The true enemy of Saroo Brierley: buffering.

White Lion.

Separated from his mother in India at 5 years old, adopted by an Australian couple and raised in Tasmania, Saroo Brierley, 25 years later, tracks down his biological mother in India through the magic of Google Earth. And a privileged white lifestyle.

Taking nothing away from the inspiring effort of Saroo and the overwhelming poignancy of his quest, there is yet an awful irony underpinning LION, which the filmmakers don’t focus on for fear of diluting its river of tears.

But we’re getting ahead of the story:

Dev Patel is Saroo – and just like Jeff Bridges can tell his grandkids he once did a whole movie in his pajamas, Dev can say he did a whole movie with tears in his eyes. And never once combing his hair.

Garth Davis directs LION non-intrusively, as screenwriter Luke Davies adapts Brierley’s memoir, A Long Way Home (Penguin Publishing, 2015), introducing us to Saroo as a 5-year-old (played by astonishing 8-year-old Sunny Pawar), living with his single mother (Priyanka Bose), younger sister and older brother Guddu, in a small hut in Ganesh Talai, an underprivileged suburb of Khandwa.

One night, Saroo accompanies Guddu (Abhishek Bharate, also magnificently naturalistic), to a train station to scrounge for odd jobs. Instructed by Guddu to wait on a platform for him, Saroo falls asleep on a bench, wakes hours later, searches for Guddu, and accidentally boards a train bound for Calcutta, 1,500 kilometers from his home.

Lost. With no way, or knowledge of how, to get home.

After sad scenes of Saroo trying to communicate with commuters and other abandoned street children, he is taken in by a woman who, overnight, turns from benefactor to malefactor, as we realize she scoops up homeless kids for men with disturbing intentions. Not fully understanding the oddly sexual scenario, Saroo hi-tails it out of her place after a man stops by to smilingly prod and grope him.

Saroo ends up in an orphanage, where he is adopted by Australian couple John and Sue Brierley (David Wenham and Nicole Kidman in very gauche hairstyles), who fly him to their home in Tasmania (that little triangular island under the mainland, kinda like Australia’s Hawaii).

Grown, a powerhouse Dev Patel assumes the role of Saroo. (Patel looks rugged; matured as an actor, and come into his own since his breakout role in SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE.) Around 29 years of age, about 2010, Saroo starts searching for his Indian home.

I’m sure this irony must have crossed Saroo’s mind many times: that he was only able to find his mother in that Third World country halfway across the globe, due to being adopted by a couple from a First World country. If Saroo had spent his life in the Indian orphanage, he would have died there none the wiser about his mother’s fate. I’m sure he must have often slammed up against conflicting emotions as he Google-searched for a ghetto, from a room overlooking a beach, downing beers, while beautiful crimson sunsets glistened over a city where he could acquire whatever his heart desired – including a computer, the internet, an apartment, a job, beer, and a ticket to India.

Thus it seems screwy for Saroo to accuse his longtime girlfriend (Rooney Mara) of being “privileged” and to turn away from her, when she doesn’t share his obsession – an obsession only able to be fed due to being adopted by a couple from a First World country. So there’s a pragmatism that underpins this story – it’s only because Saroo possessed a privileged lifestyle himself that he could afford to be so cavalier about looking for his underprivileged past.

Nonetheless, you will watch LION with tears edging your eyes.

1987. When young Saroo boards the plane for Australia, we hear a snatch of Mondo Rock’s State Of The Heart, which, for an Australian, places us directly in that ‘80’s era (and gives us a musical cue on Saroo’s changed psychological state). Though Saroo approaches every beat of his new life with trepidation – arriving at Hobart, stepping into his foster parents’ home – there is an undeniable change in tone for the better; a pervasive feeling of hope, quietude, cleanliness, clamor annulled, and relief mixed with doubt that this could be real. Yet deep down, would crossing that Australian threshold mean that Saroo’s real family were lost to him forever?

That loss must have germinated in his psyche, for him to have embarked on his journey of retracing his heritage all those years later!

John and Sue Brierley also adopt Mantosh, another young Indian boy, healthy in body, but with psychological problems. Played by Divian Ladwa as an adult, Mantosh would retain the habit of hitting his head reflexively when anxious, and did not pursue any noteworthy career path, which the film plays out unflinchingly.

