Raincoat - a review

Raincoat was such a disappointment to me.

Here is a small review of the 'latest' hindi movie I watched:

First of all, I am sorry that the great director's first work in Hindi cinema is not quite upto the mark. I watched 5-6 movies by rituporno (starting from unishe april to this one) and this one turned out to be the crappiest one. I personally would have liked this to be a play rather than a movie. A movie-screenplay with dialogue between two people going on for such a long time could have been worked upon. (But then, I am not considering the fact of reaching a limited audience with theatre in India.)

The bong way of looking at Hindi is one which regards Hindi as the language of biharis; This, like in most of his other works, is adequately expressed in the movie ('such' characters do speak hindi in his bengali movies) In the movie, since aish and devgan are from Darbhanga (a place in Bihar), their language has to be Hindi. But I don't think aish can ever appreciate that. Annu kapoor has taken the required accent and air quite appropriately. Devgan is matured, but one can only dream that Aish would become an actress, some day.

The following description has spoilers:

Like it is with most artists from the Kali-worshipping Bengal, the protagonists gotta be female[;)] This movie presents dreams and wishes of a girl, brought up in an environment where marrying a rich guy is the only way to have 'em materialized. What follows in the movie is a shattered dream, and horrors in a house-wife born out of disconnection from the real world. Aish iterates her fear of 'bathroom mein qaed ho jana'. Her drawing room is full of antique furniture that doesn’t belong to her. Her reality, is not about being 'a rich woman', something that she wanted to be as a young woman, something that she still wants everyone to believe, even her first-love. Her reality instead limits herself to a bathroom, which she is fearful of getting locked in (reason why she won't go in an airplane)

But then, devgans got his share too, although less highlighted. This is not the movie where young-man's frustration would be vented out the usual Hindi cinema way. Devgan, is weak, failed, and jaded. (He is found weeping in bathroom in the movie.) He gives up to emotions, and so, carrying impact of his failed first-love, he is presented as someone who needs support.


The climax of the movie takes off from O Henry's ' gift of magi' (Henry is thankfully mentioned in the credits). Raincoat is the carrier of gifts that the one-time lovers gave to each other, both pretending to be able to afford the gift. Raincoat, indeed, has its symbolism. Rituporno's overall idea of the movie is good, but he has not been able to convert it to a good movie. No one can attribute this to a language/culture barrier. Best of the best Hindi movies were directed by bongs afterall ;)

This movie is not for you if you think that Hindi movies shouldn't be doing anything except Shaadi-vaala band baaja, having nice time with the family-members visiting India, hoggin' and dancin' in big groups etc. This director is not subhash ghai or some chopra-vopra; He is an artist and he thinks his work ought to be reflective.

At last, two things:

1. I am not 100% sure that aish has become rituporno's muse or something. Can anyone enlighten me?
2. The mumbai - crowd I watched the movie with, suggested the movie should have been called bathroom. Whats your say?

Sem starts

Here it comes again, ... the beginning of a new semester.

New courses, new goals, new learnings ... and all that crap. Thats whats goin'on these days. Ever prof promises that his/her course is gonna transform things. Actually, not really, its my over-excitement which takes the prof's explanations that way.

Anyways the sem started, and I am still watching movies at evenings. You know what, I've been watching one movie a day since a few weeks back. It was a sorry movie that I watched today- Osama, not because it was poorly made or something (although the direction and cinemato could improve) but because it don't mean shit.

These "artists" sitting over their asses in Middle-East or India, are alien to the local people themselves. I say sitting on 'their asses' to emphasize that they have little connection with the beliefs of their own people themselves. As artists, they are running some colonial institution that British established some time back. The "local" people they are supposed to represent don't give a shit to what these people do. Art is seen a free and self-less act of human being, something that reflects and represents what humanity feels. But all that makes sense to the Western world. From the western world, its an excellent endaviour of mankind; Like I said, its introspective "to" the Western world, and the point I am trying to make is that these "artists" in the oriental world, stand for Western introspection. They are there to tell Westerners what they wish to understand. "Art" in the middle-East or India, the one which gets "international recognition", is merely a filter for the West. There is no reason why it shouldn't be that, and I am not gonna start a revolution against what Westerners do. My struggle is against what local people do. These so-called artists never condescend to understand their own people, don't try to understand what they believe in or what they wish to do?

