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.

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