A TOAST....

Tonight I had planned to watch a movie that I have already seen, LOVE ACTUALLY. I knew that I would enjoy it nearly as much as I did the first time around. A British film, it boasts of a heavy duty star cast- Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Keira Knightly, Colin Firth and Alan Rickman to name just a few. As the title suggests its central theme is a love story actually multiple love stories deftly interwoven to create a wonderful film that stands far apart from the normal run of the mill romantic movies that we often get to watch these days. The brilliant casting albeit plays a major role in the films success.

But today I am not going discuss this movie. As I mentioned above I had planned to watch it again but the movie that I finally did end up watching was SHADOWS IN THE SUN. The story outline read “an editor who is also an aspiring writer tracks down a reclusive literary legend living in rural Italy so as to convince him to write again”. It did not sound very interesting but the only other option I had was Legally Blond and am I glad that good sense prevailed. Shadows in the Sun (also known as Shadow Dancer) was a fantastic film. It was unexpectedly hilarious, whimsical and at same time poignant. The characters are funny, outrageous, vulnerable yet utterly believable and leave you behind with a burning desire to join them on their regular Monday night jaunts of wine drinking and karaoke. But however good the movie was, it is almost overshadowed by its brilliant location. Set in a tiny village bathed in golden sunlight, tucked away in the Tuscan hills in rural Italy, it will make even an ardent city lover pack their bags and baggage and head off to the countryside. Stunning architecture, golden sunsets, lush verdant hills and crystal clear streams nearly succeed in seducing you to ignore the story that is unfolding.

However I really wanted to talk about in this post was not the movies (although I guess I may have fooled you in believing I did) but a dialogue from the movie Shadows in the Sun. The talented, eccentric, writer, Weldon Parish played by Harvey Keitel, tells the persistent editor incidentally also an aspiring writer who is suffering from self doubt the following statement:

"You don’t choose art but art chooses you."

The point he was trying to make was that being creative or ability to produce art was a gift, an inherent talent and despite all the hardship an artist may have to suffer, ultimately a privilege. For some reason I was disturbed by that statement. Are creativity and artistic temperament and ability really for the fortuitous few, with the rest of the populace filling the role of silent spectators, watching from the sidelines, able only to appreciate but not create?

While some may argue that a lot of people may just not be interested in being creative or producing a piece of art, I would beg to differ. The doting aunt knitting beautiful, warm sweaters for their favorite nephew or niece, the bashful bathroom singer belting out songs under the pouring water, moms baking divine chocolate cakes and artfully decorating them for their child, the women in rural India creating magnificent rangolis during festivals, the backbencher copiously filling his textbook with caricatures, the jovial uncle who is the life of the party cracking jokes and keeping everyone in splits, kids coming up with fantastic storylines and having the time of their life role playing, the thousands of bloggers posting their writing regularly at a public domain; they all belie the statement above. Art is not for just a chosen few, there resides a performer hiding inside all of us and knowingly or unknowingly it surfaces during different facets of our lives. The only difference is that for some people it just comes easier than for the others.

This post is a toast to celebrate the artist that exists inside all of us.

SALUD!!!