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The Brave One (2007)
A script that touches and jolts
'The Brave One' is one of those few Hollywood movies which has a well thought out script that brilliantly draws parallels between the dark side of human psyche and the underbelly of a metropolis.
I've watched this movie several times and every time I could derive a little more strength and inspiration from it. Not the kind of strength that you need to exact revenge for the wrongs done to you, but the strength that you need to survive any kind of trauma or abuse. The movie also portrays the darker side of the victims of brutality when they chose revenge as their only path to survival.
The movie has a taut story line and superb piece of acting by Joddie Foster and Terrence Howard (Detective Mercer), who is, by the way, one of the most underrated actors of Hollywood. The highlight of the film is its script which both touches and leaves you jolted. The script writing trio: Roderick and Bruce Taylor and Cynthia Mort skillfully transform their narration of New York , from city which is benign and filled with nostalgia for its old world charm, to a dark place where fear lurks in the shadows.. The way Erica Bains describes the city to her listeners before and after her tragedy is one of the finest pieces of narration that I have come across in a Hollywood film. It reminded me of an essay written by Cynthia Ozick on the changing faces of New York, titled 'The Synthetic Sublime' published in the year 2000 in a collection called 'The Best American Essays' printed by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, USA.
The Frankenstein Chronicles (2015)
Underbelly of Human Consciousness
The Frankenstein Chronicles is one of the few television series which almost succeeds in accomplishing a multi-media creation which has the multiple layers and depths of a novel.
It is a crime period drama based in 1827 London. Its story line is as muddy, gritty and dark as the streets of London in those times. It is a beguiling take on Mary Shelley's Gothic classic from the viewpoint of a detective, Marlott (Sean Bean) who, in his attempts to solve the mystery behind bodies of children stitched together which keep washing up on the shore, ends up becoming Frankenstein's monster himself.
The creators of these series have managed to come up with sordid and grisly characters of all shapes and sizes, perhaps a reflection of the underbelly of human consciousness.
The sets are bleak and gloomy and the visuals require a tough stomach. Underlying the dirt and wide spread poverty , blood and gore, brutalized women and children, and depraved intellects is the art and poetry of William Blake.
The creators of this series have very interestingly juxtaposed the monster of William Blake's visions with Frankenstein's monster with all its shades of grey. The true meaning of Blake's visions and imagery slowly dawn on the protagonist, Marlott, as he undergoes a kind of the catharsis, first during his mercury induced dazed illusions and next as Frankenstein's monster hanging between life and death, heaven and hell, questioning the morality behind medical science's attempts at conquering bodily death at the cost of losing the soul.
Anand Math (1952)
Anand Math is a 1952 Hindi patriotic-historical film directed by Hemen Gupta, based on Anandamath, the famous Bengali novel written by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee in 1882.
This movie is based on a novel of the same name by Bakim Chandra Chaterjee. This novel was penned a century after the events actually happened. Notwithstanding its literary significance, the novel has overtones of Hindu revivalism and attitude of co-existence with the British rule which is a major departure from the actual incidents of this movement. There are official records documented by British officers of at least three incidents where the Muslims and Hindus together fought against the East India Company. The actually rebellion, on which this movie is based, was a united Hindu-Muslim revolt against the British known as the Fakir Sanyasi Rebellion which engulfed most districts of northern and eastern undivided Bengal during the early part of the British colonial rule in India (1767-1800). This rebellion was led by a Muslim Fakir, Majnu Shah and a Hindu Sanyasi, Bhawani Pathak, a fact that is totally ignored in this movie.
The Presence (2010)
It is a ghost movie with a difference.
I think that the storyline is an interesting take on the phenomenon of haunting and possession. It's underlying suggestion that possession is a more subtle phenomenon in contrast to the head-banging and vein-exploding stereotypes shown in most horror movies, is more believable. Tony Curren's portrayal of a 'dark angel' is very impressive and Shane West does a superb work of displaying subtle shades of evil, melancholy, frustration, loneliness and grief without uttering a single word. My favourite is the opening scene in which the concept of the 'Presence' is conveyed with a terrifying stillness. This movie reminded me of another refreshingly different horror movie starring Nicole Kidman, called 'The Others'.