Sleepwalking Stories...: January 2007

Friday, 19 January 2007

Iconic Comics:Tintin by Herge

The classic comic book series

Tintin - The boy detective. Sensible, calm and very lucky to survive through all his adventures.

Snowy - Tintin's inseparable companion. He frequently "speaks" to the reader through his sarcastic thoughts on the situation at hand, thoughts which are supposedly not heard by other characters in the story.

Captain Haddock - Full of liquor and the widest variety of abuses.

Thompson and Thompson- They are not brothers. The difference can be seen in their moustaches. Detectives always getting into dialogues like ,"I presume."

Professor Cuthbert Calculus - An explosive goes off and the professor remarks," Did somebody knock?"

Bianca Castafiore - An opera singer whom Haddock despises. She seems to there wherever Tintin and company go, along with her maid, Irma, and pianist, Igor Wagner.

Herge died in 1983 after creating 21 beautifully illustrated and wittily written Tintin comic books. After a long gap of time, other artists brought out a Tintin comic book, showing a grown up Tintin, falsely implicated of a murder.

Thursday, 18 January 2007

Movie Review: Guru

Date of Release: 12th January 2007
Director: Mani Ratnam
Main Cast: Abishek Bachchan, Mithun Chakraborty, Aishwarya Rai, Madhavan, Vidhya Balan.

Until the judicial proceedings agaisnt the film's protagonist, Guru is riveting, engaging and believable. The moment when Gurukant Desai, suddenly bursts to a speech from his paralysis, that the film moves to implausibility.
A crowd claps, camera flashes blink, and the judicial panel find their stance softened by the "hero's pep talk."The hero must win at all costs including logic.

Otherwise, Ratnam creates an endearing drama of a Polyster merchant's rise from the 1950's to the 1980's. His love for rain sequences are very noticeable. The first half takes Guru from his youth to middle-age, at a good pace, and the second-half through the obstacles to his success. Ratnam displays the married couple chemistry well, and the confrontations between people of differing views, as he has in Bombay, Roja and the don epic -Nayakan.

Scenes such as Guru's decision to marry for money, comparing his wife to a silk cloth, showing a pot belly, stand out. A couple of song picturisations are uninspired, including the Aishwarya introduction song.Vidhya Balan and Madhavan are wasted in minute roles. Mithun gets under the skin of his character. Abishek does his most challenging role to date convincingly.

Rahman's songs gel well, although the same cannot be said for the background score, which gets too loud at times. Rajiv Menon's cinematography provides an epic look to the film.
Guru grabs your attention but it is in the summing up of the story that it falters to hero worship.