Catharsis

I watched 4 movies in the last 2 days.That's a bit extreme for me, as I usually watch 1 movie in about a month or so.Two of them were totally run of the mill stuff, so I'm not going to talk about them. The other 2 were,however, really good and rather educational. These were 'Rashomon' by Akira Kurosawa and one of hollywood's latest , 'Crash'.I won't try to give away too much about the movies, for the privilege of those who might have not have seen them yet.
The first one has been famous for over half a century now. It is about the moral degradation of mankind (actually, the Rashomon gate was used as a metaphor for the degradation of Japanese civilization, which once set much emphasis on its code of honour, but in the present context it can be generalized to the sorry state of mankind).It may be seen as a murder mystery, where a man is killed and contradictory accounts of the event are given by the people involved in the affair, including the ghost of the dead man himself.But when the movie was over,it took me a moment to realize that the movie was not about the murder really.It was about people.And so the final resolution of the movie doesn't occur when the mystery of 'what really happened' is solved; but it comes of an act of kindness in the end, completely unrelated to the murder.That was the moment of catharsis.
Had I seen this movie earlier than this semester,I wouldn't have been able to make much sense of what the storyteller wanted to say, as I would have been too engrossed with the inconsequential question of 'why did these people lie ?' to miss the bigger point. The bigger point was that this whole murder mystery was nothing but just an illustration of how completely immoral can people be. It was a deliberate attempt to incite feelings of misery, loathing, fear and anger from the audience; and to gradually build it to a peak ... an intense moment, when even the monk who believes in the inherent goodness of mankind is disillusioned, only to have his faith restored by an act of kindness from a man who had earlier proved himself to be as weak and selfish as everyone else. This makes the audience feel purged. We feel that there is hope for mankind yet.
It is a traditional technique of storytelling, used successfully over the centuries. I am doing a humanities course called "Introduction to Drama" where so far we have studied tragic plays like Oedipus Rex and Macbeth. According to the classical greek structure of a tragedy, there must be catharsis at the end of the play to make sense of the suffering of the tragic hero. So, in Oedipus Rex, if you just pay attention to the murder mystery, you soon realize there isn't much mystery left after a certain point. You wouldn't see much sense in the story unless you pay attention to what happens at the very end of the tragedy, when everything bad that can happen has happened. But after that; some event, some act, makes us gain some novel insight that makes everything worth it. Watch out for that moment of truth. 'That' was what the play was all about. And sometimes, the truth is so generic, that we don't see its connection to the earlier events, unless we consciously apply our mind to it. That's why this movie is so good ... it makes you feel good and then you are compelled to think why it was so good. It may sound circular , but you have to see it to believe it.

The other movie, Crash, was about racism in the US of A. Being an Indian - a coloured man, so to say - I have always been very opinionated about racists. I had always pictured them as good-for-nothing villains. Of course, that is not always true. I am beginning to appreciate that. The whole movie revolves in an atmosphere of mistrust, anger, fear, and politics. There is cathrsis in this movie too, in a different manner. There are a lot of characters, no single hero as such. Some of them reach a moment of truth in their lives, others don't. It's balanced enough to convey the message " There are only 'people' in this world. They may not understand it and treat each other with suspicion and hatred and fear; or they may understand it and behave accordingly. But ultimately, the world goes on. Life goes on. It's really your choice how to live it. "

I am rather pleased to see 2 such sensible movies after a long time. Well, not so long probably, I saw Amelie and Black last year. I am going to watch out for more movies from Kurosawa. I heard that he made a movie of Macbeth. I'd really like to see that.

The first step

I think it's a good idea for my first post to be about the purpose of this blog; especially since I would need something to always keep me on the right track and stop me from rambling off into arbitrary inanities (I'm quite prone to do that).
Ok,so first questions first.

Conteur ?
Well, that's the french word for a storyteller.That's the most relevent name I could coax out of blogspot.All the others were already taken, apparently.

Why Storylines ?

Because that's all there is to life ... stories.True stories,false stories,the stories of your broken heart,or that of your success ... and so,the art of telling stories, whether true or not, is the oldest and probably the greatest cultural venture of all. A story helps both the author and the reader/listener/moviegoer to discover new emotions and gain new insights.Stories have been used in all the cultures, ancient and new, as a mode of teaching.Stories have always been the tools to incite revolutions and rebellions.And why ? Because thought provokes action, and stories provoke thoughts.
They can take you off into wonderlands,give you food for thought, lift you up when you are depressed (and vice versa), teach you new things, give your life a new direction ... have you ever wondered how much a story can actually do for you ? I'd say the easier question would be : what can a story not do for you?
I have been a bibliophile for as long as I can remember.And that is something that sort of runs into the family,you might say.My father reads books written or transliterated in Hindi, mostly. And one of my elder borthers used to read during his meals (even I did that for many years).I like to read and collect good books.
And I like good cinema ... movies with well-balanced plots,good picturization, and good actors.It's become a habit to criticize a movie /book not only for what it is, but also for what it might have been.I like to think how it might have been done better, and why it was not. And when I come accross something I really like, I ponder on why it's better than the things I usually come accross. A very good example would be 'Lolita' by Vladimir Nabokov. The story doesn't have many twists after the first part ends(when Humbert tells Lo about her mother's death) ... it's quite straightforward and simple from that point onwards actually.But I thoroughly enjoyed the whole book. I don't want to go into the 'why' of it right now, but probably I'll write a post devoted to it later.
And so, to summarize it all ... the blog is about storylines, because I want to write about storylines.And for those of you who are still not satiated, here's something from Lewis Carroll that might help :

"You are old, Father william," the young man said,
"And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head--
Do you think, at your age, it is right?

"In my youth," Father William replied to his son,
"I feared it might injure the brain;
But now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again."

"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,
And you have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned back a somersault in at the door--
Pray, what is the reason of that?"

"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his gray locks,
"I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment--one shilling a box--
Allow me to sell you a couple."

"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak--
Pray, how did you manage to do it?"

"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life."

"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose
That your eyes was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose--
What made you so awfully clever?"

"I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"
Said his father; "don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you downstairs!"