Perhaps There's A Difference Between Man And Coin: Sholay (1975)

Oh boy...Sholay is something all its own and absolutely stunning in every sense of the word.  While admittedly this seventies Bollywood film was initially nowhere near my list of western viewing for the month, it was also completely out of my consciousness completely.  Yet, as I move my way through the enlightening and disparaging (in that I realize how many movies I have yet to see) Story of Film: An Odyssey, I am confronted with global works that I was completely unaware of, a fact that is baffling considering that I find myself to be rather attuned to the world of film.  Sholay is primarily an action-adventure film, but within that framework it leaves very much open the possibility to define it as a western, even being referred to as a "curry" western given its regional local.  As a Bollywood classic, often defined as the "Star Wars of India" Sholay incorporates wide character arcs, a perfectly executed heroes quest and a whole lot of song and dance, all of which pops off the screen in colorful excitement and with stellar cinematic exuberance rarely captured in American, or really any Westernized, filmmaking.  Of course the available copies of this somewhat under-appreciated film are not of the greatest quality, so my engagement with it was similar to that of Pather Panchali, where the available copies are clearly ripped from video recordings and have less than perfect subtitling.  Sholay's biggest lack, strictly speaking in terms of this DVD release, comes in the way of the musical numbers not having any subtitling, but considering that the situations involved in each moment is rather obvious the words are not necessary.  Again it is visually spectacular, therefore, some of the lesser transfer qualities are not so great as to ruin the watchability and, indeed, the film still pops with all the wonder and draw necessary to make a successful action film.  The acting is stellar and properly executed, moving between comedy and drama, even spiraling into tragedy at one point, without losing a beat.  Hell, it is not everyday that a film manages to include lengthy sub-narratives and still manage to be watchable in all of its three and a half hour spectacular envisioning.  How it has taken me this long to see, let alone hear about Sholay is beyond me, but I am certainly glad to have discovered it because it is very much a new favorite of mine and only hope that it can be rediscovered and, subsequently, rereleased in a proper format.

Sholay centers on the epic adventures of two bandits out to make money any way that they know how, the duo consists of the suave and somewhat secluded Jai (Amitabh Bachchan) as well as the brutish and somewhat clumsy Veeru (Dharmendra).  Together the two move through the rocky hills of rural India in some undesignated era finding riches, only to come under the fastidious watch of a officer named Thakur (Sanjeev Kumar).  Finally catching the duo, Thakur hopes to permanently place them in jail, yet when the train they are riding is attacked they are freed to help fight off the attackers, an event that leads to Thakur being shot, only to have Jai and Veeru deliver him to safety.  This gesture, and the realization that the two are rather great with firearms and shootouts, leads Thakur to not arrest them upon their next meeting, but to hire them as aides in taking on the infamous and Gabbar Singh (Amjad Khan).  This task does not, however, happen immediately as Gabbar has taken to the mountains and comes to the village irregularly to pillage for his posse, who has taken to living in the mountains.  As such Veeru and Jai find themselves settling within the village, each taking a liking to a particular woman within the village, Veeru finds himself interested in the garrulous, but sultry horse-cart driver Basanti (Hema Malini), while Jai is drawn to the silent widow Radha (Jaya Bhaduri).  There passions emerge, just as Gabbar's men invade the town, leading to an epic shootout, one in which both Veeru and Jai realize that Thakur was completely nonexistent during.  When berated about his failure to engage in the battle Thakur recounts a tale about how Gabbar's maniacal behaviors led to the loss of his family, and, subsequently, both of his arms after the bandit sought personal revenge on the officer.  This realization of both emotional and physical loss leads to Jai and Veeru both refusing to take money for their job, instead, deciding to do so out of a clear sense of justice.  Eventually, Gabbar captures Veeru and forces Basanti to dance on broken glass to keep him alive, only to be saved by Jai at the last moment an endeavor that leads the duo to a shootout, where Jai stays behind while Veeru returns to town for supplies.  While Veeru speeds back it is too late and Jai dies at the hands of attacking bandits, leading to a new drive for vengeance on the part of Veeru who along with Thakur take to beating down Gabbar, Thakur even donning special shoes that double as a weapon.  The police eventually arrive and finally arrest Gabbar, while Veeru and Basanti leave to take up their new life together, keeping Jai in their memories.

