Brief notes on recently enjoyed films: The Drama, Patriot, The Sheep Detectives

Following a few months where I had spent much more of my time (and eye-strain time) on reading as opposed to watching, I ended up seeing quite a few good films, including some in the hall. Vastly different sorts of films too. Listing a few here:

The Drama: a jet-black comedy that ends up, almost in spite of itself, as something akin to an aww-sho-shweet romance. I was engaged all the way through. Though in some obvious ways this is an often morbid and morose film - with the key plot point touching on a subject that many people felt mustn't be treated frivolously as a MacGuffin - I thought it was also very funny... and in the end, mushier than many conventional love stories.

Also, when you have a wedding day like the one the Zendaya and Robert Patinson characters have, your relationship can only go uphill from there (opposite also true).

Patriot: a rare recent instance of a three-hour film that kept me gripped all the way through - though the loud action scenes in the second half could have been a bit shorter. I also felt uncharacteristically patriotic when I saw the scene where Mammootty uses the Delhi Metro.

For all the whoops and cheers around the onscreen reunion of mega-superstars Mammootty and Mohan Lal, there is also a poignant nod here to the old world-vs-hi-tech-new world theme. With the veterans doing things like communicating through street-lamp codes and eye-blink messages, stuff that can’t be compromised in the way that modern digital technology can. And a more general sense that people who came of age in that older world are more robust and resourceful than those who are over-dependent on current technology.

Fahadh Faasil’s role was weirdly generic – standard-issue corporate bad guy yelling and scowling at his employees – but it was pretty funny to see Fifi doing his famous “eye acting” in the flying scene, at full thrust and zero visibility.

I also enjoyed the 52-minute "Patriot: Legends Hangout", a jokey, scripted promotional skit where Fahadh and Kunchacko pretend to have issues with their roles being shortened. FF seemed to be enjoying himself more than he did in the actual film.

The Sheep Detectives: a lovely little ovine whodunit, which somehow manages to be a feel-good film *despite* centring on the death of a very likable character, a shepherd (Hugh Jackman) who reads murder mysteries aloud to his flock. I’m ambivalent about many CGI-generated cute animals in movies, but this worked well for me. And some of the humans are quite fun too, not least Nicholas Braun as an awkward village policeman and Emma Thompson as a waspish lawyer.

Other films I enjoyed recently, maybe more on them another time: Aattam, Sanctuary (2022), Ullozhukku, La Chimera, Rifle Club, Paradise (2023), Night Drive. And some terrific re-watches: The Thin Man (1934), Aashiq Abu’s Virus, Midnight in Paris, Midnight Cowboy.