Movie Watching: A Few Bovine Observations!

Based on my lifelong experience as a rather discerning and somewhat fastidious movie buff I beg to offer here a few of my rather bovine (no necessarily offending anyone) observations about movie watching. You may or may not agree with these which is quite natural, movie watching being kinda of subjective entertainment. You can also choose the near-absent option of putting your views too here in a way to enrich or annihilate my observations. My observations here dwell on characteristics that adversely affect the viewing pleasure which are more important, because the absence of those acts on the positive side.

Ø  In quite a few movies I fervently expect something to happen at some point of the narration, and if that takes too long a time or doesn’t happen at all I get impatient and immediately try confirming again the genre of the film. Most often, I find Suspense as the one. Well, heady kind of suspense that! This phenomenon mostly happens in Hollywood productions where the filmmaker can easily indulge in such experiments, having the world market at his/her command. However, in Bollywood movies this is almost unheard of, because such indulgences normally lead to a poor show in the crucial box office. In any case, such experiments obstruct my viewing pleasure.

 

Ø  The beginning of any movie is always very crucial, and therefore, all movies try to begin with a very evocatively or violently created scene that may structure my expectations. However, just after the beginning things like ‘Two weeks later’ or ‘Two years later’ or even ’20 years later’ appear on screen disappointing me thoroughly. More saddening part is when the super declare ‘Two weeks earlier’ or like that which kinda wearies me out without the would-be wear and tear, if any. In any case, such interventions obstruct my viewing pleasure.

 

Ø  As a corollary to the above I must mention here that the custom of ‘flashback’ is as ancient as the art of filmmaking. To make a time transition the creators need, compulsorily at times, to bring in a flashback, particularly when adapting very voluminous novels for the screen. As long as the flashback is done smoothly, like in most Hollywood productions where these are done with the help of a montage or recurring terrible moments of the past, my viewing pleasure is kept intact. But unfortunately, in Bollywood films flashbacks always start with a song or a huge song-dance sequence which normally kills all the expectations built up so far. In any case, such experiments obstruct my viewing pleasure.

 

Ø  In Bollywood a serious no-nonsense movie means the absence of songs or dance sequences; however, in such movies too, the background songs suddenly intrude at many crucial points of the story, adversely affecting the latter’s flow as well as my viewing pleasure. This is a common factor in some intense Hollywood or other foreign-language movies also, particularly in movies where I have to rely, to a varying extent of dependence, on the subtitles. Now, in such a delicate scenario, the somewhat crusading subtitle writers don’t even spare the intruding background song lyrics and there follows such a maze of subtitles, of the song and of the dialogues of the characters, that I get lost completely in a flood of words, whereas I’m watching a creation of the visual media. To make it worse, the writers take pains to create subtitles like ‘phone chimes’, ‘music strings’, ‘wind blows’, ‘footsteps sound’ or of the sort that I can hear and watch all the time. In any case, such intrusions obstruct my viewing pleasure.

 

Ø  There is also the rather universal problem of modern cinema where the rampant use of technology always, deliberately or as a kickoff, suppresses the dialogue track and blows the background effects/music track out of proportion. This makes me crane my ears all the time to catch the nuances of the dialogues and to jerk back violently when my vulnerable ears get nearly blasted away with the sudden thundering of the background sound track. Unfortunately, the Bollywood movies nowadays also try to imitate this unfriendly techno surge. This is more important in light of the pandemic-induced non-theater movie watching; because, amid the unavoidable play of the hush and the thunder, I just cannot avoid getting the warnings from the streaming platform about the used audio volume threatening to damage my eardrums. In any case, such experiments always obstruct my viewing pleasure.

Movie The Terminal: Steven Spielberg’s Rare Comedy Flick Rediscovered!

I consider it a happy accident that I found this movie titled ‘The Terminal’ (2004) directed by Steven Spielberg on a streaming platform. My surprise was beyond measure when I saw the genre written in the details of the movie—comedy! Well, it need not simply be my ignorance about this great filmmaker; because in most of Spielberg’s bios or filmography the said movie is never highlighted or talked about even though the movie was a commercial success. ‘The Terminal’ tells a delightful story of a character called Viktor Navorski from Easter Europe (indicating the Russian Republic) who arrives at New York John F Kennedy airport on a private mission only to find that in the meantime his native (fictional) country Kakrojhia had undergone a military coup and a new government had taken over. Since the US was yet to recognize the new government Viktor’s passport had become invalid and the airport supervisor took away all his documents including the passport refusing to allow him enter New York city or to go back home. Viktor Navorski, played by none other than the greatest of actors Tom Hanks, cannot speak much English and goes through a series of hilarious misfortunes during his nine-month stay at the terminal. We’ll come back to the movie a bit later.

