'Bin-Jip'

Just watched 3-iron,(Bin-Jip)  the 2004 Korean art house movie by the celebrated director Kim ki-duk. This movie had won dozens of international awards including best director award at the Venice Film Festival. At this point,I have no idea how many times I am going to watch it again.Its the sheer beauty of magic realism, the beauty of not knowing the reality from the fantasy, and the beauty of absolute silence that qualifies to reach the level of tranquility at times,that make this movie a class.  It was an amazing cinema experience in a midnight, and I couldn't ask for more.

The Plot is about a lonely man who breaks into other's apartments when they are away, to live a night or two after which he silently leaves, but only after fixing some broken articles as a thanks giving gesture for their unintended hospitality.His strange ways, life and his passion for golf, taking a serious turn when he meets a rich man's tormented wife,who elopes with him when he decides to punish the man to save the woman from abuse.  The movie talks about, their relationship, the secret life  they share,which only they can understand, and the consequences which they get to face.They don't speak to each other, but they don't need to, as they talk in silence in most of the time and its this silence that rules their romance and the movie.

(Kim Ki-duk)

'3-iron' is definitely a  modern masterpiece and I honestly regret for wasting eight long years before I finally watched it.

                         ****/******
                           
    It was last night that I saw the movie and blogged about it. Today, I woke up, dropped my child to her school and came back, still thinking about the movie. I feel this is what makes a cinema great. You don't just watch it, say 'clap--clap thank ma'am' and go to sleep and forget about it. A good cinema is that haunts you at least for few days or even for ever. You would see some frames coming into your mind when ever you close your eyes. On my bike, all my way back to home, I was thinking about 'Golf'. The game of Golf was used as one of the recurring imageries in the movie, You also see, a Motor bike,  screw driver,weighing machine; But, 'Golf 'scenes dominates. For example he uses golf to take revenge on some one.  I was wondering, why 'golf'?. I think, golf represents plan, speed, power, and above all a 'ruthless execution' to hit the target. But its not only these features of golf that makes it being used here. I think, golf also stands for expanding the boundaries and the conquering of far away lands.  In the movie, you see, Tae Suk practices Golf with a ball tied to a hard wire attached to a pole.Sun Hwa often accompanies him in those exercises. I guess, this practice shows his attitude to be with in himself and his secret way of life. He can't just stretch it and set free one day  to lead a normal  life. How ever he hits hard, the ball never flies away, It stays right under the tree after each such executuion. There is one instance, where the ball actually flies out of the pole after a blow, and it badly hurts woman who passed by, in her car. This incident seriously hurts Tae and he weeps in extreme agony. May be, this explains why an extremely skilled,(the movie shows this, when he fixes electronic or mechanical gadgets at other people's homes, in a quick and precise fashion) college graduate to lead such a reckless life. He simply cannot do anything else. Its the territory he is with in, he just cannot expand beyond that. Movie is all about this 'territory' and 'territorial marking' , trespassing other's,  and being punished for it. Like a predator scratching  on a tree to mark it's presence in an unknown territory, he carries a camera with him to take photos of himself before  a certain object in other people's homes. He invades into their privacy, and leaves a deliberate note to show that he was there and leaves silently back to his world.Reading a good cinema is a tough task. you often  end up reaching your own erratic conclusions missing your way through such imageries. You end up assuming things. For example, movie never shows, Tse being killed at the Police station, but it certainly suggests it, with sound effects after a scene were he is being dragged out of his cell by three men. Director confuses you by giving clues about his being free. Tse is shown practicing the art of shadow walking(Sinanju?)  inside the Jail and testing his skills against a rough police man, so that he could escape from anywhere and enter any body's house without being noticed. Also, Sun Hwa's husband receives a phone call about his freedom at night and he eagerly waits for his arrival. only Sun Hwa feels him where all others get to feel is his ghostly presence.Movie shows people from different houses feeling somebody's presence at their home. There is only one word sun hwa utters in the whole movie which is 'I love you' to this ghostly presence which only she could see. Movie ends with a note, 'It is hard to tell the world we live in is either a reality or a dream' and that pretty much summarizes it. I should add that Jae Hee(Tse) and Lee Seung (Sun)had that  beautiful on- screen chemistry and it really worked.

If you haven't seen this, you definitely have missed something.

Ponyo On the Cliff

 This post is because I believe no Miyazaki film should be missed out in here if I had watched it. 'Ponyo' (2008)has got all usual Miyazaki elements, 'Strong feminine' , lush green country(sea) side, Innocent childhood to the minute details including their big mouthed cry/laugher and fast paced movements, a serious liking towards the elements of nature (if it was woods in Totoro, its ocean in Ponyo), and 'spirits' that rule Japanese mythology. But, above all, its the heart that he puts in to his craft that makes his works unique. For example, in the time of extreme CGI, he preferred hand drawn animation with at least 1,70,000 images to produce Ponyo. On Animation front, Ponyo or any Miyazaki movie doesn't offer the CGI built perfection that Disney offers with its own works like 'Tangled' ,but the magic he creates with his pure animation technique is so interesting and so incomparable, that make each of his characters into a cult status.  Compare his works with disney's classics like 'Dumbo' and you would be surprised to find the similarity in the techniques that Miyazaki uses in the modern world. May be this simplicity is what that makes movies like dumbo defy the age. Worldwide adaption of miyazaki movies and themes are the result of his way of simple story telling. There are western critics who criticize miyazaki for poor characterization and they blame he doesn't try to show the real expressions of adults (an over stressed mother is missing in Ponyo, when her husband is in rough sea fighting for his life) but, I believe its more to do with the Japanese culture or their human nature in comparison to the western. Miyazaki celebrates strong feminine side of his women leads, who would wield a sword rather than to lie down and weep.