As Saroo tells his adopted mum after he starts his quest, “You also adopted our pasts.”

A game of Twister until our hair calms down.

And that is the other tragedy of this tale: How does Saroo tell his adopted mother Sue, who lavished all her love on him, that he is looking for his biological mother? Would it not tear her apart, and make her feel like she did not sacrifice enough? Can any movie truly portray how wrenching the moment when Saroo finally showed Sue his research, after months of plotting rail routes and search areas on a giant wall map?

As with all “true stories,” LION takes its dramatic liberties, and real life Saroo relates how the real life Sue supported him from the very beginning of his quest. It was not a secret to her. There is another filmic moment for which Saroo commends the filmmakers: Nicole Kidman gives her all in a staggering emotional moment when she confesses to Saroo (Patel) that she and her husband opted not to have children of their own, even though they were able to, because they wanted to help children less fortunate. “That was why I loved your father – we both had the same vision.” Stunned Saroo had taken it for granted his adoptive parents were barren!

Real life Saroo has remained silent though, on exactly what the filmmakers were going for with Nicole Kidman’s hair.

When Saroo attends a hotel management course in Melbourne in 2008, he discovers Google Earth, through a group of cosmopolitan friends. In the movie, his wanderlust is awoken when he spies a dish of jalebis (Indian sweets) during a dinner with these friends, and almost breaks down as he “confesses” to the empathetic group that he is “lost.” Who knows how this desire would have gradually piqued in real life Saroo? The end result is: the search was afoot, calculating train speeds from 25 years ago, scouring his memory for landmarks; growing apart from his girlfriend…

I find it amusing that the film uses Rooney Mara’s character to represent both girlfriends Saroo had at the time of his quest; the first, he lost to his obsession, the second, he apparently spent lots of time with due to her fast internet connection (that’s not a metaphor! – for all you under-30s, there was a time when online information didn’t just “pop up” onscreen the moment you clicked on it!). Thus, even as Saroo grows distant from Mara (as per gf #1), we see her waking in an empty bed, to find him out in the loungeroom slaving over the computer (as per gf #2). This factoid is not apparent in the movie – just an amusing footnote when researching Saroo.

Dev’s Aussie accent is very good, and it’s funny hearing him do it so well. He’s also got the “interior bearing” of an Indian raised in Australia, meaning, he denounces his heritage when questioned if he is Indian – “I’m not really Indian, just born there, raised in Australia.” It’s not a mean denunciation or racist slur; having been raised by white Australians, Saroo merely identifies with them, more than the people of his ancestral heritage, of which he only shares distant genes, not cultural upbringing.

Filmed in the actual locations where Saroo lived his life – from the hovels of Ganesh Talai to breathtaking vistas of his Australian bush locale in Tasmania – LION is truly what so many movies advertise themselves as – an emotional journey! When Saroo identifies that specific train track that bore him, and then the landmarks along the way, we are in his head, in his racing heart, and scampering around in his unruly hair. But I do question: How were all these locales unchanged after more than two decades? Old structures like water towers and bridges appearing on Google Earth – we marvel at the poverty and/or laziness/corruptness of the government bodies that did not refurbish these edifices over 25 years!

The Three Saroos: Saroo Brierley, Sunny Pawar (Saroo at 5), Dev Patel (adult Saroo).

By February 2012 Saroo had found enough evidence to make the journey to India, and actually walks the tiny alleyways, in a daze, to his stone hut… Patel is now in Oscar territory with these final scenes, emotions warring within him, wonder, fear, sorrow, nostalgia, determination… and now the other grim reality must be faced: if his mum was actually still living in that hellhole – what a horrifying existence!

As it happens, she had moved out of that hovel to a nearby residence. A passing man who could speak English (as it happens, this actually transpired) leads Saroo to his mother.

Having forgotten his Hindi language, Saroo and his mum embrace tearfully in two different languages. He discovers Guddu died that night – hit by a train – and his mum, hoping against hope that Saroo would one day return, never moved away from the area. Movie depicts Saroo always having fanciful visions/dreams of his brother crossing the train tracks – of course, his brother will always be that age in his memory, and tragically, there would never be any other age for him; real life Saroo relates there are not even any pictures of Guddu. A river of tears for these final scenes.

