Contratiempo (The Invisible Guest) (2016)

Director: Oriol Paulo
Writer: Oriol Paulo
DOP: Xavi Jimenez
Cast: Mario Casas, Ana Wagener, Jose Coranado
Language: Spanish

While the clock is ticking, with the aid of a witness preparation expert, a successful entrepreneur accused of murder has less than three hours to come up with an impregnable defence.

It is a whodunnit film with an unreliable narrator. The initial parts of the film where the story or crime begins are quite well set up and the film is quite playful with the expositions and has a deliberate filmy feel (reference to Femme Fatale and all that). The protagonist has too many things to hide and a lot to lose and so he is circumspect regarding the extend to which he should reveal to the lawyer. This puts the onus on the latter to challenge him and peel the layers one by one for the audience. But it started losing me by the second half as it became just too convoluted to be possible. I don't like films where every small detail matters in terms of serving the plot. That is too on the nose for me and a little too convenient.

Overall, it is a decent enough one-time watch as long as you don't think too much about it after it finishes. Style wise it is quite sleek and the performances are a bit too theatrical. John Abraham has supposedly bought the rights for its remake and I can see why.

Rating: 2.5/5

The Nice Guys (2016)

Director: Shane Black
Writers: Shane Black, Anthony Bagarozzi
DOP: Philippe Rousselot
Cast: Russell Crowe, Ryan Gosling, Angourie Rice

It is the 1970s Los Angeles where a mismatched pair of private eyes are investigating a missing girl and the mysterious death of a porn star. One of the private eyes (Russell Crowe) is not officially a one and the other (Ryan Gosling) is a bit dim and has to contend with his daughter as well (Angourie Rice).

Shane Black made his name at a very young age as the writer of Buddy Cop film 'Lethal Weapon'. I haven't seen any of his subsequent films credited solely as a writer He took a break from cinema in the mid 90s and came back as a director with the excellent yet underrated 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang'. The Nice Guys was written before KKBB and he has called this one as a spiritual cousin to it. I, in fact liked this one even more than KKBB probably because of the simple reason that the lead pair of actors are much more likable for me in this instance. Never been a big fan of Robert Downey Junior. Shane Black, as Video Essayist The Nerdwriter points out, is very good at using violence on screen with consequential effects. One of the most hilarious things about this film is that the bystanders do get hit quite disproportionately. It is billed as a mystery comedy and the mystery part of it is in the Big Lebowski mould where it is quite hard to make sense of it and that is not really the point anyway. You do raise your eyebrows when the daughter character doesn't want anyone killed in a couple of instances but one suspects that was also an in-joke and them poking fun at the genre cliches. Things do get quite ridiculous towards the end in a self aware manner and you have Ryan Gosling's character quipping that he is invincible giving us a nod to the plot armor he has. There are so many quotable lines and it is definitely worth revisiting.

The banter between Ryan and Russell is excellent and Angourie Rice amply supports and sometimes even steals the show. It is one of those films which greatly exceeds your expectations.They do set it up for a sequel but the disappointing box office numbers suggest that it might not be forthcoming.

Fuck Marvel!!

Fuck DC!!

Fuck Disney!!

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was also another one that bombed at the box office. Apparently they are planning a TV series titled 'The Nice Girls'.

Rating: 4.25/5

Hell or High Water (2016)

Director: David Mackenzie
Writer: Taylor Sheridan
DOP: Giles Nuttgens
Cast: Jeff Bridges, Chris Pines, Ben Foster, Gil Birmingham

Two brothers are hitting the branches of a particular bank for low sums of desk money and an about to be retired cop (Jeff Bridges) is investigating it with another half Indian cop (Gils Birmingham). Film is set in West Texas (actually shot in New Mexico) and it is another one of those post subprime crisis films, which can now be classed as a genre. The towns are small and there are signs of foreclosures everywhere.

We are introduced to the robbers with contrasting characters (Chris Pine & Ben Foster) straight away and their motivation for the crime is revealed only little by little. It gives almost equal billing for both sets of characters who are in the opposite sides of law. We don't want any of them to get hurt even though it is inevitable. The cop played by Jeff Bridges is always racially insulting his partner in an endearing manner. There is one conversation that they have regarding people getting dispossessed over the course of history, in reference to the colonisation of America at the expense of native Indians. The slate has been wiped clean since then and the right wing in United States sees no irony when they indulge in a nativist brand of politics. Something like that is going on with the character played by Chris Pine. He knows that he is over 40 and not going to achieve anything in life. The only thing he wants is that his sons to not grow in poverty, which he equates to a disease that is passed on from one generation to the next. All wealth is kind of predicated on some crime but he has a very clever plan to make it legitimate for his sons.

