Things seen, tasted, bought...

...were all so plentiful that I am at a loss of even where to start. Beautiful sunsets at Antalya and Side? Or Izmir? Or the amazing ruins at Efes? Or just good old heart breakingly beautiful Istanbul? I have close to some 2,000 pictures to choose from. Jeez.

There need to be many posts on things eaten - ?!!, no couscous but many other wonderful things. One evening we sat and made sigara böreks and I remembered km! I also want to do a photo post on the cats of Istanbul, on the Atatürk imagery seen everywhere and busking in Istanbul...still sorting through the photos as of now, though.

Things bought were numerous. Boxes of cevizli and fıstıklı lokum from Hacı Bekir, a kilo of baklava from Karaköy Güllüoğlu, books on Turkey (am currently in the middle of the very wonderful Fragments of Culture: The Everyday of Modern Turkey), earrings and more earrings from the Kapalıçarşı - though no doubt my friends would argue that one very cute and refined (and also, sadly, very proper) jeweller in Cevahir Bedestan was largely responsible for me making trek back there a second time* - and of course lots of music. Albums I didn't have by Burhan Öçal, Selim Sesler and Levent Yildirim among others. All great musicians you should be listening to, too!

I was hoping very much to be able to buy the DVD of Fatih Akın's Auf Der Anderen Seite, but unfortunately there were no English subtitles. Sigh. I did however get Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Iklimler (which I am very excited about watching) and Yılmaz Güney's 1982 Palm d'Or winner Yol.

Gah - have I mentioned how much I miss being there?

*I actually had to go back to get a broken pair of earrings fixed. So yeah.

Movie notes

I saw There Will Be Blood yesterday. Finally. I liked it very, very much indeed. I know people (Alok and Falstaff – this means you!) who came away underwhelmed, and I do agree it reminded me of many other films (especially Citizen Kane minus the ‘Rosebud’ angle) but I still felt the movie held its own.

For the first twenty or so eleven minutes and thirty three seconds of the film not a word is said and yet the movie was gripping from the go, by sheer dint of the awesome barren landscapes and the complete power that Daniel Day-Lewis exudes. It’s very difficult to take you eyes off him - his face and its very role appropriate nose lends itself perfectly to Daniel Plainview’s character and his taut body at the start seems to contain the kind of force and sheer power of someone determined to make it; by the end, as a consequence, what is left is a mangled, crooked figure.

Of course, this being Day-Lewis he inhabits his character absolutely completely, beyond just the mere physical aspects. When I came out of the theatre I was trying to remember who else had been nominated for the Best Actor Oscar this year and at that moment couldn’t remember any of the other actors, which is kind of apt. Also, no wonder the man ends up acting in only four movies in a decade – it’s exhausting watching him, I wouldn’t imagine what it would be like to live a character like Daniel Plainview.

I must also mention Paul Dano who plays Eli Sunday [1], the faith healer who gets on Plainview’s wrong side. The entire time I was watching Dano in the film I had a nagging feeling that I had seen him somewhere before and late last night it hit me that he was in Little Miss Sunshine – what an awesome turn from that to There Will Be Blood. He really holds his own, which is saying a lot considering the first guy who was supposed to be playing the role got freaked out and overwhelmed by Day-Lewis and quit a week before shooting.

Anyway, I am quite keen on watching the movie again – there are some excellent scenes (with excellent background music) that have stayed with me since my viewing – and quite honestly a Daniel Day-Lewis release is enough to get me to the theatres many times [2].

[1] For people who have seen the movie, can someone clear the air about Eli and Paul Sunday? Were they one and the same person? The movie is hazy about this and while it doesn’t really matter, it’s still interesting speculation.

[2] Daniel Plainview is such a despicable brute most of the time, but half the time the camera focused on Day-Lewis I would be thinking “OMG…he is so hot!” (and also “OMG… he has such a gorgeous face!” and “What amazing bone structure!” among others). This is not so bad though, I even think Ralph Fiennes manages to be amazingly sexily evil as Voldemort. He doesn’t even have nostrils in that role! I need help!
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I recently found out that one of my most favourite books (ever!) Brideshead Revisited is being made into a movie. I am all kinds of skeptical about this entire project (never mind the cast) - really, there might be a good reason why the book has never been made into a movie.

I adore, adore, adore the TV series (the boxed set is one of my most prized possessions) which is twelve hours(!) long and which I wouldn’t wish to be a minute shorter. How they will take all the material of the book and compress it into a 100 minute movie is kind of beyond me. I mean, come on, that isn’t even enough time to fully exploit the homoerotic undercurrents of the Sebastian - Charles relationship!

Of course, a lot of my skepticism stems from the fact that, apparently, in the original draft of the script they decided to leave out Aloysius, and though they’ve brought him back in now, my reaction to the whole thing is just, “Dude, WTF?!”

Coming back to the casting, for me Brideshead has always been about Sebastian and I really can not think of anyone except Anthony Andrews in that role. And though Emma Thompson as Lady Marchmain and Michael Gambon as Lord Marchmain sound interesting, how can anyone compare to Claire Bloom and Sir Laurence Olivier in those same roles? This is not even mentioning Sir John Gielgud’s amazing turn as Edward Ryder. Finally, before I finish my pointless ranting, I offer the picture to the left proof of the fact that any version of Brideshead without Jeremy Irons will just never measure up.

P.S.: Who's to say, maybe the new film will turn out OK...hopefully more people will know about the book (if they don't already, in which case they are cretins) and will go watch the original miniseries.

Pakeezah (پاکيزہ )

This trip back home I bought a truck load (quite literally) of books and movies to bring back. Most of the movies were old classics that I had seen a while back but wanted to own. Pakeezah was one of them – it’s a beautiful collector’s edition DVD. I had mentioned the movie in an old post, more than anything it’s the music of the movie I love.

Watching it after a a few years now, I was surprised at how I had almost completely forgotten how clichéd and cheesy the movie really is. It didn’t make me love the movie any less, however. Pakeezah, for all its flaws, is deeply endearing.

Tawaifs have been fodder for Hindi movies since forever [1] and Pakeezah tells the story of one such courtesan. The movie has Meena Kumari in (something of) a double role – she is the blonde haired, light eyed Nargis whom Shahabuddin (Ashok Kumar) falls in love with and decides to marry. When his family rejects her, she runs away and starts living in a cemetery where she gives birth to a daughter before dying. The infant is raised by Nargis’s sister in the world of kothas in the Chowk district of Lucknow and by the time (a number of years later) Shahabuddin finds out he has a daughter she has already become a famous as a tawaif called Saheb Jaan (Meena Kumari again). When Shahubuddin confronts Nargis’s sister about his daughter who he wishes to take back home the aunt hastily shifts to Delhi (I think) with Sahib Jaan.

It’s while the train stops at a station (named Suhag Pur(!)) en route to their new destination that Salim (the wonderful Raaj Kumar) enters the Sahib Jaan’s compartment by mistake. It is this moment that gives us one of the most famous moments of Hindi cinema – taken in at the sight of the sleeping Sahib Jaans feet, beautifully adorned and coloured, peeping out of the sheets, Salim writes her a note that says “Aap ke paon dekhe, bahut haseen hai. Inhe zameen par mat utariyega. Maile ho jayenge” [2]. For Sahib Jaan the note becomes a hope of a life different from the one she is living, of a man who might truly love her. When circumstances do reunite the two, Salim wants to marry Sahib Jaan and she faces a whole new set of questions – should she acquiesce and sully her beloveds name and reputation? She is, after all, a courtesan.

