Light Rays on Charulata

I agree with Satyajit Ray. Charulata (IMDB) is his best film. Period.

I did not have the courage to write about Charulata, because it is as if one is writing about the Mona Lisa. One is afraid, that one is not of ‘that’ level of an artistic connoisseur, and hence tends to keep mum about great art works. But since this Unquiet Mind keeps thinking about it, and the whole purpose of this blog is to keep expressing such Unquiet Thoughts, I decided to write…finally.

Ray was asked what he thought was his best film, and he answered, apparently without any hesitation, "Charulata". He further said that if he were asked to remake his films all over again, Charulata was the one film in which he would not change even a single frame. That is a big statement coming from Ray.

When Ray received the lifetime achievement award from the Oscar Academy, he was on his deathbed. And I was in tears. I cried.

There are many people like me who’ve been enamored by Ray’s magic in Apu’s Trilogy. Pather Panchali was a milestone in Indian cinema as it brought Indian cinema to the world. And shook it. I am myself a great admirer of Pather Panchali and the Apu Trilogy. But Charulata is in a class of its own. It is a study of a woman’s mind, and, a revealing study.

The first sequence is like a tutorial in film-making. No words, no dialogue, no music. Charu is alone at home and her loneliness is captured by the camera in an exquisite fashion. Observe her as she engages in mundane activities at home, how the camera follows her about the home. No music in this introductory scene, and that establishes and emphasizes the loneliness. Finally, the climax occurs when she is looking at her husband through her binoculars walking down the gallery. She puts the binoculars down, and the camera zooms out. This is the climax. At once, you know, that you’re in a treat from a cameraman’s perspective.

The storm when her brother-in-law arrives is anticipatory of the storm he is going to bring into her lonesome, albeit married, life.

When she gets emotionally involved in her brother-in-law, it is not a typical script - thanks to Tagore. The script is based on Tagore’s Nastanirh (The Broken Nest), and there are several scholarly works exploring the relationship between Tagore’s Nashtanir and Ray’s Charulata. See here, here, and here for more scholarly information on this topic. I haven’t read Tagore, so I’ll restrict myself to my responses to the film.

In spite of being a male, I find Charulata to be the greatest statement ever for a woman’s individuality. Not in the sense of feminism. No. In the sense of how a woman needs to be understood by her husband, in a marriage, and how a woman needs recognition of herself, of her creative abilities.

If one has never had a conversation with one’s lover’s eyes, without words, one need not see this film. This film is all about unspoken words. It is about expressions. The sequence of Charu on the swing is one of film-making’s greatest achievements ever. If you can communicate and converse without the need of words, you’ll understand why. One of the greatest scenes in film-making - Charu on a swing, looking at her brother-in-law on the ground writing poetry, and looking up with a thirst at a window showing a mother and child…it is one of the greatest moments in cinema. How the camera pans!

Madhabi Mukherjee was so highly regarded as Charulata…there are reports that when she used to visit Englishmen’s homes in the UK, there used to be huge posters of Charu on the walls, and she was highly embarrassed.

Look at her expressions in the film when she publishes her own story in the magazine. She hits the magazine onto Amal’s (brother-in-law’s) head and runs to the window. Look at her expressions of tears, and how she controls them. It is love, but constrained by her marriage. The way Madhabi Mukherjee conveys that, is indescribable. You need to see it to believe it.

Also observe the period setting of the film. It was the 1850s, and the furniture, the sets, the music, the costumes, and the language had to suit the period. Ray was extremely meticulous and you can see it for yourself.

The ending of the film has spawned numerous interpretations and essays. It features the first freeze shots in Indian cinema. Charu and Bhupathi’s hands are extended towards each other, but they don’t touch. This sequence of freeze shots has been hailed as a masterpiece in filmmaking. Charulata’s tryst with independence is likened to India’s struggle for independence from the Euro-American powers after the war. Where else would you find such a compelling contrast?

I think I’ve expressed about 25% of my film appreciation of Charulata above, and I’ll end here. If you’re a serious film appreciation lover, write back, and we can learn still more from each other about this great genius. Thanks for reading. Comments about other films of Ray are also, obviously, welcome!

