The film has a sprawling narrative with multiple stories, all taking place within the cultural melting pot of one city — for Paul Haggis’ Crash it was Los Angeles, for Mostafa’s City of Life it is Dubai. The similarities between the two films are nakedly apparent in a pivotal scene concerning a massive car crash. Though City of Life does not break new ground in narrative terms, like Crash (which itself borrowed heavily from Robert Altman storytelling technique), it is sensitively performed by an ensemble cast.

City of Life depicts the lives of a young, privileged Emirati (Faisal played by Saoud Al Kaabi) in the process of discovering his cultural identity, an embittered Indian taxi driver (Basu played by Sonu Sood) that dreams of being an actor and a quietly suffering ex-ballet dancer now a stewardess (Natalia played by Alexandra Maria Lara, last seen in Coppola’s Youth Without Youth). Their lives will “collide” and catharsis will be reached for the audience. Despite the more-or-less conventional nature of the plot, director Mostafa gets good performances from his actors – Iraqi MC turned actor The Narcicyst is particularly memorable as the zippy Khalfan whose character provides a sly commentary on urban Emirati life. Actually, City of Life is most effective when it is honest: without being condescending, Mostafa sneaks in everyday truths of living as both a citizen and expatriate in the United Arab Emirates; and he is savvy to not out to grandstand or preach to the choir. Yet this does not mean the film is free of stereotypes — one character, Guy Berger (played by Jason Flemyng) who is the European “hi-roller” undergoes a dramatic transformation that borders on caricature (brace yourself for a memorable line from him: “I will f*cking break you!”). Then there are those arbitrary montages and time lapses that lend a commercial/ music video feel to the otherwise filmic visual aesthetic of both cinéma vérité and moving camera on steadicam or cranes. Director of Photography Michael Brierley paints the nighttime of Dubai with stunning colors using cool and warm lights, especially during the night scenes; Brierley’s beautiful camerawork is one of the strongest elements of the film.

City of Life is not an art film and does not break new ground in story, but that may not be Ali F. Mostafa’s agenda: he seems to have set out to create a mainstream film that engages viewers emotionally, without undermining their intelligence. The film is the product of a young and talented filmmaker that pays homage to Emirati culture and values, but does not forget to include the rich cultural diversity that exists in his country. Above all, it is fun to watch, which is something not every film in a film festival can lay claim to. A must-see especially for the residents of the UAE.

City of Life had its World Premiere on Dec 11 at the 2009 Dubai International Festival. It was also the opening night film for the 2010 Gulf Film Festival.

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Che

The Cuban revolutionary leader Ernesto “Che” Guevara was many things to many people. To some (especially those from third world countries) he was an effective and fierce opponent of America’s hypocritical imperialism while for others he was nothing more than a criminal who masterminded violent campaigns to overthrow governments. Whatever your opinion of the man might be, Steven Soderberg’s film, a four and a half hour magnum opus feels truly epic in scope and function. It is a rare cinematic experience because it presents both points of view in two equal halves that complement each other.

The first of the two films is an engaging, highly compelling mixture of pseudo-docudrama, war movie and brisk biopic. We get no scenes of the young Ernesto (for that you would have to see the excellent “Motorcycle Diaries”) and the film dives straight into the period during the mid 50′s when Che and long time ally Fidel Castro charted their plans to rid Cuba of then president Batista. What follows is a detailed, multi-year campaign showing how Che and his rag tag crew of outsiders formed a large scale movement that gained the popularity of the local population. Throughout all this we see numerous times why Ernesto was so influential. Benicio Del Toro he makes the character courageous, inspiring and fearless. Through voice over narration, which are actually the parts of the film that intercut the campaign missions to an interview that Che gave while in New York during 1964, we are almost educated in the ideology of the man’s thoughts and beliefs. If the war scenes provide a frighteningly discerning look at guerilla warfare (in exceptionally crafty scenes of battle), the quieter moments between these battles shed more light into how one man became so influential.

The second film, appropriately called Guerilla is a markedly different film in tone and approach to the character. While the first film ended leaving me thoroughly engaged thinking that the film honoured, almost glorified the work of Che Guevara, the second film becomes almost its anti-thesis. The Bolivia campaign, held half a decade after Che’s success in Cuba, was never able to repeat the successes of Cuba. There were many reasons for this and the film built its case well. Che was considered an outsider, not a native, and thus his strongly held belief that a dissatisfied junta could overpower a corrupt government in bed with US came across almost as arm twisting. Added to this is the unforgiving Bolivian jungle, but also the fact that with help from the US, Che’s opponents were better prepared this time. There was glint of madness in Del Toro’s portrayal of Che in this, the second part, especially when we see him and his men take food from poor farmers promising them a better life. Convinced of their own right, how different were they from modern day terrorists? This objectivity is what made this second film become almost a flip perspective.

