Cinema Connoisseur's Cave

Haider Vishal Bharadwaj’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s titular play ‘Hamlet’ is dark, gritty and thoroughly meticulous in craft. There is always a beauty about snow white backdrop that provides the canvas to draw human fallacies in red.  ‘Haider’, set in the backdrop of Kashmir proves to be violently beautiful. But it’s not the violence, or the prominent vengeance of ‘Hamlet’; nor the socio-political dogma that creating a ripple of controversy was faced by the people during the 95 Kashmir Conflicts,  that was the driving force of Haider. It was the awry and eerie love and relationship between the mother-son duo of Ghazala and Haider. The primary characters of the story, and their relationship did not deviate much from Hamlet in the film. But, just like his previous films on Shakespeare’s works, Bharadwaj triumphs, more prominently in this film, in the craft of blending the tragedy of the play with the emotional aspect of the story. Thus, the film becomes very unique...

              Incendies belongs to that rare breed of films that induce a tumultuous surge of emotions in its spectators while engaging them through the narrative. Jerry Seinfeld once said in his show Seinfeld, to add to the humor of that show undoubtedly, that Leo Tolstoy wanted to name his novel ‘War: What Is It Good For’ instead of “War and Peace”. Maybe that rhetorical question of a book title would have been an apt tagline for what was portrayed in this film.  What sets Dennis Villeneuve’s ‘Incendies’ apart from other films with post-war trauma as their underlying theme, is the spectrum of human relationship he constructed on the screen. The film starts with twin brother and sister, Jeanne and Simon, receiving their recently deceased mother, Nawal’s funeral wishes; wishes that need to be fulfilled, before the children can proceed with the burial. In two different letters, the twins were asked to locat...

At the very first act of the film, we find our protagonist saying that it does not matter whether the story has a hero or not. The story, itself, should be the hero. True and a very promising premise for viewers who love a good story. But, halfway in the film, you would realize that neither the protagonist nor the story is a ‘Hero’ of any kind. In fact, the film succumbs to provide the traits that would make us call the story a person.  The film is based on Chetan Bhagat’s novel of same name.   It does not take much time to render the traits of its central characters so that they appear to be representatives of our young generation. Krish, a Punjabi guy and Ananya, a Tamil Brahmin girl, meet at IIM Ahmedabad and they fell in love. One ought to appreciate the first few minutes where there was no beating around the bush regarding the love and chemistry between the two leads.   They were in love and there were some genuine zany humorous moments about them. Th...

Jeff Nichols' Mud is a modern day fairy tale. Keeping the essence of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, he wove a coming-of-age story so gratifying that it will leave a smile on your face when the credits roll. A wonderful piece of character study that we do not see very often.  Set in the background of Mississippi banks and the city De Witt, Arkansas, we see two teenage boys(Ellis and Neckbone), adventurously, as boys of that age often do, set out for an island in the middle of Mississippi river; with the aim of taking ownership of a boat that one the two boys had previously found out. Upon arrival, they found that the boat, as they had hoped, is not completely unoccupied. A man, who called himself 'Mud', had taken shelter in that boat. With turn of events, the boys befriended Mud. As it would turn out later, Mud was a fugitive on the run. This is where the film treads in the water of 'love'. Here we see variants of love from the eyes of our protagonist...

Narrative that follows the 'whodunnit' approach often relies on the climactic twist. Herein lies the craftsmanship of the filmmaker to keep you on the edge even if there is nothing but a simple conversation is going on the screen. You can feel the Hitchcockian bomb is there somewhere. David Fincher showed us how to hold the suspense throughout the film in his early works. Dennis Villeneuve here pretty much did a similarly splendid job.   Two families see their worlds go upside down, when their two very young daughters go missing, presumably abducted. When the adept detective has to let the primary suspect go, due to lac k of evidences, the father of one child takes it to himself to find the daughters. Sounds familiar? Yes, the premise is quite similar to that of a Mystic River or a Zodiac. But, the defining feature of this film would be that, every now and then it justifies its title and asks you question about who the real prisoner is. For it is us who put oursel...

Often come films that are terrible yet has its cast performing extra-ordinarily. The rare ones are where the film is superbly directed with a fine story, but let down by the cast. Madras Café is an example of the latter ones. This espionage thriller is set in Sri Lanka during the 80s and 90s, while the country was torn in Civil War. The ethnic clash claimed number of innocent lives. The-Assassination-of-Rajiv-Gandhi-inspired incident served as the central point, around which the story is spun. When the conflict reached its zenith though rebel group of Tamil ethnicity, LTF (based on LTTE), India decided to intervene and send a peace force. This is where, our protagonist, Vikram Singh was sent to the war zone to ensure the operation of Peace Force does not fall through. Based on this promising premise, the story moves in considerably apt pace, weaving more threads, that culminated the cloth of the grand conspiracy.  The screenplay deviated from the traditional three-a...

Beyond the Hills (2012) Alina and Voichita had grown up together in an orphanage. They had found solace and comfort in each other’s presence before both of them took different paths in their life. The film opens with Alina returning to home with the hope of reuniting with her childhood friend and starting a new life only to find Voichita leading a completely new life in a monastery with nothing but God at heart. What follows is one riveting on-screen journey that dwells on faith, love, theism, atheism and over all, human emotions that goes unfathomably deep. Director Cristian Mungiu’s remarkable work to depict the tumults of emotions of both the lead characters would be etched on the mind of audiences. The story largely revolves around how Voichita trying to get Alina a new life like hers in the monastery and Alina repeatedly and determinedly trying to undermine the value of god to get Voichita to love her with horrific consequences for her and the people residing at th...