Actor turned Screenwriter, Taylor Sheridan, has called it a thematic trilogy with Sicario and Wind River being the other two. I haven't seen the latter, which he himself directed, yet. David Mackenzie is known for his films like Starred Up and Perfect Sense, both of which are very good. Hell or High Water is an excellent watch with great performances from all concerned. It is also gorgeous with some stunning visuals of the vast desert like cowboy country. All the set-pieces carry a lot of tension from the get-go and the film has a very satisfying ending.

Rating: 4.5/5

Raw (2016)

Director: Julia Ducournau
Writer: Julia Ducournau
DOP: Ruben Impens
Cast: Garance Marillier, Ella Rumpf, Laurent Lucas
Language: French

When a young vegetarian undergoes a carnivorous hazing ritual at vet school, an unbidden taste for meat begins to grow in her.

Both of her parents had studied in the same vet school and her elder sister is currently studying there. She is considered as a potentially brilliant student and like all 'studious' ones is somewhat an outsider. She is forced to eat rabbit's liver in its raw form during one of the hazing rituals and surprisingly enough, she digs it, even though she got an allergic reaction to it at first. A scissor related accident causes one of her sister's fingers to come off and she ends up eating it. Now, she is like a dog that tasted human flesh and can't help herself from having more. She then proceeds to learn that her sister had also undergone the same transformation in the college and it runs in the family.

This is the third film related to food habits that I've seen recently with Okja and The Bad Batch being the other two. It is basically a coming of age story with some sibling relationship as something which eats each other metaphor thrown in, in a literal manner. It is extremely visceral and stylishly shot with great use of pop music. We see the film from the point of view of the cannibal who turns into so with the trigger being the hazing related rituals. It is such a taboo subject in our society and it is rare to have a film that takes 'in their shoes' take on it. Even in Amirpour's 'The Bad Batch' it was approached as big bad 'they'. The ending of the film is necessary though it creates a few logical loopholes.

Body-horror is a sub-genre that is synonymous with the name David Cronnenberg. Even the ones that claim to belong to this genre these days concentrate more on horror/psychological aspects of it rather than treat them as a drama of sorts. Raw can certainly be categorised as a body-horror film in the Cronnenberg mould. It is a very good watch if you can stomach it, no pun intended. It did cause some faintings when it was screened at Toronto film festival. I do have to say that many of the cringy parts of it are the kind you watch half laughingly. It is titled as 'Grave' for its original France release.

Rating: 3.75/5

Midnight Special (2016)

Director: Jeff Nichols
Writer: Jeff Nichols
DOP: Adam Stone
Cast: Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton, Kirsten Dunst, Adam Driver

A father and son go on the run, pursued by the government and a cult drawn to the child's special powers.

It is not really a good idea to read the above synopsis as the best bits of the film is when there is a lot of mystery about what exactly is going on. This is sustained quite till the last act of the film and some might rile about the ending which can elicit some 'Is that it?' kind of reaction. Things are not resolved and I didn't have any problem with that. One can draw some parallels between the reactions that Jesus would have got from the Bible story and truth to be told it is a very unconvincing story. Son of God came down to Earth, did some magic stuff, got some followers, died, and went back to heaven. The religion which got spawned out of it added some fillers like 'He died for our sins' which makes fuck all sense to me since there is supposed to be a second coming where people will be judged again and stuff. The point is that if you read the new testament (not that I have), things are quite unresolved and this film is also like that. Jeff Nichols might have been intentionally going for that.

It is a very good watch overall with a great cast. Good to see Michael Shannon in a slightly less intense role than usual. Special effects in the film are quite well done and the some of the architecture at the end is quite stunning. 'Take Shelter' is Jeff Nichols best film so far. 'Mud' was one of the earlier films from the so called 'McConaissance' and I would rank Midnight Special slightly above that.That is a reminder for me to re-watch 'Killer Joe'.

Rating: 3.5/5  

Everybody Wants Some!! (2016)

Director: Richard Linklater
Writer: Richard Linklater
DOP: Shane F. Kelly
Cast: Blake Jenner, Glen Powell, Zoey Deutch

In 1980, a group of college baseball players navigate their way through the freedoms and responsibilities of unsupervised adulthood. It takes over the course of 3-4 days leading up to the opening of college year with a group of freshmen joining their seniors from the baseball team as they occupy an independent apartment instead of the usual central dorms.

