The Florida Project (2017)

Director: Sean Baker
Writers: Sean Baker, Chris Bergoch
DOP: Alexis Sabe
Cast: Brooklyn Prince, Willem Dafoe, Bria Vinaite

Set over one summer, the film follows precocious six-year-old Moonee as she courts mischief and adventure with her ragtag playmates and bonds with her rebellious but caring mother, all while living in the shadows of Walt Disney World.

Films with kids as protagonists are very hard to get right. It is a delicate balance between coming across as too cute or too brat like. My favourite Malayalam kids film is 'Manu Uncle' and it works because the balance is right and the grown up characters in it behaves around kids in a realistic manner, except for a few cartoonish characters. It is a film which works really well for grownups as well.

Florida Project is another film which deals with poverty in USA and can also be classed into post-Subprime crisis genre. Many have lost their homes and are staying in motels on an extended basis with whole families staying in single rooms. Willem Dafoe plays the kind manager of one such motel and it was quite strange to see him play a normal sort of character. Moonee stays with her mum, a white thrash character struggling to make ends meet, in his motel. Her financial situation deteriorates over the course of the summer and this is not portrayed in a melodramatic manner but rather in a matter of fact manner with plenty of humour. What happens at the end is what you're willing to happen as it is the best for all concerned but it still left me quite teary eyed.

Sean Baker got his break with 'Tangerine' which was shot entirely using an i-phone. I only managed to sit through 5 minutes of it. He has got a mixture of experienced and non-experienced actors for this film and quite a bit of street-casting. Juxtaposition of American poverty against the Disney world is something that the director is going for. It took me some time to realise the proximity of Disney World in the film but I guess it was obvious with the funny looking shops and constant takeoffs and landings of helicopters. Kids in the film are just great but their energy levels throughout the film are a tad high. Brooklyn Prince just steals the show. Bria Vinaite, who was cast based on her Instagram profile, is also great as the thoroughly unlikeable single mother.

PS: You can also see the phenomenon of motel owning Patels in the film.

Rating: 4.25/5

The Square (2017)

Director: Ruben Östlund
Writer: Ruben Östlund
DOP: Fredrik Wenzel
Cast: Claes Bang, Elisabeth Moss, Dominic West
Language: Swedish, English

A prestigious Stockholm museum's chief art curator finds himself in times of both professional and personal crisis as he attempts to set up a non-controversial new exhibit.

What all things that you can think of to be in the European news cycle over the past few years, all of them are in here; the refugee crisis, political correctness gone mad, debate around freedom of speech and expression, #MeToo, so-called Islamophobia, social contract etc. All of this is expressed by different sequences which put either the protagonist or other characters in it in not so normal kind of situations where things are quite unpredictable. Normal reaction of the viewer will be what you will do if you are in such a situation. Östlund goes for the squirmy kind of humor that he is known for and you are just glad that you have not faced these situations in real life, yet. A significant numbers of us are the kind who would feel uncomfortable about asking for extra pappadams during wedding sadhyas and won't know how to react if you are in the process of being pick-pocketed.

His other films like Play and Involuntary were both with parallel kind of sequences and explored similar kind of themes but with a more singular focus. Play was about the timidness of Swedish/Western European societies, especially from the liberal left, while discussing the topic of immigration by putting a situation of a group of black boys bullying a group of white boys. Involuntary was about group behavior and conformity. The Square, which premiered at Cannes and won the Palme d'Or, has a single protagonist whole way through but overall has a collection of sketches feel to it. Don't know whether it started off as a multiple story-line feature but was later condensed to this current form. Sequences do work spectacularly well but the seemingly scatter-gun sort of approach to the topics that it touches make you feel that overall it is less than sum of its parts. Conclusion if to be drawn at all out of the film would be that there is no correct way to respond to these topics. Perfect example for it would be the press conference sequence where you are damned either way. It reminded me of the predicament faced by the makers of the film Padmavati.

Film is stunning visually and the unusual soundtrack also works very well. The poster that I saw initially of the film made me think it was a period piece but was pleasantly surprised to see that it was very much contemporary. If I were to rank his films, the order would be:

1. Force Majuere
2. Play
3. The Square
4. Involuntary

 Rating: 4.25/5

Suburra (2015)

Director: Stefano Sollima
Writers: Stefano Rulli, Sandro Petraglia, Carlo Bonini, Giancarlo De Cataldo
DOP: Paolo Carnera
Cast: Pierfransesco Favino, Alessandro Borghi, Greta Scarano
Language: Italian

A gangster known as "Samurai" wants to turn the waterfront of Rome into a new Las Vegas. All the local mob bosses have agreed to to work for his common goal. But peace is not to last long.

