Cinemascope

for my own reference

Thursday, October 06, 2011

film list - 6th October 2011

Bombay ka babu: when dev anand arrives running away from a murder he thinks he has committed he arrives in a hill town and impersonates a runaway son (the same man he has killed). suchitra sen plays his sister/lover. the incestuous tug to the relationship is super interesting until then end when the bambai ka babu gives up his love for the sake of his adopted family. for a change the village is the corruptor in the form of the scheming villian who convinces anand to impersonate the son.

Ram ke naam: anand patwardhan's landmark documetary about the babri masjid demolition folllows the journey of the cavalcade as it attempts to demolish the mosque ot make way for the temple. as in most agit prop documentary the argument is flat and so are the characterisations- often though his brow beating and villain casting become too pat and he ends up ridiculing the 'common people'. the time that the film rises above i when it looks at the issue through its periphery- like the man with the lost spectacles on the bridge.

Audition. : Takashii Miike ultra violent sweet looking for love story that goes horribly wrong when the audition for a future bride reveals a mad monster girl in the guoise of a delicate ballet dancer. the turn from the sweet wry humour to the dark end with amputated legs builds slowly and hits hard.

Belle du jour: catherine deneuve is stunning as the pristine beauty soiled in mud. a bourgeois upper class wife of a doctor her fantasies for sadomasochism lead her away in the afternoons into an upper class whorehouse until her paramour in the other life stalks her home.

The Last emperor: there is of course the famous shot where the young newly croned epereor runs out of the the curtain clad interior into the courtyard of the forbidden city. The film cuts back and forthe between an older emperor in ajapense prisoner of war camp and the story of his life as he grew up within the forbidden city into a young man in the swining 20s. As a clash of value systems- western ideals of freedom and individuality clash with tradition and collectivism of the chinese tradtition. everyone speaks in english- which is grating sometimes- and peter o'toole's grand scottish teacher is often the valuse system that we are supposed to identify with

Sangam. Vyjayanti in a swim suit as Gopal teases from a tree. Piano songs that frame one of the vertices between the other two. The love triangle is a screen geometry that multiplies in time. Plots, song lines, spaces triplicate in unending triangles in triangles. Looks exchanged and ignored. Har dil jo pyar karega... Men choose men over the grieving woman. the triangular patterns Replicate in mountain tops and flight formations tricolour. every relationship is haunted with its missing third point. and then Bagpipes and accordions are symbols of European obsessions. So much of the film meanders in Tourism and the plethora of Commodities in the fashion boutiques of paris.

Aah: does love save raj kapoor from dying of tuberculosis? nargis and him fall in love over letters except that she is impersonating her sister. its all very tragic and morose.

Camera buff:kieslowski's bitter sweet film about a factory clerks romance with a camera he buys for documenting his growing chld until the world of art takes over his being. from the joy of the the documentation of a life And the love of the world to the strange rituals of nuclear attack Drills with gas masks on. he ends up looking for Something over tranquillity. his obsessions for 'showing' end up in sacrificing a friend and losing his wife- yet he can only see it through Turning the camera on himself.

The cranes are flying. socievt socailist realism in High perspective. a City of bridges and infrastructure in A liquid dappled light and shadowland. Faces and bodies move within this tapestry like smoothness. when out hero dies in the middle of the film in his mind the swirling trees remind him of that crazy rush up the stairs to meet his love before he left the city. the heroine is the strong suffering woman at home as the menfight on the front.

Just cause: a run of the mill courtroom drama with sean connery being duped by a man who he thinks is innocent.

Wilde: the oscar wilde story with stephen fry brilliant as oscar and jude law bratty and self obsessed as bosie.

Rosencrautz and Guildenstern Are dead. watching hamlet from the periphery, these two dont know hat there is a play going on. instead they participate int he action from the edge. in between stombling across the great discoveries of the Experiments of Galileo and Newton they veer between being on Stage and off stage. its all very philipophical and profound- but more than a little tedious.

