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:

Of Memories Lush

An uncle passed away on 2^nd Jan this year. Death of a loved one invites reminiscence. One attempts to piece together an image of the departed person through a collective prism of memories; if the life lived is fulfilling, fruitful and love-filled, that prism throws up a joyous and generous mental image. So is the case when I try to recall past memories, buried incidents with my uncle, Dulal jetha (jetha being the Assamese colloquial for the husband of one’s paternal aunt).  Jetha was a doctor who served with the Assam state government’s medical department; during his service stretched over 4 decades, he had served in various remote areas throughout the state. After his retirement from active government medical duty, he used to look back on his past days when he used to go out on medical calls in all odd hours, sometimes trudging through dense forests, clambering over hills, or crossing rivers in spate on nothing more than a flimsy rowboat. And he had many interesting storied to relate from the various experiences he had while on duty.

Jetha had a wondrous and enthralling story-telling technique as he would relate his past experiences and the little impressionable kid that I was, I would sit captivated listening to all those stories filled with wild animals, ghouls, hunters and all other quirky, mysterious things which a young boy’s mind is occupied with. Years later, Jetha would compile all these stories and author a book in Assamese about his experiences. Not having gone through the book because I tend to labour while reading the Assamese vernacular, I would ask Jetha to recount those stories whenever I would visit him. I was grown-up by then but Jetha s stories about feebly-lit stormy nights, colourful rural folk and yes, those ghostly apparitions would still captivate me.

One very incredible story told by Jetha come to my mind now. It pays to bear in mind that the Assam of bygone days was an almost-alive mass of steaming jungles and wild and exotic animals who were far more in number than people, little-known tribes who had their own quaint customs, and villages scattered very sparsely with runners being the only means of communication. Anyway there was a malaria epidemic around the 60s in a particular area, and Jetha was dispatched on emergency duty to stem the outbreak. The area was covered with jungles and every morning, Jetha would set out with an orderly and carrying his precious little box of medicines. As protection against the mosquitoes swarming all over and the myriad wild animals on the ground, Jetha had taken up temporary quarters in a tree-house. One evening as Jetha returned back from his daily rounds, what he saw resting peacefully on the ground just below the tree-house stopped him in his tracks. It was a full-grown Bengal tiger reclining in that particular insouciant way that all big cats have perfected; idly swatting away the flies and flicking his tail contentedly. Jetha and his orderly slunk back into some bushes, staying still and observing the tiger from not more than 20 feet away. They sat there for close to an hour, darkness had almost set in and the emerging mosquitoes made sitting still an almost impossible task. Squirming and praying all the time, my Jetha told me that he almost felt the hot breath of the tiger as it lay panting. Finally, the tiger stood up, examined the bushes where jetha and the orderly lay hiding with an indifferent stare and suddenly, bounded off into the dark green.

Back in the time when I heard this story for the first time, I had read and re-read Jim Corbett’s ‘Man-Eaters of Kumaon’, ‘The Man-eating Leopard of Rudraprayag’ and ‘Tree-tops’ too. He was my hero and it seemed to my hungry imaginative mind that jetha too was no less than Corbett. He had his own tree-top residence and lived to tell the tale of how a tiger rested no more than half a cricket pitch’s length away from him.

Jetha was born in a small nondescript village in Assam but I am certain that a small part of his ancestry must have been undoubtedly Swiss; you see, he was very precise and he always, always made good time!! When Jetha walked, he would fairly trot; when he was at the dinner-table, he would invariably be the first to finish and when he would be driving, everyone else would be left far behind. There was also a certain economy and efficiency of manner around his behaviour which suggested a great deal of attention to what he was doing or saying.

As a son, father, husband and brother, Jetha led the kind of life which many us desire but seldom lead. Nothing in Jetha’s stories was make-believe; his chequered, dutiful and joy-filled life was the same way too.

