Art and Life

In the past few days, I watched quite a number of movies. Maybe it was the boredom. Maybe it was the influx of suggestions from various friends. Maybe it was the free time I had after choosing classes on two days of the week. Whatever.

Spoilers are there.

First in line is Slumdog Millionaire. The movie is predictable and the accented English of the key characters is more reminiscent of a well rehearsed play from the Alliance Francaise rather than characters from the backalleys of Bombay's underworld. The movie fails to capture the grit and pain of the outcasts of Maximum City's society, falling far short of Suketu Mehta's brilliant journey through its grimy streets. Personally, to see it in the early forties of IMDBs top 250 movies as well as an obnoxiously high rating on Rotten Tomatoes was quite unbelievable. But all that said and done, the movie is brilliant. It's a grimy fairy tale and not really meant to inspire credibility. The undying love of the protagonist, Jamal, reminds one of the cheesy dialogues and scenes from a Veer Zara. But that's just the point. Rags to riches overnight with the love of your life dancing beside you at the train station is exactly the kind of cheesy, cliched, overused and pedestrian model that make people love Bollywood movies. The movie is vibrant, colourful and has the heart and soul of a city that never sleeps but is always dreaming. Nine out of ten.

Seven Pounds is based on the true story of a man who donates his organs (and in the grand finale, his life to sacrifice his heart and eyes) to seven people. The acting is superb. If you have seen The Pursuit of Happyness, you will know the kind of heart rending expressions that Will Smith is capable of and indeed pulls off in this movie. The cinematography and the screenplay is brilliant from start to finish, particularly the slow motion flashbacks of the tortured protagonist. However, the plot did have a few holes and the movie gets slow too early. For Will Smith fans and drama lovers, a great movie. Seven out of ten.

If you are a writer or even otherwise, then you simply have to watch Stranger than Fiction. The movie is eclectic and the narration is crisp. The movie does several things. It makes you question the life you live and the potential and the dreams that you have. But the real masterpiece is the ending. At first, it appears to have too happy an ending, but then you realise that that is exactly the point. The sparing of the protagonist's life is not meant to turn the movie into "a great art of fiction" but rather weigh the importance of human living and not just human life. Nine out of ten.

I'd never heard of Bruge before, despite one of my closest friends having spent the formative years of her life in Belgium (I doubt if she's been there as well). In Bruges portrays the city of Bruge as a dark and depressing place as Colin Farell's character repeatedly stresses. But the movies humour is unsurpassed, drawing parallels to Pulp Fiction. While being serious for the major part of the time, it breaks into moments of subtle comedy that make you roll on the floor laughing, really. Nine out of ten.

World War II never gets old. And more so the emancipation of the Jews and the heroic struggle of a people that met with the horrors of Genocide. However, Defiance lacks the overall punch of films like The Pianist or novels like Maus. The direction is brilliant, but the script lacks the power and the storyline settles down into being just another war film. I'd give the film a six on ten.

Behind every great movie is an idea that inspired it. The Watchowski brothers (did I spell that right?) are said to have taken their inspiration from the anime, Ghost in the Shell. While the series supposedly far outclasses the movie, the film itself does make one pause and think, and leaves one in that eerie place between second guessing everything you know and believing in what you want to whole heartedly. While the story is slightly predictable, the questions thrown up regarding what it means to be human and the fallacy of memory over fantasy bubble to the surface with an unmistakable poignancy. Eight out of ten for this classic, and watch out for the series.