CINEMA THERAPEAUTICS

Driver: [on phone] There's a hundred-thousand streets in this city. You don't need to know the route. You give me a time and a place; I give you a five minute window. Anything happens in that five minutes and I'm yours. No matter what. Anything happens a minute either side of that and you're on your own. Do you understand?             - Drive (2011)

   

I am feeling better since last few days. Thanks to cinema which gives me so much whenever I want nothing but peace from life. I have watched some really good cinema coming from Hollywood this time. The year 2011 was a good year cinema wise because some actually good movies were released in that year. I could manage to see few of them though it’s a long list. The first movie which I chose to watch from the list was ‘Drive’ directed by Nicolas Winding Refn starring Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan and Bryan Cranston. The movie is actually about this mysterious man who has multiple jobs as a garage mechanic, a Hollywood stuntman and a getaway driver and he seems to be trying to escape his shady past as he falls for his neighbor - whose husband is in prison and who's looking after her child alone (courtesy imdb). This movie managed to make me happy and even heal me in a certain way. As usual I was depressed that day without any particular reason. I was not expecting much from the movie because I knew nothing about it. Anyways, I started watching it. And believe me I am not exaggerating the reaction, the effect was really therapeutic. It was not the philosophy behind the story or anything spiritual of that sort which was curing the bug inside me. But it was the central unnamed character of movie the ‘Driver’ who had so much inside him which could be extrapolated and interpreted that it was truly doing marvels for me personally. This unnamed character has so much unexplained about him, which can be called a mystery that it almost transfixes the viewer throughout his presence in the movie. This is one of the most mysterious characters in recent years of cinema. Besides the writers Hossein Amini and James Sallis who have written the screenplay and the book respectively and this character in particular, a lot is contributed by the leading actor Ryan Gosling who adds the required charisma to this character. Right from the opening sequence he magnetizes you by his unusual temperament. He doesn’t reveal much about himself in any way nor are there any hints provided in the movie to make the job easier. The mystery is kept alive till the end leaving the viewer astounded and dumbstruck forever. In a societal sense he is not really a good man because he robs, he loots, he escapes from the cops, works for a bad boss and does all sorts of unlawful and precarious tasks assigned by him. But he is not a bad man either. He has a tough exterior but at the same time he does have a self-possessed appeal in his character. He is humane too. He falls for a married woman living in his neighborhood whose husband is in prison. He tries to make her happy and infuse essence in her mundane life. He cares for her son and becomes his pal. He is not very extrovert. He remains detached in a larger sense and doesn’t interfere in anybody else’s life. It seems as if he has attained peace with the larger conflicts of life and has nothing much to expect from it now. He seems to have risen above the trivialities and intricacies of life. The coldness with which he does all sorts of life threatening stunts and other similar tasks depicts that he doesn’t care much about his own life. He expresses quiet strength and is not afraid to die. Fear of death doesn’t appear to bother him in any manner. He is always face to face with death, staring and gauging its clout without any ambiguity. He seems invincible. And this is one of the main reasons why I am in awe of this character. But being introvert and detached doesn’t make him selfish either. He feels responsible for the woman he loves. Going out of the way he tries to help a man who is married to that woman. He even puts his own life at stake in this bargain and ends up making it thoroughly chaotic. We don’t come to know anything about his past and much about him either. He is completely impenetrable if you try to judge him in any manner. And neither does he tries to judge and breach anybody. Furthermore his subtle body language and expressions say a lot even when he is not saying anything. There’s some sort of distinct stillness and composure associated with his persona.  His half-smirk and vacant staring eyes express a lot more than words could express. In a way he heals the viewer in an unassuming and unanticipated manner. And this is what exactly happened with me watching him doing all sorts of dangerous stunts, falling in love with that woman, playing with her kid, helping the man, brutally murdering the gangsters and turning his life into a disaster.   

