Sunday, December 28, 2008

Finally Sunday To Rashomon

Last Friday night I watched Francois Truffaut's Finally Sunday in UTV World Movies.It is a black white movie with a brilliant combination of film noir and comedy with a tinge of romance.This is the story of Julienne Vercel who is the prime suspect of his wife and her lover's murder and Barbara,Julienne's secretary who tries to prove his innocence.One particular sequence in that movie left me thinking for the past one week.This is the scene where Julienne tells Barbara that his wife's death has become inconsequential in the context of solving the mystery to prove his own innocence.


Normally Death in spite of it's inevitable nature is related to tragedy and dealt with a gloom and morbidity or with glory and sympathy (say heroic death of a martyr for a noble cause).This is not the case for thrillers or murder mysteries.The subject of death in this case is transformed into thrills within the frills of mystery.Let me take another example from movies.When we watch the scene of Normandy Landing in Saving Private Ryan though the death of each and every individual does not but that large scale mass killing affects us as a whole.But how do we react to Showdown at the House of Blue Leaves in Kill Bill volume I?
The point here I am trying to make has nothing much to do with death or movies.It's the question of perspective from which a particular subject is being presented or rather perspective or viewpoint from which a particular subject is being observed.In my earlier post on Mumbai Terror attacks I was trying to get into the root cause of terrorism as an observer who is not personally affected by the massacre.If that was the case may be I would not have blogged for another few months or the subject would have been memories of some lost one.There are two important factors in this example.First case where I am observing an incident about which I have no prior knowledge and I am trying develop a viewpoint based on external information and my own rational thinking.In this case the way that information is being presented and delivered to me is very critical.In the second case my own personal emotions override all other facts and my viewpoint is narrowed down without considering much of external data.In this case whatever information and thought process I already possessed is very crucial.
Now be it the independent viewpoint of the observer or somehow influenced by other external agency existence of absolute truth is lost in the crowd of multiple interpretations.I strongly argued in favour of absolute truth in post on Uncertainty Principle and I will still stick to that point as I feel it's our limitation to interpret and process information with absolute correctness.But in most of the incidents of our daily lives, truth is always true with marginal errors of observation and that's why everyone does not have same conclusion.
It was last Friday when this thought triggered in my mind now it's Finally Sunday and may be I am concluding with Rashomon.

2 comments:

Anubha Yadav said...

Just caught the film today on UTV and interestingly I was wondering as to who directed it as it was feeling like it is the work of a master....well, found out its Truffat....so dexterous with characterizations.Also found it fascinating as to how he manages to push humor in the most seamless way in the narrative. And the study of stereotypes, all through...I would say the preoccupation of the film is to deconstruct the stereotype we expect from a 'genre' like suspense thriller...

Sankarsan said...

@freewill:Abosolutely right