Calcutta Comeback

This has been a long time coming. Two and a half years, to be exact. No one questioned me when I went, no on wondered why I wanted to leave the city of my dreams, the city of my language, my friends, my foes and my desires behind to find employment a thousand miles away. It was but natural; Kolkata was a dying city, a withered shell lying on a bed of its former glory, inching towards doom. Choked with smoke, clogged with garbage, plagued by bandhs, skewered by politics, Kolkata was one more agonizing wheeze away from….what? Destruction? Implosion? Total, complete breakdown? Whatever it was, it wasn’t going to be good. Yes, I was well rid of it.
Funny thing there. Kolkata has been dying for centuries now. It’s always dying, just like we all are. It’s dying because it’s alive. Alive with the maddening rush of commuters in the early morning buses, alive with people complaining about politics and traffic jams as they inch their way home in the evenings, alive with bellows of the hawkers as they take up half the footpath offering everything from underwear to over-the-top promises, from pirated DVDs to original one-liners. They compete with each other for your attention and once you stop to look, for you, for you only they are willing to sell the cellphone pouch at fifty rupees….yes sir, it’s that cheap…and it’ll last forever, even better than an original Nokia….hey, hey why are you going away….forty rupees, come on that’s what it cost me…maa kalir dibbi
When I announced to my friends in Delhi I was going back home, reactions were mixed. Friends, REAL friends were happy. They knew what I wanted. Others were shocked. How could I leave a steady job, at a national news channel to go back to the festering hole of Kolkata, a place where careers go to die? A place where shopkeepers take afternoon siestas instead of serving customers? Where babudom is the most popular religion and productivity is sacrificed at the altar of politics every single day? I don’t blame them. There is no point denying Kolkata isn’t all those things, and some more. Nor were these people saying things to hurt me, I like to believe some of them saw me as a promising young man throwing away his career for a waft of nostalgia. People who love Kolkata were hopelessly trapped in the past, as was the city itself. Trouble is, they had nothing I hadn’t heard, and felt before.
For every reason I hear to hate Kolkata, I can supply naysayers with ten more. But much like those who say video games are not and never will be art, Kolkata critics too deserve just one response. You just don’t get it. And I mean it in the nicest way possible. Oh sure, I could sit here and make list after list on what there is to love about Kolkata, and you could listen to them, but you wouldn’t feel any of them. Because if you could feel what I feel, I wouldn’t have to explain them to you.
How could I explain WHY it’s wonderful to walk along a crowded footpath, shops to the left of me, shops to the right of me, and revel in the sights and sounds of a people who habitually love to make a noise? How could I make you feel what I feel when I enter a bookshop and see it stuffed mostly with BOOKS, not just cards and CDs an DVDs and posters and stuffed toys and plastic toys and coffee shops and crayon sets and key chains and doorstops and everything except books. How would you know why it is delightful that even at ten thirty at night, my locality will be bustling with activity? Shops would still be open, people would be arguing about the fish, and I would slip into Priyo Robindro Mishtanno Bhandar to buy sweets for dessert. How could I even explain why it’s a joy to be certain that no matter what area I am in, impoverished or opulent, I KNOW I will find a veritable array of roadside eateries serving up roll, chop, jhalmuri, kathi kebab, fuchka, dahi bara…..the list goes on. And how could I EVER explain the joy when, during an argument with a co passenger about Sourav’s exclusion, or the political futures of Sonia and Rahul, or America’s fiscal policy, a complete stranger makes an emphatic point, looks at you quizzically and says ‘ki bolen?’. In an instant you become part of a group, a gang discussing worldly affairs with more earnestness than the directors of major multinationals during the annual meeting. But only until the next stop, of course.
I don’t want this to be a knock on Delhi, my adopted city for nearly three years. Maybe a colleague was right when he said that not being a student in Delhi had robbed me of experiencing the nuances of the city…exploring it the way it’s meant to be explored. But for all its magnificent architecture, and its grand shops and malls, and its splendid roads and a wonderful Metro (if you lived in the right parts of the city), Delhi never spoke to me. For others it was surprising that I was coming back to Kolkata. For me it was as natural as breathing. Kolkata had corners I could call my own. In Delhi, I couldn’t even find corners. So I packed my bags, said goodbye to an enviable job and far, far more enviable friends and caught a flight for the city of joy.
I wasn’t born in Kolkata. Didn’t grow up here (just grew sideways, but that’s another matter). So when I started living here at the age of sixteen, why did it feel like coming home? Maybe because Kolkata has something for everyone, even awkward outcasts like me. Maybe because somewhere, in its pollution choked skies and garbage strewn alleys you can find secrets that have been left there especially for you. It’s a city where if one person falls down, ten people will pick him up. Oh, of course one of them will also try to pick his pocket, but hey….that’s Kolkata. The ugly, fetid, putrid, glorious, beautiful, exquisite city of my dreams. Sure, Kolkata is dying. Maybe someday it WILL die. But for now…it’s living one hell of a life.

