Spoorloos (1988) : A Review

The Usual Suspects, Sixth Sense, The Others, Seven, Fight Club, Identity, Saw, I have seen them all, so there is no ending out there that is going to shock me. Right? And that too from a movie of the late 80s. Well Spoorloos challenged me, crumpled my belief and threw it in the waste bin. Spoorloos not only has one of the most shocking endings in the movie history but also a satisfying one.

There are some spoilers ahead, so I must warn you that if you not seen or heard about this movie, then stop reading further and run down to your nearest DVD library or wherever you can locate this gem of a movie.

Spoorloos a.k.a. The Vanishing, directed by George Sluizer is a Dutch/French thriller based on the novel "The Golden Egg" by Tim Krabbe who has also written the screenplay for the movie. It begins with a young Dutch couple Rex and Saskia on their way to Tour De France. They halt near a gas station on the way and Saskia gets down to buy some refreshments. When Saskia doesn't return, Rex starts searching for her in vain for the next three years. The story then shifts to Raymond's perspective, who is a regular French guy with a wife and two kids and the one who has kidnapped Saskia. We are shown how Raymond prepares for the kidnap with some humorous unsuccessful attempts. After three years of Saskia's disappearance, Rex suddenly starts getting postcards from the kidnapper and he decides to launch a fresh search campaign. Raymond one day reveals himself to Rex and offers him to tell everything about Saskia provided he accompanies him to France. Rex's curiosity to know the whereabouts of Saskia makes him accept the deal and they both start for France. On the way to France, Raymond reveals more about his character and the motivation behind the kidnap.

Chiriakhana (1967) : A Review

Byomkesh Bakshi is a popular, fictional private detective from Bengali literature and was created by Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay inspired from Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. Having only seen his Apu trilogy prior to this, Satyajit Ray for me has always been an auteur who gave utmost importance to realism while the movies of that era were mostly melodrama with heavily theatrical acting. Therefore, it aroused my curiosity of how Ray would have treated a story that didn't belong to his sensibilities (or so I thought as I didn't know about Feluda then).

Chiriakhana (which means Zoo in Bengali/Hindi) begins with Byomkesh and his friend cum trusted associate Ajit awaiting for their next case when it finally knocks their door. The client, Mr.Sen who is a retired judge, runs a reformist colony (named Chiriakhana) which houses some of the ex-convicts who were sentenced by him. He seeks Byomkesh's services to investigate a song that he overhears someone humming in the colony. Byomkesh figures it out to be a song from an abandoned film whose actress cum singer is accused of a murder and has been absconding ever since. One day Mr.Sen suspects something and requests Byomkesh to visit his colony urgently when someone murders him while he is still on the call. Byomkesh now has to investigate his client's murder and also link the mystery of the song with the murder.