David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet Analysis

David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet (2020)

Streaming on Netflix.

When it's a 93-year-old man speaking about the problems for the coming 100 years, it's clearly a selfless motive. David Attenborough has spent all of his life exploring the planet and its diversity - and this film is his witness statement of the deterioration of the planet. He also shares some actionable insights. I've never explored the topic of climate change, but this film got me thinking about it. It's the juxtaposition of heartbreaking music and breathtaking visuals, that evokes a feeling - that things are not right. I haven't seen any of David Attenborough's work, but after watching this film - I trust him that he knows what it takes to paint a portrait of the world.

The sheer scale and beauty of the images shown in the film, got me thinking about the purpose of life. It got me thinking if what we do even matters, if we've to destroy all of that beauty to be able to do it. When he talks about the problem of over population - it got me thinking about why people have kids like everyone is supposed to. The rate at which our population is increasing, the kids that our generation is giving birth to - there wouldn't be enough resources for them and why would people want to create a life, even if they knew that, that would only lead to more suffering?

Documentaries always have had a strong impact on me, they've influenced my worldview. I was ignorant about the environment before, because the change is not always so obvious to us - but now I've got my eyes opened to this problem and I'll definitely educate myself more about it.

Eddie the Eagle Analysis

Eddie the Eagle (2016)

Directed by: Dexter Fletcher

Starring: Taron Egerton, Hugh Jackman

Streaming on Disney+ Hotstar.

It's a sports film. The story of an underdog. A person who is constantly told that he's not good enough, by everyone around. His dream of being an Olympic athlete is looked as a joke. It's the biopic of Michael Edwards, a British skier who in 1988 became the first person to represent the Great Britain in Olympics ski jumping since 1928.

Apart from the conventional underdog story, what excited me was the world of skiing, because skiing is a visual sport and the film was like a nice peek into that world. 

The coach in this film is also an underdog, he used to be a talented player but he doesn't do good because of his drinking habits. This reminded me of Chakde India where both the players and the coach are underdogs for different reasons, and when they win it gives a closure to both the coach, and the players.

Eddie's father represents all the naysayers and it tells us no matter how thick skinned you are - sometimes it gets to you, like how Eddie is reminded of it all before the 90m jump. Eddie's dad has little scope for redemption in this story, with respect to Eddie - him being proud of Eddie being his kid after he's successful tells us that he's not proud of the efforts, he's proud of the result.

This film's worldview and thematic statement is to give it our best shot and not to worry about the result. There's a wonderful conversation in the elevator to the 90m hill, between the best player and Eddie.

I Lost My Body Analysis

I Lost My Body (2019)

Directed by: Jeremy Clapin

Premiered at Cannes Film Festival 2019

Nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars.

It's the story of a severed hand which escapes from a laboratory and is trying to go back to it's body, reminiscing it's life when it was with the young man it was attached to. This hand goes through different hurdles in Paris, and this film present Paris from a bleak perspective and I haven't seen much of Paris in this tone. All we've seen is the glamour and the romance, whether it's Ratatouille, Midnight in Paris, etc. There's an inherent intimacy in the storytelling, especially the scene where Naoufel meets Gabrielle for the first time. The intercutting of the hand's story and the coming-of-age story of Naoufel was interesting, especially in the scene where the hand is cut.

This film certainly has a lot of depth, on the physical level it has a fun, and a visual conflict which probably a live action film can't pull off - a hand trying to get back to it's body. A conflict like this need not be and probably can't be explained anyway but visually. On an internal level, it's Naoufel's coming-of-age story, this comes through both - the writing and through the visuals. On a philosophal level it talks about complex themes like fate, destiny, free will vs determinism; which mostly comes through the writing. In the scenes of conversation, there's not much happening visually - they're shown from behind and the frame and even the subjects are almost static. I think having a lot of motion, just for the sake of it in these kind of intimate conversations, takes us away from the mood of the scene - just like the 20-min brilliant episode in Anomalisa. 

I'm still getting used to this form, I definitely had really good experiences watching Pixar films, Anomalisa, Mary and Max, Spirited Away and I think channeling creativity with the lack of limitations is the challenge in making animated films.

The Pixar Story Analysis

The Pixar Story (2007)

Written, Directed and Produced by: Leslie Iwerks

Streaming on Disney+ Hotstar.

