“Wanna fuck?”

“Wanna fuck?”

I had just ambled my way up from the platform at the Place des Arts Metro station and was waiting for the bus in the warmth just inside the double-glazed glass doors, peering at the snow-laden outside. That’s when the rather runty fellow with the somewhat shifty eyes and definitely shifty gait had inched over to me.

“Haven’t we met?” he asked, smiling.

I would’ve remembered if we had, though not for the reasons so often vomited forth by Messrs. Mills and Boon. He was about my height, so not very tall, especially for a North American male. His hair was a mess of mousy curls, with just a hint of winter dandruff; his moustache was, well, barely the beginning of one, and his smile revealed a gap between his front teeth that I could imagine shoving a sizable toothpick through. But I truly am not a lookist so I smiled back.

“I don’t think so.”

“Are you sure?”

“Mm hmm.”

“Isn’t your name Lucia? We met in Toronto.”

Lucia?

“I’ve never been to Toronto.”

“But your name is Lucia?”

“Nope.” Still smiling.

“But you’re Italian right?”

I have some English blood but no Italian as far as I’m aware.

“Nope. Pakistani.”

His shifty eyes widened. “Really? You don’t look it.”

I got that a lot in Montreal. A hairdresser once even said she thought all Pakistanis were ‘dark and ugly’, which perhaps should’ve boosted my ego a little but only made me grumpy. I didn’t go back to her again.

“Yes, really.”

“Well, you’re very pretty. No, sexy… so sexy…”

Ah! There it was! My first pick-up in a strange land. Not knowing quite how to respond, I just let out an odd spluttering sound from my nose and started out the door. (The bus had just pooshed! in).

“So tell me about your country.”

There were no vacant seats on the bus so I had to stand alongside him.

“Well, it’s next to India.” (I found that it was necessary at that time to point this out to most goras; at least us Pakis don’t have to do that anymore). “It’s very hot there most of the year, so I’m finding it hard to get used to the cold.” I emitted what I hoped was a sweet, guileless, utterly babe-in-the-woods kind of chuckle.

“Uh huh, uh huh… Wanna fuck?”

At once my mind raced back to the countless instances when I had encountered the desi version of this back in the land of the pure. Of course, our sheedas had almost always shown enough restraint to not be so direct. The most I had had to endure were the kissy noises or the ubiquitous singing of the filmi song. Friends had not always been so lucky to get ‘decent’ ‘eve-teasers’. One had been pinched in Liberty Market while out shopping for bangles on the eve of Eid. Unfortunately for the pincher, said friend was hardly the shrinking violet type and she chased him down and slapped him in front of the suitably impressed crowd. Another friend, equally, if not more, plucky, was felt up through her open car window while stopped at a red light. Her tormentor thought he would make a smooth getaway on his Kawasaki but had obviously forgotten that Lahori traffic can trip up even the most slippery of folk. He zoomed off after extracting his hand but was stopped dead when the cars up ahead refused to budge for no apparent reason. Meanwhile, my friend roared up in her Alto, rammed straight into him and then drove off without a glance backwards.

But that was back home. This was the First World, the civilized world. I had never created a fuss back there, for that is what we are tacitly taught to do, and I certainly didn’t want to be a self-righteous, hysterical touch-me-not here.

“So, wanna fuck?”

The seat just to the left of me was now empty.

“Uh, no thank you” I said cheerfully, and sat down.

It was a long ride home.

Michelangelo Antonioni

It must have irked Ingmar Bergman no end that in death he had to share the limelight with one of his least favourite fellow filmmakers – Italian Michelangelo Antonioni, who happened to die on the exact same day, at the age of  94. Antonioni’s cinematic preoccupations and explorations were often close thematically to his Swedish counterpart’s, but his style was a completely different animal. Where Bergman allowed his emotional palettes to be laid bare in his work, Antonioni’s canvas was spare, stark and frigid. His characters, as distanced from themselves and each other as they were from the audience, often seemed to merely exist rather than to live, drifting against their non-descript, melancholic backdrops, their lives purposeless and filled with nothing but ennui. The director said that his screenplays reflected his view of the modern age of reason and science, where mankind still lives by “a rigid and stereotyped morality which all of us recognize as such and yet sustain out of cowardice and sheer laziness.”

 

Antonioni would let his camera linger endlessly on his characters’ state of emptiness. By choosing to stay with a certain image far longer than others would have, he forced his audience to focus their attention on the implications of this technical and artistic choice. In L’Eclisse (1962), for example, the camera stays on Monica Vitti as she stares curiously at electrical posts. And again, in Red Desert (1964), Antonioni expressed the lack of forward momentum in his characters’ lives by employing a series of long takes with little movement and little to no dialogue. Needless to say, he didn’t connect with a universal audience, but did find staunch champions among art-house aficionados and critics.

 

Unlike most of his European contemporaries, Antonioni did at one point venture into making English language films. The first of these, Blowup (1966) was a commercial and critical success and provided the blueprint for Brain De Palma’s 1980 John Travolta vehicle Blow-out. Though the film’s theme was a challenging one – looking at the subjective nature of truth and memory – in other ways, it was far more accessible than his other more esoteric work. He was rewarded with his sole Oscar nomination for Best Director, and the film is still considered a key text of the 60s. The Passenger (1975), starring Jack Nicholson, was a commercial failure, but had much going for it artistically, not least of which was a seven-minute take, that, for its darkness and beauty, remains one of the most remarkable shots in film history.

Unlike his fellow countryman Federico Fellini, Antonioni never became Hollywood’s exotic flavour of the month, but his work did permeate the sensibilities of many a future filmmaker, many of whom count his work as a major influence. Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar Wai’s sparse emotional landscapes surely owe a debt to Antonioni.

