Passion of Joan of Arc

Can you imagine a movie comprised almost entirely of close-ups? Would you feel claustrophobic? Want to shove your elbows outward to create some breathing room? Stand up and stretch and take huge, gasping breaths? Or perhaps even hit pause and take a walk outside?

Carl Theodor Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc made me feel all of those things. And therein lies a lot of its brilliance.

Set in the last hours of Joan of Arc’s life, the movie covers her trial, how her English judges coerced her, her recanting and her eventual execution at the stake. We all know the story and we all know how it is going to end, but it is still gripping, moving and utterly consuming.

Joan is played brilliantly by Maria Falconetti. She is wide-eyed, she is afraid and she is resigned. The camera frames her face. At most you can see her face and shoulders. Her tear-streaked cheek fills the screen. She tilts her head, looks down in defeat and you want to jump up and shake her and tell her to fight or yell or scream – just don’t take what these bastards are saying so calmly!

If Joan’s face is one of innocence and acceptance, Dreyer has chosen the antagonists even more brilliantly. Every single actor has a face that could inspire a comic artist to create his evil, plotting, scheming baddie. Hooked noses, curling lips, ears sprouting hair, supercilious glances, conniving chuckles and blubbering superiority are all in full force.

In the first scene, Joan is brought into the court. Dreyer surrounds her with guards that dwarf her. And he shoots her from above, making her even smaller. The committee of jurors are placed on a slightly elevated dais and are shot from below. All of this accentuates the stress that Joan is placed in. Dreyer often has shots in the film where we see only parts of a character’s face with the background providing relevant context and meaning – for example, the image used in this post where we see only a part of Joan’s face and the cross looms in the background. The provocative camera angles continue throughout the film.

Another scene that’s fascinating is one where Joan is threatened with torture if she does not confess. She’s initially calm. Then she is shown the device on which she will be tortured – a plank over which a wheel with spikes will be rotated. The torture master starts turning the wheel and the camera focuses in on it. The whirring of the wheel gets faster and faster. Joan is afraid. It spins faster still, filling the screen and becoming a blur. Joan faints in fear and my heart was pounding. Brilliantly constructed to build tension and anxiety.

I watched the Criterion Collection DVD and it has provides interesting background information on the film – “Long thought to have been lost to fire, the original version was miraculously found in perfect condition in 1981—in a Norwegian mental institution.” It also offers the movie with no sound whatsoever and with an opera score that was inspired by the film. I watched the completely silent version first – it was the way Dreyer wanted it to be watched. I then started to watch the film with the score, but having watched it silent and been so taken with it, the score felt like too much and I stopped.

Whether you watch it for the first time with or without the music, I recommend you do watch this movie. This is a master at work – he takes a story that you know and makes you care, makes you feel and keeps you riveted through the whole harrowing tale.

Sherlock Jr. is about a projectionist who wants to be a detective. He proposes to his lady love but by doing so irks her other suitor who frames Keaton in a robbery of the girl’s father’s pocket watch.

In the first amazing sequence, Keaton follows the other suitor to try and investigate. This involves a Keaton-usual where he walks within an inch of a person he’s following, every movement synchronized. How? The detailed video deconstruction (below) reveals that they set the camera to roll at a slower frame per second (FPS) to record the action and then sped it up to normal speed (24 FPS) for viewing.

In real life, he’s a pretty pathetic detective and doesn’t get very far. But when Keaton the projectionist falls asleep at the projector, his dream “avatar” enters the movie being projected. After Keaton is thrown from location to location (Africa, the ski slopes, in the middle of traffic) at the whim of the director, he is then allowed to become the super-duper detective of his dreams (pun intended of course).

