Finally got to watch the movie -  This is by no means a film critique. Nor I am writing for/against the merit of the movie or whether it is award worthy.

While I am not surprised at the reaction from some Indian filmmakers, couldnt let it go that easily.  Again, this is not about the comments on the quality of the movie in a literary sense. But my reaction to the comments like ‘intentional exploitation of India’ by Priyadarshan.

Fact is Danny Boyle has shown the murky underbelly quite visibly. But then, we should be appreciating the fact that someone did it. Yes, the story itself may not be great; it feels like an old Hindi movie at times; but somewhere there is an element of reality which we’ve rarely seen in any Hindi movies.

Back to Priyan’s comment, he is equally free to make a movie that shows UK/US and its underbelly.  No, Priyan is comfortable sitting back and remaking malayalam movies into Hindi with very minimal changes. Arent you exploiting the talented Mally writers & directors? So, I just dont think the comment about exploitation of India is appropriate.

(BTW, I do thoroughly enjoy & appreciate Priyan’s own original mallu movies..)

For once, cant we just appreciate something? Let us welcome the focus on India. Yes, I very much want it to be good PR and about the bright side, but then there is always two sides to the coin and lets not fool ourselves by covering it up or acting to be ignorant.

Secondly & More importantly, the slum scenes in the movie reminded me of my own experience when I had the chance to see dharavi closely. If the situation is the same today, whatever portrayed in the movie is very true. (Ever since those days, every time I land at the mumbai airport, my heart sinks for a moment. But it is quickly morphed into anger/hatred at the very sight of greedy police & security folks at the gates. )

Made me wonder about the level of charity in our country. In general, there seems to be very little Charity activity in India especially compared to US. And I am talking about relative comparison, not absolute comparison. The perception one builds if you’ve lived in both places is that there is a focused effort and recognition for Charitable causes and spending in US. Here is the list of most charitable countries as a % of GDP, India is no where in the list where as even South Africa has found a spot.

Why is there such low level of Charity activity in India? Of course, it can be just perception and a lot is ‘undocumented’ in India where as it is probably deliberately advertised in US. There was even a comparison somewhere on the charitable cotributions b/w the presidential candidates based on their public tax returns. I can only dream of a day when I can see this in India (both the transparency and the charity)

BigB, even you wrote about the murky underbelly. What have you/the bollywood industry done in all these years for the slum dwellers? Why isnt there a focused activity or campaign or organization after all these years to do something so that the infamous slum in mumbai is done with? Take US and even for the slightest cause, there seems to be a non-profit organization with necessary campaigns, events, activities and a celebrity to support the same.

Maybe I am wrong and there is a very healthy charitable contribution made by India’s rich.If anything, SD movie should make us think & act on these lines. Let us appreciate Danny Boyle & crew atleast for that.

Jai Ho!

I’m a movie fiend. When I watch a movie, I very thirstily & feverishly deconstruct its building blocks – Casting, Screen Play, Background Score, Dialog Delivery, Costumes et al. I’m passionately in love with movies. When I was a kid, I yearned to make movies. I used to stand before a mirror & emote, observing what angles worked & what didn’t. I would sit behind the clump of Frangipani trees in the yard & clinically dissect passers-by. Their body language, diction, their clothes. In retrospect, I must have unnerved & freaked people out with my pitiless ogling.

I never entered Show Business. Instead, I became a Software Engineer. I’m not exactly heart-broken, because I’m a philanderer: Film Making is only 1 of my many loves. In turn, I’ve desperately wanted to be an Architect. Cryptographer. Musician. Physicist. Writer. Chef. Astronaut. And curiously enough, Fighter Pilot. In my first year in the Engineering school, I fell inexorably in love with Computers – it had me from “Hello World”.

Those who can’t make movies, watch them. I sate myself by reading about the craft & by devouring truckloads of movies. A good movie is a story on an acid trip – Vivid images hitherto unseen carve themselves on the brains of the viewers, like a hallucination. A bad movie is like a wet dog – it stinks, its messy, it can be shaken off easily & it never makes a lasting impression. I’m very particular about the kind of movies I watch – After all, you devote 2 to 3 hours of your time to watch a movie. Its an immersive medium, where you have to stay interested. I only watch movies that I think are good, whose Rotten Tomatoes rating is high or whose story-line I think will hit the high notes. The rest are simply not worth my time.

I used to watch TCM (Turner Classic Movies) & AMC (American Movie Classics) regularly when we lived in the US. In India though, good movie channels that carry Subtitles are rare. We rent videos from Cinema Paradiso, a store that has an eclectic collection. I hit the mother-lode this weekend – I laid my hands on a Sinhala movie - Pavuru Valalu, with English subtitles.

