For a long time now, I have believed that I belong to the category of people who are easily vanquished by the sadness in a song, a book or a movie... rather than the happiness. Sometimes, it almost feels like the happiness imparted by a medium like that is fleeting, but the sadness is not. The sadness tugs at your sleeve, throws an invisible blanket around your heart, leaves you staring into nothingness through misty eyes...and eventually, remains in your mind with that big sigh you heave in that long breath. Its like a melancholic breeze...that lingers...that follows you.
Most of mankind has been designed to constantly adapt. How else do we deal with loss? With change? How else do we live on? That's why we learn to get comfortable...to embrace the unexpected...to find happiness in what we have, and be thankful for it. That's why we have the ability to see layers of complexity in an issue sometimes, but smile at the real simplicity of it all, some other time. And so it shall be, that the people we know, and love, will remain both our lucid waters, and our unsolvable puzzles... and this was beautifully depicted in two movies, in very different ways.
Aniruddha Roy Chowdry's Antaheen and Aparna Sen's The Japanese Wife. The only two Bengali movies I have watched till date... both telling stories of relationships...and how their complexity, or the absence of it, can depend solely on the people involved.
Antaheen, set in the backdrop of busy (or not-so-busy) lives in a city, beautifully depicts a scenario alot of people may be able to relate to today... an outward facade of acceptance, with an inherent knowledge that one is in denial...is living a farce. The Japanese wife is like an intricate painting of life in different shades of grey...each brush stroke depicting helplessness and poverty...and yet, amazing simplicity. It is mildly teasing to realise the striking similarities amidst all the differences. One movie depicts marriage as a complex web of perspectives...and misunderstandings...the answer being separation. The second movie on the other hand portrays how simple a marriage could be, if all that matters is an understanding, and all that is required is an acknowledgement. The first movie outlines the complexity of relationships through a young couple conversing through the internet, clearly in love, hesitating to reveal their identities or their feelings to each other, for the fear of losing it all... while the second movie asserts the possible simplicity of relationships by telling a story of two people who for sheer love, marry each other through letters, and remain so till the end. However, both movies tell of endless waits...for love. And how sometimes we wait a tad too long... and its all gone.
In Antaheen, the melancholy is of people... caught in the web of their thoughts. In Aparna Sen's brave, independent outside... and an inside yearning to go back to her separated husband, who now portrays himself to be cynical and bitter... In Sharmila Tagore's life of singlehood, brought about by phone conversations that suddenly stopped... In Rahul Bose's and Radhika Apte's solace in strangers...In the orange kite, stuck in the antenna... In the wait, that almost ended... but didn't. In the sad truth that life goes on... and if we wait too long, we learn to live with the losses...and the memories the breeze brings.
In the Japanese wife, the melancholy is three fold. There's poverty, helplessness, and... people. There's melancholy in the beauty of the Matla river...and in its unfortunate potential for destruction...there's melancholy in the simplicity of the marriage that binds two quiet, shy people... In a widow's attempt to conceal her beauty, her feelings, her fears... In a poor man's quest to cure the cancer eating his wife...a wife he has never laid eyes on...There's melancholy in the Japanese woman clad in a white saree, holding a white umbrella, showing the world her shaved head...her symbol of devotion to her dead husband... the one she loved, and lived to see... but as fate would have it, never saw. Melancholy... in the japanese kites flying high in the blue indian skies... In a pair of hand-knitted socks that imparted snug happiness...
Thus continues my endless liking for such movies... some melancholy...some bitter-sweet-ness... some smiles... but finally, a blank stare... an irony... a realisation that everything... is personal.
Ajo ache gopon, Pherari mon…
Beje gechhe kakhon, Se telephone…
(The wild escaping mind is still concealed...
When has that telephone ever rung?)
Ps: Please feel free to correct that Bengali translation... I got it off the net :)
Yours " Class...."ly
Signing off...
Showing posts with label Movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Movies. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Saffron
I read somewhere that the mark of a good book is that it changes every time you read it. I do not know if the same can be said for movies. Some movies drag you back to them, repeatedly, mostly the funny ones, the feel-good ones. Then, there are the other movies, that you do not want to watch more than once. You do not want the impact the movie had on you to change because you have changed. But when you do end up watching a movie like that again, and when you realise that it hits you the same way as it did a few years back, it is an inexplicable feeling...of awe.
I give you Rang De Basanti. Revelations. Causes. Bouts of happiness, all through with a mild undercurrent of poignancy. And eventually, a sad smile, and a lonely tear.
