An Ingenious piece of art.

I’m talking about Slumdog Millionaire – the 2008 film by Danny Boyle which became the best film of the decade and the year at the Oscars. When I popped into this epic journey of ‘the good guy’ in search of his love life for the millionth time, the movie sounded as fresh as it was when I’ve seen it the first time. The reason is the authenticity in the film incorporated by Danny and team. This film undoubtedly had the best crew and cast. The major reason for the film’s stunning look is the cinematography which was brilliantly achieved by Anthony Dod Mantle. The film’s raw look and the disturbing intense images that intrigue us into observing each frame in the film is what made it a gripping piece of art. Visually far better than Danny’s previous works, Slumdog Millionaire is filled with innovative techniques in cinematography like many dutch angles which is more compelling.

The vision with which Danny directed the film is perhaps a lesson to all the filmmakers. Flexibility in the camera work which makes us look wherever the camera goes or rather wherever our eyes go, the camera goes is an ingenious technique we observe. Though we’ve seen non-linear narratives before, this film’s got a total different perspective where we get an answer every now and then for the question previously asked. Thus the characters’ intentions are revealed step by step which is a ‘thing’ that Danny found intriguing while working on the screenplay with Simon Beaufoy.

Few minutes into the film, we meet Jamal – the good and Saleem – the fox (I’m afraid to put him under the tagline ’the bad’) running on a runway escaping from the police into their locality, a typical slum of Mumbai (Bombay back then). The chase seen in the opening scene of the film is an inspiration from Anurag Kashyap’s Black Friday where we see the police chasing a criminal in the slums of Mumbai.

Our intuition is simple on Saleem and Jamal, Jamal being the good, guiltless kid whereas Saleem is a ruthless, smartass, exploiting kid who grew strong as time passed by. Their journey starts together but their destinations are different. They are together all their childhood but grew differently, a great contrast between characters is seen very evidently and one can never forget the life the actors gave to the characters.

Jamal is in search of his love, Latika who they lost amidst the danger that they were about to face. The seriousness of the brothers in finding Latika is implicit when they get to a brothel preceded by the information provided by one of their old friends. Jamal then runs in happiness to find her in the brothel with his brother where his excitement is expressed through an excellent score (ringa ringa). Jamal learns the muscle of his brother when he shoots Maman to save Latika. He is awestruck by his brother’s bravery in saving her, he is more or less happy about it then but moments later he goes against his brother for his ill deeds and selfish needs. The film flows forward with Jamal going ahead alone still in search of Latika and this time too his brother is in his way snatching her away from him.

For his final question, Jamal chooses ‘Aramis’ after calling up Latika for the answer. She says that she doesn’t know the answer and just out of happiness that he spoke to her and making sure that she is safe, he chooses some arbitrary answer and becomes a millionaire. For better or worse, because of Latika and in search of her love, Jamal finds his treasure which is of course Latika herself.

The best thing that happened to the film is the director itself who got to choose Anthony Dod Mantle, Resul Pookutty, A.R.Rahman for his film which elevated the film’s level on a huge scale. The haunting score composed and conducted by Rahman is what attracted the Indian audiences and the fact that it was made in India about Indian people.

With Slumdog Millionaire, Danny Boyle has become one of my favourite directors where his other films – Trainspotting, Shallow Grave, 127 hours are on my all-time favourite list.

Once Upon A Time In Anatolia

                                                                                                                                                                           

Well, stop watching whatever you are watching right now and watch 'Once Upon A Time In Anatolia'. I do mean it. This Brilliant Turkish film from Nuri Bilge will leave you speechless. This movie ain't no 'Pulp Fiction' and certainly ain't no 'The Godfather' but visually and narrative wise the movie is a complete feast for all the people like me. Surprisingly, up until today morning, I never heard of this filmmaker but heard of the film in some 'greatest films' list on some website. 

The film follows a group of cops and two suspects trying to exhume a body while we realize that the suspect doesn't remember the spot where he buried the body. As the film goes forward (or rather stays there) we listen to conversations of people that intrigue us and pull our ears towards their words. You would never even want to conduct the very inevitable mistake of blinking your eyes while watching this visual masterpiece 'cause you'll be afraid to miss a single frame of what will follow. Brilliant cinematography, gripping narrative, realistic performances by the actors made this film an astounding piece of art work. 

The movie is filled with limited dialogues where the director has to covey the meaning and drama through the actors’ performances and heavy dialogues are used to bring the film a natural ‘right-now-happening’ film.

