Tuesday, June 07, 2011
Monday, June 06, 2011
A serious man
Recently watched Joel Coen's A Serious Man - a very interesting movie. I got to see those early elements of Coen's bright, almost tinted cinematography.
It was difficult movie to understand, not purely because of the Yiddish words that I had never heard - Dybbuk, Mishna, Hashem, Goys, (to sit) shiva. - but also because of the ever-shifting focus of the story - about the failed marriage, responsibility of an unemployed brother, desire to cheat. It was almost as if the director was consciously trying not to give any closure to the viewers.
The idea was rather simple but explained in a rather deliberate mysterious fashion - One doesn't always understand the hashem. We can try making sense of the world and just try our best, but after a certain point, we need to accept the mystery. This is not the kind of existentialist comedy that Woody Allen would write, but one that is somewhat darker and strange in a lot of ways. I would certainly remember the movie for its humor.
It was difficult movie to understand, not purely because of the Yiddish words that I had never heard - Dybbuk, Mishna, Hashem, Goys, (to sit) shiva. - but also because of the ever-shifting focus of the story - about the failed marriage, responsibility of an unemployed brother, desire to cheat. It was almost as if the director was consciously trying not to give any closure to the viewers.
The idea was rather simple but explained in a rather deliberate mysterious fashion - One doesn't always understand the hashem. We can try making sense of the world and just try our best, but after a certain point, we need to accept the mystery. This is not the kind of existentialist comedy that Woody Allen would write, but one that is somewhat darker and strange in a lot of ways. I would certainly remember the movie for its humor.
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