Putting yourself in other's shoe.

One of the benefits of internet is ease with which you can download a movie and watch it.This is specially true for English movies which are easily available on internet for downloads. (Movies in other languages with English subtitle are a bit difficult to get)  Movies which otherwise I may have never watched, I can get them without any trouble.

              To kill a Mocking Bird is one such movie. It's considered an American classic and is based on the novel of the same name. (On a similar note Hollywood is way ahead of Indian movies when it comes to adapting literary works on screen.) The story is set in 1930s around the time of great depression. It  is about a lawyer Atticus, his relationship with his two motherless children,  a boy and a girl aged 10 and 6 respectively, and about a  case in which he defends a black man falsely accused of raping a white girl. This was the time when racism was prevalent in US and sanctioned by law. Even though Atticus defends the accused convincingly, the  prejudiced white jury rules the accused guilty.

    In the novel the daughter whose name is Scout is the narrator. The movie maintains that flow with  daughter's voice in the background used for narration and nearly all the scenes feature Scout. So we see the story unfold from the eyes of a 6 year old.
                        
                               I specially liked the way relationship between Atticus and their children is portrayed. There is a scene in the movie where Scout just had a fight in school with some boy. Scout is a tomboy and she has the tendency to get into fights with fellow students whenever she thinks that they are wrong. Atticus explains to Scout that one has to put himself/herself in other persons shoes before blaming him/her. That's a wonderful lesson. Sometimes in life getting the perspective from the other end makes the situation very clear and helps in clearing our doubts. If we are prejudiced against something or someone this is something we need to do.  This is what the movie is about.  The jurors, due to their prejudice, rule against the accused. They fail to see the truth or act on the truth because they see the accused from a different prism because of his race. So do the majority of  the small town folk.

          The movie  is titled so because it is considered a sin to kill a mocking bird because the mocking bird does no harm. It does not destroy crops. Punishing a innocent fellow is just like killing a mocking bird.

A Tale of Two Movies

All Quiet on Western Front is a anti-War movie made in 1930 about the German participation in WW1 based on the novel of the same name written by by Erich Maria Remarque, a German veteran of the war.
The Great Dictator is a 1940 Charlie Chaplin movie which satirises Nazism and Hitler.
One significant thing about the movies is the years in which they were released. Since the end of WW2 a lot of great movies have been made about the subject of the two great wars and the intermediate period ,but these two movies stand out, for these were made around the time when Hitler was not part of history but making history.
Therefore not surprisingly The Great Dictator was banned in many parts of Europe. Initially even Britain decided to ban the movie(before it was released) but reversed it's stand later on. Similarly All Quiet on Western Front was banned in Nazi Germany and many other parts of Europe including France.
When Charlie Chaplin decided to make movie in 1937 , it was a courageous decision back then. The WW2 had not started and the extents of horrors of Nazi Germany were still not known and Europe was following a policy of appeasement towards Germany. It would have been a bold political statement against a powerful nation. In the end of the movie Charlie Chaplin's character makes a speech for democracy and peace which is considered an out-of-characterpersonal plea from Chaplin. By the the time movie was released the war had begin but US was still officially neutral. The movie was well received in America and used for propaganda by Britain.

There is a piece of dialogue in the movie AQOTWF which goes as follows
"Tjaden: Well, how do they start a war?
Soldier #1: Well, one country offends another.
Tjaden: How could one country offend another? You mean there's a mountain over in Germany gets mad at a field over in France?
Soldier #1: Well, stupid. One people offends another.
Tjaden: Oh, that's it. I shouldn't be here at all. I don't feel offended.
Katczinsky: It don't apply to tramps like you......"

Here the soldiers are discussing the futility of war. It is they who are suffering to satisfy the pride of their rulers. This movie questioned the idea of nationalism as understood at that time. The idea of nationalism was at its peak at that time in Europe, when countries were fighting over colonies. The European nations were in constant conflict with each other unlike the Europe of today. The world was yet to see another bloody war. It was perhaps the first great movie in the War Genre and made a strong political statement. The movie portrayed the suffering of soldiers in the trench warfare and how young men without much training and understanding of the ground realities were enlisted in the army in the guise of nationalism.
These two movies have special place in the history of cinema for they were made when history was being made.

The Blue Umbrella and some observations

The blue umbrella is a movie based on Ruskin Bond novel by Vishal Bhardwaj.
I watched this movie about three months back. I wanted to write about the movie but didn't .But now finally I have decided to write about it.

