concert. leh. cinema city preview

so… i guess its time to update the blog after a long time. got to keep it running in these times of down time- in case i feel inspired again a few months away. likely? who knows?

i guess there are three highlights since the time i left this space- the first was the concert at mukul’s house where my mother sang in public for the first time since the accident last october when dharmu mama fell asleep at the wheel on the pune expressway. mom was thrown against the back seat and has been weak ever since. i missed most of the first half all because of the unbelievable popularity of the new branch of the ‘borivili biryani center’ at chikuwadi where i waited for food for more than an hour. this was the 2^nd of october.

we left for leh the next day by the punjab mail. such a long journey. i spent all of my birthday traveling. i don’t mean to make it sound like a drag. the retreating monsoon made the journey actually very lovely, although waiting for the morning while sleeping on the uncomfortable seats at delhi airport was a bit much.

it was a second year study trip- and i was so hoping that the particular class that had given us so much trauma over the past semester would be transformed by the rarified air and the freezing cold temperature. we studied a part of the old town behind the main mosque where a street runs from an old stupa gate of the city to the palace. sonal seeing the photographs called the city an anthill- and it was. the houses straddle complex levels making underground labyrinths. it was a very difficult area to study. and the kids looked excited. the city is completely abandoned and is waiting to house tourism/ cultural facilities. manisha who has helped restore the old munshi house at the feet of the palace and andre from the ladakh old town initiative seem to be trying hard. there is so much potential for exciting work in the city.

we spent most of the time in the old town, although we took one day trip- to alchi where we touched the indus and to bazgo with its spectacular ruins of a palace and temple. another day it snowed, much to the delight of the class who were seeing it for the first time

i had to leave early to come back for the ‘cinema city’ preview on the 11^th at ncpa where kausik had designed the exhibition. the event had to be classified as a mega success- much to our delight- as it turned out that double the number of people expected turned up. the post-event party was at neera’s.

the soul of a man . cat soup. offside . taking woodstock . day for night.

i have managed to arrange it such that i can now watch movies in my room with the huge sound system. the system was inaugurated by ‘the soul of a man’- wim wenders film for the martin scorsese series ‘the blues’ that follows early blues artists like blind willie johnson, skip james and j b lenoir. the music was divine. the film tried some clever tricks but most of them were not so pretentious that they took away from the heartbreaking voices of the singers- whether the original or the new versions by contemporary artists like bonnie raitt and beck.

in ‘cat soup’ death plays too much of a role to be a children’s film. the narrative includes a dead sister, a broken arm, a frightening magician. the connections made are random, surreal, beautiful.

still more films to record here- this time from after the leh trip. the first is ‘day for night’ which madhu had recommended for its ‘behind the scenes’ narrative. truffaut plays a version of himself as he tries to make a seedy family drama about a love affair between a father in law and his sons wife. the action behind the camera becomes as torrid as that in front. somewhere in between in truffaut’s adoration of the process of film making itself- the movement of the machines, the madness, the horrors, the insecurities.

jafar panahi’s ‘offside’ was a sweetheart of an almost real time look at a group of football crazy girls and their attempts at entering a football stadium to watch a match that i going to seal irans entry into the world cup. so gentle and sweet, but still not cloying.

which cannot be said about ‘taking woodstock’ ang lee’s recent family drama about breaking away from the loneliness and heartbreak to ‘find yourself’- this time helping organizing the love fest ‘woodstock’ provides the catalyst- the ‘peace man’s, the tie and die shirts and more than a little help from some acid. nothing much happens, not that it had to.

the cabinet of dr caligari . ghost in the shell, wanted . alphaville. deewar. arrival. the choir . howls moving castle . love meetings . poison

not really very frightening- thankfully- or i wouldn’t be able to watch at all, but the cabinet of dr caligari lived up to its reputation of being all expressionistic set design. the streets twist and turn, the walls seem like they are falling. the only space relatively stable is the courtyard of the mental hospital where the madmen meet each other and tell stories.

