45. British director John Boorman's US film "Point Blank" (1967): Alienation at its best surfaces in a Hollywood action film

The toast of the Cannes festival awards ceremonies on three occasions, director John Boorman has made films best forgotten and films that are unforgettable. Point Blank belongs to the latter category. Many critics have dismissed it as a Hollywood B-grade action film. Evaluate it closely and you will spot a gem. Arguably Boorman has made three other major films--The General, Deliverance, and Hell in the Pacific, but this film had material--visual, aural and philosophical--that made it stand out among the Hollywood productions of its day. The film was remade recently as a Hollywood action film Payback, a version that did not urge the viewer to think beyond its gripping action.

I first saw this movie when I was in college in the Seventies. I viewed the film again in 2001. The power of the film was the same on my senses. Several reasons come up: British Director John Boorman was at his best trying to outdo Don Siegel's The Killers (1967)-which also stars Marvin and Angie Dickinson in somewhat similar roles, and was based on an Ernest Hemingway story. I will really be surprised if Boorman denies that he was not influenced by the Siegel/Hemingway movie.

Why did Point Blank make an impact on me? Was it Lee Marvin's raw machismo? No. It was Boorman, who gave cinema a brilliant essay on alienation. When Dickinson's Chris asks Marvin's Walker `What's my last name?' after a bout of sex and gets a repartee `What's my first name?' you can argue the alienation is embedded in the dialog. It goes beyond the dialog, it is present in the entire plot and the open ending that urges the viewer to think as he or she leaves the theater. The screenplay was developed on a novel by American Don Westlake (whose large body of work is not noteworthy), by three intriguing Englishmen who I suspect made the difference--Alexander Jacobs and two brothers Rafe and David Newhouse. The Newhouses' only other screenplay was Where's Jack? an impressive British musical that desperately needs to be appraised beyond the obvious. My guess is that Point Blank owes much to the team of British screenplay writers and the British director for the film blossomiing into a thought-provoking work in the in the garb of an action film. And probably the stony look of Lee Marvin helped even more. Further, this was one of the early works of Boorman made while the flow of his creative adrenalin was peaking.

But Boorman's cinema includes the loud footsteps of a determined Walker on the soundtrack, very similar to the effect Jean-Luc Godard achieved in his Alpahaville, contrasting bright wide open spaces for the exchange of money that goes according to plan and closed dimly lit confines of Alcatraz for those that go wrong. There is laconic humour without laughter, pumping bullets into an empty bed, guards who narrowly miss Marvin going up the lift, the car salesman's interest in an attractive customer than in his job, the sharpshooter's smug satisfaction not realizing that he has got the wrong man…The list is endless.

The camerawork of Philip Lathrop is inventive, but was it Lathrop or was it Boorman that made the visual appeal of the Panavision format of this film come alive? If you look at Lathrop's body of work, my hunch is that the unusually fascinating visuals were prompted by the director. The use of shadows, open spaces, stairs, almost deserted streets, enhances the isolation and alienation of the main character, Walker.

Viewing the film in 2001, after a gap of decades, many aspects of the film were underlined and reassessed. Getting back his $93,000 was important to Walker (Marvin), nothing more nothing less. But was it money he was after or was it the value of an agreement among thieves? The open-ended finale runs parallel to the end of an Arthur Penn film (also built on alienation) called Night Moves made some 10 years later. What surprises me is how a good movie like Point Blank never won an award or even an Oscar nomination.

There is a strand of despair that links all the major Boorman films. The main characters are somehow isolated from the larger crowd. This clever amalgamation of alienation, humor, action and intrigue makes Point Blank remarkable. Reflect on what the film states--you are alone, you have fight for what is yours, and options in life are open-ended for you to choose. There is no black and white, only grey.

44. Swedish maestro Ingmar Bergman's "Through a Glass Darkly" (1961): A truly remarkable, ageless film that makes you think

This film's title is taken from the Bible: "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." (1 Cor 13:12).

The film is a major work of cinema and a major work of Bergman. If one looks at the body of Bergman's films he was probably approaching his peak of artistry, which he would achieve in his next work Winter light, a film that Bergman himself called perfect. The reason most viewers do not grasp the importance of the magnificent "Man-God trilogy" or "the Silence trilogy" or "the Dark/Faith trilogy" (three films: Through a glass darkly, Winter light, and the Silence) is that the trilogy deals with the theological question of God's existence. It is essentially a thinking person's film. If you can reflect on what you see, these three films are a treasure—a treasure that influenced major directors several decades later, specifically Kieslowski who made Three Colors: Blue also almost entirely based on 1 Corinthians Chapter 13, Tarkovsky who seems to have borrowed some ideas like the sudden baptismal rain from this film that he employs in Solyaris and Stalker and finally the exciting new talent from Russia Andrei Zvyagintsev (director of The Return, where the Russian director took a leaf from the Bergmanesque son–father relationship of this film). All these films seem to have been influenced by this seminal work of Bergman.

To those viewers, who are not spiritually inclined, the film could be reduced to the obvious action of Harriet Anderson's character Karin insisting on wearing goggles as she steps out of her home to live the rest of her life in a hospital. It could easily be interpreted as a study of mental illness, a film that gives credence to the theory that god does not exist. The film can equally be interpreted as a film on mad people who feel they are in communion with god, who at other times are slaves to dark forces (voices).

On the other hand one can argue the intensity of the light is a metaphor for a sign that God exists—the basic question that troubled Bergman, the son of a priest, in real life. Even the young Minus kneels down to pray to God as the rain (baptismal?) falls suddenly. A keen viewer will note that there is no sign of rain on the island or of rain drenching the two men in an open boat after the event. Only Karin's hair is wet. All three films seek an answer that God exists from a silent, "inscrutable" (to quote a word from this film) God to whom millions pray. The spiritual troubles of Bergman are not far removed from those of Mother Teresa, who according to her recently revealed letters to her confidant, a priest, was also troubled by a silent God for over the 40 years she spent working for the poor. Through a glass darkly opens with a shot of the almost still, dark waters of the sea mirroring the sky. The film ends with several references of light. For the cynical, Bergman was disillusioned and felt that God was a "spider" (the intriguing image for the DVD covers of the three films), a reference to Karin's outburst towards the end of the film. If Bergman, was truly disillusioned, would he have added the final epilogue where the father tells his son "God exists in love, in every sort of love, maybe God is love." These last words make the son say my father has "talked to me" the penultimate words of the film—a seemingly spiritual response even Jesus on the cross wanted ("Father, father, why hast thou forgotten me?") before he died.

It would be ridiculous to see this work merely as a film seeking answers to God's existence. Like Three colors: Blue, this is a film on love. There is the undiluted love of an atheist husband (shades of Bergman?) for his ailing wife (note the film is dedicated to Kabi, Bergman's wife at a point when divorce was looming large). There is love of a father for his daughter, son and son-in-law triggered by a failed suicide attempt (only recalled in the film). There is love between siblings.

The film is also about marriage (the film is dedicated to Bergman's wife Kabi, with whom he is supposed to have had a 'non-communicative' marriage and, more importantly, he adds two words "my wife" after Kabi in the dedication). Visually, the film emphasizes the wedding ring in the scenes involving husband (the camera captures the wedding ring on the finger several times) and wife (she puts it on after she washes her face). The son asks with an innocent cockiness of the father who has recently divorced his second wife Marianne (never shown on screen) if "he has lost all stability, spiritually"? Structurally Bergman doffs his cap to Shakespeare by adding a one act play within the film on the lines of Hamlet to drive home a point to the father and his illusion of love for his perfect work of art at the expense of depriving love for his near and dear.

In more ways than one, this is a thinking person's film. After viewing the film several times, one is in awe of this filmmaker so prolific, so perfect and so sensitive. What he has written for cinema can be compared to the output of great writers like Tolstoy and Shakespeare. He was truly a genius. I do agree with Bergman when he avers that the three films in the trilogy are not connected and are stand alone films. The only common link among the three films is Bergman's personal quest for a response from a silent God that his father believed in and in whom Bergman was brought up to believe in. These are not films of an atheist but works from a genius "flirting with God" to quote from the film itself.

Many years after he made the film, Bergman was uncomfortable with the final scene. The doubting Thomas in Bergman had resurfaced. Yet he never reworked on the film. The film has much to offer for a student of cinema: it is made of fine photography, art direction, acting, scriptwriting, editing and sound (Bach plus the horn of the lighthouse). Undoubtedly one of Bergman's finest works, it anticipates the perfect Winter light, the next film that Bergman wrote and directed.

