Once upon a time in a last century before the world witnessed Christ, A Greek historian, named ‘Plutarch’ raises a philosophical dilemma,-
“If a ship‘s (Let’s say ‘Blue Vader’) planks have turned old and weak so they are replaced by new stronger material and so eventually the whole ship. So will it still be the same ‘Blue Vader’?”-
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Centuries later, British philosopher, Thomas Hobbs extends the paradox:-
“Now let’s assume that another ship is built using recycled material of planks of ‘Blue Vader’. Now, which one of ships is to be called, 'real' Blue Vader’? ” -
*****
“Pictures are wonderful. How are you managing to do this?”
“Well, I just sense the situations and surroundings using voice and touch. I just let my camera follow my intuition.”
“That’s wonderful. You are icon, you see? You can be huge inspiration for others who have such limitations (physical). ”
“I actually don’t see it as limitation but just the new way of conceiving …”
- Her name is Alia. She is a celebrated photographer who has lost her eyes (but not vision!!) due to some cornea infection. She uses her intuition and auditory conscience to 'capture' surrounding arts. Later, she goes through cornea transplant to regain her eye-sight. Miracle happens? Nope. She used to perceive the world with her own inner sense and intuition. When she struggles to cope up with new 'replaced' sense to perceive the world, she realizes that she has lost her own ‘sense’ while gaining the other, new one.
*****
“Universe is so huge. How does it matter even if our actions are not aligned to it?”
“That’s the only thing what really matters. If it doesn’t matter then what else would?”
- His name is Maitreya, a mid-forty rational-minded and moralistic monk. He is not ‘Jain’ Monk. It doesn’t even matter here what the religion is and the director hasn't even mentioned. Maitreya can very well debate with his pure rationalism and sharp insight. He is smart, rational who strongly oppose the pharmaceutical companies which use animals for trial-testing of their drugs. He is fighting for the cause in Court. Now, his life takes interesting turn when he is diagnosed with ‘liver cirrhosis’. Doctor suggests him to undergo operation and for that, he will have to take lot of medicines. Now, his moral dilemma is that these medicines are manufactured by the companies to whom he has been fighting with. He denies it. Doctors, Friends, monks,
all try to convince him but he is not able to choose between saving his life and compromising his morals.
*****
“He must have been given a huge amount of money for this. Now, how does it matter?”
“My friend, it will still be the same wrong, won’t it be?”
- His name is Naveen, who is not interested in anything but money. He keeps himself sunk into trading and share market. His moralistic grand-ma sometimes criticizes him to be so money-minded. She is angry with him as he doesn’t care about significance of his existence to the society. Such ‘moral-talks’ make him annoyed. But due to incidental suspicion regarding his kidney transplant, he comes to know about kidney-stealing case of a poor labourer, Shankar. Following the roots of the scandal, he ends up reaching to Stockholm, to confront the receiver of Shankar’s stolen kidney.
*****
Now, imagine the ‘body’ as ‘ship’, ‘organs’ as ‘planks’ and 'dilemma of existence' as ‘Theseus Paradox’ then this crafts the one of the best Indian masterpieces, which can stand proudly in the line along with World cinema. Finally!!! Finally, a movie with such a humungous international appeal with fantabulous screenplay and stupendous cinematography is becoming the epicentre of quality fresh and masterwork vibrations of Indian Cinema. Finally, we have the movie to which we can proudly tag, ‘MADE IN INDIA’ and really ‘boast’ about it. When premiered in numerous European film-festivals, the film achieved huge acclaim and praise from gem chaps of the world cinema and some of the champion directors of Indian cinema. Veteran film-maker Shekhar kapoor excitedly said, ‘Thank God, finally I will be able to retire peacefully!!’ Genius film-maker Anurag Kashyap appropriately said, ‘Easily the best movie made in Indian cinema in decades. Anand (the Director) has put ‘all’ of us to shame!’ A very talented director who is known to make brilliant films on hugely diversified subjects, Dibakar Banerjee says, “’Ship of Theseus’ has given me serious doubts about myself as a film-maker. I seriously introspected myself for two-three days as a film-maker.”
*****
‘What is so special about (and in) the film?’ - Probably the first brave and well-crafted attempt in Indian Cinema, which correlates and eventually converge the Morality, Identity, Existence and Spirituality into a dense but still very well digestible and multi-layered drama [so easily, the one with lose-motion effect for those who just enjoy mind-less and sense-less stereotyped drama.] This movie is definitely out-of-league for the traditional ‘halla-gulla’ type entertainment lovers. It addresses the theme of existence, philosophy but not like heavy boring lectures but a brilliantly simple, a genuinely aesthetic and a sheer entertaining way. ‘Honest’ pace is one of the strongest USPs of ‘Ship of Theseus’[I get confused when I hear when people say the movie is very slow or fast, After all, it’s a movie not a Rajdhani express!!!Wherever and whenever it is needed, it should halt and give audience a chance to explore the moment and surroundings in the context of movie plot which is rarely taken care of in Indian cinema.] It brilliantly follows with Maitreya’s daily walk-ride and also halts sometimes to capture the living-on-the-edge, very transient existence of caterpillar. [One of the best scenes in the movie, showing sheer perishable life of insect whose existence depends on others (our)’ moves] It also addresses the restlessness of Alia when she realizes that along with her eyes, something else also has changed. It also depicts human duality in terms of sharp, rational arguments of Maitreya and his life-saving moral-dilemma. It also salutes ruthless, so-called (rude, emotion-less who doesn't care and listen to their parents) but also frank, nonmanipulative, self-righteous youth and also shows tragic-reality of kidney scandals and shallowness of anger, pain and sorrow in the shadow of greed of money. [One important beautiful scene where Naveen slams his grand mother (old generation) for hypocrisy and at the same time, helping her to get cleaned like good grandson.] It is just the absolute genius of the director that how wonderfully all three stories converge together in the end. Master-stroke (or Master-reference) of the film?: As ‘Theseus’ Paradox’ addresses, ‘If a ship is modified, plank by plank, at the end, will it still be the same?’ Same paradox in the context of the movie: “If an organ is changed in the body, will it still be the same or it will change something? If yes, then what is that? ’- Movie tries to provide the answer: 'a soul'. Remember, ship is just the symbol! If some physical part is changed then something else definitely changes, what can that be? As in film, it may be your photography instinct or your moral values or even the surroundings! Biologically, our body also entirely 'regenerates' cell-by-cell in seven years. So the question is still the same: ‘are we still the same???’-
*****
It is very rare and fortunate that such piece of gem (in typical other words, 'so-called' boring art film) is still waving ‘House-full’ sign at theatres when it is not even got to released other than big cities. So, PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! Don’t miss this ‘pioneer masterpiece’ and as one of the critics (of course, non-indian, dude!!) rightly said, ‘hidden gem of Indian Cinema.’ It’s nothing but the delicious treat to witness this masterwork on a big-screen.
DESSERT:
“You have an intricate problem that you can’t solve, and sometimes even simply articulating your problem brings you closer to the answers. Sometimes the solution lies in articulating.”
– Anand Gandhi [The director, ‘Ship of Theseus’].
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