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swatkatWatching bazillion movies back to back in the film festival made me think about a lot of things. It made me think about stories and storytelling and such. It made me realise – once again – that I'm really predictable when it comes to characters and story tropes: strong, broken women with a tragic past; clueless young trainee and her older, wiser mentor (who may be either male or female); yearning (in general); mothers and daughters... Reflecting on the two movies I loved most, I also realised that there is a particular kind of storytelling which I adore, and it's why I loved these movies so.
The Band's Visit is a quiet little film about an Egyptian police band that is invited to Israel to play and manages to end up in a deserted little town in the middle of nowhere. It's just one night, and the story is just about the characters interacting. What really makes the movie so incredible is the way the story is handled. It's simple. It's subtle. There are little touches, so insignificant that you'll miss them if you're not paying attention: for instance, the scene where one of the band members quietly covers the photo of the Israeli tanks with his cap. Politics is never mentioned anywhere in the movie, but that little touch is magnificent, and it's little touches like this that makes up the entire movie. Even the grand revelations are subtly handled, delicately, with a fine, deft touch, and the final structure is something so tightly strung together that every word matters and every little scene is just enough. The movie is about dialogue, about people and making connections, but it doesn't really say any of it at all out loud – it just shows, and that's what really makes the movie work.
Gulabi Talkies is a Kannada-language film, set in a little fishing village in Karnataka, featuring a charming and brave protagonist with a love for cinema. The village, as such villages go, have both Hindu and Muslim residents, and Gulabi (who is actually Gulnabi) is the local midwife. The film sets the Kargil conflict in the background, relayed only through television sets, and somehow manages to weave a marvelous story about communal tension, about faith and making connections and all those big important things, without actually saying anything out loud. There are no grand proclamations, no miraculous solutions offered. It smiles its way through the entire thing, building the narrative up with deft, subtle touches, and its significance really sinks in after you've finished watching (that night, you're sleepy-eyed brushing your teeth and Gulabi's final smile is still in your head and it hits you, you get it).
If my gushing hasn't made it clear already, what I really loved about these narratives was the way the stories were handled: lightly. Subtly. With a delicate balance between too much and not enough so that what you get is just right. I think I grew to love this kind of storytelling somewhere in my childhood, when I fell in love with the short story genre and tore my way through O. Henry and Maupassant and whatever else I could get my hands on, and later, with Joyce and Mansfield and all the modern authors. It's the kind of writing I aspire to do. I have often had people comment on the 'sparseness' of my style, but that's not something I've cultivated. When I was in school, the language teachers would always tell me mother in the parent-teacher meetings that I need to write longer essays (“But you haven't marked her badly,” would be my mother's bewildered reply, to which they would nod and say, “Nonetheless”; I never listened). In college, the Scary Professor (who is awesome) told me that I needed to stop writing my papers in signs and symbols, because the person who is reading my papers is not capable of reading my mind.
“But I don't like writing so much,” I said.
“Don't be juvenile,” she told me. “I'm not asking you to write more, I'm asking you to write enough.”
Her words stayed with me, and when I started writing again I realised that I naturally gravitate towards that 'enough'. Light touches. Subtlety. Images strung together. Not too much, not too little: just enough. (I am, in fact, paranoid about saying too much, which is somewhat counterproductive because I end up being cryptic and incomprehensible.) It's why adore writing disjointed narratives so much, going back and forth in time, juxtaposing scenes together so that they illuminate each other. And watching these movies was in a way inspiring, because it's the kind of storytelling I will always aspire to do, and when I get it right every word will make sense and every scene will matter, and it'll all be handled with a deft, delicate touch, and when it hits you it'll be like being knocked down by a piece of feather.
The Band's Visit is a quiet little film about an Egyptian police band that is invited to Israel to play and manages to end up in a deserted little town in the middle of nowhere. It's just one night, and the story is just about the characters interacting. What really makes the movie so incredible is the way the story is handled. It's simple. It's subtle. There are little touches, so insignificant that you'll miss them if you're not paying attention: for instance, the scene where one of the band members quietly covers the photo of the Israeli tanks with his cap. Politics is never mentioned anywhere in the movie, but that little touch is magnificent, and it's little touches like this that makes up the entire movie. Even the grand revelations are subtly handled, delicately, with a fine, deft touch, and the final structure is something so tightly strung together that every word matters and every little scene is just enough. The movie is about dialogue, about people and making connections, but it doesn't really say any of it at all out loud – it just shows, and that's what really makes the movie work.
Gulabi Talkies is a Kannada-language film, set in a little fishing village in Karnataka, featuring a charming and brave protagonist with a love for cinema. The village, as such villages go, have both Hindu and Muslim residents, and Gulabi (who is actually Gulnabi) is the local midwife. The film sets the Kargil conflict in the background, relayed only through television sets, and somehow manages to weave a marvelous story about communal tension, about faith and making connections and all those big important things, without actually saying anything out loud. There are no grand proclamations, no miraculous solutions offered. It smiles its way through the entire thing, building the narrative up with deft, subtle touches, and its significance really sinks in after you've finished watching (that night, you're sleepy-eyed brushing your teeth and Gulabi's final smile is still in your head and it hits you, you get it).
If my gushing hasn't made it clear already, what I really loved about these narratives was the way the stories were handled: lightly. Subtly. With a delicate balance between too much and not enough so that what you get is just right. I think I grew to love this kind of storytelling somewhere in my childhood, when I fell in love with the short story genre and tore my way through O. Henry and Maupassant and whatever else I could get my hands on, and later, with Joyce and Mansfield and all the modern authors. It's the kind of writing I aspire to do. I have often had people comment on the 'sparseness' of my style, but that's not something I've cultivated. When I was in school, the language teachers would always tell me mother in the parent-teacher meetings that I need to write longer essays (“But you haven't marked her badly,” would be my mother's bewildered reply, to which they would nod and say, “Nonetheless”; I never listened). In college, the Scary Professor (who is awesome) told me that I needed to stop writing my papers in signs and symbols, because the person who is reading my papers is not capable of reading my mind.
“But I don't like writing so much,” I said.
“Don't be juvenile,” she told me. “I'm not asking you to write more, I'm asking you to write enough.”
Her words stayed with me, and when I started writing again I realised that I naturally gravitate towards that 'enough'. Light touches. Subtlety. Images strung together. Not too much, not too little: just enough. (I am, in fact, paranoid about saying too much, which is somewhat counterproductive because I end up being cryptic and incomprehensible.) It's why adore writing disjointed narratives so much, going back and forth in time, juxtaposing scenes together so that they illuminate each other. And watching these movies was in a way inspiring, because it's the kind of storytelling I will always aspire to do, and when I get it right every word will make sense and every scene will matter, and it'll all be handled with a deft, delicate touch, and when it hits you it'll be like being knocked down by a piece of feather.