The stunts then take on a new level of cool – in an exquisitely choreographed move, he jumps out of a window, through a dress and emerges full clothed as an old woman. Unbelievable. From The Comic Mind by Gerald Mast:

Perhaps the most brilliant Keaton far shot to reveal a process (and what a process!) is in Sherlock Jr. (1924). A single far shot presents (1) a room where Buster is surrounded by thugs (Keaton has dissolved its fourth wall); (2) an open window with a paper hoop that Buster previously placed in it; and (3) the exterior of the house outside the window. In a single shot Buster dashes toward the window (1), leaps through it, through the hoop resting inside the window frame (2), somehow puts on a dress stuffed inside the hoop as he is tumbling through it in midair, rights himself on the group outside the house (3), and begins to impersonate an old beggar woman, since he is now wearing a dress. Without the far shot, it would be impossible t believe that a human being could turn himself into a beggar woman while in midair tumbling through a hoop; it would also be impossible to believe that any comic acrobat could perform such a stunt. Apart from the mechanical performance of the stunt, there is the idea behind it. Who else would think of escaping his foes in such an incredible way and with such an incredible means to an incredible disguise? Keaton’s far shot makes incredibility to the third power completely credible.

Then there’s the one where he leaps through the stomach of a vendor woman and disappears. How? Search as I might I couldn’t find the answer.

But by far the most brilliant sequence of the whole film is where he rides solo on the handlebars of a motorcycle (not knowing the driver has fallen off). This is not a short sequence – he drives through crowds, over bridges and through long stretches of road, all the while “steering” the two-wheeler from his precarious position. Undercranked or not, this is superb stuff. All of these sequences are in the clip below -

A combination of the stunts, the humor and the real life/reel life comparisons (hey, it wasn’t a cliche back then – he invented this stuff!) make Sherlock Jr. more than a fun, engaging movie to watch. And understanding how Keaton achieved some of the scenes elevates it to the realm of the exquisite.

And now I cave, a few hours before the Oscars. In the interests of full disclosure, here’s what I thought about it -

Reaction after the movie

I loved it. And I still love it. The movie captured me. It made me laugh, it made me cry. It made me care about the characters.

I saw it before the hype cycle started. And I reacted before the criticism cycle started. But since the film got to India, I’ve wondered at the negative reaction. All the criticism about poverty porn. Sure it shows the girtty parts of Bombay. So? Apparently citizens of Bombay feel it doesn’t show the beauty of the city, all the other parts that Bombay has.

If the worry is that the movie will give the wrong impression to people who don’t know India, get over it. First, the movie did show high-rise buildings, well-equipped call centers and posh mansions. Second, no one really thinks that Bombay is exactly what is shown in the movie. And third, for the small group of numbnuts to get all their information from a narrative film, do you really care what such idiots think of your country?

Now then, is it a filmmaker’s duty to show every part of every city? To show every strata of every country a film is made in?

What if a filmmaker came in and made a movie about the crème de la crème of Bombay – South Bombay society. What would the reaction be? Hmm… let’s see… It would be that the filmmaker is showing one small section of Bombay. That Bombay is not filled with people who spend more on their handbags than most people spend on rent. That houses are not usually adorned by Gaitonde’s and Raza’s. That the middle class uses CST to commute and not just BMWs and Maybachs. That Dharavi exists in the heart of the city. The critics would talk about how all this India Shining stuff is crap and we have tons of poor people who suffer on a daily basis.

Yep, that’s right – that’s what they’d say. So then, what if a filmmaker came and made a story based in Dharavi…

You see the point? You can’t win either way.

Why on earth should any filmmaker be burdened with representing a city or a country? He’s not making a documentary. There’s a story to be told. It involves a sliver of a view of a city. From the point of view of one ficititious life. The filmmaker’s job is to tell that story to the best of his/her ability. And that’s exactly what Danny Boyle did. And I for one, loved the result.

I’m rooting for it to sweep at the Oscars, but in particular for the Best Song and Best Original Score categories, for my fellow Madrasi, A R Rahman’s brilliant music and my favorite, Jai Ho!!

And there were a few moments where I felt like I was a lucky fly on the wall, listening in on conversations, watching the drama in the Catholic school unfold. But overall, the movie fell below expectations, mostly due to decisions made by the director.

In a movie where the acting is exceptional and emotions run high, I feel it is best to let the camera be as unobtrusive as possible, but director John Patrick Shanley in his first real directorial effort, does the opposite. There are scenes where the camera suddenly drops down and frames the character from below, immediately snapping the viewers attention away from the conversation and onto where the camera is instead. Ugh. The one-on-one scenes between Meryl Streep and Amy Adams and between Hoffman and Adams are scenes where there is a lot being said between the lines and the actors carry the scenes – instead of cocooning the audience and making them feel unobtrusive, they are suddenly thrust into the conversation – breaking the spell the actors have cast. Unfortunate.

