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Three Stories

Watched recently, three movies and three takes on love (and maybe more) The Illusionist, Swann In Love and Pratidwandi. The theme of love is woven into the fabric of the first two, other themes if any are secondary to it. In Pratidwandi (The Adversary), love is only one among many other things that the story is about. While love is not the protagonist's focus, it is what helps him find his way in the world.

The three stories end on very different notes. In keeping with the theme of magic and illusion, Eisenheim and Sophie escape the confines of their real world to live happily ever after. Swann allows infatuation to drive him to the brink, rob him of his sense of self and his aesthetic taste. He decides to trade all and turn himself into a social pariah to bring Odette into his life.

Then there is Siddharta in Pratidwandi who has more than one adversary as he copes with life as an unemployed man in Calcutta during the Naxalite movement. The woman he loves makes no promises about their future but even her tentative presence helps him begin to forge one out of his woefully limited options. She gives him perhaps the precious gift of hope.

Since all three stories are about love, they share a common element - that of escape from personal circumstances or societal expectations.

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