kinocow

Over the past two decades I've watched countless hours of TV, starting with watching Ruturaagalu and Antarangalu with mom and then graduating to the Balaji Telefilms School of Twisted Relationships which produced Pavitra Bandham and then moving on to Ballika Vadhu and Uttaran. Once the Telugu/Tamil dubbed/Hindi TV soaps were done I graduated a healthy dose of American TV shows through Friends and Breaking Bad and I've forgotten the number of TV shows I've watched since. If you ask me to summarize the TV shows I watched in the past year, I could at most talk about one or two shows but I am certain I've watched more than 20 shows during this period. The plots and character arcs of these shows all blend into each other and form a wordless thought mass that plopping off the corner of my brain somewhere.

Idle watching TV has its benefits, I don't have to pay attention to the horrible atrocities happening across the world , nor do I have to pay attention to the parts of my life that need tending. It's a kind of personal unwinding where one forgets that existence of oneself and outsources the processing of emotions to the recurring characters on screen. These days this connection also ceases to exist, dulled from the daily dose of capitalism the brain can no longer remember the names or follow plots – there's an occasional flash of a scene that demands attention but that too is forgotten in an instant. When people talk about specific shows or make a reference to them, my brain gets excited for a microsecond at the vague recognition but instantly falls back into the confusion of forgetfulness.

I don't know what this kind of viewing does to one's brain but information overload cannot certainly be good. The fact that background chatter is needed to maintain personal calm would seem strange just a century ago. Cutting down on TV increased my will to learn new things considerably, having replaced that time with books, movies and video lectures that help me go through a topic in-depth than laterally.

This doesn't mean that I'd stop watching shows altogether but just the ones that are made “binge worthy” aka addictive by default. Doing a first watch of Columbo and the shows feels far more deliberate with an intent to matter, which is the kind of media I want to entertain my time with.

#TV #streaming

Over the past few years Indian cinema hasn't generally been able to cut it for me, perhaps because I've watched too much of it in my formative years and the tropes and the plots do not hold my attention anymore. I tried to force fit a few masala movies into my viewing schedule and apart from being something to laugh along with these movies rarely lack the intellectual meat or pure enjoyment that current and past catalogues of World Cinema have to offer. At its core the biggest problem I have with Indian cinema in general is the laziness with which the whole process is carried out, there's rarely a good shot or a directorial choice that stirs you up to take notice. Going forward, I'd only devote time to Indian movies in highly curated film festival or choose from the end of the year best of lists – my patience is wearing thin if I watch everything otherwise.

#Bollywood

There’s a scene in Spike Jonze’s her (2013) where Theodore Twombley (Joaquin Phoenix) has sex with the AI Operating System Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson) over the phone, where Samantha who’s always weighed by the fact she doesn’t have a body discovers the feeling of having one while talking to Theodore. The scene is simple – Joaquin Phoenix is lying on his bed and talking into his earpiece as we hear the raspy voice of Samantha and the scene escalates, the camera zooms into the Theodore’s face as the scene heats up and fades to black as the voices heighten to a sexual climax.

For a minute or so we're immersed in the darkness of their orgasm, a scene of cinematic brilliance as it is successful in making us believe that a tender sexual moment can be possible between a human and an AI agent and it does away with the physical aspect of sex and wanders into the psychological aspect of lovemaking – as all great sex happens deep in the mind than the body. The way Spike Jonze achieves this in a rare flash of undoing of the cinematic and weighing on the voice performances of his characters alone, which by the time the scene comes up are established by a dramatic perfection.

The weight of the scene plays in the darkness of the cinema, with the breathlessness the characters experience become your own. It's by no means an easy scene to conceive as the movie hinges on the momentum produced by it to sustain the dramatic meat of the movie and the radical simplification without the voyeuristic gaze of the camera is a touch of genius. In a world where the visual representation of sex is abundant, to be able to perceive intimacy as silence and darkness gives the scene a sensitivity that other sex scenes rarely capture.

This scene also answers an important question: Can you have sex with an AI agent, considering the physical limitations it has? The answer is a resounding yes, as all you need is a mind or the perception of one as bodies are immaterial to intimacy.

