The Press Conference for the much-anticipated closing film ‘Dry Season’ (originally titled Sukho), directed by the acclaimed Bohdan Sláma and produced by Petr Oukropec, was held as part of the 55th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa. Organized by the Press Information Bureau, the event highlighted the film’s poignant exploration of environmental and generational challenges.
Set amidst verdant fields, the story follows Josef, a fifty-year-old farmer striving for an alternative lifestyle with his wife Eva and their three children. Josef’s clash with Viktor, a profit-driven agribusiness owner, intensifies as a dry summer leaves the village without drinking water, sparking tensions between their families, complicated further by Viktor’s strained bond with his returning son.
Director Bohdan Sláma reflected on the universal bond between humans and the environment, underlining the need to protect natural resources as a reflection of safeguarding the human spirit. He spoke about the meticulous journey of crafting the screenplay, which took three years and underwent 11 revisions, and expressed gratitude for the collaborative efforts of the cast and producers that enriched the filmmaking process.
Producer Petr Oukropec shared the complexities of financing and creating art-house cinema in smaller nations, emphasizing the significance of international collaborations. He lauded the film’s relevance, resonating with global audiences by addressing themes of sustainability, family, and generational divides.
The filmmakers urged younger audiences to take ownership of their future, as the narrative serves as a mirror to pressing contemporary issues. Concluding the session, Bohdan Sláma expressed hope that Dry Season would spark meaningful conversations, not just in India but across the world, reminding audiences of the delicate balance between humanity and nature.
Australian author Thomas Keneally‘s novel first “Schindler’s Ark” (later republished as Schindler’s List) brought the story of Oskar Schindler’s rescue of Jewish people during the Nazi Holocaust, to international attention in 1982, when it won the Booker Prize. It was made by Steven Spielberg into the Oscar-winning film Schindler’s Listin 1993, the year Schindler and his wife were named Righteous Among the Nations.
Schindler’s Ark later republished as Schindler’s List
About The Author
Thomas Michael Keneally, (born 7 October 1935) is an Australian novelist, playwright, essayist and actor. Keneally’s first story was published in The Bulletin magazine in 1962 under the pseudonym Bernard Coyle. By February 2014, he had written over 50 books, including 30 novels. He is particularly famed for his Schindler’s Ark (1982) (later republished as Schindler’s List), the first novel by an Australian to win the Booker Prize and is the basis of the film Schindler’s List. He had already been shortlisted for the Booker three times prior to that: 1972 for The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, 1975 for Gossip from the Forest, and 1979 for Confederates. Many of his novels are reworkings of historical material, although modern in their psychology and style.
Thomas Keneally
Storyline of The Novel
The story of the novel is based on true events, on account of the Nazi Holocaust during World War II. Oskar Schindler, (born April 28, 1908, Svitavy [Zwittau], Moravia, Austria-Hungary [now in the Czech Republic]—died October 9, 1974, Hildesheim, West Germany), German industrialist who, aided by his wife and staff, sheltered approximately 1,100 Jews from the Nazis by employing them in his factories, which supplied the German army during World War II.
Poster of Steven Spielberg‘s movie Schindler’s List (1993)
In the shadow of Auschwitz, a flamboyant German industrialist grew into a living legend to the Jews of Kraków. He was a womaniser, a heavy-drinker and a bon viveur, but to them he became a saviour. This is the extraordinary story of Oskar Schindler, who risked his life to protect Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland and who was transformed by the war into a man with a mission, a compassionate angel of mercy.
Liam Neeson as Oskar Schindler in Schindler’s List (1993)
Analysis of The Storyline
The novel introduced a vast and diverse cast of characters. However, the focus of the narrative was between Oskar Schindler and Amon Goeth. In the story, there was a dichotomy between what is essentially good and what is evil, that was personified by these two primary characters. Goeth represented everything evil. The war churned out a selfish and heartless sadist who found delight in inflicting pain on the Jews. Ironically, he lusted after his Jewish maid. Schindler, on the other hand, was portrayed as the Good German. He didn’t believe everything that the Nazi regime was saying against the Jews. He was, however, a man of contradictions. Despite being depicted as the epitome of goodness, he lived a self-indulgent lifestyle, which included proclivity towards the bottle and women. His infidelities have been a constant source of pain for his wife, Emilie. He also uses his connections to gain the upper hand in negotiations; it would also be a seminal part of his campaign to save the Jews.
Ralph Fiennes as Amon Goeth in Schindler’s List (1993)
Criticism of The Storyline
The amount of research poured to recreate the story of Oskar Schindler was astounding. And the starting point to this is as interesting as the novel itself. As noted in the Author’s Note, a chance encounter in 1980 led to the novel. Schindler’s motivation for protecting his workers was rarely ever clear, especially at the start. Questions still hound his true intentions. He, after all, brazenly took advantage of the cheap labour the Jews offered at the start of his enterprise. Is Schindler an anti-hero? The answer can be found in Keneally’s extensive research. Through interviews with surviving Schindlerjuden and different Second World War archives, he managed to identify the point in which Schindler decided to protect the Jews. While horseback riding on the hills surrounding Kraków, he witnessed an SS Aktion unfold on the Jewish ghetto below. The Jews were forcefully taken out of their houses. Those who resisted were shot dead, even in the presence of children. Witnessing the atrocious acts firsthand turned Schindler’s stomach. It was then that he resolved to save as many Jews as he can.
Scene from Schindler’s List (1993)
Overall, what didn’t work was the manner in which Keneally related the story of Oskar Schindler. As the story moved forward, it became clearer that Keneally was unsure of how to deliver the story. His resolve to remain loyal to Oskar’s story was commendable. He endeavored to do just that but it never fully came across. The result was an amalgamation of fiction and historical textbook. The strange mix muddled the story and the result was a perplexing work of historical fiction. It is without a doubt that one of the darkest phases of contemporary human history is the Second World War. Nobody expected that the meteoric ascent of Der Führer, Adolf Hitler, in the German political ladder would lead to a devastation of global scale. As the Axis forces march towards and beyond their boundaries, they would leave death and destruction in their wake, stretching from Europe, to the Pacific, and to the Far East. The consequences of the war would resonate well beyond its time. With genocides, concentration camps, and slave labour commonplace, the war was a reflection of the human conditions. Its peak, the Holocaust, exhibited the extent of the darkest shades of the human spirit. It was a grim portrait.
Indeed, the Second World War brought out the worst in humanity. However, in times of darkness, there are those among us who rise to the occasion. One of them is Oskar Schindler whose story was related by Thomas Keneally in his nonfiction novel, Schindler’s List (1982).
Conclusion
While Keneally‘s dramatization of this great man’s exploits is lacking in novelistic shape or depth, the brutality and heroism are satisfyingly, meticulously presented–as plain, impressive, historical record; and if admirers of Keneally’s more imaginative work may be disappointed, others will find this a worthy volume to place beside one of the several Wallenberg biographies.
Rabindranath Tagore’s 1903 Bengali novel Chokher Bali is often referred to as India’s first modern novel, where he highlighted the issues of women’s education, child marriage and the treatment of widows in 19th and 20th century Bengal. It was first serialised in the Bengali literary magazine, Bangadarshan first founded in 1872 by Bankim Chanra Chattopodhay and later resuscitated under the editorship of Tagore in 1901.
