The Panorama

Seen lots of movies of wide variety in past two weeks, almost ten, and I am sorta dipped in cinema world, not able to think anything out of it, not writing anything on blog. Scary was this experience, but an interesting one !

I must say I saw some great Cinema and can feel happy about it, if not content. I must thank one of my friends for helping me choose films and my film club for show Art with capital 'A'.

I started with Maria Full of Grace, a movie that puts a disturbing account of the thin line which humans cross to become animals. Its about humans employed as containers (called mules) to transport drugs pellets in their stomach from Columbia and US. After Requiem for a Dream, its another take on drugs and its very many horrifying facets.

Then came Chokher Bali (Sand in the Eye), second Ghosh's movie I have seen (The first was his first Unishe April), This movie doesn't resonate to the level of Unishe April but obviously a piece of art. The biggest flaw of the movie is miscast 'Binodini', not to say Ms Rai didn't try her best but you miss the true passion of 'Binodini' somewhat somewhere. Its a movie to watch for shining innocence of 'Raima Sen' and Tagore's story of human emotions. Usually Tagore's stories are difficult for me to comprehend. I suppose its about the basic human instincts and their inherent destructive nature and the more humane emotions and their purifying(?) effects.

I haven't seen many holocaust movie, and that I have seen are mainly American, so bought one holocaust movie from Germany Europa Europa, its not a great movie but a very interesting one though. Its doesn't show brutality the way we usually associate with holocaust movies.

And then there was the modern American classic, Taxi Driver, I have seen it before in bits and pieces. Its one of those movie where you enter into the character's mind and experience the tension he/she is going through. Robert de Niro has done a perfect act and his 'Travis Bickle' rules the movie all through. For all the movie fans, its is a must watch for the Scorsese pitch perfect direction, De Niro's portrayal of troubled 'Travis' and Jodie Foster's fresh act.

I also saw 3 movies in my Film Club. Lisbon story, Its a jungle out there and Silvester Countdown. All three are German movies. All the three movies were very different in style and content. Out of these, I was really moved by Lisbon story. Its a movie about a director who thought that there is nothing more left to show to world and his sound engineer friend who comes to his rescue. This movie all-in-all a collage of music, sounds, pictures and underlying philosophy. It had a strong voice without going over-the-board. Its a Jungle out there is intelligent comedy about generation gap. Silvester Countdown is a complex movie about even more complex relation between a couple, holidaying on Poland on New Year Eve.

So I saw some 7 odd movie that week, next week was less hectic as Film club was not showing anything and I came to office for some long pending and neglected work.

Previous week I saw 3 movies.

Friday was off for Sankranti, and I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Its a movie about memories and about the 'sunshine' related to mildest of those memories. Its a romantic comedy which doesn't really follow any guidelines of the genre, if there are any! Eternal Sunshine celebrates romance in its most innate form, memories.

Next was Adaptation. Adaptation is not a normal movie, its about a screenwriter's frustuating and almost unsuccessful attempt to adapt a seemimgly unadaptable novel about flowers and passion. The title of movie is taken from Darwinian reference as much as from the adaptation of a movie from a novel. The screenplay of this movie is by Charlie Kaufman, the same guy who wrote 'Eternal Sunshine'. I liked it better than 'Eternal Sunshine'.

Next was one of the first Hollywood movie that I have ever seen, that ran over 3+ hours and to my surprise I lost track of time. Magnolia is a story about 10 characters loosely linked, about their pasts, about their presents, about confessions, about guilt, about coincidences, and about strong desire of being loved in the way they are. Magnolia can boost of one of the best ensemble cast and there are great performances from one and all. It is one of the best I have seen in recent times.

I was thinking of writing about my views on some of these movie in details, but was not able to choose which one to write about, so thought to write briefs about all. I sure will write in details about some of them later. But for now, its all I have.