#her #anatomyofascene #film

Twitter, the ever brimming cesspool of world events, constantly brings up one issue ailing Telugu cinema, the lack of proper film critics who stand against the waves of Telugu movies released each year with nothing remarkable to write home about. What ends up as film criticism is marketing, where the critic functions as another arm in the hype machine to pull precious eyeballs to the screen. As a critic's ability to survive in this cutthroat business depends on the acceptance of the power centralization in the Telugu Film Industry, there's never any dissent heard from them in any of the major issues that audience find in the movies. Instead, they ensure that the fans are never too rattled and thereby insulating themselves against further criticism and sustaining their career for another season.

The fact is, critics are the bottom-of-the-barrel scuds in the whole film tapestry, they're distillers of culture that other people have written, produced, directed and acted in, they are elevated filmgoers with a megaphone but apart from this they're indistinguishable from the rest of the audience. For people working within the film industry the critics are an necessary nuisance, no one knows if the critics can influence the Box Office future of a film but it's a chance that'd not be considered especially when the probability of a hit is so low.

A critic needn't SJW warrior through the politics of a movie but needs to have the spine to call out bad acting, writing and any other pet peeve technicality they might have a super focus in (and my working hypothesis is that the best critics turn out to be the best directors). But this is already too much to ask – check the number of times a Telugu film critic called out a major male lead for bad acting in the past years, even though these actors are typecast or sleepwalking through their roles, the critic needs to pay lip service to the fans or have their social media walls vandalized. This doesn't even consider the umpteen times that male actors have glorified sexual harassment, colourism and choosing to not pair with older actresses on screen.

In a society where politics and film converge, it's worth noting the similarities between attitudes towards political dissent and film criticism. Freedom of thought and speech relegate themselves to idealist visions and there's a top down enforcement of power. Can't say much about how that fares for politics but atleast in art, that doesn't bode too well for the long-term.

#criticism #cinema #Telugu

When I was younger, I used to hear older adults react to my writing in almost typical ways, “Oh, I used to paint when I was your age, now I don't have the time anymore and neither do I think I can” or “I always wished to write but I think those days are behind me”. In my naivete I saw these adults as losers who couldn't think creatively and chose to be corporate slaves instead. This prompted a decision to never end up like these adults and always prioritizing my creative output, often at the cost of my professional one. Years later finding myself at a career crossroads, having not succeeded in the creative endeavors as I wished and realizing I've to jump aboard the corporate ship before it's too late.

I look back and see that perhaps my best writing days are behind me or as a friend put it a few years ago, “kinocow, maybe you'll get older and see that you don't want to be a writer after all”. This line has rung in my ears since, do I really want to be a artist/writer or do I like the idea of being one without owning up to the responsibility and hardwork that comes with such a decision? Also, a much mature me sees that these fields are easier to succeed in when there's sound financial backing, which is not the case for everyone.

As time passes by and the many responsibilities of adulthood pile up (or promise to), the freedom with which I called an earlier version of myself as a writer or a poet dry up and on most days I don't find anything creative or meaningful to say about the world around me. The idea of shuffling different lives, one for the stomach and the other for the soul feels intimidating and I wonder, if I've become like one of those people I didn't wish to become.

#writing

2023 had been a great year for my movie watching. I clocked close to watching a 100 movies in the kinos, ranging from silent movies from the 1920s and indulging in the Barbenheimer hype on the first day. I didn't have this kind of access before moving to Berlin, in India watching a movie meant fitting into the latest Bollywood release cycle with a few pop-American movies thrown in. So for the most part of my life, access to world cinema was only through the internet, watching on a small screen with abysmal audio output. Though watching movies on a computer kept my cinema fantasies alive, it restricted my understanding of the intricate elements that make a movie truly immersive. Going to the kinos often showed that a mediocre movie becomes better when viewed in the kino while a great movie transforms itself into an altered state of consciousness that requires careful calibration post-movie to reintegrate into the world. I have been forgiving with most of the movies I watched in the kinos and when a bad one like Ridley Scott's Napoleon hit me I chose to have a nap instead.

