Completed migration from hugo-swift-theme to PaperMod

content/posts/Cinema/3-iron.md

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+---
+title: "3 Iron (2004): Impressions"
+date: 2021-11-14T10:46:40+05:30
+categories: ["Cinema"]
+tags: ["foreign-cinema", "minimalism"]
+cover:
+  hidden: false
+  image: "images/3-iron.jpg"
+draft: false 
+---
+
+Verdict: <span> &starf; &starf; &starf; &starf; &starf; </span>
+
+[Check it out on Letterboxd](https://letterboxd.com/carte_blanche/film/3-iron/)
+
+---------------------
+
+> We are all empty houses, waiting for someone to open the lock and set us free.
+
+There's something romantic about living on extremes. This applies as much to my film taste as it does to my day-to-day life. Nowhere is this more evident than in a crucial element of cinema - dialogues. On the one hand, you have Celine and Jesse showing us the entire world through their words, while on the other you have Sun and Tae doing the same thing without speaking a word. Both are equally satisfying for the soul.
+
+A lovely introduction to the cinema of Kim Ki-Duk.

content/posts/Cinema/anatolia.md

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+---
+title: "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011): Impressions"
+date: 2021-02-07T22:44:49+05:30
+categories: ["Cinema"]
+tags: ["foreign-cinema"]
+cover:
+  hidden: false
+  image: "images/anatolia.jpg"
+draft: false
+---
+
+Verdict: <span> &starf; &starf; &starf; &starf; &star; </span>
+
+[Check it out on Letterboxd](https://letterboxd.com/carte_blanche/film/once-upon-a-time-in-anatolia/)
+
+---------------------
+
+A slow, methodical display of patience and absurdity juxtaposed on the vast landscape, this film has something else going for it. When you read the synopsis or look at the posters, you expect a certain police procedural drama - the kind of which you've been accustomed to till date. What you get is a completely different take on the trope.
+
+The cinematography seems out of this world, and the melancholic doctor only adds to the moodiness of the whole atmosphere. One little scene in the middle will remain in my heart for a long time.

content/posts/Cinema/darjeeling.md

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+---
+title: "The Darjeeling Limited (2007)"
+date: 2020-03-04T23:01:15+05:30
+author: "siddhartha"
+categories: ["Cinema"]
+tags: ["Review","Cinema"]
+image: "darjeeling.jpg"
+draft: false
+---
+
+Verdict: <span> &starf; &starf; &starf; &starf; &starf; </span>
+
+[Check it out on Letterboxd](https://letterboxd.com/carte_blanche/film/the-darjeeling-limited/)
+
+
+----------------
+
+You can spot Wes Anderson trademark from a mile ago, although this is the only movie by him which left me dissatisfied. The unique and swift camera movements are still there, the colors still pop out like from another universe, the absurd comic timings still bring a smile to your face - but you won't feel the kind of personal emotional investment into the characters like you would in the rest of his filmography. Still, for a Wes Anderson fan, this would be a nice enough movie.

content/posts/Cinema/oslo-august.md

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+---
+title: "Oslo, August 31st (2011)"
+date: 2020-06-04T14:39:00+05:30
+author: "siddhartha"
+categories: ["Cinema"]
+tags: ["Review","Cinema"]
+image: "oslo-august-31.jpg"
+draft: false
+---
+
+Verdict: <span> &starf; &starf; &starf; &starf; &star; </span>
+
+[Check it out on Letterboxd](https://letterboxd.com/carte_blanche/film/oslo-august-31st/)
+
+
+----------------
+
+
+**Anhedonia**. The Wikipedia entry for this word says:
+
+> a diverse array of deficits in hedonic function, including reduced motivation or ability to experience pleasure.
+
+At one point or another, we have all experienced some version of this phenomenon - may be characterized by an oversaturation of love, or caused by a prolonged mediocrity in life, or as in the case of our protagonist here, the complete loss of will and motivation to feel anything.
+
+There's something intriguing about the slice-of-life cinematic style - it doesn't have a dramatic plot, no pulsating action or suspenseful storyline to keep us on the edge of our seats - and yet, I can't seem to be able to leave the film to grab even a glass of water. Linklater is one of the masters of this style, keeping the viewers engaged via dialogues. Here, Joachim Trier opts for a more subtle approach of filmmaking, making us observe things rather than spoon-feeding us via expository dialogues. There are some powerful scenes scattered throughout the film. With the opening montage, we are absorbed into the old and beautiful city of Oslo, making us nostalgic about a place we've never been to. And then comes a powerful scene - we see the protagonist going for a walk into the forest, a shaky camera holding the inscrutable face of Anders in the frame. Once he reaches the lake, he fills up his jacket pockets with rocks and attempts to drown himself in the lake. The camera stays steady over the surface of the lake, instead of following him underwater, we shift in our seats - uncomfortable with anticipation. The tension resolves as we see Anders gasp out of the water and go back dejectedly towards his home. We learn that he's a recovering addict, currently in an institution, and has suicidal tendencies.
+
+All of this is shown without any soundtrack or dialogues.
+
+Another scene that I found particularly powerful was the café scene. The way Anders selectively chooses to listen to particular conversations, especially a girl reciting her list of things she'd want to do over the course of her life, there's a strong contrast between the girl's (perhaps naive) optimism and Anders' pessimism for life. Anders has lost his ability to feel motivation or pleasure as he desperately looks for some way to remedy this. Anders' best friend quotes Proust during one of their discussions:
+
+> Trying to understand desire by watching a nude woman is like a child taking apart a clock to understand time.
+
+Anders is trying to do exactly that, looking for some way to connect with the outside world without losing himself. There's not a single pivotal moment in the film where one can say that this is where he stops trying, instead we see him increasingly spiraling out of the natural order and getting distant from the illusory ideal he was hoping for in the first half of the film. He hesitantly goes to a friend's party, trying to achieve some normalcy in his otherwise fucked up life, but there he is reminded of the same old crowd of people who are miserable and unhappy with their lives and are trying to drown their sorrows with alcohol - and this reminder is too much for Anders. He begins to feel convinced that there's no way for him to get out of this death spiral and begins to let go. There's no hope left for him. During one of the last scenes, he goes to his ancestral home where he finds a house full of reminders of his happy past, tries for the last time to feel some emotion by playing the old piano but halts abruptly as it's evident he has lost his emotional connection with this once-beloved playing like everything else. The last sigh we hear from him is the only way he knows of feeling something - drugs, as he lets go for the last time.
+
+The depression of a lone man struggling with mental health issues is shown beautifully here, even though the conclusions are tragic. Lately, I've been getting a lot of recommendations to watch Scandinavian movies and I've been loving them! This film will go down as yet another one of the great, grounded movies about depression, addiction, and city life in my diary.
+
+---------------------------
+
+[Check out this review on Letterboxd](https://letterboxd.com/carte_blanche/film/oslo-august-31st/)