Felled by a stroke in the 80s, Antonioni nevertheless returned to glory again, collaborating with German filmmaker Wim Wenders on the wondrous Beyond the Clouds in 1995. A work of stunning visual beauty, the film was based on Antonioni’s own short stories and brought him great acclaim anew. The director himself was characteristically philosophical about his work and his ‘comeback’: “A director is a man, therefore he has ideas; he is also an artist, therefore he has imagination. Whether they are good or bad, it seems to me that I have an abundance of stories to tell. And the things I see, the things that happen to me, continually renew the supply… I am not a theoretician of the cinema. If you ask me what directing is, the first answer that comes into my head is: I don’t know. The second: All my opinions on the subject are in my films.”

The following year, Michelangelo Antonioni was awarded an Honorary Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement. He was introduced by his one-time star Jack Nicholson with these words:

“In the empty, silent spaces of the world, he has found metaphors that illuminate the silent places of our hearts, and found in them, too, a strange and terrible beauty: austere, elegant, enigmatic, haunting.”

 

R.I.P.

R.I.P: Ingmar Bergman

“Ingmar Bergman is dead.”

 

“Isn’t she the one who was in Casablanca? How sad.”

 

“No, that was Ingrid Bergman. Ingmar Bergman was a man.”

 

“Oh, I see. Was he Ingrid’s father?”

 

Philistinism can be so infuriating. Especially cinematic philistinism, to a cinephile like me. But I imagine that when the legendary director from Sweden died last month at the age of 89, many conversations in the vein of the one above must have followed. Bergman was a deservedly acknowledged and much lauded master of the cinema – the Academy loved him, awarding him a record three Best Foreign Language Film Oscars (a record bested only by Federico Fellini’s four wins), he in turn is idolized by innumerable filmmakers, Woody Allen and our very own Mehreen Jabbar among them – but I would venture that fewer and fewer younger people know who he was. We, as a species, are forgetful (ergo all the repeating of history); well, our loss I say. If the blog generation is unfamiliar with the connotations of the adjective ‘Bergmanesque’, then they are poorer for it.

 

My first brush with Bergman came when I was twelve – that’s what comes of being born in a family with a strong arty ‘brought-up’. Having ditched school because of a non-existent stomach ache, and finding myself alone and bored, I happened to pop into our spanking new VCR a tape of Fanny and Alexander (1982), which was a good choice since, as I was to learn much later, some have called that Bergman’s most accessible film (‘foreign’ films, it seems, are generally incomprehensible to mere mortals). One moment from it took my breath away and has stayed with me since: the two children of the title are playing hide-and-seek on a quiet afternoon in the family home. Alexander, hiding underneath a table, peeks out and glances at a marble statue that has fascinated and haunted his imagination forever. Then, as his eyes pop in wonder, the statue moves… I was enchanted.

 

My second encounter with Bergman occurred almost a decade later when, as a student at film school, I saw Cries and Whispers (1972), the first of only three foreign language films ever nominated for a Best Film Oscar. A film of immense visceral power and visual beauty, it shocked with its stark and brutal view of human frailty and hypocrisy. It was a far cry from the gentle and nostalgic lyricism of Fanny and Alexander. All the more intriguing because Cries and Whispers had been made a full ten years before Fanny and Alexander. Like so many artists, it seemed Bergman too had mellowed with age, the latter film reading like an ode filled with a longing to return to a more innocent, gentle age. Indeed, he expressed just such a yearning some years later: “I’m deeply fixated on my childhood. Some impressions are extremely vivid, light, smell, and all. There are moments when I can wander through my childhood’s landscape, through rooms long ago, remember how they were furnished, where the pictures hung on the walls, the way the light fell. It’s like a film – little scraps of a film, which I set running and which I can reconstruct to the last detail – except their smell.”

 

Bergman himself, of course, was often far from gentle in his appraisals of fellow members of the film fraternity. He famously turned up his nose at Italian impressionist Michelangelo Antonioni: “He’s done two masterpieces, you don’t have to bother with the rest… [Though there are brilliant moments in his films] Antonioni never really learned the trade. He concentrated on single images, never realizing that film is a rhythmic flow of images, a movement. I never understood why Antonioni was so incredibly applauded. And I thought his muse Monica Vitti was a terrible actress.” He also expressed derision for Hollywood’s ‘boy wonder’ Orson Welles calling him “a hoax”, and his revered opus Citizen Kane “empty, dead, a total bore… The amount of respect that movie’s got is absolutely unbelievable.” He was, however, impressed with Spielberg, Scorsese and Coppola, and held the highest regard for Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky calling him “the greatest of them all.” Fellini, too, found favour with the Swede: “He is intuitive; he is creative; he is an enormous force.”

 

So what does Bergmanesque actually mean? The director himself said that it implied a preference for intuition over intellect, as well as the exploration of themes of mortality, loneliness, and faith. The notion of female sexuality was also often at the core of his films, most notably in Persona (1966), perhaps his most experimental and uncharacteristic film, for visually, his work tended to be direct and austere, rather than overtly stylized . His actors were often encouraged to improvise dialogue, and his propensity for capturing them in extreme close-up became his trademark, as did his dynamic lighting technique. Most importantly, though, he seemed to use his films as an instrument of personal catharsis, infusing them with an emotional resonance that is almost unparalleled.

