Code inconnu: Récit incomplet de divers voyages

The film features several  different storylines , all of which intersect periodically throughout the film.  Jean, a restless teenager who yearns for  freedom , tells his sister-in-law Anne (Juliette Binoche) about his dissatisfaction  with working on his father's farm.  Jean suddenly throws a piece of garbage at Maria, a Romanian woman sitting on the side of the road. Amadou, an African boy, tries to get Jean to apologize and then winds up in a scuffle with him . The police arrives and blame the African. Michael Haneke juxtaposes different characters' different lives belonging to different social classes. Haneke gives us insights into the various lives that have intersected in modern city. We witness an equally racially charged encounter at the end of the film. A man (Arab) begins to harass Anne in a metro. She moves to the other end of the subway car.  He follows and sits down beside her and then spits in her face.  This is a film about race,culture ,urban rage and alienated identity. But then Haneke's films are not so straightforward as well.  Haneke loves to play with our assumptions of reality and he does it well in Binoche's scenes ,some of which may also be scenes from a film her character is making.

Samskara

The Kannada film dealt with  the lives and the customs  of the Madhwa community.  Samaskara directed by Pattabhi Rama Reddy was a path-breaking attempt in Kanada as far as parallel cinema is considered.  A Brahmin named Narayanappa dies suddenly.  He used to drink liquor and kept a sudra mistress.  He disobeyed the traditions of Brahmin actually.  Now there is a discussion about his cremation in the community, and the Acharya (Girish Karnad) ,the head of the Brahmin community fails to answer it.  He reads the holy books, but they do not provide any solution.  Meanwhile Acharya sleeps with Narayanappa's mistress and then he feels guilty about it and runs away from his place.  The film gives a beautiful count of the political,social and moral  issues involved in the funeral rites.  However this film becomes repetitive after a certain point. Still overall this film is a must watch for film-lovers.

Mat i Syn

Mother and Son is a 1997 Russian film directed by Aleksandr Sokurov ,  depicting a relationship between an old dying mother and her young son.  It depicts one-day  in the life of a grown son and his elderly,ailing mother.  The son must gently lift his mother and carry her from place to place.   Their speech is slow and heavy , as though even the act of speaking has become an effort for them.   Forget speaking-even breathing is an effort for both mother and son ,so heavy does their existence weigh upon them. From time to time, there is a far away train or a sail on the sea , emphasizing further their isolation from the rest of the world. It is difficult to find a film that has captured the sense of intimacy and communion between a parent and an adult child.  Everything happens slowly in Mother and Son .  Sokurov introduces a shot , and instead of cutting quickly to another angle , holds it on the screen, inviting us to feast on the image to find our own dreams and meditations and yardstick inside it , to perhaps recall our own parent-child  relationships.  Sokurov distorts his images to suggest the heightened , dreamlike reality of the dying mother and son. While the dialogue is kept to an absolute minimum , the soundtrack is extremely expressive and is an essential element of the work- the wind, the sea,  the "music" of the earth , provide a brilliant counterpoint and commentary to what is seen.

Herz aus Glas (Heart Of Glass)

The film was written by Herzog, based partly on a story by Herbert  Achternbusch.  The setting is an 18th century Bavarian town with a glassblowing factory which produces a brilliant red ruby glass. When the master glass blower dies, the secret to producing the ruby glass is lost.  The factory owner is obsessed with the ruby glass and believes it to have magical properties.  Several of the characters appear to be "mad" , either  mentally or emotionally.  One Young woman  is shown in various situations indicating that she is not of sound mind,  stripping her clothes off  and turning in a daze ,in a state of  mental unconsciousness.  The owner's father , an elderly man who is shown wearing clothing befitting an aristocrat,  yet he babbles and laughs uncontrollably , all the while refusing to walk. The overall perspective  of Heart of Glass reflects Herzog's grim vision of hopelessness.  Man's efforts to understand  the universe and build a humane civilisation are doomed to failure in the face of  his own depravity and the incomprehensibly vastness of great nature . Our so-called civilisation has tried to tame nature , but it is based on reductionist mechanism and increasingly drives us further away from any chance of harmony within it.

Vaastu Purush

The film begins in present-day Mumbai where a middle aged doctor Bhaskar Deshpande comes to know that he has received an award for his work among the city's slum-dwellers.  He decides to return his native village and build a hospital at the place of the ruins of his home , just to appease his family's guardian spirit.  Vaastu Purush means Guardian of The House.  After returning to village ,  he starts remembering about his childhood.   Though he was born in a feudal family but now the earnings of the family are meagre.  His mother wants her son to become a doctor and serve the poor.  VaastuPurush  is about memory, about loss  and remembrance , about the interplay between times past,  the present and possibly the unborn feature.  Vaastu Purush can also be seen as one illiterate woman's determination to ensure that her son breaks away from the degenerate feudal background of his once affluent family and becomes a doctor to help cure the needy.  The performances were good by all but the one performance which stands out is by Mahesh Elkunchwar who played the grown-up Dr Bhaskar.

Only God Forgives

A brilliant, macabre and ultraviolent anti-revenge film by Refn. The film has deep character development, little dialogue, extreme violence mixed with soft music.  Julian (Ryan Gosling)  is an American living in Bangkok , Thailand  who runs a boxing club , which is actually  a front for a massive drug smuggling operation.  Respected in the underworld  ,deep inside, he feels empty.    Lieutenant Chang , known as the "Angel of Vengeance"  kills Julian's brother for raping a woman.   Julian's mother Crystal  (Kristin Scott Thomas)  arrives in Bangkok and demands Julian to find the killer and  kill him.    Chang is shown as God's representative on earth.   Julian seems to be mesmerized by the near -mythical "Angel of Vengeance" .  It is Chang who glides through the film with mysterious precision and ambiguity .  Pansringarm doesn't have dialogues but is terrific as a violent cop who respects the sanctity of justice  but defies the law and even ethics to maintain justice.  Also the film is about oedipal issues of Gosling's character ,whose mother is played to excellence by Kristin Scott Thomas.  She even calls Gosling's beautiful girlfriend a "cum dumpster".  Refn's direction , Larry Smith's cinematography and Beth Mickle's production design are all superb.  Refn approaches violence like sexuality and considers a film as a build up to a climax.  Considering the impressive balance of violence ,sex and ideology in his films ,he is a very good director.