The Art of the Game

Roger Ebert, who is still very much my hero, has posted an article about how video games can never be art here. What follows is a response I posted in the comments section, so the opening paragraph might be a bit mistifying. Suffice to say Lujo is a character who has posted a comment that is so ignorant, so vitriolic and so tasteless, I had to address it right at the beginning:-

I am torn here. Part of me, an minuscule part, but a part nonetheless wants to applaud Lujo. I don't think I have seen scatological insults of such rich and entertaining diversity ever before. On the other hand, I assume he is human, at least in shape, so it depresses me to no end that we share a common species.



Anyway, moving on, you keep mentioning that any art needs an original vision, which is why movies and architecture can be art. Maybe you are not aware of this, but many games do begin with one man, generally referred to as game designer. People like Will Wright, Shigeru Miyamoto, Hideo Kojima, Sid Meier etc. all 'direct' games, for lack of a better word.




I must also agree with many here who complain you are commenting on an art form you know nothing about. While one understands that it is your blog and your personal opinion, I believe your logic is flawed and opinion uninformed. Maybe you have given some thought to this matter and it is not a knee-jerk, I-hate-anything-new reaction some are accusing you of. However, the point is that you are not equipped to speak on video games for the simple reason that you have never FELT video games. You, of all people should know how important feelings are in relation to art. When described and deconstructed, the Mona Lisa is just a picture of a smiling woman, David is a statue of a well - built man, Pickwick Papers is a humorous, imaginary travelogue and the Maltese Falcon is just a detective movie. It's only when you see, read, watch them that you can experience them. And until you do, you can never know what they really are.




Elsewhere, you have compared video games to sport. Again, a flawed piece of reasoning. Playing video games is certainly a sport, but then neither is watching cinema an art form. It's the creation aspect of video games that we defend. Playing a game does not make us artists, but those who make the beautiful worlds for us to play in and engaging characters for us to get to know surely are.



Later in the article, you argue that games cannot be art because it has rules. Because there is an element of winning and losing. Partially true. Partially, because many games do NOT have an element of winning or losing. But again, you are confused between the audience and the creator. It's the gamer who has to follow the rules decided by the creator. If (s)he decrees I can fly, I can fly. If (s)he decrees I have to stand there and listen to what another player has to say, I have to do that. Here, you might argue that even the creator is bound by certain rules. But so does every artist. Does a musician not have to follow rules? Or a mime ? Or a director? Every art form has its own set of rules, both for the creator and the audience. Can you claim to enjoy The Gold Rush with your eyes closed?



Ultimately, I believe the mistake you and most others make is in trying to equate games with other art forms. Video games represent a unique art form, something that borrows a lot from others but cannot be exactly compared to any one. Games that forget this and try to be something else (like Heavy Rain) inevitably fail. Just like movies, music, poetry, sculpture etc. cannot be compared to each other, nor can video games be compared to them. Except, possibly in how they can make someone feel a range of emotions even though none of them have any direct, tangible impact on the audience's lives. You keep saying video games cannot be art because they are sport. Have you considered that video games can be both art AND sport?



Oh, and one last thing. You wonder why we are so emotional about the subject? Why we want our hobby to be defined as art? Well simply because it is, Mr. Ebert. Simply because great video games have made us feel the same way great movies, great music, great paintings and great poetry all have. Simply because there is logically no other category to define them by. Simply because great games can make us laugh, weep, shudder and grimace, even when we are not winning, or scoring points. Unlike sport, how we feel when playing a game isn't always directly related to how we are playing it. Winning doesn't always give us pleasure, losing doesn't always give us pain. Many of us play games not to compete, but to experience them. And I really feel that is the truest definition of art. It is what you experience for the sheer joy of experiencing it. Thank you.

