Vertigo
Alfred Hitchcock
The master of suspense enthralls us with this gripping narrative of a private detective Scottie who suffers from Vertigo finding himself entangled in a plot concocted by his friend. Employed to spy on his friend’s wife, Scottie earnestly seeks to find the truth of the mysterious woman, only not aware that he was being duped into following another woman whom he falls in love with. When the woman he thought he was following commits suicide from the top of a tower, life is in shambles for the detective but not after he discovers that the suicide was indeed a plotted murder. Thereon, the film takes us to the dizzy heights of confessions and revelations well on the way to a shocking climax.
Rosemary’s Baby
Roman Polanski
A popular horror flick of the 1960s, Rosemary’s Baby is a sinister tale of a vulnerable Rosemary’s struggle to protect the baby in her womb from the treacherous hands of the Satan’s patrons. What she realizes with consternation is the fact that she can no longer confide in anyone nor could she succeed in shielding her baby. The nightmarish quality of the film where evil manifests itself in the form of an institutionalized and systematic cruelty and a commendable performance by Mia Farrow as a pallid Rosemary contribute to the stunning success of the film.
Amadeus
“If He didn’t want me to serve Him with music, why implant
the desire, like a lust in my body, then deny me the talent?”- the remorseful
Antonio Salieri’s wistful question resonates in our ears long after we watched
the film. It is this soul-searching question probing into the purpose of his
existence that escorts us to the quintessence of the classic Amadeus (1984), an
elegant narration of the raging conflict between mediocrity and genius,
convention and iconoclasm. The incredibly
gifted Amadeus Mozart is easily the focal point of the green-eyed contenders
especially of the ruthless Salieri who has an immense admiration for the master
of music. Precariously, this admiration is also coupled with a fiery envy of
his talent that coerces Salieri into destroying him for the good. While the
emotional undertone of Salieri (essayed by Murray Abraham) hogs half the film,
the spiteful, snobbish Mozart (played with poise by Tom Hulce) breezes through
the other half effortlessly.
One flew over the cuckoo’s nest
Milos Foreman’s other masterpiece, One flew over… suggests
a tragic tale of one Mc Murphy, an ex-con who fakes an unstable mind and lands
up in a mental institution, only to be startled by the taut atmosphere of the
place and his spat with a difficult head nurse that do not seem to augur well
for his plans of a good escape. Unsurprisingly, Jack Nicholson pulls off the
role with such ease and ingenuity that he takes away the Oscar for the best
actor in lead role. Sure enough, the film won the academy award for best
picture of the year as well.
Memento
Christopher Nolan
A film that swept the audience off their feet by its
incredible screenplay experimentation and baffled a viewer the first time
he/she watched it thus bringing them back to see the movie again, this time to
relish it for its truly exceptional treatment of the subject. Memento is a
psychological thriller that narrates the tale of an insurance investigator with
a short-term memory who is out on a delirious mission of avenging his wife’s
murder. The movie progresses backward revealing the pasts of the people
involved, leading us to a climax which practically is the beginning of the
story. Interestingly, this is one film that dares to put the viewers at fault
towards the end.
