Threnody to the victims of beautiful nonsense

Twin Peaks: The Return is David Lynch's swansong. He returns to helm the show in complete control (for the first time) as (co)writer, director, actor, sound designer and overall-visionary, honoring the promise Laura Palmer made to Agent Cooper in the Red Room to meet in 25 years. 

The Return shares very little of the original's comforting, gold-hued atmosphere. The cheery sunshine of middle America, the campy tone, the goofy cast of ensemble characters embodying the nostalgia of good ol' days is gone for good. No clues-in-dreams anymore; no coffee-and-cherry-pie-stuffing, cleancut FBI agent Cooper channeling his subconscious to solve murder mysteries anymore; no idealized small-town-goodness with its cosy eccentricity to compensate for the evil-lurking-underneath anymore. In fact, there's very little of Twin Peaks at all, with most action taking place elsewhere in Vegas, Buckhorn, NYC etc. There are remnants of humor but mostly of the dark variety; the mood is haunted and sombre, the atmosphere oppressive and the ambience, grim. 

With Showtime, one can see the long rope Lynch gets to channel his (demented) imagination to concrete form, and indulge in it he sure does. This full control reveals Lynch at the peak of his powers and he uses the medium for expression the way few others have. The mysteries deepen, the symbols multiply, the interdimensional portals reveal their operations, the Red Room and the radio-wave tiles reassert their primacy. The camerawork is exquisite with dizzying, looping, linear, static long takes, as the need may be. (Over two minutes of static frame featuring floor cleaning in Part 7 is a case in point.) Almost all of the original cast reappears and so do Lynch's long time favorites who missed out in the first series. Laura Dern as Diane, Naomi Watts, the blob and the black and white mise en scène from Eraserhead, all make their dutiful appearance in The Return much like Lynch showing off his vintage car collection to the delight of us viewers.

Free from studio constraints, the Return shows Lynch in top form, a sui generis force of nature who knew no equal. In particular, Part 8 ('Gotta Light') shows Lynch at his creative best, a truly original beast finally unshackled from the leash, relishing his long lost freedom to howl at the moon. It's easy to sympathize with those who claim it to be the greatest episode in long form TV ever aired. A surreal sequence of abstract visuals, droning soundscapes, and slow-motion horror, Part 8 stands as the crown jewel of experimental television, a standalone masterpiece that redefines what an episode can be, much in the same way 2001: A Space Odyssey rewrote the rules of filmmaking back in the day.

My first encounter with Lynch was in college with Mulholland Drive, which in my juvenile obstinacy I disliked intensely. Over time, however, I've come to reassess not just the film but Lynch's entire ouevre and he strikes me as among the few (along with the great Cormac McCarthy) who took the existence of the Evil with full seriousness. Twin Peaks: The Return remains the fullest expression of his wild and surreal vision, giving a glimpse of an artist at the pinnacle of his creative self, milking the subconscious dreamworld, rendering symbolic imagery laden with cosmic horror into visual motifs which will last much longer than his corporeal self. Gone too soon. Gone too soon.

Moving images, fast and slow

Mani Kaul and Kumar Shahani are 'scholar filmmakers'. The scholarly aspect is as important as the film in which the visuals are embedded. Satyajit Ray was a scholar too but he wore it lightly and didn't burden his films with academic tedium. This could explain why the films of the former are so heavy and laden with semaphores, references and visual leitmotifs, oozing with symbols and pregnant with meaning. Ray's ouevre on the other hand is lighter in texture, more accessible and direct in its overtures to the viewer. Pather Panchali [Ray, 1955] remains perhaps the greatest debut of all time. (And if you want to extend the list, other pretenders to the throne ought to include Uski Roti [Kaul, 1969] and Court [Tamhane, 2014].) 

पृथ्वी की गंध

 The superlative living master Amit Dutta at his most direct, and most accessible in the 2 minute 'The Scent of Earth' [मिट्टी इत्र]. 

Go forth and prosper, o successor of Mani Kaul! 

Further Recent Mega Acquisitions

Featuring:

1. मन हिंडोला (विनोद त्रिपाठी)
2. My Brilliant Friend (Elena Ferrante)
3. The World of Hrishikesh Mukherjee (Jai Arjun Singh)
4. A Death in the Family (Karl Over Knausgaard)
5. Goodbye, Columbus (Philip Roth)
6. I Married a Communist (Philip Roth)
7. Mason and Dixon (Thomas Pynchon)
8. Every Love Story is a Ghost Story (D T Max)
9. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (John le Carre)
10. सीन: 75 (राही मासूम रज़ा)
11. Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro (Jai Arjun Singh)

Inverse TASWOSAW continued

From Tridev (1989), written by Anand Bakshi:

गली गली में फिरता है

तू क्यों बन के बंजारा?

आ मेरे दिल में बस जा

मेरे आशिक़ आवारा

तेरा प्यार है इक सोने का

पिंजड़ा ओ शहज़ादी

मुझको अपनी जान से प्यारी

है अपनी आज़ादी

You roam in streets and alleys

Having become a wanderer

Come live in my heart

My lover philanderer

Your love is but a golden

Confinement o princess

Lovelier than my life

Is my own egress

...