in ghost in the shell where machines become men and men machines, the ghost is some longed for spirit in the films surprisingly very serious soul searching for spiritual/philosophical depth. not that i was completely taken in by it, but was stunned by the long languorous shots of the future city- the canal that runs through the glittering street that are somewhere in south east asia; or the action scene in the narrow alley that suddenly ends revealing a high wall of housing facing emptiness. gorgeous- and in many ways what this city is going to be like. alphaville was quirky film noir craziness- again repeating the trope about the machine against love. but this time the evil machine was represented by the modernism of 1960s paris- rcc towers, curtain walls and corridors that went on forever. the ordinary was transformed into the strange.

i have been recommending 'wanted' for all who have forgotten how much fun hindi films can be after being battered by the relentless nri punjabi films of the past few years. a shameless action film with no pretensions, especially not those who claim to indulge in childish fantasy because they are so above it. instead this plays the genre with relish but takes it to another level with the attention it plays to the detail- whether that it the movements and action/reaction of the bodies in elaborate and super violent action sequences; or in the small talk and silliness of the love scene. the clichés are the film and there really is not point complaining about things like the representation of women or the gratuitous violence. fabulous.

on the other hand my reaction to another great macula film was different. at the risk of being blasphemous i could not watch 'deewar' without getting slightly bored. some scenes were wonderfully iconic like the 'mere peas mama chain' or the action sequence on the docks, or even the marine drive shot; but everything seemed a little dated. still enjoyed i - but i think i expected more.

as far as short films go mani kaul’s ‘arrival’ an fd film was fantastic. a quotation from marx (i think) somewhere frames images of migration, consumption, production and death. the slaughterhouse in deonar and people gorging themselves with food.

the french film ‘the choir’ followed the clichés of good teachers in bad schools genre- that range from the icky (now that i think about it) ‘dead poets society’ to ‘the class’. here the teacher in question teaches the class to sing and wins over their hardened hearts. the principal as usual does not approve of these new fangled feel-good techniques.

miyazaki’s anime fantasy ‘howls moving castle’ allows different spaces to morph into one another through the doorway of the crumbling wheezing flying castle of the wizard ‘howl’ every door opens into different fantastic landscapes- from a ostentatious european town to a pasture from a dreamscape.

i was incredibly unmoved by pasolini’s cinema verite documentary exploring masculinities and sexuality in italy. the characters trade in stock answers for too long a time. and most repeat the clichés that have been superimposed on them.

todd haynes ‘poison’ tells three stories, independent of each other- each stylistically very different. the first is a noir serial killer mystery about a potion that spreads a disfiguring disease through the city, the second a pseudo documentary about a boy who flies away through a window; and the third a very sensual prison love story that derives much from jean genet’s ‘un chant amour’. sex might be the poison that joins all three stories. the scene where the boys spit in slow motion into the open mouth of another to humiliate him is oddly disgusting and sensual at the same time.

lsr 94 class reunion

this sunday 15 years after leaving college we meet again in a room overlooking the cricket lawns of the mumbai cricket association in bandra kurla complex. people i had not met for years- strangely familiar though i doubt i would have recognized them if i had seen them in a restaurant..

the edge of heaven. head on .district 9 .i cant think straight .fabulous .beau travail .kadachit .8x8 a chess sonata .blind dating. bolt. coraline

accidental deaths that mirror each other across turkey and germany make strangers into friends in fatih akin’s ‘the edge of heaven’. in an earlier film ‘head on’ a jealous rage leads to another killing- this time making a marriage of convenience into something like love. istanbul in both films is a city of labyrinth like streets where some escape from their disjointed existence in germany while others come to die. in ‘the edge of heaven’ a son escapes from the embarrassment of his father’s murder of a prostitute and tries to find salvation through saving his daughter, while she herself in running from the law to germany where she falls in love with a lovely generous white girl. in ‘head on’ a marriage is arranged between a girl trying to get out of her family and a man who cant care less whether he lives and dies.

