Busting Perceptions - Rush

I learned only a few months ago that this film was supposed to be a big deal. At first I was puzzled, since I could barely get through it the first time I watched it. My puzzlement turned to incredulity when I saw how militant people got while defending it, especially since most of their arguments made my case for me, and they had nothing but ad hominem attacks in response to my arguments against this sports biopic.

So, I decided to watch Rush again. Full disclosure - it didn't seem as awful as it did the first time, but honestly, that isn't saying much. I can understand why Formula One fans like, or even love this film, but what about the rest? I find it inexplicable that this film appeals so strongly to them. Sure, it has great "visuals" and the score is composed by Hans Zimmer. These two factors are generally enough to please the average viewer, which I can accept when there's a foundation of a half-decent screenplay, but that is not the case with Rush.

Admittedly, it is not easy to make a film about real people, based on real incidents that were well publicised, but I will repeat what I wrote about Argo - if you're spending millions of dollars to make a film that will be seen all around the world, do it right or not at all, for there are no participation trophies or consolation prizes at that level.

Diving right into it, the biggest problem with Rush is the seeming obsession with authenticity and historical accuracy (the reason I use the word 'seeming' will become clear later on). While F1 purists seek to justify this, they would do well to bear in mind that the vast majority of people who watched this film are not F1 fans, and director Ron Howard made it clear that he did not want Rush to be like a documentary and it was important that it catered to a wider audience, not to mention that authenticity and accuracy cannot be excuses for bad writing.

Right from the first act itself, it is clear that screenwriter Peter Morgan and Ron Howard intend to show us the supposedly important events in the lives of the two main characters - James Hunt and Niki Lauda - regardless of whether they belong in the narrative or not. Clay Regazzoni's warning to Lauda to stay away from a girl because he couldn't match up to her ex, Hunt, and Hunt's "meet-cute" with his future wife are examples of this, as they're nothing but dead spaces.

On the first viewing, I just could not stop thinking that it's almost as if they've chosen to re-enact incidents that actually took place instead of dramatising them. One of the biggest blunders a filmmaker could make is to believe that the audience wants to watch something "real", and give it exactly that. While I would not be so arrogant as to say that the audience has no idea what it wants, I would maintain that it cannot really articulate what it wants.

"Realism" is one of the most grossly misused words in reference to cinema. Reality is boring, and no one wants to watch it. A well written and well designed screenplay, no matter how "unreal", feels realistic, and that is what the audience really wants, not a re-enactment of something that once happened, unless of course, it's a case of truth being stranger than fiction, and let's face it, that's not something that happens everyday.

To illustrate my point, I'd like to draw attention to the rivalry between Hunt and Lauda. Not being an F1 enthusiast, I assumed that the portrayal of this rivalry in the film must've been quite accurate. I was wrong. The rivalry is fictional. Lauda and Hunt were friends, and even roommates for a while, and barring the fact that Hunt swayed the vote taken before the German Grand Prix in 1976, there is not the slightest hint of antagonism between the two.

When I learned this, I could not fathom what a writer could possibly have been thinking while writing this film. If the premise, the very foundation of your so-called biopic is fiction, why on earth would you not take more liberties to add to the drama?! How could you possibly think that after a century of narrative cinema, an audience would like to watch a rivalry which basically involves juvenile trash talk and tattling to the authorities, and eventually ends in friendship after one person almost dies? Bollywood did that 13 years ago in Josh, and that was a considerably better film.

Morgan and Howard probably assumed that audiences today were too brainwashed, too conditioned to really use their heads, which is why the film's core is a rivalry that is as hackneyed as it gets - the calculated vs the impulsive. This in itself would be acceptable, since there are only so many original ideas, but it is the way in which this conflict is portrayed that is unacceptable, i.e, the lame dialogue between Hunt and Lauda that the film is littered with, repeatedly telling us what we already know - that Hunt is willing to take risks that Lauda isn't, and also that Lauda apparently likes being called a rat.

There is also the matter of how the two main characters have been designed. Howard and Morgan have very amateurishly given us two characters that are two different ends of a horseshoe magnet - they seem like polar opposites, but are surprisingly close to each other. First, let's look at James Hunt. While it is obvious that his character cannot be as detailed and authentic as Lauda's, since no first hand research can be done, that does not mean that the character has to be a complete cliché.

The stereotype of the impulsive, rash, carefree, yet extremely gifted and likeable womaniser who needs a little discipline to get his act together and achieve the greatness he was destined for has been pelted at us for decades, in countless films and television shows, to the point that it is painfully boring to watch now, especially if it is copy-pasted like it has been done in this film.

I do not give two hoots about whether Hunt was like this in real life or not, and nor should I. What I want to see is a character that cannot be summed up in its entirety in a single scene, with everything after that being just a reiteration. What's even worse is that even though this particular stereotype implicitly promises the viewer a transformation so that the goals of the character can be achieved, no such thing happens in Rush. In fact, throughout the film, there is no obstacle in Hunt's path to the world championship that he overcomes.

Niki Lauda is supposedly the antithesis of Hunt. Due to the fact that Morgan, Howard, and Bruhl could do all the first hand research they wanted, this character ended up becoming too specific in all the wrong ways. Daniel Bruhl became the spitting image of Niki Lauda. You can hardly tell them apart, and if sources are to be believed, the accent and mannerisms that Bruhl adopted were exactly like Lauda's.

