Blog Posts – Beyond Four Corners

Psycho – A parts-greater-than-whole spiritual slasher thriller.

“We take films for today’s audiences. But what stories are left to tell? There are only 36 plots to tell says Polti” – Mysskin

Before I get to explain the title, I must talk a little about my own experience watching this movie. I purposefully chose to watch a late night screening for what I knew was a slasher thriller. If you had asked me to go watch this movie, with a band of people, 6 years or 5 years ago, I would have said no. A year or two later, I would have agreed to go but largely turned away from the screens or blocked my ears to drown out the cackling voices and screaming. But today, I chose to go alone, sat there throughout the movie, blunter than ever. I did get jolted once or twice, but that was about it. It didn’t unnerve me. Contrarily, I felt glued to the screen more than ever.

My experience with Mysskin stretches far back to Yudham Sei, the plot of which I don’t remember even remotely, yet I distinctly remember that it was a blood-fest. Psycho was no different. But between these 6 or 7 odd years, I’ve realized that his films are often discarded at the surface level for being grotesque and gory. Mysskin himself says that he respects the individual right to an opinion in a democratic nation, but what kind of a criticism is – “The movie was good”; “The movie was boring”; “The movie had lots of blood and was engaging”. So, as to not disappoint him, I’ll endeavour to record my impressions with the minimal dexterity I possess.

Coming back to the title of my post, how can a slasher thriller be spiritual? The answer oddly lies in Mysskin’s own words. Psycho is the modern day rendition of the tale of Angulimala, the brigand who descended with his blood curling cry to sever the 1000^th finger in pursuit of a teacher’s task. But, as he descends from the hills to sever the 1000^th finger, he realizes he faces Buddha himself. Upon realizing that who stands before him is an incarnation of pure austerity, he drops to the ground and becomes a disciple of Buddha, and soon turns into a monk. Without a difference, Psycho’s protagonist is Gauthaman and the serial killer here is Anguli.

Psycho opens with a tribute to Hitchcock, both literally and visually. The very first scene of the movie, with rapid cuts, is reminiscent of Hitchcock’s Psycho and the famous shower scene. Mysskin wastes no time in setting up the movie, and the characters. We see that Gauthaman is blind, he pursues Dahini, a radio jockey for whom he harbours feelings. And after the amazing Unna Nenachu composed by Raja, things take a turn for the worse.

Throughout the film, the only thing I kept ruminating about at the back of my head was how well Mysskin crafts his images. He uses the long shots to perfection, and tracks with perfection, and edits his shots in such a water-tight way. There is an amazing scene with Ram, who now reposes at death’s table having accepted his fate. The scene opens with a wide shot, and we see both Dahini and Ram. As Dahini tries to reach out to Ram in vain, she realizes that she has been tethered to a very short leash, and splashes the little water she has on his face. This little interchange between two doomed characters is cut abrupt as the killer enters in his mechanical fashion and Dahini rescinds in fright back to her corner. Once the killer goes through his routine and raises his knife, Ram gently places a death request – Kadaisiya orey oru dadhava A.M Raja paatu onnu padikatuma? As Ram hums to an impending death, the camera slowly pans out to engulf the wimpering Dahini and as the knife falls, the cut to Dahini does to. It’s this melancholic poetry that defines Mysskin.

There are many such instances of this masterful craft in the film. The scene where Kamala and Gauthaman drive to rescue Dahini as the film reaches its soaring peroration reminds me of the shots of Lynch’s Lost Highway, and as the haunting Neenga Mudiyuma gives you the chills, Mysskin goes to a god’s eye shot that tracks the car as it moves across the winding road, in perfect darkness, with its headlights. Oddly, the way in which the characters were staring at the camera even reminded me a little of Clockwork Orange.

But where I really felt another tingling chord within was the crime scene of the first murder. As the police arrive in broad daylight to identify the decapitated corpse, the surroundings felt a tad similar to that of the opening sequence of Memories of Murder. I then realized that both films were centred on compulsive killers. But what, apart from the plot, makes the latter a more coherent whole than the Mysskin’s Psycho?

Memories of Murder, directed by Bong Joon Ho, focuses on a compulsive killer who nabs women to satiate a sexual drive, whereas Psycho focuses on a killer who kills to feed off the fear, and as he heaves the knife downwards, he siphons the fear he desires, through the eyes of his female victims. Both killers have a similar pattern but a different M.O. Although Bong went easy on the degree of grotesqueness, Mysskin is unabashed in his story. However, that still brings me back to my lingering question of what made the Korean film a more coherent whole?

Bong Joon Ho had progressed in a way that gave no room for frittering, visually or orally. His scenes have a definitive beginning, middle and end. Of course, no two filmmakers are to follow any manual to make a film. However, Mysskin in Psycho was more random. Sometimes you see, Ram humming and then you wonder why it was shown, or when certain conversations take place that seemingly lead forward, but exposes more details that don’t add to the plot, like a severed finger (although alluding to its mythological source), or even an unnecessarily long scene with an internet hacker, you wonder what these little details add to in the end. But that doesn’t take away any credit from Mysskin’s craft. There are instances when I felt an elevated sense of awareness and fright, almost as if his scenes were snippets of a Beethoven Symphony, moving quickly and elegantly, forming the most delightful parts of a lyrical cadence.

However, that lyrical cadence is a mixture of highs and lows. It’s almost like a bag of diamonds strewn across the floor that glisten under night lights when viewed individually, but don’t form any succinct pattern that plays out like a perfect orchestra from start to finish. Albeit, Mysskin hasn’t relinquished his ability to make you feel uneasy. As a personal anecdote, I’d cull out the staged scene with candles that didn’t try to appeal to the audience to empathize with the killer, but provided a glimpse into his tormented, pious childhood that was filled with torture and injunctions under the name of religion. The way the scene was staged was far more intimidating than any cut and slash scenes that could be inserted in a normal slasher thriller. That’s why I felt that even though the film had focused on the bloodshed, it still had a spiritual undercurrent to it through its mythological implication.

Psycho isn’t the finest addition to the grim, yet lyrical poet’s oeuvre but it certainly isn’t a weak one. I do feel that Mysskin is at his glimmering best when he treads the mystery-thriller genre but for a slasher-thriller that marks six glorious decades of a revelation in storytelling and editing, this eponymous film is profoundly mystical in its own cadence of highs and lows. It registers as a solid addition to an exciting year ahead for both international and domestic films.

Cinema is dying – But the Visual Medium will survive

It must have been a week ago, or two. I don’t remember. I was woken from my pseudo-slumber state by the climatic sequence of Darbar which surprisingly ended before someone could clasp their hands together in dread. Good toppled evil once again and for the sake of fan service, all logic has been defied. However, all that hero worship aside, as I trickled out of the screen with a friend of mine, I happened to notice how eerily empty the theatre was. Not because audiences where engaged in other shows. I could see them moving about in pairs or individually. The charm that permeates any theatre seemed to be almost non-existent. That’s when I willingly, or unwillingly, slipped into wistful longing of the days that I spent going to the screens when I was naive and young.

Rappelling back to early 2010’s and the years that preceded it, therein lies those festive trips to the theatre, which were treated as family outings once a week or twice a week depending on what was showing. There were movies that fascinated me, and movies that lulled me to sleep. But in spite of the state of affairs within the theatre, the allure of the structure that is perched so invitingly is what kept me craving to go back for more. The prolonged fade of the lights until only the screen is visible. When the visages next to you become the resting place of restless eyes that scan the dimensions of the screen. When the friends and family next to you become remote, while newer friends spring forth from the screen in front of you. And when all was done, the jostling and constant chatter that takes place as you walk out made it an event in-itself. And the best part? You didn’t have your own rectangular screen to distract you.

Not until a few years ago did I frequent the habit of going to theatres alone. Albeit being a personal preference, I noticed that the crowd that swarms a theatre soon started to diminish in strength. To highlight this, I’d have to borrow an anecdote. It must have been a Hollywood release in fall, if my memory serves me well. Just days after its release, in a multiplex, the theatre didn’t even reach a 30 percent occupancy. I divine that it should Bohemian Rhapsody if the same memory can be relied upon. I wasn’t appalled but I realized that it could be due to the lack of a widespread audience who relish Queen’s releases.

But then again you may think that I profess from limited exposure. There could be screens that run with a full audience, there could be differences in vicinities, each Cinema having its own patrons and a host of other factors. But that isn’t where the change manifests. It’s expressed when we communicate. I’ve held conversations where I’ve broached the idea of visiting the theatre to view a movie and have had the same turned down due to my acquaintances being indisposed to traverse the distance. People are beginning to be increasingly averse to go through the theatre rituals as they perceive it and prefer to stick to their personal devices.

But does this mean that theatres are obsolete? Absolutely not. They have been turned into a sort of Mecca for the energized patrons of franchise films. Once again, if my opining seems to lack weight, I have the likes of Martin Scorsese and Vetri Maaran down south in India to pitch in. You see, when the demand shifts from major screens, which alley do creators have to walk into? They are left facing the doors of streaming platforms with the likes of Netflix and Amazon keeping open doors. All this takes place, while franchise films continue to flood the theatres and rake in dollars as they have been crafted to do. Contemporary filmmaking that deals with the different subsets of drama is slowly migrating from bigger rectangles to smaller rectangles, or in other words, our personal laptops and mobile phones. Martin says that it is a perilous time in film-showing as independent filmmakers no longer have the luxury of big screens. Vetri says that the mass hero films down in South India are from the same stable, embodying the same energized fan-base that storm the theatres to worship their heroes. Epigrams separated by cultural fences, but both stand to deliver a universal truth.

