icarus – Movies of the Soul

Enter the most significant flashback to 2012, and welcome Prometheus, the Greek titan who is credited with stealing the fire and giving into humans. The punishment of Prometheus for this generous act is the most significant and the most interesting part of his tale, and it is a major part of ancient as well as modern works of literature and art. He was immortal and thus open to eternal torture, an opportunity which someone like Zeus was not supposed to miss, as he was tied to a rock, and each day an eagle would test its beak on his liver and eats them, which would then grow back to be eaten again the next day. Prometheus is said to be freed at last by the strongest of the Greek heroes, Heracles a.k.a Hercules. So how does Prometheus fit in this movie? Well, he is the symbol of human quest for knowledge, and also that of the risk of unintended consequences. The Modern Prometheus was used as the subtitle by Mary Shelley for her 1818 Gothic horror novel Frankenstein with its hero attempting something which was not supposed to be done according to the divine will, thus creating life which is not just abominable, but too strong for him to end. Christopher Marlowe’s The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus can take it better, as Doctor Faustus crossed the limits himself, and paid for it with a lovely, intellectually superior soul for dinner in the inferno that night as Mephistopheles, Lucifer and Belzebub are concerned.

The movie does the same, it is the story of a search to another world in a ship was rightly named Prometheus, even as I think the name Icarus would have also done good, considering the fact that they are going after a thing which could burn themselves as well as their world. You can have your own wings of fire, but they will eventually burn out – Icarus could at least drink water before he died, but for the seekers for something bigger than sun, one can’t be so sure. The biggest advantage of the movie is that it raises questions about the origin of human life and doesn’t provide the viewers with answers, making them use their brains as well as wait for a possible sequel with all the answers. There are also times when one should stop searching for answers and logical explanations for everything, as there are things for which there is no suitable explanations, for the world was not built on science, and controlling life and nature is just a distant impossible dream. Therefore, those who watch the movie will have to understand the mystery and accept the fact that it has to remain the same. There are things that you shouldn’t and couldn’t understand. The other group of people who oppose this movie are the trolls of the worst kind, who are always looking for attention, pretending that they know everything with their off-topic nonsense.

Another thing about the mystery is that if you do understand what you are not supposed to understand with the help of stupid logical explanations, there would be disasters, and you would end up being nothing more than another Greek mythological figure, Sisyphus who was forced to roll a huge boulder up a hill, only to see it roll back down, and to repeat this action forever – no you won’t get to be Naranath Bhranthan, as he was divine and intellectual, and you will be termed fools. He pretended to be mad, but in your case, there might be no need to pretend as long as you keep seeking things that you shouldn’t. You can keep searching for something which is not supposed be found and shall never be found, therefore initiate a meaningless action similar to that of our Sisyphus. Why should one create such a cruel situation for oneself in a world which is complete in itself unless human beings won’t interfere with the progress of natural life with too much science and technology? Wonder why the so called rational minds are so proud and prejudiced that they can’t accept what they can’t understand; unfortunately, that well has the devil prepared his webs of sin and lies. Just see how much destruction man has brought upon the planet by seeking the wrong things rather than God. Lets learn from it, and stop searching for the wrong answers and cease asking the wrong questions.

As a spaceship is seen to depart from a world similar to Earth during an unspecified time period, and a humanoid alien drinks a vial, then starts to disintegrate and then fall into the waterfalls under his feet and his remains would seem to create some biological transformation on the world. In 2089, Peter Weyland, the CEO of Weyland Corporation, funds an expedition to a distant moon LV-223 on the spaceship Prometheus on a mission to find the creatures who predated humanity, calling them the Engineers. The Prometheus lands on the moon near a large artificial structure. The place looked good enough to live, as if someone already lived there, or someone was supposed to. During an exploration, they find a huge number stone cylinders which are arranged in an orderly manner, a large and a monolithic statue of a humanoid head reminding of the large stone-heads of the Easter Island of Chile. From a corpse of a large alien, a head is taken which is later found to be similar to that of humans in the DNA. There would be questions to be asked and some of the answers would come at a price, including th total annihilation of the human race on Earth. The only thing which is predictable is the presence of alien life forms which would attack humans, and even form a parasite-provider relationship with them if possible; something which will end in the same mode as the original Alien movie.

