Tag: Chennai

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cinema cinema:english Essay

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)

That Tarantino taught himself movie making from behind the desk at a video store is the stuff of legend. In Chennai, it is not uncommon to have friends who due to compulsions of engaging with popular culture have a tee shirt which proudly says “ I never went to film school. I went to films” or some such Tarantino quote. 

Tarantino is the real life story of the fringe becoming mainstream, the director who launched the career of numerous disciples, the director who within a short time had an ‘esque’ added to his name. The director who has his quotes on t shirts in Chennai. 

It’s what he became.But let’s come back to the first  fact, as a video store clerk- he saw every type of film. Often in the transference of his coolness, the reason for his coolness is omitted.He saw every type of film.  

Has there been any Tarantino conversation without the generous movie name-dropping? To think of it, his tee shirt makes perfect sense, he really figured out how to make movies by just watching a ton of movies- a certified movie nut with unconditional love. 

He just didn’t stream the AFI top 100 to become what he did become(relevant in our time of curated lists and general entitlement of everyone seeking the ‘best’). 

Tarantino went to work, consuming films of all types and sizes, without any notion of preconceived taste.His passion extends beyond just viewing them but to track down and remember every filmmaker. The resultant is a wholly unique person with an extremely specific movie taste. 

Specific to the extent of keeping a close watch on how he will be remembered (the 9th film by Quentin Tarantino is how Once Upon A Time…is marketed), his movies are combos- the ones on a food menu which arrive quick, valuable and consists of enticing items from different pages in the same menu. Each preceding film was a genre version of what Tarantino cooked up. 

But Once Upon A Time is different…it is still a heady mix of genres, it still moves to an assorted pop soundtrack and radio commercials, it does have an obliqueness to violence but this is really Tarantino’s way of giving it back (love) to his industry. 

Although at the same time it is not the “love letter” or the nostalgia driven look of Hollywood- it is authentic but not rose tinted. It is a film about time, a word that features in the title. 

A passage of time, 1969 seems to be year of closure of many things Old Hollywood- the slowing of the studio system- the decline of a certain sort of heroism. 

A man’s man would be ridiculed in our ‘woke’ times, but their careers seem to have ended a long time ago. I can never imagine an ‘environmentally’ aware hero like Leonardo taking up anything remotely similar to Bounty Law ( the TV series that Rick Dalton, his character plays in this movie). 

Tarantino feels for Rick Dalton & his driver-companion Cliff Booth (Dalton himself is based on many leading TV men of the 50s and 60s who lost their way, without a break, mostly forgotten by history) but he is not tied down by the weight of historical accuracy. He wants them to get that one break, that one lucky break which could change a sagging career. 

At the other end of the story is a young Sharon Tate, who at the time represented the Hollywood to come, young with life, till it was horrifically taken away from her. Tarantino cares for her too, doesn’t really care for history. One of the best moments come from Tate getting to watch her on screen in the ‘The Wrecking Crew’. A rather ‘asinine’ film, as Tarantino himself put it while guesting on a podcast. It isn’t regarded as a classic film but means so much to Sharon Tate, thus proving that any movie could make deep impact in a person’s life, irrespective of how it has been ‘regarded’ by society (especially critics). 

The ending, which is sure to shock many, but unlike the catharsis of killing Hitler in Inglorious Basterds, this comes from a sweet place of good intentions and confidence.  The way he juxtaposes fact and fiction in a way that only reminded me of Monty Python’s Life of Brian- a film that follows the parallel lives of the Christ and a commoner.

Clearly my favourite Tarantino and definitely the most re-watchable , a movie where I could endear myself to his brashness.

He knows his stuff, this is his subject, he seems to be having the most fun when without any care following his characters to see where they go-forgetting lines, feeding dogs, folding clothes, watching movies and generally raising hell in the Hollywood of 1969. 


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cinema cinema:tamil

They Who Need Not Be Named

Parking Lot Notes 2: Maanagaram

Maanagaram

Adhavadhu(that is…),
humanity’s greatest achievement is not the great wall of china or moon landing or the moon landing tapes, but cities.

We weren’t meant to live in caves, or in forests or spend our lifetimes working with crops and pests and pesticides, notice how we came from all that into this density of human life, simply called the city.
(Density, city rhymes, +5 marks, self evaluation as they say in some industries)

But not everyone, mostly not those originally from a city seem to like life in one, they prefer rural silence to urban violence, the slow pace to a rat race. Also non-citizens (here meant to denote those not from a city) tend to think that there is some sort of moral loss that happens in a city and that this loss is communicable.

