Winter Light

There are points of doubts in everybody's life. The double about our existence, its meaning, the reason for life to live, the doubts about the existence of other worldly beliefs and concepts like God, religion, society and love. In these times of desperation and mental unrest, we tend to seek answers, try to find some truths, lot of times these excavations result in no answers but more such apparently unanswerable questions. But the beauty of such uncertainties, desperations and anxieties is that we discover life by ourselves, one more step closer. We also have a choice of escaping from these questions and most of times we rest in some comfortable looking alibis that pave way for our well-fixed self-imposed ignorance. The most standard of all these questions is about faith. This question leads to many answers but the most common is God, the one supreme power, who is supposed to listen to us mortals and alleviate all worldly sufferings. Bergman explores the question about faith, its loss and god, his non-existence in Winter Light very directly, very incisively, very provocatively.

Winter Light is the middle film in Bergman's self-doubt generated faith trilogy that starts with god-mankind relationship exploration in Through a Glass Darkly and ends with a surreal psychodrama on suffocating isolation, The Silence. I have seen The Silence too, and liked its sensual surrealism but Winter light is what I call a movie that has all the things that entertain me intellectually, it is comically sad, deeply pensive and above all very philosophical.


Set in a chilly and dour winter Sunday afternoon in a remote Swedish countryside, Winter Light shows three hours of the life of Pastor, Tomas Ericsson, who is disillusioned and deeply conflicted. For another 80 minutes we are going to witness, a strong spiritual and emotional struggles of the few who attends the Sunday morning service where the attendance is plummeting day by day, just seven people appears but the ritual are done and shown in all their clinical details in the first 10-12 minutes of the movie. This congregation includes Tomas, Tomas’s Mistress and a schoolmarm -Martha, a young fisherman couple -Jonas and pregnant Karin, an old lady and church staff. After the prayer, Karin comes with her husband, wanting to discuss a something private with the flu-ridden Tomas. As Jonas is silent from some sort of shock, Karin explains that her husband has been extremely depressed by a recent news article, according to which, the Chinese, who are raised to hate, will soon possess the atomic bomb and intent in destroying the world. Pastor was unable to console and connect with Jonas and just says some clichés like 'We must trust in God' which rather generate some more anguish in Jonas. Karin suggests going home but Jonas returns for a private conversation shortly. Meanwhile Marta comes to meet Tomas with some food and longing for some love, but Tomas shows cold-blooded neglect. Later Tomas and Marta have more radical exchanges with long Bergmanesque close-ups, that talk about their corroded relationship and Tomas inability to express love or rather his indifference towards Marta. Later Tomas gets the news that Jonas has committed suicide. Shocked by this, Tomas rushes to the site of suicide to do the Clerical functions where Marta too joins her. Tomas and Marta again have an argument, which may be considered as cruelest verbal assault, I have ever seen on screen. The movie ends where Tomas performs a yet other meaningless service at the church with even less parishioners in attendance.


The literal translation of the Swedish title is 'The Communicants' as the film talks about loss of communication between man & god and man & man. Feeling emasculated, unwanted and lonely in this wide world is a common feeling that all characters share at certain point in the film. Lonely and neglected Marta is searching for some love in the heart of dry and doubtful Tomas. Conflicted Tomas felt almost impotent to answer what Jonas is worried about, and felt even incapable to satisfy his own growing doubts. Devout Karin, mother of two and pregnant with another one, is fearful of her husband’s condition and its outcome. In a sense it seems to be the internal drama in mind of Tomas, where Jonas appears to be his disturbed and shock-stricken self, Marta may be his dead wife with whom probably he was distant and cold when she was alive, Karin could be the common parishioners who seek solace from the everyday rituals and prayers which Tomas helps them in. All in all Winter Light works as a spirit of broken link between the man and something imaginary, when the link realizes that there is nothing as trustworthy at the other end as man would like to assume.


