Reflections: Antichrist by Lars von Trier

Antichrist (Image source: IMDB)

Antichrist. The name suggested it was probably based on religion, but posters didn’t. The characters played by Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg don’t have any names. It starts with both of them making love in a shower and then moving onto their bed. And while they are at it, their young son gets out of his cradle with a stuffed teddy in his hands and climbs up the window using a stool and dies after falling onto the road. And this becomes the theme of the movie.

The wife is never able to get past it and the husband, himself a therapist, tries to help her move on with life. But she returns to her sadness and suffering time and again. The husband then decides to take his wife’s case differently. He asks her what are the things she fears the most and she says woods are her biggest fear. So they head to a forest to relieve her of this fear by facing the fear. But once in the woods in their cabin there (where she had been earlier with Nic, her baby, to finish her thesis on misogynist Christian beliefs and practices), things begin to change. She thinks her husband isn’t really affected by their son’s death. Sex is used as a tool by them often but not out of love but only because it distracts her from her agony. Her behavior becomes weirder with time – she starts hitting her husband and attacking him; she wants him to hit her during sex; she thinks he is going to leave her; and eventually smashes his balls with a wooden block and relieves him with her hand and he ejaculates blood. She then cuts a hole through his left leg and bolts a grindstone to it so that he cannot go away from her.

But he somehow drags himself to quite some distance but is ultimately caught by her. She brings him out of his hiding hole but then suddenly realizes the wrong she has done and helps him out and takes him back to their cabin. She cryptically tells him that when the ‘three beggars’ come someone must die – the ‘three beggars’ represented by a deer, a fox and a crow. As fate would have it, he somehow frees himself from the stone and strangulates her to death. He leaves the cabin and as he is feeding on wild berries, hundreds of women (dressed so as to signify women of earlier centuries who were killed because of Christian practices) running uphill towards him.

The film was dedicated to Andrei Tarkovsky. If you are turned off by violence, blood, aggressive sexual acts then you must totally avoid this one. Lot of scenes are abruptly cut. They don’t segue and the smooth transitioning is missing. The central theme is of guilt that takes over the wife for not doing anything to protect their baby while indulging in sexual pleasures. She even cuts her own clitoris off using a pair of scissors after a flashback in which she actually sees her baby falling off the window while having sex (but this most probably is what she is imagining, not the reality). The film could have been shot and edited in a much better way. Overall, it is nice on the novelty of the concept but lacking in execution. Charlotte has done more than justice to the role and performed beautifully as a grieving mother and seductively as a psychotic violence-loving wife.

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Reflections: Nostalghia by Andrei Tarkovsky

Nostalghia (Image source: moviepostershop.com)

 

The movie begins with a distant shot of a couple of women standing on a verdant ground near a lake or by the riverside along with a dog and a horse. Andrei Gorchakov (Oleg Yankovskiy) is a poet and wanting to write about the life of a Russian musician, Sosnovsky (fictitious), and travels to Italy where the musician had spent considerable amount of time. Andrei is accompanied by a translator Eugenia (Domiziana Giordano) who helps him out by traveling with him to places of interest. They meet a madman Domenico (Erland Josephson) who was infamous in the region for having kept his family indoors for several years together for the fear of unknown. Domenico has the belief that the world is coming to an end and to save it he needs to cross a pool nearby with a lighted candle in his hand.

Eugenia leaves Andrei when she discovers that he has no interest in sexual relations (even though she is aware that Andrei is married) and vents out her frustrations on him by opening her heart out to him. In a surreal mix of events, Andrei keeps dreaming and in one of them thinks of himself as Domencio. He decides to go back to Russia to meet his wife and children abandoning the research which he embarked upon. The film ends with a masterful sequence of events: Domencio delivers a speech in the city and immolates himself in the end; Andrei crosses tries crossing the pool with a candle and is successful but dies right after.

