The Good German

World War II has just ended. An American soldier-journalist, Jake Geismar, returns to Berlin to cover the main event at Potsdam: the meeting of Winston Churchill, Harry S Truman and Joseph Stalin. Secretly, he desires to meet his old lover, Lena Brandt, with whom he had an affair when he was posted in Berlin a couple of years before. However, he is roped into a conspiracy when his driver and Lena Brandt’s current lover, Patrick Tully, is murdered.

‘The Good German’ is a film noir made in the style of film noirs made 60 years ago. Its B&W gloomy rendition by Hollywood director Steven Soderbergh is quite fascinating, though this required some concentrated viewing. The film even has two of my favourite stars – George Clooney (Jake) and Cate Blanchett (Lena) – who look as if they actually belong to the ’40s. But that’s where the good things end.

The plot and the film’s screenplay, together, take the film down. The story is presented from the individual perspectives of the three lead characters (Tobey Maguire, besides Clooney and Blanchett), and it unfolds one part at a time… in segments. The first segment belongs to Tully/Maguire; the second to Jake/Clooney; and the final segment to Lena/Blanchett. Every time the perspective changes, some new information is revealed about the conspiracy, breaking the continuity of the narrative.

In the process, the characterisations become poor, taking away much of the pleasure of watching a film noir. Overall, ‘The Good German’ is rather disappointing.

I don’t fear death

“I don’t fear death. I remember my last meeting with my father when he told me, ‘You know, tonight when I will be killed, my mother and my father will be waiting for me.’”

– Benazir Bhutto, (while in exile in Dubai) in an interview with Ginny Dougary, The Times, 28 April 2007.

The full story, titled Destiny’s daughter, can be found here on TimesOnline.

[Benazir Bhutto’s photo reproduced from the same TimesOnline story.]

Seducing the public

“Best art is one which seduces the public. People like commercial cinema, then why stop them.”

– Miguel Littin, Chilean film director, in an interview with Ananthakrishnan G in today’s Times of India.

Facebook does a ‘volte face’

A couple of days ago, Knowledge@Wharton published an article on online social networking site Facebook which was rather alarming. The article, ‘Who Owns You? Finding a Balance between Online Privacy and Targeted Advertising’, stated that:

“On November 6, Facebook outlined a strategy to integrate more targeted advertising into its popular social networking website. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg saw the new initiative as an opportunity for users to refer products to each other and allow friends to share information as they shopped online and visited other websites. The system, called Beacon, was also intended to lead to more relevant – and profitable – advertising through precise targeting based on a user's buying habits, social circle and geography.

But on December 5, after receiving numerous complaints from the high school kids, college students and young professionals who populate Facebook, Zuckerberg issued an apology for a program that, among other things, could track a user’s web behavior and report it on a Facebook user’s profile page. The problem: Facebook didn’t initially ask its customers to opt in to the targeting program. As a result, some customers were caught off guard by Facebook’s sudden use of detailed user tracking. In conjunction with the apology, Facebook introduced new privacy options to give users more control over how Beacon operates.

The incident raises many questions, according to experts at Wharton. For example, what is the balance between privacy and online ad targeting? Will marketers continue to experiment? Are these early efforts just a precursor of what’s to come? Will consumers become more wary of sharing information? Does privacy really exist online?”

[Citation: ‘Who Owns You? Finding a Balance between Online Privacy and Targeted Advertising’, Knowledge@Wharton, 12 December 2007]

Alex Brattell

Essaouira








“Alex Brattell photographs the urban and rural landscape in search of shapes of thought, simulacrae and genus locii.

In the crowded city where the sky is excluded by concrete, steel and glass, his images are a rich and rare exploration of space. They direct the viewer to look for the moments of escape and places where there is calm and beauty; between the railings, over the parapets and through the gaps.”

[Reproduced from Eyestorm. For more Alex Brattell photography visit Zetetic.]

Modernism

As our world becomes more modern, science and technology, logic and rationality become the driving forces of our lives. Everything is explained: systems, laws, materials and metrics. Nothing remains hidden any longer. Tradition, creativity, spontaneity and emotions – those intangible, indefinable, inexplicable human traits which make life so special – are relegated to the sidelines. Slowly, life begins to lose its mysticism.

Candy

Staff Sergeant David Bellavia, US Army, in his book, ‘House to House: An Epic Memoir of War’ recounts this tale from one of his 2004 experiences in the Iraq war:

“…a civilian candy truck tried to merge with a column of our armored vehicles, only to get run over and squashed. The occupants were smashed beyond recognition. Our first sight of death was a man and his wife both ripped open and dismembered, their intestines strewn across shattered boxes of candy bars. The entire platoon hadn’t eaten for twenty-four hours. We stopped, and as we stood guard around the wreckage, we grew increasingly hungry. Finally, I stole a few nibbles from one of the cleaner candy bars. Others wiped away the gore and fuel from the wrappers and joined me.”

[Reproduced from The New York Review of Books, 20 December 2007, ‘Iraq: The Hidden Human Costs’ by Michael Massing.]

sprout: symbols to cultivate change

embrace solar power

“Our environment is in a state of peril. Heat-trapping gases such as carbon dioxide emitted by vehicles and power plants have caused what is now referred to as ‘the climate crisis’ – an exponential increase in temperature within earth’s atmosphere. Wildlife and natural habitat are under constant threat by human interference. Developments in nuclear research create weapons of mass destruction, putting human life and the environment on dangerous ground. Considering these dilemmas collectively, one could say the possibility of cultivating change seems an impossible task.

No individual is capable of changing the world alone; however, it is possible for each of us to facilitate change in a small way. As a graphic designer, I have responded to these issues by creating a series of universal pictographic symbols to raise consciousness about the social and environmental issues facing our global community. Amidst the complexity of our accelerated lives, these simplified visual interpretations act as concise abbreviations promoting awareness. The symbols, designed to mimic logomarks for corporations, subvert the persuasive methods used in branding and advertising. They reach out to the viewer in a clear language more conducive to acceptance and believability.”

– Savio Alphonso, winner of the recent designboom ‘love your earth’ competition

Learn more about Savio Alphonso and ‘sprout: symbols to cultivate change’ at designboom.com and/or log on to his website here. Simply enlightening.

People who make wars

“The people who make wars, the people who reduce their fellows to slavery, the people who kill and torture and tell lies in the name of their sacred causes, the really evil people in a word – these are never the publicans and the sinners. No, they’re the virtuous, respectable men, who have the finest feelings, the best brains, the noblest ideals.”

– Aldous Huxley, British novelist

Every time I read something about Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi or see his picture on TV or in a publication, I am reminded of the 2002 Gujarat violence under his leadership.

Jen Stark’s paper sculptures

Paper Anomoly

“Through the process of layering and cutting, Jen Stark creates visual representations of change. Her artwork emphasizes the method of repetition and how it can slowly change over time. Stark challenges the constrictions of paper, a two-dimensional medium, and creates three-dimensional sculptures which display how slight inconsistencies evolve into design. Her work frequently reflects an object’s ability to appear bland on the surface, yet reveal a hidden system of patterning and color.

Stark’s work is inspired by the mutations that life undergoes in the evolutionary process. This interest in tinkering with nature's designs is shown in her recent work, consisting of systematically cut and stacked paper. Her method: trace, alter, cut & stack, allows the artwork to mimic evolution and display a tunnel of natural patterning. The final result also emulates organic growth in both micro and macro organisms.”

You can visit Jen Stark’s website here.

[Jen Stark bio reproduced from ArtCenter/South Florida. ‘Paper Anomoly’ image reproduced from Artkrush.]

Reincarnation of Shah Rukh Khan

Bollywood’s latest box office hit ‘Om Shanti Om’ has everything going for it. Here’s a checklist:

A mega star like Shah Rukh Khan in a double role; a fabulous-looking Deepika Padukone in her debut role (umm, debut double role); a talented supporting cast that includes Kirron Kher, Shreyas Talpade and Arjun Rampal; a great director who understands her mega star like no other director (Farah Khan); hot musical numbers to make you want to get up and dance in the aisles; and a host of Bollywood celebrities (30 or so in number) putting on a show for the mega star and the audience – first at a mock-Filmfare awards ceremony, and then in the film’s title song, ‘Om Shanti Om’.

Shah Rukh Khan even bares his chest for the first time on screen, showing off his six-pack abs (looks like he’s been working out recently), sending women and, perhaps, some of the men in the audience swooning into oblivion.

What ‘Om Shanti Om’ does not have is a plot – a storyline – that its audience can make sense of. That’s because ‘Om Shanti Om’ is essentially a film about unrequited love, and unexpected death (30 years ago), which leaves its audience in utter grief and misery. In order to release this grief, the film, in typical Bollywood style with happy endings, is carried forward 30 years to present day when our hero makes amends for his lost love. Thus, ‘Om Shanti Om’ becomes a film about reincarnation, which is not always easy to handle, even by inexperienced directors.

Anyway, director Farah Khan has a bash at it, going back to 1970s Bollywood in the first-half of the film, where a perfectly blossoming love story suddenly comes to an end in treachery and murder, with the death of both our hero (Shah Rukh Khan) and our heroine (Deepika Padukone). But, to keep the story going, in the second half, we are transported to the present day, where our reincarnated hero in his new avatar as a Bollywood superstar (Shah Rukh Khan, again), upon realising who he really is (in the film), plots to avenge the murder of his previous-life’s love.

This is where the film’s storyline weakens, and the present-day hero’s realisation of his reincarnated self is handled rather amateurishly. But then, this is probably a minor point for Bollywood films and Shah Rukh fans. After all, ‘Om Shanti Om’ is a box office hit and provides three hours of great entertainment.