The Swimmer (1968)

Directors: Frank Perry, Sydney Pollack
Writers: Eleanor Perry, John Cheever
DOP: David L. Quaid
Cast: Burt Lancaster, Janet Landgard, Janice Rule

Neddy Merrill (Burt Lancaster) has been away for most of the summer. He reappears at a friend's pool. As they talk, someone notices that there are pols spanning the entire valley. He decides to jog from one pool to another to swim across the whole valley and to reach his home. As he stops in each of the pools, his interactions with the pool owners tells his life story for us.

The place where we see him first dive into is quite far from his home and down in the valley. The familiarity and the fondness displayed by his hosts is a bit misleading as we know later that farther he is from his home, the less they know about him. As he gets closer and closer to his home, the nature of interactions he has with the hosts turn more and more hostile as we learn more things about his life. He seems to be oblivious about his past and paints a rosy picture while his hosts starts confronting him with things. After a lot of struggle and pain, when he finally reaches his home, what we find out is not a twist for us, the audience, but is for him.

The film is an adaptation of John Cheever's short story with the same name which was published in The New Yorker magazine. You do feel that the translation from paper to screen is not entirely convincing and the film had its own production difficulties. Frank Perry was fired after the first cut was screened and Sydney Pollack was hired to salvage the project. He re-shot several scenes including the one with Janice Rule's character with whom the swimmer had an affair. It is a very good and different watch but is not the classic one would expect. There is a French and  Eric Rohmer vibe to it.

Rating: 3.5/5

Ива́ново де́тство (Ivan's Childhood) (1962)

Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Writers:  Vladimir Bogomolov, Mikhail Papav 
Cinematographer: Vadim Yusov
Cast: Kolya Burlyayev,  V. Zubkov, Ye. Zharikov, S. Krylov 
Language: Russian

The film tells the story of a young orphan boy and his experiences in world war two. It is based on Vladimir Bogomolov's short story 'Ivan'.

Even though the title and poster of the film might make you think of it as something in the mould of 'Come and See', it is not similar. Yes it does show the terrible things that come with wars, mainly through surreal dream like sequences about Ivan's childhood, but the film doesn't focus too much on that. Ivan is treated like a mythic character who comes in and out of the film. He is someone who is employed by the red army on a scouting/spying mission in enemy territory. His motivation is revenge against the 'Fritzs' for making him an orphan. He had been with the partisans previously.

The other characters in the film are the officers in the army who handles and take care of Ivan when he is back. Much of the story focuses on two of these officers, one is a captain and the other a lieutenant. It also involves a love triangle and a setpiece flirtation scene from which the above iconic image is taken. That whole scene is filmed in a mesmeric way.

Andrei Tarkovsky made his directorial debut with Ivan's Childhood. It won the Golden Lion at the Venice film festival and established Tarkovsky immediately as one of the main directors of the era. It is not a typical Tarkovsky film as it is quite straightforward. Tarkovsky later expressed his misgivings about some of the decisions he made for the film but it is a great watch nevertheless. It is cited by the likes of Ingmar Bergman, Kieslowski etc as a very influential film.

Rating: 4.5/5

Kes (1969)

Director: Ken Loach
Writers:  Barry Hines, Ken Loach, Tony Garnett
Cast:       David Bradley, Brian Glover, Freddie Fletcher

A young, English working-class boy spends his free time caring for and training his pet falcon which he doesn't really consider as a typical pet.

The film is an adaptation of Barry Hines' 1968 novel 'A Kestrel for a Knave' and was the first major film directed by Ken Loach. In what was a spooky coincidence, he won Palme D'Or at Cannes just after I had finished watching this film which was on my watch-list for so long. The only other film that I had seen of his previously was the Cillian Murphy starring 'The wind that Shakes the Barley' which was quite brutal. Kes is also quite brutal, all things considered, even though not in the same way. Billy is raised by his single mother and got a an elder brother who is sort of the bully of his house. He also gets plenty of bullying in his school even though he is not portrayed as the typical victim in these circumstances. He can take care of himself and doesn't have a care in the world, except for the falcon that he acquires and trains using a stolen book. His non-conformity in terms of what is expected of a working class kid makes him a target for many. It basically deals with how it is for a kid from his background where all his aspirations, not in a melodramatic way, are broken down gradually due to his circumstances and surroundings. 

