Day 7 - Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara

Film # 7 - Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011)

A just-released Bollywood movie for a change! Surely not the stuff of Ebert's greatest films list! Yet, for someone who watched his share of Bollywood Hindi movies growing up, only to start despising and ignoring most of the lot once acquiring some cinematic sense, ZNMD (as it's sure to be called) was a mildly pleasant surprise. Having not seen a complete Bollywood movie at a theater or on small-screen in many years, I was prepared for the same old-same old. And I found that, yes, it is the same old in spirit but quite improved in technique, style and presentation. 

With a pretty standard, Bollywood coming-of-age story of three buddies on a journey to find themselves, plot (how many variations of this same plot has Bollywood made in the last decade? Dil Chata Hai? 3 Idiots? there must be tons of others), ZNMD is hardly original or convincing. The characters are types who play their assigned roles. The emotional depth is more like a plateau, mostly forced and insincere. Even Imran's back-story of an absent father seems to have been imagined for exactly the purpose: to make the story "deep." It works only to the extent that the director has learned not to try the old Bollywood trick of dragging the emotional chord too hard. Imran learns to let go as he is supposed to, very easily, very quickly. Nice. The other two idiots learn their life lessons also very easily, very quickly as they are supposed to. But the "theme," or "story," or "the what" is not what this movie is about. It is all about the "style" or the "how."  

And on that score this movie shows the increasing technical and stylistic improvements of some current movies over standard Bollywood fare. The movie is nicely shot, the point being to show the beauty of Spain and the locales of the movie. The characters love Spain; the audience is supposed to love the vistas. The camera lingers on and on and on when it finds a lovely geographical or natural landscape. Yet, for the most part the editing is decisive and effortless except for occasional hiccups, like when the song "Senorita" begins, which comes out of nowhere. The director has taken care to present the sense of detail, the wardrobe, the sets, the lighting etc. Every  little detail has been taken care of. There is no problem with the production values.

The way the technical and presentation money seems to have been spent, budget doesn't seem to be an object; just shows how rich Bollywood has become compared to even 10 years before. Therefore, more than ever, Bollywood movies such as this, are in the business of selling dreams. They want the audience in the theaters around India and the South Asian diaspora, to experience Spain as the characters do. The first ambition of the movie is the blind the audience with vicarious pleasure of the beauty, adventure and fun that is Spain and its cultural and adventure offerings. In that regard, the audience gets its money's worth. 

Now hopefully, in the coming years and decades some slice of Bollywood will grow up and learn its own coming-of-age lessons, just like its characters do, and start to invest its money in writing talent to make films which explore deeper themes and present characters who are not just types, whose fates are consequential and molded by their own choices and personal change is not easy or quick but messy and incomplete. Just like Imran, Kabir or Arjun, Bollywood might let go of their easy tropes and dare to grow up.    

Day 6 - The 400 Blows

Film # 6 - The 400 Blows (1959)

It has been a few days of missing posts but that doesn't mean that I haven't been keeping up with my 30 days of cinema plan. I have watched four more films in the last three days and the best of them has been The 400 Blows. Directed by Francois Truffaut, this "new-wave" mainstay is beautiful visually, touching emotionally and yet very unsentimental.

The 400 Blows refers to the trials (literally, "hell raising") of a young adolescent boy, Antoine, living in Paris in the '50s with his mother and step-father, who view him as a problem child. In school he is similarly hounded. In trying to cope with such difficulties the boy rebels and is sent to live in a juvenile corrections center from where he manages to escape. That is the story. So what is it about? It is about the how the neglect of parents and teachers, the adults, of the needs and talents of a boy forces him to find his own path in life. Of course, he becomes an outcast but that is just his way of dealing with the neglectful reality.

The style of the film is the unsentimental capturing of Antoine's progressive transgressions and punishments. The director focuses on the comedic aspects of schooldays and the impressions of the adolescents regarding their teachers and parents. The boys are resourceful and know how to keep themselves amused and happy even in the face of abuse. The details of their childish rebellion and rule-breaking are shown in all the romantic, nostalgic glory they deserve. The parents are appropriately aloof and caught up in their own affairs, literally so in the case of the mother. While they might try to help the child, their commitment is lacking and insufficient. 