Rabindranath Tagore
About The Author
Rabindranath Tagore (7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali Polymath —poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He reshaped Bengali Literature and music as well as Indian Art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of the “profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful” poetry of Gitanjali, he became in 1913 the first non-European and the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Tagore’s poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his “elegant prose and magical poetry” remain largely unknown outside Bengal. He was a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society. Referred to as “the Bard of Bengal”, Tagore was known by sobriquet:Gurudev, Kobiguru, Biswakobi.
Aishwarya Rai Bachhan as Binodini in Chokher Bali (2003)
Storyline of The Novel
The plot revolves around four protagonists- Mahendra, Ashalata, Binodini and Bihari. Mahendra is the only scion of a rich family based in Calcutta. Bihari is his childhood friend, who frequents his house. Mahendra’s mother wanted him to marry Binodini, her friend’s daughter. But Mahendra refused. Then his mother requested Bihari to marry Binodini and save the poor girl which Bihari refused. Eventually, Binodini got married to a man who died soon after marriage. Meanwhile, Mahendra married Ashalata, a poor orphan girl. Mahendra was besotted with his wife when Binodini came to live in their house. With time, an extra-marital relationship develops between Mahendra and Binodini, which threatens to destroy his marriage with Ashalata. But soon Binodini discovers that Mahendra is a self-obsessed person, unable to provide a safe shelter to her. So she inclines towards Bihari, who lives life by principles. Throughout the novel, there is an implicit implication of Bihari’s affection towards Ashalata, though he never crosses the boundaries of the relationship. In the end, Bihari falls in love with Binodini when realizes her feelings for him. He proposed to marry her, which Binodini refused saying that she doesn’t want to ‘dishonour’ him further. During that period (the novel was written in 1902), widow remarriage was not well accepted in society. That may partially explain the reason behind Binodini’s refusal. In the end, Binodini leaves for Varanasi– a fate that awaited most of the widows in those days.
Aishwarya Rai Bachhan as Binodini and Raima Sen as Asha in Chokher Bali (2003)
Analysis of The Storyline
The term ‘Chokher Bali’literally means a sand grain in eye in Bengali and metaphorically means to bea source of irritation or disturbancein someone’s eyes, which is what Asha and Binodini become for each other. Binodini is presented in many avatars a hopelesswidow, a friend, a temptress, and a remorseful woman. Tagore gives readers an insight into her desires and longings, the feeling that many widows at the time had silently undergone. On the other hand, Asha is presented as naive and innocent, which combined with her illiteracy initially results in her subjugation. The narrative almost becomes an implicit debate on love and morality, urging readers to understand Asha and Binodini outside of the social norms of Bengali society. The central character Binodini is not an idealised Indian woman but a woman with shades of grey and very human flaws. Binodini cannot come to terms with her life as a widow, as she is still young and has wants and desires. She feels wronged as she believes she is superior to Asha in all respect and deserves the life she is living. Tagore’s depiction of Binodini is impressive as she subverts the expectation of society for widows to forgo all worldly desires.
Tota Roy Choudhury as Bihariand Aishwarya Rai Bachhan as Binodini in Chokher Bali (2003)
Criticism of The Storyline
The story of this novel delves deep into many facets of human relationships and how a single wrong decision can make the life disharmonious. Jealousy and deprivation of happiness can result into an emotion strong enough to forget all other ties and relationships.Tagore shows the intellectual interchange between the characters, possible due to education and the interception of letters. The innocent and illiterate child bride Asha fails to understand the exploitation she faces at the hands of her husband and dear Bali (Binodini) whom she trusted blindly. Tagore does not justify Binodini’s actions and actually is sympathetic to Asha, perhaps stressing that Asha would have been able to avoid Binodini’s interference in her marital life, if she were educated enough to understand the intentions behind her friendly nature.However, one of Tagore’s greatest regrets in the novel is the ending. Despite his progressive portrayal of Binodini and Bihar, he does not allow them to marry at the end. Although, today we may see the girl marrying the guy as regressive today in Tagore’s time a widowed woman was not permitted to re-marry. Thus, ending the novel with Binodini and Bihari marrying would have been the most revolutionary.
Scene from Chokher Bali (2003)
Movie Adaptation of The Novel
Adapted from Tagore’sChokher Bali, the movie with the same name was released in 2003, directed by eminent Bengali Moviemaker Rituparno Ghosh, starring Aishwarya Rai Bachhan, Raima Sen, Prosenjit Chatterjee and Tota Roy Choudhury in the lead roles. The movie won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Bengali and was nominated for the Golden Leopard Best Film award at the Locarno International Film Festival in 2003. Aishwarya Rai won the Best Actress award at the Anandalok Awards 2003.
Conclusion
A century after Chokher Bali, education is still a struggle for many women to access easily globally. Tagore’s novel is radical and unconventional presenting a viewpoint that is ahead of the conservative times of 19th and 20th century India. Through the story of Binodini, Tagore questions the societal norms. He condemns all kinds of taboos and unjust customs which deprive women and especially widows of their rightful freedom and autonomy; confined to live a mournful colourless life. As a man from a privileged background, his understanding of the emotions of Indian women and his empathetic attitude towards them is remarkable.
A Jest of God is a novel by Canadian author Margaret Laurence. It was first published in 1966. It won the Governor General’s Award for 1966 . In 1968, directorPaul Newman and screenwriter Stewart Stern adapted A Jest of God into the motion picture Rachel, Rachel. It starred Joanne Woodward in the lead role and Estelle Parsons as Calla, both of whom received Academy Award nominations for their performances. It was also nominated for Best Picture.
Revised Cover of A Jest of God (1966)
About The Author
Margaret Laurence (née Jean Margaret Wemyss), was a Canadian novelist (born 18 July 1926 in Neepawa, MB; died 5 January 1987 in Lakefield, ON). Margaret Laurence was one of the pivotal and foundational figures in women’s literature in Canada. Two of her novels — A Jest of God (1966) andThe Diviners(1974) — won the Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction. She also wrote acclaimed poetry, short stories and children’s literature, helped found the Writers’ Union of Canada and the Writers’ Trustof Canada, and served as chancellor of Trent University. She was made a Companion of the Order of Canada in 1972 and was named a Person of National Historic Significance by the Government of Canada in 2018.
Margaret Laurence
Storyline of The Novel
The tale of the dutiful daughter who returned home to care for her ailing widowed mother records with appalling accuracy the life of a thirty-four year old spinster school–teacher in a small town outside of Winnipeg. The relentless confinement of Rachel Cameron‘s life is disrupted the summer the milkman’s son, now a teacher in a Winnipeg high school, returns to visit his parents. Rachel is an easy mark; her affair with Nick brings out passion after awkwardness, and the yearning for a family of her own. The understanding that Nick is married destroys the affair but not her longing, and when she thinks she is bearing his child she determines to go through with her pregnancy. The prospective infant turns out to be a tumour, benign; Nick turns out to be unmarried and the more inaccessible; but Rachel emerges from her experience with a new conception of herself and her environment. She will no longer be a victim, though she may be a reluctant jester, and she makes the needed move to a place where her old responsibilities and limitations will remain but where there will be a greater freedom. Saved from soap opera by an utter sureness and honesty of vision, from dreariness by the aptitude of its portrayals, this carries a compassionate conviction that will reach a limited but sensitive feminine readership.
