Talk To Her

Pedro Almodovar's fatalistic film about bull fighters, patients-in-coma, male nurses and travel writers - thats Talk to Her. A sensous film filled with colorful imagery. There are two women confined to their beds by being coma, there are two men who love them. One of the women dies, the man who has been loving her shifts his affection to the other woman in coma. Now there is a triangle, then one man is eliminated from the scene and the woman wakes up. One man, one woman, everything's perfect, the film ends.

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Gaslight

Gaslight

Gaslight stars Ingmar Bergman in her Oscar winning role as best actress in 1944. Bergman is good, though the story is a bit dated, but then it is from sixty years ago,what did I expect? It has obvious shortfalls, like the villian -Charles Boyer who plays Bergman's manipulative and vicious husband, has villian written all over him that one wonders why was Bergman's character the only one not to notice that, then her saviour or the man who has a secret crush on her conveniently turns out to be a Scotland Yard detective. But all its faults and sepia tint, I'd say it was a gripping movie, enough to put off sleep till 3 am when we finished watching it.

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Prizzi's Honor

Imagine Jack Nicholson as Micheal Corleone, the young heir-in-waiting for Marlon Brando's Don Vito Corleone in the Godfather. While imagining give Micheal Corleone a comic twist, tone down a li'l bit of his youthful intensity and up a notch of dry wry Nicholson humor - you have Charley Partanna, a potential mob boss waiting in the wings in this laughworthy yet serious movie - Prizzi's Honor.

Says it got 8 Oscar nominations, one for Nicholson himself. Kathleen Turner and Angelica Huston play the female leads in the movie directed by John Huston. It could be called the love story between a mob hot shot and a hit woman or it could be just a comic satire on how the mob world works, whatever it is, it was enjoyable two hours.

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Prince of Tides

This is the first time I saw Barbara Streisand movie and she's not bad as I had expected. She acts well and I cannot say much about the direction, though nothing stands out. Nick Nolte is an ex-football coach with a scarred childhood and a suicidal sister. Streisand plays the therapist and the doctor for his sister. I think I should read the book now(written by Pat Conroy, the novel has the same name as the film). In a way it is a love story, which as it progresses brings out scary skeletons from the closet of past, it just a little stop short of being your prototypical chick flick.

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Cinema Paradiso

World cinema at its mushy and sentimental best. Well, if you are really bent on taking a romantic movie, get some tips from Cinema Paradiso. From Guiseppe Tornatorre, this Oscar winner for the best foreign film in 1990 is an art house movie which will appeal all cinema-goers. I saw the newer version, the original version is supposed to be longer and darker.

Salvatore is the central character of the film, we follow Salvatore's life from his childhood in a small Italian town and his preoccupation with the little movie theater in the town - Cinema Paradiso. Salvatore grows up along with the changing fortunes of Cinema Paradiso and its keeper, Alfredo. There is also a love story woven between the folds, fortunes are which are drastically altered by one of the characters. Only one true love in your life, as the movie seems to say. It might seem to be a very gooey gooey movie, but its a real treat to watch, the music score is remarkable too. Definitely worth a watch.

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The Firemen's Ball

Czheckoslovakia, before it was broken into bits was where this movie was filmed. The same country banned the movie from showing in its theatres when it was released. I don't know what is so bad about the movie, there is nothing contreversial in the film, it just revolves around a night when the firemen stage their annual ball in town. Maybe the communist government was just paranoid? It is from the director of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Amadeus", Milos Forman. Though I couldn't really understand what was so great about this movie. Maybe the ban in its country of origin and the Milos Forman tag I s'pose?

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Alex and Emma

I have no tolerance for gooey gooey romantic comedies, this film re-asserted this fact.

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Anne of the Thousand Days

A short course on British history for me. I have heard the name of Henry VIII many times though I didn't know anything about him as I was not enchanted by the numerous British Kings and Queens, their hunting parties, tea parties, coronations and related antics. Henry VIII movie was suggested by one of the fellow bloggers, so I thought I shall give it a try.