It's a documentary about the history of Pixar Animation Studios. It's always inspiring to see artists who break new grounds and open new avenues. It explores the struggle behind making the world's first computer animated feature film, Toy Story. The documentary captures the spirit of Pixar so well, their strive for excellence - especially when John Lasseter looks at the rushes of Toy Story 2 and they aren't happy with it, they decide to scrap most of it and make it all again. This doesn't make much sense from a business standpoint, a decision like this could only be taken when one thinks of the purpose of art, in the larger scheme of things. By putting out something substandard, it won't harm anyone - but it will definitely decrease a person's willingness to surrender to films in general, it might be by a small amount - but it matters.

We've heard stories about the Pixar Braintrust where they keep trying several times, till they are happy with the script - a lot of their films now seem perfect, and I think it's their quest for excellence that comes through. There's one line in the film that says that they don't make films for kids or for adults, they make films for that inner child in everyone that the world makes us forget, that the movies can remind us of. Rajamouli's video on their struggles with Eega gave me the same level of inspiration, about how he'll go to any extent and do anything - but not put something substandard. No matter what our worldview is, even if we want to convey to people to be content with what they have - we as artists, shouldn't be.

Colour Photo Analysis

Colour Photo (2020)

Directed by: Sandeep Raj
Starring: Suhas, Chandini Chowdary, Harsha, Sunil
Streaming on Aha.

I'm in absolute awe of Suhas after watching this film. He is someone who we can easily cry for, his innocence and his relatable charm are used very well by director Sandeep Raj. Having said this, I'm sure Suhas can also pull off a rugged gangster with a lot of ease. I really hope he gets scripts in a way that he can explore his range, as an actor. Suhas' strength is the way he can talk about his feelings, usually male actors struggle with scenes where they talk about their feelings - Suhas goes them effortlessly, in the bus stop scene, in the scene where he tells Deepthi that his friends tell him, 'ne range ki thagga ammayini chuskunte help chesevallam ra' and in the ending scene where he is just talking his heart out. Chandini and Harsha also acted really well, the way Chandini reacts to the shirt hanging, and the helplessness Harsha portrays in the ending. The cut backs to those particular shots of Suhas, after Deepthi looks at the shirt and is reminded of him - the selection of those shots is really crucial - it had a strong effect.

The film works well in parts that in totality, for example: the ending 30 mins was the best part of the film - every scene (including Krishna's father's backstory) worked well. And the scene where the foreigner comes to their college. The film just starts too late, it felt like the film couldn't stop beginning and introducing the world - the core story, only starts in the last 45-50 mins from the scene where Krishna and Deepthi are locked in a room. I would've definitely been more invested, if the film wouldn't have taken so long to introduce and set the world. I'm not saying "lag", it's that the film doesn't start. The dialogue at a few places, felt a little conventional. Although, the ending being so cathartic - I had to let go of all the minor complaints I had, and I ended up feeling good about the film. It's tough to not like a film like this - the subject matter, the slice of life treatment, the actors, the music, the inspiring team who we've all seen grow up.

Bad Boy Billionaires: India Analysis

Bad Boy Billionaires: India (2020)

A 3-episode docu-series, each about Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi & Subrata Roy.
Streaming on Netflix.

This whole docu-series tells stories which are too good to be true. The show captures the largeness of life, through the lens of wealth, power and megalomania - it reinforces our nihilistic outlook on the world reminding us of how inconsequential we are in the larger scheme of things. We could look at it in another way, nobody is free of problems - everyone is trying to solve problems in life, no matter how wealthy they are - so we might as well create problems which we'd love solving - pursuing what we love. Although I wished this show explored more into the psychology of these people, I had questions like - if given a chance would they do it all over again? Would they change anything? Do they have regrets? Vijay Mallya celebrating his birthday lavishly even after not paying his employees, tells us about his brutally unapologetic attitude.

This series falls into a territory which has a worldview that there are no shortcuts in life, and that playing slow and steady wins the race. Telling stories of a few billionaires who went wrong, is pro-socialist worldview. We should definitely not feel good about rich people going to jail, and feel good about ourselves - I'm sure a lot of people would trade lives with them if given a chance. This show is important, it tells us a lot of things - to not put all our eggs in one basket, to be ready to face a life where all of our savings are turned into ash - this is what a lot of people faced when things went wrong. This show explores the human condition, about how people gain trust and how much people can trust, blindly. The way they gain people's trust is intense - they brainwash you to an extent where you'd defy everyone around you and believe that, that's the only person or that's the only scheme that'd get you out of your misery. It feels like life is giving you one shot. 