Sholay is a magnificent film that borrows from all the possible elements of action films, even borrowing heavily from the comedic tradition, mostly slapstick, although there is an entire section that is an obvious and loving tip of the hat to Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator.  What tropes it does borrow from the western a quite impressive, using the cop chasing robbers narrative and even doubling it with a train robbery scenario simultaneously, is something that can only be seen to be realized in its grand vision.  Yet it is not a film that is fully set in the western tradition, because their are indeed vehicles used throughout, specifically a motorcycle with sidecar, a item that has emerged in other westerns this month, but again out of an American context.  I would contest that some of this revisionism is tied to it being a non-westernized western (which is a great concept if I might add) so much so that it does not have to borrow from American tropes, because the west is not necessarily a historical location for the Eastern world.  The colonized body is also on display here, but they are in positions of authority, therefore, allowing them to openly reject the idea that white figures of power have any degree of authority, even mocking the language during Veeru's faux-suicide scene.  Of course, some of the more ethical elements of the western genre do still emerge, particularly a seemingly universal sense of justice, or what would become known as the golden rule globally, perhaps more in line with the idea of karma as it pertains to this film.  Both Veeru and Jai during their respective hero quests must come to odds with their wrong behaviors and embrace the life of minimalism and sacrifice that occurs within Thakur's village, which affords them the ability to settle down and think about marriage, as well as reject the earning of money that comes at the cost of exploiting others.  It is here where the film takes its own unique "curry" western turn, in that the film becomes a romantic comedy of sorts, where preoccupations with attaining marriage approval outweigh fighting Gabbar, a fact that holds true even for Thakur who serves as an advisor on the endeavors.  In a westernized western, this would not be the case and male lone wolf behavior would be the way of acting, leaving a woman to woefully suffer until  his return.  It could be the heavy genre hybridity at work here, but it seems to be a decided difference within this film, but even that has its tenuousness considering the rather clear and openly acknowledged homoerotic bond between Jai and Veeru throughout, making his death that much more heightened and poetically grand.

Key Scene:  The festival of colors followed immediately by the village raid may be some of the greatest ten minutes in the history of film.  I cannot even fathom how it looks in high definition, not to mention the alleged 3D version in the works.

This is a magnificent work one of a uniquely epic scale.  I would suggest buying a copy, but considering that the transfer is a bit rough, it might be ideal to rent it until a new transfer comes into existence.

Crackling Metacinema, Vanity And The Malaise Of Humanity: Fireplace For Your Home (2008)

There are a few times in your life when cinephiles discuss realizing they have viewed a piece of cinema that will invariably alter the entire way in which they understand cinema.  I recall moments like this occurring with, of course, Do The Right Thing, but more recently with works like Persona or Secret Sunshine.  These films, to varied degrees, not only ask questions about the role which cinema plays in our societal discourse on politics, religion, gender roles and variety of other heavily debated topics, but also reflect, through the medium of film, our own struggle as sentient beings trying to better understand our world and the reason for our being.  I know many who come to this through the existential woes of a Woody Allen film, while others find themselves mesmerized by the expressionism of Welles and Lang.  For most of my filmic endeavors, I was unaware of anything that managed to combine all the elements of cinema into one grandly poetic statement on human existence, while also providing a minimalist, yet cerebrally, focused examination of the minutiae of the daily grind.  At least this was the case, until I came across the wonderment and absolutely audacious experimental work Fireplace for your Home.  Without a solid director, one can only image the efforts and involvement playing into this work, whether it be the concern for domestic intimacy and the personal struggles of Japanese mastermind Ozu, or its concern for detailed everydayness of life, which emerge in the work of Akerman.  Yet, Fireplace for your Home, is far more than a domestic narrative and branches out to a larger, fully realized consideration of the politics of oppression and the passion of revolution, invoking, quite modestly, the work of Jean-Luc Godard.  Of course, not all the films references and homages are subtle, one can quickly see the "on the nose" references to fire, as it relates to classic Douglas Sirk melodramas, or more blatantly its decided leaning on the metaphor of flames and burnings that make David Lynch's Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me an essential cult classic.  What Fireplace for your Home does, as a piece of cinema, is manage to both set up the perfect creation of all things known to cinema, only to immediately burn them down and reject their creation.  I once thought that the closing scene of the star child from 2001: A Space Odyssey to be the most audacious statement of art in cinema, however, when the log in this film comes to a complete ashen incineration and falls apart, everything I understood about art, culture and the meaning of life also went up in flames.