 

The film, as is widely written about Tarkovsky and his creation, reflects his own longing for his motherland Russia after his exile. That the musician Sosnovsky chose to go to Russia and be a slave rather than being free in Italy mirrors his own longing for home. The heart rendering performance by Erland Josephson in the momentous no-cuts-climax emphasize the metaphysical undertones of the screenplay combined with Beethoven‘s Ninth Symphony and his self-immolation. The slow but timeless shot marking the end is of Andrei sitting by a lakeside with Domenico’s dog on a lush green land, which is shown as if existing amidst the nondescript Italian church which was visited by Andrei and Eugenia at the start of the research trip. Death of Andrei after crossing the pool signifies the withering away of one’s life when fighting the ills.

 

Only those who can appreciate almost motionless shots and lacking expressions should watch this one. Erland deserves a standing ovation and Tarkovsky a bow.

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Reflections: "Devi" Ahilya bai

History can never disappoint one, even the most sullen of the minds can be fired up by conjuring up the past. Only if our history books were written in a more interesting way and only if our teachers taught history as History rather than a rote subject. Ahilyabai Holkar was a queen of the Maratha ruled Malwa kingdom. At the start of the movie, the following caveat appears: “All insult, damage or boredom is unintended. Animals were not harmed and money will not be refunded”. This only reflects the state of history in our country where the most common word associated with historical studies is ‘boredom’. 

The movie depicts the life of Ahilya bai from the day when she was spotted while rearing goats by Malhar Rao Holkar. He is impressed by her innocent looks and decides that she will be her daughter-in-law. She grows up amongst Malhar Rao’s wives. Her husband Khanderao is a good for nothing prince in the waiting. After Khanderao’s death Malhar Rao doesn’t allow her to indulge in the practice of Sati and over time delegates most of the responsibilities of running the kingdom to her. The story depicts the qualities of Ahilya bai and her confronting the wrongs of the society and upholding the right. She built numerous temples and forts around the country.

Ahilya bai is played by Mallika Prasad, Malhar Rao by Sadashiv Amrapurkar, Khaanda Rani (a Rajasthani wife of Malhar Rao) by Mrs. Shabana Azmi (who talks in a Rajasthani dialect all throughout) and Khanderao by Ganesh Yadav.

 

The film is a little slow here and there, but nothing of the sort that would make one lose track. A treatise for history lovers.

Reflections: Vozvrashchenie (The Return)

Thanks to IMDB that I have discovered movies from different regions of the globe which otherwise I would have never heard of. An year and a half ago I came to know of a movie whose title was tongue twister. And it had got good reviews. The brief of the story was that the story is about two young brothers and their father who returns after 12 years to meet them. The description wasn’t very exciting but nonetheless kept it in my ‘to watch’ list. And finally on a cloudy Sunday afternoon I watched it, after spending the morning watching ‘Devi Ahilya Bai‘ – a historical movie but little slow even for me who wouldn’t get bored watching a dead fly for hours.

 

The movie is Russian and has won many awards including Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. It starts with four young kids jumping off a tall tower over a lake and brandishing their courage in doing so. The last one –  Ivan (Ivan Dobronravov) is unable to for the fear of heights. He is mocked by being called a chicken by his friends and his elder brother Andrey (Vladimir Garin). The two brothers start fighting and rush home to complain about each other to their mother, who asks them to be quiet as their father is sleeping inside. They are surprised as Otets (Konstantin Lavronenko) has come to meet them after 12 years. Though it isn’t apparent whether Ivan or Andrey have ever met him or not. He takes them on a trip which would include fishing but somehow he gets busy with a ‘business deal’ in the middle and drags along his two children with him.

Ivan finds his father not too friendly and remains distant from him while Andrey is comfortable. Till now the brothers have lived a very protected life with their mother. It is Otets who teaches them to fight to protect their right (though unsuccessfully), move a thing that ain’t moving by putting branches under it (a stuck up car), row a boat that’s lost in the middle of nowhere with a faulty propeller and how to anchor a boat on a beach side (again unsuccessfully). Otets hits Ivan and Andrey lot of times depicting his dominant side but also worries and cares about them by fishing and making tents for them.

