Filmmaking thoughts

My definition of the film or filmmaking and the quotes that inspire me about filmmaking








Film making is a technique to be used to express your thought in the form of a story.








Filmmaking is like music that flows lyrically as the story unfolds gradually on the screen and in the mind of the audience..












Film-making is almost a kind of meditation on our story and form, later bridges them together for completeness....














filmmaking is also like poetry of spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.












of course, film-making is no doubt a magic that baffles the audience with the tempo and rhythm of the story while being witnessed by audience themselves.













Film-making converts story into surreal and virtual by using time and space, of course in a way a kind of suspension of disbelief- VARDHAN

Rashomon by shakespeare of filmmaking, Akira kurosova

My next review, kurosova's most bizarre, electrifying, highly cinematic "Rashomon", the sole question remains after watching the film is " can truth be told as objectively as man witnesses?"

dweepa by girish kasaravalli

Dweepa……



Girish kasaravalli, a name to be reckoned in parallel cinema… the sole sailor who successfully leading the boat and continuing his principles he believed in despite lucrative offers and other distractions in the ultramodern world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHupkAnxyJ8----watch dweepa trialer by opening this link... the review of this movie will be posted by me in one or two days... i liked this movie and i am sure you too will like it... i will tell you why....


Dweepa another masterpiece from girish kasaravalli…. Impeccable. lyrical…highly symbolical and metaphorical.. nagi, indomitable, undeterred, persistent stands for energy, change, transformation and ready to be adaptable. Durgappa, father in law of nagi, a traditional, conservative, has a great faith in domestic deity that she will save him against all odds, as he performs “nema” a ritual to invoke the spirit of deity and prays for the problems they are facing… his son, husband of nagi, ganapa, a blind follower of his father, sometimes get intrigued by the fathers’ traditional beliefs and nagi’s rational outlook ; the other important character is Krishna, an intruder into the dweepa, nagi’s nephew, who is confused about himself and others,
a dreamy caricature in the film, neither completely pragmatic nor completely idealistic, he is just struggling between idealism and pragmatic nature.



as soon as the film begins, gets into the plot straight away; as the plot reveals that the rise of the water level in the river and the forthcoming monsoons could submerge the sitamountain where the all the characters residing. the characters are getting warned at each sequence the danger of the rise of the water level and the govt officials warn them to leave the place as early as possible, but the main character in the film, durgappa, a traditional nema performer, has staunch a conviction that sita mountain will never be merged, hence he would like to stay there despite the warnings. The second important thing is compensation offered by the govt officials to the people who leave the place; neither the officials could find anything substanial to pay compensation for the durgappa family nor durgappa family could claim with proper evidence of their property. The plot revolves around the compensation and the rise of the water level gradually by each monsoon seasons.




in the meanwhile, krishna, nephew of nagi enters into the plot or into dweepa as intruder or unwanted guest into the family. krishna, a disillusioned man, still projects himself as a happy man. Nagi, a woman of substance, naturally gets attracted to krishna's playful and hilarious attitude, but sometimes gets irritated by his intruding into her personal space. ganappa seems to be the most affected man in the plot, especially after krishna's entry. krishna, knowingly or unknowingly becomes a cause for concern, as the plot gradually tightens. The rift between ganappa and nagi widens by krishna, and at the same time, the water level rises and gradually submerges sitamountain, the belief of durgappa crumbles, especially when his son ganappa mentions that he is not afraid of the river submerging the island, but really scared of krishna's nature with nagi. This scene reveals how the director symbolically or metaphorically intertwined the personal and external events to thicken the plot. consequently durgappa dies performing nema helplessly... his faith dies.. ganappa,being a blind follower of his father, has lost hope and becomes a silent spectator.. but nagi,after realisig the situation, she asks krishna to move away from the dweepa and takes up the task of the bridging the relationship once again. in the last sequence, three factors that test the nerves of the nagi are the assumed tiger that could enter into the premises of nagi's house, ganappa's indifferent attitude to the present circumstances, and the rise of the water level, push her into the extreme situation, but nagi, undeterred successfully faces the situation, as the plot resolves the conflict itself with the damgates opened and the water level comes down. The story ends with a happy note but with a paradox in the case of nagi, who neither can feel happy for her persistant effort to grow out of the situation or nor accepts the ganappa's claim that they grow out of the situation only with help of god. the story ends with an enigma in the mind of nagi as well as in the mind of the audience.

