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    "For its commitment to everyday heroism, its multi-layered approach to an array of social problems, and for the visual force of the storytelling.” --Citation of the FIPRESCI award bestowed on the film It All Starts Today at the Berlin International Film Festival T here have been several films made on uplifting student-teacher relationships. These include To Sir, With Love (1967) a film on boisterous white high school students from slums of London eventually admiring and respecting their black rookie teacher;   Dead Poet’s Society (1989) on another rookie teacher kindling creative self-expression through poetry in   a US boarding school for senior US students from wealthy   backgrounds resulting in their unwavering respect and love for him; Goodbye, Mr Chips (1969), a remake of a film made 30 years before, where a stodgy Latin teacher after his marriage transforms   himself into an endearing school headmaster winning the hearts of his students; ...

D ebut films of several directors worldwide have often been unforgettable, even when compared to their later works:   Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road), Ridley Scott’s The Duellists, Steven Spielberg’s Duel, Jean-Pierre Melville’s The Silence of the Sea, Mike Nichols’ Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Claude Chabrol’s Handsome Serge, Bertrand Tavernier’s The Watchmaker of St Paul ...the list goes on.   That stamp of unmistakable awesome standards of filmmaking is apparent in Ash Mayfair’s debut feature film The Third Wife. Within minutes of the film’s opening credits an observant viewer gets a clue of the quality of the film that follows—intelligent use of visual editing in presenting the title of the film and the aesthetic and delicate balance between silence and music on the soundtrack. The Third Wife is an original tale written by the film’s director. It is set in the 19 th century Vietnam involving a rich nobleman liv...

The "wild" characters from the six segments W ild Tales is a gem of an entertainer made up of six stand-alone, dark, comic tales. It is a portmanteau film with a difference; all the six tales are written and directed by one man--Damián Szifrón.  He is also the co-editor of this impressive work. Surprisingly, this Argentine director is only in his late thirties and he has made a film that belies his age. Most audiences will love it because there are elements in the six tales they will easily identify with, irrespective of where they live on this planet.  Interestingly, the film was co-produced by the Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, who must be delighted that he has invested his money well. It is “wild” because it depicts extreme reactions of ordinary individuals, who are frustrated by present urban societal pressures and the outcomes are quite plausible if the frustrated individuals are left with little or no choice to correct their predicaments, created often not by themse...

        “ My films are not fiction films but about fiction ”---Raúl Ruiz      “In today’s cinema there is too much light, it is time to return to the shadows” --- Raúl Ruiz in his book ‘ Poetics of Cinema’       “I chose to take refuge in the dramaturgy of dreams” ---Raúl Ruiz T hese three quotations of Raúl Ruiz are important starting points for analyzing the penultimate cinematic work of the talented Raúl Ruiz-- Mysteries of Lisbon . Ruiz had already made over a hundred movies and he made Mysteries of Lisbon knowing well that his days were numbered after being diagnosed with a life threatening liver tumour.  He completed the film while recovering from a successful liver transplant, only to die soon after, ironically from a lung infection.  While one can sense the brilliance of this cinematic work, it is difficult to distinguish what credit ought to be attributed  to the Portuguese novelist Camilo Castillo Branco, w...

F rançois Ozon seems to be fascinated by what makes writers tick. And he loves to prod the viewer to reconsider his/her mental evaluation of fiction and reality as they watch his later films. Many viewers are likely to initially consider the superb tale of In the House to be solely Ozon’s creative work; it is not. In the House appears to be almost totally leaning on the product of a contemporary Spanish playwright Juan Mayorga titled The Boy in the Last Row , if one goes by the reviews of the play. It is, thus, not a coincidence that the French film went on to win the well-deserved Golden Shell (the grand prize) and the Jury prize for Best Screenplay at the San Sebastian film Festival in Spain. Then why is the film important, if almost all the credit rests with the play on which the film is built? This is because Ozon forces any intelligent viewer to evaluate himself/herself as they progress with the viewing of his film beyond the film’s tale. Is the viewer being cajoled to infer more...

I f you get half a dozen viewers of this lovely film together across a table and ask them what the film was all about after they had watched it, you are likely to get up to six different views on the same film.  One would say it is a comedy. One would consider it to be a caper film. One would call it is a cinematic essay on the virtues of single malt whisky.  Another would see it as a study of dilemmas facing the urban Scottish youth today.  Yet another would see the movie as a critical look at the prevalent judicial system and its inadequate ways to reform delinquents who would love to reform and seek a life far away from the urban violence and gang warfare that they are involuntarily pulled into. A smart guy could interpret the tale as a family film, on the virtues of  looking ahead to build a financially secure future for your nuclear family. And there could be yet another view that this is a lopsided movie where the “bad” guys win. And all of these perceptions of...