To 10 Films In The World - 2018

1. ANNIHILATION

Annihilation is the best sci-fi film in years, a mind-blowing trip into an inscrutable heart of darkness that marks writer-director Alex Garland as one of the genre’s true greats. Desperate to understand what happened to her soldier husband (Oscar Issac) on his last mission, a biologist (Natalie Portman) ventures alongside four comrades (Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tessa Thompson, Gina Rodriguez, Tuva Novotny) into a mysterious, and rapidly growing, hot zone known as the “Shimmer.”

What ensues is an unsettling, and finally hallucinatory, tale of destruction and transformation, division, and replication—dynamics that Garland posits as the fundamental building blocks of every aspect of existence, and which fully come to the fore during a climax of such surreal birth-death insanity that it has to be seen to be believed.

Apropos for a story about nature’s endless cycles of synthesis and mutation, it combines elements of numerous predecessors (Apocalypse Now, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stalker, The Thing) to create something wholly, frighteningly unique.

2. YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE

Joaquin Phoenix reconfirms his status as his generation’s finest leading man with You Were Never Really Here, a startling drama that cares less for straightforward thrills than for penetrating psychological intensity.

Barreling forward with both urgent momentum and fragmented lyricism (thanks to oblique edits and jarring flashbacks), the latest from Scottish auteur Lynne Ramsay (Ratcatcher, We Need to Talk About Kevin) follows a mentally scarred war vet (Phoenix) as he tries to rescue a senator’s young daughter from a child prostitution ring. There’s plenty of bloodshed throughout that underworld quest, yet Ramsay’s treatment of violence is anything but exploitative; rather, her masterful film resounds as a lament for the trauma of childhood abuse, which lingers long after adolescence has given way to adulthood.

Reminiscent of Taxi Driver, and energized by Phoenix’s magnetic embodiment of masculine suffering and sorrow, it’s a gut-wrenching portrait of a volatile man’s attempts to achieve some measure of solace from his inner demons—sometimes via the use of a ball-peen hammer.

3. LOVE AFTER LOVE

The type of mature adult drama that mainstream American cinema rarely produces these days, writer-director Russell Harbaugh’s exceptional debut mires itself in a thicket of barbed emotions. In the wake of her husband’s death, Suzanne (Andie MacDowell) strives to start anew, as does her son Nicholas (Chris O’Dowd)—albeit, in the latter’s case, in ways that are as clumsy as they are ugly. Their concurrent efforts to find a way forward (romantically and otherwise) unfold with fractured grace and beauty, as Harbaugh plumbs profound depths via evocative compositional framing and a seductive editorial structure.

Complications soon pile on top of each other until practically no one is capable of breathing (save for during release-valve outbursts), with a piercing MacDowell and magnetic O’Dowd (in a startlingly raw performance) digging deeply into their characters’ interior messes. What they discover, ultimately, are alternately unpleasant and inspiring truths about what we do, and what it takes, to survive in the aftermath of tragedy.

4. THE RIDER

The West is wild to its core in Chloé Zhao’s The Rider, a stunning verité drama about a young rodeo star facing an uncertain future after a catastrophic accident. Zhao amalgamates fact and fiction for her sophomore effort, as her story is based in part on the life of actor Brady Jandreau (here cast alongside his own relatives and acquaintances in his native South Dakota). That life-art marriage lends bracing potency to this ode to frontier existence, as does the quiet magnetism of its twenty-something lead.

The material is truly enlivened by the director’s artful aesthetics, which balance intimate close-ups and at-a-remove panoramas of solitary figures set against expansive rural landscapes—never more so than in a late oncoming-storm shot that could double as an Old West painting. Meanwhile, multiple sequences in which Jandreau trains wild stallions provide a powerful, tactile sense of communion between man and beast, and in doing so silently evoke the warring emotions battling for supremacy in the young bronco rider’s soul.