En la ciudad de Sylvia

Almost devoid of  dialogue , the film tells about an artist who returns to a city in search of a woman he met six years earlier.   For three days ,  he sits at the cafe outside the Conservatoire sketching the people around him.   Eventually he finds a girl who looks like her and stalks her through the city.  Finally he works up the nerve to say hello  ; she claims not to be the one he seeks ; they part ways.   But in the hands of the director
Luis Guerin , this is enough to construct a frequently hypnotic,  if sometimes irritating,  meditation on the act of looking.  It's a profile of a city paradise , where we hear only sounds of footsteps and overheard, muffled conversations , but we are presented with a picture of extreme beauty and wonderment.  The film mainly explores the themes like desire ,beauty and silent interaction of society.  As an ostensibly subjective film ,it also includes  many mysterious scenes where the identity of the observer is ambiguous.  The director has captured  the obsessive and mysterious compulsiveness of yearning and the ways in which it can take over our consciousness.

To vlemma tou Odyssea

The film explores the idea of how people must go through their personal Odyssey to reach their destination with an unbelievable poetic quality.  The basic tale is that a nameless exiled Greek-American filmmaker named A (played by Harvey Keitel ) returns to the Balkans after thirty-five years , and is seeking to find  three lost reels of footage from the earliest known extant Greek film , made by the Manakis brothers in 1905.   His quest takes him across changing countries , bounders and war torn cities.  The Romanian actress ,Maia Morgenstern, plays the parts of the four women.  These women can easily be identified with the women  Homer's Ulysses came across  during his voyage.  They also represent all the women whom "A" had loved and lost in past.  The search for the reels of film works as a metaphor for  a search for the common history of  the Balkan countries.  His odyssey , from Ptolemais through Albania ,Bulgaria and Romania , to Belgrade and Sarajevo, allows for a reflection on changing borders , national identity, and the relationship of film to historical and political reality.   Keitel speaks mostly in English, while most of the other characters speak in Greek and other native languages. Keitel gives a good performance in this film about a man's search for missing film reels. But the best performance of the film comes from Maia Morgenstern . She is brilliant. 

Giorgos Arvanitis, Angelopoulos's long time collaborator ,is responsible for  the stunning cinematography.  Many of the scenes are long shots ,that are also long takes , lasting several minutes, Angelopoulos's great signature. The direction is great -beautiful scenery ,  wonderful mesmeric tracking shots and long takes make for a great visual experience.  However working in several  languages takes it's toll and much of the English narration is weak and clumsy.

Die Wand

A woman inexplicably finds herself cut off from all human contacts when an invisible , unyielding wall suddenly surrounds the countryside.  In an eerie sequence , we later learn that people on the other side of the wall have been frozen in time -meaning that the woman is not only trapped alone , but also quite possibly the last person left alive on earth.  Martina Gedeck's performance , which must have been physically demanding in the extreme, is phenomenal - only occasionally does she directly express outward emotion , but in her interaction with animals and the landscape,  she creates a powerful impression of her character's coming to merge with the great outdoors.  She's left with a dog named Lynx (the director's own hound) , a cow and a couple of cats who prove themselves to be of not much practical use at all.  Gradually, she learns how to survive there , moving past loneliness and fear to a sense of communion with her animals and surroundings. The film , based on a novel by the Austrian writer Marlen Haushofer , doesn't tell us much about the woman , only that she is vacationing in the Austrian mountains when the wall cuts her off.  How our protagonist survives and changes , grows closer to Lynx , and battles several key obstacles ,make up most of the action.

Sonatine

Sonatine tells the story of middle aged yakuza boss Murakawa (played by Kitano) and his gang's trip to Okinawa to settle some yakuza wars and return the peace to the criminal underworld of Japan. Murakawa openly suspects that the assignment is attempt to have him removed and even beats up one of his colleagues.    There are all the Kitano elements as beautifully present as possible. The scenes are often  without too much dialogue , and the film is very symbolical and calm.  The faces are among the most important elements in Kitano's  films as there are so many things to be read from character's faces. Takeshi delivers a perfectly-measured performance  as the man who wants out , but retains the strength to recognise that circumstances and obligations will never allow it.  When violence is shown in this film , it is usually portrayed in the director's signature style , erupting suddenly amid absolute stillness in a spasm that is over almost before it begins. Sonatine is a lyrical picture of Japan's poker face toward the outrageous violence of its mob culture. The film's title is a musical term that refers to a sonata of modest length ,however not diminished in complexity.

Umberto D

Umberto D is a 1952 Italian neorealist film directed by Vittoria De Sica . Most of the actors were non-professional , including Carlo Battisti, who plays the title role of Umberto Ferrari., a poor old man in Rome desperately trying to keep his room.  His landlady is a gold-digger , looking to show off her apartments and marry someone who can provide for her.  His landlady is evicting him and his only true friends , the housemaid  and his dog Flike are of no help. The young maid , Maria who is pregnant by  one of two soldiers - still likes him , though and provides moral support ,even if she can't help in any practical way.   "Umberto D" is a character-driven film .  It works very well because of its sharp observations on loneliness and poignant gestures.  Many of the scenes ,  even the ones that do not necessarily advance the plot, are hypnotically beautiful in their simplicity.  The film sticks firmly to the neo-realist conventions ;  the lead actor is a non professional actor (who does a good job if not great) , the use of studio sets is kept to minimum and the everyday lives of people are examined in minute detail.  Indeed, Umberto D could have been one of the most  depressing films ever made ,  but instead it's one of the most heartfelt.

City Of Industry

Lee Egan , played with restraint by Timothy Hutton , wants to pull off a big jewel robbery in Palm Springs. He has been casing a jewelry store where once a year they have two to three million dollars  in stones from Russia.  To pull it off, he asks his brother and old pro-criminal Roy (Harvey Keitel)  to come to town to join his gang for the big heist.  Jorge Montana  and Skip Kovic (Stephen Dorff)  make up the rest of Lee's team. Calm and resolute Jorge needs the money for his wife Rachel (Famke Janssen)  and their kids since Jorge has just been sentenced to prison.  After the heist , at the trailer park, as Lee and Jorge are counting and dividing the money,  Skip guns both of them down.   Most of the show , which happens after  the jewel theft, consists of an elaborate cat-and-mouse game with Roy and Skip chasing each other. As Roy , Keitel carries the film with the kind of credible performance we've come to expect from him.  Keitel always brings an emotional and physical intensity to his roles that is unequaled.  Here  he is outstanding as Roy Egan-an experienced, complicated thief who never says much . Timothy Hutton  turns in a stellar  performance, as does the always watchable Famke Janssen as a woman recently widowed by the fall-out from Dorff's  betrayal of friends.  Thomas Burstyn's dark cinematography does a good job here to capture the city's underbelly.  This John Irvin film is a small, hard-edged little gem , full of crisp action and tough minded codes of  honor.

