Though Michael Kiwanuka was chosen as the BBC Sound of 2012, it’s a bit more than apparent that this 25 year old’s first 10 track musical endeavor is a straight ricochet of 70’s jazz and all things retro.
The album opens with the jazz soaked atmospheric ‘Tell Me A Tale’, replete with subtle saxophone cadences and shades and tinges of easy listening lounge. ‘I’m Getting Ready’ is a cry to the Lord, furnished with gentle brushed drums while ‘Rest’ operates on a lilting guitar riff quite reminiscent of Ray LaMontagne’s ‘Let It Be Me’. ‘I’ll Get Along’ is hopeful and trippy with a catchy flute riff.
‘Home Again’, a soothing acoustic take with soft hand claps in the background is accompanied by Kiwanuka’s tone that’s filled with the sort of pessimism that’s on the brink of optimism. Doo-wops weave in and out on ‘Bones’, a feet tapping ditty.
The album’s coda surfaces with the onset of ‘Worry Walks Beside Me’. Orchestral ornamentations are featured heavily on each track.
Essentially, Home Again is a sort of thesaurus of 70’s folk and soul, a ‘Otis-Redding-meets-Amy Winehouse –with Bill Wither-ish- nuances’ Kiwanuka’s voice has a certain aged and weighty quality that works well as he sings about pain, loss and so on. You can say that each song is a variation of the previous yet there’s nothing particularly wrong about that. If anything, the album contains genuinely good music, the kind that creates a warm hearted, cozy ambience at a small get together or that can be played in the car during a long drive.
There’s nothing spectacularly life changing about the songs yet they’re a breath of fresh air as compared to the overproduced, meticulously packaged stuff that’s been circulating the airwaves lately.
Friday, June 22, 2012
An Interview with Alaknanda Samarth
AN INTERVIEW WITH ALAKNANDA SAMARTH
Appeared in the March 2012 issue of PT Notes.
All my life, I’d heard of Alaknanda Samarth’s work and worth, yet I never managed to see her performances or talk to her about her experiences on stage. When I first met her, I was very young, at an age where I couldn’t fully comprehend what her work was about. Yet, I always felt a sense of pride because she happened to be my aunt. So I decided to interview her for PT Notes.
Her powerful words and the richness of her theatre experiences educated me on what theatre has been like in the West and here in India, through so many decades.
Aadya : Satyadev Dubey has passed away. You acted in his first and biggest hit, 'Band Darwaze'. How did working with him contribute to your growth?
Alaknanda Samarth : Dubey in 1964-'65 had a corrosive laugh, a savage impatience with existing systems and with himself. He commanded a chaste, muscular Hindi. He offered me a role in Sartre's French play 'No Exit'(1944) - in Urdu.
I’d just returned from spending 5 years in the West and I'd never acted in Urdu. First, he cast me as the lesbian Post Office clerk and then changed it to the socialite murderess. So Sulabha Deshpande and I switched roles. He played the army deserter. All three are dead. In Hell. Amrish Puri played the Valet/Death.
Every language is a map with bleeding, porous borders. It's not bandaged. 'Band Darwaze' helped my growth at the deepest level of language as consciousness. He paid meticulous attention to syntax and the substrata of text analysis.
'She's India's only properly trained actress,' he always said of me to my embarrassment! We didn't take ourselves seriously. To this day people who've NEVER SEEN THE PRODUCTION DESCRIBE IT TO ME IN DETAIL. Why did it sweep everyone off their feet?
Because it was the moment that language shifted palpably and visibly on the Bombay stage and so gave rise to a new, inclusive audience.
THE AUDIENCE CHANGED. That's a revolutionary act in theatre. It doesn't happen twice. It happened in 'BAND DARWAZE'.
Aadya: Why did you go to train in the West? Were there Indian influences at RADA? Can you compare the Indian and British
theatre scenes in the '60's?
AS : In 1959, I played Strindberg's 'Miss Julie' opposite Mr Alkazi in English. I didn't know that there was a professor, from an American university, in the audience.
They offered me a round airtrip and the Wien International Scholarship in Theatre Arts to Brandeis University in the U.S. I hadn't even heard of Brandeis!
It was random, quite by chance! On the way back with my airticket I stopped in London, auditioned for RADA and got a scholarship.
At RADA, India was not in the consciousness. I was one of the very first few Indians there. No one mentioned India. I was given leading roles in European classics. The peer group was wildly talented and generous with me. They are lifelong friends. I went with the flow.
Voice training was the big discovery. That led me to study Indian vachika traditions. Neela Bhagwat worked on pre-expressive sound systems with me.
Comparisons are corrosive. Contexts are specific. In the '60's, Indian theatre had to reclaim its narrative and reconfigure. The FTII and NSD began to evolve training programmes for the modern Indian actor. Hugely painful, ongoing tasks. You know that struggle and history.
Since 1993, I've known the great Voice Teacher Patsy Rodenburg. Her work on the actor's Circles of Energy and Presence is profound. Her lived understanding of Shakespeare is a revelation
Britain saw an explosion of popular culture and a sexual revolution. Censorship was abolished in 1968. Nudity, sex and drugs shockingly appeared on stage in the musical 'Hair'. In Osborne's 'Look Back in Anger'(1956) an upper class protagonist was seen ironing for the first time! In Wesker's play 'The Kitchen'(1953), cooks, cleaners, waitresses and immigrants sweated it out over the kitchen sink.
On TV, Asians and Blacks became visible. The British Film Institute (BFI) did a book, 'Black and White in Colour’ (ed. Jim Pines, 1992), on 45 years of Black and Asian representation. One of my portrayals was chosen as the three most radical. In 'Z Cars' a hit police series I play an Indian woman with 2 kids married to a Black man who murders a white policeman with an axe. ‘A Place of Safety' deals with Institutional racism in the Metropolitan Police. Even today, that would be explosive.
In 1975, I was the 1st Indian actress in a classical lead at the National Theatre at the Old Vic - the shrine where Olivier, Gielgud, Richard Burton had acted. There was no political correctness, no emerging Indian market, no flavour of the month Bollywood. One had to be on the ball on stage in a star studded cast of superb verse speakers.
Today's 2nd generation British Asian actors speak English as their mother tongue. In the last decade, there are many more roles for them. British Asian dance has an international superstar in Akram Khan. But the theatre movement has been absorbed. The Bollywood imaginary has taken over.
I've never been part of the Asian scene. There has been some interaction with Black Theatre and Film collectives. Played famous Arab texts like Tewfik Al-Hakim.
Worked over the years with little known avant-garde groups like The Address, Puzzle Club, Muzikansky, Hawsksmoor Music Project. Maverick radicals, in studio theatres, no publicity or funds but freedom to culturally catalyse great texts in my own voice and defy categorisation.
Aadya: You taught acting at the NSD. Could you speak about that?
AS: BV Karanth invited me. I lived in India (1979-82). Acting classes were in Hindi. Some students didn’t speak it fluently. I changed it so they did exercises in their mothertongues to unleash internal rhythms. Teaching has led me to a methodology but I'm not an academic or systematic, rarely write things down. It’s in the moment for the actor in front of me, their fears,
time, place, reality. Every actor gets to the role in his own way. Later I worked in Trichur, directed 2 open air productions of Shakespeare and Edward Bond in Malayalam, learnt the texts by heart! Working with Tomba, I found Manipur's electrifying vachika rituals. In London, actors are from everywhere. Many cadences, histories of Civil War, Communism, the Holocaust, Palestine. We've been exploring Cultural Memory, Sound Memory
Aadya: You've done landmark solo shows. Tell us about 'KUNTI AND THE HUMAN VOICE' and "MEDEAMATERIAL' both in Bombay.
What are the modes of rehearsal in collaborations since you live far from India?
AS: I don’t think in terms of 'far and near'. There are 'Other Indias', diasporic energies, wheels within cultural wheels. It’s a question of unravelling them.
'KUNTI AND THE HUMAN VOICE' in Hindi and English, directed by Kumar Shahani was the first solo in 1987. It examined the female impulse in two distinct contexts. Kumar's sensibility and unique vision of cinema actually transformed my acting. Gave it transparency. We went on to do 5 major pieces of work together, including 2 feature films, one unfinished feature and 2 short films in London.
Solos have been a constant, in music theatre, texts by Pakistani, Arab, European writers in London. In 1992, I began an ongoing collaboration with visual artist Nalini Malani. We did Heiner Muller's Medea Trilogy. Nalini's work is so layered. The body becomes a magical image. It's glamorous. The ground rules are not those of theatre. It’s freeing.
Our latest in Switzerland in 2010 was 'Medea Revisited'.
'Texts' of this complexity are 2-3 years in the making. With shifting modes of exchange but always with constant trust. On the phone, interactive, in person and in the last lap 4-6 weeks in situ. That’s the mode of rehearsal.
Aadya : Have you got any future projects?
AS : A couple of ideas, one in India. What they have in common is to test the limits of performance, acting itself and thus question the role of the audience/spectator/listener. Such work has no cultural marketability. It’s working on and in process and as such on the cutting edge of vulnerability and even failure. That gives it energy.
Appeared in the March 2012 issue of PT Notes.
All my life, I’d heard of Alaknanda Samarth’s work and worth, yet I never managed to see her performances or talk to her about her experiences on stage. When I first met her, I was very young, at an age where I couldn’t fully comprehend what her work was about. Yet, I always felt a sense of pride because she happened to be my aunt. So I decided to interview her for PT Notes.
Her powerful words and the richness of her theatre experiences educated me on what theatre has been like in the West and here in India, through so many decades.
Aadya : Satyadev Dubey has passed away. You acted in his first and biggest hit, 'Band Darwaze'. How did working with him contribute to your growth?
Alaknanda Samarth : Dubey in 1964-'65 had a corrosive laugh, a savage impatience with existing systems and with himself. He commanded a chaste, muscular Hindi. He offered me a role in Sartre's French play 'No Exit'(1944) - in Urdu.
I’d just returned from spending 5 years in the West and I'd never acted in Urdu. First, he cast me as the lesbian Post Office clerk and then changed it to the socialite murderess. So Sulabha Deshpande and I switched roles. He played the army deserter. All three are dead. In Hell. Amrish Puri played the Valet/Death.
Every language is a map with bleeding, porous borders. It's not bandaged. 'Band Darwaze' helped my growth at the deepest level of language as consciousness. He paid meticulous attention to syntax and the substrata of text analysis.
'She's India's only properly trained actress,' he always said of me to my embarrassment! We didn't take ourselves seriously. To this day people who've NEVER SEEN THE PRODUCTION DESCRIBE IT TO ME IN DETAIL. Why did it sweep everyone off their feet?
Because it was the moment that language shifted palpably and visibly on the Bombay stage and so gave rise to a new, inclusive audience.
THE AUDIENCE CHANGED. That's a revolutionary act in theatre. It doesn't happen twice. It happened in 'BAND DARWAZE'.
Aadya: Why did you go to train in the West? Were there Indian influences at RADA? Can you compare the Indian and British
theatre scenes in the '60's?
AS : In 1959, I played Strindberg's 'Miss Julie' opposite Mr Alkazi in English. I didn't know that there was a professor, from an American university, in the audience.
They offered me a round airtrip and the Wien International Scholarship in Theatre Arts to Brandeis University in the U.S. I hadn't even heard of Brandeis!
It was random, quite by chance! On the way back with my airticket I stopped in London, auditioned for RADA and got a scholarship.
At RADA, India was not in the consciousness. I was one of the very first few Indians there. No one mentioned India. I was given leading roles in European classics. The peer group was wildly talented and generous with me. They are lifelong friends. I went with the flow.
Voice training was the big discovery. That led me to study Indian vachika traditions. Neela Bhagwat worked on pre-expressive sound systems with me.
Comparisons are corrosive. Contexts are specific. In the '60's, Indian theatre had to reclaim its narrative and reconfigure. The FTII and NSD began to evolve training programmes for the modern Indian actor. Hugely painful, ongoing tasks. You know that struggle and history.
Since 1993, I've known the great Voice Teacher Patsy Rodenburg. Her work on the actor's Circles of Energy and Presence is profound. Her lived understanding of Shakespeare is a revelation
Britain saw an explosion of popular culture and a sexual revolution. Censorship was abolished in 1968. Nudity, sex and drugs shockingly appeared on stage in the musical 'Hair'. In Osborne's 'Look Back in Anger'(1956) an upper class protagonist was seen ironing for the first time! In Wesker's play 'The Kitchen'(1953), cooks, cleaners, waitresses and immigrants sweated it out over the kitchen sink.
On TV, Asians and Blacks became visible. The British Film Institute (BFI) did a book, 'Black and White in Colour’ (ed. Jim Pines, 1992), on 45 years of Black and Asian representation. One of my portrayals was chosen as the three most radical. In 'Z Cars' a hit police series I play an Indian woman with 2 kids married to a Black man who murders a white policeman with an axe. ‘A Place of Safety' deals with Institutional racism in the Metropolitan Police. Even today, that would be explosive.
In 1975, I was the 1st Indian actress in a classical lead at the National Theatre at the Old Vic - the shrine where Olivier, Gielgud, Richard Burton had acted. There was no political correctness, no emerging Indian market, no flavour of the month Bollywood. One had to be on the ball on stage in a star studded cast of superb verse speakers.
Today's 2nd generation British Asian actors speak English as their mother tongue. In the last decade, there are many more roles for them. British Asian dance has an international superstar in Akram Khan. But the theatre movement has been absorbed. The Bollywood imaginary has taken over.
I've never been part of the Asian scene. There has been some interaction with Black Theatre and Film collectives. Played famous Arab texts like Tewfik Al-Hakim.
Worked over the years with little known avant-garde groups like The Address, Puzzle Club, Muzikansky, Hawsksmoor Music Project. Maverick radicals, in studio theatres, no publicity or funds but freedom to culturally catalyse great texts in my own voice and defy categorisation.
Aadya: You taught acting at the NSD. Could you speak about that?
AS: BV Karanth invited me. I lived in India (1979-82). Acting classes were in Hindi. Some students didn’t speak it fluently. I changed it so they did exercises in their mothertongues to unleash internal rhythms. Teaching has led me to a methodology but I'm not an academic or systematic, rarely write things down. It’s in the moment for the actor in front of me, their fears,
time, place, reality. Every actor gets to the role in his own way. Later I worked in Trichur, directed 2 open air productions of Shakespeare and Edward Bond in Malayalam, learnt the texts by heart! Working with Tomba, I found Manipur's electrifying vachika rituals. In London, actors are from everywhere. Many cadences, histories of Civil War, Communism, the Holocaust, Palestine. We've been exploring Cultural Memory, Sound Memory
Aadya: You've done landmark solo shows. Tell us about 'KUNTI AND THE HUMAN VOICE' and "MEDEAMATERIAL' both in Bombay.
What are the modes of rehearsal in collaborations since you live far from India?
AS: I don’t think in terms of 'far and near'. There are 'Other Indias', diasporic energies, wheels within cultural wheels. It’s a question of unravelling them.
'KUNTI AND THE HUMAN VOICE' in Hindi and English, directed by Kumar Shahani was the first solo in 1987. It examined the female impulse in two distinct contexts. Kumar's sensibility and unique vision of cinema actually transformed my acting. Gave it transparency. We went on to do 5 major pieces of work together, including 2 feature films, one unfinished feature and 2 short films in London.
Solos have been a constant, in music theatre, texts by Pakistani, Arab, European writers in London. In 1992, I began an ongoing collaboration with visual artist Nalini Malani. We did Heiner Muller's Medea Trilogy. Nalini's work is so layered. The body becomes a magical image. It's glamorous. The ground rules are not those of theatre. It’s freeing.
Our latest in Switzerland in 2010 was 'Medea Revisited'.
'Texts' of this complexity are 2-3 years in the making. With shifting modes of exchange but always with constant trust. On the phone, interactive, in person and in the last lap 4-6 weeks in situ. That’s the mode of rehearsal.
Aadya : Have you got any future projects?
AS : A couple of ideas, one in India. What they have in common is to test the limits of performance, acting itself and thus question the role of the audience/spectator/listener. Such work has no cultural marketability. It’s working on and in process and as such on the cutting edge of vulnerability and even failure. That gives it energy.
Deepika Amin's Interview
Appeared in the February 2012 issue of PT Notes
Aadya Shah : How long have you been doing theatre?
Deepika Amin: I think I have always been doing theatre.
As a child, I was in Sushma Seth’s children’s theatre group in Delhi. Then, in college, I joined Barry John’s theatre group TAG in Delhi (this is before he moved to Mumbai) and we did many English and Hindi plays. After I came to Mumbai- TV took over my life and unfortunately theatre took a backseat.
Then I lived in Jakarta for 6 years where I was with the expat theatre group Jakarta Players where I acted in many plays and musicals. I also directed 1 Hindi and 2 English plays there.
Returning to Mumbai, I plunged back into theatre with 3 plays with Lillete Dubey, (Wedding Album, Sammy and Womanly Voices ) and another play with Mahesh Dattani.
AS: Have you done plays in other languages?
Primarily English and Hindi. Some years ago, I did a play in my mother tongue -Marathi - Ammaldar.
Any favourite playwrights?
DA: I have mostly acted in contemporary plays and I feel I have missed out in performing in the classics. Playwrights like Ibsen and Pinter have fascinated me. I would love to be in a classic like Ibsen’s "A Doll’s House" or "The House of Bernada Alba".
Doing more musicals is my longstanding desire (I previously was in musicals like “Annie Get Your Gun”, “South Pacific”, “Pizzazz” etc). I have been learning Hindustani music for many years and would love to be in a Hindi musical.
AS: Can you talk about your experience of performing in Pereira's Bakery?
DA:“Pereira’s Bakery at 76 Chapel Road” has been a very rewarding experience. I have known Zafar for many years as a co actor and he treats his actors with gentleness and sensitivity. With a cast of such wonderful actors, one has been able to learn a lot from everyone.
AS: Do talk about your character, Maria.
DA: Maria - is the earth mother. She is the binding force of her family and wants to do the best she can for them. Yet, she is traditional enough to believe that the final word of authority lies with her husband and will stand by him.
AS: What are your views about the bureaucracy in Mumbai faced by families like the Pereira's, who have lived in a community for a long time?
DA: As I drove to rehearsals in Bandra every evening...I could see the reality all around me. I'd see a quaint little bungalow and think, " Oh this will probably be the next one to go - how long will they hold out?" We must also understand the problems of those living in these bungalows. Maintenance is a nightmare and most cannot afford it. But replacing them with glass skyscrapers is not the solution. Old heritage must be preserved.
AS: Mention some of your other work
DA: I was recently in Shyam Benegal’s film "Well Done Abba". But people still remember me from the well known TV serial Farmaan directed by Lekh Tandon - (for which I got Best Actress) . That time I used my maiden name, Deepika Deshpande.
AS: What are your views on the theatre scene right now in Mumbai?
DA: It mainly lacks venues. There is a lot of enthusiasm for theatre but unfortunately there is no outlet, apart from NCPA and Prithvi Theatre. In terms of creativity and scripts it’s doing great. But theatre is not a revenue generating activity and so a patron is needed.
Aadya Shah : How long have you been doing theatre?
Deepika Amin: I think I have always been doing theatre.
As a child, I was in Sushma Seth’s children’s theatre group in Delhi. Then, in college, I joined Barry John’s theatre group TAG in Delhi (this is before he moved to Mumbai) and we did many English and Hindi plays. After I came to Mumbai- TV took over my life and unfortunately theatre took a backseat.
Then I lived in Jakarta for 6 years where I was with the expat theatre group Jakarta Players where I acted in many plays and musicals. I also directed 1 Hindi and 2 English plays there.
Returning to Mumbai, I plunged back into theatre with 3 plays with Lillete Dubey, (Wedding Album, Sammy and Womanly Voices ) and another play with Mahesh Dattani.
AS: Have you done plays in other languages?
Primarily English and Hindi. Some years ago, I did a play in my mother tongue -Marathi - Ammaldar.
Any favourite playwrights?
DA: I have mostly acted in contemporary plays and I feel I have missed out in performing in the classics. Playwrights like Ibsen and Pinter have fascinated me. I would love to be in a classic like Ibsen’s "A Doll’s House" or "The House of Bernada Alba".
Doing more musicals is my longstanding desire (I previously was in musicals like “Annie Get Your Gun”, “South Pacific”, “Pizzazz” etc). I have been learning Hindustani music for many years and would love to be in a Hindi musical.
AS: Can you talk about your experience of performing in Pereira's Bakery?
DA:“Pereira’s Bakery at 76 Chapel Road” has been a very rewarding experience. I have known Zafar for many years as a co actor and he treats his actors with gentleness and sensitivity. With a cast of such wonderful actors, one has been able to learn a lot from everyone.
AS: Do talk about your character, Maria.
DA: Maria - is the earth mother. She is the binding force of her family and wants to do the best she can for them. Yet, she is traditional enough to believe that the final word of authority lies with her husband and will stand by him.
AS: What are your views about the bureaucracy in Mumbai faced by families like the Pereira's, who have lived in a community for a long time?
DA: As I drove to rehearsals in Bandra every evening...I could see the reality all around me. I'd see a quaint little bungalow and think, " Oh this will probably be the next one to go - how long will they hold out?" We must also understand the problems of those living in these bungalows. Maintenance is a nightmare and most cannot afford it. But replacing them with glass skyscrapers is not the solution. Old heritage must be preserved.
AS: Mention some of your other work
DA: I was recently in Shyam Benegal’s film "Well Done Abba". But people still remember me from the well known TV serial Farmaan directed by Lekh Tandon - (for which I got Best Actress) . That time I used my maiden name, Deepika Deshpande.
AS: What are your views on the theatre scene right now in Mumbai?
DA: It mainly lacks venues. There is a lot of enthusiasm for theatre but unfortunately there is no outlet, apart from NCPA and Prithvi Theatre. In terms of creativity and scripts it’s doing great. But theatre is not a revenue generating activity and so a patron is needed.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Interview with David Hirst
Life and acting. It’s all about objectives. At the end of the day, it’s about what you want, what action you’re going to take and what your obstacles are.
I really got into theatre at the age of 13. My friend and I ended up stealing a role from the play. I’ve kind of been the weird actor-y kid since I could speak. I tend to go for really physical based stuff. I normally start off the workshops, with getting people to tell stories with physical movements and getting them to highlight how the physical is used as a tool of communication. Just movements, no verbal at all. At the same time, you put in emotion. So you let the physical and the emotion to tell the story. It’s like watching a movie with the sound off because just by the physicality of it, you should be able to sense how the person is feeling from what their body is doing
For people who are doing the workshop, it’s primarily to learn. To broaden their horizons and to hone their skills. A lot of people go to drama school, and they end up working and some of their skills fall to the wayside. The workshops are to inspire newcomers or amateurs and instruct them. And for others, it’s to remember the skills they have and help them focus on what they need to improve.
Indians seem to be hungrier for the theatre and for the knowledge. For people who have so little, as in no time, no room, no rehearsal spaces, there is an absolute hunger and a drive to create. If I do a workshop here, when it ends, 10 people will want to get a coffee with you and talk to you over the next hour about what you’ve just done. I prefer the Indian way, because they want to learn and therefore I want to teach them. They’re a lot more willing to put themselves out there. The work ethic matters too. I’ve had to kick a couple of people out of workshops because they’re 15 minutes late. It’s also hard to get an honest conversation going. Everybody’s so eager to please, eager to be seen in a nice light. I really try to break down that barrier; I try to say, “It’s ok if you don’t understand.” But once the bond has been created, they’re very giving actors. They really want to do the work for you. We’re having a lot of problems of funding in Australia at the moment, because unfortunately they don’t see the value of the art.
I’m very inspired by Sam Shepard, just because so much of his stuff comes from his own life and he’s so willing to put it out there in front of you. I’m a very big Ibsen fan. I love his play ‘An Enemy of the People’. My boss, Glen Hayden inspires me too. Thespo inspires me. To make a festival out of almost nothing is amazing. Basically anybody who has a passion for art inspires me.
I‘d absolutely love to train and perform here. I really want to perform at the Prithvi Theatre. I want that on my CV. It’s a brilliant space.
