Movie Views

Love in the Time of Globalization

2009-08-05T20:10:00.000-07:00

        It is funny how you end up learning stuff about life when you aren’t even looking for it. It is funnier when you learn it from the strangest of places – like I learnt about love from a film about a genius and his friends. You what is even funnier? That I never even realized it. And you know what is so strange about it? That it was a little moment with a little line of dialog.
        Back when I saw Good Will Hunting, a good decade or so ago, I was nothing but a mere teenager. And a pretentious schmuck. There was this girl in my school, and this was around my tenth grade, who was real pretty, and I and she would get along very well. We changed schools, but evenings would be where we would lean on her little wooden-gate – I outside and she inside – and talk for hours. I don’t think we ever admitted it, but we both would wait for 1900 to tick and me to stroll upto her house and call out her name. And she would come out in her little maxi. And that is all to our little whatever, and I never realized it was special.
        Sitting on a bench, near to a little lake, Robin Williams shares a real special memory with Matt Damon. A memory about his dead wife, and he says - My wife used to fart when she was nervous. She had all sorts of wonderful idiosyncrasies. You know, she used to fart in her sleep. Sorry I shared that with you. And one night it was so loud, it woke the dog up. She woke up and gone like, "Was that you?" I said, "Yeah." I didn't have the heart to tell her. Oh, God. Oh, Christ. Ah, but, Will, she's been dead two years and that's the shit I remember. It's wonderful stuff, you know? Little things like that. Yeah, but those are the things I miss the most. The little idiosyncrasies that only I knew about. That's what made her my wife.
        Look, it is not a great moment of filmmaking, but it is one of those good moments that the movies so often supply and that kinda stay with you. Somewhere out there, and it is only years later you realize the truth of it. Maybe they stay with you because they have a certain truth to them. We do have our own versions of our ideal match, from the smoking-hot stunner to the intellectual argument-provider. But that would be our desire. What we relish at the end is to discover that little girl behind that stunner, or the brat behind those glasses. We want to discover it for ourselves, for reader I believe, there is no greater satisfaction, of desires or of emotions, in knowing the truest self of a person. And I guess that self concealed somewhere inside is always a little kid. And when you know that kid, you earn love. I don’t know, but you see, if it was good enough for Hannibal Lecter, it is good enough for me. Most of you probably didn’t realize this, but Lecter did have intercourse with Clarice, right there, in front of your very eyes, from across the prison bars. Quid pro quo, you see. Ever wonder why the psychopath became a psychiatrist in the first place?
        Such thoughts cross my mind as I drive back from a second viewing of Imtiaz Ali’s Love Aaj Kal, a film which I believe I might have grossly underestimated. In many ways, I might not even have comprehended the sheer brilliance of it. I know, I suck. I stink, I bloody stink. Yet I gain a shred of comfort from my reading of Meera’s character, so insightfully etched by Imtiaz Ali and so precisely played by Deepika Padukone. I know, I almost want to defend her. But then, how else could I react.
        It is fascinating how carefully Ali conveys Meera to us. I observed in my review - And then he sets out to explore, and dig deep, and dig deeper, so as to reveal that confused little girl from within. I believe I was mistaken, and was stupid enough not to even pay attention to the glaring contradiction. I use “explore” and “reveal” in the same sentence while trying to understand a filmmaker’s intentions. Ali is not exploring, not discovering. He is not the objective narrator here, but a craftsman trying to arrange the facts so as to make an argument. And make no mistake, Ali manipulates every single image, manipulates the order in which they are supplied, and more importantly he supplies only those which corroborate his point. That is the nature of his script, and the nature of his film. Everything is preordained, and he probably realizes this, and in a cheeky touch, he invokes fate and God. If you haven’t already started liking him, you better should.
        Now, consider how he supplies the moments concerning Meera. Pay attention to her overall demeanor when in a room full of people. Laid-back, always. Behind a façade I believe. She speaks calmly. Yet consider those when he finds her alone, sharing the space around her with Jai. We see that little girl inside of her. When she speaks to him on the phone. When she runs over to him outside the airport. When she celebrates that fantastically joyful song in and around Delhi. These blissful little moments which exist only between her and Jai. Yet look at her acquire the façade in the more serious of times. She stands back, and maybe even recedes behind that shell of hers. We all do, all the time. It is an involuntary defense mechanism. And I would want to stress upon involuntary, for this kind of façade isn’t really the real you. You might want to walk into an undesirable situation because the defense mechanism suggests it you as the safer option, but then you’re only betraying yourself.
        Ali and Padukone serve two little but supremely effective scenes – one a clue, and one the revelation. Early in the film, Meera’s mother suggests to her that nobody understands what she does. Fresco is what she does. Consider reader, for a moment, the kind of person who would want to pursue such a dream. Of trying to renovate heritage monuments. The person got to be a romantic at heart, for this is a dream not borne out of what is perceived to be the practicalities of life, but is stuff we dream of as we grow. Meera is not a strong-headed career-oriented woman; she is merely pursuing her dreams. Late in the film, in what is a superbly crafted sequence, Meera is found sitting on her bed in a state of disbelief. It is the next morning after her wedding, or maybe a couple of days after (the practicalities and effects of time really doesn’t matter in this film and are given to convenience, as in many romantic films) and she is a picture of utter chaos. It is a cunningly captured (and maybe even manipulated) scene of the aftermath of self-betrayal.
        This leads me to wonder if Love Aaj Kal is the most ambitious blockbuster Hindi cinema has witnessed since Rang De Basanti, for it undertakes to comment upon an entire generation (In comparison Dev-D is an idiot’s argument, maybe even worse). Love is but a mere facet through which Love Aaj Kal intends to highlight a lot more. Some of it might be rather simplistic, but I find a lot of it some kind of sharp observation. I suspect Ali is a critic of our generation’s love for everything that is west. From movies, to books, to music. That he uses a girl to comment upon the larger picture (the song Twist has options from every which culture trying to compete with a section that is Punjabi, who are representing Indians) is fascinating. You see, what is this façade we are talking off, and what is the nature of its existence? Is it because of 91 and globalization? Were times before simpler, more truthful, and more romantic? That might be one way of perceiving the structure of the film. Is our generation pretentious and cynical?
        There might even be a slight patriotic touch to it all too. The grass is always greener on the other side, and maybe Ali is trying to criticize the empty dreams we harbor. It is fascinating how he doesn’t preach, or explicitly preach through the rather unimaginative way of dialogs (many filmmakers, even the reputed ones are guilty of it), but instead speaks the cinematic language. He creates a story weaved out of definitions, lends them attributes of an example, and argues his point. I think what he argues is true. Jai dreams of working at the Golden Gate, and Ali introduces his dream with an enthusiastic zoom in onto the bridge. But when his dreams do shatter, and the emptiness of them is revealed, he uses the same frame of the bridge and zooms out, and cuts to Howrah Bridge. It is a beautiful framing of symbolic imagery (Golden Gate stands for his career and Howrah Bridge stands for his love, the one that was inspired by the romantic story from Calcutta), and a fine example of cinematic poetry. Golden gate represents empty dreams. I keep saying empty because we seem to be unknowingly indulging in self betrayal. Over the years, movies have taught me that issues themselves rarely interest us; it is the human element of it that does. I think self-betrayal is a strikingly novel and intriguing emotion to go about it.
        A good friend of mine asks me a wonderful question – At the end of the film, since long-distance relationship is off the table, where are Jai and Meera going to be? San Francisco or Delhi? Without missing a beat I reply – Delhi. And only later I realize the truth of my answer. Jai’s dream wasn’t ever true. Meera’s was. She could lose herself in those monuments and discover a part of herself, but Jai could never discover anything in those bridges. So he has come here for good, and Delhi is where the romance would bloom.

        Which brings me back, and to that all I can say in defense is – Deepika Padukone nails it. Maybe nails is a wrong word. Maybe she discovers something true, for I’m not sure I could sense any craft to her performance. And God do I hate craft sticking its ugly head out. Ali understands the characters, and he captures only those moments he intends to convey, as any good filmmaker would. And this guy is good, real good. I mean, any filmmaker who can summon the audacity of completely reversing the tone of a film from sad (Meera being wedded and Jai going to San Francisco) to one of unabashed enthusiasm (the opening moments of the song Main Kya Hoon) and can come back to sad (the latter half of the song), all within the span of a few minutes has got to be brilliant. And he seems to be a master at extracting these rich performances. He gives them superb dialogs to work with, dialogs that ring true not just to the character, but to the actor too. And he goes one step further – he lets them improvise. Saif Ali Khan has always been the talker in the pack – from Mein Khiladi Tu Anari to Kachche Dhaage to Dil Chahta Hai – and Ali asks his character to talk his way out of a situation. Talk, as in chatter. And the extended monologue of the sinking realization is a brilliant moment of improvisation. Ali’s film is an assured piece, and every scene has that stamp of assurance.
        I would want to drop a little question of mine, so that you could ponder over it, and maybe supply me your opinion. I haven’t seen Jab We Met, but I hear a lot about being smitten by Kareena Kapoor’s performance. And here, audiences seem to have genuinely fallen for Harleen Kaur. Is it a case, dear reader, the purity of little girls is a more accessible device at the hands of filmmakers to win over the audiences? I don’t know, but apparently Meera seems to be the more difficult proposition.

        And while I am at it, you know posing questions and stuff, I would want to indulge you in another. My review finds me wondering over it too. You see, as a discerning audience, do you really buy Veer Singh’s fairy-tale romance? I mean, does the film ask us to. That Jai has bought it is enough, but what do we make of it. You would want me to prove my claim, besides the very subjective argument of the final moment between an older Harleen and the older Veer feeling kinda surreal.
        And your honor, I ask you to remember the picture Veer pulls out of his wallet when he shows the photograph to Jai. It is that of a young Harleen, captured in that very sepia, a throwback to the sweeter simpler and more romantic times. I find it strange a man would keep a picture of his wife’s younger self, until and unless he is really weird.
        That makes me going. Does the stuff Veer weave a figment of his romantic fantasies, that could assuage and probably guide young Jai? You should see how they crop up, and they seem to always mirror Jai’s predicament. Ali goes so far that he even breaks a moment (the first conversation between Harleen and Veer where she reveals her engagement), so as to service Jai at two different moments. It is interesting that the same moment has two different tones to it. Is Veer conjuring up stuff just as Roy pulled it out for the little girl in Tarsem’s The Fall? Maybe Veer never had a happy ending. Maybe he didn’t even follow her to Calcutta, and maybe it is just his romantic fantasy. Maybe he could have, maybe he had a choice between coming to London and following her, and he followed money. Maybe he is a sad old man. Maybe there is nothing like sweet olden times. Maybe every generation is cynical and misguided, always will be, chasing pipe dreams and committing self betrayal. Maybe we always have to overcome ourselves. Maybe true love is when we overcome ourselves.

        And maybe, just maybe, when Jai narrates his tale to his next generation, he would make even the sadder and stupider parts feel romantic. I don’t know, but every generations boasts about itself. The romance only it could muster. The films only it could make. Come to think of it, we can boast a little on Love Aaj Kal, and we claim with certain pride that such a film got made when we were the movie-going audience. I watch it a second time, and somewhere in between, tears of joy well up inside of me. The little Dutch angles with which he plays around in Lal Kila. Recognizing a beautiful piece of filmmaking can often do that you. I might not have realized how dearly I loved the film, and as I sit here and turn it in my head, I see how much it has grown upon me. And yes, to me the reactions to the film are baffling. I don’t know, but I think Love Aaj Kal is a cause for celebration. There’s a genuine child-like joy to it that one comes across only rarely. I sit and run, and re-run, and re-run in my head Harleen walking past the street to bring him a cup of tea, only rarely locking eyes with Veer. And I sit up and applaud. It is pure cinema. A triumph for filmmaking. If Veer’s story would have been a black and white silent short, that exhilarating moment across the street would have been one of the greatest endings of all time. I’m reminded of the great final scene from Chaplin’s City Lights. This one is one such moment, which reader, and mark my word here, can never grow old.
        Ah, I forgot. Love Aaj Kal is that rare romantic movie that is, well, romantic. A film with two of its women, who hate black coffee, yet for some goddamn reason gulp it down just so to remember their men is sure as hell romantic.

Note: I have been asked by a number of people on why I rate the film so generously. It isn’t worth four and a one-half star-rating, and I’m baffled. I really am. I could never understand how we could be so precise in quantifying a film. I understand reader that the film is not perfect. And let me provide another bit of suggestion – no film is. So does it really matter if it is a 4-star or a 5-star. Can we really pack all the wonderful acting and those joyous moments and what not into a star-rating and supply it? If you could, by God I envy you. I cannot. I often cannot even decode my own goddamn rating. And I’m a generous man. And I know my stars don’t mean a thing. So let me try and rate it again. Rating: *****. And with a little tag – A beautiful film. I shall learn in a few years if it is a great film and I hope it ends up as one.

THE COMIC BOOK MOVIE: WHO’S ADAPTING THE ADAPTATION

2009-03-05T01:49:00.000-08:00

        The trailer of the upcoming Allan Moore & Dave Gibbons graphic novel masterpiece has been out for quite a while now and so have the reviews. Whatever little that is available has been dissected diligently by fans and self-styled experts alike. I’m not sure how the movie is going to turn out, and frankly I have severe doubts about the whole exercise, some of them having gained a lot of credence after having skimmed through many reviews and what they seem to suggest. Not only for what is being said, but how it is being said. But one has to accept; with a good part of one day to go Watchmen is the most eagerly anticipated film out there. Not only because of the reputation that the novel brings with itself, but the reputation the filmmaker here has gained post 300. The trailer, as many others, hailed Zack Snyder a visionary. Frank Miller supposedly has grown so pleased with Snyder that he has given his total and unabashed consent for any plans of adapting The Dark Knight Returns. I myself have enjoyed the in-your-face tone of Snyder’s film immensely and for one believe that exercises of its kind are interesting every once in a while (I would like to come back to that later).
        Amidst all this though, and not a long back ago, two things happened. To be precise it was two harmless articles. One, a rather hastily done review of the Watchmen trailer down at a site named miamicheerleader, and the other, an uninspired criticism of Snyder’s previous film 300 by Roger Ebert here. And between them, one has totally and radically changed my perception of the upcoming Watchmen flick and the other has made me realize something about the medium and its adaptation I have always only felt but not pinned it down into an observation and a criticism of approach.
        The first one is a minor gripe in the larger scheme of things, and you would realize why. I have been awaiting the Watchmen flick and not exactly with any degree of unabated enthusiasm. It is a film that is hovering on my radar and one which I wish to see and until now had more than decent hopes for. But that was only till now, for I had overlooked a glaring detail that was staring at me and I was a super-mutt not to even realize. That is, Snyder’s flick is built brick for brick on CGI and green screen. Ring a bell? Of course, the bell is invisible and inaudible for those who haven’t read the book (no spoilers here), but for those who are big fans, is it deafening your ears? Let me blast the hell out of your eardrums.
        The most gravitating aspect of Alan Moore’s superhero masterpiece is that it was the first work that deconstructed the mythology behind the superheroes. This after years and decades of universes and leagues. It was ground in a real world, dealing in modern historical events, and thus could summon the audacity to ask of us questions by giving us superheroes who were neither super nor were they heroes. They were, well, crazed maskmen. The characters were drawn as close to real life people complete with stubbles, paunches, anxious eyebrows and not exactly sound minds. This was important to the history of superheroes in comics because the deconstruction was a natural progression of a culture (comic-book) that was so stagnated it simply had nowhere to go. A progenitor of such future masterpieces as The Dark Knight Returns.
        And CGI for something that reeks of grit and reality? Howsoever good the CGI be, it still feels CGI, and it still feels artificial. Snyder wants to re-create what’s on page. Visually? Like he did with 300? Where the hell’s cinema in between? You might as well have a flipbook, and play a techno track in the background. I think you get the picture.
        That is the part of the broader picture and that is what struck with me great force when I read the title of Ebert’s review – Spartan Special at CGI Friday’s. Ebert could have done a million times better than this bland write up, but let us cut him some slack. What he got correct was the title. I myself have been an overenthusiastic supporter of the film’s visual strength, naming it among the top films of 2007. More than that, I believe, I just stopped short of calling it a landmark. And I couldn’t have been more wrong. 300 is visually spectacular, yes, it is exhilarating, yes, but one thing it isn’t for sure – the way forward. It is, much like Rodriguez’s Sin City, an interesting exercise.
        And it could have been more, could have been so much more.
        Probably the greatest comic book adaptation, one that surpasses it source material by millions of miles, is David Cronenberg’s 2005 masterpiece A History of Violence. That it has some of the best action sequences of recent times is stating the obvious. What it so subtly depicts is something that Lynch strains for time and again, and struggles his way to success only often. At once it paints a small story of a tiny town and at the same time elevates its characters to great heights in scope. It is a fantastic genre movie, and within its own self it is a deeply layered projection of family, violence and survival. One of the greatest achievements of this decade.
        So, what is it that differentiates such a masterpiece from say, the regular popcorn comic book movie that storms into a multiplex near you every now and then?
        I think it stems from a lack of imagination, a lack of greater understanding of what ticks for the medium of cinema vis-à-vis comics and what doesn’t, a capitalistic bend more than overbearing the artistic inclination (maybe there’s precious little artistic brain out there) and well, a penchant to blow stuff. The same has plagued cinema for much of its short life. We see slavish adaptations of books every which where, where the aim is to put the page on screen verbatim, regardless of the huge canyon of difference that exists between the mediums. A great adaptation, as commonly understood today is one that is truest to the book so much so that readers are greatly dissatisfied even if a minor detail is overlooked. I come across readers every now and then complaining about some obscure detail missing, and I shrug my shoulders. And I stop myself from confronting them with the question – Are adaptations meant to be replications?
        Let me rephrase for the subject matter in question – how would’ve Kubrick brought a comic book film to life? Kubrick, arguably, had the deepest understanding of the medium as well as its narrative style and it could be seen in his oeuvre which has some of the greatest adaptations of all time. We all know how Clarke’s 2001 panned out, and how Kubrick brought the same on screen. If you want to know what would have happened if just another filmmaker made 2001, you need to look no further than the sequel 2010: The Year We Make Contact, which has got nothing cinematic about it but just moves about with the Clarke pages put on celluloid.

On Jim Emerson blog, there was quite an interesting comment that caught my eye. It goes -
“There is a common notion amongst critics...that all comic books can easily be lumped together, as if it's one giant genre rather than the comic book being yet another device for telling any kind of story.”

        I agree with the person here, and it isn’t just the case with critics, it is the scenario with the most movie going audiences for whom the comic book movie is just a sub-genre of the action film. For big studios, it is a part and parcel of their overall strategy for the summer to blow things up. Most of us are satisfied as long as a superhero film delivers us thrills, of any which kind, and howsoever temporary they may be. Iron Man was a seriously fun movie, but it actually blew its ending.
        Here I ask the question – What do we mean by a comic book movie, or for that matter a superhero movie? It sure as hell is a genre as far as films are concerned, but what is often ignored is that the source – the comics – are a medium, a form of expression, and not a genre of literature. I might be walking on thin ice when I claim that comics are different from literature, but if we would look closely comics share more in common with cinema owing to their visual dimension. There is the use of frames and words conjuring an objective perspective of stuff, as opposed to that of the mainly subjective viewpoint of a book, that shares more of a kinship with the narrative structure of cinema.

VISUAL STYLE:
        And that kinship might be that very double edged sword that makes them easy prey for blow-em-up adaptations, because they make the task of a filmmaker that much easier. For a lesser filmmaker it is easy to overlook the simple yet profound differences that occur between the two mediums. The difference make themselves felt only in the case of superior works in the comic book region, where the boundaries of the medium are explored tremendously, and one which a filmmaker in his zeal to replicate it to screen often fails to appreciate. Comics have their root in cartoons and caricatures. You could say, it was a case of the nature of the early content influencing its name upon the very medium. And so, one could just as easily adapt to obtuse looking Joker and Batman from The Killing Joke as they would to the quite ‘real’ paunch-driven pseudo superheroes of Watchmen. The medium gives them the leeway to stretch its characters upon an epic scope and magnitude, as well as draw a caricature of them. Does cinema do that? For that matter, can cinema do that? I mean, construct itself on one single image of irony? Can cinema branch itself into the comic-book/superhero movie territory just as it has done with animation? I’m not sure I know the answer to that question.
        Let us ask ourselves, as readers and viewers, that profound and always go-to question when it comes to understanding any medium – What do our senses feel, (a) when we read a comic book, and (b) when we watch a film?
        For starters, a comic book is a series of images (panels). A movie, on the other hand, is a flurry of images. It is all a question of time, eyes, brain, memory and retention. How fast can we process information, while the next image passes along? In a comic strip we have a whole lot of time on our hand, wherein we can flip the page back and soak every bit of detail from the panel, and discover for ourselves how it fits together in the larger scheme of things, i.e. the strip, and the largest scheme of things, i.e. the story.
        And this where I cut back to my reservations with the Snyder adaptation of Watchmen. Now, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons visual style for this graphic novel stands way different than Frank Miller’s. In 300, as with most of his other works, Miller’s paneling is more suited for a straightforward adaptation, for he uses montage more to evoke a visual response. His artwork could be described in terms of their strips, whose constituting panels are not as significant by themselves as they’re when together in a strip, and strips by themselves are a form of reels – the quantifiable unit of a movie scene.
        On the other hand, the artwork in Watchmen is best described in terms of its panels (images). Its artwork is more attuned (inspired) from the medium of art than it is with cinema, with a single panel capturing a whole lot of information. The greatness of the graphic novel though lay in the fact that these panels gel together into a superb ‘reel’ at the same time. That is one of the reasons why it is considered one of the seminal works of art, for its structure in terms of its visual dimension is unmatched. They are greatly detailed shots by themselves, and they still find a greater meaning when examined in the context of the strip and the whole comic itself.
        Let me provide an example that might elucidate for you both the cases. I cite these from the first chapter itself so that I do not spoil anything for the uninitiated. I will be examining each panel by means of a running commentary, so that we gain an idea how dense Watchmen really is.

        Here’s the first strip of the final page of Chapter 1. Laurie Juspeczyk, a.k.a Silk Spectre II and Dan Drieberg, a.k.a Nite Owl II are standing on the rooftop of Rafael’s, a restaurant. They have met after a long time. The times are bad. The Comedian has just been killed, and Rorschach has paid both of them a visit to cite his fears that somebody must be killing of masked adventurers (the novel never suggests the superheroes as Watchmen, a title inspired from the phrase of Roman poet Juvenal, which reads Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?, and which means Who’ll guard the guards, which derives to Who watches the Watchmen?).

This zoom out from the now iconic blood-stained smiley mirrors the opening of the graphic novel. Laurie and Dan are meeting after a long time. There’s some obvious warmth between them which we can feel. Romance? Possibly, as we learn later. How does the novel indicate/predict? By that little dash of pink in the second image, which later turns out to be the headlamp of a car on the street below. This one moment of warm feelings has overcome the feeling of dread that has been amongst them since the murder of The Comedian. If you look at the smiley now it no longer has the stain of blood signifying that in this moment of hopeful romance the grimness of the times have been temporarily forgotten.
One may ask – why predict such a thing? Readers of the novel would agree with me that the nature of time is a significant theme. No more on that for now.

Now, here’s where the zoom out really blooms. Notice how the speech balloons are converging. And see how distance is actually bringing Dan and Laurie nearer to each other. Although from their mutual physical perspective they are at a respectable distance from each other, from a removed distance (perspective) they could be interpreted as essentially growing close to each other. Look how the little pink dashes are pouring in, like little rose petals. Look how the lawn provides for a green background.

And then eventually…

There’s only one speech balloon now. And herein Alan Moore’s great gift for irony makes its presence most felt, a gift which few authors ever have had in such measure. The Comedian is Dead from the proximity of the earlier panels felt like a light remark, but when viewed from this far, removed from all the subjectivity of the emotional tone of the relationship between Laurie and Dan to this distance of absolute cold objectivity, the line attains the gravity that it signifies, for it is the event that set the doomsday clock in motion. Look how the petals are still there, but now surrounded by red. The great danger red that envelopes these masked adventurers. It is all a matter of perspective. And that is one of the novel’s great themes.

        Now, how would this kind of detail be adapted? Rather, how could it be, especially when something moves at 24 frames per second? As Alan Moore envisaged, he wanted to create something that would be possible only in this medium of comic books, where a detail could be unearthed later on by re-visiting. Can we do that in a film? Don’t tell me a standard zoom out is the answer, which I believe will be how it is done in the movie, but one which actually takes attention away from the image and turns it towards the feel generated by the movement. One would agree that zoom out isn’t really the cinematic answer to (a) romantic feelings (b) change of perception (c) fill innumerable details in an image and let a viewer soak it in because the movement prevents that kind of observation from him. A DVD, to an extent, but that format is not really suited for the medium for it sucks out the experience part from the whole exercise. To adapt it would require an altogether different conceptualization, and hence different orchestration altogether. I hope you get my point.
        For that reason I believe a straightforward ‘faithful’ adaptation that goes about replicating panel by panel would be an unimaginative exercise. Where is cinema, with all its scope, come into picture? I’m not sure that kind of thing actually honors a work of art as Moore & Gibbons’ Watchmen.

