The word that would perhaps closely describe Sanjhbatir Rupkathara, promising Bengali filmmaker Anjan Das' debut film, is melancholy – not just the kind brought about by loss, loneliness and regret, but also the kind ushered in by the very act of growing up. Sanjhbati (played very well by the talented and luscious Indrani Haldar), named so because she was born at the stroke of twilight, is a girl filled with idealism and love. Her father, Saikat (brought to screen with majestic force and nuance by the veteran thespian Soumitra Chatterjee), is a painter who fills his canvas with the sights and sounds of the nature around him, and who is the person closest to Sanjhbati. But events occur in her life which slowly start replacing Sanjhbati’s idealism with disillusionment and distrust; and when one not-so-fine day she feels her father too has betrayed her trust, her beautiful little world comes crashing down with debilitating consequences for all around her. This movie, adapted from the book by the renowned poet Joy Goswami, has made commendable use of the interplay of light and shadows, as well as, reality and surreality, thus making it both a sensitive and a sensuous film. Fine photography, too, hasn’t done it any harm. The movie does have its flaws – the narrative could have been tighter for one. But on the whole, this is a pretty fine movie for a lazy Sunday afternoon.
Director: Anjan Das
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Surreal Drama
Language: Bengali
Country: India
With Katyn, octogenarian Polish master Andrzej Wajda, maker of such legendary movies as Ashes and Diamonds, Man of Marble and Man of Iron, has made a film on a subject that is not just extremely personal to his life, but also which he had to wait a lifetime to bring to light. During the summer of 1940, the Soviet secret police ruthlessly executed, at point blank range, over 15000 Polish army officers (one of whom was the director’s father), and then didn’t just bury their bodies, but also tried burying the event by laying the blame for the massacre on the Nazis. This dark and horrific event that forms an indelible part of Polish history is the subject of this powerful and harrowing war drama from Wajda. The movie begins with the tragic state of the Polish people where one half is fleeing from the Nazis while the other is fleeing from the Soviets, and they meet at halfway point at a state of utter confusion and helplessness. Thus, with the ominous foreboding of World War II as its backdrop, the Katyn massacre is slowly revealed through a few Polish characters directly affected by its occurrence and aftermath, culminating in one of the most terrifying and tragic climaxes that is sure to many viewers shuddering. The movie boasts of spectacular and atmospheric photography, and a moody soundtrack.
Director: Andrzej Wajda
Genre: Drama/War Drama/Docu-Fiction
Language: Polish
Country: Poland
Directed by Turkish auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Uzak is an astounding piece of arthouse cinema that has the ability to keep its viewers in a state of daze long after the end credits have rolled. The basic premise is ridiculously simple – the heavily structured life of a freelance photographer residing in Istanbul, Yusuf, gets thrown off balance upon the arrival of his rustic cousin, Mahmut, in search of employment at the docks at the roll of an economic downturn in Turkey. What the premise fails to reveal is that this is a devastatingly affecting look into the severe loneliness of the two protagonists and their futile attempts at trying to make human contact, be it with his divorced wife, in Yusuf’s case, or with the aloof Yusuf and a young girl who has caught his eyes, in the genial Mahmut’s case. The interactions between the two taciturn characters have been brought forth through subtle, carefully placed observations. The tale of the two jaded and detached characters, the languorous pacing of the narrative, and the long moments of silence and inaction, might be off-putting for some viewers; I, on the contrary, was left speechless by the existential script, the powerful statement on the complexities surrounding otherwise banal existences, the underlying pathos that peeks out only once in a while amid the dry humour, and the incredibly naturalistic performances by the two actors. And the ravishingly beautiful images of the cold, icy and desolate landscapes form the most ironic metaphor for the equally bleak, albeit splendid, human story that unfolds before it.
Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Genre: Drama/Urban Drama/Psychological Drama
Language: Turkish
Country: Turkey
The Hurt Locker starts with the iconic quote “War is drug”, and then goes about both backing and demystifying the statement. One of the best movies on that historical blunder of genocidal proportions by George W. Bush called the Iraq War, The Hurt Locker is a taut and riveting work that places the viewers right in the middle of the killing fields of Baghdad. At the heart of the movie lies an elite Explosive Ordnance Disposal squad tasked with the immensely perilous duty of diffusing live bombs ready to explode any given moment. And amidst the humid, dusty, fast crumbling and hostile Iraqi terrain we meet the cocky, arrogant, at times recklessly daring, but ultimately exceedingly competent Staff Sgt. William James, played with remarkable precision by Jeremy Renner. The movie, shot in cinema vérité style with documentary-like footages, and devoid of any preachiness or rose-tinted vision of the place, boasts of numerous moments of nail-biting tension that are bound to keep the viewers on the edge of their seats. Okay, the movie does have its moments of improbable scenarios, but Kathryn Bigelow has succeeded in keep a reasonably tight leash on the proceedings.
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Genre: War/Action/Cinema Vérité
Language: English
Country: US
033 conforms to the themes of its predecessor Madly Bengali in that it is about a Bangla Rock Band, it is about a group of four egocentric and lost youths who learn to come to terms with themselves, and it is also about how the immensely rich and dynamic musical history of Calcutta has found a new face in the form of its underground rock circuit; so how does it stand out? Not so much in content as in form. The film, which is about a boy-band named after the STD code of the city they are based in, and on how a melancholic young girl, in search of her roots, manages to leave a small impact on the band members, has been presented in a manner that is wildly experimental and out-of-the-box in terms of treatment. It manages to be freewheeling and even a wee bit iconoclastic, like the songs of the Beetles and Dylan, or the ideologues of Che Guevera, whose posters adorn the trench, a neon-lit shack owned by a veteran music lover who calls himself Santiago, where the band practices their music. Jerky camera motions, jump cuts, handy-cams, slow-mo-s, psychedelic lightings, etc. have all been fused into the breezy improvised script, along with wit, humour and some wonderful original compositions by Chandrabindu (as well as a terrific redo of a Mohiner Ghoraguli classic), to present a movie that its debutant director must have had one hell of time while making.
Director: Birsa Dasgupta
Genre: Drama/Existential Drama/Musical/Experimental
Language: Bengali
Country: India
Bengali auteur Rituparno Ghosh’s latest feature, Abohomaan, continues with his life-long fascination with the subtleties and layers that define human relationships. And, in the vein of Shob Choritro Kalponik and The Last Lear, it is in sync with his recent inclination towards fragmented narratives. The complex relationship between an artist and his muse forms the subject of the movie – that too, quite incredibly, twice over in the film within the film. A revered arthouse filmmaker, while making a movie on the famous mentor-minion tale of Girish Ghosh and ‘Nati’ Binodini, develops kinship with the young actress playing Binodini, which forms the source of heavy undercurrents between him, his wife and his son. The story has shades of the alleged affair that Satyajit Ray apparently had with actress Madhabi. However in Ghosh’s expert hands it never appears exploitative or sensational; rather, it is a matured look into a theme that is as much universal as it is local. The movie boasts of a stellar performance by Dipankar De, and competent turns by Mamata Shankar, Jishu Sengupta and Ananya Chatterjee. This cerebral and moody film with a deliberate pacing is thus another gem in Ghosh’s already exceptional oeuvre.
Director: Rituparno Ghosh
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Family Drama
Language: Bengali
Country: India
Spider, unlike his earlier films, might not be bordering on the bizarre or grotesque, but it is in line with Canadian horror maestro David Cronenberg’s latent obsession with delving into the darkest of corners of the human mind. Adapted by Patrick McGrath from his own novel, Spider is a chilling and compelling account of a boy-man with a severely damaged mind, forever haunted by the dark memories of a horrible deed from his past. Released after spending twenty years in a mental asylum and allowed to take residence in a halfway house, Spider, as he roams the bleak and dreary landscapes of London, initially appears to be a man who has changed for the better, despite his many idiosyncrasies. However, we are gradually apprised of the fact that his mental decay has crossed the point of no return, and as he gets more and more enmeshed into the grimy details of his life in a dysfunctional blue-collar family, his fragile mind gets ever more close to getting irreparably and violently shattered. Ralph Fiennes has turned in a devastating, brooding, disquieting and ultimately triumphant performance as the quietly paranoid and forever muttering Spider, living an existence that is so isolated and volatile that most viewers might find the movie a difficult watch. The immaculately paced and nightmarish film also boasts of superb performances by the luscious Miranda Richardson as three distinctly different characters and Gabriel Byrne as Spider’s brutish father.
