SHIP OF THESEUS - Late Review of an Enriching Experience!

[Perumthachan]

P.S. I know this comes last but I am putting it here. Okay! This is a short review of a movie that I watched after the whole world has and have to say, EXCELLENT! And one more thing, I do not claim that this is the only explanation to the movie, I do not guarantee that it will satisfy everyone but can certainly vouch, I was blown out of proportions.

According to Greek mythology, Theseus is a legendary warrior. To save his kingdom Athena, he had to travel to the island of Cret e, work out his way through the Labyrinth and kill the half man-half bull Minotaur. After the task, Theseus boards his ship and heads back to his kingdom. To commemorate his victory, the Athenians decided to preserve the ship that Theseus had travelled in. They took out all the wooden planks that formed the ship and replaced it with strong timber and it is said, the ship lasted for many centuries as a monumental piece. Now, the two question raised by philosophers: If all the wooden planks of the original ship were taken out and replaced by timber, will the new ship retain the qualities of the original ship? If a new ship is created using the discarded wooden planks, will this ship retain the qualities of the original ship? Tough question. Might even seem stupid and waste of time but the funny thing is, even after years of debate and mathematical theorems, there are still two answers. Some say the ship has changed while others say only the material has changed and not the ship.

In the movie, the ship is the human body. The wooden planks are the essential organs inside the human body. The organs have become damaged and need to be replaced. The timber planks are the organs of healthy donors that will be used for the replacement. So, the question is: after the operation, what will be the mannerisms of the person: mannerisms of himself or the donor’s? To delve into the subject, the director has taken the lives of three people living in Mumbai and told three different plots. The common factor is that, all three of them are the ship of theseus; they have/need to undergo operation for organ replacement. The plots do not converge nor is the movie a hyper-link. It is basically divided into three sections.

Aliya is a blind Arab woman who had taken up photography as a passion and now is a celebrity conducting exhibitions. She had lost her sense of sight due to cornea infection. She lives with her boyfriend, a lecturer. Now how does a blind Aliya take photos? Four reasons. One, Aliya is keen and curious. She walks the lengths to get the perfect shot. Two, she is helped by technology. She has an in-built gadget on her camera which instructs her about the manual settings she has set up for her shot. Her version of Photoshop has an in-built software that instructs her of the movements she makes with the mouse. Third, she is supported and encouraged heavily by her boyfriend who takes time to read-out her photos to her. Fourth and the most important thing, she is intuitive. She is sure about how she wants her snaps to be. Even though she is blind, she is able to discard some photos for being ‘normal’, something which her boyfriend with two eyes can’t seem to do. On the contrary, he advantage is what confuses her; she is taking chances with her intuitions, she is trying to cover up her inability with her superiority complex, couldn’t she be wrong? Aliya gets a cornea transplant done and starts to see things, most important, colors and photographic frames but the paradox nowcis, she has lost her skills. She cannot make decisions whether her frames are right. She is confused about the colors and subjects. She gained a pair eyes but in the process, lose her eyesight. She is not able to focus. Art is supposed to rise out of one’s self; imitation of any kind or striving to be someone leaves us helpless. And the question raised by this segment: If your eyes have failed you, does that mean you cannot see. Or is it that, physical sight blinds the real, insightful vision. As long as Aliya had insight, the world was beautiful and she was happy. The last scene is of Aliya sitting on a wooden bridge surrounded by the most beautiful scenery yet she is confused. Her Canon loses its shutter cap but does that give the camera a life of its own to click pictures? She is an artist and her field of expertise being art, yes, timber planks can never take the place of wooden planks.

Maitreya is a Jain monk. He is the most educated, respected and loved monk in his community. Though a monk, he is an atheist but believes in the concept of soul, doings of the karma and the need for retribution; the need for the self to liberate itself from the cycle of life and death and attain moksha. He feels there is no god, no heaven or hell, no preserver, no destroyer, no judge, only the law of causality (everything happens for a cause), only the thought that one should take responsibility for his actions and consequences and that all creatures have a right to live and so, even the smallest should be treated with compassion. He is fighting a case against pharmaceutical companies that torture animals (specifically rabbits) for their experimentations. He knows that, in this particular case, the prosecution and the defendant lawyers are like the blind men trying to perceive the elephant: medicines need to be tested and it can be tested only on animals since they happen to be the closest species to humans; what concerns the monk is the abuse that these animals face. Funny thing is, more animals are tortured for the production of cosmetic products than for essential medicines. The animals will eventually face a gruesome death due to the glitches in the experiments but till then, to cramp many of them in stuffy cages without proper care or hygiene, it is like those poor things are already dead and that is what disturbs him. There is symbolic scene of a street-play which proclaims that all the jungles have disappeared making us live in cages (buildings, homes, offices etc). His lawyer has assigned him a junior lawyer, Charvaka to study the case. This Charvaka dude was a wannabe stand-up comedian who brings up topics with the monk that are the core essence of this movie. Though some of the dialogues might seem forced and the whole conversations brim with religious philosophy banged left and right, the topics are really thought-provoking. The soul does not have form, does not have shape, does not have matter yet it connects to the world through the body, through the actions done by the body and sometimes even through the actions that a body doesn’t do. Charvaka is confused about the rituals that accompany every religion; the monk dismisses rituals as mere symbols. He is confused about the irony that animals are tortured to produce medicines that eventually relive humans of their pains. Pain used to relieve pain! When the monk feels frequent pains and indigestion, he undergoes diagnosis to realize that he is suffering from liver cirrhosis. He is advised to take medicines for the liver transplantation. He gets confused on the thought of taking medications. It is against his ideals and faith. He refuses the suggestion. Charvaka feels the adamancy of refusing medicines and having no regard for one’s is the same as that of a suicide bomber who is adamant about fundamentalist belief and has no regard for others. The monk stead-bound on his decision that the disease is incurable (even though it is curable by medical standards) decides to fast unto death, a ritual that would make him make peace with himself. The reference to the duality or polarity of life as seen through the rope used to churn butter was really apt for the narration. Our life is obsessed with finding the final answers to everything; it is a pathetic and oppressive trip in which we invent god, try to be god by inventing life-saving technologies, invent heaven and hell, invent the notion of an afterlife and finally at the end, we die with the hope of immortality. The ultimate enlightenment of this segment is in the explanation of how a small fungus can result in the end of an ant then what of humans!. Finally the monk achieves what he wished for: not to believe in something out of fear or guilt but to believe in an ethic isolated of all religious beliefs. In this case, the wooden planks need to be removed and timber planks might be the only option.

