Dear Zachary

'Is there anything you would like to say to Zachary?'

How do i review this?

Let me start by saying that this is not a movie. Its not even a documentary. Its a memoir and a letter. Its an attempt to capture the fading memories of a dead friend, a beloved son, a respected colleague, a flesh and blood human being whose violent death has created an emotional vacuum that should normally have been filled with rushing anger and bitterness, even a lasting hatred.

What you see instead is something incredible. You see a clear line being drawn in the sand; between good and evil in our world. You see circumstances shatter and shake all beams of reality, and then you see different people fill in those vacuums differently. While some expand into luminous beacons of humanity, others grow hollower by the day, until they are consumed by the echoes of their own vacant words.

I will fail miserably to review this, so i will not even try anymore. One can review a film, because it is reviewing the structure and execution of a perspective. One cannot review life, for it will always astonish you with its vastness, with the richness and depth of its color, and the black abyss of its madness. I wish there was a tangible takeaway from this viewing. A deeper understanding of why anything happens at all. But in the end, there's only what you have experienced. There's only what you have seen.

Go watch it. Thats all i can say.

Netflix Movie of the Week: 12/3/10

Crimes and Misdemeanors by Woody Allen

Only half of 'Crimes and Misdemeanors' plays out the way it sounds or vaguely promises. You walk into it hoping for scoundrels and damsels. You expect capers and glib social innuendos. Perhaps even a clever bank heist, Woody Allen style, dripping with wry humor and scheming cons.

Well, no, this is not one of those movies.

CnM in fact is an uneasy alliance between two parallel story arcs, that meet only once, not as a plot device, but as an exclamation point of resounding volume. Its a disturbing confluence of criminal tragedy and romantic comedy. The stressful drama unfolds in the life of a successful opthamologist (Martin Landau) whose mistress of the past few years (Anjelica Huston) has had enough of sitting on the sidelines. She does not want to share Landau anymore, and is willing to go to any extreme to achieve that goal. The oddly endearing comic relief is provided by Allen himself, a middle aged documentary maker who yearns for the affection of a kindred spirit and fellow artist (Mia Farrow), while getting increasingly distant from his uninterested and disappointed wife.

The genius of Woody Allen's work is in portraying the every day life with such precision that the pathos of it's characters seeps into you like water in sand. As a conflicted Landau struggles to deal with the increasingly neurotic and insecure Huston, you often find yourself taking his place and dreading it. As he slowly unravels in the face of the constant threat that could utterly destroy his life, his family, his career, you find yourself admonishing him under your breath for his indiscretions and infidelity, at the same time thanking the Universe for not placing you in his cursed shoes.

While we watch Landau's fall from grace with increasing discomfort, Allen's own dilemmas leave you wishing for a happy ending for the despondent filmmaker. Not only does his wife have no love or respect for his non-commercial work, he finds himself constantly pit against his arch-nemesis, the wildly successful brother-in-law (the great Alan Alda). Allen's Cliff sticks to his principles and integrity inspite of being constantly upended in love and glory by the maverick Alda. You root for him till the very end, even as he sits confused and defeated, unable to find a single ray of light to brighten his derailed life. Of course, how Landau's guilt ridden opthamologist fits into this end is what Woody Allen and the film is all about. As expected, Allen leaves you with more questions than answers, with a faint hope that the truth lies somewhere between the crimes and misdemeanors of human existence. Nobody portrays the irrationality of life in cinema, without being cinematic, better than Woody Allen. And here, he's at the top of his game.

The idea of an idea

If you wake from a dream only to find yourself in another dream, the idea of an elusive reality can take hold and propagate like a virus, never giving up. An idea, that most resilient of all parasites, that can give purpose to existence, or tear it to pieces.

Thats the central premise behind Nolan's latest mind-bender, 'Inception'. It becomes fairly obvious from the start that one needs to grab a thread and hold it tight lest you lose yourself in a maze of dreams. As a cinematic production, the film is layered with genres across the board. It operates on some levels as a thriller, on others as a romantic drama, and some ingenious action sequences quite rightly push it well into the action category as well. But to qualify this feature into genres would be a mistake. For while the movie revolves around a curious plot involving corporate espionage, it reveals a surprisingly Freudian affection towards the various dream states and their influence on our subconscious. One would be forgiven to call it a thrilling study on the possibilities of dreams and the movement of ideas, to and from these dreams, into the human subconscious.

DiCaprio brings an understated tenderness to his character, which is why i suspect Nolan picked him over the equally talented and oft-used Bale. Gordon-Levitt leads a strong supporting cast, along with the ever-cute Ellen Page. Cotillard deserves a special mention for the haunting presence of a captivating wraith, dwelling inside Caprio's mind as a promised escape as well as a vengeful curse. What's most impressive is how deeply the cast believes in the world of dreams they inhabit. DiCaprio's expression on Page's especially inspired physics-bending trick in Paris is priceless. Even the old hat at dreams confesses himself impressed.

This movie is a must-see, not for it's 'entertainment' value, but for the sake of an exhilarating new experience, quite like the ones we find in an alternative 'reality' buried too deep to be recalled later.