Once upon a time there was a country...

... on the banks of Danube called Yugoslavia, a leader called Marshal Tito who showed the world how to remain non-aligned at the height of cold war, and a director called Emir Kusturica who gave us a wonderful movie called "Underground" - winner Palm D'Or, Cannes 95.

Collective Chaos promised to bring Cannes to Bangalore last weekend, showing five of the previous Cannes winners. For an annual subscription fee of just Rs 400 (they promise to screen atleast 100 movies a year), it can't come any cheaper than this. But with cranky seats atop Sona Towers (off Cunningham Road) and (although they promise to promptly throw out anybody found using a mobile inside the hall) with some female patrons hell-bent on "checking" time on their flashy mobiles every other minute, it wasn't such an enjoyable experience watching movies. I watched three out of the five shown. And while Kagemusha and Taste of Cherry were descent, it was Underground which really made my weekend.

Underground spans the entire life-span of Yugoslavia. Starting from the Nazi bombing of Belgrade, to the comrades fighting from underground, through the days of Tito and finally the break-up and bloodshed of 1990's. Story of two friends and their passion for one woman, story of a group of people who are put in a cellar underground to avoid Nazi bomb's, and who even 20 years after the war was over, were still made to believe that there was a war happening outside and the Germans were still in power, and weren't allowed to come out. Exhilarating comedy and satire, a brilliant sound track, passionate and sexually explicit at times... this is one gem of a movie you can't miss.

Just last week, the last remains of the erstwhile Yugoslavia decided to split again. After the worst blood-bath that Europe had seen since WW2, there are now seven different chunks, one for each ethnic group. And like the chunks from the erstwhile Soviet Union, they are all queuing up infront of the NATO HQ in Brussels. All that will remain will be memories of Tito and NAM and ofcourse, the movies of great men like Emir Kusturica.

JALEEEEEEL!

So many beautiful things happened in this election ...like Murali and "DICK" getting wiped out, opportunists like Pilla and Jacob being blown away, BJP's dreams remaining "unfulfilled".... but for the most beautiful moment of this entire election festival we should thank one man ... KT Jaleel.

Did anyone think our dear "puli" could lose in Kuttipuram? . Remember the posters at the height of the sex-scandal, "Jana manasukkalil ninnu ee "puliye" purathakkan oru shakthikkum kazhiyilla"... phew!. This is a double whammy for Kunjali, he has probably spent a considerable amount of the fortune he amassed in this election.

Jaleel made the impossible possible. He proved that no amount of money and power can alter people's desire. He has probably changed the election pattern of Malappuram forever. Victory... and that too with a margin of more than 8000 votes, in a constitueny which hasn't elected anyone other than a League candidate from its inception! un-thinkable...

League probably can only go down from here. They have only themselves to blame. Jaleel and Muneer was the future onto which it should have grown. Instead, they sacrificed Muneer, threw out Jaleel and provided CPM with a golden "ladder" into the Muslim heartland.

I guess, this is probably "the moment" that CPM was waiting all these years. A significant reason why CPM couldn't assert itself as much in Kerala as compared to Bengal is the lack of support it has among the religious minorities. In Bengal, minorities vote en-masse to left. But with the Jaleel -factor (and Raheem factor, and yes the PDP -factor too) this can change and the magic number of 50% vote share is not so far. Then we will have a very different coalition landscape in Kerala. The CPM then can, and will try to do away with all the "eerkil" parties (they tried to some extent this time too).

May be I am dreaming so far... the next time UDF and League will storm back to power like it happens every time here. But that doesn't take the shine out of Jaleel. Atleast for now, three cheers for a job well done!. Ivanaanu PuPuli!!.

MUNICH

Home Is Everything!.
If tomorrow someone comes up to you and tells you that the home you are living, where your parents lived and their parents lived, was (supposed to be )promised to him and his fellow followers some ten centuries ago. And that he has the support of the entire "international community". Will you just pack up and leave?. I won't. I will fight till my death, I'll kill if need be... because home is everything.

Finally Munich got released in Bangalore. I gave Mr. Balram the ditch, but since I couldn't ditch Schumi and the European GP, morning show was the only option. So early morning wake-up (on a sunday morning!), empty stomach, three long hours... if this was Aviator I would have happily slept through. But this was Spielberg not Scorcese, the master in keeping one's interest alive all through the movie.

It was debated whether this was a pro-Jewish or a pro-Palestinian movie. I found it being neither. Although the entire narration is through a set of Jewish eyes, Avner (Eric Bana) is not one of those radical Jews. He is more concerned about his wife, her imminent delivery and then the child, than the job at hand of eliminating the eleven Palestinians which the Mossad think were related to the Munich massacre. And again it is the Palestinian view which rings out more loudly when Ali says, "Home is everything" and that "My father didn't gas any Jews".

