Peepli [LIVE]

This Independence Day comes a film directed by Anusha Rizvi, with a flavor that will tickle your humor buds and unassumingly heighten your awareness about the plight of farmers in our country.

A camera pokes right into the face of a poor farmer, who looks as innocent as a child who has just seen a toy gun. He is bewildered and doesn’t know how to handle all the sudden adulation. Why are all these people Peeping inside his house? Because he wants to, I mean wanted to commit suicide. To let his family live comfortably with the compensation that will be paid by the government. Until the media decided to make a sensational story out of it.

Natha (played by Omkar Das Manikpuri) and his brother Budhia (played by Raghuvir Yadhav) are farmers who run the risk of losing their land if they fail to pay back their bank loan. They are thrown into a helpless situation where they get no support to help repay their debt. The idea of committing suicide forms in their head as the only and last resort to save their family. As word gets around, television channels vie to make it a breaking news story; politicians try to make peace with the villagers because the elections are nearing and to top it, the agriculture secretary acts indifferent to all the developing mayhem.

I felt a certain inner happiness in watching this film, because more than anything else, I was blessing Anusha Rizvi for finally making a sensible film, bringing out a strong theme in a screenplay dripping with satire. What better way to show the deepest dirt and farcical nature of our so-called national system? I love the sarcasm in the visual language, for example how the Minster goes and gifts Natha a bright blue hand pump that is of no use to him or gifts him a television and garlands him in order to appease the threat he’s causing to the power play.

The role of the media is stark and shown in all its brutality. How far away are we from the truth? No too much, I believe. While all our news channels are bothered about TRP’s and being the “top news channel” with this “exclusive story” or that “special report”, how many of our journalists really care for the people or the stories they are reporting for? How many of us understand the real issue that these farmers are facing? How many Natha’s do we know about? I don’t know. Everything seems like such a drama. News has become theatrical. A live drama unfolding before us, with all the mise-en-scenes planned, and executed with perfection. With the perfect characters, and dialogues. For the perfect story. Why? To grab our eye-balls. So that we tune into the same news channel again to satisfy our thirst for dramatic realism.

While I write this at this very moment, I know that there are farmers dying, their suicides adding to numbers, and I feel restless now, because after watching the movie, I started to feel concerned. Although the film made me laugh, it also led me to a low when through the dark humour, I saw the real, cruel face of our power systems. The media, the politicians, the bureaucrats. Natha personifies the face of millions of peasants who face pressure and trauma to repay debts that is a matter of a life and death situation. When all the noise making elements left his village after his supposed death, we see how less anyone really cared about his fate.

Opportunistic. That’s what we all are. The world has become so competitive, that we seem to have lost that sense of humanity, that sense of not wanting to mindlessly think of how we can gain. Sometimes, it’s better to lose, in the eyes of the ruling power. Because, in our hearts, we have won. We may believe that everything needs to have a reason, but there’s no reason to play games with the lives of others to create that supposed reason. In the end, we are solely responsible for our actions, and if haven’t made that little difference in helping a Natha or a Budhia, then that action is not worth committing.

In a nutshell, Peepli [LIVE] shows us the voyeuristic nature of the media, how a story is not lived, but only thrust in front of the camera. Who cares about the old farmer who has been digging for days to sell the sand, and dies in that same mud trench he had been working his life for? Why couldn’t they show that story instead, voiced a more sensitive journalist Rakesh (played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui). Because, according to Nandita Mallik (played by Malaika Shenoy) “Natha is the big story.” Rakesh’s questioning attitude only invited a more curt answer, “ We are journalists, and this is what we do. If you can’t handle this, then you are in the wrong profession.” So my question is, is it worth sacrificing the real cause in the name of “profession”? How can a profession demand belittling our moral standards?

It will enlighten you. It might empower you. It can disturb you. Peepli [LIVE] is a wake up call to notice our distracting tools of public broadcasting. Watch it for its satire, its clever manipulation of story elements, its necessary exaggerations and most of all for its endearing and innocent characters who are the victims of our mad rush for attention. An Independence Day special, most certainly.

Inception

The word is dicey. It exhumes a beat of novelty. True to its meaning, Inception by Christopher Nolan is the beginning of a new cult. The creation of something that is so mind-boggling that it's too good to be true. I worship his genius.

Dominic Cobb (Leonardp Di Caprio) is an expert at stealing. Stealing people's ideas from their dreams while they are sleeping. Yes, our world could come to that. But the bigger challenge comes to him when he is asked to plant an idea in someone's mind instead. Saito (Ken Watanabe), a rich man, wants Robert Fischer Jr. (Cillian Murphy), heir to his father's empire, to break it up in order to avoid a threat to his own business.

Cobb hires a young aspiring architect Ariadne (Ellen page) to construct dreams that Fischer would enter when dreaming. She has to create a maze that would allow enough time for the team to manipulate the subject's mind, luring him into thinking what they want him to think. They want him to destroy his father's empire. Not violently and forcibly in real life, but by injecting in him an idea using emotional play. A business decision needs to be communicated by hitting what's most sensitive to us - our emotions.

Going down three layers deep into Fischer’s subconscious, Cobb and his team control and navigate through the dreams facing numerous challenges on the way. They discover that Fischer has been trained to ward off dream infiltrators, and so has developed security, which will only hamper their mission. But the game must go on.

This film got me thinking of many issues. One most prominent being how the entire concept of breaking into someone’s mind is in fact a reality today. How? Simple. Through the innumerous information we are being fed day in and day out, with the bombardment of the media. We may not be wholly aware of it (a dream state?) because it works seemingly discreetly, injecting our minds with what it wants us to believe. We forget what’s real and what’s not. Like how Cobb heavily sedates Fischer, we too are sedated – on postmodern paraphernalia.

The second thing I’d like to mention is the power of the mind. The power to invade directly, in contrast to the powerlessness of surrender. While we all think we have complete control of our lives once we get our degrees and pass out of prestigious institutions, we are equally vulnerable to the evils of the real world. But like in the film, what seems real for the victim is in fact a dream, although what happens in the dream is real because he is brainwashed enough to believe that the decisions he takes are his own. Brainwash. The word seems more interesting to me now. It makes complete sense. Brainwash can almost be used as a synonym to inception. After all, doesn’t it do the same thing? Systematically frame a person’s mind and manipulate it enough to convince him to believe that what he thinks is right and true of his own accord.

Nolan’s concept of limbo I find quite fascinating. When you are heavily sedated in a dream, you may never wake up even if you kill yourself and you’ll fall into what he calls “unconstructed dream space”, where you only find “raw infinite subconscious”. And what’s worse, you’ll grow old in this indefinite world. I wonder if many of us have already fallen in this limbo, living our world in an infinite subconscious simply because we have been heavily sedated by powerful market forces. I find an uncanny resemblance to today’s brand culture being part of sedating us into limbo. Unconstructed brand space. Until we give ourselves an appropriate “kick”, we may never get out of it.

If, however, we are aware of these forces of propaganda, then we can develop a resistance towards it, just like how Fischer developed security against invaders who entered his subconscious. But if propaganda can reach levels where we are convinced that we are not being manipulated, then what else is left?

How we perceive is how we understand what we see. How I see someone may be different from what you may. So like in the film where one sees someone else in a dream as a “projection” which defines his perception of that person in real life, in a sense translates to the fact that how we really see people in real life is what they are in our dreams.

Waking Life by Richard Linklater is another film that explores the blurring lines between dreams and reality. A rotoscoped film, it traces the dream adventures of a young man who cannot get himself out of a dream. Lucid dreaming keeps us aware that we are dreaming, but what if we get stuck and simply can’t get out? The dream becomes a reality that we live in, floating in its surreal geography. Like how the young man gets lessons from philosophers about life, existentialism, reality and free will, Inception is an application of some of these ideas in action. What is free will? Does it really exist? Who controls what we think? Can an idea ever be original? Even if it’s planted in one’s head, can we be fooled to think that it’s “our” idea? According to one of Cobb’s associates, “the subject’s mind always traces the genesis of an idea. True inspiration is impossible to fake.” So who gets the real credit of an idea?

I know one thing for sure. Nolan’s genius is impossible to fake. With his execution of the most complicated mind games, it is a breathtaking experience to watch this film. Not once, not twice, but for as long as the totem spins. Lost in your dreams? You could be in danger. Because your mind is the seed of the crime.

