Fort Apache is a 1948 Western film directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne and Henry Fonda. This film was the first of the director's " Cavalry Triology" . This film was one of the first to present a sympathetic view of the Native Americans involved in the battle.
Captain Kirby York (John Wayne) is expected to be the new commander at Fort Apache but the command of the regiment is given to Colonel Owen ( Henry Fonda) . Colonel Owen is an arrogant and egocentric officer. He also lacks the experience with the Indians he is expected to watch. When there is disturbance among the Indians, Owen ignores York's advice and orders his regiment to participate in a battle with Indians. It's actually the story of a clash between two men. Fonda is very arrogant and hates Indians where as Wayne is very professional soldier. Wayne is also sympathetic towards Indians. There is a lot of complexity to Fonda's character -he's at times capable of being fair as well.
Fonda gives a neatly controlled performance. John Wayne shines here in a supporting role . I always felt that Wayne as an actor excels more when he plays supporting character. Ford finds the most beautiful way to frame a scene, and the black and white photography is stunning. The best thing about this film is that it didn't show Apaches as villains . A great film by Ford.
La Notte is a 1961 Italian drama film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and starring Marcello Mastroianni, Jeanne Moreau, and Monica Vitti. The film is about a day in the life of a married couple. The film actually tells the story of the sour marriage between the writer Giovanni (Marcello Mastroianni) and his wife Lydia ( Jeanne Moreau).
They have stayed together for many years but now they aren't in love with each other. Giovanni is a rich and highly lauded novelist ,who also makes a living writing magazine articles. His wife Lydia comes from a wealthy family . She cannot stand him any longer . On the other hand, he is bored with his wife. The film opens when they visit a dying friend, named Tommaso Garani in a hospital. Tommaso is also a writer but not as good as Giovanni. He has read most pages of Giovanni's latest book, hoping to finish it before he dies. It seems that Giovanni is more interested in knowing what his friend feels of his work than what will become of his friend. Later at night,they attend a party of a wealthy businessman. Giovanni is attracted towards Valentina (Monica VItti). Valentina is daughter of the host. She flirts with him while Lydia flirts with a male guest. The film so well captures the reasons behind failures of so many marriages. It is clear that Lydia never cared for her husband's talent . She wasn't interested in art. That said, it's also clear that Giovanni never cared deeply for Lydia. They have nothing in common but their memories ,or ,as Giovanni tells his wife "I no longer have inspirations, only recollections."
Jeanne Moreau does a good job of generating the drenched spirit of vagrant moods. Marcello Mastroianni gives a good performance while Monica Vitti steals the show in supporting role as a charming but calm young woman. She seems to know what this couple truely want and what she wants. The camerawork is spectacular in this film. Antonioni presents a cold , cruel, lonely modern world where the old principles of civilization and behavior no longer have a place. It is a highly focused, layered and intensified adult drama about the ennui that occurs in a marriage.
Sanxiá haorén (Still Life) is a 2006 Chinese film directed by Jia Zhangke. The film was shot in the old village of Fengjie , a small town which is being destroyed by the building of the Three Georges Dam.
The plot is simple. A coal miner comes to the town in search of his wife, whom he hasn't seen for 16 years. Similarly a woman arrives there in search of her husband whom she hasn't seen in 3 years. They both have come from Shanxi. The man comes to know that his former wife is now in Yichang with his teenage daughter. The woman discovers that her husband has become a rich businessman in Fengjie. She also finds out that her husband is having an affair with his investor. When she finally meets him ,she tells him to divorce her. Still Life tells the story of two people in search of their spouses.
There are much more to this film. Almost one million people have been dislocated because of the construction of the dam. This method has been heavily criticized by human rights groups. The project's effect on ordinary Chinese is the focus of Still Life. The stories are told in Jia's minimalist style. The human stories, set against the background of the Three Gorges Dam , are fleeting, lovely. The journey of the characters is both physical and emotional. Their journey is also a journey into consciousness, loss and the past. We follow the characters at the same time as they make journey into the town. The connection between the characters and the landscape is clear.
The sense of loss in the characters' lives is linked to the Three Gorges, to that which is already lost. The film is a poetic reflection on time. It is full of humanity and compassion. As for his films, Jia says: "We all know there is major change going on in China and I wanted to get more people to know what's happening. I will continue to make films along these lines and explore the problems of the weaker social classes".
