ScreenArt

The Long Goodbye

2009-01-28T21:17:00.002+05:30

For all practical purposes this is my last post in ScreenArt. A strong movie-bug may bite me and I may resume active blogging here, but I don't see that happening. I like movies, I've just lost the motivation to write about them. In fact, there is a ton of half-reviews in my drafts folder that will never see the light of the day. And in the recent past I've had to fight my inertia to finish a decent post about a movie. It shouldn't be like this, and I think it's best for me channelize my writing energy in one place, ScreenAct, my other blog.

I've been reading, seeing, listening and talking a lot about culture, religion, society, daily chores, economy, business, politics, international relations.... I'm by no means an expert on anything but I have my opinions and what other means to express them other than blogging. I'll write about movies too in ScreenAct, but instead of confining my thoughts to the world of cinema, I'll take off tangentially and try to explore how a scene or a dialogue or a theme complements or collides with the society. I'm going to try hard to make ScreenAct work, which means at least one post in 10 days and not just a filler post or a personal ramble but a solid collection of my thoughts on something happening right now. If you're interested you can follow me there by clicking here.

When I look back I'm neither proud nor embarrassed of my posts here. My reaction would be indifference if a tsunami washed up ScreenArt. Thanks to all those who've traveled with me. So long.

Slumdog Millionaire

2009-01-02T22:07:00.002+05:30

One of the hardest things for me to digest in Indian movies catered to international audience is the English-speaking cast. From the man who pulls rickshaw to the boy who collects garbage speak, not Indianized, but a grammatically right version of the language. Although that added to the annoyance, the chief of the cinema's problems is it aims celebrate a Bollywood dream - this comes from a man who gave us 'Trainspotting' and '28 Days Later'; Danny Boyle has swung from one end of the spectrum to... a different monolith of mind-numbing drama with no shades - a shameless exercise in an overnight rags-to-riches story demonstrating a ludicrous love story.

Quantum of Solace

2008-11-19T01:51:00.003+05:30

Going to a Bond cinema is like going to a magic show. I don't look at the magician's unused hand or his benignly silent assistant or the floorboard which might open up and gobble. I just look at the beautiful girl who's been pulled from the audience who's going to be toyed with. Nothing overwhelming, exhilarating or pulse-pounding but plain old entertainment value. When I step into the cinema hall, I'm allowing myself to be tricked into believing that even if a nuclear missile landed on Bond's back head he would some how survive it, dust off his clothes, adjust his shirt crease and walk away with his super sexy girl friend. But with the advent of Daniel Craig as James Bond, the equation has altered.

'Casino Royale' gave birth to Craig's Bond. He kills a couple of people, gets a double-O status, falls for a clerk from treasury, runs high on emotions and cries at the loss of his love. Well, for someone who's fed the franchise as a cool guy with an attitude, who hates to kill but does so because of his sense of duty, who enjoys bedding and then betraying the villain's foxy assistant, who quips gracious one-liners that make teen-girls want Bond and teen-boys want to be Bond, Daniel Craig sure quakes the earth. It has become a problem of expectations for me: Daniel Craig as a man who's lost his identity, savagely searching and destroying with ruthless efficiency, as observed by a couple of others, is proximate to Jason Bourne than James Bond.

Not just the characterization, but the narration and visual style seems heavily borrowed from the Bourne series. Super-small shots, intense chases, hand-and-leg street fighting, a plot that's not fully comprehensible, a villain whose motives and actions aren't fully explained … when I walked out of the theater I was as exhausted as Bond, at least he had a girl standing next to him. I just hope that when the character matures in the next two outings, Bond will be what one has known him to be. If there isn't a revival, for the magnificent job Craig does he deserves credit; but we'll call him something else, like John Doe and start restoring James Bond with the hunt for a new face.

The leading girl here, Olga Kurylenko isn't smooth skinned, (has a fire scar on her back) is unnaturally tanned for the movie (to look Bolivian where most of the story unfolds) and she doesn't bond with Bond. In other words, the sexy juice usually associated with Bond girls is sucked out in order to fit into a weak screenplay - an atrocious insult to the series. There's no Q, which means no high-tech gadgets that Bond gets to use. M, played by the immaculate Judi Dench is as good as she has been. I've always sensed an inexplicable sexual energy between Bond & M where M has always had an upper hand. Had she been 30 years younger, she would have ravaged Bond. And the wonderful French actor Amalric who plays the villain has been asked to put his acting gifts into a safe until post-production.

The less said about the story, the better. Either I didn't understand it or the writers/director have intentionally kept it that way in order to develop it in the next installment. Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), a celebrated environmentalist, seeks power by destabilizing destabilizable countries, replacing their governments with friendlies and taking control of their water resources. Why that? The movie didn't answer or I didn't get it. Bond, who's on a top gear pursuit of the men who killed Vesper, (rather caused her death because she killed herself) through a series of jumbled links is led to Greene and from there through a series of rushed and chopped story-telling to a secret organization of top-class villains called Quantum. What does Quantum do? Somebody please throw some light.

If the producers wanted a super-hero who would bleed when pricked they should create one instead of redefining one of the most successful secret agents in movie history.

2008-11-13T21:49:00.003+05:30

Oh boy, I don't where TNR hunts their cinema critics. Christopher Orr *imagine a teenage Tarzan breast-beating* totally rocks.

I'm hoping this long break from ScreenArt helps me not only refine but also restructure my skills not only as a writer but also as a viewer.

Will be back soon. Thanks for hanging in there.

The Bank Job

2008-08-13T21:04:00.000+05:30

I've seen quite a few movies that deal with bank vault robbery. Once the contents are stolen the intelligence agencies get their balls rolling (no pun) and we're usually subjected to a cat and mouse game between the robbers and the intel. But what happens if the contents stolen belong to shady high profiles who want them to remain a secret. Of course none of them would go to police to give an itemized list asking for a fast recovery. They're going to find their own means of getting back what is lost. This movie, based on a true story that happened in London in 1971 is about corrupt cops and porn kingpins chasing an amateur gang that hits the jackpot with a bank vault robbery.

Terry Leather (Jason Statham) is a small time ex-con now running a used car shop, happily married with two kids. Martine Love, an old flame drops one day and offers a bank job. She says that the alarm system is deactivated and this might as well be an opportunity for a big league game. There's an ulterior motive that Terry doesn't know: Michael X, a self-claimed black Robinhood but actually a drug lord and a criminal of other sorts has photographs of a royal figure in compromising positions in one of those vaults and uses them as his immunity against prosecution. MI 6, the British secret intelligence service needs to get its hand on those photographs to press charges on Michael X and since they don't have a high-level clearance to directly get to his vault, they arrange for this heist.

I don't want to give away too many details about this high-class movie. For about first two thirds the director maintains a lightness that kept me engaged but also allowing me lay back a bit. But then the murder of a member of the heist sharply changes the tone - it's not a summer entertainer anymore, here's a serious story unfolding in unexpected way and I care about the characters. The underground businessmen are worried of their exposure, the crooked cops who've aided them all along are more worried, the good cops are helpless and the royal figures' decent image is at stake. The direction by Roger Donaldson is so fluent that one can sense the feelings and temperaments of each character without any effort at all.

For a crime drama there's a surprisingly good family scene in the movie. When Terry Leather gets home after the heist his wife slaps him with angst - not for his unlawful act but for an unfaithful act. There are only a handful of scenes that shows Terry with his family and in these few minutes the screenplay establishes how bound he is to his family. Now, that's rare for a movie that concentrates on a crime.

Ilayaraja Again

2008-08-12T06:19:00.003+05:30

There are never enough posts in praise of Raja. Recently, a flautist friend of mine sent a bunch of Raja's background scores to another flautist friend of mine - and there I was, a fool of music, in his CC like an add-on. The list is varied: Valli, Kadhalukku Mariyadhai, Nayagan, Aan Pavam, Guna... I've heard them all before and was still moved listening to them again. But the dark horse that blew me away was Aranmanai Kili. For a movie set in village starring Raj Kiran, you'd never expect such grand pieces. Especially there's one gem which starts with beautiful violin chorus with a western flavour and then suddenly there's a flute that peeks. And this flute piece, which just totally swept me away threatening to bring tears, has a touch of village nativity appropriate to the situation and it seems like a miracle that the two styles blended so perfectly to create what I heard. As it happens, the flute piece plays the pallavi of the song 'Raasave unnai vida matten'.

Listening to some pieces from Aan Pavam I was reminded of Raja's supreme reign in the 80s. He again does some magic with a violin & a flute, bringing me images of Pandian & Seetha running into each other. One piece greatly captures the soft romance, that there are times when the heart is just waiting ready to be given away. Most of the 'melody' these days just play at a slower tempo. He reminds us that a melody should touch you, even if the music rolls at the pace of 'Valayosai' from Sathya.

I'll finish this post with his work for Guna. I think this is one of Kamal's greatest performances (and I like the screenplay too). Listening to some of the BGMs for Guna, I was reminded of how Kamal's work has been accentuated by Raja over the years. Had Kamal been assocaited with a lesser musician in his prime, I'm sure the emotional punch Kamal dealt to the audience (talk about Mahanadhi) would have been greatly reduced. And I'm not only talking of Kamal's serious works. Michael Madana Kama Rajan has a great background track and Raja should be included in the comedy quotient that's usually only assigned to Kamal & Crazy Mohan. The movie would be definitely less funny without Raja.

Wanted

2008-08-10T06:52:00.003+05:30

A secret society called Fraternity comprising a group of well trained assassins having super talents like curving a bullet and superior body-eye coordination that allows them to bend a few laws of human anatomy are assigned names of people whom they should kill. Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) is pulled into the Fraternity after his father, a member of the secret society is killed by a renegade. The plot unfolds informing the viewers of the reason of Wesley's hiring and some politics inside the group.

Talk about loads of stylized action: Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy running on top of a metro train, James stranded on a busy street is scooped like ice cream into a car driven by Angelina, a car crashes - of all things into a train and later that train crashes - of all things down a narrow gorge, and finally you thought what role could rats play in an action movie, right? These aren't super ideas nor supremely choreographed but such sequences just keep my movie clock ticking and hence not allowing me to ask too many questions about the foundation of the story. The very essence of summer popcorn.

PS: Over the years I've become a fan of Morgan Freeman for magnificently personifying a gentleman in a great variety of roles. In one the scenes in the movie, he casually utters a swear word and that came as a jolt, not only to me, but to many in the hall who audibly gasped. I know that he's an actor and he's only delivering lines from a script. Still I have a feeling that he was asked to do something below his dignity.

The Air I Breathe

2008-08-04T03:46:00.002+05:30

Jieho Lee, the director aims to do an Inarittu. Though this is no 'Babel', the cast he has marshaled is a very good one. Dealing with interconnectedness and human emotions (there are four episodes titled hope, love, sorrow & pleasure) Lee exhibits his high ambitions and takes his story very seriously. Unfortunately, the stories aren't strong enough to tie the viewer to the characters.

Brendan Fraser's chapter is intriguing, one scene in particular: he is a hitman, but his success is attributed to his vision - he sees what's going to happen before it happens. This ability of his has drained all of his interest in living as he doesn't know what it means to be uncertain. Then comes a day when his vision fails and he gets badly beaten in a gang fight. He doesn't resist, he enjoys getting thrashed for it symbolizes the first day of the rest of his new life.

After the Sunset

2008-08-04T02:51:00.003+05:30

The sun in the title is Pierce Brosnan & Salma Hayek, the lover thieves. After a high-profile crime they retire to, where else, someplace in the Caribbean Islands. And we must all think for a few minutes that the sun has set and we know that it really hasn't. Brosnan trades off his charm and built to fit a retired vacationing person. Hayek's dresses have cleavage cuts that are mathematically computed to reveal just about enough to tease the viewer.

The bulk of the story is about the drama between Woody Harrellson, a F.B.I agent and Pierce Brosnan when the former challenges the latter to steal a diamond of historic value guarded in a luxury yatch stationed in their island. Kill any logic nearby and you have a mediocre crime-caper-drama in your hands. Of course, there's a twist in the last 5 minutes and another one in the last two minutes - was not blown away by any means at the ingenuity of the screenplay, but I chuckled.

So, Where is Subramaniapuram?

2008-07-27T21:09:00.003+05:30

I saw a five-minute clipping of 'Subramaniapuram'. I don't know any of the faces. But the whiff is so strong. And then I saw the song 'Kangal Irandal' from the movie on Youtube. His get up was reminiscent of 'Sathya's Kamal and her beauty & mannerisms 'Sathya's Amala. The direction is so fluent, a little cinematic here & there, but I just simply loved. I last time I loved a song (music & picturization) on my first hearing was 'Urugudhe' from Veyil.

Can anyone update me on how the movie is, how its doing commercially?

The Dark Knight

2008-07-27T08:30:00.002+05:30

I've read so much about this movie that it almost feels like I can't bring in a fresh perspective to write a few words that I can actually claim to be mine. And I usually don't do that much reading unless I've written about it. The feeling is more like the cliche: what can I say that hasn't been said before. Now I join the chorus, but still desperately trying to be singled out.

'The Dark Knight' is not a masterpiece; it has its sagging moments, cheesy dialogues and a few questionable screenplay decisions. But the sense of satisfaction it provides when walking out of the theater is wholesome. And there are not many movies that make me feel that way. I recently saw 'Wall-E' and found it preachy and sermonizing (critics hailed that & the viewers got it to IMDb top 50). I saw another summer superhero in 'Hancock'. This was supposed to be a fun popcorn flick but the execution, lack of a flowing screenplay and an abominable climax made me throw up all the popcorn. I saw 'Usual Suspects' on video (another IMDb top 50) and hated the last minute twist because I was expecting it. Let's forget that Christopher Nolan's 'Dark Knight' is currently occupying the top spot on many lists. Numbers don't matter if the movie doesn't strike a chord.

The Nolans (Christopher & Jonathan, the writers) have spent much time in developing character arcs of the main cast, which seem a rarity in the superhero genre, most of which seem to leverage the skillset of the special effects department to hold the attention of viewers. In fact, that's one of the good things about this movie - there are no super super-effects. When Batman tries to save his love interest Rachel from falling off a building, he doesn't do it with grace & style but with a sense of clumsiness associated with an emotionally frantic situation. But you don't get any points for guessing who has loads of style & crooked charisma in this production. The Joker.

The battle between the hero and the villain is interesting because the hero is willing to bend his moral standards for the good of Gotham city and the villain has no moral standards at all. The Joker doesn't have a plan, he doesn't scheme. He just wants chaos to rule. Would he derive happiness in a chaotic world? Somehow, I can't visualize a 'happy' Joker. For him, blasting a hospital is the equivalent of sensual gratification, like masturbation. He'll do it again just because the pleasure has withered off. But his 'higher' objective is to see Batman off his mask. Now this would be close to a 'happy' Joker because of the efforts involved. Heath Ledger as the Joker does a great job. Like any good actor, he conveys a lot without saying a single word. His eyes, wonderfully expressive here, just made me fall in love with his acting prowess. Ledger is lost, but the Joker lives on.

Christian Bale as Batman delivers such a finely controlled performance. In a tight-call situation, he chooses someone over his ex lover because he believes that saving that person could really take a shot at reclaiming Gotham from the goons. A magnificently morally upright decision on the part of a superhero. But when he's driven to his limits, he uses technology to spy on the whole city to locate the Joker. (The US government is in a similar crossroads). He appears to justify his acts of invasion, vigilantism as the price the public has to pay for their safety. (Again, there are many real world parallels). The moral swing is subtly but very well portrayed by Bale but the real applause here is for the screenwriters for realizing a human-like character out of a superhero.

Here is a good story told very well, but it fits a template expected of such movies. The screenplay provides enough time for the sub-plots to mature (which results in a long running time). Most of the dialogues are solid & serious. In spite of having a Joker, there aren't many laughs. He does a trick too, but not funny: he says that he'll disappear a pencil and the next moment he drives into someone's skin. I was half-tempted to laugh, involuntarily. And the way one plot leads to another, supported by good actors and good dialogues gradually builds up the vastness of the movie. The story telling is epic-like and the performances and execution are epic-like, but the movie isn't an epic.

Talking of epics, there's an epic scale in the wide shots of Gotham (Chicago actually). Mostly dark and with too many glass doors and windows, the cinematographer Wally Pfister brings out the darkness in every one. As if he isn't enough, James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer, the musicians, inject a sense of immediacy fused with uncertainty with their white noise score. Another top work behind the camera belongs to Christopher Nolan for his consistent direction. The tone he sets up never wavers, with most of the 152 dense minutes gripping the audience. Andrew Sarris said that he's put to rest his doubts about Nolan's talent. If Sarris himself doesn't question, who am I?

Let me get back to the Joker. What's really scary about him is his ability to turn a do-gooder into do-badder. Someone who is praised as the white kinght is forced to become a dark.... well, let me say a bad man. And the movie captures his moral transformation with such power that it left me wondering if Batman himself is immune as his sense of morality is already lopsided. The movie offers a lot of moments to ponder & discuss not to mention the artistic & technical feats which are second to none. I solidly recommend this, if you love serious movies.

A friend remarked that this isn't worth being at the No.1 in the list of top 250 movies in IMDb. All I can say is that everybody has their own list.

The Dark Knight, Coming Soon

2008-07-22T19:19:00.000+05:30

The most commonly asked question: Is this the best superhero movie ever made? I don't know, I haven't seen them all. But this is the best I've seen. This is not popcorn superhero flick where the dad accompanies the kid so that the kid has a good time. This is powerful drama narrated by a very talented story teller employing artsistes and technicians whose works have blended so seamlessly to create a near masterpiece. In a sea of wonderful performances by Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Christian Bale, Aaron Eckhart & Maggie Gyllenhaal there is one performance that totally blew me away - Heath Ledger's Joker is the role of the year and he delivers that in the movie of the year. I know that to call 'The Dark Knight' the best movie of the year even before the beginning of the Oscar season is a bit far-fetched and may strike as even arrogant on my part. Only if you haven't seen it yet. If another production can eclipse the Knight this year, then 2008 will be remembered for two great movies, not just one. More on this movie this weekend.

Talk about hype

2008-07-20T02:26:00.002+05:30

Dark Knight, released yesterday, is already at spot 3 in the top 250 IMDb list. And most of the critics agree that the hype is justified. I'm planning to visit a theater nearby in the next 24 hours and record my thoughts here.

Dasavatharam

2008-06-24T13:50:00.000+05:30

When the set-up precedes storyline one can only appreciate the decoration, not savor the meal. Kamal Hassan's idea of challenge is this: tall, short, muscular, paunchy, intelligent, mediocre, American, Japanese, theist, atheist, hindu, muslim, hero, villain, comedian... Of course, realizing these characters on screen is painful, but in this case, watching them too is. This is Picasso painting for calendar - two more roles and you're set for the year. If an actor playing ten roles in a movie is considered an achievement, then Kamal becomes a lesser actor than he is in 'Dasavatharam'.

I'm not going to dwell much on the story, which is a confused rendering of themes like destiny vs chance, divine intervention vs coincidence, godliness vs godlessness, blind faith vs scientific temperament. The movie starts with its best segment: a stand-off between Vasihnavites & Saivites in 12th century resulting in Rangarajan, an ardent devotee of Narayana, shackled to the statue and thrown into the sea. Cut to the present day: a vial containing a dangerous drug escapes a high security zone and is hotly pursued by the good & bad guys. There are many sub-plots and they all cut into each other (because of Tamil cinema grammar's compulsion) by strands thin as hair. The climax is not typical masala, but not far away from the typical.

What frustrates me the most is the number of junk roles (played by Kamal) floating around in the movie. What's so freaking sacred about 10 that he had to do this? His performance in Mahanadhi would have washed all these ten like a tsunami. Let me sample: a Punjabi pop singer is diagnosed with throat cancer. You'll have to see how bad this performance is to believe it. He coughs up blood and his wife runs to him. The expressions & lines of the husband & wife remind me of the 1980s Saturday evening Hindi movies. It's as if the actors had taken a oath to never act naturally. Either that or Kamal is subtly taking a dig at Punjabi movies & their actors with his non-descript lines for Avatar Singh (there's a bland reason for that name!).

Then there's Kalif Ullah - the good muslim son of a good muslim father. You get it, right? They're here to symbolize the goodness of the community in spite of viewed through terrorist filters. The funny thing about this guy is that everybody in the family speaks perfect Tamil and he speaks as if he's imported from Persia the day before. Then there's a Japanese martial arts guru who is in Chennai to settle an account. Two needless roles were squeezed in so that this Japanese guy has a purpose. But the WTF award goes to Kamal's role as George Bush. The guy has a dozen lines in the whole movie and the editor should have excised them to keep the material less fatty. The rest of the roles aren't necessarily strong, but at least they move the story forward.

It's not all that bad - because the above mentioned players have less screen time. Vincent Poovaragan, a Dalit social reformer has some good lines, good make-up, a performance fitting Kamal's stature and his end fitting Bollywood. Balram Naidu is a cracker of a personality - the dim-witted head of RAW interrogating & chasing an alleged terrorist is memorable mostly because of his impeccable accent. I'm sure that purists may find a tone or two inappropriate here & there. But for the general public, the variety in terms of accents he's brought over the years is delightful. Kamal's mastery of langauge is breathtaking - he's not just being a linguist absorbing words and their meanings but a supreme actor-linguist carefully weighing the pauses, whispers, overlapping-dialogues and related mannerisms that go with the culture.

Although Kamal is enjoyable in a few avatars here, the story & direction don’t help to hold attention. A stone hitting Rangaraja Nambi, the 12th century Vaishnavite results in blood trickling down his forehead symbolizing the 'divine namam' followed by, you guessed it, a song. The wisdom of a biotech scientist acceding to play by the rules of a beautiful girl in the face of impending but avoidable danger is not only illogical but also annoying. There's the accidental exchange of boxes resulting in dramedy. Then there's a timeline tag that keeps the viewer informed of what is happening when, which allows the hero to go on and on without sleep for 2 days. Kamal ties a lot of loose ends but not all; this is difficult because there are too many events & outcomes to tie them all. There's too much happening for the audience to connect to someone and care for them. The sum is very less than the parts - some of which are extremely fulfilling and some of which are disemboweling.

I've been wondering who'll cement the foundations of independent cinema movement in south India. Low budget no-name actors, directors & technicians coming together to create good movies. If artistes like Kamal don't promote them by writing & producing, there's no point in complaining about the standards in his next interview. Let Rajini speak for 55+ heroes who want to run around with 20+ girls & do the impossible stunts. Kamal has done that for almost 30 years now and it's high time to move on. Dasavatharam is more like a 3-hour make-up costume fiesta scoring heavy points to Kamal's repertoire of made-up faces. This is a movie Vijay or Ajith or Surya can be proud of.

2008-06-20T03:52:00.002+05:30

'Dasavatharam' is hugely disappointing in spite of not being a bad movie. It has more to do with the direction Kamal is walking towards. More on the movie and Kamal this weekend.

To all those who hung on to this blog: thanks for your patience. I'll try to be regular.

2008-06-03T18:51:00.001+05:30

I think I'm in love with Stanley Kauffman (TNR). He makes erudition a sexy quality.

I am Legend

2008-05-07T19:39:00.000+05:30

Manhattan thrown in the bin, Will Smith races in his speed car to a street corner where a deer lingers; when he is about to take a shot at it a pride of lions join the party. He looks at them and they throw a lazy glance back at him showing that they're really interested in the deer and not him. His watch beeps and he gets back into the car. This is the first scene and it wonderfully spreads the carpet for the audience - so many questions here, but as the movie progresses with answers only dissatisfaction persists. The director seems to be in love with the process of film-making but not the film thereby resulting in many shots that stand well in memory but the movie as a whole remains a chopped, illogical construction.

After prolific usage of a medicine touted as a cancer cure, the world realizes the enormous outbreak of a virus - which wipes a very big chunk of the living population and altering the physiology of a good percentage of the remaining population. Robert Neville (Will Smith), a military scientist by profession is one of few left unharmed and having lost his family is naturally inclined to synthesize a cure to the living zombies. He has a mini test lab in his basement where experiments with rats and later a living-dead. The premise is very science-fictional, not my area of interest, but the treatment of it wanders liberally into a lot of religion and sentiment that makes it all the more bad.

