Civil War [dir. Alex Garland]

55 years ago Haskell Wexler, known primarily as a cinematographer (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, In the Heat of the Night, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest), made a film called Medium Cool. Wexler's film was an auteur-driven enterprise, written, photographed edited, co-produced and directed by him. In it, a young Robert Forster (Jackie Brown) played a Chicago TV news cameraman dispassionately capturing sensationalist stories with his 16 mm in the period leading up to the rioting at the Democratic National Convention. While not a period of actual civil war, there was a strong element of unrest among the American people on account of opposition to the Vietnam War and the assassination of Equal Rights activist Martin Luther King. With its nouvelle vague inspired freewheeling journey, Medium Cool captured the zeitgeist of that period in a manner few films have. As critic Vincent Canby says in his review, it portrays "...a picture of America in the process of exploding into fragmented bits of hostility, suspicion, fear and violence."

Alex Garland's Civil War is set in an even more chaotic dystopian near-future, with the White House a fortress occupied by a Fascist dictator and the country torn apart by violent secession. Veteran combat photojournalist Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst) and her comrade Joel (Elite Squad and Narcos fame Wagner Moura) plan to travel from Brooklyn to DC to interview the president. Tagging along is their mentor Sammy (Stephen Henderson). Sammy has played the game a long time, but now he's "too old and fat to run", even to save his life. They have another fellow traveler in Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) a wet-behind-the-ears novice lugging around her father's film camera. Having seen her lose it at a riot event they previously met at, Lee is reluctant to take the girl on board, but Sammy and Joel convince her.

In their road journey to the capital, the group see violence in multiple forms, including armed assault, cruel vigilantism and even mass civilian murder by militia groups. Garland dishes out some mordant humor: The once-almighty US dollar is shown to be hugely devalued ($300 can only buy a ham / cheese sandwich). In a shootout between two bands of snipers, one of the men mockingly answers Joel's question about which faction they are fighting with "The guys trying to shoot us".

While Garland originated as a writer, the most gripping parts of Civil War are the visuals (DoP Rob Hardy, who handled cinematography for Garland's previous features Ex Machina, Annihilation and Men). The scenes of rioting and armed conflict are captured with veritable intensity. Garland also uses the  full height of the IMAX screen, especially noticeable in the scenes where helicopters glide over troubled vistas or during the large scale climactic battle in the capital. The format also gives tremendous depth of field and a 'window effect' into the happenings on screen.

The visuals are sadly undercut by the predictability of the narrative. Where Medium Cool or Oliver Stone's Salvador (also about an American journalist caught in a civil war) echoed the chaos and desperation of unrest and gave it a personal edge, Civil War mostly follows a conventional coming of age drama - Lee is the aging camera-slinger that takes a maternal interest in Jessie (even Joel who is said to be hitting on her never crosses any line) and the youngster in the course of her adventures wises up to emulate her idol (this is contrasted with Lee suddenly losing her nerve during the final conflict). A certain "circle of life" metaphor hinted at early in the narrative is given a groaning realization in the climax.

Don't get me wrong here, Civil War is admirable for its technical audacity - Garland achieves the kind of spectacle that would normally require 2 or 3 times the budget, and he does not trivialize his material with fake heroism. The actors are fine too, adjusting to the physical and emotional needs of their characters. But the rote writing reduces the film's power as a statement on the brutality of civil war.

P.S. If you are seeing the film, make sure to catch it on the largest screen format.

The Funeral [dir. Juzo Itami]

Juzo Itami's Tampopo, an ode to the transcendent pleasures of food, has been one of my favorite films to re-watch, so I had no issues about blind-watching his debut feature The Funeral (Ososhiki). This is a strongly autobiographical narrative about a couple that has to organize a wake ceremony for the wife's recently deceased father. Nobuko Miyamoto and Tsutomu Yamazaki (who were also the leads in Tampopo) play married actors who must rush out to their country home to arrange a 3-day funeral for her just-expired father. This involves calling all the close relatives and friends (over 100 people), setting up the funeral altar, inviting a priest to chant sutras, and then there's all the catering for the guests during and after the rituals.

Almost every mainstream culture across the world has its own set of elaborate (and frequently absurd) ceremonies to mourn the passing of the lost one and "ensure passage of his/her soul to a higher plane". We have all been through these experiences, and had moments of bafflement and even inner  outrage over the arcane rituals constituting the death ceremony. While not disrespectful, Itami does see the humor in these proceedings. There's a delectable comedy of manners that plays out here, some insidious satire - the couple watch instructional videos on how to behave during the ceremonies, the priest (Yasujiro Ozu regular Chishu Ryu) arrives in a luxury car. There's even a bit of slapstick, like when a relative flops over after his feet go numb during the lengthy ritual, or when the couple's young son deviates from the cursory tap on the coffin nail to really hammer his grandpa in.

The film has an episodic structure, dividing itself into the 3 days of the funeral. Even aside from the casting of Ryu, there's a strong influence of Ozu in the look and tone. I suspect the 4:3 aspect ratio reflects Itami's desire to emulate Ozu's style. He also pokes gentle humor at the master's trademark low angle 'Tatami mat' shot with the distorted perspective view of an ad film shoot, where a man is shown to be served tea by a giant geisha. His own nods to the sensual pleasures are indicated in the extravagance of the deceased man's last supper and the scenes of merry making during the wake ceremony.

The Funeral ends on a poignant, but positive note - the ceremony has allowed the family the emotional catharsis to overcome the loss and get on with their lives. It may not be as flashy or well-known as Tampopo but The Funeral is a terrific debut film, and one I feel will be an excellent comfort watch to return to.

Here's a really strange trailer of the film:

Now a few words on the blu-ray release from Criterion.

The back cover blurb simply says "High-definition digital restoration", which raises doubts about whether this is some older HD master. Fear not, the film looks so spanking good it might have been shot yesterday. Colors are healthy and detail is strong. The lossless mono audio nicely recreates the subdued acoustics of the dialog and gives a full-bodied rendition of Bach's Air on a G string, used at multiple points in the film. Supplements include illuminating interviews with Nobuko Miyamoto (who was also Itami's wife and creative partner) and their son Manpei Ikeuchi (who was the delightful child actor in the film), a short piece on the husband-wife collaboration, and a set of rather puzzling pastry commercials directed by Itami.

