Superpowers Sold Separately

Of Awards and Films

2011-09-06T00:02:00.002+05:30

The introductions to Satyajit Ray’s “Our Films Their films” and Michael Ondaatje’s “The conversations, a chronicle of his interactions with that doyen of the editing room Walter Murch, emphasize a single universal truth about cinema. Neither the making nor the success of a film can be laid at the feet of a person. As I contemplated the windfall of National Awards that found their way to the doorstep of the Tamil Film industry in the in the middle of May, I could not but appreciate the applicability of this plurality. After all, this sudden glut of recognition for the films of Tamil Nadu is not entirely due to a surge in the quality of output. While they are not entirely gratuitous, it would be simplistic to ignore the other influences that affect the decisions of award juries.

Consider, for instance, the increasingly altered attitude that committees in recent years have adopted towards the populist cinema in our paradigm. Time was when the national awards were the dominion of obscure art house flicks, directed by people that Romy Rolly, that quintessential old school producer from Zoya Akhtar’s Luck By Chance, would derisively address as ‘instoot’. Over the last decade juries have openly embraced the cinema that graces our pop culture and the box office for longer periods of time (this, despite a special award for films that provide “wholesome entertainment”, as if that were somehow independent of the quality of the film). Another factor that is discussed much less frequently are the behind the scenes lobbying mechanisms. While a majority of us ordinary citizens remain insulated from such machinations it would be naïve to assume that they do not exist. And so a number of evolving factors, some entirely outside the imaginations of the popular conscious, possibly contributed to the prizes sent the way of Tamil cinema.

Therefore I prudently decided to restrict my pondering to the realm of comparative cinematic appreciation, but even this is fraught with danger. As a film enthusiast, I am cursed with an incurable condition. A condition that sets my pulse racing and adrenaline pumping at the very thought of a new release. Two decades ago a release only meant a film print being acquired by a local theater of reasonable proximity. Today, however, the word release has come to signify a wide array of possibilities. Home video has made available anything from an extended director’s cut of a cult classic to the digital remastering of an obscure European film. Subtitles ensure that linguistic differences do not stand in the way of cinematic experience. Yet, as I watch those translated and transcribed words appear in white italics scroll through the bottom of my screen, there is always a niggling doubt in the recesses of my cranium. Watching films in languages foreign to the four I understand, always leaves me worried that I am missing out on some nuance or idiomatic humor and in thus experiencing less of the film than a native speaker. I could not imagine a more nightmarish assignment than having to objectively evaluate the multiple regional language films and adjudicate that one is better than the other. An honest evaluation would restrict us purely to an estimation of the outputs within each regional paradigm.

And so, this is what I will attempt to do – restrict myself to the celluloid commerce of Tamil Nadu and if possible understand its vicissitudes purely in relation to itself. Are these awards the crescendo of a growing creative wave that will sustain or are they a freakish, one-off occurrence? Is there a silent renaissance happening in the cinema of our southern tip and if so what has fomented it?

Let us hark back to the early seventies to see if we can glean a larger narrative over the course of time. By 1975 the sturdy star hierarchies of sixties Tamil Cinema had peaked and were on he decline. Those were, in some senses, the lost years the industry’s lost years. K.Balachander, the recipient of the 2010 Dada Saheb Phalke award and the source from whom the star systems of the eighties would spring forth, remained the lone stalwart. With his countering of middle class hypocrisies and strong female characters he established beyond a reasonable doubt that an auteur of substance could be a box office draw. Slowly but surely these trying times became a fertile ground for a generation of directors who would mould the popular consciousness the next decade, in both urban and rural contexts. In quick succession Mahendran, Mani Ratnam, Balu Mahendra and Bharathiraja all made creatively impressive debuts. Until the total ascendance of Rajinikanth and Kamal Hassan into stars with combative coteries, these were the names that drew audiences to theatres. It was also the age of Ilaiyaraaja, the man who would, in many ways, redefine the scope and influence that music could have in films.

Fast-forward to the beginning of 2004 and history, as it is wont to, had found a way to repeat itself though not in an entirely similar fashion. The frequency of film output from the two reigning stars in the state had unquestionably waned. The only Rajinikanth release between the roaring successes of Padaiyappa in 1999 and Chandramukhi in 2005 was the rather unremarkable, Baba. Consequently the intervening years were surrendered, not entirely but in large part, to the antics of poseurs. The result was a spate of soulless, formulaic films filled with foregone conclusions that remain nearly indistinguishable for anyone not entirely enamored by the mechanics. Of the famed directors of the eighties Balu Mahendra, Mahendran and Bharathiraja had all but stopped making films (they have each made only one film since). This time around it was Mani Ratnam, the man who had come define what it meant to be an urban upper middle class young man in Tamil Nadu, who remained the last standing stalwart. The three Tamil films he made during this otherwise barren patch only underscore my disappointment at his progression to bigger canvases and mixed results. Even that reliable bastion of vigilante films, Shankar, only produced Boys, an honest yet amateurish attempt, during this period. Kamal Hassan, the other star in the constellation continued his efforts to defy classification, attempting to straddle the parallel tightropes of sidesplitting comedy and sincere artistry at once. But these two cineastes, in new avatars and a few maverick filmmakers, would reorient the direction that the industry was taking.

In the five-year period between 1999 and 2004, Kamal Hassan directed two features. The first of these, Hey Ram, was a sprawling epic that attempted to trace the tail of the serpent of communalism in a free India. Unfortunately this multi-lingual pan Indian effort, while still critically lauded, did not make the impact it deserved. What did leave an indelible mark was his latter attempt in 2004. Where Hey Ram’s spatial coordinates stretched the length and breadth of our subcontinent, Virumandi restricted its location to a specific region of Tamil Nadu. But in its subtle depiction of the mutable nature of truth and agrarian politics he painted a riveting picture of rural Tamil Nadu that went well beyond simple star crossed romance or a cursory commentary on the inequities of caste. Shankar’s impact would not come from the director’s chair but through his independent film production company. Produced S Pictures, Balaji Sakthivel’s Kadhal would go on become one of the most influential films of the decade. To describe Kadhal on paper would be to reduce its cinematic splendor to absurdity. It is a simple rich girl – poor boy love story set in a suburb of Madurai and employs every commonly seen cinema trope in these situations. Yet the sympathy it awards its characters, its portrayal of the lack of privacy in our cities and its unfailing seriousness elevated the film to iconic status. Both Virumandi and Kadhal were harbingers. Whether they began Tamil cinema’s march to Madurai or were simple the first to see an opportunity to tell untold stories, we may never know.

In the coming years Tamil filmdom has marched on Madurai like never before, sometimes armed with well crafted screenplays and at other times hoping to find some external inspiration in its soil. Majority of these films feature bearded wastrels, half-saree clad heroines and stylized, gratuitous violence. The first of these films, and the one with the most influence on the template was Ameer’s immensely successful and critically acclaimed film Paruthiveeran. The brutality in Paruthiveeran is placed on a pedestal, so much so it earned the epithet ‘Cruel Cinema’ at a University of California Berkeley Film Program (Link reference: http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/film/FN18956). Its characters are so given to the hacking and hewing of the curved blade of the sickle that a viewer could be forgiven for believing that violence is the central point, the reason for existence even, of the film. The second aspect of Paruthiveeran that caught on like wildfire was the sarcastic humor derived from the lilting dialect spoken in the Madurai area. With this film the hinterlands of Ramanathapuram had arrived as the go-to location for filming. Today lesser filmmakers land in Madurai armed with cast, crew and flimsy scripts believing that the producer’s returns are guaranteed by location, dialect, the two earlier tropes discussed and one more borrowed from Subramaniapuram – the sanctity of friendship.

If Tamil cinema were to be believed, one of the important choices facing the Tamil male, whether he may be a city or mofussil resident, is between his male friends and the girl he is wooing. The dilemma, labeled “friend or figure” in the local parlance, is central to Sasikumar’s explosive debut film Subramaniapuram and the more recent Nadodigal. These two films elevated a conflict that had predominantly been comic fodder for Tamil filmmakers into a defining problem of the age. Set in the eighties, Subramaniapuram tracks the lives, love and death of a band of unemployed young men exploited for political gain. One of the key moments in the film is the betrayal of one of the young men by his lover. The elegiac execution of this sequence is one of the films lasting impacts. This disillusionment with the traditional mores of cinematic romance has also in some ways become a signature trope in the Tamil cinema of today with fewer and fewer simple boy-meets-girl, boy-gets-girl romances being made. Opposition to romance is no longer purely external to the relationship. It isn’t dissenting parents or guardians but the characters themselves who are conscious of class differences and practical difficulties. This realization is not restricted to the rural love stories of Madurai alone. The angst and internal strife is present in the context and psyche of filmmakers who specialize in the urban milieu as well.

Despite making his debut with a romantic comedy, Gautham Menon, Tamil cinema’s urban filmmaker of this generation, earned his stripes through gritty cop stories. But when he decided to follow up an intensely personal film, dedicated to his father, with a love story about a cinema crazy lad and commitment-phobic lass it came as no surprise. For even in his earlier films his penchant for the romantic interlude had endeared him to the anglophile urban youth in the major cities of the state. This love story, Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya, went on to become a smashing success on the strength of A.R.Rahman’s music and the vacillating characterization of Jessie, its female protagonist. Despite their varied locations from rural to urban, films such as Vinnaithandi Varuvaaya, Nadodigal and Subramaniapuram are all aimed at the same demographic – the young, educated and upwardly mobile exposed to the cadences of Hollywood and European film. This comes as no surprise because most of the filmmakers themselves belong to this demographic. They also seek to repudiate some of the romantic notions fed to them by the earlier generation while remaining conscious of the contributions to their growth. Consider for instance the recurring presence of Ilaiyaraaja numbers in the background scores of a number of these films. This is undoubtedly a tribute to the most prolific composer of the most widely listened form of music of the formative years of these filmmakers. This regional aural influence combined with the visual aesthetics of the west (from the long tracking shots Scorsese employs in Goodfellas to the more recent slick editing and quick flash cuts) has become par for the course in today’s Tamil Cinema.

It is to the industry’s credit and benefit, however, that this generalization is not all encompassing. Within the paradigm there do exist iconoclast filmmakers who consciously reject a western influence. The first of these is Mysskin – who aptly borrows his pseudonym from the pages of Dostoevsky – claims to have stumbled into filmmaking after working myriad odd jobs, most famously in one of Chennai’s prominent bookstores. From his very first film Mysskin adopts a visual style that is influenced more by the fareast in general and Kurosawa in particular. Mysskin’s films exhibit a persistent reticence for obvious visuals, often adopting camera angles that may seem gimmicky for the untrained eye, but always have interesting payoffs for the patient and more discerning viewer. While the penchant for stylized violence is present even in his films, the modus operandi is far removed from the usual fare. Despite what detractors may have to say about the filming techniques he employs there is no doubt that he is an important voice. The preference he exhibits for the darker aspects of the human psyche makes him an important counterpoint to the larger filmmaking community.

Yet another independent voice, someone who almost always raises eyebrows with his choice of subjects, is the 2009 National Award winner for best director, Bala. Of his four released films, the last two have both been recognized on the national stage. Pithamagan garnered a national acting award for its leading man Vikram for his portrayal of Siththan, overgrown man-child raised in a graveyard. Characterization’s that are difficult to envision and nearly impossible to pull off seem to be Bala’s forte. His 2009 film Naan Kadavul, which brought him his first national award was detailed the story of an Aghori ascetic who walks into the lives of a group of physically disabled people and delivers one of them from worldly suffering. With a visual style perfected over his first two films and a caustic sense of humor that draws us into his universe and past his characterizations, Bala has created a niche for himself that may never be perfectly understood. This may be for the better, for it means his style may never be replicated. The one person that Bala does have in common with a slew of filmmakers now making interesting films in Chennai is his mentor – Balu Mahendra.

When Sethu, Bala’s first film, released in 1999 it was the first in a series of illustrious debuts that Balu Mahendra’s assistants would make. Despite being one of the most influential cinematographers and visual artists to take residence in Chennai, Balu Mahendra hardly seemed to influence Bala’s preoccupations or aesthetic. As more and more of his pupils, Ram with Katrathu Thamizh and Vetrimaaran in Pollathavan both in 2007, made impressive debuts it became obvious that this lack of overpowering influence was not an exception. Bharathiraja’s assistants, Bhagyaraj and Pandiarajan who would go on to make several entertainers in the eighties, all showed a definite influence of their mentor in their films. It was their individual sense of humor that helped carve their niche. Balu Mahendra’s pupils however exhibit significantly different creative concerns from their guru. These concerns are often very divergent and have little in common with each other as well and one must give Balu Mahendra credit for allowing his assistants to grow into their own creative spaces.

While speaking about this years multiple award winner Aadukalam, its director Vetrimaaran quite clearly states that while it is a fine film it is only a step forward in his oeuvre. Anyone who has the matter-of-fact finale of Aadukalam will also realize that Dhanush, the protagonist and star of the film, and Vetrimaaran were much more committed to finding an honest conclusion to the tale they were weaving than creating a grandiose statement in favor of the trappings of image. It is this sort of filmmaker – one who is aware of the larger narrative and invested in stories of his characters – who should be the torchbearer of the industry moving forward. Investors in cinema should ensure that such voices are not crushed or shepherded towards mediocrity in the search for returns. Today there exists in Tamil the two things conducive for a renaissance of sorts: a quorum of committed creators and an audience that is requesting for creative experimentation. The regular star powered action fare has consistently found failure at the box office. If harnessed appropriately I believe that there is reason for hope and that good things lie in wait.

Star Spangled Superhero

2011-08-13T09:53:00.001+05:30

A World War 2 icon returns to our screens to remind us of a time when America believed in its incorruptibility.

This summer Hollywood has spread out a few superhero stories for our consumption. These heroes often come with attendant weaponry – sometimes a ring of power, sometimes a celestial hammer. These weapons are symbols of power; acting as a deterrent and signifying the aggression these heroes are capable of. Captain America, however, bears only a shield – a symbol of protection rather than one of aggression. It is a motif that recurs frequently, as a trashcan cover or a cab door, throughout Captain America: The First Avenger. This superhero is obviously a product of a simpler time; a time when his creators believed their country was the champion of the little guy. It is to such a time that the film carries us after a brief portion set in the present.

Joe Johnston takes us back to time before the transistor, when multiple arms carried armatures and analog graduations were the order of the day. World War 2 was raging all over Europe and able-bodied men all over America were volunteering to lay down their lives for the country. Unfortunately for Steve Rogers (a graphically emaciated Chris Evans), his mental toughness and never say die attitude cannot compensate for his less than able body. After multiple rejections on account of his physical inadequacies, Rogers is finally enlisted when Dr.Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci as a wizened old man) decides he may be just the guinea pig for a ‘super soldier project’. Dr.Erskine, a German deserter, has a sordid past of his own. Formerly under the employ of Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving playing Hugo Weaving), Erskine escaped to America when his research was usurped to service he god complex of the Fuehrer and his minion. The film attempts to assuage decades of German guilt with a single line of dialog. “People forget that the first country the Nazis invaded was their own,” he says, almost in way of explaining his defection. There is a conflicted man somewhere beneath the calm exterior Erskine. This struggle is written into the film’s major characters, even if only briefly.

Agent Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell with a stiff upper lip), officer in charge of training Rogers’ recruiting class, is one of the few women officers in the film with standing. She is entirely aware of the unique position she holds in an intrinsically male chauvinistic organization. And yet she must deal with an unnecessary emotion in the heat of battle, her attraction to Rogers. Rogers too deals with dilemmas after being accorded superhero status; both on whether he was the right choice and on what to do with his gift. After a successful tour across the United States selling treasury bonds ‘Captain America’ arrives in Italy to bolster GI morale through his stage act. The derision he is met with is depicts the stark contrast between pubic euphoria and the mood on the frontlines. It also defines the balance we all hope to strike in our professions – one between peer respect and fiscal stability.

Captain America is very aware of its place in the larger cinematic universe. The Marvel references are the most significant, with a small sequence after the end credits reminding us that the Captain will soon be integrated into a larger organization. Howard Stark, father of Ironman-to-be Tony Stark, plays an integral role in the hero’s genesis and the origins of the cube of power seen after the end credits of Thor are also explained away. But the film’s awareness extends beyond its Marvel roots into popular Hollywood terrain. Upon harnessing Odin’s cube of power, Schmidt whispers caustically about digging in the desert making a reference to Raiders of the Lost Ark. In yet another scene Rogers sets off to save his childhood friend Buck from behind enemy lines. Clad in a leather jacket Rogers reminds us of another man who attempted an improbable escape from the Nazis clad in similar attire – the irrepressible Steve McQueen in The Great Escape.

Despite the film’s awareness, the naiveté of its central premise is a little grating. The compassion of a weak man who suddenly chanced upon strength is no less condescending and our disbelief is not suspended enough to accept that a weak man is less likely to be enamored by the dark side of power. If Captain America: The First Avenger has a fatal flaw, then this is it.

P.S: An edited version of this review appears in today's City Express supplement of the New Indian Express.

Evolution and Emancipation

2011-08-06T09:54:00.001+05:30

A surprisingly nuanced prequel, which comments on intelligence and a little unnatural selection.

The image of Charlton Heston crumpled on the seashore before Lady Liberty’s head remains one of Hollywood’s most chilling endings ever. Rise of the Planet of the Apes tells us the origins of the upside down universe that Franklin Schaffner, Michael Wilson and Rod Serling first presented in 1968. Rupert Wyatt’s recent release does channel Charlton Heston, but not in his role as the astronaut George Taylor. It is Heston’s iconic reprisal as Moses that serves as inspiration for the central character of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, a genetically altered chimp named Caesar. Born to a pharmaceutical lab chimp named Bright Eyes (named for the green tint in her mutated irises), Caesar is blessed with superior intelligence. When Bright Eyes goes berserk and the drug testing program she is in shuts down, Will Rodman (James Franco playing second fiddle to primates) adopts Caesar and raises him as his own. Will’s compassion unwittingly makes him the progenitor of the civilization that will eventually reduce George Taylor to his knees.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is, in many ways, a film of sons and their fathers. Will Rodman is not involved in Alzheimer’s research purely for the joy of scientific pursuit. Will yearns to see his father, a music teacher suffering in the throes of the disease, return to his old self. But when combating death there is no possible result but loss. As Will’s girlfriend Caroline (Freida Pinto) points out, some eventualities just cannot be altered. Caesar, adopted son to Will, struggles with his place in human civilization. “Am I a pet?” he asks Will, who out of affection and recognition for his higher cognitive abilities replies in the negative. However, the world at large is less than ready to accept Caesar for who (not what) he is and his constant unrest finding solace only in tall Redwood canopies. It is only on account of conditioning, he still feels his home is with Will. When he is taken into custody by animal protection services for bearing down upon a bully who accosts Will’s father, Caesar finds himself in the company of his own species. And his rise from the pack’s neophyte to alpha male, aided of course by his mutation, is a lovely exposition of the qualities that truly make us cognizant beings.

The animal safe house Caesar is sent to is a veritable prison for chimpanzees, replete with a corruptible warden (Brian Cox once again playing a government servant with dubious morals) and his childishly cruel son who is entrusted with caring for the inmates (Tom Felton, who after the Harry Potter series and this film is in danger of being typecast). As the new ape on the block, Caesar also becomes the target of the in house chimpanzee bully. Caesar is now completely ensconced in the ‘earn your stripes’ period of his young life, but his recovery is meteoric. His heightened intelligence allows him to develop the leadership qualities that are required for a pioneer – independent thought, turning disadvantages into unique strengths and inspiring a most fundamental of emotions, loyalty. His transformation from criminal of the suburbs to leader of an oppressed clan is thus complete. The apes now have their Moses and he shall lead them into the Redwoods. Slowly but surely we see the formation of ad-hoc hierarchical constructs, the synthesis of sacrifice and retaliatory speech. And before we know it we, the audience, are inadvertently rooting against out own kind.

This paradoxical reaction is one of the many successes of Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Despite its leaps of logic and convenient compromises the film succeeds in selling its premise in wonderfully visual manner. In a rather suggestive moment in the animal shelter Caesar assumes the position of Rodin’s thinking man clearly separating him from his lesser cellmates. Caesar finally assembles his pack of primates into an army and descends upon the trees of the suburbs of San Francisco inflicting upon them an autumn defoliation on a warm summer morning. The scene with its withering leaves falling in heaps under the weight of the stampeding monkeys signals the arrival of a ‘fall’. And even as the title credits roll the film continues to tell its story of how patient zero propagates a virus. It is these visual flourishes that add depth to what is already an entertaining revitalization of an old classic.

P.S: An edited version of this review appears in today's City Express supplement of the New Indian Express. Link.

Myth Masala

2011-08-04T14:00:00.000+05:30

I have long maintained that Devasuram, through design or providence, was an inflection point in the career of Mohanlal. If Priyadarshan's Chithram highlighted the actor's slightly tilted gait and effervescent screen presence elevating him from actor to star, Devasuram turned him into a mustache twirling, larger than life superhuman. Mangalassery Neelakantan (Lal's character in the film) would become the singular archetype on which all his later larger than life roles would be based. For years going forward writers and directors would cull out portions from this film and patch their own shoddy sartorial attempts while entirely missing what made Devasuram the wonderful mythical tale it is. Those who would like to see the film for what truly makes it great need look no further than the title itself - it is the story of a man struggling with his own duality; the good and the bad within his own heart. Granted, this isn't the nuanced dilemma of Padmarajan's Thoovanathumbikal, but I.V.Sasi envisions this film as a myth and therefore Neelakantan's problems are of a fundamentally mythical nature.

Neelakantan is a wayward feudal remnant, a naaduvaazhi (landowner) with immense wealth and inordinate amounts of free time. He is by all popular accounts (and even his own as the introduction scene points out), a rascal and petulance personified. Quick to anger and even faster to retribution, Neelakantan has developed a reputation for being a ruffian - one that arises from the immense pride he derives from his exceptional lineage. Warrier (played by Innocent who alternates between august and whimsy with abandon), his manager, is his conscience and man friday - constantly urging him away from the rage and towards the light. All that is good about Neelan lives in art - his salvation lies in his own talents and his ability to foster the talents of others. Even his artistic talents are inherited - while observers point to his father as it's source Neelan knows the true source of the artistic genetics he possesses are from his mother (we see her singing Sarasijanaabha Sodhari in the video as he watches on from his father's lap).

Everytime we see Neelan do something positive it is directly related to his artistic ambitions in one fashion or another. A man who is usually nothing but bombastic or callous in his speech is apologetic in song, as in the video above - where he apologizes to an artist for any humiliation he may have caused due to his unbridled anger. Neelan is incapable of involving himself in anything without a feral intensity and therein lies the dilemma. As an artist one may simply observe; one of the best things about being a fly on the wall is owning the choice to fly away when one chooses to. But as a functioning human being, a part of society it is impossible to decouple oneself from the vicissitudes of social compulsions. This is Neelan's duality - the pure unsullied artist polluted by an ordinary man reacting to ordinary stimuli.

It is almost as a counterpoint to this that we see the character of Peringode Sankara Marar (once again played by a stellar supporting actor - Oduvil Unnikrishnan) presented in some ways as a man who has somehow managed to decouple himself from the push and pull of a relationship laden life. Sankara Marar is a vagabond who walks to the beat of only his chenda (drum). Traveling from one temple festival to another, Sankara Marar passes through Neelan's house on occasion as a mark of artistic camaraderie. Only this time, instead of a rambunctious dilettante, he finds a broken man; a man who has lost his lineage, the use of his limbs, reclined on a chair and possibly dying. And the song he offers as solace is a telling encapsulation of who he is and the sort of mythology that is rarely seen in the films of a similar vein that came later.

Vandhe Mukunda Hare Jaya shourE Sandhaapa haari murarE
Dwapara Chandrika Charchithamaam nindE Dwarakapuri evidE?
Peeli thiLakkavum kOlakkuzhal pAttum ambAdi paikkaLum evidE?
kroora nishada sharam koNdu neerumee nenjinen aathma praNaamam.
Prema swaroopanaam sneha satheerthyandE kaalkalen kanneer praNaamam.

It is the song of a nomadic wayfarer addressing the Lord Krishna who lays dying on the banks of the sea:. Roughly translated it asks him:

Where is your city that all who lived in Dwapara Yuga looked upon with wonder?
Where is your shining peacock feather now?
Where is the flute ever ready with song and the attendant cattle?
O king, who lies drawing his last breaths on the arrow of the Nishada who shot you,
O embodiment of love and all that is pure, I bow before thee.

The man who lay dying before the singer is a king, maybe even a god, but it is not the artist's job to help or interfere. It is not his place to offer assistance. His lot in life is to sing and then, just like Peringode Sankara Marar, disappear quietly into the night.

What the heart wants once more

2011-07-18T08:53:00.004+05:30

A decade after Farhan Akhtar’s directorial debut, his sister’s sophomore effort walks a parallel road with expectedly diminishing returns.

A decade ago three young men on the threshold of life packed their bags into the trunk of a Mercedes convertible and headed to Goa. They parked themselves quite firmly in the collective consciousness of the urban Indian yuppie and ten years later Hindi cinema (or may be just the director’s sister) is still paying tribute. Zoya Akhtar’s Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara is destined to live in the shadow of her brother’s genre defining Dil Chahta Hai because its target demographic is largely the same. What has changed are the means of this target demographic and this is reflected in the locations and aesthetics of Zoya’s film. Where Akash, Samir and Sid went to Goa on vacation, Zoya’s trio take trips to Spain. They don’t rent scooters anymore; they rent vintage convertibles and live in villas that would entice the least materialistic among us. This enticement is, without a doubt, the true core of this film. Its cloying postcard splendor is a frosted glass cage that we must look past to see the characters inside. And in an initial daze that resembles a sugar-high, we are quite glad to make the effort.

