Posts Tagged ‘court’

Chaitanya Tamhane’s ‘Court’ Is India’s Entry For The Foreign Language Oscar

Posted: September 23, 2015 by moifightclub in cinema, Indie, News
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Court

Finally, the Film Federation Of India Jury has made a choice that most people will agree with. The FFI has been getting lot of criticism in the last few years for their weird choices. When it comes to picking films for Oscar, it’s not only about the best film, but also about the right film – one which has made international noise, got some awards, got rave reviews, local subject with global appeal (glo-cal), and little bit of desi exotica that white Academy members can watch and get. And Chaitanya Tamhane’s debut feature Court ticks all the right boxes.

Court premiered at Venice Film Festival where it picked up two important awards, a rare achievement for a desi film/filmmaker. The film went to complete a dream festival run and also picked up the top prize at Mumbai Film Festival.

The film was picked up by 16 member jury of FFI which was headed by Amol Palekar. The other films which were in running included Masaan, PK, Haider, Kaakaa Muttai, Haider.

The kind of spotlight an Oscar win brings, in the last few years, this section has become the toughest one with some of the best films from across the world. 53 films have been officially entered in this year’s foreign-language Oscar race so far. The number is expected to go 80 plus. The first shortlist will be out in January next year.

All the best to Chaitanya Tamhane and his ‘Court’ team!

 

Court : On Celluloid and otherwise

Posted: April 24, 2015 by moifightclub in cinema, Indie
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This post is by Mohamed Thaver, who has covered the Sessions Court proceedings for Hindustan Times for over a year. As he watched Chaitanya Tamhane’s Court, he could not stop himself from making some Court-notes. Blame it on good ol’ journalism.

Thaver is a former journo who still finds it difficult to keep his nose out of crime, movies and book. Over to him now.

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It is easier to hate people if you do not see them in human form. Especially, if, with the help of stock phrases, you just have to reduce them to pre-moulded narratives. After moving to report on the Mumbai Sessions court from crime reporting, the first thing that hit me was the absolutely direct access to the accused. While though initially it gave me a kick, seeing all these accused about whom I had been writing, soon I realized it was a tricky position to be in. To see these ‘demons’ in human forms was a bit inconvenient.

Seeing them in full view of the pathetic condition, their wives-mothers squatting at one end of the courtroom, missing a much needed day’s salary on most occasions; trying to understand first the English and next the legal jargon from the expressions of the judge and the lawyers. One had to be heartless to not feel for them. The irony of women reporters telling a rape accused that he had ink smudged on his face and giving him a tissue to wipe it with was never lost on me.

I almost felt possessive about the domain that debutant director Chaitanya Tamhane’s court deals with. The other day I saw a former colleague covering sessions court say ‘Finally a movie about us’ on a social media platform. Court’s have always aroused curiosity, as it is on most occasions wrongly construed to be a place of high drama. However, the exclusive access to this beat, sometimes encouraged us to keep the myth going, as we would regale our colleagues and friends with stories from the court. I remember during the final stages of the Shakti Mills trail, several colleagues of mine reporting on other beats, had come to the court to ‘just see’.

Had I seen Court, as against other bollywood movies before I started covering the Mumbai sessions court, I would have been more at ease making the transition into the world of the black coats. Like the act of the Judge, repeating the just concluded arguments of the two lawyers for the stenographer to put in on record bizzarely worked as comic relief when it was screened at the MAMI film festival, so was it a bit amusing in my head when I first entered a courtroom in 2013. As days passed by, I realized how different the actual courts were as compared to their sexed up versions dished out in movies after movies. The heart at the most courtroom movies: drama, is reserved for handful of days in the court; mostly on the days the verdict is pronounced.  On most days, the court is like it is in Tamhane’s movie, slow, dreary, confused, boisterous and more than anything a distant soporific hum that continues with robotic monotony.

Such is the monotony, that in the nearly yearlong period that I was reporting on sessions court, I found a familiar cycle in most cases. Most cases began with the accused and family members initially trying to understand every word that their lawyers and judges were saying. However, with the innumerable repetitions of sometimes the same set of facts looked at differently from both sides, slowly but steadily their helplessness induced determination is hacked down by the sheer lifelessness of the trial till they go on auto pilot. They ultimately emerge during the crescendo of final arguments and wait for bated breath for the day of judgement.

To explain how taxing the process is in words itself,  the initial stage of the trial, framing of charges, is when the police produces a chargesheet in the court that carries the sections under which a person is to be tried in addition to a detailed account of the crime and the evidence against the accused. This is the point in court, when Vinay Vore (Vivek Gomber) argues before the judge that section 306 (abetment to suicide) of the Indian Penal Code  slapped against his client, the folk singer Narayan Kamble (Vira Sathidar) should not be applicable as there was no intention on his part to provoke people to commit suicide. Kamble is arrested after a sewerage worker’s body is found in a manhole. The police allege that Kamble’s ‘inflammatory’ poem ‘exhorting’ sewage workers to commit suicide outside the sewerage worker’s residence, led him to commit suicide two days later.

And since abetment to suicide it is the only charge his client is booked under, Vora asks for his client to be discharged from the case. Like in most court cases, the judge decides to go ahead with the trial and leaving the decision of whether the charge is applicable for a later starge after going through the evidence. What I found is that this stage would tend to get technical as lawyers quibble primarily on technical law points.

Then we come to that part of a trial, which, in movies, is normally seen as the be-all and end-all of all courtroom dramas. The public prosecutor (who represents the state) calls forth witness and then examines them, trying to extract information that can be used as evidence against the accused. Once the prosecutor finishes with his examination, the defence lawyer starts a cross examination or cross- as called in legal lingo – of the witness. Of the few technical glitches that I could spot in the movie as far as court room procedures were concerned, was the one in which the first police witness was not cross examined by Vora.

After the prosecution witness are examined and cross-examined, the trial them moves to 313 – in court lingo – which refers to the recording of the statement of the accused as ordained by section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. While, it seems like an interesting phase, what it is, is, just a rough question – answer format document that the judge reads out before the accused, to which he has to reply in a yes or a no. This stage, in my humble opinion, which has not been shown in the movie, could have been exploited to get us a sneak peek into the mind of Kamble, who gives the impression of a person who has so much to say but has decided to turn his back to the world.

After the final arguments of the two lawyers are over, the judge will then allot a date for pronouncing of judgement. Like any god fearing person I thought that the ‘day of judgement’ was final. But the wheels of judiciary run a tad slower than organized religion. Because while on the day of judgement, the court may pronounce the guilty- not-guilty judgement, the quantum of sentence is still remaining. After the judgement, both sides argue about the quantum of sentence – which in the Shakti Mills gangrape case – stretched for  days on end – before the judge on most cases sets another date for the quantum of sentence.

On this date finally, when the judge pronounces the quantum of sentence, you approach the family of the accused – now either a convict or a free man– and one of them will tell you that they will approach the High court and failing which the Supreme court. The cogs of the machinery keep rolling. During the last few scenes of the movie, Vora pays Rs 1,00,000 as bail amount for Kamble. When Kamble – who earns a living by giving tuitions – questions Vora in the hospital about why he paid such a big amount, Vora’s who is also representing him in another case slapped against him by the police, replies, “Now you have just got bail. You case will go on for years. You can repay me the money by then.”

– Mohamed Thaver

 

Made With Paper, ‘Court’ Is Better Than Most Paper Mache

Posted: April 24, 2015 by moifightclub in cinema, Indie, movie reviews, reviews
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This post is by Salik Shah, whose twitter bio says his location is Milky Way, and he is addicted to speculative fiction. Once in a while, when he remembers us or finds a film worth talking about, he sends us his cinema notes. Over to him.

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The story about struggle behind the making of a film shouldn’t be criteria for judging a film. The act of borrowings, bold decisions and compromises made can’t be more important than the film.  When a film reaches the theater, or the screen, it stands on its own feet. There is no director to defend it. No producer to sell it. No critic to lead. The decision is tough—whether we like it or not. Our choices reveal more about us than the film.

