Last Night – Poignant Tale of Temptation

Director: Massy Tadjedin

Actors: Sam Worthington, Eva Mendes, Keira Knightley, Guillaume Canet

Rating: 4 out of 5

One of the most complex monsters to handle in the world, is a man-woman relationship. That complexity is further intensified in our world today where communication has become easy, and old world morality and ideas of fidelity have no place in it.

‘Last Night’ is a film perfectly situated in our modern world. It is a deceptively and disarmingly simple story peppered with everyday incidents, many of which would have happened in many urban men and women’s lives.

On the same night that Micheal (Sam Worthington) is trying hard to beat temptation of a colleague, his wife (Keira Knightley) encounters an ex-lover and is faced with a similar dilemma. As the night progresses, desires ripen and the four people are forced to look deep into their lives, their relationships and the meaning they attach to it, and fidelity.

Make no mistakes, ‘Last Night’ is totally an urban movie. Though set in New York, it is a story that is playing along everyday in the thousands of cities of the world, with of course results similar, or different than this.

What, however, really works for the film is its simplicity. It could have lost its way in a lot of twists and turns and mood swings and the gimmickry that can go with intelligent writers handling the story. The film steers clear of these land mines and plot traps quite convincingly, giving you a tale that may seemingly not have too much new to offer, but would leave you thinking about many things.

Writer director (debutante) Massy Tadjedin handles the uneasy tension, the quiet blushes and the obvious discomfort of people handling the fireball of temptation stuck somewhere between their hearts, heads and groins with grace and poignancy. It is this minimalism that is the greatest quality of the film.

In a world of temptation where hoardings and ads everywhere thrust sex and promiscuity right into our faces, the film raises some interesting questions. Should sexual fidelity even be the basis of relationships anymore? Can we be truly faithful when we are bound to be attracted to many people in our lives? If yes, for how long? How long can one hold on? Is it even wrong if two committed people don’t do so?

In its well crafted back stories and gentle pace, the films packs in well-intentioned, urban people confronted with temptation. The lack of any melodrama or any unnecessary tension or scenes between the lovers, make it poignant.

Clint Mansell’s gentle score lingers in the background like an unrequited desire. All the four actors hold their parts and the blushes, desires and discomfort that go with it, fairly well.

One of the main reasons to not like the film would be that you would identify with a few or many of these fleeting moments and temptations depicted in the film. Contrarily, that would also be the reason many would like it. The director could have forced the choice, but she leaves it up to you to make up your mind. 

The Whistleblower – Poignant, Gutsy, Topical

Director: Larysa Kondracki

Actors: Rachel Weisz, Monica Bellucci, Vanessa Redgrave

Rating: 4 out of 5

It’s an old cliché which states that the world is what it is not because of bad men, but because of good men who watch and do nothing. We all have a strong sense of personal justice. But ask yourself, if you saw something so wrong with others that it churns your guts, would you poke your nose into it.

Even if you did, how far would you go? Far enough to risk your life and limb?

Kathryn Bolkovac (Rachel Weisz) a US police officer in Bosnia on a UN peacekeeping mission discovers that her own colleagues are involved in a sex and trafficking racket of young women. She interferes, not realizing it to be an international conspiracy. She soon finds herself to be a lone fighter against a system that involves the military, MNCs and governments.

The history of the world is usually about emperors and dictators. But a footnote of history is dominated by misfits who refuse to be mute spectators. They are first coaxed, bribed and then beaten and often killed by the system they threaten.

But make no mistakes, it is these who stands up and blow the whistle, are the ones who count in the end. For they break through impregnable walls, bruised and battered in battle they still carry on and though their head may be cut it remains unbowed to the injustice around. Whatever good exists in the world, it is thanks to a large part due to these maverick whistleblowers who defy even their own puny statures to try the impossible.

This film does both, pays homage to their indomitable courage, and recount their impossible travails.

The film might seem like a distant story of a distant land. But it is as true for India, as it is for Bosnia. Like the UN peacekeepers have diplomatic immunity, the soldiers in places like Kashmir, the North East and Chhatisgarh in India, have laws like AFSPA that indemnify them against any wrong doings on their part.

The result is the Shopian rape and murder case of Kashmir, the Manorama rape and murder case of Manipur and the hundreds of tribal women whose rape by the military in far flung places like Chhattisgarh never makes it to the press.

‘The Whistleblower’ works because it plays like a thriller. It does an extremely good job in building up dramatic tension, even though few creative liberties taken from the real story may sometimes feel improbable.

