Time Loop Time Loop Time Loop.... Repeat Endlessly

Time loop is a much repeated plot device, especially in Hollywood movies. But if made into a tightly structured, no/minimum plot holes movie, there is nothing more stimulating to the intellect. By time loop movies, I mean the ones in which events that happens in a particular time frame repeat continously.

I don't consider time travel movies like Time Cop where someone lands in past or future and alter the present, though such movies too eventually have to deal with the puzzle of looping time. You will get my point if you recall Terminator movie franchise as a whole. So that puts brilliant movies like Predestination, Looper and not-so-brilliant ones like Time Cop (it's bad-ass, not brilliant) outside our scope.

In time loop movies, most of the time, atleast one character gets aware of this phenomenon and learns to adjust his behaviour and use it to his/her/their advantage. Such movies use time loops as a plot device.





There is another category of movies in which time loop is introduced as just a narrative device. Here, the looping of time doesn't happen in actual. Sometimes the makers try to show different point of views by repeating the events.

One movie that comes to mind is Vantage Point where an assassination attempt on the US President is shown from the POV of different characters. Each loop introduce us to some new facts that adds on to our understanding of the plot.




Sometimes the makers try to visualise how a minor happening can alter the outcome greatly. German movie Run Lola Run directed by Tom Tykwer is one such brilliant gem of a movie. In this film, a girl has 20 minutes to get some cash to save her boyfriend. Three scenarios are enacted where Lola runs to arrange cash and all three has drastically varied results due to slight variations in her behaviour. The director leaves certain ambiguity as to whether she is aware of the situation.




Now if we check out the movies where protagonist(s) are aware of time loop, the choices are great. We have Source Code, a science fiction thriller starring Jake Gyllenhall, who has to solve a terror plot by living the last 8 minutes of the attack continuously till he makes a breakthrough. And he has to do it by occupying the body of a stranger.




Groundhog Day starring the effervescent Bill Murray as an arrogant weather reporter who is forced to cover an event that he despises is the first blockbuster featuring time loop concept. In this feel-good comedy, the protagonist has to relive countless times the Groundhog Day, a yearly tradition in a small town. It's a hilarious movie.

In the summer blockbuster Edge of Tomorrow, Tom Cruise learns to fight dangerous aliens by living and dying in a loop.




Most of the movies that I covered here uses huge budget, elaborate sets and sophisticated special effects to help with the narration. But ARQ, this new movie that I watched last day ingeniously puts itself forward using minimum budget, just handful of characters and a rundown garage as it's set.


In a world were all energy sources are depleted, an engineer invents a perpetual motion machine which triggers a time loop. He wakes up from a dream to see his long-gone girlfriend by his side and four invaders soon turns up. He is killed and wake up again remembering the previous episode. Now each time he tries to unknot the puzzle, he gets killed only to wake up again.

What makes ARQ stand out is the number of twists that the makers introduce in each segment. Every guess work and every expectation of viewers are thwarted systematically when the motives and back stories of each characters are revealed one by one.

Are there any other movies you feel that I missed? Are there any Indian movies that feature time loop? Feel free to comment.

പുലി പിടിച്ചതും പിടിക്കാത്തതും

പുലിമുരുകൻ കേരളക്കര ഇളക്കിമറിക്കുകയാണല്ലോ. ഞാനും കഴിഞ്ഞ ദിവസം പോയി കണ്ടു നോക്കി. ചില കാര്യങ്ങൾ പിടിച്ചു, ചിലത് പിടിച്ചില്ല. 

പുലി പിടിച്ചത്:

1) മോഹൻലാൽ. പടം കണ്ടുകൊണ്ടിരിക്കുമ്പോൾ ഇങ്ങേർക്ക് ഒരു കടുവയെയൊക്കെ തട്ടാനുള്ള  ശേഷിയുണ്ട് എന്ന് വിശ്വസിച്ചു പോയി. തന്റെ പ്രായത്തെ വെല്ലുന്ന പ്രകടനം തന്നെയാണ് അദ്ദേഹം കാഴ്ച വെച്ചത്.

2) പീറ്റർ ഹെയ്ൻ: മുകളിൽ പറഞ്ഞതിന്റെ ഒരു നല്ല പങ്ക് ക്രെഡിറ്റ് പീറ്റർ ഹെയ്നിന് അവകാശപ്പെട്ടതാണ്. ഈ സിനിമയുടെ ജീവൻ ഇതിലെ സംഘട്ടനം മാത്രമാണ്.

