Birdman (2014)

Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Writers:  Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Nicolas Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris Jr., Armando Bo
Cast:       Michael Keaton, Edward Norton, Emma Stone, Naomi Watss, Zach Galifianakis

A washed up actor, who once played an iconic superhero, battles his ego and attempts to recover his family, his career and himself in the days leading up to opening of a Broadway play which he wrote and directed. 

It is Inarritu's way of saying 'Fuck You' to the system that churns out sequels, prequels and reboots of superhero shitfests making billions along the way. But mockery is not just aimed at the studios but also at the vanity and pretentiousness of those who also operate away from that system. Edward Norton fits perfectly in that regard. I was fearful that Birdman would turn out very much like American Hustle from last year, which was adored by the critics and I couldn't just see what the fuss was about. It was not the case for Birdman and the humor in it is very layered and intelligent. Criticism is not limited to the performance arts business but also at the vapid 'Selfie' phase of culture that we are going through right now. Michael Keaton's role in it is not very different from how his career turned out as it stands and everyone hopes he gets the kick-start he deserves at this point of time. He was in the first two batman films with the second one coming in 1992, a year which is also referenced in this film as the year in which the last Birdman film released. Same can be said about the other actors in it with Edward Norton having a reputation of being very hard top word with.

It is not a film that you would expect from Inarritu and everyone would have raised their eye-brows when they heard he is making a comedy film titled 'Birdman'. There were several writing partners involved and the film is shot as if the entirety of it is a single tracking shot. It is not a distraction since we know it is not a single take anyway because of the amount of time lapsing. It was filmed in sequence and that maybe how they managed to include that reference to Meg Ryan's plastic surgery, which happened quite recently. The performances are delightfully screen chewy, especially from Edward Norton. The soundtrack which involved a lot of drumming reminded me of the Oceans series and the vibe that this one generates is also strangely similar. I sat through the entire film with a big smile and there are plenty of lines that makes you laugh out loud with some examples being:

Lesley: I wish I had more self-respect.

Laura: You're an actress.

"Sixty is the new thirty, mother fucker."

"Popularity is the slutty little cousin of prestige."

A put down of that critic is also perfect. I kind of thought it was gonna go the cliched path with the actor committing suicide during the performance but it surprised me again with how it went on from there. Overall it is just great and is certainly among the best from last year. 2014 has been really a great year.

Rating: 5/5

                                                                   

The Unknown Known (2013)

Director: Errol Morris
Writer:    Errol Morris
Features: Donald Rumsfeld, Errol Morris (Voice)

Former United States Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, discusses his career in Washington D.C. from his days as a congressman in the early 1960s to planning the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The title of the documentary comes from the quote that Donald Rumsfeld gave in 2002 about lack of evidence linking Saddam's regime with the supply of WMDs to terrorist groups. The full quote is as below:

"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones. "

When the documentary starts he says that is the lack of imagination from Intelligence agencies that led to failures like Pearl Harbour and 9/11. It is this that he means with the unknown unknown category. But later in the documentary he says that the unknown knowns, things that we think we know but turned out to be different, to be the most dangerous. When Morris points out that he used unknown unknown in the quote, Rumsfeld says that he meant unknown known and that can sum up his pedantry in torturing the language to suit his needs. Unknown unknown was used by him to convey the presence of imaginary WMDs and now we can use Unknown Known to describe what happened in Iraq after the invasion. 

The neo-cons, who also tend to be Jesus-Freaks, have a habit of making massive generalizations that are logically suspect. Another memo that he wrote regarding WMDs contained the argument that: 'Absence of Evidence is not evidence of absence'. This is something that religious people come out with when you question the absence of God. Well, you can also claim the existence of flying teapots orbiting Mars using that logic. 

Some have criticized the documentary for raising more questions than answers. That would be missing the point since it is aiming to depict how illogical and muddled Rumsfeld is in his rationalization. All of us know about what happened in Iraq and documentaries like 'No End in Sight' dealt with it already. What Morris is doing is to use Rumsfeld himself to reveal whatever he wants to say. The last question by a bewildered Morris: 'Why the hell have you agreed to do this?' is exactly what we feel. Maybe it is a case of someone who had Presidential ambitions in his 30s wanting a little more of the limelight. It was interesting that he took special care to describe Dick Cheney as his deputy when he was talking about the 70s. 

