Posts

Showing posts from August, 2015

182. Indian director Anand Gandhi's debut film “Ship of Theseus” (2012): A remarkable thought-provoking, non-commercial film from India

Image
The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned from Crete had 30 oars, and was preserved by the Athenians, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their places, in so much that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same. -- Plutarch (Greek historian, 45-120 A.D.) S hip of Theseus is an unusual and a philosophical film from India. It deals with an interesting philosophical subject that Plato and Socrates debated, philosopher John Locke postulated replacing the ship with a torn sock, and Jules Verne used in his story Dr Ox’s Experiment. I t is unusual for several reasons. First, much of the film Ship of Theseus is in English and, that too, in good spoken English, and represents visuals of mostly emerging urban India.   Second, it is not a big budget film (...

181. US director John Cassavetes’ “The Killing of a Chinese Bookie” (1976) based on his own original script: A creditable tale about entertainment, ambitions, and reality

Image
I won't call my work entertainment. It's exploring. It's asking questions of people, constantly. 'How much do you feel? How much do you know? Are you aware of this? Can you cope with this?' A good movie will ask you questions you don't already know the answers to. Why would I want to make a film about something I already understand?                                                     ***   There is no reason why a serious film, one about life, can't be enjoyable, maybe even fun. Emotions can be very entertaining, you know. I try to use them generously in my films.                                                                 --John Cassavetes, on his own films I f this critic were asked to ...