The film is considered to be a spiritual sequel to Linklater's breakout film 'Dazed & Confused' which was set on the last day of high-school in 1976. He had this story in mind back then itself but got financing to make it only now, possibly on the back of the success of Boyhood. Boyhood also ends with a guy getting into the college and that also is sort of a continuity coming to this film. Linklater's characters are generally very talky and the subject of much of the talk can be existential. This is something that you don't expect in a film with baseball jocks as its characters. I was slightly put off by it initially as it all seemed a bit too scripted and had turned it off after about 20 minutes a month back. Gave it a try yesterday and the film was indeed pretty great. Things that put me off like the philosophic nature of some of the conversations and what seemed to be the presence of token black guy in the group could be argued against by the fact that Linklater was himself a baseball player for his college team and the protagonist character is a version of him. It is conceivable that he indeed had these sort of conversations with his team mates and he might have had only one black teammate.

There is not much of a plot to speak of, which should never be a complaint when you are watching Linklater films, and there is not even a character arc or coming of age aspect to it. They are just moving from one party to another and in between we see them playing all sorts of games which most of them take very competitively. Some of them are at the same time very self-aware and not. You have one of the characters looking at normal students and commenting that they will go on to have a very average life with regular jobs while they all will have very interesting lives to look forward to as if all of them are going to make it as baseball players. It is a meandering watch and enjoyably so. It is always a good when you don't want the film to end. Performances are all good and the soundtrack is great.  It is a must watch for Linklater fans.

Rating: 4/5

Colossal (2016)

Director: Nacho Vigalando
Writer: Nacho Vigalando
DOP: Eric Kress
Cast: Anne Hathaway, Jason Sudeikis, Austin Stowell

Gloria is an out-of-work party girl forced to leave her life in New York City, move back home in a small town. When reports surface that a giant creature is destroying Seoul, she gradually comes to the realization that she is somehow connected to this phenomenon.

Nacho Vigalando was the director of Spanish time-travel film 'Timecrimes' which was excellent. The tone of Colossal is totally different from the intense thriller nature of timcrimes and is more of a comedy film. The central premise of the film sounds very preposterous and it is quite commendable that they manage to sustain it without losing the audience almost till the end. I say almost because it does kind of loses you towards the end but is still a very fun watch. There is this big allegory it is trying to make with her addiction and how that might be having unintended consequences in a very unsubtle manner. The weak point of the film is obviously in the portrayal of her addiction which I think came out more as cute rather than self-destructing. I won't blame Anne Hathaway for that because those are decisions made by the director. She was good in her role as was Jason Sudeikis in a role against his type. His motivation remains somewhat unclear throughout and we are not sure whether it is plain jealousy, spurned love or a combination of both.

It is surprising that it didn't do that well in box-office grossing around four million on its 15 million budget. It is much better than many of the comedy films and monster films out there. Only other ones I can think of in this genre are 'The World's End' and 'Attack the Block', both of which came out from the same school. Colossal also works as a spoof. It is much better to watch it without knowing many things about it.

Rating: 3/5

The Bad Batch (2016)

Director: Ana Lily Amirpour
Writer: Ana Lily Amirpour
DOP: Lyle Vincent
Cast: Suki Waterhouse, Jason Momoa, Keanu Reeves, Jim Carrey

Arlen (Suki Waterhouse) is abandoned in Texas wasteland and is fenced off from civilization. While trying to navigate the unforgiving landscape, she is captured by a savage band of cannibals led by the mysterious Miami Man (Jason Momoa). She manages to escape from their, minus a leg and an arm, and reaches The Comfort which is kind of owned by a cult drug dealer played by Keanu Reeves.
As she adjusts to the Bad Batch, she realises that good or bad depends on who is standing next to you.

There is a line in the film delivered by Miami Man to Arlen, "You don't see the way things are but the way you are". That is also kind of applicable to how you perceive a film. It seems the film has not been received that well by the critics World over but I totally enjoyed it. Don't know whether it is because of me living through the Modi shit-storm in India where people are lynched for their food habits, I quite literally interpreted it as take on Veganism/Vegetarianism Vs Normal people's food habits. As they impose their shitty Paneer Vegetarianism on rest of the people, it is quite normal to see people claiming that if you eat meat what really stops you from eating humans down the line as if it is a natural progression.

So the film did make a lot of sense to me as I viewed Arlen's character as representation of the Vegetarian brigade who is totally appalled by the cannibalistic Miami Man gang. To be fair she is well within her rights as she was their food. After her escape from there and recovery at Keanu Reeves' place, she is quite bored and ventures out with a gun and inadvertently kidnaps Miami Man's daughter who is then kind of adopted by Keanu who has a bunch of gun trotting pregnant bodyguards. Out on the desert again after a psychedelic drug experience, she meets the Miami Man and gradually warms up to him and his cannibalistic ways. It ends up as a love story with them feeding his Spaghetti demanding daughter her pet rabbit. That was like a middle finger to the Vegans.