Now, About Pavuru Valalu

Loosely translated, “The Walls Within” – is set in the 1960s Galle in Sri Lanka. It has a simple story-line – Lovers separated during WW-II meet after a gap of 25 years. The lady is married, has 2 daughters & her husband has abandoned her. When the movie unwinds, the director’s sympathy for the lead pair’s predicament comes thru with lyrical perfection. Without being judgmental, the movie poignantly captures the society recoiling in horror at this state of affairs.

The protagonists Victor & Violet are essayed admirably al dente by Tony Ranasinghe & Nita Fernando. None of the actors spout reams of dialog – their silences, little gestures & eyes convey much more than mere words could. Luckily for us, the Casting Director gave Miss Sri Lankas & Mister Colombos a pass. Instead, actors have been chosen primarily for their prowess & their suitability for the role. The young women in the movie have wide hips or big butts. Young men don’t flash six-pack Abs. Instead of fixating on their physique, the actors have focused on effectively conveying their turmoil thru nuanced expressions & dialog delivery. It is sheer poetry in celluloid.

The movie will haunt me – because it is so raw, so natural. The entire movie is shot in a typical middle class dwelling, with peeling plaster & green algae in the outer walls. Actors wear rumpled clothes when they are at home – not designer threads. And the women are not painted like street-walkers waiting for their Johns. Not a single actor resorts to histrionic pyro-techniques – for they know that over-acting & bad-acting are synonyms.

Pavuru Valalu is a great movie – an outstanding achievement by director Prasanna Vithanage & his team.

My SOS to Fellini

I asked for Fellini’s ghost, but Ingmar Bergman’s or Akira Kurosawa’s ghosts would do equally fine.

For after watching the movie, a paroxysm of rage hit me. A small country, Sri Lanka, with a population of 20 Million people is able to make a neat movie on a shoe-string budget. It makes a handful of mainstream, yet critically acclaimed movies that receive rave reviews from all corners of the world. We are a nation of 1.2 Billion yokels & counting. Yet, the number of decent movies we make every year won’t run into double digits.

When was the last time you saw an Indian movie, where the lead pair is 50 & 45 years old? We are fixated with youth. I don’t understand why. At least 50% of the people in India are 30+. Oh for movies where the theme isn’t romance, revenge, family feuds or a mix-up between 2 people who look alike. Didn’t Shakespeare do that in The Comedy of Errors Circa 1589 already?

Our movies revolve around love, love & more love. Unfortunately, love-making in Indian movies involves booty shaking, heaving bosoms & shirtless men panting like dogs at their women. When Violet’s daughter Lily sees her beau Ranjith – her face glows softly. We can imagine her adrenaline rush easily – Incidentally, we are not idiots & we appreciate subtlety. A fact lost on most Indian film makers.  They just can’t resist a song & dance sequence to show-case “tender” love at this juncture. They would have Lily & Ranjith cavorting in Switzerland or New Zealand, writhing like snakes in heat.

When will we stop making movies with people dancing around the trees? For that matter, when will we make movies without songs? Must every single movie made in India be an escapist fantasy? Is reality so cumbersome, that we want to edit it out of our art? I’m not saying we don’t make good movies ever. We make too few good movies amid a zillion very bad ones.

We don’t have to make ponderous, pretentious movies where we try to show the world how bright we are. I once watched a movie by Israeli director Amos Gitai. Nuh-uh. Not my cup of tea. I was dazed, confused & totally disinterested after 30 minutes. The movie opens with a guy walking from 1 end of the street to another – and they show this for 10 yawn-worthy minutes. Maybe I’m just a dummy that doesn’t understand Gitai’s art, but sproing! – the next scene has 2 nude people making violent love on a canvas full of wet paint.You call it art, I call it boooooring

Bollywood AKA National Shame. Bollywood, my ass. Where there is more money than talent. Where an over-emoting Shah Rukh Khan thinks he can step into the large shoes of the talented Amitabh Bachchan. Where the much feted Aishwarya Rai – the most visible face of Indian cinema – is one of its worst actors ever. To my utter misery, she gets plum assignments that were once done with elan by the scintillating Meena Kumari & the effervescent Savitri Ganesan. I lose my appetite every time that happens.

And the film-makers in India send 1 clunker after another for the Academy Awards & wait with bated breath for an Oscar. Good grief. For all their shameless plagiarism of Hollywood, their knowledge of World Cinema is very poor.

