The Wind that Shakes the Barley, Farscape and Buffy. And quote of the day
I keep thinking about The Wind that Shakes the Barley.
The thing that I love so much about Barley is that it does not decide on an easy way out. It does not make Damien the persecuted martyr and Teddy a sell-out, or Teddy the voice of reason and Damien a reckless fanatic.
Both brothers’ points are utterly valid, both during and after the Treaty (During the fighting, just watch the scene with the rich man who charged exorbitant interest to a little old widow. You agree with the newly instituted court and Damien that it’s exorbitant and wrong. And you agree with Teddy and the other IRA leaders in their hardheaded reasoning that they need the rich guy on their side as he has money IRA needs for guns. Push idealism too far and you will lose. Push pragmatism too far and what is the point of fighting).
The same is after the treaty. Damien is right. Whatever the nationality of the rulers, it would make little difference to an average person is there is widespread starvation (which he sees first hand) and horrible life. And Teddy is right. You cannot alienate a large chunk of the population through communist revolution type measures and you have to take the independence offered, because you can work from there and gain more and if you reject it, the fanaticism will clash with realities and Britain would be glad to wipe Ireland out. You start from there and work your way up.
But the thing is, while objectively you’d recognize that guns aren’t the only option: there can be compromise and gradual measures to solve poverty or what not, and working out some sort of plan, there is a middle ground between the Teddy and the Damien positions, this bogs down in the fact that both factions are not compromisers by nature. They are used to fighting for what they want. Revolutionaries are people who, by definition, put an ideal above any practical and emotional ties. Of course, that also makes it impossible for them to compromise. Fighting against the British brings together people who do not have much ideologically in common except for their hatred of British rule and desire for Ireland’s independence. But once that external threat is gone, the very fact that made them rebels: the fact that they wouldn’t knuckle down and compromise, that fact makes them incapable of coming to an agreement.
I think the movie takes a look at what happens to men who’ve had guns in their hands, who are used to settling their political disputes through violence. Violence becomes routine, too easy, automatic recourse.
I think you see the different approaches reflected in the very different characters of Teddy and Damien. Damien is an idealist. He is a wide-eyed innocent in some ways, and no matter the horrors he sees or does, he never quite loses that innocence (I give huge kudos to Cillian Murphy for the performance btw). He can be amazingly gentle in the most outré settings: the scene that stays with me is his comforting Sinead. While the IRA were out on a raid, when they return to their safe house, they see the British attack the inhabitants of the safe house, including Sinead, Damien’s love (btw, I love how that relationship is important, but in the background, low key and for that more realistic: in the hugs, and tone of voice, and quiet short peaceful scenes of grace before the next nightmare). Damien and the rest of the men are forced to watch, helpless, because they are out of bullets, though Teddy literally has to hold Damien down, as the British chop off all of Sinead’s hair, leaving huge bloody gashes on her scalp, and stuff it in her mouth. It’s a moment that would have played for a different effect in any other movie: either the heroic rescue of the women, or the ‘aaaangst’ of Damien afterwards or whatever. But it isn’t. You are struck with the sense of helplessness and the tough realities of such a life. And afterwards, you see Damien quietly soothing Sinead, who is completely falling apart, and taking care of her bleeding cuts and it’s a quiet, incredibly tender, yet very not overplayed scene.
But yes, to get back to the above point. Damien is an idealist. He joins out of a purely emotional reaction to seeing a 17 year old boy killed for speaking Irish-Gaelic (and once again, the futility is reinforced. It was a brave act on the part of the kid, but stupid. Unlike deaths in battle, it served no point. Inability to compromise might be a strength but also a curse) and then seeing the soldiers mistreat a train conductor. And he is not in the fight for that long (he joins in 1920 and the Treaty was in 1921, right?). No wonder his stance after the Treaty is about ideals, and pure principle. No one is as dangerous as an idealist.