Though the film never crosses the Atlantic, it is filled with Manhattan stereotypes. Kabir, a Clark Kent spectacles wearing Abhay Deol, is the Upper East side living, wealthy wasp equivalent among the three friends. The film begins with Kabir’s engagement to Natasha (a hilariously uptight Kalki Koechlin), a Park Avenue princess who may live in present day Mumbai but shops in London and has priorities from a past decade. Arjun, is the high power, high energy, Wall Street trader equivalent, only he lives closer to Savile Row than Park Avenue. Arjun (Hrithik Roshan), obviously over compensating for a financially disadvantaged background, is every executive cliché rolled into a single bite of Japanese speaking sushi. He nearly misses the trip (but of course doesn’t) because of work, constantly refers to retirement at forty and is fortuitously multi-lingual. But he is no ice king – of the three he is the one who wears his heart on his incredibly short, bicep-exposing sleeve. Imran (a sometimes hit sometimes miss Farhan Akhtar) is the Greenwich Village artist who sold his creative soul to the advertising industry and writes biscuit jingles that his friends mock. Imran is the class joker and remorseless cad, hiding the hurt that lurks beneath behind a veneer of inappropriate jokes and in unpublished poetry. The troika’s excuse to set off to Spain is a bachelor party for Kabir. But it is patently obvious that the road trip they embark on will become the most fundamental detour in their life’s journey. These child-men have much growing up to do and in the absence of a qualified shrink (Kabir who seems to have graduated from Pop-psychology University can be safely discounted), they use adventure sports to achieve the same results.

The film is not without its poignant moments. The titles, with Abhay flying first class, Arjun and his meticulously packed luggage flying business and Imran’s hurriedly thrown together rucksack in coach chatting up a stewardess, clearly segment and define the character types we are dealing with. The tension between Imran and Arjun when they first meet is palpable and Arjun makes a quip the slimness of Imran’s paycheck – a perfect example of an instance in which we inflict careless wounds on friends. The Arjun – Laila (a winsome and well cast Katrina Kaif) romance starts off on the right note as well – with Imran making the first move while Arjun watches in the background protesting silently. But with Laila the player seems to have met his match and she aptly takes the lead in her relationship with the Arjun who, despite his multilingual prowess, remains woefully inarticulate when it comes to wooing. When words leave Arjun’s mouth they fall, like most two-dimensional objects attempting stand straight, flat on the floor. The two most honest moments of the film belong to Imran – one in a post coital curl up where his partner has no clue what he is confessing and the other in a confrontation with his estranged father.

The camaraderie and in-jokes are easy to identify with but the gag that elicits the loudest laugh comes from outside the friendship – Saare Jahaan se achcha playing over the slow motion walk to a skydiving plane. It is a subversive dig at patriotism and an indication of what this film thinks about existing holy cows. This film, in all its beauty and splendor, worships at only one place – the temple of consumerism. One would not be remiss in imagining the scarf and shades wearing Hermes Bag, dubbed Bagvati by Imran, as the presiding deity of this temple. The characters in Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara may tell you to follow your dreams and live in the moment, but what the film truly preaches is want. It is impossible not to want the lives that these characters live. Everything that they touch, perceive and experience (even sadness) is so beautiful that we are enticed into believing that we deserve the same. In reality these lives need to be bought and paid for and therefore the only thing this film is bound to create is more people who depress their dreams in pursuit of money – to draw from its on characters, more Arjuns. When Dil Chahta Hai first came out we accepted in with open arms because of our wide-eyed optimism. After a decade spent in a mostly capitalist boom, our generation is now slightly jaded. And as a result slightly more wary of the goods that Zoya Akhtar is truly selling in her sophomore effort.

P.S: An edited version appears in today's City Express supplement of The New Indian Express. Link.

Home is where Hogwarts is

2011-07-16T10:06:00.004+05:30

David Yates successfully guides the series to its conclusion in the grand finale to a series of films that have become a global phenomenon.

Any film viewing, especially of a film that does justice to its characters, is pregnant with the possibility of disappointment. As viewers we are constantly aware that all that awaits us at the end are titles. Our childlike urge to spend more time with the characters we’ve come to love must remain unrequited. This disappointment is only compounded with regard to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. The film brings to a close a decade long association (longer for those who have read the books) with the characters and universe J.K.Rowling created. With earlier film editions there was always an assurance that our familiar friends would return, even if in a more somber, brooding atmosphere. For those of us who already suffered through one set of withdrawal symptoms after the final book was released another set of symptoms await at the conclusion of this film. There are no more adventures for the boy wizard and his two friends. So, excited as we are to see David Yates take the series to its conclusion, we are entirely aware of the central theme of this film even before we enter the theaters – death.

David Yates wastes no time reminding us of the sadness surrounding the magical world when we last left. Voldemort (a wan, slit-nosed Ralph Fiennes) has in his possession the Elder wand he stole after desecrating the tomb of Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon). Dobby, everyone’s favorite house elf, now lies buried in the backyard of Bill Weasley’s beachside home where Harry, Ron, Hermione and Griphook the goblin plot their next move. Severus Snape (played by the human chameleon Alan Rickman) is now principal of Hogwarts, which seems less like the safe haven it once was and more like a military camp. We are reminded of the French school in Louis Malle’s Au revoir les enfants – the students who did return have all bid goodbye to their childhood by now. Snape stands at a vantage point, watching the Hogwarts courtyard as if overseeing the gloom that infiltrates everything and entirely aware of what lies in store. The film spends a great portion of its time inside Hogwarts as it well should, for after all this is where it all began. This was where we muggles, along with Harry and co, were initiated into the world of magic. And just like the snitch Harry is bequeathed by Dumbledore, it is Hogwarts that must open up and reveal its true splendor at the close.

There are no preliminaries at the beginning of the film, no ‘story-so-far’ to allow those unaware of the proceedings to catch up. Yates, quite rightly, assumes that one has no place watching this film if one does not know what is at stake and the film is all the better for it. The purposefully slow first part of Deathly Hallows left Yates with a lot of ground to cover and consequently he does increases the pace at which events unfold. Unlike in the book or the first movie, there is no time to recover from injuries and minimal graphical fanfare accompanies the destruction of Horcruxes that house pieces of Voldemort’s soul. Ideas occur instantaneously and are executed even quicker. Yates dispenses with a few details from Rowling’s book (it isn’t just Harry who is not interested in what transpired between Aberforth and Albus) and appropriates the parts that serve as emotional crests.

The heroics and humanity are not reserved solely for the boy who lived. Supporting characters, marginal and otherwise, all have their moments. Ron (a lovable Rupert Grint), who finally gets his on screen kiss with a Hermione (a suddenly buxom Emma Watson), is all of a sudden the wellspring of great ideas. (Intelligence it seems is transferable by kissing.) A suddenly confident Neville Longbottom, limp and all, is the one Gryffindor’s sword chooses to find in a moment of crisis. Hermione repels a werewolf who was feeding on Lavender Brown, a girl who she quite disliked for garnering Ron’ affections only two films ago. Even Molly ~~Potter~~ Weasley gets her fifteen seconds of fame with a ferocious duel against the cackling Bellatrix Lestrange (Helena Bonham Carter). Yates is aware that it is the triumphs of the little guys that a number of us are rooting for and gives them their day in the sun. But make no mistake this is Harry’s, more specifically Daniel Radcliffe’s, film. With the fate of the magical world on his shoulders, Radcliffe casts off some of the woodenness that adorned his face in the previous editions and holds his own, even against his more celebrated co-stars.

Despite all the overall pall of doom the film does make room for finer aspects of life. Upon the return of Harry, Seamus Finnegan sends out a message through Hogwarts stating ‘lightning has struck’ obviously referring to the scar on his forehead. The usually stately Minerva McGonnagall (Maggie Smith in a brief but poignant role) shivers in girlish delight after releasing Hogwarts’ stone warriors. The visual effects are for the most part excellent and it is entirely excusable that, despite being in a hurry, Harry and Luna are compelled to hover and watch a protective membrane envelope the school like pseudopodia. It is to Yates’ credit that this ‘stop and smell the roses’ moment situates itself in a rather frenetic part of the film. And it is the reason that a film that signals the end of the franchise will, as many elegiac dialogues in the film point out, live on in the hearts of fans everywhere.

P.S: An edited version of this review appears in today's City Express supplement of the New Indian Express. Link.

Hinglish Hilarity

2011-07-10T15:36:00.000+05:30

Delhi Belly is a slice of life comedy that serves up simpletons, squalor and scatological humor with great sophistication.

The scrolling yellow announcement above the screen showing Delhi Belly announced a rarely seen linguistic classification. “Hinglish” it said in parentheses adjacent to the title, proudly announcing that this was not a film where characters translated thoughts out of commercial pressures. True to its claims, Delhi Belly is bilingual in an entirely believable fashion. If the subliminal linguistic classification that we indulge in – directing an auto rickshaw driver in Hindi but addressing acquaintances in English – is seamlessly integrated into Delhi Belly so is the infinite variety of the titular city. Both the squalor and the splendor of Delhi make appearances in the film, though not in equal parts. Fancy parties and hotels are contrasted with narrow streets and dubiously constructed tenements. This duality is one of many sources of depth in Abhinay Deo’s hilarious film.

Delhi Belly opens in a Jackie Brown-esque manner with Vladimir, a nervous Russian mule, transferring a package to a bimbette airhostess Sonia (played by Shehnaz Treasurywala) who is unaware of the contraband she is in possession of. In a miniscule span of screen time a whole slew of comedic possibilities are set up because of this disparity of information. The economy of expression in that opening scene is present through the entirety of Delhi Belly allowing the film to paint even its most insignificant of characters with color and complexity. The film’s three male protagonists – Tashi, Nitin and Arup – live in a habitual state of squalor and slack. Tashi (a grungy, bearded Imran Khan) nurses ambitions of being a serious journalist, a sentiment not shared by his photographer and roommate Nitin (Kunaal Roy Kapur in a ‘free flowing’ performance). What they do have in common, though, is an internal dichotomy. Despite his professional ambitions Tashi is not serious about the one mainstay in his life – long time girlfriend and fiancé Sonia. And despite his mercenary attitude, Nitin does have artistic tendencies, even if they are of the morbid variety. The roommate who commits the delivery error that leads to the film’s shenanigans is Arup (Vir Das). Whether head nodding to a hack boss who issues absurdly hilarious directives or being reduced, quite literally, to a doormat by his by his girlfriend Ritu, Arup is a safely submissive young man. His urge to fight back is reserved for his friends. Menaka (Poorna Jagannathan), a fellow journalist with a crush on Tashi and a jealous husband filled with murderous anger, is the fourth piece of this unintentionally comedic quartet.

Be it the protagonists or a philandering yet conscientious landlord, Delhi Belly is chock-full of flawed people who find themselves in hilarious predicaments. Even the archetypal jealous husband expends a second admiring (what he thinks is) two women kissing before realizing that one of them is his wife. Ironically the only soul who stands tall above them as a man of refinement is a gangster. Slipping into Hindi and English with equal élan, Vijay Raaz’s performance as Somayajulu is pitched and timed to perfection. Somayajulu may be a gangster but he is a purveyor of items of immaculate beauty – diamonds. There is some artistry to his trade as evidenced by his elaborately delicate procedure for viewing the diamonds Vladimir has smuggled for him. First, a velvet cloth is laid out on a flat surface. Then any dust or other extraneous impurity is dismissed with a flick of the wrist or a puff of air from the lips. And finally the contents of the package are lovingly emptied on to the cloth. It is both inexplicably sad and funny that the reward he gets for all his care is a stool sample. For all the running scatological humor and great lines in Delhi Belly, it is this moment of dual emotion that defines this riotous film.

P.S: An edited version of this piece appeared in the City Express supplement of the New Indian Express yesterday. Link.

Sense and Senility

2011-07-10T15:30:00.001+05:30

Cinematic homage to an angry young man delivered by a rather uppity old man.

If there is an unabashed practitioner of the multi-ingredient masala method of making films it has to be Puri Jagannadh. Therefore it comes as no surprise that when assembling a tribute to the aura of the original angry young man he comes up with Bbuddha Hoga Tera Baap. Every moment that Bachchan is on screen, save a tender moment toward the end, is an opportunity to emphasize his virility and larger than life stature. Every detail of the film is in service of the Big Bachchan identity and the era that cemented his stardom. The large lapels, silk shawls, floral patterns and boots are all back in full force. Two popular numbers of the age, Don’s Paan Banaraswala and Yaarana’s Saara Zamaana, have been remixed and placed to trigger aural memories. These armaments, Puri assumes, are sufficient to buoy the story of a retired but still potent hitman named Viju (played by who else but Bachhan himself) returning to Mumbai – the city where he earned his stripes, learnt his lessons and lost his family.

We’ve even met most of the characters decades ago – an extremely religious single mother, a conscientious cop, callous criminals and fashionably adorned romantic interests. Prakashraj takes over villain duties in the absence of the formidable Ajit. With gangster haven regulars like Bob Christo and Mac Mohan retiring to the great beyond, Makarand Deshpande (also named Mac) and familiar faces from Puri’s Telugu ventures like Pokiri fill in sundry gang member roles. Sonu Sood, the only other person with sizeable screen time, is obviously cast as a throwback to the cops once played by Bachchan himself. The film even establishes its notions of romance firmly in favor of the early eighties. It is the ‘dream girl’ Hema Malini who truly has the heart of the leading man in this film, not the oomph girl of the nineties – Raveena. If one bemoans the passing of the tried and tested tropes of the early eighties Hindi film, then Bbuddha Hoga Tera Baap is your own personal Easter.

But what of those of us who loved fell in love with Bachchan’s angry young man for entirely different reasons? Puri Jagannadh’s film offers little for those of us who preferred the silent strength he embodied in Shakti. Now, suggestive background music clouds the reticently used baritone and designer sunglasses mask the smoldering anger in those eyes. Bbuddha Hoga Tera Baap is a tribute to only a few of the affectations that made the Big B a star and is, therefore, a slight let down.

P.S: An edited version of this piece appeared in yesterday's City Express supplement of the New Indian Express. Link.

To the Moon and Back

2011-07-02T10:27:00.001+05:30

Michael Bay unleashes yet another sequel filled with mindless mechanical mayhem.

The theme song for the popular Transformers animated series paints its shape changing robots with a mysterious idiom. The protean pieces of metal in the cartoon are described as “more than meets the eye”. The same, however, cannot be said for Michael Bay’s series of films, which are more akin to a Tina Turner song. Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon is the latest addition to Bay’s “what you get is what you see” series of films. It packs in just as many much metal crunching explosions and unnecessary slow motion sequences as the earlier films. And the humans in the film seem just as insignificant to the narrative as their frames do when compared to the size of the hulking graphically generated robots.

For the second time this summer a blockbuster attempts to reinterpret the contemporary history of the baby boomers. Where X-Men First Class altered the means of resolution of the Cuban missile crisis, Dark of the Moon takes on the raison d’etre for the 1969 moon landing. Hollywood has taken hostage what were possibly the lowest point and the greatest achievement of the Kennedy administration. According to Bay’s latest offering, mankind’s outer space adventure was not founded on pure scientific curiosity but as a response to external stimulus. This stimulus was the landing of an alien spacecraft that housed Sentinel Prime, the great leader of the Autobots and mentor to the intrepid Optimus, on the dark side of the moon. Since history stipulates that Russian technology arrived on the moon well before NASA did, that is woven in as well; the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl that would eventually decimate its surrounding region was made possible by alien technology and not defecting German scientists. In the present day, the hunt for Decepticons leads the black ops team headed by Lennox (Josh Duhamel) and Optimus Prime to Chernobyl and technology that the Autobots believed had been lost.

As the film’s plot conveniently alters the contours of history it attempts to simultaneously incorporate the plight of Sam Witwicky (Shia Lebouf) as well. Now a young graduate, Sam’s problem is more firmly rooted in terra firma – finding a job. But, having saved the world and earned a presidential medal of honor before graduating college, Sam has peaked too early in life. His resume, which we see for a fleeting moment during an interview with a prospective employer, is woefully bereft of material at a half page length. For all its attempts at on the nose dialog and expletive suggestion, this single page prop is the funniest part of the film. It is impossible to stifle a chuckle at the insinuation that saving the world lacks value in the commercial incentive driven ‘real world’. Sam’s presidential medal may not have aided his professional life but it has certainly blessed his personal life with a stunning new beau Carly (Rosie Huntington Whiteley justifying her modeling pedigree). Carly manages the vintage car collection of a prominent and handsome venture capitalist sending Sam’s insecurities into overdrive. Under pressure, all Sam can manage is a job in the mailroom of a (surprise, surprise!) Defense contractor. And thus, an extremely tenuous connection between Sam’s world and the Autobots’ is established once more.

For a film that is largely based on the conflict between robots, Dark of the Moon sports a heavy weight cast. John Turturro returns as the part goofball, part serious Seymour Simmons with two new additions – Frances McDormand as the very particular and very hands-on Secretary of Defense Charlotte Mearing and John Malkovich who plays Sam’s CEO Bruce Bazos. We are treated to inane details about these characters – Bazos seems to think he is Hong Kong Phooey and Mearing prefers sneakers to heels – but in the end they are all pure caricatures. There are no added dimensions to the characters in Dark of the Moon and as a result there is no added interest in them. What does gratingly remain in memory though are the motley allusions to the dark moments in human history – a concentration camp style execution that Bumble Bee escapes and snapping of a building in half a la the September 11^th attacks. With Leonard Nimoy voicing Sentinel Prime the references to Star Trek are inevitable and this even may mollify some of us with a penchant for trivia.

But in large part the film treats even its protagonists, the Autobots, quite shabbily. The two most recognizable faces in the franchise, Optimus Prime and Bumble Bee, disappear for lengths of time while the largely inconsequential human tussles play out. And when they do appear on screen, they are left to dispense pithy one-liners. As always the best effects are reserved for a Decepticon – Shockwave. But as the film progresses the action gets harder to follow and a sense of fatigue clouds the proceedings. Barring the numerous fades to black and the inexplicable shots of Rosie Huntington Whiteley staring into oblivion, one remembers little of the loud action sequences. And for a film that touts action as its trump card this is a less than acceptable after-taste.

P.S: An edited version of this review appears in the City Express edition of the New Indian Express. Link.

Shaitan, Eesan and...

2011-06-27T11:10:00.000+05:30

... Ebert's law on First Post today.

Spectral Superhero

2011-06-25T11:25:00.000+05:30

The Green Lantern squanders its initial promise to its campy villain and proceedings.

The introductory voiceover for Martin Campbell’s Green Lantern, with its explanation of color-coding, may as well be a time portal that returns us to primary school. But as we listen to the expositions on the green power of will and the yellow power of fear (again, reminding us of that juvenile ditty about yellow and dirty fellows) we are liable to ignore another early school lesson; a lesson that, maybe, explains the significance of choosing these particular colors from the spectrum. The acronym most of us learnt for the colors in a rainbow, VIBGYOR, tells us that green and yellow are the two central, adjacent colors in the spectrum. Choosing green to represent will and yellow to represent fear suggests that a thin line separates two of humanity’s core emotions. And this internal struggle is at the heart of the transformation of Hal Jordan into the Green Lantern.

Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds robbed of his loquacious charm) is a test pilot for Ferris Aircraft and widely acknowledged as one of the best (despite having the most ridiculous call sign since Goose in Top Gun). Yet he remains traumatized by the apparition of his father Martin, also a pilot, exploding to smithereens. While we must summarily ignore questions such as ‘why was a young boy so close to an exploding plane?’ we must concede that the experience would have scarred anyone for life. His internal demons nearly cost Ferris a contract with the US Airforce and him his life. The largesse of Carol Ferris (Blake Lively giving her last name no credence), Hal’s one time squeeze and heir apparent to the Ferris aircraft fortune, ensures that his job is safe. Carol also provides a shoulder for him to cry on when he can find the words to verbalize his fears.

As Hal struggles with his issues, Parallax, the embodiment of fear itself, escapes from a prison on the planet of Ryut. Powered by the yellow energy of fear, Parallax heads toward the planet of Oa, to extract revenge on the Guardians who harness the green power of will. Each member of the Green Lantern Corps, the military wing of this galactic council of Guardians, derives power from their ring and will. Abin Sur, one of the most powerful members of the corps, is the Parallax’s first casualty. He crashes on earth and his ring of power chooses Hal to be its bearer.

Unfortunately, a part of Parallax from Abin Sur’s body also infects Dr.Hector Hammond. Hector has his own set of issues to grapple with. A shy, soft-spoken biologist, Dr.Hammond is the prototypical high school loser who never grew out of his shell. His powerful father, Tim Robbins as Senator Hammond, constantly undermines him and Carol, the woman of his dreams, does not return his affections. When he is infected by Parallax a number of convenient intersections between Hal, Carol and Hector are set in motion.

Green Lantern is largely a generic exercise in self-discovery. The parallels between the Green Lantern Corps and the army are clear for all to see. So also is the essentially entrepreneurial belief in the power of one man’s will. There are, however, fleeting moments that bring a smile to one’s face – both during Hal’s induction to the Corps. Having depended on machines to fly all his life Hal is absolutely joyous when he discovers the ring allows him to fly. He does a few spontaneously playful maneuvers before following his inducting officer, Tomar Re, to the training grounds. At the training grounds his childish marvel is back as he watches Tomar Re manipulate multiple Mobius strips through the power of his will. Unfortunately these moments are a rarity and we rarely witness such human moments as the film decides to cater to its plot. The problem with this choice is that the film fails to realize its potential. Just as a ring that can create anything one can visualize is limited by the user’s imagination so is Green Lantern limited by the choices it makes. The film tends to get campier as it progresses with Hector turning into a hideously disfigured villain and some hackneyed plot contrivances. Sadly the verdant color of the uniform and the light emanating from the ring does not rub off on to the rest of the film.

P.S: An edited version appears in today's City Express Supplement of the New Indian Express.

Try School Musical

2011-06-25T11:19:00.003+05:30

Always Kabhi Kabhi is an inconsistent Indianisation of the high school musical.

Nandini Oberoi, popularly known as Nandy Bull, is the resident tomboy of St.Mark’s High school where Always Kabhi Kabhi plays out. She is constantly at loggerheads with her oldest friend and token nerd of the school Tariq “Einstein” Naqvi. It is obvious for anyone who has seen a teen romance or three that these two will find their way into each other’s arms. This is, after all, a simple extrapolation of the pigtail pulling we see on school playgrounds – fighting is just a circuitous way of expressing affection. But the film still manages to pull off a reworking of this trope in a fashion rarely seen in these parts.

In true teen-romance style it is Nandini’s personal crisis, an unexpected pregnancy scare in this case, that brings these two oddly nicknamed kids together. However it does not happen with Einstein confronting Nandini’s philandering boyfriend or challenging him to a duel at dawn for her honor. What he does instead, is face up to the awkward task of buying a few pregnancy tests from a disapproving, yet surprisingly well-intentioned, pharmacist. This, curiously enough, is sufficient for Einstein to work his way into Nandini’s heart. It takes a true romantic to conceive and pull off a “he is so cute he brought me pregnancy tests” meet-cute. Sadly this spark of novelty is one of the very few things right with Always Kabhi Kabhi.

Set in a campus that resembles a Haveli at times and Hogwarts at others, Always Kabhi Kabhi attempts to relocate the high school musical to Delhi. Sadly the film makes quite a mish-mash mess of the move. A serious contest of Shakespeare plays is established as the backdrop for the film. Yet we rarely see any effort requisite of a student production. The new student Aishwarya, played by the wispily attractive Giselli Monteiro, is just handed the part Juliet on her first day of school. The emphasis placed on looks and a Bollywood bloodline reiterates the superficial reality that the film inhabits. We settle in to the film, content in the assumption that a powder puff romantic drama is set to unfold. But it quickly abandons the play to probe drugs, corrupt cops and indifferent parents. This inconsistency soon envelops the narrative and performances as well. Ali Fazal as Sam and Satyajeet Dubey as Einstein seem lost in wide-eyed cluelessness for the most part and Zoa Morani as Nandini has little to do but look spunky or cute as necessary. If the film had stuck to a tone it may have, at the very least, been acceptable as a genre exercise. As it stands, Always Kabhi Kabhi exhibits an emptiness of character that makes it an extremely tiresome watch.

P.S: An edited version appears here.

Today I make my debut on First Post...

2011-06-18T19:44:00.000+05:30

... with a piece on Aaranya Kaandam. I really enjoyed the film, especially after tracking it for a long time and if it is playing at a theater near you, I think you should head out and watch it. More than once even. Here is the piece. Do read.

Apropos of nothing...

2011-06-18T18:23:00.000+05:30

(picture by the talented young Sharan Reddy. In memory of a time long gone.)

...every now and then I think I miss somebody. My mind quickly swats away the idea and all returns to absurdity.

The Devil in the Details

2011-06-18T10:39:00.000+05:30

A tale of modern amorality that often leaves its viewers feeling as cold as its characters.

Bejoy Nambiar’s Shaitan has been raising eyebrows ever since its Rorschach blot of a poster first released. The psychedelia fueled, Kannadasan referencing trailer raised our expectations from the film. It became obvious that the film would explore the shenanigans of a youth that knows no want, but would it be more? Would it be concerned with matters more than style or had we already seen everything that would differentiate the film from its peers? These were the questions in my mind as I stepped into a theatre showing the film. As the film slowly percolates through my mind, the answers I am left with, after the style has been filtered, are less than satisfactory.

