Ikiru

Ikiru

Akira Kurasawa is not a director of movies in my eyes. He comments on men and their nature. The medium of movie just happens to be his personal favourite. Ikiru is yet another movie that emphasized this thought of mine. The movie starts with a brilliant depiction of red-tapism. A set of women that need a park repaired come to the city office. The maze that they get into can only be seen in the movie. Our bueraucrat protagonist works in the same city office and finds out that he's going to die in a few months due to stomach cancer.

Reminisces about his son and the sacrifices he had to do for his son's sake are quickly followed by scenes that show the son's attitude of being a typically selfish human being. Kurasawa excels in portraying these scenes to emphasize man's loneliness in this world. He does not treat the son as an astray. He also follows the scenes between the son and daughter in law where they discuss the usage of pension after the protagonist dies, with an incident that he narrates during his childhood, where he was left to drown with his parents afar. All this make you feel that man is finally alone in his conquest of life.

In such an ambience, he moves on to find the essence of "to live". By eliminating inter personal relations skillfully, Kurasawa makes IKIRU a personal journey, He then indulges in pleasures, that make him feel that they are not worth living for. And then he meets a junior of his in his office, who he feels is full of life. He tries to find out what is it that makes her alive. Amidst many beautifully crafted scenes, he finds out that the essence of her life is in finding pleasure in every small thing that we do. Its in doing what we want we do, irrespective of the hurdles that you might encounter.

During the realisation, there is a well conceived scene where the protagonist suddenly finds an energy "to Live" and walks down a staircase when a teenage girl is walking up the same stairs on her birthday. All her friends sing "Happy birthday", indicating that our dear protagonist started living that moment.

Kurasawa uses the two half of the movies to signify transition from one thought to another very well. Similar to High and Low, Ikiru also has been divided into two parts quite significantly.

The protagonist uses his inspired few moments remaining in his life to get a park repaired in a suburb. The second half is about his funeral. The city's deputy mayor and his supporters are present at the funeral. During an argument, they vehemently deny the efforts of the protagonist in building the park. And so do the protagonist's colleagues.

Old woman on the street

Recently, I witnessed an incident, that changed by opinion. In India, we don't really follow the written traffic rules. So pedestrians crossing the roads are the second most difficult obstacle to avoid after stray dogs. Having been on a vehicle for lots of years now. I tended to inherit the general attitude of the vehicle drivers towards pedestrians. One that glares into people crossing streets slowly and says - "I pay road tax, and these guys occupy roads more than me; lemme scare them off by going a little fast and screeching to a halt". I please guilty to have done that many a times. It is, after all, rather irritating to slow down every now and then and move down to lower gears, when there's a pedestrian crossing across every 100/200 mts.

In the recent past, I met this lady, probably in her early sixties. Kinda heavy, like most south Indian ladies at that age would be. Huffing and Puffing, she was enquiring with a guy who did not understand the local language of Kannada. Since I belonged to the locality and since I speak Kannada, I thought I'll help her out. I asked her what the matter was. She said she wanted to call up a relative. And that she was trying to find the nearest telephone booth.

Wanting to be the good samaritan, I offered my mobile phone. She obsolutely refused to use it. I tried for sometime to convince her and then gave up. Instead, she said "Show me the way to a public telephone booth". I told her its just across the road(for those who know Bangalore, its BTM Layout Ring road). But she wanted one on the same side of the street. I told her that its far and that the one across the road was a lot nearer. But she was adamant, she definitely wanted one on the same side of the road. Now, here was a lady, who was finding it hard to walk a long distance, did not want to use my mobile phone, was adamant on finding a telephone booth on the same side of the road, though she had to walk for a long while.

Curiosity got the better of me, and I asked her why did she want a telephone booth on the same side of the road. Apparently she did not want to cross the road... She was afraid of fast vehicles that would screech down to a halt just close to her. Yeah, the drivers would have perfect control, as in those Hollywood movies, that would have inspired such driving. But she for one, would be terribly scared of such stops. She was so scared, that she preferred walking longer (It was rather long), than to walk across the street.

This incident has changed the way I look at pedestrians crossing the road, however I do hope this change in me lasts for a longer time...

