Brazilian filmmaker Kleber
Mendonça Filho’s Aquarius couldn’t
have felt a more dramatic departure vis-à-vis his latest film Bacurau; though it did have a few
stylistic flourishes – a passionate flashback here and a sweeping pan-zoom
there, which might connect back to the B-film form and pyrotechnics of the
latter – this was otherwise a startlingly intimate piece of work, imbued with
intensely personal memories that one fiercely holds on to, fleeting longings
for physical desires, familial differences, and the defiant refusal to budge.
At the center was a superlative turn by Sônia Braga as the sexagenarian Clara –
family matriarch, empathetic and strong-willed widow, cancer survivor, and
musicologist with an eclectic LP collection. She’s also deeply fond of her
thoughtfully decorated apartment in the eponymous building in Recife, with
glorious views of the Atlantic Ocean. Her life is a mix of the mundane – going
to the beach for morning swims, chatting with her housekeeper (Zoraide Coleto),
meeting with her family, dancing alone to music in her flat – alternated with
moments of both joy and resentment with her family, chance intimacy with
strangers, and even a passionate encounter with a gigolo. Her carefully laid
out life, however, starts experiencing ripples when the unctuous
American-educated grandson (Humberto Carrão) of a powerful property developer
starts using nefarious means to hound her out of her place as she’s steadfastly
refused to sell it to them even as every other occupant has vacated the
building. Mendonça explored a number of stirring themes in this quietly
absorbing tapestry, including brittle societal fault-lines borne out of class
differences and racial prejudices, exploration of sexual yearnings of an ageing
woman, and incessant realteration of urban neighbourhoods by corrupt land
sharks.
Director: Kleber Mendonca Filho
Genre: Drama/Urban Drama
Language: Portuguese
Country: Brazil
Palestinian filmmaker
Elia Suleiman’s onscreen persona in It
Must Be Heaven – a flummoxed, self-effacing, whimsical loner who observes with
deadpan bewilderment, almost by stepping outside the frame, the crazy world
around him – has a bit of both Buster Keaton and Jacques Tati in him. And, the
visually striking form of muted, seriocomic, stylized tableaux draw comparisons
with Roy Andersson. Yet, that he lives in an occupied region brutalized by a repressive
state, imbued the film with a rich political context and fatalist melancholy,
and these elements made this ravishing work both distinctive and deeply
personal. It begins with a non-sequitur prologue – where a pompous priest leading
a procession of devotees is disallowed entry into the church – which set the
stage with its subversive, insolent wit. The narrative shifts to modern-day
Nazareth where ES’ over-enthusiastic neighbor keeps encroaching into his garden,
an old man indulges in incongruous conversations, and the Israeli armed forces keep
arrogantly imposing their authority. He travels to Paris where he fleetingly
experiences the beau monde, but then
keeps seeing eccentric robot-like cops, alt-right punks in the metro, and tanks
rolling past the Banque de France, and a producer refuses to finance his film for
not being Palestinian enough. He finally travels to New York where things are even
weirder as he sees people carrying automatic guns to the supermarket and cops
chasing anyone deemed protesting, and this time he doesn’t even get an
appointment with the producer despite recommendations by Gael García Bernal.
Filled with funny, absurdist, self-deprecating vignettes, with moments of lush
beauty thrown in, the film portrayed Suleiman as an artist in exile,
perennially haunted by parallels with his tragic home wherever he goes.
Director: Elia Suleiman
Genre: Comedy/Black Comedy/Political Satire
Language: Arabic/French/English
Country: Palestine
From Bergman’s Cries and Whispers to Woody’s Hannah and her Sisters and Interiors, and from Sofia Coppola’s Virgin Suicides to Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, world cinema is strewn
with remarkable gems centered on a group of sisters struggling to sustain their
bonds despite familial dysfunctions, personality differences and simmering
underlying bitterness. Kore-eda’s gently affecting Our Little Sister, suffused with heartbreaking warmth, empathy,
restraint and humanism, is yet another magnificent example of the above. The
film immediately established the closely-knit lives of three sisters residing in
their cozy house in the coastal city Kamakura – the stunning and emotionally
restrained eldest sister Sachi (Haruka Ayase) who works as a nurse and has
played the role of matriarch ever since their parents left them many years back
after separating themselves; the vivacious and impulsive middle sister Yoshino (Masami
Nagasawa) who’s unlucky with her boyfriends; and the goofy youngest sister
Chika (Kaho). They experience a curious but pleasant surprise at the funeral upon
the demise of their long estranged father when they meet their kid half-sister Suzu
(Suzu Hirose); and, perhaps seeing a bit of herself in this young orphaned girl,
Sachi adopts her. The presence of this shy, tender-natured girl, with a talent for
football, and carrying a deep sense of guilt for indirectly being the reason
for the abandonment faced by the three sisters, added both music and lilting
rhythm to their lives. The heartwarming narrative, with its string of extraordinary
performances, absorbing visual design and sumptuous score, was filled with joy,
melancholy, pathos, delicacy and depth – various moments of togetherness, brief
arrival of their mother, visiting the café run by their beloved aunt, bike ride
through sakura bloom, among others.
Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda
Genre: Drama/Family Drama
Language: Japanese
Country: Japan
War on drugs is a
dirty business, and Soderberg portrayed the many complex, interlinked angles
in his ambitious film Traffic, while
Johnnie To captured the constant game of one-upmanship that it necessitates in Drug War. Villeneuve covered a bit of
both worlds in the dark, gripping, visceral and smartly crafted Sicario. In its murky evocation of the
Machiavellian theme of becoming a devil in order to defeat one, and therefore
blurring the lines of morality, it might remind one of Bigolow’s engrossing Zero Dark Thirty; incidentally, both
featured dogged, strikingly attractive and multilayered heroines – though very
different characters otherwise – forced to carve their places in a world
dominated by men. The film begins on an ominous note when FBI agent Kate (Emily
Blunt), while leading a raid on a drug cartel hideout, stumbles upon a horde of
rotten corpses. Soon enough she’s enlisted into a mysterious, elite unit –
headed by cocky CIA guy Matt (Josh Brolin) and shadowy “consultant” Alejandro
(Benicio del Toro) – which, instead of waging small battles, plans to take the
war across the border right to the cartel bosses’ doorsteps. Understandably, a
mission like this isn’t just fraught with dangers and cloaked in secrecy, it
also involves subverting due processes and breaching ethical boundaries; that,
along with Alejandro’s problematic motives and cold ruthlessness, and Kate’s deep
discomfort at what she witnesses, elevated it beyond a standard thriller. It
was further aided by superb turns by Blunt and del Toro (Brolin, however, was
underutilized), moody atmosphere, visually engrossing cinematography, deliberate
pacing and riveting score. A set-piece near the beginning, involving a fleet of
agents driving into Juárez to extradite a key henchman from Mexico, was remarkably
staged.
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Genre: Thriller/Crime Thriller/Action
Language: English
Country: US
Assayas’ witty,
intelligent, charming and emotionally layered character drama Clouds of Sils Maria – his second
collaboration with Juliette Binoche after the stupendous Summer Hours – is a delightful portrayal of femininity, mid-life
crisis and the perils of stardom in the internet age. Interestingly, it’s also a
deft meta commentary on cinema too, including life imitating art and role
reversals. Two psychologically complex relationships, with one an enactment of
a script and another deliciously mirroring that in real, formed the film’s
central crux. Maria (Binoche), a middle-aged prima donna of both the stage and
the screen, had earned her first international success through a play about a
tempestuous relationship between Helena, a middle-aged businesswoman, and Sigrid,
a brash young recruit who seduces and manipulates her vulnerable boss, where
Maria had dazzled as the ingénue twenty years. Hence, when she’s offered the
role of the older woman in a bold new reinterpretation of the play by a
talented theatre director – Sigrid is now slated to be played by a cocky young
Hollywood actress (Chloë Grace Moretz) who’s recently been through media
scandal – it challenges and intimidates her both emotionally and artistically.
However, despite significant misgivings and dilemmas, she’s reluctantly convinced
by her young, striking, smart and perceptive American assistant and travel
companion Valentine (Kristen Stewart) to take the role, and they retreat to the
remote Alpine village of Sils Maria to prepare for it. While Binoche was outstanding,
Stewart – in a cheeky subversion of her real-life Hollywood persona – was
equally marvelous too, thus making the evolving dynamic between the two fascinating women,
shaped in no small parts by their diverse and conflicting interpretations of
the play, the film’s most delightful aspect.
Director: Olivier Assayas
Genre: Drama/Showbiz Drama
Language: French/English
Country: France