The booklet is also healthier than usual (nearly 40 pages!). Apart from the standard essay, it contains excerpts from a diary Itami wrote of the shoot, and a candid recollection of the maker by lead actor Yamazaki.

Frankly, this is a film I think everyone should see (You have to be a special kind of curmudgeon to not like it). It's very relaxing and gently contemplative, the humor sly but not mean-spirited. The blu-ray presentation is stunning and the supplements worth going through.

The Road House Rundown

I have to confess I was never a big Patrick Swayze fan during his heyday. His romantic leading man style was not a huge draw for my schoolboy self, who was more interested in slashers and bullet-buffets. It didn't help that his biggest hit Ghost was a movie I loathed for being a piece of garbage. So while I had heard of Road House at the time, the idea of Swayze as an action star did not (ha!) sway me and so I'd never actually watched it before. It was the release of the 2024 remake on Amazon Prime that made me reconsider.

The '89 Road House has over the years become something of a cult classic. Swayze plays Dalton, a tough guy with a feared name, who is hired by bar owner Kevin Tighe to handle the violent elements that are ruining his business. With sheer presence and the occasional takedown he starts to bring order into the place. Then Dalton comes up against local big-shot Brad Wesley (Ben Gazzara), an extortionist and shady businessman who rules the town with an iron hand.

Very rightly it has been pointed out that Road House, while clothed in  80's garb, is really a 'Western' - Swayze is the taciturn new gunslinger in town and Gazzara is the evil big rancher that's been squeezing out the small farmers, store-owners, and heck, even the saloon guy. A large part of the film runs on Swayze's charm. He has excellent chemistry with the supporting cast including the sultry Kelly Lynch. Gazzara can be a wonderful actor when he wants - check out his work with John Cassavettes or his pivotal part in Anatomy of a Murder. Here he's slumming it in a caricature "evull" role, still he gives this joint a bit of class. As I later learned, Swayze had studied some martial arts and this comes in handy for the several nicely choreographed action scenes. The fist-pumping soundtrack is provided by the enthusiastic Jeff Healey Band.

Apart from the nudity, most of Road House is a solid PG-rated adventure. The climax however decides to go very violent, what with throat-rippings and shotgun massacres. It's a startling change of tone, and I wonder if it was influenced by the trend of the violent spectacles from Stallone, Schwarzenegger & Co (even the way houses explode is hugely exaggerated, like they were filled with dynamite and kerosene). It is an absurd kind of film (as Roger Ebert's review very rightly points out), but there's a charm to it, courtesy the likable cast (a hot Sam Elliot appears as Dalton's buddy), the action and the rousing rock score.

Road House (2024) is a remake led by a ridiculously shredded Jake Gyllenhaal. This film's Dalton is a retired UFC champion who apparently has such a reputation his opponents prefer to surrender without a fight. Now making a living in illicit fight clubs, he soon lands up to protect the titular bar (In the original film the place was called the Double Deuce).

While Swayze's character radiated a taciturn "Don't fuck with me" menace, Gylenhaal's Dalton is more chatty and affable; he even drives down his opponents to the local hospital after he has broken their bones. I appreciate that Dalton is not another sullen asshole, but it makes the dark side of his persona a lot less believable - Then again, it's a very cliched "I once killed a guy in the ring" dark side, which John Wayne did much better in The Quiet Man.

The bar in the remake is apparently such a good deal they have a different act performing every night. This dilutes the more cozy feeling of the original and makes the performance aspect more anonymous. The bad guys are now dealing in drugs and real estate. The action is amped up with boat chases and bigger explosions. Real-life UFC champion Conor McGregor makes a huge impression as Knox, a crazy tattooed mob enforcer up against Gyllenhaal - McGregor's performance is not necessarily in tone with the rest of the film, but he livens up every scene he is in. He shows the potential to become a big movie player, if he can keep out of jail.

Road House (2024) is more self-aware and a precocious young girl in the cast makes smirky remarks about it being a Western narrative. Director Doug Liman (who previously did the surprisingly enjoyable Edge of Tomorrow and American Made with Tom Cruise) has a certain felicity with humor, but this remake is more passable than memorable.

Aadujeevitham aka The Goat Life [dir. Blessy]

Some way into Aadujeevitham / The Goat Life (TGL), I started to wonder if the hall was playing it without the mandatory intermission. Normally, outside of festival screenings, cinemas in India have to have this mid-break for people to buy snacks or empty their bladders, even with sub-100 min films. It was then I realized with a sinking feeling that this tedious survival saga of a Gulf-bound Malayalee in the 90's shanghaied as slave labor for an isolated goat farm in the searing desert was going to run for around 3 hours. My feelings then mirrored those of the harrowed protagonist.

I realize that sounds rather insensitive. I'm not against downbeat survival dramas, no. Some amazing books and films have come from this genre. But throughout the running time, I was never once able to sufficiently empathize with the character to feel his plight. It's a real pity, since it is based on an affecting true story, and there is certainly a lot of effort taken in the making, not least by lead star Prithviraj Sukumaran. As the protagonist Najeeb Mohammed he dons a rigorously de-glammed unkempt avatar for most of the film, and even undergoes a body transformation to represent what Najeeb had become after two years of slavery. I also appreciate that the film remains faithful to the idea of Najeeb barely surviving his ordeal, not becoming some kind of hero that fights back and defeats his oppressors.

The film offsets the scenes of Najeeb's grim fate in the desert with memories of his life in Kerala where he has left a loving wife (Amala Paul) pregnant with their first child. Water and greenery feature heavily in these memories (and fantasies), contrasting with his arid, sandy present (DoP Sunil KS). It reminded me of Shaji Karun's 1994 film Swaham, which contrasted the grim present of the widow protagonist with her happy past by depicting the former in black and white and the latter in color.

