ഇടുക്കി ഗോൾഡ്‌ (Idukki Gold) (2013)

Director: Aashiq Abu
Writers:  Dileesh Nair, Syam Pushkaran
Cast:       Maniyanpilla Raju, Babu Antony, Shebin Benson, Vijayaraghavan, Prathap Pothen, Raveendran, Anil, Anoop, Fabin Raveendran
Language: Malayalam

Five friends get separated during their school days, meet up after 35 years and decide to head back to their school in order to relive their teenage indulgence- smoke joints of marijuana that was exclusively available in Idukki. Its better known as "Idukki Gold". As the movie concludes they realize that true Idukki Golds was their friendship and not marijuana that they were searching for. 

The film begins with one of them coming back from Czechoslovakia and taking out a classified ad requesting his long lost friends to meet up. The film proceeds as a series of vignettes from both the past and the present without a story structure. Malayalees are so used to the three act structure of storytelling that they soundly rejected this effort from Ashiq Abu, which is a shame. Nostalgia has been a very marketable genre for Malayalam films recently and the film makes a couple of in-jokes on that. You can also see the Grindhouse effect on the film with the past portion getting that treatment. Visuals are quite stunning and the Idukki locales are always a guarantee for that. It is a habit in Malayalam films these days to unnecessarily bring great visual greenery when the film or the story does not really warrant it. That is not the case with this one. One gripe I have with this film is that it relies too much on coincidences in meeting up with many of its characters. Many of them are totally unnecessary and are just there for the sake of including some of the comedy scenes. The characterization of  the uptight French wife was also a bit off. The awkwardness in meeting up after 35 years is conveyed very well though.

Overall it is a good watch and is Ashiq Abu's best film so far in my opinion. I didn't like '22 Female Kottayam', his most acclaimed film, and 'Salt n Pepper' was a decent watch. Better to not talk about 'Gangster'. Aashiq Abu tries to do something different in each of his efforts but generally falls back to rely on traditional tricks ultimately to make them commercially viable. It is also true for this film as he goes for an unnecessarily dramatic ending that is totally out of sync with the rest of the film. I wish he had stayed true to its original intention. The performances from the young actors who play their old selves are really good. BGM and the couple of songs in it, done by Bijibal,  are also very good. The film was adapted from Santhosh Echikkanam's short story with the same name. 

Rating: 3/5

In a World... (2013)

Director: Lake Bell
Writer:    Lake Bell
Cast:       Lake Bell, Fred Melamed, Michaela Watkins

An underachieving voice coach finds herself competing in the movie trailer voice-over profession with her father and his protege.  

The title of the film comes from the phrase that we hear at the start of many film trailers, especially the post-apocalyptic variety. The idea for the film came for Lake Bell when she noticed that all trailers feature male voice-overs except for 'Gone in 60 Seconds', which used Melissa Disney. She decided to write a story in which a female protagonist sought to overcome this prejudice. I am not a big fan of watching trailers since it is a trend in recent times to reveal too much and spoil the actual film. So it is a relief when you actually see a good one and the recent Mad Max: Fury Road trailer was one such example, using as an excuse to post a link to it.

In a World is essentially a feel-good comedy film and it is a genre which can always use niche settings to bring some freshness to it without appearing to be too cheesy. It is not to say that this film adheres firmly to the genre stereotypes at a core level. Most of the characters in it are connected to this voice-over business and the film really doesn't have any overly dramatic moments. Everything is done in a matter-of-fact way, which is always welcome, and the characters are sufficiently quirky and awkward. One might assume from the synopsis that it is trying to make a women's rights/feminist statement in an 'In Your Face' manner and that is not how it deals with it. Protagonist wants to do it just because  she is good at it and want to make a career out of it. When it is announced that she got the big gig in a newly launched franchise, it is a lady executive that is doing the announcement. When the protagonist gets a chance to thank her for giving her the gig, the executive flatly states that she got it not because she was the best candidate for the job but to make a statement to all the girls out there who are watching the trailer. That is just a very clever way of portraying 'contradictions' and debates surrounding the movement. 

In a World is a great watch. It is not just unique in terms of the background of its characters but also because of its non-conformity wrt the genre. Performances are all great and it is a great directorial debut for Lake Bell also considering the fact that she also played the principal protagonist. It was filmed over 20 days in LA and was very well-received at the Sundance Film Festival. It was also a financial success, grossing close to $3m on a less than million dollar budget. 

Rating: 4/5

                                                                              

ആമേൻ (Amen) (2013)

Director: Lijo Jose Pellissery
Writers:  P.S. Rafeeque, Lijo Jose Pellissery
Cast:       Indrajith, Fahadh Faasil, Swathi Reddy
Language: Malayalam

The film revolves around the events that happen in a picturesque Kuttanadan village (think Kerala backwaters) following the arrival of a young priest Vincent Vattolli (Indrajith), who is sort of a rebel. At the center of it you have the romance between Solomon (Fahadh) and Shoshannah (Swati Reddy), poor boy-rich girl kind) and everything is supposed to be resolved by a competition between two bands at the climax. 

The basic story won't look out of place if narrated by Ambujakshan (From Azakhiya Raavanan) in his 'Chirakodinja Kinavukal' style. I have nothing against cliched drivel being used in a film as long as it is done in an inventive manner without giving much importance to it. But sadly in this film, even though the director declares it to be a divine comedy, the focus is too much on the sob story where we are supposed to care for it even though you know where it is going from the get go itself. Only thing that can save the film from there is a riveting climax but that is quite hard to achieve when the competition is between two people on fucking clarinets. These kind of music set-pieces are quite achievable and you have examples from Malayalam cinema like 'Yodha' and 'His Highness Abdullah'. Amen doesn't even come close to them and the director chooses to end with a lame-ass twist which might make people who enjoyed the film go 'Wow' but  I went 'Meh'. 

Amen is the sort of film which hoodwinks the audience who loved it to think that they actually enjoyed a sophisticated film and they will pat themselves on the back for helping it become commercially successful. They will also gloat about the intelligence of Malayalee audience which makes these kind of films viable. When the director actually takes them for granted and make an actual good fucking film without any cliches, they will then castigate it for no good reason and the films end up as disasters at box office. This is exactly what happened to Lijo with his recent film 'Double Barrel', where he forgo cliches and concentrated on the eccentricities (which are in small supply in Amen and a reference to Rocky Punyalan is one of them) that makes him good.  

