Desicritics Author: anantha

Mid-Day's Juvenile Antics Target Passion for Cinema

anantha — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 00:27:53 EST

Passion for Cinema (PFC) is is a passionate attempt to bring together all movie fanatics, cine lovers and those who eat, breathe and drink cinema. The site has been up and running for a couple of months now. Oz (who incidentally posts here as Desi Train), the brain behind PFC, is a movie freak and even before PFC even existed as a concept, his posts on cinema were quite popular even in the mainstream media. There were lot of hushed whispers that Bollywood insiders were regular readers and there were unverified rumors that people like Anurag Kashyap sometimes even commented anonymously on Oz's cinema posts.

So when Oz floated the idea of PFC to his regular commenters, he decided to invite industry insiders to interact with his readers. By then he had got in touch with Anurag Kashyap and Anurag, the sport that he is, agreed to come on board and blog about his experiences in Bollywood making much anticipated and yet still-unreleased movies such as Paanch and Black Friday, and more specifically about shooting his newest venture - No Smoking. Oz soon widened his net and invited director Pavan Kaul (whose murder mystery Shhh... hit the screens recently) and writer director Suparn Verma to write on PFC and share with readers their experiences in Bollywood. And with all three (Kashyap, Verma and Kaul) having productions on the floor at the moment, their PFC posts have mostly involved their day to day experiences. And the nicest thing is that, Anurag, Pavan and Suparn were invited and they graciously accepted. These posts have caught the attention of the mainstream media too and their reactions have been mostly glowing. Dailies such as Mid-Day, Mumbai Mirror, Times of India and Hindustan Times have all mentioned PFC and the No Smoking blog by Anurag Kashyap. But that was mostly before Pavan and Suparn started posting.

Then today, Mid-Day runs this piece about Pavan Kaul's blog on PFC under the title "Copycat Kaul". What follows is the entire text of the article.

Pawan Kaul is copying director Anurag Kashyap's ways. Kashyap has created an online diary to capture the everyday joys and frustrations that have gone into the making of his film, No Smoking, starring John Abraham.

Now we hear that Kaul is doing likewise for his film Bhram, starring Dino Morea and Milind Soman. Kashyap is a self-proclaimed blogger and shares his personal accounts of moviemaking with others because it's therapeutic. We wonder what kind of illness Kaul needs therapy for. Could it possibly have anything to do with that disastrous flick, Shhhh....?

This article sounds like an extract straight from a supermarket tabloid like News of the World and fails to account for a couple of things - one being that Pavan has been blogging intermittently for some time and the other being that both Pavan and Anurag are posting on PFC only because of Oz's request.

Mid-Day's post would probably not seem out of place in a front page between two (imaginary) articles that would inform the world about the 45 year old pussy (I meant a female feline, of course) that gave birth to two Doberman Pinscher pups in Billimoria Gardens in Versova and aging superstar Manmohan Banda's boob job to remove all traces of his man-boobs. I mean, you get the picture. What's funny is that Mid-Day has not deemed it fit to talk to any of the parties in questions - i.e., Pavan Kaul and Oz. And don't even get me started about the "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" tone of the last two lines.

Oz says that it takes a lot of time and energy to convince talented writers and directors to write and interact with cine-fanatics on a first person basis and to make them see what he visualized PFC as - a platform for vibrant discussion and to share knowledge of cinema. And after reading their posts, it appears to me that most of them are as disillusioned with the system as any Indian fan of serious cinema. And as a trend, I have noticed that a good percentage of the makers of what I deem to be the better Indian cinema are media recluses. And irresponsible and uninformed media coverage of their off-screen ventures such as the one from Mid-Day mentioned above would not exactly make them change their stance either.

Personally this kind of juvenile media coverage makes me cringe. I will not take any names but it brings a bad taste to my mouth when the same media that celebrates scene by scene remakes of foreign cinema as originals, chooses to brand interactions like PFC as a copycat effort. While this might be one-off, it does make me echo Oz's question whether this is part of a larger concerted effort by MSM channels to deter interaction between maverick filmmakers and the viewing public that are not necessarily the front benchers in the cinema halls.

Defect or Induced Deformity?

anantha — Sat, 9 Sep 2006 16:12:35 EDT

This post was in draft format on my blog for a couple of weeks till I actually chatted (over IRC) with Scott Carney who broke this story, at the Chennai BlogCamp early this morning and I decided to finally update the draft and post it now!

