Dissecting Cyrus
Key things that make Being Cyrus different from most other movies around:
1. The director actually spent more time in coming up with the script than in making the movie
2. The movie, for once, trusts the intelligence of the audience and lets them answer a few questions on their own.
3. There is no apology nor rationale given for the extra-marital affairs in the movie. Dimple is no sati-savitri. She has relations with Cyrus and Farookh Sethna, while still caring for Dinshaw. She is in love with the dreamer in Dinshaw( as seen in the scene where he climbs down the well to get some flowers) but she realises that living with him is a totally different proposition. She obviously manipulates Cyrus to do her bidding, but what about her love for Farookh...is it because she wants his property or is it simple cause she is fascinated by him?
4. The ending is not your typical ending. Cyrus/Xerxes does not run away because he is trying to atone for his sins or whatever, he runs away because he wants his freedom and nothing else. Its not about morality, its about being free from all relations and being comfortable with it.
5. First indian movie to use monochrome shots to depict something more than rape scenes :)
There - I have said some of what i wanted to say. The movie is definitely not the best movie that i have seen, nor is it something that remains with me for much after the movie, but the good thing about this movie is that there are no glaring faults with it which make you turn your face away from it in sheer disgust. Nor is it "hatke" or "alag" or "different" just for the sake of being so.
You know how it makes me feel. Like when Arundhati Roy wrote "The God of Small Things". This is a story which when thought of by the storyteller compelled him to tell it to the world. Homi Adajania did not make the movie for the sake of making a movie, he did not create a sappy love story, nor did he rehash a Hollywood also-ran, he made the movie because he had a story to tell. Now, thats what i call refreshing and different in the Indian movie scene. We probably wont hear of Homi Adajania for quite sometime or we might hear of him publishing a book, but thats ok because he made his movie and now wants to tell another story using a different medium. Its his experiment not his profession.
And yes, its unbelievable but i have read reviews for this movie criticising it exactly for the aforementioned reason. Taran Adarsh at indiafm.com says that this movie should be avoided for the very reason that its different. What shit!! Man i cant believe how these people are allowed to guide the views and opinion of a nation of 1 billion. What a pity!
On an unrelated note, i will be making my first real presentation for MS in a couple of days. I will be giving a teeny weeny demo during the keynote speech at the India edition of the Mobile and Embedded Developer Conference(
www.medcindia.com) never thought such a day would come but it has... at MS' peril though :). I am sincerely praying to god to keep Mr. Murphy and his laws away from my code. But what this also means is that i will be visiting Bangalore after a helluva long time. Got a ton of people to meet and lots to catch up on.
Current Music : Life to Lifeless - KillSwitch Engage
Its not going to stop...till you wise up
Her voice is sounds like she's carrying the worlds burden on her fragile shoulders. The piano in the back ground paints a picture as stark as a desert's landscape.
This is the kind of song that makes you put off all the lights in your room and shrink in your mood and just savor....
Listen to it
hereCurrent Music : Aimee Mann- Wise Up
Feel like more..
Songs that define emotions for me
Lost Love: 1. Black - Pearl Jam
2. Wicked Game - Chris Isaak
Exultation- Intro to Arcane Lifeforce Mysteria - Dimmu Borgir
Ecstasy - Insomnia - Faithless
Euphoria - Song 2 - Blur
Evocative - 2000 & Gone - Anathema
Hope: Flying in a blue dream - Joe Satriani
Love: 1. Fleetwood Mac - Everywhere
2. Love Thing - Joe Satriani
Anger: Before I Forget - Slipknot
Current Music: Unas Slayer of the Gods - Nile
Perpetual War
There is very little that is perfect in this world. Very little that is black or white. Its always a constant struggle to decide whats right and wrong, especially so if the final outcome has a direct bearing on us. Its tough to be all principled and proper at those times and those are times that most often we give in to social prejudices. Crash is a movie that captures this to the hilt and portrays to great effect. Intertwined lives of the suburban culture wherein people "crash" into each other for just a few seconds and yet manage to alter the pysche of the people whom they interact with. And i myself have seen it manifest so many times in my life that there was no way in which i could not sympathise with the characters. The cop who saves a black man from a racially triggered incident, and yet, when faced with a situation where he fears for his own life, he goes ahead and gives into this very prejudice that he had fought for. How does he live with his own conscience after that? Paul Haggis gives no answers, he just poses questions for us to decipher and reflect on. None of the incidents that are featured in the movie were important enough to ever make the headlines and therein lies the irony of the entire situation, that in all probability all these small incidents are the worst manifestations of these prejudices since the people who live with them, in all probability would go ahead and condemn a racially motivated massacre, but would not know that there is some part of them which probably has the same instincts. The performances are adept without taking away the sheen from the theme of the movie which is the core of the film.
