Random chakallas: films, career, and chemical locha

I just finished watching this beautiful film called 'Luck By Chance'. Though flimsily titled, the film carries enough power to set one pondering. In my case, more than it moved me with its self-hilarity and endearing characterisation, it inspired me. It fuelled and supported my gradually subsiding fire of pursuing a career in film-direction and script-writing. Now, I'm not going to trespass any further on the plot, lest it spoils your own experience of watching he film.

What I realised was, when the film ended, my mother, with whom I was watching the film, though having been touched by the film, stood up and went about on her day-today work, without even waiting for the credits to start rolling in. This put another useless but engrossing thought in my mind: How can a movie, a good, meaningful movie, not scintillate you enough to chain you down till atleast we have the credits? I know that some guys would waste no time to point out that in my very last post, I had proclaimed that those who take films seriously, are fools. And now I'm saying the exact opposite of that! My answer is, I don't want you to take a movie seriously, but something must be in a good film, that made you feel a part of it, that enabled you to escape your already boring life and belong to the universe of the film. At least that very success of the film is worthy of some kind of acknowledgement.

With me, a good film, or even a fairly good one for that matter, does make me think as to what the film-maker had in mind. I tend to be over-analytical, and still, at the end of all my analysis and thought-process, I end up with nothing but the face value of the film.

I also tend to stay in the film for days, months even, if I find it good, but for my parents, my family, and my friends, films are just films. There is a sort of casualness and non-seriousness attached to even the best of movies. 'Its good, its great, but lets face it, it is just a movie. It brings not a hair-width of a difference to your life' they say. And hell, they are right. Maybe I am wrong, not the people. And this is how I learnt about humility and tolerance in various tastes and habits.

In our country, there are just too many stereotypes. That's because 90% of our population is still grappling with a chronic disease called mediocrity. In the midst of all the mediocre people whom we tolerate and deal with every other day, there are some few honest guys who work their arses up to earn a square meal for themselves, but eventually fall trap to these stereotypes. One such big stereotype is the famous 'nerd'. Yes, I am referring to guys who get admitted like herds of goats every bloody year in prestigious institutes like IIT, SRCC, and what-not.

Interestingly, some of these guys are actually those who romance with subjects like Physics or Economics, who derive passion out of their studies. Volumes of thick books written on droopy subjects actually are a drug for them. Their motivation is more than just a heavy paycheck and a coveted position in the society, but genuine interest. And these few people appear as nerdy muggers to laymen like me and millions of others. Maybe, for these irrational and genuine guys, people like me, who are inclined towards obscure, non-conventional and insecure interests, might seem like bunch of fags (please forgive me for my increasingly blasphemous writing). But the crux of the matter is, no profession in its pure form is bad. I know I am stating the obvious, but the obvious is true in this case!

What I want to justify in this post is the reason why I get so immersed in films, I get so carried away with cinema. That is because of my own unique chemical locha, or faulty brain wiring, that made me a film-fanatic and a gullible guy at the same time. We humans are unique because of these irregular interests which, at the first glance, might seem unrelated, but form an interesting combo which add up to our personality. That is the very essence of being human. You are, even if you don't have any apparent talent, one in a zillion.

An escapist's fixation: cinema post-mortem

Like with all things close to one's heart, I too do not seem to remember the exact moment in my life that I started to get inclined towards films. But yeah, keeping in view my rather strange abstract indulgences, this too did not come as a surprise to those close to me (don't you think my recent articles tend to talk minimally about me, but more of those close and near to me, mentally or physically?). Just like my few other apparently harmless addictions (?) like chocolate, Hide and Seek cookies (no, its not a paid advert), Hitman games, and a bunch of similarly useless and time-killing, pleasure inducing stuff, watching movies has, over a period of 14 years of my fruitful existence, also achieved a somewhat fanatical value for me.

As I have famously stated on my Orkut and Facebook page, movies act as a sort of 'portal' for me to escape into a parallel universe full of stuff that is not affected by this world we dwell, and if used potently, has the potential to affect our present world in a most effective and reformatory manner. As clichéd as it maybe, but films are utterly useless for those who take them seriously. I mean, yes, I agree that some films are serious in their sensitive premise or treatment, but they show only the tip of the iceberg. Let me express myself more soundly with the help of a few examples.

Lets study one of my all-time favourite films, the best psychological thriller of all-time,Memento, to strengthen my view point. Its psychological approach might sound really incredible to a film-junkie or a wannabe like me, even if it takes itself very seriously. And yes, it pitches out some awesome topics that one can debate hours on. But the point is, to a psychology guru, or someone who is an expert in that field, it might sound as a gimmick that is being blown out of proportions. Though to the average person it could garner a hell lot of psychological interest, butif this 'average person' would really have been interested in playing it forward, he would go to a specialist, not the cinema-hall to watch Memento.

In summation, great movies are those which talk of high-fi topics in layman's terms. Which are insightful on film-making as an art in itself, and not specialised technical themes like medical sciences, engineering, psychology, etc. For example, the highlight of Memento, was not the pseudo-psychological babble, but the other film-making technicalities like a taut screenplay, amazing editing, near-perfect direction and a deeply-involved storytelling. Of course, the psychological angle was intiguing, but that did not attribute to the greatness of the film.

