Because Pop Will Eat Itself

The wonderful Songs of my Life is looking for music lovers to tell them about their three favourite songs. Here are mine:

NIRVANA – HERE SHE COMES NOW
Released in 1991 as a split single feat. Nirvana and The Melvins covering the Velvet Underground’s ‘Here She Comes Now’ and ‘Venus in Furs’ respectively, this track epitomizes the spirit of Cobain and co. The now-legendary trademark trappings are all there: the cliquey collaboration with a band they looked up to, the fanboy homage to Lou Reed and gang, the mixtape sensibility of a split single, the punkesque deviation from the tongue-in-cheek stylings of the original version, but most of all, the understated melancholy of guitar riffs that threaten to but never quite peak and the affected but detached air of one who’s only too resigned to his fate. I’ve always held that Nirvana were deconstructionists, that 1993’s ‘Unplugged in New York’ was their best album, that they sought to embrace –and personalize- the recycling of pop culture as an inevitability rather than fight it, and this song proves it all, and brilliantly.          

DEVENDRA BANHART – I FEEL JUST LIKE A CHILD
 A 2005 single, this song may well be the ultimate tribute to the term “man-child” as we use it today. The trippy opening loop, the chants of “I feel just like a child”, the almost impish tendency of the vocals to hold centre stage over the musical arrangements- everything about this song invokes visions of an adult Sri Krishna grappling with too much responsibility when all he wants to do is play pranks on and hopefully get lucky with an unsuspecting gopi groupie, in direct contrast to the more serious king of gods whom Devendra was named after. It’s an affliction that will be familiar to many people in my generation- a reluctance to grow into our skins and act our age because it feels like the party we were promised in our youth hasn’t quite taken off just yet. “Some people try and treat me like a man,” accuses Banhart, “well I guess they just don’t understand.” You’re not alone, hombre.  

THE WHITE STRIPES- YOU’VE GOT HER IN YOUR POCKET
 It was 2003. Smartphones were still science fiction, and the internet was yet to bless everybody and their uncle with an opinion, in India anyway. A friend burnt The White Stripes’ fourth album, ‘Elephant’, on a CD for me, and I spent my entire Christmas vacation holed up in my room, listening to it on repeat. I had never heard of them before and I had given up all hope of listening to a contemporary band do real dirty blues with any conviction, but ‘Elephant’ singularly reaffirmed my faith in rock and roll. Nearly a decade later, the album still kicks all kinds of butt but the standout track for me will always be this little gem of a ditty about obsessive love- the acoustic work straddles darkness and innocence with an almost mellow, troubadour-like lightness of touch that evokes empathy and fear in equal measure, and sends a shiver down my spine every time I hear Jack White whisper “Don’t go away”, almost as an afterthought to his confessions of inadequacy.
     

In and out of love: Blue Valentine

(Guest post by Maryann Thomas from Songs of my Life.)

"You always hurt the one you love
The one you shouldn't hurt at all
You always take the sweetest rose
And crush it till the petals fall"

-- Ryan Gosling in Blue Valentine

What makes us fall in and out of love?

I almost didn’t write this because Blue Valentine hits too close to home. The hopeless romantic in me is unhappy to accept the idea that the flame of human love can fizzle out as easily as it burns, burns, burns. If you have known and lost love you will find it hard to disassociate the sense of melancholia which follows you around like a mournful puppy while you watch the film.

In essence, it is a story of love and decay.  Dean and Cindy are (outwardly) a handsome married couple.  Dean is almost child-like in his display of love for their 6-year-old daughter. In contrast, Cindy reacts with annoyance at being woken up when they tumble down on her in bed in the morning.  There’s something eerily dead about their relationship..  a stoic dullness to every frame.. which captures the drudgery of  their everyday life. It is a kind of boredom every one of us has experienced some time or the other. We try to ignore it, or distract ourselves or pretend that things are okay or get past it by looking outside the relationship. But, the truth is never far.

