crisp morning, chirps in my ear, sand under my feet. Shade and sun, shade and sun. poetry and prose. stream of consciousness. self referential. rhythm of salsa. THE MOOD. the mood of music, the mood of being. the music of mood. body feels the need to reciprocate the music. it rhymes, the body rhymes. the mood rhymes. I dig my sneakers into the walking sand, i watch them playing with their dogs, i watch them watching their new born, i watch the old and weary, clinging to their mood. the mood of age, the mood of death. i sink into myself. back to the rhythm of salsa. warmth of sun on the corner of my forehead. shade respites it. i watch them running. i watch them walking. i watch them leaving. i feel the draining. salsa tempos down. mind starts regaining consciousness. my phone rings. time to go back to the apartment.
time to write this blog.
crisp morning, chirps in my ear, sand under my feet....
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Barcelona (and vicky cristina)
When I go to watch a movie, I am not just looking for a pleasant diversion (given the quality and hype around today's movies -- think The Dark Knight --, I would even settle for that!!) but a complete immersion in the life of deviant characters, to be pulled out of myself, to have my ego set aside and partake in the unreality of unfolding events. Good movies make me feel like a buoy that bobs up and down with every ripple and wave without any power or will of its own. They evoke my dormant sensibilities and nourish my active ones. "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" was one such movie.
The movie enchanted me with its soft hues and shots of medieval spanish architecture -- cobblestone streets, courtyard style villas, earthy tones, linen donned characters -- of Barcelona and other Spanish towns. These visuals both as backdrops and fleeting incidentals had me on the edge of my seat as a thriller would. And it doesn't stop with the stunning cinematography. The movie draws subtle contrasts mocking American corporate stereotype against the art-inspired, free, experimental lifestyle of Barcelona painters.
Vicky Cristina Barcelona -- Spanish Bohemia meets trite, cookie-cutter corporate-bots
Vicky's husband is a corporate-smart clown who is completely out of place when faced with the ideas of freedom and spontaneity. He feels the need to reduce everything to commonplace mundane labels (Cristina made love with Elena once, so that makes her a bisexual!) or pout apparently high-minded but equally meaningless rhetorical statements like - 3 way relationships undermine the preservation principle and destabilize social order. Ha! Now don't get me wrong, it is alright to wonder aloud and pontificate with the intention of learning and expanding one's mental horizons, but it is oppressively repugnant to listen to a pseudo-expert trying to win a argument by using academic jargon and making meaningless predictions.
The character wants to plays golf in the rustic Barcelona (note the irony; Golf today and for some time has been treated less as a sport more as business deal making medium - "I played golf with him" has the same vein as "Are you on facebook?"), is completely in his element in an amusement park, is giddy with excitement as he discovered a gadget that would have allowed him to catch a Mets game on his flight to Tokyo, and has a friend whose wife is in raptures about the prospect of procuring an oriental rug -- classic examples of stunted, confined sensibilities. Once hiking in Yosemite, I overheard a couple talking animatedly about how US can tap into Alaskan oil fields in a tone that would have made them right at home in a G8 summit. I came out infinitely glad that this movie duly exposed their unimagined spheres.
Antonio's father is a poet and refuses to publish his emotion-colored poetry to the world that hasn't learned to love in 2 centuries. Hmm. He is not a world-citizen, he hates this world. He also refuses to speak in any other language other than his native Spanish as as a poet he feels that a foreign tongue violates the musicality of his construction. (I am appalled by us Indians, including me, who have traded our mother tongues for a socially convenient international language. There is no poetry, no profound expression in the crudely stitched, melange like version of hinglish). He is old but vitalizes himself by expressing that he has erotic dreams about his son's passionate and slightly deranged ex wife. What really touched me about the portrayal was Antonio's lack of exaggerated response and the way his father's expression is blended in a poetry-and-art-is-no-big-deal way into the company of Antonio and Vicky.
And finally, the movie rejuvenated my memories of Madrid, the numerous flamenco performances, poetic Spanish guitaring, narrow cobblestone streets flanked by old medieval looking buildings that pull you right into their history. Never before have I felt more strongly to make Spain my home.
PS - The above is merely a set of impressions I carried back and not a movie review in the usual sense of the phrase.
The movie enchanted me with its soft hues and shots of medieval spanish architecture -- cobblestone streets, courtyard style villas, earthy tones, linen donned characters -- of Barcelona and other Spanish towns. These visuals both as backdrops and fleeting incidentals had me on the edge of my seat as a thriller would. And it doesn't stop with the stunning cinematography. The movie draws subtle contrasts mocking American corporate stereotype against the art-inspired, free, experimental lifestyle of Barcelona painters.
Vicky Cristina Barcelona -- Spanish Bohemia meets trite, cookie-cutter corporate-bots
Vicky's husband is a corporate-smart clown who is completely out of place when faced with the ideas of freedom and spontaneity. He feels the need to reduce everything to commonplace mundane labels (Cristina made love with Elena once, so that makes her a bisexual!) or pout apparently high-minded but equally meaningless rhetorical statements like - 3 way relationships undermine the preservation principle and destabilize social order. Ha! Now don't get me wrong, it is alright to wonder aloud and pontificate with the intention of learning and expanding one's mental horizons, but it is oppressively repugnant to listen to a pseudo-expert trying to win a argument by using academic jargon and making meaningless predictions.
The character wants to plays golf in the rustic Barcelona (note the irony; Golf today and for some time has been treated less as a sport more as business deal making medium - "I played golf with him" has the same vein as "Are you on facebook?"), is completely in his element in an amusement park, is giddy with excitement as he discovered a gadget that would have allowed him to catch a Mets game on his flight to Tokyo, and has a friend whose wife is in raptures about the prospect of procuring an oriental rug -- classic examples of stunted, confined sensibilities. Once hiking in Yosemite, I overheard a couple talking animatedly about how US can tap into Alaskan oil fields in a tone that would have made them right at home in a G8 summit. I came out infinitely glad that this movie duly exposed their unimagined spheres.
