dial-m-for-movies

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Oppenheimer [2023] – A Noncontextual Analysis

Dreams and Desire of an Artist, The Nation, Loyalty, Politics, and the Intensifying Philosophy

The overwhelming or shall I say, overpowering hype across social media and the circle of friends, a bunch of cinephiles coercing each other to go for the film irrespective of the rave reviews that it has been receiving on the wide and wild Internet, and my inner conflict and skepticism for the (recent) films a’ la Dunkirk (2017) and Tenet (2020) by Christopher Nolan, who once was my favorite filmmaker – everything made up for my eternal denial to watch this merely out of peer pressure, if not for the visceral moment when one of my close friends asked me to book the tickets, with an impulse of a rather great effect, and needless to say, the way I fell in love with the film and the cinema form of art, proved the impulse all the more worthwhile and gratifying.

Having conversed with a couple of old friends about the film, I, for one, knew that it is not going to be a theatrical spectacle comparable to the likes of those created by the director himself in the past. Moreover, I also knew that the film has more words than visuals – none of these bothered me. The only thing that was a matter of worry was the director’s style of storytelling with which I have been in a dynamic love-hate relationship. While I love his Following (1998), most of his films with nonlinear storytelling have failed to impress me, not just because of the effort it demands to comprehend the complex timeline but also because the effort never led to fruition in my case, especially when I tried too hard to make a sense of the equilibrium the filmmaker achieves by playing between the time and space.

The name of the game doesn’t change much in the case of Oppenheimer, but what makes it impressive is that the storyteller (and not just an ambitious celebrity filmmaker) manages to evoke emotions with admirable aplomb and conviction. While the contextual analysis of the film might warrant me to dig into the facts and the impact the horrid event in the history had on almost two hundred thousand people of Japan, I would rather like avoid the self-evidential narrative of the film and delve into the ways the filmmaker has fashioned the central character, depicting a diverse range of motives and narrative threads, not to make him a hero but a grey protagonist whose internal trials and battles supersede the external trial he faced to prove his loyalty for his nation, if there was anything of that sort intended by him in the real life.

Dreams and Desire of an Artist

Despite the flaws in his personality and pursuits, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer was a technical artist, which is to say that he was a scientist with the eternal thirst, anxiety, doubts, and restlessness of an artist, and that is well-portrayed in the initial scenes of the film in which we see the protagonist as a troubled, homesick human being incessantly crippled by his own dreams, and the moment of the dream overriding his sleep is represented by a series of confounding visuals wherein he envisions his it as nothing short of a nightmare for a mind of an ordinary kind. The scene gives its audience a peek into the catastrophic mind of their perpetually perturbed hero. And this envisioning of the dream set the conviction in the life physicist, who wants to see his vision come afore as a reality. Having a vision as an artist and having it on the canvas or reality are two different things, but when the artist pursues the former to achieve the latter, he can become the bazooka of the bandits, the guns of the goons, the maverick of the mafia, and a perennial incendiary for the world, the carrier of the fire within, which he hauls with the armor of an undying fidelity towards his ultimate goal, which becomes his identity.  

The narrative, which is more often than not sidelined by the other aspects the filmmaker wanted to explore, becomes the most indispensable part of the film, a foreground for the future events, a foundation for the plot points, and the device that brings in other narrative threads into the picture.

In the due course, despite all other aspects of the narrative taking precedence over the dreams of the artist and the uncontrollable aspiration of the character, this part puts him in steadfast for what he would “achieve” – irrespective of its moral merit or lack thereof – in the future.

The Nation, Loyalty, Politics

Americans, traditionally, love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle.

- General George S. Patton, Patton (1970)

While the above quote does not apply to Dr. Oppenheimer, because the violence wasn’t the objective of the man who made the atom bomb a reality – a claim that he makes in the film, or rather tries too hard to, which only gets defeated by his conviction discussed in the final part of this article, the quote has a contextual significance when the well-known war-driven American patriotism and the communist philosophies collide to put forth the protagonist in the question about the loyalty towards his country. While this narrative makes up for the most part of the film, Christopher Nolan uses it as a mere plot device to express the opinions on the character through a demanding yet gratifying exchange of the dialogues. In the American custom, the aversion from war and battle in general, is looked down upon from a political perspective, and it’s evident in a scene wherein Oppenheimer meets the States’ President, who calls him crybaby.

Moreover, early on in the film, the character is interrogated about his thoughts about the States to which his response is warm and favorable towards the officials and the country. However, Oppenheimer’s thoughts on the country that he calls his, the warmth he feels in America, his close association with the nation’s Army and the contribution in bringing the World War to a closure, all in the garb bringing peace and neutrality for the posterity, doesn’t resolve to his heroism and loyalty, especially because Christopher Nolan uses this on-the-face narrative segment, which occupies the most part of the script, as a deceptive device to hide what’s substantial – the aspirations of this technical artist and the philosophy that stirred him to usher his visions towards making him an instrument of massive destruction.

Philosophy of Violence

In mainstream Hollywood, violence is often associated with either a crime of passion a’ la Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948), Strangers on a Train (1951), Dial M for Murder (1954), and Frenzy (1972) to name a few, or a planned act of violence rooted in a lingering emotion like vengeance, as in Unforgiven (1992). Most of the times, the violence is a meager device of entertainment, as you would quintessentially witness in Tarantino and Scorsese films. It would be safe to say that tangible forms of violence have been a part of cinema, and they add cinematic value to the story.

However, in Oppenheimer, you don’t get to see the tangible form of violence. Even if there is violence depicted by the vivid visuals of a detonated bomb, you get to see the vague images and not hear a sound – a sequence brilliantly staged by Christopher Nolan to once again hide what happens in the world outside the mind of the protagonist and rather emphasis the way he sees the world after having committed an act that brought mass destruction and tragedy in Japan. The exploration of human consciousness through violence and the disguise of the political scenario in the country are the conflicting threads that cross their path as mere strangers, oblivious of each other’s existence.

In what could have been a vital sequence in the film – inappropriately mingled with sexual intercourse and is now receiving its share of flak from the audience and censor board – we get to learn the philosophy of Oppenheimer and the roots that have stoked an insatiable fire in his curious mind. The quote from Bhagwad Geeta, “I am become Death, the destroyer of (both the) worlds,” founds a philosophical ground for the film, which justifies – but not in moral terms – the core conviction of the protagonist and how he uses the philosophy to see his dream come true. The moment when an artist combines a deep philosophy with what he wants to achieve, the internal conflicts and disparagement from the external worlds are exterminated from the mind, and become a botheration only after he establishes his motives. 

While Christopher Nolan shows the protagonist’s outer struggle with the world that questions his loyalty to the country, his inner fight has his soul laid bare in front of the audience, and this is done not to gain sympathy for the protagonist or make him emerge as a hero. However, the filmmaker achieves this with a conviction to confound his audience and provoke thoughts only as conflicting as those in the mind of the hero, if only we can call him by that title. This beguiling act of perplexing the audience, not with the nonlinear storytelling the director is famous for – which is done right in bits and pieces to juxtapose the present, past, and the future in a historical context – but by imbibing a moral conundrum of no ordinary kind, happens to be the filmmaker’s artistic triumph.

To conclude, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer will be remembered for the vision and wounds he gave to the world, but Oppenheimer (2023) will be remembered for the consternation, conflict, and most importantly, the emotions it manages to stir, irrespective of where you see it from, for it’s neither a theatrical essential nor an OTT dispensable.

It is what it is – a moving piece of cinema, a story told with guts and gusto in equal measures.

#oppenheimer #oppenheimer review #oppenheimer movie

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Indian Pop Music's Coming of Age

I think Lucky Ali's O Sanam makes a coming-of-age story of Indian music in general and not just that on the pop charts. The music in the 90s observed catchiness and melody as the key elements while the likes of A R Rahman always sounded to be from a different league of their own. They gave music for films and worked with limited directors. On the other hand, Anu Malik was at the peak of his career and was churning out chartbusters, while Nadeem Sravan was spoiling the algorithm of our vocal cords. Jatin-Lalit was always the sound of our childhood.

In the late 90s, we could observe the emergence of Sonu Nigam and Shaan who came up with their pop songs and then there was a Bali Brahmbhatt and the Aryans who added charm to the music of the 90s.

Most of these songs were either made for the movies or were truly pop in their archetype. There was not much influence of country or reggae from the west. It was more like India's own pop music - easy listening they would say or adult music as some musicophiles would like to call it.

However, it was Lucky Ali's that had inspiration from different genres like country, reggae, folk, and blues, and remained unusable for the films because of the varied themes and the style of storytelling in the song - it was bohemian if I may call it so. The use of guitar, the disarming vocals, and the vivid filming of the music videos were some aspects that made it sound a bit different. But it's only after that we started observing Indian pop music to be perpetually trying something different, and over the years, the music has transcended to the likes of Rahgir, who also intends to tell stories - some innocent and some sad, albeit with the palpable influence of the Indian pop music's coming of age, that was hitherto set by Lucky Ali and the likes.

https://youtu.be/dWqb-WqbGh8

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Mukkabaaz and Gully Boy – A Combined Review

Disclaimer: This article is for the people who have already seen both the films. It’s an analysis of the stories and not a review per se. 

Before getting into the intricate details of both the films and why I chose to write a combined review, I would want to dig into their timelines and how their timely release resonated with me in my life. Mukkabaaz was released in January 2018, while Gully Boy had hit the silver screen a year later, i.e., February 2019. In January 2018, I had just started my journey as a full-time writer with some talent and no knowledge and network, while in February 2019, I had landed up my next job – a position that would play a huge role in changing my fortunes (Apna Time Aaega, you hear?). Needless to say, in 2018, I felt that all the forces of nature stood against me in my journey as a writer, and in 2019, I started feeling that I am getting into the grooves. Therefore, I could relate to both the films at the time of their release, and they became special to me. 

However, my personal journey with both the films is not the reason I am writing a combined review, but what inspires me to write this review is that both the stories offer an oppositional reading to each other while also being a mirror image of each other in all the aspects – to start with, both the films cater the stories of lower-middle-class people with the faintest chance of achieving anything in life. While Gully Boy offers a ray of hope to the dreams of the underdog artists, Mukkabaaz butchers those dreams with a formidable knife of ground-level politics (literally and figuratively), the caste system of India, the bureaucracy in the Indian government jobs, and of course, a tangential narrative of vengeance that does not surpass the portrayal of the other aspects forementioned.

In Gully Boy, we see an underdog rapper Murad, who eventually rises to fame through sincere and honest hard work. 

On the other hand, Mukkabaaz shows us a promising champion Shravan Singh, who has to lose all his battles and is beaten to submission under the juggernaut of a flamboyant ex-boxer (sorry, a Brahmin ex-boxer), who walks that extra mile to destroy the career of who seems like an eventual star in the boxing ring, or in other words, Uttar Pradesh ka Mike Tyson as the protagonist will proclaim with sheer conviction and passion (read fashion).

Both the protagonists have a very similar background in terms of their strata in the society, but what separates them is their journey to a perennial failure or eternal fame, and what unites them is the raw talent that both of them are blessed with and have nurtured over the years.

Akin to Shravan Kumar of Mukkabaaz, Murad of Gully Boy has a romantic interest, albeit without a narrative-shifting conflict. It is also a coincidence that Murad’s girlfriend is outspoken to the level of rudeness, while the female protagonist of Mukkabaaz cannot speak, although both of them share a similar interest of being a free soul that intermittently experiences bouts of rather entertaining anger.

Shravan and Murad have very distinctive jobs that are equally boring and most importantly, hopeless. However, in Gully Boy, you see Murad experiencing a moment of Eureka that makes him abandon his job and go on to chase his goal of becoming a rap sensation, and this makes the film a warm fantasy of hope for the (contrived) realization of dreams. On the other hand, Shravan continuously struggles against the system. Here, I would digress a bit. There is a scene in Mukkabaaz wherein Shravan’s boss tells him that once upon a time, his forefathers used to work in his house, but the time has changed. This, what seems like a running commentary on the reservation system and the perpetuated politics in the government jobs, can also be interpreted as an empathetic note to a generation that is paying the price for the atrocities committed by the forefathers.

