International Movies

It is always a delight to watch a Wong kar wai movies. The energy his movie's exhibit is so great, and there is no way you cannot be swept away by it. This one is his best. Every scene in the movie is different and there are so many things to look for in every scene, the camera angles, the editing, the objects etc etc and if you are a goddard fan, you will absolutely love wong kar wai.The movie has those jump cuts, the film noir styles, juke boxes, references to popular movies etc.

This is a story that was originally conceived for his other movie, chungking express but later dropped. The story is again about love, pain with different threads running along parallely and criss crossing each other at times.The characters are similar to ones in chungking express and his usual stars are there. Takeshi Kaneshiro as a mute guy who breaks into different shops to sell stuffs is funny in the movie. But this is not a movie that you would like for its story, but for its pace, for its self conscious cinema styles.

The movie is a celebration. Every frame in this movie creates a tension, a difference, with the lightings and the skewed angles. You keep seeing rooms lit with red lights, dark places, narrow alleys, the night lights, the roads, the late night city, subways etc and then the camera gives a fish eye view, a wet lens view, blurs the background, takes you on a ride with the hero in his bike, extreme close ups and unusual angles combines with some good editing makes this movie an absolute delight to watch.

A verite style movie from John cassavettes.This movie for nothing else, can be watched for Gena Rowlands performance.Her performances in this movie is just awesome, its a tour de force.One of the all time best female performances i have seen.Peter Falk as mabel's husband nick has also given a good performance.

The movie talks about the effect of mental illness's on a family. Gena rowlands who plays the character, mabel is a women suffering from mental problems.She is not totally crazy, but someone who is like the characters of amol palekhar's Ankahee and K.balachander's Agni sakshi.Peter falk the husband and the 3 childrens go through a lot because of that.

Gena Rowlands

It is not a feel good movie or a movie that is looking to make you cry or is not a movie that wants to give a solution to the problem. It justs shows a family's suffering because of the manic depression of one family member. There is no big story or a plot, its just day to day happening of that family. But The performance and the situations are so gripping that you get gelled in their day to day activity.

There is a scene at the start of the movie where nick brings his friend for lunch and they all have spagetti.The eccentricity of mabel, the embarrassment of nick all plays out so well.Its a normal family scene but the tension underneath and the performance makes us another of those guys having the spagetti.

You can feel the embarrassment her husband has to go through because of her. You can feel the joy and love that mabel has for her children’s, you can feel her loneliness, her pure joy when playing with the neighbor’s children’s and the way the neighbor feels about Mabel. Its a movies that gives every one's point of view. you cannot say someone as bad and someone as good. you fell the helplessness of the family, the whole situation. you can blame no one other than the manic depression problem.

John cassavettes

Hitler is coming.But you dont see him first.you see the eager legs that are standing on the toes,you see the guy who has climbed the pole to see him.The commotion in the crowd,turning heads,the outstreched hands, the smiles, the way the face lights up, the childrens with a big grin,the eyes that are eager to see their fuher.
Triumph of will, is an excellent work from one of the great directors.This is propaganda at its best.The documentary when viewed just as a propaganda film without any attachment towards the nazi history is great.The documentary is made in 1934. when the world knew only one kind of propaganda the marxist one.But Leni Riefenstahl the director made this one to give a guide to the next generations on how propaganda documentary should be made.

This was made at a time period when germany loved its fuher and everyone dreamed about a geater future.When there was a mass hysteria and people dreamet of a greater germany.The nazi's love of grand show off's makes this documentary more intresting.you see coluns and columns of peoples.200000 people in one place.sea of flags all adding to the grand image that this proganda film tries to create.
But this movie also serves as a warning,you can imagine what kind of an impact this documentary would have created on the people in the 1930's.It would have totally blown anyone who was watching it then and would have created the larger than life of Adolf hitler.The mass hysteria and the speeches by the hilter's assistance reveal how we should be careful in not letting ourselves carried away by the iamge of a single person and put him above the law.



supposedly the first women to put the camera on the wheels, the trendsetting skill of leni riefenstahl where not recognized cause of her association with the nazi's.

Links
Leni Riefenstahl on wiki
Leni Riefenstahl home page

I didn't know anything about this movie and saw this movie without any expectations and was totally blown away by this movie.This movie is a tour de force both visualy and musicaly.There will never be a better movie than this on resistance and counter resistence.