As true with any of the Bergman's film there are some scenes with neat cinematography by Sven Nykvist that stays with you. Here what stay are close ups of the two tormented souls, Marta and Jonas. There is an extremely beautiful one-shot monologue by Ingrid Thulin where Marta reads out a letter to Tomas. Ingrid Thulin offers a devastating portrait of a tortured girl, its undoubtedly the best of her performances in any of the Bergman movie I have seen. Gunner Björnstrand carves out a very believable and very human character out of Tomas. Max von Sydow displays a unique charismatic fear in his blank face that is unable to show any emotions and communicate. Gunnel Lindblom is simple as a mother and a caring wife. We cannot believe she is the same actress who played the sensual sister in The Silence, where Thulin plays the isolated intellectual sibling.


There are instances of deadpan black comedy through out the movie. Jonas commits suicide just after counseling from the pastor, the references that Tomas didn't want to be join church, the very reason why Jonas was afraid and the discussion on Christ’s suffering between Sexton and Tomas are the places where you feel what I can call a serious humor.

What make Winter Light one of the greatest films ever is the fact it works on the most human level, of course it almost slaps god for abandoning us all, but it pictures an examination on how badly everybody is looking for someone else to fall on, whether its Marta who wants the Pastor to show some love, or its Jonas who is afraid of massive Chinese attacks and thinks everything is soon coming to an end and there is no solace, no savior to it, or its Sexton who tells pastor about suffering and almost comically argues that he has suffered more than Jesus and beautifully contends that mental suffering hurts more than the physical one. The image of Jonas' God-fearing wife, speechless after hearing Jonas' death, thoroughly devastated is what mirrors Bergman's anguish for God and apprehension for the world.

Ghatak's Meghe Dhaka Tara

I was reading about Ritwik Ghatak the previous week and became very interested in his themes and films. Fortunately one of my Bengali friend was visiting Calcutta so I thought of asking him to bring some of the Ghatak's movies for me. I was quite surprised that he had not heard of him, let alone some of the movies I asked for. One of those movies was Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud-Capped Star), which is part of the trilogy that Ghatak made on the socio-political impacts of partition. The others in the trilogy are Komal Gandhar (The Gandhar Sublime or E-Flat) and Subarnarekha (The Golden Line). Quite expectedly he wasn't able to find any of the films. Its ironical that Ghatak's films are not easily available in Calcutta, let alone India.

This Saturday, I went to my DVD library for a routine check for any new movies, and to my surprise and happiness, they have just bought some of the Bengali classics and the list included Meghe Dhaka Tara. I was overly rejoiced. I saw Meghe Dhaka Tara late at night. Before watching the movie I knew that it is going to be an emotional drama and I might require a handkerchief or two. After reading about the themes of Ghatak's movies, it looked like his themes and style have something common with Ozu, Bresson and Sirk. His movies are sentimental, sad and melodramatic at times. Ghatak, who is said to have developed his own style of cinema, saw very little commercial success and little critical acclaim in his life time. He died of tuberculosis and alcoholism. Meghe Dhaka Tara was one of his few commercial successes and is considered one of his best works.


Meghe Dhaka Tara is the story of Neeta, the sole breadwinner in an expatriated family. There are many Hindi movies made on this concept, but they solely try to generate fake emotions from the pain of the victim till the viewer feel sorry for her. Although Meghe Dhaka Tara has a huge emotional impact, but it never employs any cheap trick to drain emotions. The film starts with the struggle of Neeta to fulfill the demands of all her siblings and help her lover, Sanat to continue his studies and her elder brother, Shankar to continue his riyaaz. As the film progresses, other problems cast their shadow on our heroine. The first of all is an indication by her mother that if she marries, who is going to look after them all. In hands of other filmmakers, this episode could have been a huge melodramatic scene, but Ghatak rations emotions. Although there are indirect references from her mother but Neeta herself decides not to marry for the benefit of her family. When she tells her decision to Sanat, he protests. In the meanwhile Neetu finds a job for her younger brother in a factory but as the salary starts coming he decides to move on. The second blow comes to her when Sanat gets married to her younger sister. In one of her previous conversations with Sanat, she had told him about her future hopes on him and her elder brother. In a final blow, her loving elder brother decides to leave the household as a protest of continuous bickering of her mother on him being a non-earning member of the family. In a very sublime scene, on the night of his leaving, he and Neeta sings a piece of Rabindra Sangeet which said 'Probably the storm is pennant of my ship, but I will never know'. Still working and giving money to the family, Neeta learns that she is suffering from a fatal ailment, she decides to stay in a separate room in the house making her own kitchen. Later Neeta's younger brother meets an accident and this incident lets her met Sanat again, where he proposes to starts their life again, but she refuses. The condition of Neeta keeps on deteriorating with no medication, till her elder brother comes and decides to put her in a sanitarium where she can at least die in some peace.