This is quite different with Teddy (OMG. Padraic Delaney. What else has he been in?), Damien’s older brother. Teddy has been in the fight for quite a bit longer and perhaps that is why he is more pragmatic, less driven by emotion. And of course, he is also more senior in the organization, which is another thing you cannot be if you are not willing to compromise internally. But in his own tough way, Teddy is just as much an idealist as Damien. He is the one who joined the fight first, after all, he’s a rebel leader, and in a horrific scene (seriously, I had to look away and beg Mr. Mousie to tell me when it was all over), he gets his fingernails ripped out with rusty pliers by the British but refuses to reveal where the guns are hidden.
But his ideals are different. He wants the British off his streets. The rest: poverty, inequality, etc, he views as something that, though worthy, can wait and not of supreme importance. And that of course means he and Damien are on a collision course.
I think that is the tragedy of it. You see Damien’s point and you see Teddy’s and they are both men with excellent qualities, but the outcome cannot be anything but a disaster for both. In a way, they cannot back down from what they perceive to be right, because if they compromise, if they morally give in, if they settle for anything that is not morally 100% right to them, then all the sacrifices they have suffered, all the atrocities they have done, are for nothing. They need to believe in the just outcome (whatever their definition of said outcome is), need to fight for it, because if they give in, if they compromise, if the result is not the ideal, than all the actions and sacrifices were in vain, and they cannot live with that. I think this is especially explicit in the case of Damien, who had to execute a kid he’s known all his life for betraying the IRA to the British (the kid was clearly under the threat of death at the time). He does that, and you see it wreck him, and I think from then on, there is no way back for Damien. If he compromises, if he does what he does not believe morally right, i.e. agree to the treaty, that means that death (and the other deaths) were for nothing, were not revolutionary struggle but murder. The dead trap them forever and they create more dead and the cycle continues.
I am struck by the parallels in the movie, by the continuation of the cycle. Two such parallels especially come to mind.
Teddy and Damien behave exactly the same when captured, don’t they? No matter what, no matter the punishment, they will not give in. Even the question they are asked to answer is identical: “Where are the guns?’ Teddy will not reveal it even while being tortured and while knowing he will be shot at dawn. And at the end, Damien will not say where the guns are at either, even though he knows he will be shot otherwise. Teddy cannot fault Damien for his behavior at the end, for being willing to die for his convictions, when he earlier exhibited the same willingness himself. But he cannot let him go either, for to do so would be to make a mockery of all his own beliefs and sacrifices and the whole ‘ideal is higher than a person’ credo. And yet each sacrifice spurs one further into dogmatism, doesn’t it? I keep thinking about the parallel of Damien, in the middle of the movie, having to go to see the kid’s mother, someone he’s known all his life, and to tell her he executed her son whom he’s known forever, and the mother saying she never wants to see him again. And the parallel to Teddy at the end, when he has to go see Sinead and tell the woman he’s known most of his life that he’s had to execute Damien. And Sinead crumpling and telling him she wants never to see his face again. There is no right here, and no wrong. Just pain.
All of this gets highlighted by the fact that Teddy and Damien are brothers. Family are people, by definition, you don’t have to get along with, but you love. And that’s the thing. The love between Teddy and Damien is palpable through the movie. To me, it was the strongest emotional personal bond in the movie. Teddy is the big tough brother who protects his kid brother who always looks up to him (he tries to keep him out of trouble even very late in the movie, after Damien’s outburst in the Church). Damien is the intelligent, perceptive one. I keep thinking of the scene in prison when the British come for Teddy and they ask which one is Teddy O’Donovan and Damien volunteers because he wants to protect his brother, though of course it does no good, and not as if Teddy would let him. And the scene afterwards where Teddy is thrown back into the cell with his fingernails ripped out, borderline unconscious, and Damien is cradling him and Teddy is repeating ‘I didn’t tell them’ like a child hoping to be believed and it’s Damien’s turn to take care of him, and he is soothing him and shushing him and taking care of his fingers.
