Ripple Effects

Winter in November

Just a mere two weeks ago, I was taking an Autumn walk, where I enjoyed a feast of sight and sound.

But now, besieged by a snow storm two days ago, we have been made captives by the fierce side of nature. We skid through icy roads and make it home only to perform our due diligence, the removal of mountains of snow on our driveway and sidewalk.

After two days, I am determined to break out of this physical and psychological confinement. If we are to have winter in November, so be it. Might as well embrace nature in all her facets. Donning a toque, gloves, winter jacket and snow boots, I ventured out earlier today. Here are some of the sights:

As I treaded through knee-deep snow, I came upon the place where I spotted my deer friend munching on his foliage just two short weeks earlier. And even just a few days ago, I saw his clan scavenging the dry grass. Where could they be hiding in this minus 15 C temperature? What would they have for supper? Where and how do they sleep at night with the fierce wind blowing at even colder minus 20’s?

Just then the sun broke out through the overcast sky, I seemed to hear my deer friend saying: Don’t worry about us. We’ve gone through numerous winters, and still able to raise a clan. As long as the sun comes out everyday…

Even the evergreens seemed to be waving at me, you mind your own slippery drive and cabin fever, we’ll be fine.

Yes, as long as the sun comes out everyday, we’ll soon see spring.

***

Nowhere Boy (2009)

“He’s a real Nowhere Man
Sitting in his Nowhere Land
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody”

—– John Lennon’s ‘Nowhere Man’

Other than the iconic first chord of ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ at the beginning of the movie, there is no mention of The Beatles in Nowhere Boy, which is fitting. After all, the film is not about the Beatles, but a teenaged boy by the name of John Lennon growing up aimless and angry, and how he found passion and poured his life into a goal that finally led him to become one of the most important music figures of our time.

An apt title. Lennon had had a tumultous childhood. Raised by his aunt Mimi since five years-old, he did not meet his birth mother again, Mimi’s younger sister Julia, until he was 15. The film picked up from there until he went to Hamburg in 1960. Screenwriter Matt Greenhaigh had crafted a moving relational story based on the book written by John Lennon’s half-sister, Julia Baird, entitled Imagine This: Growing Up with My Brother John Lennon.

I’ve particularly enjoyed the mother-son relationship depicted so poignantly in the movie, and the tug of war between the one who has given birth to and the one who has raised the child. For me, there is also a bit of competition, comparing the two amazing actors, Anne Marie Duff as Julia, Lennon’s birth mother, and Kristin Scott Thomas, as Aunt Mimi, who has raised the boy, stayed with him through thick and thin, and watched him emerge into a man of importance.

Everyone who watches a movie does so from his/her own frame of reference and perspective. While I’ve enjoyed the pre-Beatles era music and the early rock and roll in the film, as well as the human interest of youth striving to gain some sense of self, I’m nevertheless drawn to Scott Thomas’s role as Aunt Mimi. She has shown what a mother is, even though she is not the one who has given birth to John. She is someone who stays and not escapes, who takes care of daily tedium, who instills the ever unpopular notions of discipline and responsibility, and who takes nasty insults and hurting actions from a rebellious and still maturing teenager, all because of love. Scott Thomas’s marvellous performance as the strict and stern Mimi is an effective foil against Duff’s frolicking Julia. Both performances are moving.

Aaron Johnson has done a marvellous job in portraying a tormented soul torn between these two women. Meeting his birth mother Julia at 15, he can feel right away the thickness of blood. On the outset, his musical talent has come from Julia, and his free spirit a natural extension of hers, yet he knows he is also tied to Mimi, and despite her restrained persona, he knows she has loved him deeply.

On his first gig as the Quarrymen, John is introduced to a fifteen year-old well-mannered teen by the name of Paul McCartney, nicely played by Thomas Brodie Sangster. Again, an effective foil between the two. Paul is gentle, polite, chooses tea over beer, and does not have to bust and bang to release his pent-up emotions. He also helps John with his guitar skills, teaching him more chords, and suggesting they write their own songs. Paul definitely has it all collected under a stronger self despite the loss of his own mother just a year earlier. Thus marks the beginning of a valuable friendship.

The fine production is significant considering it is a fact-based biopic of a period of Lennon’s life that has not been explored on film. Cinematographer Seamus McGarvey (Atonement, 2008) has crafted some colorful renditions for this period film. The two sisters are also color-coded, Julia in red and pink, and Mimi, back and grey. A bit too dramatic at times, but the point well taken, maybe something to do with director Sam Taylor-Wood being a visual artist before this her first feature film. Also, some scenes may look melodramatic, but I was so immersed in the story I had thoroughly enjoyed them. The most moving scenes come at the end, and all the way through the credits. That is when real photos and actual historical accounts are revealed, a poignant resonance to the film.

At the beginning of the end credits, we see that the film is dedicated to Anthony Minghella (1954-2008), the Oscar winning director who had brought us the The English Patient (1996), Cold Mountain (2003) and The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), to name a few. Minghella was instrumental in encouraging director Sam Taylor-Wood to make the transition from visual artist to filmmaker, and had worked with her on her short Love You More, which has earned her a nom for the Golden Palm at Cannes 2008.

