From White Egrets by Derek Walcott - Breath taking

A dragonfly's biplane settles and there, on the map,
the archipelago looks as if a continent fell
and scattered into fragments; from Pointe du Cap
to Moule à Chique, bois-canot, laurier cannelles,
canoe-wood, spicy laurel, the wind-churned trees
echo the African crests; at night, the stars
are far fishermen's fires, not glittering cities,
Genoa, Milan, London, Madrid, Paris,
but crab-hunters' torches. This small place produces
nothing but beauty, the wind-warped trees, the breakers
on the Dennery cliffs, and the wild light that loosens
a galloping mare on the plain of Vieuxfort make us
merely receiving vessels of each day's grace,
light simplifies us whatever our race or gifts.
I'm content as Kavanagh with his few acres;
for my heart to be torn to shreds like the sea's lace,
to see how its wings catch colour when a gull lifts.

Excerpt from the movie Rabbit Hole

Becca (Nicole Kidman) has been numb with grief since Danny, her 4-year-old, was killed by a car. Now, eight months later, her mother, Nat (Dianne Wiest) — whose son, Becca’s brother, died at 30 — is helping Becca to put away, finally, the little boy’s things.
Int. basement — day

Becca and Nat carry the milk crates of Danny’s stuff down to the basement, and put them in the corner with a few other things Becca has put aside.

Becca stands there, taking it in. Danny’s been reduced to a small corner of stuff in the basement. She lets out a breath, then turns to her mother.

BECCA: Does it ever go away?

NAT: What.

BECCA: This feeling.

They lock eyes. Nat can see she actually wants an answer. Maybe for the first time ever.

NAT: No. I don’t think it does. Not for me, it hasn’t. And that’s goin’ on 11 years.

(Beat)

It changes, though.

BECCA: How?
NAt: I don’t know. The weight of it, I guess. At some point it becomes bearable. It turns into something you can crawl out from under, and carry around — like a brick in your pocket. And you forget it every once in a while, but then you reach in for whatever reason and there it is: “Oh, right. That.” Which can be awful. But not all the time. Sometimes it’s kinda ... not that you like it exactly, but it’s what you have instead of your son, so you don’t wanna let go of it either. So you carry it around. And it doesn’t go away, which is ...

BECCA: What.

NAT: Fine ... actually.

They’re silent for a couple of beats. Becca nods a little. Nat turns and heads up the basement steps.

Metaphor of the day

Sometimes you stumble across people like ice cubes in the grass on a hot summer day.

No one killed Jessica? The film just did

Rani Mukherjee smoking a cigarette, cursing in the choicest hindi and angrezi abuses, wearing smart casual outfits, having fake one-sided conversations with 'Dad', proud of being a bitch, a ruthless confident woman -someone who wakes up a junior in the dead of the night and tells her, get your ass here, this is no 9-5 job. Yeah see that's how committed and ruthless she is. Another time, wakes up her soundly-sleeping-oblivious-to-the-doorbell maid. The maid retaliates by muttering 'kutti' (crasser than bitch) under her breath. Rani hears it, coolly dismisses it. says 'suna maine, ab coffee banao'. How cool is that?  Not really - its all styling, all swearing, zero soul.

Vidya Balan in the dowdiest outfits, wearing men's shirts, she walks with a slump, like a plump school boy hauling a heavy invisible school bag. She keeps making efforts to reach out to all the witnesses and looks like the invisible school bag stops her from making a sincere effort. Its all half-hearted, just about and almost there. She looks like a zombie who is cross with the director for spending the entire styling budget of the film on Rani.

The performances overall are so dismal, so artificial, e.g. Rani's TV channel supremo, who finally gives her permission to pursue the Jessica Lall case. He says ' I am all for justice, go for it'. He says it pit-pat. He puts in only as much as effort in those lines as much as he must have been paid for a 10 second appearance. Vidya's mother on the other hand is a delight- she over acts quite naturally. Especially all her crying fits.A mother's loss is seen only through some weird spaced out expressions. Compare that with the sensitive portrayal of Waheeda Rahman losing her son in Rang De Basanti through the beautifully composed and rendered 'Luka Chupi'

The movie doesnt create any empathy, we dont feel a thing about Jessica dying. We dont feel a thing for Jessica living too. Who was Jessica? Was she a woman with strong opinions and a life full of possibilities? There is a tepid and badly written speech that Vidya doles out about how in this country the value of a life is comparable to a drink. Rendered in a flat and lifeless tone. Never are we angered or disgusted - the film just doesnt strike a chord. We dont see a miscarriage of justice in the actual proportion that it did, we just see it in minute snippets.

