Danton

 

A dense historical fiction movie "Danton" directed by Polish director, Andrzej Wajda in a French Polish joint production. It won the Bafta in 1983. The story takes place in 1794 during the Reign of Terror in France with Maximilien Robespierre pitted against Georges Danton. Robespierre is the fiercest advocate of the liberty of people but he has apparently turned to be a dictator. Danton is a popular figure of those times and the people are with him. Both sides have their own set of supporters. The story details that part when Danton and his friends are accused of plotting against the Republic and made to stand trial. The trial in those days were more farcical than today's which says a lot. Basically Danton is accused of sedition in today's times. But he says i conspired for peace and amnesty for the people. Some gems from the movie "The final safeguard against despotism is a free press". The press guys are not allowed inside the court room and take notes. "A defendant's right to be heard is not a privilege, it is simply justice". This is uttered by one of his party members in a kind of Parliament of those days, called the Committee. "Politics has nothing to do with justice" which sadly we are witnessing in today's times as well. "We send you Republic's enemies, your duty is not to judge them but to eliminate them" this is uttered by Robespierre to the judge, shades of what we are seeing today as well. Wojciech Pszoniak as Robespierre has done a brilliant job and Gerard Depardieu as Danton with his usual theatrics. There is not many female interests in the movie. 

Last Man in Tower

 

Aravind Adiga's "Last Man in Tower" is a story about desperate people - desperate lower middle class people wanting to go up in society, wanting the riches, dreaming of a rich future and to achieve that they will throw all the scruples to the wind. Its a story of a old middle class metropolitan housing society in a suburb of Mumbai. The building is old, needs urgent repairs, the residents are all middle class with aspirations for more. In comes a corrupt, wealthy, ruthless builder who offers more than the market price for each flat in the society. Everybody agrees but for a couple of residents - old couple Pintos whose children are abroad and a widower Masterji a retired teacher whose only son is residing in a posh swanky flat in South Mumbai. He is a principled man with lots of attachment to the flat because of his late wife and daughter. He digs his heels in and refuses to accept the lucrative offer, the other residents get desperate because of the impending deadline, while the builder is sweating because of the potential loss of his reputation, when other builders are ready to pounce upon the property. The book is too long, but the narrative is quite brilliant. Aravind Adiga has written beautifully, his prose is superb. Towards the later part of the book, it starts getting depressing and the ending is a huge anti climax. Reminded me of the 80s movie "Mohan Joshi Haazir Ho" a sort of similar story about house owners who are unable to vacate their tenants and the matter goes to courts and stays there for decades, while the lawyers start getting rich, the plaintiffs become poorer and poorer by the day.  

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.