 

For a time, Bergman fell out of favour with his champions, both among his audience as well as film critics. The emotionality of his work became an easy target, just as Chaplin’s penchant for pathos had also lost him fans in the post-70s Reaganesque climate. As in so many other instances, though, critics reconnected with his work in the late 90s, and he was proclaimed the world’s greatest living filmmaker by Time magazine, in 2005. From the Grim Reaper of The Seventh Seal (1957), and Van Halen’s song of the same name, to being a target of loving parody in everything from The Simpsons to French and Saunders, without even being aware of it, a number of our cultural markers come from Bergman’s films.

 And that is immortality. 

Teesri Manzil: The Soundtrack

Just as apple pie is incomplete without that generous dollop of ice-cream, as Laurel is without Hardy, as Butt is without Bhatti, so too the soundtrack of our lives would be incomplete without the sonorous sounds of the late, great Panchamda a.k.a. Rahul Dev (R.D.) Burman, scion of maestro Sachin Dev (S.D.) Burman, and Bollywood music man extraordinaire. Where would we be without ‘Tere Bina Zindagi Se Koi’, or ‘Piya Tu Ab To Aaja’, or, ‘Raina Beeti Jaaey’, or ‘Ek Larki Ko Dekha To Aisa Laga’? Certainly poorer, soul-wise. 

 

A musical prodigy from an early age, R.D. started his stint in the industry by assisting his illustrious father, who had already acknowledged his son’s genius by ‘borrowing’ the latter’s tune for one of his film assignments, which would become ‘Ae Meri Topi Palat Ke Aa’. Teesri Manzil was his first big budget, starry opus, with superstars Shammi Kapoor and Asha Parekh in the lead roles, as well as Helen, there for the seetees. After its resounding success, R.D. would become ensconced as the composer for Nasir Husain Films’ colourful extravaganzas, including Caravan, Hum Kissise Kum Nahin, Yaadon Ki Baraat, and Zamaane Ko Dihkana Hai.

 

The soundtrack for Teesri Manzil was another example of R.D.’s affinity for Western grooves and instrumentation. Where earlier he had urged people ‘Aao Twist Karein’ in Bhoot Bangla, here he doffs his feather-infested cap to rock ‘n roll. And he has at his disposal the inimitable vocal expertise of Mohammed Rafi and Asha Bhosle, as well as Majrooh Sultanpuri to pen the lyrics.

 

Rafi’s association with Panchamda would go a long way in establishing him as a playback singer of great versatility. Since the beginning of his career, Rafi’s mastery over all elements of shastriya sangeet made him the choice for the predominant musical stylings of the 50s i.e. ballads, ghazals, and light classical numbers in the vein of those worked by Naushad and company for films like Baiju Bawra, Basant Bahar etc. It was first O.P. Nayyar and then, more significantly, S.D. and son R.D. who experimented with him in a more modern mode. Teesri Manzil and beyond saw Rafi also gaining incredible command over boisterous, contemporary, jazz-inspired numbers, thereby ensuring that his vocal elegance did not go the way of the dodo when Bollywood musicals tastes started to veer away from the classical era in the 60s and 70s, towards a more ‘Western’ tempo and melody. Where Rafi had crooned the astonishing ‘Madhuban Mein Radhika Naache Re’, in Raag Hameer, for Kohinoor, he graduated to the infectious rebel yell of ‘Yahoo! Koi Mujhe Junglee Kahe’ for Junglee, to the breathtaking middle-ground of ‘Chura Liya Hai Tum Ne Jo Dil Ko’ for Yaadon Ki Baraat. And the second half of his journey started right here with Teesri Manzil.

 

And Rafi is matched note-for-note by Asha Bhosle, finally emerging tentatively from under her didi Lata Mangeshkar’s looming shadow. Championed earlier by O.P. Nayyar, Asha was nevertheless mostly called upon to sing for vamps of the Kitty-Suzie variety rather than for the heroines. Here though, she gets to sing for both and does a darn fine job of it. Although she does not get a solo here, she is never overshadowed by her more experienced cohort, and more than holds her own in their duets.

 

Take, for instance, the wonder that is ‘O Haseena Zulfon Wali’, a complete blast of a number which bears all the trademark jazzed up instrumentation that we associate with the big Nasir Hussain musical epics, with trumpets, saxophones and electric guitars embroiled in a fiery pas de deux with the driving rock ‘n roll drum line. Listen in particular to the drum solo that launches the tune, at par with any Western percussion you may have heard. Rafi is in great, flamboyant form, clearly relishing his lot. And then Asha makes her entry, all sultry and dripping with seductive panache: “Woh anjana dhoondti hoon, woh  deewana dhoondti hoon, jala kar jo chup gaya hai, woh parwana dhoondti hoon.” Her vocals charms are matched onscreen by a never-better Helen, encased in lycra and silk and giving as good as she gets. And later, at the end of the antara, the pace quickens and she exclaims “Main bhi hoon galiyon ki parchai, Kabhi yahan kabhi wahan, Shaam hi se kuch ho jaata hai, Mera bhi jaadu jawaan!”, to be met with a bevy of trumpet blasts that leads us back to the mukhra. And what eye candy the visuals are, with dynamic camera movement and an amazing psychedelic set with a giant Dali-esque eye that’ll make your head spin.

 

The second great dance number from the film is the musical adrenaline shot of ‘Aaja Aaja Mein Hoon Pyaar Tera’. In the same tradition as Shankar-Jaikishen’s composition ‘Jaan Pehchaan Ho’ from Gumnaam, made a year earlier (and immortalized further as Thora Birch’s getting-down song of choice in Ghost World), this is one rock ‘n roll locomotive that has and will never need a jhankar-ification, so potent is its boogie pedigree. With its irresistible guitar riff, thumping bass line, cunning brass section, and breathtaking rhythm, it knocks your socks off. And the Asha-Rafi vocal interplay is so infectious as to be a medical hazard! I challenge you to hear the rather suggestive ‘A-a-aaja A-a-aaja’ section, combined with sly notes on the trombone, and not be compelled to shimmy and shake along.

