Midnight Cowboy [1969]

Midnight Cowboy, British filmmaker John Schlesinger’s first foray across the Atlantic Ocean, remains a cornerstone in American cinema. It became a part of the country’s collective conscience and the voice of a generation for its brilliant portrayal of angst, lost hopes. loneliness, decadence and urban alienation. Joe Buck (John Voigt), a naïve Texan with dreams in his eyes, arrives at New York to earn easy bucks as a gigolo. It doesn’t take long for his dreams to vaporize, but he ends up getting an endearing friend in Rico “Ratso” Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), a chain-smoking fellow-hustler afflicted with tuberculosis, whose American Dreams had been shattered long back. Their squalid and desperate existences form a fascinating counterpoint to the razzle-dazzle and lure of the Big Apple, the metropolis where all the two drifters strive for is to survive another day. Yet, for all its then-controversial depiction of drugs and sex, the film has a deep sense of pain and poignancy at its core, beautifully brought forth through the unforgettable friendship of the two outsiders. Dustin Hoffman, who had kick-started his career with The Graduate, gave a breathtaking performance as the tragic modern-day Tramp. The then-unknown John Voigt too shined as the film’s placid anti-hero. The excellent script and freewheeling structure, combined with arresting camerawork and sounds, added to the movie’s elevation into the pantheon of great films on friendship and bohemianism.





Director: John Schlesinger
Genre: Urban Drama/Buddy Film/Avante-Garde Film
Language: English
Country: US

Stardust Memories [1980]

Stardust Memories was Woody Allen’s unabashed tribute to Federico Fellini’s biting magnum opus 8 ½. And for better or for worse, this also remains one of his most difficult and complex films. Right from the first scene, where we see a famous filmmaker trapped in a claustrophobic railway compartment filled with odd-looking people, the film is Allen’s recreation of the famed Italian film. As we progress we find that Sandy Bates isn’t just a famous filmmaker, his life – surrounded by sycophantic fans, blood-sucking journalists, oddball acquaintances and friends, and stream of self-destructive fiancés, is like a big, unending circus. Though filled with moments of acidic, self-deprecating humour, the film remains in large parts an exercise in surrealism and cruel ironies, and an openly hostile satire on the shallowness of celebrity obsession. Woody Allen gave a measured performance in a role that was both difficult and complex, and his script is acerbic and disturbingly self-critical. The black-and-white photography added a sort of dismal beauty to the crazy proceedings. The film might not be a cup of tea for most filmgoers – and that includes Woody Allen aficionados too, but it remains an important film in his career for the simple reason that this was a huge departure from the kind of films we have come to associate him with.





Director: Woody Allen
Genre: Drama/Social Satire/Showbiz Drama/Avante-Garde
Language: English
Country: US

Persona [1966]

Often considered amongst Swedish master Ingmar Bergman’s greatest films, alongside a plethora of others, not least of all being The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries and Fanny and Alexander, Persona is a difficult film to categorize, explore or analyze. The film has at its centre a famous actress who has undergone an emotional breakdown and as an aftermath has stopped speaking. Realising that being put up at the hospital will not help, the matron there sends her to an idyllic sea-side retreat house, in accompaniment of a young and jovial nurse who turns out to be emotionally fragile and in dire need of help herself. Played to perfection by Bergman regular Liv Ullman as the stony, imperceptible and immaculately beautiful actress and Bibi Anderson as the gullible and emotionally dependent nurse, the film presents a complex, often surreal, and deeply psychological portrait of these two ladies and the myriad interactions between them over the few days that they get to spend together. Understandably a difficult watch, the film is more a treatise of human psychosis, and is filled to its brim with complex allegories, abstract imagery, psychological references, examination of Catholic guilt as well as the various lies that define a public person’s life, etc., thus in a way forming more of a mirror of Bergman’s thought-processes than one that has anything to do with a conventional structures. The film might feel like an enigma to most and would require multiple viewings, but the conversations felt extremely personal and believable, and the static black-and-white photography had a feel of immediacy to it.





Director: Ingmar Bergman
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Avante-Garde Film
Language: Swedish
Country: Sweden

2001: A Space Odyssey [1968]

We see a human for the first time nearly 20 minutes into the movie, and hear human voice another 5 minutes later; further, the last 25-odd minutes are again devoid of any dialogues – now that’s the kind of audacity few filmmakers apart from Stanley Kubrick could have displayed. A visual feast like few others, and comprising of some of the most groundbreaking, if understated, special effects for its times, the pristine white, claustrophobic and disorienting interiors of the spaceship must have been the inspiration behind Ridley Scott’s Alien a decade later. Yet, all its technical brilliance apart, the movie is ultimately an intellectually challenging, visceral, ominous, unsettling and poetic meditation on the very framework used to create the film – technology, culminating in a climax that is as mind-bending as it is surreal. By brilliantly juxtaposing the eerie silence of outer space with beautiful Classical-based soundtrack, the movie has at its core a mysterious black monolithic slab with the ability to emit powerful radiations and supposedly placed by an intelligent life form, that propels and becomes a contemporary to man’s evolution from a primeval ape to ones capable of advanced space exploration. Ironically, the film caused “cultural shock” and “social disorientation” when released at the height of the space-race between the US and the erstwhile USSR, the very thing that the scientists try to protect civilians from in the film.





