The curious case of benjamin button

    This one was an ok one for a hollywood movie. The case of a life which goes backwards.Strange and almost absurd as it is, the movie has tried to present it as a genuine case and has succeeded with that. It portrays the challenges that a man who has his body clock running backwards where as his mind runs forward faces.
      I am a little bit of a fan of Brad Pitt and I imagine him as pretty down to earth for his success. This helped me through the movie as well. Quite forgettable though.Curious, but not particularly remarkable.

Ordinary(Malayalam Movie) 2012

    This movie has evoked good interest and has had good response in Kerala. For short of the right word, Divya had expressed an 'If only we could see this movie' some time back.So when Jimmy(colleague) sent an email about the shows on Friday and Saturday, I had immediately responded enthusiastically to all in the mailing list.Also, I am currently suffering from a soccer ankle sprain that got worsened from the time I responded to the mail and the time I need to drive to the theatre.
        Tried to work out a ride from Brijesh and Binish that did not work out as Binish had some sports plans. So I limped to the car and drove to the highway. Once on the highway, set the car in cruise mode, first time for a purpose.I wanted to still rest my leg as much.So once at the theatre building, I did not want to limp and find the hall. So I drove around to choose a spot close to the hall.There were no lots - so I circled around and parked on handicapped reserved spot.While I was working out optimizations on parking , people were trickling in.Once in,  the theatre organizer tells us that tickets were sold out.Then we are told that the first row is empty but it is right next to the screen.Decision was easy as I did not want to drive back again tomorrow nor did I want us to miss the chance having worked this far.
          So Brijesh,Binish,myself and Divya sat on the first row. Actually , we had an added advantage that we could stretch our legs and rest it on the stage.Helped rest my sprained leg well.

----

        So, here we were ,  half an earth rotation away from home with a hall packed with people like us - in a hall listening to a lot of malayalam comments / laughters.  The movie's first half was full of one liner quick jokes/ light romance and generally warm and friendly ambience. The story was not going anywhere for quite some time - a string of comedy dialogues. That is all we want too. The whole theatre was laughing as the movie had worked it's humour well and the theatre was full of young families.
        The second half is when the new filmmaker tried to put in some story into the movie. That is a requisite - it seems. Can there be a time when movies are made without a need for a story and is still enjoyable.In this case, story is not what drove the film. The film was driven as indicated by the title by a  setting. The setting of a KSRTC ordinary bus and associated people and humour around them. The story is what did not fit into the film.I think the right thing to do might have been to just build around the humour and just have the actors wave a friendly good bye to the audience at the end of the movie.Something like 'Ok guys - hope you enjoyed the movie. see you.. ' or something like that.
       The first half was amazing. It was a nice string of comedy sequences and has evoked the right response. Cinematography was not that great but there were some nice shots around the red and white nostalgic bus and it's saturated colors.Music is also not the high point of the movie save the catchy tune of 'Sun sun sundarathumbi..'. Biju Menon is the one who shone best in the movie followed closely by BabuRaj. Dialogue rendition by both have been excellent. As an audience,  my feedback to young aspiring filmmakers is to focus on doing the things that they relate to and really enjoy and to not to try too hard to make a drastic impact by putting in some shockers.Keeping the light mood of the movie and conveying some simple theme beautifully through the setting should have been sufficient.
         The second half had some chase scenes which felt pretty natural and yes, you are not going to predict the climax. Overall , it is a good movie to watch , for me , primarily for the humor.

The flight of the red balloon

   The movie was a very slow one.Juliette Binoche has done a great job at portraying the struggles of a mother living with her husband away. That is what stood out most for me - Binoche's acting. She has done a real fantastic job.
   The last scene of the movie was about a teacher teaching her students. The style of teaching is similar to the teaching style seen in 'The Class'. The teacher asks ten times as much questions as she herself teaches anything. A system designed to bring out the thinking rather than fill in the theory.That was very impressive - questions like 'What do you think that is? Why is the balloon red .. "
       

Who is Camus anyway(Japanese)

 A movie based on the making of a film by a group of students in an arts university .Has well brought out the campus environment and the various relationships and lives of the students.The layered approach where the story that they are filming leaves impressions on their real life.
      The movie climax is striking and represents the culmination of the overlap of life and reel life.The movie was not exactly a gripping one till the climax.

