As MAMI, or Mumbai Film Festival ends, today is your last chance to catch some of the best art-house cinema in Mumbai. A total of 200 films were screened across Mumbai, in various theatres, as a part of this festival, and some great movies are still being shown at a theatre near you. So, we suggest that you hurry and watch at least some of the recommended films that are on our list on the last day of MAMI.
1. Thunder Road: A moving drama about a cop named Jim Arnaud (Jim Cummings) who, despite his life falling apart, keeps putting up pretenses and acts like everything is fine, until one day, he just can't. He finally owns up to the fact that he doesn't need to have everything under control, and you as an audience, like him more as he embraces his flaws, instead of trying to suppress them.
In a long confessional tirade, he tells off his friends in the police force, during which one of his colleagues, tries to make him 'stop acting out', and says, "stop, you are drunk," to which he replies, " I'm not drunk, I am angry." It funny and at the same time, just plain heartbreaking and sad to see Jim come to terms with years of guilt for not making time for his family, and regrets for not being a good father or a good son.
Where to watch:
What time: 11:00 AM - 12:32 PM
2. Climax: Gasper Noe likes to takes things to an extreme, and with Climax, he pushes on, until the very edge. The film revolves around a young dance troupe -- with about twenty dancers from various backgrounds, age groups and in various shapes -- gearing up for a tour of U.S. and France. We meet these dancers, in passing, as they snare and gossip, and party (mostly party) in which someone spikes up their cocktails. What follows is one insane trance-like choreographed dance number to another, as we see the entire troupe descend into an LSD-laced delirium, and enter a hellish zone of violence.
The film cast a side glance at the dance movie genre with its ferocious, raucous, and erotic energy, but things get extremely muddled up and bizarre by the end. This film is worth experiencing though.
Where to watch: REGAL Cinemas
What time: 2:00 PM onwards (this is from MAMI's updated itinerary)
3. Three Identical Strangers: This film tells a real-life story that is stranger than fiction. The film begins with a 19-year-old boy joining college where he realizes that he is already famous and that everyone knows him. He later discovers that it isn't he but his lookalike, Eddie, who is famous. They meet in person and discover that they are twins. This story of two long lost brothers finally reunited in college obviously sends media into a frenzy, but the best is yet to come. A third individual who looks like them comes forward after reading about the twins in the papers, and they become the most famous identical triplet in the world.
This Tim Wardle film unfolds as a bizarre human interest story but goes on to explore the nature vs nurture aspect, as the initial and obvious similarities of the boys, eventually give way to their inherent difference, because of their nurture.
Where to watch: PVR ICON (Audi 4, 312)
What time: 3:30 PM - 5:06 PM
4. And Breathe Normally: Set in cheerless, desolate surroundings, And Breathe Normally shows an unlikely warm bond between a single mother, Lara, and an asylum seeker, Adja, in Iceland. Ajda serves a prison term and finds herself in a refugee shelter, after Lara, who works at the Border Security Forces, turns her in for carrying a fake passport.
After this, Ajda requests the government for asylum, and while her request is being considered, we see Lara pack her things, and her little son, and end up living in her car because she is too proud to seek the help of social security although she doesn't have enough money to survive on her own. Under such circumstances, it is Ajda who extends a hand of support and provide bed and food for Lara and her son in her refugee center.
Although the film has a lot of heart, And Breathe Normally steers clear of drama and overtly emotional scenes making it a very engaging watch.
Where to watch: PVR, Juhu
What time: 1:15 PM- 2:50 PM
5. Grass: Only about an hour long, this film by popular South Korean filmmaker, Hong Sang-So's is about a woman named Areum (Kim Minhee), who seems to be a writer. Sitting in a spartan coffee shop, she punches away keys on her MacBook and stops every once in a while to eavesdrop on the ongoing conversations of people around her.
The first people she overhears are Mina (Gong Minjeung) and Hongsoo (Ahn Jaehong) who seem like old acquaintances, meeting after long. They greet each other politely, and exchange banalities until the topic of the death of a mutual friend comes up, and they become defensive and confrontational as Mina insists that they both are responsible for the friend's suicide. Another couple Areum overhears is an old actor, who tries to get it on with a younger female acquaintance, which Areum despises saying, "he just wants to live off of her."
With surreal, dream-like narrative, and magical dialogues Grass questions the nature of reality and what is consequential in the real and imagined world as we as an audience are left to figure out for ourselves if all these people are a projection of Areum's imaginary stories that she is writing on her computer, or if they are real people who are slowing becoming her stories.
Where to watch: PVR, Juhu
What time: 9:15 PM- 10:20 PM
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