Another illuminating example on the subject at hand would be the parallels I have drawn between two very critically-acclaimed films in modern Indian cinema, both on a somewhat (mind the 'somewhat') similar topic: Aamir, starring television starlet Rajeev Khandelwal, and A Wednesday, starring theatre maestro Naseeruddin Shah. Many would prefer watching the latter than the former, largely because of its in-your-face treatment and the no-nonsense direction. But if you ask me, I'd anyday rate Aamir higher than Wednesday in terms of pure film-making (mind the italics, they're there for a reason). Again, you guys would allege me of going with the less popular choice just to be different and make this post 'unique'. That's right guys, there might be some of it that's actually valid to some extent. However, first just hear me out and then judge my ingenuity of thought.

I saw Wednesday and my mind started racing. The message was clear, thought out, and vented out in the simplest way possible (don't replace 'simplest' with 'best'). Nevertheless, I though, heck man, had I seen this film on paper, I mean if I had read the script of the film rather than watching it, it would have created more or less a similar effect on my psyche. It would have moved me just as much as a novel with a same storyline would. It didn't harness the power of cinema, did not redeem the full magnitude and potential of moving images. It failed to create the thump, the goosebumps that only a film can give. It was way too spoon-fed, atleast too much for my liking.

However, on the other side of the table, was this neat little film Aamir, which I felt, was right at all the places Wednesday was wrong, and went awry at those where Wednesday was spot on. Unlike Wednesday, it didn't have that much a clear message, and was much abstract in its solution. Its core was very confused and entangled around a couple of other side-messages that the ambitious director wanted to eke in (actually, that's my kind of storytelling, there's not much attention of discipline as compared to substance). However, the film came out victorious because of its subtlety and its profound and vivid use of 'moving images'. Had I read the film instead of watching it, as I did with Wednesday, it would easily be successful in putting me to sleep. But no, the director had 'vision up his butts' (dialogue copied from School of Rock), and the power of cinema transformed the storyline into an amazingly watchable experience.

Well, that's enough dissecting films for awhile. Its just that anyone in my place would have done the same due to the inherently boring life of mine. Anyway, this post is a tribute to the cinema that I've grown up with (and still am), and my bizarre way of paying homage to the greats of film-making as seen through the eyes of a 21st centurion.

Catching me in an introspective mood...

Every passing day sees me getting more and more personal towards this blog. I Jai Ganeshed it as a medium for me to post away some of my stories. However, I got slightly more involved in it in the coming days(thanks to my idleness), and my second post was an article which was written for the sole purpose of showing-off some intellectual crap. But down the line, I found myself incessantly absorbed into writing random garble just for the goddamn heck of it. What was I trying to prove? That I was some one-in-a-gazillion child-prodigy who knew just too much English to not belong to the crowd of students he studies and is growing up with? While I was at it, I realized that I was a victim of severe superiority complex. The other day, I was reading some column in the Times Life supplement of The Times of India, which, through a dozen of simple binary questions, claimed to determine the 'personality stereotype' of the answerer. One of the questions (infact, the only one my memory retains) was: 'Do you spend hours admiring yourself in the mirror?' My answer was a sure-shot yes. Later, when I was done with an array of similar questions, I turned to look at the answers, eager to see what the result had to say about me and my personality. I very convincingly belonged to the personality stereotype 'narcissistic'. I looked at the word as if it was Greek. It was the first time I had come across this word. I wiki-ed it, Googled it, and even Yahoo Answer-ed it, thus conducting my very own brief research on the topic. Though the details of the informative wikipedia article elude me, but I do recall the basic gist of it. Narcissism is essentially a personality-disorder in which a person is egotistical, self-centered and carries a very unsympathetic approach to anyone except their own self. I could not believe it. Was I just another cold, self-righteous and selfish bastard (mind you, no spelling mistakes!)? I had, till then been endlessly reminded by my dear ones that I very easy fell for others' influences and what opinion others had about me. My actions, (they said), were heavily affected and influenced by what people thought about me, and that I did care about what people opined regarding me, something which I myself preach strongly against, and work my very best to practice too in my life. In this case too, I was shocked by what my 'dear ones' said about me (Ironically, this only strengthened what they had said, that I easily get affected by others' opinions about me). Anyway, after reading the article on narcissism, I was conveniently reminded of the fact that I took opinions very hard on myself. The fact that my 'dear ones' had pointed out to me this drawback in my personality, actually eased me! I persuaded myself that it was just another feel-good newspaper crap, written by a struggling writer, who added the do-it-yourself personality test as a space-filler, in fear that his boss would fire him for not coming up with something creative in a deadline of a week. Nobody other than me was going to tell me that I was a narcissistic. All it took me was two seconds to rubbish the newspaper aside, close the wikipedia article tab, and shrug off the guilt. And thus, an hour of mine had peacefully and hedonistically passed, with me feeling better than ever. They are always right when they say that happiness comes in small packages. My moment of happiness had come in the form of an article, which could have proved to be the most depressing thing for the day for some people (including myself), but for me, it was a breath of fresh air, a refresher, another feather in my cap. And thus, after being proclaimed a narcissistic by the well-meant newspaper column, I ignorantly became one. I might not have given my personality a disorderly dimension. I would have peacefully remained myself, unique, before the society typecasted me forever (another of my narcissistic rantings).