THEMATIC INTERPRETATIONS:

        Let us look into the many aspects of the narrative and its structure. Watchmen, as Gibbons described, was a comic about comics. Yet, its movie adaptation is basically a movie about a comic. And the movie finds Gibbon’s blessing. I would like to mention here that I only cite my reservations that I have pre-constructed by only watching the trailer and by reading certain sections of certain reviews, and my opinions will be subject to change once I watch Watchmen (couldn’t resist that).
        Any work of art is always a product of its times, and so was the graphic novel. A time when the Soviets were treated with the most brazen of attitudes (Reagan era), a time when there was a fixed enemy in the eyes of NATO. That is when NATO actually had a viable context. Alan Moore hails from the United Kingdom. Almost a quarter of a century has passed and there is no need to tell you how so much of the world equation has changed, and with that how the times have changed too. That leads me to wonder how invoking the Commies and the Russians makes much sense when we speak of a possible doomsday scenario.
        Speaking in terms of the events depicted in the novel, America has already had its Vietnam II. And there’s the new enemy. I ask of you if it makes more sense to actually invoke this present and if possible alter some of the themes of the graphic novel. The said doomsday, the threat of which felt so real back then, now feels like a figment of fiction. The paranoia attached no longer finds us. Back then, the Russians brought out a palpable sense of dread that felt very present, very real. If we consider the plot of the graphic novel then and its various revelations, in the narrative sense, that impending threat Russians represented was a superb tool.
        But now, in these times, suing the name of Russians and whatever they represent doesn’t invoke that kind of threat, and looking by a narrative logic, their inclusion doesn’t really provide for a great enough misdirection. And that makes using them a blank fire.
        For the plot to feel immediate now, which it did back then in many ways, there have to be nods to the present world order. An understanding. And a sense of commentary over the nature of the events of how they happened, and how an alternate history and maybe an alternate future unfolded. That is when the adaptation begins to make sense, and begins to actually emulate its source.
        There’s another structural flaw with the adaptation, one which actually seeps in because it is an adaptation and because it is trying to be a faithful adaptation. That is, one of the great tonal pleasures of the source was its irony and its irreverence. The way Snyder his replicating his film, trying to be the panels in every which way, this film cannot be irreverent, for its very existence is drenched in reverence. Would the film manage to capture the irony though? Like the blood-stained smiley, both a nod and a send-up to the Bat-signal.

        So now that we are already into building castles in the air, why not imagine how a movie about movies would feel, and would it actually be the adaptation of Watchmen one ought to be proud of. One that actually stretches the medium to its absolute boundaries. On all the fronts – visual, narrative and audio.
        So I ask here, would cinema be better served if, while adapting Watchmen, its own history and its own politics? Say for instance, an assortment of such superhero archetypes as the revolutionary John Rambo, the imperialist James Bond, the slavish political tool T-101/T-1000, the fascist Harry Callaghan, the sociopathic anarchist Travis Bickle, the wise nonchalant The Man with No Name, each representing the politics of their times as well as the politics of the movies they represented. Am I making sense? Cinematic sense I mean. One which actually is visionary, is the way forward, and most importantly is an exploration of the medium. After all, it is we who are watching the Watchmen.

The Great The Fantastic and The Wonderful of 2008

2009-02-25T11:04:00.000-08:00

I have followed a ranking system for the past couple of years and it is exhausting. And confusing, because the ranking seems to change with the tick of every instantaneous moment. I still cannot make up my mind if Zodiac was a better film than There Will Be Blood, or if Gone Baby Gone was a better film than No Country for Old Men, or The Lives of Others a better film than Babel or The Prestige a better film than V for Vendetta.
Thus I choose to believe now that by ranking films you might indulge yourself in needless folly. And thus I would merely list the best of 2008 in categories rather than through rankings. And maybe, just maybe, the order of the categories themselves might suggest the rankings, and might also suggest the curve of my perception of cinema. Maybe, just maybe.

A PIECE OF MY HEART, A PIECE OF MY SOUL:
These films have become an integral part of me. They drained me, exhausted me, emotionally and otherwise, so much that I didn’t want to meander across to anywhere else. Instead, I had to stay with them for they insisted on staying within me. I’m certain they wouldn’t leave me any sooner, and I doubt they ever will. And that fact fills me with great joy. My two favorite films of the year. The two movies of the year. Rachel Getting Married especially, for it seems to fit into every category I mention below. And more. These two feature the two greatest performances of the year and the thing that draws me in is the smiles.

The Dark Knight (Director: Christopher Nolan): I recently watched the film on IMAX for the first time, and I truly realized what an event it is. It is the movie event of the decade, and its influence will only be realized in the years to come. Future generations will look upto this film as one of this decade’s iconic moments. A movie with moments and images that will remain in public memory for a long time. Be it the tumbler turning into the Batpod, be it Batman perched upon a rooftop, or be it the Gotham city Skyline. Or be it the late Heath Ledger’s The Joker, one of cinema’s greatest moments ever. That face drenched in war-paint will turn into one of cinema’s everlasting images. This film is the reason why we fell in love with movies in the first place.

Rachel Getting Married (Director: Jonathan Demme): I watch the film, and for some reason I’m reminded of Bergman. It has touched me like few films ever have, and I seem to derive from it the kind of warmth that I rarely ever experience. I see this movie, I listen to this movie and I keep on feeling this movie. And it all just doesn’t have any reason or sense. That final image leaves me at my most honest, probably my best self. It is one of the year’s greatest moments. And there’s Rosemarie Dewitt, as Rachel, and it is one of the great performances. It is terribly honest, and deeply layered. A smile has rarely conveyed more. I do not think there is a better-made American film in 2008. If the essence of cinema lay in its emotional power, than there was no greater film this year.

AUDACIOUS, EXTRAVAGANT AND FLAMBOYANT CINEMATIC AWESOMENESS:
These aren’t films but bold flourishes. What sweep, what authority. Every frame of these films drips with the sheer joy of movie-making, and we in turn are exhilarated by the great joy of movie-watching. It is a disgrace for me that I had to watch these two on the small screen, because if there were two movies that BELONGED to the largest possible screens, these were it. Every inch of every frame is a bold ambitious gesture. Applaud. I ask of you again, stand up and applaud.

The Fall (Director: Tarsem): Everyone, from a budding filmmaker to an auteur to a wannabe, says one day they will make a great movie with their own money. When Fincher told Tarsem – “You happen to be the fool that has done it”, he says it all. A film that shows what cinema, as an art form and as a medium of expression, can truly achieve. No film, no film, has given us more indelible images, and more incredible images. Seldom has cinema seen such a grand confluence of audio, visual and the narrative. One of the most ambitious films ever made, and for sure one of cinema’s great masterpieces. Five centuries from now when generations read about the art of cinema in books, and read it on websites flipping in their sunglasses, I hope they do learn about this work of art on a page not too far away from the greatest film ever made - 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Joheunnom Nabbeunnom Isanghannom (The Good The Bad The Weird) (Director: Kim Ji-woon): To pay homage to one of cinema’s most enduring classics is a daunting task, but to make a film just about as epic, as entertaining and as stylish as The Good The Bad The Ugly only calls for a giant awe. Everything that is implied by the word awesome is to be seen here. This is the action movie we’ve all been waiting for. Every frame of this film is drenched in love with the very idea of movie and movie-making. This is that rare film that starts and ends like a crescendo. Spectacular is the only word that comes to mind.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE YEAR:
It isn’t surprising that all three films were the big winners down at Cannes last year. They say cinema is an approximation of reality. These films approximate the reality of the world they depict to the extent cinema can hope to. Their visions are unique. Films that ought to be studied, frame for frame, moment for moment, and word for word.

Gomorra (Director: Matteo Garrone): It is simple – The Greatest Gangster Movie Ever Made. On second thoughts, the word movie might be the most inappropriate term we can use from the lexicon of cinema. ‘Film’ would be more like it. If cinema were an approximation of reality, this is what we’re essentially referring to. One of the year’s unquestionable masterpieces. One that will influence the change in the way movies are made, especially European art-house, with its lean getting more and more pronounced with gritty realism. Realism as in REALism. Many are complaining that it has no beginning or no end. That is the point. The tentacles of Camorra are everywhere, and if it was left to me, I would try and push the tentacles of this film every which where too.

Entre Les Murs (The Class) (Director: Laurent Cantet): How often are we presented a debate where the arguments from both ends feel organic, and hence the flow not preordained? This is that rare film where students are not mere puppets to advance the plot, but players in a classroom that is at once a battlefield, a place to learn and a conference room for triggering the intellect. A year in a high school class. The teacher isn’t the paragon of righteousness but a man in a position of influence. Brilliantly shot, brilliantly written and as it pans out we feel we’re watching excerpts from life. No wonder this is autobiographical.

Hunger (Director: Steve McQueen): An objective eye to a protest is what is rare to find. To clear the cloud of romance attached to it and rein questions about the very act of using the human body as some sort of sacrifice. This is the year’s best debut in a film whose aesthetics raise as many questions as its content. One of its most fascinating aspects is its portrayal of courage and how it involves a level of insanity to it all. Mr. Fassbender’s physical transformation is something to be appreciated no end. This is one of the year’s most powerful films.

KINDA SPEECHLESS:
Or kinda perplexed. Flat-out brilliance. The best works of genre are here.

In Bruges (Director: Martin McDonagh): Probably the most original best written work of the year. The rare thriller and that rare genre effort where the characters drive the film, and where the characters aren’t mere extensions of the filmmaker himself but whole individuals themselves. It is a super-clever film, super-funny and brutally frank so much so that its forthright characters come across as funny. Ralph Fiennes gives one of the most memorable turns of the year, and rarely has a city been more appealing. I want to go to Bruges, pronto.

Låt den rätte komma in (Let the Right One In) (Director: Tomas Alfredson): As a principle I hate vampire films. And as a matter of great pride I say I love this film. It is scary, haunting and the ending truly disturbing. Something few horror films ever manage to achieve. One of the more superb exercises in creating an atmosphere and sustaining it. Not a moment of the chill feels designed. One of the most special films of this year, and one of its most memorable. Hollywood is coming up with a remake in a couple of years and I find myself praying to God.

KINDA CONTEMPLATIVE:
These were the ones that cornered me, into the jury seat, and forced me to ponder. I have done endlessly, and I have gained a greater understanding and realization. And great many questions find themselves firmly installed within me. Of every which kind. The films that leave you in a quandary are precious. These are such.

En La Ciudad De Sylvia (In the City of Sylvia) (Director: José Luis Guerín): Wind blowing the hair of a woman makes for one of mankind’s most romantic images. It might also make for one of the most haunting and mesmerizing images, a labyrinth of mystery which magnetically draws us in. One of the year’s most striking and original films, and one that has a deep understanding of one of male’s great indulgences. Both psychological and otherwise. It provides for both a worldly and cinematic context to the proceedings, constructing a masterful structure of the space and time of its narrative. Ever wondered why Scorsese captures Betsy’s first moment (when Travis first sees her) in Taxi Driver in slow-mo, invoking a dreamlike imagery? This film will give you the answer.

Revanche (Director: Götz Spielmann): Susanne has had me endlessly fascinated. As a filmmaker and scriptwriter you can seldom create a more layered character and veil in layers of subtlety. This film is spiritual in layers more than one. What forms does revenge take? What does sacrifice mean? What kind of belief one can have with God, and how one can appease and convince him in a conversation, because that essentially involves convincing one’s self. As an exercise in narrative it is complete within itself but with its themes there are so many questions it leaves us with that you might be bothered for days. Probably the most perfectly conceived film of the year.

The Reader (Director: Stephen Daldry): Probably the most misunderstood (out of preconceived notions) film of the year. There’s a reason why author Bernhard Schlink intended to have an English-language adaptation, for what the film seeks is a certain level of universality to its themes. It reminds me of the quote from Fight Club – How much do we really know about ourselves if we’ve never been in a fight? If we’ve never faced a situation how can we really know what we’re capable of? Moral equations greatly change from an individual to a crowd. Ms. Winslet lends one of her finest performances.

CELEBRATING LIFE:
To understand everything around us and celebrate it for its very existence is probably one of the purest ambitions we experience at the movies. In their own ways these films below are honest, often naïve but always curious portrayals of life. Not to make statements, not to speechify but to only understand. And salute it. Tell me if there’s any replacing this.

Shotgun Stories (Director: Jeff Nichols): This is a film with so many true moments to it. It is the kind of film where the aesthetics do not serve the purpose of implying but merely provide a setting. Everything – the plot, the images, the characters – is free, decoupled from each other. No reasoning, no backstories. A guy has to do what he has got to do. Michael Shannon gives one of the great performances of the year, but we ought to remember Douglas Ligon and Barlow Jacobs who play the other two brothers. In its minimalism lay life-summarizing strokes.

Paranoid Park (Director: Gus Van Sant): This is a film that has been of late coming back to me, and has found me thinking about it more and more. There have been many films about teens and all its insecurities, but this one here’s one of the few which I would like to show to some of the guys I hung out with. Will I find a reflection I don’t know, because everything about Paranoid Park is about hiding. Is about concealing. Is about the safety net. Van Sant swirls and swirls around the walls of this net before he gets to know the truth.

Mumbai Meri Jaan (Director: Nishikant Kamat): That rare hyperlink film where it is more about the people than the plot. And rightly these people do not change. Like Paul Thomas Anderson Magnolia this one borrows its richness from life and its emotional power from cinema. There’s exhilaration and devastation felt merely by the use of music and angle. And great actors. There’s Irfaan Khan in one of the year’s finest performances. This is a throbbing work of flawed genius.

Auf Der Anderen Seite (The Edge of Heaven) (Director: Fatih Akin): Mr. Akin plays his characters around like puppets, and he decides their fate for them. But he is a compassionate puppeteer so much in love with them, and one of immense restraint. His issues and themes might be apparent but his touch is so gentle and human that we’re moved all the same. It uses contrivances not to leverage emotions out of us, but to make us understand in greater depth what his people are all about, and in turn we juxtapose them against their inevitable fates we’re already aware of. Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon sure does come to mind.

Bikur Ha-Tizmoret (The Band’s Visit) (Director: Eran Kolirin): The most beautiful and elegant film to come out all year. This film is about music, and it is music. Music to the eyes, music to the ears and music to the soul. It is a gentle film about gentle people. They say music knows no boundaries, no language. This film might be a good example for their claim.

THE MOOOOVIES:
One word? Enjoy. Two words? Get some. Three? Have a blast. Yeaaah.

Tropic Thunder (Director: Ben Stiller): Robert Downey Jr. is a genius and it is unfortunate we’re realizing it this late. And here he creates one of the most hilarious comic characters of all time. In what is the funniest movie is ages. I didn’t event believe they made funny movies like this anymore. When they say laugh-out-loud, this is what they’re referring to.

Pineapple Express (Director: David Gordon Greene): Guys, the hang-out movie is here. Every little fantasy of yours – the buddy movie, the action movie, the comedy movie – are rolled into one neat little piece of dope. Seth Rogen is hilarious and James Franco is a revelation. And then, there’s Danny McBride. This is my idea of a night-out of fun.

Gran Torino (Director: Clint Eastwood): He says this is his last role. We couldn’t have asked for a better swan song. This represents everything, everything, that is right and wrong about one of our great filmmakers and his films. His sense of framing, his themes, his tacky way of dealing with them, his use of cinematic shorthands, and his iconic interpretation of his own image. This is the man. And before him I bow.

Iron Man (Director: Jon Favreau): What fun, what entertainment. The kind of blockbuster we rarely see anymore. In a time when all we see is sequels and remakes and reboots, this is the kind of franchisee kick start that we dream of. Downey Jr. has great fun. He’s uber-cool and so is the film. As kids we had fun with comics, and this is that rare film that reminds us those times. And that suit. Wow!!!

SPECIAL MENTION:

Man on Wire (Director: James Marsh): To be in the presence of the man who tight-roped across the twin towers is to be infected with passion. You meet Philippe Petit and you learn why so many folks were smitten by him. Armed with documentary footage interspersed with formal elements from the traditional goofy comedy films Marsh provides for one of the most enjoyable and exhilarating moments of the year. And something beyond it, which we only later realize.

And I’ve not even seen Synecdoche New York, A Christmas Tale, Import Export or My Winnipeg. For that matter many others. Of course, who said this was an exhaustive list. The end is the beginning is the end is the beginning.

The 81st Annual Academy Awards: Predict-me-not

2009-02-18T21:44:00.000-08:00

This has been one of the more disappointing years for the awards. For one, it has been a lean year, and two, the nominations themselves do not really deserve their places. Some of these films, like Frost/Nixon, would slip from memory by next February. But it is a growing trend where Academy is slipping farther and farther into the irrelevance territory. Nobody really cares about them anymore.

The biggest disappointment is of course the exclusion of The Dark Knight, the unquestionable cinematic event of the year, and probably the decade. More viewers have watched it then the average viewership of the Academy Awards, which puts into doubt the Academy’s claim that the Oscars are the biggest cinematic event of the calendar. But my heart pains most for two films - Rachel Getting Married and In Bruges. Two films whose brilliance is impossible to deny.

Note: To visit my reviews of some of the nominees, please hover on the respective title and follow the instruction.

Category: Best Motion Picture of the Year

Nominees:
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Reader, Slumdog Millionaire

Prediction: Slumdog Millionaire, what more can I say. The mockery continues, and as things look now, there wouldn’t be any change here. If this wins, it would be a shame. A touch more than 2005 when Crash took home the honor. But then, you got to admire the poetry of fate here. A kitschy global-viewpoint film against a gay-themed film. This time Milk, and that time Brokeback Mountain. And both the times, the Christopher Nolan Batman film wasn’t nominated. Batman Begins then, and The Dark Knight now.
The dark horse: Milk. I believe this film might cause an upset, and I hope so too. It is a better film, and it reflects the current political climate.
I wish: The Reader. Of the current nominations that is. It is a great film. A deep film whose points have simply beaten missed most critics.
Gripe: I want to explode here in fury, but I maintain my calm, and just cite these titles – The Dark Knight, In Bruges, Rachel Getting Married. This was a lean year, but the first three are great films. My heart pains when I see a masterpiece like Rachel Getting Married being overlooked. And Frost/Nixon? Seriously? Why not Hancock then? Oh wait, that was a bad film. And this is a terrible one.

Category: Best Achievement in Direction

Nominees:
Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire), Stephen Daldry (The Reader), David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Ron Howard (Frost/Nixon), Gus Van Sant (Milk)

Prediction: Danny Boyle. I don’t think there’s any stopping this guy. A shame again, but right now it appears to be a fact.
The dark horse: David Fincher. Considering the Academy’s reputation of handing awards keeping in mind past efforts, again.
I wish: Stephen Daldry.
Gripe: Again names - Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight), Jonathan Demme (Rachel Getting Married), Martin McDonagh (In Bruges).

Category: Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role

Nominees:
Richard Jenkins (The Visitor), Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon), Sean Penn (Milk), Brad Pitt (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler)

Prediction: Mickey Rourke. Hands down. It is a whale of a performance from the great man.
The dark horse: Sean Penn.
I wish: Mickey Rourke.
Gripe: Brendan Gleeson (In Bruges) ought to have been there in place of Langella. And I wonder how much of Pitt’s performance is really his, and how much of those eyes with that lazy blink are courtesy CGI. And Michael Shannon should have been here too, for his courageous performance in Shotgun Stories. And although it isn’t a gripe, I would want to mention my appreciation for the Academy’s nod to Mr. Jenkins.

Category: Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role

Nominees:
Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married), Angelina Jolie (Changeling), Melissa Leo (Frozen River), Meryl Streep (Doubt), Kate Winslet (The Reader)

Prediction: Kate Winslet.
The dark horse: Meryl Streep.
I wish: Anne Hathaway.
Gripe: Where is Michelle Williams, and why such little love for Wendy and Lucy?

Category: Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role

Nominees:
Josh Brolin (Milk), Robert Downey Jr. (Tropic Thunder), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Doubt), Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight), Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road)

Prediction: Heath Ledger. I look at this category from last year and my comments and I observe I wouldn’t have to change any of it one bit save the names. And there’s no shame in saying it again. The performance of the year. The greatest villain of all time. One of the greatest performances of all time. One of the greatest cinematic characters of all time. This is the kind of performance that defines an era. You don’t award such a performance, you stand up and applaud. This is one of cinema’s unquestionable triumphs.
The dark horse: None. Rather, not applicable.
I wish: Heath Ledger, of course
Gripe: This category is just about perfect. But I wish there was room for Ralph Fiennes for In Bruges. And for James Franco, for he was the heart of Pineapple Express. Maybe in place of Brolin, but still this category is almost impossible to be cross with.

Category: Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role

Nominees:
Amy Adams (Doubt), Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), Viola Davis (Doubt), Taraji P. Henson (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Marisa Tomei (The Wrestler)

Prediction: Taraji P. Henson.
The dark horse: Penelope Cruz.
I wish: Amy Adams.
Gripe: Where is Rosemarie Dewitt? In Rachel Getting Married she gives one of the year’s most truthful, layered and ultimately best performances. The nominations pale in comparison to her effort, which is nothing short of a masterpiece.

Category: Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen

Nominees:
Courtney Hunt (Frozen River), Mike Leigh (Happy-Go-Lucky), Martin McDonagh (In Bruges), Andrew Stanton, Pete Doctor and Jim Reardon (Wall-E), Dustin Lance Black (Milk)

Prediction: Andrew Stanton, Pete Doctor and Jim Reardon. My crystal ball tells me that this is where the Academy will declare its love for this film, besides the category on which it has a lock – the Best Animated Film of the Year.
The dark horse: Martin McDonagh. This is a brilliant script, with brilliant characters and truly exceptional dialogs. And what a layered story.
I wish: Martin McDonagh. This film deserves more respect.
Gripe: Though I haven’t yet seen it I still want to throw it up as a question. Synecdoche, New York? And I just wish it was Rachel Getting Married instead of Happy-Go-Lucky. Ms. Jenny Lumet does have a reason to be unhappy, and so do I.

Category: Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published

Nominees:
Eric Roth, Robin Swicord (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), John Patrick Shanley (Doubt), Peter Morgan (Frost/Nixon), David Hare (The Reader), Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire)

Prediction: Simon Beaufoy.
The dark horse: David Hare.
I wish: David Hare. This is a good adaptation of a book I left midway.
Gripe: Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan (The Dark Knight). Peter Morgan’s script is a near travesty. So is Simon Beaufoy’s. Of course the source isn’t that great to begin with. Of course, I’m not sure Eric Roth’s script for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button holds much water either. It is dull and somber when it should have been having fun with its material.

Category: Best Achievement in Cinematography

Nominees:
Tom Stern (Changeling), Claudio Miranda (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Wally Pfister (The Dark Knight), Roger Deakins and Chris Menges (The Reader), Anthony Dod Mantle (Slumdog Millionaire)

Prediction: Anthony Dod Mantle. He did win the BAFTA and he did win the American Society of Cinematographers’ nod.
The dark horse: Wally Pfister. As Roger Ebert has mentioned there’s no better shot film this year than The Dark Knight. A huge part of its awesomeness lay in the genius of Mr. Pfister.
I wish: Wally Pfister.
Gripe: I wonder only about Rachel Getting Married. For one, the last shot which lingers on is pretty special. One of the purest moments (if one can call that) to come out last year. In a time where the hand-held camera is being trivialized, this film almost re-invents its usage. It makes us feel the life and all its vibrancy around us. Things do not feel staged with the frame being “filled”, but instead we feel the camera is capturing the essence of something. And as a viewer who is often bothered by overt usage of alterations in focus, this film uses it in a splendid fashion, and actually fulfilling its purpose of directing our vision rather than forcing it (as it happens in most other cases). More importantly I think this is one of the greatest films of last year, if not the greatest, and one of its greatest assets is its photography.
Then there was poetry at motion in Van Sant’s Paranoid Park. That dreamy Super-8 footage was just something else.
And as for Slumdog Millionaire’s its zany camera angles are as hollow as the film itself. What a mockery?

Category: Best Achievement in Editing

Nominees:
Angus Wall, Kirk Baxter (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Lee Smith (The Dark Knight), Daniel P. Hanley, Mike Hill (Frost/Nixon), Elliot Graham (Milk), Chris Dickens (Slumdog Millionaire)

Prediction: The Dark Knight. The secret to its relentless and visceral power. On a piece-by-piece analysis, the editing might be flawed, but taken as a whole it sweeps you.
The dark horse: Slumdog Millionaire.
I wish: The Dark Knight.
Gripe: Again, Frost/Nixon? And Rachel Getting Married was so subtly edited into what’s probably the most fluid American film of the year.

Category: Best Achievement in Art Direction

Nominees:
James J. Murakami, Gary Fettis (Changeling), Donald Graham Burt, Victor J. Zolfo (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Nathan Crowley, Peter Lando (The Dark Knight), Michael Carlin, Rebecca Alleway (The Duchess), Kristi Zea, Debra Schutt (Revolutionary Road)

Prediction: James J. Murakami, Gary Fettis for Changeling. The Academy loves it when it is obvious.
The dark horse: Kristi Zea, Debra Schutt (Revolutionary Road).
I wish: James J. Murakami and Gary Fettis.
Gripe: Nothing really.

Category: Best Achievement in Costume Design

Nominees:
Catherine Martin (Australia), Jacqueline West (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Michael O’ Connor (The Duchess), Danny Glicker (Milk), Albert Wolsky (Revolutionary Road)

Prediction: Michael O’ Connor. The complexity of those costumes is exhausting, so much so that even the characters once remark upon the tedium.
The dark horse: Albert Wolsky (Revolutionary Road). Shouldn’t be.
I wish: I don’t wish anything here.
Gripe: Again, nothing really.

Category: Best Achievement in Make Up

Nominees:
Greg Cannom (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), John Caglione Jr., Conor O’Sullivan (The Dark Knight), Mike Elizalde, Thomas Floutz (Hellboy II: The Golden Army)

Prediction: Greg Cannom. Again because of the obviousness, though I would like to mention that there’re places where the make-up does stick out. It could have been better.
The dark horse: John Caglione Jr., Conor O’Sullivan.
I wish: John Caglione Jr., Conor O’Sullivan. There isn’t quantity of make-up here, like the other nominees but quality. Like the ape-showdown in 2001 versus Planet of the Apes. The Joker make-up is one for the history books.
Gripe: Never mind.

