HEART-BREAKER...

MOVIE: THE EDGE OF HEAVEN (2008)

DIRECTED BY: FATIH AKIN

CAST: BAKI DAVRAK, TUNCEL KURTIZ, NURSEL KOSE, NURGUL YESCILAY, HANNA SCHYGULLA

RATING: ****1/2

The Edge of Heaven is the latest directorial venture of an excitingly modern filmmaker in Fatih Akin (Gegen Die wand a.k.a. Head On) and honestly I don’t know why I would be cutting half a star from the movie’s credits: Maybe it is because I hate him for directing two painfully tragic films contemporarily. Or maybe because in life there cannot be a reason or a valid ending to certain things, which means that the same holds for this question too…

This time writer Akin decides to play with his screenplay, following the path of yet another successful international director in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarittu (Babel, Amores Perros, 21 grams) as he splits it to three sub-plots or sub-films maybe, and finally reunites the three together to exhibit to us one of the finest pieces of drama ever and maybe even yet to come. But the pain in The Edge of Heaven is that though the sub-units merge to give a complete movie to us, Akin decides it not to be so for the characters he had pitted into the plot: Two mothers, two daughters, a father and a son all paired with perfection as the film moves from Germany to Turkey for good measure making us travel along with the characters on a chase that is literally hopeless for all of them.

Ali Aksu (Kurtiz) kicks off the sub-film called ‘YETER’S DEATH’ as he goes to visit the lady herself, as she waits at the door for him in her brothel. As she speaks at the door, a couple of Turk Muslims hear her speaking Turkish, and she is warned to quit the sinful trade and repent for it. ‘I repent’ says she with gritted teeth clearly showing what ran through her mind. Ali generously offers her money in return for her stay in his house that is also inhabited by his German-professor-son Nejat (Davrak) and though he doesn’t really like the idea of her staying in his house (Well yeah! Who would?!), he still agrees and begins to like her when she tells him she funds her daughter’s studies with the money she gets. And then Yeter’s death is brought about by Ali in a drunken brawl in his son’s absence, after which he shifts to jail and Nejat to Istanbul, where he decides to search for Yeter’s 27 year old daughter and continue to fund for her studies and the movie advances to its second sub-film named ‘LOTTE’S DEATH’ and here we get to find out that Yeter’s daughter Ayten is actually a part of a political rebellion and her bid to escape from Turkey after stashing a little bundle, brings her to Germany and at the doorstep of a woman named Lotte and the very fact that she is truthful to her triggers love between them, much to the displeasure of Lotte’s mother Suzanne (Schygulla) who wants Ayten to rather join the asylum or the European Union. Ayten refuses, as she says, “The Union is in the hands of England, Germany, Spain, France, and these are colonial countries’ and it is at this point that you expect this movie to take a political turn for sure, but you are mistaken because this is one movie you are not supposed to expect anything but experience it.

In fact, every time you start to expect something in this movie, your ideas fail and that starts from the beginning when you expect something close to Akin’s previous brash and uncouth venture; you expect a political movie when Ayten runs around with a gun as part of a rebellion, masked, chased by the cops, but you’re wrong again as you expect a love story somewhere with a hopeless Nejat on a wild-goose chase for Ayten. But the movie wins the guessing game as it ends as a pure drama with the characters returning back to the places where they rightfully ought to be, with the elimination of two of the six characters as the two titles suggest, in the third sub-film aptly named ‘THE EDGE OF HEAVEN’.

‘The Edge of Heaven’ has a plot for no other reason except to unite the characters it introduces and here Akin and Inarittu look like long-lost brothers. The movie stresses upon the characters and their ignorance of what is happening around them that you start to pity them at a point of time because you know more than they do as the director discloses more to you than he does to his characters themselves. The end is anti-climactic to a painful extent and maybe it is at this that Akin succeeds to a great extent. He doesn’t make you weep for his characters, though he makes you sympathize with them: He makes you get to know them, and to get to know the world that we live our lives in because his characters live their lives in it too.