Rating: 4/5

                                                                   

Nightcrawler (2014)

Director: Dan Gilroy
Writer:    Dan Gilroy
Cast:       Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Bill Paxton

When Lou Bloom, a driven man desperate for work, muscles into the world of L.A. crime journalism, he blurs the line between observer and participant to become the star of his  own story. Aiding him in his effort is Nina, a TV-news veteran.

Going by the name of the film and the trailer which I watched a long time back, I really thought it was gonna be a serial killer film. The term nightcrawler in film refers to freelance journalists who scan police radio messages to pick up interesting crime scenes that they can reach and film in order to sell it to the highest bidding TV channel. So they are like ambulance chasers. Lou is getting by doing some thieving when he stumbles on to a nightcrawler at the scene of a car accident and feels like it is a job that could accentuate his strengths and hide his weaknesses. Bit like Travis Bickle taking up the job of a Taxi Driver. He footage becomes a hit with a particular TV station aided by his ruthlessness and not being restricted by a notion of journalistic ethics. At the same time he is extremely adept at giving out MBA jargons due to him doing a lot of online courses during his free time. The TV news producer Nina wittingly and unwittingly eggs him on to ramp it up more and more and in essence she is not much different from him. It can also be seen as a metaphor for the psychopathic behavior that capitalistic corporations tend to engage in being managed by people like Lou. Most of the managers are like that based on my experience though I have to admit none of them are as efficient as Lou. 

Film is laugh out loud funny especially when Lou gets into one of his many monologues. I have seen some people saying that film didn't go far enough but I think they were misled by the trailer which had that mirror scene. in which apparently he got so much into the character that he smashed it for real and required several stitches. They might not have  expected it to be black comedy. It is very much like an unfussy 'American Psycho' and another film that I was reminded of was Scorsese's 'King of Comedy'. The best thing about Nightcrawler is that we know he is a psychopath but he doesn't do anything directly that can be nailed down as a psychopathic crime. The creepiest thing is that you would actually root for him and don't mind the frustration that the detective played by Micheal Hyatt (Brianna Barksdale from The Wire) feels.

It is a very assured directorial debut for Dan Gilroy. Jake Gyllenhaal is now in two films that would get into my top ten from 2014, with the other one being 'Enemy'. It seems he really likes being in films that deal with psychopaths (Zodiac, Prisoners). Nightcrawler has got an academic award nomination for Best Screenplay and it is a crime that its lead didn't get nominated for best actor category. I haven't seen 'Imitation Game' or 'Theory of Everything' but I really doubt the performances in those would be better than this.

Rating: 5/5

                                                                        

Pandora's Box (1992)

Created & Narrated By: Adam Curtis

It is Adam Curtis's six part documentary series which looks at the consequences of exploiting technological and and political ideas without understanding and concern for the future. The message is that technocratic-rationalism is not panacea and the way he deals with it is by being nuanced and not by being bizarrely science-phobic like many environmentalists do.

The episodes are:

1) The Engineer's Plot:  The episode is on the socialist experiment of USSR which can be called as a social engineering project with science and reason playing a key role. Lenin had declared that communism means power of the soviet plus electrification. Episode looks into how technology and rationalism was inculcated into the Soviet model even though Stalin evolved it subsequently into putting Engineers at the forefront of Russian economy after a couple of purges leading up to the World War. After the World war they played a key role in the rebuilding of Russia and began to take even more central role in Gosplan, the planning commission responsible for 5 year plans. They ran the country trusting their ability to plan everything ahead and fulfilling the needs of people by conducting surveys and what not. They used to keep a price list of 25 million items as it became more and more ridiculous with increasing complexity. It can be summed up by the conclusion that Russian consumers would conclude that a particular product to be out of fashion if they are available in abundance. 