So the movie finally ended. But I kept wondering about the character. Who was he? Did he belong to this world? Why was he like this? What was his past? And what would be his future? Can anything really defeat him? Would he ever stop chasing his own death?  This character would be remembered for many years to come for the mystery it manages to generate and the promise it ensures to fulfill.

The movie is really an extra-ordinary work of the director. It is thrilling and engrossing at one level and surreal and mythic at another. It is fun and sweet at one level and shocking and tragic at another. I haven’t seen such a movie which encapsulates every genre without belonging to nothing in particular. This movie speaks little but expresses volumes. It expects little but promises oodles.  This is the beauty of cinema. It surprises you, defeats you, entertains you and gives you so much that you expect nothing more out of it.

The movie ended. But the character survived. In the movie also. And in my memory also. But finally I was cured. Cured of my depression and cured of the toxicity inside.

A DANGEROUS METHOD

An artist's responsibility is to be irresponsible. As soon as you start to think about social or political responsibility, you've amputated the best limbs you've got as an artist. You are plugging into a very restrictive system that is going to push and mold you, and is going to make your art totally useless and ineffective…   - David Cronenberg

David Cronenberg, one of the most prolific and daring filmmakers of modern times, popularly known as the King of venereal horror or the Baron of blood, has come up with an intense drama ‘A Dangerous Method’ inspired from the real lives of renowned psychoanalysts of 20^th century Carl Jung, Sabina Spielrein and Sigmund Freud. The movie portrays how the intense relationship between these people gives birth to psychoanalysis. This is one of the very rare films of David Cronenberg in which he has tried to break away from his usual format of filmmaking and venture into another while being equally productive and impactful. This is a very rare work of Cronenberg on many reassuring grounds. To start with, this is the first reality based drama he has directed so far whereas most of his previous works were largely horror based thrillers portraying carnage and commenting upon modern humanity and apathetically altering society. Secondly, besides having a different approach and format, this movie has almost no blood or gore unlike his previous works [Naked Lunch (1991), Existenz (1999), A History of Violence (2005)] nor does it have any hardcore sexual violence. But it doesn’t mean that the movie is not at all violent. It is indeed violent but in a very unusual manner. The movie is violent at a cerebral level. It tends to damage and invert the pre-formed notions as it stresses the conscious mind to unearth the sub-conscious one in order to comprehend the actual purpose of human life. In a way it is not physically but surely psychologically destructive. Thirdly, with this movie Cronenberg for the first time in his entire cinematic career endeavours to look for answers rather than highlighting the problem itself. He tries to generate hope out of human relationships in this movie unlike the previous ones where he portrays a sad and violent end to this hollow world [Rabid (1977), Videodrome (1983)]. He claims that as humans we do have solutions to our problems but they have always been repressed by our consciousness. Therefore, we need to dig into our subconscious to be really free and happy. Fourthly, rather than being a victim of uninhibited sexual violence, this movie portrays man woman relationship operating at a level of creative transformation. As shown, Sabina Spielrein meets Carl Jung as a sick, depressed and vulnerable girl but over a period of time their relationship turns her into an imaginative person incredibly capable of having independent opinions and existence of her own. From being a victim of her own circumstances she becomes a healer herself. Not only does this association cures her but it also lays the foundation of psychoanalysis. Furthermore, rather than being repulsive, pervert and pornographic [Crash (1996), Eastern Promises (2007)] this beautiful man woman association discovers analogy between sex instinct and death instinct. It stresses that erotica is actually a fusion, losing oneself into another and destroying one’s own individuality. It proposes that true sexuality demands the destruction of ego. This depiction of vast untapped possibility of creativity in a man woman relationship and for that matter in any relationship is very rare of Cronenberg’s cinema. In a nutshell, this movie is more about psychological exploration of human contradictions and idiosyncrasies rather than being merely a physical exercise involving perversion and sadism. Lastly, the movie manages to demonstrate that human relationships and human lives are very intricate. They are not like simple arithmetic equations. They tend to change their form and become multifaceted with time and circumstances. In the movie, Sabina comes in Carl’s life as a patient but with passage of time the equation changes numerous times as she becomes a mistress, a friend, a colleague, a healer and finally a sad but beautiful memory in his life. Similarly, Carl and Sigmund Freud too share a complex association with each other and so do Sabina and Freud. Carl and Freud meet each other as professionals working on almost similar issues of psychoanalysis. But over a period of time their creative differences start escalating and they become averse to each other’s philosophy. Instead of colleagues, they become professional rivals. As the time progresses further, Freud assumes the position of a special counselor in Carl’s private life when his relationship with Sabina gets complicated. And finally they end up becoming friends to each other. Likewise Sabina and Freud too have been shown to consist of many professional and personal overtones in their relationship. The movie establishes that the equation between two human beings is completely unpredictable as it may take any course depending upon a number of unconsidered factors.

