Archive for the ‘reviews’ Category

The Spiritual Life Raft of the Ship of Theseus

Posted: July 21, 2013 by moifightclub in cinema, film, Indie, movie reviews, reviews
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What’s the fun if a film doesn’t get its share of contrarian views? And with all honesty, not for the sake of it. So over to Aditya Sudarshan who ponders over the latest indie film which is the toast of the town.

SoT

(Contains plot information)

By now, Ship of Theseus is a phenomenon. From UK critics to Bollywood directors, from Dibakar Bannerjee to Karan Johar, it has been hailed as an absolute, once-in-a-blue-moon work of genius. That these opinions are honest, that the film genuinely spoke to people, is not being questioned here. The question I am asking is: Why? How? And what does this say about us- sociologically?

I say ‘sociologically’, because as art goes, I am going to argue that Ship of Theseus features a level of thought that can at best be termed ‘half-baked’, and a level of storytelling which is strictly average. And perhaps if either of these elements had been different- for better or worse- the flaws of the movie would have become indisputably clear. It’s easy to recognize that a film which has nothing to say and says it badly, is bad- take any example from mainstream Bollywood. It’s also easy to recognize ‘grand failures’- for example, Terrence Malik’s Tree of Life, grounded as it is in actually deep philosophy, shows up its failed story-telling. But deception arises when a movie has nothing particular to say and says it not too badly. In the case of SoT, this multiplication of mediocrity has passed as good- and then, wedded to the truly beautiful cinematography, has passed as genius.

Why is the thought in SoT mediocre? Because name-dropping is not the same as knowledge. Because being enamoured of philosophy is not the same as doing philosophy. In the history of human thought, the Grecian paradoxes, like Theseus’, and Zeno’s (who asked how a man could cross a room, when he must first cross half the room and before that half of the half and so on infinitely), have actually been tackled. Understanding what infinity really implies is a part of the answer. Getting to grips with ‘God’ is a part of the answer.

But I am getting ahead of myself. I am starting to engage seriously  with questions that SoT does not even seriously raise. And the key word here is seriously. If SoT had seriously put forth a vision of a Godless universe where karmic causality is the only truth (as in the lines from the monk’s chant, Naham Janami), of a world without boundaries where we are really not individuals but colonies, where there is no intrinsic right or wrong but only consequences to actions- had the movie had this power, then it would have made sense to plunge into such discussions.

The very fact that these discussions seem unwarranted and ‘too much’ here, is testimony to SoT’s half-heartedness. After all, enjoying a mantra is not the same as understanding its meaning. The mystery of free-will is not disposed off because a long-haired lawyer has read an anecdote about the behaviour of ants. Our moral sense of right and wrong is not shown to be illusory because an old woman with a broken leg has probably read ‘The Secret’.

What such scenes and dialogues do, is flatter viewers into believing they have engaged with deep and significant truths, when really they have merely gawked at them- from a very, very safe distance.

I have less to write about the story-telling, because as I said earlier, had it not been for their supposed philosophical weight, I doubt these stories would in any case have been so praised. Without doubt, the three stories in SoT all feature interesting, meaningful premises and strong performances. But the film fails to confront a single great crisis in any of them. All together, they are a bundle of beginnings. The story of the blind photographer reaches her crisis- and rests there. Why and how the monk’s faith alters, and what the alteration really means to him- is untold. And humour and stock cliches (the ‘fat sidekick’, the ‘hapless slum-dweller’) become means to escape engagement with the real moral realities of ‘do-gooding.’ When the grandmother says the line that closes the third story (prior to the epilogue)- ‘itna hi hota hai‘- she could well be talking about the whole movie. So you thought Ship of Theseus would really say something? Arre bhai- ‘itna hi hota hai‘.

I hope it will be noted here that I’m not heaping any insults whatsoever on this film. I don’t say it’s pretentious. I don’t say it’s dishonest. It is, in my opinion, almost touchingly honest- the way an adolescent enamoured of big ideas- and unequal to them- is touchingly honest. Unconsummated ideas, unconsummated stories, there are all the honest expressions of an over-awed and wonder-struck mind.

What is not ok, is for such an un-rigorous and adolescent piece of work (and ‘adolescent’ here, I emphasize, is not a pejorative, but a term of description), to pass as a mature masterpiece. This brings me to the question I started with and am also closing with, because I am going to think about it further myself. (And this is the only real food for thought SoT left me with). Why is this movie a phenomenon? Are we such suckers for beautiful cinematography? Surely not. Or are we so starved for any spiritual ideas in our lives whatsoever, that we can’t recognize cooked material from uncooked? I think perhaps this is close to the answer. Perhaps we have kept ourselves so desperately stranded from the big questions- the meaning of life, religion, morality, God- that even a child-made raft, passing by our desolation, can be hailed by us as our flag-ship.

(Aditya Sudarshan is the author of two novels, A Nice Quiet Holiday (Westland Books, 2009) and Show Me A Hero (Rupa and Co., 2011) and several plays, including The Green Room, winner of the Hindu Metroplus Playwright Award for 2011.)

Why you must watch “Ship Of Theseus” – 4 writers on 1 film with 3 stories

Posted: July 19, 2013 by moifightclub in cinema, Movie Recco, movie reviews, Must Watch, reviews
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Booked your tickets yet? Do it first. Then come back to this post. This isn’t the usual hyperbole. It’s really good and rare chicken soup for your soul. And so the film straight goes into our list of “Must Watch” films.

Our regular contributors Varun Grover, Svetlana Naudiyal, Mihir Desai and Sumit Purohit tells you what the film meant to them, why it spoke the way no other Indian film has done in a long time, and why you should not miss this one at any cost.

And as the norm goes with most of our posts, these are not formal reviews. Just ramblings. Why four? Well, we are going with the theme of of the film – three for three stories and one to connect it all. or something like that. Aha, call it cheap thrill and read on.

Ship MFC

Cinema of duality

by Varun Grover

I have been struggling with this scenario for some time now, this concept of duality. Not in a spiritual sense (that is still many years away I think) but in a very daily-life sense. Have been swinging between left and right ideologies, between Arundhati Roy and her detractors,  between hedonism of sab chaat lo/bator lo and nihilism of sab chootiyapa hai, between the urge to document every travel trip through photographs/ticket stubs  and the need to live in the moment making the concept of posterity sound like a well-manufactured fraud, and many other, similar conundrums.

Anand Gandhi picks up three such stories of duality, set in three different worlds, and binds them together through the philosophical paradox of Ship of Theseus. If that sounds heavy then yes, ambition-wise the film is this heavy. But the beauty is that the team has pulled-it off with great cinematic value in each frame and line of writing. It’s refreshing, beautiful, insightful, and as gripping as a well-made thriller.

The philosophical moorings never get in the way of entertainment or storytelling, the two core elements people safely assume missing from any film termed an ‘Indie’.  And that, I think, is the greatest success of Ship of Theseus. Here’s an Indie that appeals to the mind as well as the heart. We don’t need to love it out of some guilt for the poor filmmaker who sold his house and ate only vada-paav for 1008-days non-stop to fund the film. We don’t need to love it because it’s arbitrary and arty and we don’t get it but ‘Mint Lounge or Caravan are loving it so we must too’ pressure.  We can love it with all our understanding, ego, and guiltlessness intact, like we love any mainstream film.  It’s like health food that doesn’t taste like health food.