Let’s take two very different films for comparison, The Drop (Dir. Michaël R. Roskam, 2014) and Court (Dir. Chaintanya Tamhane, 2015)—both set around a fixed point—to see the differences between the choices made by a master screenwriter and a promising debutant.

The bar in The Drop and the court in Court have one thing in common: they don’t move. Written by an American, Dennis Lehane, and adapted to the screen by a European director, The Drop is a striking film set in an American neighborhood. Nothing happens in The Drop—nothing extraordinary—until the beginning of the end, or an end. The Drop ends at one point, and then starts again. Same with Court, like MFC said. Tamhane pushes the violence off the screen. Lehane embraces it. Tamhane denies a verdict. Lehane delivers justice.

Storytellers have to make tough choices—and those choices make or break them. Tamhane’s earlier effort, Six Strands (2011), is mesmerizing minus the political comment. Forerunner (Dir. Sahej Rahal, 2013) is clever and intriguing, also equally political and confident. But it is Pati (Dir. Sohrab Hura, 2011) which emerges as the winner among the three with its stark realism. Pati reminds one of Satyajit Ray’s early films—though it isn’t supposed to be a film.

Court is made with paper, but the script is not the film. Pati’s strength comes from the camera, which isn’t afraid to move when the need arises. Kamble embodies anger, movement and restlessness, but the still camera doesn’t quite capture his free spirit. Court doesn’t let Nutan’s kitchen speak for itself. It chooses noise over silence during the train journey, which could have been a memorable and powerful scene. Pati sings, Court stings.

Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar (Dir. Jabbar Patel, 1999) is a Bollywood film—but manages to offer nuanced characters and scenes. Though I struggled to get past my bias against the style of the film in the beginning, I was really interested in the subject. When the style became unimportant, the story took over my senses. Towards the end of Ambedkar, the struggle is lost but the spirit remains.

Court doesn’t offer such comfort. It refuses to be subjective. It is a balanced work, and therein lies its flaw. It is fair to everyone, but unfair to itself. Jai Bhim Comrade (Dir. Anand Patwardhan, 2011) from where Court borrows its strength isn’t such a sleek and sanitized film. Patwardhan isn’t easy to watch not just because of the controversial subjects of his documentaries, but also for his low-production value, unplanned, haphazard shots and unprofessional cutting by our ‘high’ standard.

Anand Patwardhan tells the truth, and he shows that it can be really ugly, quite literally. He has a signature that doesn’t need introduction in the history of Indian filmmaking. And he isn’t afraid to go the court to fight censorship and secure release of his films. We can label Patwardhan as an activist filmmaker, but Anurag Kashyap (Gulaal), Vishal Bhardwaj (Haider) and Imitiaz Ali (Highway) are also activists in their own fashion and target audience.

Subjectivity comes with the position of power—internal and external—and Court was wise to recognize that it didn’t have such power early on. Court tempered the anger, harshness and spirit of Jai Bhim Comrade to reach out to a wider audience (who might actually commit suicide if made to watch a Patwardhan). Its strategy worked, but our cinema lost. Again.

“In the last few years, [I] have discovered that there is nothing bigger than a filmmaker’s ego. And [I] would surely worship that ego the day I get to know that a film is cure for AIDS or some serious disease like that. Till then, it’s just a film, a fucking film…

Does it deliver anything new? A new cinematic language? A new/hidden India that we weren’t aware of? A new art? A new craft? The answer is no. It’s a new voice that’s assured, makes brave choices but is still following the diktats set by the Top 5-fest-selection-committee.  It felt like what an European art-house director would do if he is asked to direct the film. Even when the lights are switched off one by one in the Court, you knew at that moment that the film won’t be over there. He would go back to the mundane life of one of the characters. And he exactly did that – its predictable in that way, you know whom the film is trying to please.”

—MFC  

The above criticism is harsh, but necessary. It is true that a film can’t be a cure to physical diseases, but it can be a balm to spiritual calamities.  It can save marriages and prevent suicides. It can give hope to those who need it desperately. It can also make life bearable and worthwhile. It can help people to grow beautiful from within. It can also lead one astray, sow guilt, and kill. It could be a world event promoting science, or a political tool to ensue genocide. It can be extraordinarily mundane, or remain just a film, a fucking film. Should it be pathbreaking or formulaic? The choice is ours and ours alone to make.

Dear Bollywoodwallas, the good news is: the most famous scene from the court of Indian cinema is yet to be convicted. The bad news is: the world has changed. Chaintanya Tamhane is a confident voice of our changing times, and Court is better than most of our paper mache. Vivek Gomber, you’re the quiet hero we need. (Though I must confess that 12 Angry Men (Dir. Sidney Lumet, 1957) is still my favorite court film.)

In memory of Bollywood, and to good times ahead:

– Salik Shah

(Pic Courtesy – Court’s FB page)

Court : Chaitanya Tamhane is the cinema snob who delivered. But…

Posted: April 19, 2015 by moifightclub in cinema, film review, Indie, Movie Recco, movie reviews, reviews
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I was in two minds about writing this post. Knowing how it goes, how it is received, and how it ends up with any criticism here, it feels futile and exhausting after a point. Mainstream or indies, the tactic remains the same – a new nomenclature, a new way of shaming, a new email, a new threat, or just a new guilt of killing-my-baby. Knowing too many people from both sides, i always get to know what’s coming, how and when. In the last few years, i have discovered that there is nothing bigger than a filmmaker’s ego. And i would surely worship that ego the day I get to know that a film is cure for AIDS or some serious disease like that. Till then, it’s just a film, a fucking film. And since the love for being a vacuous versovian overrules everything, you wonder if you should pick that weary self again, and do it once more, pick one more fight, for old times sake.

As far as films are concerned, I don’t know anyone who is so difficult to please. He never used to like anything. And I mean ANYTHING. Not a single damn film. That used to be our running joke. Maybe a Kusturica on a good day. He was the cinema snob. At least he used to be one few years ago when we used to have interaction. For his young age, he had seen lot of films from across the world.

During a late night cycle-wala-kaafi, once he was discussing whether he should assist any director and start his career as an AD. And then the bigger question came – which director? For him, no one was worthy enough to assist, and there’s not really enough to learn from them. After much deliberation, he came to the conclusion that in the last few years, he has liked just one Hindi film. Maybe he is the only director he can try, but still he wasn’t sure looking at his other films.

So we would always wonder what kind of films would Chaitanya Tamhane make since he doesn’t like (almost) anything – big, small, cult, legends. And I am happy to say that he is the snob who delivered. ‘Court’ shows confidence and bravery. With no film school or AD-ing anyone, CT went ahead by himself. So much international acclaim and national award for your first film, it’s a stupendous achievement and a dream debut. A big, big Congrats!

But if it wasn’t Chaitanya, maybe i would have been happy with this much. Since it’s CT at the helm of affairs, i expected more, much more. And so I am having second thoughts on it – does it deliver anything new? A new cinematic language? A new/hidden India that we weren’t aware of? A new art? A new craft? The answer is no. It’s a new voice that’s assured, makes brave choices but is still following the diktats set by the Top 5-fest-selection-committee.  It felt like what an European art-house director would do if he is asked to direct the film. Even when the lights are switched off one by one in the Court, you knew at that moment that the film won’t be over there. He would go back to the mundane life of one of the characters. And he exactly did that – its predictable in that way, you know whom the film is trying to please. And my fear is coming from that corner. Not specific to Court, but it gives a starting point to ponder over. I see a new generation of filmmakers who have grown up on world cinema culture – from dvd-wallahs to torrents, easy access changed the rules. And so before they get behind the camera, they know what the Cannes-to-Tribeca likes. You know the norms well, breaking away from the desi formula has sadly become another world-cinema-loved-by-fests formula in itself – take Non-actors, take long takes, unnecessarily stay back and hold the shot even when action is over, use no background music, say ok only on 897654897th take of the shots, show no emotional hook, cut it dry, nobody can cry their heart out, keyword is subtle, and other such routine stuff. It’s the Dogme 2015. And when you can see through the formula applied to achieve the desired result, you know where it’s heading. Not saying that all that is easy or not organic, but the calculative means to target in a specific way and to please a few has started worrying me.

