Padmaja Thakore Reviews

Films 2009 – History Can Wait

2010-01-05T19:50:00.005+05:30

The end of a calendar year provides for stock-taking and also satisfies our urge to analyze, categorize or generalize films as we attempt to tag and file this part of Bollywood’s past for recent history. For a year that started with an incredible mindless tamasha like Chandni Chowk to China (CCTC) and downed the shutters with Munnabhai-with-a-preachy-wrench-in-hand, the year 2009 in the long run would be just another year for movie-goers in India – while it’ll not lay claim to start a fresh chapter in Bollywood history, and yet squeeze-in a space in its thick folder.

2009 will perhaps be best remembered for the miraculous success of Slumdog Millionaire. The film was vibrantly paced with a feel-good ending, but for most part it was mediocrity wrapped up in finely crafted (& eventually marketed) package. Yet for the eagerness with which everyone co-opted with it and made Slumdog an overwhelming success, we all wished this was a core Bollywood production than a surprise gift from firangees.

This year saw a string of releases with eye-popping budgets and mind-numbing storylines that made one wonder if economic slow-down was a three-legged animal in Africa. Films like CCTC, Kambakht Ishq, Blue, Dil Bole Hadippa, Luck, Victory, Billu, Acid Factory and Tasveer lacked the minimal presence of cinematic creativity while their marketing team worked overtime to bring unsuspecting public to the screens on the opening days allowing the films to often open well. To splurge huge sums of money in such ill-devised star-vehicle films must have meant paucity of funds for making lower budget but better films.

2009 was a good year for Anurag Kashyap for it saw the release of two of his films. Dev D was more satisfying of the two; it was not only a good adaptation and a story well told in psychedelic, absurdist style but also achieved commercial success. Gulaal was a tad disappointing on both counts. Vishal Bharadwaj could not repeat the magic of Omkara, but managed a successful show with stylized treatment and excellent songs in Kaminey. Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s nostalgic over-indulgence in Delhi 6 smothered some very bright facets put together with honesty in what could have been an even better film. R. Balki’s Paa, distinctly half-excellent & half-average film, keeps up the hope of seeing more good stuff by him. If Shimit Amin’s Rocket Singh whets the appetite but does not satisfy its only because he himself set very high standards with Chak De. More disappointing were Imtiaz Ali’s Love Aaj Kal and Madhur Bhandarkar’s Jail. While Imtiaz’s direction is self-assured and consistent his material is sub-standard. On the other hand, Jail is a badly made film in every respect; it could easily be the most disappointing film of the year but for Ashutosh Gowarikar’s ‘What’s Your Rashee?’

This year-end also saw the release of much awaited ‘3 Idiots’. It was a good opportunity for Hirani to come out of the Munnabhai phase but it seems the director is happily stuck there. Only, he cannot keep up the whackiness and humour of the original. While Munnabhai’s street-smartness and humane wisdom were appealing, baba Ranchordas Chanchad’s pravachans are as tiresome as Ram Nikumbh’s in Taare Zameen Par. Every formula from the Munnabhai book is overdone and stretched with often good pay-offs in laughter and tears but ones that does not last once the film is over. In 3 Idiots, there’s not a single profile of students between the top two and bottom two and not a single teacher who knows how to teach. It’s Ranchordas all the way. The film could easily have been named ‘1 Idiot and 2 Stooges’ (it was amusing to see producer Vidhu Chopra tagging his name close to director Hirani’s whenever the latter appeared in credits). 3 Idiots reminded me of another formulaic film of this sort that worked, Ajab Prem ki Ghajab…’ and brought back the apparently desperate director, Raj Kumar Santoshi back into play.

There were some medium and small budget films this year that kept the torch of sensible cinema alive; these were the kind of films (despite their shortcomings) one would hope to see more of in the coming year. Nandita Das’s Firaaq would top my list here. Zoya Akhtar’s Luck By Chance, Ayaan Mukherjee’s Wake Up Sid, Sooni Taraporewala’s Little Zizou, Pankaj Advani’s Sankat City and Shashank Ghosh’s Quick Gun Murugan were some of the efforts that make movie-going worthwhile and also establish a saner voice in the cacophony of misplaced passions of films like New York or Kurbaan.

2009 would also be remembered for establishing the talents of actors like Ranbir Kapoor, Sonam Kapoor and Mahie Gil. Pritam gave some hummable tunes but could not beat the earthy appeal of Vishal Bharadwaj. A ‘Jai Ho!’ to Gulzar too (for Kaminey and Slumdog).

Older traditions of following the stars, ignoring the script, stealing ideas from Hollywood and elsewhere continued this year while some new ones also gained ground. One of the more conspicuous elements was the extremely aggressive marketing strategies that spent whopping crores that were not selling films but forcing them down the audience’ throats.

Paa – It is AB’s Baby (Sr., ofc.)

2009-12-07T02:23:00.001+05:30

Paa’s promotions indicated that the film will make a miserable spectacle out of progeria – as Amir Khan’s Taare Zameen Par did of special children for most of the film and Bhansali’s Black did of its blind & deaf protagonists for an entire film. So it is a relief to see that Paa is selling not the disease but a story. It is told with sensitivity and humour that one has come to expect from R.Balki after Cheeni Kum, a film that stands, if at times unsteadily, on its own two feet.
The fear of being forced to shed tears for a 12-year old child dying of accelerated ageing fades as one begins to share his joie de vivre and his views of the world around him. Auro’s disease is rare, but so is his precocious sense of humour. Auro (Amitabh Bachchan) lives with his mother, Vidhya (Vidya Balan) and maternal grandmother (Arundhati Naag) in domestic bliss while his biological father, Amol (Abhishek Bachchan) and his father (Paresh Rawal) are seen fighting intense political battles and living a life under full public glare and scrutiny.
With Auro at the center, the film can be neatly split into ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ worlds on his each sides. (It cannot be a coincidence that Amol’s ‘family’ has no women and Vidhya’s has no grown up men.) While the former is associated with colossal ambition, public domain and cynical political activism, the latter is private and full of emotion, nurture, and domesticity. It is the intelligent and sensitive Auro, with his vision of a ‘white globe’, who brings these two worlds together.
We see how the feminine domestic environment has nurtured Auro’s world view into one that is full of humour and acceptance. And this is also a world the director seems most comfortable depicting. By dropping the syrupy, artificial, smothering mother-child depictions in many of our films, Balki has made the treatment far more intelligent and refreshing. Indeed, the mother-daughter and mother-son relationship in Paa is one of the most beautiful in recent Bollywood films.
However, the political/public ‘masculine’ world that Balki creates is shaky, simplistic, dated and unconvincing. There is too much talk, too much naïve earnestness. The long tirade against the media is simply misplaced in this story. In the context of the narrative, it is fitting when media is blamed for its attempt to make a spectacle of Auro, but to stay on media-politicians’ fight is an unnecessary digression and seems out of proportion. Even if it was Balki’s intention of showing a certain sterility in the ‘masculine’ world (as against a fecund & compassionate ‘feminine’ world), Amol-as-the-politician track sticks out like a sore thumb.
Something that further undermines the beauty of the film is its ‘happy ending’. There is nothing wrong in it being happy; Auro bringing the two symbolic worlds together could certainly be a plausible resolution. But all of it is treated too literally with the child putting the parents’ hands onto each other (like those dying spouses & mothers in old films), and the parents taking marriage pheras round their dying child seems taken from the ‘wring-tears-from-your-eyes’ chapter of the ol’ Bollywood rulebook that one had feared at the start and was happy to not see until the climax.
Amitabh Bachchan, Esq. gives a truly rare performance in R. Balki’s Paa. It should be every seasoned actor’s effort to go behind the character and lose his own self in it. It is not Auro’s mask or the make-up alone that Mr Bachchan has used to his advantage. He instead takes one of the biggest risks of his acting career, puts every bit of his talent and experience and meets one of the biggest challenges to come up with a career defining performance. It is Bachchan’s enormously generous and inspired performance (as against hammy and caricatured acts of Black and Eklavya to name just two recent films) that becomes the highlight of the film and actually makes other shortfalls of the film more visible. Indeed, it is because of his father’s brilliant performance that Abhishek’s own act as Paa looks dull and stoic. Vidya Balan is a picture of feminine sensitivity, both in her romance as a student at Cambridge University and as a single mother of a child with progeria. Arundhati Naag’s grandmother act is equally adorable.
Illayaraja background score is fitting though it gives the film a ‘southern accent’ when the film is based in Lucknow. The brilliant cinematographer, PC Sreeram’s work is noteworthy although one felt his ‘icy’ steel touch in the climactic minutes was drawing the blood out of the scenes and could instead have had more warmth and passion.
I wish Balki had stuck more around Auro even if this meant scaling down the film to a world as seen and lived by a 12-year old. In the end, Paa is Bachchan Sr.’s baby. He deserves acting awards in this year’s roll-call. If they get one too many, I’ll happily look away.
(first appeared on Passion for Cinema)

Kurbaan – Now Serving “Terror Concoction Vomit” Curry

2009-11-21T17:36:00.002+05:30

You are a Pakistani national and now you wish to terrorize the US. How should you go about it ? Lets see, the most effective way for you would be to cross into the “friendly” neighbour country, India (here they let terrorists enter easily, remember Kasab et al.?). Here you romance, seduce and marry a Hindu girl, only make sure that you find one who has a job in New York (may Allah be with you)… Once married, tag along with her to the US (on a spousal visa, for which, er, you’ll need an Indian passport. Overlook this for the moment)! Now that you are in the US, you don’t go about terrorizing the Americans right away. First you get a job teaching Islamic Studies at an Ivy League University and get yourself called a Professor (apart from giving you some pocket money, this job will make you a cool terrorist. [To get the job you will need to have an excellent academic, teaching and publishing record. Also, what about a working visa? But again please overlook these for the moment and stay with me]). Now as you do long hours at the University, you let your new wife slowly discover that you are, well, a terrorist (how do you do that – put her in a trance make her stupid enough to walk into the neighbours’ house in the dead of the night, and, once she’s is there, have the neighbours discuss some big terror plans behind closed doors but loud enough for her to hear. Make her really dim so that she believes them and not laughs her head off… and then you make the ‘Im a Terrorist’ entry!). Professor Terrorist Dude. You realize you have done not much in the terror department since you left Pakistan; now you need to get on with it and terrorize people – so you start forking people to death (yeah! the cutlery) and as this much action does not seem enough you pick a dead body lying in your basement and drive it to dispose it somewhere (don’t allow anyone to say hey, hold on! why not dig a fcu*#g hole in the basement, bury the body there itself. Yeah make sure the neighbour-terrorists too are dim, very dim indeed). Give the wheels of the car carrying the corpse to the dimmest of them all, make sure he takes a street where there is police surveillance; on being stopped the driver must start to make alarmed faces leaving the Yankee officer with no option but to ask you two to step out of the vehicle. Your action part starts here, you kill a few policeman as a warm up to actual act of terrorizing the city. By doing so you would have given the police enough leads to have yourself and the terrorist neighbours nabbed. So trust your boss to come to rescue here – he decides to go for the kill right away. What do you do – you botch the whole thing up. No one is going to blame you though; it’s actually your wife who does you in. You see, the night before your D-day, she needed to get her hands on some terror information. She could have easily walked a few paces to the drawers in the living room where the papers with this information are kept. Instead this well-meaning but going dimmer-by-the-day soul takes a long circuited route (mildly recalls your own Pakistan-to-India and Find, Seduce & Marry NRI Girl routine). She first seduces you into going to bed with her, and as you sleep all tired, she tiptoes to the living room and gets the papers. The terror information is leaked out and you, on the other hand, get reminded how much you love her. As a result, none of the bombs go off in a way to do any real damage and all your terrorists friends get killed one by one. Again, not all of this is your fault. Some of your friends were dimwits, remember. They just forgot to blow themselves when they could easily have done so. Instead, they kept clicking their heels till the police could spot them,and then made a run, get caught and get killed. All of this should not worry you because when you reach the last fifteen minutes of the story no one is going to care any longer for the implausibilities on how you went about the job, they’ll be too absorbed just trying to catch up with the action. Only don’t let the climax action pause even for an instant for you would risk being tied in knots by the endless, gaudy contrivances that you story is filled with. Just one last thing, die smiling and we’ll make sure there is a massive publicity campaign supporting your story. Deal? Deal. Now go give it a try (may Allah be with you).

JAIL

2009-11-09T16:19:00.001+05:30

Madhur Bhandarkar has made a name for himself as a realist filmmaker (this and that he has won 3 national awards always precede a piece on him). His films like Page 3 and Fashion broke the art film-commercial film barrier for him. Bhandarkar has comfortably placed himself as a ‘mainstream-realist’ filmmaker. After documenting the lives of bar-girls, corporates, the fashion fraternity and page3 people, he turns his camera on life in a prison or jail.

Jail is about the travails of a falsely implicated young man Parag Dixit played by Neil Nitin Mukesh. Through his story the film attempts to throw open a kind of life that most of us will know only through newspapers or films that have dealt with it. This film reinforces ideas we may already have of the overcrowded living conditions of Indian jails and the inhumanity imposed on the inmates who, not only put up with a lack of proper sanitation and food but also fight to survive the alternative system of unspoken rules imposed through connivance of imprisoned criminals and jail authorities. The dehumanizing physical examination of the protagonist in the very first sequence indicates a gritty portrayal of life in the prison. What follows is sometimes moving, but seldom very illuminating.

There is a hiccup in the beginning that grows only bigger and undermines the narrative integrity of the film – this is the constant shifting of narrative axis. In the beginning it seems one will experience the Jail-world with our declared protagonist, Parag Dixit. However soon enough, Nawab’s (Manoj Bajpai) voice-over is introduced which now points to a possibility of a second person narrative commentary. The two “voices” only get tangled as the film progresses. Furthermore, to deal with stories of other characters, the film assumes an omniscient narrative voice. Constant shifts like these, done without much care or purpose, confuse the audience and chip away at the flow of the story.

The story bit too has its share of problems. The crime that Parag Dixit is accused of and lands him in Jail is flimsy. Even if the charge of drug-peddling is serious, there are clear evidences that will speak in his favour and one wonders why it takes so long for him to get them out to the court (a stronger case-building ‘worked backwards’ in the narrative would have made this story more believable). Parag’s inability to utter a single word in his defense can be understood in the beginning as mark of confusion at the quick turn of events, but it soon gets irritating to see an educated man, intelligent enough to be doing well in his career, whimpering inarticulate half-words. Essentially, the protagonist story has only two plot points – his getting in the Jail and his getting out – between the two is a middle that is stretched so thin, it’s nearly invisible.

The plot of Jail is unlayered and uncomplicated. In this, Jail is much like other Madhur Bhandarkar films. Whether it’s Corporate or Fashion he keeps the stories and plots simple and relies on exposes to get the audience hooked. Placing fictitious characters who the audience can indemnify with in factual, thorny worlds has worked well in films like Chandni Bar and Page3. Except in Jail, Bhandarkar takes plain documentation far too seriously, so a good part of the film is squandered in introducing stock characters who neither have a role in the story, nor add any layers to it. This exercise seems all the more pointless because there is no originality in the characters – a cricket bookie, a neta, a cheat, a man who murders for his wife’s honour, an underworld bhai who conducts his business from the prison, and a mandatory gay pair – and all of them talk and behave as you would expect them to (from films you have watched earlier). For long periods nothing happens, you just watch the inmates eating, bathing and washing their clothes. Or worse, you see hordes of them amble aimlessly to provide the ‘passing’ crowd to our main characters who do nothing much either.

Unlike Page3 or Fashion, the director avoids getting his hands dirty. Are crowded cells, bad food and washing your own clothes the biggest issues for a regular inmate? Here there are underworld bhais but they mostly leave the people alone and deal with only those who go asking for help. This jail seems more democratic than the world outside and nobody bothers anybody unnecessarily. The inmates are all nice people (except one Joe D’Souza), victims of circumstances who seem to be having a fairly good time playing carom, telling fortunes and reciting bad poetry!

Neil Nitin Mukesh does a fair job. Manoj Bajpai starts well and would have given the audience something to talk about, but the script fails him. Starting as the sane voice in the prison mayhem he turns into some kind of moral police towards the end (a Bhandarkar trademark by now). He appears at Parag’s side, much like a guardian angel, every time Parag is tempted to go against the authorities. For good or worse, Bajpai character ends up like a mouthpiece of the establishment. Mugdha Godse looks attractive and does the needful. The surprise of the pack is Arya Babbar who comes up with a decent performance. The two odd songs in the film are regrettable.

Realist cinema is valued because it chooses relevant themes, shows us the world we live in and is thought-provoking. One cannot use the style without purpose and justify it as realist cinema. Bhandarkar’s Jail is a faded tapestry of characters, location and situations that hang about aimlessly without striking any real conversation among themselves or with us.

London Dreams

2009-11-09T16:15:00.002+05:30

At the fag-end of a season of big-budget films (Aladin, Main aur Mrs Khanna, Blue, Acid Factory, Wanted) where you wondered at the smugness with which filmmakers insult the intelligent audience comes Vipul Shah’s London Dreams. I want to argue that London Dreams is different in that it tells an average story with a conviction and engages its “target” audience well. It is built on the popular, multi-starrer, 70’s films’ format and has no pretension to be world class cinema. The good Bombay films have always had their stories to tell in a robust manner, however simplistically.

London Dreams is the story of Arjun (Ajay Devgn) who has a passion for music and a single-minded devotion to it that borders on obsession. His only other emotional tie is his childhood friend Manjit or Manu (Salman Khan) who doesn’t want to grow up and makes light of his father’s attempts at giving him music lessons. Arjun’s dream is to succeed where his talented grandfather failed, and he devotes his life to this aim as he moves to London from his small Punjab village. His hard work and desperation for success make sure that he gets noticed and appreciated, and within no time he finds himself taking the first few steps towards his dreams. He brings Manu, who is wasting his time in the village, into his band only to make the life-shattering discovery of Manu’s genius. His jealousy and his heartbreak at the unfairness of it all is like that of a studious schoolboy, who toils away with the books the entire year and then watches the school truant walk away with the trophies at the end.

The film is touted to be ripoff of Milos Forman’s Oscar winning Amadeus and plots dosages from Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Abhimaan. Another regular trick in Bollywood films that presently goes without scrutiny, so the valid question is what you do with your ‘inspirations’. And London Dreams does a good job of theirs. The drama held well for me (except in a crucial scene at the Wembley stadium where it falters and almost creates an anti-climax). The film is full of classic Bollywood, broad-brushed, over-the-top dramatic tension that manage to keep the narrative together, with not much subtlety or complexities but that saves the audience from confustions and gives them a sound, palatable dose of their weekly cinema-fix.

I felt the recent Bollywood biggies should at least have strived to get to the standards that London Dreams achieves – story, plots and dialogues that have been (re)worked upon, heartfelt acting, a fair mix and match of characters and their setting and where the narrative moves at a steady, consistent pace. Ajay Devgn and Salman Khan are not exceptional actors, nor do they fit the age of start up pop singers (but when you are conditioned from having seen Rajendra Kumar, Manoj Kumar and Sunny paaji play college students when they were well in their 40s, you accept the need to cast big stars for the budget to be approved). Point is, once there the lead actors have gone all out to do a decent job. (Same can’t be said of Asin. She just fails to be the woman that both the intense Sagar and the eternal flirt Manu fall for.) Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy’s music seems toned down and only Khanabadosh and Barso Re manage to create some magic.

London Dreams is a robustly made, popular Bollywood drama that does not pretend to be otherwise.

Blue

2009-11-05T16:58:00.004+05:30

Blue looks like someone successfully sold the idea of a large budget, first all underwater Indian film to the actors and producers, got the money and started without caring for a decent script. The result is a threadbare story with implausible situations with fiendishly tasteless and amateurish treatment.

To give the film a dazzling start, Akshay Kumar (Aarav) and Sanjay Dutt (Sagar) are put on a fishing boat when a shark tears its way into the fishing net. ‘A hole in the net is a hole in the pocket’, they say. And to save the situation they jump into the waters and proceed to tear another hole in the net. There must be other ways of chasing sharks away (or better keeping them away in the first place) but the filmmaker couldn’t resist the idea of having his heroes ride the shark. And when you have two heavyweight stars you have no option but to offer a shark-ride to both, one by one!

The narrative depends on a one-line story of people hunting for treasure underwater, which had to be stretched to film length. Around the time of Indian Independence Britain decides to a send a shipload of treasure to India as a gesture of goodwill (Howzzat!) but then for some unexplained reason the ships drifts westwards all the way to Bahamas before it sank. Now, more than half a century later a businessman, Aarav is looking for the riches for which he needs Sagar, an employee he has befriended. Sagar doesn’t want to do it because of a family tragedy so nearly two-thirds of the film is spent in Aarav trying out bringing Sagar in, which at the end turns out to be nonsensical methods.

The film is full of details that make you laugh with glee. When Sagar is attacked in his house by a gang of goons, he gears up by promptly putting on his sunglasses! And while the gunfire comes from the back, he spreads his arms with pistols in both hands and fires continuously on his sides as the lady love (Lara Dutta) advises, ‘hey why are you guys firing, can’t you all talk for a change’. Then you see the ol’ ship sitting clearly on a plain sea-bed but our heroes had to push and slither through vegetation covers and go into caves to get to it. You roar when you see the sunk ship has its name ‘Lady in Blue’ nailed on the sides as if was a nameplate outside a dentist’s practice! The ship itself is so small, a well-built man would get stuck inside (Sagar often does!). At the end of it the treasure turns out to be a small sandook with gold bangles and plastic artifacts straight from Manoj Kumar’s Kranti (apparently all the treasures that Britisher took away was what they could force out of our womenfolk!).

Most of the ‘underwater-shoot’ budget seems spent on picturising songs with Lara Dutta in skimpy bikinis with the camera moving between her legs and shots of her pants riding up her ass. There is a pointless Kylie Minogue song where our heroes take turns – as in the shark ride – to pick her up like in a Mumbai dance bar.

Much, way too much of money has gone down the drain in this underwater misadventure.
- Padmaja Thakore

Love Aaj Kal: Idealist then, Juvenile today

2009-08-20T21:32:00.001+05:30

Love Aaj versus Love Kal’ is the kind of discussion you might enter if you had a couple of hours to kill, and nothing else to discuss. This may appeal to 50+ ‘generation’ with nostalgic reference to the past and perhaps as a way of coming to terms with the ‘fast’ present. In pitting the values of the past against the present one takes on very large issues and yet the results could be vague and inconclusive thus necessitating a nuanced treatment of the subject. Imtiaz Ali’s treatment of Love Aaj Kal is more of the glossy Sunday feature section kind, where ideas are rarely balanced and have conditioned opinions, unsubstantiated comments and forced conclusions.

Jai Vardhan Singh (Saif Ali Khan) has met Meera Pandit (Deepika Padukone) in London. They have had a great time for a couple of years without making any old-fashioned commitments. Then it’s time for Meera to go to India to pursue her career as a restoration artist. Jai’s career dreams can only be fulfilled in San Francisco. And since they are ‘modern’ couple they decide to part ways instead of working out a long distance relationship. So they throw a ‘break-up’ party and go separate ways. Here enters a restaurant owner Sardar (Rishi Kapoor) who is somehow convinced that Jai is in love with Meera and is determined to help him. But Jai is an unwilling disciple and takes his own sweet time to come to a decision. In the mean time he does exactly what they had decided not to do – keep a long distance relationship. And in between Jai’s long and warbled monologues Sardar ji manages to tell his love story – a story of stolen glances, cycle and rickshaw encounters, and rebellion against families – story of a time when professing love meant proposing marriage as it is popularly believed.

The title suggests both a comment on the state of love in the present day and a comparison with how it was in the good old times. If the two love stories were just that – individual stories from different times and cultural backgrounds they would have been kind of cute. There are indeed many good moments in both the story tracks. The problem is that the stories are given representational overtones and the matter worsened by sweeping, generalized observations and statements. It may be acceptable for a character in the film to say that the younger generation is afraid of commitments or that they use their heads not their hearts but can a film with any seriousness draw those conclusions?

The treatment of Raj-Meera relationship is light to the point of being flippant. Their scenes together give a comic quality to the first half of their story. As Jai’s story unfolds one can see certain foolishness in him. And when after much ado he admits to being in love, the error of his ways that was always clear to the audience is finally established for him. Had the treatment of the film remained comic this could have passed, but the film becomes dramatic and finally judgmental on the Bollywood lines that true love happens only once and must be honoured. A man and a woman wanting to pursue their dream careers and not wanting to pursue a trans-continental relationship, their breaking off in an agreeable manner is made to look silly, frivolous, even tragic.