2013. We see coda footage of real life Saroo introducing his two mothers to each other, in the village of his Indian mum. Oh God! The tears, the tears…

The final title card tells us that all his life, Saroo had been mispronouncing his own name. His given name, Sheru, when properly pronounced, meant… LION.

So THAT’S why his hair was like that…

END

Slumdog versus Wolverine in REAL STEEL 2: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE BOOGALOO.

Another day, another dystopian future. Neill Blomkamp IS the new Terry Gilliam. CHAPPIE is his third crazed metal masterpiece, pitting idealistic slumdog against capitalistic wolverine.

In 2016 (yup, “The Future”!) Johannesburg is the first city in the world to instigate an all-robot police force; humanoid in appearance, unthinking, unfeeling, undiscerning, just shooting and killing and arresting with their artificial intelligence. You know, like real police.

These “Scouts” are such a hit with the government that their creator, Deon Wilson (Dev Patel, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE) becomes the golden-haired boy of the corporation. Meanwhile, scowling in a corner cubicle is Vincent Moore (Hugh Jackman, THE WOLVERINE), because his crimefighter robot, The Moose, is passed over for funding. It’s expensive, gigantic (resembling the ED-209, those giant droids from ROBOCOP), and uses outmoded technology, i.e. humans controlling it remotely. That’s Vincent’s caveat to investors: that Deon’s Scouts are A.I., making life and death decisions on their own, while his Moose has the safeguard of a “thinking, adaptable, moral” human at the controls (which would become ironic later when he unleashes his Moose – with him at the controls – and does things decidedly unthinking, inhuman and immoral).

Psychosexual Afrikaner rap group Die Antwoord (transl. The Answer) are two desperate criminals who plan to kidnap Deon and force him to turn all the Scouts off, so they can heist 500 million dollars.

Poffie

Die Antwoord’s inclusion in the film is its simultaneous salvation and probable downfall. Now don’t get me wrong: the band itself – made up of the volatile Ninja and sassy-perky Yo-Landi Visser – is innovative, anarchic and fun, but their inclusion here seems meta, because they play “themselves as gangsters”, which is what they play onstage in the real world. In the film, they freak out their warehouse domicile in “zef” warpaint – the designs and style you see in all their real life videos – and they even use their real names. And though most of the time their naturalism brings an edgy groove to CHAPPIE, an unpolished street vibe that a Hollywood actor could never hope to recapture, in some instances their inconsistent behavior reminds us of that thing Mark Wahlberg did in M. Night Shyamalan’s THE HAPPENING. We don’t know what it was, but some called it acting, as in “You call that acting?”

Deon creates an A.I. program which would enable his Scouts to “think and feel” but is prohibited from uploading it by the company boss (Sigourney Weaver). So he steals a scrap Scout from the company for his experiment. And is kidnapped with the Scout by Die Antwoord! Forced to upload the A.I. program under the gun of Ninja, Yolandi and accomplice Yankie (Jose Pablo Cantillo), Chappie is born/activated. Sharlto Copley (Neill Blomkamp’s golden-haired boy) voices the CGI Chappie and plays Chappie in motion sensors (the same way Andy Serkis brought Gollum and Caesar to life).

When he becomes conscious, Chappie must learn language, and that’s where this film – like every film where language is learned too quickly – falls down. When Deon instructs Chappie, “That’s a watch,” why doesn’t Chappie repeat, “Thatsawatch”? How does he home in on the subject of the sentence and just ask, “Watch”? How can his unformed mind/processor differentiate the importance of each word? When Yolandi throws a whole slew of words at him, “My name is Yolandi. Your name is Chappie,” how does he pinpoint and repeat just “Yolandi” and “Chappie”? Annoying… onward…

Speaking of speaking, Dev’s accent is Pommie, Hugh’s accent is DownUnda and Ninja’s accent is Unthinkable. (What kind of deformed conjugation of dialects had to bathe naked with one another to create that Afrikaans accent? Is that Dutch combined with Martian?)