Anne of Thousand Days is about Anne Boleyn, one time wife of Henry the Eighth and the mother of Elizabeth I. It is an interesting movie, a crash course in the Britian of the middle ages and it is an entertaining story too. Personal and political games abound the story in which Richard Burton plays Henry. Not bad for a movie based on a historical plot.

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Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf

This movie has given me a whole new perspective on Elizabeth Taylor, where she's much more than a man-killer with more husbands than days in a week or a fat obnoxious aging starlet. Here was a woman who could really act! No wonder they gave her the Oscars for this one.Richard Burton, her one time real life husband plays her husband in this film, he has given a commendable performance as well.

The story of the movie is rather heavy, full of metaphors and deep pointy suggestions at what life really is. Though I wonder how much of this'd really happen in a similar real life incident. The story encompasses a single night where a middle aged couple(Taylor and Burton) play hosts to a newly married couple. The men are both professors, one who has spent almost his entire life teaching on the campus and one just starting out. It is an interesting film, maybe one of the films that defined the thinking man's Hollywood movie, a bit to heavy for me, worth a watch anyway.

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Fahrenheit 9/11

Today, mercury hit a new mark on the Fahrenheit scale, obviously Ray Bradbury is pissed and so are a lot of others. Today, I realized why United States of America still retains the title "the land of the free and home of the brave" (this film getting made and released proves it). Today, Michael Moore, yes that opinionated jerk, propagandist liberal, manipulator of facts, self-appointed soul keeper of American politics had his movie Fahrenheit 9/11 released nationwide. Today I saw this "liberal" movie in a theatre bursting at the seams in a city, which till now I had considered a red-neck haven (my bad) and to add to my surprise the red necks followed it up with a standing ovation when the titles came rolling in.

About the film : Don't go anywhere near it if you are a hard nosed conservative, you might embark on a shooting spree at the theater itself, in order to cleanse the world of those mindless idiots who fall for all this over-the-top sentimental mis-information. Otherwise the movie shows a world of improvement in Mr.Moore's talent as a film-maker(some'd say propagandist), better than Roger and Me and Bowling for Columbine. If it had an OST I'd buy it, loved all the songs! Its easy to accuse Moore of concocting evidence. But if you could really read the evidence in the first place, Florida and later Iraq would not have happened, and Michael Moore would still be the little known fat guy munching on a dough nut at some unheard of street corner at Flint, Michigan still dreaming of making a movie that'd rock America and get the longest standing ovation (20 mins) in the history of Cannes!

p.s - in one of the earliest books on war games -the Mahabharata, Sri Krishna(the in-house spin doctor) advises Yudhistira (the good guy king), "a lie told for the greater good of humanity ceases to be a lie." Yeah all is fair in love and war.

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Tea with Mussolini

A band of British ladies in Florence before and during the war form the interesting group on which this movie is focused on. This Frank Zefferelli film staring Cher, Joan Plowright, Lili Tomlin, Judy Dench and Maggie Smith is kind of like a book turned into a movie, but I guess it was not a book, the story/screen play was written for a movie.

It is amusing to see the antics of British ladies, because after America, the British always seem very decorous and proper. I loved Cher's and Joan Plowright's roles. A laid-back movie.

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Lovers on the Bridge(Amants du Pont-Neuf, Les)

Another French love story, this time it is set during the bicentennial of the French revolution - 1989 and stars Juliette Binoche and Denis Lavant.

Two homeless bums, meet on Paris's oldest bridge - Pont Neuf, closed for renovation and their home for the moment. Its kind of slow moving at the start, but the story picks up and you'll find yourself in the middle of an interesting love story. It makes me wonder at the different sorts of people who end up homeless, all bums have a history, eh? Directed by Leos Carax I'd not call it a moving love story, maybe if you want to see a different foreign film, this could be it.

