Transcendent Incarnation

Ram your head against the wall until you begin to realize it hurts. Make tremendous contact with your toe against the leg of your bed, and wail until you’ve found an antiseptic—if you haven’t watched James Cameron’s sci-fi-decade-in-the-making adventure yet. But before that, read this page.

How do you feel when you come out (rather, force yourself out) of a hall that’s just shown you a Terminator, Spiderman, Batman, Lord Of The Rings, Harry Potter potboiler? Let’s face it. They’re all not brilliant films, but they stay with you for LONG by virtue of the laughs they give you, the awe they strike in you and your capitulation to the consequence of the experience. If you were thinking Avatar is another one of those movies, YOU.ARE.WRONG.

To dismiss Avatar (with a casual glance at the posters in your street) as a mere pay-for-the-‘special effects’-film could cause you danger. It is a blatant indicator of chronic myopia. If you belong to the category, screw yourself. If you don’t, you might consider reading on.

If you’ve been atleast remotely connected with whatever remotely similar to remote Hollywood, you’d have realized by now that Avatar was ‘the cinematic event waiting to happen’. Prior to its worldwide release on 18^th Dec 09, the world waited with bated breath in anxiety to welcome amid their cinema a revolution, while Mr. Cameron was gloating with pretty women to cameras at premieres across the world. Yes, he could smile before the first frame took shape on the silver screen. He had made a masterpiece. A jewel of such ineffable lustre, a gadget entangled with the chasms of reality and human imagination, a film of whose stupendous prowess and quality you probably will never again see as long as you are here with us.

In the film (I know this is gross impertinence, but this IS a ‘film’ review) set in 2154, the U.S. Navy is sent to a distant earthly body, Pandora, to extract from its depths a mineral of immense quintessential value. Unobtainium, it’s called. So all goes well, with a fairly large crew taking off to the distant natural satellite with elaborate arrangements put in place for this rather bizarre undertaking. Since humans cannot breathe on Pandora, they make their genetic counterparts—Avatars—which physiologically are of the native Na’vi clan. So our Homeric dudes shut themselves up in spherical tubes and the next thing they know, they in the form of their blue-bodied counterparts are flying terrifying dragons or hushing through the dense forests of the visually numbing Pandora. Our protagonist, Jake Sully, is a retired ex-Marine who’s lost his legs in the war but signs up for the mission to fill the boots of his brother, post the latter’s untimely death. Thanks to his pathetic omniscience of anything to do with the mission or its scientific nuances, he is assigned the rather comfortable role of having to coalesce with the native Na’vi civilization and gain their trust, in order to gain THEIR help for the humans’ commercial interests in the land. But, poignantly, it turns out the largest deposit of the mineral these folks are after happens to be resting under the sacrosanct Na’vi embodiment of divinity, not to mention the packed civilization around it. But mercenary by nature, Col. Miles Quaritch chooses dynamites and missiles over wisdom and conciliatory talks. The ‘sky people’ therefore begin to dump their inappropriate forms of tyranny upon the innocent Na’vi. Sully is moved. And he begins to question his own loyalties. Should he leap back and launch a few missiles savagely himself? Or should he inspirationally spearhead a mission to saving the Na’vi skin and blood?

Visually extravagant like never before, Avatar sets path breaking standards in cinematography. Watching it in glorious IMAX 3D will make you forget the rest of the world—during the film and even days after watching it. It’s been a week since I watched it and I can still write this. The thing with Avatar is, it is not merely a wow-those-scenes-were-just-awesome product. It is a brilliant FILM. It’s got a breathtaking story, stunning cinematography, terrific screenplay, inspired performances from the cast and crew—it’s James Cameron through and through. 2 hours and 40 minutes in the hall without a break. You’ll curse that. For being too short a time span for a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Cameron blends panache with passion and puts forth one of cinema’s best ever attempts yet.

