egress63 Reviews

Hannah Arendt (2012)

Good movie but intended only for a knowledgeable audience

[7/10 · 5 November 2018]

I first learnt about Hannah Arendt two years ago and since then she has become one of the most influential contemporary philosophers who has developed the way I think. Having read a few of her works, I was happy to discover this biopic and was hoping that it would help me understand her work better. I was also hoping that it would be nice introduction into the work of Hannah Arendt for some of my friends or family members (I've mentioned her to them several times).

The movie succeeds in the first part but fails disastrously in the second attempt. As an personal already acquainted with her work and her life, I found this movie to be easy to follow and very well produced. It introduced some characters like Hans Jonas and Gershom Scholem whom I had not known about earlier. However, I don't think this movie serves as a good jumping point for a viewer who is completely unaware of Hannah, her work during the Eichmann trial and the repercussions that followed. The director assumes that the viewer knows all this (including the concept of 'banality of evil') and instead focuses on the milieu Hannah was in and how she came to the understanding how totalitarian societies can produce people like Eichmann. That said, a person like my father, who knows nothing about Hannah or her work would not be able to get all this simply because the movie does not provide enough exposition about these concepts (until the last 10 minutes of the movie).

So, who is the movie for? I think this movie is made expressly for a college professors who are teaching contemporary western philosophy to their undergraduate students and want to increase the understanding of their class. The movie would serve as a wonderful teaching accessory that may spur some students to read about Hannah further. However, it does not offer the ordinary layman who is unaware of Hannah Arendt anything much of significant value.

6.5/10.

Under the Skin (I) (2013)

An art-house movie masquerading as sci-fi flick!

[6/10 · 3 November 2018]

Watch this one if you like your movies with no exposition, little plot and glacial progression. None of these things are necessarily bad but it is well worth pointing this out for viewers who may enter the movie expecting a fast sci-fi thriller but instead get treated to a movie that is more social commentary and less about a plot.

The movie is wonderfully acted by Scarlett Johansson and the direction is purposefully bland so that any inattentive viewer may simply get bored. However underlying the blandness is a rich commentary which to me spoke to how men and women interact and how relationships necessarily imply vulnerability. I'm sure other viewers would project their own views and come away from the movie with their own unique interpretations about what this movie has to say.

On the whole, this is a decent movie. It may not be the best movie for a Friday evening (which is what I did!) but if you're into art-house movies that are inscrutable and ponderous, this just may be the next movie that you ought to watch.

6/10.

Hannah Arendt (2012)

Good movie but intended only for a knowledgeable audience

[7/10 · 27 October 2018]

I first learnt about Hannah Arendt two years ago and since then she has become one of the most influential contemporary philosophers who has developed the way I think. Having read a few of her works, I was happy to discover this biopic and was hoping that it would help me understand her work better. I was also hoping that it would be nice introduction into the work of Hannah Arendt for some of my friends or family members (I've mentioned her to them several times).

The movie succeeds in the first part but fails disastrously in the second attempt. As an personal already acquainted with her work and her life, I found this movie to be easy to follow and very well produced. It introduced some characters like Hans Jonas and Gershom Scholem whom I had not known about earlier. However, I don't think this movie serves as a good jumping point for a viewer who is completely unaware of Hannah, her work during the Eichmann trial and the repercussions that followed. The director assumes that the viewer knows all this (including the concept of 'banality of evil') and instead focuses on the milieu Hannah was in and how she came to the understanding how totalitarian societies can produce people like Eichmann. That said, a person like my father, who knows nothing about Hannah or her work would not be able to get all this simply because the movie does not provide enough exposition about these concepts (until the last 10 minutes of the movie).

So, who is the movie for? I think this movie is made expressly for a college professors who are teaching contemporary western philosophy to their undergraduate students and want to increase the understanding of their class. The movie would serve as a wonderful teaching accessory that may spur some students to read about Hannah further. However, it does not offer the ordinary layman who is unaware of Hannah Arendt anything much of significant value.

6.5/10

Miss Lovely (2012)

A descent into filth

[6/10 · 11 March 2018]

Here's a 'Bollywood' movie that breaks almost every possible trope that Hindi movies have and that too with what style and pizazz! Alas, it does so without paying much attention its script and therein lies the movie's weakness.

The movie itself is an exploration of the shady underbelly of the Mumbai film industry by focusing on the tribulations of two brothers who are trying to make it 'big' but at the risk of losing everything they hold dear. At the same time, we as audience are given a glimpse into just how dirty, sleazy, crass, amoral and downright abhorrent the world of unorganized Bombay film industry is. What makes the movie so compelling is that it does this with great visual style that holds the viewer attention. So even when I was disgusted with what I was seeing, I was completely enrapt.