Only good thing about Amen and its success is that it helped in getting 'Double Barrel' made. Parallels could be made with Amen-Om Shanti Oshana and Double Barrel-Aadu Oru Bheekara Jeeviyanu. The success of the former set, despite being shit, helped Lijo and Midhun Manuel Thomas to get funding for the latter set, both of which are vastly superior films. Only thing I can say about the contrasting fortunes at box office for these set of films is: 'ഇത് എനിക്കു വട്ടായതാണോ അതോ നാട്ടുകാർക്ക് മൊത്തം വട്ടായതാണോ? ' (Is it me who is mad or is it the whole fucking society that is mad).   

Performances in it from all concerned are quite good and that of Swathi Reddy's was pleasantly surprising. Cinematography and positioning of camera in many shots is done with some difference but I didn't particularly enjoy many of their choices. There are too many songs in it, most of them garbage. to actually fill time and they are strategically inserted so that audience won't notice the threadbare and cliched plot. One song in a toddy shop involving the two bands is shot as a single tracking shot which was quite interesting. Lijo's unnecessary use of songs is something that he carried into Double Barrel with disastrous consequences in terms of pacing of the film. I hope he cuts the unnecessary ones for DVD release. I look forward to his next film but I do hope the lack of success of Double Barrel won't make him go back to Amen style.

PS: I was reminded of 'Silver Linings Playbook' which also had things getting resolved by a cringy dance competition at the climas. Film was thoroughly average but met with commercial and critical success.

Rating: 1.5/5 

Tom à la ferme (Tom at the Farm) (2013)

Director: Xavier Dolan
Writers:  Xavier Dolan, Michel Marc Bouchard
Cast:       Xavier Dolan, Pierre-Yves Cardinal, Lisa Roy, Evelyne Brochu
Language: French

A young man (Xavier Dolan) travels to an isolated farm for his lover's funeral where he's quickly drawn into a twisted, sexually charged game by his lover's aggressive farmer brother (Pierre-Yves Cardinal). He learns that his lover's homosexuality is not known to the mother and the brother forces him to behave like a normal friend of her son in front of her. He also learns that the brother had also invented a girl-friend for his brother to please his mother and he is trying his level best to keep the facade going. As we progress in the film, we are not sure who is really the aggressor in this equation and more and more things are revealed about the household and the pariah status it enjoys within the community.

The film is adapted from a play by Michel Marc Bouchard, who also helped in writing the screenplay, and this is a sort of departure for Xavier Dolan who had made films out of his own original output up till this one. It is a film that you can get easily disappointed with if you try to pin it down to a particular genre. I had read some review headline which described it as a horror flick and the director also do some bits in it to class it as such. But I found it to be more of a mystery film with a heavy dose of black humor to it. I enjoyed it thoroughly and you will also do the same as long as you don't insist on it adhering to some genre conventions. It doesn't try to overly explain itself and you are free to interpret it any which way you want. The brother character turns out to be really endearing from my POV and his life must have been a really difficult one with his aggressive nature being a bi-product of his own ambiguous sexuality. 

Prior to this, I had only seen 'Mommy' from Dolan's filmography. It id difficult to believe that he is just 26 years old now. It seems some of the mixed reactions that his films get from critics is to do with them being conscious about his age. 'Tom At The Farm' was screened in the main competition section at the Venice Film Festival where it won the 'FIPRESCI' prize (Enterprising film-making). It is in French, like 'Mommy', as it is set in French speaking Quebec region of Canada. Dolan had cited Haneke's 'Funny Games' and 'Piano Teacher' as his favorites and you can see shades of those films in this one. I guess the best way to describe the film would be to something like that as well.

Rating: 5/5

                                                                                  

കിളി പോയി (Kili Poyi) (2013)

Director: Vinay Govind
Writers:   Joseph Kurian, Vivek Ranjit
Cast:       Asif Ali, Aju George, Sampath Raj
Language: Malayalam

Kili Poyi is a Malayalam stoner film directed by debutant Vinay Govind, a former associate of VK Prakash. It can also be characterized as a 'Bromance' film even though the nature of it is similar to the love-hate one involved between Malayalam's evergreen characters Dasan and Vijayan. That is referenced in the film and basic story-line is about the two central characters, played by Asif Ali and Aju Varghese, getting their hands on a bag full of cocaine inadvertently during their stress-busting trip to Goa. And, unlike Dasan and Vijayan, they decide to keep it and sell it for money. The bag references to Taxi Driver by featuring Robert De Niro with his mo-hawk in it and there are plenty of other references to Quentin Tarantino's 'Pulp Fiction' as well as the similarity of plot with 'True Romance'. Even the song 'Girl, you'll be a woman soon' is used in soundtrack during a scene.

There have been plethora of Malayalam films recently that uses old cinematic references as a crutch to make up for their lack of originality. This one, which came out pretty early in the so called new-gen film wave that swept Malayalam industry recently, is a rare case of it being done in a good way. This is in spite of the rather average performances from its lead actors and not so great script. I caught up it on Asianet HD, and I guess you do have to watch it on HD to appreciate it more since the cinematography and shot-making is stylishly done, reminding me of the seedy look of 'Ek Chalis Ki Last Local'. The title translates, not literally, as someone losing their mind and is used to refer to getting high taking drugs. I assume the phrase would have been in existence prior to this film but it did bring it to the mainstream Malayalee lingo since then. Malayalam cinema have introduced/popularized so many new phrases and words into our daily life language and this is another one to add to the long list. Even the phrase 'Scene Contra', now popularized by the song from 'Premam', is featured in this film during a song sequence.

Overall it is a mindless fun watch, if watched in the right mood with a good print, and a very good effort from all involved. Film got an A-film certification and, predictably, didn't do well at the box office. Even though it is marketed as a stoner film, it doesn't go into the surreal territory enough to justify the tagline. They could have done it better if they added a bit more idiosyncrasies into it.  Still it is a decent enough effort considering the limitations that we have in our industry in showing drug use, sex and violence. 

