i, write, riot

2012-02-14T17:51:00.000+05:30

Is love a Persian horse-rider who descends on your roof?
Is love a gambler of the sleepless night?
Is love the intellectual outpouring of a sage?
Is love a hyacinth bud that blooms among the waste?

— Translation of a Asamiya poem by Prabeena Saikia

Bullhead

2012-02-14T01:13:00.001+05:30

Whitney Houston

2012-02-12T17:58:00.004+05:30

Whitney Houston, the multimillion-selling singer who emerged in the 1980s as one of her generation’s greatest R & B voices, only to deteriorate through years of cocaine use and an abusive marriage, died on Saturday in Beverly Hills, Calif. She was 48.

Her death came as the music industry descended on Los Angeles for the annual celebration of the Grammy Awards, and Ms. Houston was — for all her difficulties over the years — one of its queens. She was staying at the Beverly Hilton hotel on Saturday to attend a pre-Grammy party being hosted by Clive Davis, the founder of Arista Records, who had been her pop mentor.

Ms. Houston was found in her room at 3:55 p.m., and paramedics spent close to 20 minutes trying to revive her, the authorities said. There was no immediate word on the cause of her death, but the authorities said there were no signs of foul play.

From the start of her career more than two decades ago, Ms. Houston had the talent, looks and pedigree of a pop superstar. She was the daughter of Cissy Houston, a gospel and pop singer who had backed up Aretha Franklin, and the cousin of Dionne Warwick. (Ms. Franklin is Ms. Houston’s godmother.)

Ms. Houston’s range spanned three octaves, and her voice was plush, vibrant and often spectacular. She could pour on the exuberant flourishes of gospel or peal a simple pop chorus; she could sing sweetly or unleash a sultry rasp.

Dressed in everything from formal gowns to T-shirts, she cultivated the image of a fun-loving but ardent good girl, the voice behind songs as perky as “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)” and as torchy as what became her signature song, a version of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You.”

The complee New York Times obit here.

>>>>>
Roger Ebert on The Bodyguard:

The ads for "The Bodyguard" make it look like a romance, but actually it's a study of two lifestyles: of a pop music superstar whose fame and fortune depends on millions of fans, and of a professional bodyguard who makes his living by protecting her from those fans. The movie does contain a love story, but it's the kind of guarded passion that grows between two people who spend a lot of time keeping their priorities straight.

The star is Rachel Marron, played by Whitney Houston, and is as rich and famous as . . . Whitney Houston. The bodyguard is Frank Farmer (Kevin Costner), who got his training in the Secret Service and still blames himself for the fact that Ronald Reagan got shot, even though he had an excellent excuse for being away from work that day. Now Farmer hires himself out at $3,000 a week to guard celebrities, and is careful not to get involved.

Of course that's easy at the outset. He is hired by Marron's manager after the singer gets death threats. It's not love at first sight. The conventions of this genre require that the star and bodyguard have to get off on the wrong foot; she doesn't want him meddling with her lifestyle and freedom, and he doesn't have any respect for an uncooperative client.

Eventually the tension between them melts, and there is a sort of love affair, based mostly on mutual proximity (they never talk about much but their professional relationship, and the skills of his job). There's an odd, effective dating scene where she leaves her mansion to visit his cluttered, grim little apartment (and a peculiar moment with a samurai sword and a scarf that is undeniably erotic).

Meanwhile, Farmer gets to know some of the members of Rachel's retinue, including her son, her sister, her manager and her obnoxious press agent (Gary Kemp). These people are supported by Marron, and live with her on her terms, creating eddies of jealousy and palace intrigue. She is aware of her power, and tells Farmer she is essentially a nice person who is considered a bitch by a lot of people, and wishes that weren't so. Houston is effective at suggesting both sides of that personality.

The complete Review Here.

>>>>>>>>>

More on Whitney Houston here.
And Here.
And in Salon.com here.

Ghostwritten By David Mittchell

2012-02-10T21:23:00.002+05:30

OKINAWA

Who was blowing on the nape of my neck?

I swung around. The tinted glass doors hissed shut. The light was bright. Synthetic ferns swayed, very gently, up and down the empty lobby. Nothing moved in the sun-smacked car park. Beyond, a row of palm trees and the deep sky.

"Sir?"

I swung around. The receptionist was still waiting, offering me her pen, her smile as ironed as her uniform. I saw the pores beneath her make-up, and heard the silence beneath the muzak, and the rushing beneath the silence.

"Kobayashi. I called from the airport, a while ago. To reserve a room." Pinpricking in the palms of my hands. Little thorns.

"Ah, yes, Mr. Kobayashi. . ." So what if she didn't believe me? The unclean check into hotels under false names all the time. To fornicate, with strangers. "If I could just ask you to fill in your name and address here, sir ... and your profession?"

I showed her my bandaged hand. "I'm afraid you'll have to fill the form in for me."

"Certainly ... My, how did that happen?"

"A door closed on it."

She winced sympathetically, and turned the form around. "Your profession, Mr. Kobayashi?"

"I'm a software engineer. I develop products for different companies, on a contract-by-contract basis."

She frowned. I wasn't fitting her form. "I see, no company as such, then . . ."

"Let's use the company I'm working with at the moment." Easy. The Fellowship's technology division will arrange corroboration.

"Fine, Mr. Kobayashi...Welcome to the Okinawa Garden Hotel."

"Thank you."

"Are you visiting Okinawa for business or for sightseeing, Mr. Kobayashi?"

Was there something quizzical in her smile? Suspicion in her face?

"Partly business, partly sightseeing. "I deployed my alpha control voice.

"We hope you have a pleasant stay. Here's your key, sir. Room 307. If we can assist you in any way, please don't hesitate to ask."

You? Assist me? "Thank you."

Unclean, unclean. These Okinawans never were pureblooded Japanese. Different, weaker ancestors. As I turned away and walked toward the elevator, my ESP told me she was smirking to herself. She wouldn't be smirking if she knew the caliber of mind she was dealing with. Her time will come, like all the others.

Not a soul was stirring in the giant hotel. Hushed corridors stretched into the noontime distance, empty as catacombs.

There's no air in my room. Use of air-conditioning is prohibited in Sanctuary because it impairs alpha waves. To show solidarity with my brothers and sisters, I switched it off and opened the windows. The curtains I keep drawn. You never know whose telephoto lens might be looking in.

I looked out into the eye of the sun. Naha is a cheap, ugly city. But for the background band of Pacific aquamarine this city could be any tentacle of Tokyo. The usual red-and-white TV transmitter, broadcasting the government's subliminal command frequencies. The usual department stores rising like windowless temples, dazzling the unclean into compliance. The urban districts, the factories pumping out poison into the air and water supplies. Fridges abandoned in wastegrounds of lesser trash. What grafted-on pieces of ugliness are their cities! I imagine the New Earth sweeping this festering mess away like a mighty broom, returning the land to its virginal state. Then the Fellowship will create something we deserve, which the survivors will cherish for eternity.

I cleaned myself and examined my face in the bathroom mirror. You are one such survivor, Quasar. Strong features, highlighting my samurai legacy. Ridged eyebrows. A hawkish nose. Quasar, the harbinger. His Serendipity had chosen my name prophetically. My role was to pulse at the edge of the universe of the faithful, alone in the darkness. An outrider. A herald.

Cloud Atlas By David Mitchell

2012-02-10T21:02:00.002+05:30

The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing

Thursday, 7th November

Beyond the Indian hamlet, upon a forlorn strand, I happened on a trail of recent footprints. Through rotting kelp, sea cocoanuts & bamboo, the tracks led me to their maker, a white man, his trowzers & Pea-jacket rolled up, sporting a kempt beard & an outsized Beaver, shovelling & sifting the cindery sand with a tea-spoon so intently that he noticed me only after I had hailed him from ten yards away. Thus it was, I made the acquaintance of Dr Henry Goose, surgeon to the London nobility. His nationality was no surprise. If there be any eyrie so desolate, or isle so remote that one may there resort unchallenged by an Englishman, 'tis not down on any map I ever saw.

Had the doctor misplaced anything on that dismal shore? Could I render assistance? Dr Goose shook his head, knotted loose his 'kerchief & displayed its contents with clear pride. 'Teeth, sir, are the enamelled grails of the quest in hand. In days gone by this Arcadian strand was a cannibals' banqueting hall, yes, where the strong engorged themselves on the weak. The teeth, they spat out, as you or I would expel cherry stones. But these base molars, sir, shall be transmuted to gold & how? An artisan of Piccadilly who fashions denture-sets for the nobility pays handsomely for human gnashers. Do you know the price a quarter pound will earn, sir?'

I confessed I did not.

'Nor shall I enlighten you, sir, for 'tis a professional secret!'

He tapped his nose. 'Mr Ewing, are you acquainted with Marchioness Grace of Mayfair? No? The better for you, for she is a corpse in petticoats. Five years have passed since this harridan besmirched my name, yes, with imputations that resulted in my being blackballed from Society.' Dr Goose looked out to sea. 'My peregrinations began in that dark hour.'

I expressed sympathy with the doctor's plight.

'I thank you, sir, I thank you, but these ivories,' he shook his 'kerchief, 'are my angels of redemption. Permit me to elucidate. The Marchioness wears dental-fixtures fashioned by the aforementioned doctor. Next yuletide, just as that scented She-Donkey is addressing her Ambassadors' Ball, I, Henry Goose, yes, I shall arise & declare to one & all that our hostess masticates with cannibals' gnashers! Sir Hubert will challenge me, predictably, "Furnish your evidence," that boor shall roar, "or grant me satisfaction!" I shall declare, "Evidence, Sir Hubert? Why, I gathered your mother's teeth myself from the spittoon of the South Pacific! Here, sir, here are some of their fellows!" & fiing these very teeth into her tortoise-shell soup tureen & that, sir, that will grant me my satisfaction! The twittering wits will scald the icy Marchioness in their news-sheets & by next season she shall be fortunate to receive an invitation to a Poorhouse Ball!'

In haste, I bade Henry Goose a good day. I fancy he is a Bedlamite.

Read from extracts from Cloud Atlas here.

Viva Riva!

2012-02-10T19:22:00.001+05:30

Writes Roger Ebert:

"Viva Riva!" is the first feature I've seen from the Congo, and the last one I would have expected: A slick, exciting, well-made crime thriller, dripping with atmosphere. The plot would be at home in many countries, but the African locations are a gripping bonus here. You might learn more about Congo from this film than in a documentary, and you'd probably have more fun.

The hero is a good-bad guy named Riva (Patsha Bay Mukana), a charming, fast-thinking con man who has stolen a truckload of gasoline from some crooks in Angola and plans to resell it for a small fortune in Kinshasa. This detail is itself revealing. Some thrillers involve fortunes in gold or diamonds; the poverty and shortages in Congo make a truckload of fuel drums worth a fortune.

Riva is not a cautious thief. He's a partying ladies' man, whose objective in getting money is to spend it. He plans to hold the petrol off the market as gas prices grow higher, and in the meantime, plunges head-first into a shadow world of bars, brothels, conspirators and gangsters. It is his fate to fall head over heels with Nora (Manie Malone), the mistress of a local crime lord, who only perhaps can be trusted. Oh, she likes him well enough. She also likes staying alive.

Soon Riva is being pursued by the gangster's men and also by some very angry Angolans who want their gasoline back. The film's writer-director, Djo Tunda Wa Munga, ingeniously entwines this generic plot with a riot of local atmosphere: street life, homes, dance clubs, whorehouses, warehouses, cops and robbers, connivers and stoolies, torture and mayhem. It is a true achievement, I suppose, to make a Congolese feature that is the rival or superior of any hard-boiled Western film.

The Complete Review here.

Closely Watched Trains

2012-02-10T18:50:00.002+05:30

Writes Roger Ebert:

"Closely Watched Trains" is a quiet, charming, very, human film. It comes from Czechoslovakia and isn't pushy like those big American movies; it will not force its point of view on you, or sweep you up in a tide of emotion. Indeed, if you're charged up emotionally, you'd better lie down for an hour or two before going to see it. It requires an audience at peace with itself.

The story has to do with a young apprentice railroader (Vaclav Neckar) who fails to make love with a sweet young conductress (Jitka Bendova). Fearing he isn't adequate as a man, he tries unsuccessfully to commit suicide.

Then a friendly doctor (played by Jiri Menzel, the director) suggests that the unhappy youth distract himself while making love (say, think of a soccer game) or find a more experienced woman. When the stationmaster refuses to volunteer his wife, young trainee Milos bravely seeks other candidates and finally succeeds with a resistance fighter named Victoria.

Relieved and happy to discover that he is indeed a man, the youth blows up a Nazi ammunition train and becomes a hero. End of movie. But the plot (as is usually the case with good movies) has very little to do with what the movie is about, and hardly anything to do with the effect it will have upon you.

The Complete Review Here:

Bullhead

2012-02-10T18:39:00.001+05:30

And it happens again. After watching so many films over the years, it’s hard to really feel for a character or a situation depicted in a film. You appreciate a film clinically, the acting is good, the photography is fantastic and so, but to be affected by the fate of the film’s protagonist is tough. It’s an wondrous experience when it happens. This is what happened with ‘Bullhead,’ a Belgian film nominated for Oscar in the foreign film category. I finished watching this two-hour, slow arthouse thriller with an ending that doesn’t end, and then watched it again. This is how much I was affected by the fate of Jacky Vanmarsenille and his once childhood friend Diederik Maes.

Technically, the film focuses on cattle-rearing, and the hormone Mafia and beef trade in Limburg in Flanders, in Belgium, where one half of the population speaks Dutch and other French, I am not sure of the socio-political equation and it doesn’t matter. Here, Jacky, muscled-up and violent, the bullhead of the title, is a cattle farmer who also helps his ambitious, unscrupulous uncle. His very presence scares competition. He has this personality, you don’t want to mess with him. Then we see him alone, injecting himself with testosterone, just like the animals are injected growth hormones, and you sense, something is wrong. Now, the uncle is invited to a partnership with the hormone mafia from Flanders, and Jacky senses that something is wrong, especially when he sees Diederik Maes as the mediator. We sense that there’s a connection between Jacky and Diederik. You’ll have to wait a while to find out. There’s also the case of a murdered police officer; a bullet-ridden getaway car; a shady investigation by the authorities, for whom Diederik works as informant, there’s reason for it, he fancies the investigating officer Anthony; a girl in a perfume shop, Lucia, and whole lot of other things. The film demands your full attention.

Then we go back to 20 years, when it all begun. And it’s downhill from then...

Bullhead review on twitchfilm.
Bullhead review at Film School Rejects.
More here.

Where Fireflies Illuminate The Night

2012-02-09T19:03:00.003+05:30

Here’s a piece of news from an alternate universe, very much like ours, yet different in varied degrees.

There, a young man, some fifty years or so earlier, had published a book of short stories, which he called ‘Where Fireflies Illuminate the Night’. In those stories, in a nostalgic way, the young author depicted the realities of the place where he was born, his mother’s land, a land of endless possibilities and eternal struggles, a land of savage beauty and wonderous colours, a land owned by a river, owned by the people who travelled from all four corners of the world and decided to call this a home, a land timeless as time itself. And he added a helpful sub-title: Stories from Assam.

Some say those magical stories were very popular when the book was published fifty years or so ago. Strangely, however, no copies of the book is currently available. Oh, in that alternate universe, very much like ours, yet different in varied degrees, computers have not been invented.

This last existing cover was found in the sack of a travelling mendicant, one of those few men who can travel between the universes, effortlessly, and apparently without any notice; for, for them, all universes are the same; all universes are a trap, a machine to punish the flesh, a living, breathing Iron Maiden.

The Descendants

2012-02-07T18:15:00.001+05:30

Hawaiian music and Hawaiian shirts — these are the two things that attracted me to ‘The Descendants’. They tell me Hawaiian shirts are not in fashion anymore, I don’t care. And I did not understand a single word of the music played in the background, but it was fantastic. Hawaii is the place; it has a distinct identity, and considering the fact that it’s a part of the United States, it’s a big deal.

I came to ‘The Descendants’, with loads of expectations. The film has been counted as one of the 10 best films of 2011. The film has won the Best Picture ‘Drama’ Golden Globe. It has been nominated for several Oscars, including best picture, best actor for George Clooney, and best director for Alexander Payne. This is Payne’s first film after ‘Sideways’ (2004), for which he won an Oscar for best screenplay. There was a lot of love for that film as well; I could not finish watching Paul Giamatti take a road trip, drinking wine.

That way, ‘The Descendants’ is an engaging watch, though little cold at places. The Hawaii backdrop serves well; it almost like a character in the drama, and Clooney is great in a very understated way; this is the same man who was once the sexiest man alive; he plays the cuckolded single dad of a teenage daughter perfectly. And as the teenager, Alexandra, Shailene Woodley, is marvellous. There is a scene; she is swimming when her father tells her that he mother is dying, she had fight with her the last time they had met, and, she is devastated. She goes underwater and the camera looks at her expressions underwater. Absolutely brilliant. But it’s the supporting characters who surround these the father-daughter duo who add colours to the proceedings. They bring forth the essence of Hawaii to the story; and it is because of Hawaii this tale of a family crisis finds special resonance.

Mat King (George Clooney), a lawyer, is the descendant of the one of the first white families in Hawaii, who married a Hawaiian princess and received a lot of land as dowry. Now, the family has sprawled and while some of their cousins have squandered their money and land, King, following his father, has tried to hold on to it, so far, as trustee of a large chuck of pristine Hawaiian land worth crores of dollars. Now, time has come to part with the land, and he is more than willing to do so. Then tragedy strikes, and his wife, who had grown apart in the last few years, meets with a boating accident and goes into coma. Now, King is faced with taking care of two daughters, 17 years old Alex and 10 years old Scotties, both with their own issues, and King has no clues how to deal with them. To top that the doctors are pulling the plug on his wife, Elizabeth, and to top that, King finds out that Elizabeth was cheating on him. How much a man can take, even in a wonderful place like Hawaii?

From here on the film follows these three strands of the plot, the land deal, the absentee father bonding with his children, and a husband dealing with his dying wife’s philandering, comes to an cohesive end in a very quiet Alexander Payne way. Clooney has been nominated for best actor for his role and he deserves the nod; how a Hollywood star underplays a role, there’s no shouting, there’s no dramatic confrontations, nothing dramatic on a movie star scale, just small quiet conversations, even when he meets his wife’s lover.

Okay, all these were great. But, what was my problem with the film? I don’t know. I liked the film. It was very involving. But, somehow, I could not go deeper. I really cannot explain it.

The film is based on a novel by Hawaiian author Kaui Hart Hemmings, which I am sure would have more depth.

Writes Roger Ebert:

And George Clooney? What essence does Payne see in him? I believe it is intelligence. Some actors may not be smart enough to sound convincing; the wrong actor in this role couldn't convince us that he understands the issues involved. Clooney strikes me as manifestly the kind of actor who does. We see him thinking, we share his thoughts, and at the end of "The Descendants," we've all come to his conclusions together.

The Complete Review Here.
More Here.

Punishment For Rape

2012-02-05T20:38:00.001+05:30

1.

Reacting to a statement by the chief of police in the state of Andhra Pradesh, who recently said that ‘fashionably dressed women’, including ‘women who wear salwar kameez in villages’ provoke and invite rape, as men are not able to control their ‘sexual jealousy’ and the ‘police are not able to control men’, writing in Kafila, Shuddhabrata Sengupta offers a modest proposal for the castration of male police officers:

“Incidentally, the last few years have shown a high incidence of custodial rape all over India, where police men and security forces personnel have raped women detained by them. According to some reports, these incidents are on the rise. In other words, police men are increasingly unable to control the men that they themselves are.

“Since it is unlikely that women will not be arrested and detained by policemen and security forces personnel in India in the forseeable future, the only way to prevent the offense of ‘custodial rape’, following from Shri Dinesh Reddy’s insight, would be to castrate all policemen, male police officers and security forces personnel (for their own good). At least this way, police men and other masculine custodians of law, order and national security will be prevented from being ‘provoked’ by the mere presence of ‘salwar kameez’ clad women, or otherwise ‘fashionably’ dressed members of the female sex.

“This way, our honorable men in uniform will be protected from their feelings of ‘sexual jealousy’ and the trap of being provoked into unwittingly having to rape the next woman who happens to be in their custody.”

2.
Recently I attended a lecture by academic-author Dr R Raj Rao, on formulations of queer theory in India. According to Rao, queer theory is different from the so called “gay theory” and it demands complete subversion of what is “normal” or “normative,” more specifically, “heteronormativity.” Hetero-normative is what is given, like a man marrying a woman, and then killing her for dowry (okay, the killing part is not that normal, but you get the drift.)

Rao argues, quoting Eve Sedgwick and Michel Foucault, that the ultimate act of subversion from heteronormativity would be to disregard the penis, or at least the refusal to use it as it is expected to be used — for penetration, in a vagina. Rao argues that there are other uses of the male organ, the most useful of this is in the context of auto-eroticism. What he is essentially trying to say is that there is a need to dismantle the idea that penis is the centre of the structure (as argued by Sigmund Freud and his most famous and bitter disciple Jacques Lacan). If we can do that, it will enable use to view the dynamics of the male/female difference, as well as sexuality politics, in a new light.

3.
In the decidedly queer Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar’s latest non-queer, body horror, ‘Frankenstein with a scalpel’ melodrama, ‘The Skin I Live In’ (La Piel Que Habito, 2011), there is another answer to this question of rape, sexuality and the ubiquitous male organ.

A plastic surgeon of some repute, battling a series of person crises, one day finds that his mentally-unstable daughter has been “interfered” with by a reckless young man. The audience knows that the young man in question, Vincent, is innocent; he just wanted to have some fun. But the good doctor doesn’t know this. Now, the good doctor abducts the young man, holds him as a prisoner in his villa and sometimes later performs a vaginoplasty (actually more MTF sex reassignment surgery than vaginoplasty) on him. After a series of surgeries spanning three years, the doctor finally turns the young man Vincent into a beautiful young woman, Vera, who would later be rapped, in a delicious twist so integral to a Almodovar film.

4.
Almodovar doesn’t suggest male to female sex reassignment surgery as a possible punishment for rape. But, the idea has serious possibilities. It is a tad better plan than castration. Castration makes you neither man nor woman; and one can always pose as either, or. MTF sex reassignment surgery makes the process complete. The rapist would get a chance to realise it is like to be on the other side of the equation.

5.
The idea of castration as a remedy to save women from sexual violence is not new. It was much prevalent in medieval India, especially in the Mughal courts, where men were not allowed to enter the ladies quarters. So, who’d protect these women? Guards, off course. But the patriarchy cannot take risks with the guards. So, the deal is to “un-man” them first.

>>>>>>>>
A Modest Proposal for the Castration of Male Police Officers in Kafila.
More on MTF sex reassignment surgery here.
More on Vaginoplasty here.

Chain Change

2012-02-05T19:05:00.001+05:30

As the crime reporter files another item on a poor, old lady being robbed of her gold chain worth a lot of money, his colleague wonders why these women haven’t learnt their lessons yet. In the last few years, chain-snatching has become a routine crime in this city of two-wheelers. The police are doing their best, but that’s not enough. As the crime reporter argues, it’s the easiest of crimes to begin with. All you need is a two-wheeler, and a willing partner to drive the vehicle. If you have neither of these, all you need is a sprinter’s skill. You spot a woman with a gold chain, approach her, pull the chain with all your might, and then, run for your life. Easy. But, it’s also very easy to stop these incidents from happening, counters the colleague. Just stop wearing those chains, that’s all. At least stop wearing gold chains when you are out, or wear those cheap imitation ones. If there are no chains to snatch, those snatchers will have to find another vocation for sure. An innovative idea indeed!

The L-Word

2012-02-04T23:31:00.000+05:30

The Pilgrim asks: What is love?

Love is death. Love is dissolving yourself. Love is to live for someone else.

Love is when you stop being yourself. Love is when you are not alone.

Love is giving. Love is giving without expectations. Love is giving without a shred of doubt.

Love is giving your beloved everything you have, and then look for something else to give.

Love is when stop existing.

Love is when you are empty. Love is when you have nothing left. Love is when you are free.

Love is when you disappear and it doesn’t matter.

Love is a shitload of nonsense.

Love is synonym for that perfect life that doesn’t exist.

Contagion

2012-02-04T18:41:00.002+05:30

I think ‘Contagion’ (2011) is the best film on diseases since ‘Outbreak’ (1995), if you don’t count the HBO film on the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, ‘And the Band Played On’ (1993). While the HBO film was based on real life events, about a bunch of scientists in the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, US, their counterparts in France, and gay rights activists, ‘Outbreak,’ based on a novel by Robin Cook, perhaps the world’s best known author of medical thrillers, was imaginary, and focused on a hypothetical situation how a deadly disease may spread from such an innocuous beginning: Someone caught a monkey in Africa and shipped it to America. Like ‘Outbreak’, the virus in ‘Contagion’ is also imaginary. Yet, following the recent spate of global pandemics, first the bird flu and then the H1N1, the reality depicted in ‘Contagion’ is more immediate, and therefore more fearsome.

The film demonstrates how a modern disease travel faster than ever in a globalised world, and how it affects a poor nation more than a richer one, and how medical experts react to the arrival of an unknown virus, and how governments react to a threat which has no vaccine. Add to that a whole lot of conspiracy theories, you have a heady thriller in your hands.

The Steven Soderbergh film, with an A-list star cast, including Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Marion Colitard, Kate Winslate and Laurence Fishbourne among others, is designed to be thriller, a medical thriller that counts down the dates (the film begins on Day 2, when a woman, carrying the new strain of virus, travels back home to US from Hong Kong), and travels the world over, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Paris, Chicago. As the film unfolds, however, it becomes more interested in the process of fighting the unknown virus and how it affect the perfectly normal social structure, and how quiet heroism of a few people ultimately saves the day in the face of imminent danger, and fine science of how a vaccine is discovered.

Like a good disaster film plot, it begins with a single family. The mother was in Macau on a business trip. Upon her return, she falls sick and dies; their young son follows, with the father and the teen-age daughter left to grieve. As they grieve, the public life around them begins to crumble as more and more people fall victim to this unknown disease.

Experts at the CDC spring into action while WHO sends an expert to Hong Kong, where the disease was first reported, to find its origin. From this point onwards, the film moves back and forth between different countries and different people with different agendas, all trying to make sense of the changing reality, and all trying to survive.

As the film slowly descends from thriller to horror territory, it explains how a new virus is born. This sequence at the end of the film is the reason why you should sit thought the entire film, and the film blames it on development.

A mining company clears the forest somewhere in China, and a bat, which is ill, is deprived of its home. The bat flies away and lands on a banana plant. It eats a banana and carries a part of it as it flies away to a nearby pigsty. A piece of banana the bat was carrying falls on the ground and a piglet eats it. A few days later, the piglet is sent to a five star hotel in a Macau casino. As the head chef prepares the pig for dinner, he is invited to meet a certain American woman in the lobby. No time to wash his hands, he wipes his hands in his apron and shakes hands with the lady.

That was Day 1. On Day 2, the woman flies back to the US, after meeting several people on her way, and spreading an unknown virus on her wake.

2012-02-03T22:27:00.000+05:30

The Pilgrim asks: Is it true that being submissive is feminine, and being aggressive is masculine?

Manneys

2012-02-03T19:46:00.004+05:30

Another single store, and an illustrious bookshop bites the dust. In Pune. This is the reality of the so called ‘Oxford of the East.’ As the curtain closes on the historic and perhaps the most well known bookshop in Pune on March 31, I am reminded of the fate of Meg Ryan’s bookshop ‘Around the Corner’ in the film ‘You’ve Got Mail’, where Tom Hanks’ owner of a bookshop chain buys this traditional retail outlet to kill the competition. I don’t know the precise reason why “Manneys” on Moledina Road has decided to pull down the shutters, the point is, it spells doom for individual, retail bookshops. Look at those Crosswords, those Landmarks, they are doing well; it’s another matter that they sell more DVDs and toys and stationery than actual books.

For decades, the Manneys bookshop on Moledina Road, near the West End theatre, has been a unique landmark. It was the best bookshop in town before the arrival of Crossword to Pune. Even after the spread of Crosswords and Landmarks, Manneys was the best place for finding books; they’d have even the most obscure titles, like the Dali autobiography, ‘The Diary of a Madman’.

I remember picking up well known Italian novelist Alberto Moravia’s two novels, ‘Woman of Rome’ and ‘Two Women’, at the Manneys in 1998, in one of my early visits to the bookshop. I was really, really excited to find the paperback copies of these two books, that too at Rs 20 apiece. It was a bargain. Later, I even did a paper on ‘Woman of Rome’ and argued that the decision of Moravia heroine Adriana to sell her body is an act of woman empowerment. After I read the paper at the women’s studies centre, there was an uproar. A well known and very militant feminist activist/educator accused me of being patriarchal, and that my argument is a-historical. My argument was a-historical all right, but I argued passionately. Those days I thought I knew about all these stuff; I had no self-doubt as I have now. Those were good days.

During my student days in late 1990s and early 2000s, despite the fact that we did not have any money to buy books, doing a round of Manneys at least once a week was a ritual. If we had money, we would go and catch a film, and if the theatre happened to be West End, a trip to the bookshop was a must, and then, as the afternoon would change into evening, we would take a long walk on M G Road, finally settling on a corner table at Cafe Naaz with plates of samosas and cups of teas in front of us. Those were good days. Cafe Naaz has been replaced by Barista a long time ago. Last time I was in that coffee shop, someone else paid for the cappuccino. I refuse to pay so much for just a cup of coffee.

