City of God (2011)

Director: Lijo Jose Pellissery
Writer: Babu Janardhanan
DOP: Sujith Vasudev
Cast: Indrajith, Prithviraj, Rima Kallingal, Parvathy
Language: Malayalam

Lijo Jose Pellissery's second film features an ensemble cast and has multiple storylines with them getting linked throughout the film. Some of the characters in it are involved with the local land Mafia, one of them is an actress and some are Tamil migrant workers from construction sites.

One big question in multiple storyline films is how often do all of them come in spatial contact in the film. The ones that does it best, like Haneke's Code Unknown and Iniaritu's Amores Perros, keep it minimal but when they do they make it count. My biggest problem with City of God is that the characters from different storylines seem to be coming across each other quite frequently and unnecessarily. The narrative that LJP goes for is very non-linear and quite ballsy. Very often he first shows a scene and goes back to show how different characters arrived at that scene. For a Malayalam film, it must have been quite novel when it came out. It is very chaotic and enjoyably so during the first hour of the film as you are figuring out its characters and storylines. But once you figure it out, it becomes really tiresome and boring and it doesn't help that the heavily caricaturised Tamil storyline takes more of screen time.

Nayakan, despite all its faults, was a good first attempt but you won't be as forgiving for CoG. He seemed to have been wanting to do a lot of things all at once and the result is not always coherent. He was more grounded in Amen, a film I didn't enjoy, which was his first and only commercial success till his masterpiece Angamaly Diaries came out this year. On the whole I've only enjoyed Double Barrel and Angamaly Diaries, last two films in his filmography comprising of 5 films so far. Those are the ones I could watch at the cinemas and I don't know how big a factor that is. Anyway, he seems to have come leaps and bounds as a director and is the most experimental among mainstream Malayalam film directors.

Rating: 2.5/5 

ചാപ്പാ കുരിശ് (Chaappa Kurish) (2011)

Director: Sameer Thahir,
Writers:  Jai Krishna, Unni R
Cast:       Fahadh Faasil, Vineeth Sreenivasan, Ramya Nambeeshan
Language: Malayalam

A lost cellphone connects two men from the two extremes of the society and affects their life beyond which they could have imagined.

The title Chaappa Kurish means something like 'Head or Tail' in Malayalam, a fact which I didn't know. During the initial half of the film, the main two characters are played as extreme opposites, not only in terms of the social class that they belong to but also based on their morality. You get the usual rich is bad and poor is good characterization and I was slightly miffed by that. But as the film progresses, you realize that it was necessary because there is a flipping involved which puts the poor guy as the hunter and the rich guy as the victim. Leaking of amateur sex footage as MMS clips and now WhatsApp videos have become a fact of life in India with an element of shame attached to the people involved. Films like 'Dev D' and 'LSD' managed to include them in their story-line in a creditable manner and 'Chaappa Kurish' is also another such example. The characterization is rich and for once, Vineeth Sreenivasan performed quite well as an actor. When you just think how can they end the film in a satisfying manner, Sameer Thahir delivers with a very raw and excellent set-piece which doesn't involve any verbal barrage between the two protagonists. It totally satisfied my appetite as there is no effort involved from the director to justify their actions but just that they fucked up royally. 

It has been a recent phenomenon in Malayalam for cinematographers to become directors and Sameer Thahir is also one from that stable. They have been instrumental in pivoting the industry from one which relied heavily on words to one which explores the medium as a visual one which it is supposed to be. Rajeev Ravi, another cinematographer turned director, did an  explosive interview with Southlive which can be seen as a rallying cry by the 'New-Gen' challenging the old-school guys. Although I don't totally agree with him on all the points, his honesty was just so refreshing. He proved that he can also walk the talk with his two films- Annayum Rasoolum and Njan Steve Lopez. Anyway, it has been interesting times for the Malayalam cinema and looks like the old style is more or less dead. 

