Our reviewers select and review the best independent and foreign films on amazon.com, cd universe, and netflix

The Girl on the Train (France 2009, 105, dir: Andre Techine, cast: Emilie Dequenne, Catherine Deneuve, Mathieu Demy, Ronit Elkabetz, Michel Blanc).

Tough enough to make a good film about something real that really happened. Almost as tough to make a film about something real that really didn’t happen. The Girl on the Train never comes to grips with the dark mind of the paranoid imaginer who made up this amazing story; or her motivation. Jeanne (Emile Dequenne) is a young woman in bitter battle with her mother Louise (Catherine Deneuve). She finds her revenge against mother and the world by claiming she has been attacked by black toughs on a suburban commuter train outside Paris.

The commuter lines of the RER go lots of places around Paris. The trouble with Andre Techine’s movie is it doesn’t go anywhere. At the end we learn that she faked the whole episode. That’s disappointing for a film so interesting to watch; and gripping while you still think there’s a truth lurking around the corner.

Where The Girl on the Train becomes even more intriguing is when you look beyond the movie to the event that inspired it. In 2004 Marie Lionie Leblanc claimed that she had been attacked on the RER by a gang of blacks who ripped her clothes, cut her hair, and drew a swastika on her stomach. In the violence they knocked over her infant baby’s carriage. Passengers looked on but did nothing to help.

French politicians wasted no time in condemning the incident and Ariel Sharon told French Jews they had better pack up and immigrate to Israel to avoid this new “wildest Anti-Semitism.” The only problem was: Marie made it all up. No witness every came forward and within days the police proved she was lying.

That happened in 2004. But it echoed a 1987 incident that is almost the flip side. A 15 year-old black girl from Wappinger, New York (less than an hour north of New York City) claimed six white men raped her. Tawana Brawly said several of them were policeman, and one was a district attorney. The politicians went wild.

Black politician Al Sharpton seized upon it as proof of police hatred of blacks just as Ariel Sharon grabbed on to the RER incident as proof that the French hated Jews. Tawana never recanted her story. The grand jury did it for her. They failed to vote even a single indictment.

So the real story of The Girl on the Train should have been more about the mind of the fibber. What kind of person makes up this stuff? In the case of Tawana, and I suspect the same might apply to Marie; it is a hopelessly paranoid individual who can best make human contact by playing the victim. Tawana converted to Islam and moved from Wappinger Falls to tiny Claremont, Virginia. She changed her name, bought an attack dog, and began working as a nurse in a nursing home.

She’s never married, keeps to herself, and rarely ventures beyond Claremont except when she accepts free flights and limousines on returns to New York as a guest at United Africa Movement events.

I wish the film made clearer the pattern of a paranoid mind that understands how to jump on a hot button issue and sprinkle just enough truth to feed the flames. The reward is 15 minutes of fame and a celebrity glow that, if you play your paranoia right, can last your whole life.

Title : Stanley Ka Dabba
Year : 2011
Directed By Amol Gupte
Starring : Partho (Director’s son), Amol Gupte (Director himself), Divya Dutta and more

Amol Gupte, the real man behind the highly acclaimed Taare Zameen Par (as the writer and creative director of the film), strikes back with his own film, once again revolving around children and their emotional school journey seen through the eyes of an innocent, helpless yet courageous child named Stanley.

If you wish to compare it with TZP, then Yes, visibly SKD does have a similar look to that of TZP since it has been conceptualized by the same creative person and director. But content wise it simply deals with another more important and universal problem of child education, which unarguably takes Stanley Ka Dabba to much greater heights as compared to TZP. Hence with that point of view SKD can easily be stated as a few steps ahead of TZP.

However, instead of going into any comparison I would like to talk about STANLEY KA DIBBA alone and the cinematic excellence achieved by its director Amol Gupte through his honest and sincere efforts. In few words, SKD is a very simple, sober and free of any gimmick kind of movie made on a sensitive subject related with child education. It is a soulful journey into the small world of the little masters, their truthful friendships, their innocent planning and their lovable concern for each other.

It reminds you of those carefree years spent in the early school days, when there was no tension, greed or cunningness in our hearts for each other. When we used to demand very funny things from the GOD with our eyes closed and hands folded.

It reminds you of the time when we used to sing the latest movies Songs loudly in absence of any teacher in the class, playing the rhythm on our desks.

-The time when we used to wait for the recess period just to check each other’s tiffin boxes to see that what they have brought today from their homes and there always used to be one or two friends whose tiffins were pretty famous in the whole class for their quality of food.

-The time when we used to eat in the class under the table and if not allowed then asked for ‘a water break’ to drink some water till the recess bell rings.

-The time when we all had crush on the same teacher, in most of the cases our English Teacher, who looked beautiful with her fabulous dress sense and had a magical fragrance.

-The time when a few continuous absents of a class-mate used to make us worried as hell (and in our days we even didn’t have any phones from which we could make a few calls to his home.)

-The time when the same project of ours was appreciated by one teacher and disapproved by the other.

-The time when we used to give our own funny names to each and every teacher of ours, including the ones we loved dearly.

And the time when one boy or girl of our group suddenly became the Hero of the School after participating in a reputed competition and we all cheered for him shouting as loud as we could running all over the school premises.

