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ksjoshi88
Reviews
Goldfish (2018)
A brilliant dark-comic take on mind vs heart conflict
Last fall I attended the thesis film screenings of USC film students and was blown away by the technical fineness of all of them. Yet Goldfish caught my eye and touched my heart a little bit more than others.
A minute into the movie and you know your protagonist, the central conflict and his backstory. The tone too is abundantly clear thanks to remarkably well written dialogues. To see exposition being done in such a masterful manner, writer/director Sikander Sidhu deserves rich applauds for it.
The production design by Emma Weston is top notch ( As good as I have seen in any good feature film lately). Fantastic job in casting by Victoria Hoffman as all the actors are pitch perfect for their respective roles. Great camerawork (Ante Cheng) and effective color scheme only adds further glory to the proceedings.
On my second viewing I noticed that the main character of Alan doesn't speak a word from 1:14 till 6:16 (whole 5 minutes) and yet we know what's going on in his mind and heart, that's how good the performances are and direction is.
One more thing which really stood out for me was the background score, sound design (Austin Conway), and original music by Marco Antonini. It all fits the bill perfectly for this heart-warming dark-comedy.
The proceedings do get a little bit predictable in the third act but the film manages to convey its message and leaves an impact on you as a viewer.
A huge mention to leads Clayton Farris and Afton Quast. And their brilliant performances are aptly supported by outstanding supporting cast.
To round-off it's one of the best short films I have seen. I highly recommend watching it.
Kirsitubakas (2014)
A restrained classic with incredible performances by entire cast
I happen to see this film at European film festival in NFAI, Pune. I always make it a point to watch the trailer before going to a festival movie as it could be risky proposition sometimes, so the thing that caught my eye in the trailer was the beautiful cinematography and a leading lady who looked like and acted like Gwyneth Paltrow.
The film was incredibly fast paced to my surprise and quite humorous in the beginning to set the tempo. But then onwards the screenplay builds the sexual tension between the protagonists in a subtle and charming manner. The best thing about the script is that nothing seems out of place, nothing seems forced upon characters. It goes very easy on our hearts and minds at the same time.
Great credit to director duo of Andres and Katarin for that. But at the same, the best part of the movie is the performance by the lead actress Maris Nõlvak. She doesn't just look like Gwyneth Paltrow but takes us back to "Shakespeare in Love" back in the 1990s with her wonderful performance. For that matter, Gurt Raudsep and other principle actors compliment her perfectly to make it even better experience.
I loved the film for its charm, its camera-work, the background score and the acting. And I could enjoy all of this without bothering about the language which I do not understand at all. Good movies can travel beyond cultural and geographical boundaries, Cherry Tobacco is a good example of that.