In Pune, Manneys is an icon, a heritage, a backdrop of so many great happenings. It’s a piece of the city’s history, incorporating the British, the Parsi, the Muslim and then the rise of the Pan-Maharashtrian identity. It is also a site of a large number personal adventures, mine and of people I know.

And William Golding too. If I remember correctly, the author of ‘Lord of the Flies’ was invited to the Department of English, University of Pune, and now, the popular myth is that he visited the bookstore and met its the then owner.

I have a more interesting story tell. I know a person who met his lover and future partner in one of the aisles of this cramped floor filled with books and more books. He was browsing the photography section, those coffee table books with glossy and gorgeous pictures which you will never afford to buy. He was looking at a particularly handsome picture of a handsome young man in tribal costume. He was so engrossed at the image that he had no inkling of someone else standing next to him. “A handsome young man, isn’t he?” the stranger ask him, and our friend looked up. There was the man, and our friend would tell us, it was love at the first sight. Don’t know about that, but they are still together, after 18 years, after many a seasons of rain and shine.

Personally, this was the place where for the first time I experienced how it is like to see your own book in one of the shelves of a bookshop! I cannot describe the feeling, but it was a proud moment. I was browsing; walking slowly among the books in a bookshop is itself so exhilarating, when I saw two copies of my book, in the lower shelf. I picked up a copy and flipped the pages as if I had seen the book for the first time. Then I kept the book in its place. For the next half-an-hour, I lurked around the shelf to see if anyone would pick up a copy. It was heartbreaking; no one picked up the book.

The end of Manneys reminds me of another bookshop on F C Road. It was called “Jai Jalram” or something, in a small room next to the footpath in the middle of the busy thoroughfare. And, like Manneys, this was a place where you’d find any book you want. I remember buying the Phillip Pullman trilogy from here. It’s been two years now, the shop is gone and the guys who used to run the shop now sell imitation jewellery and trinkets. Those sell more then books anyway. You bet!

Manneys in Pune to down shutters on March 31 in DNA.
Booklovers mourn loss as Manneys set to shut shop forever in The Times Of India.

In Time

2012-02-02T23:16:00.004+05:30

Time is money. In not so distant future, in an alternate universe depicted in the film, 'In Time', in 2161, it is literally so. Here, money, as we know it, is obsolete. Time is the mode of exchange. You want a cup of tea, pay two minutes; you can also save your time in a bank, or take a “time-loan”, like two years with six months interest. In this universe, time is on your hand, literally. On your left hand, there is a verisimilitude of a digital clock, where your time ticks, and on your right hand, there is some nerves or something that can transfer time, from one human to another, or from a human to a machine. It's all very cool actually, if you have a lot of time. Okay, it's not so cool, for anyone can assault you on the road and waste, I mean steal, your time.

It’s a Hollywood film; you don’t expect it to explain everything. Following the breakthrough success in genetics in the future, mankind has found its way to immortality, and everlasting youth. In this universe, you stop ageing after you are 25, physically at least. This explains why the protagonist Justin Timberlake’s mother looks like sexy Olivia Wilde. Another thing happens after you have turned 25. A glowing, greenish time-piece appears on your left arm, containing slots for 13 digits. From this time onwards, you have only one year to live, unless you work hard to earn some more time, or steal time, or do whatever it takes.

In this universe, the country is divided into zones, people with less time live in a ghetto like Dayton, whereas people with eons at their disposal reside in a posh neighbourhood called New Greenwich. It’s a classic Marxian model, the rich needs the poor work for them, and the poor must die young so that the rich can live forever. And there’s a police-like system where “timekeepers” keep a tab on the usage of undue time.

It’s a Hollywood thriller. So you know what happens. The protagonist is given a task, and he uncovers secrets, and fall in love and so on. Then the film travels to the ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ territory, without the protagonists dying of course.

Never mind that. What I was more interested in the film was the social mores, the taboos. Since time is money and it’s tattooed on your hand, how normal would it be to show your hand to a stranger. He’d instantly know how rich you are and when you are going to die. It’s a secret worth-keeping. So, does your left hand becomes the most private part of your body in this universe? And since the time can be transferred just by touching hands, you’d have to be extra careful whom you touch and how.

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I remember the alternate/parallel universe described in Phillip Pullman’s wonderful ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy. There, in Lyra’s world, the soul resides outside the body, in the shape of an animal, which is always of the opposite gender of the person, though there are exceptions. They are called Daemons. Now, it’s an ultimate taboo in this world to touch other person’s Daemons. You can touch only your Daemon and no one else’s. So, what happens during lovemaking. Your Daemon may touch your partner’s Daemon, but not you. The whole thing gives the word “soulmate” a whole new meaning.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

2012-01-31T19:40:00.003+05:30

It’s surprising how this new adaptation of John Le Carre’s spy novel turns up to be so good. The book was made into a celebrated BBC TV movie with Alec Guinness playing George Smiley. It was a task to trim this sprawling saga of Cold War espionage twists and turns into a two-hour film. It was a task to fill the shoes of the inimitable Guinness. The film achieves both, and in Gary Oldman, the film finds a gravitas which keeps the momentum surging ahead, despite the fact that there’s very little action in the film, even by arthouse movie standards.

And by Hollywood spy movie standards, the film is without any substantial action, there’s no chase, no elaborate action sequences, no femme fatale in skimpy clothes, no shooting. In all, just one bullet is fired in the entire film. If you are looking for a spy like James Bond or Jason Bourne here, you are clearly in a wrong place. Here, most spies are middle-age men who are untrustworthy and weary of their existence.

In short there’s no adrenaline rush. All they do is talk, that too in a cryptic language, codes, which you’ll have to be very careful to decipher. The British secret service is called circus, the head is called Control, his Russian counterpart is called Karla. They run a secret project called Witchcraft. Even the Tinker Tailor in the title are codes. (Okay, there’s is brief love story between a foot soldier of the British agency, played by Tom Hardy and a Russian woman who has a secret to trade, but it all is played out for less than 15 minutes and she’s shot; Okay, there are several other “love stories”, between George and his wife Anne, who sleeps with one of his colleagues, played by Colin Firth, who may or may not have a relationship with another agent, Jim, played by ever wonderful Mark Strong, and there’s an one-minute scene of another agent breaking up with his boyfriend because his life may be in danger.)

On paper, the script, co-scripted by the author himself, may have look unfilmable. There is no linear structure, there’s no exposition, there’s no attempt to explain things for the audience, just one shot after another; there are some outdoor shoots, but most of it happens indoors, and moves between past and present, where the characters talk and talk some more.

Yet, what director Tomas Alfredson, who made the Norwegian vampire film ‘Let the Right One In’ (later remade in English as ‘Let Me In’), achieves in editing, and invoking a time since lost, the unpredictable political dynamics of the Cold War era (the spy, after he is exposed, says: “I had to pick a side, George. It was an aesthetic, as it was a moral choice. The West has become so ugly...”), in cold, steely photography, and in powerhouse performance from several A-list British actors, led by Gary Oldman — Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, Mark Strong, John Hurt, Toby Jones, Ciaran Hinds and Benedict Cumberbatch, is nothing sort of a miracle.

The film is like a jigsaw puzzle. Alfredson scatters the pieces along the way, and when the film ends, it’s the job of the viewers to complete the puzzle. That’s another great thing about the film. Unlike a typical Hollywood film, ‘Tinker Tailor..’ does not take its audience for granted, even though Alfredson takes his job as a storyteller very seriously.

The premise is simple. There is a Russian mole at the top of the British intelligence services in the 70s. Five men are suspects, and one of them is the spy. But, which one? So, George Smiley, an agent with impeccable records, who was forced to retire from the circus not so long ago, is asked to investigate after Control (John Hurt) is dead. But, Smiley is old and weary, and he really does not care about the mole. He’s more upset about his wife Anne, who has left him for another agent.

Oldman has been nomination for an Oscar for his performance and he deserves the nod. There is scene right at the middle of the film, when Smiley narrates the story of his meeting with his Russian counterpart, Karla, in Delhi. There’s no flashback sequence. There are just dialogues, Smiley speaking, and how Oldman handles the scene is the hallmark of his performance.

Theo Angelopoulos

2012-01-30T23:49:00.004+05:30

Theo Angelopoulos, 1935-2012

The great Greek director Theo Angelopoulos died two weeks back and I had no idea. There may be people who have never heard of him, or seen his films, but he was a great filmmaker, a maestro in the league of Bergman, Fellini, Tarkovsky or Ray, who, in his films, exploited the potential of the cinematic medium to its utmost potential.

Angelopoulos was a master of grand visuals. Cinema is a visual art, above everything else, and very few directors have explored this to such artistic perfection as Angelopoulos. And, he was an overtly political filmmaker. It’s not easy to sit though an Angelopoulos film, for not only they are long, they are slow; but, if you sit though it, it’s rewarding unlike anything else. A case in point, the floating barge in ‘The Weeping Meadow’; you have never seen something like this elsewhere.

As someone wrote, it is ironic that Angelopoulos should die in a road mishap; he was hit by a motorcycle while filming in Athens. For, it was a quick death, something that he never allowed his characters.

He was a political filmmaker unlike anyone else. As someone said, the tumult of modern Greek history, if everything else is lost, can be recreated from Angelopoulos films. And this is not an exaggeration. Perhaps, this explains why his films never contained the traditional ‘The End’ at the end; his films never end, from the screen they slip into the real life.

According to popular consensus, his best film is ‘Ulysses’s Gaze’ (1997), starring Harvey Keital as a filmmaker A who returns to his native Greece looking for some missing films. Some say, it’s ‘Landscape in the Mist’ (1988), about two sibling along on a journey looking for their father.

I have seen both the films, and also ‘Eternity and a Day’ (1998), and ‘Dust of Time’ (2009), starring Willem Dafoe. But the film I admire most is ‘The Suspended Step of the Stork’ (1991),’ which starred Marcello Mastroianni as a disappeared politician and Jeanne Moreau as his ex-wife.

I find this film utterly fascinating, perhaps because this is the only Angelopoulos film I have seen several times, and every time it affects me unlike any film has ever done. I like everything about it, right from the title. Only last month, I had shown my students at the culture study class I conducted, a scene from the film, the wedding scene, and was again struck by the depth of socio-political allegory of our time.

The film tells the story of a nation in war, a nation divided into two, and about a politician who has gone missing. While reporting from the divided country, a young journalist notices a man who looks like the politician who had gone missing at the height of his career. He decides to investigate the matter and in the process, understands the condition of the refugees.

The country has been divided in the middle of the river. On the river is a bridge. On the middle of the bridge there is a line. On the other side of the line is the enemy state. There stands the alert guards. Should you cross the line, they are ordered to shoot at you. The journalist walks to the middle of the bridge and stand in front of the line. He lifts his right leg as the alert guards on the other side watch. He would be dead if he puts his leg on the other side. The leg remains suspended, like a stork waiting for its prey — the most powerful visual I have ever seen in films.

There is a wedding. The couple was engaged before the border was drawn. Now, the bride is on one side of the river and the groom on the other. The marriage ceremony is performed nonetheless. The bride’s side assemble on one side and the groom’s side on the other. The priest arrives in a cycle. The bride’s father stands proxy at the place where the groom should have been, as the groom looks on from the other side. It was perhaps the most poetic and most mournful wedding ever depicted on screen. And, the power of the scene gets you, everytime.

The only regret I have is I have never seen an Angelopoulos film on the big screen. It would be an experience.

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Theo Angelopoulos: His best films (From The Guardian)

Theo Angelopoulos' first feature, ‘The Reconstruction’ (1970), draws on the real-life murder of a Greek worker (Yannis Totsikas, left) in Germany by his wife (Toula Stathopoulou) and her lover (Michalis Fotopoulos). The murder story, and its 'reconstruction', becomes a parable for the disruption of a community and a nation – Greece was under military rule at the time.

Angelopoulos' second film, ‘Days of 36’, was set during Greece's tumultuous interwar period, when unstable governments alternated with military coups with alarming regularity. ‘Days of 36’ focuses on a politically sensitive hostage situation, which Angelopoulos uses to lay bare the state's fragmentation as Metaxa's fascist dictatorship loomed.

Angelopoulos' international breakthrough, ‘The Travelling Players’, is an epic tableau of 20th-century Greek history, told through the experiences of a touring group of actors – whose own stories are modelled on the Agamemnon myth. Among other awards, it won the BFI's Sutherland trophy.

Angelopoulos took on the Stalinist cult of personality in his 1980 movie ‘Alexander the Great’, with Omero Antonutti as the 19th-century bandit of the title. This Alexander, whose name references the mythic Greek figure of antiquity, wordlessly tyrannises an agrarian commune – the liberator turned oppressor.

‘Voyage to Cythera’ (1984), co-scripted by Tonino Guerra, is another parable of Greece's political history. Manos Kakrakis, an aging Odysseus, and his wife Dora Volanaki are adrift on a raft with no home or destination: the failure of the communist dream.

International icon Marcello Mastroianni took on the lead role in Angelopoulos' 1986 chronicle of stasis and despair, ‘The Beekeeper’. Mastroianni's Spyros travels the traditional beekeeping routes, utterly unable to connect with the changing world around him.

Angelopoulos's ‘Landscape in the Mist’ is another parable of search without discovery. Two children sneak on board a train they hope will take them to Germany – but only baffling disappointment awaits.

In ‘Ulysses' Gaze’ Angelopoulos secured Harvey Keitel to play a Greek-American filmmaker obsessed with finding lost documentary footage of 'ordinary' people. The film was awarded the grand prix runner-up prize at Cannes; Angelopoulos was dismayed.

Angelopoulos finally secured the Palme d'Or with his 1998 film ‘Eternity and a Day’, in which a dying writer (Bruno Ganz) helps a young Albanian boy (Archileas Skevis) as a kind of distraction from his own impending dissolution.

The first in a projected trilogy, ‘The Weeping Meadow’ documents the turbulent first half of the 20th century, following a single family from the Russian revolution to the postwar civil conflict in Greece.

Angelopoulos' last completed feature was 2009's ‘The Dust of Time’, starring Michel Piccoli, Willem Dafoe and Irene Jacob. Dafoe takes on the Keitel role of a Greek-American film-maker; Jacob is his mother Eleni, a woman who manages to reunite with her husband Spyros (Piccoli) after deportation to a Soviet labour camp.

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Theodoros Angelopoulos (27 April 1935 – 24 January 2012), popularly known as Theo Angelopoulos, was a renowned Greek filmmaker, screenwriter and film producer. More Here.

The Greek film director Theo Angelopoulos, who has died aged 76 in a road accident, was an epic poet of the cinema, creating allegories of 20th-century Greek history and politics. He redefined the slow pan, the long take and tracking shots, of which he was a master. His stately, magisterial style and languidly unfolding narratives require some (ultimately rewarding) effort on the part of the spectator. "The sequence shot offers, as far as I'm concerned, much more freedom," Angelopoulos explained. "By refusing to cut in the middle, I invite the spectator to better analyse the image I show him, and to focus, time and again, on the elements that he feels are the most significant in it." The complete Theo Angelopoulos obituary in The Guardian.

Theo Angelopoulos, 1935-2012 at Mubi Notebook.

Theo Angelopoulos: his best films – in pictures in The Guardian.

The Suspended Step of the Stork in Strictly film school.

Valley Of Saints

2012-01-30T23:14:00.002+05:30

This is surprising. While we make a big deal with any Hollywood connection with India, one American-Indian film has won not one but two distinguished awards at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and the newspapers are somehow immune to it.

The film is Musa Syeed’s ‘Valley of Saints’, a tale of Kashmir, the Dal Lake, furtive romance and environmental issues, all rolled into one “lyrical, tender film”.

The film has won the ‘World Cinema Audience Award: Dramatic.”

It also received the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize. The Alfred P. Sloan jury presented the Sundance award to the film for its “brave, poetic and visually arresting evocation of a beautiful but troubled region, and for its moving, nuanced and accurate depiction of the relationship between a local boatman and a young woman scientist whose research challenges the status quo and offers hope for a restored ecosystem.”

Sundance Film Festival describes the film: “Gulzar plans to run away from the war and poverty surrounding his village in Kashmir with his best friend, but a beautiful young woman researching the dying lake leads him to contemplate a different future.”

Writes Justin Lowe in The Hollywood Reporter:

By most Western standards, Valley of Saints would barely be considered a romance – Gulzar and Asifa never actually go on a date, barely touch and never kiss. But in a culture that frowns upon unsupervised interaction between unmarried young men and women, the time that they spend alone together is an unanticipated opportunity.

Nonprofessional actors Bhat and Sofi have an easy rapport as the two young men and playing off Kashmiri actress Neelofar Hamid they create a convincing romantic triangle. The naturalistic performances complement the setting, with the majority of scenes shot on or along the lake.

Syeed, whose parents are from Kashmir, has directed several documentaries and his nonfiction experience proves apropos while working on and around the lake, shooting in cramped indoor quarters or aboard boats, mostly with available light. Setting his characters in their cultural setting and against the spectacular landscape, he favors minimal camera movement and fluid editing, picking up the pace when Afzal and Gulzar go into town or steal building supplies. The film’s bucolic mood is constantly threatened by the prevailing reality of violence and injustice in the region, a creeping tension that Syeed carefully calibrates to emphasize the tenuousness of his characters’ relationships.

The Complete Review Here.
The film is now playing at Rotterdam. Here is the Facebook page.

Demian Bichir

2012-01-29T23:56:00.003+05:30

Tonight, they are presenting the Filmfare award, and someone will take home the “black lady”. Who cares? I don’t know; things are changing. Personally, there was a time when I would be excited about awards, especially film awards. Any awards. Now, awards mean nothing to me. The other day, I was watching the recordings of the Golden Globe awards. I did not find the proceedings interesting to the least.

One of my friends, a Maryl Streep junkie, wants her to win the Oscar this year for the work in ‘The Iron Lady’. It’s unfair on her, he argues, she has been nominated for the prestigious award for 17 times, and has won just twice. Very unfair. I can understand the ruse. But an actor of Streep’s calibre does not need awards anymore. And also, the film itself is not up to the mark, despite Streep’s uncanny mimicry of the former British prime minister.

Talking about Oscars, however, I am happy with three nominations, and especially one in particular. I’m happy that ‘The Tree of Life’ has been recognised and got both Best Film and Best Director nods. It’s an important film of our time, despite it being pretentious, personal, audacious and whatnot. You may say whatever you like, the film remains what it is, a masterpiece. I’d like to see Terrence Malick win the best director Oscar. This is unlikely. He faces stiff competition from French Michel Hazanavicius, who has made a black & white silent film for our time, and to put it simply, ‘The Artist’ is extraordinary. The film has swept the awards this season, and is expected to shine at the Oscars too, including Best Film, Best Director and Best actor categories. The great Martin Scorsese and his ‘Hugo’ will have to be content with just the nominations. That’s okay. A brilliant crowd-pleasure like ‘Hugo’ does not need awards. At least, the film was not snubbed at the Oscars like ‘Shutter Island’ last year. And, poor Leonardo DiCaprio! Like ‘Shutter Island’ last year, his film ‘J Edgar’ was not nominated at all this year. This is a surprise, considering the academy’s love for Clint Eastwood.

Then you can nominate only this number of names!

Hence, I am very happy to see Wim Wenders’ ‘Pina’ in the documentary category. It’s not your typical documentary. But, what a wonderful experience it is. The best visual representation of dance ever!

Most of all, I am happy to see Mexican actor Demian Bichir nominated for ‘A Better Life’, a wonderful movie that needs to be seen, not only in American but elsewhere too. It’s the story of an undocumented gardener in LA, and how he struggles to build a life for himself and his son, who happens to be an American, however, because he was born there. So, the son becomes an American, veering towards the gang culture in LA, whereas the father remains a Mexican, still holding onto that ‘American Dream’ which is all but shattered. He wants to make it big, and there’s a constant fear; if authorities find him, he’d be deported. But, Carlos Galindo takes the risk anyway, borrows money and buys a truck. Now, the truck is stolen. This is ‘The Bicycle Thief’ in LA. Soon, authorities find him and he’s deported. But, how do you kill hope? With his son left behind, Galindo must return, somehow, and he would. Issues of immigrant labourer and their troubles in films is not new. Recently, I saw the German film ‘The Albanian’ at the Piff. Another film is Stephen Frears’ ‘Pretty, Dirty Things’. In this case, the Chris Weitz film is more of a human drama than an issue-based film. The issue is wide in the open, but the film focuses on Galindo and his persistent hopes for his son, and how Bichir plays the character makes all the different. As someone said, Bichir makes the film play like a Greek tragedy!

He is a well known name in Mexico, but outside he was relatively unknown till Steven Soderbergh cast him to play Fidel Castro in ‘Che’. And now, ‘A Better Life’ puts him in the top league. If nothing else, it should make more people see the film.

For that matter, this is also the first time Gary Oldman has been nominated for an Oscar for best actor for ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’. This is surprising indeed, for he’s been in mainstream Hollywood for years, and has played everything from Count Dracula to Lee Oswald to Sid Vicius. He is one of the greatest actors of our time.

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More on The Devil and Demian Bichir at The NY Times.
More on A Better Life here.
More on Bichir Here.
The Roger Ebert Review Here.
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UPDATE///

About the Filmfare awards, I am happy to see my choices being recognised by popular tastes. The ‘Darling’ song from ‘7 Khoon Maaf’ got Rekha Bharadwaj and Usha Uthup an award and the ‘Jo bho mein kehna chahoon’ song from ‘Rockstar’ got Mohit Chauhan the black lady. Both are my favourite songs of the year.

Jo bhi mein kehna chahoon
barbad kare alfaaz meri...

Whatever I want to say
Betray my words...

Jaipur Literature Festival

2012-01-27T16:42:00.018+05:30

Hooray! I’m back from the Jaipur Literature Festival, which was held at The Diggi Palace Hotel in Jaipur, Rajasthan from January 20-24, 2012, and I’m still dazed. I’m sure everyone in India knows about the event by now, thanks to a certain person called Salman Rushdie. I’ll not even mention the controversy... It was my first time at JLF, and in short, I was like a kid in a candy shop; only thing was, I was a timid kid. I remained an observer than a participant. Now, I regret the missed opportunities. There were so many people, authors, celebrities, and others, and I really did not network with anyone — no autographs, no photographs, no asking for visiting cards, no stopping a celebrity on the way and tell him/her that I’m a big fan, and so on. I just stood there, sipping cups and cups of tea in earthen tumblers (Rs 10 for one cup), and Whiskey, at the three parties I attended. In short, I was star-struck...

The following are the highlights of what I saw:

The audience. Everyone who visited the festival earlier said this year, the rush has been unprecedented. Thanks to Mr Rushdie? Anyway, the venue was choc-a-block on all days; all the four, sometimes five, platforms where sessions were held were full to capacity, and the crowd was overflowing. You cannot take five steps without stepping onto someone, and if you are lucky, that someone may be a famous personality, which usually was the case. Look, there’s Ila Arun. Look, that’s Shekhar Kapur. That’s Shekhar Kapur all right, on the corner of the stage, attending the session on literary adaptations. On the stage was Tom Stoppard, Girish Karnad and Vishal Bharadwaj, among others.

The authors: Michael Ondaatje chairs a session on the art of short stories. On stage are Annie Proulx and Jamaica Kincaid, in a pair of yellow sneakers and a hat, talking about New Yorker and “the island,” (I am sorry to report I missed the name of other two authors...) In an event filled with literary stars, Ondaatje was one of the biggest, but certainly not the most popular. Mohammed Hanif was, and Amy Chua, and wait for it, Gulzar. We are coming to that. You could gaze the popularity by the line at the “author signing” area. The longer the line the popular you are. And despite everything else, Chetan Bhagat too got a long, long line.

The Celebrity: Is Prakash Jha a celebrity? We can argue on that. But, the cameras won’t stop flashing at him when he entered the venue one fine morning. As far as I can see he was alone, and was very gracious. He stopped for the gathering crowd who had gone berserk clicking his pictures and also posed with fans. In between, he also got time to gawk inside the Durbar Hall where a session was in progress. Admirable. But then, it was the fate of all celebrities, and I must say, almost all of them were in jolly mood, entertaining their fans.

Hoshang Merchant: He had the afternoon session on the first day and he had forgotten his copy of his recently published autobiography, ‘The Man Who Would Be Queen’ at the hotel room. So, I went to the bookshop and bought a copy for him to read at the session, which he later signed and gave back to me. Later, I tagged along with him to the party hosted to Penguin to celebrate their 25 years in India. For the occassion, they had placed an old car in front of the hotel where the party was, painted in bright orange and white. It was awesome. Hoshang is fun to be with when he’s in a good mood. And when you are in a good mood.

Arshia Sattar: I clicked the picture as she prepared to go inside for one of her sessions. She couldn’t smoke on the dais after all. She was one of the few people I knew at the venue. She is also one of the few people I really, really admire, since the days she was in Open Space in Pune. After all, she got me my first book launch, the launch of my book of poems way back in 2004.

Camera: Oh, that Girish Karnad. And, I am bad photographer. I was sitting at the lawn, bitching with Hoshang, and I looked up and see Karnad writing something on the table there. I thought, it would make a good picture. But, by the time I got the camera and fixed my gaze, he had already turned. Talking about pictures, there’s one picture I saw somewhere. As part of their 25th year, Penguin has lauched various merchandise, among them are bags that immitate names of best-selling books, like ‘A Suitable Bag’ and ‘Bag of Small Things’ and so on. So, there was Gurcharan Das sitting there, carrying a bag that screamed: ‘The Difficulty of Being A Bag’. Neat.

The Moment: Just a moment. It was just a moment, I was face to face with one of my favourite poets. While I was happy to watch most of these big and famous names from afar, this time, I said, why not, when everyone else has done so. He was posing with a bunch of kids when I went to him. As he turned, I said, sir, big fan, one picture. This is not that picture. That picture I am not showing anyone. Did I ever think that one day I would stand so close to Gulzar, ever? Never. That was a moment!

Choices: Attending a session at JLF was like answering a multiple choice question. At any given point you’ll have to choose between four options. There’s Front Lawn, the biggest venue perhaps. Then you come to the main struture of the palace-turned-hotel and come to Durban Hall, which is, as the name suggests a real hall from the days of the kings and princes, with portraits adorning the walls, and a huge mirror. If you stand in front of Durban Hall, on your right is the Baithak, with cane chairs and colourful cushions, my favourite of the four venues, very information and charming. On your left, little further on the backyard is the Mughal Tent, another bigger venue. Opposite to it is the book signing area where the authors gathered after the sessions, and fans surrounded them. That was the constant: People. Half of them young or youngish, in beautiful clothes and books and/or camera in hand... And did I mention the makeshift food joints, the tea stalls, a Ritu Kumar stall, I think I also spotted a ethnic jewellery store.

Day 1. Afternoon. Baithak. Session: ‘Whistling in the Dark: Writing Gender’. I am not sure if the organisers were not comfortable using the ‘S’ word, or whatever, but the title was misleading. Featuring R Raj Rao and Hoshang Merchant, with Minal Hajratwala moderating, the topic was sexuality, queer sexuality to be precise, not gender. Anyway, the authors said whatever they wanted to say, and the audience asked more questions about activism than literature per say. And, Vikram Seth was picked on for obvious reasons. At the end, Minal announced about the queer anthology she is editing for Queer Ink, titled ‘Open’ which should be out soon. Can’t wait for it: the book contains a story by yours truly.

The Literary Star: There were many an A-list authors at the festival, but for me, aside from Gulzar, the star was Nigerian writer Ben Okri. That he looks like a Hollywood star (with his cap), helped the matter. He had a great fan following. He is after all a “syllabus” author in most Indian universities. Everyone has read ‘The Famished Road’ (1991). It was on the fourth day. He had already appeared for a session or two, and it was a great success. He met fans, signed books, and talked to reporters. He was on the papers the next day. On the fourth day, he joined Teju Cole, the hot, new author of ‘Open City’, and Taiye Selasi, to talk about “Afropolitan”, a concept argued by Selasi, which refers to internationally mobile, young people of African descent, making their mark on the world. In her mind, we are not citizens, but rather “Africans of the world.” It was stimulating session, one of the best at the festival. Okri enters the stage, and addresses the crowd: “Times of India, we all love you, but no one calls Africa the “dark continent” anymore.” Shame on you, reporters. More on Afropolitan here.

The audience: I must confess. I hardly attended any session at the festival. All the did was to float around, from one spot to another and look at people, celebrities, commoners alike. There was so much to see, look, gawk, observe. The people in their designer wear, oh, those jackets, and those boots, and those cameras, and those T-shirts, and those dresses, and those faces, and those colours. It was like attending a friend’s wedding. You know a few people at the venue, but most of them are strangers to you and you have nothing to do other than just sit there and watch, and watch. It was surreal, to say the least. But, intellectually stimulating? I have my doubts.

