The Paradine Case (1947)

The Paradine Case is quite a less known film within the celebrated director Hitchcock's work, which is strange, for it comes close in excellence to the 1958 film Vertigo, which I regard as his finest film. The two films have much in common, too: a mysterious woman (not just a crude femme fatale), a clever, upright man abandoning his reason in his obsession with that woman, a smart, slightly cynical but romantic, not very feminine girl or woman (a foil to the mysterious woman, to so speak) who acts as a friend to the man but probably has an unrequited love too at her heart. Now these features are often found in some other Hitchcock films, too, not just these two: it's amazing how many little-differing variations of them Hitchcock has tried them out in different circumstances. In the case of The Paradine Case, a film set in Britain, Hitchcock also throws in a third woman: feminine but with no mystery, devoted and loyal, loving, mother like. She plays the man's wife in this case.

So the man is Anthony Keane (played by American actor Gregory Peck), the mysterious woman is Paradine (played by European import Valli), the not very feminine, smart woman is Judy (played by Joan Tetzel) and the loyal and loving woman is Gay (played by Ann Todd). The film on the face of it is a very simple, tragic story of unfulfilled passion and its tragic consequences; it also serves as a social commentary, though not much emphasis has been put on that aspect, and rightly so. But the film also serves as a brilliant exposition on the difference between love and obsession. Keane, engaged to defend Paradine who has been charged with murdering her husband, is a highly celebrated barrister: and yet, he neglects even the most fundamental tenets of his profession, when he is repeatedly browbeaten by Paradine because of his obsession for her to not even get to know the full details of what really happened. Usually, one would assume the lawyer even knows whether the client did it or didn't, but Keane, it seems, doesn't even want to know the truth, rebuffing any attempts indignantly to enlighten him. He believes in Paradine, but tremulously so: he doesn't want his belief to shatter, so shuts his ears off to any possible warnings. This is quite different from, let's bring in a very different climate and character, the Jatil Yadav character played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui in Raat Akeli Hai: Yadav keeps on going and does not hesitate to accuse Radha of indeed being the murderess but still doesn't abandon her. For Yadav may also be a little obsessed by Radha, but he is also in love with her, whereas Keane is obsessed by the elusiveness of Paradine, rather than in love with the woman. He doesn't want to know the past so well, for it could break the idol he has made of her in his world of imagination.

Another highly significant meaning of love is brought to the film by Keane's loving and loyal wife Gay herself: one of the exchanges between the couple is one of the finest exchanges one would have seen between a couple on screen, at least certainly in a British or American film. Gay, unlike her husband, does not want to escape from reality or shut herself to it: she wants to take it on, for love cannot stand upon illusions and faked reality. She has the intelligence and courage to know and feel it. And it is Gay's character which indeed elevates the film above scores of films playing on the same theme: after all, there have been a lot of films with this very same story but focusing just on the man and his object of obsession, with either no wife or a silently suffering wife. Gay is neither non-existent nor a silently suffering, weeping one. To complete this portmanteau of men-women relationships, there is also the quite-underdeveloped (and understandably so) relationship of the womaniser, lecherous judge Horfield (played superbly by Charles Laughton) and Lady Horfield (also played brilliantly by Ethel Barrymore, though her role is very brief). And this another variety of a relationship doesn't detract or subtract from the film's main story: it adds to it and doesn't seem an add-on, unlike, to take another example of a recent Indian film, the clumsy attempts of Thappad. And then there is Judy: energetic, highly intelligent, not very feminine in habits or appearance and probably therefore often seen as a pal rather than a desirable woman by men. In Vertigo, there's Midge, more apparently in love with Scottie; in here, Judy doesn't have that possibility as Keane is already married happily, but she does allow herself the imagination to think so, if only to teach a lesson to the likes of Keane.

