IPMAN IN MOVIES !!!

You may be aware of plenty of folk / historic heroes who had been introduced by Chinese movies all these years. A hero who had been depicted a hundred times, may be Wong Fei Hung, portrayed by martial arts stars Kwan Tak-hing, Jackey Chan, Jet li, Vincent Zhao etc. Others may include Huo Yuanjia, Chen Zhen(fictional) etc. But not too many films have been there to tell us something about the legendary grand master of Wing Chun, who lived with us until early 70’s. Westerners or Indians may not be much familiar with this name; they are of course familiar to the martial art legend Bruce Lee who is the most famous disciple of Ip Man.

But in 2008, an epic movie hit the theaters loosely inspired by the life of Ip Man, a semi biographical film in which Donnie yen starred as Ip man. Followed by this, consecutively two other films have come up in the year 2010, one of them being a direct sequel to Ip Man 1 known as IP Man 2 , whereas the other, known as “The legend is Born : Ip Man “ starring Dennis To as Ip Man, which has nothing to do with Donnie Yen starrers,but still lot of similarities which makes it an independent prequel to the Donnie Yen films. The similarities are the following.

• While the Donnie yen films introduce IP man as a family man at his mid 30’s, the Dennis To starrer movie depicts the childhood and younger life of Ip Man ending with his marriage.
• · Dennis To has a stunning resemblance with Donnie Yen.
• · Few actors such as Sammo Hung and Fan Siu-wong who acted in Ip Man 1 & 2 are appearing in Dennis To version also.
• · Sammo Hung worked as action coordinator in all the three films.

IP MAN 1 – Life in Foshang and encounter with Japanese.

Ip Man 1 released in 2008, directed by Wilson Yip. Ip Chung, son of Ip Man, was a consultant for this film and also trained Donnie Yen, in the art of Wing Chun. Movie generally depicts Ip Man’s life in Foshang, known as the city of martial art then, during the Sino-japanese war, and it also give us a brief picture of the Japanese invasion and it’s impact on the Chinese people.

It starts with showing Ip Man as a peaceful family man living with his wife and child. Lot of incidents shown might be fictional, but the basic outline of the film would be true. Ip mans relation with his family, other kung fu teachers in Foshan, his friends and his troubles during the war. Wilson has succeeded in making the film such a way that the spectators would be in the edge of their seat, most of the time, with stunning visuals, thrilling wingchun fight scenes.

Fight choreography by Sammo Hung is one of the plus point in the film. He has tried his best to incorporate 100% wingchun techniques, still I have noticed some flashy visuals of high kicks by Donnie Yen here and there. Even though the film deals with teh life of a martial art master , It is actually a biographical movie which only concentrates on Ip’s life and certain incidents. Cinematography gives a special feel to the eyes, which takes you to the early 20^th century. The theme music is also beautiful.

Technical aspects of the film are too strong. But the credit goes to Wilson Yip who makes this an epic in total. The Japanese, as usual, were shown the brutal villains. But the general Miura, even though being the main antagonist, is shown as a honored man who is dedicated to martial arts and has high respect to the China men who comes to participate in the martial art tournament. He even cares not to injure his opponents, until one of them provoke him.

Donnie Yen was awesome as Yip man, the rare thing happens in martial art movies, that an actor is completely taking the form of the character. This is one of his best performances ever. Overall, a classic movie experience in biography / martial art genere. 8.5/10

IP MAN 2 – Migration to Hong Kong

Okay!! Ip Man 2, I would say, may disappoint you to an extent, but if you can forget about the first part, it is still enjoyable. This film starts right from where the first film ends. It would have been another classic if the makers could make it as they intended to do originally. The sequel was actually supposed to depict the relation between Ip Man and his world famous disciple Bruce Lee, but unfortunately it didn’t happen due to some legal issues with Bruce Lee’s descendants. The film deals with Ip Man’s life in Hong Kong in early 1950’s. In the first part Japanese were the antagonists, where in this film, the Bristish.

Ip Man and family migrate to Hong Kong. The financial status of Ip Man was so bad that he even can’t pay the house rent. The scene in which Ip man’s wife preventing him from opening the door and hide inside home when the landlady was knocking, outlines his pathetic state. That is one of the nicely scripted part of the movie. He eventually starts a martial art school and some incidents followed by this, end up him in a boxing competition with a brutal British boxer, making the film to an ordinary “blood sport” series type movie from a timeless classic.

As usual, the fight choreography was excellent just as in the first part, especially at the climax. But the climax fighting is one of the negative aspects of the film at the same time. It has been shot and choreographed in such a way to thrill the audience; of course it is successful in that sense. The negative part is that, Ip Man, being an expert in Wing Chun, would never struggle so much to defeat a boxer whose attacks are stereo typed. The basic principle of Wing Chun is forgotten there in order to achieve some cinematic effect. Obviously if IP could knock out the boxer too fast, the climax would never be an appealing one. All other technical aspects are in keep with its prequel. Cinematographer is Poon Hang-sang, while in the first one it was O Sing-Pui. The tone difference can be explicitly seen, would have been purposefully done, but very much compatible to the theme.