An epic way of storytelling is what I call this 151 minute drama dealing with pain, guilt, gratitude, goodwill and simple ideas which interpret deep philosophy and makes us realize the sense in the situation.

The most important part in the film is the 'Sound'. It's so miraculous that a director could pull off something this great without using background music but just the ambient sounds which'll take us to the location every now and then and we can feel the air that blows on the screen. 

For about 100 minutes of the film, the director takes us on an astounding journey where the cops move from place to place in search of the body. The latter part of the film deals with the intense drama as to what happened after they find the body. 

The film ends with the scene where the doctor who observes the woman and the kid of the dead victim while conducting the autopsy and the sounds of the actions in the room along with the ambient sound of the kids playing outside can be heard before the screen goes black but the audio doesn't. It goes along with the rolling titles and that will be your turn to applaud the film.

This day - doesn't it feel like one of those days where you watch a beautiful film and sleep with a smile on your face? Yes, it is. Today I've seen an intensely directed and written film by Nuri Bilge.

If you feel like I'm talking too much about this film, read the first line and do what I said and you'll cry out in wonder on realizing how a true visual masterpiece the movie is!

Someone Got Married Last Night.

I was walking alone on the way to my home. It was 1:30am. I just attended a shoot. It’s already been four kilometres that I walked. ‘Has it really been that long? I don’t think so!’

As thoughts about my future run in my mind, I played some music. ‘Blood is on the dance floor’ is on. I’ve been walking for more than half an hour.

‘It was a good shoot’. People in the wedding loved my work. I’m walking contented. The smile they gave looking at the pictures made me happy than the money I got paid for the freelance job.

The song concluded. I replayed it. Just about in 10 minutes I reached my home, single-handed.
I went straight to bed with music in my ears. I fell asleep soon. Later, a small breeze flew through my window into my face. I smiled unknowingly, for, it felt like a recurring dream.

As I lay asleep, the solitude all over the room and the night was interrupted by a man who just got married. He’s taking his bride home after the wedding with a lot of ‘sound’. ‘Damn! A typical Indian wedding!’
‘Why so publicity just because you got married? Is it something to feel proud about?’

‘Oh! I’m getting screwed tonight, so screw your sleep!’ were his expressions while happily smiling at the people looking over their balconies. 'Well, he is getting screwed literally and metaphorically.'

Not that I’m against marriages, the whole point of my frustration is only because this ‘Happy man’ bothered my sleep. Another breeze flew right through my window and I woke up to get some water. I walked past my room when I heard the sound of the band getting louder and louder.

‘Oh my god! He’s visiting every empty street to fuck everybody else’s sleep’. I unbolted the door, went out and stared at the newly wedded (happy) couple. They were dancing right in the middle of the street not aware of the fact that no one in the street is pleased with their wedding.

My eyes shifted directly to the bride. ‘Man, she’s gorgeous.’ I lost about half my frustration looking at her. ‘It’s true, women can prevent war.’ The slow breeze that touched her touched me, I could smell the fragrance though I was 20 feet away from her. Such a striking woman. She could easily be the beautiful-est woman I’ve ever seen, well, if you exclude Aishwarya Rai and Kate Winslet.

I was on the terrace when it started drizzling. I looked at my phone. It was 2:47am. I put some music on and looked at the street light above the dancing parade. The droplets of water fell deliberately and through the flare it looked as miraculous as an epic view in my dreams. I wish I could click it. Nevertheless, I tried with my phone. I wasn’t contented with the result. ‘Damn!’

The ‘sound’ stopped all of a sudden. It was a break for them to relax and start hopping again in a minute. ‘Go home people, it’s 3:00am for god’s sake!’

I yawned and was totally upset about my sleep. ‘Anyways, I’m screwed. Fuck it.’

I started to think about the following day. ‘Which film should I watch? Ow! Pulp Fiction for the millionth time! Oh no! we’ll go on a road trip tomorrow.’

My train of thoughts was interrupted by the sound of the band again. ‘Well, the hippies are back.’

I went to my room straight and fell on the bed hoping to avoid the loud noise. ‘Well, I can’t, can I?’

I hope it was all a bad dream and wake up and find myself in my peaceful bed. But it is true. Ain’t no bad dream. ‘Shit! The hell with people.’

Background Score - The intensity in Cinema.

                                                        The entire process of filmmaking is an astounding path to understand and interpret our ideas on a larger scale. The making of the entire film is on one hand and choosing the appropriate score for your film for the appropriate scene at the exact second is on the other hand. Such is the power of the background score in a film.

