He never ceases to surprise you.

Actually, the first Tarantino film that I ever saw was Reservoir Dogs and that too was quite some while back. Then there was a brief hiatus before one day, I saw Pulp Fiction. While that was a Class Apart film (not just a Band Apart one), there were brief periods of slump that were pretty much evident. Not in style or panache, but in the general storyline. I’ll level with you – I never understood the Bruce Willis part of the movie. Like, it did not contribute, in my opinion, greatly to the script. It was a great piece of cinema no doubt, and there will always be times when I rewind and watch those sections per se, but then it is not what will draw me to the whole frame.

So after that there was even a bigger pause before I watched my third and Quentin Tarantino’s fourth film (which he proudly advertises on the credits) – Kill Bill Vol. 1.

Boy!

This movie is mad. The director is mad. The storyline is mad. The visual effects are mad. The whole one hour and forty six approximate minutes that you spend with the movie is mad. It gives you a high, if I may say so. And it is also addictive. Though you may have seen it umpteenth number of times, there will be that sudden urge to first just watch one scene and consequently, in the same session, the whole film. What can I say about this movie that is not unique? That is not stunning? That just mesmerises you?

Let me do what Tarantino did to his screenplay. Only thing – I’ll go in descending order of popular choice:

1. Performances: Uma Thurman. Period. How the hell did he even think of casting her (though actually, the character was a part of her creation, when you see at the end, “The Bride” developed by Q & U), and how the hell did she ever pull off madness of such gargantuan magnitude? Her performance was like watching poetry in motion, a complete package of collective disharmony and yet, a sheer solace of unity throughout the whole character. Her emotion of losing her child, her martial art capabilities, even her fluent Japanese, everything goes for her in this movie.

And it’s just not her. We also have Lucy Liu pulling off a fantastic performance as the Japanese Queenpin. Half of her close-ups focus on her eyes and she plays the whole message back and forth from right there. While these are the two basic tangents in this part of the movie, right before you end, you also have the legend put in a line himself – Michael Madsen, announcing his arrival and hooking us on for Vol. 2.

2. Camera/Editing: This is perhaps the only column that warrants no words for it. The name of the director alone guarantees epic novelties – be it the opening credit shots, the action sequences, and most importantly, the blue backdrop fight sequence between Black Mamba and a section of the Crazy 88 – simple, and yet effective.

3. Music: It says Original Music by The RZA and original it is. Seldom has a score been repeated. The maximum hits any score got was around 2-3. And the compositions were novel shots of complete genius. Whether it is the guitar and the whistle, the jazz rock stylized entrees, or simply the panpipe renditions by the legend himself, Zamfir, music has never blended in like this. The opening credit song (He shot me down, Bang, Bang by Nancy Sinatra) is perhaps the best credit sequence that I have ever seen for any movie. And also Zamfir’s The Great Shepherd for the closing credits was also mind blowing. You get to know this director simply from the music that he has played in this film.

4. Screenplay/Direction: To be very honest, there was a burning desire in me to finish those earlier columns as fast as I could and then come over here, to talk about Quentin Tarantino. But now that I am here, I have no words. What do I say? I never stopped once to note down a particular point! I never bothered to do that even on the nth time that I saw the movie. Nothing in this movie is chronologically arranged and yet, he just makes it the only possible way to be. The whole movie just oozes along. Without making you stop to think even for an itsy-bitsy minute. You feel you are a part of the whole drama, and you are receiving first hand information. You feel that this movie was made only for you and no one else has a clue. Black Beatrix/Kiddo/Mamba/The Bride/Mommy is telling you her story, to share it with you and with no one else. This is what Tarantino does for a living. He tells stories.

My response is same after each and every Quentin Tarantino movie – watch it. You'll be "QuERentinED".

Yuvvraazzzzzzzzzz!

After having watched Yuvvraaj, you obviously cannot expect a ‘review’ out of me. I have better things to do – like sleep, or analyze the colour of the sky, or even hear birds chirp! But a review is certainly out of the question. However, I was putting down a few questions while I was watching the movie (but of course, only up to a point, as soon I got bored just writing rather than stare at Katrina Kaif). So, here are the questions that I wanted to ask myself, the world at large, animals, everyone... Take a look:

1. Does Subhash Ghai ever know why he is making a movie, or more importantly what he is making?
2. Why do Ghai characters always live in palaces?
3. Why does a sports motorbike have to be kept inside the bedroom?
4. Why does anyone ever hire Salman Khan?
5. Czech cops speak fluent English – actually a hint of the Queen’s English!
6. You take A R Rahman and don’t even use his specialization, Western Classical, though your picture is set within the same theme? Why not rope in Himesh Reshammiya? Karz chukao!
7. Why Beethoven’s 5th? Why the cello? Why the trouble?
8. Higher notes play on the left side of the piano and the lower ones on the right?
9. Salman belongs to the Prague Orchestra, but goes to his City of Music in Austria where the whole story continues?
10. Why, must Salman where dark glasses indoors?
11. If an NRI can’t speak proper Hindi, then why can’t she just speak in English?
12. Indian man asks question in English, foreigner replies in Hindi?
13. Rainman? Really? (Take this on the regular Chandler note)

Choreographers and Kabir Lal, well done!

Ludwig Van Kubrick – A Clockwork Orange Review

The basic crux of the whole matter – the new good Christian is suicidal, dreads Beethoven’s 9th and has the inability to make the moral choice – though the empire, the structure dismisses that as a mere “subtlety of course!”

