Zodiac

 American true crime mystery movie “Zodiac” (2007) directed by David Fincher and starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr. among others.

Its based on a true crimes committed by one Zodiac who left ciphers and sent letters to the San Francisco Chronicle. Jake Gyllenhaal is a cartoonist in the SFC and Robert Downey Jr. a reporter in the same newspaper.

Mark Ruffalo is handling the case but they get no clues. They interview one Arthur Leigh Allen and all clues point to him as the possible Zodiac. But the handwriting match turns negative and the case is lost.

Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) pursues the case doggedly though he is only a cartoonist and not a police man. He is interested in the cipher code and does a lot of leg work which points him to Arthur Leigh Allen.

Mike Mageau who is the survivor from the first shooting of the couple in 1969 identifies Allen as the man who shot him. But by the time they start investigation, Allen dies of a heart attack.

So officially this case remains unsolved in America’s crime history. A rather longish movie which painstakingly takes the viewers through the happenings from 1969 onwards to more than 25 years later. A lot of detailing has gone into the script.

Of the actors, both Jake Gyllenhaal and Mark Ruffalo have done good roles as required of them. IMDB 5/10

Iratta

 Deadly Malayalam crime thriller movie “Iratta” (2023), directed by Rohit M.G. Krishnan and starring Joju George, Anjali, Arya Salim among others.

Its a story of twin brothers Pramod and Vinod (both played by Joju George) and their respective flashback stories. Both were inseparable in childhood, but had to be separated because of their abusive and womanising father.

Vinod had to stay with his father while Pramod went to his mother. Both enter the police and again both have back stories. Vinod is single until he meets Malini (Anjali) who is subjected to beatings by her husband, a pastor.

Pramod had a wife and daughter, but due to alcoholic ways, his wife separated from him for 17 years. Too much of flashbacks take place. Anyways, one fine evening, Vinod is found shot dead in the police station.

There are lots of suspects and investigations and police procedures, to’s and fro’s going on. Vinod is given to gambling and drinking and in one such binge, he comes across a teenaged girl in a lodge and rapes her.

Meanwhile Pramod’s daughter grows up in Mumbai with her mother and she enters the singing contest on live T.V. The ending is quite gut wrenching as Pramod has to deal with some uncertain truths, just when his wife was beginning to reconcile with him.

Joju George has done an absolutely astounding role as the drunken, brazen, cop in two avatars giving it all it requires to deal with the frustrations, despair and sadness. Watch the movie for his acting only. Its breathtaking.

Otherwise the overall script is okay, camera work and cinematography are all good and background music is superb. Rohit M.G. Krishnan has managed to etch a taut crime thriller on the screen with suspense towards the end. IMDB 5/10

The Dove's Lost Necklace

 

The second part of Nacer Khemir’s desert trilogy “The Dove’s Lost Necklace” (1994), a Tunisian film starring Navin Chowdhry, Walid Arakji, Nina Esber among others.

Hassan (Navin Chowdhry) is learning Arabic calligraphy and on a quest for true love. He is learning the 60 words for love prescribed in Arabic literature and has so far found 35 of them.

Zin (Walid Arakji) is a young kid who is a son of a djinn but everybody calls him a bastard. He delivers love messages for money and so that Prince Haroun, the prince trapped in a monkey becomes real again.

They find a half burnt manuscript which reveals of a lament of Princess Samarkhand. Hassan is looking for that book which talks about true love but the store room in which they look for the book is burnt down.

He finally finds Aziz (Nina Esber) the beautiful Princess of Samarkand and then loses her. Nacer Khemir has created a magnificent and enchanting story rich in metaphor and with a visual imagery stunning for all its beauty. The camera work and cinematography capturing the Arabian architecture and landscape is breathtaking. The rich Arabian music enriches the story to perfection.

