Buffalo Soldier

Very recently saw the movie ‘Malcolm X’. I would say it is one of the brilliant portrayals ever done by an actor. Denzel was way too good as Malcolm X. The movie has been adapted from the book ‘The Autobiography of Malcolm X’ which was co-authored by Alex Haley.

Alex Haley later went on to become popular with his book ‘Roots’, which on hindsight I am wondering why I didn’t include in my recurrent reads. Maybe because I haven’t read it a lot of times! A couple of time maximum I guess. But it rates as one of the best I have ever read.

Starting in 1700’s with the forced abduction of a black man from Africa, it spanned 2 centuries and ended up with the author, whose roots he claimed to have traced back to. The 1700 slave ‘Kunta Kinte’ was his ancestor.

Malcolm X, Amistad and this book are fantastic productions that highlight the misery of black people. To think that the most democratic nation, most developed nation was built on slave labor is extremely unpalatable. Today America stands for freedom and wherever they see oppression, they are the first to poke their nose into. But in 19th century, a black was considered as only 3/5th of a person and women were given the right to vote only in 1920.

America has been a breeding ground for double standards all through its existence. While the Americans were busy fighting Hitler, the Ku Klux Klan was very much active with it’s anti Semitic propaganda. While it was advising South Africa, America’s own citizens were segregated economically, physically and socially. There are many African Americans who still believe that they get a raw deal. We are now taking about a possibility of a woman or a colored President there, while a much smaller country like Sri Lanka was headed by a woman much earlier. Their treatment of coloreds had been worse than many of the autocratic regimes which they oppose. A Rodney King can still happen only there. I read a book which statistically proved that there are more blacks who lost their lives fighting for America. Be it a war or a sport!

As Bob Marley sang,

Stolen from Africa, brought to America,
Fighting on arrival, fighting for survival.

It is such a pity that many of them would not know where they came from. In a way it is cultural rapes to let generations of people lose their identity. Like they say, behind every success there are a lot of corpses.

Apocalypto

’Apocalypto’ as a movie triggers a lot of thoughts in your mind. The tag line for the movie is ‘When the end comes, not everyone is ready is go’ and the quote with which the film begins ‘A great civilization is not conquered from without until it is destroyed from within’ tells the story themself.

It is about the declining period of Mayan civilization and one man’s fight to escape from the sacrificial altar. Powerfully captured in the visual sense, the language is which the movie is dubbed gives tremendous scope to see the movie more visually than anything else, suspending the viewer from reality to quote Mel Gibson. Learnt later that the language is Yucatec Maya language! He has been absolutely right, because I have never watched so many pairs of intense eyes in a single movie.

Sometimes a movie can leave such a tremendous impact that it keeps running in your mind even after it really ends. At first I thought that tag line may well be apt for describing the movie itself. You don’t want to go, when the movie comes to an end. Very few directors have the art of making the viewers empathize with a movie completely. A feeling that you belong there and you are watching a story unfold in front of your eyes! Mel Gibson is one such guy. Be it the ‘Braveheart’ or the ‘Passion of Christ’, Gibson transports you to another world altogether. His penchant for perfection is very apparent in the construction of each scene.

Apocalypto is no different in that aspect. It is shot in such a way that you feel that you could smell the wetness of the soil and the fear of the people. A simple storyline of abduction & escape can never get more thrilling. The movie just draws you to the edge of the seat in the 10th minute and keeps you there for another 2 and a half hour’s.

There is a lot of gore and violence but somehow, as a viewer you tend to accept it, maybe because the story is set about 1200 years back and having been doled out a lot of senseless violence in contemporary movies, you somehow think it is perfectly OK for the men of that age to behave that way.

I kept thinking that though centuries have gone by, some fundamental human traits have never changed. The blind beliefs about God and our rituals to please Him, the fight for supremacy, the strong subduing the weak, the family ties, the loyalty to clan, the senseless behavior towards tribes that are not yours, civilization and barbarism coexisting and the scant respect of human lives, nothing has changed in 1500 years.