district 9 blew my mind away. pretending to be pseudo-documentary on the sudden appearance of a wrecked spaceship above johannesburg the film follows a systematic process of cleansing of their colony – district 9- when suddenly he pure white blood is contaminated. more about race relations than a typical alien film it does however end with a great big mash up- shootouts, chase sequences, explosions and a hollywood salvation through self sacrifice- could have done without that- but the first half is just brilliant. the great shock is when we realize that we actually identify with the non-cute et but rather ugly frightening prawn like aliens. it screws with our presumptions.

the tv documentary ‘fabulous’ followed American queer cinema through some iconic films. informative enough, like a chronological check list- from something called fireworks through to brokeback mountain with ‘bound’, gus van sant’ and john waters along the way. the films are naturally the ones most explicitly ‘gay’ . i wonder whether ‘beau travail’ would have made the list. based on a Hermann melville story and a benjamin britten opera ‘billy budd’ the action takes place in french africa in a group of legionnaires. strong young men wrestle with each other in the desolate beauty of the desert as jealousy raises its ugly head. the passions are all very controlled and rarely find any sense of release except in the strenuous physical exercises on the beach and the frenzied dancing that breaks out at certain times.

the more conventional gay love story was ‘i cant think straight’- a coming out inter racial story set in Jordan and London between a Jordanian free spirit who is curiously closeted and a nice Hindu girl who is more at ease with herself. in an otherwise very passable and yet somehow enjoyable film Lisa ray is absolutely stunning. i couldn’t take my eyes off her. didn’t know she could act too.

more difficult love stories in romantic comedies- this one between a blind white boy and a Indian girl- ‘blind dating’. fluffy fun- but does confirm the fact that a nice white boy who grew up to be captain Kirk really needs to be blind to fall in love with a brown girl.

why are Marathi films so moral? and badly made? ‘kadachit’ the story was fine and so was the acting. ashwini bhave plays a gutsy doctor who loses it when she confronts the truth about the dad she put away for murder. she only manages to get her act together again when she is told another lie. to its credit the film did not try to resolve things with a happy ending where everyone lives happily ever after. the father walks away alone into the sunset, but it could have been made less like a tv soap, i think.

not as weird as the nightmare before christmas but coraline’s frighteningly sweet alternative world of a mother and father with buttons for eyes is pretty spooky. an alice in wonderland story with a cat that speaks, fancy french performing mice and couple of british actresses who are terrific at the trapeze. ‘bolt’ was sweeter. a dog lives a truman show existence until one day he is lost and discovers the real him on a road trip from new york to los angeles. his company is a wise cracking cat and a hamster in a globe. the in-jokes are thankfully not too many making it easily less offensive than lets say ‘a sharks tale’. really quite a lot of fun and towards the end i felt really bad about the cats out on the terrace that we have decided not to feed anymore.

i did not particularly care to ‘get’ but still enjoyed the images of hans richters experimental 8x8 a chess sonata’. 8 episode feature different guest artists and some surreal games in streets and in gardens. the sequence in alexander calders studio is beautiful and so is much of the other imagery.

yi yi . black cat white cat . my winnipeg . berlin: symphony of a great city . 9. the golem . up the yangste . dazed and confused . wendy and lucy

a long winded drama about the middle class in taipei, yi yi( a one and a two) spent too long developing stories that didn’t finally lead up to much- some weddings, some insecurities, old girlfriends. not that the dreariness of the everyday was the problem (if only); the film stayed precariously close to becoming a tv soap and finally descended into the pit when the cute kid reads a letter full of profundity to his dead grandmother at her funeral.

'black cat white cat' is set in some strange world completely out of control. a crime film and romantic comedy of double crossing gangsters trying to get their tiny sisters married and sweet faced lovers whose parents are more than willing to sell them off to the highest bidder. the speed by which things happen and complete randomness of it all reminded me somewhat of sankat city- which also i loved.