Poster of movie Rachel, Rachel (1968) based on novel A Jest of God (1966)
Analysis of The Storyline
The novel gets told with difficulty because Rachel’s voice is halting, obsessive. She begins her story as an observer, watching the children in the schoolyard, watching herself both in her immediate present as a teacher and remembering back to her childhood. She thinks of the “secret language” children share. In contrast, her own language is halting, and she finds difficulty establishing a voice. She frequently interrupts to judge her voice critically. She wonders: “Am I beginning to talk in that simper tone?” . Then, as a corrective, she speaks “more sharply than necessary,” and cautions herself to “strike a balance” . But, if we read this story in Jungian terms. (as many critics do),we perceive that Rachel cannot achieve this desired balance until she accepts her shadow side. Locked in a pattern of avoidance, no wonder she finds “my own voice sounds false to my ears”.
Joanne Woodward as Rachel in Rachael, Rachael (1968)
Because she resists acknowledging her desires, she remains blocked. When she approaches a recognition of her “darker,” “shadow” selves, she retreats, and stops the story. If she fears she is entertaining “morbid” thoughts or eccentric fantasies, she admonishes herself: “This must stop. It isn’t good for me. Whenever I find myself thinking in a brooding way, I must simply turn it off and think of something else”. She retreats from her sexual fantasies : “I didn’t. I didn’t…. Rachel, stop it. You’re only getting yourself worked up for nothing. It’s bad for you”. Yet these private fantasies are colourful and engaging, in vibrant contrast to her stilted public language and constrained behaviour. Fortunately, almost in spite of herself, she comes to acknowledge her desires and to face the implications of sexual passion. Through a symbolic descent into the underworld, the womblike, tomblike mortuary presided over by Hector Jonas (/Jonah), she realizes that she has the power to affirm her passions, to choose life.
scene from Rachel, Rachel (1968)scene from Rachel, Rachel (1968)
Conclusion
A Jest of God is beautifully written, a sympathetic, tender novel which sees Rachel come to a new understanding about herself, and her standing with her difficult mother. A thoroughly beautiful novel, that still possesses its relevance to today’s readers.
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (German: Das Parfum: Die Geschichte eines Mörders ) is a 1985 literary historical fantasy novel by German writer Patrick Süskind. The novel explores the sense of smell and its relationship with the emotional meanings that scents may have. An acclaimed bestseller and international sensation, Patrick Suskind‘s classic novel provokes a terrifying examination of what happens when one man’s indulgence in his greatest passion – his sense of smell – leads to murder. This novel was later adapted into a famous movie in 2006 with the same name, starring Ben Whishaw, Alan Rickman, Karolina Herfurth and others.
Ben Whishaw as Grenouille in Perfume: The Story of A Murderer (2006)
About The Author
Patrick Süskind ( born 26 March 1949) is a German writer and screenwriter, known best for his novel Perfume: The Story ofaMurderer, first published in 1985. Süskind lives as a recluse in Munich, in Seeheim , and in France at Montolieu. After spending the 1970s writing what he has characterized as “short unpublished prose pieces and longer un-produced screenplays”, Patrick Süskind was catapulted to fame in the 1980s by the monodrama Der Kontrabass [The Double Bass, 1981:], which became an instant success and a favourite of the German stage. In 1985 his status as literary wunderkind was confirmed with the publication of the novel Das Parfüm. Die Geschichte eines Mörders [Perfume. The Story of a Murderer], which quickly topped the European best-seller list and eventually sold millions of copies worldwide.The public knows little about him; he has withdrawn from literary society and does not grant interviews or allow himself to be photographed.
Ben Whishaw as Grenouille and Karolina Herfurth as Girl with Plums in Perfume: The Story of A Murderer (2006)
Storyline of The Novel
The novel is set in Paris in the 1700’s and follows the life of a man named Jean-Baptiste Grenouille who is born with an incredibly strong sense of smell. His nose is so keen that he is able to smell people coming, can locate lost items simply by their scent, and can catalogue smells in his mind. Whilst his sense of smell may be keen, his heart is empty and he seems to be completely unrestrained by everyday emotions. As a young lad, Grenouille encounters the irresistible smell of a young girl entering puberty. He promptly murders her and sniffs every inch of her body to catalogue the unique scent. Believing it is his destiny to bottle such a scent, Grenouille decides to pursue a career as a master perfumer, he works as an apprentice where his unique skills quickly make him the best perfumers in France. The story then follows Grenouille as he becomes a famed perfumer and experiments in scents that allow him to either go unnoticed or incite various emotions among those who smell it. His obsession with scents goes on to reaches a head with extreme consequences for all.
Ben Whishaw as Grenouille in Perfume: The Story of A Murderer (2006)
Analysis of The Storyline
A book about the sense of smell could have been a dull affair, were it not for the excellent way it is written by Suskind. His use of language is beautiful and his descriptions make even some with a dull nose like mine feel like they can smell the essences on the page. It’s not hard to see why this book has become such a modern classic given how excellent Suskind’s prose is. I challenge anyone not to read this and not then start using their nose a little more.
Scene from Perfume:The Story of A Murderer (2006)
The character of Grenouille is both fascinating, sympathetic, and yet also repulsive. In early life he is beat down at every corner and one can’t help but root for the character as he tries to rise above his terrible beginnings. As he becomes more in control of his life, Grenouille quickly becomes insidious and deceptive and there’s something very creepy in the way he is described as living like a tick. Grenouille does indeed live like a parasite, taking whatever he needs from people. As he becomes more unstable, eventually resorting to killing a young virgin, Grenouille turns into a monster, but a compelling one nonetheless. Like Humbert Humbert from Lolita, he’s a character you feel bad for sympathising with, though Grenouille may be a little more redeemable.
Scene from Perfume: The Story of A Murderer (2006)
Criticism of The Storyline
this is in every sense an olfactory novel gives a striking sensory immediacy to the fiction itself. ”Perfume” is a historical novel but one in which the sheer physicality of its theme lends it an honorary present tense. And if Grenouille is the hero of the novel, his obsessions are also its informing presence. Just as he has difficulty with words ”designating non-smelling objects, with abstract ideas and the like,” so the novel itself creates an elemental world in which such abstract matters are only of token significance. The nose is defined here by a priest as ”the primitive organ of smell, the basest of the senses,” with its powers springing from ”the darkest days of paganism”; but it flourishes in Grenouille, even in an age of ”enlightenment,” and the unspoken message of ”Perfume” is that it flourishes still. The point about genuine historical fiction is that it is primarily concerned with the contemporary world. This is not a historical romance, full of ”Prithees!” and strange objects known as poniards, but a meditation on the nature of death, desire and decay.
Scene from Perfume: The Story of A Murderer (2006)
Conclusion
The story of perfume made us really re-evaluate the importance of scents and how certain smells can influence us on a subconscious level. It makes one wonder how much of our everyday lives are dictated by scents without us even realising it. Throughout the book, you get the feeling pressure is mounting and it ends in a finale that sees an orgy of scents come together in one hell of an ending that isn’t likely to leave you any time soon.
Love can happen to anyone at anywhere, even at a hospital. Five Feet Apart by Rachael Lippincott ( co-authored with Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis) is such an endearing, engaging and modern-age young adult novel. Talking about the difficulties of life and love while struggling with a inherited chronic disease, is artistically presented in this book. This novel appeals a demand for its readers to think the priorities of a normal life, that often a person with persistent sickness fails to enjoy. The Book Five Feet Apart is adapted into a movie under the same title with Haley Lu Richardson and Cole Sprouse as lead characters.
About The Authors
Rachael Lippincott is the coauthor of All This Time, #1New York Times bestsellerFive Feet Apart, and She Gets the Girl and the author of The Lucky List. She holds a BA in English writing from the University of Pittsburgh.