Munyurangabo(Rwanda)

     A very good movie about the violence in Rwanda presented without any violence.The movie made me want to see more of movies from the african subcontinent but I could not find any in the library today.The documentary feel is beautifully present in the movie all through out.
      Very real and down-to-earth people.The children acted very well.There was a striking piece of poetry in the movie too.There were many memorable scenes in the movie - the father scolding the son for being away from home for 3 years or so and not fulfilling his responsibilities , the mother saving the food for the son saying "There is no food but there is food for you".
      Seemingly a very slow movie, but offers a lot of content - very close to life. Two boys drink together and the first one tells the other one that he can take his cow. When the father learns of the son's plan to murder his friend's father's killer , the father gets angry and beats him black and blue. That scene has been taken with so much originality that you might think it is from a news footage.
      The movie has encouraged me to explore on the subject of violence in Rwanda.

Schindler's List

A prejudice interfered with the movie but the movie fought through well and won. The prejudice was that this is a pro-Jew movie made by a Jew and potentially falsifying in Jew favor.

Admiration for the man Schindler is what remains the strongest.A man can live on various and very different planes and can switch between these lives as easily as it is to tune your radio from 98.3FM to 94.3FM.Typically, you always sit on one station but you can switch when you are moved to.Schindler was moved from using Jews as cheap labor to spending money and saving their lives by the sights he saw around of the atrocities against the Jews.

It is a very unique story. I have noted this earlier too but reality is often much much more compelling than fiction.

It is a saga movie.Presents a number of testing real life situations.Excellent cinematography.The end of the movie shows the real Schindler Jews - like Che's friend appears in the end of 'The MotorCycle Diaries'. Still moved by the man Oskar Schindler.Salute you Herr Schindler.

The man of the year - Portugese - 2006

I don't remember ever seeing a Portugese movie.That is the reason I picked this movie.I would recommend Ram Gopal Varma to watch this movie.He can take a few pieces from this one to mix into his collection and build his next masala bollywood movie.

It is a fair movie but not that great. Takes you through a world of crime through a simpleton protagonist - a softie who goes from foolish to drastic to gory to scheming.It has been a week since I watched it.I still have some of the scenes running through my mind.

The movie does do it's presentation pretty well but you have seen other movies like this one earlier and hence don't feel that good after watching this one.

Shathraj Ke Khilari (Satyajit Ray)

This one is a subdued political satire presenting the incapacity of the Indian kings that led to British overpowering India.The movie presents the cold and ambitious British strategies in sharp contrast with the silly and emotional outlook of the Indian kings.Indian kings focus on art and beauty.Unfortunately, at the same time, British were strategizing.

For a Ray film, the movie did not offer anywhere near what 'Pather Panchali' offered. The movie did not grasp me. But since I gave it attention, I could enjoy the masterful direction and the beautiful cinematography.

Sometimes your reception is not in synch with what the movie is presenting. The movie is a very good one but it did not touch me as much.

Volver(2005) By Almodovar

Somehow, I had a prejudice that this movie is not that good and I had stalled picking this up from the library for long.

Having seen so many movies over the past few years, it is a pleasant surprise when a movie presents you something totally fresh. This movie presented that surprise.When you watch a magic show, you want to be fooled.This movie fools you happy.

Almodovar presents complex emotional plots usually.Here he has done the same thing but has added a very surprising dimension to the emotional plot.The movie seems to start off with characterizations and representation of the family, the relationships and then something major happens that can easily pass off as the central thread of the movie.We follow this thread in earnest.Meanwhile, other hazy threads are presented which you keep in your secondary cache.

Suddenly one of these threads assume mammoth proportions like the story of the worm in the apple that grows into a snake and killed the king.Once this hazy thread erects, the rest of the movie shrinks into oblivion and revolves around this axis..You realize that the main thread that you were following so far is just an offshoot of this one.

The movie presents so many surprising things all through the movie and finally the movie makes complete sense of all these.There are no gimmicks in the movie. It is such a long drama and presents a lot of everyday situations but I was never bored all through the movie.This beats 'Hawaii,Oslo' to be the best movie I have watched so far this year.

Hawaii,Oslo - Norwegian

The best movie I have seen this year so far. This one was a very special , a very unique ethereal experience. I can feel my head cool and relaxed due to the blood flowing inside I guess. The movie was at the same intriguing , spiritual , hopeful , emotional.The script has as much content to extract five six movies out and I am surprised I don't see many awards linked to this movie on the DVD cover.

