The Boys from Brazil

This is a movie directed by Franklin J.Schaffner and came out in 1978. Based on a book of the same name by Ira Levin. It is the story about an Ex-Nazi Hunter who learns about a sinister plan to start the fourth Reich. This plan is conceived by Joseph Mengele, the chief doctor of the Nazi concentration camp Aushwitz. His plan is to kill 94 civil servants of age around 65 in the next two and half years. See the movie to know more.
This is an old school thriller were the thrill is mostly in the atmosphere and not in the visuals. Movies nowadays aim for it cheaply by retreating more to visual gore and cheap thrills. But this one is a very good example of atmospheric thriller. There is hardly much going on visually other than guys talking for the most time, but for the climax(a very interesting climax).

I watched this movie mainly for the wonderful star cast, and the academy award nominated performance of Laurence Olivier. The acting is pure delight. Gregory Peck as the psychotic Joseph Mengele gives the creeps. Life long he played all good characters and this is one movie through which he balances all that. Laurence Olivier plays the austrian Ezra Lieberman, the Nazi Hunter, uncovering the plot. It is another one of his brilliant performances(not close to SLEUTH though). James Mason comes in a small role as the security officer for the operation.
The book would have made a real good thrilling read. For the movie, watch it mainly for the brilliant performances. Rating – 8/10

Baran - MAJID MAJIDI

Iranian Cinema is one area where I have swam less compared to other world cinema streams. Recently I happened to watch BARAN by Majid Majidi. I found it very endearing.

It is the story of a construction worker in Iran, Lateef. He is not much of an active worker there, but just helps the workers around there. He is short tempered and cheeky. There are lots of Afghans immigrants working in the construction site illegally. One day, one of the Afghan worker falls from the 2 nd floor is hurt very badly. The next day his son Rahmat comes over to take place of his ailing father. Rahmat does not speak, and finds it very difficult to cope up with the physical work there and so is handed over the work done by Lateef till then. Making tea, cooking food and the rest which Rahmat does with ease. Lateef is made to do the hard work now. Lateef hates Rahmat as he lost his easy work to Rahmat. He fights with Rahmat every now and then. One fine day, he learns a secret about Rahmat, which changes his entire outlook, and the rest of the movie is yours to watch.


Lateef is one of the best characters written for a movie. Rahmat is brilliantly portrayed on screen. Lots of other brilliant characters including the head of the construction site Memar, the afghan worker Soltan who wants to return home and so on. A few scenes are magical, to say one, the scene where Lateef learns the secret about Rahmat is lyrical.

I was thoroughly impressed by the simplicity of the movie and the brilliance of the director Majid Majidi. Later on more googling I found that this is the same who directed "Children of heaven" another beautiful movie, one of the most simplistic movies that I have ever watched.

If you like simple stories, real lovable characters and if you want to try your hands at Iranian cinema, both these movies are must watch. 8/10

Spoorloos

Yesterday, I watched the relatively less heard of dutch psychological thriller/horror movie "Spoorloos - The vanishing". It was one of the best thriller movies that I have ever seen. The thrill comes entirely from the plot and not from the visuals as is the case with many movies nowadays.

The movie is about a young couple who come from Netherlands to France to see tour-de-france. The husband slightly irritated by the wife's constant childish behavior, leaves her alone at night against her constant pleas not to leave her alone, to get gasoline for the stopped car. He comes back to see her crying and feel remorse at his own behavior and promises her never to leave alone.After a few minutes she goes to the store to get something to drink and never returns back. We see the husband searching for her wife in vain. He suspects that someone has kidnapped his wife. He searches for days together without any clue.

In the mean time we see the other side of the story unfold, a thirtyish chemistry professor married and with two daughters, meticulously planning the evil act. He is an ordinary man contemplating this. It is the minutiae that makes this eerie. He chloroforms(not the right word, i know) himself and measures how long he remains unconscious (this is shown in a detailed shot about two minutes). He practices with invisible women, the actual kidnap. He talks to them and asks for directions, asks them to get in the car and chloroforms them. He tries talking to random women in town to see how their response is and measures his pulse rate when he talks.

He sees that the husband relentlessly pursuing this for more than three years, and this intrigues him. He periodically sends postcards to the husband asking him to meet at certain places. The husband is on the wild goose chase. His new girl friend does nt like this and wants him to stop this. But he desperately wants to what happened to his wife.

On one fine day, the professor follows the husband and tells him, that he is guy that the husband has been looking for(reminds me of the confession of John Doe from Seven). And he makes an offer. If the husband comes with him immediately to france he will tell all the information to him. The husband goes along with him. The rest is up to you for watching. It is one hell of an spooker with brilliant performances from all the leading three. 10/10. A must watch.

Die Fälscher

i always used to spurn the stereotypical movies made by prakash raj's production house.. and the prime reason for this might be the frequent hearing of stuff like 'i liked kanda naal mudhal, i loved mozhi... i basically love these prakash raj kind of movies'...

the last line spoils it all.. no offence to folks who love kanda naal mudhal ( a good one ) or mozhi, which i found to be a bit cliched.. the contempt is not towards these movies...its mainly towards the last line.. its always put in this corniest way...

probably it is not the way the director intended the movie to be.. all these movies are pretty decent watches.. its analogous to the best dish in my office lunch menu.. or voting in elections.. all we can do is choose the best that we are served with..

its just that i am lucky enough to have identified a better lunch menu at a place around the corner.. and i havent voted till now..

i liked azhagiya theeyae.. mozhi was ok ok ( my alter is pounding me to let it outside to voice its actual views on that movie .. its a very harsh sardonic movie critic by the way )..

i happened to see the velli thirai when it was telecasted during diwali.. i missed the first twenty odd minutes... i didnt expect so much from that movie to be honest... i liked the movie very much..

there was a dialogue in that movie.. i couldnt actually believe that i heard that.. where prithvi raj tells how a movie should be... how it should not be manipulative... the ideal case should be that a director should not add sequences.. for the audience to laugh or to feel a particular emotion... the sequences should be dictated by the story...

i have great respect for the director viji .. and the main reason for this entire thing mite be the single dialogue.. its not just the dialogue.. its the way that he had done this movie in the exact way that the character of prithvi raj says..

the climax was supposedly inspired from bowfinger ... but thats perfectly ok.. since i was impressed a few good sequences.. nice acting by prakash raj.. thinking of this.. i occasionally feel that vijay is a better ACTOR than surya... a blog on that later (how i would love to be a vijay fan)




saw the movie Die Fälscher (the counterfeiters) yesterday.. winner of the best foreign film oscar for the year 2007.. it is fictional account of the greatest counterfeiting operation ever.. operation bernhard by the nazi govt.. where jewish prisoners from concentration camps produced millions of forged pound notes of smaller denomination.. and the plan was to mix them with original ones to destabilize the financial stature of United kingdom..

it tells the story of Salomon 'Sally' Sorowitsch.. who is a big time con man.. who gets moved from the concentration camps to work on this secret operation.. he is big wig of those people working in this... he gets special treatment for his talents .. sally is a great character and wonderfully acted by Karl Markovics...

to put it short, he is a true neutral character (in terms of RPG's)... i may not be the best person to give a definition for his character... so i have taken it from a site that describes such a character..



A true neutral character does what seems to be a good idea. She doesn't feel strongly one way or the other when it comes to good vs. evil or law vs. chaos. Most neutral characters exhibit a lack of conviction or bias rather than a commitment to neutrality. Such a character thinks of good as better than evil-after all, she would rather have good neighbors and rulers than evil ones. Still, she's not personally committed to upholding good in any abstract or universal way.

sally gets attached to a young artist in the camp.. he does the max that he feels is correct and that is to deliver the nazi officials what they demand.. so he could save the people around him.. there are lots of different characters in the camp... and one is that of adolf burger... who wants sally to stop doing what he is doing.. that is indirectly funding the german military.. adolf burger is a real life character who has written memoirs on his time in the camp.. sally trying to save the ones around him might postpone the defeat of germany...

the humiliation he suffers by the amoral germal officials, questions his lack of conviction of anything, which actually is a virtue according to me.. the film has a very great climax... my kind of climax so to say...

a must watch..