the white ribbon . earth . inception . udaan

in' the white ribbon' the claustrophobia of living in a idyllic village under the eyes of god leads to strange goings on when sudden actors of vicious brutality begin to happen. when the local schoolteacher begins to suspect his students and the kids of the local pastor the world war breaks out. like in cache the other michael haneke film, the tension builds in long silences and spartan conversations. terrific film.

gorgeous black and white heroic iconography in service of state propaganda- 'earth' unashamedly proclaims the victory (if only a moral one) of the workers over the evil landowners. a tractor arrives in the collective farm amid great fanfare and silhouettes of farmers against the sky but does not work until the workers use their own urine to start it; a man dances madly in joy in the evening in the middle of the farm and is shot dead; his body is carried in a funeral procession for a hero as the earth pays homage with rain, fertility and the bough of an apple tree that caresses his face.

chrstopher nolan's 'inception' takes one hollywood action film and puts it inside another and then does it again and again until it does not really matter what's going on. it is a feat of complex storytelling and can be appreciated like one would a complicated matrix- but the characters are all (as in most action genre hollywood films) one dimensional . the problem is that. we have seen all the films before, no matter how complicated the package- at the end it all seems familar territory. but instead of nitpicking on all that i you go in purely for spectacle then the folding of paris into an m c escher; or the levitating action sequence in a hotel corridor are brilliant while the final action sequence manages to play with three time scales in three different spaces.

there is nothing not to like about 'udaan' but there is not much to love. jamshedpur and its industrial landscape along with the perfect planned streets and gardens are the set for an oppressive father and his strained relationship with his son. its all competently played out- no one overacts; no one is brilliant. it all plays out in perpetual good taste- understated, serious, realistic and believable for most of the time. the few flare ups seem implausible and the perpetually scowling father seems like a caricature.