Donnie Yen ,reprising his role in the sequel, has yet again delivers a stunning performance strongly supported by Sammo Hung whose portrayal of the Hung Gar master is exceptional.

In the final scene, a little boy comes and asks Ip Man “ I want to Learn kung fu. How much “. Ip smiles at him and asks taking a chair and having himself seated, “what is your name ? “.. The kid replies “ I’m Bruce Lee” . Ip asks again “why do you want to learn kung fu “.

Boy: “So that I can beat up people I don’t like” He shows some mannerisms of bruce lee.

Ip: “highly spirited”.. smiles and then says “ Come back when you have grown up”..

He smiles, bowing his head and looks up again to camera.. frame freezes with stunning theme music, followed by some real life still footages of Ip Man and Bruce Lee. Very strong conclusion to a not very strong movie.

“For the glory of Chinese martial Arts “

My rating is: 7.5 / 10.

The Legend is Born: Ip Man: The younger days.

This film directed by Herman Yao, deals with the younger days of Ip Man and has no direct relation with the above films. But I stated earlier, taking into consider some similarities, it can be considered as a prequel to them. A common factor for all these three films is that Sammo Hung worked as the fight choreographer. It has another attraction that Ip Chung, who is the real life son of Ip Man the protagonist of the film, himself appearing in a cameo role. He portrays Leung Bik, Ip Man’s martial uncle and teacher. Also Dennis To is a grand disciple of him in real life.

As per Ip Chun, this version is more historically accurate in many aspects. Also as per him, ,Dennis To, being a Wing Chun expert,has depicted the martial art more convincingly than Donnie Yen. In Ip Chun's own words "In terms of action scenes , Donnie Yen would sometimes lapse from wing chun moves. But dennis used wing chun all the way. One ( Donnie Yen ) learned wing chun so that he can act and the other ( Dennis To ) is a real wing chun practitioner." Sammo Hung alsoi mentioned " Dennis would start with a wing chun stance and would still end with another wing chun stance."

Many characters In the film such as Chan Wah Shun (Ip Man’s teacher portrayed by Sammo Hung ), Ng Chung-sok ( Ip Man’s senior) were real. Some of the incidences really happened in Ip Man’s life has been portrayed with minor differences. E.g.: The encounter with English man during a hockey mach. In real, the encounter really happened with a foreign police man who was seen beating a woman. Ip’s meeting and sparring with Leung Bik (portrayed by Ip Chun) is also real. Still half of the story, such as the romance episode, Japanese assassin’s story, oath brother episode etc. should be fictional.

The film is semi biographical, but unlike the Donnie Yen films, it has comparatively deep insight and analytical dimension towards the martial art, which makes it a cent percent martial art movie. It deals with many aspects of wing chun, its applications and also some revolutionary thoughts. Movie ultimately tries to convey the message that “there is no authentic or unauthentic martial arts in real and changes or additions which could improve its efficiency should be readily accepted. “ Fight scenes are carefully choreographed to be more realistic and authentic. Dennis’ eight diagram pole applications at the climax fight is good to watch.

But as an actor, Dennis To is not at all impressive. At parts, the audience will feel like the protagonist of the movie is really Ip Tin-chi,his oath brother, portrayed brilliantly by Fan Siu-wong. Even though his character has a negative shade, a separate viewing dimension exists in the movie which goes through Ip Tin-chi’s life. This episode also got the contents like, romance, friendship, loyalty to master, heroism, his rising as a business man, bad company, marriage, his dilemma, and the decline; at last the revelation of his life secret. In fact even Ip Man’s life has not dealt in this much depth and intensity. In short, Fan Siu-wong performance outsmarts Dennis To’s portrayal of Ip Man throughout the film. Even his martial art skills are shown colorfully in some scenes. Yuen Biao comes with a serious role as Yips senior and teacher and delivers a mature performance.

Even though there are flaws, this film sticks more to reality and authenticity except the second half.

My rating for the movie: 7.5/10.

******************************************

The Karate Kid - Everybody was kung fu fighting !!!

The Karate Kid ( Actually Kung fu Kid ) is a reboot of the 1984 Hollywood film Karate Kid and can be considered as a carbon copy of the old version conceptwise. A brilliantly made film which resolves what was lacking in the original 1984 version .Jaden Smith ,in this youger age, has delivered a ver mature performance. It is Will Smith's luck that his son is so young,otherwiseJadon would have been a big competitor !! I had watched the old version very earlier and I beg to differ with all claimings of the 1984 version lovers. This film has a lot of difference in the quality of making,character creation .
Story
********
Story line is as same as the 1984 version. But they have shifted the atmosphere to China instead of LA and the martial art reffering to is not Karate ,but Kungfu. The film also shows a mockery of Online teaching Medias, like DVD or books. One can never learn a martial art by seeing a DVD or reading books.