- as told to Aadya Shah
For Prithvi Theatre Notes, January 2012
I really got into theatre at the age of 13. My friend and I ended up stealing a role from the play. I’ve kind of been the weird actor-y kid since I could speak. I tend to go for really physical based stuff. I normally start off the workshops, with getting people to tell stories with physical movements and getting them to highlight how the physical is used as a tool of communication. Just movements, no verbal at all. At the same time, you put in emotion. So you let the physical and the emotion to tell the story. It’s like watching a movie with the sound off because just by the physicality of it, you should be able to sense how the person is feeling from what their body is doing
For people who are doing the workshop, it’s primarily to learn. To broaden their horizons and to hone their skills. A lot of people go to drama school, and they end up working and some of their skills fall to the wayside. The workshops are to inspire newcomers or amateurs and instruct them. And for others, it’s to remember the skills they have and help them focus on what they need to improve.
Indians seem to be hungrier for the theatre and for the knowledge. For people who have so little, as in no time, no room, no rehearsal spaces, there is an absolute hunger and a drive to create. If I do a workshop here, when it ends, 10 people will want to get a coffee with you and talk to you over the next hour about what you’ve just done. I prefer the Indian way, because they want to learn and therefore I want to teach them. They’re a lot more willing to put themselves out there. The work ethic matters too. I’ve had to kick a couple of people out of workshops because they’re 15 minutes late. It’s also hard to get an honest conversation going. Everybody’s so eager to please, eager to be seen in a nice light. I really try to break down that barrier; I try to say, “It’s ok if you don’t understand.” But once the bond has been created, they’re very giving actors. They really want to do the work for you. We’re having a lot of problems of funding in Australia at the moment, because unfortunately they don’t see the value of the art.
I’m very inspired by Sam Shepard, just because so much of his stuff comes from his own life and he’s so willing to put it out there in front of you. I’m a very big Ibsen fan. I love his play ‘An Enemy of the People’. My boss, Glen Hayden inspires me too. Thespo inspires me. To make a festival out of almost nothing is amazing. Basically anybody who has a passion for art inspires me.
I‘d absolutely love to train and perform here. I really want to perform at the Prithvi Theatre. I want that on my CV. It’s a brilliant space.
- as told to Aadya Shah
For Prithvi Theatre Notes, January 2012
Friday, January 13, 2012
Thespo
Prithvi Theatre was the confluence of artistry during the Thespo Festival from 13th to 18th December 2011. This year, as Thespo enters adolescence, there was a lot to look forward with a grand line up of plays, theatre workshops and band performances.
The venue was buzzing with activity and animation, some chatting away at the Prithvi Café, others darting back and forth across the venue. The Thespo team, consisting mainly of under-25 young men and women has done a great job in organizing this grand festival.
4 plays were handpicked out of a whopping 95 from seven cities across India. These plays plunder relevant and current social issues such as cancer, homosexuality, suicide, pregnancy, inter caste marriage and politics, seemingly grim topics with steady, unwavering smiles.
The Marathi plays were thoroughly enjoyable, harmonizing the serious with the comical, often involving making a decision that ends up being life altering.
‘Patient’ is a young man’s struggle against cancer during the 1970’s, a time when medical science hadn’t made much progress. The performance was ensconced with subtle yet powerful theatrics. As the young lead struggles to cope with the disease. A powerful performance and a powerful play.
December 15th saw the performance of ‘Ek Don Adich’ directed by Aniket Patil. Everybod’s got problems. Especially the young man who struggles to commit suicide at Koparkhairane platform in the dead of the night. Having missed his train to his heavenly abode through a series of interruptions, his frustration and anger is our source of mirth.
A blind man stumbles onto the platform, and consequently opens up his eyes to reason, resonating the play’s anthem ‘Any two incidents are co-related to each other’.
A deliberative play that scrutinizes chance vs. fate, coincidences vs. scripted destiny and slants a bit towards existentialist aspects, it’s definitely worth a watch.
‘Janhit Mein Jaari’ directed by Abhishek Dave and Chinmay R Kulkarni is a not mundane by any angle. It touches upon a miasma of social issues such as inter caste marriage, pregnancy, safe sex, politics and women’s rights which plays up the humour throughout the story.
21 year old Dilip discovers that his girlfriend 19 year old Mandakini, is pregnant. Dilip’s father in law, Patil, is a man with a political background advocates inter-caste marriages in the village. We observe how Dilip scrambles to save himself from this dire situation and how Patil tries to exploit Dilip for political profits. A charming little ditty, with a colorful cast of characters, it’s simultaneously enjoyable and very educational. The intermittent song and dance routines give a charming rustic feel to the play. The performances from all the actors was filled with gusto and…
The Thespo 13 Awards Night saw ‘Patient’ walk away with the awards for Outstanding Play, Production Design and Director. ‘Ek Don Adich’ grabbed the ‘New Writing’ award. ‘Patient’ and ‘Janhit Mein Jaari’ both tied for the ‘Outstanding Actor in a Supporting Role’ with Siddharth Mahashabde and Ashish Nasalapure receiving the awards respectively.
For Prithvi Theatre Notes, January 2012:
http://www.prithvitheatre.org/uploads/pdfs/PTNotes%20January%202012_1325153219.pdf
The venue was buzzing with activity and animation, some chatting away at the Prithvi Café, others darting back and forth across the venue. The Thespo team, consisting mainly of under-25 young men and women has done a great job in organizing this grand festival.
4 plays were handpicked out of a whopping 95 from seven cities across India. These plays plunder relevant and current social issues such as cancer, homosexuality, suicide, pregnancy, inter caste marriage and politics, seemingly grim topics with steady, unwavering smiles.
The Marathi plays were thoroughly enjoyable, harmonizing the serious with the comical, often involving making a decision that ends up being life altering.
‘Patient’ is a young man’s struggle against cancer during the 1970’s, a time when medical science hadn’t made much progress. The performance was ensconced with subtle yet powerful theatrics. As the young lead struggles to cope with the disease. A powerful performance and a powerful play.
December 15th saw the performance of ‘Ek Don Adich’ directed by Aniket Patil. Everybod’s got problems. Especially the young man who struggles to commit suicide at Koparkhairane platform in the dead of the night. Having missed his train to his heavenly abode through a series of interruptions, his frustration and anger is our source of mirth.
A blind man stumbles onto the platform, and consequently opens up his eyes to reason, resonating the play’s anthem ‘Any two incidents are co-related to each other’.
A deliberative play that scrutinizes chance vs. fate, coincidences vs. scripted destiny and slants a bit towards existentialist aspects, it’s definitely worth a watch.
‘Janhit Mein Jaari’ directed by Abhishek Dave and Chinmay R Kulkarni is a not mundane by any angle. It touches upon a miasma of social issues such as inter caste marriage, pregnancy, safe sex, politics and women’s rights which plays up the humour throughout the story.
21 year old Dilip discovers that his girlfriend 19 year old Mandakini, is pregnant. Dilip’s father in law, Patil, is a man with a political background advocates inter-caste marriages in the village. We observe how Dilip scrambles to save himself from this dire situation and how Patil tries to exploit Dilip for political profits. A charming little ditty, with a colorful cast of characters, it’s simultaneously enjoyable and very educational. The intermittent song and dance routines give a charming rustic feel to the play. The performances from all the actors was filled with gusto and…
The Thespo 13 Awards Night saw ‘Patient’ walk away with the awards for Outstanding Play, Production Design and Director. ‘Ek Don Adich’ grabbed the ‘New Writing’ award. ‘Patient’ and ‘Janhit Mein Jaari’ both tied for the ‘Outstanding Actor in a Supporting Role’ with Siddharth Mahashabde and Ashish Nasalapure receiving the awards respectively.
For Prithvi Theatre Notes, January 2012:
http://www.prithvitheatre.org/uploads/pdfs/PTNotes%20January%202012_1325153219.pdf
Film Reviews: 'Last Year in Marienbad' and 'Muriel'
Alain Resnais is one of the elements of the Rive Gauche or Left Bank which is associated with the French New Wave. The topography of his films is lined with habitual themes like memory, forgetfulness, nostalgia, illusion and a pre-occupation with the past.
His unconventional mode of filmmaking can be seen as simultaneously ingenious and irritating. The subject matter, on more than one occasion, never fails to baffle, perplex, confound and bewilder. He clearly isn’t a stickler for rules, with unpredictability in terms of story and editing being his strong suit. Two of his films, ‘Last Year in Marienbad’ and ‘Muriel or The Time of Return’ were both screened at Prithvi Theatre.
In a magisterial resort chateau at an undisclosed location, a man (Giorgio Albertazzi) and a woman (Delphine Seyrig) meet. The man is convinced that he’s met a woman the previous year, fallen in love with her and made plans to run away with her. The woman claims that they’ve never met and that she doesn’t remember any of it. A third man (Sacha Pitoëff), presumably the woman’s husband, is also makes his presence felt
So really, is he telling the truth? Or is she simply denying the affair? And is any of it real at all? Amidst a hazy storyline, we’re not given any concrete evidence to work with, all the while wondering along with the protagonists, what is real and what isn’t.
The man’s voiceover narration is in past tense as the scene unfurls before us in the present. Scenes leap from the present to the supposed past and back, staccato-like yet not without a lyrical quality. It’s successful in suggesting the disconnection and abstraction that pervade the people and the drowsy atmosphere in the film.
The camera work of Sacha Vierney is lustrous as it swimmingly sweeps down in black and white, with long tracking shots.
Majority of the film is blanketed by the plangent expanse of organs, the kind of dramatic music that works very well with a horror movie.
Having aged over forty years, the film that was once heralded as stupefying is now bordering on unfathomable and frustrating. And is this film simply a study in style and mastering the fine art of being ambiguous or a rendition of art way ahead of its time that’s simply aged?
‘Muriel or the Time of Return’ revisits the theme of war, after his Resnais’ first film, ‘Hiroshima, Mon Amour’.
We’re introduced to Helene (Delphine Seyrig), a middle-aged widow and antique saleswoman and her step- son Bernard (Jean-Baptiste Thiérrée) who live in the town of Boulogne-sur-Mer. Helene runs into her old love Alphonse (Jean-Pierre Kérien). As Helene is haunted by past experience with Alphonse and Bernard is haunted by his experiences from the war in Algiers, where he had partaken in the event of torturing and killing a girl.
Unlike his previous two cinematic operas, cinematography by Sacha Vierney foregoes black and white for colour which somehow doesn’t have the same effect as Resnais hoped it would. The film conducts itself in a linear manner, but is just as complex and not as bewildering as Marienbad.
Architecture is manipulated to make the presence of passing time known. Time is a stentorian presence that conjoins Marienbad and Muriel. In the former, there doesn’t seem to be a well-defined sense of time or place, whereas in the latter it is the opposite. However in Muriel, a personal love story between two people is juxtaposed against the effects of the repugnancy of war. It seems to inquire how a person can finally seek closure and move on from the past. The film also helped shed light on the Algerian War of Independence.
Dealing with recurring themes and motifs, you can say that he makes the same film over and over again. In a world where movies are told in a linear narrative, and have some amount of predictability, Resnais’ films may seem slightly corroded and weary to watch, yet undoubtedly each one has its subtle nuances, tones and artistic execution that make them memorable.
For Prithvi Theatre Notes, December 2011 :
http://www.prithvitheatre.org/uploads/pdfs/PTNotes_December_201_1322204635.pdf
His unconventional mode of filmmaking can be seen as simultaneously ingenious and irritating. The subject matter, on more than one occasion, never fails to baffle, perplex, confound and bewilder. He clearly isn’t a stickler for rules, with unpredictability in terms of story and editing being his strong suit. Two of his films, ‘Last Year in Marienbad’ and ‘Muriel or The Time of Return’ were both screened at Prithvi Theatre.
In a magisterial resort chateau at an undisclosed location, a man (Giorgio Albertazzi) and a woman (Delphine Seyrig) meet. The man is convinced that he’s met a woman the previous year, fallen in love with her and made plans to run away with her. The woman claims that they’ve never met and that she doesn’t remember any of it. A third man (Sacha Pitoëff), presumably the woman’s husband, is also makes his presence felt
So really, is he telling the truth? Or is she simply denying the affair? And is any of it real at all? Amidst a hazy storyline, we’re not given any concrete evidence to work with, all the while wondering along with the protagonists, what is real and what isn’t.
