This page contains a list of movies/series that I have watched or am watching. I tried doing this before but couldn’t maintain and went into an entire “phase” but anyways, here we go again.

2024

Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge | Aditya Chopra | 1995
East of Eden | Elia Kazan | 1955
Anatomy of a Fall | Justine Triet | 2023
The Holdovers | Alexander Payne | 2023
Passages | Ira Sachs | 2023
Passages is, at its heart, a warning for practitioners of lust and polluters of the concept of love. It follows a gay marriage in Paris which is jeopardised after one of them (the arrogant filmmaker) realises that he likes to sleep with women. This bisexual love triangle steadily goes down in flames as the plot progresses, an evident outcome from the get-go.
Passages doesn’t shy away from intimacy and I think those bold scenes, often bordering on visceral, effectively makes up for the lack of build-up for us to care enough about the characters. The film runs for only 90 minutes, thus, barely leaving space to setup the characters. The sex, atleast, helps us to connect with them immediately. This is, of course, in stark contrast to Indian films which tend to be more extravagant in nature. The act of film watching in India has been a social event - a carnival in fact. Groups of friends and family and neighbours and small kids all sticking together craning their necks at a small TV screen. The West starkly differs in its interpretation of cinema - one where film watching is a personal affair, a practical one. IMO, this is one reason why non-Indian films tend to be much shorter than their Bollywood counterparts.
Passages is colourful and stylish and expensive. The characters are tasteful and have an implicit personality that goes beyond the screen or the script. Good, short watch but nothing especially extaordinary.
Joyland | Saim Sadiq | 2022
Joyland is not a joyride at all. It was an extremely hard watch for me personally.
Hot Fuzz | Edgar Wright | 2007
A very typical Edgar Wright. Highly stylised, with quick cuts, and hyperdramatised and quirky characters. The puns and the hidden clues make it an endearing comedy detective story. But at the same time, it has oodles of gore which is very typical Wright of passage (sorry not sorry).
Very nice friends watch.
Animal | Sandeep Reddy Vanga | 2023
In The Name of God | Anand Patwardhan | 1992
Sholay | Ramesh Sippy | 1975
House of Secrets: The Burari Deaths | Series | 2023
One Day | Series | 2024
Total Recall | Paul Verhoeven | 1990
The Peanut Butter Falcon | Tyler Nilson, Micheal Schwartz | 2019
The Zone of Interest | Jonathan Glazer | 2023
Taken 1, 2, and 3 | Multiple directors | Multiple years
Delhi Belly | Abhinay Deo | 2011
Sicario | Denis Villeneuve | 2015
Poor Things | Yorgos Lanthimos | 2023
The Lobster | Yorgos Lanthimos | 2015
Wake Up Sid | Ayan Mukherji | 2009
Up | Pete Docter | 2009
Lust Stories | Anthology, Multiple Directors | 2018
Lust Stories 2 | Anthology, Multiple Directors | 2023
American Pie | Paul Weitz | 1999
Persona | Ingmar Bergman | 1966
The Favourite | Yorgos Lanthimos | 2018
Swades | Ashutosh Gowariker | 2004
Dune 2 | Denis Villenueve | 2024
Withnail and I | Bruce Robinson | 1987
Kingdom of Heaven | Ridley Scott | 2005
Heathers | Michael Lehmann | 1988
As already admitted by the writers of this movie, Heathers was intended to show the more realist side of American high school drama and the brazen alternative social order that exists within them, a clear departure from the string of feel-good high school dramas that flooded the public domain back then, such as those by John Hughes.
Heathers takes the mere act of survival in the brutal landscape of the high school and takes it to an extreme as it meddles with the highly improbable event of a psychopath ending up killing a number of the “popular” kids and getting away with it because as Jason “J.D.” Dean puts it, “TThe only place where different social types can genuinely get along with each other is in heaven!” He is referring to the natural social schism that exists in high school and how it is impossible to overcome it by any form of mortal intervention whatsoever, hence, the only place that differences can be overcome is in heaven.
Perhaps, the most horrible instance is reflected in the school’s reaction to the “actual” suicide attempt of Martha, a not-so-popular girl as they end up turning the matter into mockery and ridicule.
Heather Duke: Just some broken bones. Just another geek trying to imitate the popular people and failing miserably.
Popularly, JD is often seen as a villain, a psychopath as I happen to mention before, but really he is a saviour of this miserable hellhole as he is making an attempt to stir the pot filled with both kids and adults who are too full of themselves. As he prepares to blow up the school, here is his petition
We, the students of Westerburg High will die
Our burnt bodies may finally get through to you
Your society churns out slaves and blanks
…
Great film overall. Both in the subjects it explores and in style.
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare | Guy Ritchie | 2024
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy | Tomas Alfredson | 2011
Ikiru (To Live) | Akira Kurosawa | 1957
Inspired by Tolstoy’s novella The Death of Ivan Iliych, Ikiru is one of those thought-provoking movies that will make one pause and ponder. Following the life of a widower government official who has spent his entire life working is confronted with the news of his inevitable death, the movie explores themes of mortality and existentialism. With that gaping, wide-eyed face shot of Mr. Wanatabe staring directly at the camera, it almost feels like staring deep into our souls, asking us, nope, pleading us to question: What are we doing? and not to end up wasting time waiting to live life and to do it straight away.
I haven’t watched a film in recent time that is so simple and quiet in structure yet so enriched with layered narratives and the kind of emotions that it provokes. “You discover the beauty of life only when confronted with death” solemnly declares Mr. Watanabe’s stranger accomplice at the bar when he confides in him. Through a night of repulsive camaraderie, evidently a doomed attempt of denial, Watanabe ponders on his 30 years of “distinguished service” to the Public Affairs section where not a new thing ever happened and the next day is just like the last. He wonders what has he achieved in those years of working and saving? How has he growned inwardly? And outwardly?
The central theme that Ikiru explores is the purpose of a man’s life. And Kurosawa tells us that inspite of all vanities and debaucheries that comes so naturally to man, it is effectively in the service of others that his heart will find peace, sooner or later. That is exactly what Mr. Watanabe sets out to do after he’s enlightened at the restaurant sitting with a young and charming woman - his subordinate at the office. He expresses his envy for her youth and health and craves: “I want to be alive like you”.
The movie is also a sharp commentary on the laughably inefficient Japanese bureaucracy (which is satirically established in that opening montage of “department hopping”) but that is about it. Right from passioned proclaims of his drunk accomplices at his funeral of a renewed spirit in the department, and promises of “to sacrifice the self in the service of many”, straight down to the shot of a protesting officer silently taking his seat when the time comes to act, Kurosawa tells us that all of those promises were fake. Just like the beloved Deputy Mayor who didn’t as much sympathise with the death of his junior who spearheaded the construction of the new park so much as hijack the opportunity to take credit for the upcoming Council elections. Although none of the actions portrayed came as a surprise, each action was predictable and laced with a sense of satire and hypocrisy, which Kurosawa managed to bring out with his excellent craftsmanship.
life is brief
fall in love, maidens
before the crimson bloom
fades from your lips
before the tides of passion
cool within you,
for there is no such thing
as tomorrow, after all.
…
~The Gondola Song
Nightcrawler | Dan Gilroy | 2014
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife And Her Lover | Peter Greenaway | 1989
Tokyo Story | Yasujiro Ozu | 1953
It is rare that one finds a movie that deeply moves something within the soul. For me, Tokyo Story is one such beautifully crafted piece of art. It essentially follows an old couple and their experiences as they visit their children settled in Tokyo. I’ll not say anything else, you have to watch it. Oh, also, 1.25 or 1.5x is recommended.
PS: TIL that TS is the 3rd movie of the Noriko trilogy.
PPS: I’m really sick right now else I would have written more :/
What’s Eating Gilbert Grape | Lasse Hallstrom | 1993
Ship of Theseus | Anand Gandhi | 2012
Manthan | Shyam Benegal | 1976
Manthan, literally meaning Churning, is a film by Shyam Benegal about the liberation of Indian milk producers as they setup their own cooperative society. It is entirely crowdfunded by the Indian farmers.
Watching Manthan invoked quite a lot of emotions throughout the film - those of cooperation and socialism and the perpetual struggle of the good over the evil which we as Indians so love to see on screen. But it is often too difficult to distinguish between the two. In a rural society deeply entrenched in caste politics, it portrayed the somewhat heroic journey of a single man (the Messiah trope) who endlessly persevere to bring about a social revolution at the cost of his own life.
I’m not sure how much of it will be true or effective today but I’m definitely convinced of the power of ideas - which is essentially what the founders of the White revolution were convinced of as well. I think the fact that ideas and not men can bring about social change for the good is aptly portrayed in the movie after the Messiah and his wife is kicked out of the village and the village harijans rise up to continue the cooperative.
I don’t believe that such change is easily brought (in fact, the movie does take quite a few dramatic turns in trying to capture that - the burning of the harijan section of the village, the false accusations of rape against the Messiah) but that must not deter us from beginning. In the end, it is the idea that matters and that, I think, is what the movie is about.
Maqbool | Vishal Bhardwaj | 2004
The Seventh Seal | Ingmar Bergman | 1957
Citizen Kane | Orson Welles | 1941
Fleabag | Harry Bradbeer | 2016
Fleabag was a refreshing break from the kind of monotonous braindump that plagues the webseries industry these days. Starring the brilliant Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who describes herself as “greedy, perverted, selfish, apathetic, cynical, depraved, mannish-looking, morally bankrupt woman who can’t even call herself a feminist” in the series; Fleabag explores the joys and struggles of being a woman - no strings attached.
What really draws one attention is the masterful writing and the sharp and effective dialogues. I would not be too far to say that a lot of Fleabag’s character (yes, the central character is eponymously named after the series) draws inspiration from Phoebe’s own experiences which is, indeed, a mirror of the kind of experiences every woman faces in modern society - hence, the appeal of the show. You can forget all that and watch Fleabag only for its incredible use of breaking the fourth wall. If you are into making films, you can definitely learn a thing or two about how to actually do it. Examples of how not to do it exists in abundance, but this is just that good.
Two seasons felt too short, just to get to see more of Phoebe’s brilliant writing and her insights into life.
Game of Thrones | Multiple Directors | S01-S08
A friend suggested I start watching it. I was initially vehemant but I bit the bullet finally. Sigh.
House of the Dragon | S01-S02
Sex, Lies, and Videotapes | Steven Soderbergh
Well, given the title, this wasn’t really what I was expecting but it’s a really profound film which explores an unspoken, often ignored territory of the human conscience - namely the need to be loved (both physically and emotionally) by another.
It is a complex topic and the movie does an extremely good job of telling that story without wasting too much reel time. The writing is compact and marvellous, the dialogues are concise and well-delivered and god, acting! Just watch James and Andie during their mutual interview. It’s amazing.
Wild | Jean-Marc Vallee | 2014
Very much like the “Into the Wild” and “On the Road” genre but the protagnist is a female who has had a rough time finding herself after her mother died so she went on a hike to find herself. It’s good and feel-good with some heart-pounding scenes but still felt quite generic and one-dimensional.
A Very Long Engagment | Jean-Pierre Jeunet | 2004
Based on a book by the same name, AVLE draws one into its own world of well-written characters and an incredibly tight storyline. The plot is sufficiently involved to keep one engaged. What I liked the most about this movie is the way it had mixed romance with crime-drama. At its own, I think its a crime drama as a large chunk of the movie is about Mathilda investigating what happened to her lover. However, that investigation is given meaning and weight by the love that these star-crossed young lovers share. I loved the shooting and the scenery as it was all shades of ochre and sepia and yellows. And all of the sudden, the colors change to grey and army green and black. The way color has been used to shift the viewer from the past horrors of war to the current peaceful time (and distressful time for Mathilda) is noteworthy.
There were moments when I tore up a little and there were moments when I had to pause for a bit. There are still a few things unclear but that’s because of the French name I think lol. So yeah, very well done movie. Enjoyed it.
Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown | Pedro Almodovar | 1988
Almodovar has been hailed as one of the best directors that came out of Spain since Luis Buneul - and for good reason. Whether one watches Talk to Her or this, one is unmistakenly reminded of watching the work of a man who is deeply committed to his craft. Just like Talk to Her, Almodovar is not hesitant to tackle a difficult topic - namely infidelity of men and its psychological effect on women. In this movie, we follow Pepa who has recently been dumped by her lover (who is already married to another woman, btw) for a third woman with whom he plans to flee to Stockholm. The plot is essentially Pepa’s two days of frantic pursuit to get in touch with Ivan after he has abruptly ended their relationship. We follow Pepa navigating through her personal problems and assisting other women in her life (Candela for example) whilst herself gradually descending into the abyss of chaos (hence, the title I guess).
The cinematography is fresh and appealing. When one watches a tracking shot of a women’s heel across the floor as she is nervously walking around, evidently waiting for someone - one can feel that urgency in the swaying of the camera. That’s cinema. Or be it when Pepa faints in the studio and we get to see her through her glasses as if we are standing there and yet are so far away from her to help her. It’s incredibly poetic.
One more thing which becomes evident is the usage of colors. Almodovar really goes overboard here and brings us the most delicious, eclectic, and bright colors right from ripe tomatoes to the dress Pepa wears at home - there’s a story being told here too. If you’re like me, you’ll probably notice how “fake” everything looks. That also ties into the mise-en-scene in general, we find a lot of fakeness around, the proportions are off, the props look fake, it’s as if we are far away from reality - in a woman’s dream? (nightmare?). Even if I’m reading too much into it, I like this interpretation more.
I’ll end with this dialogue between Pepa and Candela after Candela tries to jump off the terrace
PEPA: Young people dont know how to fight for things.
You think life is all pleasure.
No, it isn’t.
You have to suffer a lot.
Kingsman: The Secret Service | Matthew Vaughn | 2014
Nothing very profound. This is one of those entertaining, mindless movies that are just fun to watch.
The Witcher | Series 1, 2, and 3 | 2019-
The one thing that they wanted you to take away from this series was not the contradictory deeds of the self-righteous Geralt of Rivia, or the heady and ambitious witch Yennefer or the powerful but lost girl, Ciri. It is the fact that Witchers smell a lot. I think they made sure to remind us of that fact in every single episode.
Or, the moment when Henry Cavill makes that Hmm face.
Witcher is essentially about a bunch of elves, mages, and humans fighting for that one thing which everyone lusts over - power. And that power is inside one little girl - Ciri - the so-called Child of Destiny. Btw, Ciri also happens to be half-elf or Elder blood, I think. At one point, it gets confusing.
An attempt at creating suspense and making the show mildly entertaining just like any generic high fantasy webseries on NF these days. Watched it for the swordfights and ahem, Yennefer of Vengerberg played by the beautiful Anya Chalotra, who happens to be half-Indian and loves watching Bollywood movies wink wink
Qarib Qarib Singlle | Tanuja Chandra | 2017
Watched this cherry-pie of a movie just 2 days before the start of my major exams. Man, what a brilliant actor is Irrfan Khan. Incredible performance.
I think the script is quite free-flowing, managing not to feel cringe and on average keeps the viewer’s attention intact (although, this was less so in the second half). It’s one of those cute movies you cuddle up to watch when you’re not feeling well (exactly what my state is right now). Nice film, glad I watched it.
PS: I think the girl is cute.
Silicon Valley | Series | 2014-2019
This show HAS to be made for me. I think there are two things that goes very well with this show. A) The amount of realism that they manage to squeeze into the narrative, specifically from the tech perspective - I mean it takes gut to show a terminal on screen and B) The subconscious education of the general masses and their introduction to the “culture of the Silicon Valley” as one could follow Richard from S01E01 and see him fight his way to turn his dream into a reality - I mean there is so much more than just being good at tech that goes into building a company and this show gives us a window into that alternate and extremely challenging reality. Incredibly well-done. I binged this right in the middle of my exams - I have one in less than 12 hours - so, you know how endearing this is to me.
I can relate to Richard as he is stuck in the cross road of his individual tech genius and the uphill climb of making other people realise that what he is doing is actually genius.
Not to mention that they ended on an incredibly realist note - it’s pretty hard to change the world.