Category: Best Achievement in Visual Effects

Nominees:
Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton, Craig Barron (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Nick Davis, Chris Corbould, Timothy Webber, Paul J. Franklin (The Dark Knight), John Nelson, Ben Snow, Daniel Sudick, Shane Mahan (Iron Man)

Prediction: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I think this is one of those films that employs CGI as a virtue rather than as mere eye candy.
The dark horse: The Dark Knight, and I hope it isn’t the case, though there’s pretty seamless use of CGI.
I wish: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Gripe: None. But I wonder why the Academy, which traditionally looks only at quantity, chose to overlook Hellboy II in favor of Iron Man. Or did they just forget?

Category: Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score

Nominees:
Alexander Desplat (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), James Newton Howard (Defiance), Danny Elfman (Milk), A.R. Rahman (Slumdog Millionaire), Thomas Newman (Wall-E)

Prediction: A.R. Rahman.
The dark horse: Alexander Desplat.
I wish: Danny Elfman. It is soulful and beautiful, reflective of the aspect I love most about Gus Van Sant’s filmmaking.
Gripe: James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer created the best and the most rousing score of the year in The Dark Knight. And Defiance? That was no more than standard issue.

Category: Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song

Nominees:
A.R. Rahman and Sampooran Singh Gulzar (Slumdog Millionaire, “Jai Ho”), A.R. Rahman and Maya Arulpragasam (Slumdog Millionaire, “Jai Ho”), Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman (Wall-E, “Down to Earth”)

Prediction: A.R. Rahman and Sampooran Singh Gulzar for “Jai Ho”.
The dark horse: Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman.
I wish: Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman.
Gripe: Bruce Springsteen for “The Wrestler” for The Wrestler. I’m not sure there has been a better song written for a motion picture all year.

Category: Best Achievement in Sound Mixing

Nominees:
David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce, Mark Weingarten (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Ed Novick, Lora Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo (The Dark Knight), Chris Jenkins, Frank A. Montaño, Petr Forejt (Wanted), Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke, Resul Pookutty (Slumdog Millionaire), Tom Myers, Michael Semanick, Ben Burtt (Wall-E)

Prediction: Wall-E. Pixar has never used sound in a better way. It all comes to the fore during the silent part of the film where the ‘sounds’ of the action is one of the major elements.
The dark horse: I think it would have to be Chris Jenkins, Frank A. Montaño, Petr Forejt for Wanted, because the other nominees involve excessive usage of score.
I wish: Wall-E.
Gripe: Cannot really say.

Category: Best Achievement in Sound Editing

Nominees:
Richard King (The Dark Knight), Frank E. Eulner and Christopher Boyes (Iron Man), Wylie Statemen (Wanted), Tom Sayers (Slumdog Millionaire), Ben Burtt, Matthew Wood (Wall-E)

Prediction: Wall-E.
The dark horse: Richard King for The Dark Knight. I think the chase sequence is quite well done.

I wish: Wall-E.
Gripe: Cannot really say.

Category: Best Animated Feature Film of the Year

Nominees:
Chris Williams, Byron Howard (Bolt), John Stevenson, Mark Osborne (Kung fu Panda), Andrew Stanton (Wall-E)

Prediction: Wall-E. I really want to question the near-masterpiece status that everyone has awarded this film.
The dark horse: Wall-E.
I wish: Wall-E
Gripe: Not applicable.

Category: Best Foreign Language Film of the Year

Nominees:
Revanche (Austria), Vals Im Bashir (Israel), Okuribito (Japan), Entre Les Murs (France), Der Baader Meinhof Komplex(Germany)

Prediction: Vals Im Bashir. Everyone is loving this film and I stand here disappointed and underwhelmed. It has huge structural flaws, its choice of medium is shallow and all its ends up being is politically correct. The script is a sore point, which sticks out like a strategy rather than as an honest introspection of a nation and individual’s past.
The dark horse: Entre Les Murs.
I wish: Entre Les Murs. One of the most flat-out brilliant films of the year. The first time children are given a voice in a classroom picture. And that ending is one of the more perfect ones of the year beautifully capturing the echoes of the final day.
Gripe: Gomorra, Gomorra and only Gomorra. A masterpiece.

Let us see how many of it I got right on the money.
I hope you enjoyed this run up to the Academy Awards. The awards will be presented on Sunday, February 22nd, and will be aired live on Star Movies Feb 23 rd, 0630.

JOKER: GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW

2008-12-01T07:57:00.000-08:00

Written By: Brian Azzarello
Artwork By: Lee Bermejo
Rating: ***1/2
Pages: 128
Publisher: DC Comics

        There’s a very fundamental problem at the heart of Brain Azzarello’s Joker. You see, The Joker is the greatest of all the fictional supervillains. But when you decide to render a Joker-only vehicle, where he is killing off other mob bosses and, you know, other villains, there creeps in a certain shift in the moral compass. Narrating a story is all about relativity, and there’re no absolutes that any reader feels. A protagonist’s enemies automatically assume the role of villains in a narrative, irrespective of how vile and vicious he may be. A reader, or an audience, has great capacity to shift his moral stand. I mean, without that, we would never have loved Michael Corleone, right? Or Hannibal Lecter (The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal)?
        The fact of the matter is that it is impossible to make us hate the protagonist, unless the narrator does either of two things – (i) he includes a force morally higher than him, or (ii) he includes various elements of innocence, elements central to the story, which the evil protagonist then destroys. The Joker is evil. The Killing Joke is a fine example of how to do it, and do it spectacularly right. Though it is all about The Joker and there isn’t much of him in it, Moore, the genius he is, wisely assumes a quite relentless tone, one of great horror, as he uses Commissioner Gordon as leverage to elevate Joker’s evil inspite of that fact that it has more of the Clowned Prince of Crime than anyone else.

        Let me describe for you the basic premise of Joker, so that you can grab a greater insight into the problem, and appreciate the monumentality of what Azzarello is working against. That he succeeds, and fails, is a testimony to the fact that regardless of everything, Joker is sure to go down as a seminal work for the Clowned Prince of Crime. There isn’t much by the way of plot really. The Joker has fed some bullshit to the authorities down at Arkaham, convincing that he has been cured. We never know how, and maybe we aren’t supposed to. In some ways, it reflects the way Joker walked into his world, in the comics, and in Nolan’s The Dark Knight. All we learn is he is out of the gates of the Asylum, back onto those filthy streets of Gotham he rules. Rather, the streets he used to rule. He is out to wrest it all back, and for muscle power, he has Croc. For company, he has Ms. Harley Quinn. For supplies, he has The Riddler. For money, he has The Penguin. And for an enemy, he has Harvey Two-Face. Of course, there’re gangsters too.
        And there’s him. There's always him.
        And there’s Jonny Frost. It is him who takes us on the ride alongside Joker, and it is his account we hear. Kinda like the ride with the devil, you know, like Jonathan Harker’s acquaintance with Count Dracula. Azzarello intends to portray The Joker’s perspective but wisely doesn’t fall for the obvious trap of taking his POV. The Joker is still opaque, and still unpredictable, and often despicable. Still, we seem to side along The Joker, because you know what, he is essentially wiping off criminals.
        Now, is there a problem here?
        As I read the novel for the first time, and argued about it with myself, I assumed there was one. That the fact that the Joker gets rids of gangsters lends him shades of an anti-hero. You know, like doing the dirty work. Which I thought was wrong, and most of all a sin. I argued to myself for a great deal of time that Joker does have innocent people being killed. But then none of them are people we know, or people part of the storyline, and that they’re just obligatory killings. It is hard to care for them, or feel any sort of repulsive emotion. I wondered, argued, and convinced myself against Azzarello’s Joker by citing that a villain as great and as evil as The Joker should never give out anti-hero tendencies. That he should always be the baddest guy in the universe. I supplied Hannibal Lecter as an argument to myself. He was the evil monster till Red Dragon and Manhunter, but in The Silence of the Lambs he is on Clarice Starling’s side, and thus we support him, even though we know he is bad. It was fundamentals of narration, of structuring a plot that was driving my initial feelings, you see. And what I felt was Joker makes us like The Joker, as opposed to hating him. And I was burning in ire imagining the next logical step – that he would become an anti-hero, would ensure a couple of novels where this fate will be sealed, and the complete destruction of an evil genius will be complete.
        And then it dawned upon me, that I was being constrained by too much of myself, that I was paying too much importance to my own rules. That although my first reading was a rather shallow one that didn’t do much other than to scratch the surface, the reactions I felt in me were very important. And then, I read it again, I played Why So Serious, and I read it again. And I seem to have unraveled a deeper ring to it, one that actually elevates, or rather sinks this work into the bottommost depths of evil, one that provides a radically novel approach to the Batman universe as we have never seen before. And one that stands as a great companion piece to Nolan’s The Dark Knight, for the simple reason that both these works in a way complete each other.
        Allow me to explain how, by looking at my point regarding the structural aspect, which I might have been partially wrong in labeling a problem, from a radically different perspective.
        Let us begin by taking a fresh look at why The Joker wipes the criminal fraternity. It maybe because, he knows that none of them knows how to fight that Great War. Maybe because, he is the only one who can take it upto him. That big force. Maybe because The Joker is to the criminal underworld what he is to the cops and all the forces on the side of good. And maybe because, only The Joker and he know how to fight that Great War. When the Joker is absent he is content, relatively, because the others, like Penguin, like Harvey Two-Face aren’t that much of a bother. They aren’t a disease like he is. He raises the stakes, because he is probably the only one who understands his side, just as he seems to be the only one who understands his.
        Nolan’s The Dark Knight is from his perspective, and as a result The Joker is an unknown force in that world. Joker, in many ways, serves as the exact complement, and here he is the unknown force who seems to be anywhere and everywhere, watching from above. The Joker, while looking out of the window, says to Frost – He is out there, looking, for me. The Cross of a church reflects in the car window pane. God, for The Joker, is him. His eternal enemy. You know, they complete each other. He kills a gangster, walks outside, and looks up at the heavens, knowing he is watching. He puts the revolver in his mouth, and looks up. And he clicks. And he laughs.
        In The Dark Knight, Nolan portrayed The Joker as a natural progression of the escalation that resulted because of his birth. Joker does exactly that, but this time it is The Joker who is the cause. Juxtaposing the two works indulged me in a great little hour of contemplation, where arguments regularly met the fate of that classic Chicken and Egg question, or if we move a little closer in theme, which came first – darkness or light? The Gotham that is portrayed too is a stench-filled town which feels a close kin of the one from Batman Begins, crossed with the New York City of Taxi Driver and Se7en.
        And Azzarello does try very hard to rein that gravity of themes. That he fails at some levels is mostly a matter of lack of plot. For most parts he does enhance the myth. But then, only in parts. His Joker might be a force of nature, but he doesn’t assume that role here. He is referred to as the disease, the incurable one, but then adjectives make for less impact then actions. Late into the novel, we are told The Joker is sitting on a scheme for days. But what ensues doesn’t unravel anything of note. And even though he stretches it across 122 pages, the plot is way thinner than Moore’s Joker vehicle. It ought to make you realize how brilliantly economic and how devastatingly effective that one was.
        I believe Joker, as a standalone work, feels incomplete. It needs another issue, hell it deserves one. Because as it stands, Joker often makes the man seem ordinary. Because, at times we feel he’s a mere crime boss whose unique characteristic is his cruelty. Because, at times we feel The Joker is merely a psycho with a penchant to kill. Azzarello’s intention is to chart the transformation of ambitious Frost, who at first is a great fan of The Joker and wants to be like him, and in the end grows disillusioned. And to use that as a leverage to portray the horror of The Joker’s ride. The problem is Frost doesn’t come across as a particularly strong character, and his disillusionment isn’t convincing.

        Coming back to the question of another issue, it needs one because, at times we feel the various supporting members are included as a mere obligation and they don’t really bring much to the table. Because, Lee Bermejo’s artwork fluctuates between the outright brilliant and the frustrating mediocre. There’re great many places where Bermejo uses paintings with washed out color, and there’re other places where he uses the standard pencil work lush in color, and the transition seems to be haphazard and without reason. Often it feels, Bermejo used the painted images for those moments he wished to highlight. There’re some terrific moments conjured up, interspersed with not so terrific ones.
        But mostly because, Azzarello ends it all on a terrific note. The ending is ambiguous and disturbing and mystifying. Just like that moment of ha-ha in The Killing Joke. It elevates, and here there’s no ambiguity whatsoever, the eternal battle that wages between The Joker and him. The Joker has been in our imagination for long, and has stood the test of time. But he is probably the one comic book character who has seen the biggest surge in popularity in the past one year, with Grant Morrison’s Batman R.I.P. arc and Heath Ledger’s tour de force in The Dark Knight. I suspect Joker will be a hit too, but if fear it might lead to spin-offs both in comics and movies. I know, the guys down at DC and WB are too smart to commit such a grave sin, but then the lure of the green has seen crazier things being attempted. All I wish is that they create now a fiendish little issue where The Joker wreaks havoc, not only by killing people but by reining in destruction. And there’s him standing on the other end to bear the brunt, and save Gotham.

The Dark Knight: A Perpetual Conversation at the Movies

2008-09-10T21:55:00.000-07:00

        I don’t know if depression, clinical or otherwise, is an engulfing moment of rage or one of such immense despair you sink into the deepest recesses of your chairs or bedhseets wanting to never get up again. I have always harbored a great deal of fascination for it, a certain kind of mystery, because it feels so alien. And we always are drawn towards what is alien. This last week I might have experienced a fair glimpse of what it might be like to be depressed, for a lurking sadness I knew would befall one day slammed into me all so suddenly.
        And there I was, not knowing what to feel, apart from a realization that was growing heavier by the minute, that a huge part of me had been snatched away without prior notice, seemingly forever. I had fallen terribly ill this last month, and it was now that I felt around me a sickening wretchedness fill inside of me for that time lost. There was a whole hour during which I believe I merely stared into the open space, not able to summon much other than to rue over several missed opportunities, to grapple endlessly to come to terms with the truth that The Dark Knight was pulled out of theatres, and to wonder if someone up there in the heavens didn’t even give me the chance to bid it the fondest of farewells, something that I had planned for a long time.
        I work on a principle that might appear to border on a certain level of insanity, you know, where the blessed screws might just have gotten a trifle loose. And that is, if a picture comes along that enthralls and captivates me like no other, and that is on the big screen, I try to watch it to my heart’s and my mind’s fill, and to the absolute fill of every sense God has graced me with. The reason is simple – I ought not to miss it once it is pulled out of the theatres. And so, here I was, visiting this immense motion picture, experiencing this destination week after week, a visual and emotional explosion that feels borne out of the dreams and myths of my deeply influenced mind, and heart. It is intoxicating like no other, the feeling that something deep inside the core of you is being reflected onto the screen, and vice versa. I have always felt that the Joker and Batman complete themselves, and when those lines were spoken it felt blissfully dizzy. These are the times when you do much more than watch a film, you start conversing with it. As if these alleys, these people share an intimate relation with you. Such films become a state of your self that you end up visiting often, sometimes by choice and sometimes out of no choice. This does happen with other works of art too, with a book that becomes the cornerstone of your principles, or a piece of music that becomes a summation of your life. The Dark Knight had become one such personal element for me all too quickly, and maybe all too forcefully, invading and stamping itself into every which territory there is inside of me ready for inhabitation.

        The film has broken box office records of most kinds, and it is commonly accepted movie wisdom that if you haven’t seen the film twice you haven’t seen it at all. I don’t know, but twice feels kinda less to me. This film deserved much more, much more. A movie-goer who was prepared to submit himself to it might have stood a better chance to measure the full depth of its intensity. There was something to be learned even on the fourth or fifth viewing, a hidden emotion that revealed itself, ideas and characters to be pondered for days until the next time when the film presented itself under a light of mildly altered perception.
        It went on to become a challenge for me, and I have to admit here, towards my seventh and eighth time, I went to the film on back to back days just to test if it could bore me. That if it would sag. It didn’t, not once, and I just kept being drawn again and again, just for that one more time. There have been insightful observations drawn from equally thrilled fans, and I believe there has not been a movie in recent years like it to which almost every person has a paragraph to share.
        There’ve been the mildly negative reactions too, like that of film scholars Jim Emerson and David Bordwell, who weren’t too impressed by the film or its politics. Their posts on their blogs have drawn a heavy barrage of supremely intelligent arguments concerning the film – most of them positive and a few negative. Among them somewhere, a line caught my eye which mentioned the predictable ‘blockbuster’ nature of the edits (which keep coming thick and fast). It was the kind of line that bugged me for several nights until I succumbed to the eventualities of my instincts, and I set down to calculate the Average Shot Length (ASL) of the film.
        What was revealed by the long process was infinitely more rewarding and learning than the actual stats, which go thus –
        Feature running time (excluding credits) – 2 hours 23 minutes and 41 seconds.
        Number of shots – 2703. (I might have missed a few, courtesy the unavoidable entity that is human error. And often, due to being arrested by the sheer gravity of a scene.)
        Simple mathematics tells us that the average shot length (ASL) is 3.19 seconds.

        To give you a frame of reference, out of the top of my head, The Departed had an ASL of 2.7 seconds, The Bourne Ultimatum had an ASL of 1.8 seconds, Taxi Driver had an ASL of 7.3 seconds and Annie Hall had an ASL of 14.5 seconds.

        Now, these figures in themselves wouldn’t tell us a lot, except from validating the age-old principle that faster cuts are employed to rein in more intensity. But The Dark Knight isn’t by any means an incessant chop show. Rather, it feels to be one of the greatest exponents of the Bordwellian concept of intensified continuity (here), and uses it to devastating effect. It is the individuals that fill the screen for most of the time, and between the main men there aren’t a whole lot of two shots. They are brought together in a single frame only sparsely, when they unite – the awe-inspiring three-way shot of the trinity where the camera circles around the Batman, Gordon and Two-Face (inspired from The Long Halloween), or when they clash – one of the greatest sequences of modern cinema, the lockroom sequence between the Batman and the Joker. The beauty of these shots, or these sequences is that they simply cannot be described as easily as I have attempted above. In the former, we see the differences between all three of them. Gordon accuses Dent of corruption and Dent in turn accuses him of inaction. The Batman is always different simply because of his negative methods. And in the locker room, which might otherwise appear to be a sequence of two forces clashing, is actually them confiding to each other, understanding each other. The Joker knows the truth about their predicament, and the Batman simply doesn’t want to accept it. (Note: The Batman doesn’t accept it because he has encountered a force that wouldn’t be afraid of him for the first time, and this is new to him. Had this film been released, say, five or ten sequels down the line all helmed by Nolan The Batman would have shared the laugh with The Joker, ala The Killing Joke).

        Roger Ebert says, in his most profoundly encapsulating view of cinema – A great film is not what it is about, but how it is about it. The Dark Knight is an all out war. It is relentless so much so that feels like a psychological assault, where tension grips every scene. The movie surrounds you (credit ought to be given to Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard) and spins you in its whirlwind and leaves you with a sense of exhaustion. The film drains us emotionally and mentally, because it is a film about apocalypse. Not annihilation from an exterior force, but from something much more sinister.
        And rarely have I felt that dread at the movies that I felt on my thirteenth time. Everytime I watched the film I felt a deep connection to the Gordon’s little kid, but everytime I was swept far away by the brute force of its emotional tide. I don’t know, but something happened this time around that firmly installed within me who we, as audience, are supposed to be. The easy answer might be the Batman or the Joker or Two-Face, but I don’t think so. Because, why would I feel such awe everytime I watched it, and more so this time around? Because, why would I be heartbroken when Rachel realizes in the last thirty seconds of her life that she is the one going to die. Because, why would I, a grown up man of 25, be so terrified when the Joker runs the keys along the bars and calls out – Hello there – to Lau. Because, why else would a shiver run through me when Bruce Wayne walks up coldly from behind Dent, puts him in a chokehold and Dent falls off unconscious. Because, why else would I have wished I had my father besides me so that I had someone to hold to, because in the middle of its intensity I felt so scared. Because, why else would I be so exhilarated when Batman demands five minutes of Gordon and jumps down, and Gordon cries out in desperation – I have to save Dent. Because, why else would I feel it was me who Batman was concerned about when he looked up as Gordon questioned the fate of Gotham after Dent had fallen down to his death. Because, why else would I feel every emotion I have ever felt for Batman, right down from my days as a little kid to my present role as an overgrown kid, condense and bear down heavily upon me in those final moments of the film when Batman runs away from us.
        I believe now we’re that little child, James Gordon Jr., because out there in that world he represented us. At least for me he did. When Batman looked up, I believe he found the deepest ocean of inspiration. That was the thirteenth time, the time when I felt I had experienced the best of all my viewings, and it happened to be the last time. Had the concerned folks given me just a couple of more days, I would have rounded of the figure to fifteen. Come to think of it, even a single day would have done the job. But sometimes, things aren’t just meant to be. Maybe, I might never grow tired of the film. It still hasn’t left me, and my car deck still surrounds me with Harvey Two-Face, Like a Dog Chasing Cars and A Dark Knight and fills me with those iconic images. And courtesy them, I do not mind traffic jams at all, because I get reason to play them just that one more time and lose myself in them.

        Is it the greatest movie ever made? I might have a firm answer, maybe fifty years down the line, but right now I don’t. But what I do know for sure is that it attracted me, of all people, to share a film with an audience at the movies. I am a personal moviegoer who prefers watching his movies much the same as reading his books, i.e. alone, but out there it united a hell of a lot of people for 152 odd minutes. It felt like a film made for the big screen, not DVD and I have a dream of watching it absolutely alone on the largest screen possible. Is it my favorite movie of all time, and that I believe is a tricky proposition too. But right here and right now, The Dark Knight has installed itself at the core of my fascinations, dreams, imaginations and thoughts, just like 2001: A Space Odyssey did all those years ago.

Note 1: The links to the Jim Emerson posts are below. If you are interested in hearing a myriad of views on the film the comments section are the one to be poured over –
Batman vs. the zeitgeist
The Shorter, the Longer
Under cover of The Dark Knight

Note 2: The link to David Bordwell’s essay on the film, and the genre in general is below. I believe it is an oddly shallow piece.
Superheroes for sale

Note 3: Anyone and everyone is invited to a session in my car deck where we can listen to The Dark Knight score. And once you have soared high and mighty after listening to it, kindly do not assume that it is the deck because it is all courtesy the intense score by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard.

Fight Club, or Heaven?

2008-08-21T20:56:00.000-07:00

Nah, hell’s practice. Heaven is what they lure you with so that you grow up into being good at impersonating the next guy.
Hell’s hate. Hate is strong. At least God has you in his sights. Good is drudgery and everybody around you is swarming in it trying to catch God’s attention. And they’re drowning one inch at a time.
Hell’s got no competition.
Hell’s cool. Evil’s cool.
Hell is backyard.

Congratulations, you’re this far from hitting rock bottom.
Call it nihilism. Call it anarchy. Call it self destruction. Call it chaos. Call it Fight Club.
But still you’re falling. Let gravity work its course. Let go.

And then, when you’re finally the bottommost layer of crap, when you’re the base of the garbage can, when you’re the disgust of evil, when you’re so rotten that hell dreads you, when you are feces and stink so bad a dung beetle wouldn’t want to lay its eggs on you, you’re the Joker.

        I believe, this thought, which is my attempt to condense the essence of its genius, is at the heart of Fight Club. It is impossible, you know, to write everything and say everything there’s to Fight Club in one single essay. It is not just the content, but the tone that makes it our generation’s A Clockwork Orange. Deeper, and probably more profoundly intimate than that Kubrick/Burgess masterpiece was.
        That is of course because it has its origins in our boyish fantasies, in that part of our minds which just wouldn’t want to be venture anywhere near adulthood and let its practicalities steamroll over constructions we have built since we were all-absorbing wide-eyed kids. As I ponder over my way of looking at things back when I was a kid and growing up, as in my own fantasies (which are still harbored in a remote corner) I always wanted to have T-101 as a friend. It felt so cool, and he could do all this stuff I was never ever capable of. Just in case you’re wondering about Batman, he was never ever a friend. He was me, and I was him. That’s different, and let us not dwell into those areas of the bay. What I dreamt about having besides me was a cyborg and secretly I desired my exterior to be kinda like him. As in, being impervious to bullets and be so tall and strong. T-101 was the best friend I never had. You could think of Tyler Durden as an incarnation of T-101.
        And say what may and deride the film as macho porn, which some critics have done, Fight Club is a super funny take like there has never been on that that part of our mind which is a part of us forever. And, I just want to visit that part once, and reminisce Fight Club and try to find out where the genius lay. Does it try to be clever about itself, or does it try to be too clever about itself, or does it just, well, try to be what it is about? I would never be able to get all of it here, but let me give it a shot. Right now, I’m Jack’s iron will.

        Allow me to assume you have at least watched the film, if not read the book. Otherwise, scurry off and complete either of those homework assignments.

