Review - The Hungry

Found Titus Andronicus in complete works of Shakespeare

Just watched a movie called The Hungry. It has Naseeruddin Shah, Tisca Chopra as its main leads. It is directed by Bornila Chatterjee. Did not know anything about the movie, just stumbled across it on YouTube. In the movie everybody gave a low key performance, everybody underacted. And that created a slow horror. When we used to prepare notes in our university days we used to use a line very often in our answers, "an impending doom lurking large on the horizon". This movie is that. Towards the end I felt I know the story, felt an itch you know! Then found out that the movie is based on Titus Andronicus.

Who could have written about such horror, brutality other than "the man" himself. Wanted to write "the bard", but thought "bard" is more relevant to  his sonnets and comedies. Titus Andronicus is Shakespeare's first tragedy, and probably his most brutal one. I read somewhere that Titus Andronicus foretold what to come in terms of his later tragedies, but I think those are mellower compared to this one. Yes, the blackness of hearts became darker and blacker, hatred became thicker mixed with malice in his later tragedies but something about Titus Andronicus makes you forget to breath for few seconds.

Nowadays every thriller-murder-mystery writer is strive to create a more brutal world, right now I am reading a Jo Nesbo where the murderer super glued a victim to the floor of a bathtub and then slowly turned on the tap. Recently, I saw 2 movies, Siccin 1 & 2. Got very scared, but realized everything has already been written by Shakespeare long long ago. And now do not say that no no all are written by Bacon or Marlowe or Blake or Queen Elizabeth herself! And tomorrow some eager aspirant of PhD is going to say that they were actually written by Queen Elizabeth's footman!

Shakespeare got this capability to create a world filled with flowers and fairies and beautifully scented forest and he also created this black hatred that made people embark on  such a journey of revenge. 

At the end I was more appalled by witnessing pure impossible hatred that can possibly reside in people's heart than by the sheer brutality of it.

Everybody is thinking I am a ghoul who takes pleasure from only gory stories, much like Raj's girlfriend Emily, but it is not true. But romantic comedies, sweet love stories often make me too much aware of its absence in the world, and as a result makes me sad. Philosophical bildungsroman makes me aware of the fact that I am not writing one, but reading one! End result...sad. But after watching an adaptation of Titus Andronicus, not to mention a much mellower version than originally how Shakespeare wrote, I feel so restless that now I am about to take refuge in cute cuddly cat videos!                                                     

F.R.I.E.N.D.S

Today something very silly happened. We couldn’t remember the name of the shop Ross and Rachel buying things from for their flats and hiding it from Phoebe. Somehow I was sure it started with a “p”, because few words were coming to my mind, poppadum, potpourri, and pompadour. It was like resting at the tip of your tongue but refusing to walk to your lips. Then with an exasperation I googled it. It was Pottery-Barn, it was Pottery-Barn, it was Pottery-Barn! Ross bought an apothecary table which was meant to be used as a coffee table. Rachel bought the same one while she was living with Phoebe. Now Phoebe was an idealistic, she hated all those chain stores where things were not unique; not one of a kind; everybody could have the same furniture. She liked a story behind a furniture, a history that would make it special. So, when Rachel bought the apothecary table she told Phoebe it is from the “yore”. So for Phoebe the CD drawers became old medicine drawers, and she still could smell the herbs. So yes, I remembered the name. What a relief! People may ask why you were so worked up if you couldn’t remember a name of a shop from some TV show. If seriously you are asking that, then you don’t exist in my world. Once upon a time I lived for f.r.i.e.n.d.s. It shaped me to some extent. I was an 80’s baby, and in my late-teens I watched f.r.i.e.n.d.s. Recently I came to know that if you are a fan of f.r.i.e.n.d.s. then you are supposed to be old. Millennials don’t know about f.r.i.e.n.d.s. it is not totally true. I know a few millennials who watched friends in 2015 for the first time and fell head over heels in love with it. Thank God for those continuous regular re-runs. By the time you reach season 7, you would start to want to watch the early episodes. At least that happens to me. And I am continuing to watch f.r.i.e.n.d.s. for last 15 years. I am in a loop and I don’t find anything sad or bad about it. So by now obviously I know almost all the lines and friends that is why I was all worked up for not being able to remember the shop’s name. The relationship between me and f.r.i.e.n.d.s. is I need to know that once a day in some TV channel or other there is f.r.i.e.n.d.s., if it is not I would lose my balance. When I am sad or restless my friends or family switches on the TV and ask me to watch f.r.i.e.n.d.s. and almost immediately I feel good. 

There is a very common question that people ask f.r.i.e.n.d.s. fans and that is which f.r.i.e.n.d.s. character are you? All girls would like to be Rachel. Who doesn’t want that famous Rachel haircut, those cute short skirts, that red & black check PJs, Ross’s crush upon themselves since 9th grade! But even though I am no different, deep down I know I am an out and out Monica. I am caring, responsible, argumentative (a soft synonym for quarrelsome) and loud. So I have my Chandler with me in reality. He also makes all the mistakes Chandler makes, but only I know how many times I have dodged a bullet in our relationship by forgiving him because I know in the same situation Monica would have forgiven Chandler!

