The Art of Killing



Kill Bill, Vol. 1, as the titles in the beginning themselves proudly proclaim, is Quentin Tarantino’s fourth film. The previous three films in this American director’s oeuvre have established him as perhaps the most audacious of contemporary filmmakers. The thorough amorality of the attitude he strikes, especially with regard to his treatment of violence, has attracted as much controversy as the sheer vigour and panache of his filmmaking style has earned plaudits. With the jury at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival awarding the top prize to his mesmerizingly accomplished underworld saga Pulp Fiction, the art-house admiration he had gained with Reservoir Dogs translated into mainstream recognition of his mastery of the medium. With just two films under his belt, he was being cited along with the likes of Martin Scorsese as one of the most influential directors of the times, thanks to an army of imitators all over the world.

Kill Bill is a typical example of his work. On the surface, it is a mindless rehash of an excruciatingly violent revenge plot. But the wit of Tarantino transforms this silly plot into a tribute to the countless martial arts flicks he was exposed to during his career as a video-store clerk. The idiosyncrasies of one lowly genre are used to explore the medium of cinema itself.

As a stretch of Japanese anime relates the archetypal events of a character’s tragic life, Tarantino and his team bring the emotional pitch to the heights of opera. We are left to ponder the artificial dichotomy between high and low art. The animated section, admittedly the high point of the film, might also be Tarantino’s retort to his critics. In spite of all the macabre violence and, some would say, tastelessness, the effectiveness of the sequence is undeniable.

What contributes in large measure to that effectiveness is the music he employs for background. And just as important is his original way of employing it. The soundtrack to his films is a curious post-modernist pastiche, striding blithely across genres. Among all the dissection of this auteur’s style, perhaps the most underappreciated is the role that music plays in its success.

The eclectic choice of music throughout the film underscores the fact that Tarantino is no classicist. He will use anything that he feels will be effective. This characteristic tightrope-walking on the subject of style is in itself exciting. The results are sure to displease, even disgust, many. The most unpleasant part of the film is, no doubt, the extreme violence, simultaneously visceral and casual. It beggars description and has to be seen to be believed. And even seeing, you may be left unbelieving. And that, perhaps, is because Tarantino has his tongue firmly in cheek.

Though he is not innocent of the charge of revelling in excess, those very excesses are an indictment, and a celebration, of the medium. What shines through the ambiguity is the compelling art of Quentin Tarantino.

The following review was imparted the particularly flawed verbosity that it has with the honourable intention of submitting it for favourable consideration by one of the fearsomely capable editors who select contributions deemed fit to adorn the august square centimetres of the esteemed publications, the protection of whose sanctity is their noble mission.

Anyways, common sense got the better of me, and here, a couple of weeks after it was keyboarded, it debuts as pixels instead of ink.

I don’t expect many out there in cyber wilderness would have their ears peeled for the not so frequent hollas from here this Salon. Still for the hapless whose projectile trajectories conspire to effect the suspected-to-be-auspicious eventuality of being here now, Love. What other message is worth breaking a five month long Sabbath?

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king

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with eyes closed

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birth

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waiting

I am the Captain of my ship

You see
I have my firm hands on the wheel,
to steer this ship
across this vast sand !!!
Oh my god !!! I couldnt believe, I said sand.
What I meant to say was not sand but the..the..sand !!
Aaargh!#@ God.
I mean I will take this fucking ship
Across this cruel s..s..sand.
This vast ......sand
Oh no. not sand...

Oh, my ship.. slcw

New Evenings are here

Evenings of damp reeking soil are gone
evenings that spilled blood are gone
Now
evenings of weightlessness are here
evenings full of aimless birds are here
feel unsafe
inside our two thousand square feet
rajasthan marble and plastic flower homes
Shadows fall from all angles
and mock the rising sun-like dial
of our protractors.
they claw on the bare walls
they stretch face down across the empty floors
shadows whom you can call by name
shadows that stop and look when you call,
but whose stares you cant bare.
So
I put my head back between the knees
and feel the weightlessness
of a soiled and used bale of cotton. slcw

At last, the pursuers and the pursued
got into this green cool shadows
I was just an eye on a tree with no eyelids to close
the pursued trembled and begged, inside
the tightening circle of burning eyes
and let out a sickening cry.
Hammer was the first to break the circle
the skull cracked and the leaves trembled.
then it was the sickle’s turn. it hissed in an arch
the blood shreiked and roused the crows
invisible in the damp shadows
then all of a sudden in a quickening drill
the machete, the club, the bottle
and a farmer's hoe trambled on the fallen,
while the hammer waited.
A bloody pendulam
marking time. till....
I was a naked eye on the tree
with no eyelids to close. slcw

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Woman

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Man

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The lover

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The grin

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Mother and child

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Work

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Head

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Head

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Green Christ

Science
Human body is made up of organic compounds. ie; compounds whose basic structure is made up of carbon,hydrogen and oxygen. Let us say, hypothetically, that human body contains all the elements in the periodic table.
We know that all the atoms of all the elements in the nature is made up of sub-atomic particles. And the nature of all the sub-atomic particles are still not understood clearly. But we can say that their exact nature cannot be defined in a concrete fashion which we are so used to, when learning science.
For example -Their position in space and their speed at a particular time cannot be known simultaneously (A paradoxical situation first conceived by Heisenberg).

So all the stuff that you see in this nature is made up of particles about which we cannot say anything solidly.

So when I die, my body desintagrate, and all the atoms and their constituents will go back to soil. Plants growing in this soil will absorb me and sprout leaves and fruits. Which, my children and their friends consume and grow. This cycle goes on and on.

Vedantam
Advaita vedantam says that all is made up of the same stuff and all that you see and feel exist only in your perception. What you should do is to release your self from this perceptionogenic maya to the world of absolute truth.Which cannot be explained or taught, but only experience by the one who is detached from the temptations of the senses.
So for a vedanti there is no difference between a tree and woman. For him everything perceived is a phenomena in the eternal flux of a common energy. slcw