There was also Jim Carrey playing a hermit without any lines who guides the characters at various points. The film is much larger in scope compared to Amirpour's previous film, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, which was dubbed as first Iranian vampire film. The first 20 minutes of Bad Batch can totally gross you out but there is not much gore after that. Film is very stylish in its Western kind of setting and Jason Momoa is just cool riding his scooters. The soundtrack is just rad. One can accuse that it is style over substance but what is wrong with that anyway as long as it is done well.

Rating: 4.5/5

A Bigger Splash (2016)

Director: Luca Guadagnino
Writer: David Kajganich, Alain Page
DOP: Yorick Le Saux
Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Tilda Swinton, Matthias Schoenaerts, Dakota Johnson

While vacationing on a Sicilian island with her boyfriend (Matthias Schoenaerts), a rock star (Tilda Swinton) receives an unexpected visit from an old flame (Ralph Fiennes) and his seductive daughter (Dakota Johnson).

Tilda plays the David Bowie like rock star who can't talk now as she is recovering from a surgery.  Her current boyfriend is sort of an unsuccessful documentary filmmaker who got hitched up with her after egged on by her ex-boyfriend, Harry, who was a producer for Rolling Stones. He has a curious relationship with his new found 'daughter' and it is only natural that she is planning to get a DNA test done for confirmation. It was Tilda's recommendation to the director that she would play a largely silent character opposite to incredibly motormouth Harry. Performance-wise all four actors are on great form and Schoenaerts has been great in every film I've seen him in. His is the character that audience can mostly relate to.

I haven't seen any of the director's other films and first thing that you notice is the very interesting camera positions and movements which makes the film very stylish in spite of its laid-back Sicilian island setting, which is quite close to Tunisia. I was reminded of Matthew McConaughey starrer 'The Paperboy' and I am not entirely sure whether it was because of the visual style or because of the 'sleaze'. Another one that you will be reminded would be 'Sexy Beast' and you will know why when you see the film. The film makes some interesting turns and character choices towards the end but since it has earned enough credits over the build-up, you go with it. There is also this minor migrants topic on the sideline which gets tied up towards the end along with some sneaky snakes trying to get into their compound. A Bigger Splash is a great and unique watch and the director wants to reunite with all four actors for his next film. I will certainly be checking out rest of the films from his filmography.

Rating: 4/5

American Honey (2016)

Director: Andrea Arnold
Writer: Andrea Arnold
DOP: Robbie Ryan
Cast: Sasha Lane, Shia LaBeouf, Riley Keough

A teenage girl (Sasha Lane) with nothing to lose joins a traveling magazine sales crew, and gets caught up in a whirlwind of hard partying, law bending and and young love as she crisscrosses the Midwest with a band of misfits.

It is one of those rare Hollywood/Indie films from which focuses on the poorer section of people from these developed countries. The characters that the protagonist/we meet in the film are the so-called white trash (Chavs in England) and since they are not really a bunch we could easily warm up to (casting Shia LaBeouf doesn't really help even though it is effective), it took a while for me to get into the film. It is almost three hours long and I finished it in three sittings. You do get interested in the film after the initial jitters but by the end it is a bit underwhelming. I don't know whether it is because of us Indians beings so used to seeing much poverty in and around us as well as in films from our part of the World, the ones from the West doesn't have the same effect unless done really well like 'The Wire' or 'I, Daniel Blake', for example. The characters in it are into selling magazines in the guise of charity and other cooked up stories and follow a very capitalistic model os rewards and punishments. When the girl is teamed up with Shia's character, who is like a trainer, she starts objecting to his methods of selling as she prefers honesty. I didn't really buy it and one of the main reason is that she doesn't look like a teenager, at the risk of coming off as a racist. The reason that she joined the crew was her attraction towards the trainer and there is considerable sexual tension involved between the two and the boss lady played very well by Riley Keough.

Overall it is a decent enough watch without being all that good for me. I enjoyed Andrea Arnold's only other film that I have watched, Fish Tank, much more. It is a film that ends up with a Lolita like situation with excellent central performances from Katie Jarvis and Michael Fassbender. It was a film that had a very cool blue tint while in American Honey it is warm reddish.

Rating: 2.5/5 

فروشنده‎ (The Salesman) (2016)

Director: Asghar Farhadi
Writer: Asghar Farhadi
DOP: Hossein Jafarian
Cast: Shahab Hosseini, Taraneh Alidoosti
Language: Persian

While both participating in a production of "Death of a Salesman", a teacher's wife is assaulted in her new home, which leaves him determined to find the perpetrator over his wife's traumatized objections.

