Paradise Now

How can the occupier be the victim?
asks Said, in the closing moments of Paradise Now.

Said and Khaled are walking time bombs. With explosives strapped to their bodies, the two young Palestinians plan to slip into Israel, to execute a suicide mission in Tel Aviv. But as plans go haywire, the two are separated due to circumstances. They both end up running into Suha, daughter of a martyr and human rights activist, at different times and known to both of them. Suha upon knowing their intention, tries valiantly to convince them.

Two conversations from Paradise Now, that make amply clear that there are no easy answers. Or maybe, no answers.

Said tells Suha about how they burnt a cinema hall as teenagers during a demonstration.

Suha asks, Why the cinema?
Said replies, Why us?

While they’re trying to find Khaled, Suha scolds Khaled -
There’s no paradise. Its all in your head.

Only for Khaled to reply -
Its better having a paradise in your head than living in hell.

Towards the end, Khaled persuades Said to abandon the mission as its stupidity and would end up achieving nothing. Said agrees, only to betray Khaled at the pivotal moment, and choosing to go it alone. Khaled and Said, in a metaphorical sense, stand as the two choices available to Palestinians living today.

Paradise Now tries to tell us that there’s really not much of a choice. You can choose to accept humiliation and poverty, thus inviting more oppression. Or use your body as a weapon and blow up people, and allow an excuse for oppression.
In terms of choice, one is no better over the other. Either way, you’re fucked up. Its an endless, vindictive cycle which is beyond control.

Paradise Now is a sensational film – at once touching, haunting and terrifying.

Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless

Modern movies begin here, Roger Ebert famously wrote in his review of this cult 1960 film that changed the face of cinema forever.

I watched Breathless for the fourth time yesterday in less than a year. The first time I saw it, it did not make a great impact on me. It’s only because directors over the years, especially action filmmakers, have done that sort of thing so many times. I couldn’t see what was so special about it, and I hadn’t watched any New Wave cinema either. Later as I became enamoured with another New Wave film, Truffaut’s masterpiece, The 400 Blows, and began to read on the movement, I realised Breathless’ seminal contribution to modern cinema.

However, it is one thing to admire a film, and quite another thing to love it. I’ve admired the craft and diligence of movies like Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai and Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane. But they do not evoke the intensity of emotion in me, like perhaps Meirelles’ City of God or that Scorsese masterpiece, Taxi Driver. Breathless, I thought, would forever belong to the former category, of movies I admire but don’t really feel much about.

However, Breathless began to surprise me. I watched it again, about six months after I’d watched it the first time, and began to fall in love with it. And since then, ever since I’ve gone back, I’ve found something new. Its crackling humour and wit, the overriding narcissism of its lead characters and the constant playing with pop culture archetypes make it a hell of a ride every time I see it.

My favourite scene remains the conversation between Michel and Patricia in her apartment. It is a long scene, more than fifteen minutes long. It was particularly praised for using cinema to portray life in a realist sense. And really, it is how two lovers would talk. You don’t feel that they are speaking dialogues, which was precisely Godard’s aim. He famously wrote on the sets, and placed the actors in situations and improvised from there on.

It also brings to the fore, the modern urban existentialist crisis. Both characters are talking about themselves, and in a way to themselves. This narcissism is evident throughout the film, everything being expressed in self-centred terms. Towards the end, Patricia sums it up well – When we talked, you talked about yourself, I talked about myself, when we should have talked about each other.

There are more memorable moments. Patricia, a journalist, goes to a press conference to interview a novelist, played by Jean-Pierre Melville and I find the dialogue here fascinating.

Can one believe in love in these times?
Love is all one can believe in.

What is important in life?
Two things.
For men, women.
For women, money.

What is your greatest ambition in life?
To become immortal, and then die.

And yet other little, endearing moments throughout, the hallmark of a truly great work of art. Breathless’ radical techniques of using jump cuts and hand-held cameras to shoot introduced an entirely different way of making movies. It is amusing to think now that both these revolutionary facets were brought about by necessity. Godard found the movie 30 minutes too long and chopped off anything he found boring, leading to the jump cuts. And the hand-held camera innovation occurred because they didn’t have enough money for sophisticated equipment.

Godard, the daring auteur of the 1960’s, went on to make more great films, like the hilarious Bande a part(1964) and Alphaville(1965).

It would be safe to say though, that Breathless remains the film that defined him. Its the most passionate liaison with his great obsession, the cinema.

Spidey and America

At the end of the first Spider-Man movie, we see the webcrawler next to the American flag just before the closing credits roll. Its long been established that Spider-Man is the defender of the American way of life, the so-called traditional values of freedom and justice. Did you think the maroon suit with shades of blue was just a coincidence?

