Jaloux - Jealous

2010 by Patrick Demmers - French movie from Quebec, Canada

Mostly thriller movies are all fast paced. There are only very few thrillers which only had a moderate or slow pace. Jaloux is a quite a different thriller from the typical entertainment ones, and it is a kind of 'curious thriller'.

Thomas and Marianne are on the 7 th year of their relationship and are at cross roads. Marianne thinks Thomas is very jealous when she is in company of other men and Thomas thinks she can conduct better while with other men. They decide to go to a country cottage, of their uncle, for a final try to see if their relationship will work or not. Arriving in the cottage, they are supposed to collect the key from the neighbour, but find that the neighbour is ready for them at the cottage, a dinner prepared for them. 

To be frank, at the end of the movie this is not quite different from many such thriller movies. But the way this movie is shot is incredible. There is nothing, that is part of typical entertainers, and there is hardly anything which goes over board anywhere. The pace is even lower than moderate, but it is unbelievable that even with such a slow pace, the movie kept me really engaged. In fact I felt so curious about what next. We definitely know that there is something wrong and sneeky about this so called neighbour who welcomes our couple. But it is told in such a nice way that it takes us to the limits of curiosity. I thought it was brilliant.

And finally, when the truth comes out it looks even brilliant. Without any explanations what so ever, the director tells us calmly what happened. And there is a kind of calm shock engulfing us. I am not sure shock is the right word here. But we take this truth calmly and feel for it.

Both the script and the director is brilliant. All actors, especially the guy who played the neighbour and Marianne, were brilliant. And the cinematography is simply brilliant. This looks like a very low cost production. But it is quite an example to prove good cinema, even a thriller, do not require huge financial support.

I really wish, this movie was widely seen. I would recommend it for anybody who is really interested in good cinema.

Polytechnique

2009 by Denis Villeneuve - French movie from Quebec, Canada.

At times, film makers are inspired from a real life tragedy and makes beautiful movies on it. Kalloori, which I would consider as one of the best among the new age Tamil movies, was made so. The director picked up an event, which hurt the whole nation, and built a touching love story on it, backwards. I have this movie, Polytechnique, because of my appreciation for the director. On reading the synopsis I thought, ok he is inspired by a tragedy. It is a true story except that the director does not build anything around it. He just follows the incident.

On 6 Dec '89, a student in the Montreal Polytechnique, went on a shooting spree in his campus, killing 14 women and seriously injuring many others. Finally he killed himself. 

It is more like a docu drama, but I found it like a horror movie. There are spine chilling scenes in it, which we cannot fathom in anyways. The man just walks through the different parts of his school and just shoots at women. This is all the movie is about. Through random flash backs and forrwards, it just gives a few more scenes about the man, what he did before this, and also about two other characters who lived through the whole incident. Thats it. It is a chilling experience though.

The movie is shot in black and white, for reasons I cant make out. But it does give the reasons for which this guy went on this shooting spree. He was fed up of feminism and feminists. His death note says he is doing this only for political reasons. Neither does the movie goes into any details about why he hates feminism, nor does it points to anybody among the victims, who is a dreadful feminist. In many ways, this is just strange. I mean a feature film just shows a shooting spree. There is very little dialogues or scenes which occurs outside the main scenario. Naturally it ends up like a horror movie.

Quebec is definitely famous for its female supporting laws. It is nearly impossible for a woman to be a culprit there, they can only be a victim, it seems. This incident, infamous as the Montreal massacre still lives in the minds of many students and some are still traumatized, as mentioned through the later life of one character. Through the same character, the director also brings out a masochist point, which women will find atrocious. So may be he is making the point that the culprit here, might had some problems.

It is a very interesting watch, horrific though. But for me, it was quite different from the other Villeneuve movies, and will never be on my list of reccommended ones from this director.