I fear a day will come soon when if a character dies in our film, other characters will come in black suits, and would read eulogies. All formal. Nobody will cry their heart out, no wailing, no rudaalis. Because Remember, subtle! Remember, drama is bad. Remember, melodrama is NEVER. Even though that’s what we would do in real life. Death in our society has nothing formal about it. But we would go that suit-and-eulogy route because that’s the accepted norm by the west, by the film fests whose endorsement we crave for. If being feted by them because you are passing the exams on their terms and conditions, we are surely moving away from what was ours. And it reminds me of this incident which I keep quoting. I was in school then. There was a death in the family. My Granny started wailing, she came out, sat on the elevated platform just outside the door, and continued to do so. Neighbors joined in. And i was feeling so embarrassed. How can she do it?  Why is she crying like that? Can’t she do it more formally? It reminds me that we are in similar scenario – we are embarrassed to show our true colours. We are decorating our stories in the colours they like. Even if a woman is dealing with her dead husband, she remains calm and quiet. Felt bit strange. So give me ‘Fandry’ any day.

Nobody confronts the raw emotions of “Dada, aami banchbo” of Ritwik Ghatak’s ‘Meghe Dhaka Tara’ anymore. It’s so loud, they new-gen cringe at it, how can you have it? Song and dance are strictly no-no even when we really learn and choreograph steps at many occasions in our life and culture. Why? Because another diktat of the west-fest. If their cinema reflects their stories and culture, why our cinema can’t do the same? And am not talking about mainstream Bollywood here. That’s on different tangent. That’s why i like what a Bhardwaj, Kashyap and Ratnam does with their songs. Or what a Q tries in Tasher Desh.

I believe this was long due. Our cinema getting noticed at the top five film fests of the world. But can we push our envelopes now – our stories in a new cinematic voice? One that doesn’t follow the fest-diktats. Hopefully the new gen kids will lose the fear of rejection by west. A ‘Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi’ or a ‘Vihir’ didn’t really crack the top fest code but they remain an all time favourite. And who doesn’t love those voices when they break the fest-diktats at the biggest fests, be it as fluff and pop as QT’s.

(PS – FOR THOSE WHO THOUGHT WE HAVEN’T WRITTEN ENOUGH ABOUT THE MERITS OF “COURT”, CLICK HERE, and HERE. In Caps, because many seems to be going blind while reading this page)

Chaitanya Tamhane’s ‘Court’ to release on April 17th. New trailer/poster out

Posted: March 25, 2015 by moifightclub in cinema, first look, Indie, News, Poster, Trailer
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Here’s the good new for film buffs. If you missed Chaitanya Tamhane’s much acclaimed debut feature, Court, at Mumbai Film Festival, you can catch it in theatres now. The film is all set to release on April 17th, 2015.

A new terrific trailer of the film is out too. Have a look.

It’s been doing the fest rounds for quite some time and bagged some of the international prestigious awards at Venice and other fests. At the recently announced National Awards, the film has been adjudged the Best Feature Film. For a debut feature filmmaker, this is a dream run and it can’t get better than this.

Cast & Crew

Cast: Vira Sathidar, Vivek Gomber, Geetanjali Kulkarni, Pradeep Joshi, Usha Bane
Directed by: Chaitanya Tamhane
Produced by: Zoo Entertainment
World Sales: Memento Film International – Artscope

Official Synopsis:

A sewerage worker’s dead body is found inside a manhole in Mumbai. An ageing folk singer is tried in court on charges of abetment of suicide. He is accused of performing an inflammatory song which might have incited the worker to commit the act. As the trial unfolds, the personal lives of the lawyers and the judge involved in the case are observed outside the court.

First Look : Chaitanya Tamhane’s ‘Court’ gets a trailer

Posted: January 2, 2015 by moifightclub in cast & crew, cinema, first look, Indie, Story / Plot / Synopsis, Trailer
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Finally. Chaitanya Tamhane’s much acclaimed debut film, Court, has finally got a trailer. If you are regular reader of the blog, you must be knowing that some of us managed to catch the film at Mumbai Film Festival and we really liked it. An assured debut, with no frills, and a vision without any compromise. No wonder it’s still doing the fests round. And much like the film, the trailer also maintains the minimalist approach – in tone and even in its font. Have a look.

Cast & Crew

Cast: Vira Sathidar, Vivek Gomber, Geetanjali Kulkarni, Pradeep Joshi, Usha Bane
Directed by: Chaitanya Tamhane
Produced by: Zoo Entertainment
World Sales: Memento Film International – Artscope

Official Synopsis:

A sewerage worker’s dead body is found inside a manhole in Mumbai. An ageing folk singer is tried in court on charges of abetment of suicide. He is accused of performing an inflammatory song which might have incited the worker to commit the act. As the trial unfolds, the personal lives of the lawyers and the judge involved in the case are observed outside the court.

2014 REWIND – 18 Film Fanatics on 19 Terrific Films That Stayed With Them

Posted: December 29, 2014 by moifightclub in cinema, film, Movie Recco, movie reviews, Must Watch, rewind, World Cinema, Year end special
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The brief was the same this year. A mail was sent to the usual cinema comrades who write, contribute, and help in running this blog. Pick a film (released/unreleased/long/short/docu/anything) that stood out and has stayed with you, whatever is the reason. Since the idea was that we cover maximum films, so no two people were allowed to write on the same film. And nobody was told who was writing on which film. So here is the final list:

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shripriya mahesh on Love Is Strange

Love Is Strange is a quiet, contemplative, almost observational movie that follows two older gay men, Ben (John Lithgow) and George (Alfred Molina). After finally getting married, they are then forced to live apart when George loses his job. We follow their separate lives as they adjust to not being together and to imposing on those who host them. The awkwardness of small talk with family he doesn’t know well, the feeling of constantly being underfoot, the profound sadness at being separated from someone he’s spent his life with are all portrayed exquisitely by John Lithgow. The loneliness and dependency of old age are captured so perfectly that months after seeing the movie, I find myself thinking about Lithgow sitting alone in the kitchen or painting on the roof. The little moments stay with you and make this a special, intimate film.

shubhodeep pal on Drevo (The Tree)

I wrote about the Slovenian film Drevo (The Tree) almost three months ago when I watched it at the Mumbai Film Festival. A month later, by a curious turn of fate, I found myself in Slovenia. At the main train station in Ljubljana — where trains themselves look like art installations — I chanced upon exactly what I was looking for: a poster of Drevo, in its homeland. In Ljubljana, which has forever embedded itself as a colour in my memory — grey — I explored the scantily populated streets in the early hours of the morning and thought about Drevo, a film that has refused to leave me since I saw it first. Juxtaposed with the chilling backdrop of the movie — about a peculiar sort of honour killing in the Balkans — the Slovenia I saw felt harmless, almost inert. But this curious contradiction left me with two realisations: first, the power of imagination, which transcends reality despite all odds, lends colour to the most drab surroundings — as indeed it does to the child trapped inside his house, going endlessly around the courtyard on his bicycle, and imagining the world outside, out of his reach seemingly for ever. Second, the nature of reality itself is twisted: accidents become murders; a place of beauty houses ugliness; seemingly innocuous places house terrors. The films I watch inevitably take on a life of their own, outside the screen, moving me in inexplicable ways. For Drevo, this has never been truer.

shazia iqbal on Boyhood

After a dramatic scene where the mother (played by Patricia Arquette) walks out on her abusive alcoholic second husband, she tries to pacify her daughter’s tantrums and breaks down, we see a poster outside her son, Mason’s new classroom that says ‘You are responsible for your own actions’. Richard Linklater is the most remarkable filmmaker of our times who has cracked certain philosophical conundrums of life like most of the humanity hasn’t and makes stories to make sense of the same.