Charatcters who strike:

 
3 charatcters steal all the show. Obviously Jaden Smith is at No1 position taking the character to a new level ( compared to dull performance of his counterpart (Ralph Macchio) in old vesrion.

His  mentor training  , before the shooting has been utilized in the film brilliantly.I think that was another flaw in the 1984 version, Ralph has got no karate experience while doing the old karate kid movie and also the actor who portrayed the Trainer , Patt Moritta, was NOT a martial artist. But in this film, when Jackey Chan did the role of trainer, it was much much concieving and also, I have never seen Jackey in such a serious role. Obviously second character who draws our attention is ofcource of Jackey Chan. Then the third character is "Chen" the villain. I don't know anything about this kid actor, but his portrayal of the villain “Chen” and his kungfu skills were brilliant.

Pros and Cons:
*********************

Actually first half of the movie seems bit  dragging  but it gains its pace gradually. The characters are more emotionally linked each other than the older version. Still, I felt depiction of Han’s tragic past and the sentimental drama was not required. I don’t know why the story was manipulated in such a way that the incidents should take place in China. May be , they can use Kungfu instead of Karate and can have Jackey Chan do an important role.Definitely Chan’s presence would have given much better market to the film worldwide.

Cinematography cannot be called as an outstanding one, but of course adequate. Some beautiful visuals of Chinese natural landscapes can be seen in the movie and they are indeed a feast to the eyes.

Apart from the above, the positive is, the thrilling and effective climax.. A director's signature can apparantly be seen here. I remember the climax was not at all thrilling in the previous version. Most of all it was a film based on a boy who learns kung fu and particpates in a tournament,and they show some real kung fu actually ( even though ,the "scissor lock" take down shown in the climax, is usually from another form of martial art called "Vovinam viet vo dao" (vietnamese )). I'm not sure if such technique exists in kung fu) .The old version was a failure in completely depicting real  moves. , despite having such a name and theme. Fight choreography is good. No wire-fu seemed to have used, perhaps they might have used, but it cannot be noticed anywhere. In a nutshell, this new version of Karate Kid gives everything which is expected from such a movie.

Overall my rating is 8 / 10.

NB: I don’t take into account of logical points for this film, because after all this is just a movie and clearly a remake of the old classic.

TAARE ZAMEEN PAR -That's what is called cinema !!!

I have certain prejudices about bollywood films, and I watch them very rarely .But Amir's debut directorial movie "Tare Zmeen Par" is something which is different from contemporary bollywood flicks.What impressed me much in TZP is that even being a film which is crafted by a main stream actor ,it never tries to boost up his star image. In fact we won’t get to see the star "Amir Khan", we see only an art teacher called "Ram Shankar Nikumbh" in the movie. Nikumbh is introduced only at the end of first half. Amir's effort is appreciable because he didn’t try to make yet another usual Amir khan entertainer, as his maiden dircetoial venture. Instead he has made a perfect socio-drama which has something serious to interfere with spectators.

The film deals with "Dyslexia" which is a learning disability , ie problems in ,reading or spelling etc.. the theme itself is fresh. ie Amir succeeded in the first stage of a basic movie making ; selection of theme. But most impressive is that how he narrates this simple theme and getting us involved in the movie. The story is about a school boy call "Ishaan Awasthy", the central character of the story, who is introduced as a lazy, unintelligent student in the school, regularly getting punishment from his teachers, so on ..but at the same time he is being portrayed as a good observer of nature and surroundings. ... The entire story revolves around this character “Ishaan”.


The casting for this character is an important factor in the movie. I can’t imagine any other actor, other than ‘Darsheel Safary”, as Ishaan Awasthy. Here I purposefully call him as “actor”, instead of child artist... Because the boy has displayed an incredible performance which can never be under estimated. He has got good control over the body language, expressions and dialogue presentation. One which comes into my mind is, the scene in which he is being interrogated by his father when he finds out the absent note written by his brother for him to bunk the class.

The second stage of the story also begins with this scene. Ishaan’s father decides to send him to a boarding school despite the weak protest of Ishaan’s mother and elder brother. The frustrated mind of the child at this situation is depicted well by Amir, especially the dreaming scene. But things are going bad to worse here onwards. At his new surroundings, he finds his life miserable and lonely…until he meets his new art teacher Ram Shankar Nikumbh who is joining the school as a guest faculty, enacted by Amir Khan himself. Frankly speaking, the introduction scene of Amir doesn’t fit into such a natural movie. But considering the the overall quality of the movie, we can just forget that scene.

