Friday, January 31, 2014

Puri Jagannadh and The act of wasting a brilliant idea!

        It is a repetitive, overtly conventional and unadventurous world that we live in. More so, the realms of Telugu Cinema are just that and nothing else. That said, it takes more than a spark to come up with an idea for a ‘different’ Telugu movie. An idea that not only stands out amongst the rest by being honest and novel but also ends up being accepted and lauded by the multitude of Telugu Cinema audience.  Well, briefly, it just takes plain guts to come up with such an idea and then, stick to it!
         I must admit the only director in Telugu Cinema who has managed to excite me the maximum number of times, well, almost with every new project he announces, is Puri Jagannadh. Before I sermon you with the reason and the subsequent rant that this blog is all about, first, let me get over with the customary trivia. Undoubtedly, Puri is amongst the most celebrated directors we have in Tollywood. He has both the privilege to be chosen as the director for the launchpad movies of A-List star’s offspring and the liberty to choose whichever A-List star he wants to work with next. He makes movies that draw impressive budgets, skilled technicians, glam-dolls from half way around the world to act and dance and above all, average (at the worst) to mammoth box office collections into the kittybag.
          Yet, talk about him is incomplete without reference to the list of the above mentioned novel and ballsy ideas he seems to effortlessly dish out. And going by the rate at which he’s doling out movies these past couple of years, that list sure feels endless. Precisely there-in lies my aforementioned admiration and simultaneous disdain for all things Puri Jagannadh. Let me lay it bare here that the thoughts expressed henceforth might only make sense on a parallel universe, one that is fundamentally based on auteurism and an enthusiasm for art, sublimity and subtleties of life and not in the current Telugu Cinema scenario. Hence, for all the acridity I spew out, Puri’s not to be blamed. Blame Telugu Cinema, as I did here or its audience, as I'm going to do in an upcoming blog.
Yes; the Ideas! The reason why I get excited everytime Puri embarks on a new project is the conceptual idea the film is based on. More often than not, these ideas are about individuals facing a complex, interesting, traumatizing and life changing situation. They’re about challenging the absurd conventions our society is based on.  They’re about studying remarkable characters with a magnifying lens. These ideas, they’re truly novel, brilliant and acute. Take "Badri", Puri’s debut film. A man plays a casual game with his childhood sweetheart where he has to make someone love him; and when he actually manages to do that, he finds himself torn between his childhood love and his new-found affection for the new girl. "Itlu Sravani Subrahmaniam" – Two people planning to die, meet by chance, spend a day together, commit suicide and survive only to find love in each other and a wishful life awaiting them. "Idiot" – The story of a reckless yet strikingly street smart character and the way he faces life. "Amma Nanna Oo Tamil Ammayi" – About how a guy born to a separated couple loses his mother whom he spent his entire life with, and has to go to his father, who he never knew. "Shivamani" – How a girl realizes that the guy she’s infatuated with had a daunting past love story and is strewn apart from his love and helps him find his past love. "Pokiri" – How an undercover cop deftly cleans out the mob plaguing his city. "Desamuduru" – The intriguing prospect of a monk falling in love with a stranger and the soul-search for the reason why one would choose austerity over life.  "Bujjigadu" – A tongue in cheek tale of a rift between childhood pals turned lovers and how they get back together. "Neninthe" - A telescopic take on the nuances of the Telugu Film Industry and the lives of actors and technicians struggling to make it big in tinsel town. "Ek Niranjan" – On how a street-beggar can be more than just that by using his wit and helping cops out (cue: Salaam Bombay was based on something like this). "Bumper Offer" - The story of a guy who challenges to rip his love’s father off all his riches in retort to a monetary offer made by the latter. (An ode to Chiranjeevi’s “Challenge” hidden in there somewhere?)  "Golimaar" - Of how a gangster hunting innocent cop who’s wrongly framed vows revenge and becomes a gangster himself. "Nenu Naa Rakshasi" -  A psychological inquiry into the act of suicide, the story of a girl adamant on killing herself and the guy whose desperate to stop her. "Bbuddah….Hoga Terra Baap" - Another tongue in cheek expression of bringing back the best of a veteran celebrated actor to the frontline and revisiting everything that he has been so celebrated for.  "BusinessMan" - The story of a guy who tries to reinvent the mob scene in Mumbai by introducing the concept of organized crime-corporate style. "Devudu Chesina Manushulu" - About two orphans and how life brings them together. "Cameraman Ganga Toh Rambabu" - The quintessential sarcastic note on the current media and political environment.
         When I write the above notes, the description for each flick inspires thoughts of great movies from around the world; those from the chapters of the sensitive French New Wave Cinema, the clinical American Political dramas, the pop cultural EuroTrash Cinema; the new age Indie Documentaries, etc.  Now, in that parallel Universe I took the liberty of invoking earlier, the above mentioned ideas would have spawned some mesmerizing, strong and thoughtful flicks. Flicks that could have uplifted the spirit, ambition and purport of Telugu Cinema to a different notch altogether! Yet all Puri could do was have these rhapsodic ideas in the first place, and then take them and add in the quintessentially heavy mix of commercial formulaic ingredients to cook up so called “entertainers” overwrought with absurd logic, irritating screen acts and intolerable, and occasionally obscene, movie elements.
         As I indulge in my idyllic banter, there he is dishing out another movie based on yet another poignant idea. "Heart Attack", his latest venture which is out on screens as we speak, is about a guy who stalks a girl purely out of lust only to find initial rejection and subsequent unconditional love from the girl, who in turn is herself not ready for an emotional commitment despite her confessions to falling in love. Doesn't that sound like material coming out of an auteur? I bet it'd only be a few days time before my enthusiasm for this film is watered down by yet another 'typical Puri entertainer'.
          It’s another day’s (or another blog or two’s) story as to why these ideas did not get to be explored the way they could have been in the first place; if Puri was compelled to succumb to the Telugu Cinema scene or if it was just purely his vagabond cinematic instinct. As I recall, I can surely say Badri was, to date, his most honest effort; the movie still has oodles of freshness and appeal. And yet, I must credit him for his gusto in pulling off projects without compromising on their initiating ideas, the end result notwithstanding. Only, as a cinema enthusiast in the fundamental sense, and an admirer for Puri Jagannadh, how I wish those ideas kicked off the way they could have. How I wish there was that parallel Universe!