I won't divulge any further into the story. Eric Bana is superb as the confused and distressed Avner. After Hector of Troy another memorable tragic hero role. The movie has some awesome scenes. Like the shot were blood slowly spreads over milk spilled on the floor. And the flashback shots of Munich massacre through Avner's eyes. Those will rank among some of Spielberg's finest... remember the tank gun slowly going up aiming the tower in Saving Private Ryan, or Richard Attenborough being timed making "hinges" in a Nazi work-shop in Schindler's List.

There is no climax as such. It ends with the confused state that Avner finds himself in. From the hunter to the one being hunted. To find that, in places of all the seemingly liberal Palestinians he assassinated the more radical replacements taking charge. To some extent it is the same predicament as that of Israel. From having to deal with someone like Arafat and PLO, they now have to deal with a Hamas. Today's Hindu(May 8) had a news piece on the eviction of illegal Jewish settlers from Hebron. It says, "Hebron, a city holy to Jews and Muslims, is home to about 160,000 Palestinians and some 500 ultranationalist Jewish settlers who live in heavily fortified enclaves". How much security can save 500 from 160,000?. How far can a policy of confrontation and brutal assassinations take a country?.

RASATANTRAM

Vishaya dharidryam... even Sathyan Anthikkad is facing that. All through the movie I sat there confused, trying to make out what our dear Sathyan Anthikkad was trying to convey through this movie. And finally after three long hours I am still confused. Was it the plight of old parents, old age homes... but then you already had all this in Manasinakkare. Or was it the old cliched, money vs ideology, rich son vs poor son (who has the dad in his side)?? Other than that I can't think of any, what was it?. So many characters so many stories... aakepade oru aviyal paruvam.

And all through there was this un-mistakable smell of a Tanmatra. After all, if you look carefully there is a TANMATRA hiding in RASATANTRAM --> RAS-ATANTRAM --> SAR -(ithu)-TANMATRA (thanne)!! :). There is this scene of a son's devotion to his father, of Mohanlal giving an oil massage to Bharath Gopi. Haven't we seen the same with Nedumudi. Well, after his successful(?) achar and restaurant business is Lal venturing into Thailam business??. Definitely a conscious attempt to gain mileage from Tanmatra's success. Making Lal give all those lofty statements about anything and everything around, from taking a dig at Malayali's penchant for building posh mansions, to Newton's first law... although he does it remarkably well, Laline oru upadeshi aakan aano bhavam?. Mohalalinte oru gathikedu nokkane... once a character clicks, an umpteen number of clones will be made, till each and every one is totaly fed up and disgusted. I am not saying Rasatantram will click, but another one like this... it is done. Why can't our poor Lal get the kind of characters that Big B is so easily getting in Bollywood, a khakee, a sarkar... Mammukka is so lucky in this regard.

Coming back to the movie, there are these umpteen number of characters. Aarkku vendi enthinu vendi??. Some totally useless. Why do you have to waste a Jagathi , a Mukesh and even a TG Ravi (only in two frames!), for completely useless and un-important characters? Sad to say for the first time ever I got irritated with a Jagathi character!. Again sad to say, with due respect, Innocentinteyum Mammukoyayudeyum phalitham onnum pande pole phalikkunilla !!

Given all these, Rasathantram is still a very much watchable movie. Lal does well (the comic timing is slowly coming back?), so too is Bharath Gopi, there is a nice "rasathantram" between them. Meera is as beautiful and as refreshing as always. There are some very nice songs. And Thodupuzha and surroundings make a beautiful background for the story. But Sathyan Anthikkad and Mohanlal after so many years- expected a lot and got very little in return- so disappointing.

Bangaradha Manushya!

When a big tree falls, the earth below shakes... that's how Rajiv vindicated the anti-Sikh riots after Indira's death. Well, Bangalore really got a shake on its head after Dr Rajkumar's death. And unfortunately for most of us he chose the wrong day to pass away. Couple of days before Vishu (and Easter too ), when so many mallus, who had booked all the tickets available so much in advance, eagerly awaits a passage to Kerala.

I had also managed a ticket. A 2-30PM bus on Thursday, to Palghat, from there I could catch a bus to EKM and reach my Valiachan's home just in time for Vishu kani. But from morning itself we were seeing the lathi-charges and tear-gas shells in TV, and buses being burnt outside. So I had more or less lost hope. Still as a last throw of dice we called the control room in Majestic, and enquired whether the inter-state buses are plying or not. The voice at the other end was very re-assuring. He said there was no problem whatsoever, and buses were running as usual.

