War as mental illness

The War Within turned out every bit as clichéd as the Voice critic had said. It is indeed a high-def film (thanks, Mark) and not as muddy as the typical DV release. (I have two quarrels with the early days of digital filmmaking: one, regular DV doesn’t yet simulate the saturation, crispness and ‘movie look’ of film, though it inevitably will; and two, digital projection really hoses those who sit up close, like me, because of pixelation. We want to be the first to receive the images from the screen, said Bernardo Bertolucci’s pretentious Dreamers, but unlike a French cine buff, for me it’s simply about max res. And always-available seats.)

This plot, penned by lead actor Ayad Akhtar, is as single-threaded and simplistic as anything you’d see on the nature channel. And that’s not just due to budget, it’s due to writing. Compare to the richness of the action in the low-budget Monsoon Wedding.

Whenever you see a character running around with a white SO and a bottle of whiskey, you know s/he’s a Bad Muslim. Hi Pardes, hi Purab Aur Pachhim! Venerable jungle fever hottie Sarita Choudhury, who in Mississippi Masala ignored the no-smoking-in-bed rule, is surprisingly believable as an older auntie. But she struggles with her Urdu accent — are there really no desi accent coaches? Shelley Malil in The Forty-Year-Old Virgin had just as hard a time. I smell opportunity for some underemployed dramati.

Nandana Sen, in all her Porsche-eyed, Nubian-profiled glory, is given little to do. Firdous Bamji, who plays the terrorist’s unsuspecting batchmate, looks like a wounded, Trojan Eric Bana. Ajay Naidu and Aasif Mandvi appear in only a single scene. When you bend Naidu’s reflective cranium over a mirror, you see a tattoo saying U. BIQUITOUS; after this movie, it reads WASTED.

The movie suffers from amateurish acting and slack editing that leaves seconds ticking in between characters’ reactions. In a pivotal scene toward the end, the baby-faced killer’s reaction seem totally implausible. This flick doesn’t just telegraph its intentions, it puts out a press release, posts them to a blog and pings IceRocket.

The movie’s subject matter left me totally conflicted. On one hand, there’s the inevitable exoticizing of Islam, not by Akhtar but by an American audience’s gaze. It reminds me of the idiots who post frothing, right-wing rants in our comments quoting wingnut Web sites. Try taking off the white hood, provocateur pusses. Dammit, we’ve lived among a hundred and fifty million Muslims in India. Unlike you, we know them, we understand them, they’re our neighbors, they’re our friends; and except for those whose conservatism is near-Hasidic, most are utterly unremarkable.

On the other, it’s discomfiting seeing a fantasy where Grand Central gets blown up. It’s too close to home to pen a script where the real-life desi ghetto of Jersey City, home to IT workers innumerate, turns into a terrorist breeding ground. Don’t march red arrows over a map of my city. Don’t put me inside the head of a fuckup who believes in violence, slaughter of innocents and collective guilt. Don’t mess up the South Asian brand launch by associating it with criminality. I already ostentatiously flip open my bag every day to fish out a book in front of the subway police, and I left the movie expecting looks of disappointment of the ‘you people’ kind.

Most depressingly, don’t prove that terrorism, not business, is the successor to the Indian trifecta of myths, hippies and poverty. Not only does terrorism seemingly provide most new roles for desi actors, it’s the biggest new cottage industry for Muslim comedians and telepundits.

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proof-0

The Mississippi Masala cast has longevity beyond its years. In Proof, Roshan Seth plays the gently disapproving Professor Bhandari, while Gwyneth Paltrow plays a math prodigy in his class stricken by her father’s mental illness and recent passing. It’s Paltrow’s run at Russell Crowe and A Beautiful Mind, her attempt to prove she deserved her Oscar for that light-hearted Shakespeare trifle. She wears little makeup, and there’s a sex scene which never moves south of the neck; the stripping of glamor is the donning of clothes. The movie is somewhat bleak, and Jake Gyllenhaal is never believable as a math geek. Shall I compare thee to a Prinze Fred-day? Thou art more pretty and more emasculate. Sad Sir Hopkins barely stirs to phone it in. But the film’s tight dialogue and snappy one-liners betrays its theater roots. Like The Shape of Things, it’s an adapted talkie that sings. Q.E.D.

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Strings pull my strings, whether it’s the violins in INXS’ ‘Never Tear Us Apart’ or the stirring crescendo in the Bombay theme. Like the proto-human wail of L. Subramaniam’s melancholy violin, the Mumbaya instrumental texts me chills. It was surprising to hear a decade-old A.R. Rahman Bollyjingle in the soundtrack of a new movie, Lord of War (watch the trailer). This is one great flick, Bombay theme or no, and Nicolas Cage nails its epic pitch. The opening sequence of the life cycle of a bullet is astonishing, the poster visually arresting, and the rest of this Künstlerroman lives up to billing. It’s a hustle movie about an international arms dealer, Catch Me If You Can with a high-powered scope.

