thou shall not steal... what?

Reader, you have been warned; take care - 
There are spoilers you must beware.


Dekalog, siedem (1990)
       Dir: Krzysztof Kieslowski

Dekalog 7 is Kieslowski's exploration of the Seventh Commandment, "Thou shall not steal". Majka, the plain, overlooked daughter of an exacting and imperious mother, attempts to kidnap her sister and run away to Canada with her. It's a believable story and a touching one, because Ewa is a controlling and insensitive mother, and Majka feels thoroughly left out while Ania, the little one, gets all the attention and the love. That it pulls the hearstrings isn't excuse enough, though, for kidnapping to be right or justifiable. You cannot steal, and that is that.

But what is stealing, really? Taking away something that does not belong to one with the intention of never returning it? How would we decide what is ours? If, for instance, Ania were Majka's child instead of her sister and she attempted to run away with her, would that be stealing? Can Ewa steal Majka's right to motherhood? Can you steal something that is yours?

That last question is the one that the film primarily deals with. The ending seems to suggest that you can, and that you will be punished for it. For Majka is discovered and runs away on her own, and Ania is returned to Ewa and her husband Stefan. The act of stealing, the film seems to suggest, is contingent not on the stolen object, but on the mind that steals. If one feels one is stealing, despite excuses and justifications to the contrary, then perhaps it is stealing. The intention is the telltale factor; not legally, but morally.

The brilliance of the film is not in the conclusion it draws (for it draws none that is concrete; what is above is mine), but in the exploration of the factors that surround that one tiny act of stealing. What must you keep in mind while 'stealing', and specifically, while stealing a child? Is Majka's torment at her lost opportunity for motherhood (for Ania refuses to call her Mummy) sufficient justification? Does Ewa's being an unyielding and unforgiving mother mitigate the wrong? Is it wrong at all for Majka to take her child away from a setting where she, as the rightful mother, is not allowed to make the decisions for and about her child?

The torment that they face is written beautifully in the actors' faces: Majka, as the cheated girl-mother, the worried and possessive Ewa, the kindly but ineffectual Stefan, the confused Wojteck (Ania's biological father) and the innocent Ania, who does not understand the undercurrents but feels them. Action and retribution don't interest Kieslowski; the reasons for action and degrees of right or wrong do. For him, it seemed to me, the context had to be clear.

Stealing had to be evaluated based on the context it took place in. There are instances when Majka is reprimanded for kidnapping Ania, not because it is wrong, but because it will do no good for the child - that the child's needs must be placed before Majka's while evaluating that act. I think, here, Kieslowski questions the nature of love as well. If Majka loved Ania as much as she claims she does, should she have stolen her? Must love place the needs of the beloved before that of the lover, or is it all right for the emotion to be selfish, controlled by one's own need and desire?

The film ends, I think, on a non-judgmental note. Right or wrong it may be to steal, even if what is taken by you is your own. Right or wrong it may be to refuse to yield, believing in what is good for others. Right or wrong it may be to demand from life what you think should have been yours. What is unchanging in everything is human nature; its existence and functioning from and through supreme selfishness and need (in this case, for Majka's lost motherhood), even in love. Man is limited and controlled by the selfishness and the needs he entertains, for it dictates all action, and brings all kinds of happiness and suffering to him.

love is lost in translation

I was watching Lost in Translation for the third time yesterday. There is so much to the film that every time, I discover new thoughts that strike me about it.

The first time I watched it, I was struck by a little amount of contempt I felt towards Johansson's character; how she seems to defeatedly accept everything that comes by and doesn't participate in or steer her life. But that passed; there was no judgment made because, sometimes, our lives seem bigger than we are, and we feel we have no control or ability to control or the need for it.

The scond time I watched it, it was just a simple, multilayered, beautiful, gentle ode to loneliness and companionship, inspiration and boredom, maturity and the process of maturing, and to the environment and the person. It was also when I decided that, visually, the sequence of when Johansson's character visit Kyoto and the shrine was my favourite.