Maelstrom

2000 by Denis Villeneuve - French movie from Quebec, Canada

I was searching for Villeneuve movies, after watching Incendies and found two. I am convinced this director is a maestro, a real genius in movie making. May be after a couple of decades, movie lovers will talk about him like we do about Kurusova, Fellini et all.

A woman cannot get over her guilt, after an abortion. To make it worse, her car runs over a man. All is not over and she meets the victim's son. 

This movie begins in a bizarre way. A big fish, on the butchers table, is telling a story. It is extremely brilliant how water and fish is incorporated into this movie. Through the fish and the various images of water, this really takes us through the turbulant mind of the woman, Bibiane. This gives a surrealistic feeling at least in the beginning. But then towards the latter half, the movie turns into blunt reality and it is brilliant and beautiful. There are some cliches here, but we would not even notice them actually.

It is bit difficult watch in the beginning, as it looked more like a low paced art house movie. But soon we are into the mind of Bibiane and the movie is quite different experience from there on. The gradual relation ship between Bibiane and the dead man's son is kind of expected, once they accidentally meet, but it is told in a very nice way.

This is one movie where we can question the story, the lady is never caught or questioned for her crime, in many ways, but nobody, I think, will question the way it is told. Excellent script and director, supported by a brilliant camera. Add to it the brilliant performance by Marie Josee Croze as Bibiane. It is a wonder that, a French actors, irrespective of which side of Atlantic they are from, is always brilliant.

I cant wait to watch Polytechinique, the other movie I have from Villeneuve.

Incendies

2010 by Denis Villeneuve - French movie, from Quebec , Canada

I am having some really busy days that I find it difficult to write. Even if I had, I am sure I will not be able to write exactly what I feel about this movie. Sometimes you come across master pieces when you least expect it. The synopsis sound interesting so I just took this one. I didnt had any idea at all about what I was going to experience.

A mothers' will asks her twins (a girl and boy around 20 years) to find their hitherto unknown father and a brother, somewhere in Lebanon, and handover a letter. The girl sets out to fulfill her mothers wish, joined by her brother later. 

If I make a list of 10 best international movies, right now, this one will definitely be there. An absolute master piece, may I say. Within a few moments after the beginning, the movie makes you so curious about this journey and it goes on until in the final moments we come across the truth. And what a bloody, mind boggling truth it is. Brilliant, bloody brilliant. Forget about the cinematic values or everything, even if we just look at this part of the movie, it is so shocking and will keep haunting us for so long.

Once the girl sets out on her journey to find her brother and father, the scenes overlap with the mother's own journey in her homeland, when she was young, in search of her son and it is so brilliant and beautifully done that at the same time we feel like looking at the journeys of two women. The script and the director was so good here that it was unbelievable how they had placed these 2 women's journey from two different eras, in search of the same boy, son for one lady and unseen brother for one.  In fact, in the whole movie the script is brilliant with scenes going back and forth between the two periods and it has been so well put on the screen.

There is one scene in this movie, during the journey of the mother, when she ends up in a bus carrying Muslim refugees in war torn Lebanon and the bus is stopped by some Christian extremists or terrorists. The whole episode was so beautifully and brilliant shot that when all those Muslims are massacred, we sit dumb founded. Can any director picturise this scene better, I would doubt it.  Similarly there is again the scene when the mother kills a leader, for which she ends up in jail and finally had to flee to Canada, which was so brilliant. I just mentioned two scenes, but the whole movie is brilliantly shot. For long periods, it feels nearly like a thriller in fact, even if the whole movie is actually something else.

I am really short of words to explain this movie. It reaches a level which is reminiscent of classic Greek tragedies, I would say. I cant say anything more actually. Truly brilliant piece of cinema.

Brillliant, Script, Brilliant Actors, Brilliant Cinematography and Editing and an extremely Brilliant director too.

The whole world should see this movie. They ought to know what unimaginable things can happen because of the unjust world.

A truly cinematic master piece. Canada must be so proud about this movie.