ONE BIZARRE EVENING WITH

LADY IN THE WATER

*This review contains spoilers*

Whatever loony air that surrounded the release of Lady In The Water, diffused in a split after my first experience at home. Regrettably, I’d missed it in cinema halls. The demented critics, hailing it conveniently as the worst film since a long time, had definitely suspended audience’s participation. I have my own reasons concerning critics panning down an immersive film, solely independent of its kind (Candid reasons). I wouldn’t be going down this essay by tagging it to be an independent art feature, capacitating its elite group. There’s much to this film, in small amounts, yet in a big way. Let me start transcribing my thoughts on the kind of film this is. It is substantially a subjective view that I’d be pressing, slimming down any judgemental take on it. As I’d like to purport, my reason to write about this wonderful film is to glitter my experience, of watching it back and again. I wouldn’t be attempting to garner shine for the film, nor to boast praises galore. It is my feisty attempt to heal what’s been scarred, restoring it to the genuine experience this movie cherishes. Just so that this very particular film, doesn’t end up in a ditch, before being revived in some late future (If luck be).

What is so magnificent about Lady In The Water is that it topples across many script layers, heavily relying on the confidence of Shyamalan (not conundrum). The movie renders through the reliance of Shyamalan on much improvisation and free style. Shyamalan mentions in one of his interviews prior to the release of Lady In The Water about the quality of result that exudes, if gone through improvisation and free style. He explains on it by adding that free style could only be sincerely garnered, if the purveyor is strongly associated with the material he wants to express. That strong emotion, translates (effective or not), into an example, very much like Lady In The Water. The script of the film is infectious. It leaps out originality in heaps. Taking a loosely based idea of a bedtime story, that wavers in itself across the thin thread of prospect, and adding a mixture of ideas, emotions, humor, horror, and sublimating into a central aspect of hope is indeed an illustrious affair. Whether it works or not, lies on the viewer’s experience. I could almost warrant the whole film of being one of the most originally executed films amongst many bearers. 

Before unveiling the film from my perspective, I’d like to sketch the plot of the film. In Lady in the Water, a lonely apartment manager Cleveland Heep (played by Paul Giamatti)- who was a doctor until his life was devasted by the murder of his wife and children- is redeemed through his attempts to rescue and protect a lovely female visitor- a “narf” named Story- who has been sent from “Blue World” to kindle an awakening amongst humans. To remind them of the right path. In the process, Heep, who is a stutterer, is required to communicate with the residents of “The Cove” apartment, to organize a rescue party. Heep struggles to fit in the incomplete knowledge and misleading information of an ancient story, unhelpfully augmented by an arrogant film critic (Bob Balaban). Another barrier to this hopeful reckoning is the lack of morale played by key characters, including Heep and Story herself. Vick (played by Shyamalan) reveals himself to be the “vessel”, a purveyor to Story’s muse, who is destined to write a book that will inspire a future U.S. leader in bringing out a positive change. The members of the Heep’s rescue party work together in overcoming false roles, waiting for the pre-ordained fate to play out. With supernatural beings called “tartutics”, maintaining order in the Blue World, hyena like creature called “scrunt” attempting to bring down the narf, to the Great Eatlon- a giant eagle- carrying the narf back to the Blue World. Just before she leaves, Heep and Story embrace and he thanks her for saving his life.

The strong point of this film is in the outlandishly fine performance of Paul Giamatti, playing the character of Cleveland Heep, reminding me of a very brilliant performance of Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. I believe that Paul Giamatti’s performance in this film is one of the very best I’ve seen in movies. I’d like to talk about the believability of the plot of this film, which critics had trouble to chew with. The film’s plot, if angled linearly, snaps off in the middle. In fact, it doesn’t play out at all. However, the film ricochets many delicate themes deliberately being put into the equation, posing to be a fitting piece. It is an honor in genre filmmaking that is rare as any film in its time. The cinematography by Christopher Doyle is dabbed in brilliant camerawork. It is splendidly enacted into an effective witty script, filled with euphemisms, quirky remarks, grey scale of humor, repeated information, spoon fed dialogues, sharp plot twists, whimsical drama, jarred mockery, all serving this potboil brew as a drift surging spiritedly from Shyamalan. It is definitely an expression to his unvented emotion, which is ringing loud through the film. Originality exists in today’s world. Upon reflecting, the film is a beautiful story of acceptance and hope, flailing against the cheeky thrill element. The characters in the film are certainly ready to believe Story, almost spontaneously. The plot builds on the journey from finding the person, who’s a purveyor of positive change in the world (Shyamalan himself), to getting Story back to her world against many odds, discovering in herself a new facet.