It is not made clear initially whether the assault was sexual in nature. They also don't have a detailed conversation about it. The husband decides not to report it to the Police as he doesn't want his wife to go through the ordeal of recounting it again and again  but becomes obsessed with finding the culprit. It is not clear, to him also, what he is going to do with him in case if he catches him. As he obsesses over it, cracks start appearing in their relationship as she is not very sure about his priorities.

The film got some publicity due to the 'Muslim' travel ban issued by Donald Trump and Asghar Farhadi making a public condemnation of it and declaring that he is not going to come to America for academy awards anyway. He had already won an Academy Award for 'A Separation', an excellent film. His follow up to it, Le Passe, was also great. It was almost as if the academy award for 'The Salesman' was a foregone conclusion due to the politics surrounding it. I got to say it pales in comparison with the other two Farhadi films that I mentioned above. It is by no means a bad film but is certainly very overrated. I am not familiar with 'Death of a Salesman' and can't comment on how well it fits in well with this film.

PS: The film got a quite wide theatrical distribution in India and our censors had the dubious distinction of further censoring an Iranian film.

Rating: 3/5

Paterson (2016)

Director: Jim Jarmusch
Writer: Jim Jarmusch
DOP: Frederick Elmes
Cast: Adam Driver, Golshifiteh Farahani, Barry Shabaka Henley

A quiet observation of the triumphs and defeats of daily life, along with the poetry evident in its smallest of details.

So basically Adam Driver plays a bus driver named Paterson in the film Paterson which is set in Paterson, New Jersey. Whew! It is a week in his life beginning Monday and we see that he is living a mundane existence along with his wife of Iranian descent. He gets up every morning at around 6.10 AM, eats breakfast alone, walks to work and in between during his work he writes poetry in his secret notebook, eats lunch on bench facing a waterfall, gets back from work, picks mail, fixes mail-box, greeted by his wife as she tells him either that she will be in the cup-cake business or how she has ordered a guitar and plans to be a famous country-singer, takes their dog, Marvin, for a walk, have a beer at his usual place during their walk, gets back and sleep. Rinse...Repeat... One would think that this would make for a very boring film but it is anything but.

I was struggling to get some sleep at 4 AM and decided to go for it after a cup of coffee. Not really the best way to start a Jim Jarmusch film, or any film for that matter, but two hours just flew by and I was totally riveted by it. Am not really into poetry and is not the best person to judge the quality of the poems he is writing. I really didn't think much of it for what its worth. He is being encouraged by his wife to make a copy of it as a backup. The dog is like a third member of the family and is quite the villain as he is bored with his life in this home. Most of the film is Paterson listening to other people's words and conversations and you feel he is conflicted about whether he is actually a credible poet. There is one encounter with a little girl and as she reads a poem written by her, which is very obviously better than what he has managed so far, his insecurity is heightened and when she quips that it was interesting to meet a bus driver who knows about Emily Dickinson, it doesn't really help. His life is so mundane that the breakdown of his bus on a Friday is like 9/11 for him. But the film celebrates his incident free life without bells and whistles and is subtly funny throughout.

Water falls from the bright air

It falls like hair

Falling across a young girl’s shoulders

Water falls

Making pools in the asphalt

Dirty mirrors with clouds and buildings inside

It falls on the roof of my house

Falls on my mother and on my hair

Most people call it rain

It is a great watch with an excellent central performance from Adam Driver, who was also in Noah Baumbach's 'While we're young' as a pretend hipster. There is also this cameo appearance from the two leading kids from 'Moonrise Kingdom'. With 'Limits of Control, 'Only Lovers Left Alive' and 'Paterson', I think Jim Jarmusch is in the strongest phase of his career and he is aging like fine wine. His band 'SQURL' did the score for this film as well. One can say that there is a narrative resolution at the end of it after his meeting with the Japanese guy and I found the concluding poem to be good and kind of explains the film.

Rating: 4.5/5

Free Fire (2016)

Director: Ben Wheatley
Writers: Amy Jump, Ben Wheatley
DOP: Laurie Rose
Cast: Sharlto Copley, Cillian Murphy, Brie Larson, Armie Hammer, Michael Smiley

Set in Boston in 1978, meeting in an abandoned warehouse for an arms deal turns into a shootout and a game of survival.