Will Smith, like Tom Hanks of Cast Away, single handedly pulls off this project. He has matured into such a fine actor that I almost didn't notice the movies many flaws in the scenes he were, which is almost every scene. There are few scenes that work really well in a Hollywoodish way - Robert killing his good friend and the monsters replaying his technique to bait. But the climax is so cheesy to the point of shouting at the screen "oh no". I haven't read the novel upon which the movie is based, but if this is a faithful adaptation I wonder why had this book been adapted twice before. One notable achievement is in the visual department - either it is very good set decoration or very good animation and they are captivating. But otherwise, this is a forgettable motion picture.

Marion Cotillard as Edith Piaf

2008-04-27T14:59:00.003+05:30

In a scintillating performance, Marion Cotillard paints a picture of Edith Piaf in La Via En Rose. The picture is not absolutely complete, but its full of fulfilling segments that gives the audience a peek into the world of the great singer. Some critics have called her role as a 'high quality imitation' , but its not. Marion gets under the skin of the Piaf - she not only walks and talks like her, but waits and smiles and shouts and looks and drinks... her body language is so accomplished that she grasps & emanates the essence of the character. Costumes, make-up and production design help her a lot - the viewer is transported to a different place & time just by the visual achievements. Not to mention the strong script which has helped Marion in giving life to Edith Piaf. This could very well be the high point in Marion's career because its difficult to surpass something like this outstanding performance.

One interesting point to note when it comes to Oscar winners in the leading actress category in the past 8 years is that 7 of them were playing a real life character. I hope the members of the academy aren't biased towards biopictures.

Idea Ad

2008-04-20T06:17:00.001+05:30

Probably the lowest budget advertisement in a presidential campaign.

Free Flow in Kadhalikka Neramillai

2008-04-13T07:47:00.005+05:30

There is such a stark difference between the performances of the Nagesh / Baliah duo and the rest of the cast in 'Kadhalikka Neramillai'. Consider a scene between V.S.Raghavan & Muthuraman: the son comes home, the father asks him a few questions, the son answers, the mother interrupts, cut. The transaction of words is governed by a rule, rather than spontaneity or naturalism. On close observation a viewer can clearly see that one actor is waiting for the other to complete his line so that he can begin his line. This is the same with body language - there are many shots where an actor walks upto a certain point and stops right at a point where the director has instructed him to for the best focus or frame symmetry or whatever behind-the-camera reason.

In real life, people don't conduct conversations that way; one guy starts his response well before the other is finished resulting in an overlap-dialogue. And there are pauses where either parties don't have anything to say after a round of dialogues. The threads of Nagesh & Baliah in this movie are solid examples of dialogue delivery. In an era where the emotions associated with dialogues came from shower heads, these guys opened up like Niagara. The classic scene where Nagesh narrates a thriller-horror scene to Baliah has been very well dissected that I have nothing to add other than express my awe at their vocal chord modulations & facial muscle contortions.

Nagesh's interactions with Sachu are terrific in the sense that how a director of Sridhar's calibre might have had a tough time with a new face like Ravichandran. Of course, Ravichandran's performance is artificial at the worst and ultra-bland at the best. When ever Nagesh, the budding director here, bangs his head at Sachu's acting disability, I wonder what went through Sridhar's mind. Baliah's reactions in the presence of the older Muthuraman is supremely enjoyable. The slide from the authoritative estate owner to someone like a petty businessman is extreme. Like the cartoons, there are no subtleties for the viewer to discern - the expressions are out in the open for everyone to see. His transition from a proud, authoritative figure to a submissive, controllable man is just binary - there are no in-between expressions.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter who the hero was or who got paid better. People still remember Baliah, Nagesh, K.V.Thangavelu, Chandrababu.... It's fun to watch these guys repeatedly as opposed to somebody like S.S.R or A.M.Raja. Action comes not only from an understanding of the screenplay but from an element that is twined with the inherent personality of the actor. These actors can transform some of the boring lines into funny snippets because they express themselves in those lines. Coming back to 'Kadhalikka Neramillai', this is a funny movie because it stars a couple of good comedians and has a script filled with funny lines. Replace Ravichandran & Muthuraman with Tom & Jerry and the movie will do just as well.

Death Proof's Car Chase

2008-04-10T07:21:00.002+05:30

One of the recent car chases etched strongly on my memory cells is from 'Bourne Identity' where the mini blazes through the narrow streets of Paris. But the immediacy & urgency in the sequence is generated by too many shots from various angles from inside & outside the car with some good music. The thrill is concocted but very much there.

I saw 'Death Proof' by Tarantino last week. You got to give it to the man - he just loves old movies and the final car chase, though not high on technique (because of the screenplay, a throwback to the sixties), its pure thrill. You just see two cars chasing & dashing each other and a woman holding on to her nerves. But the adrenalin this chase scene generates would be in litres. Tarantino said: Every time a stunt happens, there's twelve cameras and they use every angle for Avid editing, but I don't feel it in my stomach. It's just action.

Ginger & Cinnamon

2008-04-09T22:16:00.002+05:30

A teenage girl desperately trying to lose her virginity slaps a man who is passing out after drinking much. Too bad, he can't help her. And too bad, there's nobody to help the audience either. There's just too much talk and too little happening to hold my interest. A 15-year old girl cons her 30-year old aunt into a island beach resort where the young one mightily tries to get laid and the older one, who is freshly single after breaking a eight year relationship, wants to look at the world from a different perspective - essentially offering the viewer nuggets of wisdom about sex & relationship. American comedy sitcom's do a better job at offering such advice.

IMDb Link

Belle Epoque

2008-04-08T10:39:00.003+05:30

This Oscar-winning Spanish movie is just damn too light. It's the kind of movie where you walk out of the theatre and say to yourself "Now what do I do." The story is set in the early 1930s and has political and religious undercurrents - but the treatment is so frivolous that the audience are assured by the director that they don't have to be worried or joyed if a dialogue regarding the church or republic offends or defends their views.

The story is about four beautiful women chasing an young vulnerable soldier. Well, it's not much of a chase for any of the ladies as the young man positions himself at vantage locations. The movie begins with a crazy joke - Fernando, a young soldier has deserted his camp and he walks himself into a couple of police officers. (And I can't think of a police officer who has played an intelligent role if the story is set in the first half of the century.) With their lazy movements and fickle demeanor, they end up killing each other over a silly rule of law. The execution of this scene is so dramatic that it sets the tone for what is about to unfold later.

Four daughters visit their father for their summer break in a villa where Fernando has assumed the role of a cook. Since the youngest of the ladies is a virgin, she is constantly pushed out of sexual gossips. The first three ladies have a strong crush and make advances that result in 'consummation' - just to use an archaic word. And after every night spent with a lady, Fernando feels obligated to talk to the father to ask the daughter's hand. The daughter's don't want to show themselves off as sex-hungry beasts but at the same time don't even entertain the thought of a long-term relationship.

The books and movies and cultural stories that were part of my up bringing taught me the exact opposite: it's the women who wanted a stable relationship and the men just wanted to fling and fly away. Fernando, with his puppy-like face feels betrayed when the women use him. Finally, the virgin of the house (played by a young Penelope Cruz) matches his innocence and longing for something more than sensual. What's astonishing is the sexual freedom of the era this picture paints. In a scene that is 100% intended to be funny a husband says to another man who has been dating his wife that he'll be done very quickly with his wife, almost like asking his permission without offending his sensibilities.

IMDb Link

Sex & Lucia

2008-04-04T10:21:00.003+05:30

A title more simple & direct than this one is hard to come by: the movie is about Lucia and she has... well, a lot of sex. The explicitness here almost qualifies to be called soft porn - but hey, this is an European family fare. It's difficult to paraphrase the plot, if there's any such thing. The writer/director Julio Medem's objective is the same as David Lynch's when he made 'Mulholland Drive'. The movie is meant to be enjoyed frame by frame, with every scene being a self-contained well constructed piece. But when you piece them all together and try to make connections in order to understand the story - hmmm, you can try and possibly succeed too. But I'm afraid that will be your interpretation of the screenplay, because the point is to give an illusion of a clear story heading somewhere, but really, in the background make events as murky as possible.

Lorenzo, a novelist is the focal point of the story. Because of his one-night stand with Elena in a magical island, he sows the seeds for his daughter Luna. A few years later, he meets his daughter and strangely enough, his daughter's baby-sitter Belen falls for him. Now, in an emotional struggle that I half-understood, Belen has a crush on her mother's boyfriend Antonio and he reciprocates her crush, which Lorenzo is able to identify as he finds himself torn between Luna and Elena - the daughter and the mother. It's important that you understand the previous sentence, the essence of the movie. Where does Lucia fit into this picture, you ask? Well, she's the observer, Lorenzo's girlfriend, the character that very closely but helplessly observes the mental deterioration of Lorenzo.

Paz Vega as Lucia sparkles with a raw, natural beauty. And for capturing her beauty in so many amazing close-up shots, a big thanks to Kiko Rica. The movie is a lot saner than the picture I've painted here. Directors with a reputation, in the name of art sometimes come up with such products that remains in the memory for all wrong reasons. I'm sure Julio Medem can create lucid stories. It's okay to indulge in the art of movie making. But ultimately, it's the story that is the heart.

IMDb Link.

Billa

2008-03-10T07:33:00.002+05:30

Walking slow motion, talking nonsense, symmetric shots, ramp show decors, a sophomoric show by a teen kid inspired by 70's Hollywood thrillers. Sorry is the word.

Quintessential Goundamani

2008-02-11T17:03:00.000+05:30

Explain with reference to context:

Naanga ungakitta sollittu vandhom, neenga engakitta sollitta vandheenga?
Puli nakkanale sethu poyiduva nee...
Dai, pandhu wrong sidela varudhu...
Ivan irukkarudhu therinjirundha, neenga idha eduthuttu vandhirukkamattengalla?
Appa idhenna panju mittaya?

Pesadha Padam

2008-02-02T19:36:00.000+05:30

Dear Hasini,
You speak 2^64 words per minute in your weekly showcase. Had your programmed been aired 10 years before on any digital network, the pulse modulators would have had a tough time sampling your words at the minimum required 8K Hz, which would have resulted in an unintelligent slur. Though the technology has caught up with you, there isn't much of a difference qualitatively.

Thanks.

Hiatus

2008-01-19T08:33:00.000+05:30

I've decided to spend some time on my non-movie blog at http://screenact.blogspot.com and hence my updates here will take a hit in the next few months. More over my interests in movies have been steadily waning in spite of frequently watching good movies every week. I even have fractional reviews of Taare Zameen Par, Adaptation, 21 Grams, Amorres Perros ... I just haven't the motivation to pick up where I left and complete it. I'm not sure what's the reason. Ideally I'd like to write on one topic here and a couple of pieces at my other blog per week . But I guess I'll take my own time to settle into that pattern. Hope its not too long a break.

On Ajith's Interview

2008-01-01T12:59:00.000+05:30

I remember reading one of Ajith's interview (Kungumam, I guess) about 6 or 7 years back; it bubbled emotional outbursts and was marinated in teenage showmanship. After a long time, he comes to the microphone for Vijay TV after his recent success with Billa. It wasn't bad this time. He was cool-headed in delivering his lines, but his answers went harking back to his recent past where he was misquoted, misrepresented, misinterpreted, misjudged, mis.... I thought it would have done him a favor to not dwell so much on his bad days but to spend some time on his current/future projects. This is a trap most of the actors who stage a come-back fall into. Buddy, we understand you go through rough patches, but you don't need to detail it out to your audience. We understand it because we see how your movies fare, and how you must feel. Inspite of this, I thought this interview was not in bad taste.

One of the things that baffles me the intensity of his fans. When I was vacationing in Munnar last year, our cab driver had such good words about Ajith and he almost foul-mouthed Vijay. I guess most of it boils down to social graces - Ajith was friendly and down-to-earth whereas Vijay preferred an elite club, my driver told. But even that doesn't explain how one can command the loyalty of lakhs while consistently churning out bomb after bomb. I'm a fan of Kamal and when one of his movies flop, I don't trash my membership; because Kamal has such an incredible track record which makes me treat the latest failure as an aberration. When I see Ajith's filmography, I can't trace such a record.

When asked if Ajith & Vijay would endorse each other the way Kamal & Rajini do each other in public, he was evasive. Considering practical extrapolations, the question is dumb but that is what the masses want. Heck, there is even the next level of comparison - between Simbu & Dhanush, who, in movie-years are just weaned away from breast feeding. With the commercial landscape of our cinema changing rapidly, neither of the current generation actors will be able to command the long run faithfulness of Kamal or Rajini. Ajith kept saying that he will focus on features that will appease his fans. This is what Vijay has been doing. If established actors don't risk/experiment with low-budget off-the-wall screenplays, one can't dream of a dynamic movie industry.

PS: My friend said that 'Billa' is stylish walk in slow motion and nothing more. Other than the top two TN guns, style quotient in actors have been abysmally poor. I'm planning to see what they've done in this movie.

Ilayaraja's Melodies - IX

2007-12-24T15:05:00.000+05:30

1. Thendral Vandhu, Avatharam - For days, I tried to convert the sound waves impacting my ear drums into words, but somehow found them falling extremely short of the exquisiteness of the song. I even asked for help from two guys whose knowledge of music is way better than mine. After sinking and soaking in the song, they gave me blank stares. With my very limited ability to express and even limited understanding of music and with trepidation I started verbalizing how I felt after listening to this song, but I had to stop my futile exercise as I wasn't doing justice. Make whatever you want to make out of from the below mentioned paragraph. But I'm happy that I stopped short of paraphrasing, because sometimes what's left unsaid is beautiful than saying it.

The opening score, which is a sandwich of violin & guitar between a multi-layered chorus is something of an exercise - not only to future composers, but even to listeners who are interested in tracing the tail of every note. Its quite complicated to appreciate the beauty when I try to single out a voice or an instrument, but when listened to as a song, the completeness of the union of individual musical instruments just blows me away. Talk of fusion: the song is very richly orchestrated with western style written all over it, but the lyrics lazily wallow in a folk soup (evarum sollamale kuyilellam thena padudhu). The soaring grandeur of the song represents the height and range of the imagination of a blind girl keen on grasping the idea of colours; and the association of a hue with touch, smell, feelings, thoughts and sound in an abstract discussion between two folks, in their very own folk style is as rich as the orchestration of this composition.

Ilayaraja's Melodies - VIII

2007-12-17T20:06:00.000+05:30

2. Valayosai, Sathya - This song provides a window into the soft inners of a rough surface. Sathya (Kamal Haasan), the angry-young-man whose blood pressure shoots up at the sight of injustice, this time listens to the romantic jingle that flutters inside him. The song jump starts into action with pseudo adjectives like 'galagagalavena', 'silusilusiluvena' but then as soon as we step into the second line, as if our hero has found some time to appreciate her beauty, he takes speed off for the words 'chinna penn pennalla vanna poondhottam'. This pace variation, which to me symbolizes the adjustment of the hero's crudeness to politeness, spills over into the charanams too; such an unusual structure for a melody, but upon listening to it you wonder if there's any other way this tune could have gone.

The first interlude is classic Ilayaraja: short breaths of flute, a lovely guitar piece and then a group of tantalizing violins; the way one instrument takes over from another is how professional atheletes would pass the baton in a relay race - the precision and smoothness of transition is amazing and beautiful. The lyrics are emotional & sensual: when she says that his eyes have shot arrows into her heart, he responds that his touch will heal her wounds. Compare this sensitivity to what passes around for lyrics these days! The choreography which involves Kamal & Amala in a slice-of-life city lovers who don't lip-synch with the playback makes it all the more complete.

What strikes me about this song is its damn freshness - there are so many songs I enjoy from the 80s, but I know that they have aged well. But every time I listen to this one, its as if I'm falling in love with a new song.

Ilayaraja's Melodies - VII

2007-12-15T12:44:00.000+05:30

Enna Samayalo, Unnal Mudiyum Thambi - Almost a blasphemy to line up this little-known along with some of maestro's famed compositions. But where's the surprise in a top 10 list without any dark horses? But this isn't included for the sake of shock/surprise value; this song is really beautiful, melodious, touching, entertaining and lovely. The situation is quite universal - kids whining at the dining table: "why is it the same thing everyday?" and the mom retorts "why don't you jump into the kitchen today?" Only here it isn't mommy-sonny but brother/sisters-in-laws. The song begins in a conversational style, with S.P.B asking "enna samayalo? edhirthu ketka yarumillai" and is loaded with kitchen responsibilities.

Those familiar with the movie will recall that this is the house of a famous carnatic singer and befitting his stature, his kids ooze music; when asking "sadhamaga thamadhama?", the first word flows with the exact swaras sa da ma ga. Such beauties are abound in this song ("dhaniya podi enge?" has a da ni prelude; "gamagama vasam varudhe" has a ga ma prelude). The lyrics (Vali?) are blatantly childish & playful: the raga kalyani is later broken into kal & aani; in a line that touches Vasantha, it goes "ragam vasantha, naanum rusuthi parkka rasam thaaa". Instruments that are categorized as seriously classical like mridangam, veena and nadaswaram which lack the sexiness expected of cinema light music graciously blend and form the crux of this song. S.P.B is known for taking the reins and indulging in his very own 'oohs' and 'aahs' which results in quite frequent attacks for hijacking the music director's version. This song is almost a paradise where the tune never gets serious enough and always hovers near dialogue. Chitra, who usually is known for faithful renditions of the composer's idea here voice her notes joyfully almost like S.P.B.

One of Ilayaraja's overlooked masterpiece.

Ilayaraja's Melodies - VI

2007-12-06T18:12:00.000+05:30

4. Sundari Neeyum, Michael Madana Kama Rajan - Has there ever been a pair of conservative Indian lovers who have not dreamed of marriage rituals, first night moves & rearing children? Though the picturization beautifully captures the essence of that dream, I think the musical part of it aids and exceeds the visual beauty. Kamal & Janaki mouth dulcet notes whose words are marinated in Palakkadu brahmin tongue, which are strangely absorbing that make you imitate their style - its 'sunnari neeyum' with a quarter 'd' between those two 'n's and not 'sundari neeyum'. The slowness of the main course, chorus hum & the interlude parts are deliberately delayed to add another layer of authenticity to the dream; even the drum beats are cushioned so as to not wake a sleeping child. A superb audio background on lonely nights for those in love and also for those who plan to be in love.

P.S: Kamal in one of his interviews said that Raja overheard him humming the tune and then decided to get him behind the mike. This is no easy singing exercise and stands as a testimony to Kamal's skill as a solid play-back singer

Previous Entry - Part V

Ilayaraja's Melodies - V

2007-12-05T17:51:00.000+05:30

5. Mazhai Varudhu, Raja Kaiya Vacha - The first time I heard the opening verse ('lalalala') of this beauty, I thought this was a plain vanilla imitation of a lullaby sung very boringly by K.J. Yesudoss. But as the pallavi opened serenely in the footsteps of those opening verses without any fanfare, it had a tranquilizing effect which makes you feel at ease and relax, like a lullaby but not put you to sleep, unlike a lullaby. Only by the first charanam do you get the rhythm (until which a brilliant bass guitar guides) and as the song changes gear, the grip with which it holds our attention tightens, which is again loosened by the second interlude where a group of violins (lead and back-up) calms down the musical climate. This masterpiece has a subdued sweetness that even after successive listening sessions, I feel like I can listen to it once more.

P.S: A minor but delicate arrangement in the charanams has to be pointed out: the mid-segment lines go on like ascending a staircase, then traces back by two steps and then proceeds again. It's not great, or inventive or unique, but its gently charming.

Ilayaraja's Melodies - IV

2007-12-04T16:16:00.000+05:30

6. Kaadhal kavidhaigal, Gopura Vasalilee - One more in the line of duet melodies that gets you high & foot tapping; a song that feels soft but set on a slightly higher tempo. As if the tune isn't sweet enough, S.P.B magnificently churns honey out of his lines and pours it drop by drop - listening to Balu's apt modulations is enough to hook you onto this song. But there's more: one of my best opening scores - a group of violins delicately paving way for a flute piece that descends into bells and then onto the masterly voice; an interlude that's just flute and beat; Chitra who unlike S.P.B, rigidly follows the notes; lyrics bordering lust but not quite crossing the fence. Even after a decade, this song remains fresh. Ageless, like love.

Ilayaraja's Melodies III

Ilayaraja's Melodies - III

2007-12-03T18:34:00.000+05:30

7. Oorarama Athupakkam, Idhaya Kovil - This entry may draw the stick from a few puritans who define only slow-paced soothing tunes as melodies. A few dictionaries say that a melody is an arrangement of notes that result in a pleasant sound. Well, this one is pleasant in the following sense: on a cloudy afternoon, open that old draw, dust off the photo album and browse through your parents memories who're posing in differently fashioned dresses with a funny hairstyle. This song evokes similar feelings in me: a forced hip-hop fast hum 'jim jimku jim' to begin with and lyrics that just go hither and thither as if they're trying to tell a story in a metaphor but later drop the act, diffuse completely and prides in it's aimlessness. The tune itself is supremely elegant but it's decorated in crazy rolling drum beats, a ludicrous (in a good way) chorus and a funny trumpet piece. Let me state my ignorance upfront - this could be a masterpiece of a composition, for a musical layman like me, this is Raja trying to do something that didn't naturally come to him. If they ever had college culturals in the 80's, this would have been their fall back for 'a disco song'.

Ilayaraja's Melodies - II

2007-11-30T16:22:00.000+05:30

8. Poove Ilaya Poove, Kozhi Koovudhu - That men in love are poets is something known to all Indian cinema audience. Of the loads of songs fitting the 'man describing the beauty of his woman' situation in Tamil movies, this one stands out not just because of Raja, but also because of its lyrical beauty which just impeccably sits on top of the tune. When Malaysia Vasudevan at his breezy best delivers the line ' Ilampalingu nagam serthadhe, nilavu adhil mugam parthadhe', I can only pity those who don't speak the language for the tune assumes a greater depth with those fantastic exaggeration's. Though it starts and ends with western touches, the middle course is royally set in Raja's Tamil-esque way with a soothing tabla and short breaths of flute accompanying the charanam. This song embodies the collection when people with misty eyes say 'in the 80's...'.

Ilayaraja's Melodies - Part I

Ilayaraja's Melodies - I

2007-11-28T12:23:00.000+05:30

I will present a list of Raja's 10 melodies in the forthcoming days. They are by no means 'my top 10', for they keep varying all the time and I can come up with dozens of such lists. Though it's no countdown, I number them for the heck of it.

10. Indhaman endhan sondhaman, Karagattakaran - Such a gracious flow of voices in spell-binding sinusoids at a leisurely pace that you would think it's easy to compose melodies. Huh? I don't know if its the tabla that accompanies through the main course or the group of violins and flute that beautify the interludes that puts me to a semi-sleep state with a smug face. A romantic lightness pervades here, be it the lyrical word play (ennathan unnai ennithan) or Chitra's yearning rendition of those words; even the shenai interlude, which has a native pathos in it sounds just right for a happy couple. A just-about-perfect piece once can compose for rural love birds.

9. Elangathu Veesudhe, Pithamagan - The opening flute piece contemplates if it should stop breezing or just mellow down and pick up the momentum again. For such a serene mood piece which starts with a simple and absorbing pallavi, there are numerous beautiful minor variations in the charanam. A magnificent bass guitar accompanies Sriram Parthasarthy's smooth voice setting almost a prelude for a meditative session. But not quite, an interlude is totally dominated by percussion which makes the piece seem apart from the whole, but when you see the visual you'd know why Raja did that. It was the director who wanted a beautiful aberration and the meastro has simply obliged. One of the rare occasions where the choreography comes close to the composition.

And the Silambarasan Award Goes to...

2007-11-24T21:13:00.000+05:30

Nobel personally didn't give away any Nobel prize.
Abel personally didn't give away any Abel prize.

But today in the Jodi No.1 finals, Simbu handed over the prestigeous Simbu award. He also mentioned that Jodi No.1 paved the path for self-realization. It's only after this show he saw who he really was/is/whatever. Seriously, I'm not making this stuff... watch the final few minutes on Youtube. A defining moment in Simbu's life. Vijay TV is making strides in family entertainment.