Autoreiji (Outrage)

Outrage is a 2010 Japanese Yakuza film directed by and starring Takeshi Kitano.  Kitano's Outrage exists in an effort to explore the various amounts of violence that can be dispensed in the midst of a Yakuza turf war in the Japanese underworld.  The complex plot stars Kitano as Otomo , a mid level mob boss. Otomo's direct loyalties lie with Ikemoto, his gangster-father , an aging gang leader who has formed a formal pact with Murase.  This pact has raised the ire of the overall Yakuza Chairman, the highest ranking gangster of them all to whom Ikemoto must answer.  The Chairman claims his displeasure comes from the shame of associating with Murase's drug business but it is equally likely that he simply doesn't like these two powerful men creating an alliance that could threaten his own power.   Payback and revenge become the order of the day and the control of Ikemoto and Murase's territory is up for grabs and several of the players involved have their eyes on it.  As Kitano remarked publicly about his making  of Outrage , he is giving the people what they want - no pretense of artistic embellishments, but rather blunt , cruel acts of violence of  the professional criminal  devoid of  any romanticism.  Despite the plot complexity , Kitano  directs one of his most direct and most violent pictures here.

L'Heure d'été (Summer Hours)

In the film , two brothers and a sister witness the disappearance of their childhood memories when they must relinquish the family belongings to ensure their deceased mother's succession.   Summer Hours (aka L'Heure d'été) a quiet ,carefully observed film by writer-director Oliver Assayas , a former Cahiers du Cinema critic.  In a small town, Helene is a family matriarch who has devoted her life to preserving the legacy of her artist uncle.  However, while her eldest son , Frederic , wants to preserve her home after her passing, she harbors no such illusions as she prepares her legacy.  When she dies, the family gets together again at her home , which is taken care of by Eloise (Isabelle Sadoyan).   Jeremie ,the youngest son , lives with his wife and children in China and is about to start a new job in Beijing.   He needs the money from the sale of the family heritages to pay for the move.  Adrienne (Juliette Binoche) , a successful designer  who lives in the United States , is about to get married. She does not see herself returning to France often in the future and so suggests they sell the house.  Frederic ,who wants to keep everything , is disappointed to hear of his brother and sister's responses.  But Jeremie and Adrienne see themselves as elite members of the global community with no specific ties to any place or culture. Life will go on , with an acknowledgement of loss that will always seem insufficient.   Assayas has made a drama that is filled with bittersweet observations about family , memory , money , globalization and transitoriness.

Gewalt! Gewalt: shojo geba-geba ( Violent Virgin )

A bunch of young hipsters kidnaps a loving couple and keeps them trapped in a barren landscape. To the sounds of  free jazz they are performing various instruments with the couple.  Yet, as the film progresses the characters appear to be more like symbols acting out relationships in an allegory rather than part of a narrative. The central male character , played by Atushi Yamatoya ,goes from kidnapped victim ,to escapee ,to killer , to demon and then to oppressor himself.  Here both male and female characters go through a range of experiences of erotic pleasure , physical restraint and humiliation.  The women characters are seen to be as sexually and violently charged as their male counterparts.  Wakamatsu used the format of  sexploitation as a way into an exploration of other transgressive acts such as extreme violence and amorality.

Hukkle

Hukkle is a 2002 Hungarian film. It's about the daily life of people in a random village which seems beautiful and harmless , but there is something mysterious going on.  It begins with an old man who has hiccups, and takes place in front of his house near a can of milk.  He observes the daily habits of the villagers, and the viewer is shown many sequences about different events. Elsewhere ,an old man prepares food and a man goes fishing . Life cycles dominate as Palfi invites us into a cruel world where everything's struggling for survival and everything is liable to be munched on by something else. The cinematography is exquisite and full of surprises . There's also a vague thriller element and some amusing visual humour, but really much of the enjoyment is seeing the interconnectedness of rural life : a frog skims across a pond , before being snapped up by a large fish ,which is hooked by a fisherman and so on.

Gozu

Gozu is more of a surreal character study in the tradition of David Lynch than a true horror film.  Mike takes great delight in introducing what seems like a normal action film or a horror film , then suddenly twisting it into something new.  A driver named Minami (Hideki Sone) is out with his Yakuza boss , his "aniki" (brother ) Ozaki . To protect an innocent woman , Minami accidentally kills Ozaki.  While trying to figure out what to do with the corpse , then trying to find a phone that works,Ozaki's corpse disappears.  Now it's upto Minami to find him while dealing with encounters with all sorts of bizzare people and situations as he tries to do so.   Minami begins looking for the corpse with the help of a strange man whose face is half-painted white. Other,increasingly bizzare characters come into the mix , and the story gets weirder and weirder.  More than a parade of distorted and strange characters , Gozu's descent into the grotesque is above all the manifestation of protagonist's confusion.  As the film progresses , we as viewers get to know about Minami's personality ,in particular his insecurity about his sexual identity and his devotion to Ozaki. As with many of Mike's films, Gozu follows no singular genre or style ; moving freely between the characteristics of illogical comedy , gritty Yakuza thriller , unrequited romance and psychological horror story seemingly simultaneously.

Sukiyaki Western Django

Sukiyaki Western Django is not the first  Japanese western.   It is a feast for genre fetishists, a loving and lurid pastiche of the Spaghetti westerns that were themselves lurid pastiches of classic Hollywood cowboy pictures. The title of this western refers to the Japanese dish Sukiyaki , as well as Sergio Corbucci's Spaghetti western film Django. The film contains numerous references both to the historical Genpei war and to wars of the roses, as well as the films Yojimbo and Django. The story deals with a bitter rivalry between two vicious clans- the brutal Heike and the flashy Genji.  They have taken over a remote mountain village in a region oddly called "Nevada".  A mysterious gun fighter with no name (Ito Hideaki) rides into town and offers his services to the clan who offers to pay him the most. While both clans make interesting bids, the gun fighter rejects both offers and is instead swayed to hold off joining either faction by the town's salon madam , Ruriko. She tells the stranger of how  the town was taken over by the clans and how her son , Akira was killed by them. The film was made with a fairly high budget , and it shows. Both set and costume design are awesome. The town is a perfect fusion of the classical western town and medieval Japanese architecture,Buddhist temples alternating with the saloon, the sheriff's office and dilapidated stanles. Sukiyaki Western Django is a feast for the eye ; even the much criticized flashbacks , soaked in oversaturated yellow and  green tints , seem to work in its advantage.

Blackboards

In the mountainous country of Iranian Kurdistan , a group of  itinerant teachers wend their way through a treacherous area in search of pupils.  They carry their blackboards on their backs and use them as shields when they need to hide from army helicopters. One teacher Said comes across a huge group of  nomads making their way back over the border into Iraq though they have lost their way. He offers to lead them in exchange for food. The other teacher , Reeboir meets a group of  children laborers ,each with a heavy load strapped to his back. Reeboir learns that they're smugglers . The screenplay was co-written by Makhmalbaf  with her father, Mohsen Makhmalbaf .  Like her father,  Samira has learned a respectful, intelligent way of storytelling.  But this film really pushes the slow-and-obtuse envelope. Its hard to have any feelings for the characters  : there is extremely little known about them, no development, they show no willingness to accomplish anything except trek across the next mountain and hide from unseen helicopters and soldiers.