                                                       For example, in ‘The Social Network’, the intensity of the job that the score did to the film is what makes the film what it is now, Fincher’s finest! From the very opening scene where we see the logo of ‘Columbia Pictures’, we hear an interesting score followed by an amazing conversation between Mark and his girlfriend. Let’s break down this scene – suppose, if there was no background score and the movie starts directly, the thoughts in the minds of the audiences would go like this – ‘a regular talk’, ‘boring stuff’ etc., before they even concentrate on what the dialogue is going to be. But when we have the score, the audiences are pulled towards the visuals and the audio that very second making them alert and attentive on what is about to follow.

                                                       Through this simple interpretation, we can understand what score can add to a film. When we look at the montage sequences in this film, the impact and the importance to those sequences is added because of the score in the background. For example, the scenes where students of the Harvard are shown visiting the website ‘Facemash’ and the scene where Mark and Eduardo meet Sean Parker at the restaurant – the importance of those scenes in the film is huge, and the same impact is built making use of the background score.

                                                        Let’s look at Coppola’s greatest contribution to cinema ‘The Godfather’. The movie starts with a background score which’ll make you want to watch it twice. The interesting theme in this film is that the background score is used to merge the scenes – to exemplify, to merge the scenes between the wedding of Connie in the first half an hour of the film’s runtime and the scene where Tom Hagen meets Woltz, an entertaining score is played while a little amount of montage of the aeroplane forms the visual. Another example would be – the scene where Michael kills Sollozzo and McClusky. In this scene, right after Michael kills them, he flees, moments later, a score is heard which’ll make us think how horrible the consequences are going to be. The audiences imagine the power of that scene and the intensity of the scenes that follow based on the score played. Yet another example would be – the scene where Vito Corleone returns home from the hospital. In this scene, Fredo enters Vito’s room where he is resting, moments later, a dissolve is seen and at the same time we hear the score which takes us to Michael who is taking refuge in Sicily. The dissolve wouldn’t have been convincing without the score as it would be with the score.

                                                      Another great job that the background score can do is letting know the audiences the power of a person or a job conducted by him. Sometimes, the silence between the scenes is considered as background score where it conveys the meaning more convincingly than with the score. Example would be – The horrific scene where the horse’s head is found in Woltz’s bed and the scene that follows is the close up of Vito Corleone sitting in a chair with no background score. This scene is more convincing this way than with the score, ‘cause the power of silence should never be underestimated and it establishes the meaning in a simple yet astounding manner and Coppola knows the fact well and hence we see what we see. Another simple example is – when Vito Corleone lies dead in the garden, the scene dissolves to the cemetery and during the merging of these two scenes, the church bells heard acts as the score which conveys more meaning in a simple way. Thus, background score did a great job in making the film a perfect one.

                                                 Let’s look at Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List. The amount of pity that we feel towards the Jews being massacred has something to do with the background score. To exemplify, the scene where Amon Goeth and his team incinerate the bodies of Jews killed at the massacre, Schindler sees all the people reduced to ashes. The score that plays during this scene melts the hearts of the audiences especially when Schindler sees the girl in the red coat dead. The amount of pain that Schindler and we feel towards that girl is enormous. One other interesting observation in this film is the liquidation of the ghetto. During this sequence, when the Germans massacre the Jews, we see a German soldier playing piano passionately which becomes the score. The contrast between the audio and the visuals is huge – Jews are being ruthlessly and the score is entertaining. Perhaps, this can explained this way – the massacre of the Jews is shown in Germans’ perspective, meaning, that Germans feel no pity towards Jews or humans for that matter. Hence, the score is entertaining giving us a clue that Germans enjoy it.

                                                   Let’s have a look at Ram Gopal Varma’s Satya, a film is about a person who enters Bombay in search of a job and gets stuck in the mire of the Bombay mafia. In this film, the intense background score all over the movie plays a huge role in deciding the fate of the characters and the film. The major scene to discuss in the film would be the interval scene where after killing Guru Narayan, Mule visits Bhikhu and Satya asking them the reason for the murder – later, when Mule says ‘ Ek gaya apun ke dhande mei, toh sab jayega!’  which is followed by a score that takes the movie to peaks of excitement and the anticipation of the consequences that Bhikhu and Satya are going to face. All ‘cause of the score, the depth in the score.  Similarly, in ‘Sarkar’, during the interval scene, when Sarkar gets to know that he is going to be arrested, a strong score is played creating a sense of fear of what’s going to happen further.

                                                  The meaning the score gives to the scene and the entire film makes Filmmakers choose scores wisely and use them accordingly at the exact moment!