Ginger drafts...

“You cry, with regret at having to leave the city when you can barely graze it with your glance” notes Marco Polo, in reference to one of the cities. And this can be said of every other city described in the book. So beautiful, adventurous and enticing that before you read the first ten pages, you are already contemplating an adventurous trip to a dreamy city, one that is unique, one that Calvino himself missed in his dreamy evocations. “Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears…” observes Marco Polo in his discourse with Kublai Khan. The book follows Marco Polo, the main protagonist, on his journeys through imaginative cities. Cities are described in the form of a desire, or a desire that formed the city; a traveller who was inspired or an inspiration that the city drew from the traveller to recreate itself so the traveller appreciates it even more. A city that has lost its originality and appears as if it were lost in desolate fears, an identity that has collapsed in dreamy ...

She sat by the window; with her elbow rested on the window sill, supported her chin in her right hand’s palm. With a book in her lap, she began reading; every now and then, she would raise her eyes and look through the window in stately calm and intense contemplation. Gigantic poles separated from each other by vast dry land, suffered under the weight of electric wires; fields mysteriously swayed in harmony to the evening breeze as it toppled over near the edges with no object to sway, the breeze nearly vanished beneath the perimeters of the fields; tall chimneys billowed smoke into the sky that swallowed the orange sun as train pierced its way into a tunnel. The tunnel heaved like a sleeping monster; strong acrid smell rose up to fill the insides of the train. A guard stood by the tracks with a green torch in his hand, train shifted tracks with each wheel producing a metallic thud as it crossed over. A girl digging castles in the sand piles by the station, left her work, stood up, bea...

It’s Jerusalem, Roman Empire. Brian is up for crucifixion and he inquires with the jailor “can I speak to someone, I think there has been a mistake” and the jailor responds “do you have a lawyer….I am sorry, we are in a bit of hurry today, you go on now….out of the door, lying on the left, one cross each” It isn’t for no reason that they call “Life of Brian” the greatest British comedy movie of all time. You only have to watch the opening credits to realise the genius of these men waiting impatiently to explode on the screen, their penetrating eye for comedy. I cannot imagine how the people of Britain and world at large must have felt when they had seen the movie at the release time, back in 79. And Now for Something Completely Different (1971): when I first saw the movie, I had no idea of the pythons. Even today, the pythons’ series wins hands down, unparalleled in uniqueness and unequalled in sheer ability to capture the mood of the time, bottle it up and release it in a manner conce...

“I don’t know if it’s a memory or a memory of a memory that I am left with”, the deceased woman’s husband contemplates. We are shown the view of the railway station with their backs turned towards the camera. In a brief shot, the protagonist is shown bewildered at first and deeply disturbed the next moment. The case is officially closed, but the husband tirelessly pursues, with the discomforting fact that he is beginning to forget his wife. He confesses to the protagonist about how he wished he could hold on to the memory of beautiful deep pink flushed cheeks of his wife glowing in the morning sunlight that slipped through their undulating curtains on the morning of the murder. First thing that you will notice in the movie is the close-up and long shots used alternatively. Shifting between the shots, for instance - you are shown wide range long shot of distant memories of the protagonist; in a flash frame shifts into a bloody violent rape of a lady in her twenties. And, this one is a c...

“If I were to sink my teeth into your eye right now, would you be able to stop me before I blinded you?” Dicaprio responds stately “Give it a try” Four years after “The Departed” , the master comes up with “Shutter Island” . Continuing with his favourite man Dicaprio whom he has indulged in the last 3 occasions before now, master director Martin Scorsese, one of the few men who is capable of enthralling his audiences at times of inconsequential moments of stasis in a movie, delivers again. Not a single frame of the movie was wasted in “The Departed”, Scorsese was uncompromising in the previous one. He, with his impenetrable genius, pulled our nerves taut and relished in the obstruct sound of discomfort produced by the taut string like nerves in “The Departed”. What can you expect after such a movie? “Shutter Island” begins with Dicaprio visiting the island. Background score is reminiscent of Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man”. Only this one sounds even more sinister, like two metallic objects...

