chand-suhas

Caligula is a Latin teacher at a school in Stockholm and he torments his students with his strictness. The students are often scared of his demeanour and get extremely stressed over preparing to attend his classes. One such student is Jan-Erik and he is regularly targeted by Caligula. Jan-Erik befriends an young woman named Bertha who is going through a drinking crisis. Unknown to Jan-Erik, her tormentor too is same as his and this in turn makes Caligula target him more. To what extent does Caligula's torture go and how does that impact the lives of Bertha and Jan-Erik while the system itself doesn't favor the student, forms rest of the story.

It started out as this school having one terror for a teacher whom all the students are scared off and the initial scene itself establishes this while also showcasing how strict the school already was. The students remain over stressed which impact other subjects but the teachers do not take students' side on this matter. It was coming of age sorts of tale for Jan-Erik as he gets involved with Bertha, something he is fully not matured enough to handle and it impacts his studies as well which only gives Caligula more reason to torment him. As a commentary on the school system, the narrative leaves a mark but though for a brief moment, it does shed light on Caligula's loneliness which again doesn't justify his actions. The final scene with him opening up to Jan-Erik as he walks off was indeed the most impactul scene in the movie.

Simon McNally witnesses an young woman getting kidnapped and is determined to save her. The problem is his condition where he is diagnosed with schizophrenia and had a tough childhood with his tormenting father. He was released from a mental hospital recently and is living with his sister. As he struggles to fight back his hallucinations, he firmly believes the young girl's abduction is real and seeks help from his neighbour, Ed Deerman who is a former campus security guard. Simon needs Ed's help as the cops do not believe him and how do the duo get to the bottom of this case with just Simon's memory of the van's number, forms rest of the story.

I definitely did miss these films and Sean Farley has come up with an engaging script that keeps the story move in a brisk pace. The short runtime is of major help and there aren't much sub plots to have any sort of deviation. The focus is on Simon's condition as he battles his hallucinations, with the help of Ed who gets a decent arc as he ends up being the one who understands Simon. There are no big action blocks but the narrative is still very entertaining. The subtlety of the scenes is another added advantage and though the climax is rather convenient, it still pays off to see the duo solve the case all by themselves.

This indeed was a random selection to watch and I was not familiar with any of Mikio Naruse's work. The film narrates the tragic tale of Reiko Morita who had dedicated her life to run the grocery store for her dead husband's family. The raise of supermarkets is threatening the very livelihood and her sister-in-laws want the grocery store to be sold so that a supermarket could be build. Reiko is forced to give up the one thing she held onto so dedicatedly and the only one to support is her brother in law Koji Morita. He is a drunk wayward who refuses to take any responsibility and yet he is the only one to acknowledge Reiko's sacrifices.

The film like it's title, is a slow burner as the life of Reiko unfolds. It is post war Japan after all and the changes were inevitable. For 18 years, Reiko holds onto the one thing which kept her going and it was about to get snatched away from her. The dramatic greedy sister-in-laws and the helpless mother-in-law characters get the usual character arc. While they are not enough to kill the spirit of Reiko, it's Koji's revelation about his feelings which eventually breaks her. This is very maturely handled and as the story progressed, it did get quite evident that an happy ending was not in store. The performances still kept the proceedings engaging and the short runtime contributed too.