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anirban1985
Reviews
Üç Maymun (2008)
For all the monkeys in the jungle
If you look close enough into a human face, chances are that in nine cases out of ten, you would successfully read the directions of his thoughts. And if you happen to know his situation, that chance borders more on the tenner. "Three monkeys" by Nuri Bilge Ceylan exploits this very power of the viewer and virtually transports him straight into the characters' mind, simply by taking the camera far close to their faces than any decency would allow. And then, the viewer knows -- he knows the son's accusations of his mother before they actually come, he knows the pop's extreme distaste towards his wife so much so that when he does not lift a finger to dissuade his wife from taking the plunge, the viewer does not find himself unprepared for it. So very few verbal exchanges actually take place within the family, and yet, the wheels grinding are as clear as the day. This ploy goes back to Bergman, and Ceylan probably stretches it to its extreme by hardly ever leaving his actors' faces. And despite what anyone says about this movie, at the end of the day, it was only meant to highlight the inner workings of a family in the light of some frothing, volatile circumstances. At the end of the day, the son does what he thinks best for his mother; the father does what he thinks best to salvage the remnants of the wreck that his family had become in his absence. That's how every son and every father of every race or nationality is supposed to behave. Probably, it's the mother who refuses to fit into the "family" model, but then again, it is the odd element that actually initiates a story --- there's hardly ever a story if every person sticks to the script that life has destined him with. Moreover, Hacer, the horniest bitch of a mother that ever was, does not materialise from nowhere. The movie has all the elaborations for the sceptics, all the evidences for the Freudians. A good portion of the beginning half of the movie, where nothing whatsoever seems to be happening, does a brilliant job of what it had probably set out to do -- - to establish that nothing whatsoever happened to cheer up the mother's humdrum existence. This movie imitates life to that detailed extent --- life, which is usually a series of a few dynamite explosions, punctuated by a prolonged duration, where there's nothing but the fuse burning itself up. That brings me to what I believe is the greatest asset of the movie--- it's grim imitation of life. The hypocrisy, the evasion, the desire to let go yet the leash holding one back, the ordinariness, the extraordinariness, every possible human feeling that could cross a day- to-day existence has been etched deep and clear into this gem of a movie ---or, as I stated right in the beginning, into the actor's faces.
And of course, there's the technical aspect of it. The train rumbling at just the right time, the cellphone ringing again just when it needed to (to say nothing of the ringtone, which was probably all the music that the movie had, the rest was just a brilliant choice of natural sounds), the camera focussing not just on the faces, but on the right areas of the faces (see how close it went), the use of monochrome for the most part without ever making it apparent --- these were just a random pick from the myriad of technical ploys that has stamped the word "masterpiece" on this visual and emotional extravaganza.
How About You... (2007)
Do not drop out of life before it has actually dropped you
This was one of those stories where you got a hunch about the direction in which it was heading within 10 minutes of the start, and your hunch was never proved wrong. Maybe a few wobbles, but nevertheless, it remained on track throughout. So this was why I could sit back and notice every tiny detail cropping up, and I can very well claim that the execution was near faultless. So, what the hell if the story's predictable ? There's something beyond plot that impresses you in a movie and this one came out in flying colors there. The lines were perfect and they were delivered with just the right punch. The four "hardcores" let their character transformation seep in, in just the right measures, and hence the ride never seemed jerky. The editing was so crisp that just when you started seeing the danger signal and was anxious lest the movie might start dragging, the story went on to the next step. At just the right time. The tears and sentiments just stopped short at the point where you might feel it might overflow. In all, I think they ran the risk of boring the audience by taking on a story that went on a monotonic path and being well aware of this, they left nothing unturned to nullify that risk. But, it's the message behind the movie that moved me the most. For those who dread the days when they would grow old and begin to drag their dysfunctional existence, this was the movie to watch. Life does not give us the cold shoulders once we start aging, it's we who choose to go into a selfish cocoon at this time of the day ---this was a message that could do with a lot of repeating. Thus, to conclude, the bottom line is that ---Dear Mr. Prospective Viewer, please do not go into this movie expecting something vigorously original, just sit back and try to listen to what the movie has to offer: there's pieces of information there that might just come out handy.
Quantum of Solace (2008)
Why the latest Bond movie failed to charm
Although my first reaction to this movie was "How on earth could they make this one ?", I later sat down thinking and here's why Quantum of Solace never worked any of the charm that it's predecessor had: 1. There's a labored attempt to make this Bond appear really cool, to the point that he never speaks outside very short sentences. That's fine, but then you make the screenplay writer walk on a very thin edge--- if you don't get the right lines, that attempt at smartness might appear ridiculous, which it does here. Right in the post-climactic scene, where Bond finally realizes that going for revenge was not worth it, or to put it better, when Bond finds his quantum of solace, the terse, "smart" lines are so out-of-place that the audience was actually giggling audibly. 2. Why do the villains have to be comedians, unless they are American/English ? The Bolivian General Medrano was such a clown that it took away half the edge from the story. 3. Then the two women in the story ---couldn't they at least get a better cast ? Gemma Arterton as Strawberry Fields is so pathetic; instead of someone dispatched from the highest authority in London to restrain Bond, she appears like some ordinary idiotic cute girl just graduated from college, quite willing to run after Bond like a pet dog( for want of a better analogy). As for Olga Kurylenko as Camille Montes, she dropped way down my list, as soon as she walked right into her supposed killer's hands, with only some ridiculously faint protest. Her acting couldn't have been worse. These two actresses coupled together reminded me of Kate Capshaw in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and I had never thought I would ever see worse acting. But, then, again, maybe it was not the actors, it was the miserable screenplay that never let the movie rise above being a farce. But, farce it was, there's no doubt about it.