Goodbye Blue Sky

Sayonara Suzuki Sensei

Seijun Suzuki passed away recently on Feb 13, 2017 and was known for his zany yakuza films including his two most famous works — Branded to Kill (1967) and Tokyo Nagaremono (1966) (tr. Tokyo Drifter). NF has very pleasant memories of encountering Tokyo Nagaremono in the New York Film Festival a few years back where a retrospective of his films was being hosted. His idiosyncratic style and subversion of B films' genre expectations were certainly exceptional as was his unusual fanbase, comprising some seriously accomplished arthouse directors. 

Here is the eminently melodious, surprisingly catchy title song from the trailer of the very enjoyable Tokyo Drifter.

Sayonara!

The Meeruthiya Gangster

Hindi genre fiction loses a stalwart after the demise of Ved Prakash Sharma on Feb 17, 2017. He remained an extremely prolific genre writer, writing several books a year, for his entire career. Bus stands and railway stations were where you'd encounter his fare most. NF distinctly remembers his most famous book Vardi Wala Gunda (tr. Hoodlum in Uniform) populating wheeler stands all over Uttar Pradesh all through the '90s.

Manik Sharma writes a very well rounded, informative obituary in Firstpost where he remembers the impact of Ved Prakash Sharma in particular, and pulp fiction more generally during the '90s. Here's the excellent closing paragraph:

Sharma, in an interview before he passed away, said that he believed pulp fiction would come back in a big way through television and film. And it makes sense, because while the reader is upwardly mobile in his or her aesthetic pursuits, and the marketing model shows no signs of evolving, only the visual can embody the audacity of a pulp novel’s opening, like that of Sharma’s Vardi Wala Gunda: 

लाश ने आँखे खोल दी. ऐसा लगा जैसे लाल बल्ब जल उठे हैं. 

(tr. The corpse opened its eyes. It felt like red bulbs being switched on.)

An Arrow a Day...

Kenneth Arrow, the colossus who in NF's opinion was the greatest of all time (GOAT) economist passed away on Feb 21, 2017. There's hardly anything a nobody like NF has to add to the volumes of perceptive tributes about Arrow's work readily available elsewhere. On his very deep Impossibility Theorem, to his work with Debreu on general equilibrium, to the theorems on welfare economics, and many, many other immense contributions, NF highly recommends the ever-amazing blog A Fine Theorem, which is adumbrating Arrrow's impact in four posts suitable for (quasi-)laymen. (Part 1, Part 2.) For those more mathematically savvy, NF heartily recommends the five page paper by John Geanakoplos, offering three very simple, alternative proofs of Arrow's Impossibility Theorem (John Geanakoplos (2005), “Three Brief Proofs of Arrow's Impossibility Theorem,”. Economic Theory 26(1), 211-215).

Here is great obituary from Stanford News.

Keynes once said:

The master-economist must possess a rare combination of gifts .... He must be mathematician, historian, statesman, philosopher—in some degree. He must understand symbols and speak in words. He must contemplate the particular, in terms of the general, and touch abstract and concrete in the same flight of thought. He must study the present in the light of the past for the purposes of the future. No part of man's nature or his institutions must be entirely outside his regard. He must be purposeful and disinterested in a simultaneous mood, as aloof and incorruptible as an artist, yet sometimes as near to earth as a politician.

Arrow was all this and more. People have remarked on his inhuman level of depth as well as breadth of knowledge not just in economics but in mathematics, statistics, philosophy and several other disciplines. Here is a well-circulated story recounted by Eric Maskin and featured in Arrow's New York Times obituary where his colleagues once tried to artificially test him on breeding habits of grey whales, to their eventual woe of course. (His brother-in-law was the other GOAT contender: Paul Samuelson. He was also uncle to Lawrence Summers. He also appeared in an Errol Morris short film.)

In academia one encounters several freakishly intelligent people somewhat regularly. However, the ones who leave behind the greatest legacy are those whose students also manage to continue in their great tradition. And indeed, it is in this particular respect that Arrow leaves behind everyone in the dust, with five of his students going on to win Nobels of their own! (And that's not counting Amartya Sen.)

Alvin Roth described him as the Einstein of economics. NF couldn't agree more.

Sayonara.

The Grand Inquisitor And Notes on Recent Arthouse Science Fiction

Warning: Long post. Preoccupied with arthouse sensibilities in recent science fictional films. No spoilers anywhere.

...

There's long been a stock villain — especially in science fiction — who's suave, smooth-talking, cheerful, tremendously intelligent and often world-weary; and who relies on high philosophy to justify his actions, which justification is usually delivered as a didactic, dispassionate monologue at a critical, tense juncture. The most classic example is O'Brien from 1984, known for his powerful soliloquies, including memorable lines such as: 

Always, Winston, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stomping on a human face — forever. 

Such antagonists remain friendly, accessible, intimate and eminently understanding, even as they participate in cruelty without being somehow stained by its odor.

The (Vint Cerf lookalike) Architect from The Matrix Trilogy is another memorable character in this mould — his academic, abstract, nihilistically deadpan philosophical monologue in Reloaded — is one of the high points in the Trilogy. Apart from science fiction, Chairman Jensen, in the terrific, far-ahead-of-its-time Network (whose thunderous, messianic peroration remains a treasure of world cinema: see youtube link here); and even Hans Landa from Inglourious Basterds are prime exponents of this type.

The Grand Inquisitor radiates calm wisdom, deep understanding, genuine empathy and bucketloads of charisma while giving off the smell of total control and absolute, resistance-is-utterly-futile-variety invincibility. Pulling it off requires a fine balance on the part of the writer/director and it remains a notoriously difficult trope to get right. As a case in point, even the mighty Bong Joon-ho fails utterly in Snowpiercer (a rather forgettable effort, unfortunately) in rendering Ed Harris as a Grand-Inquisitor-type. The soliloquy is flat, the peroration, quite shrugworthy.

