Movie Review – The Exorcist

I never expected such an honest attempt in making a horror movie. I thought it’d be like Evil Dead which I absolutely hated. But boy it was such a neat picture. It started to woo me right from the first scene. Which horror movie starts in a country far from us, in an archaeological dig and has characters ranging this wide. If it’s a horror movie it’s always about a middle class happy family or a bunch of youngsters high on dope. Oh, how badly we’ve got used to it.

It would have been brilliant if you had not known the film to be of the horror genre because right away it doesn’t jump to demons. It builds slow and steady like a beautiful family drama. If the first 15 minutes give you kind of Indiana Jones feel – well which archaeology film doesn’t? – The next 5 to 10 minutes shows Ellen Burstyn as an actress and here whereabouts. What an actor she is. The director could have easily used some simple character but a famous actress who is divorced, has a loving child and in the midst of shooting… He definitely deserves an applause.

Then there is a priest. There will always be a priest in a horror movie but generally that priest comes out of the blue and not like this, someone who gets spot by Chris while taking a stroll who has an ailing mother and also a confused individual himself. That’s another peculiarly brilliant character that I found out.

The story builds and builds like a Tolkien novel. And that’s a great feel. It’s only till you see the ghost the tension is at its peak. First when Regan is playing with her mom we could see a telekinetic movement, then the face of a demon here and there. This continues for a while until all the tests get over and she becomes truly possessed.

It’s a common thing with horror movies to have a cute girl die last or the sweetest of girls get possessed. But Linda Blair as Regan Teresa was such a cutie and there is a scene where her mom talks to her about her birthday plans in bed. If other cute scenes were cinematic reality, that was realism itself.

There were many iconic scenes like the head turning scene, the stairs scene but nothing was overdone. It didn’t scare me much but achieved its purpose. And also the detectives’ role was icing on the cake. Another character which could have been easily avoided but wasn’t.

If Shining was all about class, Exorcist was all about honesty!

Movie Review – Ustad Hotel

Malayalees make beautiful movies. At least from what I’ve seen. They make beautiful movies. It is still from a foreign angle I’m seeing the movies. Not going to theatre blindly and getting surprised by it. As it has crossed various stages and enter into my hard disk finally it thus goes through various process and I know for sure it’s a good movie. But I guess I should make a family outing to Ega as a regular affair.

There is a beautiful scene in Tokyo Drift. My favorite car film. The hero’s girlfriend takes him for a ride in mountains. She drifts past the mountains. The camera is inside the car and we hear no sound except they two talk. Then the camera pans outside and we see cars drifting one after the other with no noise at night. It’s beautiful to watch even though it’s highly impractical. That’s how Malayalam movies are that I have watched. It’s beautiful, slow, and impractical but again I come to the first point. It’s beautiful.

Ustad hotel would have been a lot better if it had cut of the emotional part at the end. But can’t blame our directors. They are used to conclusions. They are used to dramatize the films no matter how sublime that could be. Taking of the last 30 minutes or so. The movie was like a gentle breeze. I love the pace of Malayalam films. Elipathayam is a class act. We’ll safely negate that out of the list. In the current generation of movies Indian Rupee thus far is my favorite. The pace of all the current generation movies are perfect. Just good enough so that you could relax in theatre. It’s like a spa treatment, an ayurvedic Kerala massage.

I’ve always loved the background music in current generation Malayalam movies but they spoil it in songs but for the first time the background as well as songs was equalized. There aren’t many songs in the films but whatever appeared was in the same scale as that of the background and wasn’t a hindrance.

Food and the angles which were used to showcase them were wonderful. This film would give you much more feel when you watch in an empty stomach. I bet you can’t go without buying food during interval when you watch it.

Dulquer looks a lot more comfortable in Malayalam films. May be Vai Moodi Pesavum was his only bad film. May be it’d have worked if it had been in Malayalam. His expressions are limited. He makes face the same way he does in Vai Moodi Pesavum or Bangalore days but maybe that’s his style. On the other hand Thilakan is fabulous. Not as fabulous as Indian Rupee but again a genuine role. But nothing can beat his villainous role in yesteryear Tamil movies.

