The Revenant - Movie Review

The apparition of these faces in the crowd:

Petals on a wet, black bough. 

( In a station of the metro - Ezra Pound)

The title means a person who returns as a spirit after death, a ghost. The movie is a meditative attempt to portray human condition. It is spread out on a soild canvass of natural beauty and human beastiality. As I read in one of the reviews in IMDB, the movie is 'visual poetry' ( The movie has found the 127th spot in the 250 movies regarded as the best movies of all time). 

The narrartive is interspersed with various dichotomies. The dark landscape is contrasted against the purity of the mind. The white snow is picthed against the dark shapes that wander about. There is the dichotomy between modern weaponary and the traditional ones. The natives  asking the French colonists for guns in exchange of pelts illustratates this. The contrast between the good and the evil is portrayed through the different characters. The traditional wisdom of the natives is contrasted with the new found knowledge of the west. 

The plot tells us how the west was won by the marauding conquerers. Looting and plundering the resources to gain control over the land and nature was   seen as a divine birthright. Natives were displaced and killed and their customes and traditions were eroded and destroyed. The character played by Caprio is in a critical juntcure of history. Born as white skin, his heart is with the natives and he and his son often becomes the butt of ridicule for his bonding with the natives. He has delivered one of his finest performances and he is sure to win many laurels for his effort. 

What is most striking about the movie is the ambiance. The music, the photography and the sound design helps the audience to get into the snow laden woods and the frozen lakes and rivers. The peaceful landscape is often punctuated with scenes of violence and gore. The most intense scenes in the movie involves Glass. The way he traps fish and eats them raw made the Bahraini audience shudder. The intensity level increased when Glass after removing the insides was shown sleeping inside a dead horse. The third scene portarying Glass eating raw bison flesh was the one which really made the audience cower. 

     

This movie is a result of the collaboration between three men, a French director, a Japanese composer and an American actor. I was able to see some parallels between the 1990 Malayalam movie - Thazhvaram ( The Valley) and The Revenant. The poster of Thazhvaram  had an interesting one liner - 

The land without mercy and unvanquished barbarians. This is another way to describe the dark and brooding cinematic creation titled - The Revenant.

Lessons from Farming Simulator 2016

Games are an integral part of my life. They are the perfect zones for relaxation and unwinding. You are transported to a different world and maybe I am hooked on to them ibecause of the escapism element that it provides. I love the art that is embedded in the games. There are hundreds of artists and illustartors who create the world. The world they create is not far removed from the world that we live in. In the game - The Last of Us which is one of the most popular titles in Playstation gaming platform, the game world is so accurate and life like. 

There are varied opinions regarding the act of playing games. Some are of the opinion that it affects the mental growth of the user. There are others who  blabber about the anti-social traits that a gamer can pick up. A research based on the internet proves that games can in fact boost memory and other cognitive skills. A team comprised of cognitive neuroscientists and gaming technology experts created a game with potential therapeutic applications, as part of an ongoing research effort at the University of Texas, Dallas ( quoted from the Huffigton Post article titled - Why these neuroscientists are prescribing video games - Huffigtonpost - Carolyn Gregoire). Researchers have found that some of the large and hugely popular online video games – although condemned by many as time-gobbling, people-isolating monsters – actually have socially redeeming qualities (quoted from www.news.illinois.edu - University of Illinois - Andrea Lyn). Atleast one fact emerges from the finding of these researchers, that games cannot be treated as games. They are, I think they are monumental examples of human creativity and aesthetic sense. 

This blog is based on my experience of playing Farming Simulator on PS Vita. I found the game to be quite immersive and challenging. The ideas below will summarise my thoughts about the game. 

1) The game encourages the players to practice discipline in life. There is a place and space for each farming equipment. 

2) There is a sense of success through the act of buying and upgrading the farming equipment.

3) The game is always punctuated by achievable short term goals and the player can set himself some long term goals.

4) The game offers valuable lessons in planning and execution.

5) There is the scope for vocabulary enrichment through farming vocabulary. 

Lines in memory of a stroll...

Meandering conversations plastered to the palate

Thoughts and words hurled out from the glottal faucet 

Sliding and moving against each other in the Brownian motion 

Lexis and lexicon engaged in an act of mutual completion 

Reclusive and pensive figure caught in a moment which will soon fade

The table well spread with the passion for knowledge uncertified 

The curves and contours of a well shaped maid

Slender extensions bookmarking the page last read

Ravenous being's eager to devour their own flesh

The cup of life toasted for an act that is unselfish 

The overflowing gift box holds pearls of prosperity

Conversations handled precariously and with much alacrity 

The estranged soul caught in a narcissistic routine

Scanning the sylvan horizon for an enticing figurine 

The hooded figures flow in and remains standstill 

Their presence blurred and the ocular orbs ready for the kill. 

The fading of the time and knell of the hourly bell

Fleeting images and senses gathered in a magical spell 

Transformed into a praxis form of verbiage

The end ushers in a new beginning out of the linguistic foliage