A fantastic creation with an intellectual / fantasy feel to it. Ellen Page will be acclaimed as a great actor soon enough, Leonardo was his normal good and Joseph Gordon-Levitt was rather striking. Some of the scenes were mind-blowing and cinematically it might be one of the best creations to have come out till date. The meticulous detail with which the 'dreams' were chalked out deserves appreciation. The plot was marvelous and dreams have always fascinated humans :)
The movie is currently ranked 3rd on Imdb's Top 250 and everybody who has seen it has been raving about it.
I am a bitch.
The entire emotional angle between Leo and his wife seemed hollow. The pace with which the movie ended and the abruptness of the end did not do justice to the other characters or the story. The end was rather predictable and the sequence of escapes from each dream was pretty boring.
When I got done with this movie I was quite impressed but also quite bored because towards the last half hour I was already waiting for the movie to end.
My sense is that at times people are so blinded and perplexed by confusing, intelligent stories that they mistake a good idea for a good all-round movie. If you keep people guessing and if you manage to dazzle them with good effects combined with good direction and good acting - does it make a good movie? Superficially - Yes! But dig down deeper and you realize that Shutter Island & Fight Club - they were complete movies.
I felt something was missing by the time the movie was beginning to end and I was rather dis-satisfied with an otherwise stupendous creation.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Indian Summer
Book
March 1947:
"While all this [riots] was going on, Mountbatten had to meet the Indian leaders. For that first week, the two least compromising and highest profile among them declined his invitation... Mohammad Ali Jinnah, representing the Muslim League, remained in Bombay making inflammatory speeches. Mohandas Gandhi, representing Mohandas Gandhi, was living among the outcastes in distant Bihar, and refused to take advantage of the viceregal aircraft. "
1937:
Excerpt from published article:
"Men like Jawaharlal with all their capacity for great and good work, are unsafe in democracy. He calls himself a democrat and a socialist, and no doubt he does so in all earnestness, but every psychologist knows that the mind is ultimately a slave to the heart and logic can always be made to fit in with the desires and irresistible urges of a person. A little twist and Jawahar might turn a dictator sweeping aside the paraphernalia of a slow-moving democracy... His conceit is already formidable. It must be checked. We want no Caesars.
This powerful vilification was published under the pseudonym 'Chanakya', after an ancient political philosopher, and caused great outrage among Nehru's followers. What they did not realise was that 'Chanakya' was actually Jawaharlal Nehru himself. Introspection, honesty, wit and mischief: few other politicians in history could have written such a lucid essay in self-deconstruction. "
1947 August:
From the outset, Indian women would earn equal pay for equal work - a right not conferred upon British women until the 1970s....
But behind this image of feminist progress, lay a long, dark shadow of feminist despair. At Calcutta in 1946, and subsequently, the vengeance of the rioters had been wreaked deliberately on women. As the great migration and great slaughters following partition got underway, so too did a sustained and brutal campaign of sexual persecution. The use of rape as a weapon of war was conscious and emphatic. On every side, proud tales were told of the degradation of enemy women. Thousands of women were abducted, forcibly married to their assailants, and bundled away to the other side of the border. Many never saw their families again. Thousands more were simply used and thrown back into their villages. There were accounts of women who had been held down while their breasts and arms were cut, tattooed or branded with their rapists' names and the dates of their attacks.
- Indian Summer by Alex Von Tunzelmann
Fantastic book. Brazen and factual. Boring in parts but enjoyable nonetheless.
March 1947:
"While all this [riots] was going on, Mountbatten had to meet the Indian leaders. For that first week, the two least compromising and highest profile among them declined his invitation... Mohammad Ali Jinnah, representing the Muslim League, remained in Bombay making inflammatory speeches. Mohandas Gandhi, representing Mohandas Gandhi, was living among the outcastes in distant Bihar, and refused to take advantage of the viceregal aircraft. "
1937:
Excerpt from published article:
"Men like Jawaharlal with all their capacity for great and good work, are unsafe in democracy. He calls himself a democrat and a socialist, and no doubt he does so in all earnestness, but every psychologist knows that the mind is ultimately a slave to the heart and logic can always be made to fit in with the desires and irresistible urges of a person. A little twist and Jawahar might turn a dictator sweeping aside the paraphernalia of a slow-moving democracy... His conceit is already formidable. It must be checked. We want no Caesars.
This powerful vilification was published under the pseudonym 'Chanakya', after an ancient political philosopher, and caused great outrage among Nehru's followers. What they did not realise was that 'Chanakya' was actually Jawaharlal Nehru himself. Introspection, honesty, wit and mischief: few other politicians in history could have written such a lucid essay in self-deconstruction. "
1947 August:
From the outset, Indian women would earn equal pay for equal work - a right not conferred upon British women until the 1970s....
But behind this image of feminist progress, lay a long, dark shadow of feminist despair. At Calcutta in 1946, and subsequently, the vengeance of the rioters had been wreaked deliberately on women. As the great migration and great slaughters following partition got underway, so too did a sustained and brutal campaign of sexual persecution. The use of rape as a weapon of war was conscious and emphatic. On every side, proud tales were told of the degradation of enemy women. Thousands of women were abducted, forcibly married to their assailants, and bundled away to the other side of the border. Many never saw their families again. Thousands more were simply used and thrown back into their villages. There were accounts of women who had been held down while their breasts and arms were cut, tattooed or branded with their rapists' names and the dates of their attacks.
- Indian Summer by Alex Von Tunzelmann
Fantastic book. Brazen and factual. Boring in parts but enjoyable nonetheless.
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