CineM Review: Diecisiete (Seventeen) 2019

 As the number of characters go, the film ‘Diecisiete’ or ‘Seventeen’ in English is sparsely populated but it manages to showcase an amazing depth of the human condition through the lean cast. What the film seems to depict lies so apparently on the surface but once you invest time in the tale, you get to see innumerable little twerks in the details. The ‘road trip’ genre of films is characterized by the fact that it brings together a disparate set of characters who while seemingly tugged by different motivations, are nevertheless welded together by some common element. Another feature of this genre is that somewhere along the way, the story transcends into something more elevated than the destination – it becomes a parable about the journey itself. In all these, this small Spanish gem, Diecisiete, stays true to the beaten path but where it diverges, and diverges so eloquently, is the sincere way in which the characters are etched out and the honesty which lies behind their actions.

There is not much of a back story; we are presented with the basic details. There are 2 brothers - the younger Hector, is smart, focused and given to petty delinquencies; the construct of his mind is portrayed as controlled yet fragile and his single-mindedness but utter guilelessness, seems to hint at autism but is never made explicit. The older brother, Esma, is nervous and acts in measured tones which suggest at a weariness and a resignation towards readily accepting the hand dealt out. They are attached to their grandmother who is now old and is housed in a care home.

As the film opens, Hector is up to another petty crime but he is caught and interred in a juvenile home where his peculiarities are in stark contrast with the other inmates. A paperback of the country’s penal codes as a constant companion and his introverted demeanor does not win him many friends there, and his multiple unsuccessful attempts at breakouts are something of an establishment joke. Yet, when he is introduced to a rescued dog as part of his rehabilitation program, Hector undergoes a change. He readily accepts and quickly relishes the job of training the mutt whom he plainly names ‘Oveja’ (or ‘sheep’ in English) on account of his raggedy, wool-like coat. Hector who has trouble relating to people nevertheless finds it quite easy to communicate with and assume charge of Oveja and the dog too, reciprocates the affection. His fragile world shatters when he is informed that his efforts in training and socializing with Oveja have yielded fruit in securing him a forever home. Unable to reconcile himself to this forced separation, Hector makes yet another and now successful, breakout and the real story unfolds from this point.

The tale finds the 2 principal characters together by their grandmother’s bedside where the brothers clash over going back to the juvenile home; Hector proclaiming that he will initiate search for his beloved Oveja while Esma argues about returning in time by Hector’s 18^th birthday which is just 2 days away (once he turns an adult, any crimes committed subsequently would be judged in a far harsher light). Grudgingly, Esma agrees to Hector’s idea if it results in him getting back Oveja and returning to the home to serve the rest of his sentence which is only a couple of months from being over. With their grandmother in tow and in Esma’s RV, the brothers embark on their journey to retrieve Oveja from his new owner and restore their lives to the earlier equilibrium, or so they think.

Their search leads them through the canine rescue shelter where Hector ‘adopts’ a 3-legged dog, bucolic villages, long-lost relatives, an ancestral cemetery, et al. where the director and co-writer Daniel Sanchez Arevalo slowly explores the myriad nuances in the brothers’ characters. There is quiet, unobtrusive humor which emerges out of the milieu of hidden intentions and thoughts of the brothers. The grandmother perpetually attached to her life-support paraphernalia acts as a silent foil to the brothers’ shenanigans and despite her character’s senility and approaching death restricting her dialogues to the Spanish phrase ‘tarapara’ or ‘we will see’ in English, provides one of the true motivations of what lies at the heart of the brothers’ actions.

The story takes them through the mountainous and coastal region of Cantabria and the beautiful photography seems to elevate the geography into a side character almost. I feel the film is replete with images as metaphors – the juvenile home which abounds in bullies, Esma’s RV which is his flimsy excuse of a home, grandmother’s burial plot which is both lost and within grasp at the same time – and the wonderfully rugged and at times, peaceful Cantabria countryside serve to propel this unlikely tale forward. The RV passes along road bordering deep ravines which seemingly evoke the yawning differences in the brothers’ personalities and later, the pristine coast fringed by cliffs symbolize the emerging calmness in their loves. In a way, the towering cliffs are emblematic of the leap of faith which both characters are required to take in order to embrace their true destinies.

This is a wonderfully evocative film which ultimately surmounts the limitations of what we see as characters to portray a thoroughly enjoyable tale of human nature, change and ultimately, hope.

I like to think of the three-legged dog who becomes an unlikely companion on the road trip as you and I. Tired and beleaguered, we all think we have lost an important appendage of ourselves on the journey of life and are happy to clutch at any chance at a ‘safe’ existence only to discover that there is apparently, a whole world of possibilities that we can strive for and accomplish. And that thought urges me forward.

Says the confetti girl, “Have some candy!”