Walid Arakji is a stunner of an actor, a young child, with a naughty smile and lots of energy. Navin Chowdhry has done a good role but it is Nina Esber who captures the screen presence with her ravisihing good looks and beauty. IMDB 6/10

Wanderers of the Desert

 

First part of a three part Desert trilogy “Wanderers of the Desert”, a Tunisian film by writer/ director Nacer Khemir and starring Nacer Khemir, Souflane Makni, Noureddine Kasbaoui, Hedi Daoud and Sonia Ichti among others.

A young teacher arrives in a remote village of which many have not heard of. When he arrives, the villagers welcome him, but there is no school building.

The teacher is told that the young men of the village go around wandering in the desert like a ghost due to a curse. Once a year the wanderers come back and the teacher is given a book which he has to make them read so that the curse will be broken.

There is lot of mystery and mystique in the story. A young kid breaks all the mirrors in the village in order to make a garden. There is a beautiful young girl who comes in front of the teacher and makes some hand movements.

One villager is digging for a treasure for 50 years but finds nothing and dies. Suddenly a boat appears in the desert and the police arrives to investigate the sudden disappearance of the teacher.

Its not a linear story line but quite a fable mixing up Arabian culture, mysticism, folklore, legend with some stunning desert visuals and hauntingly melodious Tunisian music. Without the credits, it is difficult to know the characters, but the young kid is quite a devil in the movie.

Nacer Khemir manages to captivate the audience with the never ending suspense. Viewers are trying to piece together the various scenes in order to make a context out of the story. IMDB 4/10

Kalikallam

 Action packed Malayalam movie “Kalikkalam” (1990) directed by Sathyan Anthikad and starring Mammootty, Murali, Shobana, Sreenivasan among others.

Its a classic robinhood story as Mammootty is a robber who robs from the rich and corrupt and spends that money for the poor & disadvantaged. He assumes various roles and identities to dupe the police as well.

Murali is a new police officer and honest one at that. Its a cat and mouse between Murali and Mammootty and try as he might, no clues lead the police to the robber.

One too many murders take place and Murali being a suspended police officer on the spot is arrested and tried for murder. Mammootty is moved by that prospect of an innocent police inspector going to jail and makes amends towards that end.

There are many other character actors in the movie including Shobana who is reduced to a side role as somebody who is pining for the robber. Innocent, Mamukoya, Shankarady, Sreenivasan, Sukumari, Philomena all play useful little roles in their inimitable manner.

This is more action oriented than the earlier movies of Sathyan Anthikad. There is an underlying subtext to the movie in the form of subtle messaging towards corrupt persons and innocent guys getting caught instead. Fine acting by Murali — he was such a fantastic actor in the Malayalam cinema. IMDB 5/10

Bim

 Award winning Trinidad and Tobago film “Bim” (1974) directed by Hugh. A. Robertson and starring Ralph Maraj, Anna Seerattan, Wilbur Holder, Lawrence Goldstraw among others.

Its a kind of a political drama movie of the Indians settled in Trinidad and Tobago. They are nearing their independence from the British empire and Bim (Ralph Maraj) is their natural born leader, though his past is that of a hoodlum doing all sorts of bad things.

Bim’s early age was in an upheaval, becuase his father was killed right in front of him by another Indian rival. He is rejected by his school and taunted and bullied by the afro students. He has no choice but to take to crime to live his life.

Bim’s early love life Anna (Anna Seerattan) later takes to prostitution and he discovers Anna while at one of his sexual flings. Bim gravitates towards political leadership in order to take revenge upon the killers of his father.

While the political climate is hotting up, Bim continues to be arrogant and rejects the offer of a political alliance with the leader of the blacks in Trinidad. The print uploaded on youtube is of a poor quality and overall production values are very poor.

But this movie is supposed to be a cult classic in Trinidad which is why i think somebody should digitally enhance this movie to latest standards. The plot is decent and the story conveys what is intended. IMDB 3/10

Stalker

 It is classified as a science fiction film, but it is anything but that "Stalker" (1979) directed by Andrei Tarkovsky and starring Alexander Kadanovsky, Anatoly Solonitsyn, Nikolai Grinko among others.

