Apu’s World

When I watch an Iranian movie (or atleast an Iranian movie of a certain kind, say one directed by Jafar Panahi or Majid Majidi), my heart is in my mouth. Not that these gently ruminative films are in the least scary, but I cannot help but fear that something very bad is about to happen. Even in a movie like the Children of Heaven, which is all innocence and centres around children, there is the shadow of sorrow lurking around. In a movie like The Circle, where things already begin on a sombre note, you know that something even worse is in store.  

Which is why, when I began watching The Song of Sparrows, (Avaze gonjeshk-ha in the original), I found it hard to let go of my trepidation. Even though the movie is set in the beautiful rural surroundings of Iran and the camera captures it lovingly. The Song of Sparrows turned out to be a very interesting experience for the reason that although ‘bad things’ do happen in the course of the movie, the focus is not on them as transforming events. Instead, it dwells on, very subtly, on the changes that a person’s mind can go through and the effects on everyone around him or her. 

Broadly, the plot is about Karim, a rural worker on an ostrich farm, who is fired and goes looking for work in Teheran instead. When the movie begins, his mind is set on earning enough to find a hearing-aid replacement for his daughter, Haniyeh. A resourceful and hard-working man, Karim soon finds success in Teheran and begins to earn more than what he’d ever expected. Not just money, he also gains access to many discarded items such as old doors, windows, frames and other odds and ends which he starts bringing back home. 

As Karim’s storage dump grows larger and larger, Haniyeh’s hearing-aid seems to grow further and further away in his mind. I’m not going to give away the rest of the plot here, but one scene which I thought was amazing, both for the beauty with which it was shot and for the way it really captures the entire movie in that one shot -

Karim has acquired a blue door which his wife gives away to a neighbour. He rushes to the neighbour’s house and takes the door back. As he carries the door on his back across the fields, from above, the camera focuses on the door. Soon, all we can see is that rectangle of blue dwarfing the man beneath. While the man appears to be hauling the door, he is really bound to it, powerless under its bulk. Against the backdrop of the fields, the blue is more vital than him. And that tells us something about the kind of man Karim is becoming. 

That is a perfect example of a scene which almost makes the rest of the movie superflous. 

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I went in to watch Slumdog Millionaire fully expecting to see a movie “about life in the slums”. What I didn’t expect was that though the slums and the poverty were very much there, the movie wasn’t really about them. Rather, it was a good story about a boy from the slums who makes it big and really, most people watch movies because they are good stories, not so much because they teach us anything or tell us about specific places. 

Which is why, I’m quite surprised about those in India who would slam Danny Boyle and the movie for showing a side of India which they’d rather keep hidden. For one thing, the movie isn’t half-way realistic. How many slum kids do you know who get to be on Kaun Banega Crorepati? The story of Arvind, the boy who is blinded and forced to beg in a subway is probably more “real” than that of Jamal, who not only manages to get on to the show but also wins a 2 crore thanks to a lot of luck, some coincidences and a bit of thinking. So, no, Slumdog Millionaire isn’t about India’s reality, even if one were to assume that there is any One Reality to portray.

After watching the movie, I am still unable to decide which of these is really annoying people. 

A. All Western film-makers want to see in India is its poverty, so that the entire first world can laugh at us = chip on shoulder about how the white man sees us, constant pathetic need to prove that we are on par with “them”
B. This reality isn’t the only one; what about executive India, what about the fancy cars, the multi-storeyed buildings, the middle class schools, the MBAs = Reality is only what life is for us. I wonder if the millions in India who live in slums or even on the roadside should object to Karan Johar movies because it doesn’t showcase “their” reality? 
C. The film is only getting noticed because it is being made by a Western film-maker = Well, Indian film-makers, for the most part are not interested in these subjects, but still, shouldn’t they generally give us an Oscar anyway? Also, huge failure to understand that the Oscars aren’t really about world cinema, inspite of the foreign film category. 
D. All of the above?

The truth is that Slumdog Millionaire is neither a terribly insightful look into India’s poverty nor is it a white-man-slum-touristy look at India. Poverty is the backdrop for Jamal’s story, but that is not all there is to it. Infact, to me, one of the most heartbreaking scenes in the story was when little Jamal gets taken up in the orphanage van by Maman who is clearly A Very Bad Man, but to Jamal and his friends riding in the van, it is as though they have been promised a slice of life in paradise. The naked optimism in their eyes is killing, because you know so well that they are going to be let down cruelly.

Slumdog Millionaire works because of moments like this where we get caught up in one individual’s story and root for him to succeed, and it works inspite of a downright unreal last 15 minutes which are a disgrace to the rest of the movie. Slumdog Millionaire works inspite of its occasional deviations from reality simply because it is one of the oldest stories in the world told well; the underdog story that most of us can never resist.

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Occasionally, one comes across a movie that is both an exceptionally clear mirror to the society it is about and an extremely fine work of art. The Circle, only the second Iranian movie I’ve seen, I believe falls into this category. (This first one was Children of Heaven). 

The Circle, (’Dayereh’ in the original Farsi) doesn’t really have a plot, unlike most films. Rather, it is a peek into the lives of a few Iranian women, and this is the interesting bit - we enter their stories neither at the ‘beginning’, nor at the ‘end’, but at some unspecified point in the arc of their lives. What is common to all of them is the challenges that they face, mostly as a result of being women in the highly repressive society that is Iran. 