Is it naïve to believe that love is beyond money or social class or intellectual depth?  Blue Valentine punctuates the idea that love is not just some precious, floaty cloud in space, independent from all else in the universe. It often demands, or insists on fertile common ground for two people to grow and blossom. The dreamers suffer a blow when circumstances reveal otherwise. Blue Valentine quietly proceeds to break this bubble by showing an unraveling of ‘true’ love

She is quiet, pretty, wants to become a doctor and get away from a broken home and blue-collar upbringing. He is sweet and earnest (you can’t help loving him,) a tattooed smoker-drinker type who hauls boxes for a living. His gentle soul charms her.. and is soon smitten. They make love in her childhood bedroom where he plays her a song on a mixed CD. In the famously adorable scene, she bursts into an impromptu dance on the street while he twangs on his ukulele.

Dean: In my experience, the prettier a girl is, the more nuts she is, which makes you.. insane.

Cindy: I like how you can complement and insult somebody at the same time, in equal measure.

Six years later, she is a nurse instead of a doctor and her smile has faded. He is balding and paints houses for a living. Dean still adores her, but his idea of reigniting the spark is to take her to a cheap motel for a weekend getaway.  They get drunk and struggle to have conversation and sex. Their love has been dead for so long that the very act seems to repel them. He flares up when she mentions his lack of ambition. She protests in disgust when he is inside of her.

You are invited to be a voyeur to their struggle of continued misery in the glow of monochromatic lightening. Dialogues are raw and choppy. Each scene seems to stretch on forever. You are bored by their fragmented-relationship. At the same time, scenes from their early lives together make you feel the nostalgia and bask in the ever-after-glow of a new romance. Lilting, charming, tenacious, unconscious love. Untethered and soulful and intimate and boundless.   

Ryan Gosling is perfection. His U-shaped smile makes you feel weak in the knees. His sweet adorableness as Dean makes you want him to be not-quite-so-stupid and loving. Michelle Williams’ Cindy is a beautiful, amazing woman, who clearly deserves so much more, but settles for less. Her performance is subtle and shows a life of quiet and resigned frustration and invisible to the world. It makes you feel for her. Feel for sadness, her clueless-ness, and her lost youth.

One particular scene I loved: A juxtaposition of the peaking of devastation and a perfect moment, frozen in time. 

It is their final confrontation where pain overwhelms every word and loss hangs droopily and heavily in the air, and embraces their imploding relationship. It cuts back to scenes of the sunlight from their wedding day. She is pregnant, radiant and wearing a lace wedding dress and with tears streaming down her cheeks, she kisses him tenderly and promises him ‘For better or for worse.’ The words from Grizzly Bear’s Shift, tumbles down magically and hauntingly on the screen, framing the moment, making us yearn and weep for a love that was, a love that was lost, and the grace and ugliness of everything in between. 

Les Miserables and the Beauty of Art

Ok Bookenders, here's our first guest (non) review by Ms. Maryann Thomas of the fantastic Writer's Fairy Tale. Show her some love in the comments section, or follow her on Twitter for more madness: @mae189  

Warning: This is not a film review. I hope this does not put undue pressure on your expectations of the film.

"I see debt, people."

It was Oscar Wilde who said "Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life."

An idea I implicitly agree with. But, watching Les Miserables last night only reaffirmed it for me. I re-realized just how deeply ‘art’ gets embedded in the psyche of the artistically hungry among us. So, I decided to abandon all journalistic notions of impartiality, to play with fanciful notions of what art can do to an unhindered soul. I must say it’s been a while since any movie has warranted a need to purge and talk about my experience with it.

 This article in the Guardian says that a cinema manager advised movies goers to take a box of tissues to the cinema. I obviously didn't  because I had sort of managed tear-free at other flicks seen recently, both of which held promise of an emotional response. Life of Pi (I preferred the book; I felt the glowing whales, running meerkats and things thinned the message of the film) and The Impossible (Based on one family’s real-life experience in the wake of 2004's Tsunami which translated into a 'tear inducing' disaster movie.)

And flashmobs would never be the same again.

