Lake Tahoe : Acceptance brings the tranquility, understanding and energy to go ahead in the life
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This is a compelling film showing the reactions of the people, after an event has taken place in their life. When a person dies then tales come from the reactions of the people who are left behind to live with the memories of the deceased person as they were perhaps too dependent on the deceased person and now they have to learn how to handle the life on their own.
Sometimes it does not remain important how an event has taken place in the life but the acceptance of the fact that a certain event has taken place in the life.
A teenager, Juan, has crashed his family car and he has to search for a mechanic who c’d repair his car. His father has just died and he has to bring back his real life also on the right track. Two tales create two parallel worlds in the life of Juan.
Story is simple and neither the plot nor characterization produce a great material before people. Target was not something great but simple and in the end something significant surely comes out through the visual exhibition of the film.
Do we need others in the life? Can we cope without others if we are living in a complex time where we are dependent on others in so many areas of our life?
It can be a damaged car, for which teenager Juan needs a mechanic, as he himself can not repair it. He does not know about it. He searches for a suitable person in a small town who c’d help him in repairing his car.
Same way there can be other areas in the life where one is not able to correct or repair everything himself. He may need better counseling. He may need friends. He may need family to support him during emotional crisis. Interaction with others brings an understanding in the life. Events affect human being and he reacts and gets an understanding by interaction with others.
Juan’s father has died recently. His mother has shunned herself into the isolation. Juan’s younger brother is too young to take a deep impression of the paternal loss with which both the brothers are suffering.
Juan is the one who has come out of the house in a frustrated state of mind. To increase his frustration he has got a mild accident and now his car is lying in a coma on the road.
He meets some characters during his search for a suitable person who could help him in repairing his car. Humor is there in his interaction with the different people in the sleepy town. An elderly mechanic is living with his dog. For him Juan’s existence has lesser importance than his regular activities and even he takes his meal and does not ask Juan to join him and feeds his dog at the dining table.
Later he does not mind almost forcing Juan to take out his dog, Sika, as he himself can not take the dog out for exercise.
A young woman (who takes a pride in the fact that she has kept her son’s name as Fidel) at an auto parts store does not mind using Juan as the baby sitter as she wants to steal some moments for herself and later she wants to go out in the night to attend a musical event.
A young mechanic is a die hard fan and follower of Bruce Lee and martial art. He is the only person who takes some interest in Juan’s today’s life. He is the one who gives him some philosophical doses.
“Emotional content is needed and not the anger”, he says to Juan, quoting his Guru, Bruce Lee, from Enter the Dragon.
Juan does not have enough money to buy an expensive part for his car and he does not mind helping mechanic stealing the part from the car of a family known to his family and that family even gives him some gifts also.
Pain, frustration like negative emotions create a negative energy inside a person and it starts making a person more disturbed. This negative energy needs an outlet and if it remains inside a person then he can not remain at peace.
Film suggests that it is based on an intelligent script. It has got depth as far as human behavior is concerned.
It is often seen that a mentally disturbed person who is unable to channelize his negative energy takes resort in violence. Under this violent streak he may commit different kinds of crimes. It can be violent in nature and it can be sexual in nature.
Supreme way is through meditation and there are many methods to do it. Others can also be helpful in it.
Mechanic exhibits martial art before Juan and it can be seen that it is a great discipline to channelize the energy and he gives some philosophical quotes also to Juan which could have helped him if he had understood them. But Juan is unable to understand all these nuances and his frustrated state of mind provokes him to take a resort in violence and he strikes the bonnet of his car with a baseball bat.
Love may transform the negative energy but Juan’s mother herself is a grief stricken person at the moment and she has forgotten the existence of her sons.
Sex may become another outlet where accumulated mental energy is pacified by means of physical activity. Juan too gets a solace in the arms of young woman owner of auto parts shop.
She herself is frustrated by playing a single parent’s role all the time and she gives a momentary resort to Juan and takes a momentary support from him.
Before this Juan forgets that his own younger brother may need his support. But there are some changes in his understanding after meeting few people in a single day time. Old man’s dog has run away and after getting repaired his car Juan goes out to find the dog and finds old man walking on the road searching for his dog. They both find the dog playing with the kids at a different house. Juan wants to take dog back but old man asks him to leave dog there with the new family only. Perhaps Juan is able to get the right message behind the Old man’s decision that he may not live longer and it is good for the dog to find a new family otherwise it will be devastating for the dog after he dies. Maybe Juan does not understand it. Normally dogs can not do it and perhaps dog would come back after sometime but film is basically about the reactions of human beings. Old man reacts to the new situation and decides in favor of his beloved dog.
After having a sexual encounter Juan comes back to his home in the morning. He has now a desire to pay attention to the sorrow of his mother and requirements of his younger brother. He is ready to walk ahead in the life. Life has to move ahead. Show must go on.