It is just chance that this is July - the birth month for Simi, the “confetti girl” - and it was on the 1^st day of this month that I happened to see the animated film ‘Wreck It Ralph’. Just a few minutes into Wreck It Ralph, I was drawn into the familiar tale of how characters even as those as far-removed from us as the pixilated people from video game are moved by the all-too human emotions of an alienated sense of duty, rejection, isolation, and the cycle of impulsive, ill-advised actions which sometimes precipitate when it is the very nature of the duty which causes that seclusion.

As plots go, this film does not break new ground. We have after all, seen how outcast and misunderstood characters like the hunchback Igor in Igor (2008), the villainous Megamind in the eponymous Megamind (2010) and not to forget, that lovable green monster Shrek, all strive to escape from the caricatured roles which someone else has scripted for them, in order to gain just that little bit of love, acceptance and friendship which has always been denied. Yet it is not the plot itself which delighted me, but the imaginatively-written characters which populate the arcade-style video games, the humour, and the poignancy and honesty in feelings which often laced such humour. This film follows Ralph – a ham-fisted bulldozer of a man in a game called ‘Fix It Felix’ who is forever fated to rain down blows on an apartment building (Niceland) and terrorise its residents, an unhappy state which the handyman Felix soon remedies with the help of his magical golden hammer. Every successful game of ‘Fix It Felix’ concludes with the same fixture – Felix gets feted and awarded with a medal for a job well done while the residents unceremoniously throw Ralph down from the terrace to a muddy puddle on the ground below. To add insult to injury, Ralph is left to dwell in the neighbouring dump from where he sees the colourful and happy lives of the Niceland’s residents. It is this sad state of things that Ralph seeks to turn around.

Ralph quickly comes to the conclusion (erroneous!) that what he lacks is a gold medal just like Felix, which would propel him into the high league. And so starts his journey to a game ‘Hero’s Duty’ which awards a gold medal to its victorious warriors, and onto an ill-managed starship crash into a racing game called ‘Sugar Rush’ with a candy landscape and an absolutely saccharine little girl, Vanellope (voiced so endearingly by Sarah Silverman). It is the chemistry between the mischievous little Vanellope and the grumpy Ralph which is the highlight. In an obvious parallel with Ralph’s own state, Vanellope who is characterised as a game glitch is the resident outcast in ‘Sugar Rush’, mocked and left friendless by her own kind. In a predictable journey fighting vile cybugs and racing impossibly candy-coloured cars through an impossibly candy-themed racecourse and discovering the inherent spirit of friendship between them and a new sense of self-worth, we are treated to some insightful ideas.

It is these insights which bring me now to the life of our beloved friend, Simi. In a world where so many of us seem ill at ease with who we seem to be inside, and the struggles which we put up to re-define ourselves in a bid to win acceptance and love, Simi was the exception. Just like Sarah’s plummy-voiced Vanellope, Simi too conveyed that sweet naughtiness and that bold spirit to boot, of a girl who has her sights set high borne up by a sure sense of identity.

Whether it is Fix It Felix or Wreck It Ralph, I realise that just as we are defined by the jobs we do, we are also marked in a far deeper sense by the values we live by and the love and friendship we are able to share. Just like a zombie character in the game says, “Labels do not make you happy. Good, bad... you must love you.”

Here is wishing you a very happy coming birthday, Simi!

CineM Review: The Secret Garden (1993)

"How does your garden grow?"

Watching ‘The Secret Garden’ made me realise a few things about children. Firstly, that their world though appearing carefree, is just as serious as ours, inhabited as it is also by the more‘adult-like’ emotions of rejection, coercion, belief and finally redemption. Secondly, we as children make the best friendships and though they may not necessarily last a lifetime, that innocence and feeling of something special may last a whole lifetime. And these childhood friendships are not as hard to establish either – sometimes even a shared secret or joy in playing a mutual game suffices to create that wonderful bond. Lastly, children possess a single-minded ability to make up their own ideas and stick to them with a great finality. ‘The Secret Garden’ explores this complex world of children with an understanding and a delicacy which is startling.

This film directed by Agnieszka Holland who has earlier made the children-themed ‘Europa Europa’ and ‘Olivier Olivier’, has adapted the screenplay from Frances Hodgson Burnett's 1911 novel of the same title. The author who had herself led a chequered life, had written a host of romantic and children books. Though the ‘The Secret Garden’ was relatively unheralded during the author’s lifetime, it has subsequently emerged as one the classic English books ever written for children, and the film by staying true to the book, does ample justice to the ideals prescribed therein.

