Watching three movies a weekend is an overdose. You agree or disagree? Two months ago I would have disagreed. Now I agree. IFFK is for sure one reason. The other is the weekend that just passed by.
On Saturday, I saw Slumdog Millionaire, finally. One lesson I leart is that I should not watch a movie so late, especially if it is being talked about, all around. Things about that movie were so all over me that nothing was new. Me being the loyal film-goer waited until I got a legal ticket to the movie without succumbing to piracy and black marketing and see what happened.
I was wondering if we have seen such movies before. I cannot really recall names of films but everything looked so 'Oh I have sen this before.' I felt it was a normal masala Hindi (oops English) movie. Nothing so spectacular as such. A good one that makes you feel good. And yes, phenomenal music. Apart from that, what is the whole hype about? It may be new to Hollywood, but to us? I doubt. I guess we just drowned in the Oscar frenzy. I genuinely hope that Rahman wins though.
There was a piece written by Arindam Choudhuri that appeared along with an IIPM ad in the Times of India. I am sure some of you have seen that. It read "Do not watch Slumdog Millionaire. It sucks." His main point was that the movie is just an attempt to position India as a land of slums; rewriting only our existing reputation in the west of being a land of snake charmers. I do not agree on the point that Danny Boyle had such heinous intentions. But there is a scene where a taxi driver beats Jamal up and he exclaims "See for yourself the real India" to his foreign tourist. The tourist responds "Now see a bit of real America" and pays him some money. The Indian in me was deeply wounded by this. Yes there are pitfalls. Agreed. This is a huge country with a huger population. Righteousness definitely co-exists with cruelty here. My complaint is that there isn't a single character depicted in the movie which has a ray of positivity in him/her.
I thought I was lucky to get tickets for Luck By Chance on the second day after its release. But while the movie was on, I thought otherwise. I felt the narration was a little slow. The ensemble cast is praiseworthy. The climax of the movie was super sexy. But I was generally disilluisioned. On an afterthought, I realised that it was the effect of back to back movies. It pulls down your energy and sensibility levels seriously.
On Sunday, I watched Veruthe Oru Bharya after about three months of wait. I had literally prayed the movie would release in Hyderabad. That's how badly I wanted to watch it after hearing the soaring reviews from my friends and family in Kerala. Gopika has done such a brilliant job of the typical housewife that Malayalis are so familiar with. I almost killed Jayaram in my imagination for being the chauvinist he is. I really hope he is not like that with Parvathi, his real wife.
Moral of the story is that I have decided not to watch more than one movie in a day. It harms my ability to enjoy a movie much more than anything.
PS: Luck By Chance is a good movie. Please watch it if you have a chance and get lucky. :P
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