David
Fincher combined his experiences in concocting compelling crime dramas (Se7en and Zodiac) and morbid satirical humour (Fight Club) to adapt Gillian Flynn’s bestselling misanthropic book
for the gripping film Gone Girl,
that, like his best works, seamlessly trudged the line between art and
entertainment. Dark, disturbing, incredibly moody and brilliantly paced, it
succeeded in evoking a not too optimistic picture of marital breakdown, media
manipulations, importance of public perceptions and the underbelly of American
Dream, despite its outrageous storyline. Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck), a one-time
populist writer for a men’s magazine and a likeable guy, and Amy (Rosamund
Pike), a beautiful lady with a terrific resume whose idealized version formed
the source of a popular fictional character created by her parents, seem the
perfect All-American couple. However, when she disappears under mysterious
circumstances on their fifth anniversary, a massive police investigation and
media witch-hunt results, leading to unraveling of discomfiting skeletons from
their closet. Revealing any more about the plot would be a blasphemy for those
yet to watch this topsy-turvy film that is sure to leave the viewers guessing
right till the unceremonious but apt finale. That Fincher has a great ability
in creating brooding atmosphere has been a given right from his debut film Alien 3, and that was once again in
exquisite display here. Affleck was rightly cast in Nick’s role despite his
limited acting prowess, while Pike, as the cold, icy, brilliant, unpredictable,
self-serving and sociopathic femme fatale, did a very good job. The pulsating
score and narrative structuring did a good job at sustaining tension, suspense
and dystopian portrayal of a marriage gone horribly wrong.
Director: David Fincher
Genre: Thriller/Crime Thriller/Psychological Thriller
Language: English
Country: US
Mike
Hodges created a seminal British action/ crime/ gangster film with his well-crafted
debut feature Get Carter, a pop-cultural
cornerstone where gritty realism in genre filmmaking goes. Dreary, nihilistic
and downright nasty, it ushered in its wake a new penchant for combining the ‘angry
lone man’ persona with edgy filmmaking. Jack Carter (Michael Caine), a
London-based hood working for a powerful mobster and in a sly affair with his
boss’ fiancée, decides to go back to his native Newcastle in order to attend
the funeral of his recently deceased brother Frank and investigate the cause of
his death as he suspects foul-play and possibly murder. The deeper he goes in
his chillingly relentless pursuit, the more entangled he becomes in a vicious and
murky web involving an organized pornography racket led by the slimy sleaze-ball
Kinnear (John Osborne), his old buddy and Kinnear’s stoic henchman Eric (Ian
Hendry), his orphaned teenaged niece who he wants to protect from the vultures
all around her, and a whole gamut of opportunistic people. Hodges made
excellent use of location shooting, making Newcastle’s milieus, from its bleak working-class
neighborhoods and waterfront to its grimy underbelly and stolid urbanization, a
distinctive part of the story. Caine, with his near psychopathic streak of
vengeance and violence, and the cold charm and menace of a viper, was perfect
as Carter, and the film was completely bereft of any likeable or empathetic
characters. The four-way climax involving Carter, Eric, Kinnear and a
mysterious assassin, made for a structurally operatic finale albeit filmed in a
downbeat, measured and matter-of-fact manner, as was the rest of it. The
minimalist fusion soundtrack, comprising of piano strums and table beats,
heightened the pulsating tempo.
Director: Mike Hodges
Genre: Crime Thriller/Gangster Film
Language: English
Country: UK
Before
Aki Kaurismaki came on his own and became the face of Finnish cinema, his elder
brother Mika had already been a filmmaker of reasonable repute, only to be
superseded by his younger sibling in whose launch, in a subtle note of wry
irony worthy of a Kaurismaki, he had a strong hand. With its droll, deadpan and
darkly humorous tale of laconic and ‘outsider’ protagonists, with a cold, wan
and gloomy Helsinki forming the backdrop, Zombie
and the Ghost Train, which was also Mika’s first independent production. The
film tells the tale of its aptly named protagonist Zombie (Silu Seppälä), a
rickety, drifting, self-destructive and music-loving guy, who doesn’t have the
aptitude or inclination of leading the life of a regular Joe. He’s neither a
rebel nor a non-conformist – he’s a classic elucidation of a slacker who just
can’t be anyone but himself. He’s tried his hand at a number of regular
professions, but to no avail. There are just two things he loves doing –
playing music and drinking, and not necessarily in that order; hence, despite
the best efforts of his girlfriend Marjo (Marjo Leinonen) and his best friend
Harri (Matti Pellonpää), who leads a curiously titled pop-band Mulefukkers
Zombie. Harri even goes as far as Istanbul to bring back Zombie who’s on a
self-exile, but he’s so far down the bottle and barrel by now that both
silently acknowledge to each other that he’s just beyond any hope for
redemption or salvation. Despite its hilarious interludes, idiosyncratic
developments and a few touches of sentimentality, the film was poignant and relentlessly
downbeat with its heavy dose of alcoholism, extreme social alienation and a
seemingly unstoppable march towards self-ruination.
