The grand finale of the Festival, the final movie in my schedule was also the movie I enjoyed the most. But it was preceded by two interesting movies such that over the last day of DIFF I had traveled from Japan to Italy and finally, back home.

Genova
Michael Winterbottom | UK | 2008
108 mins

After a car-crash results in a death, the widower and his two daughters move to the city of Genova in Italy to escape the sorrow that haunts their life. As each of them comes to terms with the loss and the new beginning in their own way, the director of the movie takes a turn to show us how the three-way relationship adjusts rather than concentrating on each character’s development. The younger daughter’s night-time crying becomes something for the father to handle. The new sense of rebellious freedom in the elder daughter is more seen from the younger sister and her dad’s POVs. But without getting too dramatic or philosophical, or without even getting too close to the characters, the movie remains an outside view of the small family in somewhat distant, documenting way.

Tokyo Sonata
Kiyoshi Kurosawa | Japan | 2008
119 mins

Tokyo Sonata resonates such simplicity in its telling that it’s difficult to not like the movie. But in doing so, it also becomes victim of over-simplifying many of the issues its main characters face. The story is of a family of four: The husband has just been downsized, the wife is stuck in mundane mediocrity, the elder son doesn’t have any sense of identity and the youngest is a rebel (he wants to play the Piano!). In an attempt to retain his honor and respect at home, the husband hides his jobless status from his family. He dresses up every morning for work, but instead spends the day in the queue for jobless for free food, or job placement. While the first act sets the characters and their dilemmas quite well, it’s the second act where the movie really fails to connect. The younger son’s fascination with his Piano Teacher and the elder’s change-in-career weakens the story-telling before picking up again for a fascinating (and weird) third act, when the situations of the characters open up for all. Some bizarre turn-of-events brings the movie to a close that could be worthy of a rousing applause, but gets an awed gaze of amazement instead.

Slumdog Millionaire
Danny Boyle | United Kingdom | 2008
120 mins

Once in a while you get to watch a movie like Slumdog Millionaire. A well-crafted, well-written tale of destiny and triumph, Danny Boyle and Laveena Tandon take us through three timelines simultaneously in Jamal Malik’s journey from Dharavi’s slums to the Hot Seat of the Indian version of “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”. Encountering a wave of colorful characters along the way and events that leave lasting imprints on his mind, Jamal eventually plays the game with one purpose – and it’s not winning.

Laced with a wonderful engaging soundtrack by A R Rehman, many scenes of young Jamal are presented with such charm and down-to-earth honesty that you start rooting for the protagonist early on. A few Bollywood actors fill in some of the supporting roles, notable Anil Kapoor, Irfan Khan and Mahesh Manjrekar, to bring added vibrancy to a movie set against and for the undying spirit of a city that’s seen it all.

Unfortunately, and in a bad choice by the makers, they have made the movie predominantly in the English language. Those familiar with the city, country or the culture will find it absurd that a boy from the slums speaks with a British accent, let alone that most of the other characters are conversing in English (the cop & his “havaldar” or the “bhai”). This glaring issue aside, the movie succeeds on all accounts as a wonderful celebration of hope, destiny and definitely of Cinema.

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After months of preparation, “the week” started. And now, finally 7 days & 27 movies later, DIFF-5 comes to an end. Luckily, very few of the movies I saw were absolute duds. And although I was lucky enough to see some movies that only helped further my passion for cinema, the year did not bring many surprises – I was not awed by a movie I had not heard much about. But as the year draws to a close, I am glad to say that some of these will make my Top-10 list for 2008.

Yes, one of them rocked my senses alright. Of the four movies I caught on Day# 6, I can safely say that one of them is now the best movie I have seen this year – not just at the festival, but all year through. I did watch the worst movie of the year too. And quite interestingly, these two movies share a common thread. Yes, it was a day of extremes. Read on about them and two more movie screenings I caught.