The director very well knows that the movie is going to be about a hotel and food. But instead of starting the movie with a restaurant background or about a story of food it starts with a family expecting a child. Yes food is there in the foreground but for the next 15 minutes or so it’s about a family expecting a boy child and how he gets to become a chef. That’s a beautiful way to build a character/movie.

Anjali Menon looks like such a promising talent. She writes quite beautifully. Makes me wish to join as an assistant to her.

Movie Review – Airplane!

Airplane would have been what Andaz Apna Apna for the North Indians. It was great movie to watch sitting laid back on a sofa and munching chips. Both of which I don’t like as a matter of fact. Airplane was funny right from the first scene where an airplane crashes part of airport but we don’t see anything about that story after it.

The movie strikes with its satire even with its title. It’s Airplane! and not just Airplane. There were many funny scenes but the best of the lot was the one involving auto pilot. It’s a wonderful never thought before technique of using an air balloon. The humor goes one notch up when she blows air for it to inflate again so that the auto pilot can take command.

I’m not sure why the premise of airplane for chosen for this comedy. But it involves all the cliché that can be used like a kid entering cockpit as he wishes, people getting ill because of fish, pilot getting ill, a war veterans love story, a floor crews antics and  a motivational speech at last. Everything sticks together to give a decent enough entertainment that would last for an hour and a half.

Like how Andaz Apna Apna even though was funny didn’t appeal to me as much as it’d have for people up north. It was the same story with Airplane!

Movie Review – Waking Life

Linklater steals my dreams. First he stole mine with Before series, now he’s tracing a life of an individual, he has already made Slacker which I’m yet to watch but I thought I’ll be the only one who has that idea. And he makes an animation film close to Slacker here. Though I can’t say Waking Life was my dream, it definitely was part of my dream. I wanted to make something related to this.

Waking Life didn’t appeal to me as much as Before series did to me. But I don’t think any other movie will ever do. Before sunrise wasn’t just my dream film but it was also about my dream love, dream life. But here even though it didn’t appeal to me as much as the former it wasn’t because it is an animation. In fact animation is used to fullest advantage here. The images are unsettling, literally! The images keeps on hanging here and there. They aren’t in a constant plane. That’s because everything is a dream. If it’s a dream you don’t have to stick to boundaries. It’d be a lesson to Indian filmmakers to use the dream context rather than using it just for songs. See how confined our thinking is.

And of the various unsettling images there is a beautiful scene where Wiley gets up from one of the dreams. The image goes from black and white abstract lines to colored full framed images. But as the scenes are dreaming there is a 100 percent chance of that scene being not noted. But the idea is fascinating.

Linklater lives on the dialogue, thrives on it. To his advantage all the characters in his film are honest individuals so the philosophical angle works perfectly. May be all his films are dreams. All ideal characters whom you want to meet if you are an artist. See here, a lady talks about how words have no definitive meaning, how it goes from one person to other and the other makes something of it. The person who actually says those words assumes that the receiver has got what she tries to say. The beauty of it is she explains everything through words and we don’t know what to be understood of this.

Pleasure was when Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy came into the movie. It was lovely to watch them. Julie’s smile was so real even in animation. It’s a treat to watch. What a women she is. Making me fall in love every single time. For a moment I thought this film is an amalgamation of all his previous films but again I wasn’t sure because I was not exposed to much of his films. But finally came to a conclusion it couldn’t be as all characters were similar but for that single reason I couldn’t dismiss the fact that the movie is not a culmination of his previous movies.

I wonder why Linklater is not as famous as his peers who make great independent movies. Is it just because he’s using dialogues? But by using dialogues he doesn’t become literal. He gives whole new meaning to words and voices. He does with dialogues what Paul Thomas Anderson does without it. And good thing is he also makes you genuinely happy unlike other greats who push you into depression while watching their movies.

This movie has a lot of parallels to The Discreet Charm of Bourgeois, another movie about dream in dream. Bourgeois pushed me into depression with its greatness but Waking Life didn’t. That doesn’t mean it’s any less great that Bourgeois but Linklater has this discreet charm to make movies that connect with people.