It is a neo-noir mafia thriller film, based on the 2013 novel of the same name by Carlo Bonini and Giancarlo De Cataldo. It is set in 2011 when the Pope is about to resign and the government is about to fall. Italy's financial health is in crisis mode after being bracketed into the so-called PIGS country grouping and the land use law has to be passed before the government falls. It is basically the post 2008 developed world told as a Mafioso story. The establishment is mixed in with the Mafia and the little people among the Mafioso represents the general public. Everybody is in on the crime but just that the scale of it is different. Film ends with a clusterfuck scenario where little people have gone batshit crazy disturbing the equilibrium and the future is uncertain, which is pretty much like the scenario is for Eurozone countries that were in economic doldrums post 2008.

There are so many characters in the film that it took around 45 minutes to establish all the connections. You really need to pay attention to figure it all out but the pay-off is really good. It is quite predictable towards the end but that is not a problem as it is just a case of you figuring out what they are going for. It is really stylish and follows the events that happen over a few days. Some of the narration cards in it didn't have subtitles but I figure it was counting down the Apocalypse. There is a Netflix series spin-off which acts as a prequel to the film following the events from 2008 onward. Stefano Sollima was the director of 'Gomorrah', which I haven't watched, and he has also directed the Sicario sequel which is going to get released soon. My disappointment about Denis Villenueve not directing it has been assuaged after seeing this film. Sicario: Soldado's trailer gives the impression that it is more of an action film but I think it is just a ploy to get asses in the seats. Really looking forward to it now. 

Rating: 4.25/5

Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

Director: Taika Waititi
Writers: Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost, Stan Lee
DOP: Javier Aguirresarobe
Cast: Chris Helmsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Jeff Goldblum, Mark Ruffalo, Tessa Thompson

Thor is imprisoned in a random planet, ruled by a Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum), and he has to engage with the Hulk in a gladiatorial fight there. His sister, the Goddess of death, Hela (Cate Blanchett) has taken over Asgard and Thor must race against time to prevent her from destroying Asgard and all his people.

I'm so proudly ignorant about these superheroes and their backstories that the superhero films that I enjoy tend to be origin stories (Batman Begins, Deadpool, Kick-Ass). The only exception I could think of is 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' which was more like a time travel film that worked pretty well as a standalone entity. I only decided to check this one out because of the good reviews it got and it is directed by Taika Waititi. I was quite underwhelmed by it till about one-third into it, only silverlining being the use of Led Zeppelin's 'Immigrant Song'. I'm so well versed with these Norse Gods that I thought Ragnarok was like second name of Thor. Things began to pickup with the introduction of Jeff Goldblum's character and the film is at its best after Mark Ruffalo version of Hulk makes its introduction. I didn't recognize it was Cate Blanchett who was chewing up the scenery as Hela.

Overall, it is a pretty good watch even if you don't give a rat's arse about Marvel Cinematic Universe or its characters. Taika Waititi doesn't take things seriously at all and it is good fun. They've supposedly improvised a lot of lines while shooting and that is quite surprising. Apart from Immigrant Song, some of the music reminded me of the Matrix series.

Rating: 3.25/5

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Writer: Yorgos Lanthimos, Efthymis Fillipou
DOP: Thimios Bakatakis
Cast: Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Barry Keoghan

Steven, a cardiologist, is forced to make an unthinkable sacrifice after his life starts to fall apart, when the behaviour of a teenage boy who he has taken under his wings turn sinister.

It is better to watch the film without knowing anything about it, which is always the case for most films but especially in these kind of films from interesting directors like Yorgos Lanthimos. 'Dogtooth' was told in a matter of fact manner while 'The Lobster' was quite a comedy. His films can generally be described as dark comedies set to interesting situations and the degree of darkness can vary. This outing of his is the darkest of the lot and works more like a horror film by the end, especially if you are lulled into a comfortable state with a lobster hangover.

