doc

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• Saawariya:

  when oh when will Mr Bansali get rid of his delusions of grandeur and his belief in his abilities as a director?
  If Black was a repeat of The Miracle Worker, Saawariya has made a mess of Visconti's La Notte Bianche. Yes, we know
  he must have seen that film in his days at FTII, I too saw the film at the Archives some years ago.
  But where Visconti scores is in his handling of two lonely people who await for a grand love to save them,
  a situation which is all to familiar to most human beings. Marcello Mastroianni is magnificent in the role
  of the lonely clerk, and the half dreamy half real setting of the village and the role of the grandmother
  highlights the earthy exuberance of life as contrasted with the two lead characters.
  The lover returns, and the lonely Marcello goes back to his own empty existence, having been redeemed
  by a grand love which is never reciprocated.

  posted 4 years, 6 months ago
• No Smoking:

  A most self indulgent film; wish I had that budget and backers, to show of the "intellectual prowess" of Mr. Kashyap. Well executed, but a story line if at all it can be called that, which could have been dealt with in 45 minutes or so.
  But then Mr. Kashyap is not interested in a linear narrative, but instead gives us a tortuous journey through the labyrinth of K's mind as he descends into his unconscious and visits his personal hells.
  Yes, we have read Kafka too, so the feeling of having lost it all and complete bewilderment as things happen to K, who is in that sense not an individual but a cipher who is shunted from room to room without any comprehension. But how does the bureaucratic control metaphor of Kafka tie in with the film at large?
  No ideas yet.
  So we have the all seeing Eye, the Gaze, we have the complete disconnect of K from all human emotions barring that of arrogance and having his own way, and we have loops of his worst fears playing out along the way, as he strives to connect.
  Any interpretation is possible, as Mr. Kashyap gives us images and not really a story. But the quality of images is fair but sometimes looks very put on as in that Siberia sequence and then we have all the in jokes about Castro, Cigars, Beedis, and Bob Fosse et al.
  Is he paying tribute to them or spoofing others as in the bathroom smoking sequence?
  The images are nowhere near that of The Mirror or The Stalker which both talk of metaphorical journeys which make one meditate and contemplate on the fragmented nature of existence and the larger questions that always remain unanswered.
  The film is eminently watchable thanks to the camerawork and the background score , but fails to connect to the audience in terms of addressing existential themes which would reasonate.
  Yeah, so K struggles, so what? What of us?

  posted 4 years, 6 months ago