At least for the first 30 minutes of the movie. Sadly, the plot and the script is loose, the dialogue is shoddy and the overall plot is meandering with multiple plot lines crisscrossing each other with not much attention paid to a single one. As a result, the movie as a story feels unsatisfactory. However, as a portrait into the B/C grade movie industry, it was fascinating.

I have no idea of what's happening in Bollywood in 2018, but I do know the more things change, they remain the same. In that sense, this movie may as well be a description of what's happening even today - I wouldn't be suprised to learn that some flat in Byculla or Santacruz is being used right now as an impromptu studio for a shooting blue film with some hapless young girl lying naked, being exploited, dreaming of making it 'big' with strips of cocaine on the coffee table.

PS: In a away, the lack of loose plot makes sense. IMDB's trivia page reveals that the movie was supposed to be a documentary but the makers felt they were getting too close to the industry which still has criminal elements associated with it. Risking for their lives, the movie makers decided to fictionalize the characters and make a movie instead.

Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters (2017)

Stereotypical shonen garbage featuring good CG animation

[3/10 · 11 March 2018]

Shonen anime is a genre that is primarily targeted towards teenage boys and is mostly action oriented. Plots typically feature black and white characters with no shades of grey, hot-headed males who scream "aaaaggghhhhhhhh" when fighting their enemies (think of Dragon Ball Z fight scene), one or two female characters that serve as a side-kicks for the lead male characters that sprout lines such as "I want to become stronger" and older characters who are shown to be indecisive, inept and/or corrupt. The overall theme for most works is that "hard work is good and the young generation is more 'visionary' and 'inspiring' than the older generation".

This is exactly what Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters is all about. Featuring a paper-thin plot which would have taken the screenwriter less than two hours to write, one dimensional characters that sprout technical gabled jargon such as "asymmetric permeable shield" and "black hole formation probability is 440%" and predictible action sequences, this is easily an avoidable movie that will impress no one except possibly die hard Godzilla fans. All this is unfortunate since this comes from a director/screenwriter who in the past has made some terrific works that have been well recieved and been very influential within the anime industry.

Do yourself a favor - avoid this and save 90 minutes of your life for it is much too short to be wasted on trash like this.

Nil Battey Sannata (2015)

A fairy tale take on an important social issue

[5/10 · 8 January 2018]

In Bollywood, there is a term for movies that exaggerate emotions and situations to the point that the depictions of the characters, their dialogues, their actions etc. become detached from reality and enter the realm of fantasy. Such movies are called 'filmy'. In 'filmy' movies, viewers are asked to dispel their notions of rationality and realism and are expected to simply allow themselves to be taken into a fantastical journey by the writer/director. Any questioning of why a character would be so nice (or so evil) is impertinent since the viewer is expected to know that the movie is pure fantasy.

This is one such 'filmy' movie. It is, as said by a reviewer below, a well-made and sweet movie. However, given the theme that it presents (the importance of education necessary for uplifting people from poverty), the approach taken by the director to mix fantasy with the grim reality (i.e. the hardships faced by poor parents for educating their children), the movie, it's characters and it's dialgoue felt not just out-of-place but shallow. For instance, in the real India - a maid (or a domestic servant) would never be able to afford to make chinese food at home. No 15 year old child would ever make a statement to his classmate: "Your parents are not asserting their dreams on you by asking you to study. For you are their dream." The entire movie is full of such cliched dialogue, set-ups and characters that made me feel that I was watching Cinderella (or some other fairy tale) when I should have been watching something as grim as The Game of Thrones. Thus, instead of being a hard-hitting realistic take on an important social issue, the movie is sugar coated fluff.

So, yes this is a well-made and sweet movie. It may be even worth your 100 minutes. But in the end, it's a cute teddy bear with little relation to reality. As long as you keep these expectations, thumbs up. Else, two thumbs down.

Endgame (I) (2009)

Keep Wikipedia ready!

[8/10 · 21 November 2010]

Well, my knowledge of Apartheid is limited to my knowledge of a personality called Nelson Mandela and that he led a non-violent struggle for equality. That's about it. So, when I saw this title and the good reviews that it had received - I decided to try it out.

Unfortunately for me, I was thrown into South African history (this was expected) and I was surrounded with over 20 character (this was not expected). Botha, Thabo, Mbeki, Alie Sachs, Wille Esterhuyse, some gold consolidations organization, a PR agent - within the first twenty minutes, my head was spinning. And thus, whenever a new character came on screen, I had to press the pause button and look up Wikipedia. That is how I watched this movie.

