The Man from Earth (2007)

Spaceships, aliens, time travel, eye-popping gadgets, robots are some of the things that comes to our mind when the word science fiction is used.  But, "The Man from Earth" consists none of the above and still achieves the mind-blowing awesomeness that only few science fiction movies manages to accomplish.

A professor resigns his job suddenly and is preparing to move out of town without attracting the attention of his colleagues.  But they turn up to bid adieu with a small farewell party and some nagging questions in their mind.  Why would a successful professor, who is the favorite for the next dean position wants to leave all of a sudden?  What is he hiding from others?  Why he looks younger than most of his counterparts of the same age and many more queries.

Upon further pushing and nudging, he slowly reveals that he is a prehistoric caveman who has lived more than 14,000 years.  At first, the colleagues take this as a joke and being intellectuals themselves, they start playing along by asking logical questions.  To their surprise, he provides quite convincing answers one after the other.  Slowly the colleagues see that it is possible that he may be an actual caveman, but could not come to terms to believe his stories.  The professor starts narrating how he took part in many historical events.  At one point of time, he reveals a stunning and audacious fact about himself which makes the colleagues furious.  Now the colleagues are not sure whether the professor is just toying with their minds or is he really sane?  

We too get played with our emotions and intelligence.  We are in the same position of the colleagues.  Though the facts looks convincing, we could never believe them.  Having setup a great build-up, I would say that this movie never lets us down at the end by cheap twists or resolve the questions by a deus ex machina.  And thats the most satisfying part of the movie when it respects our intelligence. The entire film is shot in a single room and few outside a house.  Who said that making a science fiction movie requires breath-taking visuals and loads of money?

The off-screen story of this movie is also a little bit interesting.  The story was written by an author in his death bed.  The producer struggled to release this film.  It was through the peer-to-peer sharing networks that his movie got much word-of-the-mouth recognition.  The producer was so overwhelmed by the response that he publicly thanked these networks and was even willing to release his future film(s) straight through the file sharing networks.  Wow.. that would be interesting!

Pleasantville (1998)

If you have seen "The Truman Show", you will like "Pleasantville" because both are similar but not essentially the same.  The main character(s) is trapped inside a TV show, but here they are sure about it than the doubtful Jim Carey. A brother-sister twins gets transported to a 50's sitcom, where everything is black and white and people who populate are innocents.  They don't even use a toilet. The basketball team never misses the loop even during practice sessions.  I can go on, but that would be revealing major interesting scenes of this movie.

The twins try to gel along the environment.  But the sister hates the goofy goodness surrounding her.  Both inadvertently start questioning and providing some insights on the world outside.  As one-by-one the characters experience a change in themselves, they turn into color while the other less enlightened people start seeing them as a threat to their existence.

The stunning scenes are when each color change happens and the reaction it gets from others.  Its really a fun to watch those.  When everything surrounding them changes, the twins remain in black and white and they don't know why.  Then they realize that though they induce most of the changes, they remain unchanged for most part and start searching within themselves.  When they gain the missing part of their lives, bingo...comes the color.

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (2003)

I've known people using some soothing music for mediation.  Some even use a picture for focusing their mind.  I bet "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winder...and Spring" is also such a meditative material.  All you have to do is watch this movie which gives an immense pleasure of getting absorbed into the world it shows.

It shows the life of a boy, who lives in a secluded floating lake house along with a Buddhist monk.  The boy learns life lessons and undergoes various metamorphosis similar to the changing climates that forms the metaphor and the title.  The beauty is that life is a cycle that never ends.  Human beings may come and go, but their life remains the same.

Starting with the childish innocence and curiosity about the surroundings and his inherent cruelty as any human being, the boy moves to his adolescence.  He falls in love and leaves for a material world.  Later he comes back to his master as a refugee regretting his mistakes, only to be sent back to prison.  He returns after serving his term and finds the lake house empty.  After self-learning from his master's books, he accepts a child to be his student.  Its now clearly evident, how this little child would grow up.

The visuals induce trance like feeling and lingers in my mind even now.  The floating lake house surrounded by mountains is something of a pleasure to watch.  Its like getting back to nature from the material world. 

I am often inspired by the duty-driven life of animal world.  Although they have emotions, mostly they do what they are supposed to do without feeling bored.  They don't ask questions nor do they think about the meaning of life.  Yet, they seem to live their life to the fullest.  Human beings on the other hand, lost their ability to stay at present and take life as it goes.  We are often worried about the future or repenting on the past mistakes.  We are anxious to see what next and easily get bored.  This film shows many such animals who go about their life just like the old monk does.  The monk character represents every human being at their final stages. The only catch is, he had to undergo a lot of pain and cross many hurdles to get that stage of inner peace, which is the default option for animals. I can't help myself from getting jealous of them.

Warrior (2011)

Two sons parted at childhood hate their father for his neglect.  The older one is eager to rebuild his relationship with his younger sibling, who does not share the same feeling.  For him, both his father and his brother are guitly of neglecting him in his childhood.  Now, there is a Mixed Martial Arts fighting tournament coming around, in which both the brothers are interested to win.

"Warrior" is about broken relationships and their residual bitterness that stays even after everyone repents for their mistakes.  The father, who was once alchoholic, is now sober.  He is ready to accept his mistakes and re-invent his fatherhood.  The younger brother who approaches him for a strictly professional help, is neither interested about his father's rejuvenation nor is he ready to forget the injustice that he faced his hands. His anger is ready to explode and he finds the tournament a means to his new life. The older brother has left home to woo his then girlfriend, now wife.  He has a peaceful life until he comes to the verge of losing his house on a loan foreclosure.  He looks forward this tournament to save him from his debt.  He is ready to join hands with his younger brother, but can never forgive his abusive father.

I expected a lot of blood spills and elongated action sequences, but "Warrior" employs fights only to the required quantity.  Sometimes, it reminded me of Mortal Kombat on seeing colourful fighters winning and moving through to the finals.  But, there is no "Rocky" like scenes where the fighter gets punched again and again only to emerge victorious.  I expected the older brother, who looks less fit, be punched and taken to hospital, but he not only survives, he comes out mostly successful in all his fights.Likewise, the final bout is inconclusive and I didn't mind it at all.  In fact, the final fight has more drama than action that could generate a tears or two.  Having removed the boring and patience-testing cliches, it is very refreshing to watch this movie.

"Warrior" did strike a chord or two with me on a personal level.  I could draw many parallels with my life with what transpires on the screen.  At least, here the protagonists have the option of confronting their indifferent relationships, but not everyone is that lucky to have that opportunity in life.