Hunger
Steve McQueen | UK | 2008
96 min

Bobby Sands, one of the Irish political prisoners of the British, leads his group through a series of protests against the Prison and the British as a whole. It culminates with the lot of them going on a hunger strike. Steve McQueen, the director of Hunger gives us enough time and reason to understand the character and the reason behind the protest, until eventually taking us through Sands’ harrowing journey of torture, defiance and suffering. But he does so silently. The 96-minute movie hardly has any dialogues, maybe four spoken scenes in all. He instead prefers to show us actions, reactions, and counter-actions. He shows us silent plotting and silent protests. We see the wardens’ emotions and the visitors dispair. But hardly any lines. Images of bloody knuckles and nervous riot-police firmly root the movie to a reality that defies disbelief. You have a reasoning behind the purpose (the protests), and hence a concern for the opressed. Effectively, the movie ends up saying so much more than words could have accomplished. But for such word-starved movie, the pivotal scene is the centrepiece 17-minute single-shot dialogue between Bobby Sands and a priest. Before going on hunger strike, the two have a conversation across a table – the camera sits at a vantage point, fixed for the length of the scene. The conversation, in content, manner of delivery, and specifically it’s length, lends such fierce strength to the movie that it transcends wonder and achieves amazement & a hearty applause, and an immersive believability that carries on for the remainder of the movie. Thankfully, it does not overshadow the movie, but rather becomes the integral component to make Hunger one of the best movies of the year.

Kabuli Kid
Barmak Akram | Afghanistan | 2008
94 mins

Such a simple plot, with simple performances and a very simple execution make this one of the easiest screenings to attend. Kabuli Kid is the story of a taxi-driver who one fine evening finds an abandoned baby in his cab. Stuck with a child not his, the movie follows him for the next 2 days trying everything possible to do the right thing: Search for the mum, report it to the police, etc until the issue is finally resolved. Having four daughters of their own and in want of a son, Khaled (the driver) & his wife are also tempted to keep the child for their own. Khaled’s father even suggests naming the boy Moosa (Moses, abandoned by mother & found in a basket). Eventually the movie succeeds in simplistically delivering a slice of daily life in Kabul – an episode from an ordinary man’s life.

Firaaq
Nandita Das | India | 2008
101 mins

Director Nandita Das’ debut feature Firaaq takes place in the aftermath of the Gujarat (India) riots of 2002, a sectarian clash between Hindus & Muslims, and plays out mostly from the point of view of victimized Muslims. A little boy orphaned, an aging Music teacher abandoned of students, a working-class family with a burnt home and a white-collar executives facing his fear of being a Muslim. These chronicles play along the 101-minute run of the movie mostly working as depictions of the different marks of society that the riots had scorched. Among these is a Hindu housewife who is consumed by the guilt of being cowardly and helpless during the events. The intelligent actress that Nandita Das is, she pulls out all plugs to make a preachy movie, and hence sometimes goes overboard with the ‘hate’ angle. Reality could have possibly been worse, but many-a-times random innocent seeming characters act out in absurd spiteful ways that it becomes a prerequisite for the movie’s audience to be aware of the actual riots, its cause and extent. Also, forcing sympathy out of the audience by focusing on a child’s large black innocent eyes is also exploitative – of the child, and the audience.

Blindness
Fernando Meirelles | Canada | 2008
121 mins

How would mankind react to sudden blindness? Not man, but mankind. Apparently, we turn into brutal savages who abandon all rationality and humanity for carnal needs. Plausible? My biggest problem with Blindness, that walks this territory, is that it is a movie that is devoid of humanity. Understandably, the movie does not explore the reasons for the lost eye-sight, but rather explores the human condition. But in doing so, it takes an extreme view of post-apocalyptic savagery that crosses, nay, obliterates most moral boundaries. The filmmakers (in this case the author of the book that the movie is based upon) reveal a severe lack of trust in the Human element (Humanity itself), a complete disregard for logic and a vile imagination of the worst. These three elements together create a confused, contrived and convoluted storyline that is discernibly absurd. Unique visual stylization, which starts as a novelty, soon becomes jarring due to overkill. The final litmus test for this polarizing movie is one question: Would you actually rape/murder if you knew you could get away with it?
p.s.: One of the questions asked during the Q&A session after this movie was: “What did blind people think of this movie?”. Well, I guess we need to ask the deaf people about Micheal Jackson first!