Nowhere Boy garnered four BAFTA nominations including Outstanding British Film and Outstanding Debut Director for Sam Taylor-Wood. Both Scott Thomas and Duff were nominated for BAFTA and The British Independent Film Awards, which Duff won, as well as the London Critics Circle Film Awards. Johnson’s impressive performance also led him to noms and wins. Overall, a moving tribute to a pop icon and the two mother figures that had shaped his early life.

~~~ Ripples

A Late Autumn Walk

What’s more pleasurable

than a late Autumn walk in the wild

Chopin as companion, ballade cinematic

Tonal colors streamed through earbuds

Sight and sound in perfect harmony

Stripped of adorning leaves,

the birches displayed their true essence.

Backbones strong against the wind,

Branches lifted to reach the remaining sun

Stoic elegance intertwined Romanze Larghetto

And then we met,

A surprise encounter, a momentary start,

Among the low bushes a deer, antlers majestic,

Eyes darted up from his quiet meal,

Weighing my next move.

I walked past without stopping.

It’s not polite to stare,

especially when someone’s eating.

His gaze held me a moment, then let me pass.

I sensed a mutual respect, nature shared.

And so we parted, unperturbed,

after just a split second of cautious exchange,

leaving each other feeding freely,

foliage in his mouth,

and Chopin in my ears.

***

This is what I was listening to… Chopin Piano Concerto No. 1, Second Movement, Romanze Larghetto.

The Hedgehog: Movie Review (Le Hérisson, 2009, DVD)

To read my book review of The Elegance of the Hedgehog, CLICK HERE.

I’m sure it must be a major challenge to turn Muriel Barbery’s The Elegance of the Hedgehog into a movie. I admire director/screenwriter Mona Achache’s courage. She has taken up a tall order to make her full feature directorial debut. How do you deal with all the ubiquitous internal dialogues, philosophical ruminations, literary allusions, and turn the story that takes place inside a Paris apartment into a full length film, holding viewers’ attention for 100 minutes? Overall, Achache has done well on a formidable task… including building the set, the whole luxury apartment façade from scratch, from the workable old-style elevator to the cast iron gate in the front entrance.

But, maybe that’s the easy part.

In the film, we look at things from 11 years-old Paloma’s point of view, for she is constantly video-taping the people and the happenings both in her own suite and those in her apartment building. She intends to produce some sort of a visual philosophical treatise, her legacy, as she plans to take her own life on her 12th birthday. This is a clever alteration, shooting video instead of writing a journal, for the visual effects. We see a very intelligent girl (Garance le Guillermic), having concluded that life is utterly absurd, decides not to spend her life in a fishbowl as everyone else. With her artistic talents, Paloma has used her drawings as a kind of personal record-keeping; from her point of view, some delightful animations are added to enhance the appeal of the film. Paloma is an interesting and amiable character that ironically brightens up the film with some humorous deadpan takes.

The movie is an abridged and simplified version of the book, that is expected. But while it has some stylish manoeuvring in presenting the story, I’m disappointed that the crux of the premise has not been focused upon. My major concern then, must turn to the other character. The main speaker of the book is Madame Michel, Renée, the 54 year-old autodidact, the concierge of the luxury apartment. Yes, we see her outward appearance following exactly what the book has described:

I am a widow, I am short, ugly, and plump… I live alone with my cat, a big, lazy tom… neither he nor I make any effort to take part in the social doings of our respective species. Because I am rarely friendly–though always polite–I am not liked, but am tolerated nonetheless…

Well, maybe not the ‘ugly’ part. But yes, we see the Hedgehog alright, but what about its elegance?

Josiane Balasko has put on a meticulous performance as Madame Michel, a bit too much even, for her grumpy persona has hidden all humor the character could have diffused, as the book has rendered. But other than the faithful characterization on the surface, it is more important that the inner world, the clandestine and ignored persona of Renée be depicted. What makes the book so appealing is Renée’s inner quest, not only for intellectual ideals (yes we see her reading and her secret library in the film), but her appreciation of art as a form of transcendence, her search for beauty in the mundane, her ability to seize the moment of permanence in the temporal, as Barbery has written: “pure beauty at the heart of ephemeral passion”. It is such wisdom that Paloma finally realizes, and which changes her mind about suicide. This crucial theme is not shown in the movie, and I count that as a major deficit, despite the conscientious effort in following the outward details of the book.

Director Achache, who has also written the screenplay, chooses to replace these gratifying thoughts with the cliché statement of “It’s what you’re doing the moment you die that’s important.” Well, ok… maybe she’d like to write a book with that premise, but I’m afraid it might not be the essence of the source material here.

Yes, we still have the new tenant Kakuro Ozu (Togo Igawa), who has wisely looked past the ordinary façade of a socially lower-ranked concierge, and chooses to embark on a romantic journey with his new-found friend. And yes, we have the chance to see his newly renovated Japanese suite, even his Mozart-playing toilet, as well as an excerpt from the Japanese director Ozu‘s The Munekata Sisters. Achache has followed the particulars faithfully. I wish she had had explored the essence, transporting her viewers from the mundane to a transcendent plane, albeit just momentarily.

I must add though, the music has come through most effectively. Thanks to Gabriel Yared, whatever that is missing has been displayed musically by the meditative tunes and the longing voice of the cello. The Oscar winning composer has created such memorable scores for The English Patient (1996), which won him an Oscar, and nominations for Cold Mountain (2003), and The Talented Mr. Rippley (1999). Here in The Hedgehog, his musical rendering is beauty itself.

The DVD is in French with English subtitles. Special features include the making of and deleted scenes. Unfortunately, they are all in French with no subtitles. While watching the luxury apartment building being set up from scratch is interesting, without subtitles, the comments from the director and actors in the making of featurette cannot be appreciated as they should be.

~ ~ 1/2 Ripples

Revolutionary Road: Book and Movie

There’s a story that goes like this. The Times once asked its readers to send in their answer to this question: “What is wrong with the world?” The writer, scholar, and theologian G. K. Chesterton sent them this reply:

Dear Editors,

I am.

Sincerely,

G. K. Chesterton

Here’s a lighter version from Groucho Marx:

“I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member.”

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates (1961)

If only the Wheelers had had a conversation with Groucho Marx, maybe invited him to tea in their little white suburban house on Revolutionary Road, probably they could have avoided a tragedy.

In her mind, April Wheeler has dreamed of a club like this:

“I still had this idea that there was a whole world of marvelous golden people somewhere… people who knew everything instinctively, who made their lives work out the way they wanted without even trying, who never had to make the best of a bad job becasue it never occurred to them to do anything less than perfectly the first time. Sort of heroic super-people, all of them beautiful and witty and calm and kind, and I always imagined that when I did find them I’d suddenly know that I belonged among them, that I was one of them, that I’d been meant to be one of them all along…”

The problem with the self. What had taken G. K. Chesterton two words to identify, Richard Yates has shown with 463 pages (my pocket paperback). No, I’m not complaining. What has driven me to go on and finish the book, despite the ominous cloud hanging over its pages, is Yate’s marvellous prose leading me every step of the way, through every fight of the Wheelers’, every sardonic description of Frank’s New York office, their suburban social circle, and their self-delusion. And even amidst the dark and grey overtone, the undercurrents of humor could sometimes make me laugh out loud (Having read the book, I’ll have to ask myself: am I being a snob for not using the acronym?)

Humor and irony are only ways of delivery, the message is still poignant. I’ve enjoyed every visit John Givings goes to the Wheelers’ home during his half-day out of the insane asylum. John’s mother Helen, the realtor who sells the Wheelers their house, only means good, bringing her son to meet some normal people to help improve his condition. Yates is superb there in these scenes. As expected, the fool often comes out as the wise, the insane pointing out the truth. But you still want to go over the lines.

Knowing that Frank doesn’t like his job, John responds:

“Whaddya do it for then? Okay; I know; it’s none of my business. This is what old Helen calls Being Tactless, Dear. That’s my trouble, you see; always has been. Forget I said it. You want to play house, you got to have a job. You want to play very nice house, very sweet house, then you got to have a job you don’t like. Great… Anybody comes along and says ‘Whaddya do it for?’ you can be pretty sure he’s on a four-hour pass from the State funny-farm; all agreed. Are we all agreed there, Helen?”

“Oh look, there is a rainbow,” Mrs. Givings said…

But of course the problem is complex. While we are all free agents of our own actions, we are also products of our circumstances and our past. The setting of the 50’s is a time of suburbanization, post-war peace and affluence. But the story could take place anywhere, anytime. When offered a promotion at work, Frank chooses to stay rather than opting for a loftier dream. Substitute now for the 50’s, who would notice?

Frank and April Wheelers and their two children are the perfect example of the young and wholesome family enjoying the good life, in appearance that is. What’s troubling them is legitimate, of course. What’s the point of being a nut screw in the machine of Big Business and a willing hostage of conformity and suburban ennui? April might be fulfilling a self-serving and snobbish desire to move the whole family to Paris, but she could be right that Frank needs to be given the chance to ‘find himself’. What she fails to see though is that she’s the one who could benefit from such self-reflection even more.

John Givings has more pointed words for the Wheelers in his next visit, which ultimately leads to the collapse of everything. Yates’ writing has taken me captive. The last hundred pages of the book have me glued to the seat. It was already dark outside, I was sitting on a couch reading, alone in the house. The feeling I had while going through those last chapters was no different from my experience of watching The Silence of the Lambs some years earlier, also sitting alone one night in the same spot… although there’s no similarity between the content of the two. Haunting, eerie, disturbing…. now this is with me having watched the movie before reading the book.

Revolutionary Road is my first Yates book. While I’ve admired his writing, I’m not so sure I’ll seek out his other works… You see, I’ve always thought The Silence of the Lambs is a first-rate movie, but I would not want to see it again and again.

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates, First Vintage Contemporaries Mass Market Edition, January 2009, 463 pages.

***

Revolutionary Road: The Movie (2008, DVD)

Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet reunited since Titanic (1997) to play the Wheelers in Revolutionary Road. On the outset, they are perfect for the roles: Frank the charmer, April the golden girl. And to top it off, the movie is directed by Sam Mendes, who has brought us the Oscar Best Picture for 1999, American Beauty, another brilliant suburban commentary.

Supporting roles are well performed by Kathy Bates as the talkative realtor Mrs. Helen Givings. And Michael Shannon deservedly got an Oscar nom for his portrayal of Mrs. Givings’ son John, the lucid lunatic on a day-pass out from the insane asylum.

But somehow I feel there’s a significant discrepancy in the characterization that has shifted the dynamics between Frank and April. As a result, the movie offers an altered view. April here is a victim of circumstance. She is portrayed as the courageous one who sticks to her goal, even heroic as Mendes says in the Special Features. No suggestion of smugness or self-delusion, but rather, she is clear as crystal about her situation. Winslet has such cinematic appeal that her April is a much more amiable character than the controlling and self-serving dreamer and schemer I see in the novel. And here, Frank is the conforming realist, the bully that needs anger management, the one who lacks the guts to embrace change.

While the storyline and scenes are faithful to the source material, the altered characterization of April Wheeler has subtly changed the premise of the novel. What we have here is simply a love relation gone wrong. A tragic drama of incompatible expectations, the conflicts between the progressive, idealistic and unfulfilled suburban wife, and the temperamental, gutless husband who has given in too easily to ordinary life. The complexities which Yates has so marvellously detailed are absent here: Was there any love to begin with? Are dreamers necessarily superior than realists? And, on what do we base our choices and actions?

What initially sparks off the romance between Frank and April and which sustains their façade can be summed up in this sentence from the book, and which, of course, is absent in the film in any nuanced form:

“Sometimes there was a glint of humor in these embraces of the eye: I’m showing off, they seem to say, but so are you, and I love you.”

All the more reason to read the source material after watching a movie.

DVD Special Features include commentary by director Sam Mendes and screenwriter Justin Haythe, and Lives of Quiet Desperation: The Making of Revolutionary Road.

****

The Namesake (2006, DVD): Movie Review

This is a sequel to my last post, Book Review of The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. These back-to-back write-ups form my second instalment for the Read the Book, See the Movie Challenge over at Ready When You Are, CB.

“If it weren’t for photography, I wouldn’t be a filmmaker. Every film I make is fuelled by photographs…. Photographs have always helped me crystallize the visual style of the film I’m about to make.”

—Mira Nair

And photography has brought to life the poignant novel The Namesake.

