gavin's blog

- NO SPOILERS -

Yesterday I finally got to see King Kong ('finally' as in, three days since release were almost too much of waiting!). What a truly awesome experience! I’m a huge fan of the mega blockbuster, and in my memory, the last few films that even came close to King Kong were Spiderman 2, Titanic, Independence Day and Jurassic Park. That’s like four films in ten years. And King Kong surpasses them all. Or I’m still in the glow of a great movie, and don’t mind making foolish statements about it being the best that I’ve ever seen, which I’ve been guilty of doing several times.

By far the biggest thing at the movies is redefining BIG. Every year. Not only through technology, but also through storytelling. By now, the blockbuster has expanded to mammoth proportions. How do you then make a story about a huge monkey (for that is what King Kong is after all) bigger than journeys into distant lands, historical, outer space and fantasy? Peter Jackson totally nails this with Kong.

I think King Kong is a truly great movie, for many reasons, only one of which I’d like to go into in some detail. One of the most important criteria of a great movie is how it covers multiple bases, has multiple layers without seeming to, seamlessly. There are at least three layers of audiences that King Kong specifically caters to, so well, it is business-case worthy.

1. First there is the King Kong fan club: The challenge here is - How can the new King Kong satisfy this audience, while still remaining entertaining for those who don’t know Kong at all?
2. Next is the special effects movie / blockbuster movie audience: The challenge here is – How can King Kong go beyond what this audience has seen before, while still keeping it about King Kong, only an overgrown ape after all?
3. And finally the general movie viewership: The challenge here is – How can King Kong be relevant to an audience that is not just males and fans, but also females, kids, looking for a simple movie that is hugely entertaining without being too complex, and critics and cinephiles looking for sophisticated post-modern storytelling even in simple commercial stories?

is a list of fifteen Indian films by Indiatimes. A little spotty this list, going by the four Hindi films on it, of which only one is really good - Parineeta. The other three, Sarkar, Salaam Namaste and Bunty aur Babli, range from the mildly interesting to the disappointngly convenional to the downright crass, and can hardly be called 'captivating'. Haven't seen any of the other 'regional language' films, but now I know which ones to look for, if they should come by me.

 
Time was, when as a child, the only films I had access to regularly were the weekly regional and foreign films on state-run Doordarshan. Naturally they were all high on the art quotient, festival and award types. Really used to look forward to these films, entries into strange worlds where disenchantment ran high, but the human spirit always triumphed - the universal human story on film (Hollywood came into my life only in college). The rest of the programming on DD helped by providing a bleak backdrop for these films, authenticity standing out against mind stultifying content all the more in contrast.

The 10 Best Books of 2005 is a list released by the New York Times.

Books vs. Movies is an interesting head to head of a half dozen movie adaptations of books at Time Magazine.

Time Magazine also has published Top 100 lists of the best movies and the best books of the twentieth century (something like that).

[Some Indian movies and books in the lists, check them out. I've seen only about 20 of the movies and read about.....hmmm.....aah......six of the books (Gone with the Wind, 1984, Animal Farm, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Catcher in the Rye, Catch 22). Okay, so I'm a philistine.]

It's been a long time that I've seen a new (to me) film this good, but Magnolia has been worth the wait. Made the same year as American Beauty, it is eerily similar to it - an ensemble of characters in an urban setting intersect in strange ways towards a dramatic conclusion within an intensely confined period of time.

Magnolia is not for the weak of heart - I saw the uncut version, and I cannot remember a film where the cursing seemed more dense. Aurally, the exquisiteness of the soundtrack was counterpoint - crass and class blend beautifully.

What really worked for me with Magnolia was its Big Statement about Life (which is also why American Beauty is one of my favorite films) - that stranger things happen than we can imagine enslaved as we are by 'the habit of expectation'.

 
Magnolia is a film to reflect upon, to chew its ideational cud, to wait to see again, in the knowing that here is a film that defies straightforward consumption - a thinking person's film.

Saw The Sound of Music last night. How I love this movie! It was one of the few movies that my father made it a point to take me to town (from the distant suburb we lived in) to see as a kid (I remember Ben Hur & The Ten Commandments in particular, too, as such cinematic gifts from him) to see, and I still remember the wonder I felt then.

I was surprised that I could still remember, after over 20 years, that three of the songs come almost back to back. Also, I still felt gooseflesh on hearing my favorite song 'My favorite things'. One thing I couldn't stand was Julie Andrews hair - my God, did it have to be so damned hideous? That and a slight recoiling at the cloying sweetness of the story as reflected in all the seven Von Trapp children sticking together - which I forgive given this was like two generations ago - were the only things that took away from what is a brilliant film.