Day#7 tomorrow. One year of wait for one week of movies culminates to this one day, and the last three movies. Among them, one of the most celeberated movies currently in the International circuit – Slumdog Millionaire.

Now this is what a Film Festival really brings to fans of movies. A day that was worth more than 360 minutes of great movie-watching. It helped that a big chunk of that was a one-two knockout of a biopic.

The Sea Within (Ore Kadal)
Shyamaprasad | India | 2007
120 mins

Set in metropolitan India, Ore Kadal is a tale of a man and a woman tearing their lives apart for each other’s “forbidden” love. She is married (to someone else) with a child. He is a Social Scientist who does not believe in emotional attachments – he only requires women for his functional needs (I’m being polite). What starts off as a promising tale of sin and redemption turns into a melodrama of insanity and alcohol-addiction that fails to maintain any level of curiosity or attention. Mamooty does give a good performance as the detached social scientist, but not in comparison to what this great actor is capable of. Overall, commendable effort in Indian cinema, but a failure.

Three Monkeys (Üç Maymun)
Nuri Bilge Ceylan | Turkey | 2008
109 mins

Üç Maymun is a beautifully shot movie.There are shots and scenes in the movie that make you gasp at the beauty the movie captures, and some that make you gasp at the ingenious ways in which sequences are depicted. The director also prefers long shots and minimal dialogue which work to make Üç Maymun a brooding and oppressive mood-piece. One family goes through an existential crisis when the husband, the driver of a politician, takes the blame of a car-accident on himself. In return, the politician promises his family a monthly salary as well as a fixed amount upon his release. Things get complicated when the driver’s wife has an illicit affair with the politician which her son begins to suspect. The movie spends time with the three family members individually to take the audience through the emotional turmoil of each before leaving them at a state of tolerated co-existence. The stunning visuals, sparse words and a narrative depth makes this one of the great experiences of the festival.

Son of a Lion
Benjamin Gilmour | Australia | 2007
92 mins

Son of a Lion is a gross misstep. For a movie that tries ti capture the story of a man and his son set in a small town of North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan among the Pashto-speaking Pathans that include Guns & Hashish as a part of normal life, the Australian director displays ignorance of the highest level. Here, you have a son who prefers to be a musician and study in school rather than join his father’s work of gun-making & repairing. This clash of “ideologies” leads to the son telling his father “You look at life differently, I have a different view of life”, and then conveniently walks away. This is a 12 year old boy speaking to his AK-47 totting who fought the Russians as a part of the Mujahideen. Anyone with half the knowledge of what the community is like will know what to expect – but definitely not the father (by the end of the movie) telling his son: “I will not send you to a Madrassa. I will send you to a *proper* school”. This dad, during the course of the movie, mentions his favourite movie being Rambo 3, because the Mujahideen were the heroes in it. If that wasn’t bad enough, he suffixes “Rambo” with the number 3 in English, while the whole movie is in Pashto language. Incredibly ignorant.

The Hurt Locker
Kathryn Bigelow | U.S.A. | 2008
130 mins

Kathryn Bigelow is one of the few woman directors in Hollywood who can make a good actiuon movies for the boys. With Heat Locker, this protege of James Cameron turns up the heat in a movie clearly for the testosterone audience. Set in Iraq, the movie looks at a bunch of Bomb Disposal experts who are stationed in Baghdad for a count of days. As these men go through bomb after bomb losing fellow-soldiers along the way, the movie impresses upon the hopeless state to which the war-zone has fallen, and the mostly thankless high-risk job of the soldiers that risk their lives there. Yet the movie is not about the war, or its politics, but a zoned in look at one team’s existence in it. While one soldier counts his days until they’re relieved from duty, another lives at the thrill that the risk of their job brings them. Some great bomb sequences, a supremely-confidant lead performance by Jeremy Renner and some great cameos make this a great time at the movies. Atleast for the boys.

Day#6, the penultimate day, features two movies of which I hope atleast one rocks my senses to Kingdome Come. Find out tomorrow!