But of course, they are idealists and no family matters can be stronger than the ideal (as I said above, because otherwise all the bad acts that they did or have been done to them are for nothing) and we get the final, heartbreaking scene, where Damien is caught raiding the arsenal of the new government (and his companion is killed and so is one of the men in the arsenal) and Teddy comes in there, into the cell and the conversation is all sorts of horrible because it’s the same jail they were in before and Teddy starts the conversation by saying that he never thanked him for trying to pretend to be him when they were captured (once again, explicit parallel, this movie has an awesome script) and continues by begging him to reveal the guns’ location because Damien needs to live and to have a future that is not this fighting (but of course Damien can’t reveal and Teddy knows he can’t, and in any event, wouldn’t it just turn him into that kid who was the informer in the first half of the movie? Then Damien’s own comrades would kill him) and progresses to Teddy telling Damien to write his letters (to be delivered on his death).
That letter Damien writes to Sinead is so…so…I don’t really have words. Because Damien clearly doesn’t want to die and he is scared and he has things he loves extremely in his life but yet he is incapable of compromise. The letter says that Teddy is dead inside and that is true, but so is Damien. There is no way out for either of them, or for their comrades, not in this endless fratricidal (literally) fighting.
The shooting scene is of course, horrible. I found it incredibly hard to watch, Damien utterly scared yet still refusing to give in, and Teddy not able to give in either. And just as someone else offered to take care of the informer boy for Damien but Damien refused, here someone offers to order the execution of Damien for Teddy and Teddy refuses. And so Damien is shot and Teddy breaks down over the corpse and it’s not a scene I want to rewatch again, and even thinking of it ties my stomach in knots and the cycle will just continue.
So, to switch gears before I break down again.
I love the cinematography of this. It’s beautiful without rendering the place post-card pretty. It looks like a real place, neither too gritty nor too ethereal.
Another thing I love is how the quiet moments alternate with the loud ones: a scene of a heated debate or a quick gun fight, with such almost silent scenes as the scene where Damien and Sinead finally make love, and there are no words, almost, but just their faces and Damien removing Sinead’s scarf that covers her shorn hair and a fade to black. Or the scene where Teddy leaves sobbing Sinead at the end, walking away with his motorcycle.
P.S. You know how the above was sort of on a meta analysis side? Well, to retain my fangirl credentials, I just want to note that I went to IMDB and realized that Padraic Delaney is in the Tudors as George Boleyn, Anne’s brother (is he the one Anne was accused of committing incest with, historically?)
And people wonder why I watch the Tudors, laughable as its history is. JRM, Henry Cavill, Jeremy Northam, and now I find out my newest crush is there too. Thank you, British television.
I have also been continuing with my Farscape S2 rewatch. Unfortunately, next episode on the list was Dream a Little Dream, the most fast-forwarded S2 ep ever.
Honest. Blah.
Zhaan goes crazy while being framed on planet of evil lawyers. Rygel and Chiana save her. Blah. End of flashback.
I’ve read somewhere that the problem with this episode is that since it’s a flashback we have no tension. We know everyone will be OK. But I don’t think that is the case. After all, do we really expect Crichton et al to be bumped off at a random ep? No, but we still get excited about the eps (of course, DALD takes it further as we know everything will return to status quo we know now but still…)
For me, that is not the problem. I think this is the ep that reiterated for me that while I find Zhaan and Rygel interesting in small dozes, an ep centered around them is not really my thing. And I love Chiana, but probably ditto unless she is interacting with someone other than them. Basically, my character order of preference goes: John, Aeryn, D’Argo, Chi etc etc. And an ep where my top 3 characters are absent (minus a very very cool hallucination) drags.
The plot is also not scintillating. Oh well. I do love Chiana and Rygel as trial lawyers, utterly hopped up and themselves in wiggle room exploitation. And the courtroom design is very neat. But that is about it.
On the plus side, from now on, it a wild crazy ride, with no bad eps in sight until early S4’s Coup by Clam. YES.