While Shravan Kumar suffers in every way due to his caste being inferior to the Brahmin ex-boxer and superior to the presumably Dalit boss, who has now achieved success through education. On the other hand, we do not see Murad suffering from a crisis due to his religion or him being a minority in India. But we see him suffer due to his financial position so much so that he ends up writing a song named Doorie, which is an odd to the modern times of visionary development that has been turning a blind eye on the crippling poverty in the country.

The supporting characters are also polar opposite in both the films – Shravan’s friend depicts the typical lower-middle-class guy, who likes to play it safe, while the iconic Moin is a go-getter who turns out to be a savior to Murad and also plays a key role in his journey to success.

The characters who coach both the protagonists are very distinctive personalities. 

While MC Sher is a proven rapper who backs these underground artists who are looking for that one single opportunity in life.

Sanjay Kumar from Mukkabaaz is a victim of the caste system – Harijan and more importantly, too good at his job and therefore, forced to failure by the system.

Amid these contrasting characters and narrative threads, what separates Mukkabaaz and Gully Boy are the very different philosophies. While Mukkabaaz teaches you to fold your hands in front of the system to achieve sustainable success, Gully Boy provokes you to be a rebel, so much so that the means through which Murad manages to live and ultimately rise to fame are also criminal and anti-social, even though it is arguable that the filmmaker wanted to show glimpses of desperation in the slums of Dharavi.

This is to say that Mukkabaaz tries to condition or convince its audience to live life like a loser (and that will make you an ultimate winner in the long run), but it also ushers the way to success that is real and safer, especially in a century-old system, which will stand against you.

In that case, Gully Boy sermonizes the world-wide popular self-help quotes (You Can Win) to an extent that not only makes it become unrealistic but also an urban fantasy of dreams - an effect that catapults with the film's iconic song “Apna Time Aaega”. 

Mukkabaaz unravels the loopholes of the system, while Gully Boy asks you to take the responsibility yourself and almost says that you are the only one who can stand against your dreams. This is exactly where Mukkabaaz gets closer to portraying a real society of moral violence, and Gully Boy becomes just another underdog story (though a very good one) that is made to inspire masses.

And to say it, a lot of things separate the journey of both the filmmakers – Anurag Kashyap – an underdog storyteller caught in the tinsel town of mediocrity and a perpetual conundrum of cinema as entertainment and art. And then we have Zoya Akhtar, who is blessed with a flamboyant background and of course, the enviable production value that comes with it. While Anurag Kashyap is yet to see real success with money and awards - the one he actually deserves, Zoya’s Gully Boy experienced the fortune of being a nominee in the Oscars.

On that note, here’s what I want tell Anurag Kashyap with a rather sardonic smile –

“Apne talent ka pramaan-patra leke society me Jhanda gaadne nikle ho?

Daant chiyaar ka time bhool jaaoge.

Pehle sahi vyatitva ke samaksha daant niporna seekho.

Zyada important hai ki tum kisko jaante ho, kisko pehchaante ho.

Kaun tumko jaanta hai, kaun tumko manta hai.”

<wink wink>

#mukkabaaz #gully boy

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Dil Bechara - Tumultuous Thoughts after Watching the Film

It's always a bit discomforting and heart-rending to watch a film that features a deceased star because we tend to dig more into the death and when the person dies in the film, we tend to associate biographical connotations. We have seen that happening with legends like Guru Dutt and more so when his last incomplete movie was titled "Bahaarein Phir Bhi Aayengi..." or "The Show Must Go On."

What's different in the case of "Dil Bechara" is that we make biographical connotations, not because of the character's death in the film but the way he lives. 

Emanuel Rajkumar Junior, the Bollywood counterpart of The Fault In Our Stars' Augustus Waters is a very similar character, but with more energy, more charm, and more life - Just the way Sushant Singh Rajput was, and we feel that throughout the runtime. 

As the film progresses, the character becomes more special to us. We grow affectionate towards him. There is a sense of attachment that we feel with the character - his mannerism, his way of smiling, his dry humor, his perpetually funny demeanor, and his irritating and interminable laugh on his own jokes - everything becomes a part of our journey of viewing this film, and we tend to accept him the way he is - just like his lover Kizie does. Inevitably, we too fall in love with him for his many qualities. 

Over the course of around 1 hour and 40 minutes, we get to know him more and find him a selflessly loving person and a great human being - some qualities that were associated with the star after his shocking demise by suicide. 

Talking of suicide, ironically, the character, Manny from "Dil Bechara" is quite opposite to anyone who can have thoughts of suicide. On the contrary, he is someone who wants to live forever and cherish life. He wants more of himself. 

In a scene, we see him going to the cinema hall all alone to watch a Rajni film despite being at the danger of collapsing in the theatre. He calls Kizie - his girlfriend to come and pick him up as his condition deteriorates. When asked why did he take such a risky step to come and watch a film despite his deteriorating condition; he would say, he wanted to do something for himself without having to need the help from others, and then we see him breaking down in an agonizing sob, which just leaves us in tears - an indelible moment in the film which portrays Sushant's impeccable forte as an actor, and we so wish it was acknowledged by people before his demise, but let's just say that his art would remain immortal. 

The word immortality reminds me of "The Fault in Our Stars" in which the character, Augustus Waters, is asked about his biggest fear to which he replies "Oblivion", and this particular word that comes from the different world of cinema that Hollywood is has a biographical effect to Sushant. 

To a star, the biggest fear has to be the fear of oblivion. More importantly, not gaining immortality. Sushant has to be a star who saw success up close and also a downfall which was just way behind the curtains that nobody would notice. After 7 successful years in Bollywood preceded by a massively impressive stint on the small screen, the fear of oblivion can be dreary and consuming. The feeling can engulf the artist in clinical depression. It can break the artist from inside. It can lead to a complete mental breakdown. It can entrap the artist in an insurmountable dungeon of despair. It can make the artist embark on the journey of self-destruction disguised as a psychological reflex to the foreboding downfall. 

Regardless of what made him take such a drastic step, how I wish mental health didn't impact him to that extent. 

How I wish he lived more.

How I wish we could see more of him. 

How I wish he could live more to fulfill his dreams and aspirations, which would continue to inspire us. 

How I wish he could be the reason for more smiles. 

How I wish he could be the reason of happiness to his family forever just the way he is to Kizie in the film. 

How I wish he could live more and bring more life to people through his lively personality and deadly performances. 

How I wish he could just be and do nothing but just be...

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Sarcasm is nothing but optimism disguised as bitter humor.

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Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd - Appreciation

“The world’s very own soliloquy.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXdNnw99-Ic

While listening to this song by Pink Floyd today, I recollect the memories of hearing it for the first time, back in 2014. I was working at a construction site back then, quite unhappy and disgruntled with my life with a heart pensively weeping over the past that was lost in the worries of the future and an eye on the future seeking solace in the fact that someday, a corner of mind will find the peace of the past that had remained unfelt back then.

The song, despite all the abstract context associated with it, had a profound effect on my psyche and inevitably, I started developing a longing towards introspection – the art of overthinking glorified by the elite strata of society and interpretation – the apophenic art of the intelligentsia much cherished by the art-lovers of the times. I think this must be the first English song that I dug deeper into, but never really wrote a tribute for.

Many people associate this song as a verse written in the fond memories of the British rock band’s pioneering musician, Syd Barret who suffered from the artistic alienation in his career, while on the other hand, there is a fraction of the fan-base that would relate the lyrics with a lost loved one or a lover lost to the circumstances of life. Invariably, the words, how I wish you were here, certainly warrant for these interpretations.

However, what seemed to me like a song written in the memories of one’s own self – the innocent self that was once blessed with a heart that feels and a soul that emotes bazillion of feelings, now entrapped in the pursuit of emotional security and worldly manipulation, has now turned out to be “the world’s very own soliloquy” as it not only portrays an individual’s (Roger Waters) longing to restore his past self, but also the world’s very own heart-rending transformation from being a free soul to the one caged in the bounds of limited dreams and unlimited limitations only left to suffer and sulk over the choices that has to be made – choices that are not really “choices” in the sincere sense of the words. That being said, this song has a lot to say or shall I say, “Talk?”

Starting with an excerpt from the radio, which attempts to parody the functionality of the music industry in the 60s and the 70s, followed by a cool riff played by David Gilmour played on an acoustic guitar that segues to words that convictionally try to raise questions, which stir a gamut of emotions and inspire perpetual contemplation while also triggering your cognitive senses that make your mind construe the true meaning of the song or read between the lines, if there are any, Wish You Were Here, just encloses your soul in the dreaded dungeon of persistent pondering only leaving an aching aftertaste of the song.

There are two particular excepts in the song that leave a lasting impression on the mind of listener –

Did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?

Hot ashes for trees? Hot air for the cool breeze?

Cold comfort for change, did you exchange

A walk-on part in the war for a lead role in the cage?  

In this stanza, Roger Waters is commenting on a myriad of conventions of the world that include the transition of a free mind into the one confined by the bounds and boundaries of “supposed-to-bes” represented as “ghosts” and the industrial transformation of the world (hot ashes for trees), which is to say that the world we have today is built at the irrevocable expenditure of the nature. And after that line, he again slithers into his innermost thoughts of a man’s inevitable journey from walking on his own path to submitting to the situations of life – a lead role in the cage.

The next excerpt that inspires contemplation is, “We are two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl year after year”. These particular words portray the putrefaction of your past self – something that led to your present self. However, somehow, you are the fish bowl that still owns both the souls – the one that is alive today, dying one minute at a time, and the other which is somewhere living in the hopes that someday, the decaying soul will die and let it come to the fore again only to triumph over its own universe oppressed by the worldly venom it is filled with today.

From another perspective, I also associate these words with the concept of war; to be precise, the never-ending war of India and Pakistan – two souls losing themselves year after year in a rather passionate pursuit of exterminating rage and never-ending belligerence, which is only vandalizing peace in both the countries.  

This is followed by, “Running over the same ground, have we found? The same old fears, wish you were here…” – a line which again translates to the undying urge of an individual to find his much cherished and lost self again.

Wish You Were Here, a song which was supposed to be or at least, interpreted as a personal note to self, through a mélange of words that speak emotions aplenty, becomes a harrowing elegy that encapsulates the repressed ramblings of the lost souls jeopardized in a perennially perilous pensive pursuit paralyzing the people on the earth, which truly makes it a melancholic and anthem-esque soliloquy of the world.

I listen to this song on loop today – August 3, 2020, while seeking a world we had just six months ago – a healthy world free of crippling concern and a fear perpetuated deep into the spines of its own people.

A note on the album cover –

I think this is an album cover has the simplicity which is not indigenous to Pink Floyd’s discography but at the same time, has a sense of abstractism that reflects the band’s other works. Subjectively, the picture describes the past and present of a man meeting at a juncture where the past can see the present burning to ashes on the path of worldly pursuits or shall I say, burning desires?

I would let you decide that. 

#pink floyd #wish you were here

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Reframing and Revisualizing TAMASHA

Sunday, November 27, 2016

This treatise has its root in the heart-felt experience that this film has given and this is more importantly a long time due reverential tribute to the thought-provoking opus that Tamasha is; which also celebrates its one year anniversary today and will be immortal from here to eternity.

Starcast (by Mukesh Chhabra csa) – Ranbir Kapoor, Deepika Padukon, Piyush Mishra, Jawed Sheikh, Yash Sehgal and many more established actors.

Story Concept – Arif Ali                    

Costume Design – Aki Narula & Anaita Shroff Adajania

Choreography – Bosco-Caeser & Ashley Lobo

Lyrics – Irshad Kamil

Production Design – Acropolis

Edited by – Aarti Bajaj

Cinematography – S. Ravi Varman ISC

Music – A.R. Rahman

Produced by – Sajid Nadiadwala

Written & Directed by – Imtiaz Ali

“TAMASHA is a dramatically choreographed contemplative montage, that opens eyes to see their innate gold and makes one understand his/her role and chase the ultimate goal.”