2023

The Lives of Others | Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck | 2006
Annie Hall | Woody Allen | 1977
Gangs of Wasseypur | Anurag Kashyap | 2012
Schindler’s List | Steven Spielberg | 1993
V for Vendetta |
Every Day | Micheal Suscy |
Dead Poets Society | Peter Wier |
The Ring | Alfred Hithcock | 1927
The Whale | Darren Aronofsky | 2022
Full Metal Jacket | Stanley Kubrick |
The Lodger | Alfred Hithcock |
On the Road | Walter Salles | 2012
Hopscotch | Ronald Neame | 1980
Rear Window | Alfred Hithcock |
The Story of a Crime | Fyodor Khitruk | 1962
The Snow Queen | | 1957
In the Realm of the Senses | Nagisa Oshima | 1976
A History of Violence | | 2005
The Royal Tenenbaums | Wes Anderson |
Buffalo ‘66 | Vincent Gallo |
Notting Hill | Roger Mitchell |
Masaan | Neeraj Ghaywan |
The Brown Bunny | Vincent Gallo |
Cold War | Pawei Pawlikowski | 2018
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans | F. W. Munrau | 1922
Dr. Strangelove | Stanley Kubrick |
There will be blood | P. T. Anderson |
Batman Returns | Tim Burton | 1992
Edward Scissorhands | Tim Burton |
Taxi Driver | Martin Scorcese | 1976
Beetlejuice | Tim Burton |
Swordfish ||
Triangle of Sadness ||
Vanilla Sky ||
Grave of the Fireflies | Hayao Miyazaki ||
Boyhood | Richard Linklater ||
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari | Robert Weine | 1920
Nosferatu | F. W. Munrau | 1922
Pierrot Le Fou | Jean-Luc Godard |
Tehran Taboo | Ali Soozandeh | 2017
Oldboy | Park Chan-Wook | 2003
Patch Adams | Tom Shadyac | 1998
Bonnie and Clyde | Arthur Penn | 1967
RoboCop | Paul Verhoeven | 1987
You Were Never Really Here | Lynne Ramsay | 2017
Gehraiyaan | Shakun Batra | 2022
It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World | Stanley Kramer | 1963
Chinatown | Roman Polanski | 1974
The Apartment | Billy Wilder | 1960
Leon: The Professional | Luc Besson | 1994
Irma La Douce | Billy Wilder | 1963
The Grand Beauty | Paolo Sorrentino | 2013
My Fair Lady | George Cukor | 1964
Moonlight | Barry Jenkins | 2016
The Queen’s Gambit | Series | 2020
Chainsaw man | Anime series | 2022
Easy A | Will Gluck | 2010
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery | Rian Johnson | 2022
Monty Python and the Holy Grail | Terry Gilliam & Terry Jones | 1975
Jaws | Steven Spielberg | 1975
About Time | Richard Curtis | 2013
Persuasion | Carrie Cracknell | 2022
The Notebook | Nick Cassavetes | 2004
The Seven Year Itch | Billy Wilder | 1955
Contempt | Jean Luc-Godard | 1963
Prisoners | Denis Villenueve | 2013
Mission Impossible 1 | Brian de Palma | 1996
Mission Impossible 2 | John Woo | 2000
Love and Other Drugs | Edward Zwick | 2010
Love and Death | Woody Allen | 1975
Mission Impossible 3, 4, 5, 6 | Multiple directors | Multiple years
Band of Outsiders | Jean Luc-Godard | 1964
Battle Royale | Kinji Fukasaku | 2000
Witness for the Prosecution | Billy Wilder | 1957
Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom | Paolo Passolini | 1975
Jackie Brown | Quentin Tarantino | 1997
The Thirteenth Floor | Josef Rusnak | 1999
Midnight in Paris | Woody Allen | 2011
A Scanner Darkly | Richard Linklater | 2006
Birdman or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance | Alejandro Innaritu | 2014
Everybody Wants Some!! | Richard Linklater | 2016
As Good As It Gets | James L. Brooks | 1997
Ashes and Diamonds | Andrzej Wajda | 1958
The Hateful Eight | Quentin Tarantino | 2015
Super Deluxe | Thiagarajan Kumararaja | 2019
Death Proof | Quentin Tarantino | 2007
Drive | Nicolas Winding Refn | 2011
The Circle | Jafar Panahi | 2000
Jafar Panahi’s The Circle is a muffled Iranian feminist film
The Circle opens with blood curdling screams of a woman in labour. The sounds hit us before any visuals. And the first shot is a blurry evidently very 2000ish footage of a tense old woman being informed of the birth of her granddaughter. But the news had turned her gloomy and threw her off-guard. She shows denial of the information and asks te nurse to recheck in obvious disbelief. The scan showed that it was a boy.
The Circle is an evidently low-budget film, it almost feels amateur in its technique an choices and yet it derives it spoptency from the vision that it imbibes. It brings the plights of the Iranian women and the oppressive patriarchal system that has justified and sustainedthe oppression. The Circle is an incredibly nuance take on the Iranian treatment of women and a strong feminist film. But the peculiar part is that it doesn’t force itself to identify as one. The plot follows a number of Iranian women who seem to be casually going through their daily lives and that IS what constitutes the oppression. Even the daily lives of women are fraught with inequalities and obvious mistreatment and absurd laws.
The camera used in The Circle is reminiscient of an era gone by and stands as a testimony to the rapid development of technology. The camera is itself a pinhole into a time long gone. However, I’m afraid such liberation statements cannot be made by the strong and beautiful f Iran.
The Piano Teacher | Micheal Haneke | 2001
Inside Llweyn Davis | Coen Brothers | 2013
“Inside Llewyn Davis” is a realist melodramatic folk ride
When the last sequence of ILD unfolded, I realised something was off about it. The same sequence that started the film ended it but to complete the loop by retelling what led to the opening sequence (like most other films do) but by positioning the exact same sequence as stemming from the opening sequence thus completing the loop in a rather unique way where it seems like the protagonist, Llewyn Davis is stuck in a time loop. I had to rewind just to confirm this fact. As the end credits started rolling, I was gripped by an easy but satisfying feeling that the plot has reached a resolution but uneasy because perhaps, the reconciliation hasn’t been in a way I had expected. But then again, I am hardly surprised. The Coen brothers have a way of lending a peculiar touch to their characters and writing and an unabiding ending - take for example: No Country For Old Men when Anton Chirugh simply walks away into broad daylight without being captured or even Fargo with its dark and bloody ending in a movie with already considerable bloodshed.
ILD focuses on just one man - the titular Llewyn Davis, a bum unemployed, former sailor who puts together a living by singing folk songs at The Gaslight. The era is the 1960s so communism is still a hotbed of debate and discussion. Llewyn is what I would call a picture perfect example of a failed man - he has no job, might have gotten a married friend pregnant (and has to pay for her abortion), has a dysfunctional relation with his father, cannot keep hold of a cat, doesn’t know how to behave socially and is bad-tempered, and so on and on. The story is poignant in a way because it is deeply rooted in reality - it’s a realist story. And perhaps that is why it is so relatable. A modern man caught in the crossfire of his dreams and his livelihood, stuck up in metal cages to go for auditions that fail. A man with a strong opinion on how songs should be but not quite making it like one of the giants - a man with a vision but not the means to realise those visions. And at some point, I think we all have been there and watched as things go by and forced to stay quiet.
Obvious comparison can be made with Whiplash and The Black Swan and the trope of the obssesive artist with Llewyn embodying the unwavering belief in his art. And yet, it differs. As Llewyn comes full circle and takes up the sailor job that he hates with such enmity and when he confides in Jean - “I’m tired”. A comparison may also be drawn with Ryan Gosling starrer “Drive” with a major difference - ILD is an anti-sigma male story.
With commendable performance from Oscar Isaac (seen this man from Star Wars to Drive) and that cheeky Adam Driver thingie with Al Cody (man from Marriage Story to Paterson), I think, if for nothing, I can come back for the folk songs :)
Atonement | Joe Wright | 2007
The Fellowship of the Ring (LOTR #1) | Peter Jackson | 2001
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days | Donald Petrie | 2003
12 Angry Men | Sidney Lumet | 1957
The Two Towers (LOTR #2) | Peter Jackson | 2002
Return of the King (LOTR #3) | Peter Jackson | 2003
Andhadhun | Sriram Raghavan | 2018
Shaun of the dead | Edgar Wright | 2004
The Departed | Martin Scorcese | 2006
1917 | Sam Mendes | 2019
Critics are divided on what 1917 wanted to achieve and what it has achieved. A cinematographical marvel executed with skilful technical prowess, 1917 is set during WW1 and tells the fictional story of two Allies corporals who have to relay command to halt attack at the frontline as the British suspect that the attack is preplanned and the Germans are prepared to execute a massacre.
The entire movie seems like an extended single shot enabled by immaculate camerawork which floats in the most unlikeliest of manners (over lakes and through barbed wires). Although, there have been hidden cuts such as when the main character Schofield is knocked out or when he’s going through tunnels (just like Innaritu’s Birdman, another amazing movie). Mendes took the show-don’t-tell philosophy to its extreme and executed a grand vision with extensive props and mise-en-scene which required devilish amount of work and attention to details. As we track the characters through changing landscapes, one’s eyes cannot help but look around the scene and explore other elements - a torn doll, pictures of loved ones, a dead corpse’s head staring - it’s a gruesome war film after all.
Single shot films are amazing ~~because the editor has less work~~ because I personally like the flowing uninterrupted video and levitating perspective. In that sense, 1917 is a marvel.
Paddington | Paul King | 2014
Paddington 2 | Paul King | 2017
Apocalypse Now | Francis Ford Coppola | 1979
Apocalypse Now Redux is an extended version of the 1979 movie that was released in 2001. The new movie has 49 minutes of extra footage and amounts to 3 hr 22 min in totality.
AN is a political movie disguised as a war film. Note that I don’t use the term “anti-war” because I’m not sure. And that is so because just like in all human conflicts, it is devilishly difficult to ascertain the facts and to assign the roles of “oppressor” and “oppressed”. The situation is more aggravated in wars - a more murderous variant of the same conflict. And so when at last, Col. Kurtz (Marlon Brando) asked Capt. Willard (Martin Sheen) to tell his son about what he stood for, I could no longer convinced myself if his methods or lack thereof, were really “unsound”.
AN is an emotional and visual ride through the horrors of Vietnam and an inquiry into the primal human emotions of lust, blood, and power. Told in an epistolary format with the comforting voice of Martin Sheen booming through the speakers, we are told of the war from his perspective; his escape from the maddening hotel room to the centre of mud and napalm in a man hunt for a celebrated officer gone rogue and given orders to “terminate him with extreme prejudice”. But as Willard gets to know the man more prying through his records and staring at his pictures, he is starstruck. Even in the end, as he rises from the water with the machete in hand and the determination in his heart, I could see the doubt in his eyes. Even in the end, it was not Willard who murdered Kurtz but Kurtz who decided to be murdered by Willard.
Coppola’s fine craftsmanship shines through with every shot and composition (not to mention the generous usage of fadeouts :P), he keeps his storytelling terse and precise. I loved his portrayal of sensuality and romantic tension amidst war. I loved his interweaving of politics into such a visually ambitious war film. I loved his choice of music and of course, I loved Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries.
Pi | Darren Aronofsky | 1998
Pi is Aronofsky’s feature directorial debut. It is also a foreshadowing film of what was to come out of Aronofsky’s mind. Concussional, trippy, and serrated. We follow a mathematical genius who works as a quant in his own time. A pathological loner who also suffered from a periodic brain condition that gives him splitting headaches (oh, what a stereotype). He stumbles on a 216 digit number which is supposedly embodies a pattern of the universe. Consequently, he gets himself in trouble with groups who are in pursuit of that number - quant firms and Jewish Rabbis. I loved the initial premise and felt that finally we have a film that is made for “actual” math peeps only to roll my eyes and start gawking as all that hullabaloo about Moses and High Priest starts quacking through the headphones. As I said, serrated. Just like all Aronofsky works (except [[Requiem for a Dream]] and [[Black Swan]] which only leaves [[The Fountain]]) that I have seen.
Now, let’s talk about the cinematography. From the get go, it is evident that we are witnessing the work of a man who wants to break the loop. He attempts daring feats and experiments copiously. Pi seems to me like an amalgamation of a man in search of his voice. There are signature snorricam shots (just like in [[Requiem for a Dream|Requiem]] where he perfected them) and shots of pursuit. There’s the delicious open-spill-pop-close montage shot of taking a pill. Substance consumption/abuse seems to be a motif that appears again and again in Aronofsky’s works. There are paranormal things going on or atleast the perception of it created by disturbing shots of seemingly disparaged objects. A brain in a basin being eaten by ants? Such daring attempts are made to visually express the plight of the psychological. Just like all others. The production itself is very modest and quiet. Few characters, few prompts. It looks like a budget film. Or atleast someone’s debut. Someone significant that is.
It is interesting to note how far he has come from Pi to [[The Whale]].
Apocalypse Now Redux | Francis Ford Coppola | 1979
Apocalypse Now Redux is an extended version of the 1979 movie that was released in 2001. The new movie has 49 minutes of extra footage and amounts to 3 hr 22 min in totality.
AN is a political movie disguised as a war film. Note that I don’t use the term “anti-war” because I’m not sure. And that is so because just like in all human conflicts, it is devilishly difficult to ascertain the facts and to assign the roles of “oppressor” and “oppressed”. The situation is more aggravated in wars - a more murderous variant of the same conflict. And so when at last, Col. Kurtz (Marlon Brando) asked Capt. Willard (Martin Sheen) to tell his son about what he stood for, I could no longer convinced myself if his methods or lack thereof, were really “unsound”.
AN is an emotional and visual ride through the horrors of Vietnam and an inquiry into the primal human emotions of lust, blood, and power. Told in an epistolary format with the comforting voice of Martin Sheen booming through the speakers, we are told of the war from his perspective; his escape from the maddening hotel room to the centre of mud and napalm in a man hunt for a celebrated officer gone rogue and given orders to “terminate him with extreme prejudice”. But as Willard gets to know the man more prying through his records and staring at his pictures, he is starstruck. Even in the end, as he rises from the water with the machete in hand and the determination in his heart, I could see the doubt in his eyes. Even in the end, it was not Willard who murdered Kurtz but Kurtz who decided to be murdered by Willard.
Coppola’s fine craftsmanship shines through with every shot and composition (not to mention the generous usage of fadeouts :P), he keeps his storytelling terse and precise. I loved his portrayal of sensuality and romantic tension amidst war. I loved his interweaving of politics into such a visually ambitious war film. I loved his choice of music and of course, I loved Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries.
The Princess Bride | Rob Reiner | 1987
Lol so nocie and low-budget but very cute.
Roman Holiday | William Wyler | 1953
I just wanna say two things:
1. Audrey Hepburn.
2. That last tracking shot.
21 Grams | Alejandro Gonzales Innaritu | 2003
21 Grams is a masterclass in non-linear storytelling.
A dark and horrifying story that leaves very little to judge between right and wrong, between good and evil and leaves us with a very distinctive and bittersweet taste of life - a cacophony of contradictions unwinding around us, irrespective of our presence or awareness.
Me And Earl And The Dying Girl | Alfonso Gomez-Rejon | 2015
Let’s just say that I absolutely loved the movie references. The maker is a true lover of classic films and I really appreciate that.
Qala | Anvita Dutt Guptan | 2022
Qala turned out to be very different from what I expect it to be. Unlike the lyrical and brilliant assortment of acoustic delight that is the movie’s soundtrack, Qala is a dark and celebral story about an ill-fated girl in search of acceptance. My first introduction to [[Swastika Mukherjee]] as [[Urmila Manjushree]], a descendant from a line of musical maestros. The shot of Urmila standing in front of her infant daughter [[Qala - Character | Qala]] with a pillow intended for her twin brother sets a grim exposition. Her twin brother died at childbirth. A childhood fraught with continuous invalidation and discouragement from her mother forces Qala to seek ways to please her mother notwithstanding the consequences. As the movie progresses, this desire only aggravates and turns pretty ugly. I’ll just put it there and not spoil any further.
But honestly, I didn’t like the movie apart from the exquisite scene design set in 1940s Calcutta (that shot of the Howrah Bridge tho). Perhaps, what I mean to say is this: the plot seems too one dimensional to me with barely any active “inputs” from the characters. It seems like the characters in the script are too constrained to have a voice of their own. There’s lots of superfluous dramatisation which might make for what Indians look out for but doesn’t compete with anything that I have seen in the works of greats like [[Francis Ford Coppola]], [[Quentin Tarantino]], and so on.
Bollywood is still leagues behind what the world is up to.
Scenes From A Marriage | Ingmar Bergman | 1974
Most exquisite piece of cinema seen in a long long time. If [[Richard Linklater]] met [[Ingmar Bergman]], they would surely hit it off. Both of them are masters of dialogue and human emotions and bringing out the deepest prejudices and preoccupations of the human mind in a lyrically cinematic fashion. Incredible performances by both the leads and the cinematic choice to just include 2 people conversing, loving, fighting, tearing each other apart, and yet who cannot live without each other is a near-perfect depiction of what a marriage is all about.
Soylent Green | Richard Fleischer | 1973
Blue Jay | Alexandre Lehmann | 2016
Aftersun | Charlotte Wells | 2022
Lawrence of Arabia | David Lean | 1962
Mobile Suit Gundam 1 | Yoshiyuki Tomino, Ryoji Fujiwara | 1981
Persepolis | Marjane Satrapi | 2007
Hiroshima Mon Amour | Alain Resnais | 1959
Spider Man: Across the Spiderverse | Joaquim Dos Santos et. al. | 2023
The visuals oof
Incredible artwork and colors. But the story is very marvel-esque, predictable and kinda boring. It seems like they are just recycling tropes at this point which is funny because there’s no dearth of tropes right?
Brief Encounter | David Lean | 1945
Brief Encounter is a heart-wrenching romance between two souls who find each other’s companionship by serendipity and yet are forced to part ways due to societal constructs and circumstances.
The story is told from the perspective of the married lady and mother of two (literally). Her voice over is all over the film giving an antique aura to the film. And we can relate to the sheer terror and excitement and doubt and anxiety that the entry of the man (married and father) has had on her life. We can feel her heart breaking. The last scene is not an easy scene to watch.
Asteroid City | Wes Anderson | 2023
It Happened One Night | Frank Capra | 1934
A Separation | Asghar Farhadi | 2011
Damn wow.
Loved how it leaves us at an inconclusive resolution and yet shows how one particular lie can destroy a family.
Casablanca | Micheal Curtz | 1943
Cha Cha Real Smooth | Cooper Raiff | 2022