43. South African filmmaker Mark Dornford-May's "U-Carmen e-Khayelitsha" (2005): Different strokes of Bizet's opera 'Carmen,' and the best is....

There are examples of cinema when music can provide fodder for thought. Great directors have always chosen music to communicate viewpoints, not merely to soothe our aural cravings. Bizet's Carmen can be appreciated as a musical work without much thought. It can also be appreciated in the context in which the musical work is used on celluloid.

I had seen two of the most fascinating film versions of Carmen in the mid-Eighties: (a) Francesco Rosi's Italian version that won a Golden Globe and a BAFTA award with two of the most accomplished tenors (Placido Domingo and Ruggero Raimondi) playing leads roles that had spoken dialogs to punctuate the singing, and (b) Carlos Suara's Spanish version with flamingo dancers that won a Prize at Montreal film festival and a Bodil award for the Best European film. It was difficult to conceive that another production could be made to outshine either of these. Yet here was a South African director making a version of Carmen (his debut at that) in South Africa's tongue clicking Xhosa language capturing all the elements of accomplished filmmakers Rosi and Suara with a felicity of a veteran filmmaker to walk way with a Golden Bear at the Berlin Festival in 2005.

A bullfight in Cape Town shantytown suburbs? Director Mark Dornford-May suggests the bullfight with a single shot of a bull in a paddock, an actor holding a dagger, and the sound of an animal in pain—nothing else. Sex is suggested off-screen, never shown. The story and music of the opera Carmen is retained religiously with local color thrown in: a Bible-reading police sergeant who had earlier killed his own brother and glibly lied to his own mother and police about the incident, women who taunt men in almost equal terms, and the singing talent of black South Africans.

There are two ways to enjoy the film: (a) Imbibe the variation of presenting the famous musical work in an unusual setting and (b) savor the film as a documentary of modern-day urban South Africa without the music/operatic songs. Either way you will have a treat. I have been to South Africa and what is shown is very close to reality.

The film belongs to the lead actress Pauline Melafane who exudes sensuality, without having to take off her clothes and is the epitome of the opening line: " ..for every fault she had a quality that came out from the contrast…" Her screen presence is incredible and outshines all Carmens on screen to date that I have seen. She is able to blend tragedy and cocky image of a college going student (forget that she is playing an illiterate shantytown dweller!).

Director Dornford-May achieves two objectives with this work: he proves Bizet's Carmen is universal not a mere European work and that the opera can be well produced in obscure languages, if there was a will and talent. Bizet would have been proud of this film. The red (the primal color of bullfights) color comes to the fore only in the finale as the color worn by the women and the sheet covering the dead. To win a Golden Bear for a debut film is no mean achievement—more so when the experiment has been attempted by others in the past. The director injected realism in this film, not being limited to mere romance and gallantry—in fact Carmen's lover in this film is an anti-hero, a liar, and a modern-day Cain seeking forgiveness. Rosi and Suara need to take a back seat!

P.S. This powerful film overshadowed Fateless, the remarkable Hungarian film discussed earlier in this blog, at the same edition of the Berlin Film Festival. It shared honors with another remarkable film, the Chinese Kong que, also reviewed earlier.

42. Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Trzy kolory: niebiesky" (Three colors: Blue/Trois couleurs: Bleu) (1993): Not merely an essay on grief

A film on I Corinthians Chapter 13, just as Kieslowski's Dekalog was based on The Ten Commandments of the Old Testament! The later works of Kieslowski never cease to amaze me. Here is a film that made me read more (this time, the Bible!) after seeing the film. A choral rendering of the chapter in Bible towards the end of the film and its link to the films entire musical score--provide the clue.

Here is a film so spiritual in content with no obvious markings of being a cinematic essay based on an entire abstract chapter in the New Testament—-a chapter that could fit into the holy books of any religion and is not strictly limited to Christian theology but universal philosophy that could find equal acceptance by, say, a Sufi scholar or a Hindu mystic.

But then Kieslowski made 10 marvelous short films called Dekalog each loosely based on one of the Ten Commandments. But if the viewer is not well versed with theology or philosophy, the film can be viewed as a story far removed from such lofty heights. Blue would be a mere story of grief and reconciliation to loss of kin (but then Ingmar Bergman did a better job of this subject in the little known 1971 film The Touch (Beroringen) with Bibi Andersson and Elliot Gould).

Kieslowski, was a product of Communist Poland but a Christian in spirit and upbringing. He is reputed to have professed atheism but his later works negate this. It is possible that his collaborator on the screenplay Krzysztof Piesiewicz was more religious than Kieslowski. Both of them knew that all of us had to make difficult moral choices in life constantly, more so in a once Communist environment. Interestingly, Ingmar Bergman made another film taking a leaf from the very same Biblical chapter—Through a glass darkly. In Blue, the moral choice the lead character makes is to love. Love whom, one may ask? Love the boy who makes a great effort to return the stolen necklace with a cross, the husband who cheated on her marriage, the mistress of her husband with his unborn son in her womb, the husband's colleague who seeks fame from adding final touches to another person's unfinished masterpiece, the unfinished musical work that needs a loving inspired end, love the neighbor who is a prostitute, the servants of the house, the mother in the old age home (most of the images are reinforced towards the end of the film, as excerpts from the Biblical chapter are sung). Ms. Binoche was able to allude to a faint smile at the last frame, the actor's contribution to the film after her understanding of the end of Anton Chekov's play The seagull. Kieslowski retained the contribution of the literate and sensitive actor.

Blue--one of the three colors of the French flag. It is the color that defines melancholy in the English language. Blue is the "untrue" reflective color of water in a swimming pool—a cathartic venue where the lead actor swims to rid her fear of rats, a venue that suggests purging of her past fears and marital shackles, a venue where she curls up like fetus in a womb to be reborn.

There were unresolved passages in the film—-the despondent face of the daughter staring out of the car, the lead actor's obsessive interest in her dead husband rather than the loss of the daughter and why the mattress was the only furniture left behind in an otherwise empty house. Wish Kieslowski was alive today to explain these loose ends! The film is a superb example of sound editing, music composition and camera-work—each technical department competing for top honors. Blue was made for Venice Festival just as White was made for Berlin and Red for Cannes—the three top film festivals. Venice Festival loves such subjects as Blue presented—Blue was designed for it, each shot from the dunking of the sugar cube to epiphany of the street flute player to the laceration of the hand (spiritual reference to shedding of blood?) on the stones in self mortification.

In the final evaluation it is product of teamwork—making a swansong triptych of a talented director who probably knew his time in this world was limited. If I had not seen Bergman's works mentioned earlier, I would have voted this film as the best of the trilogy. My vote therefore is for the later work White, as it is more original in style and more complex of the two. Yet each of the "three colors" is a work of a master of cinema. I consider it a privilege to have met Kiesolowski briefly and talked to him, through an interpreter, in 1982 in Bangalore, India, much before he had bloomed into a great filmmaker in the early Nineties. At that time he had only made Camera Buff with Jerzy Stuhr—a film that impressed me but clearly lacked the maturity of his later works. Poland should to be proud of its great son.


P.S. Three Colors: White and two episodes of Dekalog (5 and 7) have been discussed earlier on this blog.

41. Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni's US film "Zabriskie Point" (1970): A film that lost its shine over the years

When I saw the film for the first time in the early 1970s, I was in awe of this film. Visually, it was stunning and the events on campuses in Europe and USA made you relate with what Antonioni was trying to say so well visually in the final 15 minutes of the movie: blowing up in your mind the "tyrannical" establishments and big business interests. It was a not so veiled comment on American values. Antonioni was probably affected by the popular French student uprising in the Sixties, led by Daniel Cohn-Bendit.

The repeated blowing up of the beautiful house in the middle of a desert, the lead female character enjoying the natural stream of cold water, painting an aircraft in psychedelic designs (even the staid British Airways did it a few years ago) are some of the images that were copied by advertising personnel all over the world for decades. Even Pink Floyd increased their fan following after the film was released.

You see this film some 30 years later and you begin to wonder why the same film has lost its sheen. Today, anti-establishment films have more substance--facts, documentation, fine performances, and superb screenplays. Antonioni seems to be out-of-date; a flawed genius. Even viewing Antonioni's Blow Up today gives you the similar feeling that this genius of the 60s and 70s is passe. Filmmakers have learnt a lot from his cinema over the years and brought forth more complex and mature works over past few decades.

