Best of Youth

Best of Youth started as a mini series in Italian TV. It's popularity won the series a spot in BBC4. It didn't stop there, this six hour movie went on to win the prestigious Un Certain Regard award at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. A story of two brothers, it is also a portrayal of the evolution of contemporary Italy, from mid twentieth century to the present. Luigi Lo Cascio and Alessio Boni stars as the two brothers, birds of the same feather yet different as chalk and cheese. The film is a grand procession of faces and places through the lives of the brothers as Italy evolves into a twenty-first century nation.

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Sunshine

If you like an overload of Ralph Fiennes this is the movie for you. A three hour saga of five generations a Jewish-Hungarian family in Europe, where Ralph Fiennes appears as the male protagonist in three successive generations. He plays three roles through the course of the movie, each time from youth to old age. Man, that's a lot of Fiennes! It is an interesting story for 20th century European/Jewish history enthusiasts. The major historical events are assimilated into the evolution of the main characters. Although I found it a little too polished, a bit contrived, maybe not raw enough as Schindler's List.

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No Man's Land

The final shot still haunts me, a picture of eternal hope, the demise of which is certain to us- the viewers, the haunting melody that accompanies, signifies the futility of all wars. What we see is not a movie in which millions die at the hands of evil invading armies, but just a handful of deaths, which will throw you off course for the rest of your day and make you question, "Why?" That is No Man's Land, the award winning (it has got a bunch - Oscar,Cannes etc etc) movie by director Danis Tanovic.

This movie is about a war that was going on in former Yugoslavia while most of us were watching TV in our homes, studying, fishing or doing a million other things people usually do if they donot have a war at their doors. Ok, the UN was there, but what were they doing? Anybody cared to ask? Well, the war didn't wait for any questions, it just raged on. No Man's Land captures a snippet of life in Bosnian-Serbian conflict and takes it down to the level of a few individuals involved. There are the Bosnian and Serbian soldiers trapped in the no man's land, the UN Peacekeeping Officer whose hands are tied down by ineffective bureaucracy, the news hungry TV journalist, all of them make up this remarkable movie. It has its faults, but overall I consider it one of the best movies I have ever watched.

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