Tag: movie review

At the movies..

On By Indu PatikkalIn growing up, Random thoughtsLeave a comment

I am a movie buff.. I love everything about the movies, specifically Indian movies. I am that person who will watch a movie in any language reading subtitles in English. Sometimes I watch the movie twice, like a Bahubali, once to read the subtitles and the second time to just watch the magic on screen. I have always watched movies. During childhood it was two movies a weekend via a rented video cassette tape from the video library nearby. Pick them up on Friday and return on Saturday or pick them up on Saturday and return on Monday. My brother got to pick a Mithun Chakraborthy movie while I got to pick a Jayaprada one. As hilarious as it seems now, yes there was a wave of these actors once upon a time. My parents got to pick a Malayalam movie once in a blue moon.

I grew up watching the sanskari-type (Indian culture extravaganza) or the bad guy-good guy type dishum-dishum movies. My brother had an array of toy guns imitating the heroes of these movies, shooting down the villian. Once in college, my mother and I took our craziness to the theatres, buying tickets in black, sitting in the first row, second show, you get the grind. She was my movie-pal.

As I grew out of my last teens, like most other girls my age, I fell into the traps of the lovey-dovey type, dreamy eyes boys, frock clad girls “variety” love stories. An ancient version of today’s chick flick! Meaningful cinema happened somewhere in between where classics like Bharatham, Mr and Mrs Iyer etc crept in. This was when I started watching a lot of Mohanlal movies.

Langauge has never been a barrier to enjoy a story. And well, stories are my thing 🙂. Alaipayuthey steered the way into Tamil, Aparna Sen into Bengali, Kannada was what we spoke at home and went with neighbors to theatres, Malayalam was mother tongue so parents influence, Telugu was from Sagara Sangamam. Every Sunday Doordarshan played a national award winning movie around 1 pm after the news for the hearing impaired. This round lady with heavy lipstick sat in the corner of the TV screen reading the news in sign language. I remember staring at her trying to make sense of sign language. So coming back to movies, Oriya, Marathi, Punjabi, Bengali, Gujarati blah blah movies aired during this time. All of them were award winning and slow, which gave me ample time to read the subtitles. I guess that’s where I picked up the subtitles-reading habit.

I shouldn’t miss to mention the umpteen Suraj Barjatiya and Karan Johar type films which I watched over and over again for absolutely no rhyme or reason. A colossal waste of time but pure no brainers, where a dog or a cat or a mouse would win over common sense!!

My young woman years delved into the deeper off-the-shelf romance adventures like Ijaazat, Sindhubairavi etc. Feeling the film became a big thing where I would wake up the next day with a hangover from the film. The characters stayed with me for a few days and that became the yardstick of a good movie. If the characters stayed with me, I had had a wonderful movie experience. There are a few films like Pursuit of Happiness, Life is Beautiful, Fashion, Arjun Reddy, Mahanati, Iti Mrinalini, Mr and Mrs Iyer, Vikram Vedha to name a few; which elevate you to a different level.

Then there is ’96!

The feel the movie created is like it went right into your body and gave your heart a warm squeeze! I don’t think there is a more beautiful and rustic narration of destiny in a movie. It simply says that if two people are not destined to be together, it just will not happen. Period. The subtleties, nuances, every touch has a meaning, every look says more than the words uttered. The music carries you in the sway, like drenching you in a drizzle, like the wine slowly soaking your gut.. like they say in Tamil.. sema feel!!

To life like stories and narrations, cheers always!!

Baar Baar Dekho

On By Indu PatikkalIn cinema, life, marriage, opinion, Random thoughtsLeave a comment

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Spoiler alert –

My kids and I watched Baar Baar Dekho today. After many hours we were discussing as to why the movie was titled ‘Baar Baar Dekho’ (see it many times). My older one said ‘Its because he gets to look at his life many times’. He was right, I thought.

The character Jai Varma gets many chances at life and is able to trace back to the exact point where the problems started. He can then relive his life and take the road less traveled. Lucky for him.

That was a movie and we all know that in real life we don’t get even a second chance. What is done is done, the past never comes knocking on your door, holding out a chance to relive your life.

The future, well, that’s why its called the future. Its distant and unknown.

As I put my kids to sleep today, we read a story from the Bible about how Jesus fed five thousand people with five loaves of bread. We then sang songs from the movie in chorus. I remembered to tell my older one about how my younger one was missing him, while he was out this evening. We pulled the little one’s leg, which he didn’t like and hurled some punches my way. We spoke about how you either swallow or breathe and the esophagus. This topic got my little one dozing. I strode to my older one’s bed and stroked his hair till he fell asleep.

Wow.. so much in the present.. in the now. All this must have lasted about ten minutes, but those ten minutes are precious for my little ones and me. They go to sleep with togetherness on their mind. And I, hold on to these moments, to now; because, I definitely don’t want to feel in some distant future, that I didn’t have fun with my kids in the past.

So much so, for Baar Baar Dekho.

 

Tamasha

On By Indu PatikkalIn Random thoughtsLeave a comment

Compromised lives – that’s the movie Tamasha in two words. This post is not a movie review, but an insight into the life that a lot of people live. As depicted in the movie, we are all running a race, we don’t know what the race is about, or what it is for, everybody is running, so we are also running. Are we first or second, or ninth or tenth? We don’t know. Choose your own race and ace that.
How many of us are really able to do that? Stop running everyone else’s race, and run your own? I don’t know, maybe because my outlook is small or because I am surrounded by lots and lots of people who are in the rat race, that I feel that this percentage of people who run their own race is very small. However, something inside me, makes me believe that I am part of the small population that lives compromised lives.
Be yourself – that’s the movie Tamasha in two other words. You don’t have to change for the world, or do things to please people around you. Believe in your wings and fly.
Like one of those forwards, the birds trust it’s wings not the branch of the tree it’s sitting on..