Double Brilliance on a Sunday
Today was one of the best spent Sunday's in recent memory.
The morning started off with my 7th Chinese lesson. It's only the second time in my life I am attending a language class outside of a formal setting, the first being a course in French that I took on the insistence of my grandfather when I was about 13. It's amazing how fresh one's mind feels when one is doing something as a hobby, as opposed to something that is required for school/work. There is definitely something to the concept of 'doing what you like'. And even in the case of one's job, the moment I start 'liking what I do', the whole concept of 'job' turns into something totally different; something that at times even becomes 'passion'.
Anyways, soon after this, went down to watch Kiran Rao's debut film 'Dhobi Ghat' at our local multiplex. And what a debut it is. This is, by far, one of the best films to be made in India since Satyajit Ray crafted out his study of human civilization in 'Aguntuk' way back in 1991. And what a joy it is that someone of the caliber of Aamir Khan is associated with this. Films like Dhobi Ghat is the stuff what students of cinema yearn to master. It is the craft of motion pictures at its best. A well thought story line, well crafted characters, near perfect casting, a haunting background score, and editing that makes people forget they are in a movie theater.
The film takes us into the lives of 4 residents of Mumbai - an accomplished painter, an ambitious dhobi cum rat killer with aspirations of making it as an actor, a down-to-earth western educated daughter of a Parsee millionaire, and (my personal favorite) Hasina Noor - a lower middle class Muslim woman resident of Mohammad Ali Road. I am a fan of stories which take the approach of defying time lines and sequential storytelling, and was immediately drawn to Dhobi Ghat right from the opening scene - where the audience takes the vantage point of an invisible Yasmin Noor who is videotaping a rainy day out of her taxi window.
Khan plays the divorced artist who is a self confessed loner, with clear people issues, who, one night, finds himself sharing common thoughts with an NRI daughter of a millionaire builder who is on a sabbatical. Soon after she walks out on him after their brief encounter, he finds a few tapes left in the back of a cupboard in his rented apartment left behind by the previous occupant of the place. With Khan, we begin a crucial journey into the life of Yasmin Noor - as the tapes are her home videos, made as recorded letters to her brother back home.
We are also quickly introduced to Munna, the 'dhobi', who services the apartments of both our painter and our NRI daughter-on-sabbatical. He represents about 95% of the population of Mumbai - a migrant with hopes of making it big in the metropolis of dreams. He is a dhobi by day, and rat killer by night, with dreams of becoming an actor in this unforgiving city which he has chosen to call home. He is also the 'glue' in our story, and serves to swivel the screenplay from one life to another.
Dhobi Ghat is one of those films where one can interpret several layers, so I will stick to the things that appealed to me. To me, the film is largely about loneliness in a big city. It's the kind of loneliness that was depicted almost to perfection by De Niro in 'Taxi Driver'. It's the loneliness which can make a person lose his humanity, the loneliness which can make human beings lose touch with reality. And in my experience, the more crowded the city, the more lonely is the person in it. Just like Travis Bickle, the character of the painter Arun struggles to fight his inner demons, and shows a spark of his inner human being when he finally connects with someone. In this case, that someone is a person he has never met. Yasmin Noor, who exists only in the forgotten video tapes, is the only person who seems to be able to reach out to the troubled painter.
In two hours, the film takes us through a few weeks of these four peoples' lives, in such an adept way, that at times, we almost feel like a voyeur. We are taking a look at people at their most vulnerable moments, as well as at moments when some of them almost find themselves.
On hindsight, one of the things that I really liked about this film is that, it showed us, for once, regular Muslim folks who lead regular lives. Not the innocent guy who gets pulled into hardline politics, not the honest police officer fighting discrimination, not the terrorist fighting the never ending 'jihad'. Here we see regular folks - with the same aspirations as anyone else, and the same demons as well. Again, on hindsight, something that I really liked about this film was the fact that it leaves the audience to make their own inferences about each person. Nothing is 'dumbed down' with an explanation, or with some obvious hint. Just like life itself, nothing is black or white, it's all shares of grey.