The deep irony of the movie is encapsulated in the note that Salim writes Sahib Jaan. Don’t ever put your feet on the ground, he says. This when her livelihood comes from dancing for clients. The tawaifs of North India were famous for the high culture of dance and poetry, being companions of rich nawabs and teaching them etiquette and manners. And yet, they were never respectable. As the movie has it, it is for the man, then, to rescue the courtesan from ill fate. It is not surprising that when Salim accepts her, he renames Sahib Jaan Pakeezah – the pure one. (This is not a movie that was out to make any revolutionary point.) Sahib Jaan herself is strangely passive; she seems in some cases to want to be more miserable, making proceedings somewhat frustrating.

All that said, this is a very romantic movie. Over the top romance. That, despite the many contrivances and inanities of the plot the romance doesn’t fall flat, rather comes off as truly captivating and charming, is what really makes the film. (Did I mention that I really love Raaj Kumar as Salim?). Pakeezah is not a subtle film – eye popping colours, massive over the top sets, gorgeous clothes, melodrama – so I think the magnified sense of romance goes with that. It adds to the charm of the movie in that it hints at a world that no longer exists. The movie also captures the decadence of the time – no wonder decline was just around the corner.

Finally, Pakeezah would not be the movie it is without its utterly gorgeous songs. This is probably my favourite Hindi soundtrack of all time. There is not one bad song here. It’s not surprising that Derek Malcom calls it one of the most extraordinary musical melodramas ever made. Ghulam Mohammed died after composing only a few songs following which Naushad took over. If I am not mistaken, Mohammed finished the background score, which is especially lovely in some parts, such as some of the scenes set in the Chowk areas. You can almost imagine a tawaif across the building practicing before her performance, in the background.

The songs are almost sub stories in themselves. The wonderfully flirtatious and telling Inhiin Logon Ne (le liina dupatta mera) [3] – these are the people who have taken away my modesty. Sahib Jaan singing about the chance encounter with a stranger in Chalte Chalte. Or Teer- e- Nazar Dekhenge, where Raaj Kumar breaks my heart. And my absolute favourite Chalo Dildar Chalo about travelling together to the far side of the moon. The video below (and picture above) is of Thare Rahiyo [4], wonderfully choreographed, and where Meena Kumari looks her loveliest in the movie [5]. Watch and enjoy.



[1] The other movie on a similar theme I dearly love is Umrao Jaan. I have wanted to read Mirza Mohammed Hadi Ruswa’s novel Umrao Jaan Ada and I finally have it. A reviewing of the movie after I finish might be in order

[2] “I saw your feet; they’re very lovely. Don’t set them down on the earth—they’ll get soiled.”

[3] A clip of the initial shooting of the song, in black and white, here.

[4] I haven’t seen the 2006 version of Umrao Jaan (I am loath to) but the song Salaam has a lot of steps that seem very inspired from this song (and many more from the other tracks in Pakeezah, though that could be due to the similarity in the themes of the movies). Meena Kumari was not really a dancer, but I find Thare Rahiyo very subtle, graceful and suggestive. Aishwarya on the other hand is, I think, very jumpy and there’s something about some of her movements in the song that irritates me but I can’t put a finger on what. Views may vary of course, but what do you think?

[5] Pakeezah famously took more than a decade to complete. Director Kamal Amrohi and Kumari’s marriage broke up soon after the filming began. By the time Kumari came back to finish the movie she was already an alcoholic (she died of cirrhosis of the liver soon after the movie released). It’s not very difficult when watching the movie to figure out which parts had been shot earlier. In some scenes Kumari looks significantly older and puffier.

Fatih Akin's Gegen Die Wand

All I can say is that you should see “Head On,” and that, even if you end up hating it, there will be no denying the fact that you have been through something and that, if you are still foolish and hopeful enough to let movies get to you, the person who went into the theatre will not be quite the same as the person who comes out.

This from Anthony Lane’s New Yorker review of Fatih Akin’s Head On (Gegen Die Wand/ Duvara Karşı).

I can not agree more. I have wanted to see Head On ever since I saw Akins İstanbul Hatırası: Köprüyü Geçmek (in English Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul) (post on the movie coming up next) at a National Museum screening more than a year back. I finally got down to it and ordered both movies on Amazon and they arrived last week.

I have already seen Head On twice and it affected me on second viewing as much if not more than the first time I saw it. The original German title Gegen Die Wand translates as ‘Against the Wall’ but ‘Head On’, I think, is a more apt description of what one feels as a viewer right from the moment when we are introduced to Cahit Tomruk, who makes a living in Hamburg collecting empty beer bottles and seems half stoned to death. It’s altogether not surprising when five minutes into the movie he smashes his car quite literally into a wall. Diagnosed as a possible suicide case he is admitted for treatment at a state run psychiatric facility where he meets Sibel Güner, another patient of the same ilk.

Her interest in Cahit is piqued upon hearing his Turkish name and the first thing she says, chasing after him as he walks out of the doctors office, is “Will you marry me?” She’s in for slashing her wrists, overwhelmed by the stifling dominance of her father and brother, and wants a sham marriage to get away. Cahit maybe a bum, but he is a Turkish bum and she just needs a roommate who will let her out of their grip – to live, to breathe, to fuck, as she puts it – and in return she will cook, clean and keep house.

Cahit brushes her off, but Sibel, nothing if not persistent, doesn’t stop at slashing her wrists again to make her point – this time even following Cahits advice as to how wrists should be slit. (Earlier he had told her she must not have been serious about dying, cutting ones wrists across “is shit”.) Why Cahit eventually agrees to marry her is obscure. In one of the most beautiful scenes in the film he goes home after being pestered no end by Sibel and tries on a tuxedo that seems quite literally from another age and stares at his reflection in the dusty TV screen. In the midst of the mess that are his life and house, she perhaps represents some sort of hope, some human connection, which he seems sorely in need of.

At first that connection manifests itself in Cahit hurling curses at Sibel at their wedding, then sharing their wedding dinner, both staring into space heavily stoned, and over time into a slow willingness to re-embrace life. She is reveling in her freedom and as they get more comfortable with each other, become friends, some of it rubs onto him too. Of course, you know that love will come next, but to Cahit and Sibel it comes as a surprise. Head On is not in the business of playing to clichés though and the two protagonists are on the same page only for a heartbreakingly fleeting moment before a most random act of anger destroys that hope, with Cahit in jail and Sibel fleeing to Istanbul, promising to wait for him.

Head On doesn’t play as a typical immigrant tale either and perhaps that’s why it captures little vignettes of immigrant life so well. Nor is this a story that neatly compartmentalises East and West. Cahit and Sibel converse in German through out and they are definitely on the outskirts of their communities. When Cahit goes to ask for Sibels hand in marriage, her brother asks what he did to his Turkish given that it’s awful. “I threw it away,” Cahit replies with a mix of anger and defiance. I loved the scene where Cahit goes to meet Sibels cousin in Istanbul and suddenly completely at a loss of words to express why it is important that she tell him where Sibel is, breaks into halting, inelegant English. He can’t speak German here and his Turkish just doesn’t suffice and that moment captures beautifully and exactly what it means to be stuck between cultures.