Rachel Weisz’s right mix of innocent vulnerability and inner strength carries the film forward and gives out the message that justice often needs to be an inside job.

The good thing about American whistle blower films is that a viewer knows beforehand that the protagonist will win in the end. Americans, after all, are known to celebrate success. Reality, however, is slightly different. In the real world, the people in the true story on which the film is based, roam free.

Thankfully this little injustice will not deter those who seek justice for others. For whistleblowers in truth are the vigilante superheroes of the real world. And their superpowers include an indomitable will, a passion for justice and a belief that what they do matters. To these men and women, we truly owe the world. 

Paranormal Activity 3 – Manages To Scare Yet Again

Directors: Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman

Actors: Christopher Nicholas Smith, Katie Featherston, Chloe Csengery, Jessica Tyler Brown 

Rating: 4 out of 5

Paranormal Activity 3 is a surprising film. Yes, horror films are expected to shock. Yet the beauty of this film lies in it managing to give you the creeps even after you have seen the first two you realize that there isn’t much new added to this one. That it does so without being cheeky or over the top is its greatest strength.

After hearing strange sounds in his new house a wedding videographer in 1988, decides to fit the house with cameras to record these paranormal activities. His younger step-daughter however seems to have befriended the paranormal entity even as the incredulous wife, despite proof, refuses to believe, that is until something scares her out of her skin.

There's an unwelcomed guest in the house

You have seen the first two and you know how the story progresses and what happens. You are supposedly immune to the chills and fears since you know how and where it comes from. What will surprise you hence, is how this film, despite your self-assurances, manages to sneak up on you and terrorize you.

Just like the first two, this one does not aspire to explain anything to the audience. Neither does it try bigger sound or visual tricks. Instead, it relies on the proven formula and tricks of the first two films, and manages to scare you in the same surreal fashion.

Charlie Chaplin is undoubtedly the greatest filmmaker ever and will perhaps remain so till the death of cinema. The reason for this is that his films understand the importance of the purity of cinema to squeeze emotion out of its audience. What Chaplin did with the comedy genre, the Paranormal Activity series does with horror.

Yet, it was by no means the first to do so. How can anyone forget the game changer – Blair Witch Project. Yet, the difference between the two films of this series, and the three of Paranormal is that while the former tried to do something different in its sequel, the latter absolutely refuses to do so. In playing the same tricks it played in the first, and explaining as little, or even less, it teaches one of the greatest lessons of filmmaking – that simplicity and minimalism backing a good plot can often do more than expensive visual effects and a complex plot line.

Usually, a sequel tries to outdo its original. Surprisingly, Paranormal seem to have no such aspirations with all three films relying on the same bag of tricks. That it continues to feel so fresh, is indeed the scariest paranormal activity in the series. 

This review was written for the news wire service, IANS (Indo-Asian News Service). 

Have Indian Film Festivals Come Of Age?

On the eve of the Mumbai Film Festival, filmmaker Shyam Benegal had confidently said this is the best festival India has seen so far. As the festival came to a close amid the hits and the misses, the crowds cheering and hooting, his hyperbole became a fact.

Benegal, chairman of MAMI that organises the event, had reasoned that a festival is as big as its films. Showcasing the winners of the best festivals in the world, including Cannes, Berlin and Venice, if you couldn't go there, you could catch it here. And that was fair for Bolly-town. After all the biggest film-producing nation deserves one of the biggest festivals.

Yet, much to the delight of viewers, and often frustrations - after all, too many good films make you miss a few must-watch ones - the festival scored due to many other reasons as well.

The strongest were some stunning films in its International Competition section that carries a Rs.1 crore prize money, one of the biggest in the world. The mastery and control of the cinematic medium shown by these first timers challenges the dominance of masters. A few of them are bound to leave their stamp on world cinema in the next couple of decades. When they do, Mumbai viewers would proudly say they saw their films, and them, at MAMI.

Then there was the film mart, which is slowly becoming a very important event in the commercial cinematic calendar of the festival. There were people from non-traditional global markets, including Germany, South Korea, Japan and Latin America, scouting for the next Indian film to take back home.

'Rendezvous With French Cinema', a separate annual event for Mumbai, got clubbed to the festival, giving audiences not just a chance to see these films but also to interact with some French directors and actors who came to the country.

Having 20 percent films in the festival from India (besides the retrospectives), with none of them from the commercial filmmaking centres of India, the festival truly showed the storytelling prowess churning in this nation, which often does not get its due recognition.

