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Reviews
Kaccha Limbu (2017)
"Life itself or just merely capturing it?" truly a Marathi masterpiece
For a directorial debut, Kaccha Limbu proves to be an 'emotional wrench'. From the very first frame the film holds on to your heart and grabs on to it for the duration, slowly tightening it, sequencing it. Until and unless your heart is emotional drained of all feelings. The film takes you on this journey of a wonderful family tragedy, where you experience their heartbreak, their joy and the thin grey line they walk upon- that area of life is relatively known as 'being a parent'. With the majority of film being black and white, I believe that's how parents must've feel about this stage- a little black and a little white. Instead of ending the film on a 'Directed By' or 'A Film By' note, the director chooses to end it on 'An Experience By' note. And that is exactly what this film is about, it is an experience. The most emotionally excruciatingly at that too, in a good way i.e for me at least. I've never felt so brutally violated of my all my feelings, I've been penetrated from each and every conner of my mind. For the sake of Naration, The story is about a husband and wife and their struggle in trying to bring up this differently-abled special-needs boy into this cynical world. With true and real to life performances, gazing at their saddened eyes- it becomes hard for us to tell them apart from professionally trained actors. With the use of low-contrast lightning these soft shadows feel closer to reality in comparison to the more conventional noir or neo-noir style. Whether each and every person on this planet should watch this film, is a rhetorical question. But if I must weigh-in, this has been quite an experience for me at least for which I shall remember it for ages to come and ages to go. Suddenly, Family has found itself a whole new meaning in the world dictionary. I insist, please look upon this film with kind and naked eyes.
Bar Bahar (2016)
In Between (Bar Bahar) - Israel ,2016, 102'min Directed by- Maysaloun Hamound
I saw this film in PIFF - Pune International Film Festival, Maysaloun Hamoud's directional debut is not only inspiring but intelligent. It is a much needed commentary on today's society and I hope more people watch it. In Between (Bar Bahar) was among my favourite films in the festival. This is a film about three Palestinian women sharing a flat together in a metropolitan city in Israel. It revolves and focuses around various themes that are central to the religious and communal feelings of Israel. Layla and Salma are modern liberals who belong to a younger generation. (They drink, they party, they smoke, sometimes weed). They believe in a non-patriarch egalitarian society, where men and women should be treated respectfully. They also believe in a society that is not so conservative about religion. Now enters Nour, a computer science student who is a practising Muslim- she wears a hi-jab, performs her daily prayers. She is about to be married to an Islamist radical who runs a NGO supporting Muslims in need. Nour replaces her cousin sister as Layla's' and Salma's' new flatmate. Their interactions and 'clashes' are very interesting to watch as their different viewpoints collide with one another which creates amusing reactions. The chemistry between these characters is flawless, you cannot help but watch them grow and evolve. This movie had me grabbed by the guts, I was glued to the screen for the entire duration of the film. Each one of these women face a moment or a situation where they are challenged by the society despite being independent in their true nature. Layla is a criminal defence lawyer, she seems to enjoy what she does and she seems pretty good it. She has a witty interactive relationship with her fellow colleagues. However, she is challenged by her boyfriend (a filmmaker coincidental?) who becomes judgemental of her moral ethics. Salma belongs to a Christian family, who works as a cook in restaurant (Which she quits when she was insulted by a coworker) Now she works as a bartender who occasionally takes the role of a DJ. In one of her social interactions, she meets a lesbian, who she falls in love with. She takes her to meet her parents and when they find out about her bisexual nature. They decide to take away her independence from her and keep her at home. She sneaks away and leaves for Berlin, Germany. Nour is subjected to an unhealthy relationship with her fiancé. He wants her to move out of the flat into a choice of his location. However, she refuses his choice as the place was two hours away from her college. Her refusal leads him to violate her sexual, destroying her entirely. Layla and Salma help her through this, they support her, but she is no longer the same person we knew. All of these women have evolved and change. They had two options, either they accept the society they live in or they could choose to fight it back. In the end, I would summarise that the film is about a society that is yet to accept its new generation of people, ideals, morals and values. I think society needs to evolve and change because wearing torn shoes with newspapers won't change anything. Sewing the torn holes and bending the weaker bonds would. Even better is to throw away the old shoe.