"Children of Heaven" (Language - Persian) (1999) - Movie Classics

If any of the viewers after seeing “Children of Heaven” does not completely and utterly wither into particles and adore it, there is a strong recommendation to test your emotional sanity. This Iranian film written and directed by Majid Majidi does the best thing in its casting. The brother and sister, Ali (Amir Farrokh Hashemian) and Zahra (Bahare Seddiqi) respectively are the children we see in the schools, the students who try hard with the same pair of uniform until their body maturity does not allow them to wear it anymore. They play hard too and the sweat they pour in gallons can as well make a river of child hood joy in the midst of mad reality existing somewhere in a parallel world.

Ali is filled with guilt and fear as he enters the house and stands helpless in front of his sister Zahra after losing her shoes. The shoes were not new but a torn piece put together by a cobbler. Ali’s father (Mohammad Amir Naji) is a hard working blue collar dad letting out his anger on the society towards his children. But he loves them and loves them dearly. Their mother (Fereshte Sarabandi) is ill and both the kids help her out in the house work while struggling to go school and doing their home work. The losing of shoes is not matter of luxury or childishness (strange to say that as both are in their lower grades) but a necessity. Neither of them cannot go to their school without sneakers and thankfully girls have their morning shifts while boys their afternoons. So Zahra wears her brother’s shoes and as the bell rings, she runs like a cheetah cub with two legs towards her brother waiting and looking impatiently at the corner of the street. Swap the shoes and slippers and then goes Ali with agility and a touch of masculinity ruining the innocence but well men are cursed right from their child hood of the beauty.

The film is filled with emotional land mines it does not step. The land mines I am talking about are the expected heart breakers because we are in love with these two kids. I have never been a great fan when people go “aaahhh” when they see a kid’s picture (that includes my nephew too) but seeing these two with the sibling love and the fear and concern for their hard working father, I cannot avoid smiling with a shadow of sadness and affection over them. Ali is shrewd, top in class and the swap procedure makes him a damn good runner. Zahra is the cherubic girl with sunshine on her face huddled in the cave of her dress but never does her ray of shining happiness stops. The humanity in them is pure and unadulterated. Nothing for a moment makes it sappy and this is something we can associate with the goodwill existed in our child hoods.

“Children of Heaven” soars high because I was able to fly back to the days I walked with tons of books on my back under the merciful shadows of trees to the school, late and never regretted it. And as Ali is getting stopped by the time police teacher, I had many of them. And there were merciless and even thinking back as an adult, a lot mean. I could understand the thousand times I came late and was punished but I could never understand the sports instructor make me run the ground (trust me, that is the cruelest thing you can do to a fat kid) with the loads of bag on my birthday. Now this is the best part, when I come back for his sports class, he asks candies for the birthday. That sinks deep and cut deep. Either way he made a memory and thanks to him for that even if it is a bitter one.

What is beautiful is the potential artificiality being jumped off at every opportunity and making it serene and impeccable. It is the film which makes the living genuine and a reason to live for. In the cinematography of Parviz Malekzaade, the aerial shots and the slow motion are the punctuations for this poetry. We see the naïve faces of Ali and Zahra with a foot away and always they are out there with their smiles and tear filled eyes.

This is the family which binds the society together. A father scolding his wife because she works despite her illness and a mother in that illness making food for a sick neighbour. This is the family which has two kids who some how in this menial labour of surviving has absorbed the concept of love and care. Zahra follows a fellow school girl wearing her lost shoes. She brings Ali later and they see that they are a family like them and without a word they walk back. Ali comes running home to say that he is going to win third in the running race because that would earn him a sneaker for his sister. The race when it comes pulls the viewers forward and despite knowing the aim of Ali, we do not know what to expect. For the first time in any real race and the one in films we want our favourite character to come third.

“Children of Heaven” would be the most sentimental film I would have ever seen and yet not even an ounce of manipulative sappiness is put in it. It is a classic. It has the characters we want to put our arms around and the kids whom we want to walk along guiding them when they walk by the side of our legs. It is a happy ending with a sad interlude but we know things would be good. It ends with a symbolism of life working out its way if the efforts are there and mainly the love in every bit of it. I loved the film, loved every character in it, loved the reality in it, loved the child hood it bore and the adulthood it shared, loved the moments of angels growing to be some one else but did not worry about it and if some one did not love it, I who completely believe in the respectable nature of individual subjective taste has to sincerely question their psychological bent.

"Married Life" (2008) - Movie Review

“Married Life” is as cynical as it gets on the matrimony but trust me when I say this that it is devilishly full of conscience. In fact when the charismatic player Richard (Pierce Brosnan) acts unmercifully on the two front ladies Harry’s (Chris Cooper) life using that word “conscience”. Harry’s wife Pat (Patricia Clarkson) and his mistress Kay (Rachel McAdams) are those. Ira Sachs the director pulls a very unusual film noir and a drama for love very tough to construct on these flawed characters. It is a film full of suspense and it as straight and clean these men take their whisky. Bitter but satisfying.

Richard narrates the story of his best friend Harry who explains his decision to break up with his wife and live with Kay. A single man and who considers marriage as a disease of course has a concern for his friend and his wife until he sees the beautiful Kay. Kay is the bomb shell in a house wife skin. Her eyes are as kind as it can get and the blond hair chiseled with artistic beauty adding the voluptuousness. Richard’s animal instinct is to have her but is conflicted with his liking for his adulterer friend.

Pierce Brosnan, a man who can be cheeky with a slant on his chin and who fitted in his Bond immaculately (even in worse films) comes up with gentleman sleaziness. Set in late 40s this could not be a better suit for this charming calming negative man. Yet he is not the negative man but a person understanding his balance of conscience and plays these people in to his game. And why do we think Harry is the good man doing the wrong thing while we chuckle at the word play of Richard. Is it that the womanizing attribute of him makes an instant impression on us that he is wicked and disposes women at his will and control? Of course that is the factor the director depends upon to sidle the darkness of the dreamy regular men with this character.

When Harry explains his reason to Richard on his decision, we know he is finding it than to solve it. Harry in his forties goes through the mid life crisis as one would say and the suspense of Pat is something I would keep it for the viewers to look at. The scene in which Richard and Pat are beautifully placed and the reactions of each member in there is believably funny in the height of its awkwardness.

“Married Life” does not make it a picture of noir suspense but a study of the partnership as such. Secrets buries with the person and especially in a marriage. While the extremeness of “Married Life” might not be a regular feat but the crime records indicate the happenings very regularly in current affairs. This wave of oscillating heart in a companionship piercing its needle of pressure of monotony on these people with their showers of “I Love You” are some times tragically comic. They truly love each other and that is the whole reason each other lie among them to not hurt.

In all reality this film sees the long term of commitment in a transparency. It sees it in a dark entertainment as these are happening to some other couple than us. The problems in between them seem nothing at all but the way we feel about the loved one among us vary and that is exactly is in between Pat and Harry. It varies from day to day and moments to moments with cursing them and cursing us for the bad thoughts and the harsh words and even a life changing event. How much we sustain it and carry through it determines the longevity of the relationship. Some break down in noises and some go silent underneath plotting their own web of getting out of it. Harry does something like that while Pat does in her manner. But see Richard work into these people and cruelly wins over it. Yet he underestimates Harry when we hear the story. Even him who without any hesitation can easily step through in destroying his friend’s relationship and emerge guilt free could not spot the vicious nature coming out of Harry and pops the question in us, how well we know each other?

It is a doubtful film and it acknowledges the fact of marriage working out as life works out with the time sweeping the pieces of it. It unravels its mysteries in the unexpected actions of completely regular persons who we would have our neighbours having coffee with and sharing utensils. What happens in between a couple is the real thing. Outside of it we would see a friend in control of his emotions, a sister in her world of wisdom, a mother proud of her achievement in the relationship while a father withers his emotions in jokes and sarcasms. They are all happy and they are all sad and that makes the perfect marriage.

"After Innocence" (Documentary) (2005) - Movie Review

“After Innocence” is story of real life Andy Dufresnes and more about the aftermath of their release which is not exactly a relaxing rest of the life on the shores of Pacific Ocean. It is follow up on some of the exonerated wrongfully convicted people of how their life is outside the walls of the prison where they did not belong. The years of wrongful imprisonment varies from 6.5 years to 22 years. And there is Wilton Dedge fighting for his DNA evidence to be admitted which would dismiss all his charges when the film starts. He has actually been through this process three years ago and for the sole reason of inadmissibility he has been in prison.