 TAMASHA, written and directed by Imtiaz Ali, is a film that has not only touched my heart (and many other people who are on the same paper), but also has seen me through the curtains of societial suppression. Imtiaz Ali is an articulate creator of colorful world with vibrant, dynamic and ambiguous characters and that was quite evident in his previous films. The art of lusciously weaving the stories of such characters has exponentially elevated and has reached the pinacle in this masterpiece. Moreover, in my personal opinion, Imtiaz Ali is merely an imaginative creator of frames. The frames which speak the whole story he wants to tell. It won’t be shocking to me, if one day he comes out with a film made in power point presentation and has only few frames and tells a story through them and still earns a place in the audience’s heart. He ingeniously creates frames that elicit humongous emotion and have a potential to change the shape of a milieu.

TAMASHA is a film, that can be seen and ruminated time and again, and learn something new from it everytime. It’s a film that not only deserves to dig down into but also one desires to do so. It’s a film that again deals with the perpetual repression by presenting a differently told love story, but what all it has implied will remain a subject of deep research, just like a work of classic literature. In an attempt to decode and read between the lines, this essay has been written or let us say, it got written automatically. This pensive montage makes us ask – “Why the same story everytime?”; and persuades us to have an urge to change things.  

The film fades in with a scene in which the protagonist (Ranbir Kapoor who plays the character of Ved) and Tara (played by Deepika Padukon) are portraying the machine life of a man (that everyone can relate with), by playing a drama on the podium and then it all fades out to the precocious storyteller Ved’s childhood, intertwined with the mystically written song, Chali Kahaani (sung by high pitch singer Sukhvinder Singh, Haricharan and Haripriya) and Piyush Mishra’s wizardous story-telling and sinuous transition of scenes, which is brilliantly edited by Aarti Bajaj (whose editing in Rockstar had ambivalent reviews).

Take 1 – Eradicate Labels

There is a scene in which Piyush Mishra tells Ved that every story is same and runs everywhere parallel and he doesn’t have to think much but enjoy it, (a concept that Imtiaz Ali has directed eminently using anachronical frames), and in the very next scene he mis-pronounces Sanyukta as Sanjukta and Ved interupts to correct him but he responds, “How does it make a difference”; which made me remember Fight Club’s, “Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy”; which I personally put it as, “Naam wahi rehte hain, sirf chehre badal jaate hain.” (The labels remain the same, only the faces change).

ain, and learn something new from it everytime. It’s a film that not only deserves to dig down into but also one desires to do so. It’s a film that again deals with the perpetual repression by presenting a differently told love story, but what all it has implied will remain a subject of deep research, just like a work of classic literature. In an attempt to decode and read between the lines, this essay has been written or let us say, it got written automatically. This pensive montage makes us ask – “Why the same story everytime?”; and persuades us to have an urge to change things.   

Take 2 – Earn, Learn & Share

In a scene, Ved gives a foot massage to his fragile granny and in turn she gives him slender yet valuable sum of money which he uses to learn and listen to the new stories from Sufi storyteller Piyush Mishra, and then religiously tells those stories again to his granny, who fondly gives an ear to. This is a metaphoric food for thought that has developed a learning perspective in me. In the pursuit of prudence and financial safety, sometimes a man keeps saving the money he earns by doing his work or job (the money that are always hard-earned), but he often forgets to invest some money in learning new things and even if he does, he often forgets to share the knowledge. I take these frames as a life lesson and I modelled the child.  

After Chali Kahaani, it all blacks out to the exotic locations of Corsica (from the Asterisk & Obelix Comics), where two people who had gone out on a limb on a solitary vacation to get a break from their mundane lives; the voracious storyteller Ved (Don) and Asterisk Fan Tara (Mona Darling), coincidentally meet and get wild and spend a fun time together as unlabelled and unnamed acquaintances and decide to stay pretentious (read real) during the sojourn. The sequences are  interwoven with funny puns, a homage to arguably the first superstar of Hindi Cinema, the debonair Dev Anand Saab (who starred in a 1952 film of the same name). The picturesque locations of Corsica and the mischieveously tickling Matargashti are a visual treat to watch.

It takes 40 minutes into the film to show a deeply grown character Ved’s first storytelling monologue (which is presented humorously and has a Helleresque touch). In the end, it all boils down to their mutual feelings, which follows with a regretful but an inevitable good-bye without an au revoir and then it all fades out to Kolkata, India where Tara (Heer) lands and becomes Meera unconditionally devoted in Ved’s love and daydreams about him. She later on, goes on an assignment to Delhi, which is elucidated in the song “Heer to Badi Sad Hai”, inimitably sung by Mika.

Take 3 – Catch-22

While strolling down a Delhi street, Tara stumbles across a snacks and books joint, SOCIAL, a place Ved patronizes and is a denizen of, and so she decides to wait for him there. In the process, she picks up a hilarious book named Catch-22 written by a pre-eminent author Joseph Heller (a book that Ved had with him when they met in Corsica). Now, what became so interesting about it is how Imtiaz Ali has used this book to manifest the situations of both the characters. Catch-22, a book that stands alone for a situation of, “to be or not be” and portrays it in a humorous way gives an edge to Ved’s character, as his is a character that has been bipolar in nature and has been hanged between his passionate urge to become a storyteller and the repression of his hidebound family. When Tara reads the book, (which is almost impossible for a comic lover to read without laughing); her face remains pale and her expressions remain tepid throughout the frames and she keeps fidgeting and moves restlessly and furtively glances around to expect Ved (her real life Santa Claus) any moment. The frames tells a story about how the director can use a thing like a book that hints the state of the character’s mind.

After a long wait of few days, she finds Ved whom she finds to be no more a Don but a regular mediocre who ekes out a living in the capital by working in a telecom company which included being a pretentious yes-man and a puppet to his boss, clients marionette and most importantly giving redundant presentations that everyone finds trivial and remians futile and henceforth nobody really pays an attention to and this happens in every corporate meeting and is very relatable. But he still gets a compensatory reward in being given the tag of “a nice guy” (in today times).  

Take 4 – Ved giving a regular presentation at his office.

After meeting each other, they fall in “Ishq Wala Love” but when Ved, who lives a humdrum life, proposes Tara to initiate a step further into their relationship; she realizes that he is not the same person she loved and confesses it on his face while also making him realize that he is a very special guy, but it backfires and hits his inner complex and strangely upsets him to the core and what follows is a non-linear yet intense sequences of intricate storytelling interwoven with Ved’s bipolar and introspective and retrospective soliloquies and monotonity of Ved’s life followed by a metaphoric trans “Wat Wat Wat” sung by Arijit Singh and Shashwat Singh and in the process, Ved’s finds himself back and starts telling stories like a medieval author and on the other hand starts obliterating the meaning of his professional presentation by indulging misfit irrelevant words between the lines (to show the irrelevance of the presentations). And ultimately embarks on a journey to find “Ander Ki Baat”.

Take 5 – Do what you like

There is this scene in which Ved is climbing the ladders, rather unenthusiastically to his engineering Alma Mater and it reminds audience of how he used to climb the ladders on his way to the storyteller, Piyush Mishra, which is a very small detail the director has shown and it only says that we can only be happy if we are doing something of our interest. Simple, suble and effective.

Take 6 – Shanghai

There is a scene in which Ved forgets to wear a tie and when his boss asks him to wear one, to which he remarks, “Sir, tie bechne thodi jaa rahe hai”, rather derogatorily but then his domineering boss shanghais him to wear it (right now). In the frame, Imtiaz Ali has used a very good metaphor to depict the domination of corporate bosses [who are akin to historical kings, whose sword (in coeval times, corporate position), speaks for themselves].

Later on, in the aftermath of Ved’s and Tara’s dismal break-up, Tara remorsefully worries about Ved and he yearns to meet her and talk with her.

Take 7 – The Best Damn Thing

They meet and how their conversation switches from the spoken formal platitudes to naturally intimate unspoken feelings which dwells down to the dichotomy of love, a scene that is stitched with an emotional and heart-rending “Agar Tum Sath Ho” sung by evergreen Alka Yagnik and mellifleous Arijit Singh, which has a separate place in the audience’s heart. The actors are so well-directed, that the scene looks natural and the director looks far from the set. The director is just invisible. It almost looks like Deepika and Ranbir were naturally engrossed in the moment.

Take 8 – The Melodramatic Reality 

Ved’s frustration takes a bigger shape and his Don get’s an edge over the docile Ved and in a sequence he gets wildly offensive with his boss (read Ravana) in the office during a meeting and it becomes a key Mise-en-Scene that shows the transformation of Ved’s character.

As a repercussion, Ved gets fired (the eureka moment) with a ‘pleasant’ and much need promise that his career in the telecom industry would be destroyed – for good, which makes him find himself and how it has been portrayed in the philosophically rich “Tu Koi Aur Hai” sung by the man himself is opulent in a contemplative and introspective way and is an amalgamation of the character’s present turmoil and his past repression and then he inevitably goes back to his hometown to find all the answers.

Take 9 – To Find Krishna, Be an Arjuna

He goes to the good old storyteller Piyush Mishra, who Ved surmises as the Nostradamus (on a philosophical level) who can predict his story; but when he asks about his future, the Sufi declares Ved as a criminal and refuses to give him the answers and asks him to find them himself, as only Ved knows his story. In the scene, he finds the unanswered questions and embarks on a ‘Safarnama’(a song sung by my personal favourite Lucky Ali) to find his own “Teja ka Sona”. The scene is very rich at the philosophical level. Why Piyush Mishra calls him a criminal is a question to be asked to ourselves. In the peer pressure of a competitive society, we keep asking our stories to other people. What should we do? What is ‘supposed’ to be a good career? How should we live our lives? And we forget to ask ourselves the most important question, which is WHY? Why do we live our lives? We are all agents of him that are sent for a specific purpose, a purpose we should live for. And by asking someone else about the way we should lead our lives, we are doing a blasphemy in literal sense and it’s a sacrilegious juvenile, we should be jailed for and we cannot exonerate ourselves from such a crime. Ved never understood such subtle things that the character of Piyush Mishra had taught him and even Tara had tried to convey because he wasn’t ready, which brings to the conclusion that “Only when a student is ready, a teacher appears”. He had teachers in the old storyteller and Tara, but he wasn’t ready back then. But when he realizes his inner gold, he tells a metaphoric story to his father to uproot his father’s tenacious abhorrence and ignorance towards Ved’s dreams. Ved also pays an obeisance to Tara (Krishna who showed him the right path), for she only made him realize what he actually is. The frames are deeply maneuvered to evoke a long lasting emotion on the viewers.

Take 10 – The Moments of Emotional Upheaval and Claustrophobia in Retrospect

Imtiaz Ali creates an epic cornucopia of imaginary Mise-en-scenes of Ved’s past life, which dwells into everything that the character wanted to change in his past life which includes his schooling, college, jobs and many things that he never wanted to do and it is portrayed by replacing his helpless passive frustration of past to a hypothetical active frustration which becomes his eureka moments.

And finally “Don Returns” and goes to find Tara to finish a work that was long pending – Proposing Tara again, which she lovingly accepts this time and they both live happily ever after.

Take 11 – The Final Take of 22 Karat

In the last scene, Ved tells Tara (who played a dynamic role of a soul-mate, teacher and a metaphor for the proverbial ‘right’ person), “Muje lagta hai Teja Ka Sona tere paas hai, DAR-ASAL!”, which is an ambivalent combination of words but I infer “Teja ka Sona”, which I call as “Asli Heera”, is Ved’s heart of pure gold and as he falls madly in love with her, he notifies it by speaking this dialogue, for she had stolen his heart. After that, it all blacks out to credentials while Ved and Tara keep rejoicing the beauty of life and enjoying simple pleasures.