“Amores Perros” or “Love is a Bitch” is a tireless 2 ½ hrs evocation of portent that will haunt you throughout the movie, and well beyond the closing credits. Movie begins with a car accident. With the knowledge of the accident, we are presented the preludes of all the people who find their lives tragically interlinked with the accident. Whether it is the teenager who fights his dog for money in a local betting house to lure his brother’s wife into eloping with him; whether it is the blue collar business man who pays a surly old fellow to kill his brother on account of cheating him in business; whether it is the magazine cover page designer who falls for the model and leaves his wife and children for her, only to be confronted with devastating experiences- movie silently sketches the outlines of a phantasmagoria, dipping the paintbrush (car accident) in three different stories, paints and transforms the hazy outlines of phantasmagoria into solid lines of a nightmarish hound-love. Movi...

“You are totally paralysed” the doctor continues “by now you must have realised that you cannot speak” . Movie begins with the patient’s hope of resuscitation, through his eyes; we are shown the doctors and nurses treating him. The patient feels the words but cannot actually speak them. The atmosphere of the hospital, the sheer casualness of the doctor when he decides to sew up the patient’s right eye, beautiful lass- nurse- confessing to the patient that it was her first serious job- render the movie an air of cordiality and affection. Seen from the eyes of the patient, it is ironic that we, the viewers feel that way. Movie's impression on its viewers is not that of melancholy, but of purposefulness, a sort of expectation of something indescribable. It gets even better, with the two gorgeous nurses teaching him how to speak and swallow. Patient’s constant agitation of the situation he is in, and the brief moments of romantic past flashing before his eyes. Movie shuttles between th...

“Alice in wonderland” begins with an explication of Alice’s dispositions. Her demeanour, fanatic indulgence in fantasies; ease of being; incongruent in land of propriety. She is young and the people around her are too preoccupied with the nearly farcical life of their own. Alice on the other hand is a girl of her dreams. The movie exploits viewers’ acquaintance with the character Alice by steering away into a world that is barely condonable- it’s bizarre. Tim Burton’s Alice is innocent and adorable; the director’s wonderland is unimaginably wonderful. It is beautiful, majestic, grand and intensely colourful. Alice’s chase through the mushroom laden thick forest undergrowth, the bizarre looking creatures, adorable rat-a cinematic treat, an eye candy. Tim Burton has created a land of fantasy that conjures up colourful landscapes, blunt nosed creatures and quirky characters. You would want to meet the director, shake his hand and speak to him of the brilliance that his mind is home to. He...

Before you even realise it, you have fallen in love with Paris. The mystic romanticism of the vignettes flares up above you and the halo fixes itself atop your mind throughout the beautiful movie “Paris, I love you”. The panoramic view of Paris that the first of vignettes ends with slowly sucks you in; the air of deep conquest in slightest of the stories embraces you on the inside; background score, like a river of warm feeling suffuses through you, a quiet rectitude. “Care to join us?” inquires the old man. The muslim girl with traditional dupatta over her head blushes as the young man joins her on her walk homewards. The movie is subtle and sublime; it is an indulgence, of all the directors. A pleasure for the viewers, movie does not suffer from a feeling of looseness, a disjointed feel. On the contrary, it is cohesive (with the city of Paris forming the large canvass on which different directors have cleverly and carefully knitted flowers). “Don’t shoot people in the face, its not n...

I am in the train. There is a moderately beautiful girl sitting before me. At the station, where she was conversing with her parents through the window while waiting for the train to move, judging from the brief interaction, I am of the view that she is slightly petulant. She is wearing a pink dress, perhaps a software engineer by profession-that would be my best guess. She has an indifferent face, like every girl that I have had the occasion to observe, she too, when on phone, goes harping about nonsensical drivel. It was the manner in which she pursed her lips that attracted me, neatly together she maintained, with her lips, a demeanour of arrogance. She let her hair free, warm evening air that gushed through the window streamed through her hair. Every now and then she brushed her hair off the face and neatly tucked them around the earlobes with her index fingers. As I type this, she unconsciously kept tucking at her hair, curling them and furtively glancing here and there, and at me...