Rating: 2.5/5

                                                                         

Memories (2013)

Director: Jeethu Joseph
Writer:    Jeethu Joseph
Cast:       Prithviraj, Suresh Krishna, Vijayaraghavan
Language: Malayalam

Sam Alex, a drunkard cop on long leave after the deaths of his wife and daughter, is forced to investigate a series of murders which are committed in the same pattern. His search leads to a serial killer, and something more than what he expected. 

It is a habit of Malayalam films that deals with such stories of serial killing to make it personal for the investigating officer as a cheap way to get the audience's attention. I detest it with much passion and there are just too many otherwise good films that got ruined because of this. 'Mukham' and 'Kariyillakattu Pole' are two such examples even though it is understandable to some extent in the case of the former. Best Malayalam film I can name from the genre is 'Ee Thanutha Veluppan Kalathu', though I am going by my impression of watching it as a schoolboy on Doordarshan. It was written by Padmarajan and directed by Joshi. 

Coming back to the film in question, Memories, it started off decently enough with Prithviraj giving a good performance. Film starts to fall apart when he starts investigating the case and you lose it completely by the time it becomes personal in a predictable fashion. I hate it when each and everything in the film end up as a plot device and that is what happens with his brother character and those fishes that are totally out of place during that scene. That is just so unsubtle and lazy film-making. Occult/ritual serial killing films are quite hard to pull off but when done well they can be really glorious (True Detective Season One, Se7en). It is not the case with this film and you will really struggle to keep a straight face as they make breakthroughs. They really had to show figuring out the 'Jesus in Cross' pose as a major breakthrough!!! There is no effort to justify the showy nature of the murders from killer's point of view other than explaining it away as him being eccentric and a bible-freak. When they hit a road-block with a password protected computer, the officer calls for a computer expert to unlock it. I sighed with relief that at least they didn't go the 'Legacy' route with that; only for the officer to point at Bible and figure out the password all by himself. Give me a fucking break!!!

To sum up, it is another shitty serial killing investigation film with the only good thing about it being Prithviraj's performance. That, and introduction of the term 'Psychological Move' into Malayalam lingo. It is best when such films don't have too many coincidences by which many of the characters form connections and this one patently fails to do so but actually revel in doing the opposite. And what the fuck is with those unnecessary CGI scenes?? Based on what I have seen from Jeethu Joseph, Drishyam looks like a fluke and not the norm. 

Rating: 1.5/5 

                                                                           

നത്തോലി ഒരു ചെറിയ മീനല്ല (Natholi Oru Cheriya Meenalla) (2013)

Director: V. K. Prakash
Writer:    Shankar Ramakrishnan
Cast:       Fahadh Faasil, Kamalinee Mukherjee, Mukundan

Preman (Fahadh Faasil) is a caretaker of a flat at Cochin. Everyone in the flat calls him Natholi (Anchovy) and he faces some issues with some of the occupants of the flat and begins to write a story using the same characters in it. Film revolves around the conflict between Preman and alter-ego character he creates (Narendran played by Fahadh himself), who starts to veer away from what Preman wants from him and starts acting on his own. 

The title of the film translates as 'Anchovy/Natholi isn't a Small Fish' and fried Natholi is in fact my favorite fish dish. I do remember taking an interest in the film due to its interesting title, ahead of its release, but I couldn't catch it at the cinemas. It is a film about which I didn't hear any good things and it went largely unnoticed after the release. The way things are here, that is not a guarantee for a film to be shit and it is often the case that really good films don't do well at the box office at all. It is even more accentuated for films that are unconventional in nature and this film is something that fits the criterion very well. For a Malayalam film to take such risks is almost unheard of these days and it is something that cannot be appreciated enough.

It is a very hard film to describe and the best I could come up with is that it is a surreal comedy. It did remind me Charlie Kauffman's 'Adaptation', a film about a writer, the characters he creates and the writing process. But this films works more like a spoof on Malayalam film industry as well as being self-referential when it comes to V. K. Prakash's filmography. VKP's 'Trivandrum Lodge' had attracted some criticism for its boldness, which some saw as lewd. It was a shock to the system for 'normal' Malayalee audience with its depiction of changing sexual mores but was largely a conventional one in terms of the narrative. In Natholi, VKP goes 'Full Retard' and the result is a very enjoyable watch. Fahadh plays the oddball character very well and Kamalinee Mukherjhee is passable as the antagonist. I am not really a fan of people acting in languages that they are not comfortable with, using dubbing. That does come in the way sometimes but the role is such that it doesn't prove to be catastrophically distracting. We recently had a spoof film in 'Chirakodinja Kinavukal', which was also quite good, but it did come with bells and whistles to make sure that the audience understand what exactly is going on. Natholi, is much bolder as it takes the intelligence of the audience for granted and treats it in a more subtle manner. It is a shame that both these films didn't do well at box office.

Overall, it is good watch and extra credits to the team for making an unconventional film. Pacing is a bit off in some places and there are some totally unnecessary songs in it but it generates enough laughter to sustain till the end. Ending is not compromised like it was for 'Chirakodinja Kinavukal'. VKP was kind of a joke figure based on some of his earlier films, but the films that I have watched of his have been rather good (Trivandrum Lodge & Beautiful being the other two). He doesn't don the Writer's role, and so, I guess it depends a lot on who wrote the film. He had recently remade 'Shutter' in Marathi.

Rating: 3/5 

                                                                        

The Lunchbox (2013)

Director: Ritesh Batra
Writers:  Ritesh Batra, Vasan Bala
Cast:       Irrfan Khan, Nimrat Kaur, Nawazuddin Siddiqui
Language: Hindi

A mistaken delivery in Mumbai's famously efficient lunchbox delivery system contacts a young housewife to an older man in the dusk of his life as they build a fantasy world together through notes in the lunch box. She is in a loveless marriage, which is a very common phenomena in India due to societal compulsions, and he works in a government company and is close to retirement. Their exchange of notes rejuvenates both of them from their drab middle class life. Their relationship develops into romance, predictably, and ends in an unresolved note leaving us to speculate on whether they will get together or not. 