Tessa Quayle was murdered on a visit to remote Lake Turkana in Kenya. She was killed because she had gotten too close to a secret - one that involved a nefarious multinational drug company, a tuberculosis remedy with unfortunate fatal side effects and a cover-up involving the higher echelons of the British Foreign Office.

That of course, as some of you would have surely known, was one of the main elements of the plot created by John Le Carre for his book - The Constant Gardener. The celluloid adaptation of this book was one of the better movies to come out of Hollywood last year, but a real life version seems to be brewing right in Chennai. Sadly though, the said events have barely created a ripple, a Wired magazine feature and mentions on Boing Boing and Desipundit not withstanding.

It all started on July 30/August 1 when various MSM sources reported that an abnormal baby with just one eye on its forehead had been born in a Chennai government hospital. This caught the attention of an American freelance journalist, Scott Carney, who blogged about it on the 5th of August. while hinting that excessive pollution might be the cause, Scott likened the abnormality to a similar incident in the state of New York.

His post was picked up by Boing Boing's Xeni Jardin, on the same day. Later a Boing Boing reader pitched in with a few - related - links that were helpful in understanding the scientific background of such an abnormality. Two days later Scott himself added that he might get to see the baby personally and would post more information.

On the 8th of August, Scott did visit the child and found that the condition did not seem to be hereditary and that the baby had lived longer than any other baby with similar deformities. And on the 10th of August, Scott's feature on the baby made it to the Wired magazine's online edition and that is where this story takes a new turn straight out of Le Carre's book.

On his Wire News report, Scott wrote that this baby's condition might be a result of either a previously undetected chromosomal defect. Or it could be the result of a clinical trial gone awry. According an internal report that Scott saw at the Kasturba Children's Hospital where the baby was born but was not allowed to copy/reproduce in full, the baby's parents turned to a (as yet) unnamed fertility clinic after 6 years of unsuccessfully trying to get pregnant. And at some point during this treatment, Cyclopamine, an experimental cancer drug came into the picture. When, how, why - nothing is known.

While it is true that I am the same person who views the loss of the "original" tapes of the first moon landing as a convenient last act of what has since become the biggest lie that NASA perpetuated on the poor Kremlin top-brass, my disbelief here is not without reason. Scott says that while he has seen the report, he has not been able to get a copy of it. His repeated requests, to meet with the author of the report have not been acceded to and get this - He has been denied access to the baby's mother.

The doctor who heads the hospital adds that the woman had never been to a hospital before and that "she was in such a confused state that she couldn't remember what clinic she had gone to or what medication they had prescribed". The mother has also been discharged even before her complete medical history had been documented. I wonder what happened to the father.

So there you have it. A deformed infant (link not for the faint at heart), a confused mother, a drug that may or may not have caused the deformity, a damning report that is practically anonymous, a blogger breaking the whole story and worst of all, no mainstream media coverage from India, apart from a few "one eyed baby born in Chennai" references.

Even though Scot Carney's initial post got mentions on both Desipundit and Boing Boing, the 47 comments on it are almost solely from the people pointed there by Xeni Jardin's post. What are we, as desis, doing? I understand that not everyone who reads comments, but the numbers are too glaring.

Scott said then,

She moves about and cries just like any other newborn infant. Her head is a little smaller than normal. While the first time you see a photo of her you may feel a little revolted, please try to remember that she is a person, too.

But this morning, Scott gave me some sad news. The baby has since died. She had lived longer than any other baby with a similar condition. But she was a person too. Let's not forget that. I hope this post will make more people sit up and take notice of the child who might not have had the mathematical probability of living longer than the month or so when she was breathing.

Pass this message along and let more people know about this tiny human being who needed all our attention then, not because she did not look normal, but because another like her could be avoided. And if an illegal clinical trial is involved, it is time the perpetrators are brought to justice.

In his quest to find out what really happened, Scott seems to have run into a dead end, by his own words. As I mentioned on the top of this post, I was chatting with Scott in the Blogcamp IRC channel and the topic of his presentation was open source blogging. He hopes that

bloggers and activists will be able to crack this case so that we can either say for sure that there was no foul play, and that this was a genetic accident, or hold people accountable for what could be a crime.

But is this possible? Maybe it is. And this post is a start from my side. Who else is going to take this up?