Istanbul and Turkey are foreign too and represent aptly an opportunity to start afresh without being totally at sea. In his review Lane mentions how much of a distance the characters seemed to have traveled during the film and that was exactly what I felt. It’s almost as if you have lived a life with these people and seeing them at the end makes the mind boggle at the thought that these were the very same Cahit and Sibel you were introduced to at the beginning of the film. That distance and the aging and growing of these two characters are what make the end of the movie fall perfectly into place too. There is hope, there is a new beginning but there is also, as the song that plays at the end says ‘infinite sadness’.

I want to watch!

A new Daniel Day-Lewis release is so exciting! What do you expect when the man does like four movies in ten years (really, those are the stats). And when he's as fucking fabulous as ever. And fabulous includes hot [1].

Day-Lewis was on the cover of the NYT magazine last weekend. It's an interesting (if long) article. I love that he admits he has 'the right nose' and was more than amused at the fact that he spends hours at the Manolo Blahnik store studying the construction and design of shoes (he was apprenticing as a cobbler in Rome when Scorsese came looking for him to play Bill the Butcher in Gangs of New York).

Apparently there is a lot of Oscar hype around the role as well. It would be cool if he won considering he was robbed, robbed, when he didn't win for Gangs. Also, finally a movie to look forward to. Is it just me or has there not been a single decent Hollywood movie out this year?[2]

[1]Sigh. I remember when I first saw The Age of Innocence. Day-Lewis is perfect as Newland Archer. And so beautiful.

[2] Ok, admittedly I haven't seen No Country for Old Men. And also, no The Kite Runner is not something I am looking forward to.

Movies, nations and uncomfortable past histories (I)

The Battle of Algiers is one of my all time favourite films. It is also one of the all time greatest films made. The last time I saw it was a little more than a year back and as I remember being as riveted as ever, unable to even take my eyes of the screen. The movie takes place during the Algerian War of Independence and the event it so hauntingly recreates is the Battle of Algiers.

A little back ground history. French involvement in Algeria started in the 1830s and France achieved effective control over the area when a French expeditionary force led by General Thomas Robert Bugeaud conquered the native forces of the Arab leader Abd-el-Kader (yes, him of the famous rai song) in 1847. Algeria was declared an integral part of France the very next year and a policy of resettling the Algerian lands with colons (or pieds-noirs) was actively followed. However, nationalist movements and resistance continued and by 1954 the Front de Libération Nationale, the FLN, had emerged as the most organized group with the most popular support.

The war can be divided into two phases: 1954 to 1957/58 and thereafter till independence. The watershed moment was the Battle of Algiers (1956-1958), which took place at a time when the FLN was at its peak. Following the passing of a law in 1956 which suspended most of the guarantees of individual liberties in Algeria the FLN embarked on a path of urban terrorism aiming to attract more attention to the Algerian cause. They averaged close to 800 shootings and bombings per month through the spring of 1957. The job of pacification went to General Jacques Massu and his Tenth Paratroopers' Division, who having served in Indochina understood guerilla warfare and mounted a counter insurgency program. Massu's men made massive arrests, isolated the casbah and practiced torture and eventually succeeded in capturing many FLN leaders, destroying their networks and comprehensively winning the battle.

The movie is excellent in every sense – it famously boasts that there was no documentary footage used, the music is perfect as is the acting, directing and cinematography. I love that Pontecorvo chose local Algerians to play the roles of the FLN members – he spent months scouting for faces that would just fit the role. Brahim Haggiag as Ali La Pointe is so beyond brilliant that his defiant expression is etched in ones memory long after the movie is over. Jean Martin plays Colonel Mathieu (a character based on Massu and other French officers) and is excellent as well. The scene where he makes his appearance, marching his division into the city, ramrod straight, soldier perfect is one of my favourites in the movie. Interestingly Pontecorvo was not happy with the scene while shooting – he felt Martin was not commanding enough. The problem was eventually sorted out by stuffing tissues in the actor’s uniform to broaden up his shoulders and give him an air of authority!

The Battle of Algiers is also an extremely uncomfortable film to watch. One does support the Algerian independence struggle but the methods of the FLN are shocking to say the least and leave one in a sort of moral quandary. On the French side, the torture is abhorrent. And yet one can’t help but be taken in by Mathieu’s charisma. The Battle of Algiers was decisively won by the French – and the penultimate minutes of the movie show this - the bombing of the casbah with a huge number of FLN leaders holed up inside. The last scenes of the movie (if I remember correctly) however show the events of 1961 with Algeria on the cusp on independence, people on the streets cheering. It seems somewhat bizarre in the aftermath of the French victory in the city but it shows how pyrrhic the victory in Algiers was. The French won the battle, as the cliché goes, but lost the war.

After the Battle of Algiers most of the fighting shifted to countryside and the FLN continued to lose power. The French followed a strategy of complete oppression and decimation and that they lost the war despite being militarily much stronger is one of the vagaries of fate but also shows the importance of public opinion and backlash against the policies of torture and the moral dilemma that French citizens eventually found themselves confronted with.

La Trahison (The Betrayal), a movie that I watched recently examines quite excellently the psychological impact of the war on the people involved. The movie is based on a book by Claude Sales recounting his experiences during the war as a lieutenant who has a number of Algerian conscripts under his charge. One of the bizarre aspects of French policy in Algeria was that Algeria was considered an integral part of France (unlike Morocco, Tunisia or Indochine). The large number of pieds-noirs settled in Algeria was one reason the French were so reluctant to leave but the bigger picture was Algeria was simply one part of France just as Provence or Alsace. That it happened to be geographically located in Africa was just an aside. Therefore, a large number of Algerians were conscripted to serve in the French Army to help fight the FLN. This wasn’t a small number by any means; the French managed to recruit many more Muslim Algerians than the FLN. In 1958, around 88,000 Muslims served as French troops. By 1961 this number was 200,000. In contrast the FLN at its peak (1957/58) had 20,000 recruits with another 20,000 – 30,000 auxiliary troops.

La Trahison takes place mostly in the villages with the French trying hard to weed out support for the FLN. It should be noted that the French carried out massive operation in the countryside once the war had shifted there. The population was heavily monitored to watch out for the insurgents. Very detailed and accurate documentations of the population took place. Censuses were conducted and identification cards were issued giving the army the ability to track individuals within the population. Fortified fences were built along the Tunisian and Moroccan borders. In addition mass resettlement of inhabitants in these areas took place to isolate the insurgency from aid and manpower.

In the movie, the Algerian soldiers are of the utmost importance given that they can communicate with the villagers and provide vital translating services. Yet these Algerian soldiers are stuck in the middle of nowhere. The have been told they are French and have to serve in the French Army but they aren’t treated as French by the soldiers from mainland France. The local Algerian populace is hostile, of course, and treats them as cowards. How the soldiers react in such a situation is what the movie examines. Will they, can they stay loyal? In an interview of Sales I was reading this line particularly struck out “Dans cette guerre, tout le monde est trahi : les pieds-noirs, la population algérienne, les soldats...” It’s an apt summation of what you feel when watching the movie.

Overall what is interesting is that the war is being discussed openly in the mainstream in France with more movies being made on the subject, more people talking openly and discussing what happened then. It should be noted that Pontecorvo’s movie was Italian made and banned in France for many years.