Of course, the child has to find a way to survive on a day to day basis. Yet, as a viewer you expect or hope that the early lapses are just growing pains, that Antoine and his parents will find a way to fix the kid, that he will manage to get through. That hope doesn't materializes as his supposed sins or crimes become more heavy, so that he becomes the problem and also the property of the vastly more impersonal state. Neglect from the parents, abuse from the teachers, lead finally to the active punishment by the state. What is a boy, a child to do in such circumstances? How does this particular boy react to such reality? As a viewer, you sympathize with the child, obviously and hope he gets by okay. The ending seems to suggests that he might just be the lucky one who does get by, somehow. 

One of the best so far in my cinema journey.

Day 4/5 - Gone with the Wind

Film # 5 - Gone with the Wind (1939)

Clocking in at about four hours, this is long. I had to watch this classic American epic in two sittings. In the middle, around the intermission, I thought the film was overly long, especially since the story seemed to lose direction and the plot lurched on the whims of the protagonist, Scarlett O'Hara. But by the fourth hour, the characters and the ambience seemed so familiar that I felt like I had been living in their world, of the American Civil War and Reconstruction, for some time. This film by its sheer breadth and largeness of scope takes you there.

A story about the life of a Southern plantation family and its members before, during and after the Civil war, Gone with the Wind, was the first American epic. So much has been written about this film, articles, reviews, analyses, and books, that no review is attempted here. For someone watching for the first time seventy years after the production and release, all that can be recounted is the viewing experience and the obvious, early impressions.

One first notices the vividness and contrast of the early color print, which is highlighted by the studio settings and the screen painted backgrounds. In many scenes there are shadows dancing on the wall. There are silhouettes in front of the colorful backgrounds. So the film, for today's audience, harkens back to the old filmmaking where the stage was the studio and not the location. In some ways this makes the feel of the film more majestic. The dialogue and conversation is also strange to today's audience. The actors deliver their lines as if they are soliloquies, at times as if they are facing a theatre audience. The manner of conversation itself takes some getting used to but slowly gets easier to follow and like.

The plot is convoluted and digressive but is held together by the two lead characters, Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler. The Civil War and Reconstruction are the main sources of external conflict but it is Scarlett whose actions move the story forward. And what active woman she turns out to be! She lives here life without much doubt, she takes initiative and makes life changing decisions on a split-second. Her first two marriages are both quick decisions, not based on love but for profit, emotional and financial. But Scarlett seems to meet her match with Captain Butler, who is the one character in the film who has the most fun in every situation. His profound declaration is nothing but perfect: "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!" That motto sums up his worldview quite well. And it is Scarlett's relationship with Captain Butler that carries the film.

Day 3 - Rabbit-Proof Fence

Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002)

Based on a historically tragic episode of racism and injustice in the name of "progress" perpetrated by the white settlers on the Australian aboriginal population, Rabbit-Proof Fence is a heart-warming tale of a long journey to freedom undertaken by a young half-aboriginal girl.


It is 1931 and a stern Mr. Neville is in charge of handling "half-caste" aboriginal children, which involves separating (stealing/ kidnapping?) these kids from their families in the bush and taking them to a faraway camp community. "The native must be helped in spite of himself," he says utterly convinced of his mission. The law that was passed to "help" the natives is based on simple eugenics, as Mr. Neville explains to a group of white housewives: it only takes three generations to white blood to turn a half-case entirely white.  No wonder the aborigines willfully mis-pronounce his name as "Mr. Devil."


Once collected at the camp the kids, these "natives" and "savages," are taught the rites of "civilization"-- basically, the English language to speak, utensils to eat, Jesus and Mary to pray -- all the while showing complete subservience to the nuns, who begin their harsh training by literally scrubbing the native out of the children's flesh. Those who dare to run away to try and return to their loving families are quickly apprehended by experienced trackers, brought back and mercilessly punished.


We get to witness and experience this historical reality through the eyes of a fourteen year old half-caste girl, Molly, who is snatched along with her baby sister and cousin to be sent to the camp. Her sheer determination and her skills on the bush come in handy when she runs away along with her baby sister and cousin to embark on the more than 1200 miles journey back home to the comfort of their mother and family. One can't help but root for her success in making it back through the treacherous landscape along the rabbit proof fence, predatory informants along the way and the crafty tracker on her trail. The fact that in this one rare instance the girls are able to evade the evil forces and complete the journey makes her a true hero.