If you like political movies.This movie is a MUST.This movie is about algierian resistance to french occupation. Told through the eyes of one of the FLN(Algerian resistance group) commander La pointe, this movie tells the true story of the resistance movement in a stunning way.

Innovative narration, brilliant background score, awesome editing and photography combined with some nice acting, makes this movie stand apart. The movie is not a straight forward narration of a freedom struggle with one hero but it is about many people and many incidents weaved through some awesome editing. The dialogues are very minimal and also to the point and sharp. This movie is considered as one of the kind and was an international hit.To give you an idea of how important this movie is, it won the golden lion in venice beating movies like Bresson's "Au hasard Balthazar" and François Truffaut's "Farenheit 451".A movie that beat bresson's Au hasard Balthazar,well that should be enough to tell you about this movie.

This movie does not have any big sentimental scenes or patriotic stuff. Its just the events told in a pacy style. The BGMs adds so much to the movie that when you think back the movie you cannot think the visuals without the audio. There is whole rhythm to the movie.



The director has captured a nation's history in a powerful and moving way.It is like reading a Dominique Lapierre, Larry Collins book about the activities of the FLN in algeirs.In the middle of the movie I questioned myself whether all these scenes where taken of rthe movie or was it some documentary clippings that where shot during the resistance movement.But to my amazement i later confirmed that every single shot is taken for the movie.It was so unbelievable.There isn't a single scene that will give you an idea that the actors or for that matter the crowd was acting for the film.


The movie, even though shot 40 years before is still relevant today.Pentagon screened this movie in 2003 to its officers to teach them on what they might expect in iraq.And you know what, in the movie if you replace algeirs by iraq you can get a picture of what is happening in iraq now.

This movie was banned in france for 4 years because it showed the french in bad light.Yes the movie takes the algerian side but it is not completely one sided, the movie actually raises above the french occupation and narrates things more as a general opposition to colonization.



The Director of this movie is Gillo Pontecorvo, an italian director.He has taken very few movies and this one has gone down as a classic.I loved the movie, i ordered the bonus material separately and found out more about this guy, my guess came true, he was a marxist.He is a man who fought with italy's communist resistance against the facist.His resistance experience had definitely helped him in making the movie.The movie have 2 bonus material DVD's one has interviews by mira nair,oliver stone,spike lee,Steven Soderbergh ,Julian Schnabel and the director himself the other one is interview with former counterterrorism officials Richard A. Clarke and Michael A. Sheehan.

Watch it, it is awesome.

Links
FLN

Z is another classic cinema verite style movie.It was a huge hit in US and was nominated for 4 oscars, including best picture and best direction. It got 2 oscars, for best foreign film and editing.

The movie is based on the real life incident of the assassination of Greek Leftist leader Grigoris Lambrakis.The movie starts with the assassination of the leftist leader by the right wing mob in a public place before the eyes of the police and people. The right wing group which is backed by the military makes everyone beleive that it was an accident. Pressure from the left wing brings in a judge to investigate the case.The powerful military tries to suppress the investigation, but truth is revealed by the efforts of a straight forward judge and a journalist.

What makes the movie interesting is its cinema verite style which focuses on the incident and not on the characters to present an engaging and energetic movie. It employs lot of rapid cuts. Where by, scenes flow into one another fastly. There is no setting up scenes are slow opening and gradual narration of the situation, the movies cuts from one incident to the other rapidly and maintains the edgy feeling all through out the movie.

Another great thing to the movie is that no country or place is mentioned, even though it is based on a true story the movie does not mention any place or country and it is taken in a way that everybody will relate to it with their own country and political situation. That is what exactly happened in USA, people in US related the Yves Montand character to JFK.The movie by making the story generic, has transcended time and has become a story of suppressed democracies all around the world, rather than the story on one single incident that happened in greece.

Z is always mentioned with battle of Algiers as a good example of the cinema verite style.Z also has other commonalities; it was also shot in algiers. It was a french movie about a greek incident shot in algiers.

Jean-Louis Trintignant

Unlike battle of algiers "Z" had some international stars like Yves Montand, Irene Papas & Jean-Louis Trintignant starring in it.Jean-Louis's acted in Eric Rohmer's classic "My Night at Maud's" the same year.

I wasn't aware of the fact that Greece was under military rule as late as the 80's.And how did that happen?. Same old story, a CIA backed coup.


The movie is simply an ode to democracy.

COSTA-GAVRAS was the son of a Greek leftist leader who was denied admission to study film's in USA cause of his fathers communist background.