While it is impossible not to Laud (see what I did there?) the effort Bruhl and the rest of the team must've put in to make this character as authentic as possible, I can't help but think that they would've been better off investing their energies elsewhere. The wisdom of the ages tells us that excess of everything is bad. Moreover, there's a reason that one of the tenets of filmmaking in the Golden Age of Hollywood was not to draw any attention to any aspect of the filmmaking process.

It is impossible not to notice how much effort Bruhl put in to get the accent right. This is not a good thing for a multitude of reasons. One, as I said before, drawing too much attention to the effort being put in is not done. Two, getting an accent right should not be on the list of priorities while designing a character. Lauda's character barely has any depth, and despite the efforts to make it seem authentic, it is nearly as shallow as Hunt's.

Three, having an accent like that makes it pretty hard for the viewer to take anything he says seriously, especially when he keeps saying "asshole" like he does. And finally, if anyone feels that I'm completely wrong about all this, and Bruhl and the rest of the team putting in that much effort to make him seem exactly like Lauda is justified, there is a response to that as well.

Writing is about killing your favourite babies, and this can easily be applied to the entire process of filmmaking. If something in your film is so good that it sticks out and draws attention to how poor the rest of the film is, remove it, because uniformity of tone and quality is pretty important. One of the reasons why Hunt's character seems even more generic is that Lauda's seems too specific.

People keep saying that authenticity is important while making films like this in order to do justice to real people and events, but what they don't realise is that no biographical film can really be made without a few liberties, because what actually happened is of no consequence whatsoever if it's not dramatic enough. Howard and Morgan have taken liberties as well. Indeed, the central situation of this biopic is fiction. But they did not have the conviction to really take it all the way, and that resulted in the limp, boring, and clichéd mess that is Rush.

If anyone feels that drama can be sacrificed for authenticity, I would say that they might prefer to watch documentaries over fiction. If anyone feels that it is not possible to dramatise events any more than they have been in Rush, I would refer them to The Social Network, one of the best Hollywood films of the century so far, which is based not just on real people, but people who could probably buy Columbia Pictures three times over and turn it into their ping-pong rooms.

2014 - A Friends Odyssey

On the twentieth anniversary of Friends, I decided to take some time off from trashing your favourite movies and patronisingly telling you to widen your horizons. Instead, I will finally let out my conflicting emotions about one of the most popular and influential sitcoms of all time.

To say that Friends has influenced an entire generation would only be a half-truth, since the show's influence extends far, far beyond those born in the 70s and the 80s. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it is in us, the children of the 90s, where the legacy of Friends is truly visible.

It was in the countless re-runs of the show in the mid-2000s that those of us born circa 1990 got the first taste of 'grown-up' humour. It is because we watched it in our formative years, the impressionable teens, that Friends shaped the way we talk, behave around people, and even think.

I don't think Uncle Sam has any idea how much it owes to Marta Kauffman and David Crane for Americanising the young anglophone Indian. I'm pretty sure that I have not met more than a handful of people from this demographic that have not seen Friends, and most of the people I know have seen the entire show more than a few times.

In high school, it was almost fashionable to start a conversation with "Do you remember that episode in which..." without actually specifying which show you're talking about. This would generally lead to a seemingly endless conversation until someone had the sense to say "Okay, this could go on for a while."

Whether it was Ross and Joey shinnying each other down the 'water-pipe' (which always annoyed me, because it was a fire escape) or Ross' "My sandwich!" meltdown, quoting and re-quoting one's favourite scenes was in vogue throughout high school, not just because it was the only adult sitcom we watched at that time, but because it gave us, young anglophone Indians, something to identify with, something to aspire to.

Indeed, living in a country where our demographic had been rendered politically and culturally irrelevant, aspiring to the sitcom lifestyle of these six fictional New Yorkers seemed natural enough. The way they spoke was the way we spoke, their sense of humour was the foundation of ours, we adopted their relationship jargon, because their ideas of adult relationships became canon for us.

The greatest contribution of Friends, as many have pointed out, was to make sarcasm a way of life. Everything we said was layered with it, and those who didn't get it or use it were almost an alien species. For the Chandlers of the world such as myself, this was a god-sent, for a world that does not accept sarcasm is one that we are fundamentally at odds with.

While the other characters are rarer in the real world, I'm sure many of us know milder versions of Ross, Joeys who we don't think of as Joeys (because in the real world, it's 'politically incorrect' to think of people as dumb), pseudo-Phoebes (idiots masquerading as kooks) and Rachel-Monica hybrids (quirky women who are high-maintenance but enjoy considerable popularity with the opposite sex and not their own).

Underneath this glossy veneer though, lies an ugly truth. While most characters in other sitcoms are meant to be seen as dysfunctional, in Friends, the dysfunctional nature of the characters is merely a token trait, for comedies cannot be made around 'normal' characters. That the Friends and their lives were meant to be aspirational may have been what made the show new and refreshing, but it is this very thing that is hard to digest, and sometimes, disturbing.

Ross and Chandler, in contrast to Joey, are men who "repel women all the time". Ross is the nerd who always comes up with fun facts that puts everyone to sleep, while Chandler has seemingly insurmountable problems with intimacy. However, a closer look reveals that it is only in contrast with Joey that their 'unattractiveness' comes to light, and that too if you're willing to see only what the writers want you to see.

