പേജുകള്‍‌

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?