Have not really written anything new, but I do try to share one thing on Sunday….so I’ll tell you about why my Sunday was a good one.
1) I saw the movie “The Departed”, yeah I know it was released like eons ago, in my defence I am a sporadic movie watcher 😀
2) The true highlight of my day was this beautiful piece of music shared by a friend of mine today. It’s a surreal but inspiring coming together of dubstep & violin. Below I describe the sequence of emotions I felt hearing this piece:
a. Skeptical of this guy’s ability to do justice to Ellie’s Dubstep with a violin.
b. Getting a hang of the pace
c. The pace builds , you start believing, you start moving
d. You get goosepimples!!
e. You hear the piece 3 times
f. You decide you need to get out , walk to enjoy the music.
g. You even manage to find an isolated spot & do a lill dance for the sheer beauty of it!
h. You keep hearing the track
i. You blog about it , cause this beautiful track must be shared & heard
Note: The blogger humbly requests readers to first start playing this song & then proceed to read. Pardon the eccentricity but I really believe the song opens the mind to understand the source of; if not accept; the views expressed under.
We are all alone.
We want our existence acknowledged.
This deep-rooted desire is expressed in many creative forms- from many Japanese Anime, to songs like Skylar Grey’s Invisible (The one you are listening to right now), to many dance & theater performances.
It doesn’t matter sad, sorry or angry, whatever the vented form, the real source is the despairing need to be remembered, to be understood, to be acknowledged.
I wonder though, whether this need be despairing, could it not be channeled for a positive?
We are afraid to be alone & yet we will always be. It is an inescapable truth.
We will always have moments of solitude no matter how many friends we have, no matter how well loved we are by our family. Solitude will find us. It’s like a person. We can choose to dislike it or embrace it. And like any other person, we can’t like it always; however hard we may try. Hence these lamentations are inescapable.
It may help to remember that everyone else feels the same way every now & then & those who seem to be happily surrounded by many people most likely feel lonely more acutely. Need validation for that idea? Think about celebs like Marilyn, Michael, Heath Ledger, Amy , Whitney . Think about rulers like Julius Ceaser, Mark Antony.
We always do feel the pressure to present the perfect versions of ourselves to the world frightened out of our wits that we would be rejected if our true selves are revealed accentuating the feeling of not being really understood & hence being eventually alone.
A way out?? You know those old folks really did know what they were talking about when they said-
“Judge not so that you may not be judged”
Don’t dismiss another’s way, ideas or purpose in life, for if you do so, you feed your own fear that the same will be done to you. This way we might just understand some part of each other.
Try this sometime: Next time you feel “invisible” take a walk, keep walking till you come across another soul who has the same haunted look in their eyes. You will know it the moment you see it. Acknowledge that person; if possible strike that conversation you wouldn’t normally have. You’ll welcome solitude into this comfortable private circle you create to join in ,cause then solitude acts as a guard who protects this unnatural conversation, this connection till you find a friend in the stranger with the same look reflected in their eyes.
Sometimes our best works are created because we took the time to get acquainted with ourselves. Paul Gauguin a painter actually left his family & friends to be alone in search of truth through the medium of art.
You see our solitude can be a very dear friend. Choose to try and embrace it. You will undoubtedly fail sometimes but there will be those other times, however few, which just might help define yourself to you.
Like every dear friend, taken for granted, we need to take the time to replenish the relationship we have with it- Our Solitude.
1) The first movie ever, during which I couldn’t finish my popcorn cause I was yelling, gasping & gaping at the screen!
2) The first ever movie, where I actually choked on the god darn popcorn cause ermmm <pretty much the same reasons given above>
3) One of the few movies that actually manages to STEP UP to if not STEP OVER some seriously high expectations (The other movie that succeeded in doing that this year being – Dark knight rises)
The moves, those gravity defying, divine moves! There have been dance movies before, but what distinguishes Step up 4 is how exquisitely it has elevated creative standards, pushed the limits of dance being a peaceful but powerful form of self-expression & illustrated “how”, in the words of the male protagonist “it’s good to break some rules”. The art, the mélange of dance forms, the coordinated abandon, the usage of creative form to artfully get your message across ….
