Baumbach’s While We’re Young is a cynical dramedy
centered around the mid-life crises and growing ennui of a 40-something New
York couple. The ironic dichotomy surrounding the suppressed desire of Gen X to
swap places with Gen Y on account of the latter’s carefree living and
spontaneity, while simultaneously being judgemental about their moral choices
commensurate with internet age, along with the debate on evaluating art by the
process of creating it, made for interesting discussion points. Josh (Ben
Stiller), a documentary filmmaker, and his vivacious wife Cornelia (Naomi
Watts) are suffering from relationship issues. Josh, who had earned attention with
his first film, has been struggling for a decade with his ambitious work on a
leftist intellectual, and that, coupled by their being childless, have started
taking toll on their marital well-being; Josh’s complicated relationship with
his father-in-law (Charles Grodin), a once renowned documentarian, is also not
helping. One fine day they become acquainted with aspiring documentary filmmaker
Jamie (Adam Driver) and his spunky wife Darby (Amanda Seyfried), and despite the
initial distance, they soon find themselves being drawn towards the young
couple and drifting towards a very different sort of lifestyle and choices.
However, as is eventually revealed, the meeting might have been planned rather
than incidental, thus throwing them into a crisis, and forcing them to relook
at their ideas of art, marriage and life. Assured turns by Stiller and Watts,
generational conflicts and the shifting camaraderie made this a noteworthy seriocomic
effort, even if the urge to spelt out things that could have been left unsaid,
and plot contrivances, prevented it from being a more nuanced and accomplished
work.
Director: Noah Baumbach
Genre: Comedy Drama/Social Satire/Marriage Drama
Language: English
Country: US
It
is at times difficult to believe that Ray adapted stories starring his
immensely popular literary creation Pradosh C. Mitter aka Feluda only twice,
given their lasting pop-cultural imprints in the urban Bengali milieu – barring
Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne, no other film
by him garnered more popularity and repeat telecasts than Sonar Kella, made 6 years after he began this franchise, and Joi Baba Felunath, made 4 years
later. Mukul (Kushal Chakraborty), a young boy haunted by images purportedly
from his previous life, is taken to Rajasthan by parapsychologist Dr. Hajra
(Shailen Mukherjee) for academic reasons; however, two notorious crooks – the
sly Amiyanath (Ajoy Banerjee) and the thuggish Mandar (Kamu Mukherjee) – smell possibilities
of hidden treasure, and decide to join to further their nefarious interests.
Smelling chances of foul play Mukul’s father engages the 21 Rajani Sen Road
residing sleuth (Soumitra Chatterjee), who Ray had created on his own image and
representative of the Bengali ideal, and so he, along with his
nephew-cum-sidekick Topshe (Siddhartha Chatterjee), embarks on a trip to protect
the kid, and what ensues is a tale filled with thrills, mystery and
scintillating adventure. On the way he makes the acquaintance of Lal Mohan
Ganguly (Santosh Dutta), a writer of popular fiction using the pseudonym of
Jatayu, who would become a life-long friend and companion of the PI. Great narrative
pacing ensured an engrossing watch while also investing time on etching
characters, building suspense and capturing the flavours of Rajasthan. The wit
and humour that the script was imbued with, along with fine turns by the cast, interesting
tidbits and the iconic Feluda tune that Ray composed further added to its
engagement quotient.
Director: Satyajit Ray
Genre: Thriller/Crime Thriller/Detective Movie/Adventure
Language: Bengali
Country: India
In
his magnum opus Weekend Stories, reminiscent
of Kieslowski’s Decalogue, Zanussi provided
a masterful exploration of moral dilemmas and spiritual crises in everyday existence,
through 8 thematically connected made-for-TV episodes. Set in post-Communist
Poland, memories and remnants from recent past, and socio-economic volte face
towards materialism, formed a key aspect, thus making this perceptive,
evocative and reflective work a political and a personal exercise, with strong
undercurrents of Catholicism. In A
Woman’s Business, an emotionally fractured lady (Joanna Szczepkowska)
attempts to find closure for the wrongs done 15 years back by a callous government
official (Magdalena Zawadzka); Little
Faith chronicled the crisis of faith experienced by a rationalist man (Maciej
Orlos) and his highly religious wife (Dorota Segda) as they await the medical
test results of their son; Soul Sings
narrated the conflict faced by a struggling opera singer (Jacek Laszczkowski)
when asked for help by his elderly neighbour that might put his professional
breakthrough at risk; in Deceptive Charm,
a university teacher (Maciej Robakiewicz), propelled by his dissatisfied wife (Katarzyna
Herman), faces the lure of quick financial gains when offered employment by a
wealthy degenerate (Zbigniew Zapasiewicz); Unwritten
Law illustrated the moral pangs experienced by a married young chauffeur (Piotr
Szwedes) after he succumbs to the seduction by his attractive employer (Krystyna
Janda), upon witnessing her ruthless opportunism; in The Last Circle, a renowned but ageing ballet dancer (Daniel
Olbrychski) faces the tussle between cold professionalism and conscience when
reluctantly united after many years with his beautiful ex-wife (Olga Sawicka); Dilatory Line portrayed how suspicions
of his fiancée’s (Monika Kwiatkowska) affair with his colleague takes
precedence over the professional judgements of a TV producer (Bartosz Opania); and
The Hidden Treasure presented an aged former aristocrat’s (Maja
Komorowska) homecoming to reclaim certain family belongings. Diverse psyches
and emotions – vengeance, greed, lust, obsession, jealousy, forgiveness,
narcissism, humility, ethics, abandonment and compassion – were exquisitely used
in painting layered portraits of contemporary Polish life, with the irreparable
scars of history serving as a brooding backdrop, in this compelling, luminously
photographed mosaic.