Sadly, those are the only good things I can say. A great survival film is made by its little gestures and micro-moments. I can empathize with the character's plight only if I find the character interesting to begin with. In TGL, writer-director Blessy's script is cringingly broad-strokes and pedestrian. At one point, Najeeb and a fellow Malayalee team up to escape with a North African slave (Haitian actor Jimmy Jean-Louis, who looks like he was participating in an Idris Elba lookalike contest). I get that the African guy is better used to surviving the desert environment than these Keralites, but they behave like such headless chickens, you want him to throw up his hands and abandon these idiots to their fate, instead of being the noble Samaritan who repeatedly pulls their asses out of danger. A little later he literally disappears from the film, suggesting that he preferred to commit suicide than bear any more idiocies.

But the worst part of TGL was AR Rahman's score. It's so bad in its choppiness and overbearing sentiment it made me nauseous and feeling like my ears were being bored by a power drill. I was undecided whether I wanted to repeatedly stab at his jugular, wrench his balls off with rusty pliers or ram a barbwire wrapped club up his butt.

I understand the hype this movie has got, and the trailer did a great job of selling it as an edgy saga, but after surviving through the ordeal I felt like an utter goat for having signed up.

Fighter [dir. Siddharth Anand]

I realize I'm not in the majority when I say this, but Siddharth Anand's movies leave me cold. This was true right from the time he was making rom-coms/rom-drams (I had the misfortune of watching Bachna Ae Haseeno on a bus trip, a reprehensible exercise which, not just the ladies, everyone should beware of). Anand then shifted to more heavy-duty action with Bang Bang (an official remake of the frenetic Knight and Day). Therein he found his true metier, doing desi takes on the stereotype Hollywood tent-pole action movie. He then churned out the exponentially more bombastic War (which I found enjoyable in its embracing of the ludicrous) and Pathaan. The latter was his biggest commercial success, but for me it was a mostly lifeless experience, not even fun in the illogical masala vein. Pathaan was so concerned with being 'hip' I could not give a fuck about anything that happened onscreen (perhaps I was more concerned with the increasing numbness in my butt and brain).

With Fighter, Anand continues his run of feature-length action-VFX showreels, angling for a job on the next Mission Impossible or Top Gun or at least Fast & Furious installment. The film is set in the world of combat pilots hand-picked as an elite team for strike/rescue missions. After 2019's Uri: The Surgical Strike, rah-rah war movies reflecting the 'New India, Aggressive India' image became cool. With titles like Gunjan Saxena, they also became (preachy) vehicles of female empowerment. Fighter collects these trends into a single package - the Hrithik-worship from War continues in an almost identical adoring coverage of bronzed biceps and gold-flecked hair, Balakot and Pulwama are referenced in the cartoonish portrayal of counter maneuvers, and Deepika Padukone's chopper pilot could be an extension of the Gunjan Saxena character.

Fighter fills the frame with a sizable cast and lip-service is paid to 'team bonding', but make no mistake, this is not an ensemble piece. The characters that are not matinee names have no backstory or hook to make them interesting. They're just there, 'reflectors' to bounce more light on the leads. The audience is never given any reason to care for their fate. One character is the token Muslim card that becomes a martyr; his funeral rituals are completely drowned out by a Vande Mataram cover. Even the manner in which characters seem to have carte blanche to enter control centers for ops they are not part of, or just hang around for emotional detours in the middle of setting up covert missions takes away from the immersion.

The movie expects us to feel bad for Hrithik when he is called out for going cowboy and endangering his squad by abandoning team goals in pursuit of individual targets. Curiously, none of his team-mates have an issue with his lone wolf attitude. The calling out is done by his commanding officer Anil Kapoor, who yells out every sentence like an unruly society chairman uncle bawling at the cricket playing kids damaging his window panes. There would be some logic to this narrative if it culminated in Hrithik's becoming more mindful of following orders, which I assume is what the armed forces want of soldiers. But for some reason this PTSD afflicted bloke's self-obsession becomes a virtue.

The action is slick, I'll grant, but it feels rehashed and unexciting - the exhaust pipes shimmering at launch, the jets blowing snow off the trees or spray off the water surface as they zoom by, the loop-de-loop maneuver, we've seen all this before. It's more like Anand studied scenes from Top Gun to showcase his ability to replicate them indigenously at lower cost. Some of the green screen work is less than stellar (when Hrithik and the villain - a Fabio clone with one bloodshot eye to signal his villainy - are slugging it out atop a careening jeep). The film is set in Jammu & Kashmir, but you get Mediterranean beachside and ultrahip-nightclub song sequences that are awkwardly horned in. For tonal consistency, this Fighter is a damp squib.

Cushing Curiosities - Cone of Silence

Included in Cushing Curiosities,  the lavish Peter Cushing centered blu-ray box-set from Severin Films, Cone of Silence (aka Trouble in the Sky) is a legal drama set in the aviation world. Despite his third billing after Michael Craig and Peter Cushing, Bernard 'M' Lee's experienced pilot is actually the film's lead. Known to go wholly by the rulebook, Lee at the beginning is subject to an inquiry after a botched takeoff on the new 'Phoenix' plane. He is sure he has done nothing wrong. The aircraft company and the Phoenix's designer (Noel Willman from Hammer's The Reptile displaying a palpable sensitivity here) are equally adamant that there was no mechanical failure or design flaw.

After he is docked for 'pilot error' Lee finds reprieve when flight trainer Michael Craig clears him after a rigorous examination in which he flies blindfolded. The rakish Craig is also developing feelings for Lee's dad idolizing daughter Elizabeth Seal. But where is Peter Cushing, you ask? Cushing makes an appearance shortly after as another pilot placed rival to Lee. Cushing's character has in some reviews of this film been described as a villain, but that's not so - he is merely a biased individual. He doesn't like the idea of Lee being allowed to resume flying the Phoenix aircraft and allows his prejudices to guide his assessment. It's a small but solid supporting character and Dear Peter gives it his customary good show.

After more takeoff scenes - the film tries to generate a "will-it-won't-it-crash" scenario each time Lee takes the wheel - there is another accident, and this time it's fatal. What remains is for Craig to go over the incident and reassess if Lee was at fault or there was another reason. The exact details were fuzzy to me, but the film seems to suggest that the pilot's rule book did not account for some specific conditions of weather and load, and pilots that followed it to the letter would actually end up botching the takeoff.

