Shoulda watched Brave

The girl ahead of me at the theatre bought her own 3D glasses while we waited. After the film - after the web came at us and the extra scene came and went unremarked (Marvel has figured out at least, that no one stays until the absolute end of the credits and so they now insert the 'extra' after the main people have been credited and before the caterers and lawers get their share of the limelight), I thought of this girl. I thought what she did was the most amazing thing about watching The Amazing Spiderman.

Because I have never seen a film that needed 3D less. In fact, I am wondering if the film might even be improved if all of us didn't watch it at all. Like, in some forest somewhere, reels of films will fall and fall and be richer and more loamy for doing it unwatched.

Spidey is that film. It has absolutely nothing going for it (ok, it has Andy Garfield, who is middling-cute, but just about): lousy, witless dialogue, no chemistry between any two - pick any combo - characters, a laughable villain and a cop whose one line ("Do I look like the mayor of Tokyo?") was said as if it was meant to fall flat.

I amused myself by imagining that the newspaper cutting of Peter's parents' death had his mother's name as June Parker. That's how boring it was.

Tchah.

Shoulda watched Brave.

Junot Díaz's decolonial love

In this two-part interview in The Boston Review, Junot Díaz says:

In Oscar Wao we have a family that has fled, half-destroyed, from one of the rape incubators of the New World and they are trying to find love. But not just any love. How can there be “just any love” given the history of rape and sexual violence that created the Caribbean—that Trujillo uses in the novel? The kind of love that I was interested in, that my characters long for intuitively, is the only kind of love that could liberate them from that horrible legacy of colonial violence. I am speaking about decolonial love.

One of the arguments that the book makes about Oscar is that he ain’t getting laid because he’s fat and nerdy. That might be part of it, but that is also a way of hiding other possibilities. Perhaps one of the reasons Oscar ain’t getting laid is because he is the son of a survivor of horrific sexual violence. In the same way that there is intergenerational transfer of trauma from mothers who are rape victims to their daughters, there is also intergenerational transfer of rape trauma between mothers and their sons. But most readers don’t notice how Oscar embodies some of the standard reactions of young rape victims to their violations. Many women in the aftermath of sexual violence put on weight—in some cases as an attempt to make themselves as unattractive as possible. Oscar isn’t fat just to be fat—at least not in my head. His fatness was partially a product of what’s going on in the family in regards to their bodies, in regards to the rape trauma.

For me, the family fukú is rape. The rape culture of the European colonization of the New World—which becomes the rape culture of the Trujillato (Trujillo just took that very old record and remixed it)—is the rape culture that stops the family from achieving decolonial intimacy, from achieving decolonial love.

At a time when I am moving between hectically different kinds of writing, and adjusting my mental lens to take in different textures of thought and language, this interview just had me in a puddle of gratitude and joy. When Díaz writes, talks or responds to questions, I want to make it all pause so I can take in the sheer dazzle. (via Aisha )


Oh, and for more Junotlove, please see this from some time ago.

Dibakar Banerjee's Saturday moment

Haven't yet watched Shanghai and not sure I ever will, unless it turns up on TV and I accidentally land up on a channel that happens to be showing it. This is mostly because of a friend who sends out trenchant film criticism via (three or four) smses and his remarks on Shanghai were both funny and unrepeatable on a public forum.

Instead, let me point to a post and an interview with Banerjee.

The post (via Supriya):

Development projects, have a very political purpose, not only to hand over prime real estate land to private parties, but to remove every possible centre of dissent and political activity that is always incipient in the slums and working class neighbourhoods. The film, by portraying only the hypocrisies and the futilities of a middle and upper class characters, whose so-called good intentions and attempts for justice are constantly thwarted by ‘the system’, betray the one place where inspiration is found: the protest in the people’s movement, when the hungry go on hunger strike.
Thus, all of those who once stood before bulldozers, would not send anyone to go watch the film. A sentiment repeated by all of them – from Annabhau Sathe Nagar to Sion Koliwada.