Zabriski Point needs to be evaluated for what it was when it was released. It was a great film if you were to see it on a wide Panavision screen as opposed to the dwarfed TV screens. The visual and aural (Mick Jagger, Kieth Richards, Pink Floyd, et al.) allure of the film still remains. The lead pair were not great actors but they were cute and natural. One of them (Mark Frechette) died in prison in USA extending the reality of the non-conformist values he personified in the film. Today, Antonioni seems out of "sync." But watch carefully and you will appreciate the muted sounds of the regular actors--Rod Taylor, G.D. Spradling, the ladies at the swimming pool, the cops at the air-strip. The realistic sounds that you hear well, by contrast, are from the non-conformists. Antonioni was relevant 30 years ago but his grasp of the medium cannot be questioned even today. He knew what he was doing.

Antonioni's screenplays were laconic but loaded with meaning. In Zabriskie Point, his leading lady character Daria says these lines about a river: "There's a thousand sides to everything - not just heroes and villains. So any way... so any way... so any way... so "anyway" ought to be one word. Like a place or a river. So 'Anyway River.' " Interestingly in this film, US playwright and actor Sam Shepard and another interesting screenplay writer Clare Peploe (collaborator and spouse of director Bertolucci) contributed to Antonioni's screenplay.

He passed away this week. R.I.P, Mr Antonioni your contribution to cinema cannot be denied.

40. Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Dekalog, siedem (Decalogue 7)" (1989): Stealing as a metaphor

The brilliant Polish director--whom I had the good fortune to meet in Bangalore at an International Film Festival in 1982--made a series of ten 1-hour long short films, each dedicated to one of the Ten Commandments, handed down to Moses from God. These are commandments given to a man venerated by Christians, Muslims and Jews. Decalogue 7 naturally deals with the Seventh Commandment--"Thou shall not steal." (This is often listed as the Seventh commandment for Roman Catholics and Lutherans, while it is listed as the Eighth commandment for the Jews and Orthodox Christians). Kieslowski and his co-scriptwriter Krzysztof Piesiewicz (both Roman Catholics, and hence Decalogue 7, not 8) weave a modern day story that entertains, while asking disturbing and provoking questions--theological, social and psychological--of the viewer.

The film can be evaluated at several levels. It offers several layers of meaning, teasing the viewer as it progresses.

Kidnapping your own daughter from the ownership of your mother is a bizarre situation. Two women want to own a young child--the biological mother and the grandmother who yearned to "suckle" another. Interestingly the script looks at three generations of the same sex. The males seem to be the outsiders, yet balanced in comparison to the females in the movie.

"Thou shall not steal" is the commandment that is apparently broken. The film leads you to believe that the mother has "kidnapped" her own child. The film seems to argue quite elegantly that the real thief is the grandparent not the "kidnapping" mother. The "kidnapping" is symbolic--the police is mentioned not seen. The law presented in the film is moral one, not a civil one. In the end, it is the natural affection the child yearns for that is stolen, not by an individual but by circumstances (the state?).Is this a veiled criticism of Poland, the effect of communism on the young emerging democracy? What would have happened if the "stealing" within and without the movie did not take place? The film begins with the sound of the child crying that can be heard outside the walls of the house; the film ends with the silent cry of the child in the open, without walls and yet the cry cannot be heard, only seen (harking back to Rod Steiger's silent cry at the end of The Pawnbroker). Is fleeing to Canada (read: Western capitalism) a better option than staying back in the overgrown, ummowed gardens (with dilapidated merry-go-rounds) of Poland? Is making teddy bears a better life than taking care of your child? Is he making an argument for "stealing" becoming honorable for the cause of freedom?

The film leaves you with more questions than answers, yet providing a mature level of entertainment for the intelligent viewer. Having met Kieslowski in Bangalore, India, in 1982, soon after he made Camera Buff, a film that did not have the sparkle and maturity of his later works, I could never guess that he would go on to make the Three colors trilogy and Decalogue. These later works make you wonder at the ambiguity of his later work--the beguiling smile of a Mona Lisa as he deals with religion, politics, morals with a twinkle in his eye.This episode may be seem to present an unusual story but what a masterful way to present it. Innocence is limited to one character in the entire film: the child. Just one word describes the episode, brilliant in philosophy and in cinema, thanks partly to cinematographer Dariusz Kuc.

Theologically analyzed, the film offers more for reflection. The subject of stealing goods is arguably covered by the 10th commandment "thou shalt not covet thy neighbours goods" and the seventh commandment is often subtly interepreted as "thou shalt not kidnap" (read Wikepedia on "Ten Commandments" quoting a Jewish Rabbi, Rashi). This is probably the reason why the film is all about kidnapping and not about stealing goods which is dealt by the director and screenplay writer in Decalogue 10--which is all about stealing goods and about "coveting thy neighbor's goods"--confusing many critics who missed the distinction being made on screen. This is a fine example of cinema that invites you to read more after seeing the film (and revise your own judgement). Pieseiewicz and Kiesolwski had done their homework!

P.S. Decalogue 2 and 5 has been reviewed on this blog.

39. US director Richard Brook's "Lord Jim" (1965): Conrad's treatise on fear, heroism, cowardice and death

Imagine a movie where the hero turns into a coward and switches back to a hero. You begin to question your own yardsticks of what makes a hero and what makes a coward.

I have seen this US-British co-produced film three times over the past 30 years and each time I loved it and wanted to see it once again. What has attracted me each time are the spoken words and depth of the subject (you could say it was the screenplay) more than the direction. The subject of the film must have attracted director Richard Brooks who was essentially a screenplay writer who later became a director. He knew the merits of a strong script with philosophical lines taken from Joseph Conrad's book Lord Jim. Coppola was to use the related original material (Conrad's Heart of Darkness, another related tale narrated by Conrad's fictional character Marlow) in his Apocalypse Now for the Brando scenes several decades after this film was made and mostly forgotten.

What Brooks does not realize is that lines like "it only takes a split second to make a coward a hero or turn a hero into a coward" and "every sinner wants a second chance at redemption, without realizing he is damned for ever" are philosophical lines that one expects to hear from very literate individuals. Here, in Lord Jim, the lines are often spoken by the dregs of society. Jim, of course, we are told by the narrator (Jack Hawkins' Marlow) was philosophical, dreamed of heroism, and was a gentleman.

The film is made up of three distinct segments: 1. The "sinking" of SS Patna 2. The liberation of Patusan ("Patna" + "us" make up the name Patusan, remarks Jim to his love) and 3. The battle with a group of scoundrels (led by James Mason's 'Gentleman' Brown) with some fine speeches on honor, death, and fear.

Each segment could stand alone but together the film adds considerable worthiness that exceeds the action and plot, the elements that most viewers use to judge a movie. The lesser characters in the film add color and counterpoints to the script. Christian Marquand's French Captain who defends Jim's "cowardice" with the words "fear can make us do strange things" or Paul Lukas' Stern who compares his dead butterfly collection with the "wonderful, perfect human beings that God created" or the native who wonders why some pray to one god instead of a host of Gods are a few examples of dialogs that force you to reflect on what you heard.

The film's subject covers several religions. The fervent Muslims on the way to Haj survive the storm. The Christian Jim prays to his God. The Buddhists pray to Buddha. And the natives pray to their array of gods (a touch of Hinduism?). Yet, the film is not a religious film. But faith in God is underlined at every stage.

Conrad was Polish and a seaman before he became a writer. Brooks is an American. O'Toole leads a cast that is predominantly British. Daliah Lavi is Israeli, Marquand is French, Jurgens is German...The film is truly international.



Brooks not only wrote and directed the film but this was the first film that he produced. The film proved to be ideal for O'Toole reprising his roles of Lawrence of Arabia and Becket, roles that draw thin lines between cowardice and heroism and consequent attempts to redeem oneself. The film is not great cinema--but will remain for me a major literary work (Lord Jim, with many ties to Heart of Darkness, both works of Joseph Conrad) adapted for the screen with some delightful performances from O'Toole, Mason, Wallach, and Marquand and commendable photography by Freddie Young.

38. Spain's Alejandro Amenabar's "Mar Adentro" (The Sea Within) (2004): The depths to explore within the film and varied human relationships

I have seen Whose life is it anyway? (1981) and now Mar adentro (2004). I loved both films while they unspooled their entertaining sexist jokes in the morbid background of a male quadriplegic requesting euthanasia. Evaluated for their witty content, the American film wins outright over the other. Evaluated for philosophical content, the Spanish film is an outright winner in contrast to the Hollywood product. The American film entertained for the duration of the film; the Spanish film entertains you by requiring you to reflect on the various segments of the film, long after the film ends.