The 3 stories – a visually-impaired photographer about to get new eyes, an atheist monk and stand-up comic cum lawyer sparring on about the relative value of an animal’s (and human’s) life, and a man with a new kidney having doubts about the legality and ethics of the transplant – explore one genuine doubt each (माकूल शक़  as KK Raina said in Ek Ruka Hua Faisla) about existence and mortality.

The characters are talking a language rarely heard before on Indian cinema’s screens.  The language of loaded words and of a life lived in knowledge. Though I’ve met some people who found the language to be faux-intellectual and the 2nd story a bit too verbose.  I think it’ll come down to how invested in the basic conflict of the story you are. Do you want to know more about the layers of conflict at hand or are just happy seeing the surface and are now mumbling ‘Haan samajh gaye…ab aagey story bataao na!’ Like after watching a great film, I spend hours reading about it on the internet. Director’s interviews, googling ‘<film name> explained’, trivia, theories, hate it generated – everything.  Sometimes I know how much I liked the film only after realizing I have spent 2 days reading up on it. I think same theory works here – if you find the core debate interesting, you will enjoy the शास्त्रार्थ going on between the monk and stand-up comic. (And what is a stand-up comic if not a modern-day version of debate-loving, analyzing, theorizing monks we read about in stories from mythology, people who debate just for the heck of it. So in a way, 2nd story is a debate on morality between two monks/comics from two different time periods.)

If a film’s merit is in showing a new world with great authenticity and insight, then Ship of Theseus shows us three. And to top that, terrific performances, excellent background score, one brilliant song in Prakrit, and consistently sharp photography throughout made this most-awaited Indian film of the year for me absolutely worth the hype.

Ship Of Theseus

“You chose your journey long before you came upon this highway”

by Svetlana Naudiyal

I really don’t know what to say amidst the deluge of opinions and interviews and reviews. Social media is flooding with them and here I am, adding my own two bit to that. Will saying that I’ve seen it thrice already at different occasions and will happily (and surely) see it again, suffice?

Quite lazily and shamelessly, I am kind of reiterating something I wrote earlier this year for this very same blog. Primarily because, I think kisne padha hoga. And secondly, what I think about the film, it hasn’t changed a bit.  (Also, maybe now I can add some of those so-called spoilers.)

Ship of Theseus invents a language. Not just in terms of cinema, but in terms of thought. It compels you to go home and read. If not read, then at least think.  (At times when we spend our lives not thinking, you may discover that ‘thinking’ is a wonderful exercise). It takes you closer to your own self and yet far away from it, where almost unintentionally you find yourself objectively pondering over your own self and its relationship with the world around.

It is so evolved in thought and yet so accessible. Sophisticated, mature and nowhere in the remote vicinity of pretentiousness. And yet it is light like a feather, a pleasant watch replete with humour. (And in case I haven’t yet reiterated enough in indirect phrases, the film stems from life itself.)

The blind photographer’s search for meaning in being able to see, the monk’s dilemma and the stockbroker’s quest for purpose in his own life. You may like a story little less and another a little more, but it is the whole they construct that runs like a background score for you after you’ve seen the film.  In our Cinema, where do we see references to something like Unilateralis Cordyceps,  Charvak and Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster anyway? Or to introduce a blind photographer, to have a song in ‘Prakrit’, to choose Sweden (Sweden is rated to be one of the most fair and just social systems in the world – this little piece of info comes from the filmmaker, not my discovery. I just crosschecked a bit.)

I also love how the film resorts to traveling. (More of a personal connect, may be, for a firm believer of the idea that any meaning that can ever be found is during a journey). From wandering to a far off valley in Himachal to cave diving in Manipur, a journey into the infinite and open world within.

[May be next week, we could compile a post listing the brilliant moments of the film. There are many. The only one I would probably want to mention for now is Maitreya’s encounter with what seems like death. In each viewing, at that particular moment and in every reflection about that moment, I’ve found myself come to a standstill. Needless to mention, if a film can capture that particular feeling, that moment in all its freezing cold reality, one can imagine how close to life the film is.]

Having said that, I must also admit that I’ve wondered if I’m breathing too much meaning into the film for its (and my) own good. I’ve refuted my own thoughts, with reasons ranging from beauty in lack of perfection to the subjectivity of what we call perfect. I’ve oscillated between “if this is a very well done pop philosophy” to “if this could have been deeper, darker” or something else, something more. Whether it is too much on words or too little on silence? But then again, those questions are personal, subjective and could be irrelevant to someone else who might not or might appreciate the film in a very different way for very different reasons.

Here’s where I found a bit of my answer –

Quoting Anand –

“An early treatment scribble

I’ve made a conscious choice of dialogue over action in several scenes in the script. I felt a strong urge to revert the “show, don’t tell” thumb rule, to the extent that many scenes cut abruptly at their most dramatic high point, and then in the following scenes, the characters narrate, through casual conversation, their experience of the dramatic moment. I analysed this urge to distance myself from the heart of the action. I discovered that I find some human experiences too deep, intimate and emotionally stirring to try and capture on camera. Also the immediacy and the drama of the experience end up fogging the essence, which seems to come out more honestly in the objective after-experience reflection. When a character talks about a moment experienced in the previous scene, it is not intended as a guide for the audience, but rather as an experiential lens, through which the audience lives the moment twice – once through the speculation of the dramatic high point of the moment led towards by the author, which being never shown, is experienced in the imagination, and then, the moment redefined through a tinted world-view of the character.”

—

It is in being the narrow, delicate bridge between simplicity and complexity, the singularity and duality of the quest for meaning, that Ship of Theseus is poetry reinstating itself as cinema, or vice versa.

Will it change your life? Maybe not. Life changing events and experiencing deep meaningful literature or cinema, are known to be mutually exclusive. But the film is sure to rekindle a little hope and a little faith or maybe a little more.

(p.s. In the 100 years of Indian Cinema brouhaha all around, Ship of Theseus arrives as a perfect anti-tribute and thankfully so! Here’s to The New!)

Ship Of Theseus

Let It Sail

by Mihir Desai

I didn’t want Ship of Theseus to end. The philosophical depth and visual beauty put me in a mind space that movies don’t tend to these days. I didn’t want to come out of it, back to mediocrity where filmmakers take their audience for granted. SoT treats the audience as equal, it gives an opportunity to reflect and interact with the thoughts presented in the film. Anand Gandhi very carefully crafts a film that raises questions about identity, ethics and evolution. The three stories within the film come together in what could be the best closing shot of the year! The film doesn’t take the easy route of leaving things up to ‘audience interpretation,’ instead it gives its audience some food for thought, without being preachy.

Ship of Theseus is truly made with an independent spirit. This is an example of what DSLRs are capable of doing. The visuals will prove once again that for DIY and low budget filmmakers, DSLRs are still a worthy investment. Pankaj Kumar’s (Director of Photography) brave cinematic choices takes the core idea of Theseus’ paradox to a whole new level. Three different looks and specific choice of camera movements for each story adds a new dimension to the characters. Technically this is a perfect film.

I look forward to a second viewing of the film as it opens to public. We’ve always been cynical about audiences rejecting new kind of films. The evolution of Indian cinema is in its prime, it’s not the audience that needs to carry this forward, it’s us, the filmmaking community that shouldn’t shy away from taking such risks.