 

Steven Spielberg had become a household name in the US after his blockbuster ‘Jaws’ in 1975; and if he was still not a household name in most other countries like India his ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ in 1977, ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ in 1981, ‘ET the Extra Terrestrial’ in 1982, his creation of the franchise ‘Indiana Jones’ from 1984 and his two huge productions ‘Jurassic Park’ and ‘Schindler’s List’ in 1993 have made him more than that, almost a living legend of world cinema. Spielberg is said to be the most commercially successful director of Hollywood till date with almost each of his films achieving box-office hit status, critical acclaim and Academy Awards nominations and awards. He has earned three Oscars two of which are as Best Director for ‘Schindler’s List’ and ‘Saving Private Ryan’ (1998, probably the greatest war epic ever made in world cinema) and one Best Picture Oscar for ‘Schindler’s List’, apart from 7 nominations as Best Director. His movies have earned an incredible 133 Academy nominations and 34 Oscars in various categories, apart from the BAFTA and Golden Globe awards. His other major awards include Cecil B DeMille Award and the AFI Life Achievement Award. Steven Spielberg at 74 years of age now has not retired yet and still making movies taking temporary breaks at times.

 

Watching the ‘Jaws’ and ‘Jurassic Park’ had been a most exhilarating experience for most Indians like me and through such films we could understand the painstaking efforts, often risking his own life in the difficult shooting, taken by the director—no doubt at all that he made his first movie experiment at the tender age of 12 thus dedicating his whole life to the art and making world cinema all the more richer as well as entertaining. After working for a few years in the New Hollywood era that included several Television Episodes and minor films for Universal Studios he got his game-changing break in ‘Jaws’ in 1975 when he was just over the age of 30. Spielberg, rightfully, refused to make a sequel to ‘Jaws’ as those sequels made by other filmmakers could never match the unique original that still sends shivers down the spine. He did make a sequel though for ‘Jurassic Park’ titled ‘The Lost World—Jurassic Park’ in 1997 as the writer of the original came up with his second book, and that movie was also a commercial and critical success.

 

It somewhat follows from the narrative above that most of us always considered Spielberg as a serious filmmaker who earned huge commercial success too for his universally appealing storytelling and dedicated efforts. We could never possibly imagine he could make a movie in the lighter genre of comedy. Perhaps, it was just an experiment for this great filmmaker, and he did it beautifully too—getting inspired by a true event in the Paris airport, creating interesting characters including a romantic angle and erecting a huge filmset in the lines of the JFK airport of New York.  

 

Now, coming back to ‘The Terminal’, the 2-hour and 9 minutes movie does not have a single dull moment tickling your funny bones all the time with Tom Hanks stumbling along with his brilliantly cultivated broken Russian or Bulgarian English while handling the obsessed airport supervisor, the security guards and the various desk officials. His character gets emotionally involved too with an airhostess played by Catherine Zeta-Jones, an Indian cleaner, a lady desk official with whom a canteen boy was romantically attached and various other delightful characters and episodes. Hanks’s character Viktor also helps a native of his region out of a tangle by his intelligent use of interpretation deceiving the aghast supervisor. The film also keeps up the suspense on what exists in the tin box that Viktor frequently takes out fondly that the supervisor who has been bent upon getting rid of him either to the police or to the FBI wants to know desperately. Such delicious elements had better be left for all those who would also like to rediscover this comedy-drama movie made by one of the legendary directors-producers-writers of world cinema. 

Movie Dybbuk: A Standard Indian Horror Flick With An Interesting Plot!

The latest Hindi movie to premier on Amazon Prime Video, on 29^th October 2021 to be exact, is titled Dybbuk directed by Jay K who also directed the original Malayalam movie Ezra(2017) and started shooting this Hindi remake in 2019 and due to the pandemic could not plan a theatrical release, selling the rights to Amazon and premiered as an Amazon Original Movie. It is a horror movie with some elements of suspense and an interesting plot. Perhaps for photographic reasons the shooting was done in Mauritius apart from a little scene in Mumbai. The leads are Emraan Hashmi and Nikita Dutta. The film has all the elements of a horror flick like an overly loud background score, jump-cut scares, moving figures behind your back, an ugly face in the mirror or in the almirah and quite a few scary scenes that turn to be humorous inadvertently. However, the movie a bit better fare than the traditional Ramsay Brothers type or the Vikram Bhatt kind of horror thanks to its interesting plot involving a Jewish community in Mauritius and their folklore, faiths and occult practices.

