പേജുകള്‍‌

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Just the Wind (2012)

Just the Wind (2012)
Director: Benedek Fliegauf
Country: Hungary
Runtime: 86 min

Benedek Fliegauf's hard-hitting Hungarian drama Just the Wind (Csak a szél, 2011) is a chilling story of a Romany community living amongst an atmosphere of fear and paranoia, that will certainly find itself fighting amongst the best of the Berlinale for its prestigious Golden Bear award.

A recent spate of murders has left the Hungarian gypsy community that lone mother Mari (Katalin Toldi) lives within in a state of justifiable panic. Nobody knows who committed these crimes, yet it remains clear that its perpetrators are trying to send out a message. She fears for the well being of her two children and their grandfather - working two jobs a day in order to raise enough money for them to join her husband in Canada. Her children attend the local school but the recent murder of a Romany family, who both worked and sent their children to be educated nearby, shows that these recent hate crimes aren't just aimed at those traveling families who choose not to contribute to society. The heightened sense of terror surrounding these racist attacks has a dramatic effect on the family, with every sound and unusual occurrence culminating in a suffocating sense of trepidation.
Based on tragic real life events, Just the Wind is a drama which focuses on the harrowing effects of these hate crimes without ever attempting to make a misguided social political statement - a fact made clear by all of its ethnic groups being portrayed through the same unapologetic light. However, despite its aim to remain purely a dramatisation it's powerful approach does raise some important issues regarding this often overlooked form of racism.

Director Fliegauf presents his central characters almost like ghosts, observing them as they go about their lives and revealing how invisible they appear to the world which surrounds them - emphasising their ethnic groups neglected social status. Fliegauf allows the camera to cling to his protagonists, imprisoning the audience in their insular community and installing in the viewer an artificial fear of the world which surrounds them, suitably mirroring Mari and her family's own sense of heightened paranoia - an element only amplified by the film's ominous score which installs a palpable sense of foreboding doom.

Steadily building to a nerve shattering conclusion, Just the Wind is a pressure cooker of social criticism which deceptively hooks you early on, before slowly reeling you in for the kill.

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Marx Reloaded (2011)

Marx Reloaded (2011)
Director: Jason Barker
Country: Germany
Runtime:52 min

"Marx Reloaded" is a cultural documentary that examines the relevance of German socialist and philosopher Karl Marx's ideas for understanding the global economic and financial crisis of 2008—09. The crisis triggered the deepest global recession in 70 years and prompted the US government to spend more than 1 trillion dollars in order to rescue its banking system from collapse. Today the full implications of the crisis in Europe and around the world still remain unclear. Nevertheless, should we accept the crisis as an unfortunate side-effect of the free market? Or is there another explanation as to why it happened and its likely effects on our society, our economy and our whole way of life?


Today a new generation of philosophers, artists and political activists are returning to Marx's ideas in order to try to make sense of the crisis and to consider whether a world without or beyond capitalism is possible. Is the severity of the ongoing recession a sign that the capitalist system's days are numbered? Ironically, 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, could it be that communism might provide the solution to the growing economic and environmental challenges facing the planet?


Written and directed by Jason Barker – himself an experienced writer, lecturer, translator and doctor of philosophy – "Marx Reloaded" comprises interviews with leading thinkers on Marxism, including those at the forefront of a popular revival in Marxist and communist ideas. The film also includes interviews with leading skeptics of this revival as well as light-hearted animation sequences which follow Marx's adventures through the matrix of his own ideas.



Interviews with leading experts include: Norbert Bolz, Micha Brumlik, John Gray, Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri, Nina Power, Jacques Rancière, Peter Sloterdijk, Alberto Toscano, Slavoj Zizek.

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Road North (2012)

Road North (2012)
Director: Mika Kaurismäki
Country: Finland
Duration : 1h 53mn






A sly riff on the Prodigal Son story, Mika Kaurismaki's latest — about a joyless workaholic concert pianist who ends up on a wild ride with his long-lost rapscallion father — is a funny and cogent analysis of machismo, abandonment issues and the value of reconnecting with one's roots.

