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30 Days of Film, Day 1: Best film of 2011

Posted by sonal on

The Tree of Life

via The Guardian

No doubt, no debate. It’s quite possible that The Tree of Life is the best film I have ever seen in my life.

It may sound stupid to say it (especially when you think of films as remarkable as 2001: A Space Odyssey), but I had no idea that film could do that.

Do what?

Reach into my soul and converse with my very being. Make me sit in my seat, astonished and amazed at the magic before me. Make me shake with joy as I recall the experience of seeing it.

I think the key here is experience. Yes, we see a lot of great films, with brilliant stories that speak to us. But how many films do we really experience?

An epic poem. A treatise on faith, on childhood, on things lost.

This is a film only for the big screen, the biggest screen you can possibly find. Immerse yourself in it.

I know a lot of people who hated it and saw it as a series of screensavers with a really good second half. I honestly can’t understand that reaction. Faith or no faith, how can you not marvel at the universe? Whether there is some big unknown hand behind it all or (as I personally believe)* an incredible, nonsensical coming together of elements, maths and equations that defy what we can understand right now – how can you not be constantly amazed at the huge mathematical odds that are against our very existence?

The first half is absolutely crucial to the second half. We are but specs of dust and yet we ask so much and are wounded by so little that against all sense we act the way we do.

My first reaction to the film was to drag my friend Franco to the pub and have a long, LONG, discussion about this. Sadly he lives in London and I’m now in Brisbane so I sent him a text instead. It said “Holy fucking shitballs amazing!” … or something like that.

Best film I have seen in my life. Favourite? I’m not sure, but my “top 10″ is ever changeable to my moods.

Special mention
Drive

Fuck. What a film. Beautifully shot, great characters, so incredibly moody. The director can’t drive and yet the choices he makes when Gosling’s character is in this vehicle perfectly capture that feeling of being one with a machine, of being in total control. How does he do that?

If you loved Drive, then you must see:
To Live and Die in LA
Rififi
Thief
Shane

I’m not going to give you a viewing list every time, it just feels really important to note the influences on Drive.

Next time – underrated films. Or things you should add to your rental list.

*yes, science is amazing, chaos theory spectacular, and I’m a Hindu who eats beef (because it is delicious), prays to only two gods, and doesn’t like organised religion or priests – deal with it.

30 Days of Film – Part 2

Posted by sonal on

And while we’re here. I thought I should take another shot at this and try to complete it this time.

Categories are here and this time, I’ll try to keep the essay writing short. That way, I’m more likely to achieve finishing the goal and not feeling guilty about pulling time away from a script.

As always, no promises and given that I have a pile of 20 scripts I should’ve read by now, I’m not going to start today.

If you are still reading this blog having forgot it was in your feed reader, feel free to nag me into posting. Or pile the peer pressure on by joining me with your own film picks.

Adventures in Dream Chasing

Posted by sonal on

This morning I found myself in an odd situation where I may have sabotaged a potential job opportunity.

(Sonal, what has this got to do with film? Dude, wait. I’m getting there, this is part of the set up. You need to work on your set up. Yes, I know. Shush!)

The role is a rewarding, though challenging marketing/comms/eventy role – something that has helped me earn my crust for years. The person I’d be working with is super nice and it’d be a great opportunity. BUT. I told her that if the role (currently part time) was to move into full time after the project, then I wasn’t interested. I need to focus on filmmaking.

I’m aware how foolish I may sound and there is no doubt that I need a proper working wage right now. But the reason we came back to Australia (aside from my visa expiring – though we have a solution to that too) is to make films. I feel that I can’t let anything get in the way of that. I’ve had great full time jobs, but they always left little time for me to create.

I can’t think of anything worse than no longer being able to write. And I think I’d be a lousy employee anyway if I became that frustrated.

I may come to rue saying this, but I really hope not.

So About That Libretto …

Posted by sonal on

One regular critique we used to get at school was “stop prefacing your script, stop apologising for your work”.

Guess what I’m about to do? I’ll try my best not to apologise …

I’ve been in a bit of a dump over my writing lately, things that were looking promising career wise last year have all fallen over in a matter of months. It’s the nature of the (film and TV) game, I know. But coupled with some day job difficulties, it’s been a horribly trying few months. I know I said this blog was meant to be slightly different from Maupuia Masala, but I think chronicling the shit times you have in a creative career are important too.

So with nothing to show for the work I’ve been doing over the last year, I jumped at the opportunity to try something different. So I read the stories and Neil Gaiman’s sparked something immediately.

I thought about why the Sweeper existed. Why was he the one chosen to be in charge of cleaning away dreams? This segued into a bastardisation of the Orpheus story with a touch of mine and Sam’s immigration saga from the Masala days, for good measure.

My hope is that it has shaken some ideas out of my subconsciousness and as nothing else is likely to happen with it (given the huge number of entries which were also inspired by the same short story), there are at least the seeds of a short film in there.

A good part of me feels I could do better with it. I was a little lost at sea with how to write a libretto. My experience of a full opera is more Philip Glass, Robert LePage and, er, Stewart Lee than Bizet or Strauss.

