There are certain rules of storytelling on a screen. For example, the protagonist should have a goal. It is a very straight forward rule. One that all the Christopher Nolan films follow. The young man in Following? Has a goal. Leonard Shelby? Has a goal. So do Batman, Dom Cobb, Joseph Cooper and others. In fact, every protagonist in every character driven film of his has goals, except Oppenheimer.
Here comes the twist. Oppenheimer doesn’t have one goal, but two. He spends first half of the film trying to make The Bomb and second half trying to stop it from further development. In filmmaking, the characters are supposed to evolve, change in the end. But in Oppenheimer, it feels like, he goes through two full sets of metamorphoses. And both of them seem to be fully distinct and self-contained. In fact, if you look at Lewis Strauss, whether you know it or not, his character has one single goal throughout the film. On the contrary, Oppenheimer’s is a story of a paradoxical man, told in a paradoxical manner. That is why Oppenheimer’s POV is in colour (subjective) and Strauss’ is in B/W (objective). In fact, Nolan wrote the screenplay itself in that way – Oppenheimer’s scenes in first person and Strauss’s in regular, objective way. A novelty which only a filmmaker of Nolan’s stature is ‘allowed to do’ and can pull-off.
The mastery of Nolan as a filmmaker comes in play in how he portrays both the journeys with same panache. Many people complained that they liked the second half of the film more. Well I think because in the second half the goal is very contemporary and relatable on emotional level. While the same in the first half is material and academic. When you rewatch the film armed with the knowledge of the second journey, the first half works like a magic on emotional level. Having a strong revisit value is what makes any Christopher Nolan film great. It’s a masterclass in paradox by the master himself.
The greatness of every Christopher Nolan film lies in another less discussed department, the casting. Who would have thought the man who was stereotyped as a Marvel superhero for this generation, could be the embodiment of Lewis Strauss? In fact, if Marvel gave us RDJ the charmer, Christopher Nolan single handedly introduced this generation to RDJ the actor. His lines, ‘amateurs seek the sun and get eaten, power lies in the shadow’ are still ringing in my ears. For reasons unknown, I liked Matt Damon’s Leslie Groves on a different level. He brought a certain charisma to the character. But the real masterstroke comes with the casting of Cillian Murphy. He holds all the paradoxes of Oppenheimer’s personality in his two deep eyes with every minute detail. He is class apart in every sense of the term.
Oppenheimer is a genre defining, time-bending amalgamation of political, scientific, psychological, horror masterpiece of art. It masquerades as a biopic, but is in fact a psychological analysis of Oppenheimer. That’s why the Manhatten Project, one of the most thrilling moments of history, comes at the midpoint and takes a backseat in overall proceedings. The real thrill comes in Oppenheimer’s visionary genius and his existence on a different psychological plane throughout the film. Hoyte Van Hoytema captured this in all it’s essence. And Ludwig G├╢ransson scored it like never before. I have huge respect for Hans Zimmer, but honestly, I’m not missing him in a Christopher Nolan film anymore and yet I wish they work together again some day. A paradox indeed.
Oppenheimer is one of the most important film in Christopher Nolan’s career as a filmmaker, his best yet. It’s undoubtedly the best film of the year and one of the most important films of the decade, a milestone in the history of cinema, in every sense. While writing about Tenet, I wrote that it’s Nolan’s most complex film ever, even more complex than Inception. But who would have imagined that a straight-forward biopic would turn out to be Nolan’s most daring and complex work ever? I hope, no, in fact I want the next film to be even more complex. And I know it will happen, because #InTrustWeNolan.
тАФ Vikram Edke [For other articles visit www.vikramedke.com]
There’s a great scene in #TheKashmirFiles. When Krishna (Darshan Kumar) gives his speech in ANU (an obvious wordplay!), Radhika Menon (Pallavi Joshi) who plays a brilliant amalgamation of several real life characters, asks him to stop. And a student sitting right beside her says, “No, let him speak. We want to listen”. This sums up the mood of the nation, especially the youth, who genuinely wanted to listen to the horrendous genocide of the Kashmiri Hindus for decades but our film industries were so tied with peddling the goody goody and romantic side of the Kashmir – often with the glorification of terrorists – that they either never told the stories of the most shameless ethnic cleansing of Bhaaratiya history or they made them bollywood-appropriate. Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri on the other hand doesn’t hold anything back in his film and an eager nation listens, just like the students of ANU who were kept ignorant to suit some political propaganda.
And boy, does he tell his story with brutal honesty! I must admit that I never liked Agnihotri’s previous outing The Tashkent Files. It was a bold but scattered film where all the narratives never really gelled together and though it asked some tough questions the resulting film was rather an assault on the senses. He follows the same narrative structure here. He puts the sides of Kashmiri Pandits, separatist murderers, politicians, Police, media, civil services, thinkers, youth torn apart amongst the narratives; perspective of almost everyone possible in front of us and yet manages to make his own ruthless statement. This very thing sets The Kashmir Files leagues apart from The Tashkent Files where he seemed to be held back at the crucial moments.
In that sense, Krishna here works more with the audience as a layered character than the incoherent Raagini (Shweta Basu Prasad) in previous outing. This is just another example of how Agnihotri’s writing has been seriously improved. His screenplay is full of insights and dialogues speak in subtext. His direction still becomes somewhat loud for such a terrifically subtle piece of cinema, but he deserves full credit for this emotionally rich yet intelligent writing. Having said that, I still feel the metamorphosis of Krishna could have been handled better. Capturing all the sides of the narrative, Udaysingh Mohite’s camera moves with panache. So does Rohit Sharma’s score. Shankh Rajadhyaksha’s editing though crisp, some may still found a space for improvement in it.
Mithun Chakraborty, Puneet Issar, Prakash Belawadi, Atul Srivastava are all seasoned actors and work excellently well. Though Mrunal Kulkarni has lesser screentime and fewer dialogues, she makes her presence felt, proving how she knows her craft out and out. Bhasha Sumbli gives life to Sharada Pandit and makes her eternal pain memorable. Pallavi Joshi portrays the vicious Radhika Menon with the way only she can.
But I must save my finest of the praises for two extraordinary artists. One is Chinmay Mandlekar who plays Farooq Bitta. He is the most merciless, cold-blooded villain you wouldn’t have seen in years on screen. It becomes hard to believe that the same person plays Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in Pawankhind which is simultaneously running in theatres. Shows his versatility and the fact that a great director can extract wonders from him. And yet Anupam Kher who plays Pushkar Nath Pandit takes the cake. He infectious agony makes us feel like he is not playing a role, but reliving the trials, tribunals and ultimate injustice the Kashmiri Hindus suffered. For this role, Kher deserves all the awards possible for acting including a National Award.
Make no mistake, The Kashmir Files is not a perfect film. No film ever is. But what makes it successful is that it cuts out all the melodrama and presents the plight of people who live like refugees in their own nation as it is. And in that process, it subverts the expectations of audience in a poetic way and kicks all of us at the right places. It’s a feat no other mainstream filmmaker has ever achieved in last three decades. The Kashmir Files, the story of the most gut-wrenching pogrom and following exodus in the history of Bhaarat, deserves to be seen, heard and experienced on as many international platforms as possible.
*4/5
тАФ ┬й Vikram Edke [For other articles visit www.vikramedke.com]