The movie is about a girl Biniya (Shreya Sharma) , a cunning but child at heart shopkeeper Khatri(Pankaj Kapoor) and a blue umbrella. It is a nice movie with a simple story well told. For me the most enchanting part of the movie is the locations where the movie is shot and the camera work.
Here are some specific observations about the movie.
The movie is shot in district Chamba in Himachal.The place where Khatri's shop is located seems to be Khajjiar and the shop where Khatri goes
for to inquire for a 'Chattri' is Sadar Bazar in Dalhousie .Both Dalhousie and Khajjiar are tourist spots.
Pankaj Kapoor's character speaks Hindi with Pahari accent while the rest speak in normal hindi.
There is one scene in the movie where Biniya comes face to face with a snake which is presumably king cobra. Such deadly snakes are generally not found at high altitudes(there are plenty of them in foot hills of Himalayas) as shown in the movie.
The title of the movie reminds me of the story The Umbrella Man

On a different note I was watching Mahabharat on computer recently.There is one scene where Duryodhana(the child) offers an apple to Bhima. Apples were not grown in India till the British came. In fact this man played an important role in popularising apple farming in Himachal.

The English Teacher

I was reading a review of Taare Zamin Par (I have not seen the movie yet). The Bum Bhole song and the clown act of Aamir Khan reminded me of my English teacher S in my 10th class. He was perhaps the most interesting of the teachers I studied from. I particulary remember a class. The teacher asked us to play a game.(we were not in a mood to study that day ,and as students we never were ).A student was to come forward and enact a story ,poem or drama from our English textbook and we were supposed to identify that(dumb charades).To begin with S gave us an example.There was a poem by Vikram Seth in our textbook('The Frog and the Nightingale').Now our teacher enacted the poem by jumping like a frog in the class. It was really hilarious and all the class laughed uncontrollably.His class was always such fun. While reading a drama he would modulate his voice according to the characters. In a drama there was a robotic character and when the robot's line would come he would speak in a robot's voice.The good thing about his teaching was that he tried to involve everybody in the class.His classes were never boring.His antics always drew attention from the most disinterested lot.
We had a monthly quiz in our school and it was a pretty serious affair .Every month two teachers acted as the compere .When it was S 's turn to conduct the quiz he made it a fun affair. He introduced a audience round and the question he asked the audience was "How many times in the song 'tu mera hero no. 1' from the movie 'Hero No. 1' the lines 'tu mera' repeated ?"
It seemed that authorities of our school didn't like S 's way of teaching (ie making teaching fun).They thought that there was too much indiscipline in S 's class.(which was true to an extent. We were so friendly with S that we conveniently ignored his pleas for maintaining silence in class.)As a result in the latter half of our class 10 he cut down the fun quotient and became a little more serious.

It's so simple to be happy but so difficult to be simple.

Yesterday I was watching Bawarchi on TV. It's one of those movies which you can watch again and again without getting bored .The great thing about Hrishikesh Mukherjee's movies is that they always have something to teach. Watching a Hrishida's movie is like learning life's lessons.
A common thread that runs through these movies is the idea of simplicity.The characters are simple ,most often they have simple desires .The settings are simple and the stories are simple. It's this simplicity that is so difficult to achieve.Simplicity has its own beauty.
In our life (as the protagonist of Bawarchi says) in pursuit of larger goals we stop caring for small and simple things.It's these small joys that make our life. These simple things that define and make our life.But more often than not we ignore them. This idea of simplicity can be extended to every subject.For example in science it's understanding of the fundamental concepts that is required to solve complex problems.
It's our inability to deal with simple things in life that leads to our life's miseries.Take for example Dr. Bhasker's character (Babu Mushai) in Anand .Before he meets Anand he was fedup with life because of the misery he saw in the world as a Doctor and cancer specialist. It's Anand who teaches him to enjoy small things in life that make our world. Same is the case in Mili where Jaya Bhaduri's character transforms Amitabh Bachchan
Alas it's not easy to be simple. Being simple is just like being yourself. Seeing everything in right perspective and just being honest. Is n't it so ?
Looking at the larger picture we ignore the small strokes that make life.We tend to cloud our thoughts and our perspectives about others and life's situations sometimes with extreme emotions. We care more about results and less about the approach. So we miss the fun of doing things. It's the journey that matters more than destination ,for we spend more time in the journey.Everytime we too need a Anand to teach what real 'Anand' ,life is.
Of course life is not always simple.But then it is also not complex.It's we who make it complex .
So try to keep things as simple as possible.
PS:In whole of the movie(Bawarchi) Rajesh Khanna is wearing the same khaki dress.I can't recall any other hindi movie in which the hero wears same dress througout the movie.

No Smoking

So I saw this movie .
Only thing was that I couldn't comprehend the story. I actually didn't understand
what was happening after the interval.
The story is definitely different.
Till interval the movie is simple.
A wife wants to divorce his husband(John Abrahm) because he smokes.
So he decides to go to rehabilitation centre run by a baba(Paresh Rawal) .The method used by baba to 'cure' the patient is quite bizarre. What follows after that is out of this world.
The movie is at times witty but more often it is creepy.
May be I need to see it again to understand it.
There is dialogue in the movie which goes something like this
"atma hai toh sharir ishwar hai ,
nahi hai to sharir nashwar hai"
PS: I went to the movie with a friend who smokes. The movie definitely didn't convince him .