When the discussion of the judicial system in United States crops up, the knowledge of the subject would be through the educational information through “Law and Order” and other films talking in detail about it and I could safely state that an average person’s cognitive understanding of the system would be that much. And it has done its job of how complicated the procedure is and how mistakes are made as it is governed by humans. But how many accept those mistakes and how many guilty would use that admission as leverage for their wrongful innocence? These questions are unavoidable while watching this documentary by Jessica Sanders.

Once a doubt looms it would remain and the stain of it being removed is a long process if and only if the effort is made to understand and acknowledge the fact of it. There is a standard line uttered in numerous crime/court drama tamil films as “Nooru Kutravaaligal thappikkalaam, anaa oru nirabaraathi thandikka pada koodaathu” meaning “Hundreds of criminals can escape but there should not be a wrongful conviction of an innocent”. That has been washed off its meaning by the clichéd and million utterances in every film. It applies truthfully to this film.

While seeing the brutal sexual offenses and the horrible murders being committed by some one claiming to be human, we want to believe the death penalty so strongly. But how irreversible it is and how dangerous it would be. And more than that what is the difference we set ourselves from the monsters who commit those despicable crimes. The rage and revenge as a victim and a normal life being clinched away from their hands does vacillate the choices. I could never imagine that pain but the death of another human would only be a tragedy in some form or other. And when it is a mistake, it has become a legal murder. “After Innocence” greatly objects the death penalty and in a more convincing way than any other. Think about the lives of these men being lost by a mistake and it would be gruesome and unforgiving.

Seeing these men trying to move forward their erased lives, it stresses the luxury we have and been taken for granted. Not that we need to live in fear but recognize the existence of the great things of simple nature as the source of tackling day to day problems. They are not compensated by any means for the price they paid and the government’s errors. Their records are not expunged and as one says in the film the paroled prisoners get more support from the government to regulate a life out of the prison. Every one has the right to be angry but all of them have found a way to shun it. They have seen the anger and other horrible things inside the bars and they just want peace. A hand to hold and the freedom to roam.

It is true that the system wrongfully convicts and also lets the guilty walk free. That is the system because end of day it is run by laws written by human and advocated by humans. The errors are part of it and corruptions lift up its head a lot too. And the ego of the people accepting that is something of rare phenomenon as we see when a prosecutor apologizes to Dennis Maher. The system needs to evolve to thoroughly exhaust all the possibilities not alone after the conviction but it should hold up against the test of time. Of course the human dynamics and resource would run amok on those but it is a matter of life and death. “After Innocence” offers hope for the hopeless and that is saying very less of the film.

"Kandahar" (Language - Persian/Pashtu/English) (2001) - Movie Review

“Kandahar” supposedly did not get much attention when it came in the 2001 Cannes film festival and got its attention post 9/11. It is sad and cruel for a film to get its attention through a tragedy but the film’s content pictures worse and horrible state of a country disintegrating, decaying and looted by scavengers. In the public eye of viewing Afghanistan “The Kite Runner” as a book grabbed those in a certain element of emotional entertainment while giving the real picture of the country. In “Kandahar” we follow a Canadian-Afghan Nafas (Nelofer Pazira) hoping to save her long last sister’s life residing in Kandahar. Her sister has given up the life of imprisonment under the burka and in her final letter to Nafas has mentioned that she will be committing suicide coming eclipse which is three days away when the film opens.

As Nafas flies in the helicopter of Red Cross which is also a supply vehicle, it parachutes the necessities for the ground base medical facility. When the parachutes are floating in the air, we see the surreal sadness in it. The necessities are the prosthetic legs. There are thirty to forty men with their cradles moving as fast as they can. This is the beginning of very many tragic circumstances director Mohsen Makhmalbaf ride through the dry lands, blue sky and the bright sun in the land of Afghanistan.

Unlike the bland and annoying “Gabbeh”, “Kandahar” has a stream of thought and a story to have co-ordination into the artistic vision of the Makhmalbaf. Any director would have gone for view from inside the burka to give a feel for the cruelty imposed on the women in those places but we see what would be seen and that hurts us more. The audience of this viewing is not the arrogant people who are merciless to the women but the free living people. Hence we see the shame and embarrassment in seeing hundreds of women covering them top to bottom with not an iota of their skin winking the sun light. The ignorance and foolishness of that burns us inside and out.

With a much stronger eye for the characters especially by an African American born posing as a medic (Dawud Salahuddin) in a village, “Kandahar” is a better film by the director. Makhmalbaf shows a land which would very much resemble the post apocalyptic future world most of the Hollywood films tries to show realistically. Here it is unbearable with Mullahs giving pop quiz on the usage of Kalashnikov and Saber to a kid who has been so used to seeing clean skeletons in the desert fighting tooth and nail to sell the ring obtained from it to Nafas. All these tragic images of plundering innocence bring a sense of callousness.

There is a man arguing with the Red Cross volunteers on getting more elegant prosthetic legs for his wife. But why does he need it when she is going to cover it all the time? Or is there a loving care by the man to his wife to give her the best? There is a contradiction of views on that man. What about the unpleasant scenario these volunteers go through. They are out there to help but they are put into cornered frustrations when people want more. In fact as them we feel the unnecessary need for beautiful legs by this man but does it mean we think they should be happy with the sufficing of low expectations? When a film puts the viewer into the questioning chamber without much answer than sympathy, it has scratched its mark.

“Kandahar” while in integrity in depicting the country is not particularly a great film to be fair. It has untrained bland actors especially Nelofer. It has a drag but it is not a film to even appreciate the artistic involvement in it. It is more of a documentary styled with a journey to have the characters surviving hard and the madrasas as a feeding ground literally for food and future zealots. It might not be a good film in arts per se but Makhmalbaf wants to see the land as it is with fictional characters very close to the truth of the situation.

"Tigerland" (2000) - Movie Review

Private Roland Bozz (Colin Farrell) is the messiah of civil disobedience in the platoon put in the training camp of “Tigerland”. The training camp of Fort Polk, Louisiana is the pre-Vietnam drafting to get the feel for the foliage, dirt and some live rounds of bullets slicing the branches near the ears of the soldiers. It is “Platoon” in the US soil but Joel Schumacher’s film has the set for it in its own form of treatment. It bounces on smarty remarks and the light heartedness carried by the protagonist where the authority is blindly respected and feared. The loyalty and honour are worn as the badge in the hearts of soldiers. Patriotism runs high on the weeds of fanaticism.

Fresh out of a conduct punishment, Bozz joins the platoon going for the eight week training camp before heading to the war field. Bozz is a good soldier actually a great soldier but he would not obey the rules. He would cross over the line of passes and in the process pick up ladies and get along his new friend Paxton (Matthew Davis) too for good times. Informed as well on the loop holes of the military system, Bozz does not want to die in a rainy muddy place left to rot in it. That adamant behaviour not alone makes him the target for the military commanders but a special hatred from a fellow comrade named Wilson (Shea Wigham) taking special IVs for god, love and country every morning.

In 1971 with the war getting unpopular as the War on Iraq is going through now, as Bozz many are well aware of the lies they have been talked into for fighting. As any free spirited person we see him talk less about the politics and more about the individual preference he has unlike Paxton. Paxton on the other hand despite the reality feels the necessity to fight for his country. As the friendship grows we see Paxton beginning to come on the same plane of thought as Bozz. But Bozz as clearly he sounds on this getting out of the army does not put that much effort he does for couple of his other soldiers to get out. He says, “I am not brave enough” and that means the courage to hurt him. In fact in a drunken night both of them try so hard to do that and know they would not do it. The body and mind are tangled in the suffering rather than the unknown suffering coming in the real war.

The military is in catch-22. They hate Bozz and they would not want him here before he deports every soldier from his platoon. But taking him out is what exactly he wants. They are not able to scare him or make him fear at all. When a Sergeant says “I am going to kill’ya”, he replies back “No, you might do many things but not kill me” and runs off lighting his cigarette and coolly asking the Sergeant whether he has a first name. They share a brief honest interaction which is one of many great scenes in the film.

The hate Private Wilson develops for Bozz is hard to categorize. He feels the necessity to discipline Bozz for the sake of his country but soon that turns into a personal battle. Every time Wilson comes up with a profanity to embarrass Bozz, it back fires because Bozz does not give a damn. There is a famous line from a film or may be it is from a quote saying that a person who has nothing to lose would be the bravest and happiest. Bozz is the man but he has lot of things to lose as he is making friends.