Waking Life is in a way, modern version of Origin of Species with topics ranging from existentialism to politics to afterlife. The beauty here is not like reading one chapter after the other as taught in school. But a profound way of learning where we see each and every individual ready to answer our unasked questions. Linklater probably has read a lot, has a lot of knowledge otherwise he couldn’t write like this, couldn’t write at all for that matter. But what he specializes is the way he jump topics. How Salinger does in Catcher in the Rye, how we do while we talk with our peers during lunch. So here the information is not imposed forcefully on us but rather falls on our ears like honey dew words.

Waking life is one such film where u tend to love it more every time you think about it, converse about it, read about it than at the time you actually watched it.

Movie Review – Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

That red line thing at the end of first movie got clearer in the initial few minutes of the film. It was confirmed that the virus is spreading and the population is deteriorating. The title also was interesting with every word except planet starting with caps.

I got irritated with the very first scene of the movie. When the apes talk there was subtitles for it. It might be because 1) the apes have evolved so much that their sign language has become so complex for us to understand or 2) my copy of the rise of the planet of apes didn’t have subtitles for the apes scene (which even if I had missed I’ve no regrets at all as I loved it) or 3) the director simply didn’t wish to take any risk thinking that audience would get bored. Whatever may be the cause the subtitles thing totally turned me off. And 3D. Enough said! I really would like to know if there is any decent theatre without those 3D glasses. It’s so annoying. Funny thing was my friend trying to hold it throughout the film as it wouldn’t fit.

If the first movie was like any superhero movie the second one was like the dark knight. When it was said that Dawn of the Apes was the best sequel since Dark Knight I didn’t think that the comparison would be so literal. Anyways it’s nowhere near The Dark Knight. The only idea that could be appreciated is the apes behaving as we humans too. As we out rightly supported apes in the first movie it would be very tough to change opinion but the director achieves it in this film. After a long time we support the humans. Tired of all those stereotypes where people point at humans for all the bad deeds happening to planet. Why not some aliens come and we kick some ass outta them instead of weeping for the fuel we wasted. So in that way it was a relief.

If Caesar was MGR in the first film, he was a Sivaji Ganesan here in the second film. Highly sentimental and soupy. It was like watching an ape version of Devar Magan. I liked Koba, the real bad ass (Some Koba had favourited by review in twitter too). It was a treat to watch when he takes command. I especially loved the scene where he cleverly cheats two guys who practice shooting. That for me was the best scene in the film.

The film instead of adding details was plain slow. They could have made it as an action film to be better off. But forcefully trying to induce class put off the film. And they could have used some other actors as humans. That group was really bad. The apes displayed more emotion than them.

Though now the film is in Mexican standoff I don’t think I’ll be watching the third one. But would be interesting to see how the film ends. I want a high octane action film and not a war film with apes instead of humans

Movie Review – The Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Why do they have so many ‘The’ in the title… its annoying.

Rise of the planet of the apes was like any other superhero movie where one gets super powers for the first time. And with great powers come great responsibility. Only difference here is the being which gets the super power is ape instead of human. Poets say that one can’t get tired of watching elephants and waves. But for me its monkeys. Monkeys are the only animal which is so awesome to watch. So I love watching chimpanzees, gorillas etc. As I’m not fond of pets, coming from me it’s a big compliment for those fellas.

James Franco is a brilliant actor who was fabulous in spider man. That guy is capable of doing great roles, sadly he gets confined to these small roles in blockbuster movies. But nevertheless he performs those roles with so much sincerity that you’d love him no matter what which side he’s on. Here too he performs his role to perfection with shades of grey and his constant confusion as to what to do with the drug. Every now and then a certain bit of villainy and confusion lures him which he brings out quite well. Like the time he gives the drug to his dad, when he takes the baby ape to home etc. These scenes would be easily overlooked so only a sincere person who knows that it’d be overlooked and in spite of that to act and excel was a great thing. Freida Pinto on the other hand looks quite sexy which was highly unexpected of her.

The film gets to the point right from the first scene. There isn’t any boring antiques about how it goes through the process. Right away we see an ape getting into the act. That’s how you do action movies. Get to the point straight away. And this movie being the first in series gets the luxury of a normal man becoming a superman, sorry, normal ape becoming a super ape. So those template scenes where the ape grows and the camera tracks it from one room to another finally leading to a place where the ape sees through the window came out good.

