Oxbow Lakes

Cannes Film Festival - 1

noreply@blogger.com (M) — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 22:43:00 +0000

Long story (extremely) short, I got to see movies at the Cannes Film Festival this year (too). Some thoughts on (some) movies I saw. This time I tried to know about movies as little as I could, selected them randomly (schedule permitting). I avoided reading the film summary. I did try to pay attention to the Twitter talk though. Just tried to heed the suggestions of some critics I tend to agree with. Here's some thoughts on 2 of them:

Student - The movie is based on Crime and Punishment and that is all I knew when I went in. I've not read the book, so I can confidently say that I didn't get it. This does not work as a film. To someone who has read the book, the scenes might mean a lot. But there is a lot of brooding, staring intently into nothingness going on in the film. I remember little about the background music, the sound is mostly artsy real-life background sounds (i.e steady hiss, traffic noise, silences). The characters speak few lines, and when they do, the dialogues are stilted, like out of a school play.

There are 2 scenes which struck me (for their 'not being good' quality): One has two policemen sitting in a bar and complaining about how their higher ups and politicians treat them as labour. Except they literally say "We are like their servants. There is nothing we can do", finish their drink and leave. Another scene wants to show how rich people (introduced earlier) get away with "evil". The scene defies logic: A donkey/mule is pulling a car out of mud. The rich guy's car is big, and the donkey struggles. So the rich guy gets pissed and kills the donkey. And then, he just starts his car and drives away. If he could just drive away, why did he need the donkey in the first place then? Yes, I get what the director is trying to show. But changing this scene to have it make sense would have been so simple. Just show the car roll a few inches out of the mud, have the guy check that he can move and then he can go get pissed off

I remember reading the director's interview somewhere and that he mentioned that he tried to stay as close to the book as possible. I'm sorry, but sticking close to the book doesn't work when you want to show inner torment as 'intent staring and not responding to people around you'.
--------
Kalpana: WHOA. That's the first reaction to this movie. Will it appeal everyone? Hell no. We had a dozen (or 2) walkouts in the screening. The IMDB page will tell you that it was made in 1948 by Uday Shankar. What it doesn't tell is that it a part-hallucinatory experience (Martin Scorsese's words in the film brochure, he was instrumental in restoring it), part-fantasy dance ballet.

It takes the familiar tropes of Bollywood movies of sudden segues into songs and heightens that. I'm not sure if films then had people burst into random songs in random places (in the last 20-30 years, songs were frequently shot in Europe, which doesn't logically make sense inside the film, but us Indians are pretty ok with it), but this movie makes the segues grand. The dances, songs and so on are mostly metaphorical - they take an idea and run with it with grand sets, special effects and great choreography.

The film does suffer from the same problems that I have with many old films: -- too loud, too much posturing. Being made in 1944-1948 means there is rampant nationalism in the film dialogues. Acting is reminiscent of stage-plays - big expressions, loud reading of lines and weak dialogues. But all that is made up by the dance sequences. Do watch out for one where the lead character Udayan goes on about "immoral capitalistic industrialisation" (the film was made in the 40s) and the dance sequence has giant mechanical gears, about 50-100 dancers and huge moving sets.

Finally what does bring it down is the need for every Indian movie to want to be 3 hours long. It is an interesting study of what was tried back then in India. It's a shame that this film wasn't popular among viewers but considering its bizarreness at times, that's understandable. Now that it's been newly restored (the giant mechanical gear dance sequence is in especially great condition), those who love such old cinema can be pleased. I, though, don't enjoy it much and would probably only watch few bits if given a chance to watch again.

Ek Chalis Ki Last Local

noreply@blogger.com (M) — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 23:26:00 +0000

Abhay Deol has a knack of choosing off-beat-ish movies, that generally end up being nice. They may not all be "extremely good", but they are certainly never bad. I was quite apprehensive of watching "Ek Challis Ki Last Local" - Neha Dhupia doesn't have a good track of starring in good movies (neither is she considered as a good actress), and the songs (from the movie) that I'd seen seemed sorta tacky.

But the movie does quite well. It feels as if the makers of the film wanted to tip their hat to Tarantino. (There is a scene quite similar to the one in Pulp Fiction where Vic Vega "accidentally" shoots Marvin.) It seems to me that some of the non-mainstream directors have been pretty influenced by the multiple-stories-converging-in-a-mess-at-the-end storyline. Well, in this movie you expect that to happen within the first 5~10 minutes.

Hmm... a little Google-fu & IMDB points me to more Pulp Fiction references!

The humor is quite dark, and funny too. I love the fact that such movies don't hesitate to use rough language, it adds color to the dialogue and makes it more believable. It feels as if the director was uncomfortable with making the movie shorter than 2 hours, there are quite a few places where the movie drags. Especially at the fag end!

It's a fun movie, probably a one time watch. Though, with this movie, I've started to appreciate the fact there are quite a few directors in India who are technically good, have tons of references up their sleeve and have good stories to tell. All is not lost!

Scott Pilgrim

noreply@blogger.com (M) — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 23:29:00 +0000

I had seen the trailer for Scott Pilgrim vs The World a long time ago - sometime in August I guess. (Here it is.) I was very intrigued and knew that this kind of movie is a hit or a miss (for me). It reminded me of "Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny", which starts of brilliantly and just gets weird.

I found out that Scott Pilgrim (the movie) was based on a graphic novel. But the trailer seems to suggest it is based on a video game from the 90s. Most of the reviews that praised this movie also seemed to be baffled by it. And the movie did not fare well at the box office. So when I sat down to watch this movie, I was prepared for a "different" kind of a movie.