On the other hand, the story of Sardar and Harleen Kaur is treated with uncritical reverence. This story has several beautiful moments but is shown with an authorial tint of romance and idealism – it’s like watching a museum piece, you admire it because it’s really old. The sardar’s story is forcefully coupled with the main story. It appears in conveniently placed conversations between Saif and Rishi Kapoor. Something else that bothered me is the role of the female protagonist Meera. Despite the effort to make her look and behave like a modern, emancipated woman, you don’t get to know what she is thinking. She is never a victim in that none of the decisions are forced on her, and she enjoys the life she has chosen. But on every critical occasion it’s Raj blabbering away while she looks on silently. What is going on in her head? Does she agree with him? Is she as confused as he is? Is she hurt, or is she simply laughing at him? And a non-actor like Deepika doesn’t help the problem either.

Imitiaz Ali continues to show certain talent with dialogues, ‘creating moments’ and extracting natural performances from his cast members. Saif Ali Khan has done very well in playing the sardar. He has worked hard to get the body language right, even if he is less impressive as Raj. The songs in the film are very good although they are not really essential to the narrative of film. The camera and production design make the film look rich and the pace and edit of the film tells you that the director is firmly in control.

Love Aaj Kal is a superior work to Ali’s earlier film, Jab We Met, where the protagonists were near loony; here they are only juvenile.

Book Review - R. K. Narayan by John Thieme

2009-08-20T21:08:00.002+05:30

Book Review - Theime, J. 2007 : R. K. Narayan. Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press. 249 pp. ISBN 978-0-7190-5927-8

‘…what does one do with a novelist apparently so easy, whose plots are simple and views nondescript? Is it possible to say anything at all about him without sounding platitudinous?’ asks P.S. Sundaram (135) referring to R.K. Narayan. Critics, at times patronizingly, describe Narayan’s writing as ‘gentle’, ‘quiet’, ‘trustworthy’, ‘limpid’, ‘calm’ and then make almost apologetic comparisons to some Western writer to validate the attention he has received as a pioneer in Indian English writing. Narayan has been compared to writers as different as Chekhov, Shakespeare, Faulkner, Maupassant, O. Henry and others. Even Shashi Tharoor, who finds Narayan’s concerns ‘banal’, his prose ‘predictable’ and his vocabulary and experience ‘shallow’, calls him ‘India’s answer to Jane Austen’ (see Comedies of Suffering). Nonetheless, ever since Graham Greene announced his admiration for Narayan’s work saying, ‘Without him I could never have known what it is like to be an Indian’, his writings, especially his fictional town Malgudi, have become the touchstones of Indianness. Not only are Malgudi and its inhabitants authentic, they also represent what is truly and eternally Indian. And in this ‘Anytown’, as Geeta Hariharan calls it (The Man Who Invented Malgudi), the conflicts are seen to be simple and straightforward, like the one between old and new, between tradition and modernity, between good and evil.

John Thieme makes his way around the familiar pitfalls to bring us to a territory that is not virgin but is certainly less traveled. He begins by deconstructing the monochromic aura of authenticity surrounding Malgudi. He believes the projection of Malgudi as authentic India can only be ‘an expression of a dated Hindu-centered version of Indianness’ (p.2). Using Foucault’s idea of ‘heterotopias’ (those singular spaces to be found in some given social spaces whose functions are different or even the opposite of others) Thieme argues that far from standing for a stable, unified India, ‘the town is the product of a particular coming together of social, religious and above all psychic forces…’ and is ‘messy, ill constructed, and jumbled’. It only offers ‘the ‘compensation’ of apparent meticulousness and perfection’ to the Western readers who are looking to achieve ‘self-definition through contradistinction’. Thieme aims ‘to identify the range of discursive intertexts, as well as some of the social and personal contexts that inform Narayan’s novels… to pinpoint what constitutes their uniqueness’(p. 4-21).

What Thieme considers important for a study of Narayan’s novels is the writer’s cultural background as a Tamil Brahmin. It not only informs the writer’s worldview but also determines the structure of his novels. He concurs with Lakshmi Holmstrom’s suggestion (while admitting it could be reductive) that the development of Narayan’s protagonists usually follows the four asramas (or stages) of the ideal Hindu life and adds that the conflicts in the novels usually result from a quest for the appropriate dharma. And it is Narayan’s cultural background that helps him place the secular and spiritual, political and social all together, without any apparent contradiction, as an ‘aspect of maya, the illusion of existence’. For the purposes of discussion Thieme divides Narayan’s novels conventionally into Early Novels, Middle-period Novels and Late Novels. Perhaps these sections too relate to the varnasramadharma. The early novels are shown to deal with the first stage when the protagonists receive their education and towards the end of it make an attempt to enter the second stage – that of a householder. The middle period novels deal with Grihasthya and Vanprastha while the late novels deal with, among other things, ‘passage into the fourth stage’.

Although he doesn’t put it in so many words, Thieme seems to believe that Narayan wrote with an eye on Western readership. He discusses Swami and Friends, The Bachelor of Arts, The Dark Room and The English Teacher as early novels and calls these ‘Narayan’s most ‘English’ work’ suggesting that the Tamil elements of his background ‘are not accorded a central role…to suit the perceived tastes of the British readers’ (p. 24). Although Thieme sees more Hindu or Tamil elements in the middle-period novels, he assigns it to Narayan’s ‘American ‘discovery’ (that) unleashed the possibility for according them centrality, thanks to the Orientalist vogue for eastern spirituality…’ (p. 102). Earlier in the book he had felt that in changing his name from Rasipuram Krishnaswami Narayan Swami to a very readable (to us Indians too) R. K. Narayan, the author ‘was willing, at least in part, to allow his identity to be trimmed to fit the perceptions about the reading public in England…’ (p. 24). At least in the latter case Thieme’s suggestion seems far fetched, for shortened first and middle names are quite common in India. And Swami (literally, a saint) in the writer’s name would have invited unwanted biographical associations.

The question of politics (or the lack of it) in Narayan’s novels has had varied remarks from critics. On the one hand Greene refers to Malgudi as ‘never ruffled by politics’ and Naipaul says with sympathetic amazement that Narayan ‘was not interested in Indian politics or Indian problems’ (deduced from Narayan’s comment that ‘India will go on’). On the other hand Wyatt Mason refutes Naipaul with passages from the novels to point out that ‘Narayan’s sly political sensibility is always just beneath the surface…’ (see The Master of Malgudi). Thieme himself traces political consciousness and an awareness of the colonial situation all through the early and middle-period novels. He reads ‘an implicit indictment of colonial education’ (p. 61) in The English Teacher, points to the ‘ambivalent response to Empire…hints of alternative ideological positions’ (p. 27) in Swami and Friends, and sees Waiting for the Mahatma ‘arguing for what Edward Said has termed ‘affiliative identifications’ as a replacement for ‘filial’ relationships’ (p. 96-97).

Thieme disagrees with ‘Naipaul’s privileging of the fabulist over the social’ because for him ‘Western social comedy and Hindu fable…are not exclusive in Narayan’. But he also clarifies that most of the social conflicts (between traditional Hindu values and modern alien forces) are primarily psychodrama. ‘The action lies inside the protagonist’s head’ as he tries to find a way to resolve the crisis. The crisis of course is seldom ‘resolved’ and the comic ambivalence adds to multiple perspectives. Thieme makes another very interesting observation about Narayan’s ‘concern with the dialectics of space’, pointing out how the author endows space and specific locations with ‘physical and psychic properties’. Whether it is the layout of the house in The Dark Room, the outhouse in The English Teacher or the difference between Lawley Extension and Kabeer Street, specific houses and locations not only become ‘the sites for both a Brahmin-based view of cleanliness…and for an exploration of an individual’s quest’ but are also an important part of the ‘cultural geography of the novel’ (p. 56).

There is a ‘falling-off’ in Narayan’s talents in his seventies and eighties, believes Thieme, but he does appreciate Talkative Man, one of the late novels of R.K. Narayan. The novel not only questions fictional authority and originary conceptions of self but also suggests that identities are ‘a product of narrativization’.

A discussion on R. K. Narayan would be incomplete without a discussion on language. The unassuming writer himself explained that he wrote in English for no other reason than that he felt comfortable in it. Critics, of course have had differing opinions on how well he used the colonizer’s language. Nandan Dutta believes that the best thing about Narayan’s writing is his language, which is flexible and adaptable. ‘He uses the language of Bible, Shakespeare and American Constitution to an amazing effect’, says Dutta. (see The life of R.K. Narayan) Naipaul expresses his admiration for the originality in Narayan’s language. ‘All languages have their own heritage…Narayan cleansed his English of all these associations, cleansed it of everything but irony’, says Naipaul. Shashi Tharoor takes a completely different stand and comments in his now infamous ‘obituary’ that Narayan’s prose was inadequate, flat, monotonous, clichéd and flippant. ‘At its worst Narayan’s prose was like the bullock-cart: a vehicle that can move only in one gear…’ he says. It is thus surprising that the issue of language does not elicit any significant response from Thieme. Also, one wishes he had included a discussion on Narayan’s short stories since they are set in Malgudi too. To limit the arguments only to Narayan’s novels seems unfair, especially for a book titled ‘R. K. Narayan’ (suggesting an overview of his entire oeuvre).

Nonetheless, these misses do not take away the book’s strengths. Thieme’s purpose is clear, his arguments convincing, and his analyses coherent. Above all Thieme does succeed in presenting Malgudi ‘as a trope for uncertainty, openness and ongoing secular struggle’ (p. 194). This book, especially after the umpteen critical works on Narayan, is fresh and extremely readable.

Padmaja Thakore

References –
Dutta, N. The Life of R. K. Narayan. California Literary Review (March 26 2007), online edition.
Hariharan, G. The Man Who Invented Malgudi. The Times of India (14 May 2001), online edition.
Mason, W. The Master of Malgudi. The New Yorker (18 Dec 2006), online edition.
Naipaul, V. S. The Master of Small Things. Time Magazine (28 May 2001), online edition.
Sundaram, P. S. R. K. Narayan as a Novelist. Delhi:B.R. Pub. 1988.
Tharoor, S. Comedies of Suffering. The Hindu (08 July 2001), online Edition.

This review first appeared in the jounral Confluence (UK) -http://www.confluence.org.uk/2009/06/07/theime-j-2007-r-k-narayan/

Kaminey – Kaminey indeed but not Kaminey Enough

2009-08-20T20:49:00.003+05:30

It can be argued that the real test of talent of a good director lies not in his story but in its telling. In this sense, s/he would be like those classical bards who invented not the stories (and almost always borrowed from the existing mythologies) but the forms and styles to put them in. Indeed that’s how good and successful adaptations have earned a special place in cinema including Bhardwaj’s earlier adaptations of William Shakespeare plays.

Kaminey is not an adaptation in the way Maqbool and Omkara were, but the story or its elements are not entirely new. We have seen stories of Bollywood twin brothers – one good the other bad as we have seen gangster films, and, where all of the film is a set up for one big climactic action at the end… and yet, Bhardwaj’s films have a distinct auteur’s stamp that lends a newness to the narrative and a charm to the characters. He has developed a cinematic language that is ‘stylistically realist’ and one that produced amazing results in Omkara and works well enough if not perfectly for Kaminey.

Kaminey is a story of twin brothers Guddu and Charlie (one stammers, the other lisps; heart warming traits used to good effect), and how their fate gets entangled as try to fulfill their dreams. Guddu is the good guy who leads AIDS awareness campaigns and remembers the importance of a condom even in the heat of a personal moment. Charlie believes there are only two ways of making it big – short cut (or ‘fort cut’ as he says it) and chhota [shorter] short cut. So while Guddu is doing the right thing and marrying his pregnant girlfriend, Charlie is taking a chhota fort cut, resulting in a mix-up, involving a local neta, police and druglords, as everyone’s plans go haywire.

The narrative voice is Charlie’s and he keeps up the fun with his lisp and his black pearls of wisdom. Charlie and his small-time dreams (for goods worth 10 crores, he wants just 10 lakhs) keep the human angle alive in his side of the story, which is a dark world with quirky characters. The ‘Bengali bandhu’ that he works for are a welcome variation to the regular Mumbai gangs. It is pleasant to hear Bangla (and later Marathi) without distracting subtitles. Guddu and Sweety’s (Priyanka Chopra) love story keeps up with its directness and good dialogues.

Allthough Vishal usually starts his scenes mid-way into the acts – the pace often feels slow, party because the essential stories at the end of them all are fairly simple, lessening their overall impact. Also in a story about Kamineys [scoundrels], it is a let down that the lead protagonists are not kaminey enough – the sly Charlie is a let down when he proves to be an honorable chap in the end – a man who cared for his father and returns to look out for his brother (bringing us back to the old Bollywood ‘black & white’ perspective and one the director had apparently set out to rewrite). I think it would been more interesting if Charlie would have let the dumb Guddu die and try run away with the money and Sweetie (who too agrees to the proposal). Their Dad instead of stealing a watch should have sold the twins for a watch (and so on). The supporting cast shows its dark sides – for example, there is a hilarious auctioneering of the loot towards the end between the mafia and the police – only one is left wanting for more. If the film reminds you of Quentin Tarantino, it’s only fair, but there is a vital difference. If Tarantino proves that a good story can be told using the kitch and tacky 80s style (Jackie Brown, Death Proof), Kaminey stresses on a director’s individual style in retelling of a formula story but one that was not sufficiently tweaked. [If the climax reminds you of Guy Ritchie, it is because the set up resembles the climax of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.]

Vishal has a talent for bringing out good performances. Just when Shahid Kapur was beginning to get on the nerves with his ‘good boy with a smile pasted across his face’ acts, Kaminey brings out ‘Charlie & Guddu’ in him. He doesn’t quite pull off a Langda Tyagi, but plays Charlie surprisingly well. His Guddu act has a very convincing stammer and towers above the performances he has given so far. But the real surprise and treat of the film is Ms. Priyanka Chopra. This is perhaps the first time that she looks the character and not herself. She plays Sweetie with gusto and her dialogues in Marathi sound very authentic. Amole Gupte as Bhope Bhau (kudos for weaving in the Maratha hate-politics in the storyline) and Shiv Subramaniam as the senior cop are menacingly good.

Tassaduq Hussain joins the director after Omkara to provide a noteworthy camera-work, only here he has saved enormously on the lighting bill and I am not sure if the utter dark frames work really well for the narrative (one might add, Omkara’s was just right). Gulzar and Vishal continue to make for a perfect lyricist-composer duo. So much has been said about Gulzar’s inimitable style that any more would seem superfluous. And yet how can one not talk of a poet who brings back a near-lost vocabulary with ‘dil ka bazaar laga/ dhela, taka, pai baje’ or wonder at the imagination put into the AIDS awareness song – ‘patwar pehan jana, yeh aag ka dariya hai’.

Kaminey is a director’s film and if Vishal Bhardwaaj’s effort is measured in the manner of story-telling alone, he passes the test with respectable grades.

LUCK

2009-07-27T00:23:00.002+05:30

Taking a chance on your own luck is passé, betting on other people’s luck is the next evolutionary level. Some people are unbreakable. While others keep dying around them they survive. Reminded me of a Manoj Shyamalan’s film where he narrowed his focus to the physical ‘indestructability’ of some people and gave it a supernatural tweak (others are being reminded of ‘13 Tzameti’, a film I haven’t seen). Soham Shah picks a more general idea of ‘luck’ and brings it to a very materialist plane. The assumption is that if luck can cheat death it can certainly make a lot of money, if not for those that lady luck favours, then for those who spot the lucky ones. The result is a series of death-defying games that could have been edge-of-the-seat entertainment.
Moussa (Sanjay Dutt) lives off his own luck and is a king of sattebazi. He wants to take betting to a new level where human beings are turned into lab rats with ‘lucky’ tags. One of his agents Tamaang (Danny Denzongpa) spots and collects these lucky people while Imran Khan plays a young man with a decent job who needs some quick money to save himself and his mother. He has to resort to theft to get a couple of lackhs but his midas touch opens lottery floodgates for others. Mithun Chakravarty as an army major is very brave but is considered ‘lucky’ to have defied death on numerous occasions on the battlefield. Similarly Chitrashi Rawat’s luck makes even a lame camel win the racei. But the most interesting character is one played by Ravi Kissan. A serial-killer, he’s been set scott-free (‘ba-izzat bari’) because the noose rope broke when he was being hanged (The film cites the law that one cannot be hanged twice!). And then there are several nonIndian participants whose backgrounds the film does not go into (why should we be interested!).

These lucky “victims” begin a series of games where some will be eliminated, literally by death, at each stage. Gamblers all over the world bet through the internet. There are a couple of spine-chilling games that shock and the action scenes are often not bad. But between the action there is a lot of ‘Dus-style’ poor-taste exhibition of the film’s budget – motorcades with flashy cars, men in dark suits and dark glasses marching in slo-mo, helicopters landing on rooftop cafes etc. These destroy whatever interest or anticipation the next game might have generated. And the last straw is the last action sequence which makes you squirm with its B-grade 70’s Bollywood style.
There are problems galore at the level of the script and themes. The very idea of luck is amorphous and undefined. If it just means cheating death, Imraan would not be on the initial list. If luck makes you win money, why are all the lucky people without it? And if it means you are generally lucky, at everything, then there are more questions than one can answer. In any case would you consider yourself lucky if the money you badly needed to save lives, came not through lottery tickets but through illegal means and by killing others? Another big problem is the treatment which lacks the grit that would keep you hooked and makes the film look like an expensive and rigged reality show.

Sanjay Dutt has played ‘bhai’ for so long, he’s gotten numb. He thinks heaving his shoulders from side to side is called performance. He is the weakest link performance-wise and could be the reason why the entire plan looks fake. Imran Khan seems ill-placed while Shruti Haasan looks good but needs to hone her diction. Chitrashi Rawat’s tomboyish act could have been a little restrained. If her lisp is not natural it was done well. So at the end of it the only people who give decent performances are Danny and Mithun and to some extent Ravi Kishan!

After a poor show like Kaal, Soham Shah has realized the importance of a story and a plot, the latter is nearly overdone. But he needs to better his art of scriptwriting. Why else would characters sound from 80s Kader Khan? Characters should speak credible lines instead of churning out bad one-liners with assumed punch lines. Camerawork and editing are good and Allan Amin’s action is on the whole good except the climax sequences. The background score is hellishly loud.

I doubt if Luck set out to be good cinema, but it certainly could have been a decent masala film. The film fails on quite a few counts but it’s mostly the script and treatment that does it in.
- Padmaja Thakore

Gulaal

2009-03-18T15:49:00.003+05:30

Gulaal tarts with a rabble-rousing speech from Dukey Bana (Kay Kay Menon). Bana complains of treachery at the hands of the post-Independence Indian governments. The Rajput kings gave up their estates and royalties in support of a united India and in the process lost both power and wealth. And now the same political class that took away their powers is mismanaging the country. So to save the country (at least their part of it) it is imperative to form a separate Rajputana state. It is this regional variety of patriotism that is being witnessed by Dileep Singh (Raja Chaudhary), a naïve man who has come to Rajpur to study law.

Dileep Singh is the proverbial fence-sitter but gets dragged into the murky world of campus violence when some senior students beat, undress and lock him up with a woman lecturer, Anuja (Jesse Randhawa), facing similar predicament. Dileep’s house-mate Rananjay (Abhimanyu Singh, in a terrific performance) comes to his rescue. A cynical prince rebelling against the debauchery of his father by living an even more decadent life, Rananjay provides an ideal counter-point to the adolescent character of Dileep and the hollowness of macho-sounding Dukey Bana. He accepts to stand for the post of General Secretary (GS) in the college elections (whatever happened to the Presidents in a Union?), while Dileep hangs around him and gets introduced to the dark world of campus politics. Once Rananjay is bumped off before the end of first half, we get frequent narrative shifts – from college to Rajputana to household to “kotha” politics – that is tad disorientating and you start looking for the narrative points.

The marriage of campus politics with the fight for Rajputana results in an unconvincing drama. Dukey Bana calls for separate state but never leaves the dungeon where group of men in gulaal-covered faces gather listening to his speeches. That the erstwhile royals depend on siphoning off the local college’s annual festival funds to fight the Indian state seems an outlandish idea. Nonetheless, serving the director’s purpose of combining the college and Rajput politics is a brother-sister duo – illegitimate children of the local Maharaja (and father of Rananjay). The sister (Ayesha Mohan in a confident debut) runs for GS in college while the brother (Aditya Srivastava) is a contender for the post of Senapati (presently held by Dukey Bana) in the Rajputana struggle. Though convenient and contrived, the brother-sister coup through sex and violence is the most interesting part of the second half of the film.

The stories of college and Rajputana politics do not gel together well (did I say that before?). Also, the politics behind the Rajputana claim is questionable. Dukey Bana argues that ‘sometimes loving one’s country means going against its own government’. But Dukey’s is actually a separatist call where patriotism is limited to one’s community and not one’s country and the government-in-power is illegitimate and thus not one’s own in the first place. Another problem I faced was in identifying with Dileep Singh. The film’s inspiration is credited to the song from Guru Dutt’s Pyaasa , Ye duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hai. Still I feel it was a slip-up to model Dileep Singh’s character after Guru Dutt’s. Dileep’s poker-faced naivette and the dogged stupidity about himself – as against intellectual detachment or cynicism – fails to get sympathy when he is cheated by his comrades and girlfriend. This character invites being a ‘natural victim’ of university ragging, masochistic politics and betrayals in love. One is not surprised when our protagonist is surprised by the worldly ways of the ‘adults’ around him. Ironically, in a classical la Devdas self-pitying moment (Kashyap here eschewing the modernity of Dev D.), the dying Dileep drags himself to Anuja’s doorsteps who truly loved him.

There are half-a-dozen other characters who justifiably attract your attention for their fine performance and/ or presence (Deepak Dobriyal, Jyoti Dogra, Mukesh Bhatt, Mahie Gill [she does look like Tabu, without her baggage], among others). There is often a mix of surreal (characters from Ramayan walking out of men’s hostel, a mute ardhanareshwar, a lone house in the middle of nowhere), and psychedelic imageries (courtesy: Rajiv Ravi’s camera and Wasiq Khan’s production design), with gritty & realist style (violent ragging and gun-dominated politics on the campus). The psychedelic, surrealist and the realist keep alternating for the length of the film. All of these elements render the film with a very interesting palette but also fill the story with lot of clutter, chaff and banter. This treatment is puzzled and complicated rather than complex and studied. And there is the Shakespearean ‘fool’ (Piyush Mishra) who keeps telling the audience the truth. As a one-act piece, Piyush Mishra is in excellent form singing away the story of disenchantment in post-independence India and also the wider world. But the film’s narrative seldom rises to the ideas he versifies.

It might seem Anurag Kashyap had too many things and ideas on his mind and for some reason felt compelled to put it all in one film.

Revolutionary Road

2009-03-18T15:45:00.001+05:30

Revulutionary Road is the story of the Wheeler couple, Frank and April (Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet), living in a Connecticut suburb during the 1950’s. Sam Mendes’ film based on Richard Yates cult, eponymous book, however, is also a story that goes beyond the specifications of time and place to unravel the disappointment and disillusionment of an entire generation in post war America, where under the sheen of happy marriages, lied failed dreams of love and fulfillment.

The Wheelers have believed they are special people, and so have others who know them. They rise above the social circle they inhabit as an ‘ideal’ couple. But one look at an ordinary day in this couple’s life reveals the dreariness, frustration and the bitterness of misplaced expectations. Frank Wheeler spends his days toiling at the one job he had never wanted and April Wheeler pretends to be a working actress from brief appearance in ‘community plays’. This is when April Wheeler looks for clues in the past when they were happier. She remembers the idealism and confidence they had in not so distant past and a belief in the endless possibilities in life. It occurs to her that they abandoned those possibilities to settle for the safety and convenience of conventions. She convinces Frank to make a new start by moving to Paris. More than being a geographical location, Paris comes to symbolize the revolutionary and the idealistic.

As the couple announces its intention of relocating to Paris we see the interesting reactions from their friends – they vary from incredulous to envious. But one thing is clear, none of them will follow the Wheelers to “Paris”. The society fights its hopelessness by deifying the Wheelers, and avoid examining their own failures by looking up to the couple. However, a leap of this sort – a return to the idealism of youth – is not easy, and cracks in the Wheelers’ plan begin to show. Frank Wheeler loves the freedom the ‘move-to-Paris’ decision gives him but he has inhabited the present dreary world for too long. A raise in position and salary makes the present world immensely attractive to him. But his promotion will not erase his wife’s desolation. The interests of Frank and April Wheeler clash and the result is tragic, even baffling.

The director’s mouthpiece is a young Mathematician (Michael Shannon) who is ‘mad’ by society standards. Not only is he aware of the hopeless emptiness in his own life but he also appreciates the same awareness and the will to fight it in the Wheelers. He feels angry and frustrated at Frank’s chickening out and his (also probably the director’s) sympathy for April tilts the film in her favour leaving the common man’s struggle for ‘regular, safe’ life less sympathetic. But in the end it is not important as to who was right for both suffer equally.

The film’s tagline says ‘How do you break free without breaking apart?’ Every now and then people try taking the revolutionary road and the result is often disastrous. Failure is human predicament. People fail and are quickly erased from collective memories. The Wheelers become one such couple.