Shyamalan forces us to learn many aspects of the myth that drives the story from a hip Korean college girl and incoherent interviews of her mother to the Story’s sign language. Critical parts of the film are relayed from Vick’s sister to Heep. In a similar way, members of the rescue party are provided inaccurate roles through stereotypical story conventions provided by the film critic. The point of the myth is that “no one is ever told who they are,” the student explains to Heep at one point. My favorite bit is the part where a man chosen as an “Interpreter” finally realizes that he has been miscast over his son, who reads significant, yet bewildering feelings in cereal box artworks. And Heep, who at first was mis-identified as Story’s guardian, is revealed to be her Healer. There’s an interesting exchange between Cleveland Heep and the film critic Mr. Harper (Bob Balaban), in the pool side scene, where Mr. Harper blurts his frustration from watching a romantic film saying “Characters were walking around, saying their thoughts out loud. Who does that? And in a typical romance where the couple finally tell each other they love one another in the rain. Why does everyone like to stand around and talk in the rain in movies?” In a beat, Heep replies, “well maybe it's a metaphor for purification; starting new.” To which Mr. Farber states “No. It’s not.” This exchange reflects the critic's automated gutted manner about things, against the bona fide view of a folk. Later on in the film, the gutted Mr. Farber is murdered in a hysterical fashion, reading out his recorded monologue at the time (Ring any bells! Backlashing critics, maybe. A wee bit?). There is a strange element of resolution in the story: while Vick is clearly identified as the writer whose works will be influential, it is Cleveland whose journals about his murdered family are actually read by Story, deeply affecting her.

Another interesting fragment in Lady in the Water is that every image of television that is glimpsed in the film is an image of past or present wars. That seems a bit simplistic. In his mythic story, humans don’t listen to the right voices in themselves when they seek an answer. The film, to me, provided an intriguing experience unlike any other fantasy film. The themes conveyed in this film resonate powerfully and boldly. It certainly touches upon many core ideas and beliefs of Shyamalan, considering he narrated this tale to his children as a bedtime story. The film feels obscure on its surface, yet embodies a vast experience, that seems singularly universal. It almost seems like a kinky exercise, that tresses through a rarefied manner of filmmaking. I personally believe that had the film been made by a pygmy, far out director from some remote eastern european town, it would have reaped praises for its esoteric structure, or (you-name-some-fancy-bubble). If not admired, it would have at least passed as a running-the-mill independent affair, or averted rotten critique. Why choose Shyamalan? Critic character vis-a-vis past history of his films? Bearing a twist-ending calculation for all of his films? Or an honest appraisal? Lady in the Water  treads into many untried and outlandish methods of narrative and execution, that profusely strikes as a flamboyant filmmaking ride. All the bustling hurried manner of the story comes from its tagline- “Time is running out for a happy ending.” 

HOWL

Allen Ginsberg’s infamous work, working up the lather during Beat Generation

HOWL imbibes on the legacy of Allen Ginsberg’s signal work. It is an insightful fusion of documentary, drama and animated filmmaking that calls for the exploration of his ceremonial poem Howl, one that needed to burst through the traditional patterns as a documentary to express everything on its mind. The urge that would have beseeched Allen Ginsberg through Howl would be agonizingly strong. Imagine what bull would it be back in 1956, to be discussing the artistic merits of his work, or any other work for its own sake. The musical question of the time, “Who is to say what is or is not art or literature?” The 1957 trial that put Ginsberg’s publisher on trial for obscenity seems nothing short of a mockery in this age. Yet, the “so seemed trivial” nature of the trial now had grave importance, dealing in larger issues of censorship and democracy. 