Set against the backdrop of the French Revolution, the story’s strength lies in dappling in multiple themes at once – love, friendship, valour, forgiveness, justice, moral dilemma, duty, human weakness, suffering, courage, poverty, freedom, revenge, sacrifice, broken dreams, mercy, salvation- all strung together on a ray of hope.

I have neither read the original by Victor Hugo, nor seen the long-running musical-play, but Les Miserables seemed to suitably marry grainy detail (which I suspect only text can offer) and the sense of ‘a-liveness’ which the medium of theatre excels at.

"I specifically said "short back and sides", asshole."

Couple of my favourite scenes: Jean Valjean, the protagonist, (Hugh Jackman has outdone himself) finds refuge in a church while on parole and steals silver from the parish. When he is caught and faced with jail time, the priest offers him more silver. The simple act of love changes his life forever, as you will see in the story. Oh, the tears they began there.

Anne Hathaway gives a harrowing portrayal of young and beautiful mother transforming into weakly prostitute Fantine. Her anguish-laden and completely beautiful and convincing rendition of 'I dreamed a dream' felt like she was drawing from her personal suffering. Anne Hathaway didn't exist, only Fantine did. More tears!

"No, I'm not hugging a poster."

"Told you she's real!"

Then there’s the romantic, yet heart-breaking love-triangle, when Cosette (Jean’s adopted daughter) and Marius Pontmercy (young, revolutionary guy who falls for her) profess their love for each other through an fence at the garden, while tormented Eponine watches the love of her life (Pontmercy) court another woman. There were three singing voices at once, the camera drawing each face into focus - Three faces and three voices and mingled expressions of love, loss, envy and desire, come together in beauteous harmony. 

A single element which tipped it completely in favour of pure brilliance for me was that the entire story is told through song. Director Tom Hooper had an enormous challenge on his hands by having the cast sing live while recording. He wanted to capture the live emotion of actors on set and the effort really shows. It added a whole new level to the poignancy of the story.  The intense attention to detail and a solid commitment from the entire cast and crew just could not be ignored.

I found it hard to catch every word of the singing and was also distracted by its aural and visual intensity. But since it was mostly Hugh Jackman and other pretty amazing actors, I didn't mind staring hard at all. Don't hate me Jackman-fans but he is so much more than Wolverine to me right now.

Each scene I found exquisite, depictions of poverty and suffering alienating but theatrically so, there was raw power in the performances, the screenplay was tight, the cinematography beautiful, the wretchedness, poignant, the characterization,  human, the musical performances, sheer magic, the story itself, held a world together, a dedication to life itself.

"I'm just saying it's too warm for a long coat."

I once fancied this theory which I liked to harbour in my childish imagination. I viewed every book, every film and every song, as an individual entity in the universe. While the movie or book would end, the characters and episodes in them would continue and we would be oblivious to each other again. Les Miserables, made me believe in fantastical stuff like that again.

To me, the movie was a kindred soul I had taken a look into.  It works because it formed an intimate connection with me as an audience member.

I walk out of the theatre with a heavy heart and tear-stained cheeks, euphoric and mellow after the 157-minute journey where I virtually came face-to-face with a ton of things I considered to be important in my life. Looking over to my companion, I gingerly asked him what he thought of the movie, eagerly hoping that it had had a similar effect on him. I wanted to seal the moment, forge an eternal bond between myself and humanity thought this person who had been through what I had.

“It was alright, I got sleepy in the middle. They should have cut it down to two hours.”

"What?! Is that all you have to say after watching this amazing  adaptation of an epic tale (1400-odd-pages too) which not only managed to capture the wonderfulness of the story and depict the most important things in the world, but also, without losing momentum AND entertaining like crazy!!" I yelled silently and indignantly.

But, it was too late. The bubble had burst. The calm nonchalance of reality rapidly brought my heart and mind back to earth, like a swishing feather. A faded strain of ‘I dreamed a dream'..carelessly drifted around in my head and tugged at my heart.

And, life goes on.