In a family where children are treated as adults, the boy (Ellar Coltrane) in Boyhood silently observes the intimate ‘in-betweens’ of life, post his parent’s separation, where the only constant is changing families, friends and houses. Linklater’s response is not anger, aggression and rebelling, typical of a quintessential coming-of-age story. He almost seems unaffected, unsure by wherever life puts him, and reasons it with confused curiosity only to conclude that growing old doesn’t mean having all the answers. Even during the most disturbing moments, the drama happens in a character’s head than outside of them. Which is why Boyhood, devoid of all sentimentality and melodrama is a path-breaking reflective piece of cinema, and to paraphrase the final line in the movie, it seizes you in its various moments. These moments stay with us accompanied by a daunting silence specially at the point where the mother breaks down saying ‘I just thought there would be more…’, which becomes the culmination of our collective expectations from life.

mihir fadnavis on Cheap Thrills

What if you found a guy in a bar who offers you ridiculous amounts of money to indulge in the most bizarre challenges? How far towards depravity would you go when the chips are down? Do you really care about right and wrong when defecating in your neighbors house gives you one thousand dollars? Debutant director EL Katz’s answers all your sickening queries in Cheap Thrills, a pitch black, hilarious, and audacious horror comedy that transcends the torture porn genre. As the crackpot version of Who Dares Wins unfolds on the screen Katz offers you a huge dose of guilty pleasure, and surprisingly, an even larger helping of social commentary, which sends over Cheap Thrills to this particular ‘best of 2014’ movie list. Katz also happened to direct the best segment of The ABCs of Death– couple that with Cheap Thrills and you’ve got a very interesting young filmmaker on your radar.

rahul desai on Mommy

Forget that director Xavier Dolan is 25 years old. Forget that this is his fifth full-length feature film. Forget that he is known as L’enfant Terrible in Quebec–where he has grown up, and perhaps the town that has made his films such throbbing, breathing, evocative chunks of heart.

Mommy is his finest; a wretched, energetic snapshot of time. It is about a single mother struggling to bring up her ADHD-afflicted 15-year old son, with the help of an enigmatic, stuttering woman next door. Somehow, somewhere, this is a rousing film; brutally honest escapism, grounded and battered into frames of all-consuming chaos.

Three souls combine to give us something more than just mere performances; they blend into their surroundings and suck us into their vortex of desperate love. None of them are quite in sync with society. They’re not ideal mothers, sons and neighbours. They’re misfits, but unapologetic and glorious. So uncomfortable, yet beautiful to watch. The cheesy pop collection chosen as an audacious score surprises with intent, and album-izes their lives in phases.The result of messing around with something as taken-for-granted as a screen aspect-ratio is not always pleasant, but Dolan gives us the cinematic moment of the year when it happens.

Mommy is best symbolized by this fervid Ludovico Einaudi piece, which incidentally amounts to the most exhilarating time-lapse imagery captured on film. Not because of how it looks or sounds, but because of where it appears, and because of where we hope it will take us.
Because it gives us light, and messes with our jittery minds, and because we don’t want to discover what happens next.

varun grover on The Wind Rises

Didn’t see many films this year and I can feel the emptiness in my heart. Among the ones I saw Dedh Ishqiya, Haider, Abhay Kumar’s docu Placebo (due in 2015), Avinash Arun’s Killa (due in 2015), and Nisha Pahuja’s The World Before Her were the most powerful and delightful. But the film that churned the cold corners of my existence and turned them into soft, frothy Malaiyyo was Boss Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises. An animated feature unlike any other I’ve seen (quite unlike earlier Miyazaki films too) – a period love story in the backdrop of early days of aviation industry in Japan. I can watch it again just for the stunning colors of sky in various frames, and once again just for the various sources of light shown and used. And then there is this flight of crazy fancy by Miyazaki in his last film. The film has the feel of a farewell letter – lots of meta references to Miyazaki’s own career and ambitions – and that makes it all the more poignant. Magical, and I mean it when I use the word, in every sense.

manish gaekwad on Under The Skin

The other night, watching Under The Skin, I was reminded of what Kiarostami had once said about the kinds of films he likes watching. “I prefer the films that put their audience to sleep in the theater. I think those films are kind enough to allow you a nice nap and not leave you disturbed when you leave the theater. Some films have made me doze off in the theater, but the same films have made me stay up at night, wake up thinking about them in the morning, and keep on thinking about them for weeks.” A little bit of that rubbed on us when i watched the film with a few friends.

Our senses were so dulled by what was happening in the film, that between switching it off, to leaning forward and peering at the screen, only sleep could have rescued us. But we kept staring, unblinking, intrigued by the mysterious nature of the film, discussing if this was any different than Veerana, where a pale white woman, lures men into her lair. IMDB pretty much sums it as, ‘A demonic woman uses her seductive charm to prey on unsuspecting men,’ and this could be said for Under The Skin.

While Veerana was obviously titillating giallo, Under The Skin is simply hypnotic; from the striking images to the creepy Ramsay upgrade background score. That divide between what is crass, and what is art comes here, when days after viewing, the images and sounds of UTS recur and crawl under my skin. What separates these two films is also what unites them in memory – if it is unforgettably etched, difficult to erase, then that’s what Kiarostami is getting at. Oh and he also made a film where all the action is inside a car with a woman driver talking to various people, quite like Scar Jo in Under The Skin. Ah, almost.

kushan nandy on Interstellar

Writing about a Nolan film is monumental. What can you write about a film directed by a man who is the greatest illusionist of all? The Alfred Borden of Cinema.

The standout moment of the film is when Cooper watches his teenage daughter suddenly turn as old as him. Stationed in the darkness of a spaceship, millions of miles away, he watches time slip out.

I felt like Cooper, sitting in the darkness of the theatre, watching time slip out. Remembering
the moments of life I skipped in an attempt to survive life itself. I wanted to savour and appreciate the remaining moments of life just like Cooper did.

It made me pause. It took me beyond Cinema.

Kubrick must be watching from up there. Proud.

sukanya verma on Aankhon Dekhi

When a 50-something family man of limited means and unfinished responsibilities decides to go the distance between method and madness, real and surreal, thought and practicality, there will be repercussions. To question the natural order of things, to argue, to protest is one thing but to make it a way of life is another.

Rarely does a Hindi film probe into its protagonist’s soul as nimbly as Rajat Kapoor’s brilliant Ankhon Dekhi. Told with tremendous thought and texture, Ankhon Dekhi’s parable-like profundity unfolds through Bauji’s unique metamorphosis (conveyed in Sanjay Mishra’s extraordinarily perceptive performance) following his resolve to believe only what he sees or experiences.

If one aspect of Ankhon Dekhi’s episodic narrative is concerned with the different stages of his idiosyncratic obsession and its impact on his big family, the other draws us into the authentic sights and sounds of his hectic, populated space in Old Delhi– rickety roofs, yellowed walls, poor plumbing, crumpled sheets as well as the multihued personalities of his claustrophobic neighbourhood among whom he eventually garners a spontaneous, unsought following.

Where many would solely focus on his quirk to generate ridicule and humour, Kapoor, even when proffering moments of ingenious wit (“Male menopause”) treats him with fascination and fragility. Bauji’s existential crisis may cause embarrassment to his supportive wife, darling daughter and reserved younger brother but he’s much too well meaning and mild-mannered to take offence. Even if they don’t understand his motivations, they never cease to care.

Absorbing, whimsical, intimate, awe-inspiring and evocative, Ankhon Dekhi doesn’t make claims of knowing better but faithfully documents a determined individual’s journey to seek answers unmindful of what the world dubs him– fool or fearless.

karan anshuman on Pride

Pride may not be the best film I’ve seen this year (that’d probably go to Tamhane’s Court) but it’s definitely the best formula (commercial? mainstream? sellout?) film I’ve seen all year. Having entered the Bollywood fray, these days I’ve newfound respect and appreciation for films that pull off the balancing act with grace.

Pride’s remarkable, still-relevant tale set in Thatcherian UK essays a comic love/hate standoff between exuberant London homosexuals and dour Welsh miners. This is a true, unlikely underdog story with heaps of emotion, humor, social and political insight, and a magnificent feel-good ending: the ultimate recipe for that sense of contentment when you walk out the theater. Pride would make Hirani proud (and is probably the ideal next subject for him) and other filmmakers scramble a search for similar real-life stories.

