Subrat

Subrat has rated 0 movies, and has posted 6 comments.

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Comments

• Rashomon, Kurosawa, and the Nature of Meaning - Part 1:

  Anand, what a wonderful way to connect again! ha! ha! will keep in touch; it's always nice talking to you!

  posted 3 years, 7 months ago
• Rashomon, Kurosawa, and the Nature of Meaning - Part 1:

  Thanks Anand for taking the point further with more clarity and reason. i absolutely agree that 'justice' and 'truth' are completely different notions. my problem with the various interpretations of Rashomon, not so much with yours, is that they only focus on analyzing the anatomy of 'truth' and in the end declare truth as redundant, which is not at all what this masterpiece is all about. Kurosawa definitely does not make a 'final statement', in a way he keeps his idea of truth to himself. the film is rather more about how we obsessively engage ourselves in discovering that 'final wisdom' staring from our respective positions of power, so that in the end we re-conform to the existing power structure, all in the name of establishing 'truth' and delivering 'justice'.

  couldn't resist commenting, because i liked the way you have analyzed. oh! just discovered that there is a part-2 of the review as well... will read that.

  by the way, is it the same Anand who attended FA 2007 with us!!!!

  posted 3 years, 7 months ago
• Rashomon, Kurosawa, and the Nature of Meaning - Part 1:

  Anand, good article.
  yes, the objective reality is always subjective or at least made to be, but only in retrospection, only when we need to make a 'judgement'. and why at all do we need to make a judgement, and who is assigned to judge others' subjectivity? with what kind of assigned or perceived objectivity? for example, what kurosawa does is, not to ignore this, make the story retold by various 'parties' and a 'witness' in front of the 'objective' eye of an 'appointed' judge. but kurosawa never says, or even hints anyway, that the man did not die that day in the forest. he establishes this 'truth' and maintains firmly all throughout the movie. now, all that the drama unfolds around is how that 'truth' came about. don't we see the same drama everyday in our courtrooms too? the entire exercise that follows the incident in the forest is just a masterly mockery of the 'hollow human engagement after truth' that leads to nowhere, whereas truth may just be round the corner. that is why, in the end, one character says, 'truth, my foot!'

  there may be several interpretations to the film, and yours should also be true as well. but, i think, you may disagree, that Rashomon is all about the 'fine art' we have learnt to apply in our social and political existence over centuries as to how to trample the truth, rather than 'declaring truth as redundant'! what Rashomon rather suggests is that the justice system is redundant or, at best, never exists in effect. because, in the particular case, and in all cases as we see, truth has to be and can only be established when a culprit or a perpetrator is identified; truth may be elsewhere, may be right under the table, may be it is lost forever. in Rashomon, does not the entire justice-delivery exercise revolve around that?

  'subjectivity' in many ways is determined by the given moment's 'existential objectivity' of a person, where the notion of 'power' and the proximity/remoteness to it has a big role to play! Rashomon brings this out brilliantly through its characters, but deliberately to no consequence (kurosawa definitely does not want to be that 'appointed' judge here); that (besides many other aspects) makes it a masterpiece.

  regards,

  subrat

  posted 3 years, 7 months ago
• Gandhi my father:

  Thanks Meetu, for fixing the 'glitch' on the page!

  Sorry for intruding into the discussion without having seen
  the film. One expression in it really struck me: 'why make
  a movie about relationships without knowing the rationale
  behind the characters’ behavior?' I completely agree...

  Of all the 'Gandhi' films I have seen, I believe Shyam Benegal's
  'Making of the Mahatma' stands out as the best in terms of
  authencity of characters and situations, and also in terms of
  'sense of history'.
  More after I see the film...
  thanks
  subrat

  posted 4 years, 9 months ago
• Gandhi my father:

  Meetu, the left panel on these pages are overlapping on the
  middle column, that is, on the review text... pl have it rectified...
  subrat

  posted 4 years, 9 months ago
• The Film Appreciation Course 2007 (FA) - Part 1: The Experience:

  hi meetu,
  was surfing for some movie sites and accidentally bumped into
  this one. amazing effort! keep it up.

  Mise-en-scene is still a mystery though!!! :)

  subrat

  posted 4 years, 9 months ago