The pathos that this movie evokes is, alarming. The scene where the protagonist is assumed to be killed is the peak of the effect. I have never seen the potrayal of justice failing so badly, so well filmed.

Spoiler, sorry. Tessa is murdered in Africa. Her husband suspects it might connected to the work she was doing. He begins to unearth a nasty tale of a pharmaceutical company whose drug tests are being conducted on innocent victims, using Africa as a testing ground. She prepares a report on the situation along with her doctor friend and both are killed horribly. Her husband, Justin goes back to London, from where he travels to Europe to trace Tessa’s work. He returns to Africa and manages to get his hands on the report she was supposed to be working on. He is finally killed by you-know-who.
This movie has won the Oscar and the Golden Globe awards, among other awards. It was first relased in 2005. I appriciate Sathyam cinemas for playing wonderful movies sometimes, even though many arrive pretty late. Better late than never, right? Now, there is a German movie with English sub-titles showing there, called Downfall. Many who watched it, told me it was good. Who but cinema lovers would like to watch a German movie in Chennai. But this one has been running successfully for a couple of weeks now! The Alliance Francais of Madras does have select French movies screened there during special occasions. And there also seems to be sizeable theaterical activity going around here at Chennai as well.

But coming from a small city-town like Madurai, I still feel the the rate of the tickets are not justified. They still cost up to Rs. 120 at Sathyam. More good news for cinema lovers is that INOX has stepped into Chennai with a few screens(maybe 5 or 6) coming up at City Center. That place is walkable from where I live now.

Coming back to “The Constant Gardener”, I never felt so insecure watching a movie before. It was a wonderful performance by the whole crew indeed. Most of the movie is shot in Africa and some locations are awesome. I think this is a wonderful movie and one should watch it on DVD or go get tickets if it is shown at a theatre near or far from you.

There are the four great tragedies of Shakespeare, and one of them is Othello. It is amazing, how after centuries, one of his plays can be turned into a block buster. Omkara is an adaptation of this master playwrite’s piece. All of Shakespeare’s plays have something special in them. They involve a few characters and the story is tightly woven around them. And since Shakespear hardly used any props(he even ridiculed the use of human props in A Mid Summer Night’s Dream by other play writers), the story ever strongly revolved around these characters.

All of Shakespear’s tragic protagonists had a tragic flaw. Othello’s tragic flaw was his suspicion/ jealousy. Othello’s plot is very simple. Othello and Desdemona are in love. Iago constantly tries to cause hurdles to Othello. He is successful in this attempt when he plants Desdemona’s handkercheif on Casio. Othello kills Desdemona while Emilia(Iago’s wife) is witness to this horrid act. Emilia explains the truth and Othello then commits suicide.

Othello is played by Ajay Devgan, Casio by Vivek Oberoi, Desdemona is Kareena, Iago is Saif and Emilia is Konkana Sen. The dialogues are filled with filth, so if you plan to watch this with your parents of your professors, take care. I understand this movie would have been as powerful minus the filth. Unfortunately the human mind links sensation to negative events or thoughts.

The beauty of Othello is that it could have been set in a metro or in a villageish setting as this one. The beauty of this plot lies in its simplicity. Omkara is a neat adaptation leaving most aspects of the original play intact. Ofcourse, how can you have a movie without some masala – which is added by Bipasha. If her role could have been shortened, more justice would have been done to Othello.

Go watch this movie if you haven’t. Get a taste of the master’s mind. I expect soon that other plays of Shakespeare will soon be adapted.