Now this is what a Film Festival really brings to fans of movies. A day that was worth more than 360 minutes of great movie-watching. It helped that a big chunk of that was a one-two knockout of a biopic.

Vacation (Kyuka)
Hajime Kadoi | Japan | 2008
115 mins

In Japan, a prison warden volunteers for “support duty” in a rare death-sentence execution inorder to earn a few extra days off, so he may get married. In a minimalist directorial style that confirms with my favourites of past festivals (China’s Peacock from DIFF-2 & Argentina’s El Custudio from Diff-3), Kyuka delivers the most serene and aesthetically pleasing experience of this year’s festival yet. With few dialogues, limited camera movements and completely devoid of melodrama, the film settles down to a level of captivating simplicity. Minutes pass by without any sound or action on screen, yet convey so much. And true to Japanese culture, the characters limit their expressions and emotions to a bare minimum. Sprinkled with light humour throughout, it eventually becomes a case study about the lead character silently dealing with the experiences of death and life at the same time.

Che
Steven Soderbergh | U.S.A. | 2008
262 mins

Che Guevara. The man behind Fidel Castro who lead the succesful revolutionary war in Cuba. The man who wrote *the* handbook on guerrilla warfare (called “Guerrilla Warfare”). The man who travelled the world over to help freedom-fighters. The face that is the world’s most merchandised photograph, 40 years after his death. A biopic of Che Guevara is nothing less than a herculean task. An honest attempt at it alone is applaudable. But with a 4hr22min epical biopic that chronicles the two most important battles of his life (his rise and his downfall), Steven Soderbergh’s Che becomes not just a great film, but a tour de force in film-making. Benico Del Toro delivers the performance of a lifetime as the Revolutionary in a casting choice that touches perfection.

The first part of Che, Argentine, depicts the battle of Santa Clara in Cuba along with intercut scenes of his address at the UN headquarters in New York as well as his early youth days from when he first met Fidel Castro. The less accomplished of the two parts, the focus on the Cuban revolution and black&white New York scenes do come across as self-aware, but by the end of Argentine - the actual battles in Santa Clara – the movie has risen to a level that sets it apart for greatness.

The greatness though, is achieved in the second part, Guerilla, where Che fights his last battle in Bolivia. This part works on a single time-line: Che fights out his last few months with a bunch of fighters in the jungles of Bolivia while the Bolivian national army (with assistance from the US Army) close in on them. The emotional investment and the achieved victory in Argentine only work to make Che’s final fight to the end in Guerilla that much more sad. Soderbergh & Del Toro, with Che, have created a movie that is worthy of every bit of the legend that Che Guevara is.

Gomorra
Matteo Garrone | Italy | 2008
135 mins

Gommora won the Grand Jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival this year. It might have helped that Cannes is in France, which borders Italy. As a non-European and watching the movie in Dubai, the movie made little sense to me apart from depicting a slice of life from a crime-ridden Italian suburb. What really does *not* work in this depiction is the lack of focus on any particular issue or character – the movie seems to chronicle the few days assuming that the audience cares about the issues/events depicted. But without any background, build-up or character arcs, it loses its appeal. If a movie requires its audiences to research its subject matter outside its run-time, and that too before watching it, it then grossly falters on a personal level for the uninitiated (in this case, me). Ignoring the topic and characters, the film-making itself does not achieve any level of outstanding qualities to warrant it a gripping watch. A few shocking violent scenes don’t really make the movie great.

Day#5 takes me to Kerala, Turkey, Pakistan & American Iraq. Since I’ve actually been to Turkey, I have highest hopes from there. Read how I fare tomorrow, tomorrow.

When I sat to make my schedule of what I would watch during this year’s festival, I filled in Day#3 last – only because most of my preferred movies fit in with times and locations so well on the other days. This meant Day#3 was for mostly experimenting with movies I hadn’t put on my “must-watch” list, which would lead to either a great discovery, or a huge disappointment. But unfortunately, it ended up being more of the latter. Luckily, I had the next 4 days to look forward too, which guarantee at least a gem a day. I did I end up watching five movies though! Read on for mostly miss-able movies and one great discovery.