Rachael Lippincott
Mikki Daughtry is an American screenwriter and Young Adult Fiction author. She is best known for writing, along with writing partner Tobias Iaconis, the films The Curse of La Llorona (2019), Five Feet Apart (2019) and Nightbooks (2021).
Mikki Daughtry and Rachael Lippincott
Storyline of The Novel
The story evolves around two teenagers Stella Grant and Will Newman. Stella is a chronically ill teen with Cystic Fibrosis (CF). She’s been in and out of hospitals for lengthy treatments most of her life. A rule-follower and control freak, Stella is careful to take her medications on time and do whatever is needed to maintain her treatment regimen. Only then can she hope for a lungs transplant. She maintains a website through which tens of thousands of viewers follow her journey. Her friend, Poe, who also has CF, is a patient at the same hospital. They communicate frequently, but often via text. Individuals with CF must remain 6 feet apart at all times to avoid sharing life-threatening germs. Will is a new patient at the hospital. His wealthy mother has arranged for him to participate in clinical trials all over the world. Nothing has helped. Will’s problem is worse than Stella’s and Poe’s. On top of CF, he has a condition called B. cepacia, which will deplete his lung function rapidly. This condition makes him ineligible for a lung transplant and far more dangerous to other CF patients.
Stella and Will meet at the hospital, and almost immediately fall in love with each other. If Stella catches this disease, she will get crossed off the list of people that can get new lungs and start a new life. This makes the relationship between the two very difficult since they must refrain from touching or even approaching each other closer than 6 feet. The more the two fall in love, the more tempting it is for them to break the rules and come closer, hold hands, or even kiss. Poe is a secondary character that is best friends with Stella and provides great support for her. The two have been friends since the age of 6, and are very close emotionally, but haven’t ever been close physically because of CF.
Haley Lu Richardson as Stella Grant and Cole Sprouse as Will Newman in Five Feet Apart movie (2019)
Analysis of The Storyline
Rachael Lippincott delivers an intriguing, emotional, well-plotted and well-written read here with relatable and likeable characters that readers can’t help but to fall in love with. The story is told in alternating perspectives between Stella and Will in a thoroughly enjoyable narrative manner. They complimented each other so well that both of their situations and feelings towards each other ring true.
While there are predictable elements in Five Feet Apart by Rachael Lippincott, as a whole it is tender, emotional and heartfelt. Its easy to root for these characters. The romance may be sudden but given the circumstances, it makes sense and their interactions felt genuine. With heart and humour, FiveFeet Apart by Rachael Lippincott is a good read.
Five Feet Apart movie (2019)
Criticism of The Storyline
The book flows very well and is very fast-paced. It is fun to read and is entertaining enough to read in one sitting. The authors used modern and teenage language by incorporating informal conversations ( and sometimes slangs) which adds lucidity to the novel and overall improves the readability. The authors did a good job explaining the disease that the two protagonists have which makes the book easy to understand even to the readers with no prior knowledge of the Cystic Fibrosis disease.
Five Feet Apart is a book that will move you to tears at times. It is heart-felt and gives light to the seriousness of Cystic Fibrosis. The authors included a lot of detail, writing about the daily struggles and tasks that the patients if CF have to go through. Every author tries to write in a way that makes it so the reader can live through the book and Lippincott, Daughtry, and Iaconis do a beautiful job at this. The reader can really feel the emotions of the characters and this is why the book is so gripping. You’re so engrossed in the story that you must know how it ends, with the hope that Stella and Will can conquer anything. This book is touching and definitely worth reading.
Scene from Five Feet Apart movie (2019)
Conclusion
This book is recommended to modern-age readers and fans of YA romance because the book tells you that even if you stand different and have difficulties to deal with in your life and health, you can still find love, even at places it is least expected to be found in general. This book is a definitely good romance novel that takes two people that think that they don’t have anything in common to them falling in love.
To Kill a Mockingbird is a very popular modern classic by the American author Harper Lee, that narrates a coming-of-age story with a theme of social equality and prejudice. It was published in 1960 and was instantly successful. The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it. In the United States, it is widely read in high schools and middle schools.To Kill A Mockingbird has become a classic of modern American Literature, winning the Pulitzer Prize in1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film, also a classic.
About The Author
Nelle Harper Lee (April 28, 1926 – February 19, 2016) was an American novelist best known for her 1960 novel To Kill A Mockingbird. Lee has received numerous accolades and honorary degrees, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007 which was awarded for her contribution to literature. She assisted her close friend Truman Capote in his research for the book In Cold Blood (1966). Capote was the basis for the character DillHarris in To Kill a Mockingbird.
Harper Lee
Storyline of The Novel
The novel follows the story of a black man in the 1930s, convicted for the rape of a white girl. It is written from the perspective of two young children and their confusion at topics like race and the discriminatory ways of adults around them. Despite been written in a child’s perspective, the story does not diminish the meaningful themes of the novel in any way. Even after 80 years of its publication, the book is still popular and highly relates to our society.
Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch and Brock Peters as Tom Robinson in To Kill A Mockingbird movie(1962)
The story evolves around six-year-old Scout Finch is living in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama during the Great Depression. Raised by Atticus Finch, Scout and her brother, Jem, are very comfortable with Maycomb and understand the well being of their neighbours, except the house of the mysterious Arthur Radley, whom they obsess over. Half the book is basically about Scout, Jem, and Dill (their new friend) trying to lure Arthur Radley out of his house. However, when Atticus, a lawyer, decides to take the case of a black man named Tom Robinson, tensions become high and the trial to see whether Tom Robinson is guilty or innocent based on his crime and, especially, his skin colour is at stake.
Analysis of The Storyline
To Kill a Mockingbird focuses on that gut instinct of right and wrong, and distinguishes it from just following the law. Even the titular quote: “Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit ’em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird” is in itself an allegory for this message. Being in itself a generic message, the idea of ‘doing what’s right’ obviously has a different meaning depending on when and where you’re reading the book. If you take 1960, when the book was written, America was in a state of ethical development as social inequality was – very – gradually being overcome. Women’s rights and black rights movements were beginning to emerge and some campaigned through violence. Would Atticus Finch condone this?
In the 1930s, when the book was set, America was in the midst of the Great Depression. This was a time when economic difficulties meant that the American Dream was receding further and further away. We could consider that Atticus Finch felt that his own dream of an equal, morally decent society was also heading in the wrong direction.
Scene from To Kill A Mockingbird movie (1962)
Criticism and Relevance of The Storyline
This 1960 novel is ahead of its time; carrying a message that is still needed by today’s world, Harper Lee’s debut novel is regarded as one of the best contemporary classics. Prejudice against the black community is the main theme of this novel. The lives of the main character revolve around this. Standing up for what’s right, defending the weak, swimming against the current; all these righteous acts comes at a huge price, sometimes even risking the lives and dignity of our loved ones. The novel gives us a strong message to the readers. It so skilfully presents the vulnerability of a minority community and how they fall prey to prejudice. The author very skilfully brings forth the sub of racism, that too very tenderly through characters who peacefully struggle against this evil. Harper Lee shows us that in every society, there are some people who would stay firmly at the side of justice, though they may face severe consequences.
scene from To Kill A Mockingbird movie (1962)
Conclusion
Without denying the constancy of the moral message, and the pure ingenuity of the book, it’s still open to debate whether, as with all classics, schoolchildren should be forced to read the novel and go over it page-by-page. Therefore everyone who reads it can take something out of it which no one has before. Let it not be forgotten that a true piece of literature, like To Kill a Mockingbird, is meaningful in every period and that today, Atticus Finch’s message should be heard in the midst of all the global conflicts that we hear of on the news every day and night.
