April Snow (Oechul)

“If we met long ago or much later, what would we be?”

We find love in the most unexpected places, when we are least expecting it. I did too, for a man whose name I cannot say properly, whose language I do not understand, and who I am never going to meet. Yet he left me speechless with his acting in this movie I have watched three times in the last four days.

Sunday evening, I wanted to watch a movie, and was randomly browsing their “foreign movie” section when I accidentally saw the name “April Snow”. Intrigued, I read the synopsis, and started watching it. Two hours later, I had finished watching it, shaken to the core, sobbing, and knowing that my life would never feel the same again.

There are many famous, or not so famous movies you watch and like, and kind of forget. This, on the other hand, is an ordinary story narrated rather extraordinarily. Bae Yong-Joon and Son Ye-Jin are ordinary people, leading ordinary lives, when everything changes one fine day. Their spouses meet with an accident that leaves them in coma, and it is then that their spouses realize that they were having an affair. What we see over the next few weeks/months is how Bae and Son care for their respective spouses, and in the process of shared grief, they fall in love with each other. That is all that there is to the story. However, the way it is narrated is extraordinary. The first time I saw it, I was busy following the story. The next two times, I noticed all those subtle things that I had missed the first time. There are many things I loved about this movie. I’ll write down a few.

·         Snow: The story starts with a drive in the snow, and ends with a drive in the snow.

·         Cell phone: It makes them discover the affair, and the same cell phones, that unite the two at the end.

·         Ordinary people with extraordinary lives: Bae is a stage light designer for concerts, and Son does “household chores”. Unlike other movies, Bae is not a “hero” doing incredible stunts like beating up the goons, but an ordinary next door guy with glasses who could be your neighbor. A very hot neighbor. He does not wear fancy clothes, just jeans and a shirt (not tucked in) and a jacket most of the time, that adds to his appeal. Son is very pretty, but in a sad way. They show Bae crying in at least two scenes, one at the beginning in a bar, and one about fifteen minutes before the movie ends. This makes him seem more human.

·         The constant reference to the change in seasons, that perhaps marks the transition in their love life from winter to spring. Subtle references like the change in their clothes from heavy winter wear to spring wear, the way she buys him a plant (and not flowers) and asks him to make sure that the plant does not die. The way the plant is perched on top of the unopened boxes when he is eating dinner.

·         The utter lack of drama. They were both shocked to discover about the affair. There were tears too, from both sides. Yet it was all shown in a very dignified way. I love the scene where Bae tells his wife that at first he wanted to know, but now he does not. Because in the mean time, he himself fell in love with Son, and perhaps now empathizes with his wife.

·         Although Son has been portrayed as a very docile person, there are streaks of fieriness in her personality. Like when she enjoys running in the cold. And like how, despite hesitating, she decides to make love to Bae. Sure, there are tears, but there is no drama.

·         I love the little places in the movie. Like the motel they stay at, and the little eatery they eat at, with scrap papers on boards across the wall. And the corridor with floor to ceiling glass at the hospital.

·         My favorite scene in the movie is about fifteen minutes before the movie ends, when Son is at that eatery, looking at Bae from the window. Bae, who is in his room, has no idea that he is being watched, and in the next scene, he sobs uncontrollably. The musicthat plays when she is watching Bae breaks my heart every time I listen to it. At that moment, you pray that she steps outside, goes up to his room, and meets him. But she does not. Her husband died, his wife is out of coma, and she thinks that they will probably be reunited now, and she must leave them alone. So she walks out with her suitcases. Closely following this scene is my second favorite scene, where they walk by the sea after making love, and she asks him if they can take a picture together. Immediately, she realizes the gravity of it, and moves away, until he says yes. Once again, I see couples around me, flooding Facebook with their pictures together. Yet the couple in this movie took just one picture together, and it delivers a very powerful message.

·         Talking about favorite scenes, there is another one when the two are hanging out, peeling fruits. And Bae’s father-in-law knocks on the door. It is amazing, the way they act with composure, not panicking. She locks herself up in the bathroom, and later when he opens the door, she just says, “I’m okay.” And he goes and hugs her. One of the many many amazing things about this movie is how little the two people talk to each other, and how much they convey.

