Ad Astra or Who's the Daddy now?

Ad Astra (2019) aimed contemplative psychological sci-fi film and failed. Watching Hollywood mainstream trying to be philosophical is like watching a constipated toddler getting potty training: It's cute but very gross. There are a lot of deep focus and long takes - - but in space, so sometimes it looked like a Discovery channel video buffering. You can get up, take a bathroom break and come back to the same scene. But you can't really leave because Brad Pitt, in a husky voice, keeps on mumbling something in the voice over constantly. But you'll soon understand that whatever he's saying, you already knew that 15 minutes ago. 

Yes, Brad Pitt. And Tommy Lee Jones. These are the two reasons I started watching the film in first place. I have this idea that if you put two good actors together then a film will work even if it fails at everything else including the script. But this film proved me wrong. Though I believe that t2o good actors interacting and acting off of each other is the best way to make a film work. But in this film Brad and Tommy Lee stay apart from each other for 90% of the film. They meet only for a few minutes and those were really intense minutes of the film. 

The plot was daddy issues meet heart of darkness ending in a nuclear blast. (Oh! Now I have spoiled it for you. Good.) For how long Western Christian civilisation will keep searching for their father only to kill them? 

This film reminds me of the trauma of watching a very bad Hollywood take of Tarkovsky's 'Solaris' starring George Clooney. I mean the guy is beautiful but I just couldn't watch a masterpiece being piecemeal destroyed on screen. 

This film lacks logical connection or natural progression through causality: hence, the long monologues in voice over in Brad Pitt's husky voice. Well, even that couldn't help the drowning script which is overwhelmed by daddy issues as I mentioned earlier. 

The trajectory of Daddy issues go somewhat like this:

Daddy is a hero, you love daddy. You are what you are because of your daddy. Daddy is dead, you follow his footsteps. But daddy is absent, so you are dead inside. Daddy is alive, so now daddy is deadbeat. You cannot be a daddy because your daddy left you and that is why you don't know how to be a daddy. But you want daddy: people stop you, so you kill people and go on searching for daddy. You find daddy but daddy tells you that daddy doesn't love you but you still want to save daddy. Daddy tries to kill you, you try to kill daddy and now daddy wants to die. You let daddy die. Finally, daddy gives you validation. You come home ready to be a daddy. 

Matt Damon would have better suited the character. He has been rescued so many times in films that he should start rescuing people from now on. Brad Pitt was a murderous waste in this film. 

Why are they even making this firm in 2019? If the entire aim of the film was to make Brad Pitt's character, Roy a suitable family man in a heteronormative structure then why bring in futuristic space fantasy in it? If it is to make it spectacular, then let me tell you, it wasn't. Space didn't play a role in the story. It was just a backdrop. Anything odd or illogical was explained (read excused) in the monologues. I wonder how they still sell these scripts: to the audience, to the studios, to the actors. The women in this film could be replaced by a lampshade and no one would even notice. Why would you hire an actress like Liv Taylor and not give her a line, one single line even? If any of you have seen this film, can you please tell me the point of all this? Because from where I see it, the film is about a privileged upper class white Christian man trying to find purpose in his life. Finally, that purpose comes down to mating with his wife and producing more confused creatures like himself. This could be a crisis, (doesn't seem like it) this could be a struggle (against what odds) but this film has severely failed to show it like that. 

Anyway, I need to watch Apocalypse Now and Solaris (the Russian one) cleanse my system.

Why is Gunjan Saxsena more important than KillBill right now:This is going to be emotional (you can blame my hormones for it)

Hold on to your Katanas, I'm not saying Gunjan Saxsena: The Kargil Girl is a better film than Kill Bill. What idiot would say that? I've always been a Quentin Tarantino fan. I love his films and especially the powerful female characters who are not afraid of the blood and grit. Especially the girl in yellow jumpsuit, who stands up for herself in a hard world, matches the men in skill and endurance and exacts her revenge. Quentin Tarantino and Uma Thurman helped a dewy eyed college girl to survive and take one wiggly toe at a time. But as for a survivor, Quentin Tarantino broke her heart, for now she knows what there is to know and nothing he touched will ever be the same again. Quentin Tarantino didn't ask for the hero worship but he will have to part of the blame. 

Kill Bill is a story of a woman's mother's revenge. But is it really? Her life is overshadowed by the omnipotent and omnipresent Bill. So much so that she doesn't even get a name till the second part of the movie while Bill remains ominously in the very title of the film. Bill made Beatrix Kiddo: he made her an assassin, he made her a favourite, he made her a mother and he eventually made her vengeful. To exact her revenge Beatrix again travels the same path once shown by Bill, to match his skills, to ultimately kill him, which is again mirroring the vindictive nature of Bill himself.