The guys who are on the buy side is the IRA (Cillian Murphy, Michael Smiley etc) and the sellers consist of a South African guy (Sharlto Copley), Armie Hammer etc with Brie Larson playing the role of a middle-woman. So the country and accent differences itself quite obviously become source of much of the humor in it. People have compared it to Reservoir Dogs with both having claustrophobic settings where tempers gets frayed but unlike Reservoir Dogs, there is no back-story or flashbacks and the balance between humor and intrigue is heavily loaded in favor of the former. Free Fire was shot in sequence and they have supposedly taken great care in giving full justice to the deterioration of location due to all the firing and being true to the spatial separation between the characters. If you are pedantic enough to notice those things, I guess you will be impressed. Overall I found it to be a very good watch but you kind of loses your interest towards the end which I think was a risk that they knowingly took by not choosing to flesh out any of its characters. It will remind you of Martin McDonagh films but it is more 'Seven Psychopaths' than 'In Bruges' and the settings change to America (film was shot in Brighton mind) obviously brings down the humor quotient. You will be a little disappointed if you come into it with the high expectations of a Ben Wheatley film but it is still very good. Their next project, Freak Shift, looks very interesting.

Ben Wheatley-Amy Jump duo is not so far known for doing out and out comedies and have been very good at making films that are quite different from each other. Kill-List and A Field in England are my favorite films of theirs. Michael Smiley is a constant fixture in their films. Free-Fire is so far their most mainstream of films yet and Martin Scorsese was also on board as an executive producer. It didn't do smashingly well at box office but who cares anyway.

Rating: 3.5/5

Elle (2016)

Director: Paul Verhoeven
Writers: David Birke, Philippe Djian
DOP: Stéphane Fontaine
Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Laurent Laffite, Anne Consigny
Language: French

A successful businesswoman gets caught up in a game of cat and mouse as she tracks down the unknown man who had raped her.

I had recently seen Huppert in 'Things to Come' and her initial matter-of-fact reaction to the rape, which is the first scene of the film, is quite similar to how she is in Mia-Hansen Løve's film. Even though I'm familiar with Paul Verhoeven's works like 'Basic Instinct' and 'Turkish Delight', I was watching it more as a normal revenge drama. It didn't turn out to be that way and is more close to 'Piano Teacher' than '22FK'. In contrast to Piano Teacher, Isabelle Huppert's character is much more empowered in this and she had described it as a post-feminist film. I can see where she is coming from.

There are many characters in it and all of them have significant storylines in relation to the main character. We learn that the businesswoman had a very dark past and she had built her career getting over that. Even though we root for her, she is not in anyway likeable as she is quite petty and cruel to almost everyone. It is as if the rape have her even more license to be her true self.

Verhoeven pursues a Catholic church angle to one of the subplots as well, which I don't think is in the Philippe Djian's novel from which it is adapted. Verhoeven was planning to set the film in USA due to which he had hired David Birke, an American screenwriter. But they could not get it made there due to obvious reasons and decided to make it in French, his first one in this language. Huppert was the obvious choice as she had been pursuing this role even before Verhoeven got attached to it. I can't imagine any other actor playing this role and film would be very inferior without her presence. It is provocative, unpredictable and a tremendous watch, but not for everyone obviously.

Rating: 4.5/5

Personal Shopper (2016)

Director: Oliver Assayas
Writer: Oliver Assayas
DOP: Yorick Le Saux
Cast: Kristen Stewart, Lars Eidinger, Sigrid Bouaziz
Language: English, French

I watched this film without seeing its trailer or even reading an IMDB synopsis of it. It is best if you do the same as well. Don't read further if you are planning to watch it.

A personal shopper in Paris refuses to leave the city until she makes contact with her twin brother who previously died there. Her life becomes more complicated when a mysterious person contacts her via text message.

Kristen Stewart is one of the most interesting actors among the young ones and both her and Robert Pattinson have been in some very interesting films since their stint with the Twilight franchise ended. She should have won some awards for her role in Oliver Assayas' previous film 'Clouds of Sils Maria'. In it she played the role of an assistant to a film actress and in this film she plays the role of a personal shopper for a bitchy fashion model, whom we don't see much in the film. I am not very well versed with the horror genre and so when they talk about medium and shit like that, I am a bit clueless. She and her twin-brother are mediums and they mean in the sense that they could feel the presence of spirits and converse with them. The film takes it sweet time to reveal the details and I love this treatment as there aren't many severely expository scenes. I was totally freaked out by the first night scene itself. I think it can be best described as an arty indie kind of ghost film which ends up as a mystery thriller of sorts. There aren't many dialogues and a large portion of the film is through her phone where she is getting texts from an unknown number. It is not that hard to figure out who is texting her even though she is thinking it is a supernatural presence as she is in the look out for her brother's spirit. It is almost 100% told from the perspective of Kristen Stewart's character and she totally carries the film through.

The director chooses not to explain almost anything and we have to figure out on our own. The ending will remind you of 'Sixth Sense' even though it doesn't make much sense. There is a scene towards the end where we see a man ghost walking past in the background out of focus and many viewers would miss it. I don't know if there are other hidden Easter eggs left by the director throughout the film. Oliver Assayas won the best director award at Cannes for this film and it was booed off by the critics during its premier there, which generally means it probably is very good.

