Tom Ford is a well-known Fashion Designer, known for his appearance as impeccable as the clothes he designs. He transfers that side of him into the lead character of his film, George Falconer, a Homo-sexual Englishman teaching at a university in Southern California. Colin Firth plays him wonderfully. We see George’s daily grooming routine, his ritualistic dressing sense and his incredible attention to every little detail about how he presents himself.

But beneath this rock-solid confidence and body language is adeep sense of loss caused by his lover Jim’s (Matthew Goode) untimely death. George had shared his home with him for 16 years and more importantly, his ‘self’ that is out of bounds it seems, for everyone else. The only other person who seems to be allowed to tread this restricted area is his best-friend and his one-time Heterosexual lover, Charlotte (Julianne Moore) who is now nothing more than an ageing, helpless, alcoholic living alone after several divorces.

George sets out to live out what is suggested as the last day of his life. He had made up his mind to go through it one last time and then shoot himself at the end of the day. He even lays out the suit he wants to be buried in and the tie with a note written in large, unmatched handwriting “tie in Windsor knot.”

George’s disillusionment with life is represented through a very de-saturated colour palette that forms the primer for the film. He finds colours only in moments when George finds life in something, as trivial as a sniffing the head of a puppy or as dangerous as another man’s advances towards him. These are the moments when the frame lights up in beautiful vivid colours, filling the screen in lush, almost painterly hues. Then there are moments when he is unsure, and the colours keep going in and out of saturation.

Ford’s incredible use of colour adds to the depth of the film already rich in depth through Firth’s fantastic leading performance and through the beautifully art-directed 1960s America.  It is interesting how a famous Fashion Designer would finance such a film out of his own pocket, without any prior exposure to the discipline of film direction and trusts it all in the hands of a 28-year old Cinematographer- Eduard Grau.

The film does border on being over-decorated and features a lot of male nudity but then again it is difficult to set limits on such films as to how much of each they should allow. The film’s over-decorated art direction matches the seemingly over-decorated personal habits of the lead character. One must keep in mind that this may seem as excessive grooming habits for the average man but there have always been men, ever since the dawn of time who have indulged in so much of attention to themselves. Perhaps, they see it as a way to perfection or the closest one will ever get to it.

As for the argument of male nudity- this is a film about a gay man and we are seeing everything through his eyes. It is obvious where his interests lie. Were it a film about a Heterosexual man, wouldn’t there be gratuitous amounts of female nudity in it? Of course there would be. And who decides how much of it should be there?

The only thing that seems to have let the film down is its rather clichéd ending. It is suggested earlier in the film that George had survived a stroke a few years earlier. It was just too ironic that just when he had decided to drop the idea of ending his life, towards the end of the film that he had to suffer a second stroke and die. Perhaps it was his recent relapse in smoking or his grief that has got the better of him. In the end, perhaps it could’ve been better.

There is no doubt, A Single Man is a very personal film for Ford and perhaps, one he will never be able to match.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s great novel Crime and Punishment has been adapted to the cinematic form well over 25 times, the most popular of which is perhaps the 1935 film of the same name by Josef von Sternberg. Elements from this great book have appeared in many more films as diverse as Kryztoff Kieslowski’s A Short Film about Killing and Woody Allen’s Match Point. Aki Kaurismaki’s version is set in Helsinki of the 1980s and exists in an air of urban unease and dead pan indifference.

 Kaurismaki had been co-directing several projects of his elder brother Mika before he had embarked upon his first solo venture. His approach to the film is minimalist at heart, making use of “low-key” acting and dialogue that has a running undercurrent of dark humour. Really each of the characters in his film is somewhat lonely and may seem almost misanthropic at times but Kaurismaki manages to create a sense of empathy around them.

 Markku Toikka plays the lead character of the film called Rahikanen, a worker at a slaughter-house who commits “the crime” at the beginning of the film. He walks into the apartment of the soon-to-be killed Kari Honkanen posing as a person from the courier service and shoots him. He then steals the victim’s watch and wallet and just sits next to his body quietly. A woman from the catering service walks through the door and sees Rahikanen sitting next to her client’s body. At this point one expects the woman to set off into a fit of screams and squeals while the killer tries to subdue her but it just won’t happen in a Kaurismaki film. Instead, she just asks:

“What’s the matter with him?”

“Nothing. He’s dead.” Rahikanen says.

 Aino Seppo plays the woman from the catering service Eeva Laakso. Her brilliant performance takes its heart in her bullet-proofed stare that she puts on throughout the film. She lays the primer for future Kaurismaki-an women to build their characters upon. On the surface she is ice cold and indifferent to others but time and again she shows that she is capable of compassion towards the other person and if we’re lucky she might even let out a smile.

Kaurismaki had been compared heavily to the great Rainer Werner Fassbinder. The characters of both these great directors move about in a deliberate wooden manner and express themselves in very straightforward and dead-pan way. Perhaps where both Kaurismaki and Fassbinder succeed is the way in which they make their audience not only relate to their characters but also make them step into their shoes and empathize with them. While he shares so much in common with Fassbinder, Kaurismaki does not indulge in the theatrical melodrama that Fassbinder literally bathes in. His characters react in a cool and indifferent manner. Kaurismaki himself is known to have claimed that he never really watched any Fassbinder films until the time people started making comparisions to his work.