Lolita is a 1955 novel written by Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov. The novel is notable for its controversial subject, which engages an unethical relationship between a middle aged man and a minor girl. First issued in 1955 by an unorthodox Paris press after being rejected by a string of American publishers; banned by the French government, presumably out of solicitude for immature English-speaking readers (the ban was later quashed by the French High Court); pronounced unobjectionable by that blue-nosed body, the U. S. Customs office; and heralded by ovations from writers, professors, and critics on both sides of the Atlantic, became a near-instant bestseller in the US, shifting over 100,000 copies in its first three weeks alone. The shocking subject matter, gleefully punning unreliable narrator, and Nabokov’s spellbinding sentence-level prowess combined to create a book as repulsive as it was inviting—comic and horrific and utterly absorbing. The novel was later adapted in two movies with the same name of the novel, Lolita(1962) and Lolita(1997) .
Russian writer VladimirNabokov (1899 – 1977) in Rome to work on the film screenplay of his most famous book, ‘Lolita‘.
About The Author
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov , also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin, was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Russia, he wrote his first nine novels in Russian (1926–1938) while living in Berlin. He achieved international acclaim and prominence after moving to the United States and beginning to write in English. Nabokov became an American citizen in 1945, but he and his wife returned to Europe in 1961, settling in Montreux, Switzerland.
Nabokov’s Lolita (1955) was ranked fourth in the list of the Modern Library 100 Best Novel in 2007, Pale Fire (1962) was ranked 53rd on the same list; and his memoir, SpeakMemory (1951), was listed eighth on publisher Random House list of the 20th century’s greatest nonfiction. He was a seven-time finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction.
Cinematic Adaptation of Lolita (1962), starring James Mason as Humbert Humbert and Sue Lyon as Lolita
Storyline of The Novel
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov’s immaculate and disturbing masterpiece, is the story of middle-aged paedophile man Humbert Humbert—a handsome, French-born intellectual on the one hand, and unapologetic sexual predator on the other and his tragic love affair with his 12-year-old, bubble-gum popping stepdaughter Dolores Haze, who is fondly called Lolita by Humbert. It’s a post-war road novel, the odyssey of a venerable European man and a prepubescent American girl bouncing across the United States, trying to outrun the past and find a future that doesn’t exist.
Lolita (1962)
Humbert’s sociopathic behaviour might be traced back to a sexual experience when he was 13, when he meets his “first love” Annabel—a 12-year old girl who is travelling with her parents. They lust for each other fervently, with an intensity that leaves a permanent impression on Humbert. He describes his passion with a cannibalistic “frenzy of mutual possession [that] might have been assuaged only by our actually imbibing and assimilating every particle of each other’s soul and flesh.” Their failure to complete the dirty deed leaves an indelible, unresolved tension in Humbert—an impoverished thirst for early-pubescent girls that carries through to adulthood, which he is forced to lie about . He gets married to a widow who he physically abuses to get his own way. He constantly admits himself to sanatoriums, but finds the doctors ridiculous and uses his intelligence to mislead them. He swings from “ashamed and frightened” to “recklessly optimistic,” craving hedonistic intercourse with 11 to 14 year-old girls, but living in the wrong country and century. He tries to justify his urges by recounting accepted paedophilia throughout history, but even his vindications are half-hearted and remorseless—he’s a grown man who wants to have intercourse with children, and there’s nothing to be done about it. He’s an “artist and a madman, with a bubble of hot poison in his loins.” His anguish is illustrated beautifully by Russian-born Nabokov, whose mastery of English is mind-blowing. The animalistic language that he uses is both shocking and enthralling, and some sentences are appalling in their vividness.
Cinematic Adaptation of Lolita (1997), starring Jeremy Irons as Humbert Humbert and Dominique Swain as Lolita
Humbert understands the precariousness of his attachment to Dolores. She’s a hostage who he appeases with countless and expensive bribes, spawning a crippling jealousy that his nymphet will run away with someone else, especially because of her flirtatious nature. The juvenile sensuality of Dolores Haze makes a paedophile and a green-eyed monster of Humbert, who becomes more and more paranoid as the story unfolds.
Analysis of The Novel
To be sure, this novel isn’t for the faint of heart, but neither should prospective readers retreat to any kind of moral high ground. Nabokov, in fact, threads an unexpected and affirming emotional serenity through his portrait of obsession. His enigmatic narrator leaves us in spellbound rapture. Because for all of its linguistic pyrotechnics — as Humbert confesses, “you can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style” — and for all its controversial subject matter, Lolita is one of the most beautiful love stories you’ll ever read. It may be one of the only love stories you’ll ever read. This is the most thrilling and beautiful and most deeply disturbing aspect of the novel — and it’s what most persuasively recommends the book — that in addition to finding Humbert’s soul on the page, we also find, like it or not, a little of our own.
Lolita (1997)
The Author has afflicted poor Humbert with a special and taboo variety for a couple of contradictory reasons. In the first place, its illicit nature will both shock the reader into paying attention and prevent sentimentally false sympathy from distorting his judgment. Contrariwise, I believe, Mr. Nabokov is slyly exploiting the American emphasis on the attraction of youth and the importance devoted to the ‘teen-ager’ in order to promote an unconscious identification with Humbert’s agonies.
Criticism of The Novel
The art that palliates Humbert’s misery has not notably relieved the distress of reviewers, most of whom have felt obliged to ask themselves, how the author could come up with such horrific storyline. Some have concluded, rather desperately, that he hasn’t done it at all. According to one interpretation, Mr. Nabokov has merely written an allegory of a European intellectual who falls in love with America and discovers, to his gentle sorrow, that the country is still a trifle immature. Aside from the difficulty of assigning roles, the fact that the author is obviously capable of writing such a story without the aid of a nympholeptic allegory throws considerable doubt on the argument. It has also been suggested, ingeniously, that Mr. Nabokov really wanted to write a tale of romantic passion in the grand, or nineteenth-century, manner, and found that the only way to make such a passion interesting to the contemporary reader was to disguise it as psychopathology. If this interpretation is correct, one can only say that Mr. Nabokov has beautifully concealed his disappointment at having to portray his heroine as a child.
Lolita (1997)
Despite Humbert’s evil, the fallout from the relationship is heartbreaking. Our empathy for the odious rogue is Nabokov’s greatest achievement in the novel. We both detest and sympathise with him, leaving us feeling confused and perhaps a little guilty. Humbert’s vile actions and fantasies, in which he dreams of painting a mural and re-live hopelessness of falling in love with a girl who could never love him back. Like Humbert’s love for Dolores, Lolita felt like a forbidden fruit, breaking the sturdiest of taboos to illuminate the mind of an infatuated, sociopathic paedophile, which is a mind we rarely get to see.
Lolita (1997)
Conclusion
Lolita is old enough and infamous enough to be known as a story of unhinged paedophilia. But it’s also a beautiful and depressing love story, with a tortured antagonist who despite his crimes, and due to the skill of the book’s author Vladimir Nabokov, we can eventually empathise with.
