Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Creator's eye, the height of enlightenment

Today I was fortunate enough to watch one of the upcoming film maker, Bobby Mana's short film. It is officially not released as such but I am blogging about it as I got to learn a few things today. He assists Shyamaprasad sir in his movies and I got to know him during 'Ritu'. I, my parents and Manoj (who had assisted Shyam sir in 'Ritu' but is a thorough IT professional) watched the film and then we were asked to convey whatever we felt after watching it. Obviously he was not expecting a 'good attempt' or a 'very intellectual idea' or any of those cliched comments. Honestly, I didn't understand the conclusion part. It was a little complicated or rather we Indians are too used to spoon fed movies. Even in a thriller when the lights go off and the heroine is frantically searching for a torch the cameras show every tiny little detail from the time she finds the torch to switching it on to clutching on to it showing her finger nails prominently. This too, I realized when Bobby pointed out how spoon fed our movies are. Where does it give us the time to think? To think about what happened when and why.. To think about something apart from the popcorn and sms-es we receive during the movie.

Except for Manoj the rest of us were blank. I told him very honestly, ashamed at my can't-figure-out-a-thing perception, that I din't get the conclusion which is actually the 'suspense'. Very patiently he explained the story and then asked us to watch it again. Keeping all the hints in mind as I watched it the second time I totally got what he wanted to convey. Later , Manoj and I were giving some critical feedback on the acting and few scenes we still could not connect with. As I was seriously complaining about a particular scene, Manoj was looking down as though admiring the earth beneath him was, with a smile, ridiculing him .When Bobby sensed the vibe and asked him about what he was thinking.. he replied something that inspired me to blog about this.

It is absolutely astounding to have a creator put in his imagination into practicality and it is another extreme to have the receptor analyzing only quarter of what the creator has portrayed. It's even more beautiful when you realize what you had missed and then get an opportunity to experience it once more... you cannot feel more enlightened than this. Creativity is like magic. I don't know how it produces or if it will last. But I know it's there. It's like an evidence without an evidence. It's the beauty of seeing through the creator's eye. That's exactly what I got to do today. With my perception I missed half of the fun and efforts he put behind the creation. Certain things in life are that way. We never realize it's beauty and we rarely see it through the other perception. Maybe if life was like watching a movie from the director's eye... things would have been much different. Definitely not for the worse.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Quote for the month

Yesterday I had a shoot for one of the episodes of Nine at Night for Rosebowl. I got to have a conversation with Mr. Alphonse who is creating waves with his latest from Rahman's Vinnaithandi Varuvaya. Apart from being humble, talented and a spiritual person, his struggles ,despite a great entry as a composer through 'Vellithira' ,is worth a listen. His belief in God and constant hardwork without any distractions has inspired me in a way to ignore all the negativity that comes in my way. You must remember that the greatest critic of you is within you. And the Quote for the month is :

"Dreams and Dedication are a powerful combination."