Not often does it happen that we encounter a cinema which not only entertains you but manages to make you think about the power of cinema itself. It’s rare, very rare that you encounter moments in cinema which is even beyond imagination. For me, cinema has never been about depicting realism, although I do love realistic cinema. When you have the power to depict the unthinkable, why go for something which is obvious? And it’s not just about depicting the unthinkable, but rather making the unthinkable look possible.
Terminator – This was my first tryst with non Hindi cinema way back in early 90s. I had absolutely no idea how movies outside India looked like. And I was still a kid aged about 10 years. Needless to add, I had a tremendous amount of difficulty in absorbing the accent of the actors in it. But such was the power of this movie that I didn’t notice those things. Coming back from the future to save the present was an idea that was almost unthinkable to me at that stage. The hunter and the hunted chase sequences were taken to all together different level in this movie. The idea was survive the storm and just holding on to your life seemed like fighting the greatest battle ever fought. And we have the superhero myth too! A hero for whom you can easily sacrifice your life! In short I was enamored and blown away by each and every facet of the movie. Nothing looked imaginable yet everything looked possible. A few years later Terminator II reaffirmed my faith in the terminator series.
There will be Blood – Many film makers have tried their hands at adapting Fountainhead/Atlas Shrugged but no one seems to have perfected the art of portraying selfish heroes better than Paul Thomas Anderson. The greatest challenge in adapting such novels lies in creating the character sketch of lead characters – Howard Roark/ John Galt/ Hank Rearden. It looks almost impossible to depict these characters selfishly yet heroically. But TWBB did just that. Not that it’s an adaptation of these novels, but the lead character of TWBB has a strong resemblance with the lead characters of the novels. Daniel Plainview is perhaps the only character depicted on screen that is egoistic, selfish and heroic at the same time.
Matrix – Matrix is to my adolescence, what Terminator was to my childhood. The whole idea of creating a life in a virtual world and fighting against the program that is set to enslave the mankind looked unthinkable in this real world. Things like bullets stopping in the air, transporting between real and virtual world, fighting against a computer program looked magnificent to me. And who would have thought that learning things like flying a helicopter would become so easy one day!! And the greatest achievement of Matrix was in making those things look believable.
Fight Club – I am huge fan of Calvin and Hobbes comic strip series. I used love the antics of Calvin as kid and often used to wonder what would happen to him once he grows up. Little would I have imagined that Calvin would just refuse to grow up and he would remain same old defiant and non conformist kid that he used to be. Fight Club builds up magnificently on this Calvin mythology and presents a defiant, non conformist yet contemporary world of his. If going to school is biggest dread of childhood, going to office for meaningless pursuits becomes the biggest dread of his adult life. The movie is almost a tribute to the legendary character yet it creates a world that’s beyond imagination. These days, I often wonder what Holden Caulfield would be doing once he grows up. No answers yet, but till then lets celebrate the growing up of Calvin and his Hobbes.
Kill Bill – The story of Kill Bill can be written down in less than 2 lines and a movie of more than 4 hours was made out of it! There is hardly anything original about this movie, be it the fight sequences, the music or the story. But it is most profound amalgamation of pre existing audio and visuals. What I liked most about Kill Bill was the animation sequences. I regard most of the animation movies made in Hollywood as cartoons and I get completely put off by those films. Kill Bill provided me the first animation sequence which I really loved. Later, I went on to watch some Japanese animation movies and found those even better than the animation sequence of Kill Bill. But Kill Bill was the first time when I fell for animation. And there have been powerful female characters in movies before, but none so ruthless and powerful as the Beatrix Kiddo.
Sadly, there is not a single movie in Hindi Cinema that I can add to this list.
No comments:
Post a Comment