A Kusturica Film by Vishal Bhardwaj

A gypsy without dreams is like a church without a roof, like a textbook without letters...

There is a scene in Vishal Bhardwaj’s latest film that is supposed to be funny, in which, the two male leads are trying to shift a well from its position, too drunk to realize the futility of the endeavor. It is night, and the area is deserted. In the background, among the shops that are shut, a board reads – “Kusturi-ca Brass Band”. It is not a deliberately ‘detailed’ art-design decision, but clearly a tribute to the great Serbian film-maker Emir Kusturica. And thanks to the scene that was boring me like the rest of the film, my eyes wandered from the main action to this little, subtle detail in the background, because it made me think before I started criticizing the film. And it has now led me to a very confused state where I find myself split over my views on it.

Vishal Bhardwaj was my favorite modern Hindi-language film-maker, until he made ‘Saat Khoon Maaf’ (2011). That film kept me depressed for days, not because of its content, but because I thought it was a bad film that broke my heart and ended my love affair with the maker. Two years later, I suddenly found myself praising the film, after I watched ‘Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola’. That was perhaps the only good thing about this latest film, that it made its predecessor look so much better. This, however, is my film-buff self speaking, that wants to watch good films, and good films alone. A bad film spoils my mood and affects my physiology. But the truth is that I am not just a film-buff. I am also a film-writer, and someone who dreams to be a director one day. When my film-maker self thinks about ‘Matru’, and thinks of Bhardwaj as a colleague rather than an icon, I find myself empathizing with him.

All serious film-makers want to create unique, unforgettable films. And mind you, it is not easy. In fact, the more I work in this medium, I realize how incredible it is that some people do end up making films that are brilliant. One thing we can never take away from Bhardwaj is that he always tries to make films which are unique, at least from Hindi commercial cinema standards. Even his decision to cast stars over genuine actors is because of the complicated commercial dynamics of our industry, which would otherwise make it impossible for you to make ‘your’ films ‘your’ way. So, I appreciate the film-maker’s aspiration to make a film on the lines Kusturica. That his film falls short by a ridiculously large margin does not rob him of the credit of trying something as insanely difficult as this. Most film-makers would fail trying to do this, and hence the film’s failure is not a big surprise.

If you are aware of Emir Kusturica’s films, you will know what I mean when I say that most film-makers would fail trying to do what he does. I recommended the first Kusturica movie that I watched as a must-watch, and I’m almost tempted to do the same with the second. For the first half an hour or so, in both these movies, you are trying to get oriented to their mad fervor and quirky characters, something that ‘Matru’ had common with them. However, Kusturica eventually involves you so deeply with his characters that you care and feel for them, and almost do not want the film to end. In fact, until last week when I watched ‘Time of the Gypsies’ (1988), and the 'Kusturi-ca' mention in ‘Matru’ inspired me to do that, I thought something like the Marquez epic ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ can never be filmed. But now I feel tempted to say, that if there is one film-maker today who can adapt that novel to film, it is Kusturica. If you have read that novel, watch ‘Time of the Gypsies’, which is perhaps the best magical-realism film I have seen. It is ridiculously funny and painfully sad at the same time, a strange feeling that the Marquez novel so effortlessly evokes. Watching this film will also make you understand Bhardwaj better, or his motivation behind making ‘Matru’, a film I would like to forget as soon as possible, and hope that the maverick from India only rises from here. Something even half as good as ‘Maqbool’ (2004) would make me re-discover my love-affair with the amazing Vishal Bhardwaj I once knew.

Top 10 at Oscars 2013

Last year I had watched the Oscars ‘live’ for the first time. And having watched several of the major films made it more exciting and entertaining for me. So if you are planning to do it this year, read about the Oscar buzz, indulge into predictions, and get up at 6 am that Monday morning and reach office late (the event gets over around 10 am India time), here are the ten movies watching which will ensure you remain oriented throughout the ceremony and it doesn’t appear as merely a fashion parade to you. These ten movies (in alphabetic order), having together earned 68 nominations, are going to cover almost all major awards categories this year:

1. Amour (5 nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director): Including this French-language gem in the Best Picture list the Oscars have done themselves a favor. The best of International cinema are generally works not in English language and this is one big reason why the Oscars do not find many takers among the fans of World Cinema, as the scheme of the Academy limits the awards to English-language films, except in one category. That category, of the Best Foreign-Language Film is perhaps the most predictable this year, with ‘Amour’ as the clear front-runner. The 85-year old Emmanuelle Riva is the oldest actress to have earned nominationin Oscar history. I watched this film at MAMI this year, and it is unlikely that it will find a release in India. You can either download it, or wait for the original DVD.

2. Argo (7 nominations, including Best Picture): Ben Affleck’s rise as a film-maker is something to applaud. I have to admit that I’m a little surprised, especially because I have never taken him seriously as an actor. A few hours ago, ‘Argo’ has won Golden Globes for Best Picture (Drama) and Best Director, and this will majorly boost its chances at the Oscars. The film was released in India several months ago and I regret having not watched it. Have to watch it somehow, very soon.

