M.A.A.M

Close on the heels of listening to the youtube link of "...and the big terrible thing", I stumbled upon an hour (actuality more) long post by a young girl and wondered why it even mattered to someone so far removed from his life.But by the time I had finished watching the video, she had sowed seeds of doubt and sympathy for Sushant deep enough that I sat through watching "Kedarnath". 

At the end of it all justice delayed is justice denied. Be it to SSR or the millions (in India) who perish during floods and such climatic extremes.

Did I mention jumping around to this tune amidst all this grim news and posts I have been gouging on?

Mind-an-average-monkey  

Saudi Vellakka CC.225/2009

There are precious few films that evoke a tear these days...though that wasnt the case sometime back. 

The moments were cliched and yet they did manage to bring out the saline drops....this movie is a mature effort with excellent performances by all involved.

Most of the film is dreary, as dry as dust, in terms of the locations. Where elsewhere in the country films are about glamour glitz and chiffon sarees in foreign locations this tiny little corner of "God's own country" audaciously makes an aging old lady one of the central characters. Not only that, she steals the show in her "stone-like-emotion-less-face". So much so you instantly love her when the faint smiles appear.

"Humanity is a ocean. If a few drops in the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty".  A beautiful directorial snip you might almost miss in the film, if you are not looking for it.

The dirty drops in this oceanic story are too easy to spot and so close to reality we mustn't dwell on them.

The ocean itself - Gokulan, the struggling lawyer who leaves no stone unturned to bring justice to his client Ayisha Rawther. Britto Vincent who has stood by her (/son) from the night she gets arrested till the very final day, many years later , when the "326" is dismissed. Sathaar the son, who only learnt to love through his heart and can't bear to keep it together, when he lets his mother go. Abhilash who is as much a victim in the story, as Ayisha, of the dirty drops that created the FIR and triggered this case which the film does well to remind the audience is only a sample of the 47 million cases pending in Indian courts.  And all those little champs on the streets who seems to follow Ayisha (even when she is living alone), lapping up snacks she makes for them. Nazi the daughter in law who chooses to live in denial of her husband's implied death, even though she keeps away from the case and proceedings having gone through the pain (of legal tours and visits) for her own brother previously.

"The place he went to might be that good"- an agonizing response from Ayisha when asked about why her missing son was not returning home, is by far the hardest moment of the film.

This one is a must watch and I couldnt match the emotions watching it evokes through my words, so i will stop here. May the ocean of such stories never dry....

Exaggerated Empathy/ Loathsome love

I chanced to watch a short film (oscar winning,apparently) recently on youtube (the Silent Child). And that has given me a reason to return to my blog sooner than I had expected.

For all the thought and effort that might have gone into making this one, the film is heavily one-sided in its narration. Did the makers intend to suggest that there are parents who are in the oblivion about sign language in the present day and age of technological advancements?

It is praise worthy that the young makers came up with a storyline that caters to bringing aforth the lives of differently abled. However by binding that to the more popular themes of sin(extra marital affairs) the film unknowingly drops its worth tremendously.

On the one hand is the protagonist who cycles her way, to work with the child and is tearful when the child is abruptly put in a school where she doess not receive necessary support, we are introduced to the mother who is clearly a personification of all that a parent must not be- guilty, closed and partial (towards her other children) on the other.

Do the makers suggest that family and schools are failures as institutions when it comes to understanding the needs of the less able?

Did they want to portray through the short film the protagonist's empathy or the parents' apathy?

I find I am more inclined towards documentaries than films, as I age.....

Came across one about the same topic- parents of a son who is growing increasingly deaf...

There certainly was more depth and empathy and love in that documentary  (in case my blog raises your curisity about it.)

And no I am not promoting the documentary- just struck how different versions of the same story there exist for an audience (Oscars?!) to choose from.

A man called Otto

A storyline that has been done to death ..... and yet it drew my time and attention owing to the fact that the lead actor was a professional of repute who could be depended on to produce a quality deliverable! 

"Stereotypical became thou" is how I would summarize the film. Never in the film was I able to sense the anguish of losing a loved partner in the actor's face or words. Now it certainly is not the case that the actor was incapable of emoting pain and yet the scenes simply lacked a depth that the theme demands. (Now why death demands such a profound focus of faculties is another discussion altogether.) I felt the sequences throughout the film, were too loosely placed with each other and did not connect or come together to portray a character.

The scenes seemed to place the protagonist admist situations juggling too many "purposes in life" even when he was suicidal. A man that was pennyless but sensitive enough to return a book to the stranger who dropped it while she was boarding her train; a man who would read a book to his neighbour's kids right after having driven them to the hospital in the car that he attempted to kill himself just miuntes ago, were all magnanimous ideas whose implementation fails to reach the audience's heart.

Perhaps the central character - the deceased wife- is in fact what is missing. Even when we hear about how she changed things for the children she taught in school or how she set up home and lived with her (one) man all her life, having survived a tragical accident in which they loose their unborn child...we do not have a face to attach ourselves to. In "A man called Otto" the woman who lived her entire life with him is faceless.......somehow the makers seem to have decided that Mrs Otto must just remain young and forever 21......

Would the woman called Mrs Otto, please resurrect and help me see why?!