Of Time, Emotions and Frozen Desires
I have not been able to see films of late. Some office disasters, some other affairs of state, self and selves have also deterred me from the film watching rituals. IPL and its tentacles took away the lutf ka time too. A hardcore Bengali bhadralok has to also read something, even if that induces seismic snores, so I have been plodding along with a biography of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, and that takes away some not needed shut eye time.
Last Friday, through a terrific PFC initiative, I saw Frozen, again. I had seen it before when there was a film club show in Mumbai. Post that, I got to know the director, Shivajee well. I also met many from the cast, saw the trailers and enjoyed the process of the making of the film. Reverse engineered in my addled brain. For a run of the mill film, my second viewing would have been a tiresome exercise for my pupils, jaw and buttocks in that order. But, this wasn’t!
I had seen a scene from “Jis Desh mein Ganga behti hai” long ago and that has remained with me forever. The group of rebels (dacaits) led by Pran are waiting out the day to escape in the night at the mouth of a valley. The police has surrounded them. The groups are hell bent on fighting it out unto death. Only one man can change it all, Raj Kapoor, who is some sort of a do – gooder for both the sides. He is somewhere in the middle and looking both ways. There is a song in the background (unfortunately I do not remember that song) and the clouds skim across a very clear B&W sky. The effect of time and its various answers to humans had struck me during those formative years. It again struck me that evening in Fame Adlabs as I again saw the clouds racing across a clear B&W sky. Time is a commodity in the hands of a floundering old villager who has to settle his daughter before he relinquishes his body to Mother Earth. Time is standstill to a lonely girl who though a teenager fails to realise the growing concerns, needs and wants of people around her. Time is important to two rapacious businessmen as they have to make their moolah before the opportunity goes away. Oh yes! They want their moll too. Subtle scene about clouds across the sky and so many meanings!!
I had also seen the film “Escape from Sobibor” where the inmates of this Jewish death camp plan and escape one night. Delightful cinema about humanity at its worst and best! The barbed wire played the role of the touch tape of a very symbolic victory for those wretched inmates. But, here the barbed wire was all about security and purity. Lasya (the girl, excellently portrayed by Gauri) knows that her boy friend has come to rescue her and flee from a life full of drudgery and yet she scampers through the barbed wire that the Army has put up to cocoon herself from adversity of any sort. Yes, the cocoon saves her from adversity, of two kinds – men and war! But, the barbed wire has been used so intelligently to tell us about the sheer survival instincts of humanity. Again in B&W!
Frozen has a young boy Chomo (played admirably by kid from Ladakh, Angchuk) who is the brother and pal of Lasya, seemingly. I shall reserve my comment about the relationship as many among us would not have seen this delectable piece of cinema as yet. But, many of us have been loners through our childhood and have had our gnomes, goblins and fairies to deal with. Yet, one day we disposed of them and became adults, over an hour, over a week or maybe over an eventful year. Lasya does too and completely reminds me of a short film by the master Satyajit Ray, Pikoo. Pikoo, does not know the significance of Kaku’s visit to his Ma’s bedroom. He does not bother too. But, one afternoon changes it all. Leaves him insecure, defenceless and dumb founded. Pikoo grows up. Lasya mirrors this growth by breathlessly pulling in a gas cylinder, resting against a rough hewn wall, smoothly calling out to the dog and sauntering out of the hut, at the end of the film.
Life does not bog us down. Time is balm. It cures. It flows. We do too. Provided we allow ourselves.
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
indraneel-da: for those who havent yet seen the film, u hv very cleverly given enough hints to feel tempted, and for those who hv seen it, u hv told a lot without divulging much. clever writing… i must say….
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on an aside, that “bengali bhadralok must read something” was so true… im onto “The Men Who Killed Gandhi” these days. nice docu-book with lots of ref. matl thrown in…
@Satyen – the writing did not start out that way but if it appears intelligent, so be it!..also, The Men who killed Gandhi is a very heavy one…hope you finish it!
Indraneelda-Now that’s a deserving writeup on the film. Fantastic writing,lovely references. The best I’ve read on Frozen
I’neel da… awesome. now am feelin all the more miserable abt not having seen the film. thanks. :-)
@Jehan – Thanks, but deserving I do not know..
@Magik – Thanks, don’t be miserable, it shall be there in a few weeks..next week Pune!
nice writeup – neat tying of themes together.
Hopefully will get frozen soon.
@VPJ – Thanks
Am tempted now. The scene, Gauri, gas cylinder, shes upto something. What and for whom? The kid, the officers or its her home? Will have to watch….
@ Indraneel-da: yeah, the book is heavy, but worthy nonetheless.
@#5: dada, r u sure its releasing in pune next week? i had a talk with shivajee the other day and he didnt mention anythg like that. he was talking abt delhi on 22nd.
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in fact i was planning to go to mumbai this weekend to catch it once more, but if its gonna come to pune, i can save some time n money…plz confirm asap.
i dont get it why Frozen isnt being released in Bangalore anywhere yet…