Nomadland Analysis

Nomadland (2021)

Written for the Screen, Directed and Edited by: Chloe Zhao
Starring: Frances McDormand
Won the Golden Lion at Venice Film Festival, Golden Globe for Best Director, and more.

Such a beautiful film it is. I'm so happy to have watched such a good film after a long long time. The film flows like a poem, like music, like how cinema is supposed to flow. The tonality is a beautiful midground between a travel film, a drama, and a documentary. The way people are framed is super intimate - when they are telling their stories. It suddenly feels like a documentary and we feel that the stories are for real. The editing felt so conscious, and I was wondering how well the directorial voice was coming through the editing - no wonder the film is edited by the director herself. The way the film is shot - the handheld, low light shots - it makes the entire film feel so personal and intimate.

Frances McDormand is terrific in the film. Her face shows up a lot of pain that she went through. She uses it to her advantage to explore pain in characters - same with Three Billboards, and in this film too. She need not tear up or cry to show pain, she can just look somewhere for a while and we can feel the pain. The beach sequence was a terrific scene, where she just walks beside the beach and the wind blows. Such scenes can't be written. They only can be shot on location. In the screenplay, it is just two lines. In the film, it is a minute. It's cinema at its best. Wide landscapes, shot in an intimate way. One thing we look forward to in travelling is meeting people, listening to their stories and in this film this is done very well - we listen to people's stories of pain, losing their loved ones and their way of dealing with it. The film gives us hope, with a beautiful line, 'see you down the road'. 

Jathiratnalu Analysis

 Jathiratnalu (2021)

Written and Directed by: Anudeep K. V. 
Produced by: Nag Ashwin
Starring: Naveen Polishetti, Priyadarshi, Rahul Ramakrishna

It's hilarious. Everyone is saying it. Rightfully so. There are 8-9 solid misdirection jokes which you don't see coming. 'Ah pilla ki life idham anukuntunna ra', 'Vadilesthava?'
Stuff like this, you don't see it coming and you can't help but laugh. I think the film has all kinds of comedy. There is slapstick comedy - the parts where they go into each other's cars. There is parody - the court scenes, and the huge monologues. There is witty word play - unnollu, lenollu. Kickass one liners. The laughter in the theatre felt like the audience wouldn't even care about the film having a thread or a closure. Even if the court scene ended with the credits, everyone would've gone home satisfied. It's that intense laughter that it generates.

Naveen Polishetti uses all his skills in the film. The improvisational fumbling that he does. He tries to add something in everything he does. We can clearly see his characteristics coming through in every character he played. ACID, Agent and here. I loved all of them. But now, I would like to see him doing something where I can only see the character and not him. I have a strong feeling he can be an intense actor too, where he is totally into the character. I'd like to see him explore drama, and different kinds of genres. In Agent, there was a bit of that but I want to see him do a full fledged dramatic role. 

Ninnila Ninnila Analysis

 Ninnila Ninnila (2021)

Written and Directed by: Ani Sasi
Starring: Ritu Verma, Ashok Selvan, Nitya Menen
Cinematography: Divakar Mani

One complaint I had with a lot of Telugu films is that, if you take 10 random films and pause them in between where you can't see any actors or any important scenes of the film - you can't even differentiate between those films. There is no distinct visual grammar that films have. Every film looks the same. Ninnila Ninnila looks fresh, simply because of the reason that if you pause the film in any frame - you could say that it's a different film. The dehaze seems a little prohibitive to what the visuals could've explored, but the consistency in the visual language that it brings is interesting. The aspect ratio shift, the Indian portions still being like the recognizable Indian cinema frame - the London being back in the other format is interesting. I think they shot the London portions in a totally different camera, and a visual setup.   

The setting, the tone and the entire film felt heavily influenced by Ratatouille. Tearing up after having food, I've never experienced it. So it makes me feel like it's not something that would happen a lot. The film does it a lot of times, and kind of overused it. The plot turns into something interesting constantly. We getting to know that Ritu Verma is actually the head chef's daughter is a beautifully set up and paid off twist. The entire Nitya Menen track has a child like innocence in it. Although for some reason, I couldn't feel the loss as much. Ritu Verma was fantastic, I've always been her fan. She brings in a lot of emotional depth, even by doing nothing. She could just stand and her face can say a lot of things. That's a beautiful gift for an actor. The film doesn't mess up anywhere. It's a good, fun, feel good film. There's something missing in the film, which keeps it just one notch below excellence. I couldn't figure what.

