LEKHA SHANKAR

' Sky Fall ' - A 'Windfall' for James Bond

James Bond is Back - and How!

It is not a James Bond film, it is a Sam Mendes movie- and that makes all the difference. ' This is the end ' says the first line of the Opening Song in the film,and it is indeed, the end of Super-man Bond, who in this movie, is 'killed' in the very first fight sequence! 50 years after the Bond Series unleashed itself on the screen, Bond finally shows his age. Or, should we say 'comes of age ' ? He's gray and grizzly, he fails his physicals , he resorts to old-fashioned techniques, his love-play is restricted to a one-night stand. But he also thinks, ponders, suffers, and then destroys. It's not all chitty chitty bang bang stuff .This Bond thinks first, shoots later. James Bond 'thinks' in this movie , more than even Madam M, who fights hard for survivval, in this story. There's also the tight script, razor-sharp dialogues, stunning mix of silences and sounds, speed and stops. There are the opulent shots of Shanghai like it's never been shot before, the reverberating music, the lavish vistas, the sweep of the film-maker who made grand musicals like ' 'Cabaret' . There are also the moments of emotion,drama, madness,pain, from the hand of the theatre-director who did stark Shakesperean plays like 'King Lear.'

The British director has won nearly every top award in the fields of stage,TV,cinema, including even the CBE and the Directors Guild Lifetime Achievement Awards .

Which is why even James Bond gets a new lease of life in his magical hands.

That's why 'Sky fall ' is a 'Wind Fall' for the James Bond saga. It reinvents and resurrects 007 to another cosmic level altogether.

And with actors like Ralph Fiennes,Albert Finney, Xavier Bardem on the roll -call, this film deserves one big trumpet call.

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