The director, Andrew Niccol, probably got his hands on the musical piece via a story he wrote that’s still in production. Paani / Water is a dystopic sci-fi flick involving Rahman, Shekhar Kapur, Vivek Oberoi and yes, Deepak Chopra. The instrumental is apropos, opposites are apposite: Cage is arrested by Interpol and stranded under a wide African sky, his hands cuffed and his bird stripped for parts. The lyrical chaser to Hindu-Muslim riots sounds right for a scene promising violence of more intimate provenance.

55 thoughts on “War as mental illness

  1. This pussy-possessing person is nonplussed at why the word “pussy” bothers some people so much. True, it’s not elegant, but occasionally, it’s eloquent. If Manish can’t say “puss”, then I can’t hiss “Dick!” at a cad who surely deserves it. Frankly, it’s men who should be upset; I’d rather be “timid” than an “asshole”, so their genitalia actually has it worse, don’t you think?

    I think the Mutineers do exactly what should be expected of them in terms of making people feel comfortable here. I don’t mean to be cruel when I opine the following, but we are individually responsible for our reactions and feelings, not them. If the language or atmosphere here make you uncomfortable, then that’s your right, articulate that (as you did so well) but don’t say that you feel like you can’t say your peace, because that’s wrong– you just did.

  2. Why am I an avowed secularist?

    I have lived on two continents (Asia and America)long enough to comment about the power and necessity of secularism, pluralism, and separation of religion and state. Maybe, as a kid in India, secularism in India only meant to be speaking about it in eloquently in a high school debate, going to friends home during Id and inviting them to Diwali to ignite firecrackers, extolling about Akbar golden age, and putting Zeenat Aman/ Nafisa Ali poster in my room.

    Now, it has a deeper meaning. I am a minority in US instead of belonging to majority in India. Concepts imposed like “us” vs. “them”, immigration, and imposing concepts of intelligent design on everyone touch me directly. Perhaps, that is why I speak up for minority rights and dignity more eloquently be it in USA or India without invoking any special status through “model minority”. I cannot cherry pick – safeguard my minority status in US and slam them in India. That would be hypocrisy.

    Why am I now more an avowed secularist? Maybe, I have to be as a minority.

    PS: I have to defend Manish. I think he was addressing it broadly to everyone else as how Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, Christians have live together in peace for most part on Indian subcontinent (I must add for most part). It is true that the new bogey man in media here is the islamic sleeper terrorist.

  3. It is true that the new bogey man in media here is the islamic sleeper terrorist.

    Yes, I wonder where the media gets their bizarre indeas for such bogeymen…. I did hear that something related to that did happen recently in Bali. Though that could be somebody’s imagination…

  4. Some broad themes have emerged in the comments.

    Conservatives taking umbrage. I’m not sure why y’all identify with “the idiots who post frothing, right-wing rants in our comments quoting wingnut Web sites.” I refer to those we delete regularly who call all Muslims child rapists, quoting the craziest stuff on ultra-right sites. Your identification with those is to your detriment.

    Conservatives saying the Bali bombing proves something about all Muslims. Non sequitur. Somewhere that same day, a Christian and a Hindu committed murder.

    Objection to the word ‘puss.’ I appreciate the respectful tone of your comment, but I just as respectfully disagree. It’s ‘puss’ and not ‘pussy’ for a specific reason of connotation. Even if it were ‘pussy,’ pungent conveys anger well, if sparingly used. God forbid any political commentary use ‘Wax Bush,’ ‘Buck Fush’ or any variation thereof.

    Objection to lumping Muslims together. This essay throws back cultural elision in the same voice. It is not an academic treatise. As its message is pretty blunt, I won’t footnote it.

    … the sentence above still leaves me quite sad. It pretty clearly defines who is ‘we’ and who is ‘them’ at Sepiamutiny.

    Your lumping together the views of all SM bloggers leaves me quite sad. It pretty clearly defines who is ‘we’ and who is ‘them’ to you.

  5. I’m not sure why y’all identify with “the idiots who post frothing, right-wing rants in our comments quoting wingnut Web sites.” I refer to those we delete regularly who call all Muslims child rapists, quoting the craziest stuff on ultra-right sites. Your identification with those is to your detriment.

    Manish, with all due respect I think the point was that it would have been beneficial for you to have mentioned in the original article exactly who you were referring to (as you have just clarified). SMers like myself and Punjabi Boy — who could hardly be labelled as “conservatives” — were both attacked on another related discussion by a couple of other SM participants a few weeks ago for making detailed points about the nature of the Islamist threat here in the UK and the reasons behind the actions of the extremists. We were both shot down by the aforementioned objectors by using pretty much the same kind of terminology you’ve applied here. Hence my diplomatically-worded request higher up this thread was aimed to prevent that kind of response from recurring, not just with regards to any present/future posts by myself but also to hopefully mitigate the risk of yet another slanging match occurring between multiple other participants too (which has happened on a fairly regular basis, as we all know).