This is a perfect match. The Namesake film adaptation is privileged to be crafted in the hands of the accomplished director Mira Nair, and its screenplay written by the multi-talented Sooni Taraporevala. Both born in India the same year, grew up and educated there, later both had attended Harvard. After earning her Masters at NYU majoring in Film Theory and Criticism, Taraporevala moved back to India and pursued a successful career in photography and other artistic endeavours. Mira Nair went on to become an acclaimed filmmaker and professor of Film at Columbia University. Nair and Taraporevala collaborated on several films that have garnered international nominations and awards, including Cannes, Venice, BAFTA, and the Oscars.

The pair could have been characters taken right out of Jhumpa Lahiri’s stories. They must have known from personal experience the realities of Lahiri’s stories, the feelings of being transplanted, the quest for identity. As a result, they have effectively brought into visualization the internal worlds of Ashoke, Ashima, Gogol and Moushumi. It is interesting to hear Nair describe herself as “a person who lives in many worlds”. Every immigrant is at least a bicultural being. Our postmodern world has only made it more and more viable to navigate across boundaries and sustain multiple identities. The Indian meaning of the name Ashima could well have spoken to such a modern day phenomenon: without borders.

From this perspective, Nair is the best person then to take what could have been just another “ethnic movie” to a universal plane. She has created a colorful rendition of a human story for us to enjoy. You don’t have to be Bengali to appreciate the Ganguli saga. Elements such as love, marriage, parent-child relation, expectations, self-fulfilment and its obstacles, the search for one’s place in the family and the world, these are all situations we can relate to. It’s just now the issues have been explored from a different frame, offering us an alternative perspective.

I have appreciated the quiet development of love between Ashoke and Ashima despite their arranged marriage. Their intimate husband and wife relationship is sensitively played by Irrfan Khan (Slumdog Millionaire, 2008) and the model and award-winning actress Tabu, an excellent choice in casting. I particularly admire Tabu’s gentle and elegant poise. It’s interesting to see how the two exchange deep sentiments by wordless, nuanced expressions and body language.

The treatment of the story in the hands of a visual artist understandably would be quite different from its original literary form. Instead of the sombre tone, Nair has given the story a lively adornment, sustained by animated characters. Nair’s Gogol is a more outgoing young man than that from the book, and I’m fine with that. Kudos to Kal Penn’s portrayal of Gogol/Nick Ganguli, an interesting performance fusing youthful energy and wistfulness at the same time.

Yes, that’s Kal Penn of the stoner movies Harold and Kumar fame (2004, 2008, and coming 2011) A much more serious role here in The Namesake. A lively Gogol is only natural and fun to watch, for he is an American born young man who just wants to belong. So we see him being impatient with his father’s restrained and non-communicable composure, we see him playing air guitar to loud music in his room, we see tender moments when he teases his younger sister Sonia, or the natural comedic look on his face, culture shocked during his family trip back to Calcutta, and we see his romance with Maxine (Jacinda Barrett, New York, I Love You, 2009), the American girl who is so oblivious to the cultural baggage he is carrying.

But Kal Penn has earned his role. He wrote to Nair earnestly seeking for the part, telling her that The Namesake is his favorite book and often times, he would use the pseudonym Gogol Ganguli to check in hotels. Some method acting, who’d have known he’s in character all along.

The bonus with watching a DVD is of course the special features. The Namesake is a keeper if you’re into the creative process of filmmaking. My favorite featurette is The Anatomy of The Namesake: A Class at Columbia University’s Graduate Film School in which Nair and other crew members engage in conversation with film students about the making of the movie. Other wonderful featurettes include Photography as Inspiration, and Fox Movie Channel interview In Character with Kal Penn.

Overall, a faithful adaptation of Lahiri’s book, offering an entertaining, visually inspiring rendition of a story deserving to be seen.

~ ~ ~ Ripples

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri: Book Review

CLICK HERE to read my movie review of The Namesake (2006).

The immigrant experience. I know it first hand, and this I’ve found: categorizing could be futile. From afar, we may look like a collective mass, like the autumn leaves that have fallen on the ground. But if you pick them up and look more closely, every single one is uniquely different.

Jumpha Lahiri’s stories belong to the academics from India. Her setting is usually Northeast United States. Her characters, often first generation immigrants striving to plant a career and a life on new soil, raising their children with the promise of a brighter future. The conflicts are not only generational by often internal. This much is true for all immigrants, academics or otherwise. But as we zoom in on a more personal level, like the single fallen leaf, we see its unique shades of color, its tarnishes, its withered edges, and we soon find that no two leaves are exactly the same.

In The Namesake, Ashima weds Ashoke Ganguli in an arranged marriage, not even knowing his name when she first met him in the betrothal. Shortly after the wedding they leave India for Boston where Ashoke continues his graduate studies in engineering at MIT. The adjustments for Ashima is overwhelming as a new wife in a new country. But she finds out a year later that her duty as a wife does not pose as much anxiety as giving birth in a land unknown. Motherhood is a much more daunting challenge.

In simple language, Lahiri paints a vivid picture of Ashima’s apprehension:

“But nothing feels normal to Ashima. For the past eighteen months, ever since she’s arrived in Cambridge, nothing has felt normal at all. It’s not so much the pain, which she knows, somehow, she will survive. It’s the consequence: motherhood in a foreign land… She’d been astonished by her body’s ability to make life, exactly as her mother and grandmother and all her great-grandmothers had done. That it was happening so far from home, unmonitored and unobserved by those she loved, had made it more miraculous still. But she is terrified to raise a child in a country where she is related to no one, where she knows so little, where life seems so tentative and spare.”

Ashima soon gives birth to a baby boy, and she has to learn quickly a new role and its responsibilities. But Lahiri surprises us by turning Ashima’s experience into a metaphor:

“Though no longer pregnant, she continues, at times, to mix Rice Krispies and peanuts and onions in a bowl. For being a foreigner, Ashima is beginning to realize, is a sort of lifelong pregnancy — a perpetual wait, a constant burden, a continuous feeling out of sorts. It is an ongoing responsibility, a parenthesis in what had once been ordinary life, only to discover that that previous life has vanished, replaced by something more complicated and demanding. Like pregnancy, being a foreigner, Ashima believes, is something that elicits the same curiosity from strangers, the same combination of pity and respect.”