The trial faced by Ginsberg’s publisher reminds me of the account of censorship that had taken place in India during British Raj. Some arrogant Act was implemented by the British Raj, after India had begun using the theatre as a protest tool against their colonial rule. I guess the same alarm might have struck the cultural era of Allen Ginsberg’s time, only now the tool to be functioned as a voice hurling against the American constitution. 

The infamous prosecutor in the 1957 obscenity trial argues that the language used by Ginsberg is “filthy, vulgar and disgusting”. Howl certainly imbibes a whole lot of filthy, disgusting, obscene language in its verses, but to illustrious use in regard to his themes. The words Ginsberg cast are fluent, raunchy, and edible. It certainly holds power and gravitas, regardless of its artistic merit. The role of this infamous trial seems very much like the first decisive break from the coherent postwar years, closely followed by the hippie generation of the 60’s. I liked the fact the trial bore the attention to how uncomfortable and clueless the prosecutor (David Strathairn) is with the substance of Howl, he’s sometimes forced to recite in court.

Ginsberg’s form of poetry was much like an ode to the society. Imagine the spur knotted in his stomach, the blood-thirsty urge of etching out words, expressions, statements, oozing out of him, raping the question of “decency” over honesty. I imagine whether the movie would have sustained without the phantasmagorical effect of its animated visuals, candidly being supplied to superimpose the poetry’s excessive themes. The film dives into his life, his experiences that made him a poet, without dragging it into mindset. It is more than a biopic, or maybe less. Its about the ways the literature works on the reader, and the idiocy of applying “your objective standard of meaning” to its page.

The film overlays four pieces of the exploration of Howl. There’s Allen Ginsberg(James Franco) in his rich, smoky black and white palette, reeling out his poem in a coffeehouse, and friendships with other Beats as Jack Kerouac. Then there’s the 1957 trial- shot straightforwardly as a standard courtroom drama. Thirdly, there’s the interview with an unseen journalist, with Ginsberg talking about his life and Howl. Lastly, there are animated segments, which provide occasionally too-literal backdrop to verses from the poem. But eventually, I think, the movie does not aim to be recollected or acknowledged in its full sense. But rather felt in its glorified visuals, often needed to be realized. 

We see Ginsberg, played by James Franco with restraint and care, to be uncertain about many things. His confusion about his sexuality, filled with the heady joy of early poetic success bears certain weight into Howl’s themes. There is one verse from “Howl” that I very much realized it. Or so to speak. The Beats created poetry, art, and music, but most of all, they created Goliath of themselves- “Angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night”. Allen Ginsberg, with his horn-rimmed glasses and young face, certainly appears far less of an angelheaded hipster destroyed by madness. Maybe, he honed to be one. His writing is feisty, and filled with piping hot expressions like “who wept at the romance of the streets with their pushcarts full of onions and bad music,” 

We get glimpses of Ginsberg’s early days as a poet, including his relationship with Kerouac and Cassady, as well as representation of the trial, where a parade of critics and literature professors articulate his work to be either genius or utter bullshit. Filmmakers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman choose to illustrate the burning imagination of Ginsberg with an “overheated student film” like animation. 

The film “Howl” gradually lights Ginsberg’s reluctance in having his great early poem published, as he wasn’t eager to have his daddy find out his personal form, such that he was homosexual. All of the biographical part of the film is wisely crafted. The Orlovsky scenes focus more on idealized romance. The interview scenes are mainly about clarification of his work and how Ginsberg felt it be perceived. He admits, among many other things, to his fear of his poet father’s reaction to his work and his personal space; his mother’s schizophrenic illness; his sexual infatuations; and his view that Howl was not a promotion of the merits of homosexuality, as some perceived, but rather an argument about “frankness for any subject”

Howl laid central importance to the betrayal of American democracy, which Ginsberg riddled in euphemisms, and also free versed about the importance of erotic experience. In his personal life, Ginsberg was a practicing Buddhist and also studied other Eastern religious disciplines. His association with great teachers like the Tibetan Buddhist, “Chogyum Rinpoche” were famous. Through the 60’s, Ginsberg started being involved with Krishnaism, greeting Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder of Hare Krishna movement in the west.