Ship Of Theseus2

Kyunki Gandhi Bhi Kabhi Soaps Likhta Tha

– by Sumit Purohit

It was a rainy morning of July 2011. The Enlighten Film Society’s Naya Cinema Festival was going to screen Aaranya Kaandam as the closing film. I had heard lot about it, so I went despite the rain and the morning. I had no idea then that I will get introduced to another very special film there. It was announced that post the film screening the excerpts from three upcoming films will be played. I decided to stay back. One of these three films was SHIP OF THESEUS. That was the first time I heard about it. Anand Gandhi was present there with his team. He spoke briefly about the film.  But the few minutes of visuals that were played on screen were enough to tell everyone in the theatre that they were witnessing something exceptional. It probably was a film that will change Indian Independent cinema forever.

Almost a year later, Ship of Theseus was screened at Mumbai International Film Festival and it went beyond all expectations. It was not only the best Independent film to come out of India; it was a film which could compete with the finest from around the world. It was a master class in filmmaking. It was technically superior to most Indian films and it explored the stories significant to our times.

To realise that Anand Gandhi is a genius you need not watch his films. You just need to listen him talk for five minutes. He can talk about most things under the sky with great expertise. It seems he is less of a filmmaker and more of a cross between a mad scientist and a philosopher. No wonder he calls his production house a lab and writes research papers too. May be he is the monk from his film, or may be he is the young man who keeps arguing with the monk. Actually, he could be both of them at the same time.

Ship Of Theseus in a way is reflection of what Anand has experienced and learnt over the years. Though what’s wonderful about the film is that it communicates all those ideas and beliefs simplistically yet beautifully when it could have easily become pretentious, preachy or gone all abstract. Ship of Theseus is not what we usually associate with Indie films that have been to film festivals. It’s entertaining, at times humorous and very accessible. It respects its audience, and is intelligent.

The three stories in the film are all set in present Bombay and yet they look like they could be worlds separated by time and space. It’s interesting to notice how Anand uses certain elements in his film. The 1st story is about a blind photographer. Some of the gadgets she uses are straight from science fiction as if the story was taking place in the near future. At the same time the background song with Prakrit lyrics in the 2nd story makes the soundscape feel ancient. It’s a story about a monk who is fighting a court case to ban animal testing in India. He seems to connect with the most unlikely person, a young lawyer who sports long curly hairs and shares Internet jokes with him. In the 3rd story a young stockbroker’s obsession forces him to travel to Stockholm, a place away from his comfort zone. This coming together of contrasting elements makes Ship Of Theseus such an intriguing cinema.

Recently I read that the three films Anand suggested that everyone should watch are – Du Levande (You, the Living), The Turin Horse and Underground. If you look closely, you might find that these films could have influenced Ship Of Theseus conceptually and technically (Gábor ifj. Erdélyi, the sound designer of SOT has also worked on The Turin Horse). SoT has lot of non-actors in the cast, similar to what Roy Andersson prefers. Then there is a scene in the film where a fat man gets stuck in a narrow alley. One can easily imagine it to be a scene from an Emir Kusturica film.

SoT is a great example of how a filmmaker uses his experiences – things he has seen, stories he has heard, films he has watched, books he has read, and gels them together into something new. And at times referring back to them amusingly in the film.  This is a good reason why Ship Of Theseus can be seen again – to search for such references, to find those connections and see how they have changed in this process. Isn’t it similar to the Ship of Theseus paradox?

You will not hear or read any negative criticism of Ship of Theseus, so let me try it (for the sake of an argument and for fun). Strictly speaking it’s not a feature film. I will consider it an anthology of three short films that are thematically connected. The three films are visually and stylistically distinctive.  It’s deliberate but then you can’t overlook the clear dissimilarity between the writing, the way actors approach their roles, the language used and the impact it creates.  But then, for a debut filmmaker this really is not a negative thing. It only shows how talented Anand and his team are and how capable they are at creating these different worlds. It would be really interesting to see what Anand does when he decides to make a feature length film that follows one storyline. What narrative techniques he will use? What cinematic style he will adapt? He is an exciting filmmaker to follow. The best way to start stalking him is by watching Ship Of Theseus.

(PS – If you still need more reason to watch the film and you are a TV soap fan, then you should know that at once upon a time Anand used to write Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi and Kahaani Ghar Ghar ki. Now, that should excite some of you.)

– And if these four writers have not been able to convince you so far, click here to read what Dibakar Banerjee has to say about it. Not everyone has the guts to say such good things about someone else’s film.

Jahnu Barua’s Baandhon : A little more than love

Posted: July 9, 2013 by moifightclub in cinema, film, film review, Regional, reviews
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Baandhon is the first Jahnu Barua film to get a multi-city release outside Assam. Thanks to PVR Directors Rare. For cities and show timings, do check the poster below. And here’s Pradeep Menon on the film.

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The media, social and otherwise, has been abuzz with the latest Hindi release; an exciting, talented director’s sophomore feature, one that is making critics and audiences alike gush over gorgeous frames, celebrate the coming of clean cinematic craft, and most importantly, reminisce about romances of the days of old.

Indeed, sometimes one can’t help but feel that, in this day and age, we’ve all forgotten how to fall in love. We’ve forgotten what it is like to drown oneself in that heady rush of a new romance, embrace unbridled passion today like there isn’t a tomorrow and push the limits of rational behaviour in the pursuit of real life moments that make us feel like we’re living a movie.

But here’s the thing about romance – it always dies away. No question about it. So what remains then? What happens when you spend years, or even decades, with a person? Hopefully, once the romance, the passion and the giddy joy of the other’s company gradually ebb away, what you’re left with is respect, stability, comfort, and, if you’re extremely lucky, a lifelong friendship.

That, precisely, is what Jahnu Barua’s ‘Baandhon’ (“Waves of Silence”) is about. On the surface, it appears to be about the complex relationship shared by a married couple; a man and a woman who’ve spent nearly their entire life together. But if you really pause to think about it, it is quite simple. Their love has evaporated perhaps, but they are left with the next best thing – companionship.

Baandhon spends more than half its run-time soaking itself in a single fight between an aged husband and wife; a couple that has already been bereaved of its offspring, and is now solely alive for their grandson, who studies in IIT Mumbai. However, right from the outset, we know that this fight isn’t for real. They’ve done it to death umpteen times before, and it is perhaps the only thing that keeps them going on a daily basis. One ticks because the other is.

But, before we even see the couple for the first time, we are told the date of the fight. 26th of November 2008; a day that sent waves of silence of its own, all around the country. And immediately, you know that this is a story that is always going to end in some sort of a tragedy.

Barua, then, with his decades of filmmaking experience and multiple National Awards, chooses to douse his narrative in such minimalism and sparseness that not only is there never a twist, but there also isn’t even the anticipation of one. The terse inevitability of the path the film traverses is always writ large over the goings-on, and yet, Baandhon gently attempts to reaffirm faith in humanity while admitting that somewhere along the way, humanity has failed.

Reminiscent more than once of Mahesh Bhatt’s ‘Saaransh’, yet largely steering clear of some of the harsh questions and issues that Bhatt’s film raises, ‘Baandhon’ roots itself in economy of craft and storytelling. Even the background score of the film tries its best to camouflage itself behind the visuals; so rare for Indian cinema today, which nearly always attempts to elevate every emotion with over-the-top mood music embellishment.

