LSD : Watch it only if you have the stomach!

Let the cinegoers looking for feel-good movies be warned at the outset. If all you want to get out of a movie is entertainment, LSD is not for you. After all, feeling something hard-hitting and getting disturbed by getting reminded about the reality we live in is no entertainment.

LSD is instead for those who want to see a alternate way of movie-making, one that is nearer to reality in format and content. One that is gutsy, more honest and imaginative. The picturization is novel and is a reflection of today's urban society, where everyone is on camera, knowingly or unknowingly - The offices, the residence complexes, the cinemas, the malls and what not. The 'story' reflects our times - everything real-time, from politics to swayamvars. As a spirited Journo says in the movie "Desh ko seva nahi, prime time entertainment chahiye!" And as another says about the power of camera "Yeh camera nahi khazane ki chabi hai".
LSD defys conventional cinema in format and content. This is the first digital movie entirely made on handheld digicams and CCTV surveillance cameras. This visual medium with candid cameras with the shakyness and hazyness prepare the audience for the dose of realism the movie portrays. It gives the MTV bakra kind of feeling. It is just that the comedy there is replaced by a sort of black comedy here along with some spoof (of DDLJ) and some satire and some irony. There are 3 stories captured on handy-cam, CCTV and a hidden camera. This format adds to the authenticity of the content that is mired in Dibakar Banerjee's blase outlook. Even when the mood in the first of the three stories transform from a spoof mode to black comedy mode, Banerjee does not turn dramatic or over-emphasise. These subtleties in approach makes the 3 stories all the more brutal and matter-of-fact. Banerjee's take on love, sex (voyeuristic videos, MMSs) and Dhoka (sting operations) in 3 stories bear close resemblances to real-life scandals. The love story of a dreamy-eyed youth in a society of honor killings is too close to the Nitish Katara-Bharti Yadav case. The voyeuristic part resembles the Miss Jammu/Mysore Mallige MMS scandals while the sting part reminds us of the episodes involving Aman Vermas and Shakti Kapoors. In all, there is too much of the realism dose to digest that hits the pit of our stomachs. So unless you want to think about the movie the morning after, an evening with this movie may look pointless. This movie leaves such a bitter aftertaste.
What stands out in the movie are the characters. They are with the minutest of details and hard to forget. They are very very real with their dialogues and there is a good chance you think you know similar people in real-life. They engage us even when we think we know where the stories are heading for. LokiLokal, the punjabi sales girl, the 'Adi sir' fan, the frustrated store supervisor, the watchman, It is the characters that had my attention for the 2nd and 3rd stories although those 2 stories seem to run predictably. In fact they even seemed to be unnecessarily dragged lonegr. The movie is littered with profanities and is aptly rated 'A' although it contains almost no instances of sexual acts on screen. The movie is epoch-making and is a step ahead in Hindi cinema after Dev D last year. This is yet another instance of how suitable western technique is picked to tell Indian tales. Bravo Banerjee.

Ye Maaya Chesave (Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaya): About the 'unpredictable woman'!

So, K Balachander has written to Gautam Vasudev Menon raving about his latest movie Ye Maaya Chesave (Original 'Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaya' in Tamil meaning “Will You Come Down the Sky?”) and told him he is the next icon. It's unfair to compare both the versions as the climax seems to vary. The producers of Telugu version, in line with widely-held belief that Telugu audience would NEVER accept a sad/less-than-shubham card kind of ending, changed the the original 'unhappy' climax. So the very intent of the movie is lost in Telugu version. That is because the movie was implying an unhappy ending all through. There was hardly a scene where the two lovers were uninhibited about their love. In fact, the movie was peppered with dialogues like "she is my one-way ticket to heartbreak city!" from the guy and "let me feel this pain, I like this pain" from the girl. It is the stylised picturization, background score and Music that makes this movie look like a mushy love story and not the content.