I liked how Caesar selects its symbol. First it draws the window symbol with a kind of heavy heart but ones it knows that its place is with the rest of the apes. It uses the same symbol to define them. That’s a nice little way to bring out the essence of the film.

Also for a moment when Caesar closes the door while Will tries to take him out. I thought he’s going to take revenge of him too but he doesn’t and also doesn’t kill anyone who hasn’t done him any harm. He was like the MGR of apes. Even though it was clichéd it was fun to watch the ape’s antiques.

The way Caesar gets to the asylum where he questions his identity and tries to fit in was a treat to watch. His various means to prove himself good and thus forming the don of the gang was again a great part of the story. But once they go on a rampage and try to escape, it was like any other film.

Also the climax I misunderstood. Instead of thinking that the virus is being spread I thought the monkeys are spreading throughout and causing rampage. The good thing about Caesar is he doesn’t want to rule the world but to lead a happy life like a middle class human being. That’s the maturity he gets with the virus. So Caesar when he says he’s home, he truly means it. James Franco does a great job even while smiling for Caesars reply.

Also the climax I misunderstood. Instead of thinking that the virus is being spread I thought the monkeys are spreading throughout and causing rampage. The good thing about Caesar is he doesn’t want to rule the world but to lead a happy life like a middle class human being. That’s the maturity he gets with the virus. So Caesar when he says he’s home, he truly means it. James Franco does a great job even while smiling for Caesars reply.

Movie Review – Bangalore Days

A film which everyone is loving right now and rightly so. Never has been a journey infested with so many Mallu girls. Right from my Guindy bus to the entrance of Phoenix to the end of movie. Everywhere there were Mallu girls. For the love of all increase the show I say!

Coming to the movie. When something is loved by everyone it defines itself. It means there wasn’t any risk involved in it. It’s not that cinema must offer something new always but that magic doesn’t work every time like it does for ‘It’s a wonderful life’. The innocence we find in Wonderful Life doesn’t happen here. However cute the movie was, it was man made cute and not the cuteness formed when it was molded.

When the film began I was hardly wanting to look at the subtitles. Not that the film wouldn’t have made sense without it but for a complete understanding of the film I had to watch the subtitles. Audience came with a preconceived notion that the film was going to be awesome I guess. There were lots of laughs for the initial scenes which for me wasn’t funny. Not that I complain of girls giggles. But in fact till the scene of Nazriya’s marriage I was quite irritated. Again a loser, again a chirpy girl and again a guy who goes out of the mould and quite clearly a hero. Dulquer is getting a lot of praise for his role but Ranbir was way better than him in Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani. Both impractical films which the guys with passion win with a little bit of sentiment here and there.

Ok so now Nazriya is married, she’s cute and makes friends quite easily. They all fall asleep in the same bed before her marriage. That scene didn’t work for me. They being cousins was just an excuse. May be the director was afraid to just show them as friends. The first song was just a bore, a normal against-the-marriage song by a guy who’s a gypsy. Wonder why songs go so wary in a film which had brilliant background music. But I loved the scene where Nazriya’s marriage gets fixed when their parents see her and Fahadh playing with a dog. His affection towards dog is shown much before so it makes sense when he goes to Nithya Menons house just before climax and the dog there jumps on him. Similarly the radio voice we keep on hearing as soon as they go to Bangalore but only before interval we get to see Parvathy Menon. These all were well directed scenes as the character study was done quite well. If it had been even a bit more obvious it would have spoilt the feel.

Even though we continue to enjoy Nazriya’s cuteness, the real question is how long she is going to survive doing the same thing. There is one show where Nazriya comes back home after a horrid dinner party wearing a sari. Her shoulder blades are in focus and for a second she looks hot. She has a great skin tone. I’m not sure whether that shot was made after letting her know what she is capable of. But she has to do roles without this chirpy girl image. I’d like to see at least one film where she doesn’t smile.

Bangalore was a little over hyped for the film. That’s understandable and that also worked well to a certain extent. Even though I hated the first scene of Nivin I started loving him as soon as he grins after getting a posting in Bangalore. In fact Nivins story alone could have been made as a separate film. He was so fabulous. Not only him, Kalpana as Kuttans mom was fabulous. She is one awesome actress and thanks to her the best scene in the film appears. The letter from Kuttans dad was the single most hilarious scene in the film. That too when he reads it second time after knowing that he has gone to Goa was fabulous. I loved the scene where she goes to Isha Talwar and returns without saying anything. Even the climax, though clichéd was lovely. Even though everyone seem to have loved the first half I started liking the film only after the first half.

