Not so notable notes

Lives of Common People

2008-06-28T12:44:00.007-04:00

Not always something extra-ordinary happens in common people's lives. Does that mean that there is no story to tell from their lives? Why most of the movies in popular culture have to be based on some extra-ordinary people or some extra-ordinary events in ordinary people's lives? Partly because the audience wants a way out of their ordinary life through this medium, I guess; and partly because it is hard to tell ordinary stories in a compelling way. That is why even great filmmakers choose a compelling story or resort to an innovative and compelling narrative or style of film-making. But there are few who chose to tell story of ordinary people in ordinary and simple language, and Yasujiro Ozu was one of them.
Till recently my exposure to Japanese movies were limited to animes and Kurosawa. Kurosawa is great, no doubt about it - wonderful story telling and wonderful insight. But those are not stories of ordinary men. So when I came across the first of Ozu in last December, I didn't know what to expect as that was my first exposure to a movie that covers contemporary Japan. And what I found was the kind of movie I was looking for ... story of ordinary days of ordinary men in ordinary language but in an extra-ordinary movie. The movie was 'End of Summer' that marked my beginning of Ozu. Then recently I got hold the entire series of six films 'Late Ozu'. Six films centered on middle class Japanese families - their journey through love, grief, sorrow, betrayal, insecurities, and struggle. Simple stories, simple people, simple narration, yet compelling.
The six films are 'Early Spring', 'Tokyo Twilight', 'Equinox Flower', 'Late Autamn' and 'End of Summer'. In 'Early Spring', a young couple suffers through their distrust and betrayal before each other before reconciling again. Its the restlessness of early youth. 'Tokyo Twilight' chronicles the turbuelent story of an old man and his two daughters whose mother has fled with another man when they were child. The eleder sister has a fragile marriage and the yoinger is suffering from identity crisis as she is betrayed by her lover. The old father in 'Equinox Flower' is often busy in advising trouble friends and their children about romantic relationships, but can't really cope up with his own daughter's relationships. It a classic story of differences of perception of love and marriage between the father and the daughter. In 'Late Autamn' friends of a late Mr. Miwa try to arrange a suitable match for his daughter as well as Mrs. Miwa only to make things complicated in the mother and daughter's life. At the 'End of the Summer' the children of an old businessman tries to cope up with their father's illlicit affair as the father's life comes to an end.
The people in Ozu's films are simple people, most of them are salaried persons. Their relationships are all entangled. They are full of wrongs and rights. They are predictable and that is why they are "ordinary".
The way Ozu tells the stories of these people is also very simple. Mostly static shots. Camera sits in between twe person framing each of them in the center as they converse with each other. It gives an impression of just sitting in between them for the audience. All his indoor shots are taken from a low angle, as if its being seen throgh the eye of someone who is sitting on the mat. It feels as if the viewer is stting right in the room with the characters. Then the transition shots are just some static shots of some objects reflecting the mood of the film. There is nothing catchy, nothing complicated. The characters act calmly as they sort through their lives. The movies are portrayal of life as it is.
Ozu's films make you relaize, as told by one of his characters in 'Late Autamn', "Life is simple, only people make it complicated".

I should tell you ...

2008-06-27T03:03:00.003-04:00

First of all, a confession - I love musicals and I love theater. And I like Soft-rock.
So when I had a chance of watching something on Broadway this weekend, I had no problem of choice especially when I knew that Rent is closing its first run on September this year. I had it on my wishlist for long time.
They call it to be phenomenon, a cult musical and what not! Well I liked the music, loved few songs, especially 'Seasons of Love'. I read about the story line, interesting and complicated. I read about the background of the show and some history of the show, interesting! I read people compare it with 'Hair' - an epoch making rock opera. And then the second longest running production in Broadway. All these were enough to build my interest on Rent.
Then I got to see the movie. The had made it into a movie with mostly the original Broadway cast. Its a good movie. I liked some more songs. For a musical, the context of a song is important. Most of the songs of a musical doesn't really make a lot sense from its lyric without the context. Same is true for Rent. With the context and the background of the characters the songs go up to a different level. I realized that while watching the movie. I liked it a lot. And I realized the stageplay is going to be intense.
So I was there at Nederlander Theater on a Sunday afternoon. The Nederlander Theater is an old building on a narrow lane. As I went in, I discovered a small but crowded audience in front of a shabby dull looking stage, perfect to depict the Alphabet City, the premise of the show. A junk yard, a part of a derelict building, two balconies ... thats all the stage is. There is no seperate place for the orchestra. They sit inside the derelict building and play on. Its a quite small stage in three levels.
Then the show starts and it engulfs me. The main part of a live performance is energy of the performers. And from the point Roger enters the stage the energy flows to the audience and radiants vibrantly. Its a two hour long thrilling experience where the actors take you along their journey.
So the plot is something like this. In the Alphabet City in East New York, the Avant Garde of NYC lives a group of bohemian. Mark and Roger are roommates and out of money. On the Christmas eve they are threatened for the rent of their apartment by Benny, one of their ex roommate who now has moved away from them due to his wealthy father-in-law. Mark is a journalist, photographer, screenwriter. Roger is an HIV positive strugglung songwirter whos girlfriend commited suicide recently. Mark has recently been dumped by Maureen, a bi-sexual for Joanne, a lesbian. Mark and Roger is visited by Collins another exroommate of theirs. Collins is a philosophy professor and homosexual. Collins is befriended by cross-dresser Angel. There is one more character, Mimi, a young girl who has crush on Roger. The story revolves around them and their love, hate, sexulaity, security, creativity, ... and time flies. The next Christmas when they try take a stock they realize what life is,

Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes,
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Moments so dear.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights
In cups of coffee
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.

In five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure
A year in the life?

How about love?
How about love?How about love? Measure in love
...

Its based on Puccini's famous opera 'La Boheme'. Its composer and write Johnathn Larson died prematuraly just couple of days before its first public show. Its a rock opera that deals with issues like drugs, homosexulaity, love and AIDS, like 'Hair' did in seventies.
Now the production. A small stage but very very well utilized. Its in three levels and shifting focus from one level to another gives another dimension of space to the entire show. In fact a well synchronized show in every respect. And its a lot lot better than the movie. Its a different experience. Getting engulfed into the atmosphere and enjoy. A high energy level of actors pulls through every single scenes. I didn't like few songs in the movie ('One Song Glory', for example) but believe me, I couldn't find any such song in the stageplay! The songs are actually integral part of the play itself. They don't have an identity of themselves outside the stageplay. But when on stage it rocks!
Everyone was perfect at their act. Wonderful singing and dancing. Be it Angels awe-inspiring dances on Today for You, or Mimi's acrobatics in 'Out Tonight', it was an unforgettable experience. Songs like 'Light My Candle', 'Santa Fe', or, 'I'll Cover You' are so full of life that you sure are going to come out of the theater with a new vigor. It was an ewxperience beyond my expectations.
I know I could not write very coherent and unbiased thoughts for this show thats because I'm still in a trance of Rent. And I should tell you, watch it before it gets out of the stage.

Blinded!

2008-05-15T13:40:00.004-04:00

Kyila was born blind just like her two twin brothers! Her mother died early worrying about her children. Now Kyila and her brothers along with their blind father runs the house.
Tashi isn't his real name and he is not Tibetan either. He was sold to a chinese couple who brought him to Lhasa. Unable to withstand their torture, he ran away and lived a life of blind street kid before meeting Sabriye. Its been almost nine years he hasn't met his loving sister back in Schezuan province of China.
Sabriye went blind at the age of twelve. She wanted to join German Peace Corps but wasn't allowed to because of her blindness. So she traveled on her own from Germany to Tibet and with her partner Paul she established the first school for the blind in Tibet and their organization Braille Without Borders.
The list is long. But apart from blindness, do you know what is common among them?

They believe blindness is not a disability - its a personality trait.

So they, along with four other blind kids Sonam, Tenzin, Gyenshen and Dachung set out on a mission to prove that they are not less competent than any sighted person. Guided by Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind climber to defeat Mt. Everest and his team this small group of Tibetan kids and their teachers have taken a mission to make it to the summit of Lakpa Ri (23,000 ft) - a peak just at the shadow of Everest. And Sybil Robson Orr and her husband being a close friend of Erik didn't want to loose the opportunity to document it. So 'Blindsight' was born. Its a wonderfully directed and photographed documentary that captures the climbers' journey objectively without any extra sympathy or emotion. Breath-taking landscapes clearly pictures the conflict of ideas of typical notion of beauty and blindness.

Some say when you climb the top, you can see everything beneath you and that gives a whole new perspective. But what if you are blind? View from the top of the Everest or at the depth of Grand Canyon doesn't mean anything to you. Then why these blind kids try to climb up? Why does Erik attempt to scale Mt. Everest? It is not only to prove to the world that I can too. It is just like any other person - enjoy the beauty! Yes, even the blinds have a sense of beauty. The rocky paths, rope bridges, bells of yaks, chilly gusty wind, breathing in thin air, touch of ice ... all these open a new window of imagination in our mind. We the sighted persons don't really care as our imagination is totally suppressed by the visual information. But for these fellows that is vast open field of exploration. I can guess how Erik was mesmerized by the beauty of Everest when he stood on the top.

The expedition, Climbing Blind, took place in September, 2004. The kids are self-supported now. Tashi along with Tenzin runs the largest massage clinic in Lhasa. Gyenshen is the only Braille publisher in Tibet. Kyila went to UK and Dachung went to Beijing on scholarship for higher study. Both have returned and joined the blind school in Lhasa as faculty. Sonam graduated from high school with flying colors and preparing for university. She will be the first blind ever from Tibet to join any university. And Sabriye and her Braille Without Border is starting another school in Kerala, India to train both the blind and the sighted to establish similar satellite project around the world.

