Espiritrompa!

Q: What is this kid so angry about? At whom is he grimacing, hurling stones and abuses?
A: His favourite teacher, Don Gregorio.

In between this question and its unlikely answer lies a story that has been poignantly told in Spanish movie "La lengua de las mariposas". Directed by José Luis Cuerda this 1999 movie is about a shy, asthmatic child named Moncho, growing up in a Gallician town in the 1930s.

This is a little town like any other, closely knit and insular and yet full of people with divergent political opinions. Moncho's own family is represents these different views - his mother is deeply religious and conservative while the father, a tailor, has leftist leanings. In the normal course this would have been just fine but these are fraught times, Spain is in turmoil and the country is about to plunge into a bloody civil war.

Moncho hates going to school. He hates being taunted for his clunky breathing apparatus, he is unable to make friends and prefers being alone. On his first day at school he gets upset about being called a 'sparrow' by his teacher, Don Gergorio, and runs away to the woods.

Gradually he warms up to the elderly Don's gentle humorous ways, his love for nature and learning. Even as young Moncho is learning about far away places in Australia, and of butterflies extract nectar from flowers with their spring-like proboscis - the espiritrompa.  Political disagreements are turning into something nastier.

The Republicans are on the ascendant and they have decided to get rid of the Nationalists. People are being hauled out of homes in the middle of the night, and Moncho's mother have come to realise that the only way to survive and hold the family together is to put up a display of support for the Republicans, even if it means that they have to betray friends.

As things come to a head the whole town assembles to condemn the Nationalists as they are being arrested and taken away. Don Gregorio is among them. The mother joins the chorus of abusers and urges her husband and children too to join the mob. The last scene has Moncho running after the truck carrying the prisoners, hurling stones and expletives - "Traitors! Communists! Espiritrompa!"

This film makes you wonder how many times such dilemmas would have played out in history - in Catholic Europe, amongst Zoroastrians in Persia conquered by the Arabs, in Nazi Germany, behind the Iron Curtain, and in pre-partition India...

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LINKS

* Preview - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYNyrPVTbIk
* Wiki - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly%27s_Tongue

Raqqa

I just finished watching "City of Ghosts", a film about RBSS - a group titled "Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently" - that has been resisting the occupation of the Syrian city by the the Islamic State.

Unlike Hollywood war movies, this is not about something that happened in the distant past, coloured in shades of American bravado and machismo. It is the here and now of the situation in Syria. It is the story of how ordinary citizens of Raqqa, a city in Syria rose up in revolt in 2013 against Assad, a leader who they considered a tyrant for 40 years, until the radical Islamic State swiftly came in to fill the power vacuum.

The narrative follows a small group of nervous war refugees - teachers, journalists, students - fleeing from IS and the Syrian government. Seeing the rest of the world disconnected with the harsh reality back home they decide to set up a social network - a website, FaceBook page, Twitter -  to send updates from friends back home on the way in which ISIS was enforcing its vision of the Islamic Caliphate in Raqqa. Summary executions, beheadings, mutilation and rape, all in the name of Allah.

Once the counter-narrative begins to bite, ISIS responds to RBSS by hunting down nd executing its citizen correspondents in Syria, and by trying to assassinate it leaders in Turkey and Germany.

In 2017 the Assad Government finally managed to crush IS in Raqqa after a prolonged battle that reduced much of the city into rubble.

It has no been an entirely happy liberation. RBSS now has to contend with the "old" tyrant whom its founders perhaps opposed in the first place. So it now keep track of the shortcomings of the reconstruction effort, of insufficient funds coming in for rebuilding a city and of disease outbreaks in refugee camps. The devil may be gone but the deep blue sea remains.

This is the sort of film that makes your wonder about the Middle East and the so called "Arab Spring".

Was it really worthwhile to oppose the Assad regime that provided relative security and prosperity to a country for four decades? Has anything been achieved by the countries that encouraged "democratic movements"?  Or has it merely filled their own homes with unwanted refugees from countries they wanted to democratize?

Discovering Ozu

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Classics from the Japanese film director, Yasujiro Ozu:

Tokyo Monogatari (Tokyo Story, 1953)



And a few more:

Higanbana (Equinox Flower) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AVGD4vjqvw&NR=1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kusunoki_Masatsura - Death Poem


Floating Weeds- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWJS-d3ZfA8&feature=related
Tokyo Monogatari (1953) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt8IicHIL38&feature=related

Early Spring - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt2peWTXY0A&feature=related

Tokyo Boshoku (Tokyo Twilight, 1959) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dyUyI4TArQ&feature

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RELATED LINKS

Setsuko Hara - http://www.a2pcinema.com/ozu-san/ozu/collaborators/hara_s.htm

Exuberance of Verbosity

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This is one thing I've always, always wanted to figure out -- what the heck was Antony Gonzalves trying to say??