That marriage part where Fahadh acts as a husband with trouble didn’t work. We all have seen Mouna Ragam so it was nowhere near. Arjuns (Dulquer) flashback too was such a pain. Why would someone always have divorced parents or troubled childhood to become someone they want to be? Can’t someone from normal family be someone they want to be? Good that they at least didn’t show the flashback of their parents rejoining.

Much was said about Fahadh as an actor too. I don’t know whether he deserves the testimony to be such a good actor as I haven’t seen him much but from what I saw in this film. He’s capable. But his biker act in the flashback was laughable and you can’t expect one to sympathize with someone whom you’ve seen just for few minutes. One of the bikers call it, “what a love story it was!” Seriously, what a love story was it? It all ended within a blink of an eye. But that scene where he scolds Nazriya for riding fast in a bike gets meaning after the flashback. It’s again not a scene we haven’t seen before but gets the necessary impact.

The final race seen though we have seen in numerous films was again good to watch. I couldn’t explain why. A welcome change was Sarah didn’t come to the race instead Arjun goes sees her. That humor where Kuttan asks Das whether he could drive worked well. Das gets his bit of heroism at last. They all get together and Kuttan completes the story.

Finally, The Red Damsel sitting behind me in theatre, out of pure luck, if you happen to read this anywhere in internet, know that it’s me who kept on staring at you till the parking lot.

Movie Review – Velayilla Pattathari

Dhanush strikes gold with this one. Such a clever operator he is. He has manipulated everything that’s out there to woo youth and his fans. The film had everything from mother sentiment, his loser image, punch dialogues, beautiful next door girl to engineering. The last being the most important one.

The film opens with Dhanush telling about his life thus far and how he has been jobless. None of the dialogues of which I heard. I assumed it thorough the moving pictures. When it comes to mass films it’s very important to choose the right location and the right set of people to go with. It was a big mistake to have gone for Idharkuthane Aasaipattai Balakumara with my family. That film would have been lot more fun with friends around. I wasn’t to repeat the mistake again. So I decided to go for the film with two of my best friends, of course one dropped but still the evening was memorable. Ambattur Rakki ambience was perfect for a film like this. Just that the travel to that place was like one hell of a ride which took close to two hours. I don’t know what’s with Dhanushs film and me, it took me 5 hours to reach theatre for Mayakam Enna because of the incessant rain and now its two hours due to traffic.

The casting was perfect. Samuthirakani as a strict father, Saranya as doting mother and a younger tall, fair and handsome brother. Even though Samuthirakani does nothing different to differentiate himself from the regular fathers which Dhanush has, he does is job quite well. Saranya was fabulous as always providing a comic relief here and there and also excelling in sentiment scenes. His brother is a trademark Agmark character who does what he’s supposed to do. All the scenes between the father and son duo attracted huge applause and then there is that regular scene which he defends his son after mothers’ death. Best of the scenes was the one where he says, “evan amma sentiment ennalayae thanga mudiyila”

Amala Paul comes in as a damsel next door who is a dentist earning 2 lakhs per month and its love at first sight for her. It’s again a mystery as to why a heroine like lady like her would fall in love with such loafer. She doesn’t even smirk when he drinks and dances on the floor top. Good thing is that the love angle wasn’t disturbed either by girls’ parents or by the lady who gets his mother’s lungs. That would have been an over kill. So a pretty lady coming by and not attracting the wrath of another pretty lady as well his friends was a welcome relief.

First half was so well built and with Dhanush’s mothers death we come to know what we are to expect in the second half. As expected it’s a rags to riches story with an amul baby villain who says, “enaku china vaysila irunthae intha local pasangala ellam pidikathu” with a foreign dialect. That guy is a typical hero material. It was funny when Dhanush after showing off his six packs takes the shirt of this guy. The crew cleverly doesn’t show the villains body. Guess they didn’t want to overshadow Dhanush’s six pack with that of the villains.

