jehan_mendis Reviews

Fire (1996)

Burned on my Mind.

[9/10 · 7 March 1999]

As well as being a portrayal of a lesbian love story, FIRE is also a comic satire of middle-class (?) Indian culture. I find this is a quality which is little appreciated about the movie. These two genres (i.e. deep meaningful alternative-love story and comic satire) usually mix together just as well as oil and water do, but Mehta (somehow) manages to achieve the balance to near perfection. The servant Jatin's behaviour, the family's treatment of him, the bedridden grandmother's constant inescapable presence, Ashok's obsession with a swami's teachings: coming from a culture much like India's, these are things I can immediately identify as being typical. They have been crying out to be pointed out and ridiculed. While developing her primary subject matter, Mehta manages to achieve this secondary theme skillfully. In fact, much of the humour in the film which provides essential relief from the heavy subjects of taboo lesbian love and gender issues, stem from this satire of the seemingly ordinary. The film flows from the comic to the serious with great subtelty.

All in all, brilliant use of symbolic devices (Radha compared to Sita of legend and coming out of Fire unscathed and, therefore pure; the lifelong desire of the young Radha to see the ocean finally achieved when she gains freedom). Kudos to Shabana Azmi(Radha), the lighting crew and Deepa Mehta; their very un-Hollywood-like (and un-Bollywood-like!) talents made this movie special. One criticism: the first scenes seemed rather disjointed to me in that they did not flow into each other very well.

The verdict: 9 on 10. Nothing less for a movie with scenes so burned on my mind.

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)

Get off the intellectual high-horse.

[7/10 · 28 February 1999]

This movie simply cannot be judged by normal standards. When I first walked in on someone watching this movie, I thought 'What a load of B.S.'. Now, however, it seems that my first reaction seems to be just that: a first reaction. Enjoying 'Austin Powers' is about letting loose, getting off that intellectual high horse, and opening up to a brand of humour. The thing is, everyone creating Austin Powers KNOWS the jokes are farcical, overdone and lame; they know their material is widely associated with bad comedy. Yet, they take that fact and turn it 180 degrees to create a comedy style that offers more: a parody of itself almost. Most definitely, a love it or leave it movie. No; there IS a third option: Shag it, baby, yeah!

To enjoy: lose pretentious aesthetic taste.

Pi (1998)

Pi's originality creates a new sub-genre.

[8/10 · 10 February 1999]

When I saw Pi for the first time, I had not yet heard about it, and so was struck by its pure hard-hitting originality. This movie is unique in technique, style and content. The protagonist, a neurotic, eccentric mathematician on a quest to find a mathematical pattern in the stock market, is handled with brilliant unpredictability. The brilliance and madness in his mind is communicated visually through sometimes disturbing metaphors (like the throbbing brain on the side-walk). The grainy black & white and the unusual camera angles evoke unusual emotions in the audience and are in keeping with allowing the viewer to see the world as the mathematician sees it: where everything, even trees, people and God himself works through mathematical patterns. One of the few faults of the film, I found, was the introduction of the stock-market fanatics which was not well developed. Excluding this could have left room for a more detailed development of the religious cult sub-plot. The strengths of the film, however, lie not in plot build-up or dialogue but undoubtedly in its unique style and content (achieved on a very limited budget). This makes it definitely worth seeing. In my book - a must-see.