With tears of joy running down my cheek, I applauded.

Milestone, Marketing, Miscellany

2007-11-19T10:59:00.000+05:30

Time to indulge -

Yesterday, my hit count crossed 30,000. Now, that's just peanuts for a lot of movie sites, which on an average have as many visitors everyday. But these peanuts are special to me; baby steps no doubt, but ScreenArt is moving forward.
Many thanks to the few regular visitors - Varaha, Suresh, Shreeja, Randramble... sorry if I've missed any other names - I don't know you unless you comment here. (My feedburner says that there are 25 subscribers as of today).
My review of Babel is the biggest puller. I estimate that somewhere around 3K visits were from search results for variations of Babel. My pieces of Tamil comedy artistes comes next to Babel.
If you've read my review of Babel & those three pieces, you'll know that they stand out in the crowd of posts I've made - they really took some writing energy and it has showed off in the results.

I was initially drawn towards James Berardinelli's movie site: http://reelviews.net. He's my Drona, but it's been a while since I visited him - I haven't grown tired, but I find his reviews very objective. I have also learnt/absorbed a lot from Roger Ebert of Chicago SunTimes and Stanley Kauffman of TNR.
I only critic that I find amusing all the time is Stephen Hunter of Washington Post - he's funny, sharp, ignores conventional reviewing and creates his own style.

I wouldn't regret if some bug were to clean all of my entries written before a year. I can see a forced tone in many of those reviews. The only purpose they serve is to remind me of my growth and integrity.
Before I invested time and energy into ScreenArt, I was quite frequently about non-movies stuff. With this milestone, I wish to spend some of my time consistently on ScreenAct too, my other blog where I ramble about anything but movies.
Though I can't reply to all the comments I receive, I read all of them and try to reply.
Long time readers will know that I still haven't written reviews for two of my favourite movies - Schindler's List and Michael Madana Kama Rajan. I fear that I haven't grown as a writer to do justice to these movies. But there's no point in dilly-dallying, I'll write them soon and may be after a few years I will read them with disdain.

I received an offer from Behindwood's editorial desk. After seeing that their style and mine clash, we had to let it go.
Just to generate traffic, I tried some stunts: include images, come up with top 10 lists, write a piece on the happening thing, etc. I just couldn't keep myself at it... I just have one top 10 favourite scenes list in my blog and I squirm whenever I read it. I tried including a picture of Rajini in a 'masala' piece, but later took it down.
I don't promise that I won't come up with lists in the future or include images, but only I find myself completely convinced of the need. I'm currently compiling a short list of Ilayaraja's melodies. That should be out shortly. I have also thought about a top 10 movies list every year - but the problem is that I don't see many of the blockbusters, which essentially rules me out.

Irreversible - Movie Review

2007-11-10T20:34:00.000+05:30

In my modest cinema viewing history (approximately 700 movies) I have never walked out of a movie because its brutal - and I've seen 'The Passion of the Christ', 'A Clockwork Orange' and 'Salo' without as much as battering an eyelid or twitching a toe. And then comes this French movie called 'Irreversible' and hits me like a hurricane. To be fair, I should warn you of a couple of cruel scenes deliberately composed to shake you: a murder and a rape. I sat through the murder with shock and I walked out of the rape visibly shaken. After about a month, I gathered enough courage to finish this movie, very carefully skipping the rape scene. Now that I've seen this movie (of course, barring those few hellish moments) I can tell you that its a rewarding experience, visually and artistically. I recommend, but only for the very strong-hearted, and please note that I don't belong to that category.

There isn't a structured, flowing screenplay and what one finds in its place is improvisations. The movie has very few scenes when compared to a regular movie, which is obviously the result of extremely long shots. Now, this is taxing the actors, for a single blemish could result in the director calling for a repeat shot and with no concretely written dialogues for the lead artistes in most of the scenes and the supporting cast trying their best not to intrude into the main frame. At the end of the movie, I was overwhelmed by the level of performances the three protagonists have delivered, especially Monica Bellucci donning a thoroughly demanding role.

Though this isn't formatted as a message movie, I can easily pick two damn strong messages: the results of losing oneself to the moment; more precisely, the effects of letting the impulse rule the mind. And the second one is pointing out the stark reality of the pervasive presence of beasts in human skin. Most of the movie recounts the events of a fatal evening in a Paris suburb. Alexandra and Marcus are your normal couple with their shares of fights and blushes. Pierre is Marcus' friend and Alexandra's ex-boyfriend. [Spoiler] In a raucous party one weekend, Alex decides to leave early with Marcus staying in the party house. When she takes a lonely subway, she encounters a pimp who very violently rapes and then beats her to coma. When this event dawns on Marcus and Pierre, they decide to deliver justice through their own hands and trace the pimp to a gay bar. Acting on the moment, Pierre pulps a man to death with a fire extinguisher, which I think is not the pimp but someone else. [/Spoiler]

The movie is told in reverse chronology, so towards the end of the movie, we see a normal happy couple but we can't leave the chair with a good feeling because of our knowledge of the supreme tragedy that has descended on them. There aren't any dramatic scenes or unbelievable events: these are the things we read about in newspapers and the director Noe, very subtly and very firmly pushes the message that this could be happening to you; you're as vulnerable as the guy you see on the TV news. In spite of skipping those critical 9 minutes, I felt a hard slap from which I recovered days later. Monica Bellucci delivers a riveting performance that just blows everything away. This stands taller than the other best female performances I've seen: a courageous portrayal of Phoolan Devi by Seema Biswas in 'Bandit Queen' and Valentina Cervi as a struggling painter in an era of men in 'Artemisia'.

The initial scenes gives the audience an idea of what is about to come: rapidly swirling camera transitions inside a gay bar with extreme sex and a low-frequency buzz for a background music generate a sense of revolt. Many viewers are said to have left the theatre in the first few minutes and a good chunk of those who stayed put left once the (in)famous subway rape scene began. The extreme cruelty lies in the absolute non-commercialization: no background score; a static-as-stone camera; her piercing screams for help; and finally to compound the reality factor, a young man steps into the subway, witnesses what's happening from the behind, stays there for a few moments and walks back without raising a hue - thereby implying the helplessness of the audience to do nothing about such a situation. In another totally improvised scene where Alex, her boyfriend and her ex-boyfriend travel in a metro which must have gone on for a challenging few minutes, they all talk like regular people discussing sexual intimacy, needs of a woman in a relationship and how one feels left out. The only thing great about this scene is how natural is looks, sounds and feels - there is no sense of artificiality or hurry infused, the actors are just relaxed and laid back and follow a natural rhythm that befits the nature of discussion. Typical French.

Mini Reviews

2007-11-09T17:47:00.000+05:30

Good Year
Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe pair again, for a gentle stroll. A mechanical man always after money gets to spend a week in a French chateau - after discovering the joy of a deliberate country life and the prospect of a budding love he ditches his high-speed London life. A feel good movie that really feels good at the end.

Hot Fuzz
The IMDb rank for this movie misled me - a slim plot and slapstick comedy can only help a screenplay so much. A gang of villains disguised as innocuous villagers try to clean up miscreants (read: kill em all) so that they consistently receive the best village award. This movie is about 1 hour long. Recommended for insomniacs.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
I curse myself for making an entry for this movie in the Mini Review category. A magnificent love story without any cliches at all. A shy and introvert Jim Carrey (think about that for a couple of seconds) and the crazy out-going Kate Winslet fall in love, fight, break-up and then .... The genius of Charlie Kauffman's screenplay is in his daring originality.

The Pianist
A story that must have been very personal for Roman Polanski, the Polish director who escaped the Nazi camps. The journey of a pianist through the tough years of occupation told with deceptive simplicity without any manipulation. Adrien Brody in the lead role adorns the story with a magnificent performance.

Snatch - One Minute Review

2007-11-09T12:15:00.000+05:30

I don't remember the last time I had such great fun while watching a gangster/heist genre told in a back & forth and then back-to-front with a lot of characters, but doesn't gloss away any characterizations and packs the story with punches and ironies... well now I remember, it's 'Pulp Fiction'. While on the way to rob a bank, the wonderfully versatile Benicio Del Toro disguised as a Jewish scholar talks of the translation of Bible where the translators substituted 'virgin' for 'young woman' and how the whole story took a wrong turn. This exactly reminds one of the foot massage talk between Jackson and Travolta before they shoot a few renegades in 'Pulp Fiction'. Snatch' is a step ahead of 'Pulp Fiction' when it comes to dialogues - cool, witty and sharp; but a bit low on the style factor. But what's lost in the style department is copiously made up in the pace - the editor must have been the busiest man in the British film circuit while working on this movie. You show me a single sagging scene in this movie, and I will... need I bother to challenge?

The movie is about many gangs, ranging from the juvenile to the hardened mafia, running after a piece of 84-carat diamond. While the diamond keeps changing hands, we get to know the attitudes and lifestyles of those who chase the gem: a man's weakness for gambling costs his life; a man's love for his mother costs the mafia's lives; helpless boxing promoters fighting to save their lives; a Russian don refusing to give up his life; a hit man accidentally losing his life; clueless street fighters caught in the big game are juggled with their lives. There's much more - terrific performances, laugh out loud brilliant lines and a convoluted yet superbly lucid screenplay and fluent direction. If the word masterpiece is to be reserved only for those movies that define a genre, transcend time and set milestones, this movie may fall a little short. But who gives a damn - 'Snatch' has 100% entertainment value and that by itself qualifies it as a masterpiece.

Bharathiraja's Woes

2007-11-08T11:31:00.000+05:30

Sun TV. Deepavali. Patti mandram. Cinema - boon or bane.

One would have expected Bharathiraja to be a bit coherent and slightly sensible. His body language befitted a political leader's rally speech and his slurred words were proof of homo erectus. On speaking of Tamil cinema's contributions, he cited an Indian family settled in Chicago for 40 years. A couple have children who're in their mid-twenties and though they rarely converse in Tamil, they're fluent when they talk. Bharathiraja wondered how was this possible. And then the couple illuminate him of the truth: through Sun TV, yes for the past two decades (Maran must have had a secret transmission service even before satellite television was introduced in India) the kids had fed on Sun TV which has served as their Tamil life line. Truly magnificent reasoning.

Update: The one and only T.Rajendar (homo sabilis) does a mimicry at the end of the show that makes you cry and laugh at the same time. Another reason to be proud of Tamil cinema.

Katradhu Thamizh - Movie Review

2007-10-13T20:05:00.000+05:30

Warning: Heavy spoilers

Some of the aspects that stayed in my thought cloud after I saw the move - confused screenplay, erratic lead performances, unnecessary comedy track, fluent photography and a sense of forced anti-convention. The movie begins by chronicling a series of events which get the audience believe that this is 'the making of a psychopath'. Half-way through the second half the story steers off-course as if the producer wanted an important message urgently stuffed, the screenplay clears the hero of his psychopath image and goes on a drive against the evils of capitalism and the lifestyle of the upper class without clearly substantiating the need for such a change. This is the first effort as writer/director for Ram Subbu and he leaves an impression - but what kind of an impression is that?

Prabhakar is a Tamil (should I write Thamizh?) graduate who works as a teacher for the elementary grade in Chennai. Because of the decline in morality and partly due to our corrupt social system he is humiliated, frustrated, teased and tantalized. He meets disappointment in almost every corner of his life - even his attempt at suicide fails. All the time the thought of Anandi, his childhood friend and later-day lover keeps him going. At one point when he is driven to his limits, he accidentally kills a railway employee and sees that everybody around him in the railway station stares at him with a fear that he finds as veneration. He leaves the city, comes back after two years and turns into a serial killer. When he finds Anandi through chance, he calls it quits and plans to go back to his hometown. The movie's climax follows a method adapted by self-claimed serious movies in the recent past that's very predictable and juvenile. There are very obvious logical flaws about his possession of gun, his public killings and the police being portrayed as dunces in their pursuit of him, but I won't dwell on them.

I suspect Jeeva will receive a state award for his performance in this movie as Prabhakar. There are times when he's good and there are times when his action follows a pattern that Indian cinema has categorically allotted for the mentally disturbed: shivering hands, shaking head, unstable body, suddenly speaking in high pitches, streaks of thought clarity, etc. Jeeva fits the bill. The new face Anjali does a very clean job of what is expected of her. Special mention goes to the photographer Kadhir. Most of the frames have a pervasive dull yellow light that signifies the dryness of his life and sorrowful events. The only shots filled with greenery are his childhood days, which helps us understand that he desperately wants to go back to those days. With so many close-up shots, he conveys the realism of the character: Prabhakar just doesn't mouth those words, but also feels them whole-heartedly. There are so many shots that exhibit Ram's sparks and I'm happy that he has chosen a story and narrative that's breaking Tamil movie conventions. That's it for the review; the following is a kind of thematic analysis and a rebuttal of the writer's points.

I'll list some of the events in the life of Prabhakar that slowly turn him into psychopath:

After graduation, to earn a Rs.2000/month job as a teacher he has to do the household chores of that school correspondent from buying monthly pads for the house lady to vegetables.

A local police inspector has a crush on a woman. When the inspector spots Prabhakar next to her, as a sign of showing off his power, he drags him in front of his students into the jeep and remands him into custody for a day.

When his suicide attempt fails, the police slap a drug trafficking case on him.

Prabhakar's neighbour asks him to write a love letter for a certain woman called Thenmozhi because he's incapable of beautiful language; later Prabhakar is told that the nieghbour succeeded in tasting Thenmozhi and he will need another love letter for another woman.

His moderately intelligent college roommate ends up in a lucrative job while he has to scourge for a few hundreds.

This factor isn't highlighted, but I'll list it anyway: he loses his mother at the age of 7 in an accident and his beloved Tamil teacher (who inspires him to take up Tamil in college) in an accident when he's 17.

Except for the fifth point which involves financial differences and the sixth point which makes the protagonist lonely, all others (and many more unlisted) concern the society's moral depravity. Now, if this moral turpitude is the reason for making him hate humanity, there's a certain logic in buying the theory that as a psychopath he's against unethical people. In a beach, he kills a couple for public caressing. That's in line with the theory. But when he delivers his supposedly final punch lines, he forgets why he became what he is in the first place. He goes on a rampage against the haves and have-nots. He issues a warning that if you wear a branded glass or a branded jean, that's enough reason for you to get killed. He specifically rants against the software industry which has made the non-software salaried class' life difficult. He says there are two kinds of people: 'the ones inside an ATM and the ones outside it; the ones inside Spencer Plaza and the ones outside it'. What is he driving at? The money factor doesn't play a big role at all in transforming the simple Prabhakar into a sociopath. This is nothing but the director's foolish misdirected anger at the suddenly rising wealth of a certain class.

We live in an open economy where you make or break your life. Instead of deriving inspiration from someone like Ambani, what this movie tries to say is that the poor guy who throws stones at Ambani's car is actually a good guy and it's the society that's responsible for all inequalities. When a movie promotes such arrogantly foolish ideas, everybody ends up paying. If such ideas click, it will lead to a downward spiral. It is in light of such misguided but talented directors like Ram Subbu, filmmakers like Maniratnam appear like visionaries, like gods. In a society which has had a stream of movies that have always portrayed the working class as good and oppressed and the ruling class as villains, Maniratnams's 'Guru' is really a towering achievement. It clearly says: 'The world is waiting for you. Go ahead and make your life'. 'Kathradhu Thamizh' is the kind of movie I would NOT want most of our teenagers or anyone without original thinking to see.

Mini Reviews

2007-10-13T17:53:00.000+05:30

Final Destination 3
This is the point: A young woman has a vision that the roller coaster that she has just boarded is about to crash; makes a scene and gets out with a handful of others. Those who escape the ride (yes, it crashes!) die one after another in a pattern captured through a series of photographs. See this movie only if you're drunk.

Die Hard 4
This is classic action stuff. A frustrated cyber-security guy cripples the national security and routine functioning by hacking into every governmental system. McClane (Bruce Willis) with the help of a whiz kid bring him to knees amidst bombastic crashes. Doesn't generate enough adrenalin and some lines make you chuckle.

Salo
This movie was banned in a few European countries (think about that for a second). The dehumanizing nature of human beings takes the form of extravagant sexual torture. With a flimsy story, ludicrous screenplay, bad acting and heavy nudity, some people call it art but I find it nothing more than instantly disposable trash.

Cinema Paradiso
A typical European feel-good movie. An uncommon friendship between a young boy and an old man, a cinema theatre that plays a touching role, a tender love story that ends in a tragedy - all for the price of one ticket. The Italian version contains an extra 40 minutes which develops the protagonist as an adult making his character arc complete.

Jodi No.1 Gimmicks

2007-10-06T21:50:00.000+05:30

In a well scripted show of the latest episode of Jodi No.1 which wraps itslef as a controversy, Simbu as usual spoils the climax by overacting. I've watched three shows so far and even the blind and deaf can attest that Prithviraj - Uma Riyaz are the pick of the lot. The energy, attitude and style this couple bring to the show is top of the line leaving the second best far behind.

In what definitely appears to be a staged drama, Simbu comments that Prithviraj didn't do much on the stage other than walking back and forth. More than the nature of the comment, its the way in which Simbu gets across his point that frustrates, entertains and at the same time reveals the spuriousness of the drama. He just goes on and on about his character, how straight forward he is, how his father taught him not to act if there isn't a camera nearby, how people wrongly perceive him to be an arrogant sob, blah, yada, this, that.

Simbu, in a less than admirable performance, walks out of the show while the participants run behind him and drag him back. Then, in a moment of truth, he blurts out what appears to be the truth: 'enakku nadikka theriyadhunga'. We appreciate your honesty dear. Not many, like Vijay or Ajith have the courage to admit that in front of an audience. We love you for that.

PS - This show will be availble on youtube very soon. Checkout the final 15 minutes. This is instant history.

Mr. and Mrs. Iyer

2007-10-01T22:53:00.000+05:30

Movies on religious extremism are abound. It's usually an act of tightrope walking for the writer and director in creating such films because there's immense room for one to tilt towards his/her preferences or construct scenes which may project something not meant. 'Mr. & Mrs. Iyer' like 'United 93' offers a balanced treatment by keeping its protagonists as spectators who rarely get into the thick of action, which is very unlike 'Munich', where the protagonists are responsible for all the action. I guess the primary motive behind such characterizations is that a common man (or a woman) can easily identify with the leads in the movie, where a he/she is usually a witness or a victim. I'm not belittling such a perspective, but I want to state upfront that I have a leaning towards movies that dissects the mind of a terrorist, like in the brilliant 'Syriana'. I'm not suggesting that Aparna Sen, the writer/director of this movie took an easy way out in a script dealing with religious extremists, but only hint that it's a high-responsible task to make movies that has a religious fanatic in the lead.

Meenakshi Iyer (Konkana Sen Sharma) is a conservative among conservatives. Deeply religious and sentimental. she is the kind who regrets for having drunk water from a Muslim co-passenger. Raja alias Jehangir Chaudhry (Rahul Bose) is a wild life photographer who has almost abandoned his religion and is a pure rational humanist. Chance brings them together on a bus journey through a communal riot prone zone. When Hindu activists go on a rampage pulling Muslims out of the bus, Meenakshi claims Raja as her husband which puts him in the safe group. (Earlier, a passenger is stripped to check if he's circumcised, which should have built up tension for Raja). Later, curfew because of the riots and a lack of accommodation brings them to a lonely house in a forest area. What happens here is the crux of the screenplay - where Bose's words, actions and courage spills over and melts her conservative boundaries to enable her to see him as a man, not as a Muslim. The movie's success upto this point is diluted when it drags on to an unnecessary romantic angle in the final twenty minutes.

The movie starts out like a college video project. Many new faces with amateurish performances delivering made-up lines. When the bus had a sample of all communities from India I thought this was another moral story without any force. But the theme picks up after the first half an hour. Aparna Sen sizzles when it comes to writing tender moments but her direction has uniformly lacked a grip. From the basic missteps like showing a well groomed face after sleep to important ones like extracting credible performances from the supporting cast, Aparna Sen doesn't impress. Rahul Bose plays his part to perfection - a cultured man who has acquired wisdom through meeting a lot of people by traveling a lot, he never loses his cool and paints a perfect gentleman's role. Konkana Sen Sharma has a kind of beauty that keeps growing with the running length. Her body language is apt: adjusting her bra strap when required, faking a husband/wife relationship in front of co-passengers, a gradual shortening of the distance between Raja and her with time.... I would like to see more of her.

Having seen, read and heard quite a lot about clashes based on religions, regions and ethnic differences, this movie is another in the long line where the filmmaker tries to have his audience introspect. As in most cases, this movie entertains and might stir up a few conservatives to reassess their relationship with a neighboring community but its not powerful enough to make the cat-on-the-wall guy (who under duress could become an extremist) into a humanist. Art must be capable of that. And this movie doesn't aim that high. But as a 100-minute entertainer, this definitely passes. Expect nothing more.

Mini Reviews

2007-09-28T16:09:00.000+05:30

Hazaaron Khwashein Aisi
The title means 'a thousand such dreams' and it comes in a song along with the line 'the mind has gone insane'. This is a movie about the political/caste tumult in the 70s which made the young blood to want to change the world. Two guys from college branch out - one becomes a fixer for politians and the other goes to Bihar to revolutionize the social system. Before long, they both know that they're unhappy with the way they conduct their lives and realize that they have to pay for their wishful thinking. Sudhir Mishra's fluent direction and a scintillating performance by the debutante Chitrangda Singh are the dazzling jewels of this crown.

Shooter
A classic story where the big brother sets up a pawn piece and the pawn comes back resoundingly to teach a lesson. Swagger, a retired sniper is asked by the FBI to do a job which involves an assasination plan and after the execution, he is promptly set up. When he is chased, he outruns them, get behind them and kills them. The novel by Stephen Hunter (one of the two film critics to win a Pulitzer) is a well-above-average thriller and this movie upon which it is based is a just-above-average thriller. Mark Wahlberg is quite solid at the top and the music holds the movie.

Pulp Fiction
There are interesting things to discover on repeated viewings of any great movie, like this one. But more than the joy of such discoveries, it is the sheer pleasure of listening to those dialogues that keeps offering invitations to the audience. Circular screenplay dealing with seemingly separate stories intersecting at interesting points have been tried many times after this movie, but this is the one they talk about. The restaurant robbery at the beginning and the end is one of the many statements on executing with style. The confrontation between the mobster Wallace and the boxer Butch is a cool way to twist things around.

Honey I Shrunk the Kids
Seeing this movie after more than a dozen years of my first viewing made me realize that this is a proper kids' movie - meaning that adults can smirk at the thought of how kids will enjoy this movie forgiving some of the bad acting and poor script. A scientist invents a machine that can shrink objects to abnormal levels; his kids and his neighbours' kids fall under the focus of that machine and they're shrunk and forbidden to the backyard. A chronicle of their journey back to the house and the travails of their parents looking for them with a few sprinkles of family values and love - you have a safe Disney movie.

Pan's Labyrinth - One Minute Review

2007-09-10T18:46:00.000+05:30

Spain. 1944. Second World War. Guerillas against Fascist regime. This is the setting against which Guillermo Del Toro has based his story which fuses gritty reality and absolute fantasy.  I didn't get the catch, if there are any hidden messages meant for the audience.  This is how it goes: Vidal is a military captain who has his base somewhere in the mountains, determined to wipe out the guerillas.  He marries a widow who already has a daughter Ofelia.  Now, Ofelia's world is two-fold - the world which everyone sees, and hates but continues to live; and the under-world, a fairy place where she is a princess.

The screenplay strongly commits to the effects of fairies on real-life that it's quite impossible to dismiss the fantasy part as a mere figment of Ofelia's imagination.  There are scenes - in both the worlds that are great, but seeing them together, one after the another, some how distorts the movie effect and reduces the punch.  Either it should have been a complete reality, or a complete fantasy.  In tying the knot and in searching meanings, I was lost.  One striking aspect of the movie is its photography, which creates a magnificent atmosphere, that you almost buy the fantasy scenes.  One question lingers at the end of the movie: Why is it called Pan's Labyrinth?