There are so many plot twists in Meghe Dhaka Tara, but it never looses the focus on the scrutiny of human nature, our fate to be a victim or a victimizer. All the pains Neeta took for her ungrateful family and friends were out of hope and love but later she realize that her biggest fault was not to protest of her exploitation and now she has to penance all her life for her being so stupid and so ordinary. Meghe Dhaka Tara has some pioneering and experimental sound effects. As Neeta and Sanat sit by the river bank, a train passes whose whistle completely sweeps away the conversation and there are whipping sounds when Neeta leaves Sanat for the last time. When Shankar and Neeta are singing the song, in the last stanza whipping sound starts and Neeta starts weeping inconsolably. Apart from it movie has four songs basically taken from folk music, and are used very beautifully and seamlessly in the narrative. There is ample use of close-ups in the movie, the most popular one is Neeta looks up in grief and suffocation while returning from Sanat's house. The name of the movie comes from one of the love letters Sanat has written to Neeta earlier in the movie which she was reading in the last reels of the movie when Shankar comes to meet her. In her very last wishes she expresses her desire to be alive.

For me their were two points where movie could have finished giving me full satisfaction. The first one come with the piece of Rabindra Sangeet that Neeta sings with her brother. This scene is particularly dear as Neeta finds some solace with her brother and his music but later when she thinks of her hopeless future she bursts out with whipping sounds in the background. The second scene is Neeta last meeting with Sanat at the same place where they used to meet in happy days and Neeta's refusal to comeback. This episode is particularly important with the fact that Neeta now understand that she has been exploited and it is she who has to pay for her exploitation. But the ending that Ghatak chose is equally heartbreaking, puts things in perspective, seems to suggest that life has taken a full circle and now new pathos will evolve.

Meghe Dhaka Tara is a film that manages to say things subtly than a typical melodrama usually does. This movie makes a strong statement under the plight of our heroine, that every one wants to live or to simply survive. In the reverberating penultimate scene Neeta cries out 'I want to live..' and the shot moves to the stills of empty mountains, hills and roads giving us a deep feeling that nobody is listening, and probably because they too want to 'just' live and are busy with it. This scene and the whole movie seems to speak volumes about our tiny existence in this big world. Meghe Dhaka Tara works as a sad ballad, brooding with emotions and melancholy.

Cries and Whispers

The coldness of death may be quite minimal to the coldness we show in our relationships. Death may be a welcome respite from this coldness or death may be a gate to supreme coldness of no relations. How does we look at death and how does we look at life devoid of any warmth. Are they same or the later is even worse. Why do you become cold in the relations which once were soulful and warm. Is it intentional or a result of other events of life. Is human affection so difficult to pursue. These are only some of the question we enconter as we walk through Cries and Whispers. Cries and Whispers has cries of death with whispers of longing of warmth.

Cries and Whispers is second Bergman's movie that I saw, first was Wild Strawberries. If you see these two movies, Bergman's affection to death and coldness in relationships seems too evident. May be it is amateurish to make such a statement, especially when you have seen only two movies of his, but the skill he shows in dealing with these emotions prompts you to believe that.

