Priya and her parents
We drove down to Priya's home village and spent a couple of days there and drove back. Drive time was about 6.5 hours, first to Chittoor by national highway and then by a secondary road to Tiruttani. Tiring driving -- I don't enjoy driving as much as I used to, age showing.
The drive from Chittoor to Tiruttani was gorgeous, but didn't take photos. India in the monsoons is such a pleasure, particularly rural India. Especially in the drier areas the contrast with other times of the year is remarkable.
On the way from Chittoor to Tiruttani we were waylaid by a police group checking documents. I had forgotten to bring my insurance papers and so gave them 100 Rs instead to let me off. For a guy who hates bribes, I end up doing it remarkably often ...
Priya's family house in the village is a lovely place. Its quite rundown due to lack of maintanance but still has a lot of charm. It was built a long time ago in a traditional style which I like. The house is also quite large. It has a series of doors (6!) that are all in a perfect straight line : the main door to the house, then the entrance to the main living room, then the entrance to the kitchen, then the cemented backyard, then the walled-in garden, and finally the open garden. The full plot area of the house is therefore huge.
We brought Priya's parents back with us and they are here right now. Her dad leaves in a day or two and her mom will be here for some more time. Both have recovered quite well from their chikungunya.
In their backyard
9 comments:
Glad to hear Priya's parents are both doing better and good that you'll could help out. Those pictures are very reminiscent of Kothapalle!
Despo, I saw volver at Land mark cinema - a low key place that apparently plays a lot of art house films.
Volver was awesome. I've seen one other movie of almodovar - women on the edge. Both had a similar and welcome approach to treating women as strong characters and not the whiny ones that hollywood definietely tends to (exception is Kill Bill).
Penelope Cruz is terrific in her role of a blue collar gritty woman role. If aishwarya rai (by way of comparing another glamorous star) spends a few years practicing serious acting she might one day grow out of her pretty face and get into a character like Cruz does.
This is easily the best movie I have seen this year and makes one of the top movies I have seen. It is a very very pleasant and humorous movie about very dark happenings. But it does not trivialize the inner darkness of the story - it merely focusses on a lighter telling of the story.
The main strenght of the movie is in focussing on the resolve of the women. Raimunda's (Cruz's character) enourmous grit, wit and resourcefulness in overcoming the tragic circumstances she finds herself in is the main focus of the story. And Cruz hits every note along the way. If she doesnt win a nomination I'd be dissapointed.
However, the movie was not deep. By way of comparing the feeling the movie invoked in me, "Blue" from the tricolor series, was a very deep movie about liberation from our circumstances that has stayed with me and every time I think about that movie I feel really really happy. About Volver (it means "return") I cannot hope to behold its message for there is none. But years from now, I suppose I would still be able to recall Raimunda's face full of warmth for her daughter, full of courage to deal with her circumstance and full of the devotion from Cruz to her craft.
Arvind
this is an extremely poorly written review. may well qualify as a case-study of how not to do it in a film appreciation/criticism class. i am saving this one!!
What are you talking about ?! I enjoyed reading the review! And its not meant to be a professional review, its an impressionistic personal thing.
I would be curious to hear more details on why you think its such a bad review.
BTW -- publish a name. Unless you are you-know-who in which case I understand.
tough to begin deconstructing this. it is atonal, random, conveys little about the movie, little about the writer (prevents it from being "impressionistic personal") and nothing about any of the topics he chooses to refer to. so at the risk of sounding harsh - pals' loss of the art of conversation is showing in his writing. some deeper issues lurk. mine with his stuff on the written word. his? the rules of grammar, they say, will not save us when we are dying. but this?
If you see my own reviews on Written Word, they are quite similar to this. To the extent that I have developed some sort of reviewing style (ahem!), it goes somewhat like this: try to get to the essence of what works or does not work, or what the movie is about, which can usually be stated in a few words, after some struggle. Grammer is one of the casulties in the process of trying to get this across, esp. as one is too lazy to proofread.
adjourning to the written word...
I too enjoyed reading the review. Infact, it made me want to go see it immediately :-)
caution - your slip is showing!
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