Long live the Queen

I watched two movies in one day two wonderful ones at that; one was Eklavya by Vidhu Vinod Chopra and the other The Queen by Stephen Frears. While the former was an exceptional piece of moviemaking I can’t help thinking about the second. Maybe it’s something to do with Helen Mirren’s performance to which I will not assign any superlatives; it’s really a waste of time. Maybe they will honor her with an Oscar this year; maybe they will carve out her name on the walls of Buckingham Palace with the epitaph “this woman knew to play real people”. And that is saying something because whenever I see these royalties on TV or stage I can’t help but wonder if they are really like this in real life. The smile at the right place the perfect frown, and Helen Mirren in a speech towards the end of the movie confirmed what I have always believed. They are two different people. She feels such resentment towards Princess Di and yet her speech in the end would have fooled anyone. I think she purposely made it see through. There is a scene when she takes out her jeep and tries to cross the river but some problem with the jeep causes her to stop and sit at the riverside and she starts to cry. Just then an antelope comes by, regal and proud and there are hunters after it. She smiles and just shoos it away and later when she’s told that the antelope was shot and killed and they had to pursue him for miles before catching him she realizes the parallelism. Symbolism has now become so much a part of western filmmaking. Michael Sheen as Tony Blair was super. The exchanges between him and the queen are hilarious most of the time. But there are times when they make you realize how strained they are. Who should rule? A monarch or a man with people’s mandate. Why is it that the people need to be shown public displays of emotion and only then they judge in favor of the person concerned. There is a scene towards the end when Blair congratulates the queen for showing humility and the queen replies if that means taking humiliation. And the press, the glorious press of today. Why don’t they realize that they have such an influence over people? Why don’t they show even an iota of responsibility? Just the other day watching Guru I felt such anger towards our papers today. Look at the journalists those days and see what we have done to the sanctity of the written world. It is cheap, disgusting and opportunistic journalism. I just feel that the Communists were better that way, there was no nonsense there. It is sad really, very sad.