Humans in the Loop | 2025 | Film Review

 (I haven't written a piece on a film in almost two years, so let me stretch my wings...) On the 23rd of February, a friend took me to the first screening (in Delhi) of 'Humans in the Loop' at the JNU Convention Centre. Although I had seen a short film titled, 'Mirgi', by the same director, Mr Aranya Sahay, I had no idea what to expect from his debut feature. I went in completely blind, and, I'm happy to say, that my non-existent expectations were blown to smithereens by how good this film turned out to be.

 Set in contemporary Jharkhand, the film centres around a tribal woman who is going through a divorce with her non-tribal husband, because of which she now has to work as a data labeller for an artificial intelligence company and raise her teen daughter and a toddler. However, her troubles only increase when her daughter, unhappy with being moved to her mom's village, lashes out against her. She now has to deal with a resentful daughter and an inhuman job which goes against her personal beliefs.

 Like many of the Indian new-wave of indie films, 'Humans in the Loop', too, is a quiet, contemplative film which engrosses the audience with its thoughtful prodding of the themes. But the film is quiet only in its style; the characters burst with emotions, often shouting and yelling at each other. The camera, with its gorgeous cinematography, remains still for most of the runtime. It not only makes you feel like you're part of that world that you're witnessing on the screen, but makes it feel like a distant memory of your own; makes you nostalgic for a place you've never been to. And very few films can boast that achievement. 

 The interiors, framed like paintings with its multiple layers, are just as impressive as the landscape shots bathed in natural lighting, showcasing the flora and fauna of the wild. The whole film has an intentional "underlit" kind of a feel; as if the entire world of these characters was overcast and something terrible was nigh, or the clouds of despair could clear away at any moment if you could just wait a bit longer. The sound design lends a soothing depth to the world as well, because of which you can feel the rustling of the leaves and distant calls of unseen birds and grunts of porcupines and coos of babies and whispering narrations. Akin to a Terrance Malick film, even though the resemblance, which I confirmed, was not intentional. 

 Each cut of the film is so deliberate. For me, when it comes to editing, the scene that comes to mind would be where the protagonist is giving a test for her interview and she forgets a captcha and begins to panic, but the sequence is intercut with her having flashbacks of her village, of her childhood, and the film cuts back and forth with the sound of a mouse click. The whole scene, pulled off with unfaltering elegance,  shows off such fantastic bravado from the filmmakers.

 As you can tell, I pretty much loved almost everything about the film. I was fully engrossed by it by the end, utterly moved. I was so invested by the relationship between the mother and the daughter that I almost forgot to notice something that the film was doing until after the screening, during the Q&A, Aranya explained how much of a sci-fi geek he is and how fascinated he is by the idea that we, humans, are just custodians for the non-organic life form, A.I and we're here to just pass on the knowledge we have accumulated as a species. The moment he said that, the entire film realigned in my head and I realised that this could work as a prequel to so many sci-fi stories, like Star Wars or Star Trek, Interstellar etc. The birth of A.I presented in such a unique setting. 

 'Humans in the Loop' is a pleasant reminder that cinema, like all the other art forms, flourishes in perilous times instead of withering away. And this film is the latest bloom of the season.

TV Shows | 2023

1. India: The Modi Question (Doc)

2. The Offer (2022). 30 Jan

3. Bridgerton S01. 6/Feb | S02 13Feb

4. The Queen's Gambit 15Feb

5. The Story of Film: An Odyssey (documentary) 25 Feb

6. Wednesday 9 Mar

7. For All Mankind S01 12 Mar./ S03 20Mar

8. The Last of Us 13Mar

9. Modern Family S06 19April

10. Life's Too Short S01 19April

11. Louis S02 20April

12. Cars on the Road (2022)

TV Shows | 2022

The list of TV shows I watched in 2022, in no particular order:

1. Love Death Robots
2. After Life
3. Normal People
4. Good Lord Bird
5. Better Call Saul
6. Panchayat
7. Family Man
8. Generation War
9. Moon Knight
10. Girlfriend Experience
11. Westworld
12. Modern Family
13. Under the banner of heaven
14. McCartney 3, 2, 1
15. Black Mirror
16. Tron: Uprising
17. Derek
18. Extras
19. Louis
20. Dune 2000
21. Karl Pilkington's The Moaning of Life

All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) | Review

 16/12/22.  