Special Mention – Music, Lyrics, Acting and Storyboards

Music –

A.R. Rahman’s music has been mythical, soothing, heart wrenching and he raises the crescendo as and when required and the lyrics written by Irshad Kamil are one his best works - thoughtful and meditative and describes a lot of sensations and human sentiments. All the songs are class apart in their own way and it is an album to be looped on for years to come.

Acting – Ranbir and Deepika’s work is commendable and they completely lived the characters for which they deserve a bountiful of praise. Ranbir has also adapted the habits of the character of the young Ved played by Yash Sehgal and to me; it has been the best work of Deepika till date and has changed my point of view about her acting forte.

Storyboards – In an interview, Imtiaz Ali had admitted that he doesn’t storyboard his whole film but he makes four to five storyboards himself (of the kind that are generally used in the classic literature books), that reflects the changing events of his films and in TAMASHA, he has used four such artistically sketched storyboards (in Teja ka Sona, Ishq Wala Love, Ander Ki Baat and Don Returns) which I surmise, are made by him but it is still a fact to be confirmed right from the horse’s mouth. Sir, did you make them?

All in all, TAMASHA is a film that has gained immortality in my heart and has moved me in a way that I have started to sing my own song on my own stage rather than being someone else, who was striving hard to succeed on a stage that he never belonged to.

I congratulate and doff off my hat to the stalwart Imtiaz Ali Sir and his hard-working team for making this subtle, scrupulous, hideously philosophical and psychologically challenging (to understand) saga which will surely inspire many, because

“It’s a film that makes one to do what he is good at, what he has come on this earth for, chase his inner peace and more importantly contribute something to the world rather than watching the “Tamasha” while sitting on a “Corner Seat”.”

Photos courtesy – Google Images

Collages – Made using Turbo Collage Maker

Edit 1 - One Last Mention or Maybe Not The Last 

Tree As Tale - 🌳📝🖋📖

Consciously or unconsciously, Imtiaz Ali has an affinity to use elements of nature as symbols, or Naturomorphism (if I may call it so).

The time has arrived again that I am back to my favorite film (or my closure) only to get impressed with another aspect of Imtiaz’s artistic triumph.

It’s already fascinating to watch Piyush Mishra as an eccentric Sufi telling stories on an hourly paid income. While his stories are interesting but what I find more intriguing is the way the tree is used as a symbol of stories and a victim of urbanization.

Most of the stories are suppressed under the juggernaut of our urban yet hidebound society. If we relate this to a tree then its lifespan is compromised by urbanization or say, to fulfill basic needs of society.

Going by that notion, we can analogically interpret the tree as nothing but a tale - A tale that will inevitably see a poignant cutoff by the societal scissors.

And then, later on in the story, we see Ved sitting under a tree, all chiseled by a knife called society during the song “Watt Watt”!

Given that Tamasha has already been consumed by me several times, such intentional or unintentional symbolic portrayal by the eminent filmmaker still infuse Goosebumps in galore.

[dial-m-for-movies]

Back Story of Aakash - A Fan Tribute to Andhadhun

It's nearly 11 pm when the city is either enjoying the night life and the ones who are tired have retired to the bed already. The sky is shrouded in the stars, light wind is blowing and the camera captures a pair of feet walking on the footpath. "Hey jerk, are you blind?"; snarls a man in grey suit, black shoes and a briefcase in his hand when the protagonist Aakash bumps into him. "Sorry", he says with a plaintive pair of eyes which look preoccupied for reasons unknown. Cuts to - Aakash climbing stairs - and then cuts to - him unlocking the door. *Blackout* Aakash is sitting in front of the the TV he doesn't seem to be watching... *Dissolves* "You are not coming to work from tomorrow."; says an elite looking man in a black suit and spectacles that are adding up to the businessman vibe that surrounds his persona. "Fired? You mean I am fired?", asks a rather shocked Aakash. "Why, Sir? What have I done?" The Boss - I am not firing you. It's just that we don't need a Piano player as it is not adding value to our club. And who likes to watch a guy playing Piano everyday? Aakash - Sir, this is rude. I have been serving here for last 1 year and you are firing me without a notice. What will I do for a living? The Boss - See, I am a businessman. I can't keep things that aren't lucrative. "So, all of you are the same?"; walks away Aakash while the boss is unsullied with his retort. Cuts to - Aakash walking on a street while he notices a lady beggar. He holds on, gives some money to her for food and walks again only to bump into that man in the Grey Suit with briefcase; a scene that abruptly cuts to the present. The camera is kept behind Aakash and we watch the song 'What I'd Say' by Ray Charles being played on the MTV. Aakash gets up and starts watching it (again) with deep interest. Cuts to - A shot of Aakash lying on the bed while his eyes are wide open and looking at the ceiling as if he is thinking of something deeply. *Blackout* Aakash locks the door and it cuts to him going downstairs. Cuts to - Him standing in a bus while a crowd jostles through him in order to get down. Fades out to Aakash standing in a mall looking at things randomly as if searching for something. Cuts to - A shot of a shop and a feet coming out of it. The camera pans from down to up capturing Aakash and we see him in a pitch black shades with a cane in hand. *Blackout* A scene wherein Aakash is playing in another club and the people surround him while they watch his rendition and are fascinated to listen to Mozart being played brilliantly by a blind man. Yeah, a blind man playing Mozart on Piano. What a delightful sight!

#andhadhun #aayushmankhurana #fantribute #sriram raghavan #andhadhunmovie #andhadhun movie review #tabu #radhika apte #short story

[dial-m-for-movies]

October [2018] - Not A Review

I cannot write about a film like October the way I write about other films or for that fact the books. I cannot write about it for the same reason I cannot write about Wordsworth's poetries or Rudyard Kipling's Kiplingesque prose. Yes, they perhaps aren't to be "reviewed" or "appreciated", they are to be felt and the feelings are often subjective to one's perception; something that has roots in the ambiguity these poets invoke.

However, the matter with October is it doesn't even imbue that kind of ambiguity; it undulates between being a poetry and motion picture and keeps ringing sonorous alarms of inexplicable emotions and palpable feelings. Yes, that's what October does. While other films I watch captivates me because of my interest in the filmmaking process, October triumphs over my mind, body and soul by touching my most visceral vulnerability.

Right from the word go, Shoojit Sircar promises how he is going to treat the subject. He ridiculously follows David Mamet's mantra of taking uninflected shots to tell the story. 

Sircar takes shots of the chores going on inside the hotel through very small cuts - short held camera, cuts to another shot and then goes on just to cater us the only dish which has the least aftertaste - the dish of professional life of the protagonist. There are some events that have managed to pull my attention and they are the ones that define Dan and Shiuli. Sircar has beautifully created both the characters that are of opposite moulds - sensitive and sincere Shiuli and deliberately despicable Dan. While this pole oppositeness of the traits does makes me think that Shiuli had some feeling for the bad boy, but it's better to leave it here considering that the POV about this is so impetuous that it may sound contemptuous. Let me now jump to the character of Dan and psychoanalysis.

Dan - He is someone who considers himself in the wrong job, but this is just his perception that has no roots in his thought process. It has roots in his frustration and his nature of not being discerning enough about anything and it is quite evident when his friends tell him something and he reluctantly obeys. On the opposite side of Dan, there is this ultra impulsive guy - And the impulsiveness is terrifically layered with tangible traces of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder [OCD]. 

Let's take an example of the toilet scene, wherein the kid is playing with the commode. Dan gets pissed off and takes the kid out and makes him sit at a height from which he cannot get down. The abhorrent Dan leaves and Shiuli picks him up. He puts that child at the height out of mere impulsiveness. The scenes of Dan putting his shoes on the towel out of frustration are evidences of his anger. 

There is this scene in which he is killing mosquitoes with Racket. This scene depicts his OCD for the first time. Later on he is given laundry duty and there also he shows his OCD by lecturing the men working over there. Shoojit Sircar leaves a passing remark on workplace bullying when his senior tries to dominate him, but the director never digresses from the subject matter. 

This OCD is carried to the scenes in hospital wherein he observes each and everything and tells to his friend, "Don't you think that pipe was wrongly fit?" His friend asks, "You saw everything? How many pipes were there?"

He answers the precise figure. If this isn't enough, he locks horn with everyone and anyone for perfection. That janitor scene - He asks everyone to lift their feet above. Dan is a cleanliness freak which is just another symptom of OCD. He wasn't by any stretch trying to be nice to the janitor and go on to give him Jadoo ki Jhappi. Not one bit!

Where does the impulsiveness and OCD come from? 

Dan's father is in Army. He has had a "perfection oriented" upbringing and somethings do slither into DNA. It inevitably reminded me of Mr. Bachchan's character in Lakshya who insists on perfection - perhaps he best fits as Dan's father here.

The impulsiveness in Dan has its roots in the fact that he got a perfection oriented childhood but not a perfect childhood. Yes, his Dad used get posted for temporary duty and take charge in remote locations while he had to live with his mom - someone who probably got busy too. Dan could never fathom anything, which made him some kind of impulsive rebel. A pretentious rebel but a thoroughly impulsive guy. This attribute of Dan reminded me of Dulquer Salmnan's character in Bangalore Days, who too becomes a rebel because of the problems between his mom and dad because Dad is busy serving the nation.

Moreover, Dan dedicates his regular life to Shiuli merely out of visceral impulsion. This is what I would like to call a sky reality (he defies all the ground realities to follow his impulses). 

Dan's character is not written by Juhi Chaturvedi - the screenwriter. It is written by an abstract artiste in her who literally spurts colors on the wall and leaves some strokes of her brush that just tries to make us discern the character of Dan, but only translucently so. 

The scenes taken in hotel and hospitals are the evidences of Shoojit Sircar's attention to detail, which has roots in his unquestionable observation. He digs into the psyche of human beings and how practical they can become in such circumstances. There are scenes which made me cry like a baby. 

There is a special scene when Shiuli moves for the first time and Dan cries his heart out. For Dan, it is more than just a healing. It's an achievement for him. The result (the hope) is the baby of his efforts too and he is very emotional about it. It's perhaps the first time he approves of his own self and impulses he has followed (read decisions he has taken).

The scene is juxtaposed with the rain - seasonal metaphorical motifs are the undercurrent theme of the film; something that I appreciate considering the author as a poet, but they interested me the least - to be very honest. What interested me were the flowers because it reminded me of my childhood days at Calcutta and I used to collect them. Dan collects them for Shiuli - it shows his dedication towards his efforts towards Shiuli's healing and his blooming love and attachment towards her. 

Shiuli's mother takes the slice as the best actor who could enact the director's vision. Varun has tried his best and his efforts do translate in bits and pieces, notwithstanding the fact that I was continuously feeling for him and his inner complex. He feels so much extreme about anything that he can't take it out of his mind and his impulses back those propensities. 

The biscuit scene is something I am going to remember forever. He nailed it! Well done, man! 

The Best Damn Thing -

I have already stopped watching and following award shows long back, for obvious reasons; but if October doesn't win the award for sound mixing, then I am literally going to stop even reading about them. The best part is sound design and how the background score never overlaps the on-going audio-visuals. You can hear each and every sound distinctively with the background music. 

The sounds of birds chirping, the air, the birds chirping again. 

The sounds of hospital paraphernalia with distinguished voices of people talking do create the aura and make you feel the part of the ICU. 

The sound of tea being filled in the cup. 

Amidst all the rich audio-visuals, the BGM never stops. The music happens to be that current of the river which you cannot see, but you can feel if you touch, but it's nothing but something that gives the river its flow. Juhi and Shoojit, you beauty! Shantanu Moitra, you are a hero! 

The film ends with Shiuli's poignant death and the whole scene is shot without background music, something that reminded me of Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara's Farhan and Nasir Sir's meet-up scene, in which Zoya Akhtar shuns the use of background music and attempts to evoke emotions without that. The only thing is, in October Shoojit Sircar takes it a step ahead of Zoya. However, I am not telling that Zoya's direction was poor, but the fact is we, as audiences are more emotionally attached with Shiuli. 

All said and done, there is still an unanswered question? 

Why does Shiuli ask, "Where is Dan?", just before her horrific accident.... 