The documentary is inspiring and humbling. But thats not all. Surely watching six blind kids make their way to mountains is really awe-inspiring and teaches how with determination one can push the limits. But there is something more - a new perspective beyond that. It doesn't matter whether they finally made it to the summit, what matters is that they discovered themselves and made us the sighted viewers realize how narrow and blind we really are in our mentality and determination.

An Anxious Evening

2007-12-30T01:16:00.000-05:00

How would you feel if you are sick and your biopsy results are coming in two hours? Anxious? Depressed? Scared? Nervous? That is what Cleo is. Cléopatre Victoire is a beautiful upcoming singer in Paris. A young lady full of herself. On a beautiful evening she wanders about Paris spending her tensed two hours before knowing her fate. And as she wanders Agnes Varda shows us about life and love in her 'Cleo from 5 to 7'.
The movie opens up with Cleo in front of a tarot card reader at 5 o'clock . As she picks up the cards and the card reader explains we find that the cards show a horrific event is incumbent upon her; that may be death may be something that can change her life forever. She leaves the fortune-teller and meets her guide-cum-assistant Angele in a cafe just to be overwhelmed by the stress of the forthcoming biopsy report. But she soon manages herself and heads back home. At home she is visited by her busy lover followed by the composer and lyricist of her songs. They rehearse a song, which she finds too depressing and heads out to relieve her stress. She meets an old friend Dorothee, who poses for sculptors. She and Dorothee hang out for sometime meets a common friend Roul. They watch a movie made by Roul. Then she drops off Dorothee and goes in to a park. There she meets a witty stranger Antonio, a soldier spending his last few hours at Paris before leaving for the war. They kick off an instant friendship. Finally on the words of Antonio, Cleo pulls herself and goes to the hospital with him to meet her doctor and she meets her.
Its a movie that chronicles one and half hour of Cleo's life from 5 to 6-30 (Well the name could have been 'Cleo from 5 to 6:30' as a matter of fact). Its a faux real time movie depicting one and half hour of Cleo's life in a one and half hour time. And in this short time Agnes Varda presents to us glimpse of life and Paris simultaneously. Her style of working is what critics say, 'photojournalistic'. As we move with Cleo on the roads of Paris we discover the city. There is a bus ride of Cleo and Antonio near the end when they ride together to the hospital and its like a tour of Paris. The camera moves with Cleo on the streets of Paris, looking at the people, looking at the shops. It gives a feel of docudrama. But this is far beyond a docucrama. It rather shows the superficiality of Cleo's beautiful existence. It shows how much she craves for her celebrity status and her looks. She often directly or indirectly says that there is no point of her life if she's not beautiful. In fact this is the driving force of the entire movie, the contrast between meaningless romantic hollowness of Cleo's youth and bitterness of life as we see in the streets of Paris or of her friend Dorothee or even her own future life of uncertainty. "The tension between a superficial high-gloss beauty and a dryer and deeper grounding in life marks all of Varda’s works..." (-Molly Haskell).
Oh, and there is this sequence where Roul shows off his film to Cleo and Dorothee (by the way, Godard makes a cameo in this film). The film is about a guy who because of his dark sunglasses views the life as a very gloomy and painful; but the moment he removes his glasses he finds a bright beautiful life in front of his.
The movie marks its tone at the outset itself. The credits start rolling in with hands picking up tarot cards in color. The cards are gleaming with color but all they tell is about futility of life - Cleo's sickness, her soon-to-happen terrible things. And as we move away from the cards and start looking at faces of the characters, its all in black and white, or rather in gray. But the people Cleo meets are not pessimistic, or dull or 'gray', they are gleaming with life - vibrant, colorful life - a life more meaningful than just beautiful youth!