If there are two sides to every story, it is almost certain that those who watch Che as two separate films will miss out on the completeness that a back to back watch provides. The achievement of director Soderbergh is monumental not only because of how difficult it must have been to show the same man from different angles (in victory and defeat) but also because the entire film is in Spanish and feels rigidly authentic. As far as pure, visceral cinematic experiences go, it doesn’t getter better than Che.

Che is being released as two parts in cinemas here in Dubai, UAE. We saw it (as it should have been) as one film during the Dubai Film Festival 2008.

Imagine if people start going blind at random. No reason, no warning. It won’t happen to everyone at the same time, but in slow intervals, and everyday this number of people will increase. That is the world in Blindness. Fearing that the disease might be contagious, the government locks the infected in a hospital ward, to control the outbreak. Things are going fine in the beginning. There is food, the ward is clean, there is space, and people are waiting patiently to be cured. But then, more and more blind people are sent in, the ward becomes overcrowded, food supply has to be rationed, and then things go very wrong.

Most people are ready to behave in the way society expects them to. Society has given each culture different sets of rules and regulations to help us lead our lives. While everyone’s ethical code might be unique, it is written by the ethical codes of the community we are a part of. But what happens when the society we are a part of breaks down? Which ethical codes do we follow when the society that gave them to us is changing rapidly? Changes in morality are ever-changing and are usually controlled. But there are great shifts when there is an event that changes the way we live. This can be due to an outbreak of war, the fall of an economy, the destruction of government, a huge natural disaster, and in the case of this film, mass and sudden blindness.

A lot of us read about atrocities in the news or in history books, and we imagine WE could NEVER do that. I believe to a great extent it is our circumstances and situations that dictate our actions, and if we refuse to understand this, we risk not being able to overcome it. Blindness is about such a predicament.

The young girl, Mary, is almost certainly the stupidest child character of 2008. Children in movies, like in real life, are always a bit retarded and act like morons, but Mary’s idiocy is too stupid even for a child. Her mother is driving the car, and she and her older sister are in the back seat (why is the teenager not in the passenger seat? Seems a bit rude to me). The girls are playing an obnoxious game, which is to put their hands over their eyes and guess which car passes by next. The older girl gets it right every time but Mary doesn’t, and the whole family is having fun and laughing when Mary decides to put her hands over her mother’s eyes…while she is driving.

They have an accident, and the mother dies. What kind of fucking child does that? What is wrong with her?

The family sans dead mommy moves to Genova in Italy to start a new life, and the film is about them trying to overcome their loss in the most painfully boring way possible. They go to the beach, go on drives, and occasionally, Mary wakes up crying for mommy. A few times the film teases us with a possibility of something interesting happening (is Mary going to get lose in the forest! The teenager is walking in this seedy alley, will something happen to her!) but all scenes end uneventfully.

Any child that puts her hand over the eyes of a driver deserves a dead mommy. And any family that brings up such a stupid child deserves her.

Hunger is about a man that starved himself to death for his principles. His name was Bobby Sands, and he was an IRA member whom the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher eulogized as ‘…a convicted criminal. He chose to take his own life.’ In this meticulously crafted film, images play a crucial role and expository dialog is at the mercy of economy — yet there is a 17-minute conversation about morality, religion and politics between Bobby Sands and a visiting priest, all shot in one long take from a static camera, that is a touchstone of writing, acting and cinematography. Sound is also important to director Steve McQueen, who uses it most effectively in the wordless third act, as we watch actor Michael Fassender, playing Sands, gradually reduce to skeletal bones before our very eyes.

The British Government is depicted unsentimentally in Hunger, that while does not explicitly takes sides, uses the documented torture of the IRA prisoners by British jailers and the resolute conviction of Sands to elicit strong reactions from the viewer. The closing title card informs us that Bobby Sands, aged 27, died 66 days after he went on hunger strike, and 9 other IRA prisoners followed him to death.

