Digging for Meaning

Learning from bad writing: Meri Pyaru bindu These days I am writing my first story that I intend to complete and publish. So as you can imagine, I am in the writer mode most of the time - anxiously looking for writer's intent, choices, character arcs, alternate story lines etc, while watching any movie or reading any novel. With a well written story, these choices are not that apparent. You have to look hard and yet you might miss out on essential choices that the writer made, to make the film/ novel a great piece of art. It feels as if the story flowed out from the author's mind onto paper with zero loss in translation. For that reason, it is difficult to learn much from good writing. It inspires, yes of course. It helps you get in the mood or get into the right frame of mind. But it can't teach as well as a badly written movie/ novel can. A badly written story makes you aware of your own fallibility. It grounds you. Most importantly, it helps you see the many ways in ...

The vent So.. I watched the new 'Independence Day' movie. First off - what an amazing combo of  terrible film making and thrilling sfx. I can't believe someone gets paid gazillions to write such shitty scripts. The disaster is really not in the movie but in the making of the movie - the end of intellect and start of idiotopia. I think they should have edited out all the dialogs. It would then have been a better movie. A 'disaster movie' porn of sorts. With just the sfx to get thrilled with and no jarring and stupid dialogs and no non-sense attempts at building emotional arcs and no lame character building. Anyways, here's some more venting about current lack of imagination -  Tired trope 1: The kill switch - Aliens with a death wish Independence day, Star wars, 10 Cloverfield Lane... So to defeat a highly advanced aggressor civilisation that has apparently destroyed many civilisations before us, all you need to do is find and kill 'ONE...

ABCD 2 is dance movie with mediocre dance. And that tells you a lot about the film makers and what they think of their audience. Made by celebrated choreographers with cult following, it is really disheartening to see them do a half-ass job at what they preach.The dances are not path-breaking or  original or even evocative. Most of the dancers do not give their 100% to the performance. You can see the lack of practice and energy in dances. The editor and cameraman do as much, if not more, movements as the dancers. Many Indian dance shows have better choreographed dances than this movie has. This is interesting because, the makers of this film are judges in at-least a few of those shows. Why suck? "Because everybody deserves a second chance." ad infinitum..  But this is the second movie in the franchisee. One expects that they would learn story telling by now at least? or does 100cr business is a reason enough for bad film making and lazy dance choreography? (for a movie ...

 Today morning, I got a message from Citibank that a charge of Rs. 1400 was being made to my credit card. The funny thing is, I didn't authorise this. The funnier thing is, my account has been closed since at least half a year. So is the credit card separate from my account? If I don't have an account, how do I access customer service?  In the past, i had willingly let go of around 3000 rs to avoid hassle of having to interact with the robots who sit between me and humans in customer service department of that company. After a few days of frustration, I closed the account and let go of the money in the account. 'Fuck it' is what i said. I guess I will have to say it again. (the luxury of being able to say 'fuck it' is obviously bought by the system as well for me. I am very much a subject of the 'Capitol', not the districts.) This is how the 'system' operates. It's power is not in centralised and accessible individuals. It is in the mesh...

Salman Khan is not merely a criminal , a terrible actor or one of the most influential and loved people in India. He is a new archetype for the 21st century India. He is an archetype that answers a quintessential Indian yearning. Unfortunately the yearning reflects how pathetic and infantile humanity can be. When infants, we believe that we are at the absolute center of the universe, where all our acts deserve recognition and appreciation. To grow up is to grow out of this belief. The 'Salman Khan as an archetype' answers the yearning to be forever an infant. To forever enjoy consequence-less freedom. People refuse to see the bad in him. The 'true fans' of this horrible person get readily offended and aggressive when someone speaks ill of their 'bhai'. When someone points out facts of his monstrosity - killing homeless people , making his driver a scapegoat (what a ' hero '!), killing a harmless animal , domestic abuse , intimidation .... - the fa...