Therefore ‘A Dangerous Method’ is a very rare and significant movie by Cronenberg in his entire career as a filmmaker. It may not be an exceptionally well written and executed work of the director but philosophically it is nothing less than a masterpiece of recent times. This movie would certainly continue to be remembered for its intent and content for many many years to come.

CATHARSIS

Is there an end to it?

I often ask myself. And the answer leaves me astounded and silent as ever. Never… But why? A long silence. And then a sarcastic smile… It says it all. There’s nothing more to interpret. But is this what we come for? A never ending uncertainty? May be…It cannot be true. It cannot be so rude. But this is the truth. But there can be some solution or we can devise one. Try it…It says and laughs aloud. And then it goes back.

I do torture myself endless number of times. And search for the answer desperately. The last few days have been full of such queries but with no answers. It has to happen this way. It’s written. Who am I to change the destiny? But I am not even trying. I am just trying to resolve - is there an end to it? A long chain entangled at every inch complicated further by various other entangled chains intertwined at endless levels with the first one. Try unfolding one. It gets convoluted further.

I search for a happy face. I even find one but the moment I try to approach I see nails punched deep inside stretching it from both the ends. You try removing one and you get loads of skin and flesh along. I search for love. I even find one. But the moment I try to connect I find a flat glass which can shatter anytime with a slight touch. You try healing it with a patch and it gets wounded further. I search for truth. The next moment I find one but mounted proudly on a heap of lies. You cannot get inside without forging yourself. I search for tenderness. And I find it buried inside the filth and muck of several centuries. You cannot unearth it without losing your own.

As far as I can remember I only visualize myself and all the people I have known surrounded by layers and layers of sorrows all around. My mother used to tell me that I was a product of complicated and life threatening delivery. The doctors had already declared before that nobody would survive but fortunately we both did. My entire childhood passed in my mother’s illness. I received a lot of love from her but she was always sick and unhealthy. As I grew up, the troubles increased manifold. I had just stepped into puberty when I realized that we had become bankrupt. We had come under heavy debt and had to face a lot of humiliation as well. We had to leave our home and city. I had to leave my school, my friends and my childhood back in the old city. It was middle of night when we had to run away like cowards to a strange place. The problems had not even resolved when they got further complicated by my mother’s failed hysterectomy and septicemia. Finally she died. I started preparing for my medical entrance. Getting into a med school seemed an impossible dream at that time. Finally I got through. I got admitted in the best medical college of the country. The first two years went smoothly. As I stepped into third, new set of problems emerged. The system started hurting me a lot. I felt suffocated. I became too vulnerable. Even thought of running away and committing suicide. Finally I met an angel. I survived and got to the shore. Finally passed the finals and got commissioned in Indian army with a handsome salary. Suddenly I became rich. I thought the long struggle had eventually come to an end. But there was something else stored for me. The moment I realized that I was rich the next moment I was burdened with loads of responsibilities. I became poor once again. Furthermore my spiritual journey had just begun when immediately the carnal desires started hindering it altogether. It dragged me to the filthy streets where I realized that it’s a big mad world. I am not alone. I have friends as well whom I had not met till now. I look towards the future and see no variation. It’s a big cloudy, polluted and damaged world ahead. Ten years down the line I would have nothing but only remorse to gift to my kids. It would be a beginning of another struggle. My kids would someday become my enemies. And it would continue on and on.

