shahpur. miff

the trip to shahpur on saturday turned out to be longer than usual. this time with the work nearing the first steps on site, we were lining out and conceptualizing the two buildings; showing the local jack of all trades and fixers the extent of work to be done. rainwater harvesting, rcc costs, load bearing possibilities were all part of long winded circuitous discussions in the burning hot sun and in sunmica and corniced interiors of shops with ganpati bappa smiling benignly amidst glimmering golden leaf decorated curtains. mayuri noticed a scar on my neck from the electric shock that i had got the friday morning from a dangerously dangling wire in the exhibition area, before i lost it with the third year. they were being so completely anemic about the design project.

anyway as a result of the neck stun i was exhausted most of saturday and on sunday at miff- mumbai international film festival at p. l. deshpande hall at prabhadevi. atrocious building with faux grecian columns separating curtain walls with three halls- two rather nice and one that smells of urine, has an air conditioner working overtime and stainless steel and leather chairs used for wedding functions.

the movies that i managed to catch were at best extremely ordinary in form and fairly interesting in content. nothing earth shattering. there was ‘operation babylift’ about babies the australians adopted in the last few days of the vietnam war with a woman going back to saigon to find her birth mother- sentimental but sometimes moving. the four seasons mosaic- canadian film about the ‘wonderful’ cross cultural landscape rearranged vivaldi with a chinese pipa, indian sarangi, a western classical violin and inuit throat singers. music is always watchable.

‘the housewives flower’ was being shown in the ‘hybrid forms’ section and followed a smart group of vacuum cleaner salesmen as they did their rounds in the town of stuttgart. they were savvy, smooth and pretty ruthess in going for the ‘kill’. reminded me so much of john when he was working for eureka forbes in the early days of his career. the life of a salesman is something else. the charm, the ease with people… man- he was so impressive; and good looking.. today js sits happily in a tackily done fancy office in poonam chambers overlooking the lawns of the nehru science center- the same view from bahaars glassy new minimalistic space.

anyway, why am i describing the films? they did not seem to be the point of the festival anyway.. the margaret maid ‘film poems’ in the morning or even the nid animations were so ordinary that they don’t ever bear scrutiny. it was more of a meeting place for film makers from all parts of the country to sit in the baking plaza and exchange war stories and bitch about the terribleness of most of the selections. the one that took the cake for me was ‘the tunnel’ where a woman who had filed a case against a large construction organization in australia actually filmed herself as an erin brokovich type in awfully done ‘recreations’ adapted from the very worst of the sensationalistic american tv shows. whats with the australians anyway? white men who want to be yellow and hate them in turn.