Lincoln: Honest Abe's finest hour

Lincoln (dir: Steven Spielberg, Written by: Tony Kushner, cinematography: Janusz Kaminski, music: John Williams)

The British liberal newspaper Guardian once carried a series on great speeches of the twentieth century and provided free samples of some of the greatest speeches.  Thus there were samples of Jawaharlal's Nehru's speech at the time of Indian independence, John F.Kennedy's inaugural speech, FDR's rousing dismissal of fear and my personal favorite, the beautiful cadences of Martin Luther King Jr. as he laid bare the darkness at the centre of the American soul.  Listening to these I used to think of how it would have been to listen to Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg speech, which of course predated the invention of recording devices.  In Spielberg's latest, I was hoping for a reprise of the speech by Daniel Day Lewis.  Alas I was disappointed and thrilled in equal measure.  Spielberg gets Lewis to declaim only part of the speech towards the end; better still he gets Union soldiers, black and white, to recite portions of the speech in front of Lewis's Lincoln.  That is a genuine goose pimple moment.  Of course, there is an element of cinematic conceit here.  The Gettysburg speech was not so famous that people were repeating it to one other within two years.  Indeed, only in the early twentieth century was the speech canonized, so to speak. Much like we don't know which of Obama's speeches are his best, Lincoln's contemporaries must have had a full house to choose from.  

That is not the only conceit of the movie.  The entire plot is an artifact, so to speak.  It revolves not around the civil war or Lincoln's struggles but the efforts mounted to pass the Thirteenth Amendment that made slavery illegal.  While the Amendment created history, Lincoln's biographers typically do not spend too much time dwelling on the way the Amendment was passed.  It may be that Lincoln was not directly involved in the passage. He may have left it to the devices of his Secretary of State (and rival) William Seward or that lion of the Congress, Thaddeus Stevens.  But it is tempting to believe that Honest Abe used a few dirty tricks to round up enough votes for the passage. For it required two-thirds majority, which was beyond the strength of Republicans in the House, not to mention the divisions between conservative and radical factions within the party.  It is also delicious to think of ways in which a President can get one over a recalcitrant Congress and an obstructionist opposition party.  How topical can a movie about a nineteenth century President get? I can imagine all these and other reasons persuading Spielberg to make his Lincoln a movie about Congressional drama, about the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. As AO Scott notes in NYT, Lincoln is more a civics lesson than a biopic, but none the worse for it.

The result is that we get to see glimpses from the personal and official life of Lincoln in the final four months of his life. And what glorious glimpses.  Much like one identifies Ben Kingsley with Gandhi, so does one come out convinced about Lewis's Lincoln. He stoops, shuffles, cracks jokes, pounds tables, reasons with his wife, plots and commits borderline illegal activities, much as the real life Abe must have done.  The portrait is of a masterful politician who gets the right things done even a she fights the demons in his family life.  Daniel Day Lewis, take a bow. The Academy award is a mere formality.

The other stand out performance is that of Tommy Lee Jones, who really enjoys himself as the acid tongued Thaddeus Stevens. Stevens was an ardent abolitionist and he went farther than any politician was prepared to go in the nineteenth century, Lincoln included. He was of the view that the South should be treated as enemy occupied territory and Reconstruction must include harsh terms.  Alas, his views did not prevail.  Who knows, maybe the horrors of Jim Crow and segregation would have been nipped in the bud if Stevens' views had prevailed.  In the movie, Stevens has to curb his enthusiasm and conceal the extent of his regard for the oppressed slaves.  Otherwise, any ill-timed remarks would have alarmed the moderates and made it impossible to get the required votes. If this is a portrayal of a restrained Stevens, I would love to see the unrestrained one.  Still the way Stevens corrals the vote of a Congressman who has lost the elections, but can be renominated, is pure gold.

One of the joys of watching old movies like The Maltese Falcon or Casablanca is to identify supporting actors (or what we call character artistes in Tamil cinema) like Sydney Greenstreet or Peter Lorre. In Lincoln we get such highs  from spotting James Spader and Hal Holbrook.  Holbrook has of course delighted us in 'All the President's Men' and 'Wall Street'. Here he almost derails Lincoln's plans before seeing sense.  James Spader plays the leader of the dirty tricks gang which goes about rounding up the required votes.  Special mention also to David Strathairn who plays William Seward.

A great movie is one which lingers in our memory for many hours after we watch it.  Great performances are those that leave us pining for more. Lincoln scores on both fronts.  It is a movie for our times but also one for the ages, much like its inspiration.

He who must not be named

Ramachandra Guha is India's foremost intellectual.  His 'India After Gandhi' is a must for anyone interested in understanding the post-independence evolution of Indian politics, economy and society.  Apart from being an erudite scholar, Guha is an ardent liberal and he wears his liberalism on his sleeve. So whenever he writes columns it pays to take notice.

His The Man who would rule India published in The Hindu is an interesting and thought provoking article which questions Dear Leader's suitability for becoming PM. Of course, technically anybody can aspire to be PM. But given the steady degradation of democratic institutions and principles in India, all right minded people should stay vigilant and hold up to thorough scrutiny the credentials of contenders for the PM post.

