Dark
I just finished watching all 2 seasons of the German-language Netflix sci-fi series. It’s one of the most consuming and gripping series I’ve ever watched. The first thing that immediately came to mind was that it was a German Stranger Things but this knee-jerk notion soon disappeared. Dark too goes back into time into the 80s, has children missing and, there’s a dark scary forest. But that’s really where the parallels end.
And I have to say, as much as I went crazy over Stranger Things for its pure sweetness and fantastic imagination, Dark is way ahead in terms of blowing your mind. Stranger Things still, somehow, has a feel-good vibe to it, even though a few characters were sacrificed. Good triumphed over evil. Dark’s tragedies and wreckage strike the people over and over again. Dark grapples with much bigger themes of fate, time and tragedy.
Dark is a true puzzle box, a story and plot that is literally intricate, not merely in terms of how it’s told using flashback techniques. Sacred Games’ Season 2 was brilliant in that sense, in how it kept jumping back and forth, to push the story forward to its explosive finale.
Dark is complex because of the whole time travel thing. Our characters and the story are moving and back forth from the present 2019 to 1986, 1953, 1921 and 2053. They meet themselves from the future and from the past. They see their parents as children. Imagine, to come face to face with your younger self. Do you have any advice for her or him? “Don’t make the same mistakes as I did!” you shout at that unsuspecting boy or girl. How utterly devastating. Is it even possible to alter the past?
The plot is structured around 4 or 5 families in a small German town that has a nuclear plant. The impact of disappearances, time travel and revelations mould and shape each family, almost as if the family is also a character in itself. We learn of the stories of the generations of these families and, what a character was like when younger, innocently unaware of what was to come.
Fate and choice and character are themes hovering over the series. What would we do if we knew what was to come? What would we do if we knew what consequences our actions would have? What would we do to be able to go back in time and, set it all straight? Yes, we would. We would go crazy trying to go back in time, desperate enough to thwart a crisis, a death, a disappearance. But, our characters don’t realise at first that even with the ability to go through a wormhole or use a time machine to go back, things can’t simply be undone without altering something else.
The soundtrack is very haunting, sombre and morose mostly. There’s also a very frightening theme music at critical , frightening scenes which pierces through you.
The vulnerability, sadness, angst and, helplessness of many of the characters reminded of me the human story of Interstellar, without which the science is not relatable. Interstellar’s science was apparently 90% correct, according to everyone’s favourite Neil de Grasse Tyson but the implications of space travel can’t be fully understood without understanding how it affects a human heart.
Dark’s science on wormholes and time travel seems compelling too, in terms of explaining what a wormhole is, time travel, dimensions, and all that (although a time machine is still science fiction).
It’s revealed that a small town’s few families have been going through 33-year cycles, over and over again, in continuous time loops. A war is being fought by a group of time travellers on one side and, a few light seekers on the other side.
The philosophy of the series is immense , however you want to interpret it, but also in how it is delivered by the various characters who speak about traveling through time, one’s destiny, choice, and fate and all that.
There are a lot of characters in the story and, one meets each character in its fullness, in that one will see them in the past, present and future.
It is weary enough to live through one lifetime, world events, bigger and personal catastrophes, but to have to live through them over over and over is the angst.
One’s mind wanders off, trying to draw parallels with one’s understanding of politics, history and, the human condition. Isn’t humanity hurtling forward, seemingly in relentless, violent and stubborn cycles? How does fascist ideology keep resurfacing in this past century alone?
It’s an obsessive, dark series. A storm. An aching fear. A haunting spectre. A mystery. I felt I was watching a Murakami novel at times. Most times I was half shivering myself seeing Jonas and Martha drenched in drain or Jonas wandering about in the cold forest. Best part is that’s in German, a small fictional German town. I loved hearing the dialogues spoken in German, and me reading the subtitles. Sometimes, it’s so comforting to escape or climb into another language. To hear it and, even though you don’t understand it, but enjoy its sounds and mannerisms and, be reading the dialogue’s translation at the bottom of your screen.
What a relief it is sometimes to be in another language other than English, to realise again we live in a world that has so many many tongues, stories and ideas. That we don’t always have to live in an American world, as much as we love it.
Jumanji Next Level
As far as I’m concerned, they can make 10 more of these. Jumanji makes me feel like a kid again.
Jumanji The Next Level starts off on slightly shaky grounds - one of the main kids from the first movie has decided to go back into the video game because he’s so depressed. It isn’t entirely credible - the video game was utterly smashed / destroyed at the end of the previous film. When/how did he rescue the game and repair it? Somehow, we are led to believe that being a depressed university student in New York who flakes out on his new girlfriend simply because she seems to be having too much fun in her Instagram has led him to want to be the smouldering Dr Bravestone again. As I said, it’s a bit of a flimsy premise.
Soon, we are all inside the game and, it’s even more crazy and challenging. Our players have to outrace ostriches in the desert dunes, dodge humungous baboons on a maze of suspended bridges, and, outwit a cruel army of invaders who have stolen another one of Jumanji’s jewels.