·         The most amazing thing is the open-ended ending of the story. As an optimist and a romantic, I would love to think that they united for life, but no one knows. I don’t hope for marriage or anything that screams a false sense of social security. I just hope that they got to be with each other for the rest of their life.

As you can see from my long rambling, I love the movie. This is the first Korean movie I have seen. I don’t know anything about Bae, I didn’t even know about his existence until three days ago. I don’t know how famous he is (although I Googled him, and found him dressed like a girl in many pictures, and I am really confused about that, because he is quite the hot guy in the movie). I don’t even know anything about his other movies. I know that he owns restaurants in Asia, and in Hawaii (that I definitely plan to visit someday). But I want to remember Bae as his character in the movie. Tall guy with glasses, loose jeans and a shirt and jacket, driving a powerful SUV and smoking cigarettes. I wonder why Hollywood hasn't discovered him yet. Of course I am listening to the music from this movie in a loop now. I also wish to go to Seoul now (the movie is based in Seoul), although going to Seoul doesn’t translate into meeting Bae. I just want to see that motel, that hospital, the place where they have dinner together, that walkway by the water where they walk in the night, and the city in general. I feel a connection with Seoul now. Because I have fallen in love with In-su, Bae’s character in the movie.

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Why Rockstar Rocks

We sometimes find ourselves wondering how a particular movie could do well when it had nothing really to show or say. On the other hand, some movies are made so well, yet are not appreciated by the larger audience. I have a theory about the disparity between the personal appreciation and mass appreciation of movies. We often find ourselves attracted to a form of art we connect to at a certain level. Movies are no exception. For example, I absolutely loved Rockstar despite the poor reviews it got. I connected to it at a certain level, which perhaps others did not. I loved the movie despite its obvious shortcomings, breaks in the linearity, many logical flaws and unanswered questions it evoked, the bad acting by Heer, and the non-uniform pace of the movie. No one knows why JJ visited Kashmir and still had to wait for a trip to Prague to meet Heer’s husband. No one knows what seeing a psychiatrist had to do with bone marrow aplasia. There are several such unanswered questions, unanswered to the logical mind. Yet the movie resonates at a certain level, probably echoing the artistic self. This is a dark movie, and some people do not appreciate darkness. I do not watch a movie expecting it to be realistic. Yet it is a work of art, and while we sometimes connect to art, we sometimes do not. It doesn’t matter who the female protagonist was, she might as well have been a tree trunk. For the movie is about JJ, his pain, his passions, his darkness of personality, and his saga of unrequited love. Have you ever read Wuthering Heights? JJ so reminded me of Heathchiff. The novel does not make sense at the logical level, and I have always thought Heathcliff’s obsession for Catherine was paranormal. Yet the novel is an epic, probably because it has appealed to generations at a certain level. The same goes for Rockstar. It was not so much a realistic tale for me as it was a work of art. The visuals, the cinematography, the music, the locales, and Ranbir Kapoor are the best things in the movie in no particular order. I loved seeing Prague on screen. I absolutely loved the character JJ, his passion, and Ranbir’s superb acting. Other than Ranbir, I think only Saif Ali Khan (who is a veteran in the field) could have done justice to the role (according to me). The character of JJ got me riveted. Who knows how things would turn out if this was a typical love story, where JJ meets Heer, they fall in love at first sight, he finds a job, they get married, have triplets, and so on? Ever wondered what happens to those love stories that do not fall in the socially normative spectrum? How do they find closure? Do they move on and find love with different people, or do they live in hopes that unrequited love will find closure someday? No one knows.

For every review that did not speak highly of the movie or Ranbir’s acting skills, I claim that I loved the movie. True, it is not the best made movie, and there are obvious flaws, but if you can watch the movie for what it is, rather than what it is not, you will perhaps enjoy the experience as much as I did.

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2 hours of watching 127 hours

My experience of watching the movie “127 hours” has been, for lack of a better word, harrowing. It took me much more than 2 hours to finish it actually. I started watching it, but had to pause repeatedly to take a break, breathe easy, drink some water, feel better, and wipe off the sweat. Then when I could take no more of the mental exhaustion, and I was not even half way through the movie, I fell asleep. I woke up the next morning and finished watching it, after more breaks, deep breathing, drinking water, and fast forwarding the gory parts of the movie.

So does this mean you should watch the movie, or does it mean you should not watch the movie?

