Monday, October 13, 2008

A week of great films…

It has been a terrific week!!! I have watched five great films that have dazzled me; everything or atleast more than two things are superlative about each of them. And all of them have unfortunately left me doubtful of my own abilities as an aspiring filmmaker… Anyways, there’s a lifetime to find out if these doubts are justified or not…for the time being, I will talk about the movies;

The week started with ‘Adaptation’; It was a late Monday night and I was so goddamn sleepy but also hell-bent on watching this flick so with reluctant eyes but more than an eager heart I set out to see it and from the opening monologue itself, I was completely hooked on…The first dialogue of the film was something like this

Do I have an original thought in my head, my bald head?
Maybe if I were happier my hair won’t be falling off
Life is short; I need to make the most of it
Today is the first day of the rest of my life
Huh, I am a walking cliché
I really need to go to the doctor and have my leg checked; there’s something wrong with the bone
The dentist called again, I am way overdue
If I stop putting things off I’d be happier
All I do is sit on my fat ass
If my ass wouldn’t be fat, I would be happier
Then I wouldn’t have to wear shirts with the tails on them all the time…like that’s fooling anyone…fat ass…
I should start jogging again…5 miles a day…really do it this time…
Maybe rock climbing….I need to turn my life around
What do I need to do? I need to fall in love..

When I was hearing this, I couldn’t stop laughing because I could so easily identify with the chaos that the scriptwriter character, Charlie Kauffman was going through…I mean this is what I think about most of the times; things like ‘how I lack an original thought’ and ‘how I need to do this or that to improve my life’…it was all so hilarious, I replayed it thrice before seeing the rest of the movie.

The rest of it was also so great; it is a story of the scriptwriter, Charlie and his twin brother, also aspiring to be a scriptwriter and who is more interested in writing the ‘psychological thriller of split personality serial murderer who’s also the cop’ kinds. Charlie meanwhile is a loner struggling with mid-age crises, low self-esteem, intimacy issues and above all, a restless urge to write a completely original script. For this, he decides to adapt a novel about orchids and then his story, the novel writer’s personal story, the story in the book and the process of his writing the script all become a part of this film’s story.

It talks about so many things and yet manages to remain coherent and emotionally satisfying…the film debates about what makes a good script, the volatility of relationships, orchids, how passion directs or misdirects people, taking control of your life and so much more. There’s comedy, romance, adventure, suspense, drama, some unexpected action, tragedy, hell even some scientific ‘gyaan’ on evolution and orchids and all of this is neatly done without any spill-off or loss of track. It is one crazy brilliant script, accompanied by some great performances especially by Nicholas Cage in the dual roles of the scriptwriter twins and that of Chris Cooper as the enigmatic ‘orchid thief’ John Larouche. Coming from the man who wrote the path breaking ‘Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind’, this is a rare movie for all to watch and enjoy…I thoroughly loved it and has become one of the few movies that I don’t mind watching more than once…

Next I saw Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Lolita’…again the setting was midnight on a tiring Tuesday but more about this and others in the next blog…I am off to sleep now…haven’t slept properly for most of the nights this week…but its been fun…

1 comment:

nik said...

you are spot on bout adaptation.
what a brilliant experiment with screenplay. Its about many adaptations, starting from the book to orchids to the writer.