nets

bandra worli sea link and the b m c building

a home in the arcades of d n road

tron legacy . the autobiography of nicolas ceausescu

'tron legacy' was awful. the plot was silly as was the premise of a man entering inside a computer and being caught inside 'the grid'. his son enters too to find himself in a world of racing bikes and hot chicks. even the special effects couldn't save this one from being a bore.

of all the films in this set, my favourite is 'the autobiography of nicolae ceaucescu'. we only see the romanian dictator in his public persona. newsreel footage is loosely assembled almost chronologically. we see him take oath, survey disasters, give speeches, travel around the world. the film is also bookended by the ad-hoc tribunal before he was shot. the pace is easy and the film 3 hours long. there is no attempt at a behind the scenes or a psychoanalytic study of the man. instead in the gestures, looks, words that he gives to the camera; in the servile behaviour of everyone around him; in tiny gestures that happen in the margins when no one is looking but the camera is still running; we see him brutal and self obsessed.

cape karma . the kids are all right . the karen carpenter story . before night falls .

'cape karma' was more than most other new 'alternative' hindi films but much less than pankaj advani's other films that i had seen. some of the madcap free association madness creeps through in the beginning; but later on as the plot begins to unravel the film begins to become predictable. the pschotic madness of sankat city or urff professor is lost as all the plot lines are tied up in a neat ending.

'the kids are all right' is a drama about a lesbian couple and their kids from a sperm donor should be crazier than this. traditional feel good family values are extolled in a format seen many times before in too many hollywood films. still very watchable though.

on the other hand, todd haynes debut film twists the american dream. shifting between stop action animation, newsreel, songs and moral lessons about food disorders in a format we are all familair with and whatever he can lay his hands on he tells the story of karen carpenter the deep voiced popstar of the 70s and her eventual death by overdose.

julian schanbel's 'before night falls' is another biopic- this time about a cuban gay writer who is persecuted because of his sexuality in havana. eventually he leaves and comes to america only to die in new york. america here is the land of freedom and opportunity that everyone wants to get to. in one scene a friend tries a hot air balloon crossing that fails and in another our hero played by javier bardem, tries crossing in a tyre. for some reason the film started to piss me off.

saibaba on the highway

early one morning on the highway

dandi

vapi

the agricultural institute

satyagraha memorial at dharasana

housing for the salt pan workers at dharasana

salt pans at dharasana

police station/prison at dharasana



school at dandi for lunch

saifee villa- the current memorial

walk to the ocean

a workshop on the design of a memorial for gandhi led us to dandi this weekend. shirish, paul and me in my santro last friday early in the morning, past the incredibly polluted vapi and landing at the agriculrutal institute at 9 in the morning. immediately whisked off in a van to see dharasana- the place where much of the actual satyagraha took place- and the place where salt was actually being manufactures. dandi, on the other hand, is mainly a place for wetlands and shrimp farms. a memorial marks the spot in in temple form and on the edge of the settlement barren flatlands of salt pans. nearby a police station/prison now abandoned- almost. later we find our way through a coastal road to dandi where we assemble at saifee villa through which the salt march ended, overlooking the large wetlands that lead to the sea where the actual act took place. today the building is a carefully restored museum. the memorial is to be part of a large complex that sees dandi as a tourist / pilgrim destination. modern day satyagrahis are seen walking the same route or at least bicycling it from samarmati to dandi, living in the same places gandhi lived with his 80 followers. we walked through saifee villa, crossed the new embankments and bridges all the way through to the barren lands that separate the babul tree forest that runs along the ocean, thorugh the thorny babul trees to the sea. later in the evening discussion revolved around the nature of the memorial to be created. about form and context and the responsibility of the project to the local community, to the landscape and to the memory of gandhi himself. what can a building say/do? with its language, scale, references to be able to evoke and remind. the discussions continued over the next day and are to continue further over the next few months.

cinema city at ftii, pune

cinema city arrived in pune with a two day exhibition at studio 5 in ftii. some of the older material in a new form and one new tower of crates with stories of studios and theaters projected on it. the package be complete without a panel discussion and film screenings?

drawing competition, bnrc / majuli exhibition

this year again after a hiatus we felt the winter morning sun around republic days at the bnrc courts. the 'sports day' madness where we all wore white; and the drawing competition. kids from all over the neighbourhood drawing and painting frantically. shirish and keya were co-judges with me. the topics- like the urbanists we are- 'my home', 'my neighbourhood', 'my garden'. we judged the drawings on the lawn.

and one of the best student exhibitions i have seen. the majuli drawings that the second years have made are exquisite. hopefully the energy will continue into the rest of the project.

smiles of a summer night . the rules of the game . moloch . chungking express / mirror (again)

in a mansion outside town the three smiles of a summer night- one for the young, the other for the dissapointed and the thrid for the old in a beautiful sequence of floricking in the half light making love in haystacks. the servants watch as their masters betray one another. an older man's son elopes with his wife and falls into the arms of an actress lover. gorgeous film about love and aging. in another such mansion more complications in 'the rules of the game'. this time when the classes intermingle tragedy strikes. the hierarchy cannot be disturbed. the elite, the bourgeois, the middle classes, the servant class, the vagrants and lastly the animals in a great rabbit hunt sequence. but in reality everyone is prey in this tragicomedy. a third mansion- this time in the clouds where eva braun waits for her lover. as she waits she dances naked in stone corridors and listens listlessly to music on the gramophone. when he does arrive with acolytes in tow, the politics and backbiting between the cronies and the delirious rants of the madman are both amusing and frightening. hitler is humanized but not forgiven. this is the second of sokurov's trilogy. i have only seen the third and final one on emperor hirohito. that was fantastic. in 'moloch' the claustrophobia of the house on the mountain top is frightening. and so is the strangely distorted picnic scene. half seen landscapes and lengthened limbs.

for my theory of design course i am showing films to the kids. last week was 'chungking express'. which i really loved only this time. the noir first half with the bangladeshi smugglers and the woman in a raincoat was more fun than the sweet love story of the second. still the jittery staccato rhythms and the music- all electro pop mash-up- was terrific. and for this friday the plan is to show 'mirror' - for now my favourite tarkovsky film. identities blur through the mirror as mother becomes wife and father becomes sun. personal and political history intermingle. the images are unforgettable.

pink flamingoes . sampurna ramayan . sita sings the blues . the social network . black swan .

in john waters madcap and over the top and intentionally gruesome 'pinak flamngoes' divine is a murderting runaway with a family with strange sexual fetishes- chickens and eggs. the villains are the only 'normal' heterosexual couple in a single family home in the basement of which they impregnate women and sell them to lesbain couples. if that is not whacky enough wait for the party sequence in which anal gymnastics are performed or the end when divine eats dog shit. in glorious bad taste. disgustingly brilliant.

two ramayana films. 'sampurna ramayan' and 'sita sings the blues'. its easy to overlook the homemade specail effects and set design when the film is from decades ago. the story is told, thankfully, without any necessity for a contemporary retelling. 'sita sings the blues' tries too hard to be cool. reeking of american desi scorn regarding indian popular culture- it tries to 'update' sita by making her sing american blues music. the visuals are often stunning but in the final reckoning shallow. channel v does it better. the voiceover party conversations that keep the story moving are actually pretty annoying.

the social network is a wordy nerd story. people talk in quick one liners and the story moves backwards and forwards, in and out of a courtroom. our hero is actually the guy who stood by the nerd through thick and thin and got effectively booted out towards the end. meanwhile the nerds motivation for revenge is the rejection of a girl who still wants to be friends with on facebook; and whom he wants to poke and like.

over the top operatic story within a story. balletic camerawork and hyper stylised images as natalie portman plays the schizophrenic swan queen. she is fantastic. the film- fun.