Hotel Transylvania

Spirited Away

 Lets look on the brief about the hyped up 2012 Hollywood animation movie Hotel Transylvania, "The film tells a story of Dracula, the owner of Hotel Transylvania, where the world's monsters can take a rest from human civilization. Dracula invites some of the most famous monsters..." and, an uninvited human intervention actually creates the story. Now, isn't the plot sounds similar? Yes, Its miyazaki's 'Spirited Away', and Hollywood keeps adapting this Asian genius,who else can offer such complex yet captivating stories for children with such beautiful animation.

Bobby against the World!

It was said, Bobby Fischer to chess was like Mohammad Ali to Boxing.That could be true in some sense. If Ali could popularize boxing all over the world with his knockout bouts and equally powerful tongue lashes, it was Bobby Fischer's mercuric rise into the chess-world and the mad genius of the man that popularized chess all over the world. Historians calls this as 'Fischer Boom' . May be he was much more than a Mohammed Ali of chess, some one who rose up and fought America's cold war on his own. Fischer's war was not against the politics of USSR even though he despised 'commies', it was against the 'Soviet dominance in chess, and the politics that ruled it. His war was not simple, as it was a one man army marching against the whole chess machinery of the largest nation in the world, where chess was taught in schools and played in all most all levels of society,which  produced world chess champions with scientific precision.Chess was definitely a religion in United Soviet Socialist Republic back then, and they always considered chess as the metaphor for intellectual supremacy which the soviet regime wanted to showcase to rest of the world. Bobby Fischer, a shy Brooklyn school boy of a broken mother,who played 'game of the century' at the age of 13, youngest American champion at the age of 14 had come of age to qualify for the world championship candidates once again in 1972 . He crushed Mark Taimanov 6-0, Bent Larsen of Sweden 6-0, Former world champion Tigran Petrosian 6.5/2.5  and marched on to clinch the world title from Boris Spassky by the score 12.5-8.5 at Reykjavik, Iceland. In 1972 Fide Ratings,Fischer was on 2875, 125 points ahead world number two Spassky, and as expected and badly wanted by all Americans  Fischer became 11th world Champion. But this story is not as simple as I put in a paragraph. It was full of struggle, drama, total madness and above all a magical  story with a fairy tale finish.

Reading the book 'Endgame: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Bobby Fischer'  by Frank Brady was an amazing experience. Brady has a beautiful, simple and a very unbiased way of writing. Unlike other biographies Brady is not trying to glorify his subject. He is just drawing the sketch of Fischer that he knew.  It was definitely like 'knowing' Fischer. He was arguably the most hated and the most loved chess player at the same time but unarguably the most admired chess genius ever. Icing on the cake was watching the documentary 'Bobby Fischer Against The World'  a wonderful biopic by Liz Garbus immediately after reading the book. It was like seeing the 'text' that  I just had read coming alive on screen. This had never happened before.
   
     Fischer and spassky were hyped as arch rivals and '1972 Reykjavik' was nothing less than a war. But, in fact 1972 was the beginning of a beautiful friendship between these two geniuses of chess. They respected each other. Bad mouthed Fischer never uttered anything against spassky ever  and spassky considered him as his brother. When Fischer was imprisoned  in Japan for months , spassky commented that he wanted to be in the same cell with bobby so that they could play chess.  After losing in 1972 against bobby he said, Fischer was an 'artist' and after prize giving ceremony bobby bought a camera and sent to Spassky's hotel. Spassky was instrumental in introducing a woman to bobby whom he thought bobby could marry; a decision which he regretted later.When bobby passed away, Spassky said, he lost his brother. In the return match of 1972's war, Spassky lost again to Fischer. It was in Yugoslavia in the year 1992, named 'Revenge Match of the Century'. Spassky later mentioned, even though he wanted to win, he wanted Fischer to win that championship more, as he was afraid, losing that match would send Fischer back to oblivion again. 

What ever was the outcome of the match, Fischer was issued an arrest warrant by US government for playing in Yugoslavia, a nation that was under US Sanction. Fischer never took it seriously, In fact he publicly spat on the letter that was sent to him about it. But, when United States of America decided to chase their own hero,  it was the beginning of  Fischer's true 'End Game' which he would never win. Now the same fate is happening to Spassky, who was living in France for long time now, has ran away from France and took shelter in Moscow few days back. Unlike his friend, it was not a country that wanted him to be dead, it was his own wife. Or is it like, both the friends shared 'Paranoia' (Fischer's real problem according to the experts) apart from their beautiful friendship.

An interesting and arguably the most honest work on bobby Fischer's life ever 'End Game' is a must read for any one who loves chess.After all it was written by some one who walked with Fischer.  It was like unraveling the most mysterious man who intrigued the world with a board game for years together.The same goes to the HBO original, 'Bobby Fischer against the world'.it's more dramatic than your favorite drama. When Fischer refused to take treatment for his ailment and finally died in an hospital in Iceland, he was 64 years old, exactly the number of squares on a chess board, what else can be more dramatic.