We dont see the raw anger, the helpnesses of the common man against a corrupt political and judicial system. We just see a mild mannered Vidya make a half hearted effort. Ofcourse she makes a half hearted effort so that Rani can go all out and pull all the punches and give us the happy ending. Rani however fails to do that, apart from the sting operation. We also dont feel the heat or the enormity of the public outcry. No goosebump moments here, no leaving the theatre with a feeling like that of Rang De Basanti. The feeling that if we come together, there is still hope.

Such a let down of a movie. A could -have- been- powerful movie that falls flat. Raj Kumar Gupta fails to do justice to Jessica's memory or her case and to tell you the truth to Rani.

Who moved my cheez?

I love the fact that when you misplace your phone, you can ping it, find it and live happily ever after. Why can’t we do the same for keys, lip balms, gym socks, clean tissues, when you need them and pens that work?

Intellectual Cinema

Am sure everyone has a separate definition here. For me its cinema that is not intriguing, is surreal, doesn’t impact or touch you in anyway and leaves you mildly annoyed for having succumbed to the lure by the rave reviews.

I happened to watch two of these in succession a while back. Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. Both written by the celebrated script writer Charlie Kaufman.

Adaptation:

Nicholas Cage plays himself twice over. One is the nerdy, socially awkward, idealistic guy and other is his socially popular and scruples-less twin brother. Throw in Meryl Streep who is in search of passion and meaning in life and a toothless nomad Laroche who is deeply passionate about all and every whim of his. What follows is interaction between all four protagonists, all in search of elusive meanings. The passionate Laroche in search of the elusive ghost orchid. Streep in search of meaning and passion following Laroche. Nicholas Cage (idealistic) in search of elusive strings that will help him tie up a movie script and Nicholas Cage (scruples-less) ah, well he isn’t in search of anything. He is the hollow, shallow guy who likes enjoying life and trivial pursuits.

In the end a lot of people end up dying and you end up in the elusive search of the meaning of it all. So why was the movie made? To personify life? We all chase meanings and passion and idealism and in the end we find a few of those and we miss a few and not a lot of it makes sense. Whatever the reason be, the end feels like watching a deflated colourful balloon left on the side of the road.

People with personality flaws looking to be complete and chasing elusive pursuits does not make for intriguing cinema as far as I am concerned. It just mirrors the emptiness, ache, defects, wants and needs that we all have. Watching it is not pretty. We know it. We live it. Watching someone conquer it, defy it, complete it would be intriguing cinema. In the end Nicholas Cage (idealistic and socially awkward) does find love and that is the only saving grace.

Will lament on Being John Malkovich next….

Information overload age?

"...in an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes.

Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it“

I loved this definition that I chanced on; it is from a write up that defines what Attention Economy is all about. (Attention economy is an approach to managing information and resources taking into account the 'scarce commodity' - attention)

From what I see though, I think we are gradually shutting ourselves out from too much information by well….diving right into too much information.

When bored at work or otherwise when we get time, we : Read a book - paperback or kindle, forward and read e-mails, text and read jokes on the phone, blog, watch television, watch movies on DVD, tune into an IPod, Log on to Facebook – to share and soak up some useful and mostly useless information..... Log on to twitter – share and soak up some useful and mostly useless information in shorter bursts.

I am guilty of this as well, too much information - disseminating it as well as consuming it. Unsurprisingly ofcourse most of this information is trivial and not life altering, forwards which could be about how someone created amazing art using old disposable razors or videos on Facebook that you just have to watch coz they are an amazing way to look at life, or because it’s just too hilarious for words to miss it.

No wonder Gmail now has a priority inbox, we soon will need to prioritise the way we consume information or it might soon consume us.