WORKING TITLE: HOOTS BROTHERS, PVT. LTD. Purveyors of balms,
salves, remedies, wishes and select dreams.
A documentary filmmaker is desperate to find a subject which will deliver him the perfect film. He
had had a few lukewarmly successful films where the critics had noted something different about
him yet they were then hard pressed to point out exactly what it was, or if it really was there at all.
This is because the films were a mess, for the lack of a better word- sparks of brilliance swimming
around in lots of uninspiring footage.
At first, he had had the dubious pleasure of being completely and utterly championed by the critics
but now, sadly, the best words to describe their feelings towards him are “ambivalent” and
“unconvinced”. Worse, his own feelings mirrors that of the critics, and his own convictions of being
able to produce an “absolutely original idea” is at an all time low. The worst part, he feels, is that
somewhere along the line he has given up trying. He is now resigned to work with subjects already
worked with and try to give them a fresh breath of life, but even for that he has no confidence. He
decides to film the red light districts of the cities. Something of a misplaced sense of humor told
him that if this attempt at trying to build a sculpture of beauty by scooping up the slimy dredges of
society failed, it would be fitting that his end would be to fall back into the said slimy depths.
Something about ashes to ashes and all that jazz. Besides, it was a booming subject to get into
now- plenty of exposure.
He returns to the city of his birth, unconsciously choosing to begin where he himself began. On
returning, he realizes that he was returning in proper, after almost a period of a decade. He had
returned before but only in bits and pieces and had always seemed to be in a constant state of
transit. He is forced to analyze this act of going home, and in the process also realizes that he
doesn’t know the city anymore- it has to be rediscovered. What he discovers while doing this kills
his morale even further, enforcing in his mind the superficiality of the life he had been living, and
basically killing any last spark of fight that was left in him.
He starts work, walking the streets of the largest red light district of the country, but he fails to
connect with what he is looking at, fails to connect with his subject. He becomes mechanical, just
going about the motions of work without actually absorbing anything at all. He knows he is
producing the same tripe that has been done over and over, and he knows that this is like dying a
little death, but he doesn’t care.
Into the second week of working amongst the brothels, through the haze of his apathy he notices
that he is being followed by a man. The man is not so much as following him but standing in the
shadows at the oddest of places and just looking at him. No moves to approach have been made,
but something about noticing a man just observing him, filtering through his misery-drunken state
scares him. He tells himself that its just one of the pimps, being careful who runs in the territory, but
soon he can’t convince himself of that either.
So he gets drunk and completely stoned out of his mind, five days after he first notices the man
and approaches him. The man doesn’t pay him any attention and disappears in front him at a blink
of an eye and when he turns around he finds that the guy is at the end of the street disappearing
around the corner. He follows him, and finds himself in front of a derelict old building which has a
shop sign saying HOOTS BROTHERS PVT. LTD- a shop that seems to be a really old
establishment that sells remedies of the old and local variety, judging from the almost opaque
display window and unidentifiable objects covered in centuries of grime and dust. He walks into it,
and sees that the counter is manned by Che Guevara, but an old Che Guevara.
By this time, he had convinced himself that he must be hallucinating so he doesn’t think too much
of what he was looking at. Che asks him to sit down and offers him some bourbon and tells him to
wait for Garcia to come back- he would only be a moment. Assuming the disappearing man to be
this Garcia he accepts the offer and gets into a conversation with Che which might have lasted for
a minute or some hours. Suddenly the man called Garcia comes out of the back room through
mothball infested black curtains behind the counter and hauls our filmmaker bodily over and takes
him to the back of the store, and into one of the preparation cubicles there, and stares intently into
his eyes. He feels a queer sensation, very mild, but just attributes it to the alcohol and the weed
working on his nervous system. After a couple of minutes, the man Garcia lets him go with
apparent frustration and informs him that he has put him in an infernally irritating position by “not
forgetting” and that he has no other option but to keep him hostage until some “Ribieri” matter was
resolved and he would stay at the store, and Guevara would be his guard.
He spends two months living in the basement of Hoots Brothers, sleeping amongst crates of things
which moved sometimes at night. And during the day he would help tend the counter with Che,
amazed that no one else coming into the store seemed to recognize who the old man was or for
that matter seemed to care either. Sometimes at night, he would hear the voice of Garcia and
maybe a woman with the best voice he’d ever heard, discussing something in detail.
