Eden (2014)

Director: Mia Hansen-Love
Writers:  Mia Hansen-Love, Sven Hansen-Love
Cast:       Felix de Givry, Pauline Etienne, Vincent Macaigne
Language: French

Paul, a teenager in the underground music scene of early 90s Paris, forms a DJ collective with his friends and together they plunge into the nightlife of sex, drugs, and endless music.

The film is magnificent and different in terms of what it doesn't do. Is it the story of an underdog or under-appreciated DJ who overcomes things with a great resolution at the end?, Is he a famous guy?,  Does his life takes drastic turns due to random things happening? Is it Boggie Nights for DJs? - Answer to all of that is- Hell No!!! Film is basically an adaptation of Mia's brother Sven life and he helped in writing the screenplay for it. It is not a job with which you can plan your life around and despite warnings from his mother- he plunges into it with the genre being Garage- which he describes as electronic music meeting disco. It basically revolves around his life and try to portray what happens after music is turned off and lights are out or, in this case, sun has come up. Despite the cool soundtrack and sexy settings, it is a slow burner and still a very cool watch. An obvious comparison for this one would be with Michael Winterbottom's masterpiece- '24 Hour Party People'. Unlike 24HPP, it doesn't concentrate much on the business side of things but they play a significant role in the Part-2 portion of the film- which is significantly shorter than the first. The central character is played in a very toned down manner by Felix de Givry and it is left to the viewer to decipher what is going on in his mind and life. Changes are quite subtle as the years go by. The power play in his relationships are also quite subtly told and everything is done without any accompanying bells or whistles.

It also includes appearances by two actors who portray Daft Punk at various points in their career. Since we don't know how they look like, it is quite possible that they were indeed the Daft Punk duo. Film is a very good one and is recommended for people who love this sort of music and like the films that they watch to be subtle. It can also be classed as a companion-piece to 'Inside Llewyn Davis'.

PS: I feel like watching '24 Hour Party People' again on the back of that and these two films would make an excellent double bill.

Rating: 4.5/5

Hyena Road (2015)

Director: Paul Gross
Writer:    Paul Gross
Cast:       Rossif Sutherland, Paul Gross, Clark Johnson

Three different men, three different worlds, three different wars - all stand at the intersection of modern warfare - a murky world of fluid morality where all is not what it seems.

It is a Canadian  film and many of the characters in it are from the Canadian army who was part of the coalition force stationed in Afghanistan as part of 'War on Terror'. It is centered chiefly around a Sniper unit and the director Paul Gross plays the part of a senior officer from intelligence unit whose task is to win hearts and minds of Afghan people. He identifies an elder from a village, who helped the snipers to escape from the Tallies (Taliban) during an operation, as a possible ally for him in that area. He was a legendary Jihadist, who goes by the name of Ghost, in the insurgency against Soviet Union who has now retired. His son has some debt owed to the local militia leader and the coalition wants to use the situation to eliminate the militia leader who is playing both sides. 

I haven't seen 'American Sniper', but from what I have heard, 'Hyena Road' could be classed as thinking man's American Sniper. The Hollywood film was notorious for its simplistic black and white world and jingoism. 'Hyena Road' captures the greyness of the war in a good way and the action set-pieces are done very well. The color tone is similar to that of a TV documentary and some might consider it as a cheap look but it worked for me since it gave the film a level of authenticity. They use real footage of Kandahar city in some of the scenes and when they cut back to the characters, there is is a significant difference and it is obvious that the two places (city and the set) are vastly different. Some of the characters are very cartoonish - the Afghan informer and the main villains for example, but they don't pose enough of a problem to stop you from enjoying the film. Some of the background music in the initial parts of the film is deliberately jingoistic but it is toned down during the latter half of the film as the film becomes more complex. 

Overall, it is a very good watch and the story is sufficiently complex and the action sequences are done very well to satisfy both kinds of audience. There is a romance thread in the film which is kind of predictable in terms of how it is gonna end up as and the suicide bombing kind of scenario at the climax is a little unbelievable in terms of plausibility. Film is recommended for people who hates the shit binary world of films like 'American Sniper' in action films.

Rating: 3.5/5 

You Too Brutus (2015)

Director: Roopesh Peethambaran
Writers:  Sony Chandy, Roopesh Peethambaran, Mathukkutty
Cast:       Asif Ali, Tovino Thomas, Sreenivasan, Honey Rose
Language: Malayalam

Film revolves around the paradoxical elements of love and betrayal which leads to bizarre endings. It features an ensemble cast and is filled with sub-plots. It is largely centered around various characters who share a house together with Sreenivasan's character playing a big-brother role to other younger room-mates.

