Freeze Frame #138: Love Actually

There is nothing extraordinarily memorable about the movie, but if I’m stuck between watching Citizen Kane and Love Actually, I am likely to choose the latter as often as not.

To quote what is probably the best line in Some Like It Hot, nobody’s perfect.

I very often don’t watch this movie in one go — I just fast-forward to specific portions. Sometimes, I just follow one plotline from start to finish. Sometimes, it’s a specific scene. Like the one where Rowan Atkinson gift-wraps a necklace while Alan Rickman looks on. Or the one where Hugh Grant is first introduced to Natalie. Or any of Bill Nighy’s or Emma Thompson’s scenes. Sometimes all I need in order to make my day is a glimpse of Thompson’s smiling visage when Bye Bye Baby gets played at a funeral service.

But my favourite of all time is the one where Colin walks into an American bar. To quote Ebert’s description of this particular subplot:

There’s also one hopeful soloist who believes that if he flies to Milwaukee and walks into a bar he’ll find a friendly Wisconsin girl who thinks his British accent is so cute she’ll want to sleep with him. This turns out to be true.

Exactly how much this turns out to be true is, to me, the best part of this movie.

 

Five hundred years of brotherly love

I attended the Landmark quiz in Mumbai yesterday. Having been away from quizzing for a while, it was quite refreshing to get back to it for a few hours. My team didn’t qualify for the finals, but I am not new to being in that position, so I enjoyed myself all the same.

One of the little pleasures of these big open quizzes is that there is a prize for best team name, and the shortlist usually contains some beauties. My favourite, and the winner this year was: Pigs fly, Swine Flu.

The bigger pleasure, however, is to learn some things of earth-shattering inconsequence that nonetheless brighten your day. Did you know, for instance, that a lot of clubs in the US have blue lighting in the restrooms to discourage intravenous drug abuse? The lighting makes it more difficult to find the veins, you see.

My favourite, though, is a Swiss watch that automatically displayes the rahukaalam every day. One of the people involved in its design is Chitra Subramaniam, best known for her coverage of the Bofors scandal. Makes one wonder if Ottavio Quattrochi took her on a Ferris wheel ride in Vienna, explained a few things to her and got her thinking about brotherly love and cuckoo clocks.

 

Freeze Frame #127: The Queen

The trouble with biopics — or movies based on real life incidents or characters in general — is that one keeps wondering how much of it is fact and how much is fiction. The good ones manage to create a world that is internally consistent and emotionally true, to the extent that we don’t care so much about the source material anymore.

In choosing to chronicle the goings-on in the British royal household in the aftermath of Diana’s death, The Queen treads a difficult path in some ways. Call it some kind of post-colonial hangover if you wish, but I find myself reacting to a biopic about a musician or a football player differently from that about Queen Elizabeth II.

It is to Helen Mirren’s credit, however, that from the very first moment she is on screen, she is The Queen. I have always loved her work, in movies like Gosford Park and especially in lightweight fare like Calendar Girls (the sort of comedy that only the Brits seem to know how to make). But this is easily the best thing I have seen her in.

The Queen is no doubt quite a compelling story, but when I think back on it, the scene I keep returning to is a quiet one in the countryside. The queen decides to take a drive through her estates in Balmoral one day. She refuses an escort and drives the vehicle herself. And while crossing a little stream, the car breaks down. So she calls for someone to come pick her up. 

And while she waits there alone, a strong resourceful woman rendered temporarily helpless, the weight of the world seems to finally crash down upon her shoulders and she begins to sob. But then she notices a sound and sees a magnificient buck standing at a distance, staring at her. They eyeball each other for a few moments, then she hears the sound of hunters (probably including her huband) approaching in the distance and shoos it away.

For me, this scene is a masterpiece of construction. Firstly, it comes at a point when she is beginning to feel the stress of having to deal with public expectations that are entirely contrary to her beliefs. Diana is no longer a royal, and the only concern the royal family needs to have in the matter is the well-being of her and children. However, as the PM Tony Blair points out, the British public have their own way of deciding what the royal family should or shouldn’t be doing. You see the strain building slowly over the scenes preceding it, but her reactions are carefulyl schooled to express only what she wants the people around her to know.

By having her drive her own car, the director Stephen Frears first sets it up so that you begin to see her as her own person, as Elizabeth, and not just as the queen. That distinction allows us access to her feelings rather than just her behaviour. When the vehicle breaks down, she doesn’t just explain what has gone wrong with the car, but also reminds the person at the other end of the line that she used to be a mechanic during the War.