After watching this, and having faced bad experiences myself - I still believe that unless you are risking your whole life into something, you should definitely take chances in life and experience things. Whether they'll work or not, we'll at least have rich life experiences and these experiences will help us in ways we won't even think about. Having said this, if something feels too good to be true - it probably is.

Ramaraju for Bheem - RRR Teaser

Ramaraju for Bheem - RRR Teaser

I generally don't write about trailers and teasers, but some of my strongest responses to cinema have been in trailers and teasers. Whether it's the Gangs of Wasseypur - 2 trailer cut, Super Deluxe's trailer cut or a lot of S. S. Rajamouli's trailers and teasers. This teaser has been haunting me from the moment I saw it, I watched it a lot of times. There are only few filmmakers who completely take control of me, as an audience when I'm watching something. I become a kid, when I'm watching Rajamouli's work - it's because I know that he will deliver for sure and no matter how huge my expectations are - he will reach them all the time.

Rajamouli says that he's more of a storyteller than a director, but the images he creates - is one of the reasons his films are universal. The teaser released in all languages, and the one of the strongest response has been towards the 6th shot in the teaser - the shot of the wave. Of course, the stories he tells are strongly rooted in our culture and the conflicts are mostly primal - but the curiosity of the audience is to see what kind of images he'd have created. I remember feeling the same when I watched Baahubali: The Conclusion's trailer. Even with his dream project - my curiosity is about the kind of images that he'd create. 

The underlying emotion that he carves out of Ram Charan (and even Prabhas) is that of honesty and integrity - we saw that in Magadheera and in Baahubali. That's their strength. The underlying emotion that he carves out of NTR is Roudram - we saw that in Simhadri and this emotion is like home territory to NTR - he does this seamlessly. So now in the teaser, it's evident that there's going to be a lot of Roudram from Bheem, I'm curious to see how Ramaraju's character is developed. When Rajamouli puts out something, it's a reminder of how achieving excellence could make us feel and why we should pursue it. 

The Trial of the Chicago 7 Analysis

The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020)

Written and Directed by: Aaron Sorkin
Streaming on Netflix.

A courtroom drama is like the home ground of Aaron Sorkin, who is a master of writing punchy, witty, conflicting dialogue. I could appreciate Social Network, Molly's Game and Steve Jobs better than this film - because all the three of those films are about people playing the capitalism game in America, people making it big with money - that's something that could be appreciated without much understanding of the context. This film is about a trial against seven people for inciting riots at a protest, where they say that the police got violent first. I had to pause the film, and read about why they were protesting and come back to watch it. Then  when I figured that it's a protest against the U. S. government for participating in the Vietnam war, the ending scene made sense to me. Abbie Hoffman, one of the defendants wrote a book called 'Steal This Book' - a book which exemplified the counter culture of the 60s.

The dramatic aspect which anyone can appreciate is the judge in this case being clearly biased - it's such oppression. Aaron Sorkin's intercutting is done in the film too, and it works very well - a lot of scenes are intercut between three scenes - and they work very well because of his effective use of dialogue. Usually he intercuts, with voice overs but this film doesn't use a lot of voice overs. They instead use one of the defendants narrating some parts of the incident to some people and use it as some sort of a voice over. There is a lot of Sorkin-ish dialogue here - for example, 'what's the other word for trapped' 'that's a contradictory instruction' - in Aaron Sorkin's world, he presents some characters to be a little more witty, he makes them observe and talk about things which we usually don't. Is it a good thing that he does this with a lot of his characters? I don't know - but it surely makes for interesting drama.

Nirbhandam Analysis

 Nirbandham (2020)

Written, Directed, Edited, Produced, Shot, Color, Music, Stunts, Production Design by: Bandi Saroj Kumar
Available on YouTube in the Pay What You Wish model.

