A LETTERED SOUL: REFLECTIONS ON LITERATURE, CINEMA AND CULTURE .

A CINEMATIC COLLAGE PART 3

I once again take this platform to share micro views on cinematic works of various kinds ; works with big hearts and great sensitivity that unveil social realities with a flair for effective storytelling, an eye for realism and imaginative screenwriting besides providing food for thought.

So here is another cinematic collage compiled by this cinephile. The core of versitality is striking in all cases.

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ZOOTOPIA, THE GOOD DINOSAUR

Animation films have endured for ages and there is a valid reason for it. The brisk, supremely imaginative scheme of things have an uncanny ability to create humane micro worlds taken from urgent real life cues and social allegories become truly impactful when the child like innocence directly tugs at our heartstrings, reminding us of all we need to preserve and have lost in the adult world.

ZOOTOPIA and THE GOOD DINOSAUR, both of them instant classics from the Disney /Pixar enterprise, capture the way human emotions and those of animals and birds- God's dear creatures - are essentially the same, through the anthropomorphic lens. The former celebrates a yearning for plurality within its titular metropolis, in the process tilting its concerns to frissons within our urban landscapes, while introducing us to its plucky female officer (voiced brilliantly by Ginnifer Goodwin) within an establishment where those who are taller than her and predominantly male rule the roost.

THE GOOD DINOSAUR imagines a pre - historic world where humans and dinosaurs thrived and in its tale of bonding between junior representatives of both groups designs a survival saga of deeply felt emotions that had me uncontrollably bawl like a child. But that is essential, cathartic and beautiful.

Both of these are visual marvels and give us a nuanced message about the essential goodness in all of us. That's much more worthy and hundred times more exacting than features with flesh and blood humans.

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PHILADELPHIA and FORREST GUMP

Tom Hanks disseminates his unique gift of embodying an individual soulful persona with such grace on both these simultaneous Oscar winners that watching them turned out to be a Godsend to this writer ; I had longed to watch both of these since ages.

In Philadelphia, his fight for dignity at the height of the AIDS crisis is remarkably life affirming yet conscious of the slow passage towards death and as directed by the late great Jonathan Demme, each individual player with stakes in his well being gets a due spotlight. Watch his scene where he surrenders to the operatic tenor of Maria Callas . He and Denzel Washington are pure talents in that one instance alone.