song of the road...

Now, this is the movie which makes you sad and surprised at the same time. Sad because of it's extraordinary screenplay which is meant to make you sad, and surprised because how could you have missed it till now. Simple, intense and meaningful. No exaggerations, simple story telling. Marvelous.

I had this desire to watch 'Pather Panchali' for a long long time. And watch I did today. I can't believe that such a movie could have been made in 1955. Only Satyajit Ray can do this! Hats off once again! A MUST watch for movie lovers.

fight club...

I kept procrastinating to watch the movie because its name sounded so stupid. It was psychological, one because of the impression it gave was like it was some jerk-off action movie and two because there was another movie with the same name in bollywood which was the insult to the brains of movie goers. But then one day I was going through the top 250 list of imdb and found this movie at position 23. I was surprised.

Then I watched this movie. And since then, I have watched it around four times with four different people and at the end all four were ready to watch it once again.

This movie is my prayer. Edward Norton is my god, so is David Fincher. Haven’t seen such a dark movie ever!

el laberinto del fauno...

Wo! You sit down with an expectation, you stay surprised what's happening and at the end you realize you have been struck by a thunderbolt. I thought I was going to watch an oscar winning

fairy tale, I was surprised to see a civil war coming along and at the end I was dumbstruck to see what happened. Whatever age group you are, the movie grabs you, tightly cusping your attention in its beautiful narration, and it strikes that old forgotten innocent memory of yours which you feel has been erased by the fast paced world. Only problem is if you are a non-spanish, you will have to let go the intensity of the tongue in which dialogues are spoken. For the interest of those who want to watch this materpiece and have fast internet broadband connection here is the link with english subtitles.

crash...

Ah! Haven't seen such a movie for a long time. Intense, down to earth, realistic, a must watch! Below is the Academy award winning 'Best Original Song' In the Deep by Bird York. Sigh...

Thought you had
all the answers
to rest your heart upon
But something happens,
don't see it coming, now
you can't stop yourself
Now you're out there swimming
In the deep...

Damn! Made me sad, movie as well the song!

das leben der anderen…

Watched this Oscar winning German movie. It translates to ‘The Lives of Others’. Movie is set up during the times of divided Germany, around the struggle between bureaucracy, politics and art.
I must say that I haven’t seen such an intense movie. There is nothing flamboyant about it – only simple, ordinary people weaving an extraordinary story around them. Another must watch.

This is another addition to the list of movies to watch before dying.

1. Cidade de Dues (Lists #17 in the top 250 movies of imdb list).

2. Diarios de Motocicleta

3. Das Leben der Anderen (Lists #50 in the top 250 movies of imdb list).

diarios de motocicleta..

NOTE: Italics are the quotes from the book and movie "The Motorcycle Diaries"

What we had in common - our restlessness, our impassioned spirits, and a love for the open road.

Thus two young men (Doctors by profession) embarked upon a journey in 1952 across Latin America on a motorcycle, for around 6 months and eleven thousand kilometers. Reason? May be this:

How is it possible to feel nostalgia for a world I never knew?

There wasn’t any sponsorship; there wasn’t any desire for fame (which anyhow came). Just two restless souls wanted to go around and explore.

This isn’t a tale of heroics, nor is it merely some kind of ‘cynical account’; it isn’t meant to be, at least. It’s a chunk of two lives running parallel for a while, with common aspirations and similar dreams.

One country after another, these two young men kept struggling for meager necessities of life (food, water and shelter) and slept with every woman they could. Sometimes, got beaten and chased by the local husbands whose wives they were trying to seduce. One of these was suffering from acute asthma but had an indomitable will. This man was getting shaped into the greatest revolutionary of all times – Ernesto Guevara de la Serna.

What do we leave behind when we cross each frontier? Each moment seems split in two; melancholy for what was left behind and the excitement of entering a new land.

Books alone can’t do it. Listening to knowledge can’t do it. Being in contact with great people can’t do it. Unless a man stands above his limitations, and dares to find his own way, it doesn’t happen. Purpose is about chasing the dreams, not about being chased by the nightmares. Goal is what we find when we have the guts to walk alone; it’s not somewhere we reach following the herd and running away from fears.

You gotta fight for every breath and tell death to go to hell.