Revolutionary Road showcases Sam Mendes’ strength for dissecting complexities of family life (after American Beauty). Also noteworthy is that he opted for an intimate drama which was the call of the story than a mega-budget film that the stars, the author and he could have easily attracted. Kate Winslet proves that her nominations and wins for the numerous awards are well deserved. Leonardo di Caprio delivers a controlled performance and just about stands up to Winslet’s burning angst and raging histrionics.

Siddharth: The Prisoner

2009-03-03T17:08:00.003+05:30

The inflow of serious, experimental, low budget films although a trickle right now, could be portentous of a ‘meaningful’ shift in Bollywood film productions. They may not all be money spinners but they can surely show a broader picture to the trade pundits who limit Indian audience’s taste to big budget, song-n-dance capers.

Prayas Gupta’s Siddharth: The Prisoner is essentially a short story told on a feature film length format. It starts with a vedic prayer that asks to be delivered from all desires and passions. Entangled in this fight against desire are Siddharth Roy – a once famous writer, now down in the dumps – and an an employee in an internet café (Sachin Nayak). Siddharth, once shortlisted for the Booker, has spent some time in jail (reason not specified) and is now out. The life that awaits him outside is no less tortuous. His wife has left him and he is not allowed to meet his son. The one thing that can save him is also the only good thing that came out of his stay in the prison. He has written a book – The Prisoner – and hopes to get it published. As luck would have it, he loses his manuscript. He can get it back, but for that he’ll have to let go of 20 lakhs Rupees that he has found. The money offers him a short and easy way to a better life, perhaps even a reunion with his son. The lure is strong. On the other hand, for Nayak, life is limited to computer games and an occasional prank on the paanwala. He has not yet learnt to dream big and he can resist the temptation of big money for much longer. Under different compulsions they both give in and what awaits them in the end is poetic justice.

Siddharth’s strength lies in its visual grammar. A very first-rate cinematography (Mrinal Desai) ensures that the protagonist moves through the entire story with no more than half-a-dozen lines to say. You can actually watch the film with earplugs without missing much. However, one wonders if that is the reason why the dialogues that there are, are poorly written clichés. Also, the lack of spoken words and a languorous visuals give the film both a ‘short-film’ feel as well as slows down its pace. The pace is reminiscent of some of the self-indulgent parallel films of the seventies and eighties. Serious cinema allows a lack of visible pace. But it works only when it is either the need of the story, or a stylistic device. In Siddharth, it is neither and creates uncomfortably long sequences that don’t really add anything to the film.

The other problem is that the narrator is always busy telling what happened to the characters that there is no opportunity for the characters to reveal themselves, nor showcase depths in other characters or subplots (the film could have surely done with more humour). As a result the film has no other layers than the obvious one – the one visible to you.

Rajat Kapoor’s act is the mainstay of the film and he does ample justice to his role. The deubutante, Sachin Nayak comes with a look that petitions attention, but his acting is often theatre-like. This film has its shortcomings but it is still watchable for the likeable short story it tells using small resources preciously well.

Slumdog Millionaire

2009-02-24T03:25:00.003+05:30

The poster of Slumdog Millionaire reads: What does it take to find a lost love? Money? Luck? Smarts? Destiny?

Now how the hell one distinguishes between Luck and Destiny. Come to think of it even ‘Money’ gets mixed up with these two options. And then you find yourself crying for a fifth option, ‘None of the above’. Oh! forget the details. Just get on with it.

In more than one interview, the director of the film, Danny Boyle has quoted the great British director David Lean’s approach on how to open a film – he says, the first five minutes must establish the ambition of your movie (explains the opening energy in Slumdog Millionaire while running around the slums in Mumbai). I am thinking of Lean’s own tryst with India in adapting E.M Forster’s ‘A Passage to India’. It is said that Satyajit Ray had twice approached Forster for the rights of his book. But the erudite Cambridge Don (also a racist and incidentally gay) would not part with it. And then Lean was granted the rights and he made the film. Satyajit Ray in his review of the film said he liked Lean’s work but for couple of mislaid details in casting (I suspect, Alec Guniess playing a Hindu priest), props and architecture that were not true to the context and setting.

I am no Ray, but Lean’s follower Boyle surely is a disaster on counts of details. As someone who saw the film late in the day, you are aware of the views in the public domain and the recognition the film has got. The press is gaga over the film and indeed the fact that the film has been nominated for 10 Oscars (results in another few hours!) and has already bagged no less than other 62 wins and 27 nominations! The imdb users have voted the film at number 34 among the top 250 films of all times!

All these for a film that has not gotten right that teenaged kids from Mumbai chawls do not have a British twang when they speak English (if at all). That gangsters would not know the inventor of the gun just because they have used it, the blind beggars will not care or recollect whose mug features on an American dollar bill just because he has been tipped with one and surely they are not going to know that a particular song has been sung by the 15th century poet Surdas because the song is NOT Surdas’ to start with (it is by a Bollywood lyricist from the 1950s). A sequence has a gangster asking his mistress to ‘fix me a sandwich’, when he should have ordered for daal, biryani or some such. Still if I were to pick one flaw it would have to be the language and how it was spoken in the film. For nearly two third of the film’s run, one feels being held in a pincer grip and taken on cheese-grater ride. One can see why this film might work better in subtitles especially for non-Indian audience (but that’s pulling a fast one on ‘em).

There are things going for the film. The film’s set up and the structure is most inviting – here is a reality show where with each question a most unlikely winner will inch towards winning a fortune. And for each question we get to have ‘juicy’ insights into the protagonist’s back story that involves love, sex, violence, hatred, the underworld, and even class wars. The film starts well – the first two episodes – when Jamal tells how he answered the (easy) questions on a superstar and a Hindu god – are the most (and the only) interesting parts of the film. Some have thought that these two episodes show India in poor light; I for one only wanted more of these – scenes that had both novelty and (social) significance. Unfortunately, the film meanders and dips from here on. As the reality show questions become more difficult, the plausibility of how Jamal found the answers becomes more suspect. There is a long detour (surely for the tourist-minded) when the film takes us away from Bombay to visit Taj Mahal in Agra that has no connection to how Jamal got a question right.

The film is a result of brisk direction and has several inspired moments (that’s about it. Boyle’s Trainspotting? Yes, any day). There is some good acting especially by child actors (and by Anil Kapoor, host of the reality show; it is embarrassing to see that the actors who are hogging the limelight are not the ones who were the best in the film) and a sound design that props up the flagging film through out. The cinematography has been used with cunning to particularly ‘block out’ the ‘details’ – a great service for a film doing so poorly on this count.

The best aspect of Slumdog Millionaire is that Danny boy has seen us to and possibly through the Oscars… when a series of our home-bred filmmakers and stars failed to do so despite trying very very hard (with equally inferior films). I am keeping my fingers crossed for Gulzar. It will be a little ironical that Gulzaar gets an Oscar nod for one of his lesser works but I am hoping that it will be a satisfying recognition for Bollywood’s poet-lyricist par excellence.

Anyhow, I went to salute the master, came out envying Danny Boyle. JAI HO!

(first published in passionforcinema: http://passionforcinema.com/author/padmaja/)

Delhi 6

2009-02-24T03:19:00.001+05:30

Basking in the success of Rang De Basanti (RDB), Rakesh Omprakash Mehra decided to indulge in some nostalgia. Great films have come out of nostalgia, and Delhi with its old world charm (imagined and real), invites one to explore its narrow lanes that carry quaint names, to seek stories hiding behind high walls and close-set windows, and to regret the loss of a way of life as old as the precariously hanging wrought iron balconies.

Mehra’s memory of his early years in old Delhi serves him well in getting several elements right. He warmly recreates public spaces of old Delhi where a democratic co-existence of sorts exist, be it hand carts, cycle rikshaws, motorcycles, tongas and luxury cars all laying claim to the same tight space and at the same time. Here the quickest way to the hospital could well be a cycle rickshaw, where the traffic and every other business can wait to witness a cow delivering a calf. He also displays the delicately balanced coexistence of communities where a Muslim confectioner is acceptable but a dalit Hindu cleaner is an outcaste, where temples face mosques, and where Ramlila is an occasion to indulge in spirituality, but also in gossip and politics. It is a place where the local thanedaar rules and rumours bridge the gap between fiction and reality.

But memories are for memoirs. And in their broken, tinted, dissociated forms they are at best like dough, waiting to be shaped into a meaningful story. The difficulty with Delhi 6 is that it is a collection of images. Mehra uses an entire first half of the film for a ‘winter-afternoon-on-the-terrace’ reverie. People hug each other, eat jalebis, fly kites; children play gulli cricket and smoke in dark alleys; women make pickles and sing songs. Only towards the interval point and in the beginning of second half of the film you do realize that many early scenes were set ups and they start to acquiesce meanings. But then I found the meanings (the pay offs) to be equally problematic if not more – the ensemble of images, characters and moments now yield a simplistic tale of importance of communal harmony and killing your inner demons. So the protagonist, Roshan (Abhishek Bachchan) ends up playing Christ-like martyr and enlightens people that there are gods and monkeys (devils) inside everybody. And if you kill this monkey (Ravan) things will be fine again.

I suspect the ‘success of message’ in RDB, obliged Mehra to belt out another strong one this time. The similarities with Mehra’s much celebrated Rang De Basanti are uncanny. Here again the narrator arrives from abroad, interacts with half-a-dozen characters (strongly defined, with well-built character graphs), identify a problem and help set the house in order. In RDB, Mehra had successfully intertwined the reel and real lives of his characters and here too he tries to a similar thing by inter-cutting the narrative with Ramlila that is being staged in the neighbourhood and the news clips of an ‘invisible’ monkey man that has caused menace in the walled city.

But the artistic device that had heightened the drama in RDB fails to launch or at least work to give the same impact as in RDB. The Ramlila episodes don’t do much for the narrative, because the references and associations made are too simplistic. On the other hand, the ‘monkey man’ episode constantly being reported on television provides the ‘farcical’ thread to the film’s narrative and, in my opinion, is one of the best aspects of film, both at the narrative level and as a cinematic language. I can only wish that the lightheartedness this aspect of the film provided was not compromised with heavy handed and staged ‘preachings’ towards the end.

An ensemble of characters (played by talents like OM PURI, DIVYA DUTTA, Pavan Malhotra Deepak Dobriyal, Atul Kulkarni, Vijay Raaz, Cyrus Sahukar, even Rishi Kapoor) fill up the screen and just about all actors are in good form and give credible performances, and this is a major strength for the film. Abhishek Bachchan carries a calm and likeable presence (so much so that the director forces his own hands to rescue him from the dead in the end). Sonam Kapoor looks ravishing if underused.

A.R. Rahman background score is ‘regular’ music. The best song of the film Genda phool looks out of place in the film (a UP song bursting in the middle of nowhere), as do all the early songs (however, the song where Roshan mixes Delhi and New York in his head is conceptually and visually noteworthy). Binod Pradhan’s photography is first-rate and strikes a balance between giving a realist feel with good looking frames.

Delhi 6 is an honest effort but ends up as an immature indulgence in nostalgia with simplistic ‘live-in-harmony’ messages.

DEV D.

2009-02-09T19:16:00.001+05:30

Anurag Kashyap’s new film is a mixed package for me. I had thoroughly enjoyed the sub-text in Kashyap’s ‘No Smoking’ (see review), and, I admit my preoccupation while watching Dev D. was again how Kashyap and Abhay Deol (who ideated the adaptation) have interpreted Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s classic novella Devdas.
The setting in modern day India is spot on. It is Punjab, so Dev’s bourgeois family derives its moolah from sugarcane business, he himself goes to England for studies, and Paro on marriage moves to Delhi and Dev ‘follows’ her there and ‘sluts around’ in brothel and hangs out at a smoke & drug-filled underground pub that recalls No Smoking. Also Punjab’s mustard field and marriages recalls Yashraj’s home territory, only the romance here is somewhat corrupt and laden with sexual undertones. There is also a brilliant touch of transforming Devdas’s friend, Chunni in the novel to a pimp here who supplies Devdas with whores, drugs and occasionally acerbic truths about life in the city and who’ll desert Dev when he is in trouble with police.
Thematically, Anurag Kashyap takes the brave ‘liberty’ in brushing aside parental and societal pressures that had given Sarat Chandra’s Devdas a reason to not marry Paro (in the film, his father actually advises Dev to marry Paro and is disgusted by his apparent preference for skinny, ‘un punjabi’ babes). Instead, Dev latches on to a rumour that is floating around about Paro, betrays her with another girl, does not marry Paro and thus precipitates a tragedy to which he is both the conspirator and victim of. The film has the clear most focus when Dev plays the righteous and the injured party, punishes himself, and wallops in self-pity and destruction. This clarity would have been the biggest achievement of the film had it not been for the end where a down and out Dev suddenly goes for a U-turn. This change in character – where a traffic accident makes him end his ambivalence on love (a high point of the novella) and he decides to return to Chanda – is unexplained and unwarranted. After setting the sights high – a candid and modern interpretation of the book – Kashyap seems to have heeded to some popular call seeking power of romantic love and an urgent need for the hero to be imparted with redemption.
‘Reality must be torn apart’, said Picasso, and Devdas provides an excellent format to delve within, so it is tad disappointing to find that midway Dev D. starts to crawl back towards the mundane reality gasping for breath. (I am all for the modern Devdases not dying at Paro’s doorsteps and moving on with life. After all, every generation of Indians have had their share of Devdases, and surely most survive their self-destructive phase, but in doing so they first come out of Devdas’ world, of Paros, Chandramukis and Chunnilals and then do the ordinary things. In choosing Chanda, Dev is killing his own cruel joke he was writing, and where, unseen to others, he was smiling from the depths of his despair).
Kashyap’s treatment of Paro is full of sympathy and not unlike the novel’s author, Sarat Chandra who too had championed women rights and condition. In modern India, Paro won’t take shit from anyone (parents or lover), will be open about her sexuality and on rejection take the next best option, make best use of it and given a chance will even show an ex-lover who rejected her his place in the larger scheme of things. Indeed re-reading Paro’s character is an original attempt and, thematically, the second most important thing that the film attempts to do. However, this aspect is undermined in Paro’s last meeting with Dev at his unkempt lodge. Here, she rightly puts Dev in his place but it is baffling that she goes around his room doing his bed, washing his clothes and then leaving in remorse, all tear-eyed.
The film starts on a steamy note and you remain on a breathtaking ride up until Dev wrests himself out of Paro’s life and locks himself in this masochistic situation, described splendidly by ‘Patna Presleys’, the lead singers of the brass band at Paro’s marriage, who belt out ‘emosional attyachar’ [emotional blackmail] (Kamal Swarup’s underground movie, Om Dar Badar is acknowledged for this song’s inspiration). However, now, in the time that Dev could’ve been seen ‘realizing’ his mistake we instead cut away to a long back story of Chanda, the child-prostitute who would enter Dev life next. From a highpoint that the film was at, Chanda’s story meanders to areas not essential to Dev’s story and worryingly provides a cliché background for a prostitute (exploitation, desertion, penury). The story again gets somewhat kicking when Dev is at the whorehouse in his most decadent and indulgent avataar. The pimp, Chunni and the binges at the pub are the highlights, while his relationship with the college going prostitute, Chanda has an improvised feel and never quite generates the on-screen chemistry that Paro and he had. The final lap of the film is another appendage to the original story and is a take off from a real event (so was Chanda’s back story). Here, Dev accidentally drives over and kills several men sleeping on a roadside pavement. This incident spurs Dev’s final decline and reversal, which, as noted earlier, are unsatisfying.
With Anurag Kahsyap in the director’s chair, Dev D. always seems to be in sure hands. Abhaya Deol as Dev D. superbly plays the ‘weakness as strength’ factor (the only match I can think of is Dilip Kumar who had brought more shades to his Devdas, e.g. his uptightness, and, the rage & veiled embarrassment over the mistake he had made in losing Paro). To me the highpoint of the film, however, is Mahie Gill as Paro (again, the great Suchitra Sen comes to mind, but, right now, I will give Gill the first here). Both Chunni (Dibyendu Bhattacharya) and Chanda (Kalki Koechlin) are inspired casting choices. The film is beautifully shot by Rajiv Ravi. The drug and booze filled world of Dev looks strikingly kitsch and psychedelic. The music director, Amit Trivedi has provided a background score that runs parallel to the film’s narrative and competes equally for your attention. His original score is real first-rate albeit one that is often overbearing and makes it difficult to think above the din.
There are now more than half-a-dozen film adaptations of Devdas. One thing one can be sure of is that Dev D. won’t be the last one. Sarat C. is smiling.

Luck by Chance

2009-02-06T23:16:00.003+05:30

The moment that best explains the core of Luck by Chance comes from the Karan Johar character (played by Karan Johar!) – explaining how first timers get to have a go at a career and life in Bollywood. He counsels how when established stars-actors like Zafar (Hrithik Roshan) refuse a role they think goes against their popular ‘image’, the role travels down to a newcomer (here, Vikram Jaisingh, played by Farhan Akhtar).

The first half of the film is used principally to set up the ‘intermission’ scene where Vikram, a rank outsider to Bollywood bags the lead role in an upcoming film albeit fitting in as one of the many pieces of a puzzle that needs to get in place to allow a film (or ‘property’ as they are now called) to get made. In the first half, a wide variety of elements are explored in what can be called a Bollywood collage, from training at dodgy acting schools, to an army of struggling actors appearing for one audition call, to prevalence & acceptance of casting couch, to old and new methods of film financing that in the end have made little difference to how Bollywood worked in the past (star-obsessed) and functions at present (still star-obsessed). As a drama, the film moves more assuredly once Vikram gets the lead role and the shoot begins to roll in the second half. The film poignantly ends at the start of Vikram’s journey in Bollywood and the end of another aspirant, Sona Mishra’s (Konkona Sen Sharma). I am not in two minds over Zoya Akhtar’s debut film which is both self-assured and honest.

But there are things that I liked more in the film and things that I liked a little less. I liked Farhan Akhtar in the lead who gives a confident yet understated performance. I also liked the contrast in the casting choice of Konkona Sen Sharma in the role a strong-willed, struggling starlet, Sona Mishra, and, Isha Sharvani, as the prancing star daughter who’ll be granted a short cut route to celebrity status. I liked less that Sona Mishra’s story fades away in the second half to appear only towards the end. I really liked the overbearing, blow-hot-blow-cold-as-the-need-be producer, Rolly, played marvelously by Rishi Kapoor. I liked less the briefness of the built up of romance that Sona has with Vikram, undermining the betrayal she suffers in the end. I particularly liked the maneuverings Vikram indulges in to climb the Bollywood ladder. I liked less that they were done in very muted manner. I liked how the old star, Nina Walia (Dimple Kapadia, in good form) eyed Vikram for some romance-on-the-side and that there lay a full potential for Vikram to juggle between three love interests. I liked less that all that remained of this multi-angle love was a tepid “scandalous” report that came out in a film magazine. I liked the various insights put together in the ‘Bollywood collage’. I missed display of ironies that situations such as Sona sitting opposite her brand new & empty refrigerator provided. I liked the camera work (Carlos Catalan) as the opening credits rolled where a montage of shots summed up well and with taste the working days and nights of Bombay cinema. I liked less when it kept becoming functional and nowhere as lyrical as the start of the film alluded to. I liked the details the art director (TP Abid) brought to the sets and missed them when the film moves outdoors where scenes became somewhat bare and bland. I liked the magic realism touch to the circus song that Zafar (Hrithik Roshan) appears in. I liked less the fact that the song was not significant to the film’s narrative. I liked Zafar where he seems not too happy when street children call out and rush at him while he is waiting at a traffic signal but then slowly warms up to the children as they hang outside the tinted window of his plush SUV. I liked less Anurag Kashyap’s appearance as the struggling writer who needed a project going at whatever cost because the irony of an intellectually superior writer versus the crassness of money bags was lost as his more chic looking producers and stars had their way and got away with it. I liked Karan Johar nailing it with his observation on workings of Bollywood. I was a little irked when Shahrukh Khan advises Vikram, ‘keep your old friends next to you as they will always tell you the truth and keep you grounded’. Then pointing to people who looked like his bodyguards, Shahrukh goes, ‘you see they were my school friends’. It sounded like don’t lose these friends because they would make you look & feel better about yourself and will be of some use to YOU. But then I liked the stand Sona takes in the end and moves on with her life. I also liked Sona’s ‘goodbye wave’ to Vikram’s cut out across the road while she uncomplainingly took the path she chose for herself.

THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE UGLY AND THE SHAMEFUL OF 2008

2009-02-03T16:04:00.004+05:30

A very late list but nonetheless here is what I think of the films released in 2008.

The GOOD ONES:

No. 1. No film qualifies.
2. No film qualifies.

3. Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye!: With a daisy fresh treatment of urban working class people and city wannabes, Dibakar Banerjee’s Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye! tops my year’s list. The film packed with Delhi eccentricities and Punjabi flavour is a tragic-comic take on a conman who would rather use shortcuts to get the goodies that everyone today wants. Indeed the film would have been at no.1 had it sustained its story flow and narrative tautness after the first half. I was left asking more of the Narender Chanchal act (here by Paresh Rawal) and the grating but nostalgic Anup Jalota rendition of Aisi Lagi Lagan Meera Ho Gayi Magain… Abhay Deol’s cool cat act as Lucky Singh and Paresh Rawal in a triple role were the fun-filled mainstay of the film. My favourite scene, however, was the heart-breaking act where Dolly (Richa Chaddha) tries to seduce Lucky, her sister’s boyfriend. The oh-so authentic title song track (TV, Mercedes chaida mainu) mouthed by the film’s subaltern subjects about their ambitions is the best that I heard last year. As Dolly says, “Touch ho gayi main to, by God“. More powers to Dibakar Banerjee.

4. Rock On: Rock On was a film where all key elements that goes into film making fell together in their right places – there was very competent photography by Jason West, design by Shashank Tere, costumes by Niharika Khan, editing by Deepa Bhatia and songs by Javed Akhtar all of which consistently served the story (even if somewhat thin on content) and the characters. Arjun Rampal took a break from bad acts to wonderfully play a tortured artist who stood for his beliefs, while Prachi Desai made a quiet but strong entry playing a well-meaning wife. Sahana Goswami as the feisty companion to the Rampal character too left an impact. Although I did not buy much into Farhan Akhtar’s singing ability he has indeed debuted well as an actor and carried off his character with great honesty. Director Abhishek Kapoor’s film after the dismal Aryan is surely a labour of love and that shines through.

5. Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na: It was difficult to not like this silly sod of a film. Abbas Tyrewala, the debutante director of the film is also an experience writer (Maqbool, Munnabhai, but also Shikhar and De Taali). He had skillfully set the film up with series of silly Bollywood cliché (e.g. the three things one needs to do to become a ‘man’ in life), and as the film moved the pay offs were copiously satisfying. Also the marketing blitz made sure everyone got to see this honest effort that the team had put in. While Imran Khan and Genelia D’Souza made competent debuts, there was late Smita Patil’s son, Prakeik stealing some of the thunder from under the lead pair’s with his irreverent arty act of a concerned brother. The film puzzlingly ended with a placard that said ‘Waiting for Godot’!

UTV TERRORISM MOVIES: It might seem that in 2008 UTV were only most keen on films that tackled terrorism as their subject. Nonetheless they were a major player and turned out several decent films.6. A Wednesday: The film set up a high tech drama where aam aadmi doles out justice to the terrorists and opens the eyes of old fashioned policewallahs, opportunistic journalists and generation Y techies. This is a simplistic even fantastical approach to a grave problem. Nonetheless, to sustain this Bollywood-style justice comes some well-written drama, fine editing and crisp story-telling. Despite a low-budget feel, the debutante director, Neeraj Pandey has done his bit to give us a pan-city feel and a sense on the enormity of the issues. An ensemble of actors drives the story in a fast paced manner and with economy. Naseeruddin Shah was good at playing ‘the common man’ and seems to have jumped out of one of the RK Laxman cartoon pages. Anupam Kher and Jimmy Shergil play cops and they seem to be in form for once.

7. Mumbai Meri Jaan: Nishikant Kamat’s film about terror attack on local trains, Mumbai Meri Jaan left me with mixed emotions. A number of stories unfolded and for nearly three quarter of the film several executions were plain expository and the purpose did not seem to be coming together. In the end, however, many of these stories made sense. Paresh Rawal very ably played a low ranking police official close to retirement and suffering from this anxious dilemma if in his entire career he has been of some use, done some good and made any difference. And Kay Kay Menon side of the story too drove in its point where a band of friends are making well-meaning but misplaced efforts to crack the puzzle of terror attacks (this plot seemingly borrowed from Spike Lee’s Summer of Sam).

