Nayak

 

Brilliant noir film by Satyajit Ray, "Nayak" (1966) explores the dark underbelly of a film star's imperfections. Made in black and white and starring Uttam Kumar and Sharmila Tagore as the central protagonists, the film is shot entirely inside a moving train except the opening shot and few sequences in his dreams/ recollections. Arindam (Uttam Kumar) is a huge film star going to New Delhi to receive an award in a second class train from Calcutta of those days. His arrival at the train station and inside the train creates a buzz amongst the passengers. Aditi (Sharmila Tagore) is a journalist writing for a women's magazine and wants to interview him. Over the course of the interview which takes three to four sittings, Arindam degenerates his personality from a confident movie star into a insecure, distressed, unsure, nervous person due to ephemeral nature of his profession. All along his biggest fear is that three flops will take him down to the gutter. Satyajit Ray has interspersed the narration with three to four episodes from Arindam's past such as his first ever day in the films, his betrayal of his friend who becomes a union leader, his inability to help a lady who wants a career out in the movies. In one scene he is seen desperately clutching bank notes as he is sinking deeper and deeper into a morass from which even his mentor Shankarda is unable to help him. Satyajit Ray has also added minor sub plots in the movie in the train itself with one lady wanting to act in the movies but whose husband wants her to inveigle herself to a potential client who is enamoured of her. That man's wife and children are in the same coupe as Arindam and the daughter who is sick from the beginning of the train journey recovers towards the end. There is a Hitchockian touch to the movie. The to and fro between Uttam Kumar and Sharmila Tagore is brilliantly done and Uttam Kumar's character from a confident assured movie star to a distressed despairing insecure individual is brilliantly done by Uttam Kumar. Sharmila Tagore looks glamorous and alluring when she removes her thick glasses.  

The 12 week Fitness Project

 

Quick read book by Rujuta Diwekar, although one is supposed to read it slowly and imbibe it along the way and follow the instructions from the book, which is what i did. I like her bindaas attitude to food in the sense that she advocates eating ghee, white sugar, jaggery etc. all of which are anathema to other nutritionists or diet consultants. She uses a lot of Indianised words in the book, which is the hallmark in her earlier books as well "Don't Lose your Mind, Lose your Weight" which was also a good book to read. One has to follow the instructions to the T for proper results otherwise it will not be visible, which is what happens to most of us, in the sense that we get busy with our work lives and forget to follow most of the basic principles advocated in the book. Lot of the information given in the book is very practical to use and adapt. I would recommend, read one chapter at a time, imbibe and practice solutions from that chapter and then go ahead. Highly recommended read. 

The Stranger

 

1946 psycho drama film starring Orson Welles, Loretta Young and directed by Orson Welles himself. The film has dark shades as Charles Rankin (Orson Welles) a school teacher in Harper, Connecticut could possibly be an ex-Nazi criminal by the name of Franz Kindler. He is about to marry Mary (Loretta Young) the daughter of one of the judges of the US Supreme Court. UN War Commission is after Kindler who has left Germany without leaving any trace behind, save for one of his associates Meinike who is a prisoner in a Czechoslovakia prison. Meinike is released in the hope that he will try to contact Kindler and as expected he does go after him to Connecticut. Wilson (Edward G. Robinson) who is heading the UN Commission goes after Meinike in order to prise out Kindler. Wilson plays the waiting game for Kindler to fall into his trap. Nice noir movie with Orson Welles playing a super role that of a hard core, unrepenting criminal, Loretta Young as the confused and disbelieving wife and Robinson as the cool and composed cop. The film was released in 1946 which means production must have taken place sometime in late 1945, when the war had just ended with the Hiroshima & Nagasaki bombing in August 1945. Quite a brilliant effort for that era, when many movie goers must not yet have realised the depravity of the Nazi concentration camps.    

Asgari Bai

 

Documentary on Asgari Bai, the rare exponent of Dhrupad in Hindustani Classical music. Dhrupad is one of the ancient ragas in classical music and as far my limited knowledge of listening to Dhrupad, i have heard only male singers rendering it, most famous being the Dagar brothers. Asgari Bai was a court musician during the royal times in the pre Independence India. She became the main singer of the Orchha dynasty in the Bundelkhand region. By the time this documentary was made, she was quite old, 86 years of age, and the best years were behind her. There were no performance by her during the documentary nor are there very many youtube videos of her singing. One link i got in youtube was this one

Documentary is nicely made by Brahmand Singh, the doyen of documentary film makers in India. You can watch the documentary at this link

