Movie Review – Z

Only half through the film it struck me that ‘Shanghai’ was inspired from Z. Everyone knows about my memory power. I watched ‘M’ instead of ‘Z’ the day before watching Shanghai and was cranking my brain so hard to find the similarity.

At that time I knew that Shanghai was inspired by a foreign film with one letter. If I had watched ‘Z’ I couldn’t assure that my ‘Shanghai’ experience would have been better but I’d have understood ‘Shanghai’ better.

Because I could understand ‘Z’ perfectly. Part of it because I had watched Shanghai, I guess. Screenplay wise too ‘Z’ was a better film whereas ‘Shanghai’ lacked clarity.

I loved the way flashback sequences were played in the film like that of Persona it flashes all of a sudden and then tells you what the real flashback was. It happened two or three times and was wonderful. Also the climax, though I was disappointed of the sequence of events. It’s because of that I would never forget the film. In fact i started with the habit of review writing so that I don’t forget films. But memory doesn’t seem to be my thing and movies like these makes you feel better when you watch the second time.

If you are into politics you’ll definitely laugh out loud for the opening scene. The mild satire and wry humor combines brilliantly to form one of the best opening scenes. It’s not that it gives you goose bumps but makes you remember it for the uniqueness like how now I’m reminded of the speech about retirement in About Schmidt.

When asked all of a sudden I won’t remember that scene but during interesting moments like this I would always think about loving the scene. One big problem with foreign movies as I again and again cite is the unfamiliarity of actors. It’s good to understand the story but in films like this we need to remember face which gets really tough. And for someone like me who can’t remember names it gets even tougher. It takes a while to understand who’s killed, who is double crossing etc.

The investigation carried out in the film was curious. Instead of we discovery the fact along with the protagonist we already tend to know what exactly happened and see how the protagonist is trying to unravel the mystery. This has every chance of becoming boring but it doesn’t. In spite of knowing most of the details we are still curious to see how magistrate tries to nail the people. And it’s one the brilliant scenes where he says murder instead of ‘incident.’ That’s when he confirms that its murder for sure.

The reporters finding out the exit of the officials when they don’t see them going out in the same way they were going in and the way all higher officials try to open the door next to exit door were scenes of pure class.

Movie Review – Irandaam Ulagam

Oh boy, what has happened to you Selva? After watching the night show of this movie my friend casually said, “ivan yen ipdi urugi urugi love story edukuran?” (Why is this guy making love stories like this?) I was like, “Uruguna paravala da, Gautham kooda than uruguran.” (Its fine, even Gautham makes such love stories) He said, “ana ivan urugi psycho mari eduthuranae da.” (But this is making love stories like a psycho.) That’s how to define the movie in one sentence. I don’t know why Selva keeps on repeating the same mistake again and again. For all the research that he had done for Aayirathil Oruvan I thought this too would offer something heavy but it didn’t offer me anything light too. It was a bland love story set in two worlds but given a third degree treatment with absolutely no research, nothing.

On earth there was a couple and the same couple was present even in another world. Just that the second world couple love each other without knowing that the word ‘love’ exists. Our world’s couple is stereotypic and their world couple doesn’t go along with the crowd at all. Seem to be shot in some Norwegian village with only Arya and Anushka look different from others. Though the idea of using a specific set of people for the second world was commendable, the lack of make up to make the lead pair look like the rest was a huge mistake.

There were few trademark Selva elements. I don’t know the opposite word of feminist but this guy seems to be more than that. He can’t stay off the chauvinistic elements in his movies like how Ram can’t keep blaming about rich people in his movies. Maruvan (the other world Arya) singing a love failure song sung by Dhanush was heights. While I was irritated to see Tamil being spoken without even a change in dialect, this song added to the misery.

By regular Selva elements I was about the mention the way a lady describes Arya in our world and Arya helping his dad in the toilet. Though I didn’t like the first scene the second one was refreshing. But straightaway sitting on the dining table was well… yucky. But this was much better than Arya helping out all the victims. Another refreshing thing was the song Kanimozhiyae. Only Selva could think like that!

I wasn’t much irritated with the shifts from this world to the second world but the film flopping as a whole in the second half in both the worlds was a thing to worry. Anirudh did a great job with background music. One of which had music similar to Wong Kor-wai’s In the Mood for Love and there I could see what was Selva’s intention. He wanted to make a love ‘epic.’ But he took the word ‘epic’ literally. There Wong Kar-woi even makes buying porridge epic but here even an epic looking scene of Arya defeating their lion looked bland. Other than that the rest of the BGM has to be really appreciated.

There are rumors about Selva retiring. Not sure how far its true but when someone like him could make movies like Pudhupettai and 7G Rainbow Colony he surely mustn’t stop making movies. I understand Selva’s affinity towards history and epics in general but he musn’t confuse that with what he’s good at. This again is a subject which as a one liner sounds good but the execution is as pathetic as it can be.

