A white woman breathing heavily and in a while you realise that she is having sex with someone. That someone happens to be her husband. Her day starts with regular chores and in the evening she is at the pool. Two young girls giggle and ogle at her while she is taking her laps. Next we see her in the shower and the guard announcing that the pool will be closing in 5 minutes and that all the lights will be switched off. She reaches out to grab her clothes and realizes that they are missing. So are the two girls who were just now in the women’s shower area. The light goes off. And she is alone at the club. Naked.
Next we see her on a bicycle wearing a shower curtain riding through the darkness. An abrupt breeze takes the curtain off her and into the stream running below the bridge. She is naked again. A group of boys notice her and chase her. She tries to ride faster. One boy closes in and tries to touch her. She fumbles and both fall off the narrow road onto the grass. The boy looks at her. Her nakedness. She is bruised. He offers his jacket. They make love. She reaches home. Not as annoyed as she seemed when she left the club. Next we see her oiling her bike. The movie ends. Some nine and a half minutes. What do you make of it? Never mind.
I hear some gasps and murmurs from the audience in the barely occupied auditorium. This is the first of the five movies we are about to see at the Manhattan Short Film Festival. No, at Andheri’s Cinemax.
I had not been to a short film festival until last month. This one was an experience. The other four movies ranged from 3.45 minutes to 14.30 minutes. Some were as abstract as the one explained above (called Push Bike) and a couple of them were actually humorous. But none of them conclusive. You keep thinking. The scenes keep lingering in your mind while you are trying to make sense out of it. Is that the intent? I don’t know.
But I am happy that I went for it. These movies were selected from among 1000 plus movies. There must be something about them. However I have to admit that in spite of all the sex and skin, which I am a big fan of, Push Bike was probably the least liked by me. I couldn’t get it! Others were better.
I would have liked to take a 10 minute break after every movie though. And discuss with my wife and two other friends with a creative bent of mind who accompanied us to the festival. However the five movies were back to back. They were pricey too at 250 bucks for less than 45 minutes of viewing.
Anyway, after watching these movies I kept wondering what was the director trying to say? Why did the actor do that? I like this feeling of inconclusiveness in movies and stories. For example if you remember seeing Arth, it ends in a way that makes you wonder what did Pooja (played by Shabana Azmi) really do? Did she finally accept Raj’s (Raj Kiran) offer? Since his character in the movie is one who has a lot of patience and persistence, it is difficult to believe that he just let her go. Similarly in Ijaazat, the ending is not very conclusive.
But this one is the best. There is this Jeffery Archer short story One man’s meat... It starts with a guy driving on the road and spotting a good looking woman. Somewhere down the storyline Archer stops. He says, “At this point in the story the reader is offered the choice of four different endings: Rare; Burnt; Overdone; A point. You might decide to read all four of them, or simply select one and consider that your own particular ending. If you do choose to read all four, they should be taken in the order in which they have been written.
When I read this, I closed the book. And thought about it for one whole day as to which ending would I like to read. Or should I read all four of them. I chose to read just one and have resisted reading the rest.
Some things should remain a mystery, I guess.