The Blade (Dao)
Hark Tsui | Hong Kong | 1995
101 mins

Dao is not a movie from this year, it is a “cult” Hong Kong action movie from 1995. To really like this movie, you need to be a fan of the genre or appreciate the key standard character types and plot points of such movies. Else it ends up being the funniest, campiest movies you could watch this festival. Being aware of the genre, I enjoyed this movie – mainly in the action and “training” sequences. Strictly for genre lovers or those academically interested.

Ballast
Lance Hammer | U.S.A. | 2008
96 mins

One man, One woman, One child, One dog. One suicide, One attempted suicide. One store, two houses, two cars. That’s Ballast. There’s not much else I can write about this movie, not because it is a Shyamalan-esque thriller, but because there is not much of anything happening in the movie. Not in terms of events, and not in terms of characters. There’s simply nothing happening! We do see the kid trying to hold-up his uncle for money, we do see the mother distressing at making ends meet, and we DO see the uncle mourn his twin-brother’s suicide. But honestly, nothing really happens. Watching this movie was just as much fun as being stuck in a traffic Jam. In Sharjah. After a day of rains. And no phone.

Private File (Malaf Khas)
Saad Hendawy | Egypt | 2008
61 mins

Most conservative societies have a highly-biased take on honour in connection to women. Egyptian society (as in the case of this movie) is as conservative as it gets – from holding loss of virginity (outside marriage) as the highest dishonor, to punishing the victim in case of rape. Malaf Khas is a documentary recorded as interviews and conversations with Egyptian common folk as well as experts (doctors, lawyers, clerics, etc) on this ‘taboo’ subject. Although it starts of pretty well showing the depth of the plight of women, it loses interest 15 minutes into by not further delving into the subject. We hear the same issues from different people with slight variations through-out the one-hour running time of the movie. It could have been more interesting with case-studies discussing with the oppressed and oppressor, but maybe Egypt is too conservative to allow such a movie to be made/released.

Idiots & Angels
Bill Plympton | U.S.A. | 2008
78 mins

Have you seen the quirky animations on MTV that bring up the “MTV” sign in weird surreal ways? Imagine a complete movie done the same way. That is what Idiots & Angels is. It’s a completely hand-drawn animated feature that follows one Idiot’s transformation to an Angel because he sprouts wings, done in a Lynch-ian dream-like way. Why does he sprout wings? He just does (not of his own will though). Like those MTV animations, the movie is extremely quirky and very eye-catching. For the first few minutes. The novelty then wears off and you start looking for the characters and stories which end up being an age-old tale of evil defeating good before Good arising again to finally defeat Evil (Biblical reference there?). Sparing some really cool sequences, most of the movie is a let-down. I guess there is a reason that our dreams (as good, bad or twisted they may be) don’t last more than a few minutes.

A Climate for Crime (Oru Pennum Randaanum)
Adoor Gopalakrishnan | India | 2008
115 mins

Quite intentionally side-stepping “Sin”, Oru Pennum Randaanum deals with crime – whether it is stealing, illegal abortions or even love. The director, highly-acclaimed and multi-National Award winning Adoor Gopalakrishnan, comes from the Satyajit Ray school of film-making. Although I have not seen his movies before (he belongs to India’s regional cinema, Malayalam movies), I have enough exposure to the film-making style via Shyam Benegal and the late Bimal Roy. And this knowledge only helps raise the experience this movie turned out to be. Told in four stand-alone short-stories and directed with minimal action, the director chooses a narrative style that relies mostly on conversations between characters. So it happens that many-a-times some major events between the major characters of a story are only discovered by the audience when two minor characters are discussing it. Set in the grass-root society of rural Kerala during WWII (and therefore, colonized India), Goplakarishnan uses his simple short-films to imprint the timelessness of crimes that so easily touch the everyday man. A great experience of a movie, and a great introduction to a legendary film-maker whose movies I had been bereft of.

Day#4 comprises three highly-acclaimed movies, including the 4+ hour epic Steven Soderbergh directed Che Guevara biopic. It’s going to be a good day. Trust me, wait till you read about it!

