Beijing Bicycle

Directed by - Wang Xiaoshuai
Written by - Wang Xiaoshuai, Tang Danian, Peggy Chiao, Hsu Hsiao-Ming

 Guei a village boy comes to Beijing for better life. He gets a job with a courier service. Company gives bicycle to Guei on installment. Guei does his job with honesty and dedication. Bicycle not only becomes his means of living but also status among his friend. One day bicycle Guei loses his bicycle, someone steals it. Guei without cycle can't deliver courier so loses his job. Manager though promises him to give back the job if he finds the cycle.

Jian a school going teenager lives in the city's slum. He buys cycle from second hand market. Cycle is important for him to impress girl who he fancies. He buys the cycle by stealing father's money kept for his sister's education. 

Guei finds the cycle because of the mark he had carved on it. Intially Guei and Jian fights for the control of the cycle but eventually agrees to share it. 

Jian finds out that girl he loves has fallen for other guy Du Huan. In rage Jian hits him with brick and runs away. Jian then gives away cycle to Guei. But cycle is damaged by Du Huan's gang. Guei inconsolable carries the damaged cycle on his shoulders.

Thanmathra

Film: Thanmathra

Director:

 Blessy

Writers:

 Blessy, P. Padmarajan (short story)

He asked the name of his daughters and it was answered. He asked it again and was answered again. This went for 1 hour and then the person asking answering the question was tired.

He started crying without any reason and started abusing people for no reason.

He forgot places,people ,directions,conversations,important events which happened in his life and ultimately himself.

The person whom I referring, was the grandfather of my friend Aniket. An Alzheimer patient in his late 70’s.

The character in the movie (Ramesan Nair)‘Thanmathra’ shows same kind of symptons.He misplaces a very important office file at his home, inside the refrigerator. Forgets whether he had shaved in the morning. Loses his sense of time and place. He gradually loses his memory and starts behaving as a child.Technically speaking, Alzheimer’s disease usually develop slowly and gradually worsen over time, progressing from mild forgetfulness to widespread brain impairment. Chemical and structural changes in the brain slowly destroy the ability to create, remember, learn, reason, and relate to others. As critical cells die, drastic personality loss occurs and body systems fail.

Whenever an individual’s body is affected by such serious ailments, then at that time he is not the only sufferer. His family too has to suffer along with the patient. It was not just the grandfather of my friend who was suffering during his illness but the entire family. The movie successfully portrays that piece of the story.Life becomes very stressful for Ramesan’s wife – Lekha and his children.

The tragic end of Ramesan makes you feel sad and depressed at the end of the movie.’Thanmathra’ a must watch for serious movie lovers.

A Good Year

A Good Year

Director:

 Ridley Scott

Writers:

 Marc Klein (screenplay), Peter Mayle (novel)

A friend of mine once told me that ‘You seek what you see’. Isn’t that true?

You see a wonderful car passing by the road and then you feel like owning it.

You see a posh apartment of your friend or a relative and the next day you want to furnish your home in the same manner.

In a similar fashion, people often say that olden days were much more beautiful than the present. ‘Old is Gold’. Nobody ever feels that the time in future will be golden. Childhood memories are always much more blissful. I think this state of mind justifies my friend’s statement of ‘You seek what you see’. We have seen our childhood and that’s the reason we want it back. Nobody has seen the future or has experienced it. So nobody says that the days in future will be golden and I want to seek the future.

‘Good Year’ is a movie in which the main character of the movie – ‘Max’ (played by Russel Crowe)spends his summer holidays with his uncle in the vineyard estate of his uncle in France. Later on, He becomes a materialistic investment banker in England. Life changes for Max post his uncle’s demise. Max being the sole beneficiary of the property goes back to the vineyards estate to sell it. But ultimately he ends up quitting his profession as an investment banker and starts living a normal life of a villager near the vineyards owned by his uncle. He recollects the golden memories he had spent with his uncle. The game of Cricket and Tennis that he used to play as a child. The finer details shared by his uncle about the making of a fine quality wine.

When the company chairman Sir Nigel asks Max to make a choice between’Money or Life’, he chooses the later. The wonderful time which Max had spent as a child in the vineyards estate overshadows the posh and luxurious lifestyle which he would have enjoyed in the future. Once again proving the idea that Past is always wonderful.