Movie Review: V for Vendetta

anantha — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 00:34:12 EST

Combine the dystopian elements from futuristic works such as 1984, Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451 and throw in a masked vigilante in the guise of a seemingly misunderstood 16th century anarchist and what do you get? Not a movie, but a graphic novel in several parts. Now take this icon in the fringes of British pop culture and place it in the hands of a pair of brilliant recluses-cum-filmmakers and then what do you get? V for Vendetta, a sci-fi fantasy that is as relevant in the current day as a multi-purpose remote is to the new-age, wired household.

The writing credits for this movie, which is an adaptation of a 80s comic series, is shared by the Wachowski brothers (Larry and Andy) with directing duties being passed on to a protégé, James McTeigue. Though Larry and Andy are said to have started working on this screenplay even before the Matrix trilogy, it seems to have been a work in progress, constantly updated as time went by. So while the plot line shares several key elements with the graphic novel and ergo, the various pieces of futuristic literature referenced therein, other plot elements are suitably tweaked in such a manner one comes out feeling like one has just watched a newsreel.

This line of thought that governments know more than they are willing to divulge is not new. It has been propagated with great effect by personalities such as Michael Moore. But the Wachowskis' screenplay is far subtler. However, what I loved most about this movie was the fact that it has not been "dumbed down" to suit the lowest common denominator.

Just like the Matrix trilogy, much of the movie is about the deep lines vocalized with great relish by the lead characters, especially Hugo Weaving. Poet laureates, bards and venerated novelists are quoted at will. Word list virtuosos would particularly enjoy the vivacious verbosity that accompanies the sudden appearance of the vigilante. On the other hand, the subsequent verbalization of verbiage that is uncharacteristic of any vernacular could vex you into vacating that seat. (Whew!)

Hugo Weaving could have easily been substituted with a blue screen, his character staying masked through out, for reasons that become apparent as the movie progresses. But his fluid movements behind that masked demeanor, oozing confidence and moving with panache in the action sequences remind one of a certain Agent Smith, certainly a Weaving trademark. Just when one expected that Keanu Reeves would be the Wachowskis' muse forever, Weaving pokes holes in this theory, playing V as a the perfect "uppity" vigilante, wry humor sparkling in his unseen eyes and his knives glinting as they trace ellipsoidal paths in mid air, his work more reminiscent of Zarate than Zorro.

As for the female lead, she is a babe. Natalie Portman seems to go through great pain, submitting herself to having her head shorn on camera, another chapter in the unfortunate series of atrocious hair-dos that started with Padme Amidala's cheese danish. Portman is perhaps the Jodie Foster of our times, on her way from being a child actor towards the status of leading lady specializing in off-beat roles - all this while in the process of getting a Harvard degree. And did I mention that she is a babe?

A list of talented, but largely unknown British actors completes the cast. Watch out for John Hurt who fits the part of High Chancellor and if you are old enough (or a trivia junkie), his portrayal would easily bring back memories of the Big Brother Apple ad from Super Bowl XVIII in 1984. But lest you make a mistake, the reference here is not to the ad, but to George Orwell's book that spawned the ad.

Just like Matrix, this movie is bound to spawn discussions at the water cooler. Maybe that is was the intention. While the Wachowskis were constrained by a need to stay true to the original comic book, they have penned a hard hitting critique on the current political and social climate in the US and UK. The movie does seem to incorporate a lot of deep metaphorical references (or maybe that is just me thinking). Some holes are apparent too. Roger Ebert's comment on the impossibility of V's peripheral vision under that mask is probably the most trivial and fittingly, when careful attention is paid thorough out the movie, a suitable explanation can be derived.

While some reviewers have tended to characterize the idea behind such movies as leftist and symptomatic of bloggers in general, I don't agree. In my eyes, this movie mirrors currently prevailing political and social climate. The various references to the totalitarian regime and ideology of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party along with the idea of an all-seeing and all-hearing Big Brother are probably a characteristic of the comic book as well, but the references such as the one to a bible-quoting, finger-waving, pill-chomping conservative talk show host, (a take-off on a number of current day TV and radio personalities including a former ESPN co-host) are very current.

Lines such as "Fear has became the ultimate tool of this government" and the reference to home made explosive devices crafted out of common fertilizers may be recent and very relevant in the post 9/11 world. But even with the first week's reign at the top of the charts, it might not just be a long term box office survivor, especially in a society as hypocritical as in the current day USA.

