Majid Majidi. Children of Heaven. Day 6. December 12, 2009. It was (supposed to be) the final day of NIFF. My excitation level was a little higher. Being the final day of the festival I expected everyone to like the movie and go back home with a happy note - about the whole thing called NIFF. But more than that it was Superstar Rajnikanth's 60th birthday! Even in the promos I had mentioned that COH would start after the screening of highlights from Sivaji - the boss.(Shankar/ 2007/Tamil). COH was about to start at 9:30 PM. I started Rajni birthday celebrations with Sivaji, with the scene where helicopter lands and Rajni stunningly and stylishly comes out as "motta boss". No wonder the applause and whistles lasted for the next ten minutes or so till the movie ended. I still believe that Shankar has truly transformed Rajni to a higher plane in Sivaji, especially as motta boss, and Enthiran (under production) is going to be a trial by fire for the Sivaji team. Having celebrated the birthday it was time to start the final show of the festival week.
COH impressed everyone right from the beginning. The movie is about - just a pair of shoes! I never knew such a gripping and enjoyable movie could be made using this half-line plot! Hats off to the director for also showing various walks of Iran life using this tiny plot. The screenplay also has a few pinches that makes you come to the seat edges. One of them being the sequence where a shoe falls into the stream and the little girl chases it along the stream trying to pick it up. Its a classic! Of course, the climax too. My heart missed beats while watching the climax. We all were sure that the kid is going to come second and win the shoes. He too appeared to be doing that. It was quite a surprise and disappointment to see him win the first prize. It was a kind of anti-climax. Totally unexpected. Now what? Hows he going to get a shoe-pair to his sister? Is he not going to get? Is his father going to know the truth and scold him? Poor boy!
Majidi has given us a great ending. He has written the climax sequencing in quite an absorbing way; he just does not leave us there comfortably, he gives us a twist. Neat job! But that's not the main reason why my heart missed a few beats. Usually I play the movies form the movie files stored in the computer. Only for COH I had to play it directly from the DVD. And you know what, the Computer made the climax much more thrilling and ensured that everyone in the audi had to literally sit at the edges of their seats. Just about 5-6 seconds before the running race is over and everyone fully eager to know who is going to win - the DVD got jammed! We tried hard a few times, it would not move beyond that very same point! Audience were getting restless. I was getting tensed up. One more try; no improvement. We tried opening it using other media players as well, but no change in the script.
The ending could not have got more thrilling.
Thanks to the Computer!
Ultimately, I had a huge relief when we were able to copy the file to the computer and the VLC player was kind enough to show us who won the race and what happened to the pair of shoes! The audience too had a great relief and a feeling of satisfaction; the movie got a warm applause in the end.
Still I had to apologise to the audience (who were very nice) and narrate (!) them how exactly the movie ended. It was a real, thrilling experience. I, and many others, would not forget COH for the years to come. Cheers to Majidi... and that Computer!
No comments:
Post a Comment