The Prestige

Nolan brothers make movies that respect the intelligence of the audience and even challenge the viewers to look beyond the ordinary. I watched 'The Prestige' last week and was thrilled to find that this movie was no exception.

'The Prestige' revolves around the rivalry between two stage magicians during the early 20th century in London. The rivalry turns into obsession for an ultimate illusion and both men pay a heavy price in the bargain. The movie has wonderful twists and turns and will keep the viewer guessing. Even after a week, I am going back to the movie again and again as I recollect the hints the director left here and there.

The movie adopts a typical Nolan brother's non-linear style of story telling and goes back and forth. 'The Prestige' weaves reality in the story, by bringing in the character of Tesla and his legendary struggle with Edison, the rivalry between these two real life giants run parallel (at least for a while), to the rivalry of the reel magicians. (Tesla worked with Edi­son dur­ing his early years as a scientist, but split and worked against him after a bit­ter fight. Edi­son was a mean and manip­u­la­tive sci­en­tist; they were fight­ing for the stan­dard­iza­tion of cur­rent, Edi­son for DC and Tesla for AC; their fights were leg­endary. The pop­u­lar­ity of AC today proves who won the “cur­rent wars”:-))

The cast includes Hugh Jackman and, Christian Bale as Robert Angier and Alfred Borden - the obsessed magicians, and David Bowie as Nikola Tesla. It also stars Michael Caine as Cutter the stage engineer, who designs and manages the illusions from behind the scenes, Scarlett Johansson as the attractive stage assistant, at her seductive best, who falls in love with Borden. Although all the actors have given their best; watch out for Michale Caine as he weaves his magic yet again and proves that he is the master, even at the ripe age of 76.

Watch 'The Prestige' to appreciate the craft of story telling and for Caine's performance and "watch it closely".

Read Toto's review here

Food Inc - A Review

Though this documentary is more related to the scenario in the US now, since we are opening up to MNCs everywhere, this could be our situation in no time.

Last week I had a chance to watch a documentary titled - Food Inc. The movie is co-produced by Eric Schlosser – author of the book "Fast Food Nation". In many sense, this is a video version of that book.

The documentary’s primary aim is to create awareness among the public and they have traced the food from their plate to its source. The documentary is a journey of the director and the travails he faces in this journey. Today, a curtain is in place between consumers and the “manufactured food”. And certainly, it is not in the interest of the general public.

Never before in the history of mankind, have we had 3 square meals everyday with certainty. Ever since WWII, the administration wanted to keep the food prices down and ensure that food is available in abundance. Favorable government policies on grain farming thru heavy subsidies, technological improvement and questionable practices have ensured year round availability of cheap food. Factory farming concentrates on making every product – faster, fattier and cheaper. Just a handful of companies are controlling our food today – right from seed to supermarket.

There are some unintended consequences of these actions –
1. Healthy calories have become expensive whereas unhealthy calories have become cheaper
2. Manufactured food – “sometimes” have E Coli or Salmonella infection – infecting people.
3. People do not know what they are eating - Genetically modified food does not need labeling
4. Obesity, Type II diabetes have skyrocketed – consume cheap food and pay for the consequences- in effect, the total cost of such food gets higher.

For example – the movie talks of Tomatoes – “plucked when they were green and made to ripen using ethylene gas. So what you see in the supermarket is not a real tomato – it is a notional tomato, an idea of a tomato”.

Since companies do factory farming – problems are being addressed at a micro level without caring about its impact on the health or seeing a big picture. In essence they are not manufacturing a product, they are making food.

For example – Farm subsidies have made grains like wheat, corn, etc very cheap and as a consequence companies that raise (and butcher) hens, cows and pigs, now only feed them corn – only corn. Evolutionarily these animals do not support ONLY grain based diet and hence they become fatter quicker, get infected with bacteria etc. When cows are infected, just feeding grass will make them shed 80% of such bacteria. Instead they are given anti-biotics.

Conventionally, it takes 90 days for a chicken to grow fully, now it takes just 47 days. They have also redesigned the chicken breast and made it larger so that those chickens are not able to withstand their own weight so much so that they do not walk inside the giant smelly barn.

