The story of Rameshan, who looses his love and life due to his craze for cricket, and his final try to realize his big dream.
The film starts with Sachin's retirement speech, which I have not heard in full till now because of the sour taste that all the BCCI hoopla surrounding it had left in my mouth. Sports films are really hard to get right but this is not a traditional sports film in the sense that you are not supposed to root for someone who is playing it professionally. 'Sreenivasan inferiority complex vittu kaashundakkiyapole ee filmilude ivar Nostalgia vittu kaashundakkukayanu'. All the nostalgic elements that one could think of from late 80s and early 90s get an outing like watching cricket in Doordarshan, old malayalm film posters, Reynolds 040 pen, Ambassador & Premier Padmini cars, irritating elder sister, Kuwait war etc.
The period part of the story is extremely well done with a great group of supporting cast who were played by not so familiar actors. The cricket scenes are also very well done capturing the chaos of village cricket. They also managed to avoid the cliched 'hero hitting last ball for six after the fielder goes over the boundary taking catch'. I haven't seen 'Lagaan' in full but the climax cricket match in it was unbearably cringey. The second half of the film which is largely contemporary is predictable and dragging in places. I also thought that they couldn't get out of the period mode which might be intentional since Rameshan is a character who kind of got frozen in time due to the disappointments in his life.
Overall it is a very good watch with a surprisingly good script and performances. There is also scope for them doing a sequel with the kid turning into a Uber prick in the mold of Malayalee's favorite mallu 'Sreesanth'.
Director: Spencer Susser Writers: Spencer Susser, David Michod Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Devin Brochu, Natalie Portman
A young boy (Devin Brochu) has lost his mother and is losing touch with his father and the world around him. Then he meets Hesher (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who manages to make his life even more chaotic.
According to urban dictionary a Hesher is a: "Reebock-wearing, mulleted person in acid-washed jeans and a Judas Priest T-shirt who, at the age of 28, still lives in his/her parents' basement and swears that he/she can really rock out on his/her Ibanez Stratocaster copy guitar and probably owns a Nova that hasn't run in 5 years but you just wait, that fucker is gonna smoke those fuckin Japanese rice burners once I put a new head gasket on it."
In this film Hesher is a Tyler Durden like character for the young boy even though it works outs in a different way. The film has so many WTF moments in it and even though the whole arc is predictable in a macro sense it doesn't follow the path that you think it would take to reach there. Hesher, who is not very articulative, uses several perverted metaphorical stories to convey what he feels about the situation to the three self pitying characters-Boy, father and Nciole (Natalie Portman). The film received really poor reviews and as I was enjoying watching the film, there were several points in it where you would feel it is gonna go mediocre, but they manage to pull it off with a 'What the Fuckery' moment, one after the other. In some places the character Niclole is poorly written and the flashback scene of the accident is done in a very enjoyable cheesy way. Since the film relies on the surprise paths it takes, I think it might not stand up well on a second watch. Nevertheless it is a really great watch with some very dark humor about it.
David Michod had directed the very good Australian film 'Animal Kingdom' and his latest one 'The Rover' is getting good reviews. I tried for it in the usual places and since it was not available I turned my attention to Hesher which he had co-wrote. The characters that Joseph Gordon-Levitt played in the earlier part of his career are far more edgier and interesting than the ones he is making with the likes of Christopher Nolan. Hope he gets to do more roles that could stand shoulder to shoulder with his characters in 'Mysterious Skin', 'Brick', and 'Hesher'.
A man and woman are drawn together, entangled in the life cycle of an ageless organism. Identity becomes an illusion as they struggle to assemble the loose fragments of their wrecked lives.
It is another audio-visual mindfuck from Shane Carruth who has a lots of fans among those who love independent films after his debut feature 'Primer'. It took him nine long years to come out with his second feature film and during the interim he shelved the idea of making the sci-fi film 'Topiary' for which he had invested considerable amount of time. It is considered as one of the greatest films that was never made by those who have read the script and Steven Soderbergh is a fan. It is a great shame that it is not getting made because of financing issues and just $15 million is all that is required. Some of the footage from Topiary is used in Upstream Color and can be seen when Kris (Amy Seimetz) is seen working on her computer.
