Water For Elephant

If the film was made in the 1980s, it would have been a far more successful venture than what it is today. The film has a old-world charm, which is not really the thing for the 'Twilight' generation, who could have been a potential views, for, the film stars, who else, the undead Edward Cullen, Robert Pattinson..

I mean how many of us really care about circus, anyway; or a fairy tale of shorts against the backdrop of circus. The PETA guys would be really upset about the film. Spoiler: There is an elephant in the film who is treated badly. Good news: At the end, he has his revenge.

Ultimately however, Pattinson, and the nice-looking elephant cannot save the film.

First of all, Pattinson look too young, too immature to fall in love desperately, obsessively; and unfortunately, he does not have chemistry with Reese Witherspoon, who is solely a comic actress and a misfit in a dramatic role, that too as a sexy siren. No, she was wonderful as June Carter in Walk the Line, no arguments there.

And here, she has a wonderful chemistry with Christoph Waltz (remember his from Inglorious Basterds?), and Waltz virtually steals the film from everyone, if you don’t not count the elephant in the end... that’s the climax...

The time is Great American Depression of the 1930. There is a boy who's studying animal husbandry and in one cruel stroke of fate looses everything, his loving parents and their house, and in a stroke of fortune lands a job in a circus company; he studied in Cornell after all, and he's an animal's doctor. It's all very good till Pattinson wonders around bug-eyes among the circus of animals and people; till he falls in love, with the star of the show, and the owner's wife...

You try your best to care about them. But, you can do only that much...

The Lost Bladesman

It has been almost a decade since director Alan Mak and then-screenwriter Felix Chong combined forces with Andrew Lau to create the iconic crime thriller, INFERNAL AFFAIRS. Since then, Lau has cut the apron strings and Chong has graduated to take co-directorial credit on four films with Mak, as well as recently gaining recognition from the Hong Kong Film Awards for his first solo effort, ONCE A GANGSTER. After their little seen debut MIDNIGHT IN TOKYO back in 2005, the Mak/Chong team graduated to more high-profile projects, namely the Sammi Cheng vehicle LADY COP AND PAPA CROOK in 2008 and the solid, if unspectacular surveillance thriller OVERHEARD the following year. Now firmly cemented in Hong Kong's directorial A-list despite having yet delivered a genuinely great film, it seemed inevitable the couple would attempt a period epic, and who better to cast as deified General Guan Yu than the industry's current heavyweight champ, Donnie Yen in a film that is hands-down their best film to-date by a considerable margin.

The intensions of THE LOST BLADESMAN are best conveyed by the title of Luo Guanzhong's classic story, upon which the film is loosely based: Guan Yu Crossing Five Passes And Slaying Six Generals. With a title like that, Donnie on board as both star and Action Director, and a supporting cast that includes Andy On, Calvin Li and Wang Xuebing, audiences can rest assured the action quota in THE LOST BLADESMAN is set surprisingly high, with Donnie taking on entire armed divisions single-handed, as well as squaring off for a number of impressive one-on-one bouts. That said, those looking for another dose of IP MAN style sparring may be left wanting, as Guan Yu mostly fights with the guan dao spear (which was subsequently named after him). Over the course of the film, Donnie does fight with a variety of swords, spears and even a crossbow, but there is no hand-to-hand combat this time out.

The Complete Review Here.

Antonia's Line

Is there a genre called Feminist Cinema? If there is, the Dutch film, ‘Antonia’s Line’ (Antonia, 1995, written and directed by Marleen Gorris) would be the epitome of it. I saw the film in 2002, I think, at the Pune International Film Festival, and really, really liked it. Since then, I had been trying to catch hold of a copy to watch the film again, or rather study it.

Finally, I got the film for my own. On a second viewing, though I’m not as enthusiastic as I was earlier, I still believe it’s a wonderful film, simplistic at some parts may be, but it has a fairy tale-like quality that wins you over sooner or later. The film won the Best Foreign Film Oscar in 1996, and it’s not difficult to see why. It’s a fable much like Juliet Binoche film ‘Chocola’, but more raw and rustic.

Antonia returns to her village with her young daughter to bury her mother, and this time, she decides to stay back; in the process she makes some friends and some enemies, and always does the right, helping those who are the laughing stock of everyone. As the film progresses, it tells the story of her daughter, granddaughter and great granddaughter, all precocious talents and all capable of making their own with the help of the “men”. There are a few male characters in the film, but all of them are relegated to the background, as Antonia and her progeny live life to the fullest, without a damn to the world.

Writes Roger Ebert: “The movie incorporates the magic realism of Latin America, dour European philosophies of death, the everyday realities of rural life, a cheerful feminism, a lot of easygoing sex and a gallery of unforgettable characters. By the time the film is over, you feel you could walk down its village streets and greet everyone by name.”

More Here.

Yamada: The Samurai of Ayothaya

Why would anyone, who has considerable resources to create an entrie village of ancient Siam (modern day Thailand), and photograph it so beautifully, hire a bunch of actors who cannot act to save their lives. I am sure, Thailand has it share of talented actors.

This is the major problem with Yamada: The Samurai of Ayothaya, a movie based on history, about the relationship between Thailand and Japan, shot magnificently, and featuring breathtaking action chreography. But all of these come undone as result of the poor acting from the cast. I really don't understand the Thai and Japanese, languages used in the film, but you can feel the awkwardness when the actors speak their lines. To top that, the English subtitle of the copy I saw was atrocious. The subtitle was translated by a Good Samaritan from the Vietnamese version of the film. I actually had to correct the sentences as I read them, which was a distraction, but not more than the bad acting.

The historical tale narrates the story of Yamada, a Japanese spy, trying to find ways to conquer Ayothaya, the capital of Siam. There is a skirmish at his camp, and his boss attempts to kill him after he failed in a mission. As he lay dying, the Siamese soldiers carry him along to their town/village and he is braught back to life. One he is recovered, Yamada finally finds peace in the village, learns the local martial art (making way for some wonderful action choreography), and vowes to protect Ayothaya from the outsiders.

