Take Shelter (2011)

“Take Shelter” is a heart-rending story of Curtis LaForche (Michael Shannon), who resides with his wife Samantha (Jessica Chastain) and his little daughter Hannah (Tova Stewart) who happens to be deaf. It all begins when Curtis has visions of a storm coming…in the form of dark clouds, whirlwinds, thunderous noises, and a strange looking rain, the water from which resembles motor oil! Some of these visions are extreme and apocalyptic, laden with immense paranoia. He sees himself and his family being stalked and attacked by faceless people….and that is when he realizes that something is amiss with his head. He has these nightmares almost every night, yet withholds them from his family, for he is concerned about them; doesn’t want them to feel insecure in the company of a mentally ill man of the house! More so, because apparently there has been a history of paranoid schizophrenia in the family; his mother had it too……! He just goes on with life, looks up books about mental illnesses and starts meeting a counselor at the free clinic.

But are these visions actually premonitions of a deadly storm to come (he describes them as “a feeling”, not “just dreams”)? Or are they merely hallucinations? Regardless, Curtis takes up the task of protecting his family…by building a fully equipped storm shelter underground…..

"Take Shelter” reminded me of Andrei Tarkovsky’s final masterpiece, “The Sacrifice” which also features the central character living in an isolated house with his wife, daughter and a son (who is mute!), and decides to carry out an ultimate sacrifice to save his family from the impending apocalypse by a nuclear holocaust. Only the similarities end right there and this film is in no way a rip-off.

“Take Shelter”, on the outside, may appear like yet another psychological drama about a man suffering from Schizophrenia with all the essential clichés that usually infest such films. Writer-director Jeff Nichols proves this assumption wrong, however, and takes a whole new approach in which the protagonist senses early on that he has a problem and tries his level best to seem normal, so as to not affect his family that he loves so much and ensures that they don’t feel unprotected. The idea of delusions of doom clubbed with this fresh new twist work wonders for a tired premise of a schizophrenic protagonist and thus render “Take Shelter” one of the best films dealing with the subject. Nichols handles the story with finesse and takes utmost care to not let it slip into the triteness of melodrama. There is drama alright, but nothing that would seem overdone. Every little bit is realistically done; every scene is carefully thought out, every little character reaction is meticulously written, except for maybe a single scene. 

Some of Curtis’ visions are frightening and Nichols sure knows how to the scare the hell out his audiences! This film could serve to be a perfect blend of the ‘psychological thriller’ and ‘drama’ genres and has plenty of moments to please film lovers of both categories. On the technical front, the film excels in most departments, particularly cinematography, sound design and even special visual effects. Just behold those excellent scenes of the storm that could give any big budget disaster movie a run for their money. Or that chilling moment when Curtis and Hannah find themselves in the midst of some birds gone berserk in a frighteningly surreal sequence! 

The acting is marvelous all along…Jessica Chastain is brilliant as the caring wife distressed upon not knowing what exactly is going through her husband’s head, yet trying to manage the family and making some modest money by selling in a local flea market. The little daughter Hannah is superb as the deaf daughter. Even though she has precious little to do, she has a presence that is endearing! Robert Longstreet and Shea Whigham make an impression in their small acting parts in the roles of Jim and Dewart respectively. Which brings us to the lead performer, Michael Shannon. Now, his performance is definitely solid. Shannon practically lives the character and makes it his own. The realization, the helplessness, the anxiety, the sadness…all pulled off masterfully. Only I didn’t see anything significantly different from what I saw in “Revolutionary Road” in which he played a similar character. Only Curtis of “Take Shelter” is a little more compassionate than John Givings of “Revolutionary Road”, but essentially he seemed like the extension of the same person! Now this leads Shannon into an even greater danger of being type-casted, because even if he attempts something different, we are bound to see a mentally unstable character, and that’s not a good thing. One can just hope Shannon is more careful while choosing his next big role if he wants to show if he is versatile enough.

Jeff Nichols has crafted a real fine film. This is only his second venture and he has already mastered the art. Some may complain that the film slows down at intervals, but it is the kind of screenplay that is best savored at a steady pace rather than in a hurried manner. In spite of the slow place, the film is engaging enough and never lets up, thanks to the fine acting and plenty of great moments to fill the running time of 120 minutes.

This is yet another example of a great film that was sadly overlooked by the Academy. I can just hope that this review and many others reach out to film lovers all around and they take notice of “Take Shelter”.

Score: 9/10.

Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011)

“You look like a ‘Marcy May’”, the creepy leader of a hippie cult, Patrick (John Hawkes) tells Martha (Elizabeth Olsen). That summarizes what the first three words in this tongue-twister of a title of this excellent film signify. As for ‘Marlene’, I would rather leave it for the viewer to find out. It’s an interesting little part that one would miss if not very attentive.

As a matter of fact, the whole film pretty much plays out steadily and engulfs your senses in its own sweet way, thanks to the terrific original screenplay and its treatment by debutant director Sean Durkin.

At the break of dawn, Martha (Elizabeth Olsen, the much prettier and much cooler younger sister of the Olsen twins) flees from an isolated house inhabited by a number of people, somewhere in the Catskill mountains. She later gets in touch with her elder sister, Lucy (Sarah Paulson), who takes her to her beautiful weekend home in Connecticut. Martha withholds what she’s been through from her sister. In a narrative that flashes back and forth we learn that Martha had been in the company of a strange cult led by Patrick (John Hawkes) who preaches some twisted philosophy which all the runaways under him blindly follow. Martha has also been a runaway, who disappeared from Lucy’s life for a couple of years or more. Lucy is happily married to Ted (Hugh Dancy). While the couple try their level best to accommodate Lucy’s returned sibling, despite her difficult attitude, it becomes increasingly apparent that living with Patrick’s hippie group has had a damaging effect on Martha’s psyche and she can’t seem to adjust to normal life again……..

For a debut feature length, Sean Durkin handles the film like a pro. He is obviously influenced by the minimalistic style of most European art films and it shows. As mentioned earlier, instead of resorting to conventional storytelling, Durkin feeds us a slow meal, little by little, steadily increasing the dose with each morsel as he unravels the chilling back-story of what actually happened and why it is not entirely unexpected why Martha is socially inept. There are surprises in store, but not in the way most modern films treat them…there are no lame gimmicks of jump-twists suddenly shown like trump cards towards the climax. Each surprise is delivered in parts; these parts, including some seriously disturbing moments, are sprinkled across the narrative and gently thrown at us unsuspecting audiences.

The constant flashing back and forth of the narrative could have tried the viewer’s patience had it not been for the very mature handling of this device with the help of some intelligent match cuts. The placement of scenes and buildup of the narrative couldn’t have been better. Durkin certainly knows how to tell a story. Scenes that are especially tense and brutal are handled with extra finesse. The sound design is another fine quality of this film and deserves accolades. It adds that extra flavor to an already brilliantly filmed sequence. It reminded me of David Lynch’s signature sound effects in many ways….

The acting is terrific…Elizabeth Olsen runs away with an unforgettable lead performance. She brings to life, this really distressed young girl in need of help, who you want to empathize with but are unable to decide whether she actually deserves kindness. And then there’s Sarah Paulson as Lucy, the caring sister who is desperately trying hard to get through to her younger sibling who just refuses to open out, as well as balancing her married life and plans to conceive. It is a great supporting act indeed! Ditto for Hugh Dancy who does a terrific job as Ted, the supportive husband, who makes a sincere attempt to put up with his wife’s little sister who gradually manages to get on his nerves; there are moments of some genuinely well-written drama between these three characters. And lastly there’s John Hawkes as the sleazy, creepy looking Patrick, a self-proclaimed “teacher and a leader” of the hippie group where our protagonist loses her way. His wicked smile and domineering ways and absurd views disgust and enrage you and make you despise him. This scorn on the audiences’ part is testimony to how great his performance ultimately is.

The film is near flawless, but for very minor problems with a couple of instances in the proceedings, which seemed a little forced and a tad unnecessary but not in a big way. 2011 has been a great year for cinema and “Martha Marcy May Marlene” belongs to the best of 2011. It is a masterstroke in film-making for Sean Durkin who seems to have the knack for making quality stuff and that makes him a fine young director to look out for. One wonders what the Academy were smoking ‘cause this film has failed to get any nomination at all! It is at times like these when I have to question the credibility of these “prestigious” Oscars Awards! Oh well….

Score: 9/10.

Teorema (1968)

Pier Paolo Pasolini's "Teorema" had me dumbfounded! It was one of those rare instances where I was initially unable to formulate a clear opinion of what I thought about it. For one, this minimalist picture from the controversial filmmaker has art-house written all over it. Yes, there is extreme minimalism, very little dialog (it seems the number of actual spoken words in the film is about 923!). This almost silent film is allegorical…rife with symbolism and religious connotations, and may not be a very interesting subject matter for those looking at mainstream cinema, that is for sure.

An arm-flapping herald (the idiomatic little birdie?) announces the arrival of a visitor. Terence Stamp is The Visitor, a mysterious stranger who once visits the mansion of a bourgeois family of four. The man of the house is Paolo, a rich businessman who owns a factory, and then there's his awkward son, a daughter, a beautiful wife who is sexually repressed and a scary-looking maid. In the next few days, this visitor has sexual encounters with each of the inhabitants of the house! In a way, he seduces them. And almost as suddenly as he appears, he soon takes leave of them, leaving them in a state like never before. All of these people he touched exhibit marked changes in their lives, of a different level altogether.

The consequences form the crux of this strange film and paves way for detailed discussion. What makes Pasolini's film so important is the daring concept that he presents to his viewers with a script set in the contemporary world. From what I understand, the visitor is supposed to be a God-send or an angel who influences the members of the house in one way or another. Why sexually, is a good question, but that depends on how you see it. Is it the touch of God, or the Devil's seduction? Perhaps it is symbolic of a 'close encounter with God'?

So what exactly does God do to these bourgeois individuals? Apparently he makes them see beyond their pretentious, cocooned lives. They all go through a self-realization phase, which they confess one by one to the visitor when it is time for him to leave. But he isn't there to see the changes. Are these changes always positive? Does being blessed always lead to happiness? Or is there another side to it? Pasolini, through his seemingly simple yet highly complex allegory poses these ambiguous questions, something which likely polarized his audiences, based on their religious beliefs. Being an atheist I wasn't particularly offended or overwhelmed with the subject, but I was definitely intrigued by how drastically different this film and its viewpoint is.

On the whole, "Teorema" appears to be a critique and a take-down of the bourgeoisie in the sense that this mysterious stranger exposes, or makes them see what's hidden beneath their affected existence. Apart from laying bare the son's homosexuality, there is at least one scene that hints that Paolo could be confused about his own sexuality as well. Popular theories suggest this is indicative of Pasolini's own struggle with homosexuality. Paolo's daughter confesses that she loved only her father and hasn't known other men or was afraid of them. She carries his photograph in her book in one earlier scene. Could there be a history of sexual abuse? Is the daughter conditioned to only love her father? This could directly be related to her mother's boredom stemming from a prolonged lack of healthy sex life.

Pasolini's atheism also comes into play here, as he challenges the conventional, accepted principles of religion and subverts the very idea of God, as not one that necessarily forgives or frees from sin. The visitor, in fact, liberates the individual, but the consequences of this liberation need not necessarily be uplifting. All of the family members, except the maid see the visitor's visit as some form of destruction; they talk about something in them being destroyed by his appearance and eventually his exit that leaves a void. Paolo says it most clearly in his final dialog with the visitor: "You certainly came here to destroy". 

And indeed, the result isn't positive for either of them. It is only the maid, a non-bourgeois, working class person who is able to achieve grace in a positive, otherworldly manner, while the others march towards a psychological or a moral deterioration, one way or another. Given that Pasolini was strongly critical of consumerism, the hint that Paolo eventually turns over his factory to the workers bolsters the theory that the visitor's influence ultimately benefits the proletariat and shatters the comfortable cocoon of the bourgeoisie, negatively impacting their existence. This connects directly to the opening scene of the journalist who seeks answers to the meaning of this move; asking strange, perhaps sarcastic questions as to whether this means an end to the class struggle, and whether all of humanity would eventually become part of the bourgeoisie! Could the visitor then, be a force sent to equalize things and obliterate the class divide?

Pasolini's technique of story-telling is poetic. It is almost like he deliberately chose the visual style as exists in the film to give it a meditative form. Long takes, solitude, mostly gentle atmosphere, intermittent random scenes of a vast empty desert, similarly recurring sounds of church bell gongs, the presence of a radiant light just before the visitor appears, all tactfully done! The visuals are also enchanting, the cinematography is beautiful, with the colours changing from sepia (in the beginning during the introduction of the characters, perhaps to show their ordinary lives?) to vividly colourful (a marked change with the introduction of the visitor?). It is then, mostly on the technical front and the handling of the film with its layered theme that makes "Teorema" most watchable.

Where it falters is mostly in the acting department. There is some very tepid acting from the actors playing the son and the daughter. I don't know if it was intentional but the daughter, Odetta (Anne Wiazemsky) who also appeared in Robert Bresson's "Au Hasard Balthazar" delivers what could be one of the most wooden acting performances I've seen. At one point it even becomes slightly apparent that she is reading her lines from cue cards! The son, Pietro, played by Andrés José Cruz Soublette also seems somewhat awkward, but maybe his acting reflects his character who behaves like that owing to being a closeted homosexual. Stamp, in an interview years later, said that Pasolini made his actors recite their lines in English, and that they did not know the script. The director later went on to dub the dialog in Italian! It is possible that the acting suffers because of this eccentric decision, the motivation behind which would only be known to Pasolini.

The finest acting then comes from Terence Stamp, even though he doesn't have much to do except give mysterious smiles once in a while and appear compassionate! A close second best actor in the film is the beautiful Silvana Magnano, the lady of the house. Her Lucia's perplexed state of mind is wonderfully portrayed by the actress. Also impressive is Laura Betti as Emilia, the maid. Laura looks and acts the weird Emilia quite earnestly.

So why is the film titled "Teorema" anyway?("Teorema" means "Theorem")  There are views that the structure of the film itself and the psychological transformation of all characters follow a single formulaic pattern. The film doesn't boast of great acting, neither is it an intimate character portrait. Despite the shortcomings, there is something about "Teorema" that is strangely effective. The mystifying subject matter, its quirky treatment and a whole lot of ambiguity that stems from keeping the mystery intact is what makes "Teorema" extremely interesting. While the visuals and the characters haunt your memory long after the film is over, the happenings in the narrative will give you something to ponder about for days on end and trigger endless debates. It is the kind of film that one may love or hate or just mildly appreciate, but certainly cannot ignore.


Score: 9/10.

Drive (2011)

When you finally get your hands on a film that has managed to win laurels from all around you, you know your expectations are high. “Drive” was one of the year’s biggest Oscar snubs for unknown reasons, being nominated (deservedly too) in the sole category of “Best Achievement in Sound Editing”. That is just one of the many great qualities of this film though. 

The protagonist (Ryan Gosling) is a silent, brooding tough guy known only as the “Driver” or “kid” as some of them call him. He is a part time mechanic in a garage, a part time stuntman for some action films and also moonlights as a driver on hire for driving getaway cars for robbers/hoods who want to pull off a heist and also have a quick means of escape. Circumstance gets him involved with a cute looking Irene (Carey Mulligan) who has a little kid for her to take care of and a husband (Oscar Isaac) doing time in prison. No points for guessing that there is instant bonding between the Driver and Irene and her kid. The Driver takes care of them for a while…takes them on joyrides, gives company to the kid and the mother once in a while, among other things. But beyond this cliché of an accessory to crime possessing a heart of gold reserved for the cute married woman with a kid there is a lot going on between the driver’s friend and employer, Shannon (Bryan Cranston), and a mobster named Bernie Rose (Albert Brooks) and his partner, a Jewish gangster by the name of Nino (Ron Perlman). The plot thickens when certain events connect the Driver directly with this pair of gangsters and also Irene’s husband Standard who suddenly returns…..

The story is best left for the viewer to unravel but rest assured, this film goes far beyond the plot. Firstly, it serves as a rather intimate character portrait of the protagonist whose roots are unknown, who seems like a rather cold and distant individual, a socially inept loner who exhibits least remorse when it comes to doing something not particularly ethical, yet one who also possesses a heart of gold…for those who deserve it of course. Others get a taste of his ultra-violent side! All of the scenes revolving around the Driver are very well-written and capable of giving us a satisfying picture of this mysterious individual and also manage to catch us by surprise at several instances. Particularly noteworthy is one scene in an elevator (excellent scene, brilliantly acted) and some subtly clever scenes like the one when Irene’s husband Standard (Oscar Isaac) is sharing a light moment when he and Irene met for the first time, with his son and with the driver. The expressions on the faces of both Irene and the Driver are priceless! Or that scene when the Driver and Irene’s son are watching something on TV and the son calls the shark a “bad guy”. “There are no good sharks?”, The Driver asks. Superb moments all!

Moreover, the film excels in almost all technical aspects with flying colours. The sound design and editing as mentioned earlier is top-notch; one of the standout aspects of the film. The cinematography is beautiful;  there are sometimes long slo-mo takes clubbed with a hypnotic background score that give the film a dream-like, meditative quality, oozing oodles of atmosphere. Also well-done is the electro-pop soundtrack and the placement of songs, especially the title piece (“Nightcall”) that sounds like the distinctly 80s synthpop. Some have called the film ‘slow‘ but thanks to Nicolas Winding Refn’s command on the handling, his product is one of the most engrossing films I’ve seen in a long time. It is also refreshing to see that despite this being a film that has heists and car chases, it is made to look more like an art-house picture that slowly establishes itself and gradually builds up the viewer’s mood rather than looking like a quick-cut-edited pop-corn actioner. The only thing that connects this film to the latter category are the somewhat unreal instances where our hero dodges near-fatal situations and magically survives (mostly without a scratch!) near-death experiences like dangerous car stunts and chases, sudden shotgun surprises, lone attacks in foreign territories and stab wounds! The violence is gory (also unrealistic at times), perhaps to please the gorehounds and action film buffs alike!

Now, for the performances. Albert Brooks who is perhaps the best of all the supporting actors; does a marvelous job as the soft-spoken yet crooked gangster Bernie Rose. Ron Perlman, an often overlooked actor is outstanding as the scary looking Jewish mobster Nino. Carey Mulligan looks cute and is a brilliant performer as well. She has a very expressive face and uses it very aptly in some of the film’s best scenes. Your heart goes all out to see her take care of the kid alone and really wish something good would happen to her.

Ryan Gosling exudes coolness with a capital C with uber-confidence in the more restrained scenes of his, where he conveys a lot through his face which shifts between a brooding, intense look to a deadpan stare and then to a goofy smile, especially when he is with Irene or her kid. However, it is during the times when it is required of him to emote or exhibit outbursts that the actor feels a little ill at ease and seems to lack the spontaneity. Therefore the way he delivers some lines or the act that he displays seems a tad forced. This renders his performance somewhat inconsistent and that is where the actor loses points in an otherwise fine job of acting.

Winding Refn has said that the film is a tribute to Martin Scorsese’s masterpiece, “Taxi Driver”. And one can instantly recognize the homage from some situations in the picture and also the overall persona of the protagonist. (And is it just a coincidence that Albert Brooks appears in that film as well as this?) While this film cannot possibly equal the Robert De Niro starrer, it is a splendid work of art on its own merits. A definite must-see and must-own.

Score: 9/10.

Fermat's Room (2007)

Writers-directors Luis Piedrahita and Rodrigo Sopena were clearly inspired when they made this neat low-budget 'Math thriller', as I like to call it. "Fermat’s Room" reminded me of three films: Darren Aronofsky’s "Pi", Vincenzo Natali’s underrated Canadian thriller "Cube" and James Wan’s cult thriller "Saw". At the same time it also reminded me of some of Hitchcock’s work!

That said, this film scores because it is a classic case of inspiration and is not a rip-off.

The film is literally an interesting puzzle box for puzzle geeks or Math geeks. A math genius who calls himself 'Fermat' sends out a math riddle to various mathematicians and scientists around and adds a message that only those who manage to crack the puzzle would get to share a grand dinner at a gathering with other true geniuses. At this dinner, Fermat would interest all these bright people with 'one of the greatest enigmas ever' that he has planned for them to solve. Only four people manage to crack Fermat’s code and end up at the place of the meeting following the cryptic clues laid out for them. The real names of these people are never revealed; they are given pseudonyms by Fermat; all these pseudonyms being names of former mathematicians!

Once at the venue they discover that the very room they are in IS in fact the enigma…..it is a meticulously designed 'shrinking room' that is slowly closing in on them. The only way to escape being crushed by the walls and preventing the room from becoming  their tomb is by solving some puzzles sent to them on a sole PDA that has been given to them. The PDA is connected to the system that controls the shrinking! Solving each puzzle correctly in the stipulated time would prevent the house from shrinking and only then would they be able to save themselves!

Although somewhat far-fetched, the premise is definitely refreshing and "Fermat’s Room" is packed with all the essential ingredients of a typical claustrophobic thriller of this sort. There is the paranoia, the lack of trust, the nervousness, the constant feeling that it is anything but a coincidence that the four people were brought there together. Sure, it does ring a bell and we have seen a few thrillers of this sort before. What wins this film more points is the ingenious idea of a shrinking room, and the breathtaking manner in which the effects of the same have been achieved with a  minimal set design and almost no reliance on special makeup effects or gratuitous violence and gore. The entire film relies on human emotions and reactions, and of course, the highly intriguing puzzles set out for the guests by their mysterious host. At a time when they can hardly think straight with death staring in their faces, our guests are subjected to some brain-racking math problems that would prove to be the ultimate test of their abilities as they are forced to perform in a 'pressure' situation (pun intended)! We find ourselves struggling to find the solution as we watch our primary characters racing against time to get to the bottom of each riddle. Of course, you have to be a lover of logic puzzles to find this little part interesting! The filmmakers, perhaps, deliberately refrain from including hardcore math puzzles (involving theorems and numbers) so as to reach a wider audience.

It was imperative to have actors who could pull off a film relying on everything else so minimal and hence an apt choice of actors comprising of Lluís Homar (terrific actor; has worked with Pedro Almodovar), Santi Millán, Federico Luppi (a favourite of Guillermo Del Toro), Alejo Sauras and Elena Ballesteros. The guys are all do good; however the sole female actor in this venture is the weakest of the lot as she appears almost stoic in the worst of situations! It is uncertain whether the directors wished that, or whether Elena is wooden in the first place; nonetheless, hers is the weakest performance in the film.

The film manages to hold our attention fairly well with its taut screenplay and a good amount of twists thrown our way in the final half hour. Maybe it’s just me, but too many twists sometimes lead to the undoing of an otherwise satisfying story. The twists in "Fermat’s Room" border on the brilliant as well as contrived. Thus, a couple of those several surprises, while surely manage to catch us unawares, still seem slightly forced! Add to that a very convenient finale designed as a perfect wrap-up device that is, again, slightly less impressive.

In spite of the shortcomings, "Fermat’s Room" is a thoroughly enjoyable and engrossing thriller and deserves credit for being one of the better low budget films of the genre.

Recommended….quite certainly.

Score: 7.5/10

The Phantom of Liberty (1974)

The Granddaddy of surrealist cinema directed his penultimate film at the age of 74. And, my goodness, what creativity at that age! What a grand accomplishment in cinema with one of the most radically unconventional films ever made! It is difficult to outline the greatness of “The Phantom of Liberty” in words but this review makes the most sincere attempt.

In Bunuel’s universe, expect the unexpected. So please throw out all your expectations of finding rational explanations to the events or trying to make sense of them in the logical manner. What Bunuel gives you is the epitome of absurdity. There is absolutely no rationale backing the actions or behavioral traits of the characters here. What we have is characters behaving in the oddest of manners. So a seemingly normal event becomes a reason for raising eyebrows. On the other hand, a seriously eyebrow raising event is met with lack of reaction and is deemed not worth acting upon! This pretty much summarizes the universe of “The Phantom of Liberty”.

The film puts out a series of very interesting and twisted narratives chained together in a very unique manner. A minor character of one narrative takes the film forward by becoming the main character of the next narrative.  This is how focus shifts from character to character, like in a relay race where a baton is passed on. Now that is truly amazing storytelling if nothing else! Bunuel also admits that the episodes are derived from his own personal experiences. It is almost as if Bunuel and Jean-Claude Carriere (co-scriptwriter) had vivid dreams based on their personal experiences, each dream weirder than the other and they penned down each dream and turned it into one feature-length script! Let it be noted though that Bunuel’s world isn’t derived from fantasy; everything is based in the real world, only the occurrences don’t follow the norms of the real world.

The events in the film take wackiness to another level; yet they range from inherently comic  to highly disturbing. The ‘disturbing’ quotient mostly comes from the display of some aberrant sexuality surrounding at least three of the major characters in a couple of episodes. There is plenty of material here to keep you glued to your seats and ensure that you have a mighty good time, sometimes cringing and sometimes smiling with glee!