CHAPPIE is Pygmalion, Pinocchio, Frankenstein all rolled into one. It is a modern retelling of those fables where a creator plays god with life itself, and explores that fine line between true life and the simulation of life. Deon sees his creation as an “evolutionary step forward” and that question of consciousness is asked, “What makes a human being a human being?” The same questions are raised in SHORT CIRCUIT (1986), both ROBOCOP (1987) and its remake (2014), Spielberg’s and Kubrick’s ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (2001); and soon to be asked again in Alex Garland’s EX MACHINA (2015).

Intelligence is the keyword here. Where does the seat of consciousness reside? Blomkamp (and co-writer Terri Tatchell) explores the audacious concept that consciousness is just a bunch of electrical signals, linked together a certain way. It can be seen on a computer monitor and downloaded. And if it can be isolated, can it be transferred?

CHAPPIE also explores Nature vs. Nurture, as the child-like Chappie (who has the potential to be an officer of the law) is commandeered by the thugs to turn him into “indestructible robot gangster number one.” Yolandi proclaims herself “mummy” and Ninja by default becomes “daddy,” while Deon’s honorific is “maker.” (It’s a strange relationship between the thugs and Deon, as Ninja cannot stand the scientist, but lets him wander in and out of the gang’s hideaway at will; a hate/tolerance relationship because Deon is Chappie’s only maintenance.) Chappie quickly starts picking up thug habits: gang-signing, learning to “walk cool like daddy” and wearing bling. And stealing cars – because he is told by Ninja that those cars have been “stolen from daddy.” Chappie is led by the nose towards a major heist, which he balks at because it is “wrong.” However, a very human reason arises that compels Chappie to felony. Ninja tells him truthfully, “When your battery dies, you’re gonna die. Lots of monies can fix you, so to get monies you need to do the heist.” And truly, isn’t that the reason why WE do anything in this world, honest or “dishonest”? Self-preservation!

I hate the fact that “crime” is once again represented as lower class crime, where we can see people with lots of tattoos and no shirts take things and drive away in hopped-up cars, so that the police droids can give chase. But that’s not true crime. That’s the result of true crime, which is actually located at the top levels of the governing bodies that create the sociological disparity that necessitates small-time crime, which is simply trying to equal the stakes. Self-preservation on an animal level.

Chappie asks Deon the question you should ask of your own god: “Why did you make me just so I could die?” Isn’t this a commentary on the finite nature of your own deity?

Though there is hullaballoo in the junkets over Chappie’s artificial intelligence being feared as a successor to humankind’s reign on Earth, the overall battle is not “for humanity’s soul,” as only two people – Deon and Vincent – are involved. And even then, Vincent’s deadly actions against Chappie are more a “business” decision to demonstrate his Moose than a retaliation against A.I. per se. No one else seems to know or care about the A.I. robot running around (besides Sigourney Weaver, but she disappears quicksmart, to go fight some Aliens we presume.) So the battle is insular and doesn’t seem “epic” enough. That’s a built-in problem with the film that I think audiences pick up on subliminally.

And are we ready to see Hugh Jackman in such a villainous role? At one point, he turns off all the Scouts – exactly what the thugs were planning – but for his own provincial nefarious ends: so that his Moose could be deployed, seen by the authorities as a powerful deterrent against crime, and subsequently marketed. It’s calculating and cruel, with cops and civilians being killed for his actions. His pure evil is tempered in one scene where we see him as we’d like to see him, when he passes off a threat against Deon as a joke, “Just pullin’ ya leg, mate!” With that smile, the sun shines in and we kinda like him again; then his brow immediately goes dark when he returns to his cubicle.

True Crime may be misrepresented, but True Justice is courted: Much like Brando in THE GODFATHER advised Bonasera that killing the men who molested his daughter would not be true justice because his daughter was still alive, so putting them in hospital would be retribution more justified, Chappie does not kill Vincent in the final hand-to-hand combat (in which we are constantly waiting for Wolverine to pop his claws and go to town – due to being artificially conditioned to seeing Hugh that way), but rather breaks Vincent’s arm and leg – injuries Chappie sustained earlier – “Now I forgive you!” We viscerally feel true justice is served only after we’ve done unto others as they’ve done unto us. It’s what The Law tries to emulate but never gets right. And it shows us how close to human Chappie has become…

CHAPPIE is fast-paced, to the point where plot holes glare at us like Error 404 messages, but for the sake of Blomkamp trying to work an old concept into our new techno vernacular, I give him a pass. Action-packed, CGI-seamless, funny, at times chilling (as when Chappie is told that stabbing a person is simply putting them to sleep – and he asks a wounded man, “Do you want to go to sleep?” while wielding a knife); a commentary on humanity, deity, dystopia, Big Brotherliness, and even sacrifice and love. It is science fiction about to turn the corner into science fact.

