Walkabout (1971)

  

Original Poster of Walkabout (1971)

Beautiful. Just beautiful. When I was expecting another particular survival story, Roeg showed me an amazingly peculiar one. Set in the harsh regions of Australia (The exact location in the continent, in my opinion, doesn't matter) two kids, a 14 year old girl and her 6 year old brother, are abandoned by their father (He also tries to kill them but fails) who eventually sets their car on fire and kills himself. With no means of transport and no civilized humans around, the kids simply head out into the wilderness. They soon encounter an Aborigine boy who's on a "Walkabout": an Aborigine ritual which involves surviving in the wild for months with the aid of hunting skills after the adolescent reaches a certain age. Thence begins a beautiful and pure journey where the three characters try to outlive the harsh environment with the hunting skills the Aborigine boy possesses.  

Right at this moment, I am spellbound by this film's images and I will admit that I got to witness a new face of cinema today. Instead of showing us a sweet conventional survival story, Director Nicholas Roeg dwells on narrating the story in a different and thought-provoking manner. The film has been given a complex and layered narration that is a bit ambiguous. Through smart editing and significant number of freeze frames the director, during the Walkabout journey, tries to compare the two completely different cultures of men. 

One scene is particularly my favorite where the film alternates between the Aborigine boy butchering a Kangaroo and a butcher in some civilized city doing the same. These astonishing moments question the very nature of human beings. Whether we are lost in some unknown, remote and harsh region of the world or are behind the brick walls of the concrete jungle, we are all simply trying to survive in this cruel world. Roeg never even gives us a clear idea why the father attempts to kill his children and suicides. Though, that is a clear indication of the fact that the father couldn't survive in the civilized world. He was too weak that is the reason why he gave up his life.

This film leaves the complexity of the civilized world (Symbolized by the car burnt down by the father) and follows a journey on the beauty of companionship and purity of life. Yes, Pure is the keyword here. We are transported back to the age when everything was "Pure". The film's wonderful finale is the most powerful testament of this aspect. Sometimes certain situations arose in the film when the children are extremely close at getting discovered and saved by civilized people but aren't. At this point, Roeg's camera briefly focuses on these people and shows us what they are doing. There  are certain thought-provoking messages hidden in these scenes which, of course, I will not reveal here and will allow you, my dear readers, to discover it's beauty by yourselves. 

And then there's the spellbinding cinematography and Roeg's amazing direction. Both capture the wilderness very meticulously and the "pillow shots" (A curious shot where the camera focuses on the surrounding elements, for brief moments, of the environment where the action takes place) makes the film more believable. There are beautiful shots of birds, trees, reptiles, the stark desert, the sunrise/sunset, etc. that fills the film with fresh images of mother nature. Walkabout is a beautiful and complex near-masterpiece film from the land of Australia. Just walk into Walkabout and you won't regret it. 

This is Pure Cinema :)

Rating: 5/5

Letter Never Sent (1959)

In Mikhail Kalatozov's Letter Never Sent, four geologists are searching for diamonds in the wilderness of Siberia. Three men, one woman. Andrei and Tanya are in love. Sergei is in love with Tanya. Sergei is a strong man who had been on such expeditions but had returned with no luck. He is jealous of the nerdy Andrei's and the beautiful Tanya's relationship but never cares to hide that feeling. Sabinine (The Leader of the expedition) often spends his free time writing letters, which he will never send, to the woman he once loved. This is how the film begins: By presenting a set of characters, each having different perspectives but are present in the wild forests of Siberia for one reason. With the hope of serving their country, they are present there hunting for a diamond vein. It's no surprise that the diamond deposit is discovered in the film after days of hard work. Previous expeditions had failed but this one expedition proved that there indeed was a diamond deposit in Siberia. Soon, the four geologists, filled with zeal and satisfaction, find themselves engulfed by a huge forest fire and completely cut of from the civilized world. Will they survive? 

Before the opening credits, the film pays tribute to the people of the Soviet Union who have given their lives for the benefit of the country, whether it be astronauts seeking answers for the mysteries of space or geologists going in to the wilderness hunting for diamonds. Throughout the entire film, we see the characters suffering in the piercing cold and bleak atmosphere of Siberia. Their goal at this point is to safely deliver the map, on which the whereabouts of the diamond deposit is marked, to Moscow. We see sacrifice. We witness loss. We witness alienation, hunger, despair. This is where I realized that similar to numerous Soviet films, Letter Never Sent contains shards of Propaganda. Adventure? Nope. I look at this one as a miserable survival film filled with some unnecessary moments of melodrama, patriotism and hyperactivity. The fact is that I don't mind patriotism and propaganda. But in this case it's overdone. I just didn't care for any of the characters. Not even the gorgeous Tatiana Somailova whose performance in the 1957 Soviet Classic The Cranes are Flying (Also directed by Mikhail Kalatozov) was spellbinding. It was because of this film that I was intrigued to check out Letter Never Sent.

Now the big question: What relation does the film and it's title have? As stated earlier, Sabinine wrote letters to a woman he loved from his past. He wrote them, feeling nostalgic, without the intention of sending them (Of course, the team is already in the middle of nowhere). This relation is explained further in the final moments of the film but it's significance is again directed more towards patriotism, in my opinion. Another disappointing aspect.  