Chaappa Kursihu is considered to be one of the ultimate 'New-Gen' Malayalam film but many just use the term to refer to films that are quite honest about sex and morality. They are much more than that. Overall, Chaappa Kurish is a great watch and is one of the best films to come out of Malayalam from recent times. While many of the so called new-gen films descend to cliches during the climax parts, Chaappa Kurishu goes full retard and the result is glorious. It didn't do very well financially but is very superior to films like Traffic which achieved financial success.

Rating: 4.5/5 

Damsels in Distress (2011)

Director: Whit Stillman
Writer:    Whit Stillman
Cast:        Greta Gerwig, Anaeligh Tipton, Carrie MacLemore, Megalyn Echikunwoke

A trio of girls set out to change the male-dominated environment of the Seven Oaks college campus, and to rescue their fellow students from depression, grunge and low standards of every kind. They adopt a new transfer student to their clique and over the course of the film, the four girls date less attractive men in order to help the men's confidence. 

Film is really out there even if you are familiar with Whitman's other films. This one, he made after a long gap of twelve years and he is really a vastly underrated figure when you consider that he made three great indie films with his first three efforts over an 8 year period. The humor in Damsels in Distress is really quirky and outlandish and very different from his previous films. Stylistically, it is a very unique film and you can't really pin it down into some sort of category. I haven't seen Animal House but it is like an inverse take on such films with the characters being unbelievably frank, cooperative and naive. There isn't much of a plot to speak of and even though the humor in it is quite uneven in terms of frequency, there are more than enough laughs to make it worthwhile. 

Overall, it is a very good watch while not being as good as any of the previous Stillman films. It might not be for everyone but I did enjoy watching it. Performances are really good and Greta Gerwig is a favorite actor of mine with her performances in all these quirky films. Can't wait to watch Noah Baumbach's 'Mistress America', which is getting rave reviews.

Rating: 3.5/5  

                                                                           

മാണിക്യക്കല്ല് (Manikyakallu) (2011)

Director: M. Mohanan
Writer:   M. Mohanan
Cast:      Prithviraj, Salim Kumar, Nedumudi Venu, Samvrutha Sunil
Language: Malayalam

Film is centered around a government school which achieved the dubious distinction of 100% failure rate in SSLC examination (10th standard). It has got only around 50 odd students and its teachers and the principal have various side-activities to attend to. Things begin to happen when a young teacher joins the school and attempts at changing the mindset of his colleagues and students.

It turns out that the film is based loosely on what happened in Brennan Higher Secondary School, Thalassery. A reference to that is made in the film as well in terms of the history of the school. Film can be seen as having a skeletal form of 'Aaram Thampuran', but with the setting changed. In stead of the temple festival, you have the students passing the SSLC exams as final goal and in stead of Mohanlal's verbal and physical battles, you have Prithviraj's persuasive reasoning. Both of them have something from the past that attracted them to this place and even the respective female leads in them are quite similar. So it is not a stretch to say that they basically the same film but with different treatment. 

Film has a very basic and predictable story-line and the first half of it is quite nicely paced and good to watch. It does struggle in the second half and some very unnecessary songs in it does not help at all. Songs are good though and are quite familiar to me through radio even though I didn't know that they were from this film. Students in the film are also quite good and most of the supporting cast does well even though I am quite sick of Nedumudi Venu again playing a Headmaster role.

Overall the film, despite the imperfections that are there mainly because of it adhering to conventions, is a good one-time watch. Role is perfect for Prithviraj since it has him in his interview mode. He always comes across, during his interviews, as someone who speaks a lot of sense and the role in this film suits his preachy style. It is set in a very remote like village, which I think is a lazy thing that is prevalent in Malayalam cinema off late, and I would have preferred a straight adaptation of the real life story, set in Thalassery.