3. Beasts of the Southern Wild (4 nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director): This film’s inclusion is another good news, this time for small, independent film-makers. The little Quvenzhane Wallis has also earned a Best Actress nomination, becoming the youngest actress to achieve this feat, beating Keisha Castle-Hughes who was nominated for ‘Whale Rider’ (2003). I had watched this unforgettable film at MAMI, and its release in India seems utterly improbable.

4. Django Unchained (5 nominations, including Best Picture): Quentin Tarantino’s latest has just won the Golden Globe for Best Screenplay. For me, this is the most eagerly awaited film of the lot. Unfortunately, the official date of its release in India is 29th March, and I will not watch a downloaded copy of it. In all probability, I will watch the Oscars this year without having watched this movie, and will wait for it to hit a big screen near my house.

5. Life of Pi (11 nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director): The successful run of this film in India continues and it is still playing at several screens. Watch it today if you haven’t. It has earned 11 nominations, and that includes a nomination for the Indian singer Bombay Jayashri. If you are not aware of her, please use Google. I don’t mind telling you that hers was the amazing voice that sang the passionate ‘Zara Zara’ from ‘Rehna Hai Tere Dil Mein’ (2001).

6. Lincoln (12 nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director): Daniel Day-Lewis, who plays the title role, is a strong contender for the Best Actor award this year, for this film that has earned the maximum nominations. Do not be surprised if it wins the Best Picture as well, going by the Academy’s traditional fascination with biopics, costume dramas, and Steven Spielberg. It is releasing in India on the 8th February, and deserves a big screen watch.

7. Master, The (3 acting nominations): I was a little surprised and upset to know that this movie was not nominated for Best Picture, nor was PTA nominated for Best Director. He is one of the best directing talents in the world today, and this film was eagerly awaited. I still do not know whether it is releasing in India, and if yes, then when. Please let me know if you find out.

8. Miserables, Les (8 nominations, including Best Picture): From the director of ‘The King’s Speech’, this film has just won Golden Globes for ‘Best Film (comedy or Musical)’ and acting awards for Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway. It is releasing in India this Friday, and I am going for it on the first day itself.

9. Silver Linings Playbook (8 nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director): This film came and went, and I missed it. If you’ve missed it too, we can now regret doing that together. It was also the Opening Film at MAMI this year and I never took it too seriously. Now, I wish I had watched it when it had come. Torrents, anyone?

10. Zero Dark Thirty (5 nominations, including Best Picture): Releasing in India on the 1st February, this is a film that will definitely fascinate most of the audience, mainly because of its content, and also because of its director. Her ‘The Hurt Locker’ had defeated big films in 2010 at the Oscars, and this time ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ was being hailed as a worthy successor to it. However, Kathryn Biegalow’s non-inclusion in the Best Director list has created some controversy back there, with many believing it to be the result of the interference from the US politicians. Controversies aside, watching this film will be one important agenda early next month.

The Oscars this year are on the morning of 25th February (India time). Watch as many movies out of these as you can, and enjoy the event on your little idiot box. Like last year, I will have to visit a friend’s place for the same. The wait has begun…

P.S The release dates as per the information I could find online and are subject to change.

P.P.S. Clicking on the movie titles above will take you to their respective trailers. Watch them and share your views about them - which ones fascinate you majorly!

Few Years and a Day in the Life of a Screenwriter

A couple of days ago, I had a long discussion with my director on the craft of screenwriting. We talked about the ‘rules’ that are advocated, and ‘the need for a structured approach’ to screenwriting, something I have always believed in. My director accepted that this is the ‘right’ approach, but that is precisely the reason why film-writing is not as fine, or superior a form of expression than, say, prose or poetry. I agreed, but the discussion left me a little insecure, until after one day of pondering over it, something inside me gave me the solution. That day, I believe, has become one important day in my life as a screenwriter. But in order to understand that, let us go a little back in time.

In 2006-07, I started to learn screenwriting by adapting two novels into their respective ‘first drafts’. And then, my brother and I started working on the first original script of ours. Next year, when I came to Mumbai, that script paved my way into the industry. It was liked by almost everyone who read it, and it brought us more opportunities. Until then I was not aware of any screenwriting rules and all we had were our instincts and imagination. We adapted another novel, and worked on several drafts of it – and that too was well-received by many.