Rating: 5/5 

L'Avenir (Things to Come) (2016)

Director: Mia Hansen-Love
Writer: Mia Hansen-Love
DOP: Denis Lenoir
Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Andre Marcon, Roman Kolinka
Language: French

A philosophy teacher (Isabelle Huppert) soldiers through the death of her mother, getting fired from her job, and dealing with a husband who is cheating on her.

Most of the film industries of the World can be defined by the iconic actors that they produce and French film industry must be the only one where these iconic positions are held by the female gender. Am talking about the duo of Juliette Binoche and Isabelle Huppert. Some might point out Vincent Cassel but his popularity is to do more with his work in Hollywood films rather than the French ones even though he has been in many good ones in his his native language as well. I can't really choose between the two but  I have seen Binoche appearing in films directed by different directors while most of the Huppert films that I have seen have been directed by Michael Haneke who is probably the greatest director that is currently going.

Mia Hansen-Love's breakout film, Eden, was an excellent one that was based mostly of her brother's career as a DJ. 'Things to Come' is also another solid outing. While the synopsis suggests that it is probably going to be a sob story, it is anything but. Huppert takes the various setbacks in her life in her stride and is constantly moving forward. With her mother's death, her divorce and her teenage kids moving out of the house, she finds herself alone all of a sudden even though it affords her a great deal of freedom. She is also taken aback by the way her favorite student sees her as not much different from the bourgeoisie that he despises. Like most French films, nothing much happens in terms of plot development but is a tremendous watch. Like the lead character in it, the camera is always on the move and is not bogged down by the events.  One would think that with her being a Philosophy teacher, there would be a great deal of Philosophy being talked about. Director does not take it as a license for it being a Philosophy talk like how Richard Linklater's 'Before Trilogy' was (Am a great fan of those as well). Things to Come is a great watch with a great central performance from Huppert in a role that is not very intense like 'Piano Teacher' was.

Rating: 4/5 

Toni Erdmann (2016)

Director: Maren Are
Writer: Maren Ade
DOP: Patrick Orth
Cast: Peter Simonischek, Sandra Hüller
Language: German

A practical joking father tries to reconnect with his hard working daughter by creating an outrageous alter-ego and posing as her CEO's life coach.

I went into the film with knowledge that it is a comedy film and, hate to bring in a stereotype, but German films are not known for their comedy. The recent Hitler film 'Look who's back' ended up as very poignant towards the end even though it was supposed to be a laugh out loud comedy film. Toni Erdmann is is in the category of cringe comedy like the TV series 'The Office'. The drama is on an equal footing with the comedy here or even more prominent and it is a slow burner. The film starts from the perspective of the father but as it progresses we realize that it is the story of his careerist daughter who is leading a sad lonely life in Bucharest (Or is it Budapest). She is a consultant who is primarily in the business of advocating outsourcing and retrenchment of workforce. She calls her father a man living in the 70s with a green agenda. In the beginning of the film, we find Toni to  be very intrusive and the daughter puts up with it but as his behavior becomes even more outrageous she starts losing her shit. But by the end she kind of accepts him as the pain of her sad lonely life takes over and she begins to let go a bit. There is a sequence of her singing in the film and it is the kind that you watch with hands partially covering your face.

It is a great watch overall but is not recommended for everyone. Cringe comedy can be a hard watch for many especially if it is as dark like this. The film is almost three hours long. Toni's character is loosely based on director's own father. The film was nominated for academy awards in the best foreign film category and also was in the running for Palme d'Or at Cannes.

Rating: 4.5/5

Hacksaw Ridge (2016)

Director: Mel Gibson
Writers: Robert Schenkkan, Andrew Knight
DOP: Simon Duggan
Cast: Andrew Garfield, Vince Vaughn, Hugo Weaving, Sam Worthington, Teresa Palmer

WW2 American Army Medic Desmond T. Doss (Andrew Garfield), who served during the battle of Okinawa, has vowed to never take a weapon and kill people, and becomes the first man in American history to receive the medal of honor without firing a shot.

His choice of non-violence is due to religious reasons as a Seventh Day Adventist but he feels compelled to join the war effort as everyone around him is doing so. The first part of the film deals with his family background and his cheesy romance with a nurse from the military hospital. He joins the army but is faced with tremendous pressure to quit due to his refusal to pick up a rifle to do rifle training. He wears an extremely smug look that we are used to from evangelical folks and you feel like punching him in the face the same way his colleagues also do. He manages to pass the training with the help of a religious exception and has to assist his unit in taking over the 'Hacksaw Ridge' which is a very difficult target to achieve for the Americans.