The Edge of Heaven is the least thing close to a re-union: It is a reminder about the tragedy life is and you might be lucky enough to realize how much you are ignoring people close to you that you might suddenly get a rush of blood to drop everything you have in hand and run to embrace those who really love you, much the same way as Nejat hands his book-store over to Suzanne to get to be with his father after a teary-eyed narration of the reason behind the festival of Bayram. And you rush as he rushes because you wouldn’t want your love and care to be showered posthumous on anyone; you wouldn’t want yourself to be as unfortunate as Suzanne is. After you laugh, cry, sympathize and smile at the characters in the end, you come out of the film with some clarity at least regarding the choice of Akin’s title: After all, what is not heaven itself, but something at its edge is definitely a part of the lives we live and the fact of its proximity to heaven tells us that that life is nothing but one with the love one has to have in it…

AND I SAW YOUR SMILE...

Hiya folks! I believe that of all the things i had written before, this poem was the thing that gave me the maximum pleasure, and anything that gives a creator maximum pleasure is his best ever. On that note, I intend to introduce to you, a sequel to my previous poem THE SERAPH, which is called AND I SAW YOUR SMILE... Hope you all enjoy it. And this is not just any poem written with the model of a girl in mind, but one that comes straight out of the heart and one that has a secret in it - In Joel's words, it's not 'A normal secret: It's a secret secret' and those who wish to know what the secret secret is all about, can approach and ask me quite freely by EMAIL because secrets are not to be disclosed in as heavily-visited site as this is!!!

P.S: Don't go all mad at me putting a display picture of Bergman. Just asked for a beautiful smile in a search engine. It blessed me with her... :D
And one more thing: This phrase of I SAW YOUR SMILE is not new to me, but one thing that I had mentioned earlier and that could very well be a clue to my secret hunt...

AND I SAW YOUR SMILE...

She walked, she walked; down the boulevard,

The murky nocturne, never a retard,

The Star of David needs no directions, they say

And she shone like it too, illuminating her own way.

Packing dark voids with a piece of the sun,

Traipsed along did she, stunning everyone

As they stared; striking ‘em dumb was she,

With not her lantern but her charisma, dear me!

A mistake it is that I said, that her own light’s what she bestowed,

The fault is not mine: Obscurity is a screech-owl’s abode;

Closer she advanced: Now enough to make out her face;

To trace her nose, her lips and her passionate gaze.

Irony always plays a funny part, and this is where it came;

The boys beside saw none that I saw, but what’s ‘conspicuous’ in the dame.

Yes in the end I did indicate to them this,

To which one replied cheekily, “This dame’s not your sis!”

“Sure!” I divulged, amidst cackles, sniggers and a distinct cough,

And while doing this, seldom did I take my eyes off

Her, for my intention was to be looked at too and not just look,

And believe me folks; a second was all that it took,

For her vision-trail to flounce through me,

Searching for an exception, it’s choice immersing me in glee;

And then my fellows, I saw the vista of the day,

For in the lantern’s glow, I glimpsed her lips sway,

Curving upwards into a glorious smile,

A sight that delighted me; one that drove me a mile!

I saw your smile lady; and I enjoyed its bliss,

Which is better – Way better than an embrace or even a kiss…

P.S.S. Anyone reads this, (The concerned person) copy this to MS word, and start reading vertically down, only those letters which perfectly match, and about the font and the alignment, please ask me :)

THE SERAPH

This is my first attempt at writing something that's a bit (not romantic), but involving a girl all the same. It's rather crude and i know that, to describe a thing as looking at a girl using a piece of poetry, but I was rather convinced otherwise, for there doesn't exist a single adolescent who doesn't do it con temporarily.

The 'Malena' act is nothing alien to those who'd seen Giuseppe Tornatore's (Correct me if I'm wrong!) Malena, a movie starring a really stunning Monica Belluci as Malena, and the act is just the fascination of an adolescent boy, as he follows her everyday, and just keeps looking at her, which in turn makes him think of her. This poem's nothing but the very same adolescent experience of looking at a beautiful girl (Or woman) from afar. Not a personal experience, by the way!