Now that we have creators seeping into the domain of streaming services, where does this lead us then? Once people have done away with the need to festoon themselves and canter to the theatre, they are left with a lot more time on their hands than they expected. They enjoy prolonged content as opposed to a traditional 120 minutes or 180 minutes of storytelling. So, the structure of a film in the streaming space is no longer the three-act structure or any other structure used to narrate a film. Long form TV is seen as a festering phenomenon in today’s context. This is attested by Gautam Vasudev Menon and Vetri Maaran who both corroborated each other in claiming that this is indeed, a golden age for screenwriting.

It does make me wonder what audiences would lose out if this impending decline accelerated to reach its end. For this I have to borrow from the reserves of a far greater man than I, who has been a dark horse of sorts in the Tamil film industry. Director Mysskin in his extremely enlightening interview with Film Companion gives a profound example from his experiences. He and his friend, after the end of a moving film, decide to walk on opposite pathways, until they reach Teynampet. He reminisces that they both agreed that kindling any conversation would roil the effect that the film produced in them. He says that the theatre and the medium, acting in conjunction, have permeated our lives in every possible aspect, and goes onto to joke that even after falling hopelessly in love, an act which was undoubtedly spurred on by the movies he watches, a young man feels irresistibly obliged to entreat the girl to go to the theatres with him.

But the decline of traditional film-showing is not something that is to be appalled by or mourned at. Throughout history, our art forms have eclipsed their predecessors. The same way in which cinema eclipsed theatre and theatre eclipsed long forms of literature. Our art-forms evolve with us, and change as we change. The term cinema could no longer be associated with theaters in the future, but as far as our sights can stretch, the length of a film can be truncated, elongated or reposed at the same duration. If anything, screenwriters and content creators should rejoice as they can exploit, or even abuse their creative faculties to storm up brilliant stories to harness the technical gifts that advancement has bestowed upon us, knowing that content based platforms will provide the financial go-ahead if they find themselves satisfied.

Marriage Story – Reflections

The first thought that I had when I finished watching Marriage Story was how well it did not do what it could have done. It could have milked every drop of tear out of it and made the scenes melodramatic to a stifling extent, but it didn’t. Before the reality in it seems to seep away, it manages to close the tap. It’s appeal to divorces and more so, separations around the world and our anxiety at uncertainty make it a brilliant discussion sewn from the finest fabric of contemporary cinema.

When you grew up, do you remember your parents carefully secluding you from a conversation that they deemed was grown-up stuff? The very throbbing heart of Marriage Story is to rebuke that conception. Any adult in a situation that is intimidating, becomes as naïve and unexposed as a child in unchartered waters. A divorce is a realm that pervades our society, yet we are so remote from its repercussions. Only when it takes place to us, in its fascinatingly personal way, do we truly face the tremors. No one is experienced, and our petulant ways resurface as anxiety proliferates.

The movie opens with voice-overs on what appears to be each character picking and placing the best of what they see in their counterparts, and with a single cut, we are suddenly now in the counsellor’s room, looming on the brink of an imminent divorce. It’s the contrast that really draws your attention to what could have been the problem for such seemingly affectionate remarks to turn sour. As Nicole, played by Johansson walks out, we then witness their marriage on a much larger scale.

Early on, I began to realize that Noah Baumbach is a frequent collaborator with Wes Anderson, and through their companionship, Noah has been able to evolve a distinct visual style that is his own from someone who is known for his prominent visual style. The camera moves along with the characters, and matches the tempo of the scene. There is this brilliant scene in a divorce lawyer’s office where it shone out. Most shots in the scene were single, uncut and long, focusing on Nicole as she relives the experience of meeting her now distant husband. When she narrows down to the crux of what was wrong with their marriage, the camera slowly moves in, towards her, until we only see her face. It’s a great way to focus our attention on her words, while not roiling the illusion of the single, uncut take. We finally get to learn that she felt eclipsed in a marriage, where her opinions no longer mattered.

From birth, we are taught that marriages are binding. But how binding? We tend to see our parents behave in cohesion, and talk to back each other up. Behind closed doors, it’s different. But, we are accustomed to seeing them as one. The concept of marriage making two organisms one, to an extent where both get diluted and lose their own individuality is still believed in many invisible circles. But we can still distinguish which person pitches in more. However, we are lost somewhere on the borderline of whether the decision is made by us, as an individual, or us, as a conscious part of this formed organism? Are we really two, or are we really one? Are we making these decisions for our welfare or for this combined, yet singular organism’s welfare? Marriage is more than just a yes or no on the day of roses and white dresses. It’s a myriad of things that gives birth to choices, some we make willingly for our own selves, and some for the joint welfare of the two constituting one. Harmony resides in the precarious balance of these choices, and in Nicole’s case, the balance was lopsided, weighing more heavily on her shoulders, as she perceives it.

Marriage Story tackles this concept to establish the individual side of each divorce. Behind the gory legal spats, each divorce has a human side. Apart from jaw-dropping bills from your legal representative and brawls for custody of a child, it invites you closer to a discussion on the more human side of it. How each person in it surmounts or succumbs to the stress that piles on their desks incessantly, changing their love to toxic outbursts that are neurotic and not intentional. There is a particular scene that shoulders the entire film, between Charlie and Nicole, the two involved in the ongoing proceedings, in Charlie’s apartment. What turns out to be a calm conversation to settle their differences turns into vile exchanges heaved at each other until saturation. It’s so strikingly metaphorical. It resembles the process of each cell undergoing this strenuous fission from the larger cell of marriage, to vehemently defend themselves, finally realizing they are now separate. And the editing, coupled with the camera work, make it a standout. As the heat in the conversation boils, so does the editing. It becomes more fast-paced and when it’s done we focus on these two characters separately.

The question for me wasn’t whether Marriage Story fascinated me. It was whether it enlightened me. It gave me a much cleaner lens to see the nuances of separations, and to understand that feelings felt by us and by those surrounding us, are not unprecedented. It happens across societies that are culturally different than ours, experienced in degrees that have not engulfed us. It’s like that saying somewhere that a heartbreak means the world to you, while it seems insignificant to the world. It takes you as close as any experience in film could, to the changed dynamics of modern marriages, to spectate on heartbreaks meaning the world to someone going through them.

But the task I just mentioned is as easily said than done when framing a story. The way the screenplay was structured reminded me of Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love. Nicole and Charlie move through a very small world. Nicole’s house in LA, Charlie’s house in LA, their own house in New York, and all other places that constantly resurface throughout the movie. By making their world much smaller, Noah is able to draw you into seeing them change as this process of separation takes place. And they work as episodes throughout the divorce, each denoted by a fade to black. We see them with their son Henry, and how this divorce affects that relationship. It makes it all the more better that the structure was linear, with characters only referring to the past, not living it, except for the opening discourse. It gave me the ability to see their relationship after, and not before. That’s why I expounded in the beginning on what the Marriage Story could have done, but chose not. If Noah had opted to go back to any particular event, we as viewers may have chosen sides, then that would have not been the point that was being driven.

The film closes with the world surrounding Nicole sneering with the scent of triumph. But that was not what she wanted. She wanted her relationship with Charlie to be amicable, while not being romantic. But then again that comes to the question of whether that is truly possible for someone you have already harboured feelings for. Charlie reads out the letter that Nicole wrote about him during the opening sequence of the film, and they both realize that they have grown apart, but will carry a part of each other with themselves as long as they live.

The weight of the performances by the lead actors dawned on me as the credits rolled. I have actually held Johansson in high regard for her performance in earlier films, and I do wish she does more films like these, instead of confining herself to a character that is greater than herself in the MCU. As for Adam Driver, I have held him in high regard since his work in Silence and needless to say, this was wonderful as well. I later came to know that both actors have been through divorces, with Driver still sharing custody of his son, making them actually bring more to these roles.

But above all, Marriage Story did give me something to reflect. The ever-present question of how we survive in relationships once their dynamics change. With people we have known for so long, we shake with trepidation to keep a foot forward, fearing that we might overstep a line that has newly appeared. Its new boundaries intimidate us, and we feel helpless as nostalgia floods our minds. But like everything else in our thoughts, it becomes hazy after some juncture unbeknownst, as time awaits, staring at us from the interminable outset, to knead on our memories.

Super Deluxe – Disrupting Mainstream Tamil Cinema

I’m quite baffled myself. I’m still wondering as to why I decided to write about this particular movie almost 8 months after watching it. The most suitable explanation I believe would be that I’d have liked to watch the remainder of the year to come to a conclusion. Super Deluxe, written by Thiagarajan Kumararaja, was the arguably the most daring attempt of 2019. Not because it had a stigmatized transwoman as a central character in a traditional society, but for a view that encompassed a multitude of issues, with a unique flavour to each character, all of whom helped to create a shared universe for the director with his previous venture: Aaranya Kaandam.

The question that nags me the most is the one that carves out a good portion of my thoughts: What defines a good film? If this was asked to me when I was a much younger version of myself, the response would have been superficial. I would have tossed phrases such as good acting, good writing without knowing what I meant. And that wasn’t wrong, because I was learning to give these words meaning. But now that it’s nearly been a decade since my first proper foray into film, I decided to a give this question the good once-over. The result? There are no good experiences, there are only new ones. However that doesn’t mean an experience could be new by means of absurdity. The framework holds. It is only the way the tools within it are used which changes, along with the content base of a film. Any film that unsettles me, excites me, surprises me, makes me feel a different way, regardless of the degree of change within, is a good film. If it can be captured through sparsity in words, then its effect was timid and tame. There should exist an inexorable impulse felt by thought and expression in unison. That’s when a film, or any work of art, for that case, has altered you.

