The Time has Come...

As the cliché goes, the time has come. I will be on a trip, starting today, to Bangalore, Hassan, Belur, Halebedu, Kalasa, Kudremukh, Hornadu, Mangalore, Udupi and back to Bangalore. I don't know much about the places, just read about them on internet. I am taking my camera along for company. I will be back to Hyderabad next year. So, its the last post for this year.

About personal life, it went fine, but I am sure it will take some drastic turn next year. Professional life was good too, may be because I don't care much about it anymore. This year was not a good year for me film-wise, I was able to see about 80 odd films out of which 20 were Bollywood/Hollywood types. There are few films that I saw this year, that changed the way I look at them and were immensely satiating. Here are few of them:

Fat Girl: I was surprized by the audacity of this film and the way Anaïs say, "Don't believe me if you don't want to". Highly recommended.

Ten: It is the most experimental film I saw this year. Out of the ten episodes, there are few that are alarmingly heart breaking and true. Dancer in the Dark closely follows as runner up in the experimental category.

3 Women: The performance of Shelley Duvall is extraordinary. Either she acted too well, or she is like Millie in real life.

Week End: An example of art of the extreme type and film making of the highest order. Its disturbing as heavens and funny as hell.

Kinsey: I always felt that biopics are not film-material in any way but this film proved me wrong.

Late Spring : Another film by Ozu that proves that you can make same film with same cast year after year without losing an iota of novelty. The last scene where the old man peels an orange is even more painful than the farewell of Noriko.

Code Unknown : Its a crumbled masterpiece that shows us how fragmented and interconnected our lives have become.

I have a feeling that I am missing some films in this list, but one can always write next year !

Few directors I discovered later this year

Robert Altman : A truly American director. He visualized our society as a troupe sitting under shade and sunlight of a big banayan tree stage, with life of hopes and dreams crossing each other, ruptured and reared by the sentiments of family, sex, politics, race, cast and condition.

Mike Leigh : A truly British director. I saw three of his films this year, Naked, Secret and Lies and Vera Draka. Although we know he has mellowed down in all these years, but what strikes in his films is the human chord, the perfectly believable characters, the sentiments without going sentimental.

Brian de Palma : A true successor of Hitchcock. The Prom party scene in Carrie is like a greek tragedy (In Indian tradition, one can vaguely equate it to the story of Kannagi), everything good and bad is destroyed, and the climax says that this tragedy lives on. And above all, orgasmatic crucification of Carrie's mother by flying knives.The Museum scene in Dressed to Kill, is a great example of how camera can do all the menacing and peeking. Its also an example how a simple hooking scene between strangers can be turned to art. Reviews of his films here.

In Bollywood films, I liked Jaan-e-man, Khosla ka Ghosla, Lage Raho Munnabhai, Gangster and Taxi no. 9211, in that order. I found Rang de Basanti, Omkara and Dor quite overrated, in that order.

Reading wise it was a bad year but I think it was better than the previous one. Thats all I read.
1) The Sorrows of Young Werther
2) The Old man and the Sea
4) The Importance of Being Earnest (text here)
5) The Overcoat, The Nose and Dead Soul
6) The Stranger
7) The God of Small Things
8) Short Stories (Parinde and Kavve aur Kala Paani ) by Nirmal Verma (Anubhuti profile here)
9) Poems by Nagarjun (Anubhuti profile here)
10) The Quilt and other stories by Ismat Chughtai (more links here)

and Alok, I still include short stories along with novels :)

Happy New Year to all !

Gong Li

Now it is the time to write something about her. I was almost enticed by her small role in 2046. Doomed gambler of love, thats what she plays. I find something sensual of higher order in smeared lipsticks (I even liked Urmila Matondkar's lipstick smearing act in Pyaar Tune Kya Kiya). 2046's final passionate kiss is very erotic, potently dangerous and doomed like love. But nothing come close to the way Gong Li leaves the frame in 2046, with out of bound lip color. I don't remember it fully but I found camera almost fixed on her hand wearing a black glove, carrying a purse and her hips as she climbs down the stairs or may be she walks out on a paved road. At that time, I gave all the credit to Wong Kar-wai. But the next film (The Hand segment of Eros), although also by Wong Kar-wai, proved how she can elevate and blur the line between desire, love and pain of its impossibility. The Hand is more explicit and shorter than 2046 and In Mood for Love, and so it might not work on their level (also, we have the same by Kar-wai many a times), but Gong Li makes every thing delectable, delicate and delicious. Gong Li has power to utter words in a way they mean both rejection and approval, with a firm face, and it all points to a dangerous territory ahead. She is just opposite to other excellent actress, Isabelle Huppert. While Huppert is so bland, covert and distant that what ever little precise emotion she displays gives sublime pleasure, Li displays an oriental mix of emotions, spicy and suppurated, its both pain and pleasure to watch her simmer and sigh.

I saw Raise the Red Lantern last week and the younger Gong Li as as good as her consummated version. The film starts with her close up where she accepts her fate and then she moves on a journey of power, family politics, sex, betrayals, deaths and finally madness. The film, shot in beautiful reds, is a mix of traditions, entrapment, soap opera and alienation, works like a Kafka-like parable. Gong Li's Songlian tries to play the game of the house like the other sisters, trying to be as sinister as them, but eventually loses everything, but in all this she becomes our window to the dark secrets of the house of red lanterns. She elevates this visual treat to something universal and bigger than its parts. Gong Li's Songlian longs for VIP foot massages and the red lanterns, not for the company of the master but for the power it brings along, and as the game becomes more complex, she single-handedly injects ghostly hysteria into the film. Li manages to became a living ghost in the house, a token of all the misdeeds and family secrets, consumed by both. She has gift to fill atmosphere either with unbearable longing, or amorous danger, or both. I must see, To Live and Farewell My Concubine soon. And I think she must work with Almodóvar and Lynch at least once. In Lynch's film, she can even speak Mandarin, it wont obscure the film further.

Robert Altman and American Cinema

When an artist dies, instantaneous interest is generated in his works among general public and his works are revisited by critics. I had not seen any of the film by Robert Altman, till he was alive, although several times I was just about to rent his films (last to last week, I shortlisted two films by Robert Altman and two by Mike Leigh, and decided to rent the later two), but I was intrigued by his films as they appear from reviews (great opera of a wide and varied ensemble cast with a central event having small scale character studies in particular, and American culture in general). I must admit that I have a general prejudice against American films for no solid reason, given a choice I will always choose the other.

Earlier this year, I compiled a list of directors to watch, country-wise, and intentionally left American directors. If this a confession box, let me confess, I have not seen even a single film by John Ford, Terrence Malick, Francis Ford Coppola (saw one of the Godfather, many years back on TV, I don't remember anything from it, not even the score by Nino Rota), John Huston, Howard Hawks, Robert Aldrich, Michael Curtiz, Vincent Minelli, Sam Peckinpah, John Cassavetes, Brain De Palma, Buster Keaton, Nicholas Ray, Sergio Leone, Andy Warhol. I have seen on film each by Orson Welles (its The Trial, not Citizen Kane) and Douglas Sirk. So, the only American directors which I have seen are Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, Stanley Kubrick and Billy Wilders. In the contemporary directors I score bit better. I am more or less alien to the genres of Film Noir, Musicals and Westerns.

So demise of Altman, not only generated interest in his films, but American Cinema in general. To cleanse some of my guilt, I have planned to watch films by Altman for 2 weeks and following is the list I came up with, and in that order.

The Player
Nashville
Gosford Park
McCabe and Mrs. Miller
Brewster McCloud
M*A*S*H
3 Women
Short Cuts

Planning to write short notes on these films once I complete them. This list is based on reviews, trying to get a mix of his old, new and cult films, and more importantly the availability of films here. If you want to recommend any more Altman films (or any American director and films), please do so. You can help a poor soul in guilt-reduction.

A heartfelt obituary to Altman here. A more comprehensive one here. Altman's sketch by a fan here.

Vera Drake

The tagline of the film says - Wife. Mother. Criminal. , but for sure Mike Leigh is not interested in trifurcating Vera Drake into these boundaries or joining these three into one character. Its the humanity of Vera and the film that touches us. Here is a simple story of a old woman who helps young woman out, alongside being a mother, wife and a daughter.

The film is clearly divided into two parts - the one where Vera do what she thinks right, and the other where law do what it deems lawful. The debate whether she is right, or law lawful are skipped, there is no statements of sorts. The moral fulcrum of the film lies in the eyes of Vera, played with amazing beauty by Imelda Staunton. In one of most absorbing performances, Imelda Staunton plays Vera with so much common-ness that her quagmire mirror the times she live in, and also to some extent touches the ideas of social acceptance of personal morality. When asked by a detective whether she performs abortions, she says that she don't understand what he is saying, she says she just helps out wretched girls in trouble. No doubt, she is part of some bigger game, which caters the upper class and she is being used, but Vera assistance to girls and women who need some help, is purely personal. Like other such films (Talk to Her, Dancer in the Dark), Vera looses the battle with law.