There isn’t an overt attempt at displaying craft or technique here. Baandhon could easily have been a play. It is set mostly in Guwahati, before the climax, if I can call it that, shifts to Mumbai. Yet, there is no attempt to give the film a texture that sets it in a particular time or place. It could be happening anywhere, at any time. The 26/11 backdrop gives it a real world context perhaps, but even that could just as easily have been a fictional human tragedy that only needed Mumbai to be the place it occurs in. This of course, is clearly intentional on Barua’s part. If you’ve watched ‘Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara’, you know that he’s fully capable of creating a perceptible flavour of place and time.

Baandhon also has no solutions on offer. In fact, it hardly asks any questions. All the film does is give us a brief window of a few days, into the life of a man and woman who, after 73 years of their life, have only each other, even if their journey brings in their path a few kind souls who unselfishly look out for them. It is in these side characters, the ones that attempt to show you that humanity has hope after all, where the film really falters. Our cynical selves will find it hard to swallow the genuine goodness that the peripheral characters go out of their way to shower on our protagonists.

It doesn’t help that most of these side characters aren’t particularly well performed either. Even Bina Patangia, who plays one half of our couple, has an adorable character to fall back on, but her performance itself is mostly functional. Only Bishnu Kharghoria, who plays the husband, truly manages to turn in a memorable performance.

Despite some almost naïve writing and characterization, it is in its silences and pauses that Baandhon’s honesty shines through. This honesty draws you in and makes you want to sit right next to the couple as they deal with loss. Yet, just before your hand reaches out to caress them, you realize that they still have each other. And as you draw your hand back and walk away from them, all you really tell yourself is that perhaps that is all one needs – another person to fall back on, forever.

( To read more posts by Pradeep, you can check out his blog here)

Lootera – Sanwaar Lo Sanwaar lo

Posted: July 5, 2013 by moifightclub in bollywood, cinema, film review, movie reviews, reviews
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Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap did AMA on Reddit yesterday. Someone asked him about the state of Indian film criticism. His reply in one word was “terrible”. Well, it doesn’t take much brains to figure this out. Open the papers on Friday and you can see it all over. Not to mention the reviews by trade analysts which industry endorses most vehemently, and who then manipulates box office updates accordingly, the ones with agendas other than films, and then there are the paid and the plugged ones. It’s routine now. Nobody is shocked or surprised. And that’s the worst thing to happen – to get used to it.

With social media getting prominence and becoming at least some kind of parameter to get audience reaction, the game of making a “perceptive hit or classic” starts days before the release. You are blinded by the blitzkrieg, a kind of emperor’s new clothes. And journos who are suppose to tell you otherwise, they are happy to get their pictures clicked with the stars. Well, why am i ranting? Because today is friday. Because a bigger rant follows this one. And because we have always been accused of being biased for/against some films and filmmakers. Not to mention being branded contrarian for the sake of it. From saying Talaash works best when you know the spoiler to defending Shyamalan’s latest to liking Raanjhanaa’s 2nd half more to Ghanchakkar being not that bad what critics are saying. Here’s the latest one in the series – on Lootera. And am saying this even though i liked lot of things in the film, especially the 2nd half. And you have to watch it because it’s made by the same filmmaker who gave us Udaan.

So watch the film and come back to the post. Though it’s a spoiler free and you can read before watching the film too. This one is by a new author called Nicolas Bourbaki. Familiar? You will get to know him soon.

Lootera

Warning – this is NOT a review of the film. This is a rant. A wannabe brilliant piece in support of brilliant cinema and stemming from the rangat of self conceit. And even though it doesn’t have spoilers, it is recommended to not read this piece of crap before watching the film.

It’s 1.30 am in my bedroom. I’m alone sitting by the almirah with the king sized mirror. I look at my reflection. I have pain anguish angst remorse guilt redemption realization hope despair despondency writ all over my face. The fan whirls 7 ft above my head. It’s a second hand cheap 800 rupees fan which makes a whirrring noise. No PSPO unlike the film I saw. Bedbugs trouble me. I look at my freckled face. Time stands still unhealed by pain and unfettered by the nocturnal twists and turns of a solitary night. Half a drop of tear rolls over my eyelid, brimming over, somewhat reluctant to fall down. Yet it knows, and it can feel my melancholia. It knows it must fall down. But will it or will it not ?

आँसुओं की किंकर्तव्यविमूढ़ता हो तो ऐसी हो

Please bear with me dear reader. This is not another synopsis of Ship of Theseus.

What a brilliant film!

Brilliant cinematography. Such gorgeous frames. Color schemes which would guarantee taciturn unconditional approval by Kie-slow-iski. Yellow when the mood is prosperous. White when characters are fighting inner demons. Dark interiors for people with dark circles. Transitions from Puja/Ramleela fervor to fever-ish asthma attacks that Baradwaj Rangan would love to write thesis & books on. Aesthetics which are carefully calibrated to the exact precision so well that Light appears to meticulously obey both Particle & Wave theory simultaneously at the director (and DOP’s) will.

When the characters come to kiss each other in a Terrance Malick-ian way, there is just about enough background flare to make the moment surreal, yet real without the hyper reality of the scene underscoring the cinematic liberties. Equality Fraternity. That’s the French revolution all the way till 2008’s Entre Les Murs (Class) – maybe the director’s favorite film that year. Sheer class!

Breaths. Pauses. Stays. Beats. Playback songs. Measured. Sure. Nimble footed. Sometimes hurried. Sometimes slow. Asphyxiating. Liberating. Gesticulating. Pontificating. Prepossessing. Repossessing.

“चार बाल सामने चाहिए. सिर्फ़ चार बाल! मुझे एकदम Natural look चाहिए. बिल्कुल made up नही”.” – Steven Kapoor said.

“मैं पिछली picture का print Tirupati (Balaji) ले जाना भूल गया था. इसी लिए नही चली थी” – the producer from Ludhiana reasoned with him.

I suddenly observe. Snowflakes are falling on me. यारी रोड में बर्फ बारी ? हौले हौले धीमे धीमे. I quickly wear my color co-ordinated sweater and stand up with my arms folded out like Andy Dufrene. Epiphany striked, symphony plays – Costume Design and Art Direction should have had top billing over writer/director’s credit.

I scribble my review on a piece of paper with a Chinese fountain pen dipped in a दवात. Then tear it apart. Then do a for-next loop until fade out.

What a performance by the father (Barun Chanda). Ranveer Singh restrains in restraining himself while Sonakshi Sinha has all the reasons to have my sympathy. But for some strange reason my sympathies lie with my bums, which have been lying motionless for over the 2 hours, uninvolved, dis interested, dazed, waiting for a jump in my seat moment, a lump in the throat, a mournful sigh. They perhaps demand too much as they get only assiduously created multi-textured verisimilitude along with a velvet touch of a fabric. Kora kagaz tha yeh bum mera…..

I wanted to cry, to laugh, to be angry, nervously bite my nails, fight with the irritating uncle with the kid asking them to shut up instead of searching for adjectives to define the craft. Even some of the later films directed by Santosh Sivan were … (space left intentionally for background music).