The returns however, are spectacular if you do get it right. Which brings us to Oscar Isaac's role as the almost otherworldly mega-billionaire in the terrific, sophisticated Ex Machina. 

The broad story arc of the film is as follows. A coder in a top software behemoth wins a one week vacation with the idiosyncratic, uber-genius owner. As the protagonist spends time on the owner's estate, he realizes that he's been roped in to administer a Turing test on a secret prototype. The owner is so confident that he's upped the ante — instead of the usual test, the challenge is to observe that the interviewee is a machine (actually a hot, female android) and yet feel the conversation to be totally natural. Of course, not everything is as it seems and there is psychological manipulation at play. By whom? And directed towards whom? A surprisingly sophisticated and cerebral plot slowly reveals all answers.

The item that's breaking the internet

While everyone's written reams and reams on how great all performances were (especially Vikander's) most of the internet has been only paying attention to the admittedly quite groovy dance routine of Oscar Isaac. Hence, NF was compelled to highlight Oscar Isaac's brilliant performance since he hasn't seen much coverage of how spectacular an instantiation of The Grand Inquisitor he portrays. And yes, he had already noticed his powerful presence in the absolutely stunning Inside Llewyn Davis. In Ex Machina, Oscar Isaac delivers yet another killer performance. 

(A longish digression here. With Inside Llewyn Davis, the Coens have established themselves as definitively the best American filmmakers alive today. No, it's not Tarantino — look at the vapid, impressively hollow The Hateful Eight — a classic case of the director being too full of himself and believing he can get away with nothing but his signature flourishes. No amount of fast talking, tense-conversations-ending-in-unexpected-bloodbaths can save this navel gazing wreck. It's not Woody Allen. He still comes up with surprisingly great films but his pinnacle coincided with Deconstructing Harry in 1997. Even truly great efforts like Match Point, Vicky Christina Barcelona, Midnight in Paris; or Blue Jasmine don't stack up to summits he reached before. It's not Spielberg or even Scorsese — they've peaked out long before and no one expects them to break new ground anymore.

The Coens are far ahead of other contenders as well. Paul Thomas Anderson, Spike Jonze and Wes Anderson are only a few films old. Linklater, Gus van Sant, and Harmony Korine are too niche. David Lynch and Terence Mallick are long past their prime. Fincher hasn't produced anything spectacular in ages. The Coens, however, remain a bag of surprises and with each film seem to get even better.)

Ex Machina is full of innovative details. For example, it's hinted that the film takes place in a near future — but there's no timelapse of glittering, sprawling neon megacities, nor any direct connection to the outside world — the film being a mere four character domestic drama played out at the founder-owner's expansive, interminable estate. Similarly, as the story builds up, the real test reveals itself to be a Turing Test for humans, as the film slowly acquires dark overtones while cleverly subverting the classic, damsel-in-distress trope from film noirs of old. The camera-work is natural and understated; and the production design is outstanding. The ending is chilling, devastating and fitting — revealing the title's true intent.

There's no Grand Peroration in Ex Machina but conversations between the protagonist employee and the uber rich employer are tight, singeing and brim over with dark overtones when you expect it the least. While Oscar Isaac is an almost otherworldly intelligence he's not merely that. He's also a meta-hipster who's rakishly handsome, incredibly cool, deeply thoughtful, irresistibly charming and oozes charisma out of every pore. He's also quick to take offence, impatient with slowness, prickly, extremely narcissistic and will cut you down to size in a blink. It's not hard to see him as an extrapolated amalgamation of the current (and past) crop of eccentric billionaires populating Silicon Valley today. Oscar Isaac shows himself to be a force of nature in a memorable and very powerful performance.

"Fucking unreal" indeed — as even his jaded character is compelled into uttering. 

Bravo! Highly recommended!

...

An arthouse approach to science fiction is not new. Luminaries like Kubrick (2001: A Space Odyssey) and Tarkovsky (Solaris, Stalker) have been perennial inspirations. Among more recent arthouse ventures however, two other films that stand out the most are Spike Jonze's Her and Shane Carruth's Upstream Color (both 2013). 

In Her, Spike Jonze is almost perfect with nary a misstep and while the broad story arc may sound underwhelming — a human falls in love with his operating system — it's Jonze's masterful, supremely confident execution that makes the film an entirely believable, near future inevitability. The invisible Scarlett Johansson as the operating system "Samantha" is the one of the most original and stellar roles committed to film in recent memory. If there's any justice, she should get more recognition for her (voice) acting in this film. Indeed, together with the abstract, highly formalist and NF's recent favorite Under the Skin — also released the same year, Scarlett Johansson has staked her claim as among the very finest American thespians in operation today. 

Much like Ex Machina, Her is an indoor drama. Again, much like Ex Machina, its science fiction is of an understated, somewhat unobtrusive variety. The protagonist's job seems to take him to both LA and Shanghai with equal frequency, suggestive of substantial efficiency gains in air travel; and there's a funny news announcement about the impending merger of India and China. What does differentiate, more explicitly, this society set in the near future is not the glitter of special effects but the subtle channel of everyday economics, design and fashion sensibilities. This has been Jonze's eternal playground and he excels in his quiet, background shots featuring near future office and home decor, current, in vogue fashion styles (observe Phoenix's rocking trousers), quirky-yet-not-outlandish near future job descriptions; and a gentle undercurrent of situational humor and romance that transform it from a merely well executed thought experiment to a beautiful and surprisingly touching love story.