Its the slowest science fiction movie that i have ever seen. The camera moves ever so slowly and with a purpose. The Stalker (Alexander Kadanosky) takes people to a distant place where ordinary laws of physics do not apply and it was probably a site where a meteorite once fell. That is called the Zone and it is a difficult path to traverse.

One can't go in a straight line and each step has to be carefully taken. The stalker takes two men - the Writer (Anatoly Solonitsyn) and the Professor (Nikolai Grinko) to the Zone. Inside the Zone there is a room where all your desires and wishes will be fulfilled. Its an allegorical film in the sense that to achieve such a state of consciousness that to achieve one's desires, a person has to pass through many obstacles and difficulties and hardship.

The script is intellectually challenging because a whole host of philosophical questions are thrown at the viewer. The camera work is absolutely astounding, the art design showing the ruins and remnants of an industrial building including dirty water is breathtaking and stark. Cinematography as usual is quite good. Andrei Tarkovsky's movies are difficult to follow yet there is something in it for the viewers, something deep and thoughtful that a viewer can relate to in his own life. IMDB 6/10 

Nairobi Half Life

 

Kenyan award winning movie "Nairobi Half Life" (2012) directed by David "Tosh" Gitonga and starring Joseph Warimu and Nancy Wanjiku Karanja among others. 

Mwas (Joseph Warimu) is a young man making his life selling video movies and acting the part in order to sell them. He dreams of being an actor and gets half an opportunity when a theatre troupe comes to his village. 

On the way to Nairobi he is forced to do some chores by his cousin and gets promptly robbed the moment he enters into Nairobi. Forced into the streets he is arrested for a day and in jail meets a gang leader who provides him job. 

They do small odd jobs like stealing car parts. Mwas meanwhile gives an audition for a play at the National Theatre and lands the job. In stealing they graduate from stealing car parts to stealing cars themselves. 

The movie shows the dark underbelly of Nairobi crime life where crime is common, gangsters are hand in glove with the policemen, there is corruption, violence and brutality galore. Gitonga has deftly woven the plot nicely moving on two parallels - the crime life and the theatre life, the only common thread being Amina who is the girlfriend of one of the gangsters but who starts loving Mwas. 

Cinematography is quite breathtaking in the movie and both Joseph Warimu and Nancy Karanja have played their parts quite well. Its quite a realistic movie in that sense almost like Salaam Mumbai of Mira Nair. IMDB 7/10  

Mortu Nega

 

"Mortu Nega" an award winning film on Guinea-Bissau by Flora Gomes. 

War is going on against the Portugese and it is a war for independence from the colonialists so the nationalism is sky high. Diminga (Bia Gomes) wants to go to the frontier because her husband Sako (Tune Eugenio Almada) is fighting there. 

She reunites with her husband, but he ends up injured in the war. Diminga comes back to her village where she is welcomed back whole heartedly. Meanwhile Sako also comes back, but his injury has not gone yet. 

Just when independence is got, drought hits them and they all suffer because of that. There is a tribal village cultural dance and song which i think is to propitiate the rain gods. The rains do come in the end, which is the final shot of the movie, which the children dancing in the rain.

Bia Gomes has done a splendid role as Diminga. There is lot of pathos in the movie in the form of an untold grief, human tragedy with the war taking lives of innocent people, the tough, hard life of people, the sadness of people living with bare little essentials to go by, lack of education and all. IMDB 7/10  

Be Kunko

 

Short Guinean film "Be Kunko" by director Cheick Fantamady Camara. 

Its based on the refugee crisis due to which many teenagers are living in the refugee camp in Conakry. Life is tough to come by in the UNHCR camp due to which teenage children indulge in crimes of various sorts like car jacking, burglary, armed robbery, prostitution etc. 

