The Intouchables

From the opening roar of a Maserati pursued by police along the Parisian périphérique, Intouchables captivates. At the wheel Driss, (Omar Sy) a young, Senegalese street hustler, bets his passenger, Philippe (François Cluzet) a middle-aged, bourgeois Parisian, he can escape. Cornered but not defeated, Driss ups the ante to secure a police escort. With Phillippe aping a potentially fatal fit, Driss races to A&E with Earth, Wind and Fire blaring above the attendant sirens.
Flash back to Driss, fresh from a prison stretch, unwelcome at his Mother's overcrowded flat on the sprawling Berlioz housing slum. Living on benefits conditional on attending interviews, Driss applies to care for Philippe, a rich quadriplegic confined to his first arrondissement mansion. Devoid of pity or reverence for Philippe's rarefied world, Driss's open about his motivation optimistically coming on to Magalie (Audrey Fleurot), Philippe's assistant. Although totally unsuitable, Philippe withholds his signature to satisfy the benefit agency. Forced to return, Driss around his expansive quarters and homeless, Driss reluctantly accepts a trial recoiling at the indignities expected of him. Despite initial tantrums and ineptitude, Driss develops an unlikely relationship with Philippe that transforms the entire household.
Intouchables, contrary to the tragic set up, is one of the funniest comedies of the year. Creative collaborators Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano have produced a string of popular and critical successes since 1995. They took France by storm when Intouchables, based on a true story, was originally released in November 2011. The films worldwide release has broken box office records for a French language film, racked up awards, contending for an Oscar and already scheduled to be remade in English by The Weinstein Company; it will need a brave director to try and live up to the original.
Intouchables's casting is superb. Cluzet plays Philippe, a former adrenalin junkie born to entitlement but paralysed in a paragliding accident and mourning his wife. His performance, with the physical limits of Philippe's condition, is an expressive master class, his comic timing perfect. Sy, who emerged from the working-class suburbs of Paris himself, is authentic and effortlessly charismatic as Driss, the aimless, street smart, opportunist whose overwhelming vitality is infectious.
Their cultural clashes drive the comedy. Philippe fills his life with intellectual stimulation; poetry, art, opera and classical music repressing the physical pleasures he can no longer feel. Directionless and irresponsible, Driss grasps all life has to offer living in the moment and, forgetting or dismissing his employer's disability. For Philippe Berlioz is the great French composer of the 19th Century; to Driss Berlioz is his family's housing project. While Philippe has poetic epistolic relationships, Driss collects hooker's flyers and constantly propositions Magalie. For his birthday Philippe's extended family gather for a dour classical concert but Driss gets them all grooving to Boogie Wonderland.
It's an education for both. The odd couple overcome the barriers of class and race, sharing honesty, humour and contempt for bourgeois pretension. Through Driss' ignorance and innocence, cajoling and challenge, Philippe's rediscovers the pleasures and possibility of life while Driss matures, developing empathy and a knowledge of classical cultural denied his social class.
Intouchables avoids sentimentality touching on the deeper issues of social class and discrimination poignantly reminding the viewer to live life to the fullest and embrace our common humanity.

The Hunt

According to English Professor Jack Lynch, "Lies, once they are accepted as true, take on a life of their own, one that lasts long after the original falsehoods have been exposed." The power of the continued acceptance of lies is reflected in Thomas Vinterberg's The Hunt, the disturbing story of the false accusation of a kindergarten teacher of sexual abuse. It is an accusation that reveals the sordid underbelly of a small town, hidden beneath the veneer of middle-class civility. Written by Vinterberg and Tobias Lindholm, The Hunt is a thought-provoking drama that makes us aware both of the vigilance needed to protect our children from predators, and of the crucial importance of following the precept that an individual is innocent until proved guilty in a court of law.