Requiem for the American Dream | Kelly Nyks, Jared P. Scott, Peter D. Hutchson |2015
Gone With The Wind | Victor Fleming | 1939
The Florida Project | Sean Baker | 2011
TFP is a beautiful coming-of-age story that follows Moonee, a eight? year old kid growing up in the suburbs in Florida in a pay-in motel under the custody of a teenage girl (her “mom”) who is trying to make ends meet somehow.
TFP is remarkable in its portrayal of the stark contrast between the life that the adults are trying to sustain and the unaware, innocent kids who want to live life. The movie captures both. There’s fun and careless stuff going on when you just want to live inside the movie - couple that with beautiful shots of scenic Florida that almost feels like visual poetry and then all of a sudden we have serious stuff going on screen. TFP touches up on poverty and the bad living conditions of these motels and the personal choices of the individual. TFP is pretty serious stuff as Hally (the “mom”) starts prostituting herself to make money, eventually getting arrested and having Moonee taken away. Yet, there’s that rain-drenching screen where both have the most endearing play. TFP has that multitude of emotion that it portrays and makes you feel.
Cinematography is just soo good. It’s obviously made to make you fall in love with Florida as it effortlessly finds beauty in the most benign and repulsive of places. Static wide shots, tracking shots of kids running through corridors, that shot of Moonee remarking on eating food at the hotel is so endearing. Ah, good stuff.
A Brighter Summer Day | Edward Yang | 1991
Boogie Nights | Paul Thomas Anderson | 1997
All That Heaven Allows | Douglas Sirk | 1955
Cheesy and very outdated. Not sure if anyone would appreciate the sensibilities portrayed in the movie especially commentary and outlook towards marriage, woman, and class division - the three primary subjects of this movie. But a decisive and sharp take on the problems of society. Sadly, not much has changed in a sense :/
Into the Wild | Sean Penn | 2007
“Happiness only real when shared”.
I didn’t realise this was based on real life. And very different from what I expected it to be. Good watch.
Also, loved the literature references to Thoreau (It seems like that generation of explorers and adventurers were raised on this text), Jack London, Tolstoy, etc.
Incendies | Denis Villeneuve | 2010
Incendies opens with a harrowing slow paced montage of young boys being shaved with a trimmer in what looks like a remote Central Asian country - probably some terrorist group. All to the magical, melancholic tune of Radiohead’s You And Whose Army? (wow)
It then proceeds to tell the story of a family caught up in the crossfire of extremist and nationalist groups in a civil war shuttling between present day and flashbacks. Told in chapters, each chapter unveils a new, more gruesome detail about the story and uncovers some mystery until we are left with an exceptionally strong resolution.
In this film, Villeneuve latches onto the idea of an anti-war films and exploits it to orchestrate a gruesome picture of a filial history affected by the war unfolding through generations. At one point, I felt this was a feminist film (which it is at some level) but oh boy, was I wrong.
City of God | Fernando Meirelles, Katia Lund | 2002
Wow. Amazing story. Amazing editing. Amazing context. Just so good.
Il Sorpasso | Dino Risi | 1962
Il Sorpasso or the Overtaking is a feel-good Italian drama-comedy that capitalises on the innate human tendency to be free. It tells the story of a wanderer and adventurous man, Bruno, who incidentally finds a travel companion in Roberto, a meek and shy young lawyer in the making and they both take off to have a gala time through the Italian landscape. They stop at hotels, and meet friends, and spend time dancing or swimming at the beach. It’s a fun little story that doesn’t go anyway until you watch the last scene which is very shocking and grim. Personally never expected this to end on such a sad and serious note.
Sex Education Season 4 | Series | 2023
In its attempt to impress everyone, the latest season of Sex Education falls straight on its face. Let me tell you why I feel so strongly for the series’s last (thankfully) instalment.
Incorrect perception
SexEd started out as a unique and quirky series exploring teenagers of a fictitious town called Moordale and their sexual and personal lives. The plot was considerably involved with many moving pieces and yet secretly incorporated sex education and brought out some relevant taboos and problems surrounding sex. That was nice and welcomed by everyone.
And then it just got worse. I’m not even going to touch the storyline and the multiple plots but by an extremely unsatisfactory season 3 climax, it was clear that the story had touched a ceiling and the only place for it to go was downward.
And that is what season 4 is. It’s the jumbled and confusing mess that has flown from the ignorant (or arrogant?) pens of writers who refuse to accept that the wide spectrum of human sexuality is impossible to capture in a web series. In its attempt to appear accommodating and welcoming, SE goes on blabbering.
Incorrect social portrayal
SE opens with the OG group of problematic teenagers now shifted to Cavendish college - an ultra-left progressive school where one can find the most diverse identities on earth. This is the first instance when SE distances itself from reality. No such place exists on Earth. Moreover, these people somehow manage to live in a cooperative and harmonious environment. And that is…disturbing. That’s not a correct representation of how human groups exist. Violence and conflict can break out even in groups of the same kind (to ghettoise horribly). You might say that these conflicts were shown later in the series but my point is that such huge differences, especially based on a sensitive metric like sexual identity, will never allow such communities to exist in the first place.
Repetitive patterns
SE takes up its title too literally this season. You liked Otis as a sex therapist through S1, S2, S3? Guess what you’ll get this season? Two sex therapists! The entire season devolves into this overtly conspicuous pattern of addressing people’s sexual and social problems. As a bonus, you have to keep track of 5 such storylines in parallel. Notice how students just magically confide in their friends who they have literally just met. Otis and Eric were childhood friends and yet Eric somehow confided in Abbi. WTF? Why is this series so deliberately trying to be unrealistic (or is it trying to be funny?)
And then there’s some life-transforming event that happens - perhaps a conversation or someone’s death, and people again just magically understand and everything’s all fine and flowery again. Yay!
Wasteful and consumerist
Forget about sexual identities, let’s just talk about the portrayal of American teenagers in the series. That is clearly not how an average teenager lives (or wastes). There’s a very strong consumerist sentiment underlying the series portraying rich, wasteful teenagers in an environment clearly not the majority of us finds ourselves in. Was it trying to be deliberately insensitive? This is just very problematic.
Oh also, what’s up with Dolly and the tabs? Like you have a personalised social media hanging from your neck at all times in school? Seriously? I think they overdid the progressive college and ventured into outright nonsense for this one.
Thank god, it’s over
I get that Sex Education is literally sex education but it all just seems too on the face. There’s no subtlety. At best, it’s pretentious, at worst, it’s irresponsible. I can’t make up my mind which is the worst.
L.A. Confidential | Curtis Hanson | 1997
Ordet | Carl T. Dreyer | 1934
Bangalore Days | Anjali Menon | 2014
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar | Wes Anderson | 2023
Stardust | Matthew Vaughn | 2007
Fair Play | Chlor Domont | 2023
White House Down | Roland Emmerich | 2013
Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani | Ayan Mukherji | 2013
YJHD is probably my generation’s DDLJ. It has everything that would make a swoon-worthy dramatic Bollywood film to watch at the weekend with the family which is to say oodles of drama and romance. And yet YJHD doesn’t touch the central crisis of the story with a ten-foot pole but simply chooses to steer clear of it, only to resolve it in a way most of the latest generation would disapprove of.
At the core, YJHD is the story of finding love at the wrong place and time and trying to cope with it - a theme that has been exhaustively explored on screen both globally and nationally. But in YJHD, the resolution is reached by the boy sacrificing his dream which is an understatement, more like his life’s singular objective only to stay home with the girl. Problem solved, right? No!
Why did the boy have to sacrifice his dreams? Bunny’s choice to let go of his future, a future he had spent every waking second of his life making and every sleeping second dreaming of, is simply absurd and unexplained. In fact, underlining his unjustified choice is the promulgation of an unpopular idea with the modern teenager - the idea of a “soul mate” - the one “true love”. Going to Paris would have availed Bunny of more experiences and surely he would never be lonely. Thus, a practical Bunny, no, a rational Bunny would view companionship and intimacy as a purely transactional affair, something not to be muddled with life’s dream. Yet, we meet a new Bunny at the end, a reborn Bunny.
Which brings me to character arc development and its utter detachment from reality. YJHD is obviously a story that tracks the transformation of its ensemble cast especially the central two characters - Bunny and Naina. What is really interesting is the swift transition of Naina from an introvert to opening up to a complete stranger in the course of a vacation. As any introvert would tell you, this is an extremely romanticised form of writing that has no resemblance to the cruelty of reality. I mean how so nice to know that Naina ends up beating a bunch of goons in Manali after spending a day with Bunny and Co. Nonsense! In reality, these transformations are extremely rare, if at all, and introverts face a very different lifestyle, one that most have to simply cope with.
Continuing on the theme of impossible things, the movie shows an excess of abundance and wealth - somehow Bunny is able to finance Manali trek trip for his friend, Bunny is able to have his adventures in only eight years and Aditi manages to pull off a big fat Indian wedding at Udaipur. Money is a strong deterrant for all of these activities unfortunately! Which means that these activities are not as spaced out in time as they should be in reality which projects a completely false image of how people live and behave. This implicitly puts psychological pressure on the viewer who try to identify with the characters onscreen on certain metrics such as ethnicity, nationality, being able to feel the emotion of love etc. but fail in the prosperity department. This triggers an implicit guilt mechanism which reasons that not being prosper is a personal deficiency since they are similar in other aspects. This leads to stress and anxiety and the horrible feeling of lowness. This, as spelled out here, is of course, absurd but wouldn’t appear so to someone “just watching” the film. Something I called incomplete fulfilment of expectations on the basis of commonality.
Coming down to few Bollywood things that I didn’t like - too many songs! Although, some of the songs are classic, yet it’s just ugh. The dialogues get pretty pretentious at points. That Bunny dialogue “I want to run, fly, and fall but not stop” is another big cringe. Wake up to reality please!
I often allude to things like the “Indian style” and the “Non-Indian style” when it comes to filmmaking. I have always found it difficult to show what I really mean. But in YJHD I found a clear example. It’s Aditi’s wedding and she is doing her pheras. A love-struck Bunny is gawking at the two people near the wedding hearse and there’s a sparkle in his eyes. Clearly, he’s thinking about his wedding with Naina. Right? Right??? Traditional Bollywood would introduce an imaginary shot of Bunny and Naina actually doing the pheras thus, utterly destroying the opportunity to express something without showing - mark of clever filmmaking. Thankfully, that didn’t happen in YJHD.
Passengers | Morten Tyldum | 2016
No Hard Feelings | Gene Stupnitsky | 2023
Indecent Proposal | Adrian Lyne | 1993
Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1 | Christopher McQuarrie | 2023
His Girl Friday | Howard Hawks | 1940
Based on the play “The Front Page” by Ben Hecht et. al., His Girl Friday is a look into the corrupted and blemished world of press and media. Moreover, it is also a love story. And I especially like how it manages to bring both these plots together without appearing pretentious. It’s just right.
The characters are well-written, right from Walter Burns right down to Joe Pettibone, each character manages to lend a taste to the movie that sits pretty agreeably everything considered.
The play is actually a comedy but starts off at a grim junction namely the hanging of a convicted murderer. And yet something seems fishy. Upon investigation, Hildy Johnson, the female lead, finds out that the accused is actually innocent and framed for hanging just to serve the Mayor who wants to be elected as Governor. The film then follows the chain of events that culminates in the convict, Earl Williams, as being freed. There are many characters that come and go and their individual self-motivated action give rise to many comedic and layered dynamics - something reminisce of theatre (which shouldn’t come as a shock since it’s adapted from one). One more thing, the limited number of location - the major part of the movie is shot inside the criminals court room at the prison - is again in agreement with the fact that it is an adaptation.
Great movie. Definitely revisitable.
Die Hard | John McTiernan | 1988
La Haine | Matthieu Kassovitz | 1995
Love Actually | Richard Curtis | 2003
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid | George Roy Hill | 1969
Queen | Vikas Bahl | 2013
Pacific Rim: Uprising | Steven S. DeKnight | 2018
Kabir Singh | Sandeep Reddy Vanga | 2019
The Girl Next Door | Luke Greenfield | 2004
Oppenheimer | Christopher Nolan | 2023
Hacksaw Ridge | Mel Gibson | 2016
Broklynn 99 | TV Series | 2013-2021
Madan Senki Ryukendo | TV Series | 2006
Scarface | Brian De Palma | 1983
Salaam Bombay | Mira Nair | 1988
Luck By Chance | Zoya Akhtar | 2009
Zoya Akhtar’s directorial debut is a light-hearted but potent sneak peek into the nitty-gritties of the Bollywood film landscape itself - right from the indifference of the ultra-rich superstar to the thousands of dreams who just want to get that “one chance”. It isn’t as nuanced as Truffaut’s Day for Night but it captures the duality and constant struggle that every actor (or wannabe actor) has to live through in the city of dreams.
One thing that you would definitely notice is the cheeky cameos of almost everyone we see or love to see on screen and otherwise, people who make films an incredible experience.
LBC takes a dramatic turn after intermission doing a full 180 from a breezy comedy to a solid life lessons preacher.
All things considered, this is one top-tier debut exploring intimates themes of struggle, dreams, love, and interpersonal relationships. Very Zoya Akhtar in spirit especially in what what to come.
The Last of Us | TV Series | 2023
Sairat | Nagraj Manjule | 2016
Sairat paints a brutal picture of the Indian casteist society
Nagraj’s Sairat is a visually stunning 3 hour long ride holding a mirror at the malice of casteism in the modern Indian society. It follows an upper caste girl who falls in love with a lower caste boy and ends up having to face the disapproval of her family to the burden of believing in that love to the wrath of society itself.
From the first exposition, it becomes clear that Nagraj won’t settle for the conventional and wrote the girl with a confident and high-handed character. The boy, on the other hand, is a simple fellow. It appears as cursory for us to read these words and get the “gist” of what happens in the story but the movie beautifully captures the challenges and tears and the burden of loving someone. Especially if that someone happens to be from a “lower caste”.
Why the hell did you mess with the upper caste folks? What’s the use of education?
One’s convictions not at times when the conviction seems true but when it begins to seem false. Just like when the girl had to believe in her decision and accept the life of poverty and living in the slums. She is truly a Sairat or as the movie title translates to in English, fearless, a non-conformist, wild.
The movie is ambitious in that it takes two sensitive topics and mushes them together - teenage love and casteism in India. It chooses to talk about one thing and talks about it well. Although, I felt that few characters were underdeveloped just as there was more time given to the protagonist and his girl - an unnecessary evil of Indian cinema and the Indian craving for drama. Oh, and there were also a few songs thrown in to make the movie palpable to the Indian audience.
That last shot of the orphan kid walking away from the lifeless bodies of his parents leaving crimson imprints on the floor is a harrowing image that is sure to stay with me for a long , long time. In that one shot, Sairat decided to stop talking and let the images do the speaking. And that is fantastic.
PS: I personally cannot imagine the kind of discrimination and psychological thought-processes for someone who is brought up in such a fragmented society. I was fortunate enough to be shielded from such sentiments.
PPS: I want to scream and howl for I cannot create art like this.
Machines | Rahul Jain | 2016
It’s easy to mistake Machines as a black and white documentary for the dirt and blackness of the miserable working conditions of the factory makes it hard to make out any vibrancy as such.
What do you expect from a documentary about a textile dyeing factory situated in Gujarat? That’s right. Miserable working conditions, poor and emancipated workers working in outrageously dangerous conditions and silently enduring the exploitation, fat business owners sitting in air-conditioned offices far away from the toxic factory floors and so on and on. This was my mental preconditioning before I hit the play button on Rahul Jain’s piognant documentary Machines.
But Machines turns out to be much more than a plight of the poor and a very grim reminder of the stark inequalities that we live in and choose to ignore. What stood out for me is the masterful composition of each shot coupled by poetic sequences that weave a story without the utterance of a single word. Rahul takes the creative decision to keep himself out of the frame at all times, visually as well as vocally. There is minimal voiceovers and testimonials, a general feature of such documentaries. All replaced by the raw noises and gentle humming of the Machines.
Even then I noticed two things: first is the sheer synergy that exists between man and machine at this factory. It seems like both of them are best friends supporting each other without any qualms. And secondly, the contrast between the audience with their gawking eyes and gaping mouths looking at every movement, every machine with surprise and curiosity where the workers are indifferent to their environment. Rich white fibre being produced but no one to ask about the labour conditions or the story behind the hands that made them. And of course, faces! So many of them! Starkly staring at the camera with innocence and helplessness, almost as if Jain wanted us to lament the despondent future of these poor souls. In fact, this has been Jain’s philosophy: to show and not to tell.
PS: Studying textile engineering and watching the “theory” applied in real-life was such a moving experience for me personally.
The Mask of Zorro | Martin Campbell | 1998
Men in Black | Barry Sonnenfield | 1997
Thor: Love and Thunder | Taika Waititi | 2022
Squaring the Circle - The Story of Hipgnosis | Anton Corbijn | 2022
The Birds | Alfred Hitchcock | 1963
Past Lives | Celine Song | 2023