Any kind of fanaticism begins to murk the line of logic. The purpose of war in any time seems tragic but what is the best way to deal an attack? Keeping apart from the Vietnam and Iraq what would have been if World War – II did not happen leaving Hitler to continue his holocaust? What are the rules of engagement? In the film “Hey Ram”, there is a spectacular argument of one head of the Hindu extremist in convincing the protagonist to get into their side saying “Kolai Kutramna, Yuthamum Kutram” meaning if killing is wrong than war is wrong too. Funny that he uses the line to convince his practice of religious fanaticism. The context and tone of course makes more sense to the lead man in the film to get into the organization. War can never be right. It would win something with a lot more coming in the later part to extend it endlessly.

“Tigerland” says what “Jarhead” later took the concept in a dark comic satire. “Tigerland” fixes the character of Bozz to be its philosopher. It carries this person where in the plain sheet of country and freedom would be said as the traitor and coward. Yet Bozz is the best soldier they have in the platoon. The head of the camp says “You are pissing your life away” and Bozz in rage replies back “I do not need killing and war to say that”. Tigerland is one of the best films I have watched lately.

"Q&A" (1990) - Movie Review

“Q&A” is a film beginning with an assumption on conscience and then getting plot oriented and end it to summate that through the voice over of the young Assistant District Attorney Al (Timothy Hutton). Directed by Sidney Lumet it is a story built on brick by brick with one element after another never siding for compromise and in tandem with the film’s screenplay. The series “Law and Order” has taken the whole section of the court drama genre in to television from the film industry but “Q&A” in 1990 was well before that and yet it would still stand out as a film than a conclusion of series in days of now.

There is something fishy about hero worship in Hollywood cop drama. There is always dirt on every one. Particularly in the cops because of the past and righteousness the job imposes and comes along with it. It is the same with one’s philosophy of following the values, rules or whatever one defines their path. When a person of those principles walks with it amongst his/her family, friends, foes and relatives, the people who feel the guilt might thrive for some dirt on them. That is the trick to get them in the gang to forget the wrongness happening around them. Something like that in a much bigger stature in the league of suits and ties and straight shot whiskies is the law, its abiders, abusers, non-believers and the strict enforcers.

Lumet takes on the diversity in the myriads of racial subtleties in everyday life especially in the office of law. Detective Chappie (Charles S. Dutton) an African American and a Latin American Detective Valentin (Luis Guzman) use those racial epithets in an acknowledgment of their friendship. It goes a notch up with Chappie and Brennan (Nick Nolte). Brennan is a hard and rough cop shooting point blank on a man’s head when the film opens. Al is brought by the Chief of Homicide Quinn (Patrick O’Neal) to wrap this up as it is said as a self defense by Brennan. The Q&A is the official “on the record” of the investigation imprinted on documents by an old stenographer. The young and naïve ADA becomes an instant pet for the Brennan but he is tough too as he had been a cop like his father.

The story brings in the criminals and they oddly distinguish them with the cops. Both exist because of each other and that acknowledgment is almost resembles a code in a war. The back stabs, set ups, business, money, corruption runs wide in the underworld while smoothly in between the documents and cabinets in the office of the cops. The clean people are skipped off or if they are on their way they can always find dirt as mentioned earlier. This endless spiral becomes a tune unsung loudly but heard in hymns amongst the contrast between the drug lords and the police chiefs.

The opening scene reveals Nick Nolte shooting and proclaiming it as self defense. There is nothing suspenseful in it. We know that this young aspirant, hopeful and idealistic lawyer would uncover this and would learn the complex ethics in this dreaded mess of crime and punishment. But hold on, there is suspense in this and a good one. Al in the investigation brings in one of the drug kingpin Bobby Texador (Armand Assante). Bobby’s wife Nancy (Jenny Lumet) is Al’s ex. The director would have wasted distastefully on their secretive love but watch this, Al’s break up becomes the axis line for this film. It tells about us on the bodily reaction and the prejudices to wipe off the goodness and the values in one. We learn from Nancy that after two years of dating Al is suddenly introduced to Nancy’s father and he is an African American. And Al’s face is the reason for Nancy’s break up. If that is though as being harsh, think again. It split wide open in me on the possibility of such thing happening to any one. It scares that irrespective of some one being much open their face hardly lies and the sad part is they do not know it either. Deep inside it exists and you fight with it till you die.

Lumet has each character to have something in them to say about the smallest discomforts and its biggest impacts in the business of crime and law. A snitch and an important gay witness tells to Bobby about Brennan is gay not in a funny tone but means it for a reason so widely true. The loyalty to their partners in the force and the whole meaning of bringing the truth out appears a fairy tale. As a child, we are all taught upon the values of right and wrong. There was a flimsy book of moral story with a situation “cut and dried” as said by the chief to Al on it to demark the right and wrong in stories. There was no ambiguity in it and growing up the line gets rubbed off and redrawn. It gets redrawn on the perception of laziness, selfishness and the love for others. Soon there are so many lines that giving up becomes a great option. But it is not that the stories change, it is the infinite knowledge of the human psychology which shocks, surprises and saddens to say that there is no line but a clear presence of the content inside keeping you sane in the midst of it.

"Quantum of Solace" (2008) - Movie Review

“Quantum of Solace” opens with the traditional uninspiring and badly choreographed action sequence, but when Daniel Craig as James Bond comes out at the end of it to unveil the trunk and asks Mr. White (Jesper Christensen) to come out, it is out of the question not to chuckle and get excited. What is this astounding magnetism this persona has to pound the start the film needed. With more action pumped than “Casino Royale”, this film is pure adrenalin sadly lacking the technique the Craig debut as Bond had. Coming from a good director as Marc Forster, it at times crosses the barrier of mainstream cinema into a film of poetic class especially in the Austria gun hunt with the back ground of the Opera. Yet it becomes a fodder of action sequences with more humanized form of stunts with no gadgets.

Craig jumps, punches, takes punches, get slashed by the deadliest pocket knives and kisses the death in leaps and feels the steel in his bare hands. It is physically exhausting to see the Craig’s Bond going through so much of running and fighting and what not in this film projecting a more down to the ground fight man. The nemesis for Bond is Dominic (Mathieu Amalric) fronting an environmental organization while smoothly dealing with the General of Bolivia (Joaquín Cosio) to plan a coup d’état. He is the lead of a secret society of lustful money mongers machinating control over resources but let that stay aside for a while for you to discover in the film. Let us talk about the man.

In “Casino Royale” we see a budding talented spy tumbling on the emotions and beginning to make mistakes. He learns fast with arrogance and becomes a killing machine. And he falls for a lady and gets betrayed in the end. In the clandestine operations of secret services trust is an obsolete word and he learns that. But he wears that iron mask more than he used to before he met Vesper after her death. A sense of regret and failure with himself and in “Quantum of Solace” he is driven by revenge. Now this paragraph is dedicated to the review of “Casino Royale” than this film as the material in discussion in the turmoil of saving the world forgets the man, a lot.

Regardless of that Daniel Craig is clearly in control. He has dripped out his blood and soul to perform this character and never would you see such a dedication in a role for this spy man. The stunts we see are most of the times are his face and body in the act. He clings on to the ruggedness of physique this Bond carries along. At any given moment he is in control but we do not know which characteristics of him take that control. It is mostly his rage and rarely by the conscience of saving some one.

Bond has become a mad dog and he keeps on piling dead bodies in pursuit of the operation. He does not care to obtain information as the non-living things of his victims would tell a lot than them. And Judi Dench as M has more screen time than ever but less smarty dialogues than ever. The passionate witty conversation existed in the previous film with M and mainly with the Bond girl misses a lot. Replacing that is the mindless loads of action sequences. When I saw the starting chase scene of the predecessor, I thought it has been very long since I witnessed such an action in a commercial film making. Here though with umpteen of it, I lost interest and becomes a whole ADD in act.

I would have to agree that the Bond girl Camille by Olga Kurylenko gives an able match in physical strength but the empathy for revenge seems unconvincing. Adding to that is the role of Jeffrey Wright as CIA agent Felix Leiter adding nothing at all. The photography and the dozen world locations were a display of the mood Bond goes through but it just did not have the charm and novelty in its characters except from Craig.

“Quantum of Solace” is a gritty action film as “The Bourne Ultimatum”. I enjoyed the latter because the darkness of the character and the intelligence of its protagonist did not get to think and keeps on moving it as in the previous two films we have understood a great deal of him for an action thriller film. “Casino Royale” set the ground for the Bond we have seen all the years living in a fantasy land of dancing in pleasure with death and debauchery. It made him flesh and blood. The sequel to it of course still has him in flesh and blood but with a soul missing not in him but in the story.