There is a grandmother who is upholding all the family tradition of labour, hard work, love etc. but the children are more interested in quick half measures to get their jobs done. 

There's not much of a story developed in such a short movie (31 mins) but the picture above, which is the closing shot, depicts the angst and frustration of youth in a never ending war. 

N!ai, the Story of a !Kung woman

 

Iconic documentary made by John Marshall on the life of N!ai of the Jul!hoan tribe in Botswana. 

The documentary took 27 years to make on the life of N!ai a young girl who is married off at the age of 8 to another boy aged 13. She does'nt go to live with him for many years and even when she goes to live as a wife, she does not sleep with him for many years. 

Tough life for the bushmen of that part of the world, and apparently they were happy with their lives until the white people came along with their guns and rules and regulations like not killing giraffe for meat and their bible. 

The documentary has got some very rare footages of their life in the wilderness, a tough life subsisting on roots, fruits and sometime no water for days together. N!kai is a sort of a rebel girl/ woman who has a mind of her own. 

In the later part of the documentary, we see the people wearing clothes, and children go to the school and elderly to the church. The men are sent for military training to fight the then rebel guerilla group SWAPO. 

Interesting documentary to watch. 

Miracle in Milan

 Vittoria da Sica's phantasmagorical masterpiece "Miracle in Milan" (1951) starring Francesco Golisano, Brunella Bovo among others. 

Toto (Francesco Golisano) is found in a cabbage patch by an old lady who nurses him until her falling health. The boy grows to be an obedient nice good humored person, stayed in a hostel and then set out on his own to live in a shanty town amongst the poor. 

The poor have nothing, absolutely nothing to live by, they live in ramshackle houses with barely anything to eat, hardly any money coming by, eking out a marginal existence. Among those staying in the shanty is Edvidge (Brunella Bovo) who is a maid to a family. 

The shanty town is obviously an occupied property belonging to somebody else so they come to take possession of the same, but the shanty unites against the outsiders. In the meanwhile oil is accidentally discovered in the midst of the square and the owner again comes back to forcibly take possession of the property. 

Toto in despair goes up to climb a totem pole where his mother hands him a good luck dove. What happens next is miraculous. 

Vittoria de Sica has stayed close to his neo realist style of film making. The film is shot in actual location with a ragtag band of actors, which shows the brutal reality of poverty in Milan. The special effects shown later in the movie is quite spectacular for a 1951 production. The film got a Cannes and a Fipresci. 

The main characters Brunella Bovo and Francesco Golisano have acted quite well in the movie. 

Los Olividados

 

Luis Bunuel's stunning masterpiece on poverty in Mexico, Los Olvidados (1951).

Staying close to the non realist style of film making, Luis Bunuel crafts an absolute masterpiece. Its about a group of destitute children eking out a living in Mexico. El Jaibo (Roberto Cobo) has escaped a juvenile jail and is back with his group of friends, one of which is Pedro (Alfonso Mejia). Pedro is one of many children of his mother and he always feels his mother does not love him enough. There's a scene where he pityingly asks his mother to love him and she repels him with brute force. 

Jaibo is out to take revenge on Julien who he feels ratted on him to be sent to the juvenule jail. In the fracas that ensues, Julien is killed and Pedro becomes an accomplice. Pedro is shit scared and immediately sets about doing the right things like taking up a job as an apprentice with a blacksmith. There Jaibo confronts him again and asks him to keep quiet and coolly steals a costly silver knife from the workplace. 

The blacksmith sends police to Pedro's house to arrest him for stealing a knife. His mom confronts him but he says he did not steal anything. They visit a police headquarters which sends Pedro to a reform school called the Farm. Again Jaibo confronts him there and steals 50 pesos from Pedro. 

The movie stays close to a new realist cinema that you can expect from Luis Bunuel. Its an old black and white print but enough to see the raw poverty of the village in Mexico. Everybody is struggling to make money there, Pedro's mom does washing for a dozen houses, a blind singer makes money by singing, life is tough, life is hard, there is crime, grinding poverty. 