It's an anthology depicting different stories set during the lockdown. The film follows a gang, who are rapists, and criminals. This film has one of the most authentic depictions of criminal gangs and rapists in India. It's horrifying. They don't use any visuals, or gore - all of it comes through the dialogue. The usage of slang is so powerful and so dominating, because in Telugu - we have a lot of slang and cuss words that people use in real life, which we don't use in pop culture and cinema. Whereas in english films, I think they casually use slang in pop culture. The authentic portrayal of the criminals comes through in every detail - the dialogue they use, the way they talk, think and react to different things and people. The cinematography is raw, and it matches the tone of the film. There are a few very interesting shots, one is the shot of a cracked glass of the car, and another horrifying shot, is the shot of rods at the rape scene - the shot subtly reminds us of what humans are capable of, reminding us of the horrifying incidents in India. 

The character arc was also convincing - he doesn't change overnight with a speech, he changes gradually - when he is proved wrong multiple times. Something happens inside and the feeling of disgust and hatred towards what he did, and his past self is visible. The stories of migrant laborers is also made in an empathetic way, and not in a sympathetic way. The girl who is trying to go on a cycle all by herself - her dialogue is so authentic. She isn't being a victim when she's going through all that hardship, she is being proud and she is fighting with all her spirit. It's interesting how everything comes together at the end. Some people are complaining about the subject matter being so dark, and the same people happily watch Mindhunter and Ted Bundy on Netflix. They can complain about the craft, or stuff like that - but the film is supposed to make us feel uncomfortable and it does. This being a tough film to watch, with the subject matter - the ending lifts our spirits. The film is cut so tightly and with the music being used at almost every scene - the film flows so well. I was reminded of Raatsasan for the pacing.

Halal Love Story Analysis

Halal Love Story (2020)

Directed by: Zakariya
Written by: Muhsin Parari, Zakariya
Streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

There are very few films that welcome us to reconsider our worldview. A lot of films are made with angst against a certain worldview, against conservatism or liberalism. This film is made with love, this film isn't against any worldview - it just made me realize that just because someone has a conservative worldview, or strong religious beliefs - it doesn't mean that they're regressive - we need not judge them or label them, we can agree to disagree on certain beliefs and move on. This film has a very endearing premise, a conservation Muslim organization wants to make a film - abiding by their religious norms, somewhat like how Iranian cinema is made. They only want to cast a married couple in real life, as a couple on screen and they don't want to capture any sorts of intimacy - even hugging. They struggle to find a couple both of whom, can act.

Zakariya's previous film 'Sudani from Nigeria' also is made with a lot of love and it's so inspiring to watch films which are so endearing and entertaining too - we have a notion that films about bad guys, grey characters are intriguing, and of course in both of these films we see layered, multi-dimensional characters - but these films inspire us to be more humane. It also explores the dynamics between the married couple very well, a love story doesn't necessarily have to be about the uncertainty of getting married, or getting into a relationship - it can also be about the uncertainty of happiness in a relationship - because in this case, they won't get divorced most likely and it's just a question of whether they'll be happy or not. This film being a meta film was a lot of fun to me, Soubin Shahir was hilarious as the sound recordist - it is an interesting take on how film sets operate. After an intense day of shoot, when there are heated arguments going on, the silence which they go through for the sound designer to record room tone - feels like an important minute of silence everyone should go through in their lives. This film does a lot of things, and yet it never feels heavy - all of them blend seamlessly into each other.

Our Sunhi Analysis

Our Sunhi (2013)

Written and Directed by: Hong Sang-soo

Hong Sang-soo's films are mostly set in the world of film festivals, filmmakers, film students and film critics and he makes his films by writing from 4-9 am in the mornings, on the days of shoot. There are long conversations in cafe bars where the characters are drinking, eating - he adds some conflict by having interesting relationship conflicts between them. 

This film is about Sunhi, a recent film school graduate who is looking to get a letter of recommendation from her film professor for her Masters in Film in the US. He is trying to convince her to start making films instead, and stresses the importance of practical experience - and I was getting a lot of advice there. She later confronts her ex-boyfriend who makes a film about their failed relationship. She meets another filmmaker too, and all the three men are falling for her.

The best part about the film is that, it never tries to look down on any of the men for falling for her - it respects the identity of everyone. Usually in films where more than two people are falling for one person, they tend to show some of them as stupid - just because it's tough to empathise with a lot of people. But this film respects the identity of every character - however quirky they might be.

Hong Sang-soo's films, I think, are the pinnacle of the Personal Film Movement (a term which I'm coining, haha) because Hong's process is so light where he lets conversations flow instead of forcing them. I think Hong tries to focus on getting more life experiences, so that he can effortlessly make films about them, and I think he sees himself in a lot of characters in his films. His films inspire me to be more brave while writing.