Movie Review – Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela

At last, for Deepika. There were a string of movies (including Cocktail) that I wanted to watch for her. Have never been smitten by any actress after Aishwarya Rai like this but I avoided most of the movies knowing that it wouldn’t garner my taste. But this time got to watch this movie. Thanks to the appropriate schedule of the movie. I was able to combine this with another movie and watched it with glee.

Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s previous two outings disappointed me but he’s one filmmaker whose movie you can’t avoid if you’re a film buff. This time for a change, he amazed me. A very good part for deciding the movie as a good one could be because of the fact that I knew it’s an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. The setting was perfect for someone like Bhansali. Morbid romance in the midst of guns and thugs. How can things get better?

The film was poetic. Both Ranvir and Deepika had great body in a movie which is more about lust that love. They are honest people. Not in the Before Sunrise way but in way they show that they’re attracted to each other. So a perfect body paves way for such attraction. Add to it the sets, costumes and grandeur was things that come just naturally for Bhansali. You see all the old setting but still a scene where Baa gives Ram her phone number is chilling. There is no perfect definition of the era the film is set in. But we hardly question that. We don’t question why there are cars in the midst of palaces and kings and queens who wear traditional clothes. Why there are cell phones when the rest of the place has all antique items.

I’ve never liked Ranvir before and neither did I like him here.  But he was powerful in certain scenes where it was necessary. The first half of the movie played a perfect foil of romance and necessary allusions coming with it. I was impressed by that time but the true drama happens only during second half. Things could have easily gone wrong with such high melodrama. The inconsistent thinking by the characters. The numerous twists. But everything fell in place. Whenever there was a twist we could appreciate the way it was handled rather than keeping it just for the sake of it.

Though it’s a story of just two people, the supporting characters too played their part equally well. The scene where the brothers of Ram and Leela involve in a gun brawl keeps us at the edge of the seat and that too with a smile. It’s not that a scene like that has never been made before but the way it was made, we could hardly think about it that way. Add to the glitz and glamour the music was breathtaking. I can’t single out here for most of the songs were good.

While watching the movie I wasn’t sure how the Dhol song would come where Deepika takes blessings from Ranvir with her mother staying next to her. It’s one of the rare occasions I was happy about watching this song before movie because I wouldn’t have been anxious of the song like how I was during the movie. The song was perfect for the situation. And after a long time Priyanka looked good. I was bored by her monotonous styling in the mean time. But Deepika does what Priyanka couldn’t do even in her item number with Ang laga de.

I haven’t read Romeo and Juliet. Other than the few stanzas of Pound of Flesh I’ve studied during my school days my knowledge of Shakespeare is limited but this movie gave me the Shakespearian feeling that I wanted to feel. Kudos!

Movie Review – Cinema Paradiso

Dhanush in one of his interviews called Cinema Paradiso the best film he has ever watched and wouldn’t get tired watching it any number of times. At that time I was a big fan of him. His roles were considered ‘different.’ I too had the same opinion. I didn’t have the film with me at that time. After so many days, in fact years I got to watch this film. Being a film buff I should have watched this film quite early in my career. At least early enough but that wasn’t to happen. I watched this movie as a first in my lap top. I straight way started hating watching movie in lap top. The only good thing about it would be the much needed privacy but nowadays I don’t worry about my privacy and my family moves away if there are any intimate/violent or any scenes not suitable for family viewing pops up. It doesn’t mean I can watch Old Boy in my living room. They’ve become slightly resilient nowadays. Good for me.

Given the plot, I was expecting too much out of the film. One of my friends told that it’d be personal for me so the expectation doubled. May be that’s why I didn’t like it as much I expected to. That doesn’t mean I didn’t like the film. It just wasn’t good enough to be in my top 10. Still it was an enjoyable movie to be watched on a Friday night.

The opening shot was imaginative. A symmetrical shot of flower with camera zooming out and travelling backwards to reveal two characters who are supposedly mom and daughter. It gave me the Iranian film effect. With old people, smoky rooms and voice echoing there. I thought the movie is going to have some of the epic scenes in old cinema. But that was not to be as soon as the film cut to Toto. May be a star, that’s what my guess was then at least. The brief moment of suspense was a cherry on the cake.