Saw 'Tanu weds Manu returns' yesterday. Excellent movie after a long time. :) (apart from one dimensional Manu and the Haryanvi family as prop.) I - Restless = humans It made me think about the trend of lead characters in bollywood movies - men/ women. (Raj in countless SRK films or Kangana in most of her films). They are all spontaneous, restless, rebels (often without a cause). They are also someone who people graciously put up with for the sake of movie's plot. This is in contrast to lead characters from earlier days. (80s - macho, 70s - angry against system, 60s - stoic silent, graceful). The grace is gone from modern world and modern cinema. With rise of corporate careers and desk-bound audiences, the lead characters are increasingly 'bubbly' (females leads), 'spunky' (male lead) and are infantile and narcissistic. The more inconsequential and replaceable lives become (of white collar audience), the more spunky and bubbly the characters become...

1. Anger is Comedy Bill Hicks, George Carlin.. most comedy is  disguised tension. Raju Hirani's brilliance is in channelling that anger seamlessly into a narrative that flows from seemingly light-hearted comedy (even when it is subversive) to empathetic realisation. In act-one of his films, you laugh. In act-two you can't help but cry with mirth/ empathy. This is why his Munnabhai films are classics. Your reactions are not voluntary. the jokes do make you laugh, and the denouement does make you cry. With PK, Hirani got the first part very well - subversive comedy that gets laughs and nods. The second part however, seemed to lack in empathy. Anger as comedy worked, anger realised was 'lull'. 2. To think or to feel?  Maybe it was the wooden performance by Aamir Khan who is supposed to be an alien. Maybe, it was the paternalistic tone of the film that tries to teach people a little too hard. But mostly, it was the lack of clarity in script. Who were we supp...

The trailer doesn't do justice to the film. The film is much more entertaining... until the climax. Well paced, right insights, right punches... and then the movie ends much before it should have. The movie has an 'adarsh baccha' climax. ( I can visualise 'the system' petting the film makers for towing the line.) The movie makers took the insight and then stripped it off its ambition, its angst.At the end all that remains is a sense of disappointment. The movie is about a few youngsters who show the middle finger to the system to protest against their powerlessness. Now,  I love stories of subversion -  V for Vendetta,  Fight Club or even the Dead Poets Society.  There is a certain ambition in subversion. Fight club destroys credit card companies. V blows up the symbols of power centres. Even the students in the dead poets society stand on the desk in defiance to the head master. These movies identify the power centre and subvert it.  Ungli makers didn...

Watched 'Happy New Year' and 'Bang Bang' recently. Why do I do this to myself.. 1. The inevitability You begin watching such movies with a sense of inevitability. That you are bound to be disappointed and yet one must soldier on and watch these monstrosities. The inevitability is due part us and part the makers. us - because we are addicted to junk. Its the cola and chips we can't live without. Makers - because those assholes buy up the entirety of screen inventory. During Diwali, families do tend to go to watch movies together. Its almost a tradition in many a middle class families. and then once you reach your favourite multiplexes with their many screens, the only choice you have is the show time. the makers have put their clout to use and all screens are running the same damn film. They are 100 cr films by default. Poor (rich) junta has no option but to hope that their family does not mind the 'mindless fun'. Just look sideways while watching film ...

[This is a ridiculous story. It is based on a scene in Godard's movie 'Bande a part'] A minute. The three of them were sharing that one minute together. A romantic girl in black sweater and two boys wearing old hats. The young souls were wearing their bodies loosely. It was as if they had not yet decided on the uniform they want to wear for their lives. Perhaps, they wished not to be bound by one uniform at all. Right now the boys were wearing the bodies of hollywood film stars and the girl was wearing a radiant body whose sole purpose is to extinguish in love. They were seating snugly in a cafe booth. The young sits close exuberantly, the old indifferently. The youth in its modern temper was sipping at Colas. It was a moment of awkward silence that triggered it. The minute of silence. There was nothing to do and hence they must sit in silence. एक दो तीन... Words stopped. Lips were persed. Everybody was keen on knowing who breaks first. The silent minut...