What's Thy Name, Basanti?

anantha — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 01:11:33 EST

Rang De Basanti seems to have captured the attention of the desi blogosphere and the Indian media like nothing else before it. Oh wait a small correction. Before RDB, there was IIPM. As of early Monday morning, a simple search on Blogger Search for "Rang De Basanti" turns up 2,234 posts while a similar search on Technorati returns 1,257 results. In fact, "Rang De Basanti" has been in the top 15 list of searches on Technorati for the last couple of days. But as Jerry would quip, not that there is anything wrong with it.

What is in this movie that has captured our attention? From what I saw on Saturday, that is certainly not difficult to comprehend. First reason - the whole movie has a young tone to it, even the parts in sepia. Second reason - the wonderful soundtrack, which some people say is out of place, but one that the majority has taken to. I found the music refreshing with what has to be the most novel use of a soundtrack in recent times. However, having mentioned these reasons, I do have to add that there is one more, something that I find hard to justify and that is the whole business of patriotism.

Most people seem to see "Rang De Basanti" as the Swades of 2006. While the latter deals with the pangs of remorse that first generation NRIs seem to harbor at the bottom of their hearts - an almost guilty sense of helplessness at not being able to do their bit for the progress of their homeland, "Rang De Basanti" looks at a similar, but more cynical mindset through the eyes of the India-based college-educated 20 somethings.

It can be safely said that the kind of characters represented in RDB do exist in real life. The first half of the movie is as realistic as it gets in India's universities. Each one of us has known a DJ, Sukhi, Karan, Aslam and Sonia at one point in some form or the other. But as the second half progresses, it becomes increasingly difficult to envision a scenario where individuals would react the same way as these five (and Laxman) do. And that is where RDB changes from being a potential Swades emulator to being just another celluloid fantasy. However any half baked student of cinema would tell you that celluloid fantasy is good too, for fantasies were the building blocks of cinema as we know it. So, Rakeysh Mehra should not be offended if one labels RDB thus. But does one sense that there is an intention to convey a message here. What is this message? And so the confusion begins.

As mentioned earlier, the first half of the movie hints at a clean entertainer in the Dil Chahta Hai mold, a growing up movie of sorts. But as the curtain falls, what those youngsters grow up to be leaves a lot to be desired. One wonders if the end that these young 20-somethings aimed to achieve is a direct contradiction of the means adopted. The message sounds like one used by a hardened criminal to deter innocents seeking the same path. Sadly this "message" is viewed as a USP for this movie and that is a shame. For there are a lot of positives in this movie and the "message" is certainly not one of them.

But why should a movie proselytize at all? Why can't a movie be just about entertainment and nothing else, as demonstrated by the first half. Maybe it is the resident cynic in me talking, but I think that the longevity of any movie's message is going to be slightly longer than the time spent on the journey back home from the theatre. And one can safely bet that while crimes seem to be inspired by movie plots, there has never been an incident where something positive was inspired by a movie's plotline. Wait, that is just what my mom told me 5 years ago when she found I had played hooky from class to watch Anaconda.

So next time I read some review of RDB (you'd think I'd stay away, but at the rate at which people seem to be churning reviews, I don't think I can escape without reading another one) that tells me how the movie brought a lump to the author's throat, I'd agree. For the movie did raise a few goose-bumps (for the nod to Georgie boy's jaunt in a fighter plane). But if someone opines that this movie will make a difference in someone's life, I'd ask them for a blood sample to check what they are high on. All those who you see on TV carping on patriotism are not going to give a crap about the same if and when you ask them an hour later. Of course there are exceptions, as usual. But the exceptions are certainly in the miniscule minority.

As for me, I got home last evening and as I got thinking, I decided that I liked the other Basanti movie much better. I meant the one with the whole "susaad", angrez ke zamaane" and "Kitne aadmi the" thing which was funnier than the Westerner feigning ignorance of the local language. And the chemistry of the lead characters certainly seemed to be much better and ergo much more entertaining than RDB.

And before you lynch me, you have to understand that I watch movies for entertainment. Don't get me wrong, RDB is certainly miles ahead of the borderline porno flicks churned out by the Bhatt camp and what not. But hey, for me this is just cinema, unlike others who seem to have gone through a life changing experience inside a darkened hall. That is not going to happen till I get to second base with a girl inside one of these halls. But regardless of whether I have pleasant company or not, I will gladly watch RDB again.