2022

Fallen Angels | Wong Kar-Wai | 1995
In Fallen Angels, Wong Kar-Wai perfects and consolidates his unique style that he introduced in Chungking Express. Every shot is so dreamy and trippy from the steadicam camerawork (something taken by Gaspar Noe to the extreme) to jittery, grainy compositions with colors split midway. Fallen Angels is among one of the most stylized films I have watched till date. A movie with a distinct taste and sophistication.
Fallen Angels follows different individuals from different walks of lifes in Hong Kong and how their paths cross in serendipitous ways. It’s a dreamy film and takes that premise forward. I loved the stop-motion bounty murder sequences (an exceptional such sequence is the Plutonium theft sequence in The Man Who Stole the Sun), the camera movements are humorous, perky, and….comical. It’s delightful to hit play on any Wong Kar-Wai and let our minds drift into his world. Revisitable.
(first watch: 14 December, 2022)
Once Upon A Time…In Hollywood | Quentin Tarantino | 2019
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood takes place in Hollywood in the 60s and tells the story of a fictional actor named Rick Dalton and his stuntman double, Cliff Booth. They happen to be neighbors to Roman Polanski and Shannon Tate (played by Margot Robbie) and end up getting engaged in a number of internal and external conflicts such as career issues, fight with the hippies, and so on.
The movie is a portrayal of the bourgeois Hollywood circles and a social commentary on the good ol’ have and have-nots. All filmed in classic Tarantino style. We have everything from feet to food to fight scenes with “Bruce Lee”. Car drives form a large portion in the first half and peculiar hovering bird-eye view shots too. And then, of course, the finale and confrontation at Rick’s house. And a special mention for Margot Robbie, oof :P!
I like how the film mingles the real life and the film life. Gave me a lot of Truffaut’s Day For Night vibes. All in all, a good watch for a lazy Saturday evening.
(first watch: 10 December, 2022)
Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion | Elio Petri | 1970
Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion begins with the murder of a beautiful woman, Augusta Terzi (Florinda Bolkan), with a severe rape-and-murder fetish by her police chief lover. Interestingly, the chief doesn’t try to cover his tracks but instead place evidences so that the police can trace the murder to him. And yet, even more intriguingly, the police chooses to unsee the evidence and defer the investigation simply because the culprit is a man of power. Indeed, the chief exclaims (multiple times) – “I represent power, Augusta!” The film questions state authority and machismo as the investigation unfolds against a youth-led communist uprising challenging the state dominance, which is most brilliantly represented by one of the most potent scenes – the interrogation of the plumber. One must notice the dialogues very carefully as they drip with irony and fear. It’s one of the most riveting demonstrations of the power of state authority and a starking representation of the theme of the movie. Shot in intimate full face shots, it’s upclose and personal. We can study each muscle twitch of the face. Fantastically executed. Perhaps, the single dialogue that summarizes the state’s attitude is this: “We must know everything. We must control everything.” The movie is also the commentary on the psychological transition of a man who is given incredible power to exercise. He breaks the traffic light and gets away with it. Terzi exclaims, “You can commit any crime you want” and we are left to ponder: Who will watch the watchmen?
Coming to execution, Investigation has some of the finest camerawork I have seen. Scene compositions are great, the camera movement graceful as they sway around a scene intriguing and creating suspense. I don’t know much about Italian cinema (I’m reminded of Life is Beautiful) but I suppose this will be up there. Complementary and “humorous” sound track. Love the flashback sequences.
(first watch: 28 November, 2022)
Pan’s Labyrinth | Guillermo del Toro | 2006
Oh. My. God. Pan’s Labyrinth is a beautiful, chilling modern fairy tale story. But don’t believe “fairy tale” means all unicorns and magic spells - although, Pan’s Labyrinth doesn’t lack in imagination - there are more twists and moments of heightened suspense than in any conventional flick. Beautifully shot, the lighting are amazing, the color palettes, and the cinematography. And of course, the CGI. A very Alice in Wonderful-like plot but nothing like it. It has ample gore and bloodshed and death and magic creatures and fairies and fauns. Incredible experience.
Set in the Spanish civil war, it follows a little girl who discovers she is a magical princess but must perform three tasks to prove her fairyhood. Instead of spoiling the plot for you, I’ll just leave it for you to explore :)
(first watch: 27 November, 2022)
Dogtooth | Yorgos Lanthimos | 2009
What is Dogtooth? To be honest, I don’t know. Is it a work of genius or just another director’s brain fart? Is there a deeply embedded and profound message in the film or are we just left to our devices to find one where none exists? It is hard to say. It is set in a Parasite-esque sprawling residence complete with all amentities where the parents have brainwashed their three children into confining them to the house. They go to great lengths to do the same, reinventing words and changing their meanings (“Zombie” is a small yellow flower, for example), faking the death of their imaginary brother by a evil creature called the “cat”. It’s a film that contains many explicit scenes of violence, gore, and blood - Martin, the boy gorging out the guts of a cat with gardener’s scissors or the eldest smashing her mouth with a dumbell to get her dogtooth out - afterwards which she’s told she would be able to venture out and face the challenges of the world outside. Not a lot seems to be happening in the film - these characters moving around in slow and calculated steps, the cameras held in static shots as if everybody is holding their breaths and its kind of ironic given the pristine environment they live in. But once we look deeper, we find darker things going on in the house. Themes of submission are generously explores throughout the film along with incest and homosexuality. The climax is open-ended as we find the eldest girl being able to identify the shroud of lies her parents have put up and escaping out in her father’s car but we don’t really find out what happens to her afterwards. The last shot is a long take of her father’s backcabin. And that’s pretty much all I wanna say about Dogtooth. Weird-ass Greek movie.
(first watch: 26 November, 2022)
Stuck in Love | Josh Boone | 2012
Stuck in Love combines literature and romance into a feel-good flick where defective characters eventually “find themselves” via experiences of love and beyond. It follows a family of a successful writer father who has been divorced for three years but finds it hard to move on. His two kids, a shy teenager boy who loves Stephen King and is socially awkward and his promiscous daughter who simply refuses to believe in love and dating because of the scars her parent’s separation left on her. It’s a story where characters eventually gain understanding, perspective, and clarity that the meaning of love is different for everyone. It ends on a happy note so there’s that. Loved the literature references such as ref to “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” by Raymond Craver where he ends,
I could hear my heart beating. I could hear everyone’s heart. I could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moving, not even when the room went dark. ~What We talk About When We Talk About Love, Raymond Craver
Wow.
And how Flannery O’ Connor, an American novelist and essayist said that the first 20 years of experiences is enough to inspire a writer for the rest of their creative output. I sooo love this.
PS: It had Jennifer Connelly in it. gasp
(first watch: 25 November, 2022)
Napoleon Dynamite | Jared Hess | 2004
Hmm, how do I describe Napoleon Dynamite? It’s a funky movie set in the middle of nowhere of Idaho and follows the titular character of Napoleon Dynamite who is far, far away from being anything close to a dynamite. Infact, characters seem to be in semi-sleep deprived state ironic given the title of the film. With very minimal and almost no action, NB manages to irk out some laughs and certainly some chuckles with clever writing and a slapstick-esque comedy style. It’s stupid and wacky and feels senseless but once you see it, you realise that is the beauty of it.
It’s a story with profound plotlines and memorable characters. It’s about finding love beyond barriers (The hilarious Lawfunduh and Kip tale), and priding in being the underestimated, neglected underdog who rises when the time is ripe. It’s a hilarious movie and worth watching just for the sake of Napoleon and the kind of (mis)adventures he is a part of.
PS: They also made an animated 6 episode series out of this.
(first watch: 24 November, 2022)
The Man Who Stole The Sun | Kazuhiko Hasegawa | 1979
The Man Who Stole The Sun is a Japanese dark humour comedy which follows a meek school science teacher who ends up making an atomic bomb in his apartment and quite literally brings the whole Tokyo state police to its knees. It is a deeply engaging movie with a lot of plot twists and thought-provoking events. With some wacky and interesting editing, the stop-motion theft of plutonium from the reactor sequence comes to mind, the shot composition, and the overall cinematography in this film is top-notch.
There is a bit of everything in this ~150 minutes long film – action squences, car chases, murder, gore, romance, comedy, music. TMWSTS explores two very different themes – the anguish and determination in the life of a lonely young man. Who wouldn’t sympathise with Mr. Kido AKA the A-bomb man, #9, and Bubblegum when Inspector Yamashita yells in the end scene, “That’s who you really want to kill-it’s you!”? At the same time, we get a glimpse into the destituted and utterly inept condition of state authority as they try in vain to nab the perpretrator. We are forced to question ourselves, What good is it to rest our trust for security in a state institution like this?
I loved the soundtrack in this movie. It was layered and beautifully executed. And the shots, ah. Whatever be the case, right out there with the likes of Akira and Spirited Away, TMWSTS is a classic Japanese flick that is an eye-candy to watch.
PS: I got to know about this rather obscure film (and many others) via this newly discovered YT channel called The Kino Corner. Check out their video too! (first watch: 22 November, 2022)
Double Indemnity | Billy Wilder | 1944
Double Indemnity is an American neo-noir thriller with many twists in the plot, subplots, complex characters, and weird-ass 50s dialogues and acting. It is Billy Wilder’s crazy experiment into creating a cinematic flick that would attract a cinema-going audience and also manage to establish him as a visionary in American film landscape. Double Indemnity, at its heart, is a tale of trust and deceit. Characters build trust and end up both betraying and getting betrayed simultaneously. A healthy dose of 50s American slang, sometime getting too mentally jarring to comprehend. Signature Wilder with his cocky weird-ass jokes that would be better received by an audience of the 50s, I guess.
All in all, a nice continuation of exploring Wilder’s works.
(first watch: 19 November, 2022)
The Truman Show | Peter Weir | 1998
The Truman Show is an avant-garde piece of cinematic writing. It asks deep questions in an innocuous disguise. There are many clever references as treats for the inquisitive ones. And, it is a most wholesome of the so-called “happy endings”. I loved the unconventional voyeuristic camerawork that delibrately gave out the impression of being watch. That coupled with sneaky writing on the events and plotline lend extra suspense as we knew something was off from the beginning but couldn’t really manage to place it. TTS does a great job of arresting that suspense in a fulfilling manner. Questions of morality, personal freedom, the television, internet, online voyeurism, tracking, social engineering, illusion, facade, and so much more, just pours out of the premise itself. I’m sure, something new will come out of TTS everytime one sits to watch it and it will lead to a healthy amount of debate and discussion everytime. (first watch: 12 November, 2022)
Sunset Boulevard | Billy Wilder | 1950
Sunset Boulevard is an American drama/noir film executed to the highest degree of perfection. It follows a forgotten, old actress, Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) who lives in her own imaginative fiction where she believes she is still adored by her fans, and respected by her colleagues. The progression and eventual breakdown of her mental psyche makes up the core plotline for the film. On the other hand, we have a struggling screenwriter who stumbles upon her palace of comfort and seclusion and ends up becoming a follower/submissive?. He is trying to come to terms with his inability to “make it big” and accepting his failure with resignation. The internal conflict of these characters form an interesting dynamic throughout the film and presents multiple real-world conundrums through it. The characters are very well-developed and presented. A shoutout for Ms. Desmond’s house which is an exquisite example of a mise-en-scene. The film is engaging and keeps one on the edge and yet is not horrific. It asks deep questions through the characters and invites us to understand their plights. To all the praises I have heard about SB, I think it deserves all.
The element of a dashing broke male protagonist becoming the object of affection for a plural number of attractive females or vice-versa (As seen in Some Like It Hot) seems to me a popular story device of the 50s. Here too, we see Betty Shaefer and Norma Desmond fall for our charming little gentleman, Joe Gillis. As a matter of fact, I found little misogynistic comments / dialogues than Some Like It Hot which seems to be a mark of the era rather than the director’s mindset themselves.
(first watch: 8 November, 2022)
Some Like It Hot | Billy Wilder | 1959
The Usual Suspects | Byran Singer | 1995
Spirited Away | Hayao Miyazaki | 2001
The Double Life of Veronique | Krzysztof Kieslowski | 1991
The Big Lebowski | Coen Brothers | 1998
TBL is a evident departure by the Coen brothers from their element and yet threads close to the spirit of a Coen production. It is a comedy-drama that follows a Jeffrey Lebowski (Jeff Bridges), a pot-bellied, failed bum, who joins his friends, Donny and Walter, in bowling tournaments diligently (and pretty much nothing else). But things go awry when two rogues come and piss on his rug, mistaking him for another Jeffrey Lebowski, a namesake and a more accomplished individual with considerable reputation and a hot-chick wife who is in debt from a Mr. Jackie Treehorn. Our Jeff or “Dude” as he likes to be called, is slowly embroiled in a progression of different cacophonies. And that is essentially it, a million dollars in ransom, a kidnapped wife and a quest to bring her back.
TBL works for its very well-written characters, tidy cinematography, and story-telling. Walter Sobchak is a truly eccentric character, a short-tempered good-for-nothing who manages to fail in everything and bring the Vietnam war into every conversation. A man who loves rules and gets real upset real fast if he finds people flunking rules, Walter is just one example of a memorable and eccentric character. Infact every character lends a unique charm to every scene and create a humorous environment overall. This is a departure from the usual Coen characters who create a chilling aura on screen (Anton Chigurh from No country for old men).
Enjoyed it. Oh, and Julianne Moore. And that opening bowling game scene in slow-motion chef’s kiss.
(first watch: 21 October, 2022)
Punch Drunk Love | P. T. Anderson | 2002
Hmm. I remember starting this movie way back and leaving it around the 30 minutes mark because nothing seemed to be happening. Now, that was quite naive of me but on a second attempt, I understood that those first 30 minutes in a 90 minute film does tell the story by not telling any.
Punch Drunk Love is a simple and profound story of love and finding love. It is essentially a brilliantly told character transformation story. We meet Barry, our protagonist and immediately figure that something is off. He’s heckling a customer care line about how their frequent flyer offer outvalues the price of the product monetarily. Not talkative, small brother with seven sisters, scruffy around people, anxious about social gathering, wearing a suit at 8am(!), everything seems strange about him. Some really cool shots worth mentioning are the piano stealing scene and the three cut shots of Barry looking down at the piano from three sides. It’s so beautifully executed. Barry is a lonely grown-up man with a crying problem. He loses his temper often and ends up kicking and shattering glass at her sister’s birthday. There is a beautiful shot of Barry with drooped head and Anderson pans the camera to the left to reveal an empty dinner table (typically where loved ones converse) showing how lonely he is. Again, brilliantly done. He’s talking to his brother-in-law and talks about how “I don’t like myself sometimes” and “I don’t have someone I can talk to about things” and “I sometimes cry a lot for no reason.” Now, these are serious issues and very much real in today’s society. Anderson is talking about real condition of real men in the real world. There’s this line “Everybody would be there and I’d get a little tense and I won’t act like myself” and I broke a little inside.
As much as it is a story of Barry, let’s talk about the agent that brought about his transformation. Lena Leonard, the woman in the red dress. The more she got to know him, the more she accepted him, something he needed. Being caught in the wrong company by a phone-sex line gang, after he falls in love with Lena, he goes all the way to Utah from L.A. just to tell the guy that he’s not afraid of anything because he has someone who loves him. It’s not so much as telling the guy but telling himself. That’s something he has been wanting to listen to and now, it’s there. This is where he derives his new-found power from. No more the timid, hesistant, and awkward Barry. But have I talked about the single most memorable shot of this film? Yes! The Hawaiian rendezvous! The framing and composition, the choice of silhoutte, the body language, omg! It blew my mind really.
PS: I saw this movie featured in a StudioBinder video on yt and got reminded of leaving it midway so here we are.
(first watch: 09 October, 2022)
Minority Report | Steven Spielberg | 2002
If you ask me to describe Minority Report, I’ll call it a movie of ideas. Directed by Spielberg, it’s a testimony to changing times, changing technology, and Spielberg responding to that change (Ready Player One anyone?). Based on a Philip K. Dick short story (yes, this guy seems to supply most of our sci-fi plots), we are introduced to the Department of Precrime whose job is to stop perpetrators before they commit the crime. They are able to do this with the help of three “Pre-cogs”, surviving humans from a failed genetic experiment with a superpower. The movie is highly debatable and thought-provoking asking the obvious questions of the morality involved in arresting someone before they commit any crime and the difficult question of choice, free-will, and determination. As someone explained, the Pre-cogs don’t show what you intend to do but what you are going to do. So, when John Ardenton (Tom Cruise), the officer in Precrime gets to know he’s gonna murder someone, he starts a chain of events that with the intention of preventing that event, will inevitable lead him to it.
Setting these questions aside, we come to the engaging story because it is essentially a crime thriller with a Christie-esque (God, I have to work on my portmanteaus!) whodunnit undertones. It got fairly predictable towards the climax but it was entertaining for the better part.
Spielberg manages to paint a “plausible” futuristic vision in this film where “plausible” is defined (tongue-in-cheek by me) as not cringe enough to make me gawk but acceptable. It is a loose definition by intention as it is difficult to predict the future (no pun intended :P). Impressive computer interfaces, futuristic cars, a centrally surveillanced city system, advanced law-and-order equipments, it was cool.
Now, coming to direction and cinematography. The building surveillance scene with spyders while Ardenton is on the run is nicely shot in bird-eye view. It’s a brilliant decision because the nature of the policemen is voyeuristic / intruding and nothing could have captured that better than a God-like bird-eye shot of the residents. This is just one example I can think of right now. Engaging camerawork. Loved it.
(first watch: 09 October, 2022)
13 going on 30 | Gary Winick | 2004
A Clockwork Orange | Stanley Kubrick | 1971
“A Clockwork Orange” is Kubrick’s realisation of an Orwellian fantasy
Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange tries to be many things in a nifty way. A satire on state control, a study of the effervescent youth, and an outlandish extol of the Ninth Symphony. Set in Britain, Orange is an English film using a made-up vocabulary derived from Russian that is delightful to listen to. With sentences such as: “Come and get one in the yarbles if you have any yarbles you eunuch jelly, thou”, and words like “malenky”, “rassoodocks”, “devotchka”, one would want to simply keep listening to it.
PLOT
Alexander DeLarge is a troubled, delinquent charming youth with an extended appetite for knifing, violence, sex, and rapes. Along with three accomplices - Pete, Dim, and Georgie, they embark on daring nightly criminal enterprises and find themselves wealthy both monetarily and carnally. With beating up bums on the street, breaking into homes to rape wifes in front of their husbands, robbery, and every progressive crime so heinous and inciting in nature, we start to disgust Alex, at the very least. But life is good for Alex, a meek set of parents, Basil, his pet snake for company, and music, oh yes, especially Ludwig van’s Ninth Symphony that he so adores. It is only after a failed theft and accidental murder of the victim that Alex finds himself sentenced to 14 years of imprisonment, a term that he despises. He is tortured and manhandled in the cells and the brutality of prison life soon makes us symphathise with our poor Alex. A poor, young lad, albeit slightly lost. Isn’t he? So, when the opportune time comes to sign up for a new psychological treatment — Ludivico treatment — by the Government in accord with its new agenda of not punishing criminals, but to “cure” them altogether, Alex jumps at the opportunity — not so much as for a sincere remorse for his past but as a means of escape from the “hellhole and human zoo”. It might not be forward of us to think of Alex as Kubrick’s own toy, a vehicle he yields to sway our sentiments at will.
THE LUDIVICO TREATMENT
This is an interesting juncture of the film wherein the oppressive and impulsive Alex is turned into a submissive, meek, subordinate via a brutal fourteen-day regime of brainwashing, and chemically conditioned repulsion for violence and (accidentally) music, especially Ninth Symphony that so poignantly accompanied the videos on Holocaust and Nazis as they were shown to Alex with eyelid-locked apparatus. What emerged out of this is a totally different man, one who won’t advance for the usual “good in-out” on an inviting naked woman but go so far as to lick the boot of an oppressor if asked to do so. And it is this moment that we begin to question the rationality and effectiveness of the method adopted by the Government. Yes, Alex is permanently conditioned to denounce crime and violence but where has the state left him the power of decision. He might not be the first to start a fight but what is alarming is the realisation that he won’t be able to defend himself if he finds himself in one. Thus, the much-lauded brainwashing technique is reduced to a masquerading method to turn the masses into submissive, little cattle. You might have guessed where Kubrick is going with this. Such procedure, if conducted en masse with the determination and resources easily accessible to the state, would surely pave the way for a totalitarian, state-controlled regime with no dissent against the dictator. An Orwellian fantasy realised.