In "Amar Akbar Antony", a popular Hindi movie from the late 1970's, Amitabh Bachchan, playing the role of a maverick named Antony Gonzalves, pops out of an Easter egg and sings a song. Its a mixture of English and Hindi, and delightful, unadulterated nonsense.

The Hindi lyrics fits into the overall plot and makes some sense - Mr. Gonzalves, the 'party entertainer' is trying to woo a girl on the sly. But what is he trying to say in English??

Here it is - gibberish deciphered:

"Wait, wait...WAIT! You see the whole country of the system is juxtapositioned by the haemoglobin in the atmosphere because you are a sophisticated rhetoritian intoxicated by the exuberance of your own verbosity!!"


"You see such extenuated circumstances coax me to preclude you from such extravagance!"


"You see the coefficient of the linear...is juxtapositioned by the haemoglobin of the atmospheric pressure in the country!"

There is actually a wiki-page dedicated to this song! According to folks-who-know, while Kishore Kumar did the singing, the talking (in English) was by Bachchan himself. And the opening line - "sophisticated rhetorician intoxicated by the exuberance of your own verbosity" is from a speech in the British Parliament by Benjamin Disraeli in 1878!

Where did the song-writer, Anand Bakshi, dig that from?? :)

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LINKS




Movie - Amar, Akbar, Antony - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amar_Akbar_Anthony

The Song - My Name is Antony Gonzalves - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_name_is_Anthony_Gonzalves

Hero Hirani

Interesting articles on the movie director, Rajkumar Hirani and his latest blockbuster, "3 Idiots" :


* No Idiots - Rajni Mohanty Iyer in the New York Times/IHT (15 Jan. 2009)


* The Doctor of Sweet Angst - Knight in Comic Armour - Shoma Chaudhury in Tehelka (18 Jan., 2009)



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Covell's Music

What will happens if you enroll for a course titled "Normative Theory in Comparative Policy" delivered by a professor who loves Audrey Hepburn, cricket, Tintin comics and western classical music?

Your learn less about policy and more about music and movies! :]

Here are some of the few pearls I could gather

Half a Sixpence - musical comedy by Tommy Steele ; URL - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_a_Sixpence

If the Rain's Got to Fall - URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJVIuTBsnsc

Mozart - Cosi fan tutte: Act II Happy is the man...sweet repo; URL - http://ml.naxos.jp/album/CHAN3152-54

HG Wells - "Kips" - young man, finace is fortune
Hymn - Guide me O Great Redeemer (From Ronder, Wales)

WagnerGilbert & Sullivan"All the Saints""He who would true valor seek""So long as i am singing"

"Good Fellows" - movie by Martin Scorsce
"Gone are the days" - Charles Foster

NB: What do Cliff Richards and Vivien Leigh have in common? - they were both born in India.

Movies 2009-2019

2019

Mulk - Court drama - Syncretic Muslim family blindsided by a terrorist in the family (iE@IHC - 7May19)

Widow of Silence - A Kashmiri woman whose husband was 'picked up' seven years ago struggles against rapacious petty officials (Morchhale’s film at IHC - 24May19)

No Fathers in Kashmir - A teenaged NRI Kashmiri girl finds out what happened to her father after he disappeared years ago (Ashvin Kumar, IHC film festival, 25May19)

2018

2017

2016

2015

Killa (2015, Marathi, Avinash Arun): Childhood in a rain-drenched Konkan town...so, so evocative!

Masaan (2015, Neeraj Ghaywan): FB and inter-caste love along the burning pyres of Benaras

Aankhon Dekhi (2014, Rajat Kapoor) - Is there a better portrayal of life in Old Delhi?

Shutter (2013, Malayalam, Joy Mathew) - a remarkable thriller that pops out of an ordinary, empty, roadside shop.

The Visitor (2007, Thomas McCarthy) - An economics professor returns home to find a Syrian artist (a drummer), and his Senegalese girlfriend occupying it...

The Secret World of Arrietty (2010, Japanese, Hayao Miyazaki)

2014

PK (2014, Hindi, Rajkumar Hirani) -- Irony, in a hilarious package :)

Reversal of Fortune (1990, English, Elizabesh Schroeder) -- Jeremy Irons, after a long time... as a European aristrocrat, Claus von Bulow.