Full respect to Kriti Malhotra for essaying the role of Yasmin so amazingly well. And more so to Kiran Rao for envisioning this masterpiece.
I just hope Kiran doesn't do an Orson Wells and disappear into mediocrity after this. Dhobi Ghat is a tough act to follow.
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The second film I watched today was 'The King's Speech'. This is another one of those films which is a rare find these days - one with a soul. though Dhobi Ghat and The King's Speech could not be set in more different surroundings, there is something that is a common thread between these two films. What that something is cannot be explained very easily. I guess the simplest way to put it would be to say that both films are about the ability of human beings to rise above themselves in their own small way. Only, in the case of the second film, the human being is a King - of what was then the largest empire in the world.
The King's Speech takes us into the private life of King George VI, or Bertie, as we come to know him in the film. We learn of his struggle with his stammering, resulting from childhood traumas, and the pressures of public life. We also look at the relationship between him and his therapist, played so marvelously by Geoffery Rush.
Very soon into the film, we stop seeing Prince Albert (later to be Geroge VI) as a member of the royal family. He is, like us, just a human being - with similar (perhaps more complex) mental anguishes, and similar shortcomings. His struggle with his stammer, leading to a near-total breakdown of self confidence is played to perfection by Colin Firth (one of the most underrated actors - watch Shakespeare in Love and Bridget Jones' Diary).
The final few minutes of the film, which show the newly instated king of the realm speak to his subjects over the radio at the onset of World War II, is the high point of the film. Watching Rush and Firth go through the King's speech almost like a tango is an absolute joy, and is sure to go down as one of the most finely crafted sequences in cinema ever.
In short, another masterpiece. The 12 Oscar nominations are not unwarranted.
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The icing on the cake, was that I was not alone in enjoying these films. The missus too thoroughly enjoyed them.
The morning started off with my 7th Chinese lesson. It's only the second time in my life I am attending a language class outside of a formal setting, the first being a course in French that I took on the insistence of my grandfather when I was about 13. It's amazing how fresh one's mind feels when one is doing something as a hobby, as opposed to something that is required for school/work. There is definitely something to the concept of 'doing what you like'. And even in the case of one's job, the moment I start 'liking what I do', the whole concept of 'job' turns into something totally different; something that at times even becomes 'passion'.
Anyways, soon after this, went down to watch Kiran Rao's debut film 'Dhobi Ghat' at our local multiplex. And what a debut it is. This is, by far, one of the best films to be made in India since Satyajit Ray crafted out his study of human civilization in 'Aguntuk' way back in 1991. And what a joy it is that someone of the caliber of Aamir Khan is associated with this. Films like Dhobi Ghat is the stuff what students of cinema yearn to master. It is the craft of motion pictures at its best. A well thought story line, well crafted characters, near perfect casting, a haunting background score, and editing that makes people forget they are in a movie theater. The film takes us into the lives of 4 residents of Mumbai - an accomplished painter, an ambitious dhobi cum rat killer with aspirations of making it as an actor, a down-to-earth western educated daughter of a Parsee millionaire, and (my personal favorite) Hasina Noor - a lower middle class Muslim woman resident of Mohammad Ali Road. I am a fan of stories which take the approach of defying time lines and sequential storytelling, and was immediately drawn to Dhobi Ghat right from the opening scene - where the audience takes the vantage point of an invisible Yasmin Noor who is videotaping a rainy day out of her taxi window.
Khan plays the divorced artist who is a self confessed loner, with clear people issues, who, one night, finds himself sharing common thoughts with an NRI daughter of a millionaire builder who is on a sabbatical. Soon after she walks out on him after their brief encounter, he finds a few tapes left in the back of a cupboard in his rented apartment left behind by the previous occupant of the place. With Khan, we begin a crucial journey into the life of Yasmin Noor - as the tapes are her home videos, made as recorded letters to her brother back home.