The most important thing is girish kasaravalli's adept balance between filmmaking and the story telling, neither of them are in conflict with each other or neither of them outsmarts each other. it's simply a master piece. To say a few words about girish kasaravalli's filmmaking method, he blends both neo realistic long takes and montage methods in certain sequences effectively. The dialogues in the film are both intellectual, witty as well as natural, besides all these factors, the actors' performance is highly appreciable, everyone in the frame looks so truthful to the character they are portraying, after all which is what desirable from any great actor, hence they are no doubt great actors. overall, an exceptional film, don't dare to miss it, just read the review, sure you will be drawn towards it....

vardhan...

vanishing roots....

our ambitions are as high as sky
our roots are as deep as earth
we grow as wider as life
we live as truthful as five elements of this universe
our saviour is men
we obey his chopping us off
we are objects without our own will
we understood that we are children of men....
men are the children of god,
they have god to pray for..
for every sin they commit..
we wish we should have been children of god
so we could pray for the justice
justice for equality... justice for love... justice for truth.. justice for freedom...
we wonder after one or two centuries, our roots will be vanished forever..

what makes a great film? is always question, should we go to how to appreciate classes in FTII, of course we can do that, but thing not everyone is able to afford and learn to appreciate cinema.. as an aspiring filmmaker, i started watching watching films when i was just 8 years old, my father used to take me to films, as he is an avid film goer, of course that helped me to develop my passion for film medium, later i developed a kind of obcession that made me filmmaniac, i started bunking classes to watch films, which affected my studies very badly, for that matter i failed in the intermediate and my father couldn't help but accepting the fact... my father almost thought that i had spoiled my career and felt very sad about me. everyone around started looking at me in a strange manner, they started looking down upon my obcession with films. however i passed intermediate and then joined B.A in Engilsh literature... and i never looked back in my studies, i started getting good grades, of course i worked very hard.. and everyone started thinking that i have changed a lot and had developed interest in studies, of course that was partly true, as a matter of fact, i continued my obcession with films, by watching films and developing my own stories based what i have watched. one more important thing is i used to imitate whatever i have watched... since i have been obcessed with films in such a way, my real emotions and my behaviour started getting affected and started turning into filmy, sometimes i was disillusioned, reality has its lessons for me.... continues ....