So then I packed up quickly, left from my home in Airport road. Not a single city bus (BMTC) was on the road. Again called the control room, he said since the crowd had burned a few BMTC buses, they had stopped service in some routes, but KSRTC buses were still running. Alas, I should have interpreted this as since the crowds haven't yet torched a KSRTC bus, they were still running!!

Thankfully I could find an Auto. Considering the situation I expected him to ask for twice the rate, or at least one and a half. He didn't ask anything, just put on the meter. I thought, at the time of getting down I am in for a long quarrel with this guy. How I hate the Bangalore autowallah's. Nothing short of extortion most of the times, and to compare them with their counter-parts in Calicut... oh!! But I always had trouble with the younger ones, the old guys were good everywhere, and this man was also pretty old.

So we continued our journey. There wasn't much trouble in Airport road. I picked up my friend near Intel, she had to go Erode. And we carried on. The first signs of trouble started near Richmond circle. The police had blocked that road, so we took a left turn. From then on we went through the roads and places which I had never seen before, left right, I felt we were going circles, but there was no other way , each and every road was either blocked or had tyres burning in the middle. And all the while our old driver was telling, rather apologetically, how great a person Rajkumar was, and there was no one like him, and such things will never happen again. We agreed. I was wondering what will happen in Chennai, when (god forbid) Rajani dies. Considering the ingenuity and audacity of Rajani fans, nothing short of burning a train will satiate them... may be since this is the age of low cost airlines, an Air Deccan flight will make an obvious and ideal choice!.

At least once we were so close to the mobs. They threw obscenities at us but thankfully no stones. To make matters worse this guy even didn't have a Rajkumar photo on his auto!. But he still carried on. What would have happened if he had left us there... a mallu and a tamil among a frenzied mob of kannadigas!... May be I am getting far fetched ideas. But later in the afternoon when we saw in TV, the way they lynched ( a fellow Kannadiga) policeman, anything could have happened.

Finally we reached the bus stand. We got down, he asked us not to speak in Tamil, speak in Hindi or English only!. And he would only take the meter charge... Dr Raj's most famous movie, as I am told, is Bangaradha Manushya (The Golden Man or a man with a golden heart), here we were seeing another true Bangaharadha Manushya!. We thanked him and went to the Bus stand. And (as expected!) not a single bus in sight. All buses till 6PM were cancelled. I thought about the not-so-bangharadha manushya of control room, who said everything was normal. May be he was right then. We went to the railway station to see whether she could manage any train to Salem or Coimbatore ( I had already dropped plans of going home). But seeing the queue there we decided to return back home. There were some autos in the station, and this time we were not so lucky. They asked for 3x charges, and finally after some bargaining we brought it to 2x. Although we saw mobs and lots of police, the return journey was much less eventful, and reached back from where we started exactly after two and half hours.

Back home, there was a complete cable black-out also. Only Kannada channels and some news channels were shown. I sat down and watched Dr Raj's old movies. Since it was a mythological movie (Bhakta Kalidasa or something of that sort), there was no issue in following. Brought back memories of Prem Nasir!. Rajkumar has this serenity and sincerity with his acting, and a beautiful dialogue presentation, something that you can associate with a Sathyan probably. Can't believe such an actor's fans could be like this- but then it was very clear, there were more anti-socials than fan's out there. As someone said on TV, all the frustrated bangalore youth were having a field day!!.

Plagiarism and Malayalam Cinema

The other day I was watching Hitchcock's "Vertigo", and somewhere in the middle it started striking me that I have seen these scenes before. Where was it?. Towards the end it became very clear where it was, "Mannar Mathai Speaking"!!. Till now, I thought that Priyadarshan was the only director who maintains a very good collection of English movies. Now Sidiq-lal!. Copy "Vertigo" and call it "Mannar Mathai"!!... what a ripper.

The pioneer of this art has always been Priyadarshan. All the way, starting from Boeing Boeing(Boeing Boeing), Talavattom(One flew over the cuckoo's nest) to Nirnayam(The Fugitive), Kakkakuyil(loosely A Fish Called Wanda) and to his latest Malamaal Weekly. Over time, I believe he should get an honorary Oscar, for having watched and copied so many Hollywood movies. And others also chipped in... Ayushkalam(The Ghost), Life is beautiful(Dead poet's society), etc

I am not saying we should not copy good movies from elsewhere or get "inspired" by them. Infact, that is a good thing to do, bringing world cinema to Malayalam. But taking a psychological thriller like Vertigo and distorting it and making it a sub-plot of a comedy movie is simply un-acceptable. "Mannar Mathai" is a nothing movie, just a comedy flick, achieving nothing what Hitchcock wanted to convey and portray with the original. Maybe the producer was pushing Sidiq-lal too hard for a sequel to Ramji Rao, and they happened to rent the Vertigo CD, and got "inspired"!

