Slum Dog??

A double question mark in an annotated chess game indicates a bad move. I used it here with a better Intention. I just don't understand why the movie 'slum dog millionaire' is hyped up so much. I just don't understand why its expected to sweep the Oscars? Its just any other egg-straw-ordinary movie with a regular happy ending, rag to rich story in the back ground of not-so-beautiful side of an over populated urban India. You keep searching for the reasons. And you find some points. Good technique of story telling. A slum dog scales his way up to a big fortune answering the questions shot at him from a 'Who wants to be a millionaire?' show. The difference here is, he finds the answers from his very life not from the books. Story unveils in the intervals of questions flashing back to the world he came from, and the bitter life he lived. Interesting? A near perfect cast who would suit the roles almost perfect and what else? A decent piece of music which is so much inside the movie. Anything else? Some hyper realistic (I am sorry, Cant use the word 'exaggerated') scenes from the poor, struggling and suffering side of India which would remind you of those neo-realistic Italian movies of the past. Movie has got some documentary styled perfection in the portrayal of bitter realities. But what else? Don't you feel the script looked more of a school drama? I felt so. Yes. Most of the actors have done the perfect 'behaving' . But still does it rise to the level of expecting 'Oscars' (Lets keep aside the topic 'whats so great about Oscars?'). I just compared this to 'Forrest Gump', a randomized sample from the Oscar winners from the past. And I did'nt find slum dog stands anywhere near by. Then what about this hype? You see Brad pitt, Angelina Jollie comes out of the theatre saying touching dialogues. You see Anil Kapoor dances around the streets of 'world Cinema' with an abundant joy of achieving something priceless?

Eminent historian Romila Thappar talks about historiography(the study of how knowledge of the past, recent or distant, is obtained and transmitted) the 'history of history' in one of her books on ancient Indian history. She says, there were lot of mistakes committed in 'Indology' of early 20th century because of the ignorance of the Western historians about the Indian way of life. They got confused and confused others by documenting their bad assumptions about India and its religious, social and political base which probably could be one of the reasons why some people abroad still think India is all about 'Maharajas','Magics' and 'Elephants'.
Same way, a foreign Critic who sees, slum dog would be very happy. Poverty, Corruption, music and a heavy doze of realism. But for an average Indian cine goer, Slum dog Millionaire is just like any other modern bollywood flick.

In a Free State

I was reading Amitav Ghosh’s ‘Confessions of a Xenophile’ the other day, and could see him equally confessing about his admiration towards the Noble Laureate V.S. Naipaul and his works. I felt like reading at least one of Naipaul's works. The office library had his booker winner of 1971, ‘In a Free State’. A Political, Socio-Economical (Existentialism? I’m no critic. I can’t say. But definitely looks like one) work of serious fiction, which talks thru narrating the woes of immigrants who lose themselves, or searching themselves in vein in another part of the world where they don’t belong to. It consists of three different novellas of similar theme with a prologue and epilogue. One of these characters is not exactly in a search of a fortune but rather for freedom, and naturally he has nothing much to grieve about what he leaves behind. But when he eventually gets dwelled into the new world without much of a massive effort, he still falls into a philosophically meaningless existence. (One out of Many). In another tale, the man sacrifices his own happiness for the selfless indianite protector feeling (which would not quite work in the foreign atmosphere) towards his irresponsible sibling, and gradually leads himself to astray(Tell me whom to Kill). The third tale talks about a man who loses himself in another continent, being thrown into the world of ethnic struggles and getting involved a bit too much into the violent after-effects of a forced power transition, in a self driven fashion towards devastation(In a Free State). These tales don’t talk about any special immigrant. It’s about all type of immigrants and their woes. It could be an Indian in a white’s world, or a white in a black’s world. I felt Naipaul uses strong narrations with a flavor of Black humor and dry sarcasm. But one thing is for sure; that once you start reading it, you can hardly put it down. Especially the first two tales will assure you the simplicity and readability and It gets so complicated and so dry but yet readable when you reach into the main story ‘In a Free Sate’. You get confused why it’s called a novel as it’s a collection of stories where the individual characters never meet each other. But when you observe it as a whole, it makes complete sense. It’s a single story. It’s a story of people, who don’t require a name or about the people whose name don’t make any difference.
This is how the story ‘One Out of Many’ ends;
“I was once part of the flow, never thinking of myself as a presence. Then I looked in the mirror and decided to be free. All that of my freedom has brought me is the knowledge that I have a face and have a body, that I must feed this body and clothe this body for a certain number of years. Then it will be over.”

Leon- the Professional

I was not sure when Leon was released(1994 ;-) Now I know) . I am not sure how many times this movie had been remade into Indian languages; bolly/tolly/molly/kolly-wood?? But I am sure; this is a little piece of classic action flick, one should not miss. Most of the stylish action movies tend to have that regular pick of romantic relationship with a spicy flavor of lust Interwoven to the main plot. But here you see an illiterate man who describes himself 'the Cleaner' moves around the city, cleaning the baddies with a little pretty girl child holding to his hand. The mysterious man may remind you of the classic 'Blondie' of GBU or the ‘Guitarist' of Desperado. He maintains a low profile to avoid the unwanted attention until she meets the girl which would give him a shocking transition from machine to a man. There is something mysterious about the relationship between these two characters. We see there's a father -child relationship as clear as a summer’s sky. But we still get a hilarious moment in the movie when the girl denies this fact to the world, with a little cute devilish grin of hers. I found Leon a superb work. Every single thing about the movie had flair of beauty in it. You see the beauty in the unexpected and often unwanted but still-not-ugly visit of Aphrodite in the adolescent child. You see an e element of tranquility in the act of calisthenics which our cleaner does time to time and there’s this serene beauty of relationship between man to the plant which in fact works as a perfect metaphor of all goodness our man carries with him. The absolute baddie played by Gary Oldman is better than the best, and i loved the way he confronts the girl in her quest of vengeance describing her to his compatriot as, the girl who had "good intentions to send me straight to the morgue" with an expressionless face.

The progression of the girl by learning the art of cleaning and the other tricks of the trade to survive was beautifully crafted. Remember the scene, where the girl whispers for Leon to open his door as she knew that her family was being massacred and it was the only chance for her survival and the art of emotional blackmailing she tries when Leon was not ready to adopt her. The same trick she repeats with the school principal shows how quickly she adapts to the massive changes in the path of her life. Was it not a perfect way to end a movie show Matilda planting the very best friend and soul of Leon in the school garden saying,’ I guess we would be happy here’ ? I just loved it. I even loved Danny ‘the keeper’ of Leon's fortune, who would boast all the time about himself as He’s like a bank. or even better than that. Leon’s a clean entertainer with an aesthetic sense of beauty. Natalie Portman, Jean Reno , Gary Oldman, Luc Besson ; a great team; and it worked so well.