I was not put off by the regular expectation of Bond films not present like Money Penny and gadgets expo 2020. I was put off by the flurry of random action sequences with no clue on the cleverness, agile or the presence of mind Bond showed earlier. I admired the hard work of Craig and in his every strenuous movement of his limbs it is understood. But it became a regularity I have often seen in action films. While it definitely is not the conventional Bond film we have seen before “Casino Royale”, it has the only motive to boost the fight factor into knuckles and bare feet. Sparsely we see Craig without any lacerations on his face. Even in the colour tone of something new and catching, I only saw the usual fair of block buster action. I hope we see more of those fencing conversations and a perfectly angled shot of an action sequence aware of what is happening than guessing.

"My Architect" (Documentary) (2003) - Movie Review

Finally I made to a viewing of “Real to Reel” a film group in Peoria. My practice all these times was to come out of a film and directly write the review without discussing with any one. I have followed it not because I do not want to discuss but the mistrust in personal strength of holding train of thoughts. I am writing almost couple of hours later from when the film was over and I was tensed when I began talking with some people out there. Gladly I was able to remember more things and surely to bring in more perspective from different people of the same film.

Louis Kahn is a revolutionary artisan in the field of architecture during the times of late sixties and this fact I was not aware of. I did not know about such a person in first place. In fact Nathaniel Kahn the unrevealed son of Louis Kahn have glazed images but with much perfection of the events with his father when he was a child. Louis Kahn died alone in Pennsylvania Train Station in 1967 and Nathaniel was eleven at that time. After several decades Nathaniel decided to venture for the true quest to understand his dad and whether the belief of him and his mother of Louis coming to stay with them forever was true becomes his destiny.

To understand his father he visits almost all of the buildings he constructed. Louis Kahn’s entry into the populace of elite Architects happened when he was fifty. He was married and was a father. He also had an affair with his colleague and she became pregnant with his child. Then in his sixties met Nathaniel’s mother. Even after so many years none of them remember of Louis having a son. The journey unravels this riddled perfectionist and a recluse from the social clan brings anger than answers for Nathaniel. Of course Nathaniel does not show it explicitly in screen but you can feel it when he sees the horizons from the Salk Institute his father built.

We see brilliance as the symbol in bricks and sharp edges. It stands tall, hollow and magnanimous. The view of those structures blows gentle wind at your face on the ventilation and elevation the man has provided. It is simplistic but has a stature clearly representing endurance. Seeing the building should actually put a picture of a strong man with strong decisive thoughts. Instead we see Louis as a wanderer, unsettled workaholic and kind of annoying restlessness when it comes to compromising both personally and professionally. As every one else that part of his life would be a mystical darkness which would be scrutinized.

But what exactly is “My Architect” is what “51 Birch Street” is. Both have sons trying to understand their parents. In the latter the father is alive to shed out his feelings and the diaries of director’s mother to tell her side of the story. In “My Architect” it is the other away around and it goes through all the women in his life. He loved all of them and his kids but to me he was a man unwilling to give up his tendency of being a social animal and an idealistic personality in the embarkment of a life of his own. This in between persona earned his personal life a stain of irresponsibility.

And to see Nathaniel traveling around the globe to derive something out of it is something I would have hard time relating to. I am fortunate to have grown up with both the parents giving constant love to not get that feeling but I see something else too. The father is the strong man for his kids. He never would let the weakened side of him show up. And the sons and daughters want to believe that too and even as an adult the rationality of seeing them as some one as a regular person is hard to conceive. Despite the unconditional love going both ways the letting in of a father inside this super hero frame rarely happens. In that context I could very well empathize with Nathaniel.

One of the viewers said the music was too dramatic. I thought it tried too much but it did not annoy me. It would have been more apt for silence to substitute in certain places but it did not bring down the film. “My Architect” is not about architecture but it is a symbolism used as the contrast of character of this great artist in his mastery and in debacle of his personal life. Louis Kahn is an inspiration for many architects and end of day is a human would be the underlining of this film.

The film group invited an Architect to moderate a discussion and I felt the film is more about the emotions than buildings. The buildings as films is a work of art but the layers of sadness, freedom, space and time is the subject which would have been more appropriate to deal with. Nevertheless it was interesting to know certain elements of the architecture and the style of it from a person understanding and explaining it layman terms. Watching Louis Kahn’s life unfold with flaws, complexities and mistakes is an opening of any individual seated in the audience. Louis Kahn just happened to be a great architect and at least he could represent his feelings through architecture than most of us flutter in the monotone of conventional social life.

"Standard Operating Procedure" (Documentary) (2008) - Movie Review

Couple of week back I went to a Halloween party and of course had too much to drink. I randomly remember flashes around me which apparently was people taking pictures. When I saw it with me inebriated, dozed I felt something wrong out there. Of course nothing wrong than a crazy drunk but for an outsider looking it would be a clear stamp of me being a complete alcoholic. That moment is sealed for good and wrong reasons. When the Abu Ghraib prison’s infamous pictures came out I remember my reaction towards the soldiers in the pictures. Degraded and despised them for their actions. What “Standard Operating Procedure” does is asks what could have they done. Or doing the right thing would have made it worth? Or is it even wrong when in war everything is declared right with the person in power?

Errol Morris directed documentary thankfully does not go over the wrong decision of going on war to Iraq again. It interviews the soldiers who were in the pictures and who took them and their state of mind in doing so. What propelled them to smile and pose thumbs up on a naked Iraqi prisoner humiliated and psychologically tortured? The photographs as such are a symbol of inhumanity but the smile on their face made it psychopathic.

Morris depicts the actions through some acted out scenes in shadowy and blurry films. With heavily stylized shots of high quality HD, for a sufficient time I was not comfortable by the fact of shining these disgraceful events with super clarity images. But understood as the film went on that it is the style of the film maker. It bothered me but the idea is to disturb on the actual events far worse than what happened inside the frames of the photos.

We see soldiers explaining the scenario with something only can be said as an absence of empathy. The relative nature of an actual human being reacting to the cruelty in the prison and them are not something to be even mentioned. But the truth is more than that. It is about the orders and a man in control of charming and dominating characteristics. There is a female sergeant who took the photos reading the letters she sent to her husband of the horrendous scene the prison makes her to witness. She has also smiled and posed thumbs up. When asked why she did that, the reply was that she has always been used to do in front of a camera. And if she did not have it would have only brought more trouble to the unsettling figure of actual human emotions in light.

Sitting at the comforts of many things any one would call them dumb enough to take photographs and cowards not to stand up to the authority on the wrong doings. Judgments come for free and with plenty of feeling good about oneself. As explained clearly by an interviewee, if they would have not followed the order they would have been in trouble and they did and they are still in trouble. Another says the only thing she would have done different is to not join the military. Explaining how shocking it was is futile as it is redundant.

What happened in that prison seeing beyond the frames of the pictures, the situations of war and obeying orders is nothing but a psychological warfare of being in control. As happened in the infamous Stanford Experiment which also was made in to a German film “Das Experiment” when the most regular human being are given the role of guards and prisoners, the result was bad. Nothing violent but the psychological humiliation keeps the prisoner in their cell obeyed and in constant fear and pain.

The film nails its goal when the army investigator of this explains how to classify a “Criminal Act” and “Standard Operating Procedure” which becomes an insult of the logic and conclusions out of it. The film provides the story out of those images and says the cover up of throwing people under the bus. What happened was wrong and the soldiers accept it and wonder who they were at that point of time. One was driven by love, one was driven by loyalty, one was driven by the anger, one was driven by fear but beyond that came the mantra of “This is war and sh*t happens”.

"The Visitor" (2008) - Movie Review

There are films that I like and films that I would like to write. “The Visitor” would be the latter. Nothing more or less but the exact simplicity it has and the ending of a short story I would like to write. Tom McCarthy’s directorial debut “The Station Agent” is about three people with no commonality come together to form a friendship and a little more and in “The Visitor” the same happens, a little bit tragic than the former. It unravels the pain of stealing away a life formed on the basis of right to reside on the longevity of the stay and a hope that worst would not happen. It deals with the deportation procedure in the United States but that is one part of this mellow film with gentleness much like its protagonist Walter (Richard Jenkins).

Walter a professor living in Connecticut and who has spent most of his life in teaching and writing books is compulsively made to visit New York for attending a conference. He has an apartment in the city which he no more visits because it reminds of his late wife. He does not tell it but it is obvious. His apartment is squatted by a couple Tarek (Haaz Sleiman) from Syria and his wife Zainab (Danai Jekesai Guirra) from Senegal. In a good gesture Walter lets them stay for couple of days till they find a place. In a dead beat conference which he is not interested, Walter is involved and drawn to the Djembe Tarek has. Djembe is a percussion instrument played with bare hands and a sound reminding of the dance of African tribal dance we would have seen in Discovery or National Geographic. In couple of days Walter gets a great teacher and a good friend in Tarek. Events leads to the arrest of Tarek of being illegal immigrant and is kept in a detention center. Since Zainab is not a citizen, Walter begins to visit and soon is hosting Tarek’s mother Mouna (Hiam Abbass) too in his apartment.