5. FIRST REFORMED

It’s been 42 years since Taxi Driver first confirmed Paul Schrader’s greatness, and with First Reformed, the writer-director provides a magnificent companion piece to that earlier triumph. Also indebted to Robert Bresson, Andrei Tarkovsky, and Ingmar Bergman, Schrader’s religious drama concerns Reverend Toller (Ethan Hawke), an upstate New York man of the cloth whose ongoing crisis-of-faith is accelerated by an encounter with an environmental activist beset by hopelessness and anger.

Toller’s ensuing relationship with that man’s wife (Amanda Seyfried), as well as the leader of a local mega-church (Cedric the Entertainer), forms the basis of Schrader’s rigorously ascetic—and occasionally expressionistic—film, which is guided by Toller’s journal-entry narration about his fears and doubts. Formally exquisite and led by a tremendous performance from Hawke as a Travis Bickle-like country priest who can’t quell the darkness within, it’s a spiritual inquiry made harrowing by both its mounting misery and its climactic ambiguity.

6. ZAMA

Ten years after The Headless Woman, Argentinean director Lucrecia Martel returns with another mesmeric reverie: Zama, an adaptation of Antonio di Benedetto’s 1956 novel about an 18th century Spanish official, Don Diego de Zama (Daniel Giménez Cacho), stuck in a Paraguay River outpost from which he cannot escape. Awash in existential doubt and despair, Zama tends to mundane magisterial tasks, flirts with a noblewoman (Lola Dueñas), and vainly requests transfer back home to see his wife and kids—the last of which is pointedly, and hilariously, dramatized during a scene in which a llama wanders into the frame behind Zama, accentuating his absurdity.

Cinematographer Rui Poças’s exquisitely framed imagery and Guido Berenblum’s arresting natural-noises sound design lend unreal beauty to the first half’s series of go-nowhere bureaucratic and personal encounters, which underline the protagonist’s purgatorial condition as well as the prejudiced power dynamics that serve as this new society’s foundation. A finale in which Zama takes action, meanwhile, transforms the film into a nightmare of confusion, alienation, and futility

7. 24 FRAMES

Before passing away in 2016 at the age of 76, Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami completed work on this, his final film: an experimental documentary that serves as a melancholy meditation on mortality and the moving image.

As original as it is striking, 24 Frames features twenty-four scenes, each containing a still photograph taken by Kiarostami (save for the opening shot of Pieter Bruegel’s 1565 painting, The Hunters in the Snow) that then slowly comes to animated life courtesy of sly digital effects that cause animals to run, clouds to roll by, and smoke to billow from chimneys. By lingering on each of these sights as they spring into action, the director situates viewers in a trancelike realm.

While no overt commentary is provided, the repetition of objects, figures, and rhythms soon impart the project’s underlying fascination with issues of loneliness, compassion, romance and the inexorable forward march of time—a subject that, in the end, reveals Kiarostami’s swan song as a moving treatise on his, and mankind’s, fundamental impermanence.

8. FILMWORKER

Leon Vitali delivered a star-making turn as Lord Bullingdon in Stanley Kubrick’s 1975 period piece Barry Lyndon. After that performance, however, the actor opted to become his director’s right-hand man—a position he would hold until Kubrick’s death in 1999. Filmworker, Tony Zierra’s outstanding documentary about Vitali, is a portrait of a man who subsumed his own priorities and personality in order to be whatever his employer required, which in this case included operating as an acting coach, a script supervisor, an exacting technician, and an advertising manager.

A study of both unwavering devotion and maniacal self-destruction, Zierra’s film conveys the round-the-clock arduousness of working for a perfectionist like Kubrick, and the toll such employment took on Vitali’s health and relationship with his family. Now an apprentice without a master, Vitali proves a complex figure of commitment taken to a crazy extreme—as well as a charismatic artist in his own right, whose recognition for the work he did alongside the 2001 and The Shining auteur remains long overdue.