And next up? The awesome Out of their Minds. ‘You were in my shoes, I was in your pants.’ Heeee.
Also, I’ve restarted my Buffy rewatch. Next ep in line? S2’s premiere ep, When She Was Bad, which I really like.
I love dramas and all but just dramas is beginning to get wearying.
You know, I was thinking of Buffy earlier today in the context of Veronica Mars, which is has been compared to. And you know, even though I didn’t care for most of S6 and all of S7, the way Buffy ended was so much more ‘my thing’ than the way VM looks set to end. I mean, there was sort of a hope for shippers. Buffy and Angel got their ‘maybe’s (however weird the cookie speech was. Btw, I know it’s crazy to ship a couple four years after Angel got his own show, but I did). And Spike and Buffy fans got the ILY. So you could go whichever way your ship preferences wanted. Heck, in my alternaverse, Willow bumps into Oz again and ditches the annoying Kennedy after S7 :P
Oh, and here is the random quote of the day. Quote of the day is this exchange courtesy of one of my favorite Bollywood movie Devdas (and a kind Bollywhater who transcribed it). Dev (Shahrukh Khan) and Paro (Aishwarya Rai) are childhood lovers who meet again after long separation. They are dysfunctional together, dysfunctional apart. They cannot live with each other and cannot live without. This is a brilliant movie, IMO. Like opera on speed. What Moulin Rouge wanted to be but couldn’t.
Paro: "Say, you never missed the village?"
Dev: "Never, never, except...when I was fed up of the food at the hostel, I missed Ma's dishes. And back in London, when someone screamed at me, I was reminded of my father. No one else. On evening walks, I contemplated Dharamdas and his buggy, on sleepless night grandmother's gentle pat. Nothing else."
Paro: "Dev...and, um..."
Dev: "And?"
Paro: "I?"
Dev: "Never. Or was it once? No, you never came to mind, Paro."
Paro: "I never came to mind?"
Dev: "Matters that come to mind are matters that matter. But you don't matter, Paro."
Paro: "True, Dev, only you matter."
Dev: "Yeah"
Paro: "5 letters, 5 times a day. How many times did I read them each year? And how many times in ten years? 18,250 times. That's how much you matter. And ten years to the day, I have kept alive the flame I lit for you. How many hours has it been burning? If I were to count, 87,500 hours. So much you matter, every second I remembered you. How many seconds to a day?"
Dev: "I know, I'll tell you..."
Paro: "You're bad at arithmetic."
Dev: "Hey. Hey Paro. There were times when I missed you."
Paro: "When?"
Dev: "Whenever I breathed."*
Paro: "Ish." **
Dev: "For them, reminiscences, those who can be forgotten. Silly. So effortlessly you counted off those seconds, without as much as a thought to every passing second that carried me away? In the flame of the lamp that you lit, it was I who burned" ***
* I remember watching this movie on a train and a guy next to me, I swear, audibly went ‘I gotta remember this pick up line.’ LOL
** Exclamation used a lot in the movie ‘sort of ‘hush’ or ‘for shame’ I think.
*** ‘In the flame of the lamp that you lit, it was I who burned.’ One of my favorite ever bolly quotes.
I loved the chemistry between Shahrukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai in this movie. Aish is a competent actress but she often comes across as too cold. The only costars I've ever seen her have great chemistry with are SRK, Salman Khan and Hrithik Roshan. (Her chemistry with real life husband Abhishek is OK but nothing to write home about). Of course, she'll never work with Salman after the exes-break-up-from hell thing they had and neither will she work with SRK because he sided with Salman or whatever. That's why I am looking so forward to Jodha Akbar with Hrithik later this year though I get the feeling it will be last movie she'll ever do with him. Their chemistry in D2 was too good and hey, the Bachchans had the kissing scene cut from Indian prints etc. I don't see them being happy with her working with him again, especially after all the articles how Hrithik stole Abhishek's thunder in D2.