I have read too many posts in the recent past about Rahman's genius, about how he is god, and about how he's always experimenting. So, I shall refrain from talking about him as such. But what his music does to this movie...is something else.
The goosebumps start at Tu bin Bataye. The perfect setting to make anyone yearn for a bunch of friends like that...to make any girl wish she had the look Sonia has in her eyes with her perfect man...to make one wish he/she was throwing leaves down at the happy couple with the rest of the gang. The song is as dream-like as reality can get... floaty bliss... you can't stop smiling at these young people who want to do nothing other than be in each other's company, and savor small nothings in life. Yet at the end of it, when you see seven blurry figures lost in their own world walking arms-around-shoulders into that sunset...your heart grows heavier, and you know that what is easily the happiest moment of the movie, is, but a classic calm before the storm. Mishri ki dali, zindagi ho chali...
Rahman then gives us Luka Chuppi. Prasoon Joshi gives us Luka Chuppi. As if the music of the second half was meant to compete with that of the first half. Wonderfully portrayed. The indian flag folded, and the pistol-shots into the sky...the teary-eyed faces sobbing through the smoke...the white...the devasted mother, hollow eyed, with loss etched all over her face, almost collapsing at the sight of her dead son's trunk...the girl, having lost the man she was meant to marry, pulls out a picture of both of them from his diary...
And then comes the end... as they die one by one...and we're left with nothing but the echoes of their laughter in our ears. And they walk together from the lush green field into the white light... Its over. They fought for their cause...and in their heads, they won. And how! And you...are left staring at the titles, wondering what really hit you...
I said nothing about the over-lapping freedom struggle portion of this movie...the clever screenplay...and how each one of these students become the character they enact for Su's documentary. It seems so seamlessly done... one could go on and on.
I love this movie more than I did before. I love the music, more than most of Rahman's other albums. Maybe that's because the songs have been stitched so well into the script, that when you listen to them, you are instantly reminded of how the actual scence made you feel, and you love it even more. The simplicity of the lyrics complements every song, every scene...it just makes one so happy to see such good effort, such meticulous balancing...such genius in cinema...and nonetheless, what we always ache for - Inspiration.
Paint it Saffron.
Yours "Chaaya liya bhali dhoop yahaan hai..."ly
Signing off...
I give you Rang De Basanti. Revelations. Causes. Bouts of happiness, all through with a mild undercurrent of poignancy. And eventually, a sad smile, and a lonely tear.
I have read too many posts in the recent past about Rahman's genius, about how he is god, and about how he's always experimenting. So, I shall refrain from talking about him as such. But what his music does to this movie...is something else.
The goosebumps start at Tu bin Bataye. The perfect setting to make anyone yearn for a bunch of friends like that...to make any girl wish she had the look Sonia has in her eyes with her perfect man...to make one wish he/she was throwing leaves down at the happy couple with the rest of the gang. The song is as dream-like as reality can get... floaty bliss... you can't stop smiling at these young people who want to do nothing other than be in each other's company, and savor small nothings in life. Yet at the end of it, when you see seven blurry figures lost in their own world walking arms-around-shoulders into that sunset...your heart grows heavier, and you know that what is easily the happiest moment of the movie, is, but a classic calm before the storm. Mishri ki dali, zindagi ho chali...
Rahman then gives us Luka Chuppi. Prasoon Joshi gives us Luka Chuppi. As if the music of the second half was meant to compete with that of the first half. Wonderfully portrayed. The indian flag folded, and the pistol-shots into the sky...the teary-eyed faces sobbing through the smoke...the white...the devasted mother, hollow eyed, with loss etched all over her face, almost collapsing at the sight of her dead son's trunk...the girl, having lost the man she was meant to marry, pulls out a picture of both of them from his diary...
Kya bataoon maa kahan hoon main, Yahaan udney ko mere khula aasmaan hai...
And then there is fire, burning hard in the eyes of those that care...those who want justice...those that for the first time in their lives, have a cause to believe in, and fight for. Khoon chala adds to the shivers...with the candles and the crowd, the unreasonable assault on believers and the blood shed...and most of all, with each trying to protect the other.
When I watched this movie for the first time, almost 4 years back, one line stayed in my head for a very long time. Sonia's 'Maar dalo...'. And so she said the words... and as friends avenging the death of the best man they ever knew, they found their justice in murder.
