The early days...hazy impressions           

Baby steps

Movies in the growing up years were taboo. I remember once going to see the sick melodrama- ankhiyon ke jharokey with the neighbors...and getting grounded for 2 days by my father. Films were not good and Hindi cinema was pure evil. So even if there was a little scope in Bengali uttam-suchitra classic and the odd Ray masterpiece any mention of Hindi cinema was bad news for us.

However that does not mean that father was anti-cinema. In fact on the contrary he has taken me to see more movies in my life time than anyone else. Obviously after a point I didn’t need anyone to take me to movies...the early memories of wild life classics trickle into the memory- wilderness family, touch the sky, etc. all movies based on the wild life. Then there were the soccer movies. The name of Giants of Brazil is distinctly etched. I remember the collective joy of my father and myself at the exploits of the greats- Garincha, Pele, Taustao... Only last year we did a redux on this very laptop when we watched a downloaded version of the movie after close to 3 decades....

The first true English feature film which my dad took me to was Omar Mukhtar- the Lion of the Desert. A neighborhood "dada" whom I was an ardent follower of highly recommended the movie to me. Obviously my father was not impressed at all. All my pleadings and anger fell to deaf years as he dismissed the movie and my plea, further fanning my anger. Then in the evening in the same sarcastic way in which he was talking to me in the morning he told me to get dressed up and then non-chalantly took me to the movie theater to watch the movie.

Till date Lion of the Desert remains one of my closest to heart movies. I have seen the film later on as an adult. It is perhaps one of the best anti-colonial movies that has come out of Hollywood. Till this day Anthony Quinn for me is Omar Mukhtar. Before being zorba the Greek, or Abu Tayi in Lawrence of Arabia, or Cl Stavrov in Guns of Navarone. Quinn lived and breathed his role as the Libyan freedom fighter with a level of energy rarely seen. Then there was Oliver Reed as the Italian general torn between his admiration for the Lion and his orders to execute him. Orders from Mussolini played ruthlessly by Rod Stieger. Beside or beyond the power-house performances which etch the movie what really attracted me to it and dug deep into my conscience was the honesty with which the story was told. The honesty and simplicity. As they say, the greatest things in life are also the simplest. The greatness of the movie lay in its simplicity of narration. The film in more ways than one embodies what freedom means. To a group of thundering and wandering Bedouins who are fighting enslavement by the white man. There was one quote in the movie which I remembered. Thanks to the net I managed to dig up the exact dialogue:

[Omar Mukhtar protects two surviving Italian soldiers]

Omar Mukhtar: We do not kill *prisoners*!

Arab Warrior: *They* do it to *us*!

Omar Mukhtar: "They" are not our *teachers!*

Here in lies the simplicity of the movie. Which perhaps was critical in portraying the simple souls of the desert nomads for whom freedom was a way of life. Long after the rise and fall of Omar Mukhtar, the Second World War, Mussolini, and Gaddafi and ravaged this nation for his own psychopathic pleasures. I sincerely hope that with the killing of Gaddafi the Libyans will rediscover their souls, their simplicity and their unique ways of life which was protect by Omar Mukhtar to his death.

Needless to say the very first movie which left an impact on me was Lion of the Desert. For the movie that it was. But also for the fact that it was the first real movie which I watched with my father in the theater. Only me and my dad....

Magic of DD

The first knock on the door on everything which has happened to the lives of us who grew up in the eighties was always put by our good friend the doordarshan. the first serial(hum log), the first mega serial(buniyaad/ramayan/mahabharat), the first exposure to news as a magazine (the world this week), the first world cup- seeing maradona take on the whole world.... and yes- the 1983 win... with half the match wiped out due to link failure. "Sorry for the interruption"....the half hour of Md- Rafi concert when everyone had assumed the India would be trounced. and then the link coming back and the TV screen showing west indies 6 wickets down....those were the days of real magic...

My first exposure to world cinema also came in from DD. those were the days when DD had started screening world cinema in late nights. These movies were uncensored and had frontal nudity and sex in most of them. These were great movies made by world masters. This was my days of entry into adolescence. Days when late night movies were banned. For obvious reasons.

I had gone to visit my granny. With my elder cousin- a big influence in my life. When granny went to sleep early in the night with the small portable TV at our disposal, it was sheer bliss for us brothers. He in his late teens and me just stepping in. in days before the net, nudity was a rare commodity. Sex was extinct. One full late-night movie at our disposal with no one to snoop in was god-sent.

With bated expectation we waited.  A Russian movie came up. Before the credits it showed a shot of an old woman walking on to a deserted main road. The background audio announced in Russian which we read in the subtitles-

The old lady is waiting for his son to come back. But we know that the son will never come back as he has been killed in the war. But this is not the story of his death. This is the story of his life.