I am not trying to prove anything by being autobiographical. Neither am I trying to gain any sympathy. There are million other victims on this planet more perturbed and damaged than me. But is there an end to all this? Is there an end to this hopelessness? Is there an end to this solitude? Is there an end to all this pain? Is there an end to this rigmarole of conflicts and disagreements? Is there an end to this poverty? Is there an ‘end’ beyond this ‘end’? Sometimes I feel that I have become bipolar in recent times. I undergo serious mood swings sometimes. For a flash of second I am very hopeful and happy but the next moment I get sucked inside my own paucity. The questions which had not even touched me in any way before have suddenly started disturbing and disconcerting me in a strange way nowadays. And believe me most of these questions have nothing to do with my personal and spiritual struggle. Most of these inquiries are pretty materialistic and worldly and this predicament increases the tension further. Am I getting older? Or am I getting ‘sane’ in a societal sense? Or Am I becoming worldly? Or am I just being illogical and crazy at the moment? I am not saying that I belong to some other planet but I am petrified that I might be getting consumed by this. There is so much to do and there is so much which I want to do but I am not able to because of some mysterious interference. And most of the time I end up doing things which I don’t want to do. Whom should I blame? Is there anybody responsible for this or is it the ‘me’ inside me responsible? There should be somebody whom I may be able to use as a punching bag for distorting my life. But I know that sadly there is nobody. People say that this is something which everybody has to go through someday. ‘You are becoming man, man’. I hate it when they throw this bullshit on my face. Why should my fate be similar to everybody’s fate? Why should I suffer for things which they had to suffer? Why should I clean their shit? Why should every generation inherit the pain and poverty of the previous generation? Why are we not able to design our lives and the world around the way we want to? Do I really have anything which I could leave to my kids? Besides a multitude of incurable syndromes and some billion dollar debts as a generation do we have anything which we could pass onto our next generations? If happiness is the ultimate aim then why does everybody end up searching and fighting for it only? I know that the world is changing and is changing fast but I have serious doubts regarding its sustainability. We must be sure that whatever we are trying to build or whatever we are building should have a self-sustainable power. It should be an ever evolving and ever progressing future. But are we actually doing this bit? Aren’t we burdening our kids with loads and loads of morality and other stuff so that they should grow dwarfs and die dwarfs? Aren’t we just creating a set of structures and counter structures and replacing it with another similar set every generation? Aren’t we making sure that like any other species on this land, it’s time for our own species to become extinct too?

Ghalib believed that life is one continuous painful struggle which can end only when life itself ends. But is death the solution? Isn’t it a form of escape? If death is the solution than rather embracing it physically all at once can’t we do it in every flash of life? Wouldn’t it open doors and doors of solutions and possibilities in every moment we live and thrive? Do we need to build another civilization? I don’t think so. But we do need to unearth the existing one. We do need to dig deeper and cling to our roots once again. Instead of building multi-storied malls stuffed with artificial air and asbestos we should build bazaars with real people filling the streets with music and magic. Rather than labeling and judging everybody with pre-defined yardsticks we must try being non-judgmental and see what difference it would make to our lives.  Rather than shouting and howling for morality all through our lives we must try to be free from this very need. Instead of hammering with contexts endeavour must be directed towards breaking those contexts and substituting all of them with a context of human understanding.

I do not see any big possibility coming my way but I do feel that something is being whispered from somewhere. ‘Search for love and meditate death in every moment’. This is what my heart says at this moment. It says this is the solution and may be this could be the one.