Sunday, October 14, 2001
This was written by a friend in the US.
Bombing, Anthrax, Film festival and what not.
I saw Murali Nair's second feature film, Oru Pattiyute Divasam (a
dog's day) at the 37th Chicago International film festival this week.
I went with some of my friends and co-workers, representing
almost all ethnic races of the globe; hispanic, white, second generation
asians etc -- the complete melting pot. They seemed to like the movie.
The movie was slow, the sort of visual style we see in movies of
Aravindan. It is a social satire. Even the naming of the movie
suggests he is trying to give a tap to the usual pattern of heavy
sounding words with lots of unneeded connotations. Think Mankolangal,
Sayam, Sayahnam and compare it with Pattiyute Divasam.
I liked it, especially after I had the misfortune of seeing Maya,
another Indian movie by newcomer Dig Vijay Singh. It was a Hindi
movie which left me with a lot of unanswered questions. It shows
religious rituals performed when a girl attains puberty. Everything
is plausible, only the gang rape of that small kid inside the temple
by the priests and generalising it as a common practice in Hinduism
is wrong. Good that he made a movie about Hinduism, or some freak
might have already put a fatwa on his head. With the current crop of
extreme right wing idiots in any religion you can't be sure though.
The find of the festival as far as I am concerned is the South Korean
film maker Kim Ki Duk. His Address Unknown is the most exciting
film I have seen in recent times on par with Amores Perros (Love's a
A Bitch) which lost the foreign film Oscar to Crouching Tiger. Amores
Perros had the most ferocious dog fights I have ever seen. Address Unknown
has dogs being the biggest delicacy. It is about a group of Koreans
living near an American military camp and the way their lives get
entangled with the camp.
Today I am going to watch Lagaan, it is also in the festival and I am
not sure I will be able to sit through the whole three hours of it.
I don't know whether there is a marked resentment against anyone
looking brown. The Bush interview on TV had strong language against
'discriminating against anyone who doesn't look like you'. After that,
Advani's words on India being a 'vigorous democracy' sounds hollow.
Anup Kurien
Comments, Anyone?
Bombing, Anthrax, Film festival and what not.
I saw Murali Nair's second feature film, Oru Pattiyute Divasam (a
dog's day) at the 37th Chicago International film festival this week.
I went with some of my friends and co-workers, representing
almost all ethnic races of the globe; hispanic, white, second generation
asians etc -- the complete melting pot. They seemed to like the movie.
The movie was slow, the sort of visual style we see in movies of
Aravindan. It is a social satire. Even the naming of the movie
suggests he is trying to give a tap to the usual pattern of heavy
sounding words with lots of unneeded connotations. Think Mankolangal,
Sayam, Sayahnam and compare it with Pattiyute Divasam.
I liked it, especially after I had the misfortune of seeing Maya,
another Indian movie by newcomer Dig Vijay Singh. It was a Hindi
movie which left me with a lot of unanswered questions. It shows
religious rituals performed when a girl attains puberty. Everything
is plausible, only the gang rape of that small kid inside the temple
by the priests and generalising it as a common practice in Hinduism
is wrong. Good that he made a movie about Hinduism, or some freak
might have already put a fatwa on his head. With the current crop of
extreme right wing idiots in any religion you can't be sure though.
The find of the festival as far as I am concerned is the South Korean
film maker Kim Ki Duk. His Address Unknown is the most exciting
film I have seen in recent times on par with Amores Perros (Love's a
A Bitch) which lost the foreign film Oscar to Crouching Tiger. Amores
Perros had the most ferocious dog fights I have ever seen. Address Unknown
has dogs being the biggest delicacy. It is about a group of Koreans
living near an American military camp and the way their lives get
entangled with the camp.
Today I am going to watch Lagaan, it is also in the festival and I am
not sure I will be able to sit through the whole three hours of it.
I don't know whether there is a marked resentment against anyone
looking brown. The Bush interview on TV had strong language against
'discriminating against anyone who doesn't look like you'. After that,
Advani's words on India being a 'vigorous democracy' sounds hollow.
Anup Kurien
Comments, Anyone?
# posted by Ashok @ 9:30 PM 