As stories meant for children go, ‘The Secret Garden’ too throws its characters onto a path of vicissitudes, discovery and triumph. Orphaned in India, young Mary Lennox (played to perfection by Kate Maberly) comes to live with her uncle in his rambling estate, Misselthwaite Manor. This estate is also home to a vague sense of disquiet and a human entourage comprising of a cherub of a housemaid, Martha (acted endearingly by Laura Crossley), her Huckleberry-esque brother named Dickon (Andrew Knott), and a strict and forbidding housekeeper Mrs. Medlock (Maggie Smith). Set in the moors of Yorkshire, the estate also houses a secret garden which belonged to Mary’s aunt (her mother’s twin sister), whose death has plunged her uncle and everything in Misselthwaite Manor into a pall of relentless gloom. Mary’s grey and massive room in the grey and massive manor is swathed with intricate and heavy-looking tapestries – the whole look seemingly consistent with a house that can only be home to dour-looking adults, and no children.

Mary manages to splash her own burst of individual energy when she makes a series of strange discoveries, starting with a secret passageway in the manor leading to her dead aunt’s secluded room, a tentative friendship with a trilling robin who leads her into her aunt’s garden, now locked away and running wild and finally, her cousin Colin (Heydon Prowse) who is proclaimed too frail and lives like a condemned person, secreted in some gloomy room with barricaded windows inside that massive house. With these discoveries in that seemingly distant house, Mary proceeds to blaze a child-like path of joyful effort, honest intentions, clear-speak and simple love which goes around in a circle, enveloping the entire household in a new bond of life.

Kate Maberly who had earlier acted in a series of BBC productions brings in a petulant but lovable streak into the character; observe her diminutive jaw stuck out in moments of impetuous anger, the bitterness in her words when she spits them in the face of un-understanding adult supervision, and the smile in her eyes when she gets her way. Mary when she starts out is not very dissimilar to the cantankerous, almost infuriatingly stubborn Colin who is wedded to the belief that he is facing imminent death. As the smart and articulate Mary first aided by the simple country boy skills of Dickon sets out to bring the long-neglected garden alive, and then accompanied by the till-now reclusive cousin continues her incursions into the joyousness and freshness of a new spring now shining upon Misselthwaithe, we witness a transformation. And this transformation is all around – from the bare, weed-overgrown garden now bristling with a colourful bloom of flowers, to the new-found health and vigour in Colin, and the blossoming of the goodness that lies inside Mary’s heart.

This film succeeds at numerous levels; the first obvious mark for me was the superlative acting by all the characters, in particular the young ensemble of Mary, Martha, Dickon and Colin, and finally Mrs. Medlock. Exchanges between children are always fascinating, underlined as they are by their simple joys, tantrums and fears. There is in particular one exchange between the determined Mary and clamorous Colin, when she confronts her cousin with her unfailing belief in his good health borne out of the simple common sense which children do possess. Colin protests and creates a scene, twitching his lips at Mary’s stern rebukes and at last, capitulates. There is another moment in the film when the 3 children gather around a bonfire and circle it in a sort of trance-like surrender, mumbling inanities but calling out for a miracle with a simple but deep fervor which compels even an attending adult to participate in the unlikely voodoo dance. There is also another delightful moment on a swing when Mary and Dickon exchange a glance (is it the first awakening of something greater than just friendship??) of something significant but as yet, indecipherable.

The film also succeeds in capturing other moments of beauty (great cinematography by Roger Deakins). Since I love flowers and gardens, the time-lapse photography of blooming flowers rising up from the ground under the love and care of Mary & Co. was particularly mesmerising. In a film with so many deft touches, the allegory of the secret garden barred and neglected and then, brought back to life by the tender hands of the young children stands tall and unshakeable. In a sense, our lives are also disconcerting similar.

This is a film about the magic which is nothing but irresolute belief in positiveness, and about children. Just like a dear friend of mine who recently got a wonderful opportunity to interact with kids and bring together a great skit by harnessing the resourcefulness and the innate grace of young children, I too have immense belief in the powers that lie hidden inside their immense throbbing hearts.

CineM’s Verdict:

CineM Review: The Big Heat (1953)

PROLOGUE

Too many Bollywood films in the 80s and 90s bolstered by the phenomenon of the angry young man featured the protagonist as a cop hell-bent on busting crime with a passion which can only be termed ‘manic’ and a personal confrontational style which is centered around violence – acting out fatuous impulses with the inevitable result that his loved ones would be promptly bumped off, which would again only, understandably whet his appetite for further mindless destruction. This celebrated ‘knight’ always simmered with seething rage which would ultimately boil over, but at the same time was also capable of performing good deeds like rescuing a hapless orphan from the streets. Bollywood brought out (and still does) a slew of anti-establishment films characterised by a compulsive desire to dispose off every piece of criminal scum in the country, featuring heroes whose destructive behaviour ensures that every member of the supporting cast either got killed or tortured. What these films essentially manifest is a war and the troubled hero as the soldier for whom this war becomes his only life.