Time Stopped: And here’s the great Tom Stoppard of ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead’ fame, attending a session of literary adaptations, with Lionel Shriver (author of ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin, made into a film by Lynn Ramsay), Vishal Bhardwaj and Richard Flanagan, chaired by Girish Karnad. The subject was interesting, but the session was ultimately frustrating, because there was no time to say anything substantial. Five people and just one hour. It’s unfair. How much can you do in an hour? Especially when the chair took most of the time, voicing his opinions. I don’t have any problems with Karnad speaking. He made sense. But it limited the scope for others to speak. I wish I could hear Stoppard speak more. He said ‘The Great Gatsby’ is a novel that is unfilmable, and I agree.

Seediq Bale

2012-01-27T16:35:00.002+05:30

A FILM that depicts Taiwan’s half-century of Japanese colonial rule from the point of view of a fierce tribe of indigenous headhunters is generating a surge of national pride on the island. “Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale” was surrounded by buzz at this year’s Venice Film Festival. But that was nothing compared with its reception in Taiwan since opening on September 9th.

Made by an acclaimed Taiwanese director, Wei Te-sheng, with John Woo, a Hollywood force, as producer, the film has already broken records. At a cost of $25m, it is the most expensive Taiwanese film ever made. The opening-day takings of NT$23m ($790,000), for the first of what will be two instalments, were the highest ever for a Taiwanese film. More box-office records are bound to follow.

Quite probably “Warriors of the Rainbow” also has the highest number of graphic beheadings of any film anywhere. But they are faithful historical depictions. In 1930 hundreds of Taiwan’s Seediq people living in the central uplands, oppressed and exploited by the Japanese and believing their culture was being destroyed, revolted against their overlords with scant hope of success. They first attacked a school athletics gathering, slaughtering over 100 Japanese, and then raided police outposts. The uprising, known as the Wushe incident, triggered a brutal Japanese response, including poison gas dropped from aircraft. The rebellion’s leader, Mouna Rudao, is still seen as a folk hero by many Taiwanese.

The Complete Economist Story Here.

My Book

2012-01-26T23:19:00.003+05:30

Okay. I was more than invisible at the Jaipur Literature Festival this year. I was there for four days, and had a gala time spotting great and famous writers and also celebrities.

Among all the glitter, it was nice to see my book being sold at the bookshop at the venue. The bookshop only had books by the writers who were scheduled to appear in the sessions, and who were invited for the festival. I wasn’t invited. But my co-edit was indeed.

And I basked on reflected glory.

My time will come. Sure.

Claire Denis

2012-01-17T23:46:00.005+05:30

It’s little surprising. French filmmaker Claire Denis is such a talent, and yet, nobody in India seems to know her. I’m talking about those who claim to be cinema aficionado. Therefore, it was sheer surprise to see, not one but two Claire Denis films at this year’s Pune International Film Festival.

I discovered Claire Denis in the internet, I think in the website ‘Reverse Shot’. Since then I have seen four of her films, including the English language body-horror-blood fest ‘Trouble Every Day’.

The problem with Denis is that she is a filmmaker who is almost impossible to contain in a definitive category. Her body of work is so eclectic that it may unnerve an uninitiated viewer. The more problematic is her politics. Being a white woman she deals with colonialism, race and gender, and more importantly, the politics of power. These broad themes are visible in all her works, despite the fact that she never comments on these issues. She shows.

Claire Denis shows, and her vision is piercing. Yet, she refuses to tell a story. She is more interested in the people in a particular moment then their definitive growth. She loves her characters, but refuses to give them the closure that movies usually do. Yet, this love is infectious. That’s where the power of a Claire Denis film lies; her characters draw you in. As a viewer, you live with them, you dance with them.
‘Beau Travail’ (1999) ends with such a dance. Denis Lavant, the Captain Ahab prototype (the film is ostensibly a retelling of Herman Melville’s ‘Moby Dick’) goes to an empty dance floor, with mirrors lining the walls. He smokes a cigarette. Throughout the film we have seen as an uptight man; his veins move, he doesn’t. Now, on the dance floor, his body begins to move, first slowly, and then passionately, as he dances with himself, opening up to himself. The scene has such extraordinary power you can actually sense what the Lavant character must be thinking at that very moment.

This year’s Piff is showing Denis’ recent two films — ‘35 Shots of Rum’ (2008) and ‘White Material’ (2009), and both are different as chalk and cheese, but made with the same Denis touch.

'35 rhums' also involves a dance, and revelations, and that one scene, in a Jamaican bar in a Paris suburb in a rainy evening, elevates the film into an extraordinary work of art. The film tells the story of a not-so-typical father-daughter relationship, who finally realise that it’s time they must break away. They don’t discuss the issues, they understand. Both the father and daughter get new rice cookers one evening. So the daughter packs the one she had brought and uses the one her father purchases. It’s a simple, almost banal scene and how Denis employs it, it tells you volumes that no dialogues would ever be able to.

‘White Material’ is more complicated. At the centre of it is a white woman, played with fragile strength by very talented Isabel Huppert, in an unnamed African country in the middle of civil war. She manages a coffee plantation and this has been her life. Now, the war has thrown lives out of gear. As her employees flee, she stands her ground to a series of consequences she would have no control over.

The film is not a study of colonialism or neo-colonialism. It is also not a commentary of the state of modern African. It’s both, and none. Above all, it’s a story of the resilience of human nature.

Claire Denis filmography//

Chocolat / Chocolate (1988)
S'en fout la mort / No Fear, No Die (1990)
J'ai pas sommeil / I Can't Sleep (1994)
Nénette et Boni / Nenette and Boni (1996)
Beau travail / Good Work (1999)
Trouble Every Day (2001)
Vendredi soir / Friday Night (2002)
L'intrus / The Intruder (2004)
35 rhums / 35 Shots of Rum (2008)
White Material (2009)

More about Claire Denis Here.

Alexander Gundorov & His Sparrow

2012-01-16T22:35:00.003+05:30

Cinema is perhaps the financially expensive of all art forms, and no one is more burdened with this than the producer of the film. Yet, he remains the most unsung aspect of the film itself. Russian film producer Alexander Gundorov, in attendance at the 10th Pune International Film Festival with his first feature film ‘Vorobey’ (Sparrow), does not mind this as long as the film as he wanted it to be is made. That itself is a concern. “It’s money,” he gestures.

Despite the presence of two translators, the Russian gentleman insists on speaking in broken, halting English as he talks about his film ‘Sparrow’, money, and the condition of films in Russia in general. “The situation is neither good not bad,” he says. “However, things are on the tumble as result of recession since 2008.” And, Hollywood is encroaching. “Earlier, there used to be at least 150 feature films in Russian every year. Post-2008, it has come down around 70 films per year. Of all the films released in Russia, only 25% of them are local productions. Of 75%, a major chuck is from Hollywood, most of which are dubbed to Russian.” And Indian films? “There may be one percent market for Indian movies.” Curiously, the dialogues of the Indian films are dubbed, while the song and dance sequences are kept as it is.

Not the market, but money that’s the main concern. There are around 8 production houses. “The ministry of culture sometimes funds portions of the film, but it’s not enough. So, it mostly depends upon sponsors. There is no guarantee of getting the money back, as piracy has almost killed the DVD homevideo market.”

But, passion remains. It is this passion that made Gundorov, an established producer of documentary films, finance his first foray into feature films. “I grew up in villages. But this village life is slowly dying, as cities are becoming more and more globalised. That is why we wanted to make this film on a village.”

The film tells the story of a remote Siberian village which treasures beautiful horses, and they are protected at any cost. Now, the chairman of the village council has lost public funds on an unsuccessful business venture and has decided to make up on the losses by selling the herd to a slaughterhouse. While the villagers are nonchalant about this new development, a 10-year-old son of a local shepherd stands up against the plot. His name is Sparrow.

Gundorov is not sure if the film is a ‘typical’ arthhouse film, but he agrees that it’s not a commercial venture as such.

Interestingly, ‘Sparrow’ also happens to be the directorial feature of Yuri Schiller, an experienced and well known documentary filmmaker. Both Gundorov and Schiller embarked on this project, despite financial constraint and all, because it was a subject close to their hearts.

Gundorov has produced more than 60 documentaries in Russian in varied subjects ranging from army to science and technology to history to modern Russia. And, how is modern Russian? “Modern Russian is full of possibilities,” says Gundorov.

Talk veers to well know Russian films, like Timur Bekmambetov’s ‘Nigth Watch’ (2004), which opened a new market for Russian films before the recession, and big budget films like Sergey Bodrov’s ‘Mongol’ (2007).

Gundorov would also like to make a big budget costume drama like ‘Mongol’ on a 14th Century Russian heroic figure. But, this will take years, blame it on the money. “I’m hoping to get a good amount of money from the ministry of culture, if not the entire amount.” We wish him luck.

More on Sparrow here.

Deool

2012-01-15T22:49:00.002+05:30

Though his FTII student film ‘Girni’ garnered accolades at film festivals and such, director Umesh Kulkarni really burst into the Marathi film world with ‘Valu’ (The Bull), a satire in garb of a comedy and also a social commentary on rural Maharashtra. After an arty turn with his sophomore effort ‘Vihir’ (The Well) (which was produced by Amitabh Bachchan’s company, and which made all the right noises, but somehow really failed the find the ground. It played in theatres in Pune for few weeks and then disappeared. Not even a DVD on sight. According to critics, if nothing else, the film looks really, really good.), Kulkarni returns to the familiar terrain, the village life, the assortment of characters to represent the cross-section of society, and a biting social satire wrapped in comedy. ‘Deool’ works well, because, to begin with, the writing is impeccable. The film understands its characters and let them be. The title ‘Deool’ translates into Temple, a proposed temple in the film which soon becomes a site of political maneuverings.

“The film also about faith,” said Kulkarni at the press conference after the film was screened at the 10th Pune International Film Festival. “Real faith does not need any paraphernalia.”

The film is also about loss of innocence. Keshav dreams of the God and decides that he must build a temple to honour Him. As the film progresses and as everyone try to take advantage of the situation to push their personal agendas, Keshav loses his way, ultimately realising that it was not what he wanted when he first started out to build the temple. “It’s the process that corrupts you,” says Kulkarni.

Did he worry about how the film will do? Kurkarni said, “While making the film we don’t think how the film will do. It’s not a good idea. It puts pressure on you.”

And how about the controversy that one of the songs from the film generated. “We talked to the people who complained about the song and asked them if they have seen the film. They said they did not, but they did not like the song. This is something we cannot do anything about. Whatever we do, somebody or other is likely to complaint about it. Even if I lift my hand, it may hurt someone sentiment.”

Point taken.

(Picture courtesy: Pune International Film Festival 2012)
Deool in Wikipedia.

Johannes Naber & The Albanian

2012-01-15T18:27:00.004+05:30

He is a handsome man, beyond doubt (and he doesn’t look German at all; not that I really know what Germans look like!). Johannes Naber is at the 10th Pune International Film Festival with his debut feature ‘The Albanian’, which addresses the issues of illegal migrants in Germany.

At the press conference on Saturday after the film premiered on Friday, director of the festival, Jabbar Patel, takes the mike and tells the audience, look at him, isn’t he handsome, he should be in a film as an actor, not as a director. Naber says perhaps the reason he isn’t an actor is he was really bad at acting. Patel then mentions how in India, there are people who direct a film and then cast themselves in the lead role, acting or no acting.

Naber, however, is passionate about his first film. “I believe films can change the world,” he says and this is one of the motivations why he made the film, despite the fact that it really took him a long time. “There is a stigma attracted to Albanians. I wanted to address this issue.”

Albania is perhaps the poorest of all European nations, and that’s the reason there are a host of migrant workers from Albania in Germany, who works in the fringes, without any recognition from the society they work for. And the issue is never discussed in mainstream German society. Naber wanted to do something about it. First, he wanted to do a documentary, which later turned into a feature film. First, he thought he’d work with non-professional actors, then decided against it as his characters were far more complex and needed professional interpretations. That’s when he found Albanian actor Nik Xhelilaj, a well know name in Albania, but not really know outside. With this film, he arrives at the international filmdom.

But, isn’t Naber an outsider to talk about the issue itself? Naber says he knew this and wanted participation of Albanian counterparts. He traveled to Albania and sought help of the Albanian film industry. Thus, all Albanian characters in the film are played by Albanian actors.

Though he received grants from government agencies to fund the film, money was an issue. Hence, he decided to shoot the film with a Super 16 camera. “But, I’m happy with the results. It looks exactly the way I wanted it to look.”

Therefore, it’s not surprising that the film was so well received in Albania. In Germany, the film however was a commercial failure, despite the fact that it was lauded at various film festivals.

Talking about illegal immigrants and the issues surrounding it, there has been a number of films on the subject, which covertly and overtly address the issues, the recent one being Chris Weitz’s ‘A Better Life’ with Mexican actor Damien Bichir in a breakout role. The film dissects the dynamics of Mexican workforce in the United States, though the story of a single father. He is an illegal immigrant, who does not have any papers, and he’d be deported if the authorities find him, however, his son is an American as he was born there. The film saddles this contradiction and much more.

There are other films on the issue, and off the cuff, I can mention German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s ‘Ali: Fear Eats the Soul’, German-Turkish filmmaker Fatih Akin’s ‘The Edge of Heaven’ and ‘Soul Kitchen’, Dardenne brothers’s ‘The Silence of Lorna’ and to a certain extent all Alejandro González Iñárritu films, particularly ‘Babel’ and ‘Buitiful.’

(Picture courtesy: Pune International Film Festival)

The Albanian (German: Der Albaner, Albanian: Shqiptari) is a 2010 German and Albanian drama film directed by Johannes Naber and starring the Albanian award-winning Nik Xhelilaj.

For the sake of love and the situations imposed by the life in his country, Arben emigrates to Germany. An illegal emigration, in search of money, a subtle condition to protect his love; an adventure that unintentionally confronts him with the unmerciful world of crime.

More here.

>>>>>

Writes Alissa Simon in Variety.

An illegal immigrant in Berlin tries to earn the dowry demanded by the family of his pregnant beloved back home in social-issue drama "The Albanian." German helmer-writer Johannes Naber's involving feature debut highlights the difficulties facing undocumented workers in highly regulated Deutschland, as well as the honor codes of Albanian clans. Specialized Euro exposure and further fest travel are in the cards.

The Full Review Here.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
This past weekend I saw a recent German/Albanian narrative film entitled simply The Albanian. Rarely have I seen a movie that confronts the fullest picture of the worldwide controversy regarding undocumented workers and illegal immigration. While its sympathies are clearly with immigrants, it does not resort to cheap sentimentality or agitprop. We recognize how the issue involves all the complications and tragedies of human lives. Suffice it to say that the entire matter is much more complicated than we ever usually contemplate, even for those of us who support immigration reform and human rights.

Full Review Here.

Piff: Sujay Dahake & His School

2012-01-14T23:52:00.002+05:30

I have seen the next Poster Boy of Marathi cinema and his name is Sujay Dahake.

If the statement sounds grandiose and prophetic, then it is. Out of nowhere comes a youngster, with a film which looks mature beyond the years of its maker. During the press meet on Saturday, after the film premiered at the Pune International Film Festival on Friday, director of the festival Jabbar Patel, who was moderating the event, had to ask twice to this unassuming young man in a low-key leather jacket if he really was the director of the film ‘Shala’ (School). He said he was indeed. He was confident. He knew what he was doing.

And, he is young, incredibly young. Just 25. And is ready with a film, and the film looks spectacular, at least on youtube.

How was it like seeing his first film being screened at the film festival. “Since I’m from this city, I have been attending Piff for the last 10 years, and I always wished one day my film will be screen here. So, it was a dream come true,” he takes a pause, and adds: “Yesterday’s screening was overwhelming. The hall was packed, with people sitting on the aisles. There were more people outside who couldn’t enter the hall. Even I, myself, did not get to see the film yesterday.”

Even before the premier, the film has generated a lot of interest among the public. Producer Nilesh Navalakha lets out the secret. “We have had a great campaign though social media. Our Facebook page has received more than 9,000 likes (which is wonderful for a Marathi film), and even the youtube videos of the film has received considerable number of hits.”

But, what’s ‘Shala’ is all about? The Facebook page says it’s a love story from real India. “It’s an adolescent love story set against the backdrop of Emergency,” says Dahake. It’s one of the darkest hours of India’s history, and, it all happened more than 10 years before Dahake was born.

And, then, that very moment, during the press conference at Hotel Rendezvous, something wonderful happened. I don’t know how many people actually noticed it, but it struck to me after Jabbar Patel mentioned his film ‘Sinhasan’ (which was made during Emergency). There they were, two generations of filmmakers, one veteran, one brand-new, both of whom have made films against the backdrop of the same time, a rather sordid history of our time, and they are here sharing a platform, talking about marketing local films. (Patel said how he decided to release ‘Singhasan’ as soon as possible without much ado, as he feared that once Mrs Gandhi came back to power, she may have a problem with the film. It was another story that film was well-received, and now considered to be a masterpiece of sorts.)

While ‘Shala’ has become popular via internet among the urban/multiplex audiences, what marketing strategies are there for the audiences in other parts of the state, say Nashik, or Nandurbar, asks Patel. And, this is where the market for Marathi audience lies.

Basked on a novel by Milind Bokil, ‘Shala’ tells the story of a group of school boys in 1975 as they experience love and political turmoil at the same time.

And oh, his confidence. Dahake said he edited the film himself, as he did not want others to butchers his shots. “I’m perhaps little selfish that way,” he says politely. Perhaps. But, it also shows quiet confidence.

Dahake did his masscom from Pune, then studied film semiotics in Mumbai before going to Philippines to study further. Here’s another interesting thing. Here is one fresh new voice who is not a passout of FTII.

Jury is still out on how good the film really is, literally, as the film is in the competition as well at the Piff. But, one thing is certain, we have a brand new vision to watch out for.

(Picture courtesy Pune International Film Festival 2012.)
The Facebook Page.

Once Upon A Time In Anatolia

2012-01-13T23:52:00.001+05:30

Writes Andrew O'Hehir in Salon: What a handful of patient moviegoers may find in “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia,” however, is a subtle, gorgeous and mysterious allegory that may be Ceylan’s masterwork to date. (His only previous films distributed in the United States were “Climates” in 2006 and “Three Monkeys” in 2008, both of them award-winners at Cannes, as was this film.) It’s like an episode of “CSI,” scripted by Anton Chekhov, stretched to two and a half hours, and photographed against the bleak, impressive scenery of Turkey’s central steppes. (The amazing cinematography is by Gökhan Tiryaki, Ceylan’s usual collaborator.) This is a road movie that reaches no clear destination, and a story of an investigation that reaches clumsy and inconclusive results. To enjoy it, you have to travel at Ceylan’s pace, and accept his moments of elusive unexpected revelation as they come. There’s no point pretending that kind of movie is to most people’s taste.

A handsome, mustachioed country doctor named Cemal (Muhammat Uzuner), whose manner suggests an urbane, educated background, goes out into the night with a police commissar (Yilmaz Erdogan) and the local prosecutor (Taner Birsel). While it’s fair to say that Ceylan is always concerned with the conflict within Turkish society between the secular, Europeanized elite and the traditional, Islamic interior, that issue is addressed here only in symbolic, oblique fashion. They’re dragging along a stringy-haired miscreant named Kenan (Firat Tanis), who has already confessed to killing someone in a stupid dispute and promised to lead authorities to the body. But the scraggly wilderness proves baffling, it’s not clear how well Kenan remembers the crime, and the expedition wanders back and forth on remote roadways, devolving into territorial bickering and attempts by the cop and prosecutor to impress Cemal or enlist him as an ally.

The Complete Review Here.

Sacrifice

2012-01-13T23:13:00.002+05:30

In Russian master Andrei Tarkovsky’s last film ‘The Sacrifice’ (1986), the protagonist, Alexander, who is vacationing in an island somewhere in Denmark, with his family, suddenly realises that the world is going to end in a nuclear explosion, soon. To save the world from this ultimate doom, Alexander decides to make the ultimate sacrifice, himself and his family in exchange for the world. “I’ll give Thee all I have, I’ll give up my family, whom I love, I’ll destroy my home and give up Little Man (his young son),” Alexander prays to God, in exchange for the safety of the world.

Whether Alexander’s prayers are answered or not is a climax of the film, and if you know your cinema, you may have seen this indelible image of the house burning, one of the iconic scenes ever committed to cinema.

Here is an incredible remark on gift and sacrifice...

One day, the local postmaster, Otto, brings home a large frame of a map of undivided Europe. It’s an original, says the postmaster, and a gift.

“How beautiful it is! We must take it inside. Come, now!” says Alexander’s wife.

“But it's far too dear a gift. I don't know if I...” says Alexander.

“Oh, God, don't say that!” says Otto.

“But it's far too much! Too much, Otto! I know it's no sacrifice, but...”

“And why shouldn't it be? Of course it's a sacrifice!” says Otto. “Every gift involves a sacrifice. If not, what kind of gift would it be?”

Every gift involves a sacrifice. If not, what kind of gift would it be?

Piff: Around the World in 8 Days

2012-01-13T17:18:00.002+05:30

Ten-year isn’t a long time in the life of public event like a film festival. However, in less than a decade, the Pune International Film Festival (Piff) has acquired a cultural significance which is rare even in a city like ours, the culture capital of Maharashtra. That the festival was honoured as the state film festival, only adds to its significance.

The city is no stranger to film culture, what with two major film-related institutes — FTII and NFAI, gracing the landscape. But then, FTII is academic while NFAI caters mostly to serious movie-buffs. The annual film festival on the other hand, democratises the access to films, talking along both the aforementioned institutes.

As the 10th edition of the festival opened on Thursday, the delegate passed have already sold out, and the organisers expect a full house at all its venues spreading across the city. What is this allure of Piff?

“Piff is not just a film festival, says Sikha Singh, a self-confessed film aficionado. “I call it a whirlwind world tour, around the world in eight days, to be precise. Piff is a celebration of cinema and what cinema can offer us. Piff gives you a chance to see the world via celluloid. The festival gives us a chance to view and understand the changing scenarios of the world, in a span of eight days, within a single platform. It offers you a chance to travel to other parts of the world, something you cannot do personally. The festival is unparalleled for this very reason, if nothing else.”

“I wait for Piff every year, just to see the Marathi films,” says Omid Verzandeh, a PhD students from Iran at the University of Pune. “It’s the only time I get to see a local film with subtitles, which is amazing.”

The rise of Marathi cinema in the last few years also owes a portion of its success to Piff, since most of these award winning films, from ‘Valu’ to ‘Garbicha Paus’ premiered at the festival.

This year’s logo of the festival is itself telling. The silhouette of a boy and a girl running reminds us of the iconic scene from Satyajit Ray’s ‘Pather Pachali’ where Apu and Durga runs across the fields to see a trains. For them, the train is a object of wonder. For the delegates, Piff offers a world of wonder.

While there are people who likens Jabbar Patel, director of the festival with American filmmaker Martin Scorsese, for their love for cinema as a medium of artistic expression and how they have encouraged others in the process, and how Patel has steered the festival from strength to strength over the years, Piff has its fair share of distractors. One of the recurrent complaint is the lack of planning and that the festival is not equipped to handle the pressure of such a large number of delegates. The complaint is not unjustified. There were times when the catalogues and schedules were not ready till the last moments. However, as Patel said these lapses are not uncommon for a festival which is fairy young, and Piff is learning via trial and error. So it seems. Thus, this year, the list of films to be screened at the festival has been uploaded to the festival website well in advance, whereas the complete schedule remains elusive.

Here’s what in offer at Piff this year, an itinerary from all over the world.

The World Competition sections have films from Albania, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, China, Germany, Iran, Poland, Spain and Russia. Among them, the Iranian film ‘A Separation’ (2011), which is tipped to win this year’s Oscar for best foreign film, is a must see. So are German film ‘The Albanian’ (2010), and if you are a fan of French actress Isabelle Huppert, ‘My Little Princess’ (2011).

This year, the country focus is Germany and you have almost all the documentaries by inimitable Warner Herzog. It’d be impossible to catch all of them, but, his trip to the Antarctic in ‘Encounter at the End of the World’ (2007), and the film on the Sahara tribe Wodaabe, “Herdsmen of the Sun’ (1989) are not to be missed. Also must see is compatriot Wim Wenders’ ‘Pina’, a tribute to dancer itself. Also showing is his tale of an angel in Berlin who yearns to be a human, ‘Wings of Desire’ (1987).

In Global Cinema section, France is represented by two auteur, not very well known perhaps, but extraordinary talents. Claire Denis looks at Africa from the point of view of a white woman in ‘White Material’ (2010), while Bruno Dumont’s ‘Hadewijch’ (2009) untangles the link between religion and terrorism. Another notable entries include, Bangladeshi film ‘Guerrilla’ (2011), Colombian film ‘The Colors of the Mountain’ (2010), Estonian film ‘Letters to Angel’ (2010), Hungary’s ‘The Lover of the Soil’, Korea’s ‘Mother’ (2009), Canadian 'Night #1' and Roberto Rosellini’s much-talked-about ‘India: Matri Bhumi’ (1959).

Last year, Japan was the country focus and aficionados complained about lack of Japanese master Yasujiro Ozu. This year we have a retrospective of Ozu, with films such as ‘Floating Weeds’ (1959), ‘End of Summer (1961), and classic ‘Tokyo Story’ (1953). Another master in retrospective is Taiwan’s Hsiao-Hsien Hou. Aficionados may miss the recent classics like ‘Flight of the Red Balloon’ and ‘Three Times,’ must watch are ‘Cafe Lumiere’ (2003) and ‘Good Man Good Woman’ (1995). Other two luminaries in the retrospective section are Ashok Kumar and Iranian Rasul Aadr Ameli.

In the Indian cinema section, we have Kerala’s ‘Abu Son of Adam’ (2011), India’s official entry to the Oscars. Another notable film is Santosh Sivan’s historic actioner ‘Urumi’ (2011).

While Marathi cinema in competition include Umesh Kulkarni’s ‘Deool’ Sumitra Bhave and Sunil Sukthankar’s ‘Ha Bharat Maza’ and Ravi Jadhav’s ‘Balgandharva’, among others, the The Marathi Cinema Today section include films such as ‘Khel Mandala’ and ‘Yada, Yada Hi Dharmasya’.

Dance

2012-01-10T00:36:00.000+05:30

Salman Rushdie is back in news. First, the news was he’s coming to Jaipur Literature Festival 2012. He’d be attending a session titled, very tiresomely, ‘Midnight’s Child’ (Rushide and this midnight business has already gone too far; wait for the Deepa Mehta film now!). Now, the news is there are people who do not want him in India. One group has urged the government to cancel his visa, because his actions have hurt the sentiments of the people. (Oh, I forgot, Rushdie has joined tweeter; Rushdie has proposed to his news girlfriend; Rushdie in a verbal duel with Taslima Nasreen; Rushdie at war with Facebook. Rushdie. Exhausting!)

The colleagues were talking about Rushdie. Then the talk veered towards his ex-flame, Padma Lakshmi. Next stop, Padma Lakshmi’s career as food host. Next stop, food reality shows. Next stop, the bad behaviour of Gordon Ramsay, and then, next stop, the oh-so-wonderful MasterChef Australia, the best food reality show in the world.

And I was thinking.

Who watches those food shows? I cannot watch a food show without getting hungry, and feeling really bad because I am never going to taste that delicious dish. Who watches these food shows? And I argue that those people who cannot cook to save their lives enjoy those shows. It gives them a kick to watch other people doing something they cannot do, and doing it well, and in style.

This is a pattern.

That is why you will see that the most ardent follower of cricket, the one who will plan to kill Sachin Tendulkar after he was out without scoring and would want to wash his feet after he had scored a century, is the one who has never touched the bat, or be in the field.

I should know.

For the last few days, I have been watching the American sitcom ‘Glee’ like mad. Why do I like ‘Glee’, and for that matter the musicals, and Fred Astaire? That because I cannot dance. I have the proverbial two left feet. And watching the best in the business perform their best moves give me that satisfaction, however imaginary that may be. I dance in my dream.

That is why I’m in love with the new Win Wenders documentary ‘Pina.’

Run Joey Run

2012-01-08T21:20:00.001+05:30

Here’s another song featured in American sitcom ‘Glee’ Season 1, in the episode called ‘Bad Raputation.’ It’s one of those narrative ballads, which tells the story of doomed love, Romeo-Juliet style. Nothing extraordinary, but charming. The song is ‘Run Joey Run’ by David Geddes.

David Cole Idema (born July 1, 1950), best known by the stage name David Geddes, is a soft rock singer who had a US Top 5 hit with "Run Joey Run" in 1975, which peaked at #4 in October 1975. More Here.

>>>
Run Joey Run

Julie
Daddy please don't it wasn't his fault
He means so much to me
Daddy please don't, we're gonna get married
Just you wait and see

Joey
Every night the same old dream I hate to close my eyes
I can't erase the memory the sound of Julie's cry
She called me up late that night she said :
Joe, don't come over
My Dad and I just had a fight
And he stormed out the door

I've never seen him act this way,
My God, he's goin' crazy
He said he's gonna make you pay
For what we done, he's got a gun!

