WE HAVE A MASTERPIECE!

DIRECTED BY NANNI MORETTI

STARRING: MICHAEL PICCOLI, JERZY STUHR, RENATO SCARPA, FRANCO GRAZIOSI, CAMILLO MILLI, ROBERTO NOBILE, ULRICH VON DOBSCHUTZ, GIANLUCA GOBBI, DARIO CANTARELLI with MARGHERITA BUY and NANNI MORETTI

Nanni Moretti crowns the Pope at a staging of Chekov’s ‘the Seagull.’ I don’t know if I’m allowed to call it a ‘coronation,’ I don’t even know if it CAN be called that, the unorthodox revelation it was, but I take Moretti’s stance in ignorance – that of not wanting to learn. The play is in full attendance. The seats are all almost filled to begin with, and we have a hundred more of cardinals, nuns and colourfully dressed security guards marching in. Of course, there’s nothing funnier than a play gone horribly wrong; where one actor goes round the twist and renders all lines from the script with the stage directions as well. But that’s not why they were there. That’s not why they applauded.

I do not know if ‘We Have a Pope’ self-references Chekov, I could think of cinematic analogies at most. It is as elaborate, as intensive and as comprehensive with its opinion as a Pasolini film like ‘the Decameron.’ I haven’t seen anything like it before, but then I haven’t seen much. There’s something uncanny about a parody sketch in the fact that you need to reach a level of elaboration and a reassurance in the execution of it to even consider writing it. The execution and, as a result, the end begets the means or the motivation for the same. Let me rule pastiche out of this, the post-modern vehicle that it is. Pastiche could survive on the written word and the entropy of changing colours on its coat of paint called performance.

But think about this. Anyone can sketch a parody, but it takes real craft to even start to paint the rest of the picture, let alone paint it well. And, not to mention, it takes courage in a time where the world is content with leaving the rest of its canvas empty. Like ‘Shakespeare in Love,’ or the eccentric works of Sacha Baron Cohen. Like ‘Brazil.’ Like ‘Zoolander.’ It’s strenuous in the fact that there is so much necessitated in form of production design for the sake of a script that directs no attention towards it. Of course, I speak here as a writer who finds set-designing to be a daunting task on the lines of a necessary evil.

I’ve previously seen the internal chambers of the Pope’s residence in ‘Angels and Demons.’ We’ve also been treated to a tiny glimpse of it as yet another venue for Jacques Clousseau’s antics in ‘the Pink Panther 2.’ In ‘We Have a Pope,’ I come across the chambers for a third time. I can’t recollect enough to draw similarities, but I did spend a good amount of time wondering if it’s a chartered set. I also wondered how the Church permitted it. Granted that no filmmaker ever has And, granted that no filmmaker ever has shown the Vatican in anything but poor light, the Church permits this portrayal as long as one doesn’t go too out-of-bounds with his/her depiction. Steve Martin’s whoops-a-daisy surely runs along the net-cord, but then what the hell, you know? It’s art for art’s sake, after all.

Moretti, much like the professor he portrays, is irreverent. But not blasphemous. He’s the guy who finds psychoanalytical themes in the Bible in a utilitarian’s helplessness. The character makes his own luck. The filmmaker does too. His lack of faith doesn’t hinder his commitment to the parody. The production design is detailed to intimate proportions. The detail seldom steps out of tune. ‘Angels and Demons’ demanded an aura; we could almost smell the fumes from fires kept constantly aflame, the movie – a ritual in progress. Moretti doesn’t even light candles here in ‘We Have a Pope.’ He turns the conclave to a middle-school examination hall with pencils coming down on the table together, answers being scratched out; cardinals peeking at neighbour answer-scripts. You know it’s a comedy when someone falls. In this case, it’s Cardinal Brummer (Ulrich Von Dobschutz), the joke of the show; unpopular, and thus endearing.

I hope you’ve seen ‘Runaway Bride.’ Cardinal Melville (Michael Piccoli) is like Maggie Fleming in it. He is elated at his selection. He walks down the aisle. He panics. And he runs. Before a sweeping shot across the deserted polling chamber he locks himself in – I love the arrangement when the party is over with the furniture playing victim of human abandonment – he says he ‘can’t do it.’ A physician is brought in to get him checked. His blood pressure is normal, he is able to joke and most certainly smiles gentle. The problem, as we all know, lies within. Enter Moretti as the psychoanalyst whose position is as bad as that of Billy Crystal in ‘Analyze This,’ if not worse. It’s like interviewing Nixon with a dozen Watergates to hide than just one. I hope you get what I’m saying.

But Melville isn’t like Nixon, he shows potential to cooperate. Rajski (Jerzy Stuhr), who’s kind of a secretary to the Pope, locks the psychoanalyst in for confidentiality purposes, and goes to his wife (Margherita Buy) for second opinion. The psychoanalyst finds her clichéd. He says she’s got nothing but a parental deficit card that she plays all the time. But then she works. Sometimes, the cause is not what you identify, but an elaborate Placebo. In Cardinal Melville’s case, we know there’s no need for one. He goes with the diagnosis, takes his intermission and runs away, requesting to be left alone as he goes to satiate an unrequited passion for the stage.

In the meantime, the psychoanalyst becomes an in-house patient in an asylum of his design where he splits Cardinals into continents, picking captains based on their odds of becoming the Pope as per newspaper speculations, organizing a two-court Volleyball tournament in a courtyard that looks like the Union Jack from an aerial shot. He treats them like schoolchildren where we’re shown that he has two of his own – as stubborn, as difficult to manage. He’s as Darwinist as he preaches, being both Ringmaster and the main Clown act in this circus.

Moretti is sort of a Woody Allen of Italy, in writing and in performance. I’ve watched him before as all of writer, director and performer in ‘the Son’s Room’ which won the Golden Palm at Cannes in 2001, rendering him a staple ever since. It’s a heartbreaking film about a middle-aged psychoanalyst who, along with his wife and daughter, copes with the death of their teenage son in a striking depiction of the repair process. I found Moretti to be as incredible a central character as Allen, with the right amount of sarcasm, of anger, a subtle dose of neurotic impatience (even for a shrink) to weigh it down on the other side, and he tops it all with impeccable comic timing. He’s the unabashed bourgeoisie who can afford his cynicism as he always writes his character to be. He’s like an Alexander Payne who can act.

‘We Have a Pope’ is not a study. It’s a fable – hence the ‘Decameron’ comparison earlier, in spite of the fact that it’s heavily sensitized and works as a rather exaggerated cartoon of a man who’s almost like Casper, the Ghost, in all his gentleness and romantic humour. Like Sully from ‘Monsters Inc.’ I’m killing you with comparisons, you’d have to watch the film and place him on your own.