Badlands. terence malick's foray into the violence of youthful energy and desperation against the tedium of suburban america. martin sheen is a boy from the other side of the tracks whose edgy charisma seduces the pretty girl into murder and a trip across the animal landscape of the americas.

The visit. ingrid bergman returns to the town of guellen as a rich heiress out for revenge agains the very town that threw her out. but now she has her eyes set on the life of the ex-lover who dumped her for the daughter of a rich town merchant. she floods the town with commodiites and gets the townspeople to act agianst its own.

The night of the hunter. charles alughton's brilliant thriller. the killer preacher follows the boy and his sister down the long river. chrisitanity and murder, gospel music in the air, a body under water whoe hair swims like seaweed and the murder sequence in the church like attic- black and white noir drama.

Carefree: intantly forgettable little musical rom com about a psychoanalyst falling for his patient. happy little golf dance.

Barry Lyndon. the film unfolds like a novel. its not only the chapters and the omniscient narrator but time stretching across to allow you to think and the almost model like actors going thorugh the motions speaking carefully enunciating every word. the stor is about the rise and fall of adventurer barry.

The Lion in winter: the castle is filled with the heat of language. katherine hepburn and peter o'toole play the queen and king bickering over who gets to be king among their three sons. each has their favourite. the homosexual lionhearted hero vs the idiot child. between them is the cool calculating machine.

Zelig: woody allen brilliant and funny mock documentary about the amazing zelig who became whoever he was in the company of- a republican, democrat, chinese or eskimo. chameleon. it would be too pat to say the film is about capitalism and the crisis of identity. it is .. but so what?

Easy rider. the flash fade cuts between the sequences were like a the kicks of a motorcycle until it cruises down the highway smoothly. the film is like a dream or a nightmare about America and freedom. loved it.

The man who shot liberty valance. moral of the story : in civilizing the west men like gary cooper brought with them the constitution, but the men who made it possible were gunslingers like john wayne. sacrificing themselves for the great american nation.

the french connection. terrific action sequences and the amazing chase scene below the structure of the train rushing across the city. it is a gritty city of garbage on the roadsa dn drug dealers everywhere.

agneepath. vijay dinananth chauhan refuses to deal in drugs- but does everything elese. great action sequences at the ganpati visarjan. and mithun makes an ass of himslef with that terrible tamilian accent. i have heard they got rid of this character for the hritik roshan remake. understandably.

the sweet smell of success- the machinations behind the scenes of the american publicity mechanism. tony curtis is to break up the love of a girl and her jazz player to be able ot satisfy her nasty columnist brother. like dangerous liaisons- a tragedy where words are knives.

kes- to keep away from his future as a miner in the depths of the earth, the boy keeps a falcon. lovely training sequences on the outskirts of the mining town.

mashaal- yash chopra in bombay spends time in a slum called dogarbhatti where a newspaperman reforms local goon anil kapoor by sending him away to bangalore. when the boy returns the tables have turned. again, some surprisingly good action sequences.

ankahee: amol palekar's boring and regressive take on the old debate on science vs faith. his father predicts that his first wife is going to die so he marries another girl who has mental problems and proceeds to cure her with sex. what an ego trip! when the other girl kills herself she saves the wife.

the last picture show- a coming of age drama about two friends in a nowhere texan town. the vixen blonde seduces the both of them on her way towards escape. black and white longing.

on the waterfront- terry malone cant imagine life outside the waterfront- his only world- the only place where he could have been somebody- a contender. brando is droopy eyed angst when he betrays his godfather to the cops.

film socialisme- godards' most recent film is a three part meditiation on eurpoe, palestine and of course film itself. shot in digital high saturated sharpness- the film is in three sections. the first on a cruise line headed for nowhere, the second in a suburban gas station and the third a trip across the europe's most famous cities. dense allegories pack the film and tear it apart brilliantly for most- except for the mid section whcih is just plain awful.

Labels: bollywood, english, france, hollywood, indian documentary, japan, poland, russia

posted by Anarchytect # 8:25 AM

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Cinemascope

Thursday, October 06, 2011

film list - 6th October 2011

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