In the meantime, I wait for the release of the Malayalam epic Pazhassi Raja later this year, from Director Hariharan. With screenplay by M.T.Vasudevan Nair, Music by Ilayaraja and with veteran actors Mammooty, Sarath Kumar, Manoj K Jayan & Thilakan, it can only be good.

1. Rang De Basanti - the much talked about movie with a nationalistic bent. Studded with stars like Aamir Khan, Siddharth, Kunal Kapoor, Soha Ali Khan and Madhavan. Overall it is a good movie. But it didn’t make the great movie cut for a couple of reasons. The first 30-45 minutes should have been edited out. Aamir Khan struggles hard and overacts quite a bit to act as an youngster. In the later parts of the movie he does well in characteristic fashion. The Indian police going so much overboard under such untesting conditions is a bit over the top. The movie does score very high on the creativity front.

2. Stage Fright – Hitchcock’s movie, starring Jane Wyman, Richard Todd & Marlene Dietrich. Marlene Dietrich has done a great job. Unlike later Hitchcock movies which have acquired cult status, in this movie, the suspense is maintained till the end. Typical Hitchcock strategy is to make the audience know the suspense but not the actors. Overall, it is a okay movie but not upto the standard one expects from the master.

3. The Gift – Sam Raimi shows why he is an acclaimed director. Great acting by Cate Blanchett and Giovanni Ribisi. Excellent suspense and all round technical excellence.

4. The Devil Wears Prada - Meryl Streep at her best. She absolutely personifies the devilish, extremely talented boss. Anne Hathaway has done a good job as well. This is a must see movie.

5.   Sorry, Wrong Number – Classic, Must-see. Fantastic suspense, edge of the seat thriller. Barbara Stanwyck has done a sensational job.

6. The First Great Train Robbery - A nice time pass burglary thriller starring Sean Connery. Directed by Michael Crichton to boot.

7. The Illusionist – This is another must see movie. It is a period thriller, with Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti trying to best each other in acting. Rufus Sewell as Prince Leopold excels as well. The suspense is excellent as well. Music by Philip Glass is hauntingly good.

1. Priya Raju picked the documentary Walmart: the High Cost of Low Price. Some of the things that Walmart does per this documentary are downright shocking. My main question to this documentary maker is – if you are so convinced that Walmart is evil, how come you didn’t give even one chance for Walmart to offer an opinion in the documentary?  The end result is that, the documentary comes across as a one-sided bashing of Walmart. Doesn’t Walmart do anything good?  The lack of a balanced perspective makes this documentary less credible, in the same way Fahrenheit 911 was less credible by its one-sided bashing of George W. Bush. 2. In a recent research report, Scrubjays have been shown to “plan”. We have long thought planning to be another uniquely human capability. The way this is headed, it is going to turn out that whatever we can do, some animal or bird or insect out there can do it, probably with a lesser finesse. Goes to show that we are not something special – just an artefact of the process of evolution. I am sure this fact is hard to digest for many humans. 3. It is widely believed that during sleep, some special brain processes kick in and sort  out the day’s happenings and file them  away for future use.  Recent research reports seems to corroborate this view about sleep.  As such, we yet don’t understand sleep or the brain for that matter that well for us to be sure. But we are getting there slowly. 4. Ian Landsman has some excellent insights on customer service and sales. Must read.

I had heard a lot about this Hindi movie Lage Raho Munnabhai. Last week I picked it up from the library and we watched it. The DVD came with English subtitles so the rest of my family was able to watch it as well.

Most will agree with me in that, Bollywood movies (including its regional language variations) usually revolve around various permutations and combinations of lovers and love stories. One other major variation is a shameless knock-off of popular Hollywood movies.

Yeah, yeah, there are exceptions and this movie Lage Raho Munnabhai is one such exception. The director has re-interpreted Mahatma Gandhi‘s principles to tell us that his principles are still very relevant. In this country where Mahatma Gandhi has just become a picture on the wall and his principles long forgotten and consigned to the dustbin of history, it is refreshing to see how his principles could be applied even today.

This movie has even spawned the application of Gandhi’s principles (Gandhigiri as they call it in this movie) in real life which are featured in popular newspapers. Yes, it has the usual Bollywood staples – song & dance sequences and corny/mushy events. But the overall concept is a master stroke of creativity.

Sanjay Dutt as Munna Bhai and Arshad Warsi as Circuit have hit it off again with some excellent emoting. Vidya Balan provides the added color. All of us enjoyed this movie a lot. If you are longing to see an Indian movie which is not a blatant copy or a quadrangular/multi-angular love story, see this one.