Review: Avatar

This review contains SPOILERS
Avatar is not a movie meant to be seen. It's a movie meant to be looked at. A lot of money was poured into the cauldron to make James Cameron's vision a reality, but money alone cannot account for the sheer beauty of Pandora. Over and over again the movie gives us gorgeous vistas, awe-inspiring floating mountains and fantastic creatures that look like amalgamations of prehistoric and present day beasts. Light plays an important role, as nearly half the plant and animal life seem to be bioluminescent. Creepers glow when stepped on, unearthly, spiral orchids give off gentle yellow light and are sucked into the ground when touched. My brain tells me it's all CG, but me eyes find it difficult to believe . When James Cameron says it took twelve years for technology to catch up to his vision, he isn't lying.


But if the visuals are the films strongest selling point, the story and dialogue are the weakest links. While not particularly bad, Avatar employs every hackneyed cliche, every stock character and every predictable plot twist to tell the tale of a soldier who starts sympathising with the enemy and jumps ship to fight the good fight. Sam Worthington is Jake Sully, a paraplegic marine brought to the alien planet of Pandora as a replacement for his twin brother who was murdered in a voice-over. Since he is genetically identical to his brother, he has been indoctrinated into the avatar program. Avatars are lab-grown Na'vi, natives of the planet and are basically shells into which the consciousness of certain handpicked humans can be transported so they can mix freely with the local population.


The reason for this incredibly convoluted diplomatic exercise has to be laziest Mcguffin in cinematic history, a mineral called, of all things, unobtanium. Apparently it sells for twenty million dollars a kilo on earth. Why, we never have the privilege of knowing. Of course, evil suit-man who represents the organisation financing the operation and fanatic military leader who is charged with protecting it, would rather just blow up the locals and take the unobtanium, if only it wasn't such bad press. So the strategy is to infiltrate them with avatars, introduce them to earthly pleasures like roads and schools and diplomatically drive them out of their happy hunting ground. Of course avatar-Jake gets to be part of the local Na'vi tribe, and of course he realizes that their way of life (which is somehow almost identical to Native American philosophy) is so much better than his, and of course he falls in love with the local princess, and of course this makes the Na'vi general angry because HE was supposed to marry the princess, and of course they fight, and of course the princess renounces him when she learns of the truth, but only temporarily, and of course he ends up saving the world against the evil white man....oops, earthling. Not a step outside the tried-and-true.


The story would be a deal breaker in almost any other film. But to Cameron's credit, he keeps it moving, and does not allow the viewer to get bored. The characters may have no shades of gray, but the scenery is usually a riot of colours. Set-piece follows set-piece, whether it's a a battle with some of the local fauna that look like jet black jaguars blown up a hundredfold, to Jake's first flying lesson where he takes control of his dragon-like mount to soar and sweep and glide through the air as the camera savours every little nuance of this gorgeous world Cameron has created. And then there are the battle scenes. Shots of giant steel mechs clanking into battle against the twelve foot tall Na'vi, or the humongous airships firing rockets at dragon-mounted warriors are done with remarkable precision. Any good battle scene needs to be choreographed like a piece of music, with the tension rising and falling at precisely the right moments. The final battle of Avatar, which is more than half an hour long, proves Cameron's still got it.


Another high-point of the movie is Cameron's attention to detail. There is no doubt Pandora is a fully realized world inside his head. Little things like how the Na'vi have four fingers but the avatars have five (presumably to help the human mind adjust to the new body), to the dragon-flame decals that adorn every mech, plane and tank by the humans. Experts were brought in to develop a Na'vi language, and botanists were consulted to ensure the plant life of Pandora follow basic biological principles. While not dramatically influencing the experience, such attention to detail definitely help in making Pandora feel like a living-breathing world of its own.


Cameron's handling 3-D is also mature, as he eschews gimmicks like things rushing at the screen in favour of more subtle uses for this technology. Sure there are moments where spaceships zoom by and animals rush at the camera, but mostly it's about using the added depth to immerse rather than shock. Glowing embers seem to pop out of the screen, sheer drops stretch out to eternity. Instead of making the viewer flinch every moment, the 3-D builds a cocoon of visuals around him, cradling him into this world.


The problem with Avatar, and the reason why the review seems to teeter between two extremes is where it's bad, it's very insipid, and where it's good, it's mind blowing. The story has been told a hundred times before, and mostly told better. The visuals on the other hand, are truly revolutionary. Never before has a world been created from scratch with such depth and precision. If the lack of a story kills the whole experience for you, avoid this movie, but if images are more important, or if you know what to expect and go in with a mind open to enjoying the good bits, Pandora is a hell of a ride.

