Road movies are anybody’s favourite film genre. Motorcycle Diaries – which showcases some powerful moments of self-discovery; Pather Panchali – a film that roughly translates as ‘The Song of the Road’, but was more a tale of poverty in rural India are a few famous ones that make for splendid viewing.
Here are some of the others that you can watch over the weekend:
1. Im Juli (German)
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This 2000 German film is a delight to watch. Im Juli has two people on a journey to Istanbul from Hamburg, in search of love and life. Little does the lead man – Daniel (Moritz Bleibtreu), a simple guy who teaches Maths at a university – know that his co-traveller July (Christiane Paul) is the soulmate he is searching for. July, on the other hand, is secretly in love with Daniel and is too shy to confess. There are references to ancient Mayan symbols of Sun and Moon. The film has interesting characters whom the duo encounter enroute to their destination.
2. The Darjeeling Limited (English)
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This Wes Anderson film is about three brothers on a trip across India’s heart to rediscover themselves spiritually, ‘be brothers again’ and finally, meet their mother who lives as a nun in a Himalayan village. The film has a stellar cast – Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Jason Schwartzman play the brothers and Natalie Portman, Camilla Rutherford, Irrfan Khan and Bill Murray appear in cameo roles. The film begins with the brothers boarding a luxury train called “The Darjeeling Limited” which goes across India.
3. Road (Hindi)
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This Shyam Benegal movie, starring Abhay Deol, is a little surreal. It’s the story of a youngster called Vishnu, who decides to drive an old truck – a 1942 Chevy – from Rajasthan’s desert to the seaside. Vishnu is tired of helping his father in his flailing hair oil business. He’s blatantly selfish, not very imaginative and lazy. But during the journey through the desert, he undergoes a profound transformation. The people he encounters – a child, an old nomad and an exotic gypsy woman – are too outlandish to be real. Together they wander about the desert, often screening movies using an old projector.
4. Neelakasham Pachakkadal Chuvanna Bhoomi (Malayalam)
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This Malayalam movie, released in 2014, has young star Dulquer Salman and Sunny Wayne in the lead roles. The duo play two college students – Kasi and Suni – setting out on a bike ride from Calicut in Kerala to Nagaland, to meet Kasi’s estranged girlfriend, Asi. The trip takes them through the Western Ghats to India’s North-East via Mysore, Odisha’s coastal lines, West Bengal’s Naxal villages and Kolkata. Director-cinematographer Sameer Thahir has beautifully captured the scenes from the journey.
5. Tracks (Australian)
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Tracks is a biopic of author and social anthropologist Robyn Davidson, who walked 1700 miles through Australian desert with three camels and her pet dog, Diggity. National Geographic entrusts a photographer Rick Smolan to cover Robyn’s expedition. John Curran has recreated Robyn’s epic journey beautifully. It has a number of sentimental and engrossing moments. Mia Wasikowska’s performance as Robyn is superlative.
6. Mystery Train (Multi-lingual)
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Jim Jarmusch’s Mystery Train is an anthology about a set of travellers – a teenage Japanese couple, an Italian widow, and a disgruntled British immigrant – visiting and departing Memphis, a small town in US, and also the birth place of Elvis Presley. The stories unfold on the same night in a run-down flop house. The tales are interconnected by the characters’ common interest in Elvis Presley, and a night train that passes through a railway track near the lodge.
*****
