Probably as a result of watching umpteen movies while growing up and the trauma resulting from watching even those movies starring stellar actors like Vijaykanth, Ramarajan, Satyaraj and other such horror-heroes, by the time I turned 25 (that should be less than a year back!), I have become very picky about watching movies and television shows – to the point of being called snobbish by my own mother (- I wonder about this usage though, why ‘own’, do ‘rental mothers’ exist?). I have become increasingly as intolerant towards pretentiousness in art as in life. I have stopped treating movies as ‘just entertainment’ and thought of them as art. This of course does not mean I enjoy watching neo-realistic nonsense movies that think showing paint dry is art. Like I said I can’t stand pretentiousness anywhere and can stand snobbery only when it is mine 
So much for being just!
Anyway, this post is not meant to be a sample of my obsessive navel-gazing (and contrary to what people may assume by that term in the context of Indian movies, I am using it in the usual sense of the phrase!). I have said it before and I will say it again – thriller/horror and comedy are the most difficult genres in art. With the deluge of entertainment we are faced with every day, impressing people with art – especially movies and television shows is becoming next to impossible. I am very very sympathetic towards the creators of today and totally understand their helplessness, but as a viewer I can not help being underwhelmed by most of their efforts.
I can’t believe I have written almost 3 paragraphs as prologue, so let me start the topic here at least. In my quest for good movies/television shows/ books, I am grateful for any recommendation from people who share at least some of my interests in them. Two years ago, my cousin had spoken highly about a HBO show called ‘The Wire’. She had heard about the series and had ordered the first season through Netflix. She was hooked and could not wait for Netflix to ship the remaining seasons. So she purchased the remaining seasons, just so that she could finish watching them as soon as she could. Recommendations don’t come better than that!
I started watching ‘The Wire’ about 3-4 months back. This was when I had just finished watching the last season of Dexter – another awesome series about a ‘good’ serial-killer. The next season of Dexter was to start in November and I did not want to wait between episodes to know what happened next. I was thinking of ‘The Wire’ as a filler. And boy, I was hooked!!
The series is centered around Baltimore, Maryland. There are 5 seasons in total with each season focused on one aspect of the city. Each episode has multiple story-arcs and the narration shifts between them almost seamlessly. Rather than talk about the actual plot(s) of each seasons, I think I will just list down some of the features that I found impressive and loved. (With this constant urge to put everything down in bullet points, I wonder if I can really talk in paragraphs!!):
Idris Elba ‘The Wire’, a word of caution here. The series while wonderful is not for everyone. It is not a ‘wholesome entertainer’ meant for the family. It is dark, gritty and very realistic – which means that it does not end with all the cast members posing for a photograph with fake smiles pasted on their faces. The fourth season is particularly heartbreaking because it is about the school system and hence about how the children enter the criminal system – Kids who start out innocent and are constantly let down by the system, teachers who cannot be described anything less than God’s messengers who fight against all odds to try and keep the children away from the criminal life that their parents are pushing them towards, the politicians who see everything only as a means to stay in power. While one of the best seasons, this was the most depressing of all.
In the last episode, I was hoping for some miracles – hoping that all the children that we were introduced to in the previous system succeed in fighting the pressures of the world to succumb to the life of a criminal, hoping that they would realize their potentials and start believing in themselves. The ending is beautiful, sad and true to the spirit of the series. There is hope and there is despair. Some kids make it, many don’t. The last 10 minutes of the final episode is a montage of scenes showing the fates of different characters of the series and many of them mirror the lives of other characters at the start of the series – the (mostly bleak) message being that while the players change, history repeats itself over and over again and not always in a good way.
The only side-effect of watching ‘The Wire’ is that the bar is set very high, and it is highly unlikely for me to find any other TV show that is better than this one!! Highly recommended.
So much for being just!Anyway, this post is not meant to be a sample of my obsessive navel-gazing (and contrary to what people may assume by that term in the context of Indian movies, I am using it in the usual sense of the phrase!). I have said it before and I will say it again – thriller/horror and comedy are the most difficult genres in art. With the deluge of entertainment we are faced with every day, impressing people with art – especially movies and television shows is becoming next to impossible. I am very very sympathetic towards the creators of today and totally understand their helplessness, but as a viewer I can not help being underwhelmed by most of their efforts.
