So, the dust has settled on the golden statuettes, and the designer dresses have been stored away, never to be worn again. All that could be written about the Oscar 2013 has already been written, so I will not dwell upon how good or bad, or entertaining or boring the ceremony was. Though, I must say that host Seth McFarlane and the scriptwriters made sure that the whole world got to know how sexist Hollywood can be. Alongside meaty and diverse roles for women in films such as Zero Dark Thirty, Silver Linings Playbook and the French film, Amour; McFarlane, no doubt in a moment of very bad judgement, felt that it would be fun to do a musical number featuring actresses'...ahem, boobs. And he mentioned Jodie Foster's name on the list of women who have undressed on film as well, which I feel was his biggest mistake. The film that he referred to is The Accused (Jonathan Kaplan, 1988), in which Foster is nude because she had just been gang-raped. Not only is this an extremely courageous role, it is also a brave, brave film that depicts a serious and sensitive issue with great skill and brings the point home. So, although I found most of the Oscars blah, this, according to me was Oscar 2013's lowest moment.
But this blog entry is not about Oscar's low moments, but a high point in the ceremony as well as for film. The Oscar for the Best Animated Short Film this year went to a film called Paperman directed by John Kahrs and produced by Disney. This film has been trending on Facebook for quite a while, so if you haven't watched it, you can catch it on YouTube.
The film tells a simple love story set in the America of the 1950s - a man who meets a woman by chance, loses her and then dedicates all his energies to finding her again. Much has already been written about the film's superior animation technique, which combines traditional hand drawn images and modern animation technology. But the film is not just that. It takes you beyond the images, characters and events on the screen into a larger world of ideas, and makes you think about the nature of love. And this is where the strength of the film lies.
Many stories, especially on film are love stories, but very few are about love - that speculate on what love might be and how it could be defined. Along with a plotline that depicts a love story, very few films really feature a sub-text on the mechanisms (if there is such a thing) of love. In Hindi cinema, especially, most of the films are essentially love stories. A boy and a girl meet at the beginning, then go through life's many tribulations and finally end up together at the end (happily ever after, of course). In such a case, love becomes a precursor to marriage and social stability; the sustenance of the family unit - a means to an end. Which is why films like Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu (Shakun Batra, 2012) come as a breath of fresh air, where the two protagonists reject any traditional happy endings. Which is why it is nearly impossible to see any love story in which the protagonists are homosexual.
Such films also presume that the process and psychology of falling in love is the same for everyone. You meet, you woo, and bam, you're "in a relationship". But is this how it happens for everyone? No matter how universal the emotion, is this how we all fall in love?
In Paperman, love is magic. Something that destiny ordains and guides us towards, even if this might be against our best efforts. The paper planes in this film, then, become signs, that won't leave the man alone until he finds the woman that he so helplessly has fallen in love with at first sight. Even the title "Paperman" reminds us of superhero films with similar titles like "Spiderman", "Superman" and "Batman". So, love also becomes heroic - something that makes superheroes and superheroines out of all of us. 'Cause sometimes that's what love feels like, doesn't it? That if we have it, we could conquer the world and catch bullets in our teeth.
Love is such a major preoccupation for most of us that it is impossible to dedicate only one blog to it. There's more about films and love, then, on the other side of this blog... .
