film candy

LOST: Possible Literary Links

So the other night, I finished re-watching LOST. Although I’ve re-watched seasons 1-5 several times, this was the first time I’d seen the final season since it aired two years ago. Simultaneously, I’ve just finished re-reading Haruki Murakami’s Kafka On The Shore,and couldn’t help but notice some stark similarities between the two. In fact, as I research Murakami’s fiction on a larger scale for my final year dissertation, I am becoming more convinced than ever that the LOST writers must, at the very least, have read Kafka,perhaps even taking some inspiration from it, and postmodern techniques in general. Here’s why:

- LOST is littered with postmodern techniques such as magical realism and temporal distortion. Seeing and interacting with dead people, jumping between times and places, open ending, not only flashing backwards and forwards, but sideways too…

- Murakami loves a good well. Norwegian Wood, Sputnik Sweetheart, The Wind Up Bird Chronicle…the well is at the very least mentioned in these novels. It is used as a central motif in the latter book, wherein the narrator willingly climbs down one in order to move between dimensions. Towards the end of LOST, Desmond is thrown into a well to die by Locke/MIB but is later rescued by Widmore. Also, the well is, essentially, a portal between times - it disappears and reappears during the flashes.

- In Murakami’s 1982 novel A Wild Sheep Chase,there is a character named ‘The Man in Black.’ Although this name is derived more from his tendency to wear black suits than his penchant for turning into a pillar of black smoke, it is nonetheless a notable similarity.

- Kafka On The Shore is centered on the journey of Nakata to find, and close, the entrance stone, a mysterious opening to a world beyond reality. This journey takes him far away from home, through a different realm of reality, across a different temporal field…an experience which is akin to the survivors of Oceanic 815’s time on the island.

- Nakata’s sole purpose in life is to close the entrance, it is revealed. Up til this point he has been empty. This mirrors Jack’s position at the end of LOST - finally realising his life has been empty, he acknowledges that his destiny is to - metaphorically speaking - put the cork back in the wine bottle.

- Cue apocalyptic rainfall, and the very dramatic repositioning on the moved stone. While Nakata is helped by loyal and loveable sidekick Hoshino, so too is Jack, in the form of Hurley. And although Hoshino’s fate remains ambiguous at the end of the novel, the replacing of the stone in LOST claims Jack’s life.

I’m sure there are many more similarities between LOST and Murakami. As a massive fan of both, I find them infinitely interesting. Any more you guys care to point out, let me know!

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

I love a feel-good film once in a while, and when I first saw the trailer for John Madden’s new comedy, it struck me as a must-see. Surely, anything starring Bill Nighy and Dame Judi Dench will, by default, be worth watching? But it was more than just its top-name cast that made this film such enjoyable viewing.

Based on the novel by Deborah Moggach, the film follows the (mis) fortunes of seven pensioners, among them bigoted battleaxe Muriel, portrayed by the wonderful Maggie Smith, and jaded widow Evelyn (Dench). With charming Tom Wilkinson, hilarious Ronald Pickup and all-round national treasure Nighy making up the rest of the cast, the movie quickly asserts itself as at the very least, another nice bit of British feel-good cinema, a la Love Actually and About a Boy.

Disenchanted by their various status quos, the group all find themselves heading for the same destination – the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, India. Upon arrival, they are greeted by hotel manager Dev Patel (of Slumdog Millionaire fame), whose awful Indian accent is comedic in itself. Contrary to the ads that intrigued them, the hotel is a dilapidated mess, possessing rooms without doors and less-than-functional services.

But, of course, the warmth and the charm of the hotel, and India, slowly begin to take effect, even softening Muriel’s racist attitude and Nighy’s stuck up wife Jean’s overbearing phoniness. By the end of the film, everyone has overcome their demons in turns funny, sad and wholly unrealistic. Would a bigoted pensioner suddenly realise the error of her ways? Would Dev’s on screen mother, steadfast in her tradition and beliefs, be overcome by the power of love and approve the girlfriend she so fervently opposed within a matter of minutes? I think not. But that’s all OK, because the film was fun to watch.

The thing with films like this is you have to take them as they are to enjoy them. Despite its box office success, the movie has sparked some interesting opinions from reviewers, with the Guardian’s Nikita Lalwani accusing it of presenting “a curiously old-fashioned, colonial form of cultural anaesthesia.”

While I agree that it recklessly stereotypes aspects of Indian life, it shouldn’t be taken so seriously. It didn’t set out to necessarily give an accurate portrayal of modern day India; instead, it aspired to tell the light-hearted story of a group of elderly misfits and their life-changing trip to an unfamiliar, fascinating land. And in this aspiration it definitely succeeded.

Literary Bromances - Nakata and Hoshino

Mr. Nakata and his loyal companion, Hoshino. After the strange old man hitches a ride in his lorry, loveable trucker Hoshino - endeared by Nakata’s strange ways that remind him of his grandfather - abandons his job and follows Nakata on a mysterious journey which changes both their lives forever.

One of my all-time favourite literary bromances!