Lois_lane18

"If memories could be canned. Would they also have expiry dates?"

The moment you step in, you just know, you're in Wong Kar-wai's world. Those kinetic, handheld chases, man. You're pulled into his brilliance in making the camera feel like a living presence. That, my friend, is pure dopamine cinema. Through those frames, Wong evokes the political uncertainty of 90's Hong Kong and its search for self-identity through the haunting visual metaphor of time slipping by in the bg through all the chaos, incoherence and blur of corridors, cityscapes, always moving, never waiting. It just happens too fast to comprehend, and that's exactly what real life feels like. Before you know it, everything's passed you by.

I liked how WKW quietly gives space to two lonely people just trying to feel something. You see Tony and Faye in the foreground, holding back their feelings, while life rushes past them, people late for work, dates, errands. But these two, they just want to pause for a second and really see each other. And maybe that's what a relationship should be. Interestingly, this movie subtly shows us how the interpretation of love can differ from person to person, just look at how each of them carries it, or how differently it lives in all four protagonists. That poetic contrast is what hits the deepest, it's what makes this film feel uniquely mine.

I also really love his take on depression. What loneliness can do. You stop noticing the minute details you once paid attention to. It's like you're there, but not really there. Numb, until that one flicker of hope, of happiness, pulls you back into life.

Look, I'm just saying Wong Kar-wai is how melancholy should look. Forever one of my GOATs.

(Watched on Criterion Blu-ray)

Man, I've been waiting forever to watch this and damn, was it worth the wait. Got so much to unpack here, but first things first, take a bow Vikramaditya Motwane. His freakin' debut, and this genius already delivered a classic.

I loved what this movie does to Bhairav Singh's character. It gives him much-needed layers to justify, from his perspective, that he always thought his ways of getting to the objective were best. However wrong they were, his intentions weren't. But the ways of achieving them were so demonic, and him being an egoistical, proud, narcissistic patriarch didn't help amend his relationship with either of his sons.

Acting-wise, Ronit Roy was just top of the food chain, brought his A-game. What a generational performance. You just see somebody close to you in him if you had an abusive past, and you start to hate Bhairav to the core. That counts as a big W imo. Rajat as Rohan was a huge surprise to me. Brilliant acting, man. It's impossible to imagine anyone else in the role, especially considering this was his debut movie too. Arjun was such a cutiepie though. I really felt for him, for what he had to go through with such innocence.

Okay, shall we talk about that last goddamn sequence? Nothing could've topped that ending, it gave me literal goosebumps. That's exactly why movies hit you this hard. When Rohan finally outpaced Bhairav, it felt like a metaphor for his emancipation from Bhairav's authority. And his decision to leave that ancestral watch under the tree showed he no longer wanted to carry that generational trauma, he was breaking the chain once and for all. He finally became ol' enough to take responsibility for his brother, which was such a great touch.

An indie movie like this could've easily gotten lost in the abyss, but Motwane managed to bring his own charm and gave it the much-needed life. And, that's what flawless writing, dialogue, score and storytelling feels like. I found myself tearing up so many times especially when he finally broke out of his father's cage was just pure, honest catharsis. That's cinema at its finest. If there's a movie that should represent India globally, this one deserves to be in contention for sure. An all-time modern classic from Hindi cinema. I seriously can't recommend it enough.

There are few films that have hit me as hard as this one. This is as much as about hate or redemption as it's about what happens when you let yourself rot from inside for too long. Derek didn't just walk into ideology, he surrendered to it. That black and white past wasn't a stylistic choice, it was his mental state. Stiff, rigid, frozen. The colour in the present doesn't feel hopeful either, just painfully aware. It's the kind of film that doesn't tell you things will be okay. It just shows you how things break, and maybe, if you're lucky, where they could've changed.

I know It might sound cliché to keep saying this, but honestly, Edward Norton, the actor you are...it's unreal. The way he carried all that rage, guilt, and quiet breaking. That curb stomp scene was terrifyingly unsettling, just makes you feel sick to your stomach, and I'm still not over it. Probably one of the best performances I've ever seen on screen. Highly Recommended!!