9. EIGHTH GRADE

Teenagerdom is tough, and Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade captures the difficult ups and downs of that universal experience with amusing and moving realism. Elsie Fisher is a revelation as thirteen-year-old Kayla, whose day-to-day existence on the cusp of middle school graduation is defined by social media, squabbles with her single dad (Josh Hamilton), and social anxiety and ostracism.

Burnham’s plot is littered with specific bits that anyone who is (or is living with someone) this age will recognize as spot-on (“LeBron James!”). More compelling still is his depiction of social media’s role in kids’ process of self-definition, of girls’ awkward and often unpleasant first forays into romantic and sexual territory, and of the peer pressure-created insecurities that complicate one’s maturation (and relationship with parents). Unvarnished to the point of sometimes being outright cringe-worthy, it recognizes how tough it is to figure out who you are—and locates hope in the knowledge that that process continues long after you’ve moved on to high school.

10. PADDINGTON 2

A superior slice of children’s entertainment, Paul King’s sequel to 2015’s Paddington is a sheer joy, infused with comic inspiration and irresistible sweetness. In this second series installment based on the stories of author Michael Bond, the perpetually hatted Paddington (voiced by Ben Wishaw) winds up in prison after he’s framed for the theft of a magnificent pop-up book that he planned to purchase for his dear Aunt Lucy (Imelda Staunton)—a crime that’s actually been perpetrated by a faded local actor (and master of disguise) played to cartoonish perfection by Hugh Grant.

The set pieces are uniformly inventive, the hybrid live-action/CGI aesthetics are superb, and the supporting cast—including Sally Hawkins, Brendan Gleeson, Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent, and Peter Capaldi—is across-the-board fantastic. Only the hardest of hearts could resist its good-natured charm, epitomized by its sincere belief (advocated by Paddington himself) that the key to improving the world (and ourselves) is compassion, affection, politeness and positivity.

Source: https://www.esquire.com

Sigiriya - Sri Lanka

According to inscriptions found in the caves which honeycomb the base of the rock fortress, Sigiriya served as a place of religious retreat as far back as the third century BC, when Buddhist monks established refuge in the locale. It wasn’t until the fifth century AD, however, that Sigiriya rose briefly to supremacy in Sri Lanka, following the power struggle which succeeded the reign of Dhatusena (455-473) of Anuradhapura. King Dhatusena had two sons, Mogallana, by one of the most desired and finest of his queens, and Kassapa, by a less significant consort. Upon hearing that Mogallana had been declared heir to the throne, Kassapa rebelled, driving Mogallana into exile in India and imprisoning his father, King Dhatusena. The legend of Dhatusena’s subsequent demise offers an enlightening illustration of the importance given to water in early Sinhalese civilization.

Threatened with death if he refused to reveal the whereabouts of the state treasure, Dhatusena agreed to show his errant son its location if he was permitted to bathe one final time in the great Kalawewa Tank, of which the construction he had overseen. Standing within the tank, Dhatusena poured its water through his hands and told Kassapa that this alone was his treasure. Kassapa, none too impressed, had his father walled up in a chamber and left him to die. Mogallana, meanwhile, vowed to return from India and reclaim his inheritance. Kassapa, making preparations for the expected invasion, constructed a new dwelling on top of the 200-metre-high Sigiriya rock – a combination of pleasure palace and indestructible fortress, which Kassapa intended would emulate the legendary abode of Kubera, the god of wealth, while a new city was established around its base. According to folklore, the entire fortress was built in just seven years, from 477 to 485 AD.

The long-awaited invasion finally materialized in 491, Mogallana having raised an army of Tamil mercenaries to fight his cause. Despite the benefits of his indestructible fortress, Kassapa, in an act of fatalistic bravado, descended from his rocky abode and rode boldly out on an elephant at the head of his troops to meet the attackers on the plains below. Unfortunately for Kassapa, his elephant took fright and bolted leading the battle. His troops, thinking he was retreating, fell back and left him to face off the battle. Facing capture and defeat, Kassapa killed himself. Following Mogallana’s quest, Sigiriya was handed over to the Buddhist monks, after which its caves once again became home to religious ascetics seeking peace and solitude. The site was finally abandoned in 1155, after which it remained largely forgotten, except for brief periods of military use by the Kingdom of Kandy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, until being rediscovered by the British in 1828.