Director: Mika Kaurismaki
Genre: Black Comedy/Urban Drama
Language: Finnish/Turkish/English
Country: Finland
Alexander
Kluge, one of the key members of New German Cinema, made his debut with the
jazzy, freewheeling, acerbic and formally experimental film Yesterday Girl that had Nouvelle Vague
written all over it. Adapted from his short story Anita G., it provided an episodic account of the tragic take of its
protagonist who, upon migrating from the closed Communist space of East Germany
to the flagrantly capitalist economy of West Berlin, finds it increasingly
difficult to adjust to a new world that, in essence, is as impinging on her
freedom to live as did her former world. Anita (played by the director’s sister
Alexandra Kluge) is a derelict and a refugee who indulges in one odd job after
another but rarely to any avail. Her most comfortable time turns out to be
during the brief liaison she has as a mistress to a married civil servant.
However, when the affair ends abruptly, she gets stuck in a labyrinthine
quagmire wherein each step leads to further entanglement and downslide, and she
starts indulging in petty crimes to meet ends. The poignant tale of this lost
and drifting soul provided a biting satire on the presumption that the West,
with its free economy and freedom of choice, is a better option by default –
her messy life, glaring financial constraints, and the stifling and distrusting
role of social institutions made for a blistering commentary on the
afore-mentioned point of view. The dazzling B/W photography, striking usage of
montages, the disjointed narrative, the deliberate digressions, and the palpably
poignant, but never cloying, performance of the hapless protagonist, added up
to a captivating concoction of new-age aesthetics and sharp socio-political
critique reminiscent of Godard's Vivre Sa Vie.
Director: Alexander Kluge
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Political Drama/Avant-Garde
Language: German
Country: Germany
Monteiro’s
provocative, personal and thoroughly brilliant ‘Comedy of Deus’ trilogy was brought to a marvelous closure with As Bodas de Deus. Even if it didn’t have
the underlying personal melancholia of Recollections of the Yellow House or the gleeful perversity of A Comedia de Deus, in terms of sheer thematic scope and audacity,
this was possibly the most ambitious of the lot. Joao de Deus (Monteiro), now a
banished, broken and discarded sad old man post his disturbing meltdown with
which the previous film ended, is eating a frugal lunch at a secluded park by
the river when he’s visited by a mysterious man who identifies himself as a
messenger of god and gifts him bags stashed with cash. And thus begins a
strange journey, that smacks of déjà vu for those who’re familiar with the
trilogy, wherein he reaches a stage of comfort and respectability – in this
case someone for whom both luck and money are squarely on his side – only to
once again touch nadir when fortune suddenly quits on him. Two parallel
narrative strands played out – in an act of blind generosity, he saves a cherubic
girl, installs her at a convent, and does acts of charity there even though
he’s anything but a believer; meanwhile he makes the acquaintance of a wealthy
Arab prince with whom he engages in an all-night game of high-stake poker, only
to win everything that the suave gambling addict possesses, including his saucy
and seductive wife in the final round. The film’s bone-dry humour, leisurely
pacing and visual richness – it was dazzlingly photographed using exquisite
single takes – provided the perfect accompaniment to its biting irreverence
towards religion, authority and morality, and its deftly meditative tone.
Director: Joao Cesar Monteiro
Genre: Drama/Black Comedy/Religious Satire
Language: Portuguese
Country: Portugal