 

Towards the end, before starting their return journey from an island where Otets digs up a small wooden box as a part of his dealing, the brothers get quite late while returning from a fishing trip and anger him. Otets slaps Andrey around four to five times and upsets Ivan who runs away and climbs a tall tower in the forest by the beach (and trust me those slaps are for real and very very hard!). Once on the top, Ivan shouts that he is not a chicken and not afraid to jump off it. Otets while trying to dissuade him from jumping catches hold of loose plank of wood and falls to his death. The brothers drag his body somehow to the boat (using the skills taught by their father), cross the huge lake in boat by rowing and arrive at the point where they had left their car earlier but forget to anchor it. The boat swerves away because of the intermittent waves and the boat sinks along with Otets’ body leaving the two brothers alone.

 

The direction by Andrey Zvyagintsev is focused on the details with hundreds of beautiful shots throughout the movie. The one towards the end where the boat is showed with Otets’ body and later sinks is beyond words. As with American Beauty in which Thomas Newman‘s music amplifies the hold of the movie on you, in this one Andrey Dergatchev‘s music magnifies the dark shades of the movie combined with the overall glum feel of the movie. ‘Final Titles‘ by Dergatchev is soulful to say the least.

There are movies which move you. This one shakes you up!!

 

(As a sad ending, Vladimir Garin, who played Andrey, got killed when he jumped off a tower by a lake side when challenged by his friends to do so. It was same tower showed in the opening scene. A haunting return indeed.)

 

(Wikipedia, though is probably the first source for us to know about many a things, is hugely biased in favour of ‘Western topics’. You search for Andrey Dergatchev and get nothing. Similarly, a few days ago I was searching for Yuri. V. Gankovsky – a Russian scholar – and I got nothing!)

Reflections: Arth by Mahesh Bhatt

Arth

When I was of around seven or eight years old, my mum was watching this movie on a rented cassette on our cassette player. It was afternoon time and I don’t recall what exactly the conversation between my mum and the maid but something seemed fishy about it as she asked me to go to the bedroom and sleep after my afternoon lunch. Of course I wasn’t of an age that I could understand what exactly was being spoken but it registered the name of the movie in my head. The famous songs of the movie, “Tum Itna Jo”, “Jhuki Jhuki si Nazar” and others have become very famous and have listened to them often, without realizing that they were of this movie. Often, a random visit to a Crossword store often results in you buying things which you otherwise won’t come across.

The movie starts with Pooja (Mrs. Shabana Azmi) reading in a pensive mood at dawn. Her husband Inder (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) returns from a supposedly busy schedule of meetings and discussions with his clients, for whom he makes ad films and is a “cinematic genius”. Pooja is an orphan and this has shaped her desires – all she wants from husband is a home which she can call of her own. Inder, usually a short tempered guy, finally buys a home for her. But their marriage is not all hunky dory. Inder is having an affair with Kavita (Smita Patil), who is a glamorous actress. Inder is being torn apart by the dubious life he is living and confesses to Pooja about his affair.

 

Inder moves out and starts living with Kavita while Pooja, on discovering that the home which she calls her own, was partly bought by Inder by Kavita’s money, starts living in a working women’s hostel. Kavita over time becomes paranoid and fears that Pooja is intruding in her life and keeps getting in between her and Inder. (Mahesh Bhatt is trying to depict her as schizophrenic like Parveen Babi – the actress with whom he had an affiar. This movie is semi-autobiographical on Mahesh Bhatt’s life). Kavita utltimately decides on not marrying Inder for the concept of marriage is no more a promise of security for her, while Kavita, who likes Raj (Raj Kiran) but doesn’t accept his proposal, also doesn’t accept him back in her life and adopts the young daughter of her maid (Rohini Hattangadi).

The performance of Mrs. Shabana Azmi was the best – transitioning ethereally between the Pooja who is happiest on getting into her own home, then the Pooja who is heartbroken because of Inder’s moving out, and then the Pooja who rediscovers the joys of life with Raj. Second would be of Smita Patil who so realistically portrays the fear of the unknown on her face and acts like a child whenever Inder wants to go out of the home. Kulbhushan and Rohini are also good as always.

The two strongest scenes are: the song Tum Itna Jo Muskura Rahe Ho (sung by Jagjit Singh) by Raj on Pooja’s birthday; and Raj’s letting go of Pooja who wants to start her life anew with her adopted daughter and wants to make her name as Pooja with no other names attached to hers. It is a movie which makes one question the accepted concepts of happiness, freedom and meaning of life.