 

The movie begins with a death of a Jewish dignitary whose house was full of antique pieces, and then to a murder of the assistant of an antique shop while being attracted to a mysterious-looking box that was procured from the dignitary’s house. As he opens the box a poltergeist kind of shaking happens all around inside the closed shop and he was supposedly tossed against the walls and killed. The police began investigations, but the process stopped abruptly as the focus shifted to the lead couple who had to move bag and baggage from Mumbai to Mauritius as the husband was transferred to handle a sensitive nuclear-waste factory there for two years. They were given a huge bungalow by the company. The bored wife who was thinking of taking up interior designing of the bungalow visited the same antique shop and was fascinated by the antique box. She brings it home, opens it and things begin to happen. As is usual in all supernatural films the husband refuses to believe till he starts experiencing the strange happenings himself.

 

The plot is interesting because, at least for me personally, I never remember a Jewish community being the focus of a Hindi movie along with hearing Hebrew or Yiddish dialogues, mercifully with subtitles, and knowing about their folklore. The word ‘dybbuk’ in Hebrew or in Yiddish means a devil or an evil spirit, and the Jews had an occult practice of imprisoning such spirits in boxes for various reasons and objectives. That the antique box had something evil inside was obvious from the beginning, and so the element of suspense about it was missing. Yet, the plot still had a lot to build a scary atmosphere, suspense and tension.

 

The movie’s screenplay made a mess of the potential despite the director having the first-hand experience of creating a tense atmosphere in the original Malayalam film that he himself directed. It is unknown if had to compromise with the demands of a Hindi filmy formula apart from shifting the sets to picturesque Mauritius. The making of the movie looks like an assembled computer as if the all the parts, that is to say, scenes were created separately and then assembled together due to which the natural flow of storytelling is missing that miserably failed to make the scares and tension effective. Normally an able hero with a sexy image Emraan Hashmi looks exactly like a hired actor who just goes on doing the chores assigned to him for his pay package. Almost the same applies to the heroine Nikita Dutta, although she is not in the same bracket of celebrities like Emraan.

 

The police investigation could’ve been continued in the proper manner to link it to the happenings with the couple in a parallel treatment which would surely have added to the build-up of suspense and tension. As we have hinted all the characters, except perhaps the roles of the Father and the Rabbi, have just been pieces to be joined together by an editor, not the director. Superficial scares are also unnecessarily built like the stiff-faced housemaid who finally turned to be just an ordinary human being. There are indeed some scary moments, but they just end then and there letting the film meander aimlessly for some time till the time of creating more scares comes. When the final twist in the tale comes it is too late, because all the previous connecting scenes are not shown fully, hiding the crucial signs or signals which amounts to a case of cheating the audience. Cheating is a part of filmmaking for various reasons, but it should not be too obvious and deliberately motivated.

 

A flashback is imposed to explain or justify the spirit and that turns out to be a clichéd romantic story ending in gore and horror. I feel it is an opportunity lost to make a positive addition to create a ‘different’ horror genre in India. On the positive side the movie is technically sound in photography, the frames and the camera movements. The performances cannot be called powerful, because the screenplay did not allow it. Still, the movie does not bore you to leave it midway, it compels you to go through the entire length expecting something more, and finally you’d feel it was okay for a one-time view. The reviews seem to be too harsh, perhaps because most of the critics had seen the original film and felt utterly disappointed as the same director let them down in this remake. As is the general rule one cannot ever expect sequels or prequels or remakes to match the originals, barring a few rare exceptions in world cinema. So then, the horror genre remains mostly where it has always been in India. Alas!

Movie The Wailing: Discovering A South Korean Horror Flick That Defies The Genre!

During the ongoing age of the pandemic there’s been hardly any activity concerning the big screens and the new hot weekly releases, and movie buffs really miss the coveted visits to the theatres. However, if one is not so much strained about watching movies on computers or on mobile screens then one can still have lots of enriched watching on the OTT (Over The Top) platforms that stream a rich variety of movies from world cinema apart from their much-publicized web series. There’s a concern no doubt for harming your ear drums with continuous use of the headphones; but one can be judiciously selective about it. During such a restrained and judicious practice of wearing the headphones this writer has come across various movies and web series that really kept alive his cinema-appreciation instincts. One such movie is The Wailing (2016), a South Korean (officially the Republic of Korea) horror film, written and directed by the celebrated award-winning South Korean director Na Hong-jin whose earlier movies like The Chaser (2008) and The Yellow Sea (2010) were screened at the Cannes Film Festival and won various awards in other festivals. The Wailing was also screened at the Cannes Film Festival and got numerous nominations and several awards at various film festivals. The main actors in this movie are Kwak Do-won, Hwang Jung-min, Chun Woo-hee and the Japanese star Jun Kunimura.