What does A Clockwork Orange talk about? Nothing and everything really! That is the whole darned beauty of it. And it does so with an odd panache, an acute sense of drama – so typically Beethoven. The movements rise and fall, they mingle, they deafen, they soothe and they cause an overwhelming catharsis – that, my friends, is the beauty of it all.

Is it a tribute to Beethoven also, by the by? Not a tribute, an inspirational drive perhaps, a reinforcement of the great master, in the way he did it the best. In style!

It pulls together everything from society – the swaying politician, well-meaning, yet twisted; the crazed mental scientists, proper intent at heart, but drowned in their own self-belief; cruel police officers, both good and the very bad; holy ministers, who scare people to raise belief in the Almighty, and yet demand that everyone deserves a choice; even fragile parents, torn between parental affection and societal implications of certain actions ruled by the mind rather than the heart – and the new Christian, the new human being, Alex (Malcolm McDowell).

Before Alex the demon breaks into the old lady’s house at the start of it all, he tells her, “I understand ma’am, with so many scoundrels going about, you never know whom to trust and whom not to” – something that we all understand and appreciate more often than not. And yet, when the ‘repaired’ Alex gets back, he sees the new lodger in his room in his parent’s house declare how he would never leave them to the hands of a sycophant. Now, does he want the room, or does he really care? Alex’s earlier quote comes ringing back and we see the same aspect from two different corners of the room. If the sun sets at one point, it also rises at the other. Cruel, evil world!

And this is a story that cannot be told. Actually it can be told, but it is Alex’s narration that has to be seen. Exactly, just not heard, but also seen. That is where Stanley Kubrick comes in. And he is a director that can never be spoken about; he only has to be seen. His vision is all that there ever is to anything that he makes. Be it 2001: A Space Odyssey or The Shining to name a few, it is what he does from behind the camera that is awe-inspiring. A piece of advice though – if you intent to watch this film, then either do it with the subtitles on, or if that irritates you, plug on your headphones to your computer. The dialogues may sell themselves off once in a while, due to the intermingled use of the Cockney accent. Not the director’s problem – we just have to get used to it.

But look at it in today’s context – petty thieves have now given way to dastardly terrorists. That is now the new word for evil on the streets. Therefore, if the sciences can come out with some method of completely altering someone’s criminal reflex at the cost of his moral decision making power, would that really be of much concern to the world at large? And even so, how would we know when it is being used for justice and when for petty ego gains?

Truly, such a complicated film of the 70s becomes so simplistic today.

Music to the eyes and inspiration for the ears – it all works like Clockwork!

Reservoir Dogs

“Like a Virgin...” No way anyone could put it better. You have seen it for so many years. You have been exposed to it more than it has been exposed to sunlight. But then, when you feel that you know what it is, when you can make the split between the dark auditorium and the lit ticket counter, you feel something like come and bang your brains out. You begin to feel what it would have been understanding the medium again. And you see difference in the same bloody thing. With a severe disbalance of digestic and non-digestic sounds, your senses are real. And once again, you feel “Like a Virgin.”

Mr. Brown made the whole point clear at the beginning. He told his story, no one listened, they argued about tipping and not tipping, Mr. White told Mr. Blonde that he could only shoot him in his dreams, so that then he could get up and apologize to him. Oh baby, is it me you’re looking for?

They then walk off to attend to pending matters. And then foul it up. Not before the Radio blasts its way through one of the most stylish credits ever made.

Oh, it saves you the gore of the heist, but it takes you to things grosser than just bullet sprays. And you also have the most gruesome scene in cinematic history. But even that is done with élan. Imagine picking up someone cut ear, talk into it and then check for reception.

And the shots that crackle through the songs playing on the jukebox, the sudden realisation of something that we already know, that weird sense of amazement and self-loathing, the wall of disbelief, willingly at that – all just crack you up.

In small things always come the best packages. Thank the Lord for restrained monies at times. Everything starts to fit. And the starkness itself becomes the largest virtue of the unit.

And then there is Michael Madsen. And then there is Steve Buscemi. And then there is Harvey Keitel. All three dominating the screen, without seeming to lose their figure of speech in between.

Quentin Tarantino brought forth style. A different kind of style. A style that you just want to watch. So let’s not even try to talk about it. It is the speechless kind of style. Good.

I’d dub it the watershed of a new cinematic experiment. A new movement. Something that had to have inspired filmmakers beyond that point. It had too, however much anyone may deny any involvement. Be it the dialogues, the sound, the camera, or just the whole feeling.

Feel new. Watch the movie!

Rock On!! Magik

After all that I have been saying so far, after all that I have written so far, this is the only one place where it has come true. Now I know for certain that someone else shares my views and I know that people appreciate it. Now I can stand with a certain amount of conviction. What have I been saying, you ask?

Make it from the heart and you make Rock On!!

It’s just not the name of the band, but it is the whole ride that is magical. Everything is so perfect. Everything fits into everything so well. And yet it is not preachy (hearing Mr. Bansali?) and yet it touches every nook and corner of the heart. It has drama, a certain amount of (if I may use the term) suspense, a certain amount of humour, pathos and thereby, you get wholesome entertainment. No one thing or no one person has tried to hog the limelight –the actors, nor the musicians, not the cameraman, and least of all the director. And the last point that I just mentioned is as per my definition, the best value to have in a film. When a movie can be felt without the director, without the presence of a person governing everything that you see, only then does the whole process become absorbing. You lose the thread between the real and the illusionary.