The man’s voiceover narration is in past tense as the scene unfurls before us in the present. Scenes leap from the present to the supposed past and back, staccato-like yet not without a lyrical quality. It’s successful in suggesting the disconnection and abstraction that pervade the people and the drowsy atmosphere in the film.
The camera work of Sacha Vierney is lustrous as it swimmingly sweeps down in black and white, with long tracking shots.
Majority of the film is blanketed by the plangent expanse of organs, the kind of dramatic music that works very well with a horror movie.
Having aged over forty years, the film that was once heralded as stupefying is now bordering on unfathomable and frustrating. And is this film simply a study in style and mastering the fine art of being ambiguous or a rendition of art way ahead of its time that’s simply aged?
‘Muriel or the Time of Return’ revisits the theme of war, after his Resnais’ first film, ‘Hiroshima, Mon Amour’.
We’re introduced to Helene (Delphine Seyrig), a middle-aged widow and antique saleswoman and her step- son Bernard (Jean-Baptiste Thiérrée) who live in the town of Boulogne-sur-Mer. Helene runs into her old love Alphonse (Jean-Pierre Kérien). As Helene is haunted by past experience with Alphonse and Bernard is haunted by his experiences from the war in Algiers, where he had partaken in the event of torturing and killing a girl.
Unlike his previous two cinematic operas, cinematography by Sacha Vierney foregoes black and white for colour which somehow doesn’t have the same effect as Resnais hoped it would. The film conducts itself in a linear manner, but is just as complex and not as bewildering as Marienbad.
Architecture is manipulated to make the presence of passing time known. Time is a stentorian presence that conjoins Marienbad and Muriel. In the former, there doesn’t seem to be a well-defined sense of time or place, whereas in the latter it is the opposite. However in Muriel, a personal love story between two people is juxtaposed against the effects of the repugnancy of war. It seems to inquire how a person can finally seek closure and move on from the past. The film also helped shed light on the Algerian War of Independence.
Dealing with recurring themes and motifs, you can say that he makes the same film over and over again. In a world where movies are told in a linear narrative, and have some amount of predictability, Resnais’ films may seem slightly corroded and weary to watch, yet undoubtedly each one has its subtle nuances, tones and artistic execution that make them memorable.
For Prithvi Theatre Notes, December 2011 :
http://www.prithvitheatre.org/uploads/pdfs/PTNotes_December_201_1322204635.pdf
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Heaps of Talent
It was with abundant ebullience that Imogen Heap took the stage at Blue Frog on 24th November.
She’s a very British and more electronically inclined Bjork who still manages to create an identity very much her own. Armed with a gossamer voice, three microphones including two on her wrists, a percussionist, a cellist and a battalion of instruments, she’s clearly the conductor and musician of her own orchestra, a one woman band of sorts. Certain elements in certain parts of her songs seem to recall the ethereal feel of Sigur Ros. Her usual delightful and quirky self, she infuses her set with loads of humor and charm. Known for her use of technology and innovative stagecraft, Heap's performance is a good example of live looping, a practice thats becoming increasingly frequent in music these days.
The stage definitely had a one-of-a-kind set up with Immi, the transparent piano, sitting bang in the centre of things.
Ashwin Srinivasan, the flutist, performed the opening set. It was definitely interesting but I quickly got impatient with his six song set. It would have been a lot more exciting if he was backed by a full fledged band. Rather, his flute proved a potent and subtle counterpoint on many of Heap’s songs.
The landscape of Heap's music is furnished with mellifluent and slightly odd ornamentations. For instance, her opening number ‘Walk’ sees her waving a washing machine tube in the air, creating a thunderous sound.
As she struck up the opening riff from the second song, the tweeful and upbeat ‘Goodnight and Go’, which happens to be one of my favorites, the crowd went hysterical. On starting the song, she began singing the second verse, laughed it off and started the song again, something that added to the song’s charm.
Ensuing songs included ‘Speeding Cars’, ‘Between Sheets’, ‘Canvas’ and ‘The Moment I Said It’ which were all good, emotionally charged sonic endeavors, especially ‘Between Sheets’ , a love song.
What’s special about her set is that instead of ploughing through song after song, a practice that can get increasingly noisy and claustrophobic, she outlined incidents that inspired songs, kept up a continuous dialogue with the audience including dividing the audience three ways for a three part harmony spot on ‘Just For Now’.
She proceeded to us about the origins of her song ‘First Train Home’. About three wine glasses were brought out after that, from which the emanating sounds were briskly recorded and looped along with the drums and the array mbira, and served as the plinth for her song, ‘First Train Home’.
A rare performance of ‘Breathe In’, her song with Frou Frou was lovely.
Her studio output may sound great but watching her mix, layer, loop, and oscillate her way through different instruments and vocal punctuations, sets her apart from other musicians.
She then debuted her Magical Music Gloves, a pair of black gloves with lights, which when moved a certain way, immediately recorded, looped and added effects, without her flitting from one end of the stage to another, an incredibly ‘hands-on’ approach to music leaving us ordinary mortals in awe. ‘Let Go’, another Frou Frou hit, was next on the list.
This was followed by a lovely rendition of ‘Tidal’, a song that starts out nonchalantly and progressively builds up and ends with her playing guitar on her keytar.
The penultimate piece was the goosebump-evoking, minimilistic ‘Hide and Seek’ consisted of her voice being vocoded to create harmonies.
The set’s denouement featured ‘Minds Without Fear’ a collaboration with Vishal-Shekhar on vocals and Karsh Kale on tabla, inspired by Rabindranath Tagore’s poem, a song whose composition was documented on the show ‘The Dewarists’.
Indian musical talent is still evolving, especially with the birth of shows like Coke Studio and The Dewarists doing their bit to inspire. However, after watching Imogen Heap’s theatrical performance, Indian urban musicians have still got a long way to go.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
French Essay for 'Des Mets et Des Mots'
This was the essay I'd sent for the essay competition organized by Alliance Francaise de Bombay last month, entitled "Des Mets et Des Mots". After having no internet access for almost a week, I finally checked my mail and was informed that I'd been one of the top three finalists for the entire competition. I didn't win yet it's most definitely a triumph considering the fact that I wrote and re-wrote it on the eve of my FC exam on 6th October. Yeah, I'll most probably flunk FC but all that hard work, back pain and blurred vision seems to have paid off.
Carpe diem! :)
LA REVOLUTION CULINAIRE
L'art de la cuisine est comme la création d'une peinture. Delicat et avec plein de couleurs. J'aime faire de cuire. Mais aussi j'aime beaucoup manger. Je crois un bon repas est une cacophonie des goûts qui danse avec harmonie. Un bon repas est une conversation contre le chef et le client. Je trouve le processus de cuisine très intéressant et très thérapeutique. J'ai l'habitude de regarder comment les chefs de cuisine comme Raymond Blanc démarche l'élaboration de la nourriture. Il est essentiel de faire cuire avec émotion, mais des compétences sont également nécessaire.
Le monde change a un rythme rapide et également la façon dont nous faisons cuire nos aliments. Soudain, tout le monde a commence d'examiner tous les aspects de la cuisine: les goûts, les textures la science et comment la qualité de vie a change par la qualité de nourriture. Stefan Gates, un écrivain, a visite les régions comme Afghanistan, Korea, Chernobyl, etc, et il a écrit de ses expériences avec les cuisines et la qualité de vie.
Bocuse d’Or, les jeux Olympiques culinaires est un concours de cuisine qui récompense le meilleur cuisinier.
Aujourd'hui il y a la gastronomie moléculaire. Essentiellement, elle est une moyen moderne et très créative de faire cuire. Les pionniers comme Nicholas Kurti, Pierre Gagnaire, Hervé This, Ferran Adria, Michel Roth, ils étudiaient la science de la processus de cuisson. Ils se sont détachent de les frontières de la cuisine.C'est un mélange de chimie, de physique et d'un amour pour la nourriture. Par example, Heston Blumenthal a prépare une glace avec liquid nitrogen. Ces moyens sont très difficile mais intéressant et diverse.
Mon aspect favori du bon repas est le dessert. Quand je visite un restaurant, je remarque toujours le dessert dans le menu. Le dessert est comme la fin de un opéra magnifique. J’adore chocolat. Je n’ oublirai pas l’ expérience de dessert a Shiro. C’etait incroyable! Trois types de gâteaux! J’aime faire du gâteau a l’orange avec chocolat et cupcakes au citron de temps en temps. Pas mal, non?
Je suis heureuse de voir qu' il y a plusieurs innovations dans l'art de la cuisson. Mais, la cuisine classique est aussi très importante. Elle est sans complication. La simplicité est belle.
Pour l'instant, la révolution continue.
Carpe diem! :)
LA REVOLUTION CULINAIRE
L'art de la cuisine est comme la création d'une peinture. Delicat et avec plein de couleurs. J'aime faire de cuire. Mais aussi j'aime beaucoup manger. Je crois un bon repas est une cacophonie des goûts qui danse avec harmonie. Un bon repas est une conversation contre le chef et le client. Je trouve le processus de cuisine très intéressant et très thérapeutique. J'ai l'habitude de regarder comment les chefs de cuisine comme Raymond Blanc démarche l'élaboration de la nourriture. Il est essentiel de faire cuire avec émotion, mais des compétences sont également nécessaire.
Le monde change a un rythme rapide et également la façon dont nous faisons cuire nos aliments. Soudain, tout le monde a commence d'examiner tous les aspects de la cuisine: les goûts, les textures la science et comment la qualité de vie a change par la qualité de nourriture. Stefan Gates, un écrivain, a visite les régions comme Afghanistan, Korea, Chernobyl, etc, et il a écrit de ses expériences avec les cuisines et la qualité de vie.
Bocuse d’Or, les jeux Olympiques culinaires est un concours de cuisine qui récompense le meilleur cuisinier.
Aujourd'hui il y a la gastronomie moléculaire. Essentiellement, elle est une moyen moderne et très créative de faire cuire. Les pionniers comme Nicholas Kurti, Pierre Gagnaire, Hervé This, Ferran Adria, Michel Roth, ils étudiaient la science de la processus de cuisson. Ils se sont détachent de les frontières de la cuisine.C'est un mélange de chimie, de physique et d'un amour pour la nourriture. Par example, Heston Blumenthal a prépare une glace avec liquid nitrogen. Ces moyens sont très difficile mais intéressant et diverse.
Mon aspect favori du bon repas est le dessert. Quand je visite un restaurant, je remarque toujours le dessert dans le menu. Le dessert est comme la fin de un opéra magnifique. J’adore chocolat. Je n’ oublirai pas l’ expérience de dessert a Shiro. C’etait incroyable! Trois types de gâteaux! J’aime faire du gâteau a l’orange avec chocolat et cupcakes au citron de temps en temps. Pas mal, non?
Je suis heureuse de voir qu' il y a plusieurs innovations dans l'art de la cuisson. Mais, la cuisine classique est aussi très importante. Elle est sans complication. La simplicité est belle.
Pour l'instant, la révolution continue.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Film Review: Midnight in Paris
You’ve got to give him credit. Woody Allen, the bespectacled septuagenarian conteur, has served up his latest, ‘Midnight in Paris’, an obeisance to art, literature, music and Paris. Allen gently plunders the human tendency of dissatisfaction with the present and yearning for the past, using la ville lumiere as a backdrop.
Hollywood hack screenwriter Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) is in Paris with his insipid, annoying fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams), unhappy with the way his successful career has impeded him from penning a real serious novel and disappointed by the way that life is moving in contemporary times. On a midnight walk in one of the charming serpentine Parisian lanes, he finds himself in the ‘Golden Age’, an era suffused with incandescent golden light, where he rubs shoulders with F.Scott Fitzgerald and his mercurial wife Zelda, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Salvador Dali, Picasso and others. He’s living his dream (and mine too). His love for the art, literature and music is frequently a source of mockery by Inez and her incessantly critical friend, Paul who scorns,” Nostalgia is denial - denial of the painful present.”