In the process, he befriends the local warrior leader, and perhaps also falls in love. All these are shot in bright colours, with authentic-looking backdrop and costume. At one point, a young girl gives Yamada the areca nuts and betel leaves to chew, which was very popular in Thailand in those days, and to this day. Such eyes to historical details abounds in the film, and that's why you complain about the bad acting.

You rue the missed opportunity.

Thor

What’s the problem with the recent superhero movie ‘Thor’? Easy answer: The problem is the hero is not only ‘super’, he is also a god and immortal, and he really doesn’t want to make Earth his home. I mean, throughout the movie, he doesn’t do anything special so that we, mere mortals, should root for him.

Superhero movies, especially those inspired by comic book, specifically the Marvel universe, created by Stan Lee and others, is a problematic situation. In the comic book universe, anything goes. But, when you adapt the tales into a feature film, you’ll have to create characters and locales which are at least credulous, so that we can willingly suspend our disbelieve. The belief becomes a major issue with Thor.

If you know the Norse mythology, you know who Thor is; he is a Viking God, son of Odin “Allfather”, brother of mischievous Loki. (Have you wondered about Hollywood’s new-found obsessions with Pagan Gods: There was ‘Percy Jackson and the Olympians’; there was the retelling ‘Clash of the Titans,’ and so on...?). In the Marvel universe, most of Thor’s adventures are set in Asgard, the Norse heaven (or is the Valhalla, which is heaven?) Anyway, there are some mumbo-jumbo about the enemy of Asgard, the Frost Giants, a rainbow bridge that connects the nine realms (thankfully, our Earth is one of the nine...), and there’s divine guardian, Heimdall. It’s a classic plot, one king and two sons, who will ascend the throne (If you know your Mughal history, you know the situation.). So, Loki, the smart one, tricks his elder brother Thor, a mighty warrior but not really intelligent, to disobey Odin, and the old king, in a fit of rage, banishes his firstborn to earth as punishment.

This is where the problem starts. Thor lands in New Mexico, and meets a scientists in the shape of Natalie Portman, first behaves very badly and gradually learns life’s lessons, and falls in love, before, it’s back to Asgard to foil his evil brother’s plot, and reclaim his throne. Happy ending.

The film alternates between the earth and Asgard, and this transition is really, really jarring. The CGI Asgard looks good; looks like an alien colony, but does not make sense. The earth scenes are not enough, and Thor’s interactions with the humans are never convincing, and before all these can lead to somewhere, we are treated with obligatory action sequences.

The problem is, we really don’t care about the Gods as we care about the human, and in Thor, the human characters are mercilessly sidelined.

When the film was under production, there was a mounting criticism about casting Idris Elba as Norse god Heimdall; Elba being black. After the film was released, nobody complained, since in the perplexed universe the film creates, race is not the major issue, believability is.

On Stranger Tides

After a while, even the most original ideas become a routine. And, when the idea was not really original, and you worked on it for four times in a row, the future is not really bright. You expect the latest Pirates of the Caribbean film, ‘On Stranger Tides’ to be boring and repetitive from the first shot, and yes, they are. And yet, if you love Jack Sparrow, and his friends and enemies, there are several redeeming factors here.

Yeah, the mermaids. They look fantastic, thanks to the computer graphics, so much so that when the mermaid takes the clergymen to her abode underwater, you wish the film would follow them, instead of following Jack and his crew. The love affair that develops between them is the soul of the film.

Other than that, it’s all mumbo-jumbo, ploys to give us some action set-pieces, which you don’t mind, and don’t care about as well.

The fountain of youth. Duh! And Penelope Cruz as a pirate, and Geoffrey Rush as one-legged Long John Silver, and Johnny Depp’s Sparrow of ambivalent sexuality. I’m really interested in his sexuality. I mean, he says that he loves the Cruz character, Angelica, so much so to save her from death, yet, refuses to kiss her, or walk with her to the sunset. There are some issues there...

Million Dollar Baby

Seeing Clint Eastwood’s ‘Million Dollar Baby’ again after a long time (First time I saw it after it won the best film Oscar in 2005), I was struck by the brave approach the screenwriter Paul Haggis and the director Eastwood took in the end of the film. It was a Hollywood film after all, and underdog achievement story that Hollywood loves so much. A 31-year-old girl from nowhere finds a coach to teach her boxing by sheer grit and determination and, she actually achieves greatness. All is well. Then something happens — an accident, which makes her bed-ridden for the rest of her life. And there’s more.

If you look closely, you’d observe that the film plots meticulously to that precise moment, when Maggie would reach the top. Frankie would finally be vindicated, and those perfect moments would pass and he would be faced with the greatest choice. The audience does not know what transpired between him and his estranged daughter, but as he warms up to the idea of Maggie as his daughter, tragedy must strike. That’s the rule of a story. The test lies in how the story in question deals with it. ‘Million Dollar Baby’ deals with it bravely, whereas it could have been one of those tear-jerking, feel-good summer yarn.

When the film released, there was a big debate whether the reviewers should reveal the ‘spoiler’, that is, what happens to Maggie in the end. Personally, I don’t mind a spoiler; in a story like this, it’s not what, but how that it more important. How Frankie, after everything, find the courage to do what he did.

Saying more, however, would be an injustice to those who haven’t seen the film.

Atlantis: The Lost Empire

Writes Roger Ebert:

Disney's "Atlantis: The Lost Empire" is an animated adventure movie with a lot of gusto and a wowser of a climax. It's an experiment for the studio. Leaving behind the song-and-dance numbers and the cute sidekicks, Disney seems to be testing the visual and story style of anime--those action-jammed animated Japanese movies that occupy shelves in every video store, meaning someone must be renting them.

The movie is set in 1914, a favorite period for stories like this, because technology was fairly advanced while people could still believe that a sunken continent or lost world or two might have gone overlooked. Just as the "Jurassic Park" movies owe something (a lot, actually) to Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Lost World," so does "Atlantis" spring from the old Edgar Rice Burroughs novels about a world in the center of the earth. (There is also discussion on the Web about how it springs even more directly from a 1989 Japanese anime named "Nadia: the Secret of Blue Water.") All stories like this require a rich, reclusive billionaire to finance an expedition to the lost corners of the earth, and "Atlantis" has Preston Whitmore (voice of John Mahoney), who lives Citizen Kane-style behind vast iron gates in a mysterious citadel and puts together a team to go to the bottom of the sea.