The Boulder Gardens and Terrace Gardens

Beyond the Water Gardens the main path begins to scale up through the unusual Boulder Gardens, constructed out of the huge boulders which lie tumbled around the foot of the rock, and offering a naturalistic wildness as opposed to the neat symmetries of the water gardens. Many of the boulders are notched with lines of fissures — they look rather like rock-carved steps, but in fact they were used as footings to support the brick walls or timber frames of the numerous buildings a which were built against or on top of the boulders – complex to imagine now, although it must originally have made an extremely picturesque sight.

The gardens were also the centre of Sigiriya’s monastic activity before and after Kassapa: there are approximately twenty rock shelters hereabouts which were used by monks, some containing inscriptions dating form between the third century BC and the first century AD. The caves would originally have been plastered and painted, and traces of this ornamentation can still be seen in a few places; you’ll also notice the dripstone ledges which were carved around the entrances in many of the caves of to prevent water from running into them. The Deraniyagala cave, just to the left of the path shortly after it begins to ascend through the gardens (there’s no sign), has a well-preserved dripstone ledge and traces of old paintings including the faded remains of various Apsara figures very similar to the famous Sigiriya Damsels further up the rock. On the opposite side of the main path up the rock, a side path leads to the Cobra Hood Cave, named for its strange decoration and a very faint inscription on the ledge in archaic Brahmi script dating from the second century BC.

Follow the path up the hill behind the Cobra Hood Cave and up through “Boulder Arch No.2” (as it’s signed), then turn left to reach the so-called Audience Hall, where the wooden walls and roof have long since disappeared, but the impressively smooth floor, created by chiseling the top off a single enormous boulder, remains, along with a five-meter-wide “throne” also cut out for a hall, though it’s more likely to have served a purely religious function, with the empty throne representing the Buddha. The small cave on the path just below the Audience Hall retains colorful splashes of various paintings on its ceiling (though now almost obliterated by contemporary graffiti) and is home to another throne, while a couple of more thrones can be found carved into nearby rocks.

The Water Gardens

From the entrance, a wide and straight path arrows directly towards the rock, following the line of an imaginary east-west axis, drawn straight through the rock, around which the whole city had been planned This entire side of the city is protected by a broad moat enclosed within two-tiered walls. Crossing the moat (which once enclosed the entire west-facing side of the complex), you enter the Water Gardens. The appearance of this part varies greatly according to how much rain has recently been encompassed in the area, and in the dry season lack of water means that the gardens can be a little underwhelming.

The first section comprises of four pools set in a square; when full, they create a small island at their centre, connected by pathways to the surrounding gardens. The remains of pavilions can be seen in the rectangular areas to the north and south of the pools. Beyond this area is the small but elaborating Fountain Garden. Features here include a serpentine miniature “river” and limestone-bottomed channels and ponds. Two preserve their ancient fountain sprinklers –while these work on a simple pressure and gravity principle and still spurt out modest plumes of water after a heavy downpour. The whole complex offers a good example of the hydraulic sophistication achieved by the ancient Sinhalese natives in the dry zone: after almost 1500 years of disuse, all that was needed to restore the fountains to working order was to clear the water channels which feed them.

The Lion Staircase

Continuing up the rock, a flight of limestone steps ascends steeply up to the Lion Platform, a large spur projecting from the north side of the rock, just below the summit (vendors sell fizzy drinks here at slightly inflated prices). From here, a final staircase, its base flanked by two enormous lion paws carved out of the rock, leads up to all that remains of a gigantic lion statue – the final path to the summit apparently led directly into its mouth. Visitors to Sigiriya were, one imagines, suitably impressed by this gigantic conceit and by the symbolism of pride – lions were the most important emblem of Sinhalese royalty, and the beast’s size presumably meant to reflect Kassapa’s prestige, strength and his questionable legitimacy to the throne.