Review: Lord of War

Disclaimer: This review contains SPOILERS.

Nicholas Cage is an actor who can't seem to take his role anything but seriously. I have a suspicion that the man just can't do camp. Which is why Ghost Rider was such an incredibly jarring movie, even for a certified comic book geek like me. However, in a movie like this, where everything hinges on his character and his unique point of view, Cage's faith and intensity raises what could have been a mediocre movie into a very good one.



Cage plays Yuri Orlov, an Ukranian - American who witnesses a shootout in a restaurant and realizes that the only people who profit from random (and not-so-random) acts of violence are the people who deal in the hardware. Pretty soon he is selling his first submachine-gun and realizing that he is a bloody good salesman. In a profession where a customer can blow your head off using your own product, Yuri's silver tongue and quick thinking come in handy not just in keeping him alive, but also in making him very rich, very fast. Helping Yuri in his ascent is his brother Vitaly (Jared Leto), who has reservations but goes along because Yuri is family. However, it is clear that Vitaly, although almost as quick witted as Yuri, is far more deeply affected by the violence their products are used to perpetuate.



All this happens at a breathless pace and about 40 minutes in, Yuri is already at the top of the heap and the film starts branching into multiple subplots as he has an affair with a model( who he has loved ever since he saw her on billboards as a young man), juggles mercurial clients and suppliers, outwits rivals, and evades the law in the form of Interpol agent Jack Valentine, who knows what Yuri is doing, but can't nab him because he is too by the book to break - or even bend - the law himself. His run - ins with Valentine are almost black comedy, as he uses various ingenious (but never violent, at least, not directly) ways to remain just out of reach.



Cage plays Yuri with a hint of a swagger, but not too much . After all, many of his customers are temperamental people who would be too happy to put his own products to use at even the hint of a perceived insult. But he knows he's good at what he does, and continues to justify his profession with various rationalizations just so he can continue to keep dealing in weapons. As he says in a rare moment of vulnerability, it's not the money, it's because he's good at it. Utterly unaffected by morals, Yuri will sell to anybody (except Osama, but not for the reasons you might suspect). So good is he at distancing himself from the violence he peddles every single day, that when he is forced to pull the trigger himself for the first time, he goes through severe hallucinations and feels he is 'cursed'. In his own way, Yuri is a dreamer, walking through a bubble of self-created hypocrisies where he is simply a cog in the machine, where his actions mean nothing because someone else would take his place anyway and where he does no evil because he is not forcing anyone to use his guns.



The movie is shot beautifully. From the huge Ukranian army bases where stacks of guns and gunships lie unused, to the dingy war - torn streets of Liberia where the dictator's son brandishes his gold plated AK-47 in the middle of abject poverty, all have a gritty feel to them. However, the visuals are perhaps a little too heavy handed in their use of symbolism. Take the shot where a vulture is standing over a prone body as Yuri enters his hotel in Liberia, or the little girl asking him if her severed arm will grow back. They all try to hammer home the point that what Yuri is BAD. A pity really, because even if you never sympathize with him, you understand Yuri. You see that he comes alive only when he's making a sale or eluding the law. People chase their dreams all the time. It's a pity his involves selling helicopter gunships to warlords.



If the film has an issue, it's that it tries to be too many things . It's best seen as a faithful look into the world of international arms smuggling through the eyes of a fictional dealer. Unfortunately, it also tries to be a thriller with Valentine repeatedly attempting to close in on Yuri. This does not get enough time and as a result, end up being rather choppy sequences of confrontation between the two separated by periods where you almost forget Valentine even exists. There is no tension, and almost no feeling of Velentine slowly closing in on his prey. Ethen Hawke is perfectly serviceable as the steel eyed agent, but really gets almost no screen time. I guess it was necessary to have some kind of closure to the story, but it could have been handled better. However, it is still a brilliant and authentic look at the gun-running and what it means to the world at large.



There is an elegant sequence where the camera slowly rolls over an AK-47. In most action movies it would be basic gun-porn, but here it really shows how Yuri sees his products, as smooth, beautiful, elegant, reliable, even sexy machines. The fact that the voice-over in that sequence has a distinct sigh to it and it cuts in right after he's started undressing a woman in a hotel room is not a coincidence. I guess it's also why many ordinary, law-abiding people get excited by guns. Sometimes it's best not to think too far. Yuri made an entire career of it.

PS. This movie might have one of the best opening credit sequences I have ever seen. Here it is in its entirety.