Pather Panchali (Movie)

Satyajit Ray Image via Wikipedia

Wanted to watch this movie since ages. Finally watched it couple of months back. Satyajit Ray has been one of my favourite authors. Practically learned English to read his translations of Feluda and Professor Shonku. A major person responsible for my fascination towards Kolkotta and Bengalis. Anyways, wanted to to see what kind of cinema he created.

I like fast paced movies. Hence, I was a bit bored in the initial part of the movie. While most of the fast paced movies are full of dialogues, Ray uses silence as an important tool to convey moods and feelings, and to me he really seemed very good at doing so. The story is very simple, no 'filmy' dialogues. The artists who play the character are chosen very wisely. Read somewhere how much trouble Ray went through to find right actors for characters.

What stood out for me were 3-4 scenes which made movie really worth watching. One of them was when the child character Apu is being readied to go to school by his mother and sister. The expression at around 10:20 tells it all. NO WORDS NECESSARY. The scene where Durga and Apu chase the sweet selling guy was also brilliant. After watching movie read its review and was very happy to find that both of those scene were specially mentioned.

In conclusion, though I love fast paced movies, this slow poetic movie did leave a lasting impression on me. If I was given a possibility to have dinner with a person across ages, I would choose Ray. Want to watch the remaining two parts of Trilogy, read that Apu trilogy is one of the most famous one in history of cinema, each outclassing the previous one.

Dr. Strangelove

Dr. Strangelove

Based on a book, red aleart, the movie is one of the best that I have watched. Have hearad a lot about Stanley Kubrick, but this is the first time that I have watched one of this movie. To be frank, when I read about the movie, was not much impressed due to it's 'strange' title: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

This is one of the 'dark comedies' which I watched during the dark one and half month. The entire film is full of sarcasm, but one of the dialogue, which stood out for me most was when USpresident says, 'gentlemen you can't fight in here, this is the war room'. The direction is awesome. But most desirably, the script treatment is one of the best. One of the most memorable scence for me was when the pilot, Mr. Kong, dropping hydrogen bomb on Russia is unable to open the back of plane for dropping the bomb due to system failure. He manually does it. And while the bomb is dropped, he is sticking on to it, as it is being dropped, his face joyus with euphoria. He is happy that he is sacrificing his life for the country. Only if he knew the full context, he would not have been happy. Made me think, only if fools were not ignorant of their foolishness, many disasters would have been avoided. But again, if fools were not ignorant of their foolishness, may be they would not have been fools (except atleast for Duryodhan, whose one quote I seem to have read somewhere, which meant, 'its not that I am not aware that I am not doing the right things, its just that it is not able to do the right thing' or something to that effect).

After watching movie, when I read that Peter Sellers played three roles in the movie, I was really surprised. 

One more quote from the movie:  Mr. President, we must not allow a mineshaft gap! 

Dabang

Just watched Dabang. A hindi movie after a long time. Could not understand all the buzz and money the movie is making. Although i didnt like 3 idiots that much, could not believe Dabang has broken its record. Seems the choice of collective is going from bad to worse.