His ecstasy at inhabiting an ebullient world in the past is juxtaposed with his increasing unhappiness with the present, as he falls in love with Adriana (Marion Cotillard), Picasso’s mistress whose got Modigliani and Braque on her resume too and who, we find, feels just as unhappy in her own time period.
The film’s frames are teeming with artistic legends, someone of them played by present day stalwarts as well, a sort of a who’s- who list of famous people. Adrien Brody inhabits the skin of a rhinoceros obsessed Salvador Dali with ease, Kathy Bates ‘s rendition of Gertrude Stein is perfect, Allison Pill as the spunky Zelda is delightful and Ernest Hemingway played by Corey Stoll is sombre and reflective.
Owen Wilson is like a blonder and younger Wood Allen, replete with Allen-esque inflections, mannerisms. It works. He’s immensely likeable and charming and his zealousness is infectious. Martin Sheen as the “pedantic” Mr-Know –It-All Paul is very enjoyable to watch. Marion Cotillard is alluring and enchanting.
Cinematographer Darius Khondji has masterfully differentiated between the two worlds, by giving the past a soft, rich gilded texture, and the present a clear, pristine quality. Production designer Anne Seibel and costume designer Sonia Grande have succeeded in bringing the past to life.
Unlike some of his previous work, which employs the use of a protagonist with an ‘I hate life’ sign on his forehead (usually with Allen himself playing this character), this film is surprisingly cheerful.
Allen’s writing aims at light chuckles rather than anything more substantial and cerebral that he is known for.
We always feel a sense of discontent every now and then at living in the present, often going “Oh, how I wish” while craving to go back to relive the time passages already past. Gil echoes this sentiment with “That's what the present is. It's a little unsatisfying because life is unsatisfying”.
A tender, period(s) piece and clearly one of Woody Allen’s better films, Midnight in Paris has all the weight of a feather and the enchantment of a wistful daydream.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
This Charming Band
Because a 23 song album takes long to download, I resorted to listening to the dulcet tunes of The Smiths, on YouTube. I don’t know anyone who listens to them nowadays which is rather unfortunate because they were colossal in England during the 80’s and still hold a sublime spot in musical history. This charming band from Manchester, England has unleashed 5 albums and 14 hit singles, has been recognized as ‘the most important band in the last 50 years’ by NME and has inspired a barrage of artists. Yet, it’s not just the hype surrounding them that makes them fascinating. They’re the melodious rebels, the ones who blatantly refuse to conform, calling themselves ‘The Smiths’ for the simple reason that their contemporaries chose convoluted ones like Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. They were known to traipse onto stage to the classical tune of ‘Montagues and Capulets’ and were famed for having ingeniously welded heart-felt, reflective, humorous, often depressing lyrics that elucidate the carnage of life, together with sprightly, upbeat tunes and buoyant instrumentations. I like the fact that the cover art for their singles and albums never featured pictures of them, yet displayed portraits of others including Elvis.
Lead singer Morrissey’s voice and powerful lyrics, the jangly accent of Johnny Marr’s guitar, Mike Joyce’s drumming and Andy Rourke’s bass, simply, conspire to inspire.
Their first single ‘Hand in Glove’ illuminates the working class of the North with lines like ‘Though we may be hidden by rags/We’ll have something they’ll never have’ against a backdrop of sturdy and evocative music.
‘Panic on the streets of London/Panic on the streets of Birmingham’, sings Morrissey cheerfully on ‘Panic’, a little ditty with the intent to revolutionize. The line ‘Burn down the disco/Hang the blessed DJ/ because the music that they constantly play/It says nothing to me about my life’ melodically chides the commercial hit-makers of that time.
‘This Charming Man’ makes it a point to employ lines like ‘Punctured bicycle/ On a hillside desolate/ Will nature make a man of me yet?’ or ’I would go out tonight/But I haven’t got a stitch to wear’, language that has been rendered obsolete by up and coming songwriters. Their 1983 performance of the song on ‘Top of the Pops’ features Morrissey dangerously wielding a bouquet of gladioli flowers like an AK-47. Cool, eh?
‘Good times for a change/See the luck I’ve had can make a good man turn bad’ opens the number ‘Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want’. One minute and fifty-two seconds is awfully short for this charming melody. The loveliness of the song lies with the lyrics and with Morrissey’s voice which gives the song a slightly aged and weighty quality, as though a weather beaten old man was musing on his experiences of life. Yet it’s the youth that relates more to this song, as each ‘please’ conveys that sense of urgency, yearning and strength.
‘Girlfriend in a Coma’ elicits some chuckles with its dark and ironical humour and ‘There is a Light That Never Goes Out’ talks about how ‘heavenly’ and pleasurable it would be to die by a double decker bus.
The Smiths were, and still are, essentially the people’s band, making a point to highlighting issues like heartbreak, loneliness, self-pity, the pain of adolescence and Thatcherism. Being someone who sees adolescence as a painful way to judge whether or not you belong to the human race, their music is helpful in translating certain thoughts that would’ve crossed your mind at some point in life.
Lead singer Morrissey’s voice and powerful lyrics, the jangly accent of Johnny Marr’s guitar, Mike Joyce’s drumming and Andy Rourke’s bass, simply, conspire to inspire.
Their first single ‘Hand in Glove’ illuminates the working class of the North with lines like ‘Though we may be hidden by rags/We’ll have something they’ll never have’ against a backdrop of sturdy and evocative music.
‘Panic on the streets of London/Panic on the streets of Birmingham’, sings Morrissey cheerfully on ‘Panic’, a little ditty with the intent to revolutionize. The line ‘Burn down the disco/Hang the blessed DJ/ because the music that they constantly play/It says nothing to me about my life’ melodically chides the commercial hit-makers of that time.
‘This Charming Man’ makes it a point to employ lines like ‘Punctured bicycle/ On a hillside desolate/ Will nature make a man of me yet?’ or ’I would go out tonight/But I haven’t got a stitch to wear’, language that has been rendered obsolete by up and coming songwriters. Their 1983 performance of the song on ‘Top of the Pops’ features Morrissey dangerously wielding a bouquet of gladioli flowers like an AK-47. Cool, eh?
‘Good times for a change/See the luck I’ve had can make a good man turn bad’ opens the number ‘Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want’. One minute and fifty-two seconds is awfully short for this charming melody. The loveliness of the song lies with the lyrics and with Morrissey’s voice which gives the song a slightly aged and weighty quality, as though a weather beaten old man was musing on his experiences of life. Yet it’s the youth that relates more to this song, as each ‘please’ conveys that sense of urgency, yearning and strength.
‘Girlfriend in a Coma’ elicits some chuckles with its dark and ironical humour and ‘There is a Light That Never Goes Out’ talks about how ‘heavenly’ and pleasurable it would be to die by a double decker bus.
The Smiths were, and still are, essentially the people’s band, making a point to highlighting issues like heartbreak, loneliness, self-pity, the pain of adolescence and Thatcherism. Being someone who sees adolescence as a painful way to judge whether or not you belong to the human race, their music is helpful in translating certain thoughts that would’ve crossed your mind at some point in life.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Film Review: Hiroshima, Mon Amour
‘Hiroshima, Mon Amour’ is essentially a film of parallels: the desire to forget against the urge to remember, the pain of war against the ache of love, the personal war against the war waging outside, the dissimilarity and similarity of the past and the present, the joint pleasure and pain of love, the effects of the same war in two different parts of the world. This film formed an integral part of the French New Wave, moving away from the classical style of filmmaking.
Elle (Emmanuelle Riva), a French actress in Hiroshima for a film on peace, and Lui (Eiji Okada), a Japanese architect begin an explosive love affair that gets progressively contemplative as they examine the ripples created by the Hiroshima bombing and the resulting death and loss. Despite both of them being married, they embark on this affair where they start falling in love with each other.
Elle gradually reveals her painful past, when her first love was claimed by the World War, in France. As she feels the joy and pleasure of a new relationship, she continues to be haunted by her grisly experience and social ostracism in Nevers, France and is torn between the act of remembering and the inevitability of oblivion.
French director Alain Resnais and screenwriter Marguerite Duras have engineered a deliberative tale told through a tapestry of images, traipsing between the past and the present to convey the sense of loss and the shifting time passages in a beautiful and innovative way. A series of documentary and news reel footage establishes the roles of memory and oblivion. The film moves at a slow pace and could have been a little shorter, yet with the sheer artistic rendering and the sleek story-telling, I wouldn’t change a thing.
Cinematography by Sacha Vierney is immaculate in black and white with smooth camera movements, leading us back and forth into time. Editing is splendid as it harnesses the avant-garde style. The musical score by Georges Delerue and Giovanni Fusco is evocative.
The performances of both Emmanuelle Riva and Eiji Okada are admirable, laced with subtlety, depth and just the right amount of emotion.
It’s interesting to note that their names are simply ‘Elle’ and ‘Lui’ which is French for ‘She’ and ‘Him’, since it exhibits something that is extremely personal and yet something that can happen to anyone at anytime.
“Why deny the obvious necessity of remembering?”, asks Elle. A statement like that is succinct in making its point, yet never provides any answers. The importance attached to reminiscences is a powerful but not overpowering presence in the film. We want to hold onto memories, no matter how tragic and painful, but alas, as life would have it, forgetting is inevitable. Tragedy is something that we all strive to forget yet it is imperative to remember too.
This film, despite being made in 1959, is very much relevant today, reminding us about the ghastly whirlpool that is war. We’re hard pressed to find a film like this nowadays, an artistic platter that can be both delectable and contemplative.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Sequelism
Originality seems to have been declared an endangered species. Alas, about 70 percent of the movies released this year have a positive integer as its suffix. Summer seems to be the ideal time to unleash these harmless hi jinks to a key demographic of hungry, ennui ridden kids and adults alike. But what I fear most about the unhealthy practice of Sequelism is that it’s rendering true cinema obsolete. With movies that are decked up with pretty people and scant storylines, who’s gonna complain? That’s what audiences what, isn’t it?
For instance, the experience of sitting through The Hangover 2 was akin to having a bad bhel puri at Juhu Beach. It’s merely a hangover of the very first Hangover, again a film too banal to even worth talking about. Films like these manoeuvre their way to the audience under the guise of looking like a funky play on concepts like smartness and fun. However, it’s just another hackneyed yarn coughed up to sell, sell and sell. Frankly I’m weary of looking at the newspaper and seeing a dissonant symphony of films running in theatres.
It’s astonishing just how prosaic a film can get, only to observe that it makes an equally dire film look rather appetizing. This year, The Hangover 2 made Transformers look like Citizen Kane.
In another case, James Bond seems to be diagnosed with a Benjamin Button complex: with each successive movie, Bond becomes younger (and blonder). With franchises like X-Men, Spider-Man, Superman and Batman, the names alone manage to entice congregations to theatre halls.
Once upon a time Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings and Narnia were strictly literal but now have superb on-screen potential. Don’t even get me started on that insipid Twilight series. Films like these roam the district of ‘been-there-done-that’, bringing nothing new to the table, yet being marketed to give the impression otherwise.
Whatever happened to quality cinema built with a robust framework, complex characters, palatable storylines, breath-taking cinematography and inventive surge of storytelling? And what’s with the obsession for 3-D? Just because ‘Avatar’ did extremely well doesn’t make it appropriate or even sane to cash in on the epidemic. A remake of The Great Gatsby in 3-D is scheduled for release next year. I mean, The Great Gatsby and 3-D in the same sentence doesn’t sound particularly savoury. However people might be curious enough to actually check what all the noise is about. See, that’s what I’m talking about. Curiosity itself proves a noxious weapon.
‘Inception’, however, is a frighteningly brilliant display of creativity, which shows that stories like this haven’t died out so far. But how many more of these ordeals will we have to sift through to get a film that shows more technique than trite? I guess Sequelism derives its MO from everyday life. Not unlike the experience of going to the same restaurant every week and ordering the same dish every single time or asking for a second round of blueberry cheesecake. I guess art imitates life.
I don’t suppose Hollywood studios pay much attention to pleas like mine. What matters most to them is the ‘dough’, not the depth.
