Perfect Day - Sweat Bean - Still the Water - Japanese movies on solitude

None of these were part of my coveted list to see. But all of them had a common thread when I saw the trailer - calm, serene, nature, slow, peace. I should try putting this is CHAT GPT and see what movies it suggests.

Perfect Day is the story of a toilet cleaner in Tokyo, Japan. He stays alone & has some plants to give him company, books and 80’s rock music which he listens on a cassette player in his car. Ever day he gets up and does exactly the same thing. He goes to the same place for dinner and drink. He hardly speaks to anyone even his co-workers cannot get a word out of him. But he is happy, content and looks forward to his day. 

We all have a conception of a perfect day, but Is there ONE? Or is it just a concept in our mind. And every time the day goes against that concept / expectation we get more anxious. This also can be extended to life, like in Geeta one of the hymn says that the root cause of all evil is desire. Go with the flow, enjoy the process. Don’t focus so much on the result. All this came to mu mind as I reflected on the movie.

Since there was not much of dialogue - everything was conveyed visually using the environment, expressions, the props, location.

https://tokyotoilet.jp/en/ (read about the toilet project here)

https://bit.ly/4de1ron  (this review in Hindu reflects the way I felt)

 Sweet Bean & Still The Water - Naomi Kawase

The first thing you notice in both the films is how beautifully it is shot capturing the essence of a ‘cherry blossom tree’ in Sweet Bean or the Ocean in Still the Water - Both these elements are an integral part of the movie & story telling. 

The main character in Sweet Bean is 75+ year old lady who is also the soul of the film. As a child she was left in a sanitorium outside the city where all leprosy patients are housed. It’s a beautiful place with lot of forest, peace and very comfortable. But the patients are not allowed to go outside or meet anyone. If you google you will read many articles on how these patients were isolated for many years without any contact with their family and other people.

The story is all about seeking a job in a sweet bean shop because it was advertised ‘age no bar’. As she makes the sweet bean it portrays the old ways of cooking where you understand the journey of the bean, thanking the land, the farmer, land etc. She literally talks to the beans and asks them to rise. Unlike fast food / ready to eat / pressure cooker the whole process takes 5 - 6 hrs. Again beautiful shot with minimum dialogues.

A kind of innocent romance but has lot of layers in it - especially of death and shaman and the in between space between god and humans. It shows the rituals which Japanese follow during death - they sing and dance to make the journey to the next world a joyful one and not filled sorrow. The beauty of the movie was both the kids riding a bicycle beside the ocean in a neat and clean road which goes up and down (see pic).

Unlike the other 2 this is high on emotion but still it’s a movie revolving around young adults coping with separation and death. The pain, angst, hurt which they carry but are unable to express or share with someone.

Solitude n Me - I alternate between Solitude n Loneliness. Being with self was a new norm when I left my job. A job which despite all it’s evils and WFH had human connects, working together with people. Even if u didn’t like many people around you you sometimes had interesting conversation thrown together. A job also has a regular flow of work but now its very high at times and low for a long time or you just feel lazy and let go or you prefer to spean time with family than attend a call which can be avoided. Writing this was enjoying my solitude - exploring a bit more about the movie or the history or relating it to my life and times. Loneliness are times when u crave to have a talk but find that the rest of the world is busy running. As I always say - everyone is fighting their own battle. 

I guess this is mine - Unless I learn riding double soon 🙂

Unconditional Love - On Death

The last death I experienced in my family was that of Baba. It transformed me in many ways. I was so consumed by it that I did not have much time for anything else. Last week when Papa passed away could see the reaction from family, neighbors and his friends.

Unconditional love from the neighbors kept us going for 4 days. They had lived in that house for almost 50 years and most neighbors were like extended family. Although I must say in last 25 years when the children grew, got educated and moved away - things were not the same. But now, nothing mattered - starting from morning tea to night dinner everything kept coming without any questions asked. We had to push back after 3 days so we could start our kitchen.

His friends most of them at late 70’s and early 80’s were at peace and there was a a glow in their face of done what they could and basking in the glory / end of a journey. Most of them had ailments, brain surgery - heart - surgery - arthritis, but none were complaining at that point. In one of the auntie mentioned that they were like dry leaves on a tree. They can fall / called anytime. I will never forget their smile and calmness. I had only read something similar in books or seen in movies, but this was real - in flesh and blood.

I wanted to record this - because unconditional love is usually not found and we found it in a very unexpected place and time. 

This is something even fire cannot take away from us.

The visceral connection

Amitav Ghosh - Imam and Indian

Sometimes you feel the visceral connection to someone, it can be someone who accompanied you in your travel overnight and then moved on. Sometimes it’s a movie / song video which seem to have created exactly what you could have visualized or the passage above by Amitava Ghosh from his book “Imam and the Indian” - Prose Notes / essays.

