October: Books and Movies

Books:

Half a life: V. S Naipaul ****
Aerogrammes: Tania James ***
Sir Vidia's Shadow: Paul Theroux

Movies:

Le Havre: Aki Kaurismaki

I think I will take a moment to write about this. This is my second movie from the director and the appeal (for me) is how his view of the world is to see the harsher realities and yet attempt to trust/ believe in the best in a man. The film is often sentimental but never loses awareness of where its set and what it deals with.
It pretty much says: Every man can be a better man and it succeeds in showing it.
What it does well without fan fare is show the sense of community, of people reaching out with no demands or expectations and in that it seems almost fairy tale like. Such communities, do they still exist?

The Bicycle Thief: ( I don't know why IMDB lists it as Bicycle Thieves)-Vittorio De Sica

Rosetta: Dardenne Brothers

Usthad Hotel: ** Started out all right, ended almost whiny and moralistic. In other words, wrenches emotions it hasn't earned simply by virtue of tugging at your heartstrings with visuals of the impoverished. I really wanted to like this movie, because I adore how Anjali Menon speaks and I think very highly of her but even so nothing can excuse the ending of this movie or the predictable-ness in which the latter half moved along or rather hummed along.

Thirakadha: Ranjith: It was all right. Nothing I would recommend too highly. Can.Not.Stand. Prithviraj. Please. Stop.

Oru CheruPunchiri: M.T Vasudevan Nair ****

Absolutely brilliant. I had forgotten the joy of reading M.T and watching this just flooded my mind with such lovely memories. Oduvil at his best and the actress who played his wife, so elegant. In 40 years I would be so glad if A and I could just be like this couple.

A SLEW OF BAD MOVIES:

When I have cramps I attract bad movies apparently and hence:

The Tall Man: ** Oddity, a little crazy, can be hit or miss.

The Lazarus Project *-- Actually it had a fairly interesting idea, I suppose.

Absentia : BOO YOU
Case 39:  :/