Mommy is at the Hairdresser's

Just saw this movie in cinequest film festival (sanjose). Elise, a teenage girl and her two brother's life; their mom left them since mom and dad relationship was on the verge of breaking. After mom left, Elise almost took control of the family. Elder brother was always busy with his innovative tools and younger brother is having trouble learning; all of them acted superbly. Lisa Pool directed this movie with very interesting detail and thoughts.

Elise found a friend near the lake who lived in a mobile home ; he was a fisherman and taught Elise how to fish. But one day he too left the place.

There are some interesting detail omitted too! After the fisherman left the place and moved away with his mobile home, there was no scene to see Elise's reaction. Except of course Elise throwing a stone in the lake, but the first reaction to see the empty place was not shown. If I get a chance this will be my first question to director: why is this not shown? Was this an attempt not to show something melodramatic?

After mom left, Elise's father changed; no more golf with the partner, seen tears in his eyes; absence of his wife was felt and felt deeply. What I liked about the director here the way she handled the change. Nothing dramatic, but with a slow and subtle changes shown the true dad in the dad. He was trying, may not be with great success, but trying his best to keep the family intact.

Also, liked the way conflict with medical science and deep love of Elise towards her younger brother is shown.

My audience vote for audience award was "Excellent", its a 9 out of 10 in my list!

Abbas Kiarostami: Life and nothing more

This documentary style movie didn't attract me a lot in the begining except for the ending part. I am reading the reviews of this movie and surprised to see no one has commented on the ending [Am I missing some reviews?]. Watch the ending very carefully. The director didn't give lift to the person who was requesting for a lift. Before this director offerred lift to all other persons passing by. Was it just because he wanted to know the direction of his destination? Director reflects the modern civilized people from cities who help others when they really need help? But the common people in affected areas are different, they helped the director to find his direction even if they didn't need any help. I saw that throughout the movie, but towards the end it was so stunning, so beautiful! Just watch the last 2 minutes of the movie.



Anyway, his car got stuck towards the very end. And this person (whom he didn't give the lift) came and helped him. At this point director gave him the lift and the movie ended here. Ok, this time he could cross the stiff point.



What was his point? Its hard to guess and I am still struggling. This is just a first attempt:

Some unanswered question:

1. Why did director drove in the opposite direction after he got the help from the stranger?

2.Why did director leave his son to watch the soccer game?

Life goes on, whether its earthquacke or a severe disaster, we must fix our antena to watch soccer! If you can connect well to this movie, you will have a great feeling! If the people in Iran can enjoy Brazil-Argentina match after the 1990 disaster, you can handle small problems in your life too!

But this is a very tough movie to watch, think documentary!

The Station Agent

Review of this beautiful movie coming soon. Fin is the dwarf man looking for isolation in a peacful place. People of normal size finds him interesting, don't let him be isolated. Fin doesn't talk much, doesn't want other characters to talk lot, but he listens! He also watches trains; yes, that's all he does.

Even without doing much Fin becomes a likeable character...Is it his beautiful acting, somewhat careless, not conventional, not expressing the way people normally do?

more later...

Real women have curves

If you have ever thought about the struggle people go through what you buy at an expensive shop in 5th Ave, NY or somewhere else in LA you might want to try out this movie. That's probably not the only reason for which one may like to see this movie; for example I didn't see for the same reason. But my feelings for this mexcian family changed a lot after seeing the movie: the new generation and old for both; both are struggling for holding their truth; their belief which is different in different generation. Still their is something common between them. All of them have a purpose in life and trying to achieve that.

Its just not a story of struggle, its a story which will touch your heart, its a story which changes your outlook about a society.

Yes, real women do have curves but that's different curves than what is talked about more often.

Recent movies I have seen...

I have seen the following movies recently , feel like writing something, but don't have the kick to write now...so I just list them here so that I don't forget to write in future (before I start thinking about something else)...

1. Khamosh paani: saw that in a south asian film festival in SFO..really good one

2. Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi by Sudhir Misra: didn't move me a lot, specially when it primarily became a triangular love stroy with political background and restlessness in India.

3. 15 Park Avenue: I wrote about the ending in another blog in bengali script..this is a good one, specially the ending...not the best of Aparna Sen though!

Sokout (Silence) by Makhmalbaf

(Another 10/10 movie by Mohsen Makhmalbaf...will surely write a review soon...this is the current draft under preparation)

This is my introductory movie in Iranian films..I was stunned! I got interested in Makhmalbad when I read some of his writings about originality in movies. He compared Indian directory Ray with other western directors and explained how Ray demonstrated very original views of Asian countries. I never thought of people viewing Ray's film in that dimension. Makhmalbaf started with "Pather Panchaali", how that touched him. Before this review I also read another review of "Pather Paanchaali" by someother modern western critic that these kind of movies are too narrow in thinking, too confied to a small place, doesn't have appeal for modern western audience. But Makhmalbaf explained in a very different language the insight of "Pather Panchali". I was stunned! So, I decided I must checkout movies of this director.

I got the chance in Sundance film festival video store in SaltLake City where they had a collection of Makhmalbaf. Got these two movies: Silence and Gabbeh. There were other movies too, but I liked these two a lot.

I still remember the sound: "Khorshid" , "Khorshid"..that little girl with colors, the friend of khorshid wanted him to tune perfectly the musical instruments. But Khorshid wasn't just a technician, he was an artist who looks for sound..Beautiful sound, sound of different frequency catches his ears..he forgets his way..Khorshid follows the sound! Khorshid follows the way of sound! The story follows next.

Its all about Khorshid, his search for sound, the beautiful colorful girl, her love for music, music of Iranian countries...his blindness was very important since otherwise he couldn't have followed sound and music so carefully...

Phörpa

Enemies are endless; so give up hatred!!

Phorpa is a simple and beautiful movie..it deserves more star than it got. This simple movie does not contain any gimmick, car chasing, fighting, evil spirit, hero-anti hero ( the conventional movie subjects ), but contains feelings expressed by very common people ( who are also political victim and list their country ). Its superb direction, since there was enough reason to show battles between countries, hatred among people and religion..but nothing was shown...in stead , it says: "Give up hatred, since you can't win over all the enemies..enemies are endless"..What a message!!! I hope the audience gets the above message since it comes directly from the sufferers who has lost their own country, yet you don't hear much against anything! This carefully drawn story teaches us lot while its objective was not teaching... Its superb, its terrific..gets a 10 out of 10 rating!