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Jules and Jim

This sure was a strange film. I wonder why Jules and Jim was so famous? Maybe because of its revolutionary story line(the story takes place before and after WW1) or is it because of the director, the famous Francois Truffaut?

What I found from the movie is that lot of French films have a narrator who links the various scenes of the movie. This movie(1962) has it, so has Amelie and so has the Spanish Apartment. My experience is limited to the movies I have watched. Another question I have is, why is it called Jules and Jim, it should be called something like Catastrophical Catherine or something. The movie is a love triangle between Jules,Catherine and Jim. I liked one dialog in the movie, where Jims tells Catherine(played by the immortal Jeanne Moreau) which transcripts to the idea that - "lot of us have the dream of making love to the stranger we met on the train, but for the sake of our significant other and for the sake of the love between us, we rise above that dream, above that selfishness and dedicate ourselves totally to our significant other, but you Catherine cannot do that." The whole movie revolves around this handicap of Catherine, not my cup of tea.

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Rhapsody in August

The rhapsody started with good intentions, but somewhere near the crescendo it lost me. I took it because it was directed by Akira Kurasowa, after Darsu Uzala I had realized Kurosawa was not that artsy as I had thought. But this one shattered all my expectations, not because it was too artsy, but because it lacked the quality of a master's touch.

The story is about an elderly woman, grandma to four youngsters living in the hills behind Nagasaki, still in the shadow of that dreadful August day in 1945. The story is fine, but the way the children narrate it to the viewers under the pretext of educating youner children, their frequent excursions to the city to relive the past - all seemed pretentious. As if they were laboring to make the viewers understand thru' some kind teacher - student technique. Richard Gere has a small role in the movie as the Japanese-American nephew of the old woman.

All in all, it seemed to me like a slow moving film, with special effects like thunderstorms produced by pouring milk in a glass of water and shooting it close-up, I am wondering where was Kurasowa?

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The Princess Bride

This is one wacky bed time story! Enjoyed every bit of it. It also stars my favorite kid of the TV land - Kevin Arnold a.k.a Fred Savage of The Wonder Years. The movie is built on a traditional framework of a grandfather reading a story for his sick bed-ridden grandchild(Savage), but don't that fool you. It is nothing but traditional!

The character are wacky and endearing, so are the witty dialogues. From the start it has the airs of an out-of-the-box fairy tale, which it lives upto through out the way. Robin Wright Penn is the Princess Bride, directed by Rob Reiner, it is a good entertainer for children and adults alike.

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Love and Death in Long Island

It had Jason Priestley on the cover - thats the reason I took this movie. I thought it'd be fun to see Priestley doing a serious role, other than the teeny bopper stuff of his I had been familiar with. I was a regular watcher of Beverly Hills 90210, the original series when it started airing in the early nineties and Brandon Walsh played by Jason Priestley was one of the goody goody chocolate box heroes who appealed to the age I was at the time.

Coming back to Long Island, it didn't doesn't ring up any high scores in my register. But its a different movie all the same - one could say its a bit quirky, even. It also stars the British actor John Hurt who plays an author in present day England who has just started discovering modern day contraptions like the Television and the Microwave and on the way he also discovers Ronnie Bostock(played by Priestley) and this leads him to Long Island, NY where Bostock's home is. I can warn you it is a slow movie and movie is mainly Hurt's rather than Priestley's.

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Whale Rider

An incredibly beautiful movie. Keisha Castle Hughes has presented a talent that is way beyond her years, if she was an American she'd have converted her Oscar nomination into an Oscar.

The film is set in the Maori heartland, ie NewZealand. Pai(played by Keisha) is a Maori girl who is the last descendent of a long line of Maori chieftains, but alas! she's a girl, which means she broke the male chain of chieftains - thus her birth was her unluck and her people's, so believed her grandfather. This heart rendering story follows Pai's efforts to prove that even though a girl she's fit to lead her people if a need arises. But her grandfather would have none of it. Though he inhabits a space-time of present day NewZealand, he firmly believes women are not supposed to be leaders.For the rest, watch the movie.

