THE DE VINCI CODE

The one thing about the book is that it's easy to read. Mary Magdalene and related stuff make it meaty, and one likes to read about the new interpretations of some works of Leornado De Vinci, the great artist. Dan Brown's take on the church also seems courageous.

But the flip side is that it is a thriller at its core, and has no serious intention of enlightening the readers. As you read through the last pages(where the banal meets the juvenile), you feel it's another sensational crap that will vanish in, say, a couple of years.

I wonder if Dan Brown could have worked it out some other way.
MRINAL BOSE

JEAN LUC GODARD

Saw Godard's BREATHLESS on computer last night. The film is about love between a crook and a failed artist. Perhaps the heroine never knew about his real self when she fell in love with the smart hero. And when she did, she had inevitably suffered the conflicts, but she was carrying his baby then. So she continued and even got to be his accomplice.

But oneday she got enough of it, and called in the cops. The cops shot him when he was on the run. "You're a scum-bag," says the dying hero to the heroine who came to look after him.

A wonderful love story told by a master film-maker. No noisy scene. Consummate dialogue. And how marvellous images!
MRINAL BOSE