The Wrestler is a devastating film about Randy “The Ram” Robinson, a once-upon-a-time famous wrestler, who now hawks his autographs at poorly-attended conventions, sleeps in a minivan when he cannot make rent, hasn’t spoken to his estranged teenage daughter in years, and is in love with a stripper that charges him $60 for a private lap dance. Old, vulnerable and alone, Randy still wrestles in basement gyms, and has not retired because he has nothing to retire to. Randy is played by Mickey Rourke with an aching sadness in a performance that may move you to tears.

Rourke whose own fall from grace in real life mirrors his tragic onscreen character, may be the most perfect actor for this role. Independent American filmmaker Darren Aronofsky, known primarily for his inventive camerawork, delivers memorable visual flourishes (the camera lovingly follows Rourke from behind, mimicking his walk to the ring), but with The Wrestler Aronofsky has also demonstrated his commitment to dialog and actors, using Rourke’s natural charisma as the fuse in an emotionally-charged character study of a broken, lonely man.

3 Monkeys (Uc Maymun

3 Monkeys (Uc Maymun) is the sort of film, where while watching you realize, everything could be resolved much more quicker (and sooner) if the main characters only spoke to each other. They don’t, for very long portions of the film, and while this is supposed to be the entire point of the film (where an event that occurs is ignored like the proverbial Elephant in the room) it is also is one of the films misgivings. The event that acts as the setup for this is a car accident. Servet, a politician, is the man responsible, but because of his imminent participation in an upcoming election, he asks his driver to be his fall guy, luring him with the promise of regular monthly salary while serving the sentence and a bulk amount on release.

Thing don’t exactly turn out this way. While in prison, the driver’s wife has an affair with Servet, which her son suspects. Tempers flare, first between mother and son, and then between the husband and wife, after he returns from having served his prison sentence. The event quickly turns into a lite version of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, but with deeper issues of unresolved guilt. The film handles this very well, without any frills and with great moody intensity. Director Nuri Bilge Ceylan won a Best Director award at Cannes and it becomes very obvious why. His film is careful and aware of its surroundings and the screenplay is attentive to very many details. In the pivotal scene where the son finds out that his mother lied to him, not only is the setup of discovering this lie an example of a cleverly constructed screenplay but the fact that the family lives close to a railway track becomes pivotal to how this happens. All of these details are very engaging and film not only captivates the mind, but the eyes as well.

For all of its promise though, 3 Monkeys (Uc Maymun) relies on some script incredulity, especially towards the end, to achieve its objectives. What starts off as a maddening joy to look at also becomes ponderous and tiring because of how little it achieves. Silence can be profound and meaningful, and Ceylan understands this well, even making it the point of his film (the title refers to the 3 monkeys rebuffing evil) but perhaps he overdoes it with visually arresting scenes that are in the end, just that, nothing more visually arresting scenes.

Heaven on Earth is a film about an angel who goes to live with the Manson family in Canada. The angel (sans halo), named Chand (Preity Zinta) arrives from India, after she is married off to the son of the family in Canada and while the entire family at first appears pleased, though glum, on her arrival, things quickly take a turn for the worse. Chand’s husband is receptive towards her; they don’t speak much, have intimacy issues and then there’s also the nagging problem of the mother in law from hell, insecure about her son being swept by the new, comely bride.

All of this is standard stuff from the ‘idiots guide to feminist filmmaking’, but the film is unusually absurd in its approach. In fact, it is quite asinine. Not only is the character of Chand absolutely pure, obedient and submissive, she is also naive and dumb. The son’s family on the other hand is all nefarious and vile. The son slaps his wife the night of their honeymoon when she suggests his mother, who makes a surprise visit, rent another hotel room. Fine, all men are evil and wicked in director Mehta’s world, but why is the son behaving this way? Is there is a reason for the son to be the absolute embodiment of manly misogyny? What makes nearly all the others in the family treat Chand like dirty laundry? When the film begins to build its case against the family, you expect some kind of reason – perhaps a family feud, an old grudge, money, anything – but the film never even comes close to giving an answer. Instead, and here’s the real kicker, in her isolation and loneliness, Chand befriends the apparition of a snake that comes to visit her in the form of her husband.

The inspiration for this serpentine connection is a well known ancient Indian legend, a folksy grandmother’s tale if you will and while I have nothing personally against the myth as such, its inclusion into a serious drama defies logical explanation. Many may see it as allegorical, which while acceptable of only this narrative twist, doesn’t even begin to explain the simplest of character motivations, such as the ones described above. All of this sets up the film to fail miserably. If I never understand why the husband treats his wife like a punching bag, asking me to sympathize with her is unquestionable, in fact it is ploy for cheap and shallow pity. If Deepa Mehta wanted to make a Harry Potter like fantasy spin, she need not have immersed her drama with deathly seriousness. There is a reason that movie genre’s exist – they act as placeholders for not just the story, but mood, themes and eventual impact and a film cannot be commended only because it manages to play around genre’s.

The first word in ‘Organized Crime’ is organized. The Italian film Gomorra takes viewers on a fierce matter-of-fact journey that exposes how organized crime spreads in modern cities. In the case of Gomorra, the city is Naples, Italy where the Comorra gang infiltrates the very fabric of society. They seem to be far more than an empire; they are a thriving industry, the very roots of the economy. People, who don’t find jobs, work for them in places that are fronts for turning the Comorra’s illegally acquired money into legally profitable businesses. Teenagers are impressed by their spirit of brotherhood and the lure of easy success, money and ‘growth’. The film, deadly serious as it is, isn’t without a sense of irony. One of the characters fancies himself on Scarface’s Tony Montana, and while practicing his shooting shouts out for non-existent ‘Columbians’.

Gomorra expects patience from its audience, which is thoroughly rewarded by the end. Many of the characters or their relationships are not initially evident. In terms of its sprawling plotline the movie is made in the spirit of City of God and weaves its many plot threads to a central theme or concept, in a term now referred to ‘hyperlink cinema’. This allows the film to be extremely detailed, though never complicated. It seems to possess almost an insider’s knowledge of the well oiled mechanics of this crime faction and all credit must be given to the author of the book, Roberto Saviano, who now lives in hiding for fear of retribution.

It is pointless to talk about the plot in any specific terms because not only would it fail to justify the worthiness of the film, but also because of how elaborate it may seem. As a viewer I was sucked into the frankness of the world created and the way, in little acts and gestures, the organization, like a corporation, grew and grew till it became all encompassing. By the last act I knew not what to expect, anything was possible because everyone was dispensable. There are a few drawbacks to the film, the prime being its lack of explanation about the background behind the crime syndicate for the uninitated, though this films global acclaim has seen its fair share of media attention being given to them. The other is the extremely broad canvas covered that almost never allows any of the characters to fully develop; they all seem equally important or trivial, and there is no single protagonist. Perhaps this second fact is also the point of the film – no one is left immune by an ailment that affects without discrimination.

Appaloosa is a film plagued with many problems. In an era where every Western almost yearns to be revisionist by playing on convention, Appaloosa is an anti-Western, anti-romance, anti-everything. It takes many liberties with what would be considered normal and none of them work because they seem to be done knowingly, not as a by-product of imaginative storytelling or good writing. The writing in fact is quite terrible; the many campy one-liners would be more fitting in the Lone Ranger than they are here, and the plotline, such as it is, skirts with themes you would find in much better, recent films — Open Range’s excellent buddy duo fighting bad men, 3:10 to Yuma’s transportation of a known criminal — but to very little effect.

Ed Harris, in a fit of directorial hubris, casts himself over regular leading man Viggo Mortensen. The two are free-wheeling peacekeepers, working with their own coda, and one of their assignments takes them to the town called Appaloosa (curiously bereft of people and any sizeable number of houses — budget constraints perhaps?). They are there to protect the territory from the badass Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons), but for all his sneering and snarling, Randall gets caught very early on and spends the better part of his screen time behind bars. Thrust between our noble heroes is the not so innocent damsel Allie French (annoying, pseudo-cutesy Renee Zellweger) who has trouble keeping track of which guy she’s with. All of this is supposed to gel well, what will all the right ingredients in place and all, but Harris mixes things up to speed up certain sequences (the romance is literally thrust upon us within a few minutes of Allie’s introduction) or drive them too slowly (the anti-climatic last act).

The film becomes truly disposable when you realize that all of this is just a half-baked mish mash of everything. It’s as if Harris and screenwriter Knott were working off a checklist of elements from the Western genre, deciding to put all of them in, but never taking any one element to its full realization. The only thing that works (and never completely) is the rapport between the two leads. Far from being Butch and Sundance, they convince that they share a history and speak in gestures and not always words — though Mortensen is much better at playing second fiddle than Harris is at playing lead. If there is one thing to learn from watching Appaloosa it’s that experimentation with film form doesn’t always produce great films, it even results in certain deformities such as Appaloosa.