‘They showed in the film, that the public is not agitating, that they’re only a few angry people who’re fighting for rights and dying,’ Says Santosh Thorat of Annabhau Sathe Nagar, who has been fighting for the right to a home, and against Slum Rehabilitation scams, since his home was demolished in 2005, ‘And this film is about how the state deals with the few of them, so you better keep your mouth shut.’

‘People who don’t have any knowledge of what’s happening in the street and in the morchas, in the andolans, especially the youth, whose homes have never been demolished, they’d be very badly influenced by this film.’ Said Jameela Begum of Anna Bhau Sathe Nagar. Four young boys from Sion Koliwada who experienced demolitions and violence, would add how a young woman leader from their slum is in jail for protesting against demolition, but their awareness was born by the realities of what they face. The lack of the realities of what they faced in the past week – one boy who was beaten up by the police after trying to protect his father from the police, simply replied, ‘the film was boring.’

And from the interview in the DNA:

Another criticism was that the daily trials and vulnerabilities of the working class and casual labourers weren’t really represented.

Anant Jogue’s character, who mows down Dr Ahemadi, is representing the working class. So is his wife, and the character of Bhaggu (played by Pitobash). I didn’t see the need to have more than one or two characters to represent that strata of society. The film, in the end, has been made for intellectual pleasure; it’s a story. It’s not to push the agenda of any particular set of people, but to ask some pertinent questions instead.

Oh nice. So Banerjee "didn’t see the need to have more than one or two characters to represent that strata of society" but of the few who do represent one of that strata of society one of them happens to have killed what appears to be 'the good guy'.

Plus, this idea that intellectual pleasure cannot exist in stories about people who are not the middle class is so incredibly hilarious. But the get-out clause that is the It's just a story plea doesn't cut much ice, I'm afraid. Especially not from someone who wants to provide intellectual pleasure.

And Banerjee seems to think that by making this a "story of middle-class people, caught up in an alien slum environment, and struggling to come to terms with various things" [from early in the interview], he isn't pushing any agendas.

How sweet.

Transit of Venus

The last one we'll see in our lifetimes.

Here.

We woke up at 5.30 to check it out, but of course the sun hadn't even risen then. Once it had, there were treelines and it's taken till now to get a glimpse.

The kid swears he can see Venus in the top left corner, but I could only see a dark red disc through a folded X-Ray (Don't try this at home, kids. It's bad for your eyes).

Now we've settled down in front of the computer, listening to dignified people from NASA singing childish songs to fill the time - transits take time - and annoying the heck out of us.

But! Transit! Of! Venus!

Zoot alors!*

__

* Guillaume le Gentil

What he said

Jonathan McCalmont on this year's Cannes shortlist and eventual award (which went to Haneke's Amour and though of course I'm happy about that...):

Clearly, this shit is intolerable.

Aside from the obvious moral arguments about inclusivity and discrimination, there is also an important aesthetic argument to be made about the importance of unfamiliarity to the art house cinematic experience. Indeed, chief among the many pleasures of art house film is its ability to introduce us to whole new ways of seeing the world. For example, when Apichatpong Weerasethakul won in 2010 for Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, he was not only being rewarded for his cinematography and storytelling but also for his great skill at articulating what it must be like to see the world through his eyes, the eyes of a forty year-old gay man from Thailand. Similarly, when Cristian Mungiu won the Plame d’Or for 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days he was not only being rewarded for the skill with which he explored the issue of abortion, but also for his capacity to speak for an entire generation of Romanians who grew up under the rule of Nicolae Ceauşescu. Central to the appeal of art house cinema is its peerless ability to show us the world from an entirely different perspective. Indeed, it is telling that the success of both Weerasthakul and Mungiu lead directly to explosions of critical interest in films from their respective countries.  Art house cinema is all about new perspectives and art house cinema audiences are forever crying out for new ways of seeing the world.

By choosing only established male directors for competition, 2012 Cannes festival organisers ensured that their Palme d’Or would introduce no new conceptual blood into the cinematic bloodstream.