Most of the characters are kids and they have all acted very well.  

Rebecca

 

Brilliant psychological drama movie from Alfred Hitchcock "Rebecca" (1940) starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine. Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier) accidentally meets the beautiful Joan Fontaine when he is rather contemplating jumping down a cliff in Monte Carlo. One thing leads to another and soon both are romantically involved. She then becomes his second wife after his first wife Rebecca accidently drowns herself off the sea coast. Rebecca is never shown in the movie, but her imprint is throughout the movie. Her faithful housekeeper Mrs. Denvers is rather too faithful to her memories and seems to be of the devilish and plotting kind. She was too close to Rebecca and adored her too much to bear her loss too badly. Hitchcock twists the plot towards the end to first implicate Maxim with her murder and then it goes around to another tale of her sickness, or probably that she was pregnant or maybe she committed suicide or murder, the plot keeps swinging about till the end. Joan Fontaine as the girl who does not have a name in the movie looked beautiful throughout the movie and acted brilliantly as well.  Laurence Olivier is passable, The film won a clutch of awards for Alfred Hitchcock. 

Pygmalion

 George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion being adapted into a film in 1938 directed by Anthony Asquith and starring Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller among others. The film stays true to the play, well almost. Professor Higgins (Leslie Howard) is a professor of phonetics & linguistics, and while wandering about in lowly Convent Garden, gets into a scrap with a flower girl Eliza Dolittle (Wendy Hiller). Just then Colonel Pickering comes by, he is an expert of linguistics and dialects himself and wants to meet Higgins, having returned from India. Pickering challenges Higgins to improve the flower girl in a few weeks. Eliza lands up on his doorstep the next morning to learn from him. Then follows the most exacting phase of her life while she tries to throw away her Welsh cockney accent and to adapt a proper British accent with pronunciation, grammar, manners, etiquette etc. Higgins accepts an invitation to an embassy reception with trepidation as to how Eliza would perform. It became his obsession and luckily Eliza goes through with flying colours. Higgins thinks he has won the battle but what has to become of Eliza, where will she go back now that she has become a proper lady, she won't be able to go back to selling flowers. Higgins is unfortunately not able to make that connection.  Higgins comes across as a self centred egomaniac and for him every girl is like a subject to him, like his triumph. Wendy Hiller got nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars. Superb acting by both Wendy Miller and Leslie Howard, both stayed true to script. 

Meshes of the Afternoon

 

Meshes of the Afternoon, (1943) a short film created by Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid. Its again a surrealist film just like Luis Bunuel's "Un Chien Andalou". A woman is seen as walking down a path, she goes to a door, finds it locked, finds the hidden key, the key falls down onto the stairs, then she goes inside the room, which is in disarray, the phone is off the hook, she finds a knife on a bread, a record player playing and then somebody is chasing her, she in turn is chasing a lady without a face but not able to catch her. The images and visuals keep repeating like in a dream. There is no meaning to the movie, its a dream sequence, and one can interpret it the way one wants. Later a man comes into the house, the same sequence keeps repeating, with the key and the knife and the lady. One can sum it as the character's thought patterns in a time of crisis. 

Ad Astra

Ad Astra, a 2019 science fiction drama movie directed by James Grey and starring Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Liv Tylor, Donald Sutherland among others. It is more of a psychological drama movie rather than pure technology although there is a lot of science frontiers being broken down as shown in the movie, for eg. colonies in moon, Mars and space travel to Saturn, Jupiter & Neptune. Brad Pitt (Roy McBride) is the son of Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones) who has gone away to space for 30 years in search of intelligent life on the universe, in the process he has travelled to Saturn, Jupiter and now stationed near Neptune. His space station has created some cosmic ray disturbances which has affected Earth also, so the son sets out to locate his dad in the vast universe, which takes 79 days from Mars itself. Lot of emotional tug of war between father and the son later, earth is safe from the cosmic disturbances and the power surges. The movie drags a bit in the middle especially when Brad is about to reach Neptune to find his dad after 3 decades. There is no emotional re-union sort of, the Dad has more or less lost his contact and interest in Earth. The movie was nominated to the Oscars in the sound mixing category. The special effects in the movie is quite extraordinary, it is in the human connect that the movie finds its weak spot. 
 

