Great films that go beyond Hollywood schlock
In this Dominican film, directed by Alejandro Andújar, brooding protagonist Juan’s life is coming apart at the seams. His wife has been impregnated by another man, reducing him to the butt of jokes in his hometown.
His work life is not enviable either. Juan guards the house of a wealthy man who is often away. One evening, the wealthy man’s son brings a group of friends to the house, setting in motion a series of events that could potentially jeopardise the lives of all involved.
In as much as the film revolves around this gigantic house, Caretaker is actually a film about its society. Race in the Dominican Republic is inevitably about colour too. As Juan tries to deal with his boss’s white son, he is simultaneously dealing with the layers of what it means to be black in his society, a quagmire the narrative resolves quite deliberately, but brutally.
Directed by French documentary filmmaker Aline Fischer, Meteor Street follows two Arab brothers struggling with being outsiders in a grim Berlin suburb. Mohamed and Lakhdar’s parents have been deported to Lebanon, so the pair has to make a go of life on their own. Lakhdar, the more unhinged of the two brothers, abuses their two dogs. He makes things that much more unbearable for Mohamed, who is trudging through life in the precarious employ of a racist biker gang. But, when immigrant life narrows their already slim choices, the two lean on each other, if only for a fleeting moment of catharsis.
With the insistence on tight shots of Mohamed and Lakhdar, Fischer seems to be aiming for a feeling of claustrophobia. In the night time, moving awkwardly through the city, it sometimes feels like the pair is trapped in a neon prison.
Two children live with their mother and grandmother in a Mumbai slum. Their father is in prison and their mother is meagrely employed, so the boys collect lumps of coal along the railway tracks, using their earnings to contribute to the family income. One day, they watch as a pizza parlour opens close to where they live. The new delicacy assaults their senses daily, but the 300 rupee price tag puts it beyond their reach. Hatching a plot to make enough money to afford a pizza, the boys are shocked when the storekeeper rejects them at the gate based on their class, setting up a protest by the slum dwellers.
The slum, with its nooks and crannies, doubles as a city within a city, adding depth to this exploration of class and consumption by director Samit Kakkad.