Then almost the whole film goes to flashback mode. Here and there the older Toto comes which I didn’t like. Rest all were a pleasant journey. Especially the first part of the story with Toto as a child and Alfredo as operator of cinema reel. Toto’s mother reminded me of Athanasia in the movie Athanasia. She was there to be as a mother. One interesting thing to note is that she doesn’t mind Toto swearing and talking all those bad words watching the film reel under the light but hits him hard when he uses the money to watch movies. That’s when Alfredo gains Toto’s trust by helping him out in a situation. Though it was a simple trick of producing money from nowhere this scene was lovely because all the time we had a close of his hand and he had to take money from that. That means there is very little scope of error for Alfredo. Toto returns his favor in exam hall. This time there are too many things happening in exam. I wonder how they’d go unnoticed. Anyhow it adds to the charm of the film.

Toto’s mother is not really worried about his son getting into the film industry but rather disconcerts herself that she couldn’t let him do. A single woman trying to feed a couple of children could rarely show her emotion. That’s the turmoil she undergoes. But good for her, everything vanishes once Toto gets the job of Alfredo and feeds her. Before that comes the best scene of the movie. When his mother is worried about her husband being lost Toto sees a posture of movie. Toto earlier says that he hardly remembers his father. The puny face that he keeps was just for his mother who cries and not for the loss of his father. In the scene just before that Toto keeps the paper in the reel when it’s advertised that his father is dead. I thought he was going to cut that off from the reel so that her mother wouldn’t know. What I failed to grasp at that point is. It’s not only him but the whole audience who were watching the movie.

Toto and Alfredo become friends and in the process he learns a trick or two from Alfredo. Alfredo too after a while is happy to assist him.  Toto looks through the projector space when he blocks a certain film but we don’t see the lights falling on him. He’s quickly shown the door as he does that. Is it a mistake because ideally he should have seen from the space where Alfredo looks so that he could see the movie is proper or not which in turn wouldn’t have affected the screening?

The two most interesting scenes happen after the Alfredo becomes blind. Both were not explained but both were equally brilliant. One is when he says the film is out of focus. I couldn’t get how he could tell without seeing but my guess was he purposely fiddled with the projector when Alfredo was not noticing. Another scene was when he tells the story of a soldier who waits for the princess. The way the suspense was built with a hand held camera zooming in was brilliant and finally he doesn’t say the climax. It made me laugh literally.

The love life of Toto as expected doesn’t succeed. The New Year experience was new to me. The first time the kiss involves lips first and the second time when she appears like how a heroine appears in movies involves tongue first and it was quite a passionate scene. It was nice to watch their development.

The part where Toto comes back to the village was an average affair but in the climax where he watches the reel given by Alfredo is the best of the lot. We got so many hints of the scene to come but we missed it every single time. That’s why the climax is so brilliant. If someone had seen us watching the climax they wouldn’t have got a clue to the tears in our eyes like how the projector man wouldn’t have got a clue why Toto was crying when he was screening the film.

Movie Review – Kuruthipunal

Thanks to Wikipedia, I never knew the meaning of Kuruthipunal to be a flood of blood. All I remember about the movie is watching in a shabby Motcham theatre way back with my uncle, Arjun jumping between the platform (which was actually Kamal) and Kamal getting shot in the climax. Though it comes as a heavy spoiler there isn’t a single thing about the story I remember so I was intrigued to watch this film. The film severely reminded me of Sarfarosh which I watched recently and was thoroughly impressed. I never knew P.C. Sreeram could direct a film this good. With Kamal you never know who does the work. It could have been Kamal himself too. Remember Anbe Sivam? But in this case P. C. Sreeram has done two more films. Nothing of this caliber but. Music too was haunting in this film. Incidentally Mahesh Mahadevan was also the music director of another gem of Kamal, Nammavar.

Kamal and Arjun look unnaturally older than their age in the film. And there are no fancy angles like rest of P. C. Sreeram’s films where he has done only cinematography. You get only what you need. But having said that, this must be one of the Kamal’s most personal film. I could see himself and his alter ego in the form of Nasser in this film. And the climax too. Though a bit literal you got to appreciate this man’s talent. His angst is clearly visible through his dialogues. And this is one of the wonderfully written films in Tamil cinema. When you give concepts like this to Kamal he excels in it. But here he hasn’t crossed the line which he usually does. And that’s why Kuruthipunal is a better film than Unnai Pol Oruvan. Where his genius tries so hard to stay inside a common man.

The film has quite an unusual opening. An extended shot of children going in bus followed by Kamal in police uniform. Thanks to the extended shot there is a connect between us and the children so we sympathize a bit more than what we usually do when children die in Shankar film. In the latter’s film we get more excited about the revenge that hero is going to take rather than feeling sad about the demise of so many children.

Of the very few parts that I didn’t like it was that of the sex addict or rather the one who tries to have sex with teenaged daughter of Arjun. There are three acts involving him. The first where he looks at the assets of the girl which was obvious and bad. The second scene where he tries to molest the girl was a really good one, the dialogues like, “naan vittutu poiruvaenu varthama iruka…” generally doesn’t come in every other movie even when a character is shown villainous. The third scene involving Gauthami ‘offering’ herself was just to create sympathy. Incidentally Gauthami in spite of being a horrible actress has shared screen space with Kamal in most of his exemplary movies.

