Thank You Mr.Nolan for Giving Me a Sleepless Night

I don’t blog movie reviews. It is a matter of choice as I don’t prefer dissecting a work no matter how good or bad it is and debate on the tiny nuances that lead the movie to be a blockbuster or a flop. But Christopher Nolan has forced my hand. I am here not as a film critique, or an expert who has a self assuming aura of ‘know it all’ around him. I am here as what I truly am, one of the million viewers who watched his latest creation The Dark Knight Rises on screen. A viewer who just stepped out of the screener and realized that life and films will never be the same again. A viewer whose faith has been restored in quality cinema after years of disdain and indifference. Yes Mr. Nolan, you have made a believer out of me.

Movies have always had a big impact on me. It has always been something more than mere entertainment. Be it the Lord of the Rings, or the earlier Batman epics, The Departed, Shawshank Redemption, I have this terrible tendency of comparing some acts from these movies to real life. Some lines said in the movies just remain with you till the end of time, like “There is some good left in this world, Mr.Frodo and it is worth fighting for” by Samwise Gamgee or “They teach you that you can either be a cop or a killer, but what I ask you is this… When you are facing a loaded gun, what’s the difference” from Departed, to mention a few.

But it would take more than a genius to conceptualize something like Inception or Prestige or take a ‘good old’ super hero flick like Batman, which is the good defeats the bad and everybody lives happily ever after tale, and turn it into something more than that. Yes even in this movie all of the above does happen. Some might argue it to be a very predictable ending. But I got out of theatre feeling happy that the movie ended the way it did. For the first time I was happy to see the hero survive (this coming from a Director who has no qualms in killing any of his characters). I was happy to see the movie end the way it ended because it gave me hope to look for something anew next time. I left the theatre with a feeling of fulfillment and therein lies the success of the film maker.

After Dark Knight and the ‘wtf’, ‘holy cow’ performance of Heath Ledger as Joker, I had often wondered how Nolan or anyone could beat this performance and that script. How could anyone think of bringing a sequel that will live up to the expectations or how anyone else could even dare to think about making a movie on Batman. But Nolan made a believer out of me. He made me believe that there is always room for improvement and that a person’s most powerful tool is his brain. Remember the thing teachers used to tell us in school that we use only 7% or 11% of our brain’s true potential. I kind of actually believe in it now.

Being a Mallu and owing my schooling to a kick ass ‘boys only’ school I have this inherent cynicism in me, which does not hesitate to pounce on the slightest bit of mediocrity that I find in a movie or in life for that matter. The fact that Malayalam cinema is at least 10 years ahead of any other movie industry in India doesn’t help much. But for all those ‘critics’ out there who criticize this particular movie, I say only this. Try it yourself. Try to write a script so powerful and deep that it leaves you intrigued and brainstorming for hours after. Try to direct a movie which can actually keep the viewers glued to the seats and then produce a sequel to that movie and deliver above the expectations of the viewers. If you cannot do any of this, at least buy a ticket from your own money and go watch the movie, instead of going on free passes to screenings with your knowledgeable façade. In short, change your job and get a life.

I know I have been very one sided and have been showering praises like never before (quite unlike me, my friends will say). But I seriously think I can be allowed a little latitude this time for the sake of my deprived sleep and my pumping adrenaline.

To conclude I would like to quote my friend… “Today you have become something more than a mere mortal, Mr. Nolan… you have become a LEGEND”