My letter to deccan herald

Deccan herald is a local newspaper. And a letter of mine to the editor got published on the net. Its about auto rickshaws, the most common form of hired taxis in India. http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/jul122005/netmail13882005711.asp

Respected editor,

The auto rickshaw driving profession has become a privileged one, with
the amount of profit that can be earned. The auto rickshaw's
thankfully have moved on to a much cleaner fuel of LPG. LPG also
happens to be a highly efficient fuel, somewhere in the range of 1:3
or 1:4 when compared to petrol, in terms of rupees per kilometer. The
rate per kilo meter is fixed as per the petrol rate and not by LPG
rates. Some of the autos even hold advertising boards on their backs
to make some more additional money. All this is leading to a higher
return per trip to the auto driver. Unfortunately none of these
benefits are being passed down to the consumer. The pensioner who
cannot climb a bus and hence enters an auto, will also have to pay the
exorbitant rate. No wonder in these days of high profit margins, auto
drivers will never come to the place the traveller wants to go. They
move only in the direction they want. Ironically when the recent
petrol hike went up, autodrivers were showcased by the television
channels to highlight the effects of the hike.

Regards,
Vinay

Marketing tidbits

Marketing titbits

I recently sent out a mail to my MBA class people...

I thought I'll share this thing I saw with you all... Last week, my kid had to be vaccinated and we had taken him to a doctor. There were a couple of kids at the entrance selling balloons there. I am particularly sure that none of them had a MBA, but they seemed to have got everything right about selling their product. Positioned for the parents of a sick kid or a crying kid. Placed and distributed right in front of a doctor's (paediatric) clinic, this I felt was a text book example of an excellent marketing plan in action.

Vinay

============

Got a few responses as well:

Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 13:29:11 +0530 (IST)

From: K. Jayanth

Reply-To: pgsm-iimb-2001@yahoogroups.com

To: pgsm-iimb-2001@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [pgsm-iimb-2001] A story of marketing

yet another one then..

place : In front of marriage hall.

product : gift envelopes into which you can put some cash.

price : Rs 5/- instead of Rs 1/- in a shop.

deal sweetner : glue for sealing the envelope !!

regards,

jayanth

=================

From: "Lall, Rajiv"

Reply-To: pgsm-iimb-2001@yahoogroups.com

To: pgsm-iimb-2001@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [pgsm-iimb-2001] A story of marketing

Here's one more -

place - big private hospital

product - small temple with a huge donation box

return - peace of mind - Someone up there will listen to your prayers

-Rajiv

Review of Mungaru Male

Well, I finally saw the movie. I went in with a lot of cynicism, with lot of doubts. Primarily I don't like it when people hype things saying its different. I believe that everything is a repeat including Maggi hot and sweet tomato sauce.

The initial few scenes were well, not different. The humor was present, but not different from his comedy time stuff. What was different was the cinematographic treatment. I've seen a good lot of photography these days, but this movie is amongst one of the best. The story starts in a very light manner, gets stronger over time. The actor Ganesh has only one face and only one tone. Its his natural tone and expression and suits the role, but that's not acting. If only Ganesh could put on a few more expressions, if only he could talk with the right intonations. Fortunately for Ganesh, in Kannada films these things don't really matter. The first half of the movie is well paced with humor or its pretensions occupying the majority of the script. The songs blend in well and are excellently composed and are very good to listen to. I personally think they are better than most Hindi movie songs. Ganesh can't dance also. The locations are very good. The heroine is passable, thankfully she's not challenged by the role.

My sister, brother in law and mother and I were all having an average expression on their faces in the interval. At the end of the first half, I felt I was wasting my time on such a story. But at the end of the movie, I felt it was a very good script. The script moves at an even pace. The sense of expectation of an ending lingers long into the second half. It is this sense that makes the pacing of the movie great. IMHO, the ending, the pacing and the cinematography are the best parts of this movie. The hero's character develops to be capable of being a "hrudayavantha" in the second half. All the pieces don't really tie in well, so you keep expecting something to happen.

In a lot of ways, this movie is not different, but it is made different thanks to the treatment. Pacing is something I always admire, I like stuff where the pacing is such that your brain is running towards various possibilities and just when its about to get distracted from thinking on the possibilities, the story comes up with an answer. It should be slow enough to allow you to think/feel, but not too slow to allow you to get distracted. It should also not vary too much through the movie. This movie's pacing is something that I liked, considering the whole story is set in a matter of 5-10 days.

The ending is a very daring ending and its like the looks of a Maruti Swift, you either love it or hate it. I liked it a lot.

The icing on the cake though is the cinematography. Malnad in mungaru male makes an excellent subject to be shot. I would normally assume that with such a subject, you don't need extra ordinary skills. But that's been disproved in this movie. The right kind of focus, framing, settings combine together in most shots. Jog falls has always been a fascination for me and I strongly believe no photography can capture the essence. But this one comes closer than most attempts before. I will still maintain that the essence has still not been captured. It is obvious that the work is done with passion. I felt that this pair of directors/cinematographer should sit together and come up with documentaries on all Karnataka tourism spots. That would be a tremendous boost.