Cries and Whispers revolves round dying Agnes, her two sisters, Karin and Maria and their maid Anna. Although nothing much is told about Agnes past but it looks she is more warm then her sisters and long for some closeness with her sisters which she never receives. She only receives some real warmth and closeness from Anna. The relationship between Anna and Agnes could be seen as erotic but there are enough evidences that Anna is the motherly by heart and Agnes longs for that affection at her deathbed.

We see Karin, Maria and Anna in flashbacks. Karin is cold due to her ice-cold marriage. In the flashback, the scene at the dining table and bedroom paints a picture of Karin as an emotionally and sexually starved woman in anguish due to a dry relationship with her husband. This coldness and inability to connect with others becomes clear with her encounters with Maria where she stops any closeness and declares that she hate her. Although she later try to patch up with Maria but at that time Maria closes the doors. Karin with her seemingly hard exteriors is quite broken inside, she reminds of Erika of The Piano Teacher at times.

Maria is self obsessed beauty who witnesses the her wounded husband with fear but didn't reach to help him. Maria has an affair with Agnes' Doctor. In one of the most directly poetic scenes of the movie, Doctor narrates the minute but subtle changes that have come in Maria's face features since the time he met her first, depicting that Maria has gone manipulate and calculating with time and lost her innocence.

Anna seems the only kind character here, who is truly moved my Agnes' pain and try to console her by showing her all motherly love. The contrast between these characters is glaringly evident during the gruesome death sequence of Agnes where Karin and Maria couldn't conceal their coldness and not able to bridge the distance to come close to Agnes but Anna comes forward to help Agnes in her last moments. In one of the sequences, Anna cradles dead Agnes in her lap, that frame is almost picture perfect.

Cries and Whispers is superbly acted. The best of the them is Harriet Andersson as Agnes. Her painful death scenes is difficult to endure because of her compelling act. Kari Sylwan show all the traits of a mother in her portrayal of Anna. And there is cinematography which is nothing short of brilliant and soulful. Although Cries and Whispers is about darker sides of the life but you see different shades of red scattered all over. Bergman said that he used red because he think it is color of the soul. These stylistic flourishes makes a Cries and Whispers stunning to watch. Other mastery is shown in close-up department. I have heard that Bergman usually puts close ups of actresses, but he goes far enough to give you close ups of candles, clocks, flowers, letters in addition to the stunning close ups of stunning female cast.

Cries and Whispers works on a level that a few movies even aspire for. This masterpiece is usually considered a testimonial about death but to me it seemed to question more about life and its ways, bridges in relationships, warmth of closeness and coldness of mental distances.

L'avventura

When you talk about attraction, you may be talking of boredom in a way. When you talk about relationships, you are in a way talking about segregation, Likewise when you talk about losing the meaning, you may be talking of the gaining something else, if not the meaning. The question about 'What brings people closer' usually moves to 'What keeps them together', when you think about someone else, you usually end up thinking about you. Some of the movies deal all this and return to the basics, images that impact you permanently. L'avventura is a movie of that power.
L'avventura is a montage of images where the images and the backdrops represents minds of characters. The characters are not very strong when the movie starts, they discover themselves as the movie moves. It is first movie that I saw which used images with such lingering power, here you need to see the whole frame to understand what's happening, L'avventura demands lots of attention, which it deserves fully. The pace of the movie is slow and its not particularly interesting that will keep you struck to the screens and it takes long time to identify with the movie but L'avventura doesn't aspire to be like that. There are long scenes with supporting cast that apparently doesn't add much to the narrative but all this is not irrelevant to the movie as a whole.