Director: David Cronenberg
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Psychological Horror
Language: English
Country: UK/Canada
A number of critics have called Cache Austrian provocateur Michael Haneke’s most accessible film vis-à-vis his other works like Funny Games and The Piano Teacher, because of its lack of nerve-racking or incendiary contents. I, however, beg to differ for the simple reason that it’s intellectual depth far outweighs the other two works, making it a potent and an incisive precursor to his brilliant masterpiece The White Ribbon. A bourgeois Parisian family starts receiving tantalizingly menacing videotape recordings of their home from a mysterious stalker who may or may not have revenge in his mind. And that opens a can of worms from the husband George’s guilt-ridden past that threatens to rip apart his upwardly mobile family through introduction of such destructive germs as fear, paranoia and distrust. But at a broader level, the movie manages to go beyond that. The family’s ordeal forms the perfect allegory to France’s chequered colonial past making the film a powerful socio-political commentary. At the forefront of this work sans any background score lies the astounding performance of Daniel Auteuil as George. The climax will fascinate some, while leave others frustrated; but there’s no denying the movie’s ability to unsettle, disturb and provoke its audience.
Director: Michael Haneke
Genre: Drama/Urban Drama/Psychological Thriller
Language: French
Country: Austria
Nowhere in Africa, based on the best-selling autobiographical novel of the same name, is a tale of love lost and found, an epic account of a young girl’s journey from wide-eyed innocence to reluctant maturity, and a reevaluation of the meanings of ‘home’ and ‘roots’. Walter, a farsighted German-Jewish lawyer, who gets inkling about the impending pogroms against Jews, manages to get his beautiful wife Jettel and daughter Regina emigrated to Kenya – a country filled with pristine beauty but culturally and economically at complete odds with their former homeland. Though Jettel initially finds it extremely difficult to adapt to their radically different lifestyle (and later her acceptance of the place occurs parallely with her growing sexual frustrations), Regina gets mesmerized by the place and its people the day she arrives and strikes up an especially touching friendship with their good-natured cook Owuor. Caroline Link, the film’s director, has managed to bring forth the depths and the various emotions at play in her finely-realised, three-dimensional and utterly human characters, through a tone that is filled as much with empathy as with the book’s sad remembrances for those turbulent few years in world history. The movie boasts of captivating photography, and fine performances in front of the camera.
Director: Caroline Link
Genre: Drama/Family Drama/Biopic/Romance
Language: German
Country: Germany
Karthik Calling Karthik is a mightily refreshing and encouraging sign of the growing maturity of Hindi film directors, and their willingness to explore cinematic possibilities far outside the inane, juvenile, saccharine song-and-dance films that Bollywood has mostly come to stand for. This finely paced film stars director-turned-‘thinking man’s actor’ Farhan Akhtar as Karthik, a loner with such low self-confidence that he is treated like dirt by his egotist boss and ragged by his landlord, and to make matters worse, he’s silently in love with the lovely Shonali (played smartly and sassily by Deepika Padukone), a colleague of his, who wasn’t even aware of his existence despite their having worked in the same office for the last four years until he gets publicly ridiculed and fired from his job for no fault of his! Thus, when his life can not get any worse, he receives a call from a mysterious well-wisher who also goes by the name of Karthik, resulting in a change in his life that is far more dramatic than even his wildest imaginations. Revealing any more of the ingenuous plot would be criminal of me. Suffice it to say, the psychological thriller is sure to keep one engaged, while never shying from taking a peak into the dark and prohibited corners of a very disturbed person’s mind.
