Prodigal returns

Right from the time when Hollywood decided to make the celluloid version of the flabbergasting Broadway jewel The Phantom of the Opera, through the delightful musicals like Singing in the Rain and Westside Story to Clint Eastwood’s lightening quick and trigger happy westerns, some of the biggest films that have come out of Los Angeles have been interwoven by a single factor. Apologies for the shamelessly long first sentence, but I thought the first post of a hopefully silent blog, should reflect the sprit that would drive it, that of pointlessness and listless abstraction. But I digress. Coming back, Hollywood has always shimmered under the idea of sense, stories and their portrayal, that are so much larger than life. But as it is with everything, things change, style changes. And gradually, so has Hollywood.

Good cinema today might just be a little different, even as the concept of quietness slowly creeps in the intelligently crafted and topical cinema of Hollywood; drama and action have taken a whole new meaning. I remember watching films like Judgment Day and Con Air, mindless explosions and humour in the face of almost certain death. I couldn’t get over Nicholas Cage and John Travolta in Face-Off, as they played each other with such tremendous viciousness and compassion at the same time. And in the midst of all that, there were raw unfiltered action sequences. Stunt men, motorbikes, speedboats, bungee jumping and changing magazines in one hand before reloading another within a split second. It was raw action, sweat, toil, blood that somehow did enough to make the man look hurt yet good enough for him to just make it. Heroes used to die hard and villains, well, had a ball. And that became the style, and panache. And if you ask me, I would tell you that Arnold Schwarzenegger in those glares and that mo-bike in Terminator, or a bare feet Bruce Willis in that glass ridden hall of a five star hotel in Die Hard, is what Hollywood action is all about. Now, however, things have changed a bit. We have trained and realistic sequences, almost choreographed, backed by some international diplomatic secret or a political cause. We have stories that would support action and not the other way round. And it only shows evolution of Hollywood towards maturity. But I will clench my butt, and bite my parched lower lip, and guiltily admit, that they don’t make action like they used to anymore. And that’s why, a few old time directors from late 80’s and early 90’s who still bother to take up the microphone to call the shots, however crass their style is, have become so important to me.

James Cameron is one of them.

The best thing about Cameron is that he makes impossible stuff look believable. When Schwarzenegger single handedly brings down a fighter jet in the heart of a sky scrapper infested city, he made it look believable. He scared the shit out us when he made a robot from the future that could regain its shape. He has the power to make someone like Schwarzenegger from being invincible (which is easy) to being absolutely vulnerable and weak (which is sexy). He makes films where the flaws just scream out, but we choose to turn deaf ears. So that’s why when certain so called intellectual farts came up to me and said Titanic is bullshit, its just another Hindi film with a lot of money and special effects, I very unintelligently asked them to fuck the hell off. First, there is nothing wrong in being like Hindi films, but that’s a different story, and second, Titanic, again, with all its corny crap, summarizes what cinema is all about. Because when that ship drowned, a bit of me drowned with it. I have had women, who have never watched English films in their lives, come up to me and tell me how sorry she felt for Jack and Rose. And I have had people who actually thought that that their story was in fact a true one. That’s what people like Cameron can do. They weave fairytales in the midst of reality, and make them almost believable.

And Avatar did not disappoint.

“I love these films purely because someone has the imagination to make something like this,” a friend of mine said at the end of the movie. And I think that suffices. A planet with humanoid aliens who are blue and almost 15 feet tall and inherently interconnected with nature. His idea was so mesmerizing, that he made us realize, the true meaning of the word alien. For alien isn’t really a being from another plant. An alien, is a person with whom we cannot relate to. Who does things that are irrational and something that we are not ready to accept or like. The moment we agree with something, or somebody, he or she, or well, it, ceases to become an alien. Cameron, made human beings look alien to us, and the Na’vis, our own. For when those huge very much identifiable flying objects flew slowly to destroy the Hometree, they looked like a lot of things, but humans. The concept of human beings being more advanced and the ones that attack planets, against aliens who use bows and arrows and animals for their defence and livelihood, tells us who are the humans here, and who aren’t. He has shown us that we are drawn to feelings, and not species. He has given us the reverse of Independence Day, and human beings, never looked so alien before.

And my point is, he has made it beautiful with so many shamelessly screaming flaws that adorn the entire film to make it look pretty. True, it has some of the corniest and most predictable dialogues to make fun of, and so we did. But didn’t we have fun doing that! True that the attitude of the villain and the hero were so stereotypical that we knew exactly how each was going to turn out to be by the end of the film. But did we care about that? For Avatar is a film that has taken me back to the early 90’s Hollywood. While I made fun of dialogues like “I see you”; in around exactly five minutes time, I was left speechless by an edge of the seat chase sequence between two majestic flying beings that we have never seen before. Survival of the fittest, was never so beautifully portrayed and Cameron did it the old fashioned way. There were old school Will Smith in movies like Bad Boys dialogues like “come to papa” and “hell no!” that was more like the director playing to the gallery, and there was the everlasting falling in love-misunderstand-and then making up again formula that we all know, and are apparently bored of, but don’t mind watching quietly and smile. Cameron is like Subhash Ghai or Manmohan Desai of Bollywood, only difference is, unlike Ghai, he doesn’t try and become pretentious and make films that unsuccessfully try and emulate the latest trend. Cameron sticks to what he knows best, and what he knows best is delightfully flawed, and unabashedly entertaining.

Avatar retains the spirit of Judgment Day and Titanic, and I love it. From creating fantasy in the midst of real world, Cameron has created fantasy in fantasy. And made it look like a real world. I think that’s enough to put a smile on my face after leaving the theatre. And Cameron has always managed to do that. It’s not something I will remember forever, but I shall definitely want more of it to come. For I live for people who make imperfect look what imperfect really is- wonderful.