Loving Vincent (2017)

Whether you are an art lover or not, whether you are a mystery lover or not, whether you are even a cinema lover or not, you MUST see this 1.5 hour film for its sheer production technique! 

Calling this an animation film would be an insult to the 125 artists who hand-painted 65,000 frames over 2 years (with a prior 4 years of preparation) to produce the fantastic Van Gogh painting effects in every frame of this movie. Actors were filmed on green screen, digitised and painted over in every frame together with the background to produce the painted animations. Even when there is no movement in the shot, the succesion of painted frames produces a mesmerising shimmering effect that is at once extremely ethereal as well as totally Van Gogh-ish.

Since I have some interest in art, I could recognise some of his famous paintings that has been used as backgrounds on the one hand, and as characters on the other. But it was only when I read about the making of this film that I realised to what extent the film-makers have weaved in Van Gogh's painting of scenes and portraits into the frames of the movie. That had its own challenges for the artists - adapting a vertical canvas to a horizontal frame, painting characters from different angles when only one portrait was available, changing the colour tone of the painting if it was a different season in the film - all were seamlessly handled. Not to speak of a totally different black-and-white style used for Van Gogh's pre-artist days when no reference material was avilable. In short, viewing 'Loving Vincent' is a pleasure and a visual wonder.

The visual magic does not detract from the attraction of the story-telling. The movie takes off at a point where Van Gogh has died from a supposed suicide and his last letter addressed to his brother Theo lies in the hand of Vincent's old friend the postman. The postman delegates to his son Armand Roulin (the main protagonist played by actor Douglas Booth) the job of locating Theo or Vincent's closest relative, since Theo is not locatable. Armand's search takes him to Paris and then to the small village of Auvers where Van Gogh spent his last days. The story develops into a mystery regarding his death and Armand almost gets to the bottom of it. Through the story, we also discover an artist who was always doubtful of his own capabilities, humble, high-strung, yet hugely talented and prolific (he painted 800 paintings in 8 years, of which only one got sold in his lifetime).

The skill of the narrative also lay in carrying the story through painting after painting that flow through the changing scenes, and portraits that appear as characters in the movie. At no point does this juxtaposition seem forced and Dorota Kobiel as writer and director needs to take a bow. In fact,  Dorota Kobiel, who trained as a painter, made good use of her background and love for Van Gogh in this iconic debut production that ended up as an Oscar nominee.

If you are a lover of paintings, see this movie.

If you are interested in Van Gogh's life story, see this movie.

If you want to see a visual treat, see this movie.

If you want to wonder how 125 painters painted 65,000 frames to produce 900 shots that run for 1.5 hours, definitely see this movie.

Here's the link to the trailer to get you interested.

https://youtu.be/bRDSTw6mNwY

Dhuruvangal Pathinaaru (2016) - Tamil, Hindi dubbed (16 extremes)

It is very rarely that I watch Tamil movies that are not pure masala, which I watch basically for the pyrotechnics - you know the fight sequences and the way people spin in the air when whacked. So when I came across this recommendation as a good crime-thriller, I decided to watch it.

Synopsis: The movie is is a flashback mode where the investigating offocer V. Deepak, who had dealt with an unsolved case of a man shot, another abducted, a girl possibly killed, another man run over and theories awash about what actually happened that dark rainy night. Deepak unfortunately comes a cropper during a chase sequence and loses a leg. What else does he lose? A sense of purpose? You have to see the movie to work that out.

As a mystery movie, what are the things I liked? I liked the pace, which was pretty fast. I liked the changing scenarios and possibilities, which is part of the mystery. I liked the small vignettes of a police station operation that was highlighted in different scenarios. I liked Deepak the inspector character played out by the actor Rahman, a strong man showing immense patience with his inept subordinates. I liked the jump cuts which kept me guessing as to what was really happening. 

What could have been better? Sometimes the jump cuts were too much of a long jump and we had to pause the movie to figure out what was going on. It kept us focussed, but is that how a movie is supposed to be seen? I also felt that the ending (without giving anything away) was unreal and altough the solution was acceptable, there was a whole 20 mins that could have been added to this 1:40 min film that could have done better justice to that particular solution.

The quality of Hindi dubbing was just about okay, serving to flatten the characters somewhat, but if you choose to watch the film in the original Tamil, this issue will not be there and the director Karthick Naren's original dialogues can flow with their original vigour.

Watchable. Available on Hotstar.

Masaan (2015)

When Vicky Kaushal, Richa Chadha, Sanjay Misra and Pankaj Tripathi are acting in a film, that itself should have attracted me. But director Neeraj Ghaywan did not strike a bell. Am I glad though that I did not pass over this film just for that reason.