 

Probably the least well-known song on the soundtrack is the underrated ‘Dekhiye Saahibo Woh Koi Aur Thi’, which, admittedly is a very situational number and not as easy to appreciate as a standalone piece, but there is still much to recommend it. Rafi’s vocal, for instance, is quite experimental here, with the opening verse playing like a kind of staccato singing style that is highly unusual and works beautifully with the stop-and-start rhythm of the song. Special mention must also be made of the picturisation, which takes place at a mela, and boasts some awesome camerawork.

 

Rafi’s breezy ‘Deewana Mujhsa Nahin Is Ambar Ke Neeche’ is a lovely medium-tempo number that oozes hill-station romance circa the 60s. With minimalist orchestration that also uses a subtle jaltarang, this one is an immortal classic for the aashiq in all of us.

 

In many ways, the strongest track on the record is ‘Tumne Mujhe Dekha’. Employing one of R.D’s favourite secret weapons (used to wonderful effect in ‘Yeh Larka Hai Allah’ from Hum Kissi Se Kum Nahin) i.e. an instrumental intro that contrasts sharply with the main body of the song, it starts off with a rocking intro but then segues into a torch song of amazing intensity, which is at once dark and luminous. Rafi’s searing rendition scorches the soul, emphasizing the depth of Majrooh’s filmi but soulful lyrics: “O kahin dard ke sehra main, Rukte chalte hote, In hothon ki hasrat main, Tapte jalte hote, Meherbaan hogayi zulf ki badliyan… Jaan-e-man, Jaan-e-jaan…” Matchless!

 

It is really no wonder that ‘O Mere Sona’ is a perennial favourite with remix ‘musicians’; the melody is so alluring, so full of spice and zing, that the song refuses to age in the slightest. Although it is not technically a solo – Rafi sings a few lines at the end – this is Asha’s song all the way. To use a cliché, her voice is like a finely tuned instrument that scales the highs and lows of the tune with such remarkable élan that it is impossible not to get blown away. The vocal exuberance is complemented by some elegant sections on the accordion, which are a highlight.

 

Among all of R.D. Burman’s Bollywood projects, Teesri Manzil is surely a priceless jewel, and considering that his oeuvre consists of the likes of Amar Prem, Aandhi, Masoom, and Ijaazat, that is saying something.

 

Enough said!

Transformers: A review

Dir: Michael Bay

*ing: Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Jon Voight

 Bet you didn’t see this one coming. Yes, usually this reviewer is entrusted with the ‘issue’ films – you know, so somber and ‘important’ they give you a nosebleed. But one needs a break from all that guilt-inducing righteousness now and then. After all, cod liver oil may be good for you, but nothing hits the spot like a chocolate shake. And I happen to like inflated-budget concoctions just as much as the next 14 year-old geek with an unnatural sci-fi fixation. To be sure, even among that fare, we usually prefer the darker, more intellectually challenging stuff, like Blade Runner. But at other times, we just want ‘em big, dumb, and soaked knee-deep in testosterone.

 Which brings us to Transformers, the latest bazillion-dollar smorgasbord from Michael Bay, the prince of indiscriminate explosions. After wreaking cinematic havoc at Pearl Harbor, The Rock, and The Island, here he is putting the world into grave and immediate danger, with the tagline ‘Their war. Our world.’ As for the plot…

 Ever get the feeling that your car has a mind of its own? Well, turns out that it just might. The movie, you see, is about these ordinary, everyday machines that transform into big-ass, ultra-powerful, um, machines. But that’s not lame because they’re from outer space and anything that’s from outer space is automatically cool. There’s also some sort of power gizmo they’re after and, during their quest, vow to protect us poor earthlings – put-upon teenager Sam (La Beouf) and high school hottie Mikaela (Fox) chief among them – from an evil, renegade band of… machines. Well, with a story based on a bunch of slightly weird toys and a cheesy 80s cartoon series, you were expecting Hemingway?

 But as silly films with laughable plots go, Transformers is, well certainly not the best, but sort of the filmic equivalent of the little engine that could. It’s totally ridiculous but you gotta love it. It’s a couple of barrels full of fun, and as everyone knows, fun beats meaningful and coherent hands down any day. The first half, especially, gambols along winningly, with some inspired moments of humour that are laugh-out-loud funny – check out the overgrown gadgets trying to ‘hide’ from Sam’s parents.

 But what’s an f/x movie without f/x? And the ones on display here are (mostly) pretty darn spectacular. The action set-pieces may be on the comme çi comme ça side – explosion is an explosion is an explosion – but the autobot transformation sequences are truly breathtaking and never cease to shock and awe. Really, it’s only when the movie stupidly attempts to get all serious and message-y that it lays a few leaden eggs, but those instances are easily ignored.

 Transformers also has an ace up its sleeve in the person of Shia Labeouf, a gifted actor who has pints of charisma and an easy, guileless charm reminiscent of Jimmy Stewart, or Tom Hanks without the annoying earnestness. With another sleeper hit – Disturbia – under his belt this year, Labeouf is surely destined to be a big star, even though his parents are probably the only people on earth who can pronounce his name correctly.