        Umm, where do we begin?
        Let’s turn the clocks back. A year ago, there was this fine film we all now know as No Country For Old Men, which swept every award in town. It was hailed a landmark effort, had a villain as iconic as there has ever been, and was considered just about perfect. But something bothered me. I had trouble accepting that the genius of the film lay in itself. Rather, a lion’s share of its greatness lay in that carefully knitted prose of Cormac McCarthy, which the film followed by the book. Mind you, it was as good a rendition of the text there could be, but the soul of the film lay in its book. No Country For Old Men felt to me an illustration, a great illustration but an illustration nonetheless. Joel and Ethan Coen didn’t exactly contribute much by the way of intellect; they just took care to portray it impeccably on screen without missing a beat on the tone. They succeeded.
        I think, I have a similar problem with Fight Club (the film), and more so because no one seems to acknowledge the genius of Chuck Palahniuk. Yes, I do agree that it was the film that brought the author into prominence, brought him zillions of readers and probably lent a minor helping hand with his seven books. But whenever it is I talk of Fight Club, it is always the film that seems to be the object of affection. Like, David Fincher is the man. You know what, I don’t think so. I’m Jack’s crusading unflinching mind, and for me Fincher and co. and everybody involved in the film are what I would club under a very respectable title – the technical experts. The man is of course Chuck Palahniuk. And much of what will follow will straddle a haphazard line between the two versions, which essentially are one and the same. Call the film a superb illustration of one of the funniest books I have ever read.
        And only an illustration. No more, no less. And in this transfer, their creeps in a significant defect that is inherent to the medium, and one that Fincher and co. didn’t probably notice.
        Palahniuk, in most of his novels, uses the first person’s narrative as a necessary ingredient because he uses it to present an inherently defective narration. We’ve a flawed narrator, otherwise called an unreliable narrator, or an imperfect observer. When we read the words the narrator is speaking, printed on the pages of the book, that is the only reality we’re privy to. Hence, effectively, we’re standing inside him. But cinema is a different medium, a visual medium, and there’s an objective reality to it that doesn’t quite exist in case of books. When we see our narrator in the frame we’re essentially standing besides him. Fight Club is a comedy, and it could have worked if the film juxtaposed the reality against the narration, but because of its twist ending, it relies on us watching it from a third person angle. One of its tricks is for it to make us believe Tyler and the narrator are two different people. Hence, for all its expertise in the technical department, I think the film’s final act feels a gimmick, a twist in the tale, rather than the eventuality of a state of mind. What works for the book, is exactly what doesn’t for the film.
        This makes the adaptation a work of significantly lesser artistic merit as compared to its source. The film isn’t a masterpiece as many hail it, and I don’t perceive it to be cinematic art. It is a very good film, an immensely involving picture that has the content and that taps into a reservoir which makes for great appreciation. It is the book, for me, that brings much of the joy. And then, of course, the rest of it sure is the film.

        One might want to ask, what’s Fight Club really about?
        I would say, in one line, it is really about people wanting to feel better about themselves, or maybe just wanting to feel about themselves.

        The narrator and Marla visit support groups, and the sorry plight of people and the very idea that someone could be in a worse situation than them there reins in a feel good factor. “Tourist” is a word that is used to great effect, and you wouldn’t need to stretch yourself for reasoning when you wonder why some of us prefer to visit charitable missions. You know, trying to get in touch with “reality”. At the end, it is all feel good, like it or not. Assuage might not be the right word, but that is the first one that comes to mind.
        The film isn’t about soaps, and bombs, but what they represent. You know, the color of my car defines me, and so does the design on my shirt. So does the style of my spectacles, and so does the watch on my hand. Gradually, the narrator is so engulfed and buried within these bits and pieces of definitions, definitions that stem from a value system that have been bludgeoned since childhood, the tiny inner self in the corner of the heart who was always there inside but never outside, revolts. He wants to belong to someplace. Result, Fight Club.

        There’s of course a deeper, more intimate truth to the film. One that echoes my love and fascination for T-101, and one you would find in this essay here that puts forth a convincing thesis that Hobbes is Tyler Durden with Calvin being the narrator, and how their fantastical world comes to haunt them once they grow old.

        Lately, I have been having this idea do rounds about me, and I think more than any character, Nolan’s Joker from The Dark Knight is inspired from the narrator of Fight Club and the whole predicament surrounding him.
Consider this passage I quote from the book and that comes from the deepest crevices of a lonely depressed heart –

“If you’re male and you’re Christian and living in America, your father is your model for God. And if you never know your father, if your father bails out or dies or is never at home, what do you believe about God?
What you end up doing is you spend your life searching for a father and a God.
What you have to consider is the possibility that God doesn’t like you. Could be, God hates you. This is not the worst thing that could happen.
Getting God’s attention is better than getting no attention at all. Maybe because God’s hate is better than His indifference.
If you could be either God’s worst enemy or nothing, which would you choose?”

        Think of the idea of God’s lonely man. A person so alone he feels neglected by his greatest friend, his most intimate soulmate – God. There’s angst that is raging to let itself out. Self improvement (the values Batman stands for) maybe isn’t the answer because everyone’s doing that and God’s playing deaf and blind. That is why he chooses self destruction, and he wants to fall so low he feels free of every string attached.
        The Joker, if we care to explain him, could be a result something like that. He doesn’t have anything to lose. He doesn’t care good, he doesn’t care bad, he is just out there to upset the established order. To him everything is a joke, to him everything us fun. He has hit bottom, but he still feels free fall. I find it eerie when I find that Project Mayhem’s plan is to raze to the ground financial buildings and hence bring chaos. Nolan throws in a line about the Joker’s methods that attract criminals from Arkaham Asylum, i.e. criminals who have deep-seated emotional problems. Does the burgeoning membership of Fight Club and subsequently Project Mayhem ring a bell? Does the manner, the fearless manner, in which Tyler Durden convinces the boss to keep the night club as a base remind you of any particular scene? You know, while getting beaten up and still laughing? At one point of time, the narrator says he wants to fight Gandhi. When Tyler does what he does, and gets beaten to pulp, I think he evocates a version of Gandhi. Unrelenting fearlessness is something truly frightful and enraging.
        Then there’s the whole deal with father, a figure who is so important in Fight Club. Fathers are always, let me tell you always, the first if not the biggest influence on a kid. Tyler and our narrator sit inside the bathtub and discuss about their fathers, and it is a quite insightful sequence, both at a lesser superficial level (the way it provides clues about the individual identities) and a deeper honest level (the way it tells us about the lack of any influence). And of course, Nolan’s Joker does pay a nod to this influence.
        The most eerie similarity though is the tone. The relaxed and comic tone the film has feels like the perpetual state of mind Joker would be in. Being in Fight Club might reduce the overall volume of life for the narrator, but what we’re presented with is a gloriously amplified film. Be it the cheerful score, or the absurdist tone with which Brad Pitt plays Durden with mischief all over him, this is a film that is amused by itself. It isn’t playing straight, mind you, but it isn’t cheating you either. It merely reflects what you feel through a prism that turns it into a comedy, and thus I believe trying to distance you. In that way it is different from films like Taxi Driver (an obvious inspiration) which are constructed thus that in their seriousness and honesty people find echoes.
        That is what I admire immensely about Fight Club. The tone renders the film and its character not someone to behold in romantic notions, but someone to be laughed off. The violence is gratuitous, because it is supposed to be considering what the film is about. Many have dismissed the film based on that very element, and I consider that a shallow reading. I have always believed that this film, if there has been any, is for males, by males and of males. Female audiences will surely enjoy it, but it resonates deeper to the male member. It is probably the ultimate all-male-club film. By that I mean it passes the test that comprises of a viewing composed of ten odd twenty-somethings ready to pounce upon even the slightest bit of melodrama and rip it apart. Not many films stand such a viewing you know, because even the slightest false moment, or schmaltz is shredded to pieces. Of course, that bend comes from a deep-seated insecurity, and the tone of Fight Club taps into it. It is a film that is hard, because it needs to be hard. Were it otherwise, it wouldn’t be cool, it wouldn’t be badass and it wouldn’t be so cherished. Strangely cherished is the wrong word, but that is the first one that comes to mind. It is a picture that is made with a detached bend, with that judgmental tone, and one that is tongue in cheek. There’re references galore, there’s tiny cinema blips, there is the sharp dialog and all that makes Fight Club one of the best satires and comedies of our times. And the beauty of it all is, even in a group, the point gets across.
        But it isn’t the film which discovers that tone. Rather the tone is inevitable considering the riffing prose of Palahniuk. It has such manic energy to it you're hurled from page to page. His novels have great angst in them, and he wraps them in his unique style of wit and humor that help bare the truth rather than conceal it. Most writers use humor as a garb, Palahniuk uses it as a tool to bend his world and stretch it to its most deplorable limits. His protagonists represent the ultimate lows in life, and they do quite despicable stuff, yet it all is a way to discover something deeply spiritual about his work. He isn’t a great narrator, in fact he often bludgeons us with the raging commentary across his pages, but he makes it such immense fun to read it, be horrified by it and then laugh at it, all at the same time. All the lines Pitt and Norton utter are the creation of Palahniuk, and let me tell you as a person who has read the book before watching the film, they are as funny if not more on page. And no offence to either of these great actors who deliver nothing short of remarkable iconic performances. Where the film’s genius lay is that it stays faithful to the book. Of course, I wish Kubrick was alive to adapt and make a film out of it. This feels something right up his alley.

        I believe Fight Club is a description of a depressed state of mind. Probably not clinical depression, as Jim Emerson says here, but depression that comes when dreams gradually start to get snatched away. It isn’t about self hate, but getting around to feel something so bad you start feeling about yourself. Self hate is always better than a feeling of numbness towards the self. It is impossible to float through life like Forrest Gump does, without a care. Maybe intelligence isn’t the answer. Maybe absolute pure blissful innocence is. But that is something we can never consciously strive to have, and once lost, it’s gone. We only have repressed memories deep within. The narrator has a strong Tyler Durden within him, and he is winning the bout. That struggle is probably at the heart of the novel, and the film. Chuck Palahniuk created it, and Fincher and co. replicated it. The genius though lay with the former. Consider this my homage to the book and its author as much as it is an appreciation of its themes.

Right here right now, I’m Jack’s alleviated heart. Chuck Palahniuk

Note: I’m indebted to Stanley Kubrick, for it his views on adaptations that I have imbibed.

Does Se7en really have an idea what it is about?

2008-08-06T15:16:00.000-07:00

        You truly are incorruptible aren't you? You won't kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness…
                                - The Joker, The Dark Knight

        There have been quite a lot of people fretting over The Dark Knight leading the IMDb Top 250 pack, as if that list is the Holy Grail of the greatest works in cinema. As a matter of fact, it is far from it. And I wouldn’t want to discuss anything on that, except for saying that the film that heads it currently is one that knows itself completely and that understands itself and the world that inhabits it thoroughly. But sitting not far from it, at no. 34 is a film that is considered by many to be a modern classic, a masterpiece not only as a thriller but as a telling comment on human psychology and a profound critique of the urban world. I’m talking of David Fincher’s technical tour de force Se7en, and I think it is criminal for us to rate it higher than Taxi Driver on any list, a film that it borrows from liberally. The Scorsese masterpiece currently is sitting pretty at No. 37.
        Se7en is a harrowing thriller, and there’re no two ways about it. Its bleak panorama is gut-wrenching and the film is a little experience in its own right. But there has been one thing that has always bothered me about the film – does Se7en really understand itself, or is just an ‘artistic’ exercise making pretentious jabs at profundity. As Roger Ebert’s all-encompassing quote on cinema goes – A great film is not about what it is about, but how it is about it. Se7en sure is about a serial killer wreaking havoc based on the seven sins, but is it really about the seven sins? Does it really understand the seven sins, or for that matter any of the books – from The Canterbury Tales to Dante’s Inferno? Or is it just another of those sensational thrillers masquerading as art?
        Much of what a film has to say lies in the way it chooses to end itself. A great film almost invariably has an ending that is not only worthy of the film that has preceded it, but elevates it to an almost different frame altogether.

The Ending:

        Consider the ending of Se7en, the way it ends, the note it ends on, and our primary reaction to it. John Doe, the serial killer, or Joe as I would prefer to call him, surrenders himself to detectives Mills and Somerset ready to confess his murder of all the murders he has committed. But only on one condition, and that is to escort the detectives to a prearranged destination. The three go in there, where a courier is delivered to them. Mills opens it and finds his wife’s severed head inside. As Joe admits that he has been guilty of Envy, having been envious of Mills family life, and that he was the one who murdered her, Mills is filled with Wrath. In that rage he kills Joe thus completing the masterpiece of sins that Joe designed. To show to the world sins beget sins.

Our Reaction, and what it means:

        Joe succeeds in his masterplan. Joe was disgusted by what mankind had turned itself into with its sinful existence. What Joe intended to achieve, by his serial killings, was to turn each sin against the sinner. And he did. Consider Mills wife as collateral damage, but every sin gets its punishment, and not necessarily in death. The film ends on a bleak note, with Somerset quoting Hemingway. Joe comes out a genius, a strange cross between Professor Hannibal Lecter and Jack the Ripper. A man of immense intellect who is talking sense about the world (and it reflects in the bleak outlook of Somerset). In a way, Somerset and Joe reflect Sheriff Tom Bell and Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men, and it wouldn’t be a far stretch to liken Mills to Llewlyn Moss. Joe feels very much like the reaper himself, a mythical killer the depths of whom couldn’t be measured. And we end up being in awe of him.

Is Our Reaction to the Film what it is supposed to be?

        Not even in a million years. And that is where this supposed psychological thriller fails miserably, and exposes its shallowness and its lack of understanding of the psychology behind the seven sins. And to realize that, there isn’t a need to run and grab a copy of the Canterbury Tales. The evidence is all there, right in front of us. And if you haven’t managed to garb it, do read the quote above from The Dark Knight for it encompasses what Se7en doesn’t grasp. The word is self-righteousness.
        The important question here is – what sin is Joe really guilty of? Is he really guilty of Wrath? Or is he guilty of some other sin, which he is unaware of?
        Let us first look at the seven sins – Gluttony, Sloth, Wrath, Pride, Lust, Envy and Greed. Now, if you closely look at some of these sins, most notably Pride, they could be argued as virtues. Pride is a sentiment which one derives from one’s own high self-esteem, a highly positive opinion of one self. That is where the ambiguity of it lay – and that is what so profoundly captures the essence of Batman. Hence, self-righteousness. We’ll need to come back to it later.
vNow, consider the predicament of our serial killer Joe here. He is a man who considers himself, and this is in his own clichéd words, the ‘chosen one’ to carry out the ‘work’. He reads books from the library that deal primarily with the medieval concept of sins, apparently for inspiration. There’s utter contempt in Joe’s tone as he speaks about the sinners and how he turned each of their sins against them. He takes pleasure in his masterpiece too, and there’s great pride in the way he foresees how utterly stunned the world would be at the nature of his work. He feels the urge within himself to cleanse the world. To hit it with a sledgehammer because it doesn’t listen when you tap its shoulder with a sledgehammer.
        What do we got?
        No, as a matter of fact, it isn’t someone with the intellect of a Joker or a Hannibal Lecter. What we actually have is a pathetic individual who doesn’t even understand what he’s doing, or doesn’t even understand it. He has contempt, he feels himself the chosen one, and that by definition is a case of self-righteousness, and hence pride. You could call it arrogance too. That one is God, and one is worthy enough to mete out justice, and judge someone for their sins. And hence Joe, or John Doe, is guilty of pride. It is this pride, his high self esteem reveling in his own fixation of his virtuous self, that has driven him to kill these people. And he doesn’t even realize that. Much like the film.

        Pride is the greatest sin of all. Just think like a sociopath and you would realize what drives you there in the first place. Here is what Wikipedia offers for Pride under the subject of Seven Deadly Sins –
                "In almost every list Pride is considered the original and most                 serious of the seven deadly sins, and indeed the ultimate source from                 which the others arise. It is identified as a desire to be more important                 or attractive than others, failing to give compliments to others though                 they may be deserving of them, and excessive love of self (especially                 holding self out of proper position toward God). Dante's definition                 was "love of self perverted to hatred and contempt for one's neighbor."

        The way I see it, Joe is a sorry person. He is stupid and he doesn’t understand a word of the books he has read. He has illusions of grandeur soaked in the bloodbath of his victims and the success of his masterplan, but much like Travis Bickle, he is a simple and normal psycho. That is it, cut and dried. No more, no less.
        The film doesn’t highlight that facet, because it isn’t aware. So what we get in the end is a know-it-all Hannibal Lecter, a super-smart fiend. We actually never get to know the sorry Joe, the lonely Joe, the pathetic and tragic Joe.

        And that is why I say, Se7en doesn’t even know what it is talking about. What makes its sin all the more dreadful is that it is a terribly effective film. It hits all the right buttons as far as the mechanics of a thriller go, but its pretensions and illusions at profundity are as shallow as they can ever be. Its ending is too superficial, too sensational, too entertaining, too satisfactory (Ebert, in his review here, called its ending satisfying, but not worthy of the film before). And we end up getting all the wrong messages, not because we have misinterpreted it, but because the film itself has no clue.

The World of The Dark Knight

2008-07-25T10:50:00.000-07:00

I had promised a thematic analysis of the film. To your utter peril, I’m a man of my word. I would once again request folks who haven’t seen the film to kindly not read any further than the opening five paragraphs, for I hate being the cause of spoilers. There’re a thousand spoilers, practically the entire film lay below. It is a virtual minefield and you would have no idea when you would step on one. I for one will always be here. This great film wouldn’t, and I would love if you watch the film and come back to read this.

        In many ways The Dark Knight is a complete re-imagining of the Batman mythos. It doesn’t condescend towards the genre, the comic book genre; as if it was a world only fit to cater to simplistic emotions of love, and spectacular action. Nolan and co. take their source utter seriously and believe Batman and his universe are as relevant as anything out there. Take for instance, how they influence the Bruce Wayne character and his intensity with shades of Teddy Roosevelt. They don’t paint Gotham city in bright colors and CGI. It is a city living and breathing as any we see, and there in lay its profound gravity – we believe the events being transpired.
        E-Square, a local multiplex, just showed us why they are such shrewd businessmen. The Dark Knight released across India with hype not even a fraction what it had managed elsewhere. It was a silent release, and there were pretty big names against it in two new Hindi films. The multiplex has its biggest capacity auditorium in Screen 5 where it usually screens the obviously more in demand Hindi films. And when the schedules were rescheduled on Monday morning, The Dark Knight proved its real might. That good cinema knows no boundaries, it needs no hype. It thundered its way onto Screen 5, and before we know, every show is running to jam-packed houses.
        And since the screen in the auditorium is one of the largest we’ve in Pune, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. I was there on Wednesday, again, paying the film a sixth visit. Among its many box office records, The Dark Knight has scored a tiny one – the fastest film to have been watched 5 times by me. If you think I am crazy, I met plenty of folks down there last night who have been repeat-watching it. And if you haven’t already, you ought to. I mean, experience The Dark Knight, which is simply a staggering film. An achievement if you might call it. It has taken me six viewings to finally come to grips with it, and its myriad levels of pleasures. At once an action epic and a visual splendor of the caliber of Terminator 2: Judgment Day and a crime drama as eloquent as Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, this is an all new level for entertainment. I believe, cinema exists and prospers because of such immense films. There’s a kind of purity in its utter seriousness of belief. Beneath its swift pace and action are carefully written characters brought to life by one of the best set of actors you would ever come across in a single film. And all of them wrapped around by the mind and heart of a genius.
        The genre which has shaped my perception of cinema the most has always been the western. I always imagined Batman to be from a similar world as the man with no name, for he is drenched in some of the same moral complexities. For instance, what it takes to kill a man. And what it takes to let a man die. I was heartened when one of my good friends shared my view, opining that The Dark Knight could as well have been a great western. It is such a fine reading of this film, a testament to the kind of drama and themes it deals with, and the kind of moral questions it raises. It does pay a nod to the current world atmosphere and it just might come across as a right wing apologizer. I believe it would be a greatly simplistic view of the proceedings.
        I have come across some arguments on various forums that have a minor gripe with the film – is it really about Batman? Hasn’t he been overshadowed by The Joker, which to some is a cardinal offense? I’m not sure, for the simple reason this isn’t a film wholly and solely about Batman in the first place. Making a movie about Batman is something they already did in the first film. This time around he is a major player, but this is the story of a world. This is coming from a man who has had Batman living and breathing within him his entire life, and I say I could never have imagined a greater tribute to him. You might want to know, how.

For the simple reason that it places him in this world, and asks of him to save it.

Batman:

        Batman has no limits.
        Yes, he does. And he surpasses them. Behind that cape, there exists a man. A mere mortal. And that is what makes him special. Because he unlike anyone else, can take it. And that is the underlying power of The Dark Knight. With so much darkness around him, with souls vulnerable to the preying hands of the devil, there is only one force holding Gotham city from falling deep into the plunges of destruction and chaos and anarchy.
        Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan and David S. Goyer know their Batman like many others, but where they stand head and shoulders above most is in their unabashed belief for the character. In their grim realistic interpretation of the character, and his Gotham city, there exists a very deep faith in the strength and resilience of the crusader. The character hails from comic books, from fiction, but they look at him with a sense of devotion as if he is relevant in today’s times. Maybe a Batman is relevant for all ages, for of all superheroes, Batman is the closest that comes to a mirror.
        And he has yet to meet his match. Two-bit crime bosses are bread and butter. What The Dark Knight does is engulf him with the combined forces of fate and moral and chaos, all of them up against him, hurled at him with vicious intent. Batman here is the essential underdog about to realize his limits, and hence he feels like us. He has the infallible heart of a lion though to take it all, head-on. And still survive. And to exceed his own limits. That for me is the truest essence of the character.
        In a rather brilliant decision, the haunting of his parents’ death is not mentioned even once. Yet we see a more haunted albeit surefooted crusader. So much so that his fight to clean up Gotham city has encroached his daytime too. The Batman persona is taking more and more possession of him, and the way I looked it, Bruce Wayne just existed in name. And that brought him a strange sense of calmness and inner peace. The Joker makes Batman reveal himself. It is a fascinating revelation on the character, and I believe Rachel Dawes gets it just about perfect. As much as he walks to reveal himself, his true self is protesting. There is less and less of Bruce, there’s only more and more of Batman.
        Does Bruce Wayne feel intimated by Batman, is something that bothers me. Not that the film ever dwells in that notion, but from time to time we’re supplied a shot of Bruce staring at the Bat suit so as to plant a seed of that idea within us. The sequences bear allusions to a type of split personality we all possess, as if something inside is calling upon the man in the suit. The suit feels like a headstrong arrogant man, with his chest held high. Before him, Bruce feels vaguely inferior, and dare I say, human. I believe that is another fascinating angle on the character, when he wears the suit, it is a human heart bearing the mind of a raging unforgiving beast.
        In Arkaham Asylum, as Batman plays a surrealistic hide and seek game within the premises Mad Hatter poses to him one of the strangest questions I have come across, a question with infinite implications – “Is this hospital a head that brings us into existence? Is it your head, Batman?” It is just a wild insane thought, but The Dark Knight in true Nolan style presents a more realistic interpretation of that question. Gotham has been made crazy because of a billionaire taking himself too seriously, donning a cape, and setting the wrong kind of example. Escalation it is. Copy cat escalation is one form of it. Wannabe Batmans raid smugglers, taking justice into their own hands. Yet Batman shuns them. Is he being pretentious and hypocritical? That is the kind of self doubt that is creeping in ever so slowly into his psyche. How far has he actually succeeded in being a symbol, yet helping in building a true form of justice? As they say, practice before you preach. His means are all wrong, and someone is about to show it to the Batman the hard way.

The Joker:
        And it is possibly his greatest fan.
        A fan who has poured himself all over in his fascination for Batman. He even dreams of sharing a cell with him forever. It is a key to understand the Joker, which is one of the great written characters of our times. It is an absolute in every which way you look at it. Nolan’s Joker is almost an impervious wall of contradictions. But almost. There are three moments, concerning his three reactions that dig somewhat deeper into the character. And all of them concern him being called a freak, or some such derogatory term.
        The first time, in the mob boss gathering, little Gamble calls him a freak straightaway. For a moment there, The Joker seems visibly upset. But he doesn’t react; he tries to finish whatever he was saying while his mind is at work somewhere else, and then in his inimitable style insults them with a scathing verbal assault, exposing their pathetic truth to them. It is a great moment of triumph for the film, for its detailed view on the performance of the actor and the nuances of the character. There is a person there, but how much of him feels anything is open to total interpretation. During the third time, the Chechen again calls him a freak.
        It is the second time though when the Joker truly takes the insult to heart. He is called garbage, and it is Batman. The Joker doesn’t insult him, cannot insult him. He tries to tell Batman who he really is, all the while insulting us, and this shows his true fascination for him. More so than The Killing Joke, we see the underlying relationship between the two faces of the same coin.
        It is one of the greatest constructed sequences of our times, the interrogation scene. A minor masterpiece the way it acts as a hall of mirrors. We can feel the violent rage of Batman in the sequence. As much as the mention of Rachel is driving Bruce Wayne crazy, the Joker laughing despite being beaten mercilessly is frustrating Batman. All the elements – direction, performances and composing – all rise to provide us with a much profound read than a simple lock-up interrogation. And it contains a shattering line – “You complete me.” – and for some odd reason audiences laughed. One an agent of chaos, the other a crusader for order. Lack of chaos is order and lack of order is chaos. They aren’t absolutes, and neither are Batman and the Joker. As long as one exists, the other does inevitably. They both are the causes of each other. The Joker, simply put, is the extreme form of the chaos that made Batman rise against crime.

                I’m like a dog chasing cars. I wouldn’t know what to do if I caught one.
        This statement and many others he utters over the span of the film do not exist just for the sake of entertainment or comic effect. It is, in fact, the only source we’re given to peek inside what’s otherwise an absolute rendition. The Joker in the film tries to be much like the coin that Harvey ‘Two-Face’ Dent tosses, the scarred one I mean. He gives everybody choices and relishes the dilemma that envelopes his subjects. Everything for him feels as an experiment, like the curious kid who just unscrews and opens up stuff to see what’s inside. He doesn’t know what he’ll do once it is all open; he is just fascinated with the ‘opening’ part and performs it meticulously.
        Every sentence he speaks reeks of this innate curiosity of his. That is one of the masterful achievements of the screenplay here. Consider an otherwise insignificant exchange he has with the Chechen, one of the crime bosses. As he burns all the money, he places his knife on the Italian’s neck and says – “Why don't we cut you up into little pieces and feed you to your pooches? Hmm? And then we'll see how loyal a hungry dog really is.” In another film, this would have been just another line; here it gives another insight into this strange force – he is giving the dogs a choice too.
        This sequence contains an action of this that works as a symbolism of sorts. Look how he doesn’t throw the money into a heap. Rather, he carefully builds it giving it a structure. And then he burns it all relishing in the joy of its destruction. He is an agent of destruction and chaos, not destruction and chaos personified.
        One of the most heart-wrenching sequences in this tragedy is when the Joker swaps addresses and misguides Batman regarding where Harvey and Rachel are bound. He does know whom Batman will choose, and he intends to check if he disappoints. To his satisfaction Batman never does. That is all the more reason why Batman and Joker are from the same moral universe. Each can predict the other. Only that Batman takes a little longer to realize because he doesn’t know an equal.
        But the Joker isn’t satisfied merely by irking Batman. As much as he respects him, the battle is for the soul of Gotham. He intends to strike down the White Knight.