Even a gunshot wound has been brilliantly (decorated) created with 50 shades of grey. Nerolac Nerolac Nerolac! Waah miyaan Henry! Life is a tale told by an idiot. All sound and fury. Signifying nothing. Like this rant perhaps.

As the song goes – (har ek frame ko) Sanwaar loon, Sanwaar loon.

(PS – And now the media blitzkrieg begins. All I can muster up is this –

लबों के सिलवटों से उप्पर सिकुड़ी हुई छोटी सी एक नाक है

रूह ही ना डाली पिक्चर पोस्टकार्ड में तो फिर खुजली मज़ाक है)

(PPS – what’s well shot, needs editing, slow pace and blah blah blah? Here you go.

Raanjhanaa – politics of love and lovers in politics

Posted: June 23, 2013 by moifightclub in bollywood, cinema, film, film review, Movie Recco, movie reviews, reviews
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Raanjhanaa(Has SPOILERS)

Like most Bollywood films these days, Raanjhanaa is completely two different films packed in one – pre and post-interval. One is the “politics of love” and the other is “lovers in politics”, and there’s a big difference between the two. As the initial reactions and reviews started pouring in, the verdict seems to be unanimous – first half is fun, the curse of 2nd half strikes yet again. As i stepped into the theatre, i was ready for it. But as i came out of the theatre, i realised that i belong to that minority group which liked the second half more.

First half is easy, you know the tricks, you have seen it many times, love stories in small towns and galli mohalls is not new. It’s charming and easy to like. There’s no way one cannot not like it. Some might argue that it’s stalking and glorification of it, then let me say that you have never been part of any small town love story. It’s stark reality. That’s the way it happens. If you don’t know a friend who has cut his wrist or drank kerosene (sleeping tablets is for metroes), the film might seem a bit stranger to you. But what stood out for me was how ruthlessly selfish the lovers are. Sonam (Zoya) knows Dhanush (Kundan) loves her. And so she uses him in every possible way. It’s the same with Kundan, who knows that Swara (Bindiya) can do anything for him. And he uses her blatantly. It all seems fun and jovial on the surface but scratch it and you realise how cunning their acts are. It’s the politics of love. Their love might be pure but the tricks aren’t.

Some even might point out the physical equation between Kundan, Bindiya and Murari. How can you hit her? i would say this is what “camaraderie” between friends is all about, without being aware of one’s gender. And in the scene when Bindiya says kewal mere baap ke hi kapde phadega, and Kundan backs out, you know that she isn’t the shy kind. If she had protested, these guys would have backed out long back. It’s part of the game, of growing up together.

Now, the second half seems like a completely different film.  A death, and the childhood romance of Benaras moves to ambitious student politics of Delhi. Kundan doesn’t know why he is there. He is lost. He is not sure what to do with his life. He has tried every possible option. Is he still chasing Zoya? Yes. Kind of. Does he know why? No. Has he any more hopes from her? No. The simple chasing the girl routine turns into a heavy cocktail of ambitions and emotions. Let’s see how. So Zoya aspires to fulfill the ambitions of her dead lover (Abhay/Akram). But slowly it looks like all these dreams will come true only through Kundan whom she hates now, whom she holds responsible for Akram’s death. It’s a difficult choice to make. Can she accept Kundan now? And even if she does, the world will curse her for being selfish and opportunist who forgot her lover after his death. Between love, life and dreams, she is confused with no easy way out. And then comes an opportunity to turn it all over and conquer it all. She opts for it too but the guilt is too heavy to bear.

Kundan is caught in a similar situation. He is aimless, he is just tagging along and is getting lucky wherever he puts his foot, except in love. And when it all comes to the conclusion, he realises that even if he wins everything, he has lost the only thing he ever wanted from life – love. So what’s the point of living? Someone who can slash his wrist so easily, he has no fear of death. The monologue in the climax wraps it up beautifully. Lovers always claim to be ready to die in love. But only few dare to do it. And very few directors and writers dare to opt for such uncompromised end for a love story. Nothing else was possible. All credit to writer Himanshu Sharma and director Anand L Rai for going the whole hog. And this is exactly why i liked the second half more. It’s complicated,  and the makers went for the unusual choices. I think first half is easy to write, and easy to like. Second half is damn difficult to write from the point when Dhanush lands up in Delhi not knowing what to do. I could hear the writer’s voice there – what to do with this mujhe-bus-Zoya-chahiye character? He (character and writer) really doesn’t know what to do now.

Raanjhanaa2

Now, the running joke. In a scriptlab where Sriram Raghavan was our mentor, we used to joke that whenever you are stuck at any page, just put a gun in that page. Sriram will like it for sure. Here the formula is slightly different – stuck on the page, opt for the blade. Not once or twice, but three times. Woah!

Interestingly, the entire film is one long montage cut on back to back songs. You can exactly count the numbers of the scenes where the characters talk. But the flavour of the real locations and the terrific acting by Dhanush, Swara Bhaskar and Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub makes it look perfectly smooth. Also, it might be a smart decision keeping Dhanush’s dialogue delivery in mind. They have justified his character, and his hindi diction is weird but it’s not jarring to ears. So a big credit must go to its music director A R Rahman. His music is the thread that holds this complicated tale of unrequited love together. Sonam seems to have improved a lot from her previous films but her dialogue delivery is still irritating. And Kumud Mishra is always quite pleasant to watch onscreen.

I never bothered to watch Rai’s earlier films. But going by Tanu Weds Manu (i like it and TERRIFIC album) and Raanjhanaa, i think Imtiaz Ali has some competition finally. Especially if it’s matters of hearts in small towns. And Dhanush, welcome to bollywood.

Watch it. And if uncomfortable, take off your “metro” shoes.

– @CilemaSnob

Ritesh Batra’s The Lunchbox and Amit Kumar’s Monsoon Shootout – Tracking all the Cannes buzz

Posted: May 20, 2013 by moifightclub in cast & crew, cinema, Film Festival, film review, movie reviews, News, reviews
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Ritesh Batra’s The Lunchbox (Dabba) and Amit Kumar’s Monsoon Shootout had their premiere screenings at the ongoing Cannes Film Festival. Lunchbox is selected in International Critics Week section and Monsoon Shootout had a midnight screening. Some early reviews of both the films have been pouring in. For curious folks like us, here are the excerpts and links to the reviews.

Variety review is here

A feel-good movie that touches the heart while steering clear of expectation, “The Lunchbox” signals a notable debut from tyro helmer-scripter Ritesh Batra. The ingredients on their own are nearly fail-proof, yet it’s the way Batra combines food with an epistolary romance between a nearly retired number cruncher and a neglected wife that hits all the right tastebuds. An indie Indian pic with the crossover appeal of “Monsoon Wedding,” it’s sure to be gobbled up by audience-friendly fests before heading into niche cinemas.

Screen Daily review is here

A wistful, elegant love story played out across the streets of Mumbai, The Lunchbox is an unexpectedly aromatic charmer from first-time film-maker Ritesh Batra. Eschewing the pitfalls of what appears, on face value, to be a highly schematic set-up, Batra infuses his film with warmth and humanity, while cameraman Michael Simmonds steps up to deliver delicate visuals of modern Mumbai.

Film Business Asia’s review is here

There’s hardly a shot, line or gesture out of place in The Lunchbox, a hugely impressive feature debut by Mumbai-born, partly New York-based Ritesh Batra that starts out like a foodie film but spins a simple idea into a whole mini-universe of feelings.