Putham Pudhu Kaalai Analysis

Putham Pudhu Kaalai (2020)

Directed by: Sudha Kongara, Gautham Vasudev Menon, Suhasini Maniratnam, Rajiv Menon and Karthik Subbaraj.
Streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

The filmmakers were saying that every story is about hope, but some of these shorts only loosely interpret that theme. It's because the anthologies that we've seen in Indian cinema - Bombay Talkies, Lust Stories and Ghost Stories - have similar tonal or thematic elements. I absolutely loved Karthik Subbaraj's short and GVM's short - the remaining were good too. It was interesting that except for Karthik Subbaraj's short - every short was set in upper class houses, with great interiors - probably because that's one of the only few production values that they can get in, in the conditions that they shot.

Karthik Subbaraj's short: This had a stark contrast from the other shorts in terms of tonality - and this short worked very well - both in writing and in the execution. I was laughing out loud throughout. It's the absurdity that he captures on screen, which creates the dark humor. This short felt more respectable towards the form of shorts more than the others - the other shorts felt more like segments of a feature film and this worked - as a standalone piece of art. I would love to see more of Karthik's shorts!

Gautham Vasudev Menon's: I think this film had GVM up his game. This short felt more profound, intimate and poised, a lot more than his other work. P. C. Sreeram's images were beautiful - where they have an entire background filled with white light and we see Ritu filled with light in high contrast, in front of that background - it was such a serene image. Ritu Varma is GVM's new muse, she gorgeously fits as the GVM woman. GVM's world is always good to see, because he always strikes a balance in the individual vs family conflict, which is almost like a dream for any person.

I liked the other shorts too, they felt like a pat on the back and they definitely served their purpose - during these tough times but it's just that the setting in the remaining other shorts felt a bit similar - and the film buff me, didn't have much to look forward to in them. 

This Is Not a Film Analysis

This Is Not a Film (2011)

Co-directed, Edited and Produced by: Jafar Panahi

This film was smuggled out of Iran to Cannes, in a flash drive inside a cake - because Jafar Panahi was banned for 20 years, from making films, writing screenplays, giving interviews and going abroad - this is like death penalty to a filmmaker - and in a protest to that, he shot a film at his home, about the ban, he narrates a few scenes from his screenplay and talks about how vastly different it is to make a film than to narrate a scene, reflecting on the nature of filmmaking. They apparently have to submit the screenplay to the government and take approval, and his films mostly being anti-authority have always gotten him into trouble. 

He has experienced lockdown, isolation and how it feels to be confined and oppressed as an artist way before the world. Often people talk about need of life experiences to be able to write stories - but I think that isolation and loneliness are never any lesser of life experiences either. There's a lot of internal angst, and for artists - not being able to create art, or even worse - being able to create and yet not creating anything can lead to a lot of internal angst - which in itself can be used as an inspiration to create something. 

The choice of shots to capture are interesting - they are an intimate portrayal of his life - whether it's the crocodile pet crawling on him while he is working, his phone calls during breakfast, and his conversations with his friend at the end - the form here is radical - it's in between a vlog, an interview and a documentary. Do we have to name it anyway? We could just call it a film, in spite of the makers telling us otherwise. Here, the context and the external story of the film being smuggled in a cake - work as the promotional material for the film, they do what a trailer would've done otherwise.

Code Unknown Analysis

Code Unknown (2000)

Written and Directed by: Michael Haneke
Starring: Juliette Binoche

The film is like an anthology - dealing with different stories, although these characters have a brief encounter in the film. They use extended long shots in the film many times, I'd like to write about one of the first scenes in the film. It is a long shot in the exteriors where Anne and Jean are talking while they are walking - the camera moves parallel to them majorly following Anne - capturing the action objectively without creating any dramatic effect - the best part is that after they part, and Jeans turns back and walks - the camera now follows Jean, it also goes back along with him and follows him as he throws a piece of garbage at a woman - and when Amadou, who confronts him for the same, enters the frame because the perspective is still with Jean - a fight happens, people gather up and when Amadou is about to bring the woman to gather proof, Jean tries to walk away from the scene, and the camera follows Jean and then Amadou again enters the frame and tries to stop him - and finally the police arrives at the scene and arrest Amadou (he's black).