Day 2 at the DIFF-5 was a mostly a unkind, but not at all disappointing. Of the four movies I ended up watching, one bowled me over while the other three fell short, miserably. More on them in detail…

The Wrestler
Darren Aronofsky | U.S.A. | 2008
105 mins

Aronofsky is a director of repute, his name alone warranting any movie a watch. With all the Oscar-buzz surrounding The Wrestler and the universally-spoken rebirth of Mickey Rourke in a drama role as the movie’s title character just makes this movie unmissable. The Wrestler manages to efficiently side-step those expectations, and yet deliver a wham to the senses with its intimate look into the life of a way-past-his-prime professional wrestler. Rourke embodies (literally) this ailing, lonely man with a heartbreaking honest performance; one that identifies with the loneliness and loss of identity that each one of us go through sometime in our lives. Aronofsky, whose past three movies have dealt with the subject of obsession, changes his visual style for The Wrestler – there are no crisp-clean shots or striking imagery in this film – yet reaffirms his mastery at intimate characterization. The film also features another great soundtrack by Clint Mansell, something of an Aronofsky’s trademark now. Easily the best movie of the Festival yet, featuring one of the best performances of the year.

Appaloosa
Ed Harris | U.S.A. | 2008
114 mins

Appaloosa is a breed of horse, and the possible reason for the naming the movie on the horse could be because of its unconventional looks. Appaloosa (the movie, since that is the only experience I’ve had with any Appaloosa), is equally unconventional for the genre it is based on. Ed Harris, in only his second directorial venture, again casts himself as the main-lead and conveniently eats up most of the screen time. Unfortunately so, as it undermines an extremely interesting portrayal of Viggo Mortensen’s Hitch (Harris’ right-hand man).  At less than two hours, the movie drags on for too long not knowing when to to go where. Although a western set in the “Wild West”, the production never authenticates. Other weak characters do not help much: Jeremy Irons’ far-reaching outlaw Braggs (Ed Harris forgot what to do with him) and the annoying Renée Zellweger’s free-associating “Mrs” French (an eccentric character hopelessly miscast). A big disappointment, especially after watching its two leading men spark the screen in their last outing together.

Salamandra
Pablo Agüero | Argentina | 2008
91 mins

I had seen one Argentinian movie before Salamandra, the excellent El Custudio – a movie I still regard as one of the finest selections by DIFF across the years. Unfortunately, my reason for selecting Salamandra falls flat on its face 20 minutes into it. There is not much conventional about the movie, but this movie about the transition of a mother-son duo from settled to hippies has nothing going for it. Even at 91 minutes, and some alarming (read shocking) visuals, it stretches the patience of its audiences to earn the notorious title for most walk-outs at DIFF (for the movies I’ve attended). Just stay away.

Heaven on Earth
Canada | 2008
106 mins

Deepa Mehta is a director I am not convinced of. Her Canadian base has given her a liberal, western outlook on the desi issues/myths that liberal westerners are not usually aware of. And therefore, her movies become polarizing depending on how much you accept this viewpoint. Heaven on Earth deals with the issue of domestic violence in emigrants. A noble subject, but the inclusion of melodramatic elements (without its partner-in-crime, song&dance numbers) and unconvincing, forced stylization renders the movie ineffective. Preity Zinta is too much of a pretty face – glorified & angelic – to bring the authenticity required in apparently “realistic” movies as this.

Day#3 (Sunday) is going to be marathon mixed-bag of five movies. Do not expect anything profound, unless I make discoveries in the unknown and the un-celeberated.

For many of us who were not a part of the elite few attending the opening Gala at this year’s Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF), the festivities started on 12th December, a glorious Friday for films galore. And the start of the festival brings with it the start of a week-long odyssey of movies, mayhem, soap(?). As I embark on this odyssey, look forward to a daily report on what I caught, what I loved and what I wish I had missed.