 The Helsinki in which the Kaurismaki universe exists is bleak and heartlessly industrial. There are shots of block structures against an early evening light and very chemical looking neon signs and during the daytime there is always an air of quiet restlessness. A large part of the film is set inside the claustrophobic matchbox apartment of Rahikanen, apparently a hostel. He paces about in the room hiding his gun behind a sofa cushion. Then there are shots of Rahikanen smoking and pondering out of his window. Kaurismaki takes his time with these seemingly mundane shots and it is only after many years of the film’s original release that one realizes the importance of these shots.

 These moments in the film are an important document of Helsinki of the 1980s although filtered through the slightly pessimistic medium that is Kaurismaki’s vision. It gives us a peek into the general disillusionment of the people and their constant need to escape the threshold of the city and perhaps even themselves. This is what one gets to thinking when Rahikanen says:

  ”I killed a louse and became one myself…I didn’t want to kill a man, I wanted to kill a principle.”

This review appears originally here.

A few minutes into the film, Cobb the world’s best Extractor travels to Mombasa to propose a job to Eames the Forger. He puts forward the mythical concept of ‘Inception’, long understood among Dream explorers to be an impossible task.

“It’s perfectly possible” Eames says, “Just bloody difficult”

These are the exact same words that took shape inside director Christopher Nolan’s mind back in 2002 when he first proposed the film to Warner Brothers, fresh off the making of his third film ‘Insomnia’. It took him eight years and two mega-budget Batman films to work himself up to being capable enough to make a film of this scale.

Back when the film was first announced, Nolan’s only revelation of the film’s plot was “A contemporary sci-fi actioner, set within the architecture of the mind”. As cryptic as the synopsis may sound, it is exactly what the film turned out to be. Nolan takes us back to the late nineties and the then trend of “plug-in” science fiction. Kids were watching “Super Human Samurai Cyber Squad” and “The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest” where characters would plug themselves up into computers and travel into virtual worlds. Then at the fag end of the decade we had a film that defied gravity in the coolest ways possible.

The Matrix made people understand the heights of hyper-reality that cinema can climb upto and opened up new possibilities. With the careful combination of technological advancements, age-old spiritual philosophy and the very basic study of human emotion, the film acquired a depth that was previously unseen in motion picture history. People sat around dinner tables arguing about the various interpretations of the film. After a certain period of time, it transcended being just a film and reached the dizzying heights of mythology. Cinema-goers never questioned their reality before.

Inception picks up from the benchmark set up by The Matrix films and builds up a few levels of its own. This time it seems the levels go below.

“The only way forwards is downwards” Cobb the Extractor remarks brilliantly in the middle of the film.

For the film, Nolan draws inspiration from the various arts. Architecture is a major part of the film. We see “Dream Architects” building environments for the others to “Populate” with their subconscious. There is a lot of reference to Paradoxical Architecture- everything from buildings that reach into the skies to “the Penrose Steps” to interiors that keep still while gravity gives way.

The music in the film also follows the breath-taking visuals. Hans Zimmer’s extraordinary score playfully borders on the Shepard scale, the ever-climbing scale that is recognized, to those who care to find it as the greatest musical Paradox. Another great art from which the film draws its roots from is the art of Theft. All the major characters in the film are skilled thieves and the concept of “extracting” ideas from people’s minds is perhaps the ultimate theft possible.

A large part of the film is self-referencing in nature. Even the way Nolan constructs the film is very similar to the way his characters perform Inception. Nathan Crowley and Wally Pfister can be called as the “Architects” who build the environment in which Nolan the “Mark” lets his great sub-conscious “populate” the space. The fantastic ensemble cast are the “projections” and the viewers become the “tourists” who move through the film and watch Nolan “extract” his own idea much like Cillian Murphy’s character Robert Fischer in the film.

But watching a Nolan film never works without applying one or more Cognitive Biases. The film takes great pains in establishing certain “rules” and then the characters and especially Cobb, go great lengths to defy them. Perhaps on closer inspection, one can find several loop holes and wet areas where the story actually contradicts itself. This only means Nolan has pulled off the ultimate cinematic-paradox. A closed-loop of a film that seems to be climbing infinitely but remains firmly in place and stable much like the Penrose steps or the Shepard scale.

The story is also self-referencing in the fact that it echoes elements from Nolan’s previous films. The fact that DiCaprio’s character is named “Cobb”, the same name used by Alex Haw’s character in Nolan’s neo-noir debut “Following” and the fact that both men are skilled thieves who set up their victims through pure, cunning intellect is testament. But Inception’s Dom Cobb also shares the guilt and emotional unreliability of Memento’s Leonard Shelby. Both men are tortured by the loss of their wives and the guilt that they could not save them. They’re both unreliable narrators and at the back of their minds they feel that they’ve played a part in the death of their wives.

