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With and without words!

Its been a fun one month when we travelled around a few film festivals in Europe with Manjadikuru & Kerala Cafe. Fortunately both films were received very well… I really enjoy interacting with viewers who know nothing about the film/s or me or our culture because I find they leave out the diplomacy. At these fests people would come up after a screening speaking in French or German and I’d have no clue what they were saying! But amidst a lot of body language, laughter or tears (depending on which movie!) they did reach out and convey what the movie meant to them. And that leaves me with a warm and fuzzy feeling 🙂

Saw many interesting films too but I have to say my favourite screening was with the restoration of the 1960s American film TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD starring Gregory Peck. Based on Harper Lee’s novel, this story and film have been my favourite for long time. It tells the story of Atticus a lawyer and his two children Jem and Scout told through the eyes of six year old Scout. I was thrilled to see the excellent new print at La Rochelle Film Festival … that is the kind of respect a classic film deserves! Wish some of the classics in India had received that kind of respect.

Here are some quotes from the book (most of them made it into the film)

The sixth grade seemed to please him from the beginning:  he went through a brief Egyptian Period that baffled me – he tried to walk flat a great deal, sticking one arm in front of him and one in back of him, putting one foot behind the other.  He declared Egyptians walked that way; I said if they did I didn’t see how they got anything done, but Jem said they accomplished more than the Americans ever did, they invented toilet paper and perpetual embalming, and asked where would we be today if they hadn’t?  Atticus told me to delete the adjectives and I’d have the facts. ~ spoken by Scout the six year old girl about her twelve year brother Jem.

When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness’ sake.  But don’t make a production of it.  Children are children, but they can spot an evasion quicker than adults, and evasion simply muddles ’em. ~ spoken by the character Atticus, their father.

“I think I’ll be a clown when I get grown,” said Dill.  “Yes, sir, a clown…. There ain’t one thing in this world I can do about folks except laugh, so I’m gonna join the circus and laugh my head off.”  “You got it backwards, Dill,” said Jem.  “Clowns are sad, it’s folks that laugh at them.”  “Well, I’m gonna be a new kind of clown.  I’m gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks.” ~dialogue exchange between the kids

 

I guess most moviebuffs love those dialogues that stay in our head long after the film is gone? When I was a kid, I remember audio tapes of film dialogues… and recently I came across a website that sells them as digital entertainment… Glad to know some things havent changed! 🙂

Have a great Sunday and a good week!

P.S.: FINALLY… I shall get to see Raavan. Its on COLORS tonight at 8PM.

Comments: 11

  • anoop August 2, 20104:53 pm

    hindi raavan right?…..best of luck….youll come out tougher….

  • anoop August 2, 20104:55 pm

    they dont write anymore like that…where is the magic ? i m refering to malayalam movies in particular…..

  • Chandu August 3, 20105:41 pm

    Sat down at least ten times to see the movie. Never completed it. Something or the other would come up eveerytine, breaking the pleasure.

  • ranji August 4, 201010:46 am

    Manjadikuru? Is this the kuru for playing a board game called Pallankuzhi. I remember playing this at my grandparents’ home in ekm a long, long time back. If I remember right, the seeds are tiny and orange in color.

  • Nidhin James August 4, 201012:00 pm

    hey mam is der any chance to contact you…

  • abhijit September 13, 20108:14 pm

    a good read…:)

  • usha October 18, 20104:54 pm

    mockingbird is my favorite book. n by far the best book to movie adaptation i have seen. 🙂
    keep writing, madam. 🙂 and when can we expect a movie from you?

  • ben January 16, 20112:07 pm

    hey Anjali,

    I just wanted to share with you the trailer for my first short film:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPxIj0bBfj8

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