I have noticed this in many Hindi films lately and of course, you will now definitely add things and understand why I talk of Indian films in most of my articles these days. I felt that this process started completely from Dil Chahta Hain and carried on through many films, right up to Johnny Gaddar. As soon as the director becomes invisible, the movie becomes enjoyable. That is also primarily the problem with movies like Black and to name the most recent one, The Last Lear. Obsessive, self-focused directors more often than not, mar their own movies.

But back to the song that we have on hand as of this moment, I think we were discussing Rock On!! And I still need to tell you what a wonderful picture it is. I won’t divulge the story, because that is something I never do, and no one really reads this site – so that is just a lot of hard-work for no actual purpose. But anyways, we all need to Rock On!!

What makes this movie so great within its own story line and onomatopoeic existence is the marvel of the flow. The to-and-fro screenplay is so well written that there is never a nagging thought left somewhere at the back of your mind as to what happened where. The flow is completely sanguine and comfortable. And it is not an easy story to tell. It flows at two parallel levels and it manages to focus on both, without leaving anything abrupt. That is the power of a magical story-teller. For instance, if you compare this to Benegal’s Trikaal, you will understand what I am getting at. Trikaal focuses on the retelling of a story by a man who has come back home. Therefore there is no parallel track that lies in the movie. The whole story is set in the past. Here, the attempt is different. Past events lead up to the future and a unilateral progression would make the whole feature boring and monotonous. By keeping both sides of the coin at bay, the whole system is wonderfully created.

The dialogues by Farhan Akhtar are also of top quality. They are not poetry, and that is the point. They are what we speak, what we here. No corny euphony, no stereotypical catch-lines, no slumbered rhetoric – just plain and simple speech and dialogue. I saw that in a Hindi movie after a long, long time. Brilliant!

And that is just the point that I am making. Every aspect of film making has delivered to the T. All right, everyone is going to say that Akhtar sang badly. But every heard any singer in a live performance? At least the ones who sing on stage and don’t lip-sync? If you have, you’ll know what I mean... His songs therefore give me another high before the changing face of Hindi cinema. The attention to detail is immaculate.

Obviously, it goes without saying that all the roles were performed magnificently. The characters were sketched in truism and the players played it to perfection. Farhan Akhtar was a revelation and now he will be a joy to watch both in front and behind the camera. Arjun Rampal has gone miles in these last few years. The sentimental artist is written all over his face and to his credit, he seems to have also learnt some simple guitar chords. Luke Kenny, as well all know, is a master of all trades. And he never seemed to have become a rolling stone. And Purav Kohli – man, you really are a Killer Drummer!

Finally, a rock film which does justice to the genre. Not just a hotch-potch with stupid songs all claiming to be rock songs – you know, people screaming and banging their heads... That’s metal, Rock On!! is pure and simple rock!

Rock On!!

A Hero we Deserved - The Dark Knight

We all know that this is a Batman film. And we all expected him to take to the fore and deliver one more punch at the ugly side of Gotham. And we knew that the Batman's work is never finished. If Rhaas-al-Ghul dies, someone else will rise. And how he rose. That is the story of the Dark Knight!

The movie begins with blood and gore and a typical bank heist, but they are all wearing smiling faces. The chaos spreads as the Prince of Chaos, the Joker, adds a little anarchy into the whole city. People start falling down dead, indications towards the lext victim is left and somehow the work is done. And boom! We have the Batman after him.

But what can I write about a common story? There is a superhero, there is a supervillain (the word 'super' usually don't come in these days. It's either a freak, or a vigilante). Supervillain kills people, Superhero kills Supervillain. Very good action, very cool gadgets, cool bike and car.

No, that is not what I want to talk about her. This is a common story, one that we have read in every comic book, one that we have seen in every action flick, one that we dream of being in within our imaginative world. But in this flick, there is a slight difference.

It is the Joker, the Prince of chaos. He is what we miss in each and every of the versions I just listed above. He can't be there in the comic book as he is beyond imagination, he is not what we see in every action flick, he isn't what we dream of when we imagine 'cool' stuff. He cannot be from there, for he is a character beyond common imagination. The Joker is an inspiration, the Joker is Satan, just a fallen angel.

It is as if there were no layers, a demarcating point between Heath Ledger and the mask that he was wearing. It seemed so real. It seemed so sharp, so locked. That laugh, that walk, that charisma, no one could have ever told it was Ledger behind that mask. Behind a thin coat of colour. I am sorry, I am not able to talk about anything else other than Heath Ledger. Because this happens at a point where you think you have seen everything and then something like this comes along. Your entire semblence is shattered, you can compare anymore, you cannot be subjective anymore, because you have lost your sense of the establishment, some thing that was created by you applying your rationality. Heath Ledger does that to you!

And though this is a Batman film, it is the Joker who lasts longer in your mind, not because his plans were overtly diabolic, but because he was being played by Heath Ledger, one in the category of legends. This has been, by far one of the very few times when we all hoped that the villain would not die. That he would be back in another part and torment our senses like that once again. However, the Joker lives and yet he died!

Heath Ledger will truly remain the hero that we all know him to be. He indeed is the hero that we deserved and yet we have to chase him now, forever. Because he has to run and we have to run behind him. And we will keep running behind him. Because under no circumstances can we ever catch up to him. We can never ever think about what he did. He will always remain the Joker, one who can make us laugh and shed a tear at that very moment.