Saturday, January 18, 2014

Blog-ette #3: Thoughts on 'Her'


Warning: Might contain spoiler-ish notes, devoid of which, the point this article wants to make cant be driven home.

One of the most thought provoking movie scenes I've seen in recent times has absolutely no visual (yes, a blacked out screen), accompanied by the sound of a man and woman having sex, moaning in intimate passion as they climax. The man in question is a middle aged writer, Theodore Twombly  (Joaquin Pheonix), and the woman, his advanced artificially intelligent operating system with a female voice and personality, Samantha (voiced seductively all over by Scarlett Johansson). The scene runs for about 15 seconds and would probably be one of those surreal moments one'd come upon in a theatre in absolute darkness, as Spike Jonze's "Her" pushes the viewer into a momentary limbo characterized by contemplation about the fascinating pretext of the movie alongside basking in the mounting passion between the protagonist and his OS. Even the way the scene is set up in the screenplay shows how much thought has gone into writing this script. Only, earlier, Theodore participates in a futile phone sex attempt which leaves him disgusted; whilst this unexpected passion gives Samantha a chance to feel her human self amid an increasing consciousness of feelings and emotions.

A deeply though-out script (which won the 2014 Golden Globe for Best Screenplay), executed with great fervor by Spike and aided in the process by a skillful ensemble of actors, a mellow soundtrack and gorgeous cinematography that brings a futuristic Los Angeles to life and makes you wish it really turned out that beautiful; "Her" would be that film, which,  if you're watching with a loved one, would make you clasp hands by the time its done with you. The movie has three distinct yet overlapping paradigms carefully layered over each other. On one level, it talks of the innate nature and complications involved in the process of being human, on a second level, it subconsciously becomes a social critique on the increasingly isolated human social fabric, where humans would have stronger relations with their personal computers than the people around them and on a third level, it vaguely leaves with us a thought about the infinite extents to which human thought and philosophy can proceed provided our physical and mental limitations on the worldly realm don't exist.

The first level is what happens predominantly through the flick, as each character goes through an individual phase of joy, personal loss, redemption, self-admittance and other emotions and feelings, that characterize the essential human existence. Here's where the cast shines through. Amy Adams does a magical transformation from her raunchy yet vulnerable dame-self in 'American Hustle' into a cheerful and kid-like yet vulnerable two plaited tom-boyish game designer, Amy, who happens to be Theodore's only close friend. Olivia Wilde, in her limited screen time, comes through as a distraught yet sympathetically beautiful woman hopelessly looking for commitment from a blind date, who Theodore just hopes to have sex with for the night. The third woman we come across is Rooney Mara's turn in as Catherine, Theodore's soon-to-be ex-wife. Rooney is one of those few actresses currently working in tinsel town who have a slight physical frailty that adds up to a fragile depth and beauty to their characters. She turned this into a striking tenacity for her version of the famed Lisbeth Salander and here, she uses it to portray a woman whose voice and emotions have not been attended to in the past. And then we have one of the masters of underplay, Joaquin Phoenix, who turns in an act as touching as the letters Theodore writes for his clients. (He works as an author of letters in a company that you can pay to get a great letter written to your loved one, which I'm guessing, is another angle of the social critique I talked of).


The second layer, the social critique shows up subtly in places and frames, like the shots as Theodore rides the subway, where each person is shown to be talking to himself, or actually his personal computer through an ear-phone. It made me want to seriously look at what place social conversation, or in fact connection, is headed to in our increasingly self-involved lifestyles. The premise is quite similar to that note one can find on Facebook memes that shows a restaurant plaque shouting "We don't have wifi here, talk to each other at your tables". However, hope comes in the form of the OS talked of earlier and the intentions that would have designed something like that. Because even in a world with decreasingly relevant inter personal communication and fading relations, humans need and seek an interaction that's as close to human as it can get. We'd need the idle banter, the impromptu humor (of which, there is bundles sneaked into the script, making the film a breeze for non art-house audiences), the occasional sexual connect, heart break, introspection, understanding and perpetual love. That is where the third layer gracefully enters the scene, with Samantha slowly realizing what it is to be human, realizing and maintaining the essential nuances and finally using her ability to broach the infinite spaces lurking beyond the time-space continuum bounding actual humanity. Because, that's what we humans probably are, consistently in the search for those moments of joy, moments of self-realization, and the answers for our questions about life, its purport and our brief parts in it.