Barsaati’s (although he does not use the word here) was a common theme / occupational hazards of bachelors staying in Delhi. It was like the Indian version of gypsy culture - post college, first job, lowly paid but dreamer and idealistic in their views about society, friendship with women and rebellious of course. Portrayed in many movies this was the romantic notion we grew up reading and probably emulated when we joined job.

The sketch up of the above is explained in a much more nuanced way by Amitava that as I was reading I could visualize a multi verse of young writers staying in these catacombs and communicating at night, exchanging ideas and thoughts and traveling through the verse. All these at night as they continue their day job.

Writers can be such a great inspiration - Just reading it you feel like ‘Gosh If only I could write like this. 

Another sprint starts 🙂

The Absurd & The Real = Life

I saw 2 movies - one absurd & one real - both by master storytellers. 

Aki Kaurismaki directed ‘Leningrad Cowboys Go America’ is a story of a struggling Siberian rock band leaves home in the lonely tundra to tour the United States because, as they’re told, “they’ll buy anything there.” The musicians bravely venture across the States, carrying a bandmate and some beer in a coffin, and sporting hairdos resembling unicorn horns.

For somebody to even think of a plot like this you have to be really super mad but executing or giving shape to it the production design is a crazy. You just have to see the poster to understand the hard work needed to keep the hair in the form of unicorn 😂. There is no story, it’s just a band traveling from manhattan to mexico and doing small gigs earning money which the manager keeps for himself. Like old black and white silent movies, a black slide comes in between and mentions a chapter title. It’s absurd but you can miss it.

Raging Bull By Martin Scorsese 

The last 3 lines of the review below captures my feeling after seeing the movie - ”When I first saw Raging Bull, I came out of the cinema simultaneously exhausted and yet supercharged with energy, as if I could throw buses across the street. It still makes me feel like that”

Made in 19 80 in monochrome it’s a masterclass in all departments of movie making. Growing up on staple Rocky series and posters, all of us were big fans of Sly. I had a huge poster of Rocky in my room and everytime I would look at it I would feel ‘Yes I can also win”. 

But Raging Bull which is based on Jake La Motta (person and book) a middle weight champion of 19 40’s has more to do with his psychotic personality and his downfall and less with boxing. Yes boxing is integral to this story but so is his personal life where he loses out on his brother - both leave him and go and ends up running a club doing funny acts & then jailed. Especially because of monochrome it has that 19 40’s / 50’s touch. 

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/apr/12/raging-bull-review-still-packs-a-punch-like-no-boxing-movie-before-or-since 

Both the movies reflect my life which is having too many of raging bull moments and very less of Leningard Cowboy moments but I guess just like the movies it will pass.

Mr. Jones

For 2 - 3 nights after I watched Mr. Jones, the imaged which were like B&W photographs kept floating in front of me. Shots of snow fields stretched till your eyes could see or just a tree or houses in snow - but stark like made out of logs. The place - Russia / Ukraine. Movies have a way of transporting you to a world so you can experience it sitting in your living room. Beautifully shot, especially the Ukrainian part this movie was like postcards stitched together.

The story is about a welsh journalist who visits Russia and wants to report about the great famine raging in much of USSR particularly Kazakisthan & Ukraine. A famine which Moscow was trying to conceal and the primary cause for it was the collectivization of land / farming. Known as Holdomor (you can google the word) this was the only eye witness account of someone who had visited these parts of Russia. These states were targeted specifically also because they did not want to bow to Moscow. There were lot of discussion in terming this as genocide. 

House in Ukraine

But that is just a political nomenclature issue, the film showcases the suffering of the people of Ukraine. People dying because there is nothing to eat. In one of the scenes Mr. Jones enters a house which is absolutely normal, there are empty plates and utensils, and when he goes inside the bedroom there are 2 old couple lying in the bed fully dressed and under the cover - dead. In another scene people start eating bark of the tree as that is the only thing available in knee deep snow.

This was in 1933 - we are in 2023 and It’s like a deja vu. Almost 100 years later the same thing is repeated in Ukraine (& Gaza). Simply as an unaware political guy I am only shocked that millions of people died last time and again millions will die for land and control. I don’t even want to understand or do something about it. I just turn my face away.

But death of millions - it’s something difficult to turn away. But I do, we have to move on and do our bit and my bit was to clear the empty plastic bottle lying in the walkway and make the road litter free.

Korean Seduction

For almost a year, my elder daughter & my wife have become K-Drama buddies. They exchange notes on what to see, actors and some time binge together. I always looked at it with distaste - Gosh how can someone see these. From someone who see’s MUBI and makes list of what movies to see, what can you expect. 