 Watched. My rating: 9.4/10. 

 After spending four months with Niffeneger's romance novel, The Time Traveler's wife, I dove in headfirst in Erich Maria Remarque's 1928 German novel, All Quiet on the Western Front and ended up bingeing it over a week as it became an instant favorite of mine and it reminded me of what truly great literature is capable of. So naturally I was pumped up to watch it's film adaptations, especially this one considering it has the advantage of modern technology over the previous iterations. And I'm so glad to announce that it not only met my expectations, but its also among the best films of this year.

 The story follows Paul Baumer, a 19 year old who enlists in the army with his schoolmates as their teachers, parents, neighbors and the whole previous generation eggs them on in the name of glory, heroism, god and country. But the front has a different plan for them with its reality...  

 Right from the very first shot, we get a clear sense that Edward Berger (director) and the team aren't interested in repeating what's been done before, other than a reference to the 1930 production (A soldier lying g dead with his hands blown away, probably still clutching the barb wire). Lesley Paterson has changed the original story in her screenplay, enough to exclude the scenes which the Lewis Milestone's 1930 adaptation had already taken advantage of and adds an entirely new narrative which runs parallel to main action portraying the German and French delegates hashing out the terms for an armistice. This not only provides for a much better contextual understanding for the audience, but also a background to cut away to from the action sequences.

 The film opens with serene shots of the woods and a mother fox feeding her pups in their burrow. The scene proceeds to hover over to a desolated land covered with dead bodies, dead horses, broken equipment, scattered guns artillery before dropping down in a trench where shells screech around them, clumps Earth rain down on the miserable soldiers as they yell and run up and down the line to climb over and attack the enemy. A scared young soldier somehow musters up enough strength to run towards the the direction of the bullets and, very soon, he bites the dust. His name was Heinrich. 

 The film cuts to black and the title comes on. Heinrich's uniform is taken off of him to be re-patched and his name tag is replaced with Paul's. We see women operating sewing machines which sound like the firing of a machine gun, implying how women, and every civilian, were serving at their own personal fronts. There's the individual's honor in war, in all its glory; one name replaced with the other.

 That whole bit wasn't in the book and the fact that many such scenes and details are added which enrich the experience deserves all the praise its getting.

 The cast is composed of mostly young talent, unknown talent which helps you focus on the story. Yes Daniel Bruhl is in this, the one and only Fredrick Zoller, but only because he produced it. But Felix Kammerer proves to be a very good Paul Baumer, lending himself to vulnerable innocence and hardened stature of veterans, and his chemistry with Albrecht Schuch, who plays Kat, provides for a rather touching relationship for the audience to relate to.  

 Now, to talk about the action sequences, we must address the chilling score by Volker Bertelmann. Volker has given us the best soundtrack of his career to this date. We enter the battlefield aurally before witnessing it visually by the threatening blares of the music which sound like something out of a monster movie and makes the horrors of war that much more palpable. And the action scenes themselves are incredible as well, with long takes and intimate shots of the characters, putting you right in the middle of the cross fire. It even made me flinch once. But the highlight of the film for me was the sequence in which the German forces encounter enemy tanks for the first time, only to be followed by flamethrowers. The visceral sound design surrounds you with all its creaks and groans of metal and wood, give the atmosphere a detailed texture. Its among the most anti-war action scenes of all time. 

 I'm not sure of the historical accuracy of the film overall, but it seems authentic enough for me to buy into its reality. But that's not the goal that it sets itself anyway. The aim was to encapsulate the dread, the paranoia, of being stuck in the trenches and it succeeds in doing so. It had my heart thumping in many scenes and I can't say that about many war movies.

 It changes the ending from the book, and it still works. I think that the book had a better, bleaker conclusion which portrayed the pointlessness of war in a much more poetic sense, yet retaining a sense of realism. The film ditches realism at the very end to get a bit more satisfying ending for the audience. Again, it still works, but I prefer the book's version.

