Chomana Dudi (1975) aka Choma's Drum

Chomana Dudi (1975)

Director: B.V. Karanth
Country: India
Runtime: 141 min

Choma is an untouchable bonded-labourer in a village who is working along with his family for a landlord, due to a paltry loan of twenty rupees borrowed from him years ago.Due to his social status, he is not allowed to till his own land, something that he desires most. Though he managed to rear a pair of bullocks that he found straying in the forest, he cannot use them to till the land. He comes in contact of Christian missionaries who try to convert him giving him the lure of the land, but Choma does not want to let go of his faith. He releases the fury that fate has beset on him, by beating his drum.

He has three sons and a daughter; two of his elder sons work in a distant coffee estate trying to pay off the debt. One of the sons dies of cholera and the other one converts to Christianity by marrying a Christian girl. His daughter, Belli works in the plantation and falls for the charm of Manvela, the estate-owner's writer. She is raped by the estate owner, who then writes off Choma's debt. She returns to Choma's home without telling him of the reality. His youngest son drowns in a river, with nobody coming to save him because of him being an untouchable. He then finds his daughter in an compromising position with Manvela. With anger, he beats her and kicks her out of the house. To defy his fate, he starts tilling a piece of land and then chases off his bullock into the forest. In the climax, Choma shuts himself in his house and starts playing the drum till he dies.

Moebius (2013)

Moebius (2013)

Director: Ki-duk Kim
Country: South Korea
Runtime: 89 min

A woman catches her husband cheating and in a fit rage brings a knife into his bedroom, slips under the covers and tries to castrate him. He awakes and thwarts her impetuous plot but still wracked with anger she then visits her teenage son's room and dismembers him instead.

The above plays out over mere minutes but to say any more about the events that unfold would only dilute its impact. Safe to say, things only get worse and more bizarre as the film's protagonists are pushed to delirious extremes. It's not exactly a restaging of the Oedipal Complex (though some of its elements are evident) but it does borrow a lot from Greek tragedy, though it's a bit more extreme than what you would find in the Classics.

The Dead Man and Being Happy (2012)

The Dead Man and Being Happy (2012)

Director: Javier Rebollo
Country: Spain
Runtime: 92 min

This is the story of a Spanish man on the top floor of a hospital in Buenos Aires who one day realises he is dying. Aware that he only has a short time left to live, the man hot-foots it from the hospital and heads north, making his way across Argentina. The dying man knows that all roads lead to the whole world, that the destination matters little; what is important is to keep moving, to have the feeling of never stopping, of leaving behind the life lead until now. A life that, given his specialised trade, had always kept him close to death. That's why, as a professional, he advances peacefully towards it, making his way along B-roads, drifting slowly as if in a modern book about chivalry. A woman he meets on the road will be his squire in this movement that does anything but flee from death, instead heading straight towards it. This film is the tale of a hit-man who doesn't kill. It's the story of guns that don't shoot, of dogs and roads.

Camille Claudel 1915 (2013)

Camille Claudel 1915 (2013)

Director: Bruno Dumont
Country: France
Runtime: 95 min









Winter, 1915. Confined by her family to an asylum in the South of France - where she will never sculpt again - the chronicle of Camille Claudel's reclusive life, as she waits for a visit from her brother, Paul Claudel.

Paradjanov (2013)

Paradjanov (2013)

Directors: Serge Avedikian, Olena Fetisova
Country: Ukraine | France | Georgia
Runtime:95 min 

Sergei Paradjanov can, without exaggeration, be called one of the most distinctive filmmakers of the 20th century. Indeed, Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni and Andrei Tarkovsky were among the many admirers of his fascinating powers of visualization. This biopic, evincing an original take on the genre, relates some of the key moments in the life and work of this director of genius, a native Armenian who was persecuted by the Soviet authorities. We watch Paradjanov as he makes his ground-breaking films Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors and The Colour of Pomegranates, and also during his imprisonment by the communist regime. The filmmakers present Paradjanov as a gifted artist overflowing with ideas, but also as a complicated personality. In creating the film’s artistic vision, the directing duo relies heavily on Paradjanov’s own, unmistakable trademark style, vividly showing the audience his distinctive way of seeing the world.

