Babam ve oglum (My father and my son) - 2005

Many people, specially turks, consider this to be one of the greatest turkish movies ever made. It has also been one of the highest  grossers in the country's history. It is overwhelmingly rated on IMDb. Many consider it over rated and too dramatic. But neither of these things adds or takes away anything from this wonderfully warm film by Çağan Irmak.

Unfolding in 1980's Turkey, the film starts in turmoil with its beginning sequence. A turmoil political for the country, personal for Sadik who loses his wife unable to get her to a hospital when she is about to deliver their son. The film follows their lives some years later when Sadik has to return to his native village with his son, which he had left after developing irreconcilable differences with his father about his own future. How things and relationships transform - with his father, son and rest of the family - is what this movie is all about.

Now this film is what they would call drama. It runs high on emotions, makes you laugh and cry at the same time with equal zest, blends a very coherent and memorable soundtrack (i keep running it time and again) that pitches in to cozy you up to the characters and the story, has just about the right mix of the tragedies and the promises of life, revolves around a family that owns its peaceful farmland away from the cities and lives and fights together, and makes one realize that eventually time is passing and people have to go to never come back.

I could appreciate the film, first, because of its staggering performances. The stubborn yet affectionate grandfather, the lively, loud and cheerful grandmother, Worried, uncomfortable yet helpless father, his naive brother and most of all the motherless kid, innocent and vulnerable. Second, like any good film it manages to work around a lot of themes that include and yet are not limited to undertones of political after effects on peoples lives, the inscrutability of relationships, how deeply and subliminally conflicts affect children (the fantasy sequences were special), aspirational conflicts between the young and the old, the warmth of a family for the young, and the inevitability of people leaving.

Some critics have said that the movie is a bit too loud. But this could be a silo that one might get trapped in - majorly of western viewers. Life too can be loud sometimes. And the celluloid reflecting or even exaggerating it with all its means is no reason to underestimate a piece of lovely storytelling.

4 on 5.

Moment of the film - When Salim is made to run and hit Huseyin and whatever follows !

Watch it for - A heartwarming time with family

Babam ve Oglum @ IMDb

Hana-bi (Fireworks) - 1997

I had this film stored in my computer for more than a year. From its imdb page i had built up this image of a bloody, fast paced japanese cop movie in my head which had pushed it back on the rack along with other no brainers. The ones i keep for absolutely and irritatingly idle times when all i need is a treat for my senses. I was wrong. 

It is a different movie. A rare and subtle blend of violence and quiet that exposes the limits that exist to the decisions a person can make given what he is in his circumstances. The interweaving of themes - thankless lives of cops and the bloodless violence in their personal lives, loss of loved ones both dead and alive, the solace in making our closest ones happy - gives a unique clarity to the hinges we build our lives upon. When one falls, we try to find another. Sometimes art takes its place. At other times nothing can. What follows is glaring emptiness. A certainty of nothingness. The futility of carrying on.

Kitano lends his acting perfection to his directing self. The use of art was brilliant given the space and context. Kishimoto is wonderful with her expressions sans words and in their numbered smiles together that burst out of acceptance of a foregone fate. A characteristic work that crafts its own end in style.

Moment of the film - The simplest bank robbery ever

Watch it for - A poignant placating evening

3.5 on 5.

Hana-bi @ Rotten Tomatoes

Machuca - 2004

We live in a world of contradictions. So much so that contradictions are actually central to our existence. And we know it. Searching for solitude in a crowd and looking for company in isolation. Wanting to have everything one day and the feeling of all of it being useless the next. The need to love and be loved and the reality of every feeling being ephemeral. Of having people close to share all that passes and to see them going away every now and then.

Mustering all our energy trying to hold on to things all the time, while also learning to let go in the background. That is what we are. Trying to be consistent can take up one’s life and yet to no avail. Machuca brings all these thoughts to mind. One that, through a fragile and unexaggerated friendship, tells us how incomplete every notion is, and how momentary. The contradiction of communism and capitalism. Our weakness and struggle with these contradictions. And being perpetually caught up in it. This one tells us how deeply a matter of politics can affect lives of people, friendships and their ideas of the world. How small things get related to big things and how friendships are not immune to differences in colour, class or cultures.

This movie will not blow your mind. It is subtle and silent for most part. But if you notice properly it has a lot to say. Based in Chile during the political unrest of the early seventies and just before the other significant 9/11 in world history, it observes a frail friendship walk through the tumult and eventually succumb to the circumstances. To the forces of man’s nature. Politics. Politics of nations, ideals, families, and classes. While showing a fairer side of the communist ideal it deals with how inequality affects lives. But the stand on ideals is more or less inevitable in any society in one way or the other. It is born out of the same contradictions.

3.5 on 5

Machuca @ Rotten Tomatoes

A version of this post was first published on Filmistani.