And finally, besides the brilliant character parts of the film, what really makes the film a great little gem is its marvellous editing and cinematography. In a nutshell, brilliant direction from Hitchcock. What a way to show Latour (played by Louis Jourdan) the first time! Or can it even be called showing? Neither a jealous Keane, nor the smug trap driver and nor the curious viewer will ever be sure of who this man is. The lecherous gaze of Judge Horfield on Gay's nakedness: the camera also looks covetedly. The respective first entries of Paradine and Latour the first time in the court room: the world burning its judging looks onto Paradine, while Paradine, even without daring to turn her face, burning to look at Latour with every fibre of her consciousness. And the portrait of Paradine following Keane, unable to leave him at rest: the man's obsession evident. All this executed by a cinematographer who did what he was asked to, the director who had the vision to think of this and the editor who cut out the unneeded where needed.

A fine film that deserves to be known more and better.

Taj Mahal (2015)

Nicolas Saada's debut feature-length film Taj Mahal is a work of art, framed by aesthetic sensibilities of leaving much unsaid; it is a pity that the film has been viewed by many critics uniquely through the lens of Mumbai terror attacks or dated postcolonialism. The film is in fact not about Mumbai terror attacks: the attacks are only a catalyst. The film is about a timid, unsure, not very courageous, slightly repressed girl Louise: it is her character's development, which will not climax to any satisfactory level with the film's end, that concerns us. On the face of it, the film appears to many as just another of those films of someone trapped in some dangerous situation, the likes of which Hollywood churns out in mass numbers. But the film goes much beyond that, in terms of both actual plot and what is implied. The film does not end at the girl's release from the tragedy: it goes on, to provide us vital clues to Louise' character. It is not a Hollywood hug-and-cheer ending. It ends indeterminately: Louise is still young, and she is still to discover herself, but the incident and the India trip have given her impetus and maybe a newfound courage. She can now ignore her slightly cold, domineering mother, she can now try to reach out to people whom her parents don't ask her to talk to, she can now say "I don't know" with surety, in a world where "I don't know" is not accepted as answer, where pretensions of knowledge are what you stake your reputation on.

As I said, a lot is unsaid in the film. The embrace of Louise and the Italian woman is tight and warm, both enjoying human warmth after being trapped in an inferno. Giovanna is a woman which Louise's mother is not: it is telling that Louise prefers always to talk to her father when distressed, contrary to usual expectations. Giovanna has brought her intimacy, love and promise in one embrace, which Louise had been searching for all her life, which makes her so diffident. Giovanna is someone whom Louise could have loved passionately, if not torn apart without any addresses to exchange. But she finds only the cold, unembracing world like Pierre or her mother; the people who cared for her, the man who offered her the footwear, the room service guy, Giovanna, all are lost in time and in India. The world of India is the world where Louise steps into youth, struggles into it: she finds Paris meaningless, colourless, she finds her life sucked, tucked into a microcosm: that incident, that trip. It is not painful or an adventure for her: that world is a cocoon in which she was tightly wrapped, a sequence of life events that have changed her, that have suddenly given her something new, made her a bit more known to herself.

And how does Saada manage to achieve it? First, by selecting a fine cast, especially Stacy Martin's not very expressive face, which works wonders for the film. Then, by getting great cinematography and lovely use of tones: Paris is bleaker and colder, toned down, and Mumbai is brightened. The sound recording itself is a treat: in both Mumbai and Paris, outdoors' noises are heightened, the world of exterior collides with Louise's inward personality, ready to go into her shell. The interior world, whether it be Louise in the cafe in Paris or in the plush hotel Taj, is depressingly quiet, a troubled peace, like still water beneath which much lurks. One could accuse Saada of some things: that he didn't put a bereaving or distressed Indian family beside the French family when Louise was trapped in the hotel; that Giovanna is another European instead of an Indian. But would it not have violated the aesthetic purity and the integrity of the film? For me, it would have. Louise's world is small: it is she who sees, it is she who is feeling this world. Will she see the Indian family? Will she not find a lot of affinity with Giovanna? In this world of political correctness, we have forgotten people themselves. Thankfully, Saada sticks to his vision, not of those for whom everything is a ledger.

