NOTE: This article written by me was first published in The Hindu, July 15, 2012.
Best Five
Motorcycle diaries (2004)
As a medical
student and restless soul, Che Guevera, the mythic leftist youth icon traveled
all along the South American continent in a rundown motorcycle with his
biochemist friend Alberto Granado. The tour along the poverty stricken exploited
populace of Latin America changed him forever
and gave him the mission of his life. Che mixed whole-heartedly with lepers in
the leper colony they served and refused to wear gloves while touching the
lepers. In the end Che is a transformed character. This movie directed by
Walter Salles has beautiful shots of landscape of South
America with lilting music by Gustavo Santaollala. It is a
must-see for all college students who have heart full of dreams, altruism and
purity. The journey, the experiences can put one into introspection and
transformation- such is the power of the movie.
There will be blood (2007)
Rise of a
ruthless oil-magnate in California
during the oil boom at the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century
was documented in this movie. Beautifully enacted by Daniel Day Lewis, infuses
life into the ruthlessness and avaricious character of the Daniel Plainview.
The man utilizes innocence of a child to buy land and arm twists the local
church to his monetary gain. At last he is friendless as he disowns his child
and he kills the church priest.
Schindler’s list (1993)
Supposedly
Spielberg’s best movie which won several Oscars with career-best performance by
Liam Neeson as a benevolent German businessman who saved 1200 Jew’s lives
during 2nd world war. Shot in black and white it shows the horror of
the Nazis and how Oskar Schindler ( Liam Neeson), a top ranking German
businessman gives the Jews jobs in his factories and saves their lives. The
scene where a young girl roaming aimlessly with a red rose and the last scene
where the Jews presented him with a gold ring touched my heart. World renowned
violinist Itzhak Perlman’s solo violin performance written and performed by him
brought to life the trauma of gas chamber victims.
Meghe Dhaka Tara (1960)
This is a heart-rending
story of an exploited daughter of a refugee family in Bengal.
Supriya Chowdhury played the role of Nita, the daughter brilliantly. Everybody
of that family rises up with her help forgetting her in the end. In a
sanatorium in the end for treatment of TB, she cries from the bottom of the
heart ‘Dada ami banchte chai’ ( Brother I want to live) when his brother
narrates the story of well being of her family. A Rabindrasangeet ‘Je rat e mor
duar guli bhanglo jhor e’ sung by Debabrata Biswas and Gita Ghatak is a
brilliant rendition of a song displaying emotions of the central characters in
a movie.
Apur Sansar (1959)
A Ray classic,
the last part of Apu trilogy which brought Soumitra Chatterjee and Sharmila
Tagore into films. A sweet tale of romance of newly weds Apu and Aparna
disturbed by sudden death of Aparna (Sharmila). To forget his pains Apu
(Soumitra) takes up a job in a coal mine in MP. One of the most memorable scenes
in film history is when Apu throws away pages of his autobiographical novel
which was supposed to be his dream-work. The floating pages drifting away in
wind still bring lumps in my throat. Another poignant scene is at the end when
Apu reclaims his son and walks to the new life.
Those
five which almost made it
Central do Brasil (1998)
This movie is
all about innocence. A disenchanted middle aged single lady, Dora develops a
sweet attachment to an innocent 9 year old boy, Josue and goes on a journey of
self-discovery to get the boy back to his father he never met. Dora earns by
writing letter for illiterates in Rio Di Janeiro’s Central station which she
never posts. She meets this boy whose mother accidentally dies in front of the
station. She reluctantly takes care of the boy and tries to reunite him with
his father who stays away in a small settlement in Brasil. The innocence in the
storyline, in the sweet relationship between this lady and the boy tugs your
heart-string. In the end she leaves this boy to get back to Rio
and both are left alone with memories. This movie by Walter Salles won several
awards in Berlin
and Golden Globe.