Antonio's father is a poet and refuses to publish his emotion-colored poetry to the world that hasn't learned to love in 2 centuries. Hmm. He is not a world-citizen, he hates this world. He also refuses to speak in any other language other than his native Spanish as as a poet he feels that a foreign tongue violates the musicality of his construction. (I am appalled by us Indians, including me, who have traded our mother tongues for a socially convenient international language. There is no poetry, no profound expression in the crudely stitched, melange like version of hinglish). He is old but vitalizes himself by expressing that he has erotic dreams about his son's passionate and slightly deranged ex wife. What really touched me about the portrayal was Antonio's lack of exaggerated response and the way his father's expression is blended in a poetry-and-art-is-no-big-deal way into the company of Antonio and Vicky.
And finally, the movie rejuvenated my memories of Madrid, the numerous flamenco performances, poetic Spanish guitaring, narrow cobblestone streets flanked by old medieval looking buildings that pull you right into their history. Never before have I felt more strongly to make Spain my home.
PS - The above is merely a set of impressions I carried back and not a movie review in the usual sense of the phrase.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Charlie Wilson's War
Last night I watched Charlie Wilson's War and quite liked it. Tom Hanks plays Charlie - a cowboy politician lobbying craftily and passionately to secure military funding for the "covert war" between Afghanistan's Mujahideen's and the Soviets. The plot is full of sarcastic twists and keeps delivering laugh-out-aloud punches every now and then.
Charlie has a penchant for whiskies and women to the extent that even his office and press secretaries are young, voluptuous and sexy women. Julia Roberts plays a religious-minded socialite who organizes christian fund raisers and slave auctions. Charlie knows people in the senate, is the get-things-done guy and is awakened to do something meaningful with his connections in a steamy, Charlie-gets-laid night with Julia at her fundraiser.
On Julia's behest, Charlie travels to Pakistan to meet Jia-Ul-Haq, Pakistan's president where he is badgered and taken to task by Pakistani's Generals about America's phony and grossly insufficient support to Afghans and how that was only resulting in an unabated rampage by the Red army and massive influx of refugees into Pakistan. Charlie visits the refugee camp and witnesses disfigured living bodies, children mutilated in toy mines, raped mothers who had seen their children murdered and is massively moved by the experience.
Cold war with USSR implied that America had to keep its support to Afghan's freedom-fighters under the wraps. Charlie flies to meet the stodgy Israeli rep as Israel at that point had the largest stockpile of Soviet weapons which would be used by Afghans to shoot down Russian helicopters. This is followed by humorously caustic negotiations while a green-eyed belly dancer holds their collective attention with her slow, supple, erotic moves.
The rest of the movie is about how Charlie maneuvers his way through the senate system to pump up the funding from $5 million to a billion dollars, gets Israeli support to push Russian stockpile of weapons and helicopter shooting missiles into Afghanistan and culminates in Russian tanks backing out of the war-torn land on the "friendship" bridge. Even while the movie explores the seriousness of America's role in this war through Charlie's devious machinations it never fails to constantly sprinkle irony and sarcasm in its scenes.
The movie enlightens us with how just a handful of people orchestrated the undoing of Red army. It also delivers a powerful message at the end - "We go with good intentions but we always fuck up the end game". One more million dollars would have rehabilitated the under-age Afghan freedom-fighters returning to find their villages pillaged and families murdered and just may be, remotely, possibly, stemmed the genesis of Taliban which became America's undoing on 9/11.
Charlie has a penchant for whiskies and women to the extent that even his office and press secretaries are young, voluptuous and sexy women. Julia Roberts plays a religious-minded socialite who organizes christian fund raisers and slave auctions. Charlie knows people in the senate, is the get-things-done guy and is awakened to do something meaningful with his connections in a steamy, Charlie-gets-laid night with Julia at her fundraiser.
On Julia's behest, Charlie travels to Pakistan to meet Jia-Ul-Haq, Pakistan's president where he is badgered and taken to task by Pakistani's Generals about America's phony and grossly insufficient support to Afghans and how that was only resulting in an unabated rampage by the Red army and massive influx of refugees into Pakistan. Charlie visits the refugee camp and witnesses disfigured living bodies, children mutilated in toy mines, raped mothers who had seen their children murdered and is massively moved by the experience.
Cold war with USSR implied that America had to keep its support to Afghan's freedom-fighters under the wraps. Charlie flies to meet the stodgy Israeli rep as Israel at that point had the largest stockpile of Soviet weapons which would be used by Afghans to shoot down Russian helicopters. This is followed by humorously caustic negotiations while a green-eyed belly dancer holds their collective attention with her slow, supple, erotic moves.
The rest of the movie is about how Charlie maneuvers his way through the senate system to pump up the funding from $5 million to a billion dollars, gets Israeli support to push Russian stockpile of weapons and helicopter shooting missiles into Afghanistan and culminates in Russian tanks backing out of the war-torn land on the "friendship" bridge. Even while the movie explores the seriousness of America's role in this war through Charlie's devious machinations it never fails to constantly sprinkle irony and sarcasm in its scenes.
The movie enlightens us with how just a handful of people orchestrated the undoing of Red army. It also delivers a powerful message at the end - "We go with good intentions but we always fuck up the end game". One more million dollars would have rehabilitated the under-age Afghan freedom-fighters returning to find their villages pillaged and families murdered and just may be, remotely, possibly, stemmed the genesis of Taliban which became America's undoing on 9/11.
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