I’ve been a fan of Christopher Nolan ever since I saw Memento. This one has only strengthened the respect I have felt for him. In Inceptionhe deals with a powerful subject – Dreams. Cobb (Leonardo Di Caprio) is a thief who uses dreams. He creates a world in his victim’s dreams and the victim populates it with his subconsciousness. By designating certain areas or objects as safe zones, he forces the victim to automatically store their innermost secrets in that place. He then proceeds to steal that idea. Now instead of stealing an idea, he’s asked to implant one – an Inception – in exchange for being able to go back to his kids.

Do not expect to sit back and enjoy the movie mindlessly. Christopher Nolan will push your brain. He’ll make you think. You have to let your mind run with the idea to enjoy the movie thoroughly. Imagine the sheer power of the concept he’s explaining here. The story is superb – I hope somebody writes a book with this theme if they haven’t already. It isn’t complicated enough for you to not understand it. But you have to sit down and watch this one with some concentration. It’s written brilliantly. It’s no mean task to make the audience comfortable with a complex concept and then run the rest of the film based on it. It’s a tribute to his skill that Nolan is able to pull this off in an entertaining manner. The film is not slow or dull even in some parts – it runs pretty tight throughout. The last few minutes particularly make for edge of the seat watching.

The ending in itself is a masterpiece. The last few seconds of the movie in itself is so perfect. He does not intend the audience to forget the movie after they come out of the theatre. By leaving a crucial point to his audience’s imagination he has made a master stroke. The 4th level dream introduces some twists to the story line in the last few moments – but in the hands of Nolan it doesn’t seem forced or artificial. Lesser directors would’ve fumbled there.

The performances by the actors leave no room for complaints. Leonardo di Caprio makes for an excellent leading man with a brilliant but troubled mind portrayed effectively. Marion Cotillard plays Cobb’s wife Mal. The other main characters have been brilliantly played by Ellen Page, Tom Hardy and Ken Watanabe. Nolan regular Michael Caine makes a short but well handled performance.

Music by Hans Zimmer stands out. The theme manages to convey the tension and the disturbance of the movie.

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NEW YORK — Amid the documentaries and live-action features at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival is a first for the event — a feature-length, computer-generated animated film rendered entirely by a single animator, working out of a home office.

Nina Paley’s Sita Sings the Blues, which makes its North American premiere Friday at the festival, tells two parallel stories: the ancient Hindu epic the Ramayana and the breakup of Paley’s 21st-century marriage. It does so through four distinct styles of animation, a “greek chorus” of Indonesian shadow puppets and wildly imaginative musical interludes that use authentic 1920s blues recordings to link narratives 3,000 years apart.

The article has got an interview of Nina Paley as well as a trailer of the film.

From what I read from the article, it features Rama leaving Sita.

Wired: You voiced the role of yourself, and that leads to the film’s most excruciating scene, in which your character asks your husband to take you back.

Paley: [Laughs.] Isn’t that pathetic? I wanted people to feel my pain. And believe me, that’s just a little taste of it. [Laughs.] When this sort of thing happens to you, it’s so shameful, so humiliating. Which is why I included that scene of Sita sitting there on the banks of the river saying, “I must have committed a terrible sin in a previous life to deserve such suffering.” There’s always a sense that, if something bad happens to you, that there’s something really wrong with you. And I love that even Sita believes this, because she’s completely stainless, that’s the whole point of her character. I feel that airing this stuff out is the way to take the shame out of it. Plus, pain is funny!

The Ramayana says that Rama chose to leave Sita because of his duty as a king. In the otherwise spotless character of Rama, I feel, this is a huge blemish. And so do a lot of people. Many “experts” though have felt otherwise.

Should be interesting to see how Ramayana and the character of Sita is treated in this film.

Links :

Wired article : http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/news/2008/04/sita?currentPage=all

Site of the film : http://www.sitasingstheblues.com/

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