I used to think that the idea of Dear Leader being a contender for PM itself would be controversial and a non starter. But like arsenic poisoning the idea has seeped into the body politic. Love him or hate him, he is a master manipulator when it comes to PR.  So now liberals are left with no choice but to engage with the idea on a serious level and try and knock down the man's credentials.  I think Guha has made a good start punching holes in the Gujarat model as well as raising serious questions about the Dear Leader's commitment to democracy.

Of course, the usual foaming keyboard warriors have descended in full force on Hindu's message board (indeed the speed and volume of responses whenever there is an article on Dear Leader in any website is a site to behold; there does appear to be something fishy about such an 'organised' response). What was of interest to me more than such noise is to use such opinion pieces to learn how the idea of Dear Leader as PM is playing out. To be sure, there is a vocal minority supporting him , largely cancelled out by a minority opposing him. But the attitude of the silent majority in the middle is what matters. It is clear to me that absent a wave election, Dear Leader will not be able to become PM or serve as an effective one.  And the silent majority will decide whether there is a wave or not.  My own anecdotal experience (based on an unscientific sample size) is that silent majority have very short term memory. So, many of them will be reacting to the corruption scandals, government high handedness and economic slowdown rather than threats to communal harmony.  Thus the Dear Leader does seem to have a fair shot at the coveted chair if he continues to project himself as the last action hero.

One can only hope that thoughtful views like Guha's resonates with the silent majority.  India has been indebted to Gujarat for its freedom and unity. It will indeed be an unfortunate irony if the same state contributes to the collapse of democracy and secularism in India.

Viswaroop - Incomplete Roop (spoilers)

Viswaroop (dir: Kamal Haasan, story: Kamal Haasan, screenplay: Kamal Haasan, music: Shankar Ehsaan Loy, cinematography: Sanu Varghese)

Note: Because of the nonsense in TN, I was forced to watch the hindi version.

Viswaroop is inspired by the hollywood spy thriller genre and Kamal deserves lot of credit for recreating that type of movie for what is essentially a regional market.  Viswanath alias Wizam (Kamal) is a secret service agent who lives in New York with his wife Nirupama who works as a Nuclear oncologist.  Wizam and his fellow agents are about to uncover a secret plan by a group of terrorists to attack New York, when matters are precipitated by the terrorists accidentally capturing Viswa and Nirupama.  How Viswa morphs into Wizam and whether they foil the plot forms the rest of the movie, along with long flashbacks of Wizam and Omar, the leader of the terrorists.

First of all, this movie seems to be behind times by 7-8 years. I read that Kamal has been living with this story for this period and had to wait this long for the economics to work out. This is a shame. Because fact has proven to be stranger than fiction as far as international terrorism is concerned.   Hopefully, the heydays of terrorism are behind us with the death of OBL.  It cannot be a co incidence that Al Qaeda affiliated fighters are trying desperately to establish a beachhead in sub-Saharan Africa.  They are on the run, make no mistake. So it is difficult to believe that the kind of plot shown in the movie can come so close to fruition, in the current scenario. Hence the movie seems behind times.  That apart, the science of the plot reeks of plausibility and hats off to the writer for that.

The other issue is that in the Afghanistan portion of the movie, there is an attempt to portray Wizam as a empathising human.  The standard trope in spy genre is to portray the spy as a cynical man (who does the right thing at the end). Kamal may have genuinely wanted to move away from this but I can't help thinking that this is a case of Kamal the actor triumphing over the instincts of Kamal the writer.  I think the audience is mature enough (and well versed in rights and wrongs of terrorism in Afghanistan) to make their won judgement. We don't need Kamal doing his typical punnagai mannan type facial contortions to spoon feed us the obvious.

I realise that this is an incomplete movie.  There is a second part (60-70% already shot?) which will hopefully cover some of the gaps in the first movie. For example, what is a RAW agent doing in New York when his own country is under attack back home? I know that RAW is into external espionage but surely their work has to contribute to combating terrorism in India? From the teaser at the end it looks like that's what the second movie will tackle. But even if it is incomplete, since it has been released as  stand alone movie, it has to be judged so.

So my biggest quibble with the movie is that by the end the tension doesn't build up and the ending is quite tame. This is a big weakness when the movie is purported to be in the spy thriller genre. We have spies all over but very little thrill by the end.

Still, I will say kudos to Kamal for the vision and execution,  The first 30 minutes are absolutely spell binding. The scene in the end where Wizam conceals the gun in his hand as he walks is just a jaw dropping moment for me. Such a small detail and done with such precision.  And well done for relegating songs to the background except for the beautiful kathak number.

What of the controversies? I don't know. It is informative that the movie faced protests only in TN and din't elicit a peep in other places such as Mumbai.  It is possible that the way the terrorists are depicted may have caused offence but then when so many english movies are made on such subjects why protest against a Tamil movie alone? Because it is an easy target? Also isn't Wizam also from the same religion?

My bigger issue with all such incidents  is that such occurrences are possible only when the concerned government refuses to enforce the rule of law. Whether it is a protest against an art form or a protest against women going to pubs, if the government of the day is firm such intolerance can be nipped in the bud. It is sad that tools of democracy are used to facilitate mobocracy.

