Listen Amaya

I had to see this movie because of Farooq Sheikh and Deepti Naval. I saw it today and I was a little disappointed. The story was good, but they made a mess of how the daughter handles the change in her life. The music was rubbish because of its placement and the unnecessary songs (as they do with so many Hindi movies) - I enjoyed the cinematography and the screenplay at times, like the time that Deepti narrates her story to her daughter. The movie was half an hour too long...

The reason I am writing though is because of Farooq Sheikh. I wouldn't say that he is a fantastic actor, but I will say that he is an actor you want to fall in love with. Something so blithely adorable about the guy and the way he creates his character.
He was a good guy. A plain good guy in the city of New Delhi who saw the beauty in the people about him, he spread a smile and a warmth in others. As he walked away with Amaya towards the end and didn't say a word, I saw in him a good life. An honest life lived truly, lovingly and a dash of humour in the simple things we take for granted.

A good life is what we strive for towards the end. Nobody knows when illness will come by, and death will take away a loved one, or a financial crisis will throw us off - all we can do is control who we choose to be. A good life is one that is lived consciously.

All in all, a cute movie - see it for Farooq Sheikh.
For me, it was another eye opener.

Kshay

Revolutionary Road meets Trainspotting in India. Not suggesting that the creators of this movie copied from any other movie - am just referring to how deeply thought-provoking, social, intense and terribly depressing this movie was.
An absolutely wonderful creation shot in black and white - good idea though because it focuses attention on the characters. I haven't heard such wonderful use of music in a while now and the story was simple yet filmed in a brilliant way. Even with the use of expressionism, the director didn't tire the audience as it happened in that god-awful movie: The Tree of Life.
Rasika Dugal was awesome and it was her movie through and through.

Thoughts:
Why was the sculptor kid such an angry boy?
Why was Chhaya obsessed with the stone?
Why did Laxmi always look at Chhaya?
Could losing a child during pregnancy be that disturbing?
Would Chhaya have been the same if she would not have cared for the neighbour's kid in the beginning of the movie?
Why was Arvind oblivious to everything?
Is India finally becoming like the West, where social support is difficult to find?
If life really is that difficult, why do people struggle through it?
Would a dead spouse be better than a dead self?

I went for this movie because a friend recommended it. I didn't know the meaning of Kshay until I came back home after the movie. The progression towards the end.
"Do you know what a woman goes through when her child has died and she will never know what it would be like to ever give birth to one of her own? Do you know what it's like when she is left all alone at home with nothing to do with her life?"

Dosar

I love human relations. The movie kept things vague and kept one engrossed with the questions or comments: "What is she going to do/ say? How is he going to respond? Why is this woman suffering an abusive husband? Who was Mita? Yeah sure, now he wants her back... Who are these two? Yeah, the prostitute makes sense... I think."
Wonderful symbolism and art meshed with a good story. Don't know why he did a B/W film, but read somewhere that he did it just for kicks...
"Here's the pack of condoms; my wife won't need it. Your husband might." Ghosh seems to do a wonderful job with personalities and close-ups. Aaaah... Bengali movies...

Into the Wild

Chris / Alex McCandless wrote well.

"The very basic core of a man's living spirit is hit passion for adventure.
The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."

"You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience."

This is from the book "Into the Wild" and the above quotes are Alex's own.
The last quote he negates before death when he notes:

"And so it turned out that only a life similar to life of those around us, merging with it without a ripple, is genuine life, and that an unshared happiness is not happiness... And this was most vexing of all. HAPPINESS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED."

Did he have to go through his ordeal to realise this? Could he have been one of the very few who actually realised this? I ask because most of us don't know the other possibility, of living without society and love.


The book is quite excellent. It's not as glorious as the movie but is sobering. Jon Krakauer is the author and he expressed his compassion for the kid in the introduction/ foreword. There are two chapters which I really liked. One in which Jon talks of other weirdos/ loners/ pursuers and the other when he describes his youth and his journey to Alaska to conquer Devil's Thumb. Fantastic stuff.
I enjoyed the part where when he came back to the town and recited his tale to the town folk, they didn't seem to care :)
I relished the part where he compared his ... well... this is the statement (He was 23 years old then):
"At that stage of my youth, death remained as abstract a concept as non-Euclidean geometry or marriage."

This book and books like this make one realise how shallow a city-dweller's journey can be. Yes.

Bridges of Madison County

Has to be one of the best romantic movies of all time. Sadly, it's a questionable topic and one of my favourites... Infidelity.
Meryl Streep has done an outstanding job and that almost goes without saying :)
The slow movie does a great job of picturing the romance that apparently develops over a very long period of time but is in fact only a day. Before the intimacy begins, all along, the viewer is forced to believe that physical intimacy will lead to passion and so forth - but this story was about a very mature romance born out of the desire for something new and a form of security.
Meryl's character is quite evidently lonely and bored and when she finds a person who has traveled the world, is a gentleman and very secure about his own identity she experiences a lust which later develops to belonging and hope.
Loved the part when she is about to run out of the car her husband is driving and go for Robert's (Clint) car.
Regret - Francesca lived with it for her life and the movie shows her son and daughter living with similar circumstances where they adjust to 'normalcy'. It is something that many people accept and adjust to even though the possibilities of changing course could lead to greater paths. We often choose security over adventure and potential fulfillment.


Just a note about Clint Eastwood's brilliance.
Francesca asks Robert, "Tell me the most exciting place you've been to in the whole world, unless, of course, if you are too tired..." Clint almost takes a sip of his beer, glances at Francesca in a weird way, goes back to the bottle, takes a sip, looks back at Francesca and comments about how much guys like talking about themselves. The nuances to that scene and many others... :)

Inception

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.

Everybody's Fine

Sometimes we lie because it seems like the most convenient thing to do and sometimes because we need to judge other people's convenience. People who we don't know well appear to be fine simply because we don't know them well.

This movie is rather precious as it addresses loneliness - something that will most probably be forced upon us as we age. Robert is begging for some company throughout the movie and it is not easily seen...
Another thing this movie addresses is, well, what I mentioned earlier - lying. Keep the peace my friends, it usually works out :)
Robert De Niro is a widower who now lives alone and his 4 children live all across the US. He believes that things are fine with his children but, as most things go, things are far from fine. I must say that even though things tend to be 'not fine', all in all, things have a way of becoming fine - just look at the half full glass where the other half is full of precious air.

Needless to say, towards the end, my eyes were watery.

Drake

Finally, I've decided to write about this artist - Nick Drake. He's dead now, wish he was still creating his art :)
There is a raw emotion in his voice, which by the way is not really sweet or melodious. But it's so truthful. I can see him crying while he was singing his songs. The sad part about this is that I cannot describe the psychological superiority that he may have had.
His words are so simple and yet, amazingly powerful.
The music is just original and can make one cry.
I am disgusted at how poorly I am writing this post because this guy deserves some real words.

"So I leave the ways that are making me what I really don't want to be."

Once

Glen is an emotional, care-free singer who writes meaningfully and the Irish charm pours from his face while he sings.
Marketa has the cutest innocence and a unique accent; she is confused and stuck and sad.
This movie was made whole through the music and creations by Glen Hansard, etc. A sweet movie with a twisted romance that has, what most would believe to be, a sad ending. For me, it signified joy; it was an uncanny, short-lived, memorable and meaningful relationship between Glen and Marketa. Both of them were broken and torn and they saved each other - a fact that is easily overlooked. It seemed a true story and the ease with which Marketa and Glen played their characters made one believe wholly in their stories.

A part that stuck with me:
Marketa playing the piano towards the end of the movie and the look on Glen's face with his eyes shining and his mouth open, as though in horror. She sings well and she looks great and then she breaks down before completing the song. He says nothing, rubs her back and says, "Did you write that for your husband?"
What ensues, can make a viewer so confused and sad and hopeful. The viewer can see how much they fit and how much they care for each other, but Marketa is attached to her child and mother and still longs for her husband. Till the very end, the viewer hopes that they find a way to be together...