Movies

I have recently developed a very keen taste for movies. For two-three good hours, you are taken into a world so different and for so little. I admit that there are movies which are terrible (I will probably regret for life having wasted money on Neal ‘n’ Nikki) but then there are too many good ones which compensate for these. Two days ago (December 30) I got hold of a CD of Mr and Mrs Iyer and the movie completely floored me. So influenced I am that my first resolution for the New Year is to catch the next Aparna Sen flick 15 Park Avenue and possibly her earlier 36 Chowringhee lane.

I can roughly classify the effect movies have on me into three categories:

(By the bye, it strikes me as strange and yet fundamental this urge to name and classify everything. It is possibly because we are so afraid and intimidated of the unknown. And we find solace in the security provided by naming everything that we identify or more importantly do not identify. Come to think of it, barring physics, the other two major sciences have done just this since the dawn of civilization.

• Immediate gratification: Most movies which I will rate as good will fall in this category. These movies are all over my senses and keep me in a state of excited appreciation for about a week, in the least.
• Gradual appraisal: Some movies, like most books, do not appeal to me in real time. The movie is realised, in bits and pieces, in a continued fashion over a period. What happens mostly is a total recall, when a real life incident activates my movie-memory cells and a particular scene flashes right in front. I am invariably exclaiming in my insides “So, this is what it was” or “Ah, now I get it”.
• Instant dislike: These are those I regret having wasted my time on. Anyways.
  

I welcomed the New Year in true movie-buff style- watching three movies back-to-back, 9 pm to 6am. The movies in order of viewing were I, Robot, Lord of the Rings- The Fellowship of the Ring and Lord of the Rings- The Two Towers.

So what is the point of writing it all here? I do this because there was a strange, distinct and an unmistakable shouting-sameness in these movies which I found very intriguing. Actually, I should add the Time Machine (viewing date: December 26, 2005) to the league of these movies.

Personally, there could not have been a more perfect coincidence of any other set of three movies - three different storylines but the same underlying theme- evolution. The most arresting features were:

• All three movies are based on hugely popular fiction, albeit by authors historically unrelated.
• A fight between the good and the evil holds centre stage across the trio. Essentially, it is a fight for survival, survival of the fittest. The stories all end by declaring the Good as victorious. Hope and belief are after all our only staff in this universe. If you try to give it all a bird’s eye view, a realisation is born that the greatest stories have and will be those which attempt to answer the questions that have always haunted us- questions of our purpose, our future and our evolution.
• There is this remarkable Middle Earth civilisation similarity in LOTR and Time Machine.
• A predominance of the Spiderman-type creatures or likewise characterised creatures/robots, crawling all over the place. A common cinematic depiction which strikes as strange is those scenes where these creatures/machines are climbing up or down tall pillars in magnitudes that defy imagination.
  Now, the directors of these movies are not the same. Hence the logical conclusion is that either the human mind is pre-programmed to think of such (very agile and combining the best of lizards, monkeys and kangaroos) creatures or that the most creative minds of our civilization (Tolkien, H G Wells and Isaac Asimov) are hinting at some greater and pending phenomenon.

I could probably continue forever on this topic, but it is largely useless I know. Also otherwise, I must restrain myself for want of brevity.

Though Hollywood is any day more versatile, technically superior and lavish with the kind of movies it churns out, I quite admire our own Bollywood (it could do a lot better minus all the melodrama). Talking of Bollywood, I would like to mention that I am partial to all Shahrukh Khan, Sanjay Leela Bansali and A. R. Rahman associated movies. You are probably smirking at the mention of Shahrukh Khan, but I have no qualms admitting that I am a fan of his acting talents, not to mention his wit and intensity.

It’s a dream now to make a movie myself. Whenever I have had enough of doing whatever I am trying to do with my life (and I have some handsome amount of cash to my name), I will just go ahead and make a movie. I only plan to produce and act in the movie. Invitations are open to everyone who would like to be associated in any form what so ever in this mega venture. Already the movie has the support of two of the most creative talents of this college. Seems like a good start. The story line will evolve as it has to, we are in no hurry.