Navin is a stockbroker who prefers to be content working for his American clients. But his grandmother who was a freedom movement activist, cannot tolerate her grandson being happy working for capitalists. He can’t seem to understand why she cannot let him live his life. But a chance encounter with Shankar, an immigrant laborer (whose kidney got “lost” during an appendectomy) makes him restless. Previously Navin had a kidney transplant, that too a day before Shankar’s was removed and the most surprising thing, both their blood groups match. This makes Navin restless. He wants to know about the kidney he received. Was it Shankar’s? Was it donated by Shankar? Or was it stolen for Shankar? He goes after the matter restlessly only to find out that he is not sharing Shankar’s kidney instead it was donated legally by a NGO. But Shankar’s kidney had been stolen and it is now inside a Swedish national in Stockholm. Navin decides on two things: he is going to give back his kidney and he is going to make sure the Swedish guy gives his (well! not his in the first place) back to Shankar. Navin sets out to Stockholm and meets the Swedish who was unaware that it was stolen; yet he has justifiable reasons, such that his family members were disturbed, they wanted to save him and they fell for the only option available to them. But the man won’t give it back. Navin comes back to Mumbai and decides to move forward legally. But when he meets Shankar, he is surprised to know Shankar does not want to pursue the matter because a person sent by the Swedish national had come to see him. No, not for threatening but with money. That too 6.5 lakhs for a kidney that would sell in the market for only 30k. Why would Shankar want to complain? He has got enough to start a new life. Had the recipient been an Indian, had the recipient been a hard-hearted influential guy, had Navin never been able to find the recipient, this would never have happened. Maybe timber planks might be the best solution for the wooden planks.

Finally, the three characters come to a closed function which is held to remember the person who had helped them. It seems the donor was a healthy young lad who died of an accident leading to eight of his organs being donated and still working perfectly in eight people. Maybe it is not the design of the ship that matter, maybe it is the material that made it. Maybe it is not the material that made it but the quality of the timber, maybe … maybe..

Anand Gandhi is a name synonymous with the saas-bahu serials on TV. From him, ‘SOT’ is the best intellectual masturbation to have come out of Bollywood. Finally a Hindi movie that makes Bollywood viewers to use the organ they hardly use: the brain. The movie is a gem. So many thoughts and philosophy well-crafted into a sensible script. Gandhi was unapologetic in his approach. The movie is not arty or snaily, it has pace and it has been shot with leisure. Lots of scenes, lots of symbols, excellent visuals. The cast is another plus-point. The dialogues are quick are inter-woven. If you lose your focus in the second segment, you lose the whole flow of it. A crispier editing would have shortened the proceedings but then I feel, the movie needs to be so much to say so much. A great work on the beliefs, sensibilities and doubts that one goes through.

I had a chance to see this in theatre. But it would have been like trying to read a book on Ramana Maharshi and nirvana andin the midst of Thrissur pooram. That is why I skipped it, waited for the home video version, got it, watched it, adored it. It was great of Kiran Rao to take up this movie and make it known. And the best thing, she chose to leave Aamir Khan out of it. The movie was an enlightening experience to me maybe because, I have religious and spiritual beliefs that I struggle with.

[baadshahmian]

Thanks..........

[anishfk]

Ipol ithu etho copy anenu kelkund...
Thanks for the review

[Film Freak]

Thanks Thacha...Padam Kanaan ithu vere pattyilla...

[veecee]

thanks anna

[Rayamanikyam]

Thnx for the review.......

[Perumthachan]

Thanks..........

thanks anna

Thnx for the review.......

welcome...

Thanks Thacha...Padam Kanaan ithu vere pattyilla...

its definitely worth a watch if you have spent some of your college days wandering answers for questions that weren't there in the first place.

Ipol ithu etho copy anenu kelkund...
Thanks for the review

copy onnumalla bhai. ente swantham review aanu... he he
copy aanonnu ariyilla bhai... ithil paranjirikkunna symbols, thoughts ellaam Indian context aanu. athukondu copy of a western impossible. pinne copy of any indian aayirunne, ithinakam news hullabullaa aayenem... onnuville, Recywala Productions (Kiran Rao) disribution aayathukondu, chikli thafanjenem....

[anishfk]

google cheythapol kandatha...entho short film....marannu poyi

[Perumthachan]

google cheythapol kandatha...entho short film....marannu poyi

that is possible! in the sense, any documentary that deals with organ donation and the search of the recipient for the donor and finding that it was not a donor but a victim of theft... it is possible. but unless and until, that docu theoretically or hypothetically mentions the human organ as the wooden plank of Theseus' ship, I don't think charges of plagiarism will hold true.

[ClubAns]

Thanks Perumthachan .............