The color, and the look of the film felt so contemporary - the camera movements are seamless, the focus is on point at every moment even in the long shots. The lack of a conventional narrative didn't pinch me as much because I honestly didn't expect one, and also because the storytelling in each segment hooked me and I wasn't exactly looking for something beyond that. Some of these scenes in standalone, could probably be extraordinary short films - especially the first scene which I wrote about and the one where the beggar has a breakdown at her hometown. I'd have been more satisfied if I could figure a connecting theme to all the stories, it was an interesting experience nevertheless. 

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg Analysis

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)

Written and Directed by: Jacques Demy
Won the Palme d'Or at Cannes Film Festival.

The entire film has characters singing to each other - even normal conversation is made into the lyrics of a song and are sung by the characters - this idea feels so radical because even conversations at a garage are sung with rhythm and certain dialogue is given emphasis with the music, with a punchy upbeat music parallel to it - like where Guy quits his job in the garage in the 3rd chapter. The simplistic love story helps, because it would've been difficult to process that level of depth and layering, especially when our major chunk of attention is taken with the characters singing. At a point in the beginning, the technique felt like an extended joke, but after some more time - I kind of got used to it and since there is conflict throughout, the film would've worked even without the singing part, and the singing didn't feel like a gimmick - it just added a layer of escapism to the world of the film. It's ironic and funny when pragmatic conversations are happening through a romantic song.

The film has brilliant visual aesthetics - the color of the costume of a character matches the color of the background most of the times, especially Gene's costumes - it's either the entire wall of the background, or a major object with the same color. I think that this would've been a huge influence for Wes Anderson's work. I'm generally fascinated by vibrant walls and colors, because we aren't usually allowed to/encouraged to use vibrant colors in our daily lives - again reflecting the mundane - but why not? Guy's costumes are mostly designed in a way that they his and Gene's costumes have color contrast. Fill lighting is used in most of the film - matching the tone of the light hearted subject matter. 

Lawrence of Arabia Analysis

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Directed by: David Lean
Cinematography by: F. A. Young

The film captures the vastness of the desert, and the landscapes through wide shots in which humans are just like 'dots' (referring to Orson Welles in The Third Man) and these shots remind us of the largeness of life and that we are mere dots in the larger scheme of things. The scene in which Lawrence says that he enjoyed killing, and that there something is not correct - the camera moves slowly into him from a long shot and for the first time I understood what camera movement can do - I could never feel a dramatic difference between a static shot, and a subtle push in - in this scene it lays emphasis on his dramatic confession, and his guilt. The scene in the beginning where a man kills Lawrence's guide because he drinks water out of his well - we see the person arriving in exactly their perspective - like a small dot from far away to someone dangerous. The blue sky in a lot of low angle shots, the red sunset after the match is blown - the images are so vivid in my mind. 

This film felt epic in the true sense of the word - the way we see hundreds of extras with camels or horses in the background, such shots are always tough to capture no matter how much technology can help - in an extra wide shot probably people can be created by adding dots, but the way this film captures the hundreds of people - I could feel every person being alive and moving - and again, it's not about how much money they'd have spent for those shots, it's reminding us of the largeness of life. Steven Spielberg talked in the documentary Spielberg about how Lawrence of Arabia made him want to become a filmmaker - the influences are evident in his work - he too captures the largeness of life in his films. I'm sure the desert scenes in the Breaking Bad universe are also partly inspired from this film, or The Searchers - the source of inspiration for David Lean to capture vast landscapes in this film.

Navrang Analysis

Navrang (1959)

Directed by: V. Shantaram

The film is about a disillusioned artist and it has a weird premise - poet Diwakar fantasizes his wife to be an angel and finds a new muse in his fantasized version of his wife. Here, the issue is infidelity - it need not be physical, fantasizing someone else is also infidelity - although in this film it's a little complicated because he imagines his own wife, but a different version of her. So it's not him cheating on her physically, he's probably cheating on her as a person - I don't know if this is making any sense but this is how abstract the idea of the film is. It's actually interesting - because after a point in a relationship, the excitement wears out and it's not the physical aspect, it's probably that you don't have much to look forward to after you know everything about the other person, which is why he muses on an imaginary version, which he doesn't want to know everything about. It's a weird idea.