Only time Beatrix shows her agency is when she chooses to be a mother instead of a killer. Before getting into the ideology of the choice, can we ask why she had to hide her pregnancy from Bill? Was she raped? Was she forced to abort any earlier pregnancy? Well, it is open to interpretation. 

And now for some heavier questions. Does choosing to be a mother really give her agency? Is it really going beyond the social construct? Doesn't it actually reinforce validation of the idea of choosing child and marriage over professional life? Like millions of women, still now, do all over the world. Like millions of people believe that these are mutually exclusive, even today? 

Beatrix kills Bill. It is not the revenge itself but the 'why' and 'how' of it that is unsettling. Bride doesn't even know about her kid being alive. If she had known, would she have done things differently? But with her kid dead, Beatrix plunges into her old life, polishes her skills and kills Bill. A wounded tigress, a bereaved mother, walking the path of her abusers to win but following their rules, holding on to the honour of her profession. Let's assume that it was the only way she knew and leave it at that for now. 

Let's talk about the popular trope of powerful females in cinema, in general. Revenge theme portrays a typical powerful female characterisation which shows the phoenix that rise from the ashes of violence, mostly sexual violence. It shows how she takes her revenge in the man's world by almost becoming the thing that derailed her in the first place. It is like she had the fire in her which was dormant till the necessity arose. In that sense, doesn't the abuser become the sculptor of those heroines? Doesn't that really show the abuser as a lapidarist who forge the women to reach their full potential? Doesn't it keep their narratives centered around the abuse and fulfillment is only achieved once and for all by proving themselves powerful to their abusers? From Kill Bill to Mardaani, aren’t we just listening to the same tune over and over again? 

Why does it have to be an abuse, violent abuse that wakes a woman? Why does it has to be a sexual abuse that makes a woman rise up? Why does a woman need to conform to the masculine idea of powerful to fulfill her destiny? Why revenge becomes her destiny? Why being a victim or a survivor (when you mean the same thing) becomes the center of her life. 

Gunjan Saxsena saves her tormentor the first chance she gets. She is equally encouraged and discouraged by her family. She didn't need to be violently or sexually violated to become powerful. She faced misogyny and sexism every step of the way. She didn't have to become a victim turned abuser to assert herself. When she was ridiculed for being physically weak, she didn't have to train under an abusive, mythical master to match her abusers. On the contrary she asserts that she requires skill, not brutal force, to do her job. She just stood her ground, did her best and worked at her own pace to achieve her destiny. Her journey is not surreal, magical or in any way superlative. Her rise is not meteoric and her dreams are ordinary (or that's how it should be). She plays by the rules but doesn't conform. She finds her unique ways to deal with her problems and by doing so she refuses to accept the standards set by her tormentors as norms. Gunjan Saxsena is a success story and that is why it became a subject for a film. Yes, it is a story of hope and wish fulfilment but she didn't have to be extraordinary to reach where she wanted to be. She remained consistent and persistent in her path. She doesn't have superpowers like Captain Marvel. She is not larger than life like Beatrix Kiddo. She didn't require to be smoking hot or androgynous to be noticed. She's just a child with a dream who somehow manages to hold onto it. 

As I mentioned before, as a victim, Beatrix Kiddo taught me to wiggle my big toe. But as a survivor, Gunjan Saxsena inspires me to hold on, for yet another day, for yet another hope. So she is more important now. The film is more important now. More than Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill. Because it inspired me to write this (inspired to write in general) Because it shows that I don't have to become the thing I hate to prove a point. Because it showed me that my life doesn't need to be limited by what happened to me. I know, your feminism is better than my feminism but I loved the film. 

PS.: Don't come to me with stories of 'real' Gunjan Saxsena. I'm talking about the film, which is primarily a work of fiction. 

The Day That Laughter Died

Rest in Peace, Robin Williams.

July 21st, 1951 - August 11th, 2014

My childhood, teenage years and adulthood was a world of smiles, fantasy and love. A huge part of it was with thanks to the talented Robin Williams. A man who glued not only me, but millions of others to their TVs and theaters.I grew up with his movies and I have only recently started to introduce my own child to his funny madness of laughter and heartbreak.

My thoughts go out to his family and friends. Robin Williams will be deeply missed by millions; forgotten by none.

_{Thank you for bringing joy into my childhood and life with your voice and acting. Thank you for your contagious jokes, your wacky impersonations, and amazing acting. Thank you for making my childhood experience better, and thank you for bringing joy to those even though you battled with your own joy. If only you could have known how much you’ve impacted people. Your life work will live on, and you will never be forgotten. I know I won’t forget you. Thank you for helping me whenever I felt sad and having a film for every mood. Gone, but never forgotten.}