Ashoke’s story is more dramatic. He is now teaching engineering at a university, but he has a lifelong love for literature, for it is deeply set in his past experiences. His paternal grandfather, a professor of European literature at Calcutter University, read to him since he was a child the books of the classics. Ashoke grew up taking to heart his grandfather’s advice:

“Read all the Russians, and then reread them,” his grandfather had said. “They will never fail you.” When Ashoke’s English was good enough, he began to read the books himself. It was while walking on some of the world’s noisiest, busiest streets, on Chowringhee and Gariahat Road, that he had read pages of The Brothers Karamazov, and Anna Karenina, and Fathers and Sons… Ashoke’s mother was always convinced that her eldest son would be hit by a bus or a tram, his nose deep into War and Peace.”

I just love Lahiri’s images, fresh and surprising with a touch of subtle humour. And Ashoke believes this to be so, the saving power of literature in its most literal sense. As a teenager, he had miraculously survived a horrendous train crash. Among the wreckage, rescuers found Ashoke clinging to life, his hand clutching a torn page from a collection of short stories by Nikolai Gogol, a book he was reading as the accident occurred.

The thrust of the story in The Namesake rests on this narrative. It is understandable then that Ashoke commemorates such a miracle by naming his son Gogol. At first it is meant to be an intimate pet name used only by family members. It soon turns into a legal name. So now Gogol is a name with two distinct sentiments: privately, it evokes endearments, but in public it only generates awkwardness. As he grows older, the name Gogol Ganguli begins to sound more and more strange, it is neither fully Indian nor Russian. It has become an embarrassment and even a laughingstock as he steps out into the adult world of America.

Upon high school graduation, Gogol chooses to go away to Yale as opposed to the closer campus of MIT, and take up architecture instead of engineering, all against his father’s wishes. Above all, to his parents’ disappointment, he decides to legally change his name to Nikhil. Unlike them, the need to belong has taken priority over the maintenance of cultural roots for Gogol. A name change is the best way to a new identity and a fresh start, away from home and lineage. Oblivious to him though is the very cause and meaning behind that name, Gogol, a saving miracle that has given his own father a new leash on life.

For Nikhil, life unfolds in unexpected turns. He soon realizes that a name change does not necessarily usher in a new self. There are deep sentiments and ties that cannot be severed by mere outward re-labelling. Nikhil drifts in and out of relationships striving to connect. The family of his American girlfriends only confirms the drastic cultural differences in contrast to his own. Intimacy with them burdens him with a sense of betrayal of his own family. And yet, he longs to establish himself in the country of his birth, a land still considered foreign soil by his parents.

The sudden death of Ashoke has shaken up everyone in the family, and brought the scattered members together again, Ashima, Gogol and his younger sister Sonia. The crisis presents a turning point for Gogol. He begins to rediscover his cultural roots and his duty as a son. Hidden memories resurface to nurture a belated father-son relation.

Upon Ashima’s suggestion, Gogol reunites with a childhood friend of the family, Moushumi, now a PhD candidate of French literature at NYU. A short time later they get married to the delight of both sides of the family. Sadly, the marriage of two individuals with a common cultural heritage does not necessarily mean a blissful union. Lahiri sensitively explores the complex issues and the sometimes unresolved conflicts of identity, expectations, and personal fulfillment, not just for Gogol, but Moushumi, and Ashima as well.

Lahiri is a cultural transplant herself, an experience I presume that has offered her the lucid perception and authority in crafting her stories. Born in London to Bangali parents, her family moved to Rhode Island where she grew up. After graduating from Barnard College, Lahiri went on to Boston University, where she received her masters degrees in English, comparative literature, and creative writing and later her PhD in Renaissance studies.

Lahiri received the Pulitzer Prize in 2000 and later the PEN/Hemingway award for her first book The Interpreter of Maladies, a collection of short stories. The Namesake is Lahiri’s first novel, published in 2003 to high acclaims. Her third work Unaccustomed Earth, also a celebrated short story collection, won the Frank O’Conner Short Story Award among other recognitions.

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, published by Mariner Books, Boston, 2004. 291 pages.

~ ~ ~ Ripples

****

CLICK HERE to read my next post The Namesake (DVD, 2006): Movie Review.

CLICK HERE for an interview with Jhumpa Lahiri talking about The Namesake and her own immigrant experience.

CLICK HERE for my review of Unaccustomed Earth.

Never Let Me Go: Book and Movie

(Update Oct. 5, 2017: Kazuo Ishiguro has just won the Nobel Prize for Literature)

I must first declare this Spoiler Alert: It is impossible to write about the book and the movie clearly without stating the crux of the story. It is this key ingredient in the plot that instills meaning to the novel and now the film. While Never Let Me Go is a story of slow revealing, author Kazuo Ishiguro, in a Time magazine interview, admits that:

” … in a funny sort of way, I almost wanted the mystery aspect to be taken away so that people could conentrate on other aspects of the book.”

So there, even the author himself condones spoilers, for he knows there are much more to be pondered upon once the veil is removed.

Never Let Me Go (2005): The Book

Born in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1954, Kazuo Ishiguro‘s family moved to England when he was six. He is one of the most acclaimed English language writers today, listed by The Times as one of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945. Never Let Me Go is Ishiguro’s fourth nomination short-listed for the Booker Prize, which he won in 1989 with The Remains of the Day.

Based on a scientific premise, Never Let Me Go is a beautiful love story told with aching poignancy. Children of the exclusive boarding school Hailsham are told they are special from a very young age. They are to keep their bodies healthy and strong for that’s the purpose of their lives. They are told and yet not told, for theirs is a vague notion of who they really are or what is in store for them in the future. Knowing no other worlds, the children grow up in the sheltered, fenced-in compound of Hailsham, accepting their predetermined fate with docility.

Scientific advancement has made it possible. The children of Hailsham are clones, copied from an original, raised to have their organs harvested once they reach the prime stage of adulthood. While sports keep their bodies strong, they are particularly encouraged to pursue art and poetry. A mysterious figure they called Madame comes by regularly to collect their art work to keep in her Gallery.

The story focuses on three students, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy. Their friendship on the outset matches the idyllic backdrop of the school in the 1960’s English countryside. Kathy is kind, caring and gentle, always watching out for Tommy, who is inept and temperamental. Seeing the bond forming between the two, Ruth slyly moves in and silently snatches Tommy to her side.