The passion of dedicated winemaker – ‘Francis’ and the romantic angle added by the introduction of ‘Fanny’ a café owner makes the story more interesting.

Deool (The Temple)

Director: Umesh Kulkarni
Written by: Girish Kulkarni

Indians are god fearing people.  Hindus have 33 crore gods. So for every 2 Indian Hindu we have one god. Any problem in life Indians try to find spiritual / religious solution. Promotion, marriage, business, wealth, house, etc for all problem  areas there is one or the other god designated to take care. No doubt religion / caste plays important role in politics. You will find godman with a copyright on some or the other god. 

Religion / God  / temple is a big business in India. Here are some statistics

Tirupati: The Tirupati temple at Andhra Pradesh gets visits from over 60,000 devotees every day.  The temple gets up to Rs 650 crore in donations every year. The gold on the deity itself is 1000 kg!

Saibaba Temple, Shirdi:  It sees millions of devotees from different religions and castes everyday. The temple has gold and silver jewellery worth approximately Rs 32 crore and silver coins worth more than Rs 6 lakh. The temple gets donations worth Rs 350 crore every year. 

Siddhivinayak, Mumbai: This is one temple frequented by commoners and celebrities alike. The income of this temple including donations goes upto Rs 48 crore every year. The dome over Ganesha is coated in 3.7 kilos of gold that was donated by a businessman. 

The Golden temple, Punjab: The holiest shrine in the Sikh religion has its walls decorated with wooden panels and elaborate gold and silver work. The palanquin that bears the Adi Granth is set with precious stones and has a golden canopy supported by silver poles. This holy place gets as many as 40,000 visitors a day. 

Vaishno Devi, Kashmir: This temple is one of the oldest in the country. It gets more than 4.5 million visitors every year and an income of Rs 500 crore annually. 

source: http://luxpresso.com/photogallery-lifestyle/top-richest-temples-in-india/6249/1 

Deool (temple) is a story of Keshya a god loving (not fearing) man. One day he has an hallucination that he saw  Datta (Brahma, Vishnu & Mahesh together) outside his village while taking a nap under a tree. This news spreads like fire. Politicians and villageers decide to take advantage of the situatio. They divert funds meant for hospital to build temple. This temple slowly becomes flourishing business. Every villager starts a stall outside village.  Money comes in the small village, simple lives of villagers changes.Whole village becomes part of the corrupt system except Keshya. Keshya realises that god must be suffocating in such an environment and he needs to be set free. He steals god's stone idol from the temple and immerses it in a river.

The film won National award for Best film, Best Actor (Girish Kulkarni) & Best Dialogues (Girish Kulkarni).

MUST SEE.

The Devil's Double

Directed by : Lee Tamahori
Screenplay by: Michael Thomas base on The Devil's Double by Latif Yahia

Latif Yahia a soldier in Iran-Iraq is summoned by Uday Hussein son of Saddam Hussein to be his body double because of their resemblance. Latif refuses, Uday imprisons and tortures him and threatens to kill his family. Latif has no choice but to accept the offer. 

The life turns to worse for Latif as he witnesses atrocities by Uday Hussein. Killings, rapes, torture is everyday norm. Uday commits many crimes like raping a newly wedded bride, killing Sadam's personal valet in a party, raping and murdering a minor girl and then killing her father, torturing athletes for losing, etc.

How long one can live witnessing things like these without doing anything about it? Latif one day escapes. Uday asks him to comeback, Latif does come back but to assassinate Uday. But Uday survives the assassination though it makes him permanently handicapped.

Dominic Cooper as Uday / Latif is remarkable. Film is worth watching which is aired on all leading English movie channels.

A world without Oil

 

Imagine what if tomorrow you get up and the newspaper has the headline that "R.I.P. OIL"

Oil has been so integral part of life that we can't do anything without it. Be it traveling, cooking, electricity, transportation, even our toothpaste has oil. Oil drives the economy of the world. Wars are fought because of oil. 