The film is set in pre-independence India. They use background score conventionally - to direct the audience to feel the emotions. Dissolves are used well, to depict his imaginary muse and also in some scenes when things go haywire. The ending is a conventional happy ending, although I didn't get how the wife actually understood the difference between him singing for her real self and for his fantasized version of her. It's interesting so see that such complex ideas were being executed back then, without technology and resources - reinstating what Kubrick said - if it can be thought or written, it can be filmed. 

First Person Analysis

First Person (2000-01)

Directed and Produced by: Errol Morris

This is an interview series of people who are from unconventional professions and very different walks of life, some even shocking. Most of them have professions related to death in some way, one cleans up blood in a crime scene and helps the family of victims with the logistics of it, another is into cryonics (look it up if you don't know what it is, I was shocked too), another case where a talking parrot was the only witness in a crime scene, another woman who is into relationships with serial killers, another person who is the smartest person in the world but is just a professional bouncer. It is something to know about psychopaths, serial killers to understand what humans can be capable of but this series of guests are arguably, good people and all of them are on the legal side of the law - it's just that the things that they do are so weird that it's almost difficult to not judge them but by getting them to talk for awhile - he makes us empathise with them and this show just challenges our ability to be open minded.

This series was shot unconventionally - Errol Morris built 'The Interrotron' - a device similar to a teleprompter - where Errol and his subject each sit facing a camera and their faces are projected to the other person on a two-way mirror in front of the lens of the camera. For us, it feels like the subject is talking to the audience by looking into the camera, and for the subject, it feels like they are talking to the person by looking at their image - it's a win-win. They use extreme close up shots of the subject sometimes, to create an unsettling feeling. I'm yet to watch his documentary The Thin Blue Line, where after the film about the inconsistencies in a murder case - the case is reconsidered and the convict is proven innocent and set free.

Bhumika Analysis

Bhumika (1977)

Directed by: Shyam Benegal
National Award for Best Actress, Best Screenplay
Starring: Smita Patil, Anant Nag, Amol Palekar, Naseeruddin Shah

This film is a brilliant character study of Usha, a film actress, played by Smita Patil. The film explores her coming-of-age from her young days till her middle age which mostly include her experiences with various men in her life, right from her abusive, alcoholic father to her husband and with various extra-marital affairs that she has. This film is essentially about liberty and authority, and how abusing authority could drive people to purposefully break rules just for the sake of it. She rejects every form of authority she faces, she rejects her mother that film is a bad career choice, she gets pregnant before marriage (which is a huge thing in India even today in some subcultures), she has affairs with various men and even in one of those affairs with a producer, she seeks liberty. Loss of innocence is an element, and the film definitely has a strong cynical outlook towards men, and their carnal desires because in spite of the diverse worldviews, when it comes to sex there is never a second thought from anyone. Some argue that if it's a biological thing, why condemn men for it? It's like condemning frogs for being green.

Keshav played by a brilliant Amol Palekar, is so expressive without even saying anything - especially in the party where she is having dinner with Rajan, the way he looks at them. Kuleshov effect is used in that scene, the shots of Usha and Rajan add to our understanding of Keshav's anger. In the first scene where Keshav and Usha are fighting, the eyes of Keshav are stead strong - in that scene even if we mute it and see we can understand that the husband is accusing the wife of adultery. She probably cheats, only because he overprotects her and makes her feel like she is his property - there is no scope for dialogue there. This film doesn't condone infidelity - it explores how certain things could lead to it.

Once Upon a Time in the West Analysis

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

Directed by: Sergio Leone

Western films give a lot of opportunity for filmmakers to work their filmmaking muscles - because of the vast landscapes, which makes them choose between a wide, long, mid, close, extreme close pretty comfortably and every choice is done intentionally. Also in the build up of a shoot out, the editing and the pacing is played around so much - even in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly - we see few minutes of film just before the shoot out and the sheer suddenness of the move, is captured only through the edit. This film uses even sound design to create tension, a technique which was later used in Sholay - the sound of a swing, or a fan - the rustic, repetitive sound in an otherwise silent ambiance. The music by Ennio Morricone stands out, like his other works too - although this time, they use a mouth organ and they have the instrument in scenes which means the theme would've been worked before the shoot itself.

The ending wide shot has probably hundreds of extras, huge sets built and across a huge space - it's elements like these that make these Westerns epics. This film has a lot of fun shootouts, like the one where a person from above the train puts a show on the window and shoots through it - and a lot of stuff like that. The violence in this film is not disturbing - it plays on a witty level more than on a brutal gory level - like that of in Sam Peckinpah's or in Quentin Tarantino's films.