For once, we have a parody that’s not critical of an institution but still makes fun of it with a sibling’s deliberation. Moretti stands before the Catholic Church, fearless and with nothing in his heart but his own agenda, much like Chaplin against Hitler in ‘the Great Dictator.’ It’s not a grudge he holds, but an opinion. Both films ended with the humbleness of a man who is expected to be great but who really isn’t – something that the crowd would never understand. It doesn’t have the rebel’s intention to defame an existing giant, but the romantic’s inclination to put his faith in a new one. It doesn’t want Goliath killed, it makes David stronger. That’s Fabien-Socialist, in all essence.

Of course, Cardinal Melville will be forgotten in due course of time. There will be a new Pope to head the institution. No one will have been affected, nothing will have changed. The most we’d have in hand is a lesson learned – that Oceania needs more Cardinals, at least to make a Volleyball team; they’re miserable otherwise. And, of course, that you’d have a convincing winner in Africa no matter what. It’s best to know the odds before you place your bets. That’s all I have to say.

CHAOS, ORDERED IN

DIRECTED BY ROMAN POLANSKI

STARRING: JODIE FOSTER, KATE WINSLET, JOHN C. REILLY and CHRISTOPH WALTZ

Two couples become four individuals in ‘Carnage.’ Then they realign. Nothing amounts to anything. In a manner not quite unlike ‘Ken Park,’ which postulated inaction in action, we come face to face with a ‘plot device’ that has nothing to do with the story we’re told. I doubt if many of you would’ve watched ‘Ken Park,’ so I’ll take the liberty of throwing some light on the reference. ‘Ken Park’ starts with Ken Park shooting himself in the head at a Skate park. A diary is found in his bag by means of which we come to learn of his friends’ circle. The film then completes a full circle right up to the starting point where it’s revealed why Ken shot himself in the first place – an absurdist detail that serves to explain the film itself.

Ken Park was the ‘plot device’ of ‘Ken Park,’ which means he had nothing to do with the film other than contribute to it its very premise. Without him, there is no ‘Ken Park.’ As I remember mentioning in my review, we would’ve had something like ‘the Beautiful perversions of Randomly-colliding Teenagers’ instead. I’m not aware if that’s the title I used back then, but I’m sure you understand.

‘Carnage,’ the film, begins with ‘Carnage,’ the poster, and, not to mention, the plot summary. It’s a Yasmina Reza play adapted to the screen by Roman Polanski and Reza herself. I might not be too familiar with the work of Reza, but I can say I’ve had my share of exposure. I’ve watched ‘Art’ being staged twice by two different sets of people giving scope enough for me to rank them. And arrive at some definitive conclusions about Reza herself as a playwright.

Reza is postmodern with her writing. A different set of actors would translate to a different version of the play. The material is toneless and hostile for the most part with bursts of passion that render themselves salient on their own accord. ‘Art’ in all its glory was a deconstructive argument about Art in the outlooks of three close friends that inevitably served to deconstruct their friendship itself. Ivan, the impulsive, heart-on-sleeve simpleton cries in the end at the wreck of faith, kneeling in the midst of shambles from the damage the friends had caused to themselves. We’re taught about eventuality and our very own wicked, selfish contributions to it.

‘Carnage’ is a lesson on insignificance; on the inconsequential. Zachary and Ethan reconcile on their own accord, not depending on the passive-aggressive interaction between their parents. We watch out of a window without zoom/perspective as a disgruntled Zachary smacks Ethan with a sizeable stick and walks away without a second look. The dispute, as we understand, began with Ethan, along with the rest of the gang, counting him out. That episode ends, and we cut to a computer screen where Penelope Longstreet (Jodie Foster) writes a complaint in the most hospitable of manners as her husband Michael (John C. Reilly), along with Alan (Christoph Waltz) and Nancy Cowan (Kate Winslet), look on. The Longstreets are Ethan’s parents, while the Cowans show faint traces of shame and regret along with upper-middle class pride at having borne the aggressor, Zachary.

I do not know how much Bunuel’s ‘the Exterminating Angel’ could’ve been an influence. The most I’ve seen/heard of it was in ‘Midnight in Paris,’ where Woody Allen had cheek enough to suggest its idea to Bunuel himself, making his Gil Pender a sort of Ghost-contributor. But I kept relating throughout. It’s a film (as anyone who has watched ‘Midnight in Paris’ would know) about five dinner-guests who aren’t able to leave the house after their meal. They move, they shift around, but they just can’t leave.

In ‘Carnage’ in the guise of the Longstreets, Reza doesn’t let them. Insistence stems from hospitality, the most brutal of forces – you feed the bird to make it stay. Food here is discussion as well as the cobbler that Penelope serves the Cowans. Discussion evolves into friendly interaction with the meal and then devolves to an argument and a feud, literally, as food turns to vomit that Nancy throws up right in the middle of the coffee table – one that bears an assortment of Art magazines and catalogues and a bunch of bright Yellow, long-stalked Tulips in a big glass bowl.

Vomit is impulse where the reaction is as uncontrollable. Nancy cuts loose with apologies while Penelope struggles not to do the same with her hysterics. Destruction here was both unnecessary and unavoidable. But then it progresses to a point where it becomes deliberate when it could easily have been side-stepped. It’s like bumping into a person on the street and then it turns into an ugly brawl with both trying to cause the other as much pain as possible in a quest for self-establishment.

What I didn’t like about the film is how it steadied the pace of devolution in a case of constructed chaos. I found that to be irksome. Everything else was there to appreciate. The setup, the elegance, the performances. I liked John C. Reilly the best even though I know Polanski situates emphasis in his women. Each actor is cast in their respective comfort zone. Winslet with her hysterics, Foster with jabs of helplessness, Reilly for his laid-back gait and teddy-bear bursts of anger and sarcasm; Waltz for his presence. The script-to-stage entropy provided by a Reza work makes it the perfect Polanski vehicle, even though he plays it safe with textbook direction. The effect doesn’t lure us to stay – it asks us to. An insistence which I found to be reflected in the film itself, falling in its favour.

DOESN'T GLITTER, DOESN'T LIE

DIRECTED BY TOMAS ALFREDSON

STARRING: GARY OLDMAN, BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH, TOM HARDY, TOBY JONES, COLIN FIRTH, CIARAN HINDS, DAVID DENCIK, KATHY BURKE, STEPHEN GRAHAM, SVETLANA KHODCHENKOVA with SIMON McBURNEY and JOHN HURT

Imagine a James Bond title sequence. Bond on his way into a mission most definitely involving killing – double agents, men who know too much – whoever. He’d be all stealth and slickness on his way in, helter-skelter on the return trip. There is no easy way out. Five minutes of Steve McQueen styled muscle-car action, a couple of explosions and a triumphant stance, we’d have the title credits roll, of girls and guns and maybe even gold. A brief post-title, pre-introduction scene would feature Bond being told off by a half-amused-half-startled Judi Dench (a.k.a. ‘M’), words he’d conveniently dust off his blazer. Before we know it, he’d be on his next mission, stepping into the actual storyline.

‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’ starts not too differently. Control (John Hurt), head of the British Secret Service, gives laconic instructions to field agent Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) about meeting up with a Hungarian counterpart who claims he has information about a Mole in their midst. Prideaux walks the streets in Budapest and meets the man at an open-air cafeteria where the waiter leaves a blotch of sweat on the table-cloth. He’s walked into trouble. An Old Lady at a window high above knows as much. Prideaux turns, paces away from the table and gets shot in a futile attempt at fleeing. The waiter wields the gun, he’s got it right only the second time, the first hitting a woman as she breastfeeds her infant. There’s a painful frame showing the child alive when the mother isn’t.

The operation having gone disastrously wrong, Control is unanimously asked to step down by his deputies, agents Percy ‘Tinker’ Alleline (Toby Jones), Bill ‘Tailor’ Haydon (Colin Firth), Roy ‘Soldier’ Bland (Ciaran Hinds) and Toby ‘Poorman’ Esterhase (David Dencik) upon his disagreement with them going for ‘Operation Witchcraft’ involving an influx of Soviet intelligence for British nothings, in turn used as leverage to obtain American intelligence. It’s pitched to him as a ‘treasure chest.’ Control calls it nonsense. We then have an ‘out with you and your ideas’ moment where Tinker, Tailor, Soldier and Poorman lose Control, decidedly. Tinker takes top spot as replacement. Control keeps his aging smirk and the faith of a colleague and an old friend in George Smiley (Gary Oldman).

The Bond operative, thus, splits four ways, where Control is an ‘M’ who takes the fall and takes his man with him. The title sequence is still a smooth jazz number as is most of the soundtrack and the credits roll on top of clippings of a weary, womanless and out-of-work Smiley getting used to newly-acquired idleness. He is, obviously, re-hired. Once an agent, he turns NOC, looking into the Circus’ affairs, instructed to catch the Mole. He asks for and gets the assistance of Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch, who looks like a young Malcolm McDowell). Armed with both humility and ability to do everything the man asks him to, Guillam and Smiley work their way through the informants in Connie Sachs (Kathy Burke), phone-attendant Jerry Westerby (Stephen Graham) and the unorthodox (and thus, crucial) Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy, delightful).

Smiley is a sort of real-time Bond. The film even says that loud. There’s a party that Smiley keeps recollecting – a source of valuable information as we come to know late into the film. One such scene at the party has ‘the Second Best secret agent’ playing in the background as everyone sings along. Smiley doesn’t, but he’s kept in focus until fade-out. The song, as I learn, is from the Bond-wannabe ‘Licensed to Kill’ (1965), its usage suggesting the film and its makers’ awareness of the standard they had set out to defy.

But ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’ is not a parody. It’s a well-paced and neatly crafted suspense thriller that never gets out of Stealth Mode; a stronger comparison to ‘the Ghost Writer’ than ‘the Ides of March’ was. It’s actually a sort of equivalent. Both are translations of existing text (a 1974 John La Carre novel and a 1979 television series with Alec Guinness playing Smiley) to screen with the help of succinct performances by a galaxy of stars. The difference is the man in the middle, where the gritty and giant-killer in Stephen Meyers (as played by Ryan Gosling) is replaced by the wiser, more venerable Smiley, the stakes being higher and the consequences – more brutal.

Gary Oldman has the air of an Agent-turned-Watchdog, a subconscious advocate of protocol that he’s tried, tested and is tired of. Like Morgan Freeman in Fincher’s ‘Se7en’, but subtler. It’s amusing how different this performance is from his usual of recent times Jim Gordon, and how little he has actually done to make it look so. He keeps his accent, his natural gray. He acts his age – even older. There’s inherent warmth in him, a droopiness that endears. No one can play tired and wise better than Oldman can. A more physical performance could call for Liam Neeson. Oldman here is tailormade.

Bridget O’Connor (died of cancer and has this film dedicated to her) and husband Peter Straughan write the film to be the typical hard-to-understand-but-slow-enough-to-keep-track-of drama with dialogues that half-explain what’s going on, the rest left to flashbacks woven into a steady narrative. With the number of characters and the nature of plot, the details do get confusing at times. But Tomas Alfredson (‘Let the Right One in’), with poise in intensity on the lines of the great Polanski, prioritizes to set things straight. The film conveys. It doesn’t affect you; it’s not too much of a surprise. But it succeeds in bringing the movie-spy to fit the shoes of an everyday man - as lonesome, over-worked and wise that he doesn’t do any actual killing. And in that, as far as I know, it’s a first.

BUT WHY?

DIRECTED BY ASGHAR FARHADI

STARRING: PEYMAN MOAADI, LEILA HATAMI, SHAHAB HOSSEINI, SAREH BAYAT, SARINA FARHADI, ALI-ASGHAR SHAHBAZI, SHAHIN YAZDANBAKSH, KIMIA HOSSEINI and MERILA ZAREI

Derek Cianfrance, who made the chilling ‘Blue Valentine’ last year, once said in an interview that his worst fear as a child was the thought of his parents separating. Isn’t that universal? Death is a finality that can force acceptance. Divorce is beyond that. One moment you see them getting along. Another, you see them wanting not to. You don’t know what happened in between. The worst feeling in a human being, let alone a child, is that of having not contributed, be it for better or for worse. It’s like being most affected in a Civil war that you didn’t have anything to do with.

The ballad that it was, ‘Blue Valentine’ never really brought it down to the child’s perspective. It couldn’t have, it never tried to. It had a baby girl who was frightened by sight and by sound but didn’t know why it rained. Asghar Farhadi’s ‘A Separation’, in that aspect, works a little stronger. By that I mean it’s more devastating. It burdens its child with knowledge, destroys her further with the strain of understanding. But she doesn’t break. She does something worse. She accepts her fate. I thought of prostitution. I thought of slavery. What she goes through is just as bad.

‘A Separation’ is titled ‘the Separation of Nader from Simin’ in Persian. Which means there is no deuce. I know I didn’t watch a film about a divorce that could also have implied the separation of Mother from Child or of Father from Child. The film does not suggest it. In fact, it resists that notion. The child does not lose just one parent to the separation, she loses both. She knows that. And, not to mention, the watertight security that comes with a family that’s inseparable and as thick as thieves.

I remembered Miles Raymond in Alexander Payne’s ‘Sideways’ where he throws a passing remark on Marriage and Divorce. “Last year, it was all divorces”, he says. “This year it’s Weddings. It’s cyclical, I guess.” We’re witnessing a society that hasn’t gotten to that point yet. Nader (Peyman Moaadi) and Simin (Leila Hatami) might take matters to court, the godless people they are. Razieh (Sareh Bayat) would consider it a sin to conspire against her husband Houjat (Shahab Hosseini) like that. She wouldn’t fake-swear on the Quran to get some money they desperately need. Nader, on his part, would do it just so he doesn’t lose his little girl Termeh’s (Sarina Farhadi) respect. No doubt they’re both honorable people. But their codes don’t match.

Farhadi discusses his country in this bourgeoisie-versus-the-common battle. The matchup is uneven, just like it always is. The battle takes place on two grounds. Nader chooses his Father, a victim of deep-set Alzheimer’s, over Simin’s adamant stand on leaving the country, with or without him. She accuses him of neglecting his daughter. He blames her for not trusting him with both. Whose side do we take? Nader is plenty devoted to his Father and he loves his daughter to groom. Termeh, on her part, loves him and is happy to help. She is eleven years of age and is at that point where we know she needs her Mother, or she would real soon. But she cannot side with the aggressor for simple fear of capsizing what might otherwise just about make it to shore.

One of them needs to give up. It’s that kind of issue where neither is prepared to cope with the other’s solution. Simin picks emigration for her daughter’s sake. She’s red-haired under the shawl and we see a fleeting image of her smoking on the verandah. We place her almost immediately. She’s like Marjane Satrapi’s liberal girl-friends in ‘Persepolis’ where, as the confused post-adolescent learns, abandoning ship is a survival skill. She’s practical, yes. She eyes the future with Nader caught in the past as it appears, but for what good is this seamlessness? Nader isn’t the pinnacle of subtlety either. He shoves Razieh, his Father’s nurse, out the door, hurting her both physically and sentimentally. Razieh, we know since before, is pregnant. She’s taken to hospital the same night, where she has a miscarriage. At fifth month, the law says, abortion is manslaughter. That’s the second battle.

The accusations go in a circle with everything coming back to Nader, one way or another. Consequences mount. Settlement might imply resolution, but Nader refuses. He takes the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ stand. His daughter asks him if he really didn’t know the woman was pregnant. He responds saying he didn’t at the moment. He saw a woman who had tied his Father to his bed, locked him inside and gone on a joyride. Man turns monster as emotions blind. Termeh shows just as much hostility to Razieh at that point. In her defence, she stood by her Father. Trust is a strong-room that keeps emotions secure. But she finds hers broken in and unforgivably violated as she uncovers the truth, layer by layer.

The parents show poorly in front of their child in a see-saw routine. Termeh, initially by her Father, rolls out closer to the other pole as she deals with him by herself, eventually ending up, I believe, somewhere right in the middle. She pities her Dad in all his helplessness and hates her Mom for having brought it upon him. Then she finds him to be as inertial and misshapen as her Mother pegs him to be. She lies under oath to stop him from going to jail and fights him for having turned down her Mother’s open-arm invitation to reconcile.

In the end, she’s asked to pick a side. She says she has decided. Her choice is, tactfully and rightly so, never revealed. We know it doesn’t matter. Nader has a momentum shift against him, which Simin had caused in the first place. One is as bad as the other, where the two of them have invented dysfunction in what seemed to work previously. Now they’re just vultures pecking on their daughter who stands beside this corpse called dignity that seems to have died with their relationship.

‘A Separation’ has been universally branded the film of the year. From what I’ve watched of the Oscar haul, I would say it comes close in contest against mine – ‘the Descendants.’ Both films deal with eventuality and the show of man’s ugly side in his efforts to resist it. While ‘the Descendants,’ in this quest, served to romanticize his defeat, glorifying its hero as a man who has come to terms with his demons, ‘A Separation’ shows it unadulterated.

Cinema, as I see it, is a hypnotic medium that, to put it simply, renders us vulnerable and easy to inspire; to influence. Farhadi recognizes that in his cautious stance to not give Termeh’s decision away. The separation, on the other hand, is narrated as it is – Man and Woman with blood on their hands, awaiting verdict to tell victory from defeat. I couldn’t cherish the disappointment I felt, even though I could appreciate it. Robbie Weaver in ‘Crazy, Stupid, Love’ asks his Father to get his Mom back to inspire his own love-life decisions. I cried the same to Farhadi. Our film experience can be crushing, hostile and almost entirely defeated, but on any day, I’d vouch for hope. ‘Death and the Maiden’ was hope at its forgiving best. ‘Crazy, Stupid, Love’ was hope although it’s best not to compare. ‘Blue Valentine’, like ‘the Descendants’, was a tale of glorious defeat.

Imagine this. Thirty years later, Termeh sits down with her daughter as the film unfolds in a recollection. She tells her everything up until the point where she had to decide. Would her husband have a similar story? I don’t know. The child would have a similar decision, perpetrating the cycle of being narrator and spectator of her own story, from Eleven to Forty. There’s an even younger girl (of Razieh and Houjat) whose story begins much earlier, right from the age of four. She witnesses a miscarriage, countersuits, and is made to believe that her Father killed her unborn Brother.

‘A Separation’ leaves us to a fate as pitiful as that of either of these children, helpless to do anything but ask ‘Why?’ That’s as much as my Eleven-year-old self could do. The twenty-year-old still refuses to show. I don’t think he ever would. For when it comes to such a thing as our parents’ separation, I don’t think any of us would grow up to be anything more than eleven years old.

A CELEBRATION THAT OUGHT TO BE ITS OWN REWARD

DIRECTED BY MICHAEL HAZANAVICIUS

STARRING: JEAN DUJARDIN, BERENICE BEJO, UGGIE (the dog), JAMES CROMWELL, PENELOPE ANN MILLER with MALCOLM McDOWELL and JOHN GOODMAN

Michael Hazanavicius pushes the borders of Silent Cinema simultaneously paying his tribute to it with ‘the Artist,’ one of the most celebrated films made and released last year. It’s not mimicry. He doesn’t hide in the folds of yesteryear curtains on Hollywood’s majestic stage as the tycoons go out on a selling spree. The style is uncharacteristic. The performances go easy on exaggeration, the action being too continuous and gracefully paced. There has been enough deliberation in establishing that the films being filmed in the film and the film in itself are not two of a kind. George Valentin is not the same as Jean Dujardin, both being actors in movies that don’t talk.

Let me throw the cards on the table up front and let you know that I haven’t watched much of Silent Cinema myself. Charlie Chaplin is an exception. Laurel and Hardy, a bit of Buster Keaton and I think I’ve watched one film of the Marx Brothers. That’s about it. There isn’t enough nostalgia that this film could possibly evoke where I, quite frankly, belong to the ‘future’ where films talk, sing and dance with action choreography and with actors replaced by cartoons sometimes.

With that being said, it’s not like I wouldn’t like a Silent movie that doesn’t change my opinion. I’d ideally not want one to. ‘the Artist’, for one, doesn’t care. It’s not a prescription. It’s a poster. It tells you exactly what to expect from it. In fact, you’ll find it better to under-expect, much like I did. That’s how I ended up liking it more than I thought I was supposed to.

The film is set in 1927 and plays along the timeline. George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) is a Hollywood actor peaking before his fall. Dujardin, reminding us strongly of a young Sean Connery, has the build as well as subtlety in his flamboyance to be playing the Superstar. We know he’s French but he’s made to look as Italian as his name sounds. I shall go on and assume that there hasn’t been an actual influence in the conception of his character, but if I had to, I’d say I see a Douglas Fairbanks sort of American hero in him. His movies, glossily-titled (‘A Russian Affair’ followed up with ‘A German Affair’) and almost entirely about him (a Dog plays second lead), are nonsense entertainment under the excuse of “This is what the people want.” Kinograph Studios could be an extensive parody, but I don’t know. I can’t comment.

Berenice Bejo plays Peppy Miller, an aspiring starlet whose discovery is accidental, her success – much deliberated. Bejo’s height, slenderness and her good-natured face are almost uncharacteristic of the usual Hollywood heartthrob, we find. Garbo never smiled this innocent, as far as I know. Nor Paulette Goddard (‘the Great Dictator’). Maybe Virginia Cherrill, who plays the Blind girl in Chaplin’s ‘City Lights.’ This likeability and her confidence had me compare Bejo to a favourite, both of Roger Ebert and myself – Amy Adams. At one point, I almost asked why not her. Like I said, Bejo is too tall, too slender and (there's no other way to put it) too French with her physique. There were times when I could almost catch her tan. Adams, on the other hand, can feign haughtiness when she wanted to and come out likeable at that – we have seen her do that in ‘Miss Pettigrew lives for a Day.’ Plus, as the expression goes, she has meat on her bones.

But then there’s the effort of getting past the familiarity of as celebrated an actress as Adams, a barrier which someone like Bejo, who’s relatively lesser known, could easily sidestep. John Goodman as the no-nonsense Hollywood director Al Zimmer faces a much bigger problem. In Goodman, we identify more with actor than character. I could almost hear his throaty drawl in some (silent) sequences where he faces the camera. It’s a huge disadvantage. Malcolm McDowell (‘A Clockwork Orange’) with whom we’re as familiar, finds himself on better grounds in an almost unspeaking role.

This, definitely, would’ve been a big issue when films started to talk from being pantomimes with nothing but a music score conducted live or re-recorded. It would’ve been as bizarre to hear Chaplin talk for the first time in a movie, as it would be to watch Al Pacino go silent for the sake of one. Can you fathom that? This is the crisis that Valentin undergoes in ‘the Artist.’ He’s married to Silent Cinema, his actual wife Doris (Penelope Ann Miller) being a dinner-table guest at most. He doesn’t want to talk. Neither do the Director and Producers at Kinograph. Silent Cinema had not lost its charm, but humanity, for the very simple basic nature of it, must move on. Valentin refuses to.

He does a Garfunkel, or a Ringo Starr as you could call it. He produces, directs and stars in a silent film called ‘Tears of Love’ where he writes himself as dying in the end, leaving his Dog and a woman behind. The climax is empowering; delightful. But there’s no audience left to savour it, save for Peppy. She weeps at the ending. We don’t know what got her to, we can but guess. The forsaken man’s last-breath effort. The sincerity in his drive to entertain. The actual visual poetry. The dreadful sight of watching someone she cherishes with all her heart suffer.

This is a masterful scene, by the way. It is an intercut between scenes from the movie being projected, the actor-director and his dog resisting dejection that’s soon to show, and Peppy, who watches it with a partner from box-seats. Valentin, the hero of the movie, is pulled into the quicksand as his Dog watches; barks. The woman shouts too, asking him to grab her hand. He doesn’t. He prefers to sink instead. He does. Both the Dog and the Woman mourn. So does Peppy. And there’s no question as to who aches the most, as Valentin, the actor-director, exits the hall with his Dog trotting behind, tailcoat flowing.

Most of the sequences, as I mentioned before, are contemporary with their style. There aren’t too many close-up shots with the actor disarmed and compelled to exaggerate his or her emotion. The shots are long, continuous and careful with their pace, the subtle and underplayed performances empowered by an even simpler, down-to-earth storyline. The treatment is lax, with the film’s little emphasis on detail substantiated/found in a convenient sort of compliance with the fact that, in spite of everything, it still is a Silent Movie. It’s as under-produced and under-designed as the new Indiana Jones film. And, quite like Indy himself, it finds strength in its own minimalism.

‘the Artist’ is made by Michael Hazanavicius, a French filmmaker known for spy-parodies. Jean Dujardin too, we learn, is a Comedian. These people are new to us, but we can guess as much. I once hosted and was backstage for a show featuring a celebrated mime by the name of Laurent Decol. The man was French, simple and funny in everything he said/did, and yet his act was tragicomic. The explanation is simple. It takes a humorist to celebrate the weight of sadness, to derive joy from it. We need a comedian, an actual funny man to bring depth and seriousness to a role, not sacrificing the human aspect of it in the process. In Pantomime, we have a clear assertion of this logic.

I started with denial, adamantly refusing to accept legitimacy of a passion that can have driven one to make a film like ‘the Artist.’ I thought of Rob Marshall, I thought of ‘Chicago’ almost a decade ago. The Academy finds itself obliged to honour films that celebrate the never-ending machine that churns out almost a thousand movies a year. ‘Mulholland Drive’, in all its faith, didn’t put in a good word. ‘the Artist’ does. It’s a clean tribute from someone who absolutely drinks into the idea of selling Cinema; an idea that distorted itself with the advent of Noir and subsequent Exploitation eras. I could not possibly associate honesty with such an intention. Neither did I allow myself to be convinced otherwise.

Nevertheless, ‘the Artist’ is a glorious film, pristine; an amazing hour and a half spent on watching people who know what they’re set out to do and are pretty good at it. The Actors. The writer-director. The music score, to some extent (by Ludovic Bource). Let me remind you once again that this, as much as it can be called one, is NOT a Silent Movie. It’s a crafty exploit that doesn’t step out of its own absurdist atmosphere – one of those films that could be made, that should be made. One of those films where watching and liking it would be its own reward; which should be its only reward. I hope the Academy agrees with me on this one. The statuette has better hands to grace.

A WASTE OF SPACE THAT'S BRILLIANTLY NAMED

(this Film Review is filled to the brim with expletives, which I felt the film warranted. I thus caution the reader and recommend that he/she discontinue reading right now if unwilling to encounter the same. I hope you'd understand that it's that kind of a film)

DIRECTED BY KAUSHIK MUKHERJEE

STARRING: ANUBRATA, JOYRAJ, KAMALIKA, SHILAJIT and RITUPARNA

Kaushik Mukherjee’s ‘Gandu’ is not a film. But it is a revelation. It brings to our notice a bunch of people in India who would do a things on screen than anyone else within the country would even dream of. The actors. The music department. The director himself, for that matter. I find that very reassuring, as well as intimidating and questionably so. On the one hand, I think they would inspire writers to come up with meaningful films about meaningful characters in a meaningful plot that would warrant the explicitness that ‘Gandu’ messes around with. On the other, they could spawn faithful stereotypes. Like a ‘Chuthiya’, for instance (excuse me for my language). Or a regional equivalent. The question is how well an actress like Rituparna (who plays every object of fantasy of the protagonist) would respond outside of her boyfriend’s territory – probably the same question that an actress like Kalki Koechlin faced post ‘Dev D.’ It pertains to Anubrata (who plays the fairly likeable ‘Gandu’) as well. We shall have to wait and watch.

I would rather not give away the plot of ‘Gandu.’ I do not wish to romanticize it, and I find myself incapable of telling a story without doing so. Hence I don’t want to. A film like this doesn’t deserve that. It is crass. It is deliberate. It doesn’t feel what it shows. Sex for Mukherjee is perversion. Perversion is compulsive. Films break taboos and remain intact with themselves. ‘Gandu’, I thought, was lost. It is absolutely non-erotic, wherein we know it tries to be. Mukherjee blends Gaspar Noe hallucinations with a Wong Kar Wai style. The effort is shamelessly visible. The result: a semi-erotic mess of a scene that holds one’s attention but for the wrong reasons. It’s bad pornography; worse cinema.

I talk about that one scene in particular, shot in colour that was meant to steal the show. I would credit the scene with as much potential as the encounter between Renato and his fantasized version of Malena Scordia in Giuseppe Tornatore’s ‘Malena’ (2000). My expectations only made the drop steeper. Sure Anubrata was hooked with eagerness; sure Rituparna sets the screen on fire. That is perhaps the problem in itself. Because the scene is ugly. It comes out as exhibitionist than celebratory. You watch the scene, you aren’t into it. Which makes me repeat my statement – it is bad pornography. A sex scene is like a concert experience: You’ve got to be there. This scene is badly edited, uninterestingly pieced. It’s plastic. It’s like a game of ‘Doctor’ at best, minus the innocence. Which is a big letdown for the engaging Rituparna, who, I thought, was feeling it.

I was reminded of Bertolucci’s ‘the Dreamers’ (2004) as I drifted off in search of a better place. Matthew (Michael Pitt) in the film endears with his helplessness. His charm is in his submission and the wild-eyed eagerness with which he’s up for the experience in the earlier stages of the film. Isabelle (Eva Green) is a warm place to be. Rituparna, I felt, was quite close. But our Gandu is no Julio or Tenoch (from Alfonso Cuaron’s delightful ‘Y Tu Mama Tambien’), let alone being Matthew. He does a Rocco Sifredi. You expect him to do a ‘stand and carry’ next. Inexperience walks out the door.

But Gandu is capable of such innocence. He is, actually, innocent enough. The film, I felt, takes a likeable adolescent and distorts him for the heck of it. His thoughts are perverted, his music is too. But he isn’t. I found that hard to deal with. What do you think? Seth (Jonah Hill) from ‘Superbad’ had a very dirty mind. But then he was still likeable with it. Gandu, on the other hand, shoves it up his namesake. The music is mind-blowing, Mukherjee has talent with words. Rickshaw (Joyraj) is adorable. There are things that put a smile on your face. There are things that kill it for you. They make the film unacceptable. The good things stand no chance.

In all, I found ‘Gandu’ tastelessly bold and pointedly defiant. I didn’t think it needed to be. It’s cocky, no doubt. But then it’s like a 4-inch intrusion in an 8-inch business, too noisy to make up for lost pace. It’s like a bad dick-joke that I didn't want to hear; that I wish was told differently. Throughout 'Gandu', I wished for a different movie. So I stand repulsed.

DO NOT WATCH THIS FILM

DIRECTED BY LARS VON TRIER

STARRING: KIRSTEN DUNST, CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG, ALEXANDER SKARSGARD, KIEFER SUTHERLAND with STELLAN SKARSGARD and JOHN HURT

Lars Von Trier has successively won his lead actress an award at Cannes. In 2009, Charlotte Gainsbourg bagged the honour for her portrayal of a mother who retaliates with sexual aggression against the pain of having lost her infant child in ‘Antichrist’. This summer, Kirsten Dunst walked away with the same for ‘Melancholia’, where she plays a woman who’s crippled by her fear about the end of the world. Crippled, as in mentally/emotionally. The film is said to be based on Trier’s therapy sessions during a depressive episode in his life, and it features Gainsbourg who’s already proven her worth in grieving with grace. Here, she’s comparatively cheerful. Dunst herself has had a popular bout of depression for two years, breaking the ice with her 2010 release ‘All Good Things’. This film is part of her comeback, and could very well be her definitive, breakthrough act.

That’s as much trivia as is required to understand where this film comes from and what nurtures it to an organic and rotting whole. Its achievement, I felt, was in the semblance of home as well as the equally-incisive portrayal, both of which had firm roots in the people involved. In other words, it’s a depressing film from a depressed person about a depressed character played by an actor who has faced the worst herself. That, I think, would sum up what the viewer can/will expect even before the film opens.

There’s very little to speak about the film, which actually doesn’t come as a surprise. It’s in two parts, one named after Justine (Kirsten Dunst) the bride-to-be who destroys her own wedding in a sort of defeatist endeavor like in a move to make the end of the world more sufferable. The other is named ‘Claire’ after her sister (Charlotte Gainsbourg) whose consumption by fear is procedural and intensifies with time and event. Justine plays the aggressor, Claire is submissive in the broadest sense of the word. This is not the first time I’ve watched Trier situate the entire emotional crux of the film with his women, their men accessorized. But here, he polarizes it. Justine and Claire are on the opposite ends of the spectrum. They, in all essence, complete the picture that he breaks in the end.

Does this imply that Trier is the feminist of this generation? Perhaps. It’s complicated, actually. He relates his depression to the suffering of a woman; somehow, I felt that he feels something very feminine about it. His men are plastic. He associates them with science, with logic, with power; with humour that he derives little pleasure from. His women, on the other hand, are pinnacles of expression, chasms of depth. We see shades of the woman in ‘Antichrist’ in Justine. She corks her sadness with sexual aggression, and suffers more at the relapse she helps trigger with it. I imagined for a second how it would be if he were to centre his story upon a male equivalent – that is, if ever Trier decided to write himself in a story. I think the concept of a woman has such an inherent sense of pity it’s bound to incite, which a male character, in his sexual dominance, would only lead away from himself. Somehow, the idea of a woman predating and suffering from the same seems far more acceptable. Even artistic. Or else it’s a consequence of Trier’s craft that renders us to believe so. I can’t tell.

Accepting that it’s backed by exemplary craft and deft use of ideas in Trier’s impeccable quirk, I take the liberty to call the film pathetic. It’s unendurable. It’s not even a film that can be enjoyed by a depressed individual; it’s no key to suicide either. I felt that it was a film that be enjoyed only by those in it; those snared by commitment and self-propelled interest to carve a way out of their heads in form of this film. Trier HAD to make this film, Dunst HAD to act in it – it’s in convenience to help resurrect her fallen career as well. She fits like a glove and he wears her performance like a crown. Dunst is both actor and character for the film that Trier knew exactly how to make. It comes easy for him, he extracts performances effortlessly. He’s backed by a talented bunch of actors who are well-cast and devoted as well. It’s tailor-made.