Well, thats what we (me, soumik, R-kay, Kashan) did recently. and ended up spending 4 blissful days in Sonapani. Its a small village in the hills near Nainital. The place was secluded with only a few hotels and houses a little distance further away. Sonapani film festival; that's what got us here. I had little idea about it apart from what R-kay and soumik had told me earlier when we had met at Kunzum cafe in Hauz Khas. It was a splendid affair - amazing hosts Ashish and Gurpal, brilliant filmmakers Amlan, Saba and Sanjay and a very intimate group of festival attendees who knew each other well. I tried to put together the footage i shot in those 4 days here and the result is this video. For me the biggest insight in the 4 days was in way these brave film makers lead their lives. They had to fight apathy, financial crunch and a host of other problems and yet they carried on and went on to make some of the most amazing documentaries I have ever seen. Saba felt strongly abou...

saw ' pom poko '. Its a story of how an able, happy community of tanukis face their extinction in the face of rapid urbanisation that causes the loss of their homeland, their lifestyle and their food. Its really amazing how Japanese movie makers so empathetically voice dissent while fully cognizant of the futility of it all. The sense of capitulation at the climax of many such movies are scripted in a way to invoke not a sense of loss, but a sense of preservation of whatever small life, pride and identity is left. Under the mask of laughter, there is a vigorous attempt at forgetting the loss and making the most of the present. I wonder how deeply has Hiroshima affected the Japanese psyche, or does this sense of 'interal triumph in face of imminent capitulation' goes beyond Hiroshima, in their amazingly rich culture? ____ while thinking of this, got reminded of the Japanese response to the Tsunami in march 2011. Had read about their belief of ' wa wo mottte toutos...

how is someone's life worth more than someone else's? I am watching ' enter the void' the second time. The first time, it was a total trip, like none before. Its an experience out of this world. But second time sober viewing left a few lingering thoughts. The drug dealer dies a sorry death. But that does not mean its an end of existence of his soul. He finds a way of being with his beloved sister again. If death is absence of life, then he never really dies. Then is it more important to live a life fully, or is it more important to lend a meaning to a life through affecting a change in the world we inhabit? When we talk of worth of someone, is it fair to put the weight of world on him? Is Gandhi's life worth more than his assassin's? Is his life worth more than the little organisms who feasted on his remains? And if we accept that every one has a role to play in this world, how do we perceive violence and love in it? Gandhi wanted to change the world to a ...

Ordinariness has such melancholic grace to it. Perhaps, its the finality of its evident fall that leads to submission, that stillness. Just saw the movie ' The illusionist '. Its script was written by Jacques Tati , one of the most wonderful film makers ever. Most of his movies are keen empathetic witnesses to the effect of modernity on a simple human existence. When I saw his movie, 'playtime', I was spellbound with the many layers of stories woven in a comic portrayal of  a man navigating a modern city. Watching the Illusionist, reminded me of the fragility of our identity. The movie is about a magician who is finding it more and more difficult to get work due to advent of modern entertainment of rock music and television. One scene is especially telling, when people in the cities are not at all interested in his acts, while in a village in Scotland, his acts gets appreciated. A woman tags along being awestruck with his ways. He tries to earn more to keep her happy,...

What makes one cling to fantasies so dearly? I can understand the impulse to run away from your life. But what color is your courage that pushes you beyond the limits of truth? To suspend reality and recede in thoughts. To forget and to belong. I just saw a docudrama ' catfish '. The movie chronicles online exchanges that is just about to evolve into a  relationship which takes a new turn due to uncovering of a deception. While I suspect that it might be scripted itself, it certainly strikes you with its reality. Our reality, that is only defined by the deceptions around us. How fragile are we? To need to run away from reality so often? So your partner vice is the cigarette, his' is grass (respect!), her's is booze, but everyone's hooked onto the internet the most. Kids slip deep under the blanket to escape reality. But when someone takes away the blanket, the kid has to face the real world. Game over. Grown ups shut down the world around and populate the wor...

I saw 'Mumbai meri jaan' .. and let me assure u, its a kickass movie. Brilliant it is! The movie is like a crow.. it nibbles at your wounds and makes noises that you would not like to hear. Its naked. A friend of mine was complaining '.. but I don't want to see this mumbai'. I won't give a description of the movies, or the details of the scene, (and I am so tempted to.. the sheer brilliance of them shots.. every shot has its politics.) or venture into an analysis of how this movie has shades of anti capitalism and so on $ ... but the beauty of the movie is in it's truthfulness and politics. I hope there were more crows like these. :P Another friend was complaining at the climax of the cliche therein, but then again why be non- cliche for the sake of it. The director pokes with the sensibility stick to the jaded zombified couch potato audience, and after the audience wakes up and becomes responsive, he holds the open soul-mouth of the audience so th...