It is basically a very predictable feel-good film which takes an interesting idea and runs with it. 'Will they, won't they?' aspect goes along in a very conventional fashion, with him deciding not to meet her personally in the first instance and then regretting it later, by the time she decides to leave the place as well. The predictability of it doesn't matter though since there is a whole world building attached to each of the characters and it is something that many of us could easily relate to. There is this 'Govt Babu' aura to the world around Irrfan Khan's character and it seems his personal traits have also been influenced by it. Nawazuddin Siddiqui plays the role of his pestering understudy, who gradually wins over him so that he could be taken under the wings of much senior officer. We are not sure whether it is a normal retirement or whether he has taken a voluntary retirement from the job but I suspect it is the latter. Nimrat Kaur's homemaker character has a young kid and she is trying to please her husband through her cooking as a way to arrest her flailing marriage life. She has a mentor like neighbor aunty, from the flat above her apartment, with whom she communicates through shouting as well as exchanging things through a basket tied to a rope. We never see the neighbor in person. All the characters exhibit subtle traits and mannerisms which makes it a fantastic watch on the whole despite its predictable nature. I was reminded of Wong Kar Wai's 'In the Mood for Love' in some places and it is mostly to do with them discussing their personal lives, albeit with notes rather than in person.

Anurag Kashyap was involved as one of the producers of the film along with several other studios, many of them being foreign. It was screened at Cannes, where it won Critics Week's viewers choice award also known as Grand Rail d'Or. It also got a nomination at the BAFTA awards in the Non-English language category. It was widely expected to be India's entry for Academy's  Awards in the Foreign Film category, but the Gujarati film 'The Good Road' was selected ahead of it, creating considerable bemusement. I haven't seen that film to comment specifically on its quality, but Oscars is not really about quality and 'The Lunchbox' had a much bigger potential to do well there due to its crossover qualities. Anyway, Paolo Sorrentino's 'The Great Beauty', a favorite of mine, won it that year beating the likes of 'The Broken Circle Breakdown' and 'The Hunt'. So, there wasn't much chance of 'The Lunchbox' winning it and it did quite well anyway financially, grossing around $13 million on a budget of under $2 million.     

Overall it is a great watch and at under 100 minutes running time and the way it is filmed, it looks more like a foreign independent film rather than something from India. Struggling middle class is something that is touched rarely by Bollywood and mainstream Indian films in general. Performances from all concerned are excellent and you expect that anyway from the likes of Irrfan Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui. Nimrat Kaur, a theater artist, landed the job through auditions and she does a great job in a role where she portrays a normal Indian woman. Ritesh Batra made his directorial debut with this film. A third of its box office collection was from US alone and I suspect it was not the usual NRI crowd alone that were watching.

Rating: 4/5

                                                                      

La Vénus à la fourrure (Venus in Fur) (2013)

Director: Roman Polanski
Writers:  David Ives, Roman Polanski
Cast:      Emmanuelle Seigner, Matthieu Amalric
Language: French

An actress, who came late for an audition, tries to convince a director how she's perfect for a role in his upcoming production. The entire film features only these two characters and is totally dialog driven, which is largely them reading the lines of the play. It is based on the play of same name by American playwright David Eves, which itself was inspired by Leopold von Sacher-Mascoh's novel 'Venus in Furs'. The word Masochism is of course derived from the name of the Austrian author and that is a trivia you get from this film.

Emmanuelle Seigner is real-life partner of Roman Polanski and the way Matthieu Amalric plays his role is like he is mimicking Roman Polanski. So the boundary between what is fiction and what is real is really blurred, like it is in the film itself between the two characters, which is again blurred in the play within the play. So that should itself be enough to say that the film is bit of a mindfuck and am not sure entirely what it is going for in terms of an actual plot. The surface level impression is that the actress is a feminist activist and is irked by the sexism in the play and the whole thing is a charade to punish the director for it.  

I think we can give Polanski the benefit of doubt and assume that the film is not really about the plot but how audience's moods are affected by the film. The director in it represents the audience, and like us, he is also exasperated by the actress who is holding him up by her late arrival and demand for an audition. Even though the poster of the film convey a sensuality, there is not much of that on offer. But as soon as the audition starts, we are intrigued by it and the director also goes through the same change of emotions and culminates with the absurd ending. I might be being pretentious here but that is what I think he was going for.

Overall, it ends up being a good watch even though I was exasperated by it initially. It is difficult to follow such dialog heavy films when you are relying entirely on subtitles and to make matters worse, there was a slight lag in the print that I saw. The budget must have been meager since the entire film was set in one place and involved only two actors. It is Polanski's first non-English-language film in 51 years. His previous feature film, 'Carnage', also had this play like feel to it and is the best one among his recent outings.

Rating: 3/5

                                                                         

9 Full Moons (2013)

Director: Tomer Almagor
Writer:    Tomer Almagor
Cast:       Amy Seimetz, Bret Roberts, Donal Logue

Frankie (Amy Seimetz) is an emotional train wreck, careening around East LA music scene drinking and getting lost with strangers. Lev (Bret Roberts) is a reserved and tormented soul. He drives a limo and aspires to work in the music business. Meeting in an after hour seedy nightclub, they embark on a roller-coaster relationship exploring what love is like for two quiet people who maybe 'damaged' beyond repair.

What is with number 9 and romance? I looked it up, in fact, and a numerology page which showed up first on the google search says that it is the number of universal love, eternity and faith. As for other films in similar genre, I could think of '9½ weeks', which I haven't seen, and Michael Winterbottom's '9 Songs', which I have. Roman Polanski's 'The Ninth Gate' is not quite in the same genre but can be classed as an erotic mystery thriller. 

Coming back to 9 full moons, the gender roles of the characters are quite reversed during the initial parts of the film with Frankie taking more of the initiatives. Lev moves in with her and later gets a music gig to assist a famous country musician who is currently on a downward trajectory. As he gets busier with the assignment, a more traditional gender dynamics develop between the couple. It is quite difficult to describe what makes the film unique but I guess the behavior of its two protagonists is the best thing about it. Both of them are excellent in their roles, especially Amy Seimetz, who was also in Shane Carruth's 'Upstream Color'. Compared to that role, Frankie is kind of the opposite, especially in terms of the way she talks. I was expecting this film to be more of a mindfuck for some reason but it turns out to be quite a 'Feel Good' film. 

Overall it is a very good watch. The reasons for why they are like this is not made clear in the film until the end parts of it where some clues are given. It did feel a little more plot-driven than it should be and did raise my eye-brows during certain scenes- for eg; Frankie reacting in an angry manner when she finds him rummaging through her stuff, a very unsubtle and totally out of the blue scene where she looks longingly at a kid etc...Harry Dean Stanton also makes an appearance in the film as Lev's father in a cameo role. The film is worth checking out for its uniqueness and especially if you are a fan of films like 'Blue Valentine'. 

Rating: 4/5   

                                                                       

Philips and the Monkey Pen (2013)

Directors: Shanil Muhammed, Rojin Philip, Rojin Thomas
Writers:    Shanil Muhammed, Rojin Thomas
Cast:        Sanoop Santhosh, Jayasurya, Ramya Nambeeshan, Vijay Babu
Language: Malayalam

Ryan Philips is a smart young boy in fifth standard who has a big problem when it comes to studying mathematics. As he struggles to escape from doing his maths homework, he resorts to mischievous acts, little realizing the trouble he is making. The title of the film comes from a magical 'Monkey Pen' that he gets which helps him in doing his homework and turn around the opinion about him in his school.

The film begins with a title card which says that 'one should put themselves in the shoes of a young kid' and that seems to be a warning to the audience that it is a film meant for kids only. My problem with the film is that it is not quite a film meant purely for children or adults. It kind of falls between the two and in that sense it is neither for kids nor for adults. I am not in a position to judge whether kids will like this film but as a grown up, I wouldn't recommend it for them because of the various adulty things in the film like a sharpened pencil getting shoved in the arse of a kid as a revenge tactic. It would have been alright if they just cut away immediately but they had to just go back and show blood dripping out of it...WTF!!!... I know that our film certification process is so fucked up that kids see plenty of fucked up things in films that are certified as universally view-able, but it is just mind boggling to see such scenes in a film that is supposedly meant for kids. Of course the makers can justify it by saying that they were sending across a message that: "Kids, don't shove pencil up the arse of other kids", but I don't buy that. Then there are silly things like romantic interest for a 10 year old and the same girl dying in an accident. Give me a fucking break!!! You want to include all the melodramatic bullshit of mainstream India cinema in a kids film as well? FFS!!! 

I decided to watch the film because scenes from this film are used to generate memes in usual places on internet (ICU, Troll Malayalam etc). Most of the kids in it are very good, which is a rare thing these days, but the main kid's performance is a bit uneven. He is annoying in many places but rather good sometimes. There is a tendency to make adults also perform like kids in Children's films these days and Ramya Nambeeshan's mother character is an example for that. 'Manu Uncle' is my favorite film from the children's category in Malayalam cinema and it is one that is equally enjoyable for adults. It works with a very Enid Blytonesque 'Famous Five' premise and the kids in it are not too saccharine and adults behave quite normally except for Suresh Gopi's legendary character 'Minnal Prathapan', who is a bit caricatured. It is better to watch that film again than waste your time on a piece of shit film like this one.

Overall the film is a rather terrible watch. There are several jumps in timelines when it comes to the story telling aspect of it which gives it a false sense of sophistication. I knew I was in for a bad time as soon as I saw the old guy from flashback scene with the British behave like a one year old, only to serve as a plot device. Then there is the Maths teacher role played by Vijay Babu who swings wildly in terms of his behavior without much justification for it. Only saving grace for this film is the sporadic laughs that it generates in some places but they are not nearly enough to save it. At around 140 minutes it is just too long and I thought of turning it off much before its ending. It was a commercial and critical success when it got released and ran for more than 100 days.  

Rating: 1.5/5

                                                                          

Night Moves (2013)

Director: Kelly Reichardt
Writers:  Jonathan Raymond, Kelly Reichardt
Cast:       Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning, Peter Sarsgaard

Three radical environmentalists look to execute the protest of their lives: the explosion of a hydroelectric dam. I went into the film without knowing anything about it and the plot is revealed very gradually in a slow-burn fashion which I very much enjoyed. 

First half of the film is very good and you root for them to complete the bombing and escape, but, the second half is bit of a letdown. One of the three, stereo-typically the lady in it, find it hard to cope when she learns that a camper died due to the flooding caused by dam explosion. Really, is that it?!! I guess we are kind of de-sensitized to all these terrorist atrocities these days and one death seems too insufficient to make someone repent their actions. Also, in this era of suicide bombers, we kind of expect them to die and not worry too much about their escape plan. Maybe, that is exactly what the film is going for to show that these are very idealized people who thought they were doing something grand and when they realized that fuck all was achieved, they kind of lost it. The rest of the film is the usual mistrust between the three of them with the two men fearing that the lady will rat them out and leads to predictable outcomes. The ending of it was also a bit fresh without any resolution and that part I liked. It is trying to do what 'The American' did for assassin-procedurals but doesn't quite pull it off. Nevertheless it is a good watch. 

I was kind of reminded of the German film 'The Edukators' which I highly recommend as a stylized entertaining watch. It also featured three radicals, whose agenda was anti-capitalism, spreading chaos by breaking in and vandalizing rich people's houses. The second half of the film features them three in hiding in a secluded location after a kidnap and the changes in relationship dynamics between the three. Structure and plot is not similar but it did remind me of that film. As for Night Moves, it is a good watch if you're into slow procedural films. Performances from all concerned are good, especially that of Eisenberg's, and the whole damp feel with exquisite locales is also perfect.

Rating: 3/5   

                                                                         

La grande bellezza (The Great Beauty) (2013)

Director: Paolo Sorrentino
Writers:  Paolo Sorrentino, Umberto Contarello
Cast:       Toni Servillo, Carlo Verdone, Sabrina Ferilli
Language: Italian

Jep Gambardella has seduced his way through the lavish nightlife of Rome for decades, but after his 65th birthday and a shock from the past, Jep looks past the nightclubs and parties to find a timeless landscape of absurd, exquisite beauty- i.e. underneath all the blah, blah, blah....