The Open Forums every afternoon saw some cliché and a lot of fireworks. Veterans and newcomers to the mainstream commercial film industry debated the various aspects related to cinema. Is the art of Indian screenwriting dying, is there homophobia in Indian cinema, is taxation killing films? etc. Though a consensus could not be reached, laying down of the problems hopefully proved cathartic.

Not everything in the festival was rosy. The films that were expected to be popular often ended up being too popular to handle. People stood hours outside the halls for films like "Pina", "The Artist", "The Turin Horse", "Melancholia" and others. Taking a cue from previous editions, organisers held special screening for the leftover crowd every day at 10 o'clock. For a few films, even this wasn't enough.

Cinemax proved inefficient hosts for the prestigious festival as goof-ups in projections marred the the entire festival causing much screaming, heartburn and anger. Sadly, instead of Cinemax, it was often the festival organisers that received flak for the same.

Yet after everything was said and done, after the films were seen and many forgotten, what would perhaps be remembered is exactly what Benegal said. Film Festivals in India might just have come of age.

Scorsese Docu On Harrison Pays Tribute To His Indian Connection

He was one of the most important musicians of our times. Not just because George Harrison belonged to The Beatles but also because he was the first musician of global repute to try a fusion of different musical styles, especially Indian.

Director Martin Scorsese’s documentary on Harrison, ‘Living In A Material World’, that played to packed houses in the Mumbai Film Festival pays homage to this spirit of this man.

Fans of The Beatles are treated to some rare insights, trivia and anecdotes from the Band’s existence and archival footages from their tours and from Harrison’s home life. Others, however might not find the film too appealing.

Of course, there are many flaws that can be easily pointed out, including its over three hour length. And though it does talk a bit about Harrison’s formative years, a little more depth into the Beatle’s early life where they often used to perform 8 hours a day, seven days a week at bars in Hamburg, Germany, could have provided greater depth. After all this became their hallowed ground to practice and perfect their music.

“Martin (Scorsese) was not interested in the obvious. He wanted to go deeper. How did George live a meaningful life despite being one of the most famous people on the planet? How do you live such a public life and survive. Interestingly that was also what George was interested in,” says Olivia Harrison, wife of George Harrison and also the producer of the film.  

Yet, in focusing only on his fame, and how Harrison dealt with it, the film might actually be doing disservice to the very thing it is trying to comment against, materialism in this world. However, where it scores an ace, is in its Indian element.

Some maestros of Indian music like Ravi Shankar, Bismillah Khan, Allahrakha Khan, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt among others make an appearance from footage of the 70s. Watching them you realize that one of the greatest contributions of George Harrison was in being the first famous musician to try out a musical tradition totally diverse to his own, thus paving the way for a true musical fusion to happen later.

Olivia agrees. “I think he was very instrumental in influencing western music with Indian classical music. He loved it. He found a very gentle and way of influencing western music. Though, he always called Ravi Shankar the father of world music, he did find subliminal ways of introducing Indian music to the west,” she says.

She smiles reminiscing about the times when in their home the masters of Indian music would be chatting and jamming together. “George often used to call this fusion, confusion,” Olivia says, trying to contain her laughter. 

George’s love of India and its music and musicians, is no secret. Yet, seeing is believing. Watching some masters of world music jam together in this film and the film’s contextualization of the same, might indeed become its greatest contribution to the world. 

This feature was written for the news wire service, IANS (Indo-Asian News Service)

Indian Screenwriting In a Miserable State: Abbas Tyrewala

Screenwriting all over is considered to be the backbone of a film. It is also believed that it is an art form that is in decline in India. Or is it? An open forum held at the ongoing Mumbai Film Festival to discuss the same, saw some interesting fireworks.

“Sorry, but I am not optimistic at all. I think we are f*****. There’s no dearth of writers in India, but there’s a great lack of writing that has the life and smell of this nation,” said celebrated screenwriter Abbas Tyrewala.

He dug into the root of this decline. “Before the 60s, we were telling stories. Major stars worked with the films instead of merely acting in it. Problem started during the Bachchan era. Amitabh Bachchan’s persona started towering everything. Suddenly it was okay to not have a story as long as you had him since people were in awe of him. If you just got his dates, you could make a film and recover money,” Abbas said.

Did our obsession with this man single-handely 'f*****' the art of Indian screenwriting? 