 

(Raj Kiran, it was reported couple of years ago, was in a mental asylum in Atlanta after his wife deserted him and took their child away)

Reflections: True Faith by New Order

 

Single by New Order: True Faith (Image Source: Gemm.com)

I have never been a music aficionado having thousands of songs in my portable music player with earphones plugged into my ears at work, in the bus, while walking and at the dinner table. In school days, cassettes used to be the norm of the day – borrowing cassettes from friends and copying them onto blank cassettes as your own copy which can aptly be called the piracy of the tape days. My brother on the contrary was always into ‘cool’ things – music, movies and sports. He was the one who actually introduced me to a lot of genres of music – from Metal to Rock. He had bought a cassette of
Michael Jackson‘s History and we used to play it in an endless loop on Sundays. His tastes were varied though. Once during a family-and-friends trip to a beach town, he bought AR Rahman‘s Vande Mataram cassette which was released during the 50th year of Indian Independence.

 

I have never had and never will have a favourite band – it’s just too difficult to like all the songs of a band. But rather favourite songs is something which I do have from a variety of artists. True Faith by New Order is definitely one of them. The lyrics reverberate with a feeling of an impending turnover of the existing order of life and society, a sort of a revolution in the offing. The bass guitar stirs up the tempo mixed with the nothingness of the beats.

“  I feel so extraordinary
Something’s got a hold on me
I get this feeling I’m in motion
A sudden sense of liberty  “ 

Review: Pakistan: A Hard Country by Anatol Lieven

Pakistan: A Hard Country

I had known of this book as it was being ‘recommended’ to me on Flipkart and maybe even Amazon but had decided against buying or reading it as had already done some amount of reading on Pakistan in Tinderbox, Pax Indica and Moderate or Militant. But fate, that slithery force, makes things happen despite of one’s contrary decisions. The library in my office building had this stocked up right in front in the ‘Management’ section. Management? Probably in the hope that some political leader will come and pick this up to learn about how to or how not to manage a country. Dashed hopes apart, I picked it up.

“‘Pak’ in turn means ‘pure’ in Urdu, and so Pakistan was to be ‘The Land of the Pure‘“, Anatol writes commenting on the idea of the Muslim state and adding that the term was coined by Rehmat Ali, and Indian Muslim student in Britain in 1933 in Urdu, “which started as the military dialect of the Muslim armies of the Indian subcontinent in the Middle Ages“. The introduction of the book tries to hard to slice the commonly held ‘wrong’ perceptions about Pakistan. Various points discussed in the Introduction are debatable, but few are worth mentioning here. Anatol writes, “support for extremist and terrorist groups is scattered throughout Pakistani society and mass support for Islamist rebellion is present only in the Pathan areas – less than 5 per cent of the population”. That seems like a valid point – the media especially after 9-11 and the
Afghanistan debacle has unnecessarily painted the ‘whole of Pakistan’ as extremist which is ready to take up arms at the whiff of a whistle against its enemies – whether USA or India. He says that the when terrorist attacks on India gain support amongst Pakistani mainstream it happens because of Muslim nationalism rather than Islamic extremism – again a valid point. He outlines three reasons that could lead to the overthrow of a state and that India shouldn’t be very happy about it as it will lead to anarchy there and its diffusion here – a point well made and also cogently argued for in Shashi Tharoor‘s Pax Indica. The author says Pakistan is far more important than Afghanistan or Iraq right now because of the tentacles of extremists emerging out of Pakistan and the tightly knit community in UK. Possession of nuclear weapons by Pakistan is a major deterrent for USA to attack Pakistan to force it to tighten the noose on Afghanistan. But the flaw begins right here. Is it too difficult to see that USA-Pakistan arms trade is, in no small measure, significant: $5.2 billion during FY 2002-FY2011 and has funded and trained more than 2000 Pakistani military officers (as per the latest Congressional Research paper here) and has recently issued a fresh waiver for arms trade with Pakistan. So would USA want to attack its own market? No. Then Anatol proceeds to debunk the theory that says that Pakistan will disintegrate the way it did in 1971. He says that the majority of the reason for that having happened is India rather than the ethnic and cultural differences that existed between the East and West of Pakistan. He doesn’t disregard the differences in totality, but rather says that the grouping together of these two disparate regions divided by a 1000 miles of hostile India was a colossal mistake. But for a second, lets assume that India did not have a hand in the 1971 war – then would Bangladesh have been East Pakistan today as well? Meager chances if at all.

