The chasm between dream and reality

In his blog, Siddharth has written a piece about Bhayam, the short film produced and directed by Dinesh and me. I have to admit that the release has not met up with the huge hype I have created about the venture. I must also confess that I was quite excited about the venture initially. Both Dinesh and I have been film enthusiasts and our favourite passtime was to rip each movie apart, be it Tamil or Iranian. When the idea for a short film emerged and, when we hit upon a nice interesting story, it was natural to be thoroughly excited. Being a famed loose talker, I had something great to look forward to in my life. Apart from the mundane, soul-crushing IT services that I was made to do day in and day out.

So, understandably, anyone and everyone associated with Sridhar began talking about this venture. And lapped up every tale we had to tell about the process of making of Bhayam. Alas, the result was nowhere near the ambitious startup it actually was. Bhayam, the short-film conceived by Dinesh and Sridhar produced under the banner DownToMoon Production house, ended up being a drab film that was laden with so many cinematic errors. Friends to whom I have reluctantly screened the film had a few consoling words to say and some, especially, outrightly ridiculed a very small role I had done in the movie. I must admit, however, that even in my own appalling histrionic standards, I had done a very bad job. I was horrified to notice that even my accent sucked.

I'm not going to explain what went wrong when the dream turned sour. But I'm happy to note that neither Dinesh nor I have given up. Even the initial apprehension and shamefulness I had about the venture had later vanished. I began happily screening it to my friends and lapping up all the smirks and open laughters at my face. Since the grandeous venture that crashed with a thud, I decided not to hype up any of my other attempts. So I will not reveal what Dinesh and I are upto. But be rest assured that we are still working. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Epilogue 1: I had shown it to my fiancee. She was obviously disappointed at the result. But I'm confident that she has not given up on me.

Epilogue 2: A copy of Bhayam is still in my bag and any one who is interested can borrow it from me. Those who are out of town, please transfer 50 rupees to my bank account for a copy. Disappointment guaranteed or your money back.

Good movies and bad movies Part II



In the recent version of King Kong, a particular scene comes to my mind as I begin to write this. Kong, after 'rescuing' the girl (Naomi Watts) from the clutches of the city, on their way to escape, lands in the frozen lake in New York's Central Park. As expected, Kong slides down the ice involuntarily and is quite excited. And voila, the King Kong and his girl begin to skate in the iced lake in Central Park and they both erupt in joy. So is the crowd in the hall. The scene lasts for a few minutes of blissfull skating by the massive ape and the damsel, not so much in distress here, and the audience, enamoured by the absurdity, yet the beauty of the visual, forget themselves.

That pure joy of entertainment is what I had promised that I'll write about in Part II. For three purely suspended disbelief, no one says 'how stupid' but is utterly bewildered. I'd equate this with scenes in other movies too. Spiderman saving his aunt from the villain, the water glasses shuddering inside the car as T-Rex approaches in Jurassic Park, or, in our own example, Rajinikanth swaggering 'Ulle Po' ('Get in') in Baasha as he reveals his Mafia side in Baasha, or Kartik stalking Revathy in Mouna Ragam (A Silent Tune). All these brought pure, unadulterated joy in you. Often, you were willingly suspended your disbelief because it's convenient to do so. Questioning how Rajini managed to uproot the handpump in a swing of arm would be to spoil the fun that lies ahead. For non-Tamils, a similar scene is in Main Hoon Na, where Shah Rukh jumps out of the window, climbs the terrace to save his brother. You 'have' been waiting for a scene, aren't you?

There are a good number of such 'joy' movies I can list in Tamil. So, what's common to these movies? They are fun, imaginative, and, scientifically looking at it, they place two out of place things in one place. For instance, in Baasha, it's the most feared Mafia working as an Auto Rikshaw driver in your neighbourhood. A highly skilled commando officer camaflouging as a college student. A million year old T-Rex among us now. Such ideas can trigger your imagination and make it go wild. There are plenty of possibilities for a good hearted, yet highly skilled Mafia to leave everything behind and quietly work as an auto driver. He still have foster sisters and the ruffians can always play foul with them! What will he do when that happens?

As quoted often here, imagination is key to all these 'joy' movies. They trigger such huge imaginations in you and when the film maker feeds your imagination appropriately, his/her movie scorches the box office. There are several good ideas gone awry where the idea did not feed your imagination well. Hey Ram, where an archeological officer thinks Gandhi was responsible for his wife's death and sets out to kill him. That's enough to excite you but nothing much happens afterwards. It's like feeding a lot of appetisers and denying you the food.

Joyful movies are also good movies because they bring joy to you. They trigger your imagination to its outer limits. They follow John Lennon and they 'imagine'.
Often they become part of your everyday culture. Nobody quotes any punchlines from Pather Panchali to their real life encounters. But they do use 'Kitne Admi the' or 'kkk-kiran' or in Tamil 'Ulle Po' or 'I will give him an offer he can't refuse'.

To quote, Speilberg, 'Imagination is good for us all. It can unite the world'.

On Writing

A very happy new year to you all. I know that a very few visit my blog, they are quite precious to me and I'm indebted to you for sticking to this despite my erratic posting schedules. A good news to those frequent flyers: This new year I intend writing more often. There are a few reasons why you should believe me.

1) I've just been gifted a brand new laptop by my fiancee. (An HP Pavilion D4000. I'm no gadget freak but this one is a real J LO)

2) I've got myself wired from home (Sify Gold Dial up to begin with - just being loyal to my employer)
3) I've installed some proofing and dictionary tools in my laptop. (I haven't used them yet)

If these are not convincing enough, this year, I'm marrying a woman who is going to nag me to no end about my frequent writer's blocks! For some strange reasons, she thinks I write well. So as you can see, I've thoroughly ran out of excuses for not writing. My real aspirations don't even begin with simply maintaining a successful blog. I'm still eyeing on that Booker, even though, worldwide, the importance for that prize is waning. And I have personally read a few insipid Bookers but heck, do I really care?

But there are certain important things I must do before that. Starting this year, I'm still figuring out what makes a good writing and style. It's not the exotic vocabulary if you don't have anything important to say. The important thing has to be told in an interesting way. I have failed as a writer if you are not reading this line because you must have closed this window and moved onto MSN Movies or Indiatimes Models Gallery. Giving a personal assessment, the readers of this blog are more interested in what I have to say than how I say it. I found that, except a precious few, others don't talk to me about my style at all. That's a real danger because, the moment they know my views on generally everything, they will stop reading me because they are not excited about my style, if I have one that is. So I reckon, the important task this year would be to work on my style.

I will start perhaps by identifying it!