Further Reading: Strictly Film School, Epinions.com, Slant Magazine.

Photo Credits: Parabaas

Deaf, Dumb, and Blind

I have always admired Western films featuring the handicapped, such as Children of a Lesser God, Scent of a Woman, and the classic The Miracle Worker. So the last weekend, I decided to explore similar Indian films. Warning: this post contains spoilers.

Koshish (Effort) (1972)

Directed by the sensitive Gulzar, featuring stalwarts Sanjeev Kumar and Jaya Bhaduri, Koshish (IMDB) is about the life of a deaf and dumb couple who try to live a normal life in an insensitive society. It was very courageous of Gulzar to make a popular, commercial film of such an unusual plot, unlike the parallel art cinema of the times. After their first child dies due to an accident that they could not prevent as a result of being deaf, they get help from a blind friend to help raise the second child successfully.

It was heartwarming to see a film being made on such a subject using a popular cast. It does suffer from the usual drawbacks of popular cinema - excessive music, lot of melodrama, stereotypical villains, etc. However, viewed from a larger perspective, the director must be praised for taking the effort in trying to raise awareness among the masses.

There are touching scenes aplenty. The friendship and communication of the deaf and dumb couple with the blind friend is poignant. The anxiousness of the parents to have a ‘normal’ child is well done. Creative flourishes include a contraption used by the blind friend to alert the parents when the baby awakens and cries at night, and a scene where the young child is dancing to music from the radio and the parents touch the radio speakers to feel the rhythm. Both Sanjeev Kumar and Jaya Bhaduri play their roles very well and won the National Awards for Acting.

The artificial sets look too artificial. Another gripe I had was the same as Roger Ebert had with Children of a Lesser God - there is no scene without music to really let the audience feel how the world is for the couple. I morally disagreed with the plot at the end, where the son is virtually forced to marry a deaf and dumb girl. Overall, still recommended, as it is one of the rare Indian Sign Language Films.

Shwaas (Breath) (2004)

India’s failed attempt at the 77th Academy Awards was the film Shwaas (IMDB), which was a Marathi Indian National Award winner after 50 years. A rural boy with a rare retinal cancer is brought to the city hospital by his grandfather. A life-saving surgery would render the boy permanently blind. This difficult situation is dramatized in the film sensitively or over-sentimentally - depending on the viewer’s appetite for melodrama. While most Indian audiences find little or no melodrama in the film, most Western reviewers find it mawkish.

The long drawn out formalities in the hospital may appear too stretched, but that underscores the plight and frustration of millions of Indians who deal with the Indian medical bureaucracy. The hospital scenes appear authentic because six months were spent by the crew studying the goings-on in a real hospital. Both Ashwin Chitale as the boy (National Award for Best Actor), and Arun Nalawade as the grandfather deliver sterling performances. The doctor and social worker helping them cope with the situation are passable. The rural scenes of the boy’s village are a counterpoint to the hectic city life. These are captured with cinematic beauty, an accomplishment for Sandeep Sawant’s directorial debut. The music is generally fine, with an excellent interlude of piano with strings in the middle.

Among the negatives is an overly dramatized sequence when the boy ‘disappears’ from the hospital. The exaggeration is unrealistic. The parents absence from the key action seems implausible. The surgeries of other patients are postponed with an alarming insouciance. Despite these minor blemishes, Shwaas is a breath of fresh air about finding optimism in the gravest of circumstances. One of the finest Indian films in recent times.

Sparsh (Touch) (1980)

Sai Paranjpe’s Sparsh (IMDB) offers an unparalled insider’s view of the world of the blind. It is a very sensitively handled story of the romantic relationship between a blind man Anirudh (Naseeruddin Shah) who runs a school for the blind, and a bereaved widow Kavita (Shabana Azmi). The scenes of blind children of the school are used to form a backdrop to the central drama of the relationship. Of all these three films, this is the most ‘artsy’, the least melodramatic, and hence most to my liking.