So run, Joey run, Joey run

Julie
Daddy please don't, it wasn't his fault
He means so much to me
Daddy please don't, we're gonna get married
Just you wait and see

Joey
Got in my car and I drove like mad
Til I reached Julie's place
She ran to me, with tear-filled eyes and bruises on her face
All at once I saw him there sneaking up behind me (watch-out!)
Then Julie yelled, "He's got a gun!"
And she stepped in front of me

Suddenly, a shot rang out and I saw Julie falling
I ran to her, I held her close
When I looked down, my hands were red
And here's the last words Julie said

Julie
Daddy please don't, it wasn't his fault
He means so much to me
Daddy please don't, we're gonna get married

aaaaaaah aaaaaaaaaah

Run, Joey run, Joey run, Joey run, Joey run
Joey run, Joey run.....!

>>>>
View the original song in youtube.

Hindi Films of 2011 Part II

2012-01-08T00:28:00.005+05:30

Hindi Films of 2011: A Short Guide: Part II

Love, Breakup, Zindagi: Two minor stars who aren’t shinning anymore, Zayed Khan and Diya Mirza, come together to rescue each other’s careers, set up a production company and make a movie, casting themselves in the leads, of course. What was missing from the beginning was the spark. The stars are still dim. Zindagi (life) isn’t always fair.

Mausam: The name still reminds you of Bhupinder Singh’s haunting ‘dil dhoonta hai’, and Sharmila Tagore’s brazen prostitute act in Gulzar’s classic. This current “season” of acclaimed actor Pankaj Kapur’s directorial debut wasn’t all that pleasant. I cannot say it was a bad film. It was beautifully photographed, and son Shahid worked hard, and the tale tried to tell about the country’s recent history than just an inane love story. But, the cocktail wasn't potent enough. Perhaps, the problem was with our expectations. We wanted greater things from this seasoned talent.

Memories in March: Another film which polarised audiences. A friend of mine adored the soundtrack. I hated it, not the music per se, but how the music was used to exploit emotions. It’s a "gay" melodrama we are not ready for, yet. Rituporno Ghosh’s lover act doesn’t help the case either. A brave attempt. I am sure scholars will write papers on this in years to come, and discuss representation of homosexuality on silver screen.

Mere Brother Ki Dulhan: If 2011 was the year of female stars, Katrina Kaif proved that she is a real thing, and she’s here to stay, her accent, and poor acting skills notwithstanding. A formula film from the Yash Raj factory becomes a showcase for Kaif’s star charisma. That itself is commendable.

Mod: From 'Dor' to 'Mod', Nagesh Kukunoor returns after his debacle in Bangkok with this love story. You’d especially appreciate it if you are a fan of Ayesha Takia.

Murder 2: Murder (1) was 'Unfaithful'. With Murder 2, the Bhatts come closer home, and decides to rip the Korean thriller ‘The Chaser.’ Full marks for the choice of inspiration. It's a well-made film and one of my favourites. The execution? Now, that’s a million dollar question. However, you got to give it to Emraan Hashmi, this guy can survive anything. Look at him. He survives this second murder, and, with ‘The Dirty Picture’ finally proves himself to be a reliable actor.

No One Killed Jessica: Not just Hollywood, now, even we can make movies on current affairs and make them entertaining too (and not preachy, childish like a lot of other films, e.g. ‘Khap’). Rani Mukherji’s bad girl persona helped.

Patiala House: After a series of flops, Akshay Kumar is back in business. Fine. But, it was Anushka Sharma who took another step to stardom with this film.

Pyar Ka Panchnama: The film was like an sms joke, nobody talks about it, but everyone likes reading one, and then perhaps forwarding it. Boys will be boys, political correctness be damned.

Ra.One: Another ‘Ravan’, another debacle. But King Khan cannot sink. You only wish our heroes would find their stories. They seem to forget that they cannot survive and flourish without the story. But, the film gave the middle class Indian family a chance to enjoy a blockbuster in 3D, if you consider this an achievement.

Ready: Salman Khan. Dhiga chika, dhiga chika...

Rockstar: Ranbir Kapoor arrives. From a star in making, he’s finally a star. What you care more about, however, is the return of A R Rahman to his former glory, and the virtuosity of Mohit Chauhan. It’s a long journey from Silk Route to Rockstar, but a glorious one.

Saheb, Biwi Aur Gangster: In India, we don’t have the concept of indie (independent) cinema. If it were, this would be the best indie film produced in India in 2011. It's surprising why Tigmanshu Dhulia (‘Haasil’, ‘Charas’) hasn’t entered the big league yet. Though the title alludes to the Guru Dutt classic, the film is a study of power and corruption, accentuated by the performance of all the three leads, Jimmy Shergill, Mahie Gill, and Randeep Hooda, who, for a change, plays a criminal than a policeman.

Sahi Dhandhe Galat Bande: Do you remember a 1980s movie called ‘Kala Dhanda Gorey Log’? Anyway, this one is a failed actor’s last shot at glory, produced by his out-of-work actress wife. You really don’t expect great things from this film and this is the reason it works. Directed by Pravin Dabas (‘Monsoon Wedding’, ‘Khosla Ka Ghosla’), and also starring him, this one is low-fi ‘Delhi Belly’ and any other crime-gone-wrong comedies. Not bad.

Shabri: In a year of strong woman-orientated films, this one was perhaps less talked about, and mind you, it’s not the fault of the film. Isha Koppikar belts out a de-glam and convincing performance of a Mumbai slum woman who turns to crime as a means of survival. The film, which had been in making for several years, suffered from bad marketing, and the lack of a salable star.

Shagird: The second Tigmanshu Dhulia film of the year, starring Nana Patekar as a north Indian cop. This is should be the reason enough. Hangover of ‘Ab Tak Chappan’?

Shaitan: A young film, if that’s a category. Lots of visual flourishes, and a script which bites more than it can chew. The end result is not without merit. Debutant director Bejoy Nambiar arrives.

Shor in the City: An anthology film, which isn't quite. A slice-of-life film which isn't quite. A Mumbai film, which isn't quite. Yet, it is this ubiquitous presence of Mumbai that lifts this tale of several odd-ball characters trying to find their destiny — a foreign-return businessman, an aspiring cricketer, and a pirate of pirated books, and a bag ful of smuggled weapons to boot.

Singham: Ajay Devgn does a Salman Khan; it’s a tough act to follow, and Devgn succeeds to varying degrees. It’s another matter if anyone would remember this Rohit Shetty blockbuster in the years to come!

Soundtrack: Do you really want to “see” a film called ‘Soundtrack’? Or would you rather listen to it. The soundtrack of ‘Soundtrack’ isn’t great, but the film benefits from Rajeev Khandelwal’s mature performance of a musician who gets everything and loses everything, and learns his lesson.

Stanley Ka Dabba: After his fallout with Aamir Khan during the making of ‘Taare Zaameen Par’, and after donning the villain’s hat in ‘Kaminey’, Amol Gupte finally directs his own children’s film, with his son Partho in the lead. It’s not as serious as the Aamir Khan venture, but the performances of Partho and his friends make it an interesting watch.

Tanu Weds Manu: A South Indian hero and a North Indian heroine. If this isn't a recipe for success, then nothing is. However, it’s the supporting cast, led by very talented Deepak Dobriyal that makes this troublesome wedding a success.

Tell Me O Khuda: Hema Malini returns to direct a film with the express wish to resurrect the dying career of her daughter, and effectively kills it, this time beyond hope. Tragic really. More tragic than her choice to remake her first film, ‘Dil Achchna Hai’, this time with three fathers.

That Girl in Yellow Boots: A Bollywood art film from Anurag Kashyap, shows the director’s command over the medium, and his talent for telling off the beaten track narrative, greatly helped by the virtuoso performance of Kalki as the girl from England looking for her father in the seedy underbelly of Mumbai, ably supported by Naseeruddin Shah. (There something to Shah’s cinematic output in the recent years, especially in 2011, where he appeared in several movies with strong female leads, and gave marvellous performances.

The Dirty Picture: Just two words. Vidya Balan. The most talked about picture of the year, and deservedly so, despite the director chickening out at the last moment to make it a really subversive feminist text. Balan is phenomenal. A star is re-born.

Turning 30!!!: Gul Panag gives a terrific performance in a pseudo-feminist tale peppered with ageism. 'Sex and the City' in Bollywood? Not quite.

Yamla Pagla Deewana: The Deol home video following the success of ‘Apne’. Not without charm if you are a fan of Dharmendra or one of his two sons.

Yeh Saali Zindagi: Sudhir Mishra, and Mumbai together, gritty, if unfocussed. What actually went wrong? Go figure!

Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara: Joya Akhtar lives up to expectations and gives us a Bollywood version of a road movie, which looks wonderful, so wonderful that you forget that movies also need to tell a story. A star-studded vacation. If you always wanted to travel to Spain and could not afford it, this film will give you a chance to live your dreams.

End of Part II

Hindi Films of 2011: Part I

2012-01-06T23:56:00.003+05:30

Hindi Films of 2011: A Short Guide: Part I

The other day the ‘Filmfare’ magazine printed an ad in ‘The Times of India,’ featuring a list of Hindi feature films released in 2011, and asking readers to cast their votes on the year’s best in different categories, from best film, best actor/actress to best song and music and so on. There are 100 odd films in the list, some of which I had never heard of before. Anyway, here is a shorter list of Hindi films that made sense in 2011. Some are “blockbusters”, some are “good films”, some may be neither, yet, they made sense in a year filled with inane entertainment.

7 Khoon Maaf: It could have been Priyanka Chopra’s year instead of Vidya Balan’s, if this film was a killer at the box office. Somehow, a murderous heroine was too much for the Indian audience. And, Ms Chopra was over-the-top. A fine performance by Vivaan Shah. The ‘Darling’ song. Truth is Vishal Bhardwaj cannot make a bad film, even if he tries.

Aaraskshan: The proof that controversy cannot help a film’s popularity. A film that lost its way in its own idealism, and it’s not ‘Rajneeti.’ We expected better things from Prakash Jha, especially after his last outing.

Bbuddha Hoga Terra Baap: The bad spelling in the title notwithstanding, the verdict was that we prefer Amitabh Bachchan as an old man, or a as child, but not as a peacock.

Bheja Fry 2: The secret to a good recipe is that you cannot repeat the same taste twice, especially when you insist on adding more spices to the proceeding because it tested so good last time; this time, it's yuck!

Bhindi Baazaar Inc.: A typical Mumbai-underworld flick, good, but, where’s that zing? We need the style, bhai!

Bodyguard: The second Salman Khan blockbuster of the year after ‘Ready’. This is the year when Salman Khan became the film itself. No, not in the sense that he’s the hero, in the sense that he’s the film itself. This film exists to look at Salman Khan, and nothing else.

Challo Dilli: While everybody is gaga over Vinay Pathak’s talent, they forget that Lara Dutta is such a good actor, if you give her a chance to do something other than just dress well.

Chargesheet: The last film Dev Anand will ever made. The film shows the respect Dev Anand commanded. Nobody may have gone to the theatre to see the film, but no one uttered a single word against it either, even the virulent of critics.

Chillar Party: A so called children’s film can also be a hit, if it’s well made, and well, if it has Salman Khan’s name attached to it.

Dam 999: Another example of how controversy cannot sell a film, if the product itself is half-constructed, or badly constructed. A washout!

Damadamm!: Guess, it’s time this guy, called Himesh Reshammiya, woke up from his dreams that he too is a hero, a romantic one at that. It’s like Baba Sehgal singing ‘Main Bhi Madonna.’

Delhi Belly: Controversy may not sell a film, but Aamir Khan does. A raunchy comedy directed at multiplex audiences. It worked. The swear words helped. And those who still talk about the importance of a script are vindicated.

Dhobi Ghat: But Aamir Khan doesn’t always sell, if the art film is really arty, even when he stars in it. Never mind that. Kiran Rao does a splendid job making a film she wanted to make without succumbing to the trapping that is Bollywood. A fine meditation on the city of dreams, from inside.

Dil Toh Baccha Hai Ji: The so called serious slice-of-life filmmaker, Madhur Bhandarkar forays into comedy, a puerile attempt really. Somehow the film works. Shall we give the credits to Ajay Devgn, or is it because of Emraan Hashmi?

Dum Maaro Dum: Surprisingly, the film got more coverage before it’s release then after — controversy over the remix of the iconic song, Deepika Padukone in an item number, the Bipasha-John break-up, the Bipasha-Rana hook-up. The story of drug mafia in Goa was not all that bad. Neither was Abhishek Bachchan’s attempt at hip-hop.

F.A.L.T.U.: The film was really faltu (useless!). Poor Remo. He is a good choreographer. Everyone is not Farah Khan.

Force: This is the one film that divided the crop of critics this year. While some loved it (four stars), some absolutely hated it (one and half stars). How do you explain this? It depends on how do you react to a tattooed John Abraham lifting a motorbike with his two bare hands. That the film was released after ‘Dabangg’ and ‘Singham’ did not help the matter either. Question is, is Nishikant Kamat India’s answer to Nicolas Winding Refn?

I Am: Same is the case with this anthology film by Onir. Anthology films are not new in Bollywood (‘Das Kahaniya’), yet we have not really warmed up to it. All said, nobody can deny the power of the ‘Megha’ episode and Juhi Chawla’s heartbreaking performance.

I Am Kalam: Children’s films can be a hit too, but it needs marketing, which ‘Chillar Party’ had, and this film did not. This film about a child labourer in Rajasthan who finds hope and inspiration in former Indian President, needs to be seen. It’s not ‘Saalam Bombay’, neither is this ‘Slumdog Millionaire’. A sweet coming of age tale, told with heart.

Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl: There are heroes and there are heroes, and there are those who become the toast of the town in the first few films and then, without any reason, just disappear from the scene. Case in point, Chandrachur Singh. Remember him? If my hunch is right, the current heartthrob Ranveer Singh is heading towards that direction. Yash Raj alone cannot help your career. If it could, it would have helped Uday Chopra a long time ago. Is this the beginning of an end?

End Of Part I.

Dancing With Myself

2012-01-03T17:46:00.002+05:30

The other day I heard the popular Billy Idol song in an episode of American TV series 'Glee' and I just cannot get over it. I'm dancing with myself.

Dancing With Myself

On the floor of Tokyo
Or down in London town to go, go
With the record selection
And the mirror's reflection
I'm dancing with myself

When there's no-one else in sight
In the crowded lonely night
Well I wait so long
For my love vibration
And I'm dancing with myself

Oh dancing with myself
Oh dancing with myself
Well there's nothing to lose
And there's nothing to prove
I'll be dancing with myself

If I looked all over the world
And there's every type of girl
But your empty eyes
Seem to pass me by
Leave me dancing with myself

So let's sink another drink
'Cause it'll give me time to think
If I had the chance
I'd ask the world to dance
And I'll be dancing with myself

Oh dancing with myself
Oh dancing with myself
Well there's nothing to lose
And there's nothing to prove
I'll be dancing with myself

If I looked all over the world
And there's every type of girl
But your empty eyes
Seem to pass me by
Leave me dancing with myself

So let's sink another drink
'Cause it'll give me time to think
If I had the chance
I'd ask the world to dance
And I'll be dancing with myself

Oh dancing with myself
Oh dancing with myself
If I had the chance
I'd ask the world to dance
If I had the chance
I'd ask the world to dance
If I had the chance
I'd ask the world to dance

[Scat]

Dancing with myself
Dancing with myself
Dancing with myself
Dancing with myself

If I looked all over the world
And there's every type of girl
But your empty eyes
Seem to pass me by
Leave me dancing with myself

So let's sink another drink
'Cause it'll give me time to think
If I had the chance
I'd ask the world to dance
And I'll be dancing with myself

Oh dancing with myself
Oh dancing with myself
If I had the chance
I'd ask the world to dance
If I had the chance
I'd ask the world to dance
If I had the chance
I'd ask the world to dance

Songwriters: Billy Idol, Tony James

William Michael Albert Broad (born 30 November 1955), better known by his stage name Billy Idol, is an English rock musician. A member of the Bromley Contingent of Sex Pistols fans, Idol first achieved fame in the punk rock era as a member of the band Generation X. He then embarked on a successful solo career, aided by a series of stylish music videos, making him one of the first MTV stars. Idol continues to tour with guitarist Steve Stevens and has a worldwide fan base. More here.

Dancing With Myself on youtube.

Weekend

2012-01-02T23:57:00.002+05:30

Writes Andrew O'Hehir of Salon.com: "I’ve long maintained that gay-straight cinematic equality will finally arrive when a character’s sexuality, however interesting or titillating it may be, is not seen as delivering an important message about tolerance or self-empowerment or some other boring abstraction. I liked both “Brokeback Mountain” and “The Kids Are All Right” a lot, but there’s no doubt they’re both finely crafted teachable moments. The examples I relish are few and far between: Kristin Scott Thomas as the protagonist’s lesbian best friend in “Tell No One,” Kieran Culkin as the title character’s gay roommate in “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” Demetri Martin as the gay hero of “Taking Woodstock” (although his character’s sexuality is, if anything, too irrelevant). No, gentlemen, I’m not including the numerous films where allegedly lesbian characters are introduced as salacious male-fantasy side dishes. I don’t judge you for finding that arousing, believe me! But it doesn’t count...

"Clearly the sexuality of the guys in “Weekend” is a central issue, and the film’s presentation of gay sex is funny, raw, raunchy and frank (although there’s little nudity and no NC-17 content, if you’re wondering). Oddly, though, by confronting the audience’s mixed emotions about homosexuality directly, Haigh eventually gets to a place where it doesn’t matter that much. By the final scenes of “Weekend,” it’s no longer a film about the sexual-political issues Russell and Glen quarrel over or the class-divided, unprepossessing social and geographic landscape of Nottingham — which Haigh captures beautifully — or the pervasive cultural climate of homophobia. We move through all that stuff and end up with a story about two people who are suddenly and unexpectedly besotted with each other and don’t know what to do about it, which is incredibly specific in this case but also just about as universal as you can get.."

The full review here.

City Of Life And Death

2012-01-02T23:54:00.001+05:30

Writes Dustin Chang in twitchfilm.com:

Tackling a heavy subject matter, such as the rape of Nanking on film, is not an easy task. In City of Life and Death, director Lu Chuan (Mountain Patrol: Kekexili) does a skillful balancing act in this narrative treatment of the infamous event in history. It's not a nationalistic, didactic film by any means, but rather an uncompromising account of life and death in wartime. Shot in stark black and white and with many hand-held scenes, the film recreates what it must've been like in Nanking, the former capital of China under siege by Japanese aggressors, in 1937-38.

The film starts with a young, learned Japanese Lt. Kadokawa (Hideo Nakaizumi) exhausted and dazed from the constant march, far away from home, looking at the walled city in the distance. Then the shelling begins and brutal fire fight ensues between the invading Japanese soldiers and the ragtag of pre-communist Chinese Kuomintang fighters in the streets of rubble and dead bodies. The scenes are just as intense as the ones in Saving Private Ryan. Outnumbered and outgunned, Nanking is overtaken by the Japanese in 3 days in somewhat messy fashion. After massacring all the Chinese men who they deemed as soldiers by shooting, bayoneting, burying alive and decapitating, the Japanese army then proceeds to rape and pillage the city. John Rabe, a German businessman and a member of the Nazi party and his Chinese subordinates create an international zone where they house many Chinese civilians. And they become subjects to an unbelievable pressure by the occupying Japanese. They fend off the Japanese army in the beginning, but succumb to the victors' inhumane cruelty.

The complete review here.
More at Wikipedia.

American Horror Story

2012-01-02T23:48:00.004+05:30

The first season follows the Harmon family: Ben (Dylan McDermott), Vivien (Connie Britton) and teenage daughter Violet (Taissa Farmiga), who move from Boston to Los Angeles after Vivien gives birth to a stillborn baby and Ben has an affair with Hayden (Kate Mara), one of his students. The family moves to a restored mansion, unaware that the house is haunted. The house also 'comes with' Moira O'Hara (Frances Conroy/Alexandra Breckenridge), a housekeeper who, to men, appears as young and seductive, but, to women, old and matronly. Ben and Vivien try to rekindle their relationship as Violet, suffering from depression, finds comfort with Tate Langdon (Evan Peters), one of Ben's new patients. Neighbor Constance Langdon (Jessica Lange) and "burned man" Larry Harvey (Denis O'Hare) routinely and frequently affect the Harmons' lives. The Harmons' lives are further complicated when Hayden comes to L.A. in an attempt to win his love and is subsequently murdered, and Vivien has sex with Ben and a costumed man she believes to be Ben but is actually Tate, ending up pregnant with twins, one fathered by each man. Several ghosts in the house, including Tate and Hayden, conspire to drive Vivien mad so that they can raise the babies as their own. Violet attempts suicide, something she doesn't realize was actually successful until weeks later when she discovers she cannot leave the house. Vivien gives birth to the twins in the house, but dies during labor. The first twin dies moments after birth, but the second lives. Vivien's and Violet's ghosts urge Ben to flee the house. In so doing, Ben is confronted by Hayden who murders him by forcibly hanging him. Upon finding Ben's body, Constance abducts the baby. The series then jumps ahead three years to reveal that Constance has continued to raise her grandson Michael in secrecy. She discovers, however, that he has violently murdered his nanny.

More Here.

Yeh isq isq hai, isq isq

2012-01-02T23:48:00.003+05:30

Yeh isq isq hai, isq isq…

This love is love is love is love…

Suffering will be understood by those who have suffered.
Therefore, I address the burning light, not the gathering moth…

Because this love is love is love is love…

And you revel in the end, the process of burning and turning to ashes
Where the flickering light transforms into a passionate moth…

Because this love is love is love is love…

A loving heart cannot be tamed by rules and rituals
Or with the fears of knives or swords.
Love is Majnu’s call against which no walls in any cities
Could keep Laila in their confines.

Because this love is love is love is love…

If you’d ask with a smile, I’d offer you my life
What’s the life worth, I’d offer you my honour.

Because this love is love is love is love…

You tell me passionately, you got to live
You give me poison and say you got to drink it.
When I do, you say why you don’t die now,
And when I die, you say you got to survive.

Because this love is love is love is love…

Each ritual is important in worship of love
And at every step, there’s a wall, higher and higher.
Love is free, free, neither Hindu, nor Musalman is love
Love itself is its own religion, its own honour.
What the Sheikh or the Brahman do not know
Love is the announcement of that reality.

Because this love is love is love is love…

2012-01-02T22:43:00.001+05:30

“20th Century, collapse into now...”

— Collapse into Now, 15th and final studio album by the American alternative rock band R.E.M., released on March 7, 2011

“It’s the final thing I sing, the last song on the record before the record goes into a coda and reprises the first song. In my head, it’s like I’m addressing a nine-year-old and I’m saying, ‘I come from a faraway place called the 20th century. And these are the values and these are the mistakes we’ve made and these are the triumphs. These are the things that we held in the highest esteem. These are the things to learn from.”

— Michael Stipe, vocalist, R.E.M.

More here.

2012-01-01T23:41:00.000+05:30

It's time.

Gay Films

2011-12-31T23:27:00.005+05:30

It has now become a trend of sorts. Every year one so called “gay film” is released and catches the imagination of the mainstream audience, in the context of Hollywood of course, and becomes the talking point during the award season. That it doesn't win any major award is another story altogether, but it does break the stereotype that “gay films” are only for gay audiences. I think, the trend sort of started with ‘Brokeback Mountain’ (2005). Last year, it was ‘The Kids Are Alright’. This year two films have vied for the slot — one American, ‘Beginners’ and one British, ‘Weekend’.

Compared to ‘Beginners’, ‘Weekend’ is more gay in the sense that it is directed by an out gay man and also stars an out gay actor as one of the protagonists.

However, ‘Beginners’ is one of those rare instances where a so called heterosexual filmmaker is able to understand the complexities of being gay, anywhere, especially in 1950s America. That this man is played by Ewan McGregor is a bonus (he played the object of Jim Carey’s affection in ‘I Love You, Phillip Morris’ (2010)). McGregor has this unassuming, unsuspecting quality that can draw you in. It is also the film that may finally help veteran actor Christopher Plummer win his first Oscar. Perhaps.

'Beginners' tells the story of Oliver, a graphic artist, reticent, lonely, not sure if he has it in him to fall in love again. He meets a French actress, Anna, played by sweet and immensely likable Melanie Laurent, and sparks fly. As he continues to fret over love, his tale is juxtaposed with the tale of his late father, who, after a long marriage, following the death of his wife, at 74, confesses to his son that he’s gay. He was always gay, but it was the first time, after the death of his wife, that he had the courage to come out. Since he had come out, now, Hal did not want to remain “theoretically gay” but wanted to do something about it. Soon he exchanged his sober clothes with flamboyant ones, joined various gay groups and got himself a younger boyfriend. Then he was diagnosed with cancer.

As Oliver fails to commit to his girlfriend, he tries to understand the predicament of his father, who couldn’t even say what he wanted during his prime, yet, seized the opportunity when it came to him and lived to the fullest.

The film is heart-wrenching portrayal of possibilities of love, brought to life by 80-year-old Plummer as the old man adamant on making use of the time given to him. It’s another story that the film is inspired by director Mike Mills’ own life; how his own father came out to him.

‘Weekend’, on the other hand, is a same sex love story, which, as the film progresses, transcends the bound of gender and sexuality. It’s ‘Before Sunset’ (where a man meets a woman on the Euro train; they spend the day together and then depart) of the gay world, accentuated by strong acting display of the lead actors, and a directorial vision by Andrew Haigh, who takes his subject very seriously and refuses to play camp. It’s an achievement how this small British film was picked up by all major mainstream critics in their year-end lists.

There were, however, other films dealing with homosexuality to varying degrees, which were released this year. The high-profile of them is ‘J Edgar’, written by Dustin Lance Black (a vocally out gay man who won the best screenplay Oscar for ‘Milk’ (2008)), and directed by veteran Clint Eastwood, a biopic of the infamous founder of the Federal Bureau of Investigation J Edgar Hoover.

The film has been in the news for various reasons, the least being Eastwood, the eternal symbol of American machismo, even when he is decidedly old, telling the story of a man who was overtly homophobic, or perhaps racist, and who may or may not have been a closet homosexual, or as popularly believed, a cross-dresser as well. Leonardo DiCaprio works hard to find a core for the much-maligned public figure in a screenplay which is jumps from one event to another, with DiCaprio turning old and turning young at regular intervals. Well, Eastwood steers clear of cross dressing, but he has one quite powerful scene of lover’s quarrel between Hoover and his long-time deputy, and a fleeing kiss, and there’s Judi Dench as the domineering mother, the reason for all of it.

Onir’s new film ‘I Am’ expectantly deals with homosexuality, involving actors like Rahul Bose and Sanjay Suri. The audience remained divided. Some loved the film that tells four different stories of personal anguish against the backdrop of larger social themes, from the Kashmir issue to child abuse, especially the Kashmir story with a haunting performance by Juhi Chawla. Others thought the film was too spineless to trust; it failed to find a focus, which is true to a certain extent. Onir is a good filmmaker and we expect great things from him.

Same is the case with the BBC film ‘Christopher and His Kind’, which supposed to be an adaptation of English author Christopher Isherwood’s biography about the time he spent in Berlin just before the great war. It’s a portrayal of excess, and the last days of glory before the war would devour all. The film is impressively mounted, and wonderfully acted. Yet, in the long run, it turns out to be a poor remake of the classic musical ‘Cabaret’ (1972), without the charm of Liza Minelli, of course.

Tom Tykwer German film ‘Drei’ or ‘3’ is unique. It may be simplistic, but it defines a possibility, where a middle-aged couple, who are together for a long time, find ailment, discover mortality and love; problem is both fall in love with the same man, helpfully called Adam, and Adam seems not to mind it at all. After all the talk and thoughts, the film finds the couple and their lover in bed, together in a perfect melange de trois.

‘Memories in March’, a Bangla, Hindi, English, production is much more problematic. Here a mother discovers her dead son’s sexuality, and on top of it, is forced to share her grief with a man who was her dead son’s lover. And when the lover in question is portrayed by renowned Bengali filmmaker Rituporno Ghosh with studied effeminate gestures and a sense of pride and purpose, things go over the top. It makes the task of Dipti Naval as the grieving mother all the more difficult. That she rises to the occasion speaks volume of her skills.

Dee Rees’ smart, sensitive feature debut ‘Pariah’ explores the acceptance (or not) of masculine lesbians within the African American community through an excellently acted and directed exploration of that theme. This is the kind of film that’s made or broken by performances, and Adepero Oduye gives a stellar turn in the lead role of Alike, a young girl coming to terms with her butch-dyke sexuality within her insular, controlling, religious Brooklyn family.

Roger Ebert gives the film a three and half stars and writes: "Pariah" is probably too loaded a word to be the title of this film. Alike lives in a world where homosexuality is far from unknown, and her problems will grow smaller in a few years as she moves away from home. This story, so tellingly written and acted, is about the painful awkwardness of that process. What makes it worse is that there's repressed hostility between her parents, and Alike's sexuality becomes the occasion for tension with deeper sources. More Here.

And should we discuss about ‘The Girl With A Dragon Tattoo’ and her love affair, and not with the film's protagonist played by Daniel Craig?

Man Of The Year

2011-12-31T23:01:00.001+05:30

I think it’s bit ironic that while the country is busy partying to usher in the “deathly” New Year (according to sources, the world ends in 2012, remember? This, however, makes celebration of this New Year’s eve all the more pertinent; this is the last time you’ll be celebrating such an event, for, sources say, the world ends on December 21 2012, or is it December 22?), the man, who more or less defined 2011 for us, has taken ill.