 By now, any and all silly puns about Megan Fox have been exhausted. As in, her name is Fox and, you know – nudge nudge, wink, wink – she also is one. So as one of those Pussycat Dolls might say, I won’t go there. Suffice to say, though, for all her histrionic abilities, she could just as easily have been called Megan Balsawood.

 All in all, Transformers is 144 minutes well spent. I do have one gripe though. Why are all the transformers male? Über lunks with super-macho vocals to rival those of James Earl Jones? I mean, if a few of them were girls, they could have resolved all their differences over a shoe-shopping spree and been home in time for cocktails, without all that unnecessary unpleasantness. But I guess then it would have been a really short chick flick. And it would have been called Machine Sex and the City.

Provoked: A Review

Provoked

Dir: Jag Mundhra

Aishwariya Rai, Naveen Andrews, Miranda Richardson, Nandita Das

 

One always tries to go into critic mode with an open mind, but you know a film must be approached with due apprehension when the first point of discussion about it among all one’s friends is that said film contains a shot of Naveen ‘Lost’ Andrews’ bare bottom. Though I am certainly not one to tut-tut anyone’s naked whatsits, it does throw a smidge of a spanner in the works when the cinematic venture in question is intended to be a somber, humbling indictment of silent suffering in the face of domestic abuse, and inspired by a true story, no less.

 

Kiranjit Ahluwalia (Rai), an Indian Punjabi expat living in London, is jailed for setting fire to and killing her violent, alcoholic husband Deepak (Andrews) after enduring ten long years of abuse and torture at his hands. The British legal system fails to see grounds for self-defence or provocation but a group of activists called the Southall Black Sisters, led by Radha Dalal (Nandita Das) vows to fight for her release. Meanwhile, Kiran is befriended by cellmate Ronnie (Miranda Richardson) who helps to build her self-esteem and coax her out of her shell.

 

Falling prey to the same hiccups that plagued the Charlize Theron vehicle North Country, the melodramatic script of Provoked employs gross stereotypes to stack the emotional decks unmistakably in Kiran’s favour. Here then, for your consideration, is the nasty, chauvinist SOB of a police detective who decides to hate Kiran for no apparent reason; the scowling, unsympathetic male judge who pretty much directs the jury to convict her, come what may; the achingly earnest activists who all but have haloes hovering above their noggins; the requisite butch lesbian tormentor in the prison whom Kiran eventually stands up to in one of the film’s several contrived (but rarely rousing) rah-rah sequences. The scenes surrounding these one-note characters are so ploddingly rote that they not only make for cringe-inducing filmmaking , but also end up trivializing the gravity of the issues at hand (a criticism also leveled at the film by the real-life Southall Black Sisters).

 

The biggest problem with the script however, is the fatally underwritten character of the protagonist. Carl Austin and Rahila Gupta’s collective pen reduces Kiran to a purely reactive, mere wisp of a person. She may spout the obligatory pearls of acquired wisdom at the end, but we never see her growth, her transition from victim to toughened survivor. As essayed by Rai, she stays the same whispery, mousy person, all moist-eyed and pensive from start to finish.

 

To be fair, Mrs. Junior Bachchan makes a valiant effort and strikes an emotional chord in a number of otherwise maudlin scenes. But ultimately her performance only serves to confirm what one has suspected for some time: that our Ash is not an instinctive actor or one who has an innate mastery over the craft. Rather, her style is an amalgam of gestures, expressions and mannerisms acquired by observing other (superior) actors. That is why all her performances, even the more credible ones, end up looking like cliched imitations of other performances. Like a print of a masterwork, it may adorn many walls but nobody’s going to mistake it for the real McCoy.

 

Jag Mundhra’s pedestrian direction doesn’t help. Otherwise known as India’s king of soft-core porn, the director has attempted to tackle more clothed fare before, most notably with Bawandar, but his skills are functional at best. Under his captainship, the film looks and feels like a low-budget made-for-Third-World-TV movie, with uninteresting camerawork and an awkward, leaden screenplay. However, most of the film’s supporting cast acquits itself commendably, in particular the always brilliant Richardson.

 

The bottom-line is that apart from the novelty value of seeing a South Asian movie icon treading water in an English-language film, Provoked doesn’t have much on offer. Sure, there are times when one is really in the mood for a film about a poor, downtrodden woman getting the living daylights beaten out of her by her rat-bastard husband, and then getting her own back (after all, there were people willing to shell out the dough to see Julia Roberts getting kicked around by Patrick Bergin in Sleeping with the Enemy), but is Provoked the one that would satisfactorily gratify that jones? There are of course many great films which espouse the same message, namely that life is crap and there but for the grace of God go I. But they say so in far subtler and cinematically compelling ways. There is one thing, though, that the film does inspire one to do: read ‘Circle of Light’, the real Kiranjit Ahluwalia’s story in her own words.

A po-yem

Everytime I get

a zit

All I can say

is ’shit’

I really ought to improve

my vocabulary

And so I bid thee adieu

I is off to the

bibliotheque

Jesus Christ Superstar: The Soundtrack

“God, thy will is hard,
But you hold every card
I will drink your cup of poison
Nail me to your cross and break me,
Bleed me, beat me,
Kill me
Take me, now!
Before I change my mind”

 

 

So unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few months or so you must be aware of the latest uproar that a MOVIE has caused among the religiously inclined of the world. I speak obviously of The Da Vinci Code, a rather wishy washy adaptation of a rather twitty novel featuring Tom Hanks as a reluctant hero sporting a crisis of faith and an unfortunate hairstyle. Of course amidst the brouhaha it’s easy to forget that the material is hardly untrodden territory, it’s been done before: gorier in The Passion of the Christ, funnier in Dogma, and just plain infinitely better in The Last Temptation of Christ. Then we have the strange case of director Norman Jewison’s cinematic adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice concept album/stage phenom, Jesus Christ Superstar, which in my humble opinion packs an emotional wallop far more potent than Mel Gibson’s blood-fest. And all the ‘radical’ hysteria-inducing elements that were explored in these more recent pretenders are in evidence here. The notion of Christ as a man at conflict with his Divine destiny? Check. The controversial relationship with Mary Magdalene? Check. A decidedly sympathetic Judas Iscariot? Check.

