Only if...

Port town T is struck by massive earthquake and floods. Thousands have lost their lives, while hundreds still remain stuck in the debris. Children are crying over the dead bodies of their parents. Survivors cannot comprehend the scale of the destruction and, at the prospect of re-building their lives from scratch, certainly do not feel lucky to be alive.

Boy B, probably in his early twenties, with tears flowing down his blank eyes, holds the hands of his dead brother and looks hopelessly at the sky. Expressionless. As if demanding, “What did we do to deserve this?”

No answers. Not a word.

God G descends from the heavens. Walks past the shattered earth, dead bodies and howling people. Smiling. As He walks, ruined houses build themselves back up from the rubble. The dead rise to life. The floods leave the town and rush back into the ocean. With every step He takes, the town miraculously returns to normalcy. Everything and everyone is alive. All signs of the dreadful disaster are wiped off the face of T.

G stands besides B. Runs His hands gently through his hair. Says, “Hey, I was just kidding. Now cheer up. You are on camera.”

Breathless (1960)

Breathless didn’t take my breath away. Well, not entirely.

Widely regarded as a perennial classic which kick-started the French New Wave Cinema in the early 1960s, the movie hasn’t aged well. However, it did provide a spectacular introduction to the art and technique of Jean-Luc Godard, The Legend.

Michel Poiccard (Jean-Paul Belmonda), a crook, is on the run after shooting a policeman. While he tries to patch up with an old flame Patricia (Jean Seberg, looking unbelievably gorgeous) and persuade her to run away, the police are after him for grand theft auto and a murder. What follows is a character study of the leads, with heavy philosophical undertones, with the chase as the backdrop.

However simplistic the story may sound, it’s the execution and the form which hooks the viewer. Godard puts the signature techniques of the New Wave to extraordinary use and, more often than not, enthralls. Look out for - the hand-held camera shots, tracking shots in the second half, natural lighting, the curious on-lookers as Michel and Patricia walk through the streets of Paris, and the jarring jump-cuts ,which have attained a legendary status in filmdom and are often used for ‘cool’ editing effects today.

However, the very uniqueness, these very aspects are very distracting at times. It does feel like as if the director is trying too hard to compose a classy or arty looking shot. The spontaneity of the improvised scenes, though pretty interesting the first few times, loses its charm towards the later half. And ironically, the same device gives us one of the most beautifully shot, performed and composed scenes ever. The 7-8 minutes long sequence towards the climax, when Michel and Patricia discuss their interpretation of love and truth and justify their own stands, is a masterpiece of dialogue and camera-work. The camera there is more like a hidden one, hanging from the roof and clandestinely recording the interaction. It’s cinematic realism at its best.

Now, let me be a bit sensible and put things in perspective. This was Godard’s first full-length feature. The dexterity with which he goes on breaking rule after rule of classical filmmaking certainly gives a hint on why he went on to become one of the legends of world cinema. Technical wizardry of this scale is not what debut movies are known for (barring the likes of Citizen Kane (1941), of course).

In conclusion, it was the perfect introduction to The French New Wave and to Godard. Couldn’t have been better than this. However, the wafer thin storyline and a few patience-testing sequences mid-way into the movie dilute the effect. But only by a little bit. The feature stands tall amongst the many of its time when filmmaking was all about plain and simple storytelling, without resorting to artifical thrills.

I am already looking forward to treating myself to many more movies by the likes of Godard, Rivette, Rohmer and Chabrol, who, as Wikipedia tells me, were the other glorious dreamweavers of the era.

A whole new territory and I am excited.

Preview

Patricia: What is your greatest ambition in life?
Parvulesco: To be immortal. And then die.

Haah! One of the funniest posts on criket ever!

Go make your day. Here.

A Short Review

“…India is not an underdeveloped country, but a highly developed one in an advanced state of decay.”

The Great Indian Novel – Shashi Tharoor


Trust me. The novel does live up to its name.

The debut novel of Shashi Tharoor is a landmark in Indian literature and for good reasons. Impeccable satire, razor sharp wit, a good-humored mix of prose, mythology, politics, history, ballads and poetry. History and politics were never so much fun.

The theme is imaginative and unique, to say the least. Mr. Tharoor weaves his novels and characters around the Mahabharata (for the slow-thinkers, the title ‘The Great Indian Novel’ is a semi-literal translation of ‘Mahabharata Katha’). Drawing parallels with the mythological giants, he dexterously recalls the tales from modern Indian political history. For instance, Bhishma Pitamah is Mahatma Gandhi (celibate, master statesman); Dhritarashtra is Jawaharlal Nehru (‘blind’ *wink wink*); Priya Duryodhani comes back as Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi and… well you get the picture. We are introduced to Jai Prakash Drona when he comes across the Pandavas who are at their wits end on how to get their cricket ball out of the well.

It moves and fills you with rage when Yudhishthir wagers the Constitution, the laws and the peace of the people and loses it to Shakuni. And we have never been able to regain it. Bhishma's 'Mango March' in protest of the mango laws of the British, Priya Duryodhani's mockery of the Indian democratic setup during the 1975-77 emergency and Pandu’s death in an airplane crash are some of the instances which remind us of our great and sometimes not-so-great history.

Mr. Tharoor’s commentary on the plight of the junta, the gross misuse of democracy by our leaders after independence and his take on the Indian freedom struggle are thought-provoking. And of course, the outrageous and irreverent jabs at mythology and politics don’t hurt a bit.

