O Brother - Lets go see this movie ...

My roomie was insisting that I should the movie 'O Brother Where Art Thou'. Just like anything else, I put this task too for a later time. A few days back I happened to lay my hands on a movie 'The Big Lebowski' by the Coen Brothers. I had seen their movies 'Blood Simple', 'No Country For Old Men' and 'Barton Fink' and was beginning to sprout a likeness for their movies. TBL helped me strengthen my belief in the brothers artistic skills and I planned to watch all of Coen's work. I researched a bit on their work and finally realized that there is one movie OBWAT that is gathering gossamer in my archives. So I pulled out the disc and started this wonderful journey together with the protagonists escaping a chained gang in search of a treasure and their destiny.

This movie was inspired by Homer's Odyssey as the Brother's put it in the titles. True to it the main protagonists first name is Ulysses, then there is the oracle who predicts their destiny, the seducing washing women for the sirens of Homer, and a few more metaphors. They escape the chain gang so that Ulysses can recover some treasure that he has hidden in a valley which is about to be drowned by a dam. On their way they encounter some wonderful sights and perilous perils, a black American boy who has sold his soul to the devil to become an ace guitarist, sings a song for a few dollars (the song immediately becomes a huge hit), a group of singing washer women (reminiscent of the sirens), a rogue Bible sales man, the KKK, the incumbent governor and his adversary and so on and on...I wont divulge into the plot details so that you too are eager to see this movie without any spoilers.

But the most stunning ingredient of the movie is the innocence and the simplicity of its characters, a bunch of plain ol' southerners roaming the country side. The pack is led by Ulysses with Pete and Delmar following him to the treasure before the dam fills the valley. The picturization is immensely beautiful and the most vital ingredient of this movie is its soundtrack. Wonderful country and folk songs indulge the viewers over the entire length of this beautiful odyssey.

This is one of the few movies that have made me weep out of happiness (the other being Amelie). This wonderful journey of the three simpletons embarking upon various adventures and hazards and dangers and finally finding greater happiness at the end provides a reveling depiction of hope, togetherness and happiness. Very few movies can elicit this kind if feeling in the minds of the movie goers.

A must see for all the movie goes out there. The music is one which you must have to ease the strides in your life's way.

sita sings the bluEs

I came across this animated movie from a review found in Hindu's Friday review section. What got my attention was the peculiar mix of the modern and the archaic; narration of Sita's story with Blues (the music style). I went through the beautifully presented review and before I completed it, I found torrents for this freely available (without any copyright/left/license restrictions) animated film. The film is directed by Nina Paley.

This animation takes a different perspective at the Ramayana from that of Sita rather than the more prevalent male versions that we have grown up to. the film is presented in a multi threaded format with two of the threads going in parallel as a narrative & analysis of the Ramayana by puppet characters and the actual story told by first person performance and jazz recitals by Sita and the third from the life of the director Nina Paley. The narrative thread played by the puppets is kind of a modern day analysis of Ramayana and the various intricacies of the story. Puppets complement and comprehend each others doubts and take a looks at the characters with a contemporary outlook. This thread felt like second generation NRIs explaining their scant knowledge of the Ramayana to their adolescents. Their doubts bring forward the picture of the Indian male dominant society and the various strata in the Indian society and about the women in general. They also post various doubts which will seem quite blasphemous to the new guardians of Indian culture and may even lead to the complete boycott of this wonderful piece of art.
As the puppets doubt and conclude upon a certain section of the story, it switches to Sita's perspective of the actual story. Most of the actual story is told by Sita's jazz performance. Various blues genre songs are used to provide the wonderful narration of love, romance, loss, despair, hope and divinity.

The third thread is from the life of the director herself. It speaks of how she and her husband were having a wonderful married life, how it was torn apart and how she redempted herself by turning herself into the solace of Ramayana. I believe she is trying to draw parallels with her story and that of Sita by interspersing her story inside a Ramayana narrative (she was dumped by her husband who she loved so dearly; after all that’s what it seems to be).

