Reviews

Finally saw lucia at pvr mulund with a director friend along with some 7-8 people who i guess were able to understand the language. I really wish this film had been dubbed in Hindi but there is a reason i think its not dubbed its because the director clearly loves his mother tongue, and has shown its beauty.

The films plot line is about dreams versus reality. Though the movie starts with some really interesting philosophies of perception, they get hardly explored in the movie. Its not so didactic. The film starts with dialogues which would remind one of characters of fightclub who are insomniac and have a diary like mind where they pen their lonely thoughts.Also movies like limitless,(the pill and gangster angle), amelie (serenedpity), David lynch films(plot which keeps repeating n going round n round, will keep coming to your mind.

The strong point of the film is its technically very good. Its camera work done on 5d with hardly any grains and very good day light shots shows the skills of the dop. Also the songs that keep coming are so rich that one wonders why so few movies are made in kannada language down south. Also there is a sequence where the protagonist takes some foreigners to his village as his morality test and English learning test but they end up learning a few words of kannada from him. Moments like this really are well made. Also the multiplex vs talkies, projectors versus digital, are subtly commented upon.

The second half of the movie drags so much that you wish it would have been at least 30 mins short. It gets repetititve and somehow the logical ending is a bit of disappointment. There is way too much explanation and even an ode to Inception by shooting a similar scene. Overall its definitely a movie worth watching with English subtitles as its far better than the crap that keeps on coming in theatres nowadays.

8/10.

Anand Gandhi's debut feature film The Ship of Thesues is a rare gem in the indie cinema circle which comes out with more crap in the name of struggle and rebel than anything worthy of watching.I am not even talking of bollywood here.

Watching continuum it was quite clear that the director scores high in mixing simple philosophies of the world with everyday tales.Here he takes a philosophical paradox and extends it to three different tales that connect in the end.

The acting is brilliant,such unknown actors being able to emote so clearly in English and various languages credit goes to the director.The landscapes n locations reflect the inner conflict that the characters are going through.

It is still not in the league of Tarkovsky,Malick maybe due to lack of a strong music background but is somewhere on the steps to that house of talent where even bergmann reached.It works perfectly in the first story of the blind photographer,her inner conflict of recognition vs objectivity in art is very well summarized in some dialogues that remind everyone of a coffee talk that they must have had with their best critics and fake philanderers.Even the philosophy of the title matches perfectly with the first story.

The middle story about a monk has the strongest acting seen for a long time in Indian Cinema.The shloka by rohit sharma in jain language explains all the philosophies of the monk so clearly n cleverly.His voice, argument as well as staunch beliefs are so strongly acted out and written. The comic break from the lawyer works well in giving it a break like light n shades. What doesn't work is the monks acceptance of life against the miseries of death, though it shows that the monk is free of religious beliefs in formulating his own thoughts, there is no such strong moment of cinematic epiphany that convinces the audience of a switch over. I meant a subtle one not a overly dramatic one.And also is the failure of the philosophy of the ship of Theseus. We don't think he changes or his views change due to his liver change.in fact its his mind that changes when one of his body part threatens to dismantle the whole(that his body) on which functions his unique mind.

The last story works more as a comic n funny satire on genes working against their predetermined course in India.A stock market broker as being an artistic Granny's only left grandson is funny and so is his logic for living as he wants to.But when challenged his compassion extends from mumbai to its slums to the beautiful locales of Sweden as if almost like an ode to bergmann n tarkovksy.There is also a top shot of grass blowing in the wind as if taken from a Andrei Tarkovsky film but lacks the magical music along with it.It is also illogical that the theory of ship works in this one..it doesn't.The middle n last one have in fact changes of mind due to change in body part is hard to bite.Almost like 21 grams had a heart replacement surgery making the recipient fall in love with the donors wife.

And what the film lacks is the emotional epiphanies.Though the eerie end where the different body parts of a dead person come to see his creative cognition, is by far the best fitting end ever to such a conflicting theory of body vs mind. It gave me shivers that the persons body was still alive and its mind dead and yet the new recipients could feel what the mind tried to explore in the cave. The cave almost being a metaphor for understanding the universe by the humble mind which accepts answers to easily then pose big questions.

Indias first sci-fi cum philosophy cum drama and really one of the best best Indies to ever come out.I am sure the director wouldn't cry about the struggle in finding finance rather he would ask the strugglers to search for talent within themselves.