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.

Cinema Paradiso (Italian, Nuovo cinema Paradiso)

Movie: Cinema Paradiso

Year: 1988

Director: Giuseppe Tornatore

Language: Italian

Synopsis: Salvatore Di Vita starts this journey back home after he comes to know that Alfredo has died. Salvatore who is a movie maker takes us back on a flashback to his childhood where as a young boy named Toto he was fascinated by movies and is taken as an apprentice by Alfredo the projectionist. The fatherly Alfredo supports the passion of Toto for movies and in due course of time teaches him how to use the projector from a stool as his height would not allow him to reach. The beautiful arrangement comes to an abrupt end when there is a fire in the theater which causes Alfredo to lose his eyesight. The new cinema paradise is built and it hires Toto as the projectionist. The bond between him and Alfredo grows stronger. Very soon Salvatore starts experimenting with filmmaking. He meets Elena and falls in love with her and finally woos her. But her dad takes her away and Toto goes for his military service. When he comes back Alfredo tells him that the town is too small for his dream. He should leave never returning to visit, never to give in to nostalgia, never to even write or think about them.

My own take: The strength of the movie lies in its simplicity. Very simply told and very beautifully portrayed. In fact the last scene is amazing when Toto finds that Alfredo has left behind as gift to the young boy the stool where he used to stand and a reel of all kissing scenes that the old man had not let the little boy see when he was just a kid. The censoring he did goes a full circle and comes back to Salvatore. Sometimes its heart warming to see simple people do simple things. Maybe its aspirational for many of us to be like how our parents wanted us to be : )

9 Songs (English)

Movie: 9 Songs

Year: 2004

Director: Micheal Winterbottom

Language: English

Synopsis:As a story the story can be summarized in what is the oldest modern day love story ever. Man meets woman. They fall in love. They enjoy their time together. Then they fall apart and she walks away. But wait if it were that simple why would I be writing it as one of my favourite movies and that too given its in English and I don’t write about Hollywood and Bollywood movies. The beauty of the movie is the fact that each phase of the relationship Matt goes to a concert and the songs actually fit into the current stage of the relationship. Very emotion is expressed in songs which are predominantly rock but some are classical pieces. But each song tells a story. The dialogues in the movie are minimal but the story is complete. The songs in chronological order are
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, "Whatever Happened to My Rock and Roll"
The Von Bondies, "C'mon, C'mon""
Elbow, "Fallen Angel"
Primal Scream, "Movin' On Up"
Dandy Warhols, "You Were the Last High"
Super Furry Animals, "Slow Life"
Franz Ferdinand, "Jacqueline"
Michael Nyman, "Debbie"
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, "Love Burns"

My own take: Well I can imagine why this movie has been given the highest possible adult rating in all countries for being the most sexually explicit movie. There have been times when people have tried seeing this movie and come back saying that its nothing more than endless scenes of lovemaking often in the same room. I hence would like to warn viewers that if that disturbs you please don’t venture to watch this movie. The movie actually keeps changing the narrative from present to past and shows the story from Matt’s point of view. There is a reference to his climatology study in Antarctica and that voice in the background mingles with the story of the love lost in that fateful summer. The music only adds up to the build up and I find the usage fantastic. If there has been a time in your life when you had love flowing freely into your life and u fooled yourself to believe that the world owed it to you. And then when the feeling evaporated you tried real hard to get back the vapor slipping from your palm without losing your perceived ego. You know what I mean. Serious watch. Depressing but thought provoking and a different way to tell a story