End of Summer

2007-12-28T23:36:00.000-05:00

This is my first encounter with Ozu. In fact this is my first encounter with any other Japanese cinema other than Samurai movies (and of course Rashomon, I don't like it to be tagged as Samurai movie). And Samurai movies are always little overwhelmingly active. So when I read in the leaflet that its a family drama, I didn't know what to expect. So I started watching in a free mind.
The story is simple. Manbei, the widowed father has a small sake company in Osaka. He has three daughters, widowed elder daughter Akiko, married second daughter Fumiko and yougest daughter Noriko. Fumiko's husband Hisao now runs the sake shop for his father in law. The movie opens with Manbei's brother bringing a marriage proposal for Akiko. As we go along we find there is a proposal for Norika, too. The family starts discussing over the proposals, whether Akiko is ready to marry again, whether Noriko would like to marry the wealthy guy they have selected, because that will save their business. Meanwhile there is something worng with the father, Manbei; he is spending a lot of time outside. Finally everyone finds out that he has met his old flame Tsune, who now resides at Kyoto, and their old affair is burning again. With this discovery the family gets disturbed. Fumiko tries to intimidate her father. Then one day after a family reunion at Kyoto, Manbei gets ill - a stroke, may be. The family gets concerned. Fumiko feels guilty, may be her taunts about father's affair was too hard on him. As Manbei recovers, we see the eldest and the youngest daughters, Akiko and Noriko discussing over the proposals, what should be good for them, for the family, for everyone; should they marry the persons or not. Then one day when Manbei has almost completely recovered, he sneaks out of the house to meet Tsune. That evening he has another attack, and dies at Tsune's. Everyone gets together again. But now its for the funeral of the cheerful old man who lived his life to the fullest. The movie ends as the family goes to the crematory.
A simple story, no dramatization. A simple narration. It reminded me of Satyajit Ray's style of story telling. Especially of 'Kanchenjungha'. Similar family story, similar kind of tension between generations. Sequences of Akiko and Noriko's discussion about their future generates a playful image of the youth. Whereas when Manbei and Tsune are around a tone of nostalgia floats over. Its a tale of two generations trying to live happy and enjoy the life; and for that reason someone has to refuse a wealthy proposal in spite of dire needs and someone has to go out side the social rules. Thats how life poses a set of choices in front of everyone. And only you can choose you way of enjoying life. The last words of Manbei was "Is that it? Is that all life has got?" Manbei had his share of life. Now its up to Noriko and her sisters to decide how to live theirs.
There is certain kind of warmth that floats around over the whole cinema. Akiko and Noriko discusses bout love and getting older on the riverside; Manbei and Tsune discuss about their first moonlight adventure of life; Manbei and his grandson play hide-and-seek; Fumiko makes whole hearted confessions at the reunion dinner ... all is so homely, so warm. There is nothing special about it; and that is what it is special about! It feels like story of our own lives, lives of common people.
The narrative is very fluent, simple and homely. Not a single event of dramatization. Its so natural. The transitions are very natural. Ozu uses some still shots of objects as a transition - objects of their daily life. A lot of shots are shot in a low angle as if viewed from eyes of someone, who is sitting on the floor. It gives a new perspective, as if the audience become a part of the family. I don't know anything about Japanese families but I never felt out of place while watching it. Thats what a master film maker does, he makes you involved in his way of life!

Randomly Balthasar

2007-12-27T17:20:00.000-05:00

I don't know how to write about this movie, sorry cinema. I first came across this cinema in a novel titled 'Ishwarer Bagan'. The tormented protagonist sometimes while reflecting his dilemmas, agonies referred to this cinema. I was curious. I searched over it and found that this is a classic. I tried to find it out over internet if I can get it for buying. But couldn't locate any shop offering it. It was back in 2000, I guess. But I could locate a website named www.criterion.com who were offering really old classics. I asked Jon Mulvaney of Criterion whether they have it on store, but he replied that they were planning to release it in future. So I kept on lookout on their website. They released the cinema in due course but I was not in position to buy it. And finally when things all fell in place, after seven years, I finally got the DVD of 'Au Hasard Balthasar'.
Balthasar is a donkey. The movie chronicles life of Balthasar. In fact thats all this movie is about. This is just about life, real life; in a very matter-of-the-fact way. The opening shot shows little Balthasar with his mother. Then he is traded from one owner to another suffering every time. Parallel to his life follows Mary's life. Mary is teenage girl of the neighborhood. She was the only person in the movie to show some love to the donkey. But her life is also miserable. Her family loses their fortune for her boastful father, and she wanders from one owner to another suffering every time. She wanders from her father to a rowdy named Gerard then to a miser and gets exploited every time. And in the end Mary leaves Jack's fantasized love and falls for Gerard again to get totally humiliated and Balthasar dies lonely on the field surrounded by a sheepherd.
What is the most captivating about this cinema is the ample space it leaves behind. It shows the events where only Balthasar is present; in a way it shows everything through his eyes. And it shows only the facts, no emotions. Sometime it is really disturbing to watch events so emotionlessly in a matter-of-fact way. But that is reality, there is no drama in life; what we do in daily life we do simply out of reflexes, automatically. And what we follow in this cinema is lives of very common people and a donkey full with their vices and vulnerabilities. This is Bresson's style. He used to work with 'models' who had their first and may be the last appearance on screen in his cinemas. He used to shoot the same shot over and over again till all the acting is drained off from the actors and they start acting out of instinct and reflexes. And it does wonder for him. The shots come out sharp, to the point and impactful. There is no scope of sympathising with any one of this cinema.
There are many parallels of Christianity and this story. Like christening of Balthasar by three children, Mary's play with Balthasar making him wear a crown of grass and flower or the death sequence of Balthasar encircled by a sheepherd. But thats not all. Its about the daily life of ours. Its about life. And life is rough.
There are very few dialogues, some good music mostly covered by noise of the surround and often interrupted by Balthasar's braying. There are many long takes and some obscure shots showing just the eye of Balthasar or may be one leg, one half of a wheel. Its not the way we are used to see in a movie. May be thats why Bresson doesn't call his work movie, he calls it cinematograph. There is a sequence when Balthasar goes to a circus. He meets other animals. And we see long takes of Balthasar and a Tiger, a monkey, an elephant stare at each other's eyes. No sound except the background noise, but it seems so many words are conveyed between them.
This cinema leaves a lot of things not told. Becuase it shows only the things where Balthasar were present or were directly related to. It doesn't show why police were after Arnold, the tramp, or what happened between Mary and the miser at the miser's place in the raining night, or even what happened to Mary at the end, did she die or did she ran away. Bresson was asked in an inteview about the night at the miser, he answered, he too doesn't know what happened. There is nothing beyond what is shown. If you want to make a story about it you have to imagine. But the fact is whatever it might be, that doesn't change the life at all!
There are movies I loved, I liked, I hated, I felt sad about. But this is a cinema that had intrigued me greatly, confused me greatly. There is something... I just can't fathom it out!