Now, while this is a nice piece of trivia, what purpose does it serve in that conversation? And then you realize that the line isn’t just meant as gentle rebuke to the man who thought that, as queen, she was unlikely to know what was wrong with her car. It is meant as a gentle rebuke to us, who have had the same implicit presumption all along. 

The moment with the buck may be viewed simply as a diversion at that point, but it also sets up a later scene where she finds out that it has been hunted down in the neighbouring estate. (The occasioal snippet of conversation in earlier scenes establishes that there is more than one group trying to hunt it down.) A party of bankers or something, out for a weekend of sport.

She goes down to that estate to enquire and sees it hung from a hook. It is still magnificient. As though all death can do is gnaw away at the corners of its beauty, a little bit at a time. She asks the groundskeeper to convey her congratulations for the kill and walks away. Then she returns to London and makes her first concession to the public demands that she “express her grief in public”.

Now sit and think about what that episode with the buck is trying to tell you. 

Queen Elizabeth II, as a mechanic during WWII

 

It is written. But not very well, I’m afraid.

At the time of writing this, Slumdog has already won over audiences around the world, snagged a few Golden Globes (and other awards besides) and is widely expected to take home some statuettes on Oscar night. And I’m happy for the cast and crew who made it this far. I really am. But here’s what I cannot get around:

The movie simply did not work for me.

There’s enough to like, believe me. The movie is beautifully structured, the concept is interesting, the performances are quite good, the camerawork is amazing… But at the end of the day, I did not feel emotionally attached to this tale of a ragamuffin from Mumbai surviving a baptism in shit, communal riots, a brother’s betrayal and numerous other setbacks to find love and 20 million rupees in the end.

A big part of that is the writing. Sample this exchange between Jamal and Latika right at the end:

Jamal: I knew you’d be watching.

Latika: I thought we would meet only in death.

Jamal: This is our destiny.

Latika: Kiss me.

If the structuring of the story and the concept are interesting enough to warrant an Oscar nomination, then tripe like the above should warrant a Razzie nomination as well. I agree that dramatic lines like this are an integral part of our own films, but the good ones learn to do it with a modicum of panache. For a movie that’s been feted all over the place, it’s surprising how pedestrian the dialogue is. When Salim tells his brother, “The man with the Colt45 says ‘Shut up!’”, I wanted to barf.

The sad part is, the performances are pretty good but are hamstrung by the dialogue. The kids who play the younger and adolescent Jamal, Salim and Latika are fantastic. Dev Patel is quite good as the older Jamal — I was initially apprehensive about his accent being a distraction, but he managed to hold my attention despite that. The actors who play Salim do a pretty good job. Frieda Pinto looks like a million bucks, but has little to do. She does adequately. Anil Kapoor is suitably supercilious — I doubt a real game show host would be this condescending on live TV, but he makes it work. Irrfan Khan is his usual dependable self.

Three of the Oscar nominations have gone to A. R. Rahman. This is genuinely puzzling, because I can’t think of a single good thing to say about the music. The celebrated Jai Ho is earth-shatteringly nondescript. I sat there listening to the song and thinking, “They love him for this?”

Rahman’s music has brightened my days for the better part of two decades now. But he’s done much better than this. Then again, sometimes the Oscars are about granting overdue recognition. If Judi Dench could win for Shakespeare in Love, then our man certainly deserves a statuette for this score.

Let me leave you with a question that has been on my mind since yesterday. I don’t think the things I have spoken of in this review add up to why the movie didn’t work for me. There was something else missing, maybe a sense of wonder, of seeing something I hadn’t seen before. Is it that I have become desensitized to the poverty I see around me? Would I have loved this movie if it was set in, say, Brazil instead?

 

Freeze Frame #43: Bridget Jones’ Diary

Was the working title of this movie Thirty nine progressively excruciating ways to embarass oneself? Most of the running time is devoted to Renee Zellweger moving from one embarassing situation to another, while a love triangle and assorted eccentric Brits hover in the background. Some of those moments work quite well, others not so much.

One moment that works exceedingly well involves Renee Zellweger coming face to face with Salman Rushdie and asking him a very fundamental question. I’m sorely tempted to reveal it here, but I’m gonna desist, just this once. Go see the movie, and see the expression on Rushdie’s face.