L'avventura is a story of Claudia whose friend Anna go missing on a boat trip and Anna's fiancé, Sandro becomes attracted to Claudia. This may be the dumbest way to put the plot but the best way will be to see the movie. Movie starts with all the attention on Anna, who is not sure about anything. In a beautiful crafted scene when Anna and Claudia go to pick up Sandro for the boat trip, Anna first even refuses to go up and see Sandro but end up having sex with him with Claudia waiting for her down. Characters here are self obsessed upper class. On the boat other insecurities of Anna are revealed. Meanwhile we are introduced to lots of characters on boat, that represents some stereotypes of marriage, man and woman. Anna was very unsure about her marriage, and discuss it with Sandro just before disappearing which sparks off a search of Anna, which later becomes the search of other characters mainly Claudia.

There are lot of scenes that are like paintings, the one that comes to my mind is the reverberating scene where Claudia and Sandro ring church bells, its perhaps the most happy scene of movie. Lot of other times too, characters were happy but they are pretending it or the happiness was too short-lived to qualify. The other one was the train scene where Claudia and Sandro lying in the meadows and a train passes by. All these images are all the more interesting to watch because they represent the state of mind of the characters.

L'avventura sometimes take the shape of a mystery which is not the mystery of finding Anna, but Claudia finding herself. In one of the last scenes she reveals her changed state of mind very clearly by saying that she dread finding Anna now. This possibly reflect more when put in perspective to the scene where Claudia stopped Sandro advances in the name of faithfulness of friendship and lamented that people change so fast and people forget so easily. L'avventura's take on morality is quiet illusive.

The Last Scene of L'avventura is almost magical, you may or may not like the movie but you're going to appreciate that scene where Claudia stands putting her hands on the head of Sandro, sitting and weeping like a child, with a dormant volcano in background.

L'avventura is not going to interest you if you want any instant entertainment and instant understanding of the movie. It will take time for the movie to dissolve and I may not guarantee that too. A picture may be worth a thousand words but which words or interpretation you take make or mar the picture especially when image are meant to be speaking emotional traumas of characters. L'avventura is so rare an experience because it give numerous such images and innumerous such possibilities.

The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant

Fox and his friends was my first Rainer Werner Fassbinder movie but it didn't click for me. Barring some scenes in the last reels, it left me cold. So I thought to give Fassbinder another try with The Bitter tears of Petra Von Kant and now I realize why they say Fassbinder is one of the greatest film makers ever.

The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant is adapted from a play that Fassbinder wrote and it shows since the movie is almost theatrical and there is no effort to reduce that effect. There are stay-still camera angles, camera never searches for characters but characters find their place to fit in whereas the camera rests! With minimal camera movements, no outdoor scenes, six female characters out of which one never speaks and four have small screen times, overlong conversations, set in a claustrophobic apartment, no action as such, one might suspect how this movie is going to bind you. But The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant works on different level and all this stage-like setting and acting works wonders for it.

The Bitter Tears is a piece from the life of Petra Von Kant, a successful fashion designer just divorced from her husband because 'He stank of man'. In the beginning of the movie, she is shown as a manipulative career woman busy with her work and bosses with her assistant cum slave Marlene, expressionless girl who doesn't utter a word in the whole movie and is just like many of the mannequins lying here and there in Petra's apartment, except that she obeys Petra's orders all the time.

As the movie proceeds, Petra falls in love with a young girl Karin and promises to help her to become a model. But Karin care least of Petra. The treatment that Karin gives to Petra is almost like what Petra inflict on Marlene. Petra breaks down when Karin leaves her for a her husband. There is not much of story but here we see human relationships in darkest and bleakest form. Petra's definition of love was based on dominance, possessiveness and dependence., but when Karin flies away leaving her heartbroken she realizes the importance of freedom. One of the story dialogue movie goes like 'People need each other but haven't found a way to live with each other'. Petra has been in many relationships, all were failure and her one sided affair with Karin devastates her to realize the need of freedom and equality in a relation and as a sign of the change she lets Marlene go. Petra who once says 'Everyone is dispensable' realizes the shallowness of the statement much later. Petra starts out as someone who is strong and can manipulate people and their emotions, turns into a inconsolably helpless fellow by the final reel. Her act of freeing Marlene can be seen as a redemption of all she has done all the years to Marlene and the likes without having an idea that it could happen to her. Petra character has shades of humility but a closer look tells us they are all selfish, inorder to gain love of Karin. Her treatment to Marlene and Karin are too contrasting, suggesting that we treat people differently depending upon what they can offer to us. Petra later realizes that all the relationships cannot work in the terms of being master or slave and how painful it is to be on the receiving end. The bitter helplessness of Petra is evident when she asks Karin 'Do you love me', Karen reluctantly replies 'I love you in my own way'. She could have said no too, but she needed money that Petra can only provide. Here the manipulations of relationships seems so clear and brutal.