Why so serious?

Everything is personal. Nothing is business. The Godfather may have said it the other way round, but Michael did make everything personal – and thereby he conducted and went forth with his business. Which brings me to what I have been trying to say in these lines above – I cannot conduct my business anymore. And yes, as you could have made out by the opening lines, the reason is personal. But even then, the word personal does entail a lot of myriad stuff that goes along with the whole package – the word personal could be attributed to a mild thought, to a rash decision, to a feeling, to an enigma, to a very harsh jolt, to a state of mind – and then again, may be the whole thing is held together by a larger process, again something personal that makes all the other aspects hostile to foreign attacks. Where do we begin?

And even if we begin, there is a question of what is ethical in this whole matter that also creeps up. A personal process is indeed every bit as the name suggests, personal. And it will remain only to the person who feels it, who has to live with it, who has to bear the brunt of it – for a period of time which, even he or she does not know about. So do I.

And now let me tell you what I have wanted to for quite some time. I have been so washed away personally that I have had to look for solace in things that drain me completely. In such a situation, passions give way and the mental faculties go away into a period of intellectual hibernation. There is an aura around me that has made me completely redundant in the field that I specialised in. And in this case, the point why I am writing to everyone is that the diminished outbreak here will only lead to substandard intellectuality – which is a fallacy that cannot be borne.

I have tried and I have tried hard, but the ability to put pen to paper has now given way to some other kind of lost disability. I have tried my level best to make ends meet, but I have failed. And in this state of mind, I cannot continue writing here anymore. It will not be justice to the movies that I write about, nor to the people who take the time to read them. And if there has ever been an iota of truth in what I have always believed in, about the sanctity of the exposed roll, I cannot take the gamble to go on any further. I surrender!

This site is closed till further notice...

Signing off,

Subhojit Sanyal

The Critical Scene in Films

After a rather long time, I came across a purely commercial picture that went on to say a lot. It went on to say a lot about the various permutations and combinations that we have drawn about films and a lot of categorizations that have compelled film makers to be more conscious of how they make their movies, rather than have their chief focus on what they make. Films made by the immortals like Fellini, Goddard, Ray – right up to Steven Spielberg, have given critics a tool to be used as a benchmark, as a touchstone to make judgment. When these critics land up to watch a film, they arrive with a kind of pre-conceived notion, where they arrive with a segmented mind – like whose will this film be – Fellini, Goddard, Ray or Spielberg? – and once they are through with the characteristic 12-15 reels, they get up from their seats and start channeling the A list against the B list and find out where they get the most amount of matches. If it hits anywhere, then the film is a sharp critique of transcendental hemorrhage and consequent blah, blah and that goes on to show a deep semiotic transference into further such rubbish … I’m sure you know what I mean!

I would personally feel insulted if someone came and told me, “Oh wonderful! Your picture reminded me of Ray’s Pather Panchali.” Like, hello, have I just made something that someone else already has. Yeah, like great, I am being linked to Satyajit Ray, holy Jesus, but crap, that’s it? He made Pather Panchali in 1951, with technology yet not being able to offer the zoom shot (the one that lay cameras offer as standard equipment today). And consequently, today I made something that was – a) Technologically inferior and b) I just made something that someone already has.

If we take the first point (a) into highlight here, this should be simple for anyone to understand. While in this category, I need to talk about the current osmosis regarding ‘remakes’ (oh my goodness, how could I even take that name) … Well, it’s not all that bad. And since I am just a writer and consequently should have no idea of what I am talking, let me refer the case to someone else. George Lukas, the maker of the evergreen Star Wars series, once had a very interesting insight into his inter-galactic escapades. He had wanted that different directors should direct the different parts of the series, so as to add the much needed perspective. Perspective is something very unique and therefore, the apparent use of it any work of art is completely brilliant. It gives a different insight into everything. I watched Don with apt attention, and let me tell you that the movie had its moments. While some departments may have faltered, and some snags left uncovered, there was no harm in seeing Don with all the latest technological up gradations and motifs. Like the original ‘red diary’ had now given way to a CD. Just like several other warrior measures were marked with similar concept upgrades. What if Farhan Akhtar had just made the movie, a kind of underworld corpus with similar links, then would the audience and critics cringed equally. No – then it would a great film maybe, to the everyday common critics, an Indian rip-off of James Bond. But when he takes the name of Chandra Barot’s Don, then we all have a problem. Even I did the same thing, though in my defense, I saw it in a bad hall where the cows go to graze and maybe everything went put for me instantaneously. But that is not the fault of the film maker but mine and therefore, I take this moment to apologize to everyone concerned with the movie. There was nothing wrong in ‘remaking’ Don, though some portions were a bit too far-fetched for anyone to like. Pointing those out will require a different time and place altogether.