In the ten seasons of the show, Ross has been in more serious relationships than any of the other characters, including the women. Carol, Julie, Rachel, Emily, Mona, Charlie and the many other attractive women that he has dated every now and then show that despite the "three divorces" spiel that we hear all the time, Ross is actually quite a catch!

Chandler, despite all his shortcomings, does not fare too badly on the relationship scorecard either. Barring Janice, the women he dates are quite attractive, and getting together with one of your best friends isn't too shabby for anyone, let alone the guy who's meant to be seen as someone who'll never find love. To top it all, he (along with Monica obviously), is the first of them to get married, something that goes into the win column in the show's universe.

Ross and Chandler's supposed unattractiveness is just a token trait, given to them to make them more relatable. An exercise in futility, because if they were truly unattractive, they would not be aspirational. It is truly laughable then, that when at the end of one episode, the question "who do you think would be the last of us to get married?" is asked, all eyes immediately go to Chandler.

Now let us look at Joey, who is supposed to be the only overtly attractive one of the three. A stupid, sex-obsessed pick-up artist who barely forms any deep or lasting relationships throughout the show, and the classical douchebag who sleeps with women and never calls them again. This is the guy we are meant to see as attractive, only because he is good looking, 'less weird' than the other two, and gets laid more, the implication being that quantity trumps quality.

Monica, Rachel, and Phoebe. The quirky, the likeable, and the kooky. Seems like the perfect trinity, doesn't it? A deeper look would reveal that it is far from it. It would also reveal that the latent sexism of the show is actually quite blatant, for throughout the show's run, the primary, all consuming force that drives each of these three women is the utterly desperate need to - wait for it - get married.

 

Monica's high-maintenance nature may explain why she may be unattractive to some men, but it still does not explain why that bothers her so much, because she makes no effort to change that and is actually proud of the way she is. Her yelling "my day is finally here!" the moment she wakes up on her wedding day reflects a mentality primitive enough to be an issue dealt with in Mad Men.

While Monica's obsession with finding a man who 'puts up' with her quirks can be explained, the same cannot be said about the other two. Rachel, clearly the most likeable and easy-going of the three, and very popular among men, is also the most desperate. Just a single viewing of the episode in which she goes to preposterous lengths to woo Joshua, her recently divorced customer, by putting on a show in her cheer-leading costume, and actually kissing his leg is ample proof of her desperation.

And then we have Phoebe the kookfest. Phoebe, who does not believe in evolution or gravity. Phoebe, who believes in past lives. Phoebe, who in one episode, believes that she's being possessed by a dead woman, and in another, that her mother's spirit is in a cat. And yet we have the same Phoebe ultimately deciding that the institution of marriage is so important to her that the love of her life not wanting to get married becomes a deal breaker, even though he wants to live with her in an arrangement that is virtually indistinguishable from marriage.

The extremely dated, ridiculous notions of love and marriage do not stop with the women. Ross (obviously) deserves a special mention in this context. I'm sure everyone remembers the episode in which his second wife, Emily, tells him that he needs to fulfill certain conditions if they are to have a chance of being together, one of them being that he can never see Rachel again.

Tough decision? Not really. On one hand, there is his sister, his best friends, an entire life that he has built for himself, while on the other, there is a woman he has known for four weeks. However, when the rest of them finally tell him what they really feel about what he has to do, his outburst about how "life is all about making compromises" actually shuts them up because not one of them has the sense to point out that what he's saying is a pile of horseshit, that life is certainly not about sacrificing your de facto family for a woman you married on a whim, and that if it wasn't for the stigma of another divorce, this would be a no-brainer.

Sex and relationship politics in the 21st century is something we have to thank Friends for. A ridiculous and unnecessary amount of thought and effort going into 'getting laid' is what Friends gave us, all the while reminding us that there is still such a thing as 'too much effort' which will make you seem creepy and weird. It spawned the pseudo-liberal wankers, who say "sex is not a big deal" in contrast to the traditional, conservative viewpoint on the subject, but don't have the brains to apply the same thought to themselves and ask that if sex is really not that big a deal, then why should it be on one's mind all the time?

Friends established sex as the primary goal of life for any modern day 'liberal', but it also said, hey, there's no need to be too liberal now, and antiquated views on marriage, handed down through centuries of brainwashing by a patriarchal society, are still cool. True, we did have Ross and Rachel having and raising a baby not only out of wedlock, but also when they were not romantically involved in any way, but this was nothing more than an attempt on the part of the writers to have Friends maintain it's 'soapcom' status and keep the story moving.

While almost all its viewers have been deeply affected by the impact of these archaic views being perpetuated by Friends, our generation specifically suffered more by being exposed to the culture of snobbery, judgement, and ostracisation glorified by the show. 

While using sarcasm and Friends jargon was pretty harmless, the flip-side was that endlessly mocking one's personality traits that deviated from the norm became a way of life. Nobody could freely be themselves, or be anything other than silently tense while in a group, because the smallest of slip-ups would mean a lifetime of ridicule.

Friends relentlessly told us that it is not okay to be different. Being weird is not cool, and you will be judged and mocked for it your entire life, even by those who claim to be your family. The group's endless Chandler bashing was not in good humour, especially since a lot of it was behind his back. When Monica says "I'm just going to label it 'what were you thinking?'" about one of Rachel's boxes, the latter's horrifyingly vicious response is "I was just going to walk across the hall and write that on Chandler," because that's what true Friends think about each other, don't they?