Gwoemul (The Host)

Bong Joon-ho's 2006 monster tale,  The Host, brings a level of sophistication to the monster film genre with a combination of several genres all working to develop  the narrative and its characters.  It's about a family that becomes torn through this huge fish-monster crawling out of the water and killing/taking people back to his short of sewer-lair. The story follows a snack car employee Park Gang-Du , his father  Hee-Bong , daughter Hyun-Seo ,sister Naam-joo ,who's an archer , and Gang-du's brother Nam-il , an alcoholic who has not done much since graduating.  The monster takes his daughter Hyun-seo seemingly killing her until Gang-du recieves a call from Hyuen-seo informing him that she was in fact still alive but trapped in the monster's sewer-lair.  Gang-du and his family set out to save his daughter but they face strong opposition from the government.  The leads are good,  particularly the young girl, Park Hyun-Seo played by Ah-Sung ko, who is very convincing and strong in character.    The other characters continually walk that fine line between comedic and serious performances.  That raises another interesting aspect, instead of following a standard route with the characters, their development follows the unusual turns of the film itself and we're treated to surprises and failures when we don't really expect them.  The monster is really well-designed and doesn't look like any other screen monster that i have seen.  The animation of it is excellent too , and the creature does almost feel like it's alive!  The strongest aspect of this film has to be it's cinematography.  The audience gets to visually see a dark world created in Korea as a result of a Foreign monster who creates a domestic threat to Korean life.

Taiji ga mitsuryô suru toki (The Embryo Hunts In Secret)

The Embryo Hunts in Secret , is the first film made by Japanese director Koji  Wakamatsu  independently of any film studio.  A pioneer of  pinku cinema,  his work is subversive and universally applicable but without the tastelessness of  the genre's worst contributors. 
The entire film takes place in the protagonist's claustrophobic  apartment ;  the  reclusivity of the protagonist's plight is now to be shared with the audience.  A man keeps his girlfriend tied up in his small apartment  and tortures her.  As the story goes we are subjected to watching this man degrade and abuse the woman -he relentlessly flogs her with a bull whip, makes her crawl around on all fours and beg for food like an animal , repeatedly holds her head under water  and slices her up with a straight-razor , all the while laughing with sadistic glee.  All the while still recounting his family relationship , his oedipal relationship with his mother , and his estranged relationship with his wife , all at the cost of his utter rejection of a child.  He cannot live without controlling every aspect of his own life as well- including  the lives of others he's in contact with.  Throughout the film, there are images superimposed over scenes happening in reality.  Wakamatsu refuses to refashion the man into a monster,  providing instead  a purely pathological portrait of rank misogyny's  desperate efforts to contain what taunts it.

Seven Men From Now

Boetticher's Seven Men From Now has long been considered  a mere B-western , especially due to the presence of its laconic star , Randolph Scott .   This film was written by Burt Kennedy  and produced by John Wayne's productions. Ben Stride (Scott) plays a former sheriff  whose wife has been killed  and  he's going to get out and seek revenge.   Along the way, he helps a married couple  who are stuck in the mud ; who persuade Stride to ride west with them in case of further problems.  Along the trail  they meet up with Bill Masters (Lee Marvin) and  his pal Clete ( Donald Barry) . Stride only talks when its complete necessary or very important.  This film gave Scott a chance to show just what a fine actor he was.  His Ben Stride could so easily have been played  as corny and grumpy , but Scott  gives it the emotional depth that the script demanded.  The outstanding  performance, without qualification is Lee Marvin's.  He makes for an engaging villain  , who makes his sinister and untrustworthy character as likable as possible.  For a western, the economical script is impressively intelligent , witty and psychologically involving.

Brother

At the time of its  release, Brother was hyped  as Kitano's vehicle for breaking into the United States film market.  Mostly , the film is a  successful  transposition of his trademark  melancholic violence,  playful humour and brutal editing,  and in this respect Kitano maintains an artistic and thematic continuity with his earlier films.  Kitano plays a Yakuza gangster who is exiled to the United States.  He has his half  brother living there so he has a place to live in.  Soon he starts to have new friends and become a leader of their new gang.   Kitano gives full shrift to examining the Yakuza sub-culture with  its codes of chivalry, obligation, loyalty, obedience and brotherhood.  Members of a Yakuza clan maintain a fanatical loyalty to their anikis  within the gang with a willingness to put  one's life on the line.   The violence is very brutal and challenging  but definitely not gratuitous or exploitative.  His violence is  always very symbolic and sudden, and not necessarily realistic.  This film contains all the element which we have seen in his other films-flashbacks of events,  long shots without editing, characters faces which say so many things more than words.

The Roaring Twenties

Walsh shoots the rise to the top and equally quick descent gangster film in a fast-paced semi-documentary style ( using newsreel clips , popular music from the period and a reporter's voice-over)  ,keeping it true only to a certain point and fictionalizing it to keep it exciting as an entertaining film.  Three soldiers meet on the ww1 battlefield in 1918.  One is the all good lawyer Lloyd Hart (Jeffrey Lynn) , one the thoroughly bad George Hally (Humphrey Bogart) ,  and the third , an everyman named Eddie Bartlett (James Cagney) .  Eddie is smitten with a girl , Jean Sherman (Priscilla Lane) who has been corresponding with him  from home.  When the war ends Eddie returns to New York and hooks up with buddy  Danny who is a Gabie.  Unable to find work, Eddie is forced to share the driving of Danny's cab.  In the meantime, prohibition takes effect and Eddie discovers that bootlegging is the way to get rich.  At the onset he meets Panama ( Gladys  George)  who turns out to be his only friend.  Cagney as usual dominates  the picture.  He is his usual cocky Irish tough guy but with character flaws.  Although Cagney dominates every scene he is in , the more ominous gangster in the film is played by Humphrey Bogart in one of his best performances prior to assuming character roles in the late 40s.  However the best turn of  The  Roaring Twenties is by alternate female lead Gladys George , billed lower but with comparable screen time and oodles more screen presence.  A well-crafted screenplay with memorable scenes, newsreels , well-crafted gun-play, authentic costumes and hairstyles reflecting the Roaring Twenties are an added plus here.