PLOT CONTINUED
But oh, I digress much from our good, ol’ Alex, one who is forever robbed of experiencing the joys of the Ninth. The reformation does come at a cost. And it is shown most vividly by his rendezvous with his old accomplices, Dim and Georgie, who have now assumed the post of police-officers, young and brash, just how the Government would like the law-enforcers to be. The meeting isn’t pleasant. Old balance books are settled. And Alex, left to his own accord, finds himself at the cozy residence of none other than the revolting writer whose wife he had wronged. Alex reasons that due to his proboscis mask at the time of crime, the man won’t be unable to identify him straight away. But he does. And we know it. Particulaly impressed by Kubrick who manages to hold the suspense so properly in this scene. A suicide attempt by Alex goes awry after he is locked in a room and tortured by the Ninth, a remote-control, a vulnerability deliberately introduced by the state. With broken bones, he lays on his hospital bed, only to be visited by Minister of the Interior, the champion of the Ludivico technique. An understanding is reached between the two as “friends” and we are left to ponder the meaning of it all as a wild rape fantasy pops into Alex’s head making us ask the question, “What changed?”
THEMES AND MOTIFS
Orange is ambitious in the range of themes it tries to portray and comment on. Now, let’s proceed to dismantle the many motifs and references, something to always look forward to in a Kubrick. The first thing that I noticed was the usage of a peculiar vocabulary, a peculiarity that is closer to amusement just by the acoustic qualities of the sounds. The most provoking motif, although not a special one, is Kubrick’s fetish with bare female skin (Eyes Wide Shut unmistakenly comes to mind) and the need to explicitly display it, as a celebration of the female form or just a perverted downslide, that we may may never know. Classical music adorns the background score of a greater part of the movie and the dramatic and impressive usage of music to complement grosteque scenes of violence and assault is again very Kubrick-esque. Circling back to, perhaps, the most visually noticeable feature that is the mise-en-scene. There is general consensus as to the importance that Kubrick associates with his set design, props, and lighting. We are reminded of the rebellious writer’s quirky and modernist house, an unforgettable piece of interior designing. Same goes for Mr. DeLarge’s residence and the arousing Korova Milk Bar. The brilliant usage of bright and saturated colors along with patterns and motifs goes a long way in consolidating the images in the viewer’s head a long time after the movie is over, something Kubrick knew and exploited to his advantage well.
And sample this dialogue of Alex with an old roadside bum who he later thrashes:
Bum: It’s no world for an old man any longer.
What kind of a world is it at all?
Men on the moon.
Men spinning around the earth.
And there’s not no attention paid…
…to earthly law and order no more.
Nothing the usage of the Cockney English, delight for the ears to listen but not much practical. This is the style adopted throughout the script. This particular dialogue stands apart because there isn’t anything along this spirit in the movie, the regurgitory rant of the old against the new world order, that is.
CONCLUSION
Ah, so much analysis but are we left with anything more than what we came here with? Perhaps not. The highly effective Ludivico technique is (thankfully) fictional but does it imply the absence of a eqaully potent technique out there currently employed by so-called law-enforcers? Is it morally correct or even beneficial to punish the offenders? Or will it make more sense to “cure” them? ACO asks a lot of questions or maybe none at all. But who cares if it is good cinema, innit?
PS: Kinda ironic I’m composing this while listening to van Beethoven’s Ninth hehe.
PPS: Alex’s pet snake is named Basil. Can you believe that?! I’m immortalised in a Kubrick film. Still feels unreal man. LOL.
The Kashmir Files | Vivek Agnihotri | 2022
The squabble and controversy that abounded the release of this movie was justified. TKF is a hard polarising movie if consumed without context or history and thus, a conveniently dangerous trigger for the impulsive youths. Facts are heavily distorted, sometimes even changed just to fit a one-sided narrative that Agnihotri has tried to propagate in this movie. Ironically enough, in a movie which likened the Kashmiri Pandit exodus to nothing less than the Holocaust, I could safely argue that that movie is infact a propaganda film aimed less at narrating an unbiased history but creating disbalance and enmity in society.
Clocking at a whooping ~170 minutes of runtime, the story of Kashmiri Pandits is told in which the sympathy rests solely with the Pandits. A wobbly plot, lame writing, and an incoherent presentation of information makes for a jarring watch if only countered by impressive performances by a relatively star-studded cast. Anupam Kher as a distraught Kashmiri Pandit comes to mind. Suboptimal acting by the protag made me cringe but it is Bollywood after all and we cannot escape drama. The legacy, lore, and myth of Kashmir was presented in a manner that seemed more to mock the audience for not knowing such an important piece of Kashmir’s legacy than to provide that information. There is considerable gore and blood shown with explicit scenes of assault and murder. Again, the objective seemed less to provide context to an “unbiased” telling of the history (which was, of course, absent) but to instigate a new generation of youth into cornering a certain section of the society as malicious. Yes, a piece of Agnihotri’s fetishized reality.
In all the crossfire, Faiz’s poetry Hum Dekhenge is distorted to conveniently fit into the narrative by invoking traditional Islamist fundamentalist views and somehow managing to interpret the poetry in that light. In his rallying to identify with the plight of Kashmiri Pandits, Agnihotri manages to paint a more blood-bathed picture of the Valley than the paradise that it really is.
In conclusion, my original advice of consuming his movie with considerable perspective and context is essential to sift facts from fiction. Or to not consume this movie altogether.
(first watch: 5 October, 2022)
Moonrise Kingdom | Wes Anderson | 2012
Unlike other Wes Anderson movies, Moonrise Kingdom is a profound inquiry into the psychological tendencies of young children. It explores the themes of orphans and disturbed childhood. But of course, it raises these serious issues in Anderson’s light-hearted, peculiarly comical manner. We get what Anderson is telling us but don’t get overwhelmed. The message is there, it’s just a little subtle.
We follow Mr. Sam Shakusky, an orphaned twelve-year old Boy Scout who resigns from his position to rendezvous with his love interest, Ms. Suzy Bishop, an emotionally perturbed tweleve-year old girl who Sam had the chance to fancy at a performance where she played, conveniently, the raven. Their elopement was not spontaneous but involved an intimate and detailed correspondence via letters that now, Mr. and Ms. Bishop, victims of a failing marriage themselves, as Suzy spots her mother secretly spending time with Captain Sharp, the local Island police, have found and call for a search. With Sam’s exceptional Scout-boy skills and Suzy’s considerable inventory, they spend time on Mile 3.25 Tidal Inlet AKA the “Moonrise Kingdom”, only to be separated later by Scout master Ward and Suzy’s parents. The plot gets more involved but in the end, they get back together.
It’s a sweet and charming children’s movie with a little bit of objectionable material for kids. It portrays that crazy excitement of first love and kissing/being kissed for the first time. The awkwardness, the alienness, and the exhilaration. Charming and poignant in its own way. While at the same time commenting on the mental condition of an orphan who is sent to foster parents who send him to Boy Scout (And who later disown him after they hear that he’s a runaway), and a twelve-year old girl who finds a book titled “Coping with the very troubled child” with her parents. Indeed, books are an integral part of the film as Suzy loves to read books about female leads (that she stole from the library, haha) to Sam. The books, themselves, are not rugged or real but maintain that ornamental “doll-house” quality so common of props in an Anderson film.
We see two kids, untouched by the corruptions of the world yet, who identify with one another and decide to heal each other just as well. In Moonrise Kingdom, we see a different aspect of Anderson. He celebrates childhood, that transient, innocent time of our lives.
(first watch: 4 October, 2022)
Nocturnal Animals | Tom Ford | 2016
Nocturnal Animals is an interesting American psychological thriller. It tells the story of a rich and successful art curator who receives a copy of a new book written by her ex-husband whom she left for being less ambitious. As she reads through the story (which is also visually narrated to us), she slowly descends into depression as she realises how wrong she has been. At the end, she tries to redeem her mistake by trying to patch things with her ex-husband as her current marraige is failing and she’s pretty sure her husband is sleeping with other woman. The narrated story is about a man who lost his wife and daughter on the highway to Texas to a bunch of goons and found them raped and murdered later. Partnered with a cancerous police-officer, they manage to find the culprits who are murdered in increasing degrees of gore before he shots himself. So, yeah, kind of a mindfuck. Two parallele narrations and the innovative switched between them is interesting. The impressive use of sound and environment to create an atmosphere of increasing suspense and terror is commendable. Overall, it’s a nice entertainment piece.
(first watch: 3 October, 2022)
The French Dispatch | Wes Anderson | 2021
The French Dispatch: An absurdist eye-candy
Wes Anderson is a director whose works when subjected to multiple watching will be rewarding for the audience. Simply because of the sheer amount of information in each scene and shot. Stories that verge on the border of absurdity, most often comical, and seldom dark, coupled with an expansive mise-en-scene and a most peculiar camera style, Wes Anderson has created for himself a very distinctive style, one that is truly his own.
PLOT
In his latest offering, The French Dispatch, he takes us through the hardships and stories behind the publication the final issue of a weekly supplement with the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun. We kick off with “The Cycling Reporter”, giving us a visual tour of the fictional city of Ennui. He takes the idea of “show don’t tell” and conveniently turns it around into “show and tell”. Then, we are told how “The Concrete Masterpiece” came into being, a chronicle of a genius artist confined in a prison, followed by “Revisions to a Manifesto”, a most peculiar account of a student rebellion and its first-hand account by Mrs. Krementz. We end with a amusing account of the kidnapping of the Commissioner’s son and the quest to bring him back in “The Private Dining Room of the Police Commissioner”. We end with the obituary, of course, of Mr. Howitzer, the founder and editor of The French Dispatch, who died due to an heart attack.
ELEMENTS
With the extensive use of brilliant shades of pastels, TFD features some of the most delightful set designs. The soft pinks and browns of The Grand Budapest Hotel comes to mind, again. This level of detail warrants multiple watching just to sort of “take in” everything that is happening simultaneously on screen. Characters turn into narrators and they tell the story while peering directly into the camera as if being willingly able to break free of their worlds at will. And the characters, themselves, feel so out of touch with reality, so humorous and absurd and charming that they can only be sourced from a children story-book. Yielding the power of memorable character-writing, Anderson distances himself from the more realist cinema of his contemporary peers.
CAMERA and CINEMATOGRAPHY
It doesn’t take long to infer the distinct camerawork of Anderson which primarily comprises: panning and trucking shots. These complement, rather well, his expansive set designs that demand to be explored. Just like the audience of a comic book strip, he sends our eyes scanning horizontally as he unfurls the story and reveals information with the progression of the camera.
CONCLUSION
With a cast so star-studded, it is a displeasure but not a surprise to find TFD unable to capture the attention of the audience. It is simply because it is not a movie to be watched in the theatres but to be relished again and again from the confines of one’s room. It is a difficult movie to process and rewards multiple viewings.
Blue Valentine | Derek Cianfrance | 2010
Blue Valentine is a poignant and melancholic depiction of a failing marriage, a marriage decided circumstantially and in haste. It adopts a bi-narrative style telling the story of how the marriage came to be and how it is painfully disintegrating in the present. It balances the narrations well and I think that is a differentiating point. PS: Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams make for a cute couple.
(first watch: 1 October, 2022)
Slumdog Millionaire | Danny Boyle | 2008
SM is a shining example of how incredibly wrong people can be. Almost slated to be released in DVD, it was finally released in theaters after much tussle within Warner Bros. Recognized as a sleeper hit, it went on to win 8 Oscars in 2008 - yes, 8, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay.
SM is a “rags to riches” story of an uneducated 18 year old slumboy named Jamal Malik who went on to win 2 crore rupees on a television show. Suspected of foul play, he is arrested by the police and chronicles his accumulated his experiences of growing up and how he knew all the answers. Visually disturbing and starkly true, SM reminds me of White Tiger but only better. Loved the fairy-tale ending that balances well with the social commentary on the condition of slum kids. Must appreciate the cinematography, editing and acting by Dev Patel. A great place to get to know India.
(first watch: 1 October, 2022)
Django Unchained | Quentine Tarantino | 2012
Django Unchained is a Western action film by and follows Django, initially a black slave in a pre-Civil war USA in the South and his subsequent rise, through a fortuitous turn of events, to become a formidable bounty hunter. It is also a dark and serious commentary on the ill-treatment of blacks by the whites. Never has such passion erupted in my heart as watching the atrocities meted out to the blacks in this film as any other. It has been a fastastic experience (which QT film isn’t?). Scenes with suspense are so exceptionally composed, one might mistake to not be watching them but actually be in it. There was a tension between the whites and the blacks back in the 1850s. It is the same tension that Tarantino manages to weave into his scenes that lends gravity to the story. (For eg; Periodic pistol-clocking by Django under the table.)
Django is an exceptional character in its own right. A talented shooter who has a formidable level of confidence and grit. One of the good Western’s out there. (Oh I know, I should finally move my ass to watching The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly but oh well).
Auf Wiedersehen.
(first watch: 29 September, 2022)
A Trip to the Moon | Georges Meiles | 1902
Oh, so finally we’re here. At the beginning. This 15 minute science-fiction short is what most cinema historians consider as the realisation of the art of the moving camera as a form of art. It is plenty evident from the style, presentation, and techniques of an early explorer’s pioneering efforts. As if they are surveying a new found medium, defining new limits and new “laws”. The remnants of theaters are obvious too. Meiles was more of an illusionist than a director just like directors of his era. The idea of expression realism developed much later but the basic gist of cinema remains unchanged (and which we find stark and central stage in ‘Le Voyage das la Lune’): story-telling.
Georges was an absurdist, and a visionary. There are long static and wide shots, strictly defining the boundaries of what’s in frame and what’s not. The realisation that the frame itself can be dynamic through the film was unknown to these early adopters. The claustrophobic shots is one of the features that stood out for me, along with interesting camera trickery that gave varied effects on screen (superimposition of the human face on the moon, perhaps one of the most iconic cinematic images). It is ironic to think how just seventy years from when we specualated of going to the moon, we actually did go to the moon.
Another interesting exercise, as I was led to believe online, is an interpretation of ATTTM. Most accepted theory is Meiles criticizing man as a bringer of chaos and highlights the destructive nature of man. They “invaded” moon and crashed into the moon-people uninvited. We may choose to laud these gentlemen on Earth for their accomplishment and bravery, but as soon as images of the moustacheod professor/astronaut spanking moon-residents with his umbrella kicks in as they disappear in a puff of smoke, we are led to rethink our zeal. After the end of 15 minutes as we stare at the tall statue of the astronaut, we are led to think what have they actually accomplished?
(first watch: 27 September, 2022)
Reservoir Dogs | Quentin Tarantino | 1992
A bank robbery gone wrong. In Tarantino land. Identifiable motifs - men in black, car trunk scene, generous dollops of gore and violence, blood, blood, blood, gunshots, distrust, and a phasic narration style.
Six ragtags men are assembled to pull a daylight diamond heist but the maneuver goes wrong as police bust their plans. The story picks from this point where characters deliberate, ponder, and fight over the existence and identity of an undercover cop amongst them. Distrust, fear, and suspense are held in these scenes meticulously, in their carefully crafted dialogues to their behaviours. Sandwiched between these dialogues which mostly unfolds in a warehouse garage, Quentin tells the backstory of these goons. Quentin shows how creating good cinema does not require elaborate sets or a big bulky budget.
And that climax, OMG.
(first watch: 27 September, 2022)
Four Lions | Chris Morris | 2010
Four Lions is a British dark comedy satire commenting on the state of Islamic terrorism in the UK, their perception by the general crowd, and the eminent danger they pose today. I cannot begin to describe how cleverly written and well-researched this film is. I was laughing so hard in places.
The plot shows four (five actually) Muslims in London who are wannabe terrorists and how they want the ummah to rise up, their disgust for homosexuality, collective hatred towards consumerist, capitalist Western culture, and on and on. I don’t wanna spoil it for you but it’s a must-watch. What it manages to do is develop a powerful message about a controversial and sensitive topic in a humorous and light-hearted package.
Sample this: “Just because I’m a Muslim, you thought it was real?”
(first watch: 26 September, 2022)
Fantastic Mr. Fox | Wes Anderson | 2009
A rather curious visual style adopted by Wes Anderson that is reminiscient of 3D stop-motion with clay models.
Once in a while, it is uplifting to watch movies like Mr. Fox, within which you can get lost and take a break. A reverse Icarus character arc, adorable characterizations, and the visual style. That’s what I remember.
Oh, and this :P
```
Boggis and Bunce and Bean,
One fat, one short, one lean.
These horrible crooks, so different in looks.
Were nonetheless equally mean.
```
(first watch: 24 September, 2022)
Psycho | Alfred Hithcock | 1960
Psycho: An investigation of evil and malice
“We all go a little mad sometimes”, notes Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), the lonely owner of Bates Motel, a secluded motel off the highway and the unfateful place where Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) decides to spend the night while on the run after stealing $40,000 from her boss. I think this dialogue summarizes Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock’s seminal 1960 work investigating the human tendency to bend towards evil and malice. Marion found herself commiting theft and betraying her boss of 10 years just for some money. Bates is a most interesting character for analysis. A lonely, young man who is something of a goof (or atleast that was our first impression of him). With strong the-boy-next-door vibes, he casually puts his hands in his jeans, shows genuine concern for his customers, and radiates that infectious smile all around. And then of course, Bates’ mother, the central enigma of the film. I’ll argue we all have a Mrs. Bate equivalent in ourselves (if you know what I mean) and it is this connection that gives such massive appeal to Psycho almost 60 years after its release. Hitchcock brings together our most primal fears and serves them to us in a shocking and mesmerizing platter.
CINEMATOGRAPHY
The shower murder scene is one of the most iconic shots in cinematic history and for a reason, indeed. It showed posterity how actions can be shot. By making the audience a part of the scene (an idea Hitchcock was a big fan of). The jump cuts, the scream, the grimacing face of Marion, the glint of the knife, and the blood flowing down the drain. It’s just so meticulously done. Psycho has its share of glass-ceiling breaking moments when Hitchcock kills off the heroine of the film one-third way through the film. A shocking decision that only intrigues us more. The second murder of the private detective Argobast, is cool in itself, a bird-eye shot of the event captured in its entirety, spontaneity and all. The usage of reverse projection to give us the perception of Argobast falling down the stairs. Usage of avant-garde cinematic techniques is something Hitchcock loved to experiment with (The CGI of Vertigo, unmistakenly, comes to mind).
ART AND CINEMA
A passing mention of the Bates house, an architecture inspired by Edward Hopper’s 1925 House by the Railroad, a chilling architectural equivalent representation of the occupant of the house. Hitchcock spent considerable efforts to craft a greatly detailed and almost impeccable mise-en-scene. It all adds up to the final effect that Psycho has on our psyche that is never left the same.
HITCHCOCK AND VOYEURISM
Another motif that deserves mention is Hitchcock’s fetish for voyeurism. Be it the camera scanning the skyline of Phoenix to narrow down into a hotel room where Marion and Loomis are having an illicit love affair. Or, Bates peeping into Cabin 1 through a hole in the wall (suggesting peeping into his customer’s lives is one of his pasttimes. Taxidermy being the “obvious” other) to find a half-naked Marion stripping, a beautiful creature I must give in to that and what arouses Bates desire and sets the plot in effective motion.
AN AVOIDABLE OVERKILL
One tiny rant: I think the explanation at the climax by the psychatrist was an overkill and unnecessary. With a movie that relies so heavily on suspense and cliff-hangers, it would have only made more sense if Hitchcock had decided to let the audience connect the dots for themselves by just giving them enough morsel for thought. But it might have been Hitchcock paranoid about masses not being able to understand his film, a constant paranoid for artists, I suppose. Premise felt similar to Agatha Christie’s Mousetrap. And, the initial premise of Marion finally realizing her mistake of stealing money bore too great a resemblance to Selma Lagerlorf’s short story Rattrap, a text I remember from my school curriculum.