After reaching their eighteenth year, the three are transferred to the Cottages to live. There are just two roads ahead of them, donation of their organs and after 3 or 4 times, meets completion, death. Or they could apply to become carers of donors, but only temporarily until they too must fulfill their purpose. Living with other grown-ups who fall into the same destiny, the undercurrents of their love triangle begin to expose. For the first time in their lives, they hear about ‘deferrals’. If genuine love is evident between a couple, they could apply to have their donations deferred for a few years. When you are in love, just another day is precious enough. But what is love, and how do you prove it? There might also be another way out, and art could be the key. Ishiguro has masterfully handled layers of thematic complexity in a shroud of suspense.

While the story is based on an imaginary scientific scenario, the book is not a debate on the medical ethics of cloning. The events that take place which ultimately lead to their determined end explore, ironically, what it means to be human. Using the intricate relationships of the threesome, Ishiguro goes deep into issues of love and loss, dreams and reality, wrongs and their amends, and the ultimate search for the source of being, the very purpose of existence.

Using a first person narrative from Kathy, now a carer at 31 looking back at her past experiences, Ishiguro presents his story with detailed internal depictions and nuanced dialogues. Kathy’s voice is innocent and gracious, and all the more moving when it comes to the end when the story is fully unfurled. The three friends have since parted after the Cottages, but now after years have gone by, they meet again as carer and donors. On the canvas of imminent destiny, against the overwhelming tone of grey, we see three brisk strokes of colours, three lives, however temporal, serving their purpose, and above all, having tasted what it means to be human.

~ ~ ~ 1/2 Ripples

Never Let Me Go (2010): The Movie

Update Dec. 6: Carey Mulligan won Best Actress for Never Let Me Go at the British Independent Film Awards last night. This is her second BIFA win after An Education.

Directed by Mark Romanek (One Hour Photo, 2002), screenplay by Alex Garland (28 Days Later, 2002), the film was screened at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival in September, and chosen to open the 54th London Film Festival on October 13th.

The mood is nostalgic, shot in greyish greens and blues, effectively capturing the general atmosphere of the book. When the future looks dim, the best one can do is to look back and savour what has been. Screenwriter Alex Garland has done an admirable job in being loyal to the source material, visualizing the key events and pertinent scenes, bringing to life the haunting memories of Kathy’s, whose narratives are taken straight out of the book.

Corresponding to the novel, the film is structured in three parts. It follows Kathy (Carey Mulligan, An Education, 2009), Ruth (Keira Knightly, Pride & Prejudice, 2005) and Tommy (Andrew Garfield, The Social Network, 2010) through Hailsham in the 1960’s, young adulthood at the Cottages in the 1970’s, and lastly in the 1990’s where we see the final destination of their lives in completion. While the beginning part is the weakest, lacking the depth and details of the book, such a shortfall is compensated by the excellent performances of the three child actors as the young counterparts, Izzy Meikle-Small (Kathy), Charlie Rowe (Tommy) and Ella Purnell (Ruth). The congruence of young Kathy with her adult role played by Mulligan is particularly impressive.

As the story moves along, almost to midpoint, the unfurling of facts and feelings becomes more pronounced, calling forth some intricate and nuanced performance from Mulligan, Garfield, and Knightly. The three actors are the pillars of the production. While the original music by Rachel Portman (Academy Award Best Music, Emma, 1996) is affective and heart-wrenching, and the cinematography by Adam Kimmel (Capote, 2005) captivating, it is the performance of the threesome that makes the film so real and stirring.

Mulligan’s portrayal of Kathy and Garfield’s Tommy are particularly riveting. The hidden love Kathy has been holding for years is given a channel for expression only briefly at the end. All through Mulligan has carried her role with admirable restraint. Garfield’s portrayal of Tommy is achingly real, especially when he ultimately realizes the finality of his fate, the cry in the dark is haunting and powerful. And kudos to Knightly for accepting a role that puts her in a less than glamorous light. Her change at the end too is moving, giving depth to the exploration of what makes one human… other than love, there is also the courage to admit wrong, seek forgiveness, and the attempt to make amends.

Is it melodramatic or is it evoking deep emotions? Within context here, emotional sentiments or even a few tears at the end of the film might well be a healthy response, nothing to shy away from. Should the scenario arise some day in the future when we need to prove that we are human, and that we have a soul, what better ways to demonstrate but by our capacity to emote love, empathy, compassion, pathos, and the fear of facing such a scenario. May this all remain as science fiction for our enlightenment only.

~ ~ ~ 1/2 Ripples

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To read other Book Into Film posts, CLICK HERE.

Another Year (2010)

Update Feb. 10: Leslie Manville just won British Actress of the Year at the London Film Critics’ Circle Awards.

Update Jan. 25: Mike Leigh is nominated for an Oscar for Original Screenplay.

Update Jan. 18: Another Year is nominated for a BAFTA for Outstanding British Film of the Year, and Leslie Manville for Best Supporting Actress.

“Ah, look at all the lonely people.”

— ‘Eleanor Rigby’

Every Day, Another Year, film titles like these evoke the oblivious passage of time, and the human experiences that float down the stream of life. The kind of films we would find in art-house cinemas, not your fast-paced action or effects-generated spectacle. Another Year would gratify one’s need for slow ruminations and offer one time to savour the dynamics among characters. The film was on my ‘must-see’ list at the Calgary International Film Festival 2010, which ended last weekend. It had met all my expectations and offered more.

What’s more is the excellent performance from a high calibre cast of British actors. Their nuanced portrayals of characters convey emotions unabashedly, but in a deep, restrained and unsentimental manner. That is what makes Another Year so satisfying. I enjoyed it much more than director Mike Leigh’s previous title, equally acclaimed Happy-Go-Lucky (2008), in which Poppy (Sally Hawkins) the happy gal is just a bit too loud and even obnoxious for me. While here in Another Year, Tom and Gerri are the happy couple whose relationship is one of mature, quiet and gentle bliss, compassionate towards themselves and others.

Framed in the passing of the four seasons, the film explores the realities of life: ageing, loneliness, death, love, marriage, friendship… Yet the occasional animated and humorous renderings of the characters allow a lighter way of handling the subject matters.