More on bobbytalkscinema.com

The Road (USA 2009, 111 min, die: John Hilcoat, cast: Viggo Mortsensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Robert Duvall, Charlize Theron)

versus

Glen and Randa, (USA1971, 93 min. dir: Jim McBride, cast: Steven Curry (Glen), Shelly Plimpton (Randa), Garry Goodrow (Magician).

Why does every post-apocalypse movie always feature abandoned cars strewn along the highways like a used car lot hit by a tornedo? Are we supposed to believe that the end of mankind climaxed with a demolition derby? Any news report of people freezing to death in the mountains are roasting to death in the desert usually has them quietly pulling off the road and waiting calmly for the end.

Hollywood movies believe that the dying will careen at top speed, slamming into other unfortunates in a race to destroy themselves. Or maybe it is just cheap set design to buy wrecked cars and cover them with rust paint and dust.

See I Am Legend for the big budget version of the road wreck of civilization. See The Road for the economy model. But don’t see The Road because you want a good movie experience. It is a dog. Bad story, bad acting, and boring.

So why review it here? Because it is a good contrast that was one of the best post apocalypse movies. Glen and Randa, a 1971 gem by Jim McBride. The Road is about a father and son traveling through a grim landscape pocked with lots of broken cars. The message of this mess is: the future without people will be kind of boring.

Glen and Randa trip through a land stripped of all but a hardy few who have survived by returned to primitivism. There’s The Magician (Gary Goodrow) who pushes and old wheelbarrow filled with glowing embers. He’s a magician because he has fire. Anybody who wants some has to barter with him. The lovers, Glen (Steven Curry) and Randa (Shelly Plimpton), are sort of Adamish and Evee hippy types who (as I remember) fuck in a tree and wander into abandoned Interstate rest stop restaurants for shelter.

When the movie was made the hippie movement was in full flower. Make Love Not War was written on every tie-dye t-shirt. Looking at the film now, it’s more of an ecological statement about our excesses. It has something to say whereas The Road makes only guttural sounds.

One scene I’ll never forget from Glen and Randa has them walking along the shoulder of a former Interstate highway. Randa needs a piece of string or wire for something (pardon my memory). Glen says there must be piece somewhere here, and starts searching the ground. Randa asks how he knows he will find it. Glen answers, “Because there’s everything everywhere.”

What he’s saying is that our wasteful society has thrown away so much, especially along American highways, that you can find whatever you need. And it’s true! Need a piece of wire to jimmy a lock? A length of rope to tie the trunk? A plastic bag to hold wet swimsuits? A cup to pour water in the radiator?

All you’ve got to do is hunt along the highway shoulder for a couple of minutes and you’ll see it’s true: everything is everywhere.

Post apocalypse America will be a place much like modern day American. It will be drowning it the shit we’ve thrown away for a century, and foraging primitives will depend on this bounty to survive. Nobody will care about stripping car hulks. The man who finds a beer can opener will be king.

It’s easy to see a copy of The Road but don’t. It’s tough to find a copy of Glen and Randa but worth the wait.

Sadly, you won’t find Glen and Randa in Netflix, but Amazon says they have a few copies. http://www.amazon.com/Glen-Randa-Steve-Curry/dp/B001UHKPHU/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1307567514&sr=1-1

The Color of Paradise (Iran 1999, 90 min, dir: Majid Majidi, cast: Hossein Mahjoub, Moshen Ramezani.

Some movies are so lavish they justify the extravagance of the big flat screen you bought for yourself. Mohammad has been sent to a special school for the blind in the city. He’s nearly abandoned until his widowed father comes to reclaim him and take him home.

Home is a long journey to a simple country life with a grandmother and sisters. Along the way the lavish color and abundance of nature fills all 46 diagonal inches of big screen, making home video a near-theater experience.

Once home in the country, Mohammed (Moshen Ramezani), adapts readily because his cheery personality is accepted by everyone. Only the father has bitter feelings about his life, and his relationship with his son. The boy is a burden in a life that, with the death of his wife, is suddenly without an anchor.

The film culminates in one of the most spectacular river calamity scenes I have ever watched. Perhaps you need to have run rivers to understand what you see cannot be faked. The boy is swept away and the father, after hesitating, jumps in too. The power of the river takes the boy, the father, and the horse and will not release them.

Natural life, like the river, is a vital part of Majidi’s theme that spans movie after movie. He loves to contrast city with country. The elements of country are poverty and human conflict. The complications of the city diffuse these and overlay these with hurdles that are for Majidi films, grave life impediments.

In Children of Heaven (MovieWithMe.com) the father and son must go into the rich part of the city to seek work so they can survive their subsistence life in a poor village at the city’s edge. In The Color of Paradise it is a blind boy leaving the shelter of the city for a bucolic life that is both delightful and lethal. Majidi doesn’t seem to weigh in on the values of city versus country except to point out that the vast difference from one to the other causes much confusion to the human beings who must travel between.

He is at his best with children: pointing up the innocence and tragedy they can exemplify so well. After seeing his films, take a look at Turtles Can Fly (MovieWithMe), another excellent Iranian film about children in Iraqi Kurdistan during the American no fly zone before the start of the Iraqi war.