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The Counselor (2013)
"The world in which you seek to undo the mistakes that you made is different from the world where the mistakes were made."
I didn't want to write a review until I saw that the movie is rated far below than what it deserves. This movie is very well made. It doesn't explain any details, characters aren't that well developed- we only know them through dialogues. However I was with the counselor throughout the journey. The new world that just replaced his old world sinks in quite intensely. If you are familiar with Cormac Mcarthy you know the world he creates- no country for old men - how Josh Brolins character's world changes after he has witnessed the cartel executions.
I loved the dialogues. One thing you feel is that Cormac tries to say things through his characters and almost all of them talks highly philosophically - for some that may feel a bit synthetic.
This is a hugely underrated film. Deserves more!
Swimming Pool (2003)
Make sure yo watch it twice
Although Sarah is a successful fiction writer(cheap crime mystery stuff), she hates writing the same thing over and again - and feels embarrassed about herself. This is evident from the train journey scene where she tells one of her readers/fans (a co-passenger) that she is not the author. She badly needs to write something else - more abstract and subtle themes - mostly about relationships. (Remember the scene where she meets another author who had won an award for his maiden novel. She is jealous!) Although in her mid 40s, she is not yet married and she develops a one-way relationship with her publisher/editor. She tries to imagine her publisher's personal life, which is still a mystery to her after all these years. (Remember the restaurant scene - where she and the fictional Julia talks about it).
As she expresses her unwillingness to write in the same genre her articulate publisher sends her to his own summer holiday home in french countryside so that she gets her "Inspiration". He promises to visit her in the weekend, but he does'not. Therefore she gives him a rather negative role in her fiction.
The story inside the story starts when she sits at the front of her laptop and begins to type. It is an outcome of her perception about the publisher's personal life. It ends when she waves at the real Julia -the publisher's daughter. Whatever happened between that was story of the novel that she wrote.
Ozon gives us subtle clues. There is a scene where Sarah goes to her Gardener's home and meets a rather odd looking dwarf girl who says the publisher's daughter is "Pretty". Julia is pretty when compared to her. The real Julia is just a plain looking girl.
I will give it a 7/10. Could have been a great movie but for its rather very weak or silly story inside the story.
Per un pugno di dollari (1964)
"My mistake 4 coffins "
Set in a dusty and hilly Mexican landscape in the 1880's, this movie is first of the "Man with no name " or dollar trilogy by one of the all time greats, Sergi Leone.
Man with no name (He is called Joe or Gringo if the movie is as good as this - who cares anyway?) comes to a town called San Miguel which has "two bosses" the Rojos and the Baxters. As you can guess, they are rivals.
As soon as he gets an idea about the town's history from the barman, he doesn't lose any minute and immediately hatches a brilliant scheme to make himself rich and clean the town of its scum.
The beauty of this film is such that it overrides all its logical goofs (In the climax, no one can be sure that shooting will be done by Ramon himself, that too, to his heart or the entire Baxter family comes through the front door to get themselves killed or Clint Eastwood not making an attempt to take the gun of Chico when he gets killed in the vine cellar- or the fight at the cemetery with obviously dead (or deaf?) soldiers sitting in the middle)in the film. You wont get a chance to notice those unless you are a cynic or a repeat viewer (I was the latter).
Whatever name you give it, a rose is still a rose. This movie will be a timeless beauty. One of those rare ones where the narrative style dominates the plot.
Osama (2003)
Can life be worse?
The Director is taking through us a 80 minutes journey through the eyes of a 13 year old girl in Afghanistan under the taliban...
The landscape full of limestone .....and the people unfortunate enough to have born into the wrong time....
barren land and lives.....
where every other woman is a widow and every other mother is a living tomb.......
Please listen to the soundtrack carefully.... especially the background score.... its really important..... it starts off with an iron swing..... ends with the sound of skipping rope hitting the ground.... Masterful.
I bet that after the movie, you will go and kiss your young daughter. You sure will.
My salute to the director who mesmerised me the whole 80 minutes....
saw this movie in 8th international film festival of kerala in 2003 where It got a grand applause.
This was the first movie made in post taliban regime in afghanistan. Truly commendable.
My 9 out of 10.
Vozvrashchenie (2003)
It will haunt you.... !!!
This is one of the best movies I have seen in this year. I saw this in a theater that can easily accommodate at least 1500 people. This was the biggest theater in Trivandrum, Kerala, India.This was shown as a part of 9th Kerala international film festival. The day I saw it was the repeat screening - yet, the hall was Jampacked! Such was its reputation from its first screening, that people started coming into the hall about 30 minutes earlier. It got a thundering applause at the end. I don't think can ever forget this movie.
There are movies and movies, and there are films like "The Return". You simply can not forget this movie for a long long time.
Instead of reading reviews, you should see the movie first. I would rate this as one of my all time favorites.
The film is full of mysteries and unanswered questions. But, rather than finding a logical answers to all those, the feeling that you experience during and after the movie will overtake all your senses.
My confident 10 out of 10.
This is a Must See.
Ai-Fak (2004)
could have been more deep
very good film, opens with some great shots- but somewhere down the line, it loses its grip and falls in the old melodramatic genre.
The storyline is great, the actor (Ai-fak) (I heard that it was his first film) puts up a fantastic performance. The heroine's performance is a bit inconsistent - she lacks continuity.
I saw the movie at a film festival in Trivandrum, Kerala.
I loved the movie because it portrays life in rural thailand beautifully. Though it deals with a subject bordering on incest (where ai-fak gets a wet dream about his stepmother), i would rate this movie as good. It could have been better, though. My 6 out of 10.