Both the characters are living in a kind of a shell, afraid to open themselves up in fear of hurt. Anirudh is extremely independent, fierce in his determination, and passionately resists any attempt by others to treat him differently because of his blindness. His internal vulnerability is revealed later in the film. Kavita is living an isolated life while apparently cocooned in her bereavement. After a chance encounter, Kavita accepts Anirudh’s suggestion of teaching the children at his school.

The scenes of the children at the school are endearing. The only sighted boy once has a fight with a blind classmate and shuts his eyes to have a fair fight. The children play games, act in a drama, create candles and artifacts, and all these scenes are without a shred of pity - rather they’re a tribute to the triumph of the human spirit.

Soon, Anirudh and Kavita are in love, and they are engaged. This is where Anirudh’s inner insecurity leads him to suspect that Kavita is marrying him out of sacrifice and compromise, and that she doesn’t really love him. His dichotomy - on the one hand he wants others to treat him just like a normal person, and on the other, is hesitant to accept it when Kavita does - is extremely well handled. Naseer’s performance strikes just the right tone. He won the National Award for Best Actor. This is one of the rare performances in Indian films where a lead actor performs a blind role without the use of opaque glasses. His method acting is superlative.

All scenes are given just the right emotional treatment, and the cast delivers Sai Paranjpe’s vision of a sensitive film about intelligent, human characters. It was this film that inspired the poem in my earlier post “Blind Love”. Highly recommended.

In Memory of Ingmar Bergman

Dear Ingmar Bergman,

I have not watched many of your movies. In fact, I have only watched Fanny and Alexander. But I was so young then, that I couldn’t get it at all. And later, when I started getting a glimpse of what film-making as an art is all about, I was afraid to watch your films.

You see, one doesn’t look directly at the sun. If one wants to observe it, study the sun spot features on it, one filters it through a film and projects it on a piece of white paper, and then studies it. Similarly, I have been studying your energy by its influence on other film-makers like Woody Allen. Some might say Woody’s films are like high-school lessons, while yours are a doctoral thesis, and they wouldn’t be wrong. And like many of us common folk, I simply study others’ research, and thus learn about you.

You were the first to bring metaphysics to the screen. Your study of relationships is profound. They say that in your films, the mind is constantly seeking, constantly enquiring, constantly puzzled. For many years, your work was never criticized. Then the first critic lambasted you. It was discovered later that the critic was none other than you yourself. Why did you need to play such pranks?

Much has been written on the Bergmanesque bleakness and depressive overtones in your films. But I think these critics forget your traumatized childhood. They were never locked up in cupboards as children. They were either never around or forget the aftermath of WWII and the discovery of concentration camps. It is all too easy to turn your glare and attention away from evil. There are few courageous men like you, who stare at evil in the eye, and spend a lifetime studying and trying to understand it.

Those who try, understand what is involved. Hence you’ve been called a “Director’s Director”. At the 50th Cannes International Film Festival, all the surviving Palme d’Or-winning directors picked you for the Palme de Palmes award.

Even without having watched your films, I had strong emotions reading about your real meeting with death. Because I do not think great directors like you, who excelled in the art of film-making, can ever succeed in today’s world of blockbusters, feel-good cinema, pop culture, special effects, gangster actors, and sleaze.

That you never won an Oscar says a lot about the Oscar than about you. The Cannes festival director says that you are the last of the greats, as you proved that cinema can be as profound as literature. You once said, “Film as dream, film as music. No form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the twilight room of the soul.” A well-known Indian film director calls your cinema a symphony of the human soul.

I come from India, far away from Sweden. But you know about it, through Ray, whom you admired. A Bergman Film Festival in my city of Pune in 2003 caused a massive traffic jam. 500 people packed themselves, standing in aisles and on footsteps, in an auditorium with a capacity of 300. Such is the magic you create, that transcends language, culture, and geopolitical boundaries. India’s National Film Archive, located in Pune has 21 of your films. 5 or so of them are going to be screened this weekend in your memory.

It is a different matter altogether whether I’ll be able to watch any. I’ve not yet decided whether I’m going to try. An American screen-writer and playwright once attended a full-day Bergman festival. “I went at ten o’clock in the morning, and stayed all day. When I left the theater it was still light, but my soul was dark, and I did not sleep for years afterwards”, he said.