After an autumn, spring has to come. Nature has to show the most colorful and lively creations during spring. Trees will be flourished with leaves and flowers and chirping of birds will create best symphonies of the world which are not possible to be created by any human musician.
Cinematographically it is a film where a static camera has been used and people either enter the frame or leave it. Mostly camera maintains a distance from the characters and close up shots are less in numbers and most of the time wide shots and medium shots are used and sometimes extreme wide shots are also used. Though Juan is passing through a disturbance in his life but it is shown from a distance through the events. There is a less reliance on the exhibition of his psychological journey. What he is thinking does not remain in focus and what he is facing takes a central stage.
To break the continuity of the visual impact made by the film there are black out segments of few seconds at many places in the film. Complete darkness is there and watcher comes out of the flowing stream of the scenes showing a story.
Film has got a slow pace which resembles with the life in a small town. Jump-cut editing creates an atmosphere in the film and often audience watches the scenes as Juan observes the events in his life (in the film).
Film is quite slow in pace before Juan’s car is repaired and after that both his car and life start running on their respective tracks. More events happen after that. Juan gets a settlement with the events happening in his life. He gets an understanding.
Apart from the liking and disliking of audience film certainly encourages the new and less experienced filmmakers and it can be a good learning experience for them.
Tags: 2008, Alfred Bauer Award, Berlin International Film Festival, Bruce Lee, Diego Cataño, Enter the Dragon, Fernando Eimbcke, FIPRESCI Prize, Lake Tahoe, Mexico, Paula Markovitch
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
The society teaches and conditions us to behave and act in a certain manner, making us dependent on others and living as if its the only and right way to live life.
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It is upto us to realize it that we can be happy if we are without any kind of baggage. India is free only on paper. Otherwise control freak parents, society, samajs, jamaats, caste freaks, families rule each other’s lives.
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We need to be in touch with people who dont demand from us. Professionally we need clients. WE need friends to hang out with. But we can do away with family by staying away from them. They are the baggage. Relationships are another. Therefore, we need to be careful about it. Any hint of commitment or responsibility, its tata-bye-bye.
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Dunno if I wuz clear. Basically its like we dont give to others (and should not) what they ask for. So a son wont give the parents the control of his life no matter what the parents would have done for their offspring… similarly does not want to concede the same thing to his/her life partner…. Does not want to give the remote of his life to his/her every demanding boss…Does not wish to concede too much for clients…
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Never ask others to live for us. And never live for others.
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But in reality everybody lives for himself/herself only.
On deeper level one is involved in doing many and different kind of works to appease a selfish gene.
S/he feels good and gets satisfaction in doing something so s/he does it.
Absolute freedom is possible for truly enlightened people only, who don’t have to do things for the sake of doing.
To be in a bond is not very different than not to be in a bond.
Those who are beyond this game are different people.
Before attaining that state it is all word game. another kind of illusion.
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Could not get the connection here. Perhaps you are responing to a line quoting dependency…?
In practicality, what you are saying, may be true for truly enlightened species and they rarely exist.
How can you say one is not dependent on others in profession?
as you say you need clients. That is dependency. That is dependency on money.
Even if surrounded by friends who dont demand, in ideal sense that is also a kind of depenency. You can not live alone so you need people to pass the time so that you dont suffer from a fear of lonliness.
Everything is baggage. it depends on when you realise it.
Even your making comments, expressing opinion brings dependency. If your comments are deleted or not published or you are not allowed to express your opinion you will become dependent on the desire to have freedom of expression though in reality this all is happening on a thought level only and real you can remain unaffected by this restriction.
It seems you are talking about past and true evaluation of your thought process will be done when you walk these thoughts in future. Marry and raise the children based on this ideology and try to stick to same ideology for next 20 years or so.
If one doesn’t marry and doesn’t have children then it is just a theoretical collection of thoughts which can be taken from many books without understanding them in their true contexts. Thoughts have to be checked by putting them on the stakes of reality of practical life.
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That is true. Correct. In fact the context of what I wished to say was that we need to realize the baggage and stay away from it.
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I am married and have a kid. Because of this initially there wuz irritation because I could not pay attention to friends, work, etc, which I would rather spend time on, than with family. But as the article/movie states, once I realize that I am connected, I accept it and now there’s tranquility.
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In other areas, there’s dependency I agree. But its not a baggage. ?You can easily bring in or throw people/ideas out of your life without remorse
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People are always dependent in a society. Total aloofness is possible only for sages. Being born automatically makes one dependent on someone or vice versa. One cannot run from this as this is like his/her Dharma and Karma but as said earlier that freedom is still possible by doing deeds and being detached but that detachment will be with the subjects, in day to day life, living in this world people will still be dependent on one another but it is like having more than 2 arms even if one looses them he may still be capable. In this case a loss of person or something does not matter.
But, I guess the movie is not about these enlightened people. It is about normal folks and how they deal with loss and move ahead in life. Must be good in terms of cinematic achievement but personally I would rather like to watch a movie about a person mentioned in the first para.