Kadal - Review

Kadal (dir: Mani Ratnam, story: Jeyamohan, screenplay: Mani Ratnam and Jeyamohan, music: AR Rehman, cinematography: Rajiv Menon)
Kadal, Mani Ratnam's latest venture is nothing like any of his earlier films. Of course, the universal good vs evil (nallavana, kettavana) theme which permeates Mani's films takes centre stage here also. But instead of showing us the varying shades in one individual's character, Kadal's premise is framed as the difference between God and devil. Or to be precise, the choice between God's path and Devil's path. Thus, an engrossing philosophical question is told in the backdrop of Christian theology. Kadal is thus Mani's first foray into spiritualism as well as his first in a village milieu. Sam (Arvind Swamy), a man of the cloth espouses God's path while Bergmans (Arjun), an opportunist, swears by the devil. Being alter egos, Sam and Bergmans cannot keep out of each other's lives. In the middle portion of the movie, Sam takes an orphan Thomas (Gautam, debut) under his wing and tries to instill a purpose in his life. Gautam finds that purpose in the form of Beatrice (Thulasi, debut) a nursing student, who is emotionally stunted. When Bergmans settles an old score with Sam, Thomas tips into the other side. Whether Sam and Beatrice are able to make him see the light and whether Sam and Bergmans achieve closure to their tussle forms rest of the story.

For a die-hard Mani fan like me the usual tropes are there. A memorable child actor (Mani always has a way with kids), presence of rain at important moments, lilting songs shot in variety of ways, the impish romance between Thomas and Beatrice, some superb camera work and editing and most important an authentic flavor. Also interesting was Mani's take on how two children react differently to trauma. Both Thomas and Beatrice have life altering experiences when young.

Still some things are not the same or are missing. Maybe I am becoming old or Mani is. Because I wasn't able to muster any enthusiasm for those songs picturised as dance numbers (Elay keechan, Adiye). I longed for the songs to be shot as montage or to be chopped up. I was thrilled to see Mani use Nenjukkulle to move the narrative forward with dialogues interspersing the lyric. I would have preferred not to have couple of songs if they impede the narration. That time could have been used to flesh out the characters, to add more punchier dialogues. Dialogues have been a hit and miss in Mani's movies. He could come up with great one-liners. He could also let the language flow like in Iruvar. But usually in his movies, Mani follows the 'less is more' maxim when it comes to dialogues. This was taken to extreme lengths in Thalapathi, leading to innumerable spoofs in subsequent years. Mani's aversion to verbiage is a reaction to tamil movies of yore, many of which were nothing but stage plays captured on camera. But there is a reason great drama relies on dialogues right from the classical dramas of Greeks. Words have power and words can sway. Particularly in a good vs evil premise that is being played out as drama (as opposed to action), the audience is very much playing out the debate in their minds. Without a satisfying argument or counter, the viewer is left hanging in Kadal. Many a time, Mani sets up the stage for a interesting argument or clash of ideas and then rushes through the shots. Thus when we try to rationalize some of the actions taken by the characters, we find it all on shaky ground. The twist in the plot as well as the denouement are predictable. Nothing wrong there. But by the end, with so much of the edifice built on shaky ground, the climax ends up being way less powerful than demanded by a story like this. At the end, I felt cheated. And being cheated is not how I wanted to feel after watching Mani.

Among the performances, Arjun steals the scenes. He has so much fun being evil personified that we half expect him to declare that he is the Devil himself. Gautam is competent on his debut. He sure has a future and his debut stands out in comparison with the other star son of recent times (Vikram Prabhu in Kumki). Arvind Swamy finally comes to grips playing a priest this time around compared to the climax scene in Minsara Kanavu. Rajiv Menon must have used filters to play around with the colours but the result in enjoyable. Rehman as usual reserves his best for Mani.

While watching the romance between Thomas and Beatrice in the movie, I longed for Mani to return to his strength, the urban romance, something which Gautam Vasudev Menon has mined to great effect of late. But then I remembered something Mani said in his 'Conversations' book with Baradwaj Rangan. He always tries to move on from his previous film(s) and tries not to repeat himself. Kadal represents a new beginning for him as he collaborated with noted Tamil litterateur Jeyamohan. I have not read Jeyamohan but there is no doubt that his story (a novel written specifically for this project) was good enough to persuade Mani to attempt a difficult subject. Jeyamohan's authority and Mani's nose for perfection must have contributed to the authentic fishing village and dialect in Kadal. Word has it that Mani and Jeyamohan are going to collaborate on another movie. As someone who always felt that tamil directors don't do enough adaptations, I welcome it. Despite my evident disappointments, I still enjoyed Kadal. To paraphrase Ed Moses, Mani's disappointing ventures are worth our time more than the best efforts of many other directors.

Update: One word about the reviews found in news papers/internet. I find a lot of comment has been made about how the fishing village dialect in the movie is difficult to follow. I didn't find any difficulty in following the dialogues. It says something about the times we are living in that a tamil movie with minimal english dialogues is immediately tagged as difficult to understand.