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

7 Days in Havana (2012)

7 Days in Havana (2012)
Directed by Laurent Cantet,Benicio Del Toro,Julio Medem,Elia Suleiman,Juan Carlos Tabío,Pablo Trapero,Gaspar Noé
Country:France | Spain
Runtime: 129 min

7 Days in Havana is a snapshot of Havana in 2011: a contemporary portrait of this eclectic city, vital and forward-looking, told through a single feature-length movie made of 7 chapters, directed by 7 internationally acclaimed directors.

Each chapter depicts a day of the week through the daily – and extraordinary – lives of its characters. A world away from the familiar touristic clichés, 7 Days in Havana aims to express the soul of this city and its diverse neighborhoods, atmospheres, generations and cultures, in touching, entertaining and funny style.

Seven directors (one from Cuba, six from other countries) share a common purpose: to capture, through their different sensibilities, origins and cinematographic styles, the energy and vitality that make Havana unique. Some have chosen to see the city through foreign eyes; others have preferred a deeper immersion and drawn inspiration from local people.

All seven stories have independent plots, but the many connections between them help to create a powerful dramatic unity. Shared locations play their part: emblematic Havana landmarks like the beach or the Hotel Nacional form the backdrop for some of the chapters. Several characters appear in more than one story – a protagonist in one chapter plays a secondary role in another – subtly connecting the stories and demonstrating that in Havana all social spheres run parallel, intertwine and intersect at various times of the week

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Alms for a Blind Horse (2011)

Alms for a Blind Horse (2011)
Director: Gurvinder Singh
Country: India
Duration : 1h 53mn

Anhe Ghore Da Daan (English: Alms for a Blind Horse) is a 2011 Punjabi-language film. The film is based on the Punjabi novel of the same title published in 1976 by Gurdial Singh. It portrays the plight and problems of Indian farmers as well as the landlords. The film won National Awards for Best Direction, Cinematography and Best Feature Film in Punjabi at the 59th National Film Awards of India.



On a foggy winter morning, a Dalit family in a village in Punjab wakes up to the news of the demolition of a house of one of their community members on the outskirts of the village. Father, a silent sympathiser, joins his community in demand for justice for the affected family. The same day, his son Melu, a cycle-rickshaw puller in the city, is participating in a strike by his union. Injured and alienated, Melu spends the day quietly resting and later joins his friends as they tease him over his state of affairs. Hesitantly, he drinks with them in the night as they debate the meaning of their existence. Cycling through the city streets, Melu feels lost and wonders where to go and what to do. Back in the village, his mother feels humiliated at the treatment meted out by the landlords in whose fields she works. Gunshots are heard in the night and the village is tense. It's the night of the lunar eclipse. A man wanders asking for the traditional alms while Father decides to visit the city with a friend, even as his daughter Dayalo walks through the village streets in the night.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

L (2012)

L (2012)
Director: Babis Makridis
Country: Greece
Duration : 1h 23mn




A man lives in his car.He is 40 years old and although he does not have a lot of free time, when he has, he chooses to spend it with his family. He meets his wife and two children at a specified day and time in car parking lots. His job is to locate and bring the finest honey to a 50-year old man. A new driver shows up and the man gets fired. Disappointed, he decides to leave his car behind. The man's life changes, and he finds it absurd that no one trusts him anymore.

Monday, December 17, 2012

Mekong Hotel (2012)

Mekong Hotel (2012)
Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Country: Thailand
Duration : 56mn 24s









Shifting between fact and fiction in a hotel situated along the Mekong River, a filmmaker rehearses a movie expressing the bonds between a vampire-like mother and daughter...

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry (2012)

Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry (2012)
Director: Alison Klayman
Country: USA
Runtime: 91 min

AI WEIWEI: NEVER SORRY is the first feature-length film about the internationally renowned Chinese artist and activist, Ai Weiwei. In recent years, Ai has garnered international attention as much for his ambitious artwork as his political provocations. AI WEIWEI: NEVER SORRY examines this complex intersection of artistic practice and social activism as seen through the life and art of China's preeminent contemporary artist. From 2008 to 2010, Beijing-based journalist and filmmaker Alison Klayman gained unprecedented access to Ai Weiwei. Klayman documented Ai's artistic process in preparation for major museum exhibitions, his intimate exchanges with family members and his increasingly public clashes with the Chinese government. Klayman's detailed portrait of the artist provides a nuanced exploration of contemporary China and one of its most compelling public figures.