Towards the second half, the film veers into full fledged melodrama, like the complete turn in Vera's life. Although Vera understands her fate, but she is more worried about her family, and Leigh paints this film about humanity with master strokes, with the help of an excellent cast. The leading among them is Imelda Staunton, whose one look, when the detective come to arrest her during the Christmas party, is more than devastating in a split-second, to say the least. That one look provides such complex feeling of care for the family and acknowledgement of the danger on the doorsteps, danger that will not only engulf her and her respect but her family also. Others in cast are also excellent, especially the odd couple Ethel (Vera's mousy daughter who works in a Bulb testing factory, played by Alex Kelly) and Reg (a lonely neighbor, whom Vera invites at home, played by Eddie Marsan). Reg provides the emotional high point of the film when he thanks Vera for the Christmas party and declares it "Smashing", its seems to be the sincerest form of gratitude to Vera (and at the time Vera needed it most). He, later in the film, even defends Vera for her stand in his simple statement, 'It's all right for the rich if you've got six kids, but if you can't feed them, you can't love them.' Mike Leigh is master in making such credulous characters without even a hint of caricature or stereotyping.

At one point, I thought that Leigh has set up stage for first gaining sympathy for all-good Vera, innocent mother helping all others and then using this sympathy to bring forth emotions as Vera is convicted. But I think there is something wrong in this logic. Her decision to do abortions may be because of several reasons (at one point when the detective asks her whether she was raped when young, she starts weeping) and Vera's goodness is not to cover that up, never in the film, her goodness tries to cry out of a scene. I am not too sure about this, one line of thought may be that she could be made not so good (having some rough edges) and then the response to her actions may be more equivocal than for the all-good Vera, but having said this, Vera's character comes out so real and believable, every detail of her character smells of stoic compassion, that I would not like to doubt director's intentions.

This film is not without a moral center, it is not neutral or just observational, but the film is more interested in the nature of family, humanity and morality. Vera Drake is a film about an issue, without either being condescending, preachy or falsely pretentious but more importantly, its a story about a good person and her world (society), and what it takes to be so. Vera Drake lets us believe that such people exists.

Secrets and Lies : Brenda Blethyn as Cynthia Rose Purley

She sometimes blurs the line between a fool and a clown, both of tragic melodramatic shades. In a long shot (about 6 mins or so) of her first meeting with her daughter, Brenda Blethyn's Cynthia Rose Purley acts and laughs and cries and mutters sweetheart (with 'H' silent) all the times. A viewer is left puzzled on what to believe and what to dismiss, much like Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), her lost daughter. But inspite of all this, we are made aware that she is acting like everyone in distress acts, not to cheat but to protect herself, and in all this mess her humanity surfaces, behind the surface of Secrets and Lies. Blethyn acts as a pivot to Mike Leigh's film not like a central character but a character who is lost amongst others. In the birthday party sequence, we can see the discomfort on her face, the uneasiness to accept a multi-bedroon apartment, which she tries to fill in by uttering inanities like the one who try to fit in between some indifferent people. Rejected and ignored by all, the mother in her is still alive and kicking, but so are the secrets, and so are the prejudices.

At one point in the film, Cynthia says "You gotta laugh, ain't ya sweetheart? Else you'd cry", and Brenda Blethyn, while acting, takes it as a rule to be Cynthia. Brenda Blethyn lets her raw and bare kitchen-sink-slice-of-life act remain so, even in her catharsis scene she remains same Cynthia speaking innumerable 'sweethearts' and 'darlings', does not give a sign of character volte-face. No close-ups for her, no staged dialogues, she is our own sitcom heroine, injured and failed like a dysfunctional family. Although I liked the film (compare the brutal nihilism of Naked to the uneasy tenderness of this film) with some reservations (I found few scenes towards the end out of tune), but Brenda Blethyn's performance is invaluable and becomes almost priceless on the second viewing.

Boredom and Unhappiness

Rajeev posts some quotes by French author Céline. I was reminded of early last year when Alok sent me some of those. The one that I liked the most was:

“Living, just by itself - what a dirge that is! Life is a classroom and Boredom’s the usher, there all the time to spy on you; whatever happens, you’ve got to look as if you were awfully busy all the time doing something that’s terribly exciting - or he’ll come along and nibble your brain.”