It is about people placed in very very delicate situations and then things turning over magically. There is a father whose new-born son would die in a few hours as he is incapable of sustaining without the umbilical chord.The solution is to create an umbilical chord and fix back and the doctors have written off as impossible. The father does not give up and holds the straw of a private clinic operation at the huge cost of 900,000 Kronas that he cannot manage and he sells off everything and is about to attempt a bank robbery when another character in the movie robs the bank just before.The most joyous moment for me was when he sits dejected and one of the robber brothers, who runs away from the robbery .... edited to not reveal one of the many suspenses that the movie offers

There is Leon who runs whenever he is not sure what to do next. The first scene of the movie is a dream that Jiddar(Leon's friend) sees and whatever he sees tends to be true. So he gets worried and tries to prevent the mishaps. The story goes through various situations where incident after incident, things turn positive and starts to move more and more away from the dream until the end when the first scene is repeated as it is. The movie is brilliantly engineered and has a lot of beauty to it.

Lot of troubled lives trapped in cities. I would think that lot of the trouble would go off if people live together. A lady takes pills to suicide and is saved by a note message that one of her sons who has not seen each her in eleven years sends through a paper-girl. There is the plot of the robber brother who is given parole to meet Leon on his birthday.I started off by seeing this as a sweet gesture where as quickly a deep plan unfolds.

The movie is rich. In story , in emotion , in acting , in direction - perfect control and an awesome awesome ride.

The Bandit Queen

Having seen a number of Bandit movies, this one offered the true story of 'Phoolan Devi' but there was not a lot of new content. The movie does not work too well actually. Phoolan kills 24 innocent thakurs out of hatred for two thakurs and finally has to surrender due to heavy police attention. When Phoolan surrenders, the crowd cheers but why?

The movie does not show Phoolan doing a lot for the people. Phoolan belongs to Mallah community and that is perhaps the reason for the support as I presume the Mallah community is quite big.

The movie also shows Phoolan' s hatred for her husband but does not convince us why there should be such deep hatred.

There are minimal scenes of Phoolan's bandit action too. The movie might have restricted itself to the notes from Phoolan's jail diary which in itself might have been incomplete. Well, that is something that the movie maker needs to handle and complete.I think I liked 'Paan Singh Tomaar' better which was a more complete portrayal.

Absurdistan

I had picked up this one just because I did not have time to choose one and just pulled whatever I could get my hands on. What I was looking forward was absurdities like in Borat. Yes , there were lot of absurdities in the movie. The theme is about women denying sex till the men solve the water problem in the village.

It was light watching for most, however towards the end of the movie , the movie completed it's story and that too pretty well.A pipeline that brings water to the village has a missing piece. When the pipe is fixed, the water comes but the man who fixes it would fall into the water and drown. This is solved by tipping a huge rock that blocks the water.

A light fun movie.

A major inconvenience

This one was an ok movie about a soccer player who loves and takes care of his mother and brothers. A shy nice guy. He falls in love with the mother of a friend(player from another team).

His love interferes with his family and soccer earlier. Later soccer interferes with his love.He struggles to find a balance. Meanwhile the friend finds out. His own mother has a history of an affair with an Arab. The friend smashes his expensive car. The friend is upset about him having an affair with his mother and he tries to justify saying that everyone has the right. The friend insults him referring to his mother's Arab affair.

The fight ends him in Jail. This is similar again to 'Jaffa'. In Jaffa , the boy kills her brother over a fight and the girl has to confront the situation. Here , the boy kills her son. We are not shown how the woman deals with it.

Everyone in the movie seem like good real people. It is probably important to exercise discipline in one's life and if you just let your heart take you places, you will become a good movie subject but not necessarily lead a peaceful easy life.

Le Ceremonia(Claude Chabrol)

This was a masterful movie. I could relate the treatment with the earlier Chabrol movie - Masques. The movie starts off with very everyday sequences of a maid being hired into a very rich family. A postoffice worker befriends the maid and they start doing crazy things.

For reasons of economic frustration and envy, the post office girl and the maid starts off with pranks and ends with shooting the family. The lower class is frustrated and hates the more well-off higher class. That is a truth that can arise unanticipated.

The shooting scene was completely shocking. What did I find masterful? The way the movie starts off on a very everyday theme and suddenly assumes mammoth proportions and keeping the integrity. The way the movie brings out an uncomfortable overlooked truth - the truth of class hatred. The ending of the movie where the postal clerk picks up a tape recorder where the family was recording a ceremony and also ends up recording the shootout. The clerk gets killed , the cops arrive, find the tape, plays it while the maid walks out in the night. When the movie credits are being shown, the cop is playing the tape and the maid is trying to escape without being conspicuous.I don't think I have seen that kind of a scene earlier - there is a mastery to it.