– To watch the presentation ceremony video, click here

– To watch Ritesh Batra’s interview, click here

– Two clips from the film

Cast and crew list

Directed, written by Ritesh Batra.
Camera (color, widescreen) – Michael Simmonds
Editor – John Lyons
Music – Max Richter
Production designer – Shruti Gupte
Costume designer – Niharika Bhasin Khan
Sound (Dolby Digital) – Michael Kaczmarek, Ramesh Birajdar, Joerg Theil, Tom Korr
Line producers – Meraj Shaikh, Smriti Jain
Assistant director – Prerna Saigal
Casting – Seher Latif.
Cast – Irrfan Khan, Nimrat Kaur, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Denzil Smith, Bharati Achrekar, Nakul Vaid, Yashvi Puneet Nagar, Lillette Dubey

And here are the reviews of Amit Kumar’s Monsoon Shootout.

Peter Bradshaw’s review is here

It’s a moody, broody downbeat drama for most of the time, a rainy noir. But along with the plot trickery, there are some unexpected turns…..It’s an entertaining popcorn-movie with a twist, for which commercial success is on the cards. There should be space for pictures like it in Cannes.

The Hollywood Reporter review is here.

A cunningly intricate first film from India, Monsoon Shootout combines the best of two worlds – a ferocious Mumbai cops and gangsters drama, and a satisfyingly arty plot that turns in on itself to examine the outcome of three possible choices a rookie cop might make when he confronts a ruthless killer. Three times the story returns to a key moment: a boy with a gun uncertain whether to pull the trigger. Though the idea of Dirty Harry meeting Sliding Doors may sound abstract, writer-director Amit Kumar pulls it off gracefully, without losing the sense of heightened drama that earned the film a Midnight Movie slot in Cannes. The Fortissimo release should make good headway in territories open to India and exotic genre fare and put Kumar on festival radar.

Screen Daily review is here.

Serving up a portion of Rashomon with a side of Sliding Doors, this tasty Mumbai crime story offers multiple outcomes of one fateful decision in a rookie cop’s professional life. Though it sounds like a potentially experimental premise, Monsoon Shootout is a glossy ethical drama designed to appeal equally to more upscale Indian audiences and worldwide genre fans.

Film School rejects review is here

The Upside: Nicely photographed; boasts decent enough lead performances, specifically the presence of Thapa as Adi’s beau; sound editing is also strikingly effective

The Downside: Aspirations towards existentialism don’t pay off well because it lazily recycles some grand ideas, but without the same level of ingenuity and entertainment value; atrocious editing stifles the action beats, which are themselves too sparse and brief to satisfy.

Here’s the Variety review:

“Monsoon Shootout” is a racy mash-up of Tarantino-esque ultra-violence and-gritty but-hip contempo Indian actioners. Amit Kumar invests a schematic police-thriller structure with a compelling moral dilemma hinging on a standoff between a cop and his suspect.

And here’s the Rope of Silicon podcast on the film.

A look at the film:

Cast and crew list

Production companies: Yaffle Films, Sikhya Entertainment in association with Pardesi Films AKFPL, Dar Motion Pictures

Cast: Vijay Varma, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Neeraj Kabi, Geetanjali Thapa

Director: Amit Kumar

Screenwriter: Amit Kumar,

Producers: Trevor Ingman, Guneet Monga, Martijn De Grunt

Co-producers: Anurag Kashyap, Arun Rangachari

Director of photography: Rajeev Ravi

Production designer: Mayur Sharma

Editor: Atanu Mukherjee, Ewa Lind

Music: Gingger Shankarv Sales Agent: Fortissimo Films

88 minutes

(Pics taken from various online sources/social media)

Update: TWITTER BUZZ…

Since reviews for Indian films are scarce, we decided to add some tweets into the mix.

On The Lunchbox:

THE LUNCHBOX (R Batra): Like a bonsai tree, modest but magnificent. Standout performances. Bit cloying, but only if you want to find faults. — @bgji May 20, 2013

A very well-deserved, sustained, standing ovation for The Lunchbox at Cannes. Congratulations, Ritesh!! — @Shripriya May 19, 2013

On Monsoon Shootout:

MONSOON SHOOTOUT is the ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ of crime actioners. I’m not completely convinced, but I do respect the ambition. #Cannes — @RylandAldrich May 19, 2013

MONSOON SHOOTOUT (D-) 3 versions of the same story, except it’s not as the filmmakers abandon the logic of the conceit. Morally dubious too — @CSkinner May 19, 2013

MONSOON SHOOTOUT does somehow seem to have become the defining film of the Festival. #cannes2013 — @JonathanRomney May 18, 2013

MONSOON SHOOTOUT (A Kumar): Thoroughly ordinary. Heavy handed 3 pronged narrative structure/metaphor. More imagination re: Bombay, please. — @bgji May 19, 2013

Monsoon Shootout is the Sliding Doors of cop thrillers. Fleetingly entertaining but the alt-outcomes narrative wears thin… #Cannes2013 — @totalfilm May 19, 2013

Monsoon Shootout – 2/5. Slumdog Millionaire meets Run Lola Run (Run Slumdog Run?) in fecklessly bloodless gimmick thriller #Cannes2013 — @ShaunMunroFilm May 19, 2013

MONSOON SHOOTOUT is the Indian RUN LOLA RUN if RUN LOLA RUN were a predictable cop drama. #Cannes2013 #cannes — @FredTopel May 19, 2013

On Ugly:

UGLY (A Kashyap): A Blaft-like pulp thriller with @ankash1009 bravely pushing his style to the limits. Depressingly hilarious & brilliant. — @bgji May 18, 2013

And finally…

UGLY and MONSOON SHOOTOUT taught me not to be a person who works for, needs help from, or who is wanted by police in India. #cannes2013— @marshalclark) May 19, 2013

Jai Ho. 🙂

Anurag Kashyap’s Ugly – Tracking all the Cannes buzz

Posted: May 19, 2013 by moifightclub in cast & crew, cinema, film, Film Festival, movie reviews, News, reviews
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At the ongoing Cannes Film Festival, India has a much better presence this year compared to last few years. So we are back with our regular post to track all the Cannes buzz that the desi films are creating there.

Anurag Kashyap’s film Ugly had its screening in the Directors’ Fortnight section. Some of the early reviews are out.

– The Holly Reporter review is here

Kashyap’s nasty point is that, between violence, greed and corruption, just about no one is innocent in the end. Certainly all the characters are selfish beyond belief. This existential cynicism hits home in the horrific crime revealed in the last shot, But by that time, the emotions feel light years away.

– Translated text of French review on Telerama is here.

Heavy, unbearable. Surprising to the end, vitriolic portrait of contemporary India…

– Twitchfilm review is here

Really, the more divisive issue of the film will be the content itself, and audiences willingness to spend so much time watching greedy, ruthless and often idiotic people going from bad to bottom of the barrel. The ending may be a potential deal-breaker for some too, and while I can’t argue in detail without spoiling it, my sleep-deprived Cannes impression is that the haunting final shot effectively hammers home the moral center of the movie rather than functioning as the cheap, shock-value alternative. In fact, reflecting on the way Kashyap handled the rest of the film, specifically spurts of intentional violence, I do feel that there was a sympathetic voice in the film — it was just behind the camera instead of in front of it.

– The Hindu’s report on the film is here.

“The first 10 minutes of the film have to do with my own life when I depict the relations between the divorced father and his little girl. But the rest of the film came about after I read about the disappearance of children in India.

– Screendaily review is here.

After the five-and-a-bit-hour gangland epic Gangs Of Wasseypur, the godfather of the Indian commercial arthouse sector, Anurag Kashyap, serves up a slimline two-hour hard-boiled crime thriller with Ugly. But the running time is the only thing that’s restrained about this lazy kidnap caper, whose hints of Fargo, echoes of Old Boy and touches of Tarantino are compromised by the story’s sprawling lack of discipline.

Mubi’s short review is here.

The dissonance between the tone of the highly mobile plotting with its harsh and justified moral judgement of everyone in the film and the unconscious, conventionally acted characters break the film’s sinister, society-flailing vision. Thus Ugly‘s interest is more academic than actual—perhaps a failed experiment—and while its disappointing inconsistency instills dullness, it also provokes a strange and blistering series of events, each unfolding in shocking succession.

– Directors Fortnight videos

Interview of AK

Q & A after the screening

– The Hollywood Reporter on Kashyap getting the French honour Chevalier dans l’ordre des Arts et Lettres honour (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters)

– Cast and Credit list from THR

DAR Motion Pictures presents a Phantom Films production

Cast: Ronit Roy, Rahul Bhat, Tejaswini Kolhapure, Anshika Shrivastava, Vineet Kumar Singh, Girish Kulkarni, Surveen Chawla, Siddhant Kapoor

Director: Anurag Kashyap

Screenwriter: Anurag Kashyap

Producers: Madhu Mantena, Vikas Bahl, Vikramaditya Motwane, Arun Rangachari, Vivek Rangachari

Co-producers: Vivek Agrawal, Shahnaab Alam

Director of photography: Nikos Andritsakis

Production designer: Mayur Sharma

Costumes: Divya Gambhir, Nidhi Gambhir

Editor: Aarti Bajaj

Music: Brian McOmber, G V Prakash Kumar

Sales Agent: DAR Motion Pictures, Mumbai

124 minutes.

(Pics – from social media/DF Facebook page)

The Reluctant Fundamentalist – O.S.T. Review

Posted: May 1, 2013 by moifightclub in cinema, Hollywood, music, Music review, reviews
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the-reluctant-fundamentalist-posterThe latest offering by Mira Nair features various artists and the album has as many as 14 tracks.

The album starts with Kangna, a traditional qawaali performed wonderfully by Fareed Ayaz and Abu Muhammad. The accentuated bass towards the end remind us that this is for a Film and not performed for anything else. Although the duo have sung this song for Coke Studio Pakistan as well where the duration was in excess of 10 mins, this one ends in less than 6 minutes, melodious nonetheless.

Bijli aaye ya na aaye features the otherwise serious Meesha Shafi. Severely let down on the lyrics the song survives because of the lovely throw that Meesha demonstrates. Peppy. The lyrics are so bad that they actually redefine the word ‘random’. However, this for sure will be closely walking with the narrative, of which I am sure.

Kaindey ney sung by Zahara Khan is up next. Performed with just a guitar and Sarod by the side for most part, Zahara appears slightly out of sync at times in this average song.

Ali Sethi hums Dil jalaney ki baat kartey ho extremely well and leaves you wanting for more because the track is barely 2 mins long.

Atif Aslam croons Mori araj suno and even though he tries very hard, thanks to the varied versions of this ageless composition that we have come across, this track falls short. But it does sound very theatrical.

Measure of me by Amy Ray is the best song of the album. Slow, melancholic and very high on melody. The arrangement is so simple that you might even ignore it. The backup vocal arrangement is brilliant as well.

A young man has to take a stand performed by Michael Andrews is a track filled with a lot of tension thanks to the eerie arrangement and loads of violins used. Ends quickly echoing the tension in the head.

Jannissary again performed by Michael is a slow piano piece with continuous violins. Somehow reminded me of 1947 The earth, this piece. Nicely done.

Something happened – Bass and a lot of bass instills anticipation in what appears to be an anxious track. A track that is very rich on sounds. Faintly heard someone sharpening knife, someone running through a door and then it all descends to a pause. One of the best instrumental pieces in a long time. Highly recommended.

God bless America A very short track comprising of crowds cheering and a continuous beat that eventually fades out far too quickly.

Love in Urdu by Rizzle kicks is a delicately arranged all instrumental piece peppered with subtle Sarod and guitar. Not as beautiful as love in Urdu would be but a soothing and simple track.

Focus on fundamentals paints a picture of tension, yet again. Aided in just right measure with violins and a dying bass line throughout. Eerie. Tensed. Dark.

Get us both killed has got a very dark tone throughout. The riffs remind you of a particular O.S.T. Which shall not be named here. :) the tempo steadily rises but never peaks and that’s quite eerie.

Too much blood has poured into this river With near absent vocals, this track keeps the dark undertone of the album alive. Aided by flute, the overall grave atmosphere gets a touch of sadness. The almost silent alaap is a touch of class in this track.

With Mira Nair, we are sure that the music will be totally circumstantial and compliment the feel of the film. The Reluctant Fundamentalist is no different. Will I hear it as much as the O.S.T. Of ‘The Namesake’? Well, No. The reason is simple. This O.S.T. stays so closely hugged to the film’s feel that you slip into sadness with some of the tracks of this film.

2 Thumbs up! If you are an O.S.T. Collector, do not miss this at any cost!

– @Rohwit

(Ed note : For more music reviews by Rohwit, you can check his blog here)

Pizza – should filmmakers “cheat” us?

Posted: April 7, 2013 by moifightclub in cinema, film review, movie reviews, reviews, Spoiler, Story / Plot / Synopsis
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pizza

S-P-O-I-L-E-R—-A-L-E-R-T

i finally saw the film that i have been reading and hearing about for a long time. A Tamil film called Pizza which became a surprise hit and its remake right has been sold in many other languages including Hindi. That made me more curious. I knew that it’s a horror film. If you are told otherwise, it will be a spoiler. And that’s sad in a way because then you wonder if the film is so weak that if you tell the real genre to which it belongs, it wont work? Imagine if you always knew that it’s a thriller, and not a horror film. Would the film still work? Am not so sure now. Take Talaash, i think it works best when you know the spoiler. (Post here) And as a friend said it here – A movie is never about its twist, and if it is, it’s not worth it. Pizza is badly handicapped on that front.

Directed by Karthik Subbaraj, the film starts on quite a thrilling note. Almost like one of those found footage films. A bunch of guys trying to trace ghosts in an old building and everything is recorded on a handy cam. As it gets more exciting, as the so called ghosts are about to appear, you realise that this is not the real film. It’s a film inside the film which is playing on tv and the lead characters are watching it. You can brand this as cheating, or, you might overlook it because of the thrill that it provides. I guess the director set the tone of his film with this sequence. The way you react to it, my guess is you are going to react to the film in a similar way once it ends.

