The Science of Sleep (2006)

Stephane on Stephane TV: Parallel Synchronized Randomness: An interesting brain rarity and our subject for today. Two people walk in opposite directions at the same and then they make the same decisions at the same time. Then they correct it, and then they correct it and then they correct it.....Basically in a mathematical world these two little guys will stay looped till the end of time. 

Stephane Miroux (Gael Garcia Bernal) is an eccentric, creative guy who returns back to France after losing his father to cancer. Ever since his childhood, he has lived inside his head, and more so after his father's death as there's no else he could connect with. On his mother's insistence and her help in getting him a job in France, he returns back from Mexico. On his first day at work, he realizes it's not a calendar illustrator role that he has, but more of a boring mechanical type. Like his colleague, Guy (Alain Chabat), on seeing him, mentions, "Fuck, an artist, he won't last a day!".

Cribbing about how he was tricked into coming back to France by his mother, he finds a little comfort in his newly-moved-in neighbor, Stephanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg). While Stephanie's friend Zoe (Emma de Caunes) likes teasing him, he is still drawn to Stephanie as he sees something in common between them. Being nervous around people, he instantly lies about where he stays and doesn't admit to being her neighbor. And never knowing the right words to say, even after playing it a million times in his mind, he slips a letter under her door saying, "I'm your neighbor and a liar...And by the way, do you have Zoe's number?" Even though Stephanie reciprocates his feelings, she is much more grounded in reality and knows Stephane's childish behavior may not be something she could handle in the future. And also, like she mentions, she doesn't believe in marriage. When Stephane gets caught in her apartment after having broken into her house to fix her toy horse, she calls him a creep, only to find him sulking like a school boy. Stephanie always has to remain very careful about her choice of words around Stephane as he has a tendency to get hurt easily. So what we see is a one-sided tortured love affair (though not exactly one-sided)  where you can't tell the difference between fantasies and reality. Stephane, due to his inability to make connections in the real world, finally thinks about returning back to Mexico. Yet, while leaving, he meets her one last time to blame her for not being able to like him. To which Stephanie mentions, "You've a serious problem of distorting reality. You could sleep with the entire world, and still feel rejected". And what we have in the end is not being able to tell if that really happened, or it's just a figment of Stephane's imagination.

Similar to Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, this movie goes a step ahead in blurring the lines between dreams and reality. Though this one is much funnier and almost feels like taking a peek into the mind of Gondry himself. Charlotte Gainsbourg can still pass off as a twenty-year old and she looks gorgeous in her own simple way. Gael Garcia Bernal has evolved a lot as an actor from the last time I watched him in Y Tu Mama Tambien. And the conversations between Stephane and Guy are what sets French humor apart from the slapstick Hollywood style or the subtle English style. Not a movie to be missed!

Rating: 8/10

Les Miserables (2012)

Valjean: What have I done, sweet Jesus, what have I done?
              Become a thief in the night, a dog on the run
              And have I fallen so far and is the hour so late?
             That nothing remains but the cry of my hate?....
             If there was another way to go, I missed it 20 long years ago
             My life was a war that could never be won
            They gave me a number and murdered Valjean
            When they chained me and left me for dead........

Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) is a convict who has served nineteen years of his life in prison for stealing a loaf of bread for a starving child. After his release, he has been ruthlessly hunted by Javert (Russell Crowe) for breaking his parole.

After an act of kindness from a stranger, he looks for redemption and lets go of his hatred for the world. Eighteen years later, we see him as an owner of a factory where Fantine (Anne Hathaway) works. After Fantine is thrown out from her job due to concerns raised by other jealous women, she realizes her life is not the dream that she dreamed. Left alone to fend for herself and a child to feed, she turns to the oldest profession in the world. One night when she is attacked by a customer, she tries to defend herself while Javert seems to take her customer's side. When Valjean tries to defend Fantine, he realizes he has seen her before. Fantine asks him not to mock her situation by making it any worse than it is. She reminds him of how she was wrongly let go from her job by his foreman while Valjean stood there watching and not doing the right thing. Promising her that her child, Cossette (Isabelle Allen/Amanda Seyfreid), would be taken care of, he sees it done.

We are again taken a few years forward where we see the French rebellion in full force. As fate would have it, Valjean and Javert cross paths again. When Valjean finally gets a chance for revenge, he lets go of Javert while saying to him, "You were only doing your duty". Javert is not really the bad guy, but just someone without a heart and who follows the law to make sure every criminal is punished, regardless of the severity of the crime. Having doubts about his intentions all along, he finally has to decide whether it's Valjean or Javert....

Director Tom Hooper (of The King's Speech fame) has a strong cast on his side and they all deliver. We even get to see little cameos from Sasha Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter who play the role of the crooked couple in charge of Cossette. Overall a decent watch, but a tad too long....

