The movie Waltz with Bashir opens with a pack of hounds running through a generic urban neighborhood. The hounds stop at the foot of an apartment block and wait... salivating...
This is pretty much a complete glimpse into what the movie is about. The collective amnesia in Israel about the beginning of the war in Lebanon in 1982 which manifests itself as nightmares in the various people we come to see in the movie. No memory is complete. The director gathers fragments from others' memories in an attempt to get a clear picture of what happened. He needs this to understand his own nightmare which is small fragment of a gruesome incident he knew he had participated in - the massacre at the Palestinian camps of Sabra and Shatila.
The movie is almost entirely in animation and consists of the director Ari Folman talking to various people who were in the military during the war. Each person has a personal spin to the incident and remembers the events from his own vantage point - a captain who used a certain kind of oil so that his people could follow him by smell in the dark; another one recalls their captain in perpetually in a bathrobe watching TV in a building they had taken over just outside Beirut.
This narrative style takes away the political message. There is no good and bad judgment about the actions of Israel. However, it is a searing condemnation of the havoc war wreaks on the winners as well as the losers.
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Review: Slumdog Millionaire
Every once in a while comes a movie that is such a complete package that it makes you feel utterly satisfied with the experience. The movie itself becomes such an all round experience that it separates your emotional and intellectual state to being "before movie" and "after movie". To me Slumdog Millionaire did that!
No, it is not a totally realistic movie - there are events depicted in the movie that require a leap of faith. There are actions that are not totally believable. But that is what makes it a movie compared to an newspaper article or a program about a quizshow on the BBC.
The movie weaves the questions being asked of the protagonist Jamal and his experiences that have prepared him for the answers. He draws on his experience to answer all the questions until the very last one. Quite appropriately he gets that right by chance - not by experience - consequently he gets the girl - again a new experience for him.
The depiction of religious riots, the craze to get a filmstar's autograph, the horrific orphanage that makes beggars out of children are all so realistic that it hurts. As a kid growing up in Bombay, I had heard of those orphanages, I did go and see Amitabh Bachchan shooting for a movie (for those into it, the movie was "Coolie" - post accident) and I have negotiated a price with a non-approved tourist guide.
For all the gloom of the terrible things happening around, there are remarkable amounts of humanity and even a great degree of dignity in the characters - especially the three kids and the policeman. They help each other, they understand each other and are willing to admit faults and errors for the sake of friendship.
The film is clearly held together by the excellent story thread. The nine actors that played three roles for each of the friends - Jamal, Latika and Salim are extremely believable. Finally the music reflects the mood and the pace of the movie consistently.
It is a must for every movie enthusiast.
No, it is not a totally realistic movie - there are events depicted in the movie that require a leap of faith. There are actions that are not totally believable. But that is what makes it a movie compared to an newspaper article or a program about a quizshow on the BBC.
The movie weaves the questions being asked of the protagonist Jamal and his experiences that have prepared him for the answers. He draws on his experience to answer all the questions until the very last one. Quite appropriately he gets that right by chance - not by experience - consequently he gets the girl - again a new experience for him.
The depiction of religious riots, the craze to get a filmstar's autograph, the horrific orphanage that makes beggars out of children are all so realistic that it hurts. As a kid growing up in Bombay, I had heard of those orphanages, I did go and see Amitabh Bachchan shooting for a movie (for those into it, the movie was "Coolie" - post accident) and I have negotiated a price with a non-approved tourist guide.
For all the gloom of the terrible things happening around, there are remarkable amounts of humanity and even a great degree of dignity in the characters - especially the three kids and the policeman. They help each other, they understand each other and are willing to admit faults and errors for the sake of friendship.
The film is clearly held together by the excellent story thread. The nine actors that played three roles for each of the friends - Jamal, Latika and Salim are extremely believable. Finally the music reflects the mood and the pace of the movie consistently.
It is a must for every movie enthusiast.
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