Film is quite fast-paced in terms of introduction or, to be fair, lack of detailed introduction for its characters. It straight away plunges into various sub-plots without having any basic main-plot to it. It also does take the intelligence of its audience for granted with a very jumpy fashion of story telling in terms of providing a time-line bearing for the viewer. Most of its best laughs are generated based on unexpected reactions from its characters when they feel cheated. Case in point is Asif Ali's wife being very unconcerned when she comes to  know that her husband was unfaithful to her but all hell breaks loose when she finds out that he has been secretly carrying on a smoking habit. Even though it is not constructed as an anthology it quite works out like that and you end up enjoying some of the story-lines and don't care much for rest of them. 

On the whole, it is not quite as good as sum of its parts but is still a very decent watch. There is a tinge of misogyny running throughout the film. On the technical front, it is quite good with some inventive shot making and some peppy BGM accompanying it. The title of the film comes at the intermission point and that was novel and quite good. Roopesh Peethambaran is familiar to Malayalees as the child artist who portrayed Thomas Chacko (Aadu Thoma) in 'Spadikam'. I haven't watched his debut film as director- 'Theevram' and there is enough in YTB to make you want to actually seek that one out to see if it is any good.

PS: Film can be best described as a poor man's 'Trivandrum Lodge'.

Rating: 2.5/5

The Look of Silence (2014)

Director: Joshua Oppenheimer
Language: Indonesian

A family that survived the 1965-66 genocide in Indonesia, where communists were targeted by the military dictatorship, confronts the men who killed one of their brothers.

This one is a companion piece to Joshua Oppenheimer's Oscar nominated documentary 'The Act of Killing', which had him encouraging the perpetrators to describe and re-enact the killings so that he could film it. Many of the killers didn't feel any remorse and, in fact, they were actually proud of the anti-communist purge that they executed with tacit support from the likes of US which was paranoid due to 'Red-Scare'. It is estimated that around 500,000 people were killed and most of them were ethnic-Chinese people. In 'The Look of Silence', Joshua has the brother of one of the victims interview some of the perpetrators and like 'The Act of Killing', it is a surreal and shocking watch. It is cinematic in its structure as well because of the progression in nature of people that he is interviewing. These are the kind of subjects which can never be told in the feature film format: as the old adage goes 'Facts can be stranger than Fiction'. 

The documentary also features, along with all the interviews, reactions of the brother as he is watching some unused footage from 'The Act of Killing'. There is no extra back ground music or narration and the director let the interviews and the intermittent silences tell the story. I suspect this one was filmed before the release of the original documentary because there is no way they would have granted these interviews after that. In fact, some people even accuse that the very act of Joshua making the documentary and asking questions have opened up the old wounds. I would like to see their reactions now after seeing he finished product. I suspect that these documentaries  are banned in Indonesia but I wonder whether any of them have seen it from the Internet. The identity of the interviewing brother is kept secret and I hope he and his family is out of that country for their own safety.

It is a must watch for those who have already seen the first one. For others, I would advise them to watch 'The Act of Killing' first because you won't be able to appreciate the former fully, for what it, if you watch it after seeing 'The Look of Silence' first. TLoS will still work as a stand-alone documentary but I suspect people will wonder from where the original footage came. I don't know how the academy managed to not give TAoK an Oscar last time around and I suspect they will correct that mistake by giving it to 'TLoS' this time.  

Rating: 5/5

Love (2015)

Director: Gasper Noe
Writer:    Gasper Noe
Cast:       Aomi Muyock, Karl Glusman, Klara Kristin

Murphy is an American man living in Paris who enters a highly sexually and emotionally charged relationship with the unstable Electra. Unaware of the effect it will have on their relationship, they invite their pretty neighbor into their bed.

The film made headlines much before its release because of the fact that sex scenes in it were not simulated or choreographed. That and the film was going to be in 3D. So it was sort of a surprise to hear that it was screened at International Film Festival of Kerala, that too twice due to popular demand. I think it is the only film festival in India where you don't need CBFC certification for the international films to be screened. So if you want to see a film in all its glory with a public audience, get a pass to attend IFFK. It was funny to see the audience getting interviewed by TV news channels after the screening and most of them struggled to keep a straight face while saying that the film was very disappointing.   