But then, let me take the instance of another remake to hit the theatres recently. Yes, I sadly refer to Ram Gopal Verma Ki Aag. Now that is a travesty if there ever was any. I am not talking about his audacity to remake Sholay… My point is wholly cinematic and artistic. I still personally believe that Verma is one of the country’s best new-age directors, who provided us with master pieces like Sarkar, Bhoot and so on. But something went horribly wrong in …Aag. The whole blunder starts from the very basic facets of film making … the film stock, tacky lighting (especially the ones that were used for some sort of pseudo diffused natural light settings), a static camera, and finally, horrible performances. And mind you, these horrible performances came from the stalwarts of the Indian film industry. So, the critical question that surfaces here is not whether it stands up to Sholay, but where did the whole thing go wrong? I in my own capacity I have already pointed out some of the factors, though there is scope for improvement in many other streams – music definitely being one of them. That is the demarcation that we have to make and that is where we stand right now.
And now, I move on to the second category that I had been talking of earlier – the point of imitating someone. Critics have gone on to use words that have even been appended to regular dictionaries, globally. Words like Fellinisque and Goddardian have become term for the purpose of analysis. Therefore, when Anurag Kashyap makes No Smoking, reviews call it a Fellinisque film. Because it runs parallel to the kinds of films that Frederico Fellini used to make. But, the question remains, why? Why does Kashyap have to make something on the lines of 8½, and why do critics have to develop terms like the same? It goes through the old cycle – the word follows the action. It because critics categorize films with these terms that film makers see them as a benchmark for popular success and critical acclaim. But techniques like the jump cut can now be termed obsolete, because technology offers us much more. And critical methods employed today, have led to the dearth of originality and … perspective.

Film makers are now heavily engrossed in how they make it rather than what they make… People have stopped making movies from their heart and therefore there has been a sudden dearth in exponential ideas and motifs. With technological advantages beating down the door these days, there is no need to be Hitchcockian in method and style – it is much better to be the same in terms of your own name – as in it is better to Akhtarian in method and style, something which is far more apparent and satisfying – both for the maker and the audience.

Criticism is a very difficult subject to compromise so easily. Everything isn’t about a motive and every style does not give the same result. You can never compare 8½ to No Smoking, simply on the basis that both directors use the motif of jumbled progression and temporal mish-mash. This is not right to either film maker. Another thing that critics need to remember, is that their job is not limited to just finding flaws. It necessitates progressive thinking and a gradual focus towards achievable perfection. It is not the critic’s job to write-off anybody, as much as it is his job to explain what went wrong – and thereby hope that the next film that is made doesn’t have a red mark next to it.

Worshipping False Gods: Schindler’s List

How many times have we been found in front of a stone god? How many times have we been to Mecca to pray? How many times have we attended church on Sunday?

Many times!

However, how many times, each in these situations, do we realize the necessity for proving the validity of our wishful thinking? I am not going to go into an eternal debate questioning the existence of God, or even speak of religion. All that I am asking is can we for sure ever know whether someone is listening to what we have to say? Or more importantly, what we always hope for, will someone listening to us actually do anything about the situation that we are in? Apparently not! There is a willing suspension of disbelief and we let ourselves go out of it just so that a challenge is changed into an opportunity — and that too through some miracle, not through self-accomplishment. But that is again drifting away from what my point completely is!

But this is challenging! Because what I am about to say, has both parts to it in equal density. Not only will I need to talk about a man who heard when he was called out to, but the people had to also pitch in to get what he delivered. That is where the crux of the whole argument lies. And before I go into my actual argument, let me first tell all my readers to realize and comprehend that what I am going to talk about is a true incident!

And then, came the movie. The man, Oskar Schindler was finally brought into the light by a Jew, Steven Spielberg. At times I do not know which is greater—the man or the movie. But then again, I rationalise and come to the conclusion that perhaps it is the man, who gave the director the impetus and the module to make something as grand as this. This is one of the best movies made by Spielberg and comprehensively then, comes into the category of one of the finest outputs of the cinematic medium ever composed globally.

The picture begins right in the eye of the storm. The Germans are still capturing and killing Jews by the millions—forcing them to concentrate in freshly developed Ghettos, and then after the mathematics and statistics are worked out, making them come face to face with a bullet. That is the crux of World War II and that is where Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) walks in.

He is just a businessman, a member of the Nazi Party, who intends producing material that can be used by the German Army. As he points out to his accountant (Ben Kingsley), he would only be concerned with the show of his factory, what we today mark as PR and Marketing. Therefore we see him at German parties, jostling with the bigwigs of the Army and getting them drunk enough to approve of his estimate and provide him with all the orders.

But he doesn’t stop there. The initial capital for his company is floated by the Jews. After all, they knew that they were going to die. So rather they invest their money and get something back for it, “which they could use in the black market for some use.” A sharp business move yet! But his affair with the Jews does not stop there. He needs workers and there is a sharp paucity of the same. There were hoards of Jews being dug out from all corners of the country and marred in idleness. So he gets most of them approved as essential workers and begins production. An even sharper business move!

Now however, the word is out that no one dies at Schindler’s factory. And there are also these Jews working for him, who are alive and have not faced the bullet primarily because they are “Essential Workers”. Therefore, they start thinking and believing that he is God. He comes to them as a Messiah and changes their destiny. Every time one of his Jews die due to German arrogance, he rakes up the whole German Army and SS think-tank and makes a issue out of it—therefore ‘Schindler’s List’ is dealt with somewhat precariously.

But as always there are always moments that change you completely. Gone riding in the hills, Schindler witnesses the infamous liquidation of the ghettos from a bird’s eye-view and is shaken forever. This is where the movie goes a step over the man, when in a black and white frame, Spielberg brings forth a little girl in scarlet, walking by the stricken people, running away from something that she cannot understand. It is innocence there on the road, a child who cannot find a reason or a cause for whatever was happening there. And yet she walks, jumbles and runs. And then she goes into an empty room, and hides under a bed—to save herself. And as she pulls her head in, she changes from red to black and white. Innocence murdered!