A Different Bane

Before attempting to write a critique of ‘The Big Heat’, it is perhaps important to understand 2 things – firstly, the notion of the dark anti-hero as developed in art and secondly, the origins of the film’s director, Fritz Lang. Art forms like cinema and comics have developed and fine-tuned the ‘anti-hero’ concept for the last 4 decades, evolving the lone crusader from a do-gooder with an individualistic sense of meting out justice at all costs into the morally-flawed paranoid reactionary who is only too willing to kill and maim in his quest; a possessed individual with twisted, dark moods and overt violence in his thoughts and actions. However, it was a far more conventional form of evil which had shaped and defined Fritz Lang’s life and work. Partly-Jewish Lang was one of the foremost German directors (he had already made ‘M’ and ‘Metropolis’) and personally mandated by Hitler and Goebbles to make Nazi propaganda films before he escaped and became a Hollywood legend making films out of the eternal motifs of the dubious circumstances surrounding man and the evil that perennially lurks inside him. Lang’s films are streaked by the presence of individuals insidiously primed to wreak violence and the accompanying emotional ravages. Lang’s career spanned geography, language and culture; bridging as it did both the silent and sound eras. Lang’s earlier films effectively laid the ground stone for establishment of that intense brooding genre in Hollywood’s Golden Age - film-noir.

On the face of it, this is a plain cop-versus-mob crime thriller but it has considerable dark undertones of moral ambiguity and psychological conflict. Like many other film-noir classics, this is a canvas defined not by the traditionally uplifting qualities of heroism, idealism or duty but by knotty hues of self-preservation, vengeance and utter oblivion in its pursuit. This is a remarkably violent film – in which other film else have you seen all the female characters killed off?

The film starts with a lingering shot of a pistol lying on a table in a study. A man picks it up and blows his brains out. Glenn Ford as Detective Sgt. Dave Bannion is assigned to the case and he starts the investigation with the dead man’s widow. It turns out that the dead man’s an ex-cop and from there, Bannion picks up the threads leading to a brief meeting with the man’s girlfriend who comes up with a possible story which Bannion finds unbelievable and the widow upon questioning, dismisses as baseless. Subsequent events seems to point at the prevailing mob boss in the city and his henchman Vince Stone (a very young but very very talented Lee Marvin). The introduction of Vince Stone’s character is accompanied by the first appearance of his girl, Gloria Grahame as Debby Marsh. Juxtaposed against the coldness of the criminal world are interesting short and warm vignettes of Bannion’s blissful life with his wife (Jocelyn Brando) and kid.

This film which is at one level, that of a heroic and dedicated police officer is at another wholly disparate level, really about something else. The tipping point in the film occurs when the murder investigation casts its own dark spell of mayhem on Bannion’s little family. The big heat inside Bannion’s character find a volcanic way out…and how!!

Besides the dead man in the opening sequence, the story chillingly kills off all the 4 main female leads and what is morally damning for Bannion is that in one way or another, his reckless actions have been culpable in all the 4 killings. Bannion for all his sincerity and dedication in the early part of the murder investigation is prone to foolhardy and impulsive decisions. Like when he promptly discloses the information provided by the dead man’s girlfriend which leads to her torture and ultimate murder, and he does not think twice before bouncing off to the mob boss’ house to confront him for threatening calls being made to his house, and to add insult to further injury, slams his fist into an underling’s face at the slightest provocation.

The tragedy which befalls his family shortly afterwards lays bare the sinister mask underneath Bannion’s character. A brilliantly played-out scene of intimidation, brazen challenge and momentary capitulation in a city bar involving Vince, Debby, another mob hand and Bannion, brings to the fore Bannion’s barely-suppressed rage. “Thief!” Bannion splutters  with venom at the face of Vince.

This scene at the bar prefaces the third act of the film which was for me personally, the most enigmatic. This portion of the story showcases the immense talents of Gloria (Debby) and Lee (Vince). Debby is the typical moll with a flippant attitude, a light speech and coquettish mannerisms (eyes which twinkle with allure, lips which curl up invitingly, and a languorous body language) and the gangster Vince possesses that coldness evident in the thin lips, lean face and not-unattractive scowl. Lee successfully portrays the wired-up violent streak in Vince’s character which the film brings out with sharp intensity in a couple of marvelous bits. The most vicious bit of violence in the film is where Vince with great intent and a chilling callousness, upturns a pot of boiling coffee on Debby’s beautiful face. This coffee-throwing incident sparks a transformation in Debby from a vacuous and self-loving pretty girl whose favourite pastime it seems, is checking herself in a mirror. Gloria excels in the character of Debby; her bounce, lithe figure, a child-like enunciation and suggestive expressions are on the surface, all that is to the character. As with most such characters however, there is a hard steel in the spirit and an obscure sense of righteousness which when provoked, manifests itself in the most resolute of actions. The new Debby proceeds ahead on that new trail of retribution along with Bannion.