More Here.

Assamese Novels

I really don’t know who reads this blog, or if anyone reads it at all. No. I know one person who really reads the posts, and she has told me that she doesn’t like my posts about all those esoteric foreign films. She tells me I am better when I don’t write about films. But, I have been seeing so many films in the recent months, make that years, that if I don’t write about them, I would probably go mad. And, I swear, I don’t write about all the films I have seen. There are time, I want write about some films, but cannot find words.

Okay, this post is not about films, but it’s esoteric nonetheless. Recently, I was doing some research on the Assamese novel ‘Jangam’ and I stumbled upon this Orkut account on Assamese Fiction where the moderator asked visitors about their favourite novels. There were a number of entries. I have copied the names, and now, I want to list them and see how many of them I have read or know about. If you don’t know anything about Assamese literature, this post may sound gibberish (then again, most of my posts sound gibberish!).

I was clued to Assamese literature till 1997, the year I left Assam. Since then, my knowledge of the thriving local literature has been sporadic. I have read stuff recommended to me; I did not have the time and opportunity to read everything and make up my mind.

Anyway, here are the Assamese novels from the Orkut list...

Jangam (The Movable)
By Debendranath Acharya, 1982. This is one of my favourite novels, and I have read the book countless times. I know the characters and I know their realities. Yet, every time I read the book, it moves me in unexpected ways. When I was young, I dreamt of doing a movie based on the novel, and what a film it would have been — my model was Terrence Malick’s ‘The Thin Red Line’. Now, you call this over-ambition. But what’s harm in dreaming, and while at it, I would like Ian McKellen to play the tall American missionary... Despite the fact that North East India felt the tremors of the World War II unlike other parts of India, there are really a few representation of the time in Assamese literature. ‘Jangam,’ which was awarded the Sahitya Akademi, was a rare achievement, and interestingly, there are no so-called Assamese characters in the novel. It’s a story of a handful of farmers of Indian origin, who had made Burma, now Myanmar, their home. Now, the British are defeated and Japanese army has destroyed Yangoon. And, these poor inhabitants of Manku are asked to leave by the local rebels. But go where? This village had been their home. Finally, they decide to go to Lidu, in Assam. The war has ravaged the country, and this group of migrants must walk on foot through the treacherous jungle, braving diseases and death, and hunger and fear — As they go on, the motley group is joined by two white men and a half-white girl. ‘Jangam’ is not about the destination, but the journey, and what happens during the journey.

Ashimot Jaar Heraal Shima (Whose Border is Lost in the Horizon)
By Kanchan Barua. Somehow, this novel appears to be the first choice of most of respondents, and it’s not surprising. It’s an epic romance, narrated in a lyrical language. It’s the ‘lost civilization from the past’ novel of our language. Four friends take up a journey to an uncharted valley on a boat, where one of them suddenly remembers his past life, which once thrived in the valley, and he remembers how he himself was instrumental in the destruction of the once-glorious city. The narrative then goes on to narrate what happened in the past. The story is romantic at best, heroic at its worse — there’s romance, there’s war, and there’s whole lot of other potboiler stuff, all of it endlessly riveting. The novel was turned into successful play in the mobile theatre a few years ago, and in that format too, it was a rousing hit. Some tales never grow old.

Aashirbaddor Rong (The Colour of the Blessing)
By Arun Sarma. Words cannot really describe Sarma’s towering achievement. Sarma, best known for his plays, published the novel serially in the Assamese fortnightly, ‘Prantik’, from where started its enduring popularity. The novel is set in the early days of Independent India, where Assam as a state is still struggling with a national identity and is burdened by the Muslim migrants from East Bengal, following the partition. In this context, a man, who believes in his ideology as opposed to what people thinks of him, gives shelter to a Muslim girl in his house, and all hell breaks loose.

Antarip (The Cape; Translated into English as The Hour Before Dawn)
By Dr Bhabendra Nath Saikia. He was a Renaissance man — novelist, story writer, playwright, filmmaker, magazine editor (Prantik and children’s magazine ‘Sofura’, and much more). he wrote two novels, both serialised in Prantik, and both about the repercussions of a man’s marriage to two women. No, bigamy is not the issue here, it’s something else. When her husband Mohikanta takes a younger wife, Menoka devises a plot to seek revenge; she sleeps with a vagabond and becomes pregnant. Mahikanta knows it’s not his child, but Menoka wouldn’t tell him who the father is. The second part of the novel focuses on their son, Indra, who grew up with a fascination and discontent for his parents and how he comes to terms with it. For a detail review, check here.

Himanta
By Hiranya Kashyap. Serialised in Prantik, one of the major reasons why the novel was popular. I have read a few chapters.

Mrityunjay (The Conquer of Death)
By Birendra Nath Bhattacharya. Bhattacharya won the Jnanpith Award for this novel, the first Assamese writer to achieve the accolade. Set against the backdrop of India’s struggle for Independence, the novel is, among other things, a brilliant study of the rural life of pre-independent Assam.

Matir Manuh (Men of Clay)
By Hitesh Deka. It was a popular book when it was first published, something akin to the Chetan Bhagat phenomenon, especially in rural Assam. It spoke of the middle class aspirations in a language which can be appreciated by people who usually don’t read books.

Dhanya Noro Tonu Bhal (Hail the Man of Flesh and Blood)
By Said Abdul Malik. The biographical fiction on Vaishnavite saint Shankardeva by a Muslim author. But, Malik was as Assamese as anyone else, and his grasp on Assamese culture is without parallel. He was our Dickens. He was our Sidney Sheldon. He could write a pulp novel like Chabighar (The Picture House), and do serious character studies with equal élan...

Naharar Niribili Saa (The Placid Shadow of the Nahar Plant)
I have no clue about this book...