Fuck for Forest (2012)

Fuck for Forest (2012)

Director: Michal Marczak
Country: Poland
Runtime: 1 hour, 22 minutes





Danny, a roaming twenty-something from Norway, moves in with neo-hippies in Berlin. His new housemates form a group that campaigns on behalf of nature through 'ecoporn'. Surrounded by old-school clouds of incense and guitar music, they film their sexual exploits and then publish the films on their activist website. Visitors to the site pay to watch the films and the group uses the money to save rainforests. For this documentary, Marczak follows these extremely serious 'erotic activists' in Berlin and on their trips to Colombia and Peru, from which the well-intentioned hippies return rather disillusioned. The protagonists are introduced in a dryly comic voice-over that subtly confirms all the stereotypes. As do the protagonists themselves, who make coffee topless, incessantly smoke joints and say such things as: 'I really like your energy level.' Free love meets altruism meets twenty-first-century campaigning.

15: The Movie (2003)

15: The Movie (2003)

Director: Royston Tan
Country:Singapore
Runtime: 96 min





Fast, frenetic, and furious, 15 is the story of five Singaporian teenagers who, abandoned by the system and estranged from their parents and life in general, build their own world in which gangs, drugs, fighting, piercing, self-harm and suicide are common and brotherhood is important above all else. Presents the chaotic lives of these boys, living in the shadows of a sprawling metropolis and with only each other to rely on.

The Only Journey of His Life (2001)

The Only Journey of His Life (2001)

Director: Lakis Papastathis
Country: Greece
Runtime: 87 min

As Georgios Vizneyos, one of Greece's greatest authors, degenerates in an Athens mental asylum, the tale of another story-teller, his grandfather, begins to emerge through his mad ramblings. This lavish film recreates (through his own words) the writer's childhood life, rich with fantasy and legend. Apprenticed to a tailor, young Georgios' mind is filled with his grandfather fairy tales. He ponders the hill from which one can climb into the sky and waits each day for the chance to bring clothes to the princess and win her heart through song. But, just as reality begins to germinate doubt in his mind, Georgios is called home to his ailing grandfather, who will reveal one final, true story that may prove to be the most fantastic of all.

Los amantes pasajeros

Los amantes pasajeros

Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Country: Spain 
Runtime: 90 min




AN AIRLINER circles above central Spain. Technical problems have left the plane doomed, destined for a crash-landing. Frantic with nerves, passengers and crew-members descend into an orgy of alcohol, drugs and sex. Thus Pedro Almodóvar, the prince of modern Spanish cinema, allegorises the state of his country in his latest film, “Los amantes pasajeros”

Journey to Mytilene (2010)

Journey to Mytilene (2010)

Director: Lakis Papastathis
Country: Greece
Runtime:     1h 45mn

Kostas returns to his homeland Mytilene in Lesbos, a Greek island in the Northern Aegean Sea, to settle down the details about the inheritance of the family house. He left the place twenty years ago to study in Paris and he never went back. Now his return forces him to deal with the traumas of the past. He obviously studied cinema and is able to watch the world from the safe distance provided by the lens of the camera. He’s gradually reconciled with both the living and the dead. And eventually this experience helps him not only to regain the love for his homeland but also to come in terms with his own self.

  Papastathis (Theofilos 1987, The Only Journey of His Life 2001) as a pioneer documentary director belongs to the generation of film-makers that established the so-called “new Greek cinema” of late ‘60s and early ‘70s. He came to fiction films only much later shooting his first feature film in 1981. Like other late-bloomers of new Greek cinema he retained the formal awareness of Angelopoulos cinema trying at the same time to find a distinctly individual style. He met with great difficulties to make films at a regular rate, especially at a time when film as an art in Greece had a limited domestic and international support. So this is just the fourth feature film in thirty years from a director who is unanimously considered ‘important’ by Greek film critics although he’s simultaneously been accused of 'formalism' or, even worst, of morbid infatuation with the decay and the death. But there’s nothing here to be scared of except for some extensive use of POV camera - if this can be frightening - combined with repeated flash-backs and ceaseless switch from b&w to colour and vice versa. ‘Journey to Mytilene’ is mostly a nostalgic, tender and humane film.