This movie could so easily have been made in the Indian context, given the fact that while US is still coming to terms with these issues, the Indian culture has been facing them since time immemorial. And still suffering because of it too, I might add. A movie definitely worth watching.
Current Music: Bolt Thrower - Those once loyal - Anti Tank(Dead Armour)
Where do we go from here?
Hyderabad is a weird city to live in. Somehow as a city it seems to lack something, i dont know if character is the word I am looking for but its more like a lack of patronage for arts. No I dont care too much that it does not have too many discs or pubs(...though i would definitely wish for a lot more of them) but what it lacks is that strong sense of culture and the desire to understand the world around you that Bangalore or Delhi posses. The people here it seems are more content to live in their own little wells of existence or shift to the other cities when the yearning for that something more hits them. Its really weird because its not like Hyderabad does not have its share of cultural or hobby groups but whats really amazing is the kind of inactivity or inertia that i have witnessed in whatever i have been a part of. Its almost that these sets have been stuck in the infancy stages of their development for aeons and they have gone on to influence people as much as lets say Janagraaha has influenced Bangalore. They are happy in limiting their scopes of influence to the bare minimum. The film clubs are busy organising their Satyajit Ray retrospectives for their groups of 30 people. And doesnt this city have anything that can remotely pass of as theatre? And the quizzing is limited to the motley group at KC where pan Hyderabad events are still a statistical dream. And where, pray, where are the local musicians who could atleast be seen once in a while in the small scale concerts. Some people might say that that's quite alrite given that being small for these hobby or cultural groups means that these organisations have no hangups, will be have no political wranglings affecting their organisational structure and will be nimble enough to do a lot more. Unfortunately i dont see that happening at all. Its almost as if there is no commitment to the cause for these groups or a lack of leadership and vision . All i can hope for is that it they realise that they can do so much more and get so many people with like minded tastes together if they got their act together. It would take whatever activities they do, be it social, political, cultural or whatever, to the next level.
Its so weird because i can so clearly see how this affects the life of this city. I mean i really fail to understand what the people do in their spare time cuz there are just so few things to do in this city. The cinema halls that screen shit for movies cuz thats what people's tastes have got attuned to. They dont get to see good movies, so they have slowly grown accustomed to not demand for them. Unimpressive video libraries, no sports facilities to speak of. The people in the Old City are too busy maintaing or provoking communal sensibilities, depending on which side of the fence they are on. Secunderabad is too busy trying to get into page 3 while the Software guys at Hi tec city are too busy trying to make more money and they couldn't care enough for a city through which they are just passing by till they get the next better paying job. I sometimes wonder how the people of the city get through the weekends. I mean if a bunch of friends wanna go and just sit and banter, where do they go here ? Cuz all i can see are the big restaurants which obviously do not make for general hangouts. There are a couple of coffee joints but they are just too crowded for my liking. Then you obviously have the colossal human meeting grounds in the form of Hussain Sagar and the malls- Central, Shoppers Stop, Prasadz which have atleast 3 humans fighting for every square inch of footspace.
See when I was a teen in high school, a day with the gang would be basketball in the morning, movie in the afternoon and cricket in the evenings. However, given the lack of public spaces in Hyd and the cinema theaters that show only crap for movies, what to do the kids do here on weekends . I see so many of them at the malls that we sometimes visit, hanging around in groups aimlessly. What the hell do they do there? Dont they get bored? I am quite sure that they arent there for shopping unless their parents are rolling in money or something? Is this the story of all the newly-urban submetro cities that we have in India, where kids and people are clearly lacking in social meeting grounds? No wonder, the kids nowadays seem to be growing up so fast, cuz all they see are those adult models in the malls and in their urge to emulate them they seem to overlook all that which was dear to us as kids. Weird state of affairs right?
Current Music - ATB - Believe in Me.
