Gaddama: The broken maid

This Malayalam film Gaddama is a story that perhaps takes place in scores of housemaids who go to Gulf countries in search of greener pastures. Hundreds of women, especially from Kerala, land in the Arab world to earn a living for themselves and their family. In many cases, though, these women end up losing their physical and moral strength being exploited and tortured by the employers in many cases.

Director: Kamal

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Gaddama is one such story. The protagonist here is Aswathy who decides to go abroad after she loses her husband at a very young age. In an alien land things are not very smooth for her as she is subjected to untold miseries and trials. Feeling impossible to continue and realising that prolonging in the place would be fatal, she decides one day to flee only to face greater trials. Yet, as the film narrates, not all people are bad and not everything dark. She finds a helping hand in a few of her own country cousins who go out of their way to bring her out of her misery.

While the film may be a little melodramatic in its final product, the narrative could never be simpler in actuality. Umpteen cases get reported in the media of people being subjected to indescribable miseries in their work places within India and abroad. We can find a Gaddama in many of such unfortunate souls whose only fault is that they are born into poorer families. The film also raises important human rights issues of immigrants in foreign land. Every immigrant even as he/she battles home sickness in a foreign land, must also battle injustice and hostile work environment meted out by a condescending foreign employer. Kavya Madhavan as Aswathy the Gaddama is sensitive and does justice to the battered characterisation. 

- Melwyn Pinto SJ

Blue Jasmine: The tale of a woman!

Woody Allen's movies have never appealed to me, as they have always come across as a tiny bit artsy and often with a very vague plot. But in Blue Jasmine draws one’s attention and probably the focus here is Blanchett, whose performance  takes a vague and mindless character and makes her surprisingly, um ... , sadly riveting. 

Director: Woody Allen

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Darkly funny, often in a self-deprecating way, Jasmine resembles one of those '50s wives who are dumped and then find themselves with no skills to survive, not even being able to live in the manner they'd grown accustomed. Strangely the film held off most of my family at arm's length, but for me it is Blanchett that makes this depressingly sad movie enjoyable. Her spaced out character should make you want to hate her, but by the end, you can't help but feel sorry for her and feel she is slightly misunderstood as well.

The mental instability of the character is brilliantly portrayed by the exceptionally talented Blanchett, however some viewers felt very unsatisfied and angry about the ending. But personally, it's good that the movie didn't end with a typical happy Hollywood spin. The film sets you thinking about how many women there are out there totally lost with no skills to survive like Blanchett; how important it is for a woman to be educated, with more skills than just looking pretty and dressing in branded clothes!

A friend on Facebook seemed to feel she could hear the distant clang of A Streetcar Named Desire --- not a rip off from the earlier film, but a sort of respectful tribute.

- Marianne Furtado de Nazareth

Shahid: Martyr for justice

The term Shahid in Urdu/Hindi means martyr. The name of the protagonist in this film is Shahid. It serves both metaphorical and actual purposes, for the protagonist indeed becomes a martyr at the end of the film.

 Director: Hansal Mehta

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The film is a real life account of Shahid Azmi who became a lawyer and fought many cases of those who were languishing in jails being wrongly implicated. However, it is this very mission of his that alienates him from his close ones, and finally brings his end.

The film is a realistic depiction of the current Indian criminal proceedings and shows, without resorting to melodrama, how at times the present system can make criminal out of innocents. The personal experience that the protagonist goes through in his own life drives him to take causes of innocent victims who for no fault of theirs fell on the wrong side of the law.

Rajkumar as Shahid has added life to the real life character. No wonder he won the national award for best actor. Even as the film deals with the Indian archaic legal system, it raises questions if our system is all that bad or if there is the dearth of real commitment on the part of lawyers to fight for justice. The film stands out as an off-beat film in the ocean of Bollywood’s masala films.

- Melwyn Pinto SJ

Fandry: Chasing elusive birds!

Marathi film Fandry which has won many awards, is a typical film that deals with the caste question and the struggle for survival of dalits in an Indian village. This is perhaps one of those very few films that have brought out the raw reality of the subaltern powerfully. The subaltern narrative that is in focus in this film is the brutality of caste system which in this modern world plays out more subtly than the historic untouchability. Here is a family, the day-to-day struggles of which are a spectacle of entertainment for the so called upper caste people in the village. The entire narrative is depicted through the eyes of the teenage son in the family Jabya. The irony is that this boy is chasing two ‘birds’ both of which are elusive to him – one a long-tailed sparrow and the other a fair girl from the upper caste.  

Director: Nagraj Manjule

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The caste dynamics at play in this film are similar to the dynamics playing in any village today. Caste today is not just about untouchability; for untouchability in its true sense is no more a major concern, when you can easily stay away with people whom you don’t like. It is about attitudes and perceptions. In the film, the family of Kachrya, the father of Jabya the ‘lover boy’, lives as usual on the fringe of the village; but the family is sought after to tidy the dirt of the village, i.e. to catch the pigs which are another symbol of defilement. Perhaps, the family can be banished only when all the dirt (pigs) are done away from the village. 

The final scene in the film where the young Jabya gives vent to his suppressed anger seems just an aberration in a scenario where dalits are considered a mass to be merely used and suppressed, and the discrimination and humiliation meted out to them considered something normal. It is a landmark film that brings to forth the dalit angst. 