The film Howl expertly brings to us the shade of Ginsberg, behind his extensive piece of work, delicately handled by the filmmakers through the use of funky story-telling, and effective dramatization of the courtroom sequence, which is the core beat of the film.

Marvel’s The Avengers

Director Joss Whedon pulls off a stunning feat to pan out the best Marvel movie till date. Bound to be a box-office roller!!

Writer/Director Joss Whedon has mechanized one of the complex and intricate stories of taxing proportions into a seamless, and gargantuan entertainer. The Avengers has it all. From comic-inspired action sequences to cleverly filled frames, The Avengers proves that the doughty constructed story could be efficiently rendered, without forming brain tumors of hefty action chunks. Marvel’s The Avengers retains the tonal quality its predecessors (Thor and Iron Man) owned, and sails this dream boat of universal fans into varied layers of superhero personas. The comic-book icons include- Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), among a couple of others. Joss Whedon collides them in one room, and lets them hang out, thereby weighing the merits of individualism v/s teamwork. 

Joss Whedon centers his tale on Loki (Tom Hiddleston), who plays Thor’s brother and portrays a sulky alien, with a god complex. With the help of an all-powerful energy source Tesseract, he wants to “free the world from freedom” by opening a portal to Asgard. S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) conflicts this notion, and assembles his crew of superheroes. In a comical string of scenes, we come across shield v/s hammer. Hammer v/s Iron suit. Shield v/s Hulk. Nobody wins. This group later turns into an entertaining collection of grumbling, competitive and ruckus personalities, battling upfront against Loki and his unfathomable army. They learn to co-adapt their powers, and effectively use them under the instructions of Captain America. Every superhero has his standout gig. And more importantly, the interaction between these giants is where the stimulation and spine-tingling moments serve its way. 

The scale of this movie in terms of visuals and characters is ever-accumulating. Had it not been for Whedon’s centrifugal graveness, the film would have been off the edges, issuing off-balance narrative thread. Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg), has some savory moments of part government agent, part fanboy. Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), is a treat to watch. Her poker-face prickling with rage and guilt. Adding to these protagonists is Hawkeye, played by Jeremy Renner, who has his limelight moments. As the group’s master assassins, and naturally weaker of the active group, Hawkeye and Black Widow hammer the conception of why we even need heroes at all. Robert Downey Jr. as Iron man brings his usual eccentricity to the screen, raising genuine laugh out loud bits. Chris Hemsworth is quintessential as Thor. Chris Evans as Captain America is conventionally stylistic, and reflects the pinnacle of human perfection. The Hulk, played by Mark Ruffalo portrays an impulsive and tender alter ego of the withdrawn and reserved physicist Dr. Bruce Banner.

The writing is feisty. The exchanges ludicrous. The script is piping hot with expressions like, “Shakespeare in the park” to terrific comeback returns (Captain: “We need a plan to attack.” Iron Man: “I have a plan - Attack!”), and Whedon keeps reminding that the fate of the human race has been left to a “handful of freaks.” Apart from the charming dialogues, and witty remarks, the footing Whedon approaches penetrates layers of each character in a complacent structure of assorted set-pieces. It is resourceful job of balancing scores of elements, without it being too riotous and ugly.

The CGI effects are stunning in every place. The uninterrupted shots of finale battle in New York City are effortlessly thrilling, and evokes the sense of teamwork at play. You’ve to admire the camera movements, catching every single avenger in mid-air, crashing and hammering for all their glory. The Hulk’s appearance is surprisingly plausible, and utterly appealing. Comic nerds will have a sparkling time. I certainly had a blast. I believe the winning streak behind this mega-film rests in the love and observance of Joss Whedon’s course. Join forces with this marvelous superhero round-up. I tag my experience as:


3.5/5

Tree Of Life

I remember the time when I first watched the film “Koyaanisqatsi” some months back. The stream of footages and ambient structure of sounds culminated the roots of evolution and human psyche in a most complacent way. While watching those splendors, one gets the feeling of a force prying over society. The structure of civilization, and the hustle of human dough, undergoes fragility through the ages.

