Bamako (2006)

Director: Abderrahmane Sissako
Writer:    Abderrahmane Sissako
Cast:       Aissa Maiga, Tiecoura Traore, Maimouna Helene
Language: French, Bambara, English

The film depicts a trial taking place in Bamako,  the capital of Mali, amid the daily life that is going on in the city. The two sides argue whether the World Bank and IMF are guided by special interest of developed nations, or whether it is corruption and the individual nations' mismanagement, that is guilty of the current financial states of many poverty-stricken African countries as well as the rest of the poor underdeveloped world.

The central idea of the film, aid given to African countries which end up as debt in their balance sheet does more harm to these countries and their people than good, has been tackled in mainstream media prior to this and there have been books devoted to the same. The film conveys this idea in a play like fashion with the fake court procedure. It doesn't quite descend into the age old debate of Capitalism Vs Socialism and those who are making the case against the banks states the importance of public institutions like schools, hospitals, transportation etc for the prosperity of their people. Giving them loans and insisting on privatization of these things do more harm than good. 

The book 'Why Nations Fail' provides the best explanation for why many of the poor nations remain poor. It states that capitalism is indeed the best solution but for it to succeed, you need strong institutions and property reforms to ensure that there is enough at stake for the people to make democracy work. If that is not the case, then whatever the development banks try to push through as structural reforms will end up enriching the private contractors from developed world and the elite of the poor countries. It will do fuck all good for the people. I am not in the camp which states that IMF, World Bank etc are pursuing this as an agenda but this is how it ends up and you have decades of evidence for the same. What you see looking from outside is continuation of imperialism but this time in the financial form and you end up with issues like terrorism and immigration. It is a bit rich of developed countries to complain about these issues when they have a very big hand in the creation of the same. If you are so adamant about globalization with free movement of capital, then why balk at the prospect of immigration which is essentially free movement of labor.

Overall the film is a good watch but I didn't care much for the non-court scenes in the film and its symbolism which included a Western genre film within the film. There are better documentaries dealing with the same issue and one episode in Adam Curtis' 'Pandora's Box' which essentially deals with the same topic in a more informed manner. But a feature film will always attract more attention if done well and this managed to do so by getting released at Cannes film festival. 

Rating: 3/5

                                                                       

Back to the Future (1985)

Director: Robert Zemeckis
Writers:  Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale
Cast:       Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Le Thompson

A young man is accidentally sent 30 years into the past in a time-travelling DoLorean invented by his friend, Dr. Emmett Brown, and must make sure his high-school-age parents unite in order to save his own existence.

This is one of those films that almost everyone have seen and I hadn't yet. I have caught bits of it on TV but never watched it in its entirety. Raging Bull is also another one of these. It came one year after the release of 'The Terminator', which is really the first mainstream hit with time travel as its major theme. It was also used in 'Planet of the Apes' but Time Travel aspect of the film was more of a twist rather than it being the major theme of the film. So in the 80s, you had two successive time-travel hits in two different genres-action and comedy. Both are indeed considered as all time classics even though the first Terminator is rated inferior to its sequel by many, which I don't agree with.  

As for Back to the Future, it is a very good watch but I really didn't think it was all that great. That is not because it not aging gracefully, it has, but because the whole Steven Spielberg vibe of the film is something that don't sit well with me. The film was produced by him with Zemeckis as the director and the whole redneck 'American Dream conformity' family thing is just an irritation for me. That is only a minor point and it is a film that is part of many people's childhood memories and I can totally understand why many just love it. By the by, I am also not a big fan of Indiana Jones franchise and I do think these are  films that you will appreciate to the full extent only if you were part of that time period. 

The film has McFly travelling back in time and accidentally preventing the first meeting of his parents. To his horror, his mother has a crush on him, and his whole existence depend on making sure that his parents end up together. One could actually make a really dark film having similar story line but with the crush going the other way, creating a Freudian Oedipus complex nightmare. There is a film idea for you and the guys who did 'Predestination' might be interested I guess. 