“We all go a little mad sometimes”. Yes, and Psycho confronts and celebrates that upfront and close.
Blue Velvet | David Lynch | 1986
Blue Velvet is an American thriller neo-noir. Set in a small town called Lumberton, we are introduced to a potentially unstable masochist singer Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) via the protagonist, Jeffrey, who has returned to town and has conveniently started romancing the local detective’s daughter (Laura Dern). With the romance of Jeffrey and Sandy forming a distracting side-plot, Lynch tells the story of Dorothy and Frank, “a very sick and dangerous man”, via, again, Jeffrey who is someone of a “mystery lover”, breaking into apartments and following criminals in the night. Frank has made a sexual slave out of Dorothy by blackmailing her about her kidnapped husband and son. Frank is killed. Dorothy returns back to sanity after uniting with her son and Jeffrey and Sandy are a thing.
Drawing obvious parallels between Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive, I was better able to understand Lynch’s style, cinematography, and mind. Innocuous objects are lent a chilling dimension, common places (the stairway to Dorothy’s apartment, for example) are casted into mysterious and malicious environments, while characters hold central stage in stylization and dialogues as they enrapture the audience from the beginning. Of course, none of these contribute to the plot but manages to instantaneously heighten the suspense and drama of a scene, something Hitchcock would be extremely proud of. Blue Velvet has its share of absurdity and weirdness. For example; why the hell was that hooker dancing on top of the car while Jeffrey was being assaulted by Frank? The strong and lasting imageries that Lynch creates stems from his ability to appeal to the sensual and inherently absurd quality of the human mind. Sensuality, sexuality, the “primal instinct” (Remember Frank’s “I’ll fuck anything that moves”?), destruction, crime are such an important theme of the film. it is how Lynch views modern society, full of crime and lust - “a strange world”. Kudos to Isabelle R for incredible and bold portraiture of a disheveled mother and wife - a character of conflict herself when she cannot decide if she should report to the police or give in to her own pleasures that she draws from being slapped and beaten.
Mixed feelings about how I feel about this movie but in any case, it’s a must-watch. Masterpiece? I won’t go so far (That would be Mulholland Drive if anything). Managed to inspire Tarantino, Coen brothers, and the like. Influential. Yes, that.
“It’s a strange world” is a recurrent dialogue in the movie. It really is. I think the movie is Lynch’s expression of personal anguish of finding himself in a strange world and counting on the robins to arrive. Something we all can identify with, I suppose.
(first watch: 23rd September, 2022)
Loves of a Blonde | Milos Forman | 1965
Loves of a Blonde is Forman’s concerns vocalised about an Eastern Czechoslovakia that is lagging behind its contemporary Western counterparts. He employs a number of elements to convey that apprehension. Being a jazz fan, he points out how Slovaks were still using traditional music in ballrooms whereas Beatlemania was raging in Western blocs (It was the 1960s, after all). He talks about the perception of sexual relations in contemporary Czechoslovak, consequent perception of woman, their doubts and concerns, outdated seduction practices. But at the same time, we see Andula, the heroine rebelling and making herself an active participant in her sexual lifestyle (supposedly a controversial idea at that time). We see her in an almost naked frontal shot, vivid and bright, like a fearless independent woman.
I like to think it was Forman silently talking about the next generation of Czechs waking up from their isolated worldviews to their Western counterparts and slowly coming to speed with the modern world. And of course, there is no dramatic plot or character transformation, although it is a feature. Overall, a gentle introduction to Czech cinema for me.
(first watch: 19th September, 2022)
Paterson | Jim Jarmusch | 2016
If I have to summarise this movie in one line: “The story of a modern man”. That may sound bland and simple but it isn’t. This movie follows a bus driver, Paterson (Adam driver) in the eponymous city of Paterson, New Jersey. He cuddles his wife in bed, wakes up at past 6, goes to work, takes his dog for a walk, hangs out in the bar. There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with his life and then you realise that is exactly what is wrong with his life. He is a poet and writes in free-verse in his “secret notebook”. A girl calls him, “A bus driver that likes Emily Dickinson”. He rarely smiles or laughs and when he does, he’s careful to draw back. Maybe it’s difficulty to communicate with others, maybe it’s loneliness. he loves his wife, loves his job, likes to listen to people having conversations on the bus - draws inspiration from everything around him. He’s a poet, after all.
His wife has big dreams. Wants to be a country star, bakes cupcakes that are a hit at a local community and earns her $286. The small wins that accrue. Revels in the rich history and heritage of his city. It’s a movie that will make one think deeply about things. Or maybe not. But that’s not the point.
(first watch: 20th September, 2022)
Waking Life | Richard Linklater | 2001
Waking Life is an introspective and rich movie commemorating and simultaneously examining human life and existence in general. There is no plot as such and nothing “progresses” in a conventional way. The protagonist is dreaming and talking to a number of people who are sermonizing him on a variety of topics, deep philosophical questions that loosely try to answer, “What are we?”. Linklater comments on linguistics, on morality, evolution, existentialism, the mind, politics, democracy (or lack thereof), of raw human emotions like hunger, anger, frustration, and what they lead to like murders, bombings, and war. There are two shots - one of a man who while talking to the protagonist on a sidewalk, sets himself on fire in broad daylight and another seemingly innocuous conversation between two pals in a bar which escalated into both shooting at each other. The pace of the movie is slow but it lends itself well to be watched at 1.5x or even 2x, just to keep one on their toes.
Linklater is known for creating immersive experiences out of human conversations (Before Sunset) and he does that here as well. Of course, it is futile to talk about this movie without talking about the unique visual style. I think it was a nice decision to animate the movie so as to allow that degree of freedom in more creatively expressing the dream-like premise in which the story unfolds. Kudos to the animator team. Loved those disorienting environment shifts, the floating buildings and trees. That had an enchanting effect on me personally.
My first impression was: Cool-ass movie where people ask deep philosophical questions. That still holds good.
(first watch: 17 September, 2022)
Vantage Point | Pete Travis | 2008
A refreshing new idea. So, the film is essentially a retelling of the story of the assassination of the POTUS at a peace summit in Spain through, you guessed it, multiple vantage points. Pete artfully divulges new information through these people’s perspective, kinda mimicking how no one agent in a system has complete information about an event but rather is distributed. This quality of an unreliable source of truth has often hastened critics to draw comparisons with Kurosawa’s Rashomon but I suppose that is too hasty and ill-founded. The Rashomon effect referred to the absence of confidence in the account of any narrator of an event. With a little thought, it can be seen that Vantage Point is not the same as the different vantage point only divulges more and coherent information about the truth that is generally agreed upon. It can be, interpreted as, an innovative mode of narration and sure, something that kept me engaged till the very end.
(first watch: 16 September, 2022)
My Sassy Girl | Jae-young Kwak | 2001
Based on the true story of a boy’s relationship that he wrote about on his blog, MSG was a phenomenal success in Korea when it was released. And now, when I have watched it, I can see why. It is quirky, hilarious, and heart-warming. It manages to overturn typical stereotypes of the society back then too. With a relationship in jeopardy, let’s just say it’s something I needed at this point.
PS: Extra points for that car drive scene and the resolution at the end.
PPS: My introduction to Korean New Wave lesgoooo!
(first watch: 16 September, 2022 )
North By Northwest | Alfred Hitchcock |
A trademark Hitchcock. A gripping mystery, a hero chase, beautiful heroine in distress, generous dollops of misogyny, engaging rhythm, creative cinematography. It was a good story that got complimented by the conversion to the film medium by Hitchcock and not the other way around. But what really stood out for me was the subtle misogyny and treatment of women by Hitchcock in his films:
Eve: I’m a big girl. Thornbill: Yeah, and in all the right places too.
WTF?
Or this,
Eve: Maybe it was the first time anyone ever asked me to do anything worthwhile.
(first watch: 13 September, 2022)
Call Me By Your Name | Luca Guagagnino |
CMBYN is a love story told in the span of a summer between a teenage boy and a researcher who is spending the summer with the boy’s father, an anthropology (linguistics?) professor. It’s a beautiful film, from the shots to the composition of scenes. I liked that aspect. It does a commendable job of capturing the anxiousness, apprehensions of immature experience of first love.
The centrepiece of the movie is Elio, the awkward, nervous lover-boy. He transcribes music, reads a hell lot of books, swims, doesn’t respond very well to invitations of love, is not competent enough to express his own, dozes off after jerking off, is excessively horny, does weird things when he’s around a lover, in short: he’s a schoolboy. PS: At one point, he is told to “grow up”.
On another note, Marzia (Esther Garrel). Oh. My. Fucking. God.
Too slow for my tastes but I guess that is by design. I actually left it midway some time back and completed it today.
“Is it better to speak or to die?”
(first watch: 10th September, 2022)
Tokyo Godfathers | Satoshi Kon |
This remained on my list for a very long time. All Kon movies are delightful from his efforts in going that extra mile for the characters, to wholesome stories, and cinematography. Kon is a master of his medium.
In Tokyo Godfathers, he chooses to tell the story of three homeless bums who couldn’t be more different but somehow manage to stick around - a drinker and gambler who left his family, a homosexual, needy man, and a stubborn teenager who ran away from home after she stabbed her father. The story chronicles their journey through Tokyo of trying to find the mother of an abandoned child on Christmas and how they eventually the child’s godfathers.
Kon explores the theme of mother’s love but the theme is so subtle and fleeting that one only comes to terms with it at the climax. And I think that is ingenious and a nice way to outstand from the herd where the trope of “mother’s love” sits glaring front and centre, literal death by boredom. Kon keeps us so sufficiently distracted in all the happenings, the quirky characters, the action, the shocking twists to sneakily plant the theme in place.
Kon also takes liberty to sermonize us through the characters on love, life, people. However, compared to his previous works like Perfect Blue, Millenium Actress, or Paprika, he lets his illusionist edge take a back-seat. The story is top-notch and real, and he chooses to put that front and centre. I loved it!
(first watch: 9th September, 2022)
Ralph Break The Internet | Rich Moore, Phil Johnston |
Wreck-It Ralph | Rich Moore |
Mulholland Drive | David Lynch |
My introduction to David Lynch. Let me be honest that I have been prepetually stalling this director only to watch one of his magnus opus on an inpulsive spree. And boy, oh boy, it’s incredible. Gave me literal chills. Horror, suspense, atmosphere, setting, hot lead actresses, mind-fucking thriller. All the hype I heard about MD being able to conjure successfully one of the most suspenseful atmosphere is, in fact, true. A great first watch of Lynch. Blue velvet next ;) (first watch: 5th September, 2022)
Vivre sa vie | Jean Luc-Godard |
Vivre sa vie (My life to live) follows a young girl as she descents into the occupation of prostitution. The story untolds in a set of 12 labelled tableaux (scenes but more disjoint in time and space). This film is a product of the French New Wave phenomenon and it is evident from the unorthodox camera movements, avant-garde cuts (cue in the ingenious gun shot scene with Nana in the cafe and Raoul outside). Tracking shots, gyrating shots, extreme bird view tracking shots, and static, almost fixated close-up shots with a disregard to the environment (often without any establishing shots), all of which helped establish Vivre sa vie as an iconic New Wave film. The chemistry and tumultous relationship between Godard and Anna Karina cannot be overlooked in any conversation involving the New Wave simply because of her creative influence on Godard in the creation of the new style.
In Vivre sa vie, she uses style, body language, and facial expressions to express the apprehensions of a struggling Parisian woman trying to make both ends meet. I personally loved the conversation with the philosopher (the 11th tableaux). The last tableaux is reminiscient of “Breathless” (the parallel will be obvious to those who have watched it; I will leave it to others to find out). A film about life and love. An art film.
(first watch: 4th September, 2022)
Barry Lyndon | Stanley Kubrick |
Barry Lyndon is a period drama set in 1700s England during the reign of George, the third. It is the story of an unknown young and ambitious man who through his cunning and bravado achieves much and just as quickly loses everything, as men often tend to become fools and meek after the attainment of a certain portion of wealth and fortune.
The film is a great starting place to study composition in films. The elaborate settings, the costumes, the props, the posture - Kubrick shows his meticule and attention to detail. The repeating motif of pull back shots is a characteristic of this film (The pull-back shot is generally used to reveal location around the vicinity of a character and/or serve as establishing shots). The masterful use of pull backs can be studied to understand when and when not to use a pull back. Loved it.
(first watch: 28th August, 2022)
Liberal Arts | Josh Radnor |
Saw a post on Instagram about the “We should hug” scene from this movie and I instantly knew that I had to watch it. Brilliant writing. The dialogues are chef’s kiss. The movie explores the themes of growing up, adulthood, and accepting changes. It tracks the life of a timid clerk who revisits his alma mater and attracts the attention of a college sophomore while soaking in his own nostalgia of college life and simultaneously battling the tinging realization of the irretrievable past. I could connect better with this movie probably because I’m in college but dude, those dialogues.
“You could go up to everyone here and say, ‘I’m a poet’, and no one will punch you in the face.”
You get to sit around and read books all day and have really great conversations about idea;
People out in the world, they’re not really doing that.
And many more. Also, did I vent how beautiful I think the title of the movie is. Should have gone to an art school.
(first watch: 23rd August, 2022)
Vertigo | Alfred Hithcock | 1958
I can understand why this movie is included in the list of “greatest films ever made” and is included in the case study of every budding filmmaker. This movie did things differently for the first time. Introduced innovative cinematographic techniques (such as the “dolly” shot) that became the standard in every filmmaker’s toolkit. Pioneered computer graphic usage in films. In a way, it was one of the films that wrote how films should be made and which was how films were made for a long time. There is a residual and quite distinct 50s character and style to the film.
Film was a relatively new medium of expression and it shows. From acting to the continuation of shots. The concept of “getting into a character” was meagrely defined and was still being developed. Actions sometimes just feel “empty”. Camerawork, although revolutionary, was still not complete. The ability to storytell a scene via a collection of shots, though polished by Hitchcock, was still not there. This is very prominently portrayed by the last scene after the nun finds out two strangers on the bell-tower attic. So out of place, it made me laugh.
Loved the suspense. Loved the music and design. The compositions were marvellous. Hitchcock was a master of creating suspense. This movie shows how its done.
(first watch: 18nd August, 2022)
Kill Bill Vol. 2 | Quentin Tarantino | 2004
Ditto Vol. 1. Tarantino movies are immensely rewatchable not only from the entertainment perspective which makes them accessible to the inexperienced but also serve as study material for the budding filmmakers. (first watch: 15th August, 2022)
Kill Bill Vol. 1 | Quentin Tarantino | 2003
Wacky. Signature Tarantino style. Motifs of food, feet, and refreshing cinematography. Coupled with striking shots and engaging storytelling.
(first watch: 14th August, 2022)
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? | Mike Nichols | 1966
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is an American theatrical piece by Edward Albee adapted for the screen. It explores the dysfunctional marriage of a history professor and his infertile, tumoultous wife whilst commenting on other existential issues like facing realities and the nature of illusion and lies.
The play is set mostly in George and Martha’s house where they receive a young, newly-wed couple, Nick, who is a professor in the Biology Department, and Honey, his “slim-hipped” wife after a party hosted by Martha’s father and head of Institute. The ensuing conversation between these two couples and a number of scandalous, heart-breaking, and vicious events turn the night into a despicable hell-hole. The characters are rich in complexities and multi-layered who can be dissected for a long time and provide ample food for discussion.
The central piece of the play is George and Martha’s marriage and the hundred ways they cannot survive each other and yet surprisingly have stuck together for so long. It’s a childless marriage and a truth Marta chooses to hide by conjuring a phantom son who is sixteen years old. George was once an ambitious young man who has a wild childhood, and has failed to achieve much in life eventually to live off his father-in-law’s money, a fact Martha cruelly points out and it seems, likes to take pride in. Out of frustration, the couple lacerates each other and their guests in multiple avenues through the night. It is, to say the least, painful to watch. Words turn to acid that dissolves any affection, gestures turned murderous and appalling. George eventually breaks the reality to Martha that is, that they have no children, a fact that seem to finally cap the excited, nymphous middle-aged woman.
There is love between George and Martha when she, in one of her spontaneous fits, confesses her love for George in a very poignant and deep monologue.
Martha: Whom I will not forgive for having come to rest.
For having seen me and having said “Yes, this will do.”
Who has made the hideous, the hurting the insulting mistake of loving me.
And must be punished for it.
~Who’s Afriad of Virginia Woolf?, Edward Albee
Virginia Woolf stood as a woman who preferred to face realities instead of living in illusions. Hence, the curious title of the play eventually translates to: “Who is afriad of facing realities?”, an appropriate title to the play and made more stark when Martha says, “I am. I am” in her closing lines. It leaves us wondering whether we are afriad of Virginia Woolf too.
(first watch: 13th August, 2022)
The 400 Blows | Francois Truffaut | 1959
A classic that helped kick-start French New Wave. I loved the story and cinematography. It’s a movie that celebrates childhood, Paris, and the audacity to not listen. Loved it really. (first watch: 6th August, 2022)
Irreversible | Gaspar Noe | 2002
Gaspar Noe is known for commenting on sensitive topics via heavily experimental, avant-garde films. In “Irreversible”, he undertakes the task of telling the story of an ugly and horrifying night in the life of a couple in reverse chronological order. We meet Marcus, wild and aggressive, who seems on the verge of a mental collapse, running across the city chasing someone by the name of Tenia. He’s the embodiment of aggression and violence: trashing, punching, smashing people’s heads. The frames captures raw emotions, a dillusioned Marcus as Noe tries to convey his world collapsing by swirling his camera all over the subject and beyond. The camera movement seems forced and annoying compelling us to empathise with the fact that all is not well in Marcus’s life and suddenly, the movements start to feel like poetic. The only point of calmness is his friend, Pierre, who accompanies him through the cacophonic night.
Marcus’ girlfriend, Alex, was raped and killed in the subway while Marcus and Pierre were at a party. Alex was fed up by a drunken Marcus and left for home alone. She was suggested to take the subway to cross the road as it was “safer”. The shocking and terrifying 9 minute long rape scene shook the Cannes audience way back in 2002. And yet, it is so enraging and horrifying to realise that this is how it happens when it does.
The movie takes a peaceful turn in the second half as Gaspar elucidates the relationship between Alex and Marcus. Their bedroom scene is so pregnant with irony; when Alex vehemantly disagrees to be treated like an object men can pass around; or when she smirks at Pierre, her ex, when asked about her sex life with Marcus. The smirk of a woman who prides herself in the secrets she keeps. Something broke in my heart when she said, “It’s always the woman who decides”. It is a well-written balance to the first half where Marcus rummages through the wastelands of Paris, through filthy sex clubs, through depraved souls, and through smashing skulls.
Gaspar Noe learnt everything in film school just to make sure he never uses them. I talked about the camera, floating in space like a spectre. There is a loud wailing noise in the background at all times. The color palatte is dark. We see subjects in glimpses.
PS: Heavy violence, gore, sexual content. Highly disturbing (like all Noe movies). Watch at your discretion.
(first watch: 4th August, 2022)
La nuit Americaine (Day for Night) | Francois Truffaut | 1973
Day for Night opens to what sounds like a conductor orchestrating an arrangement. Cuts to a livid and bustling Parisian avenue in the daylight as the camera follows a man who follows and slaps another man.“CUT!” and we snap back to reality – a scene was shot. Day for Night, which borrows its name from a filmmaking technique that is used to shoot night scenes in daytime, is a film about films by the acclaimed French New Wave director, Francois Truffaut.
The rich French culture of appreciation of films as work of art shines through in this visual storytelling that verges on the metaphysical portraiture of making films itself. We follow director Ferrand (Francois Truffuat) as he fends a number of personal and professional problems of himself, the cast, and the crew to shoot a film called “Meet Pamela” – an adulterous tale in which the hero’s fiancee falls in love with his father.
In a voiceover he rhetorically asks: “What is a director? Someone who’s asked endless questions about everything.” and goes on to prove the validity of his answer. The film beautifully captures the multitude of things going wrong, taking unexpected turns, the improvisations, the cast whims, the cast breakdowns, crew management, the logistics, the producer, the studio, and what not. I strongly believe any budding filmmaker should watch this film atleast once.
