Pictures within a Picture

There are special movies for each one of us and for me it is and will always be Godfather.
Nonetheless, a few have always been close behind – for entirely personal reasons, and one such movie that always haunts me is Clint Eastwood/ Elli Wallach/ Lee Van Cliff starrer – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. For many movie buffs, it is just another cowboy movie, a western flick. For a few, the movie is tantamount to the immortal Elli Wallach dialogue “When you gotta shoot, shoot! Don’t talk!” And all of the rest would probably recall a movie that was made once, that depicted the adventure of three people, each with a different motive, set against the backdrop of American Civil War.

I chanced to see the movie this Saturday evening on Zee Studio for about an hour, before the infamous summer time power cut of Calcutta snatched the pleasure of the rest from me. All along I watched it like I was watching it for the first time, again.

Why is this movie special? Why after having watched it some 10 times before, I still relish each and every moment? Arguably, there have been better Western movies that Hollywood has gifted us. Then what in The GBnU influences me so much?

The answer lies in pictures within picture. The GBnU, along with a handful few movies is a masterpiece of casual inclusion of a wide spectrum of contrasting pictures that it has taken on its stride while narrating us the main story – which to me is a hallmark of a ‘special indeed’ movie.

For me, I see desolate and hostile landscapes, I see a ravaging war, I see complete disregard for human lives, I see total lawlessness and casual impunity for men of God; I see how each one fights for his own self even while half asleep. I see utter and absolute chaos.

And along with those snippets, I also see the train tracks, the small settlements, the precision of purpose, the determination at work; the toughness of soul, the fleeting sign of humanity at work, when Blondie passes a cigar to the dying man or covers him with his jacket. I see two mutually opposed men teaming up for a common vision, I see them fighting a war on both sides, and while watchers might like to call them opportunists in search of gold – I see contradictory pictures that hint at a great nation being built, the start of a great civilization – a rookie nation that would go on to dominate the rest of the world in times to come.

I am not a film critic. I admire the power of Rajiv Mansand or a writer friend of mine Siidhartha Sarma, to scribble effortlessly about Krazzy4 or Dark Knight – but for me, writing about a movie I like… it takes a lot of stab. There are not many movies that I would want to write about. But The Good, The Bad and The Ugly would forever remain a special one that needs a mention.

The Way We Are - 2

P Chidambaram is supposed to have used the phrase ‘the buck stops here’ to refer to the table of West Bengal Chief Minister. In retaliation, the Chief Minister used the phrase ‘mind your language’, the argument being, politicians don’t use slang. What is the inference? That we live in a time when politicians can perform nearly about every act of corruption known to mankind without giving a rat’s ass, but have to refrain from using slang in public.

But hey, what was the context? The Finance Minister was referring to the Mao movement in the tribal belt and the State Govt’s inability/incapacity to deal with it. Real time governance through ethical policies – the chief reason for wanting to be in Government, is passé. The govt and the people who form it are more concerned about the language (and their origins) used in pointing fingers at each other. They also remain preoccupied with the designer labels that they wear, the skin and hair parlours that they go to, the TV channels that call them for Award Ceremonies, the film stars that rally for them. The only thing they don’t bother much about is, the reason why people usually vote for them.

We live in scary times. Reality shows, song and dance, populist culture dominate societal thought process. People don’t normally aspire beyond watching a movie, reality show or a game of cricket. Those who do, think of becoming one of the stars they love to watch. And, under the shade of this same pop-culture, there is another set of people who are out to make money at any cost. They can bribe cheat or plunder for money. The good ones become mid-cap businessmen. The better ones become industrialists. The best ones ladies and gents, become politicians.

And all of the rest of us, we watch our TV shows and cricket matches while we work for them.

The Way We Are

On a hot March day the grand old building of Park Street, Stephen Court danced to the flames of a freak fire. The Fire Minister of West Bengal (a one and only ministry in the country) did nothing but twiddled his thumbs while the ghastly event unfurled, climaxed, took scores of lives and ebbed away after a day. He did nothing before; and he did nothing after, an otherwise difficult deed to accomplish. But he managed to pull it off quite efficiently. He would have loved to have been left like that, but media did their bit of clamouring religiously in front of his chamber. So he was forced to come out of his reverie and do some how-can-I-be-blamed-I-was-not-there stunt. He did that too.

The result? Life is back to almost normal. People have quite forgotten the charred corpses strewn across the fourth/fifth floor of Stephen Court – human life is in excess nowadays. So what if a few hundred die?

And even if they haven’t forgotten, there is little left to do. We, humans standing here on the 21st century, almighty, all powerful rulers of the planet, the top of food chain, the fiercest, the most vicious, the most aggressive killers of nature are quite impotent when it comes to dealing with our own kind.

We perform some demonstrations. We hold some rallies. We make some noise through the media – holding some debate sessions and all. We ask some questions. No one answers. It doesn’t matter to the dead.

So we curse the governance, go back home and live another day. In between, we eat some more animals, plunder some more of nature’s bounties, destroy some trees and pray to God that we don’t get trapped into unforeseen calamities. After all, we did no wrong.

We are one of a kind aren’t we?