I am not a big fan of Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, Cast Away) but I did enjoy 'Flight', which was a proper R-Rated film with adult subject matter. Most of his early films are for children and that is precisely the demography that will love it. There are really small nuggets of historical anachronism in the films like skateboarding in 1955, Ronald Reagan as a political figure etc but none of them have the same impact as Hula Hoops in 'Hudsucker Proxy'. There are three films in the franchise with Zemeckis directing all of them. First one was the highest grossing film in 1985 and other two, which were back to back productions, didn't quite achieve the same level of success. 

Rating: 3.5/5

                                                                        

Timbuktu (2014)

Director: Adberrahmane Sissako
Writers:  Adberrahmane Sissako, Kessen Tall
Cast:       Ibrahim Ahmmed, Abel Jafri, Toulou Kiki
Langauge: French, Arabic, Bambara. Tamashek

A cattle herder and his family who resides in the dunes of Timbuktu find their quiet lives -- which are typically free of the Jihadists determined to control their faith -- abruptly disturbed. Meanwhile in the town, Jihadists are controlling the people which among other things include- imposing Sharia,  dress codes, ban on music and football, anti-loitering measures etc.

Since the film was released in 2014, it must have been in production before the Islamic State clusterfuck hit the headlines. We have been familiar with their brutality and one could say even desensitized to their acts of violence. The film doesn't go that path by portraying extreme cruelty but does an even more shocking thing by showing them imposing their will on people in a matter of fact way. You will get even more enraged as they are just brainwashed simpletons who can discuss normal things like Messi Vs Zidane while at the same time banning football in places they control. They are so dim that they can't recognize their own hypocrisies. It is all round a funny situation if you think about it-some dickwads from a far off place speaking a language that you don't understand coming to your place to dictate how things should be done for the simple reason that they share the same medieval religion with you. One could say imperialism was the same thing but the colonialists were bit more careful when it comes to respecting the practices in the places that they are ruling so that they can have some stability while looting the place. But these Jihadists want to establish their own practices and you don't need Americans complicating the situation by taking on things like ISIS since their own rule will make their position untenable because of discontent. If the Western countries intervene it will just continue the cycle that they have been responsible for with Iraq War leading to ISIS being only the latest example.

Overall the film is a great watch while being very low-key in its approach. It was nominated for Academy Awards this year in the foreign film category, submission from Mauritania, but lost out to 'Ida'. It won Jury prize at Cannes and was in the running for Palme d'Or. One could even call it as a dark comedy with some of the translation situations underlining the same. It can be seen as a micro-look at the theoretical Caliphate which they are trying to establish.   

Rating: 4/5

                                                                       

Paths of Glory (1957)

Director: Stanley Kubrick
Writers:  Stanley Kubrick, Calder Willingham, Him Thompson
Cast:       Kirk Douglas, Ralph Meeker, Adolphe Menjou

When French soldiers in World War One refuse to continue with an impossible attack, their superior officers decide to make an example of them. They choose three soldiers to be court martialed and subsequently killed but their commanding officer, Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas), decides to defend them against the charge of cowardice in the court-martial. Film is an adaptation of novel with the same name by Humphrey Cobb.

I have been listening to Dan Carlin's podcasts on first world war lately and that acted as a trigger for revisiting this early classic from Stanley Kubrick. There are six episodes in total done by Carlin and they amount to around twenty four hours of engrossing account of the war. I am now onto the fourth episode and chronologically speaking Gallipoli battle is over. What makes Carlin's podcasts very interesting is the same reason that makes Stanley Kubrick's film great. Both of them take time to give a humane account of the war dealing with how it must have felt for the people involved in the trenches. 

Many other sources would have tried to depict something grand about some battle but in this film, the politicking superior officers orders the company to attack and hold a strategic position, which was an impossible task for them. While Col. Dax charges forward with men from his company, another group from the same company does it halfheartedly and then falls back into their trenches. The General goes batshit-crazy and demands 100 men to be shot which the colonel and the general's superior negotiate down to 3. Among the officers in the film, only Col. Dax is shown in a positive light, while almost all others are portrayed as careerists. Trench warfare was something that developed during the first world war and it made the entire Western Front a stagnant one with the front running for about 500 miles from Belgian coast to Switzerland. These soldiers were subjected to unthinkable terror with constant shelling living in the company of dead and wounded. The term shell-shocked was coined during the war but it was recognized as a term for cowardice in stead of the term PTSD that we are familiar with now. Dan Carlin describes that some of the people who were executed for 'cowardice' were convinced that they were doing an act of courage by setting themselves as an example for other troop members and in effect they were told  that they should be proud of dying for France. This aspect is not explored in the film but would have been interesting if Kubrick had pursued that line.