2) To the Brink of Eternity: This episode outlines how game theorists and strategists, who held sway under McNamara, developed strategies to control the nuclear threat and nuclear arms race during the cold war. Their strategies looked ridiculous when applied to situations like Cuban Missile Crisis and Vietnam war since it relied very much on the players acting in a rational manner. The focus is on men such as Herman Kahn, Albert Wohlstetter and John von Neumman , based on whom Kubrick had developed the character of Dr. Strangelove. The episode concludes that the post world war two period up to the end of Soviet Union was an anomaly in world history where it had two superpowers which influenced almost every things in the world through a cold war perspective. After the cold war, the complexity increased which is a remarkable conclusion that Curtis drew in 1992 itself and has been proven right by the events after the end of cold war. This can be seen again in his later documentary: 'The Power of Nightmares' which dealt with the engineering of fear among people to keep and exercise power which was adopted by both neo-conservatives in US and Jihadists in Islamic countries.

3) The League of Gentlemen: This episode deals with post world war England coming into terms with its post colonial decline. It documents how the Labour government which came to power in the 1960s, after a Tory driven bubble about to burst, went against the Keynesian logic of depreciating its currency out of insecurity about its  standing in the World only for it to lead into Stagflation. Stagflation was explained by the monetarists like Milton Friedman who influenced the policies of Margaret Thatcher. When she came to power in the 80s inflation was put as the only agenda for the Central Bank and began to tighten the interest rates, against the Keynesian logic, leading to the death of many of England's industries. So in this episode Monetarism was the fad which was used without proper understanding of the consequences and the conclusion that can be made is that Economics is not a Science which is something that we all intrinsically know after the Great Financial Crisis of 2008.

4) Goodbye Mrs. Ant: This episode deals with the chemical industry which was projected as capable of solving all the problems during the 50s. DDT was hailed and sprayed all over America and is another example of the danger of Corporations taking a technology to make profits without proper understanding/concern about the future. They used Darwin's Natural Selection as justification for the actions that these chemicals take and when the inevitable backlash came in the 70s with Environmentalism, they also used Darwin to justify their actions. The problem is that when both sets of people take extreme and ludicrous positions in these kind of issues what is really gonna happen is worst of both worlds. 

5) Black Power: This episode is about Ghana which after getting its independence projected Volta River Dam project as its flagship program for industrialization. Financing for dam was obtained after roping in US corporation Kaiser to build an Aluminium smelting plant using the power obtained from the dam. By the time the dam was completed the country was reeling with corruption and the ruler with good intentions was replaced by a CIA engineered military coup, with Ghana being another pawn used in cold war. I found this episode to be the most interesting since it highlighted how difficult it is for democracy to survive in a newly independent country. Made me thankful about how things played out in India, despite its democratic precariousness and the nationalist dickheads that rule the country now.

6) A is for Atom: This episode deals with the rise of nuclear technology and industry. It is another case of corporations behaving in a psychopathic manner after hijacking the technology. I really don't understand the clamor for nuclear power in India, at least among those who are in power, since there is no way I could  trust it in such a corrupt and venal system. Even the developed countries struggled with it and the sector as a whole is on the decline which makes it even more dangerous.

Like most of the Adam Curtis documentaries that I have watched it is illuminating as well as depressing. He is someone who can see how things are going to get played out in the future and his prediction, at the time of Arab Spring, that twitter was going to be just an an echo-chamber for like minded people without much scope for true political impact turned out to be precise. What I especially like about him is that he is not a conspiracy theorist since there is no elaborate plan that he is revealing. It is just a case of people in power acting in a self-interested manner making decisions that leads to grave and unintended consequences.

Rating: 5/5 

                                                                        

Restrepo (2010)

Directors: Tim Hetherington, Sebastian Junger
Features:  The Men of Battle Company 2nd of the 503rd Infantry Regiment 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team

A year with one platoon in the deadliest valley in Afghanistan during the war. It is set in the Korangal valley which borders with Pakistan and the body count was 50 for US there during the entire war. It was filmed by Tim Hetherington and Sevastian Junger who were working for Vanity Fair as embedded journalists during the war. The title comes from an outpost there which was named after a platoon medic who got killed earlier in the campaign.

