Eyes Wide Shut
Stanley Kubrick
Eyes Wide Shut was the last film by Stanley Kubrick, one of the most influential and controversial filmmakers in the history of cinema. Kubrick attained cult status for his cinematic perfectionism. Released in 1999, the film deals with the sexual escapades of Dr. Bill Harford (essayed by Tom Cruise), who subconsciously takes revenge on his wife Alice (portrayed with stunning clarity by Nicole Kidman), after she confesses guilelessly that she had almost succumbed to an illicit affair. He sets out on an all-night adventure of sleaze that ends dangerously when he sneaks into an underground elite club practising macabre drug-fuelled orgies. The film has a surrealistic feel with menacing, haunting images, and an eerie background score.
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Christopher Nolan
Insomnia was released in 2002, and deals with the travails of a homicide detective, played brilliantly by Al Pacino, who flies out to Alaska to investigate the murder of a teenaged girl. Once there, he struggles constantly with the perpetual daylight of the Alaskan summer, combined with lingering feelings of guilt when he shoots his partner while chasing the murderer through a misty mountainside. Al Pacino is at his best in this gripping drama of guilt and redemption, his haggard face demonstrating the devastating effects of insomnia in such a convincing manner that even the viewer becomes mentally and emotionally drained by the time the film comes to a close.
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Mulholland Drive
David Lynch
David Lynch is known for his distinctive and unorthodox approach to filmmaking, and has made some classic films, of which Mulholland Drive is ranked as one of his best. He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Director for this film in 2001, though he did not win it. Mulholland Drive is a surreal film with a non-linear narrative, depicting the seamy underbelly of Hollywood hidden beneath the superficial glamour and glitter. Like his other films, it bears his quintessential stamp, with a subtle nightmarish quality that lingers long after one has watched it. It narrates the story of an aspiring actress, newly arrived in Los Angeles, who meets and befriends an enigmatic but charming girl suffering from amnesia. The film strings together many other seemingly unrelated sub-plots and characters that eventually get linked with each other in various ways, leading to a cryptic, shocking denouement.
Dead Man
Jim Jarmusch
Dead Man is a visually stunning hallucinatory film, even though it was shot entirely in black and white by revolutionary director Jim Jarmusch. A scathing and twisted satire the film narrates the travails of a timid accountant played brilliantly by Johnny Depp, who travels from Cleveland (Ohio) to a seedy frontier town called Machine in search of a petty job. On arriving there after a fascinating though disturbing train journey, he discovers that his position has already been filled. The rest of the film takes on a bizarre, dream-like quality peopled with strange characters. The soundtrack of the film in the form of haunting electric guitar riffs by Neil Young enhances the illusory narrative, and takes it to an altogether ethereal level.
The Tenant
Roman Polanski
From one of the most accomplished, though highly controversial contemporary filmmakers, Roman Polanski, comes this classic tale of claustrophobia and paranoia. The Tenant forms part of the so-called Apartment Trilogy of Polanski which deals with alienation and mental disintegration in the suffocatingly oppressive environs of apartment flats. While the main character (played by Polanski himself) it is never made clear as to whether the events that take place are imagined by him, or they actually occur. And this is what makes this film an absolute treat to watch over and over, making one wonder as to the true meaning behind the morbidly gripping story.
Those that almost made it
The Shining: Stanley Kubrick
Marathon Man: John Schlesinger
All that Jazz: Bob Fosse
No Country for Old Men: Joel and Ethan Coen
The Long Riders: Walter Hill
Apocalypse Now: Francis Ford Coppola
(V.V. Pillay is Professor of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology and Chief of the Poison Control Centre, Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, Cochin)