The film’s narrative structure also explored a similar pattern that Nolan presented in “The Prestige”, a film which explored three levels of narrative- the first the objective layer of the film itself, the second being Alfred Borden reading Robert Angier’s diary and the third being Angier reading Borden’s diary within it. In a similar fashion, Inception takes place in the film’s narrative where the characters first enter Yusuf’s dream within which they enter Arthur’s dream in which they enter Eames’s dream and so on- laying the foundations for a fantastic paradoxical layer-cake.

As beautifully put in ‘The Prestige’, the audience want to be tricked and a large part of this involves an initiative from the audience themselves to put on a curtain of cognitive bias. Questions like “how does Leonard Shelby know he can’t make new memories?” or “why do everyone fall into Cobb’s limbo if they die in someone else’s shared dream?” do the film no good and Nolan sets up the audience to ignore them almost sub-consciously. This is another inception.

The big question now is “what does this mean for cinema?” Nolan has transcended the need to classify films into recognizable “genres” and set up a new ground for progressive, thought-inspired, debate-inducing cinema that simultaneously weaves through the fabrics of various arts. Early in the film, the Cobb character explains to his new protégé that in dreams, our brain “creates and perceives simultaneously”. Nolan takes that psychology class line and makes it his greatest gift to cinema- a film where the audience think they’ve perceived everything the first time around and then realize they can create more possible interpretations over the second-viewing.

And as I sat in the PVR Saket Audi 1 watching the last shot of Inception for the second consecutive midnight show, the audience held their breath. Cobb’s little totem kept spinning unnaturally and then started loosing its balance but seemed to recover itself and then when it started to feel like it might finally topple, Nolan cuts to black and the audience let out a loud, collective “Oh!”

Author’s note: This article originally appeared in the November issue of Indian Auteur. Click here to read the full issue.

Fatih akin has been one of the most exciting filmmakers to have come out of Germany in the past decade. His last two films Head On (2004) and The Edge of Heaven (2007) have won the Golden Bear and the Best Screenplay at Cannes respectively and with his much awaited contribution to New York, I Love You (2009) and the upcoming Soul Kitchen, he has more laurels to rest on. But one of his best works is the little documentary that he made between his Berlin and Cannes victories.

Crossing the Bridge is set in and deals with Istanbul, the Turkish city that has been the setting of almost 50% of both his critically-acclaimed films. In this documentary, Akin travels across the city with German musician Alexander Hacke on a mobile recording studio as they interview and record the music of the local music scene. The eponymous bridge divides Istanbul between Europe and Asia and throughout the film, one can see Istanbul itself becoming a metaphoric bridge between Europe and Asia. The cultural diversity and extremes are plainly visible as on one side, the traditional Turkish folk music is kept alive by some veterans and young people alike while on the other side some younger Turks cast the first stones of Turkish Rock and Rap.

The 90-minute documentary is filled with some great performances from some of the best musicians of contemporary Istanbul and their ideas on the artform. Hacke becomes the representative of the viewer as he gets lost in the streets of Istanbul and is more than glad to be so. Akin handles the camera himself, providing for some breathtaking rooftop shots of Istanbul’s streets and a jam session on a boat against the orange setting sun on the Bosphorous.

The film features 20 amazing performances by Oriental Expressions, Baba Zula, Sezen Aksu, Orhan Gencebay, Replikas, Istanbul Style Breakers, Ceza and more. Kurdish singer Aynur Doğan talks about how Kurdish music was banned till the 1990s and the usage of the language was punishable as an offence. There is an interesting recording session she undertakes with Hacke inside a Hamam, a Turkish steam room. The Hamam provides for some excellent natural acoustics as Aynur’s voice takes on an almost-otherworldly quality. Her command over her skill and her ability to leap octaves take on an operatic characteristic as she and her backup musicians carry on with their haunting song through tremendous sweat and visible discomfort.

Akin, apparently shot over 150 hours of video footage for this film and spent a good 7 months cutting it down to its final cut of 90 minutes. His skill at putting together this documentary matches his subjects’ musical skills note to note. The film itself runs like a long song and leaves the viewer wanting for more at the end. It is interesting that Akin chooses to end the film with Hacke sitting on the side of the street with his luggage beside him waiting for his car to pick him up and one can sense somehow Hacke doesn’t want to go back, much like ourselves.

Author’s note: This article originally appeared in the November issue of Indian Auteur. Click here to read/ download the full issue.

“The Earth is Blue…How wonderful. It is amazing!” –Yuri Gagarin, first man in Space

Cinephiles all around the world will agree that two of the best science fiction films to have ever been made are 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Solaris (1972). Released during the infamous reign of the Cold War and the unofficial America-Soviet “Space Race”, these two films have risen to the ranks of the most celebrated films from their respective countries and provide important viewpoints of both sides regarding the said affair.