Mugabe and the White African (2009, English documentary) -- The 'white man's burden'... or is it?

Poetry (2010, South Korean) -- A granny seeks an outlet in poetry..

Stanley Kubric - A Life in Pictures (2011, English) -- what a life!

Interstellar (2014, English, Christopher Nolan) -- Travel across galaxies and turn up behind your bookshelf. Spectacular and dramatic but vague all the same.

Unknown (2011, English, Colet-Serra) - Liam Nesson as a professor who forgot he was an assassin.

The Edge of Heaven (2007, Turkish) - A professor in Germany, his abusive, lonely father, and of ties back home. Nice.

Saraband (2003, Swedish, Ingmar Bergman)

True Romance (1993)

Okuribito (2008, Japanese, Yojiro Takita) -- A cellist moves from Tokyo to Yamagata...to become a nokanshi, a ritual mortician.

Paleri Manikyam (2009, Malayalam, Ranjith) -- Mammotty in a triple role... talk of death by overdose...

The Conversation (1974, Francis Ford Coppola) - Surveillance, wiretapping, murder..

Vikramadityan (2014, Malayalam, Lal Jose) - Chor-Polis kahaani with a rather predictable ending..

Mary Cho Cho ( Japanese) - Teenage kids, bullying, summer paddies..

Jobs (2013, Joshua Stern) - Aston Kutchner was quite good as Steve Jobs...Did he really have that funny gait?

About Schmidt (2002, Alexander Payne) - Ol' Jack Nicholson wonders, "Did my life make any difference to anyone?"

12 Year's a Slave (2013, Steve McQueen): Nigerian-born Ejiofor was just amazing.

Dedh Ishquiya (2014, Urdu, Abhishek Chaubey): Strictly for those who have a good grip on Urdu.

Drishyam (2013, Malayalam: One of the best crime-thriller's I've seen in recent times..

Artist (2013, Malayalam, Shyamaprasad): 'Dreams in Prussian Blue' - travails of two fine arts grads. Tvm is nicely framed.

2013

Gravity (2013, English, Alfonso Cuaron): Perhaps the best 3D movie I've seen... Captures the emptiness, silence and despair so well..

Baraka (1992, Ron Fricke): Non-narrative documentary...beautiful!

Lunchbox (2013, Hindi, Ritesh Batra): N. Siddiqui stands out again..

Michael Clayton (2007, Gilroy): George Clooney, the 'janitor' lawyer fixes nasty corporate.

Hitchcock (2012, Eng., Sacha Gervasi)

Shuddh Desi Romance (2013, Hindi, Maneesh Sharma): The first half is path-breaking for a Hindi romance..

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011. English, Steig Larsson): Damn good.

Raanjhanaa (2013, HIndi, AL Rai): JNU romance...Sonam Kapoor makes Dhanush looks like a great actor.

The Conjuring (2013, English, James Wan): A vengeful ghost in an idyllic old house in USA...and the conjurers need to get "approval" from the Vatican! Crazily contrived.

Argo (2013, English, Ben Affleck): CIA and Hollywood swing in to the rescue during the Iran Hostage Crisis...

Smurfs 1&2 (English, Animation): Another entry from the land of Tintin.

Noukadubi (2011, Bengali, Rituparno Ghosh): Wonderful narrative...great music.

Kai Po Che (2013, Hindi, Abhishek Kapoor): Nice.

D-Day (2013, Hindi, Nikhil Advani): Fantasies of taking out Dawood Ibrahim..

Talaash (2012, Hindi, Reema Katgi): Interesting...the real star is Nawazuddin Siddiqui.

Lootera (2013, Hindi, Vikramaditya Motwane): Archaeologists-robbers and a Zamindar's daughter..

Chitrangada - The Crowning Wish (2013, Bengali, Rituparno Ghosh)

Memories in March (2010, Hindi-English, Sanjoy Nag): Rituparno Ghosh as himself?

Cocktail (2010, Malayalam, Arun Kumar)

Special 26 (2013, Hindi, Neeraj Pandey)

Sugata Sanshiro (1943, Japanese, Kurosawa): Aka - "Judo Saga-I" - AK's directorial debut

Matru Ki Bijli Ka Mandola (2013, Hindi, Vishal Bharadwaj)

Bombay Talkies (2013, Hindi): Anthology of four short films

Dabangg 2 (2013, Hindi, Arbaz Khan)

Talaash (2013, Hindi, Reema Katgi)

Taxi Driver (1978, English, Scorcese) - The old De Niro classic..