Interestingly, earlier today while I was thinking of writing this post this entry on Laila Lalami’s blog directed me to a NYT article on the new National Centre of the History of Immigration in Paris.

“But being a French citizen means you’re not categorized as African French or Southeast Asian French or West Indian French; you’re just plain French. That’s the republican ideal, citizenship bestowing theoretical equality, belying the reality of racism.”

Ironically the French Algerians were in theory as French as anyone else, only in practice it was a different story. It’s same for the immigrants who live in the banlieues. They are supposed to be as French as anyone else but if you know their address, you know they are immigrants. They are still the easiest prey for the right wing jack asses like Jean-Marie Le Pen -I will never forget his comment on Zidane being acceptable because he was the son of a hakri – or idiots who tried to pass a bill praising the ‘benefits’ of colonialism last year.

““The history of immigration is one thing, and the history of slavery and the history of colonization are other things,” Jacques Toubon, the museum’s president, told me, somewhat defensively I thought. France “is very late in confronting the truth about its colonial history,” he said, but the purpose of his museum “is to tell the story of immigration.” That sounded to an American like devising a museum for African-American or American Indian cultures but skipping gingerly over slavery, segregation and Manifest Destiny.”

The French need to come to terms with their own colonial past (not to mention rethink their disastrous integration policies). That people are willing to talk about the past and discuss it critically is a huge positive, but it's also just a start.

*I had also wanted to write about Atom Eyogan’s movie Ararat and Turkey but seeing how ridiculously long this post is I shall perhaps post about that later.
** Most of the background information on Algeria is paraphrased from the introduction of a paper on the Algerian War of Independence I wrote for one of my history courses.

Miscellaneous

Lord people, I am tired. The workload at office has kept me busy till late at night for the last few days – but that’s all I’ll talk about that. Outside of work, I have Turkish exams in a couple of weeks and sheaves of homework assignments to complete. I have been making compilations of word lists and verb lists on the long train rides home when I am not reading. There’s a lot that I have been reading and watching (I am rediscovering movies!) and I have wanted to write about many of these things but have had no time!

This weekend blogging shall be about some of the movies I have seen recently. La Trahison (The Betrayal), set during the Algerian War of Independence. The Battle of Algiers, which I have not seen in a while but is one of my all time favourite movies. If you haven’t seen Gillo Pontecorvo’s brilliant film please go and rent a copy now. And Atom Eyogan’s Ararat – strangely topical given the recent Genocide bill that is making the rounds in the US Congress. I have also wanted to post excerpts from the wonderful and hunger inducing Taste of Thyme: Culinary Cultures of the Middle East on, amongst other things, why the Turkey is called so and the origins of baklava. All of this if I ever mange to get down to it, of course!

Current read is Mark Mazower’s The Balkans: A Short History. Only half way through but it’s been a good quick read and quite excellent for what is basically a short summary of the history an immensely complicated region. Here an excerpt that helps explain why the area remained hugely heterogeneous:

If the Balkans did not become another Islamic land, one reason was that the sultans had no interest in making this happen. Christians paid higher taxes, and mass conversion would have impoverished the empire…Less material factors also played a part. On the two occasions (in 1517 and again in 1647) when the Porte seriously considered the forces Islamistion of Balkan Christians, there was religious opposition to the idea on Koranic ground. In general there was no Muslim analogue to the widespread Christian impulse to drive out the infidel and heretic. On the contrary Islamic law prescribed the toleration of Christian and Jewish communities of believers. It prohibited Muslims from converting to other religions but did not insist upon conversions in the other direction. Indeed many a convert was obliged to demonstrate the desire to embrace the true faith was not prompted by materialistic or ignoble motives.

To end this largely random post via 3quarksdaily this link to an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali in Reason magazine. As they point out van Bakel seems to be one of the few people not letting her off the hook all that easily. I find her extremely irritating and offensive and her arguments simplistic, generic and ignorant. (Interestingly, before the Turkish election earlier this year she wrote an article arguing that the US should support a military coup in Turkey to prevent the AKP from coming to power. The mind boggles.) I have to admit I haven’t read her books. Though I think her opinions come across strongly enough in her interviews anyway, I would gather they are more of the same. From the interview:

Reason: Explain to me what you mean when you say we have to stop the burning of our flags and effigies in Muslim countries. Why should we care?
Hirsi Ali: We can make fun of George Bush. He’s our president. We elected him. And the queen of England, they can make fun of her within Britain and so on. But on an international level, this has gone too far. You know, the Russians, they don’t burn American flags. The Chinese don’t burn American flags. Have you noticed that? They don’t defile the symbols of other civilizations. The Japanese don’t do it. That never happens.

Reason: Isn’t that a double standard? You want us to be able to say about Islam whatever we want—and I certainly agree with that. But then you add that people in Muslim countries should under all circumstances respect our symbols, or else.
Hirsi Ali: No, no, no.

Reason: We should be able to piss on a copy of the Koran or lampoon Muhammad, but they shouldn’t be able to burn the queen in effigy. That’s not a double standard?
Hirsi Ali: No, that’s not what I’m saying. In Iran a nongovernmental organization has collected money, up to 150,000 British pounds, to kill Salman Rushdie. That’s a criminal act, but we are silent about that.

Reason: We are?
Hirsi Ali: Yes. What happened? Have you seen any political response to it?
Reason: The fatwa against Rushdie has been the subject of repeated official anger and protests since 1989.

Of strange reality and the Nobel

From the NYT, news that The Kite Runner is being delayed to protect the child actors in the movie version of Khaled Hosseini’s book.

The studio distributing “The Kite Runner” a tale of childhood betrayal, sexual predation and ethnic tension in Afghanistan, is delaying the film’s release to get its three schoolboy stars out of Kabul — perhaps permanently — in response to fears that they could be attacked for their enactment of a culturally inflammatory rape scene.

This is so strange…I really don’t know what to make of it. (Is there anything to make of it?) I read about this a few days back but it really seems to have blown up since. I think more than anything it just offers more proof of how unstable Afghanistan has become.

What struck me most reading the article was this:
Mr. Forster emphasized that casting Afghan boys did not seem risky at the time; local filmmakers even encouraged him, he said: “You really felt it was safe there, a democratic process was happening, and stability, and a new beginning.”

A couple of years back my father had visited Kabul. I still have (for some reason) the pictures from his trip I had downloaded onto my computer. I remember him saying something about the bootlegged Bollywood movies that were available everywhere, about how they wanted to rebuild the country, to start promoting tourism…
This last trip to Delhi, while browsing the bookshelves I came across a book he had gotten back from Kabul. A travel guide to Afghanistan, circa 1971. It almost broke my heart just going through the faded pages of that book. No country deserves this.

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In other news, the Nobel prizes will start being announced next week. As usual, confusion reigns over the question of who might win for literature. Odds are here. I will be terribly happy if Adonis wins, but I would think the odds might be slightly slim… (perhaps the fact that Pamuk won last year, makes them worse?). Not surprisingly, however, he is one of the strong contenders amongst those in some know. I’ve wanted to read Amos Oz for a while now - actually, I haven’t read many Israeli authors and Oz, Grossman (who, by the way, delivered this years PEN Arthur Miller Freedom to Write lecture) and Yehoshua are all on the immediate reading list.
Oh, and I am reading Llosa right now and dear lord, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter is one of the funniest books I have read in just the longest, longest while. Truly excellent.

