Melancholy

Its not that I don't have sweet memories of Diwali from my childhood. Nor is it that I have lesser knowledge/adherence to Indian tradition(s). On the contrary, it is only because of my irrevocable adherence that I couldn't connect to the people around me who celebrate(d) Diwali.

Now, I don't celebrate Diwali anymore, nor do I think I would in the near future. When you can't relate to the people that celebrated Diwali, you don't really celebrate your Diwali with them; niether do they know nor would they possibly understand what Diwali means to you- is there any point, then, in just saying you do enjoy their celebrations while you don't?

I won't.

Happy Diwali? why not? to you!

A little something about myself

(If this stuff goes onto a resumé it would be the best one not to ever land up with a job)

I like to think that I am a person simple enough, not needing a whole buncha preferences for describing myself. I just feel better trying to define my essence, than listing out what I have donned from this world. I don't do that intentionally, must be beacause one of the instincts I carry.

Given my obsession with simplicity, I hate to modify problems to make them fit a made-up solution, in general. I think my world would've been a better place to live, if search for simple and justified solutions was the approach to problems, instead of marketing of complicated systems that I see so much around. My affinity for simple rules causes denial of artificial values and concepts. I really never want to voice or emphasize my group identity; I hate to feel like I am made for the institutions rather than them being made for me.

Right now, I am liking being a loner, in love with the solitude around me. I don't make friends myself. All the friends I got, I like to maintain and am (usually) ready to do anything for them. I don't really choose my friends, I don't think I can either. I am not a fatalist, but I do think like Schophenhauer in that regard.

But not even two atoms are alike, so I don't expect everyone to become like me or give up their natural tendencies for sake of integrity at conscience. I am an idealist, I think that my self-restraint or my conscience are as much a biological reality as are my animal instincts; To some people, I am a hypocrite, to most, I am just being myself.

Even when I am playing my guitar, I try to linger between noise and melody, in a mood to discover the order that creates 'music'. Not too surprisingly, I find primitive instruments-arts-writings to be simply very appealing too.

My approach to anything undiscovered stays simple: deconstruct, analyse, try to find out 'essential' rules, that give order and the very meaning that I observed; I simply love nature, art, music and maths.

Sacrifice

Watched this movie by Tarkovsky, called Sacrifice. I have this movie in Swedish, with English subtitles; I have kinda gotten accustomed to the Swedish movies watching so much of Bergman.

The movie is typical Tarkovsky- excellent visuals with a deepening impact and We don’t expect anything less from Tarkovsky. The cinematography in his movies seems to exhibit much more the skill of a still photographer than that of a movie-maker. Right since when the movie starts, the stills are in the right place. Like any other of Tarkovsky's, stills speak a lot here, probably the most about the story. The serene lake, with little signs of human activity, have an overall gloomy effect, possibly due to the wrongs of the human intervention. The human acts never fit the nature in these depictions.

Nature has this mystic beauty which human beings at first seemed so fit (because this imagery is indeed so appealing) the part that Tarkovsky unveils to is usually very dark. Through the dark imagery, Tarkovsky highlights the failures of our civilization in surviving as a part of nature. To think of manipulating nature, appears to be an implicit and necessary anomaly through his movies.

My favorite pick among all his movies still continues to be the CTALKEP (Stalker). That movies was packed with everything that Tarkovsky has to offer us, with dialogues as pithy as they can get.

Sacrifice shows us this family that has a philosophizing and introspective member named Alexandro, who seems to voice what Tarkovsky himself could be thinking. The conversations with his family members depict the conflicts and dissents among Western culture. Alexandro is in search of truth; but at the same time, he rejects religion. The way things progress in the movie, after the outbreak of a war (whose particulars are not necessary, although this is supposed to be the third world war) the old man Alexandro falls back to religion, giving way to his emotions and beliefs over logical understanding, which would eventually result in irrational but unavoidable 'rituals'.

The essential conflict like always, is that of rationality and ritual. Fighting with himself, and lost in his dilemmas, Alexandro still fears God. He decides to sacrifice the kid in the family, and even performs the ritual union with the assumed witch (overcoming his rational self). In some mystic fashion, union with a woman, although apparently evil is always seen as a redemption, as a blessing-in-the-end. A comparison of the feminine and the mystic with Mother Mary is thus bound to occur.

Now here is a word on Cast, and hence of course, on women. But first off, Alexandro is done a splendid job. His dialogue delivery and expressions are impeccable. Women are not exceedingly beautiful, and they are not supposed to be. What they are made to appear in the movie are women of dinivity, with strong features that don't fit the norms of classic beauties. The whole effect is contributed by images of Russian saints (a very incompatible set of ideas with Communism). Russian religion and belief-system is an integral, probably central part of Tarkovsky’s cinema. This movie probably has been the best expression of that idea.

Like many of the art cinema, there is what I call the after-effect of this movie. You may not understand fully what was going while watching the movie. But after you’re done watched the movie (fully) and back-reference it to various themes in your mind, you seem to understand how great the movie was, and you even may want to watch it again so as to really confirm that you didn’t miss anything that could have helped connecting the dots better. Of course, if you have visuals of this deep an impact the whole experience is worth re-experiencing.


No other art can fix time except cinema; Time we have lived is settled in our soul in and the experience is placed within time. Present slips acquires material weight...

- Tarkovsky


How time is turned back is what he wants to imply through this movie.


Sometime, I would want to know what exactly went on with personal life of Tarkovsky, so that I may understand what eventually drove him to such a dismal rejection of the progress of mankind. As a person, Tarkovsky is like me and probably like Bergman, he has emotional recalls but not exact recollections of memory.

Virgin Spring

Source: Wikimedia

It is rarely when a work like this surfaces in the world of cinema. Bergman's imagery is just amazing starred by the excellent performances especially the one by Ingari.

Most people I talked to about this movie, see it as one that inspired a similar hollywood movie. However, there is indeed much more to the story of Virgin Spring. Bergman's way of presenting existentialism, his depiction of conflicts between paganism and Christianity on which the movie is primarily based upon, is truly amazing.

The story of Virgin spring, is taken from an actual ballad about a spring that appeared on the spot where the virgin had died.

It only rarely that such dialectics of philosophy are expressed with so much clarity in cinema. That justice is ultimately His and that the mortals are bound to be sinful could not be explained in a better fashion.

Taking a note on cinematography, the cinema art seemed to have learned a lot from Kurosawa at the time this movie was made. In Rashomon, similar camera movements and characterization are used to exhibit the dilemmas and confusions of mankind. When human beings try to separate right from wrong and good from bad, it becomes hard to judge some everything. In both the movies, the classification of right and wrong doesn't seem to be always so sharply clear- Virgin Spring tells a very similar story only in a different culture, using different set of morals, ideas and values.

Bergman is one of those few directors who have mastered cinematography beyond what anyone can even dream of. In his own words, "cinematography is the only art that can present things as close to the ones in our dreams". This movie then, should be dreadful, yet a sublime and profound dream.

Since the very beginning of the movie, ingari worshiping a pagan god (Odin) is seen in pain - a very dark depiction of Ingari, indeed. Ingari seems to be possessed by the evil forces. A very significant part of the movie, thus, is about how intensely the evil takes her over. The end of the movie is when she seeks repentance.

Almost all of Bergman's movies are influenced by the Lutheran religion. Although he didn't practice religion as an adult, his childhood spent under stringent rules imposed by his parents (which he admits wasn't because of their malcontent or shortcomings as parents) ingrained religion in his way of thinking ; that in itself could be a very simple way to understand existentialism.