Movie review - Flags of our fathers

For those of you who don’t know the details of the historical incident on which this movie is based, here is a bit of history.

During WW2, the Americans attacked an island called Iwo Jima . This island, located about 1000 miles off the coast of Tokyo was of crucial geographical importance. To the Japanese it provided a strategic lookout point on enemy naval movements. To the Americans the capture of the island could mean a base from which to attack the Japanese mainland. The Japanese defense strategy of the island was considered unique then. The Japanese had burrowed the volcanic mountain near the landing shores in the island, creating portholes through which enemies could be shot unseen. They had also created a network of underground tunnels interconnecting such portholes. When the Americans landed, the volcanic ash did not offer them much cover and they were shot at by unseen allies. Ariel attack by the Americans did not cause much damage and most of the fight was carried on by men on the ground throwing grenades into the port holes. The battle lasted about 30 days and the Americans won. On day 5 or 6, the Americans had made some amount of headway and had managed to plant a flat on the highest point there. This flag was ordered to be brought down and a new flag put in its place. When the second flag was put up, a photo was clicked and circulated in the American Press. The photo went on to become one of the most famous of all times, winning a Pulitzer in the year of its publication. The American government cashed in on the publicity surrounding the photo by making the soldiers featuring in the photo, campaign for funding the war effort. The campaign was a brilliant success raising more money than all previous campaigns put together.

The movie centres around these three soldiers who campaigned successfully. Ordinary enlisted men (or rather boys aged 20) like everyone else in the war, they catapult to fame, being caught in the right place at the right time. Three of their buddies who also featured in the photo had been killed during the siege. The trio tries to handle the sudden glory cast upon them by the American government, the media and the public. As they go on their campaign from place to place, the movie shows the realities behind their popularity – how chance places them holding the flag, how the picture was intended to be no better or no worse than other war pictures, how they were not killed on account of nothing more than fate and all the other mundane details of the war. The movie also explores the guilt that the men need to deal with knowing they were no better than the others and were lucky to be alive and campaigning. The movie finally is about heroes being as ordinary as you and me, a bunch of men doing their jobs.

The story is both interesting and touching. A quick Google search will give you an idea of exactly how big the episode was and deconstructing heroism of this sort is no mean feat. The movie tries to walk a fine line making its point while not belittling the efforts of the three soldiers. It is also quite entertaining, without slipping into a documentary mode. Perhaps all these points overpower other issues – the movie is not as taut as you would like to be, it is slightly clichéd and repetitive in a few parts and you never feel involved with any of the characters except possibly for those of Ira Heyes and Rene Gagnon.

The verdict though is still overwhelming positive. It needs to be seen if you do not believe in heroes and more so, if you do.

Movie Review - Bheja Fry

This movie, I understand from India’s custodian of Bollywood a.k.a. Times of India, has become a major hit. It has already raked in 5.5 crores. A tidy profit when you consider it was made for only 60 lakhs. This is not surprising when you look at the story and characters. The actors are not mainstream (Heck, even one of lower level Khans wont come for a paltry 60 lakhs). The story happens largely over the course of an evening. And the director smartly wraps up the movie in a couple of hours instead of stretching the wafer thin storyline to a standard 3 hours. You don’t even notice the lack of songs till you start writing your blog post.

The moot question – was the movie good? The answer would be..hmmm. I did not like the basic premise of rich guy Ranjeet Thadani calling over an imbecile every Friday for him and his friends to poke fun at and laugh. The characters were all not well etched. Milind Soman was positively wooden and Ranvir Shoerey could not pull off the paranoid Tax Inspector act.

The second question – was the movie entertaining? Yes. This was largely due to the presence of Vinay Pathak as your average, middle-class government servant, Bharat Bhushan. The man is so good you cannot believe it at times. He carries off the most inane lines with a blustering sincerity that makes you neither sympathise nor judge. He is just who he is.

So while it is definitely not even in the league of the other small budget movie Khosla ka Ghosla that it is being compared with, it is probably worth a watch if the alternative is a Karan Johar movie.

