Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Movie review: The man from the Earth.


I have seen a lot of sci-fi movies, all centered on different unusual concepts, but this one sets itself apart & is really quite unusual, simply lets u appreciate your sense of logical reasoning....guiding, misguiding, until the point where you are completely involved & lost.

This may not be classified exactly as science fiction, but it’s just a collection of logical & intellectual discussions happening somewhere sometime…..

There is this young history professor, John who is kind of famous or favorite among his colleagues for his profound knowledge, suddenly mysteriously disappearing or leaving the town. His colleagues, who are also his good friends, are very much concerned about him & curious to know the reason behind this decision, drop by his house, also to wish him good luck.
Upon being asked several times for his decision, he refuses to reveal the reason & just replies that he likes to move on in life. His colleagues who are quite experts in their respective domains like Anthropology, religion, biology, philosophy etc are simply not willing to let him go without telling the reason behind his moving from there.
An artifact, a stone found in his home leads to discussions on an interesting topic that how would a man be if he is not ageing, say from Paleolithic time. Just consider the possibility that somehow some mechanism kept him alive: A perfect detox mechanism & perfect regeneration of his body cells & organs, recovery mechanism from various diseases. He should have learnt to fight the predators & just simply keep moving on in life without attachments. He would have seen civilizations born, flourish & get extinct, he would have wandered over mountains, valleys, learnt a lot of languages, seen different tribes, of course protecting his life somehow against all the possible dangers.
John claims that he is this man who has lived from 14,000 years. Of course no body believes him, but the topic is so interesting that everyone starts asking him questions on various topics likes geography religion, beliefs etc. this leads to a series of logical arguments & John is having an instant convincing answer every time. They all realize that that there is no way to prove or disprove his hypothesis, instead go with the flow of his story asking his experiences in his lifetime that stretched over vast bounds of time & places. His arguments can be obtained from any history book read in school & that’s what John exclaims that when he read the book, he correlated with his own life & understood the reality. This fact is simply difficult to digest that such a thing could have happened with him, he just simply lived endlessly !! Considering this scenario, the knowledge of such a man would be tremendous. He says he traveled a lot just like any normal man would do. He learnt a lot & was considered God by some tribes owing to his non ageing feature. He once met a man who he felt was like him never ageing to die but no way to prove the same, lost contact with him & moved on in life. He is just logically correct all the time in his arguments. He even proclaims that he was with Buddha, & goes on to say that he was Jesus. He learnt a method to slow down the body processes so that he suppressed pain & preached good things like humanity & brotherhood etc; he recollects the important historic events so well in their original form which can be possible by a person who has actually lived in those times.
He says that he has kept moving on in life overcoming his attachments & emotions, & that is why he is moving on now. They discuss various subjects like science religion, medicine, etc & are just taken by & lost in the arguments. His friends are very much disturbed by his arguments, lost in their logical reasoning to an extent that they want to believe him but that’s just not acceptable to their senses. He finally admits that he made this all up as a play & his friends played & supported him in continuing the game everyone throwing the dice in turns. But guess what is the truth !! our John is a cave man surviving from thousands of years.


Probably this movie in some way teaches that unlike John, we have a finite lifetime. ....& we should enjoy to the fullest.


What could a prehistoric man make of when he looked up at the sky? The vast streatch of darkness, the twinkling of stars etc would have made a great sense of mystery engulfed by his thoughts about his own consciousness.
Probably he believed there are gods & demons up there, helplessly trying to let go of feelings which never seemed to find an answer. He can’t make up his own mind that what he is seeing is an illusion or reality when the concept of real & virtual itself is unknown to him.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Movie review : Slumdog Millionaire

I was fascinated by this dialogue from Forrest Gump when Forrest's mother tells him....

"Each of us have a destiny & we have to figure it out for ourselves…."

I realize sometimes there is nothing to think through or figure out what life has in store for us, but to just wait & watch destiny unfold itself into the aspired good for us. Well, the good may not be the exact 'ideal' good you may have aspired for but the best destiny could ever offer & you are deeply thankful for it considering the facts that the aspiration was too high in the first place itself. This masterpiece of art goes based on above simple yet elegant concept, which is narrated in simple situations with just a handful of characters...the harsh realities of life in a slum being told in a way that will reveal the truth & agony to its very core, at least making you finally relax in the comfort of thought that..."thank god, it's not me".

The story is centered around life of Jamal Malik, candidate in hot seat of English version of 'Kaun Banega Crorepati'.
As a ordinary slum boy Jamal grows up in Dharavi, largest slum of Asia where life teaches him to accept the things which cannot be changed & make the best of what is present. Those innocent young hearts become victims of anti social elements like Hindu Muslim riots, they are made to beg etc. Jamal & his brother manage to lead a life by petty things like robberies…the one in which Jamal becomes a fake guide of Taj Mahal is hilarious.