                                                                   Les Miserables (2012) Official Trailer 

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? : Review

Albee, Edward. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962; play) 

As happens so often when I fall hook, line and sinker for a book, I read Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in one straight sitting. In the process, I missed a comely-looking Ashley Judd (Random MILF insert? Check!) chasing baddies around Eastern Europe in Missing, and my nephew's sixth birthday cake, but guess what: no regrets, beeyatch! I'm so glad about our sordid little affair on the balcony- illuminated only by my mobile phone and freed of inhibitions by copious helpings of bergin while the family organized a search party to find me before my nephew went to bed- that I'm thinking of getting a tattoo to forever remind me of our tryst.

Ashley Judd (Missing):  So badass she hangs up on gentleman callers.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is longer than your average play, clocking in at well over three hours. It's a dark and twisted roller-coaster ride full of lies and cruel truths and illusions and harsh realities and wanting and not being able to. The story is played out in the living room of  George and Martha, starting at two in the morning and snaking it's way into the day. (I'd happily forego most pleasures in life to watch Paul Giamatti and a decade-younger Meryl Streep play the couple on film.) Martha has invited Nick and Honey (Ryan Gosling and Isla Fisher, anybody?), a young couple and recently-made acquaintances, back home for a nightcap after a party hosted by her father, overlord of the college where George and Nick are professors.    

George and Martha are middle-aged -Martha the older of the two- and exploding at the seams from too much proximity. The despair and the disillusionment of watching each other grow old without living up to any of their youthful promise is writ large on their countenance and fills their words with venom. They create and participate in wicked games to keep themselves amused, as I would imagine any long-term couple might do. The difference is however that their guests are caught in the crossfire, made unwitting participants in their marital discord. This is a quirky contradiction - George and Martha are much too intellectual and privileged to indulge in what may be considered such 'lower class' behavior.

Their game appears to be an on-going narrative, something they have cultivated and bred for a very long time. It comes with an intriguing set of characters, from a fictional 20-year old son to childhood anecdotes of institutionalized madness and murder. Nick and Honey pack their own anti-heroic punches, consumed as they are by age-appropriate ambition and familial longings respectively. Honey, in particular, is the puppeteer of a shockingly cruel private dance- one that George repeatedly (and ultimately, successfully) tries to cut into.

The use of the word 'successful' at all though, in reference to any of the gang, would be self-defeating, and disrespectful of the pathos of strained human relationships the play so successfully (damnit, that word again!) portrays. Though American, and first staged in 1962, it has more than a touch of the kitchen sink drama that so defined social realist British plays of the 1950s and 60s, and calls to mind -more than once- John Osborne's Look Back In Anger (1956). Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? works -and never, ever feels derivative- because it works on two levels: it is both critique and praise of the importance of illusions to one's sanity (or the semblance of it)- a theme all too easy to identify with for yours truly.

And as if that weren't enough to douse the cockles of my heart with arson, Wikipedia serves up this little pop culture gem for dessert- in the words of the man, Edward Albee, himself- about the inspiration for the title of the play: "I was in there having a beer one night, and I saw "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" scrawled in soap, I suppose, on this mirror. When I started to write the play it cropped up in my mind again. And of course, who's afraid of Virginia Woolf means who's afraid of the big bad wolf . . . who's afraid of living life without false illusions. And it did strike me as being a rather typical, university intellectual joke." In brief: Existential misery gift-wrapped in pretentious toilet wall graffiti-  what's not to like?  

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? reminded me of: "Wicked Game"- Chris Isaak, Heart Shaped World (1989)  

SHOULD ART REALLY CARE ABOUT BLACK PEOPLE?

Kind of a momentous week, this. Finished Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye", finally. Because I've started and stopped so many times in the past, it felt like a big deal. For about 11 seconds. Then I was like WTF?! T'was not the gripping, empowering, seminal Black novel I was expecting. Plus, Toni Morrison looks like a talkshow host on daytime TV; see:

'Tuesdays with Toni': 11am, Tuesdays.   

When we all know revolutions are led by people who look more like this:

Halle Berry would never bring a sweater to a catfight. 