‘my winnipeg’ is a love poem for the city in which guy maddin spent his entire life. he wants to get out of there but finds it impossible as people keep falling asleep. in faux silent cinema black and white expressionism intercut with pseudo (?) documentary newsreel footage as he hires the house he grew up in and populates them with actors to play the parts of his mother and siblings,, the stories grow out of a free flowing inventive mix of fact and fiction- as when a fire in stable sends the horses racing into the freezing river and their heads frozen in gruesome screams of death become props for romantic walks for winnipeggers. when he decries the demolition of the older buildings of his history he does it without trying to put on an objective face. instead he hurls invective at all the atrocities committed on the city in the name of progress.

an early city film ‘berlin- a symphony of a great city’ made between the wars is in love with modernity. the working day, children going to school, the cultural pleasures of the city and above all the obsession with time. trains rush through the landscapes, clocks move in synchronization with the citizens. speed and germanic precision across the classes- man and machine are one. this love-hate relationship has been seen too many times by the time we get to ‘9’. in a future after the great man-machine war when the world is completely destroyed 9 “stitchpunks” take on the evil smoke spewing multi tentacled b.r.a.i.n. the visualizations are jaw-droppingly beautiful but after the first half when the narrative begins to show its formulaic one dimensionality you cant help but be disappointed. machines are evil and in the end we are saved by the “soul” of one man. this regressive nonsense is further aggravated in my imagination when the only space of safety in the shattered city are a gothic cathedral and a neo-classical villa. the end sequence with mystical rituals and souls rising to heaven in glowing green spirals managed to seal my opinion on this one.

‘the golem’ a silent film from 1915 plays with the same ideas- a frankenstein like character is created through a mixture of science and religion to save the ghetto from being demolished. the golem turns evil towards the end and is only destroyed by an innocent gesture by a young girl- but not before he has caused some serious mayhem and murder. over the top light and shadow expressionism makes gothic horror as lovers preen, wizards cast frightening spells, and the history of the jews is told as a film within the film to the heartless king.

now that i think about it, it is a strange coincidence that both the b.r.a.i.n. of ‘9’ and the golem are given life by plugging a strange mystical medallion into their chests- and their deaths are associated with its removal.

in ‘up the yangtse’ through a canadian chinese lens we experience the heartbreak of losing your history below the relentlessly rising water of the three gorges dam. the farewell cruise carries foreigners over the silver grey still surface of the river and stories are told to them of the cities that are going to be no more by young chinese men and women who don on american names and speak americanese for tips. the scale is astounding. jia zhang ke’s ‘still life’ took the same situation and turned it into a melancholy science fiction film. in this film we are introduced to two kids of differing backgrounds who are interning upon the farewell cruise.

a couple of american films to end this post. ‘dazed and confused’ is richard linklater’s classic 70’s slacker film that follows a group of young men and women through the medieval rituals of the last day of school. the film checklists the types, speaks very cleverly, plays a lot of 70s rock and still manages to make more out of the genre film that expected.

‘wendy and lucy’ takes all this suburban disenchantment and turns it into a sad sweet story about a girl and her dog living on the very edge of poverty. on her way to alaska the car breaks down and she is caught shoplifting. then the dog disappears. she wanders through the still decrepit small town in oregon looking for lucy and finding her lets her go.

twisted fairy tales

the first year workshop came to an end yesterday

workshop / matchmaking / kanheri

some more photographs of the past few days.

the first year workshop is writing alternate fairy tales. the kids still dont know what hit them. i think.

the dutch-indian architect matchmaking session went off entertainingly. so we spoke of the low income housing work and wondered how the international connection can work to both our advantages. some talk of 'space' other talk of 'networks'.

and today, after a long time- kanheri. still as lovely.

this is what 80 looks like