And to those critics who dismiss the movie as a story of some rich white girl, ignoring many others, I don't know what to say: are rich white girls not human beings? Should stories revolving around them be not made just because they are a minority in a particular milieu? Do not be deterred by critics: go and explore the several deep layers of an apparently simple film.

Felicia's Journey

Felicia's Journey is one of those rare, powerful films that grow, that creep on you: they haunt you. You find yourself brooding over it, over its scenes, over its characters, over its worlds, over your life and your worlds, over the diversity of human experience. The film is a horror film: but not in the sense of cold chills. There was ample scope for that to happen: but thankfully, the horror treated in this film is of sickness, of loneliness, of dashed hopes, of lack of love, of a lot of love to give. It is a beautiful and authentic psychological study of the pathology of and from loneliness, and an equally marvellous study of the goodness of human heart, at times.

I have seen many Hitchcock films in my life, and though I have appreciated greatly a couple of them, the director in my opinion is highly overrated. And here Atom Egoyan, though he himself may be inspired by Hitch, gives a proof of how it ought to be done: Egoyan makes a film of another Psycho dimensions, but by rendering it a human touch, he elevates it from the often-popcorn entertainment of Hitchcock to art: for art touches, interrogates and disturbs. And haunts. This film would of course not have been possible but for the remarkable acting performances by Bob Hoskins and Elaine Cassidy, but it would also not have been possible if not for the editing and direction: the (mis)synchronicity of sound and image and direction is an especial delight, which adds to the depth of the film.

The film also illuminates true faith. Faith is not found in the shouting, itinerant preacher, who does not know what to do when faced with error. But faith is maybe found in the faithless, who does not mind her killer, for she knows why he kills, for she can empathize now with his loneliness, with his desperation. And it is thus that he shall receive, finally, love. And it is thus that man dwarfs the giant urban landscapes he traverses.

Astonishingly shot, the film is imbued with a typical British touch in that a lot of urban and factory environment establishes the film's setting. The soundtrack of the film is also a treat: relevant and melodious. And more than everything, it is the build-up through back-and-forth editing, but not some software-happy editing of the modern times, that makes the film a desirable and difficult watch. Difficult because you keep squirming in your seat, as you really believe in Hoskins and Cassidy, you find yourself in the middle of tension, of nervousness, of fear, of the desire to cry out and warn Cassidy. And that is why the end is so special: the being full of love never has the need to fear.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

The film tries its hand at humour, and does succeed at times; where it succeeds the most, even if unwittingly, is in being also a very depressing film. While trying to stereotype India, the India where only an Englishman can do something worthwhile (explain dunking toast in tea, visiting a maidservant/low-caste woman, telling how a cricket bat should be held, fixing a leaking tap, keeping accounts - and you better watch the film for the complete enumeration) and the Indian can only play capers and do frauds on people with the chalta hai attitude, the film in fact ends up stereotyping, very miserably, very unjustly (as all stereotyping is), the British themselves: unable to see beyond money and sex? The character of Evelyn Greenslade, played by Judi Dench, is the one most cruelly disappointing: even she was just after the usual rigmarole of companionship, sex and so-called independence! Oh dear! Tati could not have projected this circus in a better way: only, I highly doubt if the filmmakers of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel wished it that way. Interestingly, judging the high opinion in which the film is kept in many quarters, the stereotyping is certainly based on some reality: otherwise, how is that possible? (It would not be amiss here to recall another film, the French superhit of 2011, Intouchables, for the same combination of a film playing on stereotypes becoming a huge hit among critics and masses alike.)

The film starts well: the hypocrisy and heartburns in each character's lives are very believable, very much part of the Tati and Barnum play. But, then, the film nosedives: more and lower. The choices of language are interesting: a normal rickshaw puller is shown speaking in English (and quite fine words), but then why not the old cook and the maidservant? (Should it also be reminded here that the film reinforces European notions of caste and economic class being one?) The choices of language get further interesting: what kind of language is that character from Arsenic and Old Lace - yes, I do mean the Dev Patel character - using? The only worthy wit in cut-and-dried British style comes from the Anglo-Indian club secretary (Denzil Smith): of course not from the slavishly adoring maid.