Kuroi ame (Black Rain)

Based on a novel by Masuji Ibuse who gathered information from interviews and the diaries of real-life bomb victims , the film depicts how an entire family is affected psychologically as well as physically by the bomb years after the original explosion. The film begins in  Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 as soldiers and civilians go about their normal daily activities. Suddenly a blinding light flashes and a thunderous blast is heard.  The story centers around  Yasuko (Yoshiko Tanaka) , a young woman who is caught in the radioactive rain as her boat head backs to the city to search for friends and relatives.   When the family returns to their home,  her life is forever changed.  When her aunt and uncle try to find her a husband,  the eligible men refuses to marry her  because of suspicions about her health,  even though her uncle has copied her diary to prove that she wasn't directly exposed to the bomb. She only feels comfortable with another damaged man Yuichi ,  who has a panic attack every time he hears the roar of an engine.  The film is clearly designed as a memorial to the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for a world too quick to forget.  Perceiving the need to remind his country of the truth of the atomic horror, the normally confrontational director shows notable restraint here.  This is one of the reasons why this film, despite being brilliant , is not among my favourites.

Ride Lonesome

Randolph Scott plays bounty hunter Ben Brigade , who captures outlaw Billy John (James Beast) and proceeds to transport him to Santa Cruz.  On the way, Brigade rescues the wife of a station manager , and two outlaws help him defend against an Indian attack.  This was director  Budd  Boetticher's first use of  'Scope' , and  it's a masterpiece of economic action and performance ,as if he had no problem making the adjustment.  This film beautifully captures the desolation of the old west and the lonesome characters who try to survive its hard way of life.  All the performances are nice , and it does a masterful job showing the shifting loyalities and grand ambitions among the characters as they trek across the desert.

Sling Blade

  As writer, director and star of the film, Thornton became as close to an     "overnight sensation" as it gets, quickly earning the sincere respect of his peers in all three categories . Though he's always been something of an outsider to the Hollywood machine,  he's still managed to fit in quite nicely.   Karl  Childers (Billy Bob Thornton) is a mentally disabled man who has been in the custody of the mental hospital since the age of 12 for having killed his mother and her lover.  He soon finds a job fixing lawn mowers and farm implements and makes friends with Frank (Lucas Black) ,a lonely boy whose mother  (Natalie Canerday)  lets Karl move into the garage.  Her boyfriend Doyle is an abusive man who torments Frank and Karl  when she is working at the dollar store.   As the story progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that Karl has got himself into a fix similar to the one that led to his earlier crimes. This story unfolds in many layers ,with friendship and love woven between bigotry and cruelty.   Billy Bob Thornton was excellent in his portrayal .  With his stooped shoulders, tight-lipped smile, jutting jaw, vacant expression and guttural throat-clearing, Karl became the butt of so many jokes back when the movie first came out that it's easy to forget what a truly amazing character - and job of acting - Thornton has pulled off here.   As a director, he proves himself a master of rhythm and pacing, setting the mood and allowing the scenes to play themselves out without recourse to overstatement . This is the kind of movie that could have become very preachy, but it hasn't and that's something that I really appreciate.

A Soft Note on a Sharp Scale (Komal Gandhar)

The title refers to the Hindustani equivalent of "E-flat".  It was part of the triology ,  Meghe Dhaka Tara (1960) , Komal Gandhar  and Subarnarekha , all dealing with the aftermath of the partition of India in 1947 and the refugees coping with it, though this was the most optimistic film of his oeuvre.  The film explores three themes juxtaposed in the narrative , the dilemma of Anusuya,  the lead character, divided leadership of IPTA  and the fallout of the partition of India.  

Hero of  this film, Bhrigu is a leader.  And in due course ,   he is challenged  and left alone by other leadership aspirants.  He tells Anasuya why he is so rugged, unemotional today. He tells that on the bank of river Padma, from where he tries to see the other side, his home — another country now, where he can never go back as citizen again. Komal Gandhar is layered with cultural references — urban and folk.  Heroes take names from Indian mythology —- Bhrigu, Anasuya ; the theatre group wants to find its essence in a performance of Shakuntala; Bhrigu compares Shakuntala’s sorrow in leaving behind her forest with an eviction from someone’s own space in Calcutta. Probably people identify him/herself with this movie to a great extent that it brings back the tune of nostalgia and responsibility.

True Grit (1969)

The picture is the first adaptation of  Charles Portis 1968 novel True Grit.  John Wayne stars as U.S . Marshal Rooster Cogburn and won his only Academy award for his performance in this film.   In True Grit, Wayne plays grumpy, pot-bellied U.S. marshal "Rooster" Cogburn, hired by 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Kim Darby) to find Tom Chaney (Jeff Corey), who killed her father .  She could have selected any other lawman but she chose the aging Cogburn because she believes that he has "true grit".  Texas ranger Glen Campbell is also in search for Tom Chaney for a different murder.  He teams up with the marshal and Mattie .  But oddly enough, True Grit isn't really about plot.  It's about the creation of the character.  Tough old Rooster , isn't above a little larceny ,but has one stern moral code about real bad guys.   And he's got quite the colorful past as he relates tales of his younger days to Campbell and Darby on the trail.  Wayne's portrait of that fat, mean, greedy,  eye-patched ,  whisky drinking and yet in some strange way lovable lawman will remain as one of the best performances in westerns.  Kim Darby is also a surprise.  She's more than capable of handling Wayne in each and every scene.  They made a very good team.  Glen Campbell is not as good as these two, but then he really isn't an actor .  The photography is superb, with the hills, mountains, valleys and forests being the real stars in this film.

Don't Look Now

Based on a Daphne du Maurier short story and made in 1973 , it's one of the most haunting, enigmatic and , in the final moments bloodily shocking films ever made.  After the tragic death of their daughter ,  Laura and John Baxter  take a trip to Venice in an attempt to save their marriage. There, John uses his work -restoring an old church- as an outlet for his grief while Laura relies on pills . One day, they encounter a  strange pair of elderly spinster sisters , Heather and Wendy . Heather, who is blind, claims to be able to communicate with the spirit world. She convinces Laura she has seen Christine.  While John dismisses this as meaningless "mumbo-jumbo," Laura goes along with it - even participating in a séance.  At first ,  John is delighted at the positive change in wife but he soon becomes concerned that she is falling under a harmful influence. To make matters worse,   he is beginning to experience strange visions.  Heather  warns Christine that unless John leaves Venice, he will be in great danger.   Christine's mother and father are played by Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie, and their relationship is one of  the most authentic portraits of a marriage that i have seen in  any film.  Watching the film,  it is easy to believe that the actors are in fact married, and Roeg's portrait of Venice, with its intelligent, non-tourist locations, is a real vision of a real, working city .  The  film  is drenched with sex and displaced sexual longing,  given a dark eroticism by the shadow of death.  In Venice, Baxter will get glimpses of a little figure in red running away from him or hiding from him, and may wonder if this is the ghost of his daughter. We will see the red figure more often than he does, glimpsing it on a distant bridge, or as a boat passes behind two arches.   Venice, that haunted city, has never been more melancholy than in “Don’t Look Now.”  It is like a vast necropolis, its stones damp and crumbling, its canals alive with rats .  This  film remains one of the great horror masterpieces, working not with fright, which is easy, but with dread, grief and apprehension. Few films so successfully put us inside the mind of a man who is trying to reason his way free from mounting terror.