'Masaan' means burning ghat, and not surprisingly the setting is in Varanasi. There are some great shots of the Ganges, both in the misty mornings as well as at night while floating languidly down the river, alternating with the hellish ambience of perpetually burning pyres. At other places, the cinematography is strait cut and efficient, telling the story in laconic bursts.

A film titled 'Masaan' is bound to deal with death. Richa Chadha is inadvertantly involved in the suicide of her casual boy friend. She spends the rest of the film dealing with her guilt, with minimum dialogue. Sanjay Misra (Richa's father), already guilt-ridden with the death of his wife due to delay in medical attention, is stuck with a bribe demand from the police, and almost gets his small helper-boy killed in a diving contest. Vicky Kaushal being the son of a domraj (king of the pyre-handlers), experiences death very close to home - and close to his heart. In a way, the film is about closure, how various people make peace with their guilts and heartbreaks. After all, everything in life ends at the masaan.

In performance, Vicky Kaushal as the diffident lover and Sanjay Misra as the helpless father of a girl embroiled in a police case are really outstanding. The commercial aspect of the domraj's domain was an interesting titbit. But what I loved most was the director's light touch, his lack of dramatics even in the most shocking of moments, as if giving the characters private space to deal with their upheavals. As there is not a single dialogue that feels like it has been put there to explain the scene, I always felt like I was peeping into lives rather than watching a show. 

The only weakness I felt was that although there are heart-wrenching moments, the 'hands-off' depiction of the scenes prevents us from feeling the emotions fully and empathising more with the characters. But I guess it was a choice the director made when deciding the tone of the narrative.

Masaan had won 13 awards in various platforms for direction, acting, screenplay and editing - and I could see why. Do take out time to see this film if you want to revive your faith that comtemporary film-makers in Bollywood are not a dying breed.

Ship of Theseus (2012)

I feel film-makers are challenged much more than, say, artists, to go beyond senses. While an artist can distort or depict what he paints in order to enhance a message, a film-maker has to use imagination alone to make us feel something beyond the mundane inputs of sight and sound. I feel Anand Gandhi's directorial venture achieved this superbly. 

The film actually reels out in three unrelated stories. In the first story of the girl who is a blind photographer, Gandhi tries to take us to the girl's sensory world through depictions of surface textures. When she gets her sight back through a cornea transplant, the live visuals overwhelm her. How does a director make us suddenly overwhelmed with visuals which we as audience had been seeing all the time? He skilfully uses sound cacophony at a street crossing as a proxy to generate this. Actress Aida El-Kashef does a great job depicting a strong-willed girl going through a process of letting go of her familiar blindness.

In the second story of a monk who is fighting a PIL against animal testing, he comes to a crossroad when he is required to undergo a liver transplant where he would have to take a lot of medicines produced by companies using animal labs. His conflict is obvious and he decides to withdraw to death by starvation but cannot go through it finally. The takeaways of this episode are mostly existential questions that he discusses with a rebellious protege. Neeraj Kabi (of recent Pataal Lok journalist fame) is excellent as the monk, although his personality does not develop very well in the film. Some of the visuals of his walks in Mumbai and of breeze ruffling through green fields as a representation of his conciousness are stunning. Pankaj Kumar's cinematography deserves a bow.

The third story is of a man (enacted by Sohum Shah) who has received a kidney transplant and who tries to help a labourer who has been robbed of his kidney. This is much against his nature as he is a very self-centred stockbroker in his normal life. This is a faster-paced narrative than the earlier two and has more story elements. Here again, the visuals of Mumbai slums, the climb through the super-narrow stairs with a tracking camera (I had no idea that the slums have such a strong vertical structure) is awe-inspiring camera-work.

No doubt there are weaknesses in the film. Some of the story-telling is lax and stretches logic. Some of the characters are not well-developed. But for this film, I was willing to forgive those flaws because of the great immersive experience the film put me through. The first episode may seem super-slow but after I put out of my mind a possible comparison with Sholay, I realised that this IS the pace of life and my mind also slowed down enough to ask at various points "Hey, what's happening here?" or exclaim "Aha, that's nice.". If you are looking for a pure entertainer, this is not the film for you. However, if you want to stop a bit and think, please do see this film. For me, a film is successful if I recollect bits and pieces the next day, either to appreciate or to rethink - and Ship of Theseus made me do both.

For those who are wondering at the title, it is explained in the beginning that the Theseus Paradox, stated by Plato, asked that if Theseus had changed all parts of his ship plank by plank, did it still remain the original ship? And if someone rebuilt a ship out of the parts, did it become the original ship? As you may have guessed, the theme of this film is organ donation and the Ship of Theseus is an allegory.

There are some films which make you think, while giving a nice output on screen. Ship of Theseus is one of those.