When it comes to it, the fate of Kes is quite predictable but that does't really affect your perception of the film. The performances from all are great and especially the kid. Film is quite bleak visually keeping in with its theme. Its story is something that would be made in a quite melodramatic fashion if it was an American film. Ken Loach and Mike Leigh are considered as the torch-bearers of what can be considered as neo-realism in British film industry. I am more familiar with the work of the latter and 'Naked' is among my all-time favorite. 

Rating: 5/5

La collectionneuse (The Collector) (1967)

Director: Eric Rohmer
Writers:  Patrick Bauchau, Haydee Politoff, Daniel Pommereulle, Eric Rohmer
Cast:       Patrick Bauchau, Haydee Politoff, Daniel Pommereulle
Language: French

A womanizing art dealer and his painter friend find the serenity of their Riviera vacation disturbed by a third guest, a vivacious bohemian woman known for her long list of male conquests. They first resist her, calling out on her mentality which they describe as that of a 'Collector', but then can't resist and its not clear who is really in control of this game of 'collecting' relationships.

As you can see from the writing credits, the main three actors in it have been credited for the dialogue and this was a film done by Eric Rohmer while he was waiting for the availability of Jean-Louis Trintignant for 'My Night at Maud's'. Film is considered to be part of Eric Rohmer's series of 'Six Moral Tales' and is the fourth one in it (third, going by release dates). Like all Rohmer films, it is just everyday activities of classy Europeans elevated into art without too much drama associated with it. It will not be up everyone's alley but I do enjoy them immensely as one time watches. 

Eric Rohmer is someone who doesn't get mentioned enough when people talk about the greatest directors of all time and is sort of a hidden gem despite numerous awards that he got in European film festivals. His style has not influenced many as well but I did stumble on to him when some article cited his influence on Richard Linklater's 'Before Midnight'. But I think the comparison only holds in terms of location aspects and filming style but not necessarily in terms of content and scripting. I won't recommend this film as a gateway one to visit Rohmer's filmography and you will be better off if you start with more famous films of his.

PS: Rohmer is more of an influence on Noah Baumbach rather than Linklater. 

Rating: 3.5/5

                                                                               

Ma nuit chez Maud (My Night with Maud) (1969)

Director: Eric Rohmer
Writer:    Eric Rohmer
Cast:       Jean-Louis Trintignant, Francoise Fabian, Marie-Christine Barrault
Language: French

The rigid principles of a devout catholic, Jean-Louis (Trintignant), is challenged during a one-night stay with Maud (Francoise Fabian), a divorced woman with an outsize personality.

The film begins with Jean, an engineer and mathematician by profession, in a church noticing a blonde woman to whom he is attracted to and follows her into the streets. Later on that day he meets his philosophy teaching friend with whom he has not met for almost fifteen years. The friend takes him to Maud's house where the three have a conversation on religion, atheism, morality and Blaise Pascal's life and writings on philosophy, faith and mathematics. Jean ends up staying at her house for the night proceeding to have further conversation on his his catholic views on marriage, fidelity and his obligation for already proclaiming that he is in love with a young woman whom  however, he has never yet spoken to. 