Good question. The movie is so good that you will not be able to take your eyes off it. however, parts of it is so gory that you will wish you had not watched it. I have a weak stomach, I often fall sick at the sight of blood, and cringe in pain when someone gets hurt. You can imagine my condition here.

For the uninitiated, this is a movie based in my favorite place, Utah, telling you the true story of a man who loved outdoor activities (another thing I relate to), and often went alone for canyoneering without leaving behind a note. On one such occasion, he happened to be out there in the rocks, when his right hand got trapped under a loose boulder while jumping off a crevice. Unable to get help or take the boulder off his hand, he is stuck in the claustrophobic space, standing by a boulder, for 127 hours. How he survives those 127 hours, with limited water, no food, and harsh weather conditions, is astounding. What he does to free himself thus is another story. The good news is, unlike the movie “Into the woods”, he doesn’t die here. The bad news is, in order to survive, he cuts off his right hand with his blunt pen life out of desperation. I am cringing again as I write this post, to think that this is not fiction, but a true story. It is something to be sick, go to the doctors, and to be operated under anesthesia. It is something else to make a decision about whether you want to be stuck in between a rock and die, or bear the pain of chopping off your hand, without pain medication, and free yourself. We often watch supernatural and horror movies, to be scared by things which do not happen in our conscious space of existence most of the time. This movie will make you feel the same horror, at a magnified level, out of a true incident that could have happened to anyone of us. You will realize that sometimes fact can be way scarier than fiction.

To write a review about the movie is pointless here, of course the movie was well made, depicting every nuance, with great attention to detail, the fear when he realizes he is trapped, the pain, the desperation, the hallucination and comatose state after going without food or water for days, the survival strategies he is forced to take. It is in moments like this that I realize how small and fragile I am, compared to nature. If a rock can cause this much havoc, surely we are nothing compared to the power of things around us. By the time I was done watching the movie, I was crying, sobbing, unable to stop myself. To think of all the pain this person went through, and his self-determination and instinct to survive, is amazing. Honestly, I do not know what I would have done under such a situation. God forbid someone gets into such a situation.

Watch the movie, if you can take the sight of pain and blood. It will be a good reminder of your smallness compared to the world around you. Ever since I watched it, which was 3 days ago, I have subconsciously touched my right arm on multiple occasions, trying to feel the bones, the joints, and the flesh. I am thankful I have my limbs intact. And I am also thankful I fast forwarded the scenes where he chops off his arm. I don’t think I will ever have the courage to watch it.

Next, I am hunting for the book it was based on. Anyone has read it?

I salute you Aron Ralston. I bet you never thought a rock that came out of nowhere would change your life so much. I couldn’t have done what you did. Your indomitable spirit, courage, and determination are worth many such salutes.

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Life as we know it: Review

I wouldn’t be wasting my time writing a review if I didn’t like the movie. What baffles me after watching it, however, is how come it received such average reviews and responses. I am not talking of something phenomenal like “A beautiful mind” or “Shawshank Redemption”, but they belong to a different genre, and let’s not compare apples and oranges. As a romantic comedy, I think that the movie stands out. What I like best about it is the sense of balance and proportion- just the right amount of comedy, emotion, romance, drama, and tears. Nothing grossly overdone or overcooked, and the human emotions of happiness, doubt, and uncertainty so well depicted.

The formula of the movie works. When a good looking (lean, tall and handsome) man is seen with a cute baby, women suffer a hyper-secretion of whatever hormones that make you learn to sniff for a mate or coax him into fatherhood. When the man is big time into sports, rides a bike, shows up late for a first date and doesn’t seem to care, he becomes more endearing. On one hand there is “Doctor Free Range Turkey”, all “predictable and dependable”, and on the other hand there is Mr. Messer, someone who perpetually messes up things with the good looking and killer smiley Holly. When they get into a situation where they have to bring up Sophie together, neither one has a clue about what to do. They are scared, confused, and do not want to mess up. I love the way the movie develops part by part, scene by scene, and every little nuance that is added to it. Holly reads a book where they talk about giving babies time to “self-soothe” when they wake up. The way Messer makes up the songs instantly, “Keanu Reeves saves the bus”. The way “Doctor Love” says, “If I and my ex-wife fought that way, we’d still be married”. The way Messer’s gradual acceptance of Holly shows when he lets Holly ride his bike (Isn’t it is a big thing for men to let women touch their cars or bikes?). The way Messer demonstrates how he picks up women at the grocery stores, by being his charming self with a baby in arms (I loved the brilliant smile he flashes when Holly realizes he is picking up on her). And the best of all, Messer’s facial expression on two occasions, first, when Amy the baby sitter says “You both make a cute couple” (God knows how many times I have rewound the scene to watch the look he gives Holly), and second, when Holly and Messer argue during Thanksgiving and he replies to Holly’s “But not with a man who didn’t love me back” with “But I did. I still do”. Floodgates of emotions broke, and I was found shedding buckets of tears.