By choosing a shortlist dominated by elderly men, Cannes festival organisers denied art house cinema audiences the chance to discover something genuinely new.

I've long felt that Cannes has become less interesting as the years go by and vaguely remember mentioning this phenomenon of Old White Men dominating the competition section. So basically, what Jonathan said.

'Colonial history survives well in the mouth; it's warm there'

It's common in India for English speakers - we could even say native English speakers - to claim that they're past all this unease with the legacy of language, and all that post-colonial hand-wringing, and that sort of thing.

It's somewhat true, also, that much of what is written about matters of language tend to follow a well-worn path; I'm tired before I even begin. But every once in a while, someone writes something that renews old, stale insights. It's odd that so often this happens through personal histories and even odder that this is not a route taken more often (or maybe I just don't read enough).

Anyway. Found this essay by Eliane Castillo via Aisha and thought I'd link to and store this here:

But for my father, Ilokano wasn’t just a language he wanted to speak—but an entire space, a time. More specifically: an estranged space, an estranged time. And because none of the people who had lived in that space and time were with him, he refused to speak it, to produce it, either to my mother, or to me. The only time I heard him speak Ilokano was with one co-worker, a fellow security guard (and then, only reluctantly and sparingly); or on the phone with his siblings; or the one time when the two of us were in the Philippines together, during the second kidnapping of my life. (He was the one who kidnapped me. Not in an evil way. Well, not evil to me.)

But more than that, he refused, almost categorically, to speak Tagalog with my younger brother and me. He would not enter into the space of Tagalog with us. “It’s not my language,” he said firmly. Naturally, he thought of English as his own; it’s the second national language of the Philippines, after all. Colonial history survives well in the mouth; it’s warm there. Tropical.

See what I mean? Bang in the middle of a familiar narrative of estrangement in language and the claiming of spaces and times etc etc, there's 'the second kidnapping'.

(Plus, anyone who namechecks Tony Neung automatically has my full and passionate attention.)

Facetiousness aside, there's a lot there that makes me want to hug that post: I do the whole shifting accents thing too, depending on whom I am talking to and have often wished someone would theorise or at least explicate that; I like the idea of 'the cat in the throat'; language as prosthesis.

Just read, no?

Haneke's Love

Somehow, I thought I was over suffering and the slow decline into death. Really. Thought that was all so 2009, the obssessive examination of all things decaying and dying.

Turns out old obssessions can still take. And when it's Haneke, it must be watched.

And it has Trintignant! And Emannuelle Riva! (And, incidentally, Isabelle Huppert).

Haneke cast French screen icon Jean-Louis Trintignant, 81, and Emmanuelle Riva, 85, in the story of George and Anne, a couple of retired music teachers, whose rich and adoring relationship is cruelly tested when she suffers a stroke.
Set in the hushed rooms of the couple's parquet-floored Parisian flat, the film charts Anne's physical and mental decline, and the increasingly unbearable strain it puts on George, who pledges to care for her at home until the end.
Utterly believable in the role, Riva told a press conference after the screening that she threw herself heart and soul into the part, sleeping in her dressing room at the studio where it was shot to remain immersed in her character.

[...]

"Once you reach a certain age, you necessarily have to face the suffering of the people you love," he told the press conference. "It's part of nature." "It raises the issue of how to manage the suffering of the people you love." Wheelchair-bound, half-paralysed, the intelligent, vivacious Anne early on tells her husband she does not wish to live such an impaired life. But carry on they do, as far as George can take her.

Now doesn't that sound just like something I'd like to watch?

Confessions of a Light Sleeper

In early May the temperatures were 40C. For the last week it's been 43C every single day. What this means is that the house, the roads, even the plants, give off heat like they were efficient and well-maintained solar heaters. I could fry and egg on any step.

We try not to keep the AC on for too long. We slop water on to mats and leave them on the floor. We wet towels and drape ourselves with them as if we were delicate greens at the grocer's. We think of watermelons ans cucumbers and instead get more mangoes than we know what to do with.

So we succumb and turn the AC on at night.

But here's the thing: I can't actually fall asleep when the AC is on. It's nice enough when I'm reading or writing or just messing around lurking on Tumblrs and looking at pretty pictures, but once the light's off, I get anxious.

I look at my watch every 15 minutes and if my anxiety levels are elevated, then every three. Finally, at 10, 11, maybe midnight, I turn the AC off. But then:

If I turn off the main swtich, I am closing off the possibility of turning it back on if the room gets hot again (which it will, in half an hour or less). If I open the windows, I will let what little cool air there is out. On the other hand, in time - in four hours or more - there might be a breeze.

But the stabiliser lights bother me. The mattress radiates heat. I get up and open a window. Fall back into uneasy sleep. Wake up again to, maybe, turn the AC on again and change my mind. Back and forth. Toss and turn.

There's too little sleep in summer. Too much time in that elastic space when sleep approaches and retreats. Too little during the waking hours.

(Also too many mangoes. If you're in the city, please take some off me. Their smell overpowers the house. Did I say: that's another bar to sleep.)

*

It's been six years since I started this blog. In a lot of ways it's like a marriage*: I'm mildly surprised it's lasted this long but can't bring myself to care one way or another to renew the excitement of it. Not when the siren songs of Twitter and Tumblr sound. Not when other new, shiny things keep me off the net altogether.

On the other hand, it's a space. It's where I am and can be usually found. And I'm astonished and grateful that people still turn up, even when there's not a whole lot to see.

In the last month, I've looked at what brings new people here. It's mostly chunks of text - poetry, stuff I've stored here in order not to forget - things like that. The top two, consistently are:Edwin Morgan's 'Opening the Cage' and Anouilh's 2nd Chorus from Antigone. Other searches depend on what schools or colleges set their students to read. Some will search for Arseniy Tarkovsky or 'Penelope's Descendents' and find themselves here.

They're not going to land up on the main blog and see this, but just in case: Hi!


And to everyone else, who still land up despite the erratic, self-indulgent, unresponsive to comments behaviour I display, thanks for reading!
__

*I ought to mention, when I say a marriage, I really mean mine. I know many people who have lovely marriages six years on.

Late to the Manto love...

...but only slightly.

Here's Mohammed Hanif in Dawn:

How are you getting on with your creator?

Have you settled that old argument with your creator: Who is a better short-story writer? You do realise that that this kind of claim hurts people’s sentiments. Especially sentiments of people who don’t read stories, who can’t read stories or who think reading and writing stories was a perversion. I hope you understand why your family didn’t inscribe that God vs Manto argument on your tombstone as you had wished. Censorship even in my death, you protest. No Sir, just common sense. I hope that you are up there with your creator, being argumentative, still carrying on that debate about who is better at the storytelling game. (That kind of thing, by the way, is called a creative-writing workshop these days). If your old friend Ismat Chughtai drops by while you are having that debate, you and your creator should take a break from arguing and say to her: we’ll both go in the kitchen and make tea, why don’t you write us a story.

(I was tempted to quote the very last bit, but that would be unfair to both Hanif and Manto.)

And Supriya Nair's 'Here Lies Manto':

In search of Manto in Byculla, Baghdadi points out that the neighbourhood in which he once lived has changed little. The marble plaques in Christ Church, across the road from Manto’s old house on Clare Road, recall the histories of members of its congregation who lived here over a century ago. Scratch the Urdu and Marathi flyers from the walls of the municipal garden, and the Star of David underneath, confirming its identity as an old Jewish cemetery, is intact. Any evidence of the writer of Mirza Ghalib and Mozail, Thanda Gosht and Letters to Uncle Sam having once lived here, though, must now be imagined.

Also see MS Gopal's images

Oh no she didn't!

Just back from watching Vicky Donor. Very watchable and all that but.

Did she? Did the character Ashima really say ching-chong in the last scene? She said if I remember correctly, "That boy, he has your hair. That foreigner girl. She has your nose. And that ching chong has your eyes."

Really? Did I just dream it up? Somebody tell me I'm wrong.