We are also quickly introduced to Munna, the 'dhobi', who services the apartments of both our painter and our NRI daughter-on-sabbatical. He represents about 95% of the population of Mumbai - a migrant with hopes of making it big in the metropolis of dreams. He is a dhobi by day, and rat killer by night, with dreams of becoming an actor in this unforgiving city which he has chosen to call home. He is also the 'glue' in our story, and serves to swivel the screenplay from one life to another.
Dhobi Ghat is one of those films where one can interpret several layers, so I will stick to the things that appealed to me. To me, the film is largely about loneliness in a big city. It's the kind of loneliness that was depicted almost to perfection by De Niro in 'Taxi Driver'. It's the loneliness which can make a person lose his humanity, the loneliness which can make human beings lose touch with reality. And in my experience, the more crowded the city, the more lonely is the person in it. Just like Travis Bickle, the character of the painter Arun struggles to fight his inner demons, and shows a spark of his inner human being when he finally connects with someone. In this case, that someone is a person he has never met. Yasmin Noor, who exists only in the forgotten video tapes, is the only person who seems to be able to reach out to the troubled painter.
In two hours, the film takes us through a few weeks of these four peoples' lives, in such an adept way, that at times, we almost feel like a voyeur. We are taking a look at people at their most vulnerable moments, as well as at moments when some of them almost find themselves.
On hindsight, one of the things that I really liked about this film is that, it showed us, for once, regular Muslim folks who lead regular lives. Not the innocent guy who gets pulled into hardline politics, not the honest police officer fighting discrimination, not the terrorist fighting the never ending 'jihad'. Here we see regular folks - with the same aspirations as anyone else, and the same demons as well. Again, on hindsight, something that I really liked about this film was the fact that it leaves the audience to make their own inferences about each person. Nothing is 'dumbed down' with an explanation, or with some obvious hint. Just like life itself, nothing is black or white, it's all shares of grey.
Full respect to Kriti Malhotra for essaying the role of Yasmin so amazingly well. And more so to Kiran Rao for envisioning this masterpiece.
I just hope Kiran doesn't do an Orson Wells and disappear into mediocrity after this. Dhobi Ghat is a tough act to follow.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The second film I watched today was 'The King's Speech'. This is another one of those films which is a rare find these days - one with a soul. though Dhobi Ghat and The King's Speech could not be set in more different surroundings, there is something that is a common thread between these two films. What that something is cannot be explained very easily. I guess the simplest way to put it would be to say that both films are about the ability of human beings to rise above themselves in their own small way. Only, in the case of the second film, the human being is a King - of what was then the largest empire in the world.The King's Speech takes us into the private life of King George VI, or Bertie, as we come to know him in the film. We learn of his struggle with his stammering, resulting from childhood traumas, and the pressures of public life. We also look at the relationship between him and his therapist, played so marvelously by Geoffery Rush.
Very soon into the film, we stop seeing Prince Albert (later to be Geroge VI) as a member of the royal family. He is, like us, just a human being - with similar (perhaps more complex) mental anguishes, and similar shortcomings. His struggle with his stammer, leading to a near-total breakdown of self confidence is played to perfection by Colin Firth (one of the most underrated actors - watch Shakespeare in Love and Bridget Jones' Diary).
The final few minutes of the film, which show the newly instated king of the realm speak to his subjects over the radio at the onset of World War II, is the high point of the film. Watching Rush and Firth go through the King's speech almost like a tango is an absolute joy, and is sure to go down as one of the most finely crafted sequences in cinema ever.
In short, another masterpiece. The 12 Oscar nominations are not unwarranted.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The icing on the cake, was that I was not alone in enjoying these films. The missus too thoroughly enjoyed them.
Very eloquent as always and the dhobi ghat review was as fine as they come!
Posted by
Sugur |
Sun Jan 30, 04:15:00 PM PST
Good one dada.. loved it
Havent seen the movies yet but now I am really intruiged to see them
Posted by
Just Another Guy |
Wed Feb 02, 05:25:00 AM PST