Again Talavattam... scene by scene lift, but when it came to the scenes which mattered, the ripper destroyed it altogether. Where Jack Nicholson's character is put into a comma for standing up against the asylum authorities (for attacking the nurse who mentally demoralises and forces his friend to commit suicide), Mohanlal is put into a comma for having loved the doctor's daughter!!, how unimaginative... And "One flew..." ends with full of hope, "the Chief" who has been silent all this time, gets up, smothers Jack Nicholson (and does this with a smile in his face... yes a smile) shatters the hospital window and runs away to freedom, while Talavattam ends so hopelessly, we see Kartika becoming insane ...how dumb!. Still we remember Talavattam as one of the very good movies in malayalam. That's just the genius of a Lal and a Nedumudi. The silliness of the plot is very evident in the way Kyun KI bombed in the box_office last year.

So cutting short, moral of the story... Please do copy and get "inspired", if you can't be creative. But then please do it the Ram Gopal Varma way, acknowledge, copy to the full, and do not give us half baked "Indianised" versions.

The Motorcycle Diaries

"The plan: to travel 8 thousand kms in 4 months. The method: improvisation. The goal: to explore a continent that we had only known in books. The equipment: La poderosa (the mighty one), an aged, leaky '39 Norton 500. The pilot: Alberto Granado, 29 years old and bio-chemist, self proclaimed "wandering scientist". The pilot's dream: to finish the trip on his 30th birthday. The co-pilot: Me, Ernesto de la serna el fuser, 23 years old"

Thus starts "The Motorcycle Diaries"... a story of 1950's , about a journey of two friends around South America. As the caption says "this is not the tale of heroic feats, It's about two lives running parallel for a while, with common aspirations and similar dreams."

I had heard about this movie long before. Finally, it took two DVD's (the first one got stuck in the middle, so I have to go and buy another one), two days, and two screenings (you have to watch it without the sub-titles again) to complete this. And it was worth all that. Granado's and Ernesto's travel is captured so brilliantly. One travels for his ideology, to explore the raw face of South America... and the other with a desire to f*** in every country, and if possible every town, in South America!!.

All through the movie, there is this Spanish guitar which continuously plays in the background and then ofcourse, there is the language, Spanish... the most romantic, or should I call it the most sensual, of all the languages in the world. I tried to learn Spanish online once, but the only thing that I could understand was that here(like in Hindi) each and every object is either a male or female. And the male ones will start with an El and the female ones with a La, so we have El Nino and La Nina and La Liga (the Spanish football league). And this El and La is what probably makes it the most sensual... the language of the nerudas and the marquezs.

And the movie progresses along what Ernesto sees around him, the natives, the disparities, the struggles... and the thoughts he has for them, which he writes in his letters to his mother during the journey. Like the one after he says goodbye to his girlfriend,

"On the boat I heard the moist slap of bare feet

and foresaw faces dark with hunger.

My heart was a pendulam

between her and the street.

I don't know what strength broke me

free from her eyes, loose from her arms.
She remained clouded by tears

her anguish hidden by the rain"

and when they cross to Chile at the tip of the continent, on a boat shrouded with mist,

"Dear mom what do we leave behind

when we cross a frontier?
Each moment seems split into two

Melancholy of what is left behind and

the excitement of entering a new land"

"The mighty one" finally breaks down in Chile. So they will have to cover all of Chile in a Truck, scale the Andes on foot and finally cross the Amazon on a raft. The film's final scenes are the most poetic and poignant. They finally reach the leper colony in the middle of Amazon, and Ernesto will swim one night across the river, to celebrate his birthday with the people, who are waiting for their death in the segregated island. Finally they reach Guajira in Venezuela, the northern tip of the continent. Granado will stay here and work as a bio-chemist and Ernesto will fly back to Buenos Aires to complete his degree in medicine, promising each other that they will meet soon.

"Motorcycle Diaries" ends with the following lines...

"It took eight years for ernesto and alberto to meet again. In 1960, Granado was invited to live and work in Cuba. The invitation came from his old friend Fuser, now "Commandante" Ernesto Che Guevera. One of the most prominent and inspiring leaders of the Cuban revolution. Che went onto fight for his ideals in the Congo and Bolivia, where he was captured and with the support of the CIA, murdered in October,1967. Forever faithful to his friend Fuser, Granado remained in Cuba, where he founded the school of medicine of Santiago. He lives in Havana, with his wife children and grand children"

Ever wondered how it is possible to feel nostalgic for a world one never knew... watch "Motorcycle diaries'