This time, what struck me was the "foolish" and unguardedly happy smiles on both their faces at the end, on the busy street in Tokyo, when they hug and kiss. So it's love. I'm not classifying the emotin because I don't think it can be; I don't think you can put love in a drawer and friendship in another and different kinds of love in separate drawers. The way I attempt to understand it, the emotion is the same, everywhere; it is preoccupation with somebody other than yourself, in such a way as to desire happiness or comfort or love for them, even at the cost of your own, and not expect anything in return.*

In that last scene, there was a bit of this reflected, I think. At that particular moment, they were both - perfectly - happy. Only that one moment, maybe, but then, that was because at the end of that moment, their minds started filling up again; details of lives as they were prior to the moment.

I think that one moment shows what love is meant to be - it's in the present; it's happy; it recognizes no obstacles. But it has to exist with all the other moments, and that is when things get complicated. We stuff so much into love - duty, responsibility, expectation, ideas about existing lives like career, money, security - that we forget what it is and make it into some monster of a messed-up rangoli.

Maybe, if we were to let love rule the world - as it is; no introductions or interpolations - everything would be all right.

All you need is love?

***

*It differs because it's directed to different people, and we expect different things from them.

Moo-fee

No spoilers, I promise.

Three films in the past twelve hours. *nods*

1. The Prestige (2006; dir. Christopher Nolan)
Cast: Hugh Jackman (*drool*), Christian Bale (*melt*), Michael Caine

The good things: It's fast-paced, engaging (I didn't glance at the clock even once, and few films do that to me), slick. The script flows smoothly, in non-linear narrative. The characters are played well, though they're possibly not explored very well. But whatever flesh is there is exposed very well.

One gets a good idea of what the characters are working towards: their fears, obsessions, the lengths they will go to keep their secrets and the perfection to their art. It is also a telling piece on competition and what it does to people, and also, I felt, an exploration of morality and the nature of it.

There are so many themes explored in the film that none are explored thoroughly: questions of professional dedication, competitiveness, sacrifice, the reason for doing something and of revenge. The film tells one of what these two stage magicians, whose lives it is chronicling, believe and act upon. What it does not do, is preach.

There is no outright distinction or final conclusion about what's right and wrong. All one knows is what Angier and Borden do, and why they do it. Perhaps their actions are justified; perhaps not. Perhaps the price they paid was too high and Angier and Borden were just plain foolish, but that's for one to decide. Moral and ethical right and wrong is not the film's preaching; it's just telling a story, and a darn good one, too.

Added bonus: one gets to see Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale in drool-able, melt-able roles that can leave one up high in the air and clouds. :)

***

Okay, maybe slight spoiler. But I've warned you.

2. Before Sunrise (1995; dir. Richard Linklater)
Cast: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy
This has to be one of the sweetest love stories I've ever seen on screen. To be honest, there's not much to it: two people meet on a train to Vienna, decide to get off together on an impulse and spend the evening together roaming the city and talking (they talk a lot) and falling in love.

So what makes it all that special? Because it's refreshing, and I'll tell you why.

Before Sunrise is a film that you can watch and actually think, "Hm. This could happen; Vienna or no Vienna." There's something about it that's real and magical, and most of it is just conversation. There are no cliched romantic moments and hand-holdings and sexual tensions, and if there are any, they seem uncontrived, natural and in the flow of the narrative, which so rarely happens.

Jesse and Celine are just two normal people who meet, talk, talk, and talk some more, walk, and realise they feel a connection with each other. What it did for me was to highlight how diverse and easy conversation can be, and how tonic, too. And hope, too, because the two are just like you and me on a street in Cochin or Bangalore or Brisbane or Singapore, and it could happen to us too. :)

PS - Btw, Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 100% positive rating (thanks, Verun!) and it's considered one of the best romantic films of the indie genre. :)

***

More spoilers, sorry.

3. Before Sunset (2004; dir. Richard Linklater)
Cast: Same, same.
Okay, so things don't always work out the way you'd want them to, but then, there's always hope, ne? Because people don't really change; not the core, anyway. So if you're an optimistic person, you should still be hoping, and if you're a pessimist or a cynic, you never had much to begin with.

Shock 1: It's nine years down the line, and Jesse and Celine are not together.
Shock 2: Jesse is married to someone else, and has a kid.

