It's a luxury I haven't enjoyed in a while now, but the optimist in me (like most protagonists in Ray's movies) knew that bad times don't last forever. Kishor's Kahan Tak Yeh Man Ko flashes though the head and Youtube makes a reality out of what a friend had once said was the reason for the banality of life - the lack of live playback music, like in escapist Indian cinema. The luxury, by the way, is wondering what to do on a sunny Saturday morning.
Talking of Indian cinema, just saw Slumdog Millionaire, yeah yeah, I know it was actually a British film set in Bombay, but you get my drift. I liked it, but didn't think it is the #44 top movie of all time as IMDB and most people are making it out to be. I was pissed off with all the dirt shown initially, bringing back memories of arguments with "fundamentalist" friends about the ongoing propaganda of the West to show only the dark side of India, but I thought it was paid off well in this film towards the end. The ode to The Man was amazing and my American friends raised eyebrows as I told them that an non-fanatic like me would also entertain such thoughts at that age if He was around. "Yeah Police Station Hai, Tumhare Baap Ka Ghar Nahin". Wah! Wah! Also, what emotionally stirred me was the way the whole country stopped and got behind the protagonist as he was on the threshold of everything he hadn't dreamed of.
I'll stop before this turns into a rambunkcious movie review. It's probably cliched and like most Indians, I am genetically programmed to appreciate Ravi Shankar after a certain age and subsequently use the sitar in my films, and get panned by critics, but I can't get over his "Essential Ravi Shankar" that I just bought in Calcutta's College Street. I like the fast, happier numbers. The sarangi is more adept in doling out sad melancholism IMO.
Sometimes I just want to run away to the French countryside and make Indian New Wave cinema. Just saw some Jacques Tapi (sp?) films in Calcutta, and they all reinforce what Trauffaut and even a modern film like Amelie suggest about French cinema - beauty in simplicity, much like our own Hrishida, but with better lighting and better camera work! A regret in life - to be Hrishida's DP.
White noise is a random signal (or process) with a flat power spectral density. In other words, the signal's power spectral density has equal power in any band, at any center frequency, having a given bandwidth. White noise is considered analogous to white light which contains all frequencies.
Who am I?
- ArSENik
- Neo-hippie cinephile. Follower of the great Jim Morrison who once said "If the doors of perception are cleansed, everything would appear to man as it truly is, infinite."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
7 comments:
good read. Were you in India or Cali when you wrote this?
Thanks. Wrote this yesterday, in my sun-pecked room in LA.
Kolkata kobe geli? Now I'm jealous! Me LOVED Slumdog. These days any movie that can hold on to my attention span in its entirety gets two thumbs up from me. I didn't care they showcased all the dirt - its obvious western filmmakers are going to use it to their advantage but as you said, the ending was not grim and as a movie it was well shot, had a solid story and was very entertaining.
It was far too short of a December trip - 3 places in 15 days.
By the end of the movie, I didn't care about the dirt since they paid it off by showing reality - that India has progressed to this giant business monster today. So, hopefully, I won't have to bump into young Chinese men who only perceive India as a land of snake-charmers (yeah, still happens!).
I thought the movie slowed down a bit towards the end of the second act and the beginning of the third. Loved the ending!
After a long longgg time , finally, a text-post and not a short -film that I would have to sulkily avoid because of my download-ceiling. Good that you are writing again.
The Indian New Wave! Darooon! You be our JLG then!
About SLumdog, its just a very "clever film" as Greatbong says and little else. Had my twopence to say about it in my post. Felt almost like a compulsion from within to vent.
You a Truffaut fan ? Only watched 400 Blows and liked it.
I have also only seen Truffaut's 400 Blows and was literally blown away, but I have also caught glimpses of scenes from some of his other films, all of which reaffirm his quote, which I can't remember exactly right now, but it is something about the beauty of simplicity in cinema.
I thought slumdog was awesome. and its not thaat dirty (leastaways not for someone living in bombay).
BOLTOK.
Post a Comment