The other strong point of the movie is superb performance by the all-female cast. Margit Carstensen is Petra is nothing short of brilliant and Irm Hermann as Marlene has a ghostly presence. There are some of the shot that are exceptionally excellent, one of them is the final breakdown of Petra, nicely-dressed but devastated waiting for Karin's call sitting on a velvety carpet on her Birthday with a mural in the background.

The Bitter Tears of Petra Van Kant is about one of the pet themes of Fassbinder which he referred to as "Fascism of everyday life". Here Fassbinder paints a bleak picture of life, where every relationship is inherently manipulative and our 'potential use' is our only worth, sooner and later we realize that not only we are used by someone, but we also use others from time to time in the name of noblest emotions of love and friendship.

Acceptance

One of my self-admittedly depressed friend told me that the only way to fight it is to accept it. Later when I saw some people who were really depressed, I realized how my friend was romanticizing depression and wearing it on his sleeves. He also told me often that his feelings are hurt and he is very emotional, which confirmed my theory. But he had a point, the point of accepting. I have always found hope in the idea of accepting. I also associate some sort of grace to this idea, idealizing it. Its heartening to accept that your time has come. Its graceful to succumb and fall without grudge. As crying lightens your heart, acceptance lightens the struggle, things clear up and you see the futility of fighting the wind and the whispers. Grace of a dilapidated tree is just enough to remind that it was accepted the fate. It has accepted the rain and the sunshine. It may have even realized that they nourish it too, while withering it in the process. The wrinkles on tree trunks are sign of grace, not resignation. Its not the acceptance of the wrong or the right, it’s the acceptance of cycles of life. If a big tree can talk to a smaller one, it will say, stay there.

Back in the day, when the ideas were ideas, thinking was clear and fun. Now things are muddled up. Experience changes the simplest of ideas, either dulling or dazing them. Being a father now and watching my 9 month old daughter’s reaction when we eat together, I realized what an old song means when it says “aap khaye thali mein, munne ko de pyali mein” (you eat in a big plate, and give me a small cup!). I love the way she can communicate her displeasure, sometimes subtly, other time not so. She totally assumes that we will get it, and most of the times, we don’t. Babies always cry, don’t they. I love the bubble in which that experience exists, these ideas change daily when a new language, a new life enters yours. You listen and realize how stupid you were, and you are. Accepting that your pillar of understanding are so weak and fluid is a difficult thing. What can you say, if things change with every experience and so does your understanding of them. The trick is to follow it, not try to get it. It’s not about defining truth, but chasing it, and staring it in eyes, for fraction of a second. Kafka says meaning of life is that it stops. Bunuel says that he sides people who seek truth, but part ways with them as soon as they say they have found it. Either it is a continuous search or a full stop. I think Kafka knows the truth, but does not know how to live with it. But Bunuel can manage life. The acceptance that life has meaning only till you keep looking is again a difficult thing to digest.

One of my old roommate’s girlfriend, threw a birthday party for me, she wrote cards, bought cake and flowers and but the whole time she could not hide that she is uneasy with something. These moments clouded her often, which she tried to wash with odd smiles. One evening she bought those ready-made kits to make paper dolls, and sat near garage door fixing it. I chatted with her a little and asked about the doll, she told me that she used make similar dolls as a child. She kept adding something to the doll and saw it again and fixed it little more, all the while seemed disinterested in it. She was just distracting herself from something. She was visibly sad. She was trying, but cannot move ahead. She was smiling, but her smile was like bad makeup, it highlighted what it should conceal. I left the city and later learned from my ex-roommate they are not together anymore. He said explaining she had lots of her own problems to sort. Her image with the doll rolled past my eyes. She tried, celebrated other people birthdays, baked cakes, and fixed paper dolls. In the mornings, I saw her so many times resigned and angry, and as if to cheer herself she would take us out for breakfast. She was trying her best, but it is very difficult to accept your own sadness.