And I don’t want to stare at the sun.

Sincerely,
An Unquiet Mind Like Yours

Technorati Tags: film, movies, cinema, ingmar bergman, pune

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‘Jaadu ki Jappi’ prevents robbery

After the Munnabhai style Gandhigiri worked in the case of American green card seekers, his “magic hug” resolved another problem (thanks to GF’s blog):

The Washington Post reports:

It started about midnight on June 16 when a group of friends was finishing a dinner of marinated steaks and jumbo shrimp on the back patio of a District of Columbia home. That’s when a hooded man slid through an open gate and pointed a handgun at the head of a 14-year-old girl.

“Give me your money, or I’ll start shooting,” he said. Everyone froze, including the girl’s parents. Then one guest spoke.

“We were just finishing dinner,” Cristina Rowan, 43, told the man. “Why don’t you have a glass of wine with us?” The intruder had a sip of their Chateau Malescot St-Exupery and said, “Damn, that’s good wine.”

The girl’s father, Michael Rabdau, 51, told the intruder to take the whole glass, and Rowan offered him the whole bottle. The robber, with his hood down, took another sip and a bite of Camembert cheese. He put the gun in his sweatpants.

The story then turns even more bizarre.

“I think I may have come to the wrong house,” he said before apologizing. “Can I get a hug?”

Rowan stood up and wrapped her arms around the armed man. The four other guests followed.

“Can we have a group hug?” the man asked. The five adults complied.

The man walked away a few moments later with the crystal wine glass in hand. Nothing was stolen, and no one was hurt.

Once he was gone, the group walked into the house, locked the door and stared at each other - speechless. Police classified the case as strange but true.

Bollywood is not so much “fantasy-world” after all!

In Search of a Divertimento

I saw Out of Africa in 1986 on the big screen in Mumbai, when I passed my Xth grade. I was mesmerized by the movie’s visual grandeur and swept off my feet by the music. Later in 1987, I managed to rent a VHS video cassette and savored it several times. There were two hypnotic sequences in the film that had the same background score - a Western Classical piece by Mozart:

First, when Karen (Meryl Streep) is walking alone in her farm and hears the sound of music for the first time in her farm. She seeks the source of the sound and discovers Denys (Robert Redford) playing a gramophone. “Look, they finally made a machine that’s really useful!”, he exclaims.

Second, when they’re on safari, Denys places the gramophone with a string attached in the wilderness near a pack of baboons. He pulls on the string to play the music and see how the baboons react. After the baboons jerk off the pickup, he says “Think of it: never a man-made sound…and then Mozart!”.

The music sounded devilishly simple, yet there was subtle complexity. It was spirited, vibrant, mischievous, and relentless.

I was obsessed with that piece of music. Through the ending movie credits on the overused VHS cassette, I could identify it as a Divertimento, but could not discern the Kochel catalog number. This was 1987: Western Classical music was virtually unheard of in India. There were no western classical cassettes available in shops - and if there were a few in Mumbai’s Rhythm House, they were beyond my middle-class, student’s pocket. Moreover, how could I get this piece without knowing the full details?

My elder brother then went to the US for a year and on my insistence, brought back the Soundtrack CD of the movie. I was elated, and then disappointed when I found that the Divertimento was not on the CD!

I then learnt that Max Mueller Bhavan in Mumbai had a large western classical collection and offered a free student’s membership, where you could borrow 3 music cassettes a week. I traveled to the Bhavan every weekend, poring over the collection. Unfortunately, most of the cassettes didn’t even have any titles or identification of the contents. I didn’t relent, and picked my lottery cassettes every week. And one day, viola! I got the Divertimento on one cassette and immediately created my copy. I still didn’t know the Kochel catalog number, but I had it on cassette. This miracle happened in 1988.

In the 90s, I discovered a site called “Classics of the Silver Screen“. It was an excellent resource for identifying operatic and classical works used in popular Hollywood films. However, the Divertimento was not listed for Out of Africa. I wrote to the webmaster, and he didn’t know about it either. Neither did IMDB. (Both these sites now list it). But soon, the Internet exploded, and by 2000, I discovered that it was the 1st movement “Allegro”, of the Divertimento in D Major, K. 136.