 The film ended, credits flashed in silence and all I could hear was my own palpitation, before the rasping sounds of the harmonium came back, as if the ghosts of the past wars were breathing down our necks, like Gerard Duval, the Frenchman that Paul kills.

 

 For me, a ten on ten film, a perfect film, is one in which I wouldn't change a single thing. And this one came very close to being one, but I have my issues with some of the editing choices in it. Many scenes are cut off just a few seconds earlier, which jarred me out of the movie. For example, the scene in which Paul and his friends find the company of young recruits they were looking for in a warehouse/factory, and the scene just cuts off. There's clearly some essential shots which didn't make the cut because of which the film feels just a tad incomplete. Perhaps adding those missing 10 to 15 minutes worth of footage would do wonders for the film, even though its runtime already sits at two and a half hours.

 All Quiet on the Western Front will leave you dumbfounded. Clearly among the best of the year.

The Good Lord Bird (2020) | Limited Series | Review (Thoughts)

 Limited Series. 

24/Nov/2022. Watched. My rating: 9/10. 

 Prior to watching this, I knew next to nothing about the historical figure, John Brown. Matter of fact, I knew only his name and the fact that he was a violent abolitionist. But after watching this, like after watching any film based on any historical events, I've begun researching about the man and his history. That's the thing about great filmmaking; it infects you with its own curiosity regarding the subject it is about. Which makes me wonder if my own interests stem from others' passions.

 The Good Lord Bird is a limited series which came out in 2020 and it is directed by a group of coloured people, men and women. Its short, sweet and to the point and the cinematography at times reminded me of Red Dead Redemption 2.

 The casting is just phenomenal here, really great bunch of actors in really well written roles. Ethan Hawke tore the stage with his thunderous performance as John and he deserves all the praise that he got for it and his larger than life character is perfectly complimented by young Joshua Caleb Johnson's relatively restrained performance as Onion. Wyatt Russel, Daveed Diggs... what a cast.

 Funny enough, Ellar Coltrane, who was the boy in Linklater's Boyhood (2014), played Ethan's son in this as well. I guess its his niche, his speciality.

 I was going to write a piece on it talking about the various layers of dichotomy (between god & country, humor & horror, black & white etc.) but I watched it on 24th of November and today is 16th of December and I'm no longer interested in talking about it. Plus, today, I'm sick at heart. 

 Great show though.

Normal People (2020) | Limited Series | Thoughts

19/Nov/2022. Watched. 

 My rating: 8.2/10. 

 This past month and a half has been difficult. Sometimes the yearning is so strong that it just... especially when you know there's no chance of seeing them anytime soon. I sometimes wonder if missing someone can actually make you sick. Yes. Yes it can. 

 And to cure myself of it, I restarted watching movies. Romance movies, mostly. And Normal People, the 2020 Hulu series which is an adaptation of the Sally Rooney novel of same name, fit snugly into the mood I am in.

 It tells the story of an outcast-of-a girl and a shy jock who fall in love in high school and it follows their will-they-or-won't-they relationship till they are 22. (I don't think I'm ready to talk about movies yet. Too distracted.)

 But let me just say that a few scenes and dialogues in this felt like they were lifted straight from my life. Especially in the tenth episode, I believe. 

 Great performances, intimate and melancholic atmosphere is what made me binge it. And yes, by binge I mean I watched it in 5 sittings. Which is not really bingeing 

 I'm not enjoying anything more than a 8/10 nowadays. I hate it when it happens.

 Just look at this scattered piece. Its not even a piece. I'm sorry.

Better Call Saul | Seasons 2-6

  16/Oct/2022. Seasons 2-6. 

 Watched. My rating: 8.8/10. 

 Its been over a month since I watched the final episode of Better Call Saul and considering Breaking Bad is my favorite show of all time, I wanted to write a proper piece on BCS. But, I won't. I can't. I'm not interested anymore. Plus, I have 8 movies to log on my Letterboxd. Yeah, so I'm just clearing up my chores.