This is the third one in Rohmer's 'Six Moral Tales' series and all of them have the  protagonist in love with a woman, but falls in love with another woman leading to a moral conundrum whose other side always will be the former one winning over the latter. In this film the morality is related to Jean-Louis' Catholicism. For him the ideal woman would be a blonde catholic but the second woman in this film is Maud, a brunette libertine. She is perturbed by Jean-Louis' lack of spontaneity and pre-conceived notions but nevertheless become great friends over the twenty-four hour period since they are not weighed down by expectations regarding the future. We later on learn that the catholic blonde woman  with whom he gets married to later was responsible for Maud's divorce. The final sequence of the film takes place five years later at a beach resort with Jean-Louis, happy with his wife and young son, meeting a visibly unhappy Maud who has married again without much success. It can be seen as another interpretation of the famous Pascal's wager but this time in relation to earthly happiness instead of heavenly redemption. The wager is as follows:

"It posits that humans all bet with their lives either that God exists or not. Given the possibility that God actually does exist and assuming an infinite gain or loss associated with belief or unbelief in said God (as represented by an eternity in heaven or hell), a rational person should live as though God exists and seek to believe in God. If God does not actually exist, such a person will have only a finite loss (some pleasures, luxury, etc.)."

Pascal formulated this wager on a Christian framework and it was published posthumously in Pensees. I enjoyed the film very much even though I don't care much for Pascal's wager. The main distinction in it lies in the pleasures being finite on Earth and heaven/hell being infinite after death. It is all well and good but he  doesn't consider the possibility that most religions in the World have a vengeance fueled ego-maniacal and demanding asshole as God and even if you do live a 'Good Life', there is no guarantee that you would please the dude according to different scriptures about him. So I would rather live a life of freedom up to my death, after which there is nothing with a probability of 99.9% rather than live a life full of fear with a slight 0.0001% hope for heaven. He doesn't consider the fact that zero* infinity is also zero and if there is no life after death, then the freedom I get becomes infinite.

Rating: 4.5/5

Il deserto rosso (Red Desert) (1964)

Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Writers:  Michelangelo Antonioni, Tonino Guerra
Cast:       Monica Vitti, Richard Harris, Carlo Chionetti
Language: Italian

The film is about a woman trying to survive in the modern industrial world of cultural neurosis and existential doubt. It is another one of those films which deal with alienation, the overarching thematic link that connects all Antonioni films.

Giuliana (Vitti) is married to Ugo (Chionetti) with a kid in an industrial town Ravenna. According to her husband, she is suffering from PTSD after a car accident. Ugo's boss Corrado (Richard Harris) become fascinated with her as he sees things that her husband has not realized yet going on in her life. We later on learn that her accident was a suicide attempt. Unlike other Antonioni films, I didn't find the film that interesting despite the exquisite visuals and inventive soundtrack involving industrial sounds and ship horns. This is Antonioni's first film in color and it is a seamless transition for him. The thermal power plant is not used to paint a bleak atmosphere but an attractive one despite the pollution and the wastes that it leaves behind. The level of enjoyment that you get out of the film will depend on how convinced you are about Vitti's portrayal of her role. I didn't find the unsubtle way of her acting in it to be too convincing. 

It is the fourth and last one of Antonioni's collaborations with Monica Vitti, the other three being what is now known as his Alienation trilogy-L'Avventura, La Notte, L'Eclisse. To be, fair all of his films can be described as one which deals with alienation, un-satisfaction and general unhappiness. I don't know how Richard Harris, Dumbledore from the initial Harry Potter films, ended up in this but he was fired before the completion of the film for punching Antonioni in face. He was not satisfied with Antonioni's response of:'You don't ask me why, you're an actor. You just do it', when asked why he needs to walk diagonally in one of the scene. Tough shit.

Rating: 3/5

Planet of the Apes (1968)

Director: Franklin J. Schaffner
Writers:  Michael Wilson, Rod Sterling, Pierre Boulle
Cast:      Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter

An astronaut crew crash lands on a planet in the distant future where intelligent talking apes are the dominant species, and humans are the oppressed and enslaved. The crew is supposed to have traveled at near light speed and due to time dilation they aged by only eighteen months whereas in Earth it is around 4000 AD. 