Dev and Paro fan video:
Devdas giving Paro away in marriage to another man (it's her choice):
Final scene of Devdas:
The thing that I love so much about Barley is that it does not decide on an easy way out. It does not make Damien the persecuted martyr and Teddy a sell-out, or Teddy the voice of reason and Damien a reckless fanatic.
Both brothers’ points are utterly valid, both during and after the Treaty (During the fighting, just watch the scene with the rich man who charged exorbitant interest to a little old widow. You agree with the newly instituted court and Damien that it’s exorbitant and wrong. And you agree with Teddy and the other IRA leaders in their hardheaded reasoning that they need the rich guy on their side as he has money IRA needs for guns. Push idealism too far and you will lose. Push pragmatism too far and what is the point of fighting).
The same is after the treaty. Damien is right. Whatever the nationality of the rulers, it would make little difference to an average person is there is widespread starvation (which he sees first hand) and horrible life. And Teddy is right. You cannot alienate a large chunk of the population through communist revolution type measures and you have to take the independence offered, because you can work from there and gain more and if you reject it, the fanaticism will clash with realities and Britain would be glad to wipe Ireland out. You start from there and work your way up.
But the thing is, while objectively you’d recognize that guns aren’t the only option: there can be compromise and gradual measures to solve poverty or what not, and working out some sort of plan, there is a middle ground between the Teddy and the Damien positions, this bogs down in the fact that both factions are not compromisers by nature. They are used to fighting for what they want. Revolutionaries are people who, by definition, put an ideal above any practical and emotional ties. Of course, that also makes it impossible for them to compromise. Fighting against the British brings together people who do not have much ideologically in common except for their hatred of British rule and desire for Ireland’s independence. But once that external threat is gone, the very fact that made them rebels: the fact that they wouldn’t knuckle down and compromise, that fact makes them incapable of coming to an agreement.
I think the movie takes a look at what happens to men who’ve had guns in their hands, who are used to settling their political disputes through violence. Violence becomes routine, too easy, automatic recourse.
I think you see the different approaches reflected in the very different characters of Teddy and Damien. Damien is an idealist. He is a wide-eyed innocent in some ways, and no matter the horrors he sees or does, he never quite loses that innocence (I give huge kudos to Cillian Murphy for the performance btw). He can be amazingly gentle in the most outré settings: the scene that stays with me is his comforting Sinead. While the IRA were out on a raid, when they return to their safe house, they see the British attack the inhabitants of the safe house, including Sinead, Damien’s love (btw, I love how that relationship is important, but in the background, low key and for that more realistic: in the hugs, and tone of voice, and quiet short peaceful scenes of grace before the next nightmare). Damien and the rest of the men are forced to watch, helpless, because they are out of bullets, though Teddy literally has to hold Damien down, as the British chop off all of Sinead’s hair, leaving huge bloody gashes on her scalp, and stuff it in her mouth. It’s a moment that would have played for a different effect in any other movie: either the heroic rescue of the women, or the ‘aaaangst’ of Damien afterwards or whatever. But it isn’t. You are struck with the sense of helplessness and the tough realities of such a life. And afterwards, you see Damien quietly soothing Sinead, who is completely falling apart, and taking care of her bleeding cuts and it’s a quiet, incredibly tender, yet very not overplayed scene.
But yes, to get back to the above point. Damien is an idealist. He joins out of a purely emotional reaction to seeing a 17 year old boy killed for speaking Irish-Gaelic (and once again, the futility is reinforced. It was a brave act on the part of the kid, but stupid. Unlike deaths in battle, it served no point. Inability to compromise might be a strength but also a curse) and then seeing the soldiers mistreat a train conductor. And he is not in the fight for that long (he joins in 1920 and the Treaty was in 1921, right?). No wonder his stance after the Treaty is about ideals, and pure principle. No one is as dangerous as an idealist.