Director: Stanley Kubrick
Genre: Sci-Fi/Horror/Fantasy/Avante-Garde
Language: English
Country: US

033 [2010]

033 conforms to the themes of its predecessor Madly Bengali in that it is about a Bangla Rock Band, it is about a group of four egocentric and lost youths who learn to come to terms with themselves, and it is also about how the immensely rich and dynamic musical history of Calcutta has found a new face in the form of its underground rock circuit; so how does it stand out? Not so much in content as in form. The film, which is about a boy-band named after the STD code of the city they are based in, and on how a melancholic young girl, in search of her roots, manages to leave a small impact on the band members, has been presented in a manner that is wildly experimental and out-of-the-box in terms of treatment. It manages to be freewheeling and even a wee bit iconoclastic, like the songs of the Beetles and Dylan, or the ideologues of Che Guevera, whose posters adorn the trench, a neon-lit shack owned by a veteran music lover who calls himself Santiago, where the band practices their music. Jerky camera motions, jump cuts, handy-cams, slow-mo-s, psychedelic lightings, etc. have all been fused into the breezy improvised script, along with wit, humour and some wonderful original compositions by Chandrabindu (as well as a terrific redo of a Mohiner Ghoraguli classic), to present a movie that its debutant director must have had one hell of time while making.




Director: Birsa Dasgupta
Genre: Drama/Existential Drama/Musical/Experimental
Language: Bengali
Country: India

Trouble Every Day [2001]

Trouble Every Day, directed by the darling of arthouse circles, Claire Denis, left me largely untroubled despite its overtly provocative content. A pervert might find the movie something of a sinful delight, while a puritan would term it disgusting and tasteless; my views about this French film are rather ambiguous – visually beautiful on one hand, yet frustratingly indecipherable on the other. Set in Paris, we are introduced to a lanky, mysterious guy, on honeymoon with his beautiful, vulnerable wife. However their seemingly romantic trysts mask a dark secret – the kind which involves a lot of blood and a trail of dead bodies. This stylized and forbidden tale of cannibalism (yes, you read that right) has, even if one finds it difficult to believe, a certain sensuality and poeticism about it that would appeal to the senses despite the graphic content, thanks to Denis’ sense of aesthetics and her experimental, meditative take on the age-old tale of vampires. However, the disjointed script, the strange flashbacks which are plain irritating, and some average performances in front of the camera make this movie appear more of a deliberate snub to the conservatives than an attempt to deconstruct the zombie genre, though the truth might very well be the other way round.





Director: Claire Denis
Genre: Horror/Vampire Movie/Experimental
Language: French
Country: France

Clerk [2010]

Clerk is a rapturous, mightily engaging film with distinctly arthouse sensibilities. Boldly experimental without ever being inaccessible, newbie director Subhadro Choudhury has shown the kind of audacity you’d generally expect from a seasoned filmmaker, and the remarkable ability to probe deep into the troubled and complex psyche of his protagonist. The movie stars Prosenjit Chatterjee, in what could be one of the most telling roles of his career, as Biplab – a (possibly schizophrenic) man with a ‘Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde’ kind of dual personality. By day he is a laconic, mild mannered employee in a fast-crumbling company – the kind of ‘chhaposha’ or very ordinary, middle-class Bengali man you wouldn’t look twice at if you were to meet him on the street. However, when this severely lonely, friendless man returns to his small, seedy, decrepit apartment, he gets enmeshed in a fantasy celluloid world, where, over a few drinks, he involves himself in long lovelorn monologues with popular film actresses. The film’s surreal storyline has been superbly aided by its mesmerizing cinematography – the dark, phantasmagoric, hallucinogenic interiors of Biplab’s otherwise dank apartment makes for a memorable viewing experience.





Director: Subhadro Choudhury
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Urban Drama/Avante-Garde/Experimental
Language: Bengali
Country: India

Werckmeister Harmonies (Werckmeister Harmóniák) [2000]

Werckmeister Harmonies, made by master filmmaker Bela Tarr, isn’t really a movie to everyone’s taste, what with its lumbering pace, non-narrative structure and complex philosophical overtones. Nevertheless, I feel everyone must give it a try, even if it’s just for the experience. As bleak and disturbing a movie as the frozen Hungarian town in which it is set, the movie follows our protagonist Jancos (perhaps a stand-in for the auteur himself), a soft spoken and gullible young man, who works at a post-office and also runs errands for an elderly researcher on music. He marvels at the cosmic harmony in our universe (the opening ‘bar’ sequence is something to be watched to savour) and stares with wide-eyed wonder at the strange bounties ushered by ‘God’ on earth. Meanwhile, the ominous arrival of a traveling circus show has led to the growing murmur, madness and chilling mayhem in the otherwise peaceful-looking town. Set to a haunting, though sparsely used, score, the movie managed to mesmerize and spellbind me with its austere yet devastatingly beautiful black-and-white photography. The most awesome aspect about this epic lies in its brilliant use of gargantuan long-takes (including ones lasting over ten minutes!) that, on one hand, display audacity of the rarest kind, while on the other, intoxicate the viewers by teleporting them right to the desolate, near-surreal landscapes.