Jep moved to Rome after writing his first and only novel, Human Apparatus, which is considered as a masterpiece. Since then he has lived the high society life in a prolonged semi-retired state writing cultural columns and interviewing arty-farty people for a lifestyle magazine. You can obviously draw comparisons with the Fellini masterpiece 'La Dolce Vita', but Jep is someone who is much higher in the food chain when it comes to Roman socialites. As he states in the film, he didn't just want to attend parties but wanted the power to make them fail. The shock from the past comes when a man, who was his first love's husband, comes to him and informs him of her death. He also tells him that Jep was her only true lover and she considered her husband just as a great companion. The incident serves him to reflect on his own life which seems unfulfilled. Being a self-aware person, one would think that it is something that he would have already thought of but it does seem to trigger something more. 

Sorrentino gives us a series of scenes through which we get a glimpse of Jep's lifestyle, which very much involves him attending many art events most of which are pretentious and hollow. Jep is at a stage in his life where he can see through all the bullshit. In a scene where he verbally undresses a socialite who masquerades as a writer, he states:

"We're all on the brink of despair, all we can do is look each other in the face, keep each other company, joke a little... Don't you agree? "

He is also contemptuous of people around him including himself and he sees things like funerals as a high society event where you need to hit all the right notes to appear nobly sorrowful without stealing the bereaved's thunder. He also proceeds to quiz people from religious institutions but one senses that he already know that they are also similar to how his friends are.The final encounter is with a Mother Teresa like nun who celebrates poverty which her PR bandwagon amplifies tenfold. She is 104 years old, the same age Mother Teresa would have been if she was alive at the time when  this film came out. She is also portrayed as someone who pushes the agenda of institution she belongs to and is evident when she claims to know the Christian names of migrating birds who are taking a rest in Jep's balcony. That said, she is not put down to the extent that others were. There is no big epiphany for Jep, but a gradual sense of enlightenment as he reflects on things. He tells her that he didn't write a second novel because he was looking for the great beauty which he was not able to find. The film ends with him reminiscing about the first sex he had with his only true lover and stating:

"This is how it always ends. With death. But first there was life, hidden beneath the blah, blah, blah... It's all settled beneath the chitter chatter and the noise, silence and sentiment, emotion and fear. The haggard, inconstant flashes of beauty. And then the wretched squalor and miserable humanity. All buried under the cover of the embarrassment of being in the world, blah, blah, blah... Beyond there is what lies beyond. And I don't deal with what lies beyond. Therefore... let this novel begin. After all... it's just a trick. Yes, it's just a trick. "

This was my second viewing of this film which I considers as the best one from 2013. You do get the feel that director is taking us into Jep's shoes, who is basically the director himself, and see the world through his eyes. So it is basically an observational film with an anthological feel rather than one with some plot revolving around a protagonist. Stunning visuals/cinematography and soundtrack are a given in Sorrentino films and Tony Servillo is great as always. Sorrentino can really film a party scene with the first one in the film lasting close to eight minutes or so. I have't seen the Sean Penn starring 'This Must be the Place' and didn't enjoy 'Il Divo' that much. 'Consequences of Love' and 'Family Friend' were both excellent but 'The Great Beauty' is indeed my favorite Sorrentino film.

Rating: 5/5

                                                                    

അന്നയും രസ്സൂലും (Annayum Rasoolum) (2013)

Director: Rajeev Ravi
Writers:  Santhosh Echikkanam, G. Sethunath
Cast:       Fahad Faasil, Andrea Jeremiah, Sunny Wayne

A realistic and practical movie about two lovers from different religions, a Muslim boy Rasool and Christian girl Anna, and life of people around them. The story is told through narration by a marine (Sunny Wayne) who is back home on vacation and ends up playing an important role in the lover's life.

Rajeev Ravi had given an interview recently, in which he stated that films should be made without a script since it is a visual medium. He also castigated Sreenivasan's style of film-making describing it as pandering to society's regressive attitude. Predictably, it invited a big backlash from all and sundry from Malayalam film industry. The interview is a very good read even though I don't agree with his main contention that there is only one way to make good films. It would have saved everyone's time if he had worded it better by saying that such kind of approach is the one he follows without feeling the need to unnecessarily disparage people like Sreenivasan. 

Rajeev Ravi made his directorial debut with 'Annayum Rasoolum'. He made his name as a cinematographer in Hindi film industry and have been a fixture in Anurag Kashyap films off late (Dev D, Gangs of Wasseypur, Bombay Velvet). He uses spot dubbing, which can be very challenging in crowded Indian outdoors, instead of the usual method of dubbing in studios. This was also done for the Malayalam film 'Akam', a favorite of mine from recent years, which gave it a unique feel in terms of sounds to go along with its stunning cinematography. But for Annayum Rasoolum, I found it really hard to follow the dialog while watching it on TV as most of the scenes are filmed outdoors. It seems he is taking it too personally when it comes to his disdain for scripts. I had tried watching it last year much before that controversial interview, but had to turn it off as I couldn't follow what was being said. Today I tried my best and took the following steps: I turned off fan even though it was too fucking hot here, tried all sound modes on my TV before settling on the standard mode (after trying the modes-Movie, Clear Voice and Amplify). It helps that there is minimal dialog in it and practically none for Anna.

One could say that the character Rasool is a bit one-dimensional with his only concern being the romantic interest on Anna. He follows the standard routine associated with such romantic relationships in India- stage one being the creepy stalker, stage two of sending creepy text messages and finally getting his way through somehow. In that sense the film is very realistic. There is no class difference between the two as both are from poor backgrounds but as is the case in plenty of Indian relationships-religion, caste etc do get in  the way.  Anna is vulnerable because of the situation in her home and she finds some solace in her creepy stalker. If you lay out the basic plot of the film it is nothing new but the treatment is refreshingly realistic and atmospherically unique. The title would suggest that the film is centered on these two characters but it spends considerable time on other associated characters which means that the close to 170 minutes running time is well utilized. There have been many films recently set in Fort Kochi/ Mattanchery area and this one is certainly the best portrayal of it. Story takes unexpected turns basically because it doesn't do filmy cliches. It can certainly be considered as one of the best portrayal of typical Indian romance on screen from recent times. It also did well commercially and I wish I had seen it at the cinemas as it would have certainly helped in following the dialog. Songs are also really good and is done in a way that helps in capturing the mood. 