This is a remarkable film; remarkable for its performances, remarkable for the terrific lines (Debby with her irreparably disfigured face bravely tries to keep up her act: "I guess the scar isn't so bad -- not if it's only on one side. I can always go through life sideways.”), remarkable because it does not shy away from uncovering the terrible face of human lusts even when the mission seems righteous. The main writer of the screenplay is screenwriter Sydney Boehm, a former crime reporter who alongwith Lang lends that strange, unquiet air of apprehension and impending danger.

p.s. Though largely unheralded in his lifetime, Fritz Lang’s oeuvre is the stuff of master filmmaking and the sceptre of the dangerous world of layered human evil is relevant in modern cinema too. No wonder then, that as a heads-up to the great director in Quentin Tarantino’s latest offering replete with cinematic references - ‘Django Unchained’, the beguiling, menacing character of Dr. King Schultz played by Christoph Waltz rides on a horse whose name is you guessed it, ‘Fritz’!!

CineM’s Verdict:

CineM Review: Get Shorty (1995)

Get your Sparkling Dialogue, Wacky Characters Here

In a curiously enticing world where molls have "eyes like strange sins", and a hood possesses a battered face that looks "as if it had been hit by everything but the bucket of a dragline", 'Get Shorty' (the book as well as the film) exists in a comfortably cheeky space. I have a theory; everyone likes a good gangster movie – the wise guy on the screen takes the risks, peppers his speech with smug humour (or cold threats) and knows how to throw a good punch when it is required. I have got another pet theory too; every wise guy wishes he was John Travolta.

Elmore Leonard who wrote this story, is the natural successor of such accomplished writers of pulp fiction as Ray Chandler and Dash Hammett. And like any good crime thriller, ‘Get Shorty’ is filled with colourful, sceptical and assured characters whose main motivation is to pull off the next big thing, and look good too while they are doing it. Adapted almost to the letter from the book, the film has John Travolta as a cinema-savvy, smooth-talking and smartly-attired loan shark who follows the trail of a debt gone bad from Miami to Las Vegas. He takes a detour to LA to put the squeeze on B-grade film producer Gene Hackman and the story veers away from the normal ‘pay-up-or-I-will-bash-you’ routine. Travolta who must surely be the most films-knowledgeable toughie to ever grace the silver screen, enters into an unlikely movie producing deal. This story about gangsters and movie people is inhabited by characters with "Runyonesque" names – Travolta is ‘Chilli Palmer’ and works for a mobster named ‘Momo’, and has a running feud with another toughie from Miami named ‘Ray Bones’ (Dennis Farina). His introduction into the movie business puts Chilli in touch with another set of quirky characters who might have come straight out of legendary Ed Wood’s world – a B-movie ‘screamer’ (played by Rene Russo), a well-regarded but pompous actor full of himself (De Vito), a bumbling stuntman turned hood named Bear (James Gandolfini), and a local hood Bo (Delroy Lindo) who believes “what’s the point of living in LA unless you’re in the movie business?”

And when the hustlers try to hustle their way into producing movies (Chilli because he’s genuinely interested in movies and Bo because he ….well, believes that anyone can do it), and pugnacious Ray Bones simply driven by his greed to recover his money, meet with another set of smug, greedy, selfish and dubiously talented characters in the movie business, the plot rises onto delicious humour laced with just the right amount of thrill. The plot here (just like Guy Ritchie’s ‘Snatch’) is not the main attraction, you see ‘Get Shorty’ and like it for what it offers in such abundance – sparkling tete a tetes and stellar all-round good acting. In a canvas etched with numerous archetypes (struggling B-movie folk, shifty gangsters, acclaimed actor given to grand delusions), it is easy to overdo the obvious but that is not the case here.

Travolta as Palmer perfectly pulls off a slight hint of a menace beneath a tone which is always silken smooth; he is brilliant at portraying a ‘cool guy’ with his mannerisms and yes, the cigarette. He gets some of the most memorable lines in the movie – there’s a running gag with the line ‘Look at me’ and he corrects people’s grammar when he’s not reeling off the names of movies (both classics and B-grade alike) and actors. The movie folk have their own oddballs – Gene Hackman as the slightly insincere and scatterbrained producer, Rene as the ‘screamer’ who has a working knowledge of both films and the crime world, and a pretentious major movie actor in De Vito who gives cheesy imitations when he’s not mouthing inanities like ‘visual fabric’. The icing on the cake is Farina’s turn as Ray Bones; breaking into expletives at every moment and with an angry-looking broken nose now turning purple, he is the ultimate oddball. In a performance streaked with brilliance and affected insouciance (something which he would reprise as the gangster ‘Avi’ in ‘Snatch’ 5 years later), his actions are wholly unpredictable. The comic mix of broad slang and grandiloquence in Ray Bones colourful language is a delight to take in.