Technically, storywise, the film is perfect. Every scene and every song is distinct, and moves the story forward dramatically. Drama, comedy, suspense are all there, keeping us rivetted throughout. A third act that comes somewhat out of left field, but can be forgiven since the movie was so close to the end of the World War and popular art was only beginning to deal with its consequences, as well as the fact that it is very well done, finishes off this really fine story. At almost three hours, the film still feels very short, pacey as it is, (like the relatively recent Titanic).

And the songs. What timeless classics these are! I've heard them zillions of times oevr the years on LP on my father's gramophone, but in the film they take on a rich character, embedded so beautifully in the story. Beautiful singing, extraordinary lyrics, absolute masterpieces each of them!

Ok, so you get the point, I love this film! Enough already.

Just finished watching this modern masterpiece, which brings to dramatic life the truism that the best movies made in the world are often outside Hollywood. Germany is not generally known for very good movies, notwithstanding classics such as Run Lola Run and Das Boot, but Der Untergang is among the very best movies ever made.

The film, which literally means The Downfall, charts the final days before the unconditional surrender by Germany after the final siege of Berlin. Exquisitely subtle, there are only about a half dozen explosions in the entire film, each one literally earth-shaking and so well positioned structurally in the film, we remember this is basically a war movie of a kind. It is much more of a drama though, as it charts the emotions of those involved in the final days, in Hitler’s inner circle. Told primarily from the perspective of a very young secretary of Hitler’s whose then unquestioned allegiance to him and eventual (after half a century, that is) double take on her naivety provide a metaphor for Germany’s own relationship to humanity’s greatest shame, the film succeeds remarkably in going where no-one could, before.

In taking this perspective, the film broke a half-century old taboo, going where it wasn’t possible to before a new millennium brought a new freedom. Even then the film kicked off major protests across Germany and elsewhere in the world (mostly Europe) for allegedly ‘humanizing’ Hitler. That it does, definitely, more or less the way Satya humanizes the participants of the Mumbai underworld. Whether film has the right to allow reprehensible individuals and groups a say through an essaying of their first person perspectives is a moot and morally complex point and this is not the place for such a discussion. Der Untergang at no point glorifies the Nazis, but it does sympathize with their condition when all was lost, as any human being or group deserves sympathy, even those responsible for the worst of the worst crimes.

What is utterly remarkable about this film is its exercise of storytelling and film-making technique. Outstanding in all departments, and blended into a gestalt so perfect that no element can be singled out as superior to the rest, it is an experience to cherish – a perfect film. Film at its best takes us into a space and time radically removed from our own, yet so real a reality that we are completely immersed vicariously in it – and Der Untergang fits this to a T. Yet it is necessary to make note of one aesthetic stroke – the movie’s take on Hitler as a manic depressive bipolar swinging between absurd visions and profound melancholies that often descended into rants and rages and Bruno Ganz’s portrayal of this complex role. Never for a moment did I doubt Bruno Ganz was Hitler, the channeling is of the order of Jamie Foxx’s essaying of Ray – simply perfect.

All in all – this film is the reason we watch films compulsively, so that among the dozens we experience, one may rise up to the true potential of cinema.

………or why Black did well domestically whereas Paheli didn’t

I know I’m going to be in the minority here, Black being considered one of the greatest Indian films, and Paheli a debacle. And there's now going to be the usual hoo-haa that Black was the more deserving film to be sent for the Oscars and Paheli won out because of favoritism. While I thought Black was superb, I couldn’t see it as brilliant, especially because of its lack of originality, once I knew it was an adaptation of the classic The Miracle Worker. Paheli, however, I found amazingly original, especially because of its post-modern blending of truth and fiction, the real and the unreal.

Paheli was not without its failings. It may not have gone all the way that a tale (a statement) needs to go to be a story (an argument), and in that it felt somewhat flat in the end. It didn’t however fall flat, at least for me. Black ended on a higher note, a triumphant one for both of its tragic protagonists as well as for us in witnessing their symbiotic coupling. Yet, what in Black was Indian?

Let’s not forget that the category we are talking of is the foreign film one. Which means there must be something ethnic beyond location of the story itself to make for an indigenous entry. Paheli rooted firmly in rustic Rajasthan fits this criterion way more than Black does. Yet Paheli is more contemporary in its concern than is Black – it asks what is more important – an unreality that loves, or a reality that is absent? While Black asks – how much faith can we have of the feeble in body but strong in heart and mind – a laudable concern to be sure, but not a contemporary one.

A film that strikes a chord internationally must be both timeless and contemporary – and in this sense both Paheli and Black score. Yet I believe that Paheli will have more international appeal than Black just as Black had more domestic appeal than Paheli – because they fall on opposite ends of the spectrum. Black is way more contemporary on style than Paheli is, which is great domestically, but no competition internationally. Paheli on the other hand is way more contemporary on substance internationally (it overshoots the Indian audience’s comprehension), mirroring concerns of the twining of reality and unreality echoed in recently acclaimed films such as The Matrix, American Beauty, A Beautiful Mind, Vanilla Sky etc.

All I’m saying is…..I think Paheli is a better choice to be sent for the Oscars than Black……not that it matters all that much :-)

Watched Iqbal yesterday. Yes, this movie is exactly what the abundance of word of mouth on it asserts - the best movie of this year.

 
I don't think this is a great movie, it's just that it is so rare to see a film that works in Bollywood, which does not come from a masala genre, that works simply as a straightforward story - that this film looks all the better compared to the awful field it competes with.

 
Iqbal brings a smile to the face and a tear to the eye and a lump to the throat and a racing of the heartbeat in slight twist and sweet turn, and more than makes up for the time and money it takes to invest in watching a film - much more than that.

 
Nagesh Kukunoor's minimalist narration (enhanced by rousing music by the creative genius duo of Salim Sulaiman) that we saw in his earlier films is here perfect - the rustic ambience of the film seems to pervade the storytelling too.

 
The film reminded me of Million Dollar Baby and Shwaas at times - MDB, because of the minimalism & struggle against odds; Shwaas, because of the sweetness of the tale.

 
Lovely, lovely film. Sullied only by doubt at the integrity of its foundations.

This is the second time I’m watching this movie and I’m ashamed I forgot how much I enjoyed it the first time. I’m completely biased here – I’ve loved ensemble movies all my life. From St. Elmo’s Fire that I watched a half a dozen times at least, obsessively, at the MAD (Movie A Day) Club at IIMA, more than a dozen years ago, to Indian Summer, one of my favorite movies of all time, to Peter’s Friends, I’ve seen a good many of them, more than I can remember now. The two big ones I haven’t seen (yet, that’s going to change soon) are The Big Chill and The Breakfast Club.

Anyway back to Sisterhood. This is a very very sweet movie, that touched me in all the right places, cute without being cutesy. B, Carmen, Ilena & Tibby, four 17 year old ‘young women’ who have been inseparable best friends their ‘whole life’, on the verge of a summer vacation when they will be separated for the first time, discover a pair of jeans that miraculously (considering they are built sufficiently differently) fit all of them perfectly, and that they decide to share (by using in turns and mailing to the next in line) over the summer. A simple enough device to keep us engaged while the film charts the separate stories of the girls as they learn about Life and Love, it eventually does all come together as we see that the stories are not all that distinct. This is what makes this ensemble movie distinct from previous ones, here the four girls’ stories develop separately, as they struggle with their issues which actually form a neat set, the discernment of which is the fulfillment of the experience of this film. This is a story of Trust and Judgement, of Self and the Other, very unassuming and unpretentious. And beautiful. Very beautiful. Each of the girls is vulnerable and attractive and very easy to like. The film itself is visually a delight, with a lovely soundtrack to match, and I found myself feeling happy just with the images and sounds. At the start, one of the girls narrating the stories says ‘It was as though we were all parts of the same person’. It is this magical sense of partness and wholeness and togetherness and distinctness and connectedness that makes this such a lovely film. Not a great film by any means, but a really lovely one.

Yesterday I was asked at 11 in the night (right out of the gate in a late meeting, this was the first question!) by an associate who loves films probably as much as I do, 'Did I really like the Rising that much?' and we ended up talking about it - against our better judgement - for over an hour, as I defended my opinion of the film. His take was that it was a failure as a film and in trade, and I differed. I granted that if the masses did not enjoy the film (as seems evident from widespread criticism from the aam junta), it didn't work as well as Lagaan did, but felt that it was stil a very good film, possibly beyond the comprehension of the populace, and only just a bit at that.

I just checked on the web for further info on it and came across what the New York Times (the leading metropolitan newspaper online & in print in the US) and the Guardian UK (the leading newspaper on-line & in print in the UK), have to say about The Rising. These are my two main sources of on-line news, ahead of all other news sources, for their reliability and credibility, and these are not just my personal choices based on their confirmation of my biases - in their markets they are the undisputed leaders among both classes and masses. I hadn't read their reviews on the Rising till now, and was surprised to find how much in accord with my own sentiment they were.

Also came across this page where trade remarks by leadng analysts (including veteran Taran Adarsh) and comments by Aamir Khan himself indicate that current rumors on the Rising being anticipated to fail by its makers (including Aamir Khan) pre-release and becoming a flop post release, are just that - unsubstantiated rumors.