This stiff upper lip drama is a fairly mundane "programmer", but it's aided by a dependable cast of British actors - besides the aforementioned, there's Andre Morell, George Sanders and Marne Maitand. There are several shots of actual aircraft takeoffs that don't appear to be random stock footage. It's not the most exciting movie but it a pleasing solidity.

Severin's blu-ray transfer shows some amount of source print damage (lines, scratches), but has good contrast and looks organic. The audio in the dialog sounded to me distractingly boxy and clipped. Extras specific to the movie include a commentary track with genre film historian Jonathan Rigby and a short conversation with the now old Michael Craig (the movie was a routine job for the contract player, but he seems to have pleasant memories of the cast).

The bigger bonus on this disc is the trove of audio interviews with Peter Cushing at various points - The Guardian interview (which I think is the same one that was on Severin's 2011 release of Horror Express) is played over the film, while others are played over selected images / video. The most touching one for me was where he is talking about his home in Whitstable and about his life with and after his beloved wife Helen. If you were looking to these interviews to learn something previously unknown about Mr. Cushing or unlock any secrets about his character and method, you may be disappointed. But I found a certain satisfaction in the confirmation of my image of him as a dedicated professional, and a simple, kindhearted GENTLEMAN.

Manjummel Boys [dir. Chidambaram]

Two years back, there was a Malayalam survival adventure called Malayan Kunju (MK). I had a very divided experience with that film: while the survival aspect - a guy buried under a landslide must claw back to the surface - was well executed, the preceding drama that shows him to be a self-centered casteist prig was a stodgy affair. Manjummel Boys (MB) is in some ways reminiscent of MK. Here too, a guy is deep under the surface, after falling through a pit that seems to go all the way to a netherworld (this hellhole is even called the Devil's Kitchen). But unlike MK's tale of redemption, this is a tale of brotherhood, the enduring bond between friends that will go to any length to look out for each other.

Of course, this also implies that the chaps have a tendency to invite trouble. In the extended introduction, we see these 'boys' (played by actors in their mid-to-late thirties) trade juvenile barbs with a rival tug-of-war club, and even an impromptu dare match which they lose. Later, when out on a guys-only trip to hilly Kodaikanal (Tamil Nadu), they get up to the tomfoolery of boisterous hooligans, sneaking drinks and ignoring the trespass notices. A major element in MB is its tribute to the 1991 Kamalahaasan movie Gunaa, incorporating dialog and song references and most importantly, returning to the striking cave locale used here:

As a setting, the 'Gunaa Cave' is cinematic gold. It exudes an aura of mystery, a primitive stony terrain with high ceilings and precipitous edges that dwarf the human characters tramping through. There's perhaps even an element of nature's revenge - it is after the boys mark their presence with graffiti on the rock surface that one of them (Srinath Bhasi) falls through the aforementioned pit. Following a series of sickening thuds, he appears to have been wiped entirely out of existence. The abruptness of the moment sends a shock, both to the other characters, and to the audience.

After several moments of disbelief - they keep insisting that Subhash must be pranking them, because the alternative is unthinkable - harum-scarum rescue efforts are set into motion. Some of them zoom off to the local police station to get help. There they get beaten and locked up for breaking the rules, possibly even murdering their friend. Those that remain in the cave do futile things like using their bodies to block water from a thunderstorm flowing into the pit. Even the authorities arriving at the site seem reluctant to rise to the call of duty - the firemen are scared of roping down into the depths of Devil's Kitchen and the police seem only too eager to file a fatality report and call it a day. Finally the group leader Siju David aka 'Kuttan' (Soubin Shahir) has to beg for the chance of going down to find and rescue their friend. Balding pot-bellied Kuttan has no experience with spelunking, nor is he some daredevil. But he cannot consider forsaking his fallen companion. What follows is a tense rescue drama - Lowered into impenetrable darkness and aided only by shouted instructions from the people above, Kuttan must tackle the tortuous descent and his own rising panic.

As critic Baradwaj Rangan points out in his excellent review, a film based on true events must be an honest representation, but slavishly adhering to the facts of the case may not always be the best dramatic option. The ensemble of friends is a large one (11 members), and the script doesn't do enough to delineate the members - apart from Kuttan and Subhash, who fell into the pit, I don't recall the names or traits of the other friends. One of them seems to have been chosen for his passing resemblance to Kamalahaasan in Gunaa - he remains in a catatonic state for most of the picture. There is a reliance on cliche flashbacks to give a sense of the longstanding bond between them. But then, the numbers are required as a mechanical device: Remember the tug-of-war at the beginning of the film? You get the pay-off for it later. The flashbacks are a reinforcement of why the friends stick together despite all odds.

MB's extended epilogue hints at Subhash's PTSD after his experience in the caves - he is unable to close his eyes to sleep, to face darkness again, and needs his mother beside him. There could be an interesting short film sequel that deals with this specific aspect. But time is also wasted on a tedious subplot of how Subhash's mother blames Kuttan for his accident and only later comes to know of his brave rescue of her son, leading to an obligatory "tears of gratitude" moment.

Visually, there are some marvelous moments. While not quite Descent level, MB delivers on the claustrophobic near-hallucinatory experience the characters go through. There is a seamless combination of real locations and sets, an intimate communion between the production design (Ajayan Chalissery) and the cinematography (Shyju Khalid - Maheshinthe Prathikaram, Nayattu). If ever my favorite Indian disaster film Kaala Patthar (1979) went in for a remake, I would want the guys who made this to get a crack at it.

Lord Curzon ki Haveli + Shorts [Wench Film Festival]

I didn't actually plan for the Wench Film Festival, attending only one of the 4 days, which is why this is very fragmented coverage. For the record, this is a fest devoted to fantastic genre cinema primarily directed by 'Women and Non-Binary Filmmakers'. It is engineered by Sapna Bhavnani, an enthusiastic maverick who has worked in fashion and film. The screenings were conducted in a little performance space called Veda Black Box. It's about the size of one of those illicit video screening halls and I had the dickens of a time finding it after Google Maps dropped the ball badly. But it works perfectly for a niche segment like this.