Mads Mikkelsen is Lucas, is a caring kindergarten teacher who has been recently divorced and shares custody of his teenage son, Marcus (Lasse Fogelstrom). He has a good relationship with his students, especially six-year-old Klara (Annika Wedderkopp), the daughter of his best friend Theo (Thomas Bo Larsen) and his wife Agnes (Anne Louise Hassing). Lucas walks her home from school when her parents are late in picking her up and she obviously likes him very much. In class one day, Klara kisses Lucas on the lips but is admonished by him that kissing on the lips is only for mum and dad. Sparked by seeing images on her bother's iPod, she tells kindergarten head Grethe (Susse Wold) that she doesn't like Lucas anymore because he has a "weenie." When Grethe tells her that this is normal because every man has one, Klara tells her that his was "straight and pointed." The incident is forgotten about for a few days until Grethe realizes that "children never lie", and begins questioning the little girl again, coming to the decision that sexual abuse has occurred and that some action must be taken. Though Klara now says that she cannot remember, her parents attribute her loss of memory to trying to forget what is uncomfortable. Calling a group of parents together, Grethe accuses Lucas before the parents, telling them the signs to watch out for in their own children. Slowly, the word gets around of widespread abuse at the school, though Lucas remains in the dark because Grethe refuses to give him any details about the accusations.
Word spreads by hearsay, gossip, and innuendo as a child psychologist, teachers, parents, and eventually the police are brought in, but no through investigation is ever conducted. Klara is questioned again (questions taken directly from the transcripts of actual police cases) and it is obvious she is a confused little girl who tells the adults what they want to hear. Vinterberg ratchets up the tension and we sense the world closing in on the embattled teacher. Though Lucas' male friends in the community have a long-lasting bond, they break the ties of their close-knit group and turn against one of their own.
Lucas and Marcus are denied the right to shop in the local market even to the point of threats and violence, his best friend Theo rejects him, and even his girlfriend Nadja (Alkexandra Rapaport) asks him if he's insane or sick. Lucas' only friend is Marcus' godfather, Bruun (Lars Ranthe), who soothes his friend's psyche with black humor. After Lucas is arrested, a preliminary hearing rules that there is not enough evidence to hold him and he is released, but this does not stop the violence. A rock is tossed through his window and neighborhood thugs take out their aggression on his dog Fanny.
The Hunt is a harrowing experience that is not an easy film to watch, especially if the viewer has had past experience with the subject. The exceptional performances, however, make it easier to appreciate. They are not only from Mikkelson who won Best Actor at Cannes, but also from Fogelstrom as Lucas' loving and supportive son, Ranthe who keeps Lucas afloat, and especially that of seven-year-old actress Annika Wedderkopp who is so angelic that we never turn against her even though we know she is lying. While some critics bemoan the fact that this kind of story has been told before, it has never been told like this, building with inexorable power from the warmth of small-town conviviality to a shocking picture of injustice and paranoia that hits us right in the solar plexus.

Pairon Talle

Hindi movie audiences have in recent years been treated to many an edgy cinematic tale set in India’s National Capital Region, warts and all. But Pairon Talle (English title: Soul of Sand) is miles away, both textually and stylistically, from any other Delhi film one might have seen before.
Debutant director Sidharth Srinivasan presents a landscape that is unrelentingly grim, stark and drenched in blood. Rarely have the unseemly facets of life in a rapidly expanding Delhi been captured on the big screen quite as unflinchingly.
Pairon Talle shocks and provokes and calls attention to all that is going wrong as material progress and modernization wage a losing battle with ominously regressive thought processes.
The film paints a dystopian portrait of a lawless fringe of a gleaming urban expanse that is going to seed post haste as land sharks and feudal mindsets run riot and violate all norms of humanity with complete impunity. It plays out in a space that is, on the face of it, placid, even idyllic. The mine overlooks a misleadingly tranquil water body.