To get into plot details, the film starts with someone experimenting with the parasite and some kids drinking a liquid that is influenced by the presence of this parasite. They seemingly acquire Matrix like agility, at least temporarily. Then the character 'Thief' abducts Kris after introducing the parasite into her body system. He uses some kind of hypnosis technique on her and improves her memory power by making her remember the whole of Henry David Thoreau's 'Walden'. He steals all her money by making her cash out on her home equity and leaves her with no recollection of what really happened. The parasite grows inside her body and she cuts herself up in an effort to get them out. She eventually ends up meeting an audio sampler. He performs a surgery on her and extracts the parasite from her body and introduces it into the body of a pig which he puts up in a pig farm along with many other pigs all of which had previously undergone this ordeal. Kris wakes up in her car parked in a highway, again with no recollection of her ordeal. As she struggles with the after effects, she meets Jeff (Shane Carruth) who also had a similar experience and they fall in love. They move in together but are facing identity crisis because of the memory loss. It is shown that what is happening in their lives and the life of sampler and their respective pigs are interconnected through sounds as well as experience. The characters are constantly shown with their hands feeling things and taking in the sounds. Kris suspects that she is pregnant and when she consults her doctor she learns that she had recovered from stage two endocrine cancer and she is incapable of giving birth to a baby after the damages in her systems due to the surgery of which she has no memory. The sampler is seen taking some baby pigs in a sack and throws them off into a river. The parasite which has transformed further is seen getting introduced into nearby orchids from the pigs. Kris eventually kills the sampler and get details about all the people who had the same experience from the pig farm. They revamp the pig farm and are seemingly at peace even though she killed the man who saved her about which we the audience have the knowledge.
I saw the film about a year back and didn't understand much of it. 'Walden' is a recurring subject in this film and before I watched the film again this time, I read about it in its wiki page. I think I will have to read the whole fucking book before watching 'Upstream Color' for a third time. But I really doubt that the themes handled in the book has got much to do with getting an understanding about the film. Shane Carruth himself said when asked that don't try too much to get a message out of the film and it is essentially about the breaking of cycles, whatever the fuck that he means.
Walden is supposed to be a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings. Thoreau was a noted transcendentalist and Transcendentalism is a religious and philosophical movement from the 180s and 1830s with heavy influence from Hindu texts like Vedas, Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita. Self reliance is a major theme in this category of philosophy, both economically and spiritually. They contest that an individual is pure without the corrupt influence of society and its institutions. It sounds very much like an overly idealistic philosophy without much consideration about the selfish natre of our evolutionary path.
To sum up 'Upstream Color' is a surreal audio-visual masterpiece in the Terence Malickian mode. Many will find it pretentious but it will most certainly affect you even though you won't have much clue about what the director is conveying if at all he is doing that actually. Just let it wash over you.
Director: Derek Cianfrance Writers: Derek Cianfrance, Joey Curtis, Cami Delavigne Cast: Ryan Gosling, Michelle Williams, John Doman
The film centers on a contemporary married couple, charting their evolution over a span of years by cross-cutting between time periods.
The seeds for deterioration of their relationship is there from the beginning itself with Cindy (Michelle Williams) being a medical student and Dean (Ryan Gosling) being an employee in a packing and moving firm. Their decision to marry was also made when Cindy was in a vulnerable position with she deciding to keep the baby she conceived with her ex-boyfriend. After the marriage, Dean works part time as a painter and for the rest of the time as the homemaker in their relationship. Cindy is frustrated by this situation believing he wasting his considerable talents even though he is completely happy with the situation. I recently read an article in Philosopher's Mail titled 'Why You Resent Your Partner': http://www.philosophersmail.com/relationships/why-you-resent-your-partner/ .This was my second watch of this film and it is very close to what the article says. To sum it up, when people insist on equality in marriage they tend to divide all the tasks right down the middle with each of them supposed to do 50% of the work. Over the course of time society has build up an image that homemaking involves menial tasks and doing a professional job is what everyone is supposed to do. This causes problems when one partner takes complete responsibility of being the breadwinner and the other being the homemaker. Both of them feels a sense of committing a sacrifice leading to resentment.
Another film that one would be reminded of whilst watching this film is 'Before Midnight' which came after this film. But unlike that film, the couple here is finding it difficult to have a honest conversation about their problems and deals with them by causing pain to each other through ill-advised choice of words. The contemporary part of the story involves a time span of 36 hours of their life involving a night in which they try to spruce up their relationships with time spend at a cheap motel.It was good to see Rawls (John Doman) from 'The Wire' playing a not too dissimilar character.
The film was originally rated NC-17 because of the cunnilingus scene. Gosling accused the MPAA of sexism since many films containing fellatio were rated 'R' whilst theirs was rated 'NC-17' citing pornographic content. They appealed successfully and obtained an 'R' certificate without any cuts. Cianfrance was planning to shoot the film over a large time span so that he could shoot the younger and older parts separately. Script was given to Michelle WIlliams when she was 21 but by the time they obtained finance and started shooting she was 29. Both Gosling and Williams served as executive producers. Gosling is an interesting fella with the choices he makes and he is supposed to be going to take a break from acting after finishing his Terence Malick film. Can't wait to watch his directorial debut 'Lost River' which divided the audience at Cannes and received a mixed to bad response. His collaboration with Derek Cianfrance were both fantastic films, but I rate 'Blue Valentine' above 'The Place Beyond the Pines'.
