Loveless by Andrey Zvyagintsev
“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.” Fredrich Nietzsche
An entailing divorce between two couples affects a twelve-year child Alyosha the most. He withdraws into his own world and slowly disappears. The venom of the two main protagonists: Boris and Zhenya spill on the screen. Both are attached to new partners now. The motive of the characters is a total question in the films, as the police go searching for Alyosha. They want to justify their everyday activities in helping a family. Some critics have termed Zvyagintsev’s “Loveless” as a spiritual contradiction from his earlier work “Leviathan.” The cinematographer Mikhail Krichman has captured a dried up, brown-autumny, Russia through his lenses. Like Hong Sang-Soo, the South Korean Director’s interest in attractions; most of Zvyagintsev’s stories are on family breakdown and relationship.Variety’s Owen Gleiberman calls “Loveless” an “ominous” examination of “the crisis of empathy at the core; Steven Zeitchik in the LA Times calls it “A new film slyly critiques Russia.”
“It’s simply observation of life, and the fruit of that observation. With time, that observation gives you the hint that these are not just individual cases, that certain things recur, that there are states of mind, which in themselves may be a kind of universality,“ says the director of the film. The director and the cinematographer have a distinct style of working which is” the crystalline framing, the slow pans, and zooms, the orchestration of space .” Another distinction of the work is the shots lingering long after the actors have left the frame and the director stays long after the talk has ended!All through the Dostoevsky-notes-from-the-dead-house-despair Alyosha keeps crying and staring blankly. The director is inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s “Scenes from a Marriage.” "Loveless" is Russia's entry at the Oscars and was also screened at Cannes! Best Wishes to the film for the Oscars!
Nothingwood by Sonia Kronlund (documentary film )
It is the story of an Afghani filmmaker Salim Shaheen, who has shot 110 films in the war-ravaged country. He believes Hollywood has money, Bollywood has money but the Afghani film industry has none: so it is called Nothing wood. Shaheen appears to be somewhere between Gerarsd Depardieu and Steven Seagal. He also claims to be the “Afghani Dharmendra.” The documentary besides his success also mocks his lack of cinematic skills. The Afghani filmmaking industry is still on besides the war and bombing and rocket fire.He has been doing this for the last thirty year.Shaheen is exuberant, infectious, hilarious! In his shoots, he carries with him: A video camera, Kalashnikovs and a box of live ammunition. He also shoots on the Bamian Buddha; the soundtrack of Nothing wood is peppy.