The Sonata in Celluloid

2007-08-17T19:35:00.000-04:00

I know nothing about Sonata, but definitely listened some classic sonata without really knowing that they are sonata except mentioned in the title, e.g., the Moonlight Sonata (Beethoven). As it seems, generally for people like me who are just laymen in Wester Classical music, a Sonata is a musical movement which has five different parts or rather moods!

Introduction - a short slow paced piece of music slightly toned down. Something just to introduce the themes or the main characters.
Exposition - the portion of sonata when the real theme starts unfolding. A little detailed piece that takes the music to the point where the climax can start. Its the preamble to the argument.
Development - the most frenetic part where the argument of the music reaches the peak. It starts right from the note where exposition ended, it is sometime hard to differentiate where exposition ended and where development started! It peaks up, reaches the climax and bursts!
Recapitulation - the post climax movement when you just think and think what had just happened. The argument is over. Till the development it was just happening at such a pace, you didn't even had time to think. Now its time to slow down and go over, because its already done!
Coda - the tail-piece that ends the music in perfect cadence.

Victor introduces Eva (Liv Ullman), his wife in monologue in a way that it seems he is someone who is watching the movement from outside and not at all involved in the events that are yet to come. Then Eva writes to her mother Charlotta (Ingrid Bergman) inviting her to come. As Charlotta arrives, Victor as well as you can feel Eva had so much hatred hidden inside herself for her mother; she almost takes pleasure in shocking her mother when she tells her that Helena is living with her. And why she wouldn't take avenge? It was Charlotta who hasn't maintained any contact to her daughters for seven years. She was so busy with her career as a concert pianist that she neglected her children and sent Helena, the spastic daughter to a home where she never visited. Now as Charlotta's lover Leonardo is dead and she is lonely, she responded to daughter's call. Isn't she selfish. But still they are mother and daughter, they want to reconcile... but there is wall between them. And as the day goes by the wall becomes more prominent and finally comes the horrific climax when Eva, unable to control her hatred accuses her mother of all wrongs she and her sister had suffered in childhood. All of a sudden the movement moves from exposition to development reaching for the final argument. Its a dangerous combination - a mother and a daughter, acquisition and defences. Finally the argument is over,and its time for Eva to recapitulate. She realizes what she has done and writes another letter to her mother. As Charlotta reads the letter the movie comes to an end with perfect cadence.
This is how Bergman composes his Sonata in celluloid - the 'Autumn Sonata'. I've told the almost the whole story. But only when you see it you can realize how powerful this sonata is because it's not the story only its the scenes that make up this masterpiece.
There is only three times when any music has been used in the movie. Once a piece from Chopin played by Eva and Charlotta respectively and the a Bach suit played by Leonardo that represents the tragedy of Helena. Its the scenes where Eva and Helena plays Chopin, we come to know the real Charlotta. Eva plays it conventionally with her sadness for loosing her son Eric at the age of four. But when Charlotta plays it, as she explains the piece in her way, we suddenly feel that all her emotions are confined in music; and its only music by which she can express her feelings and it is only the language of music which she understands naturally. Bergman captures it in an wonderful close up with Charlotta's profile, eyes closed, playing the music and behind her is Eva's face. She is staring at her mother with full of sadness. Well, this movie has a excessively large number of close ups almost 80% of the shots are close ups. And here we realize the how powerful actor was Ingrid Bergman and Liv Ullman. In the sequence when Charlotta speaks of Leonardo's death, you don't need to see the subtitle; every word is clearly understandable from the close up. Great Bergman. Or long close ups of Eva in the midnight when she, almost infuriated, accuses her mother in a high pitch voice, you know you have to watch it to realize the intensity. Then there's the final sequence of the development; Charlotta asks forgiveness from Eva for her wrongdoings. She now wants to reach out her children. She utters in great despair, 'Please help!'. Eva stays stone-faced; but upstairs Helena, who is almost a physical embodiment of Eva's emotional crippledness as if choked in dream struggles hard to reach out to something and lies on floor exhausted on top of the stairs and cries, 'Mama come'.
The commentary to the movie says Ingrid, Ingmar and Liv Ullman all had had a troubled family life. Ingmar had occasional fight with his father for his passion for theatre and he left home at an early age. He could only reconcile with his father just five years before his death. Liv Ullman on the other hand was thrown out of her family when she had a baby with Ingmar. Her marriage was ruined and she left with Ingmer. But strikingly Ingrid has more similarity with Cherlotta. She left her child daughter and went to live with Italian director Roberto Rossolini. For almost four years she couldn't contact her daughter due to her career. She knew the pain Charlotta had. As you watch through the movie you sympathize sometimes with Eva, sometimes with Charlotta.
And out of all these what is cooked up is a masterpiece, a sonata that can not be forgotten easily.