And they do not stop there. They tell their fellow citizens what they did, and why they did it. They throw themselves out in the open, ready to face anything, having fulfilled their purpose. And what better than the ascending notes of Robaroo to wrap up the elation neatly? Again, Prasoon Joshi's lyrics can't get better. He says it all by saying so little... DJ dropping his gun in finality, Karan's pain-filled expression relieved in that first hug, and as he looks into DJ's eyes at suraj ko mein nigal gaya...Laxman breaking into tears while hugging Aslam at wo loha tha pighal gaya... beautifully crafted scene, like the director did not want to waste a single word from the song...so carefully overlayed... Sheer brilliance.
And then there is fire, burning hard in the eyes of those that care...those who want justice...those that for the first time in their lives, have a cause to believe in, and fight for. Khoon chala adds to the shivers...with the candles and the crowd, the unreasonable assault on believers and the blood shed...and most of all, with each trying to protect the other.
When I watched this movie for the first time, almost 4 years back, one line stayed in my head for a very long time. Sonia's 'Maar dalo...'. And so she said the words... and as friends avenging the death of the best man they ever knew, they found their justice in murder.
And they do not stop there. They tell their fellow citizens what they did, and why they did it. They throw themselves out in the open, ready to face anything, having fulfilled their purpose. And what better than the ascending notes of Robaroo to wrap up the elation neatly? Again, Prasoon Joshi's lyrics can't get better. He says it all by saying so little... DJ dropping his gun in finality, Karan's pain-filled expression relieved in that first hug, and as he looks into DJ's eyes at suraj ko mein nigal gaya...Laxman breaking into tears while hugging Aslam at wo loha tha pighal gaya... beautifully crafted scene, like the director did not want to waste a single word from the song...so carefully overlayed... Sheer brilliance.
And then comes the end... as they die one by one...and we're left with nothing but the echoes of their laughter in our ears. And they walk together from the lush green field into the white light... Its over. They fought for their cause...and in their heads, they won. And how! And you...are left staring at the titles, wondering what really hit you...
I said nothing about the over-lapping freedom struggle portion of this movie...the clever screenplay...and how each one of these students become the character they enact for Su's documentary. It seems so seamlessly done... one could go on and on.
I love this movie more than I did before. I love the music, more than most of Rahman's other albums. Maybe that's because the songs have been stitched so well into the script, that when you listen to them, you are instantly reminded of how the actual scence made you feel, and you love it even more. The simplicity of the lyrics complements every song, every scene...it just makes one so happy to see such good effort, such meticulous balancing...such genius in cinema...and nonetheless, what we always ache for - Inspiration.
Paint it Saffron.
Yours "Chaaya liya bhali dhoop yahaan hai..."ly
Signing off...
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Pulling the heart's strings
I am presently addicted to apple juice. Apple juice at midnight.Nice way to start the day dont you think? :)I was hooked to Friends (the sitcom), but i guess that wore off because i didn't have more of it to watch.
I like sad songs...slow-soft-sad songs.maybe they just evoke emotion more easily in me than happy songs do...and one really sad song i've been listening to over and over again is "take my heart back" by Jeniffer Love Hewitt. I think sad songs hit one harder if they have a particular context in a movie or something...atleast for me, its like that. You know exactly why that song was sung, or the tune was played, and all the sadness in the movie just infests your mind and strikes your heart.Of course its not always like that...theres always the lyrics which you can relate to
your own life...but lately, more than the lyrics of the song, its the movie situation that has succeeded in making me sad! And then there's the tune...some tunes don't even need words to tell you its a sad one. Reminds me of the time my music teacher was teaching us this particular song in kalyanavasantham ragam, and the whole atmosphere got so gloomy and sad...not like we understood the song...just the ragam and the tune...Its like this sick feeling in your stomach,this emptiness around...like sorrow just swallowed the whole world, and there's no coming out of it. Some sort of enchantment, but a sad one. There's so much beauty in that...when something no one can understand makes each person in the room feel the same thing. I guess that's what they call the language of music :D
I haven't been able to come out of my BGM craze, or my awe for Mani rathnam (if you scroll down, you'll notice my previous post had alot to do with both!). This time, the movie is Thalapathi. I was totally bowled over by the balance of each element in the movie...quite neatly done. Its like Mani Rathnam used some mathematical equation to calculate the proportion of each element, and got it all right, and beautifully. Theres the friendship, the mother-and-lost-son element, theres the right dose of romance, very aptly balanced with the rage and the helplessness coming out of that "unfulfillable" love, theres a good deal of violence (which i guess the movie needed),and there are the well placed songs composed by the maestro, illayaraja. Another thing i liked about the movie is the bond between the little girl (banupriya's daughter) and Rajnikanth.