Au Hasard Balthazar

The film follows the life of a donkey from birth to death , while all the time living it the dignity of being itself -a dumb beast , noble in its acceptance of a life over which it has no control.  It begins with a lovely medium close-up of a small donkey suckling his mother's teat. The baby is discovered by Marie and Jacques ,two children with strong adolescent feelings for each other, and is taken from his mother.  As years pass, family strife intervenes and Jacques is forced out of Marie's life by her angry father.  So begins Balthazar's journey through life, paralleled almost exactly by Marie's miserable trek.  The donkey has several owners ,most of whom exploit him,  often with more cruelty than kindness.  

With his unerring patience,  Bresson scrutinizes and underlines each trait displayed by the film's humans. The magic of Balthazar is that he is the ultimate Bressonian character .  Bresson famously used untrained actors in his films -he called them "models" and purposely stripped away all vestiges of personality so that he photographed only a bare essence.  The difference between Balthazar and us is that we are smart enough to understand our destiny without being able to control it.   The film's restraint is its strength -beautiful monotone images, silences , gestures all laced with a simple piano sonata that underscores the mood of the film perfectly.   Transcendental and sometimes joyful, the film (in typical Bressonian style) eventually gives way to an unbearably sad vision of 'life .

The Cloud Door

The Cloud door features pictorial beauty ,  slow-building sensuality and surprising humour that combine to rich effect.  A king overhears a parrot telling erotic stories to his daughter  , and is angered.  He desires to kill the parrot but the princess intervenes and saves the parrot's life.  The parrot escapes and is trapped far from the palace.   One day when it's new owner is sleeping, the bird convinces a young man to open the cage door. In return, it shows the young man a secret way to get into the palace.

One of the inspirations for the story for the movie is based on the work of noted Sanskrit scholar Bhasa and his six-act play 'Avimaraka' .  The Cloud Door is a technically sound product . Too many people are busy on making several interpretations about this film but it's a refreshing mystical little tale with stunning visuals, beautiful locales and great music.

Bandini (Imprisoned)

The film tells the story of a woman prisoner serving life imprisonment for murder, Kalyani ,the all suffering, selfless, sacrificing, and strong yet weak Indian woman. The film's protagonist Kalyani had the courage to not only make choices in her life but choices which at times might appear to be even wrong ones as she gives up everything for love. Her past is told in flashback.  During the British Raj, Kalyani (Nutan) falls in love with freedom fighter Bikash. (Ashok Kumar) .  He later leaves her in the village promising to come back but never does.  The society treats Kalyani harshly. She leaves the village and moves to the city.  Interestingly when Bikash tells Kalyani his story ,  Bimal Roy uses the flashbacks within flashback device in the film, surely one of the earliest use of such a technique in Indian Cinema.  While the events of the story are highly melodramatic ,  Bimalda takes great care to handle them with  sensitivity, simplicity and subtlety. Bandini is brilliantly photographed by Kamal Bose with its rich tonal quality and evocative framing.  The film also sees the debut of Gulzar  as a lyricist with Mora Gora Ang Laile , one of the most romantic songs in Indian Cinema as it expresses the heroine's first flush of love. Dharmendra is okish while Ashok Kumar is impressive as Bikash but Bandini clearly belongs to Nutan.  She portrays her characters inner conflict and complex emotions with almost near perfections.

Elippathayam ( The Rat Trap)

  The film documents the feudal -life in Kerala at its twilight.  The protagonist is trapped within himself  and is unable to comprehend the changes taking place around him.  Unni, the last male-heir of a decaying and feudal joint family gets trapped within himself.  His older sister Rajamma waits on him hand and foot ; Sridevi ,the younger , is studying at school and is drawn only reluctantly into his service.  The treatment is great ; using rats as his governing metaphor.  Unni (played brilliantly by Karamana Janardhan Nair ) is stubborn ,narcissistic , feudalistic and an escapist to the core.
According to Adoor , the film is a "a detailed study of a character at many levels -- psychological, physical, social, even genetic, based on his roots. I gave primary colors to the characters' clothes and a predominant gray to the background. "  The sister Rajamma is destroyed by the silence of her brother,  who does not support her when she wants to get married -he turns down an offer because he felt it was beneath his family.  The decline is vividly told , with colour and music used as a striking and significant constituent of the film's thematic development .

Solyaris ( Solaris)

Solaris is a 1972 science-fiction film adaptation of the novel Solaris, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky.  The film is a meditative psychological drama occurring mostly aboard a space station orbiting the fictional planet Solaris. This film weaves a story about a man named Kris Kelvin, played by a haunted Donatas Banionis, who is assigned to replace a scientist onboard a space station that is orbiting and monitoring the oceans of a strange and mysterious planet.  

After decades of study, the scientific mission at the space station has barely progressed. To make matters worse, most of the crew has succumbed to a series of emotional crisis.  The crew does not wish to discuss what's going on ,and only hints that Kelvin will find out himself.  Kelvin soon wakes up to find his dead wife Khari (Natalya Bondarchuk) sitting with him in his room. Some mysterious force coming from the planet below has tapped into his mind and made portions of his memories or dreams physical. Solaris , contrary to its setting, is interested in inner as opposed to outer space - namely, the realm of our consciousness.  

Tarkovsky manipulates the basic framework of the Sci-fi genre to express his own thematic concerns, refusing to bow to generic conventions. At it's core, Solaris is a philosophical treatise on the human condition , and it intelligently questions the certainty of reality. The age-old argument of science versus nature comes to a head, as these well-educated , knowledgeable men fail to provide answers. Questions arise over these fantastical events being manifested from the deep recesses of each man's unconscious will. When we love someone, who do we love?  That person, or our idea of that person?  When we touch them , it is not the touch we experience but our consciousness of the touch .

Yuke yuke nidome no shojo (Go,Go Second Time Virgin)

Wakamatsu's Go, Go Second Time Virgin tells the tale of two Japanese teens brought together by sexual violence., revenge and rebellion.  Poppo, a teenage girl is raped by four boys on the roof of a seven-story apartment building.   She asks them to kill her , but they mock her and leave.  Tsukio, a teenage boy has been watching the rape passively. The story revolves around both characters befriendment and subsequent attempts to deal with their traumatic past and present. 