The Orphan Story Part - II

2007-02-24T04:44:00.000-05:00

Why all the orphanage have to be run by some greedy, cruel persons? Why it should be a hard-knock life for the little girls in the orphanage? Because if somebody gets lucky like Annie, it'll be a magical experience!
In the same series of movies where I watched 'Oliver!' for the first time, I watched 'Annie' and was bowled over again. I had heard its soundtrack before; songs were good, but they never happened to be so touching before I watched the movie.
Annie is a little orphan girl of eleven years staying at Miss Hannigan's Orphanage. One day the secretary of billionaire Oliver Warbucks comes to the orphanage in search of a girl whom Mr. Warbucks may adopt as a PR stunt. She, charmed by Annie, takes Annie with her to the billionaire's palace. Mr. Warbucks is a never-smiling bachelor man with practically no soft feelings! Annie and her dog Sandy with their childly plays soon become a nuisance to Warbucks. But he doesn't throw them away as it may send a wrong message to public and his image may get hampered. Annie is a charming girl, vibrant, gay and vivacious. And her charms comes to play. Mr. Warbucks starts to show affection towards this young girl and the world starts to change! But the villains are always on lookout and ... well lets not make this a spoiler. But you know all's well that ends well.
Very simple plot, and similar fluent screenplay. This, too was adapted from a stageplay with music by Charles Strouse and lyrics by Martin Charnin. Very well acted movie, though all the charecters are typical. But in a movie like this you don't look for acting calibre of some characters, you look for performance of the entire team and its amalgamation with the story and the music that flows behind. It is successfull in this.
There is something beyond all these points which makes this movie something special. It is the songs and the situations of the songs. Or to be more precise, three songs touched me very much. The movie opens with a Annie and Molly, another orphan sitting on the window on a dark night and singing the slow tune of 'May be'. I can't help reproducing the lyrics over here:

Maybe far away
Or maybe real nearby
He may be pouring her coffee
She may be straighting this tie!
Maybe in a house
All hidden by a hill
She's sitting playing piano,
He's sitting paying a bill!

Betcha they're young
Betcha they're smart
Bet they collect things
Like ashtrays, and art!
Betcha they're good --
(Why shouldn't they be?)
Their one mistake
Was giving up me!

So maybe now it's time,
And maybe when I wake
They'll be there calling me "Baby"...
Maybe.

Betcha he reads
Betcha she sews
Maybe she's made me
A closet of clothes!
Maybe they're strict
As straight as a line...
Don't really care
As long as they're mine!

So maybe now this prayer's
The last one of it's kind...
Won't you please come get your "Baby"

Maybe

That moment I feel a teardrop rolling down my cheek! And I love all these little girls who spent their 'Hard Knock Life' with smiles with just a single hope that someday they'll surely find their parents.
After Annie is adopted by Mr. Warbucks, in one sequence Miss Hannigan sings out her laments ('Little Girls') and you see the cruel Miss Hannigan in a different way. She is cruel to the girls, that is not her fault, it is her destiny.

Little girls
Little girls
Everywhere I turn I can see them
Little girls
Little girls

Night and day
I eat, sleep and breathe them
I'm an ordinary woman
With feelings
I'd like a man to nibble on my ear
But I'll admit no man has bit
So how come I'm the mother of the year?

Third time when Mr. Warbucks launches a search for Annie's parents, in a radio show Bert Healy and Boylan Sisters sing out 'You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile' and the little girls carry through the song in their orphanage, suddenly you feel the world is not that bad in spite of all these sorrows and injustice.
There is nothing special in this movie. But you know sometimes there are some very simple and ordinary things which you love more than some precious, beautiful great things you like.

And I love this movie.

