PEOPLE

PEOPLE PEOPLE

YOU ARE PAIN

ALWAYS

STILL

I CAN’T STOP LOVING YOU

I CAN’T  LIVE

WITHOUT YOU

I THINK MANY

A TIMES

WHAT MAKES YOU DO SO

WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS

THE WAY YOU ARE

DO I HAVE AN ANSWER

DO I DESERVE

TO BE ANSWERED

I AM YOU

AND

YOU ARE ME

IT’S THE EGO

‘I AM THIS’

WHICH MAKES A DISTICTION

EVERYTIME

AND LEAVES A TRACE BEHIND

AN ILLUSION OF MATERIAL

MAYA

WILD AGONISING

HAUNTING

PAINFUL

STICKY

A SIMPLE THING

WHY CAN’T I END THE CONFLICT

IS IT SO DIFFICULT

WHO AM I TO HATE

WHY CAN’T I LOVE

IS IT ME WHO ACTS STRANGE

OR IS IT SOMEBODY

DISGUISED IN ME

WHO IS IT

I PREPARE TO LEAVE

GO AWAY

WOULD IT BE OVER THEN

THE MEMORY

THE SAD BROKEN

PROMISES

MONSTERS

WOULD STILL BE THERE

KNOCKING FROM INSIDE

IT’S NOT YOU

WHOM I WANT TO ESCAPE

IT’S ME WHO’S

FLAWED

SCRATCHED

YOU CANNOT BE

IMPERFECT

IT’S JUST THE DELUDED

MIND

WHICH

CREATES IMPERFECTION

YOU CAN NEVER HURT ME

BECAUSE I DON’T EXIST

IN BODY

IT HAS ALWAYS

BEEN OTHER WAY ROUND

I WANT TO STOP IT

END IT

RISE

FEEL LIGHT

LOVE

LIBERATE ME

LIBERATE ME

MY GOD

FROM THE PERSON

I AM…

 

CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS

I have recently started watching Woody Allen’s cinema seriously after restraining myself a lot because of his clumsy, non-serious acting but I must confess that within a very short span of time I have become a huge fan of the man and his movies. Woody Allen’s cinema is really unique in the whole arena of world cinema because it has very fine balance of both independent and commercial streams. There are several trademarks of his cinema which makes it really a delight to watch. To list a few, firstly almost all his movies are based in ultra urban and classy metropolitans of the world. His characters are very modern and can also be easily identified with. And also the plots of all his movies are very contemporary based on the casual and routine encounters of moral issues in our modern lives. His cinema is meant for every kind of audience. If his cinema promises to be massy on one hand then it also promises to be intellectually and critically superb on the other. 

Recently I got an opportunity to watch one of his very famous movies ‘Crimes and Misdemeanors’ made in 1989. I have been deeply influenced by the plot and concept of the movie. Ophthalmologist Judah Rosenthal has had an affair with Dolores for several years, and now she threatens to ruin his life if he doesn't marry her. When his brother Jack suggests to have Dolores murdered, Judah is faced with a big moral dilemma: destruction of his life or murder. Meanwhile, documentary filmmaker Clifford Stern is trying to make a film of a philosophy professor, but instead he's commissioned to make a portrait of successful TV producer and brother-in-law Lester, who to Clifford represents everything that he despises (imdb). The movie states the fact that every time a moral decision is taken in life, consciously or unconsciously, deliberately or in innocence and ignorance, some crime is committed against an individual or the society. 

Life as people say is a struggle. A modern man struggles for survival and locating a niche for himself in this society. But the struggle which we talk about is not a mono-chromatic and mono-dimensional monolithic quest. This struggle takes place at various fronts. The struggle is social, political, economic emotional and personal simultaneously. But what we tend to forget in this complete rigmarole is that a man who is struggling at so many fronts at the same time, also has to struggle for something which is inclusive of and yet beyond all this. And that is the eternal struggle of man himself. A modern man in the entire race for survival and identity has forgotten his eternal struggle and even if tries to struggle he fails miserably. But if the eternal struggle is so significant then why doesn’t the man seem to strive for it and even if he strives then why does he fail so often? The question is complicated but deserves to be answered. 

A modern man has created so many codes and structures in this world. But whatever structures have been created are meant for social fulfillment rather than enriching a man eternally and personally. The social purpose has always been given a higher priority as compared to an inherently private purpose. And this is because man has always been considered responsible to the community and society he is a part of. In a way he is expected of owing all this to the community which serves him the basics of existence. Not only that to be doubly assured, he is made morally responsible for it. In this entire process the issue of eternal and private struggle has been completely abandoned. And if it ever becomes relevant sometimes, then the strength which is required for this struggle is not adequate because it has been exploited for other purposes.