In all, this is a wonderful endeavor from Nina Paley. most of the animation is done by her as well as the direction, animation, editing, story etc. the animation for the three threads are done in three different styles - the main story when told from first person uses the kind of Rajput drawing technique prevalent in the 15-18th century. The narrative from the puppets is told with a kind of collage type animation (animated photographic composition). The directors life story is told in squiggle vision. I believe this blends in quite beautifully with the film. The actual story is in bright high quality animation which signifies the clarity of the first person perspective of the narration itself. The second thread as narrated by the puppets is a collage as they are collecting all their ideas and opinions with whatever information they had from the different sources. Finally squiggle vision for the director's life story may be the dramatization of her unkempt life and the emotional turmoil she might have gone through.

For those who have seen Anurag Kashyap’s Dev-D, the psychology of the puppet narrative may seem familiar; the Ramayana is told without changing anything in the story but rather analyzing the character of Sita in depth no one has ever gone through cinema (or the animated cinema at least).

slumdog millionairE

Who contests the fact that the film was good? I have to say is the film was fantastic.
Wonderful story, screenplay, acting and direction. How else would have the film bagged the globes and would have raked in such amount of money at the box office?

I’m not aiming to write a full page review on the film, but what struck me most were the themes that were handled in the movie.
If u ask me for the plot synopsis, it is just another rag to riches story with a cleverly sewed in love story. After the movie bagged awards at the globes, all the Indian channels were abuzz with the notion that an Indian film won the globes. After the Mumbai terrorist tragedies they were in pursuit of breaking news and they got it. At least we should open our minds to the fact that this film is a western made movie directed by an English and his crew which enacted a story with an Indian back ground which of course required the use of Indian actors and an Indian musician who could capture the westernized Indian music. More than that for whatever reasons it may be, it took an English man to showcase what the real India is all about, apart from the glistening picture of a middle and upper middle class world portrayed in the predominantly upper class media.
The truths in India like child abuse, religious persecution, sexual atrocities towards women, poverty, gangsters and their murky underworld, atrocities and corruption, social and class discrimination were quite boldly taken up by Danny Boyle which the native film producers and directors always avoided. Even if they were taken up by an Indians they dint see much light, thanks to a wonderful director and his crew this film broke all the social barriers and was an instant success. Life in the slums were quite brilliantly captured by Boyle, the rampant poverty and the social discrimination. The class discrimination is so rampant that even in the tv show, the host (Anil Kapoor) taunts the slum dog with chaiwallah and it is the same upper class superiority that led him to beleive that his fool proof show is being cheated by this slumwallah.

And now, with all the media hype surrounding the film, Amitabh Bachan has come out into the open, criticing the movie, you may not beleive it, for accurately picturizing the facts. He is saying it will tarnish the image of India. Image, the vanity of the rich. I dont have any more to say to those who attracts the curious western clout to the Indian pelvic dance and sleeps in the imaginary glory of the donkey carrying the idol.

I don’t have any illusionary notions that this film is going to change India or the perceptions about it, but we require more and more people like Boyle, to come up with more socially relevant themes and pursue someone to take some actions to bring about a better India.

changEling

Today I saw the movie changeling directed by Clint Eastwood. I am a big fan of Eastwood's movies (those he acted and directed). My immediate reaction was "wow", this is a wonderful bizarre and powerful movie. In fact the best movie I have seen so far after coming to the US. It is a depression era story about a mother whose son went missing and the police who wanted to shove another kid into her life as if that kid is her own son. The one-line plot summary may not look exceptional but the narrative sure does. I looked at it not like an abduction and violence themed drama but as a an opening into the struggles faced by the commoners at the hands of the establishment.