Srinivasan adopts a style that yokes the conventions of cinematic naturalism to clearly identifiable elements of a genre film. The plot is built around a slew of disturbing systemic and social issues that Delhi and its denizens confront today on a daily basis.
Among other things, Pairon Talle addresses the simmering tensions unleashed by land deals, honour killings sanctioned by guardians of medieval morality and blatant anarchy engendered by lax and corrupt policing. These are all harsh and undeniable facts of life in Delhi NCR, but Srinivasan couches his concerns in a deceptively simple linear narrative.
Much of the film’s action takes place in and around an abandoned silica mine on the crime-prone outskirts of Delhi. A watchman, Bhanu Kumar (Dibyendu Bhattacharya), keeps vigil over the decrepit compound.
It is difficult to divine what he is really protecting for there is nothing left here. The gate to the mine is as rickety as Bhanu’s spirits, and the rusty padlock inspires anything but confidence.
Bhanu lives on the barren premises with his pretty wife, Saroj (Saba Joshi). His commitment is to his master, Lakshmichand Ahlawat (Avtar Sahni), is unquestioning and total.
He is servility personified – a figure not too different from the slavish migrant worker in Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s 1993 film, Vidheyan. Bhanu has been robbed of his sense of dignity and well-being by years of enslavement and he does his master’s bidding without a pause.
The only man who seems to treat Bhanu as an equal is a pliable policeman, Chattar Bitta (Rupinder Walia), whose palms have to be regularly greased in order to keep the mine out of harm’s way. But when trouble does strike, the cop proves to be as emasculated as Bhanu.
The lecherous Lakshmichand, who has inherited the silica mine from his father, thinks nothing of taking advantage of Bhanu’s loyalty and sexually exploiting his young wife.
On his part, Lakshmichand pledges his daughter, Twinkle (Geeta Bisht) to a man old enough to be her grandfather in a bid to induce the latter to buy the defunct mine.
In this world where anything goes, real estate is valued much more than family ties and women are treated as chattel to be battered and bartered for personal and pecuniary gains.
On the prowl here is a masked killer on a motorcycle. The nameless man is in pursuit of a pair of young runaway lovers. The hired assassin’s path crosses Bhanu’s, making life even more fraught with physical danger for the watchman.
The only time the marauder reveals his visage, it stays off camera. Obviously, his face is as disfigured as the treacherous world that he has emerged from.
When Bhanu, somewhat like the silent tribal victim in Govind Nihalani’s Aakrosh, eventually gathers the courage to break free from his shackles and give vent to his anger, it is too late for any sort of redemption. The consequences of his act are shockingly bloody.
Pairon Talle goes for the jugular. It isn’t a joyride of a film. But the palpable air of menace that hangs over the setting and the sheer power of its cautionary statement make it a consistently riveting experience.

A Royal Affair

Historically relevant, A Royal Affair shows its true period-drama nature in the very intelligent and detailed storyline, steadfast and conspicuous acting, and, most of all, sumptuous and glorious interiors, which actually enhance the visual experience significantly. The film expressively reminds the world once again about the illicit affair between Caroline Mathilde (Alicia Vikander), the beautiful Queen of Denmark, and the enlightened, German-born physician named Johann Struensee (Mads Mikkelsen). In all its courtly essence, A Royal Affair presents this 18th century tale with utmost thoroughness, adding huge amounts of tension to its naturalistic substance with every following minute. While it's mostly recognized for the meaningful romantic overtone, this film presents much more than that, even though the star-crossed lovers prove to have the biggest impact on the unexpected turn of events.