...Awfully busy in doing something terribly exciting.... I usually find myself doing that, at least pretending. Going to Nature camps, Salsa classes or 10k runs for no purpose but to fill in time with some physical exercise. I fear boredom will nibble me anytime. No amount of reading or movie watching or talking to friends or smoking make me wiser than boredom. Yes, there are rare moments of bliss, when I fearlessly sit alone and even boredom deserts me.

The second one which I found very insightful is:

“Never believe straight off in a man’s unhappiness. Ask him if he can still sleep. If the answer’s ‘yes’, all’s well. That is enough.”

I don't like when people say they are unhappy (Although I have done it several time, but I don't use the term 'Unhappy', I find too strong or may be I fear it). I have become very skeptical of other people's unhappiness. Is it lack of comfort or lack of perfection in their bourgeoisie picture of life or just glitch of irritation or boredom. I believe that if a person is living, he/she is at least marginally happy. Living has some inherent gratification in itself. If you don't look for bigger meaning and bigger pictures, I believe that life is not inherently unhappy or unpardonably painful. There are unhappy lives, we must acknowledge that but pure unhappiness is as rare to find as pure happiness.

Small Notes on Two Films

Don

Don can be described as a roadside tea served in a high-end cool-interior coffee shop. The tea looses its open-air taste, and it costs more. Or it can be described as a tea-stall mass number remixed for Buddha Bar. Or see it as a thinking item girl, who can neither dance nor think well. There can be several such analogies but the point is this film has no charm of material it imitates or rediscover or re-interprets, and it is not saying that it does not have its own charm, which it has, although only at a few places. One more thing which came across my mind is lack of character artists in Hindi films today. We don't have anyone like Mac Mohan (working) today, so that part of Mac goes to an unknown and becomes nothing. I seriously think that small parts should be given to known faces, audience have such a little time and volatile memory to accommodate a newcomer. They could have casted a newcomer in the place of Boman Irani, who was really funny when he should be damn evil. Look at the old Don and we have all the smaller parts to known faces. Also, one more thing which I might not be able to express clearly about the films of DON era. I saw them as a child and while seeing them I used to do little calculations about the good and the bad and try to pick up hints who is the real bad guy, the way camera zooms to some of the characters to give as hints and at times those hints are false (You get all the such tricks when you see bunch of them). So eventually you have the whole kit (at least you feel so), and try to make your own guesses, not only about the evil guy but about plot twists and turns, and when director (or screen writer) beats you in that kids play, you feel strangely satisfied, and add that extra twist in your rules book so that you can apply it for the next film. The new DON turns the old to be either too intelligent or too dumb and the fun of the game is lost. Also remakes of such types, broadly they can be done in two extreme ways. One way is like offering tribute to your favorite deity, write him/her love letters and take it all seriously. The second way is a meta-movie, which is a parody of the old film. I think neither of the two will work. The first one is too religious and the second one is too blasphemous, too intelligent. Farhar Akhtar tried something in between (more towards the former approach), and now we know that too doesn't work.


Jaan-e-mann

Jaan-e-mann is one of the few Hindi films that I saw this year and came out satisfied, and even hopeful. If we see the whole film, there are several moments where it falls in the trap of conventions and cliches (especially in second half with the kid), but this film works as the revival of Bollywood musical, how music and narrative can be mixed with colorful imagination. Overall the film is not path breaking and all, but its quite conceptual in its musically over-the-top grand style. Here also, things are painted and clothes are designer, but they have an intentionally made-up feel with no intend to be real, which has its charm. Also the plot is so thin that we don't care about it, everybody knows what will happen and who will get the girl in the love triangle and cliches are there in place, but here shallowness has self-awareness. This romance is a costume drama, visual gimmick, a Broadway musical and homage to Bollywood. Here is a film where we sit to see the next song, the film moves from song to song, sometimes filling up for dialogues, sometimes for whole situations. There is a song, Kabool kar le, which is there to energize the routine situation, is filmed imaginatively and also works as the parody of all shaadi movies. Salman Khan is as self-aware and self-referential as the film, and he perfectly fits the bill, and so are Akshay Kumar and Priety Zinta. Even in this unreal and bizarre colored setting, somehow we feel the characters are not card board, this is I think, a big achievement. This film is interesting because it shows how cinematic medium can be used to elevate (if it sounds pompous read 'perk up' instead) the usual stuff without taking itself too seriously, most of the times. I sometime feel that life would have seen much more interesting if it had BGM, such movies strengthen that silly belief, as least for the time when you are in theatre.


