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The Norwegian film Insomnia, which was later remade in the US by Christopher Nolan, is a dark and moody psychological thriller that is as gripping as it is quietly unsettling. Jonas Engstrom, a taciturn Swedish homicide cop arrives in a godforsaken Norwegian town to investigate the murder of a young girl; assisting him are his partner Erik, and Hilda, a local cop with a sharp mind of her own. The case takes a turn for the worse when Engstrom accidentally shoots his partner, forcing him to cover it up. We soon enough realize that Engstrom, otherwise revered by his colleagues, is in essence a deeply flawed character. And, to add to that he starts suffering from insomnia on account of the 24-hour sunshine which leaves his cold sense of judgement severely compromised. Thus what ensues is a cat-and-mouse game where the increasingly edgy detective must not just stay a step ahead of his smart antagonist, but also Hilda who starts growing suspicious about him, and not to forget his barely controlled temptations too. The location plays a vital role by adding subtle layers to the storyline as well as Engstrom’s character. The excellently paced film is expertly acted by the cast, led from the front by the veteran Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgard. His superb turn of a man being gradually led to the edge of his sanity by his inability to sleep (and consequently, think rationally), coupled with taut and competent direction, have led this brooding Scandinavian thriller, with quintessentially European sensibilities, to a fine denouement.
Director: Eric Skjoldbjaerg
Genre: Thriller/Psychological Thriller/Detective Film/Police Procedural/Post-Noir
Languages: Norwegian/Swedish
Country: Norway
Bejoy Nambiar had won a competition comprising of aspiring filmmakers and he was supposed get an opportunity to direct a movie backed by Ashok Amritraj. Amritraj, who’s spent his life producing sub-par genre films, didn’t honour his commitment, and fortunately for the wannabe filmmaker, the maverick Anurag Kashyap stepped in in the nick of time. Shaitan is a dark, psychedelic and wickedly funny tale of five friends, and their hallucinatory journey through hell. The five delinquent, emotionally bankrupt youngsters, most hailing from wealthy families, end up inadvertently committing a crime during one of their many hedonistic sprees, thus setting them on a rollercoaster ride involving blackmail and murder. Meanwhile, an excellent cop, who has long stopped acting by the books, takes charge of the hunt. The hyperstylized, unabashedly violent and deliriously amoral film is unrestrained in its depiction of a modern-day urban dystopia. The film however is not without its drawbacks. For one, the young director’s overindulgence ought to have been kept under a tight check by Kashyap. Further, since most of the characters have been painted in broad strokes, they end up just as “types”. And not to forget, it started seeming overlong by the third quarter. Nonetheless, criticisms aside, the film has provided ample proof of Nambiar’s immense potential as a filmmaker.
Director: Bejoy Nambiar
Genre: Thriller/Black Comedy/Crime Thriller/Psychedelic Thriller
Language: Hindi
Country: India
George Lucas’ debut feature was in the genre he’s come to be associated with, viz. the sci-fi genre. But, contrary to what one might expect, it was a polar opposite to the kind of flamboyant extravaganza that he’s popular for thanks to his Star Wars series. THX 1138, expanded from his award-winning student short, is a brooding, disquieting, even surreal, exploration of an Orwellian future. Set in an unknown time in a dystopian, computer-controlled future where everyone is under perpetual surveillance, and a pristine, dehumanising environ reminiscent of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, the film has Robert Duvall as the eponymous bald-headed nameless protagonist. Always dressed in white androgynous attires, he ends up committing two crimes considered inexcusable by the state – those of reducing his sedatives and making love with his female roommate (Maggie McOmie); and these end up in providing him with the resolve to break free. Less about plot, the film is filled with claustrophobic visuals and an oppressive, menacing tone. However, that said, I found the film a tad uneven, and deliberately artsy and sluggish at times – but I’m sure these facets can be forgiven given the challenging nature of this 1984-esque mood piece.
Director: George Lucas
Genre: Sci-Fi/ Thriller
Language: English
Country: US
Doesn’t matter which way you look at The Big Heat – a frantic tale of obsession, a revenge story, a story of justice and redemption, or a dark chronicle of deceit and human corruption, the movie would emerge as a success – since this incredible noir worked in all these levels. Made nearly a decade after his masterly Scarlet Street, Fritz Lang’s The Big Heat remains a landmark work in this distinctive school of filmmaking. This gripping, hyper-violent (for its time) and nihilistic crime thriller is about a cop trying to get to the bottom of the suicide of another cop, against every kinds of odds possible – not just in the form of gangsters and thugs, but also his own department. However, when the antagonists kill his loving wife and his anger results in his suspension, he takes it upon himself to bring the psychotic mob-boss down – not just for justice, but also for vengeance. And in this hot pursuit he finds an unlikely help in the form of the mobster’s naïve but disgruntled moll. Great photography and crackling, staccato dialogues were just two of the many components of this fast-paced, hardboiled film. Foremost among those components were the excellent performances of Glenn Ford as the hell-bent-on-revenge-and-justice cop, Lee Marvin as the sinister villain, and Gloria Grahame as the woman-scorned.