Songs were such a hit before the movie and they have used it very well to their benefit. Every one of the songs fits right at the place and comes out quite good. Especially the VIP song which is like Vetrikodi kattu from Padayappa was a perfect fodder to Dhanush’s image. Dhanush always wanted to be a director is what he says, he has used his directors’ brain quite cleverly to boost his image. The posters read ‘Adutha super star’ and all the background old music were from Rajni’s yesteryear songs like his cell phone song “vellai illathavan thaan…”

In all Dhanush equates his formula right and has a winner on cards. Everything works for him in this film from punch dialogues to songs to sentiments to fights. Also this film made me happy of watching a good mass film after a long time.

Movie Review – Edge of Tomorrow

Edge of Tomorrow was never in my list but thanks to an offer which I couldn’t refuse I watched it. The movie had every reason for me to not watch. First being a sci fi, where wannabe college kids take their girlfriends, sit behind your back, talk on top of your head about how omega is greater than alpha etc by reading Wikipedia well before hand. All these guys should be put in a theatre handcuffed to watch space odyssey. Then it’s a 3D movie. Except for the extra 30 rupees they get it I don’t see any logic in watching a 3D movie. Worst is when even subtitles come near you. God! Give me a break. Then it had Tom Cruise who’ll cruise in a bike no matter what era the film is in. Here too it happened. Yet I watched the movie but to my surprise I came out of the theatre happy. One sole thing that a human would want on any day.

Last week there was an article by Rangan about professionalism. This film reminded me of that article. He had mentioned about transformers there as the article was about Hollywood craps. I wouldn’t have watched transformers even if it had been my last day on earth and my existence would solely depend upon watching the film. So my thing was more about Hollywood blockbusters than craps. You know with most of the Hollywood blockbusters you can’t enrich your knowledge but when you watch Inception you don’t even want to do that. That’s how to make a perfect Hollywood blockbuster. As clean as a slate. Edge of Tomorrow is one such movie. I cited Inception here because it’s obvious, that’s the closest thing one would think of while watching the movie.

As you all know I don’t usually watch the trailers or even posters before watching the movie but this time it was different. As I was going to theatre after a long time to watch a Hollywood blockbuster I was curious. If I’m allowed to hurt my ego and say, I was excited too. The film is by Doug Liman, the guy who made a bad Mr and Mrs Smith, an interesting Jumper and my favorite of his Bourne Identity. So I got to know that I was in good hands and well Tom Cruise too like a majority of Hollywood superstars selects his scripts well.

In the poster of the movie there is a caption. Live. Die. Repeat. With Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt in heavy armors. The caption was more like a t-shirt quote. Cheap and funny. But it couldn’t have made better sense. That one caption summarized the whole story. Good that I didn’t remember what I’ve read. I was surprised the first time the ‘repeat’ scene happened. Only when the ‘repeat’ scene happens the second time we really get to know the complete essence of it. And the wannabe kids who had read the story in Wikipedia beforehand. Would you guys have got the same kick I got when this scene happened?

The way the story builds up is awesome. Very rarely you see Tom Cruise as someone who is not in for action. So when he comes in and says to general that he won’t go for fight it’s a welcome change. It gives you a feel that you are in for something different even though after seeing all the metal jackets and the poster of the movie you know he’s going to come back with a bang. I don’t know whether he’s been called a faggot this number of time in his entire life.

Emily Blunt too was fabulous in her role. That never ending yoga scene was a treat to watch. I had seen her only in The Devil Wears Prada and that is nothing compared to Edge of Tomorrow. She seems to have developed a lot as an actor through the years.

The film was going at a really good pace and kept us on our toes but during the final minutes the after the obvious blood transfusion things became slightly formulistic/dramatic. And the scenes in London didn’t look real. They tried hard to use close up shots with hand held camera but it didn’t appeal as such. Otherwise the movie was a flawless entertainer.

Movie Review – Harakiri

Harakiri totally spoilt my day. A Cache or a Stalker spoiling my day is understandable. But a Japanese samurai period drama spoiling my day was something that I totally didn’t expect. Harakiri had a Rashomon feel to it. Before watching Harakiri, Rashomon was my favorite movie. I now really don’t know whether it had beat Rashomon to top the chart but its very well in the fray of Rashomon and Grave of the fireflies. In fact the opening of the movie was similar to Rashomon too with an empty castle with a board. Only that it wasn’t raining. The first shot was a curious one though with nothing but the top of castle and the sky visible.