And it is just not the audience that is pulled in by that—Oskar Schindler too can’t see anymore. His eyes shake in horror as he sees his people being killed, a whole religion being wiped out from the surface of the earth, a genocide! And then, as he sits grappling with what he saw, a woman comes in, a Jew, and asks him to take her mother and father into his factory, as it is believed that “no one here ever dies. You are God, Mr. Schindler!”

It is rather difficult to carry this weight on your shoulders and even Schindler is rattled to his very core. He talks to his accountant about it and is furious as people consider him to be a divine form. He is just human! But then he comes to terms with the faith that these people have on him. He tells Stern that he has made a lot of money and now he wants to use it to save the Jews. He bribes officials and asks them to lend him the Jews, so that he can start an armament factory for the German Army. He spends every penny in running a non-productive factory and bribing officials—right till the point where Stern comes to him and asks, “Do you have some money stored somewhere which I do not know of?”

And then the German Army gives in to the Allies. Schindler gathers his workers and tells them that he shall have to flee because the Allies wouldn’t be too fond of a man producing guns for the Germans. As a token of farewell, the Jews make him a gold ring and hand it to him along with the letter that, would explain things in the event of his being captured. And then we see Spielberg and Neeson take over. Schindler breaks down before his people. He sees the gold ring and tells Stern that if he knew he has that much gold with him, gold enough to make a thin ring, he would have sold it to save more Jews. He tries to reason as to why he had maintained his car, when he could have sold it and again, saved more Jews. He collapses in Stern’s arms, who tries to reassure him that he did all he possibly could. But there is no consoling Oskar Schindler. And then the greatest spectacle in cinematic history grips the scene. All his workers, each and every one of them, cling on to him and crumble with him. There saviour now had to flee while they were free. The man who staked everything was the one who was now facing the axe. Personally, I don’t think I have ever cried that much for anything—celluloid or otherwise! That scene alone was worth the price of the ticket, if not much more!

And well after the movie was over, you sit and grapple with whatever you have just seen. And if you could just feel it the way I did, all you do is sit and ask yourself, “Did this really happen? Could a man do this? Could he stake everything that he ever possessed just to save people that he had no connection with? Why, this man is God!”

It is definitely a brush with the divine. Even though we were not of that age, of that period, just seeing the movie and learning about it from third difference is enough to shatter you. With stunning visuals and breathtaking musical support, it gives the impetus that we all need to understand. Worship your Gods by all means, but do pass a thought for someone who lived and acted in the way we want things to be! Spare a thought for a man who never liked to be called God, but yet did more than what we get through divine ordeals. Then perhaps you can realise that to be human is to be divine. That we all have the power in us to do something for others... And when man takes care of man, maybe we can all sail into the sunset, free and strong.

Why is it Cinema and me, and where do we go from here...

Who would not want to dance with Priety Zinta? Or rather not drive all those Aston Martins like James Bond? Fly through crowded cities like Superman? Or even pull off weird motor cycle stunts like the Dhoom movies?
This is what had always appealed to me about movies. There was a sense of complete dislocation from our grim realities and a drive into what we always dreamt of—something that we hoped we could do, yet always knew that it was just as distant as perhaps finding the pot of gold at the edge of the rainbow. Movies, as I grew up watching, were all pot boilers for me—the motif of a willing suspension of disbelief always took a grip over me and I would forget myself in the 14 or 16 reels that a normal Yashraj picture would have.
Such was my love and perhaps even addiction for the unreal, for the visit to fantasy land, that I even started bunking school to go and watch my delusory dramas. And at that time, fortunately for me, there were no plexes and this was happening in Kolkata. I shall never forget the joy of watching movies in single-screen theatres, not so much for the inexpensive tickets which were more suited to a schoolboy’s thin wallet, but because of the warmth that you shared with your fellow audience. That time in Border, when we were all getting equally frustrated watching our men die because our planes could not take off in the night—I heard the man next to me get off his chair and yell at Jackie Shroff of the IAF, “Come on, move, you son of a b****!” Or that time in Mission Kashmir, when Sanjay Dutt bared his fangs at the IAS officer, bridging the communal divide with powerful rhetoric; the whole hall would break into peals of contagious applause and thereby a state of collective consciousness somehow got fatally instilled into my brain map.
And then there was a gradual shift. With time there came a greater exposure. Not so much for the shift in movie making, but in the cosmos of DVD players and their resultant DVDs. With the market coming into some stability, a period of plenty was initiated and thereby, directors like Griffith, Fellini, Truffaut, Goddard and many more to mention here, sprung up. The influence also came in more powerfully from my own socio-cultural milieu, in the form of the movies of Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen and Ritwik Ghatak. Obviously, with the dearth of contemporary progressive concepts, a reflective outlook become almost spontaneous with those movies—fighting with the protagonist in Ray’s Pratidwandi (The Adversary), or trying to understand the camera of the ‘other’ through Ritwik Ghatak’s brilliance. And thereby was a great awakening in me—the final comprehension of the medium, a means of expression with more that the uni-dimensional constraints of most art forms. Cinema offered to me a whole process, perhaps the closest imitation of reality, with space for graphic breaks and parallel paths for self-realisation. This was where I crossed the Rubicon.