Oil of such a significance if vanishes one day how will it impact our lives? Yes I know it won't happen suddenly and we will find out alternatives to it but will we be able to replace it completely? Will the alternatives will be a cheaper form? Will it be renewable? 

Governments are trying alternatives like Biofuel, but with increasing population the bigger question that stares our face is which hunger do we satisfy? And in economy like India where agriculture is dependent on monsoon bad rains will not only mean scarcity of food but also oil.


This will happen one day for sure and we need to prepare our kids more than ourselves for this unfortunate event. May be we would be lucky enough to escape this but I doubt our kids would be that lucky.

But this is not going to happen suddenly. The scarcity will start taking affecting our lives slowly in the form of high prices not only of oil but also food, milk, electronics, etc. (We are already witnessing it).

May be what Mayans meant with the end of the world must be related to oil. (Only they got the year wrong or we interpreted the year incorrectly) Once the oil is over  government and administration may collapse,  civil war will break out, people will suffer hunger, patients won't reach hospitals, big corporations will shut down, may be existing civilization will collapse and new one will start taking shape.

This National Geographic documentary tries to find the answers and crystal gaze what will be our life after demise of OIL. 

Keep an eye on NGC for it's re-telecast. 

Inshallah, Kashmir

Director: Ashvin Kumar

I know Kashmir through movies. Kapoor and Chopras made Kashmir look like heaven in every film of their's. But in last two decades this heaven has been turned into hell. 

Inshallah, Kashmir opens with a young cartoonist showing his cartoon (a Kashmiri young boy tied and being tortured), the Kashmiri boy tells his mother not to worry it feels like home as Kashmir is no different from a torture cell.  

Then we hear series of heartbreaking stories of torture, rape, disappearances, fleeing and killing narrated by wailing relatives of the victims. 

The most shocking incident was of Kunan Poshpora where Army launched a search and interrogation operation one night. Many women were gang raped that night by the army. The government has dismissed these allegations as baseless.

I am no expert on Kashmir, but it will not take time to understand that Indian government has messed up Kashmir issue big time. The Kashmiris no longer trust government and rightly so. It's been two decades and Kashmir is still burning. Militancy, unrest has become a norm and now people seems to be tired and given up. The cartoonist tells his experience how he was detained by a female Police officer in Delhi because he was from Kashmir. She said you are from Kashmir so you must be a terrorist. 

We in other states take our freedom for granted but Kashmiris can't. They have been fighting for freedom last 25 years. But freedom from what? India? Kashmiri neither trusts India nor Pakistan and they don't have power to go alone. I hope one day beauty of Kashmir that we see in films is restored and people there get a feel of freedom and feel that they are part of India.

Recommended.

Che

Director : Steven Soderbergh
Written by: Peter Buchman, Benjamin A. van der Veen

Che a physician by profession was moved by extreme poverty in Latin America. He blamed capitalistic policies of the rulers who were puppets of USA and worked for the betterment of US rather than their own country. He wanted to change the world and the uplift the poor. He got an opportunity to do that when he was introduced to Fidel Castro by Fidel's younger brother Raul. He was influenced by Fidel's socialistic ideals and he decided to take part in Cuban revolution to overthrow Batista.

Fidel had a goal limited to Cuba whereas Che wanted to free entire Latin America from the clutches of Capitalisim. He decided to start a similar revolution in Bolivia. Che was banking on the support of the local peasants and the communist party of Bolivia. But he was not able to garner that support, instead local people turned into informants for CIA. Che also underestimated Bolivian army thinking that he will be encountering a non trained indiscipline army unaware that US was helping Bolivia with the army training. 

On October 8, 1967 Che was captured by Bolivian army. Next morning Bolivian President Rene Barrientos ordered execution of Che.

Che the film is a two part movie. The first part is an account of Che's role during Cuban revolution and the second captures his attempt to revolutionize Bolivia.

Recommended.