Or by people who can hold iconic poses that will sell thousands of teeshirts and coffeemugs. Like this:

Erykah Badu. Yes, BEADS. Bite me, Che. 

I jest, of course. But "The Bluest Eye" did leave me cold. The narrative was so fragmented and dystopian (to me)  that I didn't know what to do with my Sympathy. There are moments of magical prose, but I wanted to root for someone, to feel wronged and condemned on their behalf. But the greatest tragedy here is that a poor little black girl wishes for blue eyes. I see why that's maybe not ideal, but we've all been there. I'm a man of color, and I've wished a million times for pale blue eyes, lighter skin, social security, Privilege. I've been with White women and Brown women and Black women and Yellow women. None of them smell or taste the same, and one is not better than the other. But you do get served quicker when you're dining with a White woman. I can either ruminate on the unfairness, or take more White women to dinner.

Speaking of White girls, much was made of the fact that HBO's zeitgeisty new show, "Girls", does not feature any Black characters. To be fair to writer/director/actor Lena Dunham, she did say she plans to include more Black characters in the second season. But why should she? If art is expression, and if art is personal, why is it so necessary for art to be "inclusive" or "multicultural"? Lena and her friends simply work, live, eat and sleep in a universe populated entirely by White people. I'm down with that.

I'd rather art be honest than token-touting. I grew up on "Friends" and "Seinfeld" and "Frasier", none of which had Black characters. I'm ok with it to the extent that it feels artificial and put-on when I see a Black character on TV shows with a predominantly White cast. When I see a Black dude share a flat with Zooey Deschanel and co in "New Girl", my head screams: "PANDERING!" For three months in Glasgow, I was in the rather amusing position of sharing a big house with an Indian acquaintance, a Black friend, my German girlfriend and her Chinese girlfriend. Here's a curious fact: none of them liked renting with a Black flatmate, not even my Black friend!

"New Girl": "It's like there's a wall between us." 

The Indian guy would have preferred an all-Indian set up, the Chinese girl would have preferred a fellow Chinese girl but didn't mind White people (I was given a free pass because I was seeing her best friend), my girlfriend would have liked for it to have been just the two of us, or an European household, and my Black friend wanted to live on his own. But none of them were racist. They just had preferences when it came to living arrangements. Admittedly, we were all temporary residents in a foreign country but it does shine a light on racial attitudes, I think.

America, I understand, is much more multi-layered and integrated. They have a Black President who may or may not be a Muslim, a communist or a non-native. That's just how they roll. African Americans are Americans, as are Irish Americans or Norwegian Americans. They are unified by the flag, and pop culture, and language, and the Constitution. Except, they're really not, are they?

Lesley Arfin, one of the writers on "Girls", responded to the criticism about minority-inclusion thusly:

Lesley Arfin didn't think "Precious"represented her at all. Not even a little bit.

I get it. I really do. It's how I feel about "Slumdog Millionaire". That didn't represent ME, despite my being an Indian man. What are the chances that a billion people don't all live similar lives, right? Guess what, Rajesh Koothrappali from "Big Bang Theory" does not represent me either. Neither does Ranjit from "How I Met Your Mother". So I'm neither slumdog, nor supergeek nor cab driver. I didn't particularly care for either stereotype in the case of the TV shows (though HIMYM could arguably be ironic stereotyping: "as if all Indians in America are cab drivers, pfft!" it's still stereotyping, and I'm not amused), and I remember being enraged and disheartened and just a little ashamed when "Slumdog Millionaire" hit theatres.

But was that a fair reaction? Let me tell you something. It's not easy being an Indian man in a White country. It's just not. There will always be an idiot who thinks it's funny to kick the back of your seat at the cinema while you're watching "This is England", every time the word "Paki" or "nigger" is used on the screen. The last thing we need is more negative stereotyping, more hurtful nicknames. There will always be idiotic movies like "Crash" that perpetuate the myth that racism is somehow circumstantial, and subject to context. It's not. You either respect all individuals, irrespective of caste, color or creed, or you don't. At all times. It's non-negotiable.