In the beginning of the third month, he caught a glimpse of the woman who’s voice he had
overheard, and was almost blinded by a beauty so terrible that he was only able to look for barely a
second. Che told him that was Madam Du Pompadour- one of the most famous courtesans to have
ever lived, and the official mistress of Louis XV of France. By this time, in spite of accepting the
bizarre nature of his recent life, he had started thinking of the work he had left behind again, and
also had started seeing how futile it had been. He now finds a fresh opportunity and a new idea –
to investigate and interview Madam Du Pompadour. But in order to do this he needs the help of
Garcia. Because, even in the bizarre situation he has found himself in, he realizes that some how
or the other Garcia can travel through time and space and can transport other people as well.
He confronts Garcia, and Garcia, irritated at his insistence, decides to teach him a lesson in
wishing for the dangerous, takes him back in time to pre revolutionary France, to the palace of
Versailles, where enemies number more than friends, and anyone seen or suspected of having
dealings with the name of Pompadour is at risk of hanging, because people were busy blaming
France’s losses in the Seven Years War squarely at the feet of the Kings official mistress. He had
hidden a small digital camera with him, and manages to take some photographs on the sly. He also
survives the trip without causing trouble.
He shows the pictures that he had got to Garcia and Garcia, after initial anger, finds the
photographs of some value, and decides to take him along to more of his dealings, in exchange for
allowing the film maker to document discreetly whatever time they were traveling to. And the man
finds that Garcia is a man who has some mysterious powers other than tampering with the fabric of
space and time, and he ran an unbelievable but thriving business.
In terms of the present day, it could only be described as a form of witness reallocation. Garcia
took important figures in society, who were controversial and in the public eye, at any given period
of time, and hid them when their careers were threatening to end, be it violently or not. Cleopatra
had apparently been a client, and so was obviously Che, and negotiations were apparently on with
Madam Pompadour.
The film maker signs on with Garcia as a person who documents all the secret dealings, the work
he will do taking on the dual role of making the most unusual documentary the world would see
and as well as a retirement plan for Garcia, should it ever be needed.
salves, remedies, wishes and select dreams.
A documentary filmmaker is desperate to find a subject which will deliver him the perfect film. He
had had a few lukewarmly successful films where the critics had noted something different about
him yet they were then hard pressed to point out exactly what it was, or if it really was there at all.
This is because the films were a mess, for the lack of a better word- sparks of brilliance swimming
around in lots of uninspiring footage.
At first, he had had the dubious pleasure of being completely and utterly championed by the critics
but now, sadly, the best words to describe their feelings towards him are “ambivalent” and
“unconvinced”. Worse, his own feelings mirrors that of the critics, and his own convictions of being
able to produce an “absolutely original idea” is at an all time low. The worst part, he feels, is that
somewhere along the line he has given up trying. He is now resigned to work with subjects already
worked with and try to give them a fresh breath of life, but even for that he has no confidence. He
decides to film the red light districts of the cities. Something of a misplaced sense of humor told
him that if this attempt at trying to build a sculpture of beauty by scooping up the slimy dredges of
society failed, it would be fitting that his end would be to fall back into the said slimy depths.
Something about ashes to ashes and all that jazz. Besides, it was a booming subject to get into
now- plenty of exposure.
He returns to the city of his birth, unconsciously choosing to begin where he himself began. On
returning, he realizes that he was returning in proper, after almost a period of a decade. He had
returned before but only in bits and pieces and had always seemed to be in a constant state of
transit. He is forced to analyze this act of going home, and in the process also realizes that he
doesn’t know the city anymore- it has to be rediscovered. What he discovers while doing this kills
his morale even further, enforcing in his mind the superficiality of the life he had been living, and
basically killing any last spark of fight that was left in him.
He starts work, walking the streets of the largest red light district of the country, but he fails to
connect with what he is looking at, fails to connect with his subject. He becomes mechanical, just
going about the motions of work without actually absorbing anything at all. He knows he is
producing the same tripe that has been done over and over, and he knows that this is like dying a
little death, but he doesn’t care.