It is Nikumbh who finds out the real problem faced by Ishaan- Dyslexia. He visits Ishaan's parents to discus about it.Some of the dialogues delivered by Nikumbh are strong enough to blow our mind, especially parents and teachers who mishandle children suppressing their born talents and forcing them to be mere bookworms; a case in point is the question he asks to Mr.Awasthy (Vipin Sharma), regarding Ishaan’s problem goes like this; “I am asking the reason for the disease and you are telling me the symptoms. “ And another scene in which he shows the packet of a toy to Ishaan’s father and asking him to read the Chinese letters in it in order to make him aware of the real problem with ishaan, is also a good one.

The transformation of Ishaan as a brilliant student has been depicted step by step. Amir displays some methods of teaching, even though I am not sure if those methods are really working for a boy having Dyslexia, still it seems adequate in the movie. The climax of the movie shows a different kind of painting competition participated by all students and teachers.

Amir is not a professional director yet, so some minor flaws, like unnecessary dragging in certain scenes and some melodramas, can simply be ignored. Also we should ignore the grammatical aspects. Moreover he has given a movie which is competing to any classic given by veteran directors earlier. He has shown adequate discipline in the making of his directorial debut and which is highly appreciable. He didn’t show any technical extravaganza in the film. Even computer graphics used only for some required scenes. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy team has given good music and well suited BGM for the movie.

Last but not least, this film may sometimes make your eyes filled, but not by cheap sentimental scenes. So don’t worry about that. Amir Khan tries to give some good social messages to parents as well as children and he has succeeded in the same to a great extend.

My rating for this movie is 9/10 .

A truthful Account Of Grief - La Stanza Del figlio (The Son’s Room), Italy

Basically people watch movies for entertainment and/or time pass .If you come under this category,
I suggest never watch this movie. Because ,at certain parts,the movie “The Son’s Room” would make you one of the characters in the movie itself, while you watch it. The Son’s Room, directed by “Nanni Moretti”, is a simple movie which doesn’t claim any technical brilliance, but extremely touching. One who watched P.Padmarajan’s “Moonnampakkam” (malayalalam(1988), may find some narrow similarities in both movies.In fact the themes are very much similar. Both movies depict ‘death’ and it’s aftereffects.
A group of people, an unexpected death, how the death affect to each of them and their personal life. This is the constructional line of the movie.

The movie start with introducing us the happy family life of Giovanni, a psychoanalyst,living with his wife and their daughter, Irene, a teenage son Andrea. The first half an hour of the movie simply narrates their happy family life, showing the intensity of the relation between each character. Giovanni spends much of his time with his patients, people with different kind of mental problems. Irene is an excellent basket ball player, and also a member of the school team. But, worst thing happens in their life, when Andrea goes to scuba diving with his friends and meets with an accident. The director doesn’t show the accident scene, we will come to know about his death along with Andrea’ father. From this point onwards, the movie would become uncomfortable for at least some of you. Because the scenes going to come after this point, are very much realistic. The very next scene is a silent one but, extremely effective. Giovanni goes to his daughter, who is in the middle of a match; Irene, seeing her father, wishes him cheerfully, but suddenly gets the red signal seeing Giovanni’s abnormal face, and smile on her face fades away. Not a single dialogue is present in this scene, but the performance of both actors in this scene is mind blowing. The face expressions of the actors and the silence gives a terrific effect of the scene.

Following scenes, the open casket being closed, first in a metal shielding and then in wood, each screw drilled in to make the seal strong. It’s the thing you do, but the idea is beyond our comprehension of life…Nanni Moretti might have purposefully used slow and detailed shots, to depict this scene, so that the viewer will get the very similar effect of attending the funeral. Just after the casket was closed, Irene asks the men to open it again; she looks his kid brother for a few more moments and then asks them to close it. No more explanation needed for that scene; obviously, she knows that it would be the last glance of his brother in her life . The background for this scene is pin drop silence.

After this traumatic incident, the entire family struggle to adapt the the truth. Movie then deals with, their mental grief and guilt, their loss, memories, ..Giovanni finds himself inadequate to solve the problems of his patients. He quits his profession, recieving unexpected reactions from each patient. He has a guilty consciousness that he didn’t call his son to walk with him on that day as planned earlier, instead he went to visit a patient; He always replays past to what might have been , in his mind .. Irene is very much disturbed and she feel anger to every one .She gets herself suspended from her team, breaks up with her boyfriend but she is not at all bothered about those incidents.

Even though movie deals much with Giovanni and his personal life, I liked the character Irene; Her attachment to her kid brother is shown only after his death (eg:scene where she take last look at Andrea) .There is a saying that if you have lost your parents, you have lost your past; if you lost your children, you have lost your future; if you have lost your spouse, you have lost your present; and if you have lost your sibling, then you have lost a part of your past, present and future. So the most sympathetic character is Irene. her disturbed mind is revealed well in the basket ball match ,when she begins to fight with her opponent and even with their supporters, and also in the textile showroom scene.

But in the climax, the director gives us the signs of their life stepping towards a hopeful living. Paola gets a letter to Andrea, from his girlfriend, who is unknown to the family members. Paola calls her and inform about the his death,. Later the girl visits the family, on her way to France, with her friend. The family accompanies them to the border and the trips lead to a relief from the grief to the family.

