Day 213 - 3 Hours of Dreaming

I finally managed to watch LSD (Love, Sex Aur Dhoka) today, after having bought the DVD a couple of months ago.  Over the last few months, I have been wanting to watch a slew of movies which have been recommended by friends or have had rave reviews in the media.  I cannot term myself a great movie buff, but critically acclaimed movies have always been a passion. 

I haven't been able to watch a lot of movies in the recent past because of paucity of time.  Moreover, two small kids at home make it almost impossible to watch movies in a theatre Also, my intolerance for bad cinema has increased and my attention span has decreased almost proportionate to each other in the last few years.  Hence, the sum total of all these factors has been that, I haven't watched many movies (certainly not in the theatres) in the recent past.  The ones that I have watched, are those which have been critically acclaimed, like 3 Idiots.

So, there is still a long list of movies to watch: Ishqiya, Once Upon A Time in Mumbai, Tere Bin Laden, Udaan, Raavan, etc.  The last movie that I saw in a theatre was Rajneeti.  A movie with a huge star cast, with the director trying to make screenplay out of a mixture of Mahabharata, Godfather and contemporary Indian politics.  The huge star cast meant that the director could not do justice to the abundance of talent at hand.  My son had already declared the film as 'not good' after the first couple of reels.

Speaking of movies, down in South India, movies are big news!  Everyone loves movies, across all age groups; across all strata of the society.  Actors and actresses are revered as The Almighty and have even got temples dedicated to them.  One of my favourite films also happens to be in my mother tongue, Tamil: Nayagan.

I do sometimes wonder what is it in a movie that makes people go gaga over them!?  I think movies are like dreams.  Once is in a dreamland for three hours, watching a string of vivid images, while watching a movie.  We see our aspirations, hopes, wishes fears and fantasies being played out on the big screen for 3 hours.  When we watch movies, we get to experience what we normally can’t in our own lives by identifying with characters that are involved in impossible stories. Whether the ending is happy, sad, or bittersweet, if the story is to our liking, we are thrilled every time.  Hence movies are also about story-telling.  A good story is always immortal.

I am not sure, if many people do appreciate the subtleties in the making of the movie itself.  The art of camerawork, editing, lighting and, of course, the acting itself.  I am someone who does tend to notice these.  For example, LSD has been made with experimental camera work.  The three segments of the film have three different styles / types of cameras and cinematography in them.  In the past few years, film makers in Bollywood have started to become more and more experimental in the quest for putting something 'different' out there and this trend has received the right impetus with the influx of new and young talent.

Hope this continues and I get to see many more good films in the coming months and years!

Take care.