This December with the entire family together at on place (which was possible for only 10 days) the girls decided to watch start up. Nopes not me was my refrain as the Korean sounds enveloped my house. 

Dinner time is family time so I ended up catching glimpses of the series “START-UP” which they were seeing. And slowly over 10 days I got the gist of the story and saw a few episodes for bonding but also for what I would call ‘harmless viewing’ / ‘relaxation’ / de-stressing. It was sweet and touching with boys crying, neat and clean kids with good manner & loving and caring parents, neat and clean cities, lots of fun moments, Korean sing-song sound which is quite sleepy / pleasing to your ears. It’s like Betaab or Papa kehte hain or Jo jeeta woh sikandar minus the villains.

You come out feeling all good and a heart full of love.

I could understand now why my daughter would see it for an hr after a strenuous day at work before she goes to sleep or how my wife would see it while knitting. I guess it is there way and I guess millions of people in India of destressing.

Postscript: Well, someone actually wrote this. LOL 😀

https://victoriaenrose.medium.com/3-valuable-lessons-from-the-korean-drama-start-up-12e44b07e9ee

Awakin Reading & Reflection (1)

Tale Of The Ringless Ring - Thomas Moore

Nasrudin was a spiritual leader and teacher in a small village. He was honored and respected as a mullah, although he was rather unusual and unpredictable.

One day a man of great virtue in the village came to Nasrudin with some news. "My business requires that I move to a town far away, and I regret that I have to leave our beautiful village and the benefits of having you as a spiritual guide and teacher," he said to Nasrudin.

The honored teacher looked sad and said, "I'm very sorry to see you go. I hope you can stay in touch with us, with me."

"I don't know what it will mean to live far away," the man said. "But I had an idea. I have long admired the beautiful ring you wear on the finger of your right hand, and I thought, if you were to give me that ring, every time I looked at my hand and saw that ring I'd think of you."

Now, Nasrudin had his virtues and his ordinary vices. One thing he did not like to do is to part with things that were precious to him.

"I have a better idea," he said. "Why don't I keep my ring. Then, every day you look at your hand and see that my ring is not there, you will think of me." 

—---

This is a perfect story of emptiness. Instead of seeing something, you see nothing, and that nothing is meaningful. The townsman's attitude is standard: He is about to lose touch with this teacher, so he looks for something. This is how we deal with change and loss. We look for something, anything, to fill the gap.

But Nasrudin is wiser than he looks. He demonstrates the importance of wit and humor in paradoxical teachings. He comes up with a better idea, seeing value in the potential for emptiness he notices in his neighbor. He also perceives that by introducing nothingness in a positive way, he advances the teacher-student relationship. The empty, ringless, unnoticeable finger is the perfect solution.

This leads to broader questions: What place does emptiness have in our relationships? Is it better sometimes not to have physical signs of closeness and love? Is it good to doubt your beloved's devotion to you? Do the things we use to express our love get in the way? You give an expensive gift on an anniversary or on Valentine's Day. Would it be better to find a non gift, an empty gift, one that doesn't cost much or doesn't cost anything, that is not traditional, that has no obvious message? 

My reflections:

On gifting: With my anniversary coming up in 15 days, This was a nice question to explore.

My entire family is some form believes in sustainability (read less consumption / buying / avoiding plastic etc). When my younger one came back from Germany and my wife returned from Jaipur after a long stay & last year when my daughter came back from Norway - none of them got any physical thing (like dress which they got for my other members of family) - the only thing all 3 of them got for me was food / drinks. I loved it (the special jam from Norway & the special Christmas drink / beer Germans have)because I have enough dress to wear. But it was easy for them because I donate more and buy nothing - which they have seen me doing. Also I guess because I am a man. My wife their mom loved the jackets and other dresses she bought and wore it the very same day. Most girls are very possessive about what they wear. Both my girls cupboards are filled with dresses which they wore in some function or has their name in it. 

In conclusion - for me a physical gift is a must for the women(s) in my life now that both are officially adult kids. 

On emptiness in relationship / physical signs of closeness & love:

I think we have lot of it now a days especially after mobile came our way, we are occupied with them for horse which anyway create emptiness between 2 person & then thanks to WFH the line between work and office blurred many years back. The only time we can really talk is our morning walk & pillow talk which we are trying to synchronize. I think age is a BIG factor in this case as younger couple have more things to do together because they have more energy and want to explore things together. At our age our energy & need to explore is driven more by occasion than a burning need. When we were young we were out most weekends with kids on toe but now kids wanna go out so we toe the line. Couple are more accustomed to each other / their habits / there is a set routine/pattern to life - yes it leads to emptiness at times but there is always that understanding that - we are like this only.

Acceptance is the virtue we commit to with time.  

Postscript: These readings are shared with me every week as I am part of the service space network.