3 Iron (Korean: Bin Jip)

Movie: 3 Iron

Year: 2004

Director: Kim Ki-duk

Language: Korean

Synopsis:Tae Suk is a drifter on a bike and goes around dropping take out menus to different people across the city. Later in the night when he returns to find that some menus have not been taken he breaks open into these houses and stays there. He doesn’t enter these with the motive of burglary but uses it as his home. He takes care of the house. Cleans the house, repairs the instruments and quietly vanishes before the owners are back. In one of these attempts he comes across a battered wife of a rich guy, Sun Wha. Sun Wha who is assaulted and injured many times doesn’t say anything when Tae Suk breaks into her house. She hides and observes him from a distance till the point when he realizes that she had seen him all along. Tae Suk leaves and returns after much contemplation. He finds Sun Wha being abused by her husband. He hits the husband using golf balls and they elope. Both of them start living in apartments they break into. After a mixed bag of events they get caught in an apartment where an old man had died. Tae Suk is arrested and sentenced. In jail he practices becoming a shadow which allows him to be invisible because he is always at 180 degrees behind the person in front. He goes back to Sun Wha, only this time her husband is not able to see him in the house. Very weird

My own take: It takes you sometime before you realize that the two main characters in the movie have no dialogue at all. The story is told only by the supporting cast who speak. The strength of the movie comes also from the fact that they have used the actors to convey their feelings only through actions, so it leaves a lot to the imagination of the viewers. Watch the movie for the cinematic experience and also for the different story. Couple of scenes are very different and leave a mark. For example one of my favorite scenes is one in which Tae Suk goes into a photographers house and reorganizes a picture to add his artistic bit. Typical Kim Ki-duk kind of direction which has a lot of symbolism. Evening after office type watch

Rashomon (Japanese)

Movie: Rashomon

Year: 1950

Director: Akira Kurosawa

Language: Japanese

Synopsis:There are couple of things which are as timeless as this movie. The plot revolves around the rape of a woman and the murder of her husband, a samurai, by a bandit in the forest. There are five witnesses to this incident and they come to testify in the court. There is a monk, a woodcutter, the bandit, the wife and the samurai who comes via a medium. The story revolves around how all these people have a different view of the same incident and everyone adds his/her own perception to the thing. This adds to the problems as most people are also trying to explain the incident from their own view points to save themselves. The complex plot leads us into very significant questions on honor, trust, desire, lust and pride.

My own take: Few classics in the cinematic world achieve such rare levels of cult status. This movie has not just inspired many movies, series and plays but also finds mention in literature. The beauty of the movie comes from the way how everybody’s truth and lies differ. The truth is never found eventually because the truth is all dependent on the individuals and all of them are convicts in some way or the other. The guilt in each individual as well as the attempt to save themselves determines the stories. The movie actually throws up a very important question that if the essential data is kept intact the interpretation is completely dependent on the stakeholders. A masterpiece that has been around for over 50 years and even today anyone watching world movies will find it extremely enjoyable. Must watch

The Lives of Others (German: Das Leben der Anderen)