Shaitan introduces us to its individual characters with few preliminaries. Amrita Jaishankar (played by Kalki Koechlin) is the new rich kid in town and she brings with her a lot of baggage, though not of the variety manufactured by Samsonite. Having already lost her mother to insanity, she fears she may also be losing her father to her stepmother. Into her walled off life waltz a band of bacchanalian revelers who promise trust and friendship. The group consists of small time model Tanya (played by Kirti Kulhari), video game obsessed rich boy Zubin (Neil Bhoopalam) and a waiter who doubles as a drug pusher Dash (Shiv Pandit). The spliced-together moments that introduce each member of this group to us, offers no explanation as to how the youngsters gravitated to each other, except for the maniacal charm of its alpha dog Karan Chaudhury (Gulshan Devaiya in what might become a career defining role), KC for short. The disparities in affection and economic strata that drive the dynamics of such a group all subtly woven into the group’s interactions. Yet the amoral bubble that surrounds these five youngsters ensures that we remain always on the outside looking in. The image of a young Amrita separated from her straitjacketed mother by shatterproof glass foreshadows the problem with Shaitan – the sense of separation that we, the audience, feel from the characters that inhabit the amoral asylum that is Bejoy Nambiar’s universe.

The story of Arvind Mathur (Rajiv Khandelwal proving once again, after Aamir, that he is a reliable performer) provides a contrasting perspective; he is a cop struggling to hold on to his moral center in a world rife with decay. The exploitation of women, in particular, incites a blinding rage in the man. (We first see him after he has just meted out vigilante justice to a sexual offender.) Ironically, Arvind is on the brink of losing, in addition to his job, his wife. Again we are offered no reasons for their mutual discontent, except the insinuation that they come from different worlds and maybe a difference of opinion on Van Gogh’s Starry Night. It is, however, not impossible to imagine the corrosive effect his simmering rage may have had on the marriage. These two worlds, one filled with drug induced debauchery and the other filled with the frustration of moral certitude, collide when the pentad of friends perpetrate a hit and run on the streets of Mumbai. When a corrupt cop (Love Sex aur Dhokha’s Raj Kumar Yadav) decides to blackmail the group instead of presenting them before the law, the wheels on the friendship, and the film, slowly begin fall off.

Arvind Mathur reminds one of Anant Velankar and this makes us root for him despite his foibles. This is more than can be said for the group of youngsters in the film. They dispel their ennui through methods possibly learnt from their suburban counterparts in America – through sexually charged games of spin the bottle and cough syrup abuse. At some level, they are all broken children, but the film offers little to identify the source of their discontent. Their lack of a moral compass is the only defense offered for in their favor over the length of the film and this is no defense at all. So, after reels and reels of slow motion shots and incidental corpses, the vapidity of it all begins to irk. Shaitan is, at times, so insular that it drives away those attempting to actively engage its characters. The distance enables us to appreciate its aesthetic, but for the large part leaves us unfeeling and untouched. Shaitan suffers from a curse – the curse of ‘cool’.

P.S: An edited version appears in the City Express supplement of today's New Indian Express.

A Study in Contrast

2011-06-11T11:18:00.009+05:30

A few new mutations, the same old concerns and some exquisite visuals prop up this passable series reboot.

Children, especially when in a caustic clique, can be the cruelest dispensers of vocabulary. Far from the well-meaning barbs or jests that strengthen bonds, these acidic aspersions are cast with divisive intentions – to establish hegemony. If the kids at the receiving end of these barbs have little or no support of their own, from within or from external sources, the tumult of this marginalization becomes that much more unbearable. Therein lies the popularity of the X-Men series: the mutants, be it in the comics, animated series or the Bryan Singer film adaptations, are stand ins for the kids who are marginalized, often tormented, for their non-conformities. Only, these mutants have the abilities, if they choose to find and channel them, to retaliate against their oppressors. Despite being lower in the established social strata, they have the powers to shuffle the existing order in their favor. The question that remains, then, is how they choose to effect this change – through dialog or damage infliction.

Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men First class is concerned with the same id issues that made the first ~~three Bryan Singer films~~ (edited for accuracy:) two Bryan Singer films in the series entertaining. Its defining motif is its exercise of contrasts. Set in a time when communism was still perceived a threat and Professor X and Magneto were still Charles Xavier (James McAvoy looking as dapper as he did in Starter for Ten) and Erik Lehnsherr (Michael “I can make every facial muscle tic” Fassbender), the film consistently employs this needle of contrast to weave the various threads in its yarn. Compare, for instance, the adolescence of our two protagonists. Charles Xavier, raised a mansion in Westchester that will eventually become his school for the gifted, is a child of luxury. He goes on to a degree in Cambridge and, when not pursuing his interest in genetics, pursuing a youth well spent. Lehnsherr, on the other hand, is a product of oppression. Prodded into his powers by the Nazi torturer Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon hamming it up and providing a whole new generation material for six degrees games), Lehnsherr grows up to become a one-man Mossad – hunting remnants of the darkness that swallowed his youth. Xavier’s telepathic abilities developed due to the lack of other challenges. Lehnsherr’s were the product of immense duress and anger.

Another luxury that Xavier is afforded, by virtue of his purely cerebral powers, is the lack of physical deformity. This is again contrasted with a young Raven, the shape shifter Mystique played by a nubile young Jennifer Lawrence, who is constantly conflicted about having to assume a more presentable form. Unless one is from the Indian subcontinent, male and living in the Dwapara Yuga, blue skin can be a dating deterrent and this, above all others, is of concern to a teenager. Xavier, despite having taken Raven under his wing when she was very young, is obviously uncomfortable with her physical appearance. The same questions that afflict Lehnsherr’s relationship with Xavier confront her relationship with the Professor as well. How will one who has never felt, either the searing tattoo that reduces you to a number or the staring gaze that reduces you to an animal, understand? Each of Xavier’s friendships, forged with his good intentions, is doomed by the disparity between the haves and have-nots. Professor X may have the love and respect of his fellow mutants but their allegiance is an altogether different matter.

Despite its purported concerns with internal strife, the film sacrifices a large portion of its time to dealing with external nemeses. Sebastian Shaw, a mutant himself, returns with his cabal of villains Emma Frost (January Jones’ single note playing perfectly for the ice princess she is cast as), Riptide and Azazel to bring the United States and the USSR to the brink of nuclear war. Shaw operates from a submarine, as if to indicate that despite what our history texts tell us there is always something more that lies beneath. It is up to an ad-hoc team assembled by Xavier, Lehnsherr and CIA agent Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne in an often-goes-missing role) to foil his plans and save the world. There is, of course, no surprise that they do – what we are really there to see is how the crown of evil is passed down from Shaw to Lehnsherr and how the rivalry between the friends is cemented. Set in a time when internal political strife in the United States was reaching a fever pitch, it is symptomatic that this film chooses to focus on external threats rather than focus on the emotional breakthroughs of each character. As a result every epiphany or realization, from Lehnsherr to the younger mutants, appears to happen far too easily. However, this is to be expected, I guess, from a summer flick whose only reference to the civil rights struggles of the time is a brief cut to its only black character after the word enslaved is uttered. This contrast, the one between what the film chooses to exploit and what it leaves unexplored, is its defining characteristic.

P.S: An edited version appears in today's City Express supplement of the New Indian Express. Link here.

Unsteady and Going Nowhere

2011-06-11T11:16:00.002+05:30

A star vehicle that truly defies classification, reason and any sense of propriety.

Having already been subjected to the inanities of Anees Bazmee’s packaged and processed assembly line sense of humor once this summer, I walked into his latest Salman Khan starrer, Ready, with a certain sense of trepidation. As it would turn out, my fears were not necessarily unfounded. Ready is one of those concoctions of immiscible liquids, where each individual component stands in stark separation from the other. Part music video, part stand up comedy act and part gag reel, the film plays out in an entirely arbitrary fashion. This is an out and out vehicle for the comedic stylings of Salman Khan and one would do well to relinquish hope of creative concern or cohesion of narrative.

The plot, which is entirely an incidental presence in this film, is quite simple. The wayward heir of a rich joint family must unite the warring factions of the girl’s family in the two and a half hour timeline between the rolling of the T-series logo and the end credits. If a near effulgent picture of Gulshan Kumar or the animated titles, reminiscent of a time when Doordarshan was the only channel around, are not sign enough that this film is a blast from the past, then every carelessly concocted gag and action sequence that follows is. Prem (Salman Khan playing Salman Khan) is the trouble making son of the oldest of the brothers Kapoor. His character, as established by the grand Broadway musical opening number, is circumspect to say the least. The family priest’s recommendation of marriage and a case of mistaken identities bring Sanjana (Asin, probably cast for her ability not to betray absolute incredulity at the proceedings) into his life. To the Kapoor family it appears that Sanjana has waltzed into their lives sans baggage, but neither they nor we (or at least those of us who haven’t been subjected to the two South Indian versions of this story) are aware of what lies in store.

One needs look no further than the chartbuster Dinka Chika, to see that the film is a parody of itself. The large assembly of bespectacled children and outlandishly adorned dancers execute signature moves in front of a house-full board in a theater playing the movie they are all supposedly a part of. Oddly enough, the hubris of this meta imagery does not invoke irritation, just laughter. Ready is completely aware of what it is and is totally unapologetic about it. And for this reason it is impossible to stay mad at it. No star, not even the venerable Rajinikanth, wears his kitsch on his sleeve like Salman does. There is some measure of performance in the southern star’s mannerisms; an effort to take the film he is in seriously that is totally absent in Salman’s affectations. And while some may claim that a lobotomy is requisite to see the positives in Ready, it is not without its absurdly funny moments. Consider, for instance, a ridiculous signboard that just reads ‘JUNGLE’ or an actor establishing his lack of culture by assiduously ensuring his wine is on the rocks. But if one is incapable of sitting through hours of drivel for a second of laughter, Ready is not the film one should expend one’s time and money on.

P.S: An edited version appears in today's City Express supplement of the New Indian Express. Link here.

The Odd Couple

2011-06-04T08:57:00.001+05:30

Shared birthdays and sundered dreams reduce the degrees of separation between a gangster and a bored stay at home mom.

For how many contiguous units of time can we witness a thing of beauty and remain enamored by it? Minutes? Hours? Years? Monogamy demands that we remain enthralled by a lover until the end of either our time or theirs. If only that instinctive surge of emotion that arises in a relationship’s initial stages could be bottled and used in sparing amounts over its lifetime. The packaged endorphins would avoid the fungal growth of familiarity and the spores of contempt that slowly begin to spread over what was once a thing of consummate beauty. However, until biochemistry perfects this procedure of infinite possibilities, we will be stuck the onset of boredom and the existential crises it precipitates.

The title scenes of Vipul Shah’s Kuch Love Jaisa, are a quick study in the slow deterioration of a marriage into the mundane. Madhu Saxena, the film’s central character played by a comely Shifali Shah, and her order-loving husband Shravan (played by Summet Raghavan) go from sleeping with their legs intertwined as newlyweds to being separated by the gulf of daily grind. The film trains its focus on Madhu and her despair at disappearing in the eyes of her husband, children and even the domestic help. As a stay at home mom she feels her contributions at home are not being given due credit. And her angst seems entirely justified when her husband compares her to the ‘chipkali’ that believes it is holding the roof up. After nearly a decade of marital decay her loving husband has forgotten her birthday and she feels her transformation into one of the many inanimate pieces of furniture that adorn her house is complete. Borrowing a line from the Howard Beale handbook, she decides not take it any more.

Unbeknownst to Madhu, a dreaded gangster Raghav (Rahul Bose in a brooding effort) has been sold out to the cops by his moll, Rhea. This is Rhea’s birthday gift to Raghav whose dreams of domesticated bliss are forever clouded by the sounds of gunshots and looming cops. Circumstance and dubious writing throw this odd couple, one on the run from boredom the other from the long and rather incompetent arm of the law, together. Madhu, intent on exploring her wild side, allows herself to be led on a wild goose chase by Raghav. And over the course of their misadventures we are expected to believe that a completely above board affection, founded entirely on the golden heart of a gangster and the angst-ridden antics of a housewife, develops between the two. The emphasis is largely on the screen chemistry between Bose and Shah, but the paces they are put through ends up being the acme anchor that breaks the camel’s back. As the film trudges through tedium and arrives finally at its conclusion, we have lost all sympathy for Madhu and are downright happy to see the gangster get his just desserts. So, despite a promising start, Kuch Love Jaisa accomplishes exactly the opposite of what it possibly set out to do.

P.S: An edited version appears in today's City Express supplement of the New Indian Express. Link here.

Mind Over Metal

2011-06-04T08:54:00.001+05:30

The Dragon Warrior has a little identity crisis but never loses his head or sense of humor.

What does a warrior do after he achieves his prophesied destiny? Well, he graduates to bigger challenges, both internal and external. The adorable Panda Po, voiced by Jack Black, returns in this non-formulaic addition to the Kung Fu Panda franchise with a few questions of his own; questions that should be apparent to anyone who has seen the first film. How is it that the hulking black and white mass that is Po came to be the son of a goose? This is the elephant in Mr.Ping’s noodle shop, one that we as viewers were more than happy to ignore, as well as the source of Po’s discontent in Kung Fu Panda 2. Resolving this internal malaise is the key to securing the future of all of China and Kung Fu itself.

Dreamworks wastes little time in reminding us that the cuddly cast of characters that made the original a smashing success is back in this new edition. Instead of the familiar fishing boy, Master Oogway casts a line for the stars from their logo’s crescent moon: all the while watching over his favorite pupil Shifu (an underutilized Dustin Hoffman) seek inner peace. The Furious Five – Tigress, Monkey, Viper, Crane and Mantis – are back as well, voiced again by the pentad of Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu, David Cross and Seth Rogen respectively. Po may be the chosen one but there is no doubt that Tigress is the alpha female of the group – a simple reminder that the path to excellence is still paved through effort and that the respect of ones peers must be earned. The simple hierarchy of Hollywood stardom is also maintained with the Tigress taking a more prominent role in helping Po through his existential crises.

The choice for Po’s nemesis seems odd, but only upon first glance. A peacock would hardly be one’s first choice for a menacing antagonist, yet given the strutting self-obsession of Master Shen (voiced by the uniformly excellent Gary Oldman), his metallic anklets and dart-like feathers are exactly what the evil doctor ordered. Unbeknownst to Po, his past is intertwined with Shen’s future. Born to the king and queen of Gong Men city, Shen’s megalomaniac obsession with conquering all of China is reminiscent of monarchs in every Wuxia movie we’ve seen. Much like the first film in the series there is a prophecy in this film as well, one that once again incites Shen to do the unthinkable. Cast out of the city, Shen finds his inner Vader and turns completely to the dark side –casting away his respect for Kung Fu and favoring a more metallic means of mayhem. If issues of parentage fuel Po’s self-doubt, Shen’s maliciousness is stoked by parental rejection. When he returns to Gong Men city and subjugates the master’s council it is up to Po and the Five to save Kung Fu and China.

Kung Fu Panda 2 manages to maintain the sense of slacker humor that made the original film popular. Po continues to be imbued with the wonderful physical humor that made endeared Jack Black to us in School of Rock and High Fidelity. Despite the excess adipose in Po’s tummy the Kung Fu sequences in this sequel are far more involved. The animation in the film is uniformly excellent and there seems to be a tip of the brush to Hayao Miyazaki when we flash to Po’s past. This film is one of the rare cases where the 3D that the studios insist on thrusting on our retinas actually adds to the spectacle rather than detracting from it. As always though, it is the flawless voice acting that is the soul of the feature and the reason that the film is a worthy addition to what may be a growing series.

P.S: An edited version appears in today's City Express supplement of the New Indian Express. Link here.

Thai Me Up Thai Me Down

2011-05-28T09:31:00.001+05:30

The wolf pack takes its shenanigans on the road and pushes its meekest member a little further along in the path to self-respect.

The bachelor party is a time-honored tradition that seems to have a fairly simple purpose; a night of raucous debauchery that one, due to memory loss or a healthy interest in keeping the lines of communication with one’s future spouse alive and healthy, repeats only in hushed tones and the company of fellow attendees. The implicit code of silence between the participants, in and of itself, is a wellspring of comedic and dramatic tension. By throwing Las Vegas, a city that has maintained a motto of secrecy since the days of Bugsy Siegel, into the mix and spicing it up with his patented frat boy sense of humor, Todd Philips created an immediate winner with his outrageous original, The Hangover.

In The Hangover 2 Philips is back with his fleshed out characters and the ability to conjure up a bawdy bacchanal with hilarious consequences. This time, however, it is Stu, a repressed-as-ever Ed Helms, who is marrying his beautiful Thai girlfriend Lauren (Jamie Chung in a justifiably short role). After Vegas, Stu - replaced tooth and all - is painfully aware of the possibility that his wedding could be reduced to an after event for the bachelor party. Phil (played by Bradley Cooper) is absolutely distraught at the sham of a ‘bachelor brunch’ that the groom has organized. Doug (played by Justin Bartha), the straight man of the group, is burdened with getting Stu to invite his brother-in-law Alan, Zach Galifianakis playing the king of his own kooky kingdom, to the wedding. Eventually Alan is invited along but his insecurities bubble over when Stu and the gang decide to include Teddy, Lauren’s younger brother in the group.

Alan sees Teddy’s unauthorized entry into his ‘wolfpack’ as trespassing, almost as if he is afraid of being replaced. He senses, rightfully so, that he is not yet truly part of the gang. Zach Galifianakis continues playing Alan as the overgrown infant from the original but the portrayal is no longer subliminal in this reprise. In a rather on the nose affirmation of this rendering, every major character, including himself, is played by children in a reenactment of forgotten events in Alan’s memory. While his petulance is at once annoying and the source of much humor, it isn’t too far removed from a more adult need for acceptance. This is something Stu should understand, but doesn’t until the events of the film play out. Marrying into another culture, he is unable to gain the trust of his father-in-law. In his speech at the rehearsal dinner, Lauren’s father equates his future son-in-law to a tasteless, watery, yet nutritious broth. Still reticent about standing up for himself Stu seems to live in fear and it isn’t entirely implausible that his father-in-law sees in him the eyes of a coward.

But is his fear a response to external stimuli or a fear of what lurks beneath, waiting to erupt at the provocation of hallucinogens? One of the most telling inclusions in the otherwise adrenaline rush inducing soundtrack is a cover of Johnny Cash’s The Beast in Me. Stu faces his fears and comes to terms with his internal demons as the film draws to its inevitable conclusion. And make no mistake; the conclusion is never in doubt once the film begins. Hangover 2 begins much the same way as its predecessor, with Phil calling Doug’s wife to inform her that the impending nuptials may be in jeopardy. If Doug was the missing piece of the puzzle before this time it’s Teddy. As the trio retraces the events they have forgotten in much the same way as the first film one cannot help connecting the parallels in the narratives. Even Chow (played by the absurdly funny Ken Jeong) and Mike Tyson, first in tattooed spirit then in person, return to emphasize our sense of deja-vu. But if one can look past the exercise in pattern recognition there is a barrel of laughs to be had in this trip to Bangkok.

P.S: An edited version appears in today's City Express supplement of the New Indian Express. Link here.

Reality Bites

2011-05-28T09:27:00.001+05:30

Three young, urban professionals love and lose in the nation’s Capital.

Today’s generation of men, raised on the tinsel town romance and dramatics of the nineties, has assimilated almost entirely into the urban workforce. And they are slowly but surely checking off the various Maslow must haves on their checklists –Roti, Kapda aur Ladki as a recent song points out. Possessed with expendable income they find the first two easy enough to acquire on a regular basis. The last item on the list, however, is something they are ill equipped to handle, especially if they are without prior experience. Having grown up watching parents in arranged marriages and pop culture reference points that rarely depict complex women they have no resources to draw from to navigate the course of modern relationships.

The beginnings of Pyaar ka Punchnaama suggest that it could be one the few films that closes this gap in our cultural paradigm. Rajat, Liquid and Vikrant (played by Kartikeya Tiwari, Divyendu Sharma and Rayo Bhakirti respectively) are three friends and roommates living in one of the many apartment complexes in the national capital region dreamed up by real estate developers. Their home is riddled with the detritus of consumerist bachelorhood – leather couches, video games and empty pizza boxes. All three of them are entrenched in the corporate grind with jobs that seem to involve nothing more than typing indented statements into a Visual Basic editor. The film establishes their camaraderie well, defining each of these boy-men in a manner that is very recognizable. There is a palpable ease to the friends’ coexistence that anyone who has been in a cohabitation situation is familiar with. While their lives seem fine relatively hassle-free, they share a common grievance – that none of them has ever been in a relationship with a woman. This is soon rectified with Rajat meeting Neha, played by Nushrat Barucha, at a karaoke bar. In the ‘sing-off’ that culminates in Rajat and Neha exchanging numbers the boys sing Def Leppard’s ‘Pour some sugar on me’ when in reality ‘Love Bites’ may have been a more prescient choice.

Liquid and Vikrant find their women where more and more young professionals seem to meet their significant others, at work. With his Latin lothario style Vikrant is at the least able to form the mutual acceptance of a relationship with Rhea (played by the svelte Sonali Sehgal). Liquid tones his demeanor down rather uncharacteristically and winds up in the no man’s land that his girl Charu (a more homely Ishita Sharma) rather benignly terms ‘friend’. For the rest of the film the three navigate the perceived highs and lows of their relationships completely surrendering any sense of individuality. While the film is a commendable attempt at portraying a uniquely male perspective on the travails of first relationships, it falters in its one-dimensional caricaturing of the women. None of the girls move beyond stand-up comedy caricatures and each of them is presented purely as a manipulative entity. It is surprising that the men cannot see what is clearly evident to the audience. Every additional sequence of self-flagellation undoes the interesting introductions that were made. So by the time our protagonists eventually recover their instinct for self-preservation, Pyaar ka Punchnaama has already been derailed.

P.S: An edited version appears in today's City Express supplement of the New Indian Express. Link here.

God is in the details

2011-05-24T19:48:00.000+05:30

Unaware of the atmospheric allusions to the impending rapture, I set out to watch Suseendran's Azhagar Saamiyin Kuthirai this past Friday. Having already read Baskar Sakthi's short story I was fully primed for the humor which is one of the constant undercurrents running through the film. No situation is too serious, no communal injustice so grave that a joke may not be made at its expense. And yet we are never aware of sitting on the cusp of a joke, thanks in large part to the constant ebb and flow of the narrative and the absorbing background score. A parallel presence, and one that actually serves to relegate the humor to the undercurrent where it belongs, is the persistent manner in which the film engages with the concept of 'god'.

Consider for a moment the level of control a creator exercises over his/her story; the ability to introduce, govern growth and eventually redeem a cast of characters. The scale of his world is entirely in his hands - what details he furnishes and what he discerns as worth omitting are all purely decisions on his part. And yet the best creations are often the ones where we do not see his hands. After all, visible strings and their movement will immediately reduce the simulated reality to a puppet show and no artist wants to be indicted with the creation of a puppet show (unless that was the original intention). The artistic pride of a creator, however, is constantly egging him to leave his mark behind. "How will this world remember you when you are gone?" it asks. (I think a morbid fascination with death is a cheap commodity among artists. This is a supply driven economy.) So the onus is on the imagineer (credit to Disney) to be memorable without being obtrusive. So much so that Roland Barthes even wrote an essay questioning his existence. In this sense the creator has much in common with his capitalized counterpart - The Creator (God).

Azhagar Saamiyin Kuthirai the film expands on Baskar Sakthi's eponymous short story with a few simple additions and modifiers. When I say expands I do not mean just in canvas alone, which it does by providing the real horse (a curious throwback to the white steeds of the Ashwamedha) and its childlike owner a background, I also imply an expansion in the philosophical implications due to the modifiers. While the story of the horse's owner and his beauteous bride attempt to flesh out what was a pure Macguffin in the story, it does not do what a few simple modifications in the story's ending does to elevate the film. What the conclusion facilitates is the ardent conviction in the fact that each character's internal conversation with God continues through whatever means necessary.

Recess Pieces

2011-05-21T10:02:00.002+05:30

Lunchtime lessons for a teacher and the audience in an emotionally affecting film.

Scholastic endeavor, for the non-home schooled, never been to daycare majority, is the commencement of the process of being weaned away from one’s parents. It is a child’s first foray alone into a community that isn’t parental controlled. However, the process is gradual – home and school do not exist in isolation. Elements of one constantly find their way into the other. Schoolbags filled with prescribed textbooks and homework assignments are the school’s interlopers. They hover over children during short-lived evenings and weekends as harbingers of responsibilities and pressures that are to come. The agents of home, lunch bags and water bottles, are the reassuring presence in our crowded school benches. Our lunchboxes are metaphors for the advantages and capabilities that home and chance provide us.

Amole Gupte’s Stanley ka Dabba is founded on this analogy but does not rest with simply presenting it for consumption. One of its simple, yet telling, images, a that of lunchboxes resting on a wooden platform in the classroom of IV-F in Mumbai’s Holy Family high school. Amidst a jumbled pile of plastic that resembles the shanties of Rio de Janeiro stands tall, gleaming tower of metal. This is the lunch dabba of Aman, resident food philanthropist of the class and friend of our intrepid protagonist Stanley (played by a precociously cute Partho). When Stanley’s friends realize that he is without his own dabba, they decide to pool their resources to ensure he does not go hungry. However, Aman’s multistory buffet has caught the attention of the gluttonous Hindi teacher Babubhai Verma, played by Amole Gupte. Fondly termed Khadoos by his students, the teacher is not below imposing his authority to ensure that a student and his lunch are soon parted. The endearing group of friends manages to feed Stanley for a few days by serving up a few white lies to Mr.Verma, but they eventually get caught. He retaliates in a characteristically petulant manner, emphasizing what a song in the film suggests – that a hurt child, sans lunchbox, resides within him as well. It is, therefore, a slight disappointment when the pain and shame he carries remains unresolved.