For instance, the experience of sitting through The Hangover 2 was akin to having a bad bhel puri at Juhu Beach. It’s merely a hangover of the very first Hangover, again a film too banal to even worth talking about. Films like these manoeuvre their way to the audience under the guise of looking like a funky play on concepts like smartness and fun. However, it’s just another hackneyed yarn coughed up to sell, sell and sell. Frankly I’m weary of looking at the newspaper and seeing a dissonant symphony of films running in theatres.
It’s astonishing just how prosaic a film can get, only to observe that it makes an equally dire film look rather appetizing. This year, The Hangover 2 made Transformers look like Citizen Kane.
In another case, James Bond seems to be diagnosed with a Benjamin Button complex: with each successive movie, Bond becomes younger (and blonder). With franchises like X-Men, Spider-Man, Superman and Batman, the names alone manage to entice congregations to theatre halls.
Once upon a time Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings and Narnia were strictly literal but now have superb on-screen potential. Don’t even get me started on that insipid Twilight series. Films like these roam the district of ‘been-there-done-that’, bringing nothing new to the table, yet being marketed to give the impression otherwise.
Whatever happened to quality cinema built with a robust framework, complex characters, palatable storylines, breath-taking cinematography and inventive surge of storytelling? And what’s with the obsession for 3-D? Just because ‘Avatar’ did extremely well doesn’t make it appropriate or even sane to cash in on the epidemic. A remake of The Great Gatsby in 3-D is scheduled for release next year. I mean, The Great Gatsby and 3-D in the same sentence doesn’t sound particularly savoury. However people might be curious enough to actually check what all the noise is about. See, that’s what I’m talking about. Curiosity itself proves a noxious weapon.
‘Inception’, however, is a frighteningly brilliant display of creativity, which shows that stories like this haven’t died out so far. But how many more of these ordeals will we have to sift through to get a film that shows more technique than trite? I guess Sequelism derives its MO from everyday life. Not unlike the experience of going to the same restaurant every week and ordering the same dish every single time or asking for a second round of blueberry cheesecake. I guess art imitates life.
I don’t suppose Hollywood studios pay much attention to pleas like mine. What matters most to them is the ‘dough’, not the depth.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
It's Published!!
My review of Arna's Children in Prithvi Theatre Notes for August 2011:
http://www.prithvitheatre.org/uploads/pdfs/PTNotes_Aug_2011_for_1311686628.pdf
http://www.prithvitheatre.org/uploads/pdfs/PTNotes_Aug_2011_for_1311686628.pdf
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Potter Has Left The Building
The end is not near. It’s here. The last of the Harry Potter films, ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2’, is just out. In the 21st Century, Harry Potter is an ubiquitous phenomenon. There’s no running away from it, it’s going to catch up with you sooner or later. Not unlike death. Or taxes.
I’m a self-confessed ‘Harry Krishna’. Or at least I used to be in my youth. The last remaining dregs of the hysteria are still within me, but they’ve been distilled by age, experience and existentialism. It has played a massive part of my childhood. Me, along with the other million apoplectics out there in the world, have grown up watching Harry grow up. The series played an integral part of my childhood, spurring me on to read so many other books and giving me a very wide vocabulary of words to use in everyday life.
I have a tremendous amount of respect for these books and their author J .K. Rowling. She has so brilliantly managed to conjure a believable and alluring world, right out of thin air. Her prose is a whirlicote of eloquence, moving at a steady pace and beckoning us into a realm tres magicale. She has taken elements and symbols from ancient mythologies, myths, legends, put her own contemporary spin on it and engineered something that is the epitome of originality. The characters seem more real to me than real-life people themselves. I preferred getting lost in their trials rather than my own. The saddest bit was when Harry lost Sirius Black and Dumbledore, people who were both very close to him. An enjoyable bit was when Fred and George Weasley, the adorably gleeful pranksters, abandoned Hogwarts with a bang by conducting a mutiny against Professor Umbridge by a shower of fireworks. The books filter most of the characters into two concrete groups: good or evil with very little grey area in between. Apart from the world’s favourite trio, my favourite character is Luna Lovegood the quirky-yet-lovable, peculiar-yet-trustworthy friend of Harry’s. By the way, she gave a killer commentary on a Quidditch match at one point.
J. K. Rowling has managed yet another feat. The series and the way she’s choreographed it cannot really be compared to any other piece of work. Instead numerous works have been compared to Harry Potter itself. A massive pop culture phenomenon, not unbeknownst to majority of the world. Believe it or not, Quidditch has actually become a sport. Yes, with ‘flying’ broomsticks et al. The series has given ‘playing dress-up’ a whole new meaning. Kids and adults, people of all ages alike, flock to theatres and bookstores at the onset of a brand new release dressed as a Dumbledore or a Hermione or a Death Eater or a Dementor. Nothing says ‘Expelliarmus!’ like the dulcet tunes of Potter-inspired mayhem. Bands like Harry and The Potters, Draco and The Malfoys, The Whomping Willow… They’ve shaped up the wizard rock movement. They’re pretty good, actually.
Oh, and the films. Beginning from 2001, the films made an impact on the people who watched it. They were honoured with an award for Outstanding Contribution to Cinema at the 2011 BAFTA Awards. They help us to visualize the landscape of say, Hogwarts or the Ministry of Magic, given faces to much loved or despised characters and have thrilled and charmed audiences. It’s obvious the films have their share of deflections and discrepancies. But then again, the books have another kind of depth and intricacy altogether. I mean, the books are always better. Out of all the films I’ve seen (not counting the last two), I’d have to go with The Prisoner of Azkaban as my favourite. There’s a certain artistic flow to the film which the others are lacking in. Great cinematography of Michael Seresin and a strong story.
There’s a tie between the weakest of the films: Chamber of Secrets and the Order of the Phoenix. Reasons: Shoddy editing (the latter more than the former), poor storytelling with unsatisfactory acting where the actors resembled wind-up toys, vacantly and stiffly spouting dialogue.
The theme park at Universal Studios has, well, everything for the quintessential PottHead. Rides, Sweets from Bertie Botts, the Three Boomsticks signature drink Butterbeer and wands for 65 dollars apiece (highway robbery, if you ask me)…
So there’s goes my apotheosis for the Harry Potter series. In all honesty, there really may not be another Harry Potter. It may occur once in a while every now and then, much akin to a Halley’s Comet sighting. But that’s what makes it so special. But once I go to the theatre and see it, I’ll forever be in mourning.
I’m a self-confessed ‘Harry Krishna’. Or at least I used to be in my youth. The last remaining dregs of the hysteria are still within me, but they’ve been distilled by age, experience and existentialism. It has played a massive part of my childhood. Me, along with the other million apoplectics out there in the world, have grown up watching Harry grow up. The series played an integral part of my childhood, spurring me on to read so many other books and giving me a very wide vocabulary of words to use in everyday life.
I have a tremendous amount of respect for these books and their author J .K. Rowling. She has so brilliantly managed to conjure a believable and alluring world, right out of thin air. Her prose is a whirlicote of eloquence, moving at a steady pace and beckoning us into a realm tres magicale. She has taken elements and symbols from ancient mythologies, myths, legends, put her own contemporary spin on it and engineered something that is the epitome of originality. The characters seem more real to me than real-life people themselves. I preferred getting lost in their trials rather than my own. The saddest bit was when Harry lost Sirius Black and Dumbledore, people who were both very close to him. An enjoyable bit was when Fred and George Weasley, the adorably gleeful pranksters, abandoned Hogwarts with a bang by conducting a mutiny against Professor Umbridge by a shower of fireworks. The books filter most of the characters into two concrete groups: good or evil with very little grey area in between. Apart from the world’s favourite trio, my favourite character is Luna Lovegood the quirky-yet-lovable, peculiar-yet-trustworthy friend of Harry’s. By the way, she gave a killer commentary on a Quidditch match at one point.
J. K. Rowling has managed yet another feat. The series and the way she’s choreographed it cannot really be compared to any other piece of work. Instead numerous works have been compared to Harry Potter itself. A massive pop culture phenomenon, not unbeknownst to majority of the world. Believe it or not, Quidditch has actually become a sport. Yes, with ‘flying’ broomsticks et al. The series has given ‘playing dress-up’ a whole new meaning. Kids and adults, people of all ages alike, flock to theatres and bookstores at the onset of a brand new release dressed as a Dumbledore or a Hermione or a Death Eater or a Dementor. Nothing says ‘Expelliarmus!’ like the dulcet tunes of Potter-inspired mayhem. Bands like Harry and The Potters, Draco and The Malfoys, The Whomping Willow… They’ve shaped up the wizard rock movement. They’re pretty good, actually.
Oh, and the films. Beginning from 2001, the films made an impact on the people who watched it. They were honoured with an award for Outstanding Contribution to Cinema at the 2011 BAFTA Awards. They help us to visualize the landscape of say, Hogwarts or the Ministry of Magic, given faces to much loved or despised characters and have thrilled and charmed audiences. It’s obvious the films have their share of deflections and discrepancies. But then again, the books have another kind of depth and intricacy altogether. I mean, the books are always better. Out of all the films I’ve seen (not counting the last two), I’d have to go with The Prisoner of Azkaban as my favourite. There’s a certain artistic flow to the film which the others are lacking in. Great cinematography of Michael Seresin and a strong story.
There’s a tie between the weakest of the films: Chamber of Secrets and the Order of the Phoenix. Reasons: Shoddy editing (the latter more than the former), poor storytelling with unsatisfactory acting where the actors resembled wind-up toys, vacantly and stiffly spouting dialogue.
The theme park at Universal Studios has, well, everything for the quintessential PottHead. Rides, Sweets from Bertie Botts, the Three Boomsticks signature drink Butterbeer and wands for 65 dollars apiece (highway robbery, if you ask me)…
So there’s goes my apotheosis for the Harry Potter series. In all honesty, there really may not be another Harry Potter. It may occur once in a while every now and then, much akin to a Halley’s Comet sighting. But that’s what makes it so special. But once I go to the theatre and see it, I’ll forever be in mourning.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Film review : Arna's Children
A car ambles its way through a street flanked by protesters at an Israeli Highway checkpoint. We catch sight of an old woman, one of the louder protesters, yelling “You’re the face of the occupation!” Meet Arna Mer Khamis, a woman elderly in appearance but young and feisty in demeanour, in spite of suffering from cancer. She, a Zionist, married a Palestinian Arab and settled on the West Bank. She spent majority of her life trying to better the education system, after the schools were closed down by the Israeli occupation.
She was awarded the Right Livelihood Award, the Swedish parliament’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize. She used the prize money to open the Freedom Theatre where she gave sanctuary to a handful of pre-adolescent kids. Here, in Jenin, death, destruction and paranoia are considered mundane.
The theatre group acted as a canvas upon which the children could voice and vent their angst, frustration and fear into better outlets. Arna’s son Juliano Mer Khamis filmed footage of the theatre group and served as co- director for this documentary along with Danielle Danielle of the Netherlands. Through Juliano’s on screen and off screen presence, we get well-acquainted with brothers Youssef and Nidal and their friend Ashraf, Ala, Zakaria and Daoud as they put on plays, put forth their opinions and appreciate Arna’s hard work . However, there isn’t a much coveted happy ending to this tale.
After Juliano returned to Jenin, years after his mother’s death, he slowly began tracking down each of Arna’s Children. The theatre had already been destroyed by then. It turns out that most of the kids, now grown-up, went on to lead a life of militancy and violence, taking cue from their surroundings.
“Acting is like throwing a Molotov cocktail,” says Youssef. Youssef went on to join the Islamic Jihad and was killed along with Nidal. We first see Ala staring bleakly into the sunlight as he sits on the rubble of his house which was demolished by Israeli forces. Ala grows up to become the leader of the Aqsa Brigades in Jenin. On 26th November 2002, he was killed. Just two weeks after the birth of his son.
With a subject as delicate and intricate as the calamitous situation on the West Bank, the documentary is handled intelligently. With great editing, the film roams to and fro from the past and present, giving the contrast between childhood and adulthood. Juliano silently tries to fathom what led these talented kids to join in on the brutality. It’s a sheer vestige of a debauched system where war is a contagious disease. In a war-torn region, catharsis was gained through performance art. Later on, the same war was waged against war, only this time, through death. But, can art really sustain itself against violence and politics? Can art really be the form of salvation that can combat the inertia and hopelessness of war?
