Review of Secret Life of Walter Mitty (SLWM - 2013)

Ben Stiller in SLWM vs. Zoolander vs. meeting with Zelenskyy or anyone’s Parents vs. spending Night as Security officer in the Museum or being an actor in Tropic Thunder vs. teaching tennis lessons to Kyrgios (satire); the Walter Mitty & his dream machine amongst all would remain in your thoughts for a long time. The scene imitating the curious case of benjamin button was truly amusing. And it isn’t easy to direct story of a simple man with so much of depth, vibrance, richness, colorful, painted with impeccable scenic views!  How Hans Zimmer transformed the aesthetics of any movie, be it MI2 (the best M.I. flick of its franchise) or Inception or Interstellar & many more; the composers of SLWM at least to some extent, have done the same favor to it.

Whether entire flick is a dream or Walter truly is in on an expedition of his life, finding the negative roll, what the character Sean O’Connell sent to his company, to be published as cover page for its last print edition, as the company been acquired to become fully digital, & being the negative asset manager, Walter thinks he somehow lost that important roll, & commence on a journey to find Sean from the clues he sent, & help of Cheryl (his coworker & whom he admires a lot & in secret even tries to connect her via eHarmony portal) to know about the roll; from Greenland to Iceland to Afghan mountains; amidst the space oddity song wherein Walter jumps into the helicopter; is much more than mere heartwarming & heartening.

There’s a saying that when tragedy crosses the limit, it becomes a comedy. The SLWM has tried to balance it by swaying in between the two. Walter merely thinks in terms of what ought to have been done in his dream machine, eventually embracing the present & moving forward with the simulated real. He can’t change what needs to be changed, except by zooming out of the present, for a change!

Worth a watch!

© Pranav Chaturvedi 

Review of Past Lives

 

In any Art Exhibition, open text usage of terms alike ‘(e)immigration dreams for/to share’ doesn’t suit, as they are always out of sync w.r.t. any artistic context; and as further, such terms were coined by traders (right included), endorsed by leftists & liberals of this era, that once gave rise to -> from colonialists to invaders to wars to cultural to employment upheaval of the present times.     

Now, Past Lives is a refined Art Exhibition. Where the three protagonists (in their mid-thirties) are living their ordinary lives; with disengaged relationships. Arthur (Writer) was correct in indirectly stating to Nora (now his wife & who’s a playwriter) that, had they not been studying the same subjects at the same residency program + exchanging notes for careers; they wouldn’t have been in a present relationship, or, could’ve ended up with someone else with similar professional lives, analogous to some practical contingent contract. Whereas Hae Sung (who’s now an engineer doing an ordinary job in Korea) & who was Nora’s true childhood friend cum admirer awaited for her 12+12 years post being separated in School when they were 12 & as Na Young (now Nora) emigrated thinking that’s the only chance to win Nobel in Literature wherein later changing her stance to Pulitzer then to Tony (albeit fundamentally a wrong perception that this Classic represented + depicted); visits Nora in NY to see her rationalizing how things could’ve been had he or she visited each other 12 years ago when they connected after getting separated from school & before her marriage to Arthur.  

There’ a difference between -> obsession for someone or stalking, VS, being in true gentle caring love that doesn’t show up on the face. Hae Sung’s love for Nora is latter, an embedded secret undisclosed kindness for her. And he’s being Single because of this idealistic attitude which isn’t arrogance. It’s just a feeling of finding comfort with the correct compatibility. For Nora, she knew she has lost the real award, in the form of such a loving & caring -> then a boy/ now a man; albeit Arthur too is no less gentle, as it is the Arthur who encouraged Nora to meet Hae Sung in NY when he visited her, & further invited him at his home despite knowing the Past Lives of Nora & Hae Sung.

Hae Sung’s character reminded me of the characters -> Thacker from Notting Hill, &, Manav from Taal.

As I said earlier, this classic is a refined Art exhibition. You visit, contemplate the artist’s imagination & then exit.

A great watch. 😊

© Pranav Chaturvedi