Harvey ‘Two-Face’ Dent:
        And The Dark Knight is his story.
        The character that represents the conscience of Gotham riddled in idealism and values. There is a purity, a whiteness about the character and the best part of Eckhart’s performance is we feel that in him. There’s a scene where Bale acknowledges his belief for Dent and we’re shown a close-up of him. It fills the screen, dare I say, with goodness and charm.
        And that is why he is the prized choice for Joker. Does Harvey’s transformation truly represent the most depressing of notions – that evil finally triumphs over good? The film portrays what The Killing Joke didn’t, or couldn’t. That how fragile the good inside of us is and how easily susceptible it is to the forces of evil. Because good is built upon everything that is modest and innocent.
        Dent’s transformation is one of the great tragedies of the film. In a crucial scene, both Dent and Rachel, in separate locations, are bound in a room full of explosives and oil barrels. It is a scene of great performances, as many are in the film. It is powerful and deeply touching not in the least because two characters we have come to care about are in trouble, it is devastating for how it pans out. Rachel believes Batman will come to save her and she is devastated. She talks to Dent consoling him, trying to bring a shred of warmth to his last moments. But the Joker had different plans. The surprise on Rachel’s face when she learns Batman has reached Harvey is immensely tragic. There is something deeply painful where people are separated not knowing the full picture, because it provides a sense of incompleteness. A horrifying sense of it. Rachel dies not knowing that Batman intended to save her, and Batman would never know Rachel didn’t intend to marry him. I’ve never been a huge fan of Rachel, and never really minded who played it as I was fine by both, but that final moment was worth every bit of moment the character spent in the two films.
        Maybe the good amongst us ought to be protected by tough-minded individuals who aren’t necessarily white or pure. As much as Batman is the opposite of Joker, in a strange way, Dent is the opposite of Gordon who is essentially a pragmatist.

Commissioner Gordon:
        He is an honorable man, but he doesn’t mind corruption. Turning a blind eye is as much a sin as committing it.
        Gordon is one of the great characters in the Batman universe. A character criminally ignored in every screen and television outing, reducing him to third grade weakling capable of nothing. Nolan gives the character his due, for the relationship between Gordon and Batman is something deeply profound. It isn’t of a brother, or a friend but one that is based on admiration and trust. Mutual. It is a relationship that transcends normal boundaries – the two guys know each other, understand each other. Outside of Joker and Alfred, there’s probably none who understands Batman better.
        The chemistry between Bale and Oldman is one of the great joys I have experienced at the movies of late. Oldman delivers a restrained albeit forceful portrayal of the cop. Both the films end through Gordon’s eyes, and probably it is the best set of eyes for the simple reason they respect Batman the most.

        Dent sure does represent goodness with respect to an individual. But what of our collective humanity? Are we prone to anarchy and mayhem if left by ourselves, or is a moral order native to us? I have always believed humans as a whole are capable of good. It is essentially an optimistic viewpoint, but I have at various times wondered and arrived at the conclusion we as a whole are naturally noble.

        And the Joker here is the one at fault. He might know and understand the big bat but he doesn’t fully understand the people at large. Whereas Batman comes from the same part of the world and the same part of the mind as him, the citizens of Gotham do not. He puts them through the grind of one of his wicked experiments, and they return Batman’s faith in them. The sequence more than anything is one of faith.

The Ending:
        There have been seldom been times when I have felt shattered when a film ends. My first viewing probably invoked the truest and the most complete reaction from me, and as the credits rolled, I just sat there in my seat. Swelled. Drained. Considering that it was about Batman did it all the more for me. At the end, Batman is placed at an altar higher than ever before. It is a sequence of innumerable emotions, chief of which is redemption. Batman had been responsible earlier for the death of a few individuals. Yet it is important he doesn’t reveal himself to the Joker’s demands. He is the only one who could take tough decisions. Yet at the heart of the superhero is a simple man, and he like us has to atone for it. The final act of taking blame upon himself is an act of redemption, and much more than that an act beyond heroism.
        It is kind of pure cinematic moment us fanboys wait for years but never experience. The choice of every element in that sequence is astoundingly perfect – Gordon’s monologue, the words it consists of, the score from Howard and Zimmer, and the distant light that creates the aura around Batman as he turns from a crusader into a legend before our very eyes. It is a moment of magic only a genius as Nolan could have pulled off.

        I would quote here what one of my friends said, and which I found an immensely beautiful reading of the sequence –
                “That it ends on a darker and gloomier note than any film on its kind, and yet instills a greater hope is what cements the greatness of this film.”

Filmmaking:

        The Dark Knight represents some of the highest order of filmmaking. And the secret again lay buried underneath that golden rule – the film knows, understands and feels its characters. The greatness of the film comes to the fore not in the spectacular actions sequences, which will go down in history as some of the most iconic ever filmed. It is the sequences that deal with the interactions of its characters. Every sequence, every single one of them, brings to the table an emotion that is inherent to the character, resulting in a clash. That is what guides its editing and cinematography.
        I have spoken about the interrogation sequence. Another sequence involves Dent and The Joker in a hospital room. It is a marvel how brilliantly the sequence has been structured. How the lines are spoken, and what is happening between them? Great sequences, just like great films, aren’t about what they are but how they are about it. They exist beyond their narrative service; they make us feel the emotions they are dealing with. You could feel the force of The Joker and how it is pushing the good that is Harvey Dent. It is a towering moment in the film, when Ledger plants the gun on to his forehead and it owes as much to the astounding performances of Heath Ledger and Aaron Eckhart as it does to the cinematography of Wally Pfister. How effective the close-ups are in this film, and how they enhance the performances and the characters. Nolan always likes to fill his screen with his characters, allowing them to emote. We have had much debate how SarkarRaj overdid the close-up part. I believe this is the way to do it. Not impose them on us, but gradually take us in. This is good old fashioned cinema grammar – every sequence gradually closing in on its character until we are inside their minds. Something exploded within me when Two-face lays the coin before the Joker, and Joker has one thing to say – “Now we’re talking.” A supreme moment of writing and filmmaking of the highest order.
        The Dark Knight is one of most intimately shot urban epics I have ever seen, several notches higher than any of Mann’s films, including Heat. Just as the sprawling lands of the western, this city exists as a character as well. Consider the sequence Consider the scene where Harvey is being transferred in the police convoy. Or consider Batman standing on top of the tower preying for information. The most epic of them has Joker stand in the middle of the road enveloped by high rises on all sides as Batman heads on the Batpod to crush him out of existence. We’re driven through the same roads during day as well as night and we tend to grow familiar with the surroundings. The nights in Gotham are lit in golden light and they render a strange sense of melancholy to it. This is something CGI can never manage.
        Consider my contender for one of the best shot non-conversation action moment. As the convoy passes, the truck veers into visibility and into the frame and we read – (S)laughter is the best medicine. And the shutter opens and we see The Joker with a gun in one hand and his left hanging on to the railing inside. Pure cinematic bliss drenched in tons of style.
        Speaking of which, there’re little nuances strewn all over the film. As the convoy drive along their path, they come across a fire truck burning. That is as good a moment of pure Joker humor as you will ever come across. Another such moment, is the Joker walking down the steps of the exploding hospital and it is a beautifully choreographed moment in the film. The scene speaks so much of the character, and his penchant for destruction and the way he basks in its glory with his outstretched hands.
        A heartbreaking moment in the film transpires between Bruce Wayne, heartbroken and devastated sitting there sobbing in his gloom, and his man Friday Alfred. The gloves and everything are on the floor, and it brings back memories of a young Bruce devastated by his parents’ death and his belief that he had caused it. Christian Bale is one of our great actors, and in what would have been merely a good scene is made truly touching by his very presence. The natural hoarseness in his voice brings a depth not many actors have, and with it comes a great level of honesty. Consider the fund raiser at his palace, and see how Bale shows his appreciation for Harvey Dent. It is his eyes, so wide and true, and his voice again that make him such an honest and intense actor. When he says he believes in Harvey Dent, we believe him.
        I have heard a hell of a lot of complaints about his bat growl. I might come across as biased here, and I have no reason to back my opinion, but I love it for no particular reason. It fits so wonderfully in my imagination of the Batman, simply because as a kid I would change my voice too. It feels an element more natural and obvious than logical. Nonetheless, it is that very voice that makes the final scene such a revelation as Batman finally says – “You were the best of us.” Bale delivers a great performance as Bruce Wayne, but as Batman he is in a different zone altogether. No Batman ever made me feel, Bale does that. He elevates Batman to a symbol of fear, but he keeps him essentially human. And that is one of the many glorious achievements of Nolan’s Batman.

Editing:
        I feel like specially mentioning my appreciation for the film’s editing.
        Nolan, in a way, is one of our most demanding directors. He always likes to densely populate every frame and every minute in all his films, and there is not a spare moment here either. And in that congested environment, he lets his characters grow and flourish.
        The manner in which multiple situations are narrated find their closest match in the Academy Award winning The Departed. We’re driven forward on multiple fronts, and more than the Scorsese film, the technique feels more at home here. It feels as in a comic, where the narrative develops in multiple places. It is the Joker’s plans, there’re three in total, and each of them are handled in the same manner. Each place, each of the situations during these scenes has a different emotion in it and their resultant cumulative effect reins the dread inside of us with great force.
        The best of the three occurs in the middle of the film, where Batman and Joker are out to save Rachel and Harvey respectively, Harvey and Rachel talking to each other on a phone, the cops are looking into a prisoner who has just fallen to the floor unconscious due to immense pain, and the Joker toying with a cop. There is great tension such editing pulls and we’re basically juggled between different them. It is chaotic, and it is brilliant. We’re never comfortable during these sequences, and that is an achievement of the film that it pulls us out of the safety net we watch every summer entertainer through. This is serious.

        And yeah, no film that can literally make a scene punch you is done anything short of super in the editing. I’m talking about the moment when the cop comes to the truck and tries to put a leash on the driver and bang – the Joker comes from behind and shoots him. It sure is a shot, every which way you look at it.

Soundtrack:
        I would recommend the soundtrack to everybody. It is worthy enough to be bought.
        Some of the pieces are intensely moody, and some of them have a mad rush of adrenaline to them. For instance, it is tough to stop yourself from poking your head out of the window while listening to Like a Dog Chasing Cars on your car deck as you drive around in the middle of the night. Harvey Two-Face boasts of a crescendo that literally bleeds with the tragedy it speaks of. This is a brilliant creation from Zimmer and Howard, and in my personal favorite A Dark Knight the melancholy tribute they pay to their hero is quite something. Something that could only be felt.
        And of course, there’s the edgy Why So Serious? One of the best tracks I have heard in a long time.

Academy Award Buzz?
        If the Academy wishes relevance, television audience participation and more importantly cinematic art, it ought to nominate this film. There’s no way in the world any actor could be nearly as good as Ledger here, and this would undeniably go as the performance of the year. Just as Bardem’s was of last year. That is not all, it ought to be nominated in quite a lot of categories. This isn’t a film, this is a phenomenon.

A Third Film?
        In a way, the Nolan brothers and David S. Goyer have written themselves into a corner by unleashing this colossal epic. How could they possibly top it, which is if they even attempt to?
        This is brute intensity they have unleashed upon us here. In the opening bank heist one of the robbers warns the hostages in what is one of my favorite lines of the film ¬– “Obviously we don’t want you to be doing anything with your hands other than to holding on to your dear lives.” We do something similar in the film, we just hold on to our dear seats. It is the greatest entertainer I have seen in ages, if not ever. Some of the best lines inhabit this film, and considering that comic books do take pride in their lines, this is the first original comic book film with a quotable potential.
        This film knows its source better than most. At the beginning, the witness points a gun at Dent and it misfires. It is kind of a nod from the folks, winking at us that they know this is how Two-Face was born. But we’re up for something different. They’ve re-imagined the source to cinema, and rather than coloring it all up ala comics, they have understood what those colors represent and portrayed them on the screen.
        Logic is what drives their imagination. For every development the film needs a reason plausible for its world. For instance, consider something as simple as the Batpod shooting out of the Tumbler. None of us was bright enough to put one and one together – why would Batman slide forward in a horizontal position to fire his missiles in Batman Begins. Why did the Batpod have tyres with the same width as the Tumbler? And when we see the ejection, it all so wonderfully makes practical sense – the bulk of the vehicle and its shape.
        The Dark Knight is an honest film which doesn’t try to cater to different audiences. It doesn’t pretend to be romantic when it doesn’t need to, doesn’t try to be comic just for the sake of it, and there in lay its wide appeal. Everyone values their own intelligence and loves someone who respects it. Around 48% of The Dark Knight’s audiences seem to be females, and they have loved it just as much as any fanboy. A great film is always great.
        I would be most pleased if they agree to make a third under Nolan, but I would be perfectly happy with these two films. Still, let us exercise our meager imaginations a little bit, and try to fathom what Nolan could make out of what could possibly be the greatest trilogy of all time.

As is always the case, the villain here is the key.
        Who could be the next guy who would have the audacity to stand upto the Batman? And pity, that’s not all he has to stand upto. The Joker is the greatest villain of all time, and I mean, he beats folks across all mediums. The strength, the resilience, the adaptability of the character speaks for itself. Along with the Batman, he has survived and flourished multiple revisions – from the murdering psychopath to the funny prankster. With The Dark Knight the late Heath Ledger and Nolan have possibly given him his greatest outing of all time, the definitive version of his many personas and that includes Moore’s The Killing Joke. As a chaotic, unstoppable force of nature. A performance that stands up as one of the greatest of all time, as carefully nuanced as any I have ever seen. Right up there, rich with detail, as Pacino’s Michael Corleone.

        There’s not a villain in the universe who could now be the devil himself and let us dance with him under the moonlight. Who could Nolan use to meet the avalanche of expectations that would greet the third, if it does come?
        I have pondered and there’s one name that sounds kind of cool. You want to hear it? Well, for an antagonist, how does Superman sound? The Dark Knight Returns.

The Day I Experienced The Dark Knight

2008-07-19T16:00:00.000-07:00

Cast: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Gary Oldman, Sir Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Maggie Gyllenhaal
Director: Christopher Nolan
Runtime: 152 min.

I believe in the Batman. I believe in Christopher Nolan. I believe in The Dark Knight.

And, I’ve given up. I cannot, I simply cannot. It is impossible for someone like me to go ahead and have the gall to review something you just cannot stop marveling at. I will not attempt to rate it and de-glorify it by quantifying it. Forgive me this one time. You could read good reviews down at http://www.rottentomatoes.com/. Let me instead describe the experience of watching such an immense motion picture, the kind of which arrives once…maybe every decade would be a short duration, maybe twenty years is more like it. Consider this my humble homage to the film. And ignore it as the fanboy rant it is. Just do not ignore the fact though that this is one of the all-time great motion picture events. A verifiable pop culture phenomenon. A cinematic juggernaut. And worry not, there’re no spoilers below. And while we are here, let us go ahead and get done with the adjectives and ‘best’ this and ‘greatest’ that checklist, so that it wouldn’t hurt us later.

-> Greatest villain of all time – Check. Anton Chigurh did hold the post for nearly half a year, but the Joker here is something else. That monster succeeded in merely eroding the belief for men in the world surrounding them. This one here destroys the very moral foundation upon which the same men base that belief. Pay attention to every line of his. There’s great meaning and a great method to all of them. It is one of the great written characters of our times.
-> One of the great performances of all time – Big bold Check. The late Heath Ledger has created something of a flawless masterpiece of mannerisms and chewy larger-than-life supervillain. It is a colossal performance, and it is built with great precision upon what seems like a million parts. You have to watch the film at least three times to even get a complete hold of that performance alone. So yes, IT IS THAT GOOD. Consider a moment where one of the crime bosses interrupts his sentence and calls him a freak. Ledger’s Joker is visibly distracted but still completes what he’s saying. And then he looks at the boss and hits them back with a statement that is much more verbally insulting than any usage of an insult like ‘freak’ can be. Ledger’s Joker is not insane; he’s so brilliant he looks insane. Jack Nicholson was visibly upset and was complaining as to why he wasn’t approached for the part. Mr. Nicholson, sir, for all your greatness, I would very much like this astounding phenomenal performance to be, among many other things, a tight slap on that smug notion of yours that your Joker was any good. Your Joker was so pathetic he squealed and screamed when he fell to his death. This here is the definitive version of the greatest villain of all time. It makes me immensely sad because there’s great tragedy when an artist isn’t there when his achievement receives such universal praise. I wish to God he was here to see all of this. May he rest in peace.
-> One of the best performance ever by an ensemble cast – Hands down, Check. Right up there with The Godfather, Goodfellas, Network and L.A. Confidential. Any other set of actors would have been stamped all over by Ledger’s achievement. Not these bunch, and they deliver equally brilliant turns. Eckhart is intense and forceful as Harvey Dent. Oldman, Caine and Freeman exude such immense class and virtue and then there’s that man, Christian Bale, who is the definitive version of the coolest, strongest and darkest hero of all time. Apologies, he’s more than a hero.
-> Greatest summer action blockbuster – Check. The film absorbs multiple genres, taking the spectacle of action, the morality of a noir tale, the gravity of a drama, and many more and creates something altogether different. A gold standard for movie-making the kind of which not seen in many a year.
-> Greatest superhero film – easy, Check. By the way, how about not using ‘superhero’ and trying to pin down this masterpiece. Not that it isn’t one. The brilliance of such films lay in using the goods of its genre and using them as a slingshot and breaking away from their confines and soaring into the realms only few films manage to touch. Frankly, using tags like Best superhero film feels like an insult, howsoever respectfully it may have been attributed.

-> Greatest sequel – Oh yeah, Check again.
-> Greatest film of this decade – Umm, for the time being Check.
-> Greatest chase sequence – No, I’ll still give that one to Terminator 2: Judgment Day. But this one has one which is as close as they can ever get to the Harley-monster truck extravaganza.
-> Best Picture of the Year – Be safe and confident, assume you’re the next great astrologer and say loudly, Check. I myself did, I predicted that this was going to be an explosion the sorts of which we have never seen, even before the picture was released and look where that got me. As if it was going to be anything else.
-> Exceeded my ridiculous expectations – poof, a big Check. It took me in, twisted me inside its plot so much that I forgot what I had expected and when it was all over, I felt embarrassed how low my expectations were.
-> Best picture ever, a friend of mine asked – Certainly not. And this was never going to be the best picture. Pictures of this sort never are. But like The Good the Bad and The Ugly and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, it’ll for always remain a cherished title in the all-time favorite list of many viewers. Needles to say, including mine. Right up there, in the top 5 I believe. And while I am writing here, the film has touched the IMDb Top 250 No.1 spot. I myself have given it an unabashed 10. It doesn’t mean it is the best film ever, it means how much love it is getting from fanboys and how solidly it lives up to the hype. This picture will spawn an entire generation of true lovers just like Terminator 2: Judgment Day did 17 years back.
-> Greatest day of my life – Ah, come on now. It is not that good. It comes close enough though, to make July 18th – the day when I experienced three back-to-back-to-back screenings of The Dark Knight and was still begging and thirsting for plenty more – go down as one of the most important days to feature in my autobiography with a whole chapter dedicated to it.

        I had never experienced anything like this at the movies. That was the first thought I had in mind when I walked out of the first screening, drenched by the film. The ending left me shattered beyond words. I was touched and I didn’t feel I had the energy in me to speak. I was satisfied I was all alone, because the ending affects you that way. It stirs a personal chord inside of you where you feel you would much rather be all by yourself. The theater was kind enough, especially in these times, to let the credits run the full course and I was the only one left sitting there as they rolled. And behind A Dark Knight played. I swelled like I had never swelled before at a movie.
        The film is as impeccably paced as any film I’ve known, and through the action and the engrossingly thick plot which just never leaves the hold on you, I had no idea how these characters were impressing themselves upon me. And believe me, it is as engrossing as No Country for Old Men was. It is that rare kind of film inside which you wouldn’t have time to think about anything else. Not your office, not the falling stocks. There’re have been astonished people around me wondering how the intermission arrived so soon on every one of the four occasions I have watched this film.
        But that isn’t where its true greatness lay. The mark of a great film, a great thriller, a great actioner, is when you walk outside not thinking of its plot or the spectacle of it, but instead feel touched by it’s the characters, and are left wondering about them. About the choices they have made. About the decisions they took. About how it isn’t much about good or evil, or hero or villain but much more. It is, in the end, what we do that defines us. The film puts a fascinating spin on that piece of wisdom from Batman Begins, and it goes – "You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain." I always had a nagging fear at the back of my mind for quite some time, that the Joker might overshadow the Batman. Especially after hearing such ravings, and in hindsight so very deserving, of Ledger’s Joker. I was relieved the legend of Batman endures marvelously and touches such new heights.
        There haven’t been many comic book/superhero films that have actually been worthy of their source. Entertaining yes, but worthy very few. What makes the art of graphic novels flourish is simple – narrating a weighty morality tale. The Dark Knight understands that and it is a tsunami of moral themes and conundrums. It has a great story, and God bless the Nolan brothers and David S. Goyer for it. It works on so many levels. As a thriller, as an action film (and boy, is the chase scene something), as a crowd pleaser, as a crime drama, as a superhero film, and as something which can be quoted out of in a group. Such a rich story it works under the form of multiple parables. For instance, consider the obvious one. Batman – United States, The Joker – terrorism and Harvey ‘Two-Face’ Dent – the conscience at stake. But the thing with parables is that they’re like symbols. You strip them of their one meaning and they lose their existence. The Dark Knight has a story that is timeless, and at the same time being a popular film that raises questions regarding the present times. Raja Sen, in his own fanboy rant here, gives the film one of the best compliments I have come across – that the film unlike anything before, deserves a comic book miniseries inspired by it. What a wonderful thing to say. It is all about the choices. And the Joker is here to upset every choice made and make everyone doubt themselves.
        I had the better part of two hours on me until the third screening. And I wondered about The Joker – Batman arc. One, an agent of chaos, an absolute form of evil and anarchy who so magnificently disrupts and destroys the existing order. And the other, a selfless savior, not a guarding angel but a superhuman mortal who strives so devoutly in inspiring and uplifting it. And both are essentially considered freaks. The Batman knows it but doesn’t intend to acknowledge it. The Joker is hell bent on reminding him that he is an outcast in this world, and in his own way trying to corrupt him and buy off his soul. But the Joker wouldn’t want him to end, because then where will be his equal. Batman lives by his principles, he doesn’t lay a fatal hand even on the devil incarnate, and thus these two sides of the same coin of insanity have always been destined to fight each other trapped in this paradox of theirs. And on the edge of the coin lay their world.
        The arc between them is handled with as much resonance and gravity as I have ever seen. In films like Heat, the confrontation scenes are fantastic but they seem padded up. As an obligation. Here, it took me the third viewing to realize that the two scenes they converse are actually confrontational. They feel so much part of the overall narrative that is difficult to look beyond the entire experience as just a film. It feels serious. The entire film seems serious. They never overshadow the greater theme – the morality. And it is a testament to all the aspects of cinema performed so incredibly well – greatly etched characters, profoundly written words, powerhouse performances, and great directorial and narrative skills. The lock up sequence is a virtual hall of mirrors.
        The true superhero of the film though is that genius we all now know as Christopher Nolan. He summons grit at will, and stirs it up every now and then with a little poetry when he needs and gives us something we can watch and appreciate in different moods. Not all great films are capable of that. He has changed the face of the genre. Earlier, superhero films as well as summer action blockbusters were safe havens were we sat munching our popcorn knowing all will end well. Nolan has just jolted the entire structure and here we well and truly feel the dread that envelopes Gotham city. We’re swept inside of it. It is one of the film’s many great achievements. He loads the film with so much plot that is enough to fill a bloated trilogy in any different hands. And he never does stall the narration for the sake of style. There’s a nonchalant sense in him that feels so honest. Never does it seem he is out to parade the Batpod. It is just that they fee functional elements that happen to be so incredibly cool.
        Nolan has stated in numerous interviews that he wasn’t making this film keeping a third part in mind. He put everything he had into this. There’ll be third film, make no mistake. Some of the actors are contracted for a trilogy. But I wonder, even if Nolan directs the film, how can they top this one. I can’t imagine something better than this. Maybe, the Nolan brothers can.
        This film doesn’t deserve anything less than a nomination under Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor (Ledger, Eckhart, and/or Oldman), Best Editing and one or the other of those technical categories. For an action film as this, it is always necessary to choose between energy and clarity. This film, under Nolan and his collaborator in all his films Wally Pfister, strikes the exact balance. Considering batman Begins landed a nomination for Cinematography too, let us rope that category in as well.
        One of the most overused terms in film and literary criticism is the word ‘epic’. I have myself been guilty of using it rather lavishly. But I have come to realize now when the word deserves its usage. An epic, I feel, is anything after which everything else remarkably trivial. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King made me feel that, Lawrence of Arabia did, and there are others. There Will be Blood inspired me not to watch another film for five whole days. At the moment, I don’t have it in me to watch any thing else for what feels like a whole fortnight. I just want to be inside the magic of this great film.
        And as I drove back from the theatre to my home, in the night, I stuck my head outside like a mad dog. The Dark Knight score blared out of my car deck. It honestly felt, insane. For I just had the day of my life.

        I feel so happy.

Note: I feel inspired to write a thematic analysis of the film. But that would involve spoilers. And it would require me walk out of the shadows of my present state of awe-filled love. It’ll take a while.