The movie is made in a simple way. It is slow paced. No technical extravaganza is needed for this movie. Shots and camera movements are simple. This is because director needs us to concentrate on the characters and their life in order to be immersed in the theme and any kind of technical factors like, unusual camera angles, movements, editing would distract the viewers from this.


“The Son’s Room” is for all movie lovers who watch movies for not simply for entertainment. But it may be uncomfortable for you to watch it a second time.

My rating for this movie is 4/5 .

Sathyajith Ray - The Master Craftsman

A famous quote by the Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurazoa goes like this.‘‘

If you have a chance to born as man in the world, do you don’t know about
Sathyajith Ray?...more better than this you say that you don’t know about SUN
and MOON

."

A perfect simile which doesn't need much explainations. As far as Sathyajith Ray is concerned; cinema was not an accidental thing happened in his life; rather it was a fulfillment of his ambitions.

A brief biography (Ref: Seton, Marie. Portrait of a director: Satyajit Ray)

Being an excellent graphic artist trained at Rabindranath Tagore's university Shantiniketan, as well as a good writer, ray already possessed the qualities to be a film maker ,but still the important thing is that his passion towards cinema.At his younger days, just like every young college boy, he also had some personal interests one among them being the love for western and classical music and the other one was watching films. Watching more films made him to think about the technicians rather than the actors,. Thus directors like John Ford, Ernst Lubitsch, Frank Capra etc..became his favorite film makers. After graduation, when he joined Shanthinikethan to study art, The training obtained from Shanthinikethan should have influenced him to build up his filmmaking style later. Also he had read lot of books on cinema at University library. Raymond Spotiswoode's “Grammar of the Film” was one of the most significant one. But still, there was no thought in his mind to become a film maker. Everything happened gradually; he started writing articles on cinema in magazines and also started writing screenplays of his own. In 1947, Ray co-founded Calcutta's first film society along with his friends. Battleship Potemkin was the first film they screened. But the turning point came in 1950 when he traveled to London .Out of the 6 months he spend there ,he watched almost 100 films .Vittorio Dessicca’s “Bicycle Thieves” was one among them . This film changed his perspectives towards filmmaking a lot. The neo-realist style of the film had influenced him in a great extend.

From a Commercial Artist to a Filmmaker

Ray’s first work was Pather Panchali released in 1955. On those days, the Indian film industry was at its childhood stage and traditional movies were like photo dramas. Most of the films were shot just like they picturised a drama with a movie camera. Ray brought a revolution by his neo realistic movie in the contemporary cinema, with brilliantly crafting each frames of his maiden movie venture. He used amateur artists to portray his characters. Moreover he almost shot the film outdoor which was alien to traditional films. A specialty of Ray was that he was flexible to be inspired from contemporary filmmakers and adapt new techniques from them. The Apu trilogy series was rich in its craft, complete utilization of visual elements .He didn’t use even unwanted lightning pattern in any of these movies. I think the 'frame-within-frame' technique (using windows,doors,or cabin windows) was favouite to ray as all teh movies in the Apu series possess many such frames .We should remember, there were not much editing transition styles available for him on those days to use; still he utilized ‘dissolve’ and ‘fade-in’ techniques very effectively. It is Ray who introduced the stylish way of film making (I can’t find anyone before him).

Certain scenes which seemed attractive to me in ‘Pather Panchali’ are:

1. In the opening scene, Durga picking up kittens from their container, shot as if the camera is inside the container. (This technique is still used widely, but remember this is 1955).

2. The stylish introduction of little Apu .

3. Discovery of train by Durga and Apu . ( This one is the most famous scene )

4. The rain scene.

Ray’s filmmaking style reveales that cinema is art of visuals and a director can pass whatever message he needs to tell spectators, a story, an incident, a biography, anything but he should depend on visuals to achieve this purpose. Even though Ray was mostly exposed to foreign/Hollywood movies while he was in a stage of learning , his own films dealt with the typical Indian culture and he portrayed stories of middle class and low class.

Some critics claim that after splitting with his camera man “Subrata Mitra” the quality of cinematography got lowered in his movies , but I believe it might be the because of the different working styles of the cinematographers . 1968 movie “Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne” was not like Ray’s usual genres. It is coming under the genre adventure/fantacy and camera work was not bad. In 1977 movie the historical drama “Sathranj ke Khiladi” ,the cinematography seems excellent . The conversation scene, between Weston and Outram , has a flavor of hollywood movies, in its angles, placing of props ,and the rhythm. However last films Ganashathru and Agantuk were not that much impressive in visuals, may be because of the peculiarity of their theme.

Some of Ray’s famous compositions /scenes from his very first film have been taken by many filmmakers later. This includes the train scene in Pather Panchali. Another example, the 1995 film , “My family” by Gregory Nava, copied the ending scene from ray’s ‘Apur Sansar’. Ray films are study materials in most of the film schools around the world. In 1992 he became the second Indian to be honored by Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science for Lifetime Achievement.