The last scene will make you ponder: It’s one thing to upload someone’s consciousness into a steel robot with no fun bits – but why not put it into a Real Doll? Now there’s a compelling reason for artificial intelligence I can really get behind…

END

Hari, Hari Bender!

Bender me this, Bender!

What is a Bender?

1. the petulant anarchist Judd Nelson in THE BREAKFAST CLUB;
2. the alcoholic, kleptomaniac robot in FUTURAMA;
3. a homosexual man;
4. getting stoned on alcohol or drugs for a sustained period of time;
5. an exceptionally bad hockey player;
6. a tumescent penis;
7. a curveball;
8. to shit oneself;
9. a person who can affect the elements at will;
10. the act of vomiting.

Night has fallen.

During his worst slumps, I have stood up for writer-producer-director M. Night Shyamalan as being a magnificent visual storyteller, an artiste, a visionary, a bender (9). But now he’s just a bender (3).

In trying to cram THE LAST AIRBENDER with lore from the manga TV series AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER, and in juggling the ubiquitous special effects, it seemed too much for Night to handle, resulting in him having a bender (8).

The First Cukebender

Disjointed, badly-acted and – surprisingly – badly directed, AIRBENDER takes place on a world different from the Earth we know, as it follows a brother and sister from Water Nation, Katara (pert Nicola Peltz) and Sokka (vapid Jackson Rathbone) as they aid the last of the ancient airbenders, young Aang (Noah Ringer) in his quest to unite the five warring Nations, named after the five elements of Water, Air, Fire, Earth and Lame Special Effects.

Aang can bend the air to his desire, creating tornadoes, walls of force, lethal destruction, and has the potential to bend all other elements; that’s the power you inherit from having an arrow tattooed on your head. Or something.

For the second time in his career, Night has populated his film with non-actors (as in THE HAPPENING), and I’m wondering exactly when he is going to notice. Noah Ringer is the only passable performer in the movie, and rides around on a big furry thing that escaped from Maurice Sendak’s WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE. The interrelationships between Noah and the other humans are so vapid and uninvolving, we don’t really care what happens to anyone. It’s like Night let someone else direct the interaction between his principals and went off on a bender (4).

I feel sorry for Dev Patel, who kickstarted an international career in SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, and is now here, traveling the world through special effects and trying to act his way out of them. He plays ostracized Prince Zuko of Fire Nation. Like a bender (1). With his gang from Rydell High School, the T-Birds, he tries to capture Aang and the heart of Olivia Newton-John.

Sokka becomes a sucker for Princess Yue and has a kiddie romance with her like a bender (3, 5, 6).

Movie throws us a bender (7) when we realize Prince Zuko’s father (ominous Cliff Curtis) has sent out Commander Zhao (THE DAILY SHOW’s Aasif Mandvi) to capture Aang in a race against his own son, which Zhao does with the lust of a bender (2).

Night actually leaves us with a cliffhanger – it’s sad and pathetic and a bender (10) all at once – like he will ever get the funding to make a sequel.

Verdict: M. Night Shyamalan’s THE LAST AIRBENDER is a bender. Know what I mean?

END

Hip to be Slumdog.

I’m gonna get skewered for this – but only if you are not aware of the land of my forecumbers. Just as black people are the only ones allowed to call each other N-Words, my cucumber patch being originally from Madras earns me the right to satire paka Indian-English and get away with it. He’s not a racist. He’s a very naughty boy!…
— Poffy the Cucumber.

Eight Oscars, yaar! Vart madness is this? Still even, seven of them very deserving, child. But Best Picture? Acha!