The strange and forced camera angles to emphasize mood and tone is repeated at various points in the movie – in a shot where Streep walks in out of a storm and through a corridor in the school, Shanley chooses an off kilter camera angle to emphasize the emotional state of the characters. Why, why, why?? Please don’t beat us over the head with it.

I had similar issues with the screenplay too (written by Shanley) – when there is a tense scene, the setting is a storm. High winds are constantly blowing branches to the ground. It’s all a bit much. A lighter touch would have given the solid story and intense acting the space they needed to make the movie truly top-notch.

Here’s my initial reaction to the movie on twitter:

Just saw Doubt. Great acting. Don’t love some of the directing, cinematography choices. *Movies 7.5*.

Six weeks later, the only change I would make is downgrade the 7.5 rating to a 6.5.

There’s been a lot of talk about Cavite and Aamir. So I decided to watch them both. First, Cavite. The next day, Aamir.  At the end of it, I wanted to dissect both and figure out why I reacted the way I did to each. So here it is.

*Warning: This whole article is one big spoiler. Consider yourself alerted.*

Both stories are about a regular guy who heads back home (in the case of Cavite, to the Philippines, in Aamir, to Mumbai, India). When they land, they are not greeted by their families but instead with the news that the families have been kidnapped. To secure their release, they must follow the instructions of the baddie terrorist.

Both films give us enough of a background on the protagonists.
Cavite – The film spends some time showing us the depressingly dull life Adam lives as a security guard. His father dies in a bus explosion in Manila and as he heads home, he learns that his girlfriend is going to abort his child, driving him further into depression. He half-heartedly tries to overdose in an airport bathroom. That’s his mental state as he lands in the Philippines for his father’s funeral. Why spend so much time on the background? Well – wait till we finish this exercise.

Aamir – The scene with the immigration agent is very good – it tell us who Aamir his, his occupation (doctor in the UK) and also tees up the conflict to come – Aamir is returning home, but even there he’s treated as somewhat of a suspect due to his religion.

Where the films are starkly different is how they deal with the antagonist.
Cavite – We never see the antagonist. He’s only a voice throughout the whole film. I really liked this. Terrorists are nameless, faceless people and Cavite kept to that theme. His voice could at times be soothing – almost nice to poor Adam – and at other times, cruel and unforgiving. You don’t get a sense for who he is. Only that he is powerful, is watching everything all the time, and will have no compunction in making Adam pay if he disobeys. We hear Adam’s mother and sister, but again, we don’t see them either.

Aamir – We see the terrorist – a solid man, requisitely bald and with a mustache. We get glimpses of his kid and his spouse, in what seems to be large, oldish house with high ceilings. The message that even outwardly ordinary folks can be terrorists come across nicely. However, we never see Aamir’s family or hear them even though they are “in the living room”.

While both antagonists get their victims to do their bidding, the approach is quite different. Both send their victims off into the unsavory parts of the city to impress upon them the plight of their Muslim brethren, but the cruelty levels differ considerably.

Cavite – From the beginning, the terrorist makes it clear that he’s in charge. He knows everything about Adam. In an early scene, he tells Adam to pick up a pack of cigarettes that he’s placed there and inside Adam finds his sister’s thumb. As he hurls it away in fear and disgust, the terrorist makes it quite clear that there are consequences for disobedience. Surefire way to instill fear, panic and implicit obedience.  Of course Adam, now shaken, follows his every word. But even here, Adam pushes his limits. He tests the terrorists to see what he can get away with and sometimes (like in the case of looking at the bomb – see below), he goes too far. This is what anyone would do – see how much they can get away with.

Aamir – This terrorist also knows everything about his victim, but there is no real punishment when Aamir pauses instead of following implicitly. When Aamir looks at the police station, a guy appears and says “don’t even think about it”, but there’s zero consequence. No little sibling even gets spanked! Besides the initial video of the family in a living room, Aamir doesn’t ask for any more proof that they are alive. The only other time we see the kidnapped family is when Aamir imagines them being tortured. The only hold over Aamir is his family and we never hear them? And more importantly, never see them hurt even in a small way? That was a bit weak for my taste.