Director: Krzysztof Zanussi
Genre: Drama/Urban Drama/Psychological Drama/TV Miniseries
Language: Polish
Country: Poland
In
his thematic sequel to Devil’s Backbone,
Pan’s Labyrinth, Del Toro crafted a fabulous
concoction of Spanish Civil War violence and a dark fairy tale, while evocatively
portraying a child’s lost innocence and futile attempts at escapism. At once
brutal, gut-wrenching and melancholic, the genre-bending film – mix of war drama,
gothic horror and fantasy – was a powerful exploration of grim realities in the
form of atrocities, death and personal loss through the eyes of a young, lonely
and vulnerable girl with a fecund mind. In the real world, 10-year old Ofelia
(Ivana Baquero) travels with her ailing mother (Ariadna Gil) to a war-ravaged
outpost under the command of her new stepfather Captain Vidal (Sergi López), a
ruthless military man hell-bent on crushing the guerilla rebels operating from
the forests; meanwhile, in the metaphysical realm, she is approached by a faun
who informs her that she’s the lost princess of the underworld, and that she
needs to perform three dangerous tasks in order to regain her place and acquire
immortality. The cherubic Baquero was unforgettable as the tale’s sole light in
the midst of turmoil and unspeakable horrors, while López was evil incarnate
whose chauvinism, lust for power and loyalty towards Franco’s ideals was
matched by his infinite capacity for cruelty; Maribel Verdú as Mercedes,
Vidal’s housekeeper spying for the rebels who becomes Ofelia’s sole friend, and
Álex Angulo as an anti-fascist Doctor who’s surreptitiously providing medicines
for the rebels, added layers of humanism to the proceedings. The mesmerizing
visual designs, cinematography and SFX were essential to the film’s magic
realism, grotesque imagery and graphic novel stylistics, and the incredibly haunting score made
the experience all the more poignant.
Note: My earlier review of this film can be found here.
Director: Guillermo Del Toro
Genre: Drama/War Drama/Fantasy
Language: Spanish
Country: Mexico
Peter
Brook’s largely faithful interpretation of William Golding’s classic novel of
the same name, viz. Lord of the Flies,
was a dreary and allegorical tale that emphasized upon an intrinsic and ironic
dichotomy in human behavior – the want for order and the desire for anarchy.
Featuring only pre-pubescent kids to drive home the point, they represented
human instincts closer to their primitive states, before the process of
acculturation has completely set in. Upon an airplane accident, a motley group
of all-male school kids gets stranded in an unknown and uninhabited island in
the middle of nowhere. The crisis scenario of a group of cocooned individuals
suddenly placed in the wilderness having to fend for themselves bring forth
their survival instincts, exacerbated by the animal impulses of chaos, lust for
power and propensity for violence. The film starts with the benevolent and
level-headed Ralph (James Aubrey) being identified as the ring leader for the
group. However, the aggressive and power-crazy Jack (Tom Chapin), serving as
the lead hunter, has plans for a forced disruption of the power structure based
on brute strength and brazen aggression. He and his gang of blinded sycophants
begin by tormenting Ralphs’s loyal, intelligent, sensible, didactic, asthmatic
and bespectacled sidekick Piggy (Hugh Edwards), but gradually things start
taking a more sinister turn, and before long they go completely awry and messy,
until a forced restoration of balance takes place through external
intervention. The transition from innocence and uncertainty to wild hedonism
and lunacy was captured through a naturalistic, documentary-like style and
manner, and this ensured that the themes do not become too overhanded and
in-your-face, while retaining the ability to provoke and disturb.
Director: Peter Brook
Genre: Drama/Adventure
Language: English
Country: UK