But non-inclusion or under-representation of races or communities on TV is not racism. It's artistic licence -and myopic writing, maybe- but it's not racist. Frankly, feeling entitled to any kind of representation (cultural or personal) seems a little arrogant to me - if you want to watch yourself in a movie, make it yourself. Besides, considering most of the writers and producers on American TV are White gentlemen, would you, as a minority community, really want to be represented by these guys? Look at the examples of Indian representation above. Ever picture yourself as any of those guys? Didn't think so.

Big Bang Theory: And then there was Brown.

But Jamal or Koothrappali or Ranjit are not racist caricatures. They're just stereotypes that don't flatter. I wouldn't mind if Indian men were stereotyped as having larger-than-average penises, like African men are, and if this became a recurring theme in pop culture. That, I'd be fine with. I remember reading a Samuel L Jackson interview where he said there were simply no roles for Black men in Hollywood other than "junkie" or "criminal" till the mid-nineties. And then things slowly started changing with movies like "Men in Black", and "Independence Day" (YES, they had to start off with movies set in apocalyptic situations; still, wouldn't you rather play a superhero than a cab driver?) TV, because of it's larger reach, will take just a little longer to level the playing field. It's still hard for many Americans to invite Black people in to their living rooms.  

Till that happens however, let's just be thankful for stereotypes that flatter, shall we, Black people? You guys have your freakishly large penises and bootilicious women, and we have supergeeky brains and arranged marriages. And the stereotypes are not going anywhere till America addresses the real problem: the very small number of writers from minority backgrounds. Colored writers. Gay writers. Women writers. And some of them will write stuff that you just don't get, create characters or scenarios that don't represent you, just like writers do now. Like Toni Morrison did. Get over it. It's just not meant for you. More importantly, let's remember that art is under no obligation to care for Black people or Indian people or gay people, but America is. Governments are. People are.
   
                                      Icy Highs's Video Recco: 

                        Ashton Kutcher dons a brownface for a Popchips ad. All for inclusion.  

The Autograph Man: Review

Smith, Zadie. The Autograph Man, Hamish Hamilton, 2002

I buy, read and fall in love with different books for different reasons. Zadie Smith's second novel, The Autograph Man, falls under a rather special category. I bought it because I have nursed the most humongous crush on Zadie for the longest time. I haven't read her first, White Teeth, nor have I listened to her speak or read anything else by her. I happened to see her picture in a newspaper sometime in 2001, and immediately filed her name under "women I'd be in a relationship with in an ideal world", not to be confused with the "women I'd sleep with in an ideal world" list which is much lengthier. To give you a clearer picture, the former list also features the likes of Erykah Badu, Sylvia Plath, Uma Thurman and Courtney Love, while the latter comprises masturbatory stalwarts like Carol Vorderman, Lois Griffin from Family Guy and J.K. Rowling.

Coming back to The Autograph Man, I loved it but not because it struck me as a fantastic piece of writing but because it features one of the most lovable female characters I've come across this year. It may not be the best reason to recommend a novel, but I was in this rut - novel after novel of thoroughly unremarkable or inaccessible female protagonists, from Middlesex to Freedom- and I was beginning to not just miss, but genuinely yearn for a female character I could put on a pedestal, lust over, fall in love with. (Yes, my life really is that empty.) I was also starting to question if any of my favorite writers could create genuinely interesting heroines.

Yes, it probably says something about my psychological makeup that the first female character I really liked this year (despite reading at least ten novels) has a weak heart and a pacemaker in her chest, and forgives her boyfriend's repeated infidelity and loveless behavior despite no obvious remorse on his part. Yes, Zadie's descriptions of how the hero fingers the rectangular metal shape of her pacemaker while they're in bed together made me wish I had a girlfriend with a debilitating disease and a physical reminder of it that I could scoop out post-coitus. I even wondered if I would prefer something unobtrusive like an artificial limb to something more all-encompassing, like an iron lung. The heart wants what the heart wants. 