The film has its great moments and its aha moments. The baby is a pleasure to watch. Holly is an independent woman, yet unsure and vulnerable in just the right amount. The movie has no “ghyanghyane” and “panpyane” and “nyakamo” moments (can’t find an apt translation for these Bengali terms). And I would never take my eyes of Messer if I could help it. I could go on and on about the movie, the fine editing, the way one scene develops from another, the quick, witty retorts, and the fine eye for detail, but let me stop here. For a person who sleeps through most movies, it is big when I tell you I have watched the entire movie two and a half times in the last four days.

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Of death and killings

Before I forget I promised I would write about any good movies I watch, and watch more movies and forget what I watched, I ought to tell you that I watched two movies last week, but the upcoming exams kept me away from writing about them. Sweet November, I watched again, just out of impulse, and because I didn’t want to go to bed at 9 pm with nothing better to do. I both like and dislike the movie for various reasons. I love movies based in big cities I have been to, and San Francisco is always a favorite. Keanu Reeves is amazing in the movie, the workaholic, somewhat lost, overtly ambitious person. My favorite line from the movie is when he turns down the big offer saying, “It’s not about the offer, it is about you”. Watch it (free streaming on Netflix) and you will know what I mean.

However, there are questions in the movie I have no answer to. How did Sara know of Nelson? Why did she decide to help him? Why him at all? The way Nelson eventually succumbed to Sara’s demands of helping him did not make sense to me. However, Sara is a very unconventional character, and I did like her most of the time in the movie. Most of them time because as she approached senility, she really got, umm… weird.

Overall, an okay watch. Except if you like to watch Keanu Reeves, in which case, it is a must watch. The movie is called “Sweet November”.

The other one I watched, that everyone is talking about these days is “No One Killed Jessica”. I will spare you the review about how the movie is made, of course it is a well-made movie. More than that, I don’t see it as a movie made to pass judgment. For me, it is the story of a person who existed, and who was killed. I don’t care how the movie is made. All I know is it left me with a deep sense of sadness. I imagined what Jessica’s day would have been that day- she would have left for work, have made plans for the weekend, would have called her friends. And then someone with more power than brains decided to shoot her point blank because he wanted a drink. Why is there no justice, and why are people like him not killed in accidents, or are murdered themselves by more powerful guys with even lesser brains? Why don’t people feel pure rage and anger in these situations? Why is it so easy to be killed?

The one line I really liked in the movie was, “Mujhe ek karod rupaye nahi chahiye then. Par mujhe ek goli bhi nahi khaani thi” (I didn’t want money. But I didn’t want to be shot as an alternative).

Now that the exam season is almost here, I’ll look forward to more netflixing when they are over. For me, netflixing has almost become a verb these days.

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Sparks Fly

With watching “The Last Song” amidst a crazy preliminary exam schedule, I finally finished all the six movies of the Nicholas Sparks series. By this time, I had (partly) known what the story would be like, even without having read the storyline. I was sure that the story would be a love story located in a beach town, there would be love followed by temporary separation, the locales would be picturesque, with birds flying and the sunlight shimmering on the waves of the Atlantic, there would be an amazing house (possibly overlooking the sea), and someone important would eventually die. Death could be due to an unexpected illness like cancer (I was right). The movie would be shot in North Carolina (I was almost right, it was shot near the NC-GA border, in a place called Tybee Island). There might be unread letters and messages exchanged (I was right again). I know all this because the movies based on Nicholas Sparks’s novels are made in a mixer using a common formula. Add a teenager couple in love or a middle-aged couple with broken relationships, looking for love. Mix some drama in their loveless lives. Ensure that the woman is an annoying character while the man is an absolutely “unable-to-take-my-eyes-off-your-body”, brawny, gorgeous hunk you would drool over. The house would be more gorgeous than the man, and the beach locales would be more gorgeous than the house. As predictable as a Suraj Barjatya or a Yash Chopra movie in Bollywood, that is the formula for these movies.

