my take : SHIP OF THESEUS

If parts of a ship is replaced bit-by-bit during the course of it's journey, is it still the same ship? 

OR if another ship is built from the discarded parts, which of the either two is the real ship of theseus?

This is the analogy used in the film and comes as a prologue at the starting of the film. It's a film with full of questions, Questions about how we live our life, morality, conscience, ethical dilemma, inspiration, passion and most importantly are we humane? and there lies our life that transcends through these questions.

It might take a life long journey to get an answer for lot of these and many questions that we face, but is it worth even pursuing for an answer? or should we just live our lives like knuckleheads?

It's a film that never gave an attempt to answers and be judgemental, rather it is the prosecutor and defendant leaving the judgement to all of us audience. It is true reflection of what cinema should be, a reflection of us as a society and as humans. I am paraphrasing John Lennon here - 

My role in society, or any artist's or poet's role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all -- John Lennon

It's not a film that don't give you everything easily, you need to have patience and willingness to think and listen attentively to each characters. If you are ready to make that investment, you will be sure of awarded with such an emotional and intellectual experience that you remember for a long time.

The film is a three separate stories explained through a blind photographer who loses her intuition and inspiration after getting her eye sight back, a monk who fights against animal testing in companies faces an ethical dilemma whether to take a life saving medicine after being diagnosed with liver cirrhosis. A stock broker and a recipient of a donated kidney, encounters a poor man whose kidney is illegally stolen and obsessed about bringing justice. A special mention to the insightful gem of conversation between the monk and the young lawyer is particularly engaging. 

All three stories converge in what is the poetic climax that left me numb for a while. Though, the surface of it seems like a plain organ donation, but it makes a lot of sense in the context of human paradigm when all the discarded parts of our body after death help another person to live.

Ship of Theseus is one such a film that made me proud after coming out of theatre. I feel privileged that I got a chance to see the film and probably might end up talking about it for the rest of my life. 

Do yourself a favour and watch it when it is in theatres.

VEDAM

When was the last time you would have come out of a theatre watching a telugu cinema saying that 'this is a kind of cinema that we can show case to the world'.Vedam is one such unique cinema that any telugu cinema goer can be proud of. There used to be a period of K.Viswanath films which are a perfect blend of art and commerce film making and most of his films are always looks like so pure and divinity personified. His films may not have quite broke the box-office records that many other commercial films did, but in a Telugu cinema text book, there will always be a separate chapter mentioned for his films. The respect that he possessed through his films cannot be measured with any box-office success. Vedam is one film which reminded of K.V's gaari cinema with its honesty.

I am not against to the commercialization of the films with a '6-song,5-fight' formula provided if it blends with the story and treatment well. All the blockbusters we have seen in the last decade are the films in my opinion that somewhere or the other stroked this fine balance quite effectively. The flip side of it though is that the stories are built in the process to fit in certain aspects (say fights, songs etc.,) and the result is the most of the mediocre films that we are seeing. It's became so poisonous over a period of time that most of the film makers found it really tough to come out vicious 'so-called formula' circle that Telugu cinema is revolving over quite some time now.

Vedam is one such film which is perfect blend of art and commerce with a old formula. The formula here is very simple, a good story, treatment and 5 well written characters. Sound very simple isn't it? To get that on board without compromising on the story line, and with three leading stars in the market (Bunny, Manoj and Anushka) AND in Telugu cinema is quite tough. To manage the egos of the stars and fans these days are quite difficult and the credit needs to be given to Bunny, Manoj and Anushka for accepting the roles as it is and blindly following what the story demanded. Krish's work is commendable and the producer needs to be appreciated for daring to attempt this kind of cinema in this formula-oriented filmy culture. The performances are top notch and realistic to an extent what the character desires. It feels really great to come out theatre and say that this character has done really well. The stars has finally acted in a movie and is so refreshing and touching to see such honest performances. The characters will be remembered for a long time to come. Personally, my favourite scene is where where cable raju steals money from Nagayya, realises the human inside him and returns the money is one of the beauty of scenes and the best from Bunny till date.

I think I don't deserve to comment anything negative on this film as a viewer because honestly all the little negatives are overshadowed by the writing, performances, music and other aspects and my human inside me does not allowing me to analyse this movie from critic point. The only one sentence I can say if you have not seen the film yet, "Watch it and discover the human inside YOU".

Final word: I consider this year as a path breaking for Telugu film indsutry, as within a six months span I have seen four films which I can be proud of as a viewer, One is YMC, Second is Leader, Third is Prasthanam and Fourth one is Vedam. Hope we will have many such films to refer at the end of year as we go to the second half of the year. One little hope that is pondering over my head , Has the change for Telugu cinema finally come?

