Once upon a time in Dacca

Watching Inglourious Basterds — Quentin Tarantino’s Spaghetti Western set in the Nazi-occupied Europe — reignited one of my longstanding daydreams: a big screen epic on Bangladesh’s Liberation War.  I wrote last year about various logistical difficulties of making an epic movie on the Liberation War.  Keeping those issues in mind, I think it is still possible to write a reasonable script.  This post outlines some ideas. 

The Dark Side of the Moon

(This post contains reference to drug use, parental guidance recommended).

Earlier this week, Moonlanding anniversary was everywhere.  Now, I was born many years after the event that made Ray Bradbury suggest be the beginning of a new global calendar.  So I have nothing to say when old people talk about ‘oh I remember….’  But I do remember 1 April 2003, when I first watched the Dark Side of the Moon — not the Pink Floyd album, but the French mockumentary.

Out of Pakistan

I’d really like to watch these Pakistani classics.

 International Gorillay.  A criminal mastermind sets out to destroy Islam by luring Pakistanis into gambling, dancing, and all manner of sundry sins.  He tortures his prisoners by reading to them aloud from his blasphemous novel.  The brave mujahedin out to stop him are disguised in Batsuits; and in the end, a quartet of levitating Qurans shoot laser beams into the nefarious villain’s head, causing him to explode.  Oh, the villain is named Salman Rushdie.

Zinda Laash.  A black and white thriller from 1967, sort of Dr Jekyll and Mr Dracula.  The first and only Pakistani film to earn the label “For Adults Only,” after the board of censors accused the film of being “corruptive and evil.”

Aurat Raj.  A group of women discover a bomb that switches gender roles and seize power by setting it off.  In this brave new world, women wield machine guns and flick their cigarettes with an easy flair, while men twirl in slow motion and swing their hips coquettishly.

Zibahkhana.  Five teenagers set out to watch a concert, but find their van break down and get set upon by flesh eating zombies, a ghoulish hitchhiker, and a blood-soaked, burqa-wearing killer.  The writer-director’s next project is apparently a genre-busting women-in-prison meets porn-factory meets monster-spectacular named Jhabarjhilla.

(Cross-posted at A-A-A.  More here.  Hat tip Robin bhai).

Do best pictures really win?

Dear reader, these are difficult times.  The global economy is facing the severest slump in generations, while Bangladesh has been rocked by renewed Islamist militancy.   Bad news are all around us, and things will probably get worse before they get better.  All the more reason then that we take a break from the doom and gloom and set off to the movies. 

Well, not quite off to the movies literally, but let’s ask a question that’s different from the usual topics in these pages.  The Academy Awards, Oscar, are upon us.  Slumdog Millionaire is the odds on favourite.  But is that the best movie of the year?  How often does the year’s best picture actually win the Oscar?  Put differently, how does posteriority treat an Oscar winner?  And what’s the metric of ‘best’ anyway? 

These questions come up every year.  You see, Oscar, like the Nobel for subjects other than natural sciences, or the Man Booker or Pultizer, involves a lot of politicking and lobbying and broader socio-cultural trends.  With the ’emergence of India’ being a favourite talking point of the global cognoscenti, it may not be all that surprising that Slumdog will win the Oscar, just as it may not have been surprising to see Arvind Adiga’s White Tiger win last year’s Booker.  More about the book some other time, but is Slumdog the best movie of 2008?  Let’s be more specific, was it the best movie available to the general filmgoing public in the Anglophone world in 2008? 

A Dhallywood classic

When I returned to Bangladesh after nearly a decade in the late 1990s, it used to bug me that everytime I opened my mouth people guessed my ‘outsiderness’.  To improve my ‘insiderhood’, I turned to Dhallywood.  Imagine my surprise when I found that the characters in classic Dhakai films would speak in the ‘promito’ language of the other Bengal, eschewing what the ever-eclectic blogger Fugstar calls the ’spirit of the ganj’.  Okay, I discussed the language issue here.  I’ll avoid any serious stuff in this post, and talk about a Dhallywood classic.