Rating: 2.5/5   

                                                                      

ട്രാഫിക്‌ (Traffic) (2011)

Director: Rajesh Pillai
Writers:  Bobby, Sanjay
Cast:       Sreenivasan, Kunchacko Boban, Rahman
Language: Malayalam

It is a multi-narrative 'thriller' that intertwines multiple stories around one particular incident which leaves the characters in it with two hours to take a heart meant for transplant from Kochi to Palakkad in under two hours during daytime, a task you know is an impossible one if you are familiar with Kerala roads and traffic. It is inspired from a real life event that happened in Chennai.

First of all this is not about the Steven Soderbergh film with the same name which was an excellent one. Recently in an interview, Alphonse Puthran had stated that 'Traffic' was the film that really kicked off the so-called 'New-Gen' films in Malayalam. It was a big hit and was also received very well by critics. I wasn't too interested to watch it, first of all because there was an influx of multiple-story line films in Malayalam following the success of Traffic and all of them looked like shit from the bits and pieces that I have watched of them and secondly, I am not a big fan of its screenwriters,Bobby-Sanjay duo, who are overrated as hell. Last Vishu, I had the misfortune of catching significant portions of a traffic copycat film called 'God's Own Country' and it is the kind of film that will make you want to bang your head against concrete. It seems Sreenivasan, with his social message bullshit, is a constant fixture in these kind of films. 

Anyway, going into Traffic, I expected it to be a half decent film considering the number of copycats it spawned. After the quite interesting first twenty minutes or so it is such that you can put it into the 'So bad it is good' category. (പകച്ചു പോയി എന്റെ ബാല്യം!!!)  According to its Wikipedia page, it won state award for Best Screenplay and I guess those who gave that award doesn't regard 'Badly written Exposition scenes' to be such a big deal. I really felt for Anoop Menon, who had to execute the bulk of terrible expositions in his role as Police Commissioner in a Traffic control room. It seems the screenwriters were hellbent on how bad they can make it and you get a stream of terrible exposition scenes from all characters at one point or the other. Only good thing about them is that I had a great time watching it due to its unintentionally funny nature. 

Apart from all the rantings about bad expositions, I hate it when they make very unsubtle social commentary on things and for eg; you got a character, who is a radio producer, chiding the RJs for what she construes as political statements in the show and demands that their only consideration should be entertainment. The thing is, in India, private radio channels cannot broadcast news or have any sort of political discussion and this fact could have been easily used in that scene in an intelligent way in stead of the bullshit about entertainment. To top it all, they included a scene to justify the existence of 'Insert a Star's name Fans Association' who in my opinion are significantly responsible for the steep standard fall in Malayalam cinema. In the initial part of the film, Sreenivasan is shown as a traffic cop who is back after a suspension for taking bribe. I thought that was interesting because you don't get morally ambiguous characters typically in Malayalam films. Then, they went about ruining it by having a totally unnecessary flashback later in the film to show that he was forced to take bribe due to an unavoidable reason. I fucking hate this moralizing shit and it is a constant theme in Bobby-Sanjay films from what I have seen. The only interesting film that I have seen of theirs is 'Mumbai Police' even though they fucked it up towards the end. 

So, overall the film is rather bad but you do get plenty of laughs out it because of its lameness. Funny that they missed out on all the hilly parts that you have to get through when you're travelling from Thrissur to Palakkad. In a way it is as if the film was written by two overenthusiastic school kids who think of themselves as very clever. I am not surprised that it did very well because the average Malayalee audience don't mind getting things explained to them and it is pretty common here in Crime mysteries to have the 'Hero'/Police Officer explaining all the things that happened in the story during last ten minutes of the film to a stumped audience of superior officers, when in fact the scene is designed to spoon-feed the audience just in case they didn't fully get all the intricacies involved. I guess that is why enjoyed 'Premam' very much because the director have left plenty of things unresolved for us to work out like: 'Did Malar really have Magnesia?', 'Is Celine younger sister of Mary or just a neighbor?', 'How did Celine know about Malar?' etc...

PS: Less said about the Nivin Pauly cameo, the better...

Rating: 1.5/5

                                                                            

Rundskop (Bullhead) (2011)

Director: Michael R. Roskam
Writer:    Michael R. Roskam
Cast:       Matthias Schoenaerts, Jeroen Perceval, Jeanne Dandoy
Language: Flemish, French

The film begins with the following monologue:

"Sometimes in a man's life stuff happens that makes everyone go quiet. So quiet that no one even dares talk about it. Not to anyone, not even to themselves. Not in their head and not out loud. Not a fucking word. Cos everything somehow got stuck.  No matter how long ago it was, there will always be someone to bring it all back. Because no matter what you do or think, one thing is for sure, you're always fucked now, tomorrow, next week or next year, until the end of time, fucked."

It is basically the story of a young cattle farmer, Jacky, who is approached by a veterinarian to make a deal with a notorious beef trader. We are shown, through flashbacks, why the farmer is taking steroids in the same way that he is applying a different set of steroids to his cattle to beef them up. The trigger for the whole thing is him encountering someone from his past during a meet with the beef trader and it sets off a chain of events leading to him getting caught up inadvertently under the Police scanner due to a set of coincidences.

For Matthias Schoenaerts, the role is not very dissimilar from his role in Audiard's 'Rust and Bone', which also was a very physical performance while playing an unhinged character. The director trust the audience very much and doesn't spoon-feed them which helps in utilizing the time very well. It stands at just over two hours in length but you do get a feeling that a plenty have been told during that time with four sets of story strands going on-Jacky's business and his dealings with the beef trader, Jacky's past and his connect with the informant, informant and his dealings with the Police and finally Jacky's personal story with an awkward love interest. The whole of it appears seamless which is something the director should be proud of as it is very easy for him lose the audience either through lame expositions or utter confusion. That said, there is an exposition scene towards the end of the film which was really not needed as it was not that difficult to piece everything together without that itself. 

Overall it is a great watch with a very interesting and unique story line. Michael R. Roskam had directed Tom Hardy starrer 'The Drop', from last year, which was also something that I enjoyed very much. Bullhead was nominated for academy awards in the foreign film category but lost out to 'A Separation'. The highlight of the film is of course the performance from Matthias Schoenaerts who is literally a bullhead in it.

Rating: 4.5/5

                                                                         

一命 (Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai) (2011)

Director: Takashi Miike
Writers:  Kikumi Yamagishi, Yasuhiko Takiguchi (Novel)
Cast:       Koji Yakusho, Munetaka Aoki, Naoto Takenaka
Language: Japanese

A tale of revenge, honor and disgrace, centering on a poverty-stricken samurai who discovers the fate of his Ronin son-in-law, setting in motion a tense showdown of vengeance against the house of a feudal lord. 

Ronin (浪人)-A master-less samurai in feudal Japan.

Seppuku/Harakiri (切腹)-A form of ritual suicide by Japanese Samurai done by stomach stabbing while another samurai acting as their second by cutting off their head.

Film is a remake of Masaki Kobayashi's 1962 film 'Harakiri'. We are familiar with glorification of Samurais through several Japanese films and even some Hollywood ones. The film that Miike directed just prior to this film was also one such action film- '13 Assassins'. But in this one, the ludicrousness of Samurai honor and rituals  is the central theme which is a subversion of the genre. It was common in Japan for Ronins to commit harakiri at some noble house. There could be people feigning Seppuku so that they get money from the nobles who try to dissuade them. Film begins with an old Samurai requesting a Lord at a noble house to commit harakiri there. The Lord tells him the story of another one that came there recently to extract money by feigning Seppuku. In order to set an example, the Lord forces him to commit Harakiri. Then the old samurai proceeds to tell his own story and we learn that the other one was his son-in-law who needed money to provide medical care for his feverish son and wife. He calls them out on the ridiculousness of their tradition of honor and highlights that the fate of a samurai is very much in the hands of blind chance. The Japanese title of the film translates as 'A Life'.

The depiction of abject poverty and hunger is not something that we associate with these kind of films and Miike continue to surprise everyone with the choices that he makes. It is hard too keep up with his vast body of work, and all the films that I've seen from him have met a minimum quality standard with some of them being outright great (Odishon, 13 Assassins, Dead or Alive). In this one also he leaves a very hard to watch scene of tremendous violence involving Harakiri with bamboo sword. I guess it wouldn't be a Miike film if it doesn't make you squirm at some point. As is expected from Miike, cinematography is excellent but I would have preferred to watch a better quality print of the film. It is the first 3-D films to get official selection at Cannes and overall it is a great watch. The first film that I saw of his was 'Ichi the Killer' and I stopped after watching for about thirty minutes because of the violence. Finished it the next day with the conclusion that it is a comedy film. 

Rating: 4/5

                                                                       

Елена (Elena) (2011)

Director: Andrey Zvyaginstev
Writers:  Andrey Zvyaginstev, Oleg Negin
Cast:       Nadezhda Markina, Andrey Smirnov, Elena Lyadova
Language: Russian

When a sudden illness and an unexpected reunion threaten dutiful housewife Elena's potential inheritance, she must hatch a desperate plan...

Vladimir is a rich widower whose estranged daughter is a hedonist. He lives in his plush home with his nurse/wife who was originally a nurse from the hospital where he had a surgery ten years back. The nature of their relationship is not made explicit till late into the film with her acting very much like his nurse but also engaging in casual sex with him. She has a good for nothing son whose family is dependent on her. Vladimir doesn't want to get involved with their affairs in a financial sense since he believes in responsible parenting despite how his own daughter turned out. He is portrayed as someone who lived for money leading to what looks like an unhappy retirement depending on one's point of view. When he suffers an unexpected heart-attack, his daughter (Elena Lyadova from Leviathan) kind of mend ways with him. While recovering at home, he informs Elena that he is planning to make a will where almost all his wealth will go to his daughter leaving only an annuity for her. This shakes her up leading her to use Viagra to create an induced heart-attack leading to his death. She kind of justifies herself by quoting Bible even though she doesn't wait for divine intervention. It can be classified as a stripped down noir film.

The basic story is very predictable but what makes the film different is the lack of sentimentality after the major event in it. Elena carries on without much remorse and there is no immediate consequences to her actions. Director does indeed make the case that whatever she is doing for her family is gonna be futile since money is not gonna make any meaningful difference to their lives in a good way. It is the age old morality concepts like 'Greed is not Good', 'Blood is thicker than water' and 'Being rich won't make you happy' that are being retold  without hammering our heads with it. Does it say anything about modern Russian society? I don't think anything in particular since it is anyway applicable everywhere irrespective of geography. Crows are used in a symbolic way to mean as a foreshadowing of bad things to come.

Philip Glass' music is sparingly used but with great effect like in Leviathan. Film was premiered at Cannes in the 'Un Certain Regard' where it won the special jury prize. Overall it is great watch without reaching the heights of his other works that I have seen: 'Leviathan' and 'The Return'. Got to say parenting is a running theme in his films.

Rating: 4/5

Play (2011)

Director: Ruben Östlund
Writers:  Ruben Östlund ,Erik Hemmendorff
Cast:       Lisbeth Caspersson, Kevin Vaz, Johan Jonason
Language: Swedish

Inspired by actual court cases, the film portrays a group of black boys aged 12-14 who rob a smaller group of white boys by means of psychological bullying tactics. Their modus operandi is to ask the victim to show his phone which they claim resembles the one that was robbed last week from one of their brothers. They insist that they should confirm the identity with the said brother and proceed to bully them further. 