The wire-mesh cages on the Lion Platform were built as refuges in the unlikely – event of bee attacks – you can see bee hives clinging to the underside of the rock overhang above, towards the left side of the stairs. 

The whole section of the rock face above is scored with countless notches and grooves which once supported steps up to the summit: the irony is that, it appears that Kassapa was afraid of heights, and it’s thought that these original steps would have been enclosed by a high wall — though this isn’t of much comfort for latter-day sufferers of vertigo, who have to make the final climb to the summit up a narrow iron staircase attached to the bare rock face.

Source: https://lanka.com/

Eiffel Tower

World's Fair centerpiece

Gustave Eiffel, a French civil engineer, is usually credited with designing the tower that bears his name. However, it was actually two lesser-known men, Maurice Koechlin and Emile Nouguier, who came up with the original drawings for the monument.  

Kochlin and Nouguier were the chief engineers for the Compagnie des Etablissements Eiffel — Gustave Eiffel's engineering firm. Together with Eiffel and a French architect, Stephen Sauvestre, the engineers submitted their plans to a contest that would determine the centerpiece for the 1889 World's Fair in Paris.

The Eiffel company's design won, and construction of the wrought-iron tower began in July 1887. But not everyone in Paris was thrilled with the idea of a giant metal monument looming over the city. 

Even to contemporary eyes, the Eiffel Tower is unique. But in the late 19th century, nothing had been seen like it. "Modern architecture was emerging slightly in Paris before the Eiffel Tower. But it was doing it in a very shy way," said Gudek Snajdar. Iron, which was newly popular as a building material because of the Industrial Revolution, became a cornerstone of modern architecture. But in 1887, it had only appeared internally, as support structures, or in unimportant buildings like hothouses, factories and bridges. 

"The biggest problem was that they still didn't know how to make something aesthetically appealing with the new material. When they were using it, they would try to repeat historic stone structures. It's very visible on — for example, pillars in the Bibliotheque Ste.-Genevieve in Paris," explained Gudek Snajdar. "However, with the Eiffel Tower they changed completely the way they were using the new material. The structure, its appearance is completely new and modern."

When construction of the tower began on the Champs de Mars, a group of 300 artists, sculptors, writers and architects sent a petition to the commissioner of the Paris Exposition, pleading him to halt construction of the "ridiculous tower" that would dominate Paris like a "gigantic black smokestack."

But the protests of Paris' artistic community fell on deaf ears. Construction of the tower was completed in just over two years, on March 31, 1889. 

Construction of the Eiffel Tower

Each of the 18,000 pieces used to build the tower was calculated specifically for the project and prepared in Eiffel's factory on the outskirts of Paris. The wrought-iron structure is composed of four immense arched legs, set on masonry piers that curve inward until joining in a single, tapered tower.

Building the tower required 2.5 million thermally assembled rivets and 7,300 tons of iron. To protect the tower from the elements, workers painted every inch of the structure, a feat that required 60 tons of paint. The tower has since been repainted 18 times.

Eiffel Tower fun facts

Gustave Eiffel used latticed wrought iron to construct the tower to demonstrate that the metal could be as strong as stone while being lighter.

Eiffel also created the internal frame for the Statue of Liberty.

Construction of the Eiffel Tower cost 7,799,401.31 French gold francs in 1889, or about $1.5 million.

The Eiffel Tower is 1,063 feet (324 meters) tall, including the antenna at the top. Without the antenna, it is 984 feet (300 m).

It was the world's tallest structure until the Chrysler Building was built in New York in 1930.

The tower was built to sway slightly in the wind, but the sun affects the tower more. As the sun-facing side of the tower heats up, the top moves as much as 7 inches (18 centimeters) away from the sun.

The sun also causes the tower to grow about 6 inches.

The Eiffel Tower weighs 10,000 tons.

There are 5 billion lights on the Eiffel Tower.

The French have a nickname for the tower: La Dame de Fer, "the Iron Lady."