This is quite different with Teddy (OMG. Padraic Delaney. What else has he been in?), Damien’s older brother. Teddy has been in the fight for quite a bit longer and perhaps that is why he is more pragmatic, less driven by emotion. And of course, he is also more senior in the organization, which is another thing you cannot be if you are not willing to compromise internally. But in his own tough way, Teddy is just as much an idealist as Damien. He is the one who joined the fight first, after all, he’s a rebel leader, and in a horrific scene (seriously, I had to look away and beg Mr. Mousie to tell me when it was all over), he gets his fingernails ripped out with rusty pliers by the British but refuses to reveal where the guns are hidden.
But his ideals are different. He wants the British off his streets. The rest: poverty, inequality, etc, he views as something that, though worthy, can wait and not of supreme importance. And that of course means he and Damien are on a collision course.
I think that is the tragedy of it. You see Damien’s point and you see Teddy’s and they are both men with excellent qualities, but the outcome cannot be anything but a disaster for both. In a way, they cannot back down from what they perceive to be right, because if they compromise, if they morally give in, if they settle for anything that is not morally 100% right to them, then all the sacrifices they have suffered, all the atrocities they have done, are for nothing. They need to believe in the just outcome (whatever their definition of said outcome is), need to fight for it, because if they give in, if they compromise, if the result is not the ideal, than all the actions and sacrifices were in vain, and they cannot live with that. I think this is especially explicit in the case of Damien, who had to execute a kid he’s known all his life for betraying the IRA to the British (the kid was clearly under the threat of death at the time). He does that, and you see it wreck him, and I think from then on, there is no way back for Damien. If he compromises, if he does what he does not believe morally right, i.e. agree to the treaty, that means that death (and the other deaths) were for nothing, were not revolutionary struggle but murder. The dead trap them forever and they create more dead and the cycle continues.
I am struck by the parallels in the movie, by the continuation of the cycle. Two such parallels especially come to mind.
Teddy and Damien behave exactly the same when captured, don’t they? No matter what, no matter the punishment, they will not give in. Even the question they are asked to answer is identical: “Where are the guns?’ Teddy will not reveal it even while being tortured and while knowing he will be shot at dawn. And at the end, Damien will not say where the guns are at either, even though he knows he will be shot otherwise. Teddy cannot fault Damien for his behavior at the end, for being willing to die for his convictions, when he earlier exhibited the same willingness himself. But he cannot let him go either, for to do so would be to make a mockery of all his own beliefs and sacrifices and the whole ‘ideal is higher than a person’ credo. And yet each sacrifice spurs one further into dogmatism, doesn’t it? I keep thinking about the parallel of Damien, in the middle of the movie, having to go to see the kid’s mother, someone he’s known all his life, and to tell her he executed her son whom he’s known forever, and the mother saying she never wants to see him again. And the parallel to Teddy at the end, when he has to go see Sinead and tell the woman he’s known most of his life that he’s had to execute Damien. And Sinead crumpling and telling him she wants never to see his face again. There is no right here, and no wrong. Just pain.
All of this gets highlighted by the fact that Teddy and Damien are brothers. Family are people, by definition, you don’t have to get along with, but you love. And that’s the thing. The love between Teddy and Damien is palpable through the movie. To me, it was the strongest emotional personal bond in the movie. Teddy is the big tough brother who protects his kid brother who always looks up to him (he tries to keep him out of trouble even very late in the movie, after Damien’s outburst in the Church). Damien is the intelligent, perceptive one. I keep thinking of the scene in prison when the British come for Teddy and they ask which one is Teddy O’Donovan and Damien volunteers because he wants to protect his brother, though of course it does no good, and not as if Teddy would let him. And the scene afterwards where Teddy is thrown back into the cell with his fingernails ripped out, borderline unconscious, and Damien is cradling him and Teddy is repeating ‘I didn’t tell them’ like a child hoping to be believed and it’s Damien’s turn to take care of him, and he is soothing him and shushing him and taking care of his fingers.