In the first two movies, we see Spider-Man reinforcing that reality. In a post 9/11 world, Spider-Man’s success is also because, as Chad Kroeger said, a hero can save us. The franchise revels in creating a paranoia about the stability of American institutions, and exploits that insecurity deeply embedded in the people’s psyche.

In reality, American military might replaces the sense of security and comfort that Spider-Man provides in the fictional New York and the world of The Daily Bugle. Since the Second World War, America’s been involved in constant military conflict with some nation or the other. America’s always under threat, its always the target of numerous enemies hostile to the American Dream.

And when enemies are not present, American pop culture ensures they are created. A nation continually on the lookout for new enemies finds them, bigger and imaginative, in science fiction and comic superheroes. Spider-Man as defender of the American Dream is extremely assuring, its like America needs to be conscious of its own enormous power to feel safe. Then whether the enemies are real or fictional, it hardly matters.

(And what happens when Spidey turns bad? Answer – Spidey turns conservative. In Spider- Man 3, he struggles to overcome the evil permeating within him and finds it hard to get rid of his black suit. He is finally able to succeed inside a cathedral. In a subtle event, the makers are trying to woo the conservative, deeply religious American audience , especially the Midwest. Spidey may not be fervently religious, but it is religion that helps him overcome evil.)

Mississippi Burning

Early in Mississippi Burning, there is a great tracking shot of a car on a desolate highway, disappearing from sight and reappearing as it negotiates the slopes on the road. A few moments later, there is a sideways shot that captures the hugeness of the landscape as a lone moving vehicle races by. The scene is filled with terror and impending doom, the eerie setting exacerbates the rippling tension boiling beneath the surface. Later immediately, as we come to know, the three civil rights activists in the car are shot dead.

The sudden disappearance of three civil rights activists threatens to spark widespread riots as the FBI launches an investigation. The two agents at the forefront of the investigation are Agent Anderson(Gene Hackman) and Agent Ward(Willem Dafoe). The ensuing investigation brings us to the heart of the crisis – a biased administration, a deeply segregated society, a partisan police – all state structures in place to subjugate the Negro.

The opening scene as the credits roll shows two washbasins (in what is presumably a washroom) with a signboard above them saying White and Colored. It is a brilliant expression of the reality of segregation in the United States in the 1960’s, the period in which the movie is set. The emphasis on fire remains throughout, the clinicality of the Klan rioters, their cold bloodedness is terrifying and chillingly realistic. Then there is the brilliant scene in which Anderson(Hackman) drops one of the suspects Lester into a black neighbourhood after questioning him in a car. It shows how fears can be easily replaced, how the bravado or domination of a certain community is nothing but a mere strength of numbers. Lester runs back as fast as he can, his Klan demeanour is nowhere to be seen. The best scene is however when Anderson interrogates Deputy Sheriff in his brusque manner in the barber shop – this is one of those rare moments in cinema that can raise your knuckles.

Gene Hackman as Agent Anderson is absolutely superb. His mordant sense of humour, irreverence for procedures and rules, and his conclusion on baseball (Its the only place where a black man can wave a stick at a white man and not start a riot) is endearing and poignant. In a way, his lack of apparent seriousness offers a deeper analysis into the incorrigibility and pervasiveness of racist mindsets in the South than all of Agent Ward’s (Dafoe) positioning as a serious man with serious concerns. The supporting cast has been well-etched out, each small character representing a distinct reality. The tense score adds to the ever accumulating sense of fear, and is a major asset to the film.

However Mississippi Burning suffers from similar ills as afflicts other serious Hollywood cinema. The tendency to make the characters speak perfect lines sometimes dilutes the realism. The scene in which Mrs Pell (Frances McDormand) tells Anderson about how racist mentalities are assimilated from the age of six is hard-hitting, yet could have been more real had the conversation allowed to become more natural. The theatrical touch has the impact, but harms the realism. This is a common tendency in Hollywood arthouse cinema in its urge to play to the galleries, and it is here I feel European cinema is a little more subtle in its treatment. But the high tone of narrative works in Mississippi Burning because of the indubitable honesty and the graphic power of the images.

Mississippi Burning is a must watch. It is a hard-hitting, powerful motion picture about one of the most tumultous times in American history.

Taxi Driver

Watched snatches of Martin Scorsese’s 1976 classic Taxi Driver yesterday, one of my all time favourite movies. I once recommended the movie to a cousin and she hated it, and since then, never takes any of my recommendations.

Some thoughts on the movie (hoping this would change her mind and she would again take my recommendations seriously).