According to latest reports, Anna Hazare is not well, and he will be shifted to hospital in Pune on New Year’s day.

Hazare has his supporters, and he had his distracters. After a long time, this year, he inspired a nation to come together for a cause, what if, his last attempt of protest ended to be dump squib?

If I have a vote, I would elect Anna Hazare the “Man of the Year” or the “Indian of the Year”. It does not matter if I believe in his ideology. It does not matter if his methods are correct. It does not matter if he’d succeed. It does not matter if the Lokpal Bill will bring any great change.

What matters is there’s a man who stood up for a cause, and in the process inspired a nation. The mass support that Anna Hazare generated is the real thing. Those Gandhi topis and those “I Am Anna” placards were real. And, sooner or later, it would have its repercussions.

Sometimes back I told a friend, what we lack in this world of chaos and confusion, and petty desires, is a leader, a leader we believe and follow. We need a leader, and everything will be all right.

Anna Hazare may not be that leader. But, he sure has shown the way.

In the New Year, we wait for new directions, and perhaps, a leader.

2012

2011-12-31T22:45:00.003+05:30

Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend - or a meaningful day.

— Dalai Lama

Janakpurar Janakiye

2011-12-31T22:44:00.004+05:30

Janakpurar Janakiye misik masak hanhe
Ratanpurar Budhuwa aji tair pine aahe
— Bhupen Hazarika

Janaki from Janakpur smiles coyly.
Her eyes are on the long pathway like a snake,
Between the sylvan patches of the tea plants.

Today, Budhuwa from Ratanpur walks along the road towards her.

The red sari deepens the colour of her skin like wild honey,
On her long hair floats a red hibiscus,
Dazzles her nosering in the sun.

Today, Budhuwa from Ratanpur walks along the road towards her.

She’s distracted by the image of walking Budhuwa.
His naked torso and his copper armband and his muscular thighs,
Are fire. Janaki begins to melt.

Today, Budhuwa from Ratanpur walks along the road towards her.

Beyond these tea plants, behind the highway, there’s a market.
Of desire, every Saturday, from where Budhuwa returns,
He gets something for her, he gets nothing, Janaki wonders.

But, her heart.
Her heart beats faster,
In the rhythm of the approaching footsteps.

Today, Budhuwa of Ratanpur walks along the road towards her.

19

2011-12-31T22:44:00.003+05:30

The other day, Pune police found the body of a man brutally murdered, with injuries on the head, on an open space near a hospital where he worked as a housekeeping staff. Or, shall we call him a boy, since he was all of 19? And I was thinking, this boy, at 19, had done everything he possibly could, given the circumstances, and now, he’s dead. Now, that’s what you call living life on the fast lane.

(And I’m 35, and what have I done?)

So, here’s a criminal in police records. He had six offences, including a body offence, registered with a police station in Mumbai. The scene was so bad that he was externed from the jurisdiction of Mumbai. He came to Pune, got married, got a job, and settled down in a small-time job. He was all of 19. Now, he’s dead.

The other day, while leaving his job with his wife, who also worked in the same place, he met a man, an acquaintance from the Mumbai days. Perhaps there were animosity before, but it was all forgotten now. The other man invited our 19-year-old for a party; the reason being, the man had got his salary and he was in a mood to celebrate. The 19-year-old agreed. He told his wife to go home, and said that he’d follow her in a while. When he did not turn up till late night, she called his cellphone. It was switched off. The morning found her at the police station. By then, however, everything was over. And, he was all of 19.

>>>
On an unrelated note, British singer Adele released her first album at the age of 19, called, what else, ‘19.’

Another Earth

2011-12-31T00:27:00.000+05:30

‘Another Earth’ is a science fiction film that refuses to be a science fiction film. It is in this paradox lies the beauty of this small, wonderful film. Essentially, the film is a study of guilt, a powerful one at that, and choices of redemption, where the science fiction aspect works as a unique narrative device. Agreed. Yet, what is strange that, if you disassociate this SF narrative device from the plot, the story turns into a maudlin twice-told two pence melodrama, and loses its sting as it has in it current form. How do you explain this contradiction? You do not. You let the plot take care of it.

Rhonda is a bright young student, selected for the MIT to learn cosmology. Everything is perfect. That evening, while returning from a party, Rhonda hears the local radio jockey talking about a new planet being sighted. Curious, Rhonda looks up towards the night sky while driving, and as it should happen, hits another car, killing the son and wife of John Burroughs, a musician, while the musician goes into comma.

Four years on, Rhonda is out of jail, and she has changed. She has changed considerably. So has the world. The new planet is now closer to the earth, closer than the moon, everyone can see it, and they are trying to communicate if that planet has any life form; because in all respect the planet looks life a replica of our earth. It’s like looking at the mirror image of the earth.

Rhonda meanwhile tries to get on with her life. It is difficult. She refuses to do any intellectual job anymore. She takes up a janitor’s job in a local school. She is not worried about herself. She is more concerned about the family she killed. She does some research and finds out that John is out of comma and is living alone in the country.

She visits him, perhaps just to see how he was coping. She had no clues. He answers the door, and she says she’s a cleaning lady. He hires her. Now, you know what’s going to happen. John will fall in love with Rhonda, and the girl will play along to an extent to make him happy, perhaps this is the atonement of her guilt.

Then something happens. Scientists figure that the planet is indeed a replica of our earth, where there is another version of us. A scientist make the “contact” and talks to a version of herself from the other side. Excited at this development, a corporate announces an essay writing competition where the winner would be sent to the other earth. Rhonda write an essay and explains why she should be given a chance, because her life in this world is already over. She gets the chance to travel.

Meanwhile, Jonh has fallen for Rhonda and dreams of a future together. Rhonda cannot continue the deception anymore. She bites the bullet and tells John and she is the reason that robbed him of his family. John is angry and throws Rhonda out of the house.

Rhonda accepts the development. She has accepted her punishment. She just wants John to be happy. Then she catches an interview with an cosmologist on the TV, who says, perhaps, there was link between the people from this earth and the people of the other earth, so that people from both the earths are exactly same. That much have been when the other earth was hidden from our view. Now, when the other earth is visible, perhaps that bond is broken, perhaps, people on that other earth has different choices.

Rhonda likes to believe that. She likes to believe that the other Rhonda out there did not drive that day, and perhaps John’s family is still alive. She runs to John’s and gives him the ticket to travel to the other earth. Perhaps he will be able to see his family for once more. John takes up the offer.

Rhonda is at peace. For now. But, how long will it last?

>>>>>
Another Earth is a 2011 American science fantasy/drama film directed by Mike Cahill in his feature film debut. The film stars William Mapother and Brit Marling. It premiered at the 27th Sundance Film Festival in January 2011 and is being distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures. More Here.

Beginners

2011-12-30T00:17:00.011+05:30

Among other things, the American film ‘Beginners’, directed Mike Mills, is a story of a man’s attempts to understand the sexuality of his father, and in turn understand his own ambivalent views towards relationship. What makes the whole affair more poignant is that the story is more of less based on Mills own life, whose father, like Hal in the film, came out to him at the age of 74, four years before his dead. The film also celebrates the possibilities that opened up before Hal after he finally gathered the courage to come out.

After his father is dead, Oliver falls in love with a French actress. As he takes tentative steps towards a relation he has never experienced before, his pits his own situation with the reality his parents faced during their prime. In a heartbreaking scene, in the middle of the film, Oliver, compares and contrasts his situation, a heterosexual man in love with an independent Jewish woman in 2003, with a closet homosexual and a Jewish woman in the years following the second world war.

Since Oliver, and by that logic, Mills himself, happened to be a graphic artist, he describes the differences graphically, which I believe, one of the best scenes ever committed to screen.

The scene begins with Oliver telling Anna that she’s pretty. Anna says, No. Oliver says, Yeah. Then Anna says: “Jewish girls are not pretty. They can be interesting or cute, but not pretty.”

“You're kidding, right?” says Oliver.

“That's what my mom told me.”

“She did not.”

Anna laughs: “No, you're right. This girl at school told me that, and l went home and my mom said, ''Anna, who told you that?''

Then we hear Oliver’s voice-over. The following is Oliver’s voice-over.

“This is what it looks like when Anna tells me about being Jewish in 2003.”

(Fade Out)

“And when I tell her my mother was Jewish. And that my father turned in his gay badge when my mother turned in her Jewish badge. And they got married in 1955.

“My mother didn't know she was Jewish until she was thirteen.

It was 1938. (On screen, we see the picture of the man who was the president of United States that year.)

“This is what people looked like. (On screen, we see pictures of people in black and white as printed in magazines like Time and Life)

“And lions and giraffes. (On screen, we pictures of both, in circus)

“This man was the Man of the Year. (On screen, we see a copy of Time Magazine with Hitler on the cover)

“Her father tried to hide that they were Jewish. (On screen, we see a middle aged man defiantly smiling at the camera)

“This is the swim team that asked her to leave once they discovered that she was Jewish. (On screen, we see a group of girls in swimming costumes posing, with a red arrow pointing to the girl in the middle)

“This is what pretty looked like in 1938. (On screen, we see a collage of pictures of women printed in magazines in Eastman colour)

“My father realized he was gay when he was thirteen. It was 1938. (On screen, we see a young boy lazing in the field)

“This is what pretty looked like. (On screen, we see vintage pictures of male swimmers)

“This is the high school where they first met. (On screen, we see a building)

“This is the war they both went to. (On screen, we see a photograph of a school)

“And this man was popular when they met again. (On screen, we see a picture of James Dean)

“This is the only place my father could hide and have sex in the '50s. (On screen, we see a public toilet)

“My father said if you got caught by the vice squad, you could lose everything. (On screen, we see the archival footage of the squad at work)

“This is everything. (On screen, we see a collage of magazine photos of “happy families with a wife and two children)

“My father laid down on a couch like this and told the psychiatrist all his problems in 1955. (On screen, we see a posh doctor’s office)

“The doctor told him that homosexuality was a mental illness, but it could be cured. (On screen, we see picture of a brain)

“Not everyone got cured.

“This is where my parents lived in 1955. (On screen, we see a map of Los Angeles)

“And this is the home where the first gay-rights group were secretly meeting.

“While they were reciting their vows here in this church,

“Allen Ginsberg was writing his famous poem, Howl, blocks away in this room.

(On the soundtrack we hear Ginsberg recited ‘Howl’, and on screen is the picture of his room which slowly dissolves.)

GlNSBERG: “...who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy,
who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love... “

Fade out.

>>>>>>
The lion reference above comes from a conversation between Hal and Oliver earlier:

Hal: Well, let's say that since you were little, you always dreamed of getting a lion. And you wait, and you wait, and you wait, and you wait but the lion doesn't come. And along comes a giraffe. You can be alone, or you can be with the giraffe.

Oliver: I'd wait for the lion.

Hal: That's why I worry about you.

>>>>>>>>
Beginners is a 2010 American romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Mike Mills. It tells the story of Oliver (Ewan McGregor), a man reflecting on the life and death of his father while trying to forge a new romantic relationship with a woman dealing with father issues of her own.

Beginners premiered at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival, where the Los Angeles Times heralded it as a "heady, heartfelt film" with a cast who has "a strong sense of responsibility to their real-world counterparts".

More Here.

Alternate Universes

2011-12-30T00:17:00.010+05:30

Alternate Universes. I’m thinking of alternate universes, not because I don’t like being in this one, but, I was wondering, if I would make the same mistakes I did in this universe. I am sure I would. Not mistake as much as how I decided to live my life. The Choices. The what ifs? What if I did not leave the Wadia College hostel on July 29, 1999 and decided to walk on the road leading to hotel Le Meridien. What if, I declined the offer? What if I took the offer to travel to Paris in 2004? What if!!!

Trouble is no one is sure what this alternate universe looks like, and everyone has his own version about it.

Traditionally, and also according to the hit TV series ‘Fringe’, one of my favourites, there are several universes connection to our world, and in each universe, there is a version of us. Each of us in each of these universes have the same backgrounds, but the choices we make may be different, this may lead to different consequences.

In His Dark Materials trilogy, author Phillip Pullman creates universes which may be similar to ours, or may be not. And each universes had some unseen doors/windows though which people can slip back and forth from one universe to another. Pullman has one important logic. One may be able to travel to the other universes, but he cannot live there long; he must return to his universe sooner or later.

As we all know, we must. The flight of fancy cannot last forever.

Our Lady of the Flowers

2011-12-30T00:17:00.008+05:30

“My heart's in my hand, and my hand is pierced, and my hand's in the bag, and the bag is shut, and my heart is caught.”

“They spent their time doing nothing... they let intimacy fuse them.”

“The despondency that follows makes me feel somewhat like a shipwrecked man who spies a sail, sees himself saved, and suddenly remembers that the lens of his spyglass has a flaw, a blurred spot -- the sail he has seen.”

“Even there, intimacy evolved its alchemy. A solemn marble stairway led to corridors covered with red carpets, upon which one moved noiselessly.”

Our Lady of the Flowers
Jean Genet

More on Our Lady of the Flowers here.

Inheritance

2011-12-28T00:35:00.002+05:30

The last book of the Inheritance quadrilogy, also called ‘Inheritence’ is out in the market and I am surprised to realise that I’m not really excited about it. No, I don’t want to go buy and read it. The other day I saw the book at Crosswords. It a tome, more than 500 pages. Two years ago, it would have made me excited, not now.

I have been a fan of Christopher Paolini’s Inheritence Cycle soon after I had seen the film, which was based on the first novel of the series, both called ‘Eragon’, the name of the story’s protagonist. I did not like the film particularly, though I admired the dragon, and Jeremy Irons as Brom, an old dragonrider who becomes the young hero’s mentor.

Anyway, it was an interesting tale, and I would have read another 200 pages of the last book. But to read this tome, after more than two years, just to know how the story ends is a little too much. Thanks to Wikipedia, I know what happened. We all knew what was going to happen. Eragon would defeat Galbatorix and all will be well in Alagaesia.

Well, that was it. What I wanted to know what the reality of Eragon’s mother. The Wikipedia entry does not tell me anything about it. Oh, well...

My take on The imaginary world of Christopher Paolini here.

2011-12-28T00:34:00.001+05:30

Here’s a poem Bhupen Hazarika introduced to me. Somewhere, as long time ago, I had heard Hazarika recited a poem, and he had mentioned the name of the original poet, Rasul Gamzatov. I liked the poem so much that I had to go find the poet, and surprisingly, I found a book of his poems translated into English in the local library. Since then, Gamzatov has been my favourite poet, and that peom Hazarika recited, I know it by heart.

Here’s the poem:

There are three songs people treasure,
Songs to which they smile or cry;
First, a song of deep-felt pleasure,
Is a mother’s lullaby.

Second is the song that, stroking
Her dead son’s cold cheek and breast,
A mother sings, from sorrow choking…
Third and last – come all the rest.

Rasul Gamzatovich Gamzatov (8 September 1923 – 3 November 2003) was probably the most famous poet writing in the Avar language. Among his poems was Zhuravli, which became a well-known Soviet song. Gamzatov was awarded the prestigious State Stalin Prize in 1952, The Lenin Prize in 1963 and Laureate Of The International Botev Prize in 1981. (From Wikipedia)

The Zhuravli (The White Crane) in Youtube.

Christmas

2011-12-27T20:25:00.004+05:30

Talking about the spirit of Christmas in India, columnist Seema Goswami writes in this week’s HT Brunch: “And so it is with Christmas. Christians may mark it with a midnight mass or a early morning service on Christmas day, but the rest of us will celebrate the spirit of the day in our own way. And that, if you ask me, is the greatest triumph of our syncretic Indian culture: that our festivals retain their religious significance even as they are celebrated across religious lines. Contrast this with the West where political correctness now dictates that you should say ‘Happy Holidays’ instead of ‘Merry Christmas’’ for fear of giving offence to some minority or religious group. Strange, isn’t it? Especially when in secular India we have no problem in wishing one another Shubh Diwali or Id Mubarak. And in keeping with that spirit, here’s wishing all of you a Merry Christmas. Enjoy the Big Day!”

This is something I have been thinking since I posted a Facebook status update on the eve of Christmas: “Merri Christmas, Terri Christmas, Sabki Christmas.” In English, Merry is happy, in Hindi, the same pronunciation means mine, while teri means yours. So, I said Christmas is for everyone.

Okay, if you ask me, I’d says Christmas is, among other things, a marketing gimmick, to make you spend money on gifts, cakes, and of course alcohol, and the party is on till the New Year’s day.

Yet, there is something about us Indians and our desire to have fun. That’s why we dance on streets, whether it’s a wedding or a Ganapati procession. We don’t really care about the occasion, as long as we have fun.

That’s why even if I was born a Hindu Brahmin, Christmas reminds me of rum cakes, especially the way a friend baked it. Id reminds of gost dalcha I had in Mominpura, and sheek kebab, Ganapati festival in Pune reminds of fresh modaks with coconut fillings.

Talking about Christmas, Goswami mentions how in Bengal, Christmas is called Bada Din, literally big day, and I think of my growing up years in Assam. Yes, I did not know about Christmas; in Assam it was called Bar Din, the meaning is the same.

In Marahi, Christmas is called ‘Natal’ which is also the Portuguese word for Christmas. Perhaps, Christian missionaries arrives in Maharashtra from Goa via Konkon. That perhaps also explains why a number of Maharashtrian Brahmins were converted to the Christian faith in the turn of the Century. Does the world Natal also reminds you of the world Nativity? Yes, Jesus Christ’s birthday.

In Hindi, Jesus is called Issa Massi. In Assamese he is called Jishu Cristo, which is same in Latin. In Assamese, Christian priests are called Paduri, a variation of Padre, the Portuguese word for the same. My grandfather called the stitched upper garment he wore, a kameez, the Portuguese word for shirt has a similar pronunciation.

Who said globalisation is a recently history? I guess, human history is more integrally connected than we care to know. Difference are just cosmetic, the names are created to further some agenda or other. Beneath it all, we are the same, as Michael Jackson crooned, it’s doesn’t matter whether it’s black or white.

>>>>>
Wikipedia tells me about Christ: The word Christ (or similar spellings) appears in English and most European languages, owing to the Greek usage of Christós (transcribed in Latin as Christus) in the New Testament as a description for Jesus. Christ has now become a name, one part of the name "Jesus Christ", but originally it was a title (the Messiah) and not a name.

In the Septuagint version of the Hebrew Bible (written over a century before the time of Jesus), the word Christ was used to translate into Greek the Hebrew mashiach (messiah), meaning "anointed." Khristós in classical Greek usage could mean covered in oil, or anointed, and is thus a literal translation of messiah.

The spelling Christ in English was standardized in the 18th century, when, in the spirit of the Enlightenment, the spelling of certain words was changed to fit their Greek or Latin origins.

In modern usage, even within secular terminology, Christ usually refers to Jesus, building on the centuries old tradition of such use. Since the Apostolic Age, the use of the definite article before the word Christ and its development into a proper name signifies its identification with Jesus as the promised Jewish messiah.

>>>>
Read the complete Seema Goswami story here

The Skin I Live In

2011-12-26T00:17:00.001+05:30

The first thing that attracted me to ‘The Skin I Live In’ (2011), Pedro Almodovar’s new film, is the bed linen the doctor, played by Antonio Banderas, has in his bedroom, in glorious midnight blue with delicate and detailed white embroidery. See the poster if you don’t believe me. I want those for my bed linen, please, please.

A new Almodovar film is always an event. Even a bad one. No, this film is not bad, not the least, the word would be “problematic.” The film is very problematic. May be I will discuss it in another post. For now, the bed linen. Oh!

While talking about the mad doctor’s mansion featured in the film, he lives in a hacienda or something like that, in Toledo in Spain, I would also like those life-size paintings he hangs on the walls. They are just gorgeous. While at it, I won’t mind the whole house as it is. Minus the doctor of course, and his maid, who also happens to be his mother, and the young girl, his prisoner, who is not what she seems...

Debonair

2011-12-25T23:52:00.001+05:30

It’s not funny how jokes are being recycled in those SMS forwards these days. You read the first line and you know you have heard it before. The punch is lost then and there. Boring.

It’s also not funny how most of these puerile, sexist, and mildly obscene jokes are attributed to one Mr Santa Singh and often, his equally unfortunate friend Mr Banta Singh.

Recently, I received on long SMS involving Mr Santa, Singh not Claus. I read the first two sentences and I knew, I have read this before. I know this joke. I myself have told this to many people, various versions of it, spiced and buttered as the occasion demanded.

I remember reading the joke for the first time a long time ago, in, hold your breath, ‘Denonair’, in those days of adrenaline rush when getting your hands on a battered copy of the adult magazine was itself an act of excitement. Now, they have purged the magazine of all the nudity. What a pity! Oh, those innocent days. Internet destroyed this innocent completely, mercilessly.

Anyway, back to the joke. It goes like this:

Mr X calls home from office. An unknown voice picks up the phone. Who are you? Mr X demands to know. I’m the new maid, sir. I have just joined today. And I’m your Malik, says Mr X and asks, call your madam. I need to talk to her. The maid puts the phone on hold, and returns a few minutes later, little agitated. Sir, she says in whispers, madam is busy. Busy doing what? Mr X screams. She is in bedroom, naked, and there’s also a man there. What? Mr X screams louder, if it’s possible. A pause. What do I do sir? the maid asks in a solicitous voice. Mr X waits for another second and then makes up his mind, firm and unwavering. You want to earn a quick buck? he asks the maid, and she immediately says yes, of course. Okay then, instructs Mr X. Go to the closet on the ground floor. There is a gun there. Pick up the gun, go to the bedroom and shoot both of them, the woman and the man. I will give you a bonus. The maid puts Mr X on hold. She returns after four and half minutes. Done, sir. Clean shot. Both dead. Now, what do I do with the bodies? Okay, Mr X thinks for a moment and says, drag the bodies out of the bedroom and dump them in the pool. What pool? the maid asks. There’s no pool in the house. Pause. Is this 123456779? asks Mr X. Wrong number, replies the maid.

Talking about Debonair, someone asked, what do you call a handsome Keralite man: Debo-Nair, of course.

My Other Life

2011-12-25T14:54:00.001+05:30

Right now, at this very moment, another version of me, in an alternate universe, very much like ours yet different in various ways, is writing this very post. About his other life, about the life he did not choose.

I am pretty sure the rest of the post wouldn’t be the same. Perhaps the other I in the alternate universe was more convinced about his future then I was about mine. Perhaps he decided to go home and settled down years ago. Now, he is looking back, as I am doing, and thinking about the other life he did not choose, the very life I chose.

Here’s my other life that did not happen.

1997: I travel to Pune on Guwahati-Dadar Express. Join University of Pune. Department of English.

1999: I complete my MA. Get a good grade. I’m already back in Guwahati. My friend Santanu Saikia sends my mark sheet and certificates via post.

2000: I look for a job. Apply for the PhD programme in Gauhati University, which is just three bus stops away from my house.

2001: Get a temporary job at Pragjyotish College. Start writing in Assamese again. Contact local papers, magazines. Build contacts. Publish a poem or two, a story or two in Assamese.

2002: Work on my PhD. Still jobless. Try for NET/SLET. Just while away time.

2003: Just while away time at home. Perhaps read, perhaps write a little. Perhaps do not either. Loose all contact with the outside world.

2004: Clear NET. Publish my book of poems. In Assamese, not in English, as I did in this life.

2005: Still jobless. Frustrated to the extreme. More than the job, I worry about my sexuality. Feel morbidly suicidal. But cannot do anything. Start drinking on the sly. In short, turn out to be a sad case.

2006: Get a college teacher’s job in Morigaon College. Relived to leave home. Start drinking in alarming regularity.

2007: Start a relationship with a fellow lecturer in the college. Earn money. Buy a car. Rebuild the Guwahati house, think of a house in Morigaon. In short, think of money most of the time.

2008: College lecturer in a small town. Comfortable. Nothing much happens. Perhaps write a little. Perhaps works on PhD. Still frustrated. Unhappy. But, try hard to blend in.

2009: Get married with the colleague.

2010: A daughter is born.

2011: And, I stop being myself. I become a son, a husband, a father, but never, never me. And, and, I wonder what if I did not return from Pune? I could have been something else.

Do I miss that life? I don’t know. Sometimes perhaps. It would have been easier. My parents would have been happier. Life would have been easy. Easy.

At least I would have been free of this uncertainty that plagues me. Perhaps.

(For “you.”)

Mother and Child

2011-12-25T03:18:00.000+05:30

One feminist academic once asked me a very interesting and pertinent question: “While scarcity of water remains a perennial problem in rural India, why it is the women who always go to fetch water, sometimes walking miles and miles under the scorching sun in some places? Why don’t men ever fetch water?”

I came up with a sound answer: “This is because despite everything the human civilization has achieved, we still follow the hunting-gathering structure our forefathers followed. Men are hunters and women are gatherers. Today, earning a living, earning the currency is hunting while collecting stuff to run the household is gathering. Men are breadwinner, women are housekeepers.”

The feminist academician smiled at my scant knowledge and said, “You may be correct, but it is not the answer to my question. The answer is this: “Men would not go to fetch water because of the shape of the pot. The pot invariably reminds men of the womb, and men are mortally scared of this womb, of women, and the ability of the woman to give birth to a new life. The man knows that without the woman, he is nothing. He is afraid of the power of the feminine. And, this fear has led the man to find ways to subjugate the woman. Hence, the systemic oppression feminist histories tell us.

The man recognized the power of the woman much before the woman herself did, hence the plot, hence the categories of women, from mother, wife, daughter to vixen, whore and witche. Hence, this system of recognizing the child by the father.

If we look at Mother Nature (that’s why nature is called Mother, not Father; God is father and he does not exist), we would observe that power lies with the one who can create. In the human world, the women are the creators. Without the woman, a new life is not possible. Even when the science now can create artificial babies in test tubes, it still needs a woman and her ovaries to give birth to the baby.

There’s something inherently unnatural about the modern patriarchal system of family, ownership and inheritance rules. It is the woman who gestates a child for nine months. It is the woman who gives birth to a child, to a new life. How then the man claims township of the baby after it is born. Why? To what end? Why the baby is given the father’s name, not the mother’s?

This despite the fact that without the woman there won’t be any child and without children, the civilization as we know it will come to an end. The film ‘Children of Men’ (2006) explores the possibility of such a world. The future that the film, based on a novel by P D James, depicts is on the verge of collapse simply because no child has been born for the last 18 years. We live for the future. We live for our progeny. When all the women in the world went barren, the future itself was sterile.

Literature has attempted to understand this connection between the woman and her right to her ability to give birth.

In renowned Assamese writer Bhabendranath Saikia’s ‘Antareep’ (‘The Cape,’ translated into English as ‘The Hour Before the Dawn; also adapted into a film ‘Agni-snan’, ‘The Ordeal’ by the author himself), the heroine choose to avenge her husband’s betrayal by manipulating this very ability and subverting the idea of inheritance.

Mahikanta is a small-time zamindar in rural Assam in pre-independent India. He is married to Menaka and they have several children, the eldest being Indra, a teenager. That year, while travelling from village to village collecting revenue, Mahikanta meets a young girl. He is smitten, and soon, he decides to marry this daughter of a poor farmer. In society, this kind of bigamy is not uncommon, if not popular. Menaka is angry. She tries to dissuade her husband, but to no avail. The marriage is done, and the young, demure bride comes to live in Mahikanta’s house. In a classic scenario of this tale, involving co-wives, these two women should now be at each other’s throat, with Menaka blaming the young girl snaring her ‘innocent’ husband. But, Menaka understands the politics, and she decides to play by the man’s rule. She welcomes the new wife to her household, and on the very night, she bars entry of her husband to her bedroom. Mahikant must have one wife at a time, Menaka argues.

Soon, the new bride is pregnant, and Menaka is filled with jealously. In a classic tale of this kind, at this point, Menaka should welcome back her husband to her bed, again, and that was something Mahikanta was expecting as well. But, Menaka had other plans. One evening, she meets the village loafer, also a small time thief, and is impregnated.

When she announces her impending pregnancy, Mahikanta is besides himself. Whose child is this? He demands to know. It is your child, his first wife tells him, and you cannot say otherwise, or people will call you a cuckold. Mahikanta suspects everyone around him, including his playboy brother, but, finds no clues. He cannot imagine that his wife would sleep with a thief. When he cannot find who the father is, he demands that his wife abort the child. Menaka is adamant; she’d keep the child no matter what. It is her right. And, Mahikanta would give the child her husband’s name, despite knowing full well that it’s not his own, that’s the price of her husband’s infidelity, Menaka decides.

A similar theme was explored in Aruna Raje’s underrated and proto-feminist film ‘Rihaee’, where the Hema Malini character decides to keep the baby she conceives after a fling with village lothario, played by Naseeruddin Shah, while her husband, played by Vinod Khanna, was in town earning a living. In a bid to a happy ending, however, the film ends with the husband accepting the wife with the baby which is not his own. It’s not an easy thing for the man to do.

2011-12-24T23:24:00.001+05:30

It’s better this way
I alone, and you faraway.

If you were here,
Things would’ve been clear.

Like the cupboard mirror,
Revealing the face of terror.

Now, I’m free to imagine you
In every possible way I knew.

It’s better this way
I fill the void of my day.