Batman Begins: The Return of The Dark Knight

2008-07-16T17:16:00.000-07:00

        It is 3 a.m., and I haven’t had proper sleep for quite a few days now save some bursts where I managed to relieve myself of the nervousness and excitement I haven’t felt in many a year. If my memory serves me well, probably never. Not even during my 12th Board exams. I have been waking up at odd hours and automatically been doing two exercises without fail. One – open http://www.rottentomatoes.com/ and check if there has been a new review and if it is one with a positive verdict or not. Two – check the latest Google news on the film. Religiously, every twenty minutes, for the past week. You might wonder if the screws are nice and tight wherever they’re supposed to be, and I would say your guess is as good as mine. The Dark Knight feels like a personal triumph, piece of my heart and I haven’t yet seen it. Every positive review wells up something deep within, and every negative review (there have been only a few of them) bring me to an intense state of depression. Not until another batch of positive reviews send me over to the moon. Roger Ebert has just given his verdict – an overwhelming thumbs up calling it in a roundabout way one great film. I feel elated in a way that cannot be described but only felt. And as I sit here, wondering about what a momentous weekend this would be in my life, my thoughts stray to when it all began. You could hail that moment, that experience, as Batman Begins.
        Ever remember a film you have seen so many times you start noticing that obscure woman dancing in the background with just too much of make up on for her own good. There was once a time when I would manage my own private chuckle at recognizing that the guy who warns Batman at the parking lot that he and his batmobile (tumbler) have no way out is the same as the guy who yells later in the very same chase – “At least tell me what it looks like.” I would feel a strange sense of satisfaction watching Jeremy Theobald be a part of another Nolan film after his debut motion picture Following. Here he plays a part even the most attentive viewer might miss – the water technician who has a sum total of one line – “Jesus. The pressure, it's spiking.” Well, I have seen Batman Begins so many times I have come full circle and stopped noticing such details.
        And just like that, for no particular reason, I have just finished visiting the movie again. Just to calm my nerves. It feels like a personal territory, like a world you know your way through. I wouldn’t call Batman Begins a perfect film because it isn’t. But it has installed itself in the deepest ravines of my heart so much so that it feels as an extension of the self. Not many movies feel that way, but if I could summon titles randomly Taxi Driver, Forrest Gump, The Good The Bad and The Ugly and Terminator 2: Judgment Day come to mind. Batman Begins for me is much more than a cherished possession; it has firmly transformed itself into a state of mind and a state of heart I often have great joy in experiencing for myself.
        There’s a breathtaking aerial tracking shot in the middle of the film – of Batman perched on top of a tower – his presence looming large over the darkness of night. Most superheroes, at least the ones that got big films made out of them have an extended scene to show their special abilities. Superman has his flying, Spiderman has his web slinging and these are quite potent excuses to insert some nice special effect-laden high octane sequences, you know, what we hail as the wow moments. But these are still excuses, and there lay a strange impurity in them that reeks of escapist reasons for their existence. When Spiderman is slinging, it is not the man, but the act that is at the center of focus. When Superman flied all the way back in ’78, it wasn’t the man, but the marvel of somebody flying or somebody lifting a giant ship. These other superhero films have their attention divided between the story and the action, and the protagonist falls somewhere between. Please keep in mind, it is just an observation not criticism of the other films.
        That tracking shot in Batman Begins, and the devout seriousness which conceptualizes that kind of a shot and realizes it is the key to why Nolan and co. have made a film that is by far the definitive take on the character. The film exists solely to worship him even at the slightest pretext. This is the ode to that man. It understands his insanity and his desperation to don a cape and suit and fight his own demons, all that under the pretext of wiping away crime as a symbol of fear. There’s a poignant and profound moment at the end, when Rachel Dawes looking at Bruce Wayne touches his face, and lets him know – “No, this is your mask. Your real face is the one that criminals now fear.”
        For those who haven’t watched this excellent film, and haven’t had the zeal do look much into Batman, let me say this outright – there’s no need, absolutely no need to watch any of the previous films. I have, and all of them have left such terrible taste in my mouth it still tastes sour from time to time. This one is the real deal, and it takes head-on the origin and the mythology of the most challenging character in the entire comic book universe.
        Batman, under Nolan’s vision seems like a man on death wish. He dives off rooftops as if he subconsciously realizes the biggest purveyor of insane crime is he himself. Everybody else is just practice. In many ways, he could be considered a sociopath. Someone more dangerous than a Travis Bickle, simply because he knows what he’s doing. And he is arrogant to cape it under a much skewed form of justice. Batman Begins isn’t a film where everything falls neatly into place. Here, prices are paid at some or the other level for taking action.
        Consider the monastery. When asked to execute the poor farmer, Bruce Wayne burns the whole goddamn place. His aim is to destroy the very real threat posed by the League of Shadows, but I guess he ends up killing the farmer too in his rage for action and instant justice. In the rugged tumbler chase sequence, Batman manages to hurl his monster upon considerable number of police vehicles. His conscience, the only thread that keeps him afloat in reality and drowning in insanity is his man Friday, Alfred played quite superbly by Sir Michael Caine. Alfred warns Bruce later – “When you told me your grand plan for saving Gotham all that stopped me from calling the men in white coats was when you said it wasn't about thrill-seeking…. It's a miracle no one was killed… You're getting lost inside this monster of yours.”
        Vendetta and revenge drive a vigilante, and I believe they only provide fuel to the beast within for so long. The drive that Batman feels deep within is somewhat much darker and in a way much more sinister. There’s a strange sense of evil to his goodness. He is a man who takes himself much too seriously for his own good, and more importantly, for the good of others. What more would you consider a man who is so desperate to feel reality that he runs from his billionaire world in search of good and evil and most importantly truth. Even Scarecrow suggests – “You look like a man who takes himself too seriously. Do you want my opinion? You need to lighten up.” Maybe to untwist the twisted morality of this world, it needs a force that takes itself seriously.
        Batman Begins is a film that is shot effectively, economically, and with a devotion that perhaps has never been seen in a popular action film concerning a superhero. Nolan’s style has never been one that call attention to themselves. He doesn’t overdo the gothic part that Tim Burton do often does to the point of overkill when he’s asked to create something dark. Nolan, in many ways, is like Michael Mann. He keeps his atmosphere real, subtle and his style linger on in our memories return in different ways long after we’ve seen the films. You call that effect chilling. His trick here isn’t just to converge everything into reality. Not in the least. What he does rather is shroud the legend under reality so that every sequence we have looked at has a strange and a very strong sense of immediate gravity to it. Bruce Wayne confronts his fears by standing his ground as he’s enveloped by bats. It is a great sequence of infinite power and meditation.
        Consider how he has his Batman shot. There’s not a single frame in the entire film, save the one where he’s perched on the tower, where Batman is standing upright in the traditional superhero gait. He’s always a brooding figure with a menacing posture. He is perched on rooftops and more often than not the frame has him positioned in the side, not in the center. And in the climax there’s probably the single best shot of any superhero ever. It is because it is subtle and effective in ways more than one. As Ducard is driving the train on to the Wayne Towers, Batman leaps into it, grabs hold of the bars inside and jumps onto a seat, with his left hand resting on his leg. The camera hurriedly zooms in, and we see a determined grit writ all over the face. In one shot, one single shot, Nolan and Christian Bale manage to grab the essential mythos of the man. The Batman.
        In Bale Batman Begins has the best actor of this generation. He understands the character but more importantly he understands the director’s vision. He is probably the definitive version of Bruce Wayne and his greatest achievement against all other live action men is he takes it to a whole different level when under the suit. He is troubled and even when he’s frolicking as Wayne, he is essentially masquerading and pretending. That is the essence of Bruce, if you care to extend the mythology closer to the real world. It is a character based on masquerading because deep within he knows he is a dreadful loner. And he vents it all out with the suit on him. And he does what nobody ever even thought of; he brings a growling raging voice to Batman. He intends to install fear and the voice is one of his weapons. If you didn’t believe before, you would now about this man taking himself too seriously.
        But we have been talking only about the film with respect to its biopic themes.
        What of the teacher-student relationship between Ducard and Batman? Or the wrath of the evil (Ducard) with a normal man (Batman) as the only force stopping it from causing complete destruction. A great action film is nothing without a fantastic villain, and here we’ve two of them in Scarecrow and Ducard. Ducard is more fascinating because he could very well be a troubled superhero in another rendition. His goals are as ideal and principled as that of Batman himself.
        We could talk on and on, and that is the beauty of the film that Nolan has created. It is a rich film in every which way you look at it. Fascinatingly so, every move that Nolan makes seems to be familiar so much so that I have myself predicted some of them to near and dear ones. I believe Bale and Nolan share a sense of Batman that is eerily similar to mine. And I have always wanted to have a session where I could discuss the film over a screening. Someday, by God’s grace, my wish would be fulfilled. This film deserves that.
        I would want to visit this film from a different facet somewhere later. But for now, let us keep it as a refreshing indulgence before the big day, the judgment day, when the event I have been waiting for over two years unleashes its force across the world. This wait has been one of the great experiences of my life. It is killing me but I know, years from now I’ll cherish these moments.
        At this point, it is 0400 in the morning and I feel elated – The Dark Knight is being raved all over and is sitting pretty with a 2% tomatometer rating. It is sure going to be the single greatest experience of this year and one of the best films to emerge from this new millennium. Please do remember where you heard it from first. This constant gathering of tidbits of information has been one of the great joys. The bat-mania has decidedly gone into overdrive, and deservingly so. If you have enjoyed this wait as much as I have, and relished every bit of information there wouldn’t be any need to thank me. Just do yourself a favor and watch this film. And if the constant Bat-battering has nagged you, I beg for forgiveness. And as a demonstration of that generous act of yours, do me a favor and watch the film.
        See you on the other side of The Dark Knight.

The Journey through Mulholland Dr.(An Appreciation in Three Parts)

2008-04-22T19:15:00.000-07:00

Part I: The Watt-age of the Surrealistic Nightmare

I gave David the part of myself I felt I'd been hiding for so long, that didn't need to be hidden.
- Naomi Watts, excerpt from her interview on ITAS with John Lipton

In ways more than one, Naomi Watts is one of our greatest living artists. Especially in that rarest of way, for cinema and its various facets are essentially about concealing the inner true self of the artist in layers of cloaks, rather projecting to the outside world a myriad of emotions, and ideas that scarcely seem to reflect the individual at hand. Be it acting, or filmmaking, rarely do we come across somebody who lays oneself threadbare naked before us, with not even the slightest of inhibitions, to portray and in turn inhabit us with experiences that belong to truth. Experiences and emotions that stem from the core of the inner self. I believe Martin Scorsese is (or may be was) one such artist, and maybe Christian Bale, who always seems to exude such immense truth about himself.
In Naomi Watts, we have an actor with such intense honesty that it is almost always painful to watch her in a state of misery. Her performances seldom seem measured, seldom seem methodical, seldom seem calculated. Instead they seem to burn out, in every which direction, with the most raging of emotions. I see Naomi Watts, and I see not an actor in the least for that term when alone might just do a bit of disservice to her. What I see is an artist par excellence, who incessantly peels layer after layer, searching deep within the past of her life and bludgeon us with powerful feelings. Feeling and emotions that haunt us for days. And there’re few actors out there, of her stature. Rather, and in my opinion, there have ever been only a few out there.
One of the greatest performances of all time, and one of the greatest cinematic accomplishments is her performance in David Lynch’s surrealistic masterpiece Mulholland Dr. I have never been a big fan of Lynch and his Lynch-ian way of filmmaking, always creating and teasing and enveloping us with dream-like puzzles having (or at least pretending to have) deep philosophical resonance. He usually deals with symbols and allusions that is not a school of filmmaking I would ever want to be a member of. I say this because these tricks only serve the purpose of misguiding and concealing the actual truth of a film, when it should be the other way round. Filmmaking is the search for truth, and not in the least about installing the truth smack in the middle of an elaborate, and often needless labyrinth. But we’ll come back to that later. What I intend to say is Lynch more than most filmmakers needs exceptional actors to have his ideas and his film leave the lasting impact in accordance with their initial potential they promise. It is because he most often deals in abstract rather than a straightforward narration, and hence it is left upon the actor to convey the emotion at hand. Cinema is not just about narration and the deal at the end we’re handed out usually, but about the experience of the narration. That is the reason why a Blue Velvet or a Lost Highway or an Inland Empire does not find much praise in my book. As much as they’re great mysterious narratives, they’re absolutely bland experiences, with our sole purpose out there, as an audience, being to discern the mystery, the dream and the reality of the typical Lynch-ian tale. Most often in his films we end up being mere curious bystanders.
In Naomi Watts though, he, most undoubtedly, for the first time has an actor so able to take head on the challenge of making us ‘experience’ and ‘feel’ the Lynch-ian journey through Mulholland Dr and get affected every which way. She plays two different, polar opposite versions of her self. It is one of the most difficult tasks that could be asked of an actor, to play dual characters and do absolute justice to each of them. On one hand, she is the sprightly effervescent Betty, a radiating earthly beauty, and on the other she is the gut wrenching ghost of a person that is Diane. It is so very easy to falter on the former front, to turn out artificial as so many actors have realized over the years. The innocence and the charm should be the most natural, and there’re only a few I know who could pull of such a role with a one hundred per cent perfection - (Tom Hanks, Ingrid Bergman, Audrey Tautou and maybe Amy Adams and all of them are natural.) The last one you would expect this out of would be someone with the searing emotional weight of Naomi Watts, and I find it easy to declare that maybe nobody could have played Betty as convincingly, with as charming a combination of wit, panache, amicability, sensuality and what not, almost always commanding these various facets of the most perfectly beautiful woman at will. She is so cheerfully wide-eyed, and so enchantingly graceful like Tippi Hedren in Hitchcock’s The Birds. And all this while she feels a person, a most simple of being and not some ethereal rendition of our fantasies, and to realize that as a whole is the most difficult part.
And then the horror that is Diane. Her eyes sweltering with envy and anger and hatred and disgust, those pair of eyes probably the most misanthropic I have ever seen. Only Michael Corleone with the burning intensity of his ice-cold stare could bear the darkness inside that of Diane. Her face is a living roadmap of nightmare. Look at how she stares on as Camilla kisses the director in the car. Look at how she speaks to the contract killer. Yet, those very eyes seem to be begging for a hug, for love, for dreams to realize. She has so much of soot inside of her; practically every organ is either breathing or eating it. Yet those eyes do not feel satanic, but pathetic. There’s something so deeply human about them. And then that scream. This I could say for sure, on any hill top or any stage – there has never been and there’s nobody who could scream the living daylights out of us like Naomi Watts. She screams, she cries and that is one thing I will never be able to forget. The old couple walks into her, and more than anything in the film, that sequence is one of the greatest ever filmed. Harrowing is the only word that comes to mind.
Andrei Tarkovsky will always be the most colossal figure at the altar of truth in cinema, and he always strived for that very trait in his actors through their performances. In an interview once with Olga Surkova, he said –
…“In front of the camera lens, the actor must remain in a truthful and spontaneous condition. He must exist; exist in a highly natural manner. What remains to be done by the director is just the actual editing of the bits and pieces of film, which are mere copies of what actually transpired in front of the camera.”…
…The film actor must have an innocent and naive personality, he or she must be honest and frank. He should not be prone to unnecessary brooding, but rather to simple trust... As soon as he starts to philosophize over his part, his role in the film and its overall realization, he — in my opinion — immediately loses some of the most valuable and most fundamental. Not even the director, who knows exactly what he is reaching for, knows the result ahead of time.
[Source: http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/TheTopics/On_Acting.html]

What he was describing here is essentially what is realized by Naomi Watts.
One of the most visceral moments in modern cinema, and certainly the most excruciating is Watts, playing Diane (I’ll come to my explanation of the film later) looking at the ceiling and masturbating, probably to get her mind off her harrowing life for at least some length of time, howsoever minute it might be. It is a sequence of immeasurable power and horror, and the sight of that desolate face begging its eyes to shred some tears but to no avail, is one that might never leave me. The tears are teasing her from the inside, and she desperately seeks to weep inconsolably but she cannot, for no emotional destination intends to harbor her. This sequence is one of those rare occasions where a sexual act doesn’t seem obligatory and gratuitous, but absolutely essential to the film. More essential than what the infamous ‘butter’ sequence was to Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris.
In her interview with James Lipton, on the prestigious Inside the Actors Studio, Naomi Watts shared her troubling experience of shooting the sequence where Lynch wanted her to masturbate before the whole crew. With her hands down her pants, and the camera rolling, Watts just couldn’t do the scene as tears kept flowing down her eyes. What Lynch wanted was fury, an emotional response in continuation of the previous sequence where Diane (Watts) is shutting the door on Camilla (Laura Harring). What we get through the final cut is perhaps deeper than what either of the artists set out to do, especially Watts whose anger in the final stages of the scene was actually directed at Lynch. It was humiliating, and Watts says –
“I just cried and shouted out to David – ‘David, I can’t do it. I can’t do it’ And he would reply – ‘It is okay Naomi, it is okay’ – and the camera would just roll on. And then I would say – ‘F*** you David, f*** you’ – and he would in his typical way reply – ‘It is okay Naomi, it is okay.’ David wanted me not to cry, because that would mean I had reached an emotional state.”
Lynch is a filmmaker with the most unique of vision, and here to realize the potential of the sequence what he needed was not merely an actor, but an artist who could share her life. Watts at that time was being evicted from apartments and casting members would say she has no talent and she isn’t beautiful enough. It is the genius of Lynch that he had Watts at his side, and because of the truth in her and the direction of her own experiences by Lynch into a puzzle of his own, Mulholland Dr. is the most disturbing and haunting work of art there has ever been.

Part II: The Lynchpin of Dreams

There’ve been few films in the history of cinema that have divided filmgoers so radically into two camps, and that both camps feel passionately regarding their stances in itself seals the deal as far as the status of the film is concerned. That it is one of cinema’s great accomplishments. A lesson which shows us the great unheralded boundaries of cinema. Magic is the first instinctive word that comes to mind. Films will come and leave us, but Mulholland Dr. is that rare creation, like 2001: A Space Odyssey, like The Good The Bad and The Ugly, like Persona, like Stalker which will always stay with us. It is a symphony that always beckons us to listen to it, and we accept in earnest. It is the most arresting of paintings, and we love to get dazzled just that one more time. And then, it is that super-mystery, which still has us trapped in its maze. It is the cinema in its heightened form creating an atmosphere we always want to return to, a sort of fairy tale that turns out to be the most horrific and ridden with evil on every front.
See the opening sequence of the film, as the limo drives in the darkness. There have ever been only few scenes as haunting, as unnerving and as captivating of the opening sequence. We only see the car, and anyone watching it feels a crawl underneath his skin, and a chill down his spine. That is the beauty of Lynch, and without doing anything outlandish, by the clever use of lights he unsettles us, jolts us into a state of tension for the movie ahead. That and the secret to the magic of David Lynch – Angelo Badalamenti. Lynch is one of the greatest exponents of inducing horror, and that strangest of combination of the haunting and the melancholy is all the genius of Badalamenti. That is what makes the typical Lynch film so seductive, so rich in mood, so atmospheric, so tragic an experience. There’s the synthesizer effects looming large. Sit alone in the darkness, and listen to the film score. Listen to it a few more times and a strange weakness seeps in. And Lynch combines it with the eerie images of his own creation and the heartbreaking Naomi Watts, to beat us to submission within no time. It is a film that commands our total submission, and not like so many other wannabes which more or less try to demand the same in the most undeserving of ways.
"Sound and picture moving together in time is a magical thing. And sound does so many things. You can have a scene and introduce the right sounds and the scene changes before your eyes and ears, a whole other world opens up, moods sweep in and those sounds can march us through and indicate so many things as we go. And it's one of the elements that's the most critical to the whole. And it's a process of action and reaction. You don't know everything going in but you act and react as you go. It's always an experiment. Mary will tell you I sit sometimes in the editing room and she'll turn around and I'm crying. Emotion is the thing that cinema can do. But it's tricky. It really shows you how this balance point is critical. A little bit too much and the emotion goes away, a little bit too little and it doesn't happen."
- David Lynch on Mulholland Dr.

Read about this beautiful friendship, one of cinema’s greatest partnerships in this interview of Angelo Badalamenti (An interview on the magazine Film Score upon the release of Mulholland Dr.)
http://www.lynchnet.com/mdrive/filmscore.html

Almost every thing that Lynch throws at us seems to stick, and work its magic. He inserts a dreadfully ugly face in the middle of a nerve-wrackingly tense scene and our fear heightens every step of the way, literally. I still get the goosebumps, and I have watched the film on more than 15 occasions. An old couple gives us one hell of a sinister laugh, conspiring on some wicked mysterious plan and we wonder, and we fear. He throws in a Quentin Tarantino style freakish multiple killing sequence and we enjoy the laid back black humor. He throws in a love scene so steamy and erotic it puts all those needless pure-graphic no-chemistry exercises abundant in modern films to utter shame.
One sequence in particular tops them all, and it is no small feat for this film is filled with quite breathtakingly powerful episodes. In the middle of the night, at 2 a.m. Lynch takes us to one Club Silencio where illusion reigns supreme. Rebekah Del Rio sings Roy Orbison’s Crying, to cause a devastating effect on us. Betty (Watts) trembles uncontrollably and there’s such power in that sequence I remember tears flowing down my eyes at least during one of the viewings, though I don’t know which. That the sequence has no prelude, and no postlude, and it exists as an entity in itself is all the more a showcase of the powers of cinema. Like most scenes in the film, with no narrative thread joining them with the forces of cause-effect. There’s sadness in there, there’s tragedy and there’s a sense of foreboding. That is what we call pure Lynch, or the Lynch-ian way.
Look at how he uses color compositions in both the sections, look how he uses lights. Betty is always found in the brightest of colors, with just the slightest of haze, giving it the, well, dreamy feel. And then, when we see Diane, the colors are taken away, and we get at max two or three shades in a frame. Most of them are versions of gray, right down to Diane’s night suit.
Almost nothing in Mulholland Dr. is in wide-shot; we’re always served exquisite close-ups. The rooms, be it in dreams or in the real world are small rooms. Interesting it is that only the unknown authoritative underworld figure, crippled in his chair, has a super-spacious room, with no furniture. In a way, Mulholland Dr. is claustrophobic. We always feel, in a way, that space in all directions are jam packed. Lynch cites Kafka as a great influence on me, and if we could classify him, then Kafka’s work is essentially claustrophobic. Even the lights light up only that much portion of any room. It is Lynch’s way of filmmaking, with his brand of logic, where everything in the supposed dream-part is heightened exaggerated surreal.
Howsoever much I love the film, I can still never come to grips with the fact how in the final half-hour dispenses with his uncompromising self and makes an almost self-conscious effort to try and install some logic in our minds. I hated that. He never resorts to actual explanation, but does the next worst thing – he strings together a stretch of scenes that desperately exist to bring some overall coherence, rather than entities themselves. At least, he could have been clever by spreading those scenes across the stretch of the running time. Most of the sequences in the initial two-thirds of the film are long takes, and that is a key to their effectiveness. Yet, once we start dwelling in what could be called the real world, the scene length seems to considerably lessen. There can be another explanation too, that since everything in the film is either Diane’s memory or fantasy, the latter are longer because they’re pleasant and the former are obviously shorter. That is why Lynch is a genius, and I’ll watch the later part of the film with just that extra bit of salt. It is astounding, yet in a way it falls just that wee bit behind the rest of the film which is simply filmmaking at its best.
Look, I hate films that exist solely as narrative-puzzles with no energy in them whatsoever. Of late, and post Mulholland Dr. and Memento there have been a slew of films trying their best to be incomprehensible with twist endings and what not. Like for instance The Jacket which is plains stupid. Or last year’s deserving straight-to-video bore He was a Quiet Man.
The problem lies with us, and our culture of cinema, where we intend to have an almost frame-by-frame, minute-by-minute explanation of the events at hand, which in a way limits the boundaries of creation. As Tarkovsky once said, this medium is limitless in its scope. I second that, more so because cinema more than any art form incorporates the visual (painting), the narrative (literature), the audio (music) all under one roof. More often than not what we seek is a narrative explanation, almost completely forgetting that it is an audio-visual medium too. There’s plenty more than the average twist-in-the-tale in Mulholland Dr. and that is why it is not just a great noir-ish film, it is a great film. It is the kind of film for which everyone seems to have a theory going on for him.
Allow me to borrow some inspiration from John le Carré when he praises François Bizot’s book The Gate , and let me heap something along the same lines on Lynch, Badalamenti, Naomi Watts and most importantly Mulholland Dr.-
Now and then you watch a film, and as you start getting well versed with it, you realize you envy everybody who hasn’t watched it, simply because, unlike you, they’ll have the experience before them. Mulholland Dr. is such a film. it possesses such truth of emotion, and such haunting imagery that I do believe it is indeed that rarest thing: and original classic.
If you haven’t watched it, I envy you.
And here are a few clues Lynch asks us to watch out for on the DVD, much to my disliking for I can think of ten more. And in a way, it makes these ten clues seem more important, when everything in this film is remarkable and worth its weight in gold.

The Ten Clues:

1. Pay attention in the beginning: 2 clues are revealed before the credits.
2. Notice appearances of the red lampshade.
3. Can you hear the title of the film that Adam is auditioning actresses for?
4. An accident is terrible events... notice the location of the accident.
5. Who gives a key, and why?
6. Notice the robe, the ashtray, the coffee cup.
7. What is felt, realized and gathered at the club Silencio?
8. Did talent alone help Camilla?
9. Notice the occurrences surrounding the man behind Winkie's.
10. Where is Aunt Ruth?

