Frances Ha (2012)

Director: Noah Baumbach
Writers:  Noah Baumbach, Greta Gerwig
Cast:       Greta Gerwig, Mickey Summer, Adam Driver, Michael Zegen

Frances shares an apartment with Sophie, her best friend, as she tries to make it as a dancer in New-York. As she describes their relationship in the film, they are like a lesbian couple who don't have sex anymore. Film is shot in black and white and it is really like a quirky Woody Allen film.

It is interesting to compare the film with 'Inside Llewyn Davis'. Both tell the story of a struggling artist but deals it in the complete opposite manner. Coens have their protagonist as a jerk whereas Frances is really a nice gal who cares about others. Llewyn's friends are kind of hostile to him while Frances gets some sort of support from her acquaintances. Llewyn wants to never compromise and Frances kind of does it at the end. Both films have their place and I loved both of them. The scene where she dances to David Bowie's 'Modern Love' in the streets of New-York reminded me of a similar scene in Leos Carax's   'Mauvais Sang' with Denis Lavant doing the same in Paris.

Rating: 4.5/5

Zerkalo (The Mirror) (1975)

Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Writers:  Aleksandr Misharin, Andrei Tarkovsky
Cast:      Margarita Terekhova, Filipp Yankovsky, Ignat Daniltsev
Language:Russian

A dying man in 40s reminisces about his childhood, mother, war etc through dreams, flashbacks, archive footage and memories interspersed with poetry through his own voice. The film is loosely autobiographical as Tarkovsky himself was raised by his mother after his father left them when he was four. 

In his dreams he sees his ex-wife as his mother. As with people who are raised by their mothers, the relationship is complex and sometimes conflicted with the amount of control that tends to be exerted. One can also add Oedipus complex to this equation as well. The film covers pre-second world war period, war period, post war period and the contemporary era and we get a sense of Russian history through it. The News footage also covers things like Cultural revolution in China. There is also one reference to Russian isolation from the west due to the division in Christianity. 

Protagonists were forced to move from Moscow to their grandfather's house in the country due to war. The girls from his life comes frequently in his memories/dreams but most of the time anachronistically. The contemporary scenes are shot point of view and the film as a whole is a visual experience. Tarkovsky working in Russia didn't have any obligation that his films should make money and I guess only under such a circumstance would such films come out. This being a very personal film was not something the Soviet Authority was a fan of and it got a very limited number of screenings in Russia. It was also not allowed to compete at Cannes because they feared that it will win the top prize. I saw it for the first time about five years back and couldn't make much sense of it. This time round I found it to be more accessible and should be discovering new things when I revisit it again. It is a very difficult film to describe.

Rating: 4.5/5

Blue Jasmine (2013)

Director: Woody Allen
Writer:    Woody Allen
Cast:       Cate Blanchett, Alec Baldwin, Sally Hawkins

Cate Blanchett plays Jeanette/Jasmin, a New-York socialite who has fallen into hard times after her husband's Ponzi scheme was exposed. She moves in with her not so well-off sister in San-Fransisco.

We are shown flashes of her rich life through flashbacks and having gone a bit cuckoo in her head, she doesn't seem to have learned anything and a normal director or film would have her transition herself over the course of the film. Such things never happen and she is back to square one at the end of the film. Plot is contrived especially towards the end but Cate Blanchett's performance is amazing and makes the film more than decent.

Rating: 3.5/5

Dallas Buyers Club (2013)

Director: Jean-Marc Vallee
Writers:   Criag Borten, Melisa Wallack
Cast:        Matthew McConaughey, Jared Leto, Jennifer Garner

Story of Ron Woodroof who is diagnosed with AIDS decides to work round the system to get unapproved drugs for himself and other AIDS patients. He is not portrayed as a person one should feel sympathy for with his rabid homophobia and cow-boy style. 

The good thing about the film is that it doesn't go over the board with its vilification of FDA, but concentrate more on the characters. The position of the regulatory body is quite difficult in this case when you have a situation wherein you have to compromise on quality of trials in the interest of getting relief to patients on borrowed time. 

The characters played by Garner and Leto are fictional ones and it is no surprise that McConaughey and Leto are sweeping all the awards. Well deserved reward for McConaughey who has turned around his career and the inflection point was him turning down a 15 million dollar to sign up for some shitty super-hero franchise. 

Rating: 4/5

Her (2013)

Director: Spike Jonze
Writer:    Spike Jonze
Cast:       Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson, Amy Adams

A lonely writer who is on the brink of a divorce falls in love with his artificially intelligent operating system which is capable of evolving to a higher intelligence level.

The operating system is capable of addressing his needs and works on voice commands like Siri. Scarlett Johansson provides the voice for it and it is basically Siri+Chat Partner+Phone Sex partner for Theodore played by Joaquin Phoenix. For him the relationship follows the same pattern as his experience with his ex-wife. As Samantha (OS) evolves and becomes more intelligent, both of them find it hard to cope with the change. The film ends quite predictably with him finding solace in the company of Amy (Amy Adams) who is also in a similar predicament.

Spike Jonze is in familiar territory making a film based on a wacky idea (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation). His earlier collaborations with Charlie Kaufman  are known for their wackiness and also for them petering it out towards the end of the film (That was an in-joke in Adaptation). In 'Her' he manages to sustain our interest quite till the end. The sets are beautiful with its orange colored theme and the cast do a great job. Amy Adams have been in some very good roles recently (The Master, American Hustle).

Rating: 4/5

Prisoners (2013)

Director: Denis Villeneuve
Writer:    Aaron Guzikowski
Cast:       Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Paul Dano

Keller Dover's (Hugh Jackman) daughter goes missing along with her friends and he takes matters into his own hands even as the Police investigates the case using the leadership of Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal).

It is really an engrossing watch as we are filled with dread whole the way through but one feels its just a few plot twists too many. The same could be said of Villenueve's critically acclaimed previous film 'Incendies' which was larger in scope and therefore one can be more forgiving. Performances are great especially by Gyllenhaal and Jackman, and Paul Dano plays another psycho role. It is really a very good watch but I don't think it will stand up to scrutiny on second watch and plenty of plot holes to fill. It has got a very similar feel to 'Mystic River' which I liked even less.

Rating: 3/5 

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Writers:  Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Cast:      Oscar Issac, Carey Mulligan, John Goodman, Justin Timberlake

A week in the life of a struggling young folk singer as he tries to make it in the music scene, sleeping in his acquaintance's couches who generally doesn't like him. 

The great thing about the film is that protagonist is portrayed as a bit of a jerk who the audience shouldn't be rooting for but still end up wanting him to make it. But the loser stays as a loser and there is no happy Hollywood ending. One could say this is precisely why it didn't find any love when it came to academy awards nominations. The final scene has Llewyn exiting the pub making way for a young Bob Dylan.  Another great one from Coens who are on a roll since 'No Country For Old Men'. I even liked 'Burn After Reading'.

They initially looked for singers who can act since they wanted to shoot the songs with them sung live. They were unsuccessful and finally decided to go for actors who can sing and ended their search with Oscar Issac who does a very good job.

Rating: 4.5/5