Film is unique in the sense that it is told from the perspective of a medic which we are not very used to in war films. One which did do this before was the Band of Brothers episode 'Bastogne', which is also told from the perspective of a medic, and is incidentally my favorite episode of the series. The cheesiness of the first half of the film makes a weird sense by the end as the second half is just quite brutal warfare. It is a great watch overall with some great war scenes that can quite match Saving Private Ryan's first twenty minutes for intensity. The budget for the film was only $40 million and it looks much higher than that. Vince Vaughn is very good in his role as the sergeant and Hugo Weaving is great as the alcoholic ex-army man dad who doesn't want his sons to join the army. Many still cite Brave-Heart as Mel Gibson's best film and I haven't seen that one to make a comparison. The only other one I have seen of his is 'Passion of Christ', which I watched with my friends at the cinemas going to the next town, and I still can't figure out for the life of me why I did that. I am not generally a fan of actors becoming directors and find their efforts quite underwhelming. Hacksaw Ridge is certainly an exception.

Rating: 4/5  

Train to Busan (부산행) (2016)

Director: Yeon Sang-ho
Writer: Park Joo-suk
DOP: Lee Hyung-deok
Cast: Gong Yoo, Ma Dong-seok, Jung Yu-mi
Language: Korean

The film takes place in a train to Busan as a Zombie apocalypse breaks out in Korea which threatens the safety of the passengers. Most of the country is infected and it is not like getting out of the train will solve things.

The story is told mainly from the perspective of a father-daughter duo who are traveling to meet the mother, the other half of the divorced couple. Father doesn't have much time for his daughter as he is a busy hedge fund manager and advocates selfishness. Daughter is more influenced by her mother and is the do-good type. The situation they are in forces the father to be a hero as he teams up with other characters to survive it.

The film is really well-made on the technical fronts and the zombies in it are not the sleepy slow types but are quite rabid. Film is quite clichéd in terms of story progression regarding who gets killed and the social commentary that it is trying to make with the background and behaviour of its characters. But I do think they are knowingly embracing the clichés and so it is not that problematic. East Asian films are never known for subtlety once you exclude Wong Kar-Wai anyway.

Train to Busan got premiered at Cannes in the midnight screenings section but I would categorise it more as a thriller than horror. It was a blockbuster in South Korea and managed to gross close to $90 million worldwide. Some have termed it as a better version of World War Z but I haven't seen WWZ. WWZ-2 is supposed to be in the making with David Fincher at the helm.

Rating: 3.5/5

Captain Fantastic (2016)

Director: Matt Ross
Writer: Matt Ross
DOP: Stephane Fontaine
Cast: Viggo Mortensen, George MacKay, Samantha Isler

In the forests of Pacific Northwest, a father devoted to raising his six kids with a rigorous physical and intellectual education is forced to leave his paradise and enter the World, challenging his idea of what it means to be a parent.

It is one of those films which has a very interesting premise which keeps you very much engaged during the initial parts of the film but kind of peters out a little bit towards the end once the novelty starts wearing off. I was very much reminded of the film 'Frank' not just because of the similarity in the color tone used. In one sequence from the film, the father asks his daughter to give her interpretation of the book she is reading, which apparently was Nabokov's 'Lolita'. She explains that she is conflicted about her attitude towards the protagonist Humbert as she is both repulsed by him as well as have empathy towards him. That is pretty much how the audience is supposed to feel towards Viggo Mortensen's character in the film as many of the things that he is doing with his kids can be perceived as child abuse while the initial half of the film have us appreciating their lifestyle. He is challenged during the second half of the film by his sister and his father-in-law. George Mackay, playing the eldest son, is excellent in his role with the character conflicted about whether to join any of the Ivy League colleges to which he has got admissions to. But it is the younger son who calls bullshit on their father's ways of doing things.

It is overall a very fun watch with many laugh out loud moments as well as some contemplative ones. It is not as good as what critics have made out to be but still a very good watch. Another film that I was reminded of was Yorgos Lanthimos' 'Dogtooth' even though the treatment and its philosophy is totally different as Captain Fantastic is totally honest to his kids about the ways of the world. One problematic aspect I had with the film was the transition of Viggo Mortensen's character from what seems to be quite a wise guy to a caricatured version of a hippie leftist as the film progresses.  I was not totally convinced by it. Anything Viggo Mortensen is in these days is a recommended watch as he has been a champion of small indie films after his early success with the big budget TLoTR trilogy.

PS: When you image search 'Captain Fantastic' in Google, Steven Gerrard turns up among the top results. Another fun fact is that Matt Ross, the writer-director of the film, is the Gavin Belson from 'Silicon Valley'.

Rating: 3.5/5