The List Of Lists

2011-12-19T23:33:00.003+05:30

Results for Annual Critics Survey 2011
Best Films.... See Other categories of the indieWIRE survey here: http://www.indiewire.com/survey/

1 The Tree of Life
2 Melancholia
3 A Separation
4 Drive
5 Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
6 Certified Copy
7 Mysteries of Lisbon
8 Hugo
9 Margaret
10 Meek's Cutoff
11 Shame
12 The Descendants
13 The Artist
14 Take Shelter
15 Martha Marcy May Marlene
16 A Dangerous Method
17 Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
18 We Need to Talk About Kevin
19 Film Socialisme
20 Weekend
21 Poetry
22 Nostalgia for the Light
23 The Interrupters
The Skin I Live In
24 Midnight in Paris
25 The Arbor
26 Le Quattro Volte
The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu
27 To Die Like a Man
28 Beginners
29 A Brighter Summer Day
30 Le Havre
31 Moneyball
32 Of Gods and Men
33 Attack the Block
34 Tuesday, After Christmas
35 House of Pleasures
36 Bridesmaids
37 Incendies
38 Pina
39 City of Life and Death
40 Aurora
41 The Future
42 Jane Eyre
43 Contagion
I Saw the Devil
44 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
45 Bill Cunningham New York
Cave of Forgotten Dreams
46 Project Nim
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
The Trip
Young Adult
47 Bellflower
48 Go Go Tales
Pariah
Win Win
49 Cold Weather
Warrior
50 50/50
Margin Call
51 Into the Abyss
52 BEING ELMO: A Puppeteer's Journey
The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn
53 Extraordinary Stories
Senna
54 El Sicario: Room
Super 8
The Time That Remains
War Horse
55 13 Assassins
Bombay Beach
Sleeping Beauty
56 Agrarian Utopia
Rango
57 Another Earth
J. Edgar
The Guard
58 Higher Ground
Tomboy
59 The Muppets
United Red Army
60 Hanna
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Like Crazy
Tabloid
Terri
61 Submarine
The Journals of Musan
The Last Circus
The Sleeping Beauty
The Tiniest Place
62 Essential Killing
My Week With Marilyn
Road to Nowhere
63 3
Petition 13
The Princess of Montpensier
64 Hell and Back Again
Position Among the Stars
Putty Hill
The Ides of March
The Mouth of the Wolf
65 Better This World
Blackthorn
Rubber
Silver Bullets
66 A Screaming Man
Coriolanus
Even the Rain
How to Die in Oregon
Into Eternity
My Joy
The Sky Turns
67 Carancho
Dragonslayer
Hesher
Historias Extraordinarias
Rampart
Source Code
Uncle Kent
68 Armadillo
Carnage
Koran By Heart
Psychohydrography
Serious Games I-IV
The Adjustment Bureau
The Clock
The Housemaid
The Tree
The Ward
We Were Here
69 Cedar Rapids
Crazy Stupid Love
Fightville
In a Better World
Miral
Point Blank
Silent Souls
The Mill and the Cross
Trollhunter
70 Crime After Crime
Love Exposure 6 1
Sleepless Nights Stories
The Black Power Mixtape 1967 - 1975
Viva Riva
You All Are Captains
You Don't Like the Truth: 4 Days Within Guantanamo
71 A Useful Life
Buck
Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer
Conan O'Brien Can't Stop
Daguerreotypes
In Darkness
In the Land of Blood and Honey
Kaboom
Kinyarwanda
Life, Above All
Polytechnique
Romantics Anonymous
72 30 Minutes or Less
A Better Life
Bobby Fischer Against the World
Caitlin Plays Herself
In the Family
La Quattro Volte
One Hundred Mornings
Shit Year
The Conspirator
The Elephant in the Living Room 4 1
The Hedgehog
The Last Lions
The Ledge
The Lips
Turkey Bowl
X-Men: First Class
73 Foreign Parts
General Orders No. 9
Littlerock
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
Mulberry St.
Sarah's Key
The Robber
The Three Musketeers
The Wise Kids
The Women on the 6th Floor
74 A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas
Albert Nobbs
Autoerotic
Beautiful Boy
Black Power Mixtape
Happy, Happy
How I Ended This Summer
Leap Year
Lord Byron
My Perestroika
Neds
Oranges and Sunshine
Red State
Redland
The Help
The Woodmans
Trespass
Twelve Thirty
Tyrannosaur
75 A Matter of Taste: Serving Up Paul Lebrandt
Attenberg
Battle for Brooklyn
Black Death
Captain America: The First Avenger
Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame
Hobo With A Shotgun
La Pivellina
Letters from the Big Man
London Boulevard
Mozart's Sister
Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory
Puzzle
Restless
Scream 4
Super
The Iron Lady
The Woman
The Yellow Sea
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Winnie the Pooh

[The names in bold are the films I have seen this year, some last year actually...]

The Future

2011-12-19T23:26:00.002+05:30

This is inevitable. It happens to me every year, during the last few days of December. As I ponder over what I did last year, I am invaded by a sense of lack. I did not do enough, and my life has just passed by me. This happens every year.

This time around, this feeling was aggravated by Miranda July’s new film ‘The Future.’ The film tells the story of a couple, in their late 30s, filled with a sense of ennui, who suddenly realise that their time is already passing away, and soon they’d be old, and they haven’t done enough in their lives and they got to do something about it.

They decide to adopt a cat. This particular cat, however, has a broken paw, and it will take it at least a month to heal. Now, Sophie and Jason decide that till the cat is theirs, they should live their lives to the optimum and do things they always wanted to do. Jason quits his job and becomes a door-to-door salesman for trees, Sophie also quits her job, and decides to post a dance a day on Youtube for one month.

As you would guess, things do not go according to plan. The cat, Paw Paw, who can talk, after doing some abstract talking about loneliness, dies. Sophie has a fling with a single father, and Jason befriends an old widower, and so on. And oh, time-stopping sub plot, literally, and a conversation with the moon.

As the film ends, they are back to where they had started. Nothing actually changed. Or something did change!

This is the story of my life. Nothing much has changed in the last 10 years or so. This is what I think. But, no, it’s not true. Things have changed. It’s an all together different matter that it did not change according to my plans.

I thank popular American film critic Roger Ebert for introducing me to Miranda July and her wonderful Cannes award-winning first film, ‘You, Me and Everyone We Know (2005)’. That film was something else altogether and I still love that film, and it still instills in me a sense of hope. It’s never too late to fall in love, again. It’s not too late for future as well. Perhaps.

The Future on IMDb.

The Skin I Live In

2011-12-19T23:20:00.001+05:30

In Pedro Almodovar’s new film, Antonio Banderas plays a doctor apparently obsessed with creating a human skin which is, to put it mildly, burn-proof. He argues if this new skin is available, the world would be rid of various diseases, like malaria, because mosquitoes wouldn’t be able to penetrate the skin.

But, how this new skin would be created? Why, using tissues from pigs? But, this is unethical. That’s not the problem with Dr Robert Ledgard. The problem is what he really wants to do.

But it turns out that this business of burn-proof skin was really a ruse. The real motive was revenge. On whom? The person whom actually done him wrong? Not really, but the person whom he could attack and harm. The film is pertinent to point out that Vincente, the victim, was really innocent, he did not do anything that warrant the kind of punishment meted out to him. His daughter was already damaged, and if someone was to be blamed, it must be he, for he shouldn’t have gone out of his way to revive his wife.

And what devise the doctor employs to extract his revenge? Thereby hangs the tale. My lips are sealed.

The irony is, at the end, Robert gets his revenge for his tragedy. He kills his own brother, he doesn’t know that, the same guy who eloped with his wife, initiating these series of mad events. But, then, observe how the doctor finds his nemesis...

It’s a wonderfully constructed plot, if you can suspend your disbelief, that is. Now, that’s the case with all Almodovar films. His characters inhabit an altogether different universe. In a real world, Dr Robert Ledgard would appear to be a Dr Frankenstein. In Almodovar’s colourfully twisted world, he’s a tortured hero, somewhat mad perhaps, but not utterly disgusting. So, when at the mid-point of the film, he sleeps with Vera Cruz, we sort of root for the couple, not that the relationship was going to work out.

Hollywood Heroes & Indian Villains

2011-12-17T00:14:00.003+05:30

‘Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol’ is finally out, and word is it’s really, really good. And, as we had anticipated, our very own Anil Kapoor has just one scene, that too, as a prop, to show off the action heroine’s, played by Paula Patton, so called ‘skills’. Now, Mr Kapoor can come home, and all the brouhaha about working in a major Hollywood film can come to an end.

You want to ask why Anil Kapoor, a bona fide star in India — he was one of my childhood idols, I still like him — would take up such a role in such a Hollywood film. Short answer: Glamour. It’s a Hollywood film after all, and we all look up to Hollywood. (At least, he’d be in an original film since most Bollywood films are copies of Hollywood anyway!). But, the right answer is this: Money. For this one scene, Mr Kapoor must have received more money than he receives in India in a starring role.

And frankly, it’s not Kapoor’s fault, really. Hollywood has its own rules. It won’t allow outsiders to take the centrestage. A Hollywood hero is always an American, and at the most, a British, they speak the same language after all. Others are just sidekicks. That’s why we see most European, Scandinavian and Latin stars play bit roles in Hollywood films, and mostly as villains. We should be happy to note that Mr Kapoor is not alone in this.

In case of MI 4 itself, the main antagonist to Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt is played by Michael Nyqvist, a Swedish actor, and star of the original ‘The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo’ (The role is essayed by Daniel Craig in the new Hollywood version.)

Talking about Craig, in his first two outings as James Bond, he is faced with villains who are in reality A-List stars in their home countries: Danish Mads Mikkelsen in ‘Casino Royale’ and French Mathieu Amalric in ‘Quantum of Solace’.

So when the white Europeans could not become a Hollywood Hero, what chances a “brown” Indian has. That’s the same reason why Mexican stars like Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna had to be content with bit parts in Hollywood movies (Bernal in ‘Babel’, ‘Letters to Juliet’). That’s why Spanish star Jordi Molla becomes a villain in Hollywood actioners like ‘Bad Boy II’ and the recent ‘Columbiana.’ So is French Jean Reno (He was the hero in ‘The Professional’).

There are however a few names who have succeeded in breaking this rule. One name that instantly comes to mind is Antonio Banderas. But, is he a mainstream Hollywood star, like Johney Depp or Leonardo di Caprio? Doubtful. Another name is Benecio Del Toro. He has worked in Hollywood (Usual Suspects, 21 Grams), but found his height in a Spanish language film, playing Che Guevara.

Most successful of them is perhaps Stellan Skarsgard, who seems to have made a perfect crossover. He’s Swedish, but wasn’t in the original Dragon Tattoo, but is in the remake.

There’s French Gerard Depardieu, who was Christopher Columbus in Ridley Scott’s ambitious ‘1492: Conquest of Paradise’, and was the protagonist in ‘Green Card’.

Coming back to India, Frieda Pinto is one lucky girl. Following Woody Allen casting her, she has become an A List heroine in films like ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ and ‘Immortals,’ something Mallika Sherawat, and even Aishwarya Rai Bachchan failed to do. Her boyfriend Dev Patel is however no so lucky. His last Hollywood role was that of a villain in ‘The Last Airbender.’

Talking about India in Hollywood however, we are doing well, sort of. Reliance has produced one of the best films of this year, ‘The Help,’ which is set to make news during the awards season. The Tintin film was released in India a month before it’s US release, and yes, MI 4 saw a gala premier in Mumbai. What if Anil Kapoor has just one scene.

PS. Remember Harrison Ford fighting Amrish Puri in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. This has now become a archetype of sorts.

Best Films Of 2011 Lists

2011-12-16T23:08:00.000+05:30

There are lists and there are lists. Last year, I posted a lot of year-end lists of Best Movies of the Year, Decade and so on. And this year, wow, how fast it went... 2011 just zoomed past me, I’m yet to recover... So, no lists from my side. Here are some borrowed ones, from critics I admire and look up to.

THE NEW YORK TIMES
A. O. SCOTT’S BEST OF 2011
In alphabetical order:
“Bridesmaids” (Paul Feig); “A Brighter Summer Day” (Edward Yang); “Cedar Rapids” (Miguel Arteta); “A Dangerous Method” (David Cronenberg); “The Descendants” (Alexander Payne); “The Future” (Miranda July); “The Help” (Tate Taylor); “Incendies” (Denis Villeneuve); “Into the Abyss” (Werner Herzog); “Margin Call” (J. C. Chandor); “Meek’s Cutoff” (Kelly Reichardt); “Mysteries of Lisbon” (Raúl Ruiz); “Le Quattro Volte” (Michelangelo Frammartino); “The Tree of Life” (Terrence Malick); “Tuesday, After Christmas” (Radu Muntean); “War Horse” (Steven Spielberg); “Warrior” (Gavin O’Connor); “Weekend” (Andrew Haigh); “Winnie the Pooh” (Stephen J. Anderson and Don Hall); “Young Adult” (Jason Reitman).

THE NEW YORK TIMES
MANOHLA DARGIS’S BEST OF 2011
In alphabetical order:
“Abracadabra” (Ernie Gehr); “Aurora” (Cristi Puiu); “The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu” (Andrei Ujica); “Bridesmaids” (Paul Feig); “Contagion” (Steven Soderbergh); “A Dangerous Method” (David Cronenberg); “J. Edgar” (Clint Eastwood); “Le Havre” (Aki Kaurismaki); “Hugo” (Martin Scorsese); “Melancholia” (Lars von Trier); “Moneyball” (Bennett Miller); “My Joy” (Sergei Loznitsa); “Mysteries of Lisbon” (Raúl Ruiz); “Of Gods and Men” (Xavier Beauvois); “Poetry” (Lee Chang-dong); “Le Quattro Volte” (Michelangelo Frammartino); “The Return” (Nathaniel Dorsky); “Seeking the Monkey King” (Ken Jacobs); “The Skin I Live In” (Pedro Almodóvar); “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” (Tomas Alfredson); “Voluptuous Sleep” (Betzy Bromberg); “Warrior” (Gavin O’Connor).

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/movies/awardsseason/film-favorites-of-a-o-scott-and-manohla-dargis-in-2011.html
>>>>>>>>>

THE CHICAGO SUN TIMES
ROGER EBERT’S TOP 20
1. "A Separation"
2. "Shame"
3. "The Tree of Life"
4. "Hugo"
5. "Take Shelter"
6. "Kinyarwanda"
7. "Drive"
8. "Midnight in Paris"
9. "Le Havre"
10. "The Artist."
11. Melancholia
12. "Terri"
13. "The Descendants"
14. "Margaret"
15. "Martha Marcy May Marlene"
16. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2"
17. Trust
18. "Life, Above All"
19. "The Mill and the Cross"
20. "Another Earth"
ALSO RUNS
"13 Assassins," "Beginners," "Boy Wonder," "Certified Copy," "The Future," "The Guard," "Higher Ground," "I Will Follow," "J Edgar," "The Last Rites of Joe May," ":Le Quattro Volte," "Margin Call" "Meek's Cutoff," "Moneyball," "Mysteries of Lisbon," "My Week with Marilyn," "The Princess of Montpensier," "Rango," "A Screaming Man," "Silent Souls," "Tyrannosaur," "Queen to Play," "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows," and "The Whistleblower."

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2011/12/the_best_films_of_2011.html
>>>>>>>

SALON.COM
ANDREW O’HEHIR’S TOP 10
1. Poetry
2. Melancholia
3. Take Shelter
4. Coriolanus
5. Mysteries of Lisbon
6. A Separation
8. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
9. Meek’s Cutoff
10. Putty Hill
Honorable mention: Mike Mills explores his relationship with his late gay dad (marvelously played by Christopher Plummer) in the affectionate and almost miraculous “Beginners”; Christian monks face death in Algeria in Xavier Beauvois’ “Of Gods and Men”; a French neighborhood rallies around an immigrant kid in Aki Kaurismäki’s whimsical “Le Havre”; Tilda Swinton plays a mom in hell in Lynne Ramsay’s hypnotic “We Need to Talk About Kevin”; Gary Oldman hunts a Cold War mole in “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”; Michael Fassbender hunts sex 24/7 in Steve McQueen’s “Shame”; an afternoon in Tuscany pushes two strangers together in Abbas Kiarostami’s “Certified Copy”; a woman comes between Freud and Jung in David Cronenberg’s “A Dangerous Method”; Martin Scorsese redeems the 3-D era in the gorgeous fantasy-folly “Hugo”; two gay men struggle with love in Andrew Haigh’s touching and irresistible “Weekend.”

http://www.salon.com/2011/12/12/the_10_best_movies_of_2011_brilliant_movies_for_a_bleak_year/singleton/
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TOH! TOP TEN OF 2011 BY ANNE THOMPSON
1. "Pina" - Wim Wenders
2. "Weekend" - Andrew Haigh
3. "Melancholia" - Lars von Trier
4. "The Descendants" - Alexander Payne
5. "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" - Rupert Wyatt
6. "I Saw the Devil" - Kim Jee-Woon
7. "A Dangerous Method" - David Cronenberg
8. "Jane Eyre" - Cary Fukunaga
9. "Win Win" - Tom McCarthy
10. "Take Shelter" - Jeff Nichols
More must-sees just off the bottom of that list: "Moneyball," "The Artist," "Coriolanus," "Contagion,""Drive," "Hugo," "Meek's Cutoff," "Rampart," "Warrior," "Margin Call," "Beginners," "We Need to Talk About Kevin,""The Guard," 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," "Attack the Block," "The Tree of Life," "J. Edgar," "Tyrannosaur," "The Future," and "The Myth of the American Sleepover."

BEST FOREIGN FILMS
1. "I Saw the Devil" - Kim Jee Woon
2. "A Separation" - Asghar Farhadi
3. "Kid with a Bike" - The Dardennes
4. "Le Havre" - Aki Kaurismaki
5. "Declaration of War" - Valerie Donzelli

BEST DOCUMENTARIES
1. "Pina" - Wim Wenders
2. "Nostalgia for the Light" - Patricio Guzman
3. "Senna" - Asif Kapadia
4. "The Interrupters" - Steve James
5. "Tabloid" - Errol Morris

http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/toh-top-tens-of-2011
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SLANT MAGAZINE
THE 25 BEST FILMS OF 2011 BY SLANT STAFF
25. Of Gods and Men
24. Hugo
23. The Skin I Live In
22. Extraordinary Stories
21. The Time that Remains.
20. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
19. Meek's Cutoff.
18. Leap Year.
17. A Dangerous Method
16. El Sicario, Room 164
15. Beginners.
14. Tomboy
13. In the Family
12. Film Socialisme
11. Take Shelter
10. Poetry
9. Nostalgia for the Light
8. Tuesday, After Christmas
7. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.
6. Margaret
5. A Separation
4. The Tree of Life
3. Mysteries of Lisbon
2. A Brighter Summer Day
1. Certified Copy

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/feature/the-25-best-films-of-2011/295
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THE 26 BEST FILMS OF 2011
BY RICHARD BRODY IN THE NEW YORKER BLOG
1. The Future
2. The Tree of Life
3. Film Socialisme
4. Hugo
5. Certified Copy
6. Margaret
7. Petition
8. Putty Hill
9. Silver Bullets
10. A Screaming Man
11. The Interrupters
12. You All Are Captains
13. Bellflower
14. J. Edgar
15. Midnight in Paris
16. Terri
17. Impolex
18. Moneyball
19. Road to Nowhere
20. Bridesmaids
21. The Descendants
22. Uncle Kent
23. The Time That Remains
24. Le Havre
25. The Skin I Live In
26. Restless

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2011/12/richard-brody-the-best-in-film.html
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MSN TOP 10 MOVIES OF 2011
10. ' Meek's Cutoff '
9. 'Hugo'
8. 'The Artist'
7. 'A Dangerous Method'
6. 'Certified Copy'
5. 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'
4. 'Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives'
3. 'The Descendants'
2. 'The Tree of Life'
1. 'Melancholia'

MSN MOVIES CONTRIBUTORS’ INDIVIDUAL TOP 10 LISTS
SEAN AXMAKER
1. Mysteries of Lisbon
2. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
3. Certified Copy
4. Meek's Cutoff
5. Drive
6. The Descendants
7. Poetry
8. The Tree of Life
9. The Artist
10. Hugo

JIM EMERSON
1. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
2. Meek's Cutoff
3. Melancholia
4. Certified Copy
5. Margaret
6. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
7. The Mill and the Cross
8. Take Shelter
9. A Dangerous Method
10. Carnage

DON KAYE
1. The Descendants
2. Melancholia
3. Martha Marcy May Marlene
4. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
5. The Tree of Life
6. Tyrannosaur
7. Take Shelter
8. X-Men: First Class
9. We Need to Talk About Kevin
10. Shame

GLENN KENNY
1. A Dangerous Method
2. Hugo
3. The Descendants
4. Take Shelter
5. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
6. We Need to Talk About Kevin
7. Margaret
8. Mysteries of Lisbon
9. The Skin I Live In
10. The Tree of Life

RICHARD T. JAMESON
1. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
2. Le Havre
3. Certified Copy
4. The Artist
5. Drive
6. Meek's Cutoff
7. A Dangerous Method
8. Martha Marcy May Marlene
9. The Descendants
10. Moneyball

DAVE MCCOY
1. Take Shelter
2. The Muppets
3. A Separation
4. Margaret
5. Shame
6. Meek's Cutoff
7. Certified Copy
8. Moneyball
9. Rise of the Planet of the Apes
10. The Skin I Live In

KIM MORGAN
1. Melancholia
2. The Tree of Life
3. The Skin I Live In
4. Shame
5. A Dangerous Method
6. 13 Assassins
7. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
8. Moneyball
9. Hugo
10. Sucker Punch

MSN MOVIES USERS TOP 10 POLL
1. Harry Potter
2. Twilight
3. The Help
4. Bridesmaids
5. Rise of the Planet of the Apes
6. Captain America
7. X-Men: First Class
8. Fast Five
9. The Descendants
10. Moneyball

MSN MOVIES BLOGGERS’ TOP 10 LISTS
KATE ERBLAND
1. Take Shelter
2. Senna
3. Martha Marcy May Marlene
4. The Skin I Live In
5. Shame
6. Drive
7. 50/50
8. Young Adult
9. Warrior
10. Carnage

WILLIAM GOSS
1. Martha Marcy May Marlene
2. Shame
3. Hugo
4. I Saw the Devil
5. Young Adult
6. 50/50
7. The Interrupters
8. Project Nim
9. The Adventures of Tintin
10. Midnight in Paris

DANNY MILLER
1. The Artist
2. Hugo
3. In the Land of Blood and Honey
4. The Descendants
5. Midnight in Paris
6. Higher Ground
7. The Tree of Life
8. Beginners
9. Tomboy
10. Bridesmaids

CORWIN NEUSE
1. The Adventures of Tintin
2. Bridesmaids
3. A Dangerous Method
4. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
5. Jane Eyre
6. Like Crazy
7. Rise of the Planet of the Apes
8. Shame
9. Transformers: Dark of the Moon
10. X-Men: First Class

http://entertainment.msn.com/beacon/editorial12.aspx?ptid=4a38594d-5e06-4f6c-afa9-85a5df824026
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Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

2011-12-16T22:20:00.001+05:30

Writes Roger Ebert: The movie is based on John Le Carre's 1974 novel, which redefined modern spy fiction and inspired an ambitious 1979 BBC adaptation. There was reason to believe Le Carre knew his subject. In the real world, where his real name is David Cornwall, he was one of the British spies who was betrayed by Kim Philby, the notorious MI6 operative who was a double agent for the Soviets. In the fictional version, MI6 is headed by Control (John Hurt), who studies a series of intelligence leaks and becomes convinced there's a mole in the agency; the nature of the intelligence suggests it must come from high up, and Control narrows his list of suspects to five men close to him.

The movie introduces them one by one, each played by a familiar face in a film cast with iconic British actors. "Tinker" is Percy Alleline (Toby Jones), "Tailor" is Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), "Soldier" is Roy Bland (Ciaran Hinds), "Poor Man" is Toby Esterhase (David Dencik) and "Beggarman" is George Smiley (Gary Oldman), Control's trusted lieutenant. If you're wondering what happened to "Spy," that would be whoever turns out to be the mole.

The Complete Review here.

Hugo

2011-12-16T22:18:00.003+05:30

I will repeat what I said after watching an unfinished version of “Hugo” a few weeks ago: I have seen the future of 3-D moviemaking, and it belongs to Martin Scorsese, unlikely as that may sound. In this case, of course, the future may also be the past. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if “Hugo,” Scorsese’s gorgeous and meticulous 1930s fantasy re-creating life in a Parisian railway station in extraordinary detail, is the best movie anyone will make in the current post-”Avatar” 3-D wave (which has already ebbed considerably).

If you were bewildered by the news that Scorsese was apparently blundering into Steven Spielberg’s territory and making a 3-D family spectacle for the holidays, wonder no longer. No doubt “Hugo” has enormous potential when it comes to the box office and the upcoming awards season. It’s a heartwarming, old-fashioned yarn about an orphan who finds love by giving love, who finds a purpose in life by restoring purpose to a wounded and bitter old man. It’s often a breathtaking visual spectacle, full of delightful flights of imagination, large and small: a view of Paris from a railroad clock tower, drawings that come alive, an adorable little clockwork mouse. It offers a rich and varied cast of adult actors — from Ben Kingsley to Sacha Baron Cohen to Emily Mortimer — supporting youthful leads Asa Butterfield and Chloë Grace Moretz, as a pair of intrepid orphan adventurers.

Heartbreaking, funny, passionate and impossibly beautiful, Scorsese's "Hugo" is a must-see, says Andrew O'Hehir of Salon.com. The full review here.

Drive

2011-12-16T22:17:00.002+05:30

When Nicolas Winding Refn won the Best Director award at the Cannes film festival for ‘Drive’ this year, this was sort of a personal victory. I mean, this guy is terrific, and no one seems to have noticed him so far. Refn won acclaim for his Danish drug and violence saga, the ‘Pusher’ trilogy (1996-2005), but his crossover attempts, ‘Bronson’ (2008, with Tom Hardy as the eponymous criminal before the hunk came to the mainstream in ‘Inception (2010)’) and ‘Valhalla Rising’ (2009, with Mads Mikkelsen as the once-eyed killing machine in a mysterious-inscrutable landscape), could not garner mainstream audience.

‘Valhalla Rising’ was one of the favourite pictures of the year, and I still admire the film. Hence, when audience and critics, especially the English-speaking world, embraced the Ryan Gosling starrer car-revenge thriller, a tribute to the good ole’ days of Steve McQueen and all those chase films (‘Bullit’), I was really happy, especially when ‘Drive’ is not really a mainstream film; it breaks most of the rules, and still comes trumps.

The film begins at a slow pace. We see the nameless driver, the protagonist, as Roger Ebert insists on using the term ‘existential hero’, in the tradition of Alan Delon’s ‘Le Samurai’, with a toothpick between his teeth, listening to the game in the radio and working as a getaway driver. We see a smooth chase scene. When the film is called ‘Drive’, you had more or less expected this. Beyond that however, it’s difficult to guess where the film is heading. You see the laconic driver eye a beautiful woman (a muted and wonderful Carey Mulligan) with a equally cute kid, but since this is a Refn film, you know, things are not as simple as it looks.

Then appears Bryan Cranston as the driver’s lame boss, and you know, things are going to go very wrong, very wrong indeed. Cranston stars as the math-cooking chemistry teacher in the hit TV series ‘Breaking Bad,’ and if you have seen the series you know that whatever the Cranston character does in the series always backfires to the worse. Here he has a plan, involving the nameless driver, and as audience, you know, something bad is going to happen.

It does. But the Nicolas Winding Refn film hasn’t begun yet. The film begins at the very moment driver walks up to a strip club, holding a hammer casually in his right hand, the jacket on, and the toothpick between his teeth.

As the blood begins to ooze, there you are, the classic Refn territory. Who needs dialogues when a look can tell you the whole story.

An achievement.

Meek's Cutoff

2011-12-16T21:03:00.003+05:30

Writes Roger Ebert:

To set aside its many other accomplishments, "Meek's Cutoff" is the first film I've seen that evokes what must have been the reality of wagon trains to the West. They were grueling, dirty, thirsty, burning and freezing ordeals. Attacks by Indians were not the greatest danger; accidents and disease were. Over the years from watching movie Westerns, I've developed a composite image of wagon trains as Conestoga parades led by John Wayne, including lots of women wearing calico dresses, and someone singing "Red River Valley" beside the campfire.

Not here. Director Kelly Reichardt's strategy is to isolate her story in the vastness of the Oregon Trail, where personalities seem to weaken in the force of the wilderness. She shows three families who bring reality to Robert Frost's phrase "vaguely realizing Westward." They gradually understand that they are hopelessly lost. Their guide, Stephen Meek (Bruce Greenwood), boasts of his accomplishments, but members of the group sense that he is pushing ahead blindly in the hope that somehow the way through the Cascade Mountains will reveal itself.

The Complete Review Here.

Raj Kapoor

2011-12-16T21:00:00.002+05:30

My translation of the ‘Pyar hua ikraar hua’ song. Very camp.

We’re in love, we both have agreed to it,
Why then our hearts scared to this meet?

Says the heart, road ahead is full of tension,
We don’t know where’s lies our destination.

Promise me this song of our love will never change
Promise me too companion on this road will never change.

If love was lost, if companionship didn’t remain,
The moon would never shine again...