The Maya civilization is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as its spectacular art, monumental architecture, and sophisticated mathematical and astronomical systems. At its peak, it was one of the most densely populated and culturally dynamic societies in the world. And yet, there are behaviors that are completely incongruent to what civilization is defined for.

Now after a millennium, we are far more advanced but hold on to the same traits. So fundamentally nothing changes in such a short period. I had always maintained that whatever changes that is required in many touchy areas like female emancipation etc, the change can only be evolutionary and not something that can be achieved in a few years. Traditional men remain traditional.

Though I see plenty of movies, reviews or mention about them in my blogs have been rare & few. Unless I am really touched by the story, narration and the performance of the actors and the packaging of the movie as a whole!

Apocalypto fits the bill, perfectly.

Cheeni Kum

Surprising that sometimes when you have something in mind to write, you also come across a similar piece written by someone else. I wanted to write something about a few dialogues in the movie, which talked about happiness and jealousy; I read this piece by Kushwant Singh this morning. And it almost touched something parallel or atleast triggered the same kind of thoughts the movie did.

The movie unto itself was fantastic. Off the beaten path, bold theme and great acting. But the clincher was the dialogue Big B has with Paresh Rawal asking him why he doesn’t approve of him. And he zeroes in at jealousy. Jealousy at someone who wants to be an iconoclast when it comes to defined roles at defined ages. He argues that Paresh is jealous about what he can do being older than him by 6 years. Paresh is simply unable to accept the fact that Amitabh being older to him can do something that belies his age, instead of possibly retiring and watch TV.

Made me think about how shallow we are as human beings. All the while we are young, we always want to do something that is beyond our age. We easily adopt Parent ego state in our transactions. It happens even to a small kid. But when it comes to playing down the age, it is unpalatable. What’s the real difference anyway? In both cases, we just don’t want to be the age we are. How is that, it is acceptable to try things that are above your age, while the other one is not?

Many people come to me and comment on why I wear bold colors, why do I have so many footwear’s, why am I growing my hair, why am I friends with people younger to me by 10 to 15 years. Many such questions, as if when I am just 40 I am supposed to take sanyas or just be a dad of 2 daughters and turn away when an attractive woman passes by. If I do, it’s not my age!! Or audacity!! “Look what he is doing, why can’t he just be his age?” ( Buddies, if I don’t, I can’t even relate to my own daughters….)

I can only laugh at them or really feel bad for them. I believe that as we grow older, we also grow wiser, smarter, bolder, more powerful, more understanding and so many other things. If you start feeling that you are old, you are dead that day. You are not going to like yourself and if you don’t, no one would either. It is plainly a denial to stay happy. Good things create unrest with many people. They always want to be Atlas. Carry the world on their shoulders and everyone’s miseries! If God decides to give rest one day to them from this daunting task, they feel miserable. They just can’t be happy, thinking that one day there is no pressure. They will really squeeze their brain and find out one distant misery that can hit upon them probably 20 years from then.

It is these kinds of people who think that one should act their age, particularly when it comes to trying something that youngsters do. No it’s not for the oldies. Plainly because I can’t do that because that may accidentally make me happy and my vow to remain sad would not be fulfilled, so I should not. Since I won’t I also don’t approve of what you do will be their undeclared stance.

Actually, we should have retired all these jokers just after they finished their kindergarten. And just give them the Atlas job!

Bridges of Madison County

I have never been so moved by a work of fiction as much as by reading ‘Bridges of Madison County’. I have seen the movie earlier and with Clint Eastwood being my most favorite director, I immediately fell in love with the movie. But, it was later I got a chance to read the book. Pretty late that was.

Somehow all through the book, I was feeling that I was there at Iowa watching Kincaid and Francesca go through the pains of love. It was as if, I was wanting to butt in at some point and say, ‘Guys, enough is enough, please get the f*** out of Iowa and go somewhere’. The pain was so terrible.




