Films that stir the mind

Scenes from The Experiment (L) and Children of Heaven

The so-called art films are not easy stuff. On a pragmatic front, one has to invest quite a few bucks to see non-traditional films because they are few and far between. And, of course, one has to spend time to stay abreast of the new releases which are often not advertised with the same media blitz that precedes, say, the recent Hollywood blockbusterWar of the Worldsstarring Tom Cruise. But the real difficulty resides not in money and time issues, but in settling the mind after the unsettling effect a brain teaser has on one's mind. It would be, for instance, virtually impossible not to experience bouts of insomnia after watching Francois Truffaut'sThe 400 Blows(1959) or Wolfgang Becker'sGood Bye Lenin(2003). I wonder whether being able to discuss a film could beoneeffective way of settling the mind.

So here I am writing about five films of recent times that I thought were deeply moving. I have randomly chosen films from those I have seen recently and that I thought opened up new windows through which to see unnerving realities of life, heartrending social dramas, or the functioning of the human mind. Here are my picks (in alphabetical order):

Burnt by the Sun (Russia, 1994), directed by Nikita Mikhalkov:
Despite his heroics in the Bolshevik Revolution, Sergei Kotov draws the wrath of Stalin. The year is 1936 and the sudden arrival of his wife's former lover, an agent of the government police, shatters Kotov's blissful family life. Burnt by the Sun offers a penetrating look into the paranoia that engulfed the Soviet society during the Stalin era.

Children of Heaven (Iran, 1997), directed by Majid Majidi:
Haunting in its surreal simplicity of events, this is a film extraordinaire that provides a glimpse into the seemingly inconsequential daily life of lower-class urbanites in contemporary Tehran. It follows the heart-warming adventures of nine-year-old Ali, attempting to recover and ultimately succeeding by participating in a race and the search for his younger sister Zahra's lost shoes.

City of God (Brazil, 2002), directed by Fernando Meirelles:
Brutally honest in its depiction of Rio de Janeiro's rough urban slums popularly known as favelas, City of God highlights the plight and clandestine lives of street urchins caught in Rio's violent drug warfare. The film charts the starkly different lives of two street kids: one aspiring to become the city's most feared criminal and the other turning to photography as a means to salvation.

The Experiment (Germany, 2001), directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel:
This psychological cliff-hanger is based on the infamous "Stanford Prison Experiment" conducted in 1971. Twenty male participants are hired to play prisoners and guards in a 14-day prison simulation test. The initial jovial mood of the two groups on the opposite sides of power turns unimaginably violent as the guards begin to believe in the raw possibilities of their authority. Punch line "Unlimited power corrupts".

The Fog of War (USA, 2003), directed by Errol Morris:
This is an intriguing documentary about or rather an interview with Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense under President John F. Kennedy. McNamara, the chief strategist of the Vietnam War who subsequently became president of the World Bank, recounts in a slippery yet redemptive tone the human tragedies that resulted from twentieth-century military conflicts.

The writer is an Assistant Professor at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.