The first platform is 190 feet above the ground; the second platform is 376 feet, and the third platform is almost 900 feet up.

The Eiffel Tower has 108 stories, with 1,710 steps. However, visitors can only climb stairs to the first platform. There are two elevators.

One elevator travels a total distance of 64,001 miles (103,000 kilometers) a year.

A hallmark of modern architecture

The Eiffel Tower is unquestionably modern in its shape, which is distinct from the Neo-Gothic, Neo-Renaissance and Neo-Baroque styles that were popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, according to Gudek Snajdar. But its material truly made it stand out. 

"The Eiffel Tower was one of the first examples of the modern architecture because of the iron," said Gudek Snajdar. "And the fact that the building didn't have any purpose in particular." It existed purely to demonstrate French architectural creativity and skill with materials to the world; it was imbued with meaning but not utility.

The Eiffel Tower is also a more democratic, and therefore modern, structure than other monuments of the time, according to Gudek Snajdar. Gustave Eiffel insisted that elevators be included in the tower, but they had to be imported from an American company because no French company could meet the quality standards, Gudek Snajdar said. "Because of the escalators, the building could be used as a tower from which Parisians and their visitors could enjoy a view on their city. That was something that was before only accessible to a few wealthy people that could afford flying in a hot air balloon. But now, it was rather cheap and anyone could enjoy the view on a city from it," she explained. 

"That's why it's a great example of a modern architecture. It's democratic and not only available to a few of a wealthy people. But people of a different social background could use it and enjoy it."

Uses of the tower

The tower was intended as a temporary structure that was to be removed after 20 years. But as time passed, people no longer wanted to see the tower go. 

"After seeing the success of the tower during and after the World Exhibition, many of the former enemies of the project publicly apologized. By the time the Exhibition was over, most Parisians were proud of the structure," said Iva Polansky, a Calgary-based novelist and historian at Victorian Paris. "Although there remained a few die-hards like the novelist Guy de Maupassant, who continued to loathe the sight of it."

Gustave Eiffel was also not keen on seeing his favorite project dismantled, and so he set about making the tower an indispensable tool for the scientific community.

Just days after its opening, Eiffel installed a meteorology laboratory on the third floor of the tower. He invited scientists to use the lab for their studies on everything from gravity to electricity. Ultimately, however, it was the tower's looming height, not its laboratory, that saved it from extinction. 

In 1910, the city of Paris renewed Eiffel's concession for the tower because of the structure's usefulness as a wireless telegraph transmitter. The French military used the tower to communicate wirelessly with ships in the Atlantic Ocean and intercept enemy messages during World War I. 

The tower is still home to more than 120 antennas, broadcasting both radio and television signals throughout the capital city and beyond.

The tower today

The Eiffel Tower is still the centerpiece of Paris' cityscape. More than 7 million people visit this iconic tower every year, according to the attraction's official website. Since the tower's 1889 opening, 250 million people from around the world have enjoyed all that the Eiffel Tower has to offer.

And it has a lot to offer. The tower's three platforms are home to two restaurants, several buffets, a banquet hall, a champagne bar and many unique gift shops. Educational tours of the tower are available for children and tourist groups.

The tower is open to visitors 365 days a year, with visiting times varying by season. From June to September, the tower remains open until after midnight. Rates vary, but visitors can expect to pay between $13 (10 euros) and $19 (14.5 euros) per person for access to the tower's three public lifts and 704 stairs. Tickets, including group-discounted tickets, can be purchased online or at the ticket office at the foot of the tower.

Legacy

The Eiffel Tower "provided Paris with the most distinguishable silhouette," said Polansky. Its distinct look has made it an enduring symbol of Paris. 

But according to Gudek Snajdar, more than just its striking shape makes it an icon of the city. "Paris was a center of modern art and painting at the time [late 1800s], home to democracy, and hosting the first world exhibition," she said. "It was meant to be a birthplace of modern architecture, too."

Source: https://www.livescience.com