Kumararaja’s universe is a simple one with the central theme of coincidence and chance holding its quirky yet nefarious framework together. The presence of the invisible chain that acts beyond us, connecting each act together. In his first venture, the father-son duo played by Guru Somasundaram and Vasanth were connected with the tussle between Singaperumal and Pasupathy, where Singaperumal had held captive a young woman to be his mistress, who has an intimate relationship with Ravi Krishna’s character. When one event sets off, the entire layout falls in a domino effect. The same happens to be the case with Kumararaja’s second and much later venture: Super Deluxe.

I find it amusing that I remember so much of the film months after watching it. There was a distinctness to its dialogues and actions. Super Deluxe, began filming in 2016. It was a start-stop filming period. Vijay Sethupathi, who plays the charming Shilpa, felt utterly out of place when he first stepped into a woman’s shoes. The costume fit, the make-up was perfect, but that feminine sensation hadn’t seated itself within him. The film had to stop due to budgetary constraints and it didn’t begin until much later. Kumararaja joked that he forgot how to direct after this prolonged gap between his second and first venture. I guess this feeling of filming over a long period and much room for thought gave way for the director to apply this distinctness to each character on set.

The shooting began again, and this time, Vijay Sethupathi mentioned that when he donned the clothes of a woman, whatever he did, suddenly had a much more imbued, feminine vibe to it. Retrospecting now, the grace to his character was what gave his story in the anthology its heart. People often undermine how daunting a task it is to experiment. In an extremely conventional environment, for an actor to try is one thing. But to leap genders is frowned upon. And for such an established actor, who has captured this traditional society and captivated them, he was putting everything on the line by doing so.

But, what made Super Deluxe as a film so endearing to its viewers, or more so, myself? Its sheer audacity to tackle not just one, but multiple taboos is certainly a ringing answer. Not only did the film showcase third-gender discriminations but also the case of infidelity, teenage lust and also had a controversial take on religion. Kumararaja shoved all these controversial issues that plague society into one bag, like a feverish shopper on a spree, before setting out to dismantle them and use them to craft a story on what they actually are in a sort of brazen, unnerving fashion.

Technically the film is a marvel, and Kumararaja’s blocking is a homage to the filmmakers that taught him how to do so. An evergreen fanboy, he made sure that, in a scene where a group of leering teenagers fumble to buy a few age inappropriate movies as they call them, he slipped in a few posters of Kill Bill and The Vengeance Trilogy directed by Quentin Tarantino and Park Chan-Wook. Having the likes of Nirav Shah and P.S Vinod give the film its shady setting, he made his universe more refined, and crystalline, as compared to the grainy film work done on Aaranya Kaandam.

But Super Deluxe didn’t disrupt just because one major star decided to walk into the project. The likes of Samantha Akkineni and Fahaad Faasil, two leading actors in the South Indian film industry also decided to sign up for the project. The size of the project eventually became big enough to be called mainstream. But it was different. It had all the lead actors that would star in huge films, but the story didn’t compromise itself for them. It had that clearly embellished feeling, the mark of an auteur, who in this case was Kumararaja. The actors were tools that helped him place his vision better, to gently transport the ideal that thrived in his mind into an art-form.

From start to finish, it’s the way Kumararaja plays with you that defines your experience. His ability to build tension in a tenacious way, so much so that you feel as vulnerable as his character. In a scene towards the end of the film, a corrupt police officer doesn’t appear domineering as he tries to elicit a sexual favour. He seems as sly and cunning as a fox would be, lowering his voice when he tries to remind the couple of their unspeakable situation. By giving his character something that is so unique, be it their voice or bodily expression, the director extracts the most out of them. It’s the kind of astute usage, wherein it isn’t overused to become trite or underused to become negligible. It’s like how Vijay Sethupathi says so in the trailer – like a snake slowly coiling itself around your neck.

There were other instances of brilliance too. The tracking shot that moved a complete 360 to cover the scene before narrowing in on what has happened. In that scene, dialogue was merely peripheral. Kumararaja used that valuable screen time to establish the character and her surroundings. When the dialogue was important, the opening credits rolled in, so the only thing you would focus on would undoubtedly be the dialogue. It’s the knack of shrewd filmmakers, like Mackendrick says – “What a director really directs, is the audience’s attention”.

But the most controversial and baffling thing in the whole film was the inclusion of an alien. At first glance, one may think that was such a tawdry thing to throw in for a few gimmicks. Till date, even I have certain suspicions as to why the decision was so. Of course, the film was philosophical. Just the same way his earlier film concluded. It had a different adage now. The sheer simplicity of things, and the relentless quest for meaning, the trifleness of it all, ultimately boiling doing to simple genetic reproduction. But the ambiguity towards the end in what was that Kumararaja was actually alluding to became jarring after initial viewing. People realized the presence of Schrodinger’s cat and all the other theories of the world riddled across his film, but, I settled down to realize that it was his way of saying that in our quest for meaning we tend to overthink everything, and that’s why I guess he re-enforced the simplicity of reproduction in the end. And that was merely the conclusion of one story.

There are several roadblocks that directors face when directing non-linear narratives or when they even sit down to write. How are they going to devote time to each one of these stories, or weave them together so that all of them maintain their individuality while allowing each other to co-exist? They would have to give no room for their characters to be cannibalistic for screen time or take sides due to whimsical fancies. Each story in Kumararaja’s tale has its own philosophical stance. He needs to make sure they enter and exit in such a fashion that while the audience absorbs what is going on in front of them, the previous story is wallowing in the recesses of their mind, before it pops back up again.

But stepping back to look at the impact of the film as such, it has created a buzz of attention on film-making in Tamil Cinema. Until the start of this decade, films that came out in Tamil, largely, had a sense of crudeness, or in some cases, a traditional pulse to them that was tacit. Something that only its own populace could resonate to. Of course there were exceptions, but there was nothing like a paradigm shift of sorts that spurred the way for a film-making revolution that was witnessed decades ago in other film industries or even the replacement of character films with commercial films in Tamil Cinema during the 70’s. Films sent to festivals were still somewhat restricted in effect that the viewers there found it difficult to immerse themselves at times. Even Vetri Maaran mentioned that people at Cannes were appalled with Visaaranai’s brazen delivery, although that was one of the more refined films for local audiences here. Filmmakers here are constantly trying to achieve that universal feeling that is imbued with films from other nations. Super Deluxe, by shouldering all the controversial issues, delivers a film that is driven in that direction which is hoped for, and marks a solid step in trying to redefine what mainstream Tamil Cinema is.

Cinema Paradiso – Reflections

Whenever we seat ourselves down in any of the multiplexes we stroll into these days to watch a movie, we fidget our phones, give room for some chit-chat, gobble some popcorn before the lights go off and the movie begins to unfold. We pass a few comments here and there, loiter out to the washroom if nature calls before walking out of the theatre for good. The projection room above our heads never piques our interest. After all, it’s merely a machine, which, with the flick of switch, can play the series of images intended for you. It is through that lifeless machine that life itself manifests. But the past has always had a pair of eyes behind the opal light.

Cinema Paradiso is a film that has been rankling my dormant watch-list for quite some time. I finally found a decent two hours today and hence I settled on watching the film. Tornatore wastes no time and sets-up the plot as quickly as possible before dispatching the train back in time. We find ourselves in this dainty town of Giancaldo. Propped alongside the sea, its limited populace is an unaffected one, and their life revolves around the Cinema Paradiso and the church.

One may consider the movie to be a house for many themes. But what forms its crux should by no means invoke doubts. At its heart, Cinema Paradiso is a nostalgic trip undertaken by Salvatore Da Vita, who reminisces about his friend and mentor, Alfredo, the local projectionist who rummages in the attic of the Cinema Paradiso. Some dusty memory in my mind started twitching, and I realized that Tamil Cinema had its own inspired version in the form of Veyil which was something I remember watching years before.

But Cinema Paradiso is an extremely heart-warming bond between its two pivotal characters, whereas the latter explores other themes. Salvatore, or otherwise known as Toto, is the altar boy and is by no means a happy one. He slips away whenever possible to Alfredo’s den and sets himself down beside the severed negatives. Being a parochial community, every film has to pass the all-seeing eye of religion before gracing the eyes of the commoner. As the Father signals to Alfredo with fury at the very sight of on-screen vulgarity, Toto watches on from behind the screens with an ecstatic glee.

It didn’t strike me at once, but it did, eventually. I happened to realize that Toto wasn’t a nickname that was restricted to Salvatore but also Tornatore, who in this case happens to be the director of this film. It was only after the film that I had read that this movie was by all means an autobiographical account for Tornatore, who always looked forward to craft this ode to the cinema that liberated him as a child.

The best and most sumptuous part of the film for me was to watch the relationship between Toto and Alfredo bloom. And when I say bloom, it actually did, in a perfectly paced and sinfully innocuous manner. Alfredo reminds the young boy with the repetitiveness of a parrot, borrowing all the lines that he heard from actors he gave life to, that however alluring this attic may seem, it has a crippling monotony to it, admonishing that Toto must never pledge his arms to it. But he isn’t entirely critical about his life. He confesses that he finds solace in every laugh and every tear that the audience imparts, feeling almost as if it were him that gives them that wonderful ability to feel and empathize. Before we know it, tragedy befalls and Alfredo is deprived of the visual sense he cherished the most, and Toto grows to become a teenager.

