Skip to main content

Hearts Locked in a Gran Torino

Well, think my quest for a character finally gets appeased. Not by some 20 – 30 year old idealist trying to fight the system, but by a 78 year old man who still has you thinking he has not changed for the last 30 – 40 years. As the title song Gran Torino plays in the background on repeat for the millionth time, I can't help but imagine the aura which Clint Eastwood carries with himself. The last time I saw him was in Million Dollar Baby and though it was a huge departure from his dirty harry movies or his western spaghetti series, and the ending was something which leaves you with a knot in your stomach and leaving you thinking about how unfair life really is.

I started watching this movie after being abysmally bored out of my senses and my nerves screaming for blood of the makers of bride war. I started watching this movie with no expectations really, not really having read any of the reviewers I usually read before I start watching a movie. And within the first 2 minutes, the movie had me smiling and my heart going out for the old man and my hands itching to slap his stupid family. Looked like one of those Hindi movies which try to teach you the lesson of loving one's parents and shit for all the things they have done for you and stuff. And soon, the movie departs becoming a partly buddy dude movie. When you are watching the movie you are not thinking about how old Eastwood has become, you are so engrossed with the character, and the movie is directed in such a way that you feel like you are James Stewart watching over his neighbors in rear window. You are happy that you are watching him from a distance but at the same time you yearn to get up and move from your wheel chair and get to know the person, because you know it is going to be one interesting conversation.

All the while I kept thinking, "fucking awesome" and I kept wondering who in Bollywood could easy such a role and even though I kept going back to Amitabh, I knew there was just nobody else in the whole wide world who quite epitomizes the action hero fighting against the system which was a stereotypical image of hero at a time I was born. I mean Eastwood may just be the last of the remaining heroes heroes. I mean I always was more like a Paul Newman kind of a guy you know, trying to smooth, suave but god knows that is not happening in this lifetime. Mostly because I saw Paul as the kind of a guy I wanted to grow up to be. I really did not find Clint Eastwood's coolness in the dirty harry series to be so awesome as that of Paul's in Cool Hand Luke.

Paul was somebody who ALWAYS wanted to beat the system, and Clint was always somebody who got beat down by the system and learnt to live life with it. And I wanted to be like Paul. I mean why wouldn't a teenager like me who was trying to fight everything that people wanted to change, and wanted to fight about things which people wouldn't change. And then I grew old, not so much in years but in experience and I started seeing Clint's way and now I do. Which is why I revisit his movies from time to time, his movies are like the book alchemist for me. There is always an answer for all the questions which bother you and bug you down.

Gran Tornio is just another chapter in the book, probably the shortest but the most powerful chapter of the whole book. One of those chapters which you turn pages to when you are down and out and seeking answers for. Listening to Eastwood trying to sing more like rasping through the words of the song 'Gran Torino' and I wonder how different would life had been had this story come out say a couple of years back. All I got against the movie is that the name and the posters are so bloody deceptive to the story, but then again I can't think of a better name or a poster for the movie.

I can really go on and on… but I really have to get back to my books now. Finance the next paper which blows really. I hate finance.

Comments

Absolute Zen said…
Well said! Velammal had something to do with u having to relate with Paul's Cool Hand Luke ??
16/04/2009, 22:16
Zennmaster said…
Nah, not really. Think it was more to do with the move from delhi to chennai.
16/04/2009, 22:18
Amrutha said…
hey,why not have you video tape your sex life and post it on your blog? it would make your blog gain so much more popularity no? with the graphic controversy?
01/05/2009, 02:14
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Amul - A Short Story

Its morning again, I can hear the darned birds chirping outside, with my eyes still closed I can hear the ticking sound of the wall clock like the irritating sound of the water faucet dripping. The water faucet never drips in my house, because I don't like it dripping, like the way mom's head was dripping blood, and flooded the floor and spoiled the carpet. I like everything neat and clean. My name is Amul. I believe my father was especially fascinated by the utterly butterly delicious girl. Though I have a liking towards her myself I don't like to acknowledge that to anybody. Though not many people have actually found out about this connection. But am aware of this because my father during one of his happy drunken moods told me about this. And those are rare cases. I know for a fact that even if am genetically part of my father, I will never become like him. I study in the 7 th grade. And I like my school. My favorite subject is math. I don't understand why people...
4 comments
Read more

A moment to Remember – They don’t make movies like these since 2004.

Can you recall the last movie which made you drop your defenses and your cynical view of the world and relationships? Can you recall the last movie which made you yearn for something which you knew was all reel but you hoped that it was real? Can you recall the last movie which made you invest so much in the lead characters that you forgot where you were and cried your soul out? Can you remember the last movie which made you reminiscence of a time when you truly and really believed in fairy tales? I do, well some of them anyway, couple of movies do pop in mind which might answer most of the questions I ask, ‘Jerry Maguire’, ‘Love Story’, ‘The Notebook’ and ‘50 First Dates’. But if you look at the release dates of each of these movies, Jerry Maguire – 1996, Love Story – 1970, The Notebook – 2004, 50 First Dates – 2004, it has been more than a decade since I have seen these movies.  2004, apparently seems to be the year, fairy tales for the new century were written and tra...
2 comments
Read more

FAQs

I have no idea why, not that I am complaining but there is huge surge in the number of people who are now reading my blog. And this has been bought (or is it brought, will never really get the difference between the two) to my attention by the slew of comments, by different people, a majority of them complete strangers. And I always have the same old standard questions which keep cropping every single time whenever I see an anon comment. So just like every other great idea of mine, which seem to glow like those bulbs which I first saw in Archie comics (mostly around Dilton's head, guess that is his name, the nerdy guy, don't really remember it so well, read that when I was in 4 th grade or something, my favorite was Moose), and the idea stuck that why don't I get these questions out of my system, whether they get answered or not is totally different issue. Though I understand that the reason why people chose to be anonymous is either they are famous and want common mortals...
47 comments
Read more