10 Movies To Look Forward To in 2011

Image: Sameer Pawar

5 FOREIGN MOVIES

Biutiful
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Spanish actor Javier Bardem won Best Actor at Cannes for his performance in Biutiful; for all his stubbly middle age and lowlife persona, he is sexy in a way only unreliable men can be. Biutiful is a brooding reverie on the interaction between life and death. Bardem plays Uxbal, a single dad and a hustler dealing with illegal immigrants, who is dying of cancer and worried for his kids. The screenplay’s melodramatic masala would make Karan Johar blush — yet the film is incandescent. I didn’t want to see another film for a long time.

Certified Copy (Copie Conforme)
Abbas Kiarostami
A free-spirited woman (Juliette Binoche) meets an uptight British writer (William Shimell) in romantic Tuscany, who holds forth on the value of “reproduction”, a genre usually disdained. The duo end up impersonating a married couple, and their union resembles a ‘certified copy’. A deceptively simple film, Kiarostami reflects on relationships, real and bogus.

The King’s Speech
Tom Hooper
The story of the stuttering King George VI (‘Bertie’) of Britain, and his ascension to the throne (elder brother Edward VIII abdicates the throne to marry the American Wallis Simpson), after his speech therapist Lionel Logue helps him become worthy of it. Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter star in the film, acclaimed as one that humanises, even as it pokes fun at, the royals.

127 Hours
Danny Boyle
The new nail-biter from the Oscar-winning Boyle about real life solo mountain climber Aron Ralston, who was forced to cut his own arm to survive, when trapped under a boulder in Utah (rather suggested in the film than shown). James Franco sensitively plays Aron Ralston. Critic Roger Ebert gave the film four stars.

Whisper with the Wind (Sirta la gal ba)
Shahram Alidi
An Iraqi Kurdish jewel. Alidi’s images are a haunting, surreal fusion of politics and poetry. Communication is impossible in war-flattened Kurdistan, so Mam Baldar, the postman, travels everywhere carrying messages from families for their missing, beloved ones. Even radio stations are banned, and there’s a memorable image of a large tree dominating the landscape, from which dangle scores of radios, hanging by nooses.


5 INDIAN FILMS

Saat Khoon Maaf (Seven Sins Forgiven)
Vishal Bhardwaj
Based on Ruskin Bond’s story, Susanna’s Seven Husbands, Saat Khoon Maaf is about a woman (Priyanka Chopra) who kills her seven husbands, each story being set in a politically volatile period. The cast includes Irrfan, John Abraham, Naseeruddin Shah, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Arjun Rampal, Annu Kapoor and Aleksandr Dyachenko. Superbly shot by ace cinematographer Ranjan Palit, it has first rate music, including a boisterous Russian number. If the censors are benevolent, the climax will be a sublime snapshot of the ultimate in civilisation — spirituality, surrender, compassion and grace.

Pairon Talle (Soul of Sand)
Sidharth Srinivasan
Pairon Talle is a savage stab at the ‘Shining India’ myth. The Shining Indiawallahs, who live in bungalows and own acres around Gurgaon, are also those who unhesitatingly chop their daughter’s boyfriend into shreds because he belongs to the wrong caste. Told from the viewpoint of a watchman of an abandoned silica mine, it foretells the bloodbath that must ensue when India’s underclass finally rebels. Compellingly shot by S. Nalla Muthu on HD, the film draws powerful performances from Dibyendu Bhattacharya and Saba Joshi. It was at the Toronto Film Festival.