Wild Strawberries - Movie Review

2007-09-02T16:10:00.000+05:30

The reputation precedes the man. Ingmar Bergman, the Swedish director who recently passed away, was celebrated during his time and is still a source of inspiration to many great cinema artistes. Cinema intellectuals experience orgasmic shivers in dissecting his metaphors and ascribing meaning to seemingly ununderstandable sequences. Woody Allen said something like this: for any director to have made any one of Bergman's movies would have been a career highpoint. 'Wild Strawberries' is the movie that's supposed to have catapulted Bergman to the fore of world cinema, expanding his fan base which was previously only within Europe.

The movie is primarily about Isak Borg, a retired professor of medicine who has had a fruitful life in the world's view. The screenplay which takes the form of a road trip is a semi-metaphor to Borg traveling down the memory lane and reflecting upon his past. Borg is an admirable man to the society. But within his family, he's not liked that much. It's because of his bad parenting that his son Evald refuses to have a child and already feels dead inside. Borg's coldness clouds his judgment when it comes to financially helping even his own son. The movie sums up the transformation (though not a radical one) of the professor through interactions with fellow human beings, his dreams and distorted-reality sequences - all of which happen on his journey from Stockholm to Lund where he would receive his honorary doctorate.

In one of the first few scenes, we see Borg taking the audience through one of his dreams which involves a coffin with Borg's body falling off a horse-drawn carriage; when the coffin is opened, he emerges with a tragicomic face. At this point, Bergman cuts back to reality and shows a horror struck Borg. This allusion to fear of death will come to back to haunt Borg in another dream sequence where he would be shown the door and a young child will be taken inside the house. We see a handless watch and at a later point Borg's mom talks of how quickly time travels - a reference to the futility in appreciating life in terms of time. In one of his dreams, Borg sits for an examination of human understanding, interactions and psychology and fails the test. Such metaphors about life and how it applies to Borg are plenty; only that they don't have any power.

The film is technically adept. Shot in black & white by Gunnar Fischer, the varying shades of greyness are beautifully handled to evoke fear, pain, indifference and sympathy. Erik Nordgren's score is just about perfect. In a film that runs for 91 minutes, he has composed music for less than 10 minutes - announcing itself if and only if needed. But the highlight of the movie belongs to two actors: Victor Sjostrom and Ingrid Thulin. Victor, a veteran actor and director magnificently plays the lead role - evoking sympathy, trying to understand his circle and finally transformed. Ingrid, playing Marianne brilliantly portrays a mature woman who is caught somewhere between liking and hating her father-in-law.

When I was in college, I tried watching one of Bergman's movies and fell asleep midway. It's been a while since I started viewing movies with a serious eye and the good news is that I didn't fall asleep through 'Wild Strawberries'. In fact I saw it two times, the second time with a commentary by film scholar Peter Cowie. Bergman's dialogues are brillaint, but the story is watered down and meanders aimlessly. The screenplay has too many diversions; frequent switches between reality and surreality is heavily distracting. Since scholars around the world hail this movie as an achievement, I'm tempted to say that I'm not mature enough to understand the themes; however, in my present state, I'm afraid that I may not come to like such movies at all. Personally, 'Schindler's List' remains a landmark movie in my roster that profoundly affected my view of humanity. I felt such an indifference towards the characters of the movie; I'm quite sure you feel the same way about this review because it's them behind this piece of writing.

Colours Trilogy - Movie Reviews

2007-08-14T18:55:00.000+05:30

Kryzysztof Kieslowski is a director from Poland who died when he was 55. Just before he died, he completed three movies - 'Blue', 'White' & 'Red' and announced his retirement. He was already a popular figure (popular sounds like a dirty word; almost demeaning to call such a critically acclaimed director as popular) because of his collection of ten short films: 'Decalogue' and many other fine films. His untimely demise after the completion of this trilogy has invited film lovers all over the world to give special attention to them; just like how people thronged to see 'Eyes Wide Shut' after Stanley Kubrick's death. For the lack of better words, I'd like to call Kieslowski a typical European film intellectual - who enjoyed making films that had trademark simplicity in the way the characters conducted their life, viewed through simple and powerful shots, pregnant with realistic dialogues and good performances. Though I've seen these movies before six years at irregular intervals, when I saw them all this weekend back to back, I was able to immensely appreciate the depth of the themes discussed.

'Blue' is about Julie, a beautiful woman in her thirties who has recently lost her husband and child in a car crash. She too was in the car when it crashes and it all the more adds to her depression and a lack of will to continue living until she gets to know of her dead husband's secret mistress. 'White' delves deep into Karol's soul, a poor soft-natured Polish immigrant in Paris who is driven away from her wife because he can't feed her sexual hunger. Even after amassing great material wealth, all he longs for is her wife's lap - to rest his head and cry. 'Red' revolves around the friendship between Valentine, a young model and a retired judge. In a parallel universe, they might have been a good couple; here, because of their age difference, they strike a good & unnatural friendship. There are interesting sub-plots and all the stories take place in the same timeline (1993-94) - there is even a scene where the characters from all the three movies criss-cross. But that is also the director's point - chance meetings? coincidences? fate?

'I used to give her pleasure' - says Karol, the lead man in 'White' in the court before the judge, a dialogue which he genuinely utters that I didn't know if I should feel sorry for that guy or laugh at him. But he is the kind of guy who knows his weaknesses and wouldn't take it wrong even if you laughed at him. While he plays a Polish tune in a subway after being pushed out of home, Mikolaj, another Polish in Paris identifies the tune and offers to help him back to his hometown, Warsaw. The friendship bond between Karol & Mikolaj strengthens, not with time, but because of events: the latter's offer to help him get home leaves an indelible sense of gratitude in the former. Mikolaj, a good man with a sad face wants to die, but can't bring to kill himself. In a brilliantly directed scene (which I won't reveal), Mikolaj goes from the brink of depression to a man who dearly holds on to his life. All along, Karol yearns to hear his wife's voice and longs for her physical touch.

'There is only one thing I need to do: nothing' says Julie, a widow in 'Blue' who has survived a car accident. In the hospital, as soon as she regains consciousness, a doctor informs her of the death of her husband and daughter and she is too feeble even to react to the news. She tries suicide by swallowing a bunch of sleeping pills; as if her body is against it, she finds all the pills caught in her throat and she spits them out. Devastated and emotionally drained, nobody to care for and nobody to be taken care of, she moves a suburb where she hides her identity and continues to live until death would knock her door. As fate would have it, she discovers about her husband's secret mistress and learns that she's carrying her husband's child. Though she finds it's tough to grasp the idea that it was possible for her husband to share a certain kind of intimacy with another woman, it is that thought, which strengthens with time, makes her accept the proposal of somebody who loves her. It's not a kind of revenge when she decides to get a grip on her life after coming to know about her husband's affair, but sort of coming to terms with herself.

'Breath of Life' is the caption for an ad Valentine, the protagonist of 'Red', does for a gum company. And to understand what that means in the context of the movie, one has to wait until the final scene which really breathes a new life, not only to this movie, but to this trilogy. In a model of narrative economy, Kieslowski portrays the breakdown of a relationship over a few scenes, which doesn't even involve the couple on the screen. Valentine's boy friend is a typical mediocrity mind set man who always questions her fidelity. We don't see him and we only hear his voice during Valentine's telephone conversations with him. When she says she's about to take bath, he asks is anybody is helping her. While her lovelessness is making her monumentally lonely, she gets acquainted with a retired judge who spies on his neighbours phone calls. Though she initially disapproves of his covert actions, she later realizes that there's more to him. In an interesting sub-plot that very much shadows the judge's life, the director purposefully dusts off the demarcation between reality & virtuality and makes a point that the judge and young lady are more than mere friends.

'Red' & 'Blue' features strong women who seem very normal on the outside but are tormented souls on the inside. In spite of their pain, they don't break down or hate the world. They can appreciate humaneness, but are also tough. Julie swims every night so that nobody would catch those tears streaming down her cheek, but when she finds a rat which has very recently delivered, she decides to get a cat. In an intelligently written part, Julie call on her husband's assistant who has all along had a silent eye on her. She asks if he loved her and he accords. They share the bed that night and in the morning she says "I'm like any other woman. I sweat, I cough" and then she leaves him. She had assumed that he only wanted her body and now that he's had her, his hunger would be quenched. Not until the final scenes does she appreciate his love for her. In 'Red', Kieslowski alludes to the similarity between the characteristics through bizarrely coincidental occurrences in the lives of the retired judge and a neighbour of Valentine. I'm not sure if they're really two different people and if the writers meant the audience to find an emotionally compatible man for Valentine in a young body.

The music never masks the scene - just guiding the feelings smoothly to where they need to be. The editors have done a masterly job of allowing one scene to flow into another. Though a lot has happened at the end of the movie, there seems to be no rush in the narration. Cameras, typically European, move only when they need to move. In all these three movies, there is no tension or thrill to speed up the story-telling. There is no manipulation of feelings to make you cry, though such situations are plentiful. Dialogues aren't spiced up to create a punch effect. Piesiewicz, who wrote for the movies along with Kieslowski didn't know how to write for the screen and he would just sit and talk about the characters and plots while the latter penned a proper screenplay. From one perspective, that's what these movies are about - a mature talk about life, love, relationship maintenance, coincidences....

Credits:
Lead Roles: Juliette Binoche, Irène Jacob, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Zbigniew Zamachowski, Julie Delpy

Cinematographer for 'Red' - Piotr Sobocinski
Cinematographer for 'White' - Edward Klosinski
Cinematographer for 'Blue' - Slawomir Idziak

Original Score - Zbigniew Preisner

Written by Krzysztof Kieslowski & Krzysztof Piesiewicz

Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski

Harry Potter 5 - One Minute Complaint

2007-07-31T17:03:00.000+05:30

The magic found in the books, not the spells or potions but the way the story unfolds, is devastatingly missing in the movies. The movies so far are at best a fair adaptation with a somewhat understandbale storyline and at worst, like this one, are rushed & choppy. Harry Potter is the only character who is considered for screen development with Dolores Umbridge & Hermione Granger coming in at distant second and third places. Like diamonds in the rough, there are a few scenes that work; but taken as a whole, the movie seems like it has been written, directed & edited by a pampered child - comfortably twisting characters and plotlines, huge holes in character portrayals and cuts from one scene to the next with no smooth transition in-between. If this piece of writing is insipid, blame it one the movie for dulling my senses.

Mini Reviews

2007-07-23T15:04:00.000+05:30

Pink Panther
I haven't seen the original Peter Sellers' versions. But it definitely can't have been as bad as the new Steve Martin's portrayal - there's no wit, no slapstick, no punch. An inane supposedly funny story about how a French police inspector, Jacques Closeau, solves a murder case. This movie is like Hollywood insulting the French comedy genre.

Hollywoodland
Two very good character developments make this watchable: the vacousness of an out-of-work Hollywood actor (Ben Affleck) and that of a private investigator (Adrien Brody) who has forgotten his life. The screenplay isn't gripping & the supporting cast ain't great (except for Diane Lane). The dialogues are reflective of the Hollywood lifestyle: "I sleep with her because she makes me feel young", says the actor when he ditches his elderly girl friend for an immature aimless girl. Partly interesting.

Breaking & Entering
Minghella, who adapted & directed the immensely likable war romance 'The English Patient' comes up with a contrived screenplay here. So, the viewer never fully feels for any of the characters or rues about the themes dealt in the movie: love, family, fidelity, crime, immigrants, etc. If only had they gone the extra mile, rewritten some parts of the screenplay, gone for a retake of some of the intimate scenes, worked on more meaningful camera angles...

Mini Reviews

2007-07-16T16:16:00.000+05:30

An Inconvenient Truth
The title of this documentary is just about perfect. It's really discomforting for us to forego some of the daily pleasures which we've come to take for granted. The temperature of our planet has been accelerating due to mis-managed industries & a lack of political will. If we allow this to continue, Al Gore says, the results could be alarming, very well within our lifetime. The message is very clear: for a cleaner, safer & healthier future, we need to evaluate our lifestyle. Watch this important documentary with your family & then discuss about it.

Notes on a Scandal
Deliciously acted by two delicious actresses. Well, delicious, after all, may not be the right word to describe a drama involving improper sex. But when Judi Dench & Cate Blanchett deliver their lines with exquisite naturalism and contort their faces that absolutely matches their characters, one can't ask for more. A simple story about a mis-aligned friendship, loneliness, betrayal and immaturity based on a novel by Zoe Heller is very well written & directed.

The Queen
This is a movie about the interactions between No.10, Downing Street & Buckingham Palace in the aftermath of Diana's death. While the queen thinks of it as a personal tragedy and wishes to keep her feelings to herself, the whole country drowns moaning and wants the queen to join them, which forces the newly elected Tony Blair to pressurize the monarchy. Brilliant acting by Helen Mirren as the queen; subtle directorial touches by Stephen Frears make it a good watch.

Andrei Rublev
I'm doing an injustice by writing a mini-review of this visual masterpiece. Andrei Tarkovski's tale of the 15th century painter Andrei Rublev is epic in it's scope - both visually & thematically. Although many chapters digress from what initially appears to be the subject & some of the metaphors about the artiste's views are very abstract, I enjoyed watching it. Some time later, I'll try to honor it with a complete review.

40-Year Old Virgin
Andy has a clean social life (read the title again). When his friends come to know his state, they try to help him. After some good-bad drama, the movie has a happy ending. Steve Carrell is picture-perfect in the lead role & the supporting cast isn't bad either. Sometimes slapstick, sometimes raunchy - some lines work, some scenes click. This is a semi-comedy which I recommend for insomniacs.

Sivaji - Movie Review

2007-06-19T19:11:00.001+05:30

In trying to fuse two very successful formulas called Shankar & Rajini, the filmmakers have effectively produced a movie which comprises of episodes that distinctly belong to both the personalities. Actually, following a middle path isn't that difficult considering the fact that Shankar's heroes are larger than life and Rajini's roles in the past make him fit like a glove into the former's script. 'Sivaji' is neither the best Shankar movie nor the best Rajini movie; but had the editor's scissors been sharp & swift, this could have been the best Shankar-Rajini combo possible. Running at a little over three hours, one can't help wonder why did Antony (the editor) not prune away some shabby 30 minutes which are diluting & distracting. Anyway, as prescribed by our cinema grammar, if you can safely disengage the logical side of your brain, you can have some fun.

Sivaji (Rajini) is a software architect from U.S who had amassed loads of wealth and wants to do something for the poor on his return to India. His noble ambitions are duly thrashed at the administrative & political avenues. Portrayed as a little naive and very straightforward, Sivaji oils the corrupt system with a big fraction of his money to get his job done. Always under the radar of Adhi (Suman), a hitman & kingmaker (no big difference there!), Sivaji's project stumbles leaving him pennyless. The superhero changes gears to cut the diamond with a diamond - he resorts to dirty tricks to squeeze the black money out of city bigwigs and siphons them towards good deeds.

Talk of commercial elements, and you will find it all here. The first half is a setting-up phase with emphasis on Rajini's romance & Vivek's comedy. Though some jokes are down the beaten path and a few scenes on top of roof, I enjoyed the lighthearted feel of the first 90 minutes. It's been a while since one saw Rajini going gaga over a girl; in fact, I don't remember the last time an established hero proposed to a girl and stood aside patiently for her approval. Shreya fits into the traditional Tamil heroine trap - she doesn't have much to do other than presenting herself as a sattvika girl during the talkies & as a glamor queen in the song scenes. Vivek is almost a second hero here - I wonder if he had more dialogues than Rajini in the first half. Roaring punch lines wittily has been his strength and he doesn't fail to entertain the audience with his sense of timing. I hope 'Sivaji' revives his career & gives us a break from the non-stop nonsense that we've been enduring.

Shankar gets busy with his here's the message of the movie narration in the second half while Rajini readies himself for a top gear rummage of his opponents. You can almost see the fingerprints of Rajini in front of the camera and that of Shankar's behind it. Traversing an immoral route to defraud the bad guys to help the poor people has been Robinhood's... oops, sorry, Shankar's staple screen diet and we see the same thing here. Rajini feels more energetic & brisk here than in his previous outings. Shankar sets up ample opportunities for Rajini to display his trademark style, which he executes deftly to the brim of his fans' hearts. Though this is his first movie as a granddad, some top notch make-up covers up all the wrinkles.

Rahman's songs have grown over me and Shankar sets new standards for himself when it comes to picturizing them. Athiradikkaran is the pick of the album - both musically & visually. Rahman's background score perfectly fits the movie's tone. K.V.Anand's cinematography, especially the way he has worked in the songs needs special mention. Yes, there is grand grandeur; but it's Anand's eyes that assign meanings to those surreal sets by Thotta Tharani - another feather in the movie's technical cap. The film's biggest disadvantage is it's length. There are scenes that drag & pale in comparison to the ones before and after it, and I can't reason why Antony chose to okay them. To name a few: Rajini mimicking other actors and other actors mimicking Rajini might grow stale on repeated viewings. Rajini & Vivek posing as surveyors for the election commission is downright impossible. All the fight sequences seemed lengthy. The 'office room' episodes could've been reduced. Nevertheless, there is not one moment I squirmed in my seat or looked at the watch - if you enter the theatre expecting to see a Rajini movie, you'll be more than pleased when you step out of it.

Though the movie frequently steps out of pragmatism, it is the least of a true fan's botherations. There is plenty of enjoyable humour, carefree romance, family sentiments, unbelievable (literally!) action, cool songs, punch lines and to top it all, Rajini in full form. The villain could've been more powerful, which could have indirectly enhanced the hero's strength from a viewer's perspective - but that's just a minor quibble. There is a Shankaresque twist at the end, where Rajini proves why he's a difficult style icon to beat or emulate. In a resolutely cool get-up which pays a very nostalgic homage to the icon in the eighties, he comes back to kick ass. And this is why the crowd comes back to see him. As for Shankar, he should ponder if he's going to keep doing this for the rest of his working time - message masalas that are predictable and by the numbers. But this time, I'm not complaining.

Mini Reviews

2007-06-11T15:55:00.001+05:30

Chennai - 600028
Where the story is the hero, there can't be many villains. The movie marches strongly on the fetishes of a niche crowd - people who speak the language of cricket. The script is nothing more than a series of episodes stitched together in the lives of a bunch of guys who are pretty much aimless. A self-proclaimed competent team losing to school kids is the icing.... Pure fun.

Good Shepherd
A wonderful, intricate screenplay which takes us from the late thirties to the early sixties, giving the details of the growth of the counter-intelligence department of the CIA all seen through the eyes of a man. A magnificent blend of solid drama & genuine thrill. Matt Damon sparkles but it's Angelina Jolie who takes away the prize. De Niro, the director blows us away with his control over story-telling.

Curse of the Golden Flower
Zhang Yimou, the most popular Asian director living today once again proves that when it comes to blending colossal sets with rich costumes & eye-popping photography, he's next to nobody. A complicated relationship drama revolving around a Chinese royal family ends bitterly; but then sweetly too. Action scenes, though good-looking don't stand up to his reputation.

The Last King of Scotland
Riding on Forest Whitaker's impressive performance, Kevin MacDonald tells an inspired by true events story of the paranoid, brutal & charming Idi Amin who plundered Uganda. A talented but immature doctor finds himself in the grip of Amin & realizes his foolish adventures before it's too late. I don't think this movie will have any historic significance in the future because it feels contented to entertain the audience (which it does very well) & hence cooks up events.

J.F.K
Top-notch film-making. Based on a book by Jim Garrison, an attorney in Louisiana at the time of the assassination of J.F.Kennedy, Oliver Stone, the master director chronicles the efforts by Jim in bringing to daylight the obvious mishandlings of security arrangements & bungled up administration. Though some shady high-profile figures come under pressure, I can't help but feel that a common man is no more than a pawn in a governmental chess. A movie for every season, every country.

Writer's Block

2007-05-26T15:53:00.001+05:30

Harry Potter's Murky Matters

2007-05-13T22:59:00.000+05:30

Writing screenplay from an already published material is an art - be faithful & at the same time be unfaithful to the source. Good writers/directors appreciate the fully developed characters in the book (or a comic strip or a theatre play or a short story), capture the essence and carve a new character that retains the juice of it's book counterpart. Movie being a visual & audio medium, it has it's pros & cons over the print medium. A book has the freedom to elaborately go on about how a broken girl feels; if the director of the movie decides not to use a voice-over, he has to employ visual techniques & background music to bring out how she feels. To ask a screenwriter to be supremely loyal to the source essentially kills his/her artistic creativity & could very well result in a bad product.

The problem with adapting a phenomenon like Harry Potter to the screen is in figuring out what to excise & what not to. Steve Kloves, the man behind the scripts so far has had a demanding job because of humongous expectations; and we know the corollary: when the expectations are huge, there is bound to be disappointment. A hardcore Potter fan's disappointment is justified when he sees a movie that's different from the one that has run in his mind - which is essentially a validated compomise in writing for screen. But my disappointment (a casual Harry Potter reader) arises because of a confused, and a somewhat incomplete adaptation. The movies are entirely understandable only to those who've read the books. Whereas as good screenplay would have invited the viewer (who hasn't read the book) to take a shot at the book.

J.K.Rowling is one hell of a story teller. Yes, some of her ideas are age old and some of the plot points border on illogic; but she is a model of narrative continuity. Not at one single sentence in the four books I've read so far have I scratched my head in terms of the flow of the story. My wife, for example, forgets to blink while re-reading Potter - that's how captivating is the world of magic she has created. But Kloves gives no care to the niceties. Here's a list of fouls committed by him in the fourth movie, 'Goble of Fire'. He conveniently takes it for granted that the viewers already know about the characters - he forget to establish them. And worse, there are places he gives a wrong impression: Dumbledore is seen as a tense man near the end of the movie, while the book always paints him as a wise old man who knows what to do when things go wrong. In order to economize the number of actors, side characters from the book are cut & their lines are given to super-side characters: house elf Winky is nowhere to be seen. Timelines are confusing, which reduces the power of the story: Dumbledore informs the students of the return of Voldemort & then has a soothing chat with Potter. One line explanations of interesting ideas that will make the one's who haven't read the book go haywire: 'Priori Incantatem'.

In a time when print publishers are losing business & sleep, this series revolutionizes the industry and instills the habit of reading books in kids who're increasingly addicted to www. I find it very essential for the filmmakers to be passionate about the subject. Peter Jackson breathed oxygen into 'Lord of the Rings', because he was crazy about Tolkien's masterpiece since he was a kid. Spielberg asked Zallian to rewrite 'Schindler's List' a number of times until it matched his vision. Though there are hundreds of Shakespeare's renditions on screen, the one they talk about is Kenneth Branagh's, because he proclaims himself to be a supreme fan of the greatest bard. If Warener Brothers just wanted to make some Harry Potter marketing buzz and ride on the maniacal hordes' irresistance to read the visual book, let them; but it won't be remembered. Definitely down the timeline, we're going to see a Potter fanatic who'll have all the details down to the colours of corner pixels who will sweep us all - and that one will stand the test of time.

Newsreel

2007-05-11T11:08:00.000+05:30

Actor Simbu gets kalaimamani; along with writer Balakumaran.

Visually Challenged...

2007-04-29T13:25:00.000+05:30

I bought a DVD copy of Giuseppe Tornatore's Star Maker; though I found that the subtitles were screwed-up, I decided to go ahead with the movie. The only other non-English non-Indian non-subtitled movie I've seen was Inarittu's 'Amorres Perros', which just blew me away - stylistically & directorially. I've been introduced to Tornatore before through his 'Cinema Paradiso' - which was a good film that made good use of nostaglia & love, with a passion for cinema at the centre. 'Star Maker' is a different theme that has a common man's (and of course, a woman's) desires of becoming a star & how a con man makes life out of it. Though that passion for cinema is present here throughout, that isn't where the heart of the movie lies. In this post, I'll just ramble about what I felt about the visual aspect of this movie. Dante Spinotti is the cinematographer of this movie.