McCarthy’s “The Station Agent” had the power of time warping without getting boring. The scenes are not dramatic but a weight remained consistently in the people involved carrying inside them and delivers in terse conversations. There is sadness in their existence but not in the regularity of it. In the life of being busy and getting on with the life of social mundane happenings, the avalanche in the assimilation of those wishful desires begin to loom along with the age. Suddenly it is twenty years with everything being denied on the basis of too old to. Walter, a widower finds a rhythm provided by Tarek and begins to follow it. And in the smile of Tarek and Mouna in her unadorned nature invites his attention to it.

More than the subtle sorrow of the situation, the genuine smile McCarthy brings up when Walter plays along with Tarek is the sweetest thing. And how easily is he able to slow down the vibrant New York by the people is a fact of how much it draws on the people it cares. Walter and Mouna like each other which starts as respect and ends with both of them falling in love of their respect is a thin line to walk on. In any other film it would have turned into paramount of awkwardness but not with McCarthy as he understands these people and more than that he respects his characters as they do with each other.

“The Visitor” has two dramatic pauses for Walter. When he dines with Mouna and explains his life of existence and when he finally spills out the anger and unfairness happening to good people by the operation of the system. Both the cases the integrity of Jenkins in giving Walter is precious. For once we actually do not know how this calm and lonely person would react. In fact Walter himself does not know how to show his anger which agonizes him and frustrates him more. Jenkins gives all those without stepping even an inch out of the story and the character.

“The Visitor” tells the tragedy of deportation rigidity and the randomness of it in post 9/11 America. Where legality and citizenship stand when some one has assumed their home and begin to make plans and find shelter in a land which is not their origin of birth. In a doubt filled and paranoid world, trust would be the word forgotten. Doubt can twist the facts to make it sustain and reside in a person. That is the era of invisibility internet creates in the closeness it promotes. As Tarek says, he is a regular man wanting to live his life and play music. It is a small world, a phrase made true by the advancement in the technology of communication but how much we have distanced from each other because of it?

“The Visitor” is a wonderful film and it is still growing on me. It has the lightness in presentation and ingenuity in the emotions of its characters. It appears to be a self discovery of lonely person the indie flicks loves to explore and the film loves it too with a help from other characters who are there for a reason rather than a plot pusher. And the self discovery of Walter is neither the cheery boasting clapping scenarios nor the overly subtle untold emotions morphing into arrogance. It is as simple as it can get and as rich in emotions it could be presented with lucidity for knowing its characters.

"Gabbeh" (Language - Persian) (1996) - Movie Review

If some one could let me know what in the name of art did “Gabbeh” tries to say, I would feel a little happy of my artistic ignorance and blame myself for the inadequate nature to understand the eloquence or articulation of the film. But it would be far from the reality and a test of patience for an avid filmgoer like me. This Iranian film directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf gives something resembling a moral story from our child hood books but uninteresting and ridiculously boring without any agenda whatsoever. Forget the subtlety or the metaphor or the symbolism but the distraught cacophonic voice of the elderly man (Hossein Moharami) haunts me even now beyond the wolf like sound made by another horse riding man in the film. What is this and what is the point of even attempting to make such a film in the name of abstract art? Its abstractness is not a high stand too but a confused individual giving a wonderful photography of characteristics of none.

Attempting to explain the plot line of “Gabbeh” would put me in the awkwardness in the eyes of the readers. Because it neither suggests whether the sudden appearance of this woman named Gabbeh (Shaghayeh Djodat) from the carpet (“Gabbeh” means carpet in Persian) being washed by this old couple represents their marriage or the fantasy land of fable story she tells about her clan and her eternal love for a howling man. It in its mellow pace injects the potion of colourful yet bleached with its incoherent storytelling into the viewers to not bring in any encouragement to tell something simple or even dumb.

Dumb films, I can understand because it has the property of one such. “Gabbeh” is a child writing a story without any guidance. It is not cute either to appreciate the imaginative demonstration of the director. I for one do not believe in a story structure or an ending or anything at all. I believe in poetry of the film without any purpose but the beauty of it laying it out to the viewers who come with no expectation than to look for a good film. I love the audacity of certain film makers pushing the envelope of the experimentation into taking the viewer on a tour to the territories unexplored and mainly dangerously driven. Mohsen Makhmalbaf does not seem to even acknowledge that interest from the viewers. There is a denial in the uncommunicative manner the film takes on.

It has the narrative character of Miss Gabbeh telling about her family. A male chauvinistic father and the disciples of him as daughters and the uncle (Abbas Sayah) who comes out of nowhere and wants to marry some one for no reason. What is happening in the screen? I have been utterly devastated by the abuse of the screenplay, insult to the audience and the offensive nature in giving a film of inhumanity but in “Gabbeh” none of those are there but the inability to exist in a dimension for an enthused film lover and appears to make some meaning only Makhmalbaf could understand. True that an artist makes a film honest to his persona in first place before considering the audience and I am a great admirer and supporter of such philosophy but I am also befuddled and a little bit offended by the inactivity and chaos shown by the director out here.

Even in my dislike towards the films of Tarkovsky, there was a level of achievement in the presentation of the concept in his stream of approach. In the distaste I had for the films, there was a line of plot or in the blandness of it existed an end. Despite the meaningless flow, it had something going for it. In “Gabbeh” more than the high stand, it is the frustration of unable to understand even a single scene. I am not sure whether I hate my ignorance or the director’s presentation. Either way, “Gabbeh” did not make any sense.

"Baraka" (Documentary) (1992) - Movie Review

Ron Fricke a cinematographer involved in a similar experimental non-narrative documentary “Koyaanisqatsi” (which I have not seen) takes the concept of it into his direction and skill of motion image capture in “Baraka”. It is a collage of the pictorial beauty, beast and ordinary happenings from around the globe. Its spiritual connection is obvious and its analogical themes have a sense of humour of its own.

The word “experimental” comes as the out of tradition, non-formulaic new method which has an open ended result of unknown out come. It is a bit of unfairness as cinema as the medium in its trend of formulaic and genre centered production does not know its outcome either. But the experimental is not the idea of the director rather a naming convention for a genre of its own.

Having cleared that fact, I was absorbed for most of the part in “Baraka” and sadly similar to “Microcosmos”, it wore out its inventiveness in a while. But it lasted longer than “Microcosmos” and a lot better than it with poetry of the textured and multicoloured life. Filmed in 152 locations from 24 countries as expected it starts out with the serenity of the brutal nature. The nature gives out its untold poetry in one of its creation through the high standing snow mountains seeming to grow towards the space of absolute absence of air and an invitation into darkness. Then the shift happens into the dawn of a monastery and in the streets of the poor. Again it jumps into the transparency of the nature and the time lapsed images of its movement.

With those alternate travel through the worlds not through the nature but through the people of it is charismatic and a meditation of trance in human emotions. It focuses on the people who look at the camera emotionless and having a blank statement on their face. The tribal untouched children and women, a passenger sleeping off sitting in a train and the yogi in the lands of Varanasi, every one has a stale mask over their face. They are in that moment of forgetting their environment and begin to think of everything apart from their surroundings just as the film makes the viewers into doing that. Slowly in a very conscious manner I began to wander in thoughts of what the images made me to think or associate events and emotions in the life I have and led till now.

Despite this courage of purely transpiring the art of cinematography and back ground score speak its emotions, it does get a bit too attention deficit as time goes on. Through the unexplainable and hair rising artistic imageries in river of clouds and skulls of the innocent victims in a former concentration camps, it as a trance music begins to go blank in time. In its rare attempt on capturing the purity of not the nature but the variation in the humans in different cities, culture, religions, place and high buildings, it goes amiss in its duration. It fails to acknowledge its experimental procedure in the time stamp of its film.

Still I would recommend “Baraka” for many reason and the one will that there is no way we could witness such an overflow of extreme and pristine cinematography in our life time. While the capturing is the artist’s talent, the location and the culture it grasped exists to give such ideas to him or her in recreating those observations into a series of spectacular paintings. Even in the chaotic yet organized schedule of the traffic and the human flowing like ants in the high style of city there is a feel of virginity and pureness.