8. Aamir: Aamir was ‘different’ in the sense that it seems that after eons one sees the streets of Bombay in a film how one might find them in real life. Aamir is played honorably by the TV actor Rajeev Khadelwal, not an easy feat to pull off when you are held in a close-up for nearly the entire length of the film. Aamir, however, was slow and repetitive. An hour into the film, as Aamir is handed over a red carrier case, one wonders why was this not done within the first fifteen minutes itself. I had some other problems with the film why does the gangster choose Aamir to be his carrier boy? When any of the available local men of the qom will carry out the fidayeen attack for a few thousand bucks, if not for free. Why does he also trust him with millions of rupees and then the bomb? What was the lecture on Qom all about? I might be nitpicking here, but the most important prop of the film, the bright red briefcase that is carrying the bomb looks close to the nuclear case the president of the US carries. All that was missing was an electronic pointer over the case saying, ‘Bomb inside!’ My biggest fight, however, is with how the film ends –– (perhaps here was an attempt to add meaning to the film’s tagline) Aamir blows himself up saving the innocent population, or, in other words, the Muslim Aamir blows himself up saving the target innocent Hindu population. To illustrate my antipathy to the concluding scenes of Aamir, let me give an example. It’s like American film producers making a “topical” and “sensitive” film in Iraq and through it sending out this message to the local population: if you are being recruited for terrorist, fidayeen attacks, please do not harm us, instead blow yourself up! These essential issues could have been redressed at the scripting stage. Nonetheless, this realist, ‘heart-in-its-right-place’, low budget thriller was not a bad start for the film producers, UTV spotboy or its debutante director, Raj Kumar Gupta
.———- X ———– X ———- X ———–
9. Fashion: Our self-claimed realist filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar take on the fashion and modeling industry was short on many counts – for one the film could have done with half an hour and more of editing out of establishing scenes, bad acts, and his own little appearance in the film (which goes, ‘ye director realist film banane ke liye famous hai’). Also Bhandarkar’s worldview (or perhaps a thought out strategy) to approach the ‘high life’ using the most conservative and voyeur yardstick is problematic to say the least. For all its shortcomings & use of cliché, Fashion, however, contained a complex web of characters and events around the modeling industry, where no simple answers to be found to life’s problems. Kangana Ranaut as the supermodel constantly on the edge and Mughda Godse, her opposite, someone who is at peace with the dirt around were two real portrayals that stayed with me after the film was over. However, it would seem that along with UTV’s, 2008 was Priyanka Chopra’s year (her films feature in three categories in my list, and I’ve missed the much publicized but derided Love Story 2050)

10. Sarkar Raj: Sarkar Raj turned out to Ramu’s savior after Aag and other debacles. On surface, the canvass is large as the story tries to take in two important development debates in India – the politics of power generation and the allotment of special economic zones (SEZs) to corporate houses. Ultimately we do not get either any insight on the actual corporate-politicians’ nexus or engagement with real development issues. What works for Sarkar Raj is the high decibel drama and the breathless speed with which a barrage of sub-plots unfold, at least until the first half. First-rate dialogues (Prashant Pandey) and some good supporting performances (Sumeet Nijhawan, Rajesh Shringarpure).

The BAD EGGS:
No. 1. Yuvvraaj: Yuvraaj firmly established how our ol’ showman Subhash Ghai is now past his expiry date as a director. A dated, incoherent piece of mindless drama about fighting brothers coming together in the end, Yuvraaj was made as if to prove this very fact. If I were to recall the film, I remember Salmaan floating around in air in the middle of song, a loony brother (Anil Kapoor) hanging out with kids in his bedroom like a paedophile suspect but turning out to be a musical genius, a bored girlfriend (Katrina), her screechy father (with an Einstein hairdo), mamajis and their wicked schemes from an 1980s film! I am yet to figure why was the film shot in badly done sets when all the actors are seen at locations abroad where the story is based but have mostly been used as establishing shots. Date problems? Saving money? The need to re-shoot all the dramatic scenes? All of above? Also, I suspect this was rare occasion when the music maestro Rahman and our own poet laureate, Gulzar pulled a fast one on Mr. Ghai. A song in Yuvraj sounds like Lekar aaye hum Bogus aur Bunkum, Bheje mein bhoosa hai…Duniye mein naam hai, logon mein badnaam hai and so it goes.

2. Halla Bol: Rajkumar Santoshi’s Halla Bol had all the ingredients of a B-film – from the opening scene between the biographer and Sameer Khan (Ajay Devgan), to the dismal item number, to the caricatures of real-life characters (Vijay Mallya?, Sri Ravi Shankar?) in their sad get-ups, to a murder straight from a horror fick, and a z-grade montage of Sameer Khan’s personal and professional exploits, not to forget strange expository set of dialogues between Jackie Shroff and Mukesh Tiwari. Santoshi took on a number of high profile crimes to highlight corruption and public apathy, and then promotes public outcry (Halla Bol) as a panacea for all ills. This problematic premise was further aggravated by several poorly planned and executed scenes. The dialogues have a retro feel to them, with an alliteration that would shame Kader Khan, and are spoken in a theatrically frontal composition. The film has been cut to a false pace and several quick, superficial scenes race through, that either hinges on a fake punch line, or an odd plot twist. All added to Halla Bol’s great-potential-for-straight-to-video debacle had it not been for Pankaj Kapur who tries to a superman act, and, tries single-handedly to bring the film back into the game. One hopes Rajkumar Santoshi comes out with a better film in Ajeeb Prem ki Ghajab Dastan.

3. Drona: I did not find myself very keen to see a somewhat overweight superhero with stubble (Abhishek Bachchan). Well, I did not see this film. Yet I list Drona as part of my list of Bad films, in parts to show my admiration for the most discerning and fiesty film reviewer that we have in print media – Mayank Shekhar. If he said something of a film, it must be correct, so my thoughts have come to run. He said of Drona – “A Gibberish Drone… You do feel like crying out loud for the producers sometimes, when expenses the size of a small-town’s economy, a fairly robust background score, a soothing title track, and 1,500 VFX effects, is brought down to dull gold-dust… Rakesh Roshan’s Krrish, the reason this film was made, was an uncomplicated B-grader. It could well have been called ‘Sheher Ki Ladki’ or ‘Baap Ka Badla’. The stunning super-hero merely goes out there and saves the world. The adults would’ve been tolerant to the super-effects flick; the kids, I suspect, loved it. I wonder who this is for.” (MS) Less powers to our home-bred super heroes. More powers to Mayank Shekhar.

P.S. This list of BAD films is shorter than it ought to as I missed out on a dozen plus odd films that I suspect would have made to this list (Shekhar’s reviews are to be blamed for some of the misses) – one is thinking of Black & White, Race, Hijack, Hello, Jimmy. Also, I am yet to see Dasveydaniya which I am told would have made to the GOOD films list.

The UGLY HEADS:
No. 1. Karzzz: The cheesy but honest to bones, trying-his-best act that Himesh Reshamayiya put up as Monty in the remake of Karz left me thoroughly confused. So much so that I checked what others had to say of the film. It took me a whole while to see the film for what it is (a deeply honest effort but still a bad film = ugly).

2. Rab ne Bana di Jodi, and Dostana: The story of Rab ne Bana di Jodi was hard to digest; that leap of faith that the makers wanted was way too high and beyond me. I just could not suspend my disbelief that the wife (Anushka Sharma) is not able to see that her dance partner is actually her dumb husband (Shahrukh Khan). This remained an unsettling issue throughout the film. Also, it was problematic to me that to be appreciated a decent, hard-working man needs to change himself into someone who gels his hair, talks rubbish, wears trousers that rides up his ass and dances on silly Bollywood tunes. Why can’t the strength of decency and hard-work be brought out for their own merits. (In Hollywood when Spiderman or Supermen take off their regular clothes they become superhero who fight villains and do some major action jobs; here fittingly our super alter-ego had to be someone who sings and dances!).

Dostana troubled me for its lack of honesty. Why not have an honest gay film instead of straight people masquerading as gay couple because the makers had some points to make and this seemed like the safe, commercial route. The premise was thin, the execution confident but choppy and the results dissatisfying.

4. Sorry Bhai: Onir’s latest outing was something I was looking forward to. The tagline of the film ‘Come fall in Love with your Brother’s Bride’ was, however, as uninviting as another film, Dharma’s ‘Come Question your Faith’. No thank you would be the instinctive answer. Nevertheless, I felt there must be interesting shades in the film. However, the tagline turned out to be the film. An adaptation of the old Hollywood classic, Sabrina (minus its layers), this film turned ugly when the bride (Chitrangda Singh, looking ravishing but very conscious on propriety) for no good reason leaves a good-looking and doting fiancé (Sanjay Suri) for his dolt and absent-minded brother (Sharman Joshi). The story could have supplied her with reasons, such as commitment phobia or an odd discovery (her fiancé is discovered bankrupt or even gay) as the marriage day drew near or just plain madness on her behalf but her reasons to dupe her fiancé were just not explained by the makers, at least not one that convinced me. The mother (Shabana Azmi) of these two brothers is the only person perturbed at this incestuous situation but that too is taken care of – the younger one and the bride start a live-in relationship, wait for the mother to die off in a few years and then marry! Real ugly solution, I thought!

5. Chamku: One went with expectation to see another well-composed film by a director who had made the off-beat, Seher based on the criminal-police nexus in Uttar Pradesh. Kabeer Kaushik’s second film was then clearly a disappointment. A forced script about state intelligence agency choosing a member of a naxal group to be their sharp shooter does not move easy or with any clear logic beyond this set up. For a film to be named “Chamku” (reminded me of the detergent that was being sold in Sai Paranjape’s Chasme Baddoor), I waited for a solid rationale. So I was disappointed when you realize the protagonist (Bobby Deol) is named Chamku because as a child he was found in unconscious condition by a naxal leader (Danny Denzongpa). The boy could not remember his name, so the leader goes, ‘aaj se hum tumhe Chamku bulayenge’. Not much the poor, bed-ridden, injured, semi-conscious can do to argue against it. Could he? Nor could we but endure this film.

6. Bombay to Bangkok: With Iqbal and Dor it indeed looked like Nagesh Kukunoor was finally in form with medium-budget, script-based, performance-oriented cinema. The film tries superficially build on the one-line idea of a Mumbai lad falling in love with a Thai masseuse. Kukunoor tries to put in a la-Hrishikesh Mukherjee touch for rom-coms but fails to show strength in working out enough plots to build up this romantic comedy and keeping the film apace. In Bombay to Bangkok, romance and comedy are like oil and water, they just refuse to mix well. There is a clear dearth of comic elements and its romantic side is, urm, is not very romantic. 2008 was to be Kukunoor’s annus mirabilis – two of his other films were lined up for release that year. It seems they will roll out this year. My best wishes.

7. The Last Lear: The able and prolific director, Rituparno Ghosh, got it wrong with this one. Not the whole film though. I feel the casting was terrific and there were scenes, early on where the men – Amitabh Bachchan and Arjun Rampal – bond, and later in the film when the women share their stories and their shared plight. Also Arjun Rampal and Preity Zinta deliver the best performances of their respective careers. And yet, and yet, as the story unfolded the turning of the director into a selfish maniac lacked logic and credibility. Also, I may be an exception but the over-the-top act by Amitabh Bachchan lacks shades that should come out of a thespian that has performed Shakespeare all his life.

8. Tashan: To me Vijay Kumar Acharya’s Tashan got more flak that it deserved. If one could remove the chaff in Tashan, you might still get a hollow grain, but then go ahead and peel the grain off and there you will find that meaningful kernel that the writer/ director had in mind. A Tarantino-esque touch was attempted to the established Bollywood masala elements in an effort to make a “post-modern” masala film, often by heightening their effects. The formulae and masala that have gone in Bombay films for decades are naturally up for dissection, analysis and reinvention and new directors must attempt them. Hence my admiration. However, I found one editing decision particularly distasteful, we see Kareena Kapoor paying shradhanjali to her late father in one scene and bang next is a seduction item number where she flits around in zero-sized bikini (a critic compared her to the retired porn-films’ artist Dani Woodward!). I also regretted how they mauled my favourite song in the film Dil Dance Mare…. Anil Kapoor was cool with his bhaiya act, only he was wholly incomprehensible, his Hindi diction could have done with Hindi subtitles.

9. Welcome To Sajjanpur: Shyam Benegal’s worked out this film from a dated concept – I could not buy that in today’s mobile phone era we had a letter writer protagonist (Shreyas Talpade) who was in the thick of village politics. The film had several normative agenda – it espoused the power of democracy and value of literacy. It championed the rights of women and transgender community and supported widow remarriage. Despite their relevance and good intentions, these messages and also the in-your-face-manner they were filmed seemed more for the immediate post-Independence era than for today’s more complex society and its needs.

The SHAMEFUL LIST:
No. 1. GHAJINI: The shame of Ghajini comes foremost from blatantly lifting the idea from Christopher Nolan’s Mememto (2001), not acknowledging it and then plastering it with an existing B-slapstick romantic comedy to explain the background of the angst-ridden protagonist (puzzling how some reviewers went out of their way to state that the film was not a copy of Mememto). The shame also comes from the fact that the lead in the film is by the very best and admirable of our star actors, Aamir Khan (who also promoted the film vigorously). The shame because despite lifting one of the most novel cinematic ideas – interplay of real memory (that of audience) and reel memory (that of protagonist who suffers from a short term memory loss) – the execution came straight out of 1980 B-masala action film. The method that laid underneath the madness in Nolan’s Memento was lost on the makers of Ghajini – having borrowed the idea and props they were just not able to make any coherent sense or use of either of them, reducing the film to a revenge drama full of so many loopholes it will bring an flour sieve to shame. Amir Khan’s six (or were they 8?) “mini”-ab packs and occasional magenta-coloured lips did not all make up for this overly long film running on humorless crap.

2. MISSION ISTAANBUL: After Shootout at Lokhandwala, Apoorva Lakhiya doled out this no-brainer, heavily indulgent film where he decided to set the world right by taking on global terrorism, nab Osama bin Laden, destroy al Qaida network and even take the media to task for spreading bogus rumours. I realized something was amiss even before the film was released. As I had watched the film’s theatrical trailer and the VO announced how the world is in great danger & peril and it will be saved by our ‘hero’, to which Zayed Khan with his back to camera until now turns to face us, I remember hearing lot of instant titters and laughters from the audience. But then to endure such films you gradually learn to make an entry from an all together different level and then voila! there was a laugh every minute of this film. My favourite scene – Zayed downloading an entire TV station’s video & audio programmes on an USB of the size of a thumb. We kept discussing if the USB should have bursted into smithereens or was the macho bike he is riding in the next scene is actually the USB he downloaded all that data into.

3. KIDNAP: Kidnap is another film gone horribly wrong, and it would appear right from the scripting phase and only getting worse on execution. Our hero (Imran Khan) kidnaps a businessman’s (Sanjay Dutt) daughter (Minisha Lamba) to teach the man a lesson and avenge some wrong meted out to him. It turns out that as a boy he had stolen the businessman’s car that nearly resulted in his daughter’s death in an accident. To me this actually called for some punishment and thus took away much of the sympathy for the motive that Imran character had for “moral” revenge undermining the premise of the film. But this weak premise is only the tip of the gargantuan iceberg of a blunder that Kidnap actually is. The victim of Kidnap Minissha Lamba plays an 18-year old but looks far older, Malavade plays Minissha Lamba’s mother but looks her sister. Sanjay Dutt is the businessman father who looks the least bit interested in the fate of his daughter. Imran Khan the kidnapper looks like a boy lost and repenting a decision he has taken (repenting either the decision his character took to kidnap or he who agreed to act in the film). Lamba climbs from one skimpy outfit to another, and looks ludicrous given the situation her character is in. When she tries to seduce it looks she is courting her kid brother. So like Mission Istambul, you make an alternative reading and then reap some laugh benefits. Here my favourite was the ‘jail escape’ scene, where in the dead of the night a sexily clad mom (Malvade) comes at the prison gates and declares how urgently she needs to get into jail premises and check their Human Rights record! A team of drunk jailors let this woman in and actually go ahead and show their skills in book-keeping (while Mr Dutt attempts to get a prisoner out)!

As the year ended, one came to know of this film, Wafaa. It would seem Rajesh Khanna has tried to make a comeback with this ill-advised soft-porn film (or a film that has soft-porn scenes). Rajesh Khanna himself is nonchalant about the whole affair! He says, “Those scenes were placed in the film because the subject demanded it. After watching a film it will be justified why I had done the film. The romantic scenes are not Bollywood, but Hollywood”. One doesn’t know who then to feel sorry for but for what, one knows. He was the superlative actor in at least two of my favourite films, Anand and Aaviskar. As I have not seen Wafaa, I have an excuse to not number it and put it on this list.

SHOOT ON SIGHT

2008-11-12T16:01:00.001+05:30

Shoot on Sight is ‘a work of fiction inspired by true events’. So I will refrain from any fact finding. The real problem that this film faces is ‘internal’ – it sets out to sympathetically portray the predicament of common or liberal muslims in UK, but ends up showing that there is actually some justification behind the discrimination they are facing. Director Jagmohan Mundhra’s fascination for ‘true events’ – especially the scandalous ones – was earlier seen in his apparently well-meaning but half-baked films, such as Bawander and Provoked. He has not been a great director but even the mediocre ones have their bright moments. Sadly, ‘Shoot on Sight’ is not one such.
The film is inspired by the controversial shooting of Charles de Menezes at a London tube station. No evidence was found to suggest that de Menezes was a terrorist for which he was killed. Charles de Menezes was a Brazilian national living in Britain and was not a Muslim. However, Mundhra uses the incident to present a case for the British Muslims who face racial discrimination and pay for the crimes of their misguided ‘brothers’ (The film’s tagline says, ‘Is it a crime to be a Muslim?’).
Mundhra starts with the shootout of a Muslim man Baqir at the station. The investigation is handed over to a Muslim officer Tariq Ali (Naseeruddin Shah) who is well assimilated in British life. He has a Caucasian wife, a son who loves football and a daughter who does late-nights and even drugs like other English teenagers. However, Ali is taken off the case as soon as he is seen within two yards of a conservative Muslim cleric (Om Puri). The film now takes a U-turn of sorts when Marber, the officer who shot Baqir reframes the million dollar question for Tariq Ali. He says, “The question is not whether all Muslims are terrorists, but whether all terrorists are Muslims.” Surprisingly, Ali doesn’t have an answer to this. The investigation that can clear Baqir of terrorism has little meat; there is all but a slipshod interview with Baqir’s family who naturally believe that he was innocent. By the time Ali finds one little proof of the police’s mistake the focus of the film has already shifted to a terrorist in Ali’s own backyard…
Mundhra’s canvass is so small the entire story plays out amongst a dozen odd characters.But the real problem is that a film that had set out to unmask the prejudice against Muslims ends up justifying the system that kills an innocent man and remains unapologetic about it. Baqir incident becomes only incidental to Tariq’s story – before he can prove that Baqir was not a terrorist he will have to accept that his own nephew who has come down from Pakishan is one. And for help and guidance, he is made to go to Marber, the same officer who had killed Baqir. Tariq even admits that the officer Marber was right and was the one who knew the truth (the truth being that all terrorists are Muslims!). Tariq is even made to realize that there are sufficient reasons to justify racism!
If it is not a crime to be a Muslim, why is it that in the film you have only two liberal Muslims as against the crowd of fundamentalists? Also the way the liberal face of Islam is shown is problematic – Tariq is offered the case with the reason that he is the mascot for multiculturalism, he doesn’t take offense and instead negotiates his promotion. Yunus, the shop-owner wants the terrorists out not because they ought not to hurt the country they are living in, but because it hurts his business. Also, the officer who shoots an innocent man and scoffs at his Muslim superior is the one who knows the ‘truth’. The Scotland Yard officers who are trying to label Baqir a terrorist are not racists, but simple humans trying to save their asses. Such plots seem deliberate on the part of the director, for Tariq could have gone to some other officer for help or wake up to find a terrorist in his own nephew. Equally deliberate is the terrorist being shot down by Tariq and not Marber and so is not providing defense to Marber’s ill-placed reasoning that all terrorists are Muslims.
Naseeruddin Shah has ably played his part as Tariq Ali. Om Puri as the Muslim cleric Junaid could have been sharper. Others actors like Gulshan Grover, Ralph Inesan, Laila Rouass, Greta Sccachi give an average performance. What was Brian Cox thinking in accepting this role? There wasn’t much for him here. I suggest if you see the film, try avoiding the Hindi (dubbed) version. It is bad enough seeing the Caucasians speaking Discovery style Hindi, it is sickening hearing them speak English with an Indian accent.
- Padmaja Thakore

[First appeared on PFC: http://passionforcinema.com/author/padmaja/]

A WEDNESDAY

2008-11-12T15:55:00.002+05:30

We are resilient by force, says Naseeruddin Shah in the recently released ‘A Wednesday’. I had often read and heard Mumbai being congratulated for its resilience and wondered what this quality of ‘resilience’ is? I live in Delhi and had no way to observe the phenomenon first hand. Things changed two years back. A couple of days before Diwali there were blasts in Sarojini Nagar and Paharganj. The popular market in Sarojini Nagar saw entire families being wiped out, in some cases the blast left behind a young girl or a crippled father. Photographs of grieving relatives and charred bodies of children were enough to drive one crazy. However, I noticed that from the next day our markets were far from deserted, there were people all around, many of them excited about the ‘sale’ signs on shops. The newspapers and TV channels announced with pride that Delhi was no less resilient than Mumbai. Diwali was celebrated with the usual lights and noises. And I was never again comfortable with the idea of resilience. My discomfort turned to seething anger as I witnessed the Mumbai train blasts and its aftermath while on a vacation in Mumbai. The film, A Wednesday well captures this topical subject of the common man caught in the terrorism crosshair, albeit with populist and simplistic approach.
I saw ‘A Wednesday’ on the very day that the recent Delhi blasts happened. The situation in the film is familiar – a man holding a city to ransom to get some terrorists out of jail. The situation is truly desperate – the police loses if it sets the terrorists free and it loses if it doesn’t, unless they find and diffuse all the hidden bombs which would be well nigh impossible. The cops first concentrate their energies on finding this one ‘terrorist’ who has set this up, although how that would stop the bombs from going off is not clear. When that fails, the police gears up to fulfill his terrible demand of releasing four locked up terrorists. The film ends with a twist which I won’t give away, but it involves a fifteen-minute tirade against the system for lettings the common people die by the Naseeruddin Shah character (he doesn’t have a name in the film).
What Shah says in his angst-filled speech does ring true. The common people are easier targets of terrorism as against the politicians with Z grade securities. Public places and transport are prime targets. Public depends on the police for security but is consistently disappointed. And when this public wants justice brought to people responsible for the carnage it is again disappointed by delays, lack of evidence, etc. The film seems to argue that this fate of the aam aadmi may never change until one day one of them gets up and says enough is enough. So the film sets up a high tech drama that not only doles out justice to the guilty but also opens the eyes of old fashioned policewallahs, opportunistic journalists and generation Y techies.
The film is supposed to be a wake-up call to the system. The common man is not weak and this is what he can do. He can bring justice, act fast and execute terrorists he is convinced of the horrible acts even if they are yet to be convicted by the judiciary. This is a simplistic even fantastical approach to a grave problem. For how is this supposed to be an eye-opener for the so-called system? How does it enlighten a(n unemotional) system that works only to support its own survival? Is it supposed to work as a threat to the state institutions – we will kill the terrorists if you don’t OR a threat to the terrorists – if you don’t stop the killing of innocent people we will kill more of you? Also, does it not negate the route that a fair and just society should take or for that matter provide the larger correction to the national and international atmosphere that breeds terrorism?
As I said because of its topical appeal this fantasy-come-true, simplistic and agenda-filled film nonetheless tugs at your heart and gets the nod, if for the moment. I would have less of these reservations if the ‘common man’ taking on the system and the terrorists was killed in the end, as that then would have been a fitting end to a fantasy.
To sustain this Bollywood-style justice comes some well-written drama, fine editing and crisp story-telling. Despite a low-budget feel, the director, Neeraj Pandey has done his bit to give us a pan-city feel and a sense on the enormity of the issues. An ensemble of actors drives the story in a fast paced manner and with economy. Naseeruddin Shah is good at playing ‘the common man’ and seems to have jumped out of one of the RK Laxman cartoon pages. Anupam Kher and Jimmy Shergil play cops and they seem to be in form for once.
As far as our ‘resilience’ factor goes, I want to agree even to the film’s epithet that we are ‘resilient by force’, marta kya na karta. Because the alternative is worse – that all that there is, is plain APATHY!
- Padmaja Thakore
(First appeared on PFC: http://passionforcinema.com/author/padmaja/)