For someone who has grown up watching films, breathing them and living them, this portion of the film really resonated with me. Albeit growing up in an age of hard drives and digital reproductions, I found comfort in Toto’s negatives. I often look around these days to find that as much as films are being enjoyed, they are also being dissected. The time and age when the allure of cinema alone, coupled with its ability to transcend time and space in itself was considered a gift from the heavens. As the lights go off and voices become mellow, the screen takes precedence. The great joys and greater sorrows of the characters become yours. You find yourself leaning forward, like one of the patrons of the Paradiso, reciting each line by rote, to yourself, as your jerk a tear.

As Toto now wanders out with a camera in his hand, with due course, he falls in love and his negative reels are filled with the girl who fills his thoughts. Much has changed in the landscape of the little town of Giancaldo. The burnt down Cinema Paradiso is now a renovated marvel, with Toto being the projectionist and Alfredo his aide. He soon assents to Alfredo’s suspicion and pours his heart out, withering each time he mentions that he fails to garner the girl’s attention. He fumbles when he trots up to talk to her. He finally devises a scheme to get into the confessional, and with a mustered up courage confesses his love for her. He decides to play out a tale that Alfredo recited to him, and stands beneath the windows of her house, steeped in tranquillity and refraining from a peppy serenade. Just as hope seeps out, all things fall in place, and they end up together on a rainy night inside the projection room.

Over the course of the last few months, I’ve begin to realize how different filmmakers across the globe have used certain tropes or techniques to flow through time seamlessly. With Satoshi Kon, it’s his impeccable editing style that bridges reality and fantasy. With Wong Kar-Wai, it is moving his characters through fixed landscapes and environments to flesh out the internal change against the change in the externals. Kurosawa cuts on movement to keep the pristineness of time intact. The reason why Cinema Paradiso moves as well as it does is because it does what is necessary for the film. By focusing on a changing external, it tries to bring a contrast in what the characters feel within. As time fondles with their surroundings, it explores how the characters react to it as well.

Time propels further, and Toto is soon separated from his love, does his share in the military, and returns back home to the town square of Giancaldo. He gazes at the surroundings, seeing it change furthermore, and even discovers the presence of a new projectionist for the theatre. He takes a stroll onto the beach with Alfredo, who insists he leaves this cursed land, and sets out for good and never turns to look back. He believes that nostalgia would never let progress see the light of the day. As long as Toto reminisces, he would always yearn for a past he can never hold. Toto pays heed to his words and decides on leaving. As he leaves, Alfredo holds him by his cheeks and reiterates his words, asking him to not come back at any cost, and Toto boards the train looking back, much like Moraldo from Il Vitelloni.

Cinema Paradiso pays homage to all the directors and actors that proved to be formative to its director when he was growing up as a young boy in the towns of Sicily. The likes of Luchino Visconti, Federico Fellini, and John Ford find their space in this modest theatre. It shows the subtle yet profound influence on a young, impressionable boy who hails from the most humble background, whose only true comfort is behind the projector watching all their works come to life, and in the process, becoming a part of their worlds.

As the film finds itself in its final act, we can now see that the cocooned existence that was shared by Giancaldo’s inhabitants has ceased to exist. Its world has now been penetrated by the digital and industrial growth outside of it, robbing the small town of its much cherished innocence. As Toto returns for Alfredo’s funeral, he sees the presence of all the faces that were associated with the town square and the Cinema Paradiso as he grew up. He learns that the theatre is scheduled to be demolished, and walks in for one last time. Alfredo’s wife makes him aware of the fact that her husband left something for Toto in a projection reel. In the final scene of the film, he plays the reel in an empty screening hall, and a surprise montage of all the severed kissing scenes enamours him, as he rides on a wave of nostalgia before it all draws to a close.

Much of the film’s premise isn’t completely novel. Of course, there are always films on nostalgia. What distinguishes any of them is their treatment, which in any case is universal. Tornatore’s vision in stitching a string of experiences is what makes this film such a memorable watch. His ability to bring back the changing landscape of Sicily onto the screen is certainly one, but the wonderful interplay between projectionist and patron makes the film stand apart for me. It is a journey into our relationship with cinema and is presented with a lavish serve of sugar, which in this case, was completely acceptable. It did come to my notice that there existed three different versions of the film, with the late directors cut running up-to a length of nearly 3 hours. With a feverish curiosity, I watched it by phasing through the added clippings. All I can remark without divulging further is, stick to the 1989 version and don’t peek into the later version or the original Italian cut at any rate. Sometimes added scenes can make a film better, as in the case of Batman v Superman’s Ultimate Edition. In the case of Cinema Paradiso, it most certainly doesn’t. Its effect can only be described as tainting.

The Irishman – Reflections

When November kicked off, I knew The Irishman was on the cards. I soon was made aware of the fact that the film was scheduled to make its Netflix release yesterday, so I halted all errands and tasks, and made my way home to watch the film uninterrupted. I tossed everything aside, made sure that the seating I placed together was ergonomic, and crossed fingers hoping that I wouldn’t stir. After all, a film with a runtime of three hours and a half isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.

Funnily enough, I remember reading one of Syd Field’s many books on screenwriting earlier in the year. He ventures to mention that film houses would not read a script more than a 128 pages. If you aren’t familiar, each page is an equivalent of one minute on the screen. That is subjected to change on set, but the underlying principle being, today’s audiences don’t have time for overlong films unless they come from accredited names. Even then, a solid half hour more than the 3 hour mark is sure to be a taxing affair.

Being a huge patron of Martin, I loved his earlier venture, Silence. It never garnered widespread acclaim with many finding the runtime to be bloated. When I finished watching The Irishman, I felt a tinge of reminiscence. It was surely this brilliantly crafted piece of work, and upon viewing, one would assent that it belongs to Martin’s stable. But before I get into the nuances and affinities, I would like to touch upon this controversial element of time, and how, on a personal level, the same is most rewarding rather than taxing in Scorsese’s films.

The Irishman, unlike films such as Raging Bull or Taxi Driver, needs context. The film is hinged on the premise of I Heard You Paint Houses, an elaborative account of the life of mafia hitman Frank Sheeran, collected by Charles Brandt. The central crux of the narrative in the book surrounds the time when Sheeran meets Jimmy Hoffa, the leader of America’s largest union. Shadowing their relationship, it boils down to discern that Sheeran killed Hoffa on the orders of the mob, with Brandt claiming in his book that the former confessed to him during an interview. The film itself languished in development hell for nearly 12 years, before being finally made, with the help of de-ageing technology to help its cast relive their younger selves.

Scorsese opens the film with Frank recollecting his life. The landscape changes, the political scenario changes, the cultural inhibitions change, and you find yourself on the highway alongside a younger Frank Sheeran during the 50’s, who chances to meet an inquisitive gentleman by the name Russell Buffalino in a drive through pump. We get to learn who Frank is, what he does for a living, and what he does behind the scenes to grab some dough. Russell takes a shine to him and we see them both grow and age together. Jimmy Hoffa doesn’t even make his appearance until an hour passes. This is an extremely long set-up, but it’s substantiated. Let alone worldwide audiences, even much of the American public today don’t have a vague notion of who Jimmy Hoffa was. So much so that even Frank alludes to the same fact as he reminisces in the film.

Whenever an audience gathers to watch a film from a different time period, before they get to know the characters, they should first, knead through time and circumstances to understand what the character goes through. In Martin’s previous venture, Silence, the film opens with a sequence that follows Liam Neeson’s character as he is tortured without reprieve in a medieval Japan where preaching Christianity is a sin. If films tend to take a cursory approach here, then the audience will most certainly feel left out. Reverting back to The Irishman, it takes its own time to establish the context. The little corner shops, Italian neighborhoods, compatriots of war, mob bosses, the labor union. To an audience that is largely constituting the 21^st century who are so remote from this world, Scorsese takes his time to walk them through something he experienced when he grew up. The time needs to weigh on you, it needs to smite your senses, so that you detach from your reality to enter his. And I don’t say this to add to my rhetoric. When the film concluded, I could actually feel that I was exiting from a time period after being immersed for so long. I felt the same thing when I finished watching the likes of Silence and Vada Chennai. The feeling of being drenched in time, the feeling of knowing the characters as if they were neighbors and familiarizing myself with their names.

As I mentioned earlier, the film follows Frank as he weaves together his life facing the camera. Irish by birth, American by war and Italian by brotherhood, Frank’s life is by no means vapid. He joins the cohorts of the Downtown mob bosses, and runs errands for them, burning cars and painting houses. The film is actually riddled with euphemisms and it does so well to highlight the flow of tension between characters. Here’s something to add to your gamut of known phrases: Painting houses is the mob euphemism for popping some with a revolver, and hence, painting the walls with their blood.

It is only after this elaborate set-up that Jimmy Hoffa can waltz into the scene. The leader of the Teamster Union, heading over a million people in what is America’s largest union of blue collar and professional workers. He gets introduced to Frank through Russell, and Frank soon starts to iron things out in Hoffa’s life. They both get pally and we see their relationship grow. They start to dine with their families, and Frank’s reserved daughter Peggy takes a liking to Hoffa. It is at this juncture, that I’d like to interject how relationships shape the film.