Note:
1) Who-so-ever comments on this post, please write their favorite childhood movie. To start, mine is Mr. India. I have watched Mr. India more than 20 times and still have appetite for it.
2) Even if you feel its too difficult to answer the first question, feel free to comment. My blog can not afford to loose a comment ;)

Melodrama

Nothing can cure my melodrama
There is no convalescence
My emotions, inane,
unbearable, without essence

Behind my walls, I must silently weep
I must smolder to avoid burning
Behind my back someone should stand
Support me without ever turning

Hope might forsake me, but not a tear
I must cry out what I can not bear
I may be happy if I don't care
For this, I should not look here or there

For this, I should stand tall and not see
Exactly like a wisdom tree
Dry eyes wide open, without a wink
They are allowed only to think

Again I go to bouts of fear
Again the sad music starts far and near
Though I think, my heart and soul are clear
I don't know what comes out as tear

I must believe in the goodness of soul
I must see life as a whole
I must understand my life's goal
For God's sake, I must exert some control

I doubt this can ever be done
I even doubt the moon, and the sun
It may be done at the point of gun
Knock me down, let me be the one

Nothing can cure my melodrama
No morning, no light, no season in sight
In the curl of a sea, in my bed, towards right
I weep alone in my own delight

The sublime fruits of knowledge hang high,
Some are sour and some are sweet
Lying down in perversity of soul and circumstance
I need some salt, so I weep

Kafka's World: Gretes and Gregors

Grete, sister of Gregor Samsa, in Kafka's Metamorphosis, is an interesting character and this story is not only the story of Gregor's physical transformation, but also about Grete transformation, her growing up, her loss of innocence, her moving from love for his brother to protective attitude to logic of indifference. Its also her rise from a younger sister to a breadwinner of the family. Its her story of growing up and playing violin for young men and stretching her limbs in the afternoon sun. For Gregor, the story ends in the dark room, for Grete, it swings afresh in sunny breeze.

After Gregor's grotesque metamorphosis, Grete was the only one who looked little composed. She tried to help him, while her mother was afraid and her father was angry. She gave Gregor food, and later left-over food. A few days later this attitude grew protective and it cut off Gregor from other people. At one level, it looks like she want to stop the embarrassment of Gregor and his parents, to cover up the family-shame. Or is it pride of smugness that she only understands him, which undermines the cognizance of others and puts Grete in a special higher ground, may be some sort of self-appointed slave owner, who takes pride in the responsibility and safeguards her right for it. In the short story, Grete even becomes angry if some body else takes care of Gregor, she makes Gregor her own property and as any private property, she owns him and leaves him when it does not satisfy her needs, under the blanket of possessiveness. Grete's help eventually cuts Gregor of any help. She becomes her savior and like god leaves her one day, but unlike the god's world, there is always hope that everyone will fall one day (although, the next minute, this hope is thrashed with the rise of someone else) . And Kafka doesn't give her any benefit of guilt. Perhaps the most heart breaking point in the short story is to watch the way characters move from compassion to logic, pity to indifference, when they realize logical facts like 'a rotten limb should be removed to save the body', or 'worth of a person is its potential use' or 'we all need to survive somehow', or that nasty million dollar truth 'Life's like that', which can dumb any disturbing thought.

But the point that Kafka intelligently eludes is Grete's fate. Is it same as Gregor's ? or is it not ? In the center of a family politics and Kafka's ruthless diagnosis of the family illness, Grete stands as a 'current' lead and a 'potential' backstage extra. I think Grete is a victim-in-making too, but as any such victim she doesn't realize it, but enjoys her metamorphosis. Also it is not necessary to realize it, it might make life still more difficult to endure. Grete Samsa will get married or will continue to work or might turn into a lady bug tomorrow but how does it effect her today, what's the 'use' of Kafka's creation if it can't help any of the Gregors and the Gretes to escape from their fates. Why should we even read it. These are some questions that come to my mind. I have no answers. Why should I read Kafka and go to enlightened depression, may be because if I ever see a Gregor or a Grete, I will understand them or I will know that life machine runs for petty purposes, and my life is no exception and I, being so rational and benevolent in my eyes, had been torturous for years, to the knowns and the unknowns. Shall I do penance after I read Kafka or shall I change myself or shall I accept the my fate and of others too. One way to look at any art is a tussle between oppressor and the oppressed and an artist always uncovering the ways used my oppressor to oppress, but in Kafka's world both oppressor and oppressed are the same, at the same time, in the same space, living in some mutually acceptable sadomasochist harmony, a mix that let us survive. Does it tell me more about human nature or the world I live in or myself ? I think so.

Kafka's sketch taken from here.