REPORT: A Sampling from the MAMI Fest

The 12th Mumbai Film Festival organised by the Mumbai Academy of the Moving Image (MAMI) got underway in Mumbai on the 21st of October with David Fincher's The Social Network. Like in past years, the number of delegates outweighs the screen capacities at the multiplex which is the main venue for the week long festival. People queue up patiently for hours in the crammed confines of a plush, but horribly planned multiplex in Juhu. At popular screenings such as The Social Network or Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's new film Biutiful, the crowds get almost unmanageable and the Festival organisers struggle to keep things under control, while many miss out on the screenings.

But for hardcore film lovers, there's much else to cheer. Here's a sampling...

Sweet Little Lies (2009): A front-runner of the Japanese New Wave of the 1990s, Hitoshi Yazaki's lyrical, delicate marital drama explores the disturbingly quiet breakdown of a marriage. You can feel the chill in the air as Ruriko (Miki Nakatani, what a stunning actress!) and Satoshi (Nao Omori) maintain the facade of a regular marriage, while neither knows what to say to the other beyond banal pleasantries. Their sex life too is strangely fractured, with her occasionally asking him to 'hold her', which he does awkwardly, and often barely touching her as he gets his arms around her. The film's blue mood, languorous pace and metaphors (teddy bears, red and white roses) add layers to the discontent and loneliness of a modern relationship. They've nothing going beyond strained polite conversations. She's an artist who makes teddy bears, he and IT professional who retreats to his room after dinner to play video games. Remarkably, Yazaki conveys their anxiety without using much dialogue or action. That everything remains superficially calm is in itself shocking and disturbing.

The Company Men (2010): In the past couple of years, America has come face-to-face with the horrors of downsizing -- indiscriminate layoffs, anxiety, depression, loneliness and a struggle to hold on to everything that was 'normal'. John Wells' unfussy and poignant film examines the lives of executives at various levels of a giant corporation who're unceremoniously awarded the pink slip and land themselves in the humiliating position of begging for work in a job market that's already strained at the seams. Once again, here's a director who chooses subtlety over melodrama, even though the theme lends itself readily to histrionics. You sense the helplessness of the characters and their daily struggle to keep going in a hopeless situation. Some have supportive families, others take to alcohol, some take up any work they get, others decide to start from scratch all over again. Aided by a fantastic cast comprising Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, Chris Cooper and Maria Bello, The Company Men is, in equal part about loss and love. 

Portraits In A Sea of Lies (2010): Carlos Gaviria's sentimental road-trip movie evokes reminiscenes of the far superior Motorcycle Diaries. As it traces Marina and Jairo's journey across Columbia to reclaim their grandfather's property from a corrupt government, it's greatest strength is the two lead performances and a fascinating portrait of the country's multi-hued landscape. It's undoing, too much ham-handed discourse on poverty, depravity, war and suffering.