Waiting for the Mahatma - The Ramblings of the Confused and the Nervous

anantha — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 00:14:10 EST

It is almost 1: 30 PM when I start putting fingertips to keyboard. Soon the doorbell sounds. I jump up in warm anticipation of correspondence from the Promised Land. But I am mostly disappointed, with the Mahatma in Burgundy (MiB) carrying in his hands, only a few letters from financial institutions. He nonchalantly wipes his nose and his sweaty forehead with the back of his palm and hands the letters to me. I take them with barely disguised disgust and gently slam the door on his face. Walking back dejectedly to my room, I continue replying to the day's e-mails.

There is not much to reply to, though. Most of the introductory emails sent to prospective graduate advisors have been ignored. But there is still hope. One gentleman from Ohio who tells me that, I have to apply for financial aid with the application that accompanies the application, the same one that I have already enclosed with the packet. That means two things, one positive and the other negative - the positive being that at least, I don't have to genuflect anymore to the professors at Ohio. The negative is that the uncertainty of aid at Ohio will last until I set foot on Athens, if I choose to do so.

The wait continues as I continue typing. Waiting for the Mahatma has never been more tedious. He is scheduled to visit my abode once again at 5:00 PM or thereabouts. But will I see some positive outcomes after this wait? The answer to that question, only the 200 odd minutes between now and then, shall tell. Like all Indians in recent times, I have only hope in my side. But then hope is the only thing that I can afford right now to keep the fire in my stomach burning.

I stop day-dreaming and go back to typing. I have to send a couple of mails (with my resume attached) to the companies in response to their ads in the "Opportunities" section of the day's "The Hindu". This is quite a change from the heady days in the months of October and November, when that particular section of the good old "Hindu paper" served as time-pass between 2:30 and 3:00 PM. But of late, uncertainty, Dubya and self doubt have combined to crash-land my soaring plane back to the runway from where it took off last June. And the people, whom I have asked to clarify this niggling "drop box" phenomenon have not been much forthcoming. Though I know its only two days since I asked them, it seems like an eternity.

At this point, I take a break from regular programming to issue an appeal to all those people who are sailing in my own boat. If you are ever in distress or in doubt regarding anything and everything, please do not play "pass the parcel". As Edgar Hoover once said - "The buck stops here", so shall you say - "All my worries stop with me". Rather than flood mailing lists with the same plaintive emails, take the initiative and try to find answers yourself.

I know you are asking me - "So, why are you telling us this?" Well, I suggest you take a closer look at the title. Do you get it now? You should not have moved past that ominous title. But now that you have started, I suggest you read on. So where were we? Yes, my self doubt! Don't worry. I think I might have overstayed my welcome here.

Wait, there rings that bell again. It's not the familiar MiB, but a Mahatma in "mufti". He brings warm or rather lukewarm tidings. Another I-20 and this time it is from a university in Michigan. So the situation gets rosier. But then the issue now is the visa, isn't it? Will I or will I not make it to the Promised Land? Did "Bungling Buffalo" Bill take time off from his dalliances and do something about the student visa just before he cleaned up his office prior to his departure? Or has Dubya removed student visas from the counter list just like he has done with H1Bs?

Well, the answer to all those questions is a tentative "I don't know!" So the next 100 days are definitely going to be crucial. In the meantime, every night I dream of spending New Year's Eve 2001 in the sun soaked beaches of Florida or in the midst of the teeming boisterous masses at Times Square.

Wow, it is almost 5 PM. As it happens every day, the Mahatma has disappointed me once more. I resign myself to watching a humorous take on life in The Promised Land as it unfolds on the "Friends" re-runs in Star World - just about the only bright spot in my otherwise dull existence on the 3rd rock from the Sun.

[P.S: I thought that it is perhaps fitting that I should start posting on this community with the first ever piece that I ever wrote, way back in 2001. This is an edited/polished account of the afternoons, typically spent in biting my nails, waiting for the postman (the aforementioned MiB) deliver our mail for the day. This piece was originally an email that I had sent to an email list that I am part of and this is the first time that I am posting it on a blog or community. To tie up all the loose ends in the piece, the MiB finally did bear good news one day and I finally wound up in Ohio for a Masters on a full scholarship.]