Upstream Color is more radically formalist, much like its director Shane Carruth's previous, undecipherable Primer. While its take-no-prisoners-unapologetically-abstract approach could draw parallels from Under the Skin (also released in 2013, making it a watershed in artsy science fiction filmmaking), a more fitting influence seems to be Terence Mallick, whose shadow looms large and whose imprint upon this film (especially Tree of Life) is undeniable. 

In Upstream Color, Shane Carruth sticks with his fluid, scenes-melding-into-each-other approach. Dialogues are minimal, camera movement maximal and the plot (which involves two people infected by a mysterious worm which renders them slavishly pliable to hypnotic suggestions of which no memories survive, as well as telepathic connections mediated by pigs in whose bodies the worms are provided refuge) somewhat threadbare — making sense only slowly as the film meanders its way towards conclusion. In common with Ex Machina and Her, Upstream Color's intrusion into explicit science fictional territory is minimal — indeed, the only few seconds it occupies is the footage of a drone on a computer — there are hardly any special effects and one may even be forgiven into thinking the film to be completely disconnected from science fiction and being merely an arthouse offering. 

However, much in the same way as mathematical maturity is found not buried beneath formidable equations but in the style and characterization of formal argumentation, exploration of science fictional themes occurs not in overt displays of neon sparkle and action sequences in deep space but in the casual interstices of ordinary scenes played out by ordinary humans under the yoke of an alternative reality. It's in this subtle, unobtrusive, ethereal background noise that the future is dispersed in the present; and it's in this mould that these new films are welcome intrusions into our present space.

Pronounced Nwaa:(r)

He thought it a good omen that he woke up early to the drumbeat of his ever flaccid member's throbbing erection - little did he know that before the sun had set, he'd be broken, shattered and bruised, fighting every inch (valiantly, one might say) for his life - but it won't matter to us in the least, because this story is not about him but about someone else altogether; and his name is Robert Paulson.

The (Abstract) Horror, The (Abstract) Horror

It's really heartening to witness the slow, searing brilliance of It Follows and Under the Skin. Both films belong solidly to the indie-arthouse-horror category and while the arthouse-horror label is old (think Eraserhead), its indie interpretation makes for compelling viewing. Again, while it's not a new thing altogether (think Blairwitch Project) and other equally powerful films that fit the label have been made in the recent past (think We Need to Talk About Kevin), their distinctively original take on classic horror tropes made a fan out of NF. Both films eschew cleverness, metafictional commentaries etc. (cf. the really funny Cabin in the Woods for a contrast) to focus on what's really important - mood, atmospherics, stylization and an unapologetically arthouse, indie outlook.

It Follows is about the girl whom It is Following after she contracts It from a boyfriend - an abstractification of the exclusive, animal horror felt under pursuit. The premise is intriguing, especially the notion that It may be passed on to others. Transference is not enough though, for once It is finished with someone, It relentlessly pursues the one who originally passed It on; and while reviewers have seen it as an allegory for the AIDS epidemic etc. (which make more sense once you see the film); NF likes the film the way it is - ambiguous, pretty and abstract. 

Under the Skin goes even further as a self conscious arthouse feature. It follows Scarlett Johansson as she prowls about Scotland seducing gullible men. The weather's grey, the palette lush, the style highly formalist. The ritualistic seduction is eerie, ambiguous and surprisingly beautiful. (If you think you know the Scarlett-Johansson-as-seductress trope, watch this film for a rude shock.) The pursuer's humanity is suspect, though a chance encounter makes her ignore protocol and become curious about humans; whose humanity or lack thereof she discovers by the end. What's under the skin is that matters in the end. Or does it? 

Another aspect worth mentioning is the stunning, discomfiting soundtrack (Mica Levi of Micachu and The Shapes fame) which segues seamlessly with the primal dread each frame oozes. NF awaits Jonathan Glazer's next with bated breath!

Bravo you guys!

निरी आर्ट फिल्म

"सतह से उठता आदमी" मेरे लिए मणि कॉल की पहली पिक्चर थी. इस फिल्म में वे सब गुण थे जिनसे आम इंसान थोड़ा घबराते हैं - बोझिल संवेदना, धीमी चाल, अवसादोन्मुख यथार्थ - और एक सजग, सघन कलात्मक आत्मतुष्टता.

इन शार्ट, बेहद पकाऊ.

बचपन में इन्ही कारणों से मैं आधुनिक हिंदी साहित्य से बचता था. देवकीनन्दन खत्री का मैं भक्त था, लेकिन इतना मुझे भी मालूम था कि बड़े राइटर खत्री बाबू नहीं, बड़े राइटर मुक्तिबोध हैं, या उनके टाइप के अमूर्त, निम्न-मध्यवर्गीय पर्यवेक्षण में लिप्त उनके चेले चपाटे. कॉलेज के दिनों में मैं स्वतः हिंदी साहित्य के प्रति पुनर्जिज्ञासित हुआ, लेकिन इसका श्रेय निर्मल वर्मा को देना बेहतर होगा - निर्मल वर्मा, जो यूरोप में दोस्तों के साथ बियर पीते थे, उम्दा यात्रा साहित्य लिखते थे, नयी कहानी के प्रणेता थे; और कूलता की सारी हदें पार कर चुके थे. बीच बीच में मैं फिर से मुक्तिबोध की तरफ लौटता था (हूँ) ("शायद इस बार कुछ चमकेगा!?") लेकिन उनकी अमूर्त कविताओं का लौह आवरण अभी तक अभेद रहा है - बू हू!