It is a film that is quite underrated when it comes to Kubrick films. He had always tried to convey his anti-war sentiment through his films and this one is the most scathing out of the three, with Dr. Strangelove and Full Metal Jacket being the other two, with him not using humor for it. Film was not exactly banned in France but since it was not submitted to French censors due to pressure from the government, it was released there only in 1975. Even Germany postponed the release of the film for two years so as not to strain its relationship with France. Out of all the films of Stanley Kubrick leading up to Dr. Strangelove, Paths of Glory is my favorite. Film is also technically excellent with some great tracking shots and foreboding background score. The German singer who is entertaining the troops during the last scene was Christiane Harlan, who went on to marry Stanley Kubrick and become his partner till death.

Rating: 5/5 

                                                                             

നീന (Nee-Na) (2015)

Director: Lal Jose
Writer:    R. Venugopal
Cast:       Deepti Sati, Vijay Babu, Ann Augustine
Language: Malayalam

A married couple finds tension in their relation and life due to the intervention of an alcoholic and impulsive young woman. That IMDB synopsis don't quite capture the essence of the film as the tensions in the marriage remains in the background while it is more about the dynamics of the relationship between the boss (Vijay Babu) and his tomboy colleague Nina (Deepti Sati). 

Lal Jose is an old school director in Malayalam who has managed to get quite a few super-hits under his belt by adhering to the tired old cliched formula of the industry which he manages to gloss over by making people feel that the outer skins of his films are a bit different. Upon scratching you will realize that most of them are the age-old melodramatic moralizing bullshit. I have never been a fan of his and the only films that I thought to be half decent were 'Classmates' and 'Arabikatha'. The title 'Nee-Na' is supposedly after the names of the two female characters and the film is considered to be Lal Jose's attempt to get with the times by adopting the so-called 'New-Generation' approach. It has an alcoholic female lead and some mature handling of certain situations without the melodramatic nonsense and so in that sense it is indeed a step forward for Lal Jose.

The first half of the film can best summed up as a retelling 'Ulladakkam', a film directed by Kamal to whom Lal Jose himself had served as assistant director for quite a few years, It is done quite well with convincing performances. The back-story of Neena is given by the end of the half and she is apparently a kid born to parents who wanted a son. Her father dresses her like a boy and she grew up being friends with boys from a slum near her home (kind of inverse of Lal Jose's transvestite film 'Chandupottu'). As she grows up her father, who had encouraged her tom-boyishness while she was young, starts trying to control her life while she  hates being a girl. Along the way she picks up her addiction for drinks and smoke and an irreverence towards authority and people in general. Neena sees her new boss as the cooler version of her dad from her younger days and she falls in love with him- a subtle allusion to Freudian Electra complex. The film develops from there with a trip to de-addiction center after an attempted suicide and ends with a resolution to its triangular relationship.

Second half of the film has Lal Jose going back to his default old school methods to some extent but overall it is a very good watch. There is one scene where the wife talks to her crying maid, who surprise surprise is in a similar situation, and it is pure cringe. This is another one of those cliched situations in Malayalam films. There is also a stream of 'interesting' personalities in the de-addiction center which again is Lal Jose going back to his default mode. But overall he does it with enough restraint that you come out of it with a good feeling. There is a slight twist in the end which I thought was totally unnecessary and completely alters our perception about it. I would've preferred it going with the idea of Neena losing the infatuation she has for her boss when the latter becomes more controlling like her dad did.

Unlike most Lal Jose films, there aren't many songs in it and the ones that are there moves the story forward. At around 150 minutes it is slightly longer than it should be. Cinematography is exquisite and the background music and recurring music themes are stunning. Vijay Babu, whom I am seeing for the first time, is excellent and Deepti Sati, who is making her debut, as Neena is good even though dubbing is quite problematic in some places. Ann Augustine doesn't have much screen-time but handles her role well. There isn't much to talk about the other characters who are just there to support the main characters' stories. Lal Jose could have done plenty of things with a little more subtlety since the film is not gonna be commercially that successful anyway. So to sum up, it is a good watch with some fine central performances but some of Lal Jose's old habits prevent it from being a great film. I hope he goes full retard next time and don't get spooked if the film don't do well financially. 