Noomi Rapace plays the protagonist, Elizabeth Shaw, an archaeologist, and a firm believer in God who keeps the crucifix close to her heart and the mind. No, she was never like Alien franchise’s own alien destroyer, Ellen Ripley. This one is a more believable character for sure, and there can still be questions about her being another Ripley as the series get a second part. She had faith and it kept her making the right decisions, and also helped her in being the one sensible person out there. She has kept her beliefs in that time of turmoil, and what kept her strong is that symbol of faith which she carried. In a society which was so advanced, and might have surely persuaded her to leave it by hook or by crook, she held on to it like any righteous person would do. It is her faith that makes her the true protagonist, and considering the person she is portrayed to be, the lack of it would have ended whatever was good in her, just like it can be seen in the other characters. She survives the alien creature coming out of her stomach, and also the death of her lover; she even stops the alien life forms from destroying Earth, something which was made possible by her faith and belief, which the other lacked. She searches her own God even when looking for the so called superior creatures; she is a noble soul and the heroic character, a lady knight for the mankind against the aliens, a title which she might truly gain by the end of the franchise.

Charlize Theron as Meredith Vickers has another villain-like role for her after her evil queen in the worst movie of 2012, Snow White and the Huntsman, in which she was the fairest of them all, and Kristen Stewart who played Snow White looked pale and useless. She is still not that evil this time, as she is just trying to take control all the time, and remain the lady in command throughout the mission. There might still be questions about her being real human, with her decisions which is without emotions, these doubts only proven wrong when she comes out drop-dead-gorgeous out of that tube like chamber in which she was cryogenically frozen in a hyper-sleep and then again when she tries to save herself, something which a machine would have cared about less. She looks incredibly beautiful throughout the movie, and still working her character to its strong, selfish motives. To be frank, she was rather good in some of her decisions, and I would be deeply saddened to say that they have killed off the character with a spaceship on her head – still there is a little hope in the second part, as she could have fallen into some pit when the spaceship crashed on her; well, they brought back significant characters in Fast & Furious 6 and G.I.Joe: Retaliation from the dead, and so it is there for giving a chance.

Michael Fassbender scores as David, the android robot whose action leads to the death of Elizabeth Shaw’s lover as well as her impregnation with the alien. He works for Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce), and both act together in their logical need for immortality for the boss. Along with great performances from the case, the movie continues to score with its mind-blowing CGI and the 3D which can be termed optional. There is nothing about Prometheus that a sensible person can hate, and when the movie takes unexpected turns and take to a least expected universe, learn to live with that, because it is for the good. It is evident from the fact that sensible critics did give the movie a good rating. James Cameron, the director of Aliens, has said that the movie is great. There might be a few people who think otherwise, and their problem should be the inability to take in the awesomeness, and this one was clearly out of their comprehension, as they gave away all their imagination and creativity to the demon of logic. Prometheus doesn’t wander around people like you, slaves of logic, it is for the people who dare to create their world and live in it without going with the modern barbarians looking for nonsense logic and talk bad about everything which remains beyond their tiny brains. These people can stop playing dogs and asking for bones. Prometheus is a brilliant start to something new, and if it was released before Alien, it would have been the top grosser of the year or even the decade.

Release date: 8th June 2012
Running time: 124 minutes
Directed by: Ridley Scott
Starring: Noomi Rapace, Charlize Theron, Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba, Logan Marshall-Green

@ Cemetery Watch
✠ The Vampire Bat.

The Vampire Bat has never been the fan of the original movie, Murder – but he was forced to change that one opinion to think about following the series with Murder 2. That made sure that this was going to be a series which has the worst in the beginning itself. It doesn’t matter how good people might think it was, it was never a good copy from Hollywood. The second was more close to glory as Prashant Narayanan came up with one of the best performances witnessed for such a long time. It was both gruesome and awesome at the same time. Then, the question would be about Murder 3 right now and the answer might be somewhere in between the first and the second of the series. It could never rise upto the second, but still creates a better impact than the first. It is supposed to be the remake of the Colombian thriller The Hidden Face, but at no point does it gives a feeling that it does not belong to this part of the world, for it has been changed well enough. It might still seem to defy logic, but that is something which is to be forgiven to attain the maximum effect of the needed horror.

