apr 16th, 2008
i saw these two movies, and was definitely underwhelmed.
beowulf, this is the great limey epic? it's a pathetic story of a hero killing a monster, and then having sex with the monster's mother, a dragon in angelina jolie's body (which, by the way, is rather nice, but there's no reason to make such a to-do over it). apparently the result is that he impregnates her, creating another dragon monster, and he is never able to impregnate his queen thereafter. whatever.
talk of something lacking subtlety! no wonder the limeys are such barbarians! and oh, there were a lot of references to jesus (existence be upon him!) which i thought were wholly irrelevant, historically inaccurate, and plain silly. but the christists have to get their propaganda in.
compared this to just one episode from the mahabharata -- the death of abhimanyu. talk of moral dilemmas, and of good men not acting when evil was being done around them: bhishma stood by and watched six maharathis gang up on the kid, totally against the one-on-one combat norms that dharma required. (btw, i often think there's an abhimanyu syndrome at work regarding india -- all these others are probably ganging up on india to destroy it unfairly: namely the chinese, the yanks, the mohammedans, the vatican, et al. anyway).
also, no country for old men. okay, lots of gore, and the point is? glorification of a psychopath serial killer named sugar? everybody dies, generally violently, and so what? this is great film-making? i liked the poker-faced killer with his airgun-thingy, but someone should tell the coen brothers that gallons of blood do not make a movie great. i guess they are from the sam peckinpah school of movie-making. and that reminds me of the great kurosawa. he made even blood and gore look elegant and meaningful, as in 'ran' and 'seven samurai'.
9 comments:
I completely agree with you Rajeev! I saw Beowulf and it didnt look like a movie to me at all. Ofcourse what else can you expect from the Anglo Saxans. It was an Anglo Saxan "premitive" epic. As expected it had to do with monsters and beast..hey..thatz what they knew when our forefathers were reciting vedic hymns and living a civilized life.
The original hero as per the poem doesnt sleep with the monsters' mother. The movie maker wanted to have a role for Jolie and ofcourse she has to sleep with someone for cinematic effect.
...bhishma stood by and watched six maharathis gang up on the kid...
A minor correction to the Mahabharata episode. Bhishma was already on his bed of arrows on the 10th day of the war and was no longer responsible for the conduct of the war.
Abhimanyu was killed on the 13th day when Drona was the Commander-in-chief. Drona asks Karna(both atirathis who are greater than maharathis) to cut-off the bowstring on Abhimanyus's bow, which Karna does. And the rest is history.
thanks, humdinger, for the clarification. i guess after giving the monster's mother angelina jolie's body it was only natural to have the hero (and the older king) both have sex with her. yes, needed for effect. i did like her prehensile tail, which turned out to be her hair.
thanks, kapidhwaja, for the correction on the war. i guess i am a little hazy on the 18 days, and this gives me an opportunity to go read up on the mahabharata again, or just read it again. i remember as a child being wholly absorbed in the 'children's mahabharata' in malayalam, especially in the yuddha parva. i knew the details of the akshauhini (division) and of the weapons carried by the maharathis etc. alas, forgotten now.
there were other virtuous men in the kaurava army, including drona himself. they condoned or participated in the sin of attacking abhimanyu en masse. even the virtuous karna did a lot of bad things, even though in my opinion he is the hero of the epic, not the rather pampered arjuna. the murder of abhimanyu is a key episode, as it leads to the deceitful killing of drona, which leads to ashwathama then taking revenge after the war by wiping out the entire progeny of the pandavas. evil begets evil. the laws of dharma are broken at your peril; the only one who may is the Lord Himself, who has information not available to the mortal man.
You are welcome Rajeev. Here is a great resource to brush up your Mahabharata history.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/m01/index.htm
This an authentic translation of the Mahabharata word-by-word from Sanskrit. When I was a kid, I used to enjoy C. Rajagoplaachari's Mahabharata.
But the above source is vastly more detailed. And lots of pearls of wisdom in it. Especially by Bhishma when he advises Yudhishtra on how to act like a King. Very essential reading for whichever moron who 'rules' India as a PM
Haven't seen beuwolf but totally agree about "no country for old men." This is the movie that got the best picture award? The ending is probably one of the worst in cinematic history. The credits start appearing simply out of the blue! And Tommy Lee Jones should seriously retire.
anglo-saxons have a civilization on which the foundation is made of mud. They have zero culture and they have made zero contributions to society. All of the Nobel Prizes were won by Scots, all the great literature was authored by the Irish/Welsh. I knew that limeys were nothing but a bunch of fakes!
The "greatest" architectural contribution of anglos is stonehenge. The video below proves my point that the chinless crooked teethed limeys are nothing but a bunch of propagandists and fakes:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2641153958078139129&q=stonehenge+hoax&total=2&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
kapidhwaja, thanks for the pointer, will visit and read. i used to consume the 'children's mahabharata' in malayalam as a kid. it was my favorite text.
muktachhanda, yes, odd movie indeed, and i couldn't understand half of what tommy lee jones was saying with i guess some backwoods accent.
i was rethinking the analogy i gave of abhimanyu's death. a better analogy to the beowulf saga would be the death of ghatotkacha. he was a titan, bigger than life, who was putting the kauravas to flight, especially because at night the titan's power grows. to stop him, karna had to use a major astra (was it the brahmastra?) that he had been saving up for arjuna. yet another great moral dilemma -- karna probably knew that he was signing his own death warrant when he used it up. but he did it anyway for his side.
the more i think about it, the more i am impressed by karna. what a guy! such a complex and doomed shakespearean hero with a fatal flaw of generosity! i can't think of any other great epic that has sort of an anti-hero as its protagonist. karna is everyman; except in the bhagavad-gita where arjuna is the everyman, the one undertaking the hero's journey as joseph campbell used to say.
...to stop him, karna had to use a major astra (was it the brahmastra?) that he had been saving up for arjuna...
It wasn't the Brahmastra. It was Indra'a own weapon, the Vajrayuddha(the Thunderbolt). Impressed with Karna selflessly giving up his Armor & Ear-rings when requested for it, Indra gives his weapon to Karna in exchange, saying that he could use it against any enemy just once. And Karna is forced to use it against Ghatotkacha.
The Mahabharata source that I pointed out is vast, being a literal translation of the original. I don't think any of us have the time to read the whole thing. You can pick and choose chapters randomly whenever you are free.
murali what a load of nonsense, to claim that a bunch of rabid fanatics belonging to a disgusting cult "civilized" the romans who produced people like Julius Caesar, Marcus Aurelius (more closer to a yogi than jesus could ever be), Julian the apostate, Ovid and countless others ....
how about u open a book before spewing xtian propaganda about the pagans of europe?
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