Help!

Most bizarre dream ever. Mostly a blur of images now.

I am talking to Rashid Khalidi about amongst other things khoresht fesenjan and the general idiocy of Thomas L. Friedman.
I am telling Tom Cruise that long time back I really did like him. And then he went psycho and now I think he is probably an alien spawn. But also that Suri is the cutest kid ever.
I am also telling Ian McKellen "Sir, I really do love you and in my book you were always the first choice to play Dumbledore in the Harry Potter movies – way before I saw you as Gandalf in Lord of the Rings."
Watching Ataturk make a speech where he goes on and on about how a civilized people don’t wear certain kinds of dresses and most certainly not the fez. Instead they should wear what he has on his head. "This is a hat."

I clearly need help.
I usually don’t remember my dreams. And obviously there’s a good reason for that. This might have been brought on by the most bizarre and brilliant movie, Paprika, that I watched yesterday. (Watch it if and when you get the chance – seriously).

But I did detect a pattern. Clearly my mind is an empty den and I have way too much time on my hands and so, ya I do read ONTD (thus Tom Cruise makes appearances in my dreams). So? So?
Oh and the Ian McKellen thing – I met him a while back. Hee. He is bloody brilliant and I didn’t tell him I loved him but did manage to sputter out that I loved his work and I didn’t make an ass of myself, which counts for a lot.

The rest all makes sense because I am mid way through Khalidi’s very good Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America's Perilous Path in the Middle East. (Also read his The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood. I have read some of his articles before usually for school work but never his books and am now on the verge of having a major geek crush on him.) I also wanted something light to read so picked up Pomegranate Soup yesterday and finished it in the duration of two train rides. Am still making my way through Turkey: A Modern History, which explains Ataturk’s appearance. Don’t know about Friedman though. I thankfully haven’t read much of him since Times Select started.

On a more serious note, I do recommend that everyone read Resurrecting Empire. It was written in 2004 but in some sense reading it now makes it even more powerful and the consequences that Khalidi laid out even more scary. Not that anyone listened. Khalidi is also a good counterpoint to Bernard Lewis who always (whenever I have read him at least) has a narrative that is too simplistic for even me, with my limited knowledge of the region, to buy (I pretty much decided I wouldn’t read any more books by Lewis when I finished the last one by him I had borrowed). Was discussing the book with TAP earlier today and he told me of his attendance at a talk by Khalidi which made me curse him. Khalidi is a very eloquent and forceful speaker. See here where he defends academic freedom and freedom of speech in the aftermath of the whole Columbia Middle Eastern studies brouhaha. Oh well. As of now I have a whole list of books that I am now ticking off and plan to read in the future. Fiction will probably take a backseat and I might put up bits here - if I’m not too lazy that is.

Another thing. I was recently told by someone (much older than me) to read The Haj to understand the Arab psyche. I had no idea how to respond. (In my defence I was just told the name of the book and it took me a bit to realise that it was the book by Leon Uris. I had picked it up in my school library when I was in class ten or eleven in school and put it back after reading some 30 pages. Need I say more?) But yes, how do you respond when people come up with such ridiculously inane and downright offensive statements? People who are usually sane? And how do you even begin a conversation where what you really want to say is "Well, I really don’t think you know what you are talking about?" Help!

Das Leben der Anderen

The Lives of Others is Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's first film. I found this out only after I had seen the movie and while I was a bit shocked, I was also very humbled. The feeling was similar to what I used to feel when watching a match in which Zidane was in particularly good form [1]. You are in the presence of genius, you feel absolutely talent less and useless and yet you feel lucky that you are seeing that kind of brilliance. Watching The Lives of Others was a similar experience. Of all the movies I have seen that came out last year, this one is by far the best. (And yes, I thought it was better than Pan’s Labyrinth).

The movie is set in East Germany circa 1984, a time when the East German statsi operated in full force (at the time, the movie informs us, it employed more than ninety thousand personnel). It dwells not only on the lives of those observed by the state machinery but the observers as well. Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe), is a statsi official. A good one at that. He fits the ideal of such a secret service policeman – unflinching in his belief in the state, unmoved by torture, unwilling to trust anyone.

So unwilling to trust, that on attending a performance of a play by Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch) he suggests spying on the playwright. This despite the fact that Dreyman enjoys state patronage and in the words of an official “is the only non subversive writer we have”. It is thus, then, that Wiesler becomes exposed to each and every aspect of Dreymans life, art and relationship with his girlfriend and the actress of his plays, Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck).

It’s a scary picture of life in the Orwellian world. Dreymans credentials don’t put him beyond the grasp of surveillance. As a woman, as an actress even more so, Sieland has her own bargains to make. And despite his devotion to the state, or rather because of it, Wiesler lives an utterly lonely and miserable existence. They are similar in that they are all vulnerable at their core. In a sense they are all at someone else’s mercy, they can never be in full control of their destiny.

A number of themes run through The Lives of Others, most importantly (and subtly) the incompatibility between art and an authoritarian state and the disillusionment that ensues. Circumstances eventually push Dreyman towards dissent. Wiesler’s commitment to the state starts wavering. As a result of some kind of Stockholm syndrome from listening in on the conversations of the artists or a slow reaction to reading the copy of Brecht he has stolen from Dreyman, one can only guess.

The most hauntingly beautiful scene in the movie, and its turning point, is when Dreyman on learning of his friend’s suicide plays a composition called Sonata for a Good Man on his piano. He tells the story of Lenin, who refused to listen to Beethoven’s Appassionata because he feared it would stop him from carrying out the revolution. No man who has ever listened, truly listened, to such music could be bad [2], says Dreyman. Wiesler, listening in, weeps silently.

The scene sets the tone for the rest of the movie, and it somehow connects you to the characters you see on the screen. Twenty minutes later, I was the one who was weeping silently, watching the events of the movie unfold. There is such humanity, beauty and bitter sweet poignancy to the story that one would have to be made of stone not to be touched by it. Wiesler is the centre of the story and Ulrich Mühe’s fabulous, fabulous turn is one reason why the movie works so well. Gabriel Yard’s wonderful score is another. If Lenin is Wiesler, then the Appassionata becomes Yard’s Sonata for a Good Man. The movie however, tells the story that might have been had Lenin listened to Beethoven. The reference to the Appassionata is particularly apt; The Lives of Others encompasses all the emotions of Beethoven's Sonata No.23. The story it tells is about the people who are trying to fight and overcome the terrible and despairing circumstances they find themselves in.

[1] Bad analogy I know, but watching Zidane in form is watching true grace and beauty.

[2] This I truly, truly believe.

[3] The movie reminded me of something my piano teacher used to say. Mozart was pure genius and Bach’s works are the embodiment of baroque but nothing compares to Beethoven in pure, simple heartbreaking beauty.

[4] Interestingly, Mühe’s wife spied on him for the Statsi for the entire period of their marriage, supplying them with hundreds of pages of information.

[5] The topic of the authoritarian state has been recurring over the last week. Not just in The Lives of Others, but also in Tahar Ben Jelloun’s This Blinding Absence of Light, which I just finished reading. Jelloun won the 2004 IMPAC Dublin Award for the book and its one of the most stark, simple and disturbing books I have ever read. (The only other time I felt so claustrophobic while reading a book was when I was reading Andre Gide’s Strait is the Gate.) I wanted to write about the book but I’m not sure I can. I am still quite disturbed by it; especially by the fact that it’s based on a true story. I really don’t know why I continue to be shocked by the barbarity of the human race.

