Mother India (1957)

Mother India, the film, was the end result of a successful campaign by director Mehboob Khan to reclaim the title "Mother India" from the clutches of American author Katherine Mayo's critical work on Indian culture and society titled 'Mother India', released in 1927. Mayo's book was a scathing critique of India and its people and values and was intended to justify why Indians were not capable of self-rule at a time when all of India was firing and gearing up for freedom from British rule, which would happen 20 years later. Mahatma Gandhi called Mayo's a book, "report of a drain inspector sent out with the one purpose of opening and examining the drains of the country to be reported upon"

Soon after the independence of India in 1947, Mehboob Khan who had been intent on establishing right  Indian values on the big screen started work on remaking his own 1940 film, Aurat, by buying the production rights from the original production company. He intentionally called his film Mother India as a challenge to Mayo's work, in an attempt to eradicate the presence of Mayo's work from minds and history. An ethical or reverse astroturfing attempt that was a great success. If you google Mother India first several pages of search results are all related to Mother India, the movie or Yelp reviews of Mother India restaurants in various parts of the globe which are all Indian restaurants named paying homage to the iconic movie. Khan's Mother India was also influenced by movies based on Pearl S Buck novels - The Mother (1934) and The Good Earth (1931) and Russian films like Mother (1926) and Our Daily Bread (1934.)

The nationalistic pride of the new democratic nation is upheld high by the socialist and constructivist stylization of the movie. The iconic poster of Mother India with bold upward angles where the lead actor Nargis is seen holding up  the plough all by herself shows the determination of the rising new nation, the motherland, as Indians call their country (home country is feminine in all Indian languages) represented by the struggling but determined mother in the movie. The image is also reminiscent of Jesus on the cross, who if you ask me, was the first recorded socialist in (religious) history. The Soviet post-revolutionary posters dunked in constructivist ethos showcasing the rise of the proletariat came much later, but I am pretty sure all of these influences helped design the classic poster of Mother India.

This Mehboob Khan magnum opus usually features in top 10 list of Indian movies. It was India's first ever submission for the Academy Awards for the best foreign language film in 1958 and was chosen as one of the five nominations for that category. It also came close to winning the best foreign film Oscar losing out to Federico Fellini's Nights of Cabiria by a single vote.

The script by Wajahat Mirza & S. Ali Raza was deliberately written to show the emancipation, self reliance, empowerment and strength of Indian women.  The lead characters were portrayed by Nargiz, Raaj Kumar, Sunil Dutt and Rajendra Kumar with exemplary brilliance and the film became a turning point in their careers. Nargiz who was an established actor at the time fell in love with Sunil Dutt who played her son in the movie (they were the same age in real life) and went on marry to Dutt a year later. She won several national and international awards for her role in Mother India which was her last major film before she quit films post-marriage. For all the other three actors, Mother India kickstarted their careers and made them household names for years to come. 

The ending of Mother India culminates with the moral dilemma of the mother who is called to make the ultimate sacrifice that could be asked of any mother. To me, this ending is strangely reminiscent of the ending of another film four decades later featuring Nargiz and Sunil Dutt's actor son Sanjay Dutt - Vastav, where the mother commits to making the same ultimate sacrifice, a la Mother India v 2.0.

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Marty (1955)

 Landed on Marty after Amazon Prime suggested I watch Marty next after watching Dead End. It was past midnight and Marty was only 90 minutes long and boasted 4 Oscars from 1955 including the best picture, best director and best actor. Why not? Marty it was, to top off the night.

Marty is the story of Marty Piletti, a mid thirties bachelor butcher, living with his Italian American mother in the Bronx of the fifties. Like mid-thirties bachelors the world-over Marty too is harangued by his mother to marry and bring a girl home as soon as he can. But it is not easy for Marty, played by Ernest Borgnine, he is no Humphrey Bogart at forty five charming the socks of a nineteen year old Lauren Bacall. Marty is a stocky 35-year old butcher who ends up standing on the sidelines at the local dance hall the entire night on any given Saturday.

As luck would have it on one of those Saturdays he meets the female Marty. Betsy Blair (Gene Kelley's first wife) plays Clara who is a high school chemistry teacher, which I believe must have been a quite nerdy occupation for women of that era, who at 29 is also having a hard timing finding a life partner. Blair was one of the actors blacklisted during the McCarthy era. Gene Kelley, her husband had to strong arm the producers and threaten them he would quit the movie he was acting in if they didn't give the role to Blair.