But for crying out loud, director Matthew Warchus, why didn’t you use U2’s Pride, my all-time favorite song, in the movie?

jahan bakshi on The Grand Budapest Hotel

As one sees more and more films, there’s this dreadful kind of inertia that sets in- and film experiences that arouse genuine joy and excitement rather than cold admiration become increasingly rare. Of late, the one thing I’ve longed for at the movies is for a film to really move and surprise me. With his last film, Wes Anderson managed to do both these things- and as the cliché goes- made me rediscover that elusive magic of the movies.

This one actually warrants that much-abused M-word: The Grand Budapest Hotel is a masterpiece. There is just so much happening in this movie on so many levels, it’s a minor miracle that it never goes off the rails- and major credit for this must go to Ralph Fiennes’ soulful and masterfully comic performance and Anderson’s astonishing control over his material and craft. Together, they make it all look like a piece of cake, quite literally.

An internet commenter put it perfectly: This is a beautiful pastry of a film- with chisels and sharp files baked into it. I expected to be delighted but was startled by the sadness and darkness at its core. Loaded with mirth, melancholy and a streak of the macabre, Grand Budapest Hotel is an ebullient comic caper that ultimately reveals itself as an elegy to an era long gone by (or perhaps one that only exists in the collective imagination of a few- such as Monsieur Gustave H himself). The film’s unexpectedly poignant, tragic ending stabbed me right in the heart- and in the sweetest way possible. Sorry Amazing Amy- this was the real cinematic twist of the year, darling.

PS: I recently realized that the two best films I saw this year: Grand Budapest Hotel and The Square (2013) couldn’t be more different- and yet, they’re both about essentially noble people fighting battles to defend the liberal ideals of human dignity and freedom from the looming dark clouds of fascism. This is Anderson’s most violent and overtly political film- not just as an indictment of modern barbarism, but because it puts forward the argument that maybe prettiness is political. If ‘a thing of beauty is a joy forever’- perhaps it’s also something worth fighting for.

fatema kagalwala on Clownwise

Very recently I was contemplating on the films that stay with me and I realised all of those films have been portraits of life seen through the prism of hope. Maybe that is why I jumped and clutched at Clownwise to write about. A story of a once-superstar trio of clowns now in the dusk of their lives trying to gather its strands, Clownwise made me happy, it had me literally smiling at its sheer joie-de-vivre of not only the world and its people, but of the writing and the making. It is this very vitality of thought and spirit of the world of the film and film itself that has had me charmed. The bittersweet tone of the film effortlessly carries through the dramas and dysfunctionality of the lives of the three men, now in their sixties, seeing them dealing with it all with a head held high and enough gumption to see it through till its logical end. Smart and sensitive at once, large-hearted and laughing at one’s owns pain, a little cheerful, a little sad, a little profound, a little reflective, and a lot of fun – now where do we get films like that often?

aniruddha chatterjee on Anubrata Bhalo Acho?

His wife, her husband, both terminally ill with cancer. All they do is come to the hospital, sit beside their respective spouses and give false hope. Life has become repetitive, mundane. They meet and fall in love. To have a film that deals with people in their 50s, married, yet daring to fall in love to heal themselves from the pain they are in, deserves to be applauded especially in a country obsessed with morality. While watching the film I was worried that the climax will be a cop out. That is where the film scores the most. Brownie points for taking the film where we as viewers will shudder to go. It has been more than two months I have seen the film. Yet, the shocking climax keeps on lingering in the mind.

kartik krishnan on Jigarthanda

A bunch of gangsters are seated somewhere in a banana ‘bhajji’ (pakoda) shop in Madurai, pulling one of the lieutenant’s legs. It’s Tea/Snack time with few goons sipping a quarter whisky in a plastic cup. It’s a setting straight out of Goodfellas with goons chilling out, joking.

The Gangster Boss – ‘Assault Sethu’ casually takes one last jibe at his lieutenant, spits out the tasteless bajji, orders the shop owner to put more masala and walks ahead. Does small talk with the dosa making chef and walks outside into the rain with a steel plate as cover on his head, behind the shady single screen theatre which, true to the nature of the film, has a Kamal-Rajni poster somewhere in the background.

Sethu walks ahead to the sarvajanik shauchalay where a cleaner does dua-slaam and ingratiatingly asks for some baksheesh, directing him to the 1st loo which he has cleaned just now, for his use of course. That is the power of a gangster. And that is all what a poor toilet cleaner can offer as obeisance to him.

Sethu replies cheekily – You should be the one paying me to crap in your loo instead.

Sethu walks ahead and is about to enter the designated loo when a Vomiting (presumably) drunkard, who under sober circumstances wouldn’t dare cross his path, dissuades him from entering his ‘territory’. The disgusted gangster moves ahead into another loo and the vomiting drunkard opens the door of the designated loo instead.

BAM ! BAM ! BAM ! BAM!

The door to the loo opens and the poor drunkard is shot to instant death by an Assassin from inside the loo who immediately calls up his Clients – “Hey. Sethu is dead. Hear this” – Bam ! Bam! Bam!.”

More bullets are fired into the dead body as Sethu who has just survived a hit by sheer luck, watches silently. The shirt pant wearing assassin continues on the phone -“Sethu seems to have lost a lot of weight”.

And then Sethu’s goons rush in to see – the cocky assassin boasting his kill – “Come on folks, take away your Boss’s dead body.”

Slowly, the assassin realises that he has killed the wrong man and Sethu is very much alive, standing behind him. He shoots at Sethu but his gun is empty. SHIT!

He is facing certain death and Sethu can kill him any second.

However, Sethu prefers to go and answer nature’s call instead of bludgeoning the assassin to death. Revenge can wait.

This long take sequence is laced with humor, violence, pop culture & unpredictability that is so omnipresent in Karthik Subbaraj’s Jigarthanda – a film which is much more than just a gangster flick. While some might have been disappointed by his debut film Pizza’s ‘cheat’, this one is a must watch. Yes it is long and a genre bending film again, but immensely rewarding.

neeraja sahasrabudhe on Court

न्याय (सामजिक, आर्थिक और राजनीतिक) पहला अधिकार है जिसे हम भारतीयों (“We, the people of India”) ने अपने संविधान के preamble में अपनी आवाम को दिया है। चैतन्य ताम्हणे की फिल्म ‘कोर्ट’ इस अधिकार, इससे जुड़े संस्थाओं व उन संस्थाओं और जनता के बीच के सम्बन्धों को समझने का एक प्रयास है।

कहानी की शुरुआत लोकशाहिर और दलित कार्यकर्ता नारायण कांबळे की गिरफ्तारी से होती है। इलज़ाम यह है की उन्होंने अपने किसी भड़काऊ गीत द्वारा सीवर साफ़ करने वाले कर्मचारियों को आत्महत्या के लिए उकसाया और इससे एक व्यक्ति की मौत को गयी। ये case तो एक बहाना है, हमें कोर्ट के अंदर ले जाने का। इस case के बहाने चैतन्य हमें उस कोर्टरूम के महत्वपूर्ण खिलाड़ियों के जीवन से परिचित करवाते हैं। मध्यम वर्ग की प्रॉसिक्यूशन वकील, नए पैसेवाले तबके के जज और व्यापारी वर्ग में जन्मे डिफेंस वकील। ऐसा करने से एक disconnect उभर कर आता है (जो चेखोव की इस कहानी की याद दिलाता है)। हालांकि डिफेन्स वकील कांबळे साहब के काम के प्रति संवेदनशील है, पर उनके जीवन के तमाम पहलु देख कर यह समझ बनती है कि बड़े सामाजिक बदलाव के लिए संवेदनशीलता या ज़रा सी मदद काफी नहीं है। ऊपर के तबके को जिस तरह के जीवन की आदत पड़ चुकी है उसे चुनौती देनी ही होगी और अगर उसमें ये संवेदनशील लोग साथ नहीं हैं, तो वे सब कुछ कर करा कर भी उसी शासक वर्ग को serve कर रहे हैं जो चाहता है कि आवाज़ें उठें पर उतनी ही जितनी दबाई जा सकें।