As human beings in this modern world in our entire lives, we do encounter many moral questions. And whatever moral choices and moral decisions we take are based upon the memory of our religion and civilization. Howsoever we may try to refrain those decisions from these two considerations, they do influence the entire decision making process consciously or subconsciously. In my view this is also one of the basic reasons of suffering of a modern human being. Morality is a sort of matrix in which the human lives are glued firmly. And like any other structure which a modern man has constructed in this world for his own comfort, morality is also a huge structure which we have established for our own advantage. And we do manipulate it according to the enormity and graveness of the situations we find ourselves. The moral choices which are available to an individual are non-ecological and irrational. Each and every time we are made to choose between the two and a third alternative is never available at all. Forcibly, we make a choice which doesn’t end the issue but complicates it many fold. In fact least consideration is given to find alternatives to the existing ones. But in my view morality as a structure is flawed not because of the framework itself but because of the basic foundation on which the entire framework stands and that is the foundation of religion and civilization. The question of morality should be decided by the moment itself in which the quest for its answer has become so relevant. Each moment of life howsoever difficult and intricate it may be, carries the possibility also, the possibility of resolution and the possibility of a fresh hope. Whatever is right or wrong, whatever is moral or immoral, the moment should be the sole deciding factor. But that doesn’t appear to happen very often. 

A modern man follows religion as a support system and as a reference point in life. Religion which we tend to follow throughout our lives is more of a social phenomenon rather than being a personal and private choice. Religion as a structure is a sort of authority which dictates to us what is relevant but that relevance is again influenced by what is appropriate for the society as a whole. Whatever fits in accordingly is accepted and whatever doesn’t is labeled otherwise. Religion has become a social commodity which everybody tends to consume as per their wishes and requirements. Rather than being a material product, religion should be a product of our conscience. It should be the voice of our soul. It should not be directed by what epics and texts and priests have to say. Everybody must have his own religion and that should be the religion of conscience and soul. Between a man and a woman, if anything should exist, then it should be the code of love rather than the code of morality as dictated by the religion. Between two human beings irrespective of who they are, to whom they belong, if anything should matter, then it should be the code of intimacy. What do our respective religions have to do in all this? Why should morality exist between them as a wall? If a man and woman relate to each other through the code of love and intimacy then there would be no need of marriage and there would be no prostitution also. We as a society have so far created only labels and have utterly failed in exploring the depth of relationships between individuals. Not only this, but we have also compartmentalized those labels into boxes of moral and immoral, sacred and profane, legal and illegal. And then we call ourselves the most progressive and advanced species in the universe. Heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, transegenderism, lesbianism, prostitution, marriage, promiscuity are merely labels and nothing beyond that. Nor do they translate into the extent of intimacy between two individuals and neither do they predict and comment upon the shelf life of a relationship between them. The only thing they do is to malign the equation between two individuals. Religion which we follow has only divided people into sects and classes. It has miserably failed in enriching the humanity with attributes of love and respect for each other. 

Whereas civilization is concerned it was meant for organizing people into a progressive society, a society where people should look after each other, and a society where everybody can contribute in fulfilling each other emotionally and spiritually. It was never meant to create fear. It was never meant to be the basis of every decision making process of an individual. It was meant to strengthen the humanity, not to weaken its very foundation. But the only thing it has achieved is making its individuals weaker emotionally and functionally. It has segregated the world into spiritually bankrupt societies which can offer nothing to the humanity except the fears which have been fed into their roots from the very beginning. 

Why are we afraid of each other? Why can’t we love each other? Why have we created an atmosphere of paranoia where every individual appears to be a criminal somewhere? Isn’t it a universal crime which has been committed somewhere against the whole humanity? We have lost our meditative powers in the whole struggle for survival somewhere. We need to re-discover them and we need to re-organize ourselves into a better society where people should rely on their own conscience and soul to decide for themselves, what is moral and immoral, right and wrong, acceptable and not acceptable.  

CAMERA BUFF

'Cinema is the supreme art' - Lenin

What exactly fascinates a filmmaker? What exactly goes in his mind while deciding a frame? Or how exactly does a cinematic medium work? And what makes cinema so popular? Is cinema an Absolute art? Is it possible to portray the reality in a real way through cinema? I always looked for answers to these questions because my relationship with cinema has been extremely special and personal one. Special because even after pursuing cinema seriously for so many years it still hasn’t stopped fascinating me. And personal because it has helped me rediscover and reinvent myself spiritually as well as intellectually throughout my quest as a human being all through these years. But finally Kieslowski has helped me respond to all such queries with a fresh perspective towards this unique art form. 

Whatever we see around us is what can be simplistically termed as a ‘Reality’. And whatever is the reality we perceive it with our naked eyes. We do perceive it through other means also as we hear it, smell it, touch it, taste it and permeate it in our systems through our consciousness. But largely visual medium is what helps us the most in choosing what to believe or what not to believe. Moreover visual sensation masks other sensations also making itself the most dependable one. Camera can be called one of the greatest inventions of modern times. But when we use camera as a tool to capture the reality, things undergo a radical transformation. Our eyes and other senses actually help us to perceive the reality ‘as it is’. So when we introduce some other medium to perceive the same reality the vision starts distorting. Camera as a visual medium alters the way reality looks like, feels like or sounds like. It creates a sort of distortion or alteration in the way we perceive the world around us. And it does this the very second it enters our visual field. This distortion is something which creates a sort of magic. It not only offers a different field of vision but it also offers endless possibilities the way things can happen apart from what and how they really are. We can only imagine how even the simplest of realities can actually shape when filmed through this medium. A simple frame of a man walking with his dog on a road or a woman holding her child in the lap can look extremely different when viewed through a camera. And this is what actually fascinates a filmmaker who makes use of this medium to not only portray the real world but also mould it in a manner he feels like. 

