Thursday 1 October 2015

Best movies from Sep '15


Ich Seh Ich Seh - Goodnight Mommy by Severin Fiola, Veronica Franz - 2014- German from Austria
A mother comes back home, after a cosmetic surgery to her face, to her waiting young twins in a beautiful countryside villa. Her face is all bandaged and she also behaves strange that the boys doubt if she is their mother at all.
An excellent example for the beauty of the art of cinema. The movie starts slowly but gets tense and tenser. Am sure towards the last 10 or 20 minutes my mouth was bit open, kind of awe struck. The cinematography is absolutely sensational, with most of the scenes happening inside the villa.



Kis Uykusu - The Winter Sleep by Nuri Blige Ceylan - 2014 - Turkish
A not so successful theatre artist of the past, now enjoying some local fame as a writer, lives with his young wife and divorced sister, in a quite popular homestead. One or two friends, a kind of assistant and his tenants in the village makes up the rest of the characters.
The movie, proceeds through some scenes with long discussions between the couple or some of these characters. These discussions, sometimes, brings out the deep discontent within some of these characters but other times are about 'kind' of philosophical topics. It is very long, a bit more than 3 hours, yet, this is very engaging, speaks volumes about how well it has been made. Often the camera has little to do, but still I found it was a brilliant work. It was incredible that, many a times, I felt, the director was letting us watch some of the hypocrisies of the rich.

A brilliant cinema which make one feel like reading an epic novel.


Gui Lai - Coming home by Yimou Chang - 2014 - Mandarin/China
A couple who got separated because of Cultural revolution. By the time the husband is back from prison, wife has memory issues and do not recognise him. She keeps on waiting for her husband and the husband tries his best to get back to her memory. 

Well that story gives the feeling that it could be another cliched Hollywood epic. But not with Yimou Chang. He has made a kind of epic poem out of this story without making it overtly emotional or too much sentimental or not even going into too much of politics, which is omnipresent around. In fact the movie is quite slow, very engaging, with beautiful cinematography. Many of the scenes are very detailed and still have a kind of subtlety to it. However, most of those scenes will touch our heart. The ending is another class act.
Li Gong, what an actress. What a pity that most people, who know about Meryl Streep, do not know about this wonderful actor. 


5 to 7 by Victor Levin - 2014 - English/Hollywood

This cinema, in some ways, might look typical of many Hollywood romantic comedies. But there are two remarkable points about the movie.
- that someone is telling how conservative or closed Americans are in private life, when compared to the French or Europeans, barr the British.
- I dont know another Hollywood movie which even mentions the French 'system' of 5 to 7, a technical term for 'legitimate' extra marital affairs. This is the thread behind the movie.

Above all, I would say watch it simply for the stunning, beautiful French actress Berenice Marlohe. She has lovely curves and posture, but her smile takes it all to another level. Her smile lives on, even few seconds after the camera has moved on from her!


I am, again, gotten back into watching 'Nordic Noir' serials.

Den Som Draeber (Those who Kill)

Ornen: En Krime Odysse (Eagle : A Crime Odyssey)

Rejseholdet (Unit One)

All were good. But none felt like Forbrydelsen though. Its funny to know that all the above serials have been remade in America!