Apur Sansar

Abbas Kiarostami's Where is the friend's home? is a lovely little film. It has a fabulous little story and made without any kind of gimmick or show off. I know quite a number of people who ask for realism in movies. I wonder if those souls could actually sit through a film like these because this is beyond the realism that they can imagine. Where is the friend's home? is a slow film. It is slow but it is also a picture that grows. The progress of the film is slow for a reason and that is connected with the kind of story that Kiarostami narrates. I wonder how Kiarostami  has managed to execute the classroom scenes in the film and make that child perform so well. The characters, the setting and everything about the film manages to carry so much life and the conclusion of the film is no less wonderful.

The Adjustment Bureau is an engaging film. It's beautifully shot and tells a beautiful love story that was refreshing. The characters are great and their performances even better. Matt Damon and Emily Blunt share such great chemistry. The individual scenes of these characters never seem to have the power of the scenes which feature these two splendid performers. The first scene where the characters of Damon and Blunt meet is among the best in the picture. Director and screenwriter, George Nolfi, takes time and carries the film almost brilliantly until the near-end. However, the film deserved a better ending. The last few minutes left me unsatisfied. The film has some fabulous visual effects sequences as well.

Reservoir Dogs is Quentin Tarantino's debut film. It's full of talking, cursing and gore. It's a heist film where its before the heist and after the heist and not the heist. A non-linear film with a brilliant writing back up, great shots that are smartly edited and one film that would hook its viewer even without a background score. I'm not a great fan of dialogue driven film but something about the dialogues of Tarantino works here. It's clever and its got energy. Besides the fact that the film uses a terrific narrative structure the intelligent use of color to name the characters is also something that I truly loved.

Christopher Nolan's so-called epic conclusion to his take on the Batman. The Dark Knight Rises is the third part of the trilogy that Nolan began with Batman Begins, which then continued on to The Dark Knight before finally reaching here. The Dark Knight Rises is a spectacle. It is definitely the biggest of the three pictures in its grandeur. But quality and grandeur has a lot of difference. I haven't seen the IMAX version of the film yet but I can't wait to catch up with that because I'm certain that there is a lot more to the experience than the one I just had. It would have been a few months since I saw the first few minutes of The Dark Knight Rises in IMAX. The feeling that I had then was something hard to explain. The very same footage when I saw it this time seemed to have a lot lesser impact. And I'm certain that it was not because I had already seen it but because it was not as big as the IMAX experience. I believe there is almost an hour of IMAX foota...

Detachment is a film that comes from the director of American History X. That was an awesomely shot film that was in Black and White about black people and white people or dealing with racism! Detachment is completely different from that film. This is shot in a manner that literally drove me crazy in its opening minutes. But the treatment was having its share of hook. Something made me sit through the entire film. I'm not certain if I understood the film completely. But I liked certain things about the film and that makes the viewing worth it. Beyond the way the film was made, something that grabs the attention in detachment would be the performance of Adrien Brody. He is indeed a fantastic actor and his performance is just as good as how it was in the Roman Polanski film, the pianist.

Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back is a film that follows the George Lucas film. The story continues to happen in a galaxy far, far away and there are major developments happening in the story in this part. It was only just as interesting as the earlier part for me and the visuals had some bit of additional brilliance compared to the earlier part. I think a few of the effects were achieved using stop motion in the film. It does lack perfection but for 1980, I think it was pretty decent work while not depending on CG. I loved many of the matte painting used in the film. It was given the picture a whole new dimension. I would say, Irvin Kershner has managed very well to take this George Lucas story forward in this installment. Watching this second Star Wars film, I'm also getting used to the ideas and creations of Lucas.