gavin_f

• NO SPOILERS -

Yesterday I finally got to see King Kong ('finally' as in, three days since release were almost too much of waiting!). What a truly awesome experience! I'm a huge fan of the mega blockbuster, and in my memory, the last few films that even came close to King Kong were Spiderman 2, Titanic, Independence Day and Jurassic Park. That's like four films in ten years. And King Kong surpasses them all. Or I'm still in the glow of a great movie, and don't mind making foolish statements about it being the best that I've ever seen, which I've been guilty of doing several times.

By far the biggest thing at the movies is redefining BIG. Every year. Not only through technology, but also through storytelling. By now, the blockbuster has expanded to mammoth proportions. How do you then make a story about a huge monkey (for that is what King Kong is after all) bigger than journeys into distant lands, historical, outer space and fantasy? Peter Jackson totally nails this with Kong.

I think King Kong is a truly great movie, for many reasons, only one of which I'd like to go into in some detail. One of the most important criteria of a great movie is how it covers multiple bases, has multiple layers without seeming to, seamlessly. There are at least three layers of audiences that King Kong specifically caters to, so well, it is business-case worthy.

1. First there is the King Kong fan club: The challenge here is - How can the new King Kong satisfy this audience, while still remaining entertaining for those who don't know Kong at all?

2. Next is the special effects movie / blockbuster movie audience: The challenge here is – How can King Kong go beyond what this audience has seen before, while still keeping it about King Kong, only an overgrown ape after all?

3. And finally the general movie viewership: The challenge here is – How can King Kong be relevant to an audience that is not just males and fans, but also females, kids, looking for a simple movie that is hugely entertaining without being too complex, and critics and cinephiles looking for sophisticated post-modern storytelling even in simple commercial stories?

King Kong covers all these bases, addresses all these layers, superbly. It takes a huge length to do it, but it does complete justice to its over three hours running length, becoming eventually an epic. IMHO :-)

Just finished watching this modern masterpiece, which brings to dramatic life the truism that the best movies made in the world are often outside Hollywood. Germany is not generally known for very good movies, notwithstanding classics such as Run Lola Run and Das Boot, but Der Untergang is among the very best movies ever made.

The film, which literally means The Downfall, charts the final days before the unconditional surrender by Germany after the final siege of Berlin. Exquisitely subtle, (there are only about a half dozen explosions in the entire film, each one literally earth-shaking and so well positioned structurally in the film, we remember this is basically a war movie of a kind. It is much more of a drama though, as it charts the emotions of those involved in the final days, in Hitler's inner circle. Told primarily from the perspective of a very young secretary of Hitler's whose then unquestioned allegiance to him and eventual (after half a century, that is) double take on her naivety provide a metaphor for Germany's own relationship to humanity's greatest shame, the film succeeds remarkably in going where no-one could, before.

In taking this perspective, the film broke a half-century old taboo, going where it wasn't possible to before a new millennium brought a new freedom. Even then the film kicked off major protests across Germany and elsewhere in the world (mostly Europe) for allegedly 'humanizing' Hitler. That it does, definitely, more or less the way Satya humanizes the participants of the Mumbai underworld. Whether film has the right to allow reprehensible individuals and groups a say through an essaying of their first person perspectives is a moot and morally complex point and this is not the place for such a discussion. Der Untergang at no point glorifies the Nazis, but it does sympathize with their condition when all was lost, as any human being or group deserves sympathy, even those responsible for the worst of the worst crimes.

What is utterly remarkable about this film is its exercise of storytelling and film-making technique. Outstanding in all departments, and blended into a gestalt so perfect that no element can be singled out as superior to the rest, it is an experience to cherish – a perfect film. Film at its best takes us into a space and time radically removed from our own, yet so real a reality that we are completely immersed vicariously in it – and Der Untergang fits this to a T. Yet it is necessary to make note of one aesthetic stroke – the movie's take on Hitler as a manic depressive bipolar swinging between absurd visions and profound melancholies that often descended into rants and rages and Bruno Ganz's portrayal of this complex role. Never for a moment did I doubt Bruno Ganz was Hitler, the channeling is of the order of Jamie Foxx's essaying of Ray – simply perfect.

All in all – this film is the reason we watch films compulsively, so that among the dozens we experience, one may rise up to the true potential of cinema.

Watched Iqbal yesterday. Yes, this movie is exactly what the abundance of word of mouth on it asserts - the best movie of this year.

I don't think this is a great movie, it's just that it is so rare to see a film that works in Bollywood, which does not come from a masala genre, that works simply as a straightforward story - that this film looks all the better compared to the awful field it competes with.

Iqbal brings a smile to the face and a tear to the eye and a lump to the throat and a racing of the heartbeat in slight twist and sweet turn and more than makes up for the time and money it takes to invest in watching a film - much more than that.

Nagesh Kukunoor's minimalist narration (enhanced by rousing music by the creative genius duo of Salim Sulaiman) that we saw in his earlier films is here perfect - the rustic ambiance of the film seems to pervade the storytelling too.

The film reminded me of Million Dollar Baby and Shwaas at times - MDB, because of the minimalism & struggle against odds; Shwaas, because of the sweetness of the tale.

Lovely, lovely film.