3) ഗ്രാഫിക്സ്: മലയാളത്തിൽ മികച്ച ഗ്രാഫിക്സും ഇഫക്റ്റ്സും ഉപയോഗിച്ചു നിർമ്മിച്ച പടം പുലിമുരുകൻ തന്നെയാണ്.  ഇതിൽ എന്തെങ്കിലും ക്ഷീണം സംഭവിച്ചെങ്കിൽ കളി മാറുമായിരുന്നു.  ചുരുക്കത്തിൽ ഈ മൂന്ന് ചേരുവകളും കൃത്യമായി ചേര്‍ന്നത് ചിത്രത്തെ രക്ഷിച്ചു.

4) നിർമാതാവ്: കൈവിട്ട കളിയായിട്ടും ചുളയിറക്കിയ മുളകുപാടം മുതലാളിയാണ് രാജാവ്.

5) കുട്ടിമോഹൻലാൽ.

6) ഈ വിജയം മലയാള ചലച്ചിത്ര നിർമ്മാണരംഗത്ത് പുതിയ പ്രതീക്ഷകൾ തീർക്കും. കൂടുതൽ പണം ഇറക്കാനുള്ള ധൈര്യം ഗുണപരമായി നല്ല മാറ്റം ഉണ്ടാക്കിയേക്കാം. കൂടുതൽ ലാഭം കിട്ടുമ്പോൾ നിർമാതാക്കൾ നല്ല ചെറിയ പടങ്ങൾ എടുക്കാനും ധൈര്യപ്പെടും.

പുലി പിടിക്കാത്തത്:

1) പൊട്ടക്കഥ. സാധാരണ ആക്ഷൻ ചിത്രങ്ങളിൽ ഒരു സംഘട്ടനരംഗത്തിൽ നിന്ന് അടുത്തതിലേക്ക് എത്താനുള്ള ഒരു ഉപാധി മാത്രമാണ് കഥ. ഇതിൽ അങ്ങനെ ആയിരുന്നെങ്കിൽ എത്ര നന്നായിരുന്നു...!

2) ആക്ഷൻരംഗങ്ങളിലെ പശ്ചാത്തല സംഗീതം എന്നാൽ ചെകിട്ടിനടുത്ത് ചെണ്ടകൊട്ടുന്നതല്ലെന്ന് ഈ മറുതായോട് ആരെങ്കിലും പറയെടേ...

3) അന്യഭാഷാ നടന്മാർ: ചിത്രത്തിന് ഒരു ഗുണവും ഇവർ ചെയ്തതായി തോന്നിയില്ല. വലിയൊരു നടനായ മകരന്ദ് ദേശ്പാണ്ഡെയെയും "വലിയൊരു" നടിയായ നമിതയെയും വിഡ്ഢിവേഷം കെട്ടിച്ചത് സംവിധായകന്റെ പാപ്പരത്തമാണോ മോഹൻലാലിനെ പൊലിപ്പിക്കാനുള്ള സൈക്കിളോടിക്കൽ മൂവോ?

4) എന്നു വച്ച് നമ്മുടെ സ്വന്തം നടന്മാർ അസാമാന്യ പ്രകടനമൊന്നുമായിരുന്നില്ല. താടി ലാൽ മാത്രം നന്നായിരുന്നു. അഭിനേതാക്കളുടെ പ്രശ്നമല്ല. തിരക്കഥ പ്രശ്നം.

The Little Prince: The Spoiled Version

Sometime back someone asked me to recommend a book for their kids to read. I suggested The Little Prince, a novella written by French aviator Antoine D'Saint Exupery. I feel that it is a book every kid should read. And one that every adult should read. Infact it is one book that, I feel one should read while one's a kid and then re-read and re-read throughout the entire life. I read it that way.

I got hold of a Malayalam translation of The Little Prince when I was 10 years old. After reading it, I was immensely happy, amazed and sad at the same time. Such a book it was. And then I went through it innumerable times till the book was battered and eventually withered. Every time I was as emotional as the first time. But as I grew up I could make more sense of it. And now I feel that this short book in turn helped me in making sense of the world around me.

