(Movie) The American directed by Anton Corbijn

If you just happen to read the promotional summary of this movie which reads “An assassin hides out in Italy for one last assignment.”, and look at the poster, you would be forgiven for thinking that this is a Jason Bourne or a Neeson “Taken” type of swashbuckling movie…

If you sit down to watch this with an intent to lose your blues in an orgy of fast moving punches and adrenaline pumping chases, you would be sorely disappointed. And that is only because this is a case of bad marketing…

Because this is probably one of the best movies that I have ever seen. And it becomes one not due to any breakthrough theme or espousing some philosophy that multiple views to get the aha moment.

It does this by having a screenplay that almost makes it a visual O Henry short story - a taut storyline that leaves more questions than answers, by a character sketch that is as profound as it is multi- dimensional and yes having a background score that almost gives a dark poetic feel…It had the same feel as Uzak (Distant) does in most part…

At the centre of this extraordinary movie is perhaps one of the most (till yet) under-rated actor of our generation – George Clooney. Watch this movie, Up in the Air, Syriana, Michael Clayton, Oceans series, One fine day and the sheer extraordinary range of Clooney comes through. And this movie is given its quality by his sheer presence.

Labels: adaptation, book adaptation, Crime, drama, movies, psychological, thriller

posted by Protik Basu @ 1:16 AM 3 Comments

3 Iron directed by Kim Ki-duk

This is a movie that would not appeal to everyone. But it has a strange magic in it that would leave a strange attraction in the viewer that sees it through.

The movie has elements of ‘Distant’ in it, in that there is minimal dialogue and most of the movie is one big motion from one place to another. In fact, the two main protagonists don’t speak at all. Everything that is spoken between them is through touch, movement and through their eyes. That gives an eerie feeling to the movie since you have to take in the environment to get a feel of what the characters are going through.

It’s a love story at its core but without the usual elements that would make up the fabric of such a theme in other movies – no lovemaking, only the barest of caresses, no heart-melting words. All that is offered in place of all that is – silence. But the silence is of the quality that speaks with what is in it - the camera does a good work of putting you in the same place as the characters.

The story is of Tae-suk,who breaks into empty houses and lives there till the actual characters come back. He is like a ghost who inhabits the house as if its his own. He does not take away anything, nor gives anything to the place. In one such encounter, he aids a woman ‘’ from her abusive husband. She joins him and they keep on breaking into houses and living there. The movie takes a turn towards the finale when they are caught in one of the houses. The final scene is mystical and is open-ended.

As I said, the movie is for those who are like to take in the environment and the characters and not expect action after every few frames. This movie may stir you and may not – it’s a moody film and how you receive it depends entirely on your temperament and mood. In that way it’s a movie in its own right.

I liked the movie and the vibe it conveyed but somehow the theme and the story left me a bit cold. Possibly I did not identify with the characters. But to each his or her own. I also feel that this is a movie that would evoke different feelings at different time for the same person.

Labels: korea, movies, psychological

posted by Protik Basu @ 11:52 AM 0 Comments

(Book) Blink written by Malcolm Gladwell

Blink carries on the tradition of ‘The Tipping Point’ of demystifying some of the mysterious undercurrent forces that affect us so much in our lives, only that we are unaware of them consciously. If ‘Tipping Point’ was about how social phenomenon around us are affected by things which do not lend themselves to documentation or rational analysis by common sense, ‘Blink’ is more personal and more individualistic.

‘Blink’ is about how our mysterious subconscious, the murky supercomputer residing in us, can make leaps of decision making and connections that we are unaware of us, but which nevertheless is a part of the choices we make or the way we think.

From knowing that a statue is fake by looking at it, when scientific analysis state otherwise, to the best method of choosing a musician (should be done blindly), this books has interesting tit-bits that keep you hooked and encourages you to think and reflect. For example, I found the part where this supercomputer can work against us, very exciting. Not only because it explains a lot about how subconscious prejudice works but also because of how we can actually make ourselves fairer by knowing our own pitfalls.

Malcolm Gladwell is very good at assimilating all the interesting research being done out there. So even though nothing in the book is essentially original, the compilation of the various researches aimed at a specific reasoning makes for exciting reading. I think this is mainly because the lay reader does not come across the individual researches which are usually known well in the scientific world…

This book, though leaves a lot out. I would have loved more details in every chapter especially on the neurological and the psychological part of the phenomenon. Though I admit that if that would have been so, the book would have become a tome of sorts. But nevertheless I found this gap to be both the strength and weakness of the book. The strength of this lies in the fact that it spikes your interest and encourages you to read more on related topics in detail.

For me, the book served more as a window to more exciting possibilities…

Labels: Books, psychological, science

posted by Protik Basu @ 9:19 PM 0 Comments

(Movie) The Jacket directed by John Maybury

  This is a story of a man thrust into a mad world where he finds the only person he loves and who is worth saving even at the cost of his life. There is a twist though…the person he falls in love with is in the future and he is supposed to die 14 years before.