This reviewer tries really hard at many times while writing his review on coming up with more appropriate words for much original and honest adjective to express his feelings in order to completely justify the emotions, being fair to a film and also have an attempt on the poetry of writing. Most of the times in that process, my thoughts does not precisely translate into sentences and words as properly expected and attempted. Lost for words is a common thing for some one writing regularly but I would feel disheartened and cheated in not coming or able to find the right word for the experience. For “Baraka” which I did not completely enjoy but adored its originality and spectacular cinematography begs a word to represent it completely and honestly. “Essence” would be it. Essence as in the concentration of entire sweetness from the succulent fruits to hold the sense of it in a liquid form to taste it wherein we forget the crushing of the fruit to extract it. “Baraka” is one such experience in its essence of life.

"Midnight Cowboy" (1969) - Movie Review

“Midnight Cowboy” in 1969 was X-rated when that rating did not go to the porn industry. It has scenes of explicitness that would have been shocking in 69 but it is not the shock but the disturbance out of it. Yet there is a bloodless killing in this film which would be the innocence of Joe Buck (Jon Voight) and in a deeper sense of his would be buddy Ratso (Dustin Hoffman). Hoffman’s character tries hopelessly on calling him with his original name Rico. Even the film does not credit him as Rico in some kind of a cruel tragedy.

A young and one tall drink of glass Joe sets out from Texas dressed up as a cowboy heading to the city of New York. He is out there to be a hustler and the fantasy of being paid for pleasure. He is not a cowboy but want to use that exoticism to his favour on attracting his customers. He only finds every street with a macho smoking cowboy in New York. He does soon find some one to get laid only to be paying out of his pocket to console a crying lady. He does not belong to that place and he is haunted by his past given in a dreamy hallucinogenic fashion.

“Midnight Cowboy” is a tale about the tragedy of innocence. In their aspiration for sexual business and the survival instincts to steal, there would be a considerable prejudicial argument of their naïveté but when those are skinned off, what lay is two men who think they are smart and are in denial of their dumbness. That makes them a cute little puppy, the difference though that they do not have a good owner to take care of them. Off the two, Rico is the better one, well at least for the mind part. Dressed in dirt and smoking half thrown cigarettes while swallowing his own phlegm, his health disintegrates as the film nears the end. He while mocks and in fact cons the naivety of Joe also invites to the dungeon of his asylum when confronted later by him. Thereon these two men begins to slowly care for each other and in the days of those times, the thought of the gay couple would not have been popped up that openly as now. Did they love each other? Yes. Are they gay? I guess it does not matter.

Joe is the charmer and his reason for dressing up as a cowboy and having a fantasy land generated in the New York City would not need any reason as it becomes clear that his method for solving problem is to leave the place. While it is not clear of his past in fragments of images, we wonder how he managed to make sex as his selling point after that traumatic experience. In his mind everything works out well and good. You provide the service and get the money. And this should be a pleasant experience is his view because in his town women are at least sexually subtle. He is startled, threatened and even roughed by some of the ladies he meets through his failing business.

John Schlesinger’s film is a note on the dream most of the times the runaways to Los Angeles would arrive. Generally it would be the young girl falling out in the dreariness of the city and finally giving up to the system which swallows and spits them out. Some how the male chauvinism imbibed in us has denied thinking the same for men and “Midnight Cowboy” is a brave way of putting it out. Hoffman and Voight make those simple scenes amongst the male ego into the tenderness governed to bring a soft feeling into us.

Our sympathy for their despair does not get low on their inability to consume their situation and make an attempt for regular job for a living. When they climb that bus to Florida, we know the likelihood of their destination but we care for them to make a better life out there. Joe comes out of his innocence and understands the place for what it is but more than that he understands what he is and the whole deal of hustler being an idea to be dreamt and remains in that place forever.

What I begged the most out of the film is a background score. A back ground score which should have disturbed their moulded apartment sunk with sadness and reeking filth with a somberness of their emotions. A soothing score which lifts up in coddling their bare naked gullibility of what reality feeds them. The song “Everybody’s Talkin” sung by Harry Nilsson does has a melancholy, humour and hope to it but a piano through the wind of the violin would have made this the perfection it misses by an insignificant amount.

The sadness is a powerful feeling. That is the reason the films winning the awards or the critical acclaim are mostly sad films. It is a feeling leaving with heavy heart because the characters we come to care go helpless and we want to help them. In “Midnight Cowboy” there is a peace made with the audience of the inevitability of these characters and the lesson they will eventually learn in a very hard tragedy. Hence while the impact of their sorrow leaves us sad, there is an acceptance which keeps us calm.

"Role Models" (2008) - Movie Review

When was the first time some one hears their first curse word? Mostly it would be around the age of Ronnie (Bobb’e J. Thompson) in “Role Models” and it might be tabooed among the kids or considered the cool thing to curse among their buddies. Either way when young and shrewd Ronnie does that without any issues and the adults around him have nothing else to say other than “Watch your mouth” as her mother or converse with his attitude as Wheeler (Sean William Scott) does.

“Role Models” relies on some of the things which would generally be advised not to which is trying to be funny among straight on explicit words among kids and second guessing the morality in it. And when Ronnie uses those as his only communication and the kids now a day would possibly have the attitude of it, there is not rolling against it. You play his or her game and try to lay a common ground. The problem is you got to get him or her in their off guard un-ego moment of immaturity and win their hearts. That happens in the case of Ronnie and Wheeler.

Wheeler and his colleague Danny (Paul Rudd) working as the marketing emblem of a company selling energy drink gets into trouble one fine day due to the bad day Danny goes through. Danny is in his thirties and he hardly can imagine his current state of life with inactivity and the void he has created with no ambitions. This cribbing laziness brings the heights of his negativity and his girl friend Beth (Elizabeth Banks) breaks up after his sudden “shake things up” pushes him to propose. That triggers him into the craziness of rage resulting unlawful events with Wheeler bringing him into the “Sturdy Wings” service. They need to do a solid thirty days of community service or be in the jail.

Each gets to be the “Big” for the “Little’s” as the ex-con-drug-junkie proprietor of the organization Gayle (Jane Lynch) puts it. Danny gets the nerd from the current generation of role playing in video game taking its real life form, Augie (Christopher Mintz-Plasse). He wanders with a cape and dresses up like the old English settlement people. Danny obviously with no interest is drawn into Augie’s dreamy community of similar interest people. And Wheeler gets a kick in his brain by this kid who throws everything at him.

Look at me seriously explaining the emotional plots of this funny film because it has a heart at its strange place. It has the best jokes among the common usage of a regular sentence ending up to be R-rated. The funniest lines are from the person saying it meaning seriously something resulting in the perverted mind of the observant, the co-actors and of course the audience. Paul Rudd is the buddy and he says the lines with the confidence that demands the laugh with an audacity of dialogue delivery in it. He creates a love for the writing he has worked along for the screenplay.

Sean William Scott is a jerk with unbelievable womanizing skills putting the everlasting question of how being a jerk wins women. He does nothing fancy but to walk the role with a little bit of heart in it. There is a care in this happy go lucky Wheeler to commit to something for a change. Along with Jane Lynch’s Gayle as the “bulls_____r” constantly putting the confusion on what exactly this woman is trying to say and whether she seriously means the crap she says or saying it to prank around to grab on the screw up Wheeler and Danny did.

If you look back in this review there would be nothing much of explanation in how funny the film was. It is tough to say what kind of comedy “Role Models” really delivered. It has the characters of every day life with the unusual hobbies and the acceptance of it. The last battle sequence in the Augie’s role playing community (no kidding!) has more action and as one character says killed by a feather sword “It is fun and totally contagious, isn’t it?”. The role playing world is the world I lived in with the cousins when I was young. Ours involved the imaginary gun bullets and pencil grenades. At times we had the driving helmet as the head gear for a serious sword fighting. “Role Models” is a tough film to explain on its funniness but it is not tough to laugh along with this film and it takes us with giggles, chuckles, smirks and everything that goes with it.

"Taste of Cherry" (Language - Persian) (1997) - Movie Review

Abbas Kiarostami’s “Taste of Cherry” is a minimalistic film with abstraction and mundane chores of unpredictable life in a practiced rhythm of unnerving happenings for a man named Badii (Homayoun Ershadi) driving his car. He is hiring for a job most of us would refuse, some of us would give it a thought to refuse and some accept the offer for the situation and the money it is going to pay. He is going to kill himself in a remote land of sand and open light of sun and moon where in a hole he has found to lay himself down. The person he is hunting for does not need to assist the suicide but cover him with earth to have some sort of an unofficial burial for his buried soul. And he offers a huge compensation for this aid.