कुछ ऐसा ही सोच के मैंने फिल्म देखने का फैसला किया था. ये सोच के कि कम-से-कम किताब पढ़ी है, खुद को हौसला भी दिलाया था. "पिक्चर बोरिंग है और पल्ले भी नहीं पड़ेगी", ये स्वयं को आगाह भी था. लेकिन जैसा सोचा था, वैसा ही हुआ - सतह से उठता आदमी, सुपर थकाऊ और सुपर पकाऊ पिक्चर निकली - निरी आर्ट फिल्म सुसरी!

लेकिन मैं उसे भूल नहीं पाया.

Reasons To Be Cheerful

1. Kumar Gandharva's interpretation of Kabir
2. Mani Kaul's Siddheshwari
3. Siddheshwari Devi
4. Amit Dutta's Kramashah
5. Amit Dutta

So Meta, It Stasized

Attention Conservation Notice (h/t the great Cosma Shalizi): A (very, very) long, meandering, frequently digressive piece on, and an unapologetically hagiographic review-of-sorts of, Mani Kaul's Siddheshwari; featuring factionalism in Parallel Cinema, Shahrukh Khan and self indulgent navel gazing (not in the same order). To expect a cogent, critical, objective analysis from this piece would be tantamount to expecting a leg break from Anil Kumble; or anything but from Venkatesh Prasad. 

You have been warned.

(A part of NF still thinks ending the post here - right after detailed instructions on how to read it have been enshrined - would be cool (so second order meta!). Thankfully NF isn't a teenager anymore and has been declared free from cleveritis for some time now.)

...

Mita Vashisht as Siddheshwari

When someone asked him where they could find his films, he once said: “It’s good you haven’t seen them, but heard about them, you know; as time goes by the negatives of most of my films, which are in very bad shape, are getting worse, and there are very few prints anyway that are still alright…so, as I get more and more known, fewer people see my work. There will be a time when there won’t be any work left, and I will be gone, and people will be saying, ‘Mani Kaul, Mani Kaul, Mani Kaul’...” 

(Link: http://www.caravanmagazine.in/arts/requiem-vision)

NF has whined often about discovering his heroes only after they've been dead for a while - Nirmal Verma, Manohar Shyam Joshi, David Foster Wallace were all part of this list, which now has the dubious distinction of adding yet another newcomer: Mani Kaul (the only hero who has been spared this treatment has been William Gibson - forever long may he live). Truth be told, while NF got around to finally watching his first Mani Kaul film a few months ago, he had been meaning to do so for many years now - having bought a three-in-one DVD of his films (Uski Roti, Duvidha, Nazar) from NFDC a few years back. That DVD still lies atop his bookshelf - its dust-laden cover, having never been in danger of being opened. That his films are supposedly challenging and not for the fainthearted, filled the prospect of viewing them with dread and subliminal anxiety.

In an eerie twist however, when he did finally see Siddheshwari, his universe was so jolted, so awestruck he was that he felt paralyzed to get the word out, since a post about the film, with an even remotely similar scope felt intimidating beyond belief. And hence this post has been more than two months in the making - the fact that it's finally being put to paper isn't about slaying personal demons or climbing mount impossible; but is more of a mad rush for self preservation - the sooner NF gets it out of his head, the quicker the end of his obsession with the film. It probably also has to do something with a newfound ambition NF's been suffering from, which causes him to think he can do justice to the subjects he's going to write about, making said prospect of writing filled with the aforementioned dread and subliminal anxiety. (There are some other posts several months in the making too - the utterly, utterly delightful Frances Ha being another one of them, with NF given to swooning over the mere mention of Greta Gerwig - levels hithertofore reached only by the likes of Fatima Bhutto (O heart, do be still!).)

NF finally took the plunge after watching Bollywood celebrities pay their respects to the great master soon after his demise. Rajat Kapoor, Anurag Kashyap and Mita Vashisht, straddling arthouse and commercial cinema alike, were natural candidates; but it was Rakesh Omprakash Mehra's account of stumbling on to Siddheshwari at a local theater that gave NF courage. Unaware of Mani Kaul and being a fan of Siddheshwari Devi - the legendary thumri singer from Benaras - he went in hoping to see a documentary (which the film ostensibly is); and so transfixed he was by what he saw that he watched it again and again and again obsessively - about six times in over a month!

This was the final push NF needed.

Table of Contents:

Ostensibly, Siddheshwari is a 1990 National Film Award winning documentary about the life of Siddheshwari Devi - a famous classical singer from Benaras; but this sentence might just be the most misleading description of the film ever - as Rakesh Omprakash Mehra was to discover. Mani Kaul preemptively assuages the lay viewer who is soon going to be hit with a barrage of wantonly, obscenely beautiful imagery, the meaning of which will be forever, maddeningly out of her grasp, by including a very helpful 'Table of Contents'. Urvashi curses Arjun for scorning her and then relocates to earth as a Gandharva; Siddheshwari's childhood with her mausi (maternal aunt) who trains her daughter (though not Siddhi) in classical music which Siddhi osmotically absorbs, eventually astonishing the guru so much that he takes her under his wing after Siddhi is evicted by the aunt; her musical peregrinations (literal and metaphorical) over boat rides over Ganga due to the patronage of the local ruler; and eventual fame and acclaim.