The night spreading everywhere would tell our story,
Youthfulness would repeat the song of love’s glory.

I won’t be here, you won’t be here in this plane,
Nevertheless, signs of our existence would remain.

Raj Kapoor

2011-12-16T20:05:00.004+05:30

Yesterday was Raj Kapoor birthday. Here’s my favourite Raj Kapoor song in his mem-ory...

Pyar hua ikraar hua hai
Pyar se phir kyun darta hai dil
Pyar hua ikraar hua hai
Pyar se phir kyun darta hai

Kehta hai dil rasta mushkil
Malooum nahi hai kahan manzil
Kehta hai dil rasta mushkil
Malooum nahi hai kahan manzil

Pyar hua ikraar hua hai
Pyar se phir kyun darta hai dil
Kehta hai dil rasta mushkil
Malooum nahi hai kahan manzil
Pyar hua ikraar hua hai
Pyar se phir kyun darta hai dil

Kaho ki apni preet ka geet na badlega kabhi
Tum bhi kaho is raah ka meet na badlega kabhi
Pyaar jo toota saath jo chhoota
Chaand na chamkega kabhi
Aa ha ha aa ha ha, Aa aa aa aa aa aa
Aa aa aa aa aa aa, Aa aa aa aa aa aa

Pyar hua ikraar hua hai
Pyar se phir kyun darta hai dil
Kehta hai dil rasta mushkil
Malooum nahi hai kahan manzil

Pyar hua ikraar hua hai
Pyar se phir kyun darta hai dil

Raatein dason dishaaon se kahengi apni kahaniyaan
Geet hamare pyar ke dohraayengi jawaniyaan
Main na rahungi tum na rahoge
Phir bhi rahengi nishaniyaan

Pyar hua ikraar hua hai
Pyar se phir kyun darta hai dil
Kehta hai dil rasta mushkil
Malooum nahi hai kahan manzil
Kehta hai dil rasta mushkil
Malooum nahi hai kahan manzil

Pyar hua ikraar hua hai
Pyar se phir kyun darta hai dil

Aa ha ha aa ha ha, Aa aa aa aa aa aa
Aa aa aa aa aa aa, Aa aa aa aa aa aa

Movie : Shree 420
Singers : Manna Dey and Lata Mangeshkar
Song : Pyar Hua Ikraar Hua Hai
Lyricist : Shailendra
Actors : Raj Kapoor, Nargis, Nadira, Lalita Pawar
Music Director : Shankarsingh Raghuwanshi, Jaikishan Dayabhai Pankal

Watch the song in YouTube here.

London-wale

2011-12-16T20:05:00.001+05:30

After Dev Anand died in London, where his last rites were performed, I have been thinking about the capital of Great Britain, once the capital of the world, and till today, the land of emancipation, despite all those visa and immigration rules, and long after the American Dream had turned into a nightmare.

A few months ago, another son of Mother India, M F Husain too found his final resting place in the city of Shakespeare and Dickens, the Queen and the London bridge.

What is this our continued, uninterrupted fascination with London, England, and I am not just talking about Bollywood dance numbers, or Eng Lit students at Indian colleges and universities?

If India was the brightest jewel in the crown of the British Empire, for the Indian “natives”, London was the Holy Land, the ultimate destination. More than 60 years after Independence, the fascination has still not palled.

During British India, London was where the knowledge was. If one is to do a background check, one would find that most of the prominent names in India’s struggle for independence went to London, to study law, and then returned to find their causes.

The return was important. Yes, the natives of pre-independent India always returned. If so, when did this trend of immigrating to the foreign land begun? Where did this whole Diaspora business started?

In the local language, those who returned were called Bilat, or Bilet, Pherot. Bilet meaning foreign, pherot meaning return.

During the colonial rule, immigrating to a foreign land was not a choice. They were all citizens of the colony, second class citizens (the reason why Gandhi was thrown out of the first class railway compartment). There were not even opportunities to settle down in the capital of the empire.

At the same time, however, the British took host of Indians to other countries as indentured labourers, to countries in the Caribbean, to Mauritius, to Africa, to plant sugarcane, tobacco, to build railroads.

After the empire disbanded, the second generation progeny of these Indian immigrants, instead of returning to their homeland, decided to travel to the homeland of their former masters. Why? Was it just because England offered more opportunities now than India? How can one explain this phenomenon? Withdrawal symptoms?

On the other side of the argument are the British. Once the sun of the empire had set, the British were still getting used to not being the masters. The arrival of these immigrants helped the locals to retain this “master” sentiment, only if in a sense of cultural superiority.

I remember reading somewhere when slavery was abolished in the United States, a large number of them refused to call themselves free, since they were so used to being slaves that they did not know what to do with their free status.

Can the same be said about our continued fascination for London?

The Help

2011-12-16T19:33:00.001+05:30

The film has been co-produced by Anil Ambani’s Reliance and features a powerhouse performance by Viola Davis and wonderful ones by everyone else in the ensemble cast, including my favourite Emma Stone (she seems to be all over this year; she was so wonderful in ‘Crazy Stupid Love.’ Next year she is new Spiderman’s new girlfriend)... Other than that the film does not amount to much, despite the fact that it would surely garner a number of nominations and awards. The awards come with a territory, and this one is a feel good race drama in the 1950s, before Martin Luthar King and civil rights, where it tries very hard to bring home the point that all white folks ain’t bad.

No, the film is charming. It’s worth your time, especially in the smaller scenes, like the one involving a pie...

A few years ago, there was a similar film, ‘The Secret Lives of Bees,’ I loved the novel, and I think I liked the film too, especially because it starred Queen Latifah; she is extraordinary. (The current film is an adaptation of Kathryn Stockett’s novel of the same name.)

The film tells the story of how a young, white girl, Skeeter, an outsider herself in her community in Jackson, Mississippi, because she’s not conventionally beautiful, and because she wants to work, helps a number of black maids find themselves, in the process painting a picture of racial tension in the days prior to civil rights.

And, at the centre of it, is the Viola Davis performance; she deserve not just a nomination, but the Oscar statuette itself.

More on The Help here.

"The Help" is a safe film about a volatile subject. Presenting itself as the story of how African-American maids in the South viewed their employers during Jim Crow days, it is equally the story of how they empowered a young white woman to write a best-seller about them, and how that book transformed the author's mother. We are happy for the two white women, and a third, but as the film ends it is still Jackson, Mississippi and Ross Barnett is still governor." The complete Roger Ebert review here.

The Soul Keeper

2011-12-15T23:33:00.004+05:30

When I say that I know about films, see, I am not really bragging. See, here’s one example. The new David Cronenberg film ‘A Dangerous Method’ starring Viggo Mortensen as Freud, Michael Fassbender as Karl Jung, Keira Knightley as his patient turned lover Sabina Spielrein is making waves. But, nobody seems to remember that there’s another picture on the same theme, on the same subject, a biopic on Spielrein, titled The Soul Keeper (Prendimi l’anima, 2002).

The saw the film some years back at the Pune International Film Festival, and liked it very much, not just the erotic sequence, as revealed by the poster, but, the romanticised portrayal of the subjects in question. But, critics abroad seem to have forgotten the film completely.

More on Sabina Spielrein here.
More on The Soul Keeper here.
More on A Dangerous Method here.

The Guard

2011-12-15T23:23:00.002+05:30

“I’m not sure if you are really motherfucking dumb or motherfucking smart,” says FBI agent Wendell Everett, played by Don Cheadle about Gerry Boyle, a policeman in a small coastal town in Ireland, while chasing a drug cartel.

But the film is not about drugs, or even about the FBI guy; about Boyle, a guard, as the policemen are called in Ireland.

The drug trade is on, so is arms smuggling for the IRA, and like all policeman, Boyle is also corrupt, only that he is his own man, and he won’t listen to anyone. He’s cynic, worldly wise, and detached. It does not matter if he sounds racist or politically incorrect. Basically he doesn’t give a damn, and the film projects it as a good thing.

So when he is forced to partner with a black American, racial tension is just part of the ball game, a whole lot of other things are going on... “I thought black people cannot ski,” he tells Wendell.

And Gerry is played by Brandan Gleeson, who makes an outrageously obnoxious character charming and believable.

Oh, and I just love the Irish accent. There’s such musicality in it. And though they all know English, they prefer to speak in Gaelic, especially when they don’t want to talk to a foreigner, as Wendell learns in a hard way.

Le Quattro Volte

2011-12-15T23:22:00.002+05:30

Writes Roger Ebert:

"Here is a film that invites philosophical musing. Made without dialogue and often in long shots, it regards the four stages of existence in a remote Italian village. Those stages, as set down 2,500 years ago by Pythagoras, are animal, vegetable, mineral and intellectual. It's not necessary to know that or anything else to watch "Le Quattro Volte," which doesn't require active interpretation but invites meditation and musing. I drifted pleasantly in its depths.

The camera usually keeps a certain distance, so it isn't telling a story but observing daily life. A very old shepherd climbs with effort after his goats on a hillside, while his dog barks and is a busybody. The shepherd returns to the village and waits as an old woman sweeps the dust from the church floor. Some of this dust he mixes with water and drinks as a remedy."

Read the complete Review Here.

Pina

2011-12-15T22:49:00.003+05:30

Wim Wenders does it again. Like his compatriot Werner Herzog, Wenders (‘Paris, Texas’, ‘Wings of Desire’) has this unique talent for making documentaries on art which in themselves become a work of art. After ‘Buena Vista Social Club’ (1999), where Wenders resurrected a specific time and place in pre-revolution Cuba, to play it again the music which is already lost, in his new film ‘Pina’ (2011), Wenders does to dance what he did for music in the previous film. And, what a glorious work of art it is, no less in 3D, though I had to be content to watch it on a computer screen. (I’m sure the film will not be released in India, a pity. Can I ask the organisers of PIFF (Pune International Film Festival) source a 3D copy of the film somehow? Can I? Won’t it be wonderful to see this film in big screen?)

Pina Bausch (1940-2009), a German performer of modern dance, who invented a new form of dancing with her unorthodox blend of stage setting, music and movement, is an icon on her own right. And this film is not a documentary on her life; it was planned that way, and was not to be.

Pina was a reluctant artist when it came to her personal life, she preferred to speak through her work. When her long-time friend Wenders wanted to do a documentary on her, she agreed. But, Wenders was not sure how to shoot the film, in the context of conventional film technique, to show the depth of Pina’s dance movements, until he saw the 2009 U2 film on 3D. Instantly, he knew, Pina’s dance movements needed the 3D technology. As Wenders prepared to shoot the film, Pina died, and Wenders all but abandoned the project, until the dance maestro’s colleagues and students convinced him to shoot the film anyway.

The result is a wondrous pastiche, a tribute to Pina Bausch she deserves, by recreating select dance pieces choreographed by her, interspersed with brief tributes by her colleagues, and their own tributes to her. The result is a celebration of dance... “dance, dance, otherwise you are lost...”

The result is extraordinary, devastatingly beautiful and heartbreaking and full of pathos and understanding — a veritable work of art. The film is Germany’s entry to the Oscar for best foreign language film this year, and it deserves the award. It deserve everything.

Wenders calls this film a film for Pina, not about her, and it’s true.

The film does not tell us anything about Pina, her personal life and so on, but shows us who she was, though the dancers dancing for her.

Wenders shoots these dance pieces with the inventiveness of a master artist. One of the fantastic things Wenders does is to free the dances and the dancers from the limitations of the stage. So we see dance performances everywhere, on the monorail, on a traffic island, near a swimming pool, in the park, on the hills, everywhere. And when they are at the stage, the stage is filled with sand, chairs water splashing everywhere... especially chairs, a constant prop in Pina’s dances.

Pina Bausch developed a style called Tranztheatre (dance theatre) where a dance piece, instead of being an abstract expression, becomes a mode of story telling. So, we have ‘Cafe Muller,’ one of the most celebrated piece of work in Pina Bausch’s dance repertoire, involving a few tables and a large number of chairs.

I remember seeing this dance piece, a long time back, in the beginning of Pedro Almodover’s ‘Talk to Her’ (2002). I found the performance striking, very striking indeed, but, I had no idea who Pina Bausch was, and the significance of the performance. I did not know who Pina Bausch was till I saw this film. A shame!

Among the individual performances by the dancers from the Tranztheatre Wuppertal, my favourite piece involves a young man in a large room with glass walls dancing in longing, perhaps for his lover, while in background plays a Spanish song, ‘Luna de Margarita...’ I had never seen something so unique, something so extraordinary, the music, the dance...

And the music! The film contains a wonderful ensemble soundtrack, which itself is a treasure. Like the soundtrack of ‘Buena Vista Social Club’, this soundtrack too becomes a work of art in itself, each musical piece is so maddeningly beautiful.

W B Yeats wrote: “How can we know the dancer from the dance?” In this film, each dancer, each movement becomes Pina Bausch.

Dance, dance, otherwise you are lost, said Pina Bausch, and you are invited to a carnival of dance. I cannot reccomend the film enough.

The Luna de Margarita sequence in Youtube.
A heartfelt 3D tribute by Wim Wenders to Pina Bausch, the late modern ballet choreographer, says Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian.
Pina Review in Ballet Dance magazine.
Pina Review in Cinema Autopsy.
More on Pina here.
More on the film here.

2011-12-13T23:55:00.001+05:30

The imaginary hero walks along the dusty desert road, when someone stops him and asks, “Where does the road go?”

“The road doesn’t go anywhere, you idiot,” says our hero, “It’s you who’ll have to decide where you are going?”

— Minaxi: A Tales of Three Cities (2004), Dir. M F Husain

Mario Miranda

2011-12-13T20:36:00.004+05:30

I thought it would be a good time to post a few pictures I clicked while in Goa a few years ago. I had to spend a few hours in Margaon railway station, to catch the wonderfully named train ‘Matshyagandha Express’ to Mangalore. It was the middle of the day and I thought I would grab a bite at the railway canteen.

I went to the canteen and it was as if I had entered into an art gallery — the walls were filled to colourful Mario Miranda figures. You cannot mistake them for anything else. They are all classic Mario.

There’s something about his figures, the eyes particularly, and their sense of joie de vivre, a naturalness of existence, a carnivalesque attitude to life, which we have come to associate with Goa...

Another cartoonist, Ajit Ninan, writes in Times of India (Mumbai, December 12, 2011): “Though perhaps not as intellectually sharp as Laxman, Mario had, in some sense, greater popularity among the reading public than Laxman. That’s because Mario’s work touched the heart. His characterisation of people, particularly the weaknesses of the male of the species, was superb. He brought home to you the foibles of man through gloriously detailed illustrations of life in the office, on the streets and above all, at parties. In a nutshell, just as Bollywood brought India to the world, Mario brought Bombay to India.”

That’s true. Like Laxman’s Common Man is unique, like M F Hussain’s horses are unique, so are unique Mario Miranda landscapes. Anybody can draw a caricature. What is more difficult to draw is the landscape. This is something Miranda was expert in, creating the background, with a few strokes, a series of buildings, hoarding, streetlights, cars, and everything that you encounter in a crowded Indian street. Writes Ninan: “His mastery of architecture and of fashion trends was one of the keys to this. Mario’s ornate illustrations of the colonial structures of Mumbai wouldn’t have been possible for anyone with a weaker grasp of architecture.”

While other cartoonists would opt for minimalism, Miranda would go for ornate, details, details which you may not see in a real life persona, but would see in his drawings.

Back to Margaon station. I left the eatery to the wait for my train at the waiting room, and there, to greet me, were more Mario Miranda drawings. I don’t want to call them cartoons, as cartoons are more associated with lampoons. Miranda’s drawings are more of a celebration than lampoons. There is love in those lines and you can see them.

And I remember those old yellowed pages of old Illustrated Weeklys I used to read a long time back, which featured a Parle G or a campa cola ad with a Mario Miranda drawing.

The Ajit Ninan article: The man who brought Bombay to India.
Teary-eyed Goa bids adieu to Mario in The Times of India.
Mario Miranda, a chronicler of his times in IBN Live.

Mario Miranda

2011-12-12T23:19:00.000+05:30

A heartfelt tribute to Mario Miranda, who fuelled hours of my childhood imagination as I browsed my father’s old collection of Illustrated Weeklys. There was something so evocatively Indian about his drawings, with his figures, with their eyes popping out...

I still remember spending hours at the Margaon railway station in Goa two years ago, looking at the walls, not only of the canteen, but also of the waiting room, filled with unique Miranda figures.

A true artist...

More here... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Miranda

Dev Anand

2011-12-04T23:06:00.001+05:30

Evergreen actor Dev Anand dies of cardiac arrest in London
Press Trust Of India
London, December 04, 2011

Dev Anand, Bollywood's evergreen star, who swayed generations of fans as debonair hero and later as a filmmaker in a Bollywood career spanning 65 years, died in his sleep on Sunday, leaving behind a legacy of classics like Guide and Hum Dono.

A sprightly 88-year-old Dev Anand came here a few days ago for a medical check-up and died after a massive cardiac arrest in his hotel room at 10pm (3.30am IST Sunday) with his son Sunil by his side.

The legendary actor was rushed to a nearby hospital but he was pronounced brought dead. He was not keeping well for the last few days.

Dev Anand will be creamated on Tuesday or Wednesday in London, his aide Mohan. His wife Kalpana Kartik, daughter Devina and granddaughter will be flying to London.

His trademark puff of hair and his sloping walk in films like CID and Jewel Thief, created a huge fan following, making him a legend in his own lifetime.

Dev Anand, whose idol was Hollywood star Gregory Peck, gave countless hits like Guide, Paying Guest, Baazi, Jewel Thief, CID, Johny Mera Naam, Amir Garib, Warrant, Hare Rama Hare Krishna and Des Pardes.

When his contemporaries like Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar stopped being the leading men in movies, the versatile actor continued to woo young heroines in movies like Johnny Mera Naam, Des Pardes, Hare Rama Hare Krishna among others till 1983.

Dev Anand made his debut as an actor in 1946 in Hum Ek Hain. By the time his Ziddi was released in 1947 he was a superstar and never looked back. He made his directorial debut with Prem Pujari.

For his outstanding contribution to Indian cinema, Dev Anand was honoured with the prestigious Padma Bhushan in 2001 and Dada Saheb Phalke Award in 2002.

The actor's recent movies focused on the themes of present times like Awwal Number, Sau Crore, Censor, Mr Prime Minister and the latest Chargesheet where he played the central character.

Even though after Awwal Number (1990), Dev Anand movies did not do well at the box office, the evergreen hero's mantra was always to think positive. "I never give myself a chance to get depressed. I think ahead," he would say.

In the 40s Dev Anand got offers to star opposite singer-actress Suraiya in woman-oriented films, as the male lead. They fell in love and together gave seven hits Vidya (1948), Jeet (1949), Shair (1949), Afsar (1950), Nili (1950) Do Sitare (1951) and Sanam (1951).

Suraiya's maternal grandmother opposed the relationship as they were Muslim and Dev Anand Hindu, and so, Suraiya remained unmarried all her life. Dev Anand married Kalpana Kartik and had son Sunil and daughter Devina.

Dev Anand introduced actresses like Zeenat Aman, Tina Munim, Mumtaz, Jackie Shroff and Tabu to Bollywood.

The actor was planning a second part of "Hare Rama Hare Krishna" even as late as this September.

From The Hindustan Times:

2011-12-04T22:49:00.004+05:30

In abroad, when a popular and public figure dies, fans, admirers create a memorial in a public place where they pay their tributes and offer something or other as homage — flowers, cards, photographs, candles, assorted items...

When Steve Jobs died, they had apples, in case of Amy Winehouse, they had wine glasses, cigarettes...

What would be the perfect item for a Dev Anand memorial?

Of course, a scarf.

A colourful scarf.

More scarves...

Dev Anand

2011-12-04T19:53:00.002+05:30

As a nation, we are not very adept to the public display of grief. Elsewhere, after the passing of a personality like Dev Anand, there would have been a memorial. In every city, there would have been a spot were people would have gathered with flowers, pictures, cards, candles, to show their love for the dear departed, as they did for Lady Diana in front of Buckingham Palace, for Michael Jackson everywhere, for Steve Jobs in front of the Apple stores world over.

On the contrary, here, after we received the news of Dev Sahab’s death, we went to Facebook and posed a RIP, or a Youtube video of our favourite Dev Anand song. That’s it. That’s how we show our love.

Talking about Pune city, where Dev Anand started his film career, and where he met his famous friend Guru Dutt, the FTII could have been a wonderful and relevant site for a Dev Anand memorial, today, and it would have been a heartfelt tribute.

Another site could have been the erstwhile Lucky Restaurant. Even during its crumbling last days in late 1990s, a huge blow up of Dev Anand in black and white adorned the wall behind the counter of the Irani restaurant, famous for its bun-maska, and biryani. And ask anyone who frequented the restaurant and they’d tell you how Dev Anand would walk from the FTII during his student days and come there to dine. The bond was strong as long as the restaurant existed, goes the legend.

Now, a monstrous mall stands on the site, which also houses a KFC joint, and the evergreen star is dead and we mourn him on the internet.

Time To Leave

2011-12-04T00:01:00.001+05:30

This sad saga of a young man’s acceptance to his impending mortality was enliven, especially for me, by a new take on the concept of ‘Menage de trois.’ I think, the French are more qualified on such matters, and as the Wilson Owen character tells Carla Bruni in ‘Midnight in Paris’, are “evolved” in the matters of love.

So, Romain, who reacts to certain death by fighting with the people he loves, his family, his lover, and despite claiming that he doesn’t like children, finally agrees to impregnate a woman.

It’s a wonder why the woman in question did not go to a doctor and sought a sperm bank.

Anyway, a waitress in a roadside restaurant, she sees a handsome man, Romain. She meets him again a few days later, in the place where her husband works, and then she greets Romain and comes directly to the point: Her husband is impotent and as Romain is handsome, would he mind sleeping with her so that she can have a baby? When Romain is not sure about the proposition, she says she has saved up some money as well. When Romain is still unsure, she asks, “Do you have AIDS?”

No, he does not have AIDS, but he has terminal cancer. And he’s ready to die. Just like that.

Then he thinks. Even if he would be dead, he gets a chance to leave something of his life behind, in the shape of an unknown baby he’d never see. He agrees to impregnate the restaurant woman. The woman asks one last question, would his terminal condition would have any effect on the child. He says no, cancer, unlike AIDS or other diseases, not contagious.

But how about Romain’s genes, his personality?

>>>

Time to Leave (French: Le Temps qui reste) is a French film directed by François Ozon, released in 2005. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. More here.

La jetée

2011-12-03T23:52:00.002+05:30

Some year into the future. The end of the World War III. The world is in ruins. We see static images of the aftermath of a nuclear war. The earth as we know it has been rendered unliveable. Those who survived go underground, literary, biding their time, waiting for a means to repopulate the surface of the earth again. We are in Paris. Someone with a pronounced French accent tells us in English: “Above ground, Paris, like most of the world, was uninhabitable, riddled with radioactivity. The victors stood guard over a kingdom of rats.”

Most of these victors are scientists, and they are working on an experiment, to find a means to go back to the past, to understand what really caused the destruction, so that they can find a cure.

The experiment fails miserably as none of the subjects could bear the burden of memory. Then the scientist find one particular soldier, a man constantly fed by a memory of his own childhood; an afternoon before the war when he had gone to the airport with his parents to see the aeroplanes fly. As they stood in the pier, the young boy saw a girl, whose image would haunt him for the rest of his life, and in a way help him survive the brutal war. He remembers the woman react in a shock as a man runs towards her, he’s shot and he dies.

The scientist works on the man, even after several failed attempts. The narrator tells us: “They begin again. The man doesn’t die, nor does he go mad. He suffers. They continue.”

Finally a breakthrough. The man is transported into the past, to the pre-war time, the time when he was a child. He visits the pier. He meets the woman of his constant dreams, at least he imagines it the same woman. They talk, nothing of much significance. But, it makes him happy. He returns to his present. The scientists are happy too. They have done it. He is sent to the past again, and again.

Says the narrator: “This time he is close to her, he speaks to her. She welcomes him without surprise. They are without memories, without plans. Time builds itself painlessly around them. Their only landmarks are the flavour of the moment they are living and the markings on the walls.”

Around the fiftieth day, they meet in a museum filled with timeless animals. Says the narrator: “She too seems tamed. She accepts as a natural phenomenon the ways of this visitor who comes and goes, who exists, talks, laughs with her, stops talking, listens to her, then disappears.”

Once back in the experiment room, he knew something was different. After the success of the experiment, the scientists are now trying to send him to the future. Says the narrator: “His excitement made him forget for a moment that the meeting at the museum had been the last. The Future was better protected than the Past.”

After more painful tries he eventually caught some waves of the world to come. He meets a few men and women, people like him who could travel in time. At first, they refuse to acknowledge his existence, since he was not as evolved as they are.

“He recited his lesson: because humanity had survived, it could not refuse to its own past the means of its survival. This sophism was taken for Fate in disguise. They gave him a power unit strong enough, to put all human industry and again the gates of the Future were closed.”

Now, his job done, he awaits for his end, for he knows, now he would be killed, as the scientists need him no longer. As he prepares himself, he is visited by the people from the future. Now, they have finally come to accept him as one of their own, and offer to take him to the future.

But, the man does not want to go future. He wants to go back to past, his past, to that woman, he hopes, who would be waiting for him.

The people for the future grants his wish.

He is back in the past. The peacetime morning. The pier. He looks for the woman of his dream, his memory.

Says the narrator: “He ran toward her. And when he recognised the man who’d trailed him from the camp, he realised there was no escape out of time, and that that moment he’d been granted to see as a child, and that had obsessed him forever after... was the moment of his own death.

>>>>
La jetée is a 1962 French science fiction film by Chris Marker. It is also known in English as The Jetty or The Pier. Constructed almost entirely from still photos, it tells the story of a post-nuclear war experiment in time travel. The film runs for 28 minutes and is in black and white. It won the Prix Jean Vigo for short film.

The 1995 science fiction film 12 Monkeys was inspired by, and takes several concepts directly from, La jetée.

More Here.
More on Chris Marker here.

Memoirs of Manu

2011-12-01T23:57:00.000+05:30

I read Judith Butler’s ‘Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity’ (1990) seven or so years ago. I don’t know how much I understood, but I was suitably impressed. Now, recently, I met some, a literature teacher, who was going gaga over Ms Butler. And I thought we have gotten over feminism, and the whole business of subversion, that we have evolved. Apparently, we haven’t. Especially in the Academic. We still have the same old icons to look up to.

Anyway, the point is not Ms Butler. She is wonderful. The point is feminism in India. Have we done enough other than establishing the fact that our grandfathers were the villains and our grandmothers were the victims? Where does Women’s Lib movements stands today? Is the liberation done?

I don’t know. The other day, I was thinking of Manu, the mythic person who allegedly wrote the famous ‘Manusmriti’ (Memoirs of Manu), the text that created the so called Indian tradition as we know it, from the caste division to the subjugation of the woman. The text is in the heart of any debate on minority rights, and we have no clues who even wrote it. And, most of us in the modern times who have studied the text, from Raja Rammohan Roy to Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, has read the text in English, not in original Sanskrit. And there are different version of the Sanskrit text.

It was translated to English as the Laws of Manu in 1794 by Sir William Jones, an English Orientalist and judge of the British Supreme Court of Judicature in Calcutta. Recently, it was translated, with an introduction and notes, by Wendy Doniger with Brian K Smith (New York: Penguin Books, 1991). Doniger and Smith describe the work as “a pivotal text” for a number of reasons: “More compendiously than any other text, it provides a direct line to the most influential construction of the Hindu religion and Indic society as a whole....Over the course of the centuries, the text attracted nine complete commentaries, attesting to its crucial significance within the tradition, and it is cited in other ancient Indian texts far more frequently than any other dharma-shastra (it has been estimated that between a third and a half of Manu is in the Mahabharata, though it is not certain which was the source and which the borrower)" (xvii-xviii).

According to Hindu tradition, the Manusmriti records the words of Brahma. By attributing the words to supernatural forces, the text takes on an authoritative tone as a statement on Dharma, in opposition to previous texts in the field, which were more scholarly. This text was composed probably around the beginning of the Common Era, and is known in Sanskrit as the Manavadharmashastraor the Manusmriti. The Imperial Gazetteer speaks of its fame and wide acceptance as a source of the theory of caste. Dr. Ambedkar treats it as the key text that justifies and describes the caste system. The classic translation of this text is The Laws of Manu, translated, with extracts from seven commentaries, by Georg Buehler, who was himself a British colonial administrator in Bombay (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1886; reprint edition: New York: Dover Books, 1969).

A range of historical opinion generally dates composition of the text any time between 200 BCE and 200 CE. After the breakdown of the Maurya and Shunga empires, there was a period of uncertainty that led to renewed interest in traditional social norms.

The original treatise consisted of one thousand chapters of law, polity, and pleasure given by Brahma. His son, Manu, learns these lessons and proceeds to teach his own students, including Bhrigu. Bhrigu then relays this information in the Manu Smriti, to an audience of his own pupils.

This original narrative was subdivided later into twelve chapters. There is debate over the effects of this division on the underlying, holistic manner in which the original treatise was written. The book is written in simple verse as opposed to the metrical verse of the preceding dharmasutras.