Mainly this idea has been spread by Tamil(also others?) cinema.

Innumerable movies talk about the helping tendencies of the rural-ites, their hardworking-ness and their ever helpful nature. Cities however are the polar opposite, if a village can be compared to the character of a hero, then a city is the serial rapist villain who has bald thug named ‘Peter’ who spits Pan Parag in railway ticket counter corners.

Nevermind.

Like all things in reality, cities are inescapable, for me they represent human life at its aggregated best; a place where differences blur because everyone is pushing against each other towards an unknown center.

Without cities, we would be even distant islands of self image and comfort. Without cities we would still be somebody. See, because one of the best things that a city offers you is anonymity!

Like rain water, sewage etc etc making it to the sea, we all make it to the city.

It doesn’t matter who we are and where we are from.

Maanagaram is what knowledgeable people call a hyperlink film in which multiple characters pursue their own stories but are united in the core theme of the film, which is ofcourse about the city.

But wait, this is not Ayutha Ezhuthu, this is better( hi to all Madras Talkies), with much likeable characters, pulsating music, open your mouth in amazing disbelief kind off opening titles, swear words and their social context, broken beer bottle into your neck kind off action and generally Chennai by night( which is the biggest plus)

Underneath all this is a thread of that of the kindness of strangers, how far will someone go for another man(or woman); invisibly connecting all the characters that inhabit this city, I mean film.

Maanagaram, one of the best films out there this year ( coughs and says Gaudam, “what does your instict say”) not only because of its extreme filmmaking and exciting characters but also because Maangaram gives the best that every big city offers: anonymity

Untill next time.

 

{Parking Lot notes initially appeared as a Facebook post somewhere}

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cinema cinema:tamil Essay Music

IT WAS SHOT HERE

An attempt to view Madras/Chennai through its songs          

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Who knows what type of day it would have been, but trust the Madras resident to come conclude that it would have been, like every day: a very hot one. The imaginative residents would have even got to the extent of picturing a sun burned and sweating exploring officer of the East India Company, pausing at this small and then insignificant sand bar on the Coramandel coast.

He could have gone further, but then he stopped.

The officer on duty was Francis Day, one of the neglected founding fathers of the city; the city they once called Madras and now we call Chennai. There are many tales as to why Day stopped here, it wasn’t even a natural harbor, so essential for the works of the company; the story of Madras is perhaps the most cinematic one; the one never told or explored by the dream spinners who now work in what widely circulated newspapers call Kollywood, a name which sounds so odd that you would like to say something nice after you mouth it.

But there has always been the beach, the coast that made the travelling Englishman stop has churned the memories of many a Tamil filmmaker. C.V. Sridhar often heralded as the first modern Tamil director shared Day’s enchantment and used to write all his scripts on the Marina and would shoot at least one scene there, his classic comedy Kadhalikka Neramillai (No time for love) was set entirely in the southern mountain retreat of Chinnamalai but that couldn’t prevent Sridhar from shooting this opening song on the sunny beach overlooking the Madras University, it is one of the most happiest openings in Tamil film and Sridhar’s sentiment with the Marina would continue all through, not far away a bridge named after a 19th century city Governor Francis Napier, the distinctly red lighthouse and the Indo-Saracenic architecture of the university buildings has also served countless location managers, the stretch of the Marina would be the most exploited, mostly for songs providing walking space for leading couples to ad lib while the composer’s music played out.

When the Marina is used, can Elliot’s be far behind; the city’s second favorite hangout has an added advantage of having a cenotaph to decorate the panoramic shots.

 

I do agree that there has been repetition in the Madras that appeared in songs; after all there can only be so many places of interest, so we can afford to forgive Mani Ratnam (who incidentally has a company called Madras talkies) for using the Chennai Museum complex for a dance recital and as a court-house. He famously used the college of Engineering for the same, but that is another matter.

 

Repetition too has some beauty, but that lies in the mind of the reciter,  a song which begins with a sombrero wearing Manorama aptly titled Madrasa Sutti Paaka Poren (I am going to see Madras)is your quickest guide to the city, even makes fun of Lord Ripon after whom the Corporation headquarters is named; the same year (1994) also came Shankar’s Kadhalan (Lover)a song which quickened the pulse of a nation and also managed to capture Prabhu Deva taking over Madras from the top of distinctive green buses while people watch, mesmerized from the sides of the High Court and the LIC buildings, which I should take time to mention as Chennai’s Empire state, it is not much, but still it is ours.