People who know Spanish aver that the correct translation of the title would be “Into the sea”. If you have seen the film, the deep philosophical, theological and social undercurrents of the screenplay make the less accurate title “The sea within,” more appropriate.

What were the aspects of the film that made me reflect on it?

The unflinching support of a small family to care for a cripple for 27 years is unusual in Western society. This is powerfully understated throughout the film. The viewer is witness to mute actions of love from the family for the quadriplegic but only on a few occasions is the subject discussed.

This brings up the strengths of the awesome screenplay (Amenabar and Mateo Gil) that reverts time and time again to the hills visible from the quadriplegic’s bed while the memories of the quadriplegic are those of the sea. The sea is within the mind of the quadriplegic—and quite appropriately the first shot is of the sea, which is soon replaced by the hills.

Suicide is theologically a no-no for many. A repentant Judas is not forgiven by the Church because he commits suicide, while all other repenting sinners the world over are supposed to be absolved if they repent. The film, set in Catholic Spain, takes a bold step in including the loud debate between two quadriplegics—one a priest who wants to live and another, a lay man, who does not—separated literally and figuratively by a floor.

The power of media is underlined: the role of TV programs and publishing of books. Yet the real outcome is nurtured through love between individuals through direct contact. The end of the film would not be the same in the absence of love. The bonding between the sick and the crippled (physically with Julia and psychologically with Rosa) are contrasted with bonding of the physically whole near family—Manuela and Gene.

This is my second Amenabar film—the first was The others. While Mar adentro deals with a thought provoking subject, the brilliance of the young director is underlined in The others--a fabulous ghost story, elegantly told. Amenabar and Andrei Zvygintsev (The Return, discussed in this blog earlier) are the most promising and talented young filmmakers (both Europeans) today. Amenabar has proven that he can direct great movies, elicit great performances from his actors (Javier Bardem, here. and Nicole Kidman in The Others), write good music and pick fine appropriate music of established composers (Puccini, Beethoven, Mozart and Richard Wagner). Like good cognac, the film is best appreciated by reflecting on all its attributes after the repast of the film viewing.

37. Hungarian director Lajos Koltai's "Sorstalansag (Fateless)" (2005): A thought-provoking film on the Nazi horrors

Many directors have made acclaimed movies on the horrors of the Nazi perpetrated holocaust, the gas chambers, and the concentration camps. This work stands out as one of the very few intelligent films reflecting on the effect of the atrocities on those directly and indirectly affected, rather than a clever film milking the pathos of the tragic events. Here is a film that telescopes the tragedy beyond the World War II for the main character a teenage Jewish boy (and the viewer) to the post-war human interactions. Here is a film that does not stop as a celluloid memorial for the Jews, but makes one reflect on human behavior worldwide while facing similar horrors—the Pol Pot genocide in Cambodia, the tragic ethnic cleansing of Muslims in post-Tito Yugoslavia, the genocides in Rwanda and Darfur…the list goes on.

How does this film end up being different? The Nobel prize winning story alludes to camaraderie of the oppressed in concentration camps, prisons and other unusual bonding of strangers for survival. The 'free' world rarely provides that bonding. The film and the story are thus made up of two parts: the incarceration and the freedom. In the free world, a German asks the survivor if he ever saw the gas chambers and the honest answer is "no." And that comforts the guilty suspicion of the non-Jewish German.

Much of the film centers on the capturing the emotions of the boy, without spoken words. This might appear unusual but study the gradual use of shadows, the dirt, and the evidence of tears. The controlled bleached color prints add to the visceral visual power of the film. These are images that you will not forget even after you leave the theater (or switch off the Indian TV channel, as in my case)

There are sequences that suggest more than what is shown on screen. A guard takes an odd liking for the young boy and keeps staring at him instead of others, once in the suburbs of Budapest and then again in the concentration camp. The special care in the infirmary could allude to Nazi medical experiments. Delving on those details would have reduced the real strength of the film. It is easy for many whose fate was death in the camps. There are half dead men who refuse to accept their fate as they are carried away to the gas chambers. And there are young men fated to live and survive in a difficult inhospitable world and accept this as their fate and move on. They are the "fateless" few.

This work turned out to be remarkable because of the outstanding team behind it. The story and screenplay is by 2002 Nobel prize winner Imre Kertesz who won the prize a few years before the film was made. The story is semi-auto biographical The acclaimed Hungarian cinematographer turned director Lajos Koltai and Italian Ennio Morricone team up once again after the two weaved celluloid magic in The legend of 1900 (reviewed earlier in this blog). The camera is not with Koltai but Gyula Pados this time, but Koltai would have contributed to the photography. Another marvel of the film are the vocal renderings of Australian Lisa Gerrard (of Dead can dance) that alternate with pan pipes conducted by Morricone.

Three remarkable films on the Nazi atrocities evoked similar feelings for me: the outstanding 10-hour cinematic docudrama by Hans-Jurgen Syberberg Hitler-A film from Germany that led essayist Susan Sontag to write an equally outstanding critical essay on the film, Zoltan Fabri's The Fifth Seal (referring to the Bible's Revelations) the finest Hungarian film that needs to be seen more widely also based on a major Hungarian novel (by Ferenc Santa) and Istvan Szabo's touching mystical and allegorical Budapest Tales that said everything about the Nazi occupation without a shot of the concentration camps by portraying dislocated Jews, strangers to one another, coming together to put a symbolic trashed Budapest tramcar back on the rails far away from the city. Arguably these three films along with Fateless constitute the finest and the most accomplished body of cinema on the subject. If you prefer straight easy tear-jerkers try Steven Spielberg's films on the subject, Polanski's The Pianist, Benigni's Life is Beautiful or even Louis Malle's Au revoir, les Enfants—all good, acclaimed films but not quite in the same league.

P.S. At the Berlin Film Festival, Fateless lost out to two remarkable films I have seen that won the major awards: U-Carmen e-Khayelitsha from South Africa and Kong Que (reviewed earlier in this blog) from China. Like Fateless, the Chinese film was also the first directorial effort of an accomplished cinematographer.

36. Italian Frederico Fellini's "Le Notti di Cabiria" (Nights of Cabiria) (1957): Christian Marxism of Fellini and Pasolini

It would be far too simplistic to feel that the film merely presents an optimist's commitment to live and enjoy life in an imperfect world. Nights of Cabiria has always intrigued me among the many Fellini films that I have seen—-it is great cinema that asks more questions than it provides answers. It's a fascinating cocktail of Christian Marxism of Fellini and Pasolini—an elegiac social and religious commentary. Noted director Pier Paolo Pasolini wrote the screenplay of the intriguing film. Years after it was made, one realizes that the film was not as simplistic as it appears. It offers considerable questions for the viewer beyond the obvious.

Question one—who is the altruist who provides alms in the night to the wretched of the earth? The only reason for the addition of this character seems to be that Fellini wants a contrasting figure who works in the night—one who gives sustenance to others in a commendable way—a way Cabiria would have preferred to live her life if she had an option. It was amusing for me to find out that this entire sequence was deleted in earlier released versions of the film. My guess is that this sequence was an addition of screenplay writer Pasolini, as it would fit into his style of Christian Marxism, more than the neorealism of Fellini. Interestingly, this is one of the three males in the film (others being the actor who invites Cabiria home, and Brother Giovanni) who seem to have a pure heart and good intentions—all the others seem to have a predominant evil streak.

Question two—-Brother Giovanni leaves a profound effect on Cabiria. Confessing to him (she thinks he is a full fledged priest) and having Mass celebrated by him was Cabiria's wish but the cold response she receives from Giovanni's colleague, who is apparently a full-fledged priest, seems to be Fellini's/Pasolini's comment on the Church—otherwise why have the scene? Question three-—Cabiria's eyebrows change their shape as she contemplates a married life. This is not in line with Fellini's Cabiria, who would think about the effect eyebrows will make as she switches gears in her personal life. Or is Fellini suggesting that as Cabiria steps on the threshold of marriage, the personality of Cabiria changes to a more calculating woman, in contract to the earlier simple, waif like personality.

Apart from questions such as these, it is unquestionably one of Fellini's finest films. I preferred La Strada, another Fellini film with his wife Guilietta Massina in the lead role, and his later less talked about Orchestra Rehearsal, made some 20 years later, in which social commentary takes center stage and storyline the backstage.