Subala
By Homen Borgohain. How do you explain Bargohain? He left a lucrative administrative job to become a journalist, and remains the most respected journalist in Assam today. He is a prolific writer and voracious readers, and his love for books is infectious. I owe my obsession for books and literature and fine arts to him, more than I would ever admit. He taught me how to look at a painting, and sexuality. His willingness to deal with sexuality at a time when Assamese readers were more than prudish is commendable. So, we have Subala, a woman sexually abused, who finds her place in the world, a retelling of Thomas Hardy’s ‘Tess,’ or is it?

Hridoy Ek Bigyapan (The Heart is an Advertisement)
By Anuradha Sharma-Pujari. She is an influential author and journalist, and very popular with young readers, especially from the village and mufassils. I haven’t read the book.

Sien Nadir Dhou (The Waves of the River Sien)
No clues...

Simanta
By Hiranya Kashyap. Again first published in Prantik. I haven’t read it...

Halodhiya Saraye Bau Dhan Khai (The Yellow Birds Infest the Peddy Crops)
By Homen Borgohain. Takes the title from a Assamese nursery rhyme (the next line of the rhyme is used in another novel by the same author). It was made into an award-winning film by Jhahnu Barua; as the title suggests, the novel narrates the story of the plight of a poor farmer, and politics.

Maharathi
By Chandra Prasad Saikia. A towering achievement, the retelling of the Mahabharata from the point of view of Karna.

Maramar Deuta (Dear Father)
By Bhabendranath Saikia. A father and son relationship drama; essentially an young adult fiction, very moving and very popular. Saikia was the master narrator of details.

Saudar Puteke Nao Meli Jai (The Merchant’s Son Sets Sail)
By Homen Borgohain. “Halodhiya Saraye Bau Dhan Khai/ Saudar Puteke Nao Meli Jai / Nowe bule toolung bootung, bathi bule baw/ gohulite godhulite doba kubao..”. (Assamese nursery rhyme.)

Anuradhar Desh (The Country of Anuradha)
By Phanindrakumar Devchowdhury. Last sentence of the novel: “Anuradha does not have a country. She is the woman of the country.” A debut novel, an instant classic, following the serialisation in Prantik. The book heralded the new way of writing fiction, romantic, use of poetic prose, and a worldview, which is global... A young and somewhat naive engineer goes to Paradeep in Orissa to work in a oil rig. While there, he seeks out his old college friend, Anuradha of the title, as he meets a host of other characters. A charming read with host of memorable supporting cast.

Astaraag
By Homen Borgohain. An elegy to death, which soon turns into a celebration of life as a dying man relives his life’s journeys.

Davar Aru Nai (Clouds Are Gone)
By Jogesh Das. One of the few novels set in the times of WWII; as the war hangs overhead, a community responds to it; while some lose everything, for others war becomes a means to become rich.

Kesa Pator Koponi (The Trembling of the Green Leaves)
No clue.

Pitaputra (Father & Son)
By Homen Borgohain. The title says it all. Two generations and a study in contrast.

Dantal Hatir Uwe Khuwa Howdah (The Moth Eaten Howdah of a Tusker)
By Mamoni Roisom Goswami (Indira Goswami). Goswami takes inspiration from the satra (religious monastery) to tell the story of a country in transition, where the old values are dying and new views are denounced — about child widows, widow remarriage, the effects of the addiction to kaani, a local narcotic plant, and the politics of shifting powers. Goswami is master of startling images, and masterful use of repetitions.

Boiragi Nodir Ghat
By Anuradha Sarma Pujari. No clue...

Baghe Tapur Rati
By Apurba Sharma. It’s not a novel, but a short story collection. I have seen the cover. Haven’t read the book.

Surujmukhir Swapna (The Dream of the Sunflower)
By Said Abdul Malik. Perhaps Malik’s greatest achievement, this slight book established Malik as one of the greatest Assamese fiction writer.

Ananya Prantar
No clue...

Changlot Fenla
By Parag Kumar Das. This is perhaps the only novel that dared to seek the reality of the insurgency in Assam in the middle of insurgency itself. Perhaps, this is the book that killed Das, a newspaper editor (His weekly ‘Budhbar’ in a sense popularised ULFA among the common people), who was gunned down in the middle of a busy thoroughfare. The descriptions of the organisation and how clueless young men were trained to be assassins/martyrs, their journeys to Kachin and back to Assam, and their lives on the edge, are so aptly realistic, it is difficult to dismiss the book just a work of fiction. It’s the history of the time, captured innocently. Much later, Dhrubajyoti Bora’s Kalantoror Gadya (The Prose of the end of the Age), would again focus a cold, hard gaze on the subject.

Rongmilir Haanhi (The Smiles of Rangmili)
By Rong Bong Terang. I have seen the book in my house in Assam. I actually picked up the book several times, but never got around to read it.

Bipanna Samay
No clue..

Papaiya Tarar Sadhu (Tales of the Fallen Stars)
No clue...

Miri Jiyori (The Daughter of the Miri Tribe)
By Rajanikanta Bordolio. He was our Walter Scott. He actually was, for, Bordoloi started writing historic fiction after reading the works of Scott. Though I prefer his other novel (he wrote several, most focused on women characters) ‘Rohdoi Ligiri,’ ‘Miri Jiyori’ was more popular, which tells the trials and tribulations of a love-lorn couple from the Miri tribe...

Namgharia
By Atulananda Goswami? The novel was made into a very popular TV serial by DD Guwahati. Haven’t read the book...

Kothamanobir Rupokotha
No clue...

Kolizar Aai (Mother of My Heart)
Again, serialised in Prantik...

Ramyabhumi (The Land of Pleasure)
By Bhabendra Nath Saikia. Saikia picks up the same pallet of his first novel, the same timeline and tells a completely different story. A man and his two wives, and their children, fighting to dominate a small town. If it reminds you of the Mahabharata, the comparision is apt; Saikia creates an epic of our time.

Dhumuha Aru Ramdhenu
No clue.