The photography is par excellent, so is the music and so are all the actors - a brilliant combination directed by Niki Caro. This film should be made a must-watch in all the countries which practise female infanticide, enlighten yourselves people, times, they are a'changin'..

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Chaos

My guess is all the women will love this movie, becuase in a way it represents them, their emotions and their struggles with the world in general and men in particular. Brilliant acting from the two leading women in the movie - Catherine Frot and Rachida Brakhni has added to its quality.

The photogrpahy has a home movie awkwardness, the kind you and me would do with our Sony handycams, I don't know how they have achieved it.Written and directed by a woman, Coline Serreau this is a must-watch movie for all the females of the species.

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The Deep End

Tilda Swinton has done good acting in the main role of the movie, The Deep End, as a mother who tries to cover up what she thinks is a murder comitted by her son. There were some parts of the story which I found questionable but all in all it was an average thriller with some very good sea blue photography. The actor Goran Visjnic who plays is a major role in the film, is a Croatian army-vet in real life was a quite a discovery for me, People Magazine had voted him the sexiest import in 1999. Maybe you can see it for Tilda, Goran and the photography.

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Pirates of the Caribbean

The Curse of the Black Pearl is an entertainer par excellence. So is Johnny Depp. I was blown away by his performance in this film, which also stars Geoffrey Rush, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley. The story is set in the times when the sea was still the final frontier(yeah Star Trek was yet in the future)and anybody with a dash of adventure in their veins made sure that they dashed to the sea and atleast spent a season or two exploring the far reaches of the oceanic horizon. I am not going to disclose the story, but let me just say it is an out and out entertainer and will definitely live upto your money's worth. Go Pirates!

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The Day After Tomorrow

Saw The Day After Tomorrow yesterday, a week after its release. To me it seemed like Roland Emmerich had some messages weighing down his chest that he had to release to humanity as soon as possible and being a film maker he did what he always did - he made a film. The story is so made up, with a real loose plot, without any coherence or valid explanations, but the special effects are fantastic. The kind fifty years from now, some teenager watching the same movie would exclaim in appreciation, "Man, thats some special effects for a movie that old!"

The Day After Tomorrow,is where finally film makers have caught up with the environmentalists and have overtaken them sans effort. There are lavish CGI powered scenes like New York in a big freeze with a scene stealer of an accelerated super freeze of Empire States Building with windows popping out, snow blizzards in New Delhi and LA ripped open by tornadoes starting of course with the ripping off of the Hollywood sign on the hills.

Environmental activists who worked with Day After Tomorrow said that the exposure and media coverage they got while shooting the film was many times more than the what they received from decades of activism! Experts at Lawrence-Berkeley lab in CA warn that although the climatic changes in the movie take place at a fast-forward pace which in real time might take decades, the cause(the changes in the Gulf Stream) and the effects might be the same but not on such a compressed scale of time as depicted in the movie. In other interesting news, related to the movie, on April 1, 2004 NASA issued a memo saying, "No one from NASA is to do interviews or otherwise comment on anything having to do with ... " the film, “The Day After Tomorrow.” (which they later retracted).

A global climatic change in a compressed time scale of a few days does give tremendous freedom for CGI and special effect artists, but if it succeeds in making the Americans with behemoth SUVs who drive 6liter-V8 engines in the urban jungles of San Francisco or New York (why do u need an SUV to drive in a city, to make up for you small u-know-what?), to take a second look on their choice of personal transportation, that’s the best that Hollywood can do for the environmental cause.

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The Piano

Mind blowing photography! It is one of the best aspects of the film. Set in NewZealand, it is a story of a mute woman, who is an excellent piano player, sent to NewZealand by an arranged marriage. She takes the piano with her but is forced to leave it on the beach she landed as it was too heavy to carry to her new husband's home, deep in the forest.

