friends, the blind accordion player et al. The film is littered with bawdy humour
that is bound to elicit belly-laughter, and was interspersed with moments of
humanism and introspection. Nothing was sacrosanct enough to escape Fellini’s
anti-establishmentarian, irreverent and subversive barbs – be it the strong
Catholic traditions, Italy’s tryst with fascism, or the importance laid on
hierarchy in society. He also infused the proceedings with an overtly absurdist
and farcical tone, and filled it with myths, legends and dream-like moments, in
order to impress upon the unreliable and exaggerating nature of memory – and
they were wonderfully complemented by the surrealistic photography, the
deliberately artificial set-pieces, and Nina Rota’s brilliant score which was
operatic one moment and evocative the other.
Director: Federico Fellini
Genre: Comedy/Social Satire/Coming-of-Age
Language: Italian
Country: Italy
Shohei Imamura and Nagisa Oshima were arguably
the most famous Japanese New Wave names, but the movement didn’t have a
dearth of maverick filmmakers with voices of their own – Seijun Suzuki was one
of them, and Youth of the Beast was
the movie that served as the turning point in his journey as an auteur.
Hitherto a maker of run-of-the-mill gangster films, Suzuki stamped his distinct
signature and vision into a film for the first time in this gleefully wacky, delirious,
stylized, hyper-kinetic, testosterone-driven, incredibly fun rehashing of the standard
gangster film, and reminiscent of Yojimbo.
Jo (Jo Shishoda), a mysterious, laconic, baby-faced, chipmunk-cheeked tough guy
who beats the crap out of everybody without batting an eyelid, comes out of
nowhere and becomes the top henchman for a powerful yakuza gang. Before long he
makes contact with the rival gang surreptitiously, and becomes an informer for
them. Jo, it seems, is a man utterly devoid of morals and scruples even for a
gangster, and that he has only one boss, viz. money. But, things aren’t always
what they seem, and the same is the case with him – as is gradually revealed, he
has a different agenda altogether, and vengeance for the death of a friend, is
his sole motive. Suzuki filled the film with a host of colourful characters, thumping
action sequences, and a terrific dose of cool, machismo, wry humour, violence
and vibrancy, making it an immensely enjoyable ride through the seedy underbelly
of post-WWII Japanese society. The excellent, deliberately discordant jazz
score, and the incessant sense of narrative urgency, brilliantly complemented
the film’s loopy, anachronistic, burlesque tone.
Director: Seijun Suzuki
Genre: Crime Thriller/Gangster Film
Language: Japanese
Country: Japan
Adapted by Ang Lee from Yann Martel’s
Booker-winning novel, Life of Pi is
about the triumph of human courage, persistence and the indomitable will to
survive over all odds and adversities. But, more than that, this is an allegorical
and spiritual tale championing the saying, “Faith is what makes life bearable,
with all its tragedies and ambiguities.” Told in flashbacks by its now wizened
protagonist (Irfan Khan), the plot tells the tale of the eponymous Pi (Suraj Sharma),
the 16-year old son of a zoo-owner, who is stranded on a boat in the middle of the
Pacific Ocean, along with a mighty Royal Bengal Tiger, when the
ship he was travelling in from India to Canada along with his family capsizes.
Over the next 227 days at sea, he experiences a gamut of emotions – from wild
elation to heartbreaking grief, and he doesn’t just slowly master the art of survival,
but also manages to strike a profound kinship with his regal but ferocious
mate. Though, in essence, a message-driven movie with a simplistic, fable-like
storyline, its spirituality is never in-your-face, nor its tone overtly
preachy. Rather, Lee laid greater emphasis on Pi’s fantastical journey, and the
myriad life-changing things he experiences, by infusing the tale with magic
realism and a constant sense of high adventure. The movie boasts of one of the
finest usages of 3D in my experience – the CGI (particularly the creation of
the tiger) was exquisite, and the visual design was enthralling. In short, it
was an audio-visual feast, and consequently, reason enough to watch the film
even for those largely uninterested in spirituality or matters of faith.
Director: Ang Lee
Genre: Fantasy Drama/Adventure/Coming-of-Age
Language: English
Country: US
Tarkovsky had used the sci-fi framework in his
haunting masterpiece Solaris. In Stalker he again took that route, albeit
in an allegorical sense, and the end result was just as mesmerizing and
philosophical, as he delved into the dark chasms of the subconscious, and tellingly
commentated on man’s never-ending quest for the Holy Grail called happiness. The
deeply spiritual film chronicled the arduous odessey of three men – the cynical
Writer (Anatoliy Solonitsyn), the contrite Scientist (Nikolai Grinko), and
their guide, the Stalker (Alexander Kaidanovsky), who is blinded by faith – to
a forbidden place called the Zone which allegedly has the ability to fulfill
one’s deepest desires. Escaping the military patrols while entering the place
turned out to be cakewalk vis-à-vis navigating the incredibly treacherous region
designed to lead men to their doom. And their basest and most innate desires
and fears face revelations to their own conscious selves when they reach the
Room, the Zone’s core. The movie is heavy on dialogues, comprises of long
moments of silence – particularly during the nerve-racking depiction of their physiologically
and psychologically perilous journey, is laden with metaphors and symbolisms,
and is devoid of any easy answers. Yet, despite its slow pace and complex
nature, the film’s magnetic power is undeniable. Tarkovsky made brilliant use
of palettes to complement the film’s tone and mood – it begun in bleak monochromes
to portray the dank and desolate industrial wasteland, aptly shifted to
dazzling colours in the Zone, and then reverted upon their return, thus
depicting both the futility of their journey, the inescapability of their
present and the grimy void in which they exist.
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Genre: Sci-Fi/Psychological Drama
Language: Russian
Country: Russia (erstwhile Soviet Union)