Early on in the film, there happens to be a scene where Frank confronts a store-owner who shoves Peggy, and breaks his hand as onlookers lurch. After the incident, Peggy distances herself from her father. Her father’s relationship with the mob irks her and she doesn’t like Russell or anyone else her father dabbles with. When she meets Hoffa, he seems different from everyone her father meets. She campaigns for him in classrooms and views him as a father figure. It strains her relationship with her own father, whose affinity seems more towards his Italian family than his own. Frank’s life, is a plexus of relationships, starting from his own family, to Russell’s and then Hoffa’s. We see the journey of his relationships as time weighs on us. Amidst all this, Scorsese slips in the changes at the political epicenter: The JFK assassination and the Anti-Fidel Castro movement, invoking us to react alongside his characters. Frank teeters to maintain the precarious balance of these relationships, to try and be an all-pleasing man, but his hand is forced by circumstances.

Taking the liberty to digress, I found that Scorsese, in what would be one amongst his last few ventures, paid homage to films that he grew up loving. Be it Patricia, the titular track of La Dolce Vita composed by Perez Prado, yammering as Hoffa walks out a free man from prison, and elongates over the next few sequences, as he cherishes this long lost age that he once reveled in. The Italian Restaurants and the sequence with Joe Gallo all seem to point me in the direction of Goodfellas, his own mob tale. This distant world is seared in my memory, its vivid colors paint my thoughts, and I have to say, I feel deep sadness in acknowledging that down the road, Martin won’t be making movies anymore. The hard fact that soon enough Bob or Pesci won’t breathe as his Italian- American scions. In a way, the film to me is metacinematic. It doesn’t just envelope Russell or Frank as wise guys, it encompasses both these actors in a sort of way that is reflective of their own journey through Martin’s films. It was a poignantly beautiful signing off.

As the film reaches its final hour, tensions seethe. The mob wants Hoffa’s neck and Frank has to be the man to do it. There are no gaudy theatrics leading to the event, or some pumped up tension through the form of background scores or close-ups. I often reiterate that silence is far more powerful than any effect the editing room can conjure. After all, a straightforward task needs to be done with no ballyhoo. Frank shoots Hoffa and leaves. It isn’t dramatic as he recalls it, it was stoic. The murder in itself didn’t make him feel overwrought. The remorse that flooded him later crippled him. His daughter realizes that when her father remains stoic even as she questions him, he was responsible for Hoffa’s disappearance and vows not to talk to him again. He is found in an austere state as he staggers through his life as it cuts back to the present. There is a beautiful little scene when Frank goes out to pick a casket in a wheelchair. He chooses a bright green one, alluding to I believe the colors of Ireland. The storekeeper questions him who the casket is for, and he admits that he was shopping for his own casket. It’s one of those classic Scorsese aphorisms. Before you know it, you’re going to be picking your casket and all that went down seems like a chaff in the summer breeze.

Was it Scorsese’s best venture? Now, best is a subjective word. From my perspective, The Irishman was a journey back in time. It chugs on and finds pockets of space to get the audience acquainted with the characters. But it doesn’t have those trademark Scorsese moments. The palpable tension in the opening shot of Goodfellas, as Jimmy, Henry and Tommy drive with brazen expressions or the renouncement of faith in Silence by Father Rodrigues or the dainty coffee shop scene in Taxi Driver that speaks volumes in a language void of words. The Irishman sure had its moments, but nothing that penetrated me. It was a reflective, or rather, meditative film on a spectrum of events in a time that was so near yet so far. In his own body of work, The Irishman is a well-crafted addition, worthy of his name, but didn’t plunge me into thought. It gave me a nostalgic trip down the Scorsese alley and gave me a full view on the life of Frank Sheeran, but I’m afraid it didn’t do more than that.

As a personal confession, I do feel sad that soon enough Scorsese would have to step aside from film-making, and his work would live on through the negatives of then and the digital copies of now, as the form of cinema gets bombarded with mass market films that offer only the two insipid flavors of thrills or tears. This film needs to be celebrated for its auteur, and all that the media can think of is to question him on his apparently scandalous remarks on Marvel movies. I’m afraid as Scorsese says, film exhibition is indeed in a perilous time.

Deleting my online social presence – A retrospective

This is rather unusual, given that I use this space only to talk about movies. But then again, I don’t seem to find it odd in divulging a few personal opinions now and then. I’d make it very clear, right off the bat, that this isn’t a sermon on the perils of social media or that sort of rot. Many people enjoy it, some ghost through, some dislike it, and some never have tasted it. This is solely a retrospection, as the title says, and whether you as the reader take anything out of it, is beyond my control, but I’ll use the platform to say it anyways.

Somewhere around the end of July, I had happened to be ghosting through my personal Instagram. I was just mindlessly opening stories, posting them, injecting my opinions to hordes of people I didn’t even know on any kind of personal level. Sure, I have come across them, but never have I had an actual conversation with many of them. I posted photos, thoughts with an impulsive frenzy. So, while I happened to do my daily rounds of productive YouTube, I happened to chance upon Nerdwriter1’s video on Instagram.

But before I give you the context, let me talk about my history on social media. I opened a Facebook account when I was really young. If I were to place it, somewhere during the 6^th grade. That was when Facebook was becoming the real thing, a platform for us to keep in touch even after we reached the comfort of our beds, away from classrooms and halls. It was a really exciting time. A few years later, I had the option to link my Facebook account to open an Instagram account. I remember Instagram having way less inhabitants than now. It was actually a fun platform. And I say this because, by around 2014, the time I got onto Instagram, Facebook had exploded. Millions of people, millions of opinions, and more and more features to fact check the attention you were garnering.

Back to Nerdwriter1’s video. I had lazed into the comfort of my bean bag, and I started to watch the video. I watched it from start to finish, and a good chunk of it went over my head. But I realized there was some substance to what he was saying. So, I hit rewind and I watched it again. And when I came across the sentence on Instagram, “A substitute for creative accomplishment, and a PR tool amongst friends”, it weighed on me like a rock. When I first started on Instagram, it gave me the feel of a photo album, like Nerdwriter says. I saw people posting photos, and it was a stark difference to Facebook. People posted photos at random, knowing the platform wasn’t as bloated as Facebook, and were actually comfortable with it. Nerdwriter is a bit extreme with his opinion on photos and selfies, but I’m a bit more comfortable with it, given it was occasional. Around 2015, I slowly started reducing my Facebook presence, as Instagram started getting so many add-ons and a burgeoning populace, the former just seemed redundant. I too became wrapped in the new, and discarded the old.

But then, over the gradual course of time, I started to feel the same change that swept across Facebook. Instagram, oddly, became this place for people to project anything and everything. No longer was it an occasional photo album someone would stack. It started getting stories, views, and even much more features to fact-check the attention you were garnering. The moment of realization wasn’t a revelation, nor was it languorous. It posed an interesting question.

I’m certainly not going to point fingers. Above everyone, I became extremely conscious of the attention I was garnering. I would think twice before I posted anything, and I was curious on seeing whether it got some kind of attention to it. I started crafting this attention milestone within me, and it operated subconsciously that I failed to give it any thought whatsoever.

By this time, I had completely stopped using Facebook, so all my undivided attention was slapped onto Instagram. I began ghosting through the platform, and the number of hours I clocked started to rise like a tide. I randomly opened stories, prying into others’ lives on my feed, checked posts, saw quotes that didn’t really mean anything to me, and in a sea of this mess, the few true pages that shared their opinions on cinema were eclipsed. I found myself wading through people posting things capriciously, akin to me, and I still kept wading. Random party photos, random videos, and so many other things. I, like most others, was using the system that was in place to constantly try to get attention on myself.

My purpose was so diluted by this point, but I still hadn’t realized it. I kept posting, with a kind of feverish compulsiveness binding me to it. After watching the video, I gave it a serious once-over within the walls of my mind, and I decided, as an experiment to deactivate my personal Instagram. I rotated over to my blog account, and decided to stay there and try this out. I made it a point only to follow a few specific pages that gave me directions on directors and international cinema.

After 90 days, I felt a lot of things change. The amount of time I spent on Instagram was hacked down completely, from 1-2 hours to mere minutes. I started finding more pockets of time, and I began seeing interviews of directors I was so fond of, insightful video essays, and introductions to this vast gamut of filmmakers across the world, and across different times. It gave me an urge to learn more on all fronts.

I rekindled my passion to read. I largely staved off the need to read before, but with more time, even if it was in pockets spread across the day, I began marshalling all of it and began going chapter by chapter in books I’ve always wanted to read. I began flooding my bookshelf with books so as to consciously remind myself that I still have a lot more to chase. The creative centre within me, was slowly becoming the only thing visible to me. I no longer cared about superficial thoughts, and I was breaking free from an insipid cycle.

But during this forced sojourn, I found a lot of time to look around. I saw many people around me constantly whizzing in and out of their social media apps, constantly fact checking. I certainly wasn’t prying, but these were passing observations. In stairs, elevators, classrooms, hallways, I kept seeing people go through this exercise over and over again. I’m not one to judge their motives, but it was all forming a very interesting pattern.

So when I logged back onto my personal Instagram, after this brief self-imposed exile, my feed was flooded once again. But then, after about 5 minutes, I realized I actually didn’t need to go through all of this again. So, after much thought, I deleted my account. I thought about it well enough and came to the conclusion that I didn’t need it. A few days later, I scheduled my Facebook account for deletion as well. I hacked off two of my long-standing accounts, and I realized I can’t afford to skim past this personal explosion that stuffs my feed, and settled on leaving this system.