A Crude Awakening - The Oil Crash

 Absorbing documentary about Oil - its history, its development through the ages, its role in the society, including Oil as War, Oil as Politics, oil developing the world, so much of petro products being consumed by people all over the world. It talks of the oil fields that were there in Baku, Texas, Venezuala - all finished, all ghost towns over there. Oil as war tool when Saddan Hussain invaded Kuwait but even otherwise almost all wars have been about oil. US goes into war with Iraq over the so called weapons of mass destruction when it was all about securing oil assets and securing oil contracts for George Bush's Republican friends. The conflict in Darfur in South Sudan was all about oil discoveries with the military using force to clear families staying there.  There are some lovely live footages including one of a smiling Adolf Hitler (which is rare, indeed). Baku produced all that oil that was used by the German army. The film gives a realistic picture of the forthcoming shortage of oil in the world, with the world running out of oil reserves. Alternate sources of energy like wind power, solar, bio diesel, are all too puny in quantity and too much expensive to be affordable. Same applies to electric energy one expert says that even if you hybridised all the automobile vehicles in the world today, still we will be requiring as much oil as we are consuming today. Oil is virtually ruling the world which is why we see so much influence in the middle east. Then there are problems with OPEC and the production in Saudi Arabia is not growing that much to be of comfort to the world.  Very feeble or practically nil attempt being made to enforce democracy in the middle east - reason - oil. Very rich documentary with lots of expert voices, lots of live footages and material. Well made documentary. 

Available on youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odCZpBPfFQk

Picture taken from internet, not with a view to violating copyright. 

 

Mahanagar

Classic Satyajit Ray movie "Mahanagar" made in 1963 in black and white once again a woman centric movie by the master, after "Kanchenjunga" which was made in 1962 also a woman oriented movie. Quite a genius to make a woman centric movie in the 60s, advanced thinking for the ages. This one is a beautiful film with traces of psychological drama in it, but Ray brilliantly picks it up towards the end. Brilliant performance by Madhabi Mukherjee in the main role of Arati the demure wife of Subrata Mazumdar, the banker who is just making by with his salary with old parents to take care of plus his kid and a sister as well. They live in a old ramshackle house with no fans and no cooking gas. His father is a retired teacher and likes to play the crossword in order to win some prize money. Then they decide that Arati can work to supplement the income of the family. She applies and secures a job as well and becomes quite a star performer in her company. Then all hell breaks loose because it is a patriarchal family system, how can a women go out and work, a silent war rages on between the elderly in laws and the woman. But pangs of jealousy and guilt start hurting the husband, this is where Anil Chatterjee as the husband has performed a bravura role. The wife starts earning more, starts wearing lipstick, sun glasses, appoints maid for the house, meets other gentleman in a cafe, all of which troubles the husband. The husband also loses his job because of a run in his bank. There is one shot in the movie, when Arati is eating and leaves the plate on the floor and asks her husband to do something in a subtly higher voice.  The transformation of Arati as demure, house bound, insecure woman to a confident, courageous, bold woman is quite brilliant and subtle and Madhabi has done her part quite brilliantly in that. At this juncture, Ray takes the script down to show the decay in the husband and when i think he would go for the complete melt down of the husband, but that does not happen. There is one instance in the end, when the husband says to the wife "if you succumb what will happen to us". Ray has controlled the pace in the movie quite brilliantly. The final shot is fitting in that he pans over a city with tall buildings, the only time, the movie refers to its title "Mahanagar" meaning big city.  Beautifully made movie which has the master's stamp all over it. 

Picture taken from the internet and not with an intention to violate the copyright. 

 

Roshni

Nice sweet documentary on a Himachal girl who lives in a village in Himachal Pradesh and aspires to travel to a big city like Mumbai once. The documentary shows life in the villages are self sufficient with their own produce and own water. They live a contented life, with the TV being possibly the only link to the other world. In between the documentary shows a Sanskrit teacher talking about the values etc. which i thought was a bit out of context. Then there was a lengthy interview with Dr. Vandana Shiva, the renowned environmental activist about food being corrupted with western thoughts coming in with genetic engineering distorting the natural food system. The visuals are quite good and does inspire to leave the city life and go back to the villages. After all, if there is wifi available in the villages, then no problem in working from the villages and occasionally travelling to the city for business or negotiations. With the covid situation, even the business discussions are being carried out online with anybody sitting anywhere in the world. 

Okay documentary, but goes a little wayward in the middle. This was on Amazon Prime Video.

Picture taken from the internet and used for representational purposes only not with an intention to violating copyright.