..... Perhaps the answer's Blowin in The Wind!

And that's where October wins!

[dial-m-for-movies]

Rebecca [1940] - Film Appreciation

Rebecca [1940] - "A perfect edge of the seat psychological mystery drama, that amalgamates every single element in the screenplay, and ends up resolving the narrative in the most palatable way."

[Remorseful memories and perils of being a "new woman" in the house.]

Filmmaker - Sir Alfred Hitchcock

Well yeah! I am back to binge-hitching again, and this time with one of the most talked about films by Alfred Hitchcock. What I predicted as being a typical Hitchcockian thriller went on to rather slither into the realms of surrealism; and I passionately love the feel of it.

Plot - A girl from a poor/humble background marries an elite gentleman and what follows is a series of cryptic events, that have ability to leave you aghast.

The film starts with a symphony backed with a voice over, which is probably the first time I observed in a Hitchcock film; and I must mention that it wasn't sloppy at all. It has got a poetic effect and instills a sense of intrigue right from the word go. The V.O is something I would like to compare with Terrence Malik's 1998 war film, The Thin Red Line, which is also a great prose.

It all fades in with the shot of a country road that leads to a rather royal edifice cordoned by a gigantic door; a scene that took me back to the future and reminded me of Orson Welles's Citizen Kane's iconic opening sequence. It is a dream sequence and the tonal quality of V.O is excellent as it does make us feel something mysterious about what's going to happen.

Characters -

1. Maxim de Winter played by Laurence Olivier - An elite, placid and often intimidating man born in Manderline, conspicuously immersed in the memories of his past wife Rebecca and is going through a devastating delirium.

2. Mrs. de Winter played by Joan Fontaine -

Perpetually nervous, goofy and clumsy. Sensitive and can shed tears at the drop of hat. She is an orphan who has hardly received love in life and the life has been harsh with her. She has also been portrayed as someone who is vulnerable and gets intermittent nightmares. Her suspicion is palpable as she finds dubiety in the Maxim's monumental mansion.

3. Mrs. Van Hopper played by Florence Bates - A raucous, snobbish, dreadful and domineering lady; a character that is a hyperbole and disappears from the scene at the right time.

4. Mrs. Danvers played by Judith Anderson - Perhaps the most interesting character in the film. She is someone who shows hostility to Maxim's new wife and looks as scary and horrific as she can get.

5. Mr. Crawly played by Reginald Denny - Maxim's business manager who is supportive and well-wisher.

6. Mr. Giles played by Nigel Bruce - A comedic character who gives some moments of relief in a rather arcane narrative structure.

7. Mr. Favell played by George Sanders - Rebecca's cousin brother who is wily and avaricious and blackmails Maxim latterly.

8. Jasper played by a doggie - The dog is someone who plays the expository part in the screenplay and leads to some key incidents.

These actors are supported by other ones who play their part quite well. All the performances are good, but I loved Joan Fontaine, who has got into the skin of the character.

After the dream sequence, it fades to black to the south of France with visuals of turbulent waves hitting the rocks. Maxim is about to fall from a rock to commit suicide, but gets saved by the girl who would later go on to become his wife. And all I could think was what she was doing over there. Perhaps, Ritwik Ghatak's theory of coincidence in cinema is true. What can happen in cinema doesn't really have to be something real as far as a director is able to justify it.

Hitchcock takes a shot of beauteous city of Monte Carlo shrouded in the shadows of picturesque mountains, and he uses the shot twice in the film as a montage.

Throughout the film, Hitchcock has shunned those top view projection shots, except for twice, but has rather used moving camera shots with sporadic utilization of trolley.

There is a big take away from this film that has come to my notice. Each time he shots someone reading a newspaper, eating food or for that fact lifting an object from the table; it is the object that is focused first. Taking the shot from distance detriments the effect. To cite an example, when Mrs. de Winter tries to open Rebecca's diary, the camera focus on it, as it becomes the subject matter in that scene. Laterly, he zooms out and the diary is shown from the POV of the character. But what's better is Hitchcock starts moving the camera thereafter which makes the frame edgy. Perhaps, this is what David Mamet addresses as "uninflected shots" in his book, "On Directing Film."

Hitchcock does indulge in a bit of comedy in this rather tension-inducing tale when he shows Mr. & Mrs. de Winter forgetting their marriage certificate from the court. The mere impishness of the scene is backed with innocent stupidity, which does lighten up the mood.

Also, "What's in a paper anyway! ;)

Hitchcock directs his actors quite well in this one as Mrs. de Winter's discernible demeanour depicts lot of things about her character. The way she enters the premises of the mansion for the first time, and goofs it all up with her fidgety gestures and blunderous transgressions like dropping a valuable artifact does add to her character attributes and how she feels in the moment along with her perennial nervousness.

The Romance - This is probably the least romantic experience in Hitchcock's oeuvre, or let me put it as a "reluctant romance". The way Maxim meets the girl and falls for her rather compromisingly, thereafter coming up with an impromptu marriage proposal is a story that nobody can get sold to. It made me think - "Are replacements so easy?" However, this unlikely romance is terrifically justified because even after getting married and living in the same abode, we never see them getting into sensuality like we witness Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman in Notorious or for that fact James Stewart and Grace Kelly in Rear Window. This has been done to show Maxim's internal conflict and how he is trying to get over Rebecca. The clumsy hugs, half hearted affectionate platitudes and rather cold display of chemistry does add the the fact. This questions the morality of relationship. Do you get into one before you are out of the memories of your past?

However, Hitchcock adds a scene wherein Maxim and his wife are watching their honeymoon stories on reel, which gets stuck. Perhaps he wanted to portray perils of filmmaking and how filmmakers struggled to get an unblemished print to screen a movie. In hindsight, it also initiates an intense and expository dialogue exchange between the characters.

The shots of Mrs. de Winters, when she is alone rambling in the house rather cluelessly and often sitting with anxiety and insecurity are lessons to take away on how to make a movie with fewer dialogues (understated) and still make an impact. Probably, Hitchcock's best display of talent in directing actors; something for which he is usually criticized.

People in the mansion - When the new Mrs. de Winters enters the house, nobody happily greets her and Mrs. Danvers, who happens to be the main assistant to Maxim shows horrific animosity to her. The funny character of Giles depicts similar attitude, but in a sarcastic way. However, she gets support from two other characters but it never helps her get accustomed to the surroundings, especially when she knows that there is a huge wall named Rebecca between her and Maxim. This kind of undercurrent in-house subtle conflict time-traveled me to future and reminded me of Ganga from Subhash Ghai's Pardes who was also alien to America's culture and the house.

There is this leitmotif which is used to create a spine-chilling effect during the conversations between Mrs. Danvers and Maxim's new wife. The character of Mrs. Danvers is played with utmost perfection. Judith Anderson has nailed the German Expressionism in this movie. Her ghastly screen presence and near demonic eye gestures backed with her queer talks in a rather devilish voice is the evident of the fact that the character is enacted with lot of sincerity.

Important things to observe -

I - Plot device - Rebecca's letters and her other things including wardrobe that never fail to bewilder an audience and Mrs. de Winter. In a way, they play a MacGuffin of a kind for her, which affects her later actions.

1. Mise-en-scenes - My last outing of Hitchcock was a bit disappointing because he had a tendency to move the camera when morr than two people are talking. However, in Rebecca, he creates some great mise-en-scenes, which is a +1.

2. Surrealism - We never know until the end about Rebecca's existence and what it actually means. The obscurity of Maxim's memories of Rebecca adds to the surrealistic flavor. The mansion seems to have so many secrets and Hitchcock has taken multiple shots of a locked room, which no one is supposed to enter. It somehow reminded me of Priya Darshan's Bhoolbhulaiya (or its original, Manichitrathazu). While Stanley Kubrick imbues surrealism with a rather clandestine architecture and queer interior of the Hotel Overlook in 'The Shinning', Hitchcock chooses to instill an element of mystery through internal conflict and psychological traits.

3. Asexuality - This film is thoroughly asexual in its archetype and more so, when the male protagonist shows restrained love towards his wife.

4. Motif - Rebecca's written letters and the tempestuous sea perpetually profused with wild stormy turbulence are motifs in the film.

5. High depth of field - Now this is I think happens to be an integral part of the film. While in North by Northwest, Rear Window and for that fact even Vertigo, Hitchcock did lower the depth of field of camera to show characters as a part of the surroundings, in Rebecca he uses deep focus and close-up shots followed by slow camera trolley being pulled away before the scene superimposes to another. Great transitions!

6. Masochism - The character of Maxim considers himself responsible for Rebecca's poignant death, because he had considered her infidel. This is followed by post-death self blaming and shows a rather masochistic state of his mind. This particular part is brilliantly played by Laurence Olivier and his ways of sublimating self-guilt by pouring his impulsive anger on his new wife and depicting a rather strange behavior is the evident of his perturbed conscience.

7. Use of grotesque - We have observed the use of grotesque in other Hitchcock films like "Shadow of a Doubt" and "Strangers on a Train", wherein a grotesque helps in resolving the screenplay. However, in this one, grotesque contributes to the enigma of the archetypal mystery thriller. This is take away on different ways to use grotesque.

Editing - V. Donn Hayes has done an impeccable job at the editing table. Not even a single screen transition is abrupt. He has juxtaposed the scenes in such a way that they create mood shifts which adds up to the mysterious dramatic premise. Moreover, he allows each emotional scene to make an impact before cutting it to other. Probably, editing is what takes the cake in this surrealistic thriller.

There is a mystery behind the body of Rebecca and Maxim says that it can be easily identified by any of us due to the rings and bracelets she used to wear. This made me remember Abrar Alvi's (read Guru Dutt's) Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam and Reema Kagti's Talaash - The Answer Lies Within.

The film also ends with a similar cinematic sequence that we would go on to witness in Citizen Cane. The manderline mansion catches fire and like how in the ramshackle Kane's Adobe, we witness the Rosewood burning; in this one, we see Rebecca's diaries and letters burning, which is a symbolic of the fact that Rebecca is now free and so is Maxim. Moreover, it also makes me think that one doesn't get over the past before the old bridges are burnt. And that's Rebecca's ultimate triumph.

Do not miss the voice over flashback in which Maxim narrates about Rebecca's death to his current wife; and of course Hitchcock's cuteness overloaded cameo which will again tickle your funny bone.

I shall keep "Dialing H for Hitchcock".

#film appreciation #rebeccamovie #alfredhitchcock #classicmovies #hollywood #laurence olivier #daphne du maurier #robertesherwood #joan fontaine #george sanders #judith anderson #nigelbruce #reginald denny #c. aubrey smith #gladys cooper #florencebates #melville cooper #leocarrol #leonardcarey #film #lumsdenhare #edwardfielding #phillipwinter #george barnes #wdonnhayes #cinephile #movielover #cinema #classic movies #hitchcock

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A Voice for the Teachers

It’s a scene from a random classroom. A guy is squiggling something on a piece of paper. In some minutes, folds it and makes an aircraft out of it; he throws it in the air and travels to the table of his class teacher today. The teacher controls the anger and observes that something is written on it. Opens the paper and reads –

Tomorrow, 5th September is again a Teachers’ Day. The students of the HSE, second year batch or usually called as 12th Standard, would be choosing their attires to wear tomorrow; the boys would be looking to wear their best formal pair while the girls would be choosing the most suitable Saree for the occasion, as they would be playing the role of a teacher as a ritual to give homage to their teachers. The day will soon end and perhaps the students will throw a teacher’s day party to their teachers that would stereotypically include devouring Samosas with some cold drinks. Like any other teacher’s day, I think students may be playing the role of a teacher with vigour and dedication, but at the same time my thoughts turn up to the fact that very smattering few of them really want to become a teacher. Why?

This article is meant to address some issues that are very prevalent in a teaching profession, because of which talented people who are blessed with a natural acumen to teach are dithering to take up the job of a teacher.  