Anyhoo, onward to the films I saw. Apart from one feature-length film Lord Curzon ki Haveli, I saw a bunch of short films of varying impact. A number of the shorts shown on this day were commissioned as a collection of horror outings set in the time of the pandemic. Each film was followed by a Q&A with available crew members from the film. There was also some kind of session with Kaizad Gustad, but I opted to go outside for a break in that time, for fear of becoming sufficiently enraged to murder the maker of the atrocity called Bombay Boys.

These were the notable short films I saw:

Entanglement (Yashaswini Nath) - Relationship drama meets SF in this non-linear movie featuring a couple having severe marriage issues...or is it two sets of couples from mirror universes who are having visions of each other? It's not always on the ball script-wise, but its good parts feature strong performances from the leads (Harleen Sethi and Harman Singha) and thoughtful direction.

Demons (Adesh Prasad) - Tumbbad co-director Adesh Prasad does a incredibly gory and immensely funny take on a 'cure' for drug addicts to be free of their demons. I won't bother with a synopsis for such a brief film, but this was a lot of fun, an affectionate twist on the Mohan Bhakri - Vinod Talwar style B-budget Hindi horror cinema.

Landfills of Desire (Sapna Bhavnani) - More music video than narrative, this one shows a vampire making her way through empty Kashmiri locales (it was shot during the pandemic).  It features an avant-garde percussive score, color filters and flashy editing.

Batshit Crazy and Giallo (Yogesh Chandekar) - These were both more overtly message-y, but had a good deal of visual humor and genre homage. BC features the travails of a Naga dude in Hyderabad running from a bunch of goons targeting him as a 'bat-eating Chinese' responsible for the Covid pandemic. I mainly liked the opening shot where a Ramsay-style Gothic structure enshrouded in fog is revealed to be the Charminar as a municipal worker brandishes a fogging machine. As the name would suggest, Giallo openly references the style of genre masters Mario Bava and Dario Argento (hat-tipping them with an 'Argento Pizzeria' and a 'Bava Heights' apartment complex). The gaudy color schemes and Goblin-inspired score make this a chuckle-worthy watch for fans.

The Lurking (Divyansh Sharma) - Shades of EF Benson's eerie stories in this beautifully shot tale of a dysfunctional family living on the edge of the wood. A harsh domineering father (Ajay Mehra), a mother (Snower Sania Vasudev) who is loving but may have psychological issues, and a child that sees something from within the wood. As the film unravels, different facets of the characters are revealed. Furkan Ali's cinematography and careful grading make for an amazing visual experience.

Anshuman Jha's Lord Curzon ki Haveli was the feature-length centerpiece. This one is a (mostly) one-act thriller with a Hitchcock/Polanski influence. A stuffy Indian-origin British doctor (Paresh Pahuja) and his decidedly more desi spouse (Rasika Dugal) visit the house of the wife's friend. This friend (Zoha Rahman) and her partner (Arjun Mathur) are a strange contrast to our couple, liberated bohemian spirits who have no issues about leaving their guests alone to go up for a quickie in the bedroom; not exactly effusive hosts. They also seem to have a mocking attitude towards the pompous doc and his frigid attitude towards his wife, spiking her drink to see what fun ensues. As the evening progresses, we see a clash of personalities. Issues like the status of immigrants, and the doc's pride in his British citizenship provide fuel for a grotesque black comedy. For me the biggest problem was the thin caricature of the doc's character - he is shown to be such an outright heel that the personality clashes are unbalanced. A good black comedy should be able to shift sympathies between characters, but he starts off as an jerk and as the film moves ahead, behaves even more idiotically. This makes the film a bit of an ordeal to sit through. The always easy to watch Rasika Dugal gets a major character shift over the course of the story and she executes it with relish. It's probably not meant to be taken seriously, but the end seems to suggest that immigrants should react to racism and class snobbery by going the Bonnie and Clyde route.

The Bullfighter and the Lady [dir. Budd Boetticher]

I first came to experience the work of Budd Boetticher through the wonderful Ranown Westerns set Indicator put out some years ago. With that series of movies, Boetticher did for Westerns what Val Lewton did for horror - use the genre to tell thoughtful stories with layered characterization, and avoid being just cliched B-budget matinee fodder. So of course, when I heard that Boetticher was a fan of bullfighting as a sport and that he regarded The Bullfighter and the Lady as one of his most personal pictures, I was naturally eager to see it. My viewing was with the reconstructed 124 min Director's Cut (DC).

While American Johnny Regan (Robert Stack) is visiting Mexico with friends, he is taken up with the local bullfighting scene and meets with champion matador Manolo Estrada (Gilbert Roland aka Luis Antonio Damaso). He also locks eyes with the alluring Anita (Joy Page), engaged to one of the assistant bullfighters in Manolo's team. Possibly as a way to continue meeting with Anita, Johnny asks Manolo to teach him the art of bullfighting.

Thus begins a lengthy process of training and trials, during which Johnny develops his skill and also a meaningful friendship with Manolo and his wife Chelo (the queenly Katy Jurado, who has a showstopper scene when she tells off a drunk spectator that jeers Manolo into competing with an injured hand). The film's biggest strength is its commitment to showcasing the various aspects of the sport and not make it just a heroism gimmick. You don't see Johnny become a showboat expert after two lessons - he makes a mistake, learns, stumbles over something else, learns again. It is not dull repetition, but the thoughtful depiction of a sportsman's growth...and I mean sportsman in the best sense of the term. For it is not just technical skill that Johnny acquires, he also absorbs the patience, understanding and camaraderie that separates the great sportsman from the petty competitor. In parallel we follow his pursuit of Anita, including a misunderstanding that makes her reject him, and how they eventually reconcile. This is all one organic narrative, and the film is essentially one of deep human feeling.

Of course, this does not address the elephant in the room, or in this case the bull. In its loving documentation of the sport, the film talks about the selection of bulls for their 'bravery', and the admiration the matadors have for the beasts. All the same it does depict a form of bullfighting in which the animal is pierced with lances (that cause it pain and increase its aggression) and eventually killed by a sword. You could argue against the 'gentlemanliness' of a sport that involves such actions, but the film focuses on the art and skill involved in the sport and confers upon it a nobility of spirit.