L’Avventura

A 1960 Italian film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, L’Avventura at first sighting might seem to come across as a movie that one does not find very impressive.

The story is simple, that of a girl who disappears, and a search that yields nothing. The process of the search, however, results in another love story. The characters do not engage in anything very eventful at any given point of time. The purpose by which the film sets out to develop as, is lost when the character who has disappeared, and the search to find her yields no results. I wondered if we are too used to being fed with a resolution to every conflict in a film. Now what is it about this film that has made it reach iconic status?

The movie poses a challenge to its viewers by not giving an answer to the absence of the apparent central character, who was expected to be Anna. Every developing scene or conversation is linked to finding Anna and in our minds that is what the film needs to resolve in the end. The romance that develops between Claudia and Sandro is not only slightly shocking, but also secondary to the search to find Anna. However, Antonioni cleverly pushes us off balance by making it the film’s story itself. So does that make the film a love story?

We are not sure whether Sandro is really in love with Claudia. He is unable to say that he loves her with ease when she demands it. At a point of humor, he even says he doesn’t love her. That, I found as a subtle clue to his confused feeling. Does Claudia love him? This is highly doubtful too because she seemed to have simply gotten drawn to Sandro’s advances and was vulnerable to his strong persistence.

Sandro’s character is typical of the male ego. He is not only unaffected by Anna’s disappearance, but is also arrogant in his failure of becoming an architect. He intentionally spills ink over a young architect’s drawing. He doesn’t show interest in volunteering to seek Anna when they wanted to look for her at the other island. Yet, in the end, Sandro breaks down. That is his breaking point. Perhaps he too has a soft side to him, where he feels guilty of his actions. And also, maybe his way of dealing with Anna’s loss was by distracting himself with other thoughts. He immediately fancies Claudia, and claims his love for her, but somewhere I think he wanted to get close to her because she was Anna’s best friend and so mostly might be like her.

Claudia, I believe is the central character in the film, where the whole plot revolves around her. While she remains an observer sometimes, she also is the participant at other times. She, in a sense is the catalyst of all the unfolding events. For instance, it’s Claudia’s resistance to Sandro initially that makes him come onto her more forcefully. He follows her in the train to plead to her. It is she who is visibly affected by Anna’s disappearance prompting Sandro to continue the search for her. Claudia’s constant looking out of the window could be an indicator to her restlessness, her hope to find something. Yet she’s not sure of what she’s looking for. Perhaps for an answer to the complicated situation she was in? The window is quite metaphoric. It accounts for a mise-en-scene.

It is evident that the characters are lonely, and most scenes have a certain emptiness that is overwhelming. When the search for Anna is on, there is usually one character in a frame at a time, who are mostly looking or moving away from the camera. The conversations are disjointed and the vast expanse of land and rocks alienates the characters from each other and from the viewer.

I found the sound of the seashore important in many respects. During the search for Anna at the island, the waves hitting the rocks sounded harsh and foreboding. Towards the end of the film, we hear the sound of gentle waves of the sea as background, when Claudia and Sandro are at the open terrace together in a moment of uncertainty. The expanse of the sea conjures up in our mind, which evokes a sense of calm, yet haunting uneasiness.

The final scene is very crucial to the analysis of the film. The weight of her hand spoke what was to be communicated. Also, her hesitation to touch him was a moment of conflict, followed by a sure and steady touch of understanding. But how do we know that that touch meant so? She was not only consoling him, but herself, for everything that had happened till then, and in seeing Sandro break down, may have realized that the only way they could get through the pain was by forgiving and being there for each other.

I also found the last scene important for another reason. The fact that Sandro was sitting lumped down on the bench crying and Claudia standing next to him stamps a strong message. That of the power of the woman. The film not only carried women as the prime characters, with Anna, Claudia, Gloria, Patricia and Guilia who seemed to have men in their desirable arena, but also ended with Claudia having the say in the final act of redemption by Sandro.

It is to be said that Antonioni did experiment with the formula of a traditional plot and narrative structure, to create a new venture in cinematic expectations.

Shutter Island

Shutter Island comes as a mind numbing experience in the first viewing. It numbs you more, but with greater understanding, in the second. Directed by the legendary Martin Scorsese, it takes the viewers on a thrilling psychological roller coaster where suspense and drama loom large in its cinematic components. The film is based on Dennis Lehane’s 2003 book by the same name.

