SubscribeI love Saturdays. First a jamming session with a couple of musicians, (where I realized that not touching an instrument like Tabla for thirteen years can make you pretty pathetic at it, no matter how well you knew it before), followed by experiments with spinach, potato, yellow split lentils, and red wine, and eventually concluded with a couple of film viewings along with the experimental dinner.
I tend to repeat myself a lot – people complain that I praise every film I see. However, I choose my viewing list very very carefully after extensive research, and that helps keepign the trash away. Today they were ‘Man On Wire’ and ‘Gran Torino’.
Man On Wire is an exquisite film, a documentary about Philip Petit, the tight-rope walker who performed his class act by doing a high-wire walk between the Twin Towers in NYC back in 1974.
The filmmakers must have had quite a few challenges – especially since remarkable documentaries are made of stark truth, however easy or difficult that might be. Furthermore, a documentary about an (literally high-wire) act such as this, itself needs to be complex enough to stand up to the task that its trying to portray… or else, it falls flat very easily.
And yet, James Marsh proves himself in this one. Starting from outstanding storytelling to classy cinematography, from slick yet arty editing, to extreme honesty about every single detail, this film had everything. I especially loved the build up to the act, from the point they smuggle in the gear into the Twin Towers to the actual act.
However, the best part of the film of course is the man himself, a character whose mesmeric tone and passion for the insane act carries so much force, so much vehemence, that you find yourself wondering about this world — why do we have to have a why for everything?
Next up was Gran Torino, the Clint Eastwood film thats been playing foever in the theaters in the US, the man whose name they sing in the same breath as Hollywood approaching the peak of his talent as he gets older. This wasn’t a Million Dollar Baby, but it is definitely worth a watch due to its classic character reversal narrative and Dirty Harry elements.