The 87-min Theatrical cut I understand radically alters the film, chopping off many scenes of bullfighting and of Johnny's friendship with Manolo, making it a simple romantic tale of his pursuit of Anita. These cuts were apparently made to make the film more palatable for audiences by John Ford after he was invited by the film's producer, his buddy John Wayne. It will make for an interesting curiosity when I get to it.

A few words about the Powerhouse/Indicator blu-ray:

Video quality on the DC is variable. Most sequences appear solid enough, with a veneer of grain, but several shots have a softer look with blown out whites, density fluctuations and even a bit of wobble. These shots may be exclusive to what was used for the reconstruction of the DC, I'm not sure. The quality of the film itself is good enough to justify any deficiencies in the source. The (mostly) English mono audio is fine. The Spanish characters speak to each other in Spanish and these lines are not translated (but they are transcribed in full when you turn on the subs).

Extras-wise, I have not gone through them as yet but Indicator seems to have done another sterling job of compiling lengthy featurettes on Boetticher's life and movies, and the special place this film has in his career, and my copy includes the chunky booklet which I assume is packed with interesting content (the LE is still available for a very reasonable sum, and even without this booklet this can be regarded as a packed release and highly recommended).

Bramayugam aka Age of Madness [dir. Rahul Sadasivan]

The trailer I saw of Bramayugam gave me a different impression of what it would be - the remote setting, distancing grayscale imagery, atonal score elements, oblique dialog, staccato editing rhythm, these suggested an existential nightmare, something in the vein of Robert Eggers' The Lighthouse or that amazing Marathi horror film Kaul - The Calling.

The actual film is a different beast. In most part it is basically Dracula...specifically the first act of Dracula, in which Jonathan Harker is invited into and later imprisoned within the titular vampire's decrepit castle. This is one of the best remembered segments of Bram Stoker's seminal novel, and with good reason. Telling the story from Harker's perspective Stoker builds an incredible foundation of awe and dread, making Dracula such a looming presence he shadows even those significant stretches he is absent from the narrative. While Bramayugam is not a direct adaptation, owing more to local folklore, Rahul Sadasivan as writer-director brilliantly recreates that same essence.

The 17th century Malabar (Kerala) period and moody black and white framing place us from the outset in a vastly different world; we become ready to believe anything the story has to offer us. This story's Harker is Thevan (Arjun Ashokan) who is first seen running through the forest with a companion. They are escaping a fate of slavery and oppression. But the forest is no safe haven either. In a move that early on announces the film's supernatural leanings, Thevan's friend is consumed by a Yakshi (tree spirit), and he must continue his flight alone into the wilderness. This aspect is highlighted in the shot where Thevan appears dwarfed alongside a vast raging waterfall. His journey is analogous to the rugged trail Harker follows in the Carpathian mountains.

Finally, Thevan reaches a crumbling old manse. Following an interaction with a surly cook-butler (Sidharth Bharathan) that catches him stealing coconuts, Thevan is brought into the presence of the house's aged master. Mammootty's measured introduction though voice, footsteps low-angled close-ups and rear profile is of course a reflection of his star status, but it also serves to impress the rank and prestige of his character Kodumon Potti. Of course, a large part of that grandeur is now faded - Potti lives alone, attended only by the cook who is not above pooh-poohing his master's courtly affectations. When Thevan, a court singer by training, pleases him with his musical ability Potti expresses regret that in lieu of gifts of gold, he can only offer him meals and shelter. Mammootty plays Potti with a masterful blend of magnanimity and autocracy - he welcomes the lower-caste Thevan as a guest, but snarls at the slightest hesitation towards his commands. When he challenges Thevan to a game of dice to decide whether he must remain or can go, the latter has no choice in the matter (which is why I don't agree with the comparisons made to Faust, the protagonist has no agency in this wager). At least within this closed universe Potti is omniscient, exerting even supernatural authority in a manner that echoes Dracula's summoning of his wolves to keep Harker from leaving.

The bulk of Bramayugam is a seething claustrophobic drama generated by the interplay between these three characters. The script underlines Thevan's subjugation to the master's will - he loses track of time and his past gets erased from memory. I won't delve much into the details of the plot thereon, which brings in demons, body-swapping, shape-shifting and sorcery as Thevan struggles for a way to be liberated from his prison. Towards the end, there is a sequence in which Thevan comes up against an implacable force of darkness in his quest to escape. With its throat-gripping mastery of visuals and storytelling, this scene alone is a feat of world-class horror film-making.

Other film critics have talked about Bramayugam's social exploitation metaphors, and that's hardly surprising. Dracula himself has been analyzed as a symbol of feudal exploitation, literally sucking the blood of the peasantry. The high-ranking Potti demands complete control over the lives (and souls) of his dependents. Between Thevan and the cook is a different game of social one-upmanship, which opens up additional layers after certain plot revelations are made. The control obtained through sorcery and talismans is analogous to the power of rank and status, and evil persists in the world because no individual is immune to the temptation of wielding that power. 

But if you're worried about having to read between the lines, rest assured, Bramayugam is perfectly enjoyable even at surface level. One connection the film has to Robert Eggers' work is its commitment to examine in detail the life and rituals of another time. Using, I suppose, a mixture of real locations and constructed sets (production designer Jotish Shankar), the film provides a seamless other world, primitive and isolated. Small details like the scum of rice over the jar of fermenting liquor are rendered in a matter-of-fact way that gives the proceedings a ring of authenticity. You can smell the decay in the air, feel the tension heat up the hermetic space. The decision to shoot in black and white was an inspired one, and DoP Shehnad Jalal provides memorably stark shadow-wreathed images.

Given the rarity of the species in India, it's wonderful when you get a horror film for which you do not need to make allowances when measuring it up against examples of eerie cinema from across the world. Like Kaul and Tumbbad in recent times, Bramayugam is a fantastic example of evolved serious-minded horror cinema we should celebrate.

Yavanika aka Curtain [dir. KG George]

On a trusted friend's recommendation, I recently checked out Yavanika, a celebrated mystery drama by KG George.

Yavanika is centered around a musical drama troupe, whose main tabla player Ayyappan (Bharat Gopi) suddenly goes missing. As he is a habitual drunkard, it takes a while for the other members to regard his disappearance in a serious light. When they finally do, an investigation is launched. Jacob (Mammootty), the inspector leading the enquiry, conducts a series of interrogations with the rest of the  troupe, and other characters. He gauges their relationship and attitude towards Ayyappan, probing to see if any of them is responsible for his disappearance and possible death.