 

It’s all there.

 

And all set to what has to be Webber and Rice’s greatest, most lyrical collaborative musical effort. (Of course some would argue that it’s the former’s only effort of any worth but that’s a whole other kettle of fish that shall remain firmly lidded). The term ‘rock opera’ might sound like an egregious oxymoron but to those with an affinity for the free-wheeling musical (and other) experimentations of the hippie era, it’s a familiar and favoured title, laid claim to by the likes of Hair, The Who’s Tommy and Quadrophenia, David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, and Pink Floyd’s The Wall. JCS starts with the ‘running theme’ element of the rock opera/concept album and takes it one very important and clever step further by pairing it with a story as universally resonant as the Passion of Jesus Christ. What we end up with is more than a mere musical; it is a heady, decadently spiritual experience.

 

“He is dangerous”

 

Starting life as an ultra-successful double album featuring Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan in the role of Jesus, JCS went onto a poorly received Broadway production, but exploded onto the international scene as a theatrical and cultural phenomenon that mushroomed in the even the unlikeliest of locations (Japan, anyone?). Eventually, during the filming of Fiddler on the Roof, actor/singer Barry Dennen (who played Pontius Pilate on the concept album and would go on to do the same in the film) gave the album to the film’s director Norman Jewison to hear, with the suggestion that he make a film out of it. Upon hearing it, a thoroughly impressed Jewison enthusiastically agreed to do the project.

Filmed entirely on location in the Middle East, primarily in Israel at the magnificent ruins of Avdat, the action closely follows the canonical gospels’ accounts of the last week in Jesus’ life, with a significant side-step into the political and personal conflict between Judas and Jesus that largely forms the core of the film. Commencing with Christ’s entry into Jerusalem and culminating with the Crucifixion (though any depiction of the Resurrection is notably missing), the settings, the costumes, the props, the language of the lyrics and of course the music are nevertheless unmistakably twentieth century-modern. With ironic, anachronistic allusions to modern life scattered throughout the political depiction of the events, Jewison manages to capture the universality and timelessness of the story.

The talent on tap here is top-notch. Broadway JCS understudy Ted Neeley’s now-delicate-now-searing low-B-flat-to-high-E tenor replaces Ian Gillan in the title role (the latter decided to go on tour with his band instead). The aforementioned Barry Dennen has perhaps less screen time than the other lead performers but he makes a dynamic Pilate, infusing his cinematic and vocal performance with a remarkable blend of sneering arrogance and melancholic introspection. Bob Bingham’s rich baritone brings to life the character of the priest Caiaphas, and Yvonne Elliman (of Saturday Night Fever’s ‘If I Can’t Have You’ fame), with her sweetly soulful voice, makes a more than memorable Mary Magdalene.

But, it has to be said, the star of the show is unquestionably the absolutely electrifying Carl Anderson (Judas). With a raspy, resonant vocal quality reminiscent of Marvin Gaye and the Temptations’ David Ruffin, Anderson is a soul n’ funk powerhouse who sets afire the hard-edged rock solos and at the same time is able to effortlessly come down to gentle, murmuring tones for the more mellow, reflective passages. This gift is immediately in evidence in his very first number ‘Heaven On Their Minds’, a rumination on what Judas sees as Christ’s inability to control his followers. Starting with a soft verse, the score is suddenly shaken with a piercing, impossibly tuneful scream of “Jeeeeesus!” The pattern of soft and steely repeats itself throughout the song, and is skillfully employed as Judas’ motif, establishing him as a conflicted, tragic figure who must betray his messiah. Note if you will the incredible contrast between a fevered number like ‘Damned For All Time’ in which Anderson is like a vocal locomotive hurtling at breakneck speed with its brakes removed, and his broken, plaintive reprise of the ballad ‘I Don’t Know How To Love Him’ in which his voice hits the tenderest of notes.

“Think while you still have me,

Move while you still see me,

You’ll be lost

And you’ll be sorry

When I’m gone”

 

As with any musical epic, JCS has the solid opening overture that presages the score’s major numbers, and also showcases the instantly recognisable goose-bump-inducing six-note guitar riff that has been imitated many times over since. The piece has an eerie, haunting quality, taking off with a wailing guitar lick that burgeons with ominous intensity to a frantic mélange of sounds. Layer upon layer of anxious riffs and fragments blend with orchestral flourishes, hard rock’s biting tension, and electronic sound effects, until the rhythmic cacophony finally boils together into a ravishing celebration of the chorus to the title track, which is immediately cut short by faint wailing voices and discordant notes. Exhausting and exhilarating all at once.

 

Christ’s simmering frustration with his impatient followers finds a jazzy outlet in ‘What’s The Buzz’ in which Neeley’s smooth, supple vocals are accompanied by a funky Moog melody and the incessant and infectious chorus of “what’s the buzz/tell me what’s a-happenin’”. This upbeat tune segues into Judas’ disdainful view of Jesus’ tolerant, nay affectionate attitude towards Mary Magdalene in ‘Strange Thing, Mystifying’, and that in turn melts into the gentle, swaying air of ‘Everything’s Alright’ in which Mary and a women’s chorus try to soothe the messiah’s worries with song.