Mani kaul was one of the directors who took a different path than other directors of Indian Parallel cinema. He tried to change the language of Indian cinema. He was greatly influenced by Robert Bresson. He started with the image and made his way into the text.
Satah Se Uthata Aadmi was regarded by many Indian film scholars as Kaul's best work. Kaul's film was based on the literature of Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh , a left-leaning Hindi author who was one of the main representatives of the Nai Kavita movement in Hindi. The film merged episodes from Muktibodh's writings with material from other sources. In the film, we noticed a world where the revolution had finished, idealism had diminished in the name of practicality. This was the time when the role of intellectuals and artists had been questioned.
Kaul here started his association with the documentary-fiction genre. The sutradhar (narrator) of this film was also the main protagonist Muktibodh (played by Gopi). This film also raised the question of theory versus practice. This film portrayed broken, post-socialist state of society. Kaul was a big fan of Indian Classical music. He studied Dhrupad and used it's leading vocalist Ustad Zia Fariduddin Dagar to deliver Bilaskhani Todi. This was the most complicated work of Kaul but it would create a big impact on viewer's mind.
Red Desert (Italian: Il deserto rosso) is a 1964 Italian film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. The film is about a woman trying hard to survive in the modern world of cultural neurosis and existential dilemma. This is Antonioni's first colour film.
Giuliana (Monica Vitti) is married to a manager of the factory. Giuliana suffers from an unnamed form of depression. She has a young son as well. Despite that ,she is unhappy and lonely. She even tries an affair with a friend of her husband. His name is Corrado Zeller (Richard Harris). He is looking to take workers for an industrial purpose in Argentina. Giuliana sustains minor injuries in a car crash. After that, she becomes hypersensitive. She begins to feel the pain of isolation. Antonioni uses out of focus shots to show that she is "out of sync" with others. People around Giuliana can't relate to her troubles. Only Corrado understands some of her problems and comes near to her. Corrado is rootless,travelling from place to place but never finding happiness. He tries to make her feel better but nothing changes.
The film is hailed as a great example of the use of colour , or an expressionistic work of art. There are no natural colours that contain any real texture or sensuality. Even the natural elements seem to be unreal. Director uses colour to such striking effect that the film frequently borders on pure abstraction.
We can see how isolated one becomes when one realises that he/she is the only one who seems to be sensitive to it. This film shows the oppressive sides of modern life. Human relationships have become mechanical. Antonioni nicely captures the dark side of modern world.
La Dolce VIta is a 1960 film written and directed by Federico Fellini. This film is widely considered as one of the best feat in world cinema. This film pinpoints the transition between Fellini's earlier neo-realist films and his later films. La Dolce Vita shows a series of events in the life of Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastroianni).
Marcello has an affair with a woman (Anouk Aimee) . He also has a girlfriend (Yvonne Furnaux) who is possessive about him. One day, he goes on duty for the arrival of Sylvia (Anita Ekberg), a popular Swedish-American actress. As Marcello moves through the city following the star, we discover that his life is empty. We see that he writes meaningless things in tabloids. One of the most important character of this film is Steiner. Steiner is Marcello's dear friend and he is someone whom Marcello respects. One day,in Steiner's house Marcello meets with a bunch of pseudo-intellectuals. Steiner feels trapped by his own circle of intellectuals. When Marcello tells him about his admiration for Steiner, Steiner replies " Don't be like me. Salvation doesn't lie within four walls. I'm too serious to be a dilettante and too much a dabbler to be a professional. Even the most miserable life is better than a sheltered existence in an organized society where everything is calculated and perfected."
Marcello Mastroianni gives a great performance as a shallow tabloid reporter who struggles to find his place in the world. Anita Ekberg is a revelation as the charming superstar. Yvonne Furnaux gave a great performance as the reporter's possessive mistress. Nino Rota's musical scoring is another plus point of this film.
This film is a dense,complicated portrait of modern life. This is a harsh critic of media culture. This is also a film about nothingness ,emptiness. The central character Marcello is both charming and weak. He has numerous affairs in his life yet he is never happy. During this time, he betrays his girlfriend who truely loved him. The film shows how the modern man has become disconnected from the natural world . It also raises questions about the purpose of life. One of the best thing about Fellini is his ability to keep audiences interested in the unsympathetic characters of this film. This film is an epic satire on modern life. It is a highly enjoyable cinema yet it is so difficult to comprehend.