I am at the railway station. Seated in the waiting hall, my mind wanders around the place- as mist would over flowers and leaves in the morning- it wanders; finding one piece after another of this giant puzzle. Just as earth rotates to find sun illumining it, my mind finds a dog here resting unconsciously. And the announcement in the mike behind me about a train arriving or departing. There is a television before me suspended to the roof. A man coughing profusely beside me, it was so unprecedented that he caught the sleepy dog by surprise. There are hoardings by the walls around me, no room left uncovered. The fans are surprisingly good, the dog is fat too- quite a sight, for it is virtually unseen that a stray dog is fat and lazes all day. The display board before me stutters every now and then, refreshing all the items on it. The rapid scuttling of letters makes it so appealing. Oh! My. There is another dog, just as heavily built as its partner. This one has thick black spots running...

And, now I totally understand why “Sight and sound” rated “The Bicycle Thief” the best movie of all time. Every single frame of the movie is intense; it’s the story of a lower middle class man who earns a job to stick posters, but has to produce a bicycle to qualify for the job. His wife sells used linen, ones on the mattress that they sleep on, so they can buy the bicycle before dawn. It is the background score that makes the viewers fall in love with the middle class couple instantly. While Ricci is on his work, a thief steals his bicycle, another thief misguides him. Battered and bereaved, Ricci is shown standing in the middle of a busy road with cars honking and vehicles buzzing past him. Now he would lose his job with nothing whatever to feed his family with. His wife works for a living, his son works in a petrol bunk. Here he is, with no one to tell his anguish with, no one to share his bereavement. Totally devastated, he approaches the police. The city and its people show utter ...

As a child, it was the emptiness that I was fanatically obsessed with, and my jogging strip gave me just that. Far away from the city’s traffic, my jogging took me into the woods. Near the entrance we are greeted with a serene pond to one side that admittedly must have covered the strip itself when it was full. Sauntering around this lake are seen the local herdsmen; seated on a yellow rock, they watch by as their cattle walk in and out of the pond. Far away from the entrance are the coconut and palm trees. The track snuggles its way through dried twigs and green shrubs; rocky crests and sandy troughs; narrow hesitation to a wide relapse towards the tall trees. With lungs heaving for oxygen, heart pounding, panting and with flesh wrapped around our skeletons that we wished to get rid of, we enter the zone of tall trees. A longing for the trees; too deep a feeling to comprehend. As we leave behind us the tall trees and the mango fields to the left, the track now takes us into the villag...

“People have always trusted me with their secrets, but who do I trust mine with?” the old lady writes in her diary. She is the history teacher (played by Judi Dench). The movie’s background score and the general atmosphere are quite similar to “The Hours”-one of my favourite movies of all time. There is a sense of drama that awaits us, as indicated by the title and pouncing yet sublime background score. There is something in the opening scenes that points towards a tale that strangles you with its intensity. The arts teacher (played by Cate Blanchett) is new to the school, and I am already liking her. If not as powerful a character played by Nicole Kidman for Virginia Woolf in “The Hours”, Blanchett’s role is similarly intense, formidable and deep. Ah! The background score is enticing. “One must make an effort, when one receives an invitation” the voiceover of history teacher in response to the arts teacher’s invitation for lunch at her place, the movie hides the scathing arguments for...

“However, I find it hard to forgive myself” confesses Traudl Junge, the final secretary for Adolf Hitler. The movie begins with The Fuhrer interviewing six ladies at midnight for his secretary position. Presently, The Fuhrer is calm, friendly and feeding his dog. The next scene, he is coming down on his men with the style that we know of him from all the books written on Second World War. It is his 56th birthday, and the Russians are only 12kms away from Berlin dropping long range artillery on the city. The Fuhrer is furious, enraged and has called for evacuation of the office effective immediately. More than anything what strikes you is the Fuhrer’s charisma, you would want to be him or at least be by his side. The man was an incredible visionary. His left hand that he crosses against his back and fingers that are trembling all the time- the director has made sure that The Fuhrer is depicted powerful, full of pride and enigmatic. With the background noise of bombing on Berlin, the Fuh...