This table of contents is absolutely key to understanding the film - so much so that its exclusion will result in complete and utter bafflement - and yet its importance is easy to miss on a first viewing, as NF was to discover. In fact, NF strongly suspects that this table of contents was the stand-in for a screenplay - Kaul's untethered, rich, insanely imaginative visuals seem impossible to be tied down systematically in a detailed script. If so, he wouldn't have been the first - Wong kar Wai - another example of an ultra-stylish director prioritizing lush visuals over plot, relies only minimally on detailed screenplays.

The film is a radical inversion of what a documentary supposedly is and arrogates to itself the right to reimagine the idea of being Siddheshwari. More a montage of exquisitely beautiful images in motion tied only loosely by chronology, mythology and musicology, it feels like a plotless, surreal dreamscape propelled only by the powerful voice of Siddheshwari Devi; and an impenetrable-at-first internal logic that begins to make more sense on repeated viewings. NF has no hesitation in acknowledging it as the most formally inventive, authentically avant garde Indian film he's ever seen, with its slow-swooping camerawork, cinematographical wizardry and all round technical excellence putting to shame even current films - commercial and arthouse.

Fact, fiction, myth, music, the impossibly narrow gorgeous alleys of Benaras, whispers, oblique dialogues - all meld together in a jumbled, impressionistic collage to induce a state of mind that affects you viscerally - on a level so low that conscious thoughts find the gates barred for entry. The camera lingers on its subjects' profiles, then languorously shifts its gaze to the ghats and steps of Benaras and the richly hued doors and windows it houses, acquiring sepia tones when transgressing reality; donning rich colours when merely accentuating it. Mita Vashisht is impossibly ravishing and looks every bit the Urvashi whose curse would turn Arjun into a eunuch. The style is dazzling; the effect, hypnotic.

The sheer density of visual poetry per frame in the film is unprecedented. It is gloriously, glacially, majestically, powerfully, stunningly beautiful. It looks the way Nirmal Verma reads. NF finds it useful to think of Siddheshwari as a ninety minute long thumri music video with visuals so lavish and style so breathtaking that it'll turn Tarsem Singh, Chris Cunningham and their ilk green with envy. 

And what an inconceivable, perfect, even subversive ending that inverts, yet again, the identities of subject and object. The only other equally satisfying, artistically impeccable ending that shook NF to the bone was Kieślowski's Three Colours: Red's. Indeed, in terms of technique, the only valid comparisons to be made are those with Tarkovsky and Bela Tarr; and heavily biased as NF is, he feels the former's Stalker and Kubrick's 2001... to be the only films that are as visually powerful and formally accomplished. The magnitude of the achievement is every bit as stratospheric as Ray's Apu Trilogy - among the greatest that Indian cinema, arthouse or otherwise, has ever produced (though on an artistic spectrum, the farthest possible from Ray's Indian neorealism - quite self-consciously as it turns out; for Ray was famously dismissive of Kaul's "anaemic" and "aesthete" brand of filmmaking).

(For those who would think that Indian parallel cinema was a monolithic movement against formulaic, popular cinematic traditions will be sorely disappointed. Not only were there several parallel movements, there wasn't much love lost between them, though it is said that there were two towering masters - Ray and Ghatak - who along with their numerous disciples (Kaul and Shahani were supposedly in the Ghatak zone) dug themselves in two camps: neorealism (Ray) and non-neorealism (!) (Ghatak). Shyam Benegal and Govind Nihalani despaired over Kaul and Shahani's branding as 'parallel' filmmakers, Kaul thanked Ghatak for curing him of the 'disease' of realism.)

Normals and Tangents

This brings NF to the curious case of Amit Dutta who's fast become the Ted Chiang of avant garde filmmaking - a bona fide freak as far as prizes per unit artwork is concerned. His short FTII thesis film Kramashah (tr. To be continued/In sequence) was introduced to NF by Somnath Pal - an old friend and budding filmmaker whose fan NF's been for years. By the end of the film, NF sat thoroughly destroyed and completely bewildered by its sheer brilliance, being totally unable to get a handle on what the fuck it is and how the fuck is that even possible. 

Not many can take out 90 minutes to watch the dazzling brilliance that Siddheshwari is. But to not take out 20 minutes to sample how truly path breaking Kramashah is, is simply inexcusable. Here is the full film, with subtitles:

Siddheshwari however, is the rosetta stone that helps unlock Kramashah. While substantially original, it bears Kaul's distinct cinematic stamp - gorgeous shot selection; exquisite camerawork; a preoccupation with Indian folk tales and myths; elliptical, oblique dialogues and slightly out-of-phase whispers with their curious mix of literary and folk Hindi; and an unabashedly (for lack of a better word) avant garde sensibility that remains obdurately, authentically Indian. Kramashah could not have been possible without Siddheshwari in the same way Smells Like Teen Spirit would've been impossible without Surfer Rosa. This is not to deny Amit Dutta his fiery originality but to underscore that flying off a rooftop to aim for the moon often ends with you legs up in the garbage dump, as Rajat Kapoor's short Tarana (Kaul's Dhrupad's bad copy - that it won the National Award is a scandal!) reminds us. It took Rajat Kapoor twenty more years to craft an homage that is true to the spirit of his mentor in Ankhon Dekhi. NF admires his tenacity and persistence since most ordinary mortals would've jumped off a cliff after the embarrassment that Tarana is.