The Tree of Life lights that psyche and bringing of the O’Brien family in an impressionistic way. It discusses life in broadest range, categorizing effortlessly into montage of sequences which play out like a symphony. I’d be posed a stooge if I go on describing what I felt in those verses. The movie follows the life and turmoil of the eldest son Jack (Hunter McCracken), from the O’Brien family, through whose eyes we glimpse into the fabrics of human life. While questioning the death of one of O’Brien’s sons, Science traces back to the inception of life, finding its way back to Jack.

Terrence Malick adopts elegant and fluid camera movements, providing an esoteric view on the O’Brien family. Sound in the film is stark and intact, heartbreakingly supplementing the terrific vision of Malick’s work. He has created an environment of raw emotions against abstracts in their full glory. I was floating merrily in the flux experience the visuals put me in. The Tree Of Life begins more like an offering than a movie. It certainly requires calm and attention, as it is not meant to be recollected. The viewer needs to surrender certain tools of presumptions, and simply waft in the soufflé sensory this photoplay bestows.

Mr. O Brien (Brad Pitt) portrays an unnerving father, who rigidly incorporates values in the upbringing of his three sons. Brad Pitt is excellent throughout, reflecting “call me sir” fumes in his persona. On the other side, the luminous Mrs.O Brien (Jessica Chastain) is angelic in true sense, and counters the temper Mr. O Brien holds. The relationship is spiritually invigorating and questions the deepest mysteries that are instrument in finding tranquility.They seem to represent the Yin and Yang energies, complementing each other in a 

defined way. The heart of the film beats in the tension between the eldest son Jack (Hunter McCracken), and his abusive father. Sean Penn plays as a grown man Jack, eroded mentally, and ruminating on his past.The Tree Of Life could be viewed as the memory of Jack O Brien unfurling through layers of emotions, just to find peace in that heap.

The film is downrightly beautiful and confusing, ending up in frustration. It has no storyline, but creeps up tension, death, and eternal bond of love in a juxtaposing affair. The scope of the film is magnificently ambitious, and universal in all aspects. If only the ending had been dauntingly accessible, and objectively straight, the film might have connected a larger group of people. Nonetheless, it is a rare tale of lost human souls, forever battling through life and death, in this poetic essay of existence.

  

4/5

Midnight In Paris(2011)

A free-wheeling drive into the magical ecstasy of Paris..

Gil with his fiancee Inez, on a day-time shopping in Paris

A successful Hollywood screenwriter, Gil (Owen Wilson) tries to bone a serious novel as he visits Paris with his uptight fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams) on a tag-along business trip of her parents. Gil, a restricted writer and an escapist art lover, consumes the streets of Paris at midnight, and finds the greatest escapade his dreams could offer. His romantic notions of Paris in the 1920’s in rains are not shared by Inez.While travelling with her folks, Inez is all around a pretentious British professor (Michael Sheen), which presents Gil the opportunity to wander around his dream city.

Seated on the steps of an unfamiliar street one night, losing his way to hotel, Gil is being invited by a host of celebrities of the 20’s. He is surreally transported to the era where he’d always dreamt to have born in. Gil is enthralled by a lovely woman named Adriana (Marion Cottilard), who’s a fulcrum seductive object in many of the star artists of the 20’s. Gil’s strolls at midnight could take him closer to the heart of the city, but farther away from the woman he’s about to be married.

Gil strolling the streets of Paris alongside Adriana.

Woody Allen etches out a troupe of literary characters from Ernest Hemmingway, Pablo Picasso to madcap couple of Fitzgerald’s, and all other Giants of the 1920’s,and adjoins their enduring era of creating art with Gil, who simmers it in his wide-eyed and drawly manner.Gil finds a source of inspiration, when he befriends Ernest Hemmingway in that riotously funny bar-room scene.He introduces Gil to Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates),who is an arbiter to the many works of artists at the time.Owen Wilson couldn't be a better conduit for Allen’s romantic excursion. Midnight in Paris is a sparkling travelogue, where wish-fulfillment is charming in its brief and sketchy episodes of literary celebrities.The film avoids the transitional elements or digital enhancements of time-travelling, thereby eliminating any sci-fi gimmicks of obscure explanations.Woody Allen just brushes past all instruments of time-travel, and glides across the parable structure of this absorbing venture.The passages in this movie are as relishing and elating as one could possibly imagine.The film is graceful in its pace, gloriously lit, and glancingly funny. It is a loving embrace of Paris’s magical aura of attracting dreamers and thinkers from world around.