Director: Vijay Lalwani
Genre: Thriller/Psychological Thriller/Romantic Thriller
Language: Hindi
Country: India
Bhalo Theko has presented the various dichotomies that oftentimes exist within a society, or as in this case, an educated and politically conscious Bengali family residing in the countryside – the rebellious and those resigned to fate, the prosaic and the idealists, the inflexible and the easily bent, those always with a step in the future and ones forever dwelling in the past. And the manner in which this poignant tale of love, loss and loneliness has been presented that anyone giving it a try will find it very soothing to the nerves. The central story of Anandi, a selfless woman who, true to her name, knows only how to spread love, mirrors the changing fortunes and socio-political climate of the city of Calcutta. The non-linear narrative swings back and forth in time, from the turbulent Naxalite revolution in the 70’s to the era of urban female emancipation in the 90’s, and captures her numerous heartbreaks and the few fleeting moments of bliss. The beautiful Vidya Balan’s exquisite portrayal of the immense depths in Anandi’s character belies the fact that this was her debut feature as an actress. And the grand thespian of Indian cinema, Soumitra Chatterjee, has added yet another memorable role to his rich canon through his quietly powerful portrayal of a former trade unionist and Marxist who now whiles his time reminiscing and reading. The wonderful background score, lush photography and some soul-stirring poetry make Bhalo Theko a deeply humanistic work of art.
Director: Goutam Halder
Genre: Drama/Political Drama/Family Drama/Poetic Realism
Language: Bengali
Country: India
Iron Man is the first in-house production by Marvel Comics, and what an inspired decision it seems to have been because this might just be one of the most memorable superhero films and comic book adaptations in sometime. The movie is plainly and squarely about Tony Stark, a cocky, cynical, egotistic, arrogant billionaire, who graduates to being Iron Man when he realizes that weapons manufactured by his company might actually be furthering terrorism instead of abetting it. The film has been cast to perfection. Robert Downey Jr., as the flawed genius who gets an eye-opener only when kidnapped in Afghanistan, has done a fabulous job by making Tony Stark/Iron Man absolutely his own. Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeff Bridges, too, are noteworthy as Stark’s ever-loyal assistant and his dubious right-hand man, respectively. A critic qualified the movie for “it’s meta-narrative of celebrity redemption”; its socio-political subtexts aside, at the end of the day what really makes it such a hip-roaring success is that it is a solid summer-blockbuster and an out-and-out entertainer. The action scenes are spectacular but never over-done, the special effects are quite good, the kind of gadgetry shown would put the James Bond’s and the Batman’s to shame, and the pulsating soundtrack does the film no harm.
Director: Jon Favreau
Genre: Action/Sci-Fi/Superhero Film/Fantasy
Language: English
Country: US
Trouble Every Day, directed by the darling of arthouse circles, Claire Denis, left me largely untroubled despite its overtly provocative content. A pervert might find the movie something of a sinful delight, while a puritan would term it disgusting and tasteless; my views about this French film are rather ambiguous – visually beautiful on one hand, yet frustratingly indecipherable on the other. Set in Paris, we are introduced to a lanky, mysterious guy, on honeymoon with his beautiful, vulnerable wife. However their seemingly romantic trysts mask a dark secret – the kind which involves a lot of blood and a trail of dead bodies. This stylized and forbidden tale of cannibalism (yes, you read that right) has, even if one finds it difficult to believe, a certain sensuality and poeticism about it that would appeal to the senses despite the graphic content, thanks to Denis’ sense of aesthetics and her experimental, meditative take on the age-old tale of vampires. However, the disjointed script, the strange flashbacks which are plain irritating, and some average performances in front of the camera make this movie appear more of a deliberate snub to the conservatives than an attempt to deconstruct the zombie genre, though the truth might very well be the other way round.
