movies

Spotlight on ‘Spotlight’ – The ‘Best Picture’ Oscar winner

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter – Martin Luther King Jr A newspaper deals in stories. Are there stories and matters that an entire community becomes silent about- newspaper included? Yes, there are. Spotlight, based on actual events, is one such story. The story envelops the very city and community that the newspaper marks out as its own turf by calling itself ‘ The Boston Globe.’ And it goes on to reveal how we inflict the conspiracy of silence on ourselves – as an organization and as a community. The conspiracy of silence & cover-up In the summer of 2001,a new editor at the Boston Globe leans on its four-member investigative report team, known as ‘Spotlight’ to dig deeper into a story written by an in-house columnist. A lawyer has charged that the Archbishop of Boston knew a priest was sexually abusing children but did nothing about it. As the Spotlight team starts investigating, they realize that this one case is just the tip of the iceberg. An expanding probe uncovers acts of wrong-doing and non-doing by institutions like the church and…

Beautiful Movie Scenes – The Miracle Worker

Anne can see what Helen cannot see. That is no surprise. Helen was left both deaf and blind by an illness when she was a nineteen month baby. Anne can also see what Helen’s sighted parents can’t see- they are dooming her to a life of forbidding darkness; the darkness of not being able to express anything because she cannot make the simple but indispensable connection between a word and what it stands for. Even if Helen has wool in her hand and you spell wool with fingers, there is this primordial understanding needed of the word meaning the object. Without this understanding, absolutely nothing is possible. Of course, achieving this is too ambitious a plan for Helen’s parents to give it any importance. For them, it is impossible to make Helen learn so that she can communicate. After all,”It’s less trouble to feel sorry for her than it is to teach her anything better.”And that is something Anne cannot accept at all. Anne doesn’t hold back in words or actions.As she would say to Helen’s parents later,”I don’t think Helen’s greatest…

The Red Balloon : An enchanting movie experience

The red balloon will stay with you forever. It can make you wrestle with the very idea of what a story is. A great story is incomplete. A story is never complete in itself. A good story becomes complete when the audience or the reader merges into it. A great story transcends the desire for completion. The red balloon ends after 34 minutes but it stays incomplete. ‘ What is the story about’ has ready simplistic answers at hand. ‘What does the story mean’ has no one answer. And that is so beautiful about experiencing it. Searching for the answer leads us onto the familiar conceptual tool-kit of metaphors, allegories. We can bandy about words like narrative and structure and impose some sense. And this movie just like its red ballon floats away from the sense-making world. Which is why it is such a compelling watch for all those who seek to make a living out of story-telling, be they artistes, writers, or trainers. The movie restores mystery and magic to its unassailable place in explaining what makes a great story possible. And…