What I liked most about her is that there is an untold melancholy to her, like she has a story far more intriguing  than that of her lover, if we'd only bother to listen. Zadie has somehow crammed an entire novel, a lifetime of could-have-beens, into the few scenes where she holds court, and this seemed to me a most remarkable feat. The other amazing thing is of course that the heroine, who is of African ancestry, immediately instills in my lecherous mind an image of Zadie. 

The male protagonist,  Alex-li Tandem, is a Chinese-Brit 26-year old and professional autograph dealer. He is obsessed with Kitty Alexander, a Russian-American actress from 50s Hollywood. Zadie treats the theme of pop culture fandom rather unconvincingly, but her characters are believable enough to be likable in their own right. The faux spiritual asides and Jewishness vs. Goyishness shtick get a bit heavy-handed at times, but you feel for Alex and the gang on the whole, and this seems as towering a literary achievement as any in these dark days of Twilight and assorted zombie-lit.

The Autograph Man reminded me of: My Iron Lung (acoustic version) - Radiohead (Originally released as an EP in 1994; later appeared in The Bends, 1995)

If the book were a movie, this song would make an ideal soundtrack for: the alphabetical drinking game scene  

          

Closer (2004): Movie Re-Review

That art will take on new meanings every time you re-visit it has always seemed a given. What I hadn't perhaps realized was that just how different your interpretations are of a beloved work of art four years since you last devoured it body and soul may well be the easiest gauge of how much you've changed as a person. Today, I re-watched one of my favorite movies, Closer (2004), after several years of deliberately not doing so, in fear and awe of of the melancholic depths such cinematic excursions have pulled me under on previous occasions. 

As always, it struck me deeply and left me with an all-too-familiar ache and emptiness, but what stood out most was how differently it affected me the first and most recent times. Closer of course was never going to pass for a love story, dark and blunt and visceral as it is. Popular culture at least, attests to love as a concept that is virtuous and nonjudgmental and somehow more innocent than the bloodshed and violence and self-denial that were considered the epitomes of it's expression until a few centuries ago. 

This is a line of thought I have personally been struggling to come to terms with recently: love as a service Vs. love as a primal, carnal need. If love were as altruistic and cerebral as the former would suggest, surely it  disqualifies a large majority of people from being capable of it? I have not studied the great works but it seems to me that somewhere down the line, the intellectuals have made their own an emotion that on the surface seems most basic to all humankind. And if that is the case, then Closer convincingly brings down the walls of such pretensions to where mortals roam, and love, and fight for love. 

It is this re-proletarianism of love that I failed to imbibe on my previous viewings of the movie. Perhaps, it had something to do with my own environment at the time. I was in university, studyingDevelopment Economics (the worst kind - at least finance or investment don't aspire to nomenclatural sainthood!) and interacting daily with a community that was both select -in that they had won many intellectual battles to be where they were- and accomplished, in the conviction that they would one day save the world from all it's miseries by virtue of a piece of paper that pronounced them more educated and enlightened than the masses. It was this feeling of belonging to an exclusive higher ground perhaps that led me to identify more with Jude Law's character, Dan at the time. 

Dan is an aspiring writer, a soft-spoken, articulate, sensitive man who falls for Julia Roberts's independent, sophisticated Anna, an American photographer living in London. We know of course that this will hurt Alice, his girlfriend, played wonderfully by Natalie Portman. Alice, who used to be a stripper, is beautifully scarred and fragile and we wish desperately for her happiness, but we also know that Dan and Anna belong together. They are both ethereal and substantial, they are light-skinned and blonde and tall, they read and critique and enjoy the opera and belong to a world far removed from that inhabited by Alice and her waitressing job and her quirky ways. Larry on the other hand, who is Anna's dermatologist husband, is brash and full of bravado and working class guilt about his good fortune, and -we think- more suitable a match for poor, broken Alice. 

That was my enduring impression at any rate. The movie confounded us romantics then by breaking all the established norms, and leaving Dan confused and alone at the end. Anna goes back to Dan, and Alice who is also American returns to her country, albeit only after both sets of men and women -in turns- indulge one another physically and emotionally. This apparent failure too only served to make Dan more endearing at the time. There was a certain romanticism to the plight of the tormented genius, destined to live a life of solitude surrounded by people who did not understand him.

