What happens when you have very high expectations of something, and then that thing actually meets them? Is there a sense of satisfaction, exhilaration, or déception*? There was this strange experience I had. Twice over.
At the Kala Ghoda Festival, I saw the film Charulata. Based on a Tagore classic on paper, it is a Ray classic on film. (Couldn't resist the turn-of-phrase!) And a week later, I read the much-acclaimed Nineteen Eighty-four. All the hype surrounding Ray seems quite real, really. Same goes with Orwell's novel. It really is as chilling as supposed to be.
What can I say? Charulata is an amazing film. It met every expectation I had of it. Charulata and her relationships with her husband and brother-in-law are as complex, as in real life. The camera, with its staccato flow, stands at the very altar of cinematography.
Nineteen eighty-four is not that impressive. It depends largely on the device of the telescreen doign Big Brother's dirty work. Though the rest of totalitarianism and its pursuers are quite real, we're still nowhere near an omnivident higher power (discounting that fuzzy entity called God). Nevertheless, room 101, the rats the notion of betrayal are as human as they can be.
But the cynic in me is a little too cynical for his own good. He isn't quite impressed that the expectations were met. Maybe he hoped for more. What I think is, he wanted the presented to exceed expectations. You reach the sky, and find out that it is exactly as you thought of it! That thrill somehow, goes missing.
Is it just a feeling I have?
*Déception: a French word, with a rough meaning of disappointment, but with a subtler shade of meaning only French words have.
At the Kala Ghoda Festival, I saw the film Charulata. Based on a Tagore classic on paper, it is a Ray classic on film. (Couldn't resist the turn-of-phrase!) And a week later, I read the much-acclaimed Nineteen Eighty-four. All the hype surrounding Ray seems quite real, really. Same goes with Orwell's novel. It really is as chilling as supposed to be.
What can I say? Charulata is an amazing film. It met every expectation I had of it. Charulata and her relationships with her husband and brother-in-law are as complex, as in real life. The camera, with its staccato flow, stands at the very altar of cinematography.Nineteen eighty-four is not that impressive. It depends largely on the device of the telescreen doign Big Brother's dirty work. Though the rest of totalitarianism and its pursuers are quite real, we're still nowhere near an omnivident higher power (discounting that fuzzy entity called God). Nevertheless, room 101, the rats the notion of betrayal are as human as they can be.
But the cynic in me is a little too cynical for his own good. He isn't quite impressed that the expectations were met. Maybe he hoped for more. What I think is, he wanted the presented to exceed expectations. You reach the sky, and find out that it is exactly as you thought of it! That thrill somehow, goes missing.
Is it just a feeling I have?
*Déception: a French word, with a rough meaning of disappointment, but with a subtler shade of meaning only French words have.
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