 

The Wailingcannot be described as a ‘horror’ film in one breath, because it has a storyline that covers all other genres of mystery, suspense and of course, horror. And the movie boldly defies the implicit ‘rules and regulations’ of a typical horror film: glorifying gore; capturing the most unimaginably ugly faces of ghostly ‘monsters’; the use of the loudest possible sound-track where a simple telephone ring shakes up the whole auditorium; the jump cuts; and figures moving behind your backs. Instead, this movie has a highly intelligent mix of mystery, intriguing dialogues, a normal sound-track, no jump cuts or sudden movements behind your back, no monsters of the typical variety and an entirely different script for a horror flick. Then how it scares, you will definitely ask! Mind you, it still has all the scares of the supernatural, the occult practices, the possessed and the exorcism, the zombies, a lot of gore and violence without glorifying it though and a whole lot of dialogues that you cannot help but listen to attentively.

 

The movie has a rather intimidating length of over two and half hours, a length that normally is valid for Indian films of any genre, but once you get in there’s not a single moment that’d bore you or make you think of putting off your headphones. It puts you into a persistent dilemma of believing or not believing with the elements of mystery and suspense in full play, and this glorious uncertainty of the plot continues till the very end-frame. And mind you, you may not find the climax as gratifying as the usual horror flicks. The film just flows on with brilliant cinematography and a lilting background music score. The performances are powerful and the storytelling is convincing.

 

The story begins with a police investigation when in a Korean village people start getting murdered mysteriously. As the investigations proceed we come to know that a peculiar sickness seems to infect the villagers: once someone gets the infection somehow he or she becomes violent and ends up murdering all members of his or her family. All the doubts were cast on a mysterious Japanese stranger who lives in a hut in the mountains and local people are telling frightening stories about him. The police raid his hut several times, but still fail to link him to the horrible goings-on. In the meantime a mysterious lady also moves around in the village, seemingly giving leads to the police. The police sergeant of the village Jong-goo, the hero of the film played by Kwak Do-won, becomes terribly emotional and desperate to solve the mystery when his little daughter Hyo-Jin gets the infection and starts to demonstrate odd behaviour patterns, gradually becoming violent. The policeman’s mother-in-law invites the local shaman or the exorcist, suspecting it to be a case of possession. Well, nothing more can be said about the storyline to avoid a spoiler.

 

The Wailingis a horror movie with a healthy difference from the genre, and it can more than match the all-time Hollywood horror greats like The Exorcist, The Omen, The Poltergeist, The Conjuring and so on, and can beat the loud and typical horror flicks in popular display both in Hollywood and in Bollywood hands down. This movie is a must-watch for all lovers of mystery, suspense and horror flicks. This writer has discovered this movie quite a bit late, but still holds the view as expressed. The world of cinema has been a territory vastly unexplored by many a viewer due to lack of access or the regional or the language barrier or of the like and if the film buffs keep on trying they’re sure find many more surprises like The Wailing.

OTT Platform Watch: Movie ‘Bell Bottom’ Disappoints, Series ‘Mumbai Diaries 26/11’ Well Made, And More!

 

I have been a movie buff since my childhood days, also so passionate about it that I wanted to be a filmmaker and did indeed try in that direction to some extent, still nurturing that ambition. And I always enjoyed the movies on the big screens including those silver screens of the traditional single-screen cinema halls of yore that fitted ideally the 35mm film format and whenever the occasional 70mm films came the frames used to spill over to the sides. I find this very tragic, of course no match to the horrors and sufferings of people due to the pandemic, that for over 18 months now I’ve been deprived of the normal cinema theatre visits and really missing the action. The OTT (Over the Top) streaming platforms thus have become the only alternative, for people like me who puts the entire focus on COVID-19 appropriate behaviour and safety. Therefore, I’ve been watching a lot on such a platform since the first lockdown—always selecting the best of movies available and the most-talked about Series—but limited to only one platform as I don’t want to harm my ears with constant use of headphones. Quite a few of movies are of the golden era and most of the modern ones need no special mention. However, recently I had seen three modern movies and web series of which I’d like to talk about a bit. Latest Bollywood movie Bell Bottom (2021) is one of them which attracted me because of the name that was a craze in our college days, and that the movie was in the lines of effective Indian spy thrillers I enjoyed greatly in the last few years in the modern theatres.