Of the cast, Matt Gerald and Dileep Rao as Lyne Wainfleet and Dr. Max Patel respectively go unnoticed. That’s because they’re perfect. Joel David Moore and Giovanni Ribisi as the astute biologist Norman Spellman and the shamless mining authority Parker Selfridge respectively add value to their characters. Michelle Rodriguez as the bold young Marine pilot Trudy Chacon leaves a lump in your throat with her act. Spellbinding. So does legendary actress Sigourney Weaver as the ingenious biologist Dr. Grace Augustin, the brain behind the entire Avatar idea. She sinks her teeth deep into the role with the flawless ease of a natural middle aged assiduous woman in curious anticipation of any biological ‘samples’. Boorish, tyrannical Colonel Miles Quaritch played by Steven Lang is one guy you would want to forget. That’s primarily because he portrays his antagonistic role to insane perfection. Little known Aussie Sam Worthington playing Jake Sully, appearing in almost every frame of the film, is sullen and nearly impassive. But eventually, it looks like it's all in proper place. The soul of this film, however, is the Na’vi princess Neytiri played sparklingly well and to great earnest by Zoe Saldana. She infuses a unique charm into this ugly-looking woman and gosh, she is unnervingly captivating. You cannot but force to accept the sheer magnetic power of Cameron, making his cast and crew gallop to thresholds they wouldn't even have imagined to exist. This is a high class effort from a high class director. Long live Cameron.

Avatar is the finest film of our times. We must bow to the caprices of destiny for having placed us in our era to get to witness and applaud films like these. Avatar makes you understand there is a lot more to cinema than you think there is. It sucks you into its realms and gives you a ride that will resurface and numb you in your fantasy, dreams and reality.

Rating:- 5/5

P.S. Shut the page now. Book your tickets for IMAX 3D. Good luck for getting one till February.

Copenhagen shaky. Future hazy.

So it took an extended concluding session (apart from the 12 days of pronounced apathy) compelling Manmohan Singh and Barack Obama to put their entourages on hold for the departure, to come even close to an ‘agreement’ at the much-hyped Copenhagen summit this weekend. Yet, the ambitious dream of coming out of this strategic break with the substantial step of imposing legally binding emission cuts on the various countries of the world did not materialize. So we had 12 days of bizarre business, Heads of State being puerile enough to stage temporary, intimidatory ‘walk out’s from the conference table, countries forming groups and fortifying their intransigent stands and representatives still fuming as they exit the doors of Copenhagen having watched the world take its first big step (I know it’s too late to give it much importance, but it is a step after all) against the most cantankerous conundrum of our times.

Not every nation can get into the discussion room and expect to exit with all its grievances and demands met. In a scenario of these disastrous implications wherein concerted, selfless action is the prime requirement of our times to pull ourselves from the jaws of this enormous monster that’s threatening to bite us down into a despondent abyss, compromises must be made. And they must essentially be made by the nations in the best position to contribute more effectively to this global endeavour. Beyond all the nationalistic and economic interests of the various nations, beyond all the shenanigans or radically different greed for global supremacy, this is a grave global problem. I know global problems are best solved at the global platform. But its execution has to be led by the nations playing a prominent role in the cause. China handsomely sits atop the rather obnoxious list of nations with the highest amount of carbon emissions.

Contributing to 21.5% of the total global carbon emissions does give administrators to spend nights on issues like these. The USA hasn’t been too far either; at the 2^nd position, contributing to about 20% of the global emissions. India occupies the number 4 position in a list it probably wouldn’t have liked to be a part of. Yet, I do get the feeling India finds itself amid quite some Catch—22 at this cusp of history, where all summits even remotely pertinent to this issue are deemed world over by people like you and me as ‘opportunities’. The essential difference, contrary to what the emission figures might suggest, is that the USA is touchstone of our globe today. A global superpower besides a very influential economic fugleman, the USA is way ahead of these ginormously populated nations with respect to industrial development and ‘development’ on the whole. While an India or a China continues to stagger along the time lines of decades and centuries with fundamental problems arising due to overpopulation, the USA has gradually and predictably, outraced everybody else to this rather glistening pinnacle it has made its own.

