Satyajit Ray - born May 2nd 1921

No blog dedicated to movies should have missed this day - but we at RL did, and to atone for that now we should talk about the Maestro for a few days in a row! To start off this Ray retrospective I want to share a clip of Martin Scorsese introducing Satyajit Ray's The Chess Players! He talks of Pather Panchali - have a listen to Martin's description of how the distinction between poetry and cinema dissolves in Ray's films (and he pronounces it right - RAI!!1):

Vishal's Shutter Island Review!

It’s easy to write off a renowned ‘Serious’ filmmaker’s forays into genre work as pastiche, homage, or that wonderful term that can turn any genre work into critically acceptable Serious stuff — metafiction. Gangster movies are now bafflingly exempt from genrefication, however. What used to be a tried-and-tested pulp fiction dynamo has been seen, of late, as a staging ground for Serious — and only Serious — Cinema, to the extent that heavily stylised or lighthearted forays into movie gangsterdom are perceived as less than desirable — even insulting.

For this state of affairs, you can blame Francis Ford Coppola, and to a greater extent, Martin Scorsese. Or rather, you can blame the reaction to the cinema they created, the gangster films that mixed pulp with fine cinematic technique. Even a mediocre, gutted adaptation like The Departed got a free pass because it arrived under the banner of Serious Cinema (the original Infernal Affairs was not, and much the better for it).

So when Scorsese shows up along with long-time collaborator Leonardo DiCaprio in what is categorically neither a gangster movie nor Serious Cinema, the critics scramble to the safety of the cliffs of Pastiche. Let them gawk from their perches and try to ascribe greater meaning to the incoming genre storm that is Shutter Island, because the rest of us are going to be too busy enjoying the rain and thunder to care.

a sumptuous, surreal, oftentimes harrowing tale
Precarious cliffs, and confusion with how to deal with things as they are presented is also at the heart of Shutter Island. The titular rock sits in the fog off Boston Harbor, and to it in 1954 come U.S. Marshals Teddy Daniels (DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo). The Marshals are investigating the strange disappearance of an inmate at the Ashecliff Hospital for the criminally insane. Its head psychiatrist Dr. John Cawley (Ben Kingsley) is treating dangerous patients with the latest in medication and therapy, in the hope of curing them rather than locking them up and throwing away the key.

Suffice to say that all is not as it seems, from the disappearance of the inmate to the facility itself, and nearly every character has a hidden agenda.

Read the rest HERE

Roger Ebert's Review of Shutter Island

"Shutter Island" starts working on us with the first musical notes under the Paramount logo's mountain, even before the film starts. They're ominous and doomy. So is the film. This is Martin Scorsese's evocation of the delicious shuddering fear we feel when horror movies are about something and don't release all the tension with action scenes.

In its own way it's a haunted house movie, or make that a haunted castle or fortress. Shutter Island, we're told, is a remote and craggy island off Boston, where a Civil War-era fort has been adapted as a prison for the criminally insane. We approach it by boat through lowering skies, and the feeling is something like the approach to King Kong's island: Looming in gloom from the sea, it fills the visitor with dread. To this island travel U.S. marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo).

It's 1954, and they are assigned to investigate the disappearance of a child murderer (Emily Mortimer). There seems to be no way to leave the island alive. The disappearance of one prisoner might not require the presence of two marshals unfamiliar with the situation, but we never ask that question. Not after the ominous walls of the prison arise. Not after the visitors are shown into the office of the prison medical director, Dr. Cawley, played by Ben Kingsley with that forbidding charm he has mastered.

It's clear that Teddy has no idea what he's getting himself into. Teddy -- such an innocuous name in such a gothic setting. Scorsese, working from a novel by Dennis Lehane, seems to be telling a simple enough story here; the woman is missing, and Teddy and Chuck will look for her. But the cold, gray walls clamp in on them, and the offices of Cawley and his colleagues, furnished for the Civil War commanding officers, seem borrowed from a tale by Edgar Allan Poe.

Read more from HERE

My Name is Khan @ Berlinale

The first seven titles for the Competition of the 60th Berlin International Film Festival have been confirmed. The films selected so far are from Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, France, Germany, India, Iran, Turkey, the UK and the USA.
This first group of films selected for the Competition is characterized by up-and-coming young directors, stars and masters of filmmaking like Martin Scorsese and Roman Polanski.

“The Competition of the 60th anniversary Berlinale will be marked by a mix of styles and genres, by exciting newcomers and renowned directors,” says Festival Director Dieter Kosslick.

The following films have been confirmed for the Competition programme so far:

Bal (Honey) Turkey / Germany
by Semih Kaplanoglu (Süt/Milk, Yumurta/Egg, Melegin Düsüsü/Angel’s Fall)
with Bora Altas, Erdal Besikcioglu, Tülin Özen, Alev Ucarer, Ayse Altay
World premiere

Der Räuber (The Robber) Austria / Germany
by Benjamin Heisenberg (Sleeper, Max-Ophuels-Preis 2006)
with Andreas Lust, Franziska Weisz
World premiere

My Name Is Khan India
by Karan Johar
with Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol
Out of competition

Na Putu (On the Path) Bosnia and Herzegovina / Austria / Germany / Croatia
by Jasmila Zbanic (Grbavica, Golden Bear 2006)
with Zrinka Cvitesic (Shooting Star 2010), Leon Lucev, Ermin Bravo, Mirjana Karanovic
World premiere

Shekarchi (The Hunter) Germany / Iran
by Rafi Pitts (Zemestan - It's Winter)
with Rafi Pitts, Mitra Hajjar, Ali Nicksaulat, Hassan Ghalenoi
World premiere

Shutter Island USA
by Martin Scorsese (The Departed, Aviator, Cape Fear)
with Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Sir Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams, Patricia Clarkson, Max von Sydow
World premiere / Out of competition

The Ghost Writer France / Germany / UK
by Roman Polanski (The Pianist, Oscar 2002, China Town, Cul-de-sac, Golden Bear 1966)
with Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Kim Cattrall, Olivia Williams
World premiere

A total of 26 films will be selected for the Competition section of the 60th Berlin International Film Festival. Further Competition title confirmations will be announced in January 2010.