On 4th April 2011, Juliano was shot dead outside the theatre. An unlawful murder of a true artist and an attempt to denigrate art and any form rebellion.
‘Arna’s Children’ serves as a canticle sung fearlessly, denouncing war and its loathsome implications and upholding art as a form of sublimation and tranquillity.
She was awarded the Right Livelihood Award, the Swedish parliament’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize. She used the prize money to open the Freedom Theatre where she gave sanctuary to a handful of pre-adolescent kids. Here, in Jenin, death, destruction and paranoia are considered mundane.
The theatre group acted as a canvas upon which the children could voice and vent their angst, frustration and fear into better outlets. Arna’s son Juliano Mer Khamis filmed footage of the theatre group and served as co- director for this documentary along with Danielle Danielle of the Netherlands. Through Juliano’s on screen and off screen presence, we get well-acquainted with brothers Youssef and Nidal and their friend Ashraf, Ala, Zakaria and Daoud as they put on plays, put forth their opinions and appreciate Arna’s hard work . However, there isn’t a much coveted happy ending to this tale.
After Juliano returned to Jenin, years after his mother’s death, he slowly began tracking down each of Arna’s Children. The theatre had already been destroyed by then. It turns out that most of the kids, now grown-up, went on to lead a life of militancy and violence, taking cue from their surroundings.
“Acting is like throwing a Molotov cocktail,” says Youssef. Youssef went on to join the Islamic Jihad and was killed along with Nidal. We first see Ala staring bleakly into the sunlight as he sits on the rubble of his house which was demolished by Israeli forces. Ala grows up to become the leader of the Aqsa Brigades in Jenin. On 26th November 2002, he was killed. Just two weeks after the birth of his son.
With a subject as delicate and intricate as the calamitous situation on the West Bank, the documentary is handled intelligently. With great editing, the film roams to and fro from the past and present, giving the contrast between childhood and adulthood. Juliano silently tries to fathom what led these talented kids to join in on the brutality. It’s a sheer vestige of a debauched system where war is a contagious disease. In a war-torn region, catharsis was gained through performance art. Later on, the same war was waged against war, only this time, through death. But, can art really sustain itself against violence and politics? Can art really be the form of salvation that can combat the inertia and hopelessness of war?
On 4th April 2011, Juliano was shot dead outside the theatre. An unlawful murder of a true artist and an attempt to denigrate art and any form rebellion.
‘Arna’s Children’ serves as a canticle sung fearlessly, denouncing war and its loathsome implications and upholding art as a form of sublimation and tranquillity.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Murakami and Me
Reading a novel by Haruki Murakami is like embarking on a serpentine path through a dense forest where unpredictability, uncertainty and vivid imagination conspire to keep your eyes glued right till the end. His novels are largely surreal, to the point of being almost life-like, creating a world where reality and illusion sit comfortably, and it’s hard to tell the difference between the two. Turning the page becomes an involuntary reflex, as you examine each subtlety and nuance of the imperial scuplture he’s carved out.
The trademark Murakami protagonist is the quiet outsider or the Solitary Someone. He is someone who is content with spending time with himself and not too contented with his job, someone who’s intelligent, knows right from wrong, keeps his nose clean, has a real well honed taste in music and literature, someone who silently tries to understand life and yet finds himself in the midst of peculiar circumstances. While reading his books, you begin to see Murakami’s qualities in the protagonist and the protagonist in Murakami himself.
Music plays a vital role in his novels. ‘Norwegian Wood’, the novel that has been attributed to giving him awe-inspiring fame in Japan and all over the world, is named after The Beatles song. ‘Kafka On The Shore’ is a song featured in the novel, written by one of the characters. There’s frequent mention of Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Charlie Parker, Radiohead, Talking Heads… Music seems to symbolize his third lung in his novels. Murakami himself is a massive music buff, and has been known to expand his record collection, which is more than 7, 000.
He may write about life in Japan, but his prose is littered with all sorts of pop culture references from Johnnie Walker to Colonel Sanders to Dunkin Donuts to the Dustin Hoffman starrer The Graduate to Humphrey Bogart, mirroring the real world where everything is commercialized and stamped with a brand name.
I just love the way he writes in minimalist, uncluttered prose bringing clear-cut ideas to life through a complex and gripping plot. Very reminiscent of the prose of Franz Kafka and Albert Camus. When it comes to his imagination and story-telling ability, he is not parsimonious by any angle. He doesn’t hesitate in the letting his imagination roam wild around the country side. This is, in fact, what makes his books so enjoyable.
Murakami has the unerring ability to make miniscule observations regarding people and their surroundings, translating the very mundane, very beautifully on paper. In ‘Kafka on the Shore’, when Kafka enters the Komura Library, he describes the books as: ‘When I open them, most of the books have a smell of an earlier time leaking out from between their pages - a special odour of the knowledge and emotions that for ages have been calmly resting between the covers.’
Probably my favourite Murakami novel is Kafka On The Shore, released in 2005. The title itself alludes to a painting, a song and the titular character.
The two prominent storylines feature Kafka Tamura, a 15 year old who runs away from home under a dark Oedipal curse prophesized by his father, and Nakata, a mentally defective pensioner who can talk to cats. Murakami deftly steers the ship with a steady, euphonious pace, through a vast, deep and luscious sea filled with colourful characters, pop-culture references, Japanese and Greek mythology and folklore, music, talking cats, unusual weather forecasts, a mysterious forest which acts a ripple between life and death and a murder mystery which provides a cacophony of metaphors and symbolism. Once he reaches the shore, you’re left with an emotionally draining experience, where you’re fully aware of what happened and yet you can’t be entirely sure.
What really amazes me is that the people in his novels are always extremely honest , frank and faithful. As a result, lying and dishonesty play truant in his novels. In this particular one, a trans-gendered haemophiliac named Oshima and titular character Kafka exchange a great deal of knowledge as they dissect the technical aspects of Schubert’s sonatas and the philosophy behind Franz Kafka’s stories. A coffee shop owner spouts knowledge regarding Beethoven’s The Archduke Trio. They’re all incredibly experienced and well-informed, knowing so much about so many things. Even Nakata who can’t read or write, has his moments of being profound. He hasn’t any memories and dwells primarily in the present. Talking to cats and predicting the weather has made him extraordinary, though he may not be the brightest.
And no one’s sketched out to be mean and unpleasant. Everyone is neat, tidy, pleasant and good like trim, precise, unadulterated symmetry in geometrical sums. The characters understand each other well too. There’s no confusion faced by the protagonist regarding the kind of people he is faced with. Rather he is puzzled by the odd and outlandish circumstances that he’s found himself in the midst of. The characters are also carried downstream by fate. Nakata befriends Hoshino, the truck driver at precisely the right time. Hoshino bumps into Colonel Sanders through perfectly-timed happenstance. Kafka’s and Nakata’s paths get intertwined and braided through the course of the story but they never fully form a confluence. It was imperative that they cross paths with Miss Saeki since she seemed to be at the heart of everything, in the end. So he’s created a world that could have a chance of existing and yet it doesn’t.
There is a general feeling of timelessness is the book. There doesn’t seem to be a definite and concrete understanding of past, present and future. Probably one of the most ingenious twists of the novel was when I realised that Kafka and Nakata just might be part of the same person. Two completely separate people on two extremely different paths, who just happen to be each other’s alter egos. Miss Saeki seems to have her alter ego too: her 15 year old ghost who visits Kafka at night.
Finishing the novel is a bittersweet experience. Nothing really gets resolved. Questions are persistent in remaining unanswered. I’ve heard that reading it a second time helps, but after finishing it for the first time, I didn’t have the will to stomach another read of the 49 chapters. It can get twisted, winded, obscure and thorny at times but what keeps you going is your own curiosity of what’s going to happen next. And there’s no surefire way predicting what’s going to happen in his novels, let alone the next page. It seems to be the only plausible explanation for me devouring his books like cupcakes.
Really, Haruki Murakami is essentially an anomalous writer, fashioning each book into an enigmatic loure that leaves you confused, spell-bound and amazed. Someone please give the dude a Nobel!
The trademark Murakami protagonist is the quiet outsider or the Solitary Someone. He is someone who is content with spending time with himself and not too contented with his job, someone who’s intelligent, knows right from wrong, keeps his nose clean, has a real well honed taste in music and literature, someone who silently tries to understand life and yet finds himself in the midst of peculiar circumstances. While reading his books, you begin to see Murakami’s qualities in the protagonist and the protagonist in Murakami himself.
Music plays a vital role in his novels. ‘Norwegian Wood’, the novel that has been attributed to giving him awe-inspiring fame in Japan and all over the world, is named after The Beatles song. ‘Kafka On The Shore’ is a song featured in the novel, written by one of the characters. There’s frequent mention of Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Charlie Parker, Radiohead, Talking Heads… Music seems to symbolize his third lung in his novels. Murakami himself is a massive music buff, and has been known to expand his record collection, which is more than 7, 000.
He may write about life in Japan, but his prose is littered with all sorts of pop culture references from Johnnie Walker to Colonel Sanders to Dunkin Donuts to the Dustin Hoffman starrer The Graduate to Humphrey Bogart, mirroring the real world where everything is commercialized and stamped with a brand name.
I just love the way he writes in minimalist, uncluttered prose bringing clear-cut ideas to life through a complex and gripping plot. Very reminiscent of the prose of Franz Kafka and Albert Camus. When it comes to his imagination and story-telling ability, he is not parsimonious by any angle. He doesn’t hesitate in the letting his imagination roam wild around the country side. This is, in fact, what makes his books so enjoyable.
Murakami has the unerring ability to make miniscule observations regarding people and their surroundings, translating the very mundane, very beautifully on paper. In ‘Kafka on the Shore’, when Kafka enters the Komura Library, he describes the books as: ‘When I open them, most of the books have a smell of an earlier time leaking out from between their pages - a special odour of the knowledge and emotions that for ages have been calmly resting between the covers.’
Probably my favourite Murakami novel is Kafka On The Shore, released in 2005. The title itself alludes to a painting, a song and the titular character.
The two prominent storylines feature Kafka Tamura, a 15 year old who runs away from home under a dark Oedipal curse prophesized by his father, and Nakata, a mentally defective pensioner who can talk to cats. Murakami deftly steers the ship with a steady, euphonious pace, through a vast, deep and luscious sea filled with colourful characters, pop-culture references, Japanese and Greek mythology and folklore, music, talking cats, unusual weather forecasts, a mysterious forest which acts a ripple between life and death and a murder mystery which provides a cacophony of metaphors and symbolism. Once he reaches the shore, you’re left with an emotionally draining experience, where you’re fully aware of what happened and yet you can’t be entirely sure.
What really amazes me is that the people in his novels are always extremely honest , frank and faithful. As a result, lying and dishonesty play truant in his novels. In this particular one, a trans-gendered haemophiliac named Oshima and titular character Kafka exchange a great deal of knowledge as they dissect the technical aspects of Schubert’s sonatas and the philosophy behind Franz Kafka’s stories. A coffee shop owner spouts knowledge regarding Beethoven’s The Archduke Trio. They’re all incredibly experienced and well-informed, knowing so much about so many things. Even Nakata who can’t read or write, has his moments of being profound. He hasn’t any memories and dwells primarily in the present. Talking to cats and predicting the weather has made him extraordinary, though he may not be the brightest.
And no one’s sketched out to be mean and unpleasant. Everyone is neat, tidy, pleasant and good like trim, precise, unadulterated symmetry in geometrical sums. The characters understand each other well too. There’s no confusion faced by the protagonist regarding the kind of people he is faced with. Rather he is puzzled by the odd and outlandish circumstances that he’s found himself in the midst of. The characters are also carried downstream by fate. Nakata befriends Hoshino, the truck driver at precisely the right time. Hoshino bumps into Colonel Sanders through perfectly-timed happenstance. Kafka’s and Nakata’s paths get intertwined and braided through the course of the story but they never fully form a confluence. It was imperative that they cross paths with Miss Saeki since she seemed to be at the heart of everything, in the end. So he’s created a world that could have a chance of existing and yet it doesn’t.
