Kramasha(2006)

Director: Amit Dutta

Country: India

Language: Hindi

A village sleeps in the wee hours of the morning. A half asleep, half awake boy has dreams about an ascetic in a black coat, hallucinatory images of his village touching upon the history of the place, his ancestors and his childhood.

At the first viewing, Dutta's film may come across as pure visuals. He uses a vast array of visual techniques like constant change in focus, oscillatory camera shots, frequent jump cuts, almost obscene bird's eye view shots and such. His camera meanders through the village, exploring historical sites, ruins and the greenery in search of untold stories, often using walls, pillars, windows and other such structures as lenses. The colors are so lush that one can almost feel them, smear their hands in them.

But on successive viewings, if one can manage to see beyond the images, only then does the film become totally comprehendible. After all what are only images without the sounds associated, without the stories behind them? History and images cannot exist without each other. As the boy's dreams go on from being weird to weirder, the narration helps us connect the history of the village to the numerous mythological and folklore references. The film's defining moment comes when camera moves up a building, overlooking dark windows, sterile walls, which look like hiding stories of their own, to the terrace where an old man sleeps and we hear the narrator saying "Father once told me about all this in detail. In my conscious state, I find all these tales nonsensical. Only in my dreams are their meanings truly understood." This film is all about the parallel between history and dreams. Because, as the narrator reallizes, all history is but a dream as we see it and put the pieces together in our subconscious.
This would be my most favorite Indian film for some time now.

Continuum(2006)

Director: Anand Gandhi and Khushboo Ranka.

Country: India

Language: Hindi

This is a short film of 35 minutes duration that deals with the different aspects of human life. It comprises of five seemingly disjoint vignettes titled "hunger", "trade", "love", "death" and "enlightenment". And at the end every story gets connected as everything falls into their place in the greater schemes of the universe. All the incidents, all the characters become a part of the continuum. Not that of space, not that of time. But of life, in general. The camerawork is awesome, the music very fitting to the theme, the script is very witty and hilarious at times, touching at others. From the opening scene to the closing scene, every frame of this short film oozes brilliance. This just might be the best short I have seen till date. Even if its not, it is the most moving one for sure.

301, 302(1995)

Director: Cheol-su Park

Language: Korean

Park's film centers around two women who live in apartments 301 and 302 of the same building. Both are single, obsessed with something or the other, and alone. One day 302 goes missing and a Police Detective comes looking for her. Thats about all that happens.

The central themes of the film are the two most basic necessities of human life, food and sex. As the film opens we see a little girl talking enthusiastically about all the vegetables, cereals, fruits in her mom's kitchen. She chops vegetables as she talks. And then another little girl who talks coldly about the cold meat in her mom's freezer. We immediately know who they are. The two women meet when they move into neighboring apartments. 301 is plump, happy, spends all her day cooking different delicacies. While 302 is anorexic, depressed, cannot eat a morsel to save her life. Its almost as if they are incomplete without each other. Both their lives revolve around food. For one food is life, for the other its hell. And for both, the obsessions have their roots back in their sexual experiences. So when one goes missing, the viewer can see the climax coming miles away. But still, Park's excellent direction, his to and fro jumping around in the timeline, makes the viewer wait. In anticipation. And at the end when they truly complete each other, the viewer cannot help feeling awestruck. Or even feel like vomitting. This film is almost "The double life of Veronique" made by Takashi Miike. One has to watch it to know that even a mundane activity like eating can be made so revolting, almost obscene. Like bad sex. And all the credit to the cinematography for achieving this. Very interesting film, definitely worth a watch. But not quite before a wholehearted meal, if you know what I mean.