In its artistic independence, it takes long shots with no dialogues and in a poetic manner brings in the bland life in a barren land but with a situation not a person would encounter in a day to day happenings. What it does though in the end is the white space in a dark screen of laying pale and staring stupid. The poetry though in multiple scenes does not make it a poetic film. It depends on its vagueness of a man whom we do not know and reason for his meandering search for a person to help him in his post death oddly does not seem to concern us. It should as we would expect as the demise of a fellow human making us emotional is what makes us human. Yet the judgments we do not make of him and his reasoning becomes the nullifying force in identifying with Badii.

The reasons for his decision are not explained and he keeps it to himself. He talks logic and reasoning for his decision of death and the assistance he needs to three people he manages to get in his car to ride on. Two of them are silent while he speaks. The third person, an old professor (Abdolrahman Bagheri) is the embodiment of the film. A Kurdish soldier (Afshin Khorshid Bakhtiari) freaks out and in fact sits there in the pool of awkwardness and creepiness seeing this man commanding, requesting and reasoning for asking his help in something he looks out for guidance from religious conscience. The second person, a seminarian (Mir Hossein Noori) quits out based on again religion. Both though honestly denies on the basis of conscience but needs a more solid proof to put forward to Badii in order for him to get out of this decision.

The old professor is the one who talks out his experience and tries to get Badii out of this. He tries desperately to get Badii to speak and requests to let it out. This conversation or to be precise the one sided speech from him is the film’s center piece to reflect and represent the concept of outlook and the experience of rejoicing the life we have. But as much as it shoots a sandy barren land with stones and machines digging up and covering a physical body in its way through its gaseous wandering into the atmosphere, it troubles in the placidity of its central character. A man not fully in conviction with his emotional outlet but firmly believes in the solution of taking his life. He is vacillating and Ershadi gives the blankness Badii needs but it is an absence of confide and care.

Movies like this do not beg plot but offers the dimension of the uneventful life and find a beauty in its routine. While Tarkovsky’s films try to say that in a tone of his and my latest incomplete viewing of Bel Tarr’s “Satantango” follows the same, they are a total detachment from the reality of life itself. I do not stare twenty seconds at some one to carry a conversation and if the other does, I freak out. Even in this unsatisfying movie there is a snatch of the reality from the outdoors of the nearby hill and a road untraveled but for reasons I cannot explain well, Tarkovsky takes a high stand on an artificial sterility in his images. There is a brutal denial of the life we see it and gives an alternate reality of artificial boredom. In Kiarostami’s world I would like to wonder on the nature’s offering of limitless sky and an attractive picture of reasonable expression of a driving person or a person thinking within the limits of widened air around them. I believe the world of Kiarostami, because they indeed are real. “Taste of Cherry” is not a master piece or it is not a good movie in its genre but the believability of it cannot be questioned at all.

"The World's Fastest Indian" (2005) - Movie Review

“The World’s Fastest Indian” has an irritating slow pick up. Once it sets a control of its fin up, it is a lovable film. Roger Donaldson does not start with the “based on true story” tag and lets the fiction mingle with the real adventures of the old Burt Munro in the 60s. Anthony Hopkins plays the kiwi man traveling from a small town of Invercargill City of New Zealand. He is the movie old man having that neighbour sweet kid as most of the films do and that part of the film is sappy and a over dramatized music by J. Peter Robinson which turns good later took my finger almost to the stop button of the DVD remote.

When Burt Munro sets up to head out for United States to venture his life time ambition of speeding in the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, it gets better and then a little better more when the road trip meets some good people and pinnacles at its best in the final speeding of the old 1920 Indian Motorcycle. Nothing much than a loner and man a heart beat away from the door steps of death but with an obsession for perfecting his ride is how we see Munro. We do not know his past but the passion for speeding is good enough to take this film to its destination.

He lands in the busy city of Los Angeles in the late sixties US and begins to work around his way in the sudden change of place. He is nice, busy and relentlessly shrewd. He is the squirrel eating the fruit hurriedly with a cuteness very much belonging there. He befriends every one he meets and warns not to smoke. In between he pops pills for his chest pain ready to give another heart attack. Much of it is the driven man standing in the wide spread salt land of his dream as every sports motivation film would have. The title gives away the ending and it is nothing much of a spoiler. As always it is the journey that counts to the end.

The nice people we meet are really the nice people. They do not glee through their extended lips but a genuine smile for this old man. More than that is the affection Munro draws from this people. The affection which does not come as sympathy but an appreciation for the personality Munro projects. The greatest thing about Munro the film shows has him liking of two great reasons. He does not complaint and he does not give condescension filled advice. Man of his age would have seen the life in the prism of mistakes, regrets and love. Those are the reminiscence expected out of a character but Hopkins gives the man of passion.

I began the film with spite and ended with nothing but love for the film. The old man’s journey has previously been taken with more emotional and touching style by David Lynch in “The Straight Story”. Out there the journey is for a regret to be settled forever by a brother to another brother meeting the same kind of people what Munro meets. Both the cases, the integrity of these two men make the people to respect them more for that than their old age.

The measure of success of a human life is the strength and endurance they push apart from the rest of their species physically while young and mentally throughout the life span. The success though is a relative term is more personal. For Munro beating the speed is a thrill of seeing that window of being light, thin and extraordinary all within himself. For some it would be the tip of the mountain, a forehand to win and shot to clear the skies. The life’s passion rests in that perfect moment which makes you realize why you do what you do. Despite that many years of unacknowledged voices and fallen breaths in the darkness of the unnoticed, a passionate person in his glory days looks back those times. Not because to scale of their accomplishments of where they are and how they were but that is the time when those personalities were in complete harmony with themselves. In the midst of climbing the success ladder some miss it. Some remain in the darkness and cherish it forever and either way that personal nick of time is the true measure of their success. Burt Munro did those speeding for himself and in that lightening quickness he lived that moment again and again.

"RocknRolla" (2008) - Movie Review

Guy Ritchie has sympathy for the pawns. It is a sympathy which is an attraction towards the manliness of his lead men in his films. In fact he includes that literally in this film with a character “Handsome” Bob (Tom Hardy) towards the lead guy One Two (Gerard Butler). You can see Jason Statham in it but we should not take the credit away from Butler who brings in the likeable macho Statham has on Ritchie’s previous films. Ritchie returns to his genre which gave him the cult status. It has been a mastered art but “RocknRolla” is not his master piece but as the dubious MacGuffin painting it is fun and the missed dark wittiness from Ritchie is a pleasure to watch.

The thugs or the “The Wild Bunch” are the ones we would be rooting for or to get them out of a mess. It is not the plot but the running around Ritchie delivers. He was pitch perfect in “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels”, a classy touch in “Snatch” and here a matured round on where he knows that no one really wants to understand the plot. They want a wild ride of chasing circles and funny lines from the hard men with sweat and blood underneath their leather jackets ready to rub it on.

It follows the “The Wild Bunch”, the reigning London real estate master scammer/planner Lenny (Tom Wilinson), his right hand man Archie (Mark Strong), Lenny’s new client a Russian named Uri (Karel Roden), Uri’s accountant Stella (Thandie Newton) and Lenny’s junkie rocker son Johnny Quid (Toby Kebbell). The pawns and the chess players move around as Ritchie wants them with his editing of sleek and shaky work. As the set up is run with the voice over explaining the deals and work styles of each of them, the film goes on weaving the odd dry humour.

The great laughs are from the running joke of One Two’s last night favour to his best buddy Bob whom he learned was gay and “wants” One Two. What follows the rest of the film is the subtle and open awkwardness One Two goes on and the others draw upon from him. It is all about each scene structured with a song very much appropriate and an over smarty dialogue with a punch line of raw comic. At times it is over done and you see the gnawed teeth of the screenplay grinning on its coolness. It is like the popular kid bragging which other normal crowd who hates it but internally aspires to be that person and for that creates an attraction.

The movies high light is the second robbery which reminds the glory days on the cadre of dry wit Guy brought to the English streets. The honest fact though is that Tarantino owns the patent but Ritchie brought something else to the table wherein he crossed the seriousness into an entertainment. This cross country ride in multiple realms of genre confused whether to laugh at the bloodsheds or take this seriously at all. The result is what we see in the sharp blades of smart lines and racy visuals.

There are loose ends, many. But who cares as long as there is a smoky dark room with men with guns and glowing women sometimes with power and sometimes with that added sultry lusciousness needed for the moment. As mentioned in the start of the film, what is the passionate look at the key low players in a big scheme? Why create a space for their charms and loyalty as to vouch for this in this game of bloody battle? When we think about those, it is “Fight Club” all over. When that cult hit came, it is not alone the frustration of the regular cubicle drone breaking free but it is the drooling of becoming the macho factor defined by the films and the ego inside aspiring in fists of men. As Ebert vehemently put it, that indeed is the homoeroticism on Tyler Durden as character of Edward Norton looks upon. While that film dealt it with a humour and gravity in visceral nature, Ritchie removes the weight of the bloodiness and pumps the humour. And we get a manly character we fantasize of being and through him we live those moments.