Rating: 4/5

                                                                          

მანდარინები (Mandariinid) (Tangerines) (2013)

Director: Zaza Urushadze
Writer:    Zaza Urushadze
Cast:       Lembit Ulfsak, Elmo Nugamen, Mikhail Meskhi, Giorgi Nakhshidze
Language: Estonian, Georgian

Film is set during war in Georgia's Apkhazeti region in 1992. It was a civil war inside Georgia with a separatist movement in the region of Apkhazeti. In the film, an Estonian man Ivo has stayed behind to harvest his crops of tangerines. With a bloody conflict at his door, couple of wounded men are left behind, and Evo begins to take care of them.

The politics of war involved many of the other ethnic groups in former Soviet regions supporting the cause of the separatists and pitted themselves against Georgia. So you have Chechen mercenaries fighting with the separatists against Georgia and a microcosm of the same takes place besides Ivo's house. One of the wounded guy is a Chechen and the other one who is more seriously wounded is a Georgian. Both of them are at each other's throats but promises Ivo that they won't kill inside his home. You kind of know where the film is headed from there but it still manages to surprise you at the end with regards to how it plays out towards the predictable conclusion. Performances from all are very understated as is the matter-of-fact writing. It is a topic that could very well have gone all preachy on us but the director never goes there. The pacifist message of all of us being essentially the same if we let ourselves to know each other become more potent this way. Nationalism, religious fundamentalism , race politics, regionalism etc always get in the way. 

I didn't know anything about the conflict prior to watching this but I did know that all sorts of  such conflicts took place after the fall of Soviet Union. A similar thing is being played out in Middle East now because such a thing being played out was artificially prevented by the colonial powers after the fall of Ottoman empire during first world war. The film takes a neutral stand on the conflict and when I read about it afterwards I found that ethnic cleansing of Georgians took place in that region and Russian state kind of played for both sides during the conflict. The native Russians from the region supported the separatist cause. The region now functions as a partially recognized independent state with Russia having recognized it. The Georgian government, UN and many of the other world's major governments consider it as part of Georgia and accuse Russia of militarily occupying it. The 2008 Russo-Georgian war was over this region.

Overall the film is great watch with a very simple story line. The relations between all the ethic groups are portrayed quite subtly and what I gleaned from it is that all the different groups look down on the Chechens. Religion could be part of it since they are Muslims. Hitler's misguided war with Soviet Union on Eastern Front was partly to do with his revulsion towards the Slavic race. The film was nominated for Academy awards in the foreign film category, ultimately losing out to the Polish film 'Ida'. 'Leviathan' should have won it but, alas, the academy is run by really old people who have a hard-on for second world war and holocaust. Get with the times you morons!

Rating: 4/5

                                                                             

Ugly (2013)

Director: Anurag Kashyap
Writer:    Anurag Kashyap
Cast:       Rahul Bhat. Ronit Roy, Vineet Kumar Singh, Tejaswini Kolhapure, Girish Kulkarni
Language: Hindi

A terrible tale of corruption, indifference, and systemic violence starts when 10 year old daughter of an aspiring actor disappears. His ex-wife and mother of the child is married to the Police chief with whom he had rivalry over the former since college days. The police suspects him and his friend for kidnapping the girl and all of them lose sight about the fate of the missing girl as they think with their guts instead of brains.  

Film starts with the claim that it is based on true events but I really doubt whether it was this convoluted in reality. When it finished, I was wondering whether all of it make any sense and on reflection, to be fair, almost all of it can be explained away in some way or the other. But it still leaves you with the feeling that something is amiss. It might have been better if Anurag hadn't gone for the slight twist at the end wherein the father gets away with the ransom money thinking that girl is anyway with the Police and they are trying to trap him all along. We are shown early on that his friend was calling him demanding ransom money and the whole thing about the father trying to rob the Jewelry store suggests that he was not in the know about the friend's plans till late. The friend must have convinced him later on that the kidnap is a fake one and he should take the money and run. I can't understand why he would believe that since the Police Chief is cooperating with him to find the girl and that wouldn't have been the case if  he was trying to frame him. It would have made more sense if he thought the mother might have kidnapped the girl instead for money reasons. That would be keeping with the overall theme of the film having all the three characters trying to benefit in some way from the disappearance. The three broken characters- mother with drinking problem who doesn't particularly care for her child, father with failed acting career and the Police Chief with false sense of righteousness who snoops on his wife's phone calls; are a reflection of the corrupt and systemic clusterfuck that Indian society is. Film would've worked better if it strictly stuck to those aspects rather than trying to be commercial by having a very mysterious and convoluted plot. One film that manages to do very well with great balance having such a theme is the Chinese film from last year, 'Black Coal, Thin Ice'.

Film was supposed to be released in 2013 but ran into problems with the CBFC (Censor Board) as they insisted on putting 'smoking is dangerous' warning in all the scenes depicting smoking. Anurag Kashyap finally relented late last year, with the promise that he will continue his battle regarding the same in future. Good luck with that then! The best scene from the film is when the father and his friend go to the station to report the kidnapping. It is a fair reflection of how people are treated by Indian bureaucracy, with the Police Inspector asking inane questions about his acting career, technicalities involved with casting and finally about how a picture of the caller appears in a phone. That scene is hilarious and another one like that is there later on with the father demanding alcohol to be served in a fast food joint. When the restaurant owner starts dialing the phone, he confronts him for calling the Police when in reality he was only trying to arrange the alcohol for him. That sums up the 'anything goes' culture that we are following and it has even been given some sort of recognition with that utterly cringe-worthy term -Jugaad, which the management consultant dickwads like to use. The former scene at the Police station is very Tarantinosque and has a set-piece sort of quality to it.

Overall the film is a very good watch with some excellent performances from almost all of the actors involved and a very gritty depiction of the modern Indian urban hell. It would have been great had he gone less commercial with it. His next film, Bombay Velvet, is slated for release in May this year and it looks a very commercial one by his standards if you go by the cast list. Sad to see Anurag Kashyap changing from being a hipster to mainstream.

Rating: 3.5/5

                                                                           

The Zero Theorem (2013)

Director: Terry Gilliam
Writer:    Pat Rushin
Cast:       Christoph Waltz, Melanie Thierry, Lucas Hedges, Matt Damon, David Thewlis

A hugely talented but socially isolated computer operator is tasked by Management to prove the Zero Theorem: that the Universe in the end returns to nothing, rendering life ultimately meaningless. But such meaning is what he really craves as he is constantly waiting for a particular phone call that would explain to him the meaning of life.