The Devil All the Time Analysis

The Devil All the Time (2020)

Directed by: Antonio Campos
Written by: Antonio Campos & Paulo Campos
Based on a novel of the same name. On Netflix.

The film has religious dogmatism as the setting, the conflict and the threat too. There is a sense of mystery, and eeriness throughout the film. It starts with the scene where he puts spiders on himself, that's an excellent visual scene that sets the tone for the entire film. They use religion interestingly, in a way that we believe that a human could be capable of anything under the name of religion - and that's how the film goes slightly from thriller to horror. In a thriller, we are worried for the characters and in horror, we are worried for ourselves. This film makes us worried for ourselves, about what we might have to witness, about the plight of humanity, about the extremes to which a human can go to. The film has a bit of the modern Western influences, the way we see killings, revenge and that kind of things happening in the film. 

The film personally didn't mean as much to me, simply because I couldn't relate to what the film was talking about. The only thing that hit me was the sister committing suicide, which was well set up before the event happens. We see how much they mean to each other, how he takes care of her, The journey of Arvin, going through a childhood like that, going through his sister's death, killing them all and then taking a lift, and contemplating life - was an interesting aspect. I wish they explored the story in a slight coming-of-age zone from Arvin's perspective - amidst all the blood, revenge and killings. I'm not expecting a Boyhood out of Arvin's character exploration, but some more delving into his psyche. 

Blackmail Analysis

Blackmail (2018)

Directed by: Abhinav Deo
Story & Screenplay by: Parveez Sheikh
Starring: Irrfan Khan

Spoilers Alert. It's a black comedy - it has a Coen Brothers' vibe to it. I was immediately reminded of Blood Simple and Fargo. Very few characters, and they're trying to solve for their fuck ups which they did and the plot revolves around that - exploring their psyche in a quirky, esoteric way. It's about a man who finds out that his wife is cheating on him, and he decides to blackmail the boyfriend for money. It's an exciting premise, but the setback is that a lot of story beats are revealed in the trailer itself. I would have loved to discover all the story beats as the film progresses, for example the fact that he ends up paying for his own blackmail is such an interesting beat - which I remember learning from the trailer itself. But even after this, Prabha getting to know about it, she blackmailing him, she dying, him framing his friend Anand and Anand dying, the private detective - there is a lot happening throughout the film which keeps us hooked.

The casting choice was a little weird for me, because when they cast Kirti Kulhari as his wife - it isn't convincing that he is fantasizing at the wives of his colleagues, who don't look as sharp as his wife. For me, such casting has to work in line with the story beats. I read that he wanted to cast Aditi Rao Hydari initially - then it would've been worse. Although I understand that it's not only the looks, but the boredom of predictability, and the lack of excitement that could lead to the physical aspect dwindling over time. The character consistency, and the clever usage of dialogue with subtext - where the characters don't exactly say what they mean, and interesting story beats make for a quirky film. Although it's not emotionally satisfying, which the film never even promises to be.

Drishyam 2 Analysis

Drishyam 2 (2021) 

Written and Directed by: Jeethu Joseph
Streaming on Amazing Prime Video.

Spoilers Ahead.

The film initially explores the trauma and the aftermath of a tragic experience. It does that quite well. The way the elder daughter is traumatized whenever she sees cops, the way the mother is overprotective of everything. It's a convincing depiction of their mental states. Although the film doesn't use expressionist lighting for depicting the trauma - like with harsh lighting and strong shadows. They use editing here and there to show us what they are imagining, they use sound too where they amp up the police sirens and mute out other sounds. The shot division is fairly conventional - they have insert shots of reactions, close ups, wide shots, master shots. They did a long take at a scene, I can recall it only there.

The premise of Georgekutty wanting to make a film, intrigued me from the beginning. The set up was so strong that it was expected that they will use it - but how they used it was surprising and amazing. Him turning in a confession, and later saying that he didn't confess and creating a narrative of them copying his entire confession from the novel he wrote - was an interesting twist. Though I don't know if they'd buy that in a real court. The twist of DNA not matching Varun's was interesting, but I saw something like that coming. The structure of the film is pretty much similar to that of the first part, which is why it didn't blow my mind as such. But sure, it's a good follow up to one of the best murder mysteries ever made in Indian cinema.