The biggest flaw of the film is its British characters: the film ends, and yet all of them are where they were. How, where did they develop as humans? If a story starts at point A and ends right there, and no point B, then either you are Jacques Tati and making that as your point, or you are just expressing a very sad aspect of modern life, of modern Britain here: that there's no story (anymore?). No one discovers the rhythm of India, the spirituality of India, the peace of India, the non-aggression of India; running after their unrealized desires, they only discover a new woman in bed, a new man to call their own, a new confidence, a new self-respect, begotten from minds and eyes still in colonial awe.

And yet, are all the minds and eyes in India (still) under that colonial awe? Are they as awestruck by a society which does not even know what to do with their old? That won't be a comfortable question to pose to those who made the film: finding India a jumble and never able to go beneath the rumble.

The Third Man

A film from that golden era of English films, whether coming from Hollywood or Britain, the 1940s, when films dared to be grey, realistic and yet fogged in a halo of street lamps, Carol Reed's The Third Man boldly tries things which few films have done throughout the history of cinema, until today. A music that grows on your nerves rather than forming a complementary to the plot; a key man of the plot being introduced when you had almost forgotten of him (and what an introduction!); and some never-to-be forgotten dialogues that give the film a human relevance much beyond what its film noir look would have done so: these are things that are hardly done nowadays, when directors claim to be "experimental," let alone back then in that era when women often had nothing to do except being the love interest. Alida Valli also doesn't have to do more than that, but in walking off from the blundering positive protagonist, Joseph Cotten, she makes a statement to rival that made by Maj-Britt Nilsson in the Swedish film Sommarlek, interestingly from the same period: the statement that a nearly similar film, at least as far as the atmospherics are concerned, George Cukor's Gaslight, failed to make, in spite of a remarkable performance by the talent of Ingrid Bergman.

Apart from the music, the film's strengths lie in its unconventional cinematography but conventional editing, and actors very well suited to their parts except Welles to a large extent and Valli to a certain extent. However, since Welles' role is primarily that of bringing a shock value at points in the film, it does not matter that much; it is the ensemble of the self-pitying but still-searching Joseph Cotten and the very internationally diversified world around him in the post-War Vienna that form the crux of the cast and the strength of the film. Where crisp cinematography, Valli's eyes, and Cotten's performance are already ruling the roost, it's a feat to even be noticeable: Austrian actress Hedwig Bleibtreu rather manages to illuminate the whole film, in the matter of hardly minutes, with that minor role of the landlady of Valli she has. Not only that, but in the context of the post-Welles film, she - more than any gangrened patients in the hospital, who should've been shown by the camera (this is one major flaw of the film; I don't know if it was due to any production code issues or merely that fine detail of avoiding hurting people's sensibilities) - it is she who represents one of those obscure "dots," which hardly matter in the scheme of things. While Raskolnikov's old lady might have been portrayed as mean and not in a flattering way, here is another such obscure dot, waiting to be exterminated: but this time this dot is brimful with life. Life not in the sense of doing great things, rushing from one city to another, or unbounded laughter or sex; but life in that ultimate sense of living, that love for living which permeates so many of us, which only gives meaning to everything we do.

A lot has been said of that brave shot at the end of the film, and even after having watched hundreds and hundreds of films, I, too, find it a really brave shot: I hadn't expected it at all. Only Lean's entry for Omar Sharif in Lawrence of Arabia rivals it, but I would say even that wasn't as brave a shot as this one is: to set such a shot at the climax of the film, with around 2 mins of screen time without wavering from that simple walk that rejects the pretender, could not just be termed brave, but could have been called visionary, had the later filmmakers learnt anything.

Talking of other things, Trevor Howard gives a fine performance, as does the Austrian actor Ernst Deutsch in a vampirish-looking role. The accent of Bernard Lee makes a delightful addition to the film. And the end of Welles is probably even more remarkable than the entry of Welles in the film: clutching and grasping. For? Money? Or this time, life? Salvation? Or trying to escape from being a once-upon dot?