The other recent film from a mainstream director that depicted un-simulated sex scenes was Michael Winterbottom's '9 Songs'. In that one they were filmed in a very un-sexy way while that is not the intention of Gasper Noe. Murphy in the film is an aspiring filmmaker and he mentions in a conversation that more films should be out there depicting pure romantic sex scenes. There is a lot of Gasper Noe talking through his characters and you get things like love for '2001: A Space Odyssey', a poster of Salo, two characters in it being named Gasper and Noe, etc. Some critics have called out the egocentricity of the project but I thought it was done in good humor. It takes a while to figure out the relationships between the various characters and that is when the film is at its most interesting best. We learn over the course of the film that the pretty neighbor was just a trigger and there was a lot else wrong going on in their relationship. The initial narration sounded to me very much like the one in 'Sin City'. There is a very funny scene where a Police officer explains to Murphy that he needs to let go off the American ownership/proprietary mentality to relationships and be willing to accept openness of French society. After about the half-way mark the film kind of loses its way and descends into an exercise of showing all variety of sex-scenes and to top it all he introduces one involving a transgender person as well. 

To sum up, it is decent enough watch with a much stronger first half than the second. You just don't feel enough for the two characters for the second half to totally work. Both of its leads were making their acting debuts with this film and they did really well. Gasper Noe guarantees stunning imagery and you get that with this film as well, am not necessarily talking about the scenes for which the film is famous for. Erik Satie's 'Gnoissienne' is featured heavily as BGM and that is always a good thing. The only other film that I have seen of Noe has been 'Enter the Void'. Love is a much more straight forward film than that.

Rating: 3/5  

Monsoon Mangoes (2016)

Director: Abi Varghese
Writers:  Naveen Bhaskar, Matt Grubb, Abi Varghese
Cast:       Fahadh Faasil, Vijay Raaz, Vinay Forrt
Language: Malayalam

D. P. Pallickal (Fahadh) is an amateur filmmaker and the family  black sheep. He has great passion for film making but lacks talent. When he gets fired from his job, he decides to give it a good go at making a feature length film and casts a forgotten-yesteryear-hero from Bollywood as the lead. The film within the film is about an old man and his struggles with fate.

Abi Varghese is known to Malayalees as the maker of TV comedy series- 'Akkara Kazchakal', which is sort of a cult classic. Most of its cast have got their breaks in Malayalam cinema since then and it seems Abi Varghese is late to the party. They also did a movie version of the series but I think it got released only in US and not in Kerala. Anyway, I have not seen it. The trailer of Monsoon Mangoes was very well received here and it wore its Wes Anderson influence proudly on its sleeve. Considering that, I was kind of taken aback by the fairly low-key way in which it was released. In my hometown, it is playing in a B-Grade theater with just 3-shows a day. Since the screen of that is fairly poor, I traveled to the neighboring town in order to catch it in a good quality screen that will do justice to the exquisite way it is filmed, as suggested by the trailer.

It is a beautiful watch with some nice comedy and a philosophical ending. I thought it was just a good enough film as it meandered towards its conclusion but the last ten minutes of it just took my breath away as everything just clicked when Vijay Raaz's character delivers the following lines in Hindi:

"There are three types of people in this world. The first variety thinks life is all about holding a steady job with a steady family and adhering to the rules of the society. Second variety thinks there is more to life and takes risks and leaves out a body of work behind for which they are fondly remembered for after their death. The last, the third kind, thinks like the second bunch and sets out to do it but don't have the talent to succeed. We are the third kind"

It is true for many of us and those lines are followed up with another one which says that 'Cinema is not more important than life'. It really hit it home for me and what preceded looks utterly brilliant when you interpret it along those lines. This film is so fucking meta with regards to the film within the film and the film itself. I was kind of gob-smacked when it was delivered in Hindi without subtitles because many of the Malayalee audience wouldn't be able to understand it and it seemed so pivotal to the whole film. Those lines are again delivered in Malayalam as the film concludes. It is another matter that most of the audience wouldn't be able to connect the dots anyay. The screening that I attended had significant number of walkouts in the first half of the film itself. 