And I still had all those "what just happened?" and "how the hell did the director get away with this" moments.

From the trailer, you pretty much know that there are going to be video-game (think Mortal Kombat) style fight sequences. But in fact, those sequences are where I got bored. They seem fun in the beginning of the movie, but later on get a little tiring. What I found fun was how he used all those video-game / graphic novel techniques in the normal scenes.

Some shots pretty much shout out "I used the graphic novel as a storyboard" in the style of '300', 'Sin City' or 'Watchmen'. There is a shot with Scott Pilgrim sitting alone on a swing, as seen from above, with his shadow filling up the rest of the frame. Then there is a shot where we can seen the passageway in the house and a timid Scott peeps into the frame, only his head visible.

It's a really baffling movie, and I really don't know what to make of it. I'm glad I watched it and I'm sure not everyone will like it. The jokes are really good. The movie felt packed with them and I might need another viewing to get the subtler ones. The movie is packed with visual gags that drive the dialogue based jokes. This movie might be an excellent example of how an overdose of CGI and carefully crafted special effects mimicking cartoons and comics can make a movie better.

Going The Distance

noreply@blogger.com (M) — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 19:10:00 +0000

"These people actually use their brains," is what my reaction was on seeing this movie. Going the Distance is a romantic comedy, which actually seems made by intelligent people.

The IMDB plot snippet hints that this movie is about a couple trying to make it work long distance, so the first thing that came to my mind was Love Aaj Kal, but the movies are completely different. My beef with romantic comedies is that the characters are always dumb and the resolution to "big incident/problem" in rom-coms is always too simplistic.

Fights, mis-understandings and that sort happens in this movie too... but they aren't drawn out. Like real people, Garrett and Erin deal with problems as they come along. There are a couple of moments in the movie where I was all prepared to roll my eyes expecting the predictable (predictable for movies that is). But the movie handles it smartly. There is no extended montage where the characters have broken up and are missing each other, then realise that they actually love each other, run back to reconcile and apologize. Thank God none of that happens. I found the jokes hilarious, and even the stock dumb friend characters seemed real.

I'm currently in a place where most (all?) of my good friends are in different timezones. Keeping in touch with them is a difficult act. Any chance of meeting them depends on time, money and visas - which seem to be only influenced by black magic. Seeing a movie that handles such related stuff, and seeing it handle them well, is why I liked this movie. Go watch it.

Calanques de Marseilles

noreply@blogger.com (M) — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 14:31:00 +0000

Sometimes, knowing the wrong information helps. The Calanques, near Marseilles, are a spot where people generally go by boat.The beautiful rock formations, mountains and the sea are a great treat to watch while sitting in boat, relaxing. There are quite a few towns near the coast, which cater specifically to tourists. The prices are high, people speak English and there are boats in the port that take you for that tour to the Calanques. I was going hiking in the mountains of the Calanques.

I was told that the hiking routes there are not difficult. What I forgot was that I had asked a friend who does rock climbing regularly. I packed a few sandwiches, a lot of water (thank God!) and my point & shoot camera. There are multiple "entry" points to go the Calanques, Cassis and Marseilles being the most famous. Short history/ etymology trip: Calanque roughly translates to cove or creeks according to Google Translate. However, in the (original) local slang (or dialect, I'm not sure) it means death. Since the sea waves literally "die" when they hit against the mountain cliffs/walls, the word has come to mean what it does now.

For hiking, we were supposed to start from the point known as Devenson. The road from Cassis to Marseilles is called Route de la Gineste, and near the mountains, halfway between the cities, the pass is called Col de la Gineste. There is a big parking lot, so that hikers can park their cars before heading out. I was with some couchsurfers (CSers) and we joined a group of about 20 other CSers on this hike.

View Calanques De Marseille in a larger map

The group leader, Xavier, was also an experienced hiker, rock climber etc... you know, much better at the stuff than most of us. The area has many trails, and they are marked according to their difficulty. In increasing order of difficulty - green, yellow, red, black... black with two crosses & black with three crosses. To give you an idea (if you are from the Pune region of India), Sinhagad, Purandar, and those all hikes we go to are all Green.

We rarely stayed on the green.

The cliff we climbed down

We came down the center

What followed was an exciting, exhausting, terrifying, adrenaline filled hike. Quite a few times while climbing up, it was in your best interests to not look down. We climbed up a mountain, and then had to go down the almost-cliff-like face. There was a point where the trail vanished. It was a 2 feet wide trail, between the mountain face and the valley anyway. But what we saw was a chain bolted to the rock face. Also, there was a black coloured mark close by on the rocks - Three black crosses. Translated as: If you don't know why you are here, start praying to your favourite god. Atheists, good luck with that.

I was not on this leg of the hike, but I just wanted to set you up for the next few lines. (Photo taken from Delphine's camera)

I chickened, I'm not rock climber and I had only expected green trails. I opted for the harness. It was scary, but I don't regret it. There are some unnerving pictures, if you go to the Picasa album from the links above. We had the sandwiches, sitting on the mountainside, looking at the sea. Most of the others went on the next leg of the hike, equally difficult and long. The few of us who decided to stay back fixed a location to meet with the rest. We rested for about an hour or so and then headed back.

We reached the meeting point (pic above) and waited for the others to come back. From here on, we took the easy green trails back. Everyone was exhausted. A short halt in Cassis to have some food & drink and then a two hour drive got us back.

About 30-40 minutes into the hike, I started this app on my phone (MyTracks) which recorded the GPS locations. The map above is a result of that. The app is really cool, it recorded the speed, distance, altitude and so on. We had an overall elevation change of 500 meters in the first half. I switched the thing off once we reached the lunch point.