Ernest Borgnine as Marty and Betsy Blair as Clara in Delbert Mann's Marty

This Delbert Mann movie feels like an international movie set in Bronx, where the inter-generational chaos of an Italian American joint family is on full display. Its relatability and down-to-earth script and cast might be why it became the first film ever to win the prestigious Palme d'Or when the award was introduced in 1955.

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Moonlight

Oscars so white –  the street name for 2016 Oscars stuck even if it was hosted by one of the best black comedians ever – Chris Rock. To wash off the guilt of 2016, in 2017 the Academy tried to redeem itself by rewriting its liberal spiel of embrace-all and promote-all and re-branded its diversity image with a few shades of black. These shades of black came in the form of Moonlight and Hidden Figures.

The winner of 2017 Best Picture Oscar Moonlight is a deeply personal story and a semi-autobiographical film from writer Tarrel McCraney. For the first time in the history of Oscars, a Best Picture Oscar went to a movie without a single white actor. Man, the Academy must have felt really really bad about last year. If black people knew about the Academy’s depth of remorse, we would have had a few more new directors and actors from the African American community.

Moonlight - a movie that was in incubation for a decade was adopted from McCraney's play, “In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue.” Both director Barry Jenkins and Tarrel McCraney comes from the same Liberty City neighborhood where the young protagonist grow up in. The camera, the screen play and the tight editing works with stellar performers to deliver a  celluloid poem that keeps it real in the gritty urban landscape. This is the ultimate outsider movie, told bloody raw.

I think it also belongs to new (?) genre of movies sprouting up in Hollywood - 21st century American Realism. We have some socially aware film makers turning their cameras and keyboards on to the wrecked backdrop of  middle America, sliding determinedly into poverty, rage and hopelessness. The other recent film that comes to mind belonging to the genre is American Honey, released in the U.S almost at the same time as Moonlight.

As viewers we need all kinds of films - the ones that makes us laugh, the ones that make us cry, the ones that make us deepen our understanding about human condition, Moonlight belongs to the last category.

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Manchester by the Sea

Casey Affleck was born into this role. He did not need to put any extra effort to get into the persona of the out-of-luck down-in-the-dump New England janitor he plays in Manchester by the Sea. Well, it is a good role to be born into, for it won him the best actor Oscar this year. Matt Damon, you almost got your elusive best actor Oscar on this, if only you had dates.

Somehow, I am not feeling Affleck’s tragedy. Can’t get those tears to come even after watching those life-killing losses being inflicted on his character. Maybe because the film cuts in and out of past and present without much warning. Just as you are about to empathize with his wretched life you are yanked away into a different time period. Stylistically the random cuts should not stand in the way of my understanding and empathy for the main character’s depression and despair. 

Or could it be because the original tragedy and the relationships snuffed out by it, which led to this bluesy state of affairs was not given a lot of screen time? Was it because the director, Kenneth Lonergan (who appears in a cameo) didn't want the movie to end up being another tear-jerker but rather a long and drawn out character study of masculine depression?

Hmm… yes maybe that's why I cannot empathize, it is a very masculine movie. I am using the term masculine here as the other gender for feminine.All the main characters are male in a tale about a man dealing with depression the way the men would. Blue-grey New England winter provides the right grim backdrop against which this almost-European movie made by Amazon in Hollywood languidly unravels. 

The only time I could almost figure out the depths of Affleck's loss and his subsequent moodiness (which is 99% of the film) is when Michelle Williams (who plays Affleck's wife and then his ex) breaks down explaining her side of the tragedy. The trouble is actually with me, I am just not man enough to understand this movie.

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Twin Sisters

Nominated for Foreign Film Oscar in 2003, Twin Sisters is typical Oscar fare. I consider these kind of films too polished, presenting the grim face of holocaust reality for 21st century living rooms. Some heart-wrenching tale in dark brown and sepia, usually rewarded with an Oscar nod at the end. To me all of them kind of look the same and I call these type of movies 'Oprafication of the Holocaust'. Twin Sisters,The Boy in Striped Pajamas are one of the recent ones I saw which fall into this category.

I hope Elie Weisel's Night won't be made into a film like this. It needs to be more raw, a bit different from the rest like Schindler's List was. But that doesn't mean I don't enjoy these movies, they are eminently watchable, reminds the humanity once more of the horrible crimes committed during the reign of Hitler.

Twin Sisters as the title says is about twins sisters Anna and Lotte, separated and brought up in two countries during WW2. They find themselves aligned with opposing countries which affects their decisions and loyalties to each other as well.If you haven't watched many movies about the holocaust, this is a good starter. There is not many graphic scenes at all, pretty tame compared to many other WW2 movies.

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