Toss of a Coin

 It happened one summer night. Ramesh and I were quarrelling at a petrol pump. We had gone to fill petrol. It was the night we had finished our exams and we were in a happy mood. We were on Jonathan’s motorcycle and Ramesh and I were fighting over who would sit in the middle and who would sit at the back.

 We were arguing till Jonathan said, “come on, let’s solve the problem. Let’s toss a coin.”

“Heads,” I said unhesitatingly.

 We watched as the coin spun in the air and landed on the grease-stained ground. We peered into the shadows and then Ramesh leapt up and punched the sky with his fist.

“The mark of a champion” he said, and I didn’t want to argue anymore. Jonathan started the motorcycle and then I got on and Ramesh sat at the back.

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The Perfect Crime

Bobby Franks was a bright 14-year-old student at Chicago’s Harvard School for Boys in the spring of 1924. On Wednesday, May 21, as he was walking home from school, a grey and black Willys Knight sedan pulled up alongside him. Franks didn’t recognise the driver, but he knew the passenger, Richard “Dickie” Loeb. The Loebs lived near the Frankses in a very well-to-do Kenwood section of town. Loeb offered Frank a lift home. The lad accepted, and moments after he was introduced to Nathan Leopold Jr., the blunt edge of a chisel came down on his head. After dark, Leopold and Loeb drove to Wolf Lake Park, a place Leopold knew from his birding excursions. They dragged the body to the edge of a culvert, poured hydrochloric acid on the face and then pushed it down.

Why? For no reason than to commit the “perfect crime”

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The President (Mohsen Makhmalbaf)

Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s latest film is absorbing and gripping. The director discloses a unsuspected gift for satire and suspense, in an old-fashioned storytelling manner. Makhmalbaf and the co-screenwriter, Marziyeh Meshkiny created a drama and a parable. 

An allegorical lesson about dictatorships and the cycle of violence they breed, the movie unfolds in an unnamed country. The story concerns an ageing dictator, known only as the President, played by Georgian actor Misha Gomiashvilli. When his regime’s sadism, cynicism and brutality become too much to bear, there is a coup.

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Court (Chaitanya Tamhane)

We had more than enough number of court room dramas, produced in Bollywood, Tollywood and all types of woods. But this Court, Chaitanya Tamhane’s impressive debut, flays India’s justice system while commenting on class, education and access to power with conviction. It is hilarious and heart breaking. It's a brilliant film, particularly for a debutant. In a film industry that sells half-baked fantasies and jerkers and is constantly churning out movies like fast food, this Court is a breath of fresh air.

This film shows us a man's life and another man's death can be the stuff of laughter when they're part of a case being heard at a lower court in Mumbai.

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Red Amnesia (Wang Xiaoshuai)

 Red Amnesia is a bold Chinese thriller cross genre cinema by Wang Xiaoshuai. It is a tale of paranoia, regret, past misdeeds, and retribution. Wang Xiaoshuai is mainly known to the Western audiences for the 2001 Silver Bear winning movie, Beijing Bicycles. Wang considers Red Amnesia to be the last film of his Cultural Revolution trilogy, which includes 2005’s ‘Shanghai Dreams’ and 2011’s ’11 Flowers’   

An award-worthy performance by stage vet Lu Zhong fuses together the elements of “Red Amnesia.”

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One for the Road (Jack Zagha Kababie)

One for the road is usually a drinker’s jargon. It is also a famous political play by Harold Pinter. One for the Road’ by Jack Zagha Kababie is not a road movie also. It is more than mere road-trip. This 91-minute movie is interspersed with graceful sketches of self-realisation portrayed through a simple narrative. It is the story of a determined voyage undertaken with a never-ending zest for life, and a celebration of life after 80.