The Dark Knight and Bangladesh

The reader is almost certainly aware that The Dark Knight is the movie of 2008.  It is breaking all box office records.  The IMDB is calling it the best movie of all time.  Pundits are calling it the first film of its type to be considered a genuine piece of art. 

We watched it on Friday night.  You know it’s a great movie when despite its length of 152 minutes, you never wonder about the time.  I didn’t think it was as great as, say, Casablanca.  But it is not that far behind.  Action sequences rival anything I have ever seen.  Heath Ledger’s Joker is right up there with Gabbar Singh.  If you haven’t yet, please watch it in the big screen (but don’t take your kid – it shouldn’t be a PG movie).

In addition to being great entertainment, The Dark Knight (and to a lesser extent, Batman Begins, its prequel) is a study in politics.  Its politics has been discussed enough in the blogosphere for the New York Times to notice.  American bloggers discuss Batman’s relevance for the so-called war on terror, but the underlying political philosophy holds great relevance for contemporary Bangladesh. 

On Jodhaa Akbar

Just in case you are not familiar with the world of Hindi movies, Jodhaa Akbar is one of the most expensive movies ever made in India.  Set in the 16th century, it is based on Emperor Akbar’s relationship with his Rajput wife Jodhaa Bai.  This is my take on the movie.  Short version: it lacks direction.  Long version, read on.

দুই বন্ধু, দুটি চলচ্চিত্র আর কিছু চিন্তা

অল্প যে কয়েকটি বাংলা উপন্যাস পড়েছি তার মধ্যে অন্যতম হল সুনীল গঙ্গোপাধ্যায়ের ‘পূর্ব পশ্চিম’ ।  উপন্যাসের শুরু গত শতাব্দীর ৩০এর দশকে, কলকাতায়, কলেজের ছাত্র দুই বন্ধু – মামুন ও প্রতাপ – কে নিয়ে ।  ঐতিহাসিক কারনে দেশ ভাগ হওয়ার পর দুই বন্ধুও আলাদা হয়ে যান ।  তাদের পরিবারের ওপর পরে রাজনৈতিক ও আর্থসামাজিক পরিবর্তনের প্রভাব ।  বহু চড়াই উতরাই পার হয়ে কাহিনীর শেষ হয় ১৯৮০র দশকের মাঝামাঝি, যখন মামুন ও প্রতাপের জীবন ফুরিয়ে এসেছে, আর পরের প্রজন্মের চরিত্ররা ঢাকা ও কলকাতা ছেড়ে পারি দিয়েছেন বিলেত ও মার্কিন মুল্লুকে ।  সেদিন একটি ছবি দেখতে দেখতে এই উপন্যাসটির কথা মনে হচ্ছিল ।

(দেখুন না বলা কথায়)

চলচ্চিত্রে মুক্তিযুদ্ধ

প্রতি বছর স্বাধীনতা ও বিজয় দিবসে TVতে বিশেষ অনুষ্ঠান দেখান হয় । থাকে গানের অনুষ্ঠান, স্মৃতি কথা, আর আলোচনা । আর থাকে চলচ্চিত্র । এই লেখা মুক্তিযুদ্ধের চলচ্চিত্র নিয়ে, একজন সচেতন দর্শকের দৃষ্টি থেকে । আশা করি চলচ্চিত্রপ্রেমীদের ভাল লাগবে ।

(দেখুন না বলা কথায়)

Incredible movie biology

Some time ago, my brother talked about the Giant Rat of Sumatra, er New Guinea. Well, islands are conducive for things like Giant Rats, and other odd-sized animals. Islands typically don’t have large carnivores — not enough food supply for their survival. So, in the absence of large carnivores, smaller carnivores and herbivores grow bigger than their mainland counterparts. And at the same time, large herbivores tend to shrink over time. That’s why islands could have Dwarf Elephants. These phenomena are called island gigantism and insular dwarfism respectively.