DELIVERED. SOLD OUT. BOUGHT LUSTFULLY.
Totally! Cause it’s so damn good!!
There was street dancing, there was ballet, there was graffiti (yes graffiti I am not kidding you) & I ate it all up. Darn it! If this movie was a dish I would not be typing this “APPLAUSE” cause I would still be licking my fingers, waving my other hand to order ‘Another round if you please’.
Some of the scores used are a serious ode to dubstep & it serves to increase my reverence for this very “generation Y” form of music.
Ok now that the initial exuberance is abating (not really I am really finding it hard to sit down cause this movie has me blaring music, trying to dance & type this feeling all simultaneously)let me give you a gist of what’s it all about.
There is this cute poor dude who has his own dance crew named ‘The Mob’, this pretty rich girl with aspirations to be a professional dancer & the twain shall meet (obviously) & am so happy they do. Cause those two have some serious moves (on the dance floor people. FOCUS. 😉 ). The mob sets youtube on fire with its provoking Flash dance performances (TO DIE FOR!) for a competition initially, and then decides to channel its creativity for something bigger than itself for a message that needs to be desperately heard.
There is this statement made by the lead female protagonist, Emily – “Enough of performance art, it’s time for Protest art!!”. I adore the girl for that and I am all in for that!
For Step Up movies enthusiasts – Moose does this short number. The only downside – It’s too short!! Wanted to see more of Moose’s moves!
Ok all the statements in caps & exclamations might make me appear like a groupie 😉 (I already disclaimed, it’s so not a critique, no dispassionate analyzing this) but I so want to tell you guys- Please STEP UP to watch? nahh involve yourself with this movie! If it doesn’t energize you, like hell if I know what can 😀
Saw this movie a year back & had penned down the critique immediately, so intensely moved was I by it. Found it a while back rummaging through my files & decided to share the feeling this movie invokes!
It is not every day that you come across a piece of art that exposes your frailty to yourself.
What a movie & how aptly named!! A requiem indeed it is, for all the sordid, derelict of dreams unfulfilled, beaten & killed of the young & old alike.
The movie takes you through such agonizing moments; you will want to reach out to the characters in some way, any way! It’s like being on a ride which goes only one way, downhill & there is no way you can stop it or save the people on it. It’s someone else’s ride down to hell on earth & yet you are moved to the very murky depths of your soul because it could be just so easy to slide into that abyss yourself.
The movie starts well enough , you do take a note of the grim set up of the story at the very onset & mentally shift gears to tell yourself not to be too affected but its all in vain.
There are 4 main characters in the movie & the story revolves around their hopes & their well meaning plans to achieve them. The movie has a brief uplifting moment when the characters introduce to us their dreams… such innocuous little dreams, dreams that can sustain a drab life & bring beauty & colour to it ,dreams the failure of which is gut wrenching to the viewer because of their simplicity & likeness to his/her own dreams.
The movie darkens steadily when the characters kill their own dreams; one misstep at a time revealing unsparingly how easy it is to fail to achieve the small designs we set ourselves to achieve, & the despair of unrealized dreams.
When the characters’ lives spiral out of control because of a series of wrongly made choices you feel an acute desperation in which you find yourself hoping, praying even, for respite. Relationships, promises, morality all crumble in the face of all encompassing despair, loneliness, & dangerous obsessions .
Purposefully, do I stay away from revealing the plots because that is to simplify the requiem. You see- failure is easy to dismiss. It is easy to find comfort in the claim that you wouldn’t make the choices that the characters made & for that reason I should not make it so easy to do away with the pain by telling the stories simplistically in my inept words.
After the movie ended I was in a state of shock. Of such mind numbing depth of pathos had I been witness to. Agonizing, cold & discomforting but amazing was this haunting requiem. Do not watch the movie if you want to revel in the sunshine & thank god for all that is pure, true & full of hope , cause it will all be sapped out of you, such, is the monstrous power of this dark mesmerizing song of human weakness.
The cinematographic style is brilliant! Scenes are well shot & in a novel way. Upon researching it a bit found that the style use is called hip hop montage where Split-screen is used extensively, along with extremely tight closeups.
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