If I meet my friend now, I will ask him, does he think the same about some of his old theories. I will tell him more details about my ex-roommate’s girlfriend and few more poor souls. I will tell him about myself. I will tell him about my borrowed ideas of meaning of life and the truth. I will let him talk and give me some more half-baked ideas, if he still have any. I will discuss them. I will have a good time.

Easy

Lets me start with an easy thing. Before I start, I should say that things are easy because they are not thought through properly. Easy and lazy rhyme too. Before I get into this mess again and not write for years, let me start with easy things. Easy things are sometimes just easy, and sometimes even directly from heart . ahh, here you go, you sentimental fool. Can easy is just plain easy, without interpretation, without shame or sigh. Plain like green of leaves, smell of flowers, easy to see, easy to touch. Ahh , again…. Lets start again, My easy idea was how memories are cruel, and how they change themselves to patronize you. Easy. Childhood memories are a bully. My adult life is often burdened by the goodness of my childhood. When I am perfectly happy, a harmless memory of a childhood lane with two porches and a tree during dusk come running, fitting itself as a Van Gogh in an All state art competition gallery. How can I ever match that goodness, it breaks my heart several times over. Poetically, I even thought to saying if my heart did not break a million time in that moment, it’s a god-damn stone. While driving in perfectly beautiful New Hampshire, I am haunted by the goodness that is my childhood in Muzaffarnagar. I remember that day when I wasted the whole day with nothing, and it seems so good in retrospect that I can be sure that memories trick. As an Indian, I have never understood what coming of age means, I am more used to cutting chords and corners. In college, one of my friends told me that life around me has outgrown me, though he said much more eloquently in Hindi like a film punch line where it cuts to the birds in sky or flowing river. As he said, I was intelligent enough to instantly realize that it will be a constant part of the soundtrack of my life. Seeing my melancholy reaction, he added, I feel the same. A good friend can lie for you.

It happens anytime, mostly during driving, sometimes while listening to music or talking to people. In fact, no time is safe. My life have burdened me with a perfect childhood that nothing can top. It has taken its own life. Sometimes I remember similar events differently intermittently blurred and focused to hit the right note, causing occasional lumps in emotional fool throat. The other time, a present feeling of happiness, is inadvertently compared to a similar thing in infantile past and is declared faded in comparison. My present is sepia and past Technicolor. The imperfections of past are like an odd-shaped stone, all the more collectible. The sun was better, and don’t even get me started on cheap ice and soda. Those are the mascots of simpler time, the alpha and omega of pure bliss. June sun and those cheap icecreams. Ahh. Well, I should not curse them, or blame them so heartlessly. They might leave me if I bad mouth them, I fear that . They are what a funny face or a loving kiss are to a sulking child. An instant nudge to some sort of elation – a shortcut to ecstasy, a trick nonetheless, but a sweet one. Those are like pennies for that big hole in my heart. All are lucky pennies, but the heart is out of luck.

Call it the emptiness of our better worlds or the a hearts tendency to flip-flop, it all is so warped with my daily life that calling it names here seems like a slight perversion. I love train journey’s – sleeper class – but who does not love them. Even the smell from toilet in the morning from your berth just seems special (a similar proximity on an airplane irritates you). The best are the times, when other people talk about their pennies and their faces glow as the hole in their hearts fill with bliss of perfect and imperfect pasts. As they tell tales. As they tiptoe on past like sunshine on tree leaves. A pattern emerges, we are all doomed, more or less. The life always hangs on a slice of life – real, imagined, reconstructed and re-evaluated. The images shutter past. The train cuts through a green pasture, and stops at a deserted station where you step down to get a quick sip of water, all the while keeping an eye on the train. As the you finish and see the train moving, time stops for a moment before you run and catch the train. I am talking about that moment. Easy.

