Closer (Released in 2004) - A romantic drama - Starring Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman and Clive Owen

Based on an award winning play of the same name, Closer is a romantic drama film directed by Mike Nicholas. The movie and the play are both modern day tragic versions of Mozart’s play Cosi fan tutte. With 4 central characters, played by Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman and Clive Owen, the movie received many awards and accolades including Oscar nominations and Golden Globe wins. The movie plot follows the lives of 4 adults-Dan (played by Jude Law), Alice (played by Natalie Portman), Anna (played by Julia Roberts) and Larry (played by Clive Owen). The story outlines their relationships and the fascination they feel towards the game of “love”. They do not have any real love for their respective partners, and confess to cheating not because they feel guilty of it, but more so to hurt the other person. The story follows their “attempts” at sincere truthful relationships.
The movie starts with Dan and Alice walking across each other and catching each other’s eye. Harmless flirting follows, only to result in Alice getting knocked over by a taxi right in front of Dan. He rushes to help her and from there on, begins their relationship. Alice is shown to be a stripper from New York, who has come to England to get away from that life, and Dan is a struggling British Author. Cut to a year later, Dan has now written a book based on Alice, and has begun straying from their relationship. He meets Anna who is photographing Dan and his novel for publicity. He then goes about trying to convince Anna to get involved with him; she however turns down his advances after being confronted by Alice, who breaks down in front of Anna telling her she knows what Dan has been trying to do. Anna photographs Alice’s break down, to use it in her gallery opening later.




Some more time passes and Dan, who has been trying in vain to get Anna out of his head, now pretends to be her and starts a conversation online with a man named Larry. He makes Larry turn up at a place he knows Anna to frequent. Larry and Anna meet and Anna tells Larry he has been made a fool of, and that the man who must have hooked them up is Dan. Sometime later, Larry meets Alice at Anna’s photo exhibition. He recognizes her from one of the photos on the wall and knows she is with Dan. At the same venue, Dan convinces Anna to have an affair with him, in spite of both of them already having partners. She agrees, but half way through this affair, Larry and Anna marry. What follows is Dan’s and Anna’s submission of guilt to their respective partners.
Both couples break up as a result of this. Alice goes back to being a stripper, where she meets Larry. She goes by another name and no matter how many times Larry asks Alice her real name, she maintains that it is Jane Jones. Larry by then is all for revenge, he decides to get back at Dan, by making both - his present and ex-partner cheat on him. The end is all rather confusing, with total loss on all sides with regards to love and relationships. But, it leaves us wondering how much of their real selves did the four of them give in their respective relationships? Especially at the very end, when Dan is shown to be crossing the very street he did in the beginning of the movie, and he happens to see a name on a tile  dedicated to “Alice Ayers” who had saved 3 kids at the cost of her own life. And when Alice returns to the U.S, her passport shows her name as Jane Rachel Jones.  
It helps that all 4 speak articulately and enunciate well, especially in an era where actors tend to garble their dialogues. While they may be trying their hand at love and failing miserably (what with all the deception going around their private lives), their appearances and attitudes are sharp and classy. The movie is unique in its own way, especially in today’s insincere times. What makes it unique is how the characters go about pretending to be in love and talking about love, when they truly do not know what that is. Neither do they understand each other, nor do they understand who they are or what they want.

Film - Enemy at the Gates - clash between 2 snipers in WWII (released in 2001)

The Second World War was a huge war, a war of biblical proportions, which caused the death of millions. The devastation caused was not only a military war, but the battle for cities and population centers caused untold grief to large cities and their populations. Of the cities impacted, outside of Germany whose cities were devastated in the battle to defeat the Nazis, one of the most impacted cities was Stalingrad, the city which is seen by many as the place where the tide of the battle turned and the last point where the German army was able to establish some amount of control, with the Soviet Army using huge reinforcements (and losing people at a critical rate) to turn the Germans back. It is said that from Stalingrad, the Red Army made a march that finally ended up in Berlin.
The story is set in this battle, showcasing the story of a famous sniper. The movie is based on a book, Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad, written in 1973 by the author William Craig. One of the most famous soldiers from this battle is Vasily Zaytsev (Wikipedia link) (Vassili Zaitsev - His book), a solider who became a sniper and was responsible for the deaths of more than 400 German soldiers. He was a much decorated soldier who did most of his killing in a 2 week period in November-December 1942, a period in which the fighting was in the city, at eyeball level. The fight in the city cause destruction of large parts of the city. The movie showcases a fight between Vasily and a German sniper, a major with whom he had a running battle which has to result in the death of one of them.




The movies tells the story during the war of a Vassili Zaitsev (acted by Jude Law), a shepherd who like many others is now a soldier in the Red Army. With the quest to push back the Germans and prevent the Germans from crossing the line of Stalingrad, the defense of Stalingrad was a critical point. Army units were pushed into this battle, and Vassili was one of the fighters there, finding himself in the company of a political commissar Danilov (played splendidly by Joseph Fiennes). In one such push, Danilov sees impressive shooting by Vassili and works on the visiting Nikita Khrushchev to portray Vassili as a Soviet hero; the people need a hero and Vassili would be such a hero. He is transferred to the sniper school. And in a interesting touch, both Vassili and Danilov become interested in a female militia soldier, Tania (played by Rachel Weissz). This rivalry between them is going to strain their friendship.
The snipers play an important role in defeating the Germans (having an effective sniper is devastating to morale, since it means that a soldier is afraid of getting killed any instant), and the Germans bring in a senior sniper, major Erwin Koing (played to great effect by Ed Harris). He is also a very effective sniper and almost traps Vassili, killing 2 of his fellow snipers. Even a sniper sent to kill Erwin is killed, which makes Khrushchev impatient to get rid of Erwin.
A small boy, Sacha, becomes a helper to Konig, to get information about the whereabouts of the Major so that Vassili could trap him and kill him, but it is not easy. The Major is becoming suspicious of Sacha, and in the meantime the obvious relationship between Vassili and Tania is causing jealousy in Danilov. What happens next ?