Fast Five

I wasn’t planning to see this film at all. It’s not that I have anything against the The Fast and the Furious series as such. I liked the first film. I like Paul Walker. I think he has a great face and great body to be a romantic lead. But he seems to have struck in the action-heist genre (Into the Blue). I have nothing else against Vin Diesel. However, I’m not particularly kicked about people doing stunts in their expensive cars. I mean, I am not an adolescent anymore. I liked the first film. I saw some potions of the second, and parts of Tokyo Drift. I did not really care about the characters.

Despite these, Fast Five, the fifth film in the series, was a treat. There is nothing new here, but the energy and bonhomie among the actors dazzle the screen, add to that the favelas of Rio in Brazil, and oh, those cars, and you’ll spend a zooming two hours. It reminds of the Ocean’s 11, 12 and 13, very thin heist films, but full of life, chiefly due to how the actors interact among themselves. Here too, there are lots of hugging and touching, small gestures of concern and private jokes, all of which make the characters believable within the context of a plot which serves as an excuse for action and car races.

Don’t worry about the story though: It’s a preposterous heist plot, where Dom’s 9 comes to Rio, where Dom is hiding after he was helped escape on his way to prison by his sister, Mia, and friend Brian, and decides to rob the richest man in the whole of Rio, a mob boss, who keeps his money in a police station. All this while an American super-agent “The Rock”, remember him?, is in hot pursuit.

Don’t ask me who Dominic is, and who is Brian... that’s the territory of the geeks.

But, as I said, it’s pure Adrenaline rush as long as it lasts. And when the show ends, you know Fast Six is on its way.

Anna Hazare

Like everyone else in India, I, too, have been thinking about, who else, Anna Hazare for the last fortnight. I wanted to write a post on him, on what his fast and his demand for the Jan Lokpal Bill actually means. Then I saw everyone and their cousins voicing their opinions about Anna — From Arundhati Roy to my neighbourhood grosser, everybody has a say on the issue.

And it’s surprising how a few people would actually do something, other than criticise others. At least, the man is doing something. Going hungry isn’t an easy thing. Ask me, I know.

I’m not convinced whether Anna Hazare and his supporters are right or wrong, but it’s a momentous moment in India history, where so many people have taken to the streets. There are all those NGOs and organisations, and you will have to give them the credits for mobilising such a large number of people, across India.

Despite some intellectuals claiming that we are a nation of hero-worshippers, it’s not an easy thing to attract the attention of the masses, that too for more than 10 days in a stretch. There’s something else at work here. Mahatma Gandhi was able to do something like this in pre-independent India, and that was a long time ago.

Is the movement our genuine response as a nation against the act of corruption, which has been so ingrained in our day-to-day lives that we don’t even realise that we are all corrupt, some way or other.

What I wonder is this: Are we witnessing an epoch-making event unfolding before our eyes, and we don’t realise it. Did Mahatma Gandhi and his followers in the Dandi March knew that they were making history? Would our children and grandchildren read about one certain Anna Hazare in their history textbooks and wonder if it really happened?

I must admit that the makeover of the Gandhi topi, with the words, ‘I’m Anna’ in different languages written on it, is a stroke of genius. Whoever thought up the idea should be given an award in innovative marketing. How an innocuous piece of clothing becomes the totem of a public movement!

The Mahabharata

Growing up in small town in Assam in late 1980s and early 1990s, there were very few avenues for recreation, especially when you are introvert and do not like games. Thank God for the district library, though. The library was located next to the school where I studied, and the rows and rows of those wonderful books in those damp rooms were my constant companion.

My mother was a voracious reader, and I had inherited the trait from her. She had her own library card and I had one too. Every week, she would borrow two adult books while I would borrow two children’s book. By the end of the week, I would have read all the four books. My mother was especially partial to Bengali fiction. I remember reading Ashapurna Devi’s Pratham Pratisruti (First Promise) in a single day, and it was a tome.

Apart from those weekly books, our home had just one book, a battered copy of an Assamese translation of The Mahabharata. I cannot count how many times I have read the book. I knew the book by heart. Later, I would go on to read several different versions of the text, from Kisari Mohan Ganguli’s original translations from Sanskrit to C Rajagopalachari and R K Narayan’s retellings to the recent Devdutt Pattanaik’s retelling, titled Jaya, and also several fictional works based on the epic’s characters, from Chandra Prasad Saikia’s Maharathi to Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Palace of Illusions, in Assamese and English.

It is said that everything that is Indian can be found in The Mahabharata; in short, it’s not so much an epic as it is a history of a people, from time immemorial to the future ahead. This is one of the major appeals of the text, which has been told and retold for innumerable times, and yet has not lost its zing. Reading the book, any version of it, is like visiting an old friend. There’s nothing new to talk about, but the company itself is invaluable.

You know the tale, the tussle between the cousins, and the 18-day war, the fall of the heroes, and the choices they make... What I like most about The Mahabharata are the peripheral characters and stories, which have their own charms.

My grandfather’s father was called Janmejoy, and I am fascinated by Janmejoy’s story, which is both the beginning and the end of the epic. The story of his ancestors was told by the sages during the serpent sacrifice, which he had arranged to avenge the death of his father, Parikshit.

I like the tale of Amba, who had to take another birth to avenge her betrayal at the hands of Bhisma. I like the story of Abhimanyu, who went to the war knowing certain death.

Most of all I like the Mahabharata story of the happy ending: After the war was over and the land was filled with widowed women mourning for their husbands and lovers, Vyasa granted a boon. One day, he called froth all the men who had died in the war for a reunion of their spouses. He then allowed the women to join their spouses if they wanted; only Uttara, Abhimanyu’s wife, was not allowed to do so, as she was carrying Parikshit, the only heir to the Kuru clan.

Super 8

Directed by: J. J. Abrams
Produced by: Steven Spielberg; J. J. Abrams; Bryan Burk
Written by: J. J. Abrams
Starring: Joel Courtney; Elle Fanning; Kyle Chandler
Music by: Michael Giacchino
Cinematography: Larry Fong
Release date(s): June 10, 2011
Running time: 112 minutes
Country: United States
Language: English
Budget: $50 million

At the first glance, Super 8, written and directed by JJ Abrams (Star Trek, and creator of TV’s Lost, Fringe) and produced by Steven Spielberg (you know him!), looks like a Steven Spielberg film from the late-70s and early 80s (with the unhealthy obsession with alien creatures landing in the US soil as one of its central set-pieces.).

Look closely, and you’d realise that there are several different films going on at the same time — a disaster movie (a cargo train blows up dominating the screen for more than five minutes in one of the early scenes), a Michael Bay film (incessant gunfire rages on in the background while the young protagonists do their own things), E.T., and all the other alien-contact movies (which end with the creature leaving the earth on a spaceship), creature films (with a nod to the Korean blockbuster The Host, especially in depicting the place where the creature lives; and nods to District 9 as well), adolescent drama (My Girl and its cousins; Famous Five), and family films set in American suburbia in the innocent days of the 1970s.

Super 8 is a compulsive watch, especially the first half, with the children turning up a terrific performance, including Elle Fanning, who has turned out to be an actor to watch out for since the days of Babel, and the recent Sofia Coppola film Somewhere. Then things go haywire, with all those different movie plots converging, vying for attention, seeking thrills and a happy ending.

Twelve-year-old Joe Lamb’s mother is dead and his sad, depressive father, a deputy sheriff, is drifting away. It’s summer and he is helping his friend Charles make a zombie movie in a Super 8 camera for a local film festival. The young film crew is an excitable lot, and they are quite good. They sneak out to an abandoned railway station in the middle of the night to shoot. Oh, there is a girl too, Alice, older than Joe, whose father has some connection with his mother’s death, and he flips for her, oh, so touching, and then something happens.

A train derails, revealing a lot of cases containing mysterious objects. Was the train derailed on purpose? They meet a high school teacher who threatens to kill them if they reveal about the accident to anyone. The next morning, mysterious things start happening in the small Ohio county. All the dogs go missing, so are household appliances, and a handful of humans, including the town’s sheriff. Then we see an ominous presence in the town, and it is confirmed when the Army troops down, effectively taking over the town without telling the townsfolk what was going on, as the wont of the military during a secret mission.

The boys, meanwhile, continue to make their film against the backdrop of the mayhem; great production value, says Charles. But, like Joe, Alice has also problems with her father. As Alice and Joe get cosy, she has a fight with her father and oh yes, she is abducted and taken to a rabbit hole. Then the boys find the image of a monster in one of the reels they had shot, and now, Joe must go all out to save Alice, even if it means facing the monster and understanding it. So, we head for showdown and the final flight.

Super 8 is not exactly a monster movie, though there is a monster at it’s centre. The monster is introduced in synecdoche, in parts, as a vicious beastie, half octopus, half spider, half Transformers robot (the face at least), till we learn his predicament, in bits and pieces. He is not a benevolent ET, neither is he a malevolent decepticon. He has one brief confrontation with the brave, young hero, before it’s time for him to go home. Why do aliens leave at the precise moment?

Anyway, we learn that the alien had crash-landed on earth in the 1960s. He is an intelligence creatures who just wanted to go home. But the military decided to experiment on him, except for one scientist, Dr Woodward, the high school teacher. The creature touches him and they form a psychic bond, and now, after so many years, Dr Woodward orchestrates the train wreck to send the poor alien home.

On Meg Ryan

I recently saw the Diane Keaton directed, Nora Ephron written Hanging Up (2000), starring Meg Ryan. I had seen the film several times in the last 10 years or so and always loved it, until recently. I mean, Meg Ryan was my idol in my growing up years. I was in love with her. And suddenly, I found her very silly. How did my perceptions change? I cannot really fathom.

The first Meg Ryan film I saw was Addicted to Love (1997), in the same year, at the Rahul theatre in Pune, when it had a 70 mm screen. I loved the film. I loved Matthew Broderick, and I loved Meg Ryan. Since then I have sought out each of Meg Ryan films, well, most of them — Sleepless in Seattle (1993), When Harry Met Shally (1989), City of Angels (1998), Courage Under Fire (1996, I still like the film, that’s because of Danzel Washington), French Kiss (1995), Prelude to a Kiss (1994), You’ve Got Mail (1998), Kate and Leopold (2001) and the atrocious, My Mom’s New Boyfriend (2008).

I remember travelling across the city to a seedy theatre to see City of Angels because it was the only theatre that played the film. Such was the level of my dedication. And now, I couldn’t care less about her. Seriously. How did it happen?

More on Meg Ryan Here.

Shaitan

Directed by: Bejoy Nambiar
Produced by: Anurag Kashyap; Sunil Bohra; Guneet Monga; Meraj Shaikh
Screenplay by: Megha Ramaswamy; Bejoy Nambiar
Starring: Rajit Kapoor; Rajeev Khandelwal; Kalki Koechlin; Pawan Malhotra; Shiv Pandit; Gulshan Devaiya; Neil Bhoopalam; Kirti Kulhari; Sheetal Menon; Sonali Sachdev
Music by: Prashant Pillai; Amar Mohile; Ranjit Barot; Anupam Roy;
Cinematography: R. Madhi
Editing by: Sreekar Prasad
Release date(s): June 10, 2011
Country: India
Language: Hindi
Budget: 11 crores

After seeing it for the second time, I was thinking about the soundtrack of the recent Hindi film Shaitan. This would sound very disconnected in writing, yet worked so wonderfully on screen. I give Shaitan full marks for this sequence. It’s the second act, two scenes are unfolding simultaneously — a group of youngsters runs through the maze of Bhindi Bazaar buildings after perhaps killing a rapist, the black folds of the burkha they wore fluttering in the wind, and there’s a shoot-out in progress inside a chawl building between the police and African drug mafia (?). The camera intercuts between the scenes, between real-time mayhem and slo-mo choreography, and on the soundtrack you hear a female retro remix of the Md Rafi number ‘Khoya Khoya Chand’ from the Dev Anand film Kala Bazaar. It’s all hyper, disorienting, and yet hypnotically fascinating.

This is Shaitan for you. It’s a compulsive watch for an average Hindi film. Is the film good? I don’t know. The pace is relentless, it is shot in innovative psychedelic colours, and there are so many things happening, you find it really hard to keep up with it. There are too many backstories that hinders the main plot, there are too many loose ends that never ties up. For instance, how deranged is Amrita Jaishankar? We see that she is mentally-unstable, haunted by the image of her mother who tried to commit suicide; soon she becomes a junkie. But, how does this help move forward the central plot? The question is not answered. The film ends with Amy again, still unstable. Is she the Shaitan of the title. Not clear.

It's as if the director wanted to show everything he could, as if he won’t get a second chance. The director is Bejoy Nambiar and he will get a second chance, of course. When Anurag Kashyap gives you a break, you know you are talented and you have arrived. Sometimes back he had won an award to learn filmmaking in the US. You may remember him from the gossip newspapers. He was married to Raj Babbar’s daughter Juhi, and his father had publicly claimed that his son made him a bankrupt by buying expensive gifts for his wife.

Shaitan is also about directionless offspring of rich parents. No, all of them are not rich, still, all of them are loafers who spend their days in the daze of booze and cocaine, and wisecracking (one of them asks, what do you call a vibrator that has gone crazy. Answer: Dildo paagal hai. Ha. Ha. Ha.), and travelling on a yellow Hummer.

Then, one drunken night, the Hummer runs over two men on a shooter. They scoot from the crime scene; but a slimy cop picks up the trail and offers them a proposition: Rs 25 lakh for a clean chit. How are they going to raise so much money? One of them have a brainwave. How about kidnapping Amy? Her father (a fat and balding Rajat Kapoor; he was such a handsome man once) is super rich. Amy happily volunteers. It’s all an adventure. And then, things go wrong, as it must.

Add to this melee a disgraced cop, in the middle of his personal tragedy, a track which is unnecessary to say the least. But every film needs a ‘heroine’, and the cop's wife, who finally forgives her husband, fills the role. But Rajeev Khandelwal as the cop is fantastic, so is Nikhil Chinappa as his partner. Khandelwal is sure to land similar roles in near future, unless the producers want Randeep Hooda, who had become the resident cop in Hindi films post-Once Upon a Time In Mumbai. (Like Iftikar of the yesteryears. Don’t remember him? Rent any old Amitabh Bachchan movie and you will see this tall, lanky old man in khaki, he’s your police officer.).

The plot had the power to become a nailbiting thriller, as the friends are pushed to the extremes, and turn to each other. However, it is mired by a screenplay which wants to say too many things, most of which are unnecessary. Agreed, it makes the characters complex and ambivalent, but it robs the film its punch.

It is nice to see, however, filmmakers who take their background music seriously, not just the songs, but how music completes a scene.

D H Lawrence

British novelist D H Lawrence is a perfect case study in psycho-sexual behaviour in the context of the modern times. No one can deny his contribution to how we look at sex in representation, especially in the context of literature. Philip Larkin was spot-on when he said, “Sexual intercourse began ... between the end of the “Chatterley” ban and the Beatles’ first LP. “Chatterley” ban was indeed a landmark event in the history of freedom of expression, when publishers Penguin won an obscenity case against the novel, ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ in 1959. In today’s context, the book may not be that controversial, but when Lawrence wrote it, the idea was almost blasphemous — how can a gamekeeper sleep with the lady of the house and enter her from the rear, and most of all, how can an upper class woman decide to leave her rich but cripple husband to a gardener just because they have good sex. When I read the novel for the first time, even I did not like the ending.

Those days, ‘The Rainbow’ was a prescribed text for the MA syllabus, I hated the book; I liked the movie version of it though; there were a lot of nudity, and those days I had not seen a lot of French films ... Nonetheless, Lawrence is a master prose writer. He has language and sensibility. I remember in ‘The Rainbow’ there is a scene when Lydia, the polish widow, comes to Tom’s to ask for a piece of cheese. They stand on the doorway and both feel hot and cold, at each other’s presence. I mean, they desire each other, and Lawrence spends one whole page to describe their reactions.

Somehow, I could not sympathise with ‘Mothers and Sons’ as well, it was all too much for me... the mother’s obseesion for her son, and the son’s obsession for another older woman... But I liked ‘Women in Love,’ and really liked Birkins. That was perhaps because I read the book after watching the Ken Russell movie with Alan Bates and Oliver Reed, where they wrestle naked and Birkins proposes the idea of blood brothers.

The one D H Lawrence work I absolutely adore is the heartbreaking short story, ‘The Rocking-Horse Winner’ where a young boy destroys himself in a bid to make his poor mother happy.

The Real David Herbert Richards Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930)

Like the characters he created, Lawrence’s personal life was equally complex, mired by poverty, obsession, wonderlust and destructive decisions. He eloped with the wife of his teacher, Frieda, and though they spend their lives together till the end and were very much in love (‘Look! We Have Come Through’), the incident will force him to lead a vagabond life, in which, despite being poor, he traveled almost the whole world, which in turn enriched his fiction.

And then, there’s his sexuality. Though he was married and all, his fascination for same sex love is evident in his later fiction, especially ‘Women in Love.’ Wikipedia tells me: “While writing Women in Love in Cornwall during 1916–17, Lawrence developed a strong and possibly romantic relationship with a Cornish farmer named William Henry Hocking. Although it is not absolutely clear if their relationship was sexual, Lawrence's wife, Frieda Weekley, said she believed it was. Lawrence's fascination with themes of homosexuality could also be related to his own sexual orientation. This theme is also overtly manifested in Women in Love. Indeed, in a letter written during 1913, he writes, “I should like to know why nearly every man that approaches greatness tends to homosexuality, whether he admits it or not…” He is also quoted as saying, "I believe the nearest I've come to perfect love was with a young coal-miner when I was about 16.”

Therefore, it should be interesting that Lawrence was played by a openly gay man on screen, the talented Ian McKellen, known to the new-generation as Gandolf in The Lord of the Rings series, and as Magneto in the X-Men series. The film was call, aptly, ‘Priest of Love’ (1981). Wasn’t Lawrence really the priest of love. You’d agree if you have read ‘The White Peacock’ or The Plumed Serpent’.