Teaching in India is not considered as a profession that can make the ends meet, a fact owing to the low salary of teachers in private schools. On the contrary, government schools have good salaries, thanks to 6th Pay and 7th Pay Commission. My point here is that, the students from any school would be responsible in the future of the nation, be it be a government institution or a private school, then why the teachers from the former are paid more than the latter? Aren't the teachers from private schools would be contributing equally for the nation's future? The deprivation is not limited only to the payment, but extends to the prerogatives like transportation, computer facilities, ambience of the staffroom and stationary usage. And on top of that, they have exhausting working hours and are expected to work at home too. Moreover, from an emotional perspective, the management is also at times failing to give teachers their due respect. Such problems are quite rampant in small towns, if not in the big ones.

According to a report in 3rd September’s The Indian Express, the males who are capable of teaching aren’t opting for this job, for in an Indian milieu, men are expected to earn and “run the show”; so  they think that it is not advisable to take such jobs. And even if there are some men in the teaching job, they try to earn an extra income by taking tuitions, which makes their day excruciatingly hectic and end up having no time for the family and thus the work-life balance is disturbed.

Due to such problems, we can infer that the people who are passionate and can show their forte as teachers aren’t taking teaching as a profession and the students are yearning to get into engineering and medical which are far more lucrative and privileged. And this entire ruckus, the schools are compromising on the quality of education and students are ending up as a loser, which is to say that the future of the nation would suffer.  

It is high time to realize such perils and implement some methods to circumvent such problems; and offer deserved prerogatives to the teachers, so that they stay motivated for the job and give their best to nurture the country’s future. After all, a teacher is only as respectable as a doctor is; for if a doctor is capable of saving lives, teacher has an ability to make ones.

On this note, I wish my teachers a Happy Teachers’ Day and seek blessings from them.

After a five minutes read, the teacher notes the right bottom text on the page, which says; PTO.

Turns the page over and reads, “PASS IT ON!”

#teachersday #happyteachersday #teacher #teaching #schools #indianschools

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Lipstick Under My Burkha – Film Appreciation

Cast – Ratna Pathak Shah, Konkona Sen Sharma, Aahana Kumra, Plabita Borthakur, Sushant Singh, Shashank Arora, Vaibhav Tatwawaadi and Vikrant Massey.

Produced by – Prakash Jha Productions

Music – Zebunnisa Bangash and Mangesh Dhakde

Direction of  Photography – Akshay Singh

Edited by – Charu Shree Roy

Story by – Alankrita Srivastava

Written & Directed by – Alankrita Srivastava

“Lipstick Under My Burkha is a bold and ballsy female oriented flick that subcutaneously gets under the skin of four women, only to weave an intimate story of their humanely desires.”

It was an exhaustive, prolonged and equally inquisitive wait of almost over nine months to witness this cinema, after a surprise release of its beguiling teaser on October 14, 2016, which galvanized the cinephiles and the parallel cinema-lovers, only as much as it inadvertently titillated the voracious voyeurs across the nation. The trailer promised that it would hit the big screen “soon”, but was sadly and quite expectedly destined to be squeezed between the regressive pair of palms of a rather misunderstood organization called CBFC (Central Board of Film Certification), which made sure that the film would pulverize under the juggernaut of its baseless, lame and more often than not, sarcastically tagged as “sanskari” ideologies. But the film that already bragged of bountiful of well deserved accolades and its triumph at twelve different film festivals; and which is also quite heretical in its subject matter, characteristically didn’t give up and managed to hit the Indian big screens on July 21, 2017, only to spread a word that really matters.

The film has four female protagonists of very different moulds living in the city of lakes, Bhopal; and their stories of social struggles running in tandem are wonderfully enlaced with a narrative of an erotic book called “Lipstic Wale Sapne”, which happens to be the motif throughout the film. Before getting into the narrative structure and appreciation of this cinema it would be better to get introduced to the main characters.

Ushaji / Buaji / Rosy played by Ratna Pathak Shah – She is an old widow in her mid 50’s, who has garnered a unanimous reverence in the society owing to her religious beliefs and spiritual knowledge; who in the progression of the story develops a penchant for swimming; and inspired by an erotica, reinvents her sexual desires in the realms of a palpable seduction imbued by a physically fit and reasonably handsome training instructor, Jaspal played by Jagat Singh Solanki.

Shireen Aslam played by Konkona Sen Sharma – A talented saleswoman Muslim lady who is a responsible mother to three school going children in the absence of their father, Rahim Aslam played by the renowned actor Sushant Singh, who stereotypically travels to middle east to earn money, and who, in the progression of the story chauvinistically suppresses his wife’s ambitious desires of a good career.

Leela played by Aahana Kumra – A tall, strapping and spunky girl who feels claustrophobic in the clamour of a rather hidebound Bhopal, and tries to find succour in a lusciously weaved, boldly portrayed yet sensitively dealt relationship with an amorous philander know as Arshad played by the new sensation, Vikrant Massey. Leela is also supposed to marry a formidably boring guy, Manoj, which adds an insult to her injury. For her, her bike is a symbol of her freedom, which she loses for monetary needs, later on.

Rhehana Abidi played by Plabita Borthakur – A rock music, who love Led Zeppelin, a dance enthusiast who doesn’t mind to tap her feet anytime, and an enigmatic kleptomaniac Muslim girl in her nearing twenty, who is stridently repressed by her family, and discovers her innocuous love interest in a college band member and a stud known as Dhruv, played by Shashank Arora, who disowns her in the end. She also fulfils her materialistic desires by some spasmodic pilferage and thievery that she cleverly carries out during the progression of the film. 

As mentioned before, the narratives of the story are, linearly though, interwoven with the narratives of an erotic novella called “Lipstick Wale Sapne” (formerly which happens to be the title of the film, but latterly the makers chose the rhetoric one). Buaji narrates the story of the film through her voice over, while she reads the anecdotes of the protagonist of the novel who is named Rosy, and those tales of lechery, societal suppression and dying desires delineates the sequences and happenstance in the lives of four protagonist wonderfully edited in such a coherent way that it becomes impossible to find any incongruity. From the fade in, when the Kleptomaniac Rhehana pilferages a pair of shoes from a seemingly Shopper’s Stop arrangement to the fade out when the four protagonists meet for pacifying cigarette session in a room, the film keeps one at the edge of the seat and interested in unleashing of  Rosy’s desires.

Instead of a sloppy narration of the plot of the film, it would be rather interesting to appreciate some inventive & metaphorical narratives, backed by Alankrita Srivastava’s sensitive direction, who happens to be the helmsman of an ensemble of some proven actors and some novice yet propitious talents.

Act 1 –

There is a sequence in which Rhehana gets frustrated after listening to her abhorrent father’s stringent monologue in which he tells her to start behaving like a girl who would look indigenous to their community; she gets in the room and insanely starts humming rock song and dances on the beats of it. There is no background music or song used in this and the images are as uninflected as it can get. It was quite an innovative piece of filmmaking.

Act 2 –

There is this scene in the film, when Rhehana is being unjustly scolded by her lambasting father for having desires of wearing jeans. While her father shouts her lessons to edify her behavioural limits, she has been shown weaving Burkhas (which happens to be her father’s business), and the cameraman increases depth of field and manifests the mannequins that are kept behind Rhehana, probably to metaphorically address the life of women, which are handled as dummies and are encumbered to the shackles of purist societal dogmas. One of the dummies also makes an appearance in the last scene of the film, which kind of approves the above interpretation.

Act 3 –

In a scene shot in the college campus where Rhehana is studying, the students are carrying out a rebellious protest march to get the approbation for the girls to be allowed to wear jeans, and when the media pays the visit, Rhehana speaks her mind addressing all the stereotypes and injustice that are part and parcel of a typical Indian girl or woman. The mere appearance of media makes the scene a little less preachy, which would have been too rhetoric and clichéd in its form otherwise.

Act 4 –

The vulnerability of Leela has been very sensitively handled by the lady director. Had it not been for the dialogue when she accuses her mother of “forcefully getting her married to an unsuitable guy against her wish”, instead of giving her liberty to chose the guy of her own choice; her character would have been stereotyped as a lecherous woman who just liberally two times and hypocritically hides her lust by portraying herself as a confused girl.

Act 5 –

There is this narrative in which Shireen Aslam’s colleague quips to her, “Do you want to achieve something in your career or just want to get busy making more kids”; and in a very parallel sequence, an audience learns that her husband avoids using any contraceptive sheath during a rather forced intercourse with Shireen. There is an ambiguity in the narrative. When it also depicts Rahim’s dominance and objectifying his wife as nothing but an infant producing machine; but on the same way an audience observe an element of suspicion of adultery involved, when one thinks of the fact that he travels to middle-east for work. Even though, it may or may not be true, but not far to be believed that it is subtly told.

Act 6 –

In the final sequence, when Jaspal finds out that “The Rosy Woman” he enjoys bouts of phone intercourses with, and with whom he wants to fulfil his carnal desires, happens to be no one but Ushaji / Buaji, he retorts the very fact that this fifty plus woman wants to live the rediscovered fantasies of flesh with a young guy like him, who was expecting someone younger to be his Rosy. After that, everyone ill-treats her in unison including the ladies of the house. There is a palpable air of impartiality in the scene when the makers have shown even the female counterparts of Buaji reproaching her character, which offends them too. It was a sensible thing to show in a rather female oriented film, which doesn’t have single good man. The scene that follows in which Buaji succumbs to the societal force and cries again doesn’t have any fervid background score to force an evocation of strong emotions in the audience, and rather instils empathy by exploiting Ratna Pathak Shah’s invincible acting forte.  

Lipstick Under My Burkha has a very simple cinematography, when it shows Bhopal the way it is without glamorizing it, that keeps the film absolved of carrying out the technical drudgery. It is also backed by some really sensitive photography to capture facial expressions of the actors, especially Ratna Pathak Shah, who makes a tremendous and triumphant appearance. The editing has been very precise as the narratives that are interwoven with erotic literature are always in inclination with the voice over and anecdotes and the sequences are juxtaposed in such a way that it brings contrast in the storyline and at the same time indulges sporadic appearance of surprise elements, like how in an introductory scene, Sheerin takes out a pistol that was in a bag that was cradled by her. Casting looks to be appropriate, as every actor has done justice to the corresponding character, in terms of the way they look and of course performance that becomes the highlight of the film as Alankrita Srivastava directs all the actors wonderfully with an enormous knowledge of body language and human psychology. The costumes selected for the characters, especially the protagonists totally looks intrinsic and culture specific. When it comes to character screen time, it’s unfortunately Konkona Sen Sharma’s screen time that looks a little less than that of others. The former title of the film “Lipstick Wale Sapne” was also appropriate and that also goes with the voice over book that Ratna Pathak Shah narrates, but maybe the current title has its roots in an ambition to infuse heresy.

All in all, Lipstick Under My Burkha is an excellent piece of cinema that tells the story of woman of different age, mould, social responsibilities, families, entangled in a different kind of masculine and patriarchal dominance; but having similar yet humanely desires portrayed as social stigmas. Ultimately and realistically, they suffer in the same way for different reasons. It also covers every facet of a woman’s desires – individuality, love, physical need, emotional need and even monetary ambitions. Sadly, the film doesn’t show a single male character that is progressive in nature and liberal in thoughts, and that’s the only major pitfall. The film is definitely bold and honest in its conviction, as it doesn’t offer any remedy to these social challenges faced by woman. Without being too feminist in its form, it rather raises the quintessential question, which reads, “How are humanely desires of a woman considered to be a taboo?”

In the final cut, when the four protagonists are talking about their problems and smoking cigarettes to sublimate their frustration, the audiences exit the auditorium questioning their own conscience about such matters. And that’s what Lipstick Under My Burkha achieves…

If you still haven’t watched, go and watch it, for this Lipstick is, for sure, not going to disappoint.

#lipstick under my burkha #review #lipstick under my burkha review

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Book Review - How to Stop Worrying and Start Living

Saturday, July 29, 2017

Author of the book - Dale Carnegie

Publication - Vermilion London

“How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie caters a time tested solution manual and delves deep to identify and promises to circumvent all seemingly insurmountable humanely problems to cure a much disturbing emotion called Worry.”