Oh, and why on earth does it take Aamir *at least* three rings of the cell phone before he ever picks it up?! If a terrorist has your family, wouldn’t you pick up the phone as soon as the first ring starts? Wouldn’t you stop in the middle of the street, drop everything to get the phone immediately? That never happens here – he’s always la-la-la, let me finish what I’m doing and get to the phone after it has rung three times. Argh! That little nit drove me crazy as I watched it. Primarily because this is a thriller – build the tension throughout the movie instead of just at the end… I wanted to see more tension, to see Aamir more afraid and panicked.

Aamir, as a character, also seems somewhat spineless to me. He is an obedient puppy dog. In fact, there is a scene where the terrorist taps a toy monkey on the head and it claps. This is supposed to symbolize his control over Aamir. Aamir is just too much of a milk toast for my liking – he’s pretty spineless through the whole movie. The only exception to this is when he thinks he’s lost the suitcase and goes in after the baddies with a big pipe and beats the crap out of them. That level of desperation was perfect. (As an aside, the music in the scene was also excellent.)

In terms of the “why me?” question, again, the films differ in how they deal with it.
Cavite - The terrorist tells Adam that his father ripped them off and then fled the country. To pay for that, his father was forced to detonate a bomb on a bus (yes, that’s the father from the opening scene.) He wasn’t an innocent victim, he was the bomber! Now, this is the next step. Adam will complete paying the debt.

Aamir – Why Aamir is the chosen one is a bit vague, but sufficient. The terrorist alludes to “look at how much your fellow muslims around the world contribute” and to the London bombing and Aamir running away from that. But it is not clearly spelled out why it is Aamir and not some other poor sap who got off the flight. This didn’t bother me too much because in reality terror victims can be chosen very randomly and there is enough allusion to cover it.

The mid-sections of both films feel a touch bloated.
Cavite – There’s a scene where badman specifically has someone killed in front of Adam to further instill fear – this scene felt forced. Was the only point to scare him? Why? He’s already very scared. Is it to show that killing is also as easy as cutting off a finger? I think Adam already got that. Then there’s the whole “swap” the bag issue. In Cavite, Adam’s bag is stolen by a little street urchin and Adam disobeys instructions and chases him. The urchin still gets away and Adam is brought back under control. Then, he’s asked to go a home where two little boys are held hostage, take their picture to their father, the bank manager, and get cash in exchange. This cash is then taken to a cockfighting arena and swapped for… his bag! Ok, fine, he needed to get the cash his father stole, but why steal his bag elaborately? Just tell him – hand over your bag to the kid. He’s not in any position to argue, is he?

Aamir – the whole “the suitcase has money, oh no it is a bomb” thing is a bit wasteful. I agree with Dabba that this wasted a ton of time and the movie did not progress much the whole time he’s chasing after the suitcase. And all the chasing around – what for? Just to do the switch? Damn – there had to be an easier way! Have a junior badman follow him to the bathroom and offer to hold the suitcase and do the swap there. If he’s not going to check it again after not having it in his possession for half an hour, why would he check it again after a pee-break? Then again, why tell him it is even money? Why not just lock the suitcase and put a bomb in it to start with? Does the terrorist need to kidnap a whole family just to have Aamir drop off money? The whole suitcase swap was a good chunk of film time…

The reveal of the bomb is also handled very differently in both films
Cavite - Once Adam gets his bag back, he immediately wants to know what’s in it because it feels different. Terrorist threatens him not to open it. Adam can’t help it. He has to open it. He has to know what he’s carrying. He opens the bag and freaks out that it is a bomb. Right then his cell phone dies. His panic is evident as mild-mannered Adam snatches a cell phone away from a lady bystander and then calls the terrorist back. The terrorist has Adam walk over to a street where a gaggle of kids are hunched over… Adam’s mother’s tongue! The terrorist cut off his mother’s tongue as punishment for the disobedience. It is very freaky – Adam breaks down and begs. It is powerful – the complete and total ownership of Adam even though what he has to do is so terrible.

Aamir – See above for the suitcase runaround. Aamir discovers it is a bomb in the final scene. He’s on the bus with his suitcase. Terrorist calls him and tells him to leave the suitcase there and get off. Only at that point does he realize it is a bomb. The only issue is that there is little to no time in the movie for Aamir to be conflicted. The ending is rushed.