SARKAR RAJ

2008-11-12T15:46:00.003+05:30

Those of us who have loved Ramu for Rangeela, Satya, and Company will recall our regret on how film after film the brand RGV?s coffin was getting nailed (Naach, James, Shiva-II, Nishabd, Darling, Aag). With Sarkar Raj he saves himself from certain destruction. But then with Ramu you can never be too sure; he might have this formula working for him: get to produce & direct half-a-dozen odd films, and even if one works, the financiers will commission another adha dozen films. Sarkar Raj is that one ?hit? after the ?six? misses.
Sarkar Raj is sequel to a Sarkar (2005); the latter was a daft remix of Coppola?s Godfather film series and imagined power politics in Shiv Sena?s Bal Thackeray?s household (nonetheless, Sarkar managed a general positive response from the critics and the audience). Presently, in the sequel, Shankar Nagare (Abhishek Bachchan) finds himself drawn to an NRI-funded power generation project that is being proposed by a business heiress, Anita Rajan (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan). The project requires government support and thousands of acres of rural land. Despite Sarkar?s (Amitabh Bachchan) reservations, Nagare Jr. sees the project as key to the development of the state, and lobbies for it in the most personal way. To oppose him are set of power brokers and another political family who uses the issue to show Nagares their place. The rest of the film is a tall tale of ambition, scheming, violence and retribution.
What works for Sarkar Raj is the high decibel drama and the breathless speed with which a barrage of sub-plots unfold, at least until the first half. Ramu takes an ?economical? approach to laying out his story ? actors literally spell out their case in affected (noir-lit, constant pans & tracks) close-ups. This somewhat works ? especially with Amitabh Bachchan carrying the day ? though one misses the loftiness of RGV?s Company (2002) that also had far better compositional motivation.
On surface, the canvass is large as the story tries to take in two important development debates in India ? the politics of power generation and the allotment of special economic zones (SEZs) to corporate houses. This factor alone takes the story of Sarkar Raj several notches higher than its prequel. However, it must be stated that Nagare family as pro-development politicians sound off-key if you still remember them from the earlier film where these characters were far bloodier and foolhardy (one may argue that wisdom comes with age!).
We do not get any significant insight on the actual corporate-politicians? nexus or engagement with real development issues. The power project proposal soon becomes a personal issue and bone-of-contention between the Nagares, the middlemen and a rival political family. It also remains unclear why Shankar Nagare chose to support this project because we do come to learn that the NRI owner, Mike Rajan (Victor Bannerjee) is certainly not a philanthropist and out there only to make moolah (I mean if after all the trouble that Nagares take, Mike announces, ?Nah! the other state is giving us a better value for money. We go there.? What then? And he gets very close to doing just that). If it is because Shankar is attracted to the heiress daughter (Aishwarya), he expresses it in a manner that befits a Mills & Boon novel, rubbing fingers and holding hands that are discredit to even the RGV-brand of gangster genre. Aptly, Nagare Jr. is shot dead for this anomaly.
By the time we are approach the climax, I impatiently waited for the key plots to get resolved and the film to finish. It does so with aplomb and a fine twist, only that the exposition comes through a lengthy speech given by Subhas Nagare (Amitabh Bachchan) to Anita Rajan (Aishwarya). I couldn?t help feeling a tad uncomfortable here ? how come Anita hears out the whole long-winded talk about the carnage that is being unleashed by Nagare Sr. even after being told at the very beginning that her own father has just been killed by his people. One can debate why would a daughter choose to sympathize with a ruthless, affected, coldblooded Subhas Nagare over a snobbish, selfish, multi-m(b)illionaire father? Over her own father! Desi appeal I guess.
The dialogue between the principal characters is peppy ? writer Prashant Pandey who started out as lyricist for Dil Dosti Etc shows great feel for emotive rhetoric that are also packed with humourous punch lines helping the scene transitions. I must also mention two supporting performances, Sumeet Nijhawan, as the Nagare loyalist, stands out for his quiet presence in this otherwise verbose drama and there is the debutante Rajesh Shringarpure who plays the rival Sanjay Somji and brings an effortless performance as the left-talking young Turk. These three to look out for!
In the end, I was more amused than thrilled by how Ramu was pulling himself out of the hole he has slowly dug himself into. So now, on to the next round of adha dozen of RGV films!
- Padmaja Thakore

(first published on PFC http://passionforcinema.com/author/padmaja/)

Aamir

2008-06-21T15:54:00.004+05:30

Aamir is ‘different’ in the sense that it seems that after eons one sees the streets of Bombay in a film how one might find them in real life. Aamir has its namesake protagonist land in Mumbai from the UK and get trapped in a nightmare situation. As soon as he gets out of the airport, he is put on call with a demanding and menacing gangster who wants Aamir to execute a terrorist plot if he wants to rescue his family that the gangster has taken hostage. Through the film, our man Aamir is sent from pillar to post running errands, collecting information, note slips, money and the bomb. Will he be be able to take control of the situation and prevail (the somewhat puzzling tagline goes, Kaun kehata hai aadmi apni kismet khud likhta hai, or Who says man is master of his destiny)?

Aamir is played honorably by the TV actor Rajeev Khadelwal, not an easy feat to pull off when you are held in a close-up for nearly the entire length of the film, and have to work with a small range of emotions, from being puzzled to getting mildly irritated (of ‘why are you doing this to me?” kind; character growth nahin hai, ol’ classicists may say, but that’s hardly Khandelwal’s fault). Wasiq Khan’s dressing up of locations (or sets?) keep to the gritty, realist feel (there is a loo scene – to illustrate the difficult life the Muslim qom lives in – and I’m yet to make up my find if it is done in utterly tasteless 1980s art films style or if it deserves praise for serving the above mentioned narrative point). The background score and songs deserve mention – they are done in an understated way and are often ironic.

Aamir, however, is slow and repetitive. An hour into the film, as Aamir is handed over a red carrier case, one wonders why was this not done within the first fifteen minutes itself. As noted before, the feel of the street truly adds to the film’s mise-en-scene; however, the editing is formulaic in that after an establishing long shot it cuts to several clips of close-ups of men looking into the camera (apparently wondering what our gentalman hero in woolen jacket & tie carrying a red bright case doing there?).

I have some other fundamental problems with the film – spoilers here – why does the gangster choose Aamir to be his carrier boy? When any of the available local men of the qom will carry out the fidayeen attack for a few thousand bucks, if not for free. Why does he also trust him with millions of rupees and then the bomb? What was the lecture on Qom all about? I might be nitpicking here, but the most important prop of the film, the bright red briefcase that is carrying the bomb looks close to the nuclear case the president of the US carries. All that was missing was an electronic pointer over the case saying, ‘Bomb inside!’ My biggest fight, however, is with how the film ends –– (perhaps here was an attempt to add meaning to the film’s tagline) Aamir blows himself up saving the innocent population, or, in other words, the Muslim Aamir blows himself up saving the target innocent Hindu population. To illustrate my antipathy to the concluding scenes of Aamir, let me give an example. It’s like American film producers making a “topical” and “sensitive” film in Iraq and through it sending out this message to the local population: if you are being recruited for terrorist, fidayeen attacks, please do not harm us, instead blow yourself up! These essential issues could have been redressed at the scripting stage.

The word around is also that the film is based on another film, ___ (please help me with the name here); a pity! because Bombay streets have their own ‘million stories’. As Mr Bob Dylan puts it, these tales are always right in front of you, blending together but you have to pull them apart to make any sense of them. Nonetheless, this realist, ‘heart-in-its-right-place’, low budget thriller is not a bad start for the film producers, UTV spotboy or its debutante director, Raj Kumar Gupta.

Shaurya

2008-06-21T15:48:00.002+05:30

For those few who have cared to follow the release of Shaurya, the end credits roll with ‘101’ definitions of Courage. One is missing. Courage is also being original. Shaurya is ‘inspired’ by Rob Reiner’s A Few Good Men (based on AB Sorkin’s play of the same name). Shaurya is the story of Siddhant (Rahul Bose), a cocky lawyer in the army (Tom Cruise in the original) who is searching for meaning and adventure in life. He is waiting for something that would challenge his spirit. This he finds in defending a soldier Javed Khan (Deepak Dobriyal) who is accused of killing a senior army officer. Khan stands all alone, with nobody to support him and refuses to speak in his own defense.

Shaurya’s director, Samar Khan has tried to contextualize his inspiration by putting an Indian issue at the heart of the story. But what can be more unoriginal than playing the same old Hindu-Muslim communal card? Javed Khan says that he is paying the price for being a Muslim. Siddhant (Bose) scoffs at him for playing the victim and trying to be a martyr. Although there is truth here and it would have worked to the film’s credit had it been presented the Muslim issue with clarity and honesty. But the film cows down under easy options. So it is not one community dominating another but just one man, Brigadier Pratap (Kay Kay Menon) dictating not only the entire army operations in the area but also the lives of people who happen to enter his self-declared jurisdiction. Blaming him comes easy because he talks like a madman and the officer (shot by Khan) who follows his orders is shown to be a beast. Since the entire blame of false encounters in Kashmir can be pinned down on one man, Brigadier Pratap, the solution is clear. Lock him up. If only the problem was this simple and the solution this easy! Playing safe is not original.

Rahul Bose is one of the finest actors in Bollywood today. In Shaurya he is so coolly balanced that he makes even the over-dramatic scenes bearable. Javed Jaffery plays a regular (non-comic) guy well and should try more of these. Minissha Lamba is a hairs breadth away from over-acting and Amrita Rao just about manages. Kay Kay Menon tries hard but standing up to the cold and menacing fanaticism of Col. Nathan Jessep of the original (Jack Nicholson) would always be a tall order. Deepak Dobriyal as Javed Khan is not extra ordinary (one thinks of Omkaara) but does his job.

There is not much place for songs in the film but a couple of then have been jammed in anyway. Cinematographer Carlos Catalan does what he is asked without adding much of his own. The dialogues deserve a mention; there is an attempt to be natural and witty. On details, I was left wondering can civilians and journalists be present during a court martial? They are. And, can the army let go of a soldier who has killed his senior officer. He is.

Jodhaa Akbar

2008-02-29T02:56:00.006+05:30

Up until Ashutosh Gowariker’s Jodha Akbar was released, the defining film on the Mughals was K.Asif’s Mughal-e-Azam (1960) – the passionate tale of a lowly courtesan Anarkali (Madhubala) threatening to become the queen and a son (Dilip Kumar) rising in revolt against his emperor father, Jaluddin Mohammed Akbar (Prithviraj Kapoor in a towering performance). One suspects that however much Ashutosh Gowariker cites secondary research material as basis for his film, Jodha Akbar, it is K.Asif’s majestic work that underpins his latest picture.

Both street protestors and academics alike are harping on how no biography of Akbar, including the official one, Akbarnama mentions Jodha Bai as his wife. Second, it may not be wholly correct that the Mughal king who is known for his secular politics was equally liberal with his wife following Hindu customs (it was Akbar who banned the marriage for Mughal girls), not forgetting the Akbar’s several other wives and members of his harem that find no mention in either of the two films. It might just be that Gowariker is deriving legitimacy of his work from Asif’s Mughal-e-Azam and what he really wishes is to explore is how ‘Prithviraaj Kapoor’ went about romancing Jodha in his young days before he became the stiff patriarch and the powerful emperor of Hindostan (it is perhaps fitting that Hrithik Roshan ages into Prithvirraaj Kapoor, but Aishwarya into Durga Khote!).

The furor over the film is unnecessary. The cry, I feel, is less due to historical inaccuracy than an expression of a certain embarrassment by a section of people. For them the marriage of a Rajput Hindu princess to a Muslim ruler in order to avoid a confrontation was a compromise and they do not warrant mention by posterity. However, it is really desirable even warranted that we investigate the formative years of one of the most important kings in human history (notwithstanding how the idea originated).

Jodha Akbar then does well by picking some very interesting elements from the life of the Mughal emperor. The growth and transformation of the emperor as he moves out of the tutelage of Bairam Khan and Maham Anga, his decision to make India his permanent home and the institution of secular politics within a very conservative Islamic setup (his marriage to a Hindu princess was only one of the strategies) constitute noteworthy aspects of the Ashutosh Gowariker’s film. Also, the political intrigues surrounding the young emperor where the military commander, the foster mother, the mullahs, and the cousins, all with their personal agendas vie for influence, are well thought out and executed. That these intrigues were not limited to the Mughal court is established through the Raja Bharmal- Sujamal sub-plot.

However, the central plot of Akbar’s marriage to Jodhabai that otherwise had great potential for drama and intrigue, fails to really kick off. To reiterate, the reasons and repercussions of the Rajput-Mughal political alliance are reasonably worthy subjects for a film. And Jodha Akbar does take up some of the related issue like the inheritance feud within Bharmal’s family or the orthodox displeasure and distrust of Akbar’s alliance with a Hindu. But in its effort to turn a political alliance into an idealized love story and also (I suspect) to avoid ‘hurting sentiments’, the director dilutes it into a drama on communal harmony. The result is that the relationship between the protagonists is all nice, sweet, and very boring.

What one misses are the ‘details’ of the relationship. Incidents like Akbar’s impromptu dance on the Sufi song or his orders to throw his cousin down to his death from the parapet, not once but twice add dimensions to his character. Several more such finer points were needed to add lush and growth to the lead pair and their romance in this close to 3-hour film (indeed, necessitating that Gowariker took more liberties with the historical ‘facts’). Instead we see some finely executed (if broad-brushed) scenes of a Rajput princess who’s being given away against her wishes actually putting conditions to the Mughal emperor that she be allowed to retain her Hindu name and traditions but also to have a temple in full public knowledge. From here on, the romance between the king and his consort stays limited to his trying to live up to his promises to Jodha while the wife weighs her options to accept Akbar in her bed. Her naaz-nakhra continues well after the intermission and for a moment it appears that the end credits might include a plate that reads, ‘The Hindu princess, Jodha Bai not only retained her Hindu name and traditions, was allowed a temple in full public knowledge, but also remained a VIRGIN throughout her life’.

The other thing that mars the film is its inconsistency. Jodha Akbar constantly fluctuates from being very good and original to being tedious and even hackneyed. For example, on one hand there are well executed scenes like the Akbar-Bairam Khan confrontation or the climactic duel between Akbar and his brother-in-law, and, on the other hand, there are scenes like Akbar’s disguised foray in public market or the murder of the prime minister, that look straight out of ‘dada-dadi ki kahaniyan’. And then there are scenes that are good but could have done much better with tighter editing, like the one where Akbar fights the elephant. The locations and sets similarly vary between very grand to very run down. It is the film’s inconsistency that proscribes it from making all elements of the film fall together and take an explicit position over several political and personal aspects as the Mughal emperor came of age.

Gowarikar and Nitin Desai have worked hard on the production and it shows, especially in the war scenes, though the song hailing Akbar (azeem-o-shaan shehenshah) reminds one of the multi-starrer 70s films with skirt-wearing royal heroes and songs shot in stadiums. The director deserves praise for controlling his actors, especially Aishwarya Rai into giving reasonably good performances. This tactics (if there indeed was one) has not worked for Hrithik Roshan. I may be in minority here but Roshan’s Akbar is a tad too measured performance as if he is always on a tight leash watching himself lest he falls short of the expectations. Of the supporting cast, noticeable are the performances by Sonu Sood (plays Sujamal) and Ila Arun (Maham Anga) and indeed Punam Sinha who puts up a fine, dignified performace as Akbar’s mother and the empress (possibly being at the side of Bollywood’s Shotgun Sinha had her in preparation for this role for decades now). A. R. Rahman’s music is easy on the ears and could grow on you. The khwaja mere khwaja song carries the almost ethereal Sufi magic.

A final word – it is not uncommon that film making often constitutes executing one’s childhood fantasies (for those who can afford it); one wishes Ashutosh Gowariker had followed his heart more and gone all the way to bring a fully personalized Jodha Akbar story. For now Akbar and Jodha would continue to live in popular memory as K.Asif had whimsically designed them close to 50 years ago.

(First appeared at http://passionforcinema.com/author/padmaja/)

Book Review: South Asian Writers in Twentieth-Century Britain

2008-02-18T00:22:00.004+05:30

South Asian Writers in Twentieth-Century Britain: Culture in Translation
by Ruvani Ranasinha

New York: Oxford Univ. Press. 2007; 302 pp. ISBN 978-0-19-920777-0
“So if a writer decides his/her audience is in the English speaking West then s/he has to write in relation to the West and accede to be read accordingly. In other words s/he will have to deal with the colonial encounter and its repercussions especially in the formation of her/his identity. The writer will have to play by their current rules and be read according to their feelings of guilt or glory.” G.J.V. Prasad

Tracing the publication and reception of South Asian Anglophone writing in 20th century Britain in her book, South Asian Writers in Twentieth Century Britain: Culture in Translation, Ruvani Ranasinha makes a somewhat similar observation, that ‘minority discourse is often shaped by the complex demands of various sections of the mainstream’ (p. 8). Her monograph sets out to ‘demonstrate the ways in which shifting political, academic, and commercial agendas in Britain and North America have influenced the selection, content and consumption of many books’ by South Asian authors (ibid). Ranasinha investigates the roles of reviewers and publishers as mediators between the writer and the reading public, and also proposes fresh interpretations of terms like translation, migration, hybridity and multiculturalism.

In the first section of the monograph, Ruvani Ranasinha presents a detailed and clear analysis of the changing market for South Asian writing, starting with the publication and reception of writers like Raja Rao, Mulk Raj Anand and R.K. Narayan in the 1930s and 1940s. Some of these writers had successfully resisted the demands from their publishers to confirm to Eurocentric standards. On the other hand, she also analyzes the role of cultural and academic institutions in Britain in aiding the conformism displayed by some other South Asian writers of this time. Tracing important events and processes such as the rise of Commonwealth Literature, the emergence of ‘Black’ as a political category and the birth of ‘British Asian’ identity, she skillfully maps the noticeable shifts in the British interest in South Asian writing, which albeit remained confined to Anglophone literary outputs.

Defining cultural translation as a steady interchange between mainstream and minority codes, Ranasinha further suggests that this cross-cultural confrontation for the South Asian writers often ‘includes an invention, imitation or creation of identity’ (p. 266). In order to get a generational perspective on the changing discourse on migrant identity, the author compares writings in the Indian sub-continent from a decade before the Independence until the present. While the choice of the eight writers that she discusses in her monograph is not exhaustive, the juxtaposition of the writers against each other is a novel idea and follows a clear structure. Ranasinha moves chronologically from discussing Nirad C. Chaudhuri’s and M.J. Tambimuttu’s self translation through autobiographical modes to wider, public forms of history in the writings of Kamla Markandaya and A. Sivanandan. With Farrukh Dhondy and Salman Rushdie the focus of writing has shifted, she asserts, from questions of assimilation to the new-found space of migrancy and hybridity. Finally, Ranasinha takes up Hanif Kureishi and Meera Syal to discuss their engagement with the issues of minority identity.

In the writings of Nirad Chaudhury and Tambimuttu, Ruvani Ranasinha explores two modes of self-translation – assimilative and ‘foreignising’. She points out that both these writers share an elitist outlook, a patriarchal, anti-national cosmopolitanism, and Eurocentric universalism. However, their adoption of contrasting modes of self-translation points to shifting constructions of cultural difference. Chaudhury’s early alienation from his native culture made him live like an exile in his own country and also led him to create an idealized, imaginary Britain in his works. The author contends that Chaudhury’s valorization of the English culture and justification of colonial rule in India helped him with good reviews in Britain initially. However, his continued clinging to obsolete notions of Englishness, his support of outdated colonial ideologies and his criticism of what he thought of as decadence in multi-cultural Britain made him an anachronism. On the other hand, Tambimuttu continuously evolved in response to expectations of culture difference. On his arrival in Britain, he consciously manipulated the orientalist discourse on cultural difference and the class consciousness of the British to gain immediate acceptance. He did so by creating for himself an ethnic identity and a royal ancestry. On his arrival in the U.S. in 1952, Tambimuttu similarly gauged the expectations in the New World and this time grew more assertive about his ethnicity, downplaying the royal connections. Coming back to Britain once again in 1968, he re-invented himself by taking an anti-colonial stance. Ranasinha successfully points to the irony of the situation where Tambimuttu’s assertion of ‘difference’ contributes to his acceptance in the mainstream, whereas Chaudhury, despite his desire to be British, is categorized an Indian. To the author this clearly points to the dominance of mainstream ideas on cultural difference.

Moving on, Ranasinha points out that both Kamla Markandaya and A. Sivanandan, foreground the clash between tradition and modernity in postcolonial states, erosion of historical memory during colonial times, and the re-writing of the nation’s past from the point of view of the colonized. But that, according to the author, is where the similarity ends. For whereas Sivanandan believes that literature must challenge, engage with or contribute to politics, Markandaya is of the view that the ‘didactic novelist is a poor novelist’. Like Tambimuttu, Markandaya chose to play to the exoticised versions of the East in order to assimilate. Citing Markandaya’s novels as a case in point, Ranasinha makes an interesting observation – that assimilation to the target culture does not always happen by minimizing the foreign content in one’s works; it is the emphasis on the ‘foreign’ that helps, albeit in a ‘language’ understood by the target culture. She points out that Markandaya’s work sells the concept of Third World women as victims of patriarchy and underdevelopment. Ranasinha criticizes, if somewhat unreasonably, Markandaya resistance to a representative role as an Asian woman writer, finding it both ‘self-effacing’ and ‘gender-inflected’.

A. Sivanandan, on the other hand, uses a semi-autobiographical character to portray the collective history of Sri Lanka. His perceptions of Sri Lanka’s race and class dynamics both feed into and are reinforced in his works by his immersion into black British socialist politics. However, Ranasinha book does not extend the analysis to include Sivanandan’s latest views in relation to the recent pressure on British Muslims to integrate, where he distinguishes between multicultural society and multiculturalism (the latter he prefers to call ‘culturalism’). His argument is that neither integration nor assimilation can prevent racialism and the answer for him lies in anti-globalisation and anti-imperialist movements (see his article, Why Muslims Reject British Values).

Farrukh Dhondy and Salman Rushdie differ from the earlier generation of South Asian writers because of their distance from the colonial era, and from their Anglophone successors who live in Britain in that Dhondy and Rushdie have closer knowledge of their countries of origin. Although both of them come from anglicized minority environments in India and moved to England for education, Rushdie’s family was more privileged, and this Ranasinha feels, might explain their differing politics and trajectories. Dhondy became part of an activist Left politics. In the beginning he fought against the negative portrayals of not only minorities but also their countries of origin in the media. He also wrote for theater and television thereby bringing the minority culture to the popular media and paved the way for writers like Meera Syal and Hanif Kureishi. Ranasinha points out to Dhondy’s contribution also in ‘moving away from the politics of positive image to the development of a specular, self-reflexive critique of British black and Asian culture…which allowed it to develop its own inherent cultural dynamics’ (p. 203) Ranasinha thus usefully points out his anti-assimilation stance. However, she misses out on an analysis of the shift in Dhondy’s views, post 9/11. Although Ranasinha very briefly mentions Dhondy’s criticism of multiculturalism, yet what is more important and could have found a mention in her book is his criticism of Islam or what he calls a ‘barbaric interpretation of Islam’ and also his idea of the ‘fundamentalist Muslim’ versus the ‘Western Muslim’ (see Our Islamic Fifth Column).

Ranasinha’s analysis of Salman Rushdie’s works, his deft handling of the literary devices at his disposal, be it magic realism or the subversion of Standard English, covers all aspects of his work without saying anything new. She does not once question either his (or Bhabha’s) valorization of ‘the migrant’, or if his espousal of the Eurocentric post-modernist theories had a role in his immediate acceptance with the western critics. She also skips a discussion on how the Satanic Verses and the resultant fatwa affected/ helped Rushdie’s reputation in the west. For informed readers of Rushdie, the novelty lies only in his comparison to Dhondy which in this case may not be very satisfying.

Quoting Stuart Hall that identity does not precede representation, but rather is ‘always in process, and always constituted within, not outside representation’ (p. 227), Ranasinha moves on to discuss the ‘politics of representation’ by British-born writers and film-makers Hanif Kureishi and Meera Syal. According to her, they differ from their predecessors particularly in their ‘role as cultural mediators’ (p. 221), and their work charts the relationship between postcolonialism and multiculturalism addressing, in particular, the legacy of colonialism. Rather than focus on conflicts between cultures, Kuresishi and Syal portray discord between generations and within British-Indian communities to ‘disturb binary polarities that equate the first immigrant generation with tradition and the second with modernity’ (p. 225).
The status of minority writer brings with itself the ‘burden of representation’, but both Kureishi and Syal contest such claims. Ranasinha’s previous research on Kureishi makes her discussion of the writer well-informed and nuanced. She perceptively argues that Kureishi’s ‘resistance to oppressive forms of identification stemming from notions of community around ethnicity’ (p. 245) is not just an assertion of independence but also a rejection of political commitment. She points to his stereotypical representation of Islamic fundamentalism in his later work and concludes that Kureishi’s work was ‘amenable to the British because it was less confrontational’. In contrast, Ranasinha observes, Syal’s work is more politically engaged, however, what makes her criticism palatable is her warm humour and the fact that the Punjabi Hindu community she satirises is more prosperous and less alienated that the Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslims that are Hanif Kureishi’s subjects.