I've Loved You So Long (2008, French - Il y a longtemps que je t'aime) - Dr. Juliette struggles with life after 15 years in prison...for murdering her infant son..

Samsara (2001, Ladakhi, Pan Nalin): Lama Tashi asks his teacher, "If Buddha could enjoy the world for 29 years, why can't I?"

Rathinirvedam (2011, Malayalam, TK Rajeev Kumar)

Jolly LLB (2013, Hindi, Subhash Kapoor): A small-town lawyer aims big, falls for short-cuts and is shamed to the righteous path...remarkable, engaging narrative. Boman was brilliant, as usual.

Dah ("10") (2002, Persian, Abbas Kiarostami): A woman, her car and a dashboard camera.

Ashes and Snow (2005, Gregory Colbert): Wildlife in grand sepia tints..

秒速5センチメートル( Byōsoku Go Senchimētoru -5 Centimeters per Second): 1978, Makoto Shinkai 

Autumn Sonata (1978, Swedish, Ingmar Bergman): A neglected daughter confronts her mother, gently.

Mishima, A Life in Four Chapters (1985):

The Dark Knight Rises (2012): Batman, again.

Lucía y el sexo (Spanish, 2001)

To Live (1994, Chinese/Pinyin, Yimou): "Don't Gamble"

Paradise Now (2005, Arabic, Abu-Assad): Two Palestinian friends seek 'revenge'.

An Education (2009)

2012

The Sea Inside (2004, Amenabar, Spanish- Mar Adentro): A quadriplegic, always a ladies man, seeks euthanasia.

Gangs of Wasseypur - I (2012, Kashyap, Hindi)

Seven Pounds (2008, Muccino):Will Smith and the lives of seven organ-recipients

A Separation (2011, Iranian, Asghar Farhadi): A father suffering from Alzheimer's; a wife who wants to immigrate or a divorce; a pregnant help with a short-tempered, unemployed husband...very nuanced.

The Intouchables (2011, French, Nakache & Toledano): A rich tetraplegic & a poor immigrant. I liked the tagline too - "Sometimes you've to reach into someone else's world to find what's missing in your own")

Kahaani (2012, Sujoy Ghosh): Brilliant...the array of Tollywood talent is a bonus!

The Color of Paradise (1999, Iranian, Majidi): A blind child and a widower-father

Shanghai (2012, Dipankar Banerjee): A Hindi thriller with a misleading title. So-so.

The Big Year (2011): Birder's delight... (Cornell Lab Blog-post)

I Love You, Man (2009): An engaged man seeks male friends.

Pan Singh Tomar (2012, Hindi): Athlete, armyman, dacoit...Irrfan is brilliant, as usual.

The Help (2011): Maid for each other.

The Ides of March (2011): Clooney for President slips up..

Hugo (2011, Martin Scorcese): Clocks at a Paris station...

The Descendants (2011): Clooney, a trustee for 25,000 acres on Honolulu

Apocalypto (2006, Gibson): Jaguar Paw runs for his life in Mesoamerica..
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Katha Thudarunnu (2010, Malayalam, Sathyan Anthikkad): A forsaken widow goes back to medical school


Adams Rib (1949): Lawyer couple at odds (Spencer Tracy & Kathy Hepburn)

The General (1926): A silent era romance of a stolen locomotive

Dinner at Eight (1933): Funny in a quaint sort of way..

Fast Times At Ridgemont High (1982): Sean Penn is fantastic as Jeff Spicoli :)

The Odd Couple (1968, Jean Saks): Two divorced guys and their friends...funny.

Duck Soup (1933): Groucho Marx & Bros. in their elements :)


What's up, Doc? (1972):  Barbra Streisand. Funny.

Victor Victoria (1982): Julie Andrews and her queer friends.

You Can't Take It With You (1938)

Take The Money And Run (1969): Woody Allen as Virgil Starkwell, a bungling crook...funny, but not quite.

Shampoo (1975) - Goldie Hawn in a satire on the social mores of the 1960s.

Moonstruck (1987) - Cher as a book keeper and Nicholas Cage, a maimed baker...nothing exceptional.

2011



The Big Lebowski (1998) - "The Dude", bowling and blackmail...contrived.