In 1957, the United States government announced the launch of its first satellite into outer space by the spring of 1958. This undertaking termed Project Vanguard was to be the moment that America declares itself the first country to reach space but the Russians had other plans. A mere two days after America’s announcement, the USSR announced the launch of their satellite Sputnik 1 by the fall of 1957 and went onto fulfill their promise in October of that year, making USSR the first country in space and thus beginning the Space race with America.

Project Vanguard failed to launch at Cape Canaveral to much public embarrassment but they did eventually make it four months later with Explorer 1, making USA the second space power. In the following months both sides tried to outdo the other and what ensued can only be described as scientific madness with the launch of Dogs, Chimpanzees and other animals in space to test the plausibility of a human cosmonaut to enter the realm of the gods. In April of 1961, the Soviets won this stage of the race as well when Yuri Gagarin became the first human in outer-space. The Americans saw themselves slowly falling behind and the support from the general public towards space programs reduced to disappointment.

President Kennedy re-kindled the cosmonautic flame in Americans when he promised that America will send a man to the moon and return him safely back to earth “before the decade is out”.  Kennedy’s bold statement promised to capture the imagination of the Americans and for the first time since Vanguard’s announcement almost 4 years ago, they truly believed they can beat the Soviets to it.

On 29^th January, 1964, a 36-year old Stanley Kubrick released what would be considered one of the greatest Black Comedies in the history of cinema. Dr. Strangelove or How I learnt to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) was a great commentary on the ongoing Cold War between America and the Soviet Union and the possibility of a Nuclear Holocaust that the world will suffer as a result.  It was only apt that he took on a project of making an epic science-fiction film next with a rise in interest from the public and the surfacing of the “New Wave” of sci-fi literature. Kubrick chose to collaborate with the already well-known science fiction author, Arthur C. Clarke to write the story of the film. They had also decided to write a novel parallel to the writing of the screenplay and have both the book and the film come out at the same time.

On April 2^nd, 1968 the world was finally allowed to see for the first time, Kubrick’s magnum opus that has been in the making for nearly four years. The breathtaking cinematography and the cutting-edge visual effects and the fact that the story was more of an abstract concept gave rise to either extreme enchantment with the film or complete disdain towards it and its maker.

In his film, Kubrick explores the themes of divine uncertainty in the form of an abstract, extra-terrestrial monolith that keeps appearing throughout the film. This monolith becomes somewhat of an incomprehensible being that keeps reminding the viewer that perhaps we do not understand space or the legions of stars that lay beyond our atmosphere just like we don’t understand the monolith. The very fact that the actors seem to appear so miniscule in front of the monolith each time it makes an appearance is perhaps Kubrick and Clarke’s way of telling us that we are exactly that miniscule in front of the field of space exploration.

40 years on, one can easily see the prophetic elements in the film- the use of video conferencing, flat screen display units and other scientific advancements but the one thing that man could not yet reach in the years that have passed between the film’s release and its prophecy is the fact of space travel being common practice. Kubrick’s film went onto be a hit among the very few who truly enjoyed it and the ones who didn’t but spent their money anyway just to see what the fuss was all about.

14 and-a-half months after the film, Americans- Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk the surface of the moon. Kennedy’s promise was fulfilled just 6 months before its expiration date and America finally outran the Soviets. If the USSR were the rulers of the domain of space, the Americans were the rulers of the domain of the moon. Armstrong became a global hero and some erroneously or intentionally even called him the first man in space but Gagarin never had to deal with knowing another man went further away from the blue planet than him. He had passed away in March 1968, much before Apollo 11 and much before 2001.

1971 saw the soviets come up with another innovation in their new found realm. They had launched the first space station, Salyut 1. This would form the basis for Polish author Stanislaw Lem’s science fiction novel “Solaris”. The film adaptation of the novel was directed by critically-acclaimed Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky and unlike 2001; Solaris was already a well-known published novel when the film was first proposed in 1968.  Kubrick and Tarkovsky may seem like they are world’s apart (and indeed they were -the socialist eastern and the capitalist western) but their respect for the larger unknown and eye towards creating an epic image of it on the screen was similar in more ways than one.

Tarkovsky’s take on Solaris is a long, meandering meditative drama on the themes of loss and grief. Set aboard the eponymous space station, the film chronicles the journey of a psychologist recovering from the recent loss of his wife and his trip to the said station where mysterious events have been happening. Though taking the initial premise of an investigative film, it quickly switches over to a slow-moving and sparsely populated fantasy of personal levels. It was as wonderfully complex at an emotional level as 2001 was at a conceptual level. Tarkovsky’s film was a poem stretched over 165 minutes- grueling for most and awe-inspiring for the others. At 40% of the budget of 2001, Solaris was an uncommonly expensive film for Tarkovsky’s meditative realist style and a worthy reply from the USSR to the west’s great science fiction film.

Solaris was released in the USSR in 1973 after a grand showing at the Cannes the year prior and the film winning the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury. The film, much like 2001 sparked debate and unanimous acclaim alike. People would sit around dinner tables discussing the true meaning and the metaphors the film depicted and though considered a classic, the film never really got the attention that critics and cinephiles say it deserved. Lem was unhappy with Tarkovsky’s take on his novel and Tarkvosky retaliated saying that all Lem ever wanted was a page-to-page adaptation of his novel. He pointed out that Lem didn’t acknowledge film as a different medium.

