Orhan Pamuk’s The Black Book. Intertextuality of the novel made it difficult for me initially. It is also largely about an extraordinary range of reading, and in-depth intensive reading of a particular subject: in this case history, theology and philosophy. Pamuk’s way of looking at the situation is what the novel is about; what are…
Watched the movie Crucified Lovers by Kenzu Mizoguchi. Ugetsu Mongotrai, Sansho the Bailiff, Life of Oharu are all films by Mizoguchi that I had watched earlier. Japanese films of that era especially those of Mizoguchi and Yasuziro Ozu maintain a certain translucence and poise that is unmistakable. Kurosawa’s Rashomon and Yojimbo also have this quality….
A cinematic moment achieves greatness in capturing a particular moment of life, a moment which although small and individual by itself, represents or even encapsulates an entire way of life, a culture, or the personality of the character in entirety; Charulatha swinging in the garden; What Blake calls ‘To see the world in a grain…
The first novel that comes to mind is Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. The other novels are again of Marquez; Love in the time of Cholera, No one writes to the Colonel, The Autumn of the Patriarch, Chronicle of a death foretold. Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose and Foucault’s Pendulum…
Watched the movie Salon Mexico; a B&W Mexican film. Shorn of melodrama or exaggerated display of emotion, the film tells the story of two sisters Mercedes and Beatriz. All alone in this world and fighting poverty, Mercedes’ only aim in life is to give Beatriz a proper education and see her lead a comfortable and…
Two Fritz Lang films—M and Metropolis—open questions about justice, alienation, power, the city and the social responsibility of cinema.
Films and Literature are largely about a narrative. It is about telling a story. Both make use of characters, plot, incidents, action, drama and the general function of entertaining the readers or the audience. Films have the arduous task of crunching the narrative into a span of 90 or 120 minutes. Literature on the other…
Dersu Ouzala, M, Battleship Potemkin, Yojimbo, Sansho the Bailiff, Aguirre the wrath of God, The Magnificent Seven, High Noon, Stage coach, Nazarin, La Strada, Bicycle Thieves, This Man must Die, Just before nightfall, 39 Steps, Psycho, The Day of the Jackal, Odessa file,The Medusa Touch, Django, Aparajito, Harakiri, The Third Shadow, The Maltese falcon, Casablanca,…
Never watched Werner Herzog’s films before. Watched Aguirre, the wrath of God today. In search of El Dorado, a group of Spanish explorers voyage into the Jungle beyond the Andes along with their slaves. Unable to venture further in the inhospitable terrain, the commander appoints a smaller group of 40 members to go further on…
Onibaba is an erotic horror story. It is about an old woman and her daughter-in-law living on the fringes of life, hunting down soldiers returning from the battle or killing embittered and emaciated warriors. They stash away the belongings of those who they kill to sell it to a local merchant who gives them sake…