The genius stroke in this sequel is dropping new people into the game’s familiar players. So, Dr Bravestone is none other than the loveable Danny Devito, Spencer (the depressed lover boy)’s grandfather who just got a hip operation. Danny Glover - how nice to bring these old actors as old people - is our Mouse Finbar. There are a few other swaps and even a new welcome video game character ( Awkwafina). It shakes everything up and, we are
in stitches.
The movie is funny as hell, is well paced and is devoid of silly clich├йs. It’s fresh and, hilarious. I am a huge Dwayne Johnson fan. This guy can do anything and he’s so likeable. I am a huge monstrous fan of Jack Black. And, how sweet it it was to see Danny Devito and Danny Glover in this movie. Come to think of it, it’s the second time I’ve seen Danny Glover in a movie with Jack Black - Be Kind Rewind, anyone seen that? It’s hilarious.
I can’t wait for the next Jumanji movie. Maybe they can set it in space.
Frozen 2
Moving on to Frozen 2. Yes, I did see it. I had to take Kavita.
Frozen came out in 2012, I believe. I remember how much of a monster hit it was and, everyone gushed at what a healthy fresh breeze it was for subverting the princess trope and promoting sisterhood. Children went mad over this animated film, particularly girls. The "Let it go" song became more than viral. You can find it sung in dozens and dozens of different languages online.
Frozen pretends to be something new, something feminist but don't let that fool you. It's very much a Princess story. Wait. No. It is about princesses, a blonde and a brown-haired set of princess sisters who live in a big castle, with huge idiotic bug make-up eyes. Who has eyes that big? Beyond appearances, yes, the story does revolve around these two sisters who come to bond more deeply than ever and, in fact, one saves the other. But did this story have come in Princess form? And there's a sickly, sweet gushiness to this movie which is intolerable. I much prefer Moana (although I understand all the important critiques against the romanticisation and appropriation of the " paradise " Oceanic cultures).
Frozen 2 is worse. There is the same sickly cuteness and sweetness that really puts me off. But worse, they come up with some new insults. Anna and Elsa's mother actually is a 'native woman' who saved their father. She belongs to a group or triple of people called - wait for this: Northuldra. This pure, good tribe that is so close to nature was betrayed by these blonde white people and, some of them are trapped in a time warp in the forest. Moreover, the white people have trapped the river with a dam.
In order to capitalise on the mega success of Frozen, the makers of Frozen 2 have spun a highly offensive story around an imperial kingdom and native people. Centuries of land grabbing, genocide of indigenous peoples and, destruction of their cultures has been commodified and twisted into a children's movie. Now, children can see a watered down apologist Disney version of colonial destruction while munching their caramel popcorn and slurping their cokes.
A Marriage Story
This movie is a pure delight, a moving depiction about a break up of a relationship. I love its pace, it's feel, it's story and best of all, seeing Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson in action.
Adam Driver has got some kind of a face, some kind of a physical screen presence. He has one of the most unique and captivating faces in the film world. I have appreciated him since Hungry Hearts, a beautiful arty farty film. Scarlett Johansson is a highly accomplished actress and, here she is so much seeped into her character, in the emotional intensity of a woman who has taken the overwhelming and significant step of leaving behind a partnership that made her supremely unhappy.
We have seen many raw and aching films of marriages and relationships falling apart but this is urgently contemporary and , speaks to all the conversations around sexism, patriarchy, male privilege, male dominance, etc.
A fine balance is maintained in terms of depicting both sides of the story but it is clear what broke the marriage: the man's overbearing, self-obsessed and limiting ambition at the detriment of the woman's desires, dreams and abilities. She suffocated and was sidelined. She did not get what she signed up for. Her honesty and, dedication in building him up was not returned. In fact, if she hadn't left, she would have never taken the professional plunges. She would have forever been directed and trained by him as a theatre director and, hardly a year into separating from him, she already turned to directing herself.
That even a loving and passionate and creative marriage can stifle the dreams and desires of a woman is sad. This sadness spills out over and over again in Scarlett's eyes and tears. It is this sense of never having been taken seriously or lifted up as she did him that has driven her into separation, into supreme anger and a sense of betrayal. (And, cherry on the cake, Adam Driver's character even sleeps with the costume driver while still living with his wife)
This movie evokes a little of Kramer V Kramer, the legal battle fought by Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep over their child, their battle while makes furious and cruel exes of each other. Many of that film's scenes take place in the courtroom. In this movie, too, the anger and bitterness burst open in the couple, as they try to come to terms with the divorce but mostly, it's Adam Driver's character who has to understand what drove his wife away.
Adam Driver has one of the most arresting startling faces. (Ulrich from Dark too has one of those faces, not clich├й handsome but very striking)
One of my favourite
scenes has to be the the speech with Scarlett's lawyer, Laura Dern:
“We don’t accept [the failings of mothers] structurally, and we don’t accept it spiritually. Because the basis of our Judeo-Christian whatever is Mary, mother of Jesus, and she’s perfect. She’s a virgin who gives birth, unwaveringly supports her child, and holds his dead body when he’s gone. And the dad isn’t there. He didn’t even do the f---ing. God is in heaven. God is the father, and God didn’t show up. So you have to be perfect, and Charlie can be a f----up and it doesn’t matter. You will always be held to a different, higher standard. And it’s f---ed up, but that is the way it is.”
