Now, I know that the Oscars are no reliable measure of true Hollywood talent. But I do enjoy lapping up the movies that have made Oscar hype once the award show is done. So, I have watched almost all the Best Film nominees (except Nebraska, Dallas Buyers Club - which after Matthew McConaughey's "God helped me win this award" speech I do not feel like watching, and The Wolf of Wall Street). And if I had to pick a favourite out of the ones I have seen, it would have to be Spike Jones' lyrical and profound film Her.
This story of a man falling in love with his operating system 'Samantha', simple and sparse, brings home several uncomfortable truths relevant in our technology-driven world. The film is set some time in the future - and it is the portrayal of the future that I especially found refreshing in the film. The future is not a space filled with robots, the sets are not metallic, and the people don't wear tight-fitting silver-coloured clothes. Instead, the future is a world clearly run by unassuming, badly-dressed nerds. The protagonist, Theodore, is one of them, always found in ill-fitting shirts, high-waisted pants, unkempt hair and nerdy glasses. His best friend Amy dresses like this too, far removed from conventional women of the future who till now have looked like fashion models in sleek body suits. Mercifully, there are no robots walking about and talking in hackneyed staccato voices.
Theodore's love interest is a husky-voiced OS (more than suitably voiced by Scarlett Johansson). It seems from the movie that romantic relationships between humans and OS's are not quite out of the ordinary. Theodore's friends seem accepting; there are even surrogate body services for such relationships. But his ex-wife is severely critical of his inability to connect with a human being and being in love with an OS. This, too me, looked a lot like how our times view mixed race, or inter-caste, or even homosexual relationships - accepted by some, panned by others. Logically, the relationship seems to rest on shaky ground. But Theodore and Samantha genuinely enjoy each others company and share a relationship based on togetherness and happy banter. This lasts only until something as banal and human as infidelity rocks their boat.
The film affirms human relationships over those carried out over technology in the end, but does throw up a lot of questions about the extent to which technology mediates our relationships even today. We obsess over the perfect selfie, make up and break up over text messages, and sometimes develop deep bonds over e-mails with those we may never even have met. Technology is intricately linked to the way we connect with each other, and at times is the only way we do. Our relationships have already exist somewhere in between the tangible and virtual dimension. So, a human-OS relationship is not all that hard to conceive. Jones does so without being preachy or more show than tell. He puts out the questions unobtrusively during the film and leaves them lingering in your head long after the film is over.
[Watch this beautiful song from Her called The Moon Song by Karen O.]
I'm surprised that Joaquin Phoenix did not receive an Oscar nod for his portrayal of Theodore. He brings to the role a deep sense of loneliness, heartbreak and simplicity that it is very difficult to bring out on screen with very little dialogue and minimalist acting.
This is true of another 2013 film with no Oscar mentions - Inside Llewyn Davis by the Coen brothers. Here, to the protagonist, a down-on-luck singer, played (ironically) by Oscar Issac plays his role with the right mix of melancholy, disillusionment and alienation that is brought out by every frame that features him.
In contrast to Her, Inside... takes us back into the past. The film is set in the unrelenting winter of 1960s New York, and makes appropriate use of the harsh weather to reflect how harsh life has been to Llewyn. His kind of music is not popular anymore, nor does he have the necessary charisma to make it big in a music industry that depends on presentation and appearances. The film follows him through several bizarre experiences that take him far away from his dream of making it big music, yet it is his passion for music that gets him through.
[Another lovely song from the film Inside Llewyn Davis.]
And then there is the cat. The cat is very much a character in the film, representing Llewyn's lost and wayward state of mind, and his desperation to come home to something. The cat is called Ulysses and it does come home, but the film does not tell us of Llewyn did or not. The film's structure is strangely circular - the first scene is also the last scene, and one is not quite sure where it all began or how it is going to end. The uncertainty is effective, and you don't feel particularly unsettled that the film does not offer any easy solutions or convenient conclusions.
Oscar or no Oscar - both these films have been added to my list of favourites for their subtlety and their depiction of real people quietly reacting to human difficulties.
This story of a man falling in love with his operating system 'Samantha', simple and sparse, brings home several uncomfortable truths relevant in our technology-driven world. The film is set some time in the future - and it is the portrayal of the future that I especially found refreshing in the film. The future is not a space filled with robots, the sets are not metallic, and the people don't wear tight-fitting silver-coloured clothes. Instead, the future is a world clearly run by unassuming, badly-dressed nerds. The protagonist, Theodore, is one of them, always found in ill-fitting shirts, high-waisted pants, unkempt hair and nerdy glasses. His best friend Amy dresses like this too, far removed from conventional women of the future who till now have looked like fashion models in sleek body suits. Mercifully, there are no robots walking about and talking in hackneyed staccato voices.
Theodore's love interest is a husky-voiced OS (more than suitably voiced by Scarlett Johansson). It seems from the movie that romantic relationships between humans and OS's are not quite out of the ordinary. Theodore's friends seem accepting; there are even surrogate body services for such relationships. But his ex-wife is severely critical of his inability to connect with a human being and being in love with an OS. This, too me, looked a lot like how our times view mixed race, or inter-caste, or even homosexual relationships - accepted by some, panned by others. Logically, the relationship seems to rest on shaky ground. But Theodore and Samantha genuinely enjoy each others company and share a relationship based on togetherness and happy banter. This lasts only until something as banal and human as infidelity rocks their boat.
The film affirms human relationships over those carried out over technology in the end, but does throw up a lot of questions about the extent to which technology mediates our relationships even today. We obsess over the perfect selfie, make up and break up over text messages, and sometimes develop deep bonds over e-mails with those we may never even have met. Technology is intricately linked to the way we connect with each other, and at times is the only way we do. Our relationships have already exist somewhere in between the tangible and virtual dimension. So, a human-OS relationship is not all that hard to conceive. Jones does so without being preachy or more show than tell. He puts out the questions unobtrusively during the film and leaves them lingering in your head long after the film is over.
[Watch this beautiful song from Her called The Moon Song by Karen O.]
I'm surprised that Joaquin Phoenix did not receive an Oscar nod for his portrayal of Theodore. He brings to the role a deep sense of loneliness, heartbreak and simplicity that it is very difficult to bring out on screen with very little dialogue and minimalist acting.
This is true of another 2013 film with no Oscar mentions - Inside Llewyn Davis by the Coen brothers. Here, to the protagonist, a down-on-luck singer, played (ironically) by Oscar Issac plays his role with the right mix of melancholy, disillusionment and alienation that is brought out by every frame that features him.
In contrast to Her, Inside... takes us back into the past. The film is set in the unrelenting winter of 1960s New York, and makes appropriate use of the harsh weather to reflect how harsh life has been to Llewyn. His kind of music is not popular anymore, nor does he have the necessary charisma to make it big in a music industry that depends on presentation and appearances. The film follows him through several bizarre experiences that take him far away from his dream of making it big music, yet it is his passion for music that gets him through.
[Another lovely song from the film Inside Llewyn Davis.]
And then there is the cat. The cat is very much a character in the film, representing Llewyn's lost and wayward state of mind, and his desperation to come home to something. The cat is called Ulysses and it does come home, but the film does not tell us of Llewyn did or not. The film's structure is strangely circular - the first scene is also the last scene, and one is not quite sure where it all began or how it is going to end. The uncertainty is effective, and you don't feel particularly unsettled that the film does not offer any easy solutions or convenient conclusions.
Oscar or no Oscar - both these films have been added to my list of favourites for their subtlety and their depiction of real people quietly reacting to human difficulties.
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