THE SERAPH

Not Uncommon is the ‘Malena’ act
These days; Not much required, except for some tact,
To see without being seen seeing,
Or showing any allusion as to where you’re being.
Countability always comes with sample spaces,
And of all the sights you see, of all the gazes,
Some spend days of retinal stay,
Some spend weeks, and some months, they say
(Our beloved viddiers, in Kubrick’s words).
Seen a lone dove or a flock of such birds,
Atypical is a year-long stay,
‘Cause sight of another casts the old one away.
The rarest of the rare, always exist;
One in a million comes to break the gist,
By lingering in your mind’s eye, not budging,
Staying there for eternity and still nudging,
Deeper and Deeper inside, into your heart,
Where she resides indefinitely, with no penchant to part.
When there’s such beauty, we don’t call her a sight;
A seraph’s what I’d call her, an angel’s quite right
Too. This delirium of mine’s due to the sight of one,
Not in my reverie brothers, but right under the sun.
This rhyme’s meant to tell you what I saw,
To share my experience, my marvel and my awe…

‘DAZZLING LIFE EXPERIENCE’

MOVIE: TWENTY ONE (21)
DIRECTOR: ROBERT LUKETIC
CAST: KEVIN SPACEY, JIM STURGESS, KATE BOSWORTH, LAWRENCE FISHBOURNE
RATING: **1/2

Las Vegas and Casinos have been haunts that trigger the incredible out of even epic directors like Steven Soderbergh, who couldn’t resist creating a quake to ruin Al Pacino in his ‘Ocean’s Thirteen’. Perhaps Luketic didn’t go that techy, but he still went far enough, suggesting that MIT had a secret Blackjack club trained by their Math Professor Mickey Rosa (Spacey), to get very, very rich playing in the underground. They’d lost a member since a ‘Jim’ went on to join a job offered by Google, so they’re on the hunt for a new hand, who’s hopefully a genius.

Benjamin Campbell (Sturgess) is the one, as he diverts Mickey’s eyes onto himself, by answering a couple of questions in Math class, that’d already been addressed by a 15 year old in Mark Haddon’s ‘A Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night time’. 21 is from a book too, named ‘Bringing down the House’ by Ben Mezrich, so I guess it’s a question of originality; Or since the question is trivial enough to be solved by simple statistics, I think Luketic erred big time by using it as a tool to induce him into the Blackjack club, which is quite big, because it’s a Math Professor who needs to be impressed and not a no-brainer lass!

After practice sessions of quick card counting, code-words, signals and an exceptionally outrageous sequence of ‘Training under pressure’, Ben’s pronounced fit enough to make a move on to Vegas, with Mickey adding a word saying, “We’re not gambling, Ben. It’s just counting cards… You will not get out of control”. Well, the words might be touching if this were a sports movie, but you realize you’re wrong in misjudging them, for they make perfect sense in a later context, with a revelation in store.

Ben forays into Las Vegas and with their combined tricks, the ‘team’ romp home with victories getting them big money: Ben gets his share too, which he saves in a panel in his false-ceiling to pay for his Harvard Medical School fee. They ride on and on, inter-member rivalries and separations galore and trouble in form of a Bruiser Cole Williams (Fishburne), who punches rock-hard on anyone who dare ‘Count Cards’ in his Casino, with a rings on every finger. In the end, we observe that the narration is not only to us, but (Outrageously!) to the dumbstruck Harvard Medic Dean, to whom Ben quotes, “I won money and lost it two times. Isn’t that a dazzling enough experience?!”.

Incredulous though you feel, but the film is fun to a good value all the same, with some really good Buffoonery in form of Choi (Aaron Yoo), and Kianna (Liza Lapira), and a really naughty sequence led by Kevin Spacey. Sturgess impresses more by his looks than his performance, thanks to him being a photocopy of Robert De Niro in his primetime, probably without his trademark mole on his right cheek. The actor feels otherwise, as he through Ben, tells us that he'd been told he looks like Tom Cruise! Well whatever he's been told, he's more De Niro than Tom, and anyway, this is a compliment to him. The movie is remarkably colourful, with aerial shots of Vegas and its casinos, red carpet welcomes, Blackjack tables in blue, red, green and purple, good special effects in the card dealing, and some profligately toy-like coins. Some good club music by David Sardy, and lavish photography add to the Las Vegas flavour. Kevin Spacey and Laurence Fishburne look too meek in their roles, probably as much wasted as Paul Giamatti was in BIG FAT LIAR, but Spacey managed to impress ultimately in the wacky climax sequence, rather than his stone-faced , ‘business-like’ performance throughout the film in which he says ruthlessly to a failed Ben, “I’m not your Father”.