If you want to know about time dilation, general relativity and stuff like that, Stephen Hawking's 'A Brief History of Time' is highly recommended. I got a vague handle about the concepts when I read it some time back but would like to read it again. The fact that Earth has aged by 2000 years is significant to the story because the big twist in it is that it is in-fact their planet Earth only where they landed, which Taylor (Charlton Heston) realizes only when he encounters the fallen piece of Statue of Liberty at the end. The stress on time dilation in itself is a big clue but you don't really need that to figure out where it is going because just a basic understanding of evolution itself is enough, which the protagonist Taylor doesn't seem to possess. They encounter humans first and then the master of the planet-English talking apes. If they were indeed on an earth-like but different planet, then it is very unlikely that the species evolved over there would be exactly like the ones on Earth. Lets just for a minute suspend our disbelief and suppose that it also followed the same evolutionary path, but then why the fuck should they evolve into speaking the same fucking language. So what I am saying is that if the viewer understands evolution and assumes that people behind the film also do, then from the get go itself you would realize that it is indeed planet Earth. Then the whole thing of that being a twist doesn't really work and only thing you have apart from that in the film is the mildly humorous take on Ape Bureaucracy and scientific thinking which is similar to the one Europe had during the Dark ages. That and Charlton Heston's Humphrey Bogartesque performance as the protagonist-Taylor.  

I had seen parts of the 2001 film with the same name and going by its wiki page the plot is much different to this one. It doesn't seem to rely on this big stupid twist but I don't know whether the protagonist realize it much after Ape starts talking in English. For the original Planet of Apes to work, it needs an audience that doesn't understand evolution like its protagonist Taylor. It might have got such an audience in the late 60s but still that is no excuse. Overall the film didn't work for me not just because of the twist (which I was aware of) but the satire part of it was not good enough to make it interesting.

Film was a big hit and drew praise for the prosthetic used for the apes. Coming as it was during America's Civil Rights Movement, some people also interpreted it as a metaphor for Blacks ruling over whites. 

Rating: 2/5  

La Voie lactée (The Milky Way) (1969)

Director: Luis Bunuel
Writers:   Luis Bunuel, Jean-Calude Carriere
Cast:       Paul Frankeur, Laurent Terzieff, Alain Cuny
Language: French/Sapnish

Two drifters go on a pilgrimage from France to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Along the way, they hitchhike, beg for food, and face the Christian dogmas and heresies from different ages.

The title refers to the the fact that the original name for Milky Way was 'Way of St. James' which directed pilgrims from northern Europe to Spain. The film plays with time with the two main characters encountering individuals from older times in the modern setting of the film including Jesus Christ who is depicted as more of an ordinary man with him  joking around, feeling hungry, making mistakes and so on. Luis Bunuel was a prominent atheist during his time and he coined the phrase:'Thank God I'm an atheist'. Through his many films he had rallied against moralism and organized religion. This film works as vignettes of absurdisms he wants to present about Catholic dogma. Things like trinity of Christian God, Freewill in the context of omnipotent God and Virginity of Mary are discussed pointing out how people cannot get their head around these things when they actually think about it. The so so called heresies shown in the film are historicall accurate with the end credits preceded by the following statement from Bunuel:

“

Everything in this film concerning the Catholic religion and the heresies it has provoked, especially from the dogmatic point of view, is rigorously exact. The texts and citations are taken either direct from Scripture, or modern and ancient works on theology and ecclesiastical history.

”

The film is not very cinematic but is a decent enough watch. For atheists like me who are not that interested in the lunacies associated with Christian faith (or any faith for that matter) the film doesn't hold much interest. Better to watch much more slapstick yet poignant ones like 'Life of Brian' which I think would have been influenced by this film.

Rating: 2.5/5

Midnight Cowboy (1969)

Director: John Schlesinger
Writers:  Waldo Salt, James Leo Herlihy (Novel)
Cast:       Dustin Hoffman, John Voight, Sylvia Miles

Joe Buck (Jon Voight) is a Texan cowboy/stud who moves to New-York to work as a gigolo. He is way out of his element in the new city and struggles to find work. He befriends a cripple and street con artist, Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), and the film depicts there struggle for survival in NYC. In one sense it is an odd couple film.