Gerri (Ruth Sheen) and Tom (Jim Broadbent) are a happily married couple living in London. In the midst of the bustling city, they have their own plot of land close by their home where they work hard to grow vegetables. They bring home fresh produce to cook healthy meals and entertain guests. Their vegetable garden is an apt metaphor for the love they cultivate in their relationship despite the busyness of everyday life. Tom is a geologist and Gerri a counsellor in a medical office. If there’s any pun intended here with their names, it would be for the very opposite effect that they are a harmonious pair whose relationship has attracted those less happy to cling on for stability and support.

Their usual dinner guest is Gerri’s office administrator Mary (Lesley Manville). A single, middle-aged woman, emotionally fragile, alcohol dependent, and desperately seeking love and companionship. Her male version is Tom’s long time friend Ken (Peter Wight), equally miserable. A heavy smoker and drinker, Ken’s physical health mirrors his emotional state.

But why Tom and Gerri gather such damaged and dependent friends the film does not explain. What we do see is a most gracious couple extending their lives to them. Through their interactions, we see the contrast. While we admire the almost perfect marriage, we ache for the singles, sad and lonely… as we see them in this film. I trust the director is making a specific rendering and not a generalization on singlehood. The contented Poppy (Sally Hawkins) in Happy-Go-Lucky (2008) is the best spokesperson for the single league.

Tom and Gerri have an adult son Carl (Martin Savage) who frequently comes home to visit his parents from a nearby town by train. When I saw the shot of a commuter train going past on screen, it flashed upon my mind the image in Ozu’s works. That is one of the Japanese director’s signature shots, a train passing through, and his favourite subjects also being family, marriage, nuanced interactions. I thought, if Ozu were an Englishman living today, this would be the kind of films he would make. And lo and behold, I found this tidbit of trivia on IMDb: One of Mike Leigh’s top 10 films of all time is Tokyo Story (1953).

If one is to find fault with Another Year, it could be the very fact that Tom and Gerri’s marriage is just too perfect. But with all the ubiquitous dysfunctional families we see represented in movies nowadays, Leigh might have opened a window to let in some much needed fresh air. Tom and Gerri make an ideal contrast to what we have so sadly gotten used to seeing in films.

There are excellent performances from the veteran actors, but one stands out. Lesley Manville’s animated portrayal of the vulnerable Mary deserves an Oscar nomination. The most impressive shot comes at the end. Without giving it away, let me just say the ending shot lingering on her face and the ultimate fade to black is poignant and most effective. Of course, it’s acceptable to applaud after a festival screening. And so we did, appreciatively, a much needed channel for a cathartic response.

~ ~ ~ 1/2 Ripples

Every Day (2010)

In the movie Shadowlands, there’s a line that goes like this: “We read to know we are not alone.” I think it applies to watching movies as well.

I’m glad somebody thinks the every day family life worthy of movie material. Nothing spectacular or heroic, nonetheless difficult and to some, a struggle. This is especially true when it comes to the so called sandwich generation, adult children who needs to care for their elderly parents as well as their own children. Caught in the middle, parents to both. In the midst of daily challenges, there remains the key relationship, the meat in the sandwich if you will, that which is between husband and wife, and always, the bare essence of a person and his/her integrity. Herein lies the ingredients of the story.

Screened at the Calgary International Film Festival last night, the indie dramedy stars Liev Schreiber and Helen Hunt as a NYC couple, Ned and Jeannie. Their marriage faces a testing turn as Jeannie, driven by guilt and responsibility, brought her recently widowed father home to stay. Ernie (Brian Dennehy) is not just any grumpy old man. He is wheelchair confined, in ill health, and utterly bitter about everything and with everyone. Jeannie is stressed out as she keeps pace just to live every single day.

Ned too has his share of problems at work. As a scriptwriter for a seedy TV series, he has to meet the perverted demands of his boss Garrett (Eddie Izzard) to churn out scripts that are beneath his style. To solve the problem he is assigned to work with a flirtatious colleague Robin (Carla Gugino) to rewrite something more daring and less boring. Ned is tempted to do exactly that not only in his script.

And for their sons, they may look alright, but both yearn for direction and care just the same. 15 year-old Jonah (Ezra Miller) has just come out and is heading towards some risky friendship. The younger one Ethan (Skyler Fortgang), though talented, has to deal with a defeating self-image. Amidst their own problems, Ned and Jeannie try to be good parents, loving yet setting limits, albeit finding a happy medium is hard to do.

Though not meant to be a serious film, it does touch on two thought-provoking questions implied by two unlikely characters. From Robin the seducer: Is a marriage finished when the ‘fun’ is over? Similarly from Ernie the bitter old man: Should a life be ended when there is no happiness?

With subject matters as such, sitting through Every Day could be a gloomy ordeal. But as a fusion of comedy and drama, it has come through to me as an enjoyable film. Written and directed by Richard Levine of the TV series “Nip/Tuck” fame, Every Day could seem episodic. But the fast scene changes keeps the momentum going and the subplots clear. Liev Schreiber is convincing as the family man in mid-life crisis. Brian Dennehy is a veteran and spot on in his performance. The boys are alright. I have enjoyed Helen Hunt the most. Her precarious roles of mother, wife, and daughter have resonated with me. It has been three years since her directorial debut Then She Found Me. I look forward to more of her works in the coming year.

Every Day premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in NYC this April. During the Q & A after the screening, Schreiber mentioned that the film is “a simple story and simple stories are often overlooked.” Somebody has to make simple films like this, and somebody has to watch them. I was one of the lucky ones last night at the CIFF.

~ ~ ~ Ripples

Photo Source: myveronanj.com

Arles: In The Steps of Van Gogh

Solution to Arti’s Cryptic Challenge #4: Arles

While Paris has her cultured beauty and sophistication, I’d appreciated the change of scenery and warmer weather as I headed south to Provence. Three hours via the TGV took us to the historic City of Avignon, site of the Papal Palace before the Vatican. We stayed in Avignon for three days, taking daily excursions out to nearby towns. Arles was a must-see on my list.

Van Gogh moved to Arles from Paris in 1888, seeking the tranquility that was so elusive to him in the big city. In his letter to his brother Theo upon arrival to Arles, he wrote:

It seems to me almost impossible to be able to work in Paris, unless you have a refuge in which to recover and regain your peace of mind and self-composure. Without that, you’d be bound to get utterly numbed.” — Tuesday, Feb. 21, 1888.

The fresher and more colourful palette is apparent during this most prolific period of the artist’s life. Bright yellows, blues, shorter and swirling brush strokes established his signature style. As for me, I was a bit disappointed to see the sunflowers have already withered in late August. Fields of yellow were now massive brown. They would be harvested at a later time for their oil, a good reminder that, for tourists, it’s the view, but for those living here, it’s their livelihood. The lavenders on the Luberon mountains too had long passed the season. Note to myself: Early to Mid July is best if I ever come this way again.