While it may be touted as an expected errand of the developed nations to take the lead in cutting down carbon emissions since they wouldn’t be affected much anyway, it is also validly argued that this is actually the primary responsibility of developing nations like China and India, which are responsible for very high amounts of carbon emission with respect to contemporary times, to lead the way forward in this war against nature’s eventualities. Yet, these nations indignantly abnegate their responsibility for personal gains, for the realization of the glorious goals they’d set for themselves. It is a sympathetic scenario. On one hand, millions of young men and women are left stranded jobless on streets and meal-less in their own homes napped up in the tenebrous web of adversity, while on the other hand, there is increasing urgency for building a global consensus to counter and hopefully derail the deadly pursuit of the greatest global problem of our times that threatens to wipe out the elysian of life on our land. The BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) countries, the voice of the world’s developing nations on the planet have to swallow bitter pills of foresight and secede to the requirements of tomorrow. The most dejecting aspect of the outcome of this rendezvous of global think-tank for the existence of a tomorrow is the absence of legally binding emission cuts for various nations, principally because the U.S President’s noble views on this regard about the scope for nations to put on display their emission cuts are logically unlikely to compel economically clairvoyant nations towards such a compromise-demanding global endeavour.

The European Union’s imposing of legally binding emission cuts on its nations is a move nations across the world should take heart from. This whole idea of not adhering to the fundamental aspirations of this global summit, by going soft on the ‘stringent’ areas has sadly been a result of the non emergence of an effective consensus on the issue. The idea of developed nations, akin to the USA, doling out financial packages of $30bn every year as a means of compensation for this supreme sacrifice of the poorer nations and hoping for ambitious nations like India and China to shun and undo the basic, underlying agendas of ensuring the people of their land are part of a glorious period of prosperous pastures, seems too idealistic and simplistic an idea for the latter to accept. And to hope that we would somehow return to an economic scenario even vaguely kindred to prelapsarian methods, wherein carbon emissions would have nothing to do with the economic development of a region is out of question. Therefore, we must consign ourselves to the painful thought of this vicious cycle. In our past attempts of technological and scientific advancements, unprecedented development and economic progress—all intended for percapita prosperity, mankind has actually accentuated his woes, hindering the prospects of even the existence of a tomorrow. Ironical then that we talk about the quintessential requirements of non renewable sources of energy at a time when we should probably have been marveling our excellence in making the world around us the way it is today. Economic growth = Environmental degradation. Industrial and technological advancements = Environmental degradation. People’s prosperity = Environmental degradation. The harsher this reality seems, the greater is the need for some seriousness on the issue.

Irrespective of the prevailing economic conditions, irrespective of what countries have been aspiring to do for decades, irrespective of the intricacies involved in signing up for this damage control mode, the time has come for all nations of the world which can claim to be a constituent of the global fraternity to sign on the dotted line and pledge whatever best possible of them for the greater good. Emission cuts are the need of the day. A possible financial downturn in the long run is an inevitable eventuality, which shall not make the compromising nations its only victims and leave them alone to bite the dust. Reduction in the general standards of living and economic activity shall become a reality the whole world will begin to live with. Over centuries, we’ve seen worse changes in the global sphere. This one will only be a speck of insignificant grass at best in the immense fields of global advancements and compromises we’ve seen over ages. On a positive note though, I’d like to get up from my seat and reverently applaud the commitments of China and Brazil with promised emission cuts of 40-45% and 38-42% respectively. Copenhagen might’ve been the first step towards fixing the first hole on the surface of our depredated ship, if not anything of lesser magnitude. Yet, it is an effort that has materialized ‘the first step’ of this race against time. As the President of United States himself articulately puts it, it is ‘a new beginning of a new era of international action.’

Screw 2012. You don’t need esoteric, primordial scriptures to tell you the globe is in danger. Yet, esotery alone seems the antidote against this, if ever there was one.

Well done to our various Heads of States. You’ve just got us all off the mark.