With regard to the ending itself, I have no real quibble with how either film ended even though they are polar opposites of each other.
Cavite - Adam places the bomb in a church. Then the enormity of what he’s doing hits him. He refuses to leave. Again the terrorist points out that he has no choice but to obey him and commands him to leave. He does. He’s then given instructions on how to find his family . He’s then back to his life in the US – we see him talking to his sister on the phone; his girlfriend tells him she had an abortion because she couldn’t stand to have a muslim baby. He’s back in the reality of his life – the same shit as before, but now he has to deal with being a mass murder. Whamo!

Aamir – Aamir is really left only two choices by the terrorist. Let the people die or die himself. In the former, he would have done as commanded and would get his family back. But once he decides not to kill the innocent passengers, he doesn’t really have much of a choice – if he doesn’t detonate the bomb on the bus and he lives, he’s likely going to see his family be killed, so the only option he has is to kill himself. Now the issue here is that Aamir never tries to defy the terrorist before. He never tests the waters on how far he can go. This is the first time he ever disobeys an instruction. I just wish he’d done some of that before – established he had a spine somewhere during the movie instead of just at the end.

That’s the story. Now let’s move on to style. Here the two movies could not be more different-
Cavite is clearly guerilla filmmaking. A large chunk of the film where the camera follows Adam is all handheld (not steady-cam). There is a lot of dialog where Adam is in the frame, but his words are in the form of a voiceover. Often one sentence is a voiceover where we see him (but his lips don’t move) and then he speaks the next sentence on camera. But somehow this works – it works partly because this is done consistently and so you get used to it and it works party because the dialog is so basic, so shredded down to the core that you know he has to ask that anyway.

The antagonist is only a voice. Again, this may have been done due to cost/production issues since it is so much easier to get all the dialog at once in a sound room, but it added to the movie – it made the antagonist the nameless, faceless puppetmaster terrorist. In fact, the voice was “uncredited” in the credits. It worked wonderfully.

There are scenes where the lighting is poor. There are scenes where the sound is crappy. Some of them are a bit jarring. But keep in mind that this film was made for pretty much no budget (under $10k!) The writers Ian Gamazon and Neill Dela Llana, take on every role in the cast and crew – Gamzon is the lead actor, they direct, produce, and crew. Most of the other actors are family. This film should be added in with Robert Rodriguez’s El Mariachi on how to make a solid movie with no money!

Aamir has excellent production values. This is a “real” movie. There are no sound issues. No lighting issues. There are some very nice touches – for example, as Aamir walks back through the market after picking up the red suitcase, we see a lot of red – a shot of the suitcase and the feet in the marketplace has red swirling sarees, red meat being cut, red handbag, red shirt, and several red buses all lined up in traffic. In the market, everyone there seems to look at him – they either know what’s going on and are silent spectators, or it is in his imagination. Nicely done.

The background scores in Aamir were also excellent across the board. I still remember a lot of it. The same can’t be said for Cavite…

And finally, we come to the big question – is Aamir a ripoff of Cavite? I don’t think so. Just look at all the stuff above – besides the premise, the two films handle almost everything else very differently. I believe Anurag when he says that Raj Kumar did not watch Cavite before he made Aamir. I also truly believe that two people can have a similar idea. You only have to look at the technology world to see that it is true – how many music recommendation sites are there? Tons. They all popped up at the same time because the idea itself is easy to have. How many blog comment systems are there? Several. All funded by competing venture capitalists. Again, one did not copy the other. People had similar ideas to fulfill a need they saw and at the end of the day, there are only so many ways that you can execute the idea.

It’s my belief that RK made the best story he could based on the idea he had. Apparently the producers also bought the remake rights to Cavite (just to be on the safe side) and in a classy move, RK thanks Gamzon and Dela Llana in the opening titles. I liked the movie. And in the Indian context where stark “message” movies without songs and dancing are hard to make and harder to market, it is a great step in the right direction.

This is a debut feature – I am a huge fan of debut features. I cheer for them because it is a sign of yet another person who’s overcome the odds to make his or her first film. So, congratulations, Raj Kumar – you’ve made something you should be very proud of!!