Swimming with the tide

Now that I have finished tom-toming to everyone I know about having learnt to swim, I have realised that my swimming skills depend on some specifics in the environment

I can only swim in a pool

I can only swim by the walls of the pool

I can only swim from the shallow end to the deep end by the walls and cannot dive directly into the deep end

The only reason I don’t feel like a loser when I read these specs is that I have been absolutely terrified of water all my life. My mom assures me that I used to hate having baths because of all the water the process involved (I did have baths and still do regularly). Which is probably the reason she laughs loud and merrily every time I accuse her of not having enrolled me in swimming classes as a child.

So after ten days of dragging myself out of bed every morning at six and sweating it in the pool, I am reasonably proud. This morning, nearly a week after the classes got over, I went to the pool by myself. Pumped and primed I jumped into the shallow side and started to swim breadth wise. Couple of turns later, I decided to try swimming to the deep end. Within three minutes I was panting and hanging to the wall by the side. That is when I noticed the lifeguard standing there. Clearly my uncoordinated hand and leg movement and impressive lack of breathing technique gave him the idea I was drowning. I grinned apologetically and plunged on with regular breaks by the pool wall till I reached the deep end. I started back again and emerged on cue after three minutes. The lifeguard looked at me disdainfully and suggested I should try using my arms better. Chastened I plunged back and started ploughing the waters. The ripples were alarming other people in the pool. I continued, undaunted and again emerged. Our man was ready with another handy advice. Apparently I did not follow a regular breathing rhythm but kept coming out in staccato patches. I had to count to myself so I emerged at some regular count (eg the 3rd count or the 5th count).

By this time I had been in the pool for forty minutes. My math was getting better with the counting, but little else. Still it is a far sight better than not knowing any swimming at all. Perhaps with practice I will look like Ian Thorpe’s sister in the pool. Or at least will one day manage to swim to the piece of floating wood when my ship wrecks.

Religion

Today I spent lunch hour arguing with colleagues on faith and religion. It all started off with an innocuous discussion on when the Mahabarath and Ramayan were said to have happened. We were all speculating when a colleague triumphantly announced that as per both mythologies, the world is divided into 4 yugas. The current yuga is around 3000 years old and started at the end of Ramayan. During Ramayan 3 yugas had passed and hence the story must be roughly 12000 years old. I pointed out the fallacy in placing the timing of a mythology by concepts told in the mythology. And before we knew it, all of us were in a full fledged discussion on how true the mythology is.

I have always been an ‘on the fence’ person not being able to make up my mind on whether God exists. In practice, he does, since most of my toughest times involve some serious prayers and results. One thing though I am clear on is that the concept of religion is nothing but a mass movement that evolves based on local politics and cultural ethos. This is why you have a choice of religions across the world. And each of these religions has its own mythologies. Most of these mythologies should be grounded in some kind of historical happening. However, obviously over a period of time, they have been told and retold till the principal characters have reached some status of divinity. So from who was probably a local tribal chieftain’s son, Rama is now a major God.

I thought this argument made plenty of sense. Apparently not. My colleagues insisted that the entire stories of Mahabarath and Ramayan are as divine as they come and it was none other than God who played the principal characters in them. Infact all of them agreed that the Ganges is not on account of the simple geographic phenomenon of continental drift leading to the Himalayas being formed and glaciers being formed and then melting to form a river. Faith makes them believe that the Ganges was created when it fell from Lord Shiva’s hairlock in the heavens above.

Lesson learnt - You can argue with facts. But not with faith. And that is why religion, for all its goodness, is such a dangerous concept.

Men are from Mars...

Conversation with my male Salsa classmate:

Classmate: So why don’t you like dancing with T

Me: Because he is very conscious of his movements. Besides he stepped on my toe nail once

Classmate: Umm…(too polite to ask why that would matter)

Me: and the toe nail broke and don’t think it has been growing since

Classmate: Shouldn’t you be happy then. You have one less nail to cut.

Me: ???!!!

Classmate: Sure. I hate cutting my nails but they keep growing so fast I have to cut them all the time.

Me: Even more ???!!!

(I only hope he has not spent today jamming all his nails in the door hoping to cause enough damage to permanently curtail growth. )