It is a case of a documentary being more gripping than any feature film could be in depicting such a scenario. It is not just a case of us being stumped by all of  it being real but we are genuinely intrigued by the narrative and also  the plight of the soldiers as well as local people over there caught  up in a war. Embedded journalism can be always problematic since it gives us always what they want us to see/read. The documentary gets past this hurdle by not being political at all and just showing ground level things that happen during the war. It never comes across as heroic but people just trying to get by surviving the whole thing. There is no voice over narration and the low quality of footage adds to its realness. The climax is nothing heroic in the Hollywood sense but us being relieved along with them for getting the fuck out of there in one piece at the end of their deployment.

I have no idea how the journalists managed to get all of this in between as well as during the fighting. The platoon took enemy fire almost everyday, perhaps making it the longest exposure to combat any for US since the second world war. Tim Hetherington got killed during the Libyan civil war in 2011 and that shouldn't come as a surprise for those who've seen this documentary. I was not that enamored by Hurt Locker which felt like a propaganda film for US army. Restrepo coveys more without having to spell it out for you and the message that you get is definitely anti-war.

Rating: 4.5/5

                                                                    

Dirty Wars (2013)

Director: Rick Rowley
Writers:  David Riker, Jeremy Scahill

Investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill is pulled into an unexpected journey as he chases down the hidden truth behind America's expanding covert wars. It begins with a story from a remote Afghanistan village called Gardez, where US forced killed members of family of an Afghan Police Commander. Such night raids are carried out by JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command) which directly reports to White-house and is shrouded in secrecy. These were the same that carried out the operation to kill Osama Bin Laden after which the secrecy was removed and they enjoyed the limelight. Now they command most of the covert operations carried out by the US in the name of so called War on Terror including the drone strikes.

Jeremy Scahill is one of the founding editors of the online news publication, 'The Intercept', with which Glenn Greenwald is also involved. He had also written the book:'Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army', which won him the George Polk book award. Blackwater is notorious for the killing of 17 Iraqi civilians for no good reason. The narrative that Scahill builds in this documentary is that immediately after 9/11, US had a target kill list consisting of 7 names. When they started the Iraq War it was a deck of cards consisting of around 50 names and now the list is endless. The actual war on terror has only helped in creating new enemies and in its current form there is no end in sight. What JSOC is doing is extrajudicial killings in non-war like scenario and since they are done on the basis of suspect intelligence and without any repercussions to those who are carrying it out, the collateral damage is only leaving fertile ground for terrorists to emerge. He takes a look at the case of Anwar al-Awlaki who was named as a prime target in Yemen and drone attacks were carried out to kill him. He was an American citizen and a preacher who was a moderate during 9/11 and its aftermath. He began to get increasingly radicalized after the Iraq War and started advocating Jihad against US. You can make a thin case against him based on this even though there is no evidence of him being a terrorist operative. He was killed by a drone strike in Yemen. Scahill is even more perturbed by the fact that Awlaki's 16-year old son was also killed weeks later in a drone strike. US authorities described his killing as collateral damage even though they didn't name anyone in particular as target for that particular drone strike, which means that the 16 year old boy was indeed the target. Scahill compares this to the Greek tragedy logic of killing someone not for what they have done but for what they could become. It is a twisted logic and will only help in growing the list. Anyone over 15 and under 70 are fair game.

The documentary is a very good watch with some great cinematic qualities to boot. The fact that he doesn't know where the story is leading and the situation evolving continuously leading to the organization that he is trying to uncover JSOC revealing itself for all after Bin Laden's death make it an intriguing watch. It also throws light on the dangerous game that US is playing with its drone program and it is not something which have got the attention it deserves so far in the wider media. One would think that it is preferable to an all out war like in Afghanistan but the reality is that the strikes will be always based on suspect intelligence and practically no oversight.