Though most of my viewings in 2023 were the latest releases my plan for 2024 is to deviate from this a bit. The indelible movie experiences from last year were the older movies that I watched during the retrospectives in the Berlinale and the East Asian movies shown fortnightly at the Yorck kinos and the various festivals at Babylon Berlin. Movies that I watched previously enjoyed on the small screen or classics I saved for later viewings are the ones that I want to explore on the big screen, as that was the medium they're intended for. Another goal is to be more mindful about watching movies, prioritizing quality over quantity, I'd rather watch a movie I love five times than cramming four mediocre movies in the mix. This would further be supplemented by my informal film studies revolving around cinematography and editing, while also venturing into decoding special effects and understanding what makes a performance shine.

At some point last year I lost interest in film criticism as it reduced my movie watching exercise into constant intellectual masturbation, dissociating from the actual experience of being in the kino. I will try keeping movie criticism to a minimum while allocating these intellectual resources towards film philosophy and the contribution of cinema to our collective unconscious. If I achieve even 10% of my film viewing goals I'd consider it a success. Let's see what 2024 brings and see you at the movies!

#film #writing

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1. Hero: Main detective, a bit of an oddball, emotional wreck. Has chronic problems with their partner or love interest, bonus if they have a neglected child. Has a substance abuse problem or PTSD from a previous investigation which makes them not defer to authority. Everyone is against the hero because of their shortcomings until the very end where everyone realizes they've been wrong all along.
2. Sidekick: Doubts the hero but has irrational urge to be with them until they have a point of revelation where they start worshiping them. They tone down the edge of the hero by a notch and are a conduit to authority and the audience. Their happy personal life also suffers. Bonus: Always shot or maimed towards the end.
3. Victims: A young girl, SA for more shock value. Young boy for pedo angle, or a rich businessman or politician. It takes 10 homeless people before the police start to take notice so the equation goes: 10 homeless people = 1 young girl.
4. Villain: Usually seen within the first 20 minutes and the story tries hard to direct your attention away from them. Normal but perverse, definitely a serial killer selling pizza or something. Comes in the penultimate scenes to shoot the sidekick. Likes to commit suicide. Otherwise they're the victim of their circumstances (war, bad upbringing, corruption around them) but they start a chain reaction of rampage they cannot control.
5. Head of Police: Dumbest of the lot, makes you wonder why they're the head of police to begin with. Have no head, no spine, a bag of jelly to shut down the hero at convenient points. If a politician is the victim then the head of police is covert corrupt.
6. Hero's love interest: Usually a nice person but they're sick of the hero's chronic lateness and lack of romance. Bonus: thinks the hero is cheating on them. The middle episodes are devoted to their fucked up love life.
7. Victim's family: Broken, if it's a girl they're double broken. Seen gazing at the photos of the victim and banging their chest in front of police. At some point the male character lashes out at a potential perpetrator. They're humans made of glycerin.
8. Other characters: Seen giving support to victims or the Hero, the killer usually hiding in this lot. There's a funny one here for the laughs, one of them is dispensable, usually the villain gets them. All of them are are potential suspects and all of them are interrogated by the police which turns the community against them. Most of them have served jailtime, were corrupt or have cheated on their partners.
9. Pre-climax: Everyone zeroes on an Ersatz villain and the Head of Police insists an arrest be made. An arrest is made but the Hero can't sleep, they go rogue infuriating the Head of Police who already have the Hero suspended. Only the Sidekick realizes their brilliance and goes co-rogue usually without the knowledge of the Hero.
10. Climax: Sidekick is shot, Hero's blood is pumping napalm and goes full ballistic. Goes after the villain alone even as Head of Police is waiting at the wrong place with a battalion enough to invade Moscow (homage to Silence of the Lambs). Hero fights villain alone, killing them. (if not, suicide)
11. Last 15 minutes: Head of Police makes a joke of how stubborn the Hero is while toasting on the success of the investigation where they did jackshit. Hero is sleepless and mourns sidekick not being there (or they smile from the hospital bed). Montage of everyone healing, Fin.
12. Themes: If a politician is a victim then there's the obvious political cover-up and Hero always finds the killer but the victory ends on a bittersweet note with them being transferred or the real crime not exposed because corruption perpetuates over morality. If little children/young girls are involved the themes of human resilience, emotions and frailty are pondered upon. If homeless people are the victims then societal apathy is the theme of the show. Obviously the Hero is the white dove in a sea of sewage.