Film 2009: The List

What is point of doing year end lists? Vanity for one, or may be a logical demarcation of time and effort, a scale to weigh in goodness and greatness over days and dates, and may be an excuse to name what you think should be seen by all and even more importantly to reveal false gods and fake idols (by omission or admission), and if you are lucky, get a discussion started by someone somewhere about movies - their heart and health.

This year was particularly eventful for me. I met Himani in June and married her in Oct. Moved to a small town in New Hampshire, with limited access to films. There are few good theatres nearby, which show good films, if you are willing to drive a little. These developments made watching movies little more difficult and a lesser priority in the sundry list of things to do.

In Dec, I managed to catch most of the movies, locked myself and saw movies back to back, and was very glad to find some great films. As last year, my emphasis still is silly, weak, futile, hysterical heart rather than boggling mind and more importantly the therapeutic power of films. Not a brilliant jig-saw puzzle and its oh-so-brilliant final solution, but a flow of many rivers, their turns, the trees nearby and a delta of fertile silt and soil, and the Man who still is human and its handling by an artist infused with humbling power of spirit, moral inquiry and quiet rapture.



I have intentionally waited for few weeks to post this, so that the newly watched films are digested properly, but there will always be second thoughts and re-evaluations. Here you go, as vanities toss and turn.

Top 12 (in rough order)
Revanche (Götz Spielmann)
You, the Living (Roy Andersson)
Two Lovers (James Gray)
A Serious Man (Ethan Coen, Joel Coen)
Treeless Mountain (So Yong Kim)
Moon (Duncan Jones)
Bright Star (Jane Campion)
Lorna's Silence (Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne)
24 City (Jia Zhangke)
35 Shots of Rum (Claire Denis)
The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow)
Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)

Honorable Mention
Tokyo Sonata (Kiyoshi Kurosowa)
Coraline (Henry Selick)
Julia (Erick Zonca)
The Cove (Louie Psihoyos)
Still Walking (Hirokazu Kore-eda)
Where the Wild Things are (Spike Jonze)
Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson)
Sita Sings the Blues (Nina Paley)
Summer Hours (Olivier Assayas)
Of Time and the City (Terence Davies)

Disappointments (of various degrees)
Tetro (Francis Ford Coppola)
The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke)
Police, Adjective (Corneliu Porumboiu)
The Headless Woman (Lucrecia Martel)
The Limits of Control (Jim Jarmusch)
In the Loop (Armando Iannucci)

Worst Film
(500) Days of Summer (I haven't seen Up in the Air yet)

Notable Performances
Jeremy Renner - The Hurt Locker
Abbie Cornish - Bright Star
Juliette Binoche - Summer Hours
Diane Krüger, Christoph Waltz and Mélanie Laurent - Inglourious Basterds
Michael Stuhlbarg - A Serious Man
Johannes Krisch - Revanche
Tilda Swinton and Kate de Castillo - Julia
Joaquin Phoenix, Vinessa Shaw - Two Lovers
Sam Rockwell - Moon
Arta Dobroshi, Jérémie Renier - Lorna's Silence
Gina Pareño - Serbis
Hee-yeon Kim - Treeless Mountain
Kyôko Koizumi - Tokyo Sonata

Blind Spots
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Anvil!: The Story of Anvil
The Beaches of Agnès
Sherlock Holmes
Adventureland
Tulpan
The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans
Broken Embraces
Antichrist

See last year's list here.

Films I am dying to see
35 Shots of Rum
White Material
Where the Wild Things Are
Lorna's Silence
You, the Living
A Serious Man
The Milk of Sorrow
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Book I am dying to read
The Original of Laura