Staying on the topic of LIC building as a symbol of the city, for years that umm…modest skyscraper and the Central Railways station has been used to the change in setting of any film, from the village to the big bad city; going to Pattinam(as Madras was called in the villages then) was considered an ill act.

Here in B&W Madras, the villager ponders over skyscrapers and how irresponsible the citizens are, the trend continues to this day; in a time where Tamil Cinema is moving southward to the raw rustic surroundings of Madurai and elsewhere; Chennai is often seen as a city of IT professionals who live fake lives and always speak English to the uneducated.

But the city silently bears all that, waiting for that rare moment where even the immigrants;  these protectors of Tamil culture pause for a moment and realize what a ladder this city has been for them, on the other hand new blood from the city have not been silent as they had to deal with inter-zonal conflicts; eternally dividing the city into one of the haves and the have-nots; after all which city does not have boundaries.

But what many cities do not posses is a tongue of its own, rumored to have borrowed equally from English, Tamil, Sanskrit and Hindi, perhaps even German (who can say) is the Madras Baashai, no Tamil film attains completeness without a Zaam Bazzar Jaggu having his bichua knife ready to slice or singing songs on the banks of the foul-smelling holy Cooum: our ever unclean-able.

But how can I finish with the Cooum, so I return one last time to the cool Marina where it all began. Sivaji Ganesan here walks past innocently in search of a better tomorrow where his majestic statue now stands; a merger of worlds of sorts.

The clips in this document is far from complete, but have been assembled to give a fleeting glimpse of the city, many great songs and sites have been left behind and there are still many corners in the city to be explored and filmed, for who would have thought that the famous banyan tree in the Theosophical Society would have given ample shade to silent lovers or that a gully cricket match between the RA Puram Sharks and the Royapuram Rockers would mete out an amusing tale, if not for cinema. We will wait.

For mine is a laid back coastal city, till only recently sprouting signs of competing with the hustle of its colleagues; but somehow maintaining the warmth and air of welcome, I have never been anywhere else; but I have always been welcome at home. Maybe that is what made Francis Day stop, he probably felt home.

Categories
Books cinema cinema: hindi

WALLS PEOPLE BUILD

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Even in the most formulaic of products cinema can surprise you to lengths that you could have ever imagined.

2 states is no new story, two people from diverse background fall in love and naturally their parents oppose, how the couple convince their parents form the rest of the tale. Yes, how many times have we seen this story? Yet 2 states gets most things right where others slip.

This writer walked in expecting a clash of cultures, a comedy of manners and other such gags, but that was not the case to be. Usually not one to expect authentic portrayal of south Indians in Hindi films, there was really anything for me to complain about.

Most of the films in the same fashion, in fact even with the same story reduce characters to prickly caricatures, taking ample advantage of existing stereotypes, the troubled couple usually have to tread carefully amidst the culture bushes while not rustling them, but trying to win their approval as well.

It is not to say that 2 states does not take the help of the stereotypes, just that they are not gags, like first you think Mr. Swaminathan is the grumpy  simple south Indian dad, then we come to realize that he is not grumpy  because he is south Indian, but he is tired of doing others’ work, likewise  the “middle-class” minded fast talking groom’s mother also begins as a staple, not unlike many Bollywood Mas; but she too just wants some respect after being mistreated for most of her life. Her issue is really not having a ‘Madrasi’ daughter-in-law, but her fear of losing her son’s love and respect, something her husband could never provide. 2 states aptly bring out the motivations behind the stereotypes rather than just painting them in stock expected colors.

When characters are written with respect, it shows on screen! Even if respect did not allow much time for research, the previous clash of the culture films only seek to bring the differences to one common ground for the benefit of the lovers, so much so that we do not really care in the end if the protagonists get married or not.

In the end it is not the diversity of the cultures that is the hindrance; it is the minds of the people who preferred to be safely walled up in the name of society and culture.

Marriage is about individuals, not about culture. Yes it does involve culture, but it is not to be seen as a solid unmovable entity that shuts out people and selectively allows some in. Culture is a result of individuals, accumulated over the years to make things easier, if it makes life a chore; then a lot of rethinking needs to be done.

Well written characters are essayed by finest supporting actors (Ronit Roy, Amrita Singh and Revathy deserve more than special mentions), while the biggest hurrah must go to the likeable lead, Alia ‘light-in-her-eyes’ Bhatt and the surprisingly effectual Arjun Kapoor.

While the film does stop and get into the usual Bollywood song and dance occasionally, all that is forgiven. Also nobody gets married at the Shore Temple, it is a UNESCO world heritage site for God’s sake.