content/posts/Cinema/riding-solo.md

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+---
+title: "Riding Solo to the Top of the World (2006)"
+date: 2021-01-03T22:53:01+05:30
+author: "siddhartha"
+categories: ["Cinema"]
+tags: ["Review","Cinema"]
+image: "riding-solo.png"
+draft: false
+---
+
+Verdict: <span> &starf; &starf; &starf; &starf; &starf; </span>
+
+[Check it out on Letterboxd](https://letterboxd.com/carte_blanche/film/oslo-august-31st/)
+
+
+----------------
+
+Motorcycling community is laden with fist-pumping-muscle-bulging-neckbeardy-speed-ninjas-Harley-fans, and it usually gets a bad rap all across the world. Gaurav Jani is none of these things. His passion and humility and curious nature reminded me why I loved biking in the first place. This is a must-watch for anyone fascinated with two wheels and the places they enable you to visit.

content/posts/Cinema/waking-life.md

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+---
+title: "Waking Life (2001)"
+date: 2020-11-27T22:57:50+05:30
+author: "siddhartha"
+categories: ["Cinema"]
+tags: ["Review","Cinema"]
+image: "waking-life.jpg"
+draft: false
+---
+
+Verdict: <span> &starf; &starf; &starf; &starf; &starf; </span>
+
+[Check it out on Letterboxd](https://letterboxd.com/carte_blanche/film/waking-life/)
+
+
+----------------
+
+There are films which you wish you had watched earlier in life, and there are others which don't make sense until you have had your fair share of world experiences. Waking Life falls in the former category.
+
+The college sophomore me would have been really excited about discussing vague notions of self and freedom and free will and morality and dreams - and don't get me wrong, mid-twenties me is equally as excited about these things as my former self, if not more so - but the problem lies in the superficiality of it all. Now that I've had more nuanced discussions about these philosophical conundrums and have read a fair amount of academic literature, the surface level discussions here leave a lot to be desired.
+
+Having said that, since I put Linklater on a pedestal, this by no means make it an average film. The visuals are cool, the animations are innovative and the ideas discussed, no matter how superficial, ultimately make you think and mull them over afterwards. That is more than what any filmmaker can aspire for and in the end, makes this a watch worthwhile for me.

content/posts/Cinema/winter-sleep.md

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+---
+title: "Winter Sleep (2014)"
+date: 2021-03-15T21:30:40+05:30
+author: "siddhartha"
+categories: ["Cinema"]
+tags: ["Review","Cinema"]
+image: "winter_sleep.png"
+draft: false
+---
+
+Verdict: <span> &starf; &starf; &starf; &starf; &starf; </span>
+
+[Check it out on Letterboxd](https://letterboxd.com/carte_blanche/film/winter-sleep/)
+
+---------------------
+
+Over the years, I have increasingly gravitated towards films where supposedly "nothing happens". Characters talk, no attempt is made to instill a moral point into the minds of the audience, which is usually accompanied with long, patient shots of people existing in their environments. This was an excellent specimen of the same dish.
+
+I had watched [_**Once Upon a Time in Anatolia**_](https://letterboxd.com/film/once-upon-a-time-in-anatolia/) from the same director previously and much like films by Wes Anderson, I could immediately tell this was Ceylan's film right from the start, although these two directors could not be any more different. The way Ceylan deals with landscapes and how people co-exist with nature is simply breathtaking. Alas, I neither have the vocabulary nor the expertise to appreciate much less dissect a film like this, but let these screenings be my own private film school and I hope that at the end of this year (which I've dedicated to watching foreign language films only), I would at least be in a position where I can better appreciate these masters of their crafts.
+