Pulp Fiction (1994)

 154 min  -  Crime | Drama | Thriller  

The lives of two mob hit men, a boxer, a gangster's wife, and a pair of diner bandits intertwine in four tales of violence and redemption.

Director:

 Quentin Tarantino

Hit-men Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield work for the powerful mobster Marsellus Wallace. Vincent has lived in Amsterdam for three years and is assigned with Jules to retrieve a suitcase that belongs to their boss. There is a shootout but Vincent and Jules do not die. Jules believes that God's hand has interfered in the bullets and he decides to redeem himself from his life of a gangster. Vincent is assigned by Marsellus to go out with his wife Mia while he is traveling and he is scared when she has an OD. Marsellus pays the boxer Butch Coolidge to lose his fight on the fifth round, but Butch wins the fight. He flees from Marsellus and his gangsters but his girlfriend Fabienne forgets to bring his golden watch that has been in his family for many generations. Butch returns to his apartment and he faces Vincent first and Marsellus later. But an incident with sadistic perverts brings Marsellus and Butch side by side.

Django Unchained (2012)

 165 min 

With the help of a German bounty hunter, a freed slave sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner.

Director:

 Quentin Tarantino

In 1858, in Texas, the former German dentist Dr. King Schultz meets the slave Django in a lonely road while being transported by the slavers Speck Brothers. He asks if Django knows the Brittle Brothers and with the affirmative, he buys Django for him. Then Dr. Schultz tells that he is a bounty hunter chasing John, Ellis and Roger Brittle and proposes a deal to Django: if he helps him, he would give his freedom, a horse and US$ 75.00 for him. Django accepts the deal and Dr. Schultz trains him to be his deputy. They kill the brothers in Daughtray and Django tells that he would use the money to buy the freedom of his wife Broomhilda, who is a slave that speaks German. Dr. Schultz proposes another deal to Django: if he teams-up with him during the winter, he would give one-third of the rewards and help him to rescue Broomhilda. Django accepts his new deal and they become friends. After the winter, Dr. Schultz goes to Gatlinburgh and learns that Broomhilda was sold to the ruthless Calvin Candie von Shaft, who lives in the Candyland Farm, in Mississippi. Dr. Schultz plots a scheme with Django to lure Calvin and rescue Broomhilda from him. But his cruel minion Stephen is not easily fooled.

Incendies (2010)

 139 min  -  Drama | Mystery | War

Twins journey to the Middle East to discover their family history, and fulfill their mother's last wishes.

Director:

 Denis Villeneuve

The film begins in sweeping slow motion, centered around a harsh cemented premises with a bunch of boys undergoing the shaving of their hair ala military fashion, with the camera centered on one boy possessing this crazed looking eyes, before cutting to Canada where twins Jeanne and Simon Marwan (Melissa Desormeaux-Poulin and Maxim Gaudette respectively) arrive at a notary's office to accept the will of their recently deceased mother Nawal (Lubna Azabal), where they are left with letters to deliver to a father and brother that they do not know. In the meantime, they are to bury their mother in a certain strange way until their quest has been completed, with the notary Jean Lebel (Remy Girard), Nawal's boss the last few years, ensuring that her last will and testament is completed the way it was intended.

With sweeping cinematography that's achingly beautiful to gaze at, one of the best scenes involve the brutal, cold blooded mass murder where militants spray countless of rounds into a packed bus, culminating in that shot of a burning bus shrouded in thick black smoke against an endless sandy environment, with Nawal finally snapping into making a decision to take matters into her own hands from then on. Between the two stories, perhaps it is Nawal's painful journey that makes this compelling viewing, from having her lover forcefully and terminally separated from her by family during her teens, then her volunteering and sacrifice leading to imprisonment and ill treatment within as punishment. What she did as part of reconciliation is in part a masterstroke in inflicting inexplicable pain in return to her perpetrator, is what made this film a winner, although it will stun you into silence well after the end credits roll from the devastation the narrative left in its wake.

Coming Home (2014)
"Gui lai" (original title)

 109 min  -  Drama

Lu and Feng are a devoted couple forced to separate when Lu is arrested and sent to a labor camp as a political prisoner during the Cultural Revolution. He finally returns home only to find that his beloved wife no longer remembers him.

Director:

 Yimou Zhang

Gong Li plays Wanyu, the devoted wife of Yanshi (Chen Daoming), an intellectual sent to prison during China's Cultural Revolution. Their daughter Dandan (Zhang Huiwen) grows up resentful of a man whose effective outlaw status has adversely affected their standing in the schoolroom and in society. When his long imprisonment finally ends, Yanshi returns to his family – only to find that Wanyu no longer recognises him.

There's a lot to appreciate in Zhang's bittersweet (emphasis: bitter) film. The tragedy of this love story plays out in beautifully devastating images: Wanyu waiting with a painstakingly hand-made sign at the train station for a man she won't recognise anyway; Yanshi sitting with a chestful of letters, each filled with cramped, light-starved words pledging love for a family he might never see again. There's an unmistakable undercurrent of political darkness here, too: the Cultural Revolution has, quite literally, robbed Yanshi of his identity, and returned him to his wife a stranger. 

When placed in the larger context of an oppressive China, the film and its sad, broken romantic centerpiece make a lot more sense. On its own terms, however, the love story at the heart of Coming Home is only barely-disguised melodrama – and thus, more likely to frustrate than engage.