Director Barry Sonnenfeld and the cast must have had a real ball with this movie. I have a feeling that the movie regards itself with a sly, impish gaze in the way it references Orson Welles’ film noir classic ‘Touch Of Evil’ and has Rene Russo arrive breathlessly out on the balcony above Travolta a la Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray in another classic film noir ‘Double Indemnity’. The final tip of the hat is a grim-faced and just as purple-nosed Harvey Keitel in the role of Ray Bones in the movie within a movie.

CineM’s Verdict:

CineM Review: Life of Pi (2012)

An Allegory Grand

‘Life of Pi’ takes you along on a heady plunge into the limitless world of a young boy named Pi, a boy so precocious, so innocent and at times, so brave that you are left pleasantly confounded. Inspired by a book which may be thought of as ‘unfilmable’, this is less of a story about a stranded boy and a tiger; it is more of a fantastic journey into the workings of the mind of Pi. Yann Martel who wrote the original book, bases his story on fantasy, intrigue and ultimately, belief – Pi’s quirky childhood, the chequered environs around which he grew up, the calming, rational influence of his father and mother (so unusual for most parents), the ultimate tragedy of the stricken ship and the subsequent odyssey of a boy and a tiger on a lifeboat essentially provide us with a glimpse. In Pi’s case, that glimpse transcended onto a stark gaze into the microcosm of his entire universe. This idea is beautifully shown in a scene where the legend of Yashoda (Krishna’s mother) seeing the entire brahmaand (universe) inside the open mouth of the boy Krishna is played out along parallel lines when Pi mimicking the tiger’s action, looks down over the boat’s side into the infinite depths of the sea.

The heart of the story is the feat of Pi surviving 227 days at sea on a boat with a powerful and mystical tiger. The interesting prologue showing Pi’s family, Pi’s upbringing and the fateful voyage are all temporal signposts leading to that epic heart where a boy and a beast find themselves bereft, unsure but unshakable inheritors of the primordial urge to survive. A deep distrust between the two gradually turns into a grudging recognition of each other, which ultimately forms into an unspoken mutual love and respect. This inventive ballet between brain and sinew, the eternal dance between will and elements is played out with the immense sea as the narrative frame, with Ang Lee expertly evoking the loneliness and unpredictability of the unbroken blue.

The hallmark of this film is great aesthetic beauty; the richness of its visual appeal reminds me of Terrence Malick’s ‘Days of Heaven’ where man and nature have been photographed in such deep impact and intensity which I have not seen anywhere. Just like the sprawling and wind-swept prairie in ‘Days of Heaven’ which serves as that one constant point of view, the often-treacherous sea remaining always counter to Pi’s ingenuous narration, does justice to that same role here.

Ang Lee is well-known for making 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ (2000) and ‘Brokeback Mountain’ (2005) – both films explore the same strain of loss, the ageless search for security and joy. While the former set in feudal China uses imaginative martial arts technique against a backdrop of desert, mountain forests and bamboo groves, the latter offers us a very private view framed by mist-filled mountains and grassy glades into the unlikely lives of two cowboys. Lee brings those same poetic sensibilities here to illustrate and accentuate the sensory appeal of the story. However where his previous two masterpieces had a raw and intimate feel to the events and the characters, his latest offering has a plastic (for want of a better word) tone. The director’s desire to create that picture-perfect and at times, sterile imagery (eschewing animal actions involving blood and gore, not filming portions of the book which might have been deemed ‘mature’) seems to be a concerted attempt to find an universal audience.

Post his extraordinary odyssey, Pi presents us with a riddle as old as the world itself – should we only take in and believe the facile facts of man and his actions, or can we get inspired by something which goes beyond what we simply are or what we ended up doing?

I find it inspiring to mention here the story of a young aviator who died when he was only 19 years old. John Magee was an American fighter pilot who died in a mid-air collision during World War 2. He was also a poet and 4 months before his tragic death in December 1941, he had composed a sonnet titled ‘High Flight’. The inspiration of this poem lies behind the sorties on his Spitfire fighter-plane when he would climb up and soar into the clouds. The sonnet has been reproduced here.

"High Flight"

 Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

 And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

 Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

 of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things

 You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung

 High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,

 I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

 My eager craft through footless halls of air....

 Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

 I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.

 Where never lark, or even eagle flew —

 And, while with silent lifting mind I have trod

 The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

 - Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

I have also reproduced a portion from the film ‘The Snow Walker’ where one of the characters brings to mind the grace-filled words of the poem in a memorial service. I am sure that Pi too, flung in the midst of that immense blue sea and in his puny boat must have felt that same feeling of oneness with God and with life itself. The film is a celebration of that same feeling.