American History X

Film: American History

Director: Tony Kaye

Writer: David McKenna

Racism and ethnic discrimination in the United States has been a major issue since the colonial era. Forms of Racism in USA:

ü  Racism against African Americans

ü  Discrimination and racism against Asian Americans

ü  Discrimination against Latin Americans

ü  Racism against Middle Eastern and South Asian Americans

ü  Racism against Iranian Americans

ü  Antisemitism

ü  Anti-European immigrant ethnic discrimination

ü  Racism and discrimination against European Americans

ü  Black – White Racism

America is country of different races, religion and people with different colours. By colour it basically means “Black or white”.’American History X’ is a story of ‘Derek’ who is a white skin American who ruthlessly kills two black gang members. The movie is about the after effects of the killing by Derek and the sequence of events in jail which change the perspective of ‘Derek’ towards black people. Derek’s younger brother is shown to be very much influenced by his elder brother’s brave act of killings and so tries to follow his ideologies.

Time has changed and so has ‘America’. 2008 saw the emergence of a new African American leader in the form of ‘Barack Obama’ who holds the seat of the president even till date. But still ‘ Racism’ has not got completely abolished of the US land.

Critics mostly praised the film and Edward Norton's performance, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.

Central do Brasil

Director: Walter Salles

Written by : Walter Salles, João Emanuel Carneiro, Marcos Bernstein

Dora a retired teacher sits on the Rio De Janiro's Central station, writing letters for illiterate people. One day Josuha a 9 year old kid with his mother comes to her to write a letter to Joshua's father. Joshua has never seen his father and hopes to reunite with his father. After writing the letter Joshua's mother dies in an accident outside the station. Dora takes Joshua with her and ends up selling to a corrupt couple who promises to help Joshua getting adopted in a good family. Irene her neighbor makes her feel guilty and tells her that the couple might sell his organs illegally. Dora feeling guilty runs away with Joshua from the couple's house. 

Dora then sets out on a journey to find Joshua's father with Joshua. During the course of the journey they build a long lasting friendship.

The movie gives an account of life in Rio which doesn't seem to be different from Mumbai. Crowded trains, survival of the fittest, poor people emigrating to city in search of work, crime, etc. Seems that every big city in developing country has a same story. 

Recommended.

Cautiva

Director & Writer : Gaston Biraben
   

 
In Argentina military junta assumed power between March 1976  to December 1983. During this tenure thousands of Argentinians disappeared. Any person who spoke against military raj was arrested, detained and tortured. Military took away the kids people who were killed or arrested and gave away them for adoption.
The film is the story of a teenager Crisitina who one day is told that her parents are not her real ones. She is sent to live her real grandmother who had been searching her for years. Cristina baffled and hurt finds it difficult to digest the truth. One more important question starts to haunt her what happened to her real parents? And was her policeman father involved in the killing?

Recommended.

The Syrian Bride

Director: Eran Riklis
Writer: Suha Arraf & Erin Riklis

Golan is a small village located at the border of Syria and Israel. Bot the countries claim the village as their territory. Due to the dispute the villagers nationality is undefined. In such a backdrop a girl Mona is suppose to be married to a man from Syria.  After the marriage she won't be able to come back to Golan, i.e. she won't see her family again. She is also the daughter of Hameed who is pro-syrian and sore in  the eyes of Israeli police. 
The ritual is that family will accompany bride to the border where the groom and his family is waiting. Bride after completing the formalities will cross over the border. 
But this time Israeli government changes the procedure and puts different stamp stating clearly that Golan is their territory. This angers the Syrian government official across the border and he refuses to allow the entry until the Israel rectifies it's mistake. Israeli government official says he can't do anything as he has been ordered to use the stamp and now he can't reach his superior being a weekend. After lot of time and persuading Israeli official erases the stamp by using white ink. Happy that all has been sorted out when UN official who is negotiating goes to Syrian official she finds out that earlier official has left and new one has come for duty who refuses entry because of the white ink.

The film proves again that it is the common man who always grinded because of politics.  

Recommended.

Mohan Joshi Hazir Ho

Director & Story: Saeed Akhtar Mirza

Every Indian fears court. Many of us tolerate many social evils as we don't want to get into court matter. Indians courts are notorious for trials that goes on for years. The victim ends up spending lot of money and time without justice in sight. 