Stanley ka Dabba would like us to view its children as unsullied, instinctive beings. There are no deserved punishments, only deserving accolades – usually handed down by the cloyingly affectionate Miss.Rosy played by Divya Dutta. She seems the sole spot of sunshine, a counterpoint to the stentorian south Indian science teacher. But even the most empathetic teachers seem to turn be blind to the root of Stanley’s issues. Apart from a minor rectus-sinister altercation, it is Stanley’s cohorts who seem to intuit his issues. It is an unconditional friendship that even shows the good sense not to dig too deep and disturb the false framework that Stanley has constructed.

The absence of a lunchbox is not the sole indicator that all is not well with Stanley. In fact we need look no further than the soiled uniform or the safety pin that holds his pocket in place to sense the lack of parental presence. Stanley is undoubtedly an outlier. He consistently arrives before the rest of his class to finish his homework and peers longingly through holes in the wall. These indicators are more than sufficient to evoke a lump in one’s throat when the child is unfairly marginalized because we are flush with evidence that it is not entirely his fault. So when the explanation finally arrives it seems almost inconsequential. Having entrenched us so well in the cadences of a school day, the film is at a loss whenever it walks to a different beat. Ironically, Stanley ka Dabba is a film that is most at home within the classroom.

P.S: An edited version appears in today's City Express supplement of the New Indian Express.

The Buccaneer is Back

2011-05-21T09:59:00.004+05:30

Jack Sparrow is back with a new group of frenemies in a film with modest ambitions.

Sequels of popular films often suffer from an over compensation complex. In an effort to up the ante, its creators often bite off portions far too big for their muscles of mastication. The second film in Gore Verbinski’s Pirates of the Caribbean series is a study in this phenomenon. Mounted on a sprawling canvas it was beset by constructs that bordered on the ridiculous and character after superfluous character. With the aid of Johnny Depp, the ever-reliable Geoffrey Rush, an often under-appreciated Bill Nighy and a reigned in script, Verbinski managed to draw the series to a conclusion in At World’s End. Or so we thought until the last few minutes the previous installment of the theme park attraction turned film franchise.

From the denouement dregs of At World’s End comes the latest addition to the series, Rob Marshall’s On Stranger Tides. Jack Sparrow, again without a ship or a crew, is now in London attempting to regain both. (Judi Dench even does a cameo. After all, how is one to believe that this is London if the dame does not make an appearance?). It turns out that Sparrow’s predicament is symptomatic – the film too spends a significant portion of its time on land and in search of water. When Jack is finally aboard a ship and headed in search of Ponce de Leon’s legendary Fountain of Youth, he just a lowly deckhand. The privilege of captaining the brig he is aboard, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, belongs to Edward Teach, more famously known on the high seas as Blackbeard (Ian McShane invoking his typical growl). Accompanying Blackbeard as first mate is Angelica, played by the unquestionably alluring Penelope Cruz. As anticipated, Angelica and Jack have a past and the film would like us to entertain hopes that they have a future.

Also on the quest for the Fountain are the English and Spanish kings, each vying with the other to gain access first. The English King’s sailors are led by a strangely bedecked, one-legged Barbossa played by Geoffrey Rush who seems criminally unchallenged by the role at this point. In this manner the film sets up a simple three-way conflict that seems scaled down in scope from the Verbinski versions. As the film progresses, almost as if aware of the reduction in canvas, a ponderous romance between a young man of faith and a mermaid is thrown into the mix. While the intention of this sub-plot may have been to meditate on fantasy and faith, it comes off as a purely reactionary measure when juxtaposed with the superficial antics of Sparrow and the rest of the cast. There is no dearth of manufactured situations in On Stranger Tides and they are all in service of Sparrow’s uncanny sense of balance. For someone obsessed with immortality until the previous film, Jack uncharacteristically develops a conscience when it comes to the Fountain of Youth. The narcissism, however, is still present: Jack and Angelica kiss is only when she is impersonating him. And after four films in service of such self-obsession, it may be time to call it day.

P.S: An edited version appears in the City Express supplement of today's New Indian Express. Link here.

Holey Crusade

2011-05-14T10:05:00.002+05:30

A lone wolf battles vampires in the Wild West.

Loosely based on Min Woo-Hyung’s graphic novel, Scott Charles Stewart’s Priest has Paul Bettany sporting the pallid countenance he sported as Silas a few years ago. But the only things darker about the man of god he plays here are the color of his habit and the universe he inhabits. He is a near-messianic warrior now stripped of his reason for existence. Having delivered the world at the feet of the church after vanquishing vampires, mankind’s mortal enemies, he is relegated to menial duties and dreams that are a product of survivor’s guilt and post-traumatic stress – a stark reminder of the fact that a system that orders conflict rarely carries the cross for its ministrations. Operating an incinerator in a complex in Cathedral City, he adds to the dark, polluted atmosphere of the teeming megalopolis built by church machinery. Much like the coarse ash that floats in the air blotting out the sun, the church is everywhere in this oasis of a city and religion is served up like fast food. There are walk through confession booths where ‘Hail Mary’s are dispensed like Big Macs with an extra side of salvation.

The authority of the Church though, only extends as far as the clouds of pollution the city dispenses. Further out, under the graces of the sun, are towns like Augustine where the authority of the church means very little. Ironically the cross, which instills such fear in the church’s enemies, wields far less power when uniting the mortals who fashioned it. The people in these frontier towns, while bereft of the church’s controlling nature, remain susceptible to charlatan snake oil salesmen and the vagaries of the wild. It is in this frontier town that the annihilated announce their revival with the kidnapping of a young virginal girl, Lucy. Through immaculate coincidence or intentional design, Lucy happens to be related to the soldier languishing in the depths of Cathedral City. And this act of terror is perpetrated by the man who haunts the Priest’s dreams; the comrade in arms who he lost in the vampire caves. Reminiscent of the Sergio Leone’s lone gunman, Karl Urban plays a man in cowboy boots and a black hat, a human-vampire hybrid who is an undead testament to mutation creating a more potent race of creature.

Informed of Lucy’s abduction by her paramour Hicks, the Priest sets out to find the girl, his last remaining kin, after flouting a specific directive from the church not to do so. With the Priestess (a svelte Maggie Q), Hicks and the Priest uncover a more sinister plot by the vampires and the probable plot for a sequel with scope for more gravity defying action. The stylized action sequences in Priest may be its universal selling point and it is gratifying to see the brooding Paul Bettany get an opportunity to flex his muscles. The visual design and the strange coexistence of science and myth are all excellent. Strangely though, despite its formulaic development, the resistance to authority that the film exudes is probably its most redeeming feature.

P.S: An edited version appear's in today's New Indian Express. Link here.

Coming of Rage

2011-05-14T10:02:00.001+05:30

A “don’t get mad, just get even” tale for the modern teenager.

The guitar-wielding protagonist of Y films’ introductory animation dispels any doubts on the demographic that Yashraj’s new venture intends to cater to. The film company that, ostensibly, defined the upper middle class romantic dreams of the nineties seems intent on making its impact on the Playstation generation. In this context, the linguistic concoction that is the title of Y films’ maiden attempt seems a trifle out of place. I understand the intended wordplay, but the odd phrasing seems unbecoming of the South Bombay teens it is centered on.

To please its target audience, the film draws liberally from an eighties icon, that progenitor of American teenage dramas, John Hughes. The stratified realities of high school, a gaggle of girlfriends, sagacious siblings and tongue-tied tech geeks are a simple evolutionary step away from the elaborate universe that Hughes constructed nearly two decades ago. The completely clueless parents of the protagonist are a metaphor for the everyday grind with which this universe maintains, at best, a tenuous connection. The teenagers’ lives happen right under the noses of blissfully unaware parents creating a conflict that is almost always sure to be resolved in an amicable manner.

Rhea (Shraddha Kapoor playing our very own Molly Ringwald) is hopelessly infatuated with the resident stud of her junior college, the titular Luv, played by Taaha Shah. Jugs and Sonia, Rhea’s best friends, are stand-ins for the ‘always in argument’ devil and angel over Rhea’s shoulder. Almost never in agreement, be it on Rhea’s romance or acceptable body fat levels, these two friends are the protagonist’s support system in the Hughes-ian universe. Much like Samantha Baker’s sixteenth birthday, Rhea’s eighteenth birthday seems doomed to boredom when her parents are called away on to Pune on its eve. Instead of ringing in adulthood at a classmate’s party, with a performance by her favorite rock star to boot, she seems set to languish at home: watching over a foul mouthed grandmother and an utterly precocious younger sister Minty (Jannat Zubair Rahmani in an immensely likeable turn).

If Luv ka the End borrows foundations from John Hughes, its superstructure is modeled after another 2006 teenage drama, John Tucker Must Die. Unlike in John Hughes’ Samantha Baker, not only is Luv aware of Rhea’s existence it seems he reciprocates her affections. His cloying manner, however, forebodes the deception that lies in store. A boy this slick is almost definitely too slippery to be a one-woman man and he is, but under far more insidious circumstances. When the token south Indian school nerd informs Rhea and friends of Luv’s duplicitous escapades, she first reaches a few logically inconsistent conclusions. But the spirit of friendship and female empowerment prove a potent combination. Rhea decides, with a little help from friends, to mollify her emotional exploitation by cutting her erstwhile boyfriend down to size. And, like Ferris Bueller, she needs to do it before her parents return.

As the caper that is Luv ka the End unfolds, one cannot but muse over the preoccupations and pressures of the urban teen, at least as they are depicted in Indian Cinema. Gone are the furtive glances and the rush of perceived acceptance. The song Tonight that starts out in a disconcertingly infantilized tone only to merge with a chorus of booming gusto, is in some ways a metaphor for the child woman that is singing it. She isn’t singing with the joy of a hidden crush but in anticipation of losing her virginity. Somewhere in the last decade the dilemmas confronting teenagers in our cinema seem to have graduated and so have the ways in which they negotiate them. One just wishes, however, that the niggling feeling of watching a transplanted reality didn’t impair our viewing experience.

P.S: An edited version appears in the today's New Indian Express. Link here.

Sounds of the street

2011-05-07T10:47:00.001+05:30

Eleven days, six lives, mystery and mayhem on the streets of Mumbai.

The titles of Shor in the City station us immediately at the lowest common denominator that is their locale, the streets of Mumbai. The film rests its feet firmly at the footrest of a motorcycle, constantly looking upwards, but its gaze is never aspirational. It is much more at home drawing its characters, even those alien to the streets, to the grime of its milieu. Over the eleven days of Ganesh Chathurthi personal moments in the lives three distantly connected people play out in Mumbai’s public spaces. There is a persistent, yet tacit sense that the city is always a part of the film’s proceedings and its people. While this is the natural order for some, their source of sustenance even, for others it grows from annoyance to dangerous.

For Abhay, played by an aptly cast Sendhil Ramamurthy, it is the criminal element of Mumbai that steadily encroaches and eventually harasses him in his professional space. As an Indian returning from the US, he bears the veneer of a wide-eyed evangelist of capitalist. He even meets Sharmili, his ladylove, in his native habitat - a nightclub (one that any metropolis in the world would be proud of). From the street goon who cons him for the contents of his wallet to Sharmili everyone has him pegged as a manageable stereotype at first glance. But scars, both physical and emotional, suggest that there is more to him than the fancy attire and he isn’t so much looking to a new future as he is hiding from a past.

Tilak, Mandook and Premal inhabit the same world as Ajay’s harassers. Their primary source revenue is theft, not just of easily liquefiable assets but also of intellectual property. Mandook is the runt of the group and the most given to exaggeration, never learning from the constant jibes of his friends. Of the friends, Mandook and Premal are annoyingly one note without a bone of self-preservation or an eye for consequence. Tilak is the only one who merits a character arc and a woman in his life. And for all his dangerous escapades, he can’t work up the courage to speak to his young college educated bride. Marriage sparks Tilak’s path to redemption, but the institution precipitates the problems in the fledgling middle class romance of Sawan and Sejal. Sawan is up for selection to the Mumbai team and politics have him distracted from the proceedings on the pitch. To compound matters, his girlfriend’s parents are lining up prospective grooms for Sejal. As he argues with Sejal on terrace tops, Marine drive rendezvous and main road intersections, Sawan realizes there is a universal panacea for his problems – money.

Shor in the City’s appeal lies in its matter-of-fact portrayal of the cracks in the system and how they never seem to stymie the constant churn that is urban life. From the police to the selection board, every attempt at preserving and nurturing order is only a corrupt version of what was intended. The only things that the film leaves unsullied are its relationships. Be it a silent invitation through the unhooking of a blouse, the vehement removal of an unwanted engagement ring or the caring enquiry about a scar the film’s best moments are in the sensitivity it accords the people it throws together. It is also the saving grace of a film that has no narrative engine.

P.S: An edited version appears in today's New Indian Express. Link here.

Arthur of Asgard

2011-05-07T10:42:00.001+05:30

A heady mix of science fiction and mythology in a story of sparring siblings.

Mythology, both western and ours, is filled with princes and gods. Some of these stories involve the inception of wise rulers or the overthrowing of despots. These fables are products of monarchies and possibly born from hopeful ideals. One of these pluralist ideals is that the man who would be king should first have been a commoner. In a recurring motif, a lost prince returns or a blessed commoner rises to the helm of state affairs and through potent combination of wisdom and power provides the glorious reign that his subjects desire. The most famous of these returning princes is Arthur, who ends his exile by withdrawing the seemingly inextricable Excalibur from its petrified confines. Kenneth Branagh recreates this iconic image in Thor, only it is Thor’s magical hammer Mjolnir that is embedded in the earth this time.

Cast out of Asgard, home of the gods, the brash and supremely egotistical prince Thor lands in New Mexico, a prince without his realm and a god without his gifts. In a storytelling technique reminiscent of Favreau’s Ironman, we first meet Thor at this inflexion point. The moment he falls out of the sky and into the laptop of astrophysicist Jane Foster juxtaposes the two seemingly contradictory sides of a line that the film walks: the line separating science and magic. It is exceedingly apt that Jane Foster, a scientist, explains this dichotomous nature away. “Magic is just science we don’t understand yet” she says. Strangely, this is a scientifically rigorous view only augmented by the ingenuous effervescence that Natalie Portman brings to the character. She maybe an acclaimed researcher but doesn’t hold back the giggles when a stunningly attractive man kisses her palm as if she were a lady of the Victorian court. The film is also constantly aware of its place in a larger Marvel universe. After all, the audience must eventually reconcile the abilities of a technocrat superhero like Tony Stark with those of the Norse god of Thunder. And for those willing to wait till the entire credits to roll, the film holds a clue to the circumstances of their meeting.

Stark and Thor do have something in common though – a gargantuan ego. While Stark’s ego motivates him, Thor’s hubris is constant source of worry for his father Odin. Loki, Odin’s puckish younger son, knows his brother’s failing and yearns to usurp the throne of Asgard, but only as a symbol of recognition from Odin. When Thor runs foul of his father’s graces, Loki sees his opportunity to be the favored son. But both Thor and Loki have much to learn, about the world and themselves. Relegation to a mortal body delivers a hammer blow to the egotism that was central to Thor’s lack of compassion. It is at his weakest that he finds the clarity to understand the sermons that Odin gave him as a child. Loki, on the other hand, looks further inwards and sinks deeper into depravity. As always, evil covers more terrain and Loki’s character raises a lot more questions on purpose, destiny, nature and nurture as his character evolves. More than the wonderfully imaginative special effects in the film (rarely have I seen hammers used as innovatively) these questions propel Thor forward like the well-oiled commercial machine it is.

P.S: An edited version appears in today's New Indian Express. Link Here.

GIVE ME THREE

2011-04-30T10:17:00.001+05:30

Since time immemorial man has always required a means of artistic expression to make sense of the conundrum that is life. From paintings to music to the written word to performances, not only has each art form evolved but a number of new mediums have appeared with the passage of time. Cinema is one of the youngest to emerge in this long line of message vehicles. It is a hybrid medium that requires an intricate understanding of technology to deliver your message accurately. Rampant technological advancements move the simulations in our films closer to our realities. But there is little technology can accomplish without the fundamental ability to tell a story or evoke a connection and we could do worse than turn to tradition to learn how. In the Sangam age in Tamil Nadu the classical forms of Tamil were classified into three – Literature (Iyal), Music (Isai) and Nadagam (Theater). Over the years Tamil cinema has borrowed from all three traditions, but some more than others.

Theater, by virtue of being a performance art, has been the greatest contributor. Nearly every yesteryear star that has adorned our screens ascended from the stage. In the early years P.U.Chinappa, MK.Thayagaraja Bhagavathar, S.G.Kittappa and N.S.Krishnan achieved prominence on the stage with their voices and performances even before gracing the screen. Both V.C.Ganesan and M.G.Ramachandran were stage actors first before becoming the hugely popular stars we know them as. In fact, the epithet ‘Sivaji’ was given to Ganesan by Periyar after a particularly inspirational stage performance as the Maratha warrior. The two largest stars in cinema today, Rajnikanth and Kamal Hassan, are no strangers to the stage either. In addition to the stars, theater has given cinema a wide variety of able supporting actors from Manorama to Pasupathi and a wide range of creators. K.Balachander’s Server Sundaram and Ethirneechal were successful plays before their subsequent translation to the screen. The Wodehousian witticisms of Crazy Mohan were honed on the stage before finding their way into cinematic dialogs.

As a film industry that has yet to divorce itself from the tradition of synchronized singing and dancing, music continues to play a significant role even today in our films. While the creative debate of whether or not to include a standard issue song sequence in films does exist, it would be impossible to deny that the film industry has served as an efficient distribution channel for a wide array of deserving musical talent. Listeners with only a cursory understanding of classical music hear diverse and rich compositions primarily because cinema is a popular pastime. As time progressed the visibility, communication and economics of the industry facilitated a melding of our traditions with those from across the world exponentially increasing the creativity and the quality of musical output. The compositions of M.S.Viswanathan and T.K.Ramamurthy, K.V.Mahadevan, Ilaiyaraja and now A.R.Rehman have influences from Jazz to Classical Western hidden away in them for a discerning listener. Film music also allowed the tradition of poetry to thrive bringing to our notice Pattukottai Kalyana Sundaram, Kannadasan, Vaali and Vairamuthu who may have otherwise been the prisoners of ivory tower bookshelves. The result of having such erudite lyricists is that beautiful analogies from Sangam literature live on today in popular song lines and for those who are willing to delve just a little these lines can be the portal to a vast and rich heritage.

The third Tamil tradition, literature, has had, at best, a very tenuous connection with cinema, much to its own detriment. There did not exist within the Tamil industry a consistent tradition of adapting books or short stories into films. I will be the first to admit that an adaptation does not guarantee quality. With popular works of fiction a gross disparity in expectations and output may be unavoidable. But the number of films sourced from books or short stories over the years has been low considering how active the literary circles are within Tamil. The few films that have been adapted from literature like Mahendran’s Udhiri Pookkal (based on Pudhumaipiththan’s Chitrannai) or Jeykanthan’s Sila Nerangalil Sila Manithargal have been of a very high quality. Inspiration from literature combined with an understanding of what stories would translate well in the cinematic medium may trigger a middle of the road renaissance in Tamil cinema. This is why it is gratifying to see films like Bala’s Naan Kadavul and Suseendran’s Azhagar Saamiyin Kuthirai being produced.

Iyal, Isai and Nadagam have all influenced the younger art form cinema positively. But the relationship is not entirely symbiotic. Very little music is composed that is not in the service of films and with our full schedules a majority of us would much rather watch a two hour film than let our imaginations run wild with the pages of a book. The commercial strength of cinema has ensured that it has outstripped its older counterparts as far as consumption is concerned. It is in the interest of good cinema, that these three traditions remain active and healthy. Ideally the future holds a model these four artistic endeavors to feed off each other in a manner that may be mutually beneficial.

P.S: An edited version appears in the Chennai Times today. Link here.

Manifest Destiny

2011-04-30T10:15:00.000+05:30

Quantum computing gives a soldier second chances, eight minutes at a time.

Those of you who decide to catch Source Code would do well to read Michael Crichton’s Timeline as a primer. The initial portions of the book contain a simple illustration of the multiverse theory that is central to Source Code. In eight-minute segments, Captain Colter Stevens of the United States Air force is able to access the past of alternate realities through the neural synapses of a man now dead in a train explosion. Captain Stevens’ mission, and he has no choice in the matter, is to determine the source and cause of this explosion from the data accumulated through iterative returns to the scene of the crime. Ironically, during each of his excursions into the past he inhabits the body of a history teacher, Sean Fentress, whose fledgling romance with Christina (a romantic foil role that Michelle Monaghan must be fairly accustomed to by now), is about to take flight beyond the confines of his Chicago commuter rail.

The film entrenches us quite firmly in the Colter’s perspective immediately. As Captain Stevens slowly fades into Fentress’ body for the first time his bleached white surroundings slowly fade into his new reality. He begins, as we do, entirely unsure of his identity or his purpose on the train, with only a vague recollection of his name, family and rank. And through each of his iterative returns to the train we gather various pieces of information about his fellow passengers and his mission. Slowly but surely these people become both his and our substitute reality and a metaphor for life itself. Every return to base, however, is characterized by a rude shock, sometimes thermal other times psychological. His base reality is callous in its preoccupation with the preservation of its own continuum. The shackles of Colter Stevens’ past keep derailing their attempts to alter to better their future and unfortunately this is entirely unacceptable to them.

Duncan Jones brings to this film the same understanding of the medium he endowed his first feature, Moon, with. His constant close ups of Colter in the base station create a pervasive sense of claustrophobia during each return. Outside of the base, however, it is a glorious summer day and despite the protagonist’s protests to the contrary we yearn to return to the train each time. Jones’ Chicago isn’t Christopher Nolan’s dark city where dangers lurk everywhere from rooftop to alleyway. It is a bright, beautiful town that holds untold treasures for those willing to reach out and grab it. The final time that Colter returns to the train there is a swell, a purposeful crescendo in the background score as if to remind us that despite all its scientific jargon this is still a film of a man who makes a difference through the power of positive reinforcement.

Superpowers v. Superstition

2011-04-30T10:11:00.000+05:30

A mundane battle on school premises between science and superstition.

As children we are often advised not to talk to strangers. This, of course, is one of many cautionary statements that deserve evaluation. After all if we did not talk to any strangers the world would remain a fairly uninteresting place. People would largely remain islands if they didn’t interact, but whom do we let in and whom do we keep out? A purely cursory adjudication of affability seems insufficient. Sometimes, however, that is all the time and mental bandwidth we have. The intrepid adventurer in Disney’s Zokkomon has a similar split second decision to make. Purposely abandoned by his uncle, Kunal has to choose between the sandwich-stealing streets and a strangely dressed Kittu (played by a feisty Manjari Phadnis), who looks like she just walked off the sets of Khudah Gawah. Unsurprisingly, his instinct favors the company of the affable young woman.

Zokkomon serves up a curious fusion of childhood memories. From stealing mangoes to jumping in leaf beds in their spare time, the film’s children are shown to live quintessentially small town lives. Yet the film borrows liberally from the books of Rowling and Dahl. Orphaned by an unfortunate accident, Kunal moves from the city to his uncle’s home in a village filled with more than its fair share of ghosts, godmen and gullible people. The village school, run by Kunal’s uncle Deshraj, is at once an anglophile’s dream and nightmare. Its teachers preach that true humanity lies in the firm grasp of the English language and then proceed to mangle words well beyond recognition.

Deshraj is at once Kunal’s Vernon Dursley and Trunchbull of the village school, mismanaging the institution and turning it into a monument to his ego. If garish adornments, discrepant accounts and a spotlessly white statue in the courtyard aren’t a sign of Deshraj’s excesses then the sight of a library filled with broken chairs and no books is sufficient evidence of his embezzling ways. We are told little of why this man turned into such a bad egg, only that he has veered too far to return to the path of righteousness. In a rather telling scene, Deshraj’s wife returns his toupee to him, her countenance bearing a look of quiet disgust. Even his closest confidant, the one for whom he embezzles, would much rather gaze upon the image he has created than see his true self. It is a rare moment of insight into a man otherwise painted with broad brushstrokes.

Kunal’s journey in the film introduces him to two Ron-Hermione parallels. He meets the first set during his short stint at Deshraj’s school. Arju and Rani are his partners in crime, goading him to spend a crucial couple of minutes in a haunted house where he will eventually meet his second Ron – Vivek Rai, a scientist he will address as ‘magic uncle’. Kunal’s ‘uncle’ however does not recognize the affections of his nominal nephew. For him the child is only an opportunity to combat the superstitions of the villagers and the control Deshraj exercises over them. Over the course of their village saving mission, the man of science learns that, sometimes, people are more relevant than ideals. And we are informed, albeit in a rather simplistic manner, that while art and science should find a balance in the lives of children, there should be no room for superstition.

The United States of Goa

2011-04-23T11:15:00.001+05:30

A story of guns, drugs and Pandora’s greatest narcotic – hope.

Well before there was foreign direct investment, affordable medical care or a burgeoning service industry, foreigners came to India. They came in search of a culture much older than their own – in search of history and spirituality. For some, their quest would end when they found Goa. In that little western corner of India, more than others, they were welcomed as long lost brethren. The vestiges of a colony still remain in a state that was brought into the fold less than fifty years ago and not just in the architecture. Those who call Goa home often cite antecedents elsewhere. Consider, for instance, Dum Maaro Dum’s Celeste. His prized souvenir from a trip to Europe is sand from the village of his Portuguese ancestors. It doesn’t lie in an urn on his mantelpiece as a distant memory. It lies at the center of his cross locket – at the heart of his identity. Much like its milieu, Dum Maaro Dum is a curious mixture of East and West. The West undoubtedly inspires its cinematic technique, with its aesthetic sense of sepia and Innaritu-esque setup. But its larger concerns are in many ways Eastern. It may be replete with guns, bullets and hordes of hallucinogen abusers but these are just a few of the threads that weave the continuum its characters inhabit. At its core, Rohan Sippy’s film is about two love stories coming together to salvage the future of a third. It is a uniquely male fantasy and grossly idealistic, but its excess is well cloaked in the blood soaked grittiness that permeates the film.

Our first introduction, aptly, is to the youngest of the romances. At seventeen, Lawrence ‘Lorry’ Gomes is ill equipped to deal with the simple disparities that crop up in a relationship – a girlfriend who is academically more successful. While he and his girlfriend, Tani, have been admitted to Griffin University in the US, only Tani has secured the funding necessary to fly away. Without fifteen thousand dollars, the wings of Lorry’s Griffin dreams will be clipped and with them his future with Tani. Lorry is intelligent enough to foresee the destructive pressure that distance has on a relationship but not mature enough to accept it. So when an acquaintance from the other side of the law offers up a sordid mixture of temptations, Lorry dares to give his dreams feathers again. While love blinds some, it just fits others with blinkers. His gaze fixed on a future in the US with Tani, Lorry is blindsided by the long arm of the law – and these arms belong to Vishnu Kamath.

Kamath’s arms carry their own baggage – stained suitcases of corruption and ruddy remembrances of a family. The added weight, however, implies that when his arms do come down, they come down hard. Sent on special deputation to clean up Goa by the Chief Minister himself, Kamath plays the game like a man with nothing to lose: and much like his oddly named colleague Mercy D’Costa, he doesn’t. “We don’t ring the bell when we get home, we unlock our doors” he sermonizes to explain his take-no-prisoners approach. He constantly butts heads with the local Mafioso, Lorsa Buiscuita and his investigations lead him to Goa’s Keyser Soze figure, Michael Barbosa. His shadowy stature and the dread surrounding his name live even in the whispers of Goa’s police stations. The name immediately becomes the focal point of Kamath’s investigation and his very reason to clean the gutter he willingly entered.

Joki is the quintessential ‘sossegado’ civilian who would prefer that the gutter stayed out of sight and therefore out of mind. As an employee in one of Biscuita’s hotels he would rather look the other way than probe the origins of the money that finds its way in to his pocket. Even as his romance with Zoe becomes collateral damage to Biscuita’s drug regime, he continues to sing his ballads than take pre-emptive action. After all, an artist’s wont is to remain a fly on the wall and record events for posterity, is it not? As he croons the lack of phone calls and the disappearance of all that is vibrant at Tani’s going away party we are given to believe that he is singing what lies in store for Lorry. Only much later do we realize he is mourning his own loss – a loss that was again the result of his girl pursuing the wings of lost dreams. So it comes as no surprise that Joki is unwilling to stand by and watch as the same fate befalls Lorry. As he says to his friends, the fight isn’t just about Lorry but about all of Goa’s children.

The kitsch and machismo in the dialogue of Dum Maaro Dum belie a certain subtlety in the accompanying visuals. Kamath’s constant allusion to a metaphorical gutter is mined for a filtering of drains to find drugs flushed down a toilet and a wet day is not just one where there is a heavenly downpour of tears. The Zoe-Joki romance in particular unfolds in a touching collage of photographs – not on a facebook wall but on the more traditional refrigerator. The progression of the relationship from personal to distant is signified by the juxtaposition of intimate portraits with postcards from across the universe. We recognize that Zoe has replaced Joki with the Statue of Liberty, Eiffel Tower and other locales from her dreams. There is an unstated homage to Shyam Benegal’s Trikal in each character’s current struggle with the demons of their past. The future shall always remain shrouded in uncertainty but it is in our power to hold out hope. And in the end that is exactly what the lost loves of Kamath and Joki provide both Lorry and Goa – Hope.

P.S: An edited version appears here.

TROIS

2011-04-23T11:00:00.003+05:30

For miners of conflict and subtext, monogamy and its bureaucratic consequence, marriage, are a mother lode. This is why writers and filmmakers over the years have returned to this cave time and again to harvest the mineral that drives drama – conflict. Often, two well-written characters are sufficient to generate the friction necessary for onscreen fireworks. But when a romance or relationship progresses without any hiccups, dramatics are precipitated by the introduction of a third character. Marriage is ill equipped to handle a third wheel: an already precarious balance will be tilted, sometimes beyond recovery. Pulling the strings on this teetering three-wheeler is how auteurs have the audience on tenterhooks. A brief stroll down the by lanes of Tamil cinema will reveal that all of its iconoclast filmmakers have mined this same source.

Sridhar, the first name that comes to mind when we speak of star directors, made a musical masterpiece on the travails of an old lover unintentionally returning to haunt a married woman. What made Chitralaya’s Nenjil Or Alayam absorbing was the circumstance of the re-introduction. Seetha meets her old beau, Murali, at his hospital where she has arrived to find a cure for her husband Venu’s cancer. Set entirely within the confines of Dr.Murali’s hospital , the film touches upon the general tragedies of life and disease – a callous husband who wishes to leave his ailing wife, a child far too young to be diagnosed with anything other than a toothache being committed to a hospital bed. However, the central focus of the film is the ethical dilemma faced by Murali and the moral one face by Seetha. There is a stroke of Sridhar mischievousness even in the naming of his characters as he surreptitiously reopens the wounds of the Ramayana by placing a question of faith in front of a Seetha. However neither of his male protagonists are the embodiment of evil. They are more or less the same person as is reflected in their names: Venu and Murali are both just names for the flute in the hands of Krishna. There is no clear choice between options and while the audience is entirely aware of the right moral decision even our minds are clouded by our affections for both Dr.Murali and Venu.

The central tension in the film is a result of Murali and Seetha trying to hide their erstwhile romance from Venu and giving him the succor to survive. However, astute husband that he is, Venu senses the tension between his wife and his doctor. Over the course of 2 hours Sridhar explores the personal dilemmas of these three characters, aided by M.S.Viswanathan, T.K.Ramamurthy and Kannadasan’s brilliance. While the resolution eventually appears rather tragically and simplistically Nenjil Or Alayam is an entertaining melodrama that ever so slightly tilted the moral prism through which we view marriage.

Over his career K.Balachander has repeatedly explored marriages from, Iru Kodugal to Sindhu Bhairavi, each time broaching the topic in a confrontational manner. There is a greater grey area in the premise of Iru Kodugal because the male protagonist, played by Gemini Ganesan, was married to both the women in his life. In Sindhu Bhairavi, however, Sulakshana clearly had the legal upper hand. But such laws have always been purely nominal for artists, especially famous ones. If Sowcar Janaki’s lack of education and societal status was the source of discontent in Iru Kodugal it was Sulakshana’s tone deafness that led to her nearly losing her husband in Sindhu Bhairavi. Many of us turn our backs on fights not out of fear of the opponent, but out fear of embarrassment. Not Balachander’s women. No pining away in silence against the inequities of society or the men they were involved with. They raised cudgels and storms and were unembarrassed to do so. For an audience conditioned to accept docile it was refreshing to see the unabashed fight in his women. In many ways his angst ridden, freedom-seeking characters were what made the outgoing, bubbly female protagonists of the eighties possible. And the Mahendran was one of the first to write such a character.

Nenjaththai Killathe’s Viji is, in some ways, a progenitor of the mischievous, youthful, urban female protagonist we would begin to see consistently through the eighties. With a vision of a jean clad girl dancing to a vinyl of the Beegees our films had begun to accurately represent our women. Unlike the typical heroine who had until then shied away at the mere mention of a man, Viji could be seen eating in restaurants with and playing pranks on the men in her life. The film also marked the arrival of another construct that was becoming more and more of a reality, an unhappy home. With only the dysfunctional relationship between her brother and his wife to draw from, it is no surprise that Viji has no frame of reference to build a healthy relationship on. She decides, more on impulse than on anything else, to wed her friend Ram, against the better judgment of her brother. When her sister-in-law’s meddling results in that relationship falling through she consents to marry Pratap, a photographer and family friend, under duress. And without further ado she proceeds to transfer the frustrations of her failed relationship with Ram into her marriage with Pratap. Importantly the hiding and walking on eggshells that characterized the proceedings in Nenjil Or Alayam is absent in Nenjathai Killathe. Pratap is aware of Viji’s dalliance with Ram and is patient with her because of this. But eventually unhealthy relationship at home affects his professional output as well. With his job ad life on the ropes Pratap decides to leave the city and Viji is left with the choice of staying in the marriage or railing against her lost cause of a romance.

The most famous of the ‘Viji’ prototypes that would follow was Mani Ratnam’s Divya. Mouna Raagam will a live on in the memories of the Tamil cinefan for its iconic background score, the Karthik cameo and his fond invitation of a certain Mr.Chandramouli. At its core the film is the journey of a young woman from the denial of a loss to the acceptance of a new relationship. Despite being married to Chandrakumar who, in her own father’s words, is a gem of a man, the ghost of Divya’s boyfriend, Manohar, looms large over her. Divya bargains for a divorce with her husband in a futile effort to remain faithful to a memory, a pleading that eventually turns into anger when Chandrakumar makes an attempt to buy her affections. After a depressing period where communication between her and Chandrakumar breaks down she accepts the truism that there is no way to move but forward. Her Kubler-Ross journey is complete and the ghost of her relationship with Manohar is exorcised.

In all of the landmark films explored above marriages were tested, sometimes to the breaking point, but spouses always ended up in each others arms. The sanctity of the institution of marriage and the concept of a singular spouse was conserved. This, however, has not always been the case. Two of Tamil cinema’s most famed directors have been contrarians. In Mudhal Mariyadhai, Bharatiraja tells the story of Malaichamy who is trapped in a loveless marriage to Ponnatha. Malaichamy commands immense respect from the people of his village but is unable to elicit any from his wife who still holds a torch for her former flame. When Kuyilu, a new migrant to the village, rekindles his youth he is more than happy to indulge her whimsy. What begins as a tussle turns into an inexplicable affection between the much married man and Kuyilu: an affection that will eventually take precedence over his marriage. Bharathiraja uses the relationships in the film as a commentary on caste and its subliminal presence in our interactions. By painting Ponnaatha as a woman with few redeeming qualities he manages to successfully have his audience sympathize with the extra-marital relationship. Balu Mahendra’s Rettai Vaal Kuruvi, however, has no larger concerns than those of his protagonist Gopi. Despite a loving wife and a largely untroubled life, Gopi falls in love with, marries and begins a dual life with another woman. While he is aware of the morally dubious nature of his behavior he inhabits Gopi is largely unapologetic. The tone of the film is not critical of its protagonist, taking a largely humorous attitude towards proceedings. Eventually unable to handle simultaneous pregnancies Gopi slips up and the two women in his life discover each other. But the grave consequences one anticipates never occur with the two spouses agreeing to live amicably. To share and share alike when it comes to a partner is not a common conclusion. One wonders if a Rettai Vaal Kuruvi would ever be possible if made with a female protagonist romancing two men. Having explored nearly every facet of the man-woman dynamic, a non-judgmental film with this perspective may be the last remaining frontier for Tamil cinema.

An edited version appears here.

TRIPLE THREAT

2011-04-16T09:05:00.001+05:30

In the movie business spotting the defining characteristic or performance of a star is purely a post-facto exercise. The most often-used term while describing stardom is a testament to how undefined this science is: rising stars are purported to have ‘it’ or a ‘certain je ne sais quoi’, which quite simply means their on screen aura is the result of something inexpressible. In the Thamizh industry, however, our largest stars seem to have a few common rites of passage – career defining turns as honest cops or multiple roles in the same film. Yesteryear stars M.G.Ramachandran and Sivaji Ganesan saw commercial success and gained critical acclaim through films like Nadodi Mannan, Ragasiya Police, Navaratri and Thangappathakkam. The two stars in today’s thamizh cinema constellation have a curious similarity in this regard. Watershed films in the careers of both Rajnikanth and Kamal Hassan combined both these of passage.

In the decade that would decide their futures, both Kamal Hassan and Rajinikanth played triple roles in career-defining films. The first of these to reach the audience was Moondru Mugam. Released in 1982, the film is one of many landmarks in the storied career of Rajinikanth. It garnered him a state award, reinforced his already burgeoning star power and underlined his stature as the style icon of the generation. The second film, Aboorva Sagodharargal, released in 1989 is not just a landmark film in the career of its star. It would go on to become one of the largest commercial successes in the history of Tamil cinema, immediately after its release. And it would become the epitome of a defining characteristic of the second pole star in our sky, a penchant for strenuous physical transformation.

Titles credit the stories of Moondru Mugam and Aboorva Sagodharargal to Selvakumar and Panchu Arunachalam respectively. A purely bird’s eye view of the plots may not indicate much of a difference. Both films are about a righteous cop who finds himself on the wrong side of a power equation. When he is brutally murdered by an arch nemesis, his family is separated with his twin sons growing up unaware of each other’s existence. Eventually when one of the sons realizes his origins he serves the villain and his henchmen their just desserts – a dish best served cold. But the similarities end there.

Moondru Mugam is unapologetic populist fare that cloaks a study on the duality of an individual. Late last year, hordes of Rajnikanth fans watched with a whistle on their lips as Chitti 2.0, red chip and all, cackled maniacally as he walked amidst a congregation of clones. “Who is the black sheep?” he asked with derision. The more seasoned filmgoers in the audience had witnessed something similar nearly seventeen years earlier in single screen theaters. It was the same uber-stylisation that had been the draw of the brash cop in Moondru Mugam, Alex Pandian. The downward tilt of the lip, the purposefully measured gait and the zipping sounds highlighting his hand movements were the very elements that made a superstar of an actor. Though it was Rajinikanth playing the sons John and Arun as well it was the father who walked away with the kudos. This was because Alex Pandian was essentially a bad boy gone good. He wore his propriety on his puffed out chest and taunted his adversaries with it. His confidence was a result of the moral high ground he occupied and bordered on hubris.

The dynamics of Aboorva Sagodharargal is entirely different, in that the film demonstrates a deftness of screenplay and a darker sense of humor while working entirely within an industry-approved commercial format. It is also a film where a son is far more fondly remembered than the father. In the audience conscious it is Appu, the devious dwarf of a son, who remains as the lasting memory of the film. This is a completely acceptable reaction. After all even the titles seem to recognize only the two brothers. However for the discerning few, Sethupathy, Alex Pandian’s counterpart in this film, is an exceptionally well-defined character despite his brief appearance. His vernacular and actions paint a vivid picture of a righteous cop from Tirunelveli who goes up against the local crime syndicate only to have the legal system fail him and then be brutally murdered. Appu carries the burden of Sethupathy in his stunted growth and it is he who rightfully avenges his father while his younger, more congenial brother Raja plays lover boy and sidekick. So when you recall in awe the technical artistry that went into bringing Appu to life, do spare a thought for his forgotten father as well.

Moondru Mugam and Aboorva Sagodharargal are not companion films by any measure. But they do bear a striking similarity as a result o being important milestones in the careers of Tamil cinema’s two most important stars. In addition to being commercial successes, the two films are also great examples of the alternate artistic paths the two decided to tread making them a miniature representation of their intertwined legacies.

P.S: An edited version appears in today's TOI here.

The Indiscretions of the Bourgeoisie

2011-04-16T08:58:00.001+05:30

Adulterous men, archaic tropes and juvenile humor in a film that still manages to garner a few laughs.

We rarely examine what brings a smile to our faces. There are patently absurd realities in our life, which when pointed out to us (after we have gained sufficient distance from them of course), can evoke only laughter. As a constant reminder of our inner child we continue to laugh at juvenile sexual innuendo and as evidence of schadenfreude there is the slip on the banana peel. But somewhere within the anatomy of a carefully constructed joke there exists, usually, a bone of surprise. It is this element of the unexpected that sparks our laughter. It is also the reason most jokes come with a quota of retells: a number beyond which they lose their sting and need to be retired until a new audience is found.

Anees Bazmee’s Thank You is filled with gags, some eminently past their quota of retells and others still on their way to the retirement home. Thank You’s universe borrows liberally from Bazmee’s earlier runaway ribald hit No Entry, so much so the 2005 release even makes its presence felt on screen. It is a universe where the leading men rarely have trouble landing not just one, but a bevy of women and are never bothered by why it is so easy for them. Vikram, Yogi and Raj are three friends, philanderers and partners in a rather ironically named yacht dealership. While Yogi’s wife Maya has already relegated her husband to the doghouse on account of his extramarital affairs, Raj’s wife Sanjana and Vikram’s wife Shivani remain largely unaware of their husbands’ misdemeanors. When a germ of doubt enters Sanjana’s head it opens the door for private detective extraordinaire, Kishan, to waltz in flute in hand to either solve or exacerbate the problem.

The casting choices and the narrative are clearly indicative of Bazmee’s intention to make the Raj-Sanjana marriage the focal point of the film. However, it is the inscrutably passive aggressive relationship between Vikram and Shivani that plays out in a far more interesting manner on screen. If Baazmee’s goal had been a true- blue screwball comedy, which is what Thank You ends up being for a majority of its time, he would have been better served milking this relationship for material.

Akshay Kumar plays Kishan, the detective with questionable intentions, more like a pied piper making the three couples into rats that dance to his tunes, rather than the eponymous God. He is obviously the star, the headliner and the comedy heavyweight of this ensemble cast but unfortunately that only means that he gets to dish out the largest serving of jokes nearing retirement. It is Suniel Shetty, with his turn as the hen pecked, almost imbecilic Yogi, who surprises us with a few well timed absurdities. While the narrative is filled with twists and turns, it was Shetty’s antics that brought forth the loudest laughs, probably because it was the unexpected surprise package. The rest is just old hat.

P.S: An edited version appears here.

Azured Entertainment

2011-04-16T08:54:00.000+05:30

A socially awkward bird finds flight, love and a little samba to spice up his life.

An allegation that is often leveled against our education system is that it is far more attuned to churning out professionals than channeling natural abilities. But what are these natural abilities and does every child have one? Is there a natural order in which everyone must find his or her place? The idea seems a little fascist but one cannot deny that there are certain skills, within the classroom or outside, that come naturally to some and we will always debate if this is because of nature or nurture. One may never know if the over achievers are so because of dint or design but outside of us homo sapien sapiens, there does exist an assigned order in nature. Bees pollinate and birds fly, but not Linda’s domesticated Blue Macaw in Rio. And one needs look no further than his name to understand why.

Abducted from the forests of Rio de Janeiro when just a fledgling, Tyler Bu Henderson (Blu to friends) is adopted and raised in Minnesota by a bookish young Linda. Over time his human parentage leads him further and further away from his birdly identity. He is aware of Bernoulli’s principles but cannot translate this knowledge into action. What holds Blu back is the paralyzing emotion felt most acutely by those who only read and don’t do – fear. It turns out, however, that Blu has a problem that purely intellectual beings are unburdened with: he is the last remaining male bird in his species. Quite literally then, the future of his race depends on him. He is escorted to Brazil to meet and mate with the forest grown, free flying Jewel, voiced by Anne Hathway. One cannot help but wonder if the color cerulean has ever featured so frequently in an actress’ career. Wasn’t is just a few years ago that Meryl Streep admonished her in Devil Wears Prada for her choice in dowdy blue sweaters?

What begins as a mismatched romance between Blu and Jewel, blossoms through the various travails the two birds face after they are kidnapped from their sanctuary. Along the way they meet a sinister cockatoo with an English accent, a much-married Toucan, a two bird musical troupe consisting of a canary and a cardinal, a crew of thieving monkeys and a saliva-slobbering bulldog. Each of these characters infuses the proceedings with a unique dose of humor while subtly inching the protagonists toward their goal. And much like Blu, we find ourselves dancing along to the Samba beats that course through Rio’s narrative. Carlos Saldanha also infuses the film with a persistent sense of humor that becomes the films most effective characteristic. Each of the eminently recognizable voice actors, particularly Tracy Morgan as the bulldog Luiz, also bring with them a sense humor that only makes the experience that much more enjoyable. Thus it is with a smile on our lips, a step in our toes and a little irony in our heart that we watch a Blue Macaw relinquish his human tendencies to find flight and that most human of emotions, love.

TONAL TRINITY

2011-04-15T09:22:00.004+05:30

For children of the eighties who were obsessed with film music like this writer was, there were three voices that presided over our musical dominions. They first trickled through our tympana over the crackled sounds of the Vividh Bharati transmission or that Friday oasis of film programming – Oliyum OLiyum. Theirs’ were the intonations we attempted to imitate while our parents and siblings screamed their lungs out for us to relinquish possession of the shower. They were the voices we channeled when we had the gall to subject an unsuspecting public to our singing. The vocal stylings of S.P.Balasubramaniam, K.J.Jesudas and Malaysia Vasudevan were indelibly ingrained in our musical senses very early in our childhood.

For the better part of a decade S.P.Balasubramaniam’s voice defined the timbre required of a playback singer. It infused a composer’s vision with unbridled emotion. In the popular consciousness he may be defined by the multitude of soft melodies he has sung, but exploring songs off the beaten track reveal his ability to leave his mark on a composition despite being surrounded by genius orchestration through syncopation and improvisation. Consider, for instance, the song Thamaraikkodi from the film Anandha Kummi. With Ilaiyaraja at his orchestral best – vivacious violins and guitars full of gusto – Balasubramaniam executes an off-hand sleight of voice that remains ensconced in my memory to this moment. At the end of a line that goes “velai seivathil naan kaathal mannane” he throws in a piece of faux laughter that is extremely difficult to do in a synchronized composition. And he does this with so much confidence and joy that we buy into the conceit of the lyrics. The consummate ease with which he attains the highest of notes is beguiling. Lulled into a sense of complacency some of us listeners will attempt to render the same song only to fumble those notes even in falsetto. Even if we could reproduce those notes it is a near impossibility to do so with his consistency and clarity of voice. And therein lies the magic of the man’s voice.

If the first of our mainstay voices inspired us to attempt replication the second was a constant reminder of the talent it took to sing professionally. K.J.Jesudas had a voice that made us step back, take notice and then sigh in despair even without attempting to mimic it. The Echo cassettes of the eighties could never boast the clarity of today’s digital recordings but even in those sub par aural inputs the gravitas in Jesudas’ baritone was unmistakable. It dissuaded us from attempting his near classical numbers even within reverberating confines. The prelude to Gangai Karai Mannanadi from Varusham 16 and its quivering half notes have us spellbound at his superior skill well before the song has 3begun in earnest. For the uninitiated like me, it was K.J.Jesudas’ voice that provided my first tryst with Carnatic music, its rigors and its rewards. From Vedham Nee in Kovil Pura to Kamalam Pada Kamalam in Mogha Mull, I marveled at time and again at the rich vocal tradition we had been provided and how unfounded the allegations were that classical music could not be populist. However, to reduce his oeuvre to such numbers would be doing the man and his voice a great disservice. While the most apparent example for Jesudas’ versatility would be En Iniya Pon Nilaave from Moodu Pani or Thanni Thotti from Sindhu Bhairavi the grossly under recognized Eera Vizhi Kaviyangal album is my favorite bit of virtuoso singing. His handling of the melody, especially in Kanavil Mithakkum, is simply a joy of unbounded proportions.

The first two of our triumvirate eventually went on to national careers with Ek Duje ke Liye and Chit Chor. The third stayed south of the Vindhyas – a secret treasure withheld from the rest of the country. Malaysia Vasudevan was, on occasion, the middle child: forgotten in the flood encomiums that flowed easily to the feet of his two compatriots. But this never held him back from producing quality work that always reminded us how blessed in excess we were. Aptly, many of Malaysia Vasudevan’s largest hits were in Tamil. His voice was a natural successor to that of the venerable T.M.Sounderrajan. While his first runaway hit came with the bucolic ballad from 16 Vayathiniley he was equally at home with the melodies of Dharmayudhdham. He seemed to reserve an extra bit of verve for the up tempo numbers he rendered for Rajnikanth. In Murattu Kaalai the superstar announced his arrival through the voice of Vasudevan crooning about his golden heart. To this day a bacchanal with buddies is incomplete without at least one spin of Aasai Nooru Vagai. But his true residence is in the minutiae – the oscillating notes of Vetti Veru Vaasam and that pitch shift in the pallavi of Poove Ilaya Poove.

Vasudevan’s recent demise had me contemplating the mortality of the artists who’ve affected us most personally. For those of us who grew up with these three voices, listening to them is an incredibly personal experience. They feature predominantly in our personal playlists and will continue to occupy a permanent place in our musical universe. These voice actors have left us with brief windows into their inspiration, five-minute personality vignettes in each song. Vignettes that will endure well after their, and hopefully our, passing.

P.S: This is the first of four pieces written for the 3rd anniversary of TOI in Chennai. It appears in today's Chennai Times.

INDETERMINATE

2011-04-09T08:35:00.000+05:30

Free will fights predestination over, of all things, a romance.

The adage ‘there are plenty of other fish in the sea’, sometimes used to indicate the presence of romantic alternatives, is purely a rhetorical mollifier. We may live in an ocean of possibility, but we all inhabit very specific bodies of water. We swim in a few currents and after a certain period of time has passed, we run into more or less the same school of fish. It takes interventional practices to insert us into new streams and meet new fish as it were. Shifting cities, speed dating, online dating sites, astrologers – every age or society has had its own techniques to intermingle streams.

George Nolfi’s hybrid universe of free will and predestination has an interventional mechanism as well, the titular Adjustment Bureau. Dressed in fedoras and suits reminiscent of fifties Madison Avenue executives, the bureau’s officers shift the course of lives thus shaping history to meet their Chairman’s plan. Through this shadow organization, Nolfi constructs an elaborate analogy between the spiritual and corporate. Each of its officers is on a specific detail and a book with constantly shifting images that resemble a pipe network informs them of when to intervene. There is emphasis on data with mathematical models and inflection points featuring prominently in conversation. They are the reason that governs our impulse: the reason humanity navigated its way out of the dark ages and into the Renaissance.

The bureau even has a rigid hierarchical structure with those doing the grunt work rarely questioning the ‘greater good’ or ‘plan’ as envisioned by the Chairman. When one such grunt worker, Harry (played as stoically as ever by Anthony Mackie), responsible for Congressman David Norris staying within plan misses a beat, he puts the entire plan in jeopardy. We first see David, for whom the Chairman has grand designs, in a moment of extraordinary loneliness. One of the youngest ever competitors for a senate seat from New York, David is nervously preparing for an important speech on his campaign trail. After shaking hands, kissing babies, schmoozing contributors and generally galloping through the paces of an election as the frontrunner, a youthful indiscretion returns to haunt him. He quickly returns to being alone and hunched over in a restroom, this time practicing his concession speech. Over the course of the film, we get many more insights into David’s personal history but this introduction would have been sufficient to underline his defining characteristic: a gnawing loneliness that makes him crave the acceptance of a public life.

David’s intense moment of loss and loneliness turns into an important moment in his life when he meets and kisses Elise, played by the inexplicably attractive Emily Blunt. She inspires him to tear the curtains down on the political theater in his concession speech immediately increasing his chances for seeking re-election and indelibly imprinting herself in his heart. Shortly thereafter another curtain is torn down revealing bureau’s existence to David. His romance with Elise, they indicate, is a significant deviation from the Chairman’s plan and must not progress. It may seem preposterous that the one thing the bureau wants to control in the life of a powerful man, is who he falls in love with. But with his solitude well established the onus on his relationship status seems slightly less far-fetched. Smitten men, however, are incorrigible, especially when they forbidden from pursuing the woman they want. And pursue her David does, despite the various machinations of the bureau.

David’s tenacity fighting his destiny is the eternal story of the human condition – to rise above circumstance, to alter what may already be written. What matters is the power that our belief brings, our faith in what we fight for. The Adjustment Bureau hints that even the best laid plans are worth rewriting if we find that one fish we want for company as we navigate tempestuous waters; a largely romantic notion that we somehow need to believe in, even if it is illusory.

UNACCREDITED

2011-04-09T08:33:00.001+05:30

A sophomoric caper that doesn’t sweat the details.

The four word Herbert Spencer coinage, ‘survival of the fittest’, is a theory that students learn quickly in our educational systems. Not from an over-enthusiastic zoology teacher but from experience. This portion of their education is systemic. Competitive academics aren’t for the weak hearted and around this time of year there are rows of students who will fall in line with this analysis.

Ritesh Virani, F.A.L.T.U’s protagonist, is not one of those students. For him, the board exams are merely a hurdle that separates him from a summer of drinking, dancing and general debauchery in Goa. Entirely disconnected from consequences, Ritesh believes that our ‘flexible education system’ will find him admission to a college despite a barely passing grade. As expected, neither Ritesh nor his clique of underachieving friends, Puja Nigam and Nanj Nair, obtain that elusive piece of paper that dispels the real world for a few additional years – an admission letter to higher education. Vishnu, the fourth leg of their barstool of a group, has an entirely different problem – an overbearing father whose expectations have never met his son’s. When Ritesh conjures up a mythical university with the aid of Vishnu and a shyster rather snidely named Google (Arshad Warsi playing a cross between Circuit and Red from Shawshank) he is rewarded with a slew of real students: students forgotten by our rigorously stratified educational system.

The remainder of F.A.L.T.U is about how Ritesh, Google and Bhaji Rao, Ritesh Deshmukh playing a principal dressed like a prep boy, inspire a motley crew of students and turn their fake university into a fake vocational training college. The film is littered with so many songs and montages that it is impossible to escape the feeling that the film’s narrative is present purely to service its music and visual design. It juxtaposes moments of juvenile humor, best among them being hearing the eight times tables set to the tune of Munni Badnaam Huyi replete with a Darling Tere Liye chorus, with didactic sequences on how the educational system fails the very people it is supposed to help. Each member of the audience, I suppose, only need imbibe what is part of their personal syllabi.

P.S: An edited version appears here.

VIRTUAL CONSOLE

2011-03-27T08:27:00.000+05:30

A monomyth that focuses on cosmetics and dispenses with soul.

I believe we relive our memories, especially the good ones, as films. They are exceptionally well-crafted narratives, often choreographed with such symmetry that we must question the perceived perfection. And we should, for our mind has a Walter Murch-esque ability to carve out inconvenient truths tucked away in our neural interstices. It tints epiodess in nostalgic rose or sepia hues and compiles them into retrospection-friendly montages. But what of those straggling bits of information that don’t add up and are discarded in the neural abyss? Whence go the pain and suffering we wish to repress? These free radicals disappear or lie in wait in our subconscious only to manifest as behavioral quirks. And all of us have a few such quirks as part of our personalities. However, garner enough of these and the label of insanity will not be far behind. Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch is about a group of girls who’ve had such a label tacked on them and unwillingly enrolled in Lennox House, a mental health facility at Brattleboro, Vermont. It is obvious that they are all scarred, but how much more than us we are never explicitly told. We are introduced to our main protagonist Babydoll as Annie Lennox croons about abuse in the background – only a pointer to what she may have suffered at the hands of her stepfather and what lies in wait for her at Brattleboro.

The orderlies at Lennox house have turned the facility into a hotbed of impropriety and its latest inmate, Baby Doll, deals with it through the greatest weapon at her disposal – a hyperactive imagination. A menacing orderly with a Napoleonic complex turns into a brothel-running depression era gangster, a portly guard at the portal to freedom turns into a corrupt fat-cat Mayor and the congregation area, already aptly named the theater, turns into a cabaret colosseum. And thus the stage is set for Babydoll’s, and Snyder’s, escapist fantasy to unfold. And unfold it does with a stylized fury that is native to modern day video games. This is the part-female empowerment, part-geek boy fantasy that Snyder recreates with the screen space he is given. And he finds his sources in the titles that have come to dominate our popular culture. Baby Doll’s bordello recreation of Lennox House could well be a location in retro GTA Vice City. As the film progresses game patrons and fantasy fans will see locales and characters they are intimately familiar with from Japanese Dojos to zeppelin filled World War One skies. Snyder and Shibuya wear their nerd-chic influences on their sleeve.

Even the progression of Sucker Punch’s narrative is very analogous to the experience of video game purveyor. Babydoll’s first flirtation with fantasy is almost like an enthusiast being introduced to a new game purchased for his favorite console. She first learns the rules of this new reality and what her objective is from a Joseph Campbell archetype – a wise old man. Slowly but surely she learns what skills she possesses in this alternate reality almost like a new player feeling her way through the controls of a game. In her very first playing experience Babydoll realizes she will need the help of her fellow inmates Sweet Pea, Rocket, Amber and Blondie to complete the tasks the game sets before her. This isn’t a single player game. It is time up the ante to a multiplayer environment. But the new kid on the bock has to gain acceptance from the alpha of an established group to win them over. In this case Baby Doll wins over Sweet Pea, the alpha female, by protecting her sister, Rocket, from the clutches of a cantankerous cook. The two forge an uneasy friendship as the rest band around them to reach the endgame they all want – freedom from Lennox House and the abhorrent, soul-crushing abuse.

From here, the film completely transitions into a video game watching experience. Each object required to achieve the final objective is a level in this quasi-game simulation complete with analogous mission objectives, minions and masters. Each mission is set to genre-defining, adrenaline stimulating rock with our heroines dressed in costumes that usually see the light only on Halloween. Even the cliché comments that pass for dialogs seem purposefully inserted to achieve a certain ‘quasi game’ experience. Apart from Jena Malone who plays Rocket and Carla Gugino as Dr.Gorski (whose Polish accent will not set her phones ringing with calls to play Sophie Zawistowski), the performances make nearly no impact. The latter stages of the film, with foregone conclusions and prototypical plot twists, are its most tedious. It also had me rewinding to my earliest memories of playing Chris Roberts’ phenomenal game, Wing Commander. For me, the most enjoyable parts of the game were the strategies that moved the story forward – choosing missions and wingmen – and not the actual missions themselves. Sucker Punch consciously eschews story to focus on spectacle. And it is a lesser viewing experience for not finding an even balance between the two.

P.S: An edited version of this piece appears in today's New Indian Express. Link here.

BELLY OF THE BEAST

2011-03-20T07:37:00.000+05:30

A middling re-imagination that is unsure of whether it is a coming of age story or a cautionary tale.

As with most films, the first thing the strikes you about Red Riding Hood, is the title. However, what grabs you first is not what is present in the title but a word that is conspicuously absent. We’re all aware of the fable of an adventurous little girl and her run-in with strangers as the tale of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’. But don’t be fooled by your first glimpse of the protagonist: there is definitely nothing little about Catherine Hardwicke’s reinterpretation. The omission of the word ‘little’ from the title is entirely purposeful. The film’s concerns are closer in age to women in padded brassieres than those in pigtails. Not surprising when you consider the earlier film in Hardwicke’s oeuvre, the first film in the Twilight series.

In fact, Hardwicke’s new heroine, much like Bella, is no ingénue. The film opens to a setup that seems right out of a South Indian romantic tragedy in Eastman color. A village that is isolated from the world, a young girl being pressured into a marriage of convenience by her mother, a father who is perpetually drunk and a childhood sweetheart who wishes to see her happy but is unsure of what he wants. Valerie – for that is the name of the bearer of the red hood – is a particularly free willed girl in a conservative village. She loves her woodcutter, Peter, with a feral intensity that often drags her into dangerous territory. And so it is that her mother, Suzette, decides that she needs to be married into more sedate company. Henry Lazar, the local blacksmith and the boy Valerie’s mother picks out, is a well meaning young man with a hefty purse but a complete aversion for confrontation. And, of course, this isn’t the bad-boy loving Valerie’s cup of mead.

The wolf in the tale looms large over the village of Daggorhorn well before it makes its appearance. This isn’t just any ordinary animal; it is a creature of the night – a werewolf. In the opening scenes as a young Valerie skips along to gather water we see the town prepare for the full moon, leaving livestock gifts and markers everywhere to stay inside. Nearly every viewer who is above three has heard the tale of Red Riding Hood before and we immediately realize that the sense of foreboding is because of the wolf. And yet one of the first distinctive dialogs we hear is the voice of a father cautioning his daughter about the animal. This is the first inkling we get of the lack of subtlety that pervades this film. Hardwicke fashions a club with her subtexts to beat us over the head with. Be it Valerie’s burden of beauty or the blacksmith’s timidity nearly everything is spelt out in dialog leaving barely anything to the inferring powers of the audience.

One of the marginally subtler themes running through the film is Juvenal’s question of “Quis Custodiet ipsos custodies?”. Daggorhorn’s pastor, Auguste, believes that the town will be delivered from its nemesis by Father Solomon, a half priest half avenging angel who travels through the land killing werewolves. Played rather formulaically by the usually stellar Gary Oldman, the character of Solomon is a sketch in dichotomy. While he protects from his own daughters the identity of their dead werewolf mother, he is more than happy to invade the privacy of the townsfolk in the interest of ‘greater good’. He even has the town people divided and tattling on each other to protect selfish interests without ultimately performing the task he was appointed for. As these events unfold on screen we are reminded that an age of cell phone taps may be a slippery slope away from an age of inhuman sentences. And given the conclusion Hardwicke leaves us with we are even prompted to ponder what the ‘greater good’ is.

But this small germ of topical relevance is insufficient to distract us from the hodge-podge presentation and the largely insipid performances of the male leads. Even the attempts at intelligent self-references - like dream tête-à-tête Valerie has with her grandmother or the bacchanalian recreation of the tale of the three little pigs – fall flat. The saving graces of the film are the performances of Amanda Seyfried, Julie Christie and the director’s original strength – production design. I would not be surprised if it was discovered that Christie made a deal with Mephistopheles (or a skilled surgeon) to ensure that she looked this radiant after seven decades on this planet. The icy tundra of Daggorhorn and its surrounding coniferous forests are perpetually plunged in some sort of twilight. Every house in the village and even the trees in the forest seem to be fashioned for protection from the beast. But these details are just icing and icing alone does not a delicious cake make. The tonal quality achieved by Hardwicke’s milieu is let down by the inconsistency in the content. This results in a film that is largely unsure of what it is and a rather uneven viewing experience.

P.S: An edited version appears in the New Indian Express today. Link here.

SWEET BEYOND

2011-03-13T07:32:00.001+05:30

A breezy film on death that is just as much about life as what comes after.

We’ve all heard the cliché that likens death to a sentence-terminating punctuation mark. Allow me, if you will, to briefly co-opt this analogy, assume a semblance of free will and extrapolate. As we all write the sentence that is our life, do we consciously adopt syntax? Are we aware if what we are crafting must end with a question mark or an exclamation point? A majority of us of course, will probably end with the mundane, yet eternal favorite – a period. But in our zest for terminations we forget the effect our deaths have on the lives of those we leave behind. Maybe we must explore the idea of death as a comma or a colon in the sentences that await completion. Hereafter is interested in perceiving death this way: As an event that has a ‘during’ and more particularly an ‘after’ rather than a termination.

The film opens to a vast expanse of blue reminiscent of Belegaer, which is befitting given the film’s preoccupation with the great beyond. It is even more appropriate that Clint Eastwood, that seemingly timeless master, brings us this minimalist meditation on mortality. After all, is he not the Elrond of the middle earth that is Hollywood, having seen the fountain of fantasy devolve from its most creatively vibrant patterns to the format films we see today? His latest offering to wash up on our shores is more Altman than average formulaic feature: a character study that delves into the intersecting lives of three people who have all had discomfiting brushes with death. The intersection, however, is achieved through extremely contrived means and it is far more enchanting to watch the characters grapple with their realities.

We are first acquainted with Marie, a famous French journalist, who miraculously survives a natural catastrophe while on vacation. It is through her that we first experience the phenomenon the film postulates is the ci-aprés. Her portions of the film function as a meta-story for near death and recovery. She gradually loses the life she is familiar with because of her obsession with what she saw in the depths of her unconsciousness. If it is an anonymous sailor whose CPR skills that reach out and pull her back from the depths the first time, it is her editor who throws her a lifeline when it seems like her personal and professional lives have both been irrecoverably lost.

The second and by far most interesting character is George Lonegan, who, it appears, has never fully returned to the realm of the living since a near fatal childhood illness gave him the ability to see into the netherworld. His gift, or curse as he would prefer to call it, has doomed him to an existence observing the human race at its weakest. We are treated to a recurrent image of George standing by his window, watching people whose life he has touched stumble away into the darkness - some whole again, others completely broken. Not surprising then that his solace lies in audio books of Dickens, that patron saint of orphans and painful childhoods. Thrice we watch as he struggles to find peace through the bildungsroman that is David Copperfield.

Marcus, who completes the triumvirate, may well be a modern day Dickens character himself. Losing your older (and emotionally stronger) twin to a road mishap and your mother to rehabilitation from heroin is first-chapter material if we were looking to contemporize Dickens. He is also the poster child for the first Kubler-Ross stage of loss and how susceptible people in denial are to being parted from their money. As we watch a series of charlatans trying to exploit the grief of this young child it is impossible not to hark back to the manipulations that mark the other episodes in the film. Didier, Marie’s producer and lover, lies disingenuously that her professional stature is unassailable while a ready replacement waits in the wings. George’s brother Billy looks upon him as the proverbial golden-egg laying goose. Billy Lonegan never misses an opportunity to needle his brother on the revenue that his capabilities can generate, even painting his self-interest with larger philosophical tones. “You can’t run away from who you are.” he shouts after him, as if to suggest that the only way out is further in.

With such subtle threads interwoven between the stories it is disappointing that these three characters are brought together through rather simplistic mechanics. If one is willing to forgive such contrivances Hereafter makes for a placid viewing experience. None of the darkness or preponderance one normally associates with death for the octogenarian at the helm of this film. It floats along weightlessly and well lit, much like the visuals of the after death experiences it simulates. Barring the moments where Lonegan reaches out to Marcus’ twin, a scene that is sure to bring a lump to the throat of even the hardest of hearts, there is no heaviness in this film. And while this may be refreshing, one cant seem to shake the feeling that we’ve been conned into a low-fat, low-sodium macrobiotic meal instead of an indulgent spread. The result is a lingering feeling of an experience that has just missed the spot.

Picture courtesy www.csmonitor.com

An edited version of this appears in today's New Indian Express. Link here.

Gracias

2011-03-09T11:20:00.000+05:30

There exists, in the corner house of a street in Anna Nagar, the legend of a boy who recognized Singaravelan from the brief shot of a waddling duck. Since this is not exactly an achievement in the order of an International Math Olympiad appearance or the ability to recite the Vishnu Sahasranamam in its entirety without prompting, few people outside the family that inhabits this house are aware of this legend. Through some extremely diligent intelligent investigative journalism I've discovered the identity of the aforementioned boy - Me. And the investigative journalism was rifling through years of repressed shellackings received for an inordinate interest in Cinema during my early years.

The shellacking obviously had little effect and as I write this I've just had my first weekly review piece published in the papers (in the papers, I would repeat if I was Johnny two times). I am extremely thankful to the folks at the New Indian Express for the opportunity but I would be remiss if I did not mention my predecessor here. Baradwaj has been (and will remain) my go to for the weekly film review as a reader. He has been extremely kind over the past year and my first few columns on Malayalam Cinema for the paper would not have happened without his efforts. And to top it all he has been very gracious with the welcome he has accorded me. While I hope to maintain the tradition of personal reviews, as he so aptly mentions in his welcome, it will be a process finding a unique voice and style. But I must thank him for blazing the trail and making this sort of dissection of film possible - through the blog, his pieces in various publications and most importantly the comments in his blog. After all, it was in one such commentspace that I began the active participation that has culminated in this opportunity.

Golden Gloves

2011-03-06T07:27:00.002+05:30

An immensely watchable film about the personal travails of a boxer and his love-hate relationship with his family.

Hollywood loves its underdog sporting stories and there are no stories more quintessentially about the underdog than the stories of successful boxers. Champion pugilists are rarely born in the lap of luxury; killer left hooks and uppercuts may be perfected anywhere but killer instinct seems to be the product of rundown gyms. These men are also the gladiators of our time and the more sizeable the ego the more we love them. Make no mistake Muhammad Ali was beloved as much for his pizzazz as his punching abilities. And Dicky Eklund of Lowell, Massachusetts, certainly had both at one point in his career. But now he lives on the fumes of a title shot that has long since passed him by and the crack cocaine that now controls his life.

The Fighter, however, is about Dicky’s brother Micky Ward. A boxer himself, Micky has lived his entire life in his older brother’s shadow. In a telling moment early on in the film we get to see how much Dicky’s self-absorption affects Micky. All strapped up and ready to spar, Micky waits in the middle of the ring all the while making excuses for his brother. When Dicky finally does arrive – incredibly late and incredibly high – the focus of ceases to be on Micky any more. The real tragedy of Micky’s life is not that he has less talent than his brother but a family that refuses to see his potential. And Micky refuses to see the detrimental effect that they have on his life and career. Too often the problem is too close to home to view it objectively.

Charlene is the first positive thing that happens to Micky in the film. She is truly interested in what is best for him and isn’t afraid to stand up to his family. Surrounded in the family parlor by Dicky’s mother Alice and his seven sisters of the apocalypse, she holds her own as they hurl ridiculous aspersions her way. I could not stifle my laughter noticing that, be it South Boston or South Madras, “MTV girl” was universally applied as a euphemism for a woman of questionable character in the nineties. But it is easy to see that she is a woman of gumption and that this is precisely why his near-parasitic family has objections to their relationship. In a throwaway shot we even see the positive effect her arrival has on Micky’s difficult relationship with his daughter who he sees only once a week. While not central to the film, it felt like leaving this dimension unexplored was an opportunity lost.

Ironically it is Dicky’s first act of ‘selflessness’, wantonly providing material for a documentary on crack abuse to raise money for brother to train, that sends Micky’s life into a downward spiral. He finally hits rock bottom when the documentary premieres, demolishing his brother’s façade and reducing him from the pride of Lowell to lowly smack addict. Having seen rock bottom there is no alternative for Micky but to bounce back. With Charlene at his side and the help of his father and friends, he returns to the ring again. And once the fighting begins the film finds its way to the tried and tested tropes of boxing flicks. Montages of taxing training routines and TKOs within the ring always seem to result in a spurt of adrenaline regardless of how peace loving we might otherwise be or how many times we’ve been exposed to them.

The Fighter is a marked departure from the last film Mark Wahlberg and David Russell worked together – the whimsical I Heart Huckabees. Wahlberg manages to endow Micky Ward with the same vulnerability he infused Dirk Diggler with in Boogie Nights. Somewhere underneath the hard-nosed brawler that Micky is lurks a hurt, ignored child and Wahlberg’s whiny demeanor manages to capture this adequately. Amy Adams is a revelation as the vivacious Charlene. She is obviously a sexpot, tramp stamp and all, but it is to Russell and Adams’ credit that we come away marveling more at her spunk and candor than her impeccable derriere.

But the two most affecting performances of the film have to be the ones that garnered Oscars for the actors that portrayed them. Melissa Leo as Alice Ward, Micky’s mother, embodies perfectly how favoritism works in families. No mother ever vocally expresses preference for one child over another; such things are always hidden away in action. Alice is much the same, providing lip service to loving Micky but always more invested in the life and career of her first born. Christian Bale as the completely self-absorbed and unaware Dicky Eklund is, quite simply put, brilliant. From his squirrelly demeanor to his odd comb over we know immediately that this is a man who has permanently lived in denial of his failings. But he is well meaning and as a result his road to redemption is the most rewarding aspect of the film. At the West End Gym that the two brothers train in there is a board on the wall that requests boxers to “Put back what you use”. The Fighter’s success lies in how gratifying it is to see Dicky Eklund help his brother to his rightful place in the boxing lexicon after having used him for years.

Picture courtesy netkushi.com

An edited version of the same appears in the New Indian Express today. You can read it here.

Yudhdham Sei

2011-03-01T13:05:00.002+05:30

All of us have faced a conundrum or two in our professional lives. We have at our disposal today a number of tools to dissect and diagnose these problems. The problem of course is that the tools, in and of themselves tend to be distractingly attractive. So seduced are we that some of us tend to utilise these tools to collect way more information than is actually required. And as a consequence we are so mired in data that we lose sight of the problem in all the clutter. Unwittingly we've all contributed to turning the age of information into the age of misinformation. Few directors in the Thamizh film industry have embodied this ethos as well as Mysskin has in his four film old career. His images - through attention to detail, focus on the oddities and unusual framing - leave us with a glut of information that we must expend effort processing what is presented to us. Not for this man, the overexposition of every minor detail through dialog or visuals. His filmmaking is characterized by a stubborn refusal to share information with his audience in a structured manner. This was underlined by a nice moment of irony as I watched Yudhdham Sei this past Saturday. A rather boisterous couple of girls in the adjacent seat were complaining (quite loudly I must add) that they were unable to understand the proceedings. In the scene that followed almost immediately a response appeared, on a postit on JK's wall. "F--k Off" it read. It was impossible for me not to see that note as Mysskin's derision for those who do not have enough patience to see a film through.

While the discerning viewer processes all the information that Mysskin throws at him, there is enough finesse in the scenes and the music to draw him in to proceedings as they were. Consider, for instance, how he chooses to introduce to us the dismembered parts. The first set makes its appearance during a particularly raucous celebration bringing in the new year. Mankind is often at its most selfish when it is happy. When you laugh often the world will laugh with you just to be polite - not because it shares your joy. That no one in that large crowd of revelers chooses to see how a cardboard box of severed body parts reached the roof of a car underlines how unempathetic joy makes us. If the introduction of the first set of body parts is indiction of happiness, the second indicts the viewers themselves. As the ominous background music (Some lovely work with the strings by K here) floats around the walkers and flickering tubelights of a city park we already know that the contents of another cardboard box are waiting to be found. And we are transformed immediately into those perverse voyeurs who rubberneck traffic around a particularly gruesome accident. We want to see one of the walkers discover it and be horrified. Having stolen this from us the first time around Mysskin gives it to us this time, but still holds back the theatrics as if to say "you will get what you want but on my terms".

This is the defining trait of Yudhdham Sei - that the audience must accept the film on Mysskin's terms. At its core it is a police procedural set in a rather dark reality. There are no incentives to be good in this world. In fact one is unsure about what constitutes 'good' in this world. It is a world where a perpetually drunk mortician lies nearly indistinguishable from the cadavers he examines, a borther must serve tea to find his sister and a police officer must bribe his own kind to get information that he should be privy to. To get into any of the plot dynamics would be to alter the terms on which Mysskin wants his viewers entering the cinema hall. And so I shall leave you with a small observation I made during my viewing. Two of my fellow viewers, the same ones who exhibited a disturbing lack of patience during the initial portions of the film, were cheering loudly during some portions in the psychosis fueled violence of the second half. With this portion of the film Mysskin seems to have found that frayed last nerve on which a lot of women are when it comes to the daily inequities they face. I am unsure what was more disturbing, the single minded violence or the cheer it received from some quarters of the aaudience. Are we that pissed off? And if we are what are we doing about it?

Coming home to roost

2011-02-28T17:25:00.003+05:30

Film, Satyajit Ray once famously said, is a technological medium of expression developed by the western world. Its time boundedness makes it very difficult to imply that the characters that inhabit it are part of an unending continuum - that the film is but a vignette in the larger expanse that is its reality. Vetrimaaran's Aadukalam attempts, rather overtly, to transcend this limitation. Linguistic and spatial characteristics that are uniquely Madurai form a large part of the first half which, in hindsight, plays out as a preamble for the film Vetrimaaran wanted to make. This portion of the film lies squarely on the shoulder's of Dhanush and he displays a lightness of character that belies this onus. He flits around with great ease as a carefree youngster whose only concern is the rooster he raises and the man who taught him how. The eco-system that Vetrimaaran constructs for his caharacters is one of rigid hierarchy where each level exercises power over the its inferiors through an exasperating mix of guilt and gratitude. Obvious similarities are drawn between rooster and master, with both of them depicted as creatures of honed instinct - quick to anticipate and react to external threats but ill equipped to fight the internal conflicts. The film truly begins when the highest level in the hierarchy externalizes its insecurities with disastrous consequences for every level below it.