Any disappointment about the movie has to be left to the first half, which is a little strange – it has a photographer who has turned alcholic after losing his girlfriend, along with his new girlfriend. He is a young man who just lost his future wife and has brought another one out of nowhere; not really inappropriate for the Murder series, but still something which tells the viewer a little about the protagonist, the new-age Icarus whose interests are as unlimited as his ambitions. He has his wings, but the question might be about the path through which he is flying, and also about his other interests while moving so close to that fire-starter who can burn more than just a few things of wax. He might have to think again about all these, and it is doubtful when he will have the opportunity to do so. Meanwhile, his first girlfriend is more of the one who sacrifices her own interests. Now that would make the question of her leaving him obsolete. That is a fact which would keep the cops on his tail, investigating about his hands in her disappearance. But knowing them as a loving couple, not many would doubt his involvement in her absence.

His second girlfriend is more of a Lady Icarus, from one angle, even as she is shown more as a sympathizer in the first half. There is no point where one can be sure about this one character though. She is not really a static character, but still not someone whos progress can be easily traced. There are events happening all around, indicating the presence of some supernatural force and a mystery that surrounds the protagonist. Most of it just seem to happen just for the sake of frightening, until most of the twists and further explanations are done in the second half of the movie. It brings light to what lies inside the shadows of a world which looks too simple from outside. It brings two worlds and combine them into one; there is one inside the mirror and the other outside; both human, one free and the other imprisoned – but the souls of both might be in their own prison. One of them is not seen and the other is there for everyone to see. A reversal of roles is a possibility which is attempted soon enough, what lies beneath the depths of the hearts of two women and one man is difficult to know.

The whole story revolves around the three people and the love triangle. While the first half almost made a mess of it with a kind of “romantic horror” or “horror romance” which was neither here nor there, the relations get intense and further explained in the second half. It suddenly surprises and even shocks the viewer out of nowhere, at a moment when it seemed to be running out of everything. It starts climbing from there, towards a good, justified climax and a fine finish. That wouldn’t make the first half bad though, as it never really failed in a collateral manner even in the beginning stages as some might have thought it to be. There are shades of what might happen in the second half right from the beginning itself. The essence of mystery never leaves the little world of this movie. It leaves some scratches for the audience to be in the hunt for the mystery. The creepy house and the strange surroundings are supported by a bath tub, bathroom sink and the shower acting in a supernatural way.

The most exciting question of the movie would be if there is a murder which would justify the title? The second movie had lots of bloody murders, but this one is more of a psychological murder. There is the murder of faith and trust, and there is the possiblity of one or two murders which might have happened in the end – that is an ambiguity, an ending which could be interpreted in more than one way. It might be an end with the death of two, death of one and the imprisonment of the other, or with nothing too bad happening in the mansion. Love continues to be a matter of life, death, horror, mental disorder and everything else, and its role is above the supernatural yet again. It might reach even bigger heights of the mind in a possible Murder 4. What we see in the movie is that redemption is attained by the ones who has taken them out of the attention of fake, carnal love. The rest are left to feel the heat. Well, there is beauty to the heat, and gorgeousness to the horror – not one, but two; for there is no way to deny that.

Sara Loren and Aditi Rao Hydari has made this one more of a movie centred on two women, almost entirely different, but still has their lives centred on one man. The former keeps the first half running with her stunning looks while the latter runs the second half. The female characters run from sympathy to seduction and possessiveness to torment, a journey which is independent from one another, but not entirely separated in the sequence of events. Both of them begin as simple victims to an infatuation which drives them to one man and the creepy mansion. It is only a matter time before the love-birds would be no less than the vultures of selfishness. As it continues to bring more and more questions into the heads of the viewers, the more successful it becomes. But still, there are the missing parts, for the movie has its own low points where its horror becomes kind of laughable. But that is something worth forgiving for the total effect, especially for the minutes towards the end of the movie.

Thinking about the most talked-about side of the movie, this is not exactly the erotic thriller. There is sensousness and the scarcity in the department of clothing could be taken into account. But this actually takes the elements of relationships and mental status to the new heights instead of the physical relationships. This time, it gets closer to the emotions even if the skinshow never loses its role in the movie. The philosophy might be mostly hidden, but the absence of a true villain or a true hero is the evidence of the fact that this is more open to the discussions than ever, unlike the previous two movies of the series. That adds to the absence of Emraan Hashmi as a new thing to the series. In simple words, what Murder 3 has done is that it has provided some proof that there is hope around here for the horror genre even without ghosts and serial killers; there is future in many forms, and this future is more than just stunning.

Release date: 15th February 2013
Running time: 120 minutes
Directed by: Vishesh Bhatt
Starring: Randeep Hooda, Aditi Rao Hydari, Sara Loren, Rajesh Shringarpure, Shekhar Shukla