Of course, one understands how many others must have suffered same cruel fates but neither possess Molly's determination nor blessed with the twists of happy accidents. For those wronged and unlucky thousands - the "stolen generations" - a life of eternal servitude as domestics or worse, as sex slaves, awaited after the camp.

Technically the movie is well made with little touches of brilliance. Especially well treated is the vastness of the Australian continent, the barren landscape, where the girls must travel.  Those sweeping vistas of woods and hills and praire and desert filmed from above look as isolated, dangerous and unending as Molly must have encountered them in her darkest hours. She must overcome not just the personal wrongs of white settler history but the impersonal vastness of the Australian geography.

Day 2 - Dog Day Afternoon

Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

The film begins with a montage of mundane vistas of a day in New York City. There are cars on the road, people on the street and people are going about their business - a regular day. Then we witness a bank robbery, very realistic and quite very regular, very ordinary, at first. However, the straight forward robbery turns into a hostage drama and that's when we get the extraordinary - the whole city seems to come to a standstill, the entire NYPD and the FBI seem to converge at the scene, the TV networks and reporters are breathless as ever, a big crowd surrounds the crime scene, chanting and jeering, as if taking part in this diversion to pass their boring day. 

It is Al Pacino as Sonny, the leader of the two bank robbers, who commands one's attention. Watching this film for the first time now, more than 35 years later and with Pacino mythos firmly in head, it is quite a thrill to see his young self throw himself fully into the role. Sonny shows craziness in his eyes at one moment and kindness the next. He is a showman, inciting the crowd against the police, needling them. He is the mastermind of the crime, with his prior experience having worked in a bank but though steadfast, still a novice in planning the robbery and then the hostage negotiations. His partner-in-crime Sal thinks Wyoming is a good country for escape. While Sonny is not that naive, his plan of escaping to Algeria seems quite uninformed. 

It is Sonny's personal relationships and his backstory that leads up to the fateful attempted robbery that gives the emotional thrust of the story. His wife is a constant nag who doesn't let him say a word. His parents, especially his mother, need his monetary support and give haranguing in return. As he says, he has all these "pressures" of money and emotion because of which he is "dying in here." 

Yet, the main motivation for Sonny's pressures is not only unique but quite surprising: that this gun-totting, foul mouthed, Vietnam vet is a gay man who is compelled to rob the bank to help his male "wife" get a sex-change operation. Sidney Lumet, the director, introduces this strange element of Sonny's life so matter-of-factly and so precisely that there is no artificiality in the story. Some cops laugh, the crowd starts to jeer their previous hero and a gay crowd chants Sonny's name, but the story moves on because for the film as in real that this is just one new strange discovery on this already quite strange day.

I wondered if this film hadn't been based on a true story, what would people make of Sonny's homosexual motivations. But as is said, truth is stranger than fiction. In this fictionalized true story ("30% true," as Wikipedia reports) all the parts fit, the progression is natural and believable and so very engrossing.

Day 2 - Manhattan

Manhattan (1979)

In one word, Manhattan is: beautiful! Yes, this a romantic comedy with Woody Allen and his trademark neurosis and rat-a-tat dialogue and multiple relationships and divorces and psychoanalysis and existentialism. But while all these hallmarks of Woody's trademark style are the parts, the sum of all that is nothing but beautiful. For those of us, who only know Woody Allen as a type, having not lived when he was first blazing the trail, it is easy to forget what a visionary creative artist he was. At least, we appreciate his wide ranging gifts by focusing on the beauty of Manhattan.

This film is about a middle-aged man, Issak, in New York City and his love life and relationships in the mid-1970s. He is a television writer and has been through two divorces and is currently dating a 17-year-old high school student. His best friend, Yale, is having an extra-marital affair with a quirky, intellectual and strange but attractive woman, played by Diane Keaton. The plot involves Issak's budding relationship with this woman after Yale suggests that he start dating her. To do that, he has to end his already-doomed relationship with the high-schooler. That pretty much sets up the story. But there is so much more within the plot.

First, there is the choice of black and white film which gorgeously covers Manhattan, the city is hues of black and light. Then there is the background score: jaunty, exciting and entirely fitting for each scene. The daily lives of Issak and his friends are highlighted by Gerschwin's melodies. Next, I loved the framing of the scenes, for example early in the movie we see Issak's nicer apartment where he climbs down a spiral stairs, and walks to a sofa in the far corner where he cuddles with his young lover under the lights. At the end of the scene, they walk back through the darkness to the spiral stairs, up and out of the room. So beautiful, the play of light and dark! The montages are awesome: Issak with his son; and the most beautiful and surreal sequence when Woody Allen and Diane Keaton visit the darkness within the planetarium, by the rings of saturn ("intergalactic love," Issak says later). Finally, the dialogues are fun and as quirky as you expect from Woody Allen. 

Overall, Manhattan is a perfect distillation of Woody's esthetic and beauty in screen. 

Day 1 - Night Moves

Day 1 - Night Moves (1975)

By some chance (a random pick out of 341 in Ebert's List) I happened to begin my 30 days' journey with Night Moves. Having never heard of this movie, the viewing experience was an act of discovery. As the story begins to unfold, one realize that it is one of those private detective stories - so it must be a suspense, one is led to believe. But as the story progresses, that initial recognition is both validated and challenged, because the meat of the plot is neither that of a classic suspense nor involves the thrill of final discovery. The original suspense, about a missing girl, is solved very early in the film and without much sense of finality.

What one is left with is the empathy for the lead character of the detective, played with easy gruffness and poise by Gene Hackman. Actually, Hackman's Mosley is what captures one's attention. He does well in playing the small-time private-eye who is fighting for the clues of the case along with his own personal setbacks. It has to be said that every other character is really well cast and played, especially the enigmatic character played by Jennifer Warren.

The story is hard to follow at times, especially towards the surprising finale, but the sparse and dark "noir" mood along with the fast pace of unfolding action and introduction of characters makes the journey interesting. The strange, bizzare interlude in the middle with Mosley in the Florida Keys with Warren is enigmatic for all the right reasons and the finale is quick, taut and dramatic.

But the story is all about Mosley who fails to find all the clues, about the case as well as about himself. The '70s noir feel of the movie is the other big selling point, if you are into that. The characters and the plot remains in one's mind well after the final credits. 

30 Days of Cinema

Back to this long dormant blog...and for the next thirty days with a radically different focus...hey, it's the summer! Anywho, in part inspired by the TEDtalks video by Matt Cutts (see attached video) about setting similar goal or plan, I have begun a marathon of 30 days of movies. The idea is to watch as many *good/great* movies as I can in a 30 day period (which began on July 12th). The only condition is that: All of the movies have to be available in Netflix streaming...I am not going to rent DVDs or wait for a DVD in the mail.

Good question: how do I know what are the *great* movies? Answer: I have a good sense of what kinds of movies I like...I hate summer blockbusters, most animations (yes, even those from Pixar), fantasies (no Harry Potters here), horror, gore and vampires (except Shaun of the Dead, which is great:). A stranger at Denny's once told me that the kinds of movies that I love the best are called "quiet dramas." I venture widely but that is an apt description of the best moves, IMHO. 

With that very subjective criteria in place, I think a good place to start looking for the best films is: Roger Ebert's list of great films in history! Why? Because Ebert is a respected movie critic who is not a snob and who likes regular, Hollywood movies. Besides, I got hooked on his journal and I truly admire him and his reviews. Reason enough. 

Now on to that is the format. I will watch as many movies as possible until August 11th 2011 ( I have seen three in the last couple of days since this thing started). For each movie that I watch, I will post a brief personal reaction of my impressions. Not a "review" - I will leave the professions to do that. Just personal reactions. In addition, I will try to post some trailers and other links about the movies whenever possible. 

Finally, you may ask what does this have anything to do with "muse~nepal" the blog and its stated mission? The simple answer is not a whole lot. The more complicated answer is that I have been sorely neglecting this blog for the last year, mostly because I was hamstrung about trying to make a sense of the Nepali political situation and feeling repeatedly frustrated by my inability to meaningfully engage with the issues of Nepali politics, society and culture. Rather than leaving the blog dormant and increasingly on the verge of death, I have decided to revive the space for this exercise. One hopes that by and by one will also get the inspiration and confidence to tackle the serious issue of Nepal's future with passion and clarity. In the meantime, cinema!