Despite the insane nature of the script, Bunuel certainly had a motive to write these scenes the way he wrote them. There are multiple themes in this film, as Bunuel himself declares in his autobiography. Most notably, the importance of chance occurrences or coincidence and the essential mystery of all things, including the ambiguous nature of truth. There is a lot to be taken home from “The Phantom of Liberty”. One may also argue that Bunuel’s eccentric, exaggerated vision is a vehicle to depict how certain things happening in this world around us are simply wrong! Like a dreaded killer who should be hanged sometimes ends up being a media-created celebrity! The inherent difficulty faced by human beings to accept the truth when they finally come face to face with it is depicted through at least two episodes in the film in a hyperbolic manner. Like in his earlier film “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” there is also a fleeting satire on the hypocrisy of the upper middle class.

The actors all play their parts with conviction, and prominent French actors Michel Piccoli and Michael Lonsdale briefly appear in small but extremely memorable scenes. Bunuel, noted for his economic film-making uses minimal sets and almost no special/makeup effects; uses mostly indoor locations to shoot his scenes. There is also a prominent lack of a background score and certain apparently big events are shown off-screen and conveyed only through sound. But this is the narrative device that succeeds most. When events are off-screen and left to the viewer’s imagination, it enhances the impact. There are a number of such instances in “The Phantom of Liberty”.

Bunuel gives you quality cinema near the end of his highly prolific career. “The Phantom of Liberty” is an unforgettable film experience. Cherish this film and its maker; they are a rarity.

Score: 10/10

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)

The master of surrealism, Luis Bunuel was about 72 when he made this fantastic film, “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie”. It is literally a wet “dream” come true for all those film buffs who like their movies full of oneiric imagery with random occurrences that, although set in a real world, do not make much sense!

It must be clear enough now, that there is no single plot to make this film a whole. Rather it is a collection of confounding events in the life of six central characters of the bourgeois class, including two married couples, who happen to be friends. Most events revolve around their repeatedly thwarted attempts to sit down to have a leisurely meal together! The world in Bunuel’s film, although real, isn’t very logical either. Several seemingly bizarre events are accepted as “normal” with a rather straight face by the characters, which adds to the many qualities of Bunuel’s surreal vision.

Relating some of the strangest and best events in the film in this review will do disservice to the first time viewer, but assuming that a mention of a couple of other events will only entice the reader to watch the film, instead of spoiling the fun, I think I can safely mention them. The group of the aforementioned six people are walking down a long stretch of an open road on a sunny day. This scene is repeated throughout the film and randomly interspersed with other events in the film. Then in one scene, the three ladies of the group sit down in a restaurant to have some tea. The waiter later comes and tells them that it is unavailable. The cycle continues, as later, no matter what they order, the waiter comes back after a few minutes and informs them that they are “out of it”. In the midst of this, a complete stranger, a sad-looking Lieutenant in a uniform, comes to their table, relates a ghostly tale from his childhood and walks away. The ladies don’t seem to be express much disbelief upon hearing the odd tale either!

Suffice to say, that this is one of Luis Bunuel’s best films in which he puts together such amazing episodes that will make you smile in disbelief! The episodes are sometimes disturbing, yet most of the times they are comic. But the comedy comes from the general irrationality of it all; the events are not “funny” in the conventional sense. The stranger it gets, the better it gets, and there is literally no end, as Bunuel subjects the audience to one great scene after other, some laced with wry humour, and some others revealing the hypocrisy of the bourgeoisie. Fine performances come from almost all of the cast, in which their behavior reflects the eccentricity of the event at hand! They don’t really act normal or rational! Some scenes are ultimately revealed to be dreams, but there are yet others which are still off-the-wall yet not revealed to be either dream or reality. If nothing else this film will reveal Bunuel’s wide range of imagination where the surrealism doesn’t go wild all the way into another world (like in some Terry Gilliam films). Bunuel shows that twisting some reality in the real world can be just as weird and an even better experience than the outlandish, unrealistic universe in which some other filmmakers set their films.

Luis Bunuel accomplished at 72 what most other young filmmakers still struggle to do. He made a perfect film for us hungry viewers who seek uncoventional cinema! And yet at the same time, Bunuel seems to be having fun himself by subjecting us audiences to his spectacular imagination and having a good laugh at our perplexity. The Academy Award was well-deserved. The jury must have had a ball and handed over the trophy without further thought.

Go for it! Super fun and a good mind-fuck is guaranteed!

Score: 10/10