The film thrives on the bond between the woman and her piano and how far she'd go to have it by her side. It is also an interesting portrayal of new European settlers in NewZealand and their relationships with the native Maoris. I am not one who is drawn much towards intense emotional drama involving two or three people, so if you like that kind of story this one is definitely for you.

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Bitter Sugar

It is the story two young people, Gustavo and Yolanda, bursting with dreams in the communist Cuba. Gustavo is an idealist, who believes in the revolution, in the good that it can bring, whereas Yolanda is suppressed by the suffocating atmosphere around her brought about by the system. And then, they fall in love.

The movie by Leon Ichaso is shot entirely in black and white maybe to accentuate the funlessness in Cuban life. But I wish they had shot it in color, it'd have been more vivid(maybe thats exaclty what the director didn't want) and more informative. It gives a real and glaring picture of hopes and dreams being destroyed in the contemporary Cuba and how every Cuban aspires at least at some point in life to be in that dangerous raft heading towards Miami. Beautiful and thought provoking movie.

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Auberge espagnole, L' (The Spanish Apartment)

Barcelona, one of the cultural capitals of European new wave is the location for this MTV-ish movie. A Parisian guy spends a year in Barcelona on a student exchange programs where he shares an apartment with students from different parts of Europe. If you have shared an apartment and lives of your friends as a student or in your early adult year this is one movie you can easily empathize with. It is said that the applications for admisssions for EC's Erasmus (that is the name of the exchange program thru' which the protagonist arrives in Barcelona) program doubled after the release of this movie!

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Chocolat

It has all the airs of a best selling novel made into a film - in its style of narration, in the particular type of story involved and in the development of characters. Juliette Binoche plays a woman who opens a choclatarie in a remote French village with her small daughter, Anouk. The villagers first treat her as an unwanted guest who had invaded into their quiet peaceful lives with a mysterious and devious sweetness that goes by the name of chocolate.

The film follows Binoche's character thru' her encounters with villagers - some pleasant and some not so pleasant, her rebellions against the rigid village code and her meeting with a mysterious stranger - Johnny Depp. Its a modern day fairy tale directed by Lasse Halstrom which talks about things French and thus enchanting to the American audience.

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Rabbit-Proof Fence

This time, for a change, the movie is from Down Under. It is a look at the often disregarded piece of Australian history, that of the role of aborigines, how their lives changed in the process to change the bush country of Australia into a civilized world.

From 1917 to 1970, half-caste aborigine children(one of their parents will be an aborigine and the other usually white), were systematically removed from their aboriginal homes and placed under government custody. This was supposed to convert them into civilized human beings who'll speak English and will end up as maids and bell-boys for the ruling class(read glorified slaves). The story follows the escape of three little girls, forcefully taken away from their mothers and placed in a government camp.

The girls make their escape from the government camp on a rainy night and the story follows their trail 1500 miles across the bush country to their homes and mothers. Its a true story, written by Doris Pilkington, who is the daughter of one of three girls(Molly Craig) who makes this historic and unbelievable flight to freedom. Directed by Philip Noyce, this movie is a tribute to the struggle of, what is termed as the Stolen Generations of Australia.

(p.s: if you like this movie check out movies in a similar vein, like Skins and Smoke Signals about native Americans made by acclaimed director - Chris Eyre)

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Boys

A.R.Rahman is the best thing that happened to Indian movies in last 20-30 years or so. Oh God, what was it like in those days without the maestro, Rahman, can't believe I lived through them! And Tamil movie industry, is the massive juggernaut that rolls through the ancient relics which dictates the like of the rest of Indian movie industry and clears a path for things new, contemporary and exciting. Hats off to them.