Director: Fritz Lang
Genre: Crime Thriller/Film Noir/Police Procedural/Gangster Movie
Language: English
Country: US
There’s a fine line between artful eroticism and mere titillation. It sure was indeed titillating to see the gorgeous soon-to-be-50 Julianne Moore making out with Amanda Seyfried, the buxom beaut half her age; but suffice it to say, the Atom Egoyan film Chloe didn’t manage to create what we subjectively refer to as “art”. The film, which is a remake of the French movie Nathalie..., began well. The seemingly happy marriage of Catherine, a well-established doctor, and David (Liam Neeson), a respected music professor, is crumbling. The wife suspects that her husband is cheating on her with his young students, and employes Chloe (Seyfried), a high-class escort, to test her husband’s fidelity. Unfortunately, what seemed to be going towards being a gripping and intense urban examination of marriage and mid-life crisis, took a sharp turn to instead become a cautionary tale of lust and obsession – all hinging on a twist never properly integrated into the plot progression. The eponymous character of Chloe, who at the end forms the fulcrum that brings the fast-receding couple together again, wasn’t developed enough for us to appreciate the slow devastation she starts wreaking on the unsuspecting Catherine’s life. The character of the couple’s alienated son, too, was half-baked. The acting in the film, however, are good throughout, with Moore’s being standout performance.
Director: Atom Egoyan
Genre: Thriller/Psychological Thriller
Language: English
Country: Canada
Rohan Sippy quite surely has seen some world cinema, and has learnt about a few interesting filming techniques. But seeing his Dum Maro Dum, he seemed akin to a student of literature who might have memorised all the technical aspects about the language, maybe even the grandiloquent words, but has never learnt how to form a cohesive sentence. The film follows the lives of a number of disparate characters – an angry cop (Abhishek Bachchan), a sad musician, a naïve young guy and a self-destructive lady (Bipasha Basu), among others, all brought together by the prevalent underground drug-culture in India’s party-capital, Goa. Bachchan did a good job as the head of the team to clean Goa of its mess, and ends up going into collision-mode with the drug lords. A plethora of twists and turns later, however, the film turned into more of a brainless cat-and-mouse game than an intelligent thriller. For the film to be successful, it was essential for the director to invest time in building the atmosphere and making Goa the symbolic fifth character of the film. Unfortunately for us film goers, that never happened, and so a premise that held a lot of promise, was instead turned into a mindless, hyper-stylised and over-edited series of unrelated montages. And by the way, legendary composer R.D. Burman would surely be turning in his grave listening to the bastardisation of his iconic tribute to the hippy era – the Hare Rama Hare Krishna song that game the movie its name.
Director: Rohan Sippy
Genre: Thriller/Crime Thriller/Mystery
Language: Hindi
Country: India
Humphrey Bogart has been so ingrained in the cultural consciousness of film lovers that it felt a tad strange initially seeing someone else portray the character of Phillip Marlowe onscreen. But once I got over that, I must admit it was sheer pleasure seeing Dick Powell play the bitingly cynical and doggedly persuasive gumshoe, as well as, watching this wonderful cinematic rendition of Raymond Chandler’s marvelous pulp-novella Farewell My Lovely. The storyline is gleefuly byzantine and so I wouldn’t even venture explaining the plot here; suffice it to say, the film didn’t attempt to simplify the novel’s deliriously convoluted plot – which, disappointingly, Howard Hawks did with the Chandler masterpiece The Big Sleep. Dick Powell, as the acerbic and world-weary PI, with a fiercely protected code of honour, was exceptional and was most certainly an inspired choice. The story is infested by a series of delectably amoral characters, and their personifications were good throughout. This landmark film noir also boasted of terrific hard-boiled dialogues, and the sleazy characters, the murky atmosphere and the decrepit urban landscape, what with the blackmails, murders, human corruption and a free flow of double-crosses, have been exceptionally captured through moody B/W photography, outstanding camera work and a superbly paced narrative, all bound together by great direction.
Director: Edward Dmytryk
Genre: Film Noir/Crime Thriller/Mystery
Language: English
Country: US