CineM’s Verdict:

CineM Review: Bella Martha (2001)

Spontaneity meets Precision…

 There’s a moment in this film where a painfully young girl confides in her aunt that she’s already starting to forget her mother – a realisation which is all the more saddening and inexplicable to someone so young who has just lost her parent. This scene is in essence what ‘Bella Martha’ seeks to explore – the uneasy initiation into stuff beyond one’s comfort zone. This film is centered around a fastidiously efficient head chef (Martha) and her young niece (Lina) who comes into her care after her single mother dies in an accident. Both aunt and niece are indulgently riveted on their individual fixations (Martha with her kitchen and Lina with the trials of living with a woman who is not her mother) to the exclusion of their mutual realities. Things change with the entry of a free-spirited Italian sous-chef (Mario) into Martha’s kitchen and into the sequestered lives of aunt and niece. The impulsive boisterousness of the Mediterranean spirit collides with stoic Germanic reserve, resulting in a battle of wills starting with the kitchen and spilling over outside too.

'Bella Martha’ is German filmmaker Sandra Nettelbeck’s first full-length feature and she does a remarkable job of confining the escalating tug-of-war within a limited conventional scope without resorting to overt drama and generalisations. ‘Bella Martha’ translates into ‘beautiful Martha’; both Sandra and Martina Gedeck in the titular role infuse a level of strength and vulnerability into Martha which is aesthetically very sensual. There is a definite flow from start to finish; the introduction of Martha’s perfectionist, inhibited character, her guardianship of her young niece, the entry of the naturally demonstrative Mario and their accompanying battles to discover life beyond.

Martina who would go on to personify a similarly gifted and troubled artist (actress) later in ‘The Lives of Others’ (2006), pulls off a great performance facing difficult situations in a muted, true-to-life fashion. For a romantic comedy drama, the tender love story progresses along in a muted, true-to-life manner too. The ‘big’ moment where Martha and Mario recognise and tentatively submit to their mutual attraction with an almost-stolen kiss is delicately played out among spices, flavours and aromas - all parts of a delightfully created blindfold taste session. The niece Lina like so many young kids tossed into an incomprehensible situation, acts out her anger until it is spent or won over by love. The evolving relationship between Martha and Lina lies at the core of the story, with Mario acting as the catalyst which brings together all the elements to realise that perfect concoction. There is a wonderfully crafted comic vignette between Martha and her psychiatrist before the end credits roll out.

The narrative may feel at times, to be running along in its fairly predictable course. And cold and gray Germany is shot in tones which are ... well, cold and gray. 'Bella Martha' is not a ground-breaking story but it is well-told. 

Ultimately, love unlike a food recipe rarely arrives accompanied with its own checklist; it is oftentimes hard but when it all comes together, it is magical.

This is a well-mounted and well-acted film; so if anyone wants a flashier version, check out the blatant ‘copy and paste’ job that is Catherine Zeta-Jones’ ‘No Reservations’.

CineM's Verdict

CineM Review: To Have and Have Not (1944)

Bogie and Bacall had it all

Country singer Bertie Higgins’ song titled ‘Key Largo’ has that well-known ditty “We had it all / Just like Bogie and Bacall”. To develop just an itsy inkling of what Bogie and Bacall ‘had’, a viewing of ‘To Have and Have Not’ comes highly recommended. A film directed by Howard Hawks, launching the sultry Lauren Bacall, with a story originally written by Hemingway and a screenplay developed by Faulkner and Furthman and not least, starring that emerging icon Bogart with the gritty ‘The Maltese Falcon’ and a masterful ‘Casablanca’ just behind him – you have reasons galore for catching this movie!

Hemingway’s story was based on liquor-running between Florida  and Cuba, and contained marked classist overtones, hence the story title. Hawks adapted the setting to the island of Martinique under the puppet Vichy regime, the protagonist no longer ran booze up and down the Gulf, the hero Harry Morgan (Bogie) and his alcoholic sidekick Eddie (Walter Brennan) simply offered their boat and services for the more plain thrill of game fishing. One of the early scenes has Hemingway’s mark all over it, when the duo and a client grapple with a feisty marlin - the author's fav sporting fish. Bacall is cast as ‘Slim’ – a magnetic beauty with fire in her eyes, smoke on her lips and smouldering embers in her walk, just the sort of female wheeler-dealer who asks for a light first and then oh-so-slowly, singes your heart with it.

The politics is superficial, back-stories are dispensed with, motivations are simple and introductions are curt – the free-flowing film serving as a canvas to showcase the electric chemistry between Bogie and Bacall. One of the hallmarks of a Hawks’ film is the exchange of rapid-fire dialogues; here the repartees between the two flow thick and furious, the words lie deliciously scattered around to the point of being non sequiturs.

Sample this dialogue between ‘Slim’ and Morgan when the first on-screen kiss is tentatively shared between the two who would eventually become the future off-screen Mr. and Mrs. Bogart.

 

[Slim kisses Morgan]

Morgan: What did you do that for?

Slim: I've been wondering if I'd like it.

Morgan: What's the decision?