The Odd Couple (1968) - The story of two divorced friends shacked up together - Hilarious! :)

Witness for the Prosecution (1957) - Charles Laughton is absolutely brilliant as the barrister, Sir Robarts.

You Can't Take It With You (1938) - An old-world innocence and charm..

Sleuth (1972 Joseph L. Mankiewicz) - Brilliant...especially Laurence Oliver's performance.

Rock Star (Hindi, 2011) - Ranvir is great - until the interval. Review at BL

Indian Rupee (Malayalam, 2011) - Nice plot...the movie hangs on Thilakan's acting skills.

Despicable Me (2010) - Gru and Dr.Nefario - what a combo!

The Mona Lisa Curse: Robert Huges' on the Business of Art. Video at Top Documentary Films - http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/mona-lisa-curse/

Whisper of the Heart (Miyazaki 1995 -Japanese - 耳をすませば): How far did you think John Denver's song, "Take Me Home, Country Roads" traveled? :) Japanese lyrics here.

Inglorious Basterds (Tarantino, 2009): Unadulterated nonsense.,

Raise the Red Lantern (Mandarin 大红灯笼高高挂) - Gong Li as the third mistress to a wealthy man during the Warlord Era in China. YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DbIymkDC-EVk 

The King`s Speech - Colin Firth as King George VI and G. Rush as Lionel Logue, his speech therapist
The Fountain - A conquistador, scientist and space traveler...hallucinations, love and mortality


Loudspeaker (2009, Malayalam) - Mamooty as a rustic, garrulous kidney-donor 

2010

OZU YASUJIRO



Floating Weeds- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWJS-d3ZfA8&feature=related

Tokyo Monogatari (1953) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt8IicHIL38&feature=related

Early Spring - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt2peWTXY0A&feature=related

Tokyo Boshoku (Tokyo Twilight, 1957) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dyUyI4TArQ&feature=related  - Troubled daughters staying with father; Cast: Noriko Hara, Ineko Arima, Chishu Ryu

Higanbana (Equinox Flower, 1958) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AVGD4vjqvw&NR=1

Ohayou (Good Morning, 1959)- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GchR71M7jp4&feature=related  (comedy)


2009


ന്റി 20 (Malayalam - 'Twenty 20') 010109 - A formula blockbuster skillfully woven around the who-is-who of contemporary Malayalam cinema. The Mamooty/Mohanlal Fans Club are thrilled to bits. I missed Nedumudi Venu.

Sorry Bhai (Hindi) 17012009 - The long long wait for Chitrangada Singh's second movie is over. So are the hopes of another Smita-Patil-in-the-making. Some of the dialogues are good but, sorry brother, the movie quite forgettable.

Anuranan (Bengali - 'A Resonance') 17012009 - At a scenic guesthouse in Darjeeling, an executive is found dead by a colleague's pretty wife. Some relationships remain undefined, and some art movies are a waste of time & money.

Mes Amis Mes Amours (French) 20012009 - Mathias (Vincent Lindon) a jobless, book-lover makes clever use of his acrophobia to woo a lady named Audrey(Virginie Ledoven), who has a striking resemblance to Lara Dutta, especially when she grins!

Shrek The Third (Animation) 23012009 - Now these guys are really running out of ideas. There is only so much you can flog an ogre.

Bow Barracks Forever! (Bong-lish) 24012009 - Now I know where all the Calcuttans polish their English. Wat Man? - I told you, no? Victor Banerjee was damn good. So was Lillette Dubey.

Slumdog Millionaire (Hindi) 26012009

Luck By Chance (Hindi) 01022009

Changeling (English) 25022009 - A single mom (Angelina Jolie) fights for a missing son. "Never be the one to start a fight; but be the one who finishes it."

Australia (English) 011032009

2 Harihar Nagar (Malayalam) - It was a great idea to make a sequel , clearly, somebody ran out of ideas while preparing the script.

Rashomon (Japanese) - Akira Kurosawa film based on Akutagawa's short-story. Noticed so many new things while seeing this movie for the second time...

Ran (Japanese) - The only Kurosawa film in color...quite powerful.
Hoichi the Earless (Japanese 281109)
Kwaidan Yuki Onna (Japanese 271109) - Tanaka Tokuzo's 1968 adaptation of the folklore.

Un Chien Andalou (French, 291109) - surreal, scary...it was surprising to know that Salvador Dali acted as one of the two confused priests who had been dragged in with rotting donkeys.
City of Life & Death (Mandarin - "Nanjing!Nanjing!, 301209) - Shocking, depressing.