At a global level, the interest in space was greatly reduced with various other world events taking place. The sci-fi new wave had settled down and was being commercially exploited into its other mutated variants such as Space-Noir, Space-Westerns and Space Operas circa Star Wars Trilogy. With innovations in cinema special effects and the rise in character-driven mythologies, people were just not that into watching films about unknowns exploring the inner complexities that are exposed quite nakedly in outer space. The inner-outer irony was simply not good enough anymore.

July 17th, 1975 saw the conclusion of the 18 year-long Space race when the two super powers decided to join hands in the Apollo-Soyuz rendez vous program in outer space when USSR’s Soyuz 19 met and docked with USA’s Apollo for the first very first time. This great international collaboration allowed astronauts from both space crafts to visit the other and conduct combined experimentations, paving the way for peace, friendship and collaboration in outer space. This marked the official end of the unofficial Space Race between the two countries.

The themes explored by Kubrick and Tarkovsky mirror the plight of their respective countries at only a very superficial level. In any other filmmaker’s hands perhaps both films might find themselves slipping into typical propaganda and limit themselves to a cultural cliché but it was only in the safe hands of these two cinematic masters have they gone on to become two of the greatest films of all time. Kubrick’s film dared to show man’s fearless exploration into the unknown and Tarkovsky’s film provided insights into man’s inner self through unknown occurrences. Both have realized that someday man will go beyond just the moon and that someday he will conquer the solar system or perhaps he is just giving himself too much ambition but one thing is certain- no matter how far away from the earth he will go, he will never be too far away from himself and that is the limit he will always be bound by.

This article originally appears as part of the current issue of IndianAuteur.com

At its heart, Quentin Tarantino’s latest film “Inglourious Basterds” is a western. The establishing shot in the opening sequence, drenched in the orange light of the French countryside serves as the perfect stage for a powerful scene as a car filled with four German officers pulls up to a farmer’s house. One could imagine a similar scene opening a Sergio Leone spaghetti western. The exchange of pleasantries and the lengthy, satisfying dialogue-dominated scene carries on until it reaches a rather surprising turn. This opening sequence is perhaps the best that Tarantino could come up with ever since the sweet, sugar-filled exchange between Honey Bunny and Pumpkin at the start of Pulp Fiction (1994).

Other elements in Inglourious Basterds that one could trace back to Pulp Fiction are the opening credit sequence and the multiple storylines that converge at a common point. The film is chopped up into several chapters, like a cheap paperback novel. It should be kept in mind that Tarantino started writing the initial draft for Inglourious Basterds right after Jackie Brown (1997), around the same time that he was developing the Kill Bill duology, perhaps this is why both films share the chapter-wise division.

The film recalls Reservoir Dogs (1992) in the sequence where the Americans and the English team up to discuss Operation Kino at an underground tavern. The entire plot is accidentally foiled by an undercover British Agent Lt. Archie Hicox (played by the magnificent Michael Fassbender) mistakenly giving away his Britishness by ordering for three glasses to go with scotch. The entire tavern is held at a Mexican standoff and in the end, almost everybody dies. Tarantino had previously used this same plot device in the Tony Scott-directed True Romance (1992).

There is also a heavy usage of nicknames in the film such as The Bear Jew, Aldo the Apache, The Jew Hunter etc. This is a throw back to the colour coded aliases from Reservoir Dogs and the famous nicknames of Bill’s Deadly Viper Assassination Squad in Kill Bill. All these elements may sound like Tarantino is re-hashing himself and is resorting to his limited bag of tricks but Tarantino is careful in not allowing any room for that. He instead, compiles all these old tricks of his into a sort of a “Greatest Hits”

album with some new and un-released bonus material.

Tarantino draws inspiration from genre-specific stereotypes a lot. His earlier films reference themes and mannerisms of exploitation cinema (Death Proof), blaxploitation (Jackie Brown), Yakuza Gangster films (Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs), Westerns and Wuxia films (Kill Bill). With Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino brings to light a very short-lived genre of war-inspired B-films that surfaced during the late 1960s affectionately termed as the “Macaroni War films”. Much like the spaghetti westerns, these were also English productions shot cheaply in Italy and Spain, often starring a lone C-grade Hollywood actor. Most of these films feature Hitler as more of a villainous character than a dictator- most often; the climaxes featured the protagonists killing off Hitler, usually in some brutal manner. One of the forerunners of this genre, Antonio Margheretti is mentioned as one of the aliases of Eli Roth’s character in the film.

Another genre that Tarantino explores and draws inspiration from for this film is the World War II “Films of the Third Reich “

movement”, the notorious Nazi-propaganda genre commissioned by Hitler himself. The film mentions one the movement’s pioneers, Leni Reifenstahl and a comparision is made between her and Shoshanna Dreyfus, the cinematically-inclined character of Mélanie Laurent.