Slim: I don't know yet.

[They kiss again]

Slim: It's even better when you help.

The word-play, the scene, the agony and the ecstasy come together in that perfect wispy breath of cinematic brilliance so much so that Hawks would play out the exact scene 15 years later in ‘Rio Bravo’ between the blustery John Wayne and the languorous Angie Dickinson.

Of course, Bogie and Bacall do it infinitely better.

This scorching chemistry is the most substantial reason why anyone should fit in ‘To Have and Have Not’ in their viewing record. That, and the delight of a superlative Walter Brennan comic turn as the hero’s sidekick whose loping gait makes it look as if he is perpetually attempting to step over a puddle in his way.

CineM's Verdict

CineM Review: Barfi! (2012)

A Saccharin Chaplin-esque

Anurag Basu’s latest work ‘Barfi!’ is a graceful tip of the hat to one of the greatest entertainers of all ages – Charlie Chaplin. In fact one passing image of the film has a blink-and-you-miss shot of a standee of Chaplin’s beloved Tramp-character in front of probably a book store or a café. There is another direct inspiration from Chaplin where the character Barfi is shown snoozing on the lap of a covered statue about to be unveiled – the opening scene of Chaplin’s ‘City Lights’  shows the hardy Tramp comfortably nestled on a statue covered under a tarpaulin while pompous dignitaries make a great show of dedicating the figure to the society. In many ways, Barfi! too is about that singular fellow who is content to live in his own world while the rest of society is hurled forward on that big leap of advancement.

Barfi! is about a deaf-mute person (Ranbir as the main character) and the entwining of his life with two girls – Shruti (Ileana) and autistic Jhilmil (Priyanka). Director Anurag bases his story in the mist-filled slopes of Darjeeling and the teeming streets of metro Kolkata, jumping back and forth in narrative. The opening montage which tell (or sing, to be precise) Barfi’s story sets a tone for the movie which propels itself forward in that same breath of violin- and accordion-filled pastiche. There are two love stories in Barfi! – the first romance is a tender, feather-light story of a free-spirited Barfi enticing the more grounded Shruti onto a plane of magical amore; the second is a more strong, developed relationship which is founded on the recognition of shared flaws which set Barfi and Jhilmil apart from the rest of ‘normal’ humanity. There is a bumbling police inspector (Saurabh Shukla as Inspector Dutta) who is consigned to pursuing Barfi’s trail. There are a couple of extended sub-plots too – hospitalization accompanied by the inevitable dilemma of arranging money for operation, and kidnappings – which remain insufficiently-explored and brought to a rather contrived end.

Barfi! at its core is about Barfi and Jhilmil (both outcasts and ill-understood by others) and the discovery of simple joys and quaint pleasures in a world which does not do ‘simple’ or ‘quaint’ anymore. The movie explores the precarious carving out of an existence which cocks a snook at entrenched pretensions of morality and appropriate behaviour. Anurag stamps his directorial vision in every shot, incorporating images of great wonder and artistry with the able assistance of the cinematographer Ravi Varman. Every frame has been meticulously embellished with angles, foci and colours so creative that the viewer may at times feel swept over.

Ranbir as Barfi brings to life a persona to screen which nowadays seems relegated to the age of comic greats like Chaplin, Keaton and the French genius Jacques Tati. His pantomime underscores the universal emotions of love, trust and friendship, and of course, the innate simplicity of a good soul. Ranbir is effortless with his physical comedy; his performance is replete with slapstick, bawdiness and yes, grace. His is such a complete performance that at times, I absolutely forgot that he does not speak at all.  Priyanka as Jhilmil and Ileana as the more-rounded (therefore, more hesitant) Shruti do justice to their characters in a canvas which is all Ranbir’s.

For all the sweetness and wonder that Barfi! brings, it fails at a very basic level. Barfi! wants to speak out but is burdened by the director’s brief to underline every frame with picture-perfect sights and overflowing small touches. In a movie which is so crowded with symbols and motifs (and a running length of close to 3-hours), it is perhaps easy to overlook the inherent pathos of a deaf-mute boy who cannot hear his father calling out for help and goes around with shoes and a coat full of holes (another heads-up to the great little man), or that of an autistic girl who gets manipulated by her own family and is ill-equipped to discharge the basic of personal functions.

Barfi! is a 2-star movie which turns into a 3-star gem due to the magic realism of a painter called Anurag Basu and the immense charismatic talent of a great actor called Ranbir Kapoor. In a world full of cacophony Barfi lives a curious life comfortably stamped with silence – he doesn’t need to utter a single word cos he’s our own lovable tramp.

[Note: Director Anurag Basu was diagnosed with cancer in 2004 and doctors announced that he had only two months more to live. Perhaps, it is fitting that a man who has gazed at the face of death can paint such a gleeful portrait of the face of life.]

CineM's Verdict