Part III: The Truth

O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space—were it not that I have bad dreams.
- Hamlet Act 2, scene 2, 251-259

It is probably the greatest mystery this side of the gazing star-child, and everyone who has watched Mulholland Dr. even once must have rattled his head – what was that I just saw? Does it make any sense, or is it an elaborate joke played on us, misguiding us with only some vague notions of logic. The clues Lynch has given in the DVD seems something of an afterthought, after the kind of reaction it sparked, for they’re the most superficial, and the most obvious in nature. I say superficial because the explanation that can be borne out of those clues is the obvious one.
The broad framework is something that is universally accepted and is pretty much self-evident. The initial two-thirds of the film, upto the appearance of the blue box and the insertion of the key within is Diane Selwyn’s dream. Diane Selwyn (Naomi Watts) won some jitterbug contest in Ontario, and encouraged by that walked into the land of dreams – Hollywood. She befriended a fellow actress Camilla on the sets of a prestigious production – The Sylvia North Story – for which she desperately sought the part. The director Bob Brooks (the director with the very same name on the audition where Betty (Watts) dazzles us in a supremely sensual sequence) didn’t think much of Diane, and instead the part went to Camilla. Betty, courtesy Camilla, gets bits-and-pieces of roles in her films. They do share a great deal of friendship, almost to the point of unabashed love, at least from Diane. Love combined with burning envy, probably fuelling hatred. I believe Mulholland Dr. doesn’t leave any ambiguity about Diane’s sexual orientation. Camilla falls in love with a director, who has recently been divorced, and this breaks all hell loose on Diane’s part. She breaks off every contact with Camilla, and begins the descent into her own very private hell. Camilla invites Diane to a party, where Camilla announces her wedding and where Diane feels the ridicule writ large on everyone’s face, and her descent is complete. She is now officially the queen of hell. She hires a contract killer to murder Camilla, and so it is done. As she sits in her house, with the double-punishment knocking on her door (cops to investigate her and her own guilt) she runs inside and blows her head off.
The above paragraph might offer an explanation to the overall story, but it doesn’t even scratch the surface of the themes that are lying underneath each and every scene. I would of course hate to bore you through a scene-by-scene guide on, and how to essentially read it. But then, you would surely find countless such sites, like this one here (follow the link). The most important key to this, or any Lynch film is to consider that dreams aren’t just the subconscious entity lingering in our sleeps, but a sort of other-worldly system that can sometimes seep into and interact with the real world. Allow me to rather visit some scenes, and themes, in random, and examine them for the sake of fun and indulgence.
One of the most important visual clues handed out, apart from the key, the cups, the robe and everything of the kind, is the apparitions that follow Betty and Rita, as they run out of Diane’s house. That sequence, in a way, directly connects with Club Silencio and Rebekah Del Rio’s performance. The emcee shouts – No Hay Banda – there’s no band – It’s an illusion – It’s all tape recorded. Ms. Del Rio falls in the middle of her song, furthering the emcee’s claim, yet the song plays on. It is one hell of a way from Lynch to project Diane’s (Betty’s) guilt. Another sequence that joins well is the one straight after Diane gets up, talks to her neighbor, closes the door and walks to the coffee place. She looks to the left, and she finds Camilla (Rita), and she says – You’ve come back. That pretty much clears out that Camilla is dead, and Diane wants her back and everything back to normal. Everything should continue as before as if nothing has ever happened. The overriding feeling in guilt is always – if only things could fall back into place.
The foul dead body down at Diane’s house, in the dream, is pure Lynch in its buried themes. It alludes to the Camilla’s death, and in a way, with the body appearing to wear Diane’s dress but with Camilla’s color (black), it is also alluding to Diane’s impending suicide. Her suicidal instincts. It also brings home the doppelganger theme to the front, with identities getting blurred and overlapped all over the place. Diane wants to be popular like Camilla in real life, but in her dreams she wants Camilla to be like her – a blonde. That is why Rita has amnesia, a sort of reason to enable her identity-makeover. The sequence as they look into the mirror, with both their hairs blonde, is a superb rendition of the doppelganger’s looking at each other.
In a way Diane’s seeking approval through Betty. Betty, rather than her former self, represents an idealized self of her. She wants to be famous and she wants to be the central force to everybody around her. She wants to be like the cowboy in the movies who comes and saves the day, with little or no personal stake in matters. In reality, Adam Kesher doesn’t care much about her. But in her dreams, in the audition for Sylvia North Story, he repeatedly turns back and looks at her. Even at Betty’s audition, Bob Brooker is very impressed by her, and this was the same director who made Sylvia North Story in the real world. As Diane tells us at Camilla’s party.
One very mysterious element is the face behind the wall, and who is it. And who was the man who fell, shell-shocked, after encountering just a mere glimpse of her. The keyword here is glimpse or if you could stretch it a little, a glance. As Diane hires the contract killer, her degradation as a rotten soul is complete, and she’s at the most bottom place in her own eyes. Imagine it from her point of view, and her state of mind, and at such a time everyone seems to despise her. Even strangers. The man at the counter has a glance, and then in her dreams she becomes the evil face. The very antithesis of her imagining of a fictitious self – Betty whose mere sight pleases one and all. In a way, that moment at the café, and the party have had the most influence on her dream because during both these times, she was at her lowest. If that was possible. At the café she sees this sweet waitress named Betty (the name tag is important), a person who is working hard and leading a simple and uncomplicated life. In her dreams, she gives her beautiful version Betty’s name, and to Betty the wonderful person, she gives her own name – Diane. An attempt both to find approval, and validate her current existence.
Any proof that Lynch’s 10 clues is just an exercise is that of the voicemail, and he fails to mention it. It is as important as any clue in the film- the voice is that of Diane, and he shows it again in the real world when Diane gets the call. Look, the actual deal is very simple. Mulholland Dr. was supposed to be a television show, much like Twin Peaks, and it even has its 95-minute pilot with which ABC displeased. He got funding to make a feature out of it, and he ended up using a lot of footage from the pilot. That way it is apparent that upto a certain point, he himself wasn’t sure about the whole thing. And neither should we be. That is what makes it so special. Lynch is kind a guerilla filmmaker, and there’re themes and connections even Lynch didn’t work upon. He just seems to have a broad explanation, not one-to-one mapping and that is the greatest thing about it. I hate films with easy explanations, and this one is multi-layered. Once filmgoers started dissecting it, I guess Lynch jumped into the party as well. I would have like Lynch to offer us nothing, and definitely not some 10 clues which tilt the balances in one direction.
Like for instance the buried theme of child abuse. That is one of Lynch’s themes in his films, especially Blue Velvet, and here he keeps it extremely subtle. Pay attention to the dialogues that Betty and the old actor Jimmy Katz exchange. Betty actually says – He trusts you. You’re his best friend. There’s something regarding Aunt Ruth’s disappearance that bugs me the wrong way. Maybe she knows something. Maybe the sinister old couple knows something, and they’re related to Diane. Like for instance this explanation that argues beautifully about the gender politics residing in Lynch and the film (http://www.anthropoetics.ucla.edu/views/vw269.htm). Why does Diane tremble as the emcee speaks? Are the seams between the real world and dream breaking? You know, you could ponder along these lines and still find coherence to the proceedings.
The cowboy says to Adam you’ll see me one more time if you do good, and two more times if you do bad. Adam does good and yet we see the cowboy two more times. In a way, and if we suspend all logic even by Lynch’s standards, the cowboy did keep his promise. Diane did bad. She has had our one true love murdered (the key) and has opened all flood gates (the blue box). The Pandora’s Box that summons all evil into Betty’s life. The life that is a disaster of dreams and nightmares. But then, at the end of it, there’s only one word – Silencio. As Hamlet says at the end –
The rest is silence.

Memento: Spiraling Into Our Darkest Side

2008-03-24T19:16:00.000-07:00

I’m going to keep saying it, but it’s true. I’m not a murderer.
- Tender Branson, Chuck Palahniuk’s Survivor

This is the kind of genius I attribute to Palahniuk, and I’ve found myself pondering over it, again and again. In the simplicity of the sentence’s construction lay the most complex and profound observations, confessing one very basic of human traits. Survivor is about Tender Branson, apparently the last member of a Creedish death cult, who has hijacked an aircraft, stripped it of its passengers and crew, and is all alone in there confessing his tale to the black box. Kindly read it, the sentence I mean, and then, try and read it again. You might be wonderstruck yourself. It is a descent miles beyond lies, beyond deceit, beyond redemption spiraling into the darkest core of our selves. Memento is the journey through that descent.
All who have to yet watch Memento would do better to skip paragraphs that have *SPOILERS* on them. In a way, I would beg of you for that. It is the story of a man, Lenny Shelby, on the path to revenge, to avenge the rape and murder of his wife. It was an accident, and during that struggle he was rendered amnesiac as a result of a blow on his head. In particular, antergorade memory loss (AMD), wherein he is unable to consolidate the short term memory to the long term for all events that have occurred post the traumatic event. All that his quest has been reduced to is a set of notes and tattoos he has written to guide himself through.
It has always bothered me about Memento, its structure. An easy way to describe it, and it is commonly done that way, would be that it has been narrated backwards. Not that it is false, but it isn’t the complete description either. The reason that is cited by fans is that it is a simulation for us to approach particular five minute installment scene as Lenny would, with no comprehension what are the causes behind the actions. If it had been that way, and that was the sole reason, it would have been a grand narrative trick but one that has been designed solely to cater to us, and in a way only to us.
What I mean by catering for us is, if we go by that reasoning, the film ends up being just an enormous puzzle, and that would be that. In a way, I hate puzzles in films, especially films of the kind David Lynch attempts that are less profound and more gimmicky in nature (Blue Velvet). Films need to have an emotional truth to them, as does any work of art, and puzzles by their very nature are instruments of deception, unless of course they have an ulterior motive – Rashomon or The Usual Suspects. When a film is being made about a man, it needs to reflect his emotional and psychological state, and in my opinion that should take precedence over what would cater to our involvement. And Lenny isn’t going backwards in time. Where’s he’s trapped is much more tragic.

*SPOILERS*
Let us enter the region of suppositions for a while. Think of probably the best constructed sequence in the film, the one that involves Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss) manipulating Lenny (Pearce) as he shifts from one memory installment to the next. It is a sequence constructed with infinitely brilliant minimalism, and in that short timespan, the film seems to forget everything to become a horror. Natalie looking from the windshield and we feel her vicious nature pervading it as Lenny desperately seeks a writing device.

*SPOILERS*
Let us imagine the film to be narrated in the same manner as the scene, i.e. linearly, in a forward-only fashion with Lenny Shelby remembering and forgetting, like the sea tides. I believe it would have been equally interesting, you know, and equally daunting. Though the twist in the tale would have been in the first half, the prospect of us, as an audience, knowing in advance that Lenny is being manipulated throws in an altogether different spin of thrill and entertainment to the proceedings. I find that prospect increasingly fascinating. And I don’t think Nolan, while conceiving the film on paper, didn’t happen to venture along these lines.
He surely did, and I believe there’s a reason why the film is structured thus.
And Memento is very many things more than just being one of the greatest thrillers of our times. It is, more importantly, a work of art and a reflection of our state. Much like the Palahniuk statement above, it is a supreme observation on our culture and our utter disregard to matters committed to memory. We all feel the need to have notepads by our sides, and a pen in our pockets. We all feel the need to take down minutes of meetings, and the need to scribble random words on those pages just to provide us with an association. We all ridicule the front benchers who used to fight the race of their written words to that of the spoken ones of the teachers, but deep down it was those very notes rather than our memory that helped us more. Our culture’s greatest reliance, more than anything, is on the written word. As a kid, when I watched Chanakya and the disciples reciting lengthy verses in Sanskrit just having listened it once from their teacher, I would be left endlessly amazed. My father would explain me thus – during those times people, owing to their culture, had more retention power, and that the spoken medium was Sanskrit helped matters too. I’m not sure about the first reason, but if that is true, I sure would feel a Lenny before those folks.

*SPOILERS*
Let us clarify the structure for ourselves first. Memento rather than just backward, is actually two threads told in a rather parallel fashion, twisting the future, past and present through a spiral. One of those threads, in black-and white, is essentially forward and the one in color is in backward. This is Lenny’s state of mind and where it is leading him to, deconstructing him through the puzzle of his own making. It is deducing things for him, some of them without his will, and zeroing him towards his truth. A big part of the ambiguity of the film is – whether Lenny’s problem is psychological or physical. Most people seem to go for either one of the two. I guess, it is a bit of both. I’m not saying he is faking, but everything about him isn’t just the result of a blow on the head. Think of a tennis player in a crisis and how in most cases, it is the one lagging behind whom the injury seemingly forces to pull out. Memento is about memory loss, but it is also about what we sometimes attribute to it to appease ourselves.

*SPOILERS*
Many seem to be confused by the film, and by its twist ending and I believe there’s a sub-conscious mindset that is the psychological reason behind it. Cinema, as literature, has in a way conditioned us to look exterior for the cause, for the culprit, for the criminal, for the perpetrator and away from the central hero. There needs to be a psychology behind that. Ever since Edgar Allan Poe created the world’s first detective story in The Murders in the Rue Morgue, where his detective C. Auguste Dupin solves crimes without having any professional expertise, we always have had such characters who always seem to be out of the purview of suspicion. Be it Sherlock Holmes, or be it Hercule Poirot. Of course, in Memento Lenny has a personal stake in the case, but at the root level he’s still a detective, or at least acts one. What he is underneath that cloak, is a man ridden with the guilt of killing his wife, and he tries best to forget it. He cannot, for to forget he has to remember to forget and therein lay a great paradoxical tragedy about his existence.

Let me share another of my favorite lines, by Cormac McCarthy from The Road –

You forget what you want to remember and remember what you want to forget.

*MAJOR SPOILERS*
Let us look at the evidence at hand, some quite evident and some quite subtle. Some of them could be essentially clubbed into one kind – the ones that reflect Lenny deliberately trying to make himself false memories, or rub out the flashes of distant and true ones.
Right at the beginning, around the 7-minute mark, when Lenny has Teddy on the floor, it is interesting how he reacts as Teddy taunts him – “You want to know, Lenny? Come on. Come on, let's go down to the basement. Let's go down, you and me together. Then you'll know who you really are.” Lenny looks towards the basement for a fraction of a second, and as if purging a hurtful truth, he instinctively pulls the trigger on Teddy. It is more than a clue, it is guilt all round.
There’s a very naughty clue Nolan has inserted around the 1hour 20 minute mark, where Lenny sits on Natalie’s couch and switches on the television. The brilliance of filmmaking comes to the fore, as the sequence eerily brings a sense of déjà vu. This is the only sequence, in the entire film, where Lenny is shown before a television, and it is sort of in the same manner as Sammy Jankis. And then, Nolan pulls out the trump card, the knock-out punch. For just the smallest of moments, we see a flash of a needle. And immediately Lenny’s relaxed demeanor changes to one of anger. He switches of the television and flicks the TV remote on the couch, as if dismissing an unpleasant feeling.
5 minutes later, around the 1 hour 25 minute mark, Nolan again winks at us. As Lenny winds up his narration of Jankis’ story, and admits his misjudgment of his state. We see Sammy sitting alone in a chair, in the mental institution. And then, as someone passes before the camera we catch a flash of Lenny sitting on the same chair. You dare blink, and you pay by missing this vital clue.
And then, during the denouement (how ironic), as Teddy, in a fit of rage, tells the truth about the equation surrounding Lenny, his wife, diabetes and Sammy, we see through Lenny a brief glimpse of the needle piercing his wife’s thigh. He doesn’t want to admit it, and he tries to overwrite it. And then we see the original memory, safe, as he pinches her thigh.

Lenny, in a way, writes his own memory, creates his own puzzle, constructs his own labyrinth. As in the end, he tells himself if to forget what Teddy told him. He’s in a way fighting his biggest adversary, his own mind, which is slowly but surely deconstructing for him the reasons for his actions, and that is the reason why the film moves backward. How do some people atone, how do most people atone? By punishing themselves with a pain at least equal to the wound inflicted. And since we’re aware of it, since we’ve the satisfaction we’ll be aware of it, we feel we’ve atoned for our deeds. Yet we could never forget them, and thus we never fully recover. It is psychologically impossible. So it is for him, more so for him. How can he atone if he cannot feel time, and how can he heal if he cannot feel time?
It is a great theme.
There’ve been many critics who have labeled Memento as a narrative gimmick, some as astute as Jonathan Rosenbaum. All I would say is, Kubrick’s The Killing is a straight-out fractured-in-time gimmick, and if Rosenbaum comments that it is the great man’s most perfectly conceived film, I see no reason why he should have any problems with Memento. Even Roger Ebert, who gave the film a favorable review, says that the film is flawed and that a second viewing only helps at a narrative level with little or no improvement in the overall experience. As much as I respect him, I believe it is a false reading on his part.
It is not just narrative brilliance that sets Memento apart from most films. Yes, it does play around with your brain a lot more, by giving you events first and reasons later, making you amnesiac for a while, it is the atmosphere that makes it a masterpiece. It is a noir film, and rather than going the trodden route, it creates its own set of rules. To re-experience the atmosphere of Memento, I would ask you to walk down in the morning, in the wee hours of it, and in that gray silence of dawn, let your eyes glide over the parked cars on the road. The very picture of serenity they are, with no human life about them. And then view the very best of cinematography on display, when Lenny and Teddy drive into the abandoned place outside of town. The camera glides left as they enter, and as they leave at the end, it glides right along with him. It is a subtle but brilliant shot. It is interesting to note that in Memento, we never see stray people. Maybe on the rare occasion or two, like in the sequence at the hotel between Natalie and Lenny. But as a rule, it is always these people, and they never seem to walk into a crowded street, or a shop or a parking lot with people. By this way it smartly borrows the surroundings of a post-apocalyptic film, sans the random fractured remains of buildings. And all that served by the synthesized background score, which never is ‘exciting’ as in a thriller but that of gloom and despair. There’s tragedy in the air, and we feel it.
There’re many motifs running around in the film – repetition, backwards, mirrors. The wife reads the same book, again and again. There’s room number – 6/9 joke too, which feels so much at home. But the one that kind of fascinates me is the manner in which Lenny has been handled. He may be psychologically impaired, but rather than showing him a confused, weak man, he’s shown as an absolute Jason Bourne in his own right. In a way, if we go by how Nolan perceives, Lenny is a superhero, a false superhero, with memory being his weakness. And I guess you have already realized who his arch-enemy is. That the Bat-sign appears when Lenny drives his car as Dodd chases him is no coincidence on the part of Nolan. The same thing happened in Following and Insomnia.
No essay on the film would be complete without praise for Guy Pearce. The part, initially, was supposed to go to Brad Pitt, but he passed it for scheduling conflicts. Pearce, I learn, showed great enthusiasm for the part, and it is evident how he gets under the skin of the character, and fleshes it out with little nuances. Most performances are so busy creating a character that they forget how to connect to us. Pearce, more than anything, strikes a rather remarkable blend of sprightliness and glum. Memento is a tragedy, a thriller and most importantly a supremely cool film, all rolled into one. As much as the script, it is Pearce too who change the word ‘condition’ and etch in a little phrase of their own – Remember Sammy Jankis. Not that the rest of the cast is any less brilliant; Joe Pantoliano and Carrie-Ann Moss (one of the greatest femme fatales in cinema history, without ever being either femme or fatale) make it seem impossible without them.
I’m not sure if I have achieved what I set out to do, with this essay of mine. What got me going was a comment, someplace, that the film is confusing. It irks me a bit, because for a narrative work of art, confusing is primarily a negative word. And I don’t think the state we’re in while watching the film could be, even remotely, described by that word. Things aren’t clear because we aren’t looking at the right place, and neither is to Lenny. He just doesn’t know who he is, and he is trapped within himself. Within an instance of himself. In a way, he’s an exaggeration on us, for what are we but different instances of ourselves, separated by time. And I’m not sure if we’re in possession of the answer either. Are we the Batman? Are we the Joker? Are we both the same or are we neither? It is a puzzle, and if anything, I guess we are left in that undecipherable ever-shifting maze to find ourselves, as an individual, as a whole.

Comment: You would want to visit the following links –
http://archive.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/2001/06/28/memento_analysis/index.html - It is an essay that is quite informative by the way of scores of details and clues residing in the film. if watching the film is too much of an exercise, this would do well as a basic refresher.
http://www.impulsenine.com/homepage/pages/shortstories/memento_mori.htm - The source of the genius. The short story by Jonathan Nolan. This is where Younger Nolan narrated his idea to brother Chris during a drive, and the rest is history. It is a great read.

The Best Movies of 2007

2008-02-20T20:51:00.000-08:00

It has been the grandest year at the movies in a long time, with great films coming in heaps. If I would want to rattle my memory, I probably need to go way back to 1994 to even speak of a year in comparative terms when we had Forrest Gump, Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption and minor classics in The Lion King, Quiz Show, Heavenly Creatures and Four Weddings and a Funeral . That 2007 has surpassed 1994 by a country mile is a foregone verdict, its richness might in the future draw comparisons to 1939 too. And there’re a few pictures still left.
The list has movies primarily from the United States, because of the simple reason they have produced the most brilliant of cinema. Some of them are straight epics, and mind you, that is a praise I use most sparingly. Well, let us leave it at that, and discuss the films that have made our year.

A friend of mine once told me my reviews were infectious. I’m glad he didn’t say contagious. I hope you click on the links to read those reviews, and get infected with my gratitude to 2007, probably the greatest year ever in cinema.

Zodiac (Director: David Fincher): Few films are structurally brilliant enough to end up their subject matter. This is a crime masterpiece that ends up being the case itself, and engulfs us with its evidence, files and people. David Fincher’s most accomplished film to date, and an epic every which one looks at it. I blame Paramount fair and square to release it in the early part of the year, and had it been released now the awards scene would have looked a lot different.

There Will Be Blood (Director: Paul Thomas Anderson): Paul Thomas Anderson gives Daniel-Day Lewis what Martin Scorsese couldn’t – a film as ambitious, enthralling and deserving of the performance in it. It is the kind of film that makes you talk on and on. There’s richness, of performance, of filmmaking, of literature, of humor, of tragedy, of eccentricity, of obsession, of audacity and what not. I try hard to stop myself from starting here, and save myself for a lengthy discourse on a later date. Let me tell you though, every single moment of this masterpiece feels like you’ve just started watching movies all over again. Every single moment is astonishing. If it is drawing comparisons to the great Citizen Kane, believe me, it is just about as much a product of genius as that film was.

Into the Wild (Director: Sean Penn): This is the most exhilarating time I have had the movies all year, and all my life. The two films that have been the closest to my heart this year occupy the number 3 and 4 spot respectively. In Christopher McCandless and his Alexander Supertramp, Sean Penn unleashed the adventurer in me like never before. I’ve already seen it on four occasions, more than any film this year, and in Eddie Vedder’s compilation I’ve lost myself. If ten years down the line 2007 will be remembered fondly by audiences, let me tell you, this will be the film in their mind.

3:10 To Yuma (Director: James Mangold): My favorite movie of the year, and up until now this searing western was supposed to top this list. I probably gave way to my brain, and little of it to my heart and this ended up here. Crowe and Bale light up the screen, and give two of the greatest performances of this year in this classic moral conflict.

No Country for Old Men (Director: Joel Coen): Perfection. Craftiness. Wizardry. Greatness. Javier Bardem. This film has it all. Impeccably paced, brilliantly acted. One of the greatest films of all time, a pre-apocalyptic world you would love watching numerous times but wouldn’t want to venture anywhere in it.

Le Scaphandre et le Papillon (Director: Julian Schnabel): A superhuman tribute to a superhuman life. Narrating the life of Elle editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, and his rare locked-in syndrome, Julian Schnabel breaks all boundaries to make us feel his claustrophobia – first the physical and then the emotional. And if that wasn’t enough, he rises, high and mighty and crushes us under the emotional lock-out everyone who loves Bauby feels – his family, his father, his nurses. Visual poetry soaring as only cinema can.

Once (Director: John Carney): The Guy and the Girl here are the sweetest people you would meet this year, so good you would want to give them your warmest hug. And then, you would hug yourself too. You would want to call up Carney and the entire cast to just tell them what an unassuming gem they have created. The romantic film of the decade, after which you would love to fall in love, going down singing beautiful songs. One of those magical films you can listen to all day long. A true miracle. One of my favorite films ever.

Persepolis (Director: Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud): A creation of pure beauty. It is all in the lines. A little line, here and there, makes all the difference in the world of animation. Often, in an attempt of achieve perfection, to have things look as real as possible, we forget what great power this world possesses. This film works mostly in black & white, and it is a towering achievement the almost extinct 2-D animation.. Recounting Iran through the eyes of Marjane Satrapi, the medium has never felt worthier of a tale.

Gone Baby Gone (Director: Ben Affleck): Forgive Affleck and forget all his sins. In this crime thriller involving a missing baby, he has created one of the great neo-noir crime epics of all time. There’s not a false moment to this picture, and in Casey Affleck lay one of my favorite performances of the year. So brilliant and assured is the filmmaking at hand, that it doesn’t even seem to bothered on that front. Instead it focuses on its great tragedy, and the ending is one of the best I’ve seen.

Johnny Gaddaar (Director: Shriram Raghavan): This is the reason why we go to the movies in the first place. Have a blast. The rare thriller with more than a dash of panache, and the slightest of chuckle. One of the greatest films, and entertainers to come out of Indian cinema. And that it has been underappreciated to the point of sin in favor of more standard fare is more tragic than the ending at hand. This lad, Neil Mukesh is dynamite and I just cannot get enough of that Sanjeev Kumar imitation. Dead on.

Honorable Mention:
It is a shame the norm is to list the best ten movies of the year. I’ll go ahead, and bravely add ten more titles here, in my futile effort to cram in all that I loved this year, in my own little act of revolution.