It isn't often that we see a protagonist expend energy as an unwitting pawn in the internal conflict of another character. We are often too close to what is bad for us. Karuppu is obviously not the sharpest tool in the box. He literally needs to be clubbed on the head with information before he realises who is pulling the strings. In what is the true hallmark of institutionalization Karuppu is not concerned that there are strings. As a puppet he embraces the strings that make him dance. As the second half of the film unfolded I could not resist comparing the films essence with a film that dealt with the issue far more subtly and effectively - Bharatham. The essence of both films lies in the natural resistance to evolution from within the ecosystem and the human inability to deal with it amicably. Now all Vetrimaaran has to do is find some of the subtlety that Sibi and Lohi showed.

The Golden Age - 4

2011-01-30T08:56:00.000+05:30

THE SON OF MAN

Few events signal the arrival of adulthood like the birth of one’s own bundle of joy. It is a momentous occasion - an announcement that one has the wherewithal to deal with the endless entropy that comes with raising a child. It usually requires two members of our species to get the job done and even then, rarely is it done right. Therefore the world watches with great surprise and unnecessary inquisitiveness when someone decides to walk this path alone. Being a single parent requires supreme commitment, especially because the proverbial “village” is sometimes less responsive to their needs. But rarely, if ever, does a person decide to become a parent out of pure whimsy.

Rajeev Menon, all around cad and protagonist of Dasharatham, lives a hedonistic life funded by his deceased father’s wealth. The product of a broken home, Rajeev is a practitioner of the “no strings attached” existence. His estate and businesses are ably managed by Pillai, who is at his wits end as a result of his antics. Pillai’s exasperation is well founded; drinking, gambling and being a public nuisance are not expected of a captain of industry. When the family of Rajeev’s drinking buddy, Zachariah, visits his home on a vacation Rajeev gets unduly attached to Zachariah’s son. While six sheets to the wind in a bar, he asks Zachariah if he could buy his son. The request is an insight to the depths of Rajeev’s detachment.

Politely rebuffed by his friend, Rajeev seeks medical intervention to achieve his goal. Despite Rajeev’s predisposition for frivolity, his doctor Hameed is persuaded by his fervency. He suggests in-utero fertilization and even facilitates a surrogate, Annie, to bear his child. Annie is in a predicament of her own. Chandradas, her husband, requires an operation to escape the clutches of a debilitating disease and resurrect his sports career. In return for Annie playing surrogate, Rajeev’s deep pockets will finance Chandradas’ surgery. Rajeev, Hameed and Chandradas are comfortable viewing the arrangement as purely business, but misgivings are written large on Annie’s and her mother-in-law’s faces. Naturally the only people capable of foreseeing the complexities ahead are the only one’s capable of childbirth. But faced with no options they submit to Rajeev’s request.

Gestation is a process in which men are purely spectators. Reading books on childcare and changing the paint on the walls are an over-compensation for their lack of control. Rajeev does all of these things and in the process alienates Annie, now pregnant with his child, even further. In the ultimate manifestation of insecurity he separates Annie from her husband. His lack of understanding of human emotions undoes every one of his positive actions. Eventually, as he realizes the folly of his ways, Rajeev and Annie develop a fragile but functional relationship and he learns to perceive Annie as a human being, not just a uterus for hire. But neither Rajeev nor Chandradas is prepared for Annie’s change of heart after the birth.

Dasharatham implies that doing the right thing, even if for the wrong reasons, can be its own reward. The bacchanalian Rajeev we see at the beginning of the film conceals a grievously injured inner child. In the nine months that Annie is pregnant with his son, he exorcizes his own ghosts and learns to trust people- to allow them into his life. But most importantly, he gains the strength to let go of what he loves most. Simply by coming into existence Rajeev’s son transforms him from a petulant child to an adult. After all, what is more adult than enduring in the face of heartbreak?

An edited version of he article appears in today's Express Matinee. Link here.

நடிகன்

2011-01-14T11:40:00.000+05:30

இந்த பாடலின் இரண்டொரு நிமிடங்களிலே நடிகர் திலகத்தின் அபார திறமை வெளிப்படுகிறது. அம்பிகாபதி எனக்கு மிகவும் பிடித்தமான கதைகளில் ஒன்று. திரைப்படத்தில் பானுமதியின் நடிப்பு தான் என்னை முதல் பார்வையில் கவர்ந்தது. சற்று நாட்களுக்கு முன்பு இந்த படலை யூடியுபில் பார்க்க நேர்ந்த பொழுது தான் கணேசனின் நடிப்பில் எவ்வளவு நுணுக்கம் பதுங்கி உள்ளது என்று உணர்ந்தேன்.

காதலியை பிரிந்த காதலன் கப்பல் பயணத்தில் பாடும் பாடல். சோகத்தின் சின்னமாகவே அவன் தோற்றமளிக்கிறான். கவின்ஞன் என்பதால் அவனை அறியாமலே செய்யுள் நாவில்நின்று புறப்படுகிறது. அந்த பாடலில் பிரிந்த காதலியின் உருவம் ஒளிர்கிறது. அனால் மெல்ல மெல்ல அமராவத்யிடம் கொண்ட காதல் அவன் இசை மீது கொண்ட காதலுக்கு வழி வகுக்கிறது. பாட்டின் வீரியம் பெருகப் பெருக இரண்டும் இணைகின்றன. ஒன்றின் மூலம் மற்றொன்று கண் முன்னே நிற்கின்றது. வாடி நின்ற முகம் மெல்ல புண் முறுவல் சூடி நிற்கின்றது. ஒன்றரை நிமிடங்களில் சிவாஜி இசையின் பயனையே தனது நடிப்பின் மூலம் உணர்த்தி விடுகிறார். மகத்தான கலைஞனின் அறிகுறி.

புயலின் பிறந்த நாள்

2011-01-06T13:07:00.001+05:30

இன்று ரகுமானின் பிறந்த நாள் . எனக்கு பிடித்த பாடலுக்கு நான் சற்று மாற்று வடிவம் அமைக்கும் வழக்கம் உண்டு. மிகவும் பிடித்த ரகுமான் பாடல் ஒன்றிற்கு அவரது பிறந்த நாளன்று எனக்கு தோன்றிய சில சரண வரிகள்.

முன்னம் ஒரு முறை உன்
கன்னம் சிவக்க சின்னம் வைத்தேன்
என் சித்தம் சிறகடித்து மேகம் சென்று சேர்ந்தேன்....
பூ முடித்தப் பெண்ணே உன் போல் தேவதையும்
பூவுலகில் தான் வந்ததுண்டா?
தேவ லோக இந்திரனின் கண்ணில் நின்று
தப்பி என்னுடன் சென்றதுண்டா?
உன்னுருவம் கண்டு பிரமை கொண்டு நின்று
தினம் பொழுதும் சென்று விடிவும் இன்றி என் வாழ்வும் எங்கு போனது...

The Golden Age - 3

2010-12-19T10:58:00.002+05:30

SEA CODE

The Corner Office, with its plate glass windows and panoramic view, is the holy grail of corporate lackeys across the world. The room itself is a strange metaphor for modern relationships. It allows elements of nature – blue skies, rain, shine and snow – into our lives, as long as they remain firmly on the outside of the viewing glass. Is there a more apt metaphor for modern relationships where the protection of individual space is paramount? This need for space is verily a modern construct; vastly different from the time when a relationship meant the license to shove olfactory organs in other’s businesses. It seems only apt that the corner office is an incentive for today’s cerebral labor.

The occupations of traditional economies, however, parallel the relationships of a time gone by: a time when the line separating involvement and intrusion was blurred beyond recognition. The slush of the paddy fields had to stain the feet of a farmer and waves would have lapped a fisherman’s palms before the end of a workday. The elements that lie on the other side of the corner office window dictated the vicissitudes of these lives. Little wonder then that people engaged in these occupations have tumultuous relationships with Mother Nature. While some of these relationships are rightfully based on fear others can only be categorized by a word that defies definition, love.

Achutty, the fisherman in Amaram, loves the sea as if she were his own mother. After all, Kadalamma has borne him day after day for years on end, much longer than the usual nine month gestation period. He prefers solitary sojourns into the sea to the safety-in-numbers approach of his fellow fishermen. He adheres to the code of the sea - to do what is right by his fellow fishermen– not out of fear of flouting the coda but out of love for the sea. Achutty’s irrational affection finds a more traditional outlet in his daughter, Radha. Having lost his wife to medical negligence, he dreams of making his daughter a doctor. And not just any doctor - a doctor who makes house calls for the less fortunate. Achutty’s endearing naivete is a fundamental part of his allure. Purity of heart is a rare commodity these days, solely because it cannot co-exist with one’s instinct for self-preservation. Our intrepid fisherman finds himself on the wrong end of this conflict.

Radha finishes at the top of her SSLC class feeding her father’s hopes even further. However, unbeknownst to him, she is in love with Raghavan, the son of Achutty’s closest and oldest friend, Kochuraman. Achutty has long suppressed his affection for Kochuraman’s sister, Chandrika, out of concern for his daughter – often rebuffing Chandrika’s advances. With Radha’s goal in sight, Achutty asks Kochuraman for Chandrika’s hand in marriage. His life seems on course for a happy beginning when the first domino in the stack tips over.

Livid with rage on catching Raghavan with his daughter, Achutty assaults him and insults Kochuraman when he asks if he could have Radha as a daughter-in-law. A lowly fisherman will not suffice for Achutty’s doctor-to-be. But Achutty’s dreams are not meant to be. Radha elopes with Raghavan and Kochuraman marries Chandrika off to an educated postman to spite his friend. Watching Achutty’s life unravel, I pondered how ill equipped the human species is to handle the intensity of unadulterated love: how often we discard unconditional affection for mere convenience. Is it any surprise then that relics who are capable of sustaining such intensity, like Achutty, would rather award these affections to the elements? The rest of us will, after all, be satiated by our corner offices.

An edited version of this post appears in today's Express Buzz Matinee. Link here.

Red Pill, Blue Pill

2010-11-28T12:59:00.000+05:30

The Golden Age - 2

2010-11-28T10:29:00.002+05:30

A fair number of us straddle the often-conflicting worlds of personal ambitions and familial expectations. Distance, either emotional or physical, often provides us the opportunity to make our own manner of life, free from prying eyes and judgments. It gives us a safe haven to question our heritage not realizing that somewhere in those archaic rituals lies a portion of our history that will eventually be lost to homogeneity. But what of those who do not have the luxury of distance? In the Indian social context, external institutions do not impose social mores upon us; they are inextricably intertwined with the relationships that constitute our everyday lives. To question these conventions is to test the strength of the very bonds that define our existence.

Thaniyaavarthanam chronicles the story of Balagopalan, who is pulled into a maelstrom of irrational beliefs purely on account of the value he accords the relationships that thrust these beliefs upon him. Marathempally the once prosperous ancestral home of Balan, an art teacher in small town Kerala, carries a curse. Local legend has it that that the vindictive Bhadrakali smites a male member of the family with insanity in retaliation for the misdeeds of a forefather. The current bearer of the curse, Balan’s uncle Sreedharan, lays locked away in chains in an antechamber of the decaying Naalukettu. The family’s fiscal fortunes are waning from years of Kolam thuLLal rituals in an effort to mollify the goddess. Gopinathan, Balan’s brother, is openly resentful of being burdened with the beliefs of the old guard. Balan, however, remembers Sreedharan’s salad days as a vibrant musician and his failed romance with a doe-eyed neighborhood beauty. So, despite his skepticism and poor fiscal health, Balan continues to indulge the irrational beliefs of Marathempally’s older denizens.

The brothers’ conflicting opinions are an obvious externalization of the internal dilemmas that we all face. Balan, like the wistful among us, continues to carry the cross hoping desperately that he doesn’t crumble under its weight. One night, overwhelmed by compassion, he loosens the chains that bind his uncle only to find him face-first in the house pond the next morning. With Sreedharan’s passing the community begins to search for the next victim of the curse. When Balan’s guilt at precipitating the death of his uncle manifests as a grotesque dream from which he wakes up screaming, he becomes the target for their innuendo. And thus begins his descent into seclusion that results in the loss of his sanity and eventually his life.

Of the films I’ve seen, only Thevar Magan deals with this existential crisis as effectively as Thaniyavarthanam does. Sakthivel Thevar, however, does not passively let the system impose its deficiencies on him. He struggles valiantly to alter them only to have his plans foiled by an accidental blow of the sickle. Here too, a god who is the embodiment of violent anger introduces the instrument of murder to Sakthi. With both films I often find that a grave sense of despair prevents me from watching them in entirety during repeat viewings. It isn’t the tragedy that befalls the protagonists that disturbs me but the implication that the cycle will continue with their progeny. Sakthivel Thevar leaves behind a pregnant wife as the train the bore him to a hero’s welcome carries him away to prison. What fate lies ahead for the as yet unborn child with his sole hope for redemption in a faraway prison? Analogously Thaniyavarthanam leaves us with the image of Balan’s son watching as the Kolam thuLLal artiste channeling the goddess dances around him ominously. It is an image that rankles in my heart to this day.

P.S: An edited version of this post appears in today's Express Buzz. Link

The Golden Age-1

2010-10-24T09:45:00.001+05:30

For years now I've wanted to chronicle the the Malayalam cinema of my formative years that quite possibly set the tone for my taste in film. It is as much a tribute to the dusty unpaved roads of rural Kerala as it is to the artists that walked those paths. I sincerely hope that my undying love for the movies and those artistes transcend the written word and compel at leas a few more people to look for and watch these films. The series will appear once a month in the Sunday edition of the Chennai Indian Express. Up first is Padamarajan's Aparan, Do read and let me know your thoughts.

(Update Appending the text here as well: What appeared in the papers was an edited version.)

In the humdrum of our lives a majority of us overlook our daily doppelganger, the person in the mirror. While our exact replica in many ways, there exists one fundamental difference between the image and us - its reality functions in a diametrically opposite manner. What is right for us may well be sinister in the mirror world. A moral compass, if it were an actual physical entity, would quite possibly point permanently south in this alternate reality. We safely ignore this universe, as its boundaries stay firmly on the other side of the mirror. But what if this boundary begins to blur and this alternate reality and its disparate moral compass infiltrate our world? How would this interloper affect us? Padmarajan plays with this conundrum in his 1988 film, Aparan.

Viswanatha Pillai, the film’s protagonist, is the quintessential, overprotected middle class youngster in search of a job. On a trip to the big city for an interview he is accosted by two men and arrested on suspicion of being a notorious criminal despite his fervent claims that they have the wrong man. Purely through providence, the inspector turns out to be an old friend, from whom Viswam learns of Uttaman – his doppelganger and a wanted charlatan. This encounter is the first breach of Viswam’s reality. His inconvenience is purely a result of the legal infractions of a man who is his exact equal and opposite. Padmarajan uses this Hegelian dialectic to explore the very nature of reality, as we perceive it. With the immediate crisis averted, Viswam puts his double out of his mind. Denial is, after all, the default human method of handling difficult situations. But closing our eyes does not make the universe disappear, even if it is one that is not immediately apparent.

As fate would have it Viswanathan arrives in the same city a few weeks later for his first job. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind the grating fear of an inconvenient situation precipitated by his alter ego still eats away at him, but fiscal and familial pressures suppress these fears. Slowly but surely, Viswanathan works his way into the favor of his stentorian boss and even begins a fledgling romance with the stenographer Ambili. A chance encounter that Ambili has with Uttaman only propels Viswam’s romance further. Fiscal stability and romance give Viswam a world of confidence and he agrees to shoulder the lion’s share of the responsibility in getting his sister married.

But the next case of mistaken identity deals a fatal blow to Viswam’s elaborate plans. While it allows him to see the true colors of his supposedly disciplinarian boss, it rents asunder Viswam’s most fundamental asset - his employment. At this point the boundaries that separate the two realities begin to completely disappear. Viswam starts to question everything in an effort to understand his impostor, to the extent of questioning his father’s fidelity. He begins to dress like Uttaman and frequents locales where he operates in the hope of learning more about his double. When one goes looking for trouble, more often than not one finds it. A large sum of money, payment for a murder Uttaman commited, winds up in Viswam’s hands. As Viswam decides to take the money and run, it is obvious that his moral compass now points in a completely different direction. He is now firmly a part of Uttaman’s world. When Uttaman is killed in a struggle to retrieve the money and buried by Viswam’s grieving family the way back to his reality is lost to him entirely. His transformation into the laterally inverted image is complete.

I'm not an Amit in New Delhi

2010-09-23T13:03:00.000+05:30

In a few days I leave for the capital of the country for a few months. In light of that I thought it was only appropriate a few lines from Sting and make a parody. Please ensure you sing along:

I don't drink dahee I take Mor my dear
I like my Dosa on one side
And you can hear it slurp my sambar-idli
I'm not an Amit in New Delhi

See me walking down Connaught Place
with my t-shirt tucked in jeans
I even sleep like that when it’s chilly
I'm not an Amit in New Delhi

I'm an alien I'm a legal alien
I'm not an Amit in New Delhi
Oho....I'm an alien I'm a legal alien
I'm not an Amit in New Delhi

Shoeless

2010-09-04T14:42:00.000+05:30

Today's Indian Express carries an article where Simon Doull expresses his doubts on the authenticity of New Zealand's run chase in the third test against Pakistan in 1994. A member of that team that mounted New Zealand's greatest run chase in tests, he says he has begun to question their achievement in light of the recent scandals that have erupted in the sport. Many years ago, in 2000, I consciously resized myself from an ardent fan of the sport to a viewer with a cursory academic interest. Did it have something with finding out about Hansie Cronje, a captain I'd had immense respect for, admitting his complicity in various underhanded dealings? Probably. Yet on occasion the emotion and happiness of a superlative performance would sneak through, like that home test series victory against Australia.

Moving to America in 2002 ensured in many ways that the cord with cricket was firmly and decidedly severed. The sport had disillusioned me enough to prevent me from making the investment, in terms of time and money, to stay in constant touch and updated with inane details like who the latest wicket-keeper-batsman-captain of Zimbabwe was. I sub-contracted my sports interest to the NBA and NFL where the controls were at least more obvious in terms of referee management, preferential treatment to superstars and very obvious levels of home field advantage. But I've found that the exuberance I attached to the victories of the teams I supported (the Los Angeles Lakers and the San Francisco 49ers ) suffered from the same detachment. Somewhere it became obvious that controversy had cracked the pedestals I had reserved for my childhood heroes. Beyond recovery. And yet a masochistic portion of me seemed to be looking for it over and over again. Much like the psyche of an abuse victim however I was always on the watch for repeat occurrences and reasons to divest.

Ever since, I have always pondered the essence and reason for existence of organized sports as well as the fervor and revenue it generates. The steroid scandals in both cycling and baseball have affected people I know quite personally. (I know what you're thinking "Cycling has fans??". But I had the fortune of knowing an US Olympic cyclist who quit only because his heart gave out). The Red Sox fans I know live in perennial fear that their World Series win in 2004 was "performance-enhanced". And all of it harkens back to one thing. There are few in the male of our species that have not used sport as a bonding mechanism or mode of self-improvement. In many ways need to believe that these people we root for play for the same reasons we played in our dust bowl streets and uneven playgrounds. The pure joy of doing something for the sake of doing it and doing it right.

In many ways Simon Doull is expressing the self doubt that is now possibly eating away at the insides of Bryan Young and Shane Thompson who both scored what they believed to be skillful hundreds in what they again believed to be a difficult in. While no one will probably take the efforts to dig into the events during or preceding that test, they will forever apply an asterisk to their achievements. That is an albatross too heavy for any sportsmen to carry. The greatest disservice these match-fixers do is not to the sport or its administration or even its fans. It is to their fellow sportsmen. Imagine having one of your most sterling achievements snatched away in a cruel twist of fate. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the real travesty.

Amnesiac

2010-08-27T19:33:00.000+05:30

"This is it Mister. 3607 Woodwind Avenue." Apparently the Ethiopian who had ferried me from the physiotherapy center was a down on his luck race car driver. In under thirty minutes (Thats how long it takes the large hand on my wristwatch moves a semi circle, right?) I had been escorted from Downtown Chicago to my apartment in Wheeling.

I quietly surveyed the redbrick building he had pointed with the silver numbers barely clinging on to the door. "A total of 16" I whispered. Now why had I done that? Was I just numerically inclined? I was, I'd been told, an engineer at one point in my life. Or did the number sixteen have some sort of personal significance. It wasn't my birthday. That and my address I had discovered thanks to the driving license they had found on me. Maybe it was an anniversary? Which month? There are only 12. So I have an eight percent chance of guessing correctly. "Again! With the numbers!" This time the inner voice was the one playing devil's advocate.

"Hey Mr.Einstein" Njouba called out breaking my mathematical malaise. "You gonna get out?" he asked rhetorically. "Well actually...." I stopped mid sentence. I didn't need to correct him that my last name wasn't Einstein. He probably didn't care anyway. Why had he called me that, I wondered as I stepped out of the car after handing him his 80 dollars. Maybe Einstein was someone famous and I resembled him? Anyway I had bigger problems to face. Quite literally the large oak door to which those numbers totaling 16 had been so tenuously tethered stood before me. I fished out my set of keys. Six of them. A 17% chance of getting this right. Well one of them was obviously for a car. Improved odds - 20%. Three were two small to fit in the opening. Odds further improved to 50%. I am beginning to like this skill. I tried the first one and met resistance when I turned right. It was only worse when I changed directions. As I removed my first attempt and inserted the right key I wondered why the edges always resembled those mountain ranges I drew in my first drawings. Were keymakers all failed mountaineers?

*Click*. The door opened to reveal a red carpet. Ah! A red carpet welcome. Torn and quite possibly not vacuumed or shampooed since the mid nineties but a red carpet nonetheless. Off to the side was a staircase and a little sign that had obviously been printed out from Powerpoint. It said 21-23 within an upward pointing arrow. Guess I would be climbing. I looked up the stairs and the cast on my foot and told myself "If some douchey keymakers can do it, so can you." I felt like a speaker. Or a Chinese chef I used to watch in my living room ages ago when our family first bought a TV.

I was panting. Like an overweight dog in summer. But it felt good. I'd conquered Mt.Sixteen. As I looked down the stairs at my conquest I saw my suitcase sitting snugly at the bottom. Dammit all to hell!!

This time I was panting like an overweight dog that had carried another overweight dog on its back for the entire summer. I looked at my fellow dog with a sense of pride. Apparently they dont do analogies at Samsonite.

A pantful couple of minutes later I made it to the front of No.23. Total Five. Maybe it was a date. Which Month? Eighteen percent chance. There! Got the regular stuff out of the way. "Huh! Maybe this is what familiarity feels like. Having the same thought over and over again." Good old inner voice. Always on the look out for the answers to the human condition. The key that had failed at the first door met with no resistance this time. This time I was faced with wooden floors and semi-darkness. No matter. One red carpet was more than I deserved. I walked over to the black leather couch. So that is what I am one of those chronic bachelors. Black Leather couch, coffee table filled with remotes, 45 inch Plasma, ESPN HD sports package, a Mac, broadband and hidden porn. I guess if I checked the fridge it would be filled with Beer and week old Papa Johns. Ever since the accident it had felt like I was in that John Saxe poem about the elephant in the blind men. Only in my case I was both the blind men and the elephant. I spotted a few coasters on the coffee table with stains that would match the diameter of beer bottles. My leg and cast sat perfectly on the edge of the table. Like I had measured it before. For the first time in a long time, things seemed to add up.

CHILDREN OF EMDEN

2010-08-22T10:56:00.000+05:30

Change is inevitable. That is a rather clichéd way to begin this exercise but I have never found the truism more applicable than in the last 19 months. Since leaving Chennai behind in August 2002 my only contact with the city had been during the scrupulously saved 15 days of vacation once every two years. The Chennai I was acquainted with was quintessentially middle class. The city woke up early to the strains of M.S’s Bhaja Govindham, a steaming cup of filter coffee and The Hindu. The rest of the morning involved unhurriedly perusing the previous day’s news and motoring off to another workday in a Bajaj Chetak. The evenings were for Wonder Balloon followed by homework with the kids capped by a light dinner. Weekends were reserved for unannounced visits to houses of relatives and an even more languid pace of life, if that was possible. What faced me on my return in 2009, however, was a chronological impossibility. A city I would have at best described as avuncular seemed younger and filled with the impatience of a teenager. Old clichés had made way for new ones - milkmen with mobile phones and traffic that could easily be misconstrued for a parking lot.
The congestion generated by capitalist enterprise makes me wistful but the impracticality of traveling backward in time is not lost upon me. Iterative introspection makes obvious the fact that no one generation can completely absolve itself of the sin of not recognizing that the roads they walk on, are paved on the past. For the willing however, Chennai still offers the glimpses into the past.

The Story

An unpalatable task faces Swaminatha Iyer during his vacation in Chennai. He must confess to his parents that he is engaged to his Armenian girlfriend in Los Angeles without their consent. In the midst of the argument the narrative is thrown back to the night of September 22nd 1914. Working late in the Madras High court a young barrister, Swaminatha Iyer Sr., is injured as a result of SMS Emden’s blitzkrieg on the Madras Harbor. Losing blood quickly, he manages to limp to the premises of the Armenian Church, where he is nursed back to health by the rector/caretaker in the dead of night. The picture he takes with the rector in the belfry of the church as a memory of that night watches mutely as the junior Swaminatha Iyer’s parents, unaware of the past, bemoan the problems that would befall the family if Justice Swaminatha Iyer’s great grandson and namesake married an Armenian girl.