Martin Scorsese’s brand of cinema, is according to me, very close to legendary filmmaker Francois Truffaut’s belief that art is a reflection of life than anything else. (Truffaut going on to say that he was more interested in the reflection of life than life itself). In this kind of cinema, all barriers between cinema and reality are sought to be broken – cinema must mirror reality as much as possible. This is usually best done in an outdoor surrounding, since cinematic realism is at its best when the environments the characters inhabit are seen to be influencing and shaping their actions. Scorsese’s 1973 movie Mean Streets and Truffaut’s 1960 classic The 400 Blows, as most of the French New Wave cinema, focus on outdoor surroundings rather than studio settings, for the cinematic effect to be as real as possible.

In Taxi Driver, this is more than evident – the filth, grime and the noise of the streets of New York has an significant effect on Travis Bickle’s (Robert De Niro) mind. When asked by Charles Palantine(the candidate running for President) what he most detests about New York, he is quick to say that the filth ‘really pisses him off.’ Another theme central to Taxi Driver is the theme of urban alienation, which is about the cold and distant attitude that is slowly absorbing urban society. This attitude is partly due to the rising individualism in urban life, whose downside is the increasing loneliness faced by individuals, as Travis (Robert De Niro) faces. It is an interesting fact that Travis has no close friends, apart from a few acquaintances he meets sometimes at the cafe.

The movie had the famous punchline – On every street in every city, there’s a nobody who dreams of being a somebody. This is closely related to class, and Taxi Driver portrays a certain snobbishness arising out of a deeply class stratified society. Travis’ effort to transgress those class boundaries by asking out Betsy(Cybill Shepherd) ends in failure. It confronts him with the brutal truth of rigid class reality and Travis concludes – ‘She was like all the rest, cold and distant.’

Travis slowly starts becoming paranoid and obsessed with becoming a man of some importance. The anonymity of being a taxi driver has become claustrophobic. As the plot progresses, he eventually ends up busting a crime and prostitution ring and elevating himself to a small time hero. In the last scene of the film, Betsy hires his cab for a short distance and clearly aware of Travis’ feat, her perception of Travis is now completely different. Yet Travis is now a content man, and he does not ask out Betsy – which is as much an acceptance of the irreconciliation of class hierarchies as it is about self-respect.

Taxi Driver owes most of its success to the genius of two men – Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro – an enduring partnership that has produced eight films to date. Robert De Niro’s brand of method acting became famous with this picture – he drove a taxi cab all around New York to prepare for the role just after winning an Oscar for The Godfather Part 2. It also launched Scorsese into the big league, earning him an Oscar nomination.

Taxi Driver is a seering indictment on the decadence of urban life, and its relevance remains undiminished.

For God’s sake, give one to him now

Martin Scorsese has been nominated for Best Director at the Academy Awards. Once again. This is the sixth time Scorsese will be walking the red carpet in anticipation of holding the golden statuette. Scorsese has created cinematic masterpieces like Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Mean Streets – and it beats me how he never won an Oscar for those movies. In recent years, he has dabbled in different genres of cinema such as historical drama (Gangs of New York) and biopic (The Aviator) – both attempts won him Oscar nominations. With The Departed, he again returns to his forte – exploring the underbelly of society.

For more than 30 years, Scorsese has been tireless and indefatigable, and his body of work already confirms him as one of the greatest directors of all time. The Departed may not be his greatest work, yet his Oscar is long overdue. Give it for Taxi Driver, Mean Streets and Raging Bull.

(Without him, the world may never have known Johnny Boy – and the genius of Robert De Niro).

Rocco and His Brothers

There’s something about black and white cinema that is magical. Black and white cinema portrays an era that was exactly the same – the times of innocence , and when the black and white had not receded into grey.

Therefore it was with some wonder that I watched Rocco and His Brothers – a 1960 Italian classic – and was amazed by the fact that it deals with the same themes of lost innocence. Directed by the legendary Luchino Visconti, it tells the story of four Italian brothers who leave their country home and move to bustling Milan in search of a better fortune. The story unravels at its own languid pace and how this once cohesive family rips itself apart.

The themes may seem often repeated – the schism between the poor, pristine village and the rich, crooked city. But the emotional upheaval of entering a huge city and its impact on the newly arrived migrants is pictured with astute judgement and directorial vision.
Alain Delon plays the gentle, idealistic Rocco with superb intensity. Renato Salvatori as the savagely jealous and wild Simone is brilliantly edgy.

In more ways than one, Rocco and His Brothers is a story of lost innocence. It speaks of a destruction of old values such as the importance of family overrun by the torrent of individuality that the city encourages. Even a Christ-like figure like Rocco is unable to keep the family cohesive which reflects the decadence of age-old Christian moral values. Values like trust and togetherness that hold no meaning in a ruthless urban world and is inevitably leading the way for change of ethics and values in the countryside.

Rocco and His Brothers talks about a world that is slowly losing its innocent charm – and its cinema at its finest.

A New Way for Indian Cinema

I watched Rang De Basanti again last week. The critical merits of this phenomenally successful motion picture have been debated endlessly. While watching it again, I recalled again why it had become the roaring success that it had – neatly etched out script, taut narrative, superb characters, brilliant acting, rocking music and authoritative direction. But it went beyond just being a popular hit. It tapped into a reservoir of frustration of the youth with the polity of the country. It further metamorphosed into a common man’s ideal solution for the removal of the ills plaguing the state – getting rid of the unscrupluous politician. We all have seen umpteen number of forgettable Hindi movies ending with the murder of the corrupt politician/businessman etc.

Yet the movie does not conclude there. It recognises the ills plaguing the country are deep rooted. Rang De Basanti portrays the reality of urban India and its reluctance to participate in the socio-political domain. The swift solution of the minister’s assassination offers the protagonists no sense of justice and in precisely this predicament’s lies Rang De Basanti’s triumph. It does not play the blame game all the way. It asks the citizens, especially the youth, to seize control and take matters in their own hands in a different way, by getting their feet in the mud to clean the mess. The movie’s success proves the message has been received resoundingly, followed by the life-imitating-art scenes on India Gate.

Consequently, Rang De also shows us a new way for Indian cinema. Bollywood remains the last frontier which has not been completely swamped by the big brothers in Los Angeles. Rang De proves that Bollywood must remain as robust as ever and we should continue making movies the way we want rather than surrendering our unique style of cinema for that elusive Oscar.

Munich

Watched a movie after a long time and was glad the choice was Munich. Though Spielberg didn’t land any Oscars for this one, I think it ranks along with Spielberg’s very best. Munich has a detached quality to it, and you get the feeling that Spielberg does not relate to the insane violence. That precisely is the motive of his directorial treatment.

Munich portrays violence indifferently and yet the impact is not lost, and in that lies Spielberg’s genius. The emotional intensity of Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List is lacking and is instead replaced by a gradual evolution of violence into complete absurdity, defying all logic. Spielberg has dealt with these themes before – the absurdity of human animosity and violence. Yet nowhere has he made them so central to the theme as in Munich. It reflects a more mature perception of the world through which he has finally come to grips with the reality of despair.

What sets the movie apart from his earlier movies is a departure from optimism – Munich offers no hope to the world we inhabit. A world paralyzed by violence, and the madness of its irreversible continuity. You get the feeling while watching the movie that Spielberg directs the relentless violence with a feeling of helplessness – a brutal, vicious circle that has spiralled out of his control.

As Avner, the lead protaganist unable to come to terms with normal life after spending years trying to hunt down Palestinians and being hunted in return, prophetically sums it up towards the conclusion, “There’s no peace at the end of this.”

Poignant cowboy love and cinematic magic

Ever since I watched Brokeback Mountain yesterday, I have been thinking about it.

There is something about Brokeback Mountain, which makes it linger in your memory, in your subconscious. It is the story of two cowboys Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist who meet while looking for work and are required to herd sheep together in the loneliness of the Wyoming countryside. Through monotonous dinners and forlorn horse rides, they gradually develop intimacy and camaraderie. A night of biting cold leads to sexual passion in a scene resounding with the looming threat of violence and comic intimacy.

Jack and Ennis go their separate ways, get married and lead blissful domestic lives until a postcard arrives. It is from Jack who plans to drop by on his way. This meeting leads to a resurrection of all the emotion that had been bolted inside. It leads to short, sporadic and spontaneous fishing trips to Brokeback Mountain where no fish are caught. It is a relationship that can only be built in isolation, beyond societal and familial alienation.

Brokeback has the rare quality of great art that relies on portrayal rather than elucidation. In fact, I felt momentarily that the movie would have done without dialogue at all, minimal as it is (apart from the now famous line I wish I knew how to quit you). Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal are simply stunning, so is the score by Gustavo Santaolalla, along with Ang Lee’s commanding and sensitive direction.

All the hype surrounding the movie seems justified. It is portrayed as a pathbreaking tale about homosexual relations, a coming-of-age gay cowboy movie. But more than anything, the movie is about love. About two people Jack and Ennis, who feel, who laugh, who cry like we do and this indistinguishable perception makes Brokeback believable, real and heartbreakingly poignant.

Stirring performances, haunting score and gripping images make the movie a masterpiece. Though a certain Academy might have given Best Picture to Crash (or was it Trash?), it is Brokeback Mountain that will stand the test of time.