Tony Gilroy’s riveting Michael Clayton, one of my favorite films of the year. Paul Greengrass’ action powerhouse The Bourne Ultimatum. Billy Ray’s hugely underappreciated Breach. Cristian Mungiu’s brutal 4 Luni, 3 Saptamani si 2 Zile. Olivier Dahan’s biopic on Edith Piaf La Vie En Rose, Andrei Zvyagintsev’s Izgnanie, Brad Bird’s gem Ratatouille, Richard Schenkman’s brilliantly innovative The Man from Earth, Jason Reitman’s Juno, Zack Snyder’s adrenaline rush 300

If 2008 is even half as good, we could feel lucky.

The 80th Annual Academy Awards: Predict-me-not

2008-02-19T18:48:00.000-08:00

It has been a year of unheralded brilliance at the movies. A year boasting of such greatness that this time around, it is the awards that are deserving of these films. It is a pity only five films could fight it out, for there are gems twice that many. Here’re my predictions, my wishes, my gripes all rolled into one for this years Oscars.

Note: To visit my reviews of some of the nominees, please click on the respective.

Category: Best Motion Picture of the Year

Nominees:
Atonement, Juno, Michael Clayton, No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood

Prediction: No Country for Old Men, it has been its year all the way. It has won just about every award on the road to the Oscars, and I daresay there’s none stopping it here.
The dark horse: There Will Be Blood. The epic of the year. You will watch it and be haunted for days. It has been the firmest contender to No Country for Old Men, and although it is too dark for the Academy I just have this sneaking voice in me that whispers it is going to be this film.
I wish: There Will Be Blood. One of the most ambitious epics of this year or any year. One of the greatest films ever made. It towers above all the nominations in my book, with only No Country for Old Men offering any whiff of resistance.
Gripe: Only, if had it been Zodiac, Into the Wild, Gone Baby Gone to stand besides There Will Be Blood, toe to toe – three the greatest work ever done. For them, I could do away with Juno and Atonement. And as for Michael Clayton, it is the kind of film so subtly brilliant I’m glad it has been included.

Category: Best Achievement in Direction

Nominees:
Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood), Ethan Coen & Joel Coen (No Country for Old Men), Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton), Jason Reitman (Juno), Julian Schnabel (Le Scaphandre et le Papillon)

Prediction: Ethan Coen & Joel Coen. They have walked away with the Director’s Guild normally a surefire indicator of what’s to happen down at the Oscars. And if they were to be standing with their fingers wrapped around the statuette I wouldn’t mind one wee bit.
The dark horse: Paul Thomas Anderson. Considering the Academy’s reputation of handing awards keeping in mind past efforts, the Coens will probably be the winners. Anderson might one day get such an award too, I’m sure on it.
I wish: Paul Thomas Anderson or Julian Schnabel, I would love them to win it. The Coen brothers showcase clinical precision of disconcerting proportions, but both Anderson and Schnabel show pure genius.
Gripe: Sean Penn (Into the Wild), David Fincher (Zodiac), Ben Affleck (Gone Baby Gone) again. More than anything, all three films owe their greatness to these names. Although Jason Reitman was good, the real strength of Juno is Diablo Cody’s script.

Category: Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role

Nominees:
George Clooney (Michael Clayton), Daniel-Day Lewis (There Will Be Blood), Johnny Depp (Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street), Tommy Lee Jones (In the valley of Elah), Viggo Mortensen (Eastern Promises)

Prediction: Daniel-Day Lewis. Hands down. It is a whale of a performance from the great man. The dark horse: No point, but it is Clooney’s stealthily brilliant turn.
I wish: Daniel-Day Lewis.
Gripe: Chris Cooper (Breach) should have been there probably in place of Depp.

Category: Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role

Nominees:
Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth: The Golden Age), Julie Christie (Away From Her), Marion Cotillard (La Vie En Rose), Laura Linney (The Savages), Ellen Page (Juno)

Prediction: Marion Cotillard. As singer Edith Piaf it is a remarkable performance in one of the best biopics I’ve seen. I sure have never even seen Piaf in motion, but the way Cotillard conducts herself, first through the insecurities of the young age and then as the tragic soul of the old age, is an experience.
The dark horse: Ellen Page. She is a darling in Juno, and hers is one of the performances of the year. It is going to be either her, or Cotillard.
I wish: Marion Cotillard. I loved her. All I wish is the Academy do not give it to Julie Christie as an honorary award. She is wonderful, but just isn’t good enough to beat Cotillard or Page.
Gripe: Cate Blanchett, what in the name of her highness is she doing here. She totally hammed up the travesty that was Elizabeth: The Golden Age. She has no business meeting out injustice. Amy Adams was a minor miracle in Enchanted, and she mighty deserved a nomination. So was Keri Russell in Waitress. Ashley Judd should have been considered too, for her harrowing turn in William Friedkin unsettling Bug. And I am glad the academy members haven’t voted the beauty-queen-in-a-spot-of-bother performance by Angelina Jolie, near hopeless in A Mighty Heart.

Category: Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role

Nominees:
Casey Affleck (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford), Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Charlie Wilson’s War), Hal Holbrook (Into the Wild), Tom Wilkinson (Michael Clayton)

Prediction: Javier Bardem. The performance of the year. The greatest villain of all time. Period. Other villains need to carry out violence to scare. Chigurh just needs to talk, and look, and you’ll have a million shivers run down your spine. Bardem, scare us one last time with that statuette in your hand, will you?
The dark horse: None. Rather, not applicable, Bardem is that brilliant. And if you just do not believe that, have a look at some of the other performances – Holbrook will melt your heart, Wilkinson thunders. And Affleck, it has been his year too.
I wish: Javier Bardem
Gripe: This category is just about perfect. You could sneak in Paul Dano (There Will be Blood) somewhere in there, but I’ve no idea who should be asked to vacate.

Category: Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role

Nominees:
Cate Blanchett (I’m Not There), Ruby Dee (American Gangster), Saoirse Ronan (Atonement), Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone), Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton)

Prediction: Since Blanchett has already won it once, Dee will take it.
The dark horse: Amy Ryan. Again the voice seems to be whispering this name. It is so easy to ham up such a character, but under Affleck’s guidance, she brings a raw emotion to the role.
I wish: Tilda Swinton. She is so good, her character reminded of Faye Dunaway in Network.
Gripe: Catherine Keener for Into the Wild. I wish she was here again for a third time, and for a change won it this time. I could do away with young Saoirse Ronan, though this kid is quite good.

Category: Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen

Nominees:
Diablo Cody (Juno), Nancy Olivier (Lars and the Real Girl), Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton), Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava and Jim Capobianco (Ratatouille), Tamara Jenkins (The Savages)

Prediction: Diablo Cody. She is the frontrunner, and had it not been for her snappy unconventional script, we wouldn’t have had Juno.
The dark horse: Tony Gilroy for a killer. It has the kind of dialogues you would want to include in your conversation bank, and the kind of intelligent characters we rarely ever see.
I wish: Tony Gilroy, for his is the kind of work I most identify with. He did a brilliant job creating smart characters in the Bourne films, and here again he creates thrills out of the interaction of smart people making smart choices. We could benefit immensely with more of such original scripts.
Gripe: Corneliu Porumboiu (12:08 East of Bucharest). The film dealing with Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu leaving the country is worthy of a nomination for its humor alone. Nancy Olivier could be replaced.

Category: Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published

Nominees:
Christopher Hampton (Atonement), Sarah Polley (Away From Her), Ronald Harwood (Le Scaphandre et le Papillon), Joel & Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men), Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood)

Prediction: Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood). The way he has transformed Upton Sinclair’s Oil! is reason enough to talk of him in terms of greatness. The book has been out of print for some time now, and with the film being released, a reprint will be in stores under the title There Will Be Blood.
The dark horse: Joel & Ethan Coen. McCarthy’s book is a screenplay in itself, and quite a number of dialogues have been picked up verbatim. Though nobody could have gone wrong at the script level with a fiction as this, the Coens still do a remarkable job pacing the story.
I wish: Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood).
Gripe: Sean Penn (Into the Wild). As much as the book is revered, the film is a tribute, thanks to the script which is a nice little life form on its own. Aaron Stockard and Ben Affleck (Gone Baby Gone), for the way they dwell in their moral world not judging but understanding it. I could do away with Christopher Hampton.

Category: Best Achievement in Cinematography

Nominees:
Roger Deakins (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford), Seamus McGarvey (Atonement), Roger Deakins (No Country for Old Men), Janusz Kaminski (Le Scaphandre et le Papillon), Robert Elswit (There Will Be Blood)

Prediction: Seamus McGarvey (Atonement). The Dunkirk tracking shot just seems to have caught up everybody’s attention. It is complex and a technical achievement, and it is worthy of being mentioned alongside the famous Copacabana sequence in Goodfellas. But it didn’t serve its purpose, did it? Let us see.
The dark horse: Janusz Kaminski (Le Scaphandre et le Papillon). Their decision is the most ambitious of this year – to take us inside Bauby for a significant length of the film – and they pulled it off like genius. He’s my man.
I wish: Janusz Kaminski
Gripe: None. The best ones are here.

Category: Best Achievement in Editing

Nominees:
Christopher Rouse (The Bourne Ultimatum), Juliette Welfling (Le Scaphandre et le Papillon), Jay Cassidy (Into the Wild), Joel & Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men), Dylan Tichenor (There Will Be Blood)

Prediction: No Country for Old Men. There’s no better paced film this year. Plain and simple. The award should go to its rightful owner, and it is no place else but here.
The dark horse: The Academy and many fans might be thinking in terms of The Bourne Ultimatum, but I’m not sure it is that good. Okay, it might take go into the Guinness book for the most edits, but sometimes the cuts seem obligatory and needless.
I wish: No Country for Old Men
Gripe: Just about perfect.

Category: Best Achievement in Art Direction

Nominees:
Arthur Max, Beth A. Rubino (American Gangster), Sarah Greenwood, Katie Spencer (Atonement), Dennis Gassner, Anna Pinnock (The Golden Compass), Dante Ferretti, Francesca Lo Schiavo (Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street), Jack Fisk, Jim Erickson (There Will Be Blood)

Prediction: There Will Be Blood
The dark horse: Atonement
I wish: There Will Be Blood
Gripe: Zodiac. I felt I was in All the President’s Men with Frank Bullitt walking down The Washington Post office. A film can bring that kind of nostalgia into somebody who was born a good decade after these films released sure has done something right.

Category: Best Achievement in Visual Effects

Nominees:
Michael L. Fink, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris, Trevor Wood (The Golden Compass), John Knoll, Hal T. Hickel, Charlie Gibson, John Frazier (Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End), Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Russell Earl, John Frazier (Transformers)

Prediction: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.
The dark horse: It is a no brainer. Knoll & co. keep your speeches short.
I wish: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.
Gripe: None

Category: Best Animated Feature Film of the Year

Nominees:
Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis), Brad Bird (Ratatouille), Ash Brannon, Chris Buck (Surf’s Up)

Prediction: Persepolis. It is innovative, it is brilliant, it is endearing. It was the French official entry to the Oscars, and I have this suspicion it was not selected solely because it would be walking away with this award.
The dark horse: Of course, Ratatouille. It is one hell of a time, but seriously it is not as good as Persepolis.
I wish: Persepolis
Gripe: I wouldn’t want Surf’s Up doing anything here. There was this extended episode of The Simpsons which was infinitely better.

Category: Best Foreign Language Film of the Year

Nominees:
Die Fälscher (Austria), Beaufort (Israel), Mongol (Kazakhstan), Katyn (Poland), 12 (Russia)

Prediction: Katyn. I’ve only three of them, so I would be playing blindfold here. Neither was I hugely impressed by Die Fälscher nor by Mongol, a chronicle of the early life of Genghis Khan. It is lazy film and almost offers nothing insightful. In 12, Russian ‘Spielberg’ Nikita Mikhalkov seems to have created a film somewhat similar to 12 Angry Men, which to me doesn’t sound too promising.
The dark horse: Beaufort
I wish: It is neither Die Fälscher nor Mongol.
Gripe: It bothers me why a brutally intense film as 4 Luni, 3 Saptamani si 2 Zile doesn’t make it to here. I understand and appreciate what the Academy is trying to do – get more of these titles popular. Still.

Let us see how many of it I got right on the money.

I hope you enjoyed this run up to the Academy Awards. The awards will be presented on Sunday, February 24th, and will be aired live on Star Movies Feb 25 th, 0630.

The Man with No Name

2008-01-01T22:46:00.000-08:00

You walk, head down, oblivious, of the scorching heat belting down from the high noon sun, of the intoxicating fragrance spread around by a damsel that just walked past, of the waving hand that obviously believes it recognizes you, of the blaring horns deafening the expletives thundering your way. And then, seemingly out of nowhere, an arm blocks your way with ambitions to spread across the rather narrow scope of your eyesight. Yet, the spell in which we float everyday isn’t broken. The eyes merely see, it is the vision that is entranced. The gaze follows, entranced all the time, up the arm, to the face, back down the arm and for a moment, stay fixated on the hand. Rather that piece of paper hanging by the fingers of the hand. The moment lingers, and you know this doesn’t happen all that often. But what happens after that is the rarest of rarities -- you actually raise your arm, your fingers and grab that piece of paper. The voice utters words that, if combined together, would probably mean that what we hold is an invitation to a New Year’s Eve bash. You couldn’t, and wouldn’t care less. That moment lingers on, everything seemingly flushed down the drain in your brain, and what held you entranced was – a picture. Rather, a picture of a man. Rather, a picture of The Man with No Name. And you wish you lay entranced forever. You smile, and you treasure that piece of paper in your right pocket. Everything else that lay claim on that pocket before has been evicted, and now, stand a refugee of the left one. You smile again. The Man with No Name deserves every bit of it, and you wish, a lot more.
It has been the longest affair of my rather short life, and I’ve had my share. An affair that has experienced everything from love to wonder. An affair that has been riddled in mystery created out of a pool of incomprehension. He rides into town, not on a white or black, but a pale horse. Covered in a serape, chewing the tobacco, he looks straight ahead but even the slightest of movements on either side is registered. A couple of smart alecks draw their six shooters. Not even a muscle musters a motion. The eyes squinted, as much as any pair of human eyes could be. And he doesn’t talk. Beyond that minimalist appearance is a universe full of mystery. The townspeople share our awe, and they in their turn fear him too. And for no good reason other than that he’s a stranger, as impenetrable as a Chinese wall, in word and in deed. He’s indescribable, for the townspeople find themselves unable to clear the complete ambiguity that surrounds him – there doesn’t seem to be a single gesture that could lead to an association of any kind. And all of that opacity begins from the name. He doesn’t have a name.
What kind of a being doesn’t have a name? And why, if he indeed could be reduced to anything as trivial as a reason, does he not have a name? A look beyond, into the multitude of characters that have affected us, and the archetypical stranger most often doesn’t seem to have a name. At least, not one for the townsfolk. The townsfolk are us. And we, wondered for a great length who was the mysterious stranger that walked into the inn in the sleepy English village of Iping. We stood awed as he turned out to be The Invisible Man, and then, as we learnt of his name (Griffin) and his experiment, the familiarity seemingly bred the slightest of contempt. We might never get over being mouth agape, as a certain blonde Englishman known only as the Jackal meticulously kept the intelligence of 3 countries on its toes, and got to within a whisker of General De Gaulle. They thought he was C.H. Calthrop, and for a moment we did too only to discover that it was the man’s final trick. We followed him across Europe but could never even muster as much as a scratch on his Chinese wall.
What’s in a name? The name, I guess, is the first step towards inferring any sort of association. You take away a person’s name, and he’s all but vaporized out of existence. Socrates once said –
“Regard your good name as the richest jewel you can possibly be possessed of - for credit is like fire; when once you have kindled it you may easily preserve it, but if you once extinguish it, you will find it an arduous task to rekindle it again. The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.”
In David Cronenberg’s masterpiece A History of Violence, Tom Stall is a restaurant owner in a small town leading the most blessed of family lives. He is known all over for his good-natured spirit. Yet, as events unfold, he turns out to be a mafia gangster, a hitman named Joey who buried his identity to lead a new life. In Palahniuk’s Fight Club, the narrator wonders –
“If you wake up at a different time, in a different place, could you wake up as a different person?”
It be minded, that the narrator is unnamed.
But what if you don’t seek to endeavor for anything as trivial as a reputation in the first place, for you do not have a name to begin with in the first place. The associations of time, of place, of morality come much later, probably in that order. What sits right at the top is the name. You break away with it, you break away with all.
I don’t think, though, that The Man with No Name, ever, performed a ritual as common-place as breaking away with his name. For he didn’t have no name, in the first place. He didn’t have no origin, and of all the characters that have endured me, he remains the most mythical of all. I understand Batman, but I might never understand The Man with No Name. All he does is influence me in every which way possible, and influence countless others. Stephen King’s Roland Deschain, the hero of his epic Dark Tower series is seriously inspired, and even King, a big time fan of the character admits that. Max Rochatansky, the lone ranger of Mad Max, is somewhat of an attempt to explain the origin of The Man with No Name. Sergio Leone himself had his character in Once Upon a Time in the West to be known only as the Harmonica (he always plays a strange tune). Even I have been found guilty of trying to explain him, through a silly little ode once (it follows the passage). But none, come close to the man they know only as the, well, The Man with No Name. Probably the only creations that do justice, and will ever do, are the musical notes of Ennio Morricone from the Dollar Trilogy. That, and if you truly intend to comprehend the mystery surrounding The Man, the haunting score by Dee Barton that accompanies The Man as rides into High Plains Drifter stand as the pillars on which the legend of The Man with No Name has been built.
As he walks out of town, the folks do not have the slightest comprehension what to make of him. He doesn’t have anything to say, he doesn’t even have a quote to describe his legend. At the outskirts, near the graveyard, a good man asks him – “I never did know your name.”
The Man with No Name replies – “Yes, you do.”
And he rides out of town just as he walked in. They’ll never forget that day. Neither will we the greatest character ever created.

My humble effort to honor my favorite character -

The child meandered seeking the bosom
Here was a Man ready to blossom
His wail transcending the creaking woods
Behind on his father’s chest stood the cruel hoods

There was a wild laughter and there was the bang
The mother inconsolably wept, one sick hood sang
Something pained inside the men around,
They had learnt to bear it, and they didn’t make a sound

The well creaked and the horse snorted
The Man from far away had the men sorted
Years ago, they clapped as the hoods whipped the brave
Neither Hell nor Heaven, the punisher seemed from the grave

As the horse strode into the village
The town of Pecado looked on at their sin from another age
The sin they had buried, and with it their shame
No one now remembered the face, least of all the name

Two guns were drawn, a whip was cracked
Resting on the chest, the feet never backed
The hoods ever knew only one who stood tall
Burnt his horse, whipped him to death, an example for all

The Man looked down at the child as the mother wept in vain
She knew the blue eyes, she felt the disdain
The Man’s presence, burning the Pecado thinner
The elders now, the child a warning for the future sinner

The six-shooters were drawn before time flashed
The child ran towards the mother, to the ground the hoods crashed
His mother closed his eyes, the innocent wept with joy
Last time it was, the child would ever be a boy

Time flashed, the bosom grew cold
The child opened his eyes to tighten his mother’s hold
Why on the ground did my mother lay, with the smile?
Her eyes seem though, she is farther than a mile.

Her head rested on the Man’s feet
Unmoved, unperturbed basking in the high noon’s heat
The town he named Infierno, and Red was it painted
The child looked around, there stood none morally tainted

The child looked up to the Man as the horse snorted again
The Man smiled wryly, said there was much to train
Filthy human being I’ll first drain the pain
Then the morality, then the name and then you’ll stand to gain

United, they traveled along, the world of the west
Eating spaghetti, robbing banks, putting the law to test
They robbed the gold too; thus grew their in-fame
The child became The Man with No Name

It was a world of mortal rules, created by men in power
Good and evil, the definitions changed by the hour
That world was his practice, his loyalty to his own
To some he was The Good, who rode all alone

The stretches were barren, the deserts were overdrawn
War raged, but I always nurtured humanity in dawn
The Man had neither faith in me nor he sold to the devil
He was a mystery of my creation, an error on my anvil

You still have a life to go son, put your faith in me
The pain I’ll bring back, along with it an identity
The Man will leave you and with it the infamy
The conscience that will drive you, will bless you humanity

Forgive O’ Man I’m William Munny, now a man with a name
I betrayed you, sold myself to God; I will always live in shame
I’ve killed women and children and I’ve killed men
I’ve killed everything that walks or crawls, I’m beyond redemption

I still walk with my two colts, in the darkness of night
Looking for redemption, looking for a spirit, looking for evil’s might
Hell of a thing to kill a man, you take away all he’s got
I’m Bill Munny, vigilante of the world, forever I’ll rot

The Best Movies of 2006

2007-11-27T13:10:00.000-08:00

This is by no means, not even by the farthest stretch of the imaginations, a comprehensive list. With the amount of films released, whether in the US, UK, Italy, France, Iran, Germany, China or India, it is humanly impossible for a man of scant resources and logistics to enjoy all the films. More importantly, the films I’ve mentioned are the ones that have enjoyed international exposure.

Yet, a man has to start someday.

V for Vendetta (Director: James McTeigue): This crazy fission of innumerable ideas produces so huge an energy, the brilliance of its flame almost makes us write an essay, rather essays riddled in political overture. A stunning product of intelligence, the source of the film’s multi-faceted depth is its seeming indecisiveness what it wants to be – an action film or a post-apocalyptic sci-fi or a superhero film – and somehow, it ends being all of them and much more. V is the masked vigilante who has taken the onus on himself to wipe the country of ill sitting in power. Hero or anti-hero, moral or amoral, but there’s no doubt that this anarchist does have one hell of a style. I his Dramatis Persona lives in each one of us. Images, words and movements seldom gravitate so much political significance. This film is probably the reason why I love films.

Pan’s Labyrinth (Director: Guillermo Del Toro): Fantastical monsters will never be as horrifying as the mechanics of real world, but the young girl is unfortunate enough to face the perils of both of them. Only that her innocence can overcome the parallel world of fantasy, but the evils of the real world might just be too incomprehensible for her, or for anyone for that matter. This is a fable, a fantasy, for the ages, yet its real world is brutal beyond words. I might never come to successfully describe this masterpiece, but I can surely declare that the Mexican cinema has well and truly arrived.

The Prestige (Director: Christopher Nolan): Thriller-mechanics matter relatively less in a Nolan film. Not that they’re brilliant, but Nolan, through his intricately designed films weaves characters that linger in your mind for a long time. Revenge is one of the most basic of human traits, but it takes a person only so far before losing steam. This gem of a thriller blurs the line when revenge ends and when hubris, that most dreaded of traits, takes over as two illusionists square off against each other. Time is a dimension of little essence in Nolan’s world and he freely traverses in there to show us cause-and-effect. It isn’t a gimmick and as opposed to many who consider his films complex for this reason, Nolan rather simplifies the process for us to understand the psychology of his films by doing away with the barrier of time.

Babel (Director: Alejandro Gonzalez-Inarritu): Do we really need words to understand each other? Or do they just increase the confusion? This multi-narrative masterpiece from Inarritu, the final film of his death trilogy, examines the relationships between us citizens of this world and the barrier that has taken us so far away from each other. His background as a disc jockey probably helps Inarritu weave such compelling narratives, but his handling of the medium is god-gifted.

The Queen (Director: Stephen Frears): With all the grace the royalty would be proud of, it narrates the time period when Tony Blair enters 10, Downing Street and when Princess Diana met with that fateful accident. Making engaging, entertaining dramas out of real-life figures and their situations demands the brightest of filmmaking and this film has it in abundance. If I was asked to describe last year in terms of performances I would require spelling only two names – Helen Mirren, Ulrich Mühe (Gerd Wiesler, The Lives of Others) and Ivana Baquero (Ofelia, Pan’s Labyrinth).

The Lives of Others (Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck): This film captures, with a great deal of objective genius, the most difficult part of the transformation of a character. Set in 1984 East Germany, it is about a German Stasi officer who’s put in-charge of a surveillance mission of a playwright and his girlfriend. Ulrich Mühe gives us one of the greatest character studies of modern times in one of the best performances of this decade.

The Wind that Shakes the Barley (Director: Ken Loach): What stands out in this intensely political tale of the Irish revolution during the 1920s is its honesty. The tale is of brothers ending on different ends of the same face of the coin, but at its heart is that eternal truth – an eye for an eye will only make the world blind. But, is there a way out. Brilliantly photographed, and equally well-acted, this is an emotional experience that shows Loach in top flight.

Rang De Basanti (Director: Rakesh Omprakash Mehra): Is it coincidence that three films on this list are based on revolutions, or is it just our times? They say the future lay in the hands of the youth; I believe the coming-of-age of youth has seldom been so revolutionary. Weaving its tale of ‘changing the system’ around a group of disillusioned youngsters, the film takes the bull by horns with a tone tailor-made for youngsters. When has a proper intellectual debate stirred the cup? And rightfully, the film has none. It rather believes in the practical – emotional storm can blow the cup away.

The Departed (Director: Martin Scorsese): Cops and criminals never had it better. The classic Scorsese irony, put to great effect, brings his best entertainer since Goodfellas (1990). This fantastically paced mirror places two survivors-in-life, who’re on the opposite ends of the moral spectrum, in alien labyrinthine situations asking them to do what they do best, survive. Ask as only Marty can. The two of them are supposed to be impostors. Well, aren’t we all?

Flandres (Director: Bruno Dumont): This film, right at the bottom, puts me in the most interesting of predicaments – how can I recommend a film when I myself am not sure whether I like it or hate it. Dumont is a challenging filmmaker enough with his sparse use of actors’ expressions; here he piles on it a hopelessly depressing tale of romance in the time of war – the depression not because of the sadness of the tale but its seeming lack of any such categorization. This landscape is bleak, in a way, speaking about the characters. I’m not sure I recommend such cinema, but I could hardly shrug this film, its effect. Does that count for something?

Honorable Mention

Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men, Pedro Almodóvar Volver, Davis Guggenheim & Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, Gore Verbinski’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Paul Greengrass’ United 93