#HowTo #detective #writing

The opening scene of Beau is Afraid has been haunting me ever since I watched the movie. It's a scene that lingers, etching itself into my mind. Baby Beau, just born, emerges into a world of obscurity, surrounded by a nebulous red hue. Then, abruptly, he is dropped onto the floor, his mother's screams filling the air. This vivid imagery forces me to contemplate my own journey into existence. Perhaps, in that moment, I too was greeted by a disorienting swirl of colors, with that same nebulous red as my first glimpse of the world. It's a jarring and unsettling scene, one that places the world around me into a disconcerting context. From that point on, everything I perceive has evolved, blossoming from that enigmatic red. This notion echoes the wisdom found in Tibetan beliefs, where a flashing red light accompanies our journey towards death, drawing us inexorably towards it.

The online realm has been abuzz with reactions to Beau long before the film's official release, and opinions have been sharply divided. A viral audio recording even went so far as to predict that this movie would be a career-killer for its director, Ari Aster. Another point of contention was its lengthy runtime, which presented a personal challenge for me as someone who struggles with prolonged periods of sitting.

Yet, the true essence of Beau extends beyond its narrative material; it poses a profound examination of our relationship with media consumption itself. In an era dominated by rapid-fire video clips and fleeting soundbites, we find ourselves inundated with a relentless barrage of media throughout each passing week. We are bombarded by fleeting glimpses into the lives of countless individuals we will likely never encounter. Beau, however, demands that we break this pace, compelling us to engage in introspection and confront the inner workings of our own anxieties. The impact of this experience was so profound that I found myself momentarily disenchanted with movies after watching it. Slowly, however, the film began to grow on me, leading me to ponder the timeless question: “How many movies are simply too many movies?”

Within the landscape of film criticism, where speed is of the essence, there exists a challenging paradox. We are expected to swiftly deliver our verdicts while the movies are still fresh and relevant. Unfortunately, this leaves little room for a movie to settle within our minds and for our opinions to truly take root. At first glance, Beau may appear disconcerting, almost bordering on unwatchable. Yet, in retrospect, it demands our undivided attention, reaching far beyond its runtime. Although I have no intention of revisiting it, my admiration for Ari Aster has grown stronger than ever. This film redefines the very essence of the cinematic experience, provoking us to contemplate the very nature of our existence.

When all is said and done, amidst the vast array of movies, TV shows, and TikTok videos, what remains is that nagging voice within our minds, questioning the purpose and meaning behind it all. Beau engages in a profound dialogue with that inner voice, leaving an indelible mark. For this thought-provoking and even emotionally challenging experience, the movie is undoubtedly worth watching, even if it proves to be a traumatic journey.

#BeauisAfraid #criticism #film

But not without annoying you

The biggest surprise from Ari Aster's latest movie Beau is Afraid is how he managed to make the movie, considering that it's a total anxiety inducing oddball with one of the finest actors working in Hollywood today. It could be that his relationship with A24 has scored him this deal, with his previous two critical and commercial darlings Hereditary and Midsommar obviating him from any critical scrutiny.

Three hours long and filled with scene after scene of insanity and overindulgence, this is not your typical Hollywood bender but this comes at the cost of actually enjoying the movie. Who's your average movie watcher? A person who comes to a dark room post a long day at work and sits through a dreamscape that's a stand-in to escape their gritty life. Beau is Afraid takes this opportunity to submerge the audience deeper into their loser ethos with no salvation possible, you can chuckle at the little jokes peppered through the movie but it eventually brings you into confrontation of what is to painfully plugging fingers in your emotional wounds. Now that's a challenging watch, different from the happy sap sold week after week, but that also makes one question, how challenging should movies be? Beau is Afraid takes the lead a bit too far, often with a lot of disjointed experimentation that doesn't really make sense. Why is Beau hallucinating and what's up with his mom? When the reveals happen, the interest wanes at the long run time that meanders through a lot of nonsensical events, all of which pretend to have a greater meaning beyond the plot. It felt like Ari Aster wanted to pull something like what Charlie Kaufman did with Synecdoche, New York but to pull such a film there has to be a hook that is powerful. In Beau is Afraid it's about Beau wanting to meet his mother and it makes you wonder, if that's all the dramatic meat that's needed to sustain a story.