The BGM that made me re-watch scenes this time was the violin version of the song "Sundari kannaal oru seydhi". Brilliant composition. It makes me feel like the violin is crying out...shobhana's eyes speak it all out...the yearning, the bittersweet acceptance...so its like the violin complements her eyes. And when you realise all the helplessness that's involved in that scene of lost love, its some sort of poignant beauty.
I'm not uploading the violin piece i'm talking about...partly because i think its complicated, and partly because i'm lazy. So if you'd like to listen to it, you can leave me a comment, and i'll mail it across.
And thus we indulge in music and movies, and small or big analyses of them, to help us forget the bigger things in life. To stop dwelling in things that require patience...on things that do not entirely lie at our mercy. After all, I've heard that to get out of difficulty, one must usually go through it!
Yours "This too...shall pass"ly
Signing off...
I like sad songs...slow-soft-sad songs.maybe they just evoke emotion more easily in me than happy songs do...and one really sad song i've been listening to over and over again is "take my heart back" by Jeniffer Love Hewitt. I think sad songs hit one harder if they have a particular context in a movie or something...atleast for me, its like that. You know exactly why that song was sung, or the tune was played, and all the sadness in the movie just infests your mind and strikes your heart.Of course its not always like that...theres always the lyrics which you can relate to
your own life...but lately, more than the lyrics of the song, its the movie situation that has succeeded in making me sad! And then there's the tune...some tunes don't even need words to tell you its a sad one. Reminds me of the time my music teacher was teaching us this particular song in kalyanavasantham ragam, and the whole atmosphere got so gloomy and sad...not like we understood the song...just the ragam and the tune...Its like this sick feeling in your stomach,this emptiness around...like sorrow just swallowed the whole world, and there's no coming out of it. Some sort of enchantment, but a sad one. There's so much beauty in that...when something no one can understand makes each person in the room feel the same thing. I guess that's what they call the language of music :D
I haven't been able to come out of my BGM craze, or my awe for Mani rathnam (if you scroll down, you'll notice my previous post had alot to do with both!). This time, the movie is Thalapathi. I was totally bowled over by the balance of each element in the movie...quite neatly done. Its like Mani Rathnam used some mathematical equation to calculate the proportion of each element, and got it all right, and beautifully. Theres the friendship, the mother-and-lost-son element, theres the right dose of romance, very aptly balanced with the rage and the helplessness coming out of that "unfulfillable" love, theres a good deal of violence (which i guess the movie needed),and there are the well placed songs composed by the maestro, illayaraja. Another thing i liked about the movie is the bond between the little girl (banupriya's daughter) and Rajnikanth.
The BGM that made me re-watch scenes this time was the violin version of the song "Sundari kannaal oru seydhi". Brilliant composition. It makes me feel like the violin is crying out...shobhana's eyes speak it all out...the yearning, the bittersweet acceptance...so its like the violin complements her eyes. And when you realise all the helplessness that's involved in that scene of lost love, its some sort of poignant beauty.
I'm not uploading the violin piece i'm talking about...partly because i think its complicated, and partly because i'm lazy. So if you'd like to listen to it, you can leave me a comment, and i'll mail it across.
And thus we indulge in music and movies, and small or big analyses of them, to help us forget the bigger things in life. To stop dwelling in things that require patience...on things that do not entirely lie at our mercy. After all, I've heard that to get out of difficulty, one must usually go through it!
Yours "This too...shall pass"ly
Signing off...
Sunday, September 16, 2007
You're the rain, I'm a leaf!
I was telling one of my cousins yesterday that blogging about A.R.Rahman and Mani Rathnam has become so terribly cliched. Every other blog has a post raving about either of them, their work and their genius. But well, i guess alot of people do blog about them because they really rock...one sensible film maker, and one music genius. You know what's even better? The combination. When they work together on a project. And there, i'm finally blogging about them myself! But this is not because of how i'm totally in awe about their work (which i am actually, but that's a different issue!). So why has this post come up?
I happened to watch the movie Aayudha ezhuthu (pardon spelling errors if any) again, but only for the second time. All i could recall about the movie before i watched it again was this - I'd watched it in Mayajaal, after my dad bought tickets that i thought were grossly expensive, i was amazingly cranky and pissed off during the drive, and maybe that's because my brother refused to come with us, we ate some ridiculously dry vazhakai bajji in a small eat out before the movie, and it made me choke no end, my mother thought the movie was too violent and didn't like it,I totally loved the scene where surya is dismissed from college but he doesn't leave because all the students say they'll leave with him, I loved the way surya pushed bharatiraja out of his way in the last scene, and also liked the scene when trisha comes back from sivagasi. Ok i know i could recall more of what happened before the movie, than the movie itself! Maybe that's why i wanted to watch it again!