Unlike the ingenious masterpiece The Cranes are Flying, this film lacks true emotions. I went in with high hopes of seeing another Soviet masterpiece but eventually I was left disappointed. Albeit this film failed to emotionally engross me, Sergei Urusevsky's miraculous cinematography makes the film worth watching. Urusevsky and Kalatozov have collaborated in multiple films and their most well known work is of course The Cranes are Flying, where the film used astonishing camera-work. Though I believe Letter Never Sent takes it to a whole new level by composing unbelievable images. The camera work is well ahead of it's time. It looked like that the camera glided through the wild fire and the horrible blizzards very smoothly. The technical artistry of this film deserves a standing ovation and at times it completely overpowers the dissatisfying screenplay.

On the positive side, Letter Never Sent is one of the strongest proofs of how visually powerful cinema can be. If you ever tell me to compile a top 10 list of the most visually stunning films ever crafted, this one will gladly make it to the top 5. Mr. Urusevsky, you rock. (And I will highly recommend The Cranes are Flying in case you haven't seen it yet).



Rating: 3/5

Pune 52 (2013)

In recent times, the Marathi film industry has begun creating many interesting films that tackle social issues and represent a story in a very stylish manner. One of these films is Pune 52, Director Nikhil Mahajan's debut feature. I got a chance to watch Pune 52 at the Pune International Film Festival in Pune. While walking inside the theater, I was excited with a hope of enjoying another good and different Marathi film. I had already heard a lot about it's "dark themes" encompassing a supposedly good detective story. On entering the theater, I was satisfied to see a huge crowd occupying all the seats. With no seats remaining, I, along with many others, were forced to sit on the aisles. Few minutes before the film began, the director himself appeared with a broad smile and a feeling of satisfaction visible very clearly on his face while observing the huge crowd that had come to see his film. He gave a short speech and some words caught my attention: "Watch the film with an open mind. The film's theme is quite dark and noir-ish.  This is something you haven't seen in any other Marathi film yet". He thanked the audience and finally the screening commenced. 

    

The Dissatisfaction

Pune 52 is the story of a private detective, Amar Apte, who's economical condition is at it's all time low. He still continues with his profession as he loves solving mysteries. His wife, Prachi, is sick and completely tired with her husband. She had married him because he was "adventurous" but their love due to their economical conditions was slowing dying out. While Prachi insults her husband everyday for not properly bringing any bread in the house, we see a bored Amar who wants to bring back excitement in his life. His work has been both boring and unproductive until one day a young woman  named Neha hires him to keep a watch on her own husband whom she suspects of having an affair. Amar, with the hope of restoring some excitement in his life, takes the case and this point on wards, everything begins to change for him...

     

The Femme Fatale

Dark, of course, but Pune 52 didn't impress me. This film has the common elements of usual "noir" films which includes dark cinematography (At times, the film actually is shown in Black and White), a dark story and the involvement of a femme fatale (In this case, it's Neha). This dark setting was impressively filmed and the film had my complete attention for it's first half. After the interval, Pune 52 tends to become a bit pointless and pretentious. That also includes the ending which was completely abrupt, incoherent and left me dumbfounded. So, you wanna bring a change in Marathi cinema? I embraced the beautiful technical aspects of this film with open arms but couldn't find any meaning behind what the film wanted to say. No, the story is completely clear and everyone is aware of what was going on. But the story lacks any depth and film just covers that fact up by becoming pretentious. Although the script was dissatisfying, the acting is explosive and well done. Girish Kulkarni, Sonali Kulkarni and Sai Tamhankar play very convincing roles of Amar, Prachi and Neha respectively.

I will conclude saying that Pune 52 was another interesting Marathi film with great performances but a poor script. If you are still interested, give it a shot. But don't expect any thing new, as I had.

Rating: 2.9/5

Official trailer of Pune 52:

Race 2 (2013)

This film needs no review. Race 2 (God knows who the directors are) is an irritating crap with an infinite, never ending series of plot twists (That automatically generates more plot holes) and the usual voluptuousness seen in almost every major Bollywood production. I watched this film with some friends (Thank God, I didn't watch this on the big screen) and I had an awesome time! No, it wasn't the film, it was my friends' funny epic comments. I even can't imagine watching this film alone! There came one point when the film really caught everyone's attention. It was the part where the funny-voiced Saif Ali Khan (The one wearing a pair of sexy goggles [That doesn't suit him] in the top left of the poster) plans to steal the shroud of Turin. Amazing planning, I must agree. When the plan was recited to a supposedly 'Godfather', he said,"Wow, such plan has not even ever been executed in a Hollywood film!" What an overstatement. In a few minutes, Saif let him down by stealing the shroud of Turin in a fashion almost similar to the robbery of The Declaration of Independence in  National Treasure (2004). That's it. I lost my patience from this point but my beautiful friends kept me going. At last, I successfully finished watching it. What a grand achievement! 

That's all I wanna say about Race 2, the worst film of the year. In case you wanna have a good time, go out, live your life, go places (In reality, not in films), meet new people and have an open mind. Do anything, but don't watch Race 2 even accidently. There are more worse films, I know, but I am not interested in wasting my time on them. I want to share my remorse of not having watched this video (Given Below) before watching the film which is far more superior, entertaining and above all: truthful about the current dominance of crappy big budget films over good ones. Well, probably this is gonna be a treat for 'target audiences'. But after the end credits roll, they are gonna forget it forever. And the money that the producers get from them, is gonna be used in the making of another crappy film. Possibly, for another sequel? 

In case you are interested, here are some songs from Race 2. Don't know who the composers are...

1. Party on my mind:

2. Lat Lag Lagayi:

Rating: 1/5