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      “If they hurt others, it’s because they hurt, too.”--  Benedicta, mother of Amador, responding to Amador’s comment on the root formation of the Eucalyptus tree, a tree that can cause explosive burning during forest fires, a metaphor of trees used in the film to describe human behavior                                         **** “They told you about me?” Amador to Elena “Yes, but..well, you know how people are.” Elena’s response   I n a 2021 interview for American Cinematheque, Russian film director Andrei Konchalovsky stated “ Sometimes silence is better than action .” That is a comment applicable to Oliver Laxe’s film Fire Will Come . The lead character Amador rarely speaks but his body language and the soundtrack do the talking, not words. Laxe’s film urges the viewer to explore the soundtrack that is expressive and offers much food for thought for an...

T he Pearl Button is one of the most thought-provoking and visually stunning documentaries ever made. The incredible narration of the film, which deservedly won Patricio Guzmán the Silver Bear for the Best Screenplay and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the 2015 Berlin film festival, connects up anthropology, geography, history, meteorology and cosmology  relating to a single country—Chile. If one has not seen this movie, one would be aghast at the very scope of connecting such diverse subjects. The amazing thing about The Pearl Button is that the facts presented are correct and they do connect up as Guzmán presents it. In case you still do not buy the connections made by Guzmán, you will be enthralled by the magical cinematography of Katell Djian. And Katell Djian is immensely talented and reminds one of the abilities of cinematographer Ron Fricke’s contribution to Godfrey Reggio’s brilliant 1982 feature length documentary Koyaanisqatsi. The magical cinematography of Katell Dji...

L ars von Trier’s Breaking the Waves is just amazing cinema. It is essentially a film about the relationship of a newly married couple Bess (Emily Watson) and Jan (Stellan Skarsgard). It is an unusual film as it never really bothers to explain to the viewer how this couple met or decided to get married. For the director von Trier and his co-scriptwriter Peter Asmussen, those are not details of importance. For the director and his co-scriptwriter the film is all about the post-marriage events—not what led to the marriage. Even Bess’ sister-in-law Dodo (Katrin Cartlidge) who, we learn as the film unfolds, is the closest person to Bess and lives in the same house, states early in the film following the marriage that she does not know Jan well and that she hopes Jan would take good care of Bess. The viewer soon realizes that Bess is still a virgin right up to her marriage and that Jan too is totally devoted to his bride although they obviously never had sex before marriage, unusual detai...

V iewers of this Oscar-winning Argentinean film are likely to enjoy the experience for varied reasons. It is definitely an engaging thriller with loads of subtle humor.  It is therefore not surprising that the film was a commercial and critical success in the country of its origin, Argentina. The best foreign film Oscar, the second for Argentina over the years, bestowed on the film would have boosted its popularity at home even further. However, the film can be enjoyed by non-Argentinean audiences as well for several additional elements beyond the obvious thrilling tale the film unfolds. The film is at a basic level a detective story of tracking down a rapist and killer and ensuring that he gets a fitting punishment for the crime. At a more complex level, it is a tale of love of two sets of couples and a strong camaraderie of two detective colleagues. And finally, the screenplay captures the mood of Argentina’s “dirty war” period from 1976 to 1983 (during which tale is set) when cr...

“ Art is a lie that enables us to realize the truth ”—Pablo Picasso “ I must believe that art itself is real ” Orson Welles in F for Fake W hat is cinema? How real is realism in cinema? These are questions that every reflective filmgoer need to ask when we see a realistic film or documentary claiming to record reality, while there is always the director, the film editor, the camera-person, the actors, manipulating the mind of the viewer without the viewer realizing this is happening. Each documentary is telling a story, not merely reproducing facts as we think it is doing. F for Fake explores the extension of this argument in myriad ways, sometimes honestly, sometimes, er.. not so honestly. Orson Welles, the director and narrator of the film, makes an honest confession early in the film “ I am a charlatan. ” And you love him for this very candor at the end of the film. You love him even more when he utters another loaded truism “ Almost every movie is about some kind of a lie.”   ...

O ften good movies should be evaluated both by its subject and by the interesting manner the director and the rest of the production team contributes to or presents the subject as the final product.  Rarely does one come across amazing subjects captured on film that over-shadows the total effort of the production team. There are very few movies that make the viewer to cheer the movie’s filmmakers for choosing to make a film on a subject rather than for their combined effort that resulted in making it. One such example is the male Senegalese director’s Ousmane Sembene’s Moolaadé (2004) from Senegal that exhibited unusual courage to discuss a cultural subject that affects women of different faiths in Africa. Sembene is a respected African filmmaker but Moolaadé is important because a great filmmaker chose to highlight an issue that is rarely discussed in public fora. Similarly, this critic applauds another male director Alejandro Amenábar’s decision to make a feature film Agora , ce...