With no schooling, unlike his brother Jamal grows into sensitive, compassionate kid, manages not to get into the world of serious crime but lands up as a modern Chaiwala (modern chotu) in a call centre. He gets onto the 'Who wants to be a Millionaire', host being Anil Kapoor not because he wanted lots of money but because he aspired for something which was more valuable to him than money.

How true is that ? Even for others, money is just a means to ends. Money is not the ends itself. When the ends are met the value of money seems to dwindle away.

The story is beautifully presented, the core being the harsh realities of slum life & the shell being the glamour & fame of kaun banega crorepati TV show.
It's a difficult to digest the typical English ascent in the entire movie. A typical Mumbai Hindi or Marathi would have been better, but nonetheless it's a wonderful piece of art.
Altogether a must watch…

Note: Thanks to piracy which lets you enjoy the show even before weeks of official release & lets you have your say in the news channel's discussions nowadays on topic : "Indian poverty sells well".

Movie review: Rock on is Rocking on

I usually write English movie reviews which get published in a couple of places since they appeal to me more than Hindi ones….

But Rock On is not the same old Hindi movie containing love polygons, but its quite refreshing & inspiring having a style of its own to convey its message with the correct blend of realities of life & passions i.e. “It’s never too late to live your dreams”

A movie touches your heart when you share a similarity with the theme of movie & your life. People tend to enjoy in doing what they are good at.

The movie starts with Sakshi, a modern house wife, who just wants to see her husband Aditya(Farhan Akhtar) to regain his long lost happiness by rediscovering his passion i.e Rock music. They were a band of four friends who had rocked the world ten years ago though it was an amateurish attempt.
Then their lives take them on very different routes away from their passion owing to some incident which occurs in course of trying to make their passion their profession. They don’t hear from each other for quite a long time after their breakup. Obviously they are not happy in life that has been chosen by destiny. They wanted to be rock singers but life has made them such as an investment banker, jewellery businessman etc….

I especially like the dialogue when Aditya exclaims: 'When the past bad memories will stop chasing me' & his wife’s friend replies ‘when you stop running from them’. This is so true indeed.

Owing to Sakshi’s attempts to reunite them, they come together with the reason which can none other than an opportunity to relive their all time passion.

They perform on stage with all the modern rock band instruments with superb lyrics composed by them to find their true happiness.

I do not know whether anyone would be inspired enough to dare to return to their past dreams & aspirations by watching this movie, but I know for sure is that it brings out a couple of tears from an emotional heart who has compromised with destiny trying to forget the aspirations to live in the harsh realities of life.

Music is pretty good (especially the song "tum ho to") & story line flows well with present & 'flash backs' with well defined characters with brilliant performances. But the theme does not take you away like Dil chahta hai. That’s a classic for ever. Arjun Rampal could have had more ex-pressions on his face.

A must watch in a weekend break….

Hum to shayar hai nahi par itna inspiration mil gaya ke pal japakte he hum chaar line likh diye: I wrote these lines after seeing the movie:

Zindagi mein hum najane kitne samjhote karte hain,
Majbooriyon se apne khushiyon se muh mod lete hain,
Apne aakhon ke samane anginat sapne toot jaate hain
Beete lamhon ke yaade humme tadapate hain
De jaate hai gham umar bhar ke liye.....

Value the Valuable........

When I brought the newly launched N73 mobile recently I was the happiest guy becaue it was very expensive, ‘high end’ and I had all my friends flocking around me telling how wonderful a device it was and I too never felt bored extolling its features a million times.
But now, I realized a lesson of a lifetime. Things like this will come and go and get outdated. I was giving values to wrong things in our life. We often compare our friend’s salaries working in various companies & aspire to earn more & more like them. What we need to compare is our happiness packets. What we fail to realize is that how happy we are with the money we are getting. If a person is very busy in earning more & more money & not getting time to enjoy that money then what’s the use?
More happy is a person who earns half than him & takes out time to enjoy with family & friends. Money is just a means to get happiness, money itself is not happiness. Many a times we recall a person not by his name but by something he possessed like a bike etc. And we'd refer to him as "u know that guy in our college days with the imported bike..” What we need to realize in life is to raise ourselves higher than the feelings of comparison with others in terms of money, power etc..It's the detachment from such false valuables which will be a reason for happiness & after all what we all want from life is happiness.
We came in this world with empty hands & take nothing whicle leaving. All the things we earn are to be enjoyed & utilized for our personal & society’s happiness. Our mind is occupied by thoughts most of the times as to what others may think about us & these thoughts make us happy or sad. Why are we paying so much importance to thoughts of probable thoughts of others which are in anyway uncertain? What needs to be valued in life is various forms of ‘Love’. The love of parents, partners, friends etc…..if a person has learnt to give value for the correct things in his life he has learnt the path to achieve happiness.

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