 

Point-counter-point also crops up as a regular lyrical motif, aptly demonstrated in the rollicking ‘Simon Zealotes’ with the marvellous Larry T. Marshall on vocals urging Jesus to seize power by leading a mob against Rome:

 

Christ you know I love you
Did you see I waved?
I believe in you and God
So tell me that I’m saved

Jesus, I am with you
Touch me, touch me Jesus
Jesus, I am on your side
Kiss me, kiss me Jesus

 

There must be over fifty thousand
Screaming love and more for you
Every one of fifty thousand
Would do whatever you ask him to
Keep them yelling their devotion
But add a touch of hate at Rome
You will rise to a greater power
We will win ourselves come home
You’ll get the power and the glory
For ever and ever and ever
You got the power and the glory
For ever and ever and ever
Amen! Amen!

 

But Tim Rice’s cryptic lyrics coupled with a sudden down-tempo at once undercut Zealotes’ hedonistic tone, as Jesus quietly laments:

 

Neither you Simon, nor the fifty thousand
Nor the Romans, nor the Jews
Nor Judas, nor the twelve
Nor the priests, nor the scribes
Nor doomed Jerusalem itself
Understand what power is
Understand what glory is
Understand at all
Understand at all
If you knew all that I knew
My poor Jerusalem
You’d see the truth
But you’d close your eyes
But you’d close your eyes
While you live
Your troubles are many
Poor Jerusalem
To conquer death
You only have to die
You only have to die

 

Indeed, Rice’s contribution to the power of the score cannot be emphasised enough for his is a supremely difficult task, combining contemporary slang and actual quotes from the gospels to not only imbue the songs with emotional power but also to keep them faithful enough to the source material. For instance, Christ’s famed matter-of-fact pronouncement of his impending betrayal at the hands of those closest to him is expressed thusly:

 

Peter will deny me in just a few hours
Three times will deny me,
And that’s not all I see.
One of you here dining,
One of my twelve chosen
Will leave to betray me

 

“One thing I’ll say for him, Jesus is cool”

 

Probably the most well-known breakout hit from the score is of course the ballad ‘I Don’t Know How to Love Him’, which seeks to humanise not only Mary but also, through her words, the object of her reverence. “He’s just a man” she sings but herself sounds unconvinced. With simple orchestration consisting of flutes and strings, the song strikes a delicate balance between being a ‘love’ song and a hymn, in which the speaker grapples with the dilemma of trying to sort through her feelings for a man of God who in all probability cannot return her love. And even:

 

If he said he loved me

I’d be lost
I’d be frightened
I couldn’t cope
Just couldn’t cope
I’d turn my head
I’d back away
I wouldn’t want to know
He scares me so
I want him so
I love him so

 

“Judas, must you betray me with a kiss?”

 

Christ’s own fears about his fate are given voice in the astounding ‘Gethsemane’. A one-way conversation with God set to a driving rhythm on guitar, Neeley truly sings his heart out here, belting out the words of doubt and reluctant acceptance with scorching passion.

 

Judas’ spirit returns for the grand finale backed up by a soulful female chorus as they together belt out the title track ‘Superstar’. Designed as a showstopper to end all showstoppers, the tune more than does the job; one can just imagine the audience up on its feet and swaying like an old-time gospel chorus as Judas opines cheekily:

If you’d come today
You could have reached the whole nation
Israel in 4 B.C. had no mass communication

 

Admittedly, Jesus Christ Superstar deals more with classical values than with strictly modern ones, despite the electric guitars and rock riffs and all; some have called it classical motifs dressed up as rock statements. But whether you agree with its rock opera status or not, one thing is for sure, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice created a one-off masterpiece whose score and lyrics are woven together with seamless harmony.

What’s with all the fonts?? Beats me…

Blade Runner: The Soundtrack

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain… Time to die.”

 

Replicant Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer)’s dying words long ago became the stuff of cinematic history, oft quoted by sci-fi geeks and high falutin’ critics alike as some of the best dialogue written for the screen. The film that these unlikely words inhabit also underwent a renaissance, or at least, a rediscovery of sorts. A big, fat turkey at the box-office when first released in 1982, Ridley’s Scott’s screen adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s sci-fi novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? has since achieved true cult status and finally been recognised and hailed by initially snippy critics for what it really is: a masterful and visually stunning work of filmic art that takes a look at the vagaries of an age of technology and capitalism run amok. Criticised initially for being clinically all style, no substance, even a first viewing today makes it plain how laughable that appraisal was. At once unflinchingly dark and devastatingly poignant, Blade Runner is what I, Robot should have been.

 

Set in Los Angeles circa 2019, Blade Runner employed some of the most remarkable and audacious art design ever devised for a feature film; who can forget those iconic pyramid structures, the gigantic chimneys belching fireballs into the night sky, and the neon advertisements of the geishas singing that eerie siren song? The film famously defied the conventional view of a sanitised, hyper-modern future world: the landscape of Blade Runner is nightmarishly bleak, a dystopia of perpetual night choked with sleaze and pollution and what seems to be a constant drizzle of acid rain. It also contains what is arguably Harrison Ford’s best, most complex performance, as the film’s ‘hero’ Rick Deckard, as well as a host of superb supporting performances from Hauer, Sean Young, the incredible Daryl Hannah as Pris, and cult fave James Hong as Hannibal Chew.

 

But what we are concerned with here is obviously the film’s music. And here is one soundtrack which has, like say that of Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction, achieved a solid cult status quite independent of the film. Composed mainly by Greek synthesist Vangelis, it was a more than worthy follow-up to his Oscar-winning music for Chariots of Fire a year earlier.

