Sunshine completely misses what it could be, ends up a meaningless sci-fi

Sunshine (2007) - dir. Danny Boyle - 1.5 stars

After creating such sensations as Trainspotting and 28 Days Later, Boyle now joins the crowd of directors who should be ashamed of themselves.

Sunshine has some moments that give hope to the viewer that something clever and unique is about to happen for the sci-fi genre. The relation of God, space and madness pave the way for very interesting ideas for the film, but Boyle doesn't explore any of them. Only hinting at this potential brilliance hurts the film even more, agitating the viewer. The seeds of these moments are quickly crushed under unimaginative writing, a huge anti-climax and the appearance of one of film history's least explored villains. The sad thing is that this villain could have profited the film exponentially if explored in depth and not only used as an excuse for violence to accelerate the plot.

It is very obvious that Alex Garland, also writer of 28 Days Later, got trapped within the Hollywood confines of the sci-fi genre, where the characters die in order of importance and don't develop at all, where one of the characters is weak and another a complete tough soldier, where the plot twist is completely predictable, and where the story is oriented towards the action and occasional suspense. As a typical Hollywood sci-fi, special effects take precedence over everything else in the film and do not add any additional meaning. Special effects do help the viewers visualize things better, but when overused, they take over the film and suffocate it.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Trust me, you have seen this all before. Boyle offers nothing new to the table, which is unfortunate given his previous success that charted him as a promising director. I am prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt just because I believe the mishap is completely script-driven. What I can't forgive Boyle for is how he accepted to shoot this film, given the horrible script.

Nair does it again.

Namesake (2006) - dir. Mira Nair - 4 stars

The screen adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri's Pulitzer-winning novel is cradled to success in Mira Nair's skillful hands. Just like she did in 'Monsoon Wedding,' Nair achieves an excellent balance of giving enough screen time to each of the story's characters, allowing them all to develop, change and grow throughout the film. The issues of identity, family, culture, immigration, and the idea of 'home' all get tackled within the same heart-warming 122 minutes. Amazingly, the film doesn't suffocate by the density of neither issue, as it doesn't focus on the issues themselves, more so on the journey of the characters within these issues. This is a film that must be seen.

My personal reaction to the film was on a family/home perspective. As an immigrant who has lived in the United States and now lives in the UK, I felt a deep connection to the characters who were experiencing a different sort of loneliness. No matter how well we adapt to our new environments and blend into the cultures of our hosts, how much at home do we really feel? Further to that argument, what do we call our 'home?' We don't feel completely at home in our home country, not do we feel at home at our host country. We belong to both worlds and never feel at home in neither. We might convince ourselves that we have completely adapted, but we never fully do. Our kind of people are the chameleons of this world: those who are both happy and sad at the same time.

Yes, the world is going through globalisation and there is such a thing now as a 'world citizen,' but how satisfying is it really to be such a citizen? Our identities are mostly constructed out of a sense of belonging to a certain group, be it familial, national, religious, or otherwise. If we can't define ourselves within the limits of one of these concepts, how can we identify ourselves? And if we truly are world citizens, why do we still crave to identify ourselves within the confines of preset identities- Turkish, Muslim, European, etc. Is it because it's easier or because human nature needs a certain level of comfort that these established identities can provide? Consider the following by Yi-Fu Tuan:

"Singing together, working together against tangible adversaries, melds us into one whole: we become members of the community, embedded in place. By contrast, thinking--especially thinking of the reflective, ironic, quizzical mode, which is a luxury of affluent societies--threatens to isolate us from our immediate group and home. As vulnerable beings who yearn at times for total immersion, to sing in unison (eyes closed) with others of our kind, this sense of isolation--of being a unique individual--can be felt as a deep loss. Thinking, however, yields a twofold gain: although it isolates us from our immediate group it can link us both seriously and playfully to the cosmos--to strangers in other places and times; and it enables us to accept a human condition that we have always been tempted by fear and anxiety to deny, namely, the impermanence of our state wherever we are, our ultimate homelessness. A cosmopolite is one who considers the gain greater than the loss. Having seen something of the splendid spaces, he or she (like Mole [in The Wind in the Willows]) will not want to return, permanently, to the ambiguous safeness of the hearth."

The film also made me question my relationship with my parents and family back in Turkey. I have been living away from them for so long, I realized how much I've started to grow apart from them. The film was sort of a waking call for me to realize my roots -my family- and pay respect to those people who have worked, sacrificed and died so that I can be here with this knowledge. I owe them my life and I pay them my respects.

This has been a fairly personal review of the film, but it just speaks to the power of the connection this film achieves with its viewers. Nair is a genius who can strike different variations of our hearts' chords within a span of two hours, just like real life can.

Strong Performances Highlight Von Donnersmarck's Latest

Das Leben der Anderen (2006) - dir. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck - 4.5 stars

It's no surprise that Von Donnersmarck's latest film won the best foreign language film award at the Oscars this year, among 33 other international wins. Everything from the convincing and natural acting to the atmospheric mise-en-scene provided by the sets, costumes and camera work, the film portrays a vivid picture of East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

In particular, Ulrich Mühe and Sebastian Koch shine through as the best actors of European cinema so far in 2007, Koch reappearing on the silver screen after his successful part in last year's Zwartboek (Verhoeven). Mühe's acting is so brilliant that, even though he is a man of few words, you know exactly what he's going through. His character is extremely powerful, literally all-knowing. During the surveillance, he ends up becoming more than a spectator of other people's lives and transforms in reaction to what's happening around him, becoming a 'good man.'

The film might appear to be a historic drama, but it really questions the nature of man- the 'good man.' Is there such a thing as a 'good man' when our biggest incentive is our envy of others, when we want what they have? Are there any good deeds that are purely for good? Von Donnersmarck's characters answer these questions in a bitter-sweet end that will remain in my memory forever and regain my hope that the fable of the 'good man' can be true.