But… I liked Cavite more. Was it because I was amazed at what they accomplished despite the budget? Possibly. Was it because the style matched the genre and the story was pretty tight? Yes. Was it because I liked the ending – where the everyday victim does the everyday thing – no heroics, no histrionics? Yes. I just like gritty, real movies. And that’s what Cavite was.

At the end of the day though, they are both solid films – similar in the premise, but different in many ways. As I said up top, I just wanted to dissect both and figure out why I reacted the way I did to each.  That’s why my title for this post is not Cavite vs. Aamir, but rather Cavite “and” Aamir.

Sex and the City

Since the show ended four years ago, I’ve gotten my fix by catching late-night reruns on TBS. When I found out that the movie was coming out, Amy and I had to go see the movie the day it was released of course.

 

So 4PM on Friday found us in a packed theater in the heart of New York city with 440 women and 10 men. As the previews ended, Amy cracked open the champagne she’d smuggled into the theater – just in time for the huge cheer that went up for the movie.

The movie catches up with the fab four three to four (ten?) years after the last episode of the show. Everyone is older and firmly ensconced in the relationship we left them in four years ago. Oh – everyone is also much, much thinner. Almost gaunt. What’s up with that??

Anyway, coming back to the movie – Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) is happy with Mr. Big (Chris Noth), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is in status-quo with husband Steve (David Eigenberg), kid and nanny, Charlotte (Kristin Davis) is hanging with Harry (Evan Handler) and Lily (their adopted daughter) and Samantha (Kim Cattrall) is, unbelievably, still with (and faithful to) the hottie, Smith (Jason Lewis). All the favorite non-central characters like Sanford, Anthony and Enid are also back where we expect them to be.

Of course, we need to see some drama with all of them and we do – all centered around Big and Carrie’s wedding. Happy-happy goes to sad-sad to let’s-deal-with-this to I’m-happy-alone to… well, I’m not going to tell you where it goes to, but you get the picture.

The movie is like one long, long, long (2 hours 20 minutes??) episode of the show. It has all the glamor – the dresses and shoes are as fabulous as ever, the drama, the sex and the city that lovers of the show would expect. The jokes are still funny, the characters are still kooky and the margaritas are still consumed by the gallon.

Of course, there are elements which I didn’t love – Louise from St. Louis is a bit too earnest and she’s been primarily put in the movie to fulfill one dramatic duty. Some of the lines sound corny, trite and a bit forced. But overall, the theater laughed, sighed and aww-ed right on cue.

The key to enjoying the movie is to understand what to expect from it. It is not Gandhi. It is not The Lives of Others. It is a funny, quirky, girls-night-out film that you go see with your girlfriends to have a good time. It is a fond remembrance of the show that was, a nice little visit with the characters with whom we are on first-name basis.

If you loved the show,  you will enjoy the movie. So all you Sex and the City fans – head out and have a great time. As Carrie would type into her now-updated Mac – Isn’t catching up with old friends the best way a girl can spend the evening? Absolutely it is!

_{Photo rights: Craig Blankenhorn/New Line Cinema}

I wanted to like it. I really did. On the day it released, I bought my tickets and went for the 11PM show. All I wanted was Indy – the Indy of old. The adventure, the incredible stunts, the light romance, the crazy traps he falls into, the theme music pumping in critical scenes – ta-ta-tuh-taaa, taaa-ta-taaa, ta-ta-tuh-taaa, ta-ta-tuh-tuh-tuh¹. Basically, a good, rollicking, low-brow action flick.

But in one fell swoop, Messrs Lucas and Spielberg not only destroyed my fond hopes, but cast a huge dent in the Indy franchise too.

Where to start?

The story was the primary issue. While all the Indy films have somewhat reality-defying feel to them, this one was over the top. The basic premise is… er… ridiculous. The rest of the plot just seems to be kludged together. Stick in a random native here, put in a random errant truck there. Enough action for this scene? Great, move on. To be fair, there were a couple of touches of traditional Indy – a jeep-fighting sequence, the ant attack and a waterfall sequence that harkened back to the other three installments. But there was too much that felt “forced”.