कोर्ट में चल रही कभी हास्यास्पद तो कभी झल्ला देने वाली जिरह के बीच एक दूसरी ज़रूरी बात उभर कर आती है। वह यह कि – ये सच है कि ये सरकारी दफ्तर, कचहरी वगैरह bureaucracy से लदे हैं और यहाँ काम करने वाले लोग न्याय की परिकल्पना या न्याय मांगने आई जनता के प्रति बिलकुल असंवेदनशील हैं, लेकिन न्याय न मिलने का असली कारण है कि नारायण कांबळे जैसे लोगों को, जिन्हे शासक वर्ग अपने रास्ते का काँटा समझता है, state न्याय देना ही नहीं चाहता। State चाहता है की वे या तो जेल में रहें या कचहरी के चक्कर काटते रहे। न्यायपालिका एक साधन है लोगों को डरा कर रखने का।

‘कोर्ट’ अभी हमारे समाज में हो रही घटनाओं के द्वारा एक अहम मुद्दा सामने लाता है। ये फिल्म हमें मजबूर करती है उन बातों पर सोचने के लिए जो छुपी हैं और सिर्फ कचहरी के न्याय-अन्याय तक सीमित नहीं हैं।

और अंत में नारायण कांबळे की तरफ से बोलते गोरख पाण्डेय:

हज़ार साल पुराना है उनका गुस्सा
हज़ार साल पुरानी है उनकी नफ़रत
मैं तो सिर्फ़
उनके बिखरे हुए शब्दों को
लय और तुक के साथ लौटा रहा हूँ
मगर तुम्हें डर है कि
आग भड़का रहा हूँ

mihir pandya on Killa

‘किल्ला’ देखना किसी रूठे हुए जिगरी दोस्त से सालों के अन्तराल के बाद मिलने की तरह है। इसमें उदासी भी है, उन बीते सालों की जब वक़्त हाथ से छूटता रहा अौर दोस्त की बेतरह याद अाती रही। इसमें बेचैनी भी है, उस पल को पकड़ लेने की चाहत जिसका सालों इन्तज़ार किया अौर अाज अचानक समयचक्र ने उसे सामने ला खड़ा किया है। इसमें ठहराव भी है, जब दौड़ती ज़िन्दगी में अचानक अासपास की दुनिया की तमाम गतिविधियाँ अापके लिए रुक जाती हैं अौर सब कुछ उसी पल में सिमट अाता है। अौर इन सबके ऊपर इसमें निस्संगता भी है, कि दोस्त के चले जाने से दोस्तियाँ नहीं जाया करतीं। कि वर्तमान से बड़ा कोई सच नहीं अौर वे तमाम स्मृतियाँ अतीत नहीं, दरअसल इसी गतिमान वर्तमान का हिस्सा हैं। हमारा हिस्सा हैं। कि ज़िन्दगी का नाम चलते रहने में है।

लड़कपन की दहलीज़ पर खड़ा चिन्मय (अर्चित देवधर) अपनी माँ के तबादले की वजह से ‘बड़े शहर’ पूना को छोड़ कोंकण के किसी छोटे से कस्बे में अाया है। ‘किल्ला’ की कथा हमें ग्यारह वर्षीय चिन्मय के जीवन संसार के भीतर ले जाती है। इसमें एक अोर है चिन्मय का अपनी कामकाजी माँ (अमृता सुभाष) से रिश्ता जहाँ पिता के असमय चले जाने की ख़ामोश उदासी घुली है, वहीं दूसरी अोर है कस्बे के स्कूल में चिन्मय के नए बने दोस्तों का संसार जहाँ बेपरवाह दिखती दोस्तियों में गहरे छिपी व्यक्तिगत प्रतिस्पर्धाअों अौर रूठने-मनाने के अबोले दायरों के मध्य वह ज़िन्दगी के कुछ सबसे महत्वपूर्ण सबक सीखता है। उमेश विनायक कुलकर्णी की लघु फ़िल्म ‘गिरणी’ अौर उनकी बेहतरीन फीचर फ़िल्म ‘विहीर’ की याद दिलाती अविनाश अरुण द्वारा निर्देशित ‘किल्ला’ मेरे लिए अात्मकथात्मक फ़िल्म है, लेकिन भिन्न क़िस्म से। यहाँ फ़िल्म सिनेमा बनानेवाले की अात्मकथा न होकर देखने वाले की ज़िन्दगी के किसी पीछे छूटे अध्याय का अात्मकथात्मक अंश हो जाती है। जिस कस्बे की यह कथा है, वह प्रतिनिधि है मेरी किशोरवय स्मृति में छूटे कस्बे का। इसे परदे पर देखने वाले हम सब इन्हीं बाहर से उनींदे दिखते लेकिन भीतर से खदबदाते कस्बों, देहातों को छोड़ अाज शहर के मेले में अा पहुँचे हैं। अौर ऐसे में ‘किल्ला’ का यह ‘पुनरागमन’ स्वयं हमारी स्मृतियों की कथा बन जाता है।

‘किल्ला’ जितनी उसकी कथा में है, उससे कहीं ज़्यादा उसकी गतिमान तस्वीरों में है, उसकी ख़ामोश ध्वनियों में है। पावस के महीने में मूसलाधार बरसते बादलों के बीच अविनाश अरुण कोंकण को उसकी अनछुई काया में टटोलते हैं। समन्दर किनारे बसा यह ठहरा हुअा कस्बा बारिशों के बाद जैसे एक नई हरी सघन पोशाक पहनता है। यह समन्दर की लहर के लौटने के बाद रेत के कोरे किनारे पर पहला पैर रखने की तरह है। उन्होंने किरदारों की भीतरी उदासी को परदे पर फ़िल्माने के लिए इंडोर दृश्यों को लट्टू की सघन पीली रौशनी में फ़िल्माया है अौर इस उदास पीले का विलोम वे बरसात, समन्दर अौर अाकाश के अासमानी नीले के साथ अपने अाउटडोर दृश्यों में रचते हैं। पानी स्वयं यहाँ सबसे बड़ा मैटाफर है। पानी ही यहाँ बाँधता है अौर पानी ही यहाँ किरदारों को बंधनों से अाज़ाद कर देता है। किरदारों के मन का बोझ जब पक जाता है तो वे भरी बरसात में छाता ‘भूलकर’ निकल जाते हैं, अौर मुझे चैप्लिन की कही वो बात याद अाती है जिसमें वे बरसात को अपना दोस्त बताते थे जो अाँखों से नमकीन पानी बनकर निकलते दुख को अपने अाँचल में छिपा लेती है। ‘किल्ला’ की कोमलता मुझे भाषा में कविता कहने वाले, सदा मुंह में छालों वाले किसी मितव्ययी स्वभाव पहाड़ी कवि की कविताअों की याद दिलाती है। यह उन फ़िल्मों की सूची में शामिल होगी जिसकी स्मृति को अाप फ़िल्म ख़त्म होने के बाद सिनेमाघर के अंधेरे में छोड़ने की बजाए किसी नवजात ख़रगोश के बच्चे की तरह नज़ाकत के साथ अपने सफ़री झोले में रख साथ घर ले जाना चाहेंगे।

sudhish kamath on The Interview

The stoner bromance that almost started World War III was smarter than most people gave it credit for and truly representative of our times. In fact, The Interview > Newsroom.

The world doesn’t give a shit about anything anymore.

One tweet, it’s mourning innocent kids being shot dead, the next it’s cheering a goal. Or a six. Aircraft lost. Sad face. Next moment. OMG! Eminem’s gay? Did you know McConaughey fucked a goat?

The guys behind Superbad, Pineapple Express or This is the End never intended The Interview to be seen as a symbol of patriotism. The film’s clever enough to take digs at not just American/global media priorities, it also portrays America as the country that is capable of making citizens shove a missile up their own ass (literally) to fuck with another country’s politics.

When the American “heroes” of the film believe they have the required statistics to corner Kim Jong-Un, he simply gives it back to them raising far more uncomfortable questions about the US and sanctions imposed that was driving them to the brink of despair.

Unable to deal with reasoning, the Americans go back to what they are best at.