Unfair World (2011)

Unfair World (2011)
Director: Filippos Tsitos
Country: Greece
Duration : 1h 47mn



Sotiris is a police interrogator in Athens. He has an obsession: he needs to be fair. He judges the suspects after his personal moral and against the law.
With the intention to save another innocent soul, he accidentally kills a man.
Dora is the only witness to the crime. She is a poor cleaning woman who leads a breathless life. The struggle to survive has made her unfair.
The righteous Sotiris and the unrighteous Dora like each other.
But love, honesty and justice aren’t easy to combine.

Sunday, December 09, 2012

Camion (2012)

Camion (2012)
Director: Rafaël Ouellet
Country: Canada
Runtime: 95 min

Truck driving is all sixty-year-old widower Germain (Julien Poulin) has ever known. When he is involved in a head-on collision that leaves a woman dead, his quiet life is suddenly thrown into a tailspin. Though he was not at fault, the remorse he experiences is debilitating, leaving him severely depressed and unwilling to get behind the wheel again.

Deeply concerned for his father, Germain’s son Samuel (Patrice Dubois) puts his job in Montreal on hold, travels to New Brunswick to collect his estranged older brother Alain (Stéphane Breton), and together they drive to their rural Quebec hometown to care for their stricken father. The brothers, however, have their own issues: reliable Samuel is still lovelorn decades after a teenage breakup, while Alain, an inveterate raconteur and incurable womanizer, drifts aimlessly from town to town, incapable of settling down.

As the men struggle to reconnect, it becomes apparent that all three are stuck in the past for different reasons, unable to move forward. Slowly, the brothers revive Germain’s will to live, and in the process discover fresh directions for their own lives.

Saturday, December 08, 2012

Nuit #1 (2011)

Nuit #1 (2011)
Director: Anne Émond
Country: Canada
Runtime: 91 min

Anne Émond’s dazzling debut feature is a bold and intimate study of a one-night stand. Clara and Nikolai meet at a sweat-soaked rave and end their night at his apartment. The first part of the film is an erotic and candid portrait of their lovemaking: we witness the mystery, sensuality and awkwardness of that first encounter. They know very little about each other, and we know very little about them.

When Nikolai catches Clara trying to sneak out without saying goodbye, this typical hookup takes an unexpected turn. The two strangers, now sober and clothed, begin to talk. Nikolai is coolly frank, criticizing modern women like Clara, whom he claims behave like men. She seems to be a disheartened romantic, sharing what she hoped Nikolai would have said to convince her to stay.

They continue to talk until dawn, often in uninterrupted, brutally honest monologues. Clara and Nikolai learn as much about each other in a few hours as some learn over the course of a long-term relationship. The power struggles of a couple play out, almost dance-like, in this one night. Most remarkable are the astonishing insights they make about their lives as they both venture willingly into the darkest parts of themselves. Our impressions of Clara and Nikolai change many times throughout the course of the film.

Set almost entirely in Nikolai’s unadorned apartment, Nuit #1 focuses closely on the two captivating lead actors, the camera scrutinizing their faces and small, nuanced gestures. Émond has deftly combined spare but elegant form with maximum impact, and the themes she developed in her fine short films flourish on a larger scale in this sharply perceptive first feature. In a world of technology-mediated contact and fleeting encounters, Nuit #1 is a cathartic chamber piece about two modern young people who dare to go much further.

Friday, December 07, 2012

Granny's Funeral (2012)

Granny's Funeral (2012)
Director: Bruno Podalydès
Country: France
Duration : 1h 35mn






Granny is dead. Berthe is no more. Armand’s grandmother had sort of slipped his mind… Armand runs a pharmacy in the Paris suburbs with his wife, Helene. In a medicine cabinet he hides his magical equipment – he’s secretly preparing a show for the daughter… of his lover, Alix. And Granny? Should she be buried or cremated? Who was Berthe?