Anyway, to the point...i watched the movie, and liked it all over again. But this time, i noticed the finer details of the music that i may have noticed, but not gone back to, when i watched the movie in the theatre. The Background Music - the BGM. In the siddharth-trisha scenes. Lovely. Violins. Good dialogue + Good BGM = Scene that can be watched atleast 10 times on the same day ;-) Thats wat happened! But well... something quite funny just happened now. I'd been watching the movie with my cousin this morning, and we reached the part where sid doesn allow trish to leave the bus, and they sit there for a long time till the bus goes to the terminus and comes back to her stop. Theres a small song (a variation of hey goodbye nanba) in the background...I'd recorded the song in my mp3 player because i couldn't find it anywhere online. So i was telling him the lyrics go like this -
May mazhai Naan illai
Idhuku mel oru nilai
vidai kudu, pogrien
eeramai vazhgiren...
He gave me one look, and started laughing! Obviously there was something wrong with the lyrics...the lines didn't sound right! Things didn't add up... so he said he'll listen to it...and he laughed and laughed...because he thought the lyrics actually are...
Nee mazhai Naan Alai
Idhuku mel uravu illai
vidai kudu, pogiren
eeramai vazhgiren...
I laughed too. Mainly at his "when do we get rain in May?" question! But still, the eermai vazhgiren part didn't make sense... and then, the movie was playing on tv, and we were watching the same scene... and we realised...we got the first line wrong! It ACTUALLY is
Nee mazhai, naan yelai
Idhuku mel, uravu illai
vidai kudu, pogiren
eeramai vazhgiren...
Whew! And now, it finally makes sense!
Translation... (if u already understand the lyrics, please dont read this translation, it'll be terrible!)
You're the rain, I'm a leaf
We don't have any relationship beyond this
Say your farewell, I'll leave
And live in all Wet-ness! ;)
Anyway... its been an ayudha ezhuthu BGM week. Been listening to the same tunes, and watching the same scenes over and over again... some movie! If you want to check out the video of the song i've been ranting about... here
Yours "Vidai kudu...pogiren"ly
Signing off.....
Saturday, August 05, 2006
CAPTAIN Jack Sparrow, Savvy? ;-)
Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead man's chest.What on earth were the reviews complaining about? This movie, is one hell of a roller coaster ride, and i loved every bit of it, and screamed at the end...screamed because of the element of suspense, and that craving to watch the next movie that very moment and have every vein in my body overflow with the drunken pirate-ness! What a sequel, what a perfect bridge, what action, what special effects, what humour... what a flick! One of those made solely for the purpose of entertainment :)
Maybe i liked the movie because i was determined to like it from the very beginning... but really, i cant agree with any review that called it sub-standard. A woman on tv said it was a 2.5 hour promo to the 3rd movie, and that it was a drag with no proper story and didn't have enough of Johnny depp (My take on that, is that you just cant ever have enough of depp!). The guy who was on the show with her gave her one straight look and said "did you really understand the movie? cuz i loved it!" Yaay! I go with the guy! I dont think i need to talk abt the perfomances...they were just wow... and the music as usual! But i think some scenes have been shot beautifully in this movie! Better than the first one... Well, if you're looking for a movie that'll make you scream, whistle, jump in your seat and laugh like hell, this is definitely the one! 3 cheers to Gore Verbinski! Mr.director.... and obv to Mr.Depp!!! ;-)
I hate it when movies end with such climaxes that do nothing but pave way to the next movie, and make the audience wait forever! Argh.... but we will obv wait! And the wait shall definitely be worth it! So as Sudhish Kamath said in "The Hindu" - Gore,Bring Jack back, soon! We want Pirates of the Caribbean - At world's end! And SOON!
Johnny is such a good actor...damn! I've never ever been crazy abt an actor... he's the only one! Bless him! Depp, we're waiting for shantaram too :D
UPDATE 7/8/06 - Happy birthday Nikhil!!!! Mr.Leo... Hope u have a great day! And hope u give us one of those treats again ;-) Pizza hut, is never to be forgotten man! Maybe we should tell all your classmates who got just orange juice for a treat what a gracious host you played, once upon a time ;-) LOL! Have a blast!
Yours "Dont miss this for anything, i love Depp"ly
Signing offfff.....
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