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S ight and Sound, the official journal of the British Film Institute, conducts two polls for 10 best films ever made--one for top film critics and one for major film directors. Andrei Tarkovsky’s Mirror figures in the second list as no.9 in the 2012 poll. Knowledgeable film critics would not be surprised—because any of the seven feature films of the acclaimed Russian director is truly a classic, each growing in stature by the year. M irror , is indeed a film that can provide immense satisfaction to a patient, intelligent viewer interested in good cinema, art, classical Western music and Russian literature. The movie has so much to offer that each patient viewer can take away a slice of entertainment from this film that differs from another slice. That is perhaps the reason for Tarkovsky (1938-86) being increasingly revered with time by new generations of filmgoers. Each of his films is spiritual, meditative, critical, and mesmerising. In an interview, Tarkovsky stated “ It makes no di...

“Life is so short, dear maiden, so fall in love while your lips are still red And before your passion cools For there will be no tomorrow. . . .Tomorrow will not come again.” --The Gondola Song, written in 1915, sung by the lead character  Kanji Watanabe (played by actor Takashi Shimura) T hree films of Akira Kurosawa figure in this critic’s top 100 films of all time : one is Dersu Uzala (1975), another is Red Beard (1965) and the third is Ikiru (1952). There are several reasons why the Berlin Film Festival’s Silver Bear winner  Ikiru is sufficiently enchanting to watch again and again. When you view Ikiru , the fact that you are watching a Japanese film slowly recedes into the background and you realize that this is indeed a powerful and universal tale, amazingly knit together by a brilliant screenplay. That it is Japanese becomes inconsequential. It is a tale of an ineffective bureaucrat named Kanji Watanabe, who has slogged away in a government office for 30 years pushing...

T errence Malick’s films tend to perplex certain audiences. To the Wonder is likely to leave many viewers, used to the typical Hollywood movies with unambiguous narrative tales, totally stone cold. And yet it is true poetry on celluloid for others. Malick’s cinema is different from the average Hollywood fare. In many ways, To the Wonder is comparatively easy to appreciate amongst Malick’s body of work because this is a film that deals essentially with a regular man-woman love affair, a subject that would go down well with for most traditional movie-goers.  However, it is the treatment of the subject that is so different from the usual fare, not the subject. A major difference that an attentive viewer will pick up is that when you hear the voice-over of Marina, the main protagonist, the constant occurrence of  “you” in her monologue do not merely refer to her beau Neil but also to God. A viewer is likely to assume that she is addressing her male companion because he...

P aolo Sorrentino is definitely a talented director.  His films considerably rely on visual statements.  Sorrentino’s This Must Be the Place indirectly urges the film’s viewer to observe the details of visual statements, which often put in context the quaint sense of humor of the spoken word in the film.  That does not mean the viewer should miss the quirky spoken words either, such as the deadpan non sequitur " Why is Lady Gaga?"  The most important lines, stated nonchalantly, come mid-way into the film and those lines are the key to understanding it: “ You have to choose a moment in your life to be not afraid. ” “ And have you chosen that moment ?” “ Yes, I have .” Those critical lines explain the entire film for those who might find the film exasperating to understand, beyond the obvious strands of the film being a cocktail of a road movie, a detective movie and a Nazi-criminal-hunt movie.  It also a vengeance movie but one that presents the antith...

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...