It took me a good 20 minutes to settle down for the movie because I wasn’t in a mood to watch a Japanese film that time. I planned to watch Separation but thanks to my unmatching subtitles I chose Harakiri, with a friends help of course. Not a bad choice at all but still Separation is eluding me forever.

So for the first 20 minutes the things that I found awkward majorly was the editing. Gaps were given at the most unexpected and scenes from the present to flashback were jumping without a visible cut, even it had had cuts it was shown as if it was continuous shot. I found the method of storytelling unique and I’ve to laud Masaki Kobayashi for it. Taking about the director, how many movies have we really watched which is not of Kurosawa. Yes Ozu is there but he’s different. Harakiri is a type of movie which Kurosawa makes. So when I first watched Tsugomo Hanshiro enter I thought him to be Toshiru Mifune as usual and the director to be Kurasawa. I was in fact amazed by how subtle Mifune had acted because I’ve always seen him loud roles. And it all matched so well. Only after reading the credits I got to know about Kobayashi and Tatsuya Nakadi. Now I need to watch more of Kobayashi. Seems another gem of a director.

Then the next weird thing was there were a lot of shots which followed the person when he was moving, not sure what’s the term they use but it disappeared all of a sudden. Guess the movie was shot in chronological order. And these 20 minutes was the time my mind was wavering about, thinking mostly of Japanese architecture, how I want to go to a place I don’t know the language at all and yet be happy. I want to go especially to Japanese houses like these made of wood and were people sit in a type of kneeled down position.

Only after those 20 minutes of confusion I settled for the movie. It was the juncture where a Japanese samurai is made to kill himself with wooden dagger. Only at that point I sat in an upright position. And the rest was history…

That was the time where I understood the meaning of the film even though Hanshiro acts out what Harakiri means, a numerous time to Saito Kageyu. The scene was quite gory. The one which went to this extreme was the rape scene in Ugetsu which was lovely and the seduction scene in Woman in the Dunes. Well now that’s a whole different story. I feel I’m just boasting my knowledge here. So the point is it was gory enough to stand out, to make me excited.

Then Hanshiro starts narrating the scene which leads up to the hara-kiri scene. He names three people to be a second for him, meaning the one who beheads the person who performs hara-kiri to send him to heaven or some word Hanshiro mentions. All three are surprisingly not there.

Hanshiro then narrates the flashback. The first hara-kiri even though gory didn’t make me think was wrong because he wanted hara-kiri so why would he come with a wooden blade. But once Hanshiro narrates the story my opinion changed. I salute the director for molding me in the way he wanted me to react. It thus becomes one hell of a revenge story.

The climax story again reminded me of one of the Chinese movie house of flying daggers where they keep on fighting from one season to other and also the famous spaghetti westerns gun fight scenes which reportedly had drawn inspiration from samurai movies. I prefer the spaghetti westerns though. The main reason being music and close ups. Also the sound of guns. Sergio Leone absolutely would have nailed it.

Whats even more special is it doesn’t become a Rajnikanth act all of a sudden by Hanshiro killing everyone or a desi old movie syndrome where a villain becomes good during a climax. But becomes an excellent satire with Hanshiro being killed and few other compelled to perfom hara-kiri but written everything wrong in the books. Something which is completely opposite. So whatever history we are reading now could be completely wrong. Whom is to be believed? Of all the things that happened in the movie this was what made me depressed the maximum.

Here is another interesting story. Restrooms have always been men’s most freest of places giving gyan, singing songs etc. You see a real man when he’s peeing. Restroom is one place where a man lets go of everything, some sing, some pass rude comments about girls, some bitch about their manager etc. What happens in the wall stays inside the wall. During one of my numerous visits to restroom there were two people talking about history. One was saying that we know a certain thing only if it’s been written but the history before Cholas and Pandyas which has not been written we certainly don’t know. So anything could have happened before that. What I’m coming to say is… this reminded me of hara-kiri climax scene meaning history could have been tampered and also the history in general. A lot would have happened which we still don’t know or we never will get to know.