THE LAST RUN (1971)

Harry Garmes is solitary retired man who knows his job damn well and that is driving his rare BMW 503 convertible as fast as possible. It’s been nine years since he took any transporting assignment for baddies and he’s on the last run to cross border a criminal and his girlfriend. But things didn’t turn in his favour.  Though bombed at box office by audience and attacked by critics, this thin on plot and gritty on pace crime thriller directed by Richard Fleischer has number of things to ponder about. Leading in that list first and foremost is one of most vibrating Morriconesque theme score of Jerry Goldsmith in the opening & ending titles. The mid age George C. Scott is portrayed here in the tradition of  Bogart and the man really done fine job once again. And in addition to that, it has brilliantly executed and shot extraordinary car chase sequence on landscape hills and curves of European locales by Sven Nykvist. Yes, the film could be made better if helmed by John Huston but then that’s again hypothetic cliché or common reaction about many such films.  

THE CHANGELING (1980)

Haunting house…buried past…the hidden crime! Now this is something so cliché associated with horror films. However there are films which prove how one can improvise and makes something above that routine mould through brilliant execution with the form and narration. Peter Medek’s ‘The Changeling’ belongs to that well made, grippingly executed but under popular horror thrillers. It features amazing George C. Scott as mid age piano scholar who after unfortunate accidental death of his two daughters came to Seattle to teach the university students. The old house he rented in Seattle starts giving him unusual jolts as somebody wanted to communicate with him, the past, the crime and the harrowing episode of filicide. The things which gave the film fine dimension are its impressive dark cinematography matched with chilling use of sound with solid haunting background score. The film successfully manages to give you enough tension and thrill of disturbances and supernatural manifestations without any of routine baggage or CGI gimmicks. Recommended to all horror/thriller fans.

AWAY FROM HER (2006)

A few directors manage to show such a controlled sensibility and maturity at such a young age! Sarah Polley’s adaptation of Alice Munro’s short story ‘The Bear Came Over The Mountain’ is a sympathetic tale of a marriage that lasted for forty five years till Alzheimer’s disease slowly and steadily drifts the memory of the aging wife. The concerning husband’s persistent efforts to deal with this unsettling fact leads the wife to a caretaking nursing home to cure. However passing of mere a month, the wife fails to recognize her husband and starts sharing company of another inmate, considering him her life partner or maybe the closest friend of life time.

What’s harder, sadder and shocking as one grows older, moving towards the final years of life? Is it death of life partner who remain close witness or death of her memory where she fails to even recognize you and everything concerning your relationship? How to digest and deal with a situation like that? These are not easy answers for the questions like that but the film made its audience think about the status of love of its aging couple. It so sublimely and sympathetically let us witness the life of this old couple with performances so carefully controlled and honest. The film instantly reminds me, Haneke’s Cannes winner ‘Amour’, as this film shows similar threads and shades between the aging couple. It devoids of complexity associated with Haneke’s film but evokes the same sentiment and resonance from its two key players. Julie Christie looks as graceful eve in her old age and it’s not exaggerated opinion calling her performance here, one of her finest ones. This is a film worth all sensible film lovers.

STORIES WE TELL (2012)

“When you’re in the middle of a story, it isn’t a story at all, but only a confusion, a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood, like a house in a whirlwind or else a boat crushed by the icebergs or swept away by rapids, and all aboard are powerless to stop it. It’s only afterwards that it became anything like a story at all, when you’re telling it to yourself or to someone else.”      - Margaret Atwood

Produced by National Film Board of Canada and made by one of finest actress and wonderful director Sarah Polley, this personal documentary or what Polley called an interrogation process of her own life. Peeling off the myth and memory through reconstruction of past, it narrated the real and personal story of her life filming interviews of almost all of her family members, including her dad, siblings and number of other significant persons connected to her mom. Yes, she managed to maintain candid and honest confessions through interviewed figures revealing the most personal story of her life. Her mother who died too soon after her birth remained a centre of Polley’s existence in her absence. Her mom’s relationships with three different guys, she tries to explore the truth and ambiguity about her real biological father. While doing this, the film becomes quite repetitive, self indulgent one considering its length with running time of more than one and half hours. But at the same time it manages to bring all this personal self confessions in refined, genuine and interesting way to its audience. The film features an innovative sort of real find or recorded Super 8 like personal camera footage used as flashback, successfully captures the thoughtful and touching tale without much of emotional manipulation.  

What’s the most touching and genuine soul of the film is it features a beautiful relationship between daughter and the father, especially the one who’s not her biological father. Michael Polley’s confessional narration and expressions are something so pure reflection of soul to describe in words. This is enthralling, moving and genuinely layered experience and Sarah Polley is surely a Canadian filmmaker I’m looking forward too! Hope the audience don’t lose the wonderful actress behind the baggage of direction!