But what about the viewer? There’s this one film that Willem Dafoe as Carson Clay writes, directs and stars in at the Cannes Film Festival in ‘Mr. Bean’s Holiday’. The man is ruthless. He eats screen-space and deletes other characters to facilitate his own. I was reminded of that film when I watched ‘Melancholia’. There are films which disrespect the viewer. This one disregards us. It doesn’t care. It prides in its depression and destroys the world to beat its gloom. I’ve always had this theory that one would miss life lesser in its absence if one lived lesser. The film destroyed that theory of mine simply by reveling in it. I felt tainted. It does not eat into your optimism. It leeches on it and comes out strong. 

Roger Ebert called Tinto Brass’ ‘Caligula’ (1979) a heinous excuse for sex in film. ‘Melancholia’, to me, is a depression equivalent. It's ejaculate. It's a 'burn after reading' that it warrants. Not a world-premiere. Or any premiere, for that matter.

HORSE-POWER GETS A MILEAGE BOOST

DIRECTED BY NICHOLAS WINDING REFN 

STARRING: RYAN GOSLING, CAREY MULLIGAN, OSCAR ISAAC, CHRISTINA HENDRICKS, RON PERLMAN with BRYAN CRANSTON and ALBERT BROOKS 

To comment on whether or not ‘Drive’ (directed by Nicolas Winding Refn) succeeds depends on what one thinks it aspires to be. I thought it was intended to be a dark, tight action drama reminiscent of procedures from the pre-CGI era, where people blew up cars when they wanted to blow up cars. There are very few directors in present day (I shall conveniently exclude veterans who still stick to practices from ‘good old times’) that one can ascribe this ambition to. And in that, Danish Director Nicolas Winding Refn (the ‘Pusher’ trilogy) marks himself on a list that has Ben Affleck (‘Gone Baby Gone’, ‘the Town’) and Christopher Nolan (‘Insomnia’, ‘Batman Begins’) as champions of a mechanical revolution as opposed to its virtual counterpart. There’s supposedly an exciting debut in this line called ‘Bellflower’ (directed by Evan Glodell) that I’m yet to watch. That, I presume, would be all of the sane action that Hollywood would have to offer this season.

So the most that one can accuse ‘Drive’ is of lack of the same in its storyline, not exemplifying characters and interactions. I never wanted it to. Neither is that the only reason I’m not disappointed. The film does not parade on violence, augment the rawness of its action to atrophic amounts, or cash-in on the selling potential of its acting talent. It walks a fine line, sometimes it jogs. There isn’t a moment when it’s uncomfortable doing that, it never falters. And that’s as exciting as the film can get, which I thought was fine. It’s a simple film that sticks to basics. It works. 

Like all action films that want their context established, ‘Drive’ begins with a prototype – a sample. A man, unnamed (Ryan Gosling, credited as ‘Driver’ for convenience) is on a negotiation as tart as his job. He drives. In the ten-minute sequence before the opening credits, Refn tries to establish his Driver as opposed to anyone else’s. He isn’t one of the Paul Walker types to get from place A to place B taking the least amount of time in an adrenalin rush. He’s organic, he evolves. Driving, for Refn (and screenwriter Hossein Amini) is driving slow as well, driving cautiously, stopping when required and taking the right turns at the right time. Skill here is information and improvisation. John Woo might incorporate motor-boats and helicopters into our hero’s skillset, but that’s another story. Our Driver isn’t a daredevil. He’s poise in impulse, topped by the slouchy, hands-in-pocket sort of attitude characteristic of Gosling. He’s stylized, but not made an icon.

If the film is only as good as the story you write the Driver into, then it’s passable at best. Hossein Amini’s ('Jude', 'the Four Feathers') screenplay is backed by a romantic affection, a certain fondness juxtaposed upon the Driver’s steadiness of mind in the eve of crises. That’s his direction and it’s a little unconvincing, I’m not going to lie. It’s too much in convenience where things fall in place and apart with mechanized ease and order. It’s straight, sequential and undisrupted. Too much so.

So ‘Drive’, with the stronghold of Mr. Refn, has a less-than-convincing turn of events. And Christina Hendricks. I presume we still have belief in directorial ability to augment an actor’s performance. Ben Affleck empowered that belief by making Blake Lively act in ‘the Town’. Ms. Hendricks is comparatively repulsive. She’s like a big, sloppy blot on Film-Reel – she’s got too much to carry with too little grace, and I mean that literally as well. Carey Mulligan, on the other hand, is as charming as Rebecca Hall was. Please note I’m only comparing the impact and not drawing an analogy. It’s vital to have an endearing, almost completely innocent character in a premise as this and Mulligan, who served as the Emotional Quotient in Oliver Stone’s ‘Wall Street: Money never Sleeps’, fits the bill. Also, of course, there’s a cute little romance with shades of respectability between her Irene and the Driver. Veterans Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman are convincing stereotypes. Oscar Isaac, as Standard Gabriele, has little to do but looks smart in sunglasses. That’s as much credit as I can give him.

I’m aware I’ve talked about two contrasting angles of looking at the film. But I think it doesn’t deserve to be seen through unassuming eyes – it doesn’t deserve to be hated as much as it’s liked. There are films that you like despite loathsome aspects. There are those you like after ignoring them, which is actually warranted. ‘Drive’ is one such. It’s good that it’s simple, bad that it’s overly so. And it has Ryan Gosling in another game-changing performance. He’s solid, he towers. He fits the Driver’s clothes and they look good on him as well. But then he punches like a girl and looks a little too soft when he smiles. Still, I’ll go easy on him. He’s one of the good ones, you know? Probably the only one these days.

I'M SORRY, BUT WHAT ARE YOU AGAIN?

DIRECTED BY JODIE FOSTER 

STARRING: MEL GIBSON, JODIE FOSTER, ANTON YELCHIN, RILEY THOMAS and JENNIFER LAWRENCE

Jodie Foster gets us to call a full-grown man ‘the Beaver’. It's a woman's wish come true. He’s not just any man, he’s her husband and does a Cockney accent. It’s not thinly-veiled, it’s not suggestive. It’s in your face that you’d barely miss it. It’s in an introduction excessively reminiscent of Alexander Payne’s ‘About Schmidt’ (2002) that we are let into this contextually obvious truth – that he’s not called that for no reason, for he is one. I hope you know what I’m talking about, for if you don’t I’d suggest a look-up in the ‘Urban Dictionary’ – you might uncover some interesting details there, details that could help you encapsulate this disenchanting, stone-washed plain-clothe of a film in the palm of your hand. Not that you’d need that, of course. 