The only movie that was somewhat different was “The Notebook”. As usual, one of the characters suffer here, but from senility and Alzheimer’s disease and not from cancer and untimed death at a young age. Of all the six movies, “The Notebook” is the one I liked the most (I have already watched it five times). From there, the journey went downhill and the other movies turned out to be a little disappointing. You can always read the story and the review, so I will spare you that. When you have watched all of them, you will identify a common theme that binds all the movies, despite them all coming from different directors. All of them have been tearjerkers, and nothing extraordinarily brilliant, but I still wanted to watch them all, one after the other, and the end of each one, I cried buckets.

The Notebook: Nice way of storytelling, partly in flashback. Dude looks great. Chick is annoying. The house is great. The scene were they boat amidst a swarm of birds is a visual treat. The scene where Noah says, “It wasn’t over. It still isn’t over” and kisses Allie still makes my stomach flutter, given the passionate way it is done. The locales, the rains, and the sun are amazing. The old Noah in no way resembles the youthful Noah. Overall, highly recommended.

A Walk to Remember: Landon made me feel like a teenager again. Jamie was not just boring, she is lifeless. I wonder what was her point of wearing such ill-fitting clothes. I am madly in love with the song “Only Hope” from the movie, and still listen to it half a dozen times every day (the male version by Switchfoot is better than the female version). I didn’t like the way when everything was going right, Jamie had to die of cancer. Nice houses and great locations. Cried buckets for Landon. Overall, quite a watchable movie.

Nights in Rodanthe: The house and the beach are enough reasons for you to watch the movie. Paul is good, Adrienne is so-so. Nothing much to recommend. Wonder why Paul dies once again when they both fell in love and decided to reunite. If nothing, watch the movie for the house. Overall, didn’t mind watching it once.

Message in a Bottle: I wonder why Garrett is so old, slow, and grumpy. Frankly, I fail to see the chemistry between Garrett and Theresa (who herself is pretty unglamorous in the role). I loved the concept of finding letters in bottles. The scenes from the sea and the boat on sail are absolutely gorgeous. Once again, when everything gets going, Garrett drowns in the sea and dies. Overall, somehow sat through it once.

The Last Song: Both Ronnie and Will were very painful to watch in the movie, especially Ronnie, with her husky voice and her man-like, rebellious acting. A nice house and a great beach. Even a bad observer for details like me found a few flaws in the movie. In one of the scenes, Will and Ronnie hug each other by the setting sun and night follows. Just that it is the Atlantic Ocean and it was the dawning sun, not the setting sun. I wonder why someone as rich and as influential as Will would drive a truck, volunteer at the local aquarium, and play volleyball with a bunch of local boys. A lot of things just didn’t make sense in the movie. Thankfully, neither Will nor Ronnie die, but Steve dies of lung cancer. Overall, painfully sat through the movie once.

Dear John: John is great to watch, but Savannah is unbearable. John’s father is an interesting character in the movie. I haven’t read the book, and I have heard that it is somewhat different from the movie. I could barely sit through the movie. I have no idea why Savannah had to terminate their relationship and marry someone else, why her husband had to suffer from cancer, and why did John leave all his money for the treatment of her husband. A lot of things didn’t make sense to me in the movie, and if I knew better, I would not watch it.

So there goes my short synopsis of all the six movies. Wonder which book the next movie would be based on.

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A future trip to Rodanthe

I can spend hours looking at maps and fantasizing about traveling to an unknown place. Sometimes I come across a name that fascinates me so much that I read up all I can about it. Sometimes I watch a movie and am so enamored by a place that I end up visiting it. That is how Vienna happened to me earlier this summer, after watching the movie “Before Sunrise” multiple times. After hours of walking on the streets of Vienna, I even found the bridge where Jesse and Celine walked while the trains passed by. What a eureka moment that was for me.

