When I pay tribute to words

I knew about the word "amanuensis" - and like Shah Rukh Khan the race driver and Kajol, the spoilt brat in Baazigar - I fell in love with it. Instantanement. It just felt wonderful to say - that latin feel, just rolling off the tongue. I sensed the root "man-" which pertains to the hand, and guessed it involved some sort of manual work. Princeton Wordnet obliged me with this :

"stenographer: someone skilled in the transcription of speech (especially dictation)" -

Ok. I said to myself. I get that.

But like most love, there was a problem. I didn't really GET it. I would never for example have enough courage to use it in a sentence. It was there lurking, like a shy peacock. I knew it was male, colourful and potentially beautiful. But, only potentially.

But age and experience they say solves most of these tiny knots that dot the timeline of personal experiences. And today - I grasped what an amanuensis truly meant. Not meant - implied.

The point d'inflexion? The quite wonderful, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly". Directed by Julian Schnabel and based on the best selling french book of the same name by Jean-Dominique Bauby, the movie is in three words, quite excellent indeed.

For those who came in late, it is the story of a man who has "locked-in syndrome", i.e he is paralysed completely except for his eyes - but that does not affect his mental capabilities of simple thought, and more importantly wild imagination. He decides to fulfill a past contract for a book with his publisher - only he has to write by blinking.

Enter the quite wonderful ladies. Marie-Josée Croze as the Speech Therapist (the french word orthophoniste is quite wonderful indeed) and Anne Consigny as the amanuensis are quite wonderful. What could've been a dull, dreary dark story is suddenly a vivid trip through a man's imagination which unfettered by his corporal shackles flies higher and farther than ever. Any review of the film would be incomplete without a mention for Janusz Kaminski's awesome cinematography. I would've loved to watch this one on the large screen - I felt awkward, inadequate and repulsed just on a 14incher. I wonder what the real experience would've been.

Anyway, definitely a movie worth watching, if not for anything else - but for a really different story in a long time - and some awesome cinematic treatment.

PS: I remember my second rencontre with the word amanuensis while "studying" for my GRE vocab. I found the entire process richly rewarding, even though the expansion in my vocabulary might not've been as large over time as I would've desired. Its an exercise I urge everyone to undergo - and I wonder if there is a way I could repeat such an exercise for Hindi or Marathi. If anyone knows of such "wordlists" in these languages, please do comment and tell. I end with reprimanding these two boys for making hard work of the entire process. Avnish for example dares to suggest that the word "lexeme" is pointless and wastage of dictionary page in general. I wonder what a few people from a certain profession feel about that.

UPDATE: PPS: In a somewhat unexpected move JR actually replies. Here.

Two words - Watch it!

** This review contains mild spoilers **

Just got back home after watching Mithya. I'll try and be as objective as possible - even though I'm still reeling.

To put it plainly Mithya is so so much better than Rajat Kapoor's previous efforts. Its funny, dark, fast and exhilarating. Ranvir Shorey puts in a performance of a lifetime - and no, the role was not written with him in mind. Even Neha Dhupia is passable. Good directors get performances out of anybody. Case in point Abhay Deol in Manorama - 6 feet under.

Mithya is like Manorama in the fact that it's real and satisfying at the scene level. But beyond that its totally different, The writing, especially in the first half is tight, and wickedly funny. Like every "indie" movie, there are cruel jabs. At the film industry, at established stars. Hell, even at indie filmmakers. Of the supporting cast, Vinay Pathak is obviously brilliant. But he's totally overshadowed by an absolutely superb Brijendra Kala. Naseeruddin Shah is not even in my top 5 as far as performances go. And Rajat had got the guts to do that.

I'll probably write a more "revealing" review, sometime later when the two readers of this blog have read this post. I'll extol about specific scenes and specific storyline elements. But I'm writing this to ask you to go the theatre and watch this movie. Ensure than you give your monies to good film-makers. Then I'll forgive you if you pay 200 bucks to watch Jodhaa Akbar. Even if you normally don't watch Hindi movies, give this one a shot. And if you don't like it, please tell me. I'll direct you to a few (stupid) "friends" of mine!

Some movies you should check out

It always irks me when I'm not at the forefront of discovery. Most of the stuff I read/ watch / hear do is recommended by friends - and so there remain very few people I can tell, "you know what, this movie is really excellent, you should really watch it sometime."

But with the aid of a few internet reports, and plain hunches - the last three movies I've seen have all been really really excellent. So here we go, please allow me to introduce them to you. (No Spoilers therein. Safe reading)

1 Atonement



I'm just realising that I'm a big fan of Ian McEwan. I've read only a couple of books (Amsterdam and Saturday) - absolutely loved Amsterdam. Atonement apparently is the piece de resistance of his oeuvre. It has been named in huge lists like Time's All Time best 100 Novels. So when the movie came out, I HAD to watch it - even though it has Kiera Knightley.

The movie at first glance reminds me of The English Patient. Another work that I wholly consumed (as book and movie). Visually it's splendid - and hopefully I'll catch this movie again when E-Square and co wake up to it when it wins the Oscar(that's what the talk is anyway). James McAvoy is decent, Kiera Knightley is much better than expected. The star is undoubtedly Saoirse Ronan as 13-year old Briony Tallis. Her acting is absolutely delectable!