Mohan Joshi though aware of this apathy manages enough courage to sue his landlord for ignoring the repair work required in chawl. Chawl is in such a bad shape that one day it might fall like pack of cards. Landlord doesn't want to spend money on it ,as he is getting same rent set by his grandfather 75 years back which is worth nothing.
Years go by, Joshi and his wife makes rounds of the court without justice in sight and  lawyers keep filling their coffers.Even Joshi's neighbors instead of supporting him ridicules him. Landlord in effect sues Joshi for eviction and assault. 

After years of fighting when Joshi decides to give up a ray of hope comes in the form of an honest judge. Judge decides to visit the chawl and have a look. Landlord to avoid losing hires people to clean up and paint the place so that judge feels that he is taking good care. When the Judge visits chawl people and landlord enters into altercation, judge defers the judgement saying that he needs a structural report from engineers to decide. Joshi frustrated starts hitting the bamboo which is supporting the staircase of the chawl, the bamboo falls along with the staircase and the floor above it killing Joshi as well. 

Film is biased towards tenant without taking landlord's position into consideration. Landlord is shown as villain who wants to build skyscraper on the chawl's land. I don't agree with the portrayal because if we put ourselves in his shoes we would have desired the same thing. You can't expect someone to do repair work that will cost thousands of rupees (as per 1984 standard) when you pay Rs.2 as rent. 

What film gets right is the apathy of our court procedures. Justice delayed is justice denied. Indians don't trust the judiciary anymore because of the time spent on the trial. Fighting the trial in court itself becomes a punishment for the victim. Why there is no time limit for a trial ? Why court have summer holidays like school kids when so many million cases are pending? Why can't court work overtime? Why it can't be open 24/7? If people in corporate can slog why not government employees. 
The failure of the judiciary system is one of the main reason for Indians getting exploited in the hands of corrupt people.

About Elly

Director : Asghar Farhadi
Written by : Asghar Farhadi & Azad Jafarian

Elly a kindergarten teacher accompanies middle class Iranian group of friends to a picnic. The friends consists of three couples with their kids and a single man Ahmed. Elly knows only Sepideh in the group and comes for the picnic as Sepideh forces her to. Sepideh is trying to link up Elly and Ahmed. 
Elly initially hesitant is attracted to Ahmed and Ahmed also likes her. The group stays in a deserted villa on the beach of Caspian Sea. Elly wishes to go back home next day as she has lied to her mother about the picnic. But Sepideh forces her to stay back. In the afternoon one of the lady asks Elly to keep watch on the kids playing on the beach. After some time one kid is found drowning in the sea and men in the house save him. After sometime they realise that Elly is missing. They start looking for her. They are not sure if she left or she drowned in the sea. They can't go to police has she and Ahmed are single and they lied the owner of the villa that they are married. The lie will bring disgrace to Elly and her family. Everyone starts blaming each other for the disappearance but the things are not the same as they seem. 

The film earlier seems to be boring but after the drowning incident becomes a mystery. Mystery surrounding the identity of Elly and what is the truth Speideh is hidding from everyone? Suffocation due to social taboos is the main character in the film and it plays the role well.

It is very normal for us to meet or date someone but the concept seems to be taboo in Iran. The unmarried couple can meet only under parental guidance. Why government has to decide on how we live our life? Why their should be moral policing? This is not case only with Iran, but even in India many political parties resorts to moral policing as per their liking and convenience. They should understand that they are because of us and not vice versa. 

Recommended.
 

Amreeka

Director & Writer : Cherien Dabis

 After WWII Jews felt that they should have their own country so that they don't have to suffer again. They zeroed on Palestine as it was the land gifted by god to Abraham and is considered to be holy. Millions of Jews started pouring into the country. 

The tensions between Jews and original inhabitants Palestinians started to take roots. But Jews had the support of powerful countries and UN recognised them as a country. Since then Palestinians are fighting for their existence and identity.

Amreeka is a story of such a Palestinian single mother raising her 12 year old son. She wins the US citizenship through lottery but decides not to consider it. But one day while going back home she and her son is harassed at Israeli checkpoint. At that point she forsees the future that her son would have in this hostile environment, she decides to go to US. 
After reaching US she starts staying with her sister's family. The struggle to adjust to new country, culture, people starts for both the mother and son. Over a period of time they cope the problems their way and adjust to their new country and identity.

Recommended.