Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Movie time!

Going back home is always the time for me to lie back and enjoy some movies. Unfortunately, Indian movie channels can be incredibly unreliable, which is why I saw Spy Kids 2 (kiddish, but fun!) and French Kiss (even Kevin Kline couldn't save it, but hey: I watched it for "Les Yeux Ouvrets", and I wasn't disappointed there, although I had to wait until the end of the movie for it).

I finally managed to find Red Sorghum, one of the most stylish and mind-grabbing books I've ever read. Sadly, it highlights one of the limitations cinema isn't going to be breaking any time soon: you can see and hear a man's trachea being crushed – crunch! – by a boot, but you aren't going to feel it — heck, I'd probably close my eyes. But with Red Sorghum, you can feel it. Because it's up to you to imagine it, you imagine it a whole lot more vividly than you do up on the silver screen: blood, brain, sweat, fields, rain, wine, sorghum. That the writer is (imho) friggin' brilliant helps, too. That's the kind of emotional depth I think movies are never quite going to reach. On the other hand, it's something else to see something beautiful and powerful, but really uncomplicated - an avalanche, for instance - with Beethoven's great Nineth Symphony playing along; the sheer emotional force of something like that can be incredible, too. Can't think of a single Great movie with that kind of force, but maybe that's just because I'm incredibly sleepy.

I frequently claim that simply being born in Bombay is enough to grant you the right to considering yourself a movie buff. This is what I mean.

Enough time wasting. Here's hoping I get to watch some really good movies before I get back to Singapore.

Bonus link: videos made by kids in America as part of Boost, a programme to encourage children to finish high school and not drop out.