It’s hard to believe that this movie is a remake of Hindi movie Drohkaal. It’s Kamal written everywhere. But Govind Nihalani seems to be a director to watch out far. So far his stats seem to be so good.

Book Review – David Copperfield

I have this habit of reading a book till a certain point. Shoving it in shelf because I couldn’t concentrate and taking it back again from the shelf to read it thoroughly. This time I decided that I’ll complete this 880 odd page classic in one trip of mine. Well those two days of train journey weren’t enough for it. But whatever I read on the train and on top of Spiti were the best pages of the book. Right after that, it was a hectic every day evening bus activity where I could hardly concentrate. The first 250 pages which I wasn’t able to concentrate the first time were a gem this time. When I was down and out not knowing what to do on a hill top, the only companion I had was a naïve David Copperfield who takes everything in a positive manner. There came the best line in the book. When he visits his aunt’s house for the first time he sleeps in the couch. He wishes to be gotten up by the love of aunt being ready to cloth him, feed him. But on the contrary the place doesn’t look a bit changed. That was how I wished every time I slept on the hill top but nothing would change.

David Copperfield was the best love story I’ve read in spite the book not being a love story. The Dora and David part was adorable. Usually I hate these simple minded heroines who come across in the movies like mad people. But this time it was different. I loved the way David loved Dora and vice versa. I could also sympathize with every situation that Dora leaves David in, including the climax. I’m not sure how many of you expected David to Marry Agnes but that was always behind my mind. Yet there is nothing incestuous in it. He right through calls her sister and understand her affection as nothing but sisterly love. In the end he ends up marrying her and yet there is nothing offensive about their relationship. This shows the simplicity of his thoughts.

Everyone would love to meet a person like David, at least in fiction. The way he adores Steerforth is one more example of his simple thoughts and the brilliance of Dickens. Steerforth hasn’t done anything substantial to be praised a hero but that’s what the point is. We ought to see him from David’s point of view and his hero worship. You don’t necessarily have to win a world cup to be hailed as hero. A simple person who lifted you when you fell down from the bus too could be a hero. It is not easy to make a character so simple with everyday life being the core action of the story. In fact there is no action at all in the story. You could even say this road trip. With road being a metaphor with life. He goes around meets people and starts to go again with his life.

Though I failed to read the middle part of the book with full concentration yet I could never miss the continuity. I loved the way these English people quarrel. Do much decency I say. I loved it especially when Mrs. Murdstone and David Copperfields Aunt quarrel. Even Dick was an amazing character. He so much reminded me of Levitt’s dad in 50-50. Love the scene where Levitt’s parents accompany him to the doctor.

I gave a lot of my time for this book. If I had given the same amount of time with more leisure it’d have been an even better read. I don’t complain though.

Movie Review – Sunrise

I was to watch Cinema Paradiso and in TV there was Onayum Attukuttiyum. Add to it, it was Diwali. See which movie I selected to watch finally. Sunrise! It was a decision well made. With the cracker noise blaring outside (even though it was less than last year), watching a silent movie was a better choice. The tenure of the movie, 90 minutes was one more choice for selecting this movie over others. My computer won’t stand the heat for more than an hour. So even this I had to see in two installments. Anyways by theory of probability two is better than three isn’t it.

Of the three silent films which I’ve watched Sunrise seemed to be the technically brilliant one. Better than The General and Nosferatu. But my favorite still remains The General but I loved Nosferatu and this one equally. Sunrise very much reminded me of Ugetsu. Especially the boat scene. I also didn’t knew about the movie’s genre for I thought it to be a science fiction movie. Good that it was not. It was very human and simple movie about love between husband and wife.

I’ve always considered Indians to be the only ones to give importance for relationship. It was good to watch a foreign nation giving as much importance as we do. Their relationship was really cute. It made me see them as a husband and wife in spite The Man reminding me of Nicholas Cage and The Wife looking like a teenager. When you notice the credits appears for a long duration. It’s a mark with silent movies. They want to make sure that we read. The credits contain the characters name where the hero and heroine are mentioned as The Man and The Wife, just like in church which was nice but the thing I hated is I couldn’t skip the credits page because of the long duration. So I was compelled to read the other characters name, The Woman From the City, The Obtrusive Gentleman, The Obliging Gentleman etc which was a spoiler.

One more thing I liked about the movie was the use of effects judiciously. It might be a revelation at that time to use fading effects with the words for the drowning scene. The traffic scene where they kiss each other. Even though it looked like graphics it has to be appreciated for the time it was released. Remember we are seeing this movie almost 100 years late.