Palm Springs 2009 : Damn this gets better!

oz   | Festivals & Contests, Movies | January 16, 2009 at 1:39 am         Print

The goal was to watch 4 movies back to back jumping between the theaters the festival is spread out in. The first five and half hours were spent watching two movies, so intense and gripping, that I needed a break.

Still reeling from A Police Romance (imdb), I went back in fifteen minutes later with a pizza and coke to watch, what I understood was a German movie in the run for the Oscars, The Baader Meinhof Complex (imdb)… a film that has left me stunned. I came out of the movie, and decided to postpone the next one which I had planned (Love and Other Crimes)…

The Baader Meinhof Complex is one of those movies that makes you think and think hard… by simply portraying the reflections of our past events, in such a way that, it may emote different feelings in each viewer, that may largely not be far away from the crux of it all.

After a quick break and writing half of this post, grabbing a quick bite, I was off to Il Divo (imdb). Tough luck. It was fully booked. No seats. Ran to watch the comedy A Deal is a Deal (imdb). Wasn’t disappointed.

Rarely am I lucky to get a day where all the movies pack a punch. Today was one of those rare ones… beginning with…

A Police Romance

French Cinema, as I’ve understood it, from my extremely limited exposure courtesy Netflix and Festivals, has it’s own style and method of telling a story. Fiction or Non Fiction. The camera, ambience and mood of the movie will project it as close to reality as possible. Even if it’s a fictional story. There is almost none of the background scores, no jazzy camera movements – and if they are they seem so blended in. At times you may mistake some of these French films as documentaries.

The very opening shot of A Police Romance, reminded me of a Swedish film about this guy who sold drugs for a living. It’s French cops raiding an apartment that have Arab teens smoking, lying around, the door thuds open, guns point at the teens, when one of the kids pulls out a gun. And the story takes off with an impact, leaving you with questions, your brain looking for the span and width of the story, and director Stéphanie Duvivier scores one right at the very beginning.

The story follows two characters. One, the boss of the police precinct Emilie Carange (a sharp, cutting edge, knock your socks off performance by Marie-Laure Descoureaux), a middle aged woman, going through the daily motions of life. Though she ably runs her precinct, she can’t say that of her personal life. A marriage which has sunk into the dreaded – moving along – kind, she hungers for passion from her husband who is completely unaware of the storms that rage within her.

The other story follows Jamil Messaouden (quite ably played by Abdelhafid Metalsi), a rookie who’s just joined the force and is fully of energy and honesty that he would like to give to his job. But his constant poking questions of honesty and acts which break the routines set at the precinct, do not get him in his boss Emilie’s good books, as a result, Jamil finds himself in the file room, labelling files, shuffling papers.

The backdrop of the story is illegal drugs, and how street kids are used in the underground business, which leads us to the grandmother (Kheira Benyamina Bachir) of one such kid dropping in the precinct to tell the cops about what she sees from the window of her apartment. I would like to specially mention here how Duvivier captures Kheira Benyamina Bachir on camera through out the story. The one line laughs of the grandma, her talk, walk, her fears and anxieties are captured in such a realistic way without any frills attached, that for quite a few moments it seems like you are watching a reality show.

The story moves on to Emilie leading her patrolling team to check on grandma’s story and how it moves into the eventual entanglement of Emilie and Jamil who fall for each other.

There are no twists. There are no turns. Perhaps a minor revelation towards the climax. But the story is kept simple, the flow straight forward, the mood very very realistic. And it’s then you realize, how all these make Marie-Laure Descoureaux’s portrayal of Emilie Carange stand out. Descoureaux depicts the character of a woman’s hunger for passion so transparently, and being able to so effectively portray those tiny moments of jealousy, it is a performance to be seen to be believed. I specially loved her in the scene towards the climax where she rushes to meet Jamil with certain expectations after the phone call, but is suddenly put in a completely different and unexpected situation and how piece by piece she falls apart, moving through emotions of disappointment to hurt to jealousy to anger and in the end her breaking down.

Having a plump, middle aged female character with no great looks, bad hair and hands screaming for a pedicure, – to be the lead of the movie – is impossible and unthinkable in Hindi cinema. This is one such barrier that needs to be broken in Bombay. Because exceptionally beautiful stories exist in the lives of men and women whom our cinema may not consider physically beautiful…

The trailer of A Police Romance (may take some time to load)

The Baader Meinhof Complex

There a movies. And then there are movies. And then there are some like The Baader Meinhof Complex. A real story that captures the rise and fall of RAF (Red Army Faction), a terrorist group that comprised on students, journalists, writers, lawyers among others, who bombed, shot, kidnapped, assassinated and caused mayhem in Germany between 1967 to about 1977.

And yet it is far beyond that. The best way to describe what The BM Complex is… well there is no best way. It is as if you could see the light so distinctly and clearly, yet it becomes extremely difficult, when you come out of the theater to describe that light to somebody. I’m at a loss. Because there are too many threads, springboards and pointers where I could begin and yet there are none.

What the BM Complex does so effortlessly and effectively to you, is it has a few hundred questions popping inside that head of yours, not about the movie, but about the subject the movie covers, because it is so much relevant in our times.