Movie: The Lives of Others

Year: 2006

Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

Language: German

Synopsis:The drama is set in 1984 in East Germany. We are introduced to Wiesler who is an interrogator at the Stasi and is known to be really good in his work. In his personal life he is a loner and a favorite of Grubitz who is his friend and superior. Grubitz wants Wiesler to spy on playwright Georg Dreyman, who is suspected of pro-Western sympathies. Stasi agents secretly enter Dreyman's flat, install small microphones and then monitor activity from the attic space above. Wiesler believes in the cause of the government completely and hence has unparalleled loyalty to the cause. However very soon he finds that the real reason behind the surveillance is that a minister named Hempf desires Dreyman's girlfriend, actress Christa-Maria Sieland. Dreyman's arrest would rid Hempf of a rival. Wiesler, a true believer in the socialist regime, is disillusioned by a minister abusing his powers for personal interests. Christa- Maria on the other hand sees Hempf secretly as she is scared to turn down such a powerful person. Wiesler who secretly doesn’t like the way dissidents are treated and feels that they deserve some compassion secretly arranges a Dreyman and Maria confrontation to clear the air. As they confront one of Dreyman’s friend commits suicide. This finally spurs Dreyman into speaking out against the regime. He arranges to anonymously publish an article on carefully concealed suicide rates in the GDR in the West German magazine Der Spiegel. Because all typewriters are registered, Dreyman uses a typewriter smuggled in from the West with a red ribbon to write the article, which he hides under the threshold between two rooms of his apartment. Before discussing sensitive issues in the flat, Dreyman and his friends try to test whether the flat is bugged by a feigned attempt at smuggling. However, out of compassion, Wiesler fails to pass on the information, making the conspirators think that the flat is not bugged. Though Wiesler intended his inactivity to be a one-time move, his compassion for the couple grows and he continues to lie in his reports to protect Dreyman, and also reduces surveillance hours, so that he no longer has to share the work with an assistant, who will not try to protect them. The story progresses all the way till unification of the Germanies and finally ends in Dreyman learning from Hempf that he was under full surveillance probing into his Stasi file, he finds out that, while agent "HGW XX/7" had heard Dreyman's activity against the regime he had prevented Dreyman from being found out. At the final page, a smudge of red ink reveals the agent's contact with the hidden typewriter. Dreyman succeeds in locating Wiesler, and he watches for a few minutes from a distance as Wiesler goes about his new job delivering advertising leaflets. Two years later, Dreyman publishes a novel, “Sonata for a Good Man” dedicated "To HGW XX/7, with gratitude".

My own take: The movie won the Best Foreign Language Movie in 2007 Academy Awards and definitely deserves this. The beauty of the movie is the internal strife that Wiesler goes through when he starts this particular assignment. I had read a story long back about a Japanese interrogator who was a loner because he could look through people. And the story told about how his talent was his curse. Wiesler strongly reminds me of that character. The reason he feels so strongly for this couple suddenly even after doing so many successful assignments is because he realizes somewhere in between, that he is spying on two individuals who are not a threat as is made to believe. And his actions that follow which make him go through a series of terrible events but make him hold on to his values. Sometimes I get a feeling that maybe he is trying to atone for his guilt of the past or maybe his emotions let him to believe that if he can get it right just this one time maybe he will be forgive himself? The movie is a sensitive portrayal of the relationship between Dreyman and Maria and is beautiful in parts. Not a light watch and will leave you with some points to ponder. The last shot where both the characters acknowledge each other is very unique.

Il Postino (Italian)

Movie: Il Postino

Year: 1994

Director: Michael Radford

Language: Italian

Synopsis:In a small village in coastal Italy Mario, the son of a fisherman, takes the job of a postman. His only work is to deliver letters to Pablo Neruda the famous Chilean poet who is staying on that island on exile. Neruda has been exiled to Italy due to his communist views. Slowly the movie explores the development of a friendship between Neruda and Mario. Mario develops a love for poetry and helped by Neruda starts using his new found communication skills to woo the lady of his dreams, Beatrice. Almost at the same time both Mario and Beatrice get married and Pablo leaves Italy for his country. Years later Pablo revisits the village to find out that Beatrice in the same café along with her son. She hands him a sound recording that Mario had made for Pablo of various sounds of his life…and it leads to the sound of his being killed while trying to get on stage to read a poem of Pablo.

My own take: The best description of this movie is poetry brought to life. The movie is so beautiful that it builds its story around the scenery and characters in one fluid motion. The character of Mario is so lovable that it touches your heart in many ways. You empathize with him when he struggles to get his love or when he seeks advice from the elderly poet. The director manages to bring smiles when Mario tries to get the love of his life. And then the emotions change when the pain of separation makes Mario do things to get back the friendship he had with Pablo. The last scenes when Pablo gets the tape which capture the sounds that Mario wanted the poet to hear are heart wrenching. Trivia about the movie- Massimo Troisi the postman in the movie actually died of a heart attack about 12 hours after the last shot of the movie. He was postponing his surgery for the movie. Must watch if you dont want to miss out a serious classic.