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"Practical Magic" to make Practical Life Magical

I love magic. No, stage magic or magic shows dose not interest me. I love real magic, actual miraculous magic. There is always a visual side to magic. One must watch it in front of her happening and only then she could fathom the unreality of magical incident actually happening before her eyes. One can always read about magical happenings, but magic is in actuality goes with the phrase “to see is to believe”. And I believe in magic.

First magic in everyday banal life I saw happening was in “Matilda”. It just fascinated me, that ability to move stuff from a distance.  Here I should mention it beforehand that “Poltergeist” will not make it here today. The magic I am talking about here is in the sense it only brings pure joy, love and hope that anything is possible and the world is a beautiful place and you will be happy. So after “Matilda” and my pre-teen years, I saw “Practical Magic”. I was dumbfounded by hope and happiness. The movie has everything that can go right with a magic movie. It is about a witch family in a small town. Two little girls are raised by their aunts who are all witches. The two sisters are very close. They have magical powers. They will grow up to be Sally played by Sandra Bullock and Gillian played by Nicole Kidman. Gillian was always a bit of a rebel and she would go away but Sally will stay and fall in love with a guy and get married, hence one of my favorite song by Faith Hill, “This kiss, this kiss, this impossible kiss”. But there is a twist; there was a curse on this witch family cast by one of their ancestors. The curse was if a woman from this family ever loves a man, he would die. So after few years of happy marital bliss, Sally’s husband would die, being true to the curse. Here just when her husband was about to die, Sally would hear a deathwatch beetle making an ominous sound suggesting the death approaching. Sally would move back to her aunts with her two daughters. She decides her daughters would never practice magic. What happens then? Will Sally find love again? What will happen to rebel Gillian? Will the curse be broken? One can watch the movie to find these out. But I will watch it for its dreamy soft poetic magic. There are two particulars scenes that I like the most, when those white rose petals will fly into the moon from Sally’s diary, and how Sally’s spoon goes on stirring itself in the cup. I used to spin my spoon in the cup rapidly and suddenly leave it to see it stirring on its own. Oh, how desperately I needed and still need some magical powers. And that is why I like superhero movies, Avengers, Craft (this movie belongs to the same time period, I think. So now when I see Robin Tunny in The Mentalist, I feel nostalgic. It is the same with Aidan Quinn when I see him in Elementary, because I know him from Practical Magic), X-Men, my Wolverine (I love him), Harry Potter, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, seriously I am asking where to find them? Tell me, because if they exist, then magic has to exist, right?

Good Movies Happen in South-Korea

Last night I watched The Wailing. It is a South-Korean horror movie. It was scary and good. I never knew so many good movies are made in South-Korea. I am literary in awe with South-Korean horror movies as well as their thrillers. Few days back I saw “I Saw the Devil”, “Tale of Two Sisters”, “Train to Busan”. There was another movie from S. Korea that I liked, “My Little Bride”. It is a romantic comedy and totally true to its type and a terrific tickler for ribs! So, what would be the conclusion? The conclusion is South-Korea is a good movie making country! I gave examples from each genre, horror, thriller and rom-com. But right now it feels right to give the snippets of the most recent watched one just to lure few people in into this gangnam styled country’s movie world.

The Wailing – the story takes place in a village. A cop gets the news of a murder, and a series of bizarre murders bewilderingly follow through. An undiagnosed sickness starts its round around the village. People start to talk about a Japanese stranger in the corner mountain who eats flesh. Now that aforementioned cop’s daughter gets sick. Before that the cop was portrayed as a somewhat stupid person, and not at all a brilliant investigator. But after his daughter’s sickness, he becomes a serious father trying to help his child. In some places the movie seems a bit dragged. But still I liked the movie.  The story has a quality of being a teen's or children's ghost story. I remember reading those stories in some of the monthly children’s magazines in my teens. There is a man whose eyes are red, suddenly rain starts to pour, a sudden power cut and a person is seen standing just outside the window, a disembowelled goat at the door, an exorcist. Oh my god, it is like the writer did not leave out any ingredients to cook up a tale of horror. There were certain comic elements in it, but only at the beginning of the movie, like two cops including the main protagonist hiding under the table at the police station during a power cut seeing someone standing outside the window, amorous look the cop’s wife while washing the cloths, the perpetually scared look of the simpleton village cop and so on. But the main reason I liked the movie is that the confusion it created, that whether it is a horror movie or a thriller which has nothing to do with supernatural. These types of works are always my favourite as it baffles your mind. Somewhere I read that this movie showed how unimaginative Hollywood movies are, I halfway agree. Why halfway? Because if I want to refute it by giving some Hollywood movie examples, I don’t know if it would turn out that some of those Hollywood plots are actually exported from South-Korea or Japan. I included Japan because I did not forget about Ringu and Dark Water.

I am done here, now I must leave, because I have an “Appointment with Death” in Petra, there will be Poirot too!