Rating: 7/10

Synecdoche, New York (2008)

Millicent: What was once before you- an exciting, mysterious future, is now behind you. Lived, understood, disappointing. You realize you are not special. You have struggled into existence, and are now slipping silently out of it. This is everyone's experience........As the people who adore you stop adoring you; as they die; as they move on; as you shed them; as you shed your beauty, your youth; as the world forgets you; as you recognize your transience; as you begin to lose your characteristics one by one; as you learn there is no one watching you, and there never was, you think only about driving- not coming from any place, not arriving at any place. Just driving, counting off time. Now you are here at 7:43. Now you are here at 7:44. Now you are ....gone.

Caden Cotard (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) is, in the words of Millicent (Claire Keen), "a man already dead, living in a half-world between stasis and anti-stasis.....Up until recently he has strived valiantly to make sense of his situation, but now he has turned to stone." When his wife, Adele (Catherine Keener), leaves him along with her daughter Olive to "be around joyous people", his life slowly starts to disintegrate, as does his physical health. His doctor tells him he suffers from a condition where he cannot salivate or cry. He starts losing all sense of time. A year after, when Hazel (Samantha Morton) asks him out, he mentions its only been a week after his wife & daughter left. We see him dragging along, consumed by thoughts of his impending death.

Feeling alone and misunderstood, Caden finds no one to relate to. He enters into one relationship after another in search of companionship, while being completely oblivious to the needs of his various partners. His self-indulgence and self-pity eventually become too much to bear for everyone around him. Although Hazel has been one person who has always been loyal and loves him unconditionally, even while she is married to someone else. In his darkest hour, he receives the MacArthur award for his brilliance. He intends to spend all this money in planning a grand project which will be about his life and the various people who have been a part of and an influence on his life. As he spends years on this project, we see the actors who play the parts of his family and acquaintances also becoming a part of his life, and in turn being played by other actors. This is Kaufman's surrealism at its best. When Caden feels disturbed by thoughts of having abandoned his daughter, he tries to find her, only to see her working in a porn booth. Just like his own life, his daughter's has also disintegrated and she is on her death bed after a life of drug abuse. He feels wronged when he learns that her mother had lied to her all along about her father being gay. And finally the time comes when after spending a night with Hazel, she too dies in her sleep. Caden remarks that the day before Hazel's death must be the happiest day of his life and he has realized how to finalize the play...... However grand his project might be, we never see his play coming to an end, even though his life does.

This is Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut and probably is his best work, even though some would favor Adaptation. Unlike other sad and depressing movies/books that I have watched or read (Blasphemy by Tehmima Durrani and Requiem for a Dream are the ones that come to my mind), I could watch this movie over and over again.

Rating: 8.5/10

Being John Malkovich (1999)

John  Malkovich: This portal is mine and must be sealed up forever. For the love of God.
Craig Schwartz: With all respect, sir, I discovered that portal. It's my livelihood.
John Malkovich: It's my head, Schwartz! See you in court!
Craig Schwartz: And who's to say I won't be seeing what you're seeing......in court?

I guess I'll go on a Charlie Kaufman movies spree now. There's so much more to see every time you watch his movies. The movie starts with a puppet show named Craig's Dance of Despair and Disillusion where the character snaps and breaks the mirror on seeing and realizing the strings attached to his every move. Puppeteer Craig Schwartz (John Cusack) is a frustrated artist, who probably has the talent but not the right connections to make his dream a reality and help his career flourish. On his wife's insistence and comment, "Not everyone can be Derek Mantini", he finally takes up a low-skill job as a file clerk. This has been a constant theme in some of Charlie Kaufman's movie, as we can almost hear him through Craig's words, "You're lucky to be a monkey. Because consciousness is a terrible curse. I think, I feel, I suffer. And all I ask in return is the opportunity to do my work. But they won't allow it. Because I raise issues." Craig's office is situated on the 7 1/2 floor where there's a story going around on why the roofs are so low.

One day, while looking around in his office, he finds a secret passage that's like a portal to the mind of the actor, John  Malkovich. While he mentions his experience to a lady from the same floor, Maxine (Catherine Keener), it doesn't really impress her. He also mentions this in front of his wife, Lotte (Cameron Diaz), who seems more than fascinated and wants to experience it. Maxine, being the bitch that she is, changes her mind later and wants to make it work for her after knowing that John Malkovich is a popular actor who starred in that "jewel thief movie". What follows is a gradual taking over of the man, Malkovich, by Craig and Maxine as they try to make a fortune out of it. Maxine realizes that puppeteering is not just about playing with dolls, but "it's playing with people".

The movie shows us so many themes about unfulfilled dreams, self-obsession, identity and mind-manipulation. It also touches briefly on the point whether the wronged will commit wrong till life goes full circle to haunt them. As in one of the scenes where Lotte is chasing Maxine and as they enter Malkovich's sub-conscious, we see Malkovich's life playing out in reverse chronology where he seems at first like a jerk and then we go on to see his childhood where he was bullied. Overall, a brilliant movie where first-time director Spike Jonze would take us through a bizarre and surrealistic journey that has become a trademark of all Kaufman's writings. The acting is also amazing with special mention for Cameron Diaz where she actually acts and is in a very un-glamorous role! Though among all the three, it's Catherine Keener's Maxine who takes the prize.

Rating: 7.5/10