10 fims to look forward to in 2017

The Other Side of Hope

Aki Kaurismäki, the world’s most famous Finnish filmmaker, is known for his bleak comedies. His miserable world-view is populated with characters that are as drab as they are gentle. In action after a gap of six years, Kaurismäki is now turning his camera on the refugee crisis in Europe. The story will follow a poker-playing restaurateur and a former travelling salesman who befriend a group of refugees. And if we go by Kaurismaki’s trademark commitment to social commentary, The Other Side of Hope will be a sincere human tale on the ongoing global crisis through fluent visual ideas.

Loveless

The new film by Andrey Zvyagintsev, the Golden Globe-winning Russian director, finds a couple in the midst of a turbulent divorce. But their mutual disdain will have to sustain a search for their 12-year-old son, who disappears after witnessing his parents fight. Russians have a tempestuous relationship with Zvyagintsev, for he has established a veritable reputation for mirroring his nation’s uncomfortable truths through familial sights. Expectations from Loveless are nothing less than sky-high.

Alfonso Cuaron’s next

Mexican master Alfonso Cuaron has created a heterogeneous body of work, defying the trappings of genre, yet distinctive for outlining class struggle and an endearing love for long tracking shots. After delivering a box-office smash and pocketing the coveted Best Director Oscar with Gravity (2013), Cuaron is going back to his homeland Mexico to make his next film (as yet untitled) in his mother tongue. A small family drama that chronicles a year in the life of a middle-class household in Mexico City in the early 1970s, the film will mark the director’s return to native cinema after a long gap of 16 years. And yes, the dazzling Emmanuel Lubezki is the cinematographer.

Mektoub is Mektoub

Franco-Tunisian director Abdellatif Kechiche was much celebrated in 2013 when his film Blue Is The Warmest Color won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. The critically-acclaimed Blue… also acquired some notoriety owing to the lead actors speaking out about Kechiche’s despotic attitude during filming. Though the film made him legendary, Kechiche has gradually built a profile for his exhaustive filming techniques and a curious exploration of identity in the melting cauldron of class. His new film is shrouded in secrecy, including the cast. But it is tentatively titled Mektoub is Mektoub . Based on Francois Bégaudeau’s novel La blessure, la vraie , the film follows a young screenwriter on a summer vacation in the Mediterranean, where he meets a charming woman and consequently a producer’s wife, offering him conflicting choices and temptations.

The Phantom Thread

He might have started as a Robert Altman admirer, but Paul Thomas Anderson has now evolved into an independently imposing figure in the cinematic cosmos of America. This year, Anderson will reunite with Daniel Day-Lewis, whom he directed in There Will Be Blood (2007). The details have been kept under wraps, except a speculative logline which states that it will be set in the fashion world of 1950s under the working title of The Phantom Thread . Anderson’s penchant for searing discomfort, and Day-Lewis’s proclivity towards absolute devotion towards his characters makes this one of the most anticipated films of the year.

Happy End

“I can’t get too involved, or it turns into sentimental soup. I try to keep it light.” That’s Michael Haneke for you, a director who wasn’t considered a serious artiste until he started scoring awards at the Cannes Film Festival. His next, titled Happy End , will have Isabelle Huppert and Jean-Louis Trintignant in a family drama, set against the backdrop of the refugee predicament in Europe.

Okja

With films like Memories Of Murder (2003), The Host (2006) and Mother (2009) to his credit, Bong Joon-Ho is not only one of South Korea’s revered filmmakers, but also of the world. Unfortunately, the director’s English language debut, Snowpiercer (2013), despite sparkling reviews, didn’t grab enough eyeballs. His next, titled Okja, will follow a South Korean girl who becomes friends with a shy and introverted animal, that according to the world, is a monster. She has to stop a malevolent company from taking her best friend away. Financed by Netflix, this film will be Joon-Ho’s biggest to date, with an impressive cast that includes Tilda Swinton, Jake Gyllenhaal and Lily Collins. Okja has the possibilities of an adrenaline-charged ride and the element of surprise that the director is capable of throwing at his audience.

The Shape Of Water

While Guillermo del Toro keeps teasing us with the possibility of Hellboy and Pacific Rim sequels on Twitter, the director quietly finished shooting his next film in October last year. The film, much smaller in scale, is set in 1963 America, at the peak of the Cold War and the Civil Rights movement. The story follows a female janitor who falls in love with an amphibious man, who is held captive in the laboratory she works at, and is being experimented on. The insanely talented cast includes Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Doug Jones, Michael Stuhlbarg and Octavia Spencer. This film holds the promise of del Toro’s earlier works and his affinity for magic and fantasy.

The Snowman

Swedish director Tomas Alfredson was cheered by the world when he brought much-needed heft to vampire cinema, a genre usually derided for its cheesy ideas of romance, in 2008, with Let The Right One In . In his next, he took on the John le Carré Cold War espionage thriller Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy , skilfully delivering thrills with a dash of anxiety and paranoia. Alfredson is now adapting Norwegian crime-writer Jo Nesbø’s The Snowman , in which Michael Fassbender will essay the popular character of Detective Harry Hole, investigating the disappearance of a woman. Alfredson’s films are atmospheric, and photographed with a striking flourish. Nesbo’s icy Norwegian landscape will provide the right setting for the shivers.

Zama

The world has been patiently waiting for another film from director Lucrecia Martel since her widely-applauded film The Headless Woman , released eight years ago. The Latin American world is abuzz with her next feature produced by Pedro Almodovar, which will take its inspiration from Antonio di Benedetto’s influential novel Zama. The novel is set in the last decade of the 18th Century during the colonial Spanish Empire, and describes the lonely existence of its titular character, Don Diego de Zama. A civil servant, Zama has been posted in remote Paraguay, and is coping with a combination of crises, professional, sexual and existential. Benedetto’s work is known for itscritical engagement with the Argentine tradition and fits Martel’s intense exploration of the human mind.