I am surprised that most Fellini viewers are taken up with performances and the story each Fellini film offers. The more poignant world of Fellini revolves around the commentary on the divide between the rich and the poor, the honest and the dishonest, the religious and the agnostic. The allure of Fellini to me remains his social commentary—-he underlines this with Cabiria, in the final shot looking at you the viewer, bringing up the nexus between the character and the viewer. In fact, this final shot ought to wake up the sensibilities of the laid-back cinema viewer.

35. US director Terrence Malick's "Days of Heaven" (1978): Seeing heaven by twilight on earth

Director Terrence Malick strides the world of cinema as a colossus in the company of Soviet directors Andrei Tarkovsky (www.nostalghia.com), Sergei Parajanov (www.parajanov.com), and Grigori Kozintsev. After viewing Days of Heaven for the third time in 20 years, the film touches me the same way as did the works of the three aforementioned Soviet filmmakers.


The title is from Deuteronomy 11:21:

"That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the Lord swore unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth."

Technically the movie can be appreciated by each of the three elements that build the final compound product. First, there is a pristine innocence in the images of this movie that few Hollywood movies have been able to record on celluloid. Nestor Almendros richly deserved the Oscar for filming Malick's requirement in the magic hours of twilight. Haskell Wexler contributed "additional photography". Wexler and Almendros are giants among cinematographers; this movie is a testament to both their creative abilities. One of my favorite takes is the final shot of Richard Gere falling in the water!!

The second major contribution is the music of the brilliant Ennio Morricone. After every viewing, I am convinced Morricone contributed as much or more to the film than the cinematographers. It is easy to spot the visual artistry, but being able to pick the aural artistry of composer's four or five connected but distinct pieces of music is exhilarating. Compare this with Hans Zimmer's work in The Thin Red Line and we see the importance music plays in Malick's cinema (as is also the case with Tarkovsky, Parajanov, and Kozintsev).

The third is the writing and the direction. A casual viewer would see the movie through events surrounding the adult characters and wonder where the 'Heaven' was in a story woven around deception, anger, jealousy, pestilence, murder, sickness, etc. A closer appraisal of the film will take you to the perspective of the young narrator (as in The Thin Red Line) which is at times all play and at other times a distant impersonal observer of events. What is 'Heaven'? Perhaps heaven is far away from industry, perhaps you glimpse it when you are playing with your friends. Malick's days of heaven seem to be limited to a short period sandwiched between long months of hell. The film invites us to look at a slice of life in each of us that prepares us for the rest of our existence. The amoral world is lovely to behold (young Gere and Adams) and tragic but the moral world is weather-beaten (Robert Wilke's face) or sick (Shepard) but true--a contradiction similar to the beautiful close-up of the locust, a pest. Malick is forever inviting the viewer to reassess and reflect on our accepted norms.

The lack of dialog and the abnegation of a conventional story lifts up the film far above the average Hollywood fare to a cinema where dialogue is muted by sounds and visual splendour. Malick's celluloid poetry enmeshes nature with human actions that seem to be out of synchrony (as it is inThe Thin Red Line as well) not far removed from derelict spaceship of Tarkovsky's Solyaris, the visual violence of Parajanov's Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors or the flowers in a otherwise barren landscape of Kozintsev's King Lear.

Malick has won the top honors at Cannes, Berlin, Montreal, and San Sebastian for his cinema but has been denied an Oscar. A prophet is never acknowledged in his own village.

P.S. Malick's The Thin Red Line and The Tree of Life have been reviewed on this blog.

34. Canadian David Cronenberg's "Spider" (2002): What is real? Detection within the world of the insane mind

Insanity has been captured on cinema in myriad ways. David Cronenberg leads the viewer into the world of the unsettled mind in a manner few directors have been able to do in the past. And the film from a medical standpoint is rather accurate… Many of my friends swear by A beautiful mind, which though based on a real living person, I find to be the typical Hollywood dose of wide-eyed awe of a personality with capabilities that tower over the ordinary—in this case a mathematician tottering on the thin line between madness and genius.

Luciano Salce's El Greco (1966), with Mel Ferrer, Fernando Rey and Adolfo Celli, based on the real life painter El Greco was a similar cinematic tale, only far better in quality—thanks to contribution of the European filmmakers. Canadian director David Cronenberg's Spider invites the viewer into the world of madness leading the viewer to enter the deranged mind with compassion as the story is unraveled from the viewpoint of the deranged mind. Cinematic clues are liberally strewn by the director throughout the film—but will the viewer catch on? For instance, the camera shows the diary is not even made up of sentences or words but writing that resembles sentences. The number 29 on the door of the house, the present and past tenants, the broken glass give the viewer more clues that all is not what it seems. Miranda Richardson's triple role in the film gives further clues to the viewer to unravel the real story. The sequence of the body being carried out of the house, revealing who was actually killed, is a very creative twist provided by the director.

Thus the film while presenting an intimate portrait of an individual returning to normal life after drug therapy and the effect of not continuing the medication, with the help of stark and drab exteriors that reflect the state of the mind, slowly engages the viewer to realize that the story can be as lively as a detective story—with the viewer as the detective.

This work of Cronenberg pales in comparison to The Fly, which provided a fascinating sci-fi angle. Here, the viewer is limited to the world of insanity, where past and present have to be viewed clinically—not by emotions. Science helps the viewer to put a finger on what is real.

Great performances abound but the unforgettable line in the film for me was: "Clothes maketh the man; and the less there is of the man, the more the need of the clothes." The line referred to the protagonist wearing six shirts, one over the other—but that could also be symbolic. The line is in an odd way the film's story.

33. Pasquale Festa Campanile's Italian film "La ragazza e il generale" (The girl and the general) (1967): Can neo-realism mix with humor?

Virna Lisi gives an impressive neo-realistic performance
(The film, with dollops of satire, was made in lush technicolor, unlike the still above) 

This film will unfortunately not be remembered for Rod Steiger's performance. There are very few films that Steiger has not dominated--this is one of them. It will be remembered for the story and the direction, an interesting performance by Virna Lisi, and a somewhat creditable score by Ennio Morricone.

The director, Pasquale Festa Campanile, one should should recall has written scripts for and collaborated with great Italian directors such as Pasolini and Visconti. I do not know much more about Campanile but he must have been very good at writing screenplays for Visconti to work with him on The Leopard which is not an easy novel by any consideration. According to the opening credits in the English version of the film The Girl and the General, the director is one of the two authors of the original story.

This is not a war film. It is film that uses war as a backdrop to evaluate human values and what money means to the wretched and the poor. A bumbling soldier played convincingly by Umberto Orsini captures a General, not for heroics, not by design but by mere chance. The soldier is illiterate while the General is an understandably a well-read individual. Thus the Geneva convention and the city that Julius Caesar built is of little significance to the soldier. Yet, what is significant for him is that few Generals die on the war front and what the soldiers were given to drink before they clashed with the enemy at the front and met their death.

Neorealistic Italian cinema used the post-War scenario to examine study the human condition. Hunger is a great leveller: the General and soldier are the same when they are hungry. The soldier grudgingly shares his food with the General; the General steals a frog caught by the soldier. The writer-director clearly states where his sympathies lie. The soldier as an honest individual may appear stupid, but earns the respect of the viewer with his tenacity to come up with great ideas of making a General look like a cow to gain a few hours of sleep. His use of the word "sir" to address his prisoner over the length of the movie is a fine aspect of the character build-up by the writer.

The film moves into top gear with the arrival of the illiterate girl played by Virna Lisi. For her, too, taking the captured General back is simply for the the 1000 Lire split between two individuals that will allow for a good life. Her character is benign, honest and rustic. For a few potatoes she bares her breasts and the humiliation of the act is wonderfully portrayed without histrionics.

The sexual arousal of the soldier, the importance of sleep over the need for sex, the urinating General whose one arm is useless are vignettes of superb cinema. The simplicity of the film, as in most neo-realist Italian cinema, is disarming. The film even goes on to make a hero of a donkey, while conversation revolves around tasty donkey-meat.

The film reverses the traditional concept of heroism by presenting a woman being superior to a man (the General), a honest foot soldier superior to a General.

I am surprised the film has been glossed over by casual viewers. I will be looking out to catch up with Campanile's work. I am pleased to note that Virna Lisi has finally been accepted as a serious actress in the Nineties for her work in La Reigne Margot.