Amit Dutta (in general) and Kramashah (in particular) are spiritual successors of the legacy of Mani Kaul (in general) and Siddheshwari (in particular).

On a somewhat tangential note, Shahrukh Khan produced and Amol Palekar directed the remake of Mani Kaul's 1973 Duvidha, in turn adapted from the cult Rajasthani writer Vijaydan Detha's short story. The same SRK was no stranger to Kaul's art by the way. Back when he was a mere mortal, his repertoire of films comprised an incredibly artsy portfolio - ranging from Pradip Krishen's oddly titled (and somewhat pretentious, though don't just take NF's word for it) In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones (starring Arundhati Roy as the protagonist Annie), Ketan Mehta's Maya Memsaab and Mani-fucking-Kaul's Ahmak - an adaptation of Dostoyevsky's Idiot (no NF hasn't seen this yet). Here is a completely unbelievable news item from 1992 (archived from 2012) on Shahrukh Khan's then incipient rise and features this golden gem from SRK: 

"Yaar," he says, laying bare his carefree air, "shooting for Mani was something else. I didn't understand the movie but I loved the art film environment..."

Silencio

Watch Kramashah, it's only 20 minutes long and is gloriously, unforgivably gorgeous. If it's up your alley, be fearless and take the plunge, for Siddheshwari is a high risk high return proposition - if it's a miss, you'll know it after having watched Kramashah, if it's not, it'll be a film you will never forget for it will paralyze you with its beauty. It will make a fan out of you of Mani Kaul, of his vision of avant garde cinema; and not least - of Siddheshwari Devi's mesmerizing art which you, like NF will begin listening to on a loop. Of so much ink that NF wasted in this post, not one sentence was about how Kaul uses Siddheshwari Devi's divine thumri to devastatingly good use. NF just hasn't developed the vocabulary for that. If you don't think you can watch Siddheshwari, just to sample what you've missed, watch this stellar, stellar scene where the guruji lays supine on this bed and plays the sarangi; and just observe how slowly, lovingly the camera moves around the room, as if sculpting in time.

http://youtu.be/dBfY-vHSjlw?t=1h5m58s

For the brave and fearless, here is the full film (no subtitles though). Viva friggin' la!

लाला के लिए

I just finished revisiting Jani Dushman: Ek Anokhi Kahani and have revised my estimate of this film. I must admit that I was taken aback and was compelled to write to you. I beseech you, implore you, simply beg you to rewatch this film at the earliest. Be cautious though, for you may laugh so hard that Michael will need to call 911. There is more per frame WTFuckery in this film than I ever recall. Per. Fuckin'. Frame. And the megastarcast and their massive indifference to fate of this woebegone adventure is an experience to remember.

Please Lala, you have to do this.

 

Yours,

(अ)सीमाबद्ध

Satyajit Ray and Ravi Shankar on the sets of Pather Panchali

Hats off to The Wire, where in a wonderfully penned article, Sharmila Tagore remembers her mentor Satyajit Ray's overwhelming genius on the 60th anniversary of Pather Panchali: What Satyajit Ray Left Us Is An Inheritance of Endless Possibilities. It's a rich, highly-erudite-yet-warm piece, peppered with intelligent observations and personal recollections. What a pleasant surprise to discover that one of the finest Indian actresses could also be such an astute, engaging writer! 

Satyajit Ray, of course, remains one of NF's all time favorite personal heroes (this list also includes Nirmal Verma and Girish Karnad) and he obstinately holds on to his old opinion that if all of Indian cinema were to be lost with just one exception - The Apu Trilogy - we wouldn't have lost much. 

Do read, if only to see how charmingly Sharmila Tagore writes. Highly recommended!

कुर्सियां!

NF has just gotten off binge watching four season 1 episodes of the web original, overnight IMDB phenom, mini series: TVF Pitchers, and boy, is it stunning! 

The show is about the much vaunted startup scene in India, in particular around Powai, Mumbai (wouldn't Bangalore have been a better choice? Oh well...) and not only does it look real and is very funny (the first episode: Tu Beer Hai (tr. You Are Beer) being a great example); it can also flaunt dramatic complexity and nuance when it wants to. Here's a longer, more in-depth review at Huff Po India: The Viral Fever's New Web Series Is About India's Frenzied Start-Up Scene.

It's also stylish, slick, and looks really fuckin' cool. 

The main actor is that same writer boy from Sulemani Keeda, which, come to think of it, occupies a very similar space in recent Hindie ventures. Its casting (including a very edgy, intense cameo by the ever awesome Rajesh Sharma), acting, writing, production values etc. are far beyond what you'd expect from a web original - in fact, it looks and feels better than anything on Indian TV. 

And of course, any self respecting series about engineering graduates must have a Sourav Mondal character  - and what a great campy, fun Saurabh Mandal (from IIM Indore lest you forget) we get to see! 

@ Ra and SatyaVrat: You guys've got to comment on what's your take on this!

It starts here on Youtube. Do, do watch!

गुड गौली मिस बौली

नंफ़ : जैसे हिंदी फिल्मों में अक्सर हीरो, हीरोइन से प्यार करने का नाटक करते करते उसे सचमुच चाहने लगते हैं, मैं बॉलीवुड के बारे में बिलकुल वैसा महसूस करता हूँ.

... : ...

Where Avant-Garde Meets Après-Garde...

... in that confluence lies Bajrangi Bhaijan, displaying the breathtaking, awe-inspiring, sheer power of pure Bollywood.