 

The hero of the movie Akshay Kumar is one more attraction as he was cast in several successful thrillers made by filmmaker Neeraj Pandey like Special 26 (2013), Baby (2015), Rustom (2016) and Naam Shabana (2017). Of course, this movie Bell Bottom is not one of his, but as I said the format seemed to be exciting. Watching the movie I was disappointed in the overall sense: it had an explosive plot that got terribly affected by an inept script. The basic theme of the film, a hijack drama of an Indian Airlines plane (based on a true event during the last term of the then Prime Minister of India, late Indira Gandhi.), got impaired unnecessarily by the prolonged flashbacks, and finally when the plot seemed to be picking up there was not enough time to bring it to a worthy climax. Although the film has similarities with another successful hijack thriller, Zameen (2003) directed by Rohit Shetty, its ultimate climax turned out to be very simplistic and sort of rushed through.

 

The film no doubt has its high octane moments with the RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) agent, played by Akshay Kumar whose code name is Bell Bottom, going through the investigations and raids on the terrorists’ dens. His RAW boss, well played by Adil Hussain, is but a pale shadow of the intelligence boss in Baby played by Danny Denzongpa who almost lived through the supercharged drama and action. The characters of the hijackers were also not given sufficient attention with all of them failing to scare the viewers like they did in movies like Baby and Neerja (2016), the latter being very ably directed by Ram Madhvani. The Pakistan intelligence counterpart was also shown half-heartedly. The last twist involving Akshay’s wife, played by Vaani Kapoor, sharing a secret with the RAW boss was only superficial. Some critics are also pointing toward factual errors, but those can be overlooked as ultimately this is a work of fiction. Therefore, the movie Bell Bottomdirected by Ranjit Tiwari, though handled well to some extent, fails to be as engrossing and gripping like those movies of the same genre mentioned here.

 

A surprise was in store when the new OTT web series Mumbai Diaries 26/11, made by known filmmaker Nikhil Advani, became available on air. Having lived through every agonizing moment of that horrific Mumbai Terror Attack on 26^th November 2008 through my work in the media, anything about that attack always caught my attention. However, all of the films made on the attack so far were lame attempts, failing to do justice to the terror unleashed. So I started watching the 9-episode Mumbai Diaries 26/11immediately, and to my great surprise found it very engrossing and doing full justice to the genuine scare still felt by both victims and general people, for the first time. Although it is made from the medical point of view, narrating the story of a Mumbai hospital that finally came under the terror attack, almost all of the horrific moments of the actual three-day reign of fear are being ably captured and presented. Aided by a powerful script the characters, including most prominently the doctors and staff of the hospital, are portrayed with excellent ease and brilliant performances by all actors.

 

The web series also pointed out the much-discussed ‘media involvement’ that was giving constant leads to the Pakistan control room of terror who thus guided the terrorists in action in Mumbai, and the tragedy unleashed by an overzealous news reporter in this work of fiction was shown with honesty and efficiency. If the chronology of the actual series of events was not followed to details, this was never felt while watching, and again, finally it being a work of fiction such complaining is not necessary. More positively, the Series does not indulge in any gory violence or the glorification thereof and explicit sexuality that have been the hallmark of almost all OTT Web Series streamed in India. In all, the Mumbai Diaries 26/11 is thoroughly watchable for all types of viewers of any age who want to feel the reality of the dastardly terror attack again.

 

Finally, a Hollywood movie Those Who Wish Me Dead (2021), directed by Taylor Sheridan. With Angelina Jolie in the lead and an interesting storyline of smoke-jumpers for forest fires I watched the movie as soon as it was streamed on my subscribed OTT platform. To my surprise again, I enjoyed it thoroughly, finding not a single slack moment in this slick thriller. What I found refreshing is that the film followed the thriller-genre of the nineties religiously and to exactitude with an immaculately tight script. Of late, most of the Hollywood movies have been devoted to the super visual effects treatment—either showing all-destroying monsters or catastrophe or unimaginable sci-fi stories mostly covering the outer world and the universe. It kind of vindicated my wish, nourished for long years, that Hollywood should come back to basic human dramas which are always acceptable the world over. All the people with a mind-set of this ordinary mortal should, therefore, not miss watching Those Who Wish Me Dead at any cost. Those who can visit the theatres in full safety are the luckiest. (All photos: wikipedia.org)