He's also just written a bestseller about that night with Celine in Vienna, and accidentally-on-purpose just met her in Paris. The sequel is like a window back into their lives, and here's why this film is so lovable.

They've changed, the two lead characters. And the change is what you might expect of someone ten years down the line - mature, a little less madly optimistic, wisened by the experiences of "life". But in essence, they're still the same. There're periods of dejected realism, and those of mad, soaring optimism; like on an impulsive, unplanned for trip to... somewhere. Hope is an underlying theme all through both films, and so is change, and the desire for fulfilment and understanding.

Hawke and Delpy do a wonderful job of making the characters more or less open books in both films, and I loved watching them to figure out what each was thinking and feeling. They make the movie run, obviously, and do it so well you're not feeling bored at the end of an hour and twenty minutes.

***

Watch.

Milk

Opinion - this one, too.

Milk was my movie of the day, and, as expected, I am moved by it. However.

***

There are films that draw one in so deeply that one feels part of it - the life, the Movement, the love. Finding Neverland was one of those, despite the liberal exaggeration of fact imbedded deep in the narrative.* Milk, however, is not.

Individually, the performances of the actors are wonderful. Penn as Milk, Franco as Scott Smith, Hirsch as Cleve Jones, and the other men and woman at the Castro - they're all good. They all infuse life into those skins that one has to make friends with and empathise with, for they're the ones that got the Gay Rights Movement going in 'Frisco in the '70s.

One also gets an idea of what the scene was for Gay Rights; a crude vantage, but still one. Enough, at least, to sympathise with either side of the cause, and to wonder at the conservatism of society in the 20th century. Enough, also, to make one's blood boil and long for a reason to fight (and there is enough reason now).

Where Milk fails is in making the connection between the man and his allies, and the scene. Milk speaks of the Movement as the candidate, and not him, but that's not the impression one gets upon watching the film. To be fair, it is purportedly a biopic and so perhaps that is justifiable, but it is also one that tries to give us an idea of the LGBT scene in the US during the '70s, and the film forgets that a little. The result is a film that focuses intermittently on the Movement and its developments, and on Milk and his life.

The problem with this is not just that it makes Milk an inadequate film; it makes it an inadequate biopic, and biopic is what it is. One understands the ideals that Milk stands for, but less about the man and his personal reasons for being so prominent a part of the Gay Movement.

Milk talks to us of what he did, but not of what he was and became. There isn't enough character exploration; one is never sharply touched by either a flaw or a virtue. That, I think, is one the biggest flaws Milk has.

But I'm human enough and silly enough to have tears in my eyes at the idealism the film projects on to Milk, and feel that that redeems the film for all its flaws. :)

* Go here.

Medieval Torture

You might be a Harry Potter fan. You might be jumping up and down in the air because the new HBP movie is out and you can't wait to watch it. If you are, don't be offended and don't throw heavy objects at me. All I'm saying is: are you sure you've got your priorities right? Should you, I ask in earnest, be putting your loyalty to some imaginary boy (who's quite ordinary and temperamental, come to think of it) over your commitment to good cinema and literature? Should you, should you??

You might be in a mood to root me out from any tiny corner of the world and dip me in scalding hot water now. Or the iron maiden. But wait. Listen, at least, to what I have to tell you about HBP the Movie.

*desperate silence for five minutes*

I've been trying to think of good things to say, but the only thing I can think of is: Draco Malfoy. Tom Felton is deliciously drool-over-able, and boy, is he the only person worth watching in the movie! The others are all more puppet-like than they can possibly be in real life - so much so I'm actually wondering if David Yates thought puppets would be a cheaper bet.

Now I'll tell you what's wrong with the movie. You'd expect a screenplay to be flowy, and we all know it's possible for books to be made into decent films (Lord of the Rings, anyone?!), but this one beats all. Every time I watch a Harry movie, I think, "This is the worst Steve Kloves could do, ever!" and he proves me wrong every time. Every single time.

And that's only one thing that's wrong about it. You might be one of those people who like romantic comedies, or period romances, action thrillers, gripping dramas, or fantasy worlds - but on all of those counts, HBP fails. Please, if you have any loyalty to good cinema, chuck your ticket in the bin and go bury yourself in a Tolkien.