The acting was another issue. Yes, Indy and co. have always been somewhat corny. But this was over-the-top corny. It was puke-inducing corny. Most of the film is spent with Indy looking at fellow adventurer Mutt Williams (Shia LeBeouf) with an “Aww, I am so proud of you” expression. And Shia LeBeouf cannot act. Cannot. Act. At. All. Cate Blanchett as the baddie was fine. Not good, not bad. Fine.

Oh, and I didn’t even get my heart-pumping action set to the theme song. There was one scene early in the movie where it all came together, but that was it.

Sequels (or in this case, installments) are money spinners. They are banking on an established brand name. And that’s fine. But don’t cut corners on the story or the acting to get my $11. At least pretend to try to earn it.

I walked out disappointed. I thought “Maybe I enjoyed the other Indiana Jones movies because I was much younger when I watched them.” But then I realized, no, that’s not it at all. This one is just plain bad.

1. If you think of the tune in your head, my lettering makes sense. Really [back]

So I was disappointed to hear that Blueberry Nights, his latest and greatest is not so great after all. I will still watch it – especially for the quivering kiss.

Looking back at “My Blueberry Nights” with some remove, though, the film doesn’t seem such a crushing disappointment as much as just Wong Kar Wai on an off day. He was certainly due. The run of “Happy Together,” “In the Mood for Love,” “2046″ and his “Eros” segment “The Hand” makes it easy to forget that there have been other times his signature fixations, his heady visual style and his narrative aimlessness haven’t congealed into a great film. That it should happen with his highest profile film to date is a shame, but “My Blueberry Nights” isn’t a complete write-off — it’s just not, with the exception of one silent, quivery kiss, shot through with that particular cinematic felicity that suffuses his successes.

Understanding why a master messes up can be as important as understanding why they succeed (not that I profess to understand either at this point).

Loins of Punjab Presents (let’s just call it Loins for fun) is about a bunch of random characters who are thrown together over a weekend in New Jersey as they compete for the title of Desi Idol.

Who are these people? Well, there is the rich-bitch socialite, Mrs. Rrita Kapoor (Shabana Azmi) who is desperate to win, but even more desperate to show up her socialite competitor, Bubbles Sabharwal.

Ajay Naidu is Turbanotorious BDG, a quintessential angry young man who also happens to be a gay bhangra rapper. Oh and his partner in his act is also his life partner – an African-American-bhangra-rapping sidekick.

Josh Cohen (Michael Raimondi) is the token white guy in the competition (hey, Hollywood has token black guys and token international guys! We have truly arrived when Indian films have token white guys ) who loves all things Indian, including his girlfriend Opama Menon (Ayesha Dharker), who loves the fact that he loves all things Indian.

There’s sugary-sweet Preeti Patel (Ishitta Sharma), who’s been ruled by her parents her whole life. The poor kid is surrounded not just by the overly controlling parents, but the entire clan of Patels – at least one of whom is constantly attached to Preeti. The true talent of the competition, she seems fated to win.

Sania Rahman (Seema Rahmani) is the good-looking ABCD wannabe-Bollywood-actress who can’t speak a word of Hindi. Ah well, she’s convinced she can just fake it.

And finally, the director takes on the role of Vikram Tejwani, the stats-addicted geek who’s job has been outsourced. The competition is his last chance to make enough money to give him some financial freedom.

Confused? Not at all. Manish manages to introduce the audience to a whole host of characters very effectively – each in his or her own element. For example, Turbanotorious BDG is introduced in a club as he does his own version of gansta’ rap as his family looks on, aghast at the cursing. Mrs. Rrita Kapoor is learning music from her guruji when she receives a call about how her rival Bubbles is one-upping her. Reaction? A severely-arched eyebrow and a furiously-churning brain. Preeti Patel and her parents are introduced in her counselor’s office as her parents plot her life for her. Despite the plethora of characters, I never really had to struggle to remember them since each one was introduced in a way that imprinted their key attributes in my mind.¹

Take these characters, a slew of others including judges and random family members, put them in a confined space two days, shake vigorously and you get a cocktail of humor that is Loins. Oh wait – I forgot to mention one of the funniest characters, the event manager for the competition, the I’m-laughing-at-you-not-with-you Bokade (Jameel Khan). I mean look at him – an over-the-top choice that is perfect for the character who will have you rolling on the floor laughing!