Ennio Morricone's score in this film is very close to the music he provided for the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone. His score, like the performance of Steiger, is reigned in by the director to emphasize the role of the soldier and the girl. My only problem with the title of the movie is the lack of importance provided to the soldier, who is the central figure.

When I saw the film, the film brought back memories of de Sica's Bicycle Thief. Campanile's film, which provides equal importance to hens and donkeys as it does to human characters, is as real as they come and yet far removed from the values of Hollywood's screenplays, then and now.

32. Iranian director Amir Naderi's "Davandeh" (The Runner) (1985): A gem of neo-realist cinema

Davandeh (The runner) is a cinematic ode to the spirit of Amiro, a young orphan boy who seeks to excel in what ever he does, to know more and look beyond his present boundaries, and to seek this knowledge through formal education that has eluded him thus far in life. Without a doubt, the movie is a treat to watch. This is the second Amir Naderi film discussed on this blog.

The opening shot is of the young boy yelling out a greeting at a distant sea vessel. You wonder what is wrong with the kid. As the film progresses you learn that he is an orphan. He is a normal kid, yearning to know more about the world beyond his immediate boundaries—the big ship and aircrafts symbolize this quest.

But then Amiro is not a normal kid. He also wishes to excel within his known boundaries. He tries to collect more floating bottles in the sea than other orphan boys of his age so that he can earn more and buy magazines with colorful pictures of aircrafts. He is a loner (he lives alone in an old grounded ship) but likes to prove his ability to run with his peers, and beat them in marathon races chasing moving trains. The film is called "The runner" as Amiro's running ability is underlined three times in the film—first he runs behind the train and wins a psychological race over his peers, then he runs after a cyclist who tries to avoid paying him for the cool water and catches up with him, and finally running with a block of ice that he has bought while others try to rob him of it, against a backdrop of oil fires. But then aren't we all "runners" of some sort in real life?

Naderi's Amiro becomes larger than life in his next quest. He is persistent in his efforts to learn the alphabet by literally knocking on the doors of the nearest school. By the end of the film Amiro is reciting the alphabets he has learned in school while looking at the symbols of his quest to reach the unknown distant world, beyond his physical vision. It is a literal and figurative quest.

Having seen Amir Naderi's film Aab, Baad, Khaak (Water, wind, dust) also with Majid Niroumand (Amiro of Davandeh) only a day before, Davandeh's power as great cinema was a trifle diluted.

Amiro leads the pack

What did Naderi's Aab, Baad, Khaak present that Naderi's Davandeh could not?

1. Davandeh totally excludes women, which Aaab, Baad, Khaak does not. Even in the latter they are marginal. 2. Davandeh revolves around an individual, while Aaab, Baad, Khaak is critical of society as seen through the eyes of a boy. 3. Davandeh captures temperatures (ice block vs. burning oil wells) but Aaab, Baad, Khaak is able to capture all the elements of nature (water, wind, dust) that affect the average Iranian living on the fringes of society. 4. Amiro of Davandeh was somewhat larger than life in his quest for knowledge unlike his realistic role in Aaab, Baad, Khaak. 5. Davandeh leans towards veiled political criticism, while Aaab, Baad, Khaak is a pure social and psychological essay without obvious political undertones

Why is Naderi avoiding female characters? Why is Davandeh underlining that foreign lands offer more than one's own (apart from financial disparities)? It is not surprising that Naderi having made these films in Iran, won accolades at international film festivals and now lives in the US far from his native land that provided fodder for his creativity.


P.S. Amir Naderi's next feature, a more abstract and universal film, Water, Wind, Dust (1989) is reviewed earlier on this blog.

31. Chinese filmmaker Yimou Zhang's "Yi ge dou bu neng shao (Not One Less)" (1999): A marvelous neo-realist Chinese film, ideal for family viewing

Long after De Sica made Bicycle thief and Fellini his La Strada, neo-realist traditions grab me like no other in cinema history. The Chinese film Not one less, made half a century after the Italian masterpieces, underlines several aspects of neo-realist traditions—non-actors can transform into great actors provided you have an intelligent script and a talented director, poverty attracts anyone with a conscience, the candid camera is a marvelous tool, and human values exist to be appreciated irrespective of national boundaries. It truly deserved the Golden Lion at the Venice film festival.

A reluctant substitute teacher taking on a job that would fetch a doubtful "50 yuan" from a village mayor with questionable priorities transforms into a national hero in less than a month as she strives hard to ensure the number of her students do not dwindle until the regular teacher returns. Her resolutions transform the economic state of the school, make her students into socially responsible "young adults" and teach a lesson to the wily mayor and a gatekeeper at the city TV station, who go by rules rather than by discretion.

The brilliance of the film is that the film hooks the audience as a thriller would until the film ends. Yet there is no sex, no violence, no beautiful face, no delightful music or engaging camera angles—only reactions caught by candid camera (at least most of the time).

The most poignant comment was the young student's comment "I loved the city but it made me beg for food" For a contemporary Chinese film made under tight censorship—the film's director Yimou Zhang (also referred to as Zhang Yimou) seems to offer layers of comment beyond the obvious story line. Did Teacher Wei do what she did for the sake of money or as a responsible teacher? Are you likely to forget propagandist songs but recall simple songs on family values? Is individual greatness (teacher Wei) appreciated more than group actions (school as a group, nation's need for good athletes overriding permission of the parents of potential athletes)? Is the richness of rural lifestyles discounted by rising urban materialism? Does it require an individual's actions to underline the demands of the rural poor? These are hidden questions for each viewer to answer.

I have only seen one other film of director Yimou Zhang and that's Red Sorghum. Not one less towers over Red Sorghum in every department of film-making.

I saw this Chinese film on an Indian TV channel. I only wish more such international films get shown widely on TV throughout the world. It would raise the bar of what constitutes good cinema to many who currently have little idea of good cinema except those made in their own countries. Recent mainland Chinese films like Peacock and Not one less have established their world class credentials.

P.S. I was more than amused to find Ford and Coca-Cola financed the film in part, which is probably why the school kids in a remote Chinese village know about Coke and relish rationed drops of the liquid. Who was pulling whose leg here???

30. British filmmaker David Lean's "Ryan's daughter" (1970): A complex masterpiece that never got its due praise when released

More than 30 years after the movie was made, Ryan's Daughter needs to be compared with his other important works--Lawrence of Arabia, Dr Zhivago, Bridge on the River Kwai and A Passage to India. Pauline Kael and many others ripped up the film because it was a loose adapatation of Madame Bovary. But this is Ryan's Daughter, not Madame Bovary.

Visually the three finest are Ryan's Daughter, Lawrence of Arabia and Dr Zhivago.

Aurally--in the departments of music and sound--the finest two are Ryan's Daughter and Dr Zhivago.

If performances make a movie, four of the movies were outstanding: Ryan's Daughter, Dr Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia and Bridge on the River Kwai.

Yet why is Ryan's Daughter not considered the finest? There is no hero, there is no heroine--it is a film of anti-heroes. It is a film that focuses on the ugly side of human reality where everyone is a loser--husband, wife, lover, priest, soldier, revolutionary, and even the traitor. It provides a realism that we glimpsed in patches in Dr Zhivago and A passage to India--a realism that almost eluded us in Lawrence of Arabia.

The film's strengths lie in two aspects that were most criticized some thirty years ago--its music and its screenplay.

Hear Maurice Jarre's score today and you will realize the notes hark back to Lean's previous work (mostly Zhivago and little of Lawrence) with the comical allusions to the village fool's gait. Jarre's score in Ryan's daughter may not have the universal appeal of Lara's theme in Zhivago, but a close study of the score will unfold riches to the aural senses when compared to the simplistic Lara's theme.

Bolt's original screenplay is as rewarding to study as Jude the Obscure to a student of Thomas Hardy or Titus Andronicus to a Shakespeare student. Bolt (and Lean, of course) provides food for thought--who is good and who is bad, who is ugly and who is beautiful, who is crippled and who is whole...

It is easier to make lovely, heroic epics such as Lawrence or Zhivago than to make a film on losers and moral and physical cripples such as Ryan's Daughter. I think this is Lean's and Bolt's finest work. It is also Robert Mitchum's finest work as it was in the case of Christopher Jones, Leo McKern and Trevor Howard. John Mills stood out among the fine performers because his character was spectacular.

I am a great admirer of most of Lean's films and having seen the film thrice, I rate it as his best and perhaps his most complex yet mature work.