But of course, they are idealists and no family matters can be stronger than the ideal (as I said above, because otherwise all the bad acts that they did or have been done to them are for nothing) and we get the final, heartbreaking scene, where Damien is caught raiding the arsenal of the new government (and his companion is killed and so is one of the men in the arsenal) and Teddy comes in there, into the cell and the conversation is all sorts of horrible because it’s the same jail they were in before and Teddy starts the conversation by saying that he never thanked him for trying to pretend to be him when they were captured (once again, explicit parallel, this movie has an awesome script) and continues by begging him to reveal the guns’ location because Damien needs to live and to have a future that is not this fighting (but of course Damien can’t reveal and Teddy knows he can’t, and in any event, wouldn’t it just turn him into that kid who was the informer in the first half of the movie? Then Damien’s own comrades would kill him) and progresses to Teddy telling Damien to write his letters (to be delivered on his death).
That letter Damien writes to Sinead is so…so…I don’t really have words. Because Damien clearly doesn’t want to die and he is scared and he has things he loves extremely in his life but yet he is incapable of compromise. The letter says that Teddy is dead inside and that is true, but so is Damien. There is no way out for either of them, or for their comrades, not in this endless fratricidal (literally) fighting.
The shooting scene is of course, horrible. I found it incredibly hard to watch, Damien utterly scared yet still refusing to give in, and Teddy not able to give in either. And just as someone else offered to take care of the informer boy for Damien but Damien refused, here someone offers to order the execution of Damien for Teddy and Teddy refuses. And so Damien is shot and Teddy breaks down over the corpse and it’s not a scene I want to rewatch again, and even thinking of it ties my stomach in knots and the cycle will just continue.
So, to switch gears before I break down again.
I love the cinematography of this. It’s beautiful without rendering the place post-card pretty. It looks like a real place, neither too gritty nor too ethereal.
Another thing I love is how the quiet moments alternate with the loud ones: a scene of a heated debate or a quick gun fight, with such almost silent scenes as the scene where Damien and Sinead finally make love, and there are no words, almost, but just their faces and Damien removing Sinead’s scarf that covers her shorn hair and a fade to black. Or the scene where Teddy leaves sobbing Sinead at the end, walking away with his motorcycle.
P.S. You know how the above was sort of on a meta analysis side? Well, to retain my fangirl credentials, I just want to note that I went to IMDB and realized that Padraic Delaney is in the Tudors as George Boleyn, Anne’s brother (is he the one Anne was accused of committing incest with, historically?)
And people wonder why I watch the Tudors, laughable as its history is. JRM, Henry Cavill, Jeremy Northam, and now I find out my newest crush is there too. Thank you, British television.
I have also been continuing with my Farscape S2 rewatch. Unfortunately, next episode on the list was Dream a Little Dream, the most fast-forwarded S2 ep ever.
Honest. Blah.
Zhaan goes crazy while being framed on planet of evil lawyers. Rygel and Chiana save her. Blah. End of flashback.
I’ve read somewhere that the problem with this episode is that since it’s a flashback we have no tension. We know everyone will be OK. But I don’t think that is the case. After all, do we really expect Crichton et al to be bumped off at a random ep? No, but we still get excited about the eps (of course, DALD takes it further as we know everything will return to status quo we know now but still…)
For me, that is not the problem. I think this is the ep that reiterated for me that while I find Zhaan and Rygel interesting in small dozes, an ep centered around them is not really my thing. And I love Chiana, but probably ditto unless she is interacting with someone other than them. Basically, my character order of preference goes: John, Aeryn, D’Argo, Chi etc etc. And an ep where my top 3 characters are absent (minus a very very cool hallucination) drags.
The plot is also not scintillating. Oh well. I do love Chiana and Rygel as trial lawyers, utterly hopped up and themselves in wiggle room exploitation. And the courtroom design is very neat. But that is about it.
On the plus side, from now on, it a wild crazy ride, with no bad eps in sight until early S4’s Coup by Clam. YES.
And next up? The awesome Out of their Minds. ‘You were in my shoes, I was in your pants.’ Heeee.