Visually, there is nothing arresting about this movie; but in tandem with the director, the way the camera moves around the characters adds depth to the story-telling. In one of the initial setting-up scenes, Tornatore employs a long shot (time wise) where the camera pans across characters, then houses and then streets. In this scene, which I'm guessing ran for 3 minutes, a young boy picks up a suit and delivers it to someone without goofing up the continuity. Whereas later in the same scene when the camera comes to focus on a group of old men chatting on the street-side, one of them waits for a signal (probably from an assistant director!!) to begin the conversation and as we see them all closer, he begins talking. But we know that this isn't the purpose of this shot. When capturing slice-of-life, even before the camera had them in their viewfinder, we should've heard them talking (in low volume) and as the camera moves near them, it should've been like the audience eavesdropping on their discussion (which was already in flow) and gradually shy away from them. A meticulous & demanding director like Stanley Kubrick would've have reshot, but Tornatore should've found it too painful to choreograph everything again & must have okayed it.

There is a scene where the hero talks to the local villagers in a diner, probably about the power of movies & how stardom could transform one's life. For most of his speech we don't see his face, but from behind his head we see the listener's reactions. This camera movement is important because it tells us that cinema was not just a past-time for these people; they were giving their undivided attention to this guy who says he knows people in a studio in Rome but has nothing to prove his credibility. In a curiously interesting scene, where this con man and a local lady have sex inside his truck, the camera starts approaching the truck from a distance, as if a by-passer heard something from the vehicle and decided to check out what it was. The feeling is less of eroticism and more of voyeurism. I call it curious because the audience have already come to expect promiscuous plays in the con man's part and a simple intra-truck shot should have sufficed. Tornatore must have his reasons. In one of the opening shots, the lone truck moves from right to left on the screen, which I felt a little counter-intuitive. A healthy chunk of the screen's real-estate is occupied by mud, road & bricks, which I guess symbolizes dryness in their hearts.

I can't write a review without understanding the dialogues. Though the story is understandable and though I know what the characters mean, the power is lost without knowing what the characters actually said. Somewhere after the first half enters the lead lady, tries madly to get the con man to accept her into his life, not because she loves him so much but because she hates her life in the present form that much. Cinema & a nomadic life promises her freedom and thrill, I suppose. He refuses to take her & later he comes back to her. But I don't know if there is any kind of redemption involved. The movie ends with a montage of some of the screen tests that he had filmed in his trips across Sicily, where the whole movie transpires. Those who've seen 'Cinema Paradiso' will remember that the famous kissing montage at it's climax brought tears because of the wonderful chemistry that was between the young boy & the projectionist. The climax here just seems like a shameless copy of Tornatore's earlier acclaimed work. Though the movie isn't emotionally fulfilling, it isn't disappointing. So, there goes my mini review.

Apocalypto - One Minute Review

2007-04-20T17:44:00.000+05:30

Mel Gibson, the director, moderately succeeds in trying to tell a compelling moral tale in the first half. In the second half, he cuts to pure narrative and succeeds in telling a simple tale compellingly. Apocalypto opens with a Will Durant quote which says that a civilization rots from the inside. A Mayan village in 16th century, just before the arrival of Spanish ships is the setting. The chemistry between a husband & a wife, between a father & a son, between a family & it's neighbour, between a tribe & the next one is all told in a 'this is how you do it' style by the super skilled director. The essential set-up makes it clear that this is nothing but the calm before the storm. Marauders arrive - the king's army is scraping the nook & corner for healthy men to be sacrificed for their angry god who has let out incurable diseases on men and crops.

The second half is nothing but a lengthy chase scene - Gibson again proves that he can entertain audiences no matter what the setting or period is. To use on of my earlier phrases, this sequence is as refreshing as a splash of cold water on a desert walker's face. Brilliantly brought to life wilderness of the Yucatan region, breathtaking music and high-octane expressions by Rudy Youngblood, the hunter who is being hunted, all add up to a treat for the mind and the eye. Gibson continues his love for blood & flesh here - heads are chopped after the heart if clinically ripped off living men. Deam Semler's camera, James Horner's orchestra and the editor's scissors all come together to produce a thorough entertainment. At the center of this good vs evil drama is love for one's family, a theme that is being avoided by Hollywood except in the animation studios. This isn't a great movie, but has elements of greatness.

'Sivaji - The Boss' - Blabber

2007-04-14T11:59:00.000+05:30

When expectations are humongous, George Lucas once said, there is bound to be disappointment. The commercial titans of Tamil cinema - Rajini, Shankar & Rahman are coming together in 'Sivaji', produced by the yesteryear titan AVM. 'Thillu Mullu' is the best Rajini movie I've seen, closely followed by 'Thalapathi'. Whenever I see him delivering punch dialogues, there is a nostalgic flash-back of 'Avargal' in my mind reminding me of how great a villain we've lost. Shankar's success string should continue here: he very clearly said that this movie has struck a balance between Rajini's stardom & his message masala. Rahman's songs clearly belong to Rajini. Well, even the audio CD cover doesn't have his picture - a clear message for Rahman's fans that he's operating in a different mode.
*
At last there is a title song tailor made for the irreplaceable pop icon - Athiradikkaran... I can't remember the last time Rajini was given a song that was this fun, energetic, crazy, funky & zesty - 'Rakkamma' from Thalapathi comes to my mind, but it was too serious a composition to be branded as one belonging to a carefree style that I have (along with millions) have yearned for Rajini. The geeky techno start, guitar interludes before both the charanams, meaningless but extremely entertaining lyrics which refer to earlier Rajini movies, pitch-perfect Rahman's voice all add up to my expectations of how this will be picturized. If this is going to be the title song (where else can it fit - with Billa, Ranga, Basha? yes, as the closure song) I hope Shankar does a little more than presenting a collage of Rajini's earlier action scenes with graphical gimmicks.

300 - One Minute Review

2007-04-11T16:35:00.001+05:30

'300' is a video game that you can't play. And that too a game with a mediocre storyline, under-developed characters, flashy photography, sub-par special effects, directorial glitches all on top of historical inaccuracies that the producers would well excuse themselves saying that they have blended a good amount of mythology into the screenplay. Spartan king Leonidas with a paltry army of finely trained 300 soldiers take on the massive Persian army at the Thermopylae pass. While eventually they lose, these 300 soldiers withstand the heavy onslaught of Xerxes in protecting the narrow cliff through which they have to pass, which buys enough time for the Greeks to gather themselves.

The story-telling is colossally fractured - the viewer is kept in dark about the history, geography & politics that lead up to the war. And once the battle begins, we witness some cool action scenes, but soon the sheen wanes off and the hunger for some good story overtakes the bombarding visual food. The rapid/slow/quasi-motion combat shots where heads are cut and drops of blood are strewn across become boring after some time. A couple of nude scenes are shamelessly spliced in. Director Zack Snyder comes from a music video background and it's very clear from his treatment of material where substance is relegated for style. The editor has clumsily combined battle scenes with manufactured momentum and an amateur political drama that unfolds in the heart of Sparta. This is disposable entertainment, with an emphasis on disposable.

The Good, the Bad & the Okay

2007-04-07T19:48:00.000+05:30

This is all about how bad a movie is, a post which comfortably ignores one end of the spectrum. Good bad movies make me get up from the theatre chair with a verve, and find my way at a comfortable pace towards the exit. It's usually the case where the people involved in the production itself don't take their movie seriously and are satisfied to produce a decent entertainer. Ice Age is a good bad movie. Gilli is another example. Mindless fun is the keyword here, and to enjoy some of the scenes you must have to suspend your mind. They aren't a waste of time or money but they definitely don't inspire a second viewing. Good-bad movies are one of the reasons most people go to cineplexes - a convenient diversion from the chores.

Okay bad is a real squirmer. It's a lousy movie and you just wish that somebody shoots everybody and the movie comes to a quick end. Sequels to 'The Matrix' and 'American Pie' are okay-bad. The sole reason for their existence is because the first installment made money and the audience loved the characters. 'Kadhalukku Mariyadhai' falls into the same trap - very commercial, very predictable. For an atheist, I thanked god that day for Vijay hadn't overacted in more than 10 scenes in the entire movie. These movies are tolerable, though your subconscious keeps pestering you to peek into the next screen, doesn't matter how much of that movie has elapsed and how convoluted that plot is - your gut feel is that the neighbour screen hosts a better one than this.

Bad bad movies are a cinephile's nightmare. The producer must have been insane to green light such a project, the director very obviously incompetent and the actors clueless in most if not all of the scenes. Steven Seagal has generously contributed to this category. 'Romy & Michelle's High School Reunion' is one of those bad bad movies that brought me tears thinking of K.S.Ravikumar's greatness. I very badly wanted to spit on the TV to get rid of the bad taste it left in me. Other than the fact that these guys don't have a cinematic sense, they make us wonder if they have any common sense at all. Pokkiri's writer-director can be an astonishing case study of a lunatic mind. That day, I walked out of the theatre with a suicidal clarity that there's more to life.

Ramble: Usually, it's the commercially motivated projects that fall on the bad side. They offer adrenaline, sex, blood, sentimental manipulation, emotional blackmail, etc in a combination that's just not right. How badly they mixed these ingredients determines how screwed up the movie is. Though projects that shun the commercial aspect are handled deftly by experts who know what they're doing, they too miss the mark. Abbas Kiorastami's Taste of Cherry, which won a top prize at Cannes is a bad bad movie - because it's devastatingly boring. Many people said that it maturely dealt with death; well, it was almost death for me and that's the only death connection between that movie & me. Andrei Tarkovski's 'Nostalgia' is another one that comes to my mind. Either I don't understand or don't have the refined taste to delve deep and enjoy what the director is trying to convey - visually and non-verbally in case of both the movies mentioned above. Except for these two art movies, most of the stuff I've seen were pretty interesting and kept me hooked until even after the end of the movie.

Updates

2007-03-12T17:51:00.000+05:30

I've been quite busy in the past few weeks and I expect to be busy for the next two weeks. Sorry if you've been checking out ScreenArt frequently. I hope I can hit at least a post a week consistently from April 1.
Saw 'Little Miss Sunshine' - such a pedestrian movie. I don't understand when critics go hoopla over low-budget satirical stories. As you might have already heard, it's about the coming-together of the members of a dysfunctional family. Alan Arkin was the saving grace - his arrogance reminded me of Goundamani.
I bought myself a copy of 'Michael Madana Kama Rajan' to write a critical review. I'm not sure if I'm cinematically knowledgeable enough to write about this masterpiece. But I'm going to try my hand anyway. May be, some day, say 10 years from know, I may puke at the review I'll be writing in the near future. But I think it's important to record how I feel about this picture now.
Saw a bit of Sivaji's 'Par Magale Par'. Man, these guys must have been piss drunk when they wrote the story. Nothing else can explain the dialogues & scene flow of this piece of absurdity.

Anbudan Simbu

2007-03-12T17:21:00.000+05:30

In an interview with Gowthami, Simbu was epitomizing immaturity & artificialness. We know how juvenile half-baked kids try to emulate cool guys they see on TV... Simbu was trying to emulate a very polished, seen-it-all guy & his mannerisms in this ludicrous process of emulation were abominable. So, he is trying to sell us his image that he's very intelligent, been through a lot of hardships, seen emotionally turbulent times (betrayals, love failures) and all that stuff from a badly written script and poor Gowthami was trying to showcase herself as a very understanding interviewer. Well, she's paid to extract words from the guest, and I don't blame her if she has to 'act' amicably. But then, she said the following words: "22 vayasula ungalukku ivlo maturity'nnu nenaikkarappa enakku romba sandoshama irukku". For god's sake, she's been living with Kamal and she must have an inkling of 'choice of words' or 'intelligence' or 'maturity'. A true WTF moment!

Babel Snubbed

2007-02-26T11:11:00.000+05:30

Wow. The members of the Academy have screwed up again, and how royal is the mess. Babel gets the consolation 'best music' (such wonderful mood pieces by Gustavo) while the decent entertainer The Departed walks away with top honours. I haven't seen 'Dreamgirls', but it's hard to imagine someone beating both Adriana Barazza and Rinko Kikuchi. And the wonderful Guillermo Arriago hasn't even gotten a nomination. I only hope that the members don't dry up Inarittu, one of the most promising upcoming talents, the way they treated Scorsese.

Flags of Our Fathers - Movie Review

2007-02-22T19:29:00.000+05:30

Opening lines: Every jackass thinks he knows what war is. Especially the ones who've never been in one.

Flags of our Fathers is somewhere between a movie and a documentary. Based on a book, the movie recreates some of the events that transpired during WW II, employing an unbiased tone in it's narration. It's a meditative look at the nature of war. Critics have called it a confusing product because of no clear demarcation between various timelines, no definite storyline and under-developed characters. But I think it was all very much intentional. Steven Spielberg (Producer) and Clint Eastwood (Director, Producer) must have deliberately made the movie look the way it is, so that neither the story nor the characters are etched on the minds of the audience. What remains at the end of the movie is a buzz, a hazy picture of the enemy, a persistent humdrum and a sombre feeling. There is no heroism or glorification here, which is exactly the point - everybody in the war is an ordinary human being trying to escape from bullets whizzing at him. With this atmosphere soaked in, you get up from your seat.

The central themes (if I'm allowed to use those words) of this cinema are about the government's machinations which plays cheaply on the minds of the public to make money out of war and the true nature of these so-called heroes. When the long World War II was reaching it's climax in 1944, a bunch of marine corps take an American flag atop a mountain in Iwo Jima, a Japanese island and perch it over there, which gets wonderfully photographed and sent back home. The government is out of money and can't sustain the war. It needs people to buy war bonds. To make money, you need to make heroes. The photograph, which symbolizes the patriotic spirit of the soldiers and their march ahead in covering ground, appears on the front page of all the dailies and the government decides to bring three of the six soldiers in the picture (the other three were killed in combat). These soldiers go around the country canvassing the mass to part with their dollars.

American marines landing on the beaches of Iwo Jima is reminiscent of the opening sequence of 'Saving Private Ryan'. A faded look with colours toned down, a faceless enemy operating machine guns, men with gun firing sporadically and trying to get covered, medics rushing aimlessly... but the power-packed punch of Spielberg's visualization is absent here. And that absence very much helps the story, because these is no glorification here. When those three soldiers are asked to recreate the flag-perching in a huge stadium, in a ceremony organized to raise funds, we realize the absolute hollowness they feel and their repulse for showmanship. While one of the marines Rene Gagnon (Jesse Bradford), enjoys his brief fame, John Bradley (Ryan Philippe) expresses his indifference and Ira Hayes (Adam Beach) exhibits his revolt. Beach delivers a memorable performance as man unable to grapple with loss, one who finds it impossible to put a fake smile. In an extended epilogue, we see that he had long lost his passion to live and the screenplay deftly doesn't say if it's this war that made him what he happened to be.

The movie doesn't blatantly say anything, but the current situation calls for a comparison with the American troops in Iraq. The movie features a few scenes, where the American president and many senators congratulate the marines and say something like "You're doing a great job" or "It must have been like hell". Whenever someone said that, I was reminded of the opening lines. The governments, have time and again deluded the public into buying the theory that fighting a war will result in lasting peace or something as unimaginable. As to the second theme, about the so-called heroes' real life, they saw each other in a totally different light. In a sublimely touching scene, John Bradley says that he remembers one of his friends, not the way the public remembers, but as someone swimming in the beach very spiritedly after putting that flag up.

Closing lines (as told by James, son of John Bradley): I finally came to the conclusion that may be he was right, may be there are no such things as heroes, may be there are just people like my dad. I finally came to understand why they were so uncomfortable being called heroes. Heroes are something we create, something we need. It's a way for us to understand what is almost incomprehensible, how people could sacrifice so much for us, but for my dad and these men the risks they took, the wounds they suffered, they did that for their buddies, they may have fought for there country but they died for there friends. For the man in front for the man beside him, and if we wish to truly honor these men we should remember them the way they really were the way my dad remembered them.

Inside Man - One Minute Revew

2007-02-13T14:33:00.000+05:30

Slick. That is the word to describe this movie. At the outset, the movie is about bank robbery. The movie features a somewhat intelligent plot that covers the basics of heist genre, though it isn't the plot we're interested in. A gang of robbers take on a bank in Manhattan, hold it's clients hostages and ask for a plane to escape. We've heard it all before, and know that it isn't the way the story is going to unfold. Well, the progress of the screenplay doesn't throw much shocks or surprises, but it's all done very affably that you can't suppress having a smile for most of the running length. Take this dialogue exchange between the chief negotiator and the chief robber for example:
Cop: Don't say proposal, see, my girlfriend wants to get married.
Robber: What, you think you're too young to get married?
Cop: No, just too broke. Maybe I should rob a bank.
Robber: Do you love her?
Cop: Yes.
Robber: Then money shouldn't matter.

For a crime thriller, this movie has more than it's share of humour. With stars like Denzel Washington, Clive Owen and Jodie Foster in front of the camera and the magnificent Spike Lee co-ordinating from behind the camera, you can take it for granted that there can be no false dialogue deliveries or fake expressions. In a classic cool scene, the robber asks one of his hostages, a young boy, about the video game he's playing. When he explains the objective of the game (Grand Auto Theft?), he ruminates for a moment and says "I'm going to talk to your dad about this game". The respectable Christopher Plummer plays a very dignified cameo as the chairman of the bank trying to protect a haunting past. Matthew Libatique, the photographer is just spot on - with so many symmetric shots and a fine balance of colours, it's a pleasure to see the scenes flow. Russell Gewirtz has done a commendable job writing the screenplay - the compliment is not for his plot (which is interesting, though, has a few logical fallacies) but for treating the audience to a fine entertainer. This could have been much more, but I'm not complaining.

Passing the Baton

2007-02-06T17:24:00.001+05:30

In a recent function organized by Vijay TV, Kamal Haasan was awarded the Chevalier Sivaji Award, something like a life time achievement. Among the audience were the crop of young and not-so-young actors ruling the box-office in the state. Kamal, as usual credited Nagesh, K.Balachandar and Sivaji for pushing his abilities, said that he has no plans of writing a biography, expressed that he felt immensely honoured to receive an award chosen by the general public and then went on to say something very important. Did those young guys with money overflowing from their pockets hear him?

He has been venting out his dissatisfaction at the level of performance among actors in particular and films in general in the past couple of years. Well, he's been doing that for quite some time, but I hear him groan often these days. He once said that as long as his senses are keen and aware, he would some how associate himself with the process of making cinema and expressed his wish to see Tamil cinemas that would make him jealous; that would have him crazy after a role upon seeing a movie - and yearn that he didn't get a chance to play one such and admire the actor and story at the same time. He also indicated that extrapolating the current trend, in his old age, he might just say "namma pannadhayedhan indha pasanga pannittu irukkanunga".

He clarified a point: he's not unhappy when his experiments fail and some lame movie succeeds. Because he didn't complain when his masala movies made money while some quality content were disregarded by the public. But he decried the lack of balance - there's a lot of masala and not much food for thought. When the trophy was handed over to him, Kamal said "It's very important that this statue doesn't remain in my hands for long. The industry should evolve to grab this from my hands as early as possible." He also took it upon himself to groom actors who might be worthy successors to him. Of course, he didn't explicitly praise himself, but he made it obvious that there's not any ground-breaking work going on in the industry.

After Kamal & Maniratnam, I don't see anyone trying to talk intelligence in a movie. Good cinema, as pointed out in a earlier post, is dying in the hands of star power and entertainment value. Earlier in the function, when Vijay received the best actor award he said that he wasn't sure if he was worthy of the honour. There is no room for doubt. The masses elect, just like in politics, a shallow showman. Kamal's speech could also be construed as warning to the mass. If the public doesn't encourage experiments, there is no point in blaming the film makers. But my question to Kamal is how many artistes & technicians have RajKamal Films introduced? When digital movies with newbies can be made at a budget under Rs.10 lakhs and marketed at a relatively low cost (at least in the cities), why hasn't he produced any? What has he done to change the situation other than leaving his films for the upcoming actors?

Thoughts on Borat

2007-02-04T18:43:00.000+05:30

The single most striking aspect of Borat is that is constantly ventures beyond limits of decency. The writers have compiled a list of violations to be committed and twisted the situations to write comedy sketches: Borat finds his sister showing off her vagina to her mentally retarded brother and tantalizing "you'll never have this" as funny; he is offended when he learns that women can choose their sex partners; he says that of the problems plaguing his country are social, economic and jewish; he says that women have brains comparable to that of a squirrel's at a feminists meeting; and much more.

If you're sensitive and you're either a jew or a muslim or a woman's rights activist or a Kazakh or a very normal human being, your blood pressure will have shot up at the end of the movie. If you're thick skinned when it comes to matters of religion, gender or race, you will laugh at least two times during the running length - the humour is not only of the offensive kind, but there's also silly, childish and slapstick. Borat tumbles here and there in an antique shop, and he does that in a believable manner. He asks "is this a cat with a hat?", looking at a tortoise. The basic premise of the movie - travelling to Los Angeles to marry Pamela Anderson before she loses her virginity is itself ludicrous.

I wondered if the MPAA guys found it so funny that they lost their senses and awarded a lenient R, for the movie features a nude fight between two grown men. That scene alone should have earned the movie an NC-17 rating. The photography and music lends comedic value at times - when Borat sees a dirty video of Pamela and later laments, the music director weeps as if Borat's tears aren't enough to make us laugh. There is not much for the director to do here - the major credits, if you're inclined to call it so, should go to the writers: there are so many laughs, gags, pulls, triggers, insults, explanations, interpretations.... conceived on the paper and Cohen delivers them with a childish frankness.

At the end of the movie I just felt like watching 3 or 4 adult rated comedy sitcoms back to back. This is the kind of movie that takes pride in it's immaturity. Mildly refreshing, kept me smiling, but at the end I just hurried to the bathroom and then never again thought about the movie.

Pokkiri - Movie Review

2007-02-03T17:27:00.000+05:30

Where do I begin? The incredible story, or the lazy screenplay, or the juvenile direction or the heartless performances or... I face the same problem while reviewing very good movies too. I don't know where to start just because all the technicians and artistes work together and their team effort shows on the screen - the photography, production design, action, music, direction and all other aspects of film making are just inseparable. In the case of movies like 'Pokkiri', they all stand very distinctly apart - as if the cameraman had a stiff with the set director and they both didn't talk for the entire shooting period, or the actor differed from the director's point of views and they both decided to do whatever they wanted to do. You could write an essay on what went wrong in each department, and you'll have enough material for a second one.

'Pokkiri' is the story of Tamizh (Vijay), a guy who offers his muscle power services to city mafia. For money, he would kill and plunder, but not touch children and women. For most of the running length, he hangs around with his friends, falls in, out of and again in love with Shruthi (Asin) and kills people at a frequency a common man would scratch an itch. Since we all know that young people look upto Vijay, he can't don the role of a ruthless killer as he's initially portrayed. So, towards the end comes the expected twist in the tale. By the time his gun runs out of bullets, an international don (Prakash Raj) and his gangs are dead and so are most of the audience in the theatre seats.

I have no complaints against the masala nature of the story. But the execution is so bad that will put a teenage European filmmaker to shame. Vijay's introduction: as he jumps over a plank, green chillies and lemons are strewn in air next to him - a symbolic 'drishti' neutralisation. He utters self-serving words like 'indha pongalukku sama collection' and lyrics that goes 'padapporen enna pathi, kelungada vaya pothi'. The dialogue writers should be lynched for their involvement in the movie - almost every second line written for Vijay is written with the intention of being a punch dialogue. Please understand dear writer, just because the movie has that many punches (and that too off-target punches), the audience are knocked-out very badly. The love between Tamizh and Sruthi is developed neither coherently nor maturely. Vadivelu rubs salt in the painful screenplay.

I saw this movie on a weekday for a matinee show in Virudhunagar, which I guess is a proper B center in cinema trade parlance. The theatre was moderately crowded, whistles and claps for Vijay and hilarious laughter for Vadivelu (he urinates over himself, how's that for a comedy sketch?). I saw the audience leaving the premises with a satisfied smile implying that the experience was worth the money. Vijay openly admits that he wouldn't experiment and would stick to the hero formula. Nothing wrong with star power, but shouldn't it entertain all the segments of cinephiles? This is clearly a downward spiral. Prabhudeva, who debuts as a director in Kodambakkam seems to have struck the right chord, only that the chord is so jarring.