The book was just not about love between two people, but more about the pain of a parent / spouse who needs to make a choice between love of her life and the institution of marriage.

Marriage sometimes gets into inertia. A protracted custom! All marriages, or for that matter all relationships are susceptible to that. Custom brings predictability and thus comforts. So it is a kind of internal struggle between comfort and breaking the monotony. The reasons that Francesca gives are so very right that even the last Cowboy ‘Kincaid’ could do nothing but yield.

The last letter is a work of art and I don’t think there could be a more tearful and honest account of oneself expressed elsewhere anytime. Somehow I was also moved because I felt I saw a lot of similarity between myself and Kincaid that the book appealed to my inner senses more than any other book.

Like Kincaid I also

Value Privacy and am a loner by nature
Like Dogs and Outdoors
Mourn about the loss of “free range”
Occasionally write
Believe that am an artistic and intelligent soul
Always wanted to play a guitar like him, but yet to though.

I feel can also call myself a Last Cowboy. The book is so earthy and characters are ordinary who actually grow big later because of the deeds they do or what they stand for at the end.

Robert James Waller could not reproduce this magic again, though ‘Slow Waltz in the Cedar Bend’ was fairly close, only issue being that the book runs for 30 more pages after the story ends.

The epilogue he attempted for ‘Bridges’ through ‘ A Thousand Country roads’ was a disaster. As it is, if you have landed up with your magnum opus on your first work of fiction, you are going to fall flat in the other works. But choosing to do an epilogue is actually suicide.

I felt like I lost Kincaid in that book. He was not the same guy he was in Bridges. The only romantic moment being the potential chance meeting of Francesca and Kincaid at the Roseman Bridge, which never happens and the tragedy is mercifully allowed to continue.

As Times aptly reviewed the book, ‘Roads has none of the pounding passion of Bridges but twice the pathos--it's a book about aging, a reprise in a minor key. Or put another way, it's less about the bridges, and more about the water under them."

A Walk to Remember

I was very happy with my psycho-thrillers as I decided earlier. I vowed not to touch James Redfield and other brain stimulating writings. These psycho-thrillers were fitting the bill perfectly. Stories of badly mutilated bodies in car trunks suit me fine!! As long as I don’t get into analyzing the dark side of human minds that would do such stuff.

And then, I screwed it up. Picked up Nicholas Sparks’ “A walk to remember”. He along with Erich Segal, Robert James Waller owns the patent for lachrymal glands of all the English reading human beings in the world. They normally pick 10000 words, take a tank full of tears, dip each word into that tank and then print them.

My wife can actually cry at the excitement of Beauty Contest winners. And with these books around at home, I sleep in a swimming pool everyday.

The story by itself is fine, in fact I would say too good even. Almost like ‘Bridges of Madison County’. Written so very well that, you will get out of home and fall in love with the first monkey you meet in the street. Love is so glorified. Am not against love stories as such, I like them and two of the authors mentioned are my favorites too.

But these stories appeal to you, as per your state of mind while reading. If you are really cheerful and happy and in love, such stories stoke your imagination so highly and you start falling in love all over again. But, if you are in a depressive mood, you really start getting irritated about such glorifications.

Anyway, the worst is that, the book turned kinda preachy. God, Bible, Letters to Ephesians, Book of Job and stuff like that. And that was precisely I was running away from. But, on the whole, Nicholas Sparks has a wonderful style of narration; he almost speaks with you and makes you a feel a part of what’s going on. In a right frame of mind, he would appeal to the deepest of your senses.

Finished the book cover to cover in a Chennai – Mumbai flight and now happily back to Jonathan Kellerman’s book called ‘Monster’. It’s about a prophetic loony house murderous inmate. And all his colleagues are big time killers. Now that’s my kind of story!!

Babel

The attempt to build the Tower of Babel is said to have angered God and cursed that people will talk different languages. I am not getting into how that can be micro-analyzed, whether it meant lack of understanding about what we talk to each other or plainly languages.

