Month: June 2014

Kathapurushan

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 Kathapurushan is a journey exploring the recent history of the state of Kerala. Adoor has described it as “an emotional journey through time and history”.  The film begins with the protagonist Kunjunni’s birth and ends with the publication of his first novel, The Hard Consonants. Born in a feudal family, Kunjunni’s parents were separated leaving him deprived of paternal care and affection.  He grew up receiving love and affection from his mother , grandmother and his friend Meenakshi-the domestic worker’s daughter. Kunjunni gets drawn towards leftist ideology during his college period. He believes that communism is the answer to healing all social hardships and inequalities. He joins an extremist Maoist group, providing it with intellectual leadership. After an attack at a police station, Kunjunni is arrested but later acquitted of all charges. In the course of his life, he realizes that regardless of ideologies the nature of the people in power remains the same. In this period he also discovers his courage and his own voice to speak the truth. The film is made interesting by the use of a storyteller which sets the atmosphere of the film and gives it a folkloric, fantasy feel. The film is notable for its decision to keep the camera static for long periods of time, often on close up shots and usually without dialogue. The film is epic in scale but intimate in tone, covering nearly forty-five years of Kerala’s history.

Mystery Train

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The film consists of three stories that take place on the same night in downtown Memphis. Youki Kudoh and Masatoshi Nagashe play two Japanese youth who have come from Yokohama to visit Sun studios and Graceland. They are completely different- she is outgoing, he’s quiet; she loves Elvis, he prefers Carl Perkins. The second story is about an Italian widow who is at the airport making arrangements to ship her husband’s body back to Rome. The final story introduces Johnny who is upset after losing his job and his girlfriend. The three stories are linked together by the Arcade hotel and Elvis. Cinematographer Robby Muller captures Memphis in such a manner that u will never forget the city.  John Lurie contributes a piercing Sun Studio-style guitar score and the cast makes a near-perfect ensemble. “Mystery Train” concerns the intertwining stories of foreigners in a quintessential American city. The main theme here is the tragic, drastic juxtaposition of Elvis’ magic spell, and the reality of what Memphis looks like years after his absence. It clings to his image , but seems incapable of moving forward, of producing any new commodities.

Pale Rider

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The film bears a striking similarity to the classic western Shane. In a small California town ,some independent miners have staked a claim to a promising lode.  The town is ruled by a cabal of evil men , revolving around Lahood and the marshal ,who is his hired gun. Suddenly a mysterious stranger (Clint Eastwood) arrives in the mining community. His presence compels the main characters to become united and helps them to fight against evil. He may indeed be the pale rider suggested in the title, whose name was death, but he may also be an avenging spirit, come back from the grave to take revenge. He is known as preacher. In this ,Eastwood becomes an avatar of divine punishment and holy retribution. The Marshal Stockburn confesses that he recognizes the preacher , but is confused because the man is supposed to be dead.
As the film’s director, Eastwood has done some interesting things with his vision of the West. The sources of light are almost all from the outside. Interiors are dark and gloomy, and the sun is blinding in its intensity. Clint Eastwood as both director and protagonist once again proves himself to be a master of stylized drama.

A Wife Confesses

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Young widow Ayako Takigawa (Ayako Wakao) goes on trial for the murder of her husband in a mountaineering accident. She stands to gain five million yen from his life insurance—that is, if she is cleared of the charge. Did Ayako cut the rope to get rid of her husband or this was her only way to survive? Is this young man who was with them at the time really her lover?Tied to a mountain between her  spouse and her secret lover, disaster strikes. To prevent all three from  their deaths, the woman is forced to choose between cutting her husband’s rope or that of her lover.  Masumura masterfully moves through the ambiguity of human behaviour , along the thin line that separates rational justification from subconscious motivation.  Ayako Wakao,  portrayed simultaneously a sympathetic victim and one of the most sophisticated femme fatales ever  in cinema. 

Inside Llewyn Davis

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Inside Llewyn Davis, Joel and his brother Ethan’s film about a turbulent period in the life of its title character, a fictional Village folkie, during 1961. The film was partly inspired by the autobiography of folk singer Dave Van Ronk
If we see technically ,then Davis isn’t Van Ronk. He had a gruff , commanding style that was 180 degrees removed from Oscar Isaac’s (the actor who played Davis) resonant balladeering. Yet the film has more than its share of nods to Van Ronk.
Isaac sings three Van Ronk-associated songs, which he learned from one of the late singer’s Village folk buddies. The cover of Davis’s album is a direct nod to Van Ronk’s 1963 LP Inside Dave Van Ronk. Llewyn is so poor he doesn’t even have a winter overcoat. His fellow folk singer Jean Berkey (a foul-mouthed Carey Mulligan), who goes out with his friend Jim (Justin Timberlake), is furious because she is pregnant and thinks he might be the father. “Everything you touch turns to shit, like King Midas’s idiot brother,” she screeches at him. He used to sing with a partner, Mike, who killed himself by jumping off the George Washington Bridge. He performs in a shadowy club, in the glare of a recording studio, at a dinner table, and in a vacant auditorium. And here lies the genius of Coen Brothers. The Coens could have made a film about a superlative talent , just waiting to be dug up like a diamond. 

Llewyn is very good, but he’s not great. The truth, in this instance, is uttered by Bud Grossman ( Superbly played by F. Murray Abraham -the actor from Amadeus) , the owner of the Gate of Horn, who asks Llewyn to play for him, one to one. He gives the verdict after listening to Davis’s song “I don’t see a lot of money here.” Llewyn accepts the verdict, as you should from any god, and leaves.  Oscar Issac gave a splendid performance in this film. The lead hero doesn’t look like lead and that’s exactly what it should be. Bud Grossman, again, gets it right, telling him, “You’re no front man.” There are many humorous moments but the tone is too bleak for this ever simply to seem like comedy. The Coens are dealing with suicide, abortion, and their lead character’s ongoing professional failure.  The film manages the unlikely feat of staying respectful toward the Greenwich Village folk scene of the early 1960s while being gently satirical about folk subculture in general.