Music & Lyrics

I had a sudden urge to listen to Hindi music day before yesterday. It’s not that I don’t listen to Hindi music. I do – sometimes. But only to a few songs. Because by default Hindi music has become Bollywood music and other than a few good soundtracks (usually by A.R. Rehman) that usually entails stuff like “Where’s the party tonight?” and “Crazy kiya re” (which, I wasn’t able to listen to in totality, even once). But then once in a while I have this sudden overwhelming urge to listen to Hindi music. And then I go and pull out some of my most precious music discs.

I have a compilation of songs from Dev Anand’s movies that I simply love. When it comes to music in movies no production house came close to matching Navketan. When I was living with my mausa he would make me watch old black and white movies every weekend. At one time Set Max had a one month Dev Anand festival going on and I saw pretty much every movie they showed – Munimji, CID, Paying Guest right up to Hare Rama, Hare Krishna (after which he hasn’t done one remotely decent film). Almost every movie the man did in his heyday had fabulous music. My favourite is of course Guide. Dev Anand had already started overacting by then, his hair was ridiculous but he managed to be really good in spite of all that. Waheeda Rahman is marvelous, gorgeous and absolutely brilliant as Rosie. And then there are S.D. Burman’s fabulous, fabulous, fabulous songs. Not one wrong note.

Then there’s Pakeezah. I saw the movie fully, for the first time only a few years back. I hadn’t expected to like it – I always thought it would be similar to the Sanjay Leela Bhansali version of Devdas – pretty to look at it, but soulless. But I loved it. And can I just say Raj Kumar deserves kudos for mouthing the dialogues, “Aap ke paon dekhe, bahut haseen hai. Inhe zameen par mat utariyega. Maile ho jayenge” with such sincerity that I remember thinking “No wonder she fell in love with him!” And oh, the music. The gorgeous music. I still can’t listen to Chalo Dildar Chalo at night without getting goose bumps.

And since we are on the subject of film music, I can’t not mention Gulzar. Yes, I know he is not a music director, but has there ever been a better lyricist? From Bandini to Guru, he has written one beautiful song after another. Just letting his words wash over you is such pleasure. I doubt anyone could capture the spirit of Bunty aur Babli the way he did. Or the cheerful banter in Do Deewane Sheher Mein . And can I just mention the brilliance of the crass lyrics of Beedi?

Incidentally, I have been listening to Dil Se on repeat all day. Like I said, this happens sometimes. It’s almost as though it’s a new single and I have to listen to it till I am sick of it. The thing with Dil Se is that I quite frankly think it was probably the best song from a Hindi movie for the entire decade of the 90’s. It has such drama. And there’s that one line that always, always gets to me Dil To Aakhir Dil Hai Na, Meethi Si Mushkil Hai Na. Now only if they made more music like this, I would be more inclined to listen to the stuff that comes out of Bollywood.

Shakespeare-Wallahs

Over the last week quite a few posts I have read and conversations I have had have had reference to Sonnet No. 18. You know, the one everyone knows (well, they should).

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.

Honestly, I don't read much poetry. And I haven't even read a lot of Shakespeare's sonnets. Just a few. But god. Such great beauty. Despite the over exposure.

In the movie Venus, Peter O'Toole recites the sonnet 18. You simply have to hear him. (Link via Shoefiend). The man needs to get his Oscar. He really does. I've said it before; I really do want him to win this year. And yeah, he knows all the sonnets. All 156 of them. In the interview O'Toole says that the sonnets are his "life companion", finding them "endlessly informing, endlessly beautiful..." I have spent the last year or so reading up Shakespeare’s plays and now I want to go out and read up all the sonnets.

I also found myself nodding along in agreement to what he said about Shakespeare’s plays ... "...in that there are twelve plays or so that are sublime and matchless and the rest are, in my money, rhetorical and boring..." When it comes to literature I don't think anything matches Shakespeare’s tragedies in their language, the examination of human faults or even just the emotions you feel while reading the plays. The grief you feel at the end of King Lear. Or the exasperation while reading Hamlet. Or the numbness at the blood bath at the end of Macbeth. But then there are also plays like Titus Andronicus and Troilus and Cressida that left me completely under whelmed.

Saw Laurence Olivier’s Richard III this week. It was a bit difficult not to think of Ian McKellen’s take on the play, especially for the first twenty minutes or so, but Olivier had me hooked after a while. His Richard was interesting - a huge (prosthetic) nose, a high nasal voice and only a slight limp. There’s no point comparing the performances by Olivier and McKellen. They are both excellent - and very different.

The DVD also had a one hour BBC interview with Olivier about his life, career and his take on some of his most famous Shakespeare roles (Hamlet, Macbeth, Richard, Henry and Othello). It was very interesting and informative. It was amusing to hear Olivier dissing Titus saying the role was painful because it demanded perpetual moaning. How he felt Othello’s greatest fault was his self deception and how tiresome it was "blacking up" for the role (how politically incorrect would it be to say something like that now??). Or how Macbeth can be played well only once you have reached a certain age and lived life.

I think that’s true for most art. Age and experience brings richness and nuance. Youth might have innocence on its side but it’s also a tad bland. Old might not be gold, but it has its advantages. And then some old things are timeless.
Look at Shakespeare. Whether it’s reading the Bard or watching a good adaptation of one of his plays being acted out. One of life’s greatest pleasures.

Szerelem is in love.....

....with her new phone. The Samsung Ultra Edition 9.9. Tis so pretty. And sleek. I am honestly not much of gadget freak. My previous cell phone lasted close to four years and I really wouldn't have felt the need to change it had it not started konking off at regular intervals. Nor I did I really need (I still don't actually) a camera phone or any other fancy feautures.Anyway, someone was visiting and my mom sent me this one. Because she said it was lying at home and no one was using it, and because she knew I wanted a MotoRazr and this one is similar, only better. Isn't she so wonderful? And the phone is better than the MotoRazr - slimmer and lighter. I like. Very much!

I am also in love with my DVD's of Elizabeth I (the case is so beautiful!) and Brideshead Revisited. They arrived this week and oh, I was so happy!! Shall watch Brideshead (all four discs) during term break, because I know once I start I just won't be able to not see the whole series. Saw Elizabeth I already. It's quite marvellous. Ah, such happiness.

Movies, movies and more movies

It seems that the only events news worthy enough to make the front pages of the Indian dailies last week were (a) the entire Shilpa Shetty racism fracas and (b) the Aishwarya Rai – Abhishek Bachchan engagement. Terribly irritating, especially all the silly engagement interviews. More so because they all posed AB Jr. said question: Will you allow Aishwarya to continue working after marriage? What. The. Fuck. When will people learn that it’s not up to him to allow her to do anything? Oh, well, whatever.

In other news, last week was spent slacking, lazing and watching many, many movies. Three new ones, three not-so-new/old Shakespeare adaptations. So in keeping with the theme of my last two posts this one shall be about movies as well. The new ones first.