My life had already found itself in a phase of suffocating quagmire and a devastating delirium had made me despondent about life; only until I was advised by a certain kind fellow user of Quora to read Dale Carnegie’s timeless book of wisdom, “How to Stop Worrying a Start Living”, which I have savoured for a year and has end to be one of the gems I own.

Like every other emotion, “Worry” happens to the be one which has been a perennial peril without marking its existence in a certain era of history; and that goes to say that worry is a timeless phenomena and so is this book. 

Now, this man Dale Carnegie has many things to teach to banish worries from your life; and he teaches in a way that even a layman can understand, i.e., by explaining each and everything in detail; and in that case he also explains “How to read this book”. 

The book has been divided into many parts and their chapters and every chapter has a four line summary and every part has a nutshell that helps a reader to re-examine everything already read. This book covers every single problem or threat that can worry human beings. Either it is worrying about acquiring low grades in your high school or it is about the losses your organization has faced that is discomforting you; either it is the worry of your child’s upbringing and how he / she would turn out to be as an adult or it is the worry of your old parent / grandparent’s health; either it is a worry about the physical stress that is bothering your body or about the emotional turmoil that is wrecking your mind every second; this book caters a solution to every such problem. 

Having said that, this book can better be used as a detector of your worries. There is this clichéd yet essential quote by Elbert Hubbard coined in 1915 that says, “When life gives you lemon, make lemonade.” This book made me think, perhaps I don’t know about the lemons. And that is what this book has achieved for me in the progression of the time I took to read it. It has made me identify my troubles and has given utmost solutions to those problems, which, by now, look trifle to me. 

This book can also be used as a precautionary wisdom even if one isn’t surrounded by worries, because that’s the best time one can grasp the lessons from the book that a rather disturbed mind can’t. 

The book manages to identify your problems (no matter how little they are), preaches homiletic lectures, throws bombastic quotes, befriends you at few occasions, delivers humanely solutions, also inspires one to diminish worry by quoting examples of the people who have fought the worry and came strong out of it; and does almost everything to see it vanish into the vortex of wisdom it offers. 

All in all, why to wait for the worry to come, when one can avoid it by using this reference book of a billion wisdom!

With this plodding book review of “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living”, I would like to dedicate this frivolously made cartoon sketch to the author Dale Carnegie, who has changed my life for better with his writing and right now inspires me while he gets busy making lemonades out of lemons that the life has given him. Thank you for the wonderful work, sir.

#dale carnegie #how to stop worrying and start living book review #how to stop worrying and start living by dale carnegie #how to stop worrying and start living #book review #how to win friends and influence people #elbert hubbard #dale carnegie cartoon #dale carnegie caricature #fan art #fan cartoon #fan tribute #dale carnegie tribute #fan work #lemonade #when life gives you lemons

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Tumultuous Thoughts on Dunkirk

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Cast – Fionn Whitehead, Tom Glynn – Carney, Jack Lowden, Harry Styles, Aneurin Barnard, James D’Arcy, Barry Keoghan, Kenneth, Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy (Most of them - unidentifiable and oblivious)

Producer – Emma Thomas and Christopher Nolan

Production Company – Syncopy Inc.

Director of Photography – Hoyte Van Hoytema

Background Score – Hans Zimmer

Editor – Lee Smith

Written and Directed by – Christopher Nolan

It was an exhilarating ecstasy when I had the much treasured tickets of the most awaited film of 2017, Dunkirk, in my restless and ravenous fist. It seemed more like a Eureka moment - The happiness of watching Dunkirk. Dunkirk – A film I knew would be differently treated than other war films I have watched. A film I knew would be a visual treat. A film I knew would have gone through a lot of technical drudgery – on the sets and in the post production; and it was always going to be technically sound.

So, it would be redundant to analyse this film with technical details like lauding its bleak cinematography (by Hoyte Van Hoytema) which suited the subject matters and bragging about the enthralling background score by Hans Zimmer (who delivers it every time and this time too, and which evokes tension and keeps one at the edge of the seat. I found it quite repetitive, even though it happens to be the best element of the film). It would be inconsequential to extol the tempestuous presentation of events that seemed real, and much obvious Christopher Nolan’s visualization and directorial finesse; for all such praises would be futile, unctuous and insincere, because in any Christopher Nolan film, these are the integral observations and so is the case with Dunkirk. There are no central characters in the film that would implant a need of psychoanalysis. Moreover, appreciating the scenes in which the camera doesn’t follow the protagonist(s), and rather engages in a colossal capture of the event by increasing the depth of field of camera by showing people with respect to a particular premise, would be difficult, for the film was shot in the IMAX Camera and the aforementioned concept of cinema might end up to be just a fallacy.

It is again gratuitous to narrate the whole plot of the film for its comprehensive “appreciation”. It would be rather interesting to mention the three sequences in the film that has made some serious impact and appealed a rather disgruntled audience in me.

Act 1 –

There is this scene in the film in which soldiers find themselves in a dreadful wobbly when the enemy fighters start dropping the bombs from the air, they cower in tangible fear by crouching down; and in ten seconds we get to see a clump of sand shrouding one of the protagonists in itself. There is a sensation of a palpable relief in that scene with a wonderful capture of very humanely blank emotions on his face. The ashen pallor and the moment of shock he experiences depict truly humane disposition and a rather natural propensity. That is a true display of Christopher Nolan’s directorial prowess that everyone talks about.

Act 2 –

There is a torpedo sequence in film. The soldiers inside are just in status quo of anxiety hoping for some escape and all of a sudden one of them, in sheer fear ominously howls; “TORPEDO!!!!!”; and before they could get the hold of the fright and horror, the whole multitude of soldiers finds itself in a state of frenzy and an impregnable chaos. Unlike, 2017 film, The Ghazi Attack, there is no dramatization of this event, but it is rather a realistic and spontaneous display of it. That’s what war is. The war doesn’t give a soldier enough time to fear. The fear is just a consequence. It is inevitable, integral and almost immediate. This is where Christopher Nolan’s conviction of making this film comes into the picture.

Act 3 –

There is also a sequence in which soldiers are manifested watching the fighter (apparently Tom Hardy’s aircraft incessantly fighting with enemy for the rescue operation), with sparsely scattered emotions of fear, hope and anticipation; and we get to see a bunch of soldiers for three to four seconds. Here, the filmmaker perceptibly increases the depth of field (confirmation needed*), and shows each of them in the same layer of the frame; which is to say that there isn’t any focus on the main character. But the main character very minutely comes in the focus when he gazes up in the sky. This is one tremendous and again an avante garde modus operandi of creating a cinematic mise-en-scene that the audience witness in this cinema. In regular films that we see, there is contrast in the costumes which separates the protagonist from all other characters and vice-versa, which was obviously not possible in this film, for every soldier adorns same attire.

Frame – 1

Frame 2 –

Coming back to the film, the screenplay of the film is quite unconventional and so is inscrutable, as the story has been told in three different perspectives, which are the land, the sea and the air; and all three have different set ups, and when the confrontations of all the three coincide, it leads to the resolution of the whole film. I found the three act structure one of its kinds (at least new to me).

There isn’t any character arc (and so there is no character an audience identifies with), and there is no fervid exchange of dialogues between the soldiers either, for the characters were just portrayed like emotional yet shallow marionettes to depict a historical event. Christopher Nolan has foregone all the grammar of the war films. I would be lampooned as a nincompoop if I say that he has done it unconsciously. Of course, he knew what he was “doing”. Rather than using an audience’s perception, the director had preferred to create a scenario of an actual, uninflected and unabridged form of a historical event like it is being watched live. It is more of a pristine form of the war.

And probably, these are the reasons it happened to be a disappointing affair. There is nothing I would ever remember, except the above mentioned enthralling sequences that raises the panic and makes an audience shudder in the anticipation of “What Next?” It was just a palpable yet feckless experience to have watched on a non-IMAX big screen at my hometown.

What is Dunkirk to me and what it still “achieves”?

I might sound an imbecile here, but honestly, Dunkirk, to me, seemed like a game of Age of Empires. It is more of a cinema that one would love to create. It is indeed fascinating how the team has captured the well directed yet instinctual shots of the cast troop and the events associated with the history of Dunkirk; but again just like a game of Age of Empires, it is quite tame and torpid to watch someone playing it.

I found the film just as meaningless as a war (any war) is to me. It somehow depicts my ideology of war. That is how one feels when someone sits in front of television to see the snippets of an ongoing war. It never makes any sense – at least to me. And so is the case with Dunkirk. They are in a state of war for something? What something? - For the peace of their country. Does a war for peace make any sense? I guess, No (or maybe Yes, and such clouded thoughts that follow)! So, in my opinion, this is what the film achieves. Dunkirk thrives on such ironies and incongruous paradoxes.

All in all, for me, it’s a thrilling boredom, a static whirlwind, a calming catastrophe, a dull delight, a colourless iridescence; and in a make-believe business, it happens to be too real to be believed as a cinema. It is a disappointment in disguise.

That is what DUNKIRK is…

Special Mention – My favourite dialogue (quote) from the very few dialogues in the film happens to be a paradoxical one too.

“Take care of him. A dead man should be taken care of.” 

[ Words may not be precisely the same but it was something similar to this.]

Pictures Courtesy – Google Images

Collage – Made using Turbo Collage Maker

#dunkirk #review #dunkirk review #tom hardy #emma thomas #christopher nolan #syncopy inc. #hoyte van hoytema #hans zimmer #lee smith #the ghazi attack #the dunkirk #the history of world war 2 #fionn whitehead #tom glynn carney #jack lowden #haryy styles #aneurin barnard #jacmes d'acry #barry keoghan #kenneth branagh #cillian murphy #mark rylance #dunkirk collage #dunkirk posters

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Film Appreciation – A Death in The Gunj [Spoilers Ahead]

Cast – Late Shree Om Puri Ji, Vikrant Massey, Ranvir Shorey, Kalki Koelechlin, Tillotama Shome, Gulshan Devaiah, Tanuja, Jim Sarbh, Arya Sharma

Produced by – Aashish Bhatnagar, Vijay Kumar Swami, Raagi Bhatnagar, Honey Trehan, Abhishek Chaubey, Neil Patel

Music – Sagar Desai

Lyrics – Rajdweep

Story by – Mukul Sharma

Written by – Konkona Sen Sharma and Disha Rindani

Directed by – Konkona Sen Sharma

Disclaimer – This is a humble treatise of the film. There are no facts, only interpretations. The analysis is based on the script of the film and contains plot details. It is advised to read this after watching the film.

After the revelation of a tantalizing trailer on Saturday, May 20th 2017, which exhilarated the cinephiles, it was horridly disappointing to know that this cinema, under what could be called as a Hitchcockian banner of MacGuffin Pictures, would not be able to make it to the “small towns” (and sadly my town too). It is a film; I will always regret not watching on the big screen. But having said this, it’s only after its grand release on the Amazon Prime, this film, directed by Konkona Sen Sharma which couldn’t gather an ample amount of screen across this nation, would now make rounds across the nation. It is this film which has inspired and galvanized me to pick up my pen and write this. This piece of writing is a modest appreciation of this film by a movie buff.