The Perks of Being A Wallflower(1999), is a modern age novel written by Stephen Chbosky. The novel is about the dilemma of passivity vs passion that marks the stunning debut of a provocative new voice in contemporary fiction. Stephen Chbosky has created this deeply affecting coming-of-age story, a powerful novel that would spirit the readers back to those wild and poignant roller coaster days known as growing up. The novel is later adapted to a movie under the same title in 2012.
About The Author
Stephen Chbosky is an American screenwriter, film producer, film director, novelist, television writer, and television producer. He is best-known for writing the bestseller The Perks of Being A Wallflower(1999), as well as for writing and directing the 2012 film adaptation of the book. Most recently, he directed the 2017 drama Wonder and the 2021 film adaptation of Dear Evan Hansen. His first psychological horror novel, Imaginary Friend, was published in October 2019.
Stephen Chbosky
Storyline of The Novel
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky is narrated by fifteen-years-oldCharlie, the titular ‘wallflower’, in a series of letters that he writes to a stranger, beginning the night before he starts his freshman year of high school in 1991. These letters catalogue Charlie’s attempts to “participate”, as he wanders wide eyed through a series of house parties and Rocky Horror Picture Show productions with his new, older friends. Along the way, Chbosky intelligently explores stock Young Adult themes such as mental health, substance abuse and sexuality, whilst simultaneously reminding the reader about how exciting it is to be young and idealistic.
Logan Lerman as Charlie in Perks of Being A Wallflower (2012) movie
Though shy and sensitive in nature, Charlie is an intelligent boy with unconventional thinking capabilities. His first letters starts with Charlie mentioning about suicide of his Middle School’s friend and death of his favourite aunt Helen and how these tragic incidents have took toll in his life. Charlie befriends two seniors Patrick and Sam and ends up indulging in alcohol and other drugs with Sam. In the meantime, Charlie also learns about his sister having relationship with an abusive guy and eventually getting pregnant. The flashback of his aunt dying in car crash stops haunting Charlie, as he starts enjoying company of his friends and Sam. While playing Truth and Dare, he is asked to kiss the prettiest girl in the room; he kisses Sam for which he faces neglect from the group. Overall this is a story filled with drama and lots of emotions, including, friendship, first love and teenage sexuality.
Logan Lerman as Charlie, Emma Watson as Samand Ezra Miller as Patrick in Perks of Being A Wallflower movie
Analysis of The Storyline
Throughout the book, through the characters, the author seems to be attempting to answer some of the questions we all face at some time in our life. The author seems to be trying to find the reason why some good people chose bad people to love. This question is raised by Charlie to Mr. Bill and the answer he gives seems to be the central theme of the book “We accept the love we think we deserve”. This can be seen in various characters. Sam is in a relationship with a guy, who seems to consider that everything that is good about her, is good because of him. She seems to have gone through some tough times in her life, and the fact that she didn’t consider herself worthy, seems to have played a role in this.
Scene from Perks of Being A Wallflower movie
The whole book seems to be asking the reader to love themselves. The author, by writing the story as a series of letters, seems to be trying to speak to the readers, as if speaking to a friend, a friend he sees in high regard, no matter how they see themselves.
Iconic scene of Emma Watsonin Perks of Being A Wallflower movie
Criticism of The Storyline
Charlie, the protagonist of the novel suffers extreme teenage crisis that sometimes breaks the readers’ hearts that all he had to handle alone inside his head. The book shows all the sides of being a teenager and isn’t afraid to cover mature themes. The book uses its more mature situations in order to relate to teenagers. Many teenagers have experienced these hardships either first hand or by hearing about them. The characters partake in activities that some may see as unwise. These are in the book however to add realism not to encourage or promote these acts. This book will most likely only be fully appreciated by older teenagers due to its unflinching depiction of teenage life. Before reading this book readers should know there are themes of sexual abuse and those that are sensitive to that topic should be cautious about reading this book.
Logan Lerman and Emma Watson in Perks of Being A Wallflower (2012)
Conclusion
The book has received love all over from many of its readers for its very realistic portrayal of teenage life, complex characters, and thought-provoking commentary from Charlie. This book displays a wide range of emotions. Its relatable and complex characters allow the readers to feel the same emotions the characters are feeling. The book’s use of journal entries to tell its story helps the reader connect to Charlie and it adds to the realism, which makes this book an absolute winner.
Call Me By Your Name is a book that throbs with desire. André Aciman’s 2007 novel (and the basis for the film of the same franchise in 2017) is a portrait of adolescent love and lust, experienced for the first time with an intensity that’s almost frightening in how all-consuming it feels. And Aciman devotes himself to chronicling every fleeting fantasy, every caress, with a fervour that matches what his characters are feeling.
About The Author
André Aciman is an Italian-American writer. Born and raised in Alexandria,Egypt, he is currently distinguished professor at the Graduate Center of City University of NewYork, where he teaches the history of literary theory and the works of Marcel Proust.
He is the author of several novels, including Call Me By Your Name and a 1995 memoir, Out of Egypt, which won a Whiting Award. Although best known for Call Me by Your Name, Aciman stated in an interview in 2019 that his best book is the novel Eight White Nights.
André Aciman
Storyline of The Novel
It tells the story of a blooming romance between 17-year-old Elio Perlman, and 24-year-old visiting scholarOliver, who comes to the summer home of Elio’s parents in Italy, 1983.
The story is told in retrospect, with grown-up Elio recalling the events of that fateful summer. He always resented his parents’ tradition of taking a doctorate student into their home for six weeks each year, forcing him to vacate his bedroom (that sacred space of a teenage boy) to make room for their guest. That all changed when Oliver, a Harvard graduate student comes to stay with the academic expat family in the Italian Riviera, where he will oversee the translation of his dissertation on Heraclitus. As he wins the family over with his breezy charm and preppy insouciance, Oliver also inspires the adoration of the professor’s teenage son, Elio, who relays to us each stage of his infatuation.
Elio catalogues every aspect of Oliver—his gazes, his phrases—and even augurs meaning from his clothing: “He had, it took me a while to realize, four personalities depending on which bathing suit he was wearing.” Elio, in turn, dazzles Oliver with his precocity—he’s a virtuoso on piano and on an enviously easy footing with literature from Ovid to Celan. But he is unsure and untested in carnal matters. His desire for Oliver literally false-starts when he accidentally (and discreetly) ejaculates in his presence (the scene recalls Marcel’s embarrassing tussle with Gilberte). But when Oliver starts sleeping with a local girl, it seems that Elio’s fantasies of consummation will never be realized. He muses about killing, or at least crippling, Oliver: “If he were in a wheelchair, I would always know where he was, and he’d be easy to find.”
But then, just as Elio has given up hope, it happens: He slips into Oliver’s room one night and so begins their five-week love affair. They have adventurous, almost incessant sex, during which, at Oliver’s prompting, they call each other by the other’s name. As a strategy for subsuming the other’s self, this verbal masquerade is strikingly successful. At first shameful for Elio, their passion quickly becomes all-consuming. The lovers revel in their sameness—they are both young Jews, “brothers in the desert”; they experience the same sexual pains and pleasures; their minds travel along the same currents to catch the right literary references.
Timotheé Chalamet as Elio Perlman and Armie Hammer as Oliver, in Call Me By Your Name (2017)
Analysis of The Story
Call Me by Your Name is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents’ cliff-side mansion on the Italian Riviera. Unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, at first each feigns indifference. But during the restless summer weeks that follow, unrelenting buried currents of obsession and fear, fascination and desire, intensify their passion as they test the charged ground between them. What grows from the depths of their spirits is a romance of scarcely six weeks’ duration and an experience that marks them for a lifetime. For what the two discover on the Riviera and during a sultry evening in Rome is the one thing both already fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy.