And that is where I realized the importance of the structure. Filmmakers are not mere entertainers as they are made out to be worldwide. There is much more to them. I read in one of Satyajit Ray’s articles, named ‘The Confronting Question’, his views on the troubles of film making—where he raised a very pertinent point.

“… one hold’s one’s breath on location in fear of a crowd emerging out of the blue… come to watch the film (how can shooting ever be work?)…”

It is from this mentality that one has to break free. It is from this mentality that the approach to film making has to be re-visualized. Making a movie isn’t all fun and games as it is made out to be. Ray goes on his article,

“… No wonder film makers are so prone to heart diseases…”

It is true that most of the grey hairs come with the first film of a director.
There is a whole new element that has to be taken into focus when dealing with film making. If you go through Fellini’s 8½, it may at first seem to be a hotch-potch. It may seem to have no unified progression and that itself can be very nerve racking for most audiences, especially the one we have in India. But within this otherwise translucent zig-zagging, comes a more creative propaganda—one which describes a film maker’s problem of choice, of decision, of breaking the shackles and finding a new path. This was believed to be Fellini’s problem at the time of making this movie and therefore the odd name—8½ (standing for 8 features and one short film)—a seemingly benevolent title if one sees the kind of rigmarole it had to go through. Therefore, it proves that to a filmmaker, nothing is as simple as it seems.
And this was an example of the absurd genre of film making. Let us get to the more political ones or the ones with revolutionary ideals enmeshed in them. And I will not run Griffith’s Birth of a Nation to get to my point. I’ll map the chart back home, through Rakyesh Omprakash Mehra’s Rang De Basanti and Rajkumar Hirani’s Lage Raho Munnabhai. Mehra uses five disillusioned youths to break through a corrupt bureaucracy and become martyrs. While this may assume the shape of crass melodrama to the yet disillusioned people, the fact remains that there was a message—a plea for change and the director believed that the change would come in through the youth, a band of citizens yet holding on to the ideals of Utopia and a certain idealism yet not marred by corruption and dubious methodology. For the purpose of this thesis, it is necessary to keep in mind that the director provides these few boys and girls, the tool of, not violence in the exact sense of the term, but rather the offensive. The youth kill to obtain freedom. And then on the other hand, we have Rajkumar Hirani’s Lage Raho Munnabhai, where the director returns to Gandhian methods of struggle. Non-violence and flowers become tools of self-assertiveness and action. But the end result is common—the pursuit of freedom, a pursuit of Utopia. Mark that these films released with a difference of some months and both attained a great level of popular success and critical acclaim. Within the Indian tradition, both these films contained songs, dances and the other paraphernalia that go with the usual conventional films. But where they marked their difference from the usual, was in the form of rationality and precision. Everything had a purpose (even the completely purposeless youth of Rang De Basanti had a purpose). The films banked heavily on content and where they marked the real difference, was that they contained their package with a lot of style. This is where the future of Indian Cinema has to be.
Even though we always harp about the lack of thought in Indian Cinema, we also acknowledge the fact that Indian Cinema has produced some of the sharpest intellectual brains in the whole world. From Shyam Benegal’s inquisitive Ankur, to Govind Nehalani’s hard-hitting Ardhya Satta, Indian films also have a progressive parallel tract. However, the reason that can be chiefly attributed to the box-office doom of these films (not all, but for the majority of them), is the lack of style. I am not stating that these films didn’t have style—but what I am trying to emphasize is that style in India films have to based on the Hollywood action flicks (Mission Impossible Series, Bourne Trilogy, Michael Clayton, the Matrix Trilogy, and so on…). We cannot try and bring in style elements from French New Wave films, or from the Italian Neo-Realists as factors like the Jump Cut and Jumbled Progression go way beyond the simple comprehension skills of the Indian audience. Proof—a classic Fellinisque film like No Smoking sunk without a trace in the recent past, casting doomsday for the director. We are not ready!
And see the effect the other movies have created—like Rang De Basanti and Lage Raho Munnabhai—a total case of mass hysteria, which has severely altered the course of Indian history. There have been major upheavals in the democratic and judiciary circuits, these films have made justice possible for millions of victims of Indian corruption and power-politics. With directors like Omprakash Mehra and Rajkumar Hirani, the process of change has begun. Indian films are finally doing what cinema tends to do—create the real out of the unreal. For Indian Cinema, the time is now!

Now for the most difficult awards .... This is my selection for the best films and performances of the year. Following is a list of the nominees and the final winners are indicated in italics. Feel free to comment and discuss about the final winners:

Best Film
Taare Zameen Par
Chak De! India
Johnny Gaddar
No Smoking
Manorama Six Feet Under

Best Director
Aamir Khan — Taare Zameen Par
Shimit Amin — Chak De ! India
Sriram Raghavan — Johnny Gaddar
Anurag Kashyap — No Smoking
Sagar Bellary — Bheja Fry

Best Actor
Shahrukh Khan — Chak De! India
Darsheel Safary — Taare Zameen Par
Vinay Pathak — Bheja Fry
Neil Nitin Mukesh — Johnny Gaddar
Abhay Deol — Manorama Six Feet Under

Best Actress
Tabu — Cheeni Kum
Kareena Kapoor — Jab We Met
Vidya Balan — Bhool Bhoolaiya
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan — Guru
Gul Panang — Manorama Six Feet Under

Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Male)
Vinay Pathak — Aaja Nachle
Vinay Pathak — Manorama Six Feet Under
Rajat Kapoor — Bheja Fry
Ranvir Shourey — Aaja Nachle
Akshaye Khanna — Aaja Nachle

Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Female)
Konkona Sen Sharma — Life in a Metro
Konkona Sen Sharma — Aaja Nachle
Konkona Sen Sharma — Laaga Chunari Main Daag
Rani Mukherji — Saawariya
Raima Sen — Manorama Six Feet Under

Best Music
A R Rahman — Guru
Illayaraja — Cheeni Kum
Pritam — Life in a Metro
Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy — Taare Zameen Par
Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy — Johnny Gaddar

Best Cinematography
Muraleedharan CK — Johnny Gaddar
Arvind Kannabiran — Manorama Six Feet Under
Sudeep Chatterjee — Chak De! India
M. Sethuraaman — Taare Zameen Par
P.C. Sreeram — Cheeni Kum

Best Editing
Jabeen Merchant — Manorama Six Feet Under
Pooja Ladha Surti — Johnny Gaddar
Suresh Pai — Bheja Fry
Amitabh Shukla — Chak De! India
Chandan Arora — Cheeni Kum

Best Story
Sriram Raghavan — Johnny Gaddar
Amol Gupte — Taare Zameen Par
Jaideep Sahni — Chak De! India
Navdeep Singh — Manorama Six Feet Under
Sagar Bellary — Bheja Fry

No, smoking is a personal wish – The No Smoking review

“I am never going to quit smoking. Only those people quit, who cannot hold on to anything…”

Everything about this movie is rather Kafkaesque. First you have the protagonist named K, (JUST K), reminiscent of Franz Kafka’s eternal fate struck hero, and then you have flashes from the author’s The Trial, with people looking all over K, silent, yet their eyes reveal the fate of the character, something that K does not know already.

And what is his only problem in the whole equation? The only reason that he has to roam the streets of Mumbai as a culprit, the only reason why he has to leave a restaurant during dinner time with all his friends and family, is that of his addiction to cigarettes. He is treated like a stranger in a congregation of men, a social outcast.

And though, admittedly, K is a bit of an ass, as one might put it, the result of his actions are also made according to some very rash decisions regarding him. For instance, while he is in the lift with the old woman and she asks him to stop smoking, K stops the lift and asks her to take the stairs. Now that may seem to be a rather devilish attitude, but the crux of the story lies in the fact that it is always the smoker who is asked to leave from a gathering. If there is a recommendation to make non-smoking chambers and areas, where do the smokers go? Should there also not be a kind of place demarcated for their use? Somewhere, where they do not have to feel like criminals?

And the introduction of the Prayogshala, run by his Holiness, Baba Shri Shri Bangali, Sealdah wale, reminds us again of Kafka’s dilemma, the Nazi party. Like K rightly remarks downstairs, (yes, that’s where his holiness holds his discourses, under the portals of the earth’s limits, very close to the core of the earth – where surprisingly, a whole civilization exists) that how would they help him get rid of his cigarette smoking habit, by placing a gun on his head? While Babaji may ward off that with a sinister laugh, the fact remains that soon after he does show him a picture of Hitler and speaks of what a great friend he was at once. And then the entire George Orwell 1984 “Big Brother” syndrome is displayed. Every action that he has ever committed is recorded by the rehabilitation center. There is a very surrealistic setting created deep down in the gutters of the earth. And K feels the brunt of it. The consequences of smoking are listed to him –

1) The first cigarette that he smokes will find his brother in a room full of smoke, a cumulative smoke capacity of all that K has ever smoked till today – and his brother is known to have only one lung.
2) The second cigarette that he smokes will have two of his fingers chopped.
3) The third cigarette that he smokes will actually kill his wife.
4) The fourth will kill his mother.
5) And the fifth will kill his soul.

Why would anyone touch another cigarette?

But K does. The Kafkaesque hero is not without a cause. He has the right to smoke, as much right as someone has to refuse a smoke. Another surrealistic situation creeps up, wherein K tries to get one ahead of the holy man. He buys tickets of airlines moving away from Mumbai. And from there he chooses any one. Once he lands at his chosen destination, he has someone buy him all the tickets moving away from that place – from where he chooses another ticket and so on. This way, if even he doesn’t know where he is going, how will Baba Bangali?

But the dream still continues. He gets caught in some remote part of Africa, trying to puff away. And he returns, only to find that his brother has indeed been pushed through what was promised. What else can he do now? He has to give up … And yet the story continues!

No Smoking is just not a Kafkaesque movie, but it also is a Fellinisque movie. It uses the same tools of absurdity and meaninglessness, to point out a fact that is crucial and of utmost importance—like the protagonist (the Kafka tool), the director slips from reality to the imaginary within seconds and frames, making it hard to realize the setting of the situation. Does the whole event happen in a dream, or does K actually go through all the afflictions? No one really can be absolutely certain about the fact, not even K.

What makes No Smoking a delight to watch is the treatment of the film and the message that it gives out—smoking is a person’s personal wish and it should be given in with that in mind. When a person starts to smoke, he does it fully aware of the fact that it WILL harm his health and after that the question of policing does not arise. If people want to ban smoking in public places, they also have to reserve corners for smokers to congregate! Nicotine is not a parallel for narcotics and it should therefore not be treated as a kind of social evil. And yet, the point never was about smoking—it was about a person’s inner desire, his personal wish!