The film begins in deceptive simplicity,  darkness, perhaps the beginning of time welcoming the viewer with silence, only to be followed by crackling and the emergence of a faint light, arising out of seeming nothingness.  The birth of the universe perhaps, an opening that beautifully references every creation myth known to humankind, while also taking a decidedly scientific and philosophical approach to the the emergence of life, suggesting it exploded into everythingness out of physical necessity.  Perhaps, explosion, is the best word to describe what occurs in the next act of the film.  With the three logs slowly being consumed by fire, the film moves into its next moment of historical narrative, undeniably drawing on the Roman and Greek pillars, slowly being consumed by the fire of modernity, a rejection of classicism, so bold and vindictive, as to cause viewers to viscerally reject everything they are shown.  Of course, once the film rejects history, it cannot retract such actions, therefore, its instantaneous transfer into the post-modern, metacinematic world of affect theory demands that the viewers not only ask what the images of the flames and logs represent, but, subsequently, what does their relationship to the logs and fire mean in regards to their daily lives, as well as their own reactions and affects as they synthesize the images being shown.  It is at this point in the narrative that Fireplace for your Home becomes a consideration of semiotics, symbols and languages that embraces, what can only be described as a deconstruction of ecriture feminine, suggesting that oppression extends to such a degree of intersectionality that to depict anything would be to inherently engage within a discourse of power and privilege.  The result of this narrative shift, of course, where the self/other dichotomy becomes discussed, yet, in the traditional sense, these two division are clearly delineated and identifiable, but as the fire begins to falter, one cannot help but think of the way the yin and yang are at once different and the same, so to is the fire by its final flickers of light.  When the image finally fades and the viewers have been taken on the whirlwind of emotional and interpersonal reflection, they cannot help but recall the famous Biblical lines "vanity of vanities; all is vanity," for what is left after such an experience, nothingness, coldness or perhaps enlightenment.

It is no coincidence that such a work of art ends with a decided incorporation of Biblical metaphors, because Fireplace for your Home is truly a work that could stand up against all the classic works of literature, including "The Greatest Story Ever Told,"  in a much briefer time frame, this film manages to consider the necessity and problems of religion, while also questioning the proclaimed "brevity" of a certain work of the history of time, written by the late Stephen Hawkings.  Fire, of course, seems to be a major factor in every major creation story, as noted earlier, yet Fireplace for you Home, in its moments of pure cinéma vérité, manages to remind its viewers that fire does play a role in our daily engagements, both physical, and, as should be no surprise, metaphysical.  It is in this entrenchment within the physical, however, that a person can read into its clear dueling ideologies concerning the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution.  Marx would become famous for his creation of an economic, and eventually political, theory revolving around property, power, and oppression of the working class, yet through the fire, revolution is put in the forefront of this film and questioned both as an image of political action, as well inquiring as to what role the "hearth" and the "home" played into moving the proletariat into action.  Although to call Fireplace for your Home a rejection of communist sympathies and suggest it to be an embracing of conservative values is quite unfair, after all, who is to say that these logs represent any degree of heteronormativity, or even suggest the tradition of family values, remember it is a fire destroying things and not building upon itself, or, in this case, tradition.  In its single, uncut shot, the entirety of the capitalist tradition is cast away, there is no conspicuous consumption, or individual endeavors for success and promise of reward for hard work.  Viewers only receive one certainty, in the end, all things burn, it is far more important that as a society we value moments of shared experience, and that we must, simultaneously, be aware that a shared experience is still quite individual.  The film questions how it could be possible that any two people would ever admire, loathe or even acknowledge the same flickering portion of a flame, or, that the flame is anything more than a meaningless experience towards an eventual, arbitrary death.

Key Scene:  Every second of this film matters and nothing should be approached as lesser or greater, to do so would be to betray the vision of this film, which for all intents and purposes, manifested itself without human production and involvement, at least the IMDB credits seem to suggest such a thing.

I would say that you should go out and watch this, however, as I hope you have come to realize, this is very much an April Fool's Joke.  However, I did actually watch this, what kind of blog post would it be if I did not really commit to the viewing.  It is actually kind of soothing and makes for an excellent background ambience for reading.