Coming back to the way it is filmed, it is set in New-Orleans and the style is heavily Wes Andersonish- in framing as well as character settings. The film doesn't declare the time period it is set in and is deliberately anachronistic. DP got his script in a floppy disk, uses what looks like very old computers in his office and the TVs in it looks like they are from the 80s. When he is shown repairing a computer, the OS is shown as Windows 95 while at the same time he declares that the computer is very old. He uses a very old car, as shown in the poster, but some of the other cars in the film looks very modern. You also got the cameraman of his film stating that he wants a digital camera instead of the 60 mm film one that they are using. The film that DP is making is very pseudo intellectual and also features a scene where its protagonist is playing chess with the God/Devil ('The Seventh Seal' reference there). One could also say the same for Abhi Varghese as well since the film is also going in a light-hearted but predictable and flimsy manner under all its veneer. That is why it ends up as very meta and truly brilliant when the last sequence is delivered. 

The comedy in it works very well and is not delivered in the 'Look, how clever I am' fashion. It also doesn't linger to make sure that the audience really got it. There are plenty of things in the background as well- an adult film poster with the title 'Auntie's Assets', a poster which shows the tagline of the toilet company that DP is working for as 'We're #1 in the #2 business', etc. The second half of the film kind of meanders through and you really long for a brilliant ending for it to work and the film certainly delivers that on a philosophical front. Performances from the ensemble cast is great and the production quality is very high. Great to see Fahadh back to his usual best and Vijay Raaz is also brilliant. There is a very subtle reference to Vinay Forrt's simple dialog from 'Premam' as well.

PS: I usually whinge about the fact that unconventional but good films like 'Double Barrel' , 'Aadu' and 'Munnariyippu' are not doing spectacularly well at Kerala Box Office. I won't do it for Monsoon Mangoes because if it succeeds at the box office, that will ruin its philosophical ending in a sick twisted manner. It is as if the director was foretelling the commercial fate of his film though his character.

Rating: 4.5/5 

Black Mass (2015)

Director: Scott Cooper
Writers:  Mark Mallouk, Jez Butterworth, Dick Lehr, Gerard O'Neill
Cast:      Johnny Depp, Benedict Cumberbatch, Joel Edgerton, Kevin Bacon, Rory Cochrane

The true story of Whitey Bulger, the brother of a state senator and the most infamous violent criminal in the history of South Boston, who became an FBI informant to take down an Italian Mafia family invading his turf.

Jack Nicholson's character in 'The Departed' was loosely based on Bulger and it was as if Scorsese decided to add another layer to an already excellent 'Infernal Affairs', the original Hong Kong film, from which it was adapted. I found the result to be quite half-baked with it doesn't making much sense in the end when it is revealed as a twist that Jack Nicholson was an FBI informant. Black Mass is the definitive Whitey Bulger film but it is largely told from the perspective of Joel Edgerton's FBI agent character. He is the character that audience could relate to and is someone who grew up in South Boston with Whitey and his gang and feels a loyalty towards him. He helps in setting up a deal for Whitey to become an FBI informant and while all others spill the beans on Whitey when they get arrested in the end, he was the only one to not take the plea bargain, again out of some misplaced loyalty I guess. 

What I have heard about the film prior to watching it was that it is a great performance from Depp but the film will leave you totally cold. I think it is intentional from their part and from that point of view it is a unique film in the gangster genre. I always had minor gripes with the way Scorsese films like Goodfellas and Casino glamorize the lives of its protagonists to the point of unbelievability. Donnie Brasco, another one which starred Johnny Depp, was also done in a low-key manner as well with a great performance from Al Pacino. The only negative about that film was Depp's very obviously fake mustache. He is an actor who seemed to have gone totally fell out of love with his profession with him choosing to star in shits like Pirates of the Caribbean and too many Tim Burton films after the 90s. So it was very refreshing to see him back in a role that is demanding and it is a great turn from him. At no point does the makers want you to root for his character and they don't try to give any justifying motives for the way he thinks and acts. It is quite a cold psychopathic portrayal. 

The film is most interesting from the perspective of FBI who got into a clusterfuck because of their dealings with Bulger, who saw their alliance as a business opportunity. He expanded his operations by playing FBI and it was a big scandal when Boston Global revealed the information to the public finally. Overall, I felt the film was a great watch with a very strong second half. Some of the scenes in the latter half with Whitey at his psychopathic best are just outstanding. The film flew quite under the radar and received mixed response from the critics. I think they will see it much more favorably in future. Depp really deserved a nomination for his portrayal which was much better than what the trailers would suggest.

PS: The tone of the film is pretty much similar to Mystic River, which was also set in Boston. Latter one is something that I didn't like very much and thinks is very much overrated.

Rating: 4/5