Then I heard they made a movie of it. And it was getting glowing reviews from all over the world. And it amassed a 90% fresh rating in Rotten Tomatoes. And I watched it.

And it was terrible.

The plot of the novel is about an aviator who crash landed in Sahara, meeting a Prince, who left his very demanding rose flower on his tiny asteroid which is threatened by weeds of Baobab trees. It's about unconditional love, about belonging to someone, about the differences between kids and adults, about living and about dying.

And what did the movie-makers do?

They invented a new story set in present times and made all the stuff from the book a flashback/fairy-tale. It worked fine till the part where the actual story ended. And then they did the unthinkable. They Hollywoodized the ending. They did away the ambiguity of the original, which infact was the reason why the book was re-readable. They exposed what happened to the Prince, to his rose, to his fox and to the aviator. And to top it all they introduced a Toy Story-ish action climax which satisfy the shallows.

The kids who watched the movie first will never ever be able to appreciate the ending of the novel because in spite of the novel searching for the Prince and his beloved rose on faraway stars, the kid know where the Prince is and that the rose is dead.

And that is a real crime committed by the ones who made this movie.

Rush to the Top...

The season of 1976 was probably the most controversial and dramatic in the history of F1 racing. British driver James Hunt of Mac Laren and Austrian driver Niki Lauda of Ferrari were legendary rivals competing for championship title. Lauda, the reigning champion and the top scorer that year met with a serious accident on a wet racecourse, sustaining severe burns. On his absence, Hunt won some races reaching close to his score. Lauda, after six weeks of incomplete treatment, returned to race and defend his title with a bandaged face! The tournament ended in a nail-biting climax on a rain washed, dangerous track in Japanese circuit with the winner emerging with a single point lead.

Ron Howard made an incredible movie about the rivalry between the two giants. Titled Rush, the movie has Chris Hemsworth playing Hunt and Daniel Bruhl playing Lauda. Rush is a smart sports movie that's in equal parts a thriller and a study of two characters of extreme contrast. The lead actors convincingly portrayed the two racers. Racing scenes are top notch in quality, and expertly portray the excitement of the event.

Imagine you are shown a fine picture. Then it is zoomed out to reveal that it is just a very minute detail of a much larger picture that is made up of innumerable such details. This movie gives you such a feeling. The rivalry is what the movie is all about and you are made to invest a lot in it. But the final reveal, I feel, is that it is just a minute detail that makes up the much larger and more interesting history of Hunt, Lauda and Formula 1. That is what I loved the most about it.

I had one minor issue with the movie though. The whole movie beautifully illustrates the differences between the lead characters through their behaviors, choices and mode of working. At last a confrontation scene is included where they lists their life philosophy again, which I felt was a needless exposition.

Portrayal of the marginalised

Every building, apartment, mall or shopping complex in big cities are built trampling on the bodies of native people who belong to the lowest strata of society. Kammatti Padam is a Malayalam movie directed by Rajiv Ravi, based on the true story of a slum on which Ernakulam city was built. It is the story about how Kammatti Padam was transformed into a sprawling city and how the lives of its dwellers were affected by the process.

The movie possess a menacing style and unfurls without any haste, taking its own sweet time. I remembered Gangs of Wasseypur while watching it. It's very detailed and invest quite a lot on its quirky and colorful characters- not only the four or five major ones, but even those who appear in just a single scene.

Kammatti Padam uses a nonlinear narrative. The movie starts in the present era, when a middle aged man, Krishnan, obviously stabbed, get in a bus. He struggles to keep his consciousness thinking about his violent past in Kammatti Padam. The movie skips quite a few times back and forth in time. First half covers the life of main players and reveals the motive behind Krishnan's return from Mumbai. These are the most entertaining parts of the movie were you are shown a lot of style and substance. But it is the latter half that was my delight.

In second half, movie change gears into the neo-noir mode. Here Kammatti Padam can give any of its Western counterparts a run for their money. Krishnan's searches lead him into the seedy underbelly of the cityscape that he himself was partly responsible in creating. Like any PI of a true noir he faces the  odd challenges and confronts the truth.

Using Dulqar Salman for the protagonist may be a commercial decision by the makers. I love to imagine Krishnan as a guy with more unconventional looks and not this sophisticated. But still he did total justice to the role. Kammatti Padam is a movie made on grand scale and totally worth the time that you invest on it.