The BM Complex starts on a lazy beach for journalist Meinhof (Martina Gedeck), who along with her husband and children is enjoying a sunny day at the beach. It also starts with the Shah of Iran visiting Germany with his wife and how Meinhof’s one article in the paper starts a chain reaction. It moves to the students protesting the Shah’s visit and how it volcanoes into a riot. The crowd beatings at the hands of the cops during the demonstration is one of the must-not-be-missed scene. It is kept simple, the composition as if the camera was at one such demonstration, the movement that matches your rapidly pacing heart beats.

Questions questions questions. You won’t have a shortage of them when you leave the theater. Did Meinhof really start it? Or the anti-American sentiment because of their war in Veitnam was already simmering within?

Those were some pretty strange and classic times. There was Vietnam, there was the women’s lib, there were student unrests in most of the developed nations, the flower power movement, the Panthers in the USA, the RAF in Germany, Castro in Cuba, and O boy! Che in Bolivia… Why? Why did the democracies turn into state police – which caused all this?

While you are still trying to get a grip over the first 20 minutes which moves like a bullet speed, enter Baader (Moritz Bleibtreu of The Experiment), a gunslinging cowboy type, who wants to bring a revolution in Germany, whatever it may take. The story traverses the path of how the different roads of Meinhof and Baader merge into one, even though they have two very different ideas to achieve the common objective.

But when things turn out of hand, the one most important moment that shall be forever etched in German history, is Meinhof’s stuck in that moment point, where she makes that decision to jump out of the window and escape. Would history have been different? Turned out to be something else? Maybe… maybe not.

Questions questions more questions… did the origins of this post Y2K terrorism lay in the BM complex? Why wasn’t there a serious approach to tackle it? Even when it was amply clear… that punishing terrorism led to more terrorists… at a point where the German chief throws his hands up in the air exasperated “There just keep coming new and new cells… who are they? and what motivates them”… Yet it was he, Horst Herold, the head of the German police force who understood them the best…

Keep an eye on how each new generation or batch of terrorists is distinctly further and further away from the originators. At one point Baader, in prison, declares “I don’t even know these new RAF batch who caused the explosion.”… and slowly and steadily how his movement is hijacked and turns into something else… shocking not just us, but even to the top generals of RAF who along with Baader take the last action that ties up the climax.

Directed by Uli Edel, based on a non-fiction book by Stefan Aust, the movie leaves stone unturned to pick up even the most subtle yet leading to impactful events. The cracks that appear between Baader and Meinhoff, and how the group uses it to its advantage.

Lies, Misrepresentation, killings, bombings, hijackings, kidnappings to achieve the cause which was lost when the people, who initially supported them, now were against them… what makes the BM Complex so thought provoking, is its mirror image relevance to the times of today… but much beyond that… for there exists a BM Complex in every cubicle, office, city, state and country… and that’s where it scores big.

No doubt about it. An epic. This is a must see. Bound to make you think and have you engaged in many lengthy discussions that carry over late into the night to early mornings.

This one is to be made in Hindi Cinema… we have had our share of struggles… someone needs to pickup the pen and write about it and then someone equally courageous to make a movie out of it. We don’t need speeches on television or cinema screens… to move people to question one and all, including themselves, questions touching the very core… no we don’t need to see speeches or jingoism on silver screens… we need The Baader Meinhof Complex, in Hindi Cinema… to turn that now it’s going on, now it’s going off – spark… into a raging fire.

Watch the trailer (without subtitles though)

A Deal is a Deal

An underground metro rail driver in London has two people being killed under his train by accident. Paul (Mackenzie Crook) realizes that if another gets killed under his train within a month, he will be retired immediately with a handsome pension and big pay, that will help him achieve his dreams. Thus starts his search to find a third person who will voluntarily kill himself under his train. His search leads to Tommy (veteran Colm Meaney) who is extremely depressed with life and is about to commit suicide. Enter Paul, who explains his grim situation to Tommy and they strike a deal.

A great concept and a typical British humor laced all over the story, this could have been one brilliant film, but just falls short of that coveted crown. Yet, it is a feel good movie, that keeps you in splits all through out. Give it a shot. It might just make your day!

View the trailer

Tomorrow

Hoping to catch and post on…

The Past is a Foreign Land (from Italy)
Law student Giorgio is dissatisfied with his life and looking for kicks. He goes through a radical change when he meets Francesco, a cool and mysterious guy who introduces him to the dark life of poker and drug dealing, in a crescendo of risks that builds to a point of no return.

VÁCLAV (from Czech Republic)
An unorthodox and involving rural drama, culled from true events, that blends elements of Rain Man and My Sweet Little Village.

Captive (from Bulgaria)
When a convoy of Russian soldiers finds itself trapped in the mountainous Chechen landscape, the commander orders two men to capture a local who knows the mountain trails and can lead them to safety.

Female Agents (from France)
A high-octane French action film with an all-star international cast, Female Agents is the fictionalized account of Resistance heroines who save the day for the Allies in World War II by rescuing a British geologist from occupied France before the Gestapo can force him to reveal the plans for the D-Day invasion.