Bollywood Cucumberdog

Hollywood, meet Bollywood, yer. Infiltrating your Tom Cruise Spider-Man Transformers with Saladin Chamcha Deepak Dev Patel. Eh, Spoono, and you kennot even tell!SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, Pommie Danny Boyle‘s kinetic vision, from the screaming slums of Bombay-soon-to-be-Mumbai; vibrant, shimmering, frenetic – but thank god no smell, otherwise the “ooweh” vomit sound and no matter how exotic – “such culture” – yaar, culture, but speaking of open sewers, child…

Mumbai 2006: Young Jamal (Dev Patel, Brit Indian, never been to Inja, but paka head-shake excellent acting) has just topped the 10 million rupees question in Indian Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Prem game show host (Anil Kapoor, Elvis hair and talking-in-style) kennot believe slumdog Jamal is winning without cheating, so orders truth beaten out of him. Ah, that’s it! Torture proven by George W. Bush of Amrika to be tops effective technique for getting truth.

But instead, top police inspector (Irrfan Khan, Indian Gary Sinise), finds out Jamal’s storied life living on the dog-eat-dog streets has led to street smarts that happen to be Millionaire questions.

Very excellent concept, isn’t it? Story told in flashbacks and forwards; Hindi kids playing 8-year-old Jamal and his brother, Salim, spot-on performances (Ayush Mahesh Khedekar and Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail). We first meet Jamal diving into caca – oyo! – for movie star’s autograph. Can always count on covered-in-caca joke – even in foreign flims. Orphaned and swept into crook orphanage that makes chilrin beg on streets and blinds them so tourist will pay more, young Jamal and Salim excape, naar, but leave behind girl Jamal falls for, Latika (Rubiana Ali).

Meanvile, Gary Sinise baba has stopped beating teen model Jamal and re-watch gameshow, getting all explanations from him very good-good, sometimes funny, sometimes tragic, poignant, disturbing, but alvays with such style-style editing and cinematography (Oscars deserved!)

Kids grow to be young teens Tanay Chheda (Jamal) and Ashutosh Lobo Gajiwala (Salim, now looking like my cousin Jeffrey), and live by their wits, conning their way as guides at the Taj Mahal – ayah!

Their last incarnation is twenty-something, Dev Patel (the Indian Robert De Niro) and Madhur Mittal (the Indian Joe Pesci). Latika grown is the very mixed-white Freida Pinto, having learned well the ways of the prostitute from the orphanage, now, like every time-serving chinaal, only goes with the rowdiest and richest of India.

Yet Jamal tries to no avail to make her leave life of luxury and enablement – says his love is eternal and unswerving and destiny – but uba! no rupees! how vill I afford my finest-silk saris, men?

After a night of torture and flashbacks – they take him back on the show for final question! Vart’s this, men?! Is that legal? Is that right? Vouldn’t he sue the television station right out from under these chutiyas?

When Elvis-hair shouts “Who vants to be a Millen-air?” Latika and all India are watching, as Jamal wins 20 million rupees (about $4.57 U.S.) and only then does the Bride-Running-Through-Streets. Now money being no object, love is strong, isn’t it.

Why people call this a “romance”? Shouldn’t “romance” work both vays? Is Latika retarded or just too lazy with enablement to leave her life with already-millenair businessman-who-mistreats and run off with chawalla Jamal? Dash it! – she is a grown wimmin, she has mind of her own. Couldn’t she put more effort into leaving her enslaved life? But how “enslaved” is it? Mansions, cars, servants, and once-in-a-vile chudan chudai with her bossman hubbie. Oh, such big deal deluxe effort! Of course 20 million rupees is talking her tongue, so no problem leaving life of enablement now – for new life of enablement, with pucchi-whipped Jamal.

An India never before seen on Western film, co-directed by Loveleen Tandan, from novel Q and A by Vikas Swarup (book plot was about “luck” – movie writer Simon Beaufoy baba put in silly “destiny” angle); soundtrack most definitely Indian but hip rock, not sitar twang and dhoti dancing; big movie, vast in scope, exhilarating in the telling; creative subtitles; feel-good foreign flim with “up” ending; big Bollywood dance number conclusion; everything works out in the magical land called India. Hip to be slumdog now.

Why then, ruin with plot of torture going nowhere and enablement of a whore disguised as love story? Good picture? Yaar. Best Picture? Cha!

END