The music with which the film begins itself sets the tone of what’s to come. Ominous, dark and haunting. Three simple, yet shuddering beats. Shutter Island houses a mental institution where Edward “Teddy” Daniels (Leonardo Di Caprio) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) are sent to investigate the disappearance of a patient Rachel Solando. The only way to reach the island is by taking a ferry.

The investigators take on their job with full flurry, inspecting the room from where Rachel disappeared, talking to the nurse, and the other patients. A small note that she left gives scope for a puzzle to be solved, until Teddy is told by Dr. John Cawley (Ben Kingsley) that she is back and safe in her room. How strange. Why hadn’t they told him before? Kingsley delivers his actions flawlessly with forbidding charm.

Teddy (a very unlikely name in a such a forboding setting) has a past that haunts him and constantly disturbs his mental state. He starts getting headaches, tremors and hallucinations. He sees his dead wife in his dreams and gets nightmares of the war. Teddy doesn’t seem to have any idea of what he is getting into. There is a constant sense of an eerie mystery that engulfs the gothic setting. No one can escape the island. And Teddy is starting to feel like the victim.

The film is a mind game with intelligent character development. It introduces us to the characters at the beginning of the film, with the most normal format of a story. Each person’s role is defined systematically and their purpose on Shutter Island is laid out clearly. But with Teddy’s growing discomfort and isolation, we see a complex layering of plot advancement.

Teddy’s traumatic past feeds the undercurrent of the film, epitomizing the genre of film noir. It’s dark, it’s disturbing and it’s menacing. Kingsley exudes fear and intimidation. There is a sense of impending danger when he is around, a feeling of uneasiness. Teddy feels that the disappeared woman might be somewhere in a cave on the cliff. The terrain is tough and hazardous, with waves hitting on the rocks. How will they look for her? The challenging landscape with the mysterious occurrings lend to a fascinating watch.

The cinematography is stunning, with some astounding visuals. It’s not just a visual treat but a stimulation of the intellect as well. The questions that loom in our head are hard to fathom. I thought about how insanity is treated in our time and age. The references of how the patients are used for experiments cringed me. Are people really insane on their own terms? Isn’t every mental disturbance caused by an exterior source that may not necessarily be our fault? Are people forced into madness? Or more strongly, are we rendered insane by the world around us?

Continuing the thought about insanity, I am reminded of the film “ One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” where Jack Nicolson’s character is that of a rebel who wants to defy all power. He does not enter insane, but is made so by institutional propaganda. While Shutter Island may not as blatantly put across the power politics in the institution, Dr. John Cawley is not too far from Nurse Ratched’s unrelenting domination. The tyrant that she is, she defines the oppressive system under whose mercy are the patients. In Shutter Island, the rant by Dr. Rachel Solando, who Teddy finds in the cave is nothing but an enlightened talk about unimaginable brainwashing to create a world that in itself is delusional.

The connection between insanity and crime is brought out to educate us about how all our actions and resultant mental states are consequences of the life situations we need to deal with. Criminals are not born, but made. Made because of injustice. The patients at Shutter Island may be “dangerous” and most “violent” but in all their stories, we see how they only wanted justice. It’s a vicious cycle. The thin line that divides sanity and insanity almost doesn’t exist. Who defines sanity, if we all are criminals by propagating injustice? Does non-violence define stability of mind? These are the questions that Scorsese asks. It’s upto us to take away his suggestions. Or at least think about it.

Shutter Island is the work of a mastermind. It leaves you shaken and in wonderment at the end. Watch it for its compelling story, engaging plot, extraordinary visuals and ofcourse for Leonardo Di Caprio.

The Bicycle Thief

Bringing the spirit of Italian Neorealism alive, Vittorio De Sica created a masterpiece in 1948 that stands historic even today. The Bicycle thief starrs Lamberto Maggiorani and Enzo Staiolo as his son.

Unemployed, and desperately in need of work, Antonio is extremely happy when he is offered a job of pasting posters on the walls of the streets. The only condition is that he needs to have a bicycle. With his wife’s support, they sell their bedsheets to redeem their bicycle from the pawnbroker. Here we see how a man takes the bundle of bedsheets and goes up a towering wall of shelves to stack it with other bundles. So many bundles. So many people’s futures.