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On another note I don’t remember any movie being made in India about a person’s spiritual quest while ancient India was supposed to be the spiritual leader in the world. Leaves me frustrated.
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Jahanpanah,
There have been films on Sant Tukaram, Balmiki, Tulsidas, Adi Shakracharya (It was made later in Sanskrit also in early 80s by G.V. Iyer), Sai Baba. Mythological films were also based on sages. Though they did not have depth but a depiction of mythology.
On phiosophical level you may watch Chitralekha (Ashok Kumar, Meena Kumari and Pradeep Kumar). It was based on novel of Babu Bhagwati Charan Verma.
Lekh Tandan’s Amrapali has the ending where Ajatshatru surrenders his arms before Buddha and Amrapali becomes a Bhikshuni.
Siddhartha, you might have seen.
Utsav is based in 6th century.
But this is true that not one is made in last 20 years or so.
Considering the fractured society it can be a risky business to make a film on Mahavira, Buddha etc. as followers may not like the whole of the film.
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Now that you have mentioned it I remember watching some of these in my childhood on DD. Even Swami Vivekanand may fall into this category and this is the only recently made movie which I can recall on spiritual quest etc. but then this is also true that these movies are based on real people. What I meant was more contemporary movies involving people from our real world.
Buddhism is more popular in the world than say Hinduism or Jainism. Hollywood has made many movies on Buddha but in India it may not possible.
However, apart from this there also have been movies made on real people’s spiritual journey. I even recall 2 movies from 2007 only- Into the Wild and The Darjieeling Ltd. There have been other movies dealing with spiritual things in the past. Though former was not about some quest per se but it was story about total freedom and detachment leaving everything behind.
That’s what bothers me more that there are no such movies here apart from the biopic on saints.
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Try ” Meetings with Remarkable Men ” also. Bio Pic of Gurdjieff.
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From real modern people’s point of view, you may like Ichikawa’s The Burmese Harp.
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Thanks for recommendations. Of course there are movies in the world cinema but what I wanted was more Indian stuff and how many such movies are there considering that Indian has her roots in spirituality.
Don’t know much about the regional cinema but there should be movies.
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Regional films will surely be there on these subjects.
Pan Nalin is purely Indian (a Gujarati).
Not in to the spirituality but Dharm covers the corruption in organized religious rituals.
and it had got a good performance by Pankaj Kapoor.
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Ya Dharm is there but it more about orthodoxy etc. in religion.
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G.V. Iyer made Vivekanand also where Mithun Chakravorty played Ramkrishna Paramhansa.
Then there was a film Trishagni, made by Nabendu Ghosh in late 80s. It had Nana Patekar and Pallavi Joshi. It dealt with monks life in a monastery and Bhikshu Nana Patekar is enmoured by a woman, played by Pallavi Joshi.
There was a black and white film Jogan in early 50s. It had Dilip Kumar and Nargis. A villager Dilip Kumar falls in love with the young Sadhvi, played by Nargis.
It had very good music also and one song Ghunghat ke pat khol re tohe piya milenge has been quite popular.
Jogan also feels attraction toward the young man but she has to follow her religious and spiritual journey and she controls over her emotions. Young lover dies in the end.
Guide had the philosophical touches in the last hour of the film.
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Maybe today’s filmmakers may exploit Charvak, Ghosal,Sanjay etc in present times.
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My comment appeared late. :(
have watched only Swami Vivekanand. True assessment can be made after watching the movies mentioned but on the basis of reading about them, perhaps Pooja Bhatt’s paap may also fit but it was typical bollywoodish while I’m looking for serious subject matter.
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Paap was remake of Harrison Ford starrer Witness, so stress was more on thriller part and less on Budhist tradition part, which could have been possible if an original film was made on an original story.
You may try Pan Nalin’s Samsara and Valley of Flowers. May get some elements there which may satisfy your quest to some extent.
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and hopefully his own version of Buddha is still on unlike several other projects on Buddha, which are in news for many years but have not gone on floor.
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True about Paap. It was more of a thriller. Going by this even Bulletproof Monk can be qualified where the hero is enlightened in the end, amidst the Sanskrit shlokas in the background sung by Asha Bhonsle.
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Bulletproof Monk was a trial to do Mcdonellization of Budhist philosophy.
Policemen, always on their toes in Police service based hollywoodian films, always remain absent from such a film.
Sanskrit Shlokas have got this use only. They have to be played in the background when some weird events are taking place.
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Have read the post about using the shloks and classical Indian music in bad and weird situations. I think it was not so bad in this movie as that time the people (S.W. Scott, C.Y. Fat and J. King) were only talking at the end. But, yea there are situations much worse where these have been used.
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You might like Sarswatichnadra also because of theme and events shown in the last 1 hour or so.
DD had presented a good serial on Kabir also sometime after mid 80s. Annu Kapur had played Kabir there.
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Ya Sarswatichandra dealt with some philosophy of similar kind. Need to see it again.
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