The Lady Eve Analysis

The Lady Eve (1941)

Screenplay and Direction: Preston Sturges
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda

This film is a story of a father-daughter duo who are con-artists; they make money off of people easily. When they encounter Pike, the daughter and Pike fall in love - and just before she is about to tell him who she is, someone else tells Pike about it. Now it's getting interesting, drama is always created out of revelations of secrets and their confrontations. Here, Pike is silent and seems to be disturbed and Jean comes and is casually talking to Pike - and when suddenly Pike shows her the photo - there is silence from both sides. Moments like these are so precious to writers to explore character, because the choices that characters make in situations which test them are the ones that define them. Some people lose control over their thoughts, and go haywire - and some overreact, punish too much - and some feel helpless.

After this, Eve changes her outlook and meets Pike again like a stranger and they again fall in love. Now, she plays the loop of "you'd assume I'd do this, so I'll instead do this" and it works. She says that he looks familiar, which he thinks that a con-artist wouldn't say because that'll raise doubt. Finally, she lets go of the con-job and goes back to him as Jean - the character arc although it feels sudden - there is progression, because when she fell in love, her first instinct was to save him from her dad. But was the whole "Eve" thing, a con just to make him fall back in love with Jean? Oh my! Then my whole understanding of the material could be wrong, and then it's a screwball comedy as I read in the description of the film. The scene where Jean looks into the mirror and makes fun of him in the starting scenes, we still do that when we see people we know talking far away - where we can't hear them but see their expressions.

Metropolis Analysis

Metropolis (1927)

Directed by: Fritz Lang

This film is a testament to what Stanley Kubrick says - 'if it can be written or thought, it can be filmed'. It's a German Expressionist science-fiction film. Films which are shot earlier and were set in the future like 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Blade Runner and likes are always interesting to watch because some of the filmmaker's interpretations of the future turn out to be close. This film captures brilliant architecture, as some critics observed - it's a mix of functionalist architecture and art deco. The film has shots with skyscrapers and neon lights, it's apparently inspired by Lang's visit to New York. 

This film conveys a lot visually, because of course they don't have sound to rely upon and frequent cutting to intertitles would only annoy the audience. The scene where the robot is instigation people to revolt and kill, that was a brilliantly shot and edited scene - because the way they superimpose shots, of the people and her, and the way they cut back and forth - it captures the excitement in both sides, as a response to her instigation. The basic plot of this film, has some similarities to Shankar's Robo - the robot turning out to be harmful to the mankind and such themes. 

All the modern horror films root back to the art movement German Expressionism - the way films interpreted this art movement was not very different - they added exaggerated makeup, lighting, costumes, production design and intense music to give a distorted view of the world. The film's production design apparently draws inspiration from Cubist, Futurist designs and more. Films like these which have a strong sense of style create an enticement to explore what influenced them.

The Exorcist Analysis

The Exorcist (1973)

Directed by: William Friedkin
Written for the Screen and Produced by: William Peter Blatty

I'm not a big fan of horror films - I love the sub-genres of slasher, like Hush, or even horror films with interesting concepts like Quiet Place, Don't Breath, Purge etc.. or the recent horror films like Get Out, Us and The Platform which make social statements in the disguise of survival horror films. I have somehow never enjoyed the conventional supernatural horror genre, the anticipation they create before a jump scare always puts me off - it feels like a prank by a friend, and most of the times I tend to look away from the screen or close half of my face, haha. The most cliche way of doing a jump scare is, making us and the character expect a jump scare and the music goes up, the character gets tensed, the music goes up and up and the character is shit scared now and somehow they muster up the courage and take a peek, there's nothing - hoof...the character is relieved and as they turn back to go, BAMMMM! A jump scare which is absolutely unexpected, and done only once or twice in a film would fascinate me like the one in Game Over.

This film, The Exorcist, doesn't have jump scares - it mostly banks on gore, and they show us the reaction shot first before they show us the horror footage - this increases the anticipation in us. It's a tool often used to create cliffhangers in novels, they write about a character who enter through a door and get flabbergasted by what they see inside and end the chapter there. I understand that my reaction to this film won't be as good as the film, because I've seen a lot of bad derivative work of this film, and have become tired of it - hence I have immense respect for this film for being one of the first popular horror films and to start a trend.