“The Words” – the movie. (Review of a brilliant theme)


“The Words” – the movie.   (Review of a brilliant theme)

This is the third piece of review that I am penning over the last week. “The Words” is a film that talks about the state of a mind of an aspiring author, who struggles to find words that are original enough. He lacks that spark within that can give birth to a story that is worth telling. All that he writes smacks of artificiality and a lack of deep feeling. He words do not leap out of the pages with a passionate intensity and consequently his books do not ring true. He desperately seeks inspiration in Love, marriage, sex, had work -  but nothing motivates him to produce an original piece of work, until he stumbles upon a novel long abandoned in a decrepit leather bag;  and all of a sudden finds the novel reflecting the story that he always wanted to write, but couldn’t.  What follows then is the hero’s journey into a discovery of the true nature of storytelling, and his utter ineptitude for such an enormous task.   This movie raised a very interesting line of thought in me. I was reading Isabel Allende’s “The house of spirits”, when I decided to tune into this movie during flight to Bangalore. The Spanish writing was brilliantly translated by Magda Bogin, and the sheer depth of this magical story in torrential flow, forced me to ask myself as to what could be the true genesis of great fiction. The following paragraph summarizes my thoughts ….

Vladimir Nabokov, the celebrated author of “Lolita” - once said “The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible”.  Everyone has a story to recite, but a few manage to do so incredibly well and this has been one of the greatest mysteries of literature: the true motive and energy behind a particular work of creative fiction. Is it the dance of language; or the depth of the story, or the author’s outpouring of  one’s own struggle with life; or is it just  a simple emotion that overflows into words and sentences and reaches a natural consummation, that otherwise would have remained bottled up forever within the confines of one’s bosom. This is an enigma that is very difficult to fathom. There are books that touch our hearts so intensely that every fiber vibrates with an intense and elevated emotion, while there are others which though written well, leave us with a sordid taste of begrudged happiness. What then is the secret of story that is brilliantly told?

The art of writing is a complicated one and definitely cannot be learnt or acquired. It requires a depth of authenticity and feeling that mere jugglery of words cannot convey. The story itself needs to be curdled out of one’s own tryst with life and transformed into words, which then acquire a pristine intensity that shines through the glowing pages of frenzied writing.  Words then take a new meaning, and sentences transcend the linear world of space and time; to a dimension that weaves a magical web of trance in the enchanted reader; often propelling him into a world where individual walls dissolve into the mesmeric flow of the author’s narrative.  This is not an easy task. Writing is a final consummation of experiences that have already stretched the moral, ethical and intellectual limits of the author, and one cannot write a great story without having gone through the emotions of the drama internally, in the inner recesses of our heart and mind. Words can only final adornments to this internal visualization. They only help in forming the boundaries of the time and space and bring the story to level of sanity. Such heightened labor and works of literature often drains the author and leaves him distraught; as though the very breath of life that was sustaining him is taken away forever. He becomes an empty shell again to be filled with a new vision and untold emotions, and again, begins the onerous and circular task of committing to words, the purity of experience. Such is the agonizing journey of an artist , to whom writing is a not a work but a life mission, that pushes him continuously onward to pour his soul into the characters that he etches and  through them to live a fuller life, mouth saner words and consequently uplift the emotional consciousness of a generation. The most important fact is that a great piece of writing is often times more an act of emptying oneself, and never meant to be an exercise for glory or fame. That cleansing is, by itself, the true prize and destination of the endeavor.

“The words” reveals the agony and frustration of an aspiring author, who painfully learns that the fount of creativity lies deeper than the layer of words, intellect and appreciation, and not everyone will have the wonderful opportunity to dip into those clear waters of experience, and conjure up a piece of story that is worth telling, with no nobody in particular to listen.

 Watch the movie, if you love good stories…………….




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