Global Cinematic Duels, Part II

The idea of pitting different movies from a country/region against each other was quite enjoyable so here’s a second and final installment for this year atleast. If a country had 2 or more movies, then I decided the country could compete separately. If a country only had one movie, then I paired that country with the nearest region, with the pairing based more on culturally and cinematic grouping as opposed to geographically. For example, I combined the sole Mexican film in the list with South America under a ‘Latin America’ category as opposed to having the Mexican movie under North America.

China + Hong Kong: Butterfly (Yan Yan Mak, 2004), Blind Shaft (Yang Li, 2003, also co-production with China and Germany), Fear of Intimacy (Hong Kong, Vincent Chui, 2004)

Butterfly is a refreshing love story, although not a conventional one. A young girl develops a crush on her teacher. Even though the teacher is a married woman with a child, she reflects on her youth when she had a fling with another girl. That relationship ended unhappily and her repressed feelings from that fling finds another outlet via the present situation with the young student. The movie is shot partly in Macao and just like a lot of movies shot in that exotic Island, Butterfly contains some sensual elements which just enhance this film. Well worth the watch! Rating 8.5/10

Blind Shaft came out of nowhere and blind-sided me. I had never heard of this movie when I discovered this tucked away in the video store. But oh what a movie! The opening shot shows men working in a darkened coal-mine. While three men take a break, they pass the time with meaningless conversations. And without any warning, one of the men is killed by the other two. As it turns out, the purpose of the killing was money. The two men go around scamming mine owners by pretending that one of their relatives or brother is killed in the mine and as result, the mine owner is forced to pay some money to keep them quiet, lest they make it public. When the two men find another prey, this time a young16 year old kid, one of the men starts having second thoughts (ethics and morality). How the movie ends is a surprise but not totally unexpected. This is a very watchable movie that is well paced and takes time to lay the characters out. Rating 9.5/10

Fear of Intimacy starts off interestingly but then gradually loses steam. A busy photographer does not have time for his girlfriend and is constantly leaving her. One day, when he rushes for an assignment, she leaves him for good. The story then picks up 5 years later when the photographer now works as paparazzi stalking and taking pictures of celebrities and rich people. A young woman becomes his partner and a quiet relationship begins to take shape. Things take a twist when he discovers his girlfriend from 5 years ago, but she seems to be involved with a shady character who might be involvement in a rich woman’s murder. Nothing great, but not a bad film either!
Rating 6.5/10

Overall Rating: 24.5/30 = 8.17

France: Sex is Comedy (Catherine Breillat, 2002), Unleashed (aka Danny the Day, co-production with UK and USA, Directed by Louis Leterrier)

The two movies can be summarized as Sex and Violence! Sex is Comedy is unlike Catherine Breillat’s other shocking sex filled films but the idea behind this movie came from her film Fat Girl . She uses the same young actress from that movie and tries to show how much works goes in filming sex scenes for a movie. While the final product might seem passionate and erotic, in reality the scenes could not be more boring and dull to shoot. A light hearted movie that does get dull very soon because after the first 30 minutes the viewer gets the point that the complains/fuss of actors can be a real hindrance to the final product. Rating 7.5/10

Luc Besson has really developed his own system of action thrillers which form a middle road in between the big budget Hollywood productions and the lavish Asian martial films. Most of Besson’s films atleast have a well defined story which revolves around a plot of revenge and clear cut good/bad guys. Every now and then, Besson scripts unique scenes to spice up the tried out action/thriller genre. This time around, the main character, Danny (Jet Li) is a trained fighter who is merely a slave to his master (Bob Hoskins). When his master removes Danny’s collar, he is ready to kill at will. But one day, Danny finds reprieve in the form of music via a blind piano tuner (Morgan Freeman). The soothing music triggers long buried memories in Danny which lead him on a different path. The story of revenge from this point on feels like earlier Besson films but it is not that bad, although it feels dull in parts.
Rating 6.5/10

Overall Rating: 14/20 = 7.0

India: Lage Raho Munna Bhai (sweetly directed by Rajkumar Hirani), Fanaa (mis-directed by Kunal Kohli)

Two hyped up Bollywood movies but two completely different outcomes!

Lage Raho Munna Bhai is refreshing flick that is very rare in commercial cinema while Fanaa is just another run of the mill patriotic trash that has plagued Bollywood for more than a decade or so. Fanaa may be technically good (with some stunning Kashmiri visuals) and even has some touching performances from Kajol and Rishi Kapoor but overall, it has too many loop holes and an awful miscast role for Tabu (why on earth do directors/producers keep picking her even though it is obvious she can not deliver dialogues?). Lage Raho… is not a sequel to the original Munna Bhai film but simply a different story with the same loving lead characters. I have to say that the character of Circuit (played amazingly well by Arshad Warsi) is one of the best characters to ever grace the Indian celluloid screen – the loyal street savvy tapori has been played countless times over the decades but never this well and this good!

Lago Raho…Rating 9/10; Fanaa….Rating 5.5/10

Overall Rating: 14.5/20 = 7.25

Japan: The Great Yokai War (Takashi Miike), All about Lily Chou-Chou (Shunji Iwai)

There was a time that I tried to watch every new Takashi Miike movie. But I quickly found out that was a difficult and frustrating task -- difficult because Miike directed and acted in several films each year; frustrating because his films are very inconsistent, with a brilliant film followed by a complete dud. Needless to say, I was still looking forward to The Great Yokai War which was hyped up quite a bit. It is not disappointing but it is nothing great either. It mixes fantasy, myth, sci-fi and action elements with robots, gremlins, humans, furry creatures, power sword wielding characters occupying equal screen time. A little boy uncovers a magical world where the battle of good vs evil is taking place and finds himself center stage in the fight for the planet’s fate.
Rating 6.5/10

All about Lily Chou-Chou has an interesting story but nothing not seen before – alienated youth finds solace in a fan chat room about the popular pop singer Chou-Chou. However, a series of incidents lead to a fan getting killed and the alienated youth finds himself lonely and more confused about what to do. After a while, the online web poetry gets tedious and the movie drags on longer than it should. Rating 6.5/10

Overall Rating: 13/20 = 6.50

Latin America: Caballos salvajes (1995, directed by Marcelo Piñeyro, Argentina), Ciudad de M (2000, Directed by Felipe Degregori, Peru), Sin destino (2002, Leopoldo Laborde, Mexico)

Caballos salvajes is a charming bank heist/outlaw/road trip movie. And like most Argentine movies, it has its own peaceful rhythm. Rating 9/10

City of M is a well crafted low budget with shades of Waiting of Godot . M can’t find a job but then again, he has no college education. Desperate to get work, M and his friends hatch plots to become rich fast. Eventually, three of them agree to smuggle drugs to America. All they have to do is wait for the ‘Bolivian’ who will give them the goods and help their dreams come true. The waiting part feels like the Godot play and at this point, I felt the movie might end. But the ‘Bolivian’ does show up and even though we don’t see his face, he gives them the goods. Since it is a low budget movie, I never expected the three to leave Peru so the events that follow after the three get the goods are not unexpected. Rating 8/10

Shot mostly in stark black and white, Sin destino is a film about street life. Fran is a 15 year-old boy who gets by prostituting himself for money. Via flashbacks, we are shows how a 9 year old Fran was introduced into this life by an elder man, Sebastian. Just when Fran is finally starting to fall for women, Sebastian enters his life again. Conflicted between his real desires and need for money, Fran ends up on a destructive path which leads him to destroy everything in sight. And when he is done, Fran reverts back to being a child again, attempting to regain the innocence that was taken away from him. The movie is influenced by Luis Buñuel's Los Olvidados and even has a common thread via the role of Sebastian, who acted in Buñuel's 1950 film. Interestingly, the only time there is color in the movie is when Fran’s fantasies & nightmares are shown which indicate the hellish state of Fran’s fragile mind (no matter how pleasant the start of the fantasy is, it eventually turns ugly). Rating 7.5/10

Overall Rating: 24.5/30 = 8.17

Russia & former Soviet-republics: I am Cuba (1964, Mikheil Kalatozishvili, Former soviet-Union/Cuba co-production), Night Watch (2004, Timur Bekmambetov)

I am Cuba is vintage cinema and ranks alongside Battle of Algiers and Z as one of the best examples of great cinema that once existed! The film gives us a ring-side seat to a changing Cuban landscape and shows different stories about the rich, the poor and the revolutionaries. We see how the rich dance their life away in a haze of music and alcohol, how the poor farmers have to struggle at every step, how a revolution starts, how a revolution can be crushed and the creation of a legend! Amazing stuff. Rating 9.5/10

Night Watch is a completely unique and original film but does contain traces of Blade , Matrix, Ghostbusters and other sci-fi/fantasy adventure films. As per the well crafted story, there has been an endless battle between good and evil but so far the balance has been maintained. However, the ‘one’ will come one day and the balance will never be the same. The manner in how the story unfolds is very interesting (curses, spells, vampires + flashy special effects). The film is a slap-in the face for all the North American distributors who complain that foreign cinema is not entertaining enough! The second movie in this trilogy was released in Russia this year, with the third film will be out next year but will be in English. Rating 9/10

Overall Rating: 18.5/20 = 9.25

Thailand: Ong-bak (Prachya Pinkaew, 2003), 69 (Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, 1999)

I finally got around to seeing Ong-bak and it is nothing special, although the fights are amazing. Safe to say the story is paper-thin and the film is a mere excuse to see Tony Jaa in action with his Muay Thai moves. Rating 6.5/10

69 is a well crafted dark comedy/thriller. A boss can’t decide which of his employees to lay off, so he makes the women pick numbers. One of the three laid off employees has the number 9. As it turns out, she lives in apartment 6, but the number 6 is not properly attached to her door and constantly swings around to become a 9. One day, she hears three knocks on her door and when she goes out in the hallway, she finds a box. Upon opening the box, she finds bundles of money notes. What to do? She decides to keep the money. And when the gangsters come to get their box, a struggle ensues and she manages to kill both the men. From then on, no matter what she does, the body count just seems to keep increasing. Dark yet tinged with some unexpected humour throughout!
Rating 9/10

Overall Rating: 15.5/20 = 7.75

USA: Walk the Line (James Mangold, 2005), Fun with Dick and Jane (Dean Parisot, 2005), The Squid and the Whale(Noah Baumbach, 2005), Miami Vice (Michael Mann), The Illusionist (Neil Burger)

Yes the performances of Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon are very good in Walk the Line but so what? The movie story is something rehashed in Hollywood countless times – a nobody becomes famous, struggles with fame and dives into drug/alcohol, messes his life until he gets a second chance to turn it around. Yawn! And if the main character is based on a real-life character, well then you have an award winning movie! Rating 7.5/10

Fun with Dick and Jane is a comic look at present day corporate fraud, although the movie is set decades before Enron and the other greedy companies were caught red-handed. Jim Carrey is good in a role that requires him to go from slapstick to the dead-pan Truman character. Alec Baldwin is the usual cool & sly person who cheats others and gets away with it (almost...). In a funny tribute, the end credits give thanks to all the corporations caught in money-fraud schemes. Rating 6.5/10

I can finally see what the hype around The Squid and the Whale is about. It is indeed a very good movie and well worth all the praise it has received. A fighting writer couple’s marriage is shown and how it affects their two sons with each son siding with one parent. Amazing performances all around especially the two kids. Also, an interesting case-study on how easily kids can be influenced especially by parents they worship. Rating 9.5/10

Miami Vice was an unexpected surprise for two reasons – one it is actually a good movie and second (more importantly) is the seductive role of Gong Li. I had no idea she was in this movie and in the end if it were not for character’s affair with Sonny (Colin Farrell), this movie would not have been this good. There is no real story per se, (two undercover cops have to bust a drug ring) and most of the dialogues make no sense or are kept to single sentences. So it is up to the visuals to set the mood and with most Michael Mann films, the atmosphere gives a sense of cool with blue being the prominent colour in the background. In the end, the movie is about the characters and their lives. The fact that they happen to be undercover cops is just a technicality. Overall, the movie feels like a sibling of Mann’s Heat. Rating 8.5/10

Magic or simply an Illusion? A mere trick of the hands or genuine dark powers? The Illusionist is an intriguing thriller which has an innocent love story as its focal point. The production visuals are very good with Paul Giamatti stealing the show with an amazing and precise performance. Rating 9/10

Overall Rating: 41/50 = 8.20

Yet another surprise winner: A film from the former Soviet Union + a modern Russian flick take top prize with 2 solid entries!!!!!

Global Cinematic Duels, Part I

I am tired of people saying that there are no good movies being made currently and that the best cinema was back in the 50’s & 60’s. Ok, back in the 50’s and 60’s, International cinema was something all right. Besides the great directors plying their trade in a number of countries, there were some vintage movies. For example, I don’t think there can be a finer movie than 1966’s Battle of Algiers made today which captures the essence of a society so well. But the same thing can be said of literature as well. The literature of the past meant something but today it is mostly nonsense best sellers. That being said, there are some very good collection of non-fiction work out there nowadays, more so than previously. In the end, it is all subjective really. We all connect with an artistic work at some subjective level, no matter how much we objectively try to judge it. And when it comes to movies or books, sometimes the true merit of a work can’t be assessed until the future. Four decades ago, Philip K. Dick, Aldous Huxley and George Orwell wrote about a dark future where individual freedoms didn’t exist. And yet, in the modern year of 2006 we are living some sort of future that those writers imagined. Life has imitated art or maybe Life has taken its inspiration from art? I will never forget the section from Arthur Clarke’s 2001 where he mentions a future where man can read any newspaper from the world on a small computer like device, which is achieved in the present by reading papers via the internet on a laptop. While some works can mimic or predict the future, others end up remaining timeless because of their inherent humanistic meanings, like Shakespeare. Shakespeare will never go out of fashion and will be forever interpretated and continue to add meaning. And two such interpretations were made in Bollywood recently. One wonders why it took so long? Love, treachery, jealousy and murder are all trademarks of the usual melodramas but this time, those stories are told via the lens of the talented bard's works.

If one is tired of seeing nonsense in the theatres, there are always foreign movies one can rent. If that is not possible, then surely, one can rent the old cinematic gems just to tune out the noise of the big budget crap. I decided to conduct an experiement – over the course of 2 months, I would try to balance my viewings with new released big budget movies mixed with foreign movie rentals from past and present. Then I would set up a competition with the movies divided into different cinematic regions and at the end, just see which country or continent came out on top. The only restriction I put on myself was that the movies would be all that played either in the local theatres or were available at one of the video stores -- no internet renting (something I have been lucky to avoid so far). The end winner really surprised me and provided me with a cliched lesson – quality always wins over quantity, no matter which country the movie is from and regarless of the film's budget!!

Countries/Continents and Film Selections:

USA: Pirates 2, A Scanner Darkly, The Devil Wears Prada, Serenity, FlightPlan

The first movie of this competition was a movie that I relunctanly watched its opening day – Pirates 2. I loved the first movie but I didn’t expect much from the second one. Yet I found myself in the theatre on opening day at the 4:20 pm show. And I was really surprised – the movie was much much WORSE that I could have imagined! In fact, it was the worst movie I have seen this year. It is solely responsible for sinking the overall rating of the USA category. Is it fair to let a commercial crap sink other worthwhile movies? Yes!! If junk is made from one country, then it deserves to shame all other movies from that region. For the record, here are the other ratings:


Pirates 2: Rating 5/10
A Scanner Darkly: Rating 9.5/10
The Devil Wears Prada: Rating 8/10
Serenity: Rating 8.5/10
FlightPlan: Rating 6.5/10

Overall rating: 37.5/5 = 7.5


The only true brilliant movie in this list is A Scanner Darkly with Serenity getting a good nod. Linklater has taken a typical Philip K. Dick story and added the classy animation technique used to success in Waking Life and produced a wonderous paranoid big brother drug induced nightmarish reality. Serenity does proud to the much put down sci-fi genre and brings a fresh far away universe to cinema, and along the way, proves that film (and even tv) fans know more than studio executives, who never wanted the original tv series or movie to exist in the first place. The Devil Wears Prada is sheer fun. Nothing extraordinary here, but plain fun. The first few minutes are one of the best sequences in the movie, which show different women getting dressed. Just by their clothes, we can tell a lot about the different women and that scene captures the classiness of the film, which really is thin on substance but has plenty of style. The less said of Flightplan the better. In fact, I don’t think I can better review this film than Pacze has on his blog – his review is just wicked and completely spot-on.

Asia: Omkara, Mixed Doubles, Good Men, Good Women (Hsiao-hsien Hou), Ab Tak Chaphhan, Maqbool, Election 2

Gangster central really. 3 out and out gangster movies, with 2 of them of them being Shakespearean adaptations and the third being a Godfather mould. A 4th movie is gang related but shown from the side of cops, often left out in gang movies. The remaining 2 movies may be out of place but they capture a time and place of Asia that is worth showing, one modern (Mumbai in Mixed Doubles) and the past (Taiwan in Good Men, Good Women). The biggest disappointment for me was Hou Hsian-Hein’s feature which really was the weakest showing in this category. Having loved his other movies, maybe I had set the bar too high and was not engaged with a story whose fragments can be found in his other movies.

When it comes to the gangster movies, it seems a common theme was present – power won by unfair means will never result in peace and will always end in destruction. Typical story of Godfather like mafia movies that cine flicks around the world have emitted previously, but this time Vishal Bhardwaj has taken that story and wrapped it around the core of Shakespearean plays. Maqbool was a remake of Macbeth and got plenty of praise when it was released. It is a very good movie with excellent acting from all but one main character – Lady Macbeth’s character. Of all the actresses that Bhardwaj could have taken, why did he have to take Tabu? Tabu is over-rated and has been useless in the last few films that she has been in. She was the dull muse that could not inspire anyone and sank M.F Husain’s Meenaxi and has since been playing the stupid innocent_woman_ role for a few years now. In Maqbool she was dull, uninspiring and certainly not as manipulative as she should have been. That is why I had to take my points off my rating for this movie. Omkara on the other hand was far more superior in the acting category as the vibrant Konkana Sen Sharma lit up the screen with every word and Saif Ali Khan and Ajay Devgan played their roles perfectly while enacting Othello in a rural Uttar Pradesh setting. The only negative was the unnecessary songs which hampered the otherwise cool flow.

The first Election movie was perfect as it added a layer of democracy to the gang genre. The second one picks up where the first one left off and has a wicked ending which promises more feature sequels with far more destruction in store; the cycle will be complete surely in future such sequels. At the end of the first movie, Lok is democratically elected to rule all the triads and it seems that peace will reign. The second movie picks up 2 years after the first when another election is coming up. Lok can’t think of giving up his position and his greed makes him far more ruthless (Shakespeare would have understood Lok’s situation). Jimmy on the other hand just wants to be a "businessman". But he finds that he can’t go clean until he becomes the chairman of the Triads himself. So starts a ruthless battle between Jimmy and Lok which ends only when Jimmy hacks (literally) his way to the top. But a tasty twist leaves Jimmy in a precarious position where he might never be just a "businessman".

Ab Tak Chaphhan is a Ram Gopal factory production which is quite good much to my disbelief as I had previously rejected this movie on a quick viewing a year ago. The story is about cops who have to break the law themselves in order to keep the balance with Nana Patekar giving a riveting performance. Mixed Doubles is an decent comedy about a young couple living in Mumbai who are duly going through the stages of their marriage until the husband gets obsessed with the idea of ‘swinging’ to spice their married life up. The one bright spot in the movie -- Konkana Sen Sharma!


Omkara: 9/10
Mixed Doubles: Rating 7.5/10
Good Men, Good Women: Rating 5.5/10
Ab Tak Chaphhan: Rating 9.5/10
Maqbool: Rating 8.5/10
Election 2: 9

Overall rating: 49 = 8.17


Europe: Man Bites Dog (Rémy Belvaux, Belgium), Pusher (Nicolas Winding Refn, Denmark, 1996), Buffet Froid (Bertrand Blier, France, 1979), I, Soliti Ignoti(Big deal on Madonna Street, Mario Monicelli, Italy, 1958), Element of Crime (Germany), Descent (Neil Marshall, UK)

A completely mixed bag of European flicks with my favourite being the Brit thriller The Descent. The story is simple but very well done – 6 women go cave exploring until they find something sinister hidden beneath the earth. Blood and darkness are the main elements in a gripping edge of the seat thriller that is truly worth watching in a dark theatre. The only negative has to be the chopped up ending for the American version which tries to give a glimmer of hope but I rather would have preferred the Brit version which really ends in darkness. Man Bites Dog is an interesting experiment – a film crew follows a killer who randomly picks his victims and executes them in unique ways. Shot in black & white, it is not a tasteful watch but was made long before the crazy of American reality tv shows started to dominate popular watching so, in a way this movie was a landmark in how cinema is observed. With TIFF 2006 showing two movies where the audience simply observes two characters, one a soccer player going about his job of entertainment, and another where a woman is going about her deadly task of killing, Man Bites Dog fits in with that category of observing different people try to make sense of their lives.

Pusher has a lot of hype around it and that is all it is, just hype. It is nothing great! In fact, I wish the movie was in reverse like Gaspar Noé's Irréversible as that really would have made this watchable because the best parts of the movie are near the end. The movie chronicles a week in the life of a drug pusher. At the start of the week, things are looking good for him as he is collecting his payments and is happy (these are the boring parts of the movie which one has to painfully endure). But a few bad situations leave him in debt and as the week goes on, he sinks further and further. This is probably the most interesting segment in the movie as we desperately see him trying to stay afloat. And in the end, just when things might finally turn around for him, all his hopes are snatched away in an instant. Two more sequels have been made for this Danish indie but I think I will pass on those ventures.

Element of Crime was one of Lars Von Trier’s earlier movies and it is a seductive crime thriller viewed through a cool yellow lens. Everything appears yellow in the film and this filtered lens heightens the mood of the film and punches certain features up a bit more, for example, a pool of blood stands out more in the background. A detective is on the trail of a killer but in order to catch him, he tries to mimic the killer’s ways until, he steps too far and starts acting like a killer himself. Not a perfect movie but a great start from a director much known to controversy nowadays.

The mad caper comedy Big Deal on Madonna Street starts out really well but ends up dragging itself to nowhere. Bordering more on slapstick comedy, it has a nice role by Marcello Mastroianni but overall the film feels dull. Dull is the farthest thing from the Gérard Depardieu starrer Buffet Froid which requires perfect attention to detail as a dream like situations led to the killer becoming the victim, enemies becoming friends and buildings swapping forests (shades of Surrealism & Luis Buñuel's works).


Man Bites Dog: Rating 9/10
Pusher: Rating 6/10
Big deal on Madonna Street: Rating 6.5/10
The Descent: Rating 9.5/10
Element of Crime: Rating 8/10
Buffet Froid: 8.5/10

Overall rating: 47.5 = 7.92


South Africa: Tsotsi, Son of Man

These were 2 late movies that were added to my viewing and honestly, South Africa was not a country that I had planned to cover this time around, but I got lucky here. I had missed seeing Tsotsi on a few occasions so it was only fair that I finally saw it. And Son of Man had a special festival screening in our city and I have to say, I was very impressed. Son of Man is a modern interpretation of Jesus live in the slums and streets of Africa – a time where gangs, religion, politics and corruption reign. It really seems that nothing has changed in the last few thousand years, really? :) Just that we have tv and radio which can transmit news of miracles and tragedies faster than ever before! And guns are readily available to those who need to kill people easily. A very commendable film, not perfect but worth seeing!

Amazingly, the two South African movies stood narrowly beat out the 3 other regions and won this contest. A real surprise indeed for a country whose movies were the last ones to make the cut!


Tsotsi: Rating 8.5/10
Son of Man: Rating 8/10

Overall rating: 8.25

1st Movie World Cup – Final & Third-place Results!!!!

A month has gone by. Amazing how time flies by! In the end, soccer and movies turned out to be a great combination. Even though the 2006 World Cup was significantly better than the dull & boring 2002 tournament, it still lacked enough quality football and goals as past tournaments. 2006 started out great with the Germans involved in an entertaining 4-2 win over Costa Rica but after the first round, the games started losing their charm and the goals dried up. And when soccer failed to deliver, the countries movies stepped up and provided moments of magic.

Soccer World Cup match-ups – 3rd place, Germany vs Portugal;
Final, Italy vs France
vs
Movie World Cup match-ups – 3rd place, Korea vs Holland;
Final, Germany vs Brazil

Germany is the only common country in the final 4 of both competitions. Interestingly, the movie world final is what most people had expected of the soccer world cup final – the hosts vs the defending champions, a repeat of the 2002 final.

And the Korea vs Holland game is interesting as well because of the style of play and managers involved. In 2002, Guus Hiddink (a Dutchman) led Korea to the Semi-Finals of the Soccer World Cup. In 2006, another Dutchman, Dick Advocaat, lead Korea to a respectful showing. And after the world cup, a 3rd Dutchman will take over the Korean national team. Safe to say, the Korean play has been fast and at times looks inspired from the Orange land. In terms of cinema, Korea movies have become hot-property over the past 5 years and are clearly superior over Dutch cinema at the moment. Onto the results:

Korea (Lady Vengeance) 5- 2 Holland (Turkish Delight)

Goal scorers, Korea: Story, Acting, Direction, Cinematography, Sound
Goal scorers, Holland: Acting, Direction

This was not a close contest. Director Chan-wook Park's final installment of his revenge trilogy was a fitting entry. I had waited so long to see Lady Vengeance that when I finally attempted to see it a few months ago, I was disappointed; I did not finish watching the movie and turned it off. However, I am glad that I decided to give a second go during this movie world cup because I ended up liking it a lot. Even though the film is not as good as Oldboy which contained a real hammer-blow ending, Lady Vengeance is slightly better (and less graphic) than Mr. Vengeance .

And the final, drum roll……………………

Germany (Signs of Life) 4-4 Brazil (The Middle of the World)

Goal scorers, Germany: Story, Direction, Cinematography, Sound
Goal scorers, Brazil: Story, Acting, Direction, Cinematography

As much as I liked both these movies, there can be only one winner. After a closely fought match, both teams tied 4-4 in regulation. The penalty shoot-out tie-breaker’s category is subjectivity. So I have to pick a movie which won me over emotionally and that is an easy answer -- Brazil . Even though the Brazilian story might have shades of other movies from that country (Central Station comes to mind), it is still an emotionally beautiful movie. A father takes his wife and 4 children on a journey across the torrid Brazilian landscape on bicycles. The destination is Rio and the family tries to gather money by working small jobs on the way to sustain themselves. At no time do the parents resort to stealing money because they are proud of who they are and they acknowledge it is their circumstance that has bestowed poverty on them. Nor will the father resort to just doing anything for money – the work has to be dignified. A journey + coming of age (the eldest son grows up into a man and learns some lessons about life along the way) story strengthened by beautifully shot visuals is what makes this Brazilian movie the winner of the 1st Movie World Cup!!!!!

Brazil failed to win a 6th Soccer World Cup this time around and they only have themselves to blame. Brazil may be the founders of Joga Bonito (Beautiful game) tag but they have let stale tactics ruin their game and have strayed away from playing a beautiful team game. On the flip side, it is refreshing to see Brazilian cinema on the way up – colorful and emotional stories which are made from the heart and not out of corporate greed. Funny, Brazil once played futebol with heart and not for money but that no longer seems to be the case in the global game.

So that's a wrap -- one month of calcio (32 nations) and movie watching (22 countries) has come to an end! Perhaps next year, I might hold another movie world cup because I completely enjoyed the experience of pitting movies against each other. Next time around, I might bring in countries such as India, Taiwan and Hong Kong because they really are churning out some quality talkies!!!

Note: Update July 10, 2006: It is interesting that both the movie and soccer world cup finals went to penalty kicks. Both penalty shoot-outs were emotional -- the movie penalties were about 'subjectivity', meaning emotionally biased, whereas the soccer kicks were about 9 players containing their emotion to convert their kicks. In the end, the final score was a 5-3 Italian victory. Only one French player missed his kick and the Italian keeper Buffon did not even have to make a save.

1st Movie World Cup – Semi-Final Results!

The Soccer World Cup is finally coming to life -- France beat Brazil (yeah, Henry is better than Ronaldinho anyday!!), and now Italy edged past Germany in a pulsating semi-final. Compared to that, the movie world cup seems pretty tame but it had 2 interesting match-ups nonetheless.

Semi-Final #1 – Germany vs Korea

Germany: Werner Herzog’s Signs of Life
South Korea - Director Chan-wook Park's Lady Vengeance

Two completely different movies with varied presentation styles! The German entry is in beautiful black and white with a narrator describing a character’s descend into insanity, whereas the Korean movie is in stunning color with the actor’s doubling as narrators while leading us through a path of revenge against an insane man. I enjoyed both movies but in the end, I am still a fan of Herzog’s movie which edges into the final.

Final score: Germany 5 – 4 Korea

Goal scorers, Germany: Story, Acting, Direction, Cinematography, Sound
Goal scorers, Korea: Acting, Direction, Cinematography, Sound

Semi-Final #2 – Holland vs Brazil

Holland - Director Paul Verhoeven’s Turkish Delight
Brazil - Director Vicente Amorim's The Middle of the World

Fast and pacy match-up! The Dutch entry takes a traditional love story and livens it up with some brave direction – Verhoeven was liberal with Basic Instinct but in Turkish Delight he has more freedom to shoot whatever he wants and that is what makes the big difference. The Brazilian movie on the other hand is sweet at heart even though the story feels like something seen in other Brazilian movies (poverty + coming of age + journey). A tough-call! Turkish Delight unfolded like a typical Bollywood/Romeo & Juliet story with the parental problems and the tragedy near the end interspliced with liberal sex scenes. However, it has a telling moment when the boy realizes what is wrong with the girl (multiple personalities) even though the audience has been fully aware of what has been going on for a while – the boy’s expressions at the moment of realization are a mixture of pity and desperation. The Middle of the World proudly continues the traditional of beautiful movies from the land of Joga Bonito and wins out with its emotionally complex story.

Final score: Holland 2 – 4 Brazil

Goal scorers, Holland: Acting, Direction
Goal scorers, Brazil: Story, Acting, Cinematography, Sound

1st Movie World Cup – Quarter-Final Results!

8 more matches to go before the winner is decided! There were some very interesting match-ups in the movie world cup quarters and one match was identical to the soccer world cup quarter-final – Germany vs Argentina. Overall, only 3 teams were identical in the movie and soccer world cup quarter-finals: Germany, Argentina and Brazil.

Quarter-Final #1 – Germany vs Argentina

German movie: Werner Herzog’s Signs of Life
Argentina – Director Héctor Olivera’s A Shadow you soon will be

This match-up happened too early in both movie and soccer world cup; this would have been a fitting finale. The truth is that I really like the Argentine movie – it was the only film from the 22 entries that I loved from the first frame. But I can’t be completely subjective with a movie unless I take the contest to penalties. On the other hand, it took me a while to warm up to the German movie but there were 2 sequences which really endeared the movie to me (one was a long shot which showed Stroszek going crazy and threatening the villagers but we don’t see a close-up of him; we only see what the villagers see from a distance so we are forced to judge for ourselves what is going on with him. The second shot was the final shot when the camera is on the back of the truck and we only see the dust blown by the speeding truck as the narrator tells of what happened with Stroszek). Nothing complicated about these shots but they were examples which showed Herzog knew exactly what he wanted to achieve with each frame. Also, I kept comparing Signs of Life to Grizzly Man -- the latter was a documentary but the former was a scripted movie which felt like a documentary. Brilliant!! Now, Olivera was in command of his material as well but compared to Herzog, his movie fell just a little short. So a very tough decision, but the German movie moves on.

Final score: Germany 5 – 3 Argentina

Goal scorers, Germany: Story, Acting, Direction, Cinematography, Sound
Goal scorers, Argentina: Story, Acting, Direction

Quarter-Final #2 – Poland vs Holland

Poland: Andrzej Wajda’s Kanal
Holland - Director Paul Verhoeven’s Turkish Delight

This one was not even close. The pacy Dutch movie was all over the Polish entry and easily cruised into the semi-finals.

Final score: Poland 1 – 4 Holland

Goal scorers, Poland: Cinematography
Goal scorers, Holland: Story, Acting, Direction, Cinematography

Quarter-Final #3 – Japan vs Korea

Japan – Director Masaki Kobayashi’s Kwaidan
South Korea - Director Chan-wook Park's Lady Vengeance

Battle Royale, indeed! The two co-hosts from the 2002 World Cup and past rivals pitted against each other. A very close encounter but Korea did enough to reach the semi’s.

Final score: Japan 4 – 5 Korea

Goal scorers, Poland: Story, Direction, Cinematography, Sound
Goal scorers, Holland: Story, Acting, Direction, Cinematography, Sound


Quarter-Final #4 – Brazil vs Spain

Brazil - Director Vicente Amorim's The Middle of the World
Spain -- Director Achero Mañas's El Bola

I have to go against the verdict of the film festival circuit and give the win to Brazil, even though the Spanish movie has won far more film festival awards -- El Bola has won 17 awards and gotten 9 nominations where the Brazilian film has only gotten 3 nominations. Yes the acting in the Spanish entry is more powerful but the story-line of In the Middle of the World was a bit more interesting.

Final score: Brazil 4 – 2 Spain

Goal scorers, Brazil: Story, Direction, Cinematography, Sound
Goal scorers, Spain: Acting, Direction

1st Movie World Cup – Second Round Results!

In keeping with the format laid out by the Soccer World Cup, 16 teams competed in a knock-out format in the second round of the Movie World Cup.

Rules for scoring in second-round and onwards until the Final:

1) Movies compete in 5 categories (Acting, Story, Direction, Cinematography and Sound) earning either 0 or 1 point for each criteria.
-- If movie A has a better story than its opponent (movie B), then movie A gets 1 point and movie B gets 0.
-- However, if both movie A and movie B have good stories, then they each get 1 point each.
-- Also, if both have terrible stories, then the two movies get 0.

This scoring enables reasonable soccer scores like 3-2, 2-0 or even 0-0 (both movies failed on all 5 criteria).

2) If the score is tied after all the 5 categories, then a penalty shoot-out will be used with a single criteria – subjectivity. That means, I can freely give preference to a movie that I like without caring for its objective values. Is that fair? Well it is more fair than penalties are in the real soccer world cup!!

Here are the match-ups and results:

1A vs 2B – Germany vs England

German movie: Werner Herzog’s Signs of Life
English movie: Director Gary Wicks Endgame

This contest was not even close. It was a bit unfair because the English movie was thrown into the fire but the odd thing is that Signs of Life was Herzog’s first movie. Herzog’s 1968 film has some similarities with his last movie Grizzly Man . Both movies are about insanity, although the two films take a different approach to reach that conclusion. Grizzly Man is a documentary where Herzog narrates the camera footage that he discovered of Timothy Treadwell. Signs of Life is a scripted movie but it is told in a documentary format where a narrator tells of the slow transformation of Stroszek, a solider who gradually goes insane after he finds himself bored on an island. The beautifully shot black and white movie is told in documentary style and could easily be something constructed by assembling found camera footage of the incidents on the Greek island. The camera angles at times also give us the idea that the audience is looking from the outside and is never let in as to what is happening, something which is common when one is watching a documentary based on archival footage. Overall, Signs of Life is visually excellent with some very poetic shots. Easily a contender for best movie!

Final score: Germany 5 – 0 England
Goal scorers, Germany: Story, Acting, Direction, Cinematography, Sound
The German movie was strong in every department and ran the English movie off the pitch!

1B vs 2A – Sweden vs Poland

Swedish movie: Ingmar Bergman’s Persona
Poland: Andrzej Wajda’s Kanal

This was a really close contest. Persona is a critically loved movie and I can see why. But then again, I don’t think it is as good as it made out to be. Kanal on the other hand has a very dull start but once the story movies to the underground labyrinth of tunnels, the movie really kicks into gear. My biggest problem with Persona was that I believe all the clever abstract elements were wasted on a dull story; the movie ensures that the viewer knows at all times that they are watching a film -- the start gives the viewer a glimpse of the evolution of cinema, the middle has the screen split in half as if the projector chewed up the film, and near the end, the camera shifts back to the camera crew showing the movie being shot. Now, these are great elements but the story of the two women trying to outwit each other just didn’t appeal to me.

Final Score: Sweden 2 – 3 Poland
Goals, Sweden: Acting, Direction
Goals, Poland: Cinematography, Story, Sound

1C vs 2D – Argentina vs Portugal

Argentina – Director Héctor Olivera’s A Shadow you soon will be
Portugal - Director Manoel de Oliveira's I'm Going Home

This was a very close contest but in the end, ‘subjectivity’ penalty kicks had to decide the contest. Personally, I loved the Argentine movie. I felt this was a poor man’s version of the sentiments that the 2005 Brazilian movie Cinema, Aspirins and Vultures echoed. Both the Argentine and Brazilian movies had similar ideas of men setting out into the unknown, escaping and seeking. In the Argentine movie, the main character returns home only to find himself thrust into a chaotic circus surrounded by colorful eccentric characters who are seeking to live their life to the fullest, even if that means living in the past, dreaming about the future or merely driving away the present. The Portuguese movie, I’m Going Home is in French and is a technically polished movie with high caliber acting. However, I didn’t agree with the director’s vision of packing the movie with plenty of staged dramatic scenes to convey the main character’s love of theatre over other aspects of his life.

Final Score: Argentina 3 – 3 Portugal, Argentina win on Penalties
Goals, Argentina: Story, Direction, Sound. Penalty: Subjectivity
Goals, Portugal: Direction, Acting, Cinematography

1D vs 2C – Iran vs Holland

Iran – Director Abbas Kiarostami’s And Life Goes On
Holland - Director Paul Verhoeven’s Turkish Delight

Two completely different movies, two completely different styles! The Iranian style was slow but the Dutch were pacy and only slowed down near the end when they knew the victory was in the bag. And Life Goes On turned out to be appropriate pick because it does talk about the Soccer World Cup – the films showed that despite having an earthquake level out cities, some people still wanted to watch the soccer World Cup because it came only every 4 years. However, as the movie’s actor told one person, an earthquake was more critical because it could only occur once every 40 years!

Final Score: Iran 4 – 5 Holland
Goals, Iran: Story, Acting, Direction, Cinematography
Goals, Holland: Story, Acting, Direction, Cinematography, Sound,

1E vs 2F – USA vs Japan

USA - Director David Dobkin's Wedding Crashers
Japan – Director Masaki Kobayashi’s Kwaidan

Wedding Crashers were able to power their way out of their group in the first round but they stood no chance against the award-winning stylish Japanese movie.

Final Score: USA 1 – 4 Japan
Goals, USA: Acting
Goals, Japan: Story, Direction, Cinematography, Sound

1F vs 2E – Brazil vs Italy

Brazil - Director Vicente Amorim's The Middle of the World
Italy - Director Roberto Benigni's The Tiger and the Snow

What a colourful contest! The Italian movie, unlike the Italian soccer team, showed plenty of energy. However all of Benigni’s energy was not enough to channel enough goals to overcome the technically polished Brazilian movie. It felt as though Benigni was trying to carve out another feel good movie along the lines of Life is Beautiful but this time the hollow story didn’t stand strong.

Final Score: Brazil 5 – 2 Italy
Goals, Brazil: Acting, Story, Direction, Cinematography, Sound
Goals, Italy: Acting, Sound

1G vs 2H – Korea vs Tunisia

South Korea - Director Chan-wook Park's Lady Vengeance
Tunisia -- Director Raja Amari's Satin Rouge

Both movies were very good and quite different from each other. In the end, tt was a very close contest and the final decision was a tough one.

Final Score: Korea 5 – 4 Tunisia
Goals, Korea: Acting, Story, Direction, Cinematography, Sound
Goals, Tunisia: Acting, Story, Direction, Sound

1H vs 2G – Spain vs France

Spain -- Director Achero Mañas's El Bola
France – Director Pierre Jolive’s In all Innocence

This is the only tie that is similar in both movie and Soccer World Cup. The soccer game will be a tight encounter but the movie contest was not as close.

Final Score: Spain 5 – 2 France
Goals, Spain: Acting, Story, Direction, Cinematography, Sound
Goals, France: Acting, Cinematography

1st Movie World Cup – First Round Results!

The first round of both the FIFA World Cup and Movie World Cup have been completed. Here are the final results and comparisons of both (Note: the top two teams advance from the 8 Groups, A - H):

FIFA World Cup First Round Results:

Teams advancing -- Germany (1st in Group A), Ecuador (2nd in Group A), England (1B), Sweden (2B), Argentina (1C), Holland (2C), Portugal (1D), Mexico (2D), Italy (1E), Ghana (2E), Brazil (1F), Australia (2F), Switzerland (1G), France (2G), Spain (1H), Ukraine (2H)

Movie World Cup First Round Results (Note: There were a total of 22 movies from the 32 countries involved):

Movies advancing: Germany (1A), Poland (2A), Sweden (1B), England (2B), Argentina (1C), Holland (2C), Iran (1D), Portugal (2D), USA (1E), Italy (2E), Brazil (1F), Japan (2F), Korea (1G), France (2G), Spain (1H), Tunisia (2H)

Comparison: 10 Countries overlap in both Soccer and Movie World Cup. Out of those, Germany, Argentina, Brazil and Spain have first place in both cases and Holland and France take second place in both. Only One of the second round matches is the exact same in both the movie and soccer world cup -- Spain vs France.

Group A – Germany, Costa Rica, Poland, Ecuador

Final Standings (Country, Movie, Total Points)
Germany, Signs of Life, 3
Poland, Kanal, 1
Costa Rica, 0
Ecuador, 0

Germany advance in First place with 3 points. Poland take Second Place with 1 point.

Group B – England, Paraguay, Trinidad & Tobago, Sweden

Final Standings (Country, Movie, Total Points)
Sweden, Persona, 3
England, Endgame, 1
Paraguay, 0
Trinidad & Tobago, 0

Group C – Argentina, Ivory Coast, Holland, Serbia& Montenegro

Final Standings (Country, Movie, Total Points)
Argentina, A Shadow you soon will be, 3
Holland, Turkish Delight, 3
Serbia, The Wounds, 1
Ivory Coast, 0

A tough group but Argentina take first place over Holland on goal difference.

Group D – Mexico, Iran, Portugal, Angola

Final Standings (Country, Movie, Total Points)
Iran, And Life Goes On, 3
Portugal, I'm Going Home, 3
Mexico, In the Middle of Nowhere, 1
Angola, 0

Group E – US, Czech Republic, Italy, Ghana

The tightest group in the World Cup ends up being a dud when it comes to the movie world cup. The most commerical choice in this group ended up crashing the party and advances as top of the group into the next round -- Wedding Crashers was the most unlikely choice but it worked in what it tried to achieve, which was not much to begin with but it delievered a few laughs. The biggest disappointment for me was Roberto Benigni's The Tiger and the Snow. No one can dispute the amazing energy Benigni brings to his work but this movie just didn't click. In a soccer game, you can have players with tons of pace but if they can't direct the ball into the net, then all their running amounts to nothing. Which is the same thing I felt about Benigni's work -- too much energy but no end product. Every now and then, you saw glimpses of brilliance and even at the end, I expected things to turn out completely but that was not the option taken. The story was not a fable no matter how much I interpret it to be and as a result, I felt it was a let down. The Czech movie had plenty of promise but I felt the joke was really on the audience. I have Milan Kudera's book by the same name and I am sure the book is great but the movie was bland. In the World Cup as well, the Czech team had so much promise but their efforts fizzled out after the second game. So here are the final standings:

USA, Wedding Crashers, 3
Italy, The Tiger and the Snow, 1
Czech Republic, The Joke, 1
Ghana, 0

Group F – Australia, Japan, Brazil, Croatia

Final Standings (Country, Movie, Total Points)
Brazil , The Middle of the World, 3
Japan, Kwaidan, 3
Australia, He died with a Felafel in his hand, 1
Croatia, Witnesses, 1

Brazil take first place on goal difference.

Group G – South Korea, Togo, France, Switzerland

France finally got their act together in the World Cup and it was because the coach finally made the right selections. As far as the movie cup goes, both France and Korea had strong showings. The Swiss doc was disappointing even though it was a very good effort. It came down to my lack of interest in the topic about the Tibetan Saltmen and since I had seen similar documentaries in the last few years about that part of the world, it didn't seem anything new. In the end, the Korean movie edged out the French movie on goal difference. I never finished watching Lady Vengeance the first time around so I decided to give it a second chance. I am glad I did because it is a very good movie. It is slow at times but manages to show flashes of brilliance throughtout to stay the course. The French movie has good pace (not as good as Thierry Henry's) and is technicall good but the predictable story line loses the fizzle near the end.

Final Standings (Country, Movie, Total Points)
Korea , Lady Vengeance, 3
France, In all Innocence, 3
Switzerland, The Saltmen of Tibet, 1
Togo, 0

Group H – Spain, Ukraine, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia

Final Standings (Country, Movie, Total Points)
Spain , El Bola, 3
Tunisia, Satin Rouge, 3
Ukraine, 0
Saudi Arabia, 0

A very tight duel between Spain and Tunisia but Spain narrowly take first place with the slightest goal difference.

1st Movie World Cup!!!

Ah the craziness starts again! That insane game of futbol is here again to dominate a month in the lives of calcio fans everywhere. But honestly, this is the first time since 1990 that I am not that excited. A huge reason for my lack of enthusiasm is the dull rigged 2002 World Cup. Back then, most of the top players from the European leagues were exhausted by the time the World Cup started. After all, they only had 2 weeks break between the end of their hectic European season and the start of the tournament. As a result, the big teams went out early and other matches were tainted by inept refereeing. So I am a bit cautious about this year’s tournament which starts on Friday, June 9. In order to enhance my football watching experience, I decided to have my own Movie World Cup as the tournament goes on. The rules are simple:

1) Pick a movie from each of the 32 countries playing in the tournament. The first choice is to pick a feature length film. But if no feature can be found, then a documentary from the country will suffice as well.

2) The movies will be put into groups as per the tournament itself. In the World Cup, 32 teams are divided into 8 groups of 4 teams each. The top 2 teams from each group advance to the round of 16, from where the tournament switches to a knock-out format. Meaning, there will be 8 matches in the round of 16, 8 teams would advance to the quarter-finals, 4 to the semi’s and 2 to the final!

3) Once the top 2 movies advance from each group, the movies will compete in the same format as the world cup knockout stage. For example, the movie from top of Group A will play the 2nd place movie in Group B.

4) In the World Cup, each team plays 3 games in the group stage. However, only one movie will be used for the duration of the tournament.

5) Using the pointing system from the World Cup, each movie can get either 3 points (for a good movie), 1 point (average movie) or 0 points (bad film) for their entry.

6) In cases, where a country has no movie entry, it will be defaulted to 0 points.

7) Since the group stage concludes by June 23, all candidate movies should be viewed by June 24!

Sounds easier than it really is. Out of the 32 countries, it will be hard to track down entries for atleast 11 participants. Nations such as Costa Rica, Ecuador, Paraguay and Saudi Arabia aren’t exactly thriving movie industries. In fact, as per imdb.com, Saudi Arabia only made its first length feature this year (on top of that, since the movie was shot in Dubai, it was only recently released in the U.A.E. Chances are that movie has no English subtitles and won’t make it to North America). But the key thing is to find atleast movies for 2 of the countries in each of the 8 groups. That way, there is a chance to go ahead with 16 movies in the next round. And even if a group only has 2 movies, it is still important to rate the movies because if a good movies finishes 2nd in its group, it could get knocked out if it meets a stronger movie in the next round. For example, the 2nd place team from Group E meets the Winner of Group F. Group E consists of Italy, Czech Republic, Ghana, USA; Group F has Brazil, Croatia, Japan, Australia. So potentially you could have a second round where an Italian movie takes on a Brazilian movie or a Brazilian movie goes against the US entry.

I still have not selected all the movies, but I will list the groups (as per the World Cup) and some of the movies I have picked so far. Regarding the selections, I didn’t use a pattern to pick films from each country. Meaning I didn’t try to go for big name directors, award winners or any specific genre. I picked the first movie I could find from each country. Ok I admit, in some cases, it was not the first movie. But I only wanted to pick movies I had never seen or in most cases never heard of. Just like there are surprize results in every World Cup, I too wanted to be shocked by some of my picks.

Note: I will also be comparing how my movie world cup results compare to the actual football games results.

Group A – Germany, Costa Rica, Poland, Ecuador

Germany – Director Werner Herzog's Signs of Life . I had to find another movie because my original picked German language movie, Michael Haneke's Funny Games , turned out to be an Austrian movie.

Poland - Director Andrzej Wajda's Kanal

Group B – England, Paraguay, Trinidad & Tobago, Sweden

England -- Director Gary Wicks's Endgame
Sweden -- Director Ingmar Bergman's Persona

Group C – Argentina, Ivory Coast, Holland, Serbia& Montenegro


Argentina – Director Héctor Olivera’s A Shadow you soon will be
Holland – Director Paul Verhoeven’s Turkish Delight
Serbia – Director Srdjan Dragojevic's The Wounds .

Initially, I had come across the Serbian co-production Somebody’s Else America but I never finished watching it, so it would have been unfair to use that. Even though The Wounds is a German movie, it is a Serbian language movie.

Group D – Mexico, Iran, Portugal, Angola


Iran – Director Abbas Kiarostami’s And Life Goes On
Mexico – Director Hugo Rodríguez’s In the Middle of Nowhere
Portugal - Director Manoel de Oliveira's I'm Going Home

Group E – US, Czech Republic, Italy, Ghana

Italy - Director Roberto Benigni's The Tiger and the Snow .
Of all the choices from Italy, this was an unexpected pick. I was debating between Fellini or Antonioni when I came upon this movie and since I had wanted to see this one, chose this instead.

Czech – Director Jaromil Jires’s The Joke
USA - Director David Dobkin's Wedding Crashers.

The most unlikely choice from the total 32 countries but I needed a light hearted brain dead movie to watch in the middle of all the intense soccer games and foreign movies. That being said, it is unfortunate I chose a commerical film from the country with the largest selection of movies around. But even though this selection will limit the USA's progession in the movie world cup, it is a decent selection. The rest depends on the other movies in this group.

Group F – Australia, Japan, Brazil, Croatia

Brazil - Director Vicente Amorim's In the Middle of the World
Japan – Director Masaki Kobayashi’s Kwaidan
Croatia - Director Vinko Bresan's Witnesses .

I am breaking my rule here in that I am dragging a movie which I had seen previously. But this seemed easier than finding another movie from Croatia.

Australia - Director Richard Lowenstein's He died with a Felafel in his hand.

Once again, I am dragging a previously viewed movie into the running.


Group G – South Korea, Togo, France, Switzerland

France – Director Pierre Jolive’s In all Innocence
South Korea - Director Chan-wook Park's Lady Vengeance .

I wanted to go back and finish watching this movie properly and here's my chance.

Switzerland - Director Ulrike Koch's The Saltmen of Tibet .

This documentary is probably the most unlike choice for a Swiss movie but given that I was having a hard time finding Swiss movies, this German/Swiss co-production had to do.

Group H – Spain, Ukraine, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia

Spain -- Director Achero Mañas's El Bola
Tunisia -- Director Raja Amari's Satin Rouge

Paradise, Hell -- both sides of the same coin!!

Paradise Now (directed by Hany Abu-Assad)

‘The people of one country gave the people of another country the land of the people of the third country’. This is what I remember from my junior high school history class about the definition of appeasement regarding the creation of Israel. Since then, I have understood a lot more about International political games but those words stuck in my mind. Ofcourse, the mentioned definition is outdated now; you won’t find any media outlet using those words. Nope, the world is much more clear cut now – there are good guys and then bad guys. Everything either belongs to the good guys or to the bad guys, and most likely whatever belongs to the bad guys ‘should’ belong to the good guys! Or so we are told. So how does one define the Palestinian situation? Using Newton’s 3rd Law ofcourse -- ‘For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction’. Now the problems arise when we try to define the ‘action’ and the ‘reaction’. Because the western media has one definition of ‘action’ (naming Palestinian acts) but the Arab world sees only one aggressor – Israel. If one were to condense all the violence and political nonsense back to 1948, we have a solid answer -- the creation of Israel was the big-bang event which upset, shook and shaped events in the Middle East! That event led to a stern ‘reaction’ but Israel countered with such strong ‘action’ that the situation only got worse. And each day only adds to the mess.

Documentaries have been brave enough to expose this situation but when it comes to movies, very few have dared to touch this topic. That was until last year. Two movies, Munich and Paradise Now , covered two very different sides of this good-evil issue. Munich presented one side of the ‘Action’ and Paradise Now presented the response. But these definitions are not that clear cut. The incidents in Munich start out with Israel having to respond to the violent actions triggered by Palestinian terrorists. So in one aspect the movie covers both sides of the coin, but from then on, the movie focusses only on a course of 'action'; violence must be fought with violence! But as the film progresses, Eric Bana's character questions his endless killing and it becomes clear to him that violence is not the answer. But that is something other people don't want to hear and in the end, his character finds himself as a hunted target, treated along the same lines as the people he was killing.

That story took place in the 1970's but things are no better now. The suicide bombing techniques from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have filtered to other countries and as a result, the world is no longer a safe place (was it ever to begin with?). And the volatile global situation make Paradise Now a relevant movie. The story is clear cut – two youngsters (Said, Khaled) hope to help the revolution and earn a trip to Paradise by sacrificing their bodies via a very explosive method. The film shows glimpses of their life and the final moments before the two head out to complete their mission. But things go wrong and Said gets a change of heart. Khaled was confident before but Said’s hesitation and logic rubs off on him. Said on the other hand thinks things clearly and emerges with a strong will, ready to carry out his plan. The final scene focuses on his stern eyes and then the camera fades to white. Equally important to both men’s decision is the wonderful Suha (played by the charming Lubna Azabal who starred in Exils and Viva Laldjérie ) who gives both men valuable advice because she saw her father die for the cause and believes suicide is not the answer. One of the most surprizing things about this movie is its humour. The humour is around the absurdity of the missions being carried out and even the methods used. The people sacrificing themselves are forced to read a script and act out their final message, which will be video-taped and sold to people at special rates in video shops. The camera equipment being used is not high-tech so Khaled is asked to repeat his message again, and again until he gets it right. He is given advice by the people running the mission. In fact, the entire mission comes complete with director, producer, script-writer, camera man and even a driver.

Paradise Now is not a movie with heroes nor is it about villains. It is delicately and cleanly shot and is about people who are forced to believe they have no other choice but the option in front of them – human sacrifice. These people have no airplanes to fight back with so they have to use themselves as a weapon. This is not a new argument though. The Battle of Algiers showed the same reason for the use of suicide missions to fight back. That movie, set back in the 50’s when the Algerians took on the French, is much more relevant today than ever. In fact, both Munich and Paradise Now combined together still can’t achieve the brilliance of The Battle of Algiers . If I had to pair a 4th movie with these three titles, it would be the brilliant documentary Checkpoint . The drama shown in that doc is not scripted and that is what makes the events shown even more horrific! The camera is plunked on the side and the daily humiliation and abuse that Palestinians suffer as they attempt to cross one town to another via the countless checkpoints is captured. Of course, the Israeli soldiers are also pawns in the bizarre political game being played as they are merely told to follow nonsensical orders for perpetually changing checkpoints (Kafka would have been proud). Checkpoint is not about ‘action’ or ‘reaction’ but about the causes which will eventually lead to a ‘reactive’ event! These 4 movies may compliment each other but at the end of the day, will anything change? For the sake of humanity, one hopes so! Until then, we can atleast hope that cinema does not resort to lies and deceptions but is brave enough to take complex and touchy issues head-on.

Love, Isabella, Regrets, Thanks, Bettie and Sweet Cyrus

Falling…..in Love (directed by Ming-Tai Wang): Rating 6.5/10

Directly imported from Taiwan, this movie is so new that it has only debuted at one International film festival in 2006. The movie’s summary in a nutshell -- Love hurts, Love causes pain, Love demands sacrifice, Love is based on choices, Love requires patience and Love Kills!!! Alan (Cheng-Lung Lan) is heart-broken after he gets dumped; he falls for another woman, but is un-decided about her. So he drifts into another woman’s lap; his drifting causes his girlfriend heart-aches. Another love story is spliced with the movie and is related to Alan’s tale but the link is not revealed until later on but it is not too hard to guess. The truth is that the movie is nothing special. Wai-kar Wong and Hsiao-hsien Hou have explored such themes enough times already. Sure the movie is technically good but currently most Asian movies look like a work of art anyhow. But if the movie’s story is boring, then there is no point in looking at a dressed up sulking heart-ache!

Isabella (directed by Ho-Cheung Pang): Rating 7/10

Winner of Best Music at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, this is another example of a hyped movie with no story. Once again like Falling…in Love this movie looks good visually but there is nothing to be told. A womanizing police-officer Shing meets his match when he encounters a young beautiful Yan (real-life named actress Isabella Leung). After Shing sleeps with her, Yan claims to be his daughter. Shing can’t figure out if she is lying or not? Either way, he develops a special relationship with Yan. The story is set in 1999 before Macau’s official hand-over from Portugal to China and a wafer-thin plot revolves around this political situation. The hand-over plot is a forced inclusion while Shing drifts around the city with Yan. Sure the beautiful locales of Macau enhance the story’s peaceful mood but it makes no difference as the movie moves too slowly while nothing happens. I am tired of film-makers who think showing a man shaving is art. No there is nothing insightful there but nowadays in films it is fashionable once again to show trivial everyday things and pass them off as art!

Everlasting Regret (directed by Stanley Kwan)

‘When your city is no longer your city, history can turn the right man into the wrong choice’. A movie which starts out with a line like that promises to be interesting, right? The ending line is interesting as well (can’t remember that one right now) but I lost interest in everything shown in the middle. Once again, the movie is competent visually and the story is not that bad but I could not care long enough to continue watching.

Thank You for Smoking (directed by Jason Reitman): Rating 7/10

I had such high expectations from this movie, but in the end it failed to maximize its potential. Given Aaron Eckhart’s sly smooth talking manipulative roles in Neil LaBute’s features ( Your Friends & Neighbours , In the Company of Men ), this movie seemed tailor suited for him -- if Eckhart’s character was going to defend the evil companies, then he had to be quick on his feet and ready to chew up anyone who tried to get in his way while making it look all so innocent and harmless. Unfortunately, his edge is toned down in Thank You.. because the story forces his character to show some compassion and act like a responsible father despite working for the ‘bad’ guys. In this day and age enough books, movies and documentaries have been made about the evil corporations and their methods to spin stories for their own good. So if a satire on this topic has to work, then it has to show intelligence and give new insightful material. Maybe I have the wrong impression about this movie. Maybe this film was only meant to be a character study of a particular lobbyist and nothing else. If that was the case, then why go to all the effort to have the story set in big tobacco? (having not read the novel, I can’t accurately comment on the book to film translation). Whatever the motives in making this movie, I didn’t enjoy it as much. All the best scenes were shown repeatedly in the trailers and the movie didn’t really have anything new to say.

The Notorious Bettie Page (directed by Mary Harron): Rating 8/10

I will get the obvious out of the way – Gretchen Mol is indeed radiant and terrific as Bettie Page and Director Mary Harron has done a really good job of showing Bettie’s innocence as she evolved from a poster pin-up to an actor in S&M/porn movies. Sure it is believable that Bettie was that innocent because she lived in a time when playboy had not yet made its mark and kinky magazines were hidden behind the counters. An example of her innocence -- when the photographer asks Bettie to remove her bikini top, she readily agrees saying that she no see the harm in that. Nor does she see anything wrong in being dressed up in leather, given a riding crop and asked to whip another naked woman. She really was treating her career as just that, while having some fun on the side. This was also a time when the media was not saturated with sexual innuendos and buzzing with the sex lives of film-stars. Bettie led a lonely life and reconciled her career with her religion and love of God. We are given snippets of her life, right from childhood through her college years and how she landed up doing what she did and how she got out of it. There are some good performances in this movie with Lili Taylor once again standing out. I thought Taylor was fantastic in Bent Hamer’s Factotum and once again, she delivers her lines with ease.

Home Sweet Home (directed by Pou-Soi Cheang): Rating 6/10

The Ring showed the terror that lies inside apartments – a tv set and a phone can be pretty menacing; Dark Water showed the dangers lurking in the hallways of mid-size apartment complexes; Ju-on focused on the evil inside houses and elevators. So it was about time that a movie went beyond the walls and illuminated the perils that lay inside the elevator shafts and air ducts of high-rise buildings! Unfortunately, Home Sweet Home fails to do that. The good thing is the movie wastes no time in plunging into action. It takes only 8 minutes for the threat to be exposed – an evil woman, who lives in the depths of the building, kidnaps a young couple’s son. She climbs walls in the elevator shafts and crawls inside the air ducts, but she is not an evil demon – she is a mere mortal with a tragic story. She too was once a mother and the film story eventually becomes a tangle between two mothers (the young boy’s mother is played by Shu Qi). The emotionally sad horror movie is dragged out and a fitting ending restores order in the high-rise complex. But for how long?

Being Cyrus (directed by Homi Adajania): Rating a solid 9/10

A big name cast graces Home Adajania’s debut film. Naseeruddin Shah, Dimple Kapadia, Boman Irani and Saif Ali Khan put in good performances in this polished dark comedy about the crazy Sethna family. Cyrus (Saif Ali) is a self-proclaimed drifter who wants to recount his story about his encounters with the Sethna family. But from the first shot, we are given a clue that things don’t seem as we are being told. If Cyrus claims to be a drifter, then why is a tiny pile of money sitting next to him? One normally does not associate wads of money with a drifter? From then on, we are lead into the world of the Sethna family who Cyrus befriends and becomes a part of. But what Cyrus tells the audience does not seem to go along with what he does. For example, Cyrus claims to be a fan of pottery and is eager to apprentice under Dinshaw Sethna (Shah). But at no point, does Cyrus show an interest in pottery! Nonetheless, I was willing to go on with his story. Until, a dream sequence really sheds light on exactly what the movie might be about. A harmless incident from his childhood is shown but that really indicated where this movie might be going or what exactly was going on. In the end, this is a well made movie. Sometimes, it feels too right as all the shots have been carefully constructed to flush out a story with all the loose ends tied up. Acting wise, Boman Irani once again proves he is good no matter what role is given. Dimple Kapadia still has her charm and Naseeruddin Shah plays his role delightfully (although at times his English dialogues seem forced). Saif Ali Khan finally gets a role away from all the Dil Chahta Hai cookie cutter roles that he is forced to do in Bollywood; in the past, he has proved that he is capable of playing a shady character but this time around, he is a given a role with a real bite. Overall, this was clearly a refreshing change from the usual nonsense that comes out of Bollywood!

Heroes and Thugs

X-Men 3 – The Last Stand? Maybe!

What is the point of reviewing such a movie? Even if the critics trash it (which they did), people will still go in record numbers to see the film (and they did just). In a particular theatre (city X), all the opening day evening screenings were sold out and so the theatre (in its infinite greed) decided to have a special show at midnight just to accommodate all the numbers. Now, considering this multiplex was running shows every 30 minutes (more or less) starting from 11:40 am Friday morning, you would have thought that the line-ups would not have been that bad. But all those timings catered to a variety of crowds and ensured all age groups would be present to see the movie -- the die-hard fan probably could not sleep the night before so he/she might have seen the special Thu Midnight screenings; remaining dedicated fans would have taken Friday afternoon off from work to see the movie; Friday evening was reserved for the Teeny boppers who treated this as a date night flick and the weekend afternoon shows brought in kids between the ages of 8-13. Yes a truly great movie for every age group! So if that is the case, then who the hell cares if this movie is any good or not? Heck, a monkey could have directed this movie. Because the truth is all the hard work in order to build this franchise was done in the first two movies. Bryan Singer, who didn’t return to direct this 3rd installment, build such a good reputation with the first two films, that this movie would have made money no matter what. For example, here are some of the things done right with the first two parts:

1) Casting – It was a brilliant idea to cast the two powerful Brits, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen as the battling foes. There is nothing better on screen than to see two intelligent good friends turn their wits against each other, all the while respecting each other. Then there was the discovery of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine (in fact, his character has grown so much throughout the series that he will have his own spin-off movie); Famke Janssen's presence added to the film’s glamour and beauty and Halle Berry's inclusion ensured crowds (even though she is the least favourite character of mine in the movie).

2) X-Men 101 – The first movie was so basic that anyone could have understood it. That opened the door for people not familiar with the comic book or the cartoon series. The second movie was much better and only added to the interest.

3) Special Effects – Ice, Fire, Storms, Claws, Lasers, Mind waves and other cool super powers ensured that the audiences were treated to amazing special effects in each movie.

So what is X-Men 3 about? And what could this movie possibly offer?

Well it is hard to constantly find plots for humans and mutants to keep fighting each other so the only possible angle left was the anti-mutant gene factor -- for every proton, there is an electron. So for every x-gene mutant, there has to be a gene which can take away (or negate) the x-gene! Sure enough, the humans find the anti-mutant gene and try to ‘cure’ the mutants. Oh-oh. Bad idea!! That leads to yet another political debate about acceptance and tolerance (‘God loves you the way you are’). Ofcourse, all this ties in very well with the spirit of X-Men (the original story was developed with an eye on civil rights) and the story incorporates modern day issues of equality and societal integration of ‘different’ people. New characters with even more cool powers are added, some are killed off and the stage is set for ending it all. But ofcourse, it is difficult to finish this money making series that easily. The teaser clip at the end of the credits gives a taste of possible future movies. But the fact is, if this had to be final movie, it should have had more punch to it. The movie is too tame and even the effects are pointless. The biggest special effect in the movie is when Magneto uses his powers to dislodge the Golden Gate bridge and re-locates it to form a connection to the island prison of Alcatraz so that his army of mutants can get to the prison. Seriously, why this much effort? Would it be un-cool for the mutants to go on speed-boats to the island prison? Could Magneto not have acquired a classy stealth fighter for his gang? Atleast in most other movies, there is a reason for having special effects. In this case, it was absolutely pointless. But what difference does that make? People came to watch the movie and it made tons of money. That is all Hollywood cares for!

Rating -- 6/10

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Election – Voting for Thugs!

The Godfather introduced the cool gangster to the silver-screen. From then on, countless copies were made. Eventually, the winds blew the genre far East where film studios in Japan, Hong Kong and India polished and build on the ideas and crafted their own masterpieces. In recent years, Hong Kong and Japan's quality of this genre has been so high that Hollywood and Bollywood have started making their own copies of these Eastern gangster talkies. Johnny To’s Election is just another addition to this firmly established cool gangster genre. This time around, we are introduced to the inner workings of a triad’s leadership selection process. This particular triad elects its chairman through a democratic process as opposed to having the leader inherit his position through familial ties (like a rival group’s mentioned in the movie). But in reality, democracy is only good on paper. Sooner or later, someone will find ways to manipulate the process and buy the votes. And this is exactly what Big D does in the film. But the elders find out and vote for Lok instead, much to Big D’s dismay. But Lok can’t officially be the chairman until he gets the sacred baton, which has been in the gang for centuries. The movie then moves into a search and hunt film to retrieve the baton (feels very similar to To’s 2003 movie P.T.U which was about a search for a missing gun and had a lot of the same actors as Election ). Back-room dealing ensures that the Baton is properly handed over to Lok. Even that does not ensure forever peace. The movie ends with a feeling of more to come and sure enough, Election 2 premiered this year and even played at Cannes last month. Overall, I really liked this movie even though it has nothing new to offer; the story takes the corrupt model of democracy, mixes it with the Godfather theme and adds a few sprinklings of P.T.U . The final product is an interesting movie, which will surely be copied by Hollywood and Bollywood in the near future.

Rating: 9/10

Simply Taiwan!

One Country, 3 directors, 6 movies! A diverse collection ranging from the colorful past to the murky present!!!

Hou Hsiao-hsien

Until a few months ago, I had never heard of this talented director. But after seeing three of his movies in quick succession, I can understand why he has such a huge following around the world! I first cracked the world of Hou Hsiao-hsien with his highly acclaimed beautiful 2005 flick Three Times which illustrated the director’s full control over every frame as every movement on screen was perfectly orchestrated. Yet, I felt unconvinced about the second (1911 segment) of the three shorts in that movie and felt that it could have been better if it had been shot in black and white as opposed to being rich in color. The first 1966 segment was in simple colors (not too bright) and the final 2005 segment was grayish. I could not understand the bright colors in the middle segment and thought having black and white would have been a better bridge between the two other segments. But all my doubts were banished when I saw the director’s earlier work – the visually scrumptious The Flowers of Shanghai . This is because the 1911 segment in Three Times is along the same lines of the colorful brothel love story shown in The Flowers of Shanghai . That same story was touched upon again in the 1911 segment and it had to be in color, otherwise the richness of the story would have been lost. And within the context of Three Times the 1911 segment had to be without dialogues and had to be with text cards. One of the connecting elements of the three stories in Three Times is the usage of text messages as a form of communication. All the characters use one form of the written word to express their feelings, be it via letters, scrolls or SMS text messages. The audience needed to be brought in the loop as well and the sure fire way to convey that was to let them read the messages itself. And in the case of the 1911 segment, the audience had to do precisely that, whereas in the other two segments, it is the characters doing the reading.

As far as the story of The Flowers of Shanghai is concerned, it centers around the brothels in 1880’s China. Food, drink, games and love is all that takes place. Games are played, the losers have to drink up, food is served and then after that, someone leaves with a girl of their choice. Problems arise when love comes into the equation. A man wants to buy a woman’s freedom but that does not go as per plan. Jealousy and doubts set in, and in the end, heartbreak follows. Sounds simple but it is much more complicated than that. And each emotion, each feeling is captured perfectly. What more can I say? Only that this is an absolutely stunning visual cinematic feast!

Goodbye South, Goodbye

Gangsters go through their complicated lives trying to etch out a better deal and a better future for themselves. At times the movie has shades of Hong Kong gangster/Japanese Yakutza movies but this one stands completely on its own. I quite liked it but not as much as the director’s other two movies. The film gives a glimpse into the lowest rungs of gangster business, a tier where negotiations are made over the kind of chickens to be traded, gambling rackets, family inheritances and other back-room deals. Slow, yet never dull. The camera just waits patiently and allows us to observe what the characters will do next, how they will react and how they will cope.

So overall ratings: Three Times (now updated to 10/10), Flowers of Shanghai (10/10) and Goodbye South, Goodbye (8.5/10)

Tsai Ming-liang

What Time Is It there?

Tick tock. The clock slowly ticks away. Taipei. Paris. What time is it really? Does the time matter? Because what is there to do really? Sell Watches! Wait for things to get better! And wait for the love to return! These things take time, they don’t change overnight. But the expectation that the next hour will be better, that the next day will be different enable the characters to go on. They sit, they wait and they hope. And when they start losing hope, they cling onto something else, something which they feel is better, something which will give them a better chance of happiness. That something might not make sense to an outsider but for the main characters, their lives depend on it. On one side is the boy who sells watches. One day he meets a girl who insists on buying his watch. The girl is leaving for Paris the next day and wants his watch only. She eventually convinces him to sell it to her. After the boy’s father dies, his mother finds it difficult to let go. The boy is afraid of the dark and tries to stay locked up in his room. If he leaves his room, he encounters his mother trying to come up with schemes to welcome the dead father’s spirit back. Meanwhile the girl is lonely in Paris. She longs for home and is relieved when she meets another woman who can speak the same language as her. Meanwhile, the boy is feeling more detached with his life. So he longs for the girl who left for Paris. In hoping to establish a connection with her, he changes the times on all the watches he sells to show Parisian time. In fact, wherever he finds a clock (be it in a hallway or mounted on a building), he tries to switch the time to Paris time (hence the title). He then seeks French movies so as to be closer to her. And his introduction to French cinema starts with 400 Blows . Meanwhile, the girl meets the real life grown up version of the boy from 400 Blows. In a way, sitting on two separate sides of the planet, the two of them connect in a strange way. Different times, but same feeling. The movie moves extremely slowly with long uninterrupted shots of nothingness. But that is exactly the point the movie is trying to make. Nothing happens in these people lives yet they keep waiting for something to happen. The clock on the other hand keeps ticking away.

Rating: 9/10

The Wayward Cloud

A long empty corridor. A woman carries a watermelon across it. Next scene, we see that watermelon cut open in half lying in between a woman’s open legs. A man approaches the watermelon, licks it and ends up achieving penetration of a different kind. The main character is the same who used to sell watches in What Time Is It There but he now acts in porno movies. He meets the returned girl from Paris, who moves into the same apartment block as him. The two of them don’t hook up but continue to admire each other from a distance. Each of them is initially busy trying to beat the heat wave that has covered the city. Water is a scarce resource and the tv news informs the public that it is cheaper to drink watermelon juice as opposed to water because of the abundant supply of watermelons as opposed to water. And this also explains the watermelon motif that keeps reappearing throughout the movie, be it as a song prop or as a sexual tool. The film contains a handful of songs which are very well orchestrated with completely unique props (sexual triggers and even a watermelon beast). The same slow technique as the Ming-liang Tsai’s previous movie is used but the songs lend a different mood to the movie. A bit of comic relief in some cases and in others just a melancholy commentary on the state of things. Overall, I didn’t find this film as interesting as his previous effort but this is a completely unique endeavor with a truly ‘climatic’ ending.

Rating: 8/10

Leon Dai

Twenty Something Taipei

A different shade of Taiwan from all the other movies. On face value, the modern Taipei shown is not as lonely as the other director’s efforts. The capital city is shown to be a vibrant, fast moving metropolitan city complete with drinks, drugs, clubs and liberal sex. Someone hooks up with one person, then another, switches partners and continues. While the fast paced music continues to throb in the background. In between is a sweet budding romance. The characters aren’t unique to Taipei but could easily inhabit Mumbai, New York, London or another major city. And despite the differences this movie has with the above 5 movies, there is a tiny segment which overlaps with Hsiao-hsien Hou’s Three Times . His 2005 segment has a lesbian love story which is clearly found in the middle of Twenty Something Taipei. Now, it may seem like a stretch to try to connect these two separate movies but it goes to show that both directors had a similar source which they worked off and both wanted to show a modern view of their city where a newer generation is growing up.

Rating: 7.5/10 . Not a bad movie. Cliched, yes! But entertaining nonetheless!!

CIAFF Festival wrap-up notes:

It is over, finally!! So was the festival worth is? Yes. When does one get a chance to build a film festival from ground up? And this festival was indeed started from nothing. Movie invites were sent to Asian movies all around the world. Plenty of responses were received and as expected many chose to not send their movies over. Money kept a lot of established movies out of reach (like Three Times) and on other occasions the smallness of the film festival kept a lot of distributors away. Some movies pulled out because they were selected for TIFF and wanted to have their Canadian premier there instead. But in the end, despite all the hurdles, the movie lineup was fantastic. Strong features included Red Doors, Kiều, Electric Shadows . The docs were powerful and eye-opening -- China Blue, Bombay Calling, Continuous Journey, In the Shadow of Gold Mountain, Slanted Screen . The shorts were carefully selected and put together in segments which complemented each other. For example, The Beyond Asia Selection was so named because it contained works which stretched the traditional Asian themes normally shown on screen -- Hiro, Wake, Shui Hen, System of Units, The Time is Now, Aunty Gs and Three Sisters of Moon Lake were all perfect selections. There was another short segment aimed towards Food and Memory themes with Grace Lee’s Best of Wurst being the pick of the lot.

But the biggest problem with starting a new film festival is getting the word out. And the crowds were very disappointing for some of the bigger features. The good weather, the theatre locations (hard to find parking) might have been other factors but the simple truth could have been is that people were just not interested. When the words ‘Asian Film Festival’ are mentioned, people might get an aversion to what is shown. The truth is that the festival covered movies from Pan Asian countries or movies from people of Pan Asian decent. This meant the pool to select movies from ran as deep from Iran to Japan, India to Indonesia and even included Canada, US and the UK. And as it turned out, the movies selected were quite diverse in their Asian themes – the films selected were either by Asian film-makers or North American film-makers of Asian decent or even movies which contained Asians in leading roles (and not stereo-typical 20 second roles that Hollywood offers). The cinematic showcased countries were Canada, US, Singapore, Germany, Scotland, UK, China, Taiwan, Vietnam, India, Japan, Korea and Philippines -- hardly an easy to label batch of films. But it is a learning experience and hopefully next year, better pre-planning would result in better turn-outs.

The Return of Recreational Movie watching

Having finished programming movies for the Asian Film Festival, I finally have the time to again watch movies subjectively. Here is a quick score-card of some recent talkies:
(note: because of restrictions with publishing in this blog, I can't use my html table and have to present the data in this ugly format)

Film : (Year, Director, Rating out of 10)
15 Park Avenue: (2005, Aparna Sen, 10)
Three Times : (2005, Hsiao-hsien Hou, 9)
Sitcom : (1998, François Ozon, 8.5)
The Weather Man : (2005, Gore Verbinski, 8)
Secuestro Express : (2005, Jonathan Jakubowicz, 8.5)
Goal! : (2005, Danny Cannon, 7.5)
The Statement : (2003, Norman Jewison, 6)
The 40 Year Old Virgin:(2005, Judd Apatow, 4)
Phantom of the Opera: (2004, Joel Schumacher, 6)
Marebito: (2004, Takashi Shimizu, 5)
Il Mare: (2001, Hyun-seung Lee, 6.5)
Myth: (2005, Stanley Tong, 6.5)
Bridget Jones,EOR: (2005, Beeban Kidron, 5.5)

15 Park Avenue was a movie that I was looking forward to for a while. And that was only because I had loved writer, director Aparna Sen’s last effort -- Mr and Mrs. Iyer. In my mind Mr and Mrs Iyer was a perfect Indian movie which did justice to the complex and diverse Indian landscape. So after a gap of almost 3 years, Sen returns with a stellar cast in 15 Park Avenue, bringing back her talented daughter Konkana and Rahul Bose from Iyer and adding talented veterans such as Shabana Azmi to the mix. In terms of a story, 15 Park is almost identical to Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mera. Both movies deal with a schizophrenic character and their turbulent familial relationship. But the most striking difference in the two movies is in the ending. Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mera’s ending tries to find a solution and ends on a hopeful note. But 15 Park’s ending is open ended with no possibilities of an attempted solution. In reality, 15 Park’s ending reminded me of the final shot in the smart French film, Caché. Even though the two movies ending consisted of continuous shots, there is a not so subtle difference. In the last shot of Caché, the viewer has to look closely past the assembled crowd to make sense of a possible clue or something. But in 15 Park, the final shot is devoid of any crowd. As the final frame comes on the screen, the crowd has disappeared. We are shown a long shot of an empty street, with an empty house. The absence of any activity might be the clue, whereas in Caché, the activity in the final shot was the clue. My theory on 15 Park’s ending is probably as far fetched from any reasonable meaning but here goes – Shabana’s character teaches Quantum physics in the movie and that is where I believe lies the clue to the ending. If a character is searching for a non-existent address in a city, then what does it mean if the character finds that address? Does it mean that character has ceased to exist or has their character crossed a space-time warp into an alternate reality? But there is a problem with the space-time ending. Rahul Bose’s character cannot be present in two places at the same time, so if he is present at the fictional address then that means the ending signifies that the main character has ceased to exist. In Caché, the ending does not come as a surprise. This is because the entire movie is built on still images and long continuous shots. But 15 Park is based on conversations and chatter (both real and imaginary) throughout the movie and the ending signifies utter peace, complete silence. The silence is broken only for a few seconds when a boy walks by whistling but it is a peaceful noise. Other than that, all is silent. Finally, the voices can be heard no more!

I admit I didn’t know of Hsiao-hsien Hou until last year when I heard about Three Times. Now having seen that movie, I can understand why he has such a following. Three Times is a gorgeous movie. 2 actors, 3 different love stories in 3 different eras – 1911, 1966 and 2005. I found the 1911 segment the weakest but it is also very inventive. Hsiao-hsien Hou recreates the silent movie era complete with placards shown on screen after the characters talk. Instead of having the segment in black and white, Hsiao-hsien Hou opts for vibrant colours. I do wonder what affect having the segment in black and white would have had to the movie’s flow. Would it have broken the flow or would it have formed a bridge in between the semi-colorful 1966 opening segment and the grayish 2005 segment? But this is a minor niggly point in such beautifully shot movie. In all 3 segments the lovers communicate with written words. In 1966, they use hand written letters. 1911 features written scrolls and in 2005, the words are exchanged via SMS text messages. The end result is the same in all 3 methods – the need to communicate and express one’s feelings for the other. My favourite segment was the 1966 segment which clearly had the feel of a Wong Kar-Wai movie like Chunking Express or Days of Being Wild (only the first 20 minutes or so). I decided to get a few of Hsiao-hsien Hou’s older movies and once I am done those, I will put up a separate article on him.

The only reason I rented Sitcom was because of François Ozon. Ozon’s movies are so interesting (8 Women, 5 x 2, Swimming Pool) as they represent different facets of human emotions. And I was not disappointed with Sitcom. It is such a hilarious take on the complicated familial dynamics that it makes American Beauty look like a simple and plain movie. In Sitcom, we meet a somber quiet father, a bubbly aging mother, a quiet introvert son and a young vivacious daughter. Added to the mix are the rich maid and her black husband. And then there is the evil hamster who in reality is a personification of the evil father who is out to ruin the family. Not like the family need any help in messing things up for themselves. Presenting Exhibit A -- the son claims to be gay, the maid’s husband checks to see if the boy is really gay by kissing him (and other stuff unseen by the camera), the mother tries to make the son normal by sleeping with him, the daughter attempts to kill herself. Truly a sitcom with a twist!

The Weather Man – gloomy yet bright. Huh? As Bill Murray has perfected the dead pan look, Nicolas Cage seems to be right at home with the depressive aging man. The only question I have is whether weather men are paid as much as shown in the movie? (upwards of a million dollars).

Secuestro Express – Express Kidnappings in Caracas! I had expected this movie to be much worse but I ended up liking it. A well to do middle class couple get kidnapped for some fast cash but their kidnapping does not go as per plan. Nothing earth shattering about the movie but it moves at a brisk pace.

Goal – An American movie about Soccer! Is that a joke? And that too a rags to riches story about a Mexican kid who moves from LA to play for Newcastle United. No wonder this movie was ripped to shreds in the British Press. I seriously expected a typical clichéd Hollywood movie. And yes it is indeed clichéd. But after the first 20 minutes, I ended up liking it. It has a good heart and a few scenarios made the movie feel a bit genuine, like the digitally altered scenes and the Manager character. The digitally altered soccer crowd scenes looked good and having real players on display made it seem a little bit genuine; having a soccer manager clearly modeled after Arsène Wenger was something that I appreciated. If in real life Arsenal's manager, Wenger took on an unknown player such as Kolo Toure from the Ivory Coast only based on what his friend told him, then it is not that far fetched that in the movie Santiago could get a try out with Newcastle. Yeah it still sounds improbable but in the movie, it seemed to work. The movie is not a work of art but it is pure fun.

The other movies were mostly passable. 40 Year Old Virgin is boring and plain dull. My biggest problem with that movie was that the lead was horrible. If they had gotten Ben Stiller for the title role, they maybe the movie might have been better. Oddly, after finding the first 35 minutes horrible, I ended up not disliking the rest. Either I got used to the dullness or I was able to channel out the dumbness. Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason is identical to the first movie expect with different locales. The first movie was funny but the second one is not! The Jackie Chan movie Myth is essentially about a male Tomb Raider running around searching for famed treasures. The only newsworthy thing in the movie might be the quick topless shot of the Bollywood actress Mallika Sherawat. She can’t act in a Bollywood movie and in Myth she actually manages to be worse. But she is finally able to display her topless front side to the camera whereas only her naked back makes it on Bollywood celluloid. Ofcourse, the typical stereotypical image of India is shown in the movie – a land of spirituality, sensuality, dancing women ready to shed their clothes off, snake charmers and cheating saints.

That’s a wrap!