Boys, is the latest offering from Tamil movie industry which takes on contemporary issues like dating, MTV, the youth culture and doesn't try to gloss it over with an overdose of 'Indian cultural values'. Ofcourse, the selling point of Boys is its music, composed by A.R.Rahman. I liked all the songs and they are very contextual, unlike most Hindi movies which takes off on a song and dance routine which usually will have no connection with main story line. Man, I am totally sold out on Boys, go watch and rate it yourself.

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Finding Nemo

Disappointed. After Shrek and Monsters Inc. the other famous animated movies I had great expectations for Nemo, add to the fact that our library never seemed to have a copy of Nemo it was always in circulation. The dialogs are very contemporary American, which makes me feel whether those viewers outside US be able to get the gist of the ideas implied. Its seems to be a family movie, intended to make children take the right route to adulthood.

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Anger Management 

Anger Management, it got on my nerves as much Jack Nicholson was getting on the nerves of Adam Sandler in the film. Sandler came off as a perfectly normal guy who was being sent off to an a 30 day anger management session with a wacho shrink, played by Nicholson. Ok, in the end we find out the whole thing was a set up, but the reason of this set-up was that Adam Sandler was not normal, he was edgy. For me he seemed perfectly normal right from the start who had to undergo this horrible experience to correct himself?!?!!?

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Spring Forward 

Its two men talking set inside a visual poem. The movie starts in Spring in Connecticut, when Paul(Liev Schrieber)comes to work at the local park system. His partner is Murph(Ned Beatty), a wizened old man. The movie goes forward thru' season along the conversations of these two men as Paul, an ex-convict tries to fall in with the system and Murph. The camera has captured the bounty of seasons in the fullest degree, there are lots of right-on philosophical dialogs. It was a slow moving film, I felt like I should take it like a vitamin pill 5-10 minutes daily, small snippets to drive life the right way.

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The Navigators 

It was Ken Loach's film Sweet Sixteen which made me look for more Loach movies at the library. Landed on this one, made a year previous, The Navigators centers on the railroad at Yorkshire. The socialist director in Loach had this time taken upon the privatization of Bristish Rail in 1995.

It is satirical, at the same time poignant and touching, peopled with real men trying to hang on to the only job they know how to do. The one thing I regret is the lack of subtitles in the DVD I was watching which meant that there were some gaps in my understading of the film since I couldn't follow their accent properly. Like any Ken Loach movie this one is also a fine portrayal of life as we live it - not very rosy.

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The Spanish Prisoner 

I took David Mamet's Spanish Prisoner from the library thinking that I had not seen it before, turns out that I had, but except for a few scenes I couldn't recall anything, not the plot or the story. That was good because Spanish Prisoner turned out to be quite an intriguing entertainer. The plot thickens at every new scene and you are caught up in the mystery. It stars Campbell Scott as the hero and for a change, Steve Martin as the villian. David Mamet's wife Rebecca Pidgeon also has an interesting role in the film. Worth watching if you haven't seen it or have turned amnesiac like me.

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Water for Chocolate

Finished reading the book a few minutes before I started to watch the film of the same name written by Laura Esquivel and directed by Alfonso Arau. A treat for the senses, don't blame me you are overcome by a sudden urge to create culinary wonders.

Every chapter in the book starts with a recipe, an ethereal one at that, you wish you could atleast see how they'd look like once they are done. Watching the movie right after reading the book afforded me the simple pleasure of seeing how those wonderful recipes looked like in real life, although second best only to tasting them ourselves. It is a love story of Tita and Pedro, their troubles and turmoils and their final union after 22 years during which had taken place a marriage for Pedro and an engagement for Tita among other things. The book and the movie is an excellent primer for those who want to explore the "mystic realism" of Latin American writers.

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Envy

Envy was the last movie I saw in theater, the first weekend we came from the trip and struck by an irresistable urge to go to a movie hall we zeroed in on envy. It seemed promising starring two actors we like, Jack Black and Ben Stiller. Can't say much about the movie. Jack Black's role is not what could be termed as comical and Stiller's role is downright serious. A movie for a lazy afternoon, maybe not worth buying tickets, better rent the dvd/video when it comes out.

