Khuda Ke Liye
120 mins, 2007. Director: Shoaib Mansoor
A stirring portrait of today’s terror-driven times, this Pakistani film scores in many departments. There’s some great background score, eye-opening cinematography and an engaging plot. That the actors do justice to the role made director Shoaib Mansoor’s job even easier. Set in Chicago, New York, Afghanistan and Pakistan, it chronicles the life of a non-resident Pakistani trapped by a father who wants her to marry a Pakistani, even though she’s set her sights on a British lad. A conniving father takes her to Pakistan on the pretext of going back to his roots only for a fortnight, but ends up ganging up with a few fundamentalists who hold her captive in Afghanistan. At no point is the film one-sided. The pace is racy, and is anything but boring. And there’s a message, too: You have a choice to either follow an age-old custom or march to the beat of your own drum.
Buffalo Boy
102 mins, 2005. Director: Minh Nguyen-Vo
This Vietnamese film takes you to a very different world from your secure all-too-familiar territory. It’s a place where there’s water everywhere, but no water to drink. And 15-year-old Kim’s job is to herd two water buffaloes to higher ground for fodder. However, only one returns as the other succumbs to flooding. A quarrel with his father and Kim finally decides to work for another farmer. Along the way, he meets several people who bear an influence on his growing up years. Will he finally assert his freedom? Or will be go back to his roots? Watch it for its visual template. You don’t even have to read the subtitles to know what the story is – the cinematic imagery conveys the mood and tone of the story pretty well. No wonder, it won four awards at several international films festivals, including Chicago and Locarno. A must-watch for any movie buff.
The Lives of Others
137 mins, 2006. Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
One Oscar. 45 wins and 24 nominations. That about sums up the credentials of this nail-biting political thriller from Germany. Set in East Berlin of 1984, it takes us through the fall of the Berlin Wall and finally to 1991’s reunited Germany. While you get a lesson in the Nazi history, you get to savour the drama that unfolds through the eyes of Captain Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe) of the Stasi, East Germany’s all-powerful secret police. He’s been assigned by his boss to keep a constant check on a celebrated writer and actress couple, Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch) and Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck). That’s what happens in dictatorial regimes, when freedom is taken away from many and only given to a few. The film resounds with this theme throughout as one man decides to mix his personal and professional agenda to further his own objectives. With a razor-sharp script that doesn’t waver, it’s the film’s singular focus that keeps you belted to your seat.
Yesterday
96 mins, 2004. Director: Darrell Roodt
An HBO original film, it is the first South African film to receive an Oscar nomination (in the category of Best Foreign Language Film). Set against the awesome, harsh landscapes of South Africa, it is an eloquent, unsentimental film that quietly builds an overwhelming emotional force. It’s about Yesterday, a 30-year-old mother living in a remote village in South Africa’s Zululand. Her life isn’t easy; there’s little money and her husband is away in Johannesburg working as a miner. However, with her ready wit and her seven-year-old joy – daughter Beauty – she navigates her life until one day she discovers that she is threatened with AIDS. Watch it for the riveting performance by Leleti Khumalo who plays Yesterday. The film shows the commitment of the private sector to move beyond the conventional HIV/AIDS rhetoric. Yesterday was an official selection of the 2004 Venice Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival, among other festivals around the world.
(This piece appeared in Windows & Aisles, the inflight magazine of Paramount Airways, South India’s business airline)