Director: Joshi Writers: Dennis Joseph, Hari Kumar (Story) Cast: Mohanlal, Mammooty, M.G. Soman, Ashokan
Enroute via train, one of three friends becomes a suspect in a homicide.
Many people would list Mohanlal's performance as Tony Kurishingal in this film as one of his best in a career that includes many great performances in many great films. No: 20 Madras Mail is by no means a great film. It is a film of two halves with the first one being a really good comedy part of the film and the second half a very average whodunnit action thriller. The entire first half is set on location in a real train and real travel which must have been a logistics nightmare while shooting. That effort really need to be appreciated because even now filmmakers are struggling to give a realistic life look to footage that are supposed to be shot in Indian trains. Mohanlal's performance as the booze filled spoiled son from a wealthy family is so good that one would wonder whether he had gone method during the shoot. Special mention to Siddique's cameo giving an introduction to the three characters in a bar. Mohanlal and Mammooty can really considered as the best two leading men Indian cinema has ever seen and they have acted in many films together especially in the earlier part of their respective careers. In this film Mammotty plays the real life self of him and in 'Manu Uncle' Mohanlal do the opposite playing himself. Interestingly both films involved Dennis Joseph.
Joshi has directed many completely challenging films but some of them have not aged very well. Films like 'Nair Saab', 'New Delhi' and 'Sainyam' are examples for this, being set in very unconventional, expensive and novel circumstances. 'Dhruvam' and 'Naaduvazhikal' are my favorite films of his with both having a slightly larger than life leading characters. Dhruvam is a very atmospheric film with a complex narrative structure.
A happy go lucky Malayalee doctor in Dubai runs into financial difficulties because of his lifestyle and is forced to make some compromising choices regarding important life matters.
I have always found Lal Jose to be a very overrated director and this film didn't change my opinion one bit. He is supposed to be going on a road trip from Kochi to London after the completion of his next film. Well lets hope he can make a good travel documentary about it unlike the shitty feature films that he makes. 'Diamond Necklace' was a good opportunity for him to break the mould but he again falls back on cheap melodrama and moralisation. With the infidelities and questionable decisions made by the main character, played by Fahad Faasil, instead of going for something really fresh he goes for sending out a message. The cliched hard working humble Gulf Malayalee is also there with the character played by Sreenivasan who is the mouthpiece for the messgae that writer/director wants to send out. It is not that the themes like infidelity have never been handled by Malayalam cinema in a mature manner. I can think of 'Pavakoothu' (Renjith's) which came in the 90s. The main protagonist committing a crime, several twist and turns later, everything ending well is also a very common and tiresome plot device in Malayalam films.
The high point of the film is the marriage situation of Arun and Kalamandalam Rajashree providing some genuine laugh out loud moments. There also they could have ended the film on a better note if they had used the comic moment at the end of the film.
One another thing is that diamonds are not really worth very much once it is second hand. It is a material whose price is artificially propped up by the cartel controlling its supply. It is very hard to get value by selling diamonds. And also if it was that valuable, he would have got the nurse arrested for not declaring valuable items at the airport. Joy Alukkas product placement was fine until the owner decided to turn up giving us a cringefest that would have made 'Nerairyan CBI' proud.
Director: Doug Liman Writer: Jon Favreau Cast: Jon Favreau, Vince Vaughn, Heather Graham, Ron Livingston
Mike (Jon Favreau) is a struggling comedian living in LA after shifting from New-York. He is suffering from depression after breaking up with his girlfriend of six years, six months ago. His mates, other struggling actors, are trying to get him to stop wallowing about the past and get him out into the dating scene of the 1990s swing revival.
We don't see characters getting walked through the dating process in many films. Mike is having a struggle after not being in the game since his college days where he hooked up with his ex-girlfriend. It is really a funny film with plenty of references thrown about other films like Goodfellas and Reservoir Dogs. They even recreate the Goodfellas 'Copacabana' single tracking shot scene and Reservoir Dogs' slow-mo walk. One would also be reminded of several 'Seinfeld' situations as well. It is a great film that captures the atmosphere of those times.
Doug Liman started his career very strongly with 'Swingers' and 'Go' before getting into all the big budget action shenanigans. Hearing good things about his latest feature 'Edge of Tomorrow'. He is certainly a very dependable director.