Friends has a legacy like no other show before or after it. Its concept became the prototype for many highly acclaimed and popular sitcoms of the 21st century, and it met its one true successor in How I Met Your Mother. It made us and our lives funnier, and therefore better. It gave us an escape when it hadn't been our week, month, or year.

However, there's no denying that there is a dark side to this legacy, which is entirely due to the fact that it was a show that was meant to make you aspire to its lifestyle. Our desire to be like the characters made us not only embrace, but enforce conformity. It said that in love, politics is not only inescapable, but desirable, and technicalities matter as much, if not more than emotions. It made us believe that in life, while it is okay to bend the smaller rules dictated by society, we should not dare to question the cardinal ones. It told us that the ultimate goal of life is to get married.

Widening Horizons - Chinatown

Overlooked. Forgotten. Pot-a-to, pot-aa-to. Yes, it is often the fate of old films to be forgotten by the vast majority despite universal critical acclaim, awards, box office success, selection into the United States National Film Registry, being ranked second among mystery films by the American Film Institute, and above all, being used in film schools all around the world as an example of the ideal screenplay in the mystery genre.

I realised that this film was forgotten, even by film buffs, due to the recent addictive Facebook trend on the Indian Film Hub, i.e, #ExplainFilmPlotBadly. Unable to live with this, I vowed that my next entry would be about this Roman Polanski film that put the neo before noir by breaking so many rules of the genre and thereby reinventing it.

To use the word 'economical' for Robert Towne's screenplay would be to shortchange it. 'Rich' would be closer to the mark, as almost every scene in the film is completely saturated with details of a highly complex plot as well as necessary character exposition, all done without resorting to clichés of a genre that had been done to death in Hollywood.

The protagonist, J J Gittes (Jack Nicholson), is the quintessential classical noir anti-hero - a private detective with a dark past, quick with a snarky reply, and too clever for his own good. It could easily have been a character that was just a stereotype, but certain traits, such as his huge ego and meddlesome nature, along with a past that is very cleverly designed, make him the ideal protagonist for this story.

One of the most unique things about this film is that despite being a multi-layered mystery, it is actually driven by character and not plot. Gittes is a private detective, and not bound in any way to try to solve the mystery before him, but it is his pride and inquisitiveness that lead him headfirst into a web of lies, corruption, insatiable greed, and unspeakable evil that knows no bounds.

The second most important character of the film is Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway). Based on the femme fatale archetype, Evelyn's character is designed to serve as a catalyst of sorts, as it is the equation between her and Gittes that makes events unfold as they do. Gittes will not rest until he has discovered the truth, because his pride has been wounded, but Evelyn has a secret so dark that she cannot let him discover it.

Evelyn's internal conflict is that she wants Gittes to find her husband's killer, but not discover her secret. He is the only one who can help her, but she cannot bring herself to trust him completely. They're effectively joined at the hip, but Gittes' past and his nature do not allow him to trust her either, leading to a relationship that is almost certain to end in tragedy.

There is also the character of Evelyn's husband, Hollis Mulwray. Despite very little screen time, his character is crucial, not only because it lies at the centre of the plot, but also because of its thematic importance. From what we come to know of him, Mulwray shines like a beacon of light in a dark world and is extinguished, a reflection of the harsh truth that in the real world, good does not stand a chance against evil, a foreshadow of the story's tragic end.

That anyone who likes mystery films should watch Chinatown is a given, because it has one of the most exquisitely crafted, complex plots that one would ever see. There is hardly a scene that does not provide a clue that takes Gittes, and therefore us, one step closer to the truth. That is not all though, since a lot of these scenes also contain hints about the second layer of the mystery, subtly yet surely setting up one of the most shocking twists of all time.

This second layer, revealed in the twist at the end of the second act, is what makes Chinatown Chinatown. Countless noir films centre around single layered mysteries which have the entire focus of the viewer, and therefore do not have the potential to shake you to your core no matter how well they've been made. This is why the inclusion of the second layer in Chinatown is a stroke of pure genius, and if not for The Sixth Sense that came out a couple of decades later, it would've been remembered as the greatest twist in the history of cinema.

The twist is a linchpin that serves a myriad of purposes in the plot, only one of which is to leave the viewer flabbergasted. It adds an edge to three of the four key characters, providing almost unquestionable motives for their actions so that the plot never seems contrived, something that is almost impossible to achieve in this genre. To the film's antagonist it gives a dual motive, while to Evelyn it gives conflicting motives, making her one of the most well designed characters in the genre.

With the plot and characters in place, Towne and Polanski add a few innovative touches to make the film look more realistic. Be it nifty little detective tricks, or the bold move of having the protagonist's nose awkwardly bandaged for half the film (unheard of in those days, due to the egos of big stars fixated on projecting a certain image). The biggest innovation however, was to set most of the film in the day, as opposed to the night setting typical of classical noir.

One of Towne's greatest achievements in this film is designing a character tailor-made for Jack Nicholson, so that he does not have to act much. Faye Dunaway, on the other hand, deserves almost half the credit for making the film's twist work, because it is her fantastic performance that sets it up more than anything else. Truly, her performance is a masterclass in getting into the skin of an extremely conflicted character on which rests the success of the entire film.