This is a love story which has a lot of elements of “Butterfly effect” in it. It has a sombre and grey air around it in which the acting of Adrien Brody particularly stands out. His haunted look throughout the movie goes perfectly with the theme of the movie. He dominates the movie completely and does a damn good job of it

The story takes its inspiration from a story by Jack London “The Star Rover” and is about Adrien Brody who is injured in the Gulf war, miraculously surviving a direct head wound, even though he is medically psychologically impaired, possibly suffering from amnesia. He helps Jackie and Jean (a daughter-mother duo) who are stranded on a roadside and in the process forms a bond with the little girl Jackie and shortly after gets innocently involved in a shooting and is implicated in the same. He is packed off to an asylum when he is released since he is considered insane. There, Dr Becker starts experimenting on him, in order to test his healing technique. Brody is strapped in a straitjacket and put in a morgue drawer with drugs pumped into him. It is here where he starts getting transported into the future (2007) where he meets Jackie, who has now grown up into an embittered miserable young woman. It is also then that he realizes that he is supposed to die four days later (in the present time)

The rest of the story is about how Brody tries to find out about the cause of his death and how he ultimately decides to deal with it.

I liked the last scene the best. The expression on Brody’s face, as compared to the rest of the movie, is amazing. It was as if he was at last at peace with himself, with his decision.

Watch it for a the different story line (though it has strong echoes from many other movies) and Brody’s acting…

Labels: love, movies, psychological, thriller

posted by Protik Basu @ 9:07 AM 0 Comments

(Movie) Levity directed by Ed Solomon

There are these movies that come as a fresh breath even though they deal with a dark side of us precisely because of the beautiful manner in which they treat this dark side – without apology, without self-pity and without clichéd ‘reasoned’ explanations for a the way a person is…this is also one of those movies whose scenes play themselves in your mind long after you have seen them, because they touch you deep inside….

The movie is about an ex-con Manuel Jordan (Thornton), who has been convicted for murder, who is given parole after 23 years. He seeks to find some meaning in the search for redemption from the sister of the man who who he killed, without being able to tell her his true identity – until the end. Along the way he meets characters who relate to him in their own way and who accept him in their universe – a preacher with a secret (Morgan Freeman), a young girl who is fighting her own demons (Kirsten Dunst) and the slain man’s sister herself (Holly Hunter)…

And Billy Bob Thornton…what can you say about him? He simply excels in this role. His gaze can be both terrifyingly penetrating and vacant at the same time. In fact I think, a major portion of his role is communicated through his eyes – the pain, the search for redemption, the sorrow of what is lost and the anguish at seeing someone wasting their life away.

I believe that no one can play the role of a man searching for redemption better than Thornton. He can play a character that is vulnerable and yet strong at the same time while retaining that aura that can only come out of a character who has seen more than he ever wanted to…

The film is not a one-man show either. Every single character has a large role to play in what the movie aims to give to us. The story slowly unfolds in a little over an hour and a half, at the end of which each person finds a place where they can find some meaning. Its not a fairy tale ending (Thank God for such endings) which makes the story all the more compelling….

This is a movie that leaves you with a nice hum in a little corner of your mind – that part of it that deals with life’s different mysteries that really have no answers and which so few things these days are able to touch upon…that, more than anything else makes this movie one of my all time favourites…

This central quote from the movie (narrated in the voice of Thornton) has become of my favourite quotes…these are one of those lines that make you pause and think…

“I read a book that was written in the 11th century. A man said that there was five steps toward making amends. The first involved acknowledging what you did. The second involved remorse. The third involved making right with your neighbour. Like if you stole his chicken, you'd have to go and bring him another. Only then were you able to go to step four, which was making it right with God. But it wasn't until step five that you could really get redeemed. It had to do with being at the same place and the same situation. That as it goes, you'd go and do something different. Only I can't bring Abner Easely back like he was some stolen chicken. Certainly made sure of that 23 years ago. And I don't believe in some God that's gonna open His arms to me even if I did. So there goes steps three and four. And as for step five, time makes sure we're never in the same place twice, no matter how much we wish it. Which is why, for me, I know I'll never be redeemed.”

Labels: human, indie, movies, psychological, redemption

posted by Protik Basu @ 11:57 PM 0 Comments

(Movie) The Machinist directed by Brad Anderson

The first thing you notice is – bloody hell, is that Christian Bale?? The Batman looks as if he has just walked out of a concentration camp for superheroes. He is literally skeletal and looks splendid because he looks so awful. (He finished this movie a couple of months before Batman and he became the muscle ripping superhero in that period – one of the greatest achievements of physical transformation i have come across)…

And he plays the part to perfection – tormented and suffering from complete insomnia (claiming he hasn't slept for a year) and suffering rapid weight loss (getting down to 119 pounds by the end of the movie). The reason for all this is revealed right at the end when everything in his life seems to rearrange themselves very differently than what they seemed when the movie began.

Trevor (Bale) seems a normal person except he is losing weight rapidly. He works a machinist in a workshop. Things seem to taking its course (except the unnatural weight loss) until the coming of a mysterious man – Ivan whose very presence starts changing Trevor’s life. Nothing remains the same after that. Things and people change form until Trevor thinks he is going insane. He is mysteriously stalked by Ivan and even when they get to talk,  things become even more confused for Trevor. He begins to see conspiracies everywhere and his life crumbles around him.

The story if of illusions, seeming murders, mysterious men with obscure intentions, people who don't seem different from what they  are – until we realize that everything is the product of a tormented and deluded mind which has wrapped in itself to protect itself. Until we come to the awful truth.

The lines at the end that Trevor speaks is the perfect ending to the movie (though the ending itself could have been much better) - “i just want to sleep”…at the end the living life seems to have become one big nightmare…

Its a great watch because it keeps you at the edge as there is a sense that something is going to give at anytime. And Trevor’s haunted look and his haunted body tells you that there is something terrible that is just beneath the surface that will come out. 

Labels: Crime, movies, psychological

posted by Protik Basu @ 1:11 PM 0 Comments