On the whole Ruvani Ranasinha’s book is an excellent study that provides a detailed materialist history to production and consumption of South Asian writing in 20th century Britain. It successfully argues that the ‘literary quality’ of a book is not the only criterion; publishing and review apparatuses play a significant role in the selection, publication and reception of texts. The comparative study of two writers from a similar generation is novel if not always even. A structure where writers are compared because they are contemporaries (but only roughly), brings together writers who may not be inherently comparable. For example comparing Sivanandan, a political activist, to a basically non-political writer like Markandaya is a little lopsided. On the other hand, this bracketing technique also limits the discussion on writers like Sivanandan to a particular time period. Indeed, a comparative analysis of political views of Sivanandan who is still writing and Dhondy’s recent opinions would produce interesting results.

Another discussion that could have added to this study is the issue of South Asian writers still writing from their native countries (especially as Ranasinha moves the discussion to second generation migrant writers) and if their writing in any way connects to the cultural translation in Britain. However, if one had to find one serious weakness in Ranasiha’s monograph , it would be the analysis of Salman Rushdie’s work. After the wonderfully balanced study of Nirad Chaudhury or the relentless critique of Kamla Markandaya it is difficult to fathom why Ranasinha accepts Rushdie’s literary reputation with an uncharacteristic awe.

Despite these suggestions, which only go to show how a good book raises the level of readers’ expectations, Ruvani Ranasinha’s book is extensively researched and original. It should interest not only scholars of literature and cultural studies but also those who are interested in South Asian writing.
References:
Dhondy, F. Our Islamic Fifth Column. www.city-journal.org
Prasad, G.J.V. ‘Reply-paid Post-colonialism’. Interrogating Post-colonialism, eds. Harish Trivedi, Meenakshi Mukherjee. Shimla: IIAS, 1996.
Sivanandan, A. Why Muslims Reject British Values. The Observer (16 Oct. 2005), online edition.

This review first appeared in the journal, Confluence: South Asian Perspective

Mithya

2008-02-12T02:04:00.000+05:30

In one of his introductions to the film, Rajat Kapoor discussed his inspiration behind Mithya: his film was a take on the mythological story on how Vishnu lets Narad muni change his identity into a common householder and the latter starts believing in it. The experience was to teach him (and us) the difference between illusion and reality.

In Mithya, an out of work actor VK (Ranvir Shorey) is offered to play the role of a real life Mumbai gangster with a promise of one crore rupees as remuneration. The proposition coming from mobsters, VK can’t refuse the offer. Their plan is to bump off the dangerous don Raje Bhai (Ranvir Shorey) and VK to take his place. In the course of the film, VK ends up believing he actually is the don and head of Raje Bhai’s extended family, only to be hit hard by reality.

Kapoor’s story idea had great potential. In fusing the ol’ Indian philosophy as its theme with the most celebrated elements on Indian screen – Bollywood and Underworld – as its context, Kapoor surely had a winner in his hands. Although the film at its basic story is original and made with taste, there are notable problems with the screenplay and its execution.

If the idea was to explore the mithya (lie or illusion) of the glitter of bollywood and underworld, the screenplay fails to bring it out and create the narrative strength it needs. The half-comic first part, where the actor VK unwittingly gets dragged into the rivalry of two gangs, goes well with some credible work put in by the actors. However, there is a certain lack of movement in the narrative once VK gets into the Don’s den. But the real problem comes with the narrative twist when the actor loses his memory and starts believing he is actually the Don. This twist just fails to click.

The character of the Don, Raje Bhai is never analyzed. Except for one short video, one doesn’t see him much. So when VK prepares to play Raje Bhai, he is mostly working on his muscles or his moustache and perhaps a certain tone of voice. One is not surprised he loses confidence within days of entering Raje’s household. This lack of characterization also means that one doesn’t see the dramatic change in VK’s behaviour once he loses his original identity. For dramatic purposes and also for the irony of the situation to work, it was imperative that the audience see the contrast between the earlier VK and the new one. This failure of irony (of the actor now living the part he was supposed to play) also affects the unfolding tragedy of his being discovered.

And it certainly doesn’t help that the protagonist dies. After all, the whole idea of illusion versus reality was to be played through his conscience. It is then aesthetically and narratively jarring to see the protagonist die and the director take over to show what happened to other characters.

It is curious that Rajat Kapoor does not discuss his original idea in his more recent interviews and instead calls his film ‘an ode to the old Hollywood gangster films – like Little Caesar and Scarface.’ Now if one were to see Mithya as a gangster film it would do the film even less credit. Rajat could have been referring to the Hollywood classics in matters of story and setting (in fact, Mithya has a greater semblance, if only in passing, with the Indian film, ‘Don’, directed by Chandra Barot), but situating his film in the above category – threatens to completely take away its original & novel conception.

Ranvir Shorey does well as the half-comic struggling actor but falls short of creating the pathos necessary for the tragic end. Neha Dhupia has more screen time than spoken lines, which is just as well. As mentioned earlier the supporting cast does a great job (notably, Vinay Pathak and Naseeruddin Shah). The dialogues are not extraordinary but serve the purpose and are occasionally funny. More work was needed if they were to carry the black humour that Rajat seems to be attempting in many of the scenes. Some of the locations used in the film work well in creating the realistic framework.

Mithya is not a bad film, but knowing the director, it could have been better.

Sunday

2008-01-28T01:19:00.000+05:30

Rohit Shetty’s Sunday has all the elements from his previous two films, there is action (Zameen), there is comedy (Golmaal) and there is his regular, Ajay Devgan. In many ways, Sunday is also in keeping with the recently born genre of big-budgeted and thinly-plotted comedies, only with bonus material thrown in – there is Arshad Warsi, one of our best comic actors and there is Irrfan Khan for the ‘multiplex’ audience who take pride in appreciating and patronizing serious actors. This mathematics – a carnival of genre and A-list actors – ensures that the film will not bomb like the way Bombay to Bangkok did.

Sehar (Ayesha Takia) is a dubbing artist for animation films who keeps having these harmless little lapses of memory, forgetting her keys and way to the office. But events take a serious turn when she realizes she has no memory of an entire Sunday, a lapse that could implicate her in a murder. ACP Rajveer Randhawa (Ajay Devgan) helps her reconstruct the events and taxi driver Ballu (Arshad Warsi) with his struggling actor client Kumar (Irrfan khan) are important parts of that puzzle.

Although Sehar goes watery-eyed in the entire second half, the film which has its police officer hero eating ice-cream cones in every shot, collecting haftas at every street corner, is meant primarily to be a comedy. For comedy, a film would often depend on plot, dialogues, situations, and in some degree on performances. The main plot in Sunday, however, has trappings of a thriller and thus can be ruled out as the director’s mainstay for pulling out the comic rabbit. There is also no substantial comic sub-plot in this film; what the supporting characters inhabit are comic situations. Again, the situations themselves are not always on the funny side, if you consider scenes of inebriated girl alone on the Delhi roads (particularly so) at 4 am in the morning over and over again falling into the wrong hands, saved by decent souls that only exist in cinemas. All the same, a few situations are comic, like the one where a local MLA and a journalist are forced to be part of an identification parade.

The film’s saving grace, then, are a few comic dialogues and performances. The best dialogues are mouthed by Arshad Warsi and Irrfan Khan and are pulled off with aplomb. One actor who manages to be funny without having the punch lines is Mukesh Tiwary as ACP Randhawa’s assistant. Ajay Devgan, with his ‘assi, tussi aur lassi’ fails to impress. For the rest of the cast, neither their dialogue nor the performances work and often end up grating the nerves. The writing credits are shared by no less than five people and you wonder who to praise for writing the dozen or so comic dialogues, and, indeed, what were the rest doing? (The downside to the funny lines is that they have this ‘improvised’ quality about them rendered in a ‘stand-up’ comedy manner, where two people stand in front of the camera and fire their salvos. Unfortunately, the non-comic situations too are filmed with similar consistency – actors who were earlier moving around or working come to an abrupt stop, deliver the dialogues and only then carry on with their lives.)

Now, the film’s thriller aspect: although the main plot initially creates curiosity and suspense, Sunday does not unfold like a thriller – there’s too little coming too late. Even though the set up of events is done early on (murder of a girl), the rest of the plots are too slow to unfold. And add to this three songs and items, the only purpose of which is to get more recognizable faces seen in the film. Also, it turns out that it was after all not Sunday that they were trying to reconstruct but the previous Saturday night!

Rohit Shetty’s fascination with action sequences is only expected (he is the son of the legendary action director, Shetty). There are 3-4 action sequences with human bodies twisting, turning, somersaulting, agonizing in slow motion – it is clear the director doesn’t want you to miss any angle, never mind if they do not match with the treatment of the rest of the film. With red chilies and dry yellow leaves flying around the fighting hero, it may remind you of some similarly floating alphabets in another Bollywood film. Could it be the cinematographer (Aseem Bajaj) taking control, you wonder, your tongue finding your cheek?

While the songs in the film are undistinguished, the background music doesn’t let you have a moment of peace. Aseem Bajaj, together with the easy budget that the film seems to have, does give the film a bright and rich look. The editor, Steven Bernard, has made some stylish edits and does a satisfactory job.

Whatever it was that you were expecting to see here – comedy, action, suspense – the film leaves you dissatisfied. You already knew Arshad Warsi is good, so the only novel feeling you come out after the film is that Irrfan should try out more comedy. And Sunday might leave you with an ‘unexplained’ urge to grab an ice-cream and unwind some other way.

(First appeared at http://passionforcinema.com/author/padmaja/)

Bombay to Bangkok

2008-01-20T02:33:00.000+05:30

With Iqbal and Dor it indeed looked like Nagesh Kukunoor was finally in form with medium-budget, script-based, performance-oriented cinema. Bombay to Bangkok is, however, not a first-rate start to a year that promises to be Kukunoor’s annus mirabilis (two of his other films are lined up for release in 2008).

Bombay to Bangkok is Kukunoor’s second collaboration with producer Subhash Ghai (after the simple but emotionally tugging tale of Iqbal). One can’t help getting a vague feeling that Ghai was generous with his inputs here: was it the one-line idea of a Mumbai lad falling in love with a Thai masseuse, or, that tagline, ‘same same but different’?

Kukunoor fails to show strength in working out (enough) plots to build up this romantic comedy and keeping the film apace. The basic storyline – a Mumbai chef (Shreyas Talpade) who runs away to Bangkok with money that belongs to a gangster, and falls in love with a Thai girl (Lina Christensen) while being followed by the gangster’s rapper son – is the kind that can go in any direction, depending on the quality of the execution of the idea. In B2B, the story starts well, but soon loses its way and just fails to ‘arrive’. For a comedy of errors, the plots are too thin and plainly laid-out. They are stretched way beyond their asking time – about five half-baked episodes take more than two hours to play out. The result: a film that goes too slow with not much happening most of the time.

Nagesh Kukunoor might have tried out Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s grammar for rom-coms: toned down humor and (Amol Palekar’s) dead pan speeches (here, by Shreyas Talpade to much less rousing response). It would do well to recall that Mukherjee’s films however simple they looked, had well laid-out plots, and their situational comedy was greatly enhanced by effortless humor that were contemporary and urbane (for the times). And Mukherjee’s films biggest strength was that the two elements, romance and comedy, were inseparable.

In Bombay to Bangkok, romance and comedy are like oil and water, they just refuse to mix well. The film’s humor is restricted to the plots where the hero searches for his money-bag. The long romantic stretches where the two lead-pair ride, sing, dance, smooch in clichéd Bollywood styles have no humor in it.

B2B’s sporadic sparks of humor are especially in the comic characters of JAMK (Vijay Maurya), the rapper son of the Mumbai gangster (Naseeruddin Shah, possibly in one of the briefest guest appearances in history), the psychiatrist Dr. Rati and her interest in the perverse human mind, and the hero’s mother, with her geography all mixed up. But the fun moments are too few and far between and short-lived. The clash and confusion of languages – Thai and Hindi – that the film depends on heavily to create humor fails entirely (the effort to laugh at the strangeness of Thai accent is tasteless). But it’s not the dearth of comic elements that finally undermines the film; it is its romantic side, which, urm, is not very romantic.

Shreyas is okay with his comic act but looks funny and uncomfortable in the romantic scenes. Lina Christensen (oddly Nordic name) looks like a Thai babe lost in (Bolly)wood. The only performance that evinces some genuine laughter is Vijay Maurya’s. He is spot on from the first scene with that slightly pained expression on his face – is it the anguish of getting the rhymes right? (It works.) The less said about the music and lyrics the better.

While being prolific is an admirable quality in a filmmaker, consistency would not be undesirable either. Kukunoor will have ten films in roughly 11 years of his starting out – with adorable works in Hyderabad Blues, Iqbal, and Dor but there will also be rock-bottom films in Rockford, Teen Deewarein, and now this economy ride to Bangkok.

A final thought: When and why does a director make a particular film? When he/ she has a good story to tell and manages to secure the money for the shoot? Or, when he/ she gets money to make a film and quickly arranges for a story?

(First appeared at http://passionforcinema.com/author/padmaja/)

Halla Bol

2008-01-20T02:28:00.000+05:30

Rajkumar Santoshi has made several films that address social issues in a certain way. His celebrated films - Ghayal, Damini, Ghatak, Pukar, Lajja – carry strong messages, feisty characters and dialogues that get a good share of so called “front benchers’”claps and whistles. As we are no less eager to champion films with their ‘hearts in the right place’, these films have often found their share of audience and acclaim.

In his latest flick, Halla Bol (possibly returning to safer grounds after the failure of Bachchan-starrer and gangster drama, Family), Santoshi takes on a number of high profile crimes to highlight corruption and public apathy. Enthused by the extraordinary public interest and support in Jessica Lall murder case, he promotes public outcry (Halla Bol) as a panacea for all ills. This is problematic premise to say the least; however, does the film bear out what it has set out for itself? No. The reliability of the masses is questioned in the film itself when they are incited into protests and violence by a corrupt politician and his goons. The film does not even pretend to show how any mechanism of public involvement can be created (surely, amateur street theatre is not enough), debates held and the public won over for action. Of course, this leaves out any possibility for addressing finer issues, for e.g. how ‘neta’ and ‘janta’ necessarily cannot be tightly compartmentalized into two separate entities, for many amongst this ‘janta’ would be as corrupt if in power. The problems in premise, not surprisingly, spread neatly into the quality of the film.

The first half hour has all the ingredients of a B-film – from the opening scene between the biographer and Sameer Khan (Ajay Devgan), to the dismal item number, to the caricatures of real-life characters (Vijay Mallya?, Sri Ravi Shankar?) in their sad get-ups, to a murder straight from a horror fick, and a z-grade montage of Sameer Khan’s personal and professional exploits, not to forget strange expository set of dialogues between Jackie Shroff and Mukesh Tiwari.

Just when the film would have reached the point of no return, Pankaj Kapur does a superman, and, within a span of two earthy lines, that he drums out while performing a street play, he, single-handedly brings the film back into the game. As one watches him sing the Harishchandra fable, it is a different cinema from what we started with. From then on the Halla Bol goes into highs and lows but manages to stay away from the initial (with-great-potential-for-straight-to-video) debacle.

A major problem with Halla Bol is how the protagonist Sameer Khan is sketched out. The reversals in his character, from an idealist to a “practical” person and then back to an idealist position, are dealt with superficially. From a theatre actor who cries when his teacher gives him a tiny steel trophy to a superstar who cheats, lies, exploits young actresses and insults the same teacher, and then returns to being a righteous person who sacrifices fame and his career to fight for one wronged girl – Sameer Khan shows no psychological depth. If you are championing his cause it is because you came to the theatre already convinced of civil rights and not because the protagonist persuades you to. How can he? Khan is more a picture of weakness once he takes the right cause – he is often crying, pleading with other witnesses, or trying to protect his family with a miniature ‘kataar’, and for some reason stupidly standing with his wife (Vidya Balan) and child just behind the main door of his otherwise huge mansion as rioters threaten to bring it down. The boldest, bravest thing Sameer Khan can do is piss in his enemy’s house (which makes his enemy pull down the entire structure; it is difficult to say which one of them is more absurd?).

The dialogues have a retro feel to them, with an alliteration that would shame Kader Khan, and are spoken in a theatrically frontal composition. The film has been cut to a false pace and several quick, superficial scenes race through, that hinges either on a fake punch line, or an odd plot twist. Add to this several poorly planned and executed scenes (no, we are not done with B-film elements yet): there is Kill Bill-esque swordfight between some goons and Pankaj Kapur (somewhat saved by the latter’s concluding expression), or the lathi charge on Sameer Khan with strangely dancing police and media figures, or for that matter the ‘summary execution’ of the culprits in the end (a variety of “going kaput” expressions are played out by half a dozen antagonists as guilty verdicts are pronounced on them – I suspect, in time to come, they will be appended together for one of the bakra awards on MTV).

I sincerely invite Rajkumar Santoshi to create something as delightful as Andaz Apna Apna. As for the reason why most of these ‘social issues’ films can’t come up with attractive, workable solutions, I have a theory – because they fail to identify the problem. Only with clarity on the real problem will come the right or at least reasonable solutions. And it is not my place to help them with that.

This review first appeared at http://passionforcinema.com/author/padmaja/

Films 2007: The Alternative List

2007-12-31T22:05:00.000+05:30

With year-ends, come lists. Films of 2007 that stick out for honorable and not-so-honorable mention are:

Namesake
Meera Nair’s feted adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri’s book was less than satisfying for me. Devoid of details in the book, the film was a plainer story stitching together the surface stereotypes that NRI families go through. I found Irrfan Khan and Tabu in super form as the Ganguli pair (though wondered if the Bengalis too would agree over their nuances).

Black Friday & No Smoking
Black Friday, on the other hand, was a more satisfying adaptation of the book of the same name. Despite a small production budget, the commentary was able to render pan south Asian feel to the unfolding of the terrorist attacks in Bombay. Whether No Smoking was a good film or a bad film is now a matter of opinion. But it certainly was the most intensely debated – loved and hated with equal passion. Anurag Kashyap unfortunately had to wrap up the year with Hanuman, The return of!

Ek Chaalis Ki Last Local & Manorama Six Feet Under
Take-offs on Hollywood films, these two films have done their best in pulling out the word ‘inspiration’ from the rut it has been consigned to by the nauseating splurge of ‘copies’ that are churned out here in Bollywood. Both these films use enough originality and creativity, so that the use of the original is not an embarrassment but a reference point.

Life in a Metro…
The film’s experiment with multiple narratives was not entirely successful but several stories here stood out for their honest portrayals of city life and held the interest of both audience as well as the reviewers.

Eklavya & Dharm
We certainly love to flaunt our mediocrity. None of the contenders for representing India at the Oscars was good enough, but Eklavya’s mere presence was highly intriguing for many. Eklavya told an incredulous story of an Indian prince falling in love with her mother’s lover and doing social service by marrying a house help. Dharm is a supreme example of our misplaced enthusiasm on secularism. No wonder we can’t cure communalism, we continue popping all the wrong pills. Or are these placebos?

Dil Dosti Etc
In our country where sex embarrasses people and morality is the stuff of public debates and political rants, Dil Dosti Etc made its quiet entry, with its delightfully frank, non-judgmental and original take on these two and other youth issues. The narrative style with its sharp edges and rich sub-text is rare in contemporary Bombay cinema.

Saawariya & Om Shanti Om
Both filmmakers would hate this clubbing together for different reasons. The films released together, had huge budgets, star casts and were also matched in “quality”. One flopped and the other was a huge hit. Such is life!

Yashraj Films
They flunked, they flopped, they bombed, they sunk. Except Shimit Amin’s Chak De. A little before its release there were reports that Chak De’s theatrical promos were withdrawn because of negative response from audience. Such was the production’s confidence in this project! I would have found Chak de more satisfying if the story ended at the girls’ team fight-play with the India’s national men’s team. Their going and taking the world cup in Australia was a tad fantastical.

“Akshay Kumar” Films
One can’t afford to not mention the films that were really doing the business for Bollywood. Despite the churning and chasms that new cinema promises, the old Bollywood ways have remained the mainstay for the film business. Apparently all of four Akshay Kumar’s films released this year are a hit. And then there were Partner, Aap ka Suroor and such!

All the best guys for 2008…
(first appeared at http://passionforcinema.com/author/padmaja/)

Taare Zameen Par

2007-12-31T21:55:00.000+05:30

Aamir Khan’s directorial debut Taare Zameen Par is an important film in the sense that it refers to the combative environment in which the present generation of children are being prepared to succeed. The film also takes issue with the declining tolerance forfailure amongst both the parents and society in general.

Ishaan Awasthi (Darsheel Safary), who is otherwise a bright child, repeatedly fails his school tests. His teachers believe that he is hopeless and his parents think he is undisciplined and obstinate. Ishaan himself is clueless. When his tentative attempts to describe his problems are met with ridicule and censure, he decides to hide behind lies and aggression. He decides it is better to be a rogue than a weak person. As you wonder, where he has learnt that from, you see his father fuming at the mere suggestion that his son could be dyslexic, a child with special needs.

It’s a dog-eat-dog world here and a child who cannot compete is doomed. Punishment is used with Pavlovian logic to make Ishaan fall in line. Parents perform their duty by sending him to that dreaded boarding school and the rest is taken care of by ‘chalk-shooting’, ‘knuckle-hitting’ teachers. Well, if nothing more, they have at least disciplined him! And what if his spirit is broken – well, what will he do with his spirit if he cannot pass exams? The only problem is that Ishaan still cannot pass exams.

Having built an excellent premise, it is here that the film somewhat falters: at about mid-way into the film, the art teacher, Ram Nikumbh (Aamir Khan) appears and with extra attention and affection ‘cures’ Ishaan Awasthi. Ishaan not only passes his exams but also wins the first prize in the painting competition that his art teacher organizes so obviously for his benefit. As the story reaches the climactic crescendo of applause, tears of happiness and family reunion, you need to ask just one question – what if Ishaan Awasthi was not a gifted painter? Acceptance from teachers, students and most importantly his parents comes noticeably only after he has ranked first, if not in academics then in painting. If the film is expecting all dyslexic children to become Einstein, Michelangelo, or even Abhishek Bachchan, these kids are facing worse pressure than the other ‘normal’ kids.

Taare Zameen Par, then, does not challenge the system that excludes individuals through arbitrary and insensitive elimination. Instead, it teaches a lesson to the boy who had thrown his results to the dogs – that results are important, that acceptance comes only after excellence. Nonetheless, what plays to Taare Zameen Par’s advantage is that the impact of the film becomes larger by way of associations that the audience makes. You do not need to have a history of dyslexia to relate to the immense pressure of parental expectations, or the grinding routine at school that threatened to kill all creative impulses, or that stay at the boarding school that felt like a punishment.

If you leave the screening in an evaluation-mode, you will also agree that Darsheel Safary deserves top marks for bringing out a gamut of emotions of a child without ever being loud. Tisca Chopra is good as the distraught, well-meaning mother. Vipin Sharma as the father starts off well but gets caricatured in the second half. In Aamir Khan, Taare Zameen Par has a director who is assured of his craft and he fares well. However, one character Khan gets wrong as the director is, ironically, his own. Ram Nikumbh is over-the-top with his intensely-knitted brows and brimming eyes every time he as much as glances at the dyslexic boy. Prasoon Joshi’s lyrics serve the narrative well. The animation sequences ingeniously portray a child’s imagination; however, the Calvin & Hobbes rip-off could have been avoided.

The review first appeared at
http://passionforcinema.com/author/padmaja/

A Mighty Heart

2007-12-31T21:52:00.000+05:30

Michael Winterbottom’s A Mighty Heart can be an illuminating study of how a director can use his talent to project his worldview and create something subtly different from his source material, and, also how cinema today is dominated by commercial concerns and often gets beaten into flatter and sanitized versions from what was held as its potential.

Michael Winterbottom has made close to thirty films in less than 20 years of his career. His eclectic and often praiseworthy output includes literary adaptations (A Cock and Bull Story), docu-drama (The Road to Guantanamo), biopic (24-hour Party People), war film (Welcome to Sarajevo), thriller (Butterfly Kiss) , sci-fi (Code 46), Western (The Claim) and something close to pornography (9 Songs). He himself has said that his films are largely about ‘people and places’, and where he combines social realism with stylistic experiments.

A Mighty Heart is based on the book with the same title written by Marianne Pearl in memory of her husband Daniel Pearl, a journalist who was abducted and killed by fundamentalists in Pakistan. Pearl worked for the Wall Street Journal and was investigating a story in Karachi when he disappeared in early 2002. His disappearance received extensive media attention because at the time (post 9/11), Pakistan was being closely watched for its clamp down on terrorist activities. Also, what caught the world’s attention was the brutality with which Daniel Pearl was murdered and the fact that the act of his killing was recorded on a video camera. Marianne Pearl’s book is about her ordeal of searching for her husband and later coming to terms with his death.