The movie claims to be a true story: Something that makes you gasp with awe. Even if they were really capable of doing it, Ben lost the money totally anyway. So even if a trip to Vegas is a waste of time, a trip to the Cinema Hall is certainly not, for you’d be tutored the game of Blackjack along with Ben Campbell, something Martin Campbell could’ve added to his Bond-flick to make it even more enthralling, than the one with the most irksome middle-part ever…

WORDS OF THE DEVIL HIMSELF...

This is a second poem i manage to string together, and trust me, if this doesn't scare you, then Omega's a kiddy-plaything. And trust me, not many cities have kids playing with guns...

Before i take you through the poem, i must brief you about the context: It's narrated by the voice of the Devil himself, as he describes a task contestants ought to take, that essentially involves a duel, with one killing the other, and if a pair still survives, both'd be given a one way ticket to hell. My idea is to exaggerate on Tavernly duels (Like in Eastwood films) and what if they became so mundane, that they become like contests and even to the horrific extent of becoming a sport, like in the old gladiator days! People laugh at one killing the other, clapping hands, and that's my fantasy world it occurs in...

THE WORDS OF THE DEVIL

Lewds gathered, may you all snoop,
For now you’re part of my own boorish coupe;
One of a Dozen is what you’re given
To do what you want, what you’ve striven
For. Five’s all what you’ve got to natter,
No shelling in that, not even a clatter.
Vocal is what’s assigned to you
In that, and that’s what you ought to do,
For rules are meant for you to follow
Even if my call sounds a bit too hollow,
You got to do it, you have no choice;
Contempt’s condemned here, especially of my voice.
So you decide in the five, to live or to let live
As both is impracticable for me to give;
Neither, is a very coaxing choice for me;
And if you both fail, I shalt do it with glee.
So buck up, get your substance flowing,
‘Cause losers get my call, and winners get going…

How was the poem? And i kindly request those who read it to post a comment, for my blog's been visited, but rarely commented upon...

MAKE WAY FOR THE POET!

Being a poet is something that's always been considered impossible by me, 'cause it asks a lot, and by word, you need to rhyme! Dialogues come thick and fast for me, not rhymy lines, but i must tell you, this one just flew through my mind and I managed to pin it up as a word document, to be posted for public display.

Don't go hoping for Tolkien to show up folks: Be content with somewhere near a Dr.Seuss...
And for your information, this is an intro to a story waiting to be written and not a story in itself so all i can say is WATCH OUT!

SING-ALONG

What I say now, is taking place,
In a really really funny place;
So funny that you might not laugh at all,
From the rise of my tale to its fall.

Omega’s the funny city, with an even funny name
That signified it’s end, even before my story came
Around; Five bad people, that’s what it’s about
Opposed by a hundred bad eggs, out and out.

No one’s good, no one’s bad they say,
For everyone alive have their own way
Of living their lives good, or living it bad,
But this city had none whatsoever, and that’s so sad.

‘Cause a story always evokes cheers
To the ones who’re good, as opposed to their peers,
Who don’t live like they actually ‘should’
Wouldn’t they, if they actually could?!

The fact’s they can’t and that’s the truth
‘Cause life’s circumstantial, no one’s born uncouth
Which brings me back to our Five,
Who are always together, like bees in a hive,

Stinging anyone who dare touch
Getting their guns blazing, without worrying much
About circumstances, for they know what happens when
You kill one; You alert ninety-nine, then

You need to kill them all, need to stamp ‘em on their faces,
Ah the Five can do it, they can go places;
Knowing Omega every row, every column
Ladies and Gentleman, let me narrate to you, THE SAGA OF THE SOLEMN…

This is the ultimate storyteller of all time at your command,
Not even a dime, is what I demand;
Just your patience and your ears to listen
And your eyes too, for I can make them glisten…

(Not with this story though!)

INDYGENOUSLY ENTHRALLING!