Maniratnam's Gurubhai's Vs Mumbai's Dhirubhai

2007-01-22T18:00:00.000+05:30

A cursory glance at this wikipedia page about Dhirubhai Ambani will establish, without a doubt, who is the framework of Maniratnam's 'Guru'. Both, the reel Gurukant and the real Dhirajlal were born in rural Gujarat to a school teacher. In their teen years, they both abandoned school education and set out to middle-east looking to make money. They both worked for a distributor for Shell products. They both placed huge orders for the country's currency which is a valuable metal. Both are risk-takers who came to Mumbai (Bombay, then) with a vision of building a business empire. While Guru starts his textile business 'Shakti', it's (needless to say) 'Vimal' for Dhiru. They invite the public to take a share of the business (IPO). Heck, the Mercedes car Gurukant buys is the same model which Dhirubhai owned. Both face problems with a leading newspaper - and then resort to ugly means. Both held share-holders meetings in stadiums. Both diversified their business into petroleum and other sectors. Both were questioned by a commission set up by the central government for their unethical business practices. They both suffer a stroke, on the right side. Both make a come back, not only physically, but business wise too.

Having done such a neat job of transforming Dhirubhai's life story, Maniratnam has the temerity to put on a card that reads something like "All character in this movie are imaginary... any similarity to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental...". Wow, that must be really really some coincidence. I frankly don't know what are the hurdles in making a true biopicture. I mean, if Scorsese can make 'Aviator', a film based on Howard Hughes, why not an Indian director make a movie on an Indian business tycoon? I'm sure Mukesh and Anil would have diluted the script if there was a need to obtain permission from them, but isn't there any other means for the producers to really claim that the movie is actually a biopic of Dhirubhai? Somehow, to read that disclaimer and then count the similarities between Guru and Dhiru, and then lose the count because it's such a big integer, is a let down.

This isn't the first time Maniratnam does such a thing. His 'Iruvar', a movie about the friendship, rise and fallout of two political leaders who shaped Tamil Nadu - Karunanidhi & M.G.R, also had a similar disclaimer. After all, Karunanidhi praised Prakash Raj for the role he played in a public stage - so, what exactly would have been the issue if Mani had openly admitted that it wasn't his imagination? Another famous production is his 'Nayagan', a story not-so-loosely based on Varadaraja Mudaliar. I read somewhere that 'Anjali' was also inspired. We have our share of biopictures - 'Gandhi' by Attenborough, 'Bose' by Shyam Benegal, 'Ambedkar' by Jabbar Patel, 'Bharathi' by Gnana Rajasekaran.... is there a body where the producers will have to obtain permission before they can shoot movies based on real life personalities? Heck, Kamal's 'Hey Ram' played with M.K.Gandhi.

One minor reason I could think of for Maniratnam to go with that disclaimer could be because of commercial exploits - like songs and romantic affairs. If it had been announced as a movie based on facts, Mani wouldn't have a free hand to play with songs and he would lose half the audience who come to see Aishwarya Rai scantily dressed, drenched in rain dancing for a Rahman tune. Worse, the problem is compounded when you show her as a girl who was ready to elope with another man - Mukesh & Anil would give Mani the stick, huh! But these are the reasons I come up with, while Mani vehemently rejects in his interviews that his movie has nothing to do with Dhiru - which just makes my head move sideways in part anger and part dejection: one of the few film talents in India remains gutless when it comes to his inspirations. Maniratnam has already established himself, and that too very firmly. He can command top stars to work for him at a rate he sets. He must have enough money - in fact, he should have got his entire expenditure for 'Guru' in the first week earning all over the world and with the music sales. Before he is too old to make movies, I'd like to see from him a very open, honest and brutally harsh movie about a real life personality without that disclaimer. That would be a great salute to his fans.

Tags: Maniratnam, Guru, Dhirubhai

World Trade Center - One Minute Review

2007-01-21T09:54:00.000+05:30

A bunch of Port Authority police officers hurry to the twin towers site as soon as they hear of the crash. As the tower tumbles, many of these officials are crushed to death and a few of them remain trapped. Of those who hold on are John & Will. The editor cuts between the rescue efforts, which are in full swing, the conversations between John & Will and what's happening between their families. In one of the scenes an officer who is relatively unharmed, deep inside the rubble, comes upto help Will whose legs are crushed under a block of concrete. At that moment, the building crashes further, targeting that officer, who gets hurt very badly. Unable to bear the pain, he kills himself with his gun. After a while, John and Will continue to talk about their families and laugh as if they were in a coffee shop. I'm sure the flow of such scenes must have sounded matter-of-factly and powerful on the paper. But the execution lacks depth, and does not hold the attention of the audience.

Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena don the role of John & Will respectively. Maria Bello as John's wife delivers a powerful peformance. She wonderfully expresses her anxities about the outcome of her husband's fate and her teenage son who just wants to be there. The gifted director Oliver Stone does something new with the World Trade Center - he refuses to use his gifts as a director. It's surprising to see such a product from someone who delivered 'Platoon' and 'Born on the Fourth of July'. There is no emotional punch in the narration - may be it's because of the sentiments associated with 9/11, the director strictly refuses to dramatize the events. But, as a movie, the pace of the plot is pedestrian and for about an hour (of the middle segment) it's also the audience who feel trapped along with those officers.

Maniratnam's Guru - Movie Review

2007-01-15T23:21:00.000+05:30

Maniratnam (also credited as Mani Ratnam) broke into the film scene like a wonderboy and promised milk and honey for audience with an appreciable IQ. People who've stopped visiting theatres playing Indian cinemas citing quality as an example thought again. People who had an eye for photography, an ear for audiography and a sense for direction had reasons to rejoice. When formula movies were the order of the day, he framed his own equations. Lesser directors openly copied him; and guess what - even the copies made money. As the audience evolve, it is expected that the directors too evolve and keep surprising, shocking, treating and/or challenging the audience. Maniratnam, in his last three movies, has refused to hone or reinvent his skills. As a result, we get a product that we have come to expect from Mani, meaning the equations he framed haven't changed. And this time, meeting expectations is mildly disappointing.

Now, the movie. Guru is about Gurukant Desai, an ambitious man. He is the kind of man who would plan to conquer the world if you given him enough time and resources. Born in a middle-class family in rural Gujarat, he has plans that makes his school headmaster father frown. Not the brightest bulb in the class, he discontinues his education to go to Turkey where he works for Shell. Though he steadily ascends the corporate ladder, he comes back home where he wants to be his own boss. He marries his friend's sister Sujatha so that he can use the dowry as his capital. Soon he moves to Mumbai, the ever-happening place where he reaches pinnacles of materialism while steadily slipping in his ethics and morals.

His friend of previous generation and a well-wisher, Manikdas Gupta finds Guru's means of acquiring power and money abominable. Being the editor of a newspaper, he hires a young journalist - Shyam Saxena, to expose Guru. This results in a clash that reflects on the emotional proximity of the two families. But what's interesting is that Sujatha, who is portrayed as a woman of resolve is not shown to condemn Guru's powerplay. So, did she silently accede to the illegal means he resorted? Maniratnam doesn't even open up that question. Interestingly, when Guru is prosecuted, she says that she is willing to go to jail with him as she is his fifty percent, be it life or business.

First, the +ves: I seriously doubt if Abhishek Bachchan will deliver a better performance than this one in his life. He may act for another forty years, but my hunch is that he will always be remembered as Guru Bhai. He has a smile that's both boyish and manly at the same time. His charisma, though not infectious, is good enough to justify his step-out, march-forward attitude. If there is anybody who claims to rival him in the acting category, it is Mithun Charkavarty. He easily surpasses Abhishek in a few scenes and is very solid through out. He should be given two trophies in the supporting category - that's how strong his performance is. Aishwarya plays a subdued part very well.

Samir Chanda and Sabu Cyril recreate the streets, houses, cars, switchboards and other paraphernalia or 60's and 70's creditably. Rahman continues to sizzle us with songs, though not all of them get their screentime, which in quite unfair. Except for Iruvar, all of his projects with Maniratnam has a background score that doesn't stand up to the movie. His background pieces are peppy, moody, melliflous, tappable... but they don't have a heart. Still, they serve the narration and Rahman deserves a respectable chunk of Guru's success. Sreekar Prasad, another long-time collaborator of Maniratnam does an impressive job. It's never easy to edit biopictures - they span decades and Prasad makes sure that the narration isn't fractured.

On to the -ves: Screenplay. To be precise, the placement and the picturization of songs. We begin with a song, and soon we have another one, just like in Alaipayuthey. Mallika Sherawat belly dances for 'Mayya Mayya'. I wrote the following in my piece on the cast for the movie:

For a director of Maniratnam's stature, he can do away with item numbers which feature beautiful female forms in meagre clothes. Is that really necessary when you have a strong storyline?

Mani thinks otherwise. Perfect shots of her cleavages for about three minutes. Yeah, that's very important for the rest of the story!! I wrote the following in my piece on the songs:

Though my music video exposure is limited, I'm tempted to say something stupendous like Maniratnam must be one of the five best music video directors in business today. I find Mani extremely tasteful when it comes to giving visual meanings to songs.

May be it's time for me to take it back. What happened to the Mani who gave us 'Thoongadha vizhigal' on a shoe-string budget with brilliant lighting. What happened to the Mani who gave us 'Chinna thayival' who touched us with mesmerizing directorial touches. And whatever happened to the youthful, zesty Mani who shot 'Fanaa' in his fifties. Hmmm. And then I feared this:

My guess is that a lesser director would have used 'Barso Re' to introduce the Aishwarya Rai character to the audience - soaked in rain and enjoying nature with a merry tune. I hope Maniratnam disappoints me.

What a shock to see Aishwarya introduced this way. How cliched the technique is? But the shock really is Mani resorting to a cliche which even debutantes are thinking as old-fashioned.

The second let down is also credited to Maniratnam, this time for his direction. The love-blossoming between Sujatha (Aishwarya Rai) and Guru (Abhishek Bachchan) is very reminiscent of his earlier movies. In a scene, Guru drags Sujatha from a vegetable market, runs across the street, climbs up the stairs and enter their home. I was able to predict the flow of the scene right from the first moment. His directorial touches have become by-the-numbers. The tone & execution of the rise of Guru as a business tycoon had tinges of Nayagan and Godfather II. There is no blatant plaigiarism here and may be he drew heavy inspiration. But as the story unfolded, I found it all familiar, somewhere deep inside me. I'm sure a master story teller would have avoided that feeling in me.

With so many close-ups and hand-held jerky shots, I don't know what was running through Rajiv Menon's mind. May be he wanted us to read Guru's mind through all those close-ups, but I just found it a little distracting. And that not-so-slow motion, which leaves the images blurred when the camera moves during the final court scene didn't go down well with me. When the dialogues and acting are powerful, why resort to such unnecessary gimmicks? Then comes the romantic subplot between Shyam (Madhavan) and Meenu (Vidya Balan). When these two characters are inadequately developed, did we need a close-up lip-lock scene between them? It seems like another one of those item scenes, just to pull in the first rows for a repeated viewing.

I recommend this movie, and it's a strong recommendation if you haven't been introduced to Maniratnam before. If you're like me, seen almost all of his movies at least twice, and that too intensely, you may find a lot of parallels here in the way characters are developed and the way the screenplay proceeds. I'll quote a part of a review from IMDb:

In a world of constant innovations, creativity and changes, in a generation where you see movies like "Pi" and "The Fountain" being made by the same director, where there is no limit to ideas galore., I do not differentiate between Mani Ratnam and Karan Johar if what they do at the end of the day - is the same old time tested 'safe bet' 'multi star' formula. Good cinema is dying in the hands of stars and entertainment value. Mani Ratnam is dead, a fan for over 15 yrs has just resigned.

I haven't resigned yet. Indian cinema industry has always been severly short of intelligent directors. With an industry churning out close to a thousand movies every year, and that too which generates a handful of super hits, it's saying something about the state of the Indian movies in general and the taste of the mass in particular. With age catching up, I don't know if Mani's happy to be one of those 'one of those' directors who don't strive for creative intelligence. If Maniratnam does not take his ardent fans into consideration while beginning his next project and continues to be a cookie-cutter, I may soon have to resign.

P.S: Gurubhai rhymes with Dhirubhai, right? More on that in my next post.

Update: Here's the post on Guru Vs Dhiru.

Tags: Guru, Movie Review, Maniratnam, Abhishek Bachchan

Filler Post

2007-01-12T19:39:00.000+05:30

You can expect the review of Maniratnam's 'Guru' by Tuesday morning IST. Saw the teaser yesterday, looks promising.
I submit some of my entries to a cinema carnival hosted by Scott Nehring, whose site you can find in the links section. You can find the latest entry here.
A reader said that he finds some of my reviews too long. He didn't say they were boring (oh.. what courtesy!!). I'm not going to make any conscious efforts to cut down the length of my reviews. I just let my thoughts run and stop writing when they're all put on webpage. As and when I evolve, I hope I'll know which point to include and which one's better left out.
I'm hoping to post the review of 'World Trade Center' in the next couple of days. It will be a relatively shorter review, because it didn't touch me at deeper levels.
Saw 'Proposition', a good movie. Wonderful performance by Ray Winstone.

Repukes

2007-01-10T10:54:00.000+05:30

Dear pea-brained music directors,
I understand that the producers & directors don't have any taste for music and most of the audience treat the songs as bathroom breaks. You have my sympathy. But, you all came up with this inter-planetary cool idea to take an old hit song that would make the audience go ooh-aah and overwrite it with your own tappanguthu track and add some echo or increase the reverb time or do some such crap. Before anybody spanks you, let me put it in plain words: it's a very very pukesome idea. If I had an option, I'm better off listening to that oldie, because it has a heart. Your version is supremely painful. So. Please. Stop. It. And no, please don't ever consider ripping off thalaivar's song, even if it's going to be played by his own sullan-in-law.

Children of Heaven - Movie Review

2007-01-08T19:01:00.000+05:30

Simple themes are double-edged swords. If you don't know how to handle them, you cut yourself badly. You need a good grasp of the daily routines in that culture and have a masterly narration so that you don't bore your listener/viewer with such a simple storyline. If somebody asked you what the movie is about, you won't have more than two sentences to summarize. It is usually about something that a man from any part of the world can identify with, like, tracing a bicycle thief, winning a cricket match, meeting an old friend... and they usually have strong undercurrents of universal feelings like love, longing, loss, desperation, faith, etc. Majid Majidi, the writer & director of Children of Heaven knows the art of handling such themes. His vivid eye for details and narrative technique helps the movie sail across safely.

At the outset, this movie is about the lost shoes a seven year old girl, Zahra. Her elder brother Ali takes them to a cobbler, and on his way back he loses them. She asks if the shoes were mended and if it looks pretty. Ali answers that they're pretty, but delays in announcing the truth. Later, when she tells him that he's going to report it to their father, he tells her that both will get beatings as his father doesn't have enough money to buy new shoes until the next month. It's the typical lower middle class family where the parents want to give their best to their children and at the same time live a hand-to-mouth existence. The setting is a poor suburb of Tehran. It's just a one room house and there are three children, with the latest addition to the family only a few months old. Zahra & Ali don't even question when family responsibilities are thrust upon them. They understand their family income level and they are mature enough to not dream of things beyond their father's capabilities.

The siblings come up with a plan to keep their wheels spinning (here, their feet walking): Zahra attends forenoon school and Ali attends afternoon school. Ali gives his shoes to his sister to go with her school uniform. Because of time constraints, she has to run fast as soon as her school is over, to an alley which is usually empty where they can exchange the pair of shoes. There are long shots of Zahra running to that empty passage and, from there, Ali running to his school. These shots repeat. We feel for what these kids go through. What is untold is the sense of prestige these kids have - while they could have decided to change shoes somewhere near her school, which might have been easier for both of them, they decide against it for it would be a matter of honour to let the society keep thinking that their father is rich enough to provide separate shoes for the kids. There is a brilliant sequence where Zahra loses one of the shoes into a current of sewage (because it's big for her and she can't run fast with proper grip). The way she runs after that shoe with one on is funny and tragic at the same time.

Until the last segment of the movie, which revolves around a province-level marathon running race, the screenplay doesn't hint of a calculated movement of the storyline towards a definite end. For the most part of the first half, the action in one scene would lead to the next scene smoothly, that you would have thought there would be no grand finale. Majidi employs a commercial tactic to hook his audience to the climx, but I'm not complaining. The third prize of that marathon race is a pair of shoes and a two-week paid holiday. Ali promises his sister that he will definitely be the third to finish the race. Those long runs which Ali was forced to make from that alley to his school act as unforeseen handy practice sessions. What happens in the race, which I won't reveal, left me happy, scratching my head and exhausted just as Ali. In the touching final scene, Majidi displays his penchant for filling up the screen with meaningful and beautifully perfect visuals - Ali immerses his feet into a water pool in their courtyard. The underwater camera captures multi-coloured fishes picking away his skin tears and sores because of heavy-duty running.

I'll point out two sequences which makes this a high class product. Ali and his father visit a rich neighbourhood in Tehran offering gardening services. When one household lets them in, Ali's father realizes that a young boy in that house wants to play with Ali. In spite of his tiredness due to cycling a long distance in the blazing sun, he encourages Ali to play with that boy while he single-handedly does all the pruning, cutting and cleaning. While his father is working, Ali knows his limits very well and doesn't yearn for the riches that boy doesn't even know he is blessed with. Majidi accomplishes this scene of superior understanding of father-son without any sentimental music or over-the-top techniques to make his audience cry. In another sequence, Zahra finds out her shoes. A little girl attending the same school as hers is wearing them. She teams with Ali and spy on her house. When they learn that that girl belongs to a poorer family, they drop their ideas of knocking their doors and asking for their shoes. Later, we learn that the girl got those shoes through fair means and there is no hoodwink involved.

Amir Hashemian as Ali and Bahare Seddiqui as Zahra are extremely refreshing in the lead roles of this art film. Though they slip up in some scenes, they're believable most of the time. Majid Majidi touches us without any tear-jerking ploy or saccharine dialogues. In all the times when the siblings fight over the lost shoes, Majidi never fails to infuse the love and care between them. There are no villains here. Just ordinary families with huge dreams. This could happen very well in any rural place in India. Why Indian filmmakers aren't looking at these families and telling their stories is a pricking question.

Personal P.S: The kids are obedient and know their place. When Ali doesn't pay attention to his mother, his father says "You're not a kid anymore, you're nine years old". And Zahra's time-pass, if I may use that phrase, is to look after her new born sister. I sometimes wondered if they were losing out on their childhood. In fact, I saw myself in these kids sometimes, and I believe many of us will identify with either Ali or Zahra - our society and our parents aren't much different from them. If I lost a pencil, I knew I'd get a slap on my back and I feared death to open it to my parents. In spite of the burden of the awareness of family pressure, I knew somewhere inside that my parents had a good feeling about me. That sentiment is expressed a few times in this movie. Thinking again, I don't feel like I lost my childhood. I guess these kids too, when they grow up, remember and relish only those simple, sublime events that made them happy and feel safe.

Hibernation

2007-01-03T19:44:00.000+05:30

My movie posts will have to rest for a while. I'm expecting myself to back in form after a couple of months. Sorry.

Babel - Movie Review

2006-12-24T13:10:00.000+05:30

Spoiler Warning: The fourth paragraph sketchily discusses the storyline.

Expectations were high for Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's '21 Grams' because of his breakthrough debut 'Amorres Perros'. '21 Grams' matched his first effort in a few aspects and exceeded in a few other aspects. Though I found the broken structure of '21 Grams' a little distracting than challenging, that's just a small quibble considering the immense experience it offered. With these two movies, Inarritu's third offering 'Babel' was received with a Himalayan hype.. and.. and... it's no hyperbole to say that 'Babel' truly lives up to it's expectations. If you like serious movies that looks at life unflinchingly without preaching or sermonizing, look no further than Inarritu. He completes his interconnectedness trilogy in great style and cements his position as one of the most reputed directors working today. If you want to read no further, consider the rest of the review as a wonderful advertisement and a strong recommendation for the best movie I've seen this year.

Chaos theory proposes something like the flap of a butterfly's wing in Madagascar can set off a chain of events that could result in a hurricane in Florida. 'Babel' magnificently captures the emotional/life equivalent of this theory with grace, grittiness, style and substance. As with Inarritu's previous efforts, he touches multiple themes, portrays how many personalities are confronted and sometimes rudely shaken by what a stranger did in a different part of the world. But he doesn't treat any of the motifs as peripheral issues in spite of the limited screen time. There is a scene at the beginning of the film where a girl begins to strip herself because she knows a boy is peeping through. There are no frank dialogues exchanged between them as they live in a society which follows rigid codes imposed on boy-girl interactions. And that scene makes a strong statement about the universal curiousness that prevails among cupid struck teenagers to stretch the limits of their culture to accommodate their infatuated entity. A lesser director would have capitalized on the nudity element, and a better director would have cut the scene for it doesn't aid the primary themes. But Inarritu wonderfully sets the tone of the boy's character and proceeds with his story through that scene.

This movie is global in the sense that it spans different continents, cultures, languages - but discusses unifying themes like love, desire, pain and guilt. There are four sub-plots 'Babel' deals with: [1] An American couple touring Morocco - emotionally distant, too tired to argue and egoistic to talk openly about matters ailing their relationship. [2] A good-natured, responsible and lovable Mexican illegal immigrant working in America as a housekeeper cum babysitter. [3] A peasant family in a village in Morocco - a strict father, his two shepherd sons and their mindless guts. [4] A deaf-mute Japanese girl who feels lonely and outcast because of her inability to lose her virginity. All the stories are interconnected and every story, (which seems complete even without the connections) is exploited by the screenplay by putting the characters into delicate positions, tight corners and agonizing moments to analyze universal themes in a mature manner. Guillermo Arriago, who has collaborated with the director in his previous efforts produces another gem of a tangled script which feeds the director's hunger for challenge.

Susan and Richard, affluent Americans, failing in their marriage, are touring a lesser known destination in the Moroccan deserts. Teenage shepherds in a village in Morocco get a rifle to guard their herd from the jackals. When they get curious to see if a cartridge can travel three kilometres as promised by the seller, one of the boys shoots at a tourist bus from a mountain top, which pierces Susan's neck. In the middle of nowhere, Richard tries like hell to get an ambulance to get Susan to the nearest hospital as soon as possible. Since this accident puts a hold on their return schedule, Richard asks his housekeeper Amelia in San Diego to hang on for a while, who has plans of attending her son's wedding on the other side of the border. Since Amelia can't find anyone to look after the children, she takes them with the help of her immature nephew Santiago to Mexico without proper papers. When they try to re-enter the States, a drunk Santiago pulls off a stunt that results in an accident, not physical, but tremendously mental which forms some of the best agonizing scenes in the movie. When all of this transpires, Chieko, a deaf-mute girl in Japan tries to cope with her loveless life - a recently dead mother, emotionally distant father, without any boyfriends, she tries to lure men into her life by revealing herself inappropriately.

The performances are uniformly superlative. It is extremely refreshing to see Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett shed their superstar images and play mid-age couple. In one of the scenes where Pitt and Blanchett travel in a bus, because of their physical proximity, she hovers her fingers over his hands, but he doesn't respond to her call for emotional support and remains cold. A few minutes later, she is shot and he carries her through the narrows passages and up the stairs of a remote town. When immobility renders her pants wet, he cleans her. In a heart rending move, he kisses her in an assuring way which implies that he'll be with her come what may. Now, how many A list Hollywood actors are ready to play this scene is a valid question. But, how many of them can act such intimate scenes with this level of naturalism is a big question. Rinko Kikuchi as Chieko plays a very daring and demanding role because her part requires complete nudity and at the same time portraying complex emotions pertaining to lovelessness. Adriana Barraza plays Amelia with great strength which seems further enhanced by the screenplay for her part which tests her ability to act both composed on the outside and helpless inside in front of the kids. The Moroccan crew comprises of new names, but there is not a false step in their scenes.

Not only are the main themes captivating, but the minor characters too make strong points. For example, an American co-passenger/tourist travelling in the bus feels threatened at the spate of villagers looking at him. When Richard (Brad Pitt) requests the bus stay until an ambulance arrives, first he hesitates and later he cajoles, coaxes and orders the remaining tourists to get the bus off the village. He doesn't have much screen time, but he symbolizes the typical first world fear that the third world citizens are going to eat him up if he's struck in their place. The American government soon adds terrorism overtones to this accidental shooting. But, a young Muslim guide stays with Richard all the while, helps with getting Susan airlifted to a speciality hospital in a city (which reaches the hospital around night time) and refuses to accept cash for his support. The turmoil Chieko feels is difficult to capture in words and I wonder what Arriago would have written if she hadn't been mute. The screenplay and her facial expressions capture her slow descent into a vortex of a hardened world.

Cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto adds value to this movie. Some shots, without word, without anything animate are just simply brilliant in conveying what the writer or director couldn't say. A search scene in a Mexican desert leaves your mouth dry - great composition of shots that leave you baffled just as the searcher is baffled. Edited by Douglas Crise and Stephen Mirrione, there is not an abrupt cut or closure or opening. It's difficult to put film rolls together, especially when it involves multiple stories. The narration is so seamless that these guys definitely make the producer less worrisome. Guillermo Arriago has written all the three of the movies directed by Inarritu. Almost all the scenes just blend homogeneously and it's quite difficult to distinguish how much of the success of that one scene or plot or even the movie as a whole was contributed by the writer and the director. Every scene is wonderfully written and breathtakingly composed. The series of scenes that make up a sub-plot represents forceful story-telling and magnificent character development. But the movie as a whole, is very much greater than the sum of it's parts.

Destiny, fate, free will, casual mistakes that result in tragic consequences, love and the pain of losing a secure life - these are some of the themes Inarritu has repeatedly revolved around in his first three movies. An act of good will in one corner of the world has the potential to leave two children orphaned in another corner of the world. Though there is a certain poetic justice in the way the movie ends, it's not all sweet. For example, Chieko gets her hug, but from someone who doesn't have any sexual interests in her. All the stories have a clear ending, but there is also a new beginning in the way they come to an end. 'Babel' provides food for thought and stays with you after the credits roll. This movie makes a clarion call for strong consideration for the upcoming Oscars in the top categories. We are used to seeing the members of the Academy bungle up with their votes. Irrespective of the awards it may garner or lose, this movie will be remembered for a long time, which is the hallmark of any great movie.

Tags: Babel, Movie Review, Inarritu

On Slashing Cinema Tickets Prices

2006-12-21T14:50:00.000+05:30

The TN government's decision to regulate cinema ticket prices across the state will degenerate the theatre conditions and demotivate good theatre managers. The press release said it was impossible to ignore the fact that people were being denied a chance to watch many movies because of the high entrance rates. So, what next, are they going to consider the political party workers who can't step into star hotels because of high costs? How about regulating coffee and tea prices which can go upto a maximum of Rs.7 at places like Java Green and Coffee Day? This is plain stupid, short-sighted move just like that meaningless tax-exemption rule (for movies named in Tamil).

No doubt the current rates are on roof-top even considering the amenities offered. But the market will strike a balance once more cineplexes crop up and share what is now a lion's share of just one or two complexes. The government's priorities have been skewed ever since they announced free stupid boxes in their campaign, and worse, the mass elected them for such unworthy gratuity. I'm reminded of Kamal's words towards the end of 'Devar Magan' : Pongada, poi pullaingala padikka vaingada.

Viewer's Block

2006-12-21T11:49:00.000+05:30

I can't seem to get myself to watch a movie, in the past couple of weeks. I saw 'Cars' and 'Forrest Gump'. I wasn't terribly motivated by those two movies. I've always been excited at the thought of seeing a movie in the last six years, and this past week has been unusually low on energy. I've been dull - I have a copy of 'Children of Heaven' by Majidi and 'Color Trilogy' by Kiewslowski and there is no drive in me to view them.

I read this quote which went somthing like: you can think, talk and act yourself into dullness or excitement. Nothing new in that quote, but worth trying. Will try to post the review of that Iranian movie sometime this weekend and see how it all goes from there.

Catching the West

2006-12-15T21:57:00.000+05:30

Indian movie industry has looked up to Hollywood for long. Though we have our own reasons for not probing deep and delivering original pictures, anybody who looks up to Hollywood for as long as we have will find it difficult to evolve. But I'm surprised that we haven't copied some of the successful western trends.

Sequels - I can't think of any sequel to a hit Tamil film. Though we have our sentiments in naming after blockbusters or adopting the same storyline, we don't have a proper sequel where we have a hero with the same name playing a similar character. 'Gilli' is just a perfect movie to continue - Vijay & Trisha were hot at that time and everyone was lauding the fast paced screenplay. I guess the producers would have gotten their input in the first week of the sequel's release because the characters were well established and the audience wanted something like that. When even Hollywood considers sequels as an easy route to commercial success, I don't know why we haven't adopted this idea in our filmdom. The Hindi guys have begun.

Remakes - I don't root for remakes, in the original sense of the word. What Hollywood considers as a remake is an old English film made again with current generation actors to entertain the current generation audience. In India, a remake almost always means a script from one language produced in a different language. We have movies being produced simultaneously in multiple languages and commercially successful movies remade into other languages. But the trend of a movie remade in the same language has begun in Tamil with Ajith and Vijay committing themselves to old Rajini hits. A talented writer/director can take a mediocre script released at least a decade ago, modify it, spice it up and present in the same language. I don't know what a remake can achieve when the original itself is a highly popular product still etched in the mind of the audience. In most cases, both the remakes will bomb at the box, because it is an unwanted trend and both actors are incapable of mimicking Rajini.

Adaptations - I can't actually blame the film personalities. I'm totally out of touch with what's going on in the Tamil literature world and even if something good is being written I can think of a couple of factors to consider if the book is to be adapted for screen - 1) Do we have writers good enough to do justice to the quality of the material 2) How strong is the legal framework for this transition? Will the producers buy the copyrights for works in regional language? because they don't bother to inform or pay anybody when they uglily copy a foreign movie.

Compering, Ebert, ScreenAct

2006-12-14T12:37:00.000+05:30

I wrote this piece about the art of compering 21 months back. Excerpts:

Camera consciousness is a universal weakness. Even if I pretend to have a camera in my hands and say "say cheese", many in front of me will turn rosy. Because that specific moment is captured into a timeless(?) material, we try to present our best faces, there by losing our naturalness. The conscious appeal is all the more salient if it's a video camera. This being the case, one would expect their TV show hosts to have nailed this weakness in addition to having excellent communication skills before starting their career. And expectations have reduced my joy. That's no philosophy, but reality. I don't recall a single host doing a 'natural talk' while presenting a program when it comes to Tamil satellite channels.

We need entertainers who can listen and respond with their heart in an interactive conversation. We need hosts who can walk and act as if there's no camera in front of them. We need hosts who are not eager to cut a call, rather keep the audience lively. We need hosts who can transport us to a funny world for a funny scene and to pathos if it's a tragic scene. We need hosts who can look straight into the camera and not twist around their hips and plainly talk with all possible naturalism. We need hosts who make sense.

Nothing has changed in this time interval, except that Kalanidhi Maran announced 5% of Sun network and is now the 20th richest guy in India. I wonder if the mediocrity of these shows has got to do with the expectations of audience. I saw Sun Music and a Vijay Sarathy song show in Sun TV today morning and I felt like banging my head when I listened to some of the callers to these talk shows - they are all damn excited and giggle like teenage girls who just received a date offer from Brad Pitt, or Madhavan, or whoever. After all, they get what they deserve. SNAFU.
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I'll be pulling off my link to Roger Ebert sometime soon. He recently got back from hospital and wrote a review of 'Queen'. But since then, he has gone back into hiding, the site doesn't have any status updates and his editor Jim has been keeping the site busy. Ebert is the first critic to receive the Pulitzer for film criticism (the other being Washington Post's Stephen Hunter) and his reviews are wonderful resources to approach, understand, analyze and appreciate movies. I hope he lives his last days in peace with his family.
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I'm planning to actively blog on non-movies stuff at ScreenAct. I have had two other blogs previously and I will occasionally post entries from there into ScreenAct and eventually I'll tear them down and have just this one place for all my jots from Iraq to Carnatic music. When you find time, drop by at http://screenact.blogspot.com sometime starting tomorrow. P.S: Varaha, sorry to keep you meandering, this is the last change, I promise.

Katrinil Varum Geethame...

2006-12-13T11:51:00.000+05:30

Ilayaraja is as close I've gotten to mental levitation.

Cars - One Minute Review

2006-12-12T17:55:00.000+05:30

The creators at Pixar have tried hard in breathing life into Cars, which is set in a world of cars where they all can talk and sing and run and sleep, just like human beings.. and precisely this extra effort exerted by the creators to make these cars sound very human-like is part of the problem. Lightning McQueen is a rash rookie race car focused only on Piston cup, thereby leaving other important things in life like friends and society unattended. A series of twists results in Lightning forced into doing community service in a small town just a few days ahead of his big race. Though he starts reluctantly and just wants to finish the job and run the heck out of that hillbilly hell, he finds other cars infuse the value of friendship and love in him. When he's learned his lessons, he participates in the race as a mature man.. err... car which finishes in an unpredictable but sweet twist.

The middle segment slows down very well in order to establish and develop characters in Radiator Springs, the town where Lightning gets struck. The kids might find it a little stretched and the adults wouldn't find it captivating either. John Lasseter, the director has made sure that nobody in the audience mistake the cars as mere automobiles and has gone over the board in assigning human values to them. No complaints in the voice acting department, with Owen Wilson for Lightning McQueen and Paul Newman for Doc Hudson, the mature mentor who guides the restless young hotshot. Though it doesn't come close to the entertaining level set by the previous Pixar production 'Incredibles', the animation is as good as you might have seen. You run the player in slow motion or pause anywhere, the images are just flawless. 'Cars' is a decent entertainer that serves for all ages, but doesn't strike a strong chord for any particular age group.

Rajini Trivia Quiz*

2006-12-12T11:03:00.000+05:30

Easy: If Rajini's character is called Raghupathy, how is V.K.Ramasamy's character called in the same movie?

Moderate: In a particular test, Rajini scores over 7000 marks out of 100. Name the movie.

Difficult: We know of item numbers, where popular heroines just appear for a song. Rajini had actually appeared in a movie, just for a song - well, not even for that full song, but only a part of it. Name the movie.

*Quiz with help from JP.

Chauvinism

2006-12-11T22:08:00.000+05:30

Nandhu observes that the frequent portrayal of female leads in the recent movies as brazen and daring in matters of sex to gratify the male audience is worrisome. The society is nowhere near running out of rogues who pass lewd comments on school/college girls and now this nasty trend in movies where girls actually take a liking for that rugged unshaven uneducated raw man just aggravates the cancer. Movies already are doing a disservice to the society by approving sexual harassment (hero and his friends make fun of girls) which gets treated lightly under the banner eve teasing. Now, as if this isn't enough, stories showcase girls as waiting for their man to show up, chase him if he doesn't look their way and sing ludicrous songs all night yearning for his presence by their bedside. Now, we've had our share of chauvinistic guys from S.Ve.Shekhar (he never proposes to a girl, it's always they who fall behind him) to Vijayakanth (women have been falling for his manliness, whatever that is!). In their cases, the screenplay is over-the-top and nobody takes it seriously. In case of something like '7G Rainbow Colony' where the youth identify themselves with the hero, the effects could be disastrous.

Many screenplays take the easy commercial way out - they just want to build platforms for the dreaming men who form the bulk of their revenue. Producers feed them the ugly thought that the girl in the next street actually likes you, not inspite of your black skin, but because of your black skin. And the director goes on to set-up scenes that emphasize that love is beyond status, caste, logic and intelligence. Actors who know that they have a mass following utter utterly stupid words that denigrates women, impose inane dress codes that would take our women back by a couple of generations and institute idiotic cultural values that belong to the 18th century. There is also the political appeasement factor in movies, which essentially tries to turn the clock backwards. The emotional impact movies leave on the young minds in our society is already on an all time high. If the trend continues, a considerable chunk of the next generation under-educated men will view young women as sex toys who need to abide by the rules enforced by men.

A brilliant line from Kurudihippunal: "Cinema pathu valandha koottam, government avangala velaikku vangidum".

Lakshmi

2006-12-11T22:02:00.000+05:30

Inspite of frequent misdirection, overaction, amateur photography and manipulative dialogues in 'Samsaram adhu Minsaram', Lakshmi leaves an impression.

Comedy in Tamil Movies - Future, Honorable Mentions

2006-12-08T22:43:00.000+05:30

The. Future. Looks. Bleak... there is no other way to put it. A fair way of assessing the current cinema trend and also a pretty good indicator of where the movie industry is heading would be to analyze all movies released for a particular Deepavali or Pongal - between these two occasions, we must have movies that feature all the major stars and directors. The last two years have an abysmal record in delivering quality comedy. If you don't know me, I like slapstick humour, I like humour set in a village, I like vulgar humour and I'll laugh at the hint of a joke - but there's only slapstick and vulgarity and irritation and annoyance sans any humour. Of course there is always unintentional humour, like a Vijayakanth movie, but that's for a different topic. Unless sensible writers and talented actors (from film school / underpaid abused assistant writers-actors / from Mars) land in Kodambakkam and decide to clean up the studio corridors of the formula trash that we're used to, I'm afraid there will be a steep slippage into raw and obtuse comedy in future Tamil movies.

Let me record the humour levels of current/future heroes. A simple test would be listen to their interviews; if any one of them has a comedy nerve in their body, they'll make you laugh. My estimates of comedy quotients: Vijay, probably the most overrated and commercially successful actor after Mohan does his best bommalattam sketch when asked to perform comedy. His comedy sketches in Gilli are as painful as watching 'Schindler's List'. Ajith first needs to learn Tamil from Shalini and then someone else should teach him to enunciate. His auto comedy sketch (with Karunas) from 'Attagasam' is the comedy equivalent of diarrhoea - the cinema hall reeked of watery faeces. Vikram reserves himself for serious roles - it's good that he knows his limitations. Parthiban, I don't know if he's still considered a hero, can be boring sometimes, bearable in most cases and rarely funny. Simbu, with his I-know-it-all tone may become the sharpest blade of the Tamil cinema industry. Madhavan: incompetent. Surya: not funny. Dhanush: zilch. Jayam Ravi: nada. Ravikrishna: sub-zero.

Vivek's resurgence is a much needed tonic for metro-comedy. It doesn't fit to see Vadivelu as Vijay's friend, especially when Vijay plays a sophisticated character. I also have a feeling that Vadivelu is tightly embraced because there are no good alternatives. As mentioned in my earlier post, if Vadivelu tries to may money while his sun shines, he won't make history. Only a handful of his comedies may make it to the next decade. With age, Crazy Mohan's comedy creativity will begin to decline. Because of our rigid framework imposed on a hero's requirements, Kamal may have to quit the race in a few years. Sathyaraj, though blessed with a sense of timing and style, wouldn't play a lesser role and insists on appearing in lousy projects as a hero. As pointed out by Nilu, if actors who have a taste and talent for comedy prostitute their image as a hero for lame movies, they are doing a disservice to the audience. I hope Kamal takes a different view and dons small roles which have scope for comedy.

Writers resort to crudeness - kicks, foulmouths, bad manners, cleavages and all sorts of abuses find place in a comedy sketch. This is a very depressing trend. If you can't watch a funny scene with your mother and your son at the same time then it won't stand the test of time. The hallmark of a classic comedy is it's cleanliness. The Tom & Jerry series (Hanna/Barbara) is a showcase of purity. Parthiban's 'Ullae Veliyae' sure was funny (when I was a teenager) - but I'd watch 'Kadhilikka Neramillai' with my parents and down the line I'd recommend 'Michael Madana Kama Rajan' to my son. More over, crude humour is not funny on subsequent viewings. Established actors heavily rely on their mannerisms instead of the character they play for a comedy sketch to click. It's important they leave the character impregnated on the mind of the viewer than the personality itself. That's why it's easy to mimic a Vadivelu or a Vivek. Logically speaking, if writers and actors want to produce something that will stay with the audience, they should be avoiding all the masala ingredients. I know, I shouldn't have 'Tamil cinema' and 'logic' in the same sentence!!

*

# Though Crazy Mohan did a lot of cameos, he should be credited very strongly for being the backbone of some of the best comedies. Coming from TV sitcoms and stage plays, he knows to write [a] good humour for a family drama (Aaha) [b] very good humour for slim screenplays (Kadhanayagan) [c] great humour in combination with Kamal. Some of his jokes feel recycled and have a strong Brahmin scent, still they remain enjoyable.
# Thengai Srinivasan is a genuine miss and he rightly belongs in the list of popular comedians. His 'Kasedhan Kaduvalada' and 'Thillu Mullu' are jolly rides.
# Delhi Ganesh is an understated performer best utilized by Kamal Haasan.
# V.K.Ramasami, in his long career supported heroes ranging from Sivaji to Prabhu, funny at times.
# I like V.A.Moorthy and the thing he does with his mouth and eyebrows. Heard of 'Thedinen Vandhadhu'?
# Y.Gee.Mahendran, Suralirajan - rarely funny. Kathadi Ramamoorthy remained a stage artiste.
# Janakaraj has his pieces; Loose Mohan - nothing but Madras baashai and voice.
# Charlie is boring; Santhanam is quite good and brings a lot of 'Lollu Sabha' type with himself.

Links: Prelude, Part I, Part II

Comedy in Tamil Movies - Part II

2006-12-05T11:33:00.000+05:30

Movies in colour feature comedy sketches that are far more evolved than the ones in black & white. Of course, with the passage of time, our writers, technicians and directors progressed in all aspects of movie-making, but the differences can be directly traced to American or European trends. Starting with camera movements, lighting arrangements, story narration, plot structures, stunts - our experiments here seemed to follow a success at Hollywood or else where. But you can't do that with comedy. What makes an American laugh cannot be applicable to a Tamilian. But we had our own style in making people laugh - and this time it was the artistes themselves who shouldered a big chunk of the responsibility of entertaining the audience and the smaller piece of pie lay with the comedy script writers.

My comedy star is Goundar Mani (or Gounda Mani). I didn't particularly like him until I was 15 or 16 when I thought of him as a sound actor - whatever it was, he just yelled using an inventive curse word like 'kadal panni' or 'nandu thalaiya' and people laughed for it. In a span of one or two years, I began enjoying him and turned from a despiser to an ardent fan. He is probably the only artiste who proudly exhibited his trademark irreverence - be it the villain or the hero or his mother or his neighbour or an old man, he treated them all equally - with a sharp disrespect. My favourite sketch of his is with Rajini in 'Mannan' and with Kamal in 'Indian'. In the past five or six years, his health has deteriorated and with that his voice and thespian skills and now he rarely appears on the screen. In his peak in the eighties and early nineties, he entertained everyone with his partner Senthil. Be it 'Vaidehi Kathirundhal' or 'Karagattakaran' they literally had the theatres in B and C centres rolling in laughter. Senthil added value when with Goundamani with his innocent looks and a decevingly 'enquiring mind' to which the latter would always fall. But Senthil didn't shine when he stood alone - he always added value as a parasite getting kicked in the ass by Goundamani.

Popular comedians of this generation are Vivek and Vadivelu - they both have a strong demarcation in their fans' tastes. While Vivek caters to the urban youth, mostly appearing as a friend of the city-bred hero, Vadivelu appeals to the semi-urban and rural areas donning various roles ranging from a teamaster to an autodriver. There was a short period of time when Vivek tried educating the masses in his brief screentime and was aptly called 'chinna kalaivanar'. But I don't think it went down well with the masses and he switched gears and jumped into pure fun. His sketches in 'Minnale', 'Run' and 'Dhool' are standout shows and I wouldn't be exaggerating I said that a sizeable part of the revenue for those movies was because of his sketches. He has a great sense of timing and can conceive witty situations which lead him into troubled waters. He recently tried to be a lead in a movie, which did poorly at the box office and since then he has had a slump. I hope 'Sivaji' will be a resurgence for him. And it's important that he bounces back because there's nobody else doing a job as good as he used to do.

Vadivelu is the reigning king of comedy. He demands sums that ageing heroes like Arjun or Prabhu can only dream of and movie schedules are rearranged as per his availability. He has cast his spell on the village population that they start laughing when he appears on the screen. I like Vadivelu, mostly because of his dialogue delivery and humility. It's been a fabulous journey for him since 'En Rasavin Manasule' where he appeared as a village commoner with nothing much to do through 'Devar Magan' where he actually played a good role to 'Winner' where he is almost the hero with Prashanth playing a subdued role. The cinema industry was badly in need of a comedian who would speak native accent with ease and the arrival of Vadivelu's 'Winner' established him firmly in the hearts of the rural population. But for every good sketch of his, there are probably five or six bad ones, where he just tries very hard to get the viewers to giggle. He should be more judicious in choosing the comedy script, or else it will be only a matter of time before he falls down.

There were a few heroes who were capable of tickling the funny bone. Even as a villain, Sathyaraj had a taste for 'naiyyandi' and his 'lollu' is matched by only a few. His 'Amaidhippadai' is a classic example of his ability to arrest the audience with his carefree speech delivered in an elegant manner. His combination with Gounda Mani in many movies is devastatingly funny. Rajini is funny too, but he needs a lot of push from the script. Bhagyaraj is the kind of guy who would tame a bull by bringing in a cow. He always approaches the comedy in a logical angle and infuses humour throughout the screenplay. Pandiarajan has an uneven comic scale: I like his 'Kadhanayagan' and 'Aanpavam', but there are many of his movies that are better left without a mention. S.Ve.Shekhar has played the lead role in a few movies, though he has been primarily a supporting actor and seemed to be content with stage plays. There is a recurring pattern in the way he makes us laugh, but I've never been bored by his comedy. Mostly, heroes of this generation had a better sense of humour than the previous generation heroes like Gemini, S.S.R, Sivaji, etc.

Manorama, who is still going strong had better roles with Kamal, Sathyaraj and other heroes. But I wouldn't give the entire credit to her. Mostly it was the screenplay, which made sure that the audience are ready to laugh. Take 'Nadigan' or 'Singaravelan' for example: though Manorama delivered funny lines, the audience were laughing throughout the running length and it would be justified to say that she did a good job out of the character. To acknowledge Manorama as a great comedienne, she should have turned an otherwise boring movie with her style and humour into a good one. I don't remember a single movie where this has happened. Kovai Sarala has successfully taken Manorama's place - neither of them are keen on entertaining the audience. She is just one boring lady, except when with Vadivelu or Vivek. But if there's somebody I like in the category, it is Urvasi. Though she mostly concentrated on serious roles, Urvasi did some commendable sketches in 'Vanaja Girija' and 'Maya Bajaar 95'. If only had she cut down her over-acting, she would have been one of the most versatile actresses in our field.

Kamal Haasan changed the face of humour in Tamil cinemas. He didn't give much thought about his jokes reaching every one in the theatre and instead opted to go for intelligent humour that would burst out in quick successions. You laugh quite hard and you'll miss the next joke that you'll be forced a second viewing. I can't think of any other actor who has successfully released so many full length comedy movies: 'Avvai Shanmugi', 'Kadhala Kadhala', 'Singaravelan', 'Panchathanthiram', 'Pammal K. Sambandham' - the list continues to grow. There are some lesser efforts from him, but even they stand on par with offerings from other actors/directors who successfully craft comedy pictures. His 'Michael Madana Kama Rajan' tops the list. The screenplay is so convoluted and at the same time very clear that you just can't be awed enough by this man's talent to write humour. You answer the door, you've missed a couple of gems - that's how tightly packed the jokes are in here. Of course, a big percentage of the credit should go to Crazy Mohan for his inventive dialogues, but that doesn't diminish Kamal's supreme talent. Crazy Mohan has great command in playing with the language and Kamal has the ability to respect that command by writing and acting in brilliant situations. His expressions and voice modulations also tell us how wonderful an actor he is and comedy is something that can't be acquired. 'Avvai Shanmugi', is not a mere change in the get-up, but a transformation of his entire body language. The fight with Kanal Kannan in the vegetable market is a great example of a maami taking on the goons - the womanliness is not compromised in one single move. I'll stop with this one paragraph about him and make a separate post about his contributions to Indian cinema. (More on Crazy Mohan in the next (final) part of this series).