Because trolling NOT reason, bullying NOT debate, is the only form of supremacy that the world recognizes today. Mediocrity connects with more people than intellectuals or custodians of high art do. No wonder then that the elitists, the critics and all the snooty uptight fuckers hate The Interview. As Skylark says: “They are motherfuckin peanut butter and jealous… They hate us ‘cause they ain’t us… You know what you do to haters? You just smile.” *pops Ecstasy*

sudhish kamath on Birdman

“You’re not important, ok? Get used to it.”

Only the greatest epiphany you would ever have.

That’s Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s Birdman in a line.

We lead dysfunctional – largely unsatisfying – lives and try hard for relevance and popularity that matches the self-importance in our heads. The film is full of precious little moments, a fucking brilliant drums score and cinematography so fluid and seamless that you can’t ever spot the cuts even if you try. A terrific ensemble that’s going to have a field day at the Oscars.

When Riggan (Michael Keaton) tries to reinvent himself as an artist, after having played a superhero earlier in his life (and continues to in his head), he has this superb conversation with his daughter who tells him about her days in rehab and an exercise they gave her. About drawing tally sticks.

She hands him a roll of toilet paper full of tally sticks. Each stick represents thousand years. And all of humanity has been around for what would fit in one slip of toilet paper, she tells him. The rest of the roll is how long the world has been around.

He hears out her perspective and wipes his hand with it accidentally. And he’s wiped out all of humanity, she jokes.

How good is Emma Stone! She’s even better in this scene here that pretty much seals her a Best Supporting Actress nomination: Click here.

There are just too many brilliant scenes to list – the one where’s locked out of his green groom in his underwear and has to make his way in public and get up on stage to not miss his cue or the one where Norton tells Keaton that popularity is the slutty little cousin of prestige when they go out to get coffee. But every single scene in the film is designed to tell us that in the larger scheme of things, nothing really matters. Nobody’s opinion really matters. Or as a sign in Riggan’s green room tells us: A thing is a thing, not what is said of that thing.

ranjib mazumder on Jatishwar

Jatishwar as a concept is brave and ambitious to say the least. As the film unfolds, it has the promise of a new classic. Traversing through different timelines and a story of reincarnation, it dares to bring back Anthony Firingee, a man of Portuguese origin and exceptional talent, who not only mastered Bengali but also composed songs in it to perform in public duels known as Kavigaan in the early part of the 19th century.

Kabir Suman’s music is so good that I can’t possibly to begin to imagine another music album in the last 20 years that can match the majesty of this work. Bringing back lyrical fights of nostalgic Bengal, Mukherji shoots it with beautiful tenderness. That’s the film’s biggest strength. Also the biggest weakness. Apart from Anthony’s story, you hardly care about modern day sappiness that the story brings along.

Mukherji is probably the most acclaimed filmmaker working in West Bengal today. And that speaks a lot about the current state of Bengali cinema. I find Mukherji brimming with new ideas in every film; flashes of brilliance in certain scenes but the sum of the parts never make an engaging whole. And that’s been my consistent problem with his filmography. I know I would be attacked by my fellow Bengalis for looking at Mukherji through a glass darkly, and I have tried hard to sum up my feeling for his brand of inconsistent narrative. And then I stumbled upon this paragraph by one of my literary heroes.

“From the moment I start a new novel, life’s just one endless torture. The first few chapters may go fairly well and I may feel there’s still a chance to prove my worth, but that feeling soon disappears and every day I feel less and less satisfied. I begin to say the book’s no good, far inferior to my earlier ones, until I’ve wrung torture out of every page, every sentence, every word, and the very commas begin to look excruciatingly ugly. Then, when it’s finished, what a relief! Not the blissful delight of the gentleman who goes into ecstasies over his own production, but the resentful relief of a porter dropping a burden that’s nearly broken his back . . . Then it starts all over again, and it’ll go on starting all over again till it grinds the life out of me, and I shall end my days furious with myself for lacking talent, for not leaving behind a more finished work, a bigger pile of books, and lie on my death-bed filled with awful doubts about the task I’ve done, wondering whether it was as it ought to have been, whether I ought not to have done this or that, expressing my last dying breath the wish that I might do it all over again!”

― Émile Zola, The Masterpiece

So that was our list. What’s your list? The films that stood out and stayed with you, and you won’t mind pushing the rewind button on it. Tell us in the comments below!

Mumbai Film Festival, 2014 (D-6/7) – The winning ABC (Avinash, Bikas, Chaitanya)

Posted: October 22, 2014 by moifightclub in Awards, cinema, Film Festival, Movie Recco, movie reviews, Mumbai Film Festival, World Cinema
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So we read this piece on Quartz India – “A Bollywood-backed Twitter campaign saved the Mumbai Film Festival—but crushed its spirit”. Friends told us it’s a well respected website. Yet to figure out why. (Not that we trust Columbia Journalism grads on desi film industry, most of the times they have no clue about bollywood or indie-bhindies) As we were joking about it, we thought let’s not respond to it till the closing ceremony. Aamir, Madhuri, Anushka, Parineeti, Esha…OMG! So many stars at MAMI! We have never seen them before at Mumbai Film Festival. They killed the indie spirit and how. Look at the winners. Bollywood must not have heard about these filmmakers and they crushed them by giving them awards – Avinash Arun (Killa), Bikash Mishra (Chauranga) and Chaitanya Tamhane (Court). And these 3 films bagged top 6 awards in International Competition and India Gold section. Interestingly, all three are based in Mumbai. City’s fest, city’s filmmakers, what an achievement! MAMI never had a better year than this. If only some people knew what they are writing about.

Killa

Moving on, here’s our day wrap of last 2 days

’71

A Soldier is abandoned accidentally by his unit in the middle of a riot in Belfast. I must confess I was at loss quite a few times thanks to the heavy North Irish accent, but this edge of the seat thriller-drama has enough moments to keep you hooked on. The riot sequence and the chase alone itself is worth the watch. Editing, Cinematography, Production Design, Look and feel – all top notch in this gritty film. One can feel the pain of the wound being stitched, the weight of the stone being thrown and the deafening screech after an unexpected bomb blast. Watch it.

Court

This film deserves every accolade it has got abroad. Minimal with pitch perfect detailing, long takes & wide shots, performances that seem natural and unrehearsed, a dab of social & political commentary every now and then, and a realistic depiction of a Kafkaesque trial – it at times ceases to be a film and seems like life unfolding in front of your eyes. Easily one of the top films at MFF this year. Do not miss this for anything.

– @nagrathnam

Theeb

This is as unpretentious and straightforward a film can be. And that’s where lies its joy. A young Jordanian boy is left alone to fend for himself in bandit territory with the bandit that killed his brother. The bandit becomes his protector and the boy needs him to reach safety. Its not the barren terrain alone, a terrain from whose womb few films emerge but an entire world that opens up to us simply by the choices the characters make in this film. If you like films as an observer and seeker of experience, then this is well worth it.

Clouds of Sils Maria

Literary world threatens to envelope the real and the real world reflects the literary one, shadowing each other as the film explores the nature of time and age. Oblique with a lot of subtext, Clouds of Sils Maria is a meta referential guide to an aging actor’s work and life experience as we explore her inner world and art through her explorations of the character she is playing. Absorbing and visually beautiful, the end is mystifying but Juliette Binoche’s glorious performance makes it more than worth the watch even as a the point in its entirety maybe subject to subjective audience interpretation or simply lost. Almost meta referential of tha film again!

Mission Rape – A Tool Of War (Documentary)

Disturbing even at its short length of an hour. The documentary talks about the mass rapes that were used to perpetrate horror in Bosnia-Herzegovinian conflict during the early nineties. Victims and their families fighting for justice speak their stories and how justice has been denied to them. A stark image of the hegemony of patriarchy and the politics of war stares in front of us as we despair at the continuing inhumanity of the world. There is no attempt to dramatise events or manipulate the audience, facts are laid out bare and footage used matter-of-factly. Its short and not as incisive or comprehensive as it could be, but its honest and dignified, and therein lies its worth.