Like in this movie Osama or any other such media, the "free" artist goes on criticizing Islam and its evils. Well, how many muslims give a damn to these people? Meet Mr. Rushdie, who got 'fatwa'(practically, it means shoot-on-sight) from Islamic clerics. Its agreed that Rushdie is an excellent writer (he, sure is) and a great observer but what does he do to transform what "his" people think? rien de tout! He got "popular" by swearing Muhammad and looking down upon the state of "poor" muslims, and after getting fatwa, is now sitting over his ass in UK, under "safe" umbrella of the champions of freedom, which colonialized the rest of the world till the middle of last century. What does freedom mean to Muslims? Did anyone try to know?

Well, some did - We know that Rushdie did and this is what he found - following Islam itself is against freedom!... To think freely, you gotta forget doing Islam (or follow tradition the fanstastic way Hindus do...keep religion to a corner in their homes, and eat-drink-sleep English everywhere else) To such people, its probably only a misery of some muslim if he/she can't appreciate that premarital sex is merely an expression of freedom. The fact is that most muslims miss to get the "freedom" because they think that taking freedom the Western way would lead to perdition of all moral values. The fear of 'women-hunting-for-sex' alone is a "reason" strong enough for most muslims to make them stick to the medieval rules. .... The suppressed sexuality, the arabic verses of Quran, and not ratiocination is their way to truth. They fear not of freedom but its expression as Westernization. Nobody thinks about the need of freedom in their world; not even these so-called artists. Its the same ideas they want to get; but the lack of channels (social psychological communication) in the colonial world makes them want to hire the benefits of Western institutions, without the acceptance of West, in philosophy. If the 'art' was responsible, this problem won't have arised. People would have realised that individualism, equality, individual-freedom are bases of the Western-culture. Getting benefits of industrialization and denial of individual freedom can't go hand in hand. There is no way the colonial world is gonna understand that, and you know what! nobody cares! The Westernization continues...with wierd oppositions! and the West thinks these people don't at all want to be free !!!


Fuck that! I gotta study...there are these two courses I have taken. Probably I would watch couple'a more movies this week.

Les Triplettes de Belleville

English

I won’t finish my life in Timbuktu
Cheeks so tight my lips are turning blue
I'd like to be wrinkled
Utterly wrinkled
Wrinkled like a Triplet from Belleville

Don’t want to wind my days in Acapulco
Stiff as a board dancing tango-tango
I'd love to be twisted
Utterly twisted
Twisted like a Triplet from Belleville
(Come on Girls!)

Refrain:
Swinging Belleville rendez-vous
Marathon dancing doop dee doop
Vaudou Cancan balais taboo
Au Belleville swinging rendez-vous

I won’t be an old man in Singapore
Playing scrabble and eating petits-fours
I want to be wicked,
Utterly wicked,
Wicked like the Triplets from Belleville

I don’t want to end my life in Honolulu
Singing like a bird in an ormolu
I want to be as rough
Every bit as rough
Rough, rough as a Triplet from Belleville

Refrain

I won’t finish my days in Miami Beach
Sweating my heart stalking like an old bitch
I’d like to be flying (Hop!)
Utterly flying (Hop! Hop!)
Flying like a Triplet from Belleville

Don’t mind ending my life in Katmandu
Signing with a sitar and a guru
But I’d prefer to be
Much prefer to be
Swinging with the Triplets from Belleville
(Come on Girls!)