This is not at all how the movie spoke to me this time. If anything, Larry -steely, vulgar, rugged Larry- is closer to what I aspire to, today. He flaunts his desires and inhibitions with the confidence of a man who will fight to the end, stand up for what he believes in. (I can only attribute this to my own journey from the idyllic confines of a class-neutral, socialistic academic setting to the real world where one lives by the sweat of his brow and no amount of scholarly pretensions will pay your rent.) Needy, wounded Alice on the other hand seems far more desirable than cold and in-control Anna. That may sound patronizing but I really would prefer to rescue somebody than be rescued, which was not the case a few years ago. What I realized is that that 'desire to be rescued' -for the right woman to come along and nurture and fertilize me- was borne out of a false sense of entitlement, a misplaced faith in my own ability to be loved. What these last few years -and heartbreak and letting people down and breaking hearts- have taught me is that love is a privilege, something I can only hope to deserve through effort and will and most importantly, courage. 

The bigger surprise was how distinctly the movie -or my understanding of it- has changed, thematically. I remember laughing a little louder than the situation warranted on my first viewing at Dan asking Anna if she found his book to be a little vulgar. Anna replies that she didn't, because it spoke the truth about sex. Cue more laughter for the benefit of Others. Looking back, I feel more than a little ashamed. Closer runs the gamut from cyber sex to strip clubs to clinical comparisons of smell and feel and taste ("like you, only sweeter") and may well be considered vulgar by some. But it also speaks the truth about sex - how it hurts, causes jealousy, how it can be the most satisfying revenge, how possessive we are of a loved one's body, how it is so integral to the expression of affection. Both Dan and Anna may as well have been talking about the movie. So I reveled in my cleverness, made sure everybody knew there was a joke within the joke, that I was in on it.

But Closer -despite the physical intimation of its title- is not about sex. Closer is a movie about the politics of truth. Truth and kindness. But truth is boring, truth is sexless. As Alice says, in a subversion of that famous line from Annie Hall (1977), "lying is the most fun a girl can have without taking her clothes off." Truth is boring because it is so functional. It is truth (or lack thereof) that brings people closer, and truth that drives them apart. Everything in between, all the good bits about being in a relationship -as anyone who has ever lost or left a lover will testify- is a lie. It maybe difficult to admit, but all relationships fail at the same point in time - the moment of truth. That truth may be something you refused to acknowledge till then, or something that has suddenly come to light - but it's always truth that renders a person unlovable just as it is the perceived truth that pulled you to him or her in the first place. How long you stay together, how long you enjoy staying together, depends solely on how long you can keep the lie going.

In the manner of all quests for truth, Closer offers more questions than answers. In the movie, Larry, ruffian that he is, actively seeks the truth, thrives on the hurt the bitter truth will cause him. Dan would prefer not to know, or to know a version that suits him or one he is familiar with. Alice on the other hand understands the necessity of tempering truth with kindness, of protecting the truth with half-truths and lies, as does Anna in her own reserved way.

This then would appear to be an exclusively female attribute. At the risk of being labelled a misogynist, men -in my experience- place too much emphasis on knowing and consequently hurting, while women realize that not knowing is just as important, that not telling is just as virtuous. Is all intellectual curiosity necessarily fated to culminate in disillusionment and despair? Are the hearts and actions of men -and women- truths so dark that any great knowledge of them will result in ruin? This would in turn suggest that the cultural intellectualization of love was essentially an act of charity and not snobbery, an attempt to save the less well-informed from the misery of knowing. And if that be true, are women the true intellectuals, the ones who protect the rest of us from Truth?

Closer (Movie, 2004) was based on the play of the same name, also scripted by Patrick Marber (Premiere : Royal National Theatre's Cottesloe Theatre, 1997).


I couldn't let this post go without including the song that sets up the whole movie: Blowers daughter -Damien Rice