Pan’s Labyrinth: I actually really liked it. The movie brilliantly balances two worlds – that of little Ofelia’s fantasies and the reality of the Spanish Civil War. The reality of the Civil War is violent, bleak and all too real (Sergi López is excellent as the brutal, masochist Captain Vidal). While the world of Ofelia’s imagination is a refuge it is still dark and dangerous with everything and everybody seeming a bit dubious. The parallel stories play out brilliantly against each other with Ofelia, Mercedes and the rebels and their belief, idealism and rebellion serving as a foil for the Captains fascism. The ending of the movie is poignant, beautiful and unresolved, asking us to decide for ourselves what Ofelia’s fate is, what is fiction and what reality. Amongst all this Pan’s Labyrinth is also a tale about the importance of imagination and belief. If only to dull the pain of the real world.

The Queen: I highly suspect the main reason this movie was made was to showcase the awesome talent of Helen Mirren. It’s witty and insightful at times but almost all those moments are centered around Mirren. Michael Sheen is not bad as Tony Blair, once you get past his pixieish face and very white teeth. Everyone else is really quite a caricature and thank god they are usually just in the back ground. Still worth a watch just for Dame Helen. I’ll eat my hat if she doesn’t win an Oscar for it. (Though considering how the Oscars almost always muck up, I should perhaps take that back.)

Babel: Frustrating. That’s the perfect word to describe the movie. I saw it after it won for best dramatic film at the Globes. How bad can it be, I thought. Well, it’s really bad. I should have known better, especially after reading Roswitha’s post on it (and also considering that we really don’t disagree on anything). In this case though I think she’s been generous in her assessment. The theme that Iñárritu seems to be exploring is interesting, but it is also reminiscent of his earlier work, 21 Grams, which was much better (and I didn’t like it all that much in any case). Perhaps it has to do with the fact that that story was rawer, the actors were better, that it didn’t seem so manipulative. Sean Penn and Benicio del Toro have a certain intensity that Brad Pitt just doesn’t. He’s not bad, but he just doesn’t fit. I kept wondering why Gael García Bernal was in the movie – he was completely underused. The story of Chieko, the deaf girl simply disturbed me. The Japanese connection seemed contrived. Sigh, I could go on. The parts of the movie I did like were those where Iñárritu was working with local actors. They made the story more real, interesting and believable than all the star power of Pitt, Blanchett et al did. The Mexican wedding, the interaction between Pitt and his Moroccan guide, those sequences I liked. But that’s about it. And don’t even get me started on the completely stereotypical images of cultures the movie paints. Let’s just not go there.

Falstaff gives his take on the above here. He also reviews The History Boys. I haven’t seen the movie, but caught the musical on Westend when I was in London. It was excellent, highly recommended. Alrighty then. In addition to above mentioned movies I also watched three excellent adaptations of Shakespeare.

The Merchant Of Venice: I reread the play before I saw the movie. I had first read it quite a while back and it had left me confused as to what to make of it. Michael Radford does a good job bringing it to the screen. While he is quite faithful to the original text he does add a few montages before and after the main happenings that make Shylock and Jessica (to an extent) more sympathetic. (I understand that for Shylock, whose character was very well handled in the film but Jessica is such an appalling character I really don’t get why anyone would want to make her more sympathetic). I expected Pacino as Shylock to be completely over the top but he is shockingly good. Menacing, vindictive, vulnerable, passionate in his hatred – he manages to convey all that. Joseph Fiennes is suitably effeminate to make a good Bassanio. Jeremy Irons, well, I really can’t say anything bad about the man, but he manages to make Antonio more interesting than I would have thought possible. Lynn Collins, despite her perpetual breathlessness in the initial scenes, does a good job as Portia. She convincingly portrays a girl who starts of having no control over her life to one who is completely in charge of things. For me, the most problematic part of the play is the last act. It seems like such a dampener after the drama of the courtroom. Amazingly Radford manages to make that scene work, which left me very impressed. The whole the movie is less theatrical than I expected. There a lot of subtle undercurrents, a lot of close ups, a lot of acting through expressions. It is also beautifully shot – rich, luscious, and very real. On the whole the movie somehow managed to pull off the tragicomic tone of the play, which is quite a feat.

Richard III: Ian McKellen plays Richard in this version, which sets the events of the play in a 1930’s fascist England. Though the movie omits large portions of the play it works in toto. The most glaring cuts are in the lines of Clarence and Queen Margaret. Still some of the damage is curtailed by the fact that the actors playing these characters (Nigel Hawthorne and Maggie Smith, respectively) are just so fabulous that they managed to remain in my mind long after they were off screen. The movie is highly theatrical but doesn’t become overly campy. The brutality of the murders never lets you forget Richards’s villainy. McKellen is excellent of course. One half of his face perpetually droops and he excellently conveys the characters physical deformity. He drips sweetness one minute and then like a chameleon changes to ruthlessness and brutality. As the setting of the movie is different from the play it makes for a few interesting sequences. Richard delivers the first part of “Now is the winter of our discontent” speech at a gala celebrating the victory of the house of York. The remaining parts are acted out in the men’s room with him looking into a mirror and snarling, “I am determined to prove a villain; And hate the idle pleasures of these days.” Then there is Richard stuck in a car in the middle of battle screaming the famous lines “A horse! A horse! My Kingdom for a horse!” Terribly ingenious.

Macbeth: Roman Polanski’s version of Macbeth is one of the bloodiest, goriest films I have seen in a really long time. Apt, I think, the theme of blood permeates the play. I thought it was very good. It left me with the same numbness I felt when I finished reading the play. Jon Finch is excellent as Macbeth. Francesca Annis’s Lady Macbeth comes of as a somewhat sympathetic character as compared to the wily, over ambitious woman she is generally portrayed as. I did however feel that Macduff’s character wasn’t suitably developed and that as a result didn’t add enough drama to the climax. Another small irritant – I thought Polanski used too many back shots making it impossible to see the actors’ faces. Jai wrote an excellent post on the movie a while back and there really isn’t anything I can add to his analysis. Pretty much agree with him.

So, that pretty much sums up the happenings of last week. Viewing for this week includes (repeat viewings) of Yes Minister and The Lion in Winter. And….ummm…Dawson’s Creek. Sigh. And I am not even ashamed to admit that.

Monsieur Humbert Humbert

How timely was my last post I ask you? Just after I rave about British actors they go and sweep the Golden Globes. Then there's also the question of Jeremy Irons. I blog about him and suddenly everywhere I look - he's there! For one I’ve been trying to get my hands on Brideshead Revisited (to no avail) and he’s in that. I saw the Merchant of Venice day before and he played Antonio. And then he was at the Globes where he won for Elizabeth I. I haven’t seen the series but that didn’t stop me from cheering and saying “He totally deserved that!” But that’s only because he is always good.

Interestingly, he was wearing a Chinese shirt with red buttons, a pattern of red roses and sleeves that were much too long. When I saw that I was quite sure he would make it to gofugyourself.com’s list of offenders (he hasn’t yet). Oh dear, I thought. Sir, I love you and all but red roses? Really?? Oh well, who am I kidding, he still looked totally hot.

Right. And then in the library I stumbled upon this little gem. The audio book version of Lolita. No prizes for guessing who it’s been narrated by. (For the record, Irons was also in the 1997 movie of the book.) I didn’t hear the whole thing (its eleven hours long!!), but just listening to Irons’ voice as he read Nabokovs prose lends a completely different perspective to the book. I have read Lolita, but I just had to read it again, and I am. It’s even better than I remembered. And like all truly great literature there are tiny details, nuances you missed the first time, what you make of certain lines changes.