Refrain + Solo + Refrain

French
J'veux pas finir mes jours à Tombouctou
La peau tirée par des machines à clous
Moi je veux être fripée
Triplement fripée
Fripée comme une Triplette de Belleville

J'veux pas finir ma vie à Acapulco
Danser toute raide avec des gigolos
Moi je veux être tordue
Triplement tordue
Balancée comme une Triplette de Belleville
(Allez les filles!)

Refrain:
Swinging Belleville rendez-vous
Marathon dancing doop dee doop
Vaudou Cancan balais taboo
Au Belleville swinging rendez-vous

J'veux pas finir ma vie à Singapour
Jouer au dico manger des petits fours
Moi j'veux être zidiote
Triplement zidiote
Gondolée comme une Triplette de Belleville

J'veux pas finir ma vie à Honolulu
Chanter comme un zoiseau ça n'se fait plus
Je veux ma voix brisée
Triplement brisée
Swinguer comme une Triplette de Belleville

Refrain

J'pourrai finir ma vie à Katmandou
C'est bien plus doux de faire des rimes en “dou“
Mais je veux être givrée (Hop!)
Triplement Givrée (Hop Hop!)
Et swinguer comme les Tripletes de Belleville
(Allez les filles!)

Refrain + Solo + Refrain

Ah...the blues !

I just found myself improvising over the major blues scale. And hours passed by... Wonder why hadn't earlier come across this scale.

The weakness of being plagued by one's own dreams

This helplessness, this restlessness would never let me be in peace. What can be done to people who are at war with themselves, who support and oppose themselves, all the time?

In this movie Cinema Paradiso, the natural emotion is to cry when Salvatore 'Toto' wathces the clips his friend had given him as a last gift. I don't know why do we cry seeing that? Crying on your own love? Don't we end up loving just an image of someone in our mind, rather than the person itself, when falling in love. We can't accept someone in 'flesh' to abuse that image. We want to love the image, forever.

But whats the solution? Well, everyones got his own. Some people are strong enough to change the image or completely efface the 'beautiful' image and ideas they keep in their hearts. Others still cherish those, thinking that this is what makes them human, fearful of getting devoid of all feelings, if there is no 'love' one has. Sadly, i belong to the latter category, trying too hard to compromise with the world, but failing badly all the time...

World is full of failed love stories; where people gave their hearts, and promised to die for each other. But only some time later, the circumstances made them give it up. They are not 'happy' doing that, and they don't stay happy all the time, but they have to do it, for it was 'practical' in the given circumstances. Why does the unconscious not give it up to the conscious? ... Later, they try to hate each other, just to preserve the image which they love in their hearts, just to distance the persons from hearts, who seemed close to the images at some time, but seem filled with enmity right now. This hatred is artificial, completely made-up, just to keep oneself at peace. Thankfully, the animal instinct of not being able to see a your love with someone else, helps to aggravate the hatred, create the distance from the person. We go on loving the hatred we made up, putting charges from betrayal to promiscuity on the one we once loved.

The first woman that comes in one's lives does always the same thing. May be the first love should never fail, for it leaves such a scar that gets reopened everytime one wants to see his past. Wish it were true that... Its true that first love is just a flow of emotions sans practicality, but then that is the only point where you were ready to compromise anything and be ready for whatever may come. After that, once you have learned to compromise with the image in your heart, nothing remains for 'love'. Love does have no 'realistic' significance; its a 'pure' emotion. Once compromised, it remains just a spur of emotions driven by needs, not at all a purpose one wants to die for. I wish everyone could live that purpose. I wish I could do that...

We are an advanced civilisation. Aren't we? Why does this culture not give space to emotions of human beings? Why does this fucking mind think so much of things in the 'long-run' to make such decisions which keep emotions at the bottom ? Are those images in our hearts really, so alien?

Downtown, DC

Art Gallery, Constitution Ave, DC

Wow !!

Walking down the Constitution Ave, DC

Ronald reagan building, DC