The Orphan Story Part - I

2007-02-24T00:25:00.000-05:00

Long ago, when I was trying to create a choreography for a particular competition somebody had told me to get hold of this movie as this has wonderful and inspiring choreography. I couldn't manage to watch the movie that time. But I certainly was on a lookout. Just couple of months ago while surfing through TV channels I suddenly noticed a channel playing the opening credits of the movie. And I got immobilized in front of the TV set. It was 'Oliver!' playing on it.
Being on the lookout for 'Oliver!', I had got hold of some of its songs. Beautiful music, I must agree. I had heard that it has a choreographed chariot in one of its songs. Listening to its soundtrack, I wondered which song it might be, and how did they choreograph it. So it was time for me to clarify all my questions through seeing-is-believing.
The story of 'Oliver Twist' is an old orphan classic by the great Charles Dickens. We have a boy orphaned at birth. At the orphanage he is named Oliver Twist. The orphanage is just a medium for earning money for the greedy and heartless caretakers. The children are fed only gruels. One day Oliver gathered up courage to ask for more food and in turn he is beaten and sold to an undertaker. There also he receives pain and on one opportune occasion he fled to London, on foot, alone. Reaching London he first meets the Artful Dodger, who is just about same age of Oliver. Naive Oliver was gladdened to befriend somebody who promises him of food and shelter. Dodger takes Oliver to Fagin's den. Fagin is a criminal who runs an army of young pickpocket boys; and Dodger is one of them. Another life was beginning for Oliver. Here he met Nancy, girlfriend of Bill Sykes, an evil burglar. Nancy and Oliver took an instant liking to each other and Nancy loved Oliver just like her younger brother. She is like a mirage in the gang of villains for Oliver. Oliver is sent on pickpocketing, burglary, etc. One day he got caught and story continues to unfold. I'll not elaborate more, but it turns out that Oliver is actually from a rich family and he is reunited to his family after a long winding road.
Now the movie. A true musical. It had a stage version with lyrics by Lionel Bart. The same screenplay was adopted by Carol Reed with some modifications for the celluloid version in 1968. The movie starring Oliver Reed (Sykes), Ron Moody (Fagin), Jack Wild (Dodger), Marc Lester (Oliver) was a big hit and won six Oscars including Best Picture and Best Direction. A wonderfully made movie. Beautiful music, choreographed acting, innocent faces of Oliver and Nancy, classic script with twists - it had everything. But the thing that truly pulls forward the movie is indeed the choreography. It is no wonder that Onna White won an separate honorary Oscar for her 'Spirited Choreography' in the movie, the honor given inly twice in the history of Academy Awards (Jerome Robbins for the second time).
I sure like musicals. I've seen few musicals like Sound of Music, Singing in the Rain, Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Fiddler on the Roof; and liked them all. Inspiring music knitting the story perfectly supported by some dance sequences. Yes, after watching 'Oliver!', I'm tempted to use the word 'dance sequence' for other musicals, with due respect.
'Oliver!' starts off with a choreographed action of boys in orphanage leading to the opening song 'Food, Glorious Food' and the choreography works magically. It is the choreography that flows underneath the movie telling the story, and music supports it (not the other way round)! The moment Oliver reaches London and meets Dodger, a wonderful city opens up in front of your eyes, rhythmic, lively. The whole city, as if, dances joyously to reciprocate to Oliver's inner joy of freedom and friendship. The song playing in the background was, I think, 'Consider Yourself'. The same spirit of rhythm is carried forward throughout the movie. The dance never ends. Consider Fagin giving Oliver lesson on pickpocketing in the wonderful song 'You've got to Pick a Pocket or Two'. Then the most beautiful sequences of 'Who Will Buy' when Oliver looks over the entire London dancing in its daily rhythm from a window. How can you make a whole city moving in such a rhythm without dancing explicitly! This spirited rhythm is the main pillar for the movie's success. Then the song 'I'd Do Anything'. Dodger, jealous by Oliver and Nancy's closeness tries to impress her and sings this wonderful song. It is the song where the boys make a chariot and mocks the high society. Truly its so spirited!
I was comparing with contemporary musicals, Say 'Sound of Music' or 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' or 'Mary Poppins'. All the dances are purely dance sequences, I mean characters are made to dance to support the music. The dances are very good and impressive. But even then the sequences of the songs like 'Singin' in the Rain' from the same-titled movie or 'Miracle' from 'Fiddler on the Roof' surpasses other dances from these movies. These two choreographies have the quality what I'm trying to call spirited and what I found throughout the movie 'Oliver!'
And that is what makes 'Oliver!' stand out in the row of musicals.
Thats what I like about 'Oliver!'
I am grateful to my friend who first told me about choreography of 'Oliver!'