The message is – people should go for organic produce, go buy from regular farmer’s markets and be involved on food access issues etc. Getting people involved can make the food industry change its ways. The tobacco industry was booted decades back like this. What is needed today is awareness about the issues in the food industry and a sentiment among public that is similar to the sentiment towards the tobacco industry.

Anandham... Sangeetham

Every time I listen to this song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCmsZbarARE), I always wonder what would have been the reaction of the musicians in the recording studio. Probably, a moment of silence followed by a thundering applause -such is the majestic rendition of Yesudas. This song is from the Malayalam movie ‘His Highness Abdulla’. In fact, every song is a classic in this movie, "Gopika Vasantham" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRuSz-_K4hs) is such a beautiful love song, you can feel this mood in Chitra’s voice; it is mesmerizing. She has kept pace with the great Yesudas in this song and probably (I could be a bit prejudiced here) outshines her master too.

The movie itself is a masterpiece; a very mainstream story of a hired assassin plotting to kill a Thampuran (powerful leader), he gets into the Bhraminical house and captures everyone’s heart thru his golden voice as he plans for the kill. Does he accomplish his mission is the rest of the story. Pretty mainstream indeed, but Ravindran’s music along with Yesudas’ finest performance, pushes this movie beyond the ordinary. Mohanlal as the assassin is as good as ever and Gauthami does a decent job (Only Mallus and Kamal used her properly – Venkat used to say!)

This song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a7PI6jXD74 watch from 1:10) is the musical highlight of the movie. In this music duel, between Yesudas and Ravindran Master, you have to listen to the crescendo that Yesudas builds from 8.34, beyond words…will move you to tears. Ironically, the National award for best male singer went to Srinivas for the song 'Naadaroopini', also from this movie

The other movie’s songs I listen very often is from Manichitra Thazhu (the original and the better version of chandramukki and Bhool Bhullaiya – see it, to believe it). It’s a Mohanlal, Yesudas and Chitra combination again.

This great song by Chitra (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIegcBCnWAw) really reflects the eagerness of someone waiting to see a loved one (that is what the song is about)…you can feel the desperation, the loneliness in her voice – Magic. Yesudas has his share too (of course!); his version (a shorter one) of the above song is equally good, you can hear years of pure carnatic training in this small piece (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMXWZJs4uuc - Till 1.06).

This is another soul wrenching (I am running out of superlatives) song by Yesudas (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0dVtMZNE1k). This is the song that leads to the climax of the movie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZA_90S7q5w); watch Shobhana’s dance performance and you will agree that her national award was well deserved.

Interestingly, over the last 13 years, Manichitrathazu has been screened more than a dozen times in Kerala and every time the TRP keeps increasing! Not sure if this can happen to any other movie in any other language.

I have to say this here; my mother tongue is not Malayalam and I can barely understand Malayalam (at least in the form that is used in these songs), but that does not stop me from enjoying these songs. If you love music, I urge you to hear these songs even if you don’t understand a word of what is being said.

Anandham, Anandanandham, JhagathAnandham Sangeetham – His Highness Abdulla.

Watched Mozhi. Don't remember a tamil movie that I enjoyed so much in the last few years (with family, esp., with my 7 year old).
Kudos to Prakash Raj and director Radha Mohan for making such a clean and light hearted movie, esp., when the tamil film industry is reeling under the aruva sentement and loud "Aieeeys" with blood shot eyes and nerve throbing shots.
All actors have given a calm and near natural performance, each character is well built and nicely played out. For a music theme (or the lack of music in the case of Jyothika's cha) based movie, the back ground score could have been better. Raja would have done wonders here. Although Vidyasshar has done his best through meaningful silences. Also could have reduced two songs!
Hopefully success of this movie will go a long way in encouraging more cleaner entertainers from kollywood (hate this word!). It is good to see that Tamil industry is going thru a lot of experimentation with movies like Veyil, Paruthiveeran, Mozhi, 23 Pulikezhi, etc.