CineM Review: Un Coeur en Hiver (1992)

Cryptic Gazes

‘A Heart in Winter’. Directed by Claude Sautet, this is a story of repressed feelings and repressed individuals. The story itself may be a ‘love triangle’ if you will, or is it a ‘love quadrangle’? Or is it about love at all? This is a story essentially, of the characters of Maxime, Stephane and Camille – all 3 are connected with creating music. Maxime and Stephane are in the business of crafting violins and Camille herself is an up-and-rising violinist. Maxime is a polished social sort cultivating a dedicated clientele. Stephane is the master craftsman; he works away quietly eschewing unnecessary interactions - cutting, measuring, burnishing and beveling the sonorous wood. The violinist Camille stepping onto a cusp of musical greatness is involved in a romantic relationship with Maxime. All these details atleast the film is very much clear on.

The film also shows the extent to which Stephane is introverted; he shares a normal working relationship with only 3 people – his business partner Maxime, a book-seller Helene and a past mentor who is the closest to a father figure that Stephane can call upon. Stephane seems to understand himself but does not like what he reads in himself; that is his major orientation towards the external too – he understands but does not know what he ought to do. Stephane’s life gets shaken however when Maxime gets involved with Camille, and both move in together in a bid to cement their blossoming relationship. For a careful, precise person for whom his craft is his only life, this development creates the first uncharacteristic stirrings in Stephane’s bonded heart. Further developments follow when the normally unobtrusive Stephane steps into Camille’s life in small ways – attending Camille’s rehearsals and recordings, shooting long deep gazes – and Camille too finds herself getting attracted towards the quietness and seeming completeness of the violin-maker. Camille admits her new-found admiration in front of Maxime, and comes over to Stephane. All that has happened till now is conventional romance; what transpires after this point is a bit complicated.

Stephane rejects Camille’s love, explains that he does not love her and only wanted to get back at Maxime for some reason he does not fathom, leaving Camille devastated. In a canvas which seems to abjure passion and vivid displays of emotions, there is a cathartic outburst when Camille barges into one of Stephane and Helene’s usual coffee-table conversations in a café, and confronts Stephane for leading her on when he really had nothing to offer. A sad cycle of remonstrance, bitterness and ultimately, forgiveness involving all the 3 characters flows from all this mess. All these details the film lets us on gradually and sometimes, with stark clarity in tiny delicate moments.

This brings us to the parts where the movie apparently has nothing to communicate to the viewer. Camille who studied for a time under the same mentor as Stephane’s is described by the mentor as the “cold, polished girl who keeps others at a distance” and yet, she inexplicably falls for nothing more than the brooding, intense gazes of Stephane who is to remember, too closed to even venture an opinion in a conversation not involving violins. Somehow this strange attraction may be accepted for love is, if anything, quite inscrutable. However, the bafflement runs still deeper – there is a hint (and nothing else) of a past failed romance to partly explain Stephane’s regressive demeanour; the movie is curiously silent on why Stephane should harbor a resentment towards the suave, worldly Maxime (one can only laboriously infer that Stephane might be nursing a deep jealousy for the easy social grace with which the latter manages his business and his romance), and there is eventually, the added matter of the veneer of sterility in the relationships formed by the principal characters. Maxime (who is to a degree, self-seeking) is willing to leave his wife to live with Camille but is oddly undemonstrative of anything except an altruistic understanding of why Camille should opt for (again the not-obvious charms of) Stephane. The book-seller Helene who is obviously close to Stephane and confides about her love-life in him (in the hope of eliciting a romantic interest??), shares a platonic interest in Stephane’s ‘thing’ with Camille. So, there is Maxime who is obviously in love with Camille who in turn falls in love with Stephane who unfortunately, has no love for her. There is also Helene who may or may not be in love with Stephane. There is also a dense side-story involving the mentor and his lover, a merry but sometimes high-strung duo who may or may not be important in the scheme of things.

The high points of this movie notwithstanding the manner in which the characters sometimes interact, are the masterful performances of both Daniel Auteuil (as Stephane) and Emmanuelle Béart (as Camille). As the intensely private Stephane, Daniel lends great credulity to the hesitant, sometimes deep gazes with which his character views others and the world. One can always sense in any scene involving Stephane that the character is holding a part of himself back so that no one is able to completely perceive him or what he thinks. He is troubled yes, in an unseen way but he is also strangely assured in the way he goes about his trade or garnering the interest of Camille.

The character of Camille attracts a ready lampoon on the guileless but love-lorn woman who is taken for a ride and then unceremoniously discarded. This is where Emmanuelle as Camille, exhibits a singular portrayal of a woman who is scorned but save for that one moment in the café scene, never lacks in grace. Emmanuelle Béart is one of those true Pre-Raphaelite beauties with her long, slender swan-like neck, raven hair, expressive eyes that make one swim with headiness and perfect lips. She lends beauty to everything that she enacts in the movie; of particular mention is the absolutely rapturous manner in which she plays the violin. As she holds up the violin and screws her head slightly upwards, eyes half-closed in deep passion, she embodies the true fiery ornament of transcendental music. She embodies the emotion of love too, in that bridled but lush manner which is the hallmark of a true romance; there is a scene where Emmanuelle wonderfully masks the first flushes of emotion in a violin recital where Stephane directs steady, unflinching looks at her. She starts playing the violin, then becomes conscious of Stephane; there is a tiny imperceptible change in her posture, her music stutters, and she asks for a glass of water.

The perfectly assured manner in which Daniel and Emmanuelle act out their characters, obviously stems from the complete way in which they understood what their characters are and how they should behave. This makes me believe that there is a scope of re-interpretation into the story and the story’s characters, and a more complete understanding. For the moment though, this is a movie which sees some bits, misses a lot and explains little.

CineM’s Verdict:

Grandparents & Grandkids

Once there was an old man. You could say that he had a natural predisposition towards crankiness. He did not get along with most grown-ups but he had a granddaughter who stayed along with her parents in the house of her grandparents. And this granddaughter was the apple of her grandpa’s eyes.

Both grandfather and granddaughter would spend every available moment together playing, singing or going out for walks. At that time, the granddaughter could not have been more than 3 years old and she had just started playschool. Every morning before going off to school, she would rush over to her grandparents’ room, coax her grandfather out of bed and get him a glass of water. After she returned, both the old man and the young granddaughter would play their own peculiar games. One of the games was pretend-fishing, the duo would spread out pages of old newspapers on the living room floor; and then both grandfather and granddaughter would take out cane sticks with threads attached and pretend that the scattered paper was indeed fish, and proceed fishing. They would pretend to put their fish in a bag so that they could carry their catch home. Another game was bashing stuff; the old man would take out old cups of china, clay pots and other odds and ends of breakable stuff, and lay it out before the young kid like a veritable spread. The granddaughter would then pick up any object that caught her fancy and go thunk-thunk, disintegrating and scattering little bits of broken stuff all over the living room. All this noise and mess would anger the grandmother who would loudly admonish the frolicking duo. The grandfather would then reply, “She’s just a kid; she’s supposed to break things, It’s OK.”

One day while having his customary morning glass of water offered by the granddaughter, the old man was pointing out a lizard on the wall. He was talking to his granddaughter about the lizard and its life (what it ate, how he could grow back its tail even if it fell off, etc.) and walking towards the lizard, looking up and still holding his glass of water. He struck the arm of a chair and fell down on the floor. He took a nasty fall and the family took him to a hospital. The old man never returned home.

Sometime later the garlanded portrait of the old man was put up on a bureau in the grandparents’ old room. Every morning brought an inexplicable puddle of water on the bureau-top just beneath the portrait till the family found out what was causing it. You see, every morning before leaving off for school, the young granddaughter would still fill out a glass of water, stand up on a chair and hold it to her grandfather’s portrait. She would put the glass to her grandfather’s lips in the portrait and try to make him drink.

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: The Station Agent (2003)

Quiet, Real

Back in 2003, I was trudging through a dreary final year of my graduation; that same year however, Hollywood twirled, weaved and waltzed to give us two brilliant films on unlikely friendship and quietly-born intimacy. Both Sofia Coppola's ‘Lost in Translation’ and Thomas McCarthy’s ‘The Station Agent’ are understated and yet sparkling gems, unobtrusively exploring characters disparate in all respects but possessing a common intangible sense of loss or unfulfillment, and the uncommon friendship which evolves out of nothing more than a shared existence; in LIT’s case, of staying in the same hotel and in TSA’s case, of living in the same town.

It would be easy to reduce this movie’s story to one of the unlikely coming together of first a dwarf, second an energiser bunny who may be considered a festival of unaffected gregariousness, and third a single woman grappling with twin losses – that of a dead child and an approaching divorce. The slightly more challenging task is to see beyond the stereotypes which such characters usually attract, and take a peek into what makes them behave the way they do. Real-life ‘short person’ Peter Dinklage as the dwarf Finbar McBride, Bobby Cannavale as the hugely enthusiastic Joe Oramas operating a coffee-shop-on-wheels and always-perfect Patricia Clarkson as the hesitant Olivia Harris, are the people around whom the story revolves. Michelle Williams as the unsure but well-meaning local librarian (Emily) and cute Raven Goodwin as the sedate school-girl Cleo complete the delectable ensemble.

Intensely reclusive Fin moves from the city to a quiet town called Newfoundland in New Jersey (his lawyer helpfully informs him that “there’s nothing out there…nothing”), to take over a recent inheritance which is actually an abandoned train depot; what follows immediately his arrival is a portrait of quiet but rich mirth. Fin who must have inwardly rejoiced at the lawyer’s dismissive view of placid Newfoundland is met with an acutely polar reality. Picture Fin’s first day in Newfoundland – he goes over to Joe's mobile coffee-shop just outside his depot where he is treated to a morning cuppa accompanied by a relentless flow of friendly questions, and while on his way to the local convenience store, he is nearly run over by a distracted Olivia who apologises profusely and drives off, but nevertheless manages to narrowly avoid crushing Fin a second time while he’s on his way back. Fin’s lengthening stay in the depot is punctuated with all-too-familiar interactions with the indefatigable Joe who persists in plugging away at his reserve and the much quieter interactions with a naturally good-natured Olivia. Fin lets in the other two slowly into his quiet world of the train depot and trainspotting, and we are treated to an unhurried but very revealing slice of how the characters behave, and their motivations.

Writer-director Thomas McCarthy who is deeply interested it seems, in developing stories of unlikely friendships (in ‘The Visitor’, ‘Win Win’, ‘UP’) draws out such minute details of the characters (Fin walks mostly with his hands deep in his pockets and his head perennially held down) with a delicate touch. He builds the characters with a sure-footed intensity, and complements the tumult in the lives of his main characters with the flustered and needy inflections of the librarian Emily and directness of the only character in the cast un-afflicted with any inner struggles – that of Cleo, the young girl with frank questions and an open mind. I felt a clear identification with the characters; their completely real lives and the blossoming of a friendship which is honest and filled with actual warmth.

In a movie which is actually well-acted with just the right amount of expression and reserve, Bobby Canavale’s turn as the unflappable, ‘doesnt-take-no-for-an-answer’ blaze of energy is the real showstopper.  He actually bludgeons both Fin and Olivia with absolute open, warm human connect and wriggles his way into the lives of two very introverted people. Peter Dinklage brings out a real character tethered to his own sense of self and the perceptions so easily expressed, by others; in a life of either ridicule or absolute isolation, the way he has trained himself to be defensively reserved and the manner in which he is drawn out of his solitude by the gutsy friendliness and obvious interest of Joe and the similarly troubled and calling-for-help aura of Olivia, is slowly but clearly tapped into. The surprise in the package for me is Michelle Williams who even in that limited space gave ample proof of the quiet strength which she inherently brings to the characters she plays (like ‘Wendy and Lucy’, ‘Meek’s Cutoff’ among others).

This is one of those movies so sparsely-populated with characters and so thin on a plot, but very riveted on showcasing not ‘what is to happen’ but ‘what exists’. The 3 main characters so perfectly act out a lifetime of feelings in their performances, and convey so many little truths about grief, solitude, compassion and simple pleasures. By the time Fin, Joe and Olivia take their quiet leisurely stroll down the rail tracks in picturesque New Jersey, I very much wanted to be there on that walk with them too.

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: