Monday, August 31, 2009
tokyo godfathers. sankat city. wall-e . g i joe – imitation of life . the general . kaminey . vantage point .
the bums from tokyo godfathers with a heart of gold with all the homoerotic undercurrents was a new thing to see in an anime film. no high tech / fantasy concept here. just a lost/ stolen baby and the three homeless people trying to find its parents. though i did love both the mumbai/bambai crime caper films the devil-may-care madness of sankat city was terrific fun, while kaminey could not completely shake away the satya hangover. but the locations in both were fabulous- whether that is the steep road in dindoshi where the bags get exchanged or that gorai garbage dump which mirrors the real city in sankat city; or the abandoned railway compartment in ‘kaminey’ and the cul-de-sac within which the final shoot out occurs. in wall the garbage dump takes over the whole planet and human civilization is a capitalist consumer fantasy on a distant spaceship. the entire first half where wall-e dutifully organizes the garbage on the planet into towers made of little cubes is gorgeously imagined. when the love story begins the hollywood formula begins to show. but until then it is lovely. ‘imitation of life’ is shamelessly over the top camp. without any trace of embarrassment and (thankfully) without a sly wink to the camera it takes its world of high melodrama very seriously. the torrid lush tearjerker concerns the relationships between two women and their daughters, while race comes in between one black mother and her daughter who is ashamed of her heritage, the white woman’s daughter falls in love with her mothers suitor. naturally it all ends with a death and mahalia jackson’s soaring voice in a church. g i joe is worth watching only for one fantastic chase sequence on the streets of paris when the joes try to stop the bad people from releasing nanomites that are going to eat the eiffel tower. it is the only place where the hollywood action really kicks in. the rest is standard stuff about a white leading man, his black best friend, some international hotties and lots of blow ups because of evil corporate types. another hollywood action film was ‘vantage point on tv which tries a rashomon like kaleidoscopic shifting points of view of a presidential assassination attempt. the tape rewinds and plays and rewinds and plays again until you cant care really what happens as long as it gets over really fast. neither of these manage the action-comedy of ‘the general’ whose basic story involves nothing more than one long chase sequence; first towards the north and then towards the south. in the end as has now become default some explosions bring the proceedings to an end.
tokyo godfathers. sankat city. wall-e . g i joe – imitation of life . the general . kaminey . vantage point .
the bums from tokyo godfathers with a heart of gold with all the homoerotic undercurrents was a new thing to see in an anime film. no high tech / fantasy concept here. just a lost/ stolen baby and the three homeless people trying to find its parents. though i did love both the mumbai/bambai crime caper films the devil-may-care madness of sankat city was terrific fun, while kaminey could not completely shake away the satya hangover. but the locations in both were fabulous- whether that is the steep road in dindoshi where the bags get exchanged or that gorai garbage dump which mirrors the real city in sankat city; or the abandoned railway compartment in ‘kaminey’ and the cul-de-sac within which the final shoot out occurs. in wall the garbage dump takes over the whole planet and human civilization is a capitalist consumer fantasy on a distant spaceship. the entire first half where wall-e dutifully organizes the garbage on the planet into towers made of little cubes is gorgeously imagined. when the love story begins the hollywood formula begins to show. but until then it is lovely. ‘imitation of life’ is shamelessly over the top camp. without any trace of embarrassment and (thankfully) without a sly wink to the camera it takes its world of high melodrama very seriously. the torrid lush tearjerker concerns the relationships between two women and their daughters, while race comes in between one black mother and her daughter who is ashamed of her heritage, the white woman’s daughter falls in love with her mothers suitor. naturally it all ends with a death and mahalia jackson’s soaring voice in a church. g i joe is worth watching only for one fantastic chase sequence on the streets of paris when the joes try to stop the bad people from releasing nanomites that are going to eat the eiffel tower. it is the only place where the hollywood action really kicks in. the rest is standard stuff about a white leading man, his black best friend, some international hotties and lots of blow ups because of evil corporate types. another hollywood action film was ‘vantage point on tv which tries a rashomon like kaleidoscopic shifting points of view of a presidential assassination attempt. the tape rewinds and plays and rewinds and plays again until you cant care really what happens as long as it gets over really fast. neither of these manage the action-comedy of ‘the general’ whose basic story involves nothing more than one long chase sequence; first towards the north and then towards the south. in the end as has now become default some explosions bring the proceedings to an end.
Monday, August 17, 2009
strange early morning dreams
last night i dreamt a comic book. or was it animation?
a young shostakovich is suspected of being a dissident in an america where everything european is under surveillance. strangely he looks like me. in a car on a main street that looks like baltimore the twelve year old is huddled in the front seat of a black hooded car with many other older refugees. another replica of the car follows them inches behind at high speed. to escape shostakovich suggests a quick turn around. as the car swerves the following car also turns but it only manages a 180 degree turn which our hero is again heading in the current direction.
as the following car begins to rain bullets the suspects jump out of the car and being to race through what looks like the back alleys of greenbelt, maryland. the rubber-stamp housing colony to the outskirts of the city is where the action continues which he enters thorugh a tiny back alley that is revealed in between the relentless facades of the townhouses. choosing the lush green backyards away from the main road our hero runs past lounging black men (all of whom appear bald) into the darkened stairway of one. a family asks for an address to one of the men lounging on the stairs. 4th floor ‘kasuba’ he says. ‘kasuba?’ says the elegant black lady asking the directions. ‘refugees’ says the black man. ‘uff’.
