Open: A 1998 comedy-drama, Wes Anderson was the director, debuting Jason Schwartzman. Cut to: A modern-day Chennai, where a screening of the same film, with art director Jayashree Lakshminarayanan (whose favourite film this is) speaking to one of Chennai’s very own film clubs about the film. If you still haven’t figured out which film I’m speaking about, it’s Rushmore .
The film is being screened in Chennai by Cinema Rendezvous, a film club that holds monthly screenings of relevant award-winning films along with inviting reknowned film personalities to dicuss the films. The screening will be followed by a discussion with Lakshminarayanan.
“One of the things about Cinema Rendezvous is that we don’t want to be stuck with what is easily available to us alone. We wan’t to keep pushing limits and horizons a little. When you have a young female technician especially from art direction it makes things interesting. She’s passionate about things academically which was also interesting. She had won a Kerala State Award for Charlie ,” says Shylaja Chetlur, one of the founding members of the club, about this month’s special invitee.
Co-written by Owen Wilson, the film Rushmore predominantly follows the life of an eccentric teenager, Max Fischer’s friendship with rich industrialist Herman Blume and their mutual love for an elementary school teacher, Rosemary Cross (played by the talented Olivia Williams).
Chetlur says, “I love the visual treatment he gives to the film. I think it’s a lovely balance of entertainment and stylised filmmaking.” she further adds, “When you go online and look at what’s been discussed about him globally, the way the work has been analysed is very interesting.”