Much of the movie is essentially crap, let me warn you. But if you’re a girl, you can drool over Colin firth and Hugh Grant. And if you’re a guy, you can marvel at how Renee Zellweger can’t help but be charming no matter what dreck she’s starring in. Or maybe it’s the other way round. But whatever your plumbing and orientation, you’ll love the Rushdie moment.

 

Freeze Frame #32, #33, #34, #35: The Third Man

The Third Man is arguably one of the best British films ever made. Shot on location in the bombed out streets of Vienna, the movie evokes an atmosphere of dread, intrigue and post-war depression like very few movies have managed to do. From a visual standpoint, the movie ranks among the very best. No special effects, just an off-kilter way of viewing the world. So much about that movie remains vividly in memory long after watching it, that picking one’s favourite scenes is a difficult task. Having said that, the four moments I quote below are on top of my list:

Right at the beginning, when Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) first comes to Harry Lime’s place, a neighbour (or was it the caretaker?) informs him that Harry is dead, and says he doesn’t know whether he went to heaven or hell. While saying it, he points upwards to heaven and downwards to hell. However, the shot is composed so that Holly is looking up a flight of stairs to this guy, and the guy is seen upside down, which means that the directions he points to are the exact reverse of what he intends. It’s a simple device, but it does much to establish the world view that most characters in the movie have.

Although Orson Welles features prominently in the credits, his Harry Lime is almost a MacGuffin – much of the movie has to do with an investigation of the circumstances of his death, and the people connected to him. “We should’ve dug deeper than a grave,” the British officer says at one point. By the third act, one has almost forgotten that he’s listed in the credits when he appears suddenly, framed against a doorway, smiling that sardonic smile like only Orson Welles can. The impact of that shot is fantastic – again, an off-kilter composition, making him appear, both literally and figuratively, at an odd angle to the proceedings.

For most people, the ferris wheel scene with Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten is the high point. The tension in this scene, the dialogue that crackles with sardonic wit, the way it trusts the viewer to assemble the jigsaw without having to spell out what has really transpired until then… fantastic doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Everyone, of course, remembers the cuckoo clock speech. Legend has it that this speech was of Welles’ own devising – it is not in the Graham Greene novel, not did Greene write it in the script. I reproduce it here, simply for the sheer pleasure of quoting it:

Don’t be so gloomy. After all it’s not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love – they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.

The last scene is yet another of my favourites. After Harry Lime is well and truly buried, Holly hitches a ride with the officer to the railway station. Just then, he spies Anna (Alida Valli) walking down that road in his direction. He still has feelings for her, so he gets off and waits for her. She walks towards him, then past him, and slowly away. The book ends differently, on a happier note (for Holly at least). However, this ending is definitely more appropriate, given all that has happened. When I first saw this movie, I remember praying fervently for her to just keep walking and not go to him. I kept muttering “walkawaywalkawaywalkaway…” almost continuously. Thank goodness someone was listening!

Aside: Incidentally, one other movie where I muttered a similar prayer was Roman Holiday. As Gregory Peck walks away after meeting Audrey Hepburn for the last time, I kept praying that she shouldn’t run after him, as she almost certainly would have in a lesser movie. A big reason why I love that movie is that he just keeps walking.

 

Freeze Frame #2: Pride and Prejudice

I quite loved the latest Jane Austen adaptation starring Keira Knightley. I thought it had a lot of life in it, and featured a great performance by Knightley as Elizabeth.

P&P has never quite appealed to me as a book – I found it to be nice, in the way that Hum Aapke Hain Koun would be nice if you went into the movie hall expecting nothing. It was obvious that there was a lot of social commentary there; I just didn’t find myself captivated by it. Watching the movie, however, changed some things. And it was this little, barely noticeable pause, that did it for me.

There’s this twit called Collins that wants to marry Lizzie, and she says no. Obviously, Mrs. Bennet finds her refusal unacceptable, so Lizzie turns to her dad for help. And the dad says, with trademark wry humor, “An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day on, you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do.”

Back when I read the book, this scene seemed to play for laughs. It’s a good line, and conveys the father’s support of his daughter at a crucial juncture. And Donald Sutherland is the kind of actor that can deliver a good line like that as well as anybody else in the business.

But no, what made all the difference for me in the movie was, after Lizzie has thanked her father and run off, and Mrs. Bennet has stomped off, the camera holds for a moment on Sutherland’s pensive face. He has just given his daughter the support that she deserves, but in doing so, he has also quashed hopes of a financially advantageous marriage for one of his five daughters. It was the right thing to do, maybe, but not easy.