It starts very similarly to Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, with a young princess bound to marry a king she doesn't even know, through the old-fashioned way of a royal transaction. Right after the Queen finally sets her lovely eyes on the mysterious husband-to-be one thing is certain – there is something wrong with his majestic appearance. Christian VII (Mikkel Boe Følsgaard) giggles nervously, and is more interested in greeting his own dog than the woman, with whom he will probably (but not likely) spend the rest of his palace life. Right after the both absolutely awkward and truly humorous announcement of King's nightly visit in his wife's bedroom, and Caroline's anxiously awaited pregnancy, it becomes perfectly clear that the pair won't present itself in the expected, regal way. Those two characters don't even intend to give the appearance of being fully in love with each other. The king wanders angrily around the luxurious chambers making fun of everyone, not knowing that he ostentatiously presents all of his biggest weaknesses. At the same time, the Queen spends most of her time with the newborn baby. When Christian proclaims his forthcoming trip around Europe nobody realizes that big and sudden changes are about to happen. During the journey King's mental illness becomes worse. He needs a private doctor and he needs him quick. This is the moment when Johan Struensee first shows his handsome face. Apart from his unquestionable medical abilities, he proves to be a great admirer of the Enlightenment movement's greatest thinkers and their innovative works, and that's what makes him an ideal partner for the King. After returning to the country, their companionship grows stronger every day. Unfortunately, so does Johan's affection towards Queen's awe-inspiring persona. After a while, it becomes awfully obvious that they won't be able to suppress their deepest urges and a risky romance will soon take place, one that might actually begin a new era in the history of Denmark. Scheming behind the back of the wig-wearing, ignorant council, Caroline and Struensee use the gullible King for the sake of a greater good – they create many new and reformative laws, and using Christian's powerful, yet unstable hand they end up improving the whole land and its citizens' life, rushing Denmark towards the desired Enlightenment.
As history so often shows, when there is the optimistic, hard-working side there must also be the pessimistic, mischievous one. In A Royal Affair, it takes the form of an ominous, recalcitrant aristocrat named Ove Høegh-Guldberg (David Dencik). Conspiring along with Christian's stepmother Juliane Marie (Trine Dyrholm) he comes up with a perfect plan to get rid of the unwanted German and, at the same time, bring back Denmark's old 'glory'. Revealing the shocking truth about Queen being pregnant with Struensee he wreaks havoc among the society. The return of the Dark Ages is upon Denmark, and no one is able to stop this devastating process, as the King gave in to Ove's strong and convincing character, and, ultimately, to his own illness. Johann and Caroline are banished from the Kingdom, just to see that, sadly, their thorough plan wasn't actually meant to help anyone.
With its splendidly high entertainment value, A Royal Affair turns out to be a history lesson for everyone. Considerable attention to details in plot and in art design brings out the true substance of the film. The costumes are pitch-perfect, the music flows adequately to the events, and the ongoing transition in the atmosphere intensifies the reception of the whole. A Royal Affair possesses a great energy, which shows its true strength in all the performances. Without offending anyone from the amazing cast, it's important to note that Mads Mikkelsen gave the most award-worthy performance, showing the straightforwardly persuasive impassiveness that may really convince his fans and anti-fans alike. Therefore, those irrefutable acting skills, combined with a well-written script and steady direction, make A Royal Affair one of the most memorable Danish movies of the last decade.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

 The Perks of Being a Wallflower redefines the classic American coming-of-age story. Writer/director Steven Chbosky has raised the bar on the traditional adolescent drama, with an emotionally-charged narrative infused with just enough bold strokes of joy and heartbreak to set a new benchmark for what the genre can accomplish.
Based on Chbosky's own novel of the same name, the movie is about growing up in a tough and unforgiving world, yes, with its requisite lessons on overcoming obstacles. But it also touches on tragic notions of loss and grief, rarely explored in coming-of-age films with such mastery.
Chbosky has said that if viewers take away one message from the film, it's that "you are not alone." This seemingly simple thought can't come at a better time, as bullying and its often devastating consequences have dominated headlines in recent months.