There is a general feeling of timelessness is the book. There doesn’t seem to be a definite and concrete understanding of past, present and future. Probably one of the most ingenious twists of the novel was when I realised that Kafka and Nakata just might be part of the same person. Two completely separate people on two extremely different paths, who just happen to be each other’s alter egos. Miss Saeki seems to have her alter ego too: her 15 year old ghost who visits Kafka at night.
Finishing the novel is a bittersweet experience. Nothing really gets resolved. Questions are persistent in remaining unanswered. I’ve heard that reading it a second time helps, but after finishing it for the first time, I didn’t have the will to stomach another read of the 49 chapters. It can get twisted, winded, obscure and thorny at times but what keeps you going is your own curiosity of what’s going to happen next. And there’s no surefire way predicting what’s going to happen in his novels, let alone the next page. It seems to be the only plausible explanation for me devouring his books like cupcakes.
Really, Haruki Murakami is essentially an anomalous writer, fashioning each book into an enigmatic loure that leaves you confused, spell-bound and amazed. Someone please give the dude a Nobel!
Friday, May 27, 2011
The Anti-Hero
These years, are the years of the Anti-Hero. The anti-hero in literature and film is someone who has a dark and dusky personality, always striving for imperfection. Because perfection, especially of the spotless, irritating kind, no longer appeals to everyone. In short, we want flaws.
Flaws are good. Flaws are interesting. Flaws heighten the interest and curiosity of the viewers and humanize the individual. Audiences are eager to see quirks, imperfections, deficiencies, blemishes and limitations… Anything to spice up the characters otherwise immaculate image and make them seem more real and fleshy. Characters, big or small, in literature or film, are merely sketched out, giving us an idea about their appearance and their demeanor. But their words and actions and the resulting consequences reveal their true personalities and idiosyncrasies and take the story further.
One of the biggest examples being Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes.
Holmes is crime-fiction’s favourite detective. He is famous for his frosty demeanor, arrogance, indifference to friendship or any interpersonal relationships, occasional drug-use, resolution to bend or break the law during a pending investigation coupled with unerring precision and vivid attention to miniscule details that’d be missed by ordinary mortals, an ability to discern order in chaos, and application of induction as logical reasoning which he mistakenly calls ’deduction’ (It took me two painful years of learning Logic at college to fully understand what that really was).
In recent times, Holmes was portrayed by Robert Downey Jr. in Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes, where he is exhibited as a very sarcastic 19th Century James Bond. Another noteworthy portrayal is by Benedict Cumberbatch (Doesn’t he have the coolest name?) in BBC series ‘Sherlock’, a recounting of Holmes cases in modern-day London. No offence to Mr. Downey Jr, but I do prefer Cumberbatch’s performance. Though both have been written in a way that they’ve maintained an admirable fidelity to the original.
Imagine Holmes being a warm, pleasant, sprightly young man, the kind that would make a good neighbor, dutifully lending you some sugar or salt when you need it. Ruins the effect doesn’t it?
Drawing vital DNA from Holmes is Dr. House MD, the Ebenezer Scrooge of the medical world. A cynical, sardonic, misanthropic doctor who unreservedly mocks people around him, and yet displays an exceptional ability to diagnose and treat cases while other doctors are left scratching their heads. He despises interacting with patients, instead focuses on solving medical enigmas before him and remains hell-bent on dwelling in his own misery.
They’ve rightly shown a pertinacious attitude of House that mirrors that of Holmes: their dedication to what they do, and the fact that they don’t give a hoot of what anyone thinks of them.
Dexter Morgan is another eminent character. Loving husband and father and a skilled blood spatter analyst by day. Serial killer by night. He conforms to a strict code when killing, choosing to kill only those who have a criminal record. ‘Dexter’ has a number of humorous moments to diffuse the tensions in a crime-heavy world. Outwardly, he appears as an amiable and ordinary law- abider, nose clean and head under water. When the longing to kill becomes overpowering while his Dark Passenger steers the wheel What makes it so engaging is to see how he expertly maintains the bulwark he’s built around him and at the same time can feign human emotions and keep his day job intact, armed with just an expeditious mind and a thorough knowledge of the human body. You can say that Dexter’s the murderer, but he’s a victim too. Without his Dark Passenger, most of us would have nothing to watch at 10 pm on Star World.
My favourite protagonist on television remains Dr Frasier Crane, Seattle’s eminent psychologist with his very own radio show, inhabiting an interesting world with amusing problems and a cast of kooky characters. Frasier, portrayed by Kelsey Grammer, is the Webster’s Dictionary definition of ‘snob’. Pompous, arrogant, eager to please, greedy for popularity, proud of being the true intellectual bad-ass that he is, he can quote Shakespeare to Tennyson to Kipling to O Henry from right off the top of his head. At one point, he says, “Let me be the Virgil to your Dante”, drawing a blank look from the person sitting opposite him. He’s terribly fond of the art, literature and music and appears to be an opera-junkie. His grandiose and dramatic manner is the cause for many of his woes and a myriad of embarrassing and complicated scenarios.
He’s shown also to have a very good heart, always wanting to help people with their problems and still believing in the goodness of mankind. Expertly solving everyone else’s trials and tribulations and yet at a loss when it comes to his own. You can’t really say that he’s got any obvious dark side but there is a sharp contrast in his personality.
And this doesn’t just apply to the world of fiction. We wouldn’t be even half as drawn to each other, if it weren’t for our peculiarities. We, as an audience and as readers, may never commit the same atrocities that the various Anti-Heroes commit because we know they take place in a fictitious world. We hold them at an arm’s length as we watch from the sidelines.
Marcus Aurelius says it best:”Conceal a flaw and the world will imagine the worst.”
Flaws are good. Flaws are interesting. Flaws heighten the interest and curiosity of the viewers and humanize the individual. Audiences are eager to see quirks, imperfections, deficiencies, blemishes and limitations… Anything to spice up the characters otherwise immaculate image and make them seem more real and fleshy. Characters, big or small, in literature or film, are merely sketched out, giving us an idea about their appearance and their demeanor. But their words and actions and the resulting consequences reveal their true personalities and idiosyncrasies and take the story further.
One of the biggest examples being Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes.
Holmes is crime-fiction’s favourite detective. He is famous for his frosty demeanor, arrogance, indifference to friendship or any interpersonal relationships, occasional drug-use, resolution to bend or break the law during a pending investigation coupled with unerring precision and vivid attention to miniscule details that’d be missed by ordinary mortals, an ability to discern order in chaos, and application of induction as logical reasoning which he mistakenly calls ’deduction’ (It took me two painful years of learning Logic at college to fully understand what that really was).
In recent times, Holmes was portrayed by Robert Downey Jr. in Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes, where he is exhibited as a very sarcastic 19th Century James Bond. Another noteworthy portrayal is by Benedict Cumberbatch (Doesn’t he have the coolest name?) in BBC series ‘Sherlock’, a recounting of Holmes cases in modern-day London. No offence to Mr. Downey Jr, but I do prefer Cumberbatch’s performance. Though both have been written in a way that they’ve maintained an admirable fidelity to the original.
Imagine Holmes being a warm, pleasant, sprightly young man, the kind that would make a good neighbor, dutifully lending you some sugar or salt when you need it. Ruins the effect doesn’t it?
Drawing vital DNA from Holmes is Dr. House MD, the Ebenezer Scrooge of the medical world. A cynical, sardonic, misanthropic doctor who unreservedly mocks people around him, and yet displays an exceptional ability to diagnose and treat cases while other doctors are left scratching their heads. He despises interacting with patients, instead focuses on solving medical enigmas before him and remains hell-bent on dwelling in his own misery.
They’ve rightly shown a pertinacious attitude of House that mirrors that of Holmes: their dedication to what they do, and the fact that they don’t give a hoot of what anyone thinks of them.
Dexter Morgan is another eminent character. Loving husband and father and a skilled blood spatter analyst by day. Serial killer by night. He conforms to a strict code when killing, choosing to kill only those who have a criminal record. ‘Dexter’ has a number of humorous moments to diffuse the tensions in a crime-heavy world. Outwardly, he appears as an amiable and ordinary law- abider, nose clean and head under water. When the longing to kill becomes overpowering while his Dark Passenger steers the wheel What makes it so engaging is to see how he expertly maintains the bulwark he’s built around him and at the same time can feign human emotions and keep his day job intact, armed with just an expeditious mind and a thorough knowledge of the human body. You can say that Dexter’s the murderer, but he’s a victim too. Without his Dark Passenger, most of us would have nothing to watch at 10 pm on Star World.
My favourite protagonist on television remains Dr Frasier Crane, Seattle’s eminent psychologist with his very own radio show, inhabiting an interesting world with amusing problems and a cast of kooky characters. Frasier, portrayed by Kelsey Grammer, is the Webster’s Dictionary definition of ‘snob’. Pompous, arrogant, eager to please, greedy for popularity, proud of being the true intellectual bad-ass that he is, he can quote Shakespeare to Tennyson to Kipling to O Henry from right off the top of his head. At one point, he says, “Let me be the Virgil to your Dante”, drawing a blank look from the person sitting opposite him. He’s terribly fond of the art, literature and music and appears to be an opera-junkie. His grandiose and dramatic manner is the cause for many of his woes and a myriad of embarrassing and complicated scenarios.
He’s shown also to have a very good heart, always wanting to help people with their problems and still believing in the goodness of mankind. Expertly solving everyone else’s trials and tribulations and yet at a loss when it comes to his own. You can’t really say that he’s got any obvious dark side but there is a sharp contrast in his personality.
And this doesn’t just apply to the world of fiction. We wouldn’t be even half as drawn to each other, if it weren’t for our peculiarities. We, as an audience and as readers, may never commit the same atrocities that the various Anti-Heroes commit because we know they take place in a fictitious world. We hold them at an arm’s length as we watch from the sidelines.
Marcus Aurelius says it best:”Conceal a flaw and the world will imagine the worst.”
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Tales From The Oven
There is nothing that I hate more that the Bombay heat. Maybe Bollywood numbers and raisins in chocolates cakes. But the Bombay heat seizes the number one spot with its stentorian voice. On raising its ol’ Machiavellian head,it has a way of knowing what makes me tick. On waking up every morning I find myself melting rapidly like a candlestick. Drinking tea or coffee has become an occupational hazard, as it augments the already scorching heat. Sitting in front of a piping hot plate of varan-bhat or a smoldering pizza platter has lost its charms. At times, the fans in the house too can’t stop the calefaction.
The afternoon slot causes the most discomfort and I’m petrified of steeping out at around that time. I’m frequently tempted to put on the a.c. but refrain on account of a gargantuan electricity bill. Of course, Phoenix Mills is an ideal place to retreat since almost every square inch is cloaked in cool air conditioned brilliantness and I can stroll about with a smile since I don’t have to fret about the electricity bills. Movie theatres, restaurants, book shops… Once you get there, stay there!
Traveling by cab is somewhat of a mixed experience. It is quite pleasant as a there’s always a gentle breeze blowing as the car engines purr on. But once you’re stuck in a traffic jam and ensconced in the heat, the world becomes a hopelessly dark and desolate place. However on a brighter note, the beach slackens some of the pungent fumes.
The only thing I can do to keep calm and carry on, is distract myself and keep myself busy. Probably for the next few weeks until the monsoon graces us with its presence.
In terms of heat and temperature, Bombay seems minuscule compared to Delhi. God knows how folks over there get on with their lives.
The afternoon slot causes the most discomfort and I’m petrified of steeping out at around that time. I’m frequently tempted to put on the a.c. but refrain on account of a gargantuan electricity bill. Of course, Phoenix Mills is an ideal place to retreat since almost every square inch is cloaked in cool air conditioned brilliantness and I can stroll about with a smile since I don’t have to fret about the electricity bills. Movie theatres, restaurants, book shops… Once you get there, stay there!
Traveling by cab is somewhat of a mixed experience. It is quite pleasant as a there’s always a gentle breeze blowing as the car engines purr on. But once you’re stuck in a traffic jam and ensconced in the heat, the world becomes a hopelessly dark and desolate place. However on a brighter note, the beach slackens some of the pungent fumes.
The only thing I can do to keep calm and carry on, is distract myself and keep myself busy. Probably for the next few weeks until the monsoon graces us with its presence.
In terms of heat and temperature, Bombay seems minuscule compared to Delhi. God knows how folks over there get on with their lives.
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