Water

Toronto-based Indian director Deepa Mehta has always been humble about the impact her movies may have on Indian society, but I doubt few people could have walked out of her newest movie Water without feeling moved.

Set in the 1930s against the backdrop of Ghandi’s struggle to free India from British colonial rule, the film explores a topic that is Mehta’s favorite and has always been close to her heart – unfair treatment of women in a men-dominated society. In Water, Mehta shows us a group of widows forced to live in an ashram (an Indian widow house). With three central characters at different stages of widowhood, Mehta draws a poetically touching and heartbreakingly beautiful picture on a broad canvas. Mehta and cinematographer Giles Nuttgens infuse the movie with bright colors and sumptuous lights to display a country that is surreally gorgeous with some hidden ugliness underneath the surface. Even though the story tells of a human tragedy, Mehta and Nuttgens constantly show us a human spirit that is impossible to be stifled. These widows may be ostracized by society, but they have formed close friendships among themselves and tried to enjoy the little pleasures life has to offer them. In all the running scenes, Nuttgens’s dizzying camera movements make the audience feel like they were running with the characters and there is a sense of exhilarating freedom in those motions.

In the movie, Chuyia (played by Sarala) is a newly widowed child. Even though she is not quite 10 years old and does not even remember getting married, her husband’s death has made her a widow, a term she only vaguely understands. Sarala plays Chuyia with a fiery attitude and child innocence. Her Chuyia is a playful, stubborn and sweet little girl forced to grow up fast. The widow whom Chuyia enjoys playing with is Kalyani (played by Lisa Ray), a beautiful young widow coerced into prostitution to support the ashram. Ray may be one of the most beautiful actresses in modern cinema and her Kalyani is so stunningly ravishing that a simple look or smile could easily break the audience’s heart. Although Kalyani is uneducated and sells her body for a living, Ray gives her dignity and nobility far above those “gentry” she serves. However, what touches me the most is Seema Biswas’ Shakuntala, the rock among all the widows. Shakuntala is a devout middle-aged widow who accepts her fate dutifully. She helps the head widow run the ashram with a fair hand, but all the unfairness around her compels her to question her faith. Biswas imbues Shakuntala with her quiet but strong presence; she invests the character with real emotions and superb acting skills.

Although Water is not from Bollywood mass product line, there are moments of Bollywood in the movie. The entire love story between Kalyani and her suitor Narayan (played by John Abraham) is very Bollywood-ish – the boy and the girl fall in love at first sight, and they are also unbelievably photogenic on screen. Almost all the musical numbers in the movie have to do with Kalyani and Narayan’s courtship. Mehta smartly chooses not to do usual Bollywood song-and-dance number; instead all the songs are played in the background while characters simply move to the rhythm of the music with help of editing rather than doing any real dancing. It gives the movie a more realistically romantic ambience. Mychael Danna’s haunting music score runs through the entire movie, but it is not intruding and does not overwhelm the storytelling.

Mehta said in interviews that she is someone who lives for making movies, not preaching messages; however, her movie speaks loudly for itself through the story and images. Even though the movie is about the widows almost 70 years ago, Mehta still faced stiff resistance and protests from religious extremists and was forced to film the entire movie in Sri Lanka. In the movie, the widows constantly use water to cleanse their bodies and sins, but it begs us to question who may really need to wash away their sins. In interviews, Mehta expressed that “the idea of ‘Water’ isn’t for you to feel sorry for someone halfway across the world. It’s for you to look in your own backyard.” Water has certainly succeeded in making me do so.

With Water, Mehta has completed her Fire-Earth-Water trilogy. After watching Water, I cannot wait to check out both Fire and Earth.

Thank You for Smoking

It is always hard to adapt a nearly 300-page book into a 90-minute movie, but Jason Reitman has done a fairly good job in his feature directorial debut. Based on Christopher Buckley’s 1994 novel, Thank You for Smoking is a satirical comedy that does not merely poke fun at Big Tobacco companies.

In Buckley’s original novel, he takes a humorous stab at corporate domination, lobbyist politics and even our talk show culture. In the book, Buckley introduced the famous “yuppie Nuremberg defense” – everyone has to pay his mortgage and that justifies whatever he chooses to do for a living.

In order for the movie not to run 3 hours, Reitman apparently has to omit quite a bit from the book, but he has kept most of the book’s farcical tone intact. Here is what I like about this movie adaptation:

1) When possible, Reitman has not changed the book’s sharp dialogue. Since the book is already a dozen years old, Reitman put some current references in the dialogue to make it more relevant to contemporary audience.

2) Reitman has chosen a solid bunch of actors to fill up the myriad adult roles in this movie (The only miscast is probably Adam Brody. His Jack is far from the smooth and seasoned Jack in the book I envisioned). Even though most actors only have a few scenes in the movie, their presence and performance add substance to their characters and the film in general.