 

For more than ten years after the film’s release, the soundtrack was unavailable commercially. An orchestral version of the score was released but was generally considered a poor cousin of the original. As a result, it became an elusive holy grail for serious film music collectors. It was also thus saved from the cheese factor which has plagued many a film score thanks to abundant use in numerous PTV soaps, among them the aforementioned Chariots of Fire, as well as Nino Rota’s otherwise glorious score for Franco Zefferelli’s Romeo & Juliet (1968).

 

Finally seeing the light of day in 1994, the Blade Runner soundtrack was more than worth the wait. Consisting of electrosymphonic scores that play with shadowy timbres and otherworldly percussive rhythms, threaded with dialogue from the film, it exemplifies the term ‘evocative’. You don’t GET more evocative than this.

 

Long viewed by purists as a blight on the landscape of ‘serious’ music, the poor synthesiser finally gets a break in Vangelis’s capable hands. The combination of sounds and effects and the tonal variations that he urges from it set a suitably cybernoir-ish mood that reflects the film’s own blend of sci-fi and 40s film noir. Chillingly tinny here, hauntingly full there, the music travels a roller coaster of moods and emotions, albeit in an admirably subtle fashion.

 

For this official soundtrack release, some of the tracks make use of the film’s dialogue and also some of its iconic sound effects. In the opening track ‘Main Title’ for instance, we hear a sample of the incessant clicking and beeping of the Voight-Kampff empathy testing machine that is such a significant element of the film, giving way to the almost santoor-like soaring flourishes on the synth that suggest a (deceptively) majestic urban horizon. Undercutting the melody is the incredible bass ‘rumble’ which on a good system sounds like a rocket preparing to lift off.

 

This sense of threatening tension carries over into ‘Blush Response’ but finds a fine counterpoint in the ethereal ‘Rachel’s Song’. Consisting of a haunting wordless female vocal over a water-drop synthesiser sequence, the piece was not featured in the film but was created especially for the soundtrack. In its place in the film is the equally wonderful and melancholy ‘Memories of Green’ which mixes in disembodied notes on an old upright piano with the synthesised strains. It, appropriately enough, marks a point in the film where the question of identity has become a heartbreakingly volatile one.

 

Two tracks which were used only sparingly in the film are also two of the most interesting ones. ‘Tales of the Future’ is a pseudo-Arabian piece that has a surreal vocal in a voice that sounds like a curious combination of Annie Lennox and Demis Roussos, except that it’s in Arabic. Or is it? Similarly, the ominous, Indian-inspired ‘Damask Rose’ is obviously a futuristic take on the likes of Ravi Shankar. Both pieces capture well the film’s vision of a melting-pot of cultures that is anything but idyllic.

 

Some people have a problem with the old-fashioned 50s-style ballad ‘One More Kiss Dear’, deeming it an out-of-place rip-off. It is true that it sounds suspiciously like the Ink Spots’ ‘If I Didn’t Care’, but what the hey. Stick a bonnet on my head and call me granny, but I have always liked this pseudo-slice of Old Americana. Firstly, I like the velvety and strangely androgynous vocal. Secondly, its very out-of-place-ness is what makes it a perfect fit, considering the characters’ quest for old world humanity in a world gone techno-mad. Appropriately enough, in the film the song is heard playing at an old-fashioned, grimy Chinese food thela.

 

Sticking out like a bit of a sore thumb is the somewhat hokey ‘Love Theme’. Cheesy saxophone riffs were the device du jour in the 80s to punctuate lust and romance so one can’t exactly pick on Vangelis for moving with the crowd in this one instance, but it is somewhat of a smirk-inducer. Still, it could’ve been worse: think Titanic and ‘My Heart Will Go On’, and this one doesn’t seem half bad.

 

All is forgiven with the absolute tour de force that is ‘Blade Runner Blues’. An electrifying mood piece comprising undulating string-like strains that flow unendingly into one another, punctuated by sensuous sax-like notes and heavy, bass bells, this alone should have won Blade Runner the Best Music Oscar that it was nominated for. Fittingly, in the film the piece accompanies a scene of unforgettable beauty and cinematic grace. Zhora, the beautiful replicant is pursued and gunned down by Deckard as she crashes through a store window. And then in astutely used slow-mo, her last throes are captured as the strains of ‘Blues’ come into play, her translucent raincoat indistinguishable from the glass that is cutting through her. It doesn’t get much better than this.

 

Scratch that. ‘Blues’ is equalled, if not bettered, by ‘Tears in Rain’. Using a sample from Batty’s legendary final speech, the piece is profoundly bittersweet. A natural conclusion to the notes and tones initiated in ‘Blues’, ‘Tears in Rain’ never ceases to surprise with its delicate poetry that is then underscored by a potent depth of bass notes.

 

A minor complaint I do have with the soundtrack is that it is still incomplete; there are still a number of pieces that are heard in the film but are either left out completely on the CD, or are featured in abbreviated versions. Maybe in another twenty years or so we will finally get a definitive version that will include the whole smorgasbord. Meanwhile, let’s be thankful for small mercies. Even incomplete, Blade Runner is one helluva ride.

Hello world!

I hate computers. Yes yes, I know they make your life easier blah-dy blah, but for me they seem to exist solely to land my bloomers in a tangle. Look, if I want to change fonts, font sizes, if I want to numberize something, I’ll friggin’ DO IT MYSELF, so quit trying to one-up me by pulling all this crap when I don’t friggin’ WANT IT!! That’s all for now.