Forty years after its release, Chinatown's screenplay is still regarded as one of the best in the history of cinema, and as close to flawless as they get. It holds up even under the most powerful of microscopes, and is one of those rare films that gets better and better under intense analysis. In an age where every story in every genre has been retold a hundred times, Chinatown still shows you something you haven't seen before, and this statement will probably be true for a long, long time.

Busting Perceptions - Argo

This week's piece is not about a film that garnered a militant following despite being riddled with logical flaws and having taken too many liberties. Winning Oscars and Golden Globes by the dozens, especially the big ones - picture, director, screenplay - makes for a different kind of overrated film. Enter Ben Affleck's third feature as director, and Hollywood's self-deprecating tribute to the CIA - Argo.

The film is adapted partly from CIA's celebrity operative Tony Mendez's memoir, The Master of Disguise. As Charlie Kaufman has already told us, adaptations are tricky little buggers, and the added pressure of converting a real-life account of a time and place that had the attention of the whole world does not make the job easier for Affleck and screenwriter Chris Terrio.

Having said that, I strongly believe that making films at that level should be like aerospace engineering - do it right or not at all. But the heavy politicisation of cinema in Hollywood means that the Slumdog Millionaires, Hurt Lockers, 12 Years A Slaves, and Argos will have awards and acclaim pelted at them, regardless of how poorly they've been made.

Okay, it may have been a little harsh to club Argo with that lot, because it is entertaining on the surface, but it is what lies beneath (and sometimes the lack thereof), that concerns me. More alarming is the irresponsibility shown towards historical events in the name of dramatic liberty, leading to the most serious crimes a film vying for Oscars can commit - jingoism and racism.

From the outset, Affleck and Terrio manipulate history to suit their narrative. The biased comic book style prologue fails to provide adequate context to the events portrayed in the film, and more importantly, minimises the U.S government's role in driving the people of Iran to revolution, because it would obviously not do for a two hour advertisement of the CIA to highlight, or even mention the agency's side gig as a destroyer of democracies.
 

Since we live in a time of extreme political correctness, Affleck and Terrio have chosen to insert token, unnecessary dialogue at some points to indicate that it was they, the U.S, who started the whole mess. It is not nearly enough, for a lot of this is masked by assertions of the kindness and loyalty of the U.S government towards the dying Shah, and of its humaneness and moral superiority in contrast to the savage third world.

Illustrations of this are seen within the first act itself, where a Marine at the embassy steps out to "reason" with an extremely violent crowd and gets treated savagely, only to show the rationalness of the Americans as opposed to the hot-headed Iranians, not to mention that at a time when they are supposed to be in extreme danger and terrified for their lives, 'the six' are more concerned about the Iranians applying for visas to the U.S than themselves.

The portrayal of the Iranian people in this film is deeply disturbing. On eight different occasions, we have imagery of Iranians that brings to mind one word - savage. Their depiction as an undifferentiated mass, full of ethnic stereotypes, is topped by the fact that they're shown to be shouting out whatever they have to say, without the audience having the benefit of subtitles, in all of these scenes.

Two of the best examples of this are seen towards the end of the film. Firstly, at the bazaar, the old man whose picture they take without permission is shown to be extremely aggressive towards them, even though they instantly return the photograph. Slowly, a small crowd builds up and the situation reaches a point of physical violence. What the old man is shouting is translated for us in a single, absurd line - his son was killed by the Shah with an American gun.

Even worse is the scene at the end, where the seven are detained by the revolutionary guard. The main guard talks in Farsi for a good two minutes, but there are no subtitles to tell us what he's saying. The instant one of the seven Americans begins to speak in Farsi, we have subtitles. Not only this, it is revealed at the end of the scene that the guard actually does speak English, because, as Tony Mendez had already mentioned to the six, most of the revolutionary guard were educated in the U.S and Europe.

The manipulation of history also extends, not only to minimising the contribution of the Canadian government in the exfiltration (which, in the words of Jimmy Carter, amounted to 90%), but adding insult to injury by showing that the extremely wise and selfless U.S government let the Canadians take the credit for the success of the operation. Furthermore, there is the blatant and completely unnecessary lie that the embassies of Britain and New Zealand refused shelter to the six refugees.

There are many, including Affleck, who raise the point of dramatic liberty. But take a second to think about the meaning of that term and it is clear that the liberties that are being taken are not adding to the drama, but are simply there to glorify the role of the CIA and make this a pro-U.S film. If anything, these liberties should have been taken to change the manner in which the plot progresses at many points and to add some flavour to the characters, for apart from being jingoistic and racist, the film is uninspired and full of clichés.

What that means, in a nutshell, is that everything in the film happens too easily. The obstacles in the path of the characters are not really challenging, as we not only know that they're going to be overcome almost instantly, but also know how because we've seen it happen a hundred times before. Take for example, the first time Mendez presents his idea for the exfiltration. There is resistance to it, but it is so token, that we know that all it will take to overcome is our man, Mendez, already established as 'CIA's best exfil guy', doing what he does best.

This phenomenon occurs repeatedly throughout the film. Be it the futile squabbling over whether or not to go to the bazaar for the 'location scout', and the clichéd way in which Mendez convinces Stafford and his wife to trust him (by telling them his real name), or the White House suddenly and randomly calling off the mission, only so that Mendez can show his commitment to it and Affleck and Terrio can find a point to end the second act by predictably defying the order.