So, for the first 35 minutes or so, I spent an equal amount of time reading Wikipedia (which was not bad, I got a lot of info) but what this means is that Endgame is not meant for the viewer who is not ready to break a sweat. Unless your knowledge of South African apartheid is not up to scratch, Endgame will make little sense by itself.

However, once you know the characters and their motives the movie turns into an extremely compelling drama and a case study of how negations are done. This would make a terrific add-on to a history course. It is a very educational movie and the acting by William Hurt and Chiwetel Ejiofor was excellent and very convincing. The direction was also very well done and the script writing was very effective (considering the nature of the subject).

In the end, this should have been a 3-4 hour miniseries. The treatment of Apartheid with proper introduction to the major characters ought to get that much time. Unfortunately Endgame is all that we get. Go ahead and watch it - it is worth the effort.

Still Life (2006)

Demolition of human relationships in the background of Three Gorges

[7/10 · 19 April 2009]

Still Life is not your average movie. I understood this fact about the movie in the first 3-4 minutes when the camera panned giving us the view of people on a ship playing and chatting - ordinary people. Yes. This is what Still Life is all about - Ordinary Chinese People. The film is a glimpse into their lives, how they struggle against mass displacement with the construction of the Three Gorges dam.

At first, I was looking for some 'plot' - this movies offers none of that. I wanted to find such a plot in the first half hour of the film, i did not get it (which slightly ruined my interpretation of this work). It does not set out to tell the viewer a story. It sets out to show us how Chinese people are effected by such a massive project, how their relationships get demolished and how relationships get formed as previous relationships get broken. It is something that ordinary cinema can not offer. Be prepared.

And as a final note: Don't expect a story to be laid out before you. This is as artsy as a movie can get - it simply lays out a picture before you. It is you, the viewer who has to form your own interpretation of this beautiful work.

Firaaq (2008)

Very good drama but way too short to tie the themes properly

[8/10 · 29 March 2009]

The first attempt of veteran indie actress Nandita Das in directing is a spellbinding film which takes the Gujurat Riots of 2002 as its backdrop. We are introduced to four main plots - a Gujarati family complicit in the riots, one mixed marriage (Muslim male, Hindu female), one Muslim classical singer and one couple who return home after the riots have ended. And caught up in these people is an orphan who has lost his parents and is roaming around the city.

The individual stories of the film are excellently done, themes of inter-religious marriages, abusive husbands, guilt of not helping Muslims, victims turning to violence, police brutality, middle class hypocrisy (One scene was excellent: A wedding is taking place. The bride is being decorated by a Muslim who has had her house burnt. And the bride is cussing how these "bloody Muslims" have ruined her marriage) are very poignantly dealt with.

But the movie feels lacking a thematic closure. It was as if Nandita Das got tired and said "Ok, thats it! 101 minutes, thats all the runtime I can give. I just don't want to connect all these themes!" and left the film. Which is what just what I wanted - a sort of closure. Right now, Firaaq is movie which just gives us a glimpse of these people lives without letting us know what will happen to them in the future. That is something which IMO, should have been shown.

None the less, this is a fine piece of Indian cinema - a far cry from the banal Bollywood dance numbers, masala filled movies. Thumbs up for the effort!

State of Play (2003)

Perhaps the best political suspense series I have seen.

[9/10 · 27 March 2009]

It is not often that really good series based on politics, suspense and a bit of romance + comedy hit our idiot boxes. However, State of Play manages to do all this with such finesse that I was left spellbound. What starts of as a simple murder case becomes so huge that it really boggles the mind. And at all time, it does not seem one bit over-stretched or silly. Add to this three subplots and what you have is a series that is of immense viewing pleasure. All in a runtime of just 300 minutes.

If you want your TV series to be intelligent, do yourself a favour and watch this series. Now.

Battlestar Galactica: Daybreak: Part 2 (2009) Season 4, Episode 20

Good characterization. Shoddy plot development.

[6/10 · 26 March 2009]

BSG was never a well planned series. Creator Ronald Moore himself said in an interview that nothing was planned out in the beginning and every time an episode was written, brainstorming had to be done to get the plot going on forward. As expected, the writers plugged in a number of plot lines, but there are still holes in the plot that you can ram a rhino into it and you won't even get a dent. Many numerous plot lines are completely ignored (the cult of Baltar is one example). Many plot lines are resolved in a very slip shod manner that had me going "Is this for real or is this some sort of early April fools joke?!??" Oh and the preaching of the last 15 minutes. It just would not end! Moore just kept going on and on about how technology can be the end of us all. About how people relying on technology are on a brink. It was *very* irritating to say the least.

But what really ticked me off was the ending. I wont reveal it here explicitly but just say this: I did not enjoy BSG reusing the themes used in "Chariots of the Gods". That was just plain dumb.

In the end, this gets a 6.