2 States is immensely pleasant even at its length, a film that rightly captures the scenario while not being either youth-rebellious or teacher-preacher in its handling of marriage, that is an achievement.

Yes it also ends well.

PS: Two paragraphs on how good this Alia Bhatt is, as Ananya Swaminathan was written, it was deleted keeping in mind that Arjun Kapoor(Krish Malhotra) too is amazing. Further problems were averted by using simpler adjectives in the piece.

PS 2: Remind yourself that this film is not an ad for YES Bank and Sunsilk, repeat this again please for your benefit.

PS 3: This writer did not read the Chetan Bhagat novel from which the film was adapted from and thus cannot speak about loyalty to text issues.

X Box: Kya Yaar, we also see Hindi films.

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Books

THE LAST TIME I SAW LANDMARK

landmark2
Whenever something shuts shop, the memories associated with that something swell out, that is only natural. Because memories need not be rational, this is some loss however.
One thing I realised that, we can continue to have the memories even if the source of those memories has shut down or changed course, because basically these are our memories and we can construct them however and whenever we wish to, immaterial of conditions. So basically this is not a nostalgia piece, but masquerading as one.
I do not know how my generation spent their birthdays; mine was always at Landmark Nungambakkam. Weekdays or weekend whenever it came, didn’t matter; it was the unspoken norm, lunch and dinner also didn’t matter. It wasn’t that we returned with a kart load of books, maybe just one or two.
Landmark Nungambakkam was my first idea of what a bookstore should be, a major introduction to the genres and authors I read now. An idea of a bookstore is important because my reading was and is still to a large part unguided. Earlier I was able to open myself to some authors without knowing anything about their stature. With age comes irritations and information, details which make me doubtful about picking a book rather than urge to pick one up now.
I have moved on, there were other bookstores, libraries and of course the internet and as years passed my visits to the subterranean bookstore decreased, and even if I did I was not as compulsive in buying anything. To tell the truth I was not much surprised when I walked into the store today which looked like a ransacked supermarket in time of a zombie-apocalypse.
Empty shelves.
A Nora Roberts here, a Wilbur Smith there, Chetan Bhagat everywhere.
But Landmark had become like this for many years now, the McDonalds of the bookstores, it may be true that Indian writing in English is the new boom, but this boom had made Landmark into a storehouse, but not of knowledge. Often one could see numerous copies of the same book occupying an entire genre shelf only adding to my existing irritations. There was a constant fear of bumping into the same book cover, like the horror when numerous stern looking Mani Ratnams looked down upon me from the cinema shelf; no he was on the science shelf too.
I think that was the moment it dawned upon me that this shop has to go, at least I would like to think that this was the moment I arrived at this thought. It is a selfish thought of course, to expect things to remain as they were. I never cared for the other stores in the city (City Center, Spencer’s) and I shouldn’t care about this one too.
As people trickled into the store on Monday evening, the unsettling sight of near empty store made them reach out to the nearest attendant. Yes the store was closing, the ‘bestsellers’ would be going to a storage facility in Pune, while the remaining would be put out on clearance in the coming weeks.
Maybe they too were thinking about an early morning many years ago when the store was filled with eager enthusiastic kids and yawning parents to get a copy of the latest Harry Potter. Now people just do some clicks online. Packet delivered.
To keep the bookstore atop a pedestal is in fact a very wrong thing to do, just like how the theatre in which we watch a movie is immaterial, where we buy a book too.
But then the memories?
I got my own Agatha Christie at Landmark, my first LOTR copy, a cassette of Crazy Thieves in Palavakkam and the DVD of Guide too; but my consuming of them would have been no different wherever I had purchased them.
So what are these memories then?
A good bookstore will enrich the informed reader and educate the novice, in these last years Landmark had, I felt never put a step in that direction. The reasons might be many, but it was not my bookstore anymore.
If it had not been landmark, then I can safely say that the same job would have been done by some other similar store. After all there is no point of wasting sympathy on a store which had just the same set of books everywhere, an uncaring enterprise.
Nostalgia should be guarded it is not a time wasting device, it represents the core of our thoughts, and it shouldn’t be spilt on a commercial venture which will anyway be present online. The closing of Landmark Nungambakkam in effect signifies nothing, people who read will always be reading. Maybe nostalgia is also like a bookstore, it should enrich the dreamer and educate the newcomer.
While I waited for my turn at the billing counter with a perfunctory book, the lady next to me was buying an iPhone Scratch Guard.
No this ‘bookstore’ had to go.