The journey through a fairy tale : El Laberinto del fauno, (Pan's Labyrinth ) ,SPANISH

The Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro’s Blade 2 which I had watched earlier was just another vampire action  movie, the sequel of Blade: narrated in a usual way . So I didn’t have much expectations when I got a DVD of his Spanish movie “EL Laberinto del fauno” aka “ Pan’s Labyrinth”.

But I was wrong. This Oscar winning movie was not at all comparable to his hollywood ventures in quality .
It may be the first time that the major technical awards like cinematography and art direction goes to a foreign language film.

Children are fond of fairy tales and some of them, sometimes, will be too much obsessed with such things and it’s not uncommon. In this movie, Guillermo Del Toro narrates how a little girl survives her disturbing surroundings with her self created imaginary world. But the movie is not a children’s’ film. The lead role in the movie is “Ofelia" a 12 yrs old girl, enacted by Spanish actress Ivana Baquero .

By and large,I would say, the movie has two separate viewing dimensions. A spectator can choose his own. Anyways the director uses the viewpoint of the leading protagonist ,”Ofelia” usually at a first time watch, we will also be in the same dimension and as a result , we will also be immersed with the fantasy world along with Ofelia. We can watch the movie as a third person, then it would be easy to make out the reality. Guellirmo del Toro's treatment in this film is like "magical realism" similar to Francis Copola's "Aocalypse Now" , Adoor's 'Anantharam' etc..

The opening scene of the movie itself is brilliant. When title begins, we can hear a lady humming a lullaby, along with that we can also hear heavy breathing of a girl, then the first visual comes. Camera slowly pan to left of the frame and shows a close head shot of a little girl ,lying, and her nose is bleeding . Then camera zoom into her eyes (just like rewinding the shot as we can see the bleeding from her nose is disappearing ),and suddenly the scene dissolves into a wide shot of a ruined city along with that a narration starts in voice over,: “A long time ago, in the underground realm, where there are no lies or pain, there lived a Princess who dreamed of the human world. She dreamed of blue skies, soft breeze, and sunshine. One day, eluding her keepers, the Princess escaped. Once outside, the brightness blinded her and erased every trace of the past from her memory. She forgot who she was and where she came from. Her body suffered cold, sickness, and pain. Eventually, she died. However, her father, the King, always knew that the Princess' soul would return, perhaps in another body, in another place, at another time. “ Along with the narration, the visuals shown vaguely …before completing these lines of narration, again a fast cut to next shot ;2-3 vehicles traveling through woods and then cut to interior, of one of the vehicle, extreme close shot of a hand pointing to the lines in a page of a story book, and it is the same girl we saw at the opening scene. Obviously the lines she is reading is the narration we have been hearing, about the princess. So now that we got that the ongoing scenes are flashback and possibly by the little girl and we can assume the story will be coming back to the point where we started, as we are still unaware of what happened to the little girl.

Now we can see, she is not alone in the cab, she is with her mother who is pregnant and sick, and her mother affectionately scolds her for always being immersed in fairy tales books. So it is revealed here that Ofelia is a bookworm girl and it is her nature that always too much into such kind of stories and stuffs. Another incident happens at this moment. The cab is stopped somewhere between the woods as Ofelia’s mother suddenly feels uncomfortable and tends to vomit. Ofelia also gets outside of the cab and walks around there, she suddenly watch an idol like sculpture there and she finds a big ,cricket like insect with a pair of wings coming outside of that sculpture ,when she put a separated part back to it. As per her knowledge from the story books, it may be a fairy . She asks to the insect “are you a fairy “ ?

When they start the journey again, we can see the insect also following the cabs. But the scene cut there itself. Later they reach the destination, to the mill of Ofelia’s step father, a fascist army captain, who is a sadist and cruel man, captain Vidal . There, Ofelia finds a similar insect again. ,following the insect she reaches a nearby Labyrinth (a maze with complicated passage ways built with rock ) . From this point onwards, Ofelia’s disturbed mind could have started working in unusaual way. She began to believe that it is a fairy . She even asks to it “have you followed me “? In fact, the insect could have reached along with the vehicle, or it might be a different one as we already saw that the place is surrounded by dark woods and such insects may be common there. The new surroundings were unbearable to little Ofelia and her only relief was her story books. The backdrop of the story is set, in the Northern Spain, while the civilian war is going on, in 1944, a group of rebels are carrying on a guerilla war against the fascist troop. The movie deals with this story also in which the lead character is Mercedes, the captain's maid , but really the sister of Pedro, leader of the guerilla troop. Director carefully handled this such as Ofelia’s fantasy story never mixed with the real story. At that night, Ofelia meets the insect again, this time her mind is completely set up to believe that the insect is a real fairy which she is reading in stories. She takes her story book and shows the insect, a picture of a fairy (a tiny human like structure with a pair of wings) and says, the fairy looks like this. . Suddenly, Ofelia sees that the insect itself reforms into the exact shape of fairy which is in her book. From here onwards, Ofelia’s subconscious mind completely takes over her conscious mind and begins to create a complete magical world where she would be the princess. The director narrates the parallel story along with Ofelia’s fantasy world brilliantly .Some points which we may feel complicated , while connecting these stories , should be resolved by the spectator himself. For eg:, Ofelia gets some stuffs, a book , a piece of chalk , a key, a mandrake root, from the fantasy world, given by a faun ,all stuffs are real, which she might posses already or she gets from somewhere else .

