Friday, October 14, 2011

The Sunset Limited


The Sunset Limited (2011) HBO Made For Television Movie.
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Details -
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Director: Tommy Lee Jones
Writers: Cormac McCarthy, Cormac McCarthy
Production Co: Professor Productions
Release Date: 12 February 2011 (USA)
Duration: 91 min
Genres: Drama

Cast -
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Samuel L. Jackson … Black
Tommy Lee Jones … White

Synopsis -
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This is a story about two men with opposite beliefs accidentally meeting each other and then debating about god and atheistism, life and death.

Detail Review -
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This movie is one of the best written movies of all times. Entire movie happens in a dark apartment of Samuel L Jackson and he and Tommy Lee Jones are caught into a philosophical debate about life and death. The central idea of the debate is that knowledge is a burden, and the more we know, the more miserable we become. The story is very simple about a man (White) who wants to end his life and about a man (Black) who wants to save his life. Black's character's belief in God is sincere and matched with White's dark, realistic view of the world.

Having said that movie is not as simple as it looks like, it will definitely leave a deep impact on your beliefs and will provoke you to think again .. and again. The entire beauty of this film is about it's architecture and design, hats off to Tommy Lee Jones for giving such an amazing treatment to McCarthy's words. The biggest success of this film is haunting dialogs and the way they are delivered. Just to understand the gravity have a look at following dialogs -

Black: Belief 'aint like unbelief. If you're a believer and you finally got to come to the well of belief itself , then you 'aint got to look no further. There 'aint no further. But the unbelievers got a problem. He's set out to unravel the world. For everything he can point to that 'aint true, he leaves two false things laying there.

White: Banish the fear of death from men's hearts and they would not live a day.



In the end This movie will definitely take you deeper inside you and will make you wipe the dust from your bible.

Sybil


Sybil (1976) HBO Made For Television Movie.
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Details -
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Director: Daniel Petrie
Writers: Flora Rheta Schreiber (book), Stewart Stern (teleplay)
Production Co: Lorimar Productions
Release Date: 14 November 1976 (USA)
Duration: 198 mins (Television), 187 min (DVD version)
Genres: Biography | Drama

Cast -
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Joanne Woodward ... Dr. Cornelia Wilbur
Sally Field ... Sybil
Brad Davis ... Richard

Caution -
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The movie deals with a hard subject and has some pretty disturbing scenes. This movie is definitely not for people with weak hearts, mothers raising small children and anyone who minds what is happening on screen, as it may result into a deep and permanent impact on your dark side within.

Synopsis -
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This is a true story of a woman named Sybil, who suffered from dissociative identity disorder and her relationship with her doctor who spent 11 long years in psychoanalysis of close to 16 different personalities which Sybil had developed.

Detail Review -
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How does one survive a terrible child abuse that too carried out by one's own mother. The movie shows journey of Sybil who is trying not only to survive but to overcome the deep impact of child abuse she received from her mother and find the real identity for herself. Dr. Wilbur helps her unveil her own self between 16 different personalities which Sybil has developed.

Dr. Cornelia Wilbur, who is also the narrator of the entire movie, finds Sybil in an emergency room of a New York hospital after she put her hand through a window. Sybil wakes up from the shock and is unable to recall how and when she came to the hospital. Thus starts the journey of these two women into Sybil's past where they find out what happened to Sybil, as Dr. Wilbur, "produce such a shattering," which led to Sybil's developing sixteen distinct personalities, all of which share Sybil's mind and body.

The drama also revolves around people who come in contact with Sybil and actually interact with one of the personalities possessing Sybil at that instance. The way Sybil switches from one personality to another and back to the original one is shown very well on screen. All the reactions from people are worth watching and in some scenes even we have to guess as viewers what Sybil is playing at that moment.
Dr. Wilbur realizes that finding the root cause of Sybil's problem was just a beginning and shows tremendous patience and dedication towards approaching Sybil's case. Slowly Dr. Wilbur gains enough confidence from most of Sybil's personalities and she is the only one allowed to take pictures of them.
Some small details in the movie like scene with Dr. Quinoness (where he elaborates Sybil's abusive injuries) and scene with Grandma Dorsett (who is more of a prisoner in Sybil's mother's house) are really horrifying and leaves a great impact on viewers.

Hats off to both the ladies who acted or rather I would say lived the roles of Sybil and Dr. Wilbur, they both surely are really underrated actresses.

In the end "Sybil" raises more questions than it answers, that's fine, they're brutally important questions.