“The plan: to travel 8000 kms in 4 months”. And so they travel through the beautiful landscapes and picturesque horizons that melt your heart away. The serene lush green countryside and the milky-white Mountains against the backdrop of blue sky and rugged muddy road that romantically dissolves into the horizon, with the background score that lifts you up from the comforts of your room and throws you asunder into the mountainous terrains and snowy valleys, the movie has already made me go on an exploration myself, before it is too late. “Each moment splits into two” protagonist writes to his mother on his journey, “melancholy for what was left behind, all the enthusiasm at entering new lands” chile’s frost covered roads with trees and animals eaten up by snow in entirety, nothing but the bike and two adventurers on it are seen for miles and miles along the road. They trip and fall off the bike for the third time since the day adventure began. The roads are desolate and one wonders why? ...

Naomi Klein’s “No Logo” is stylish, corrosive and conclusive. In her own words-“Sitting cross-legged on the concrete floor of the tiny dorm room….connected, as is so often the case, by a web of fabrics, shoelaces, franchises, teddy bears and brand names wrapped around the planet”. Klein’s book views the ocean (of consumers), attempts to find out the direction of flow of oceanic currents (market trends) and the effect of these currents on the land (companies) and people. The book takes us through the evolution of Branding, how it all began, where and why? Prior to the Brand world, there were but indistinguishable products. But since the early 20th century, Klein argues, companies felt the need to create euphoric affiliations of their products (not within themselves, but beyond and outside). This period, Klein observes was the premise for the branding But the innocuous idea’s wide spread tentacles began suffocating consumers, she notes. With the advent of globalisation, companies focused...

“Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed” is a book for every student, parent, teacher and business man living on this planet right now. Jared Diamond, before venturing into his comprehensive list of collapse of societies, tries to pacify the readers of an education that will be imparted, and that the readers should not be worried and bang their heads against the nearest walls. But, it doesn’t last long, it only takes the first couple of chapters and we realise the intensity of collapse that is imminent on us. It is all over now; the damage that we have caused to this planet is irreparable. Diamond presents his case promptly, reiterates the findings over and over again to make sure that it has settled on us. But he is a benevolent man, so towards the ending he sits with us readers, and endeavours to grab a thin overhanging glimmer of hope branch to get us out of the quick sand. But, we will have our shoes dirty; he reprimands, and might have to hang them up after we get out o...

The film makes you feel dizzy. It was made in 1963, but it deceives you with its modest colourless settings and neutral appeals. The film leaves an incurable desire in the viewers; it’s clever, cunning, and vertiginous. It proceeds at a pace faster than the fastest of the action movies (one only has to trust the character guido, which arguably doesn’t take longer than the opening scene to get over). Putatively absorbing movies- some movies tell you a tale, some tell you a tale form the protagonist’s perspective, and some tell you a tale that you would want to tell the director-which is 8 ½ . “It is better to destroy than to create, when one fails to create the bare essentials” professes the intellectual writer friend of the director. That sums it all. Guido renounces the movie at the end. “What a monstrous presumption to think that others would benefit by your squalid catalogue of mistakes”. What strikes you in 8 ½ is the camera angles. For instance, guido (the protagonist) is conver...

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, Lady Vengeance and Thirst-they have all got one thing in common. All of them run amok in blood and guts, pure stylish resonating murders. Characters in the first three movies turn into predators of revenge from friendly neighbours that they were hitherto. In the last movie (Thirst) though, director Chan Wook Park seems to have braced himself with finding renewed stylish ways of spilling blood and yet he wished his viewers would sympathise with characters. The answer was vampires. While Mr. Vengeance is all about the deaf and dumb brother with a sister in an urgent need of kidney transplant, it was believable that such a man would turn into a monster under the circumstances. He lets himself tricked for an exchange of kidney (his blood type and that of his sister’s are different) in the black market. The rowdies of course leave him penniless, we are shown the view from the roof of a cellar floor of a multi-storied apartment under construction-protagoni...