Overall, for the Kannada movie industry, I felt this movie is very good. It brings in a new set of audience - the non Kannada, the metro, the middle class Kannadiga urban. It integrates them with the rural audience. It has deviated from the "Long" movies and has beaten all records. It has been done outside of the clutches of both the Telugu/Tamil industry. If only the movie had a better hero/heroine, it would have been incomparable. Its no Cannes film festival award winner, yet it stands to be different from the other movies.

Apparently the movie has done quite a lot and is seen as the best success so far. Remake rights have been bought in Telugu, Hindi and Tamil. I would recommend it for everyone, not just for viewing but also for helping the Kannada film industry choose the right path over the "Long" films.

Why does India not win in Cannes anymore?

I just wanted to point out the problems with the art cinema scene today.

While its true that Bollywood and its quality is growing, the intelligence behind those films is going down. Technical quality is not film intelligence. Film intelligence is about how people use the different ways of communicating to show their thoughts and emotions. In Bollywood, its getting repetitive - bazaar to show chaos, rain to show dampness, fire to show passion. The reason why this is not changing is because the aim of bollywood is not "being creative in expression", but "make more money". And there is nothing wrong with making money as long as the people who're making money don't crib that they're not getting awards. The fact that the Bollywood guys expect recognition in Cannes is ridiculous. They can expect to make more money, but not get an award (which is inline with their intention, anyway)

The real problem, which nobody seems to notice is the deterioration of the "art" movie scene. There are some huge problems there:

- Regional biases: While Ray is undoubtedly the best that India has produced, the same is not true with all Bengali film makers. Similarly both Shahji and Adoor might be great in some of their movies, but there is no certainty that only Malayalees have it in them to show the pain of mankind. India needs to move away from this kind of a bias. Recently Telugu, Marathi have picked up in the circuit, but visibility is still very less for non-Bengali/non-Malayalee movie makers. Let me give an example, Girish Kasaravalli a very renowned film maker, who's won the Swarna Kamal award as many times as the great Ray was not featured in NDTV Witness's view point on why Indian movies don't make it good at awards. He's probably very well known outside of India, but in India he's had to deal with the regional bias. Another example "Raincoat" from Rituparno Ghosh was seen by a lot of people and was given a lot of visibility that other film makers in India would have loved to have. But anybody who's read the Gift of Magi will tell that Raincoat probably missed the point of the story by a mile.

- Idealism: There is a huge idealistic bias of most of the art film makers in India. All of them have a socialist/communist background. I am not against communism, but am of the opinion that different idealisms should exist to show the different aspects of the same issue. Indian movies tend to be directed from the same angle. Its always against exploitation of poor, women, senior citizens... Or its about caste system or awakening or rationality. I am not saying that's wrong, but its getting too monotonous. Concentrate on other subjects as well for a better variety. For eg., after Ray no major art director has directed a gem of a children's movie.

- Attitude: This seriously irritates me. Art movies in India are always prescriptive. Why should movies be only prescriptive? Why not become narrative or descriptive? The problem is that directors seem to assume a higher moral altar and preach to the people down and ask them to "think". This over emphasis on "thinking" has made movies very demeaning on the audience and too some extent very brahminical(only intellectual) in view point. Personally, I am of the opinion that "thinking" on a subject does not give a person a right to have an opinion on the subject. Its actually undergoing the experience of the subject, that enables one to have a complete viewpoint on the subject. Stories are a beautiful way of illustrating an experience. I still remember the Bharath Ek Khoj directed by Shyam Benegal, where the story telling mechanism was used to illustrate very difficult concepts in philosophy; and this was done in a beautiful narrative manner. To me that was a classic piece of direction.

- Marketing: Lack of marketing affects the movies very badly. Instead of taking movies with songs and dances to Cannes, why not take some real cinema. For eg., Makdee would have been an excellent candidate for awards. We will keep sending Kabhie KKKKKKKKs and not movies intended otherwise. We should follow a simple strategy, send movies to unbiased film festivals outside of India and then send the winners of these contests to better festivals. Another thing that needs to happen is the release of DVDs of art movies, with marketing of course. A lot of people who want to watch, say Bimal Roy's Parineeta will have to wait till eternity, because the company that owns the rights will not release the movies for production. A lot of movies are stuck up with the national film archives and the commercial departments. This needs to be freed

I don't know what the solutions to the problem are, but IMHO these are some of the important problems.