The opening paragraph of Lolita is not only one of my favorites but also one of the most beautiful I have ever read. And now all I hear when I read it is Irons’ voice narrating it with such love, passion and sadness all at once. The beauty of it just breaks my heart.

“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.”

British thespians, Borat and other random mumblings

A friend of mine, P, was in town on break from her studies at Columbia. It was good fun to meet up with her after months really. The evening was spent talking about my trip, books, authors (Pamuk teaches at Columbia. She said he’s a bit of a diva, but a really good teacher anyway), and watching a ridiculous amount of E!
Including a show they had on called ‘The 100 Hottest Bodies in Showbiz’. Ralph Fiennes was #95. It was terribly amusing to see his deadpan reaction. “Uh? When was this? Ten years ago?” I didn’t see anymore of the show after that. Seeing Fiennes on E! was more than I could have hoped for. He also probably brought more class to the channel than they could handle so it was probably be safe to assume that it would only go down hill from there.

Right. Anyway. Ralph Fiennes is currently acting in Samuel Becketts ‘First Love’, down under, in Sydney. How much does it suck that he wasn’t on stage when I was in London. I mean, really. It sucks.
The theatre scene in London in general, however, makes me go green with envy when I think of people who get to actually live there. It’s so unfair. Given my love for British thespians, I just think it’s so unfair that Londoners get to see them all over. Before I left, the RSC was heavily advertising its production of ‘Antony and Cleopatra’, with Patrick Stewart as Antony. It made me wish I could postpone my return by a few days just so that I could catch the opening night.

Then there was all that heavy promotion for the movie ‘Venus’ (it releases later this month in the UK). I have only heard superlative praise for Peter O’Toole’s performance in the movie and I really, really want to see it. O’Toole has been nominated for the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards for the movie already, and I really do hope he gets an Oscar nod. Plus, the script is by Hanif Kureishi, which in itself raises my expectations, as he happens to be one of the most bitterly funny authors I have ever read.

I was loitering around HMV the day before I met P. And I happened to find the DVD of ‘Brideshead Revisited’, (Jeremy Irons plays Charles Ryder). Had it not been terribly expensive, I would have bought the set in a flash. When I told P she asked me, “But you have seen it, haven’t you??” When I replied in the negative, she whacked me with the nearest cushion she could find, “How can you not have??!!” I have of course known about the mini series for a while, but I just never went out of my way to look for it. P told me that it is the best adaptation of a book she has ever seen and anyone who has ever read and loved the book (how can anyone not like Brideshead Revisited?!) must see it. Anyway, I found out my library has a copy, but only for “restricted use”, which explains why I have never seen it there. So am headed there soon to find out what the hell this restricted use thing is. Seriously, wtf?

In any case, P told me that though she thinks Jeremy Irons is the most beautiful man ever, and as excellent an actor he is, the actor playing Sebastian (Anthony Andrews) is excellent and is probably the most brilliant piece of casting ever. This of course has piqued my curiosity and now I really just have to see the series. For the record, Jeremy Irons is another one of those British actors I adore. If a movie version of 'Death in Venice' is ever made Irons should be cast as Gustav von Aschenbach. Well, I think so anyway. Plus, if anyone ever deserved an Oscar for voicing a character it is him. What would the Lion King be if he hadn’t voiced Scar? Not even half as good, that’s what.

While talking to P, I was trying to think of British actors I don’t like and admittedly came up short. I think one reason I like the Harry Potter movies is because they stuck to having British actors in the movies. Alan Rickman (excellent as Snape) Gary Oldman, Maggie Smith, Ralph Fiennes et al – that’s class. And I would have thought it impossible to be able to pull of a TV version of ‘Jeeves and Wooster’, but Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie actually do manage to do the impossible. P, however, had a point when she said that, well, there are some actors who you really can’t not like.
“Who doesn’t like Daniel Day- Lewis?”
“Some people don’t even know who he is!”
“Idiots, needless to say.”
Point.

While still on the topic of movies. I finally saw ‘Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan’ yesterday. (Am sorry, but I really couldn’t resist typing out the whole title). Right, so I thought it was ok, but not as funny as it’s been made out to be. I think the Borat clips on youtube are funnier that the movie. Parts of it were hilarious and it could have been so much better. But it kept degenerating into the same old crass toilet humour and that was disappointing. Yes, you do laugh at the stupidity of the Americans – the Rodeo scene was hilarious and the scene with the college guys was, I am sorry to say, reminiscent and a somewhat apt representation of a lot of American undergrad frat boys I know. But in other cases, you just feel pity for the people who are caught up in the whole thing because they are obviously decent people and then whom is the joke on?
Oh well, still probably worth a watch. Just not that funny.

Holiday Over.

So the holiday is officially over. My classes start tomorrow. Talk about being depressed. I miss London terribly. Even the cold, cloudy, grey weather. On the flight back they were showing Love Actually. And despite having seen it, despite thinking it is probably one of the cheesiest movies I have seen, I saw the whole thing. And like when I saw it for the first time I kept laughing and giggling throughout. Really, it speaks volumes about the talent of Liam Neeson, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Colin Forth, Bill Nighy, Hugh Grant and the like that they actually manage to pull off the movie. The only reason I started to watch the movie was, well, because it was set in London and it just seemed apt. At one point they show Liam Neeson and his son sitting somewhere in the South bank with a view of the Millennium Bride and St. Paul’s and I felt so sad.


Probably had something to with the fact that I spent almost 18 days in London. That’s even more time than I spent in Paris. And while for me Paris will always be the greatest city in the world, London was really, really nice as well. There was just so much happening all the time. I loved the area around Leicester Square and Covent Garden. And Westminster. And all those museums! I visited so many of them. The National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, British Museum, Natural History Museum (which is really quite superb), the V&A (I think I spent close to two hours just in the Ottoman and Islamic Middle East section, for obvious reasons it was really interesting for me), Tate Modern, the Royal Academy of Art, Somerset House and the Dali Museum near the London Eye. Phew, I never listed them and now that seems like a lot.

I had planned to visit places close to London, but there was just always so much to do in the city itself that I really didn’t get to do all that. I went to Windsor and was blessed with the most god awful weather the entire time I was there. And I visited Greenwich as well and was officially right in the centre of the world. Cambridge was beautiful. There weren’t many students around and it was quiet, but just so pretty.

No surprise then that school just seems so, um, drab. And I am still jet lagged! There are these stupid freshmen who have moved in next door and they make just so much noise the whole night. I am probably going to end up whacking them very soon because requests to "Please keep it down" have had no effect. Jackasses. The only good thing is that this is my last term and I keep telling myself it’s only another four months and that’s it. Four years of undergrad studies is just really too much. Especially when you have to bear some really idiotic freshman and their equally inane comments in some of the classes. I have to do everything in my power to stop from banging my head against the desk. Hopefully my classes this term will be better than last term. Seriously, advanced macro has to be the greatest kill joy in the world.

Anyway. The point was that I am missing London. I miss the British accent. Miss my daily tube rides. And I miss my free daily copy of London Lite. So ya, I miss London. So much so that I went to the library and borrowed loads of Wodehouse. Because if Jeeves can’t lift your spirits, who can?