The film takes a look at the modern Scandinavian/Liberal society's attitude when it comes to dealing with immigrant issues. The film is not really about bullying even though it is based on an actual case of the same. The director, in a totally genius fashion, makes the liberal left confront their own usual selves where Political Correctness gone mad and nanny states have produced what can be called as reverse-racism. We have all faced bullying in our lives at some point or the other and the hate that it generates towards the one who is bullying can be of epic proportions. There is one scene during the film where a group of people confront the bullying boys and intimidate the shit out of them. At that point I really wanted them to beat the shit out of those boys. I have seen people justifying ragging by seniors in college as a process which will help in reducing inhibitions, but in practice it is just a form of bullying where all the insecurities of people who does it come out of woodwork. It is indeed a big issue in India.

In parallel to the bullying story, the director inter-cuts into a train in-between where the conductor is worried about an unattended cradle in the coach. He makes announcements alerting the passengers of its existence which is against safety standards and asks the owner to come and claim it. When no one shows up, he again makes further announcements and finally tells them that it will be removed at the next station. When he is about to remove it, his colleague tells him something which prompts him to take it back and again make the announcement but this time in English. A bemused passenger quips that the next announcement will be in German. Director is using this plot-line to show the nanny-stateness of Scandinavia which might be an explanation for their softness and political correctness. The film would be of much relevance these days especially after the Charlie Hebdo incident. In my opinion the policy of multiculturalism is madness. All efforts should be made to integrate the immigrants into your country so that that they will uphold the same values like Liberty, Free-Speech etc because otherwise it will breed resentment. What you are doing through multiculturalism is delaying your own confrontation with the issue of racism and class struggles and when the confrontation happens inevitably it will be much more difficult than if you had gone for integration.

In the last sequence of the film, one of the parents of the bullied confronts one of the bullies who is sitting in a bench with his brother and the cradle. The encounter become physical even as the father tries to explain the situation to him. A by-stander takes exception to this and accuses him of racism at which point he accuses her of reverse-racism. The father would represent most of us in the audience. Some will interpret the film as very racist but that would me missing the point completely. The film triggered havey debates in Swedish press with some from the liberal left accusing the director of racism, completely missing the irony of it. The film is not a mirror on immigrants but one on the native Swedes. How and when the cradle end up in the train is not explained.

Film is characterized by the director's trademark of extremely long takes with a largely still camera. We get to look from a distance what is happening. Ostlund's 'Force Majeure' is among my top three from last year. All three films I have seen so far from him have been great and I am gonna finish his filmography soon.

Rating: 5/5

വീട്ടിലേക്കുള്ള വഴി (Veettilekkulla Vazhi) (2011)

Director: Dr. Biju
Writer:    Dr. Biju
Cast:       Prithviraj, Master Govardhan, Indrajith
Languages: Malayalam, Hindi, Tamil

A doctor with a haunted past is left with the difficult task of uniting a five year old boy with his father, who is the head of a terrorist organization. What follows is a road trip in search for the father touching Kerala, Rajasthan and Ladakh.

You don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out the entire story from the first five minutes of the film itself. But I think it is intentionally done so that we may concentrate on the trip rather than be bothered by what is going to happen, and it works.  As the saying goes: it is the journey that matters, not the destination. The success of the film depends a lot on the principal two characters and Prithviraj portrays his role with tremendous restraint, which really plays into his strength. The kid is also very good in an affable meekish way and is a refreshing change from the usual staple served up by Malayalam films off late. It is filmed with commendable authenticity on great locations that convey beauty, despair and danger all at the same time. It doesn't try to justify one side over the other on the terrorism debate and is done in a matter of fact way. Soundtrack is sparsely used and when done, it is not for manipulating our emotions. At around 90 minutes it is certainly aimed at a sophisticated audience.

I don't know whether the channels think that we are allergic to subtitles or is it simply  a case of taking for granted that Malayalees understand both Hindi and Tamil. The character played by Indrajith speaks Tamil and I couldn't figure out half of what he was saying. The film was screened at various film festivals where it got good reception. It won the national award for best film from Malayalam in 2010, the same year that 'Adaminte Makan Abu' won the national award outright. I haven't seen that film to really compare the two. I don't think it got much of a theatrical run if at all it was released. It is a great watch.

Rating: 4/5