Terms like 'Rashomon Effect' have been used to describe Yavanika's story, but it's more like one of Agatha Christie's mysteries. You have a gallery of possible suspects, each giving their stories; the detective has to find out if one or more of them is lying. Struturally, much of Yavanika is narrated in flashbacks as Jacob reconstructs the character of Ayyappan and his equation with the other drama company members. Jacob's approach is to be confrontational: he accuses the subject of being behind Ayyappan's disappearance with the aim of breaking down their composure and getting them to blurt out information. This also serves as an examination of the other characters in the narrative. A similar approach was later adopted with Saswata Mukherjee in the Detective Shabor films.

Unfortunately, there is little subtlety in the flashbacks: From the very outset Ayyappan is a blackguard - a drunk lecherous chauvinist that corners and uses women for sex and to extract money from. His abrasive behavior frequently gets him into quarrels with the other men in the troupe, so they are suspect too. I have to confess that the lack of nuance in Ayyappan's personality makes the repeated flashbacks across the 2.5 hour running time a bit of a slog. There are moments of pleasure when the other characters reveal facets of themselves. The film has a large cast of recognizable names in the supporting cast and, within the script's limitations, they acquit themselves well. One striking bit is when Jagathi's jokester character reveals that he keeps making wisecracks because that's the only way he can cope with his life's miseries. While the central mystery isn't a particularly devious one, I liked the device of the play-within-the-film, in which certain events are foreshadowed in an oblique way.

Another interesting aspect was the contrast between Ayyappan's dominant stance towards his women and Jacob's equation with his wife - Jacob and his wife address each other as friends, he canvasses her opinion on the case and she is not diffident about rebuking his lapses of judgement. This depiction of equal camaraderie in a marriage certainly wasn't a norm in 80's Indian movies and is therefore refreshing to see.

On the whole, Yavanika is not as gripping or layered as I should have liked, but definitely interesting at least as a one-time watch. The full film in rather decent image quality is available to stream on Youtube with hard-coded English subtitles:

Kaathal - The Core [dir. Jeo Baby]

In my take on Rajkumar Hirani's PK (read HERE), I described it as "...a slipshod, almost insufferable movie that by the theme it tackles and the willingness therein of the people behind it to attach their clout becomes ironically a courageous, even important film." Kaathal - The Core, its clumsy caption notwithstanding, does not require that level of allowance. It is a quiet, measured narrative packed with noble characters and dignified performances. But with all its sincere intentions, it's really more a sermon on Christian kindness and openness to alternate sexual orientations than a credible narrative.

Of course, Kaathal is hardly alone in that aspect. Thirty years ago in Hollywood, Jonathan Demme made Philadelphia, in which a gay lawyer files suit against his employer for having fired him after he had contracted AIDS. Tom Hanks played the lead, one of the first major-league stars to portray an openly homosexual character. The film is an awkward mix of maudlin drama and AIDS info-dump, but is important for bringing a more balanced discussion about AIDS and homosexuality into the mainstream. We can make a similar case for Kaathal.

In the story, star Mammootty's protagonist Matthew Devassy is presented as a pillar of conventional virtue. A sincere and well-liked political worker with the prestigious lineage of a principled father, Matthew is the party favorite to contest the local elections. Prior to the film's main conflict the brief glimpse of his home life - apart from the father there is his long-married wife Omana (Jyothika) and teenage daughter Femy (Anagha Akku) - suggests a harmonious existence. The only ripple on this calm surface is that Matthew and his father barely speak to each other. In a later scene, Matthew himself puts forth that he is in any case a man of few words and when you have lived long enough with someone, you eventually reach a point where nothing much remains to be said.

In a perhaps unnecessarily oblique way, we are told that Omana has served Matthew a divorce notice, citing mental cruelty. Matthew seems more disturbed by the timing of the action rather than its intention - it is not him, but the lawyer who questions her allegation of cruelty. This is because Matthew harbors the guilty secret of being a closet homosexual. In the decades of their marriage, he has denied his wife her right to companionship and sexual happiness, searching for his own occasional comfort in the arms of the mild-mannered local driving instructor (Sudhi Kozhikode). But once the case has been opened, there can be no secrets.

Jeo Baby previously made The Great Indian Kitchen, which aimed to expose the insidious slavery and oppression of women in domestic settings. But it shot itself in the foot by eventually painting its male characters so one-dimensionally vile as to be detached from the more widespread 'cruelty by indifference' that homemakers everywhere face. Kaathal tries to create the impression of a more nuanced narrative. Even after the divorce notice has been served, Omana lives on in the same house and continues her family duties. There are no angry outbursts or hateful standoffs between the spouses, only sad silences. It is suggested that she only initiated the divorce proceedings after Section 377 was struck down in the courts, as her accusation would have previously led to criminal proceedings against him. While he has at least had occasional respite with his secret lover, her life has been an emotional desert. It is a level of nobility and self-sacrifice that makes her less a believable character, more a mouthpiece.  If they had at least shown a degree of friendship and cordial interaction between them as a couple, it would have gone some way to swallow the longevity of the union. In the film's commitment to being 'sensitive' and avoid sensationalizing, there is also a noticeable degree of soft-footing - neither Omana's lawyer or his political opponents in that allegedly conservative society demonize Matthew's sexuality and marital infidelity, which seems too good to ring true.

But for all its flaws, Kaathal is a palatable non-offensive drama with dignified performances from its lead cast, and its star-power gives it the reach to raise more open-minded sympathetic discussions about closet homosexuality in our society, which can only be a good thing.

Croupier [dir. Mike Hodges]

In Mike Hodges' Croupier, a young Clive Owen plays Jack Manfred, a struggling author with some history as a croupier (that's a casino dealer). While initially reluctant, he is persuaded by his fast-talking shady entrepreneur father into taking up a croupier post at a local casino. As an employee Jack has to follow the house rules - no relationships with customers or fellow croupiers, and if you spot anyone cheating, report it. Working at the casino seems to evoke something deep in Jack. He enjoys the feeling of dealing out the fortunes of the gamblers, of seeing the losers ruin themselves. He starts writing a novel about a croupier called Jake, an obvious alter-ego. In traditional hard-boiled noir fashion we get a good bit of inner monologue voice-over from Jack/Jake.