Day 1 of a Film Festival is like the opening moments of a football (US: Soccer) match – there’s a lot of excitement and anticipation, yet not much is expected. Expect the *best* movies to follow on subsequent days, while the current lot serves to whet the appetite and warm up the senses. Of the four movies I ended up watching today, none were spectacularly good, but neither were any a waste. Exactly as I expected the first day to be (but I did hope for it to be better!). On to the movies then…

Love, and Other Crimes (Ljubav I Drugi Zlocini)
Stefan Arsenijevic | Serbia | 2008
105 mins

A Serbian movie about one fateful day in the lives of a neighborhood kingpin and the people surrounding him. At a short run-time of 105 minutes, the movie only really succeeds in its third act. And even so, it leaves too many characters unexplored and too many promising sub-plots hanging. Yet, the closure for the plot-line followed is fascinating and, more-so, redeeming of the investment in its main protagonists. Worthy of a watch, but at no high opportunity cost.

Country Wedding (Sveitabruokaup)
Valdís Óskarsdóttir | Iceland | 2008
95 mins

Country Wedding is a light-hearted take on two dysfunctional families getting together at a wedlock. It starts in the morning with the groom & bride’s families hurrying to get on the road on the way to a country-side church; and the introduction of a menagerie of affluent characters brings with it improvised humour that is easy to chuckle at but never really makes one laugh out loud. The director reputedly did not have a detailed script. She practised with the actors on their pasts rather the scenes of the movie to get natural and spontaneous performances. This brings an authenticity to the characters identifiable by anyone familiar with large families. The run-time is intelligently kept short, which works well in its favour. Unfortunately, it had too many dialogues (and therefore sub-titles) to please audience foreign to the language.

Machan
Uberto Pasolini | Sri Lanka | 2008
109 mins

Machan is one quirky movie. It has a great ensemble cast that mostly make up a subterfuge Handball team in Sri Lanka. The so-called team members, on the pretext of touring Germany for a tournament, intend to illegally migrate to Europe, and they succeed! Based on the true events, the movie builds itself from the low-life of a bunch of Sri Lankan guys – their under-privileged status and hopeless situations – to the actual tour and final escape. Through all this, you see some wonderful performances, especially by “Stan”, an actor doing just his second movie in seven years. The film also has many unstated scenes of humour and amusement. The attached image shows a little boy trying to post a letter: the movie focuses on him for a moment to show his helplessness, but then leaves him to continue following our “heroes” on the bicycle. From the response it got when screened in one of the larger cinemas, it is clearly one for the audience.

Kissing Cousins
Amyn Kaderali | U.S.A. | 2008
98 mins

At the cost of a better movie, and enticed by the ethnicity of its plot and characters, I decided to watch Kissing Cousins. It cost me quite a bit. It is not essentially a bad movie, just too mediocre to warrant a recommendation or a detailed analysis. And especially not one to prioritize. The humour does evoke laughter but, after the wonderful Machan, came across as forced. The actors do not carry a performance or visual appeal to hold the attention span riveted, and hence falls short. This debut feature by its director is not all bad though – it succeeds on becoming in one of the few mix-race USA-based movies that does not bucket the characters as non-white Americans. It’s not a good enough reason to spend money on it though.

Day#2 (Saturday) is for another four movies, chiefly among them is a movie that could knock-out all competition at the upcoming Oscars. Look forward to the report tomorrow.

You see, I love film. But I HATE schedules. A part of me is ridiculously excited that I am going to see many different kinds of films from all over the world about a lot of diverse subjects. The other part of me only sees me waking up everyday, getting stuck in traffic, making sure that I stick to the schedule I kept for myself, coming home, and doing the same thing next day. That sounds…well…like work. I start off the week on Friday, December 12, at 1pm with Momma’s Man.

I kick off the festival with an American movie, and in a multicultured festival such as the DIFF, American movies still play a prominent role. Then I’m watching The Story of Mr. Sorry (Jevbulchalssi Yiyaki). It is an animated South Korean movie called The Story of Mr Sorry, isn’t the title enough to make you want to watch it? Next up is a movie from Iceland called Country Wedding (Sveitabruokaup). I’ve watched Scandinavian movies before. Their humor is as a dry as a naked woman in a hot desert and I couldn’t resist trying to slip one in, like my penis in that naked woman we just talked about in my allegory. Then it is Machan and I finish the day with Iran’s 3 Women (Se Zan). If I know anything about Iranian movies about women, it will be a feminist movie that will kind of make you embarrassed to be the sort of person to use naked women in your allegories.