Also, I’ve restarted my Buffy rewatch. Next ep in line? S2’s premiere ep, When She Was Bad, which I really like.
I love dramas and all but just dramas is beginning to get wearying.
You know, I was thinking of Buffy earlier today in the context of Veronica Mars, which is has been compared to. And you know, even though I didn’t care for most of S6 and all of S7, the way Buffy ended was so much more ‘my thing’ than the way VM looks set to end. I mean, there was sort of a hope for shippers. Buffy and Angel got their ‘maybe’s (however weird the cookie speech was. Btw, I know it’s crazy to ship a couple four years after Angel got his own show, but I did). And Spike and Buffy fans got the ILY. So you could go whichever way your ship preferences wanted. Heck, in my alternaverse, Willow bumps into Oz again and ditches the annoying Kennedy after S7 :P
Oh, and here is the random quote of the day. Quote of the day is this exchange courtesy of one of my favorite Bollywood movie Devdas (and a kind Bollywhater who transcribed it). Dev (Shahrukh Khan) and Paro (Aishwarya Rai) are childhood lovers who meet again after long separation. They are dysfunctional together, dysfunctional apart. They cannot live with each other and cannot live without. This is a brilliant movie, IMO. Like opera on speed. What Moulin Rouge wanted to be but couldn’t.
Paro: "Say, you never missed the village?"
Dev: "Never, never, except...when I was fed up of the food at the hostel, I missed Ma's dishes. And back in London, when someone screamed at me, I was reminded of my father. No one else. On evening walks, I contemplated Dharamdas and his buggy, on sleepless night grandmother's gentle pat. Nothing else."
Paro: "Dev...and, um..."
Dev: "And?"
Paro: "I?"
Dev: "Never. Or was it once? No, you never came to mind, Paro."
Paro: "I never came to mind?"
Dev: "Matters that come to mind are matters that matter. But you don't matter, Paro."
Paro: "True, Dev, only you matter."
Dev: "Yeah"
Paro: "5 letters, 5 times a day. How many times did I read them each year? And how many times in ten years? 18,250 times. That's how much you matter. And ten years to the day, I have kept alive the flame I lit for you. How many hours has it been burning? If I were to count, 87,500 hours. So much you matter, every second I remembered you. How many seconds to a day?"
Dev: "I know, I'll tell you..."
Paro: "You're bad at arithmetic."
Dev: "Hey. Hey Paro. There were times when I missed you."
Paro: "When?"
Dev: "Whenever I breathed."*
Paro: "Ish." **
Dev: "For them, reminiscences, those who can be forgotten. Silly. So effortlessly you counted off those seconds, without as much as a thought to every passing second that carried me away? In the flame of the lamp that you lit, it was I who burned" ***
* I remember watching this movie on a train and a guy next to me, I swear, audibly went ‘I gotta remember this pick up line.’ LOL
** Exclamation used a lot in the movie ‘sort of ‘hush’ or ‘for shame’ I think.
*** ‘In the flame of the lamp that you lit, it was I who burned.’ One of my favorite ever bolly quotes.
I loved the chemistry between Shahrukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai in this movie. Aish is a competent actress but she often comes across as too cold. The only costars I've ever seen her have great chemistry with are SRK, Salman Khan and Hrithik Roshan. (Her chemistry with real life husband Abhishek is OK but nothing to write home about). Of course, she'll never work with Salman after the exes-break-up-from hell thing they had and neither will she work with SRK because he sided with Salman or whatever. That's why I am looking so forward to Jodha Akbar with Hrithik later this year though I get the feeling it will be last movie she'll ever do with him. Their chemistry in D2 was too good and hey, the Bachchans had the kissing scene cut from Indian prints etc. I don't see them being happy with her working with him again, especially after all the articles how Hrithik stole Abhishek's thunder in D2.
Dev and Paro fan video:
Click to viewDevdas giving Paro away in marriage to another man (it's her choice):
Final scene of Devdas: