Rashmi

52 posts

CAUGHT IN THE WEB | Review

Moviewallas Review

It’s a great hook for a film: a young woman on a public transport bus refuses to give up her seat to an elderly passenger. The incident gets recorded on a camera phone and the video goes viral when posted online. The repercussions play out.

Kaige Chen, best known to western audiences for helming FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE, takes on this story in his latest film CAUGHT IN THE WEB. And disappointingly misses the mark. This is a contemporary story set in a gleamingly urban China. But what should have been a brutal, unrelenting satire on the pervasiveness of social media and its readiness to grant easy fame to anyone, instead becomes a springboard for an unnecessarily complex soap opera. Even more misjudged is the turn toward the end to a romanticized tragedy that feels entirely unearned.

The film starts with the incident on the bus and then delves into the lives of the young woman in the video, her caricature of a patriarchal boss, and his privileged but disengaged wife. And also the wannabe journalist who filmed the video, her ambitious boss (who tries to push the story as her own), and the boss’ boyfriend. And the movie spends much of its time running the plot through these characters in mostly predictable ways.

Did the filmmakers not recognize the full potential of their initial premise? How could a seasoned filmmaker squander a concept this ripe for exploration? Or was this a case of an incisive original script that got overridden during the production of the movie. Consider for example, SPRING BREAKERS, which takes off from a similar headspace but leaps into a gonzo, depraved tone right off the bat, and then sustains it. Or consider any episode of 30 ROCK where the satire comes with the tongue permanently stationed in the cheek. I wish CAUGHT IN THE WEB had followed either approach. But the tone in this film starts off deadpan then settles on telenovela camp before ending on staged sincerity; it doesn’t all fit together. Perhaps it was because I was so enamored with the original hook that I was disappointed to realize that the film’s ambitions do not run deep at all.

Stylistically, CAUGHT IN THE WEB is structured with deliberate stiltedness. Shots are cut close to each other, often with exaggerated camera angles, and they leap forward in time in quick succession. This sort of cutting might work well for a film that is overtly spoofing a genre, but not for a movie that settles into a very traditional narrative as it progresses. So the stylistic choice remains a gimmick.

The movie attempts to comment on how our judgment of an individual might change as we find out more about that person. That the pivot for our moral assessment of a character could turn completely as we became privy to more truths. But this is not an entirely successful exercise in CAUGHT IN THE WEB, especially compared to the masterful delicacy with which this was accomplished in the wonderful A SEPARATION from last year. Better yet, one need only look at another film playing in cinemas right now, the stellar LE PASSE (THE PAST), from the same director (Asghar Farhadi) as A SEPARATION. Notice how Farhadi’s films effortlessly comment on the inscrutable nature of truth. I realize I am writing about CAUGHT IN THE WEB, but why not spend your twelve dollars to see the sublime and vastly superior LE PASSE (THE PAST) instead. Now that is a film that knows how to spin a web around its characters.

What’s in a Name | Review

Directors Moviewallas Opinion Review Sneak Peek

How many times have you heard the phrase “If you want to stay friends with someone, stay away from religion or politics”? Well, in the movie What’s in a Name, we get to experience both during an intimate evening with a group of family and friends. Written and directed by the talented duo Alexandre de la Patelliere and Matthieu Delaporte who adapted this delightful film from their highly successful stage play, What’s in a Name tells the story of a slick real estate agent Vincent who is about to enter into fatherhood. During a dinner with family and childhood friends he announces the name of his future son, however a discussion about the scandalous moniker explodes into a feisty debate that brings the group’s past bubbling to the surface albeit with hilarious, dramatic and altogether unbelievable results.

What’s in a Name is an enchanting heart warming and often too realistic window into how relationships with family and friends evolve over time. It explores the roles we play in a group and the grudges and opinions we harbor about each other that most of us never share. Just what would happen if we could tell others what we really thought about them and their life choices?

Natural and convincing performances from a talented cast including Patrick Bruel, Valérie Benguigui, Charles Berling, Guillaume de Tonquedec and Judith el Zein elevate this movie from a family melodrama into a witty and surprising black comedy that makes you feel like you really are that fly on the wall of this rather dysfunctional yet clearly affectionate group of people who argue with each other like it’s a national sport. The smartness of this movie is further showcased by its ability to share Parisian life and attitudes to class, sexual orientation and political leanings.

The dialogue is witty, punchy and hard hitting at times but you are never far from a smile, a giggle or belly laugh whilst being equally moved by the writers’ ability to distill human behavior and basic emotions that if allowed to come to the surface reduce us all to six year olds in a playground

This charming movie, which has already been a huge hit in France, will be opening in theatres in the US on Friday 13^th December and will also be available on VOD. Check local listings

https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/whats-in-a-name-le-prenom/id625282414?ign-mpt=uo%3D4

My Stolen Revolution

documentary Film Festivals Los Angeles Film Festival 2013 Review

At first obvious judgment, the documentary, ‘My Stolen Revolution’, may seem a feminist rebuke to Iran’s troubling recent history with crimes against women. But this film, at times a little rough around the edges, is about many other things. It is foremost a love-letter from the filmmaker to her brother. And the entire film is also in many ways her attempt at the exorcism of guilt.

In our routine dealings with the world, we interact with countless strangers: people in whom we may invest attention only for the short term, and others we may outright ignore. But, this film asks: how many of the strangers we encounter on a daily basis harbor histories of the unbearable, the unthinkable?

The filmmaker (Nahid Persson) a former student activist in Iran, who belonged to a liberal counter-establishment revolutionary organization in her youth, managed to leave the country just barely before the government started to crack down on members of the group. Now living in the United States and watching the recent resurgence of violent student-led protests in Iran more than three decades later, she is driven to reach out to the other members of her original radical student group. This leads her to travel around the world to reconnect with these individuals, who like her, have settled into mostly quiet, domestic lives. It is surprising how unremarkable and ordinary the eventual destination can be for a path that started out with an unquenchable revolutionary fervor. As she meets these other women, they begin to recount, in frank detail, their experiences in the Iranian prison system after getting arrested in their youth, a fate the filmmaker narrowly escaped. The weight of her guilt becomes more evident when it is revealed that her younger brother, recruited into the revolutionary group for barely a month, was subsequently arrested and suffered the worst of outcomes. Unlike her, his fate did not allow for fleeing Iran prior to imprisonment.

All documentaries carry the burden of being truthful even as we know that the presence of a camera in front of a person fundamentally alters their behavior. This film presents several filmed interactions between individuals that couldn’t possibly be entirely authentic. How could not a lack of spontaneity and an inevitable rehearsed-ness not have crept in with the best of intentions. But ultimately the film transcends those concerns and manages to pack an emotional wallop because it has the good fortune to have as its subject, these women of remarkable strength. Whose ideological passions, burning still after all these years, and cut through the limitations of the documentarian’s camera.

Weeks after having seen this film, what has stayed with me is this. It is the smiling face of one of the women: a face of uncommon peace that against all odds retained a calm grace even when recounting particularly horrific transgressions at the hands of Iranian prison guards. The five women who speak candidly to the camera in this film have all made peace with their past lives. How is it conceivable that individuals who have been through the unspeakable can have their future lives not irreversibly haunted by those experiences? How can bitterness not poison everything that follows for those who survive the horrific. Every person who makes it through a holocaust, who has been a political prisoner, who has been victim to military human rights violations, who has seen genocide first hand – must have had to grapple with this. ‘My Stolen Revolution’ gains most power when demonstrating the seemingly insaturable human capacity for mending after surving what would seem a wholly destructive experience.

‘My Stolen Revolution’ was screened at the 2013 Los Angeles Film Festival and is awaiting distribution.

Girl Most Likely | Review

Celebrity Directors Moviewallas Opinion Review Trailers YouTube

What lengths would you go to in order to get a boyfriend/girlfriend back? This is one of the central questions faced by thirty-something Imogene (Kristen Wiig), who was once a promising young New York playwright but whose promise has fizzled, thanks to a crisis of confidence in the comedy Girl Most Likely.

Heavily in denial about being dumped by her society boyfriend, Imogene uses her skill for drama to stage an elaborate fake suicide as an appeal for his sympathy. However when her attempt backfires, she is put into the custody of Zelda, her estranged gambling addict mother (Annette Bening), and must return home with her to the Jersey shore. Desperate to get back to her Manhattan circle of so- called friends, Imogene must finally deal with her family, including her unique crab obsessed brother (Christopher Fitzgerald), Zelda’s new shady CIA boyfriend The Bousche (Matt Dillon) and a cute young lodger and wannabe singer (Darren Criss), who together help Imogene sort out her place in the world.

Directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini (“The Nanny Diaries”), Girl most likely also attempts to explore the mother-and-child relationship and the length that parents go to in order to protect their children.

This is a frothy sweet and rather light movie that leaves you wishing it had a little more depth and flavor. Wiig’s demonstration yet again of her impeccable comedic timing and her portrayal of a desperate imploding woman, which is more than adequate, was enjoyable to watch, however it felt like this character was another version of the one she played in her breakout hit from last year Bridesmaids.

The story is a little too implausible and lacked consistency in tone. The film seems to have trouble deciding whether it wants to be an all out family comedy or tender drama about the trials and tribulations of class, single parenting and ambition.