I’m also a bit embarrassed to even put this out on the blog when I have a bunch of friends who are in actually from that world of opera and here’s me making a bit of a ham-fisted job about it. I haven’t even mentioned it on twitter. That’s how self conscious I feel about it.

Anyway, it’s done now. You can all see it below. *sigh*

If you ever see this Erin (or indeed fellow Cohort 5ers who had her as a tutor), apologies for the apologies. Ok, I’m going to stop typing now.

30 Days of Film – Day 3: “Happy Place” Film

Posted by sonal on

The measure of a film that counts as one which makes me happy surely has to be one which provides all the comfort of day on the sofa, wrapped in a cosy blanket while the weather buckets down outside (er … this has nothing to do with the rain teeming down outside my house, or that I’m wearing a cardigan in 19ºC weather, honest).

Singing in the Rain has been there on those dark nights of the literal and soul destroying type.

There is very little to mention about this film that hasn’t already been said – the story is simple, the characters are charming, the set pieces are infectious and it is all done so very, very well. And who wouldn’t fall in love with a man running a hot fever and dancing in watery milk? [yeah, I'm not the only one with a bit of a martyr complex]

Honourable mentions
Office Space (dir. Mike Judge)
On the other end of the scale, films like these are what you need after those seriously fucking awful days in the office. Nothing, NOTHING in the history of cinema captures workplace frustration like a printer.

The Philadelphia Story (dir. George Cukor)
So back in the distant past when I was horribly dumped, I watched this for the first time, watched the extras with Katherine Hepburn and thought “Damn, she’s awesome. When I grow up, I want to be like her”.

Strong, smart and a take no bullshit kind of attitude, I think this is one of her greatest performances (well, it was written for her). Add Cary Grant and James Stewart to the mix (as well as the extraordinary Ruth Hussey whose acid tongue of awesomeness as James Stewart’s … or Virginia Weidler as scene stealing little sister, Dinah Lord – there are awesome women everywhere here) and you have one hell of a film to lift a girl out of the dumps.

30 Days of Film – Day 2: Underrated Film

Posted by sonal on

It’s hard to classify what exactly makes a film underrated. Is it one that should have been acclaimed but was ignored by critics? A film badly handled by it’s distributors that it wasn’t marketed properly and so didn’t become a box office success? Or a film that should be in the popular imagination but isn’t?

I’ve gone for a film that hit me to the core, one that should have got far more acclaim than it did and should have picked up awards by the bucketful for it’s brilliance.

From my WRJ at the time:

I have to write this down before I forget.
I know I should be looking at the technical side and at some point.
I will look into this movie with a cool and analytical eye, but I cannot just drop what I have seen tonight.
I have no words that convey my emotion, other than devastatingly brilliant.
Or perhaps, just devastating.

For a film about, what is in essence a political thriller about journalists in a war zone, I pulled right into the story, moved to tears and out right shocked even though I knew the fate of many of these characters.
Making fiction is one thing. But it will always pale to the truth and the urgency of this film.

It is spectacular. Not only a “message” film that indicts both the Indonesian and Australian governments (the latter in a fantastic final scene) but it manages to engage you without letting go. I remember being surprised to see that the writer was David Williamson, an Australian playwright that I could classify as a Roger Hall type – generally safe, middle class material that sells to it’s white, middle class audience … of course, I had forgotten that he also wrote the equally excellent Year of Living Dangerously another film that plays with the same subject matter and set in Indonesia (do yourself a favour and see it if you haven’t – it’s one of Peter Weir’s best films).

You’re probably going to hear this a lot with a good portion of the films I rate here but, I wish I could write a film this good.

Special mention
Death Proof (dir. Quentin Tarantino)
Can’t be bothered by the first half of this film, but from the second half when it clearly becomes a salute to Ozploitation V8 cinema, I am ALL in. Muscle cars, Zoe Bell playing a version of herself and a Tarantino diner scene – FUCK YEAH!


The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (dir. Terry Gilliam)
We already know that I love the cinema of Terry Gilliam, yes, even The Adventures of Baron Munchausen …

There are times were cinema should be magical, it should make you gasp in wonder and release the same delight you had as a child playing with bubbles. It may sound ridiculous but the beautiful sense of play and fantasy during these modern times where that no longer seems to be valued, makes this film a precious one to me.

I love it. Plus, you know, Tom Waits as the Devil is a genius piece of casting.

Undercover Brother (dir. Malcolm D. Lee)
Anchorman, Zoolander and, to an extent, Hot Rod may get all the quoting love but Undercover Brother deserves it’s place in the cult pantheon. It’s a loving tribute to the Blaxploitation genre which, unlike Black Dynamite whose tongue in cheek attitude becomes tiresome and arrogant after the first 15 minutes, maintains it’s own sense of self with a decent storyline and a nice critique of modern politics (the literal brainwashing of General Boutell to a fried chicken outfit in this film is a direct critique of Colin Powell’s involvement with the Bush II era of politics).