Jithindurden

Existentialism, nostalgia, dread about humanity, and a little bit of privilege all packaged in Almodovar's stylish package that is a bit weird at times. It's calm and beautiful throughout with a bit of underlying tension. But it never really goes beyond the safe space it puts you in which is both the thing that makes it work as well as the aspect that makes you think that maybe it could've been better. Whenever I see such films where most of the runtime is just a conversation between two people, there's a lot of context that keeps getting added and at one point there would be something that they say that makes everything a lot more than it is. Recently in Meiyazhagan, that was a conversation about the worker's struggle and the ancient history that ties together a lot of stuff that got cut in the OTT version. In this film also, it's a scene that is a bit different from the rest of the film, the scene between Julianna Moore and John Turturo which covers a lot of things. It clearly draws out the issue with our world, the way a lot of issues are happening as well as the reaction to it, all of which together make the world worse and yet show how human beings always look for hope and may find it in the strangest places. I can see that for some, this movie might feel hollow but for me, this was able to convey a lot beyond what it spelled out.

Going in I had my doubts that Rima Das could capture the same magic as the first one. The way these movies flow like it's a beautiful documentary of rural Assam is something almost impossible for anyone else to capture. Dhanu is a teenager this time and even though the playfulness and dreams from the first one are still there, life's realities start to become more real this time. It's truly heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time. The way emotions of these people, their lands, how the climate and the greed of other people affect their lives in every way feel so real in a way that rarely comes together so naturally in a film. Being able to see Rima Das Bhanita Das and listen to how these films were made in the Q&A session after the screening was also such a pleasant experience.

The overall story of this movie is nothing new and you can't say there's anything unpredictable in it but the way it unfolds is in ways that are a lot more honest than cinematic, which is what you would've expected from such films in the past. There's a lot of nudity and sex which is needed when the main character is a stripper who basically gets bought. But the way it is filmed is such that it feels very real, raw, and on the verge of becoming titillating. Every time we feel that it's going to be more than just what the plot requires and could turn into a more exploitative nature, it cuts away into the new scene. But this happens a lot of times that it becomes clear that Sean Baker is clearly challenging the viewers into thinking about these people more as people while acknowledging what exactly their work includes and how normal it is for them as well. However I have to say, the dark comedy and the tension of the second act is what made the frivolousness of the first act make more sense in a way. The huge cultural differences and the innate social stigmas that may be part of how I've grown up definitely had me confused about how to feel about this movie in a lot of places. Even among those without huge cultural differences, there are bound to be many who would consider this a bad film just from the initial minutes. There's also the fact that a lot of this can be triggering to many even without the movie ever being that violent about anything just because of how raw it is in the portrayal of everything.