In a way, Inglourious Basterds comes out as Tarantino’s love letter to cinema. Apart from the numerous homages and references to his favourite films, actors and directors, Tarantino devices cinema as a weapon and a battlefield in the film. The fact that the central assassination plot “Operation Kino” is set in a cinema hall is itself testament that cinema becomes the battlefield. Shoshanna’s plot to use highly-inflammable nitrate film to burn all the Nazi’

s alive while locked inside the theatre is how cinema becomes a weapon.

Another area where Tarantino excels in all his films is the casting department. Inglourious Basterds stars A-listers Brad Pitt and Diane Krueger in supporting roles alongside some great actors from the independent circuit such as Michael Fassbender, Mélanie Laurent, Daniel Brühl, horror filmmaker Eli Roth and Austrian television actor Christoph Waltz in the performance of his career. This pattern is reminiscent of Jackie Brown (1997) where Tarantino cast A-listers Robert DeNiro, Samuel L. Jackson, Bridgette Fonda and Michael Keaton in supporting roles alongside leads Pam Grier and Robert Forster, both washed out and obsolete B-movie and television stars from the 1970s.

As for the performances, each of the members of the great cast take turns in delivering some really commendable performances. Michael Fassbender plays a pre-war film critic who can speak German and is given the responsibility to go undercover as an SS officer and help push “Operation Kino”. Fassbender’s Lt. Archie Hicox comes almost half-way through the film but plays an important role. In his interview with Cahiers Du Cinema, Tarantino expresses how when he cast the part-Irish, part-German Fassbender, he was thinking of a young George Sanders for Hicox. Mélanie Laurent and Daniel Brühl also come up with beautiful turns as the impossible lovers and almost become a metaphoric representation of France and Germany respectively especially how Brühl’s character’s persistent and sometimes forceful advances towards Laurent’s character somehow reflect Germany’s persistent and sometimes forceful advances towards France’s beauty and vulnerability during the Second World War.

Diane Krueger provides an important supporting role as Bridget Von Hammersmark while Brad Pitt’s Aldo Raine provides much of the film’s comic relief. Mike Myers and Rod Taylor guest star in short but memorable performances with Taylor playing none other than the then British Prime Minister- Winston Churchill. Martin Wuttke plays a neurotic and tantrum-throwing Adolf Hitler but in a film filled with so many great performances, the show is stolen by Christoph Waltz’s Hans Landa a.k.a. “The Jew Hunter”. Tarantino had said Waltz had “given him his film back” as he felt this character was unplayable.

In the end, this film is a critical and commercial success for Tarantino after a slightly-disappointing “Death Proof”. QT fans all around the world are tremendously satisfied and perhaps this is a milestone in his career from where things might take a different direction.

In a variety of ways, District 9 was the science fiction film that I’ve been waiting for, since 8^th grade and since Arthur C. Clarke’s brilliant short-story “History Lesson”. D9, much like Clarke’s story is a science fiction story only on the surface and in its premise, at its heart, it is actually a story exploring the strangeness of human nature and why humans behave and live the way they do.

Set in Johannesburg of an alternate universe, District 9 is an expansion of first-time director Neill Blomkamp’s award-winning short film “Alive in JoBurg”. In this reality, an alien mothership appears out of nowhere in the late eighties carrying about a million and a half aliens, who have apparently lost their way and ended up on earth. These aliens are relocated to the eponymous walled colony in JoBurg where they try to get along to the human way of life, scavenging for rubber tires and catfood.

The aliens are never referred by any name in general apart from the derogatory term “Prawns”. This is the first important point in the film made about the typical human attribute of slanging things (or species in this matter) to their closest resembling objects. As a human, I would put forward this insult fully knowing that if someone were to do the same to me, I would be heavily offended but I cannot help but think how this would apply to an alien. Perhaps, this is the reason why the Prawns never seem to protest when referred to in this derogatory manner. The film escalates the concept of Xenophobia and Racism to its next level- a universal one. Perhaps, it would only be appropriate to call it speciesism. The fact that Blomkamp seeks to set his film in South Africa (as opposed to favorites New York City, Los Angeles or Chicago) takes the film to a very non-epic-Hollywood setting where there will be no dismembered heads of any Statues of Liberty and places it on a the edge of controversy, keeping in mind South Africa’s long history of apartheid.

Blomkamp’s conscious choice of not shying away from the neo-apartheid setting of the film gives it a shot at greatness as it makes a lot of people put forward the question: “What are we waiting for next to discriminate against?” Indeed, while making “Alive in JoBurg”, Blomkamp had apparently interviewed real South Africans on their opinions on the rise in population of Zimbabwean refugees, which no doubt brought forward a lot of frank opinions and used that footage as part of the short film and made it look like these remarks were directed at the aliens. The feature version no doubt stays true to the same spirit.

Blomkamp uses hand-held camera heavily in a mixture of mockumentary-esque scenes that seem to have been taken from a South African adaptation of ‘The Office’ and straight-forward dramatic scenes where the viewer is left wondering just who is handling the camera now. The film is special effects heavy in terms of the Alien characters and how the humans just seem to vapourize when shot with one of the alien weapons but it really shines through in a fine performance from Sharlto Copley, the lead actor who starts out as a good-natured fumbling nerd working at a corporate position to a fugitive on the run, with an unstoppable condition who finds courage to reclaim his life.

District 9, like Arthur C. Clarke’s ‘History Lesson’ is a testament of what Science fiction can be and should be. It eats ‘The War of the Worlds’ for a post-breakfast, pre-lunch snacker and proves that aliens don’t always invade and that we might finally see a new kind of science fiction. An intelligent one.

“The collapse of the conventional German film finally removes the economic basis for a mode of filmmaking whose attitude and practice we reject. With it the new film has a chance to come to life.”  –The Oberhausen Manifesto

In 1962, the cinematic globe was already witness to several revisions, some of which are regarded today as revolutionary. British filmmakers were in the second year of their New Wave with their French counterparts, the Godards and the Truffauts riding the third year of theirs. Across the Atlantic, John Cassavetes had laid the seeds of an independent movement in America through his brilliant Shadows (1959) and it would be a good seven years before Fonda, Hopper and Nicholson would make Easy Rider (1969). The Germans it seems were feeling a little left out.

The term “New German Cinema” has been used interchangeably over the years with other terms in similar spirit such as “German New Wave”, “New German School” etc., to describe a movement in the cinema of Germany during the late 1960s, the 1970s and the early 1980s. While the French and British New Waves had a life expectancy of 7 years, the New German Cinema movement would last longer and lay the foundations for Germany in the cinematic history books.

“German short films by young authors, directors, and producers have in recent years received a large number of prizes at international festivals and gained the recognition of international critics. These works and these successes show that the future of the German film lies in the hands of those who have proven that they speak a new film language.” –The Oberhausen Manifesto

At the closure of the Second World War, Germany was split up into East and West and it was up to its artistic and literary circles to take the responsibility to ‘denazify’ its image.  West Germany in particular took up the task of turning itself into a modern western state against a rising Soviet influence on the eastern side. Cinema was entrusted with the important role of creating hope among the German people and to present the world a Germany healing from its wounds, all the while remaining on a small budget.

The German filmmakers also had to match up to the rising influence of Hollywood films in Europe. By 1962, most of Europe had recovered considerably from the destruction of the Second World War and this was the perfect time for Hollywood to export its product to take advantage of the lack of high budget European productions, with a secondary agenda of giving them a taste of the American Dream and possibly encourage immigration. German cinema could not compete with the Technicolor lushness of Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and the all-star lineup of How The West Was Won (1962) or the global exploits of James Bond in Dr.No (1962), neither could it afford to match up with the brilliant plots of The Manchurian Candidate, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

Something had to be done.

“We declare our intention to create the new German feature film. This new film needs new freedoms. Freedom from the conventions of the established industry. Freedom from the outside influence of commercial partners. Freedom from the control of special interest groups.” –The Oberhausen Manifesto

The 1962 edition of the Oberhausen Short Film Festival was to be a revolutionary gathering. On February 28^th, a group of 26 individuals comprising of filmmakers, artists and writers came together and declared the “death” of the old German cinema, affectionately termed as “Papa’s cinema”. They brought forward the need for a “New German Cinema” and presented the world with a manifesto that simply said that given the chance, they were willing to create that “New” German film that was required and backed their word with the recent success of German short films. This manifesto would find its place in history as the “Oberhausen Manifesto”.

The 26 names that appeared on the manifesto were:  Bodo Blüthner, Boris von Borresholm, Christian Doermer, Bernhard Dörries, Heinz Furchner, Rob Houwer, Ferdinand Khittl, Alexander Kluge, Pitt Koch, Walter Krüttner, Dieter Lemmel, Hans Loeper, Ronald Martini, Hansjürgen Pohland, Raimond Ruehl, Edgar Reitz, Peter Schamoni, Detten Schleiermacher,Fritz Schwennicke, Haro Senft, Franz-Josef Spieker, Hans Rolf Strobel, Heinz Tichawsky, Wolfgang Urchs, Herbert Vesely, Wolf Wirth.

These 26 individuals were committed to forego economical gain in exchange for progressive cinema that would match up Germany to the best in the world. They committed to experimention with narrative structures, exploration of new shooting techniques, bringing a sense of realism and to the telling of compelling stories through a strong emphasis on aesthetics

“We have concrete intellectual, formal, and economic conceptions about the production of the new German film We are as a collective prepared to take economic risks. The old film is dead. We believe in the new one”.  –The Oberhausen Manifesto

In April 1962, the German government took note and announced plans to setup a board to fund the type of films that are demanded by the manifesto and in October 1965, the “Kuratorium Junger Deutsche Film” was setup, approximately translating as “Board for the Young German Film”. With their new found support and funding, the new generation of German filmmakers set out to do what they had promised. The “New” German Cinema was critically well received in film festivals worldwide and was quickly becoming an important movement, though it would still take a few more years until they would catch fire back at home.