Crazy things keep happening that propel the story forward but none have any semblance over reality. We're supposed to believe that these things can happen but my biggest grouse was that the world building wasn't enough for me to be invested about Beau. Joaquin Phoenix breathes the character of Beau into submission and it's painful to watch him suffer but this suffering doesn't come from a point of empathy but rather disgust, and considering Ari Aster's previous horror credentials this is a compliment. The movie left me asking for more or made me wonder how it passed through multiple layers of scrutiny that take over a creative project. It's a movie that I won't be revisiting again (and unlike Requiem for Dream not for a good reason) but it's challenging watch that I'd recommend you to sit through because it's unusual filmmaking and when there's a lot of hullabaloo over cookie cutter movies, Beau offers a critical rethink of what can be a blockbuster.

#review #BeauisAfraid

White Noise and the disintegration of the American Dream

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Kafka wrote a book on America without ever having visited there and basing his visions of the country on the books that came his way. Having never visited America neither but being exposed to American media from a very young age, a composite view America exists in my mind, which is far different from the reality of it.

What is America? On one level, America as the kingdom of dreams is the idea that's sold everywhere. Opulence is the middle name of every American and the pristine, manicured American suburbia is what every middle-class person around the world wants to emulate. America is glitz and glamour, where chewing a toothpick and wearing a cowboy hat is symbolic of masculinity and it is the absolute center of the world: why else would aliens target America and then it's the loci of all modern day gods and superheroes? An alternate picture exists hidden in plain sight in the plumbings of reddit and twitter, of crazy hospital bills, no worker rights whatsoever, a crumbling society outside the moat of billionaires an image of a religious, conservative society that's nothing like the liberal idea of America and the American Dream.

Watching Noah Baumbach's White Noise based on Don DeLillo's novel of the same name, fleshes out the disparities between my imaginations of America as someone who has never been there and that of a top American dramaturgist in great form. The novel inspired a snapshot of images while reading it, especially the “The most photographed barn in America” or mind-bending line that predicted the future in 1985“In the future, data is everything”, though both of these are omitted from the story line, there are new additions, like the scene inspired by Apocalypse Now's opening brings in a new meaning to the source material, with Vietnam war PTSD replaced by the stresses of American consumerism and the impending fear of death that it helps mask. While lacking the literal acuity of the book, the movie wraps itself with the complexities that can be reached through filmmaking, the fact that the movie got made is a proof in itself as the White Noise was especially famous for not being “filmable”. Noah Baumbach as the film's screenwriter delivers the literary goods with dense writing aided by terrific performances and cinematography. It's a pity that the movie has been completely snubbed at all major awards this year, as it sits on the same level of ingenuity as Everything, Everywhere All at Once. But that's not a cause of concern, as I am sure that this movie will stand the test of time by being relevant, as it needs another global scale meltdown to truly appreciate this movie.

White Noise deals with contradiction between real and the imagined, showing the disturbed American as the focal point of its story. It's a vital viewpoint, once a decent living standard is attained and all the luxuries of life have morphed into necessities, what becomes of the human? Will life be some kind of paradise or will we be plagued by the same sense of ennui and purposelessness that propels us in the pursuit of material riches to begin with? The answer to this though obvious is often lost in the titillation of consumerism, in the hope that there is a product out there which will quench and absolve us from the dread and loneliness of existing. This is no better demonstrated by Dylar, the fictional, experimental medicine that is supposed to subdue one's fear of death, which Greta Gerwig's character Babette is constantly using throughout the movie. Dylar is the stand in for our next purchase, that glimmering item in the shopping carts of our minds, one which obfuscates our real standing as a living, breathing and decaying beings.

In the context of the 2023 Ohio train derailment which bears an eerie resemblance to the Air Borne Toxic Event from the movie, White Noise is more relevant than ever, both in America and the rest of the world that is permanently hooked to America through its news and culture. It's a movie that shows a rare glimpse into the weaknesses of utopia, that there's no rainbow at the end of the hamster wheel of development. What is America? Its our individual hopes and dreams mixed with desire and longing for something that's beyond the material world, where abstractions are framed as certainties. But we know deep inside, there are no answers but yet, we still keep buying.

#America #WhiteNoise #review #film #essay