A must for every Indian.

Lights. Camera. Travesty.

There's no way I could have liked 'Beats'.

The title itself speaks of the cliched, run-of-the-mill story and characters that are to be expected. And, surprise, surprise, it fell even below my already rock-bottom expectations.

Doing a 'musical' just for the sake of it is no brilliance. Just like writing mundane, unimaginative and sleepy dialogues is a no-brainer. Why try and extract some easy laughs from a group of friends in the name of theatre? I say that because I hardly saw any of the audience, other than a small subset of the huge desi crowd, majority of whom were acquaintances of the cast/crew, enjoying the show. I choose the word 'show' 'cos I would not call what I just watched 'theatre' or even 'drama'.

The very first dance sequence 'Welcome to India' was easy on the eyes and ears. Good dancers those 4-5 people were. And then it sank. My attempts at trying to find a single sequence, twist-in-the-tale, character or even a dialogue (yeah..that's how bad it eventually turned out to be) which could redeem the show for me were futile.

I agree that the story of a small-town girl dreaming of making it big in Bollywood offers little to no scope. Add to it an idealistic, stereotypical screenwriter-ish character and you've just killed the show. However, I did expect the director, as someone who has been an asst. director of a Hall play, a musical at that, a few years back, to render some creative touch and rise above the mediocrity of her own script. Somethings are just not meant to be.

Suresh (the wannabe-screenwriter) and Madhu (our village belle) reach the sets of an over-acting, one-dimensional director Motilal. Enter the seductress. A successful snobbish actress Mona who is adorned with all the cliched qualities a 7-year old would accuse a film-star of having. The actress looked good- which was crucial for her part. And was sincere in her role. The going-ons were further reduced to farcical proportions by a sidey Tipu who believed that to act is to over-act. And he stayed true to his convictions till the very last minute. A stereotypical (I know I am overusing this word) South Indian actress also does rounds on the sets and manages to enliven up the stage now and then. She was effective. Madhu is invited by Moti and then by Raj Aryan (try gettin cornier than that) to their place at nights and the next thing we know is that she's pregnant. Now whether she was raped, did she wilfully went into the arms of the director/actor or was it artificial insemination - the issue is treated as too inconsequential to merit any mention. Unwed mother. Bitchy journalist. Career crashes and she decides to work in a dance bar 'in disguise'. OK. This is the same 'actress' who was, till the last scene, the toast of the nation. How exactly she managed to 'dance in disguise' has to be an optical illusion of the highest order. Twists of fate and she gets a second chance to make it big in Bollywood. Suresh leaves her as he didn't want her to return to the shithole again. She refuses to listen to him. Why? Let's not ask another logical, important question. Her second innings proves disastrous as she is exposed to the double-standards of Bollywoodians. Realisation that she loves Suresh is followed by a running-into-the-arms-of-our-hero sequence. And I don't exactly recall the denouement but you get the picture.

Overall, the script finds itself meandering between trying hard to be comical, farcical, serious, dramatic, farcical yet again, and never getting anywhere. Some of the loopholes would be easy to overlook had the script been a farce right from the word go. But it chose to shortchange the audience and insult their intelligence.

As the story (whatever little there was of it) moves forward, the audience is painfully reminded of the fact that they are watching a musical. Okay. Not everybody is meant to sing. I wonder how difficult it is for a bunch of uni undergrads to acknowledge the simple fact. Or may be by the same aforementioned 7-year old. Then why go on with the pretension of a musical just because you want to sound good in the marketing pamphlets? The lowest point of the musical bit was the continual sprinkling of hindi songs from hindi movies. Now, I love hindi film music. Heck I love some of those songs which played there. But if you tell me that I just paid 20 bucks to see a bunch of teenagers dancing amateurishly trying to get some cheap hoots out of their friends in the audience - that frustrates me. I could sense the awkwardness in the two Chinese ladies sitting next to me and the fidgeting of the few westerners sitting infront of me. This is not the sort of introduction they should be getting of our culture, our 'drama', our film industry, our undergraduates. I was embarrassed. I felt guilty of being one of the proponents of the idea of Kathputli last year. Not that I ever had any great emotional attachment with the event, but I never wanted to see such an excuse for a production coming out of the Society.

The culmination of the story was as big a non-event as the travesties which preceded it. I felt no sympathy for Madhu. How could I when I could see right through the superficiality and inconsistencies of her character? Suresh (the actor who played the part) was the only glimmer of hope in the entire cast. Sincere. To the point. Extremely good dialogue delivery. A bad singer, nonetheless. But whoever said that a brilliant performance is enough to overcome the pitfalls of a terrible script.


I guess I have been a bit harsh here. People tell me not to demotivate the kids who are putting in the effort to put up a show. I tell them that here means do not justify the ends. It is foolhardy and absurd to think that just because I am working hard for something, everyone around me is obliged to like the fruits of my labour. And for someone working this hard, boy he better get his basics right. And that's exactly what the 'Beats' bunch needs to do. This wasn't theatre. Definitely not drama. This is just an attempt to pull out a mediocre show, meant strictly for your friends, just because you have the resources to go about it. This is an attempt at gaining publicity while posing as a dramatist.

I sincerely hope to see better, improved productions from the Society next time around. There's no dearth of talent. Just a little bit of re-focusing to do. They don't have to go far for inspiration. Something by the name of 'Nautanki' has already set a high precedent.

'Three Men and a chair' - save me. Please.