There was so much to like about the film, but before I make this a dedicated rah-rah review, let me quickly hit a couple of things that I didn’t love. Sometimes it felt like there were snippets that were thrown in there just because… Preeti’s overweight, porn-watching kid-brother was “eh, whatever” – almost a been there done that, “haven’t we seen that character before?” moment. And some of the Idol contestants were a touch over the top and not that believable. However, these and a few other small cinematic things are minor quibbles in an otherwise really enjoyable film.

One of the things I loved about the movie was the instant association. You feel you know some of these people. You start laughing from minute one because you know what they are going to say and it is just the perfect thing for them to say! Part of feeling you know some of these people is the casting – it was close to ideal. And the acting was excellent – Shabana shines with her nuanced gestures, Ayesha Dharker nails her role as the tougher half of the in-love and idealistic couple, Seema Rahmani is sexy and touchingly sweet when she needs to be and Jameel Khan is… brilliant!

The first part of the film introduces you to all the characters and gets them into the hotel for the competition. The second half of the film is where things come together really nicely as the true characters are revealed. In the intro, Manish sets up each character in the way in which he wants you to see them. But is that who the person really is? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. The “Ahh, ice runs through her veins!” realization makes the characters much fuller, much more real.

This is a film that has stayed with me since I’ve seen it. Yes, there are some underlying messages of what it means to belong, but that’s not why it stayed with me. It stayed with me because the characters were so funny, so real and so endearing (slimy Bokade is now a favorite!) that any time I think of the movie, I smile.

Want more Loins lovin’? Watch the teaser!

1. Apparently this film may be used to teach NYU grad students about how best to introduce multiple characters to the audience. [back]

In honor of his win, I read a brilliant review in the New York Times for the most un-Scorsese of Scorsese’s movies, Age of Innocence. But maybe it wasn’t so far from his realm. After all, Scorsese called it his “most violent film”…

Passion, especially repressed passion, has often been Mr. Scorsese’s subject. And the organized suppression of unruly desire is the villain blighting “The Age of Innocence.” Its hero, Newland Archer (played in the film by Daniel Day-Lewis), is engaged to May Welland (Winona Ryder), the angelic blank slate of a girl his society wants him to marry. Inconveniently, Newland falls in love with Countess Ellen Olenska (Michelle Pfeiffer), an interesting, independent woman with a complicated romantic past and a shaky position in Newland’s rigidly codified tribe — a tribe that smoothly closes ranks to keep the lovers apart. (What first draws Newland to the Countess is her irreverent honesty about the local and imported aristocracy — an irreverence that, as Ms. Pfeiffer points out, “comes out of innocence on her part. Ellen has no idea how provocative she’s being.”)

What attracted Martin Scorsese to the novel, which he was first given by the film critic and co-screenwriter Jay Cocks, was, he said, “that element of repressed emotion, forced restraint and obsession.”

“I was most interested in how people in a situation like that would be happy just to be together in the same room at a dinner party. Just one look would keep them alive for another year. It’s very different from today, when rational adults can talk things over and try to change their lives. For Newland to have changed his life would have destroyed part of a culture.”

It is such a sad and depressing film. A story of “what could have been” and “if only”… I still remember the last scene of the film with Daniel Day-Lewis on the street in Paris… loss, resignation, and a feeling of helplessness. Based on a book by Edith Wharton (which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1921), the film won an Oscar for Costume Design and Winona Ryder was nominated for Best Supporting Actress. The film was clearly overlooked and under-appreciated. It deserved much more – maybe it was just too different from what one had come to expect from Scorsese?

I’ll leave you with the closing paragraph of the review, which so aptly captures why the book and the film are classics -

One measure of Edith Wharton’s greatness is that — as in all great fiction — so little of her work seems dated. But the more accurate gauge is our discovery that “The Age of Innocence” has changed our sense of the world. Putting down the novel, leaving the film, we’re newly sensitized to the tribal rituals beneath the social forms we’d taken for granted. And our vision of people and of the roles they play has been permanently altered. We look around a dinner party and just for a moment glimpse them — May Welland, Ellen Olenska, the unfortunate Newland Archer — hauntedly staring out at us from the flushed, happy faces of our friends.