Director: Bela Tarr
Genre: Avante-Garde/Experimental/Psychological Drama
Language: Hungarian
Country: Hungary

Dogville [2003]

The epithet used most often to depict Danish auteur Lars von Trier is ‘provocateur’. Because of it, or perhaps even despite it, his most defining feature, for me, is that I find each of his movie as unique, as daring and as distinct as his other movies that I've watched. Yes, in Dogville too there’s a woman suffering at the hands of her tormentors/ circumstances as in his Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark or Antichrist. What sets this epic film apart are the stripped-off art décor and set pieces that have given the movie the look, feel, aesthetics and character of a stage play; so does the narrative, which has employed extended, at times rambling, but downright brilliant voiceover of John Hurt, coupled with the deliberately theatrical acting of the terrific cast – Nicole Kidman, Paul Bettany, Stellan Skarsgard et al, to tell the downbeat, philosophical, provocative and Biblical story of societal hypocrisy and double standards. Nicole Kidman, as Grace, an enigmatic woman on the run who seeks refuge in Dogville, a small mining-town in Depression-era America, doesn’t just look ravishingly beautiful, but also fragile and vulnerable, in one of the most nuanced performances of her career. Pictures of that tragic era, shown during the end credits, are extremely evocative.





Director: Lars von Trier
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Avante-Garde/Experimental Film
Language: English
Country: Denmark

Houseful [2009]

Bappaditya Bandopadhyay’s Houseful is a difficult movie to appraise, for the simple reason that it IS a difficult movie. I haven’t seen any other movie by the director (his Kantatar earned him respect if not popularity). Nonetheless, it wasn’t difficult to realise that the movie, about a film director who neither manages to lure people to the theatre not impress the critics, and who is being incessantly coaxed by his loyal sidekick to play to the gallery for once by plagiarising a formulaic movie, has strong autobiographical touches. But that’s only the short of it. The movie, mostly about his making of yet another “unsuccessful movie”, has, with fair amount of élan, blurred the line between fact and fiction, between dreams and reality, and hence between cinema and life. The protagonist might be a miserable failure in his personal and professional lives, but that never deters him from living in his own world – a parallel existence of sorts. Prosenjit Chatterjee, in the challenging role as the dour-faced intellectual, might have given the most accomplished performance of his career, while Nitya Ganguly, as his jovial and ever-optimistic Man Friday, was also exceptional. The luscious Sreelekha Mitra, too, was impressive in her cameo as a successful heroine. While on one hand this experimental movie has a difficult subject matter and relies on complex narrative techniques, on the other it also has a fair amount of black irony and insider’s jokes that would make one smirk in appreciation. The cinematographer deserves special mention for the fine use of textures and colours to accentuate the specific moods of every situation.





Director: Bappaditya Bandopadhyay
Genre: Drama/Showbiz Drama/Social Satire/Experimental
Language: Bengali
Country: India

Breaking the Waves [1996]

Breaking the Waves wasn’t just one of Danish master (and I daresay, enfant terrible) Lars von Trier’s greatest efforts, it was also one of the pioneering works of the avante-garde school of filmmaking called Dogme 95. It is a sweeping, emotionally charged human drama that is at once devastatingly bleak and deeply affecting for the viewers. Set in a quaint albeit xenophobic Scottish village, this singularly disquieting tale is about a naïve, emotionally unstable and god-fearing girl called Bess (Emily Watson, in one of the most striking screen debuts), who falls in love and marries an oil-rig worker called Jan (the exceptional Stellan Skarsgard); however, a terrible tragedy strikes resulting in Bess walking down the self-destructive path to delusion, paranoia and madness. Divided into chapters with each beginning with brilliantly chosen soundtracks, and filmed on grainy hand-held camera, writer/director von Trier has tackled the two most potent human emotions of love and faith with such incredibly deft touches that it was at times difficult to fathom whether the intent was to provoke or to overwhelm. But think what one may, the end result is at once a profoundly disturbing and a supremely enlightening work of art. To cut a long story short, Breaking the Waves – one of the landmark movies of the 90’s – achieved the truly rare feat of being universal and personal at the same time.

Director: Lars von Trier

Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Religious Drama/Romance/Avante-Garde

Language: English

Country: Denmark