There was a time when films literally had to slog to get their premises in. It wasn’t a time too long ago. I’m talking about the Nancy Oliver written ‘Lars and the Real Girl’, which had new-age Cinema’s all-weather man Ryan Gosling talk to a ‘real doll’ to beat his introversion and people found it scandalous. Walter Black (Mel Gibson), here, talks to a Beaver. Of all the nerve, right? Karin and Gus Lindstrom had had a whole lot of explaining to do to the whole of their town before they could legitimize the brother’s condition. Mr. Black gets a shrink-card that he wrote by himself. He’s the CEO of a Toy Manufacturing Firm (he inherits the company from his father and is not qualified for it, self-confessedly) and he finds a Glove-Puppet shaped like a Beaver (the ‘woodchuck’ and not the other one) in the small amount of trash he throws. He’s not a ventriloquist, he just can’t be. His accent's probably the peak point on his CV, so we’re into this job-compromise where he’d speak through the Beaver, but he’d move his lips too. His youngest son Henry is the blonde child who's got nothing to do but play 'cute'. I was struck by how easily he believes in the Beaver, especially when his Dad does such a bad job being one. The wife, Meredith (Jodie Foster) is ‘no questions asked’ before a 'Spiderman' sort of Catch-22, the older son Porter (Anton Yelchin) is quickest with the ‘F’ question. In moments, I felt like asking him one as well. 

Porter has a little life on his own – it’s sort of a back story though for the film is obviously about Big Mr. Black and his Beaver. The lad ghost-writes for people, a process that gets him more than enough of an allowance, as well as the advances of the otherwise-impossible Norah (Jennifer Lawrence), valedictorian and pristine cheerleader who wants him to write her graduation speech, something she’s tried 400-odd times without success. The only thing that’d be harder is tying her shoelaces, but no – she’s got a 4.0 GPA, she’d probably even tie the Escher’s knot if you ask her to. But she can’t write her graduation speech, and that’s because that’s the only thing that Porter can. Convenient? He’s the Beaver’s son, remember?

I’ll tell you again why I referred to ‘Lars and the Real Girl’ in contrast to this film. It’s one that actually tried to nurture its premise to development. ‘the Beaver’ is Foster-bred at best. It’s justified, not felt. I’m surprised at how cinema has taken this less-than-favourable stance towards sincerity these days, what with efforts everywhere else. The casting in this film, for instance. Mel Gibson, who's just had to stiffen a wee bit more to fit his role like the puppet on his hand. Jodie Foster who’s played Clarice Starling like, a million years ago. Anton Yelchin, this studio kid in Hollywood that’s in every second teenage film that pokes its head out. Jennifer Lawrence, dear Jennifer Lawrence who was a said disappointment having face-lifted her ‘Winter’s Bone’ with X-Woman Mystique. Wait till you watch her in this film. 

This is a film where I was surprised that the people who made it and were in it could take it seriously. I couldn’t. Somewhere along the drawing board, someone drew a Beaver on the Glove-Puppet and someone liked it. Possibly Ms. Foster herself. And I had to watch the film to know it was a bad idea.

TO PARIS, WITH LOVE

DIRECTED BY WOODY ALLEN 

STARRING: OWEN WILSON, RACHEL McADAMS, KURT FULLER, MIMI KENNEDY, MICHAEL SHEEN, NINA ARIANDA, ALISON PILL, COREY STOLL, KATHY BATES, CARLA BRUNI, LEA SEYDOUX, GAD ELMALEH with ADRIEN BRODY and MARION COTILLARD 

‘Midnight in Paris’ opens with snapshots of the city that looks to shy away from its own romance. Woody Allen’s nostalgia shop thus cranks open, the sequence being his dry remark not just on the city but of present day in itself. It’s also strenuously long, and in that it tests the viewer on his fondness towards the metropolis that its writer so rejoices in. Three years after, Woody Allen arrives with a follow-up to his sexually, metaphorically aggressive ‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona’. Only this time, we find it’s even more about the city than just the things that happen in it; we find it’s more about the author than just his concept. We gear up, we’re excited. It’s an autobiography of a fantasy in a trip that goes farther back than his memory lane, delving in dreams on alleys and cabs and jazz bars and dark little corners of sweet little nothings. 

Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) is Woody Allen dyed blonde after a possible corrective eye-surgery. He's also taller, more coherent and less of an outrage, though he looks a little too worse for wear. Minutes into character, we find how convenient it is to have cast the seasoned comedian in Wilson, who both cheekily matches Allen’s usual peccadillos as well as establishes his own prowess in playing the quintessential overgrown adolescent. His performance is clear-cut and fulfilling, maybe a tad too reminiscent, but it’s all good – it adds to the strength of a plot somehow reinforces itself with every little detail it provides. We have the Allen (in his more recent films) stereotype in Inez (Rachel McAdams), of a woman who likes her fiancé but not enough to stick to him. We have the disapproving parents, the art confrontation and an emasculating counterpart in Paul Bates (Michael Sheen) all too soon. In Sheen, we have yet another actor who seems to have mastered the Allen School of acting and dialogue delivery, a consequence of which we find ourselves struck by a cascade of performances that are only too faithful to the eccentric master. Kathy Bates is her usual, domineering self, Marion Cotillard as Ariadne, the woman of Gil's dreams, proves to be a true Diva of this generation. Allen has always loved the enemy enough to create crushing opponents to shower unrequited love upon, right from his decisive 'Annie Hall'. His Ariadne helps Gil find his way back to a reality away from dreams, a character detail that strongly coheres with Cotillard's portrayal of Mal in Christopher Nolan's 'Inception'. The name Ariadne rings a bell as well, although it was another character that was named so. Too much of a coincidence?

On the one hand, we have the dowdy, lost-for-life soul-searcher in Gil, our hero. On the other, there’s the man with the touch of gold in Paul. Allen’s women have never required reason to depart, while it usually takes him the entire length of his films to deem as futile his efforts on finding one. It’s strange how it’s both sad as well as incredibly delightful to watch the man retract to his once-wide-eyed longing for both closeness as well as closure. In his silence is a cry for help, his contentment a fantasy. And who can lend a stronger hand to lift to clarity than the prosaic representation of strength in agony of Hemingway (Corey Stoll) himself? 

“All cowardice comes from not loving, or not loving well, which in essence is the same thing.” The quote pertains to the film as well. I loved it. I’m loving it. I will love it more, but not just to deem myself brave. When did we last see Woody Allen fall in love? Was it when he drowned in the emotional seductiveness of Dianne Wiest’s Holly in ‘Hannah and her Sisters’? Or when he coveted the unattainable Halley Reed in ‘Crimes and Misdemeanors’? ‘Deconstructing Harry’ had him deconstruct plausibility of emotions in an effort at catharsis that he largely accomplished. ‘Everyone says I Love you’ was an even obvious satire and he followed it up with comedies and mysteries and this and that. In that hierarchy, ‘Midnight in Paris’ is a lost-fantasy; a reinvention. It’s a diary found in the attic of his middle-aged residence that’s but full of dreams and recollections of things that he wished had happened to him. It’s a treasure chest that opens to every viewer irrespectively, and offers as reward their very own needs. 

Some people chisel, some people sculpt. Woody Allen just seems to have touched the city of Paris with a touch of life. He walks in the rain without an umbrella and paints the town in his shade with the water that drains off him. The quirky little man has a taller, blonde and stranger version in a delightful misrepresentation with the effect unhindered. And the two of them set out, stretching their feet, singing a song of their own called ‘to Paris, with Love’. With that, they have her bowled over. Much like me, much like you too.