The film as said previously reaches its peak in the second robbery and sets up a grand finale of some predictable suspense and clean escape of the pawns. It has dialogues which does not make much sense and character which we find no reason to be in the film. Yet it is a Guy Ritchie film and in that he reminisces the times of those good old days of more than a bunch of young fools hoping to loot the money for their ridiculous debt they accumulate and here growing up to be the “The Wild Bunch”. They are still the fools not learning that the head always plays them in the end but that is the fun in “RocknRolla”.

"Changeling" (2008) - Movie Review

It is not an open and shut case when Clint Eastwood takes up a film to direct involving a missing child plot line. It is not a thriller with the grisly visuals to bring in the chills of the evil happenings in the streets and cities we live in. The ambiguity of “based on true story” has been the bone of contention to believe or not to believe which is a never ending turmoil of arguments and debate of the veracity of the content. But to the regular moviegoer, it does not matter. It is yet a nudging factor of “based on” and out here when a film starts with “A True Story”, it means the confidence and it is more than the verisimilitude of the script written by J. Michael Straczynski and reading wiki I was made aware of the effort he put towards to stands by its words.

In March 10th 1928 the son of Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie), Walter Collins (Gattlin Griffith) disappears from their home. The Los Angeles Police Department that time accused of corruption and violence brings back her son after five months. The problem is the rescued kid is not Walter and Captain Jones (Jeffrey Donovan) insists that he is to Collins. Collins is befuddled on what to do and doubts herself. The boy says him as Walter too and she has no other option to keep him for now.

Now if it is thought that the film is to be a fight on the nature of high pumped court scene emerging victorious and her glorious unification of her missing child then it is wrong. It is about Eastwood placing the audience in the character of one thing, doubt. It is not about the doubt of Collins may be not immediately but the vacillation of her son’s status of dead or alive coming later on in the film which prompts it. She gets prayers and assistance from Reverend Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich) on taking her struggle public. While the cruelty and disposition of the police department especially by Captain Jones and his Chief (Colm Feore) is staged, Eastwood touches on the drama of the belief and the hope.

The film running 141 minutes goes simultaneously on both paths of Collins going through in dealing with the police force in finding her son and another curious Detective Lester (Michael Kelly) following a case about a Canadian boy illegally staying in US. The latter revealing gruesome murders of many children by a serial killer Gordon (Jason Butler Harner) and that leads into something more into the psychology of moving on and having hope for Collins. Eastwood as he does in his films takes the motion of the reality with its time of events happening at its nature of its pace like putting pebbles with tender and care in a decorative glass.

We see Collins with Walter for two days comprising of three to four scenes in total. In those scenes they are not shown at their height of their happiness or sorrow. They are living a day, the “business as usual” day. Irrespective of our believability of the mother-son relationship, those scenes are like watching a neighbour going through his/her day. The people in the streets would come to their porch to look up and may be drop a few lines but the day continues and the life continues. And in a manner we see Collins going on with her life and at the same time not externally showing the angst and agony into accepting the daily things of going on.

“Changeling” as Eastwood’s films are about characters enduring time and emotions. It is about the present decisions and later regrets and lamentations. There are two emotional scenes and one scary which would be unfair to miss talking about. The first one will be the Doctor Steele (Denis O’Hare) examining or rather controlling Collins with a fearing casualness. Collins got to prove her innocence that she is wrongfully put in the psychiatric ward to a man working for the police who brought her here. There is a chilling mind game of how Steele control-freak’s her in a rather appreciative creepy way. Here is some one on the chair having a degree to judge you and already has, sitting whistling and humming tunes to give the terror very much needed. The second one will be final quest of Collins with the killer Gordon. In both the scenes as much as Jolie cuts the emotions open, the characters played by O’Hare and Harner are of immense importance which keeps the scene to its walls and never lets us move away. The scariest scene which I would compare to the basement tour in “Zodiac” is when Detective Lester goes to the ranch the very first time to apprehend the illegal immigrant boy (Eddie Alderson).

“Changeling” is not in the heights of “Letters from Iwo Jima”, “Flags of the Fathers” and “Mystic River” but has a symphony of its own. How Eastwood finds the music for his picture every time spot on? Oh yes, he composes his own. And out here he finds that note and brings that melancholy and hope in when the screen is filled with those from performances. “Changeling” is about many things. It is about police of being enormous social responsibility more than they know of and it is about the doubt, closure and peace a mother struggles to find and move on. “Changeling” is a good film and a better one in times of sloppy films lining up every weekend.

"Zack and Miri Make a Porno" (2008) - Movie Review

Let us face it; there can be hardly a new formula in a romantic comedy. Rest aside the classics “Before Sunrise”, “Before Sunset” and “Say Anything”. There needs to be a frame work prototype which can either made into syrupy rosy doll as the constantly failing emotional melodrama the genre provides with unbearable “27 Dresses” and “P.S. I Love you” or even in the successful raunchy genre by Apatow house of writers and actors has that predictability. It would be a test of time for the latter and hope it does not spiral down in to its former. Kevin Smith known for pushing his limits on explicit material goes for the formula in his own way. Despite some laugh out loud moments, it has a feel of happening in the world of his and comes out visiting the Hollywood arena in a sterile manner (pun unintended).

It will be overdoing in summarizing the set up for a plot as the name says it all. Zack (Seth Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks) does make a porn film. The thing though is the complication in feelings that would arise after their sex scene and all ending well as the film gets over. In between those there are cursing and the cursing meaning literally and sometimes more than that and some times it is what it is. Throw in some nudity and bingo you have the film by Kevin Smith. Kevin Smith is at his prime with the Bobby Long (Brandon Routh) and Brandon (Justin Long) gay couple in the reunion scenes.

Smith is good in approaching the characters and bringing out the role of sexuality being a crucial part in a relationship. In “Chasing Amy” we see a lesbian been attracted towards a straight men and how he takes it and morphs it in different forms to have an ending to really feel ambiguous on the situation. It was funny, emotional and bold. He is bold and does not fear away from materials regardless of its sensitivity of the subject. I consider “Dogma” to be his best film till date and his second best being “Clerks” but in “Zack and Miri Make a Porno”, it is all been seen (you can include the porn part too). It is too predictable of how the titular characters would feel about each other once their consummation is taken place.

Zack and Miri have grown up together and are broke now together. They are in a platonic relationship and I might take a random judgment thought on this but would not they have already discussed about it in their twenty years of friendship? I mean good friends when becoming comfortable and opening up generally discuss their intentions when they start hanging out with each other. It is tough to admit those in an acquaintance but in a friendship what Zack and Miri has it is little tough to believe their naivety in this issue.

But that is least of the concerns in a film focused on fun factor than the reasoning. I guess the anxiety of the main plot point weighs down the set up scenes considerably. If watching trailer would ruin certain films completely, the title of this film already gives out the funny sequences in it thus if the set up material does not liven up, it becomes waiting in line for ordering. Title indeed would be market value for the film but the fall back is that the failure to keep us busy in its material till we get there.

Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks make great friends and also an odd but a nice couple the film wants them to be. Rogen especially surprises me. I know that he is not going anything different at all in every film. He plays Rogen in various shades as Michael Cera does but he succeeds. The average Joe is the reason for it as he can get into this regular person to be in this broke or pot smoking characters without much of a change. I am not yet bored of it and so far it is good. But he has cornered his domain and does not go out of it. Seth Rogen and Steve Carell appears to be doing the same thing but they add that one piece of an evidence to vary it from the duplicity they are getting into and that unknowingly avoids us from seeing the sameness in their roles.

I have this late feeling of staying indifferent towards lot of films. And the question arises of whether is it me going in to this mundane regularity of seeing too many films or the films off late are plainly not appealing to leave me like this. It might be me but as many might know I long for great films and nothing gives me more pleasure in praising the film than writing negative reviews. Apart from the fact that I suck in writing sarcastically, the joy of sharing a film which I fell in love with the readers and urging them to go and watch it. I am still waiting for that to happen often enough and honestly 2008 has not been that impressive. There are promising films coming up and who knows, the very next film I am going to watch “Changeling” by Clint Eastwood would do that. But for “Zack and Miri Make a Porno”, it falls in the category of raunchy version of stereotypic romantic comedies but more funny than those and less appealing as a film.