I love…

At last, I am seeing one of the most beautiful movies of all time – Out of Africa. Two things stand out from the beginning – Meryl Streep was really beautiful and Kenya is eternal beauty. I would like to warn you readers, that you are going to get tired of the word beautiful.



Sunset in Kenya - a land of various shades





Movies are not meant to be long, because they are afraid of making you bored. People worry about the same thing when they are a company, but still they last longer. There are movies that worry also, and still they last longer. These are the movies with a heart. In that respect, Out of Africa has a large heart.

Sydney Pollack would not have made a finer movie than this, neither would John Barry make finer music, nor did Robert Redford have made finer understated performance. A movie which has all these along with one of the most beautiful actress of her time ought to be a masterpiece. So for putting facts in place, it is place #13 in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions (and I concur, it is one of the most passionate movies I have seen, because I feel I see her in the movie) and #15 in AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores. If a cinematographer can’t make Africa beautiful, then that person should not be allowed to touch camera again. Fortunately, it did happen, and the movie won an Oscar for Cinematography along with direction and Score. So I would not like to say how good the movie is or what is truly superb about this aspect or that, rather I would write what this movie is. A very subjective matter; and my reader, if even if you are not opinionative, it is here you should stop and think, before you read further.

It all started as a story you might have heard as a kid. I had a farm in Africa. Nobody could have sounded more sensitive that Meryl than when she said these words. One of the most beautiful thing about Meryl is her perfection, her voice is absolutely sexy and but she is not. She is plain beautiful. I would not mind saying that she has the most striking features in any lady, except Lady Audrey. You might have seen Africa in Nat Geo or Discovery, but this is different. In this you see Africa as a land of people, living with Animals, and having a life. The story starts before the Great War (as they used to call it before the greater one came) and continues after it ends, telling the story of Africa as it goes on in the 20th century. Robert Redford character Denys Flint-Hatton says to Baroness Blixen, there is land which ought to be seen, because it won’t last long. Fortunately, the land is still alive because of people like him are still there.

Africa, Africa....when will I be able to give you a kiss….I yearn for the land as much as I yearn for her. The lush green mountains, the wide expanse of land, the herds of wild buffalos, the mountains, the waterfalls, the lakes, the sea and all that is in her bosom, is so lush and beautiful that you will find it hard to imagine the mosquitoes, or the snakes, or the diseases, or for that matter, in the present situation, the civil wars and strife. Whatever is happening in Africa is so bad that Hemingway would have shot himself again.

There are a few extremely good lines in the movie, like it’s an odd feeling, farewell. There is such envy in it. Men go off to be tested, for courage. And if we're tested at all, it's for patience, for doing without, for how well we can endure loneliness and my favorite, I won't be closer to you and I won't love you more because of a piece of paper. I could have said that second one, but was made to feel that it is not what is expected of me, and ended up as neither for which I am always grateful.

Baroness is a lady of character. She fights for her position in family by marrying a titled man. She fights for her farm. She fights of a lioness which has come for taking a part of her cattle. She works along with the people around her, treats them with respect. She goes on a long and unknown trail for seeing the man she loves. She doesn’t do anything half heartedly. If I know that a woman can be such, I shall try not to lose her. Unfortunately, I have. In spite of this, I shall strive on, because as I said I do not want to lose her.

He takes her out in an airplane over Africa, showing her what she would never ever forget, and neither the man who did it. She never does, and that she says right in the beginning itself. There is a wonderful feeling when you write without names.

I am feeling like I am having a lot more to write, but from where they come, they don’t speak English.

Secretariat

We have never had an animal in Kerala. With ‘We’, I mean me and my brother, and not the whole of Malayalis. We used to see elephants taken out for their morning bath, and run to go and watch it shower itself in glory. When it came to Horses, it was never in person that I saw them. There was Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, and then another called Black Stallion (National Velvet was an Elizabeth Taylor movie for me, and that too, I was of same age as her then, so what more can you imagine). Blackie was the name in both the book and movie, and one showed the horse similar to an average man struggling to live, and finding his peace in final years, other showed it as a fighter. The scenes of Blackie galloping in the sea shore in the opening shots of the movie still makes me feel kind of, free.

I used to read about horses a lot (and elephants too, Aithihyamala, you know), and I came across the names Darley Arabian, the Appaloosas, the Mustangs, Man-O-War and stories of many stables across the world. Unfortunately, I lost my way somewhere and then missed out hearing about Sea Biscuit and more importantly, Secretariat.

Four years back, the name Appaloosa in one of the quizzes triggered my thoughts again. I saw that there is a Triple Crown in the US, and I saw that there was one more Triple Crown winner to know, A Secretariat, whose pictures were not available at that time. I did not hear about him till the movie was released last year. I wondered how this horse was so much better than all those before him. Well, it was all true. I read and read about him, and the wonder was in place, but it was a different kind of wonder. Viewers heard the wonder in CBS Television announcer Chic Anderson's voice as he described the horse's pace: "Secretariat is widening now! He is moving like a tremendous machine!" You could never have seen a perfect win than that, with all due respect to fans of Sea Biscuit. It is neither the distance nor the timing; it is the heart of the champion that made that win so special, and that horse so special.

There are racehorses and then there is Secretariat. I saw the photos of him in various races. I have never seen such a stride. By god, this was a Horse that can never be matched. The movie tried to match his stride in slow motion, but it is nowhere near the real thing. 31 lengths ahead of the next best horse and in the best ever time. This was a race run by Secretariat all for himself. You have heard how Pollard understood Sea Biscuit and made him see the other horse taking the lead, to make sure the lazy guy was pinched. Here was a showman. He could do it all for himself, and run the length. The movie showed it posing for photos and stuff as if that this was not a horse. Well, men have for long considered their steed more than a friend itself. Be it Roman kings (sic) or Greeks or Indians or the cowboys.. They thought the horse as a person and treated it as equals. A horse might not have the intelligence of an elephant, but it has enough heart to know what is happening. This is the story of such a horse. The horse with a big heart of a champion. It would only do justice to such a horse that you see the real pictures of him in action rather than some other enactment.

So, I shall show the pictures of this horse. Each one tells a story by itself.

The stride

The first one that made me feels exhilaration of seeing a bullet in slow motion, with air around it swirling into a sonic cone. The hoofs planted firmly and each move in synch. His head is so erect, which no horse can do in the same way. You find the horse that played Secretariat in the movie slanting his head slightly.

I had told about the stride in the movie, and I told that I wanted to see the horse in a curve. They never showed it in the curve. Well, Secretariat in the curve, his whole body in same motion except that there is a slight turn.

The greatest finish! Secretariat finishing the Belmont derby by 31 lengths; the photo speaking as if he is running all for himself and his jockey, Ron Turcotte looking back at the field.

The Bedouins say that the Arabian stallions breathed wind. The bible has references to horses that God made. We have stories of horse planting his hoof on an elephant’s forehead (and for me, that is the greatest horse that ever strode on this planet). For Secretariat, I shall say what the Americans like to say most about winners. He was a champion, a machine and a winner, who never backed down and who ran his distance for himself and for those who were his.

Cheers! A toast to a great horse.