IDLEBRAIN.COM LINK : http://idlebrain.com/community/mymovie/vedam-pavan.html

AVATAR GOD

After coming out of the theater watching Avatar Yesterday, I feel like so dumb these many days who used to call many other films that I have seen as great ones. Avatar has created a whole new benchmark for the other film makers should target to achieve or at least try to in their life time.

Clearly Avatar is such a kind of cinematic experience that one has to experience at least once in their life time. Many may still argue the story is not great, the emotional quotient of the film is not felt as it is with something like Titanic. But, it just the kind of experience that you have never experienced it till now which makes this film a great one. The kind of imagination/vison James cameron has and able to sustain it over a decade plus years plus you need some thousands of people working on your vision for such a long time and to make sure you and your team are on the same line and don't loose control on your vision over a DECADE is something that tells me the work that has put in in for us to see the film the way it is on the screen now.

I always felt that it is very difficult to project what is there on your mind. But, to show something which our brains can never ever dare to imagine that something like pandora can even exist. This will definitely make other film makers feel like morons in front of him. Each and minute part of pandora is so exotic that I bet your two eyes are not enough to experience it. Be it the different creatures or the deep valleys or the floating mountains or the na'vi people and gracefully beautiful Neytiri who is my personal favorite.

We all are taught since childhood to pray to certain god's and we have god for literally everything. I always used to wonder who created these god's and why should I pray for something which I always see on photographs or in rock statues? While this confusion still remain in my head, I definitely have seen a new god in the name of James cameron who created AVATAR and I will be proud of praying him for this.

--Pavan

YSR

Sometime Yesterday afternoon at home, when we switched on the TV there was a big flash news which says the Andhra chief minister Mr.YSR is missing. It sounds very odd and strange initially till I understood the complete story that the chopper in which he is travelling was not able to trace by any of the technology that the government is using and the rescue operations are started to find the chopper, the mystery continued all through the night, meanwhile all the TV channels found a HOT CAKE news and realized the best opportunity to increase their TRP ratings by showing the same stuff again and again and again.As the mystery continued, everyone slept and the mystery continued till the morning and CM is STILL not found. As a layman, this brings to a basic question to my mind since the chopper was maintained by the government, will it be the same as most of the services that are under the government control. I hoped that the particular chopper will be better, but then hope will always remain hope when no one deals with reality.

And when the truth really came out at some time today morning, it hit me for a few seconds knowing that the chopper crashed and all the bodies were charred. Deep condolence to all his fans, family members, all who like and most importantly to all those who hate him.

I like him not because I know everything, all good and bad he did to the people of Andhra. Infact, I hardly know what he did during his regime. I like him because of the way he had crawled to the top and literally grabbed the position and hold on to it for 5 years and won again second time inspite of the stiff competition from other parties. I miss him not because Andhra politics don't find another leader, but all those fights he had with Mr.Naidu to recent entrant Mr.Chiranjeevi at assembly. I hate him not because of the corruption that may people claim has increased during his regime, but his death resulted in the delay of the most awaited film "JOSH".

While I see many of the opposition leaders showing grief, condolence his death. Within themselves, they know that they have lost a competitor which will make their job easier to get into power at least next time. All of us has our own reasons to condolence his death...

Meanwhile, Let his soul rest in peace...

WHY ME HERE?

This is the first question that came to my mind when I decided to create my own space in the web world. The main reason for me being here is to provide a platform to the infinite number of thoughts that flow in my demented mind every day…

You must be seeing a fish gadget of different color fishes in it on the right hand side frame on the screen. Try clicking on the gadget; you will see a series of black spots appear on the gadget. All the fish competes to come near to the black spot (wherever they are on the gadget).

I see a very near similarity to the fishes here and we as “Human Beings”. If you consider the black spot as the food or the dream or whatever it is one desires to achieve or has to survive, then there will be thousands of others who wants to do the same thing and hence they compete along with you and there are more ones who competes just for the heck of it and tries to pull you down or help you NOT to win. Well, the point that I am trying to make is neither the fishes nor the human beings. I believe that we all behave like these fishes, this is right and wrong in their own way and this is HUMAN RACE.

In this process of so called “living the life”, how many of us can really and truly be ourselves and live the life that ‘we want to’? How many of us can at least question and re-question this way of living? This is the primary objective of having my own space where I can truly be myself without being succumbed to anyone or anything (sometimes not even ME).

You will see me writing a lot about my take on life, people & circumstances which influenced me, my perception of things in this world, and most importantly on cinema. I hope all you who are reading this will enjoy my space as I love being unconventional and I always believe that all radicals are born from questioning the conventions and being unconventional.

P.S - It’s a different story that most of the times you get fucked up whenever you try to be unconventional. But, when you do get it right, you will really enjoy it.