The lack of conviction in the writing does not stop with the plot, but extends to the characters as well, as almost all of them are stereotypes, not archetypes. Whatever is revealed about them is merely given to the viewer as information through dialogue, rather than as an experience of any substance. Mendez is a CIA operative, the best at his job, but it is this job that has caused problems in his family. His relationship with his son is generic and non-descript, and does not strike a chord.

Similarly, we have John Chambers and Lester Siegel (John Goodman and Alan Arkin), disgruntled Hollywood professionals who mock their business at every unavailable opportunity. The six refugees, apart from talking to each other chaotically in several scenes that are clearly improvised, show inexplicable skepticism and resistance to the plan, even though it has been impressed upon them and the viewer that it is their only option.

At the end we have what is supposed to be an impressive character arc, when one of the six, Joe Stafford, the staunchest opponent of the plan, convinces the revolutionary guard of their authenticity by narrating the story of their film with some sound effects and voice modulation, as his companions, and even the Iranian soldiers, watch in amazement.

After the main plot is concluded, we obviously need to have Mendez, the CIA expert, to actually be told that he cannot bring his son to the ceremony in which he is to win his star because the mission is classified, so that the viewer can understand the sacrifices the heroes of the agency make for their country. Lastly, Mendez has to come back to his family where all is suddenly well, even though their problems have not been addressed at all, so that we can all witness the warm and fuzzy Hollywood ending where everything is wonderful again.

Why did this insipid and racist film receive the highest honour Hollywood provides? My guess - at a time when the faith of the American people in their government is at a low point, an advertisement for one of its most hated agencies, showing it to be made of operatives who are human and believe, not in vague ideas of 'serving their country' by illegally killing individuals and toppling regimes half a world away, but in actually helping real people, makes for a refreshing change.

This however, does not change the fact that its anachronistic portrayal of people, both Iranian and American, and its uninnovative and formulaic plot make Argo a film that is not only set in 1980, but minus the few half-hearted attempts at political correctness, could very well have been made in 1980. Tony Mendez's story could've been told in a much better way had it been made into a forty minute documentary on the History Channel.

Widening Horizons - In Bruges

For every overrated big budget Hollywood blockbuster, there are three smaller films that, despite critical acclaim and awards, don't manage to garner the kind of following that they really deserve. One such film is Irish playwright Martin McDonagh's first, In Bruges.

The reason I chose this film, (besides the fact that it is one of my all time favourites) is that it is one of the most economical and airtight screenplays I have encountered, and engages you almost effortlessly. McDonagh also brings an extremely unique touch to every character and almost every scene in the film with a flair for dialogue that is so typical of playwrights, establishing himself as the Irish Tarantino with only his first film.

The film kicks off with a voice-over prologue, a strict no-no according to most experts of the trade, but gifted writers, especially playwrights, continue to prove that they can break all rules and create a product better than most. The voice-over, while serving the primary purpose of building intrigue about the back story, also maintains the unity of space, making sure that from the first image you see, you're in Bruges.

The economy with which the film has been written is also seen in the way the character of our man, Ray (Colin Farrell), and that of his friend and mentor, Ken (Brendan Gleeson aka Mad-Eye Moody) is established. Two hitmen - one, a man-child that throws tantrums, drags his feet when he's asked to do something he doesn't want to do, and always wants to have his way, and the other, a father figure with a surprising love for history and culture - essentially two likeable and empathetic characters.

Yes, the strangeness of this contradiction is obvious, but it is this very contradiction that makes the film beautiful, for contradiction within character is where the root of all good drama lies. Apart from these two, we also have their boss, Harry (Ralph Fiennes aka Voldemort. See the irony? I'm pretty sure it was intentional), who is seen for the first time after more than half the film is done, and yet we already know everything we need to about him through a voice-mail and a phone conversation.

What makes these characters so complete and believable? The answer lies in the fact that while they're part of a pretty strange world that may not seem real, they are convincing and realistic, because the writer knows them and their world inside out, and is therefore able to make this very specific, minute, and almost chaotic world seem like a cosmos with universal resonance.

Big words and technical terms having been used, there is actually a very simply reason why this film works so well. This is its primary theme - guilt and redemption. The raw power of this theme has fuelled some of the greatest works in literature, theatre, and cinema for centuries. From the guilt that destroyed Macbeth from within, to Andy Dufresne's redemption of the Shawshank variety, this theme has asked questions deep enough to have most of us at a loss for words.

An empathetic hitman inadvertently kills a little boy while on a job. He is stuck in his own purgatory, unable to come to terms with what he has done, with all sorts of questions about sins and the afterlife, because no matter what he does, he will always have killed the little boy. Nothing he does will make that go away, unless maybe, he goes away?

It is the way the question has been asked, and not how it has been answered that makes this film special. Being in Bruges, the painting The Last Judgement, and the setup of the Don't Look Now homage film-within-a-film that pays off with the costumes of the actors reflecting the painting, may all seem like additions just to make the film look good and add humourous moments, but actually constitute a very conscious ploy by McDonagh to add symbolistic imagery to the film.

The narrative has been structured in a slightly unusual manner, but one that is a prerequisite for the film's tone. The same story could easily be used to make the most serious drama film, but McDonagh has treated it like a dark comedy, a genre that is probably the most reflective of the reality of our world, where there is a lighter side to almost everything, and even in the darkest depths of despair, there is generally something that can cheer you up.