The establishment says we decide who your child is and who you are and you have to accept it. If not you are insane. There is a scene in the movie where the mother is in a mental asylum and she is given a choice; accept that you were wrong in accusing the authorities and you can go free, or else you will stay here for the rest of your life. It may sound as total nonsense to us in these times. But look at the bigger picture. They says look there are terrorists over there. OK, says we and they go after some hapless souls, destroys their family, livelihood and even a nation. People are guided into a false pretext of safety so that when they feel safe, sound a threatening alarm and then whatever you give them they will quite happily accept it. so that they can continue with their mediocre and carefree life inside the box. This element has gone so deep into the human psyche so that they hardly see or think outside the box and those who do so are framed insane.

For example look at the police encounters which happened in India. All these years we were told that they were terrorists. Thankfully a lot of them were. But what about the others? Political dissidents or personal enemies were portrayed as insane, crazy, wild enemies of the states and then the state machinery took care of them. What an ingenious way to get rid of one's enemies! As a matter of fact, labeling someone as insane is the best option to silence him. People no longer pay attention to them. How can you prove yourself sane once you are assigned the status of an insane? They say denying insanity itself is the best sign to identify an insane person. You will be doomed for eternity.

All these things again make me reiterate the prediction that governments get to gain more control over their people. Perhaps future will be inside Matrix, may not be the exact one we saw in the movie.

Dasavathaaram - Some avathars are quite avoidable

I felt embarrassed for being in a self proclaimed league of those eagerly waiting for Kamal Hassan's new movie, Dasavatharam. In his new Avathar, Kamal painfully tries to fit into 10 characters who live (extra)ordinary life in seemingly unconnected spheres. In some strange twist of fate, their lives get mingled. This will feel like another Amores Peros or Crash or Syriana or Babel or many other hyperlinked films increasingly dotting the realms of World cinema. But for the normal, formula driven Indian audience it is an entirely new experience; but I suspect whether the bang was too much for them. I say this because, the theaters didn't portray that enthusiasm which a big budget movie ought to highlight, the reason might be that the target audience was too intelligent a target for this particular style of narration. However this multi-threaded approach is quite new to the Indian commercial film diaspora and should be considered a treat for the avid viewer, sans its pathetic special effects and mediocre make-up. Film makers these days, are trying to blow up a fortune taking films. I just can't figure out where the proclaimed 80 crores have been spent since the special effects don't create the magic effect and the makeup makes the characters plastic. In fact if Kamal's objective was to give a message rather than immaculate himself with 10 roles, he could have done his job significantly better with lesser roles and much lesser crores.

Anyhow, the film moves something like this. Rewind to 12th century and here we have a temple priest how sacrifices his life because he was not willing to betray his belief to his deity. Kamal excels in this role. The king (Napoleon plays the role of the villain perfectly) gives command and the priest is mercilessly thrown into the depths of the ocean tied to the deity and perishes there. Fast forward to December, 2004, few days before the Indian Ocean tsunami. A scientist (played by Kamal. No makeup and wonderful role), who is also the protagonist, at some biological facility in the US develops a weapons grade microbe. There is an American ex-CIA villain (again played by Kamal to perfection, barring the overdone makeup) who wants to lay his hands upon the new weapon (somehow he didn't chose an "Al Qaeda" for this role). Then its a cat and mouse chase which then moves onto India, where we meet the police officer who is inclined in catching the villain at any cost (Kamal, once again, plays this role of a inept police officer to perfection). There is also the role of the environmental activist played astonishingly good(neglecting the overdone makeup). Kamal proves his mettle again with the role of a Sikh singer. Rest of the characters like President Bush, the Old lady, the extraordinarily tall guy and Kung foo master were not up to the mark and could have been better if avoided. Finally, when the villain is conquered, to make the hero's task difficult, he swallows the microbe and he is infected with it thereby increasing the chance of spreading the microbe. The only agent that can act again it is NaCl or salt. Then the famous Tsunami comes in and everything is cleansed.

Towards the end of the movie, the message what Kamal tries to give is God has a plan for the entire world and seemingly unrelated people and events may be very closely related. So whatever happens is the action of Gos and it happens for good.