The psychological manoeuvres that accompany attraction have seldom been more shrewdly captured than in André Aciman’s frank, unsentimental, heartrending elegy to human passion. Call Me by YourName is clear-eyed, bare-knuckled, and ultimately unforgettable.
Timotheé Chalamet as Elio Perlman
Criticism of The Story
Despite the fact that it’s a coming-of-age story, Call Me By Your Name is hardly a young adult book. For one, it’s quite erotic, albeit in a highly literary way. All of the sexual encounters (including one truly smutty incident with a peach) are depicted in detail, but not to titillate. It feels more like Aciman is simply demonstrating the depth and desperation of Elio and Oliver’s desire.
Call Me by Your Name ends with a series of unsatisfactory but still charged meetings between Elio and Oliver later in life. They have a rendezvous in New England, where Elio is traveling and where Oliver teaches and lives with his family. The novel, despite its melancholy send-off, ultimately holds out an extremely un-Proustian, optimistic promise: Love and understanding can endure hand in hand. Elio can still say of Oliver, “This was my favourite Oliver: the one who thought exactly like me.” Twenty years later, when they return to one of their cherished spots in Italy, Elio asks only to be called once more by the name Oliver—as if to imply that nothing has changed. For Proust, such naming is inevitably fraught with failure (Marcel at one point wishes he could give a different name to each of the Albertines he knows). The notion that the past could ever obey such a summons, that anyone could ever be so static, suggests that Elio has breached, but finally resisted, Proustian knowledge. This shying away leaves us with something less than we might have expected from Aciman’s previous reckonings with time.
Scene from the Movie Call Me By Your Name
Conclusion
Even with all the critical analysis, the storyline wins millions of hearts with the sweet message of love, that can happen to anyone under any circumstance. The story broke some stereotypes about how the meaning of Love is mostly depicted in society. It normalizes the simplicity, the beauty and the agony of love between two men, in a never seen before way. And that makes the book an ultimate winner for its modern day readers.
The parasite is a film that is inevitably mind-blowingly awesome, whichwould leave even the most verbose enthusiast speechless!.
The movie was celebrated all over the world for its nuanced take on social inequality and making its way to Oscar’s history as the first foreign language winner of best picture.But Bong Joon Ho’s ( director ) scathing critique of modern society goes way beyond its riveting plot points.
Plotand title
Parasite centers around the abjectly poor but cunning Kim family who dream of escaping their filthy semi-basement they scam their way into the lives of the very wealthy park family innovating methods to find work as a tutor, chauffeur, art therapist, and housekeeper for most parts things went smoothly until they found out they’re not the only one beguiling the family, the former housekeeper husband has been staying in the house hidden bunker for year’s to hide from debt collectors.
Tensions between the two working-class families mount and everything descents down at a very bloody birthday party leaving several deaths, after stabbing Mr park, Mr. Kim retreats into the same bunker to hide avoiding the foreseeable future, meanwhile the Kim son fantasies about buying the house and freeing his dad.
Title
The title parasite represents the way these four members of the lower class leach off the good nature and generosity of the Park family, but what is Bong trying to tell us in the aftermath is that the parks are also leaching off the lowers classes by living comfortably on the backs of their labor thus questioning the audience In late-capitalist society who are the parasites? the poor are surviving off the rich while the rich are living off the poorthe middle class are busy making resumes
Cinematography and symbolic references
The film owes much of its success around the world to its reliance on cinematic language rather than the spoken language we examine two families on opposite sides of the economic spectrum and every cinematic tool has been used to contrast between the two.
The first shot of the film shows Kims semi-basement window with a glimpse of natural sunlight pouring through and the camera moves downward compare to that we see the park’s home, the camera is moving upwards to the modern home architecture into the full view of the sun we see that Bong ( director) has used the balance of light and darkness, natural and urban environment to signify their economic status
Most parts of the movies showed Kim’s family infiltration process following the same visual pattern upward towards light finding their host and again moving downwards into darknessuntil the revealing of the bunker where we descend to the lowest point with no sunlight and no hope it’s more of a prison than a home, but at least better than being dead.
The Kim’s got a taste of paradise to live among the rich before the rain flushed them right back downthe parks are sanctioned from everything, not necessarily antagonists but rather they are disconnected from everyday life failing to see the harsh reality of the economically weaker section of the society.
Everything in the movie from clothing, hairstyle to the sad empty fridge, is used to indicate their stature as a family in the lower class, even their smell gives them the way but something never changes and that the dream that once lifted you can come back to haunt you.
Vikramaditya Motwane’s realistic filmography was visibly seen in his first project, ‘Udaan’. Following his own footsteps, he replicated it in ‘Lootera’. The colour-grading, as well as the panning of the camera, opens with a leisurely warmth in the first half. However, it moves to an edgier and colder grading as the sadness overwhelms the narrative in the later part of the movie.
Motwane’s 2013 period drama, ‘Lootera’, follows the love story of an archaeologist and a literary-minded daughter of a wealthy landlord. The director sets the story against the backdrop of the abolition of the zamindari system. The movie is visibly demarcated into two halves set in rural Bengal and Dalhousie, respectively.
The shift in the color palette influences the viewer’s experience to understand and feel the emotions more closely. The sunny days of West Bengal appear overwhelmingly warm and secure when put against the snowy, lifeless and cold snapshots at the end of the film. In an interview, Motwane spoke about the brilliance of the aesthetics of the cinema of the 50s. His attempts to use the atmosphere to convey things is an attempt to achieve a similar feat.
Zoya Akhtar’s ‘Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara’ is a visual delight with a breathtaking landscape of the Spanish countryside and an equally eye-pleasing cast. Akhtar, quite often, allows the audience to admire and fancy these people and these locations by keeping the camera still at them for long durations. Carlos Catalan, who was the cinematographer for the film, invested a great deal of time to create such sights. The creators have frequently relied upon three of the primary colors, namely red, blue and green, to convey emotions, ambience and thoughts that overwhelm our characters. Akhtar has juxtaposed the pensive and thoughtful moments with the delightful ones.
In contrast, the former are subdued with un-illuminated shades, the latter pop out with blazing colors to signify brighter emotions. At the start of the movie, we see the three protagonists in their natural habitat, away from each other. Each one’s environment is shown to be devoid of colors, especially Arjun and Kabir. Arjun, in particular, is surrounded by dark and gloomy colors. These colors often compliment his formal and detached personality. Kabir, on the other hand, can be seen surrounded by a colorless environment of white and gold that reeks of sophistication and riches.
However, as the movie progresses and we witness them coming to life, many visuals, in the latter half, contain wider shots to incorporate more colors from the environment. Farhan Akhtar, in an interview, talked about the need for shooting in Spain. He said, “the screenplay of Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara called for a vibrant setting” to convey the vibrancy of the trio together.
Set in the 1910s in Bengal, this film originally known in Bengali as Pather Panchali is the first feature length film of one of India’s most acclaimed and celebrated directors: Satyajit Ray (1921-1992). The film focuses on an impoverished Brahman family in a Bengali village with the youngest member Apu being one of the central characters. It is his story that Ray focuses on in his two feature length films : Aparajito (The Unvanquished, 1956) and Apur Sansar (The World of Apu, 1959) thus making this movie the first in Ray’s critically acclaimed Apu Trilogy.
