Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Warning: Spoilers ahead.

The other day, a friend asked me how I could like a movie like Perfume: The Story of a Murderer; I'd recommended the movie to him. I must admit that visually it's a very disturbing movie. Consider especially the scenes at the start where the main character Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is lying as a just-born among the dead-fish and rotting meat after his mother has abandoned him there. A key reason I liked Perfume... was because of the character of Grenouille. An orphan with a very special talent - a greatly enhanced sense of smell, he views the world in a very differently from others. His sense of smell is the only thing that matters to him and he "sees" the world in those terms. He tries to understand people and his surroundings in terms of their smell. And in the end, he gives up his life because he himself cannot "speak" - he has no personal scent. The story is fictional, but we see things like this in everyday life; visual artists who can't relate to the world, but are at peace with their art. For Grenouille who had all his sensory functions intact, he only relied on one. He as if never needed the others. The movie because of it's medium and time constraints unfortunately seems to skip over a lot of the material in the book, on which it's based. For instance Grenoille's seeming disregard for fellow humans - treating his victims like objects are not clearly explained in the movie. The Wikipedia page about the book does provide a little more information about it.

But coming back to the reason I liked the Perfume - One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when Grenouille meets his master Giuseppe Baldini for the first time. Grenouille has just informed Baldini that he can create a perfume that is the current fad in town for him. Baldini who inspite of being a master perfumer himself has been unsuccessful in coming up with the correct formula for that particular perfume, is skeptical. After all Grenouille doesn't even have a formal training in the art of composing perfumes. Grenouille then goes on to surprise Baldini by doing exactly that. The key moments of that scene show Grenouille pulling the required and correct ingredients from shelves spread around Baldini's laboratory, even though the former has never been there before, based only on their fragrance! Grenouille is a unique character and Perfume a unique story! I'm hoping to read the book in the near future as well.

Movie Review: Infernal Affairs

This isn't so much a movie review as much as it's an excuse to discuss a topic that I've encountered on numerous occasions in recent months - movie remakes. I recently found out that The Departed is a remake of a movie called Infernal Affairs. I just finished watching the original. The two movies are quite similar in structure and plot point, although the ending is different. No, don't worry! I'm not going to say how it ends. But Martin Scorsese did deviate from the original plot in interesting ways. If you haven't watched either of them then I would recommend Infernal Affairs - not so much because it's the original, but because the difference in the plot points makes the order of viewing important!

But coming to the main point of this essay, this was Martin Scorsese' second remake; Cape Fear was his other. While watching Infernal Affairs and trying to make mental notes on the similarities, I was thinking about remakes in Bollywood movies. I've seen atleast two such remakes - Zinda (remake of OldBoy)and Samay (heavily inspired by Se7en - although not acknowledged to be one by the director) that I've enjoyed. Both have deviated from the central plot point significantly, yet keeping the general structure the same. And in both of the Bollywood remakes the central plot was changed to make it palatable for Indian audiences without taking much of the excitement/thrill out of it, thus making it possible to enjoy both the original as well as the inspired/remake. I've heard a lot of people complain about Zinda being a "copy" of OldBoy, claiming that the latter is way better. Might be true - the plot certainly is more shocking! But rather than ranking these, I prefer to place them side-by-side and compare them with an eye towards how the remake departs from the original and why the Director chose to deviate if at all. Also, while placing blame, one needs to differentiate between directors who blindly lift scenes/action sequences from Hollywood movies and place them in their own movies (no matter how disastrous the end result is - remember that (in)famous Matrix fight sequence in Nayak? Anyone?) from those that at least have a good idea about what they're doing. I classify Sanjay Gupta amongst the latter - at least as far as Zinda and even Kante are concerned. At this point, it might be relevant to point out that remakes are far more common amoung South Indian movies. Tamil movies are often remade in Telugu or Kannada (the other way round as well) often with different actors. I've often times witnessed some of my friends discuss the differences in various scenes amongst these remakes.

A lot of current Bollywood directors have been doing a great job of adapting existing story/scripts to Indian circumstances/environment so that Indian audience can relate to it. I thought Vishal Bharadwaj did a fantastic job with Maqbool and Omkara. Sarkar is another great example. In the case of Sarkar, RGV's idea of using a living Indian social-political person as the inspiration (however much he might deny this) in his homage to the Godfather was a stoke of brilliance. The scene in the movie where Big B waves his hand getting out of the car after he's back from the hospital is amazing portrayal of the real life person he possibly tried to emulate. No one can deny the fact that Hollywood movies have been a great source of inspiration for a whole generation of Indian directors. So why blame them when they openly acknowledge this? After all, isn't it a glimpse into the minds of these directors as it tells us how they've chosen to interpret the originals? What do you think?

Reggie Miller considering joining the Celtics

This post comes in a little late. But I just wanted to write this anyways. If Reggie Miller joins the Celtics, I'll be happy for him. In fact I'll be thrilled if he wins the championship with them!

Also checkout Bob Kravitz' excellent opinion piece on the same topic.

Few thoughts about the Indiana Pacers

Jermaine O'Neal apparently wants to be traded to the L.A. Lakers. Great. I think it'll be good if that happens - good for both O'Neal and the Pacers. I wouldn't want a player who would rather be elsewhere wearing the pin-stripes. But let me say this, I doubt even if gets traded to the Lakers, they would win a championship with just Kobe Bryant and Jermaine O'Neal. O'Neal would certainly not be the one who tips the balance. While he's a great player, an even greater person - a great role model - he hasn't really shown much by way of delivering when it matters the most. In the above interview, he mentions that he promised Reggie Miller a championship. That's right, and he couldn't deliver. It may not be all his fault, but then when you make promises at that level, you better keep them. The fact that he couldn't has always supported what I felt about O'Neal - that he doesn't have that thirst to win the championship. On key occasions in the past, he's failed to deliver. The 2003-4 season was a key opportunity to win the ring, with Reggie Miller still playing and supporting the defensive player of the year Ron Artest and All Star O'Neal. Yet this team couldn't do it. More importantly O'Neal who was considered the best player on the team couldn't deliver on that promise to Reggie Miller. I don't have anything against O'Neal really. As I said I really like the way he conducts himself as a person and I would really like to be proved wrong and see him win a championship someday, even with a team other than the Pacers. And this is another reason why I don't really mind him being traded to the Lakers or the Nets.

But I must also say what I've said on earlier occasions - that the Pacers are a team that falls in love with talent, whether that talent delivers or not. I don't think it's just O'Neal who lacks the thirst to win a championship, the Pacers as an organization are equally responsible. Their history over the years, especially over the past three plus years have only strengthened my case. I find it interesting that in all this downward slide the Pacers have experienced over this time, no one has really noticed what a bad job Larry Bird has been doing with the team. Hiring Rick Carlise was probably the only good move he made during his tenure here. He did not waste opportunities in signing his favorite players (Sarunas Jasikevicius, Maceo Baston, James White, Peja Stojakovic), keeping other players who had failed to deliver (Jamaal Tinsley), letting people who really gave their all to the team to go (Anthony Johnson, Fred Jones, Dale Davis, soon Armstrong too). Is it a strange coincidence that none of Bird's favorite players are in the team anymore?

While I'm not a basketball player, I've followed my team the Pacers closely for the last six years and I think I can say that with Bird at the help, we are not going to win a championship, and neither with Jermaine O'Neal. I wish I felt different about this...

Update: Fixed a few typos