At the beginning of the 1970s, German filmmakers such as Werner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Wim Wenders and Werner Schroeter were becoming well known names in the festival circuit. These filmmakers went as far as attending their own screenings at cinema halls and taking questions from the audience. Their enthusiasm and constant need to reach out to their viewers was what helped better the movement as it moved into the mid-seventies.

At the 1979 Hamburg Film Festival, another declaration was made. “The Hamburg Declaration” as it was called was a moment of gathering of the original signees of The Oberhausen Manifesto in celebration of their success in creating a “new” German cinema as they had promised 17 years earlier. The declaration put forward the professionalism and dedication they showed and came to the conclusion that their only ally was the spectator.

“That means the people who work, who have wishes, dreams and desires. That means the people who go to the movies, those who do not and that means the people who can imagine a totally different kind of film.”

“The double feature, also known as a double bill, was a motion picture industry phenomenon in which theatre managers would exhibit two films for the price of one, supplanting an earlier format in which one feature film and various short subject reels would be shown.”

-artandpopularculture.com

A shadow detaches itself from the dark staircase and slowly descends into the depths of the void, as if following an unsuspecting victim. Outside, a blonde wearing mink and a veil stands alone in the dark chilly downpour of a drizzle with a lit cigarette in her left hand. A car pulls over and rolls down the window, she leans in and exhales a mist of tobacco smoke. The man inside fans it away with his large hand, his face partly concealed by the harsh streetlight that fails to cut through the front of the car’s top. Then a word is exchanged and the man draws his gun only for the woman to be pushed aside, as the shadow steps out of the camoflauging shade and drowns the man in a flood of glass bullets.

The questionable good wins again, it is time for the Double bills to take to the street and paint the town red. Here are the entires:

• Bonner, Doug: Lucille Ball :: Nathanael West : My Sister Eileen (5th October)
• Ferdinand, Marilyn: Looking for Eric (2009)/ The Castle (1997) (6th October)
• Jourdan, Vincent: Double programme : westerns de série B – partie 1 (6th October)/ Double programme : westerns de série B – partie 2 (7th October)/ Double programme : westerns de série B – partie 3 (8th October)
• Maul, Matt: Sordid Projections (7th October)
• Valluri, Gautam: The Priscilla Proposition – A Double Bill of Guy Pearce in the Aussie Outback (5th October)

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)

A 27-year old Pearce plays Adam Whitely, a young gay man who performs in drag as his alter-ego Felicia Jollygoodfellow. Pearce’s character is well built and at the same time displays a sort of womanly grace that makes most of the hardened Aussie gents in the film twitch with homophobia. His character is easily the most pronounced and the loudest among the three, other leads including Hugo Weaving (Agent Smith from the Matrix films) and Terrence Stamp (remember Limey?).

The film is a cult-classic among the LGBT and straight folk alike and is a massive road film about the journey to understanding yourself, exploring your inner outback and making choices. The film shines in the fact that it hardly ever gets too emotional and is filled with ample dosages of good humour, coming mostly from the antics of Pearce’s Felicia Jollygoodfellow. Terrence stamp on the other hand delivers probably one of the best performances of his career as a T-woman. The usual macho persona of Stamp is still evident in his blatant sarcasm but takes a backseat during other times. Stamp plays out his part not with reluctance but with all the energy and aura of an operatic god.

Weaving on the other hand, seems to be the most human of the three. The initiator of the journey which forms the central part of the film and the character that is most affected at the end of it, he takes on his role with a sort of honestly and courage mixed with a little helplessness, the sort that reminds you of a reluctant common man trying to win the heart of the beauty queen and eventually settling for the girl next door.

Pearce clearly steals the show and brings life to the film. It’s hard to imagine the film working nearly as good without him. The film features an array of bizarre and brilliantly coloured costumes providing a stark contrast to the bare and muted void of the terrain on which it travels.

The Proposition (2005)

Fast forward 11 years and we have our man taking another journey in the wild Aussie outback, this time with a full grown beard and flies in his face. Set in the 1880s, Pearce plays Charlie Burns, the middle sibling of the Burns brothers, notorious outlaws with a mega price tag on their heads. The film also stars the ever resilient Ray Winstone as Captain Stanley who captures Charlie Burns and his mentally-challenged younger brother and proposes the central proposition that he and his brother may walk free if he captures his elder brother Arthur (played terrificly by Danny Huston) and kills him.

Caught between the Devil and the Deep Sea, Charlie embarks on a rough journey on testing terrain to reach his older brother. The film is scripted by Aussie music legend Nick Cave and directed by John Hillcoat. The film is unforgiving in its cinematography, editing and score, giving you an accurate feel of how merciless the terrain is and what sort of torture the lead character has to endure.

Au contraire to Priscilla, the film features almost no colour whatsoever. The characters seem to merge in and out with the terrain, as if they were merely an extension of it. The colours are muted, the contrast is harsh and there are many flies on almost everybody’s faces.