This year so far is a good one for movies. There are so many that seem to be making the cut and take the experience of cinema to a new level. So, here are my thoughts on the two I've watched in the last 2 weeks.
1917
Sam Mendes takes 'Saving Private Ryan' and does a re-take on it with a slight reversal in the story. While the movie does remind one of Spielberg's classics, it takes a different route to the hell - otherwise called war.
The movie opens with a couple of soldiers lying on the grass one smoking and the other napping - in what seem to be a serene environment - except when their boss comes at them and sends them packing through the 'no man's land' to the front lines of fighting with Germany to deliver an urgent message to stop an attack the next day.
The intensity of their location in time and space is realized the moment they start walking across the trenches - with their one-ways and stretchers laid out with dugouts for the generals - and the random shell that bursts to make life in general a misery are shown in single shot movements - except that it was an cinematic illusion created by the director. The effect of that illusion is that claustrophobic feeling of being in the trench with so many others jostling for space and as a viewer, you feel that jostling in the seat.
To me, '1917' - while as a story was as good as any, the landscape it painted looked a lot like the still-life wonders of the French masters of post-impressionist timeline. The farm house with the cherry trees or the cow shed with a bucket of warm milk or the night view of the city being bombed were just jumping out of paintings. The music reminds one of the pulsing rhythm of Hans Zimmer in 'Dunkirk'.
The entire story flows by very fast and while it can be guessed to a large extent how the whole thing is going to end - the acting by both the leads - Blake with his boyish face and a personal motivation and Schofeld with his cynical view of the things around him - by 1917, the army was bogged down and had more Schofeld-like blokes than Blake.
However, the movie - while having the horror of war as the background feels more like an adventure than a visceral war movie. That horror of war seems to be missing strangely, in what is to be a movie about war. To me the entire movie came down to the moment, Schofeld comes out of the water and hears the Gospel song 'Wayfaring stranger' - that is a moment of silent horror that cannot be replicated by any amount of gore.
Little Women
I have never read 'Little Women'. Thats not entirely true - as I've read a very abridged version of the book with illustrations and all - which may not count as reading the book anyway. So, I was interested in watching the movie as it garnered some raving reviews.
The first thing that remains with you when you finish watching the movie is the colors of the picture and the understated beauty of the surroundings - be it New York or Paris or Concord. The movie is like a painting on steroids and I loved the way it was filmed. There is a closeup shot of Jo thinking in the beach with her beautiful tresses of hair slowly moving and her face against the soft, grayish beach sand and the sand sticking to her hair. The shot remains for a short moment and it is etched in your mind forever.
Aside from the superficial beauty, the story of four sisters in search of a marriage with an independent second one despising the same and looking for a career may sound pretty much like a North American version of another famous story by another female writer but the likeness ends with that kind of one liner and it is a little about love and aspirations of Josephine March and her sisters and where in life they ended up at the end of it all.
The story is told in a spate of back and forth in time and so the connections are made with the events and it is a bit like embroidery. The events are matched thematically and the story is told in sort of a non-linear way. It is interesting, annoying and absolutely loving to watch.
Love forms the central theme and the civil war lingers on in the background. While the poor March's father has been fighting in the front, the rich and young Laurie is tom-fooling around in Paris. It is a contrast that comes to the fore again and again with no one talking about it.
Poverty and Love is a disastrous combination. While love sustains poverty, poverty doesn't sustain love. The subtext of Meg's story is the same - she marries a penniless person for love and only Jo's help ensures that she goes into the 'happily ever after' curve. Though Jo never ends up loving anyone - the ending is ambiguous - I believe she realized that the penniless don't love and like Amy says elsewhere - they look at marriage as an economic proposition. While this can be said to be changed in the west, marriage still remains an economic proposition here - for women as well as men.
I liked the movie - as I tend to like any classic adaptation - but the movie raises above the statements we can make and succeeds in telling a beautiful story with emotions that we can connect to.
1917
Sam Mendes takes 'Saving Private Ryan' and does a re-take on it with a slight reversal in the story. While the movie does remind one of Spielberg's classics, it takes a different route to the hell - otherwise called war.
The movie opens with a couple of soldiers lying on the grass one smoking and the other napping - in what seem to be a serene environment - except when their boss comes at them and sends them packing through the 'no man's land' to the front lines of fighting with Germany to deliver an urgent message to stop an attack the next day.
The intensity of their location in time and space is realized the moment they start walking across the trenches - with their one-ways and stretchers laid out with dugouts for the generals - and the random shell that bursts to make life in general a misery are shown in single shot movements - except that it was an cinematic illusion created by the director. The effect of that illusion is that claustrophobic feeling of being in the trench with so many others jostling for space and as a viewer, you feel that jostling in the seat.
To me, '1917' - while as a story was as good as any, the landscape it painted looked a lot like the still-life wonders of the French masters of post-impressionist timeline. The farm house with the cherry trees or the cow shed with a bucket of warm milk or the night view of the city being bombed were just jumping out of paintings. The music reminds one of the pulsing rhythm of Hans Zimmer in 'Dunkirk'.
The entire story flows by very fast and while it can be guessed to a large extent how the whole thing is going to end - the acting by both the leads - Blake with his boyish face and a personal motivation and Schofeld with his cynical view of the things around him - by 1917, the army was bogged down and had more Schofeld-like blokes than Blake.
However, the movie - while having the horror of war as the background feels more like an adventure than a visceral war movie. That horror of war seems to be missing strangely, in what is to be a movie about war. To me the entire movie came down to the moment, Schofeld comes out of the water and hears the Gospel song 'Wayfaring stranger' - that is a moment of silent horror that cannot be replicated by any amount of gore.
Little Women
I have never read 'Little Women'. Thats not entirely true - as I've read a very abridged version of the book with illustrations and all - which may not count as reading the book anyway. So, I was interested in watching the movie as it garnered some raving reviews.
The first thing that remains with you when you finish watching the movie is the colors of the picture and the understated beauty of the surroundings - be it New York or Paris or Concord. The movie is like a painting on steroids and I loved the way it was filmed. There is a closeup shot of Jo thinking in the beach with her beautiful tresses of hair slowly moving and her face against the soft, grayish beach sand and the sand sticking to her hair. The shot remains for a short moment and it is etched in your mind forever.
Aside from the superficial beauty, the story of four sisters in search of a marriage with an independent second one despising the same and looking for a career may sound pretty much like a North American version of another famous story by another female writer but the likeness ends with that kind of one liner and it is a little about love and aspirations of Josephine March and her sisters and where in life they ended up at the end of it all.
The story is told in a spate of back and forth in time and so the connections are made with the events and it is a bit like embroidery. The events are matched thematically and the story is told in sort of a non-linear way. It is interesting, annoying and absolutely loving to watch.
Love forms the central theme and the civil war lingers on in the background. While the poor March's father has been fighting in the front, the rich and young Laurie is tom-fooling around in Paris. It is a contrast that comes to the fore again and again with no one talking about it.
Poverty and Love is a disastrous combination. While love sustains poverty, poverty doesn't sustain love. The subtext of Meg's story is the same - she marries a penniless person for love and only Jo's help ensures that she goes into the 'happily ever after' curve. Though Jo never ends up loving anyone - the ending is ambiguous - I believe she realized that the penniless don't love and like Amy says elsewhere - they look at marriage as an economic proposition. While this can be said to be changed in the west, marriage still remains an economic proposition here - for women as well as men.
I liked the movie - as I tend to like any classic adaptation - but the movie raises above the statements we can make and succeeds in telling a beautiful story with emotions that we can connect to.
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