Unfortunately, Antonio’s bicycle gets stolen and we are taken on a journey with him across the streets and sounds of Rome, to find his bicycle. Here we see how the movie is structured episodically. Antonio goes to a theatre rehearsal to meet a trusted friend, who in his part time, works as an actor. He also sees the proceedings of a meeting where a communist leader is comforting the unemployed and gives them hope of finding jobs.

The father, son and their trusted friend head out to a bicycle market where all the bicycle parts are gathered and sold. The market is so vast and there are so many options that it’s impossible to locate their bicycle. The father and son team don’t give up hope. The father miraculously spots the thief in a distance and runs behind him to a brothel, and a fight ensues at the end of the chase. The father, in desperation, ends up stealing a bicycle himself. A very powerful ending.

De Sica’s use of non-actors worked wonders for the film. The character of Antonio, played by Lamberto who was a factory worker, brought out the realistic makeup of his character- one who is faced with life’s most difficult times. Post war, Italy was in shatters – economically and morally. We see the real conditions of the people who lived then, in poverty and desperation. When Antonio goes into the house of the accused, we are exposed to the living condition of the working class at that time. A bare minimal existence.

The father and son relationship is critical in the characterization of the two. They are two men on a mission. The child has clearly lost his childhood, and he is a little man, who needs to be able to meet life’s situations. There are several instances where we see the son is left to fend for himself while the father expects him to follow suit or simply be his equal partner. The little boy, however, is a child after all and we see this side of him come out in vulnerable situations, like when he cries when his father slaps him.

Vittorio shows religion in a matter-of-fact way. He seems to be non judgmental, but I find layers in his portrayal of it. He shows the Church having an overbearing control over the poor, who come for mass to get one square meal at the end of the sermon. The old man says “I sat through the service. I’m entitled to the soup.” So what happens to faith in God and the purpose of attending a sermon? Marx was right in saying “Religion is the opium of the masses”. How I see this statement come true in the film is, in two ways. One where the poor accept their miserable state and go to church for comfort and consolation. The other where people follow a faith unofficially – that of the fortuneteller. Their faith in her is blind, in spite of knowing what the outcome of meeting her might be.

It’s all a question of being a part of the system. A system of institutional control. Be it the Church, the police, the fortuneteller or the brothel. The brothel acts as the extreme opposite of the Church, yet ironically similar in its institutional functioning. Here, the services provided may not be considered “moral” but upholds its own standard of systemmatic control. The police again, will help you only if your problem is worth considering. A poor man’s bicycle falls as the least important. Antonio is sent away to look for it himself.

Antonio is a troublemaker in these settings because his behaviour is erratic. He is not “normal” because he broke the “peace” of the Church. They immediately want him out. But what crossed my mind is - who is more righteous? A man fighting to find his stolen bicycle or someone trying to exert power over the other for no miserable cause? Living in harmony with each other is only tolerated. These institutions contribute in creating an altruistic society.

The last scene, with its long takes, gives us a 360º view with a sweeping range of wide angles from different points of views. With the musical structure building, and the spatial design transforming to create a tense atmosphere with a conclusive theme music, the finale is no doubt, the most captivating scene in the film. The wide frame into which the father and son walk with the rest of the crowd is the most symbolic where we see the Director’s way of telling us that what we just witnessed is one story out of so many that happen everyday in the city of Rome.

The film beautifully depicts how desperation for a living can mean so much to someone in a particularly miserable state that it can push even the purest of men into crime. But who is left with a choice when living conditions are so hard, that one must not only fight to find a job, but also fight against all the unsocial elements that are out there to rob you of your happiness?

The movie reminded me of the Pursuit of Happyness, directed by Gabriele Muccino where Chris Gardner (played by Will Smith), questions the word Happiness. Why do we need to “pursue” it? Like it’s a constant battle to get it, the process which is the pursuit - a running after. Running after a thief who stole your most valuable possessions, or running the streets to reach a place on time. The film resembles The Bicycle thief in narrating the story of a father and a son, who are united in their mission of finding happiness. Like Antonio explains to his son, how happy they would be if they had the cycle and they could earn enough to eat and live well. Chris is in a similar battle against odds to prove himself and get through the route (the Pursuit) to find happiness.