-Melwyn Pinto SJ

Shattered Glass: Made-up facts!

Truth is sacrosanct in journalism. It is the thread that holds the very fabric of the journalistic world together. But what happens when the facts of a published story, the revered 5 Ws (who, what, when, where, why) and 1 H (how), are just fictional? The whole journalistic medium comes apart at the seams.

Director: Billy Ray

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Shattered Glass is a film that captures the unravelling of this scenario by detailing the life of a reporter who concocts tall tales in the guise of truth. Based on the real life of the infamous print journalist Stephen Glass, the movie is a lesson in media ethics and a cautionary story for media professionals. 

Directed by Billy Ray, the movie plays out like a suspenseful thriller. The movie is set in the late 90s, at a time when Stephen Glass, played by Hayden Christensen, was at the height of his career. This young, ambitious and affable reporter was a rising star at The New Republic, a magazine known for its strong political analysis and commentary. The movie depicts how Glass circumvented the editorial process of fact-checking and source verification. The editor at the magazine, played by Peter Sarsgaard exposes Glass’ tenuous web of lies. We watch as Glass’ meteoric rise to fame comes crashing down in a devastating fall from grace.

The story of Stephen Glass is not an isolated one. In 2003, Jayson Blair from the New York Times was also convicted in a similar scandal for manufacturing stories. Renowned Indian journalists have also been accused of breeching journalistic ethics. Numerous reporters have been accused of plagiarism, having a close mutually-beneficial nexus to politicians and corporates, and partaking in paid news.

Journalists have a responsibility to uphold the integrity of their position as the fourth estate. But the abuse of this power, as evidenced in the film, has catastrophic consequences.

- Parinitha Shinde

The Book Thief: Words are life!

Most often we are told not to read the book after seeing the film, but this is one film -- The Book Thief that one can safely do that! Both are outstandingly good! 

The Book Thief based on the novel of the same name by Markus Zusak, tells the story of Liesel (Sophie Nélisse), a down-to-earth young girl, sent to live with a foster family in World War II Germany. It was at the grave of her brother,  that she picks up her first book, unwittingly left behind by the grave digger and earns her the unsaid sobriquet of 'the book thief'. She learns to read with encouragement from her new foster father, Hans (Geoffrey Rush) and Max, a Jewish refugee who they are hiding in the cellar under the house. For Liesel and Max, the power of words and imagination become the only escape from the tumultuous events happening around them. This film is a life-affirming story of survival and of the resilience of the human spirit.

Director: Brian Percival

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Her tough manner makes her an object of ridicule in school, but Rudy Steiner (Nico Liersch), her classmate, becomes her good friend. However, when Liesel is asked by her stern teacher to write her name on the blackboard on her first day of school, it is obvious that she doesn't know how to read or write.

Along with a very imaginative 'dictionary' painted on the walls of the cellar, Hans decides to teach Liesel to read by using the book she'd taken from the graveside. Eager to learn Liesel is inspired to read more books, which are impossible to find during war. Living in Nazi Germany is hard and the scene where a massive bonfire of any book which is not German was burnt in the neighbourhood square can give a tug at the heart of any rabid book lover.  Liesel waits till the crowds leave to salvage a book out of the burning pile. She also takes the initiative to read aloud, to keep calm during an air raid where the whole town sits in a dark air raid shelter.

Director Brian Percival adroitly tells Liesel's story and has the audience empathising with her life, with its undeniable pathos. Screenwriter Michael Petroni and Oscar-nominated composer John Williams has helped to do this film justice by bringing it from page to screen and giving it just the right tone. Narrator Roger Allam who took the unseen role of death has given the film a three dimensional angle which is eerily just right. Geoffrey Rush is a very lovable Hans and Sophie Nelisse is a delicately perfect Liesel. Surely Markus Zusak is pleased with his book coming to life like this on celluloid. A dream any author would wish for.

 

- Marianne Furtado de Nazareth

12 Years A Slave: Value of freedom

Well, as expected 12 Years A Slave has won the best film award at Oscars 2014. Not that the other films were not competitive enough. What made the difference perhaps was the human touch of the film and the way the director has handled the narration, without allowing the subject to become a heightened melodrama, despite the story lending itself to it.

 

Director: Steve McQueen

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The film is apparently based on a real life story and loosely hewed on the book of the same title. The events occur in the mid-19^th century when slavery was considered normal in the US. However, the protagonist in the story had to face a double whammy as he was kidnapped and forcefully made a slave and he remained in that state for 12 years. More than the physical pain, it is the humiliation and sheer helplessness he went through which make the audience resonate sympathetically with the theme. That is when one realises how precious freedom is and how devastating it is when freedom is robbed from people who are born free and who believe that they are born ‘in the image and likeness of God’.

There have been several films that deal with the theme of slavery. In fact this film reminds of another classical Amistad which was a poignant tale of slave trade and had a much bigger canvas. (Incidentally, the  protagonist Chiwetel Ejiofor had played a role in Amistad). However, 12 Years A Slave stands out for its straight forwardness sans glamour and for not making it a spectacle of brutality that slavery was, even while conveying the message powerfully.

Full marks to director Steve McQueen. Lupita Nyong'o rightly  deserved the award for the Best Actress in a supporting role. 

- Melwyn Pinto SJ