Michael Winterbottom’s film, however, is not the story of Daniel Pearl seen through Marianne’s eyes; it is Marianne’s story seen through the director’s eyes. And in that sense, the ‘mighty heart’ is not Daniel’s (as was the intention of the book) but Marianne’s. The film opens on the day Daniel (Dan Futterman) disappears and when Marianne (Angelina Jolie) is already visibly pregnant. She is seen dealing with the agonizing situation with courage, hope, resourcefulness and sometimes, frustration and anger. Through the search period she discovers that the Pakistanis are as distrustful of Americans as the Americans are of Pakistanis. She discovers red-tapism, labyrinthine protocols, and the opaqueness of governmental functioning. She works her way through these with the help of a friend she has made in Pakistan, Asra (Archie Panjabi), Pakistani Intelligence officers, and representatives from the American consulate and Wall Street Journal. The breakthrough, however, comes when a Pakistani police officer, Captain (Irrfan Khan) gets involved with the case.

The film is structured as a thriller and shot as a docu-drama where the director tries to keep things looking as real as possible. Everything, from humdrum life to police raids, has been shot without exaggerations or flourishes (several scenes are shot in low-lit conditions that are imaginatively used to illustrate the amorphous mass of evidence during the search of Daniel Pearl, as if the hunt for Pearl is for that proverbial needle in a haystack). Nonetheless, the film’s narrative remains focused where we see the core investigating team (including Marianne and Asra) discovering new truths and newer riddles, the police following up clues with raids, politicians belching out conspiracy theories, abductors sending threatening emails and Captain and his aides race against time to find Daniel.

Winterbottom has successfully captured the mad rush of the streets of Karachi. The indistinguishable mass of people (especially to a foreign eye), the bursting-at-the-seams traffic, the congested bazaars and the ghetto-like living quarters are all taken in with documenting objectivity. The director brings out well the difficulties of investigating and the impossibility of discovering the truth in a country where the establishment both supports and bans terrorist and fundamentalist outfits, where modern, cosmopolitan cities co-exist with their terror-infested country cousins, where religion is the only identifying factor and religious zeal a means of proving one’s loyalty, where a jehadi presence in the police force doesn’t surprise and where our hero’s (Captain) zeal in getting his job done is equally matched by the “villain’s” (Omar Saeed Sheikh) ideological beliefs.

The film is more pacy and precise than the book; however, it chooses to ignore some complex elements about the book and the writer. Winterbottom avoids any definitive statement on the institutional support to militancy in Pakistan. He also ignores some aspects of Marianne’s character that come through her writing, especially her near racist remarks about both India and Pakistan and other ‘less developed’ countries. One example is the way the director presents the little girl. She is an innocent presence in the film and Marianne is seen treating her with kindness which also reminds the readers of her pregnancy. In the book, Marianne Pearl, however, says this of the maid’s daughter Kashwa, “I realize that the scary otherness of her looks comes from the way her eyes are made up. Pakistani mothers line their children’s eyes with smoky black kohl to protect them from bad spells. It makes them look like evil angels.” (emphasis mine) What the director also ignores are Marianne’s frank and lowly opinions on issues like jehad and Islamic militancy (both important and relevant to the film). One suspects that some of these edges were taken off to avoid taking any controversial standpoint and risking the business of the film. The sanitizing process results in an ‘educated, objective, balanced and forgiving’ western woman as a hero and, on the other hand, maintain a fence sitting position on larges issues of terrorism.

Winterbottom’s choice of Angelina Jolie as Marianne too seems to be motivated by commercial concerns. Jolie delivers a sincere if ordinary performance. She is not a great actor and with the body of her known works (and the famous puckered mouth), she seems fitter for Lara Croft than Marianne Pearl kind of roles. With his sincere, bespectacled journalist look, Dan Futterman fits Daniel Pearl’s character better. Irrfan Khan tries his best to lend some individuality to his role but this sincere, helpful CID officer’s character is so poorly defined that he cannot do much. Aly Khan has a two-minute role and he portrays the educated fundamentalist well. The actors who stand out, however, are Archie Panjabi as Asra and Will Patton as Randall Bennett. John Orloff’s screenplay adds to the documentary character of the film. Marcel Zyskind’s realist-and-yet-serving-the drama cinematography is excellent and explains his long association with Winterbottom. The same is true for the editor Peter Christelis who marries docu-drama and thriller elements into a single and compelling story.

A Mighty Heart is a topical and an important film but it is not the ground-breaking stuff that one expects from Michael Winterbottom. In the end, the film is neither an analysis of Pakistan’s militancy problem, nor a rigorous investigation of the nature and cause of international terrorism of which Daniel Pearl’s disappearance and murder is only a regretful result. As an adaptation, the film does not fully utilize the potential of the source book.

(published also at http://passionforcinema.com/author/padmaja/)

Dharm

2007-12-22T03:36:00.000+05:30

Director: Bhavna Talwar
Producer: Sheetal V Talwar
Cast: Pankaj Kapur, Supriya Pathak, Krish Parekh, KK Raina, Daya Shankar Pandey and Hrishita Bhatt

Dharm’s DVDs are out today and I can’t help but reiterate my disagreement with the many positive reviews that the film got. It’s incredible that this embarrassment of a film actually managed to argue its way also towards India’s nomination for an Oscar (not that Eklavya was any better, but that will be stepping away from the point).

'Come, question your faith' cannot be a very inviting tagline, I thought as I went to see Dharm, a film by the debutante Bhavna Talwar. In the film, Pandit Ram Narayan Chaturvedi (Pankaj Kapur), the head priest of a landlord’s family temple in Banaras, is made to take a stand on communal riots happening around him and finally gets to protect a young child that he had adopted as his own but given up on finding that he was born a Muslim.

Chaturvedi is both a scholar of Vedic scriptures and other Hindu texts and also a karm-kaandi Brahman who ministers prayers and other rituals for his clients (usually these are two different tasks and not done by the same person). Talvar has also decided to disregard the codes and mores of the jajmani system in Hindu households of today where family priests cater to the common ritualistic needs of their patron households, and do not form the moral core of their universe. Instead, Pandit Chaturvedi is received like royalty in their house and is considered the last authority on dharma. In moments of doubt (his own and his client’s), the pundit is promptly seen referring to the written word, oblivious of real life’s experiences. The film presents this situation in the very beginning when it aptly posits 'kaghaz ki lekhi' [the written word] against 'aankhon ki dekhi' [the experience of lived life]. Dharm, then, is Pandit Chaturvedi’s inner journey, his transition from an idealized scholar to a human being with common decency. The film uses the microcosm of his personal conflicts to reflect on the larger social issues- the Hindu-Muslim conflict or more particularly, communal riots.

The Hindu-Muslim conflict has never ceased to fire the imagination of artists in India. The violence, cruelty and inhumanity associated with this conflict have been reproduced with amazement, pain and anger. Apart from those on the Partition, we also have films and writings on recent conflicts, like the one in Gujarat and Bombay. Unfortunately, these works are often insipid and simplistic. In the case of Dharm, the reference to Hindu-Muslim conflict, that was supposed to strengthen the narrative, actually weakens it. The analysis of communal violence in this film is one of the most facile that I have come across.

For one, what has communal violence got to do with the practices of a priest in Banaras? It is only convenient to situate the narrative (and the crisis) of a subject involving the Hindu-Muslim conflict in a conservative Hindu priest’s household (and the holy city of Banaras). To suggest that violence happens because one interprets the religious scriptures too literally, and it will stop as soon as one finds the right interpretation, is to simplify the problem to the point of absurdity. The Hindu-Muslim conflicts that have often resulted in violence in the past are not only about religion or faith but also about power. To ignore the role played in these riots by political and other vested interests, as well as by local power structures, commercial concerns, unemployment or a misplaced sense of purpose, would be like seeing the world in monochrome. Dharm takes a similarly skewed view, where the only factor in communal riots is religion and how one interprets religious scriptures.

So I was left very skeptical when, at the end of the film, Pandit Chaturvedi successfully stops fifty-odd men, from further killing Muslims, by simply quoting two lines in Sanskrit and explaining that dharma does not allow this bloodbath. The men with bloodied swords are made to stand in statuesque poses while Chaturvedi takes away a child to safety (one suspects that after clearing a distance, Chaturvedi might have made a dash with the child before the stupefied crowd came to its senses and followed him). The child is his adopted son Kartikeya, who had to be given up earlier. It is not clear if he is then saving a child he had come to love like a son, or a Muslim. The writer and director cannot show this juvenile understanding and have it as the basis of their hope that better sense will prevail between Hindu and Muslim communities (the end credits starts with this plate).

The problem with Dharm is not just thematic. The film is painfully slow, where daily rituals in the life of a priest (like bathing and praying) are played upon like home video for anthropological records and repeated beyond their narrative point. I wished that some of the well-intentioned points – xenophobia seen in hatred for the white boyfriend of the landlord’s daughter (Hrishitta Bhatt), commercialization of priestly practices, and the status of widows in Hindu Society – that the subplots referred to, had played out better.

Most of the actors, except the redoubtable Pankaj Kapur, are theatrical (a more layered treatment to Kapur’s character was sorely missing). Other supporting characters are flat and lackluster. However, the child actor palying Kartikeya shares some graceful on-screen presence with Kapur. Hrishitta Bhatt is as weak as the sub-plot she inhabits. The dialogues in the film are uneven and often expository. At times they show understanding of the characters they were written for, and at others they are grand-sounding Hindi and Sanskrit lines that fail to get the audience involved. One person who deserves praise is the cameraman, Nalla Muthu. Though the frames (which are director’s prerogative) are often unimaginative, the camerawork, especially the lighting, is good. Shooting on location in Banaras is surely an advantage, and the film has made the most of it, including the use of ghats, the serpentine lanes and the palace of the former Maharaja of Banaras. The art director and the costume designer have also done a decent job.

Finally, what is Dharm’s Cannes connection’? I wished the promoters had translated 'tous les cinemas du monde’ for people who don’t speak French, and wondered how the film read in translation to the foreign audience.

(This review had first appeared on www.upperstall.com)

Jhoom Barabar Jhoom

2007-12-22T03:31:00.000+05:30

Director: Shaad Ali Sahgal
Producer: Aditya Chopra
Cast: Bobby Deol, Abhishek Bachchan, Preity Zinta, Lara Dutta, Piyush Mishra and Amitabh Bachchan
Bollywood is identified foremost by the song and dance capers that are churned out in great numbers every year. This genre of the 'musical' or 'musical drama' is not only our USP, it is argued, but also our unique cinematic identity. And as far as musical extravaganzas go, Yash Raj Films (more so since Aditya Chopra took over) seems to monopolize this territory. Moreover, Yash Raj is an auteur in its own right, and leaves the stamp of its brand on all its products. Directors come and go, but Yash Raj elements stay – an overall look that suggests a whopping budget, a combination of the most saleable stars, half a dozen songs that are lavishly picturised, foreign locations, and Punjabi characters and cultural references (lately also a Pakistan-fixation). What little remains must be the director’s territory and Shaad Ali Sahgal seems to fit in well here.

Seen in its purest intentions, Jhoom Barabar Jhoom (JBJ) could be the story of Rikki Thukral (Abhishek Bachchan), a Punjabi immigrant in Europe who is involved in everything that has illegal written on it and Alvira Khan (Preity Zinta), an educated British Muslim of Pakistani origin. There’s a lot to keep them away from each other – apart from their class difference, one is from India, the other from Pakistan, and they are shown engaged to different people. But Rikki and Alvira do fall in love, and after several misunderstanding s and complications come together. But they never were engaged in the first place, both had lied in their initial wariness of each other. Their tales of love, both imagined and real, could be the stuff the fantasies of immigrants (with hopes and dreams of finding love and bearings) are made of. And the final twist is the possibility that these characters and incidents were imagined by an old gypsy singer (Amitabh Bachchan) who sees the world go by, and has spun a mirthful yarn for us. Even with its nods to Chicago, The Usual Suspects and some of our own films and music, this would have been an honourable intention.

But the way these stories actually play out in the film – exaggerated, thinly laid out and rushed - the wise gypsy now seems to be laughing at the audience’s credulity. If Bunty aur Bubly had the con-protagonists having fun at others’ expense, JBJ needed the filmmaker as the 'con-artist' who could use this inventive narrative form and keep the story alive. Unfortunately, JBJ starts with a forcefully plotted chance meeting, where Rikki and Alvira behave as if they are on some hormonal high and hit on each other from the word go. While waiting for trains at a London station, these total strangers fall into telling stories of their love lives down to intimate details. Rikki Thukral’s story is everyman’s dream where a rich, sophisticated girl with a French accent (Lara Dutta) falls hopelessly in love with him – the penniless, conman, smuggler, him. In Alvira’s story, we see little variation theme-wise – she is saved from certain death by a modern knight, a super rich lawyer (Bobby Deol) who lives in a grand palace. After the regular flower and chocholates, they get engaged. Now, after declaring their engaged status, in an unexplained and sudden interlude, Rikki and Alvira drop their love interests and are in India, visiting gurudwaras and mosques, discovering similarities between their two communities (Sikh and Muslim). This second bout of reverie over, they go separate ways, only to realize they have fallen in love with each other. But not before the film clarifies that the new condition is 'legit', that they were actually 'free' to do so. We learn that the stories Rikki and Alvira were telling about their lovers were actually fictitious. This 'secret' revealed early on, the denouement of the film, which isn’t much, drags through the entire second half of the film. The film seems to be a compilation of failed intentions.

However, for the 'family audience' that these films are targeted at, one must hazard another reading – there are, as expected, plentiful songs and dances, half-witted one-liner jokes in Gujarati, Punjabi, Urdu and even Cockney, an overdose of foreign locations (from the Eiffel Tower to the Louvre Museum, to Notre Dame Cathedral and the London Bridge, with the Taj Mahal thrown in as bonus) t o give 'paisa vasool' to the Indian audience and have kids clapping at their favourite Preity aunty and Abhishek uncle having a ball. Put this way, it's rocking. Innit?

One cannot really complain about the performances. Abhishek Bachchan manages to get a hold on the street smart Rikki Thukral, and maintains it to the end. Preity Zinta with her put-on Cockney accent comes out rather clean in her undemanding role. Lara Dutta is bindaas in doubling up as a French-speaking hotelier and a London prostitute, whereas Bobby Deol seems ignored by the filmmakers. We have already hazarded a guess on what Amitabh Bachchan’s character was meant to play, but, he is no ‘sutradhar’ who uses the song to push the narrative of the film. With no speaking lines, Bachchan does his bit in singing the same one song throughout the film.

The technical finesse of JBJ – production design, camerawork, special effects – shows. But what sticks out is its title song that plays half a dozen times during the film and carpet bombs the entire climax. The song thumps you into a numbness that is meant to allow no thinking. Which serves the film, for the song quite literally asks you to mindlessly 'jhoom', never mind the senselessness of it all.

A final word: reviews won’t count here. A Yash Raj musical extravaganza is backed with equally extravagant promotions. Aggressive marketing combined with the humungous number of prints released simultaneously all over the country will ensure packed houses for several days. As you too are likely to make a beeline – so just Jhoom. Jhoom barabar jhoom barabar jhoom barabar…
Awwight!

(This review had first appeared on www.upperstall.com)

Shootout at Lokhandwala

2007-12-22T03:21:00.000+05:30

Director: Apoorva Lakhia
Producer: Sanjay Gupta and Ekta Kapoor
Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjay Dutt, Suniel Shetty, Vivek Oberoi, Arbaaz Khan, Tushar Kapoor, Rohit Roy, Amrita Singh and Dia Mirza

Shootout at Lokhandwala, it says, is based on true rumours. One suspects that this somewhat confounding phrase 'true rumors' may have been used by the filmmakers as an excuse to' masalafy' the facts to an extent that the scandalous dilutes the factual. This may be allowed especially when you are making a film on a man (and his mobster friends) dead for more than fifteen years and is remembered more for the way he died than for the way he lived. But how does one negotiate the treacherous path of fact and fiction? How does one tell a story about a daylight encounter lasting 6 hours between 5 criminals and the Mumbai police in 1991 that transformed suburban Mumbai into a virtual war zonewhere the end is already known; where 'how' is more important than 'what', and the film’s structure and narrative processes are of key significance.

Sanjay Gupta and Apoorva Lakhia have attempted the colossal task of working on an original story, and they deserve to be congratulated for it. The intellectual and creative energy consumed in the story has understandably left them with little time for minor things like screenplay, dialogues and characterization. The film uses a narrative frame where a Q&A session is used between protagonists to jump to flashbacks (however, there is little to suggest this framework is ‘based on rumours’). With inane accusations, questions that soon start losing their edge, and smart alec lines that fail to tickle, Amitabh Bachchan is seen shouting and berating the Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) police officers (Sanjay Dutt, Suneil Shetty, Arbaaz Khan) with alarming authority as the officers go on explaining their expertise in encounters and deadly feats with Maya Dolas (Vivek Oberoi) and his gang (Tusshar Kapoor, Rohit Roy, etc). This weak and monotonous question and answer technique extends till the very end of the film. That Bachchan turns out to be a civil lawyer who was being briefed by the police officers before they go on trial for human rights issues adds more incredulity than surprise-at-the-end that filmmakers so very much crave for.

For some strange reason the ATS officers’ story begins with a digression to the Operation Blue Star! Then they relate an encounter with Sikh terrorists in Bombay, the sole purpose of which seems to introduce Dia Mirza, a failed representation of public conscience in the garb of a TV reporter (the logo of the news channel conspicuously absent on TV sets). And finally, the narrative gets to Maya Dolas and his gang. These men are the 1990s bhais of Bombay who seem to need little characterization except that they are cold-blooded killers, splattering bullet shells all over the city with abandon. They threaten and kill people and, after every bout of blood and gore comes an item song (with Marathi women singing rap! Of course it goes unexplained if the officers were narrating the songs to Mr Bachchan). In an attempt to humanize these dangerous men to bring in an element of tragedy (perhaps?), Maya Dolas has an amma who cooks and cleans for the gang members, another guy has a bar dancer girlfriend, and there is Fattu who empties his pistol in a man but shakes at the sight of a gun. The constant tasteless banter amongst these men borrows its vocabulary from previous Bollywood gangster films.

We move to the climax after nerve-grating commentary between Amitabh Bachchan and the officers on trial, flashbacks to Maya’s antics and three item songs. And what is this final encounter between the gangsters and policemen like? Well, it is an extension of the advertising gimmick that has been used to promote the film - that there were 1755 rounds fired in 6 hours. So, several dozens of policemen stand outside, all target-practicing over a residential building. There is long, blind firing from both the sides. What about the drama of the last few hours in the lives of Maya and his gangster friends? It’s time now for the bhai log to repent. So they make a beeline for the phone, and talk to their parents and girlfriends: they are going to die now and are wholly repentant. For a moment it seems, the film can not decide where to go; who are more attractive, the criminals or the people who put an end to them. Men like Maya and his gang deserve to die, ATS chief tells the advocate and the argument carries a plain nod from the director.

In the end, thousands of empty shells carpet the building and five men are killed by dozens of policemen after six hours of firing. The scene is supposed to make you shudder. It doesn’t. The film does not engage; it begins erratically and doesn’t know where to go. What the film does seem to know, though, is that violence ends violence and to enforce law it is justified to break or manipulate it once in a while. A film like Shootout at Lokhandwala had the potential to clear the haze surrounding such encounters; instead it is a simplistic justification for the existence of the Anti Terrorist Squad.

I appreciated the way Amitabh Bachchan was found a place in the film – seen only in three locations but his presence spread through the film, I thought a wisely economical use was made of the superstar. Sanjay Dutt plays a police officer as he plays a criminal, with a hunk-walk and quiet passion. As for Suneil Shetty, I wondered what language he can comfortably speak. Arbaaz Khan’s character, on the other hand, is an expert in several languages (the point of which completely eluded me). Vivek Oberoi returns with a nervous joie de vivre that we haven’t seen in a long time. Tusshar Kapoor is utterly unconvincing playing the ace shooter of his time. Amrita Singh’s does her bit as the gutsy mother of Maya Dolas, while Diya Mirza’s role was lost on her too, it seems. But for logic’s sake, what was Rakhi Sawant’s ‘blink and you miss my cleavage’ scene all about?!

Oh, before I forget: for a film based on true rumours, how come an action sequence is taken straight out of American History X (1998)? And why did that exchange between Sanjay Dutt and Vivek Oberoi at the restaurant remind me so much of the Al Pacino - De Niro exchange in Heat (1995)?!
(This review had first appeared on www.upperstall.com)

Khoya Khoya Chaand

2007-12-10T17:30:00.000+05:30

For all those who have watched and admired Dharavi, Is Raat Ki Subah Nahin, or the more recent Hazaaron Khwahishein Aisi…, Sudhir Mishra’s Khoya Khoya Chaand is bound to be a keenly awaited film. This is also his best-budgeted movie, and better-promoted than his earlier films.

Khoya Khoya Chaand is set in the Indian film-making world of the 1950s and 1960s. Nikhat (Soha Ali Khan) starts out as a junior artist and a dancer, and wants to be an actress. Prem Kumar (Rajat Kapoor), a top artiste of the time, notices her and gets her the lead role in one of his films, in exchange for a certain proximity. Nikhat is reconciled to her situation when she meets an Urdu writer Zafar (Shiney Ahuja) who is also trying to find a foothold in the industry, again under the patronage of Prem Kumar. Disillusioned with the exploitative relationship with Prem Kumar, Nikhat gets closer to Zafar only to be sucked back in the mire that surrounds her. Unsuccessful in his relationship with Nikhat, Zafar also fails in his debut film as the director. Frustrated by his failures, Zafar goes away abroad and Nikhat tries to lose herself in self-destructive alcoholism. A few years on, Zafar comes back and cracks a film deal with the same set of people he was involved with earlier. The film is biographical where Nikhat, who is dying of a heart condition, plays herself.

With a film-maker’s knowledge, Sudhir Mishra has successfully created characters and situations that are at once typical of their age and also universal. He deftly creates a world where fourteen year old girls have to sleep with producers to get roles; where the producer bullies the director but sometimes only for effect; where the shrewd actress latches on to a superstar for roles but also lends a hand to a sensitive director and his vision; where a coterie of powerful people dictate terms but a charming old director makes his kind of film nevertheless; where a mother lives off on her actress daughter’s hard earned money but another woman mothers the actress without any obvious rewards (these are also some of the best executed scenes in the film). These characters and scenes look authentic and gives a glimpse of Bollywood’s past, and do so without turning the film into a retro fashion parade. Sudhir Mishra makes them all seem credible and earns brownie points. But while Mishra, the director does well Mishra, the writer fails. And on several counts.

Khoya Khoya Chaand seems undecided about its central characters and sequence of events – is it the story of Nikhat or, is it the story of Nikhat and Zafar (as a ‘stray’ voiceover suggests)? What is the importance of the background stories on Bollywood period characters, practices and ethics? Are they central or incidental to the unfolding human drama of Nikhat and Zafar? Strange at this may sound, a clear decision on these points would have solved most of the problems that the script has. As it is, the film cannot hold itself as the story of Nikhat, for Nikhat is as one dimensional as they come. She seems to be happy as a linnet being a junior artist and just equally happy when spotted by the star Prem Kumar. When it becomes obvious what he wants in return she doesn’t seem to complain too much. She cries when Kumar’s marriage is announced, but it’s not clear why, for she is not in love with him. Her relationship with her family remains unexplored and so her refusal to get married so she can earn for them is baffling. She refuses to go away with Zafar despite her love for him, because, as she puts it, she wants to think only about herself. Then she actually destroys her career by excessive drinking and B-grade films. The most intriguing aspect of her character is that one never discovers her passion (or a lack of it) for acting. Nikhat’s character is so flat one only wishes she was all that Zafar accuses her of being. She would have been a wonderful and attractive character if she was shown exploitative, if she got involved with this out of work writer just to taunt Prem Kumar, if she refused to marry Zafar because she did not want to put an early end to her career, if she had refused to go with him as a revenge for his not casting her, or, indeed, if her drinking had led to better performances! (But I say this in retrospect, and this solution, at best, is a speculative one.) Zafar’s character, on the other hand, with his jealous frustrations and moral ambiguities, is better defined, if somewhat unlikeable (he often comes out as an attention seeking and a wronged writer assured of his genius). Zafar’s background story is needlessly long and detailed, and there seems an unnecessary emphasis on his regret for not making peace with his father, so much so that this factor becomes and remains the central axis of his creative universe.

The screenplay lacks a clear narrative purpose and combined with a somewhat muddled editing, many (often, eminent) themes and scenes jostle with each other without finding specific and meaningful place in the film. There are way too many sequences establishing the ways of the film industry and yet Khoya Khoya Chaand carries an apologetic character. It never dives into the heart of the darkness of how Bollywood operates. The sadist power structure, difficult crass producers, opportunist collaborators and exploitative families are only referred to and talked about (not showing them is risking a plain assemblage of the hackneyed and cliché). The film suggests the rampant sexual exploitation but strictly avoids showing it (Mishra’s obvious discomfiture with filming love-scenes doesn’t help the matter either).