Director: Claire Denis
Genre: Horror/Vampire Movie/Experimental
Language: French
Country: France
Film critics and cinegoers have called Up a rousing success, and have named it, along with Wall-E, as one of the great masterpieces of modern cinema. I wouldn’t go that far; but yes, there’s no doubting the fact that it happens to be one of the most noteworthy outputs from PIXAR, the ever-dependable makers of jaw-dropping 3-D animation. The tale of Carl, a former balloon salesman, now in the twilight of his life, who undertakes the journey of a lifetime in order to fulfill a dream that he shared with his wife, that of exploring South America, is, at the end of the day, still a movie aimed principally for kids. Agreed that it contains the “adult” themes of ageing, loss, unfulfilled dreams, and broken families, but at its heart Up is essentially the kind of movie meant to engage the viewers, lift their spirits up and provide a whole lot of fun and entertainment in the process. And in that sense it is quite a success because fun and engaging it certainly is. But despite its solid, old-fashioned tale of fantasy and adventure, what would remain longest with the viewers is the first quarter of the movie which shows how Carl, as a kid, met with his future-wife, and then, through an extended and extremely poignant silent sequence, we are given a brief preview of the journey covered by Carl and his wife from youth to old age, through various moments of love, joy and grief.
Director: Pete Doctor & Bob Peterson
Genre: Animation/Adventure/Fantasy
Language: English
Country: US
Corneliu Porumboiu’s sophomore effort is in many ways akin to 12:08 East of Bucharest, his brilliant debut feature – it has captured the mundane ordinariness and ironies of life with the kind of candour that has almost come to typify Romanian New Wave cinema, has as its latent topic post-Causescu Romanian bureaucracy and hangover, and a title that doesn’t fail to catch one’s attention. And though the off-balancing humour of his first feature has been heavily toned down, the movie is certainly not completely bereft of mordant observations and commentary that are sure to incite a few chuckles despite the deliberately drab tone. This anti-thriller, so to speak, is a police procedural focusing on the pangs of “conscience” that a cop is facing while at his latest assignment. Contrary to popular genre conventions and nearly bordering on the ludicrous, “its climactic scene”, as A.O. Scott has aptly put it, “is not a chase or a shootout, but rather a tense, suspenseful session of dictionary reading”; and that, captured through long, static takes, forms the most singularly memorable part of the movie. The director, through a slow, uneventful plotline, has captured the minutest details of the protagonist’s job, thus bringing forth the banalities and absurdities of life around him. And by the way, Vlad Ivanov’s startling cameo as the police chief reminded me of his explosive turn in 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.
Director: Corneliu Porumboiu
Genre: Drama/Urban Drama/Police Drama
Language: Romanian
Country: Romania
Call Adolf Hitler a genius, a few people will grudgingly agree; call him a twisted genius with the ability to mind-wash people, and a lot more will agree; but try and paint him as a human being, and, as a critic aptly observed, you’re certain to face a lot of backlash. It is nearly impossible to imagine him as a three-dimensional man of flesh and blood, but director Oliver Herschbiegel attempted just that in this audacious feature. The emotion that plays the strongest role in the movie is paranoia, as sociopaths like Goebbels, and well, the Fuhrer too, and their more practical counterparts like Himmler who are aware that the Nazi regime's downfall is imminent, are painted with meticulous detail over the last 10 days of Hitler’s life. The director covered a plethora of characters and events by broadening the movie’s scope, though personally I would have preferred the movie to remain just what it started with – an intimate portrayal of the man who, on one hand, turned Germany into a raging superpower, while on the other, perpetrated such monstrosities that make people shudder even after over 60 years of his joint suicide with his wife/mistress Eva Braun at his bunker. Any personification of Hitler inevitably turns into parody, and here’s where Bruno Ganz has succeeded in his chilling and volcanic recreation of the complex leader of the German war machine and the madman who will go down in history as one of the most hideous villains known to mankind.
Director: Oliver Herschbiegel
Genre: Drama/Historical Drama/Epic/Biopic
Language: German
Country: Germany
Michael Haneke’s latest feature, The White Ribbon, is an extraordinary work of high art. On surface viewing it appears to be a paradigm shift vis-à-vis the films Haneke has been mostly come to be identified with. The austere black-and-white appearance, combined with the somber tone and the nearly muted philosophical overtures are quite atypical of him. However, scratch deep and you’ll realise that the movie is as grim and as capable of provoking as any he has made, with themes like societal bigotry and the inevitability of violent eruptions even in the most peaceful of conditions playing vital roles. A psychologically haunting and visually ravaging film, the Austrian provocateur has attempted to unravel the cause of World War I though this complex, pseudo-mystery character study. As a series of seemingly inexplicable and unfortunate incidents start occurring in a small, paternalistic, and heavily orthodox German village, the veneer of civility and placidity that initially marked the villagers starts wearing off, revealing a snarl that is frightening in its display of hypocrisy, moral policing and repression. The movie has been presented through the eyes of a pleasant-natured and liberal outsider. The movie raises far more questions than it ever seeks to answer, and that, along with the implosive content and themes, makes for an arresting if disconcerting viewing experience.
