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27 Down (1974); Dir: Awtar Krishna Kaul
Topic Started: Jun 6 2015, 04:26 PM (546 Views)
tuggingonmoustaches
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The title of the film 27 Down refers to the train from Bombay to Varanasi in India. As the title suggests, the railway is very much a part of the journey in the life of the characters in this film. It is also a metaphor for the kind of lives people live in this film.

It is a film about repressing desires and ambitions in favor of leading a single track predictable life. A malaise that continues to affect the average youth in this country even today. I personally can relate to this film a lot.

I will not go into the details of the plot but I will leave you with some screenshots from this beautifully shot film that I consider one of the finest from India. This would be the only film from director Awtar Krishna Kaul who died the same week when the film won the National Award for the best feature film that year. I hope everyone gets a chance to watch this phenomenal debut.

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Edited by tuggingonmoustaches, Jun 6 2015, 04:31 PM.
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tuggingonmoustaches
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Brotherdeacon
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Thanks, I'm looking forward to it.
“Somebody has to do something, and it’s just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us. “
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BradS
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And THIS is why we have Cups! A wonderful and tragic journey that externalizes internal struggles and favors true emotion over melodrama. My favorite new discovery so far. Thanks for introducing a film I'm pretty sure I would never have come across otherwise (There's not a single review at IMDB.)
Edited by BradS, Jun 15 2015, 02:20 AM.
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Brotherdeacon
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.oops.
Edited by Brotherdeacon, Jun 28 2015, 11:26 AM.
“Somebody has to do something, and it’s just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us. “
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Brotherdeacon
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“Which oil do you apply on your head?”

Awtar Krishna Kaul, in his solo film as director, 27 Down, interlaces a scene in which our protagonist, Sanjay (M.K. Raina) lies in bed on a sweltering day when his new wife snuggles against him and places her head on his chest. It's an everyday scene among lovers, a bonding before or after they've made love, or a quiet time of intimacy when each slowly speaks their heart to their mate. If we in the audience are lucky we've experienced similar scenes in our personal life—commingling containers sharing the best of ourselves and making the attempt to fuse a union whether in marriage or a love affair. Hopefully, both are happy to begin this affair, it's consensual and begun in a common spark of affection, a welter of sexual excitement, and perhaps respect.

But of course, many of us in the world have lived with a mate we never felt for strongly and often we grow to dislike the other person immensely. I have no idea the percentage of these dented or broken relationships, but they are filled with the details of human drama. One can see it in the immature affairs of the very young who marry without benefit of experience and knowledge, or in countries like India we find “arranged marriages” brokered by the parents like husbandry transactions among their animals. But whether in the deeply stained hovels of India's poor, or the motel rooms of Las Vegas, Nevada, many of us act out the disappointment, fear and frustration of bad unions.

Many of us may dislike reliving the scores of disagreements, arguments, fights we've lived through which begin innocently enough in bed just like Sanjay and his wife, she with her head on his chest, he staring into space perhaps trying to quell his unspoken anger, his addiction to re-playing the poor decision he made in marrying her, the fear he carried to disappoint his father's decision, the affection and hopes of marriage to another woman he actually did love, which were now quashed by his father's meddling, and of course his own cowardice in claiming independence from a strong link in India's cultural and family affairs. He runs his dark fate over and over in his mind, his common self-pity returns with a vengeance, it blames his wife, her father, even his father, but even more cruelly it silently blames himself for his smallness, his cowardice at not remaining faithful to the other woman he truly wanted. It's a common form of self-deception and anger, of drinking too much, physical abuse, jail, hospitals, unloved children, infidelity, abandonment, even unto homicide or more probably suicide.

And so, the character Sanjay is me, his wife is my wife (or girlfriend). The touch of her skin fills me with tremors of dislike, I want to slither away and leave this object of all my fears and limitations. Her voice grates, the smell of her breath is rank and I want to tell her angrily to face away. But I'm trying to be silent, attempting to keep my mind calm, blank, isolated in torment. I can remember the other recent arguments, the tears, the swearing, the shards of a broken pot, this young tender wife turning into a harridan because of my decision, my defects, the desire to run away forever.

It's the littlest detail that makes me angriest. The way she gives me too little dal with my rice, the cheap jewelry she wears on her wrists, her ignorance of books, artists, music—a low-class farm girl raised among rutting pigs and dung. How can I stay here in her company when I could leave, get on a train and soon be with an educated woman, a beauty, a strong-willed and sexy partner I care for? Om Namah Shivayah, oh someone help me. I admit it, I'm not strong enough to continue this sham, to throw away my life, day by day with a girl who doesn't even know how to suck my dick properly, who moons like a cow after I pull our of her finished, as if she doesn't know when sex ends. And here she is again, on my chest. What's that putrid smell coming from her head? Her greasy hair? Fuck, it's coconut! Whores wear that smell to cover the odor of their sweat and customer's cum. How did I end here with this insignificant creature who will bear me ugly, stupid children and I'll never be free. If it weren't for my days riding the trains I'd go mad, I'd kill this girl and her father. There it is again that fucking putrid coconut smell. Don't speak, don't admit to being awake, or alive. I must hide my thoughts, they're convulsive and rampant. I hate my life. I hate my life. Oh fuck how did I get here?