Rating: 3.5/5

                                                                         

Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014)

Director: Matthew Vaughn
Writers:  Jane Goldman, Matthew Vaughn, Mark Millar, Dave Gibbons
Cast:       Colin Firth, Taron Egerton, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Caine, Mark Strong

An independent spy organization recruits an unrefined, but promising street kid into agency's ultra-competitive training program, just as a global threat emerged from a twisted tech-genius.

The film works both as an homage as well as spoof on James Bond films from the older times while art the same time poking fun at the the seriousness that have come to the spy-action genre post the success of Jason Bourne films. It goes where James Bond films cannot go with their PG-13 rating and the spoof element of the film gets apparent even as the film progresses. In the initial action sequences blood is not visible but by time it gets to that scene at the church it gets all bloody. At that point the director reveals his intentions to the audience through the conversation that Colin Firth's character have with the cartoonish villain played by Samuel L. Jackson. Film culminates with a very risque joke on a princess' back-doors and that is also a jab at James Bond franchise that has to convey its sensuality while staying within the boundaries of PG-13.

The first 30-40 minutes of the film is quite tepid and the whole theme is based on the class difference between protagonist kid and the establishment and this again is a play on James Bond films with its suave protagonist. It gets more interesting and funnier once the training starts and slowly and surely you realize that it is as much a spoof as it is an homage. The action sequences are intentionally/unintentionally funny and you do have a quite good time watching the film. It is doing to spy-action films what Matthew Vaughns' Kick-Ass did to superhero films while not being nearly as good as Kick-Ass. It works well as a standalone film mind, but, if they indeed go ahead with sequels I do think it will be a bad idea like it was for Kick-Ass 2.

Rating: 3/5

                                                                          

Ex Machina (2015)

Director: Alex Garland
Writer:    Alex Garland
Cast:       Domhnall Gleeson, Oscar Issac, Alicia Vikander

A young programmer (Domhnall Gleeson) is selected to participate in a breakthrough experiment in artificial intelligence by evaluating the human qualities of a breathtaking female A.I (Alicia Vikander). The guy who selected him (Oscar Issac) had made money through his search engine business and while all other search engine innovators concentrated on just making money by using it to figure out what people were thinking, he used it to make his A.I by finding out how people think. The experiment that he wants the young programmer to conduct is of course the Turing Test. 

A.I and the warnings against it have been in the news recently with both Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk expressing concerns about it. We already had a film on the subject last year, the Johnny Depp starrer 'Transcendence', but it was ultimately a misfire with really poor script and performances even though it managed to convey the scale of the problems that humans could encounter with A.I. When put against that film, Ex Machina, is a master class about film making and the importance of the way a story is told to make them work. We are hooked from the first scene itself with an overall mystery surrounding everything and we are second guessing the director almost the whole way through. One can of course say that figuring out the twist is not that difficult considering you are continually trying to outsmart the filmmaker but he gets one over you by not going overboard with the twist. Another great thing he does is that he goes about 'AI being bad' in a matter of fact fashion without  relying on gunfire, explosions and shit like that. At the end of it you don't have a good/bad question regarding the characters in which I include the A.I. There is a moment in film where the programmer does a reverse Turing test by doubting whether he was in fact an A.I by cutting himself up and checking for some machinery inside him. 

Alex Garland was previously involved in Danny Boyle films 28 Days Later and Sunshine and he is making his directorial debut with Ex Machina. It is beautifully shot in a claustrophobic manner even though the house is nestled by exquisite surroundings. Performances are excellent and the expositions are done smoothly considering that there is some explaining to do. I really don't think you need much knowledge about A.I and Turing Test to understand the film but it would help in appreciating the questions and answers coming out of the Turing Test and the their discussion about it. There is even a reference to that famous scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey, of Hal watching the two astronomers talk, but this time it is the two A.Is who are talking without us humans hearing what they are saying. Overall it is a magnificent watch.

Rating: 4.5/5