The Bicycle Thief, more correctly The Bicycle Thieves is a narration of pushing the limits to find what matters most and how poverty leads to crime which only breeds more crime.

Watch it to understand the story of common man after the War, and his battle to come to terms with economic, social, political and moral systems of society.

Samson and Delilah

Samson and Delilah is an Australian film about two teenagers, who fall in love, and struggle together for survival. It stars Rowan Mc Namara and Marissa Gibson.

Two 14-year-old Aboriginal teenagers, Samson and Delilah live in a remote village, leading simple lives. Samson eyes Delilah, and constantly follows her. Although Delilah at first doesn’t fancy him, she finds herself staring at him when she sees him dance one night. With absolutely no verbal communication, he manages to get close to her once her grandmother dies, as he’s the only other person she knows around. They run away together in a stolen car. They never talk to each other.

The city is harsh. They find it difficult to survive, carrying nothing with them - no house to live in, no food to eat. They rely on a homeless man to give them food sometimes. We see instances where they care for each other. They work as a team when they need to steal from a supermarket. Delilah kisses him on the cheek to say thankyou out of affection. They only have each other.

The movie moves at almost zero talk between the two main characters. They look at each other, understand and live. Samson is addicted to the habit of sniffing petrol. It’s his only means of relaxation, a way to escape from what’s happening around him. Once they flee to the city, he gets so addicted that he can’t hear anything around him. He loses sense of sounds and actions. This detachment from the world happens to such an extent that he fails to notice when Delilah gets hit by a vehicle while she is walking behind him, or she gets picked up by three men in a car only to be raped later. The silence at those moments is deafening. It hits you like a thunderbolt.

What struck me the most about the movie is the haunting honesty with which the Director has shown the lives of the aborigines. With a lack of education, and a crude upbringing, we see how the two struggle to get food, and overcome day-to-day challenges of survival which is at its most difficult level for them in the city. They are looked as aliens from another planet, with great suspicion. What saddened me is that Australia with its rich culture from the Aboriginal community is used only to promote the country in terms of its arts and heritage. When Delilah buys chart paper and paints designs taught by her grandmother to sell it, she is completely ignored. When she steps into one of the stores that sell Aboriginal art, she is rudely sent back. Why do we “civilized” people live in such a farce? We open shops trying to use the works of the tribals to paint a pretty picture of the country and attract prospective buyers, but how many of us really care about them?

The film also brings out the traditions followed by the aborigines. Delilah cuts her hair after she discovers her grandmother dead. Samson does the same after he thinks he’s lost Delilah when she disappears.

Violence is part of their lives. Delilah is beaten up and accused for not taking care of her grandmother. She has no voice against her elders. Samson is beaten up by his own brother in retaliation to his assault of one of the band members who play outside his house. They get beaten up, get hurt and continue living. The film puts it simply. They accept it as a part of their lives.

When Samson and Delilah go to the city, they are treated no differently either. There may be no overt violence, but very open hostility from the city bred residents when they see them. Ironic, how the director has managed to show two sides of human hatred. On one side it’s brutal and physical, almost animal-like where emotions are laid bare with minimal verbal communication. On the other hand we see well-dressed, well-off people who may talk more and be more “literate”, nevertheless equally less inviting with hateful gestures and inconsiderate behaviour.

The music is rustic, and mostly in the background of what is playing in the village. The film is unhurried with its pace and takes us through brilliant visuals. The cinematography deserves special mention. The characters of Samson and Delilah steal the film’s thunder with perfect performances.

The name of the film, although seems to be disconnected to the Biblical characters, to me has a connection. In the film, Samson, unlike what legend has it, has no magical power or strength, but his strength lies in his desire for Delilah and how he goes about attaining her. She is a strong young women who knows how to go about life and follows Samson cautiously in the beginning, and then trusts him completely.

Love is a subject of debate. Because the two young people get entangled in the struggle for survival, sometimes we are not sure if they are capable of the emotions. They stick together, but some scenes with its stark brutality left me wondering. Do they have an option? They ended up together in the city, but their end once they reach there is to fend for themselves. Samson is devoid of feeling, especially when he gets lost in his world of sniffing. Delilah too, she returns everytime she disappears, but that’s because where else and who else will she go to? It’s more like a situation of wanting someone and also not having a better option to settle for something else. Hence, calling it a “love story” needs to be strongly contended.

