In July (German: Im Juli)

Movie: In July

Year: 2000

Director: Fateh Akin

Language: German, Turkish

Synopsis: A shy trainee teacher wanting to settle down and a beautiful girl has a crush on him. She decides to make the first move and get him. Too good to be true right!! But then the trap goes wrong and the man ends up with a different lady. Dejected she decides to move to a different city by hitch hiking with the first car presenting itself. Surprise surprise. There begins the craziest road trip movie which is fun as well as touching. And half way through you say its so predictable when the director throws in a spin.

My own take: before you start thinking that I have been only watching and reviewing dark movies let me make myself clear that there are also good entertaining movies which I love to watch again and again and this one definitely falls in that category. A light movie which is good at any point of time and just the right amount of mush to watch it with your girlfriend and yet not feel bombarded by candy. The story is so quick and moves so fast that there is never a boring moment. However I do like the thriller beginning of the movie which keeps you glued for sometime. Watch this movie before you get to see a Hindi remake of the movie. It will be lapped up in no time and its better to watch the original. Like in one scene on the Romanian border the director making a cameo appearance makes a funny scene which I doubt will cause the laugh in other settings.

Old Boy (Hangul: 올드보이)

Movie: Old Boy

Year: 2003

Director: Park Chan-Wook

Language: Korean

Synopsis: Oh Dae Su suddenly finds himself in a small room when he wakes up from a drunken stupor. The room which looks like a hotel room has every facility including a TV which shows all channels. Yet he has no clue why he is in there. He tries begging to the lone hand that gets him food, bangs the walls, screams but nothing stops his ordeal. His attempts to suicide are foiled every time and his room is cleaned everyday when he is sedated. Finally he gives up and starts counting the number of years he needs to wait as his anger builds up. Only the fried dumplings he gets everyday keeps him in touch with the outside world’s reality. Fifteen years after his imprisonment he finds himself on the roof of a building. A cellphone given to him directs him to a sushi restaurant where the young chef Mi-do picks him up. His story of the search for revenge starts here.

My own take: If you think this is another of the brutal gory action movies from the east that will have lots of kung fu and theatrical blood then you will be sadly mistaken. This story is just too gripping to be told. Originally from the manga series of the same name this movie's strength lies in laying bare human emotions and makes you think on a platform which is beyond normal reasoning. One of the everlasting lines of this movie is “ a grain of sand and a rock sinks equally in water”. The reference to zen philosophy is a constant pattern in the movie. Brilliant editing and equally brilliant usage of camera. Leaves a lot to be imagined. Do not watch this movie when you are looking for a light or easy entertainment. Watch it when you can take serious stuff and remember the idea of Korean violence can be very different from yours. I would rate this as an art work by a surrealist who succeeds to shock you in the end.

Scenes from a Marriage (Swedish: Scener ur ett äktenskap)

Movie: Scenes from a Marriage

Year: 1973

Director: Ingmar Bergman

Language: Swedish

Synopsis: Originally a TV series which was later released on DVD. The six part series attained cult status worldwide when it was condemned for allegedly inspiring a spike in Scandinavian divorce rates, which almost doubled in the year of its release. The movie is split into 6 chapters where a married couple Marianne and Johan go through their marriage and take us through the aptly named chapters Innocence and panic, Art of sweeping things under the rug, Paula, The Vale of Tears, The Illiterates and In the Middle of the Night in a Dark House Somewhere in the World. Each part is shot in about one or two set ups with elaborate conversations about events which have happened in the past. Each of these chapters are separated by months or years. The complexity of the movie is in the intense acting, claustrophobic sets and the realistic story.

My own take: The movie hits you with an impact that takes quite some time to sink. The intense scenes and the underlying grief and tension in a marriage when you keep a calm exterior for social needs is beautifully depicted in this movie. The story sounds familiar yet brings out from the closet the obvious elephant in the room which no one seems to mention. Strongly recommended but not when you are already in a serious mood. The iconic dialogues that they are "the emotional illiterates" and, like many people, are incapable of marriage; yet they do not separate sums a large part of the movie theme.

Run Lola Run (German : Lola Rennt)

Movie: Run Lola Run

Year: 1998

Director: Tom Tykwer

Language: German

Synopsis: The movie is pretty simplistic in its story line. Lola’s boy friend, Manni runs into deep shit at some point of time and needs urgent help with Money. Manni has to get the money within 20 minutes before his boss finds out, and plans to rob a nearby supermarket. Lola urges him to wait and tells him she will sort out the money.Lola won’t let the moment slip away and runs to save her Manni. The run ends with a dramatic closure. Lola wakes up to have another run at saving his boy friend only this time its Run 2. The outcome is like life: a result of the choices you make.

My own take: I remember having seen a Calvin n Hobbes strip long back where he moves about the whole house trying to zap people with a remote control. I know we all wished if it were true. If we could have saved our life at a specific point and gone back there and made different choices. Lesser heartbreaks, lesser pains and more control over “life”. However the fantasy that’s shown in Run Lola Run is the one we all want to live. Lola runs from her phone to the street to meet Manni and in between crashes with a lot of people and every time their response is different. However as the choices are different, the outcomes are different and more importantly the twists are different. The deep desire to have life as a video game where you die only to realize you have 2 additional lifes saved is the thrill. One of the rare films where the language is just not important to get into the skin of the movie.