second review of ravan

I saw ravan yesterday, and i read some of the reviews in the internet, most of the reviews are negative, of course every movie has its own pitfalls, that don’t make you stop watching movie, i sincerely say that ravan or villan has its own excellence except some loop holes in the story. of course it is not able to sustain the interest of the audience in some of the sequences, but we can really excuse them, as the movie is highly cinematic, electrifying and dynamic in many ways, especially editing is one such department which is really cutting edge… ruthlessly cut to sustain the interest. I feel this narrative structure is born to convince ragini by veera that her husband is not as good as she thinks… mostly veera’s point of view is emphasized and his reasons are well established… dev’s point of view is weakened and he is not able to convince the audience that veera is an outlaw or a bad man..
Though the narrative structure is creative and innovative.. it not only confuses the audience , but also made difficult to follow or understand the story…
I feel if he tells the story with straight narration…he could have been more successful in convincing the audience…
as far as the narrative structure of the story is concerned, the story is told with a blend of
Director’s point of view
Dev’s narration of flashback
Veera’s point of view… by giving reasons to ragini why he had to abduct her….
ragini is the only character who doesn’t have her own will and falls in dilemma what is right or wrong… she plays the role of a victim in the film…
please don’t compare it to Ramayana and judge it… just think from the point of view veera or beera who has developed a special liking for ragini, because of her fearlessness, good attitude…veera as a ordinary human being, as an opposite sex, tries to win her like every male who tries to boast in front of women to win them.. Irrespective of the relationship, especially in terms of opposite sex.. and the next is ragini, whose conflict falls between as a devoted wife of dev and as a human being.
the moral conflict heightens when she prays and requests in front of god to give moral strength to her. since ragini is a good human being, she gradually recognizes the goodness in veera too,
here we could see the psychological aspect between ragini and veera… their emotions and behaviours keep changing everytime because of their moral conflict inside them.
as many people criticised maniratnam, just think about mani sir, who has been trying to bridge the gap between art and commercial aspect of cinema, who has an such an inner urge to tell the story creatively and innovatively..Ravan is an experimental one… Mani sir tried to put both veera and ragini in such a situation or plot that they cannot resolve their conflict. such is the condition of human beings sometimes… i feel if mani sir tries to put the psychological aspect sincerely without bothering about the commercial audience, he would have been successful, (as he did in iddaru)…
i hope you have been observing manisir’s films for a long time… he has such a special knack of dramatizing deeper truths of life and present them for commercial audience, for instance “geetanjali”..
in the case of ravan, he tried hard to dramatize the moral conflict between ragini and veera, with their mannerisms, especially beera’s utterances, gestures and behavior.. to entertain the commercial audience… if he had portrayed the moral conflict realistically, it would have been a great work of art… i think mani sir failed only in trying to commercialize the concept and hope of winning the commercial audience…
here i am reminded of jean luc Goddard’s quote.. “the filmmaker grows in mind and spirit with his every film, but the audiences are left behind, there comes gap, which cannot be filled. Neither audience could rise to the maturity of the director nor the filmmaker could come down to explain the creative urge to the audience.” i feel this is where the fault is…. i understand that the audience goes to theatre solely for entertainment. But sometimes the audience are placed in an embarrassing situation that they cannot accept the change suddenly…
whatever it may be… i feel that mani sir should grow out of success and failure by making more realistic films like satyajit ray, such films will be recognized where they should be recognized..

life cycle

life cycle.. whenever i read, watch and remind death of a beloved person or some other person, i am reminded of mortality and ephermality of life... hence i feel that we shouldn't procrastinate anything in life... that causes irreparable damage. never procrastinate is the first thing i learned from the above moments, make use of every moment of life... the next thing is work we do and the work we love to do..needs to be balanced. of course, some people are lucky to do whatever they want, but all are not blessed.... whatever...we need to work on this matter... after struggling many years with this kind of dilemma, i came to conclusion that we should love what we do ... that is the only way we can survive.. or exist in this world.. don't think i am pessimist... i am not a pessimist or optimist... i view or see everything as it is.. or as they are... objectvity is the only path that i can follow, becuase it is the only way to real success.... even if you get the kind of artificial or superficial success... it is epheramal... let's accept the truth of life.... and accept it as it is .... don't resist it....

review of ravan

i saw ravan yesterday, and i read some of the reviews in the internet, most of the reviews are negative, of course every movie has its own pitfalls, that doesn't make you stop watching movie, i sincerely say that ravan or villan has its own excellence except some loop holes in the story. of course it is not able to sustain the interest of the audience in some of the sequences, but we can really excuse them, as the movie is highly cinematic, electrifying and dynamic in many ways, especially editing is one such department which is really cutting edge... ruthlessly cut to sustain the interest. as far as the story is concerned, the story is told from the point of view of ravan... though the poetic justice is not maintained, rama, the great warrior with high virtues has his vices in the film directly or indirectly, in the case of ravan's sister..... and the other angle that we can see is sita's point of view, as ravan has convinced sita by giving convincing reasons, and sita is almost on the verge of accepting them, of course in the climax sita likes ravan for his sacrifice, ruggedness. whatever it may be, ramayana or not, we can see the kind of possibility in kaliyuga, and you may not be able to find perfect lord rama in kaliyuga. watch this movie for the change, no doubt it is watchable, a feast for the visual lovers of cinema.