I can’t believe I have written almost 3 paragraphs as prologue, so let me start the topic here at least. In my quest for good movies/television shows/ books, I am grateful for any recommendation from people who share at least some of my interests in them. Two years ago, my cousin had spoken highly about a HBO show called ‘The Wire’. She had heard about the series and had ordered the first season through Netflix. She was hooked and could not wait for Netflix to ship the remaining seasons. So she purchased the remaining seasons, just so that she could finish watching them as soon as she could. Recommendations don’t come better than that!
I started watching ‘The Wire’ about 3-4 months back. This was when I had just finished watching the last season of Dexter – another awesome series about a ‘good’ serial-killer. The next season of Dexter was to start in November and I did not want to wait between episodes to know what happened next. I was thinking of ‘The Wire’ as a filler. And boy, I was hooked!!
The series is centered around Baltimore, Maryland. There are 5 seasons in total with each season focused on one aspect of the city. Each episode has multiple story-arcs and the narration shifts between them almost seamlessly. Rather than talk about the actual plot(s) of each seasons, I think I will just list down some of the features that I found impressive and loved. (With this constant urge to put everything down in bullet points, I wonder if I can really talk in paragraphs!!):
- I have never seen any movie or tv show with so many African-American actors in major roles as this show. And the roles they play are not the token ones they play in mainstream movies/shows nor are they the stereotypical portrayals (family loving, loud, gun-toting lowlifes etc). Of course the series has African American gangstas, but it also has the Greeks, Polacks participating in crimes and contributing to the ruining of the city. In that sense it is an equal-opportunity show!! Whatever the reason, I found this a very refreshing change.
- Memorable characters : It has been more than a month since I watched the last episode of Wire and I still cannot forget most of the characters. Full credit to creator David Simon to have created unique characters among the good and bad guys. Avon Barksdale, Omar Doolittle, Stringer Bell, Kima Greggs, McNulty, Daniels, Prybylewski, Lester Freamon, Bunny Colvin, Burrell – it is amazing how I am able to recall most of the character names without much effort after so many days. Excellently etched, completely rounded characters who, like real people are in equal parts good and bad.
- Language : The lingo is supposedly authentic street language and for the uninitiated, a little difficult to understand. I had to watch the entire series with the subtitles on. Although I watched the first few episodes by myself without troubling my parents, there were a few that I watched in the living room when my father was present. He was not actually shocked but sort of tired of only hearing colourful language and some form of the f word repeated at the end of almost each statement by every character
. Yet, the fact remains that the language spoken by the characters adds to the authentic and gritty feel of the show.
- Story, Editing, Screenplay etc. are just fabulous. I have not seen anything like this so far – not even in movies.
- Idris Elba : I consider myself fairly old fashioned in many ways. I rarely describe men (or women for that matter) as ‘hot’. I do describe many actors as cool and for me the actors I like most are those with a high degree of effortless coolth – like George Clooney (before Oceans 12), Robert Downey Junior, Samuel Jackson, Kevin Spacey (often, not always). I reserve terms like dignified and classy for actors like Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington etc. However right from episode 1 of ‘The Wire’, I could think of no word other than ‘Hot’ for Idris Elba, who plays Stringer Bell in the series. I am embarrassed to admit, but I still cannot think of any other word to describe this guy. Maybe it is his role of a cool, confident, suave and ruthless gangster that made this impression, maybe like my mother says, I have this weird (according to my mother) fascination for African American actors (only) or maybe I am just normal ) In any case, when Stringer Bell was killed in Season 4, a part of me died (and later resurrected after my mind consoled it that while Bell may be dead, Elba is very much alive!!). I admire this guy!!
In the last episode, I was hoping for some miracles – hoping that all the children that we were introduced to in the previous system succeed in fighting the pressures of the world to succumb to the life of a criminal, hoping that they would realize their potentials and start believing in themselves. The ending is beautiful, sad and true to the spirit of the series. There is hope and there is despair. Some kids make it, many don’t. The last 10 minutes of the final episode is a montage of scenes showing the fates of different characters of the series and many of them mirror the lives of other characters at the start of the series – the (mostly bleak) message being that while the players change, history repeats itself over and over again and not always in a good way.
The only side-effect of watching ‘The Wire’ is that the bar is set very high, and it is highly unlikely for me to find any other TV show that is better than this one!! Highly recommended.