But then again, the question would arise, why operate a blog account then? I’d have to say, the reason isn’t very convincing, and that even I haven’t bought into much of my own theory to justify continued usage. I still follow only stipulated accounts as part of the whole theory of getting what I want from it and leaving it aside. But the personal factor no longer exists, or at least, to a large extent has been eradicated. I find freedom in just picking up what I want, giving what I want, without this sense of a personal attachment to it. The factor of ‘me’ no longer exists in it. My name isn’t slapped onto it. But the habits that bogged me down, to some extent, continue to exist. I still clock an unfruitful excess in terms of usage. I’m constantly working away on that front. I feel free at ease to spam any thoughts I have, and I archive it. And I do this because of the ability to highlight my thoughts and the very fact that I can access my own thoughts whenever I can. I’m beginning to use Instagram as a diary, and I have decided to keep it open.

Coming to the crux of it, I definitely cannot avoid stepping into a philosophical stance. After cutting of personal ties, to some extent, from the system, I left some room to ruminate on Instagram itself. Now, my opinion is certainly mine, and this isn’t to impose what I feel on others. As I stated earlier, people can be enjoying it, and multi-tasking, so it doesn’t make a difference for them and they will continue to enjoy it. But, the question that Nerdwriter1 asks, is still haranguing me. Will we ever be so remote from our online presence, given its vast reach, that we are no longer motivated by the system it has developed? Instagram sure has built a system that is so sturdy in allowing people to constantly fact check and validate themselves that even those who completely eschew from doing so, have in the recesses of their mind, the lingering thought of the impact of their posts and dialogues. In a system like this, can Instagram be a thought album, a photo album, or any kind of album, without having this capricious and filleted exertion? How would it be if for one day, all of these options were removed? Would I continue to post things? Even WordPress, an unaffected platform notifies its users on the views their posts garner. Would I stop posting if I got no views at all? I find it comforting that I have kept doing so, even after having posts get no views at all, as I feel this platform as a personal diary for my film reflections and recollections at some later stage, but would I continue to do so if the same was the case every time? This attention frenzy can be applied in the cases of many things done today, and it’s a question to ponder. Even Joseph Gordon Levitt, talks about it in one his Ted Talks. It’s a platform for many things, it means different things to different people, but ultimately, there is something very common in universal usage, and it’s altering a lot of people. I guess I’d place the final step there, and let you fondle your thoughts or move onto the next thing.

Chungking Express – Reflections

“Some people make films as a way of providing answers. The way I make films is a way of posing questions” – Wong Kar-Wai

Chungking Express (1994) opens with a sequence of shots strung together, as a woman makes her way through narrow alleys in an Indian neighbourhood. We then hear Takeshi Kaneshiro’s voiceover – “You brush past so many people every day. Some you may never know anything about. But others might become your friend someday”. That forms the thesis of Chungking Express. A question to ponder, rather than an answer made explicit.

I did chance to watch Chungking Express earlier in the year. But, I stopped after a few sequences in the first narrative, realizing that the movie was something different. A rare one. Something I didn’t want to watch just for the sake of watching what was on my list of movies. So when I watched In the Mood for Love this week, I decided to continue on the Wong-Kar-Wai timeline. And every time I play a movie from the director’s stable, I secretly hope to be amazed. Chungking Express was not different.

The film opens with Zhiwu, a patrol cop chasing down an offender, as the voice-over continues. Something that I noticed immediately was the way the entire sequence was shot. There was a pervasive haze, almost as if the viewer was masquerading in a crowd under neon lights. If you have jostled through alleys, you must have felt a sense of narrowness. As you try to squirm your way out, you get stifled. This sense of defining the perspective for the audience, has been a big takeaway from Kar-Wai’s films. His methods aren’t conventional. And breaking the convention itself, gives you as a filmmaker, and your audience, a kind of high, like PC Sreeram says.

But technicalities aside, Chungking Express is most certainly a fascinating odyssey. In the first narrative, Zhiwu, on his birthday realizes, that his long-standing girlfriend May has finally dumped him, waking up from the false belief that it was all a joke that began on the April fool’s day. He buys a can of pineapples every day, because they were supposed to be her favourite snack. And all these cans are to expire on the first day of May, which is supposed to be Zhiwu’s birthday. If she doesn’t return, then just like the can of pineapples, their love too, will expire. The whole affair made me smile. All of us, at some point in our life, tend to be irrational. Without that irrationality, we as human beings, would lose our essence. That sense of surprise in each individual would then be smeared, and the lines between ourselves would become blurred. Some directors claim to take you into the minds of their characters, but I find myself questioning whether what goes on inside is premeditated rather than spontaneous. The spontaneity in thoughts and actions is what makes Kar-Wai’s films realistically exuberant.

The overarching theme of Chungking Express, like most of Kar-Wai’s films is loneliness. I watched the film through the night, and the effect is still tarrying within me. The walls of my room echo with California Dreamin’ by the Mamas and the Papas. The wish to move through the bustling streets of Hong-Kong is still at large. But I ask myself why? What was it in the film that really injects life into its viewers? Was it the way it was shot? Was it the revelling soundtrack? After retrospection, I zeroed in on the fact that I had indeed fallen in love with the originality of its characters.

After the opening sequence, we are introduced to an unnamed woman, who is shown to be a mule forwarder. She flaunts sunglasses in the dark, and wears a raincoat in constant trepidation of a downpour. She ponders whether she is being too cautious. When the mules under her responsibility vanish, she walks the length of Hong- Kong, searching relentlessly for them. She kidnaps a store owner’s daughter, demanding details, all the while threatening to kill his daughter if he doesn’t marshal the information regarding the disappeared for her. After she places the receiver down, she slips back into her seat next to the young girl, ordering another ice cream for her. It’s almost as if to say tenebrous as she may be, she still has a wonderfully human side. An hour later, she walks out, leaving the child to embrace her father.

There is this wonderful scene during the first narrative, when Zhiwu sits in a bar, goggling at the candescent glass of alcohol. He fondles the idea of falling in love with the first woman that walks through the door of the bar. When the woman with a raincoat walks in, he propels the idea into reality, and sidles up to her. After mangling the thirty cans of pineapples, the only thing on Zhiwu’s mind is pineapples. So to break the ice, he asks her, if she likes pineapple. Her response, although short, falls into the philosophical realm. As the night grows old, these two strangers , completely sloshed, find their way to a hotel room. What happens isn’t a tale of lust. The woman crashes on the bed, and Zhiwu helps himself to the chef’s salad. He is fascinated by this woman, and leaves her in the morning, to return home and begin jogging, as he theorizes, by jogging, he would leave no water in the body for the eyes to swell with tears.

The entire story, in both halves, questions these chance meetings. Some become intimate, some don’t. Having already crashed into each other a few nights before, Zhiwu and the woman met again at the bar. Purely coincidental as it may be, it makes one wonder, have I passed through someone I knew intimately now, without having crossed roads before? There is something fascinating about human ignorance. No, not ignorance. I’d rather term it as negligence. We seldom commit to our everyday life proactively. We are merely floating, not walking. We jostle through crowds, and any exchange of glares, is inadvertent. More nature than flaw I’d like to think, and none of us are at fault for it. Wong Kar Wai plays with the idea of an increasingly rushed world, with a burgeoning populace, and our relationships within it. We cross paths unknowingly, only to cross paths again consciously. Do we have deeply rooted relationships with people, whose presence slipped past our train of thoughts before?

As Zhiwu finishes his jog, and shuffles into his favourite snack bar, Midnight Express, ironically, the muse for the title of the film itself, he strikes up a conversation with the owner, who tells him to try and ask Faye, the new attendant, out on a date. And as he reels back, both of them crash against each other, separated by 0.01 cm as he says. And 6 hours later, she falls in love with another man. It reverts back to his first statement at the beginning of the film. Some chance meetings materialize, and some just don’t. They remain forever strangers to you. It’s alluding to the very fact that nothing in this construct, can we do pre-planned. Everything is still left to chance, and if you’d like to believe it, destiny.

Faye is portrayed by Faye Wong herself. Initially a singer, she did not have any acting experience whatsoever. This was her very first film, and I think, the astuteness in vision from Wong-Kar-Wai gets the best out of her. She was put in a role that required spontaneity more than composure. Behind the rind and guise, she is nervous and flustering. She tries to act uninterested, but you can always catch her eye gleaming through glass panes. It was a role that required her to be more herself than anything. I guess that’s why her character too, was named after her.

The second half of the film is my personal favourite amongst the two stories. Although, if I were to pick from a larger lot, I would still express my fondness for the titular characters of In the Mood for Love. But the second narrative in this film doesn’t fall short. It’s extremely magical in its own way. In the first scene of the second narrative, Faye is tending the counter, with a cop sporting badge 663, who patrols the vicinity, strolling up to her. California Dreamin is yammering on the stereo box. The moment is languid, and the cop asks her if she likes to listen to loud music. She assents, stating the loud music stops her from thinking too much. She avoids gazing at him, continuing to flit through the counter, jiving to the music.

The second narrative of the film is another angle on an exploratory odyssey of chance meetings. As anxious as she may seem, refraining from overt expressions, she houses a different kind of boldness. When Cop 663’s girlfriend leaves a letter with a key to his house stating that she is on travel and that they shouldn’t meet again, she takes the liberty to explore his house, strapping on gloves, and leaves traces, that someone would normally neglect within their own surroundings. As she makes the regular trip towards his house, she shrouds her diffident nature, and confronts him with an air of calmness as he patrols the block.

What makes Chungking Express distinctly different is how it is able to transport your presence, as close as possible, into the personal boundary of its characters. When Cop 663 returns home, he converses with his bar of soap, his towel, and huge teddy bear, entreating them not to lose heart because his former girlfriend let him. When Faye wrong-foots on one particular visit, the tap in the apartment overflows, and floods the hall. When the cop enters, he goes one step further in theorizing that even the apartment weeps in the absence of his partner. I couldn’t resist smiling.