In 2001, when I discovered in Gutman’s Cultural Biography of Mozart, that this Divertimento was composed by Mozart in 1772 - when he was just a teen of 16 years - I wept.

What a journey through the years! What is this obsession? Insane? Stupid? Call it whatever you wish, this is the way I am! It took me almost 16 years to find out the music composed over 225 years ago by a 16 year-old. It will take less than 16 minutes today. Here’s the YouTube version conducted by Menuhin:

This is what technology does - aren’t our children lucky?

Yearning for Sense…

Once an issue becomes a mainstream news item in India, you can be sure every major religious group, political party, student organization, and celebrity will have an opinion on it. After the Shiv Sena, it’s now the All India Minorities Front’s (AIMF) turn to freely express their views on Orkut while living in democratic India.

What are odds that the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) will not be the next to express their views from Gujarat?

How does one issue become mainstream? Well, one of the TV channels has to take the bait, and the rest will follow. The print and electronic media will then aggressively offer the right platform for everyone to get their views miscommunicated, taken out of context, and misquoted. Competing with a dozen other news channels and newspapers, the one creating the most sensationalism and misunderstanding will win the most eyeballs, goes the wisdom. There will be talk shows with pundits, and opinion polls, and public talks shows.

In all this brouhaha, two things happen. Not only is the true issue misrepresented to various extents and typically blown out of proportion, but other significant newsworthy items are all but ignored.

How many of you recollect tomorrow’s British PM-to-be, Gordon Brown’s high profile visit to India? No? Not surprising, because the Indian media never knew of anything else happening in the world apart from Big Sister Shilpa Shetty in Big Brother!

Not only is this phenomenon unique of India. For e.g., in the US, the retirement of Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman was relegated to the background over more important stuff like celebrities being jailed for drunk driving.

While US Cable TV was obsessed with drunk-driver-celebrities (DDC, a long wanted title):
“President Bush skipped the final session of the G8 Summit, Vice President Dick Cheney needed to have his heart pacemaker replaced, and NASA’s Space Shuttle Atlantis prepared for launch!”

In India, it’s Cricket Coach Controversy, Big Sister abused on Big Brother, the AAA (Abhi-Aish-Amitabh) wedding, Big Uncle kissing Big Sister, so on and so forth. Too much coverage, too many opinions, too many mountains out of molehills. When this happens - and its happening with increasing frequency - I need a break. To regain my sense, rejuvenate my capacity to reason, to make this world meaningful again.

Then I listen to Kumar’s Nirguni Bhajans (or read this review) , or Mozart’s 40th in G Minor. Watch Ek Doctor Ki Maut, (or read this review by my friend, Asuph), or dream of taking a yacht cruise like Gail Wynand in The Fountainhead. What can you do? Escape to the Himalayas by reading my Spiti Travelogue! Just kidding…though I do that too, sometimes!

Groundhog Day: Movie Review

Watched Groundhog Day (again) on TV a few days back, one of my beloved movies.

Groundhog Day is about Phil (Bill Murray), a TV weatherman, who visits Punxsutawney, for the traditional Feb 2nd Groundhog Day festival. Phil is a self-absorbed man, snobbish, and unfriendly. He finds everyone to be a dim-witted stereotype, and hates going to the Groundhog Day festival for the 4th time. An attempt to escape from Punxsutawney immediately after the festivities are over is hampered by a blizzard. Dissappointed, he has to spend the night in the same hotel.

To his utter surprise and despair, when he gets up the next morning, it’s still Feb 2nd, Groundhog Day, all over again. He meets the same people on his way to the square where the festivities are happening as if for the first time. Other than him, everyone thinks and acts as if this is normal for them, as if this is the first Feb 2nd of the year.

This happens about 20-30 minutes into the movie, and then things start to get really interesting. He spends the day in much the same way, finding the same things happening to himself and others, and retires at night. Only to find it being Groundhog Day even the next day, and so on, and on.