‘Priest of Love’ was produced and directed by Christopher Miles, and the screenplay was by Alan Plater from the biography ‘A Priest of Love’ by Harry Moore. (From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priest_of_Love)

More on D H Lawrence here.

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On an unrelated note, the Philip Larkin poem “Annus Mirabilis”

Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) -
Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban
And the Beatles' first LP.

Up to then there'd only been
A sort of bargaining,
A wrangle for the ring,
A shame that started at sixteen
And spread to everything.

Then all at once the quarrel sank:
Everyone felt the same,
And every life became
A brilliant breaking of the bank,
A quite unlosable game.

So life was never better than
In nineteen sixty-three
(Though just too late for me) -
Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban
And the Beatles' first LP.

India Song

Calcutta was, and perhaps will be always be the essence of what British Raj was. It was the first capital of British India, and remained their first love. Moving the capital to New Delhi was a political decision, Calcutta was still the darling. And you can still see vestiges of it, spread across the City of Joy, the eternal city. Today’s Kolkata is filled with the relics of the colonial past than any other city in India, including Delhi — from Victoria memorial to all those grand buildings on the banks Hoogley to Park Street, everywhere.

Calcutta has also inspired a number of foreign films, a long time before Danny Boyle and Hollywood. The first film comes to mind is Jean Renoir’s The River (Le Fleuve, 1951). It’s the film that gave a break to Satyajit Ray. There’s another film, ‘The Bengali Night’ (1988), starring Hugh Grant and Supriya Pathak. The film was based on an autobiographical novel, ‘The Bengali Nights’ (1933) by Romanian novelist Mircea Eliade. The real life inspiration of the character played by Pathak, called Gayatri, Maitreyi Devi, had lot of objections about the film, as the film was ostensibly laced with orientalism.

Legends say, Mircea Eliade had come to India to study under Maitreyi Devi’s father, and the young couple was infatuated with each other. When Maitreyi Devi’s father found out about the relationship, he sent Eliade away. Much later, Eliade would write about his experience in a novel and it was an instant hit in Romania. When Maitreyi Devi found out about the book, she wrote to Eliade and extracted a promise that he would not allow the book to be translated into English. Eliade kept the promise as long as he was alive. After he was dead, an English translation appeared, and the movie rights were also sold by Eliade’s wife. Unhappy with how the Indian girl was portrayed in the novel, Maitreyi Devi decided to tell her side of the story, and the result was the wonderful Bengali novel ‘Na Hanyate’ (It Does Not Die, 1974). It is said that Sanjay Leela Bhansali took the inspiration for his film, ‘Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam’ from this novel, though the film does not acknowledge it.

And, there’s India Song (1975, starring Delphine Seyrig), the film by French author Marguerite Duras (1914-1996). The film uses Calcutta as the backdrop, and was shot exclusively in on the outskirts of Paris. In the context of modern theoretical understanding, you can call the film a study of colonialism and feminism, but Duras’ lyrical moving images defy definition. The film juxtaposes two constructing structures, a white woman in colonial India going through the routines of a party one night as the camera languidly follows her (If it reminds you of Alain Resnais’s Hiroshima Mon Amor (1959), you know that Duras wrote the screenplay of the film.), and these languid images are contrasted with relentless voice-over narration the contents of which does not have any immediate bearing on the images on screen.

Apart from India Song, Duras did another film on Calcutta, ‘Son nom de Venise dans Calcutta désert’ (1976). This despite the fact that she never visited India. Wikipedia tells me: “Calcutta in Duras's depiction is a place full of hidden sorrow under a veil of joy and charm. Some critics note that the film has been "hailed as an experimental feminist text that simultaneously critiques colonial culture, women's status in society, and representations of the female body. Feminist critics make much of the fact that all of the voices in the play/film are disembodied and that the characters are seen as physical bodies devoid of direct dialogue...”

Duras grew up in French Indochina, and later wrote the novella, ‘The Lover’ (1984), about a young western girl’s love affair with a Chinese man against the backdrop. The book, which was made into a movie in 1992, is perhaps the best work for which Duras is known for.

More on Marguerite Duras here.
On story behind Na Hanyate here.

Z

Z (pronounced Zi) is a 1969 French language political thriller directed by Costa Gavras, with a screenplay by Gavras and Jorge Semprún, based on the 1966 novel of the same name by Vassilis Vassilikos. The film presents a thinly fictionalized account of the events surrounding the assassination of democratic Greek politician Grigoris Lambrakis in 1963. With its satirical view of Greek politics, its dark sense of humor, and its downbeat ending, the film captures the outrage about the military dictatorship that ruled Greece at the time of its making.

Z stars Jean-Louis Trintignant as the investigating magistrate (an analogue of Christos Sartzetakis, who 22 years later was appointed President of Greece by democratically-elected parliamentarians). International stars Yves Montand and Irene Papas also appear, but despite their star billing have very little screen time compared to the other principals. Jacques Perrin, who co-produced, plays a key role. (From Wikipedia.)

Writes Roger Ebert:

There are some things that refuse to be covered over. It would be more convenient, yes, and easier for everyone if the official version were believed. But then the facts begin to trip over one another, and contradictions emerge, and an "accident" is revealed as a crime.

The film "Z" is about one of these things: about the assassination, six years ago, of a leader of the political opposition in Greece. It is also about all the rest of them. For Americans, it is about the My Lai massacre, the killing of Fred Hampton, the Bay of Pigs. It is no more about Greece than "The Battle of Algiers" was about Algeria. It is a film of our time. It is about how even moral victories are corrupted. It will make you weep and will make you angry. It will tear your guts out.

It is told simply, and it is based on fact. On May 22, 1963, Gregorios Lambrakis was fatally injured in a "traffic accident." He was a deputy of the opposition party in Greece. The accident theory smelled, and the government appointed an investigator to look into the affair.

His tacit duty was to reaffirm the official version of the death, but his investigation convinced him that Lambrakis had, indeed, been assassinated by a clandestine right-wing organization. High-ranking army and police officials were implicated. The plot was unmasked in court and sentences were handed down -- stiff sentences to the little guys (dupes, really) who had carried out the murder, and acquittal for the influential officials who had ordered it.