Poppo had an incredibly dysfunctional past which includes the gang-rape of her mother leading to Poppo's conception, incest , the suicide of her father with his mistress, the subsequent suicide of her mother out of loneliness and two rapes.  She is nihilistic and consistently reiterates her desire to die.  In a colour flashback, Tsukio tells of his own recent sexual abuse at the hands his parents and another couple, all of whome he has stabbed to death. Poppo repeatedly asks Tsukio to kill her, but he refuses.  Tsukio initially looks on with some adolescent excitement,  his hatred for the abusers grow throughout the film until his rage explodes in final scenes. On the surface, the audience will be in for a great deal of sex ,violence and drug-induced bizarreness. Stylistically,  the entire film is shot in black and white and takes place within the confines of the apartment building, either on the roof, in the basement, or in the bloodied apartment of Tsukio's attackers. 

 It is a rather dismal tale of primitive morality in the face of degradation, humiliation and abuse. It would seem that this film's  message is one of the consequence of a moral decline within society and the irreparable damage it causes among innocent youth. This decline explicitly involves the pursuit of unfettered and often violent sexuality as well as drug and alcohol abuse .

Madeo (Mother)

Mother is a murder mystery, a melodrama, a black comedy, a keen social satire and much more.  Bong's work is layered with the skill of comedy and drama ,both often so dark and thick that you can put ur hand in and not feel the bottom.

              An unnamed widow,living alone with her only son,sells medicinal herbs in a small town in    Southern  South Korea while doing unlicensed acupuncture to the town's women on the side. Her son Do-joon is shy, but prone to attack anyone who mocks his intellectual disability. A school girl has been found murdered,her body dangled off a roof for the whole town to see. With only circumstantial evidence placing Do-joon near the scene of the crime, the police are happy with their investigation and arrest the boy. The police trick Do-joon into signing a confession, leaving him facing a long-jail sentence. Her quest to prove his innocence forces her to take up arms against an all male-establishment ,the dead girl's enraged family and Don-Joon's duplicitous pal Jin-tae,an amoral layabout who provides some of the films shocking moments. 

 Kim's performance captures perfectly the sense of a woman at odds with a society she can't or doesn't want to understand,her doomed quest leading her into even more uncompromising situations. Bold,unpredictable and quietly devastating,Mother is Bong's great creation.
             

Sono otoko, kyôbô ni tsuki ( Violent Cop)

Kitano's nihilistic 1989 directorial debut is one of the rawest, most uncompromising films ever made,  and, at the same time, arguably one of the most promising debut films ever delivered.  This film bears some resemblance to Dirty Harry but here the lead character is bit psychotic as well. The plot is nothing new but the stylised and arranged presentation made this film so great.

Kitano plays sociopathic detective Azuma,whose single-mindedness leads him to self-destruction. After the suicide of his cop friend Iwaki (who was involved with drugs too) , Azuma breaks all the rules of ethical conduct. Unlike Kitano's other films for which Kitano himself wrote the stories, this is an adaptation of a novel by  Hiashi Nozawa. Kitano's work, however, is ingenious, as screenwriter, director and leading man of this film.  Violent Cop" is greatly shot and accompanied by an insanely brilliant score. Kitano's use of music in his films is another part of his brilliance.

Another Year

It follows a year in the life of a sixtysomething couple , Tom (Jim Broadbent) and Gerri (Ruth Sheen). He is a commercial geologist and she is a counsellor : a member of "the caring professions". They live together in a home on a quiet street somewhere in suburbia that reflects their settled, earthy personalities. They are social creatures and it's their interaction with friends and family that Leigh focuses on , mostly in their home ,over lunch,dinner or a drink at their table. Tom and Gerri are happy couple. The same can't be said for almost anyone around them. Tom's pal Ken ((Peter Wight) is an overweight,chain-smoking alcoholic. Gerri's secretary Mary (Lesley Manville) drinks far too much wine ,she babbles on nervously about insignificant things ,  and she is obviously painfully lonely. She wants to connect with someone, but she also wants that person to be something special. Out of a script developed over months with his cast, Leigh creates a universe we can all find a place in. All the actors are sublime . But Manville shines brightest. 

 Strength of the lead couple's bond ,the warm ease of it, is absolutely necessary as a counter balance to Mary.  Another Year" is just that — time passing through lives, relationships shifting, some spirits flailing while others rest happily within one another.



                 

Le Doulos

Maurice Faugel (Serge Reggiani) has just finished his sentence. He murders Gilbert ,a receiver ,and steals the loot of a break-in.   Later he plans for another robbery.  His friend Silien (Belmondo) offers to help , and the film revolves around whether Silien is an informant or not. Through both of them's actions , the film explores just how deeply qualities such as friendship and loyality run. Belmondo displays his strength as an actor in playing the informer, Silen.  Reggiani did good job as Maurice whose face says more than anything else. The stunning black-and-white cinematography exhibits the grim atmosphere . 

The first scene itself is an expressionist masterpiece in the way light reveals Maurice's duality with only half of his face visible , an ambiguity illustrated by the swinging lamp's dizzying effect. Melville's direction is a glourious tribute to classic American crime films of the 1940s and early 50's but has also a strong touch of originality. It deals with small time gangsters whose beliefs in honour and loyality are pretty slim. Almost every character in the film is someone who can not be trusted and has a dual nature about them. This is cinema with style and class and a quintessential addition to the French gangster genre.

Hana-bi (Fireworks)

Kitano who directed it, also stars as Nishi, a man whose only two emotional states are anguish and enchantment.  His wife suffers from some extremely lethal disease which has taken her speech,too. She is going to die soon and Nishi wants to make his wife's last weeks as enjoyable and nice as possible. His partner Horibe is shot and paralyzed for the rest of his life during one shoot out.  In the meantime, Nishi is forced to deal with Yazuka in order to get some money for his wife's medical care . That leads ofcourse to troubles with the gangsters as he isn't able to pay back his loans.  Meanwhile Horibe remains busy with his paintings.  The shoot out flashback is one memorable sequence in this film, and it is in its slow motion one of the most beautiful, yet horrifying depictions of violence ever possible.

The film is almost unbearably sad and emotional , and its most tragic character is Horibe, the partner who is paralyzed and totally abandoned by his wife and children after the accident. Nishi spends time with his wife.  They do childish things together , such as playing with the kite of a girl they meet on the beach. But when a stranger laughs at his wife ,  Nishi brutally beats him.  He is a caring man.  He is happy when the world leaves him alone and when it doesn't, he strikes back.  It's a quiet film yet strong and deep, filled with human weaknesses and vulnerable situations. There are little mutual gestures between them -so much is expressed silently.
                