City of God (2002)
City of god is
my favorite any day. Reality does not escape from Rocket, the protagonist of
City of God. He
is a poor slum dog who wants to have a life free from crime and violence
inherent in his surroundings. In Rio di Janeiro’s slum ‘City of God’, the natural course
of a child’s life will be of drugs, crime and violence. Rocket’s gun-toting
friends and siblings do the same thing. But Rocket wants to lead a clean life.
Surprisingly, an ordinary camera comes to his rescue and becomes his passport
to an honest world. He shoots photographs, not bullets, like gun-carrying
friends and one day, his photograph of warring drug-lords of the slum makes
front-page of a newspaper of which Rocket is a door-to-door distributor. Images
of crimes from that slum are hard to come by; even police are averse to operate
in that slum. Rocket knows these criminals from childhood and his proximity to
these bad men is a boon. He can take inside images of this slum and those
actually make Rocket a high-earning photographer. The escape from poverty
through photography seems very much realistic to me. The man is rising above
his destiny by hard work; not winning a jackpot through the hands of destiny.
He is maintaining a core of honesty though surrounded by drug-dealers, petty
snatchers etc. This act of reality attracted me the most. Fernando Mireilles
directed this movie and it won 4 nominations in Academy awards though it won
none in 2004. Despite that it is considered a world classic.
Nayak (1966)
This is another
classic by Ray which portrays trials and tribulations of an amateur theater
actor rising to stardom in films. Thought to be far ahead of its time, this
movie shows the insecurities of a movie star, a hitherto unexplored theme in
Indian films. Ray used the charisma of the matinee idol of Bengali cinema,
Uttam Kumar. None other than Uttam Kumar seemed fit enough to portray the
emotions of a film actor shown in several dream sequences and flashbacks while
he goes to Delhi
in a train. The probing questions of a lady journalist attract him towards her.
Fugitive Pieces (2007)
Recently after I
saw ‘Fugitive Pieces’ (2007, directed by Jeremy Podeswa based on a eponymous
novel by Canadian writer Anne Micheals) in IIT Bombay film club, a movie about
Jacob Beer a holocaust survivor trying to coming to terms with his own loss I
rediscovered the haunting melody of Beethoven….I realized why they say Beethoven
is a timeless classic. Jacob’s sister used to play on piano ‘The Moonlight
Sonata’ by Beethoven and Jacob remembers moonlight sonata from his past when
they were a happy family of four until the Nazis hounded them in Poland, killed
his parents in front of his own eyes and abducted his sister. Jacob survived
miraculously with the kind help of a Greek archeologist. But the trauma that
incident left behind is difficult to hide. He grows up in Canada, becomes a successful
teacher and writer but never away from his past. He is consumed with the
obsession of finding holocaust stories and writing them…..his wife Alexi
deserts him once she gets to know from his diary how the shameless vitality of
her is a distraction for Jacob’s endless pursuit of the past. In these moments
and others when Jacob’s sister comes back in his dreams and memories I could
identify with Jacob’s sense of loss.
Cairo time (2009)
I liked Cairo Time thoroughly. It is not like Turning 30 which I was suggested and got disappointed.
Cairo Time essentially captures the love that never happened between two mature individuals
disparate in their cultural settings. It's slow and long but passionate like smouldering ember.
So don't see when you are particularly unhappy. But it's like coffee. Once you get into it you c
annot get out. At least I could not....The music, the photography, the moments of subtlety....s
imply touched me. Juliette, a mother of two comes from US to meet his UN official husband in
Cairo. But her husband is away. In between she is taken care of by Tareq, a handsome Egyptian
bachelor. Slowly she falls for Tareq over boat cruise on Nile, chess match in local café, a travel
to the Pyramids and to Alexandria to attend Tareq’s old flame’s daughter’s marriage.
They almost kiss once and despite that there are no scenes of physical intimacy; but when her
husband returns after the long wait Juliette understands she has begun to miss Tareq. We get
that hint by her uncontrollable sob in her husband’s arm on the way to the Pyramids. A lovely
ending for a love lost ! A sublime and haunting film on sensuousness embedded in a platonic
relationship. This movie got an award in Toronto international film festival.