Even with a great cast in Benning, Dhillon and Fitzgerald, this movie didn’t convince me to join it on it’s journey and so I ended up not quite caring for our main protagonist. That’s not to say that there aren’t a few really funny and tender moments which make this movie an easy watch.

Overall, despite another great performance from Kristen Wiig, a complicated back-story and a few too many quirky characters made this otherwise potentially interesting character story come across a little over-cooked.

Girl Most Likely by Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions is released this Friday July 19th. Check local listings for showtimes

Wadjda | LAFF 2013

Directors Film Festivals Los Angeles Film Festival 2013 Opinion Review Sneak Peek

In a country where cinemas are banned and women cannot drive or vote, WADJDA is a movie of firsts. The first feature film shot entirely in Saudi Arabia and the first film to be written and directed by a Saudi woman Haifaa Al-Mansour. Al Mansour has broken many barriers with her new film and no doubt as it did for me, this film will remain with you long after the closing credits have rolled.

At a high level the story is simple, Wadjda tells the story of a young girl living in a suburb of Riyadh determined to raise enough money to buy a bike in a nation that sees bicycles as dangerous to a girl’s virtue. However, at it’s core, this movie does a wonderful job of exploring what it’s like to be different and want other things to those around you. It plays with our expectation of “normal” in a complex culture and one that is often hidden to us; yet, does it manages to do this in a rich and meaningful way. A story about mothers and daughters, relationships in a society where men are allowed to take more than one wife and expectations whilst maintaining humor, this is a movie that will lift your spirit and make it soar

The great story is elevated by brilliant acting and great direction. Waad Mohammed who plays the delightful Wadjda is mesmerizing, funny and extremely likable whilst the beautiful Reem Abdullah who plays her mother is

amusing and perfectly poised as she portrays what it is like to be a modern woman in a not so modern place

So, if you’re asking yourself whether a movie about a girl wanting a bike is worth rushing out to go and see, I say RUN, This movie made me laugh and cry and educated me. Welcome to one of my favorite movies of the year. I have fallen in love with this movie and it won’t leave me

Wadjda Trailer

A Hijacking | Review

Directors Film Festivals Moviewallas Opinion Review Sneak Peek

How many times have you asked yourself the question “How much is a Life worth” and have you ever considered how that would change if you had to pay for it? Tobias Lindholm’s movie A Hijacking elegantly captures the process of negotiation between a large Danish corporation with much on the line and Somali pirates who seem to have nothing to lose.

When the cargo ship MV Rozen is hijacked by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean as it is heading for harbor the ship’s cook Mikkel and the engineer Jan who, along with the rest of the seamen, are taken hostage in a cynical game of life and death. With the demand for a ransom of millions of dollars, a psychological drama unfolds between the CEO of the shipping company and the Somali pirates.

The movie stars Søren Malling (“Borgen,” Talenttyven, A Royal Affair), Johan Philip Asbæk (Spies & Gilstrup, “Borgen,” A Family, R ), Dar Salim (“Game of Thrones,” “Borgen,” The Devil’s Double, Submarino ), and Roland Møller (Northwest, R)

Lindholm (“Borgen,” The Hunt, Submarino, R) creates tension and raises the stakes without overdoing the action. This is as much psychological thriller as it is a narrative of the perils faced by cargo ships on the open seas. As the film unfolds slowly, tension builds to unbearable levels as we become totally enthralled and invested in what will happen to the crew. Lindholm manages to keep us on the edge of our seats as we hope and pray that they will see their families again. This film is gritty and realistic and whilst we experience the wonder of being on the open seas on a cargo ship to start with, we quickly get a sense of the claustrophobia experienced not only by the hostages as they are locked in a small space but also by those negotiating for their lives who also become hostages themselves. Good acting and direction allow us to witness the journey of a smart business man who quickly learns that the same tricks that help you win in the business world do not help when you are trying to negotiate with psychopathic sociopathic hijackers

This film is a fascinating look at the things that bond people together and the relationship that hijackers and hostages often build with each other.

A HIJACKING be opening in select cities including New York, Los Angeles, Irvine (in Orange County) and San Francisco on Friday, June 21, 2013. Check link below and local listings for play times

http://www.magpictures.com/dates.aspx?id=e0b17d74-6d43-44f7-8c91-802ed0d7e7a4

2012 Toronto Film Festival (Official Selection)

2012 Venice Film Festival (Official Selection)

2012 Tokyo International Film Festival (Official Selection)

2013 New Directors/New Films (Official Selection)

2013 Palm Springs International Film Festival (WON- Director to Watch)

2013 Robert Festival (WON- Best Film, Best Actor, Best Editor, Best Screenplay, Best Sound)

2013 AFI Fest (WON- Audience Award)

2012 Thessaloniki Film Festival (WON- FIPRESCI Prize, Golden Alexander Award)