City of God (Portuguese: Cidade de Deus)

Movie: City of God

Year: 2002

Director:Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund

Language: Portuguese

Synopsis: The story begins in a slum of Rio where there are three small time gangsters who are fast going up the ladder by small time hold ups and their robin hood ways. They are idolized by the local kids and the locality as well. However as they recruit people they hire a small kid Li'l Dice who is asked to cover them for a robbery. The robbery turns murky when there is a mis-signal and a lot of bloodshed. “Tender trio” is sought after and by politics Li'l Dice becomes a ring leader calling himself Li'l Zé. With Benny, his friend, he establishes a drug cartel and there is relative peace in the locality as he is the boss. Rocket who is narrating the story witneses Benny trying to make his entry into the higher class by trying to be a party animal and having nice suave clothes and friends. Li'l Zé somehow agrees to this but at his farewell party there is a shoot out and Benny gets killed. Li'l Zé goes on a wild spree killing many and raping Ned’s girlfriend. Ned who is a sharp shooter joins a rival drug lord and then the politics gets murkier and in the process “runts” the young criminals (just like Li'l Zé and his gang years ago) capitalize on this. Story comes full circle as Rocket chronicles this.

My own take: you must have seen a lot of gangster flicks which have taken crime from being glamorous to being a power circle. We have been mesmerized by the godfather flicking his finger and the clever plots to eliminate people. But this movie is far from that. Its about the gangster you know in your heart exists but you never confronted on screen. The one who rises from the gutter literally and makes it big through sheer killing and bloodshed sometimes planned sometimes caught by surprise. Its not about hierarchy of gangs and cool casinos but ones that are in the crossfire. Having to live on daily deals and having an aspiration to make it in the flashy cars somehow. The denial of opportunities and the denial to a passage to a comfortable life which is the breeding ground for crime is so very beautifully portrayed in this movie that for once you see a heart in the story that comes full circle. Lots of shooting and action. But also a nice way to say how one thing leads to another when intentions, ambition, craving all collide in an explosive mixture. No doubt it won loads of awards...if not for anything watch it for the research

Chungking Express (Chinese, Chóngqìng Sēnlín)

Movie: Chungking Express

Year: 1994

Director: Wong Kar Wai

Language: Chinese

Synopsis: Its never easy to describe a movie by a director as talented as Wong Kar Wai. Like for example this movie is distinctly split into two halves each bearing no correlation to the other. The story begins with a cop called Qiwu who is dumped on the 1st of April by his girlfriend. He decides that he would wait till 1st of May, his birthday for her to come back else move on. From that day he goes on to buy a can of pineapple daily with the expiration date of 1st May as she loved pineapples. Meanwhile a drug smuggling bid fails and the lady involves is on the run. Qiwu who drifts in his sorrow has a chance encounter with this lady. They have a very strange relationship and somewhere in between this the new story begins. Where Faye, who is an attendant in a Sushi joint, has a crush on Cop 663. She somehow manages to make a key to his flat and goes to his place often to tidy it up and feel like his wife. Her ploy helps cheer Cop 663. So one day he fixes a date with her. She ditches him to go on a world tour leaving him with a fake boarding pass for a date exactly one year from that date.

My own take: Imagine a situation that I tell a story from which I take away certain parts which you believe are critical. Now what you are left with is a skeleton of a story and a lot to imagine. That is the way the story is told. Its amazing how the missing parts don’t keep you feeling incomplete but make you enjoy the movie in its own way. The other part of the movie which makes it equally gripping is the way the humor is built in the story. There is a scene where we Qiwu tries to have a rebound relationship and tries really hard to get back at someone, actually anyone, and end up calling girls who used to sit next to him in KG class or someone whose name also seems faintly familiar. And added to that is the symbolism that the director uses. The boarding pass, the pineapple, the key all of it gives the movie a distinct identity. Watch it only if you have patience. The tag line warns the impatient ones when it says: "If my memory of her has an expiration date...let it be 10,000 years"

Malèna (Italian)

Movie: Malèna

Year: 2000

Director: Giuseppe Tornatore

Language: Italian

Synopsis: I think in every language this movie has been tried in some form or another but I think this version is the best. Renato is a young lad in a small town in Italy who just starts on his journey towards adolescence and starts facing the familiar problems. He starts his journey of sexual exploration by noticing Malèna, an extremely beautiful young war widow in town. As he starts peeping into her life he finds out the sorrow behind the beauty. Malèna’s father the village teacher is deaf and supports her. He is shattered when he comes to see a letter portraying Malèna as a lady of loose character, subsequently he dies in a bombing leaving Malèna alone and unsupported. The lustful looks of the villagers is complimented by the jealousy of the local ladies who think that Malèna is a strong enough influence for their men to stray. As Malèna struggles to deal with her sorrow and loss of husband she is also has to fend for herself financially. Very soon she slips into prostitution which is what the ladies talked about. Well the stry ends on a hopeful note overall when she is accepted back into the society. Find out how. Not to be missed.

My own take: The last line that Renato says on growing up is that “Of all the girls who asked me to remember them, the only one I remembered is the one who did not ask." You can feel the sentiments if you remember the first crush you had or that seemingly unattainable person you always hugged your pillow as a teenager, thinking… The movie is so sensitively made that you realize that the racy poster it had was only a bait to get people into the theaters. Monica Bellucci excels in a role with minimal dialogues and lots of emotion. The beauty of the scenery and sets only makes the movie more credible. Critics find the movie low in depth or subtlety. I cannot comment on it but all I can say is that nice watch.