of late, our cinemas have been hosting some incredible films. well, im not so sure about all the cinema halls, but the sort art-farty scene has a queue of awesome-foursome films waiting to be consumed by the 4 adults, 2 students and one goat that normally peruses the arty film circuit in this one horse-hijacked town called durban.
Sean Penn's Into the Wild was a cinematographer's dream film. panoramic shots of unadulterated Alaska. would tickle the membranes for all those who ever desired venturing out on their own, leaving the world of er, worldly desires, freeing them self from belonging and ushering the soul away from vanity. pity the film was incredibly pessimistic and while insightful...lacked some sort of x-factor, that left me stunned without respite.
Taare Zameen Par. This Aamir Khan directed film is a Bollywood masterpiece. Its intimately shot, awesome music and character development, and for the genre it fits into, the audience it attacks, is truly a winner. Aamir Khan has jazzed up teaching, and brought attention to dyslexia, without becoming preachy. Pity the climax uses winning a competition as measurement...but its forgiveable...but over and above, TZP is what Bollywood ought to be..
Juno is an awesome film. It is intelligent, sensitive and pretty spunky all at the same time. Screenplay and dialogues along with the direction and acting is totally first class. Film is a little simplistic in parts, with the romantic link-up between teenage mum and teenage lover a lil too weirdly faulty at the climax. Film raises questions, does not offer solutions, but showcases a few options of approach...
Jodhaa Akbar. Historically problematic, especially in regards to Akbar being an awesome secularist but a wacky Moghul Emperor that catalyzed the end of the Moghul reign which ultimately led to the advent of the rail road in India (British Empire). But seriously, who cares. Another Bollywood epic, with good performances from the lead & villain, rich music from maestro AR Rahman & grossly classic cinematogrpahy and art direction. While Akbar comes across as an impotent pansy at times, the film is an ode to the charm of the Moghul dynasty and to secular, inclusive values at a time in India when such is in quite short supply. Film could have done with some editing - almost 4 hours is pretty suffocating - but it is a short journey back in time to the Moghul Empire.
Love in the time of cholera. While the classic text has garnered enough interest and intellectual debate, this film will surely be remembered as quite a poor attempt to fuse a doomed love story within a larger context of war and disease in which the story was set. The film offers respite with the beautiful women on show, but remains incessantly superficial and, in short, lame. Two really important characters were played by popular Hollywood heroes who are normally Mexican comedians or latino detectives or something pretty unserious in tv serials or films, and it was hard to take them seriously, especially with freudian american accent slips every now and then. Also, the film should have been in Spanish and not English, and for fuck sake, Shakira should not have been leading the soundtrack...