His frustration and desperation lead to interesting interactions with his producer Rita (Andie MacDowell), whom he tries to explain what’s happening, in vain. A brain scan and visit to the couch follows with the same result. His social interactions take interesting turns and twists. He asks a young woman about her high-school and 12th grade English teacher, and the ‘next’ day, pretends to be her classmate, and ultimately, takes her to bed. After boozing with locals at a bar, he takes them on a dare-devil ride on a railway track.

Realizing he cannot get out of this ‘time lock’ until something changes drastically, he steals the Groundhog, and drives deep down a suicidal canyon. There are several other attempts to die. He does die, but his ‘next’ day starts the same.

All this while, he realizes that what he really wants, is to ‘have’ Rita. Elaborate attempts of his manipulation in finding out about her and then ‘using’ that to get closer to her, don’t work. He is not being truthful - neither to her, nor to himself.

By this time, the movie is already worth the ticket. There are plenty of amusing laughs and smart-liners to keep you hooked. Then, there’s the turning point. Slowly, enlightenment dawns on Phil. He starts seeing things and people in a different way.

What happens next? Does Phil get out of the time lock? Do Rita and Phil get together? Watch the movie to find out!

There is so much to learn from this simple, yet profound movie! Apart from simple humanitarianism, there’s also self-discovery, personal growth, and self-development. The movie makes you think, period.

George Fenton’s music is pleasant throughout, while Jazz frequently provides a welcome interlude. The editing is great - some of the scenes that are repeated over and over for many days are especially a worthwhile study. They start with the exact same dialogue and exact same expressions, and then evolve differently as days go by, without any visible ‘cuts’. This is very skillfully achieved.

Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell do a great job as well. I don’t like Andie much, and this is the only movie where I’ve liked her. Bill has never disappointed, and always entertains. His timing is impeccable.

Overall, the movie strikes the right balance between pure entertainment and making you think about things.

Main Cast: Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell
Music: George Fenton
Direction: Harold Ramis
IMDB: Link
Review Rating: None. I don’t think it’s worth my while writing or your reading, about movies that I wouldn’t recommend very highly!

TV Ad Break Intervals

When I watch a movie on TV, I’ve observed that the time interval between ad breaks is not uniform, rather it decreases as the movie progresses. Towards the end, it is almost like the Fibonacci in reverse.

What I mean is when the movie starts, there are no ads for, say, the first 30 minutes. After the 1st break, the next break will then be after 25 minutes. Next, 20. And so on. And finally, when the climax is just around the corner, and you’re at the edge of your seat, you’re bombarded with ads faster than Himesh can spring a new song/music-video on you. Well, you got my point.

What I’d like to know is, is this really true? Have you experienced this? I haven’t checked it out scientifically and Google didn’t help either. Is this:

- True, because advertisers know that the farther you’ve been watching the movie, the more likely you’re watching it with interest, the more likely you have some company also watching it (more eyeballs), the more likely you wouldn’t want to waste any single scene during the climax and thus stick to your seat!

OR

- False, because it is a Temporal Illusion, where the more engrossed we are in the movie, the faster time passes by. Hence, though the ad break intervals remain the same, the intervals appear shorter to us, because the time we watch the movie appears to pass by faster!

The Terminal - For Real

Reuters reports a TOI story about two Bangladeshi men stranded at New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport for 48 days, a.k.a. the popular Tom Hank’s movie, The Terminal. If you think this is bizarre, hold your breath…

Did you know the movie was supposedly inspired by the real-life story of an Iranian refugee, Mehran Karimi Nasseri, who
“lived” in Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport for 18 (yes eighteen) years?

Read his amazing story at Wikipedia.

Over the years, Nasseri had become accustomed to his life in the airport terminal. He kept himself clean and rose at 5 a.m. every morning to wash in the public toilets. The airport staff sometimes washed his clothes for him and had donated a sofa for his use. He spent most of the day listening to the radio, reading books and writing his diary. This diary has been turned into an autobiography, The Terminal Man, in collaboration with British author, Andrew Donkin. The Terminal Man has been published in the UK, Germany, Poland, Japan, and China. The book was reviewed in the London Sunday Times as “a profoundly disturbing and brilliant book.”