29. Iranian director Amir Naderi's evocative "Aab, baad, khaak" (Water, Wind, Dust) (1989): Evocative and uplifting film on human values

This is an unusual film of exceptional values--75 minutes long in color, with hardly any spoken dialogs. I saw this Iranian film in Farsi without English subtitles at the Early Iranian cinema retrospective at the recent International Film Festival of Kerala, India. That I was watching a print without subtitles did not make a difference as there were very few lines of spoken dialogs.

This is a very accessible film for any audience to enjoy--its story and values are not merely Iranian; it's universal.

The film is set in rural Iran that had not tasted petro-dollar prosperity. The setting is on fringes of desert land, where water is scarce, rainfall scanty and hardly any blade of grass is green. Add to it wind and dust that buffets and whips man and animal and you can imagine plight of the people who live on the fringes of society.

The film is moving tale of a young teenager returning to his village with a goat--only to find his family and villagers have moved on to escape natures vagaries and that one old man remains. He gives the goat to him and goes in search of his family. Water is scarce and well water it treated with reverence and never wasted. The boy is infuriated when he sees the water being used to cool the engine of a truck. A toddler is left behind by some family that cannot tend it. The boy takes care of the child but finds it tough going and asks other families to take care. Nobody wants another mouth to feed. A bucket of water left by the boy is more useful for passing families than the child. Finally, the child is picked up by one large family and the boy is happy.

He is so caring that he saves two fishes that would have died without water by throwing them in the well. He trudges on surviving on a watermelon left behind by someone.

The boy tries to get some water for a person who was accidentally buried under sand but there is no water in the well. He digs another but there is no water. He is tired and prays for water. He digs again at another site, wishing that the dead fishes that appear in his dream can survive. Metaphorically the earth opens up and a sea of water gushes out to strains of Beethoven's 5th symphony.

If the Iranian government publicizes such works of artistic merit, Iran would be better appreciated elsewhere. The film won a top award at the Nantes Film Festival.


P.S. Amir Naderi's earlier neo-realist work The Runner (1985) has been reviewed on this blog.

28. Mexican film "El Violin" (2005) by director Francisco Vargas: Riveting debut performance by an elderly actor and impressive photography

Imagine that you look like a grandfather in real life. Imagine that your right palm has been amputated but you play a violin with a bow strapped to the maimed arm. Imagine a director wanting to use you as a lead actor in a feature film. Imagine you win a Cannes Film Festival Best Actor prize for the Un Certain Regard section of the festival for the role. It's not a dream--it happened to Mexican actor Don Angel Tavira in the Mexican film El Violin or The Violin, directed by Francisco Vargas.

I caught up with this film at the on-going International Film Festival of Kerala, India, where it won the Silver Crow Pheasant award, the best film award bestowed on a film among the 14 competing entries by the 6200 delegates attending the festival.

I do not know how Tavira lost his palm but I learned that the director made the film keeping the future actor in mind. Tavira looks like Charles Vanel in his later years. He exudes a sincerity that touches the viewer and is not easily forgettable. He mixes sincerity with the wizened touch of an old fox.

The film is similar to Irish filmmaker Ken Loach's The wind that shakes the barley in many ways. Only The Violin is shot in black and white while Ken Loach shot his lush color. The photography is in no way amateurish. Both films are about the poor fighting mighty oppressors--in the case of El Violin poor villagers fighting a cruel Mexican army.

Finer points of the film include a marvelous dialog between grandfather and grandson that speaks highly of the director screenplay writer's Vargas' writing capability. Yet he has only made four films.

As one might have guessed the violin case and violin player are key to the development of the film. Music is a great leveler--the brutes and the aesthetes both appreciate good music.

Vargas choice to film in black and white is commendable. The violence and rape that launches the film is not extended into the film as other directors would have been tempted to do. Interestingly the strength of the film is that it does not show violence at later stages--something that Ken Loach could not restrain himself from. Violence for Vargas is not gratuitous--it is to provide the focal point. The rest of the violence is only for the viewer to imagine. Now that's good cinema.

This time Vargas had a great actor. Can he make equally good films without such innate talent of Don Tavira? My guess is that he can repeat this feat with others too. Vargas has an eye for talent, for good photography and a flair for good scriptwriting.

27. Canadian Sarah Polley's "Away from Her" (2006): Remarkable debut film and a superb performance by Julie Christie

Julie Christie's combination of talent, beauty and brains has enthralled me over four decades. Nearly a decade ago, her Oscar nominated performance in "Afterglow" established that she was not a spent force while playing a gracefully aging wife of a handyman in the US. One thought that would be her best turn at geriatric impersonations.

Less than a decade later, Christie comes up with an even better performance of a woman coping with Alzheimer's disease in a debut directorial effort Away from Her of Canadian actress Sarah Polley. I saw the film yesterday at the ongoing International Film Festival of Kerala, India, where Ms Christie, serving on the jury for the competition section, introduced her film thus: "It is immaterial whether you are rich or poor--we cannot predict what can happen to us. Enjoy the film with this thought." Ms Christie probably put in her best effort because the young director considers Ms Christie to be her "adoptive" mother, having worked together on three significant movie projects in five years. The film's subject brings memories of two similar films: Pierre Granier-Deferre' film Le Chat that won a Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for both Jean Gabin and Simone Signoret in 1971 and Paul Mazursky's Harry and Tonto which won an Oscar for the lead actor Art Carney in 1974. This performance of Julie Christie ranks alongside those winners.

Today geriatric care is a growing problem. This film is a sensitive look at parting of married couples when one of them needs institutional care. Ms Polley's choice of the actor Gordon Pinsent is an intelligent one as the film relies on his narration and Mr Pinsent's deep voice provides the right measure of gravitas. Olympia Dukakis is another fine actor playing a lady who has "quit quitting". So is Michael Murphy doing a long role without saying a word.

The strengths of the film are the subject, the direction, the performances and the seamless editing by the director's spouse. It is not a film that will attract young audiences who are insensitive. Yet the film has a evocative scene where a young teenager with several part of her body pierced by rings is totally amazed by the devotion of the aging husband for his wife. So in a way the film reaches out to different age groups. Though it talks about sex, it can be safe family viewing material.

Chances are that most viewers will love the film if they are interested in films that are different from "the American films that get shown in multiplexes" to quote a character in the film. More importantly this film advertises the problem of Alzheimer's disease eloquently and artistically. It prepares you for future shocks.

26. Polish film "Persona non grata" (2005): One of the finest films of Polish director Krzyzstof Zanussi

Director Krzyzstof Zanussi has made 75 distinguished films and is one of the three best filmmakers from Poland--the others being Wajda and Kieslowski (the latter only peaked towards the end of his career). I consider Persona non grata to be one of Zanussi's three best efforts--one being his structurally fascinating German TV film Wege in der Nacht ("Ways in the night" or "Nightwatch") made in 1979 and the other being Imperative made in 1982. Interestingly the first two films featured the brilliant music of Wojciech Kilar, the actor Zbigniew Zapasiewicz, and original scripts of physicist turned philosophy student Krzyzstof Zanussi.

At the elementary level, Persona non grata is about diplomats and their lives. At a more complex level, Zanussi explores the relationship between Poland and post-Glasnost Russia and the denizens of both nations. At an even more complex level, Zanussi introduces the subtle differences between the orthodox Christians and Catholics--a facet that I suspect interested both Zanussi and the late Kieslowski, both close associates. There are more Catholics in Poland while Orthodox Christians dominate Russia. Zanussi differentiates the spirituality of the two in the rich verbal sparring that the film unfolds between a Polish and a Soviet diplomat. Finally, Zanussi teases the film viewer by leading the audience to suspend disbelief in the main character. For a long while, even an astute viewer is led astray. The viewer is reduced to the level of a "persona non grata" believing initially that the film is all about a diplomat about to lose his diplomatic powers at the embassy and has become a "persona non grata." This is superb cinema, supported by Kilar's "music of the spheres." The film offers rich humor and at times a biblical sermon on a New Testament passage from 2 Corinthians 1:17 "Do I say yes, when I mean no?" However, taking the context of diplomacy, around which the film revolves, the discussion takes on a different hue. But the clever Zanussi throws light and shadows on the subjects in the film (the opening credits plays with light and shadows, too).

It is a story of love, suspicion, and principles--that go beyond mere individuals. It is a story of reconciliation. It is a film that a filmmaker can make in the evening of his career. It reminds you of works like Kurosawa's Dersu Uzala or Ermanno Olmi's Tree of Wooden Clogs. It is a work of maturity. Savor it like fine cognac!

Just as it is major work of Zanussi, I believe this to be a milestone for the music composer Kilar. Poland should be proud of Zanussi and Kilar.

The film is a veritable feast for an intelligent viewer. Great performances from three great Polish actors--Zbigniew Zapasiewicz (Zanussi's favorite), Jerzy Stuhr (Kieslowski's favorite), and Daniel Olbryschsky (Wajda's favorite) adorn the film but the most striking is the acting performance of Russian actor-director Nikita Mikhalkov, who can do a great turn as a restrained comic (for example his performance in his half-brother Mikhalkov Konchalovsky's Siberiade).

But in this film a dog plays a major actor's role within a web of friendship and distrust. So does a torn photograph--Zanussi does not seem to believe that photographs can lie.

Persona non grata could easily have been named "Suspicion". The film is an ode to friendships--friends who remain loyal, friends who are not recognized as friends at best of times but are recognized as friends when tragedy strikes, and friends who dislike being insulted even by mistake. The film was screened during the on-going 11th International Film Festival of Kerala, India.

What this film proves is that Polish cinema is alive and well! It also proves Zanussi is back at his best form.

25. Iranian director Dariush Mehrjui's "Gaav" (The Cow, 1969): Stunning in simplicity but providing fodder for thought

This is a major work of cinema. It might not be well known but this film ranks with Fellini's La Strada, De Sica's The Bicycle Thief, or Mrinal Sen's Oka Oori Katha based on Premchand's story--Coffin. Why is it a major work? A UCLA graduate makes a film far removed from Hollywood approaches to cinema in Iran during the Shah's regime. The film was made 10 years before Shah quit Iran and was promptly banned. It was smuggled out of Iran to be shown at the Venice Film Festival to win an award, even without subtitles.

The film does not require subtitles. It's visual. It's simple. The story is set in a remote Iranian village, where owning a cow for subsistence is a sign of prosperity. The barren landscape (true of a large part of Iran) reminds you of Grigory Kozintsev's film landscapes as in Korol Lir (the Russian King Lear) where the landscape becomes a character of the story.

The sudden unnatural death of the cow unsettles the village. Hassan, the owner of the cow, who nursed it as his own child, is away and would be shocked on his return. Eslam, the smartest among the villagers, devise a plan to bury the cow and not tell the poor man the truth. Hassan returns home and is soon so shocked that he loses his senses. He first imagines that the cow is still there and ultimately his sickness deteriorates as he imagines himself to be the cow, eats hay, and says "Hassan" his master will protect him from marauding Bolouris (bandits from another village). Eslam realizes that Hassan needs medical attention and decides to take him to the nearest hospital. He is dragged out like a cow. "Hassan" is beaten as an animal as he is not cooperative to the shock of some humanistic villagers. The demented Hassan, with the force of an animal breaks free, to seek his only freedom from reality--death.

The film stuns you. Forget Iran, forget the cow. Replace the scenario with any person close to his earthly possessions and what happens when that person is suddenly deprived of them and you will get inside the characters as Fellini, De Sica or Sen demonstrated in their cinema.

Every frame of the film is carefully chosen. The realism afforded by the story will grip any sensitive viewer. There is a visually arresting use of a small window in the wall of the cowshed through which the villagers watch the goings on within the cowshed. The directors use of the window serves two purposes--it gives the villagers a perspective of the cowshed and the viewer a perspective of the cowshed watchers.

The film is also a great essay on the effects of hiding truth from society and the cascading fallouts of such actions.

But there is more. Director Mehrjui affords layers of meaning to his "simplistic" cinema. There is veiled criticism of blind aspects religious rituals (Shia Islam), a critical look of stupid villagers dealing with their village idiots, the jealous neighbors, the indifferent neighbors, the village thief--all elements of life around us, not limited to a village in Iran. The political layering is not merely limited to the poverty but the politics of hiding truth and the long term effect it has on society. Ironically, there are values among the poorest of the poor--the hide of a "poisoned?" animal cannot be sold!

I was lucky to catch up with the rare screening of this film at the on-going International Film Festival of Kerala, India, that devoted a retrospective section of early Iranian cinema.

This is a film that should make Iran proud. It is truly a gift to world cinema.

P.S. The Cow is one of the author's top 100 films. 

24. US director Julie Taymor's "Titus" (1999): One of the most striking adaptations of Shakespeare on screen

Why did I like the film? I applaud any director making his or her initial film who chooses to film a complex subject like Shakespeare's least known tragedy, probably the mother of all his well-known tragic plays King Lear, Othello, Macbeth, Hamlet, and Julius Caesar that literature critics have dubbed a "problem play." It is true that each of the later Shakespeare tragedies borrowed strands from Titus Andronicus. Shakespeare staging Titus Andronicus was in a way similar to Julie Taymor's effort to film the play. Shakespeare wanted to establish his name. Some even suggest that Shakespeare did not write it but borrowed the source material. Yet no one can dispute that even in Elizabethan times, the play went down well with audiences. And Shakespeare went on to write and stage more plays. But for years the play was a problem to put on stage and it is well-known that few directors chose to stage or film it, due to its gory and dark contents.

I applaud Julie Taymor's decision to pick up the play to film. Titus, the play, is relevant today even more than it was in Elizabethan days. Titus is replayed almost each day in the Middle East, in Darfur, and till recently in former Yugoslavia, in Rwanda, and in Ireland. I am delighted that Taymor chose to rework the play mixing the past Roman glory with those of Mussolini's Italy, which underlines the relevance of the play today—irrespective of whether the conquering heroes ride horses or Rolls Royces.

I congratulate Taymor's decision to create a modern "chorus" distilled in the personality of a young boy, who plays like an adult but is "shaken and stirred" by events outside, who seems to realize as the play unfolds the importance of forgiveness, tolerance and love for all. For the Greeks and even for Shakespeare, the chorus had to be old and blind (as in Macbeth) but for Taymor it's the young who have eyes to see the dawn after the dark night.

There are more facets to the film that make the film extraordinary. Jessica Lange's Tamora presents a range of emotions—crying for pity, yelling for revenge, smiling to seduce and aroused by a kiss of her mortal foe Titus. The short kiss of the aging Titus and Tamora is a highlight of the film, the kiss between conqueror and former slave, a kiss between a queen and a demented subject—all highlighted by the facial expression of Ms Lange choreographed by Taymor. This brief shot cries for our attention, as throughout the film (and play) Titus seems to be celibate. (There is no mention of Titus's wife or lover). I thought Taymor brought out the best in Ms Lange, even exceeding her range of emotion in Frances. While Anthony Hopkins might not have enjoyed making this film, Taymor brought out his finest performance to date here in this film. It was almost like watching a mellow Richard Burton rendering the lines of the Bard. Taymor and cinematographer Luciano Tavoli, who is often arresting, are able to obtain a shot of Titus crying on the stony paths, with his face and eyes inches from the stones, signifying the lowest of the low the character has been hewn down to the terra firma.

A third commanding performance was that of Alan Cumming as Saturinus, second only to his mesmerizing role in Eyes Wide Shut as a gay front office clerk. If you reflect on the film, the casting was superb.

The only flaw in the "absurdist" treatment was the introduction of the Royal Bengal tiger—which could have been replaced by a leopard or a lioness. This I thought was taking the theater of the "absurd" too far. Perhaps Taymor wanted to glamorize Tamara to be more attractive as the tiger than any other great cat. That was one decision I thought did not work well in the movie.

The film's strengths are not restricted to the screenplay, the direction and acting. The film grips you with the music and choreographed title sequence and the overall production design. You want more. You get more, if the viewer is able to think while watching the film and think laterally. This is not Gladiator or Spartacus. It challenges the senses, beyond the gore and sex. Why do people behave as they do? Is the bias of many of us limited to race and color? These are questions that Terence Mallick asked in The Thin Red Line. To appreciate Taymor's Titus multiple viewings will help, preferably with a thinking cap. I rate this film as third best Shakespeare film ever made—the first two being the Russian black and white films Korol Lir (King Lear) and Gamlet (Hamlet) directed by Grigory Kozintsev, some 40 years ago.

Finally, like Orson Welles and Terrence Mallick, Julie Taymor appears to be little appreciated within the US but more lauded elsewhere. But that should not dampen the brilliance of this talented lady and her spouse the music composer Elliot Goldenthal.

P.S. Kozintsev's King Lear (Korol Lir) is reviewed elsewhere on this blog. Titus is one of the author's top 100 films.