And then, everything changed when I attended a Film Writers’ Association conference in December 2008, where I saw people mouth words like ‘Three-Act Structure’, ‘Plot Points’ etc. It terrified me. I felt ashamed to call myself a writer! That kick-started my learning of the grammar of film-writing. In the four years that followed, I read several books on screenwriting. But in sharp contrast, struggled with writing a film-adaptation, re-wrote the final draft of a film that is yet to be released, and worked on another original screenplay for more than two years, that is ‘still not there’ after multiple drafts. In six years of my experience as a screen-writer, the best works have been created out of instinct, intuition, and complete ignorance about the rules of the game. How then is my obsession with ‘the need for structure’ justified? Am I going in the wrong direction by ignoring the spontaneous imagination of my mind by resorting to tables and graphs and calculative construction? I hope it is evident how troubling and baffling this doubt can be, and I was truly troubled, until a miracle eased my mind. Out of nowhere, a thought came to my mind – “the structure and the rules are tools, nothing more, nothing less, and trying to perfect the structure should be a lesser concern for the screenwriter.” I will try to elaborate it.

When we have an idea, we need a structure to help us explore it. That does not mean we are limiting the idea within a structure. If we are flexible with the structure, it will take us a certain distance before we realize it is inadequate and we re-structure everything and explore the idea again. Without a structure to guide us, we might never know the story we want to tell, and the reason behind our fascination for the story, and the merits and limitations of it. Without a structure to guide us, we might never understand the ‘best way’ to tell that story and might settle for the first thing that comes to our minds. But if we are flexible with the structure, and keep trying new ones, we are actually allowing spontaneity that can instinctively help us find that ‘best way’. We can safely conclude that ‘the structure’ is never the most important or determining factor of the process, it is only a tool that we should learn in order to explore the possibilities as a storyteller. To succeed as film-writers, what we should really obsess about is creating fascinating characters caught in interesting situations and the perspectives we can share through the characters’ journeys in the film. These perspectives arise from our experiences, insights, sensitivity, convictions, and sense of morality that we have as human beings practicing a form of expression. Dwelling on that increases our chance to come up with good screenplays, where the rules remain the tools that we should use to their fullest in order to succeed, and ignoring which might just make our jobs a little more difficult and luck-driven, though the possibility to do a great work despite ignoring all rules can never be denied.

As I write these words, I have a feeling that people reading my blog, especially my students would be surprised to know that this is a recent discovery. Perhaps I always knew this. But during that one day of insecurity, when this thought came to my head, it reaffirmed my faith in method and helped me understand how I can enhance the possibility of spontaneous creation within my structured approach. I called my Director and told him about my Eureka moment. I was not surprised when he told me that even he had been thinking about the same for the past one day, and he had also, and independently, come up with the same resolution to the debate. He further added, with examples from music and dance, how it is difficult for the beginner to learn and master and keep faith in the dry ‘rules’ and ‘methods’ of his art. He repeatedly questions the relevance of the same. Later, when he has grown into a practicing musician, he goes beyond the rules and the grammar of music which have become a part of his instinct, some of which he even breaks in order to achieve his expression.

Earlier I believed that film is art for only genius film-makers. For people like us, it is a craft to be learnt and perhaps all we can achieve is being good craftsmen. And that is good enough an achievement. But now I can think beyond that. All of us are aware of the hard work, dedication, and pains a musician or a dancer takes in order to achieve the label of an ‘artist’. So who can deny the assumption that the same amount of effort by a student of screenwriting, and its rules and grammar, may eventually take him to a stage where he starts expressing in a way that is above and beyond all rules? Are not we, as screenwriters, striving to reach a stage, where the ‘structure’ remains the means to an end which is a pure, uninhibited, expression of the soul?

Cinema 2012: Looking Back at my Cinema Experience of the Year

2012 was very different for me as a film-buff. As my brother put it the other day, it was our year at Film School. Personally, it was the beginning of three things for me – understanding the need to take care of and nourish my intuitive mind, taking the first steps towards learning how to work with actors, and beginning to hone my skills as a director by actually making films, rather than just understanding the theory of cinema sitting in my room. What the year taught me is humbling and inspiring at the same time, that learning the craft of film-making has just started and there is an infinitely long distance to go. But as a result of my involvement in film-making my movie-watching suffered, as did the frequency of my posts on this blog. Compared to the last three years – 2009, 2010, and 2011, my total movie count could not go much beyond 150. And I am definitely not happy about it. I’m not sure whether I could’ve helped it, though.

Here is an overview of my movie experience of 2012:

With nine movies by Woody Allen, he is now the director of whom I have watched the most, overtaking Hitchcock. As on date, my movie-score for the respective masters is: Allen (20), Hitchcock (19), Kurosawa (17), Bergman (14), Scorsese (13), Bunuel (13), Spielberg (12), Kubrick (12), and Fellini (11). Hope 2013 will help me take these numbers further. Also by watching Jim Jarmusch’s ‘Stranger than Paradise’ and Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘Hard Eight’, they join Andrei Tarkovsky, the Coen Brothers, and Darren Aronofsky – of whom I have watched the entire filmographies. PTA’s latest ‘The Master’ is eagerly awaited, and I hope it will be released in India around the Oscars.