The treatise is written with a frame story, in which a dialogue takes place between Manu’s disciple, Bhrigu, and an audience of his own students. The story begins with Manu himself detailing the creation of the world and the society within it, structured around four social classes. Bhrigu takes over for the remainder of the work, teaching the details of the rest of Manu's teachings. The audience reappears twice more, asking first about how Brahmins can be subjected to death, and second to ask the effects of action.

The following is the Table of Contents comes from Olivelle’s translation of the Manu Smriti
1. Origin of the World
2. Sources of the Law
3. Dharma of the Four Social Classes
3.1 Rules Relating to Law
3.1.1 Rules of Action in Normal Times
3.1.1.1 Fourfold Dharma of a Brahmin
3.1.1.2 Rules of Action for a King
3.1.1.3 Rules of Action for Vaisyas and Sudras
3.1.2 Rules of Action in Times of Adversity
3.2 Rules Relating to Penance

The Manu Smriti is written with a focus on the "shoulds" of dharma rather than on the actuality of everyday practice in India at the time. Still, its practical application should not be underestimated. Through intermediate forces, such as the instruction of scholars, the teachings did indeed have indirect effects on major segments of the Indian population. It is also an invaluable point of common reference in scholarly debates.

The "Law of Manu" was cited favorably by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who deemed it "an incomparably spiritual and superior work" to the Christian Bible. He observed that "the sun shines on the whole book" and attributed its ethical perspective to "the noble classes, the philosophers and warriors, [who] stand above the mass." However, he also criticized it for its abusive treatment of the chandala, claiming that "this organization too found it necessary to be terrible." (And we know Nietzsche as a misogynist, who famously said the only job of a woman is to procreate.)

The law in Manu Smriti also appears to be overtly positive towards the Brahmin (priest) caste in terms of concessions made in fines and punishments. The stance of the Manu Smriti about women has also been debated. While certain verses such as (III – 55, 56, 57, 59, 62) glorify the position of women, other verses (IX – 3, 17) seem to attack the position and freedom women have. The education of women is also discussed in the text. Certain interpretations of Verse (IX – 18) claim that it discourages women from reading Vedic scriptures. Verse (II – 240), however, allows women to read Vedic scriptures. Similar contradictory phrases are encountered in relation to child marriage in verses (IX – 94) and (IX – 90).

In his book Revolution and Counter-Revolution in India, Ambedkar asserted that Manu Smriti was written by a sage named Brigu during the times of Pushyamitra of Sangha in connection with social pressures caused by the rise of Buddhism. However, historian Romila Thapar considers these claims to be exaggerations. She writes that archaeological evidence casts doubt on the claims of Buddhist persecution by Pushyamitra. Support of the Buddhist faith by the Sungas at some point is suggested by an epigraph on the gateway of Bharhut, which mentions its erection "during the supremacy of the Sungas" Hinduism does not evangelise.

However, not all Hindus agree with the criticisms of the text, or the assertion that the Manu Smriti is not authoritative. Some prominent Hindu figures, such as Swami Dayananda Saraswati and A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, hold the text to be authentic and authoritative.

With liberal help from wikipedia.org

The Amber Spyglass

2011-12-01T19:14:00.002+05:30

Julia Eccleshare hails heretical fantasist Philip Pullman in his final part of the Dark Materials trilogy, The Amber Spyglass: If anything, The Amber Spyglass is more intense than its predecessors. The climaxes are bigger; there is a fresh fire in the writing; and there is a wonderful new cast of characters - notably, a pair of gay angels. Above all, Pullman pursues his central philosophical theme with even greater passion. In his world, the temptation and fall are not the source of all human misery but the end of repression by what he calls "the Authority" and the beginning of liberation and freedom of thought. What's more, it is Lyra and Will, two children on the threshold of growing up, whose embrace of knowledge saves the world, overturning the traditional view of childhood innocence.

For those who don't know Pullman's Dark Materials, it is a single story published in three volumes - an exhilarating and poetic mixture of adventure, philosophy, myth and religion enriched by a heady brew of quantum physics. It is heavily influenced by Milton and Blake, but also by Swift, Goethe, Norse legend and Greek tragedy.

Central to the story are Pullman's life-affirming belief in free will and the power of scientific rationalism and his deep dislike of hierarchical religion and the repression it sanctions. The first two volumes have already been dismissed as "the stuff of nightmares" by the Catholic Herald. Pullman won't be drawn into a theological debate, insisting that he is not setting down an argument or writing a philosophical treatise but telling a story.

The complete review here.
Read an extract here.

Knowledge Of Angels

2011-12-01T19:13:00.002+05:30

Writes Nicholas Tucker in The Independent: WOLF-CHILDREN have always haunted human imagination, even though there is precious little evidence that any ever existed. In her novel Knowledge of Angels, Jill Paton Walsh explores this myth as a way of wondering what any of us might be like if left to grow up without human influence.

The urge to find answers to this question has also been a feature of history. In the 13th century Emperor Frederick II instructed a group of wet nurses to remain silent at their job in order to discover whether the babies in their charge would first speak Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Arabic or their mother tongue. (In fact, under so odd a regime they all soon died.) In 1940 a psychologist husband-and-wife team kept a pair of twins - not their own - in isolation for their first 18 months to see how they would develop without any stimulation.

But in this novel, the author is interested in the symbolic rather than the developmental aspects of rearing an infant on its own. For as things turn out, waiting to discover whether the wolf- child Amara has an inherent knowledge (or ignorance) of the idea of God once she has acquired language is the pivotal point of the story.

This story is half fable, half parable. It enters into dialogues about the nature of faith with wit and passion. Coming across it now is like going back 60 years to a time when such 'novels of ideas' might once receive good notices from T S Eliot in the Criterion, only then to fall foul of Orwell reviewing in Tribune. Often hypnotically readable, it engages in debates of more historical than contemporary interest. Principal characters move fluidly between ancient ignorance and Victorian rationalism while the surrounding proles remain happy with their lot and content to leave every decision to their betters. It is all rather like looking at a medieval illustrated manuscript recreated by a clever modern artist. Contrived, often describing an idealised world but with luminous moments quite outside the normal run of contemporary fiction, this is a serious children's book for adult readers, and none the worse for that.

The complete review here.
The Booklore Review here.

Everything Is Illuminated

2011-12-01T19:01:00.002+05:30

In hilariously mangled English, a Ukrainian boy describes his efforts to help a young American Jew find the village his grandfather fled in World War II.
Writes Laura Miller in Salon.com: There are two stories wound together in this first novel, and as is often the case, one is more engaging than the other. The first describes a visit to Ukraine by a 20-year-old American named Jonathan Safran Foer. (You just have to ignore the fact that the device of putting a character with the author’s name in a novel outlived its freshness before Foer was born, in 1977.) This part of the book is told by Alexander Perchov, a Ukrainian, also 20, who gets shanghaied into acting as Foer’s tour guide and semi-competent translator when Foer visits the country. Like many Jews of his generation, Foer wants to touch the pulse of his roots, to see the village of Trachimbrod, where his grandfather was born and raised, and to meet the woman whose family saved him from the Nazis. The two young men are trading manuscripts, and so the narrative alternates excerpts from Alex’s account of Foer’s visit and his letters to Jonathan with installments of Jonathan’s own novel.

The complete review here.
Find more reviews here.

Sandman

2011-12-01T00:24:00.001+05:30

I don’t know why, but right now, I am completely, completely enamoured by Neil Gaiman’s comic book series (or should we say graphic novel?) Sandman. There are 75 issues in total and I have only read 40 of them so far. Reading comic books on a computer screen is no fun, but the mythic world Gaiman creates is so original, and so romantically enticing that draws you in from the very first frame.

Did I say original? Gaiman’s world is not an invetion like Middle Earth, but a re-adjustment of the existing myths in a new setting, very much like what what J K Rowling did in the Harry Potter series. Gaiman creates fairy tales for the MTV generation.

Honesty. Why must all fairy tales should have kings and queens? There were kings and queens in Hans Christian Anderson, for example, because, during his days there were kings and queens. So, in the modern New York City, where there are subways, and drug addicts, and cross-dressers, why cannot we create fairy tales involving them. That’s preciously Gaiman does. He creates modern fairy tales. And how?

The Sandman series centres around Dream, a personified figure. Wikipedia uses the word, “anthropomorphic,” meaning when you atribute human characteristics to a non-human entity... Anyway, he is Dream, known by various other names, as Morpheus, Oneiros, the Shaper, the Shaper of Form, Lord of the Dreaming, the Dream King, Dream-Sneak, Dream Cat, Murphy, Kai'ckul, and Lord L'Zoril... who is emotionally fragile like any other romantic young man. Centuries ago, he had fallen in love with a human queen, Nada, and when she spurned his advances, she being mortal, he being Endless, he torments her with eternal punishment in hell. He later rescues her, but that’s another story.

Dream isn’t a god, he’s Endless, and he has several siblings, Destiny, Death, Desire, Despair, Delirium and the missing one, Destruction. They are all Endless and they live in their own realms, somewhere way beyond the earth, but they can walk easily in the mortal world, and can also show themselves to the humans if they want to.

Dream’s job, understandably, is to help people dream. Among other things, his realm has a huge library, which contains books that were planned but never written, for example, my favourite, ‘The Merry Comedie of the Redemption of Dr Faustus’ by Christopher Marlowe (Poor Marlowe, he was killed too early).

So, where are the Gods, and other supernatural beings? Gaiman’s world is also the so called DC comics universe, so we meet a host of DC comics characters, from Lucifer Morningstar, the keeper of hell, who after a while abandons it, to superheroes like John Constantine. Gaiman also has Gods for all pantheons... We meet Egyptian Horus, Nordic Odin Allfather and his two sons, we meet Greek semi-god Orpheus, who happens to be Dream’s son, Eve from The Bible, and Caine and Abel and various Angels.

What what about the God with capital G? Gaiman mentions him, fleeing, but there’s no heaven. There’s a place called Silver City, whose reflection is the Hell.

While creating the supernatural, metaphysical world Gaiman seems to have followed the Peter Pan creator James Barrie, who said: “Every time a child says, ‘I don’t believe in fairies,’ there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead.”

So, Gods die in Gaiman’s world. He argues that the existence of the God’s hinges on the belief of the mortals. If people stopped believing in Gods, they’d be dead. Hence, the Greek and Roman Gods disappeared.

Interesting.

What is more interesting is that Gaiman never mentions Indian Gods. He mentions a Japanese God from Nippon though.

I wish if we had some fantasy comics involving our Gods. Sometimes back there was a comic book series called ‘The Sadhu,’ and something involving an Indian snake woman (not Mallika Sherawat), I haven’t heard much about them.

And, Amish in Meluha series humanises the Gods, which is also an interesting take.

More about Sandman here.
More about Neil Gaiman here.
More about The Sadhu here.

Cowboys And Aliens

2011-11-30T23:48:00.001+05:30

To begin with ‘Cowboys and Aliens’ (Jon Favreau, 2011) is as preposterous as they come. You know what it is about, cowboys and aliens, strange bedfellows. But, how will those lawless men in horses with their vintage guns and gunpowder would face the aliens with their spaceships and laser beam weapons? Why, the cowboys would steal the alien weapons to use against them. And, if this particular cowboy, more of an outlaw actually, is played by Daniel Craig, you better believe him. At one point, after falling from a plane-like alien thingy to save the girl, the Craig character says, incredulously, “We were flying! I don’t want to do that again...” and, we are expected to believe that the film is set in the years before Wright brothers were born. And, no one is scared... What heroism!

Saying this, I must admit that ‘Cowboys and Aliens’ is an enjoyable film, in the tradition of a Hollywood blockbuster summer extravaganza, a weird mix of horses and spaceships, Western and sci-fi, not that sci-fi twist is essential to the plot, but it makes the action sequences fun, and gives the special effects department some work to do. As Roger Ebert would say, it’s a MacGuffin, to keep the plot running. But, it may be interesting to note that during the time of gold rush, even an alien race had joined the prospectors... The aliens are also into kidnapping us humans, to, you already know, study us.

But, how these gunslingers and Apache Indians know all this sci-fi mumbo-jumbo? Oh, like all good Westerns, there arrives a mysterious stranger, two in this case, a wanted killer wearing an alien bracelet (Craig) and a beautiful, mysterious lady (Olivia Wilde), who, for the record, is not from the world; they arrive into the town of Absolution, run by a villainous figure Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Food, looking all old and grumpy), and all this before the alien invasion begins and, then the mechanisms of Hollywood blockbuster takes over...

Mamoni Raisom Goswami

2011-11-30T00:23:00.001+05:30

A few years ago, I attended a seminar on writing fiction. The British expert, among other things, warned us, the aspiring authors, never to repeat ourselves in writing. Western publishers don’t like repetition of words, sentences, period. I completely agree with the argument. Then I look at my literary inspirations, and they used reputations abundantly, and to such brilliant effect, especially Mamoni Raisom Goswami, my favourite author.

Mamoni Roison Goswami was my mother’s favourite writer too, and it was not only because her parental village was not far from the satra (monastery) of Goswami’s grandfather, about which she has written extensively, especially in the monumental ‘Datal Hatir Ooye khowa Howdha (The Moth-Eaten Howdah of the Tusker’). Goswami was my mother’s favourite author because she was fearless, because she wrote about places my mother would have liked to visit, but never had the chance (Vrindavan, Kashmir...), because she had a distinct voice, because how Goswami had made her personal life a site of her literary creations (‘Adhalikha Dastabez’; ‘Half-Written Manuscript’), because how she strongly felt about certain issues, women’s rights, and animal sacrifice, an issue my mother is very vocal about.

The first Mamoni Raisom Goswami piece I read was the short story ‘Sanskar’, where a rich lowercaste man sleeps with a poor uppercaste widow hoping to beget a progeny; to disastrous results. It remains one of the best stories written in Assamese. Then, I started with the novel, ‘Mamare Dhara Torowal’ (‘The Rusted Sword’), ‘Udaybhanur Charitra’ (‘The Life of Udaybhanu,’ the man who is obsessed with a woman who wears heels made of snake skin...), ‘Budhasagar, Dhushar Geisa aru Mohammad Mucha’ (The Budha Sea, Hazy Geishas and Mohammad Mucha), ‘Chinavar Srota’ (‘The Currents of Chenab’, my mother’s favourite), ‘Chinnamastar Manuhto’ (‘The Man from Chinnamasta’), ‘Dashorothir Khuj’ (‘Dashorothi's Footsteps’), ‘Nilakanthi Braja’ (‘The Blue-Necked Braja’), ‘Tej Aru Dhulire Dhusarita Prishtha’ (‘Pages Stained With Blood and Dust’)... virually all of her writings...

What makes Mamoni Raisom Goswami one of the most celebrated authors in Assam is her prose. She could make things come alive with her prose, she could make you feel the pain of her characters, make you nauseated, make you go through the experiences she had gone through. She used unusual images, images which are violent, gut-wrenching, and used them to such wonderful effect. (At the end of ‘The Man from Chinnamasta,’ the sadhu who was opposing animal sacrifice, offers himself before the mother Goddess, and as he bleeds, and as you read the sentences, you can actually see the poor man bleeding to death. Such genius...)

Yet, the literary genius of Mamoni Raisom Goswami is overshadowed by her personality, her life as it was. It was a tragic life, and she had the courage to carry the burden of the life around her (like the albatross in Coleridge’s ‘The Ancient Mariner’), and saw the world through the haze of her pain, her loss.

The real life academics, who worked in Delhi University, who, in the last few years, worked as an peace activist to find a solution to the problems of insurgency in the state, Indira Goswami, was someone else. We did not know her till very recently, till she became vocal about her causes, the ULFA issue (it is said that the self-declared commander of the outfit, Paresh Barua, would call her personally), and animal sacrifice in the famous Kamakhya temple on the Nilachal hills.

But, we knew Mamoni Raisom Goswami to the bones, and understood her pain, her loss, her sufferings, and her triumphs. And what triumphs! As a young girl, she tried to commit suicide after the death of her father. She survived the ordeal, but the incident made her more isolated from her immediate surrounding than ever. It was the time the Saraighat bridge on the river Brahmapurta was being built. There was a young engineer from south India who was working in the construction of the bridge. He was Madhaven Raisom Ayengar, her middle name. They fell in love, got married and Goswami went on to travel with her husband to various construction sites across India, which also provided fodder for her fiction. Then eighteen months later, Raisom died in an accident in Kashmir (years later, Goswami would write how she still remembered the blood-stained shirt of her husband...), and the young girl, who battled death wish all her life, was pushed to the brink. After a few years of living in depression, she was invited to do research on Ramayana in Vrindavan; this move changed her life, as she resumed her writing and also her research.

Yet, the memories of the past would haunt her, and she made these memories the foundation of her writing. Whatever she may write, whoever may be her character, there was always, Mamoni Raisom Goswami, the person, the real person.

For the world outside of Assam, she was known as Indira Goswami. She published the translations of her works in this name. In Assam, however, she would remain Mamoni Raisom Goswami, Mamoni baideu, a personality she created over the years, a personality the people of Assam embraced without question.

As we mourn her passing, it would be terrible loss to the ongoing peace talk with the ULFA, we marvel at the wondrous, courageous life she lived, and she lived it to the fullest.

Tennyson’s Ulysses said: “I have enjoyed greatly and suffered greatly. This was the life of Mamoni Raisom Goswami. Living to the fullest. In the extreme.

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Indira Goswami also known by pen name as Mamoni Raisom Goswami (14 November 1942 – 29 November 2011), popularly known as Mamoni Baideo, among the Assamese people, was an Assamese editor, poet, professor, scholar and writer.

She was the winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award (1982), the Jnanpith Award (2000) and Principal Prince Claus Laureate (2008). One of the most celebrated writers of contemporary Indian literature, she was noted for her novels which include The Moth Eaten Howdah of the Tusker, Pages Stained With Blood and The Man from Chinnamasta.

She was also well known for her attempts to structure social change, both through her writings and through her role as mediator between the banned secessionist group United Liberation Front of Asom and the central government of India. Her involvement led to the formation of the People's Consultative Group, a peace committee. She refers to herself an "observer" of the ongoing peace process rather than a mediator or initiator.

Her work has been performed on stage and in film. The film Adajya is based on her novel won international awards. Words from the Mist is a film made on her life directed by Jahnu Barua.

More Here.

Other resources:
http://indiragoswami.blogspot.com/
http://www.eclecticmag.com/view_personalities.php?&per_id=80
http://www.assamtimes.org/hot-news/5668.html

RIP Ken Russell

2011-11-29T19:23:00.002+05:30

The year was 1998. The Department of English, University of Pune had a seminar hall of its own, called Goley Hall (it’s still there), which housed, apart from the round table and chairs and sofas, a colour TV and a video player. The department also had a modest collection of video cassettes, most of these films based on classic English novels. That year D H Lawrence’s The Rainbow was in the syllabus. So, on that Saturday, we organised a double bill of two Lawrence novels in films: ‘The Rainbow’ and ‘Women in Love’ both directed by British filmmaker Ken Russell.

Most of us students who attended the screenings were from small towns, good boys and girls, who were not really open about discussing sex, let alone see it on screen, especially on a classroom environment. Ken Russell’s visualisation of D H Lawrence’s frank sexuality was something of a shock, with the men and women in the films running naked in the English countryside without any apparent reasons. When the screening ended, nobody said a word, they just got up from their seats and left the department. It was a shocking revelation.

As for me, it was revelation indeed. I was mesmerised by the power of cinema to reveal, reveal to me experiences which I cannot experience otherwise. I cried when the Oliver Reed character died. It was perhaps the first film that fuelled my interest in sexuality studies. And, ‘Women in Love’ became a film I’d watch often in the years to come, especially certain scenes, like Glenda Jackson’s Gudrun dancing before the herd of buffaloes, Alan Bates’ Birkin running naked in the forest, the infamous wrestling between Bates and Reeds, and the last death scene. ‘Women in Love’ is one of the memorable cinematic experiences I ever had.

I thank Ken Russell for that experience.

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Henry Kenneth Alfred Russell (3 July 1927 – 27 November 2011) was an English film director, known for his pioneering work in television and film and for his flamboyant and controversial style. He attracted criticism as being obsessed with sexuality and the church. His films often dealt with the lives of famous composers or were based on other works of art which he adapted loosely. Russell began directing for the BBC, where he made creative adaptations of composers' lives which were unusual for the time. He also directed many feature films independently and for studios.

He is best known for his Oscar-winning film ‘Women in Love’ (1969), ‘The Devils’ (1971), ‘The Who's Tommy’ (1975), and the science fiction film ‘Altered States’ (1980). Classical musicians and conductors held him in high regard for his story-driven biopics of various composers, most famously Elgar, Delius, Liszt, Mahler and Tchaikovsky.

British film critic Mark Kermode, attempting to sum up the director's achievement, called Russell, "somebody who proved that British cinema didn't have to be about kitchen-sink realism—it could be every bit as flamboyant as Fellini. In the final period of his directing careers he makes what have been described as very strange experimental films such as Lion's Mouth and Revenge of the Elephant Man, and they which are considered to be as edgy and out there as some of the work he made in the 1970s".

More Here.
The Ken Russell Obit from The Guardian.

2011-11-28T19:04:00.001+05:30

Gar firdaus, ruhe zamin ast, hamin asto, hamin asto, hamin asto
(If there is a heaven on earth, it's here, it's here, it's here)

Said Mughal emperor Jahangir, according to legends after visiting the Kashmir valley...

Grease Pole

2011-11-28T18:59:00.001+05:30

If I remember correctly, Assamese poet Ajit Barua used this imagery to describe his life: A grease pole where you climb once and slip twice. And you continue. Eternally.

This is my life. An eternal climb on the greasy pole. On a good day I climb one step, on a bad one, I slip twice. Then the bad day passes and I climb up again, and then the bad day returns and I slip.

So, after several permutations and combinations, I’m at the same place. Neither here nor there. At the same mid-point. Always.

Why don’t I just quit. I cannot. This is the only life I know, I can live. I am scared of other imaginary lives. And I don’t have the strength or talent to stay put there and not slip. and slip I do.

This is the myth Sisyphus, the man from the Greek mythology, who was condemned to repeat forever the same meaningless task of pushing a boulder up a mountain, only to see it roll down again.

I think I should listen to Camus, who wrote in his famous essay: “The struggle itself...is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

I must imagine I am happy.

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Greasy pole or grease pole refers to a pole that has been made slippery and thus difficult to grip. More specifically, it is the name of several events that involve staying on, climbing up, walking over or otherwise traversing such a pole. This kind of event exist in several variations around the world. More Here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greasy_pole

The Myth of Sisyphus is a philosophical essay by Albert Camus. It comprises about 120 pages and was published originally in 1942 in French as Le Mythe de Sisyphe; the English translation by Justin O'Brien followed in 1955. More Here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Sisyphus

Sister Death

2011-11-25T23:44:00.001+05:30

Death. According to some recent reports. suicide rates are higher among the people of alternative sexual orientation, than any other group or community, all over the world. That’s because there are hardly any support system for a young boy or girl, who upon attaining puberty, finds him/her self to be different from the others. Death becomes an easy option, an escape.

In Maharashtra, they’d say suicide rates are higher among the impoverish farmers, and they are right.

But, suicide, or death wish for that matter, is not a problem in itself. The problem lies somewhere else. Death is the solution, emphatic way of saying, enough is enough.

The problem is life. The problem is fitting in.

For me personally, I never fitted in. For a while I tried, desperately, foolishly. It was difficult. Then I gave up. Instead, I begun was assume roles. That was easy. I killed myself and hid my body and wore someone else’s face, saw someone else’s vision of life, dreamt someone else’s dream.

Today, after 35 years of loss, I look back, and realise sadly that there was indeed a solution to my problem. What I had was certain mental conditions, some “chemical locha”, as Munnabhai would say, and a few trips to a psychiatrist and a few pills would have been just fine.

But, the place I grew up, there were no psychiatrist; no awareness of mental health. When I learnt who Freud was, it was too late. I already had morphed into something else. I devoured the everything Freud and his followers, from Lacan onwards, and I understood things, conditions, but not how to find myself.

I also got the pills. But those were different pills, and helped me forget. It was all I aspired to have, forgetfulness. And it was too late.

The tragedy is not that I am still alive. The tragedy is I could not kill myself. That was the tragedy. And after so many years and so many attempts, I have stopped trying.

Blame it on Neil Gaiman.

Gaiman is a writer of graphic novels, and fantasy fiction. He wrote two of my favourite books turned into movies — ‘Caroline’ and ‘Stardust’, and how he affects me.

Currently, I am going through his ‘Sandman’ series of comics, or shall we say, Graphic novels. The series centres around a personification of Dream, as a ruler of a meta-world between earth and heaven (or silver city, or whatever). Gaiman has created a complex world of Gods, demons and superhuman being and their interaction with morals. It is all very fantastical, but very affecting, especially too me.

Now, dream has a family, four sisters and a brother, Destiny, Death, Desire, Delirium, Despair.

I am especially fascinated by death. She is so cool, not only in her attire, but also in her attitude. She makes death look so normal, so welcome.

More on Nail Gaiman here.
More on The Sandman here.

Life

2011-11-25T18:25:00.001+05:30

On the subject of death, a few lines on life, an English transcreation of an Asomiya poem by Maheshwar Neug, entitled "Life"

The man who stood
Near the roadside, asked,
Widening his eyes:
Hey, didn’t you die
In that dark evening, last Saturday?
Everybody said you did.

Did they? Let them
Whose eyes are shadowed by death
How will they see the new-blue horizon
Away from the cool touch of the mist?
Where would they store the living death of their eyes?

I died? That’s why you just
Saw me alive, animated.

In autumn’s clouded walk the grass that wither, dry up
Haven’t you heard their dying promise:
In the wave of the song of the cuckoo
We’ll dance again, in spring?

Muse India

2011-11-24T23:54:00.002+05:30

Time for some self-praise.

I have been very laconic about promoting my own work. I have always believed that you work should speak for itself, you don’t need to promote it.

Now, at 35, I think I was wrong. You need to market yourself. If you want to be known, that is. And, known I want to be.

So. Brace yourself for my first self-promotion.

The current issue of Muse India contains a few poems translated by, yes, your truely. The poems are by great Asomiya poem Nabakanta Barua.

I am sure my English cannot even recreate one percent of Barua's wonderful talent. Still, these poems are my tribute to the great soul. I had met him once, briefly, when he had come to the annual award ceremony to our school in Barpeta a long, long time ago, and he had given me an autograph. A memorable day of my life.

To view the poems, please visit the Muse India page. Thank you very much.

La Havre

2011-11-21T23:48:00.002+05:30

Writes Roger Ebert:

"Le Havre" is set much farther south, in the French port city where many of the cargoes are human: illegal immigrants arriving from Africa. The police find a container filled with them, and a young boy slips under their arms and runs away. This is Idrissa (Blondin Miguel), from Gabon, solemn, shy, appealing. The cops announce a manhunt. The film's hero, Marcel Marx (Andre Wilms), is fishing near a pier and sees the boy standing waist-deep in the water, hiding, and mutely appealing to him. He returns, leaves out some food and finds the food gone the next day. And so, with no plan in mind, Marcel becomes in charge of protecting the boy from arrest.

The movie's other characters are all proletarians from a working-class neighborhood, and in Kaurismaki's somewhat sentimental view, therefore in sympathy with the little underdog and not with the police. We meet Marcel's wife, Arletty (Kati Outinen, long the director's favorite actress), who joins her husband in his scheme. Their dog, Laika, is also a great help. Marcel, probably in his 50s, is a hard-working shoeshine man who knows everyone, including a snoop, a woman grocer (Francois Monnie); a fellow Vietnamese shoeshiner, Inspector Monet (Jean-Pierre Darroussin), and a local rock singer named Little Bob (Roberto Piazza), whose act is unlike any you have ever seen.

Read the complete Review Here.

Diana

2011-11-21T23:45:00.001+05:30

Talking about discovering something new, the other day I discovered Paul Anka, a Canadian singer I had never heard of before.

My boss lives in 1970s, and he knows everything about music of 70s. He is Queen fan, so am I, especially the two songs, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and “We Will Rock You.” That’s the reason when he suggest someone, I trust it would be good.

So far, I have heard only one song, “Diana”, and I liked it.

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Paul Albert Anka, OC (born July 30, 1941) is a Canadian singer, songwriter, and actor.

Anka first became famous as a teen idol in the late 1950s and 1960s with hit songs like "Diana'", "Lonely Boy", and "Put Your Head on My Shoulder". He went on to write such well-known music as the theme for The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and one of Tom Jones's biggest hits, "She's a Lady", and the English lyrics for Frank Sinatra's signature song, "My Way" (originally French song "Comme d'habitude").

In 1983, he co-wrote with Michael Jackson the song "I Never Heard", which was retitled and released in 2009 under the name "This Is It". An additional song that Jackson co-wrote with Anka from this 1983 session, "Love Never Felt So Good", has since been discovered, and will be released in the near future. The song was also released by Johnny Mathis in 1984.

More Here.

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"Diana" is a song written and made famous by Paul Anka in 1957. It was inspired by a high school friend named Diana Ayoub. The original Paul Anka 1957 recording reached number one on the Billboard "Best Sellers In Stores" chart (although it climbed no higher than number 2 on Billboard's composite "Top 100" chart) and has reportedly sold over 9 million copies. "Diana" also hit number one on the R&B Best Sellers list chart.

More Here.