Like many of Woody Allen’s films, Midnight in Paris ends with a moral, depreciating kick. Here, across this tale, Allen states that "Everyone wishes to ponder on the idea of living in a different era, including people of that era." The material utilizes the best out of this ensemble cast, and serves magical renditions for the crew to sketch on their skills.One couldn’t stop imagine how merry and happening the making must be.

4/5

War Horse (2012)

 Upon the plush green pastures of English county Devon, the tale sets place in the early 20th century. A foal is born, and a young lad looks on, adoringly. In War Horse, Steven Spielberg and his collaborators create an elegant corny-and-his-horse story, magnified by an epic war backdrop. Based on the adaptation of Michael Murpurgo's best selling children's novel, this time-testing tale of elemental journey, stirs up emotions of joyful renditions.

 The movie starts with a small farming family of Devonshire, England, where we meet Young Albert Naracott (Jeremy Irvine), his drunken, yet patron father, Ted (Peter Mulligan), and his hard-working, affable mother, Rose (Emily Watson). His father buys the same horse Young Albert has his heart on, over an auction held in the village. Drunken Ted bought the horse with the rent money for their farm in the determination to outbid his landowner, Lyons (David Thewlis), who takes great pleasure in mowing their strife. He presses them on for due rent. Young Naracott names the horse, Joey, and trains him with his soul. Following a positive harvest through ploughing of their field, rain storms one night brings the news of War declared by Germany. Ted sells Joey to the British cavalry. Albert vows to buyback Joey one day. His efforts to enroll in the army is barred by his underage.

 Joey's travels find him many masters, of different cultures and origins. One of them, Capt. Nicholls (Tom Hiddleston), share the same affinity his previous master possess. A surprise attack on German soldiers doesn't fare out well, when the Germans lead the British cavalryman across the forest border, and gun them down with artilleries and cannons. A few hundreds of both soldiers and horses are massacred. It is one of the best battle sequences Spielberg has ever directed. All wars are hell. And both men and horses, have their bloodshed. Yet, war provides no comfort. It is as one of the German officer explains that a horse is a weapon and must either be used or killed. Another benchmark scene which, I believe, Spielberg has ever rolled, is when Joey, runs across the trenches in sheer panic and cuts himself through barbed wires and posts, producing deep flesh tears. Later on, a temporary truce is ensued when both sides of the men, skillfully cut the wires on Joey's body and set him free. The scene explains the mundane activities of war, across the inter-play between these two men. It liberates many notions of war. Ultimately, it is the horse that reminds these warriors of their humanity.

 The movie branches out to many set pieces, where Joey is the protagonist of the film. His escapades through many terrors and satanic chaos, drives the poor beast mad. Watching his scars and brutal compulsion is painful. On the other end, we see young Albert battling through warfare, transitioning into manhood. Spielberg and scriptwriter Richard Curtis, collapse both Joey and Albert, young and preserved, into terrain of chaos and fear. Both come out victoriously, and align together in unordained circumstances. The characters are bold in their expressions, and exquisitely defined. The reconstructed belief in heroism and gallantry is all so reassuring. Another lovable character is of a French jam-maker (Niels Arestrup), who meets Joey through his grand daughter, Emilie's finding. The cheerful grandfather explains Emilie of the many forms of bravery. Joey's bravery is hooded, just like Albert's valour to find him. The treasures of such braveness surface through love. That journey which shredded them both apart, shall be mended in coincidences beyond reasoning.

 Spielberg's adaptation, I believe pays homage to the melodramatic musical pieces of Hollywood tradition. The concluding scene with sharp hues of reds and oranges, and play-wright framing is wonderfully constructed. A silhouette riding a horse towards his home, dismounts, and reinstates his father's mettle, while a motherly figure gently pats her son. Music waves. The film's artistry is undoubtedly in aces. It is a peek into the Spielbergian universe of comic touches, and grand visuals. He is the foremost purveyor of American sentimentality. War Horse promises a tear-jerking ride, yet steers our emotions in an uplifting manner.

3.5/5

Saving Private Ryan Deconstructed

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

1945. Omaha Beach and the Allied Forces storm the beaches of Normandy. Saving Private Ryan opens with a 30-minute war scene, that is without doubt, one of the finest half-hour scenes in film. On one of the landing vehicles is Capt. John Miller (Tom Hanks), a school teacher in vocation, who’s right hand shakes occasionally. The D-Day invasion of Normandy is gnarled with blood, mud, vomit, noise, and gore images. The camera movement Spielberg adopts has no motive or direction, as that’s the purpose of his style, serving chaos and brutality in depths.

After fighting the battle on D-day, Capt John Miller is assigned another mission. To recruit a group, and rescue a paratrooper by the name of Private James Ryan, who has lost all three of his brothers in the same war. It is one of the simplest themes Spielberg has worked on, as in his early works in Duel (1971) and Jaws (1975). But also, where he suffocates layers of war terrors with gritty reality, and suffuse emotions of plain complexity.  John Miller assembles eight soldiers, risking their lives to save one. The film raises a question, “When is one life important than another?” which never really is answered. The eight men can do the math for themselves. “This Ryan better be worth it?” one of the men grumbles.

Corporal Upham

Capt. John Miller leads the eight men across the French countryside, where morality is questioned in the wake of this mission. Corporal Upham (Jeremy Davies) somehow reflects us of John Miller, in terms of uneasiness portrayed with macho heroics. His voice is fainted by seven others. In contrast, Sergeant Mike Horvath (Tom Sizemore) portrays a man-on-action figure. The drama revolves around men who are lost, and just want to go home. Spielberg drenches the first act with mindless action, and uncovers layers of characters across second act of the film. The film’s cinematography is undoubtedly brilliant. It transports you right back to the taste, smell and fear of war. The bleak-quality image stays throughout  the scenes. The cinematographer (Janusz Kaminski), has always experimented with over-exposed brightness in many of Spielberg’s film with tad stroke. And here, he drapes that quality again, melting with the synchronous sound used, just to produce unforgettable frames. The music subtly embraces the emotion of Capt. John Miller, whose past is muddled with horrors of war. He doubts his wife will ever recognize him. On the verge of breakdown, all he does is follow orders that might lead him home. It takes someone like John Miller to poise the temperament he brings. Another interesting character here is Corporal Upham, a brilliant German and French translator. He has no combat experience, and wages fear at the heart of the mission. We see his fear, and relate with it. Through the course of the mission, his ideals are twisted, and perspective is broadened.

Reaching at the town of Ramelle, their objective exhausts with the finding of Private Ryan, a young soldier of American ideals. At first, he renounces the thought of leaving his fellow soldiers at the outbreak of German foothold. His reaction doesn’t go well with the remaining men of mission. Some died through the journey. Private Ryan loosens his hold after sensing their anger and loss. Miller and his men face another attack from Nazi tanks and soldiers. The key line comes at the very end, when Miller, dying, looks into the eyes of Private Ryan and says, “Angels on our shoulders.” Two American planes roar overhead.


With Saving Private Ryan, Spielberg reminds the values of human strife. The notion of patriotism is well observed. That link is established between the past and the present. Capt. John Miller never loses his hope to get home, and in a way, elegantly transpires Private Ryan his Life!! I’d like to point out one extraordinary scene when Private Ryan’s mother is about to be informed of her three son’s deaths. Spielberg pulls focus from Mrs. Ryan’s eyes on the net curtain to the approaching car shown in the reflection. Such imagery encapsulates themes of family and loss. At the farm, Spielberg conveniently avoids showing the teary-faced Mrs. Ryan. To fill this important element, Spielberg shows the silhouette of Mrs. Ryan dropping on the porch, as the information is passed. She represents every mother. Mrs. Ryan is not made that specific. Every mother’s quotient can fill that same shadow of loss. Saving Private Ryan, to me, is more of a somber-felt movie, than action. Its emotions are played through wonderful sequences of grim choreography. You feel for every character, for the sadness of John Miller, through the closing scene of Private Ryan, weeping at Miller’s grave. 

5/5