Matt Damon represents the Management for which Qohen (Waltz) is working and the former is kind of like the 'Architect' from 'The Matrix'. At one point in the film Gilliam actually mocks Matrix by having Management's son, Bob, telling Qohen jokingly that he is 'The One' that Oracle prophesied. Bob is in someways a mix of Brad Pitt's characters from '12 Monkeys' and 'Fight Club'. Gilliam constructs a typical absurd Orwellian Universe in the film where the characters talk funny and are twitchy and quirky. The basic plot of socially awkward genius finding love with a girl only to realize that she is in fact a call girl arranged for him is not that novel, but when it gets the Gilliam treatment it is interesting nevertheless. It seems what they are going for is the idea that the Universe we exist in is in fact a simulation and Qohen embraces this in the final scene. Thing is, the actual depth of the film's idea seems a bit flimsy and its depiction of entity crunching a bit silly but because of the excellent cast it is very much watchable and funny if you are the sort to embrace Gilliam's eccentricities. My favorite film of his is '12 Monkeys' followed by 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' and his Monty Python works. Fisher King was also excellent but when I watched 'Brazil' some years back, I didn't particularly enjoy it. I guess I will appreciate it more if I do a re-watch. 

Overall it is more than a good watch without being all that great. It was good to see Waltz in a very different role because the two academy awards that he got through Tarantino films were for playing essentially the same character. He was also good in Polanski's 'Carnage', a film that I very much enjoyed and is gonna play a Bond Villain in the next installment of it, Spectre.

Rating: 3.5/5 

                                                                  

Fading Gigolo (2013)

Director: John Turturro
Writer:    John Turturro
Cast:       John Turturro, Woody Allen, Sharon Stone, Vaneesa Paradis

Fioravante decides to become a professional Don Juan as a way of making money to help his cash-strapped friend. Murray. With Murray acting as his 'manager', the duo-Virgil & Bongo quickly finds themselves caught in the crosscurrents of love and money. 

I haven't seen any of the other Turturro directed films and it seems he is acting in shitfests like Transformers to make money to do his own little films. Allen came to know about this film through his barber who also provide service to Turturro. Am not really a fan of actors taking up directorial roles and this film also kind of miss a certain snappiness that you should get with such a story and very Woody Allen like New York setting. It is at its best when the story is centered on the trio of Allen, Turturro and Paradis. What differentiates the film is its depiction of a certain Jewish lifestyle that is untouched by mainstream films. It is another one of those religions that oppresses its womenfolk and you only get a sense of it through rare press news about some Orthodox Jews demanding different seats in Planes if they find that a woman is sitting next to their designated seats. I guess those that practice such orthodoxy is rare in US mind. 

Overall it is a good watch and it is kind of unique that Woody Allen is appearing in a film that is not directed by him. It made around $13 million at the box office and is designated as a flop. That is kind of surprising since I would hazard a guess that the star studded cast might have worked taking pay-cuts to do this out of their own goodwill. We also get a couple of language versions of legendary tango number 'Sway with Me' which can only be a good thing.

Rating: 3/5

                                                                     

Hross í oss (Of Horses and Men) (2013)

Director: Benedikt Erlingsson
Writer:    Benedikt Erlingsson
Cast:       Ingvar Eggert Siggurdson, Charlotte Boving
Language: Icelandic

It is a collection of interlocking stories about a group of rural Icelanders' relationships with their horses and each other. Its tone can be described as a black comedy about sex, death and fate set in exquisite locales. 

We see horses in many films but don't see many aspects involved in actually owning a horse that are not very glamorous. It is like how Pulp Fiction elevated people going to toilet as a major plot point when in most films it is something from daily life that is actually ignored. Tone of the film is set when a proud villager is taking a mare out to tame it under the watchful and voyeuristic eyes of his fellow villagers, only for it to get mounted by a wild stallion while he is sat on it. Embarrassed, he proceeds to shoot and kill the mare. Other stories involve people meeting their deaths on horses, how they go out to capture wild horses and one involving a man who kills his horse and empty its entrails to go inside of it to escape from cold. In some of these stories the horses acts as mere observers for the actions of the humans involved with them.

Overall it is a strange film but a very good watch. The soundtrack sounded a bit like Arabic music and I don't know whether the director is intending for us to be reminded of camels who are a big part in Arabic lifestyle. Since I didn't get any amazon links for the film, am just leaving a link for the Icelandic band Sigur Ros' music.

Rating: 3.5/5

                                                                

The Double (2013)

Director: Richard Ayoade
Writers:  Richard Ayoade, Fyodor Dostoevsky (Novel), Avi Korine
Cast:       Jesse Eisenberg, Mia Wasikowska, Wallace Shawn

A clerk in a government agency finds his unenviable life takes a turn for the horrific with the arrival of a new co-worker who is both his exact physical copy and his opposite- confident, charismatic and seductive with women.

It is kind of strange in the sense that it is a modern retelling of Dostoevsky's novel of the same name but by modern we don't mean contemporary. It is set in an Orwellian place ruled by a dictator who is referred to as Colonel. But the oppression there is the normal dictator variety instead of going to the extremes of 1984. The film is not really about this aspect of the setting since it could very well have been set in a modern capitalistic society where the daily grind takes its toll on the protagonist. We generally find happiness when we are comfortable in our own skins but the clerk in the story is anything but. So enters an exact replica of his physical self who is exact opposite of how he generally behaves. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what is going on. To be fair the director is not trying to make this a twist as it seems only the protagonist is not aware of what is going on inside his mind. The trouble is that we have got a better version of this story in David Fincher's 'Fight Club' which most of us would have watched. While Fincher's was much more of a rant against the capitalistic system, this one is more of a character study. 

Overall it is a good watch. It is not as darkly funny as it should be and I am bit tired of Jesse Eisenberg playing Jesse Eisenberg in films. Mia Wasikowska is excellent as usual as are the settings, cinematography and the soundtrack. It could be described as a PG-13, romantic version of 'Fight Club'. All the voyeurism in it also reminded me of Kieslowski's 'A Short Story About Love'.

Rating: 3/5