Open Water 2: Adrift

 

An open water adventure holiday gone horribly wrong. Open Water 2: Adrift is projected as based on true events, but with the kind of human stupidity depicted in the movie, i doubt if humans can be so stupid. Three pairs of couples go on a yatch holiday out in the open sea or ocean, far away from shore. One couple has an infant daughter also on board, which itself was a risky thing to take such a young one on a ship or a yatch cruise. Four of the members jump into the water to do a swim which i thought was another stupid thing to do, who swims in open ocean far away from land, maybe some do perhaps. Of the remaining, Amy (Susan May Pratt) has a phobia for water because of an incident in her childhood when her father drowned while swimming with her. The other guy Dan (Eric Dane) is ostensibly the owner of the yatch, but later reveals that he is a fraud and that the yatch is actually belonging to his boss. What kind of a boss allows his employee to take his yatch out to a cruise, beats me. Anyway, both of them also jump into the water, without realising that nobody has bothered to put the ladder down or keep the hatch down so that people can climb back. Dan is such an idiot that he does not realise the blunder he has committed endangering everybody's lives. All of them are stuck down in the water with nary any hold or groove to climb back. Soon one after another start drowning. The movie advertised shark attack, but there was nothing of that sort, even though blood oozed from a couple of the guys. 

The General

 

Buster Keaton and his rip roaring comedy in The General (1926) one of the finest silent era comedy films of all time. Johnny Gray (Buster Keaton) is a train engineer and loves his engine and his lady love Annabelle (Marion Mack). When war breaks out, time comes to enlist for the Confederates, but he is rejected and his lady love also rejects him without an uniform. In the meanwhile, the Confederates are infiltrated by some spies who steal his train and make off with the supplies. Off goes Johnny after the train and some delightful comic scenes follows. Annabelle is meanwhile kept as captive by the Union soldiers and then Johnny has to rescue her, so some more delectable comic scenes. Buster Keaton's comic timings were superb in the movie somewhat reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin. Fight ensues between Union and Confederate soldiers much to the relief and joy of the Confederates. Brilliant movie to watch especially for Buster Keaton. The direction and camera work were quite superb for that era, especially shots of the moving trains and the wilderness. Who knew a silent movie would prove to be so powerfully comic. Brilliant. 

The Squaw Man

 

A 1914 silent era movie "The Squaw Man" directed by the great Cecil de Mille and the first western ever in Hollywood. It is one of those cult movies in the history of movies. Starring Warner Baxter as Jim, Eleanor Boardman as Diana, Lupe Velez as Naturich, its a story where an Englishman Jim has had to leave England to save his face and family name, following the swindling of the war regiment cash by his cousin Henry. Jim has to take the blame on himself and unfortunately he loves Diana who is Henry's wife. So all sort of tangles there. He escapes to America, where he becomes a wild west man, gets into a conflict with a local goon there Cash Hawkins, who is killed by Naturich. Later Jim and Naturich marry and have a kid. In the meanwhile Henry dies in an alpine fall accident and his dying confession absolves Jim of all the wrongdoings. Diana comes to America to reunite with Jim and ask him to take his rightful place as the Earl. There is no music, unlike in Battleship Potemkin which had great orchestral music. And with no sound, and only the few notes to let us know what is going on in the movie. Cecil de Mille made a 1931 version of the same movie, but with sound and dialogues, but that version is unfortunately not available on youtube.