"The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around and what do you see? Businessmen, Teachers, Lawyers, Carpenters...the very minds of the people we're trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system, and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so innerred, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it." ~ Morpheus.
Neo: What truth?
Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born inside a prison that you cannot smell, taste, or touch. A prison for your mind. Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself...." Matrix
~
For a writing piece titled "bubble" and starting with a quote from Matrix, you must be wondering what this is all about. This piece is happening as it is, now, in an effort to try this writing as a post-regression therapy to spit out the 'tiredness' post watching 'Mumbai Police'. Some part of me feels , "the bubble burst"! What is that bubble? It has multi-facets to it. I will go through it through out this piece.
In my entire upbringing, the portion which deals with gender roles in the society levitates towards the traditional. For me, it gives me security, (though more often I have not experienced it), security to think, there is a man in the house. Then there is matter of sexuality in itself. I live in contemporary world and the movements, notions etc, of 'coming out', 'expressing freedom' of one's own sexual identity is all around me. Yet, having lived all my life in a small town in a very small part of the world i am not used to seeing 'men being with men' or 'women being women'. Now speaking of the movie in this context, the rather indelicately delivered, intimate scenes (though not steamy by any quotient) shook my neat little world!
Or let me think a little more on it....
It could have been two things:
- The movie did not deliver a visceral analogy of sexual identities. Nor was it catering to the intellect. Yet it was there, delivered as a direction of unrest which does exist out there.
- Secondly it is just personal, it is like a shock when you see something for the first time. It is so out there, yet you can not identify,nor know what it means to you, like meeting an alien may be. I guess I have every right to pass out!!!
I am writing on and on about just one aspect of the movie. I wanted to get the worst, most confusing part out first. At no point, need the reader wonder if it is a movie review. It is not. I want to spit the movie out of me. So that I can live on to a better movie experience. "Better" is purely relative and subjective. About the performances, this is the best yet from Prithviraj. Not that it is most impressive. Then again, one can remind me that is not world cinema nor does it want to make it to the 'Classics' list. So in the genre that it caters to, all the performances wins.
I liked the man who played the Fort Cochin, goon. There is potential there. But one of the most experienced of the cast, Rahman did not play tenderness well. Nor edginess, nor tautness. Does he try? Oh yeah!
Jayasoorya? Sadly the man can't escape himself! Yet does he pass? He does! There is wishlist with respect to his performance. But that can wait.
In the larger scheme of things, the movie engages your time, your body. You do not want to leave the seat unless you know what this inane drama is about.
It does not engage your mind. Certainly not your heart.
When "Aryan's" fiance shows his last recorded video to his best friend, there is nothing that you feel, not pain, not vacuum!
Everywhere in the movie it is the same. No pain, no revulsion, no vacuum. Consequently you do not follow the stories' emotional thread, for the sake of the characters, to know, "Who, why, and for what reason was Aryan killed". There are so many details that has been layered to bring out a complexity in the plot, it wins in places, majorly looses in others and leaves you feeling confused and mindless, and just wanting to know, "Who killed this man" so that you can get out of the nagging ill feeling of having stepped into a street brawl you did not want to be a part of!
Casting could have been better. Naren could have well played the role of Rahman. Jayasoorya could have been replaced. (I can think of many people who could have done a better job).
Then there were too many characters in the movie. There needn't have been elaborate visual portrayal of Aryan's family consisting of all the x's, y's and z's in the family tree. That jutted out, like an unwanted limp on the wrong side of your body!
The visual plushness depicted to bring out the upper class lifestyle of Aryan's family, rather the deliberate portrayal of it, reeked of cliches!
So by now I am thinking of sparing Bobby and Sanjay and a conversation on their screenplay.That does not fully mean,"the least said the better"! But just that this is not their best or something they can stand tall on! To end this therapy, in all its viciousness, there are a number of items on my wishlist with respect to the movie:
- That I had not watched it in the first place.
- In the event of having watched it, I wish for the movie to have had lesser number of people in it, deeper portrayal of how the characters of Aryan, Antony and Farhan bonded intensely.
- I wish that the emotional thread to have been stronger. It is suggested that Antony and his sister Annie grew up alone. It is suggested that Farhan and Annie has a very strong bond. It is suggested that Antony and Farhan has a very thick friendship. Then there is Antony's lover. Antony and his haters. Antony and Aryan. It is all suggested through dialogues. But sadly there are no emotional sub-texts in performances nor screenplay, that takes you along these relationships. It leaves you feeling strained. Because the emotional upheavals people go through in all these similar situations in real life is unfathomable.
- I wish it made me think of our intellectual and emotional bondage. Like Morpheus tells Neo: "Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born inside a prison that you cannot smell, taste, or touch. A prison for your mind. Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself..."
- I wish it made me think of the how world today places sexual identity, sexual expression, gender roles, etc. I wish it made me reflect on how sexual identities emboldens because one is 'normal' and yet to some it 'terrorizes' because it is not 'normal'.
- I wish it had been more delicate and more succinct when it to came saying what it wanted to say, because years later, it is the first Malayalam mass movie to have had the lead actor portraying a gay man.
Then again, I repeat here, though it is not a feel good movie it does cater to the audience it caters. It is a mass movie. It is not a movie with a message. I need not go looking for it there. Yet, for having written this, I feel at peace. For what it is worth, I hope the sub-text of sexual identity does not steal away the plot the next time a Malayalam movie director ventures out there.
So what happened to the bubble? It burst!
The bubble did burst for Malayalam cinema.
Not in the best possible way, not in the best desired way.
Yet, here is a new notion for everyone to wonder at, worry, debate etc.
And in this moment, I think Prithviraj has daring. But not too much of it also. None of us dare enough probably, to soar ! But that is totally out of line right here, right now.
It is all about this system.. to end where I started..
In between, I loved Matrix!
Until later, ciao