I recently watched the movie “Nights in Rodanthe” and have been unable to take my mind off it ever since. Based on a story written by Nicholas Sparks (whose novels have been giving me a lot of wide-eyed, lachrymose nights ever since), there was something magical about the place, and the house where the movie was shot. Leave aside the endearing story plot, the great acting by Richard Gere and Diane Lane, and the heart wrenching realities of life that makes sitting with a box of tissues while watching this movie mandatory. I fell head over heels in love with the location and the house. Everything was so blue, the magnificent coasts of North Carolina, the sea, the birds, the wooden bridge, and the lovely house. You should see the house for yourself, if you are an admirer of nice houses in movies like I am, you will fall in love with this one (the other house I fell in love with was the one from “The Notebook” that Noah built for Allie, based on a novel written by Sparks again). After watching the movie, I could imagine myself sitting by the beach watching the sunrise and admiring the beauty of the oceans forever.

So, whenever the weather gets better, and there is more sunshine and warmth, I am going to drive down to Rodanthe, no matter how long it takes me. I am going to try finding the house (unless they have dismantled it) and am going to sit by the beach for hours watching the ocean. There is a possibility that perhaps everything was spruced up for the movie and the place is actually not that pretty as it was made to seem in was. I will find that out for myself when I visit the much acclaimed beaches of North Carolina perhaps sometime next year. For now, this movie has given me the name of a random place I never knew existed, that I can look up on the map and drive to. And I so hope the place lives up to my expectations.

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“Rab”bing it in

Note: The reader is responsible for his/her own pinch of salt (s)he will be taking this with. The stuff you read is solely my opinion and it doesn't really matter whether you agree or disagree.

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In a world where truths like mate hunting, grooming, courtship, and shaadi.com exist, not necessarily in that order, the alternative school of belief that preaches that God takes care of your soul mate hunt is somewhat worth debating. Of course reverting to anything remotely related to God for things gone wrong in life is instinctive and age old. But I find it amusing that God challenges the evolutionary school of thought and thereby mocks the concept that man must find his own mate, and in the process, learn the basic skills of grooming, hunting, and courting.

It’s a relief for many I’m sure, especially those belonging to the frustrating, unmet and un”mated” life. A very starry eyed teenager preparing for my boards, I’d sighed in relief when Madhuri Dixit in Dil To Pagal Hai (DTPH) had beamed with confidence upon SRK’s question of how to identify if the person you just met was the one, pointing Heavenword, “Woh tumhe batayega” (God will tell you). I had happily gone back to my chemistry books, a heavily bespectacled and pimple faced high school aspirant, believing in Madhuri’s theory combined with ma’s theory that a good student always finds the right husband. And that too- on time.

Over and over again, Bollywood has tried resurrecting the belief that God is going to take care of something as important, and also as painstaking, frustrating and time taking as finding a mate. 5 years before DTPH, Kajol, in a similarly starry eyed role in DDLJ, had reverted to finding the “anjana chehra” and “jise maine dekha nahi” (The unknown face of the lover she had never seen). The force of God, and equally powerful being the force of the invisible and unknown, had surely made every teenager believe that the man of your dreams was the unseen, unknown stranger who’d knock your doorbell one fine morning, and was of course Godsent.

A decade after DTPH, Rab ne banaa di jodi (RNBDJ) once again tries to infuse similar beliefs in the name of God. Matches are made in Heaven, and are sent to us on planet earth in the most unlikely and untimely way. How else would you explain the wedding of the two protagonist right after the lady lost her fiancé and her father in a matter of days? Because God had made the match long ago in Heaven, and by some quirk of fate, had sent your mate on planet earth and had conspired a co-ordinate crossing in the most unusual circumstances.

I can think of many other movies that preached the concept of God match making and sending us out mates in a weird array of coincidental events. This was meant to be a relief for not just the ones who hadn’t found their mates (God will take care of it), but the ones with mismatched mates. The day you realized you’d married a buffoon for a husband, you could conveniently blame it all on fate and God, that it was God who decided the match, and the only thing important was, not money, not status, not the make of the car he drove, not the team he worked for in Microsoft, but the fact that “Woh tumhe deewanon ki tarah chahega” (He will love you insanely) (Courtesy: RNBDJ). Frankly, I once bought into this theory of God taking care of my single status and sending me the right man at the right time. Probably my stupidity explains the reason why I am still single, and highly run the risk of dying a spinster.

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