It was two years ago, I read about Che Guevara, the person who lived the life of millions of people in just forty years. It was one year ago, I read his Diarios de Motociclota – The Motorcycle Diaries. And it was one day ago, I watched the movie by the same name. Believe me – this man, his book and this movie – they have such a force in them that I can’t describe. In the last chapter of his journal Ernesto wrote this:

Wandering around our America has changed me more than I thought. I am not me any more. At least I'm not the same me I was.

And his following words echo in my brain like nothing else:

All of them, all those who can’t adapt – you and I, for instance – will die cursing the power which they helped bring about with often enormous sacrifices. Revolution is impersonal, so it will take their lives and even use their memory as an example or as an instrument to control the young people coming after them…you will die with your fist clenched and your jaw tense, the perfect manifestation of hatred and struggle, because you aren’t a symbol (some inanimate example), you are an authentic member of the society to be destroyed; the spirit of the beehive speaks through your mouth and moves through your actions. You are as useful as I am, but you don’t realize how useful your contribution is to the society that sacrifices you.

What else can I say - a must watch movie, a must read book, a man who was so ordinary by birth but so extraordinary by his guts and deeds.

cidade de deus...

If you have already watched it, great! If you haven’t, make it a point you watch it ASAP.

The movie ranks in 100 greatest movies of all times in TIME magazine. The movies one must watch before kicking the bucket. It’s a Brazilian movie, so English understanders will need subtitles.

Here is the trailer.

signs, scare & seemabaddha...

Trust me! When one is living alone in a 3 BHK apartment, one should peacefully have dinner and go to sleep by 10 in the night. Especially one must not watch late night M Night Shyamalan’s movies at any cost. They can be creepy and can affect the secretion of melatonin from pineal gland which will leave the person making himself or herself coffee all night to get out of what he or she just saw. It’s not that those movies are outright scary. They don’t scare you right away, but they bring that anticipation of fear in you which is far horrid than the fear itself. “There is no terror in a bang, only in the anticipation of it…” I learned the meaning of these words by Alfred Hitchcock only last night when I was watching ‘Signs’. Wooohoo! Movie is not that scary if you watch in broad daylight. But in the night, when you are alone, you know… (Another thing that scared the crap out of me this weekend was History channel’s Double F about this person… this was scarier than 'Signs'... May be because this was REAL!)

But fortunately I didn’t spend my night making myself shots of black coffee. Because the next movie I saw was Satyajit Ray’s Seemabaddha (Company Limited). This was my first Satyajit Ray movie and I was spellbound by the imagination, narration and direction of Ray. Sharmila Tagore was as gracious as ever, and so was the story line. I must say, with all profound awe & respect, that Ray was far ahead of his times in his vision. The way movie started unfolded and ended; and the background music (again by Ray… awesome…)… you just cannot expect that from any Bharatiya director of those times (except of course a very few), who were more inclined towards conventional sing-song, hero-villain-fight-for-leading-lady kind of movies, leaving the message and society in constipated fiction. Satyajit Ray! I salute you.

And for those of you who would like to watch Satyajit Ray’s classics, tune into Zee Studio on Saturday nights after 10 PM movie or Sunday 1500 hours. Movies are in Bengali, but they come with English subtitles.

Yawwwwn...! Nothing much. Life’s going as usual… lazy, aimless and chaotic, as was designed to be… Happy new year… I wish the intended resolutions hold this year…

survival guilt...

O Omnipresent! O omniscient! O purveyor of all! O almighty! I seek your mercy for what I have done. I know I was not ignorant. I know it was wrong, it was evil; but I could not avoid the temptation of seeing that which was forbidden. I know I deserved what I am going through. I chose to walk the road of temptation and here is what I have got to.

Now I dream of it every night. I get nightmares, where I burn in the fire of hell, my skin scorches in the simmering heat of pain and guilt. I hear voices screaming in my head, I get hallucinations of being drawn into vacuum. I get seizures, I cannot breath. My head feels like someone’s hammering it from inside.

I can’t believe I did that. I couldn’t have done that. I can’t face myself in mirror now!

Oh Compassionate Father! I seek your forgiveness. Trust me I will never do that again! Please show mercy on me. Please soothe this smothering pain of mine, I earned from my evil deed of watching the ‘RGV ki Aag’… Vomit!!