Girlhood

 Is it me or was there a major number of women-centric films this year at MAMI?In any case, its a cause for celebration and I did with Girlhood. In fact, what better film than that! Its a journey of an African teenage girl, bred and brought up in a steeply patriarchal culture finding her independence. Not only the thrift of storytelling and the simplicity of narration but the wealth of detailing makes this not only an important coming-of-age film, but a feminist film. Blue as the primary colour in the scheme, girls finding their freedom in acting like boys, the need for male approval, the male gaze and so on and on, the script explores each one of these very important aspects of influence in the shaping of a girl into a woman. A must watch!

Coffee Bloom

An interesting film about coming to terms with the past…Set in lush Coorg that is filmed with a lot of love, it is a the story of Dev, a troubled young man who is trying hard to gather his life torn apart by loss of his childhood home and his love. Love, loss, betrayal with spirituality on the fringes are some of the themes that inform the plot-driven narrative with able support from the lead actors. The screenplay is tight and engaging, the unfolding or rather undoing of the characters and their coming together quite convincing. A minor grouse, however, were the dialogues or maybe it was the way some of them were delivered, that sounded quite banal. An assured debut.

Demons

An adaptation of Dostoevsky’s novel by the same name, it is an ambitious film that tries hard to embody all of Dostoevsky’s ideas questioning nihilism, utopianism, spirituality and the human condition. Unfortunately, it fails to portray the complexity of these ideas, leave alone present a picture of 19th century Russia in all its multifarious-ness. The narrative is non-linear, something that adds a complex physicality to the film but does not supply the necessary depth or breadth, leave alone create any darkness in mood. Demons is supposed to be an intense literary work, both exploring the interiority of its characters as possessed by an inexplicable evil that is part of human belief system as well as the social conditions of Russia and its politics of the time. The film, despite its three hour long running time does little justice to the dark world of Dostoevsky or the zeitgeist of Russia, confusing hyperventilating for intensity and substituting CG work for surrealism.

–  @Fatema

The Tree (Drevo)

In the 15th century, a deadly tradition began in the Balkans, which were then under Turkish rule. Krvna Osveta is still practiced in Albania today. But that is not the story of The Tree, though it does flutter in the backdrop. Instead, in three sections, we see captivity (or, as the director prefers to say, “entrapment”) of three kinds. The story is also about power; about struggling against power; about the various shades of power — personal, political, emotional and familial. Intimately shot and powerfully acted against a spare landscape in three main colours, this film will enter your mind and haunt you endlessly.

Slovenia makes only five to ten films a year — and the director, Sonja Prosenc, who graced the screening, informed us that two of the three remarkable leads were amateurs. In such a spare landscape, it is even more remarkable when a director makes such a stunning debut.

The Big Journey

Perhaps the best movies about journeys are those that are not about the journey at all. A devout, French Muslim coaxes his reluctant son to drive him all the way to Mecca — a taxing route spanning 3000 miles. But there are no sights on the way, even though the son would like to stop for some of them. Instead, we enter the minds of the protagonists and travel through their maze of differences — due to a significant distance in their ages; due to their belonging to different times; due to their having different beliefs about religion, and right and wrong.

Their clashes are the age-old clashes of the conservative and the modern; the devout and the casual believer; the old and the young. There are some regular road movie tropes thrown in — such as trouble at customs; thieves and strange companions on the journey. But there is also some great detailing — especially in the last part where we meet travelling Arabs going to Mecca, replete with their customs, their prayers, their caravans.

As the father and son travel farther away from home, The Big Journey becomes all about bridging the distance between two minds and hearts.

Theeb

Are we a product of our environment? Or do we shape it? Theeb suggests the former. After all, who can shape the mighty desert? In Arabia in 1916, we see the cruel, unforgiving, death-giving desert produce children who see, and accept, cruelty as a routine ingredient of their lives. Of course, accepting cruelty with such equanimity requires fearlessness as well. And we see all of this in both Theebs — the protagonist, and the movie.

Mesmerisingly shot entirely on location against the ravishing landscape of Wadi Rum and Wadi Araba, and cast with non-professional actors from one of the last of Jordan’s nomadic Bedouin tribes to settle down, Theeb is often disturbing — for its hyper-realistic depiction of life in the desert, the desperation it induces, and the everyday violence accepted by the tribes. Often the movie crawls, just like the days in the desert, and it becomes difficult to watch on. But life is never easy; why should such a marvellous movie be?

– @Shubhodeep

Court

Extremely real situations (too close to reality for people who keep tabs on what’s happening), real people and performances. In fact, a lot of people in the cast are not professional actors but they seem natural in front of the camera. Film unfolds mostly in a courtroom where a man (a Shahir) stands accused of abetting suicide of another man. Clearly it’s just an excuse by the state to put him behind bars. While the starting point of the film seem to be inspired from real events, it aims to take a broader view of the society and its functioning as well as its relationship with the state and its institutions by going into the lives of each of the main players.

– @neeraja

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night

I have to say I wasn’t terribly impressed by this, given the hype. Powered by a cool ‘vampire-in-a-veil’ conceit and hip soundtrack, it’s fun but doesn’t do anything very interesting thematically or in terms of storytelling, especially given the vast potential of its premise. Instead, it feels disappointingly content in just being an exercise in posturing and Sin-City style B&W visuals instead of being genuinely groundbreaking or revelatory. (Perhaps Tomas Alfredson and John Ajvide Lindqvist set the bar way too high a couple of years back.)

Clouds Of Sils Maria

Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart play off each other brilliantly in Clouds Of Sils Maria, Oliver Assayas’ sharp, brutally funny and super-meta movie with a heart of melancholy. The compelling dynamic and amazing chemistry between the actresses alone makes this a must-watch, even as all the nudging and winking occasionally gets a tad overbearing. The film is too diffuse to be devastating (or a modern companion-classic to Sunset Boulevard) but Clouds of Sils Maria is always compelling, and when Binoche bares her soul with such blazing poise and elegance, it’s hard not to be floored.

– jahanbakshi

Chaitanya Tamhane’s Court bags “Lion Of The Future – Luigi De Laurentiis” at Venice

Posted: September 7, 2014 by moifightclub in cinema, Film Festival, Indie, News, World Cinema
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Venice Film Festival has announced the winners for this year’s fest. And here’s the good news – Chaitanya Tamhane’s debut feature Court has bagged the “Lion Of The Future – Luigi De Laurentiis” Award for a Debut Feature. It premiered in Orizzonti section of the fest. The Jury was chaired by Alice Rohrwacher and comprised of Lisandro Alonso, Ron Mann, Vivian Qu and Razvan Radulescu.

It also includes cash prize of 100,000 USD, donated by Filmauro di Aurelio e Luigi De Laurentiis to be divided equally between director and producer. Court has also got the Best Film in the Orizzonti section. This Jury was chaired by Ann Hui and composed of Moran Atias, Pernilla August, David Chase, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, Roberto Minervini and Alin Tasçiyan. The section had 29 films in competition.

Click here to read Chaitanya’s interview on making of Court.

Last year, Shubhashish Bhutiani’s Kush had won the best short at Venice Film Festival.

Mary Kom goes Toronto, Court selected for Venice, Labour Of Love at Venice Days

Posted: July 25, 2014 by moifightclub in bollywood, Film Festival, Indie, News
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Mary Kom

A quick update on three fest news.

Omung Kumar’s directorial debut Mary Kom will have its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) this year. Not really unexpected as TIFF has been picking every kind of bollywood films in the last few years, from Dil Bole Hadippa to Singh Is Kingg. It’s less about the quality of the film, and more to do with the diaspora crowd in Toronto. The fest runs from September 4-14, 2014.

Another directorial debut, Chaitanya Tamhane’s indie feature Court has been selected for the prestigious Venice Film Festival. The film will have its premiere in Orizzonti section of the fest. This competitive section is dedicated to films that represent the latest aesthetic and expressive trends in international cinema section which aims to spot new trends in cinema. Court had also received Hubert Bals fund for script and project development.

LOL

Another indie feature, Labour Of  Love by Aditya Vikram will be at Venice Days. It’s an independent section at the Venice Film Festival which is promoted by the Italian Association of Filmmakers and authors. The idea was to develop a parallel sidebar on the lines of Directors Fortnight at Cannes.

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