Jack's live-in girlfriend Marion (Gina Mckee), a former policewoman turned store security agent, is not pleased at the change in him after the new job. Meanwhile Jack doesn't always play by the workplace rules. He hangs out with one colleague who he has observed cheating without reporting him, has a one-night stand with another when she comes to his aid after an assault by a disgruntled patron. The crux is when an attractive female gambler Jack seems to be developing feelings for (Alex Kingston) brings him a proposal to help with carrying out a heist at the casino.

In another movie this heist would be the film's centerpiece, and it would end with Jack emerging as the hero after battling both his manipulators and his own conscience. But in the screenplay from Paul Mayersberg (who wrote two David Bowie vehicles - The Man Who Fell to Earth and Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence), Croupier isn't as straight-faced a caper as that. It's more about the effect the casino world has on Jack as a person, how it makes him do things he thought he wouldn't. At several points in the film Jack repeats "I never gamble", but the increasingly dangerous manner in which he violates the house rules and even considers accepting a part in the heist suggest a deep gambler complex within.

After sitting through Shoot 'Em Up, whose appeal was lost on me, for a long time I hated Clive Owen's surly face. But I have to admit, he can be really good in the right part. Along with the off-beat SF thriller Children of Men (reviewed HERE), this is another solid vehicle for the actor. Owen's poker-faced opacity makes him perfect for the lead part; you cannot predict the direction of his moral compass  At one point, when he tells Marion, "You are my conscience." she retorts with "Don't you have one of your own then?". The answer might well be no. But his Jack is no villain either - when he discovers that Marion has betrayed him with regards to the heist, it does not embitter him or reduce his affection for her. At the end, when he learns how he was set up for the heist, his response is not anger, but a cynical chuckle about how he was part of a larger gamble. Such murkiness does mute the adventure aspect of the film, but it gives us a more nuanced noir drama where the 'happy ending' is an amorphous entity.

A few words on the UK Limited Edition (LE) blu-ray package from Arrow Video (There is also a 4K UHD version for those so equipped):

Arrow's transfer is sourced from a recent 4K restoration which looks smashing. At least  to my untrained eye, there don't appear to be any revisionist color grading anomalies, and both detail and film-like appearance are pleasing. The lone audio track is lossless PCM 2.0 (The back cover mentions a 5.1 surround track but it's definitely not present in the setup menu) - this is a decent track although not particularly aggressive, and it does require raising your volume setting a few notches above usual. Extras on the disc include two commentaries and multiple lengthy interviews with selected cast and crew. The LE has a bonus disc with a career-spanning documentary on Mike Hodges, whose other films include the gritty working class crime drama Get Carter and the ultra-flamboyant Flash Gordon movie.

Interestingly, the movie disc is labeled as disc 1, so I wonder if they are planning a separate pressing for the standard edition release or will the Hodges documentary not remain the LE exclusive it currently is.

Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash [dir. Edwin]

Vengeance is Mine... is in many ways an unexpected movie. Based on a novel by Eka Kurniawan, which I haven't read, the title makes it sound like one of countless spaghetti westerns pumped out in the 60's and 70's. But it's actually an Indonesian drama set in the 1980's, in the late phase of the autocratic Suharto regime. It starts off like a martial arts action movie with a cocky badass hero and features several brutal hand-to-hand combat sequences, but at its core is a deep romance. It subverts many of the usual tropes of revenge in movies and, after a point, even goes into magic realism mode. How's that for straddling genres?

The conventionality of the beginning is also relative. When was the last time you saw an action movie where the lead guy (Mathino Lio) is sexually impotent? Here it is upfront, presented as the driving engine behind his character's violent streak, because his masculinity has no other outlet. The leading lady (Ladya Cheryl, my favorite actor in this movie) is also a hyper-violent no-holds-barred brawler that on their first encounter kicks his face up his butt in combat, before they proceed to fall in love. She accepts his impotence as a fact, but it has consequences later that tear their life apart. Their condition is a reflection of disturbing incidents that occurred during their respective childhoods - She was molested by a teacher and he witnessed a woman's brutal rape-murder. This has been interpreted by multiple critics as a metaphor for the oppressive political regime and moral corruption that prevailed in Indonesia in that period, and its debilitating impact on the people's psyche (it's not something the film tries to punch you in the face with). The magic realism aspect, involving the unearthing of a certain character referred to in the past, is disorienting when it happens, and it's not explained out in the explicit manner a less confident maker would succumb to. Film-maker Edwin trusts the audience to fill in the gaps for themselves.

In consequence, Vengeance is Mine... may sometimes seem meandering, and it definitely does not stick to genre limitations; it's as serious about being a humanistic drama or an absurdist fable as it is about being an action flick. But in all of its phases it always remains interesting and off-kilter. For me it was mainly the very palpable chemistry between the leads that kept me constantly interested in their fate. I also love the manner in which the camera (DoP Akiko Ashizawa) captures their intimate physical and emotional moments; obviously a great deal of thought was given to this.

I would like to talk more about the film, go into some of the ways it deflects conventional arcs into something new, but I don't right now know how I can do that without spoiling the film for people that haven't previously seen it. I'm thinking I'll come back for a stab at that at a later stage. But this much is clear, for those looking for entertainment off the beaten track and with a little more emotional substance, it is certainly a film worth watching.

The film is currently screening on Netflix, but I caught it on the UK blu-ray release from Arrow Video, about which a few words:

This is a recent film, but it was shot in 16mm - It looks a little soft, but textures are good and the colors are vibrant. There primary audio track is 5.1 DTS-HDMA (with an option of lossless stereo), but I did not experience a lot of activity in the surrounds. There are a good number of meaty extras, including interviews with the cast and crew, and behind-the-scenes footage from its making. My copy came with a slipcover (the reverse art features the Indonesian title and different artwork) and booklet with a pretty good essay from cult movie enthusiast Josh Hurtado.