But all was not lost. I was gratified to follow some of Van Gogh’s footsteps as I explored the clearly posted Van Gogh sites in the town, the scenes and locales where the artist so vividly captured in his paintings.

Arles is a Roman town. What more prominent to reflect its past glory than the Roman Arena in the town centre. Why all the arches? The free flow of pedestrian traffic. The full seating capacity, 20,000 people, could exit the Arena in 7 minutes.

Used by gladiators in ancient time, the Arena is still the venue for bullfights:

But Van Gogh’s interest was not so much on the violent action of bullfighting than on the people, as his painting Spectators In The Arena At Arles (December, 1888) clearly shows:

The Café Terrace on the Place du Forum was his hang-out, renamed Café Van Gogh now. The yellow building upon the backdrop of the blue, starry night had deeply inspired the artist:

Café Terrace At Night (September, 1888):

Van Gogh had wanted to make Arles a hub for fellow artists. Upon his urging, Gauguin came to join him in October, 1888. The two painters frequented the Café Terrace many a night but only for two short months. What happened on December 23rd was reported by the local paper the next day:

At 11:30 pm., Vincent Vaugogh [sic], painter from Holland, appeared at the brothel at no. 1, asked for Rachel, and gave her his cut-off earlobe, saying, ‘Treasure this precious object.’ Then he vanished.[1]

After this incident, Van Gogh was admitted to a local hospital, now the Espace Van Gogh in Arles, a cultural centre:

In January, 1889, Van Gogh returned home to the Yellow House, but for the next few months, suffered onslaughts of hallucinations and delusions. His view of his own condition nevertheless was lucid and even progressive for his time. His letter to Theo is poignant, as he openly faced his predicament and earnestly sought a solution:

And for the time being I wish to remain confined, as much for my own tranquillity as for that of others.

What consoles me a little is that I’m beginning to consider madness as an illness like any other and accept the thing as it is, while during the actual crises it seemed to me that everything I was imagining was reality.”

— Sunday, April 21, 1889.

On May 8, 1889, he checked himself into the Saint Paul de Mausole, the mental hospital at St-Rémy-de-Provence. Under the care of his doctor Théophile Peyron, the artist’s condition improved and he thrived in the idyllic environment there. Art therapy had brought healing and prolific output. Van Gogh stayed there for a year and created more than 150 paintings.

Dr. Théophile Peyron out at the front garden:

The olive grove outside St. Paul hospital:

To his brother Theo, he wrote on Sunday, May 11, 1890:

At the moment the improvement is continuing, the whole horrible crisis has disappeared like a thunderstorm, and I’m working here with calm, unremitting ardour to give a last stroke of the brush. I’m working on a canvas of roses on bright green background and two canvases of large bouquets of violet Irises…

My Van Gogh trip ended at St. Rémy, and so be it. I’ve seen the sites wherein the artist was at his most prolific. I’ve seen the town and surroundings where he found inspiration. I’ve seen his final solace where he attained some stability and painted with passion. I’d like to keep these as memories of my travel to Provence. I could hardly bear to think of his last days, discharged from St. Rémy just a few days after the above letter, headed north to Auvers-sur-Oise on the outskirt of Paris, and in just two short months, succumbed to the recurrence of his illness. He shot himself in the chest with a revolver on July 27, 1890, and died of his wound two days later.

Back to the thoughts I wrote about in my last post: How do we keep art from turning into a cliché? I think it takes a certain awareness of the artist as a person, plus a measure of empathy and respect for the struggle to live and create… and realizing that the beautiful works are often triumphs in spite of life’s overwhelming adversities, rather than the natural products of bliss and fortune.

To wrap up my travel posts, and taking the risk of turning it into a cliché albeit my motive is pure, here’s the YouTube clip again, Don McLean’s tribute to Vincent:

Some Van Gogh links:

An excellent and comprehensive site for Van Gogh’s letters, 900 of them, poignant account of his life.

The Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Van Gogh Gallery online

Wikipedia: Vincent Van Gogh

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[1] Rick Steves’ Provence and French Riviera 2010, published by Avalon Travel, p. 69.

Art and Cliché

My musing on high art and popular culture earlier in my trip came to a new twist as I visited the Louvre. I just couldn’t help but wonder: Can art be too popular? When does art turn from a form of aesthetics into a subject of parody? Will mass popularity reduce an objet d’art into a cultural cliché?

Here’s what prompted my query:

Even more fascinating is this view twenty feet away:

And in comparison, here’s another gallery in the Louvre displaying lesser known works:

When does art become a cliché? In our case, the Mona Lisa…

When you see her in comics, or paint-by-number sets in dollar stores, or morph into Alfred E. Neuman on Mad Magazine’s cover, or into Monica Lewinsky on the New Yorker, or find her on The Far Side Gallery, or in The Simpsons, or a Pantene commercial showing off her revitalized curly hair, or when you find 450 parodies of her image on a single website. According to an image tracking source, the Mona Lisa is the most used and abused image in advertising.

I know, other artists had created altered versions of Mona Lisa from early on. Eugene Bataille (Sapeck) painted her smoking a pipe, Marcel Duchamp added a moustache and goatee, Salvadore Dali fused himself into her image.

Poor girl, she didn’t even know what hit her, or how her one time, private sitting for da Vinci had generated so many imaginative renditions centuries down the road, as people are still using, or abusing, her image for private gains. She should have bargained for residual payments.

Are we more comfortable now that the barrier of ‘high art’ has been broken? Are we enjoying the legacy and freedom the Dada Movement and the Surrealists had claimed for us? I must declare outright, I’m not particularly a fan of the Mona Lisa, but I’m just a bit annoyed seeing other similar misuse, like Michelangelo’s David in boxers, or Venus de Milo wearing sunglasses.

Other vulnerable examples are not hard to find. Think of this magnificent piece of painting in the Sistine Chapel… another easy target for cliché and parody:

Or this self portrait of a tormented soul:

Or take these beginning haunting notes from a brilliant symphony, they have become an expression of suspense not much deeper than the tune in Final Jeopardy:

The opening chorus of this masterpiece has now been reduced to a punctuation mark in our vernacular, an exclamation used for scenarios from finding your lost keys to losing 10 pounds:

Isn’t the advertising industry supposed to be the flagship of creativity? And, when it comes to the creative process, aren’t we supposed to flee from clichés and produce fresh expressions? Isn’t originality a goal to strive for anymore? Or, has parody become the new genre and proof of ingenuity in our time?

And I’m just too tired to go into all the zombie and vampire versions of Jane Austen’s novels…