Borat

Borat is a movie that has been written on extensively. Ever since it was released, I have wanted to see it to find out what the whole hype was about. I got to see it last week on DVD and was disappointed. The funny moments become quite repetitive(and tiring) as the movie proceeds to its conclusion.

Borat is a reporter from 'make-believe' nation of Kazakhstan who is sent by its ministry of culture to america to study its culture and provide a clue as to why they are so successful. In america, his cluelessness about contemporary culture mores makes him stick out like a sore thumb. He somehow manages to find americans who think like him and empathise with him. He happens to catch a picture of Pamela anderson and decides to make her his wife. The movie ends with his aborted attempt to kidnap her so he can marry her.

The movie is not fit for consumption in a family setting. The movie is made in the style of a documentary so that Borat is captured setting scenes where he tries to learn from americans about their culture. It provides the moviemaker with latitude to pick and choose which aspects of american culture to focus on. The moviemaker uses it to pick on societal ideas that americans have arrived at(unofficially) a common consensus. As consensus implies some kind of a compromise, there are always going to be people who are not happy with the status quo.

As a clueless kazak, he revels in ignorance and backwardness of his culture. The 'running of the jew' and 'town rapist' are some examples. However, it is only backward when it is contrasted with modern standards of equality of people regardless of colour, creed, sex, sexual orientation. Since he has been exposed to only kazak culture, Borat doesnt realize it is backward and is quite proud of it.

When he comes to america and meets americans, he is exposed to a culture that prides itself at being the opposite of kazak culture. His interactions with americans shows through exceptions that the pride might be misplaced. The exceptions seem to have been chosen for maximum effect. Sacha Baron Cohen has masterfully exploited the desire of most americans to portray themselves as following the common consensus on most issues. Given that this is a commercial venture made with the aim of making money, it is not surprising Borat's character milks the uncomfortable situations for all they are worth. So, when he lets loose inappropriate comments, americans around him are caught trying to figure out the appropriate response. Some respond enthusiastically like the car dealer trying to make a sale and the beer guzzling fraternity guys. Some are lukewarm in their empathy like the driving instructor and the comedy coach. Some are livid like the feminist group and the dining etiquette group and abruptly terminate the discussion.

His interest in Pamela anderson is shown as becoming serious only after he receives news of his wife's demise. So, even if he is portrayed as a native bum of a backward country, the moviemaker has enough sense to know that the implicit agreement with the audience(which is the source for all the laughs) might not appreciate his serious interest in Pamela anderson when his wife is alive.

I lost whatever remaining interest in the movie after the prolonged nude wrestling scene between Borat and his producer. While I can see the point of including the scene in the movie, to have it go on for that long as it does, made it lose the message. Showing a fat guy in nude rolling around with another guy is funny when it is shown for a short time. The funny aspect comes from the implicit agreement between the moviemaker and audience that such a scene is gross in a politically incorrect sense. If it is shown for a long time, the audience might start thinking maybe the grossness has to do more with their idea of fatness(and correspondingly with thiness) than with the character in the movie.

The movie does educate you in the idea that Borat revelling in sexism and a fraternity guy revelling in sexism are not that far apart even if they belong to cultures that are completely different in sophistication, knowledge and achievements. That education has to come with a caveat that the movie has been made to exploit politically incorrect responses for all they are worth.

Borat is similar in its underlying structure to tamil movies that have been made on the storyline of a rural character coming to urban sorroundings and feeling like a fish out of water. Replace Borat with rustic characters played by Sivaji/MGR/Rajni/Kamal in countless movies. Given the different audiences they target, the flow of those movies diverge after some point. But the underlying idea seems to be similar. The rural population make up a major portion of the tamil movie audience and hence, the hero character starts out being clueless but ends up marrying the urban heroine(usually after a lecture on culture as if rural tamilnadu has a hold on the culture and urban tamilnadu does not) and shows off how comfortable he is in that environment.

Thanmatra

I watched thanmatra last weekend. I had been looking forward to it ever since it was released but never found time to sit down and watch(More out of procastination than lack of time). I had read articles on how the movie was supposed to present effects of Alzheimer's disease.
The story is pretty simple. Mohanlal plays a government employee(a.k.a file pusher), spending his time with his family and making plans for future. He gets stricken with Alzheimer's disease out of the blue. The second half is about how he and his family deals with this unexpected turn of events.
It is presented very well. The first half wouldnt be out of place in a decent tamil movie nowadays with sequences showing Mohanlal character's affection and love for his family and getting the same in return. The characters are squeaky clean and are always smiling or well mannered. Add to it, Mohanlal's character pontificates a lot on human memory and how to use it effectively.
The drift towards alzheimer's starts towards the end of the first half and the director slowly tightens the screw on dread as Mohanlal's character slides ever more deep into the disease. The contrast with the atmosphere of the first half hits you hard as we see Mohanlal's character struggle to do things normally done without batting an eyelid in a healthy human being.
The director has to be commended for keeping a tight leash on things in the second half. There are lots of opportunities waiting to be exploited for melodrama and barring a few, he does a good job of moving the story along.
Mohanlal has done a good job in this movie. However, his frame makes you worry about Meera Vasudevan, the actress playing his wife in the movie. I know he is chubby but it seems like he has added an additional layer of fat for this movie. The controversial shot where Mohanlal is in nude does show the seriousness of his affliction but it would have been more palatable and less terrifying without all those fat filling up the TV screen. As is mostly the case with malayalam movies, there are times when my tamil movie fan side screams to see some overacting just to relieve some tension.
Meera Vasudevan , who plays the wife character, does what is expected of her which isnt much. She does come up with some surprise expressions seeing her husband deteriorate steadily. Her initial reaction at not knowing what to do when the primary breadwinner of the family has to stop working is very good.
Nedumudi Venu, as the father of Mohanlal's character, is pretty solid, as always. There is a sameness to his acting which continues with this movie too.
The son's character, played by Arjun Lal, is etched out well. While the character comes across a goody two-shoes(with a half hearted attempt by the director initially to show some spine in him), showing him that way throughout the movie does get tiring. Towards the end of the movie, I expected him to throw something at his father to vent his frustrations. But, other than a tiny out burst of tears, nothing happened.
My miniscule exposure to movies in different indian languages has convinced me that malayalam movies do very well when presenting a story with realism. I have also read stories about how malayalam movies for quite some time have been trying to address competition from tamil, telugu and hindi movie industries by becoming more like them, more flashy and melodramatic and unbelievably star-driven. Maybe, it is the collective learning curve of an industry more used to realistic portrayals or backlash from malayalam movie fans, they keep coming back once in a while to things that made them watchable and thereby, stand out in the wreckage that is indian movie industry. I am not saying tamil, telugu and hindi movies are unwatchable. I am merely suggesting that their star driven ventures start to grate after some time. Malayalam movies have their stars too and thankfully, Mohanlal has chosen to act in this role, going against the stereotype(You know, the cigarette flips, multi goonda fights, foreign locale songs, amma/thali/thangai/jaathi/mozhi/ sentiments...). The credit should go to the director for fashioning a movie that is like a vikraman movie in the first half and a bala movie in the second half. The movie also has very judicious references to bharathiar poems which, given their positioning in the story, sounded very poignant.
Here is hoping, some tamil directors get 'inspired' by this pseudo medical movie and not by a half-assed pseudo medical movie like Anniyan.