Joined the fan-club of Roberto Rossellini (Voyage in Italy), Luchino Visconti (The Leopard), Bela Tarr (The Turin Horse), and Alexander Payne (The Descendants). Looking forward to more movies by them. Also explored more of Pedro Almodovar, David Cronenberg, Wim Wenders, Wes Anderson, Peter Weir, Kim Ki-Duk, Abbas Kiarostami, John Ford, Clint Eastwood, Terry Gilliam, Takshi Kitano, Ken Loach, and Ang Lee. Hopefully next year some of these names will join my ‘Complete Filmography’ list.

On the big screen, I watched ‘1942 – A Love Story’, ‘Umberto D’, ‘Laura’, ‘Accattone’, ‘Two for the Road’ and, with a Live Orchestra, ‘A Throw of Dice’. This year I also experienced re-watch of ‘Scarface’, ‘North By Northwest’, ‘The Godfather’, and ‘Sunrise’ on the big screen.

‘Doctor Zhivago’, ‘The Deer Hunter’, ‘The Great Escape’, ‘Thelma and Louise’, ‘The Birth of a Nation’, ‘Sherlock Jr.’, ‘The Magnificent Ambersons’, ‘Festen’, ‘The Battle of Algiers’, ‘Alexander Nevsky’, ‘Man of Iron’, and ‘Z’ are some of the classics I watched for the first time in 2012. Add to it some modern World Cinema gems like ‘A Separation’, ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’, ‘A Prophet’, ‘Amour’, and ‘Holy Motors’.

The discussion cannot be complete without mentioning some B-movies and Exploitation Films (or tributes to them) that I truly enjoyed. They were ‘Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!’, ‘Cannibal Holocaust’, ‘Ed Wood’, and ‘From Dusk Till Dawn’. Also, watched some great non-fiction films like ‘The Thin Blue Line’, ‘Sans Soleil’, ‘Exit through the Gift Shop’, and ‘Triumph of the Will’. And in the end I have to mention one beautiful film that surprised me. ‘Me and You and Everyone We Know’ is one of those films that stand out of the crowd and deserve special mention.

Since October 2006, when I truly started exploring cinema, the past twelve months have been leanest for me as movie-enthusiast. It is not comforting to know that as my work load as a film-maker increases, it will be difficult to keep up the numbers. I hope the unquenchable thirst keeps drawing me towards the unending stream of good cinema, and the film-buff lives on, ‘Jab Tak Hai Jaan’!

The First Master?

A three-hour long, silent film is a difficult option to choose, especially when your laptop is full of several other great films. Watching ‘the Birth of a Nation’, hence, required special motivation, and it was on a train journey last month that I managed to watch it for the first time. However, the film, widely regarded as ‘the first blockbuster’, left me disappointed and angry. I did not find the narrative very interesting, and was appalled by the racist tone of the film. Its depiction of African-Americans is disgusting and shameful, and it is easy to understand the widespread riots it had evoked way back in 1915, and also, and regretfully so, how it became a huge hit among the Caucasian audience. Almost a century later, even the Americans would, or should, despise of the film. For me, it was a difficult exercise that I somehow managed to finish. D.W. Griffith had failed to impress me.

A few weeks later, I read about Griffith and the film, trying to understand his greatness as a film-maker. What I read was a revelation, and suddenly I find myself wanting to revisit the film, at least in parts. During the early 20th century, cinema was a nascent form of human expression and its narrative power was unexplored. The ‘story’ in such films was nothing more than loosely spliced scenes in strict chronological order. The ‘scenes’ were shot in single takes, where a static ‘Master’ shot covered the entire action, as if you were filming a theater performance from a distance. If at all the scene involved more than one shot, they lacked a scheme, making the temporal and spatial relations very ambiguous or unclear. It was during this time that Griffith directed over 450 short films over six years, and systematically developed film-making conventions which are still learnt and used by all film-makers.

Griffith paid attention to casting of actors, rehearsing with them several times before the shooting, and especially worked towards restraining their performances to make it more natural and less overt. These were rare practices in those days, as was the attention to detail with regards to the costumes, settings, and props. Griffith understood what others failed to realize – that anything that appears fake on screen will rob the ‘believability’ of the film, and miss out on engaging the audience. He also realized the potential of using Close-Ups to elaborate a moment, of Extreme Long Shots to contrast the stature of tiny human figures against imposing landscape, or the Point-of –View shot to ‘show’ the audience what a certain character was seeing. He broke down a scene into shots before shooting them and thus made cinema more dynamic than theater. He did not necessarily ‘invent’ all these tools, but definitely developed the narrative potential of cinema using them.

On the editing table, Griffith developed the Match Cut, cutting between one shot to another at the moment when the subject was performing some kind of a motion. For example, from a Full-Shot of a man, you cut to his Close-Up exactly when he tips his hat, matching the action of his hand. This makes sure that the cut in itself is ‘invisible’ and the audience fails to notice it as they are noticing the action of the hand, as a result of which their involvement in the film increases. Griffith also developed the rules for screen direction, and the 180-degree (or the Axis) rule of shot taking. These rules ensured the correct spatial orientation for the characters with respect to the shots intercutting with each other. He used the power of Parallel Montage (intercutting from one event at one place to something else and then back to the first) to effectively build suspense. He also developed the widely used transition techniques of Fade In and Fade Out, and the now obsolete Iris In and Iris Out.

