Category: Reviews

Beauty and the Beast

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

Beauty and the Beast is a fairy tale. It was made to make one feel good. It succeeds.

I had a lovely time watching the movie. The plot is run of the mill, the execution is fun. Having a stellar cast does wonders for a film that would otherwise not particularly stand out. It begins with a prince (Dan Stevens – I still remember him as Edward from Sense and Sensibility before he gained fame from his playing the romantic Michael in Downton Abbey) and an enchantment, a pretty (I cannot in all fairness say Emma Watson is beautiful) girl caught in a provincial town, her father (the very versatile Kevin Kline) and her vain suitor (Luke Evans, Bard no more) who pursues her without remorse.

The supporting caste is the most noteworthy: Sir Ian McKellen as Cogsworth, I was expecting a bit more from him, but whatever role he had he played it superbly. Ewan McGregor as Lumière is brilliant. And Emma Thompson as Ms Potts is astounding, I love Emma Thompson but here she excels, I didn’t even know she could sing!

The songs are wonderful. Some of the old melodies greet you like good friends and you smile when they are being sung. Kevin Kline’s character, Maurice, sings a few strains of the title track sung by Celine Dion and you wilt a little and flower a little when that happens. Dark undertones simmer briefly and they then burst with light. Such a fresh retake on what has already been done. My favourite song was Emma Thompson’s rendition of “Beauty and the Beast”.

There was a controversy over the gay character, LeFou? Damn, people still have a problem with – a few quips and a possible gay encounter in the end on a dance floor, for the blink of an eye? People need to just sit back and take a chill pill.

The special effects are good, nothing like Kong, but hey, if you make a musical of a fairy tale, it should look like this. This is what I expect musicals to be… I know what was going to happen, but that didn’t make the movie any less appealing. In fact, I don’t mind going for it a second time.

 

Manchester By the Sea

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

Casey Affleck, Casey Affleck and more Casey Affleck, is what I say!

He carries this haunting tale of a cataclysmic mistake on his shoulders, through the entire saga. The movie took me back into the days when I studied William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway and Theodore Dreiser. The tone is like a piece of music – with adagios and allegros all mixed up. It’s like cinematic opera, or like a Renaissance tragedy filled with realism.

It moves in a series of flashbacks and present time scenes. There is a buildup of Casey’s character. His eyes speak volumes, blue and surreal. He’s a Catholic boy who works as a janitor and as the story unfolds we understand the reason for his withdrawn and inhibited existence. I don’t see him smile a single time throughout the movie. And in the scenes, where I think he may be smiling, are all shot in long shots, so you can’t really make that out.

I cannot dwell enough on what a powerhouse performance he has acted out here. His character has this mayhem within and except for one major outburst at a police station, we see quiet ruptures of self harm, in an otherwise calm and even polite demeanor that covers this tension. There is this need to be better when faced with his nephew’s guardianship, but there is the ultimate realisation that things don’t truly get better. He usurps each frame where he is present – one cannot see anything else.

I was wondering what Michelle Williams was doing in the movie, I even mentioned it in an aside to fellow watchers of the movie – until the one scene where she blows your mind away. Both Affleck and she have this one scene where they both meet after years and they both are so tortured and so stark and so naked before each other, the scene melts away any doubts as to why she was nominated for an Academy Award. The way her voice breaks, the way the demons in him claw to get out and overtake his being, the entire scene is so filled with abject pathos that you cannot help but weep along with both.

The other actor that has done a brilliant job in this film is Lucas Hedges. His performance is what brings the ripples in an otherwise dark, dangerous and deep waters.

The entire film is shot in the cold of winter. The imagery is harsh and barren and the cold outside is more than just a metaphor in the movie. It is a take on how nature can be horribly cruel and unyielding, if the ground is unforgiving and hard for a dead body to be buried in, the opposite of the cold: fire, is the thing that can destroy lives.

Kenneth Lonergan’s direction is crisp, and yet lifelike. He knows his art and more than concentrating on camera angles and effects, and colours, he uses his actors to give meaning to the themes of grief, trauma, heart break and loss. There is a redemption for Lee, but he chooses not to take it – and the director allows him to make that choice.

This deserves the Best Picture Award, Best Director Award, Best Actor Award!

Moonlight

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

In moonlight, black boys look blue. The moon and being blue, surreal and vibrant. I watched the movie with trepidation, I thought like most movies dealing with homosexuality, the end would be tragic. But it’s actually beautiful. Breath-taking almost.

My favoured colour tones permeate the tone of the movie. Blue, white and black. The movie divides into three.

i. Little – the hounding of a boy thought to be different. The lack of a father figure, and soon, the lack of maternal love. The bullying of other children, because children are instinctual, they sense differences, but most are also doubly cruel because they can. No love forthcoming from the mother who also cannot face with the conclusion she has drawn about her son’s sexuality. She plunges into drugs – and the only consolation Little derives is from, ironically, a drug dealer and his partner.

ii. Chiron – teen years, filled with angst, because the bullying has only got worse. In a world filled with hypermasculinity, Chiron has no recourse but to hide away. The one who should be protecting him, has thrown him into the wild, bereft and alone. The night he spends haunting the metro and the beach because he cannot return home is so tragic that it makes your heart crumple inward. The only hope he receives is from his childhood friend, Kevin. That hope is short-lived and ends in disaster.

iii. Black – a grown man now, embodying that same masculinity that he used to run away from. The sensitivity of Little and Chiron finds its way in nuances of Black. The character has evolved and yet the silver on the teeth is just a façade.

The movie touches each theme so delicately, it’s almost as though it was moonlight itself. Silvery and effervescent. The starkness of reality hits you with such force like the sun shooting directly into your eyes, before the dark envelopes you again. The night provides a respite, whenever we see the character go through the experiences that make him better, we see them happen at night. It is only under moonlight that we see the beauty.

Ashton Sanders is spectacular, as is Naomie Harris. James Laxton has done a wonderful job with cinematography, you feel the emotions through the camera almost as much through the actors.

The world is of a black boy, a black teenager and a black man – but the themes of drug abuse, neglect, imprisonment, poverty, abandonment and bullying are so prevalent that the movie can speak to its audience on any level. The cinematography is brilliant, the dept of fields used create a singular focus on the character presented – the world is myopic and seen through each individual lens. It brings down the larger vision to the inevitability of fate. But pathos is presented in such a fantastic aura of dappled light that makes you understand how poetry is created. Even the ice water used as a cold transition cannot truly wash away the goodness within Chiron. And that is what makes you root for him.