Skip to main content

'Girl in Yellow Boots' and 'Confidence Game'

I saw a film by the former title and read a book by the latter.  They were both random choices to fill the so called empty time and a much needed respite after trying to figure out what the governments at the federal and state level wanted of me and my spouse by way of tax liabilities.

Tax season for Americans is approaching and we like to get the moronic adventure of filing tax returns out of the way the earliest we can but it turns out to be a taxing exercise for some reason.

Anyway to further expand on the intersect between these two enjoyable events - the film and book - both engage and enthrall and are a study of con men/women in society.  But it's about so much more: trust, belief, and deception at their most basic and human levels.

The film directed by Anurag Kashyap, stars a woman (of French heritage who I will call KK - initials of her name in real life) that plays the part of a determined but anguished twenty year old who has left the UK to come to India looking for a long lost father.  She supports herself by working as a masseuse in a shady parlor in back streets of Mumbai and offering hand jobs for some extra cash.

As an actor she fits the role well as somewhat anemic and desperate yet able to figure out the corrupt and lewd practices of the citizenry in India while maintaining the quest to locate her dad.  Subtle and not so moments in the film showcase the emotion and character of a large city like Mumbai and its people.  There are many facades and masks but the true character of people hides within.  Sometimes it surprises pleasantly (the obnoxious massage parlor madam that hires KK and has a potty mouth is at her core a caring human) and at times its harsh (the climax where one of her hand job customers is in fact KK's lost father who has been stalking her as she tries to find him).  Oddly Naseeruddin Shah (another customer who only needs the massage and is repulsed at what KK does to earn some extra bucks)  was the eye candy in the film with no real role except perhaps to garner some audience dollars.  KK's character is able to in a couple of instances manipulate her hunters into being scared away as she learns about their psyche and uses that knowledge to her advantage.

The book is written by Maria Konnikova (an author of Russian descent) who studied human psychology to pen her ideas describing how the best confidence artists (hence the phrase CON artist) can often manipulate you as they are able to earn your confidence and masterfully manipulate you into doing something for their gain.


Comments

  1. Does reading about Con artists make you more Confident?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

But What If We're Wrong?

I attempted to read this book by author Chuck Klosterman backward to forward but it started hurting my brain so I decided to stop and do it like any other publication in the English language.  Start from page 1 and move to the right. Witty, caustic and thought provoking this is a book you want to read if you believe that the status quo might, just might be wrong. At times bordering on being contrarian about most things around us it tries to zero in on the notion of what makes anything believable and certain in our minds.  The fact that there is a fact itself is ironic.  Something analogous to the idea that you can never predict the future because there is no future. Many books and movies have tried to play on this concept - best that I recollect (I think I am) was 'The Truman Show'.  This book by Klosterman attempts to provoke the reader to at least contemplate that what they think they know may be wrong. He uses examples like concept of gravity, and how it ...

You are important to us

Followed by piano music.   Followed by 'we are experiencing heavier than usual call volume'.  Sounds macabre like bleeding during menstruation or after a ghastly attack with a weapon on a hemophiliac.  Sorry Mrs. Johnson but it appears little Gertrude here has been bleeding heavier than usual what with her night time activities competing with the woodchucks in your neighborhood. Some services even go as far as to pick a random day to say - 'if you were to call us during the Chinese lunar month when the moon is axiomatically hugging the polar star with Jupiter intravenous when call volume is light'.  Well I will be damned.  I thought  I had checked with my astrologer before I placed this well focused call but  I guess this is what you get for listening to a quack. Umph! I am not sure which marketing genius came up with this personal touch concept of informing the caller that you are really a jackass for actually calling the customer serv...

Peru, South America - Week well spent

Growing up in India the only Peru I knew of was a tropical fruit (Guava for those whose lingua is English).   Not until high school did I discover that it was also a country in the South American continent. So it was this early April week that we decided to hit up Peru - the land of the once glorious Inca people that lived 500 years ago.  Today Peru is the third largest country on that continent with a diverse geography that stretches from the drier Pacific coast plains to the high mountains of the Andes and the Amazon river valley to its east. Our trip was primarily a pilgrimage of sorts to visit the last remaining, lost (now found and documented), large scale, mostly undamaged, city of the Inca nobility, called Machu Picchu (MP).  The Inca were great architects and builders.  MP is a UNESCO world heritage site affording it high visibility to the tourism trade and therefore crowded year round.  Our timing was not quite high season allowing us...