another man stands overlooking a way out of the stairway prison. he turns out to be the man who has given out the location of the hiding refugees and received pardon from the state. other loungers dismiss him as a traitor. i sneak out of the back stair and he sees me- so does the elegant black woman. as i run out the woman points me out to my pursuant.
now i race through fancier streets. it all looks like a manhattan dream. glittering shop windows (an in my head paul simon mis-sings ‘the boy in the bubble’ : “glittering of shop windows, the boy in the baby carriage was wired to the radio”. or as the chase continues i think – this is a good idea for a city film. a chase through the various classes and districts of the city.
the last scene i remember before it dissolved into an animation montage of different styles floating on a black screen was: i suddenly see something in a shop window. cut to the glittering thing handing in soft focus in the foreground as i run towards it. shift focus to the entangled strands of silver as i grin in soft focus leeringly at the jewelry.
another unreported dream was when me, my mother and my father are sitting in front of the television as britney spears dances gyrating while wearing prosthetic male genitalia as i try and convince myself (and my parents) that it is some form of protest towards artistic self expression and protection of her privacy. huh?
a young shostakovich is suspected of being a dissident in an america where everything european is under surveillance. strangely he looks like me. in a car on a main street that looks like baltimore the twelve year old is huddled in the front seat of a black hooded car with many other older refugees. another replica of the car follows them inches behind at high speed. to escape shostakovich suggests a quick turn around. as the car swerves the following car also turns but it only manages a 180 degree turn which our hero is again heading in the current direction.
as the following car begins to rain bullets the suspects jump out of the car and being to race through what looks like the back alleys of greenbelt, maryland. the rubber-stamp housing colony to the outskirts of the city is where the action continues which he enters thorugh a tiny back alley that is revealed in between the relentless facades of the townhouses. choosing the lush green backyards away from the main road our hero runs past lounging black men (all of whom appear bald) into the darkened stairway of one. a family asks for an address to one of the men lounging on the stairs. 4th floor ‘kasuba’ he says. ‘kasuba?’ says the elegant black lady asking the directions. ‘refugees’ says the black man. ‘uff’.
another man stands overlooking a way out of the stairway prison. he turns out to be the man who has given out the location of the hiding refugees and received pardon from the state. other loungers dismiss him as a traitor. i sneak out of the back stair and he sees me- so does the elegant black woman. as i run out the woman points me out to my pursuant.
now i race through fancier streets. it all looks like a manhattan dream. glittering shop windows (an in my head paul simon mis-sings ‘the boy in the bubble’ : “glittering of shop windows, the boy in the baby carriage was wired to the radio”. or as the chase continues i think – this is a good idea for a city film. a chase through the various classes and districts of the city.
the last scene i remember before it dissolved into an animation montage of different styles floating on a black screen was: i suddenly see something in a shop window. cut to the glittering thing handing in soft focus in the foreground as i run towards it. shift focus to the entangled strands of silver as i grin in soft focus leeringly at the jewelry.
another unreported dream was when me, my mother and my father are sitting in front of the television as britney spears dances gyrating while wearing prosthetic male genitalia as i try and convince myself (and my parents) that it is some form of protest towards artistic self expression and protection of her privacy. huh?
Monday, August 10, 2009
the wizard of oz. the rat trap. m. double indemnity. 'the yiddish policemans union, one way street. hearts and minds. across the universe.love aaj kal
in spite of all my reservations about the over-hyped ‘somewhere over the rainbow’ it is the one moment in ‘the wizard of oz’ where something magical really happens. the rest is a fantasy, distracting enough, about a girl trying to find her way back to the safety of home with three allegorical figures- a man of hay with no brain, a man of tin with no heart and frightened lion. someone should show them ‘the rat trap’.
there is no film like ‘the rat trap’ that makes the sweet domesticity of the rural home into such a claustrophobic space. the only way elder sister rajamma an escape its tightening grip is by falling ill and being rushed out while her brother has to be carried out by villagers and dunked into the family well.
then there are all the detective stories beginning with ‘m’. a child killer cant help himself from murdering little girls. the underworld and the police chase him through the streets of berlin as the city drives itself insane with paranoia and suspicion. no identifiable heroes or villains except for the man with the overcoat marked by the letter.
raymond chandler co-wrote billy wilder’s ‘double indemnity’ and even though the film begins with the confession of sorts the suspense is terrific; a murderous plot in noir black and white and a plot within a plot with a gorgeous blonde with evil in her heart. the poor shmuck insurance salesman who falls for her hard has really no chance.
taking the possibility that israel was never formed and the jews of europe were settled in sitka, alaska michael chabon makes ‘ the yiddish policeman’s union’ a strange desolate story of a dead junkie messiah, a detective at the end of his sanity and career (much like a chandler hero) and a jewish plot to take back jerusalem by blowing up muslim monuments.
unable to articulate what exactly i love about reading walter benjamin ‘one way street’ managed to get many scholars to tell me. how the fragments of experience can be collected to make meaning- partial but profound or the act of collecting moments and making each account for so much more. like a poetic or a psychoanalysis of the everyday.
'hearts and minds' was numbing beyond a point until the shocker of a moment when a man is shot on screen. it passes by so quickly you hardly notice it but it stays with you perpetually. unforgettable documentary about the vietnam war. strangely later in the day i saw ' across the universe ' the new film that takes beatles songs to tell a story about lovers torn apart in the 60s by war and protest. great songs.
and aargh! the ultra cool so annoyingly wannebe clever ‘love aaj kal’. this particular kind of bollywood makes no sense ot me where everyone is hep and colour coordinated in foreign locations. i felt like slapping all concerned. only deepika padukone looks better than the film. otherwise – yuck!
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