Abbas believes that even when Amitabh took a sabbatical from films, producers devised new tricks of having multi-star films to compensate for the same. “In the 90s, the three Khans emerged. However, someone suddenly discovered the NRI market. Again, shooting in foreign locations became more important. A film could recover its entire money with just its music, satellite rights and overseas market. Where was the need for a story and thus a good writer?” he rued.

While Abbas’ interpretation of Indian cinema’s history drew large cheers from the assembled audiences, his other panel members were more optimistic. Dev Benegal said, “I am positive because change is happening in Indian literature. New voices are emerging. And though most indie films are bad copies of European cinema, ultimately we will find our own cinematic voices.”

Writer and actor Saurabh Shukla said the only solution to the problem was to create cutting-edge writing. “Instead of constantly feeling that you are beaten, just go home and write. Better yourself,” he said.

Veteran writer Vinay Shukla who is part of a venture to find and train new scriptwriters, said, “I have read some of these new Indian screenwriters. They inspire me. There are new, authentic voices who talk about their own place and people. But they have no way to go. No stars would work on a script that does not have them playing larger than life roles.”

Despite playing the role of a doomsday prophet, Abbas Tyerewala was sympathetic to the producer community. “It is easy for writers to make scapegoats out of producers. In reality producers have a lot of guts. They risk everything. They keep playing and gambling with their lives.” Candid and frank he elicited a lot of response when he said, “Perhaps it is the biggest lie that audiences are smarter. The truth is that maybe they have become stupider. And maybe they are getting what they want and deserve.”

Despite the witty attempts of moderator Atul Tiwari who tried diverting the discussion to a solution, there was no hopeful solution in sight. Yet putting the problems at one platform might just end up proving cathartic to Indian scriptwriting and hopefully it will emerge stronger and better. 

This was written for the news-wire service IANS (Indo-Asian News Service). 

The Un-French-Like Frenchman

Actor, writer and director Martin Provost, whose film ‘The Long Falling’ is playing under ‘Rendezvous with French Cinema’ at Mumbai Film Festival is not your typical Frenchman. His heart beats for things ‘un-french-like’. First of all in a very uncharacteristic move, he denounced his fame as a theatre and film actor and plunged into direction.

“When I was young I wrote for theatre. Then acting happened but inside I knew I wanted to make movies and I was unhappy as an actor. One day, I decided acting wasn’t my way and from that day I began to write a lot.

“After one novel was published, I was on my way. Then I made my first short film and then another and then feature films. When I tell you this, it seems easy but believe me it was not,” Martin quips.

Secondly if there is one constant in his films, it has been women. But unlike the French fascination for beautiful women and skin-shows, he is interested in unconventional but strong women with a mind of their own. Invariably, these women are older.

“My mother was extremely talented but she couldn’t express herself since she belonged to an era in France where girls had to get married and that was the end of their expression. So I have taken it upon myself to do what she couldn’t. Being her son, I have inherited the frustration of her generation,” he says.

In famous French actress Yolande Moreau, he seems to have found his ‘mother-figure’.

In his sleeper-hit, multiple César Award winning film ‘Séraphine’ an accomplished painter chooses the anonymous life of a housemaid. In ‘The Long Falling’ an oppressed woman finally kills her husbands and goes on the run. Both of these characters have been played with aplomb by Yolande Moreau.

Ask him if in Yolande he sees the image of his mother and he says candidly, “There is something there. She belongs to the same region in the North of France as me, and she lives barely an hour from me. My mother and she are not exactly alike, but there is definitely something there.”

Thirdly, this Frenchmen despises the craving for intellect and fame. “Séraphine was unknown when I discovered her and that is the point. I wouldn’t have made a film on someone famous. I wanted to show that a woman had done her artistic creation without being known. And that was enough,” Even his next film Violette is about an important but little known French female writer.  

“One of the most difficult things in the world is to not expect any kind of recognition and quietly go on doing your thing. It is this detachment that I was seeking to capture. Today, Frenchmen want their fame and fortune by any means,” Martin rues.

“I try to make simple films without trying to be unnecessarily intellectual. France today is suffering from too much intellectualism. These days they think if they are intelligent, they are superior to others. That is a big mistake.”

In mind, matter and his creations, Martin Provost defies French conventions. There is a sage like quality about him. In a world where materialism has become one and all, his is the kind of creation that will perhaps provide Europe with an antidote for afflictions they do not yet realize, especially fame an intellectualism.

This story was written for the news wire service IANS (Indo-Asian News Service).