The film centers around Apu and his family members including his elder sister Durga, his priest of a father who dreams of being a poet and a playwright and his mother who is often engaged in a battle with his father’s cousin who she resents for stealing their food from the kitchen while she struggles to feed her children. The film is a slice of life and one that displays the harshness of reality for a family living in dire poverty. Since Apu’s mother is often busy, taking care of the family, it is Durga who cares for him like a second mother, often teasing him and sharing the simple joys of life with him like sitting under the cool shade of a tree, viewing the mind-boggling pictures through a travelling vendor’s bioscope or watching a folk theatre performed by a troupe or even chasing and salivating at the sweets of the candy man despite their empty pockets.
The film blindsides the viewer by showing a child’s perspective of the world. Be it Apu and Durga’s fascination with all the vendors and their goods or their wealthier friend’s jewellery and beads. A soundtrack composed by Pandit Ravi Shankar which includes mainly tunes played on the sitar, transports us to the village and its peace; free from the worries of the hustling-bustling cities.
Starring mostly amateur actors and a first-time director at the helm, the film struggled in its funding but was ultimately funded by the government of Bengal, giving Ray the opportunity to finish his masterpiece. Once released, the film was an astounding critical and commercial success. Grossing 100 million through positive word of mouth, the film received accolades from various national and international organizations the most noticeable being The National Film Awards and a screening at the Cannes Film Festival. The film cemented Satyajit Ray’s career as a director and placed India on the world cinema map. It created a new genre of film-making in which authenticity and realism were the primary themes, breaking the norms of traditional Indian filmmaking. The film may not hold the test of time from a technical stand point due to its poor print quality and damage to the original negatives, but from a story telling standpoint, the film still strongly puts forward its themes of poverty and child-like wonder, that are as relevant today as they were in a film that released 66 years ago.
Despite having a basic premise and a simple narrative with a predictable climax, the film doesn’t fail to bring you that smile you wish for, after having watched a feel-good inspirational film. It’s also a bonus if you’re interested in Indian classical music.
Our protagonist is Peter Johnson, a young man who is introduced to us as a diehard fan of Tamil superstar Vijay, so much so that he skips exams to watch his films first-day first-show. The transition that Peter’s character undergoes from a carefree lad crazy about a film star to someone well-disciplined and obsessed with music is the highlight of the film. What connects these two Peters is the love for beats, whether he played them on drums to celebrate Vijay’s success, or to become an ace Mridangam player. That’s what the title of the film suggests – beats are omnipresent, and there’s no particular way to follow them.
Sarvam Thaala Mayam
Interpretation
At its core, it’s essentially a Dronacharya-Ekalavya story, but has much more to offer. Although Peter surrenders himself to renowned mridangam player Vembu Iyer, he soon realizes that the path is going to be difficult. Society is cruel, and talent is not all that it takes to succeed. The commentary on caste/class distinction raises the obvious question: Isn’t art supposed to be for everyone who wants to pursue it? Peter’s father is a Mridangam manufacturer, who is in love with the instrument in his own way, not as a musician but as a builder. The father-son conflict regarding how to view the same object, one as a means of livelihood and the other as a subject of passion, is especially interesting.
I guess the film reinstated my belief about art being subjective, and the fact that rigidity in art is never a good idea. I would say I loved the film because it gave me what I wanted to see, which may not work for everyone. However, it is still a lovely watch, and I would ask you to go for it if you want something sweet and lighthearted. My only issue was that the female lead didn’t have much to do except playing a love interest.
In around 70 minutes, Picasso is a breezy watch. The story is simple, straightforward and heartwarming, and apart from the main takeaway that is the beautiful father-son relationship, you also get immersed in the world of Marathi Sangeet Natak, specifically the art of Dashavatar folk theatre as described before the end credits. Majority of the film is a detailed enactment of one such play, which keeps you yearning for a big screen experience of the same, if not the experience of watching such performances live.
Picasso 2019
Interpretation
But the father-son relationship is not the sole thing to explore here. It more of an artist-artist relationship, one extending a supporting hand to another, although it may not be mutual at the moment. Pandurang is a sculptor, and also an actor on stage. He provides for his family with whatever he earns, which is never enough. He has inspired his son Gandharva to paint, who has made him proud by winning a prestigious competition that can eventually give him a chance to learn art in Spain. But Pandurang cannot afford even the 1500 bucks needed to compete for the next round. Gandharva is heartbroken, but decides to spend the whole night watching his father perform on stage – one artist accepting his defeat, and eager to see the other flourish.
The scene in the frames above touched the right chords of my heart. We see a frustrated Pandurang trying to apply makeup on his face, while the cigarette dangling from his fingers makes it difficult for him. He knows he isn’t going to make much money tonight, and he is equally heartbroken as his son for having refused him. But then Gandharva helps out his father, painting his face as he would paint a canvas. Pandurang looks lovingly at his son and flashes a teary smile. Gandharva appears to be a true artist at this moment, whether he makes it to Spain or not.
Sheltered from world beyond the ocean surface, a young sea monster ventures to a small coastal town disguised as a human boy. This movie unfortunately falls to an unreasonably high standard having been produced by Pixar Animation Studios. Sparing a few exceptions, there is an expectation that any given Pixar film will be in discussion for best movie of the year. While Luca certainly will not be talked about in any such manner & pales in comparison to Pixar’s other creations, it is far from a bad movie. This movie offers enough charm & heart to be generally enjoyable to almost any viewer. The environment is established well & the characters are all relatively likable. The animation, while not superb, is competently crafted.
The humor is mostly effective, with the physical comedy rendering the best laughs for me personally. The only aspect that didn’t work for me was that of the emotional investment. While there is some tension to be felt throughout the conflicts, the motives are never relayed strong enough for me to feel the weight behind some of the decision making. The climax went for deep emotion that just never struck. I don’t mean to sound redundant, but this just failed to capture that special Pixar spark. Outside of that, there is nothing necessarily wrong with this movie. It’s a harmless, entertaining watch for a young family movie night.
Worlds divided amidst war, a driven young warrior sets off to find a legendary dragon in hopes to reunite the community as one. While Disney Princesses are a trademark in the studio’s animated productions, I can’t say modern original creations like Elsa or Moana have really captured that magical spark for me. Raya, on the other hand, turned my head. The characters in written & showcased in a way that demonstrates deep understandable complexities while also crafting her into not only a likable protagonist, but a badass heroine as well. Per usual with Disney & their related properties, the quality of the animation cannot go unrecognized either. The script itself has its fair share of issues, including gaping plot holes & dialogue that is clearly pandering towards younger audiences, but nothing ever really compromised the enjoyment of the experience in a distracting way.
No movie is ever perfect, but it’s a huge compliment when it’s flaws can feel insignificant in the grand scheme of things. The one part that I had a harder time looking past was the execution of Awkwafina’s character. While she is undoubtedly a talented actress & comedian, I feel like she was given too much improvisational freedom for comedic relief that it made her character feel somewhat shallow. The writing was there for the character but I still had a difficult time building an emotional connection. My last minor complaint is that the music choices occasionally did not suit the tone of a given scene. As I said before though, this movie left me feeling positive about it once the credits rolled. It’s an engaging story & I would easily recommend giving it a chance if you haven’t already.
PIB IFFI CAST AND CREW | Rajith/Supriya/Ashwani/Darshana | IFFI 55 – 114
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