And why the fuck is no one talking about the art direction and mise en scène of the film? What a heady, potent mix of all styles - from naturalistic to kitsch; from interesting steadicam angles to '80s production designs; with a nod to old DD visual styles thrown in for good measure - often in the same damn scene! Who knew Kabir Khan was such a bag of goodies? 

Again, why the fuck is nobody writing about this aspect of the film in their reviews? 

To all design geeks: "Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?"

Bombay Velvet...

... is breathtakingly boring. 

Boo.

This Court Shall Not Be Adjourned

Everyone, please join NF in congratulating his old chum Somnath Pal on the continued success of the film Court, in which he was the Production Designer/Art Director. 

This time it's the National Film Awards where yesterday it won the main prize - the Best Fuckin' Film! 

It's also being released on April 17th all over India - NF urges everyone to please go see it and transform it from a worldwide arthouse triumph to an indie financial success!

Here's the Wikipedia page for the film: Court.

Here is the ever awesome Scroll.in on the film's win at the National Film awards: 'Court' wins National Film Award as it gears up for its theatrical release.

Here is the news item in Huffington Post India: 'Queen', 'Haider', and 'Court' Amongst Winners At 62nd National Film Awards.

(Not-so) Miniscule Musings

1. The flowering of Pakistani writing in English post-2000 has coincided with the most brutal and destructive period in its political history. While such exquisite writing, when juxtaposed with the banality of barbaric, homegrown militants terrorizing the nation and the world at large may seem grotesque, this apparent conflict perhaps, has contributed to making this new wave so darkly funny. The Latin American boom of the '70s and the worldwide success of Indian writing in English in the '80s and '90s fall into similar categories (the '80s being in particular, incredibly violent, unstable and in general the most depressing decade in modern Indian history). All bear the hallmarks of an elite upper class, expressing in their own unique-yet-not-dissimilar writing, their black humor laden magical realist take on the sense of general hopelessness.
   
   
   This past month NF read two fabulous books - The Reluctant Fundamentalist and A Case of Exploding Mangoes - by Mohsin Hamid and Mohammad Hanif respectively. These two, along with Daniyal Mueenuddin (whose book of short stories In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, a few years ago, had received such adulatory, gushing, cluttered-with-superlatives praise that NF was totally overwhelmed) and Kamila Shamsie (the Big Four) are among the hottest writers these days. The Reluctant Fundamentalist is exquisite, clever yet sincere; and A Case of Exploding Mangoes is just savagely, bitterly funny. 
   
   
   Cheers to more fiction from the other side of the border! Bravo, you guys!
   
   
2. Carla Miriam Levy (aka Filmi Geek) continues to produce outstanding film reviews of old Hindi films. Here is her take on Vijay Anand's mastery of the suspense genre as reflected in two of his finest films: Jewel Thief and Teesri Manzil. Much like the super contentious, never resolved debate on who's the best: Lata or Asha (an issue very much alive even in Pakistan, as we are reminded by Mohammad Hanif in A Case of Exploding Mangoes, where this question keeps cropping up in the most unexpected circumstances), old Hindi film fans (yours truly included) have long debated on which one is the best Vijay Anand film (though a tiny minority sticks with Guide). She is unable to pick one over the other although her indecision should in no way stop you from reading her excellent review. (For those who're curious, NF's always voted for Jewel Thief.)
   
   
3. While this must be old news, NF can't help but share it (he'd been planning to do so for a few weeks now, but reality interfered with his plans, as always). Here's a particularly juicy excerpt:
   
   
   "A Marxist group called Kakumei-teki himote doumei (“Revolutionary Alliance of Men That Woman Are Not Attracted To”) is calling on supporters to march against the [Valentine's Day] holiday in Tokyo’s Shibuya district."
   
   
   As NF quietly wipes his tears off and throws his (rather insignificant) weight behind these guys (ganbatte kudasai, you guys!), he can't but help noticing the radical way in which technology has disrupted the dating market. 
   
   
   While the norm in most societies a century or so ago had been marriages arranged by families (half of humanity still practises this custom) more material wealth, longer lifespans and emphasis on individuality and human freedom, especially in the West, have meant freedom from familial control over whom to date and/or eventually marry. 
   
   
   Until now that is.
   
   
   The incredible explosion in online dating (almost all single people NF knows are on it - apparently, from anecdotal evidence (!) this trend is more pronounced in Europe than it is in North America) and AI assisted matching algorithms has, in NF's opinion, created a paradigm shift in understanding the evolution of human mating rituals. 
   
   
   From an economisty point of view, the AI assisted dating market is much more efficient (jargonically, a Pareto superior correlated equilibrium allocation) and is clearly better than relying on (somewhat) random allocations of imperfect singnaling games played in highly uncertain conditions. However, isn't AI assisted matching and eventual marriage another form of (AI) arranged marriage, in which humans have ceded their freedom to sophisticated AIs who recommend who's better matched to whom? In this light, weren't scheming parents of old, mere prototypical, crude, highly imperfect, sometimes even spiteful matching algorithms on two legs? Is the era of arranged matchmaking back? And should we even be mourning the demise of wild, potentially risky, hormone mediated encounters with strangers?
   
   
   There is this beautiful SF story out there waiting to be written about this Brave New World. If it were the Gilded Age, NF would commission Ted Chiang to tell that story. It would be simple, it would be beautiful and it would fill you with a childlike wonderment at our current pregnant-with-new-possibilities state of affairs.