Slices of Raaja - 14

2010-08-21T14:03:00.000+05:30

Music, it seems, is not too far mathematics as a judge of genius. The simulation and deciphering of complex patterns is what separates the extraordinary from the riff-raff in both businesses. What makes the understanding of musical genius particularly elusive is the generation of patterns from ether.
Consider for instance Pattup PoovE from a 1992 film, Chembaruthi. In the prelude Raaja ensures that we need to work hard to ignore the lead guitar and violins and uncover the bass guitar on its own trip. All the while the congas and drum cymbals keep the smorgasbord of instruments from going completely haywire. Once S.Janaki and Mano begin holding court in the pallavi the intermediate keyboard pecks threaten to expand into something more but disappoint, much like a madras shower. When the drums threaten to turn the first interlude into a pop-rock rendering the flute and percussion come rushing back to return the drummer back to his cymbals. The decision to keep the song within these confines is in many ways Raaja's identity. Allowing the song to progress into an entirely separate genre might have even played well on the ear. But it would not have been signature Raaja. In many ways it is this feeling of "knowing" Raaja without ever having interacted him in any real fashion that draws me to the man as a composer.
Digressions apart, Raaja reserves his true genius, which was the original point of this post, for the second interlude of is song. It begins with a solo bass guitar playing . One bar later the bass abruptly ends to be replaced by two (keyboard generated?) brassy sounds that play around like two unruly children. The congo again becomes the stentorian disciplinarian keeping them in check. Concentrating on just those two dueling notes creates such a unique sense of dissonance that I am quite unable to understand what the source of such an disharmonious sound could be. And yet in the overall collaboration it gels really well. From the single bass guitar to the dueling quantized sounds with the beat to the mellifluous outpouring of the flutes and violins that interlude is the musical equivalent of watching the cracks on the walls of a dam form, develop and eventually have the resultant deluge drown you.

P.S: I sincerely doubt R.K.Selvamani's picturisation had anything to do with my analogy.

P.P.S: Does the girl remind everyone of Nisha Kothari? Or is it just the costume design?

Loss

2010-08-03T19:29:00.000+05:30

Yesterday I lost the person who, for all practical purposes, was the closest approximation to a grandparent in my life. Terming relationships in English just serves to increase the separation. "My uncle's mother-in-law" somehow engenders a distance that the word "ammamma" does away with. In many ways I hardly knew her. I never shared with her the relationship that my cousin sister did. She was always blessed in that her relationship with most family members have suffered little duality. They've all taken the healthy route from authority-figure to sounding board to trusted confidant to firm friendship. But my innate tendency to be a fly on the wall, even within my own home, allowed me the chance to understand "ammamma" for the remarkable woman she was. Thanks to her, well before I knew the words straight-shooter, I knew what it meant. She was a simple woman from simpler times with fewer shades of gray. And an uncompromising realist in every sense. Brutal honesty was not reserved for those she felt she was comfortable enough to deal it out to. It was presented palatably to anyone who incurred her ire.
So yesterday, as she was surrounded by people who didnt need more than one word to describe their relationship with her in English, I was unsure to the extent to which I should involve myself in the proceedings. I did all the external administration work, of course, but always retreated when the more stringently defined procedures came into place. The more you live life, the less one needs to be comfortable with definitions. Education doesn't equip you for jack.

Raavan

2010-06-20T19:57:00.000+05:30

In an adventurous mood today I set out to the PVR cinemas at AMPA Skywalk with the intention of watching the first cinema for which tickets were available. Fortune, and apparently Kalaignar Karunanidhi, favor the brave. What I was gifted with was a ten rupee ticket to Mani Ratnam's latest in Hindi - Raavan. Spondylosis inducing front row seats, but seats nonetheless. I had safeguarded my senses from the publicity onslaught and so went in largely unbiased.

As I walked out nearly two hours later I was left largely with a sense of what could have been. It goes without saying that this film is not for anyone who doesn't have a rudimentary introduction to the Ramayana. And Mani makes as much clear through Sanjeevini Kumar, his Hanuman standin. The only explanation he offers for wanting to accompany the SP into the forest is "So it is written" (roughly translated). And from there on the first half of the film sets an aesthetic of Hegelian proportions where beauty and darkness are blood brothers. The forest with its color and creatures, all in seemingly bacchanalian revelry, become an allegory for Mani's title character and his schizophrenia. He is at once savior and unsavory character, Lord and looter extraordinaire. In short he is every character Mani Ratnam has ever obsessed over. At times the film even speaks an unfamiliar visual language. In particular the scene we see Beera sitting in a circular boat staring into the rain only to flicker away as police raid his village caused a moment of cognitive dissonance.Faced with this I began to settle into a rhythm that expected the larger narrative to be, at best, a perfunctory portion of the film. Well, it wasn't to be. From then on the film searches for its identity taking small detours to character driven drama and even musical along the way. But along the way there are several sweet spots (BehnE dE being my favorite).

Some characters come off exceptionally well defined and the ones who benefit the most are SP Dev Sharma and Mangal. For all the 10-head baiting dialogues for Beera it is Dev who comes off as the person with the most shades. Just as in real life, it is quite difficult reconciling the metrosexual in Khili Re - cooking with wine and setting the riverside table for his dancing wife - with the ruthlessness of a police officer who would kill even a harbinger of peace. The fundamental difference in this telling of the Ramayana are the pre-ordained destinies of Beera and Dev. Having arrived purely to rid his jurisdiction of Beera, Dev'c clash with Beera was inevitable. Ragini becomes purely a deus-ex-machina, and an expendable one at that. And slowly but surely as the story unfolds I could only see Raavan as the railing of Ragini against the lack of control - the cries of a woman stuck in a completely misogynistic story. Dev's dharma is to kill Beera and Beera's is to oppose his oppressors. And they would do this Ragini or no Ragini. This ensconced brilliantly in the lyrics of BehnE dE. I began to see the song as the voice of someone seeking deliverance from constraints. The two female characters of any significance in Raavan (and quite possibly the Ramayana) exist purely to facilitate the men achieving their "destinies". What use does a woman have for the morality of such a world? If she must choose between order and abandon why not choose abandon? It is in presenting these questions in parallel to the main conflict that Raavan succeeds. It is also the saving grace of an otherwise, largely, schizophrenic film.

Love, Sex and Dhokha are #sameguy

2010-06-14T19:40:00.000+05:30

Yes. The title is in twitterspeak. I have been spending a lot of time trying to condense my thoughts, but Dibakar Bannerjee's film reminded me that I used to enjoy the greater than 140 words universe. (Apropos of nothing though, one is sort of powerless when confronted with the accusation that every new internet phenomenon seems to lower the ADHD bar).

Anyway, back to Banerjee's voyeuristic aesthetics. In clearly attempting an indictment o the viewing public Bannerjee has, in large part, taken the element of surprise out of all three narratives. Yet it is to his great credit that the predictability did nothing to hamper my involvement. Within each of the three vignettes lay individual scenes of chilling brutality, humanity and frailty.

The cloying romanticism of the Yash Raj paeans in the first segment only add to the horror of the eventuality that awaits the young film student and his muse. While in large part those two foolish kids are annoying as hell with their cuteness, it is the inanit of their romance that makes their end seem so undeserved. Would it not have been sufficient to let them get a divorce after the disillusionment that is certain to settle in after a couple of years of marriage?

Mrignaina's coquettishness towards Prabhat after turning down Loki's threesome proposal is another lovely little sequence demonstrating the insecurities of someone whose self-worth is based on her attractiveness. While Naina is a cliched character, Prabhat turns the stereotype of a pushy investigative journalist on its head by giving him a rather unwieldy conscience. It is entirely believable, that this conscience is what Naina is taking advantage of with her flirting.

But the moment I would pick to represent the film can be found during the second vignette. Just as Rashmi gets ready to get intimate with Adarsh she remembers the camera. It is unique to see a director endow his characters with the sense of self-preservation which makes characters real. The sequence is also supremely enacted by both players. The few seconds that Adarsh spends motionless in front of the camera he pretends to turn off demonstrate that the three titular entities are inextricably intertwined.

Fear and Faith

2010-04-18T13:38:00.001+05:30

Al Gore's genuine worry about the world melting away like a popsicle could well be the result of a week spent in Chennai. And as the heat slowly but surely erodes all synaptic flashes in my brain, I sit here contemplating the most fundamental question that can face anyone" "Am I Michael or am I Fredo?"

For all my "fierce individuality" and "personal goals" I think it is fair to say that I would be crushed to be perceived by my parents as Fredo. And the fear is debilitating. If anything has become apparent to me this past week it is the dynamics of fear. Prior to moving to India I experienced was a moment of severe clarity where "success" and "failure" in their packaged and preserved forms ceased to exist. Life has an uncanny knack of rocking the very thing you consider fundamental. When new circumstances obfuscate a goal so easily one has no choice but to question the potency of the fuel in one's tanks.

"Certainty", be it blind or well founded, is at the core all actions ever performed. While philosophically one may wax eloquent on Nishkaama Karma and such, all things worth doing were begun with the certainty of accomplishment. It is the well from which springs the tenacity to move the mountains. Usually once you find the well the mountains disappear because they are demons of your creation. And clarity is once again yours. Until then the search for the elixir continues.

No one said it like Gounds when he said: "பிரச்சன எல்லாம் ஒண்ணு தானே டா !"

Of Empty Rooms and Internet connections

2010-03-26T11:31:00.000+05:30

All I see are metaphors
In an oddly arranged emptiness
mirroring my insides
and smiling in silence

VTV A View From Within

2010-03-13T03:29:00.000+05:30

I am Karthik (not the boxer… just the guy see first playing cricket with his friends). My notions of life in general and romance in particular are largely informed by cinema. It is equal parts candy-floss and angst-ridden. There is no easy road and if it is convenient it isn’t love. I am not the smartest cookie in the book so it is fairly certain that the girl I am attracted to will be infinitely more aware of what is going on than I am. But I will promise her the moon, a couple of constellations and a house in the clouds. And in a brief moment of weakness she will believe it and be steadily on her way to becoming my future ex-girlfriend.

I am Jesse. I’m not capricious like everyone suggests I am. No really. I just love my family, especially my dad. He has always been doting but I’ve also been easy to dote on. No unrealistic requirements. Not a fiber of rebellion. I don’t even have close friends, if any. I don’t really seem to need any. I have functional friends. People who I help or helped with homework, colleagues etc… It isn’t like I don’t want any. Just that I keep my legs firmly entrenched in reality and my fantasies firmly where they belong, in my head. But I am finding out that it may not be the safest place to keep them. What if they slip out when someone gives them a chance at reality?

VTV-General Notes

2010-03-13T03:06:00.000+05:30

This, and all future posts are primarily inspired primarily inspired by the second half of the film. This is the portion that elevates the film from borderline tiresome to passing flash of brilliance.
In this film, as in all his other personal films, Gautham’s decision to use voiceovers refuses to give his actors responsibility or his viewers any credit. If I had to pick a side to err on I would pick ambiguity over belaboring the point.
The background score largely meant to me what the smell of camphor would mean to an ass. Once, in a moment of music-induced weakness, I forced my American cousin to listen to Mad Mod Mood Fugue. Under duress he stated that it sounded like the score for a whacky chase sequence in an Indian movie. Once I recovered from the setback, I realized his listening experience had predominantly focused on the percussion while I had focused on the melodic component. Meat and Poison. Which is exactly the case with this background score. While I was in large part enamored by the score, I was underwhelmed by its usage.
The dialog’s ranged from stunning to less than mediocre. Gautham continues to prove that the thamizh idiom is not his natural choice. It isn’t so much the content as the form.
All the performances were par for the course in a Gautham film. The cameraman/ mentor character was written better than it was performed I think. It was quite refreshing to see a friend who valued self-preservation over his friend’s undefined relationship with a girl on film. It’s all well to tell the young turk to follow his beating heart, but when it’s your ass in the joint you have a slightly different take on the situation. Of course at this point it almost seems like a foregone conclusion that he had to be older and wiser. I’ve always known that Silambarasan was capable of such a performance. Not a superior performance by any stretch, just controlled. It is the slower delivery and holds no relevance without his other loud performances. Trisha is adequate in all scenes except the defining sequence of the film. The one where Karthik rushes back from Goa to meet Jesse. Everyone and everything had to hit the perfect pitch for that scene to work and they did. And it is that scene that really prompts the future posts on the film.

I am Jack's self-involved malaise...

2010-02-28T12:08:00.000+05:30

It has been a while and that should change. Drafts and ideas languish in the graveyard of language. As an unemotional fly on the wall, words and judgment seemed to flow without pause. It is the gift of distance. The privilege of spatial position. Caught up in the maelstrom, however, they cower inside you like bruised animals. At some point one is certain that they will turn on me with a feral intensity, at which point I will be truly without option but to turn them lose. Every post will then be a result of a mini internal revolution.

Additionally, questions from 8 months still hang in the air. What will I relinquish? What will relinquish me? It would be easier to begin at the end. But then... where is the fun in that?

Butterflies

2009-09-22T12:37:00.000+05:30

Why are there butterflies in my stomach and how did they get there. Do ideas have fragrances? Is there some innate requirement that they be cross-pollinated? Maybe the idea IS the butterfly, because it is so fleeting. Either way my stomach tells me I am on the verge of something....

Quoting inconsistency

2009-09-13T21:44:00.000+05:30

"The cinema is truth 24 frames-per-second" - Jean Luc Godard.

“Cinema is the most beautiful fraud in the world.” - also Jean Luc Godard.

"Cinema is truthful about what it shows, what it wants you to see. Cinema lies in what it does not." - umm... yeah that's me.

A National Award for Ouseppachchan

2009-09-07T22:21:00.000+05:30

Congratulations are in order. He has been doing stellar work since his first film. The evidence is submitted below. A silent thought rests with Bharathan at this moment. Somewhere, I bet the man is smiling.

Pithy Hilarity-8

2009-08-07T20:24:00.000+05:30

Me: I ought to stop leaving my earphones lying around. There is all sorts of muck on them.
Him: Umm... You do realise where they spend most of their time right?
Me: Ok, I'm Off.
Him: But you just got here.
Me: Some emergency purchases. (Makes mental note to buy Ear buds on his way home).

Pithy Hilarity - 7

2009-07-22T17:49:00.000+05:30

Me: "The more I think about it the less sense phrases like "more evolved" make. To evolve is to change. To assign a change superiority just because it occurred later does not make sense, especially when the effects of said change can never be evaluated at given point in time."

Him: மூடுறீ !

Sparked by that Reliance commercial...

2009-07-09T13:39:00.000+05:30

I am forced to wonder, is कहो ना प्यार है that much harder to write than Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai? I found it so acceptable that a teeny bopper would write words that way that I didn't even question the loss of the indigenous script!

R.I.P Lohithadas

2009-07-08T12:28:00.000+05:30

Jeyamohan writes a series of posts on Lohithadas, my favorite script writer in the Malayalam paradigm. Just the loglines of chempattu excite so many possibilities! They also mention Lohithadas' somewhat erroneous assertion that cinema is nothing but it's sahithyam. Quite ironic considering Bharathan was Lohi's favorite director. Regardless Lohi will be sorely missed. Especially if some of the projects Jeyamohan talks about never materialize.

அதையும் தாண்டி புனிதமானது - 2

2009-04-14T18:48:00.000+05:30

அதையும் தாண்டி புனிதமானது - 1

வாகன நிறுத்தத்தின் விளக்கொளி அவள் புறம் பட்டது. என்னே ஒரு கதிரவன், அதற்கு என்னே ஒரு வளர்பிறை! திடீரென்று பதுக்கி வைத்த இடத்திலிரிந்து அந்த இளைஞன் பிரவேசம் செய்தான். பதுங்கிய இடத்தில் நாவிதன் இல்லை போலும், முகத்தில் கோட்பாடுகளுடன் போரிட்டு தோற்ற விப்ளவகாரனின் சோர்வு தாடியாக மலர்ந்திருந்தது. சற்று முன்பு வரை நான் ரசித்த வளர்பிறை அவன் முன் அழகிழந்தது போல் உணர்வு. அவனது எள்ளி நகையாடும் பார்வையிலிரிந்து தப்ப நினைக்கையில் வினவினான் - "இது அபிராமி இல்லையே?".

நான் ஆடை அணிந்த வேகம் அவளுக்கு பொருக்கவில்லை, அவளைப் பொறுத்த வரையில் நான் காரியம் கண்டு விட்டவன். இந்த தாடிக்காரனின் தொல்லை பெண்ணுக்கு புரியுமா?

Slices of Raaja - 13

2009-04-05T12:27:00.000+05:30

விமானத் தாவளத்தை விட்டு வெளியேறும்போது ஒரு தெலுங்கு சக்களத்தி இல்லாத குறை தோன்றியது.

High Strung

2009-03-30T10:16:00.000+05:30

கருவண்டு

2009-03-26T17:41:00.001+05:30

"தேன் வேட்டைக்கு படைகள் தயாரா?" ஸ்பஷ்டமாக என் காதுபடும்படியாகவே தளபதியை கேட்டாள் அரசிளங்குமாரி . கேள்வியோடு என் திசையில் ஒரு நமட்டுச் சிரிப்பு. அந்தச் சிரிப்பு என்னையே பின் தொடர்வது போல் ஒரு பிரமை . பிரமை என்று எனக்கே உறுதியோடு கூறுவது தான் எனது சமத்தை நான் காப்பாற்ற ஆட்கொண்ட யுக்தி. படைத்தலைவன் என் சலனத்தை உணர்ந்திருக்க வேண்டும். "நேரே பற, மலரைத் திற, தேனைப் பெற!" கூட்டுக் கோஷத்தை எழுப்பினான். வேட்டைப் படை உடனே பின் தொடர்ந்தது, "நேரே பற, மலரைத் திற....
'அம்சிரைத் தும்பி பேரன்' என்ற பட்டப் பெயருடன் தான் நான் கூட்டுப் பள்ளியில் நுழைந்தேன். ஒரு பெருமையின் கூறாக இருந்த சொற்கிரீடத்தில் விரைவில் இளக்காரக் கறை படியத் துவங்கியது, பள்ளியின் முதல் நாளிலே. என் பாட்டனாரிடம் சிவபெருமான் 'பெண்கள் கூந்தல் மணம்' குறித்து சந்தேகம் தீர்த்ததாக ஒரு கதை பரவலாகப் பேசப்பட்டது. பாட்டனுக்கு தெய்வக்குரல் கேட்டதோ இல்லையோ எனக்கு வயிற்றுக்கும் சிறகுக்கும் சம்பந்தமே இல்லாத ஒரு உருளைத் தலை வந்து வாய்த்திருந்தது. பள்ளியில் தயங்கித் தயங்கிச் சேர்க்கப்படும் வரையில் நான் பொத்தி தான் வளர்க்கப் பட்டேன். பொத்தி வளர்த்தது பெருமைக்காக அல்ல பாதுகாப்பிற்காக என்று உடன் படிப்பவர்கள் உணர்ந்தவுடன் புறம்பேசும் குரல்களில் பொறாமை மறைந்து ஏளனம் அதிகரித்தது. எனக்கும் அந்த ஏளனம் அடிப்படையற்றது என்று தோன்றவே இல்லை. அந்த இராட்சசத் தலை காரணமாக எனது சக வயது வண்டுகளில் சிறகுகளை சரியாக பயன்படுத்த கற்றுக் கொண்டவர்களில் கடை மாணவன் நான். கொடுக்கை சரிவர உபயோகிக்கவும் மற்றவர்களைக் காட்டிலும் வெகுவாக முயற்சிக்க வேண்டி இருந்தது. மீதமிருந்த குலப் பெருமையில் மட்டுமே என்னை தேன் வேட்டைக் குழுவில் சேர்த்திருக்க வேண்டும்.
தேர்ச்சி பெற்ற எந்த வண்டும் தேன் வேட்டைக்குச் செல்லாமல் இருப்பது கடினம். பெரும்பாலும் தேன் கிண்ணத்தையோ, சிறகையோ இழந்த வண்டுகள் மட்டுமே விதிவிலக்குகள். அதிலும் சிறகிழந்த மற்றும் அனைத்து கால்களையும் இழந்த வண்டுகள் மற்ற எந்த பணிக்கும் சேர்க்கப் பட முடியாது. மொத்த கூடும் ஒரு பாரமாகவே அவர்களைக் கருதியது. இதனாலே தேன் வேட்டைப் பயிற்சியின் முக்கிய பாகம் மனிதர்களை எவ்வாறு சமாளிப்பது என்பது தான். முதல் அறிவுரை தான் மிகவும் முக்கியம் - 'விலகியிருப்பதே வெற்றி'. இது தான் அந்த சுற்றுப்புற சூழல் அறியாத தாந்தோநிகளை கையாள கற்றுக் கொடுக்கப் படும் முக்கிய வழி. உயிர் பிரிவது சந்தேகமற்ற நிலையில் மட்டுமே கொடுக்கை பயன் படுத்த வேண்டும், ஏனென்றால் பயன் படுத்தியவுடன் உயிர் பிரிவது நிச்சயம். கடை நிலை தேன் கூட்டாளியாக தேர்ச்சி பெற நான் பட்ட பாடு எனக்கும் எனது இப்போதைய படைத் தலைவருக்கும் தான் தெரியும். "பாட்டன் பெயரை காப்பற்ற வேண்டும்" என்று மந்திரம் ஓதி மந்திரம் ஓதியே சொல்லிக் கொடுப்பார். எனக்கோ பாட்டன் மீதிருந்த வெறுப்பு படைத் தலைவர் மீதிருந்த மரியாதையை விட குறைந்தது. அந்த மரியாதையின் பொருட்டே பயிற்சி செய்தேன் - ஏதோ மாய தந்திரத்தால் அரசிளங்குமாரியின் தளபதியாரின் முன் சாகசம் செய்து தேர்ச்சியும் பெற்றேன். படைத் தலைவர் சந்தோஷப்பட்டார். தளபதியாரின் தேர்ச்சிப் பரிந்துரைக்குப் பின் அவரது சிறகு எவ்வளவு இருந்தது என்று எனக்குத் தெரியவில்லை.
முதல் தேன் வேட்டைக்குச் செல்ல மனம் இடம் கொடுக்கவே இல்லை. நீ சிபாரிசில் தேர்ச்சிப் பெற்றவன் தானே என்று சகப் படையாளிகளின் குமுறல்கள் கேட்பது போல் பிரம்மை. ஆனால் போகாமலும் இருக்க முடியாது. காரணம் தேடும் வேளையில் தான் படைத் தலைவர் தனிமையில் ஒரு கருத்து சொன்னார். "நீ முதல் முறையாக கூடு விட்டு வெளியேறுகிறாய். உன் பாட்டனார் பெருமையை விட கூட்டிற்கு தேன் சேர்ப்பதே பெருமை. உன் பெயரும் புகழும் அதனின்றே பிறக்கட்டும்" என்று வாழ்த்தினார். நேற்று இரவு மனம் அவர் சொன்னதையே அசை போட்டது. ஒரு வேளை என் பாட்டனின் குரல் கேட்கும் சொத்து எனக்கிருந்தால்? நான் தேன் சேர்த்து பெருமை பெறுவது இந்தப் பிறப்பில் நடைபெறாது. அப்பொழுதுதான் தீர்மானித்தேன், பயிற்சி அனைவற்றையும் நிராகரிக்க.
...தேனைப் பெற!" நானும் கோஷத்தை முடித்துக் கொண்டே படையுடன் கூட்டினின்று வெளியேறினேன். ஒளி, மனம் அனைத்தும் பிரவாகமாகப் பெருக , படை தோட்டம் ஒன்றை நெருங்கியது. நான் மெல்ல படை அமைப்பிநின்று என்னை அப்புறப் படுத்திக் கொண்டேன். பல நேரம் பறந்தேன், தலைகனம் தாக்கத் துவங்கியது. சோர்வடையும் நேரத்திலே தோட்டத் தின் நடுவே மரமொன்று தென்பட்டது. மரத்தடியில் இரு மனிதர்கள் - ஒரு வாலிபன், ஒரு வயோதிகன். என்னை பாதை இறுதி கண்ட பயணாளியின் புதுத் தெம்பு தாக்கியது. வயோதிகன் வாலிபனின் மடியில் தலை சாய்த்து நித்திரையில் இருந்தது போல் அசையாமல் படுத்திருக்க, வாலிபன் அமர்ந்தபடியே கண் மூடியிருந்தான். நான் அருகே சென்றேன். ஒன்றும் கேட்கவில்லை. ஒரு வேளை முகமருகே சென்றால் தான் குரல் கேட்குமோ என்று காதருகே பறந்தேன். ஒன்றும் கேட்கவில்லை. வாயருகே பறந்தேன். ஒன்றும் கேட்கவில்லை. அந்த வாலிபன் நகருவது போலவும் இல்லை. பாட்டன் தற்புகழ்ச்சிக்கு சொன்ன பொய்யை எண்ணி கோபம் வந்தது. சிவபெருமான் மனித உருவில் பேசினாராம். அவர் பதில் கூறினாராம்! பொங்கிய ஆத்திரத்தில் கொடுக்கு வெளியேறியதும் வாலிபனைக் கொத்தியதும் எனையறியாமலே நடந்தன. உயிர் மெல்ல மெல்லக் கரைந்து கொண்டிருந்தது. எங்கேயோ தூரத்து இடி முழக்கம் போல் ஒரு குரல் "இராதேயா நீ க்ஷத்ரியன் தானே?....