Three women have been released (or escaped) from prison, it wasn’t clear to me which. One of them gets re-arrested for some reason while the other two struggle to collect some money to send the younger one of them home. She manages to get a bus ticket with great difficulty, since a young woman without a student card or a guardian isn’t really allowed to travel alone. After much persuasion, she gets the ticket, but abandons the journey when she realises that police are around and fears detection. We don’t know what becomes of her ultimately. 

Another woman who has also been released from prison is kicked out by her family and goes searching for other friends she had made in the prison. Soon, we realise that she is pregnant and urgently needs an abortion. She goes to meet an old friend, who is now a nurse and has successfully concealed her time spent in prison from everyone, including her husband. Her hopes of getting some help from this friend are soon dashed. Society will neither let her have a child as a single mother, nor let her abort it. 

We see her walking around despondently when one of the most chilling scenes of the movie occurs - a poor, single mother trying to abandon her child so that someone else would take her in for a better life. Finally, the movie comes back full circle to one of the first stories, and this woman is now in prison. In none of the cases do we see a ‘happy ending’ or even an unhappy one. Throughout the movie, I kept having this ominous feeling that something terrible was about to happen and though there is no such ‘event’, in a sense, all the stories are quite terrible. Yet, the movie didn’t feel like an immersion in misery. 

The camaraderie among the women, the palpable affection, the occasional laughter, even optimism among some of them, made it seem lighter than the dark story that it really was. For, when one thinks that there really are such places in the world for women; the reality is depressing. 

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Thanks to World Movies, I’m getting to watch different cinema from different countries. Last night, I stayed up late, watching this Palestinian-Arabic movie, Paradise Now. Set in Nablus, a small town on the West Bank, it is the story of two men recruited as suicide bombers against (what they see as) the unethical and brutal Israeli occupation. I mentioned ‘what they see as’, because, while I do believe that the Palestinians were originally unjustly pushed out of their land, their tactics haven’t always been ethical or practical either.

I found that the movie did a good job of putting a very human face to the two suicide bombers - at the same time, I didn’t get the feeling that it condoned violence. If anything, Sara, a girl that one of the bombers likes, is the voice of an alternate view, that it is possible to resist without taking recourse to violence. It is easy to see what attracts the young men to violence - living in depressing, prison-like conditions, lacking the means to better their lives, the shame of having been ‘conquered’. The contrast between shiny Tel Aviv and falling-apart Nablus is stark.

The ‘leaders’ of the resistance promise the young men, Sa’id and Khaled glory, a place in paradise and the assurance that their families will be taken care of. One of the most disconcerting moments in the movie was when Khaled presents his farewell ‘martyrs’ speech to a video camera, and the man who recruits him munches away on the sandwiches that Khaled’s mother has packed that morning. Scenes like this helped to make the resistance fighters somewhat ambiguous figures - driven by patriotism, but also perhaps by self-interest and a hankering for fame in a very narrowly defined world?

What was missing was an Israeli counter-view, but then, perhaps it would have been difficult to humanise the suicide bombers, if seen from the eyes of their adversaries? I’m not going to reveal the end, but it was interesting for its lack of certainty. Watch this one if you can. (Later on, I figured that it was nominated for and won some Oscars as well).

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Have y’all been seeing the new Moov ad and been as intrigued by it as I am? No? Ok, first go have a look here, and then you can read what I have to say.

For those who can’t follow Hindi, this is how it goes. Young boy sees mother struggling to cope with a heavy load of groceries and rushes to help her. Father sees this and runs down the stairs - focus on why his child is doing such heavy work. Then, son asks, “Papa, sab kaam Mummy kyon karti hai?” (Papa, why does Mummy do all the work?)

I found it interesting that finally, there is a brand that chooses to focus on something real in women’s lives - that housework can be drudgery and housework can be tiring. That it’s not all about women overjoyed to be serving the best parathas to their family or rejoicing at having saved the two rupees on that washing powder or superwoman holding up career and home like Hanuman carrying the Sanjeevini. And, it’s also interesting that this view is presented through the eyes of the kid, who sees it for what it really is, Mummy sab kaam kyon karti hai?

Now, camera flashes to the faces of two other women who’ve been shown before - one drying clothes and another serving tea. I wasn’t clear what this is meant to be; neighbours eavesdropping on the conversation? Other women in the family who are actually the ones being (subtly) chided for not helping in? If it is the first, then it’s a nuclear family, and it is really Papa who is not pulling his weight. If the second, well, then that’s an easy way to let the men off, isn’t it, and put the blame back where it belongs, on other lazy women.

In any case, the ad doesn’t dwell on it. So, we have caring husband bringing out the Moov and a voiceover tell us that it’s good to use Moov, lest, Aap ka dard apnon ka dard na ban jaaye. (So that your pain doesn’t become a pain for your loved ones).

It was too good to last of course. Homemaker couldn’t possibly use Moov to make herself feel alright; there has to be a ‘family’ pay-off in it. I wonder if the ad could have still been as effective and more women-friendly if they had atleast shown the husband picking up a bag at the end rather than the woman using Moov so that she can be a martyr to housework again? I think society is changing and the days when women would gasp at the husband doing household chores is gone, well, going slowly. Perhaps marketers actually don’t see this change, or just want to keep it to the most conservative level and play safe.

(In other news, the fiery tamilpunkster is back after a long break. And read Mrinal Pande’s column in the Mint earlier this week, Women still unhappy both in India and Bharat, where she talks about the challenges that working women, especially those from poor families face.)

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