Tunes of Glory

An interesting study of not only two men on the extremes of temperaments--one a whiskey-drinking, self-pitying, darling of men, chummy, able officer (Sinclair) who leads them through the war in an acting capacity but successfully, the other (Barrow) who was born into the regiment and sees its successful command as the salvation of his life, who tries to make men his own models, a strict disciplinarian, living by the rule-book--but also how a great film is usually made not through directorial tricks, but the best actors you can gather and a good enough screenplay, is Tunes of Glory. Editing unnecessarily and having montages of flows in an obvious aim to obfuscate the viewer and make his spidery brain tick has become the norm of the game today: it's high time we return to a game in which high tricks win the game and not bluffing.

The greatness of Alec Guinness lies in that he was approached for the role of Barrow, since he was most naturally suited to the role through his own persona, plus Barrow was yet another variation on the Col. Nicholson played so adeptly by him in the David Lean masterpiece The Bridge on the River Kwai. Guinness refused it and instead offered for Sinclair: on the simple grounds that he is an actor only if he can step out of his own skin and play someone else, since an actor "pretends." His word, as of any man good in his craft, was enough weight, and thankfully the director Ronald Neame took him on board as Sinclair and then cast John Mills as Barrow, another casting coup of sorts since Mills never used to play an aristocratic crusty gent. As Neame himself said, the beauty of Mills' performance was that if any other actor had played Barrow, it would've been easily overshadowed by Sinclair; but now the film has two counter-magnates, each of whom the viewer sympathises with in turns and still not commit wholeheartedly to either. Guinness of course was simply amazing: to change himself so completely, his whole personality, even how he walked and sat and everything about him, would have been nerve wracking, and it would have been impossible for him to go back to the real Guinness till some time after the film was shot.

The supporting cast is excellent, with Duncan Macrae as the pipe major and Susannah York as Sinclair's pretty daughter Morag especially good in their limited screen times. One of the most interesting things is of course the screenplay in itself; the balance between the two characters is finely etched out, the short effective punches of Mills alternating with the long rants of Guinness and in between the rest of the regiment, like hung on a thread between the two and not knowing what to do. Dennis Price (playing Battalion Executive Officer Charlie Scott) tries to sway the thread and disturbs the equilibrium, hastening the inevitable tragedy at the climax. It is unfortunate indeed that the tunes of glory are so often rung out when the moment is already past: and man only knows to see truly in retrospect.

Ffolkes / One Two Three - The Taking of Pelham / Juggernaut

You will usually see only the fringe players in such films - character actors, actors who promise to become stars one day and never become, and some who just keep getting in and out of the film world itself. And yet, they somehow grip you. The dialogues are few, the music is impeccably paced, there's always a material image which looms larger than any of the characters (an oil rig, a train, a ship), there are always some, very brief snippets of the inactive characters in the film (I mean the passengers of the ship, of the train, the crew of the rig), and underlying everything is the tension, the all-pervading, sweaty tension. Someone is silently making ransom calls, someone is receiving them frantically, silently the calls are tapped and silently the heat and tension grows. The simplest solution - give the ransom. And yet, there's that thing of giving in to terror - and so, against time, plots are planned with mathematical precision, crazy experts are called for (whom nobody, even those who are seeking their help, likes), and the film is mounted onto a slow boil.
The amazing thing is that there's not any usual suspense in the film. Nobody wants to know who the person demanding ransom is and why is he or she doing it, nobody wants to know who will die and who will not, and yet there's a grip - although we all know that the ship or train with hundreds of people or the oil rig with crores of rupees will be saved at the end and we even know the general outline of the film in advance, somehow we remain in thrall of how exactly does this go now. The crispness and the dry satire of the dialogues in such film helps, and if the location is Britain, then be assured to get some vintage Britishness.
And, such films never do really well at the box office. People like dashers who can jump from speeding yachts and trains with nonchalance and lay stylish women at the same time in bed, and not the actual, efficient, superskilled and genius experts.