MOVIE: INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL
DIRECTOR: STEVEN SPIELBERG
CAST: HARRISON FORD, SHIA LABEOUF, CATE BLANCHETT, RAY WINSTONE
RATING: ***1/2

The man with the hat, is back again cracking his lash as energetically as he managed it the last time, when he was a couple of decedes younger. Mr.Ford announces that he belongs to a list of actors who fuss more to age, than to disclose it: Indy this time swings on ropes, rides a rocket, and most fascinating of all, conquers a nuclear explosion, with his theme music playing behind. You experience the explosion, you feel the heat, if not as much as it actually would be, you get desperate along with Mr.Jones, but you’re least-scared for you know perfectly well that nothing can happen to you as long as you’re with Indy. That’s the exact effect any Indiana Jones movie used to produce, which means this one’s no less that either of the three, though something tells you this series’ going through a gradual drop.

Ford’s back as the recklessly stylish hero in an introduction scene that looks more Indian than it’s Indiana – The hat shown first and then the man wearing it? Come on Mr.Spielberg: You’re capable of better bangs and so is your man! With a sidekick in ‘Mac’ McHale betraying early quoting “I’m a capitalist, Indy”, Dr.Jones II is not left alone for even five minutes, as he’s immediately joined by a motor-cycling, knife-brandishing, often hair-combing, school dropout youth in form of Mutt Williams (A worthy successor in Labeouf), who gives Indy a letter his Mom received from an old colleage of his, named Prof.Oxley, who’s been kidnapped and is possibly in danger. The letter’s written in “An extinct latin-american language” that only Prof.Ox is well-versed in and only Indy can decipher. Then on it’s riddles, wrong places, right places, treasure recovered-yet-stolen, snakes, man-eating ants repelled by the crystal skull, chases, sword-fighting on parallel vehicles on parallel roads in a jungle, exotic humans, waterfall plunges (Three times, this one!), and an underground court-room where the thirteenth crystal skull ought to be returned to cause something typically Spielberg to happen (Erm.. Did I just say too much?). This time around the treasure’s nothing material like Noah’s lost ark or the cup of Christ, but as Indy puts it, “It’s Knowledge that’s the treasure: Not gold”.

Indy’s rivals this time ain’t Germans but Russians, particularly a femme-fatale in Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett with a comical accent that’s actually meant to be serious and scary!) complete with violently-red lips, a pale face made paler still, and a frequent utterance of ‘Don’t you think so, Dr.Jones?’. Spalko is part of a swordfight with Mr.Williams who’s made to predispose that he knows fencing with remarkable subtlety. He’s dropped out of school because of that, a fact both hailed and condemned by Dr.Jones in different parts of the movie. Karen Allen’s back again as Indy’s girlfriend Marion Ravenwood, this time as more fun as she joins the reckless club headed by her ex with some rough-handling of trucks along cliffs, jungles, and even through waterfalls. John Hurt had to be an amnesiac for most of the film as the abducted Prof.Oxley, but shrewd yet, as he manages to construct riddles, explain them to both us and Indy in sequences, and when underground, finally say, “This will lead us to another dimension. Not another space, but a space between spaces”, that triggers a retort out of Indy as he says smugly, “I don’t think we wanna go that way”. Jim Broadbent stays in our mind as the Dean Stanforth with his strong British English, and his subdued humour. There’s always an opportunist to die in Indy flicks and this time it’s Winstone as ‘Mac’, whose love for gold takes him where there’s gonna be nothing of that sort!

An annoying aspect of this movie is the use of very ordinary sets as houses, streets and buildings, though the ruins and archaeological aspects are A-Ok. Probably Spielberg wanted that to be nostalgic as he adds a couple of more mentions of Dr. Henry Jones I (Connery), but coming from two men known for their exploit of contemporary technology to the maximum, this is a bit disappointing indeed. All the same, nothing’s wrong with Indy 4: There’re a lot of laughs, there’s a snide Harrison Ford, there’re some great stunts backed by fun music to pick you up, there’re a couple more to take it through, there’s an extended one to end it and last of all, there’s a really cinematic sequence in which Mr.Ford literally shouts out: “Hold your breath folks, I’m not done yet!”. This one’d be a treat for any person who’s even alien to the world of Indiana Jones; Talking about afficianados, this one’s a delicacy.