The Movie Mystic

Master of minimalism Abbas Kiarostami is one the greatest craftsmen to have ever helmed the affairs behind the camera. Where is the Friend's Home? is the Iranian auteur's first in a string of movies to have received global acclaim. In this film, the first of what is called the Koker Trilogy (the other ones are Life, and Nothing More...& Through the Olive Trees), an eight-year-old boy (Ahmed) mistakenly brings home from school his friend's notebook. He must give it back to his friend, who lives in a neighbouring village, otherwise the poor boy will be expelled from class by their hyper-strict teacher. Ahmed's predicament is he doesn't know 'where is the friend's home.' Ahmed's altruistic pursuit leads him to comeacrsoss a bunch of adults, most of whom are indifferent and apathetic towards his concern and often misguide him in his quest. As our protagonist zigzags between the two villages -- Koker and Posteh -- unrelentingly, the film exposes us to...

What can a man with an IQ of 75 achieve in life? Well, if he is Forrest Gump he can win medals, become a war hero, inspire Elvis Presley’s dance moves, create a famous shrimp fishing fleet, inspire people to jog, start a ping-pong craze, create the smiley, accidentally expose the Watergate Scandal, become a philanthropist and meet the President of the United States several times. This titular character in Robert Zemmeckis’ 1994 film is uplifting to the core. The movie is all about the journey of Forrest Gump from a boy with a curved spine to a man who succeeds in all endeavours that he undertakes in life, all without losing his true self. In the course of this journey, Gump reunites with his childhood girlfriend, his only girlfriend, Jenny. An abused child, Jenny, is the one who asks Forrest to escape from his school bullies by running as fast as he could. And this brings out the sprinter in him. As an enlisted man, Forrest is sent to Vietnam where he befriends Bubba, an Africa...

Set in the backdrop of the Amazon rubber boom of the early 20th century, Colombian director Ciro Guerra’s Embrace of the Serpent is a movie about many things – the timeless wisdom associated with shamanism, the effects of colonialism on native cultures, the dark side of European missionaries, the perils of human greed and above all, the power of dreams.  The story is narrated thirty years apart based on the wanderings of a German and an American in the core of the Colombian Amazon. Having spent quite some time in the jungle, German ethnographer Theo von Martius has developed sickness and is in the quest for the Yakruna, a sacred plant with healing powers. To locate the mystical plant, he, accompanied by a Westernised former native slave named Manduca, seeks the guidance of Karamakate, a shaman, who happens to be the last surviving member of a tribe annihilated by European invaders. Karamakate, Theo and Manduca At the outset, Karamakate is reluctant to help the German for the s...

Profusely sweating men, nihilistic violence, widescreen cinematography capturing barren landscapes, an unforgettable background score, an iconic Mexican standoff and a man with no name come to mind when one thinks of the ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’.   Italian auteur Sergio Leone’s 1966 masterpiece, the third and the final installment in the Dollar’s Trilogy (after A fistful of Dollars and A Few More Dollars) of Spaghetti Westerns, is now considered one of the greatest films ever made. Three men -- a relentless mercenary (Lee Van Cleef as Angel Eyes aka The Bad); a Mexican bandit with a devil-may-care attitude (Eli Wallach as Tuco aka The Ugly); and a cigar-smoking, poncho-sporting, mysterious bounty hunter (Clint Eastwood as Blondie aka The Good aka the Man with No Name) – are on the hunt for Confederate gold buried in a cemetery at the peak of the American Civil War. The story unfolds as they try to outsmart one another in their quest for the yellow metal and enc...

“It is preferable not to travel with a dead man.” --- Henri Michaux Jim Jarmaush’s 1995 release which subsequently gained a cult following among Indie movie lovers is the auteur’s best known work. The movie subtly presents the spiritual journey, though on the surface it appears temporal, of one William Blake. And our William Blake is an accountant, not the great English mystic poet. The naïve, educated Blake (played to perfection by Johnny Depp) arrives at the frontier town of Machine, which is too cruel for his mild mannered nature, for a job in a company he has been assured of. After learning it the hard way from the firm’s megalomaniac owner that the position of accountant has been taken, he has a chance encounter with a former prostitute named Thel Russell who takes him home. There he finds himself in a quagmire after Thel’s fiancé, who happens to be the son of the firm’s owner, appears in the scene. The confrontation leaves Blake mortally wounded even as he shoots Thel...

Of the numerous movies I have had the pleasure of viewing, the most spiritually enriched are the ones directed by Majid Majidi.  The Iranian auteur has a flair for making such movies, though at no point they appear preachy. Simple narratives that celebrate the human spirit, no matter what the circumstances that form the basis of the plot, are the painterly filmmaker’s forte. Whether it’s the backdrop of a busy construction site (as in Baran ) or the struggles of a pair of siblings from a lower middleclass family in suburban Tehran (as in Children of Heaven ), Majidi’s stories are always uplifting and replete with mystical undertones. Like Sufi poetry, his films always enchant the soul and take the viewer to a different level of ecstasy. Majidi’s most spiritually elevating movie is The Color of Paradise.  The story of Muhammad, a blind boy, whose mystical vision, understanding of nature and compassionate character make a viewing of this movie an amazing experien...