I can’t go forward with rest of the incidents as it will be too long, and every scene, there is some thing to analyze or narrate. Still there are some scenes which are extreme violent or graphically vulgar.

The scene which portrays the sadism of Captain Vidal first time,

1. He beat young man to death and also shoot his father suspecting that they are rebels.

2.The scene in which he stitches his wound on his cheek after getting stabbed by Mercedes.

3.The last scene in which he is shot by Pedro, the bullets penetrates his face, just below his right eye, and the eye ball of his right eye going upwards ,before he fell down and dies.

4.I didn’t like the scene in which, Ofelia gets the key from the giant toad as it seemed most vulgar scene.

The director gives us only a single scene in which we can distinguish between Ofelia’s fantasies with real world. The climax scene, she is speaking with Pan, and Vidal who was chasing her, comes to the scene to find that she is speaking alone. This scene ,director has presented with the viewpoint of Vidal or a third person, only to help the spectator to make out the reality .Here the movie comes back to the original sequence after flash back.

The movie got 3 Oscars, for Cinematography, make-Up, and art direction. But I wonder then why it lost the award for Editing? Editing of the movie done by Bernat Vilaplana is outstanding. There are so many scenes which are remarkable with excellent editing, most of them, we can not even recognize the cutting point. Eg:, the scene ,in which Captain Vidal preparing for his shaving in front of a mirror. Also another scene ,the army men going to woods with their horses and the camera panning to right then ,without any distraction, next frame smoothly comes which shows Ofelia , walking around woods ,in a different but similar location. Aboslutely brilliant editing.

No words to say about cinematography , it speaks for itself and justifies its reward. Especially the lightning given was outstanding. Most of the frames had to be shown in dark atmosphere , where light should come from any single source .Also there were almost no scenes in which camera is still, the picture was shot just like the camera follows the characters ,so frames always seem dynamic . Guillermo Navarro is the cinematographer.

Apart from Ofelia and captain Vidal, Mercedes is a strong character and the performance by the actress Maribel Verdú is mind blowing. Script is so amazing that each and every characters are narrated well. Captain Vidal's mannerisms are brilliantly portrayed. The writer portrays him as sadistic and crule as well as brilliant and disciplined. He always carry a watch in order to keep himself punctual. His character itself is introduced with a close up shot of this watch in his hand . Even though it is not mentioned , the reason for Ofelia’s hallucinations may be because her subconscious mind automatically finds a way to release the pressure inside her creating a fantasy world she always dreaming of and put herself into it ,or it may be a state of schizophrenia.

The music composed by Javier Navarrete is touching. In the last scene ,we will make out that the lulaby heard at the beginning of the movie is sung by Mercides.

Overall an amazing movie experience. visit http://www.panslabyrinth.com/.

My rating for this movie is 8.5/10

Remembering a classic -"THAZHVARAM"

Today, watched the 90's classic malayalam movie "Thazhavaram-The valley" once again, in a TV channel,after a long period. But this time ,thought of writing something here about the movie . This movie, I would say, one of the best movie by Bharathan,. I know that there is no point in describing the story of the movie and tell you repeatedly that the movie is excellent ,because its already known to all . So I will point out some of the good features of the movie which I was attracted to ."Thazhavaram" is a masterpiece in all aspects. It is a well crafted movie and the making style of the movie is western classical type . By genre, it’s a thriller , in my opinion. Bhartahan was keen to make this movie, grammatically perfect as well as thematically strong. The theme of the movie is not so unusual, ...a man who reaches an isolated valley in search of his old pal, the murderer of his wife , so as to have his vengeance. What makes it different is the treatment .

Technical
##########

First thing that can be noticed is the technical quality of the movie. First of all Venu has done an excellent cinematographic work. Next one is, director, Bharathan, has composed each frames very carefully. I haven't watched much more movies, in which a director keeps the grammatical aspects of moviemaking so brilliantly. The film consists of so many beautiful wide-shots, which nowadays can never be seen in any reginal movies, but is an essential part of a visually stunning movie. Another brilliant composition ,in which director used "Golden Mean" which is a dynamic balancing technique , usually got to see in western movies..(the scene in which the character "Balan" played by Mohan lal walks through the valley ,just after passing a hanging brdge,and some cattles crosses him. ;two by third of the frame occupied by the sky and rest by the surface,and the character moving from left towards right of the frame...) This technique is very rarely used in our films. Almost all of the frames are geometrically perfect. Visual elments are well composed in the frames to achieve good depth to the scenes which makes them visually brilliant. Sound recording was also remarkable. One of the best feature of the movie is that the background music coming only in required situations.

Performance

#############

There are not much protagonists coming to main plot, the main characters are played by, Mohan lal, Sumalatha,Sankaradi and Salim Gouse, all of them has done their job well...The performance of Saleem Gouse is especially remarkable. And of course, Mohan lal is brilliant in his lead role.(A scene in which he is listening to Sankaradi explaining the fake story told by the anti-hero ,he is responding to the narration of Sankaradi and at the same time he is shocked hearing the story.His expression at that moment is simply amazing)

Screenplay
###########

Script by M.T Vasudevan Nair is outstanding . There are no signs of any particular time period in the script.That makes the movie a unique one ,. No matter after how many years since it's release ,you are watching this movie, you will feel the same freshness. But credit goes to the director who was able to screen a beautiful script without losing its soul, in a well disciplined manner, avoiding disturbing action scenes and gimmicks which could have been added easily in this kind of themes. Usually flashbacks in a movie would become little bit irritating and may affect the flow of the central theme.But in this movie, Bhartahan shows flashbacks in certain intervals and complete it at a point and move forard with the current theme from that point , which is a classic style of storytelling, so that the audience will be immersed in the central theme, without breaking the flow, cinematically speaking,creates a suspension of disbelief.

Definitely,Thazhavaram is a movie which deserves a place in your personal movie collections.

Overall I'd give 9/10 for the movie.

Sivaji - A disappointing episode from Shankar

Watched the most expected movie Sivaji-the boss , last week at PVR cinemas in Forum Mall Bangalore . The only inspiration was that it's a Shankar movie and ,with 86 crores budget , it was expected that he would have made a hilarious movie. Moreover the hype which arised all over south india including kerala when the film was released ,has given a good image of the film .

Unfortunately ,it's very disappointing that the film is nothing but a typical masala tamil movie which has nothing fresh to tell the spectators . Shankar seems to have lost his skills . Any experienced director could have done this film if he got an 80 crores budget . The story itself is utter nonsence .

The story goes like this . Sivaji coming back to his native in Tamil Nadu from USA ,after 20 years ,with his lifetime earnings .He plans to invest the whole money into somekind of business which would be useful for the people (He should do that because the character is enacted by none other than Rajni) . But he faces the regular redtape obstacles with the authorities and the political kingpin .He is forced to bribe many corrupted oifficials (Usual theme of shankar films since his very first film "Gentleman" ) But the problems never end, Sivaji is trapped to more serious issues badly so that the authorities seal all of his property , just leaving him with a 1 rupee coin. The rest of the movie deals with how the hero overcome these problems and win over the Villains .

Some points are there which need explaination .How can a software system architect earn 200 crores in 20 years ,ie 10 crores /annum , ..which company in US give such kind of amazing salary package? Software Engineers , attention please!!! Again, Sivaji fullfills his dreams by establishing medical colleges,hospitals, etc under Sivaji foundations .. and giving employement to thousands. As he is claiming , if everything is for 'ABSOLUTELY FREE' just like we usually get to hear while shopping in "Big Bazaar" , how many days he could run all these businesses? Its obvious that whole money has been invested in the projects , how does he give salary to employees ,from where does he get the income to run such big establishments ??? Only Shankar knows the answer.

The parallel stories ,the comedy track and the love story , are horrible to watch . Apart from 4-3 scenes , there is not a single scene in the first half which deals with the main theme . The villain character "Aadiseshan" enacted by 'Suman' failed to give any impact . Money is wasted much for songs (And ofcourse for the climax fight scene in which Shankar creates rain of Currency ) . The Digital skin grafting effects used to create the dark skinned Rajini into a white skin guy, is used for a song sequence which is not required in the film . Techinical departments has done their job well . Cinematography by KV Anand is adequate but Antony's Editing is not impressive . . Sivaji is the first Indian film to incorporate the latest 4K resolution technology that is used only on big-budget Hollywood films. In India, 2K resolution for digital intermediate (DI) is the set standard.Peter Heins repeats his matrix style of action sequences .He could have done something different . Rehman has given ceratin usual numbers only ,nothing much to say about music .

Anyways who cares about the quality ,the film has already grossed 300 million rupees in it's first weekend. Most Tamil films would not make that amount totally . Also there is lot of stuffs in film which will attract die hard rajni fans just like , flicking coins, acrobatically bouncing chewing gum around, and swapping guns from hand to hand whilst flying through the air, the film has a lot to offer for Rajni fans, and also has the usual social development message featuring Rajni as the "Messiah".

My rating for this movie is 2 out of 5 .