I am talking about the latest movie ‘Babel’, which has some parallels; don’t know whether the director’s primary intention was that.

Firstly, it will anger the viewers, for most of the times it is some meaningless rambling going on in the movie. Seemingly connected to each other, the 4 different storylines have very little in common. There is a very thin connection of a rifle of a Japanese guy, used by a Moroccan kid in a desert, which accidentally injures an American tourist and a side story of the kids of that tourist going to Mexico. That’s all the connection is. Nothing more.

I don’t know what’s the real idea of the director. Will 4 different story lines with such a thin connection make a full-fledged movie? I am surely tempted to think about the movies ‘Amores Perros’ ‘Yuva’ and also the likes of ‘Rashomon’. The first two had a clear link between the main protagonists. An accident that involves multiple people and how their lives get intertwined after that! And in Rashomon, the same incident is seen through 4 different pair of eyes. Now that’s a movie.

And on top of it, nice acting talents wasted completely. Gael Garcia Bernal according to me is a great talent. His performance as a mean dog owner in ‘Amores Perros’, sex crazed adolescent in ‘Yu Tu Mama Tambien’, as a newly ordained priest in ‘Crimen del padre Amaro, El’ are all outstanding. Such a guy being wasted in a stupid role irritates me. Atleast Brad Pitt had something to do in the movie thankfully.

And I don’t understand why if a helicopter if shown as flying should be shown till it lands, taking a whole minute or two. These parallel cinemas have this affliction. In some Mallu movies, if a fellow starts eating, they will show him complete the meal fully, or if potatoes are peeled, the entire container gets peeled and you see it patiently.

If this is realism, then I have an issue. I might as well walk into a kitchen and watch potato peeling. Maybe, I am a frontbencher who looks for plain good entertainment for 2 plus hours, without taxing my brain to find a story and invent meanings and have my personal interpretations blah blah. Just see a movie and mull over how it was a few times and get it done with. If it’s too good, keep seeing it again and again.

One good thing the movie did to me was that it gave me confidence. Maybe one day, I will make a movie, a good one at that. Or worse come worse a completely cranky movie like this and still get a release and for all you know, might pick up an award or two also

Jillendru Oru Kaadhal

Love has a freshness about it. Told a million times even, it still creates interest in a viewer's mind. Jillendru Oru Kaadhal is no exception.

Releasing 3 days before the lead pair's marriage, the movie has its own external charm. But, as a movie by itself, JOK doesnt disappoint either.

I will spare the story.The movie is all about love, before marriage and after marriage. Of course with two different girls. The director has made a taut script almost. I say almost because there are sections in movie that could have been shorter and the pace of narration maintained. Nonetheless , the treatment of the subject is worth appreciating.

Surya is getting better by each movie.These days, actors do take a lot of time, do not churn out movies like factory, work on the character and give life to it. He easily potrays both the roles, one of a father of a 6 year girl and another as a colleger in a flashback. He is convincing in both areas.

Jyothika, it is a pity that she is not going to act anymore. Emotions are child's play to her. She can be everything. This is true to most actors who impress from the word go.

Bhumika, god is she hot!! I had always felt that she carries a face of a martyr , which is tailor made for loving a hero one-sided and give that up. She starts with such a doubt in JOK also, but comes back with a vengeance.

AR Rehman leads a music riot and all songs are extremely hummable and some stays hummed. SPB Charan definitely has done his father proud. And ARR himself in the song 'Newyork Nagaram' lends a mystical touch to the song.

All elements of the movie are good, and it makes one feel with a talented team and a reasonably good script, a good movie can be made easily , unless the director willfully botches it up.

A simple straight-line story , clean narration , good performance by artists makes JOK worth seeing. But you could not help getting a feeling that the second half could have been shorter and the some cliches broken etc. But then, movies these days have to tread a safe path and any adventurism in the director's part is playing with fire.

Dont miss it though.