Into the second week of working amongst the brothels, through the haze of his apathy he notices
that he is being followed by a man. The man is not so much as following him but standing in the
shadows at the oddest of places and just looking at him. No moves to approach have been made,
but something about noticing a man just observing him, filtering through his misery-drunken state
scares him. He tells himself that its just one of the pimps, being careful who runs in the territory, but
soon he can’t convince himself of that either.
So he gets drunk and completely stoned out of his mind, five days after he first notices the man
and approaches him. The man doesn’t pay him any attention and disappears in front him at a blink
of an eye and when he turns around he finds that the guy is at the end of the street disappearing
around the corner. He follows him, and finds himself in front of a derelict old building which has a
shop sign saying HOOTS BROTHERS PVT. LTD- a shop that seems to be a really old
establishment that sells remedies of the old and local variety, judging from the almost opaque
display window and unidentifiable objects covered in centuries of grime and dust. He walks into it,
and sees that the counter is manned by Che Guevara, but an old Che Guevara.
By this time, he had convinced himself that he must be hallucinating so he doesn’t think too much
of what he was looking at. Che asks him to sit down and offers him some bourbon and tells him to
wait for Garcia to come back- he would only be a moment. Assuming the disappearing man to be
this Garcia he accepts the offer and gets into a conversation with Che which might have lasted for
a minute or some hours. Suddenly the man called Garcia comes out of the back room through
mothball infested black curtains behind the counter and hauls our filmmaker bodily over and takes
him to the back of the store, and into one of the preparation cubicles there, and stares intently into
his eyes. He feels a queer sensation, very mild, but just attributes it to the alcohol and the weed
working on his nervous system. After a couple of minutes, the man Garcia lets him go with
apparent frustration and informs him that he has put him in an infernally irritating position by “not
forgetting” and that he has no other option but to keep him hostage until some “Ribieri” matter was
resolved and he would stay at the store, and Guevara would be his guard.
He spends two months living in the basement of Hoots Brothers, sleeping amongst crates of things
which moved sometimes at night. And during the day he would help tend the counter with Che,
amazed that no one else coming into the store seemed to recognize who the old man was or for
that matter seemed to care either. Sometimes at night, he would hear the voice of Garcia and
maybe a woman with the best voice he’d ever heard, discussing something in detail.
In the beginning of the third month, he caught a glimpse of the woman who’s voice he had
overheard, and was almost blinded by a beauty so terrible that he was only able to look for barely a
second. Che told him that was Madam Du Pompadour- one of the most famous courtesans to have
ever lived, and the official mistress of Louis XV of France. By this time, in spite of accepting the
bizarre nature of his recent life, he had started thinking of the work he had left behind again, and
also had started seeing how futile it had been. He now finds a fresh opportunity and a new idea –
to investigate and interview Madam Du Pompadour. But in order to do this he needs the help of
Garcia. Because, even in the bizarre situation he has found himself in, he realizes that some how
or the other Garcia can travel through time and space and can transport other people as well.
He confronts Garcia, and Garcia, irritated at his insistence, decides to teach him a lesson in
wishing for the dangerous, takes him back in time to pre revolutionary France, to the palace of
Versailles, where enemies number more than friends, and anyone seen or suspected of having
dealings with the name of Pompadour is at risk of hanging, because people were busy blaming
France’s losses in the Seven Years War squarely at the feet of the Kings official mistress. He had
hidden a small digital camera with him, and manages to take some photographs on the sly. He also
survives the trip without causing trouble.
He shows the pictures that he had got to Garcia and Garcia, after initial anger, finds the
photographs of some value, and decides to take him along to more of his dealings, in exchange for
allowing the film maker to document discreetly whatever time they were traveling to. And the man
finds that Garcia is a man who has some mysterious powers other than tampering with the fabric of
space and time, and he ran an unbelievable but thriving business.
In terms of the present day, it could only be described as a form of witness reallocation. Garcia
took important figures in society, who were controversial and in the public eye, at any given period
of time, and hid them when their careers were threatening to end, be it violently or not. Cleopatra
had apparently been a client, and so was obviously Che, and negotiations were apparently on with
Madam Pompadour.
The film maker signs on with Garcia as a person who documents all the secret dealings, the work
he will do taking on the dual role of making the most unusual documentary the world would see
and as well as a retirement plan for Garcia, should it ever be needed.
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