The credits came on and announced the name of the movie- the ballad of a soldier. By then both me and my brother had realized that this movie will not be what we were waiting for. But perhaps it would be something which is worth waiting for.

I saw ballad of a soldier as a kid. You will perhaps not believe, but every scene of the movie was etched in my mind when I was compelled to hunt down its DVD in a video shop in Canada more than 20 years later. It is a film which has stayed with me for the last quarter of a century.

The ballad is a simple tale. And again that’s where it got me. And millions of others who have watched it and elevated it to being one of the best movies to have come out of Russia. It is the simple story of the journey of a soldier who is coming back from the front which he has earned through his bravery. It is the simple tale of two teenagers who fall in love against circumstances. And knowing fully well that this love is momentary and without a future. A story of a young man's journey through war ravaged country and war ravaged cities and citizens. A teenagers growing up to the harsh realities of life and the beauty of love at the same time. It is the story of an epic journey which Alyosha and Shura undertake over a period of a few days.

The ballad was a simple straight forward tale. Overly sentimental at times. But for a nation coming out of the deadliest war that civilization has seen and getting into one of the deadliest and most oppressing periods which civilization has seen this was a message, a story straight from the heart.

Released in 1959 the film till today remains as fresh as its appeal on humanism even today. In the maze of "smart" movies which has overtaken our times this movie any time provides the whiff of fresh air. See Ballad of a soldier. Ignore the sentimentalism a bit. You will not regret...

 

more info:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ballad_of_a_soldier/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081059/

Trying to make a list

The recent list of greatest movies has come out. It has proudly announced that Citizen Kane is no longer the best movie in the world. Vertigo is the new greatest movie of the world. The result and the announcement has sent shock waves through the fraternity which takes these lists with a lot of seriousness.

By plain logic, I would want to believe that  a movie will continue to be the best till a new movie comes and raises the benchmark. The surprising part here is that both Vertigo and Citizen Kane have been around for decades.What suddenly prompted the group to change their opinion after so many years? This leads to a deeper question- what is the basis and logic behind making these lists?

The fact of the matter is there is not much logic behind drawing any generalistic list. It is the personal comfort of individual voters- vote. The weakest method of measuring art. Voting is the tool for measuring objective distributed opinions. Like whether a government will be good for us. Even then its success levels are very low. refer to the re-election of Reagan or Bush Junior. Or the election of Rajiv Gandhi which led to disastrous 5 years for the country. But to make artistic judgement based on vote is silly. Thats why taking Oscars with any amount of seriousness is equally silly. That's why till today the film festivals use the jury/discussion method in addition to voting as its method of selecting excellence. \

The second problem with coming out with a list like this is the premise. Vertigo is the best from which perspective? Is it better than Bicycle Thieves as a movie? or is Ray's Pather Panchali the right movie to make to the list over a Charulata or a  Aranyer Dinratri? is Rashomon the best Kurosawa movie? Not THrone of Blood or Kagemusha or Raan?

Frankly the list is that of the most "famous"  set which has been around. Or it is an attempt to do so. For that reason the best "first movie" of all seminal directors find a place. The ones with which they announced themselves.

But after all this intellectualization, the question remains - how did a murder mystery manage to become the greatest movie of all times? Over one of the best known portrayals of the human condition?

Not for me by the way. no matter how great Vertigo was and how much i liked it, for me it cannot overtake Citizen Kane for the sheer context of the latter if not anything else. But then that is me. Go ask a noir addict. He is popping champagne. There lies the biggest issue with such lists. The real issue is that films are an experience. And a very intimate one for a film buff. And unlike any other art form it traverses all the areas of human emotion and human experience. For the same reason the sub-genres within the form is as varied as it can be. And precisely for the same reason, bringing out a list like this is sheer stupidity. An exercise in advertisement- of the people who are doing it. Also a show of arrogance of the intellect of the makers of these lists. In fact both the makers as well as the viewers. for this precise reason the first action that anyone takes on seeing such a list is to tick off all the ones which he has seen. And then he goes on to announce to the world on his achievement in movie watching. usually he laces this with a negative comment on the list to show his superiority of intellect...

However all these listing of movies does tempt one's self to indulge in the same exercise. Partly to gratify the ego but mostly to satisfy the urge to talk about ones favourite movies. Movies which have impacted, influenced and contributed so much to building the character of the person whom I know as myself. This urge however is much different from the ones in these much publicised lists. This is much more intimate, more to do with calling out and appreciating the beautiful craft of cinema which has given so much to me as an individual over the years.

For this reason I decided to start talking about some of the movies which left their marks on me. Not a greatest list. Not a all the best accumulation. But expression of appreciation and the reasons why they in my opinion are some of the most beautiful and moving creations which I have seen in my life time.

I hope the handful of people who have the interest and patience to go through these names find it interesting and of some value.