Please don't move that repugnant head, go to sleep, disappear, please go to sleep. But she moves, murmurs. She wants me awake, wants me to talk, to be steady, kind even. Oh please don't move, leave my snout in your black defiled hair, you idiot, you fucking menace, you embarrassment to all that's fine, depth-filled, beautiful . . . "Which oil do you apply on your head?" . . . and it begins, this striving for more pain.
Edited by Brotherdeacon, Jun 28 2015, 11:18 AM.
“Somebody has to do something, and it’s just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us. “
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Brotherdeacon
Jun 28 2015, 03:47 AM
“Which oil do you apply on your head?”

Awtar Krishna Kaul, in his solo film as director, 27 Down, interlaces a scene in which our protagonist, Sanjay (M.K. Raina) lies in bed on a sweltering day when his new wife snuggles against him and places her head on his chest. It's an everyday scene among lovers, a bonding before or after they've made love, or a quiet time of intimacy when each slowly speaks their heart to their mate. If we in the audience are lucky we've experienced similar scenes in our personal life—commingling containers sharing the best of ourselves and making the attempt to fuse a union whether in marriage or a love affair. Hopefully, both are happy to begin this affair, it's consensual and begun in a common spark of affection, a welter of sexual excitement, and perhaps respect.

But of course, many of us in the world have lived with a mate we never felt for strongly and often we grow to dislike the other person immensely. I have no idea the percentage of these dented or broken relationships, but they are filled with the details of human drama. One can see it in the immature affairs of the very young who marry without benefit of experience and knowledge, or in countries like India we find “arranged marriages” brokered by the parents like husbandry transactions among their animals. But whether in the deeply stained hovels of India's poor, or the motel rooms of Las Vegas, Nevada, many of us act out the disappointment, fear and frustration of bad unions.

Many of us may dislike reliving the scores of disagreements, arguments, fights we've lived through which begin innocently enough in bed just like Sanjay and his wife, she with her head on his chest, he staring into space perhaps trying to quell his unspoken anger, his addiction to re-playing the poor decision he made in marrying her, the fear he carried to disappoint his father's decision, the affection and hopes of marriage to another woman he actually did love, which were now quashed by his father's meddling, and of course his own cowardice in claiming independence from a strong link in India's cultural and family affairs. He runs his dark fate over and over in his mind, his common self-pity returns with a vengeance, it blames his wife, her father, even his father, but even more cruelly it silently blames himself for his smallness, his cowardice at not remaining faithful to the other woman he truly wanted. It's a common form of self-deception and anger, of drinking too much, physical abuse, jail, hospitals, unloved children, infidelity, abandonment, even unto homicide or more probably suicide.

And so, the character Sanjay is me, his wife is my wife (or girlfriend). The touch of her skin fills me with tremors of dislike, I want to slither away and leave this object of all my fears and limitations. Her voice grates, the smell of her breath is rank and I want to tell her angrily to face away. But I'm trying to be silent, attempting to keep my mind calm, blank, isolated in torment. I can remember the other recent arguments, the tears, the swearing, the shards of a broken pot, this young tender wife turning into a harridan because of my decision, my defects, the desire to run away forever.

It's the littlest detail that makes me angriest. The way she gives me too little dal with my rice, the cheap jewelry she wears on her wrists, her ignorance of books, artists, music—a low-class farm girl raised among rutting pigs and dung. How can I stay here in her company when I could leave, get on a train and soon be with an educated woman, a beauty, a strong-willed and sexy partner I care for? Om Namah Shivayah, oh someone help me. I admit it, I'm not strong enough to continue this sham, to throw away my life, day by day with a girl who doesn't even know how to suck my dick properly, who moons like a cow after I pull our of her finished, as if she doesn't know when sex ends. And here she is again, on my chest. What's that putrid smell coming from her head? Her greasy hair? Fuck, it's coconut! Whores wear that smell to cover the smell of their sweat and customer's cum. How did I end here with this insignificant creature who will bear me ugly, stupid children and I'll never be free. If it weren't for my days riding the trains I'd go mad, I'd kill this girl and her father. There it is again that fucking putrid coconut smell. Don't speak, don't admit to being awake, or alive. I must hide my thoughts, they're convulsive and rampant. I hate my life. I hate my life. Oh fuck how did I get here?

Please don't move that repugnant head, go to sleep, disappear, please go to sleep. But she moves, murmurs. She wants me awake, wants me to talk, to be steady, kind even. Oh please don't move, leave my snout in your black defiled hair, you idiot, you fucking menace, you embarrassment to all that's fine, depth-filled, beautiful . . . "Which oil do you apply on your head?" . . . and it begins, this striving for more pain.
yeah all that, but I did laugh out loud (edit: despite the tragedy of it) at the wrinkling of his nose in distaste... then he offers her nicely scented perfume and she tells him that makes her nauseous

never the twain shall meet... and how many are trapped in that particular nightmare :'(
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pabs
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Nicely put, Brotherdea.

(Could we have a clapping emoticon added?)


Letterbxd
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Brotherdeacon
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Yes Meg, many, many, many. A repetitive cruelty common to both. I think it's why that first accusatory question on her hair oil is so passive yet barbed. It's the beginning, no matter the issue really, she's equally able in this dreadful competition of slinging and countering darts of intimated ills which may end by an agreement of ennui and silence, or continue into terrible acts of drama. Over and over again.

Thanks Pabs, I really like this film.
Edited by Brotherdeacon, Jun 28 2015, 11:57 AM.
“Somebody has to do something, and it’s just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us. “
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tuggingonmoustaches
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Appreciate all the comments on this thread as well as the voting thread. Thanks for watching.
Edited by tuggingonmoustaches, Jul 1 2015, 11:56 AM.
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