On a side note, I started realizing the patterns in filming. In both In the Mood for Love and Chungking Express, the characters are placed within frames. The constant idea of placing the viewers in an outsider’s shoes, who is peering through a frame to see someone else’s life is a trope that is constantly employed by Kar-Wai. And directors are fond in revisiting their tropes. However, its appearance in this film is restricted, and it finds better footing in his future venture.

The naming of characters in both these films fascinates me. Cop 663, Mr.Chen, and even the absence of names, as in the case of the raincoat woman. Names don’t matter in Kar-Wai’s films. It’s the exploration of one’s inherent nature, and not his or her identity or social standing. I like the fact that the psychological expedition in his films take precedence to attributing events and actions to a name. It’s what happens within, not who it happens to. You would remember the character for their actions and thoughts, more than their names. It’s not to say that naming is wrong, it’s just that they don’t find some kind of space that is utilizable in Kar-Wai’s story. Maybe I’m the only one who sports that outlook, but my opinion still has room to change with further viewings.

After a few sequences, the cop discovers that she has been fiddling in his house, and returns the CD she had left in his apartment. Supposing the moment to be sanguine, he even asks her out on a date at a restaurant called California, which is again ironical, as Faye’s wish is to visit the real California. He arrives on time, and finds that she is a no-show. The owner of Midnight Express states that she left him a letter before departing in pursuit of her dream. He doesn’t read it and assumes that they both visited different California’s that night. He then recovers the letter after it is drenched, finding it to be some kind of sketched-out boarding pass, with the destination smudged by the water. A year later, Faye returns, and learns that the Cop has now bought the outlet. The moment is still, and he retrieves the boarding pass he has safeguarded for one year. They exchange a few inquisitive questions, and the film draws to a close.

For me, on a personal level, Chungking Express is a fascinating, exploratory tale of chance, intimacy and loneliness. Its ethereal background, the neon lights, and lonely cops will remain as old as May 1994 and not a month older. It doesn’t expire, unlike our relationships. And I hope, the same way Zhiwu does, that if the magic of film comes in a can, I hope with much fervor that its expiration date is 10,000 years.

In the Mood for Love – The Film that Floored Me.

Dear Maggie Cheung, I’m absolutely floored. You have completely bowled me over. I can’t remember the last time I saw performance that was so visual and powerful, and all the while maintaining a certain poise that gave so many layers to your character. To act in a contemporary role is one thing. But to do it during a period that was evanescent, traditional and opprobrious while at the same time maintaining that fragility the character can’t afford, to swim in a twisted tale of romance that was never meant to be, seldom breaking down, yet tenderly. I’m at a juncture where I can’t wrap my mind over a performance that shouldered the entire film, in which the events passed through the same station, yet the emotions within kept changing. To say the least, I’m absolutely smitten.

I have to be completely honest. When I began watching Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love, I was slouched against a pillow, and I hadn’t the least idea of what I was in for. Probably from now onwards, whenever I watch a film under the Criterion label, I should make sure that my vertebrae is as upright as possible. Set in Hong Kong, the film opens in the midst of a Shanghainese household, with a finely dressed woman waiting to the meet the landlady. A few pleasant exchanges later, the young lady arranges for her husband and herself to stay with the woman, called Mrs. Suen. As she floats out, up comes a young man through the narrow flight of stairs, and asks if Mrs. Suen has a room to let out for him and his wife. She states that she doesn’t have a room, but that it is most fortuitous that her neighbours do. And, in the next few sequences, we see that both the characters, now established as Mrs. Chen and Mr. Chow, moving in to extremely crowded, narrow households. They briefly introduce themselves to each other, and part ways.

Soon, both neighbours exchange favours. However, Mrs. Chow and Mr Chen are always away, on business travels. They work odd shifts, and don’t come home to share exchanges with their counterparts. But, soon, Mrs. Chen questions the fidelity of her husband and that of Mr. Chow’s wife. She soon puts together the facts, and realizes that both her husband and her neighbour are in bed together. All this while, she streams out to buy noodles, always crossing paths with Mr.Chow. One day, they both dine together. And after a brief tête-à-tête, they both realize that they have suspected the relationship between their counterparts.

As soon as I finished the film, I began digging up all possible archives. I did not want to waste even a moment, fearing that fantasy in which I was soaked for so long, would evaporate if I didn’t act quickly. I first chose to watch Wong Kar Wai’s interview, before the film screened at Cannes. He mentioned that it was not his notion to make an affair film, because it was so common on screens to explore the consequences of a breach in marital understanding. He said In the Mood for Love resonates more with the time it was set in. It’s almost an ode by him, to the real Shanghainese/Cantonese period that existed in a 60’s Hong Kong. He states that the cultural tensions between both ethnicities was explicit, that a Shanghainese mother would not allow her daughter to go out with a Cantonese boy. She would forbid anything, even a small conversation. So his entire task in this film was to capture that ethereal, yet ephemeral period of cultural stigma that defined the segments of society. What was supposed to be an anthology, was singled out as one story, and expanded to nearly 90 to 100 minutes.

There is an absolutely amazing scene that I had to watch twice, because of reactive viewing. It’s something that I’m trying to diminish, directing an effort to be more proactive in absorbing each detail of any medium of art. Both Mrs. Chen and Mr. Chow try to sift through all the possibilities of how their respective spouses could have patched up. At first, Mr. Chow role-plays as Mr.Chen, trying to coax Mrs. Chow, who is role played by Mrs. Chen. It gets a little confusing when read over text, but it’s a much clearer picture when visualized. He asks if they should stay out that night, and Mrs. Chen immediately breaks character to defend her husband, saying he wouldn’t have said such a thing. In a reversal of roles, Mrs. Chen, role-playing Mrs. Chow, tries to coax her own husband now. She is overwrought, and unable to pull it off, breaking character once more. Mr.Chow tells her that it is immaterial, as it has already happened and it doesn’t matter how. Mrs. Chen turns back, and asks him if he really knows his wife, trying to imply whether he knows for sure or not if his wife would have acted in such a way. She then leaves Mr.Chow and walks away.

Originally, as Kar-Wai stated, the film was shot with no preparation. Principal shooting began with merely an idea. There was no concrete foundation. He worked with his actors, Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung, in tandem, to breathe life to a bygone era. This kind of interaction makes me want to map it to the kind of relationship that was shared on the sets of the Before Trilogy, between Linklater, Delpy and Hawke. When the roleplay scene had come up, Kar-Wai’s actors proposed to act as completely different persons, as to add dimensions to their spouses. But Kar-Wai himself stated that he purposefully refrained from showing the faces of their spouses, because he felt a debate over them was not what was required. It was not to be a debatable affair film, but one that entails the effects that it has on the other two individuals involved. He requested his actors to play out this roleplay as themselves, so as to bring another layer to the characters of Mrs. Chen and Mr. Chow. By trying to reconstruct a relationship akin to the one shared by their spouses, they remain determined to have an affair that is purely platonic. However, they only manage to do so by creating a temporary haven or bubble so as to not face the reality, as stated by Nerdwriter1. The harsh reality that they have failed to be stimulating or engaging so as to rescue their marriage would hit them when they step-out. Across the narrative, there are instances where these two individuals try to step into the shoes of their spouses, but it’s so seamless, that you don’t know when they slip into character and when they slip out. It’s just indescribable, cinematic magic. An as a succulent side note, Kar- Wai shared the film had more detailing than possible, but the inferences that were made, could have been made only within the borders of Hong-Kong. He explains how food as such, acts as time stamps for the film, and that certain types of food consumed by the characters can be indications of which season they were in.

Something that I noticed after the film, after listening to Kar-Wai’s interview is how he framed each scene. Mentioned in his Cannes interview, he stated that he wanted to keep the audience as this observant neighbour. Someone that prods their nose into the private lives of these two forlorn individuals. In some sense, I could grasp the outsider feeling while watching the film, when the camera dollied between mirrors, when Mr. Chow would eye Mrs. Chan wistfully, even though they have made each other believe their relationship was purely platonic, and would never be like that of their spouses. But only when mentioned by Kar-Wai did I realize, this windowed effect was pervasive, be it circular, rectangular or even a square cut-out, the actors were placed within them, so as to make the audience feel, subconsciously, that they were peering into a life, during a different time, which was not their own.

When Mrs. Chen comes back to her room, she is stopped by her landlady, who advises her dolefully that to enjoy oneself at a young age is not a crime, but to overdo it requires a word of caution, which she had to impart. As Kar-Wai mentioned, during that point in time, anything in the vicinity of a cultural deviation, would invite gossip. And, yet, the two of them refrain from believing the gossip, because they know that their relationship is purely platonic. But, one night, Mr.Chow does confess he would like to leave, because he believes the gossip now, for he knows that their fantasy no longer exists, and that he has fallen for Mrs. Chen. They both realize that they were indifferent to their spouses, and amidst the peltering rain, their bubble bursts and they embrace themselves so as to accept and acknowledge that they are both by-products of failed marriages.

The film then jumps to 1963 from 1962, with Mr. Chow now in Singapore. Mrs. Chen tries to reach out to him, as she has arrived in Singapore to see him. But she is unable to meet him, but rummages through his apartment, before planting her lipstick onto a cigarette bud, so as to let him know that she was there. Even in her interviews during the making of the film, Maggie Cheung states her character as Mrs.Chen to be a woman with capacity, in the 1960’s, who was also married, and that she could not afford to be fragile. Yet, she was fragile, but not the overt kind of fragile. She could call Mr.Chow, but never bring herself to speak to him, and state her emotions.

The film then jumps back to Hong Kong in 66’. Mrs. Chen moves into her old landlord’s house with her son. As Mr.Chow comes back to pay a visit to his old landlord, adjacent to Mrs.Chen, he finds that his old landlord has relocated to the Philippines. He asks the current tenant as to who stays next-door, and he states that it is a woman and her son. As he floats out, Chow wishes to knock, but hesitates and leaves. They continue to exist, with the hope of meeting again, or reliving that period that they shared.

The film ends in Angkor Wat, far away from these incidents as Kar-Wai states. However, the location was not premeditated. It was a chance event that Kar-Wai decided to act upon, as his producer had better connections in Cambodia, they chose to film at the historical location that witnessed centuries of secrets, relationships and affairs. Mr. Chow then blows his secret into a hole in the wall, and covers it with mud, before he walks away. He yearns to revisit the past, but he can only see it as it shimmers in memory, losing its shine as time chips away. The film is a beautiful exploration of human secrets, facades and trepidation. Even the titular track, In the Mood for Love: Yumeji’s Theme, composed by Shigeru Umebayashi, sets the tempo for the film, as each dolly and pan moves in perfect synchronization with the intonations of the powerful melancholy riddled throughout the song.

I couldn’t stop myself from not writing about this film because I wanted to capture and store the first impact it had on me. I certainly have no doubt that I shall be watching all films in Wong-Kar-Wai’s oeuvre, and that I shall most certainly be watching In the Mood for Love again, so as to identify anything that I may have missed. But most of all, to be taken to a time and place that were so alien to me, yet bridged, through the stunningly visual performance of Maggie Cheung as the fragile Mrs.Chen was probably what makes me resonate with this film so much. I have gotten glimpses of the reserved culture of the Chinese on visits to Malaysia and Singapore, but this experience was as surreal as it was unique.

Kannathil Muthamittal – The Aftertaste of a Film.

In an interview with Film Companion, writer/director Karthick Naren mentioned the impact that the ending of Kannathil Muthamittal had on him, when the freeze frame hits and Vellai Pookal by Rahman begins to play. This wasn’t the first time a young Tamil director alluded to the film as an inspiration. In an earlier interview, even Karthik Subbaraj mentioned how it wasn’t a regular Mani Ratnam film, and the impact it had on him when he exited the screens was huge. But, Naren used the term “aftertaste” which really piqued my interest, and I began to look back at all the films I watched which left me with a huge impact. Be it Blood Diamond, Memories of Murder, Silence, La Dolce Vita and several other films. The impact of finishing on a high note, stimulates this lingering effect in the viewers’ minds. After watching a few more interviews, I settled down to watch Kannathil Muthamittal, so as to repaint my memory which didn’t serve me much, as I had watched the film when I was at an age of incomprehension.

I tried to gather this aftertaste after my viewing experience. I sat back, only to realize, Kannathil Muthamittal was not just a physical journey. It was a journey of repatriation, realization, innocence, and emotions. How Amudha has her way to go back to the land she should have been born in, how she realizes that her true parents were the ones who adopted her, and how the unanswerable questions of war are seen through the lens of innocence, and amidst all this, the wave of emotions that sweeps over a family who left the bubble of an urban life to find themselves amongst inexplicable warfare.

Over the years, something I’ve grown to love with Mani Ratnam is his sense of realism. His dialogues don’t seem buttered up, to fit big characters on big screens. His cosmopolitan touch, with the sporadic, quirky tête-à-tête between his characters that seem so likely to happen in the lives of the normal urban/semi-urban populace. But it’s so seamless how he can transition. When one moment, Indra questions whether the budding writer’s ambitions stop with the pen and if he would adopt the very child that was the muse for his story, we immediately get a satirical conversation between the two a few scenes later, with Thiruchelvan proposing methods of suicide to an agitated Indra. And then again, a straightforward question to Indra’s father if he would grant his permission and signature to marry his daughter. Mani Ratnam gives no room for overbloated ballyhoo and cuts straight to the chase. His grasp over the craft has gotten better with each film, and the subtleties of cosmopolitanism never fade from his characters.

But for me, personally, this aftertaste, constantly kept redirecting my focus to how Mani Ratnam managed to bridge the gap between two worlds that are only separated by a small stretch of sea, which doesn’t even span more than a 100 kilometres. How distinctly different these two places were, almost as if they were two different worlds. The urban bubble of a bustling Chennai on one side, and the constant bombardment on the northern coast of Sri Lanka on the other. Not many sit down to think about it, how physically close the conflict was, yet how mentally detached we were from that world.

Kannathil Muthamittal, in a sense, is a circle of love. Amudha’s world, before her parents told her about her origins, revolved around her family. When she comes to realize, that she is an outsider, an alien, she feels uncomfortable in her own shoes. She constantly questions herself as to why her mother left her, and she slowly begins to drift away from her parents and family, constantly in search of the answer to this question of identity, trying to break free. While on the other hand, Indra questions herself as to whether her daughter has lost all love for her. An evident relationship has diminished to become latent.

There is an extremely beautiful sequence that defines the movie, right before the mid-point. Amudha flees home with her cousin, to find her real mother, in Rameswaram. Thiruchelvan and his family get to know about this, and they immediately depart to retrieve their daughter and her cousin. Amudha, equipped only with the name of her real mother, comes to know that her mother is no longer there. Thiruchelvan and Indra reach the camp, and find their daughter staring at the outset of the sea. Thiruchelvan then promises his daughter, holding her by her cheeks that he will take her to Sri Lanka to find her real mother.

Once they reach Sri Lanka, Amudha sees this new land, questioning whether she should have been born on it. Landing in Colombo, she finds the place to be extremely quaint and lively, wondering as to why her real mother left her if everything was this tranquil. Mani and Rahman together, unravel through visuals and music, the humane side of a country plagued by constant turmoil. As Amudha drives by, she sees all the sights, as Rahman’s Signore Signore plays in the background. As they settle in for the night, in a brief skirmish between mother and daughter, Amudha shouts at Indra, saying “You aren’t my real mother” before rushing to embrace her father. It’s an extremely profound moment for both characters, as Indra realizes that her daughter no longer associates herself with her mother who took care of her for all these years, as if she were her own.

As the family makes inroads into the restricted zones, they realize they are amidst a mass evacuation, and try to find Amudha’s mother, Shyama, before the Sri Lankan Government launches a counter-insurgent strike. The entire sequence, establishes how intricate a storyteller Mani Ratnam is. As this alien, forlorn feeling steals over them, they find another woman by the same name, who denies that Amudha is her daughter, claiming her daughter now rests in her grave, breaking down before leaving. In that moment, although not shown explicitly, Mani Ratnam places a family who have come to realize the gifted life they lead, amidst thousands of people who are forced to leave their family, dead or alive, and the land they were born, to live under the label of a refugee in some foreign land. The contrast between coasts couldn’t have been brought out better.

Soon after, Thiruchelvan finds Shyama’s brother, played by the brilliant Pasupathy, who now leads the LTTE, and confesses to him the reason as to why they have come. Shyama’s brother then informs Thiruchelvan to meet him at a nearby place, before visiting his sister. Shyama, who realizes that her daughter has come back, refuses to meet her, stating that there are over 300 children with the rebels, and that each one of them is her child, and that Amudha is not different. The next day, in a rapid turn of events, Thiruchelvan and his family are caught in between the crossfire exchanged by two parties, seeking homage in a church to recuperate, with Indra being wounded by a bullet.

Before leaving to India again, Indra wishes to go back to the crossfire spot to wait and see one more time. It’s this resolution of the film that really makes it stand apart, and re-establishes Mani Ratnam as both a brilliant writer and director. Shyama arrives, but is still hesitant. She still remains rigid, as her daughter questions her as to why she left her. Unable to conceal her emotions, she breaks down, fervently kissing her daughter, before stating that there will be one day, when peace will reign over the land, and her daughter can come back to her then. Amudha questions her “When”? It was the most profound exchange in the entire film, because it showed war through the eyes of a child, who couldn’t comprehend why people fought amongst each other. It was a question, not only to Shyama, but to human conscience. A question formed by a child’s candour, who sees the world for what it is, not through any lens. When will all this end, and when will people stop dying? As Shyama leaves with her brother, Amudha pecks Indra on her cheek, so as to say, “I have realized who I am. I am your daughter”. It’s a beautiful way to re-patch a disrupted circle of love between mother and daughter, who had drifted apart through this journey.

However, for all its sense of real life resemblances and conversations, Kannathil Muthamittal is still not Mani Ratnam’s best. It still has surreal songs that impede the narrative, and tends to be a bit stretched at places, but these are minor drawbacks to someone who has been used to didacticism in mainstream Tamil cinema, but from then till now, these digressions have held back Tamil films from being what they could be. Seldom do I see a song adding any value to narrative, with the exception of Ellu Vaya Pookalaye in Asuran, which amplified the melancholy needed for the situation, without disturbing the narrative as such, intercutting dialogues between the song. If Tamil Cinema were to truly exhibit itself, this has to be shed.

Kannathil Muthamittal, with its ending, like many other films left a lingering aftertaste. A strong one, too. I would now like to read more accounts on the Sri Lankan Civil War, having already shortlisted The Seasons of Trouble by Rohini Mohan and Still Counting the Dead by Frances Harrison. Any medium of art can proclaim to have done a good job, if it has still left room for your imagination and thought, and if it leads you to another medium, and I think Mani Ratnam has got it spot on.