There is definitely something to be said about the uncanny inclination that almost all writers with a penchant for verbosity have towards inserting pop-cultural references and meta humour in their work. In McDonagh's case, these include several references to Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now and a homage to Orson Welles' Touch of Evil. While the former is done in a pretty simplistic way, the latter is in the form of a brilliant six and a half minute one-shot scene.

So beautifully designed and completely engrossing is this phone conversation between Ken and Harry, that it took me close to ten viewings to actually notice that it had no cuts. From the ludicrousness of what Ken has to do due to Harry's absurd and exasperating demands, to the grave turn that puts Ken in one helluva predicament, this scene's brilliance lies in the fact that it draws absolutely no attention to the writer-director despite doing so much for the narrative.

Just like the rest of the film, the ending moves away from clichés and is quite refreshing in most ways. While Ray's character, both protagonist and antagonist, reaches a resolution that is most natural, by finding the only way that could come close to assuaging his guilt, his fate remains uncertain, for his purgatory could turn into hell if he is forced to spend the entire rest of eternity in Bruges.

Add to all this some great performances from the cast, especially Farrell and Gleeson, the most gorgeous purgatory possible, and the most hauntingly ethereal score you would hear, In Bruges is one of the most satisfying cinema experiences of the century so far and deserves to be remembered as such for generations to come.

Busting Perceptions - The Dark Knight

As far as perception busting goes, there is no Hollywood filmmaker that needs it more than our beloved Christopher Nolan, and no film that needs it more than his so-called magnum opus, The Dark Knight.

This film is widely regarded by critics to be the best superhero film ever made, and one of the best films of the 2000s, but most importantly, its fandom could give religious fanatics a run for their money. While it is impossible to pinpoint genesis of this fervour, what I will do, in my humble way, is expose this cult classic for what it really is.
 
Nolan's greatest strength is not his directorial prowess, nor is it his skill as a writer. It is his ability to make the audience believe that he is a lot smarter than he actually is, so that when something doesn't make sense, the viewers, instead of seeing what is right in front of them and saying that it doesn't work, rack their brains trying to look for answers that even Nolan's genius mind cannot provide. Now this is much, much tougher than it sounds, and he deserves a lot more credit than Keyser Soze.

How Nolan accomplishes this is very simple - he packs every single moment in his films with action that moves slightly faster than sound, until it is bursting at the seams. The effect is that the audience knows what is happening, but does not have even a second to really think about why it is happening.

This particular feature of his films, while present even in his best work, Memento, is more and more pronounced in his later films, until the point where this shock, awe, and quickly-shift-focus-to-the-next-scene-before-you-can-think-about-the-last-one approach fails miserably in the abomination that is The Dark Knight Rises.

Since it would really suck if I bored the pants off of everyone with only my second post, I'm not going to delve into every single thing that is wrong with the film like a bitter spouse going through his/her partner's flaws with a fine-toothed comb. What I will do is talk about several scenes and/or points in the story which are either so badly done that they stick out like sore thumbs, or simply do not work at all.

To begin with, there is the poorly written courtroom scene where Harvey Dent is introduced for the first time, which serves no purpose except to let the audience know that Harvey Dent is just as witty and clever as every other major character in every Nolan film. Before you assume that I'm being petty and anal, there is a reason I started with this seemingly minor scene.

This scene, along with every other bad scene in the film, is symptomatic of a writer's biggest struggle, which is to make the story flow organically from the characters and situations without the writer's hand being visible behind the steering wheel. The mobster's gun, for some bizarre reason, doesn't fire, giving Harvey Dent a chance to say something cool and clever, thereby establishing a character trait that could've been done in a hundred other ways.

While the scene mentioned above is just character exposition and does not have a bearing on the plot of the film, making the same mistake in key scenes that move the story forward is fatal, which Nolan has done around seven times too many in this film.

From Lau's interrogation scene (where he claims that the money is the only reason he's still alive, but promises to testify against the entire mob simply because if he hands them the money, the mob would not have any to hire the Joker, and Nolan would be in a pickle), to the preposterously outlandish fingerprinting technique (a plot device that has absolutely no significance or requirement in the plot), Nolan is screaming from the rooftops to all intelligent viewers that this film is not for them!

But alas, intelligent viewers are a rare species in today's world, so Nolan decides to crank the stupidity up a notch by actually asking his audience to believe that Gordon managed to fake his death at a public event that was crawling with cops, seemingly without any help whatsoever from anyone, for a reason as lame as "I couldn't risk by family's safety", which he is still doing by the way, as the entire mob, not to mention the Joker's henchmen, are still free!

The real reason? You guessed it! Nolan needs to move the story forward, and what better way to do it than his shock, awe, and screw all logic approach? After all, why bother to come up with smarter scenes when you can have the "twenty-year cop" be stupid enough (which he's allowed to be, since he's not a main character) to get sucked into a fistfight with a psychotic genius of a villain who is clearly unaffected by physical injury, and sweep it under the rug with the amazing technique called intercutting.

Anyway, moving on to the coup de grâce, the Joker's supposedly brilliant 'social experiment', which is set up by Gordon's (read: Nolan's) inexplicable decision to transfer the prisoners in the ferry. While logical errors are often commonplace, even acceptable in big budget Hollywood films as long as there's a trade-off, this entire sequence fails on a much deeper level.