CRASH

2006-09-02T00:26:00.001-04:00

Sitting in the veranda under the morning sun of Saturday I was reading a newspaper where I read an article on how human beings are becoming more and more self-centered. The article reminded me of recent movie, which I went to watch in Feb this year after almost four months' starvation of a good movie. And I am glad that I had chosen this one - CRASH by Paul Haggis. It has the weaved a storyline out of some seemingly unconnected persons and incidents. And that again reminded me of another movie seen almost one and half year back - LOVE ACTUALLY, which also had a similar style but on a different background and on a different motif. I might talk about that on some other day.
In very few words CRASH is a movie about racism and us. There are blacks, whites, Iranians, Chinese, Mexicans, Asians ... all of them making their way of life in LA. All of them are human. None of them are bad or good, just human. When one crashes with another, they find what they are, they learn what they are. The point is very simple; its a simplified view of Rashomon effect. We, the audience sympathesize with a victim of racism making the other a villain. But the next moment when perspective changes, the villain is no more a villain for his badness, its the situation that makes him so. Since everyone of us have a different perspective, our sense of good and bad are different, and we are either a victim or a villain. After all, believe it or not, we are racist not by choice.
I don't remember the exact detials of the story. Only thing is that this movie is full of situations that will crash on to each other unexpetedly. But the credit of the screenplay is that it never seems to be manipulative.
I remember the opening dialogue, 'Other places we get brushed past fellow men on the streets. But in LA nobody touches you ... you forget how it feels to touch a human. So you desperately crash on other to have that feeling of intense touch...' (or something like that!)
There is one more similarity between LOVE ACTUALLY and CRASH, despite showing our limitations, our narrowness, both of them have a positive attitude. It doesn't mean that it shows a positive optimistic ending, but it has a warmth of human touch lying beneath its neatly weaved matrix.
And I liked that.

Kanchenjungha

2006-05-29T13:37:00.001-04:00

I just watched 'Kanchenjungha' by Satyajit Ray. Some say its a slow-paced movie, but I once again found how wrong they are.

When I first saw it I was too young to delve deep into its depth. But afterwards whenever I saw it, it seemed something new is being revealed every time. The movie spans for two hours depicting two hours on a sunny-cloudy afternoon in Darjeeling. Technically this is also amazing, and probably this is what makes some viewers feel that the movie is slow. But life is very fast now and it depicts the life at the life's original pace, I wonder how can it be slow. Actually in a single movie we are much accustomed to see effects, and actions of a whole lifetime rather than the reality of living. So when something captures the plain and simple reality of our monotonous existence, it is often misunderstood. That is why it gained a sort of negative feedback from both audience and critics on its release. Ray has said about Kanchenjungha, in an interview to Cineaste magazine,

"(It was) a very personal film. It was a good ten to fifteen years ahead of its time... Kanchenjungha told the story of several groups of characters and it went back and forth. ... It's a very musical form, but it wasn't liked. The reaction was stupid. Even the reviews were not interesting. But, looking back now, I find that it is a very interesting film."

He used color for the first time in this film, and that too in such a significant way! The dresses that characters wear give a dimension to their characters. Look at the combination of bright orange shari and white cardigan of Manisha and crimson old-dried-blood-stain-like colored shari and black cardigan of Anima and consider their lives, one hesitating at the conflict of youthful heart and experienced brain at the begining her life and the other on the verge of destroying her marriage after long bourne injuries. Even the cardigan colors symbolizes the clouds hovering over their minds.

Look at the nature. the situation is changing with every change in nature. When Banerjee tries hard to get an answer for his call to Manisha, mist starts falling over the sky, and finaly Manisha answers: 'I think mist will be there.' Nature and man is really complementary to each other. Finally, the closing sequence, Indranath (Chhobi Bishwas) finds the chocolate that Banerjee was trying to offer Manisha in the hands of a local beggar boy, he realizes something is wrong, and he turns back to call out for Manisha, Banerjee and others and then suddenly the mist-vail over the peak withdraws itself revealing a bright glimpse of the range for which Indrajit was craving. But now Indrajit is too preoccupied to watch that. Once Ray has told,

"The idea was to have the film starting with sunlight. Then clouds coming, then mist rising, and then mist disappearing, the cloud disappearing, and then the sun shining on the snow-peaks. There is an independent progression to Nature itself, and the story reflects this."

As a matter of fact, to me, the most admired movies of Ray are 'Pather Panchali' and 'Kanchenjungha'. Though for most of the viewers 'Charulata' is on that list! There is nothing new to say about 'Pather Panchali'. How can a man make his first movie like this? One of my professors had once told me that it is this movie, 'Pather Panchali' that has eclipsed all his movies. No other movie can stand in front of it! And at the same time its very painful and difficult to watch 'Pather Panchali' second time or further. He was correct. No other movie can compete with it. And whenever I see it I know that now I'll have to go through a unbearable difficult journey of tears.
Regarding Kanchenjungha, I like it because of its wonderful imagery, its wonderful pace, its wonderful depth, its wonderful harmony of colors both in nature and in mankind.
Like all other Ray-movies, this one is also well acted, but I feel the show was stolen by Ashok (Arun Mukhopadhyay). When he refuses Indranath's job offer or when he lastly parts from Manisha, ahh, splendid.