Rating: 4/5 

                                                                   

Bitter Lake (2015)

Created & Narrated by: Adam Curtis

'Bitter Lake' is the latest from the excellent Adam Curtis which was released last week through BBC's iPlayer. It can be best described as a documentary on US-Saudi alliance through the prism of clusterfuck that is Afghanistan. The title comes from the salt water lake in the Suez called 'Great Bitter Lake', where Roosevelt and the then King of Saudi Arabia forged their alliance close to the end of the World War Two. The alliance was built on the need to secure America's supply of oil in exchange for money and weapons with the promise that there won't be any interference from the West regarding the faith of Saudi rulers. The 'House of Saud' which formed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia drew its legitimacy from 'Wahabism', an extremely orthodox form of Islam with a longing for an imagined medieval past. The Saudi rulers have a pact with the Wahabi fundamentalists and the rulers in Saudi have made a habit of exporting the Wahabi ideas outwards so that the clergy don't interfere much with their domestic rule. This has resulted in them setting up Madrasas all over the Isalamic world to promote Wahabism and this is what has happened for example in Paksitani madrasas. So in short the 'House of Saud' has a pact with the devil of Wahabi fundamentalism and USA have the same with the devil of Saudi Arabia. It is perfect time for Adam Curtis to release his latest work considering the death of the Saudi King and dictator Abdullah this week.

The main narrative that is given by Curtis in the documentary is that the politicians from the West have resorted to simplifying complex issues pertaining to Islamic World as a Good versus Evil battle off late. This was done after the 9/11 attack during the ongoing War on Terror. This is a throwback to that Reagan era in which the same was done for funding the Mujaheddin against the Soviets. Everyone knows about how USA aided Osama Bin Laden in the 80s only for him to turn on them later. It was interesting to know that the opium with which he funded his operations since the 90s was also a product of US strategy in Afghanistan. The Americans had helped build a network of dams in Afghanistan in the 50s which caused the water table to rise along with introducing salinity in the soil. This made it very suitable for the cultivation of Poppy from which Opium and its by-products are made. 

    

                                 

The documentary gives us a complete history of Afghanistan from the 1950s and how the policies of the super-powers influenced its course as well how it influenced them back. For this, Curtis use Tarkovsky's 'Solyaris' as an analogy. Got to say it also kind of explained the film for me since I didn't understand much of it when I watched it some years ago. In it, the Cosmonaut encounters a mysterious river in the Alien planet which he thinks has consciousness. They try to influence it using X-Rays but what happens is that the river starts to haunt them by making them face up the ghosts of their past. They start distrusting everything and this is exactly what Curtis is saying happened to the Soviet and US coalition when they tried to influence matters in Afghanistan during the 80s and noughties respectively. The Russians tried to model Afghanistan as an ideal socialist country only for it to corrupt them and haunt them into Soviet breakup after the defeat. In same way the US coalition thought they could export their ideas of Democracy and Freedom only to end in defeat and face up to the fact they themselves believe in nothing and are morally bankrupt. Make no mistake, both the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq ended in defeats for them and you only need to see the recent state of both countries to recognize that.

Some people might dismiss Curtis as a Conspiracy theorist but I don't agree to it. What he doesn't do is assume that the events that are happening in the World is done with careful planning for a desired outcome. He portrays a World where the policymakers make decisions based on their own self-interest with some tragic unintended consequences. They are just some blundering idiots who are in over their heads to understand the complexities around issue but have the arrogance to think that they can influence such matters. Before 90s they had cold war as an excuse and now the so called war on terror. In an ideal world they should not interfere in matters concerning these countries about which they have limited understanding. Now they have the favorite excuse of preventing genocide of Good people by the evil and continue to interfere in matters when in fact they are largely driven by the defense industry and businesses. Curtis use the example of British Army's experience in the Pashtun region of Afghanistan. The different factions involved in the Civil War used British forces to crush their enemies by pointing out that they are battling Taliban and in effect everyone turned against the British there and in effect they only helped to compound the situation.

The documentary is available in its entirety of Youtube and the link has been embedded with this review. It is a great watch and there is a difference in style employed by Curtis. Rather than purely relying on narration using archive footage, he also uses rather recent footage from the war on terror times without any narration with various effects of tragedy, comedy and irony.

Rating: 5/5