If the inventors of cinema, the Lumiere Brothers and Thomas Edison, made motion picture a reality, and craftsmen like Georges Melies turned it into a medium of magic and spectacle, it was the genius of D.W. Griffith that made cinema a powerful narrative medium. That he used this to tell a shamelessly biased story is an inseparable part of film history, as is his unparalleled contribution to cinema.

Marilyn Fabe’s book ‘Closely Watched Films’ wonderfully discusses Griffith and the film in its opening chapter, where the author says: “The Birth of a Nation is clearly not history but a cultural illusion written with lightning, the lightning of the powerful picture language of film articulated by its first master.”

In one sentence Fabe has succinctly covered almost everything that is associated with great films: the power of cinema, the strong mirror it is to the culture of societies and how it contributes to it, the potential of it to be used politically or for propaganda, the authorship that a director automatically, and sometimes unintentionally, claims by portraying his or her world-view, and also that in the end it is but an illusion. Whether Griffith was the first master of the ‘language of film’ is perhaps the least important question we need to bother ourselves with.

Missing Orson Welles

Immediately after debuting with the much-talked-about and controversial ‘Citizen Kane’ (1941), Orson Welles was directing and producing his second film (under his banner Mercury Production) with RKO, the studio which had offered him the unprecedented contract that had attracted the obvious envy and wrath of the film-making fraternity. No one then, not even Welles, would have imagined that history will remember his first as the ‘Greatest Film Ever Made’ for several decades to come, despite some handsome accolades that had come its way. For RKO, Welles was the boy-wonder they had discovered and had turned into a sensational film-maker, whose first film, despite the fame and controversy, remained a box-office failure. Welles was contractually bound to make a second film with them, and this time too, like with ‘Kane’, he had the rare opportunity to have the right to the final cut. However, the talks between Welles and RKO on the second film failed. Welles went on to make his next, with the same studio, but this time they retained the right to the final cut. A few months later, Orson Welles was fighting a futile battle to make the film he wanted to make.

The rough-cut of ‘The Magnificent Ambersons’ that Welles had prepared was 135 minutes long. After poor response at test-screenings, the studio decided to chop it down. Eventually, they re-shot the climax in the absence of Welles, to achieve a ‘happier’ ending. The version that was finally released was 88 minutes. More than half of the film’s musical score, composed by Bernard Herrmann who had done a phenomenal work in ‘Kane’ (and who later worked with Alfred Hitchcock on some of the most memorable films of all time), was also deleted. An angry Herrmann forced the studio to remove his credit from the final film, threatening legal action if they declined. Eventually, the rough cut of the film was also lost and the footage destroyed, and the world could never see the film its director wished to make. As Welles later said about the studio’s treatment of his film: “My whole third act is lost because of all the hysterical tinkering that went on. And it was hysterical. Everybody they could find was cutting it…. They destroyed ‘Ambersons’ and ‘it’ destroyed me.”

The film remained a big box-office failure, despite enormous positive acclaim and a ‘Best Picture’ nomination at the Academy Awards. This was Welles’ second, and last, film being nominated for the same. In a few years, Welles was to struggle to find funding for his future projects as the studios would simply not work with him. Welles was only 27, when ‘The Magnificent Ambersons’ happened, and this was the start of his regret of being and living the life of a film-maker.

I watched the film last evening. Obsessed with ‘Citizen Kane’, I was excited to revisit the second work by the prodigy. And though the film kept reminding me of the predecessor, with its stunning low-key black-and-white cinematography, palatial sets, and common faces, I missed Orson Welles, the actor. His familiar voice providing the narration only accentuated this feeling, the feeling that I get while watching those Woody Allen films that do not feature him as an actor. However, a big smile came over my face at the very end of the film, when Welles’ voice speaks out the credits (one of the earliest films to do so) with shots of film equipment for crew and head-shots of the cast. In the end, over the image of a microphone, the assured and confident voice announces the final sentences, after which the microphone recedes into the distance, under the lights and a framing so reminiscent of ‘Kane’.

The final words are: “I wrote the script and directed it. My name is Orson Welles. This is a Mercury Production.”

Must Watch Before You Die #33: Z (1969)

I think I’m an obsessively positive person; obsessively, because my need for positivity, and my faith in it, borders to an extreme. I think this world is a beautiful place, and it’s disappointing how many fail to notice the abundant beauty all around us. But then, I have friends and acquaintances who have completely contrary views from mine. Whether they have a hint of cynicism or a rational realistic approach to life, they believe that we live in a miserable world which cannot hope to get any better. I cannot argue with them because when they talk about the wrong being committed by man all around the world, I can only nod silently, and regretfully. Because then my theory that “nothing bad can happen to you if you are good” falls flat on my face. Because then I realize that perhaps my persistent positivity has so much to do about the way I have cocooned myself away from the rest of the world. And then, there is this unnecessary, unreasonable, inexplicable guilt.

Let me state some facts. I do empathize with the innocent victims of man’s heinous crimes occurring all around us every moment. I do wish that this never happened. I do know that I will do all that is expected of me in such situations. But largely, at an emotional level I remain unaffected. Not having a TV is a big advantage, and every time there is some sensational and disturbing news driving the media into frenzy, I thank myself for not having the idiot-box at home. I do not indulge in any kind of social networking, and BlackBerry and WhatsApp are still Greek and Hebrew for me. The morning newspaper and Google News keeps me updated about everything, and I’m fine with that. Most of my waking hours are spent alone in my room, listening to music, watching movies, reading, writing, or talking on phone with those who are fine with my obsessively positive way of life.

The latest news of the brutal gang-rape in Delhi is echoing all around the country, and beyond, as I write these words. It has disturbed me immensely, perhaps more than before, and I pray to God for that girl, and I hope adequate and effective measures are taken for a better future in a better society. But then I retreat to my cocoon. And I smile, looking at the joy all around me. I know there is no reason to feel guilty about it, but how can I be sure that I am not being an ostrich, with its head buried in sand, cutting the world from its view, and believing that it is safe? Is it true that the only way to stay positive and preserve one’s sanity in this horrible world is by staying shut in a room, and staying hopelessly obsessed with hope, and dreams and fairy-tales?

Amidst all this, I got to watch Costa-Gavras’ provocative political thriller ‘Z’ (1969). Watch it for its use of film editing to complement the story it wants to tell. Watch it if you are cynical or a realist. Watch it if you are an obsessive optimist. Watch it if you have already watched ‘Shanghai’ (2012), the Hindi-language adaptation of the same story. Because a film so disturbing to your intellect without disturbing your senses, and a film so powerful and confident with its design, is rare. And ‘Z’ is that rare masterpiece.

P.S. Now that we have survived the Doomsday, I congratulate you and me, because this assures for us a sustained discovery of cinema and its pleasures, and more Must-Watch recommendations to come!

Inner Demons

Spoiler Warning: Please do NOT read this post if you have not watched ‘Talaash’ and plan to.

Intuition is a funny thing. It often surprises you with its precision, and effectiveness. Several times while watching a film the very first few minutes can make you feel that there is ‘something wrong’ with it. On the other hand, it may even leave you pre-maturely impressed. Here, I’m not talking about the obviously impressive or unimpressive design of a movie that might help the rational mind form an opinion. No. It’s not an opinion, it’s intuition. And often there is no rationale involved. I remember a few scenes into ‘Saat Khoon Maaf’ and I was getting restless – something was not right. By the mid-point of the film, I was convinced that my intuition had worked well. Today morning, by 9.30 am, it had worked again. A few minutes into ‘Talaash’ and I could ‘feel’ what a film it was going to be.

‘Talaash’ works at so many different levels that it leaves you surprised. Beyond being a hard-core suspense-thriller, with elements from the supernatural, it goes beyond and works powerfully as an emotional, well-made drama. It’s not an easy screenplay to write – and despite more than a couple of important characters, a lot of dramatic developments occurring simultaneously, and an intricate and intelligent design of exposition, and fulfilling and reversing expectations, it manages to remain taut as a rope, up there on a dangerously high cliff, and does not let you lay back as the protagonist goes through a journey that would redeem him and rid him of his inner demons. Perhaps just one song, in which the protagonist is seen chasing the character of ‘Rosie’, is where you feel the editing could have been better. Removing that song does not affect the movie at all, and makes it tighter. Apart from that, I don’t recall a single scene in the film that can be deleted without affecting the narrative. Even scenes that did not make much sense while being played did so by the end when the powerful and incredible climax changes the entire film, from its genre to its impact, and gives it the catharsis it truly deserves. ‘Talaash’ is not the story of a police inspector trying to solve a mysterious death case. It is the story of a father who is troubled by an obsessive guilt complex born after the unfortunate demise of his only son. The protagonist’s journey, externally, is on the streets of Mumbai, more in the dark alleys than under the bright sun, chasing culprits and witnesses and informers, but the film is mainly an inner struggle that the leading man goes through, within the twisted realms of his mind, until something inexplicable and equally unfortunate drags him out of the unending ordeal he had imposed upon himself.

Past week has not been easy for me. If you read my post on ‘Life of Pi’ you will understand why. Now as I look back, I realize, I never underwent a sentimental catharsis, despite a long and stressful emotional experience during my Kashmir trip. Perhaps that was the reason why I couldn’t feel free after my return. I knew that time will heal me, but had surprisingly forgotten that cinema can bypass that time for me. Reading Aamir Khan’s interview where he said that he had cried after the script was narrated to him, I couldn’t take him seriously. He says so before all his movies, I found myself arguing. But watching the first show this morning, as I saw Aamir, the actor, weeping inconsolably at the denouement, I had joined him. Tears went down my face as the film devastated me. I had gone for some thrills and mind-games, I came out an emotionally redeemed man, having experienced a surrogate sentimental cleansing experience good cinema can magically offer. I only wish the ‘twist-ending’ of the film is not revealed through social networking sites, spoiling the film for those who’d watch it later than others.

P.S. I was especially pleased to see Rani Mukerjee play the part with the warmth and sensitivity she naturally possesses. Feels good to find her play a good role after a long time; her contribution to the impact of the film goes beyond her screen time.

An Unforgettable Trip

I had heard a lot about the post-pregnancy blues a woman goes through, but hardly understood the reason behind it. The obstetrics I learnt did not tell me why it happens; the question within me was never answered. Recently, I had a great conversation with a friend, a new mother, who told me what it actually was.

As the baby grows within the womb of the mother, it’s a long, gradual process, occurring over months, and the idea of impending motherhood is sustained in her head. Labor, or the act of child-birth, is a matter of less than a couple of hours, within which the woman undergoes a drastic physical transformation, apart from giving birth to a new life in flesh and blood. The physical ‘loss’ and exertion is phenomenal for the woman, but something she can cope up with, given proper care and time. It is the mental exhaustion and anxiety that keeps her troubled for a longer time. One, she does not feel very sure if she is prepared to and capable of bearing this enormous responsibility, especially if it is a first child. This insecurity and doubt may give rise to guilt – that a little being’s life now rests in unsure hands. Two, the responsibility in itself is not very pleasant, and requires extreme and sincere effort, patience, and dedication. Add to this, some subconscious factors like the following. Throughout the gestation period, the child was intimately and exclusively associated with the mother. As soon as it is born, it is out there for people, all of them, and the mother would obviously feel possessive for it. Some of people around them start judging the child immediately, commenting on its looks and features, the rest of the world would judge it as he grows up. She is not sure how the world will receive the child, and since her identity is now irreversibly attached to it, she knows she will be judged by the way her child shapes up. To top it all, she also knows that all the attention that she had been receiving all this while will soon wane out, and this is a big personal loss. There must be several other factors that can not be discussed, shared, or written. But thanks to this conversation with that friend of mine, I had understood something about this experience. For me, post-partum depression was no more an over-hyped myth of the urban, educated woman.

This month, and this will explain my prolonged absence from this blog, I made perhaps the most unforgettable and hopefully the most significant trip of my life. My brother and I wrote, produced, and directed a short-film in Kashmir. It was an 8-day shoot fighting freezing temperature, ill-health, depleting resources, sleep deprivation, and fluctuating motivation of the cast and crew. The budget doubled, worse problems kept cropping up and it was truly stressful. But it got over fairly well. Thanks to the dozens of people who helped without any expectations, including some very dear friends, and thanks to the wonderful hormone called Adrenaline, we managed to finish the shoot, almost matching our expectations with the film and ourselves, and at times even exceeding those. It was a few hectic weeks and then we were back to Mumbai last Saturday, on the 24th.

The physical exhaustion was soon over, with some sleep, and the state of ‘not doing anything’ for hours. But before I knew, the mental exhaustion started over-powering me. Since the second last day of shoot, for the next ten days, I had this very disturbing dream about the shoot being continued, with more problems cropping up. Imagine, having the same stressful dream for several days every time you sleep, including during afternoon naps. And whenever I was conscious, all those thoughts, discussed above experienced by a new mother troubled me. Have we shot sufficiently? Is the coverage exhaustive? Is the footage visually good enough? Have the performance beats of the actors been registered? What all has been lost invisibly? And then as we assembled the shots on the editing table, more insecurities and anxieties stepped in. Is this good enough? Have we done a good job? What will the world say when they look at it? Should I ever share this film with the world? And so on. It was the time when I didn’t feel like doing anything, not even watching a movie. There was actually one afternoon when I felt miserable and helpless. And I wanted this nightmare of a depression to end.

That evening I watched Ang Lee’s latest spectacle – ‘Life of Pi’. I will not write anything about what an experience it was as the entire world is talking about it. But I thank the cinema Gods for sending this movie to me at this point in my life. Nothing could have been as inspiring and uplifting as it was. The incredible journey of Pi has now become the inseparable epilogue to the unforgettable trip I just had, where I, in my limited understanding of the medium, practiced cinema in the lap of what is deservedly called the heaven on earth. Life is beautiful, despite those freezing temperatures and stressful situations that occasionally test us out.

Mumbai 2012: Epilogue

It was my fourth year at Mumbai Film Festival, and I have to admit that it was the best organized I have seen. The 1100-seat beautiful auditorium at NCPA was the perfect Main Venue. And there were six more screens (at NCPA and Inox, Nariman Point) at a walking distance. I also liked what Inox did to effectively manage the crowd – they required you to collect tickets for each movie that you wanted to see, against your festival pass. It helped us as we didn’t have to stand in long queues for hours. Another venue, not far from there, was the Liberty theater, a beautiful 700-seat auditorium with its old-world charm intact for the classics that were screened there. Travelling all the way to South Mumbai did cost me some sleep, but I think it was worth it. For two days, out of seven, I attended the screenings at Cinemax Versova, which is a 15-minute auto ride from my place. Overall, I think for the first time the organizers have implemented the learning of past experiences into successfully managing the festival.