Despite all the thematic nuances of The Dark Knight trilogy that show us how dark its world, which is supposed to be a reflection of our world (the USP of the series), really is, I don't think Nolan truly understands how dark today's world actually is. A boat full of innocent civilians, or a boat full of violent criminals of what is supposed to be the most crime infested city in the world?

Are you kidding me? Is that actually supposed to be a choice, worthy of the climax of one of the most acclaimed and zealously loved films of the century? For those of you who live in denial, like Nolan expects you to, let me break this down for you. You're on your way home from work when you get kidnapped by a psycho who tells you that the only way you will live is if you shoot a known rapist in the head.

If this is like Sophie's Choice for you, then I really, really want to meet you, so that I can sell you to a museum for a boatload (pun intended) of money. Ten contrivances can be forgiven, but when a film's climax lacks emotional logic, it is simply unacceptable that the film goes on to garner as much praise as this one.

One hardly needs Freud to understand why everyone is blind to the countless grave flaws in this film. The reason is simple - as I mentioned above, the fast-paced nature of the film doesn't allow time to really absorb why something has happened on the first, second, or even third viewing, and let's face it, no one wants to admit that amidst a group of people because no one wants to look stupid. Instead, one convinces oneself that even the dumbest things in the film, such as its ending, make perfect sense.

Yes, blunders are a dime a dozen in this film. From the hitherto unseen big, scary prisoner that randomly comes in from nowhere during the crucial boat scene, to the Joker's ridiculous assumption that mobsters are criminals not for money or power, but because they like to do bad things, Nolan has taken too many liberties.

But hidden amidst all this chaos, there is one thing in the film that works. This is its central situation - will Batman be able to prevent the Joker from winning the 'battle for Gotham's soul'? Or will the Joker succeed in proving his point, which is that no one is incorruptible?

These questions have the potential to strike dramatic gold, but unfortunately come in only in the final act of the film, masked by the various errors in screenplay. If it wasn't for that, The Dark Knight had the potential to be one of the most unique superhero films, for it is a film in which the primary antagonist effectively wins, something which is never seen in mainstream Hollywood films.

But ifs and buts are not candy and nuts, and therefore, The Dark Knight, despite all its underlying potential, is far from being even remotely worthy of the acclaim and following it has. It is a heavily contrived and amateurishly written film that deserves, at best, to be remembered as a slightly above average Hollywood popcorn thriller, only by virtue of some crisp dialogue, a few stellar performances, and Hans Zimmer's hair-raising score. The fact that it is thought to be much more speaks volumes about cinema viewers today and Nolan's incredible ability to pull the wool over their eyes.

The Beginning

So, I had grand plans for this blog. The idea of it has been moving around in my head for a while now. A blog about films. But no, that's not enough. I have a lot more to say about a lot more, not because I feel that it needs to be read (which I do), but also because when there's too much in my head, it leads to sleepless nights, something I'm not very good at dealing with compared to most people.

Last night, I lay awake in bed for hours, a repeat of the two before that. My brain was in overdrive. If life were a film (something I pray for every single day), I probably would've gotten out of bed and punched out, in a couple of thousand words, everything that was keeping me up, from the woes of the Indian cricket team, to everything in life that provokes my mind into tormenting me in new and awesome ways every day and night.

However, I was forced to abandon this Jerry Maguiresque idea and save it for the morning after - a constant, painful reminder that life is not a film, and definitely not Jerry Maguire. To quote the master, Alfred Hitchcock, "drama is life with the dull bits cut out", and therefore the least we can do to fill up the dull bits is digest food for a million thoughts that lead to the interesting ones.

I'm sure that at this point, the three or four people that are reading this (those who are close enough to me that I can actually demand that they read what I write, and therefore have no choice) are wondering when the hell I will get to the point, or whether I even have one. The answer to that is, I honestly don't know.

On second thought, I do know, and it can be explained very easily in Jerry Maguire lingo - the things we think and do not say (once again reaffirming my belief that all problems in life can be solved, not with potatoes, but by looking at them as struggles of beloved characters in good films).

Anyway, getting past my ADD and moving on. I have been witness to herds of elephants in all sorts of rooms, and I have to say, that my patience for not talking about them wears thinner everyday. I look for a vent and I look for a vent, but there isn't one nearly as big as I need. So until I find a better one, this will have to do.

On the other hand, being fully aware of the disastrous consequences of using a public forum as a vent (especially in, ahem, these dark times), I realise that I will have to strike a balance. Along with the occasional post about the meaning of life, the universe, and everything, there will also be in-depth analyses of films and television shows, busting popular perceptions that often (read: always) result from human weaknesses that make some of us succumb to lame things like peer pressure and Groupthink.

Apart from this, there will also be posts about the third passion of my life - cricket. Yes, cricket. This will be my humble attempt, which is almost certainly doomed to fail, to beat the wannabe out of you elitist snobs that go bananas over a league being played seven thousand kilometres away, of a sport that no one in your country outside your little cliques gives a rat's fart about, but are almost allergic to what is the de facto national sport of your country, the second most popular in the world by the way, and possibly the most complex sport on the planet.

All sarcasm aside, I really hope this preamble is good enough to get people to read this blog, as a few of my life goals are attached to it, even though I haven't exactly figured out what those are. Your comments and feedback would be appreciated, but not if you have something mind-numbingly stupid or extremely lame to say. If what I have to say has any resonance with you, kindly share my posts with others, because I'm told that popularity counts for a lot in this world, even though I'm not really counting on it.

Yep, that's about it.