The film, shot in the backdrop of 1979’s McCluskieganj, Bihar (now Jharkhand) fades in with two characters, namely Nandu (played by Gulshan Devaiah and Brian (played by Jim Sarbh), putting a deadbody in the dickey of an archaic ambassador and it cuts to the car receding away from a hospital named KCM Hospital and Morgue; a self explanatory narrative that clearly describes that someone has died and the characters’ current dramatic need is to “dispose” the body. The scene cuts to the car travelling slowly towards a definite location with Nandu driving while Brian sits beside him on the front seat and the protagonist Shutu (played by Vikram Massey) looking puzzled at the backseat. This cuts to a flashback to a sordid sojourn of seven days, where the family goes to Nandu’s uncle’s home for a brief stay, and then the story is being told to display the emotional delirium and heart rending ordeal of the protagonist. The film, in the runtime of one hour and forty five minutes unleashes the qualities of all the characters which are very different moulds. The main hero is a gullible, subdued and docile person who is being bullied by almost everyone, except the small and loving sister of his, with whom he shares a very special bond. In the progression of the story, he is infatuated and innocuously fascinated by Mimi’s superficial beauty, a character that is played by Kalki Koechlin. Mimi is somehow already in a fatally luscious relationship with his ex-boyfriend Vikram (played by Ranvir Shorey), who is an upstart, cunning, imperious, elite, perennially arrogant, self cantered and hot-headed guy, who is nothing but a characteristic contrast to Shutu’s character, who is a very good guy stuck in the world of hypocrites and living a life dictated by his family. There are some magnificent narratives used by Konkona Sen Sharma to expose the characters, for an instance Vikram manoeuvring a contraption of a utensil tied through a rope to the chair which makes a sound whenever he moves his feet, when they all decide to “call a soul” to scare Shutu, who “believe” in spirits. There is also a “playful” Kabaddi match that takes a vicious turn when Vikram beats Shutu. As a result, Shutu gets some scars that were so uncalled for. While Nandu’s wife Bonnie (played by Tillotama Shome) reproaches Vikram’s malevolence. The scars are then mistaken as a part and parcel of “the game” by the Uncle (played by Late Shree Om Puri). Shutu is also always dominated by his elder cousin Nandu and is always treated like a “kid” by his ladylove Mimi. The story is intertwined with some expository scenes in which Shutu is disported sketching and writing some of his favourite words in his notebook that also contains a certificate that announces his failure in a recent exam; a narrative that elucidates that Shutu, who is an MSc. student has (or more precisely had) some truly artistic aspirations for himself and so he fails to succeed in his current academics. This is a narrative that shows Shutu’s repression and his encumbrance to the family need and societal “acceptance”, for artistic pursuits was always a social dogma. Shutu shows his artistry to his younger cousin Tani, the only person who compliments his unconscious innocence. There are some scenes in which Shutu playes with Tani, who is sitting on a revolving swing hanging on a tree facing him, while she also recites a metaphorical poetry. Perhaps, Tani is the only person Shutu finds his peace, traquility and succour in, but there is an element of ambivalence in the relation between him and Tani. There is a scene in which Shutu goes on a ride on Vikram’s bike with his magnetic fantasy Mimi to spend some “quality time”; and Tani shows so much resentment about it, that she doesn’t want to talk to or even see Shutu anymore; and an audience may wonder whether there is an element of an inadvertent and premature incestuous affection involved in this.

The climax of the film is narrated by a sequence in which Tani is lost and found, after which Shutu’s existence is utterly ignored when he falls and finds himself in a pit, while he is searching for Tani. After shouting for a while, hoping for an escape, he stays for what seemed to be a long time in the pit (a shot of moon is the narrative used to show the time lapse). This culminates his depression and takes to the level par tolerance; which is to say that he understands that his existence has no value to anyone. It is only after the maid reminds the aunty (played by Tanuja) of Shutu’s absence, a servant goes towards the jungle to find him. When, he comes back, he detects that everyone is happy about Tani being found but no one is bothered and concerned about him. Thereafter, he goes to meet Tani and as mentioned earlier Tani refuses to see his face. Now, this makes him feel guilty and shattered at the same time, after which he decides to travel back to Calcutta (now Kolkata).

The denouement takes a steep and confounding turn in the finale scene when Shutu, whose mind is making echoes of sadness and agony observes everyone revelling around him as usual, and his daydreamed girlfriend, Mimi sharing the lecherous warmth with her infidel boyfriend Vikram. In the contrast, Mr. O.P. Bakshi, his uncle is frivolously holding a gun to enjoy some leisure practice shooting. This stimulates his gloomy mind and he asks Uncle to hold his gun only for once. It’s only after he gets the gun after some pestering, he shocks everyone by pointing it towards the uncle and then towards Vikram who “courageously” advance towards him because he thinks that can coax him to drop the weapon. There is some stark dominance and authority enlaced with fear on Vikram’s face shown in the scene. These are contrastingly paradoxical qualities which are difficult for a director to evoke in a single scene. Ranvir Shorey has acted brilliantly. Thereafter, Shutu points the guns towards his throat and what happens next is a scene of pure gold even though it is tragic, and it deserves a separate analysis.

There is this question that has been asked by many filmgoers, that “Who actually dies in The Death Scene?”. The question has its roots in the mere appearance of the protagonist in the car in the opening and the fade out scene. This is how the scene can be looked at – It is definitely Shutu who dies a mournful death in the last scene. Shutu, in the last moments of the scene gobsmacks everyone by pointing a gun towards his throat and pleads a “sorry” to everyone and fires a shot. The aural element is a melancholic music and a shot being fired, along with the visuals of blood spurting and scattering on Vikram’s face and the flabbergasted Bakshi Uncle running away in shock. And then there is shot of the blood smearing on the trunk of the tree (before which Shutu was standing), which flows downwards. There is a speculation that perhaps it is Vikram who dies, but the images that are mentioned above and in the collage definitely disambiguates and makes it clearly that it is Shutu who dies. It’s not about being pedantic in approach, but the sequence needs some immense compassion and empathy to understand the last image. The image instils a feeling of Shutu being a sacrificial lamb, who sacrifices his life under the juggernaut of society and its ruthless domination and bullying. It would be very difficult to say, but the image somehow reminds of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ who had sacrificed his life because of the sins of the people. This can be regarded as a characteristic image used in different forms in cinema to imbue a feeling of sadness, sacrifice, society’s sinful wrongdoings and such relevant expressions. This can hold true, if we visualise Shutu a very nice guy, who is bestowed with only positive virtues and exaggeratingly saying he can be looked as “God’s own child”.  

At the time of fade out, Shutu again appears in the backseat of the old-fashioned ambassador with Nandu and Brian in the front seat. It can be interpreted as nothing but the reflective expression of Shutu’s spirit as the film fades out when Shutu looks back, for there is no place of future of the protagonist, it’s only past that his soul looks towards. . The time becomes a function of his death after a week of emotional turmoil. In the end, he is oblivious after his death, like he was neglected when he was alive. It is again interesting to remember that Shutu “believed” in spirits.

The cinematography of the film is excellent as it creates the necessary dreadful images time and again juxtaposed with some bright sequences of relief. There are some uninflected shots of the place, which narrates the eerie emptiness of the jungle like town. The locations have been painstakingly scouted. Konkana Sen Sharma’s narratives are eminent and discernible but equally ambiguous. The roles played by all the actors, including the servant and made look tailor-made, and every character fits like a hand in glove, complimented by awesome performances. The superfluous performances can be easily observed in the final scene and more importantly in the sequence in which Tani goes missing, and the scenario turns chaotic which leads to a blame game between Gulshan Devaiah and Tillotama Shome in which they deliver the best expression they could. The film doesn’t bare a typically protagonistic approach, as all the characters have been given a fair screentime. The 70’s iconic hairstyles, sartorial & embellishments; and set up of the home tell a story about the scrupulous and detailed art direction. Something that may be disappointing is its pale music and not so fervid background score, except in the last scene in which the flute raises the melancholy to the peak level; it is an audiovisual that can make one sob. The folk songs sound quite tame and torpid, but they were necessary for the film to mark its existence in a particular region, for they become culture specific and indigenous to the subject matter. Sagar Desai, an expert in fold music, who contributed to 2013 film Ankhon Dekhi with his Bandish composition, made sure that the music used in this movie fitted the bill.

All in all, this Konkona Sen Sharma’s directorial debut film is a splendid piece of cinema that can make one contemplate about the oppression of the society and ignorance about some individuals who are living a traumatic life and suffocated by an emotional claustrophobia within the boundaries and shackles of the social milieu. It will definitely find itself in the list of cult classic in the coming years. So, if you haven’t yet watched, just watch this film, for -

The film would definitely echo a sound of its praise that would ‘reverberate’ for a long time and it does not deserve to be ignored the way the protagonist of the film was.  

#a death in the gunj #a death in the gunj review #om puri #konkona sen sharma #vikrant massey #tanuja #ranvir shorey #kalki koechlin #tillotama shome #jim sarbh #gulshan devaiah #arya sharma #sagar desai #rajdweep #mukul sharma #aashish bhatnagar #vijay kumar swami #raagi bhatnagar #honey trehan #abhishek chaubey #neil patel #crusifixion #jesus christ #amazon prime

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Happy Birthday Tom Cruise!

Monday, July 3, 2017

Tom Cruise is undeniably one of the most handsome man the almighty has handcrafted. But wait, WHAT! He turns 55 today? Utterly unbelievable! 

My first experience with Hollywood was one the films of this star who is eternally blessed with a bewitching boyish charm. He is the one who converted me into a Hollywood aficionado. 

It is interesting to note that being amongst the most handsome men in the world, this guy is a stand alone, for he doesn't profess to be a womanizer or philander in his films, rather he always emerges out to be that one boy who can effortlessly woo a girl, with his sharp features, gleefully designed hairstyle and a magnetic smile. 

His filmography is full of cinema of different genres. His acting skills may not be as good as masters like Tom Hanks, Al Pacino, Jack Nicolson, Robert De Niro or Brad Pitt, but his exhilarating screen presence and palpable panache makes him charismatic mascot star. 

Amongst all his films, my personal favourite of his is Rob Reiner's A Few Good Men (1992). 

On this note, may I wish this 55 years old BOY a very happy birthday and many many happy returns of the day! May God bless him with more power to allure and surprise the audience by playing different characters. 

I also dedicate this humble tribute of his hyperbolic face drawing to him as a birthday present. 

#tom cruise #tom cruise birthday #fan art #tom cruise caricature #Carticature Art #cartoon #sketch #Tom Cruise Sketch #a few good men #jack nicolson #rober de niro #al pacino #tom hanks #brad pitt #comparison #birthday gift #Tom Cruise Birthday Gift #tom cruise handsome #tom cruise legend #boyish charm

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Ace Ventura and Jagga Jasoos

Sunday, July 2, 2017

Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura : Pet Detective (1994) -

Even though the below pencil caricature doodle is dedicated to my childhood Hero, Jim Carrey, who had fascinated me with his 1994 film “The Mask” but the article would bare an accusation of digressing from this topic.

Jagga Jasoos, the poster of the film which revealed itself on 29th January, 2017 had an apparently discernible uncanny resemblance with the poster of Jim Carrey’s Avante Garde film Ace Ventura : Pet Detective. The male protagonist Ranbir Kapoor bore an atrociously designed hair style ala Jim Carrey and an attention seeking ostrich with him alongwith the female protagonist Katrina Kaif clearly elucidated the fact of similarity.

But the film still wears “The Mask” that claims it to be an “Original Motion Picture”. It would be an act of Bollywood Bigotry if a fan (or even I) claims that the similitude is merely coincidental, inadvertant or unconscious and one who claims would be lampooned as an utter ignoramus or even an incorrigible nincompoop. But, it is indeed too early to say that it is an act of reckless plagiarism, because an artist always tends give a tribute or pay a homage to his/her master. It might sound stupid, but it may be possible that Anurag Basu is a big fan of the film and he intended to make a Hindi remake of it, obviously with more resources, unique execution and Disney’s superfluous production value. There is nothing repugnant in it, if the filmmaker uses innovative narratives and directs the film with his own modus operandi.

Even though, one can always argue that Bollywood needs new stories and original characters, but whether or not it is so can only be judged after it hits the big screen on 14th of July, 2017. Having said everything, Jagga Jasoos still remains the most awaited Hindi film of 2017 (at least for me), which promises to make a mark; but it would still be wise to leave the fate of the film on it’s screenplay, direction, cinematography and conviction, for without judging these facets a cinema, nothing can be “Detected”.

#jim carrey #ace venture pet detective #jagga jasoos #jagga jasoos poster #katrina kaif #disney #anurag basu #resemblance #similarity #bollywood #filmmaking #fantasy #doodle #cartoon #caricature #fan art