What I appreciated was the fact that inspite of all hurdles, Truffaut manages to sneak in the fantasized, dream-like quality of cinema. Be it the bundle of book on filmmaking he got in order or montages of shooting set in beautiful composition accompanied by majestic upbeat music by composer Georges Delerue. He takes pride in his art like an artist in his painting. Ferrand’s a restless detective, drawing inspiration from even the mundanities of existence. During the shoot, he improvises words spoken by the lead actress during her personal breakdown and introduced them as dialogues for her character! Or when he steals a blue vase from the hotel because it would fit perfectly in the scene. To be honest, it is difficult to point out where Ferrand ends and where Truffaut begins. A bit mischeivous, a bit crazy.
Filmmaking is a difficult job and perhaps, the job of the director the hardest. This movie is a great starting point to begin to understand that.
“A director must be a policeman, a midwife, a psychoanalyst, a sycophant, and a bastard.”
~Billy Wender.
PS: The 400 Blows next :P
(first watch: August 3rd, 2022)
Playtime | Jacques Tati | 1967
Read more about it here
Rashomon | Akira Kurosawa | 1950
My introduction to Kurosawa. Rashomon is quite an accessible piece among his works. Loved it for the vivid emotions and the residual influence of silent films. That iconic “woodcutter walking into the forest” scene is visual pleasure for the cinephile. And I suppose there is enough said and analysed about the meaning of the plot, the puzzle of the “true” murderer, and the nature of objective truth and human psychology itself. In ~88 minutes, Akira Kurosawa takes us into a world bordering on the mystic and supernatural and shows us the power of ingenious cinematography, camera movements, and clever editing. PS: A more critical piece is in the pipeline.
(first watch: Jul 27th, 2022)
Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara | Zoya Akhtar | 2011
This. Movie. Is. A. Vibe. Amazingly writing, beautifully directed. Loved the poetry, the drama, the locales. One of those few pieces of art that makes you want to leave everything behind, pack your bags, and just head out. Kerouac’s On the Road made me feel this way too. Definitely rewatchable!
(first watch: Jul 23rd, 2022)
Inglorious Basterds | Quentin Tarantino | 2009
By style and execution, this is a Tarantino all the way down (The skillfully directed strudel scene with Landa and Shoshanna in a confrontational ballet (contrary to the popular opinion of the opening chapter which is still great nevertheless)). Divided into chapters, it tells the fictional story of a group of Jewish-American-Italian rebel group that goes about terrorizing the Nazis of occupied France and the chase by Herr Hans Landa, an SS officer and the main antagonist of the movie. Basterds lacked the chaotic harmony of Pulp fiction where Tarantino masterfully weaved multiple plots and storyline into a cohesive whole. In that respect, Basterds is a less ambitious ordeal. But let that not fool you from the exceptional cinematography and brilliant shots and compositions that once again proves Tarantino as a master of his art (Cue in the shot of a hesitant Shoshanna resting against a huge window). The characters of Landa and Adolf Hilter himself, written in their incredulously humorous and dumb-witted fashion, were reminiscient of Taika Waititi’s another great movie, Jojo Rabbit. Great anti-war story with humour but I presume that is only to counter the explicit gore and violence that is one of Tarantino’s regular motifs.
(first watch: Jul 21st, 2022)
Arrival | Dennis Villeneuve | 2016
Arrival is Ted Chiang’s novella “Story of your life” adapted for the screen. Told in a non-linear chronological order by a Dr. Louise Banks, an accomplished linguist as she recalls events of the past and yet something of her manner of talking is disconcerting. She talks in “You’d” and “I’ll” as if she’s already aware of what will happen. And indeed, the movie explores the themes of determinism, free-will, and eventually Cassandra complex in the behaviour of its protagonist, Louise. There is ample food for thought to the budding linguists in the language and its consequent decipherment of the “Heptapods” - the creatures who arrived. Amazing perfomances by Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner (playing Dr. Ian Donnelly) alongwith brilliant direction from Villeneuve who is known for masterfully directing thrillers. Coherent and wholesome. (first watch: Jul 21st, 2022)
Phantom Thread | P. T. Anderson | 2017
Reynolds Woodcock is a successful fashion designer who is also a pain in the ass. A man who lost his mother at a young age and misses dearly, he is the antithesis of what he projects on the outside, when he’s alone. The plot follows him and Alma Elson, an indomitable local waitress as they fall in love despite their differences and is beautifully told. There are some innovative camera shots in this movie.
(first watch: Jul 20th, 2022)
Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness | Sam Riami | 2022
I expect MCU to deliver monotonuous, cookie-cutter, feel-good movies and it never disappoints. Great for when I want to “switch off” my brain. Also, WTF Wanda?
(first watch: Jul 19th, 2022)
But I’m The Cheerleader | Jamie Rabbit | 1999
What’s this movie LMFAO? It’s so weird and cringey and unfinished. So, basically, a group of homosexuals are sent to a therapy school called ‘True Directions’ which is headed by a hot-headed (read: humorous) headmistress Mary Brown (Cathy Moriarty) who believes in the simple “five step” solution to “cure” homosexuality as if it’s a disease. Very cringey writing, humorous and memorable characters. Overall, a funny movie.
(first watch: Jul 18th, 2022)
District 9 | Neill Blomkamp | 2009
Entertaining. Contains strong graphic violence. Liked the character arc.
Blue is the Warmest Color | Abdellatif Kechiche | 2013
Ok. I can understand now what the protests were all about when this came out 9 years ago. The male director does seem to border on fetishizing lesbians. Other than that, I think it’s a great movie nevertheless, although a tad too long.
PS: I Follow Rivers is such an earworm, OMG!!
(first watch: Jul 10th, 2022)
Little Women | Greta Gerwig | 2019
Wow, so many memorable lines. I really should have read the book :P They mean well when they say read the classics. One would actually want to live with the March sisters as they go about their business. Each sister is so well developed as a character and Alcott diversifed so well that every teenage girl, irrespective of their era, would be able to identify themselves with one of them. Love the conflict in Jo March’s character. “I want to be great, or nothing” is so well-spoken. And then you have, “Writing doesn’t confer importance, it reflects it”. Cherry of a movie. Definitely watchable with kids around.
(first watch: Jul 10th, 2022)
When Harry Met Sally | Rob Reiner | 1989
Well, another classic off my list I suppose :p But it’s a hilarious and touching movie. Laughed so hard at the fake Sally orgasm in the deli scene.
Pitch Perfect | Jason Moore | 2012
A modern musical based on the A Capella style of music making. Enjoyed the witty dialogues and the deadpan, sometimes dark humour. Character arcs were explicit and it was fun to revisit contemporary songs in an A capella setting. Watched it with a friend and learnt a lot of A capella-terms. A-ca-awesome (!) (first watch: Jul 4th, 2022)
American Psycho | Mary Harron | 2000
American Psycho is a open-ended, metaphorical study of the American capitalist mindset. It takes the idea of the quintessential Wall Street banker and stretches that to its extreme. It is beyond doubt that this movie counts among the finest of modern cult classics. The suspense, the drama, the sheer terror of it all, the constant pinging question of the fate of the next person Patrick Bateman would meet. Bateman stands in the company of the finest villains such as Anton Chigurh, John Doe, and Hannibal Lecter. His presence in the frame itself is terrifying and to achieve such effect requires a mastery of the craft. I admit that the ending is ambigous. We never know if it was Bateman’s imagination or for real but I think that makes sense because in the high-class, ultra-rich American bourgeois circles, it is difficult to separate fact from fiction. We see that detective Kimball was unable to link any of the murders back to Bateman and just to add to your annoyance, none of the “murders” committed by Patrick were seen by other people on screen. So, is Bateman the metaphorical representation of the American rich dog who is above law and order and can get away with any crime, no matter how heinous or is he the representation of the over-clocked American workman who has lost it under anxiety and tension? I watched this with a friend and totally enjoyed it. Brilliant cinematography for eg: the casual shot of Bateman opening his refrigerator door to reveal a severed female head wrapped in plastic or the stored dead female bodies in his closet. It’s how quickly Harron was able to escalate situations that makes this movie a super edgy watch.
Review 2 that I wrote for college newsletter:
American Psycho is an open-ended, metaphorical study of the American capitalist mindset. It explores the limits of the psychological derangement of the quintessential Wall Street banker. The tantalizing question of the fate of the next person Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) encounters keeps the viewers on their toes. Bateman stands in the company of some of the greatest villains of all time: Anton Chigurh (No Country for Old Men), John Doe (Se7en), and Hannibal Lecter (Silence of the Lambs).
Bale’s calm and cold demeanor lends a chilling edge to his character. We never find out if the events shown were fictitious or real, which mirrors the blurred line between fact and fiction in aloof aristocratic circles, American or not. We see that detective Kimball was unable to link any of the murders to Bateman, and to add to one’s annoyance, none of the “murders” committed by Patrick were seen by anybody else on screen.
Is Bateman the representation of the opulent, entitled American who can get away with any crime, regardless of how heinous it is, or the overclocked American workman driven to insanity by anxiety and tension?
Brace yourself, as Bateman sermonizes his victims to the music of “Huey Lewis and the News” or Whitney Houston in one scene and axes them in the next; or as he opens his refrigerator to casually reveal severed female heads wrapped in plastic. Psycho, without doubt, justifies itself as a modern cult classic.
(first watch: July 2nd 2022)
Mad Max: Fury Road | George Miller | 2015
This is the definition of action-packed. Amazing movie from all respects. Loved it. Can rewatch anytime. No breakthorughs in terms of technique or cinematography but exceptional usage of existing ones. Brilliant writing of course, and editing. Now I know what the hype is all about. Again, couldn’t take my eyes off it (!) (first watch: July 2nd, 2022)
Lost and Delirious | Leo Pool | 2001
The story follows two teenager girls who are in love with each other but then one decides to act on the “log kya kahenge” narrative which leaves the other girl distraught. The movie essentially explores the intense disheaval and delirium that the lose of a lover can bring. I think the writing was disbalanced because the characters weren’t realised to their full potential (For eg: the head mistress and her side-kick). I can imagine that it must have been “blasphemous” for a 2K1 audience for it does have few “bold” scenes. Also have to mention that Indian song/composition by Yves Chamberland which seems so out of place. Since it is unnamed, I couldn’t find translation for the lyrics which is so sad. Yes, now I’m gonna go and read Macbeth :P PS: It doesn’t end well. PPS: Yes, this is me celebrating pride month at the end because exams 😢 (first watch: Jun 30, 2022)
Heat | Micheal Mann | 1995
Set in LA, Heat is the classic police-and-theif chase story with a heart. Follows Neil McCauley (Robert de Niro) as he crafts master plans to rob banks, and execute dissidents, manage a personal life, etc. with Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino), a LAPD Homicide officer on his tail. It’s a great movie on so many levels. Great writing, cinematography, acting. It managed to keep me at the edge of my seat till 3:30 AM (LOL). Great movie for a Saturday night with friends. (first watch: Jun 27, 2022)
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World | Edgar Wright | 2010
How do I even begin to describe this cherry of a movie? Imagine someone mixed video games, rock music, and a love story together. The plot, the execution, the brilliant cinematography, the creative editing (which I highly approve of), this movie speaks for something beyond its age. It’s a weird movie, no doubt. But in a good way. And that is the best kind of weird, really. So, the story follows this skinny Canadian boy called Scott Pilgrim who’s reeling from past breakup and own problems when he meets Ramona Flowers, an American hipster and instantly falls in love with her. But he must defeat every member of the League of Evil Exes to get to be with her. It’s the kind of boy-meet-girl, fall-in-love, can’t-be-together, fight-against-all-odds, now-together, happy ending, reimagined. And, the characters OMG! (And Mary Elizabeth’s Ramona is so hot (LOL)) PS: There are seven of Ramona’s exes. PPS: Every teenager should watch this movie atleast once! PPPS: And why only teenagers? (OK, I’m too excited but it’s a good movie, I can’t help it. Ok, bye) (first watch: Jun 26, 2022)
Badlands | Terence Mallick | 1973
A beautiful film from start to finish. From the writing down to each individual shot, it exudes a sense of artistic appreciation in the executor. Paced and balanced story, had a tough time deciphering the Southern accent (lol), nice soundtrack, great dialogues. Overall, ~~justified of being in Ebert’s Best Movies list~~ a good watch. (first watch: Jun 23, 2022)
The Platform | Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia | 2019
A deeply metaphorical, introspective study of capitalism, exisiting societal structures, and the human nature. Has a quasi religious undertone to it. Intriguing and a good watch. (first watch: Jun 20, 20222)
Millenium Actress | Satoshi Kon | 2001
Holy cow! I want to kick myself for delaying this gem of a movie for this long. In this movie, Kon tells a romance story in his style, bringing together drama, love, poignance, piquing our interest, keeping us arrested in the disorienting whirlwind that is his modus operandi. There is chaos and yet, it doesn’t feel chaotic. The blurry line between reality and imagination is a recurring theme in all of Kon’s works and in this, it outshines. As Chiyoko remarks at the end, “After all, what I really love is the pursuit of him”, we are forced to rethink the basis of our affection. (first watch: Jun 12, 2022)
Breathless | Jean Luc-Godard | 1960
Hm, what’s such a big deal? Oh. Wait. Wow, WTF, this is genius! (first watch: Jun 07, 2022)
One Day | Lone Scherfig | 2011
Had to force myself to stop so I could finish the book first. But worth every bit of it. Anna Hathaway in one of her fine performances. And loved that cockney accent. (first watch: Jun 02, 2022)
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone | Chris Columbus | 2001
Yes, this is the first time I watched this (stop with the shocked looks already, okay!). I was really meant to read first but time scarcity. Hence. I really enjoyed the Diagon Alley vibes. Been going through some shit myself and needed somewhere to escape. This perfectly fitted the bill. And then, Emma Watson 💜 (first watch: May 20th, 2022)
Everything Everywhere All At Once | Kwan and Scheinert | 2022
Nice concept but I think badly executed. Sick editing and mind-boggling cinematography. (first watch: May 19th, 2022)
Skyfall | Sam Mendes | 2012
Typical James Bond movie. Post-minor fallout. (first watch: May 13, 2022)
Lady Bird | Greta Gerwig | 2017
Funny, balanced, mature. The story of this typical teenager girl from Sacramento who pushes through a financially unsound household, relationship, college, and just existence in general. Enjoyed it. (first watch: May 2nd, 2022)
Fargo | Coen Brothers | 1996
Fargo is an Oscar-winning “comedy crime thriller”. Directed by the brilliant Coen brothers, it’s a fictional story of a inept car sales manager who pays a couple of henchmen to kidnap his wife in order to exhort money from his miser father-in-law. However, things go awry and end up pretty badly for everyone. Superb storytelling, that Minnesota accent, the stark white settings, and Mike Yanagita makes this a movie truly deserving of being included in many “Best movies of all times” lists. There are also subtle many subtle references to Alfred Htitchcock and Stanley Kubrick among others. (first watch: Apr 30th, 2022)
Zodiac | David Fincher | 2007
Yet another Fincher classic. Suspenseful right from the first shot up until the end. Leaves the viewer pondering, with that lingering aftertaste of an incomplete, yet perfectly told story. Much to be learned from Fincher. (first watch: Apr 14th, 2022)
Sen Yasamaya Bak (In Good Hands) | Ketche | 2022
I guess this was my first exploration of Turkish cinema. Okay. (first watch: Apr 2nd, 2022)
Chungking Express | Wong Kar-wai | 1994
Someone rightfully said on an online review that “You will like Chungking Express if you like films.” Loved the cinematography especially those artsy shots. Also, the soundtrack is nice. (first watch: Mar 31, 2021)
In the Mood for Love | Wong Kar-wai | 2000
After I finished the movie, I had this intense want to re-watch the movie again. It’s that good. Great story, brilliant cinematography, acting op, soundtrack. I think it all fits in quite well. (first watch: Mar 30th, 2022)
Spider Man: No way Home | Jon Watts | 2021
Great post-production. Storyline sets the backdrop for Multiverse of Madness. Digged the action sequences. (first watch: Mar 28th, 2022)
Licorice Pizza | P. T. Anderson | 2021
LP is a coming-of-age love story set in the 80s. It chronicles the ups and downs in the relationship of a 25yr old girl with a 15yr old boy and follows both as they seek out their meaning and place in life, the boy involved in petty teenage activities while the girl matured and more pragmatic in her approach to life. Their huge age difference formed a major factor as to how they approached their relationship and most of the movie revolved how they “worked it out”. Relatively sparse, quirky events, and a tad bit long, I felt it was a movie designed to pass time. (first watch: Mar 12th, 2022)
A Walk to Remember | Adam Shankman | 2002
Just timepass. Okay. I need to diversify my list! (first watch: Mar 5th, 2022)
Endless Love | Shana Feste | 2014
I think I just needed some pre-majors cinematic recharge and this movie fitted the bill perfectly. No excessive mental overhead, no complex characters to analyse, or exceptional plots. The kind of romantic mushy love-found-lost-found teenage love story that makes you excessively giddy. Yeah, cute story. (first watch: Mar 3rd, 2022)
The Worst Person in the World | Joachim Trier | 2021
Stunning Norway! Each frame is so well-crafted. And then, the superb writing and the performances by Renate Reinsve and Anders Danielsen. Had a great time. (first watch: Feb 18th, 2022)
Deep Throat | Gerard Damiano | 1972
My eyes. My eyes! MY EYES!! What a terrible day to have eyes. (first watch: Feb 16, 2022)
Sex Education | Season 3| 2021
Highly entertaining and thoughtful. Felt like a drag at places. But it ended on another cliffhanger :/
Damage | Louis Malle | 1992
A tale of unbridled passion on the part of an ultra-rich minister coerces him to lose everything he had. Frankly, the plot was too single dimensional and lacking dynamics. Watched it only for Jeremy Irons and Juliette Binoche ❤️. (first watch: Feb 10, 2022)
Friends: The reunion | 2021
It was everything I expected it to be and more. It was hilarious to know these funny, little trivia and BTSs. And nostalgic, of course. (first watch: Feb 5th, 2022)
Paris vu par (Six in Paris) | | 1965
I have taken to French cinema lately and it has been a rewarding experience so far. The movie at hand is an amalgamation of six different stories directed by six different directors, all capturing the spirit of the beautiful city of Paris. Stories of love, deceit, drama, humor, and even death. The plots are varied and wholesome. Worth rewatching just for the Parisian shots and the language. ❤️ (first watch: Feb 3rd, 2022)
Won’t You be my Neighbor? | Morgan Neville | 2018
“Always know that you’re loved and are capable of loving”. I really needed to hear that right now. This is a documentary about Fred Rogers, a minister-to-be from Pittsburg, who by a turn of events got into television which was booming in the 60s. He wrote, produced, and directed “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood”, a TV program directed at young children. Mr. Rogers’ incredible understanding of child psychology coupled with his minsiterial training allowed him to present really sensitive issues like death, validation, and even divorce to young children. I really, really enjoyed getting to know this ambitious and noble man. PS: This was on my list for a very long time. (first watch: Feb 1st, 2022)
Sex Education | Season 2 | 2021
It is what it says on the tin but in a manner that is appealing to today’s teenagers. It breaks the tradition, cliched (and cringed?) pedagogy of sex education and educates us subtly while concealing behind a teenage drama. Impressive and ingenious. Looking forward to season 3.
Special Ops | Season 1
Watched with wingmates in hostel. Entertaining.
Life in a Day | Ridley Scott and Kevin McDonald | 2010
Part of a course assignment but really heart-touching movie. People were asked to record a day of their lives in 2010 to record for posterity what it felt like to be alive in 2010. Found it slightly voyeuristic which is part of the appeal I guess. Novel idea. They also did 2020. It hits different the second time you watch it. (first watch: Jan 23rd, 2022)
Paprika | Satoshi Kon | 2006
It’s obvious that I’m a fan of Satoshi Kon’s works. I should have watched this waaay before but anyway. Recommended by a friend. I want to expand my cinematic knowledge to other cultures. BTW, there’s a 2021 documentary commemorating Kon’s works. Yaaay! PS: OMG, Susumu Hirasawa’s OST is so addicting! (first watch: Jan 22nd 2022)
Sex Education | Season 1 | 2021
Netflix production. Is it only me or does Emma Mackey has an uncanny resemblance to Margot Robbie? Anyway, I liked how teenage school dramas are becoming more inclusive. Good selection of songs, and pop culture refs. And now, I have made a sizeable addition to my British vocabulary :P.
Gladiator | Ridley Scott | 2000
Story of sacrifices, gallantry, bravery, and courage. Signature Ridley Scott. Majestic soundtrack by Hans Zimmer and co. Incredible performance by Russell Crowe. Thought I could pause midway but it was too riveting. Watched till 6 in the morning. (first watch: Jan 21st, 2022)
Friends | S10
All I can say is “Wow”. It has been an epic journey full of love and laughter. I learned so much and found so much. It has been an incredible experience.
Her | Spike Jonze | 2013
Explores the extremes of what it means to love someone. Asks interesting questions. Brilliant cinematography and incredible performances by Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlet Johannson. Didn’t disappoint. Found myself drawing haunting similarities with my life. (first watch: Jan 18th, 2022)
Edge of Tomorrow | Doug Liman | 2014
Post midnight movie with friends in the hostel. Interesting premise but solely for entertainment. (first watch: Jan 16th 2022)
Frances Ha | Noam Baumbach | 2012
Just the kind of movie you want to begin your year with. An innocent, “undateable” Frances, an indescribable friendship, artist’s apartment in New York ❤️, “All I have to show are my mistakes”, and Frances’ expectation out of a relationship monologue. I loved every aspect of it, really.
(first watch: Jan 10th, 2022)

