The Fall and Rise of Babylon

There may be no film with a more influential pedigree that is lesser known than the fantastical 1941 romantic dramedy Here Comes Mr. Jordan. Honoured with a sort-of-sequel (1947's Down to Earth – starring Rita Hayworth, it also features reprisals from actors James Gleason and Edward Everett Horton. . . which itself inspired the 1980 feature Xanadu), it was also remade by Warren Beatty in 1978 – titled Heaven Can Wait. Chris Rock had a go with the subject matter in 2001 with his version, Down to Earth – reusing the title from the original sequel. In 1968, it was even remade in India – Jhuk Gaya Aasman – English translation: The Skies Have Bowed. At one point, even Bill Cosby tried to get a version of the story produced – though this iteration fell through. The intensely bitter and sweet tale of a boxer who gets in a plane crash, which is followed by a mistake in Heaven, it can also be seen as the precursor and inspiration for motion pictures like A Guy Named Joe (1943), It’s A Wonderful Life (1946), A Matter of Life or Death (1946), The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), as well as so many others. Mashing together a multitude of genres which I will explain later, the boxer, Joe Pendleton (Robert Montgomery), who is soon to be competing for the world title, is gearing up for his next big bout. Trained by his loyal manager, Max Corkle (James Gleason), the two argue over the fact that he wants to fly himself to his next fight in New York City. Unable to convince the genial but stubborn athlete, it is soon after that he plummets to his ‘supposed’ death.

Director Chan-wook Park, a visual mastermind who concocted the intoxicating Stoker in 2013 (a loose remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s superb Shadow of a Doubt), his first, and to date, only English language film, follows it by putting his talents into making another striking, intricately plotted psychological mystery/thriller in The Handmaiden. Loosely based upon Sarah Waters’ novel "Fingersmith", the filmmaker moves the tale from Victorian era England to 1930s Korea – which is under Japanese colonial rule. Divided into three parts, he utilizes the technique to great effect, providing us with only part of the story each time. In many ways it’s like being given a puzzle with only the edges to start with, so we think we understand what is going on, as we have been given the outline, but only truly gain a stronger appreciation of its complexity and beauty when provided with the pieces that fill in the whole picture. Park’s unique style slowly divulges the true essence of this film by providing alternate angles, different perspectives, flashbacks and flash forwards (those essential remaining puzzle pieces).

Alfred Hitchcock once said "if it’s a good movie, the sound could go off and the audience would still have a perfectly clear idea of what was going on". A perfect example of this is the first sixteen minutes of the 1972 action film The Mechanic. Directed by Michael Winner and starring Charles Bronson (the pair, who had made one film previously, would go on to make a total of six together), the plot follows an aging hit-man in Los Angeles. The opening sixteen minutes is a masterclass in patience, restraint and telling a visual story, without any dialogue. We watch as the man, named Arthur Bishop, intricately plans his next kill. No dialogue is needed to make this an effective scene, as it captures a tense atmosphere and places us in the mind set of our lead, as we now know that he has a deft touch at killing and is not to be messed with. It is a bold choice to open a movie and it is all the richer for it.

A little ragamuffin – strong willed, feisty and wily, finds himself waking up on a bench at a train station with his older brother nowhere in sight. With his mother at home, he shouts for his missing brother, but nothing comes of it. He searches an abandoned train, only to fall asleep sometime in the night. When he wakes, the still empty train is moving. When it finally stops, he finds himself in Calcutta, nearly two thousand miles away from his hometown, not knowing the Bengali language or having anywhere to turn. It is this bizarre and unfortunate circumstance that is the genesis and heart of the story Lion, first time filmmaker Garth Davis’ moving drama. The young boy is Saroo (Sunny Pawar), his fatherly older brother is Guddu (Abhishek Bharate), and his caring impoverished mother is Kamla (Priyanka Bose). Though theirs is a tough life in a rural Indian town, filled with hardship and many struggles, love permeates their family.