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Bowfinger

Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy together in a movie written by Steve Martin himself, it has to be funny. Steve Martin is the owner/producer/director incharge of Bowfinger films who is trying to make a film with the actor Kit Ramsey, played by Eddie Murphy. The problem is Kit Ramsey doesn't know that he's in the film! How Martin and his mismatched bunch of helpers go about shooting this film something of the innovative. And man, Eddie Murphy could really act, this is the first time I am givng him his due credits.

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Munnabhai MBBS - I

Thank God that Sharukh Khan had to decline the title role as he had to go to London for his back surgery and it came to Sanjay Dutt instead. The role fits Dutt like a custom-made glove and he's at his brilliant best as the Mumbai-don turned medical student Munna Bhai.

If you have lived in Mumbai, you'll certainly appreciate the rawness and the comedy of the film. There is not much forced tickling comedy, rather its the dialogues that make you chuckle over time. Arshad Warsi as Munnabhai's side kick Circuit is at times better than Munnabhai himself. Although there is some melodrama in the film, it is excusable for the rest of the film makes up for it. The success of the movie rides on the fact that all the characters are believable and gels well with the story.One of the funniest movies to come out of Bollywood in the recent times.

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Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

From the story by Alan Silitoe, Loneliness... is about the story about a rebellious and angry youngman who is sent to Borstal school after he's caught stealing from a bakery. Tom Courtney, as the rebellious hero, Colin Smith gives a commandable performance. This is a movie against the system or a person's statement against the system and how he wins by losing the race. This cinematic poem by Tony Richardson, picturised in dreary grey Nottingham, asserts itself from the opening shot itself and is touted to be one of the best British films ever.

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Maelstorm

This French-Canadian film by Denis Villeneuve is said to have won many awards. It starts with a fish, on the cutting table, which is just about to be cut and packed into cans divulging some of the great philosophies of life by telling us the story of a young woman. Water or shades of water is the predominant color theme of the film. It reminds me of the Kiezlowski films, Blue or was it White? There is too much stress on making it artsy and thereby unco-ordinated. Too much co-incidences and plots linked to plots thru' some random and seemingly senseless incidents at the time, but which are shown connected later on. Hmm... Iam getting confused already.

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Leila

Leila is a young Iranian woman, happily married to Reza living somewhere in urban Iran. All is roses and pearls till the couple realize that Leila cannot have a child, not that Reza is desperate to have one. The more conservative mother-in-law and aunt-in-law decides that Reza should remarry in order to have progeny. Leila meekly agrees to this and goes along with the proceedings.

To an extent I can understand the Leila's submissiveness to this decision considering the society she was born and brought up in expected her to be like that. What I don't understand is even though his wife agreed to his mother's decision of taking a second wife, why he himself went ahead with it although reluctantly? Add to this the fact that Reza's father and his three sisters were totally opposed to his second marriage. Its slow moving at times, I don't understand the mind games of the two main characters - Leila and Reza. One thing I learnt from the movie is Iranian cities are very modern - wide highways, turnabouts, ramps, modern apartments, cars and ladies in black chador.

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Revenge of the Middle Aged Woman

I bought this book for in-flight reading for a long flight from NYC to Seattle and then onto Anchorage. Finished it by the time we touched down. Set in London, it is about a middle-aged literary editor, Rose. As is anticipated by the title, it is about the mid-life crisis she undergoes.

I selected it from the rows of best-sellers at the airport kiosk because I thought it was the story of an everyday woman, some of us who have been thru' such things and some of us will get to that age in the future. Its an ordinary story, narrated in a way that makes you want to read. The setting could have been anywhere - London, New York, Tokyo or Rio. To me it feels like a story about women by a woman, for there are other interesting female characters in the story as well. An easy read, we should be hearing more about Elizabeth Buchan on this side of the Atlantic soon.

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