Galway - J.M. Synge to Ed Sheeran

With the Shape of You, i have started to listened to Ed Sheeran. It happens to me all the time, I hear there is a singer who is taking the world by storm. I don't pay any attention and in the mean time that singer gets all the awards and accolades and becomes a household name. And then one day comes Shape of You and I start to listen. I liked the song solely for the purpose of dancing. It will make anybody dance, and the lyrics are cute, "...last night you were in my room, and now my bed sheets smell like you". There are so many Shape of You dance video on youtube, even Indian classical dances like Odissi and Katthak, it is just unthinkable. Okay I get it, it is called "viral", right? 

So just few days ago when I just finished practising some moves to Shape of You, I came across Galway Girl, " played the fiddle in an Irish band", best lyrics so far by Ed Sheeran and the music is that happy melancholic Irish folk tune which takes you long back to some forgotten "mind palace" that you so desperately want to capture, but cannot. It stars Saoirse Ronan. I saw her first in Hanna. Good movie. Different. I have a soft spot for Eric Bana after Hulk and Munich. This Saoirse Ronan is Irish and always annoyed that nobody pronounces her name correctly. She sometime come across as a rude young girl, but I am also very particular about my name, so if I judge her, it will be seer hypocrisy! Didn't see her Brooklyn, but mean to. So the song Galway Girl, really really loved it. Made me so nostalgic. Riders to the Sea came to my mind right away. Riders to the Sea by J.M. Synge, the Irish playwright. We had it in our graduation syllabus. I believe I was a different person before reading Riders to the Sea. I think everybody changes after reading Riders to the Sea. It had a great impact on me. Maurya and her true premonitions, Nora and Cathleen as the Greek chorus, and how Bartley is going to go to Galway fare to sell horses. The gloom, the doom, the cold, the death, the grey horse, they engulfed me for a considerable time. There was a map of Ireland in the beginning of the book. So yes, I know Galway, I will always remember Galway. But what Ed Sheeran's song can do is to lighten my thoughts about Galway because to me Galway is a place where people want to go but always die in the process.

Sherlock to Surrealism

Few weeks ago watched Dr. Strange Love. Loved it. After Sherlock, I am an avowed Benedict Cumberbatch  fan. In one of his interview he said his fans are calling themselves cumberbitches. He told them to have respect for themselves and is not feminism back! I can proudly say I am a cumberbitch. What is this with British men! I sometimes ask myself (yes, I have lots time in my hand) why I love Benedict Cumberbatch so much, is it because he plays Sherlock, the ultimate greatest detective in the world and I am a sucker for Sherlock? By the way here I must mention that I was also a little bit of in love with Jeremy Brett. He was the first Sherlock I saw on screen. I was so happy; I could not believe I was seeing something so fascinating. For the first time I watched Sherlock Holmes was at one of my relatives’ house. It was, “The Adventure of Sussex Vampire” from the casebook of Sherlock Holmes. I was speechless, I could not believe such story, and that such show could exist on earth. Now when I look back I think that was a turning point of my life. At home we did not have cable. So next time when I watched Sherlock Holmes by Jeremy Brett was in high school. This time I watched every single episode to my heart’s content. I was in awe for that person, but again I think it was because he played Sherlock. So now I am head over heels in love with Benedict Cumberbatch, I think it is also because he portrays my favorite character on screen. Here I must mention something that may seem a digression. Few days back I was watching “My Fair Lady”. Last time I watched it was many years ago, and totally missed Jeremy Brett who played Freddy Eynsford-Hill, a possible suitor for Eliza Doolittle.

My liking for Sherlock was a bit different than my liking for Poirot or Miss Marple. I want to be Poirot or Ms. Marple, hell, I think I am Poirot or Ms. Marple but Sherlock is someone I want to make fall in love with me. Oh that troubled soul, that coke addiction, that unworldly intelligence, that soulful music of his violin, that superior attitude. But then I realised in some ways I am like him. I sometimes think I am surrounded with people who are not getting something that is absolute obvious or just in front of them. I realised things that others don’t, and that sometimes give me a supercilious attitude. People around me find it irritating, I am not blaming them. I forgive them! But the problem is others have accepted Sherlock’s depth of understanding and perspective but not mine! What can you do! Oh wait so I want be Sherlock’s girlfriend and I myself is (I think!) a bit like Sherlock that means I am in love with me! I am a narcissus! What a surprise (severe eye rolling)!

Now about Doctor Strangelove, I did not start talking about the movie just because of Benedict Cumberbatch, but something else intrigued me, in the movie the characters have this power to fold, unfold matters or things around them. When it was happening I realised it has a strong resemblance to surrealism. In surrealistic paintings one can see a staircase is going nowhere, a man walking on the roof, a building is dividing itself in parts and those parts falling down and then rebuilding another building. So yes, Doctor Strangelove has peculiar similarities with the works of Salvador Dali, M. C Escher, Picasso. My question is was the director did this knowingly or not! Okay, let me ponder over the strangeness of the world a little bit more with a fresh cup of tea.