2021

The Sky is Pink | Sonali Bose | 2019
Janat | Kunal Deshmukh | 2008
Enter the void | Gaspar Noe | 2009
The Dreamers | Bernando Bertolucci | 2003
The Grand Budapest Hotel | Wes Anderson | 2014
Summer of ‘42 | Robert Mulligan | 1971
Paris, Texas | Win Wenders | 1984
Shang Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings | Destin Daniel Cretton | 2021
Paprika | Tinto Brass | 1991
No Country for Old Men | Ethan and Joel Coen | 2007
Ghost in the Shell | Mamuri Oshii | 1995
Venom | Ruben Fleischer | 2018
Dune | Denis Villenueve | 2021
Black Panther | Ryan Coogler | 2018
5 Centimeters per second | Makoto Shinkai | 2007
Squid Games | Series | 2021
Modern Times | Charlie Chaplin | 1936
It’s such a wonderful day | Don Hertzfeldt | 2012
Akira | Katsuhiro Otomo | 1988
Friends | Season 3
Clueless | Amy Heckerling | 1995
Catch me if you can | Steven Spielberg | 2002
Normal People | Series | 2020
The Shining | Stanley Kubrick | 1980
No Strings Attached | Ivan Reitman | 2011
Inside Job | Charles Ferguson | 2010
Good Will Hunting | Gus Van Sant | 1997
Whiplash | Damien Chazelle | 2014
Trois Couleurs: Rogue | Krzysztof Kieslowski |
Trois Couleurs: Blanc | Krzysztof Kieslowski |
Trois Couleurs: Blue | Krzysztof Kieslowski |
Stand By Me ||
Black Widow ||
Oceans Eleven ||
The Little Death ||
Crazy Stupid Love ||
My Neighbour Totoro | Hayao Miyazaki | 1988
Life is Beautiful ||
Baby Driver ||
Remember the Titans ||
Top Gun ||
Titanic | James Cameron | 1997
Making Dazed | | 2003
Dazed and Confused | Richard Linklater | 1993
It’s a Wonderful Life | Frank Capra | 1946
La La Land | Damein Chazelle | 2016
Your Name | | 2016
High Fidelity | | 2000
Friends | Series |
Sherlock | Series |
Perfect Blue | Satoshi Kon | 1997
Avengers: Endgame | Russo Brothers | 2019
Bruce Almighty || 2003
The Dark Knight Rises | Christopher Nolan | 2012
Dark | S2
Dark | S1
The Big Short || 2015
500 Days of Summer | | 2009
Pretty in Pink | | 1986
Memories of Murder || 2003
The Graduate || 1967
Scam 1992 | Series
American Beauty || 1999
Looking for Alaska | Series
Hackers | | 1995
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest | Stanley Kubrick | 1975
The Map of Tiny Perfect Thing | | 2021
Chhichhore | | 2019
All the Bright Places || 2020
Gone Girl || 2014
Parasite || 2019
Before Midnight | Richard Linklater | 2013
Mean Girls || 2004
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off || 1986
Sixteen Candles ||1984
The Breakfast Club ||1985
Some Kind of Wonderful ||1987
Tron: Legacy || 2010
Tron ||1982
Bohemian Rhapsody ||2011
Moneyball ||2011
Before Sunset | Richard Linklater | 2004
Before Sunrise | Richard Linklater | 1995
The Dictator ||2012
The Wolf of Wall Street | Martin Scorcese | 2013
Amelie | | 2001
The Sixth Sense | | 1999
12 Monkeys || 1995
Marriage Story | 2019
Black Swan ||2010
Helvetica ||2007
The Fountain || 2004
Something Ventured ||2011
The Spectacular Now ||2013
10 Things I hate about you ||1999
The Lion King | | 1994
The White Tiger | | 2021
Terminator 2 || 1991
Terminator 1 || 1984
Jojo Rabbit | Taika Waititi | 2019

Watchlog

2024

2023

Jafar Panahi’s The Circle is a muffled Iranian feminist film

“Inside Llewyn Davis” is a realist melodramatic folk ride

Incorrect perception

Incorrect social portrayal

Repetitive patterns

Wasteful and consumerist

Thank god, it’s over

Sairat paints a brutal picture of the Indian casteist society

2022

“A Clockwork Orange” is Kubrick’s realisation of an Orwellian fantasy

PLOT

THE LUDIVICO TREATMENT

PLOT CONTINUED

THEMES AND MOTIFS

CONCLUSION

The French Dispatch: An absurdist eye-candy

PLOT

ELEMENTS

CAMERA and CINEMATOGRAPHY

CONCLUSION

Psycho: An investigation of evil and malice

CINEMATOGRAPHY

ART AND CINEMA

HITCHCOCK AND VOYEURISM

AN AVOIDABLE OVERKILL

Review 2 that I wrote for college newsletter:

2021