Though we had a lot of comedy artistes and better comedy sketches in this period, the decline in the moral aspects of the humour content has to be acknowledged. Physically challenged people were made fun of; fat or lean people were made fun of; people belonging to a specific caste/religion/place/tradition were made fun of; women were made fun of - in fact some of the comedy scenes suggested or approved sexual harassment; and it's not getting any better. On the brighter side, there are also a lot of scripts that tried to educate the masses. Whatever it is, we are not mellowing down - we're only getting more louder and crasser and stronger and raw in getting across the message. We lack quality writers - much of the laughter relies on the mannerisms of the comedy artiste rather than the situation. We need writers who can think beyond our region and create a universal comedy pattern. Say, if someone in Iran decides to watch a Tamil comedy movie, they shouldn't he hampered down by too many cultural locks. They should be able to laugh by looking at the character's action and reading the subtitles. I'm not asking for a lot here.

Links: A prelude to comedy in Tamil movies and the first part.

Movies #13 - This, That & the Other

2006-12-02T12:27:00.000+05:30

I frequently contribute one of my posts to a cinema forum which collects some of the best/insightful posts on cinemas. Scott Nehring has been doing this good work for a while and the latest edition is available here. Go check it out.
Compiling a list of comedy artistes who have contributed to Tamil cinema is the easy part. Trying to be a little objective and writing a few clear sentences is the hard part. When I write about Kamal, I need to control myself in using superlatives or else the post would seem heavily biased and saccharine.
My guilty pleasure in the past couple of days has been to know something about who all have (RSS) subscribed to my posts. If you're comfortable, just drop in a line as a comment to this post with your name and what you'd like to see more from me. I'll be happy. Thanks.

Movies #12 - More on Masoom

2006-12-01T18:38:00.000+05:30

A stranger to old Hindi movies, Masoom made me feel at home and encouraged to check out other titles that my north Indian friends have been recommending. The movie viewing experience was wholesome - the story is believable, actors creditable, music adorable and direction melliflous. For a family drama that deals with a cracking relationship, there is no high decibel noise to be heard here. My wife was unhappy with my brief review of the movie and hence this revisit.

I'll begin with an open letter of praise to R.D.Burman. As regular readers of this blog know, I've seen less than 20 Hindi movies and most of them are fairly recent. Songs from those movies are super duper hit but they didn't touch me on a deeper level - you know, the kind of songs that you hum when you're alone and think about something/someone personal. Masoom's songs make an exception - 'Tujhse naraz' and 'Huzur is kadar' top the list. Not only are the songs soothing and touching, but they are very well placed in the screenplay - they don't intrude into the narration, but just help the story flow smoothly. The background score is simple and touching and never announces itself.

This movie launched the cinematic careers of Jugal Hansraj and Urmila Matondkar. For a director of Shekar's stature, I thought he should have extracted better performances from these kids - but then, this is his debut feature and probably he was happy with what the kids delivered before the camera. I think they are one of the weak links in the cinema. In some of the scenes, they appeared to be performing for a school drama waiting for the teacher from the corner of the podium to give instructions. It's not all that bad, but when compared to what Shabana Azmi and Nasseeruddin Shah did, the kids looked sluggish.

For the most part, the story unfolds slowly, the way neighbourhood women would chat. Such screenplays are a rarity. Say family problem and writers think of a high pitch word war between couples. Gulzar captures the split in the relationship built over years through many scenes that make the bulk of the second half. This is where the English version of the movie fails - when Robert Beckwith breaks the news of an extramarital affair to his wife, there is an immediate rift between them. Though, I found the ending a little unrealistic and hurried. You can't cheat the audience - they always want a happy ending.

Comedy in Tamil Movies - Part I

2006-12-01T16:58:00.000+05:30

Disclaimer: I'll begin with a cliche: comedy is subjective. What's funny to me may sound like death knell to somebody. Having said that, there are some comedy sketches that most of us laugh for and there are some sketches that we laugh at. Though I am fairly acquainted with Tamil cinemas and have a broad range of humour (sohpisticated to slapstick) some readers may find this post either unbalanced or unfair and question my sanity - that's inevitable.

The roots of the currently seen strong masala flavour in Tamil cinemas can be traced back to the fifties where the director and writer (in most cases it's the same person) tried to present a balance of songs, sentiments, comedy, tragedy, fights and drama in one single package. While there are movies that compromised on any one of the aspects, comedy tracks have been treated as an indispensable part of the Tamil cinema since it's inception. It was one of the reasons people came to the theatres - to laugh out loud at people making stupid things, passing silly remarks, falling off a ladder, etc. The nature and quality of the comedy has evolved since then, but there are patches too where we find the movies comedically creatively bankrupt.

For almost all masala movies, there are two classes of writers: the ones who write the screenplay and the ones who fill in the screenplay with comedy sketches. The so-called situational comedies mostly revolved around a few beaten paths. To point out a few: a) double-action: two heroes, most probably twin brothers separated at birth meet in their mid-twenties and cause confusion b) a woman disguises herself as a man in a shirt and a pant c) when the hero and heroine fall in love, parallelly the comedien friend of our hero and the comedienne friend of our heroine also fall in love. In spite of the predictability of most of these sketches, some of them are really good and enjoyable even today. In this part, I'll express my thoughts on the comedians who ruled the yesteryears.

N.S.Krishnan is still remembered and I can hear cinema people blurt his name every now and then. He appeared almost always with his wife T.A.Madhuram and they're one of the earliest pairs who enjoyed an on-screen chemistry even before M.G.R-Saroja Devi or Sivaji-Savithri. As with comedies of that era, it was never crude or degenerating and he tried to educate the masses through his sketches. Whether it was husband-wife relationship or money-management, N.S.K had something to say or sing. 'Vignanathai valarkka porendi' from 'Nalla Thambi' decries with superstition and the importance of embracing science. My favourite song is 'Kanne unnal' from 'Ambikapathi', where he vents out his feelings for T.A.Madhuram in similies.

T.R.Ramachandran has to be included for nostalgic reasons. There are funny movies featuring him, like 'Adutha Veettu Penn' and 'Sabapathy'. It's quite difficult to laugh at his comedy today, but considering the naivette and innocence of people at that time, it's amusing. In a scene from 'Sabapathy', he gives his servant two 1/4 annas and asks him to get two eatables, for which the servant asks "which quarter anna for which eatable?" Now, it's not funny and I might even say it could be painful if somebody asked that in a so-called funny movie today. But my grandfather laughs for this scene. He laughs repeatedly and even narrates this joke to us as if today's comedians have to learn from these gems. I just nod my head without uttering a word.

Baliah and Thangavelu are real gems. They both had a sense of timing and distinct dialogue delivery. In 'Kalyana Parisu', the sketch where jobless Thagavelu deceives his wife as writer Vairavan is unadulterated fun for all ages. He has been the saving grace of a lot of movies in his career when everybody else spoke flat lines. Baliah is unique too. His facial contortions alone makes me smile and his voice modulations add to the humour. 'Thillana Moganambal' is a classic Baliah movie where he can make the audience laugh whether the screenplay is with the main storyline or if it's a separate track. Both these actors also double up as genuine character artistes (though the best character artiste to grace Tamil movies is S.V.Ranga Rao - a topic for another post) and add strength to the story.

Nagesh is a jambavan and has inspired many who'd later become comedians. I've read that stars like M.G.R and Sivaji had to wait or reschedule their films because of Nagesh's call-sheets. He has a certain charm and can speak funny lines.. but I honestly think that he's overrated. And there are scores of scenes where he plainly went over the board leaving the audience frowning. But that shouldn't shadow some of his best works, which till date remain in the classic comedy scenes: 'Thiruvilayadal', 'Server Sundaram', 'Bama Vijayam'... to name a few. He clicked very well with Cho (and you thought Manorama!). Though Cho didn't have a prolific film career as he soon moved to stage and journalism, I think we are yet to see someone with such a sharp tongue. Chandrababu stole many hearts in his short-lived career. My father, an ardent fan of Chandrababu used to say that Nagesh copied his dance style. When every character spoke in a flat accent, he sparkled the screen with his unique tone set in Madras baashai.

The women's comedy roster isn't impressive. Manorama has been filling in the female shoes, but quite unsuccesfully. If the screenplay isn't funny she couldn't help the situation. Though she has donned hundreds of roles that belong to the comedy category, in the absence of Nagesh or Cho she just happens to be a solid character artiste. (She has been funny in Singaravelan, Nadigan, etc - which will be discussed in Part II). Sachu is another name that comes to my mind... again it's just another name and she hasn't impressed either me or the previous generation through her comic skills. On rare occasions I've felt that Sowkar Janaki and Lakshmi were better comediennes that Manorama, but they were too busy in playing serious roles.

Most of the heroes of the 60's and 70's didn't possess much sense of humour. To create a full-length comedy in that era, you either needed a funny screenplay or a comedian as a hero. Two movies come to my mind: 'Kadhalikka Neramillai' - One of the best movies in Tamil. Directed by veteran Sridhar, this is a comic masterpiece. If the infinitely boring Ravichandran (who made is debut) can make us laugh, it goes on to show how talented the director is. The story narration scene between Nagesh and Baliah ranks top among my favourite spots. 'Bama Vijayam' - The only Balachandar movie that I like. Such an wonderful interplay of family themes and funny dialogues you would almost not notice 150 minutes fly away. It is no coincidence that both movies feature Nagesh and Baliah - the best in the business.

The striking aspect of the humour by these artistes is that they never insulted any community, rarely played on the sensibilities of a custom/tradition and were usually clean that you could take your 10 year old daughter to the movie. This aspect changed drastically with the arrival of Goundar Mani whose arrogance and blasphemy took everyone by storm. In the next part of this essay, I'll express my opinions about the comediens who shone after 1970 - which includes the inimitable Goundar Mani, the parasitic Senthil, frequently funny Vivek, bankable Vadivelu and heroes with a good sense of humour like lollu Sathyaraj, logical Bhagyaraj and the master of them all - Kamal Haasan.

Links: A prelude to comedy in Tamil movies.
Update: Second part of this series.

Comedy in Tamil Movies - Prelude

2006-11-28T14:06:00.000+05:30

I've been thinking about comedy tracks in future Tamil cinemas. We are going through a rough patch and there is a dearth for intelligent comedians. We get our share on one-time laughs - which are instantly forgettable and may grow on one's nerves when viewed repeatedly. Recursive comedic patterns - where we laugh on the first viewing, and then realize there's much more to it on the subsequent viewings (like in 'Micheal Madana Kama Rajan'), are dwindling and that's a sign of declining creativity.

Comedy tracks that hang away from the main story is a distraction because the screenplay wavers off the plot and at the same time essential because of the humourless heroes and the much needed funny break to make the movie commercially viable. The current crop of young stars are either the sons of producers or heroes of yesteryears or one-hit wonder boys, just waiting for a miracle to work through their way. Take Sibiraj, son of Sathyaraj for example: he stubbornly refuses to act believably or dance gracefully and insists on speaking in a monotone voice. It's better for the industry that he doesn't deliver any funny lines. Surya is a budding actor and suits for serious roles. Jeyam Ravi has to come a long way, but has an innocence flavoured humour to his credit which nobody but me enjoys. Bharath needs to mature a lot. Simbu thinks he's next to Kamal when it comes to versatility and is floating on his jumbo-ego. Vijay is utterly unfunny to me. Ajith doesn't have it in him to make others laugh. Vikram occasionally tickles the funny bone.

Talking of proper comedians, Vadivelu springs to my mind. Of course, a few sketches of his are enjoyable mostly for his facial expressions and dialogue delivery with little help from the situation. When the screenplay doesn't help, the comedy idea ranges from bearable to painful. The inimitable Goundar Mani is already an archived actor. Vivek is out of form and is expected to bounce back. Kamal Haasan seems to be the only intelligent comedian in business today (in spite of Mumbai Xpress) and he's already ageing. A funny scene in a future Tamil cinema may not be funny at all. I'll post a detailed commentary sometime this week on how funny Tamil movies were/are, contributors to the comedy genre and the directionless in the movement of current comedy sketches in Tamil movies.

Update 1: Click here to read the first part of the series.
Update 2: Click here to read the second part of the series.

The Departed - Movie Thoughts

2006-11-24T11:48:00.000+05:30

Scorsese gets back to mean streets with his latest offering: The Departed. This is a double-cross story which involves a cop infiltrating a Boston mafia and a gangster infiltrating the Boston police force. A remake of the HongKong flick Infernal Affairs, the movie is a solid entertainer but doesn't live up to the pundits' hype. I tuned into to the movie with high expectations - though I wasn't disappointed at the end, I wasn't excited by the movie. Raging Bull still remains the best Scorsese movie I've seen followed by After Hours. When it comes to gansters, Goodfellas holds it's ground.

I had a few problems with the movie: I wondered if the movie were set in the 70's. Matt Damon (mole in the police force) frequently uses cellphones to call or send messages (with a different SIM) to Jack Nicholson (the mafia boss) while in the office and nobody thinks of tracing a call from the office inspite of knowing the presence of an infiltrator. And when Damon requests social security information of the new entrants into the gang to check their background, it's all written in paper and handed over by Jack Nicholson. Now, what happened to encrypted transfer of contents through computers? The underworld operators shown in TV serials use better technology for their covert operations!!

And then there's the rise of DiCaprio (cop in the mafia) in the gang which seems highly implausibe. He accompanies either Jack Nicholson or his right hand all the time. How does he become such a trusted member to the mafia leaders in such a short span of time? The mode of communication between DiCaprio and his senior police officials isn't convincing either. They just meet in a public place and shout at each other without adequate security. If the gangsters had either followed DiCaprio or searched his place thoroughly, they would have found at least ten pieces of evidence to prove that he's a cop. And had the police force used their sophisticated technology to trace calls emanating from their block to Jack Nicholson, they might have nailed Damon on the firtst day of his service.

Though there are loopholes in the screenplay, the final product is a decent drama and Scorsese does a very good job with this script. The cast is star studded: Martin Sheen, Mark Wahlberg, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson, Ray Winstone... and all of them deliver creditable performaces with DiCaprio stealing the best actor prize. This is his third movie with the titan and the growth is very visible. DiCaprio wonderfully expresses his fear, anguish and hatred in a way a mature actor might find hard to portray. Vera Farmiga as the love interest of both Damon and DiCaprio rounds up the cast. Micheal Ballhaus' camera is always in the right position and Thelma Schoonmaker's scissors always seem to cut at the right film.

The Academy has robbed Scorsese of the best director trophy for almost 30 years. Though this is not a great product, Scorsese doesn't falter anywhere with the material made available to him and my hunch is that he'll be the winner this time just because the members of the Academy want to redeem themselves of guilt - just like giving a life-time award to Robert Altman before his chapter closed. It's a shame that the script by Monahan isn't as refined as the other aspects of the movie, but he sparkles with witty and inventive use of words. Here's an example: "There's guys you can hit and guys you can't hit. Now he's not a guy you can't hit, but he's pretty close to a guy you can't hit".

Maniratnam's Guru - Music/Songs Review

2006-11-21T16:02:00.000+05:30

Update: Guru Movie Review

I have seen quite a few music videos on either ends of the spectrum - the ones which feature popular artistes, great percussion which makes your foot tap and head swing, a few girls in skimpy dresses shaking here and there; and the other end where artistes experiment with their instruments trying to evoke moods with philosophical/complicated graphics. Though my music video exposure is limited, I'm tempted to say something stupendous like Maniratnam must be one of the five best music video directors in business today. I find Mani extremely tasteful when it comes to giving visual meanings to songs. He has a wonderful sense for synchronizing music and images and my guess is that he has a very detailed visual of every frame of the song that will be shot and that's what he inputs to his music director. He is one of the few directors who judiciously uses songs (though, not always) and allows the viewer take a pleasant diversion from the script rather than what is a welcome bathroom break in most cases.

His association with A.R.Rahman for the past 15 years have been fruitful, to say the least. Rahman's music takes some time to touch us before it becomes a hit - you listen to it for a few days when you don't seem to be impressed much, then you start humming and then the song stays with you. Rahman has a special corner for Mani (of course, Mani introduced him to filmdom) and his music for Mani's films makes one wonder if he reserves his best tunes for Mani. The little known 'Iruvar' is my favourite Mani-Rahman combo. But Rahman scores low when it comes to re-recording in my opinion - I've felt that they lack the heart and could have been better. But he's one of the best foley artistes available - sound of a glass falling on the floor, crows crooning in the distance or boots splashing on rain water - he captures them with great authenticity. Now, a few words about the songs composed for 'Guru'.

# 'Ay Harathe' is a slow, serenely flowing melody with a soothing tabla in the background. The tune evokes the image of a Moghul court, but clearly it seems like scored for a period setting - may be the 60's. # 'Baazi Laga' is a hip/party song, which immediately reminded me of the 'September' song from 'Alaipayuthey'. Udit Narayan's style adds to the already carefree attitude in the tune. It's the kind of song you want to sing in your bathroom after a complete strip. # My guess is that a lesser director would have used 'Barso Re' to introduce the Aishwarya Rai character to the audience - soaked in rain and enjoying nature with a merry tune. I hope Maniratnam disappoints me. # I still don't know if I like 'Ek lo'... doesn't have much orchestra and is less musical to be called a song. In fact, to be technically correct, it's a drunken, crazy, lyrical speech. # 'Jaage Hain' starts with a prayer-like feel and the stretched chorus makes you close your eyes and sway your eyes gently. But soon the voices soar and it feels more like a subdued celebration of an important victory or a march towards victory. # 'Mayya' is for Mallika Sherawat, must be belly dancing for you know who. # 'Tere Bina' sounds weak in the entire collection. My friend is already in love with the song, but I find it long and boring except for the 'Dham dhara' piece.

P.S: I have a smattering knowledge of Hindi. Gulzar must have done a terrific job composing the lyrics.

Song Credits:
1. Barso Re – Shreya Ghoshal & Uday Mazumdar.
2. Tere Bina – AR Rahman, Chinmayee, Additional Voices – Murtaza, Qadir.
3. Ek Lo Ek Muft – Bappi Lahiri, Chitra Additional Voices – Tanvi, Saloni, Boney, Jaidev.
4. Baazi Laga – Udit Narayan, Madhushree, Swetha, Bhargavee Additional Programming – Pravin Mani.
5. Mayya – Maryem Toller, Chinmayee, Keerthi Programming & Additional Arrangements Ranjit Barot.
6. Ey Hairathe – Hariharan, Alka Yagnik Additional Voices – AR Rahman, Aslam Mohammed.
7. Jaage Hain – Chitra , AR Rahman and Madras Choral Group.

Links:
Here's a prelude to Maniratnam's Guru.Here's a piece on the cast for this movie.

Update:
Here's a wonderful review on Guru's music.

Casino Royale - Movie Review

2006-11-20T15:44:00.000+05:30

James Bond, the British agent, is arguably the most well developed and understood character in the history of franchise cinema. He can trash a line of expensive cars on the street side and nobody gives him a bill; nobody thinks of filing a case if his bullets are sprinkled over a body; he gets to use the most sophisticated devices to challenge the world's most evil minds; and he travels to exotic locations where smooth skinned, super talented beautiful women share his bed; and when he is done ruining his enemy (rather, successfully completing the government's covert operation) he walks away mostly unharmed, dusting off his sullied clothes. Teen girls want him, and understandably teen boys want to be like him. The series aims at offering uninhibited adrenaline rush and unadulterated fun for the entire running length. Casino Royale, the first story written by Ian Fleming featuring Bond fails to fulfill the expectations of a Bond fan.

Before acquiring his double-O status (shown in black & white) Bond is a man who acts on impulses, is neither cool nor suave, and kills a man with his bare hands in a bathroom in an ugly fight and pops a bullet into another one's head without delivering any punch dialogues that we are so used to listening from him whenever he kills somebody. When his boss M says that she's afraid that she might have promoted him a little too soon when he violates her orders, he responds that double-O's are expected to have a short life. And that's what he does most of the running time, where in the end he finally learns to tame his ego and becomes emotionally detached.

<Spoiler>The story for screen is simple and straightforward: Le Chiffre, a banker who funds terrorists needs to be stopped. When he bets $100 millions that a new model jumbo flight won't take off on the stipulated day from Miami airport and makes necessary arrangements to explode the plane, Bond stops that, which puts the banker in a financially crunched position and drives him to play poker (or whatever) at an expensive casino in Montenegro. Since Bond is the best player in the intelligence service, he is chosen to stop him from winning the pot and Vesper Lynd, another agent is sent to overlook his bets in case he goes over the board. A series of twists and turns results in Bond being saved by Vesper twice eventually. Bond falls in love with her - the first and last girl Bond would ever fall in love with.</Spoiler>

There aren't many high tech gadgets which makes us wonder when and how Bond's going to use them and get out of trouble. In fact, the action scenes involve furious hand-to-hand combat and chase on foot where sophisticated weapons are out of question. I'm disappointed with the girls in this movie - I don't know if it's because of the 'reboot' - Vesper Lynd's costumes, make-up and hairstyle resembles the sixties. The movie isn't technically impressive either - the photography is pretty ordinary and the flow of the story struggles during the stretched Casino scenes. The absence of Moneypenny is understandable - may be the service will get her for his next outing.

Daniel Craig as James Bond shines. He has the aggression and the manliness of a Bond. Eva Green as Vesper Lynd does a credible job. Martin Campbell has already directed a far more entertaining Bond movie - GoldenEye. I haven't read the book and can't comment on how loyal the screenplay is. But the overly sentimental scenes between the leads made me puke. Though Bond may not have any superpowers like Spiderman, Superman or Batman, I still categorize him as a superhero and we all go to superhero movies to be children again and witness pure entertainment. The recent spate of superhero movies have a more-than-necessary screen time to romance. It looks like a cheap attempt by the producers to lure in the date couples.

This movie provides an explanation for how Bond became the Bond we all know. Bond is emotionally so intimate with Vesper that he even cries at one point of time - now, who would have thought that tears would run down his cheek? His emotional loss makes him a misogamist. And the pain he undergoes because of his split second decisions marred by a clouded ego help him graduate from a second grade spy to a smooth-talking and think-before-act spy. 'Casino Royale' is a prelude to a Bond movie. Now that he's learned his lesson, he should be ruthless, rude and raving to go for his next adventure (which is already in pre-production). Daniel Craig utters the most famous five words just at the end of the movie and looks down a man whom he just shot with a coldness comparable to Minnesota winter. So, there's still hope that Bond will be back.

Legend of Rita - One Minute Review

2006-11-18T18:07:00.000+05:30

Driven by noble ideologies and dreaming of social equality the Red Army terrorists rob the banks and distribute it to the poor; and while robbing they deliver anti-imperialistic aphorisms. The terrorists know that they can't upset the applecart but only give it gentle shock. They fail to come to terms with the ground reality and continue to believe in realizing an alternative world. Set in the 70's Germany, Legend of Rita recreates the general mood on both sides of the Berlin wall and tries to capture the feelings of a woman - Rita Vogt, a West German who's against capitalism, is determined to deliver justice to the people, and feels proud to be a part of an elite network that tries to change the social order.

When Rita kills a traffic police in a knee-jerk reaction, the Stasi helps her settle in East Germany under a fictional name (which is called 'legend' in intelligence parlance) and provides financial support if and when needed. In the textile factory where she works, to her unpleasant surprise she finds her colleagues unhappy and wanting to go to the west and improving their own standards of living instead of working for the betterment of the state. Though baffled at their wishes and deeply discontent at them, she continues to live a suppressed life with Tatjana, a friend and a potential lover being the only solace to pass her days. Her cover gets blown and she assumes another legend until the Berlin wall comes down and she is hunted by her saviours - the Stasi.

Rita is a well developed character very ably played by Bibiana Beglau - we are allowed to see her as an energetic young lady driven by principles, a good friend trying to help her alcoholic colleague, a woman wanting to mother a child and at the same time as a terrorist who can kill to keep her identity covered. Directed by Volker Schlondorff based on the script by himself and Wolfgang Kohlhaase, he expresses the committedness of misguided, intelligent, talented youth who believe in a new world order and eventually tells how pointless their endeavours may turn out to be when the state decides to clean the slate. The screenplay is intelligent - logic wise, but it's the emotional quotient that's underscored. Though I'm tempted to say it's the story of a terrorist, it's actually the story of a woman who happens to be a terrorist.