Throughout the film several flashback/dream sequences of Joe's earlier life are shown in a tacky way. It offers us clues to why he has ended up this way. These sequences are also a bit unreliable since it is shown from Joe's subconscious and there is a sense that he is twisting some of the events to cope with them. He was raised by his grandmother and he is aspiring to be a gigolo for rich lonely socialites in NYC. There must be some Freudian stuff going on there. His girlfriend from Texas is also a recurring theme in these sequences. At some points she is shown as loyal to him but ending up getting gang-raped. In some other sequences it is shown that she cheated on him and later on she is shown accusing him of raping her. All these events must have deeply affected the personality of Joe.

Rizzo is much more smarter than Joe but he is a cripple. His story is much more straight forward and performances by both Hoffman and Voight are really excellent. Voight got the minimum wage that an actor could get for this role since he was desperate to land this role. The final scene of the film is done very poignantly and the reactions remain true to their characters. This was the first and only X-Rated film to win the academy awards for best motion picture. Now it is rated 'R'. 

Rating: 4.5/5

Peeping Tom (1960)

Director: Michael Powell
Writer:    Leo Marks
Cast:       Katlheinz Bohm, Anna Massey, Moria Shearer

A young man with voyeuristic behavior murders women using a movie camera to film their dying expressions of fear.

The Peeping Tom character 'Mark Lewis' was used by his scientist father as a guinea pig for his studies on fear and nervous system. He never experienced privacy during his childhood and this experience growing up has led him to invade other people's privacy subjecting them to the terror he faced as a child. He falls in love with a young woman from the floor downstairs to his home and while this does not stop him from his usual activities, he cares about the girl and actively tries not to capture her on camera and thus end up killing her. 

The film at the center  of it has a character who do terrible things but for whom we feel sympathy for. Not surprisingly it got widespread criticism upon release. Directed by Michael Powell of the Powell-Pressburger duo, it is said that Peeping Tom was a huge setback for Powell's career as a director in England. Over time it has gained a cult following and people like Scorsese consider it as a masterpiece and rightly so. One will be reminded  of Hitchcock and can positively say that this film would have influenced several Polanski films (Apartment Trilogy). Considering its release year of 1960, it is kind of a bridge between the Hitchcock films before 60s and the much more surreal fare from Polanski in the 60s.

Rating: 4.5/5

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Director: David Lean
Writers:  T.E. Lawrence, Robert Bolt, Michael Wilson
Cast:       Peter O'Toole, Omar Sheriff, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn

A flamboyant and controversial military figure and his conflicted loyalties during his World War One service in the middle east.

The film is close to three and hours long and it completely justifies that because of the  complexity of its main character. I felt like watching a prequel version of Apocalypse Now (Heart of Darkness) essentially depicting character's descent into madness. Rather than the war leading him into darkness the character from the beginning itself is questionably a bit crazy. There is a hint about homosexual orientation in the character's portrayal. The fate of the Arab World portrayed rings true even now as the basic problem there is the tribal culture and warring between groups.

The film was shot mainly in Jordan, Morocco and Spain and some of the characters are amalgamation of several different characters from history. Cinematography is excellent and it is amazing to think that they were actually able to make this film in those days. It completely justified its epic status and the only minor quibble would be every character speaking English. 

Rating: 4.5/5

Weekend (1967)

Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Writer:    Jean-Luc Godard
Cast:        Mireille Darc, Jean Yanne, Jean-Pierre Kalfon
Language: French

A French bourgeois couple's weekend trip to visit and kill wife's parents, in order to get the inheritance, turns into a never ending series of traffic jams, revolution and cannibalism. As the husband says during the film: ''What a rotten film. All we meet are crazy people'.