Colin Farrell teams up again with the director and Nicole Kidman, in an Eyes Wide Shut look, plays the role of wife who is also a doctor. They got two children and the interactions between all of them are quite modern and robotic. Barry Keoghan, whom we have seen in Dunkirk, plays the role of sinister teen-ager. It is the Haneke films like 'The Seventh Continent' and 'Funny Games' and Kubrick films like the one mentioned before and 'The Shining' that it reminded me of. I was slightly taken aback by the straight forwardness of its ending without a twist or anything. It is a great watch with some hard to stomach scenes and situations.

Rating: 4/5

Carbon (2018)

Director: Venu
Writer: Venu
DOP: K.U. Mohanan
Cast: Fahadh Faasil, Mamta Mohandas, Manikandan Aachari
Language: Malayalam

Sibi (Fahadh Faasil) is an unemployed 'dealer' of exotic items like precious stones (Marathakam), precious birds (vellimoonga), precious animals (elephants) etc and he can't catch a break. It is not clear whether he is a total fraud or if he can actually make these deals happen. He doesn't have much concern about his family and when the loan sharks start raiding his house, he flees from there to an estate bungalow deep inside the forest as an acting manager to renovate the place. His fascination for precious items are further piqued there when he hears a mythological piece of history.

Venu's previous outing as a director was with the excellent 'Munnariyappu' which ended up going pretty dark places. That film gives us a fair warning that the director does not guarantee a feel good ending and it helps in setting up the atmosphere for Carbon, which is marketed as a forest thriller. The actual forest adventure begins only after the interval and the spookiest scenes come even before the interval, which is not really good for a thriller. There is this scene where Sibi is visiting a house to checkout an elephant that is for sale and that sequence is the most effective scene in the movie. To begin with, Praveena as the lady of the house with one eye bloodshot is creepily unhinged and Soubin Shahir as the elephant guy and the elephant itself are quite unnerving. That scene establishes the rules for the film in terms of what is real and what is 'fantasy'. Life flashing before your eyes and a fantasy from that point is a quite common theme in David Lynch films and it seems that the director is going for it in an half-baked manner. To be fair,  it is quite hard to pull off and there haven't been that many attempts in Malayalam. Have seen some interpretations on those lines for Maayanadhi which I don't concur with.

Another letdown is the existential aspects of the film which end up as quite lame. You know things are gonna go downhill as soon as they reference 'The Alchemist', which is like Harry Potter equivalent of the existential fiction. With the people behind and infront of the camera for this film, you expect the best in terms of technical perfection and performances and you do get that. They could've easily shaved off some twenty minutes from its considerable 150 minutes running time and Vishal Bharadwaj's frankly forgettable songs can be prime candidates. One thing I liked about the film is that they don't romanticise tribal characters or their interactions. Sibi is quite an unlikable character throughout the film, which sort of hinders the film towards the end. My feeling towards the film is like 'Solo'- worthy effort, couldn't pull off what all they intended, a fantastic theatrical experience nevertheless, will probably catch it again at the theatres to check whether that elephant had any fucking chain.

Rating: 3.5/5

Escape from New York (1981)

Director: John Carpenter
Writers: John Carpenter, Nick Castle
DOP: Dean Cundey
Cast: Kurt Russell, Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Harry Dean Stanton

In 1997, when the U.S. President crashes into Manhattan, now a giant maximum security prison, a convicted bank robber is sent in to rescue him.

Well, I guess it is a film of its time which essentially means that it has not aged well. There are films like 'The Warriors' from 1979 which has enough going for it so that it is still a great watch despite being quite campy. Escape from New York is not one such. I only checked it out because I quite liked 'The Thing', the only other John Carpenter film that I have watched and have no interest in watching other famous films of his like 'Halloween'. Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) is a former US forces personnel, apparent from the line that 'You flew the gullfire over Leningrad, didn't you?', which also means that US was recently at war with USSR. The President was due to attend a meeting with the Russians and the Chinese  and it is of paramount importance that he is freed to do so within 24 hours. Lee Van Cleef ( The Bad from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly) forces Snake to take up the mission in exchange for Pardon after injecting something which will kill him in 24 hours time if he doesn't come back with the President. John Carpenter supposedly wanted to capture the cynicism people had with politics post Watergate scandal. The Manhattan shown in the film is quite like a Terry Gilliam sort of place.

It was interesting to see a suicide mission involving a hijacked plane crashing into a building in Manhattan. It was not World Trade Center buildings but they do feature in the film. It is overall a dry watch. It did get a sequel titled Escape From L.A with Kurt Russell reprising his role as Snake Plissken.

Rating: 2/5