A camera gives enormous power to the person handling it. He not only becomes able to capture the vastness of everything around himself in a completely novel manner but he also starts viewing everything around critically with a third eye. But this power is both constructive and destructive as well. It is constructive in a sense that it helps the filmmaker to organize the images and shape it in a form of perspective. But destructive because a filmmaker has to die several times at both personal and social levels simultaneously before lending a final image to the audience. And this power does come with a great liability too. Because a cameraman/filmmaker is not only responsible for the things he captures but is responsible for the vision he lends to that image too. When I talk about responsibility associated with this medium I am not really referring in terms of social/societal perspective but surely the personal choices the artist has made in order to organize that perspective. A novice actually goes crazy when he holds camera for the first time in his life and consequently realizes the immense potential of this medium. And by the time he comes to terms with his enthusiasm and passion he finds himself drifted miles and miles away from where he actually started. This is what happens to Filip Mosz, the protagonist of Kieslowski’s extremely important film ‘Camera Buff’. Filip, an average middle class man living a decent standard of life with his wife in a small apartment of Poland, goes berserk when he buys a moving camera to shoot his new born baby. When his boss appoints him the responsibility of filming the jubilee celebrations of their firm, he realizes how the reality moves and behaves through a camera. But gradually his camera craze and this altered vision carry him far away from his own reality. He switches over from shooting the home videos to socially relevant documentaries. And when he tries to lend his own perspective to the recordings he finds himself in a hitch. But by the time he actually realizes, the damage becomes irreversible. To put it together, the camera not only views the world from a different eye but it also creates a new world around itself. It’s almost equivalent to the presence of another being around us. So it’s not simply a filmmaker holding the camera and shooting what he feels like, it’s actually an entire world created by the camera around itself for which he is responsible and answerable too. 

Till now it is clear that a camera generates possibilities, distorts the actual picture and creates a world of its own. When we say that it creates a world of its own, it creates a world where people look different, sound different, behave different and feel different even though they are real people playing real life inspired characters. They may be a result of complete fiction but even that fictionalized makeover incorporates enmeshed, inseparable deep rooted facets of reality. But the fact is that reality is not often a mono-dimensional and monochromatic entity. It is a multi-dimensional and polychromatic framework where everybody and everything, howsoever significant or inconsequential they may be, have a locus of their own. Basically a reality is further made up of numerous small and big realities. And furthermore, there are various point of views associated with that reality. Since there are various viewpoints to it, there are always different versions existing at the same point of time in a society. All this makes it a very very complex arrangement. So when we try to image this complex arrangement with a camera, things start simplifying instinctively. And howsoever we may try to be pristine and meticulous in our approach, we would often end up missing out on some or the other detail. In other words, a filmmaker may endeavour to give a real perspective to a reality or he may try to present different perspectives to the same real thing but in the end there would always be an angle which would remain hidden from the viewer and howsoever he may try to be apathetic or unbiased to the issue it would always be the perspective of the filmmaker in the end. But on the other hand, it would also not be wrong to say that cinema is the only vehicle which can carry so many perspectives at the same given time. It does miss out on some or the other but it’s also true that it is the only existing art form which can justify so many dimensions at one time. In fact, Cinema is the only medium which can give a multidimensional view of the same event. Visual medium does simplify many of the things most of the times but ultimately onus lies on the filmmaker as a craftsman for being true to the art. He may forgo his social responsibilities but he should never disregard his larger responsibility towards his own craft. 

Further simplifying, when I talk about a multidimensional and polychromatic view, I am basically closing on thought, action and the combination of both. A painting justifies thought more than action. A dance justifies action more than thought. Music is pure thought. Poetry and prose may talk about and inspire action but mainly they are thought driven. Theatre combines both meticulously in almost equal proportions but it lacks universal and popular appeal. So cinema is the only art form which combines thought and action uniformly while simultaneously having a universal appeal as well. Universal because it involves the audience through many different forms of action although there is a deep rooted thought driving those actions. According to me action is something which involves a person initially and immediately and then the thought takes over. And cinema is such art which does this exactly the way described. Moreover it has the power to reinvent itself at various levels of thought and action every time. Furthermore, cinema doesn’t devalue any other art form; rather it highlights the effect and power of other creative mediums. Thereby it would be very just in concluding that cinema if not an absolute but it’s almost an absolute art. 

At last I feel that I have found answers for my extreme fascination with cinematic medium. Cinema for me is a source of endless possibilities. Cinema for me is an ever inspiring hope which would continue to enlighten me in difficult times of my life. Cinema for me is definitely the supreme art.

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.