This film doesn't glorify violence or present it as an important tool ; it analyzes violence and shows many aspects of it.  Kitano is excellent as Nishi.  At times, he is tough and very unforgiving man while at other times he is a man totally lost in a world of sorrow and pity.
               

Horí, má panenko ( The Firemen's Ball )

Milos Forman's The Firemen's Ball is both a dazzling comedy and a provocative political satire. The volunteer fire department in a small Czechoslovak town decides to organize a ball in a townhall with lottery and a beauty contest. The unit's firemen plan a tribute to their 86 year old honorary chairman with an engraved miniature ax.  During the ball,the committee is gathered to look for eight candidates for the beauty contest ,but they have difficulty to find enough of them. But things start going as wrong as they possibly could. The lottery prizes keep getting stolen at an increasing rate and the general chaos grows more and more out of control. The director creates a focused attack on the communist system and the effect of its policies on a working class community.

 Here director is indirectly criticising not just a decadent society, but the communist regime whose lawlessness and twisted sense of values brought about the decay. It makes the point more clear when an actual fire breaks out in the town. Milos Forman was charged with sabotaging the socialist society. This film was banned “permanently and forever” by Communist censors at that time.
                        

Rushmore

Wes Anderson's lively  original comedy stars newcomer Jason Schwartzman as Max Fischer, who may be one of the worst students at Rushmore Academy, but who has amazing self-confidence and ambitious plans to win the heart of a teacher (Olivia Williams). He spends  his time mostly on extensive extracurricular activities ,caring litlle how it affects his grades. Murray plays a depressive tycoon Blume and Rushmore benefactor who makes friendship with Max. Max gets attracted towards Rushmore's new teacher Rosemary Cross (Olivia Williams). He makes many attempts to impress her. While she initially tolerates Max, she becomes increasingly worried at his obsession with her. His friend Blume falls in love with Rosemary . They begin dating without Max's knowledge. When Max gets to know abt Blume's affair ,he ends relationship with him.  Both of them try to harm each other. Max is the quintessential oddball kid. He lacks social skills yet is bold enough to say what's on his mind. Blume is a successful man who feels worthless. Miss Cross is a brilliant woman who feels only sorrow because of the loss of her husband. The flaws of their characters make them so wonderful.

 Bill Murray gives a great performance here by blending his sly humour with subtle feeling and surprising gravity. Olivia Williams isn't given that much to do in this role ; she mostly has to react to Max and Herman which she does reasonably well. Jason Schwartzman more than holds his own with Murray or Olivia Williams.   Rushmore was directed by Wes Anderson and written by Anderson and his college friend Owen Wilson. Anderson's Rushmore is full of everything that many films lack ; dry humour, unique writing, music that makes a scene unforgettable and real heart. The music is good, especially for the heartbreaking scene at the end when Miss Cross and Max are dancing to the faces "Ooh la la."

Bernie

Richard Linklater blends semi-documentary style with dark comedy and tragic real-life events in an exceptional way. Based on the murder of a wealthy widow in Carthage Texas in 1996 ,this film gives viewers an interesting insight  into small town life and how the people there dealt with this situation.

   Local assistant mortician Bernie Tiede (Jack Black) ,a beloved member of the community ,becomes the only friend of the wealthy,widowed Marjorie Nugent (Shirley MacLaine),who is widely hated by the other townsfalk. Bernie and Mrs Nugent start going everywhere and doing everything together. It isn't long before he grows weary of Mrs Nugent's insulting comments and shoots her four times in the back.  He continues to manage her affairs while lying to the townsfalk and deceiving into thinking she is still alive.  Finally he gets caught by the police.  The local district attorney , Danny Buck (Matthew McConaughey) charges Bernie with premeditated murder. The strange thing is when he's found out ,no one is outraged and wanting to see him stand trial.  Bernie is portrayed as a nice man in this film.  Even though he kills an old woman,it's hard to have a harsh feelings for this guy.

Jack Black is a revelation in the lead role of a chubby, likable man whose noble spirit and inner goodness are capable enough to make his community forgive his sins.  Matthew McConaughey is terrific as the ruthless district attorney who prosecutes Bernie despite the overwhelming public sentiment to leave the poor guy alone.  Maclaine delivers a great performance as Marjorie, an irritating old woman whome everybody hates in town.  Linklater here uses real townsfolk to help narrate the story through their own recollections of the events. It is one of the most  enthusiastically quirky pictures of the last year. 

The Insect woman (Nippon konchuki)

Imamura was deeply concerned with the nature of what it means to be Japanese and he went about exploring that question by digging beneath the surface of Japanese Society to disclose a wellspring of sensual, often irrational, energy that lies beneath.

It tells the difficult life of Tome Matsuki (Sachiko Hidari) ,someone who doesn't know her real father, whose struggle for survival is compared to an ant. It begins in 1918 and covers 45 years of Tome's life, a time both she and the country undergo profound changes. Tome is molested from childhood by her stepfather Chuji. Her mom mocks the morally ignorant Tome for sleeping with her stepfather. As a young woman, she moves from her rural village to find work in a factory ,where she engages in an affair with her boss.  She works later as a maid and then as a prostitute.

She survives decades of Japanese social upheaval, as well as abuse and subjugation at the hands of various men. Yet the director , refuses to make a victim of her ,instead observing Tome as a fascinating , pragmatic creature of post-war Japan. The title refers to the way an insect's behavior is determined simply by the need for survival, acting by instinct alone and unaffected by love or moral . The personal problems of her are related to Japan's problems in the modern world and of the shame of losing the war and becoming dependent on America to get back on it's feet. At the end of the film, her grandchild is about to be born to the same circumstances as she was, thus the cycle continues itself to another generation.

Kodiyettam (The Ascent)

 The film captures the ascent of the protagonist (Bharath Gopi) from a carefree individual to a matured adult. Shankaran lives a childish life even at his mid-ages.  The opening sequences, canned by the director himself , shows Shankaran attending a temple festival.  He spends most of his time playing around  with children, joining political processions and helping the villagers when he isn't attending temple festivals.  He is provided for by his younger sister who works as a house maid in the city.  His sister arranges a marriage for him .   Even after marriage, Shankaran continues his same life style often staying away from home for weeks.   His pregnant wife soon leaves him and Shankaran does not try to have her back at home.  His life takes a turn from there on.  He begins to come to terms with real human relationships through an encounter with a truck driver.
               
This is Adoor Gopalakrishnan's second feature film after his first hugely acclaimed Swayamvaram .  It's a very good character study , as Shankaran is faced with crumbling relationships-not just his own and experiences growth. Bharath Gopi (arguably the best actor of India) gave an outstanding performance in this film. This film garnered him a lot of awards and attention , kicking off a long and fruitful career. The main character's transformation to adulthood draws parallels to the social and historical changes in Kerala.