With each passing year, the number of people I know in this city is increasing. So, the festival each year is getting a better place to hang out with them. There are some whom you meet only annually, during this week, and that familiarity makes things more eventful for you.

The best thing about any film festival is obviously the movies. I’m satisfied this time, having watched 31 movies from more than fourteen countries in seven days. It included the latest works of legends like Abbas Kiarostami, Ken Loach, Bernardo Bertolucci, Michael Haneke, and Takashi Kitano, the top award winners at Sundance and Cannes this year, and also the official Oscar entries of Spain, Austria, Uruguay, Netherlands, and Romania.

Classics like ‘Sunrise: a Song of Two Humans’, ‘The Leopard’, ‘Umberto D’, ‘Accattone’, ‘Two for the Road’, and ‘Laura’ completed the experience, and the icing on the cake was the Live Orchestra that performed with the silent Indo-German classic – ‘A Throw of Dice’.

All this year, I have not been able to watch as many movies as I normally do. Thanks to this fest, my annual score is now decent. The greed, however, is never satisfied, the thirst remains unquenchable. I hope it remains the same even after fifty such festivals – annual rituals when the celebration of cinema adopts a maddening, intoxicating fervor, and you feel like a kid in the best amusement park man has ever created.

Mumbai 2012 Day #7: The Final Ingredients

There are certain types of movies that are essential to complete your film fest experience. Let me indulge further on this and share with you what, according to me, are those categories:
1. Structurally twisted or abstract films, which leave the audience puzzled and they do not know what to make out of it.
2. Painfully slow movies that crawl slower than a snail, causing most of the audience to fall asleep.
3. Fiercely violent movies where the slashing of flesh and bone is celebrated in unapologetic style.
4. Movies transcending all limits of graphic sex scenes and taboos, scandalizing the audience for life.

Please excuse this honest confession of my guilty pleasures, but it is high time I confess my strong love for such movies, and throughout the festival I hope to watch movies fulfilling these needs. It was satisfying to discover one such movie today. 'Holy Motors' (French, 2012) fulfilled three of the above-mentioned categories, more or less. But more than that, the film had some stunningly beautiful sequences, and in the end, the final shot of the film was unforgettable. For many it was the best film of the festival, and for some it was too baffling to comment. I'm almost tempted to recommend this movie as a must-watch-before-you-die. But for now, I would just let you watch its trailer by clicking here.

Also watched, and enjoyed, the subtle Danish drama 'Teddy Bear' (2012), and the dark comedy on the cultural phenomenon of reality television - 'Reality' (Italian, 2012).

After a great festival, the last thing you want is an unworthy closing film. That is one prayer I always have on my lips - that the last film shouldn't disappoint me. Watching 'Blancanieves' (Spanish, 2012) was such a pleasant surprise. It was a silent, black and white film, in 1:1 aspect ratio, a dark, melodramatic take on the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The innocent magic of pure cinema, as I like to call silent films, was just the perfect way to end this festival.

Mumbai 2012 Day #6: Sleep Deprived!

On the sixth day, finally, the sleep deprivation of the past few days made things immensely difficult for me. I managed to watch five movies, but struggled all day. Since I avoid tea or coffee, there was nothing that could have helped me anyway. What helped, were the movies.

After watching ten modern movies in the last couple of days, I was craving for some classics. So, I watched Stanley Donen's 'Two for the Road' (1967) - an unforgettable romantic comedy in one of the best time-twisted screenplays; and Otto Preminger's 'Laura' (1944) that looked stunning in its restored Black and White glory.

Also watched the quiet and involving 'The Interval' (Italian, 2012) and the political thriller 'The Fourth State' (German, 2012).

But the movie of the day was the Romanian drama 'Beyond the Hills' (2012), the story of two young girls in an orthodox convent in Romania. The film had won Best Screenplay and Best Actress at Cannes this year, and I was eagerly waiting for it. It is also Romania's official entry for Oscars. One unique feature of the film was that each of its scenes was covered in one Master shot. Which meant, the director was not modifying space and time for us, and making the experience live and real-time. It was as if we were there in that monastery, observing the characters like invisible but omnipresent spectators. Not many realize how difficult an aesthetic choice this is - to tell a story as emotionally powerful as this without resorting to a single close-up cut.

After the last movie of the day, I spent some time sitting at the Marine Drive. Festival is not over yet, but tomorrow I won't be coming to this side of the town. So, today, I bid my good bye to the 'main venue' of this year's festival.

P.S. This post was written a couple of days after the 6th day of the festival, for obvious reasons - the title of the post tells it all.