When it came out, the film must have been refreshingly clever with its self aware in-jokes with the audience but now it is just tiresome with only three four memorable scenes as its saving grace. There is one big monologue about the origins of class struggle from the beginning of tribes to the modern world, Nazism and hypocrisy of the imperial powers when it comes to their own cruelty. I hadn't seen a Godard film in a while and haven't seen any of his non sixties films. 67 is around the time his films supposedly became not good and he made plenty of films after this. I am in two minds as to whether I should see his later films and this film didn't do me any favors in making up my mind.

Rating: 2.5/5

La Notte (1961)

Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Writers:  Michelangelo Antonioni, Ennio Flainano, Tonino Guerra
Cast:       Marcelo Mastroianni, Jeanne Moreau, Monica Vitti

A day in the life of an openly unfaithful married couple whose relationship is obviously deteriorating.

Mastroianni plays the role of Giovanni, a successful writer with a newly released book, married to a rich lady played by Jeanne Moreau (Lidia). Lidia is insecure about her own intellectual capacity when compared with Giovanni's and doesn't love him anymore. She is bored with her bourgeoisie way of life and doesn't enjoy herself with the company of high society. We see them going to a party hosted by a rich man and the second half of film consists entirely of that. Lidia eggs Giovanni onto Valentina played by Monica Vitti. Lidia herself finds it impossible to be unfaithful to her husband and everything is very complicated. We as audience are to figure out what is going on in their minds and it is very challenging but a rewarding experience.

It is interesting to compare Antonioni's work with that of Michael Haneke's. Urban alienation is a theme that is commonly handled by both of these directors. Haneke usually take a stand offish approach to his characters and jolt the audience with the extraordinary actions taken by them. Antonioni takes the audience into his characters' moods whom largely remains alienated. La Notte is the second film in what is dubbed as Michelangelo Antonioni's 'Alienation Trilogy. The other two being L'Avventura and L'Eclisse. 

Rating: 4.5/5
   

L'Avventura (1960)

Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Writers:  Michelangelo Antonioni, Elio Bartolini, Tonino Guerra
Cast:       Monica Vitti, Gabriele Ferzetti, Lea Massari
Language:Italian

Anna, who is conflicted about the relationship she has with her lover Sandro, disappears during a boating trip. Her lover and he best friend (Claudia played by Monica Vitti) become attracted to each other as they try to find her.

The story sounds like a cliched one but the way the film is made makes it very good. There are plenty of scenes where nothing really happens in terms of plot but a lot happens underneath the surface. When it was screened first at Cannes, it got booed because of which Antonioni and Monica Viiti fled the theater. On the subsequent screening it was received well and it went on to win the Jury Prize. 

The film is primarily about the guilt that Claudia feels in having a relationship with her best friend's lover. Whether Anna died or just ran away is not made clear in the film and her shadow looms over Claudia throughout the film. What makes the film great are the random sequences that are there throughout the film capturing the moodiness of the characters. In the last sequence of the film, Claudia catches Sandro cheating on her and I thought it was really an unnecessary turn for the film. But it makes up for it by showing the way Claudia reacts finally by consoling Sandro and thereby feeling less weight from her own guilt.

Rating: 5/5

 

Blow-Up (1966)

Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Writers:  Michelangelo Antonioni, Julio Cortazar, Edward Bond, Tonino Guerra
Cast:       David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles

It is the swinging sixties and a successful fashion photographer in London finds something interesting to do as he inadvertently photographs a murder happening without realizing it. But does it really interest him as he drifts off again and again due to minor distractions.

The plot is a sideshow and the film is really about how isolated and detached the character is from the world around him. The murder should be something that would shook him up but all other characters in the film end up distracting him from the main event of the film and finally the body also disappears leaving us wondering whether he imagined the entire thing. The final scene with the mime actors, where he watches an imaginary tennis match and finally when the camera focus on his face we hear the sound of tennis balls being hit kind of suggests that it is a case of perception versus reality. He himself vanishes from the field as the credits roll out.