Saturday, December 13, will also be a day starting off with an American movie, The Wrestler. Directed by Darren Aronosfsky, whose film career started with my favorite Pi (the math formula, not what Ned makes in Pushing Daisies), the overrated Requiem for a Dream, and the ridiculous The Fountain. That’s not a bar chart that has the line going up, so I hope The Wrestler will be good. Wikipedia tells me that Nicolas Cage was initially considered to play the lead role, but he was replaced by Mickey Rourke. Great news or just good news? We then move on to the Wild West with Appaloosa. I was unimpressed with last year’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and 3:10 to Yuma, so I hope this year the western genre would impress me more. My favorite from the post-2000 western movies is still Australia’s The Proposition, and that dirty, rugged movie has set the standard a bit high for me. Moving away from American movies, the next movie in that day’s schedule was supposed to be Mascarades, some Arabic movie, but they rescheduled it, so I had to change it with a feature that consists of several shorts. Usually, the best things about short movies are that, well, they are short. Finally I will be ending the day with an Italian political movie called Il Divo about Italian politican, Giulio Andreotti. Wikipedia has a few quotes by him:

You sin in thinking bad about people—but, often, you guess right.

I recognize my limits but when I look around I realise I am not living exactly in a world of giants.

Charming fellow.

I’ll start off Sunday, December 14, with a late 90′s film called The Blade (Dao). Some reviewer called it action Japanese action anime and that’s enough of a recommendation for me. Then it is Ballast, a movie that Ebert gave 4 stars too and wikipedia says it made Ebert cry, “a rare occurrence for Ebert whilst watching a film.” Maybe he just cries more since he nearly died last year. Idiots and Angels is supposed to be a dark, surreal animated movie, and the words “dark” and “surreal” is usually enough to convince me to watch something. Also, that’s the way I like my coffee. Ending the day with Snow (Snijeg), something I have never seen fall from the sky, so I might as well watch a movie with it in the title.

Monday, Decemeber 15: Aram Bash Va Ta Haft Beshmar is an Iranian film translated as Be Calm and Count to Seven, basically what I always tell myself when I am speaking to idiots, which is every five minutes in my life. Then it is the Mountain Everest of my film festival week, Che, being a massive four hours and thirty minutes long. That’s 270 minutes, and I can almost watch the complete two seasons’ of the British sitcom, The Office, in that time. It better be good. After that monumental task, I still have a movie to watch, but the crime film, Gomorra, probably has enough gun shots and blood to keep me awake and horny.

Now I’m on Tuesday, December 16, and I think finally I am watching an Arabic movie called Salt of the Sea (Milh Hadha Al-Bahr), and then Adhen (Dernier Maquis), a movie I don’t actually remember what it is about and I think I chose it because there was nothing more interesting in that time-slot. It’s then Son of a Lion and finishing off with Tokyo Sonata, which makes Tuesday look like a very underwhelming day. Now that I think about it, I maybe should have kept Tuesday as a day to rest. Too late, I bought my tickets.

Back into action with Hunger on Wednesday, December 17, and then on to A Climate for Crime (Oru Pennum Randaanum). If that wasn’t enough crime for one day, then next movie also has crime in its title, Love and Other Crimes (Ljubav I Drugi Zlocini). The day ends with acclaimed Iranian director, Majid Majidi’s A Song of Sparrows (Avaze Gonjeshk-ha). Majid Majidi made me extremely sad in Children of Heaven and Color of Paradise, so I hope I do not embarrass myself in front of others.

Finally, it is Thursday, December 18, starting off with Genova and moving on to Blindness, probably what I will be experiencing after 12 hours in the cinema everyday for a week. I couldn’t get a ticket for Slumdog Millionaire and I will have to stand in a queue for that, but after a week of constant movie watching, I will probably skip that.

It almost feels that at the end of all that I will probably be HAPPY to get back to work!