The author describes how Pakistan is a weak state and a strong society (a very similar argument was in Gurcharan Das‘ book). He says that like in most of South Asia, in Pakistan as well the majority of political parties are dynastic, “PPP (Pakistan People’s Party) is the party of the Bhutto family; the PML(N) (Pakistan Muslim League) is that of the Sharif family; and the Awami National Party (ANP) in the Frontier is the party of the Wali Khan family“. The weak state part I understand bu the strong society part, when applied to Pakistan, I don’t. If the term would have been applied in the historical sense when India was undivided could have been apt and correct, but in the aftermath of Partition and given the way Pakistan’s institutions function it is hard to believe. He explains how kinship has played a much stronger role in loyalties and has acted in the way of state building (just like in China as vividly detailed in Fukuyama‘s The Origins of Political Order). But he takes support of a very irrelevant and amateurish example to prove it: that a menial person in northern India who may be in a position to help or harm you is addressed as Bhai-sahib. The origins of the coming together of the terms Bhai and Sahib may have been because of this, but today, in common parlance, the term Bhai-sahib is only used to call someone out with respect and not as a token of addressing someone as Lord! Anatol almost defends the dictators of Pakistan when he says that “a tiny handful of politicians have ever been executed in Pakistan” and the dictatorial standards have been mild when compared to elsewhere. He draws lot of comparisons between the brutality of corrupt institutions in India and Pakistan, and which to a great extent is true. He also covers the economy of Pakistan and its shortcomings (which is a much welcome analysis – because MJ Akbar totally ignored it in his Tinderbox and focused only on the narrative); the water crisis coupled with the burgeoning population ticker. He compares the Sayyids and Qureishis, “being (ostensibly) descendents of the Prophet and his clan“, to the Brahmins of Hindu society in terms of their role and status.

Anatol draws the conclusion that because Islam was at it’s glorious and magnificent peak before the British came to South Asia, which resulted in the former’s decline, for the Muslims “to accept a subordinate position in what they saw as a future Hindu-dominated India“.  This interpretation is again wrong – first, Jinnah and Muslim League gained substantial voter base only in 1942 and thereafter, until which they were not capable enough of dissecting the country into two. Had this been the case the Muslim League would have garnered huge support from the beginning itself. Second, though the roots of the division and creation of Pakistan had much older roots starting from mid-eighteenth century, but the culmination resulted only at the hands of Jinnah – and it is not very difficult to conclude from authoritative accounts elsewhere that Gandhi was tired of the fights of Jinnah and Nehru and reluctantly agreed, or rather didn’t prevent or do enough, to prevent the division. Also, the clash of egos between Nehru and Jinnah is mentioned in most of the comprehensive historical accounts. His interpretation that Congress did not accept the League after it (Congress) got majority of the votes is biased, but at the same time he says nothing of how the thousands of Hindus who willingly or otherwise stayed back in Pakistan have been the worse of the lot. (Lot of Hindus in India give the reason that Muslims in India should be happy that they are not being made to suffer as much as the Hindus of Pakistan – this, again, is a view of hardliners and is parochial and self-defeating. Surprisingly Javed Akhatar had once questioned Arvind Kejriwal as to why was he being so negative about the state of affairs in India and then he asked him to be happy that he is not in Pakistan, for had he been there he couldn’t have even raised his voice. Why would one want to compare one’s country (and desire its betterment) with one that is far below it on developmental and other terms? Strange)

 

Anatol attributes the turning of Pakistan into a theological state to the early deaths of Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan. So just by the presence of those two men it would have become secular as envisioned by Jinnah? Would the religious hardliners have never risen up? Unbelievable. And he attributes India’s democracy to the fact that Jawaharlal Nehru lived upto the 1960’s and formed a political dynasty strong enough to continue after him. Laughable. The basis of creation of Pakistan was religious, while for the struggle for Independence (for an undivided India) wasn’t religious – and this has been easily ignored by the author. He says that most of the people are uneducated (and hence too weak) to demand anything from the government – they why is it a strong society? Also, would the government do beneficial programs (in the least positive sens) only when it is demanded from them? Then he compares and clubs Musharraf with Ayub and analyzes Bhutto and Zia separately and their performances. On the Pakistani army, he says it is a very organized, disciplined and honest force. The term “honest” is poles apart from the picture painted by other authors – that the army has a strangulating control over the functioning of the country, from schools to universities (not that such schools are not in India or other countries, but are merit based rather than on sifarish)

But let us not give up on this book so soon. The chapter Justice  is one of the best in the book. It talks about the multiple layers, not necessarily one above the other, that exist in the country. First is the State Law, then Shariah, followed by localized customs (which are as good as laws) like Pakhtunwali (similar to Khap or Panchayat). The role of the police is analyzed through a lens of empathy and a lot of similarities are drawn between the Indian situation and the Pakistani one. The grudgingly slow pace of court cases, the nexus between judges and lawyers, political interference in law cases and the demand of the law machinery for more autonomy – it ain’t that different from what we constantly hear in India. I was happy to read this chapter as it made me aware of the unavoidable struggle between the Western concept of law and the South Asian one, which has existed since hundreds of years. But the only disappointing part in this chapter, like in all other chapters, is the frequent comparison of the worse state of affairs (of Pakistan) with bad state of affairs (of India). And it seems like the author is justifying every incorrigible situation in Pakistan by its similarity in India. Probably he is trying to draw out parallels between the two countries and conclude that as India (with all the flaws and inefficiencies) is not disintegrating and is not a failed state, Pakistan (more similar than dissimilar to India) will also not disintegrate and hence is not a failed state.

 

Rest of the book covers Religion, Military, Politics; then the provinces Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan; and finally Taleban and the Conclusion. The author doesn’t surprisingly cover: Education, Media and Economy in Pakistan (though a few tidbits about taxation and business do appear here and there). Reading through the rest of the book it did present a realistic picture of the pull of contrasting forces int the Pakistani society and more or less is accurate in presenting the ground realities. However, the biggest shortcoming of the book lies in its conclusions and comparisons with India. He says that the West should stop conducting wars against the Muslim states whatsoever. The chapters are long with most of them around 40 pages and the narration is drab – but nonetheless informative in most of the places. Some hard-to-believe suggestions in the beginning take away half of the charm of the otherwise good book. If you can separate the chaff from the wheat, this book makes up for a good read on the facts but not so much on the conclusions and Anatol almost appears as an apologetic polemicist. (Not all facts though appear to be correct – he says Pakistan never helped the Taleban in Afghanistan. Maybe the State has never done it directly but through ISI – which has been written about so many times and not in the least by Steve Coll in Ghost Wars. On the conclusions side – he spots neatly dressed couples loitering around in Lahore and says this couldn’t have been possible in a ‘failed state’. Though he does however convince that Pakistan is not yet a failed state, but the causal observations he writes of are not remotely linked with the state of the State. Ecological disasters – mainly concerning water – and conniving US/India intervention can be the only two sources of a fallible existence of Pakistan, he states.) (Praveen Swami‘s review of the same book can be read here)

(Please note that I am not an anti-Pakistan Indian bigot who relishes in the failures of Pakistani institutions and the decay of its politics. That for only last six and a half decades have these divisions existed and the commonality of culture and practices have existed for over thousands of years is a fact I very well am aware of. I may dislike the Pakistani State only for the frequent wars with India and the constant threat of extremists wreaking havoc in India, but I don’t dislike the people. Pakistan and India are similar on most of the counts, yet different on the others. What differences, if at all, exist amongst the people? All want the same – peace, security and welfare – and this has constantly come out with my interactions with Pakistani citizens on social networking sites. Of course, above the concept of nationalism is the concept of Imagined Communities, which can be discussed some other time.)