Looking back at some works of art from last year tells me that creativity is never in dearth. Nothing that I say will be novel perhaps in applauding the spirits of these works except that they all firmly look at society beyond rose tinted glasses, for what it truly is.
Here I very briefly write about them.
**
THE IRISHMAN
This three and a half hour dramatic presentation coming from the illustrious pedigree of Scorsese and company is a mood piece, the most sombre iteration of a Greek tragedy or Shakespearean tale, as I look at it, that deals with the nonchalance of the mob and the amoral fabric of a nation hailed for its entrepreneurship and dynamic dealings. It’s hard to say where its loyalty to love and relationships begins and where fear and spontaneous actions take over.
It’s like GODFATHER for this era, laying bare the last bone of society’s raw underbelly, run by men who are monsters in Everyman garbs.
But for me it is ANNA PAQUIN playing Robert De Niro’s daughter,who, with her silent looks and staunch stance against this muckraking, steals the show among this gallery of veterans.
***
MUSIC TEACHER
This gently cascading tale from Netflix is worthy of Indian cinema’s aesthetic transparency getting a boost from the streaming platform.
A tale that never cheats its audiences, showing the realistic nature of a modest life saddled with sacrifices and regrets, every bond here reveals the cost of goodness in a materialistic world. Pictured with the same sense of modesty with its transitions between past and present putting it together, MUSIC TEACHER finds MANAV KAUL, AMRITA BAGCHI and two of my favourites NEENA GUPTA and DIVYA DUTTA absorbing the nuances of smiling through moments of pain and attempting to let bygones be just that. It’s just pure.
**
As for these four below, well let me just say that PARASITE and JOKER especially dare to show the fallout of an unequal society in ways too close to the bone. I mean we just can’t escape references to North Korea and the ultimate implosion of the have nots as they burrow into a rabbit hole of their own making in the former Oscar winning cult or the grubby, gritty streets of Gotham, littered with trash cans and the stench of divisive antipathy in the latter as it breaks down the consequences of a corrupt foster care system and non-committal attitudes towards mental health for our protagonist, with definite performances that strive for the deepest possible impact.
YOU ARE READING
A LETTERED SOUL: REFLECTIONS ON LITERATURE, CINEMA AND CULTURE .
Non-FictionI have often wondered about the very curdled natures of our opinions so much so that the perch of imagination simply becomes a bystanding abstraction and real thoughts of genuine merit slip between the fingers. That is a human tendency, to beat arou...