The book's premise is deceptively straightforward. 15-year-old Charlie (Logan Lerman) keeps a diary of letters addressed to someone real or imagined. "Dear Friend," each entry begins, as he recalls his tumultuous high school days, celebratory one moment, heartbreaking the next, but always poignant and full of promise. The movie brings Charlie's writing to life, with a charming cadre of schoolmates (and the occasional peripheral adult) taking the stage as Charlie stands in the spotlight. It's an ideal structure for a narrative as free of boundaries as the promising world of the adolescent. Charlie is everyteen, we've all been there, or have we? The Perks of Being a Wallflower wanders down paths seldom seen on screen, into surprisingly shocking territory that challenges audiences to open their hearts.
The indie look and feel of the film is undeniable from the start. Single-point lighting is used effectively as a plot device. Charlie's face often appears split down the center, one side brightly lit, the other in soft shadow, mirroring his conflicted soul and sense of confusion, trapped between two worlds. Light falls gently on him when he's serene, more harshly in moments of crisis. The darkness hides the secrets he deftly keeps to himself as the narrative unfolds.
Audiences of all ages will be able to relate to the 80s modern rock soundtrack -- evocative songs you undoubtedly know and love, spanning generations from Boomers to today's teens. Sound design is brilliantly orchestrated with action timed perfectly to the music cues. Michael Brook's original score is appropriately minimal. Nothing needs to be underlined here in a story that has no filler or room to breathe. Not a frame is wasted on extended character development or conventional transitions in this visualization of Charlie's nonstop roller-coaster of a diary.
Andrew Dunn's stunning cinematography patiently engages the viewer, eschewing the hand-held shaky cam style so prevalent in the genre. His use of slow motion dolly shots brings us, literally, into Charlie's world. The boy's fear and sense of unease is heightened by intense closeups that reveal the bittersweet emptiness in his eyes. There's a lot more going on in that youthful head than he allows those around him to see, but even he isn't aware of it. We are but voyeurs, watching, examining, trying to make sense of Charlie's vulnerability and confusion.
Editor Mary Jo Markey's loving hand allows us to embrace the plot's twists and turns without skipping a beat. The pace is calm but deliberate, and it's clear that Dunn, Markey, and the rest of the production team are as devoted to Chbosky's vision as a boy experiencing his first romance. You only have one chance to get it right.
Chbosky has unquestionably assembled one of the most talented young ensemble casts in recent memory. As Charlie's love interest Sam, 22-year-old Emma Watson dominates the screen with the maturity and wisdom that only a polished veteran could bring to the role. Nina Dobrev, Julia Garner, and Mae Whitman are the free-spirited girls who surround Charlie and attempt to bring him to life. Their performances shine with an authenticity that is clearly rooted in passion for the material. On the male side, Johnny Simmons portrays football jock Brad, whose enigmatic personality figures prominently in the story in ways which will be left to the viewer. Nicholas Braun and Reece Thompson are standouts in support and much-needed comic relief.
As Charlie's would-be best friend Patrick, Ezra Miller is shockingly brilliant as a gay-go-lucky teen who lives life as if every day is his last. His joie de vivre is infectious and vacuums the pain out of anyone who comes near.
But The Perks of Being a Wallflower primarily rests on the shoulders of Logan Lerman. As Charlie, his ability to play down to 15 (he was 19 at the time) owes itself to a physical transformation he brings to every role -- in this case, widening his eyes and keeping an expressionless face that projects puppy dog innocence. His posture, walk, and pattern of speech all serve to underscore Charlie's youthful vulnerability. However The Perks of Being a Wallflower is remembered, wherever it stands in the pantheon of coming-of-age pictures, Lerman's authentic characterization of Chbosky's semi-autobiographical protagonist should stand as one of the most iconic adolescent portrayals of our time.
Some films are intensely personal, and that's as it should be. Art should move you, and you bring your own life experience to the table when considering it. The Perks of Being a Wallflower was so much more than I imagined. I expected to be moved but I had no idea where the film would take me. Whether or not you will be similarly affected is something you'll need to discover for yourself. I think you will.