And compounding the intent-loss is the fact that as in his previous movie, Menon focuses self-indulgently on his story-telling and not the story. As he himself says "More than falling in love, therefore, the film’s story focuses on “what happens in the next moment.” It is kind of running commentary, day in and day out of a guy who just fell in love. The guy is spontaneous and the Girl so confused. And Love being such a complex emotion, the story shows its two protagonists in behaviours outside the realm of reason or logic. The lady is in a iterative loop of indecision and the guy in a similar loop of hope and frustration, depending on his lady's mood. All love stories dished out in Indian movies more or less revolve around external hurdles like families, villains or external circumstances. Maniratnam's 'Sakhi' (Alaipayuthey in Tamil, Saathiya in Hindi) was the only reasonable exception to dig into the lovers' psyche to create a conflict. But that was a case of love after marriage. But Menon takes the big challenge by creating conflict from the lovers' own complexities. After all, in a world this complex when guys and girls do lot of thinking to decide what they want, accepting someone as love and then life-partner is no simple thing. Menon exposes these predicaments, vulnerabilities and fragility in the romance by relying on the universally celebrated 'women are unpredictable' stereotype. Even in Telugu we have this famous line 'Adavaarimaatalaku ardhaleverule' (Women speak something but mean something else). So here, Jessi, the lady's characteristics manifest in all complexities this love cycle goes through. This is a very unconventional characterization by Menon as this is the first time, I saw, a complete movie is dedicated to the 'unpredicatble woman'.

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AR Rahman's BG score and Music captures the mood just right. The movie is stylishly made as is Menon's wont. The Alleppey shots are breath-taking and Rajeev Menon got a credit for the location. Samantha, the lady in Telugu version is perfectly cast. Her costumes are perfect and her acting elegant. I did not quite get Nagachaitanya's line of acting. He was just being himself all through the movie and could not present his character well. Even the earnestness seen in his debut movie is missing. Gautam Vasudev Menon continues his Surya S/O Krishnan (Vaaranam Aayiram) kind of musings in Ye Maaya Chesave.

Well, the 80 year old living legend of Tamil cinema Balachander wrote the viewers are wise and they got it, the viewers who liked the movie point to us Balachander is a legend and those who didn't say, rather uncharitably, that KB is now 80 and lost sense of judgement!

The reactions are so drastically different. Some rave about it and others completely trash it. One of my friends' mom supposedly said she always wondered why viewers would throw stones at a screen until she saw this one! Others with their brush with cupid can't stop raving about how the complexities of a crush are beautifully portrayed on screen. Ye Maaya Chesave is like poetry. Those who can relate to it appreciate it. Those who can't get bored like hell. It is an intensely personal experience, like Menon's earlier Surya starrer. It is a genuinely honest movie, well-made. The only mistake, I thought, was changing the climax for Telugu. The original climax would have avoided the confusion that now set in about the 'story' of the movie. Changing the climax killed the spirit of the movie and made the viewers wonder about the whole point of the movie.

MF Hussain II: India's values on trial, not Qatar's!

"MF Hussain should have painted the prophet. Would Qatar have allowed him in? They would have instead declared a reward for his head"

That is the crux of the major comments I got in my previous post. One of the major arguments that comes when discussing MF Hussain's alleged blasphemous paintings is about how he never attempted to take the liberties in relation to revered figures in Islam or Christianity. The argument stems from a belief that Hindu culture is tolerant and hence Hussain is taking too much liberty (some right-wing elements go to the extent of saying that Hussain has a 'secret agenda' and hence he is 'insulting' Hinduism and embarrassing Hindus).

The irony here is that even as those arguing declare that Hinduism is inclusive and liberal, they will end up comparing with other religions and almost express a wish of being 'less liberal' like them! On one hand, they argue how Hinduism is the oldest of world religions and how far its philosophy and teachings went through voluntary disciples and on the other they almost express a wish of how it should learn a thing or two from other organized religions like Islam and Christianity!

A second major argument against Hussain is that if at all he took those liberties with other religions, no other country would have hosted him. On one hand, we trumpet how we are the world's largest democracy and how fast we are 'developing'. On the other hand, we want to compare and compete with the Afghanistans, Libyas and Qatars and agonise how 'too democratic or too secular' we have become. Even as we argue for a chair at the high table of UN security council, we are in a self-doubt over our own power to withstand the missiles of artists. We fear our culture is insulted by few paintings, our nation's democracy is hijacked by some one's 'secret agenda'. And yet we argue we are tomorrow's superpower.

The question we need to ask is whether we are poised to stride ahead with the self-assurance with which we started as a free nation 6 decades ago. We have embraced the democratic, secular values and we have to stick to those values. If need be, we should even fight for them in our spheres of influence. No point comparing ourselves with the worst in the world and conveniently excusing our hypocrisies unless we are ready to declare ours as a third-class country for the next century. Robert Kennedy said "Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence..". We Indians should ask ourselves if we have the will and moral courage to follow the values we embraced, in letter and spirit? Do we seriously believe what we claim ourselves to be - secular, democratic, big power? If so, we should realise that values on trial in Hussain's case are those of India and not Qatar's.