3) Boy, am I glad that it takes almost 12 years for this book to be made into a movie. I don’t see anyone but Aaron Eckhart to play the central character, Big Tobacco’s chief spokesman, Nick Naylor. Eckhart appears in almost every shot and he is completely in his environment, working both the movie and fictitious media cameras like a pro. Eckhart first got noticed by playing a sadistic sexist pig in Neil LaBute’s In the Company of Men (by the way, it is a great movie and definitely worth seeing on DVD). Afterwards he has appeared in a number of movies playing a diverse group of characters, but he is always best at depicting morally ambiguous characters that look like Captain America. In this particular movie, Eckhart exudes a genuine cockiness from beginning to end. Nothing could keep Naylor down for long and he could always talk his way out of any possible embarrassment or humiliation.

In Buckley’s book, Oprah and Larry King were as much a character as all the other fictional ones. However, I guess Oprah and King are not willing to parody themselves on screen; Reitman has to use talk show has-beens Joan Lunden and Dennis Miller to do the job. It would undoubtedly be more interesting if Oprah and King had joined in the fun.

As a fan of the book, I think Reitman has committed one major sin by largely expanding the role of Naylor’s son, Joey. In the book, Joey is a very minor character and mainly used to solidify Naylor’s “Nuremberg defense” (he has to support his son in a very expensive DC private school) and also to expose some hypocrisy in our society. (In the book, the private school’s principal does not approve Naylor’s profession, but when it comes to fundraising, he has no qualm asking Tobacco Institute to help raise funds for school.) By having Joey frequently tag along with Naylor, it seems that Reitman wants to make Naylor more sympathetic and morally conflicted to the audience. I don’t think Buckley wrote Naylor with sympathy in his mind. His Naylor grips our attention because he is an identifiable man and does not come on a moral high horse from some other planet. He uses “yuppie Nuremberg defense” to answer all the questions posed by reporters, but deep down he takes extreme pride in what he does. He truly believes what he preaches to his son – it is not important what is right or wrong, it is important that you argue correctly. For him, it is a challenge to argue convincingly for a cause that most people despise, and he enjoys challenges. In Buckley’s book, putting aside all the absurdities in our society, he also showed that what makes America great is that we agree to disagree and we allow anyone to voice his/her opinion no matter how unpopular that may be.

By making the movie more compact, Reitman has opted to almost completely cut the second plot line in the book. Besides being a satire, the book is also a whodunit mystery. About half of the book is devoted to Naylor’s kidnapping plot. I think Reitman is smart to trim this subplot from the movie, but it has invariably affected the climax in the end.

In the midst of Jack Abramoff scandal, the timing for this movie couldn’t be better. Undeniably, we live in a world of spin. Spinmasters like Naylor have charmed us more than once.

Mission: Impossible III

With the release of Mission: Impossible III, summer blockbuster season has officially started.

For “I hate blockbuster” types, M:i:III reinforces everything that is wrong with the genre; for those pure thrill seekers, the verdict is still out there whether it provides enough excitement in this “anything is possible on screen” age. In this third installment of M:i, IMF (don’t confuse it with International Monetary Fund, here it stands for Impossible Mission Force) agent Ethan Hunt (played by Tom Cruise) is forced back into action to fight with a merciless baddie Owen (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman). M:i franchise has clearly become America’s answer to British James Bond with Hunt clearly holding moral superiority. Hunt is just as capable to get out of any impossible situation as Bond, but unlike Bond, Hunt does not play the field. In this movie, Hunt actually tries to have a normal life and become a family man. Of course, his plan goes horribly awry.

Director J.J. Abrams, mastermind behind such popular TV series as Alias and Lost, did not bring any originality to this third installment. Sequels and remakes can be fun, if they are done with some style and wit, but M:i:III lacks both. The only realization I had after the movie is how much Cruise and Hong Kong superstar Jackie Chan are alike. Not only have they been playing action figures for decades, but their characters have also not aged over the years. Even though both stars are in their middle age now, their characters have not matured with them. On screen both stars have even tried to stay young appearance-wise. They are apparently very comfortable being stars rather than being actors.

M:i:III boasts a stellar international cast and even scores an Oscar winner as the super villain, but the script has little room for serious acting and nobody outshines the special effects in the movie.

After watching M:i:III, I am afraid it is going to be a long summer indeed.

Alfie (on DVD)

2004’s Alfie is not a bad movie; its topic simply feels obsolete in this day and age. The original 1966 Alfie came out at the height of sexual revolution and garnered 5 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Michael Caine. In the remake, Alfie is still a diehard womanizer living life of pleasures without much consideration for any consequences. He is not much different from the old Alfie, but he lacks the freshness the original one must have generated during the 60s. As if worried that the audience won’t be able to understand Alfie by watching his actions, director Charles Shyer has an annoying habit to display Alfie’s emotional states either on posters in his room or in graffiti around New York City. The Alfie remake had intended to be a star vehicle for Jude Law and Law was born to play this part. His Alfie is absolutely a cad, but an incredibly charming cad with an irresistible smile.