Hidden Agenda is a 1990 political thriller directed by Ken Loach . It is based on allegedly brutal methods of British police in Northern Ireland. The film starts with a quote from Margaret Thatcher maintaining that Northern Ireland is part of Britain. Here the British government is shown to be the villain early on.
Peter Kerrigan ( Brian Cox) is brought to Belfast to investigate the killing of an American lawyer Paul Sullivan (Brad Dourif). Kerrigan joins with Sullivan's girlfriend Ingrid Jessner (Frances Mcdormand). He discovers that Sullivan was shot without any warning and that there is a secret tape recording involved in the killing.
Brian cox is absolutely convincing as an investigator. Cox's greatest power is his ability to make calmness exciting. Frances Mcdormand does a commendable job here too. The film's agenda is not hidden though. It addresses to the situation in Northern Ireland and to British abuses of civil rights. Ken Loach never glorifies the Republican movement even though he takes the side of them. This is an underrated political thriller by Loach.
Mani Kaul was one of the few film-makers whose work was very different than the other directors of Indian parallel cinema. Mani Kaul was understandably the one who attempted to modernize the language of Indian cinema. Robert Bresson influenced him greatly. Kaul started with the image and made his way into the text. Kaul said that " And I know that when the shot finds its place, it has a quality of holding you. The position is its meaning". The slow narrative provided him to hold part of the story untold, making audiences linger on the images.
Uski Roti was Mani Kaul's first feature film. This was a poetic film about waiting. The plot was very simple. A woman took food out to the road for her driver husband. The husband didn't care about her. He only stopped his bus there when he had a passenger to pick up. He had a mistress in other town.
We noticed Bresson's influence in many aspects of film-making here : the delayed editing of shots, the priority on objects rather than concepts, the several shots of hands and faces that have a beauty of their own etc. Camera strongly captured the texture of the village and its natives. The most striking thing about Uski Roti was the way Kaul fully discarded the conventions of narrative cinema by dispensing with the plot. This was one of the great works of Indian art cinema.
This film was considered to be a "B" film at that time but it got great critical acclaim. It was shot in a very low-budget in less than one month. It is considered to be one of the fine works of film-noir genre.
New York nightclub pianist Al Roberts (Tom Neal) is in love with a second-rate singer named Sue (Claudia Drake). They both work in a third-rate club in New York City , until Sue decides to try her luck in Hollywood. She leaves Roberts behind. With little money, he has to hitchhike his way across the country. In Arizona, bookie Charles Haskell Jr (Edmund MacDonald) gives him a ride in his car. Haskell dies accidentally . Al fears that police might think him as a killer. So he dumps the body of Haskell at the side of the road. He then takes Haskell's identification, money,clothes and drives away. He picks up another hitchhiker Vera (Ann Savage) and comes to know that she knew Haskell and scratched him deeply in his arm.
Tom Neal's character is doomed from the beginning. He tells everything on flashbacks as a narrator. His character is unlikable and it was supposed to be in that way only. Ann Savage played an excellent femme fatale and her role was the show-stealer in this film. She is not the prettiest femme fatale but she is most devious.
Benjamin H. Kline contributes some great camera work that helps the flashback routine come off well. Leo Erdody's score, revolving around some Chopin themes, aids in backing up the film's grim mood.
Xiao Wu (Pickpocket) is a 1997 Chinese film directed by Jia Zhangke. The film was the directorial debut of Jia Zhangke, one of the important figures of the Sixth Generation of Chinese cinema and stars Wang Hongwei in the title role.
Xiao Wu is a young man in a small town in China. Xiao Wu is one of the member of a group of pickpockets. Most of his friends have moved on in their lives. A friend of him is getting married and decides not to invite him . Later Xiao Wu develops an affair with a prostitute. The woman drops him when she gets better client. He becomes increasingly alienated and lonely as he loses his girlfriend. A sense develops that the world is moving on and he is being left behind. This film actually portrays the young man's insecurity, frustration and alienation.
Wang Hongwei is perfect in the title role. He makes it easy to relate to the character's loneliness and hankering. The raw way of the photography gives us an honest picture of a specific time in China's history. On the flip side, the film is too slow at times. However this film is successful on analysing the psychology of a self-absorbed individual.