Thursday, December 06, 2012

White Tiger (2012)

White Tiger (2012)
Director: Karen Shakhnazarov
Country: Russia
Duration : 1h 48mn



 Unusual Russian war movie about WWII tank battles with fictional, mistical and religous elements.
Karen Shavnazarov shows us a different side of "Soviet era war films". Not straightly patriotic, with no heroes, "politruks", shouting hurrahs... The film is about war itself, it's more philosophical film about tragedy of war and God. I would say, it's like David Lynch shot a film about WWII. Mystical and tragic story for me The story is about tank driver, Ivan, who was severely burnt in a fight, but divinely survived. Set in a latest war days, somewhere in a Hungarian borderlines. He's regarded as a lieutenant for a command of a newly built tank T-34-85 to fight a mysterious "White Tiger" tank.

Can (2011)

Can (2011)

Director: Rasit Çelikezer
Country: Turkey
Duration : 1h 42mn 



After eloping to Istanbul to escape the objections of their families, Cemal (Serdar Orcin) and Ayse (Selen Uçer) are happy in their marriage. The only thing missing in their lives is the baby they would both like to have. Unable to get pregnant, they eventually consult a doctor, who reveals to Cemal that he’s infertile. Frustrated and ashamed, he embarks on a face-saving scheme to have Ayse fake a pregnancy, while they adopt a baby who will arrive nine months later. But when the baby does arrive, under dubious circumstances, Ayse finds herself unable to summon any maternal feeling whatsoever. As she and Cemal grow increasingly resentful of one another, the marriage begins to crumble under the strain and, appalled at the mess he’s made, Cemal flees. In this 2012 Sundance Special Jury Prize winner, set against the backdrop of a city with a thriving market in the human trafficking of children, director Rasit Çelikezer has created a complex and surprising exploration of what it means to be a parent.

 





Wednesday, December 05, 2012

Maternity Blues (2011)

Maternity Blues (2011)
Director:Fabrizio Cattani
Country: Italy
Duration : 1h 34mn






Four different women, but bound by a common guilt: infanticide. Inside a judicial psychiatric hospital, they spend their time expiating a sentence which is mainly internal: the sense of guilt for a gesture that has made useless their existence. From their being forced to live together, new friendships are born, and everyone can read the guilt inside the others. From the confessions is born a comfort that does not completely succeed in alleviating the suffering.

Tuesday, December 04, 2012

Nero's Guests (2009)

Nero's Guests (2009)
Director: Deepa Bhatia
Country: India
Runtime:55 min




Nearly 2,00,000 farmers have committed suicide in India over the last 10 years. But the mainstream media hardly reflects this. Nero´s Guests is a story about India’s agrarian crisis and the growing inequality seen through the work of the Rural Affairs Editor of Hindu newspaper, P Sainath. Through sustained coverage of the farm crisis, Sainath and his colleagues created the national agenda, compelling a government in denial to take notice and act. Through his writings and lectures, Sainath makes us confront the India we don’t want to see, and provokes us to think about who ‘Nero’s Guests’ are in today’s world.

Monday, December 03, 2012

Tabu (2012)

Tabu (2012)
Director: Miguel Gomes
Country: Portugal
Runtime: 118 min

Acclaimed director Miguel Gomes returns with a sumptuous, eccentric two-part tale centered on Aurora, shown first as an impulsive, cantankerous elderly woman in present-day Lisbon. When Aurora is hospitalized, she sends her neighbor, Pilar, to pass word of her grave condition to Gian Luca, a man of which no one has ever heard her speak. Pilar's quest to fulfill her friend's wish transports us to Africa fifty years earlier, before the start of the Portuguese Colonial War. We see Aurora again,  this time as the gorgeous, smoldering wife of a wealthy young farmer, involved in a forbidden love affair with Gian Luca, her husband's best friend. Their moving, poetic tale is conveyed through the older Gian Luca's suave voiceover, combined with the lush, melodious sounds of its heady, tropical setting, peppered with a soundtrack of Phil Spector songs.