The film was Antonioni's first in English and is considered a landmark film with its explicit nature breaking the production code set by the industry. The film didn't get the  code approval but MGM released it anyways. The film's critical and box office success led the code to be abandoned in favour  of the MPAA film rating system.

Rating: 4/5

The Great War (1964)

Narrated By: Micheal Redgrave

The Great War is a 26 part documentary on the first world war and it was produced by BBC in association with the Imperial War Museum, CBC and ABC. Each episode is around 40 minutes long and video consist exclusively of archive footage. I was really surprised to find that this much amount of original footage was available.

The documentary goes into great detail especially about the motivation for all the major actors. The first world war, unlike the second one didn't have an obvious villain like Hitler and it was a case of treaties created upon insecurities leading to a war with a small trigger event, in this case Sarajevo. The turning points in the war, like Americans entering were purely due to economic reasons and the events in middle east were very interesting and not known to me.I really didn't have much idea about the World War One before watching this documentary.

The number of people killed is just staggering and the documentary really gives us a feel of the years of stagnation due to the Trench warfare in the Western front. I felt the documentary was a very non-partial account of the events even if the footage used were largely from the Allies side. 

Rating: 4.5/5

La Jetée (1962)

Director: Chris Marker
Writer:    Chris Marker
Cast:      Davos Hanich, Etienne Becker, Jean Negroni, Helene Chatelain
Language: French

A childhood memory of a lady and death, World War 3, underground future, time travel. If this sounds very much like Terry Gilliam's brilliant film '12 Monkeys', it is because it was inspired by this 1962 short film La Jetee. Film is a series of beautiful black and white photographs with the story being told through narration. Unlike 12 Monkeys, it doesn't overly focus on the 'save the world motive' but more on the relation between the protagonist and the lady from his dreams/memory. The twist at the end is a bit different from the 12 monkeys one and I think this is better. Have been meaning to watch this film for a long time.

 Chris Marker died last year. Should catch up with his other films.

Rating: 5/5

Easy Rider (1969)

Director: Dennis Hopper
Writers:  Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Terry Southern
Cast:      Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson

Two counterculture bikers travel from Los Angeles to New Orleans in search of America.

It is like a swan song for the hippie movement of the 60s. The film can be summed up in one conversation Jack Nicholson's  character has with Dennis Hopper's Billy in which they talk about individual freedom and even those who understand it but don't/cannot practice it is afraid and dangerous when he encounters someone who does. This is what they find out when they travel through the middle redneck America. Jack Nicholson is amazing in a screen chewing performance.

Real marijuana was used for the drug use scenes and the film can be considered as landmark for independent films.

Rating: 3.5/5

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

Director: Mike Nichols
Writer:   Ernest Lehman
Cast:      Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal, Sandy Dennis

A bitter aging couple with the help of alcohol, use a young couple to fuel anguish and emotional pain towards each other.

I naively thought that the film will be about the modernist writer Virginia Woolf. The film is considered groundbreaking for the American film industry with the level of profanity and sexual implication that people were not used to seeing in films. It is an adaptation of the play of the same title by Edward Albee. It was the first film to get nominated for all the academy awards it was eligible for and the first one for the entire principal cast to get nominated as well. Mike Nichols went on to make Graduate for which he is most famous for but I think this will/should be considered as his best.

Rating: 5/5

L'eclisse (1962)

Director: Michelangelo Antonioni

Writers:  Michelangelo Antonioni, Tonino Guerra, Elio Batolini, Ottiero Ottieri

Cast:      Monica Vitti, Alain Delon, Francisco Rabal

Language: Italian

A young woman meets a vital young man, but their love affair is doomed because of the man's materialistic nature.

It is considered as the last part of the trilogy which was preceded by L'Avventura and La Notte. I haven't seen those. It is a very good 60s film having similar spirit to the Godard films.

Rating: 3.5/5