Director: Michael Haneke
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Mystery
Language: German
Country: Austria
Yi Yi, the final film by legendary Taiwanese filmmaker Edward Yang, is a masterful exploration of the mundane details, foibles and moments of personal disappointments that often come to define one's life. Yet, conversely, it is also a moving celebration of the very act of living. This multi-generational saga and layered human drama starts with a bumbling marriage ceremony which doesn’t just set the film rolling, but also forms a subtle metaphor for the slowly disintegrating middle-class Taipei family it is based on. Each character is grappling with both familial and personal issues that make the older members reminisce of their heartbreaks, while educates the youngsters to come to terms with the fact that life is rarely fair to all. Every single person has been so meticulously delineated with soft, fine strokes, and brought forth through such naturalistic performances, that they literally jump out of the screen and present themselves before us as vividly human and devastatingly real people of flesh and blood. The lush photography, the meditative (and melancholic) tone, the unhurried pace, and the profound depth of the rich storyline make the film unfold as an epic piece of literature while covering the entire spectrum from the simple nuances of quotidian life to complex examination of the universal themes of guilt and loneliness.
Director: Edward Yang
Genre: Drama/Family Drama/Ensemble Film
Language: Taiwanese
Country: Taiwan
There’s often a trend among filmgoers to dismiss a movie like Bad Timing, Antichrist or The Piano Teacher simple because they are unabashed enough to present matter which is difficult and challenging to sit through, without really giving the movies their due. Austrian provocateur Michael Haneke’s sixth directorial effort, The Piano Teacher, like his Funny Games, forces the audience as well as the characters to take a trip to the very edge of sanity and reason, through such dark and disturbing by-lanes as obsession, sadomasochism, voyeurism and repression. Erika, played unflinchingly and brilliantly by Isabelle Huppert, is a frigid middle-aged classical-piano teacher at a music conservatory. She loves Schubert, but she also has kinky obsessions, which, when spelt out to her much younger student who has become infatuated with her, leads to shocking, catastrophic consequences and an incredibly bleak climax. In the meantime she lives with a domineering mother whose presence in her life might have been the reason for her being what she is. The movie is elegantly shot, and has its fair share of Schubert renditions, that are in direct contrast to the psychological tussles that define the complex mother-daughter and the destructive older woman-younger guy relationships.
Director: Michael Haneke
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama
Language: French
Country: Austria/France
Okay, just for the record, Mystic River didn’t endear itself to me as much as it did prior to my having read the brilliant novel by Dennis Lehane it is based on. But once I realised that its well nigh impossible to compress a dense 450-odd page book into a 2-hour movie, and stopped comparing, I agreed to the fact that this is a damn good movie all right. Companionship of three Boston buddies got silently torn apart when one of the boys got picked up by two strangers; and now a couple of decades later, Sean, a police detective, Jimmy, a former convict, and Dave, a recluse forever scarred by his past, are forced to come together when Jimmy’s teenage daughter is found brutally murdered. The movie boasts of two awesome performances by Sean Penn and Tim Robbins, as the devastated dad and complex man-boy, respectively, with competent supports by Kevin Bacon, Laura Linney and Laurence Fishburn. The relentlessly dark and brooding movie, with its fair share of fatalism, and disturbing albeit compelling references to the vicious cycle of violence, guilt and retribution, has been given a shot in the arm by the ominous tone of the script, arresting cinematography and narrative pacing that has defied genre conventions with gutsy bravado. Agreed, the movie isn’t without its flaws and omissions; nonetheless, this will rank very high among Clint Eastwood’s oeuvre.
Director: Clint Eastwood
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Urban Drama/Mystery
Language: English
Country: US
