Mar 13, 2009

Long and lyrical . Truly magnificent performance

Long and lyrical
Saw The curious case of Benjamin Button this Sunday. Hadn't heard great reviews about the movie. But like any intelligent person, I chose to figure it out for myself. Once in the theatre, I was in for a long, slow but rythmic and lyrical experience of almost two and a half hours. What if we were born old and grew young and died when we are babies. Surrealisitc? Well, that's the basic storyline of the movie.
Life of Benjamin is interconnected to a clock which moves backward and is created by a desolated father who is hopeful to get his son who has been killed during a war. He is born as a old man-child and has been discarded as a monster child. Nevertheless, he continues to lead his super weird yet normal life as a wonderful lady decided to take care of him.
The movie traverses Benjamin's journey. BTW do check out Brad Pitt in his youngest avtar- too hot to handle! Anyways, he falls in love twice, once as an old man who is 17 years old and once as a charming (super hot) young dude who is about 40-50 years old. Cate Blanchett (his second love interest) is just about ok in the movie. But she cant be blamed much as the movie belongs to Pitt. The scene that I enjoyed the most is where a priest thinks that he is making seven year old OLD man walk and dies of a heart attack with the excitement.



Truly magnificent performance
Saw The Reader on Thursday night and had no idea that I would be so f****** mesmerised by Kate Winslet who plays Hanna Schmitz. I think she has outdone herself (won the oscar for this one). However, let me warn you at the outset that if you are planning to watch it in a theatre in India, please be ready to get irritated as so many scenes are cut inspite of the fact that it has an adult certificate (WTF)! I wouldn't go into the story of the film, you can read the synopsis here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Reader
There is something heartwarming about Hanna (former guard who worked during the Nazi regime in Germany) being illiterate. She has a desire to be read to. The film opens on her reader who is a 16 year old boy who has a torrid "love" affair with Hanna. The expressions when she is being read to are simply mindblowing. The scene where she is asked to give a sample of her handwriting during a court trial is my personal favourite. Hanna refuses and accepts the blame which leads to life imprisonment!
I also like the scene when her young ex-lover Michael meets her when her life imprisonment is about to get over. He removes his hand when she keeps her hand over it. Complicated poignant scene. Michael's predicament as a young lover who is always trying to understand Hanna's weird mood swings is interesting.
The larger issue of her getting a life imprisonment for locking up jewish women in a church during a fire twenty years ago when she was working as an SS guard during Nazi regime is worth pondering over!

PS: Both the movies are book adaptations. While Benjamin has been adapted from F Scott Fitzgerald's short story (READ THE FULL STORY HERE: http://www.readbookonline.net/read/690/10628/), Reader is adapted from Bernhard Schlink's book The Reader.

17 comments:

notgogol said...

my second comment on your blog is in precise contradiction to my first one :P

Shawshank - predictable?!? Were you brought up on a diet of J. Hadley Chase novels :O

you stopped watching prestige with 10 mins to go!! thats like saying NO to the 7th tequila shot that for sure is going to get you super-high and super-happy...tsk..tsk..

P.S. best scene of the TCCoBB - when their ages cross paths. but on the whole a disappointment

payal.k said...

Hi Notgogol...Its all subjective..It is totally alright to have two diff favourite scenes :) I watch movies from a very different perspective!

BTW, There was a "reason" I didnt want to have the seventh shot ot tequila!

And yes, for sure, I found Shawshank predictable. I saw it after watching zillions of other movies :p
PS: Do catch Gulaal.Its a good movie :)

notgogol said...

i'm gonna watch Burn after reading now. i must warn you, it better be good :D

P.S. Did catch Gulaal. The dialogues were very engaging. I felt the climax wasn't very logically convincing though. Unlike Punjab, TN or the N.East, no-one really associates a separatist movement with Rajasthan; very interesting theme.

P.P.S. unless the reason was an eighth tequila shot, tsk..tsk..

payal.k said...

I agree with u on the climax bit...It was slightly stretched..The girl who played da lead acted damn well..Superb performances...

PS m soooo sure ur gonna enjoy Burn After Reading:)

Also, r u into poetry???

OneViSh said...

hey, haven't seen TCCoBB but liked The Reader. the romance (or whatever you call it) reminded me Notebook.

Saw Gulaal twice. Piyush Mishra has done an outstanding job of his art. "Ye Duniya...' is fabulous!

notgogol said...

er...erm...hmm... The things a woman will do for cosmetic surgery :)
If you haven't watched The Big Lebowski, you might want to catch that.. similarly dark.. same direction duo.

No re. I don't write in verse. To be honest, I'm a little too dense to observe metre, rhyme and other instruments of "disciplined" writing :) I did skim through the other blog you've started. Nice initiative. but more verse than prose I must say :)

payal.k said...

I know....I actually wanted it to be JUST verse...prose was just to get more people in...ppl like u who think they cant write poetry.hehe...BTW poetry is not a "disciplined" writing...its actually more free flowing...n who da f*** care about metre n rhyme neways :)

PS: will try n get a CD of The Big Lebowski:)

notgogol said...

its not that I cant write poetry,
its jus that i'd rather watch the big lebowski;
its not that there is a problem with the verse that is free,
its jus that it doesnt make a logical sense,
when i randomly miss a comma, a colon and an apostrophe,
and attribute it to the oh so cool poetic license :)

ps. 2 minutes flat. fast na? :)

payal.k said...

Notgogol,

Awesome!!!! Totally love it:) Can I post it on Lyricsandwords with due credit ofcourse??? :p

PS: Did u see Firaaq??

notgogol said...

seriously? :-? I must say you have very bad taste! :P Why do you wanna scare people off your nice lil blog re :P

P.S. nope. actually im not in the mood for serious "i need to catch every dialogue" kinda movies these days. i'd rather watch aloo chat post 3 beers. vain na? :P

payal.k said...

hahahah....same pinch...me too...i wana watch some fun movies n de stress...but not aloo chat for sure...cant stand Aftab shivdasani..

So i cant put the poem right?
PS: I agree. Hav a bad taste...hehehehe

payal.k said...

sorry i meant...I CAN put the poem right?

notgogol said...

i could tolerate tushar kapoor after 2 beers in why did golmaal return! aftab will be cakewalk :)

P.S. r u sure? i actually think it sucks
P.P.S. if tushar kapoor was dumb, how did he manage to make the most noise in the movie man!

payal.k said...

Havnt seen Golmaal!!b THANK god for small mercies...
Cool, m gonna out the poem right away...thnx...i think its interestin in a a weird way...if u kno wht i mean...

notgogol said...

no, no. do watch it. you'll learn to appreciate life more once you're done :)

P.S. i did warn you!

payal.k said...

posted da poem...Check:)

notgogol said...

shucks! u actually posted it. am flushed :D

P.S. nice pic :P