Amour(2012)

Amour(2012)
Director: Michael Haneke
Country: Austria | France | Germany
Runtime: 121 min.

Cinema feeds on stories of love and death, but how often do filmmakers really offer new or challenging perspectives on either? Michael Haneke’s ‘Amour’ is devastatingly original and unflinching in the way it examines the effect of love on death, and vice versa. It’s a staggering, intensely moving look at old age and life’s end, which at its heart offers two performances of incredible skill and wisdom from French veteran actors Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva.

The Austrian director of ‘Hidden’ and ‘The White Ribbon’ offers an intimate, brave and devastating portrait of an elderly Parisian couple, Anne (Riva) and Georges (Trintignant), facing up to a sudden turn in their lives. Haneke erects four walls to keep out the rest of the world, containing his drama almost entirely within one apartment over some weeks and months. The only place we see this couple outside their flat, right at the start, is at the theatre, framed from the stage. Haneke reverses the perspective for the rest of the film. The couple’s flat becomes a theatre for their stories: past, present and future.

He asks hard questions: what do love and companionship mean when one half of a couple is facing the end? How can we cope? What’s the right way to behave? Can anyone else understand what you’re going through? Is life always worth living? What role, if any, do kindness and compassion play? And what do those words even mean in extreme circumstances?

A winter light and a sense of half-dark, fading afternoons pervade the film. Our only glimpses of the outdoors are seen through the windows of the flat. This is a drama played out under grey clouds. There’s no storm, just gradual changes from one day, week or month to the next. There are hints of threats from the outside. The film opens with a door being broken down; the lock is damaged in an attempted burglary. And Georges dreams of being attacked outside in a flooded corridor. But these are reminders that the real threat is from within: lives are changing, and so too are the meanings of love, intimacy and kindness.

Haneke rejects the idea of death as a communal experience and presents the slow act of dying as intensely isolating. Georges and Anne’s daughter (Isabelle Huppert) and son-in-law (William Shimell) come to visit, but their own feelings and experiences are less and less connected to what’s happening in this apartment. Death creates a fortress, and it feels piercingly true.

Haneke presents the stark realities of sickness – problems of washing, mobility, going to the toilet – but his aim is not solely to present a realistic portrait of the end. More than that, he wants to explore the emotions and instincts felt by this couple – pride, despair, impending loss, empathy and its limits. There are strong feelings at play, but there’s also an intense pragmatism afoot. Georges has made a pledge to Anne: ‘Please never take me back to the hospital… Promise… Promise me.’ Among so many other things, this is a film about loyalty and being true to your word. ‘Amour’ is a staggering, highly intelligent and astonishingly performed work. It’s a masterpiece.

Sunday, December 02, 2012

First Man (2011)

First Man (2011)
Director: Gianni Amelio
Country:  Italy | France | Algeria
Runtime: 102 min






Based on a novel that Albert Camus was working on when he died, we follow Jacques Comery as he travels back to Algeria in 1957, a place full of childhood memories. The country is split between those wanting to remain a part of France, and those demanding independence. Reminiscences of his mother, his stern grandmother and a young Arab boy come flooding back.

Saturday, December 01, 2012

War Witch (2012)

War Witch (2012)
Director:Kim Nguyen
Country: Canada
Runtime: 90 min

Writer/director Kim Nguyen highlights the tragic plight of child soldiers in sub-Saharan Africa with this tale of a pregnant 14 year old girl recalling the time she was forced to kill her own parents and join the rebel army. Komona was just 12 when the rebels ransacked her village, and ordered her to slay her parents. Subsequently taken to the rebel camp and given an AK 47, Komona was beaten mercilessly by the rebel leader for showing weakness, and became the supreme leader's war witch after emerging the sole survivor in a bloody battle against the government army. Amidst all of this darkness, the one light in Komona's life is Magician, a 15 year old boy who shows her compassion in a world of cruelty. For a brief moment, it appears as if Komona and Magician have escaped the war, but their greatest battle has yet to be fought. Later, pregnant and haunted by the ghosts of her parents, Komona embarks on a trip back to her birthplace to make amends with her past, and ensure that her unborn child has a chance to live a life free from the sins of the mother. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi