292. US film director Jim Jarmusch's 15th feature film "Father Mother Sister Brother" (2025), based on yet another of his original witty, thoughtful screenplays, this time focusing on contemporary grown-up family relationships

 

Can you toast with tea, though?

 --the film's character Jeff (Adam Driver) playing the role of a son, following a toast by his father raising three glasses of water, some with ice cubes (geographical location: New Jersey, USA)

Can you toast with coffee?

--the film's character Billy (Luka Sabbat) another son of another father in the film asks his sister (geographical location: Paris, France)

In the third and final segment, the act of drinking water is described wistfully by the siblings as native Indian medicine, a symbolic cure to transcend their personla grief and move forward 

There are three top-notch living US film directors who fall in the category of independent filmmakers: Terrence Malick, Jim Jarmusch and John Sayles. They do not compromise with demands of the big studios and influential film producers on creativity, originality and ownership of their final products. None of these three gentlemen won an Oscar. In contrast, the first two have won major awards at the big three film festivals of Europe: Terrence Malick won the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) for The Tree of Life at Cannes, the Golden Bear for Best Film for The Thin Red Line at Berlin, while Jim Jarmusch won the 2025 Golden Lion for the Best Film for Father Mother Sister Brother at Venice, the 2005 Grand Prize of the Jury at the Cannes festival (second best film in competition) for Broken Flowers and an award for best artistic contribution for Mystery Train at the 1989 Cannes festival; while the best work of John Sayles (in my view), Limbo, was nominated in 1999 for the Golden Palm at Cannes. 

However there are differences between the three independent US filmmakers. Malick deals with contemplative philosophy and theology--so much so that audiences were confused when The Thin Red Line replaced conventional action of war films with philosophical questions presented as voice-overs playing within the minds of soldiers depicted in the film. Further, Malick continued to replace conventional screenplays with sheafs of notes for actors as a guide for them to emote. Malick had graduated from Harvard University, almost completed his doctorate on Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein at Oxford University in UK before he disagreed with his doctoral advisor, and subsequently taught philosophy at MIT. 

Jarmusch is slightly different. He focusses instead on slow and funny conversations he writes for his fictional characters that is best appreciated when audiences pay attention to details, which when stitched together can provide awesome entertainment rarely encountered in cinema. Jarmusch was a student of English language at Columbia University. His skills are considerably apparent in Father Mother Sister Brother while introducing the idiom "Bob's your uncle" which basically translates as "simple as that." A genuine reaction in the film by another character who is not familiar with the idiom is a surprised query about who is this Bob to which the response is only silence. In another segment of the film, "Bob's your uncle" is changed to "Your uncle's name is Robert" because the speaker is a more accomplished mother (Charlotte Rampling) compared to the unrelated previous parent in the earlier segment and a successful writer and thus one will note the subtle change used in the idiom, is appropriate for her social standing. Jarmusch's care for details is almost invisible but exists, nevertheless, for us to notice, if we care to concentrate. Similarly, all segments of the film have characters using the term/gag "Nowheresville," to emphasize detachment, secretiveness, aimless drifting, and/or emotional distance between family members.

Grown-up son Jeff (Adam Driver) and grown-up daughter 
Emily (Mayim Bialik) listen to their father, who they respect
but do not know sufficiently.

The reclusive father (Tom Waits), who works on "projects,"
hurriedly transforms a tidy house with a good sofa 
by covering it with a sheet as though it was hiding a bad one and  strews books
of Chomsky and others of that caliber to give an impression of a lonely,
scatterbrained senior, who can only offer water to his visiting offspring

In each of the three almost unconnected segments, the three different sets of grown-up progenies encounter young skateboarders on the road and the reactions of each progeny is in subtle ways different. Rolex watches of three different wearers in each segment are discussed, two claim they are fake (a debatable fact), and one wearer is no longer alive. 

Father Mother Sister Brother is an intelligent, carefully crafted study of contemporary distancing between parents and their grown-up progenies as social and economic issues make sons and daughters live away from their parents leading to infrequent interactions, limited often by costs and distance. All progenies care for their parents, few help them financially, others don't especially when their spouses object. They grow up often unaware of what their parents do or achieved in their lives. As Jarmusch's film suggests, the secretive lives pervade both generations equally, both suspecting the other but careful to be not too invasive of the other. In one segment it is the father, in another it is a daughter, and in yet another it is both parents who have secret lives that enable them to own Rolex watches, facts that are hidden from others in the family. In a broader sense, the film is a witty, original cinematic essay on the need for more communication within families which is increasingly difficult in the developed world. Jarmusch has proved himself to be adept at the anthology film format with his equally well-made films: Night on Earth; Coffee and Cigarettes; and Mystery Train.

Two daughters, Timothea (center; Cate Blanchett) and
Lilith (right; Vicky Krieps)
visit their successful mother (left; Charlotte Rampling)

It is quite possible that Jarmusch named one of the grown-up daughters "Lilith" with the full knowledge of the name chosen of a character in the film. In the Bible, there is only one mention of Lilith (Isaiah 34:14), implying a demonic character. However, in the medieval text The Alphabet of Ben Sira (written between 8th to 10th century CE),  Lilith was created from the same dust as Adam, had demanded equality with Adam in the Garden of Eden, specifically refusing to lie beneath Adam, and left Eden refusing to return even when God sent angels to bring her back and was eventually considered a demon, as mentioned in Isaiah. For Jarmusch, his Lilith in the second segment Mother has parallels with this aforementioned tale. The mother (Rampling) is worried about her daughter Lilith (Vicky Krieps). Lilith tells her mother candidly, "I don't know, you know, if I want to be tied to a man." It fits in with the images of Lilith's actions before that statement. She is driven to her mother's home by a close female friend, and Lilith asks her to pretend being a Uber driver with Lilith as a passenger, and moves to the rear seat from the front before reaching the destination. It is Lilith making the decisions, her female friend quietly obeys. Lilith gets her mother to order and pay for the return Uber journey, which her mother can see through, silently. More of Lilith's character is exposed when she gallantly offers to take the coat of her sister Timothea (Cate Blanchett) on her arrival at the mother's house, which Timothea accedes to. But instead of carefully hanging Timothea's coat, she casually throws it on an armchair. Then there is a conversation about Lilith's Rolex watch, which she claims is not real. This Jarmusch film is full of details waiting for the audience to note and savor.

Grieving brother Billy (Luka Sabbat) and sister (Indya Moore),
 who loved their parents who recently died in an air crash,
are surprised to find several fake IDs of their parents, including a
Rolex watch, opening up new perspectives of their parents 

Initially, Father Mother Sister Brother was offered to the 2025 Cannes film festival for its main Competition section. Strangely, the selection committee favored other films and instead offered to screen the film out of competition. The angry Jarmusch withdrew his film from Cannes and offered it to the Venice film festival that was opening a few months later. Father Mother Sister Brother not only got included in the main Competition Section at Venice but won the top prize there -- the Golden Lion. It only shows the Cannes' selection committee was looking at a gift horse in the mouth! Congratulations, Mr Jarmusch! 

It is another matter that the US Oscars never nominated Jarmusch as a director, writer or producer. Another case of a prophet never being recognized in his own land!

P.S.  Jarmusch's film Paterson (2016) has been reviewed earlier on this blog. Malick's The Thin Red Line; The Tree of Life; To the Wonder; Days of Heaven; and  Knight of Cups have also been reviewed earlier on this blog. (Click on the names of each film mentioned in the postscript to access the reviews.)  The author's ranking of all Jarmusch films that he has viewed can be accessed here The author's ranking of the best films released in 2025 can be accessed here.

 

291. Italian film director Paolo Sorrentino's 10th feature film "Grace" (La Grazia) (2025) in Italian, based on his original screenplay: Grace is the beauty of doubt

 

God suggests questions and carefully avoids giving answers. It is not our task to provide answers. It is not the task of science to provide answers.

-- A fictional black Pope advising his troubled fictional friend and President of Italy

The Silver Hugo for the Best Screenplay goes to Paolo Sorrentino for Grace because the auteur made words become flesh of the film; for the creation of wonderful characters; and a story that feels spontaneous yet precise in its depiction of power, its moral dilemmas, and the absurd contradictions with the human condition.

-- The citation for the Silver Hugo awarded by the 2025 Chicago Film Festival, USA

 

Director Paolo Sorrentino is arguably the best Italian filmmaker alive and active.  What makes his works stand out from his Italian contemporaries is that his films are based on his own original screenplays. He also loves to team up with his favorite actor Toni Servillo ever since they worked on Sorrentino's early work Consequences of Love (2004); Grace is Sorrentino's seventh feature film where Servillo adds immense value to the director's work. So too, many of Sorrentino's screenplays are connected with his favorite writer the French novelist Louis-Ferdinand Céline, who viewed 'doubt' not as an obstacle to creation, but as the painful, inescapable reality of the human condition. His writings suggest that we must continuously choose between comforting lies and the relentless, often agonizing "truth." In Consequences of Love, two young girls read out a passage from a Céline's book in earshot of the male protagonist in the film played by Servillo. Doubt resurfaces as the main theme of Grace 22 years and a dozen Sorrentino films later.

In Grace, Sorrentino creates a fictional contemporary Italian President De Santis (Servillo), a widower and a former lawyer, who is in the final months of his elected Presidency and awaiting imminent retirement as an ordinary citizen. The President is loved and respected by the Italian citizens as he averted six crises during his tenure and has gained the nick-name "Reinforced Concrete." There is a connection for Sorrentino viewers to recall the unforgettable ending of the lead character's life in Sorrentino's early film Consequences of Love which shows the lead character buried alive in liquid concrete mixture.  Sorrentino's fictional President Mariano De Santis in Grace is apparently modeled on two real life Italian Presidents--Sandro Pertini, who had a nick-name "Hard Concrete" and another recent one, President Sergio Mattarella, who had his daughter accompanying him during key functions. Sorrentino's fictional President De Santis also has a daughter, Dorotea, a lawyer, who helps him on crucial official matters.

The President (Servillo) and daughter Dorotea (Anna Ferzetti)

Sorrentino's President in Grace, apart from his normal ceremonial duties, has three important decisions to make before he demits office. There are two convicts awarded death sentence by the courts in separate cases which have led to mercy requests from the public to the Italian President for clemency. One convict killed his wife suffering from Alzheimer's disease to reduce her suffering akin to a private act of euthanasia. The other convict killed her husband who was making her married life miserable because of his psychologically warped demands. The third decision relates to making euthanasia legal. There is much to ponder on the last one: assent would make the President a murderer to many Italians including his friend the Pope, who amusingly prefers to ride a motorbike without accompanying Swiss guards in sight and not in a Pope-mobile--aspects of comedy that one can expect in all Sorrentino films. Rejection of the euthanasia bill the President realizes would be tantamount to torture. Sorrentino's script adds a quaint parallel situation nearer to him where the President's favorite horse lies down and refuses to get up and its trainer suggests that it is time to put it to sleep--another case of euthanasia, this time of an animal. The President does not allow it, when it comes to his favorite steed.

Making a decision is never easy for the President--
there are doubts galore

Sorrentino adds yet another "doubt" factor into his tale--the President knew his wife was unfaithful to him and that person was someone close to him--with no further clues. Yet the President continues to love his dead wife, irrespective of her infidelity, who seemed walk on air as though she was free of gravity's pull. The troubled President states in the film "I would like to dream about lack of gravity." That statement is connected with the President's friend currently in a spaceship, their conversation and with a tear drop of the space traveler falling on the camera. Grace does indeed reveal the identity of the President's wife's lover, who is a trusted friend of President De Santis with a touch of comedy that has a typical Sorrentino comic touch that his fans will love. As the fictional Pope in the film remarks to his friend the President: "We weren't clever; we were elegant."

All of Sorrentino's work are elegant; Grace is no exception.

P.S. Grace did not win the Golden Lion at the 2025 Venice Film Festival while competing in the main section--it lost out to the US film Father Mother Sister Brother, directed by Jim Jarmusch. Grace did win, at the same festival other awards, in the main competition for Best Actor (Servillo) and for Best Production Manager (Elda Baldi), and several collateral Pasinetti awards for best Film, Actor, and Actress chosen among all Italian film shown at the festival. Four Sorrentino films have been reviewed earlier on this blog: Consequences of Love (2004); This Must Be the Place (2011); The Great Beauty (2013); and Youth (2015). Mr Sorrentino is one of the author's favorite active filmmakers. This Must be the Place and Youth are two Sorrentino films made in English, with Hollywood/British actors. (Please click on the names of the Sorrentino films in the post-script to access their reviews on this blog.)

290. The late Hungarian director Béla Tarr's seventh feature film "Kárhozat" (Damnation) (1988): The first of six amazing Tarr films in collaboration with the 2025 Nobel literature prize-winner László Krasznahorkai

 

 

Director Béla Tarr is someone who "created colors by making them disappear" (a trite reference to his black-and-white films) and as an artist who, in his films, "tried to speak as the sinner who, nevertheless, with all his sins, must still be loved." 

---Nobel literature prize-winner László Krasznahorkai in his Nobel banquet speech on 10 Dec 2025. Bela Tarr died on 6 Jan 2026.

There is a marked difference between the films Béla Tarr made before Damnation and thereafter--a significant shift thanks to his new partnership with co-scriptwriter Krasznahorkai, a shift reminiscent of the beginning of  the collaboration between Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski and his new co-scriptwriter Krzysztof Piesiewicz from 1985 till Kieslowski's death in March 1996. The two distinct collaborations (in two different but geographically close countries) produced amazing cinematic works weaving strands of philosophy, theology, politics and sociology. Damnation is indeed a film by and on a "sinner, who nevertheless, with all his sins, must still be loved," as his friend  Krasznahorkai described it so appropriately in his Nobel banquet speech.

There are very few spoken words are economically used but the camera does the talking instead. When Tarr shows his main character Karrer, alone in his apartment, staring out of a window at a ropeway carrying coal for a long while, the viewer is forced to decipher Karrer's possible thoughts. That is how Damnation works. The viewer has empathize with the human beings, the environment, social interactions, such that a thinking viewer can grasp the existential elements, scene by scene. Aspects of alienation and existentialism drenches the film just as the rain on the ground in the film.

Damnation is set in a nameless Hungarian town where the climate is rainy, damp, with few children but populated more with stray dogs living in harmony with the human population. Evidently there is a coal mine nearby as a ropeway is continuously transporting coal somewhere. The only vehicle shown in the film is a car belonging to the family of a key character. For a small town, there are several bars, where the towns population converge in the evenings. The main protagonist is called Karrer who appears to be unemployed but is served drinks at the bars without payment. Everyone in the film is sullen and stare mid-distance without purpose, unless there is dance and merrymaking in one of the bars. Economic development apparently is at a standstill. Smuggling of some unnamed goods appear to be an attraction for some. Evidently this tale set is Hungary prior to glasnost.

Karrer staring, without purpose. out of his window at 
the coal ropeway contemplating his bleak existence

In this film, Karrer fits the description of a sinner "who with all his sins must still be loved." Karrer is hopelessly involved in an illicit affair with a married woman who sings at a bar ominously named "Titanic Bar." Everything in the film seems to point to tragedy. The film introduces the viewer the to lady first with her voice and later her to her visage. The song she sings underscores the socio-political situation in the film. It is an absolutely stunning sequence, in which her song sung in a bleak surrounding states "It is finished. It's all over. There won't be another....it is like a nightmare. Where is somebody new? Where will he come from? Or won't he come? ...It is good that utopia exists. It's good to know I won't be here long." Here the viewer is re-introduced to existentialist queries similar to Karrer's stare out of the window at the ropeway this time thanks to the words of the song and the minimalistic music.

The illicit lovers 

The theological intervention/warning to Karrer comes later in the narrative from the elderly well-meaning cloakroom woman at the Titanic bar who has noticed the illicit affair when she confronts Karrer, near the building where his lover lives, and advises the down-and-out depressed Karrer to mend  his ways by quoting the Old Testament book of Ezekiel, Chapter 7:14-19. Karrer ignores her and proceeds to his lovers' residence. 

The well-meaning elderly cloakroom woman

Visually Damnation is emphasizing rain in black-and-white. Rain splattering a dry wall and wetting it gradually is not merely beautiful but metaphorically captures the essence of depressing life in a small unknown town in Hungary that offers few options for its population to improve their lot except by visiting bars, by playing billiards, and by moping about their social predicaments.

Rainfall forming shapes on a dry wall

A dog enjoys the rainy puddle outside the bar

 

Some escape the rain by dancing inside the bar...

...and there are loners who enjoy the rain by dancing in the open.

The rain in Damnation recalls the metaphoric use of rain in the 1971 Indian film Ashad Ka Ek Din (One day before the rainy season) directed by Mani Kaul and adapted from Mohan Rakesh's first Hindi play that had challenged and changed the quality of Hindi drama considerably from then onwards. That play was about a real poet and playwright called Kalidasa, who lived in India, 15 centuries before Rakesh and had a love affair with a woman that did not end well. The film of the Mohan Rakesh play begins with Mallika, its female lead drenched in rain followed by moody and drenched atmosphere throughout with little or no sunshine in the entire film. That is indeed similar to the feel and structure of Damnation. Both films have rain in many sequences and both have a tale of love between a man and a woman that does not end well.

Apart from the cloakroom woman's impromptu recollection of the Biblical passage from the book of Ezekiel for Karrer to mend his ways, the final segments of Damnation recalls the actions parallel to those of Judas Iscariot in the Bible. After Karrer notes that his lover has left the bar with her husband, we are shown Karrer at the police station, revealing smuggling activities of his lover's husband that Karrer had suggested to him for Karrer's own benefit.

Karrer at the police station providing smuggling evidence
against his lover's husband

And like Judas, he ends up in a Potter's Field (Akeldama or where the sinners/outcasts were buried in Jerusalem in Jesus' time). Karrer's betrayal of the husband, does not get him his lover, but only secures his own social, spiritual and metaphorical descent into the rainy mud. Karrer's barking like dog at a real dog is provides an image of the burial of Karrer's humanity while alive. The film ends with a close-up of a lump of mud.

Karrer barking at a dog in the empty muddy field

What will puzzle the viewer  of the film is how much of the script belongs to Bela Tarr and how much to László Krasznahorkai. The script was not based on any written work of Krasznahorkai but was a joint original screenplay of both members of the creative team, with Tarr's name appearing above that of Krasznahorkai in the film's credits.

P.S. Mani Kaul's film Ashad Ka Ek Din (1971), mentioned in the above review, is one of the author's favorite Indian films.

289. Iranian director Jafar Panahi's 14th feature film "It was Just an Accident" (Yek tasadof-e sadeh) (2025) (Iran), based on his original screenplay: Can sadistically tortured and dehumanized prisoners forgive their former tormentor in a prison when the tables are turned much later?

 

You killed me a hundred times. Have you forgotten? I am a zombie. One of the living dead.,,,Why did you destroy our lives?

              --Vahid, a former victim of the sadistic Eghbal, a prison official, now confronting him

Film directors Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof are without doubt the two most celebrated living Iranian film directors in the world, Both have the dubious distinction of being imprisoned several times in Iran. Their crime--they make films that present the internal problems of their country to the whole wide world, indirectly criticizing political repression of the common man. Panahi has won the very top honors at Cannes (for It was Just an Accident), Berlin (for Taxi) and Venice film festivals (for No Bears and for The Circle) --the most respected film festivals in the world. Rasoulof won the top honor at Berlin for There is No Evil and several major awards at Cannes. One cannot but admire these two gentlemen continuing to make superb films, often surreptitiously and smuggling the film they made out of Iran to be shown at major festivals.

The original screenplay and the film are the very best among all the films made by Jafar Panahi to date. The film begins with a car ride in the night in a poorly lit road, with a father, a mother, and their young daughter in the backseat. The car hits a dog, killing it. The wife comforts the husband with the words "It was just an accident." Hence, the title of the film. Panahi's screenplay telescopes that simple accident to what follows. Cinephiles who have seen the Turkish maestro Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Three Monkeys (2008) will recall a similar car accident in the night early in the film, also telescoping and connecting it to the complex tale that follows.

"Eghbal" insists he is not Eghbal to Vahid

What follows is a complex tale of several male and female prisoners, who were incarcerated in an Iranian prison, now freed but traumatized for life by the sadistic torture, while blindfolded, of a notorious prison official named Eghbal, with a prosthetic leg. One of the prisoners, Vahid, recognizes Eghbal by the audio signature of Eghbal's prosthetic leg, which is etched in one's memory when you are blindfolded. Other blindfolded victims of Eghbal recognize him by smell and touch.

Shiva, the photographer, identifies Eghbal by smell
but is not very sure

Hamid is able to identify Eghbal by touch

What follows is a creative tale scripted by Panahi, with the prisoners who have never interacted before narrating chilling tales of torture of inmates in Iranian prisons. What Panahi presents includes a cameo of the world of corrupt policemen who ask for small bribes in Iran. 

Panahi's well-crafted screenplay brings back the threesome in the car at night who witnessed their car run over a dog, at the beginning of the film, into perspective, as the tale progresses towards the end.

The end of It was Just an Accident is open-ended but the options available to all humane individuals in Iran are universally applicable. This film is definitely one of the very best films of 2025 and an appropriate subject to ruminate on when fear and hate are being increasingly experienced worldwide. It is the very best and most complex work of Jafar Panahi to date, a work that Iranian cinema can truly be proud of for a long while. One has to admire the courage of Panahi and Rasoulof to accomplish their feats under constant fear of imprisonment.

P.S. The films mentioned in the above review--Taxi, The Circle, There is No Evil, and Three Monkeys --have been reviewed earlier on this blog. Click on the names of the films in this postscript to access those reviews,

288. Georgian director Dea Kulumbegashivili's second feature film "April" (2024) (in Georgian language) based on her own original screenplay: Can moral beliefs to help the poor and needy override the laws of the land and put one's career in jeopardy?

Do you understand how laws work? You will have no more patients; you will not have a job. Even if you are not arrested, you will be ruined. If you want to work, you have to obey the laws. Sometimes, the law may go against our moral beliefs.

-- Head doctor of obstetrician/gynecologist at Nina's hospital asks Nina the gynecologist, who conducts free extra-curricular abortions for the poor and needy in rural Georgia

This Georgian (the country, not the US state with the same name) film will grip any cinephile exposed to rapidly evolving contemporary cinematic grammar from start to finish. Dea Kulumbegahivili's film expresses its narrative through visuals (fascinating cinematography of Arseni Kachaturan) and music (young award-winning composer Matthew Herbert) minimally relying on spoken dialog.

Early in the film, we see a mysterious inexplicable somewhat-human ash-colored grotesque figure from the rear without clothes, breathing heavily heading towards water-bodies in semi-darkness. Initially nothing is explained to the viewer except that the heavy breathing on the soundtrack resembles human breathing. Cinephiles will recall the image of the literal goat-headed, horned figure of a devil with an arrow-shaped tail, carrying a toolbox, entering a sleeping household in Mexico in Carlos Reygadas' Post Tenebras Lux (2012) at night. Reygadas' followers inferred that unusual surreal image to be an allegorical representation of the entry of corruption into an innocent family's house bypassing sleeping children in their bedroom enroute to their parents' bedroom. Both the Mexican and the Georgian films begin with visuals of rain and mud. In both films, the images only make sense to a perceptive viewer as the film's narrative progresses, forcing the viewer to connect earlier images with the information provided much later, helping put the earlier mysterious sequences in context. Both the Mexican and the Georgian directors are reinforcing a film grammar rarely used in commercial cinema, but had existed in bits of the early works of Bunuel (e,g., Un Chien Andalou,1929) and of Herzog (e.g., the visually stunning flow of rats in Nosferatu the Vampyre made in 1979).

In the Georgian film, April, the bizarre opening sequence is linked with an early incident in the life of  Nina, a gynecologist in a government hospital, who is the film's main protagonist, revealed much later in the film  when as a young girl she was scared stiff to rescue her female friend who was drowning in a water-body. That inaction on her part scars her moral conscience in diverse ways. First, she rejects a possible marriage with a male gynecologist, who likes and appreciates her as a person and as a very capable and trustworthy colleague at work. 

Subsequently Nina, now a gynecologist sets on a somewhat secret mission to help poor women in rural Georgia, who get pregnant in non-consensual situations to abort their fetus as hospitals do not allow abortions in that country. This is Nina's personal, discreet way to make amends for her inaction to save her friend from drowning while pleading for Nina's help. Nina's chosen double life is akin to the secret lives of the fictional Batman and Superman though in her case not to fight evil forces but to help those who have no succor. Like the comic book superheroes, the film does not indicate that Nina's secret night life is to earn any additional income; it is truly gratuitous--traveling long distances alone in her car, with full medical accessories required to conduct an operation at night, to help the helpless.

Nina prepares to abort the fetus of a physically/mentally
challenged lady, impregnated without consent, on a dining table
of a family with limited resources

The cinematic grammar of April is akin to verbal punctuation in a written work, only using visuals and sounds to provide additional information beyond the minimal spoken narrative for the attentive viewer. The somewhat-human, ash-colored grotesque figure re-appears in the film at crucial junctures in the narrative. Even a bicycle ridden by Nina's colleague is captured by the camera's vision indoors to indicate the importance of the location of the shot with the grotesque figure being held by Nina's colleague just as lovers would. Then there are sequences with spring flowers growing in April in the Georgian rural landscape in happier sequences and with ominous clouds and thundershowers as precursors to difficult scenarios--each chosen to complement the narrative with care.

Nina's dream sequence, where the mysterious grotesque
human figure is held by Nina's senior colleague,
who once hoped to marry Nina. His bicycle appears in the
right-hand corner, accentuating the location, as the hospital

The main tale of April includes the dramatic charges levelled against Nina's official work within the hospital made by a parent that his child died in the hospital due to Nina's negligence during childbirth. The viewer of the film awaits the outcome of that inquiry, while the hospital authorities worry whether Nina's extra-territorial illegal  activities would come out in public or not and the consequences for Nina. 

A lonely Nina outside the office of the Head of her hospital
awaiting the outcome of an internal inquiry into an
allegation against her that her operation caused a child's death

The end of the film proves to be fascinating and thought-provoking, worthy of its Special Jury Prize awarded by the Venice film festival for film's director. While right-wingers would dig up the "Roe vs Wade" arguments in USA, this remarkable Georgian film is a delight essentially for the way it has been constructed, and the importance of respect one bestows on those few who place importance to their moral stance to help those that need one's discreet help above the controversial subject of the legality of abortions. Director Dea Kulumbegashivili has exhibited her talent as a filmmaker to the world in April and that has been recognized widely at diverse festivals around the globe. This talented director could emerge as a major force in East European cinema.

P.S. The Mexican film Post Tenebras Lux (2012) has been reviewed earlier on this blog, Click on the name of the film to access that review. April is one the best films of 2024 for this critic.

287. Indian director Praveen Morchhale's fifth feature film "White Snow" (2025) (India), based on his own original screenplay: More than a film on artistic freedom, a tale of a mother promoting her only son's passion to make films and in the process realizing the power of cinema

 

In recent months, two feature films set in the Union Territory of Ladakh, (a part of the former Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir) were released: Maisam Ali's In Retreat (2024, in Hindi language and local dialects) followed by Praveen Morchhale's White Snow (2025, in Urdu language). Both films presented different reflective scenarios faced by two different Ladakhi families in contemporary Ladakh--the first set in semi-urban settings close to Ladakh's capital Leh, while the latter film transported the viewer to the less-populated rural parts of the state, where even electric power for the homes can be unreliable. 

The first half hour of White Snow recalls the two pillars of Morchhale's previous four films--family bonding and persistence to excel in a chosen path by the lead character(s)--in this case, a Ladakhi young man, Ameer, obsessed with the idea of becoming an appreciated Ladakhi filmmaker, having made a 14-minute short film eponymously called "White Snow," based on tales related to his widowed mother's delivery of a child in snow-covered Ladakh. While the initial local responses to the short film within the film are positive, the local Mullah finds the sequence of the childbirth with the child covered in blood religiously unacceptable for public screening. Following the Mullah's publicly communicated views, the local administration curbs further screenings of the short film to avoid a possible law-and-order situation. Even after the innocent filmmaker pleads with local administrator that all humans are born covered in blood, he is subsequently arrested and tortured by the police to figure out if the sequence was mischievously added to stoke riots. 

What follows in the longer, latter section of White Snow is amazing, as it goes well beyond stifling of creative freedom by government authorities and Mullahs. Director Morchhale shifts gears in his style and tale to present a road film that recalls works of the late Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami. (The cinematographer of White Snow is Morchhale's favorite lensman Iranian Mohammad Reza Jahapanah.) The imprisoned Ameer does not reappear in the film. Ameer's mother, Fatima (Madhu Kandhari), who had not shown any interest thus far in her son's film or of his dream to be a filmmaker, suddenly takes it on herself to make a solo effort to show her son's film by trekking to far away places in rural Ladakh. From the tale that presented misplaced religious fervor and over-zealous police officials curbing an innocent film presenting reality, the film transforms into a road journey of a single mother taking on herself an incredible perseverance to show the banned short film, based on her own life, in distant villages of Ladakh she had never visited before. She borrows a cathode-ray TV and related equipment to screen her son's short film captured on a DVD--materials all loaded on a beautiful, domesticated yak. (Morchhale's yak is beautiful compared to the yak in the 2019 Bhutanese film Lunana-a Yak in the Classroom.)

Ameer's mother treks through Ladakh's countryside
with her domesticated yak loaded with a cathode-tube TV 
and other materials required to show her son's film,
using a DVD copy

Sometimes there is an audience 
but no electricity

What Morchhale has done in the beautiful second half of White Snow would make any fervent filmgoer recall a 1977 Canadian feature film classic J.A. Martin, photographe, screened at the1978 Filmotsav (Film Festival) in Madras (now Chennai). In the Canadian film, J.A. Martin, an ardent still-photographer would leave his family home and set-off each year alone on a horse-driven wagon, early in the 20th century, carrying his photographic equipment to take still pictures of these families living in desolate spots of Canada. Those families would treasure Martin's photographs. Martin reminds one of Morchhale's Ameer, who also is passionate, not on photography, but on filmmaking, though a century and several continents separate the two fictional characters. In the Canadian film, Martin's wife who never shared her husband's passion before, one fine year decides to join her husband on his travels and it opens her eyes to her husband's interest in still photography and the immense gratitude of families he met in far away places for taking their family photographs. Martin's wife is comparable to Ameer's mother, also travelling to far away places experiencing the love of strangers, who see their own parallel experiences in life in Ameer's short film and exude gratitude for having watched the short film. Both Martin's wife and Ameer's mother recognize the power of visual arts in their journeys to far away places and meeting strangers--a wife comes closer to her husband and a mother comes closer to her imprisoned son. The Canadian film swept most of the national Canadian film awards of 1977 and won the Best Actress award and the Ecumenical Jury award at Cannes that year.

Ameer's mother's feeble attempt at publicizing
her son's film on the road

Ameer's mother Fatima (Madhu Kandhari)
figuring out ways to show her son's film

The most important departure for Morchhale in White Snow is its ending. Morchhale's previous works spoon-fed its audiences with simple narratives. The end sequence in White Snow with a police jeep, the family yak of Ameer stranded alone on a river bridge, and Ameer's mother missing from camera view forces the viewer to think and figure out the film's end for oneself.

P.S. Several films of Praveen Morchhale have been reviewed on this blog: Widow of Silence (2018); Walking with the Wind (2017); and Barefoot to Goa (2013). These can be accessed by clicking on their names in this post-script. The Canadian classic film J.A. Martin, photographe (1977) can be accessed on the National Film Board of Canada website by clicking on its name in this post-script.

286. Vietnamese film director Pham Ngoc Lan's debut feature film "Cu Li Never Cries" (Cu Li khong bao gio khoc) (2024) (Vietnam), based on his original screenplay, co-authored with Ngiehm Qyunh Trang: Intelligently interplaying time with history, tradition and family life in unified Vietnam as two ordinary Vietnamese lovers decide to get married

"They say live in the now as much as you can. But the past returns regardless. Un-whole. Fragmented. Existing in pieces of experience."

--- words spoken, underscoring the importance of time, by the elderly aunt of the young lady, Van, who wants to get married, following an unplanned pregnancy

"Rivers can dry up. Mountains erode. But you remain the same."  

--words spoken, by the aunt, underscoring the mindset of elderly individuals (such as her former colleague) in unified Vietnam, who subscribe to the old ideology of the North, singing/enjoying patriotic songs

Debut feature films by young filmmakers, especially those with original screenplays, are fascinating ever since writer-director Orson Welles made Citizen Kane in 1941. Young Vietnamese filmmaker Pham Ngoc Lan treads the same path decades later with his first feature film made in 2024, where he too, like Welles, has a collaborator (Nghiem Quynh Tranh) on his debut film's script. The film Cu Li Never Cries, though packaged as a bitter-sweet tragi-comedy of the working-class contemporary, unified Vietnam, offers multilayered perspectives of the past, present and future of Vietnamese citizens and their country's tumultuous history. There are occasions when the film resembles a threnody--a song or a lamentation for the dead. At the same time in the film, the elders wistfully look at their past errors in judgement, and wish the younger generation to move forward without repeating the mistakes of their elders. 

Two generations of Vietnam are presented. The first generation saw life in Communist East Germany to be fascinating and emigrated there. The elderly lady, whose husband lived there, has died and she returns to Vietnam from Germany, after a recent trip, with her dead husband's ashes and her husband's pet--a pygmy, slow loris monkey--to her modest living space in Hanoi, which she shares with her young-orphaned niece, Van. Van earns a living as a nanny looking after a few tiny tots, while their biological parents are at work.

Van baby-sits two toddlers as a nanny in her apartment,
to earn an income. Her amputated left arm is never
discussed, but could be a subtle link to the Vietnam war,
as probably was her parents' death.

The film presents the mindset of two contrasting generations in contemporary Vietnam. The recently widowed aunt of Van has brought home the urn containing her dead husband's ashes to be immersed in the river water as per Vietnamese tradition. The younger generation of Van and her partner, merely involves the elders of the family in a quickly arranged betrothal. The rest of the marriage imitates a Caucasian wedding process, though the newlyweds are not Christians, complete with gowns, westernized wedding dresses, songs and dances. Even the elder generation has evolved to enjoy slow ball-dancing as entertainment in the evening of their lives and the widow attracts a young waiter to dance with her, with her pet slow loris perched on his shoulder--perhaps providing a link to her dead husband in her mind.

The screenplay uses the presence of the uninvited slow loris in a creative way to link several strands of the film's structure. Nobody cries in the film. The cinematographer makes us aware of the animal's cute eyes--sad, yet beautiful. 

The sad, yet beautiful eyes of the slow loris,
carried around by Van's aunt in a bag

The dwarf slow loris peers from behind a flower pot
at humans in the room

A broken metal rib of the aunt's umbrella is a clever detail added by the director/scriptwriter to allegorically show her fractured life of past mistakes and present widowhood. The bride is unsure of her future and disappears for a while from the wedding banquet realizing that she is possibly leaving her aunt who had not been happy to learn of the quick decision to marry but the aunt goes searching and finds her, only to present her with the aunt's own necklace as a tacit well-considered final approval of the wedding from the older generation to the newer one. This sequence presents the future of the tale. (The necklace finds pride of place in the film's official poster above.)

The slow loris is called Cu Li, which in many Asian countries resembles the word "coolie'' for a lowly paid worker, who rarely talks back to the master. The sequence in the film where Cu Li  is perched on the waiter's shoulder when the widowed, lonely aunt asks the waiter to dance with her serves as a visual, wistful reminder of her past life. Cu Li possibly is the visual link to the missing presence of her dead husband  with whom she possibly danced in the past. The slow loris, when scared, sweats a toxic liquid, which when the animal licks mixes with its saliva can cause pain/allergic reaction to humans. The kids under the care of Van, the nanny, must have scared Cu Li, and subsequently get skin rashes. Van is upset that Cu Li is sick and "infecting" the kids. Full grown slow lorises are found in thick forests in Vietnam and rarely adopted as pets. The dwarf Cu Li observes quietly the bitter, sweet human tale unfolding around its urban environment as a human would.

Van's recently widowed aunt dances with an obliging,
young waiter who places the dwarf slow loris, Cu Li,
 on his shoulder. Later, in the film, she passes off the waiter
as her son (she never had one), to her former colleague.

The rich narrative of the film is sprinkled with subtle humor. The widowed aunt's former colleague shows off an imposing statue of Ho Chi Minh, looking over a dam that has tamed the Black River, causing some parts of it to run dry, while elsewhere the river dam generates electric power before the residual water flows to merge with those of the Red River, ultimately flowing into the sea. The humorous part of the description includes an aside about the re-positioning of Ho Chi Minh's arm on the statue on account of its weight, which gives the final gesture a different meaning than was originally intended. Earlier in the film young men, including the groom, having a late night picnic, discuss with crude humor the linguistic differences between the populations of the south and north Vietnam.

The film was made on a shoestring budget. Though shot in color, the final black-and-white version was arrived at to trim post-production costs, according to the director, while meeting the press at the Berlin Film Festival 2024, where the film won the best debut film award.

While Cu Li Never Cries is not comparable with debut masterpieces such as Citizen Kane, Sir Ridley Scott's oft-unsung film The Duelists (1977) or Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Silence de la Mer (Silence of the sea) (1949), it is a laudable attempt of a young filmmaker to team up with another screenplay writer to look at their country's history and weave a story that provides a poetic perspective of preserving memory, complete with Van's amputated arm and the death of her parents (a likely indirect reference to the past war years), and Vietnam's fauna, while reconciling completely with the present day unified Vietnam.  

Recent debut films from three different Vietnamese directors are notable: Ash Mayfair's The Third Wife (2018), winner of the Gold Hugo award at the Chicago international film festival, Best Film award at the Kolkata International Film Festival, and minor awards at the Sundance and Toronto film festivals; Thien An Pham's Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell (2023), winner of the Golden Camera award at the Cannes film festival, the Roberto Rossellini award for the best film at Pingyao International Film Festival (China) and the Best Asian Film award at the Singapore International Film Festival; and finally Pham Ngoc Lan's Cu Li Never Cries (2024), winner of the GWFF Best Feature Film award at the Berlin Film Festival, winner of the Shaji N Karun award for the Best Asian Debut Film at the 20th International Film Festival of Thrissur, winner of the Best Picture award in international competition at the Jeonju International Film Festival (South Korea), winner of the Best Performance award at the Las Palmas Film Festival (Spain) for lead actress Minh Chau (playing the widowed aunt), winner of the NETPAC award for Best Asian First Film at the QCinema International Film Festival, winner of a special mention at the Bucharest International Experimental Film Festival (Romania), Vietnamese cinema is indeed on the march with these three young filmmakers leading a revival of a new kind. Coincidentally, both The Third Wife and Cu Li Never Cries share the same film editor: Julie Beziau.

This critic was the chairperson of the main jury of the 20th International Film Festival of Thrissur (India) that awarded the inaugural Shaji N Karun Award for the Best Asian Debut Film to Cu Li Never Cries. The citation of the award bestowed by the festival jury also highlights the editing of the film.

P.S. Four debut films mentioned in the above review have been discussed in detail earlier on this blog: The Duelists (1977); La Silence de la Mer (1949); The Third Wife (2018); and  Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell (2023). (Click on the names of the films mentioned in the post-script to access the reviews.)

285. Dominican film director Nelson Carlos de Los Santos Arias' fourth feature film "Pepe" (2024) built on his own original screenplay: A fascinating, multi-layered cinematic work that uses a "talking" hippopotamus that is dead to present the history of African slaves in the Americas that curiously parallels the forced translocation of the hippo

 

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What an unusual treat this film offers a perceptive and patient viewer! First, it is film is narrated for a substantive length of the film's duration by a hippopotamus, who realizes it is dead (in the present world) in at least three languages: a Namibian tribal language; Afrikaans (the language of the erstwhile colonial South Africa and South-West Africa); and Spanish, a fact that this critic discovered only on subsequent viewings, as one is initially concentrating and imbibing the English subtitles. The hippo has no perception of time but is well aware that it is already dead (inversing the techniques often used by the late Chilean director Raoul Ruiz as in his film Three Crowns of the Sailor, where the narrator quirkily admits that he is the only sailor alive while all others on the ship are dead!). The hippo's narration begins with the words "I never heard the sounds that come out of my mouth. I have no memory of sound that explained things. Two certainties--someplace like this should be my home with Africa as a name. They travel in my head together. Second, I am dead.... How do I know what a word is? Above all, what did I do to be dead?"  The hippo from South-West Africa, now known as Namibia, had been captured/stolen from that African nation and taken on a ship to Colombia in South America, by the infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar to populate his personal zoo. Escobar was eventually killed by Colombian military forces. Pepe, the talking hippo in the film only talks to us. the viewers of the film, and refers to humans he encounters as "the two legged." 

The above poster of the film encapsulates (in Spanish) the story of Pepe brought to Colombia by Escobar at the cost of 30 million dollars, which in turn must have cost the death of some 5000 people as a consequence of  the 80% of the global drug traffic orchestrated by Escobar, only to adorn his personal zoo.

Early in the film, the director introduces us to the basic characteristics of the huge animal that originally lived in Africa. Foreign tourists in a bus in Namibia are introduced by the tour conductor to Namibian natives (the bus driver is one) and the world of hippos. The bus driver tells the tourists "The hippos always lived here and we lived together.. Each animal teaches us something.. They can run and swim faster than us...If they come silently under your boat, you should get away fast, as a hippo can break the boat in two."

The introduction to hippos and their origins in Africa
in the film Pepe and its quaint relationship
with "the two legged"

Soon we switch in time to Pepe narrating his early life in Namibia with his sibling Pablito, an alpha male hippo, who eventually drives Pepe away from the hippo family he belonged after a power struggle. Pepe, while isolated, is captured and transported to Colombia for the drug baron to procreate more hippos on his private zoo. Pablito, is a possibly a discrete reference to the drug lord Pablo Escobar, who was feared for his brutal power tactics in Colombia to become rich and powerful until he was killed by the state/military (a sequence enacted in the film). Historically, Escobar did bring four hippos to his ranch with other exotic animals from all over the world. Colombia to relocated all those animals to various zoos except for the hippos (due to their weight ranging from 1 to 4.5 tons) which now populate the marshy lands near Magdalena river in that country.  

The film is made up of sequences shot in Namibia and in Colombia using drones, hidden cameras in jungles and helicopters. 

Pepe admits he doesn't remember learning his life story.
(However, this shot of real hippos swimming underwater
in the river, is captured by a drone carrying a camera.)

Director Arias' film Pepe is not limited to the Escobar connection to bring hippos from Africa to South America. His work is first a close look at the beast in the wild at close quarters with hidden cameras and cameras capturing the animals floating in the rivers. What Pepe doesn't  to tell the viewer is that beast eats grasses, vegetables, and fruits, not meat, unless it cannot find sufficient vegetation. Arias' film shifts gears to the fisherfolk on the shores of the Magdalene river, who never encountered the African beast in their lives, suddenly upsetting their fishing activities. Hippos do not attack human beings unless they are provoked on land but do attack them in water bodies, as they regard them as intruders in their territory. Today, because of Escobar, the population of hippos in the Magdalena river has apparently exceeded 160, which is higher in density than those in pockets of Africa, where there are wild animals such as lions, crocodiles and hyenas that kill and eat hippos and thus keep their population in check. The increasing population of hippos in the Magdalena river is not just a direct threat to the fisherfolk today  but the fish-oriented ecosystem, which is threatened by the large amount of hippo waste in the water lowering the oxygen levels negatively thereby affecting the lives of fishes and the fishing community alike . Though herbivorous, some 500 deaths are attributed to hippos worldwide each year, possibly in waterbodies such as rivers and lakes  Recent information on the internet states that that two hippos are going to be sent from Columbia to a zoo in Gujarat, India, and some 10 hippos to zoos in Mexico.

Hippos can swim fast in water and hide beneath the water
surface, and what appears above the water can be mistaken
for a small piece of  floating wood

The usual part of the head and ears of a hippo seen above
water in Magdalena river, while it can submerge
itself totally at will, as shown in Pepe 

Director Arias connects the hippos with a popular children's cartoon in Latin American television called "The Peter Potamus Show" where the hero is a hippo, by showing a young boy hooked to the TV screen. That's a part of the unusual structure of Arias' screenplay--a dead hippo who suddenly realizes the noise he makes is his new found ability to talk. What he talks is not drivel but his memory of Africa, his travel across oceans which he describes as a river with a bottom we can never reach--all of which come close to the oral history traditions of Africa (ref. the driver of the tourist bus in Namibia who states that each animal teaches us something)  and Latin America (the fisherfolk lore, rarely believed, but true in the case of the hippos of the Magdalena river basin). 

However. the fisherfolk get scared of hippos and the scare gets permeated to local law-keepers and then on to to higher authorities until a German hunter is recruited to find and kill "Pepe" with the help of the Colombian army somewhat like the end of the drug lord Escobar in 1993. 

One of the many hippos that play the role of Pepe
in the film Pepe

A drone shot of Pepe shot dead by a German hunter with
the support of the Colombian army with elongated shadows
of "the two legged." In reality, the (fictional?) killing of Pepe did  
not rid the Magdalena river of hippos--they still continue to exist.

The entire story of Pepe parallels the Europeans enslaving Africans for monetary gain and selling them to colonial populations in the Americas. The African slaves in the Americas can recall their roots through oral history. They often get killed without realizing what they did wrong to get killed, just like Pepe.

Director Arias switches situations and time in the film just as Pepe's narration does. Arias introduces us to a brief beauty pageant in the fisherfolk community that mimics the Miss Universe contest format with young contestants having to state to the community what they hope to do later in life. One of them appropriately wishes to be a zoo-pathologist! The social connection is possibly related to the fact that contestants from Colombia have often been strong finalists in international beauty pageants. Then there is a village where an old railroad line is creatively used to transport the fisherfolk on roller boards, without an engine, mimicking the rowing motion of their boats . 

Finally, the amazing cinematic work Pepe of director Nelson Carlos de Los Santos Arias recalls multifaceted contributions of Italian director Ermanno Olmi  while making The Tree of Wooden Clogs. Like Olmi, the Dominican director wrote the complex original screenplay, provided the music, was the major co-cinematographer and a major co-sound director. Multiple viewings could be required to absorb the plethora of cinematic styles within the film that one hopes young creative filmmakers will assimilate and utilize to make films in other countries than their own, just as this director did in Colombia and Namibia and create exciting, varied parallels tales for the minds of perceptive contemporary viewers to contemplate upon. 

The film truly deserved the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 2024 Berlin Film Festival. 

Most of all, viewers should ruminate on the final flow of Joycean stream of consciousness crafted by the original screenplay-writer/director Arias emanating from the mouth of the dying Pepe towards the end of the film, while the Colombian armed militia close in on the hippo: "I saw them from afar and immediately knew who they were. They also knew, I knew, and kept moving forward. Everything was clear. The day had no secrets. They looked beautiful. I felt them close to me, and death was simply that. That's how mine arrived--there lying with my strongest pain I have ever felt in my whole life. This sound came from my mouth explaining nothing. I spoke and dreamed for the first time. Fractal movements.... What's authentic and what's false? What's serious and what's playful? To this sound, to this space, where everything is constantly related? Banishing the very idea of an annihilating transparency, which is like a curse that does not stop repeating the same story.'' 

P.S. The two films mentioned Ruiz' Three Crowns of the Sailor and Olmi's The Tree of Wooden Clogs have been reviewed earlier on this blog. Pepe is included in the author's Best Films of 2024 list. (Click on the bold names in the post-script to access the reviews of those films)