I was thoroughly enjoying the film till the interval. And i kept wondering how are they going to close it because it looked like a difficult task. Well, it turned out to be KLPD. Because the director cheats us not once, but twice actually. First time when we are hearing the ghost story. It’s in one flashback. Almost the first half. And second time when the lead character is trying to act scared, pretending to be spooked – breathing problem, blood on his back, someone in the loo. Even if you are willing to take the first instance as film making tool, what about the second one? The second one makes you completely believe in the first story and kills all your doubts.

So you enjoy the thrill so much that you don’t call it cheating, or maybe you even call it so but overlook the fact once you know the reality. Why? Because it was worth it. Or you brand it as pure KLPD, cheating and childish. There’s nothing right or wrong, it’s just the way you react. And so the question in the post because i felt it was cheating. You might be completely fine with it. Do let us know in the comments section.

I am guessing you are still with me and are reading this post because you have seen the film already. Otherwise it won’t make sense as am not explaining everything in detail. And remember Kahaani? Lot of us criticised Sujoy Ghosh for that one scene where Vidya is talks about her husband and we get to see her “fake” story in flashback. Unlike others Sujoy was honest enough to participate in a discussion with us after its release and gave us his version. You can check the entire discussion here.

I still believe that the character might be talking about his/her story but it’s the filmmakers choice how he is showing it to us. We are not peeping into the character’s head like Being John Malkovich. Now, if we criticised Sujoy for that one scene, imagine an entire film based on such a scenario. Pizza is exactly that.

Once you are inside the theatre, one completely trusts the filmmaker. Saying and showing things with the help of a character and making us believe in it is the simplest thing inside that dark room. And then you turn around and say that it was all false, well, those were my favourite games in kindergarten. Not anymore.

Interestingly, when i asked people on twitter to rate the film on a scale of 1 to 5, most people rated it between 2.5 to 5. So clearly am in minority. Or, maybe am growing old. I prefer human stories more than thrill pills now.

Or i can try a better one. Since i was talking about his closing lines in the last post, and most probably someone will soon say “The Usual Suspects” while discussing this post, so here’s a quote from his review of the same film – I prefer to be amazed by motivation, not manipulation.

– @CilemaSnob

Reading “The Master”

Posted: March 14, 2013 by moifightclub in cinema, film, Gods of Cinema, Hollywood, Movie Recco, movie reviews, reviews, video
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TheMaster.php

Great cinema always inspires great writing. And going by that rule, the latest one to join the club is P T Anderson’s The Master. And like us, if you also love reading everything possible related to a film once you have seen it and love it, then you have come to the right place. Some of us have seen the film and googled everything on it so that you don’t have to. Also, there are high chances that once you have seen the film, you will have too many questions. This post has links to some of the explanations offered.

But DON’T READ ANYTHING if you have not seen the film.

The Master is finally getting a theatrical release in India this friday. It might not work for everyone but you can’t deny Anderson’s stamp of great film-making all over. So don’t miss it. And for two more reasons – it deserves to be seen on big screen. There’s no other way. If it works out well, we might get to see much better releases in the coming months.

At the end of the scene, Lancaster sings “(I’d Like to Get You On) A Slow Boat to China” to Freddie. And yes, it’s eerie and perhaps more than a little homoerotic, but it also feels like a twisted version of a lullaby — the most domestic and familial of actions turned into something terrifying and strange — making it clear once and for all that Freddie’s dream of becoming a family with Lancaster and Peggy Dodd is an impossibility. And freeing him, ironically, to try and form a new family — perhaps with Winn, the girl he’s met in the final scenes of the film, right before we see him lying next to the female sand sculpture, suggesting that his search goes on.

– Vulture has done a brilliant piece titled “What Is The Master Really About?: Five Interpretations”. Click here to read.

It’s hard to make a lot. That was one thing when I was working on The Master, they kept being like, “well, he’s got a tea kettle, and he’s making gallons of spirit out of it.” I’m like, “Mmm, you might get a shot of spirit out of a tea kettle.” Like that flask setup in the shed in the cabbage field? No way that would have produced a five-gallon glass carboy full of moonshine, unless you were working every day for several weeks. But, you know, movie magic.

– Vulture has also done a piece answering that million dollar question which everyone will surely ask after watching the film – Can You Really Make Booze Out of Paint Thinner? Click here to know the answer.

The haunting, utterly inward stillness of the actors in “The Master” is one of the director Paul Thomas Anderson’s most apparent achievements, and it’s no mere ornament or element of dramatic plausibility—it’s at the core of the film, as is the very question of performance as such.

– New Yorker’s Rochard brody has written a long essay titled “The Astonishing Power Of The Master”. Click here to read.

– And if you want to read about the making of the film, click here for a long interview.
In “The Master,” we’re often left gasping for air, as in the scene when Freddie is required not to  blink for a painfully long stretch of his processing. Or because of the sheer beauty of some of the compositions. Warts, wanderings, reiterations and all, this is a film destined to be processed in many different ways. And hallelujah to that.
– Michael Philips’ 4 star review is here.
There are hints of an erotic relationship between Freddie and Dodd’s daughter (Ambyr Childers) and a not-too-veiled suggestion that Dodd’s paternal yearnings for Freddie are complicated by other desires. But at the risk of issuing a spoiler of sorts, beyond a bewildering point-of-view sequence when Freddie imagines that all the women at a Philadelphia cocktail party are naked, this is a film suffused with sexual desire that has no sex in it. If you look at “The Master” through the lens of Paul Thomas Anderson’s body of work, this is a prelude to the world of “Boogie Nights,” a disordered America where nobody was getting any that led straight to the disordered America where everybody was getting too much.
– Another great piece by Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir. It’s titled “The Master: A forbidding portrait of L. Ron Hubbard’s America” . Click here to read.
All of this striving — absurd, tragic, grotesque and beautiful — can feel like too much. “The Master” is wild and enormous, its scale almost commensurate with Lancaster Dodd’s hubris and its soul nearly as restless as Freddie Quell’s. It is a movie about the lure and folly of greatness that comes as close as anything I’ve seen recently to being a great movie. There will be skeptics, but the cult is already forming. Count me in.
– A O Scott’s article is wickedly titled “There Will Be Megalomania”. Click here to read.
– Time Out Chicago also offers “An Explanation” of the film. Click here to read.

So where does this leave “The Master” on the Anderson landscape, that oddly populated terrain? Few modern films have been as crowded as “Boogie Nights” and “Magnolia,” and few have been more lonely than “There Will Be Blood.” The new work sways toward the latter. I kept expecting, and even hoping, that Dodd would acquire a tinge of Elmer Gantry—that he might start to muster large throngs to the Cause, with Freddie employed as the muscle to keep the mob in line. But the scale of the story, for all Dodd’s swagger, remains compact, and the plot slowly condenses into a blend of character studies. Look at Amy Adams in closeup, for instance, all the scarier for being so perky and correct, her features filling the screen as she quizzes the reprobate. Or look at Phoenix, lifting his head high and proud, as Brando used to do, with an added, cranky stiffness that comes from having, or being, a serious pain in the neck. The eyes narrow and the mouth is awry, one corner twisting into an Elvis curl, though it looks too sour for seduction, let alone song.

– Anthony Lane’s review in the New Yorker is here. And it’s a must read.

Why do you make things so difficult? Else it wouldn’t be fun.

–  1 hour long Q & A with Anderson
– The Career of Paul Thomas Anderson in Five Shots
If you read any other brilliant essay on the film, do post it in the comments section.
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