‘One for the Road’ (En el Ultimo Trago), a 2014 Mexican film by Jack Zagha Kababie narrates the story of three 80-year-olds who embark on a journey to fulfil their dearest friend’s last wish. It is a portrayal of vivid imageries of life through colourful characters. The movie inspires the audience to look into their inner selves.

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Dancing Arabs (Eran Riklis)

The strife torn Middle East is always an enigma to the growing generation, whether it is the Jew, Arab or Christian, as for centuries they approach each other with suspicion and with simmering hatred.

‘Dancing Arabs’ is the name of the semi-autobiographical novel it’s derived from, by Israel-based Palestinian scribe Sayed Kashua, who also wrote the script.

This 105 minutes Israeli film which was aimed at to make Jews comfortable with Arabs, tells the story of a young Arab student in Israel struggling to find his identity.

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They are the Dogs (Hicham Lasri)

They are the Dogs is a mixture of satire and political commentary by Moroccan director Hicham Lasri. It portrays a visual media crew of pompous TV journalist, grumpy old cameraman and young soundman who were assigned to cover the Arab Spring protests in Casablanca.

The TV crew meets a man wandering among the crowd in a daze, unable to remember his own name, only his prison number: 404. A tall fellow in a ragged plaid jacket, and they smell a good story in that amnesiac man just released from prison. A man who has been detained for 30 years by Moroccan authorities is suddenly released during the Arab Spring. Gradually 404 becomes obsessed about finding out what remains of his past, and confusion gives way to determination.

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The Bright Day (Hossein Shahabi)

The Bright Day is a 2013 Iranian social drama directed by Hossein Shahabi.

It is his debut feature film which was very well received by Iranian film critics and audiences of the 31st Fajr Film Festival of Tehran in February 2013. The film also won the Special Jury Prize of 28th Mar del Plata International Film Festival in Argentina and the Chicago Film Festival Awards for Best director & best Film.

It is a typical small story focused on two people, a Tehran kindergarten teacher named  Roshan (played by Pantea Bahram ) and  a driver of the taxi car (played by Mehran Ahmadi ) which she hires to take her around town one morning.  Thematically the film is quite surprising. The baffling question is why the school teacher takes the day off to travel around Tehran on that particular day?  Well, the father of one of her little students, a widower with a sick mother, is standing accused of murder.  He killed the son of his boss, whose family is relatively powerful. 

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One on One (Kim ki-Duk)

The film ‘One on One’ is two hours of screeching melodrama and violence. The film by famous South Korean director Kim Ki-duk is neither a pushing one nor an exciting one.

The movie opens with a so called unmotivated murder. On May 9, a high school girl named Oh Min-ju is brutally murdered. After opening with the slaying of the young victim by a band of seven contract killers, the revenge plot is set into motion. The seven suspects are hunted down by a seven member group. The group begins abducting men they suspect of being involved in the May 9 murder randomly. How they got the information is not clear.

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Omar (Hany Abu-Assad)

Omar is a political film. A subtle dramatization of a situation compelling the viewers to think out its contradictions. Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad’s Omar is about a young man caught between love and his commitment to the Palestinian cause. The protagonist is a young militant who goes on a mission with his two best friends, gets captured by Israeli intelligence. Adam Bakri plays the hero who realises that compromise and subterfuge may be the only way to win Nadia (Lubany), his friend's sister, whom he wishes to marry. It's a lean, controlled and captivating film.

Hany Abu-Assad's Oscar-nominated Omar, a story of spy craft and betrayal, has an intensity that many spy films lack. 

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89 (Manoj Michigan)

The Bengali film 89 is all about crime, thrill, ambition for success at any cost and how it effects psychological conditions. Purba (Raima) goes through a journey of incidents filled with X factors.  She starts exploring the sequences to arrive at the cause of her mental turmoil, an unexplained problem. This brings us to the question related to the title of the film.

The story is a systematic exploration of the case. It is credible and logical, but races through thrills and twists at every turn. What enhances the thrills is the alternative format of story-telling.

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