Overall an average movie, with glitches like bad graphics, a weak narrative and poor makeup.

an inconvEniEnt truth

hoowwwaah,
last weekend passed away quite uneventfully for the world, but not for me; in that i saw the movie "An Inconvenient Truth' by 'Al Bore' (remember?, i'm trying to be funny). it was eventful in the sense that it strengthened my whole perspective abt global warming. i always knew that global warming was real (not like those pesky bast$#*s in suits and tux constituting the oil, coal, automobile and etc industries).
as a movie (read documentary, coz the word is lengthy), it was 80% well crafted and 20% al gore propaganda (but for those who want to blame, you can tell that knife is an evil invention coz it can be used to kill people). throughout the movie me and ma frnd ajay, was tossing and debating some of the points of Gore. i wud like 2 bring some of them (those that I remember) here.

1. The developing nations like China & India should immediately cut down on green house gases.
wat the fuk man! the Unc Sam and Co was and still is contributing significantly and u want us to stop (i'm frm India). after gr8 years of oppression we were just starting up and u tell us to stop. go to hell. it's not going to happen (actually i want it to happen, but ma govts and the people won't let it happen). so wat we wanna have is a universal policy on the matter. if we hav to cut down all others in the world shud cut down on the same scale.

2. The kind of cut down on CO2 can be universal.
not in a million years. each culture uses its own unique methods of producing gases. for the US it might be oil but for china it might be coal and for India, God only knows wat!!! recently i read an article in newspaper that in India, the energy from coal that is utilized when lighting an incandescent bulb was just 2.4%. But for florescent bulb it was 17% or nearby. there it is. u got it. This might not be a gr8 thing in the US where a hell lot of households are already using florescent lamps. also we have a tremendous transmission loss ( i believe above 20% or so) which is unheard in the US. so by decreasing the transmission loss and depending less on incandescent bulbs India can effectively reduce (i donnno how much) it CO2 output. But US need to look for other ways. Let them make fuel efficient cars like the Japs or drive electric and hydrogen-fuel cell cars (they are quite expensive for the average Indian but affordable for the americans). Similarly all the countries should develop such cheap means of transition to an eco-friendly way of life. Remember how we did away with CFC (it was bcoz the transition to alternative was cheap).

3. So what abt all the pollution that the developed world put on earth b4 the developing world caught up with?
The contribution by the Western world in the past decades cannot be ignored. The developing world was only following them when the condition became serious. So the moral responsibly of the developed world in reducing their output of green house gases cannot be taken lightly. The developed world is the one who can still guide the developing nations. like the insistence on bio-vegetables u can insist on bio-products in other sectors too.

4. Some measures relevant all over the World.
i read that in some cities in Europe, they have no-motor-vehicle days and toll on entering city limits. thats a good example to follow. in the heavily populated and polluted cities, we can have city centers were only public mass transit system is permitted. in less populated and smaller areas we can have no motor-vehicle areas. impose extra on private vehicles entering city limits, improve the mass transit systems, parks, trees and such, good roads etc. with stress on the Indian cities, if there are adequate and punctual mass transit facilities, I'm sure that the number of vehicles entering the city will definitely reduce. i don't know wat to do with the coal industry and the power generation sector. reducing the transmission loss and using efficient machinery at houses and industries will definitely make a difference.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle mantra is very effective. The Indians have been doing it for a very long time and the western world have been mocking it since. Ever remeber our mothers using jam, horlicks, complan bottles for storing spices and pickles and such? plastic bags used for growing plants... thats really impressive. think abt other similar acts by which we can contribute to a better earth. i scrapped my decision to buy a motor-bike (i'm gr8).

AFTER ALL WE HAVE ONLY ONE EARTH TO LIVE IN


wow
{ that was me taking a gasp at seeing the length of the stuff i've written. i havn't written like this in 4-6 years. Thnx to blogging and thnx to kootharali adivasi. Abt kootharali, later!!! }