Watch it for its numbing scenes, visual treat, honesty, innocence and hope. Hope to live and beat all the odds.

Wall-E

From the Director of Finding Nemo, comes another heart-warming animated film Wall-E, the story of a robot and a dying earth. Director Andrew Stanton did complete justice to his concept with mind-blowing computer animation. Despite the robots not having actual human voices, but communicating only with body language and robotic sounds, the film has managed to convery its message quite strongly.

Wall-E is designed to clean up waste covered Earth far in the future. He is a small machine with wheels who scoops up garbage, shoves it in his belly to compress it into a cube and piles it up neatly in stacks. Year 2105 has bore the brunt of the rule of Buy and Large (BnL) Megacorporation which caused mass consumerism, covering the Earth with trash, leaving no clean space for humans to live. To resolve the problem, BnL created an army of trash compactor robots Wall-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth Class) and evacuated all humans into space in a luxury star liner, “The Axiom”. Since the plan largely failed, humans had to live in space indefinitely, leaving a lone robot Wall-E cleaning all the trash. In the Axiom, the humans live with the help of machines - only.

Wall-E the lone robot, collects interesting things he finds in the trash and keeps himself alive by re-using the spare parts of other robots long gone. He has his own charming place to live, with all his treasures, and a TV that plays songs. He understands primate feelings such as love watching the gestures on TV. He is lonely, and keeps himself busy with his “work” and his close friend - a cockroach who he tames as his loyal assistant. Wall-E is almost human. Especially when he falls in love.

Eve is a delightful beauty Wall-E is enamoured by. She comes in a spaceship to Earth and Wall-E is simply smitten. The visuals are stunning. They introduce themselves with their names and nothing else and throughout the movie, they communicate only with the sounds of their names and expressions. There is no spoken dialogue between them. This makes the film so universal, especially with its planetary theme.

Lovelorn Wall-E follows Eve all the way back to space and enters a whole new world. We see people cruising on luxury seats, eating, talking and making merry. They are all fat and ugly and don’t walk. The machines do all the work for them, right from getting ready in the morning to transporting them around the “ship” for various other chores. They sip on a soft drink and are paralyzed on their chairs, completely dependent on their robots.

I recently watched the documentary “Super Size Me”, and simply cannot deny a similarity. While in Wall-E the director has gone a step ahead and shown us beautifully what could possibly happen to our world in the future, Super Size Me does not stay too far from the perception of the people shown in the Axiom. Supersizing everything around us, starting from ourselves, with supersized burgers, and cars and houses and buildings and machines to rule our lives, we simply become fat, lazy gluttons. Not to exaggerate it, but America is the fattest country in the world, and also incidentally one of the most developed. So what could be the deduction? Development is directly proportional to destruction? Possibly so.

The people living in the Axiom are excessively dependent on machines for their existence, with an air tv, air palm trees, an artificial beach, an umbrella shade that walks and opens when needed, with robots doing them up with make up and spa treatment, and with machines that help them brush their teeth and get dressed. Ironically, with the kind of lifestyles we have, we too are getting increasingly dependent on machines to live comfortably. It's interesting to note how our thoughts have evolved to deliberate visually and animatedly about the big debate - Man v/s Machines. Who will win the battle? Does the Captain of the spaceship have the power to rule over the machine who rules his life? We see this starkly when the captain struggles to overpower his robots who prevent him from going back to Earth. He has to learn how to walk! His only hope is the little green plant that Wall-E brings to space, which will allow them to live on Earth again.

Andrew Stanton, in his attempt to create a visual masterpiece, has succeeded in also teaching us an important lesson. If we don’t buckle up and try and save our planet by reducing wastes and avoiding products that are harmful to our environment, we are in for big trouble. We may find the consequences of our deeds too far away from our generation, but someday we need to take a step and give our trees a chance to let us live in dignity. Consumerism is taking away our right to live responsibly. The spaceship will rule us soon. That little speck of green will save our lives.

Watch it for its meaningful story, its lesson, its animation and most of all for Wall-E, for his adoring eyes and most human gestures, who in the end is our savior. He is our metaphor for change.