The movie is not flawless. It suffers from an identity crisis in the middle amongst other things. But on the whole it will satisfy you visually and intellectually. Definitely worth a watch.

2. I'm not there

The movie inspired by Bob Dylan's life - is not another biographical tracing someone's life. Bob Dylan's life is just a basic framework for the movie to work on. There is so much thought that has been put on top, so much creativity and so much execution - one would have thought impossible! Again, I like this movie for the sheer feel that it creates, the ambiance of the film is brilliant, visually sumptuous! No more giveaways - go watch.

3. Sweeney Todd



I accept that the original intention was to watch, Johnny Depp's musical Sweeney Todd : The Demon Barber of Fleet-Street, but I ended up watching the 2005 BBC adaptation for TV - Sweeney Todd, starring Ray Winstone. But, no complaints at all! I had no idea of the old story, excellent adaptation indeed - and what's more my interest is piqued - about how a story of a barbaric maniacal killer-barber (yes!) could be made into a musical. Rest assured, I will not rest till I watch Mon. Depp's adaptation. Tell me if you've watched it / if I could get my hands on it somehow.

Unlikely Movie, unlikely review.

Watched "Hollywood Ending" yesterday. Yes, another one of those Woody Allen movies, where he plays another one of those confused, nervous wreaks - something that he has made a living, and some might say legend, out of.

First glance intrigues. What with Debra Messing(in a juvenile role as Allen's passing love interest and struggling, talentless actress) and the quite beautiful Téa Leoni as the estranged wife. Ellie (Leoni) is Allen's now-divorced wife, who is all set to get engaged to a high-flying movie production executive Ed (George Hamilton). Allen's character is a genius-crazy movie director, who has fallen on bad days.

As fate would have it, Ellie convinces Ed to give the director one last chance to redeem himself, and Ed, not wanting to displease his soon-to-be wife relents. Val (Allen) quite delighted, takes up the assignment with great vigour and excitement. But much to his dismay, the extreme emotion of the situation has so overwhelmed him, that he suddenly turns blind. Not permanently, as he understands - but partly - a type of "psychosomatic blindness". But afraid that his last chance to save his floundering career would slip by, he decides to direct the movie blind - first with the help of a translator working on the set - and later with Ellie. It is during this later period - that the previous chemistry is rekindled, and Ellie finds herself drawn towards the wayward genius again.

Meanwhile the film itself is quite atrocious - but everyone trusting the director to "put it all together", keep quiet, not knowing that the movie is in fact being made by someone who cannot see. Ellie too, plays along - knowing that any disclosure on her part would lead to the destruction of Val's career. Of course, once the initial shooting is over, Allen regains his vision - and wonders how the utterly spoiled film is to be edited. He eventually churns out a film - which is of course panned by audiences and critics alike, but which to his great surprise is lapped up by the French audiences, paving the way for a successful European run.

Of course the film is semi-autobiographical, farcical and facetious. References to Allen's relatively stronger fan-base in France - and a jab at the film industry in general. The overall joke, "even a blind man can make a film" - packs a punch, but fortunately is not drilled through - just draping the background amongst an flurry of supplementary and sometimes downright irrelevant action.

Allen is brilliant as usuan Tea Leoni does a decent job, and Debra Messing shows glimpses of the timing she shows in Will & Grace. Yes, we've seen the semi-autobiographical, nervous, dibbly-dabbly Allen before - but frankly, I would love seeing him a million times more. It's just plain fun - and despite being, if looked at in a certain way, a "get-back-at-you" film, its hardly hard-hitting, the whole point lost in a fog of good-old Allen one-liners and mindless soliloquy.

Watch it, I say nevertheless - especially if you haven't watched an Allen before. It's all good ;-)

Notes from Parzania

The correct way to say it is Par-zany-ia and not Par-zaan-ia. This is the official website.

Smile lit up on seeing Parzun Dastur after some time. Always will remember the "jalebi" ad. Still retains small-boy-charm in spite of having grown up a bit. ;-)

Zakir Hussain provides the music for this one, (and also voice in some parts) along with contributions from Taufique Qureshi and Rakesh Chaurasia (nephew, and not son of the great Hariprasad.)

Corin Nemec, (an emmy award winning actor as rediff reminds us.) has only Smallville to his credits which I know of. Am ambivalent about his role in the film. Seems superfluous at times, though the role of the impartial narrator seems integral to the film. Rahul Dholakiya insists that a white guy had to play the narrator to emphasize this impartiality. Dunno, if that is strictly true. Also the idea of a foul-mouthed, vagabond, gandhi-researching American student might not be the perfect "clean" narrator that he wanted. But maybe he did not want that.

Sarika (playing Shernaz and not Shenaz), puts in a stellar performance. Big fan, will follow her forthcoming work keenly. Shades of Dimple Kapadia in DCH, but in a different kind of role. Very mature and restrained(but not overly so) in a role which offered full scope for brow-beating.

Would like to not talk about the "socially important", "this story needs to be told" type of commentary. Will like to point the (few) loyal readers to Amu, a film with a very similar subject but pulled off with more panache, IMHO. Also to articles about how Gujarati multiplex owners once again showed what smart businessmen they are, and how the Congress showed that it will try and gain mileage out of any stupid, small incident.

Note to self: writing these notes can be quite self-rewarding. Pat-on-the-back, and encouragement for the future.