Khoya Khoya Chand affords Soha Ali Khan her meatiest role till date and she has worked hard to do justice to Nikhat. She looks good and delivers a performance that is strong; what she to some extent lacks though are the nuances. Shiney Ahuja holds himself well as the disgruntled writer but slips in the more emotive scenes. Rajat Kapoor gives a controlled performance but one misses the menace or meanness of Monsoon Wedding. The supporting cast of Vinay Pathak and Saurabh Shukla are noteworthy. Sonya Jehan performs with an effortless ease and a steely smile that seems also to be dancing in her head.

The cinematography is admirable and produces a mixed palette using a wide variety of lighting and compositions. However, unfortunately, it has not aided in distinguishing the core story of the film and that of the films-within-the-film which was sorely needed. Music does well in holding the mood of the film without crying out loud to be noticed.

Sudhir Mishra has no doubt made a sincere effort in making this period piece on the workings of the Indian film industry, or, to put it the way he would like it, he has tried his best not to bullshit. But it has been my long-held view that a director who goes out with a weak screenplay is guilty of the sins committed. More so, if he has written the script himself.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age

2007-12-02T18:49:00.000+05:30

Director: Shekhar Kapur
Producer: Working Titles and Film Four
Cast: Cate Blanchett, Clive Owen, Samantha Morton, Geoffery Rush, Jordi Molla

What has an Indian been doing in the 16th century English court? Directing the Queen, no less. In 1998, when Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth I: The Virgin Queen was released, it was touted as one of the two Oscar hopes for Britain – the other one was John Madden’s Shakespeare in Love, a soft romantic comedy that got much of the attention instead. Kapur did not get an Oscar nomination, however, the film and the lead actress Cate Blanchett did. A very similar thing happened at the Europe’s Golden Globe awards. It looked as if the West was not yet ready to stomach the success of an outsider. Now Kapur has directed a sequel, Elizabeth: The Golden Age. The film has opened to mixed reviews,and that Shekhar Kapur is not able to lay a claim to the best director’s award may, sadly, be justified this time.

It is, however, necessary to discuss (and dismiss) the question of historicity before reviewing this film. A half hour spent on Wikipedia will reveal the obvious: while some details shown in the film are accurate, others are not. For example, it is also historically correct that for her execution, Mary, queen of Scots was taken on to a raised platform, and ‘the executioners and her two servants helped remove a black outer gown, two petticoats, and her corset to reveal a deep red chemise – the liturgical colour of martyrdom in the Catholic Church’. And Elizabeth did make that rousing speech to the troops at Tilbury before the Armada battle. But unlike as shown in the film, Sir Walter Raleigh was definitely not swinging on the ships that set the Armada afire, and the marriage of Raleigh and Elizabeth ‘Bess’ Throckmorton had actually happened a few years after the defeat of the Armada. Now, such historical inaccuracies would have been inexcusable if caused by the filmmakers’ ignorance or if the film was presented as history. But since this film is not laying any claims to historical accuracy, it cannot be judged on the basis of the same. It is indeed legit to do mix and manipulate known facts to create drama. But do they work in this case?

Many of the cast and crew from Elizabeth – the Virgin Queen is present in this film. Apart from the actors, Cate Blanchett and Geoffrey Rush (as Frances Walsingham), the cinematographer (Remi Adefarasin), editor (Jill Bilcock), and costume designer (Alexandra Byrne) continue their work in the sequel. The writer of the former film, Michael Hirst has also continued, though he now shares the credit with William Nicholson. (However, the Earl of Leicester, played by Joseph Fiennes and who was Liz’s love interest in the Virgin Queen is conspicuous by his absence).

The film had potential for great drama. A middle-aged Elizabeth looking for love and companionship with the adventurous Walter Raleigh (Clive Owen) while keeping pretensions with her numerous diplomatic suitors; her choice of power over carnal desires and the resultant frustration; the carefully-constructed aura around her virginity; and the conflict between political ambitions and personal desires. And all this set against a challenge of a war from offshore that keeps building up and will threaten to take the kingdom away from Elizabeth. All the film needed was a balanced and nuanced treatment to these interlaced themes. And that is where both the script and the director somewhat fall short.

The script does not fully utilize the inherent conflicts in the Queen’s situation. She is a Protestant resisting the domination of Roman Catholicism but she is also an ambitious queen proving her ‘divine right of kingship’. In her personal life, Elizabeth herself places the ‘glass wall’ between her and the men but then also desires a man’s companionship. Her predicament is such that it is only by suppressing her desires of womanhood that she can fulfill her desire and destiny to rule England. While the script gives a detailed revelation of one side of the conflict (the frustration of her physical and emotional desires), it does not connect that well with her political moves. Instead of a simultaneous movement of her personal life and political events to show the obligatory connection between the two, the film shows her personal life in detail where as the political events seem to intervene only now and then. There is inadequate attention paid to political characters – either they are absent, or one dimensional like the Spanish King (Jordi Molla) who has a single-point devilish agenda to take on the Queen, or, are ineffective, like Frances Walsingham who comes across as a semi-retired paternal figure (by contrast, Geoffrey Rush had shone brightly in his Machiavellian avatar in the previous film). It is suggested that the Spanish attack is an event that makes Elizabeth put her personal problems on the backburner to save the country from danger. I think it was a mistake to separate the personal from the political. The Spanish invasion was also a culmination of Elizabeth’s personal choices (whether it was the execution of a catholic Mary Stuart or the rejection of a diplomatic marriage to a Spanish prince) and it would have been tactically wiser to show her consciously choosing power over love (where one desire conveniently replaces another). But the film opted to play the patriotic angle by positing romantic love against an exalted love for the country. This does not work. And the director who cannot see the weaknesses in the script is as much to blame as the scriptwriter.

An important failing of the Golden Age is also the lack of ‘action’ that a viewer can feel happening on or off the screen. To set a comparison as there inevitably will be, while the story of the succession of the young Elizabeth in the Virgin Queen was set up to look and feel more ‘eventful’, her struggle with her own sexuality and womanhood in this sequel has been able to accommodate only limited action. And the one theme that could have countered this lack – the defeat of the Spanish Armada – is curiously given a summary treatment.

The production design looks rich and correct but is not always used to dramatic purpose (all of Samanatha Morton’s Queen Mary pre-execution sequences seems to be shot in one room). The camerawork indulges in some unnecessary blocking by use of pillars and stained glasses. Nonetheless, there are some elements that work beautifully in the film. The acting is A-class, particularly that of Cate Blanchett as the Queen. The relationship between Queen Elizabeth and the lady-in-waiting, Bess (Abbie Cornish) is interesting, where the latter is not only a companion and confidante, but also the device whereby the queen can vicariously live some of her desires (a touch of lesbian gaze between them, however, appears too modern). The dialogues are impressive in places, especially in their display of the English wit. The costumes of the Queen are more spectacular and innovative than in the previous film, and in keeping with the boldness and confidence of the matured sovereign (however, Sir Walter Raleigh hippy costumes would have made him inadmissible in the Elizabethan court!). The music by Craig Armstrong and A.R. Rahman is a treat to hear and takes the drama to a higher level in many scenes.

Elizabeth: The Golden age is a case of many slips between the cup and the lip. It could have hit its mark, and yet it doesn’t quite strike there. Shekhar Kapur is now back in India to work and make movies here. For long, he has claimed how ‘Asian’ cinema is going to take on the world. I hope he starts moving the right pieces right here.

This review now also appears on Passion for Cinema website: http://passionforcinema.com/author/padmaja/

Om Shanti Om

2007-11-21T20:12:00.001+05:30

Director: Farah Khan
Producer: Red Chillies Entertainment/ Gauri Khan
Cast: Shahrukh Khan, Deepika Padukone, Arjun Rampal, Shreyas Talpade, Kirron Kher

Choreographer turned director Farah Khan’s first venture Main Hoon Na came out in 2004 and was presented as a tribute to decades of Bollywood cinema. One could watch the film with amusement if one could muster enough forbearance for the director’s very passionate tribute to Bollywood. However, while her first film requested the audience’s indulgence, Farah Khan’s second film Om Shanti Om demands a greater sacrifice – of every bit of reason, intelligence and cinematic taste.

This film is about a junior artist Om (Shahrukh Khan) who along with his friend Pappu Master (Shreyas Talpade) dreams of making it big. He also adores the reigning heartthrob Shanti (Deepika Padukone) and risks his life to save her. But Shanti is secretly married to the villainous producer, Mukesh Mehra (Arjun Rampal) and is expecting his child. She wants to go public with the relationship which does not suit Mehra’s scheme of things, so he murders her. Om dies trying to save her. But he is born again (with the same face and gets to have the same name and profession!) and avenges Shanti’s death. He manages to have his revenge with support from a Shanti look-alike Sandy (Deepika) and assistance offered by Shanti’s ghost.

This incredulously contrived story takes awfully long to unfold. The first hour is spent in long pointless sequences that look like they were only meant to showcase the clothes, hairstyles and well-known plots and mannerisms of films from the 1970s. The shallow and juvenile antics of Om and Pappu Master fail to tingle and the in-between syrupy scenes of Om and his mother (Kirron Kher) are no threat to one’s emotional equilibrium. After interval, the film tries to make up for lost time but repeatedly gives in to the temptations for item numbers. It seems the director had so many films to pay ‘tribute’ to, so many sequences to borrow that she found it difficult to maintain coherence and reason.

Bollywood formula films have long had the audiences under their spell and Farah Khan is not the only one wishing to recreate the magic of the previous successful films. But while others take the short route and remake individual works like Sholay, Umrao Jaan, Don or Victoria No. 203, Khan tries to avoid any comparisons with any one particular film and instead borrows from a number of films (it will be interesting to create a list of the films where these ‘tributes’ come from). But the important question is – were the old formula films only about formulas? Why doesn’t the formula plot from the super-hit Karz work in Om Shanti Om? Or why doesn’t the star-studded song sequence borrowed from Naseeb recreate the magic? This could be so because the best of formula films were made with a lot of faith and conviction. So the plots were improbable but tight, the melodrama was heightened but not plastic. The masala was enlivened with a spirit that was particular to their age. Om Shanti Om borrows the form but fails to create the spirit.

Om Shanti Om laughs at many Bollywood conventions, and yet uses these same conventions (without irony or self-consciousness) to structure and move itself. And it is in this particular sense that OSO lacks integrity. It artlessly and pointlessly puts together borrowed sequences and ideas and tries to pass it off as a tribute. This film is not a parody, for it lacks any meaningful criticism. The exaggeration of style and screenplay are not always meant to scoff at Bollywood formula films either. It is not even a fond imitation. The scenes cannot be homage to the popularity of this masala genre either, for they fail to create the magic of the original. The film could be a pastiche but for the fact that there is no logic to the borrowings, that it almost always falls short of both postmodernist intelligence and self-reflexivity.

It’s not only the film that tries to sell itself through its star Shahrukh Khan; Shahrukh too sells himself and his newly acquired six-pack abdomen through the film. Or what is the song sequence ‘dard-e-disco’ about? Despite the screenplay being single-mindedly dedicated to his character, Shahrukh does nothing new as far as acting is concerned, though one cannot fail to notice his lean looks and an effervescent & energized performance. Deepika Padukone doesn’t exactly dazzle with her performance but she is camera-friendly. Her studied movements and expressions tell you she has got the hang of things. Shreyas Talpade, as Pappu Master, does the expected as the hero’s side-kick (in recent years the mainstream actors have actively taken up the niche roles of vamps, villains and item number girls; now Shreyas, a mainstream actor, dons the role of hero’s side-kick!). There is no subtlety about Arjun Rampal villainous performance but that is perhaps taking a leaf out of how Bollywood villains are supposed to be. Kirron Kher has done better before but then such were her roles. A couple of songs in the film stand out especially the ‘dard-e-disco’ number, which has a very catchy tune with equally interesting lyrics. One only wishes it was not so forcefully placed in the film. Also, given the IQ quotient of the film, it was nothing less than a brilliant twist-in-the-end to have the ghost of Shanti appear and kill the villain (I was wearily expecting that Sandy too would be a reincarnation, of Shanti!). And there is this imaginative end credits sequence.

Behind the rich façade of a blockbuster film, Om Shanti Om is a lazy work, but a film that was nonetheless always assured of being a box office success (the previous review on Saawariya had noted with interest the failure of using time-tested Bollywood masala-mix approach to reach an assured success). Now that OSO is a success story, I can only hazard a theory on how such films do well (I will need several attempts to even come close to how the masala potion actually works) – audience need their dose of filmi entertainment, in which they need stars, and stars need to deliver the ‘masala’, which need to have all the ‘permitted and time-tested’ ingredients of high and low emotions, however delivered. And for receiving this prescription, the audience is only too happy to see the films for their moments, and move from one emotion to next, get their fill of laughter, horror, joy and sadness and somehow manage to put together the pieces of these absurdly incoherent films and arrange them in their subconscious into a one successful whole. In colluding with our filmmakers, our audience actually fulfill that great need of fiction cinema – to be able to suspend one’s disbelief. Only that our audience do it like no one or no where else in the world.

Saawariya

2007-11-14T20:30:00.000+05:30

Director: Sanjay Leela Bhansali
Producer: Sony/ Columbia Pictures
Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Sonam Kapoor, Salman Khan, Rani Mukherjee, Zohra Sehgal

Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s latest offering, Saawariya, promised to be a unique love story. What it actually offers is, however, a frustratingly lifeless narrative with affected acting, artificially created emotions, and clichéd scenes & dialogues. There’s nothing distinctive, either positive or negative to make the film unique.

Saawariya is the story of a young singer Ranvir Raj (Ranbir Kapoor) who on arrival in a new town falls in love with a mysterious, dusky girl, Sakina (Sonam Kapoor), from a Muslim carpet weaving family. As it turns out, Sakina has already given her heart to an equally mysterious man-in-black, Imaan (Salman Khan). She knows nothing about Imaan who has disappeared with a promise to return for her on Eid. So while Raj keeps his hopes alive wooing Sakina, a prostitute Gulab (Rani Mukherjee) pines for Raj. In the end, despite everyone’s misgivings, Imaan returns on Eid and Sakina goes away with him. For love’s sake(!), Raj has to let Sakina go just as Gulab decides to turn her back on Raj.

From his first feature film, Khamoshi to his current work, Saawariya, one notices a gradual shift in Bhansali’s treatment of his themes. From telling a complex story in plain but sensitive manner (with a sprinkling of stylized scenes), he has moved to presenting simple stories that are ornately ‘mounted’ with dominant colour schemes and extravagant costumes and sets. Saawariya is a culmination of Bhansali’s near fetishistic obsession with huge, stylized sets (here, so much so that the entire film is claustrophobically shot in a series of an unoriginal mix of sets), colour schemes, and a star cast (in Saawariya, Bhansali himself plays one of the stars and also bills himself as the one ‘introducing’ star children in leading roles).

The film attempts to be a ‘musical fantasy’, unfolding a tale of love and sadness. To lend vibrancy and colour, Bhansali attempts to do an ‘Indian Moulin Rouge’, though by unimaginatively and pointlessly putting together a jumble of sets with Gothic architecture, Parisian Arc d’Triumph and Venetian gondolas as part of the landscape, Noorjahan and Buddha on the walls, Mona Lisa on the curtains, the RK banner as a logo over a shop (possibly as a homage to the late Raj Kapoor), and a long shot of this unnamed town that seems to be borrowed from one of the Hollywood’s fantasy blockbusters (Harry Potter?). The pervasive use of blue might have been ideal for a sad love story, but this film fails to evoke emotions to suit the overbearing colour scheme. The result is a blue cardboard town with characters cut out from various backgrounds and put there without much explanation.

The film’s screenplay and treatment fail miserably and all the mounted pageantry cannot save it. Saawariya’s ‘triangular’ love story is neither convincing nor engaging, and also because the basic plot uses all kinds of Bollywood clichés (if you slip into a nasty mood, it might actually be fun to spot a series of time-tested Bollywood masala traditions): the homeless hero, the motherly Anglo-Indian landlady (Zohra Sehgal), the honest prostitute, Hindu-Muslim lovers and Eid celebrations. The landlady’s character is a blatantly exploitative device to evoke emotions and the prostitute who loves the hero has been done to death in Bollywood cinema. It is not clear why Sakina gives coy looks and is clearly flirtatious with Raj and yet keeps pining for Imaan. Also, Imaan is this mysterious character who appears out of the blue one stormy night and disappears with a promise and a false address. His occupation is kept deliberately suspicious.

The music of Saawariya is uninspiring, especially for a film that is a romance and a musical. The cinematographer has a one point agenda – to make everything look pretty (in a blue-green hue) and he has tried giving his best, even in strange scenes like the heroine taking a dust shower from used carpets and the hero flashing himself from his house's window!

The Bollywood star-kids, Ranbir Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor have worked hard on their roles and give credible if affected performances (Bhansali is known to extract good performances from his actors). Nonetheless, Ranbir and the director could have avoided the Kapoor-family references in the film; they are all tacky. Rani Mukherjee produces some interesting moments. Zohra Sehgal stands out with an eccentric performance of an old woman full of life and zest. But these performances hang like good-looking but dismembered limbs in a film where nothing else works.

The first signs that the films hasn’t worked with the ‘masses’ will perhaps signal other filmmakers of this ilk to not just look outwards on what would certainly sell and plainly and assuredly keep reinventing the masala features of Bollywood films.

It would be interesting to know the idea that Sanjay Leela Bhansali pitched and sold to Sony/ Columbia Pictures for their first Indian venture. Were they then aware that the film is based on Fyodor Dostoevsky’s short story, ‘White Nights’ (and for which there exists an estimable adaptation in the form of the Italian master, Luchino Visconti’s White Nights [Le Notti Bianche; 1957]?). Bhansali, who took more than two years, tens of crores of Rupees and multiple stars to turn a well-known story with a worthy precedent to an uninspiring fare called Saawariya, needs to seriously rethink his aesthetic strategies.

Water

2007-11-05T22:28:00.000+05:30

Written & Directed by: Deepa Mehta
Produced by: David Hamilton
Cast: Sarala, Lisa Ray, Seema Biswas, John Abraham, Waheeda Rehman, Manorama, Raghuvir Yadav and Vinay Pathak

Water is the third film in Deepa Mehta’s trilogy, after ‘Fire’ and ‘Earth’. The film has been reviewed extremely well internationally and also boasts of an Oscar nomination. It was initially planned to be shot in Banaras (the story is set in that town) but was cancelled amidst stiff and violent protests. Water was eventually filmed in Sri Lanka with a changed cast and a different and a tacky working title, River Moon. The decision to shoot in Sri Lanka, visibly so different from Banaras, could not have been easy. The film avoids mentioning the name of the city or the river, but the setting is supposedly Banaras with a character referring to the popular saying that if you manage to avoid the pimps, bulls, stairs and ascetics, you will enjoy Kashi (another name for Banaras). A revered Hindu pilgrimage, Banaras is integral to the story of Water. Deepa Mehta wanted to tell a story about the condition of Indian widows in general but with a focus on those who were forced to spend their lives in Banaras. It is said and commonly believed, that Kashi ensures salvation (moksha) to all who die there. The title is a reference to the river Ganga and establishes a point at the very outset, for to call what flows in holy Ganga, just ‘water’ would be considered heresy by the brahminical orthodoxy. It is clear that Mehta wanted to take a ballsy and irreverent approach to the oppressive conditions for widows in pre-Independence India.

The difficulties of creating a Banaras in Sri Lanka can only be imagined, and hence one should perhaps overlook a landscape that is poles apart, with another river replacing Ganga. In fact, I suspect Mehta deliberately left some of the markers in her film as a reminder of the price she had to pay (e.g. Sri Lankan attires and architecture). However, I imagine, the change in location made the filmmaker also rethink her priorities. Instead of making the film she had planned and letting it find its audience (like in the case of ‘Fire’), she seems to have identified the audience first and let that guide her treatment of this film. The most obviously affected element is the language in the film (if location was not under her control, language certainly was). With the target audience expected to depend on the sub-titles, little research or effort seems to have gone into the dialogues. Not only is there an absolute absence of local dialects or accents, the dialogues sound stilted at many places with a fair inclusion of clichés from Bollywood films. To compound the problem the two main leads (played by Lisa Ray and John Abraham) speak with a modern, urban accent (with dialogues like ‘Aap log kahan rehte ho?’) that sounds as misplaced as the actors themselves.

The viewership issue also seems to have affected the treatment of the core issues in this film. The narrative axis being Chuhiya (Sarala), a seven-year old child widow conveyed to this widow ashram in Banaras by her father, the film sets to expose the squalid existence of half a dozen widowed women living in this ashram. This assortment has mostly older women who seem to be living in a daze. These women are a homogenous lot – undifferentiated and without any individual history whatsoever. This widows’ ashram in 1938 India seems to be more democratic than the India of today. There are no caste hierarchies shown or cultural differences pointing to the politics that must have existed in these ashrams. The widows have been deserted by their families but their loneliness is not delved into. All the problems that these women face are economic in nature – they get to have only one meal a day, beg outside the temples for survival and cannot even save for their own cremation. If these women are suffering it’s not because they are socially ostracized, pushed into invisibility but because they are poor. This is trivialization of the real issues women in these circumstances would have faced. Women were poor elsewhere too, and many were forced into prostitution, so was there then no difference between them and these widowed women in Banaras?

What was contemptible about the treatment of widows in India around that time was not just that they were stripped of their material possessions (for then, a poor man’s widow would be no worse for being a widow), but that their very existence was rendered ‘invisible’. They were denied the basic status of individual human beings. Once sent to Banaras, they were struck off not only the family list but also the society register. They were practically untouchables, using a separate ghat on the Ganga and not allowed to be even seen on auspicious occasions like weddings (so the incident where Gyanvati comes to fill water while a wedding ceremony is on, would be incorrect).

Also, the society did not quarantine its widows only to acquire their share of the property or to avoid feeding them. A widow’s sexuality (now that her husband, who was supposed to keep a tab on it, was gone) was a potential threat to a society used to containing women’s desires. A man would not have wanted his wife to look attractive after he was dead; the society would not have wanted to deal with an attractive woman whose ownership was disputed. So she was de-sexed. Her head was shaved and colours were denied to her. Her sexual energy was contained by an austere (and physically difficult) life and religious strictures. This is evident from the very quote from Manusmriti that Mehta chooses as her epigraph. Since the film shows no awareness of what was expressed in the lines, allow me to quote-

“A widow should be long suffering until death, self restrained and chaste.
A virtuous wife who remains chaste when her husband has died goes to heaven.
A woman who is unfaithful to her husband is reborn in the womb of a jackal.”

The women in ‘Water’ have no desires (except Bua’s hunger for laddoos and Chuhiya’s desire to go home). The only woman (Kalyani) who has any sexual experience is a victim, forced into prostitution. The only man-woman relationship that is not forced (between Kalyani and Narayan) is so romanticized as to make it completely sexless. If the filmmaker sees these widowed women as asexual beings, and the film denies them their sexuality, then the two are doing no better than the society of their time.

Moreover, whatever the nature of these women’s problems in ‘Water’, there is no culprit to be seen (quite literally). If these women are shown as ‘victims’, there must be a ‘perpetrator’? It is not a man/men, for you see an ever so gentle father delivering 7-year old Chuhiya at the ashram. And there is Narayan, of course. The perpetrator is not religion either, for its only representative, a hindu priest (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) is played by a kind and ‘progressive’ man (he is the one who informs Gyanvati about the Widow Remarriage Act). It can not be the society, for there is not much of it seen in the film. The reference to culpability is always vague. The man who ‘exploits’ Kalyani remains hidden above the winding staircase. The paedophile who rapes young Chuhiya is a man behind a veil. However, the one perpetrator who is shown clearly throughout is Madumati (played delightfully by Manorama), a hulk of a woman who runs the ashram. She is insensitive towards Chuhiya, she eats better food than the rest, she exploits Kalyani, and she is the one who sends an unsuspecting Chuhiya into the clutches of a daemon. So it is true, what has been repeated for long now, that women are the worst violators against women!

The treatment of other relationships – that between effeminate sons (Narayan and Rabindra) and their virile fathers, or between mother and son (Narayan and his mother) remains superficial. What somewhat saves the film (and I suspect earned its Oscar nomination) is a shocking twist (young Chuhiya’s rape), and a grand resolution where Mohandas Gandhi with a backlight-supported aura offers hope, and Gyanvati hands over the future, symbolically and literally, to Gandhi and his followers. The film owes the Bombay film-veterans, Seema Biswas and Raghubir Yadav for performances that support the narrative despite its many weaknesses.

Water does not do justice to its subject either in addressing the core issues or in its treatment. This weepy, period tale about an exotic land showcasing poverty and exploitation of widows was shocking enough for some to laud the film as Oscar worthy, but who did the film fool? Deepa Mehta’s previous film ‘Hollywood Bollywood’ was far more honest, for the treatment matched the theme. However, Water remains shallow and disappointing, coming from the director of ‘Fire’ and ‘Earth’.

No Smoking

2007-10-29T20:27:00.000+05:30

Written and Directed by: Anurag Kashyap
Produced by: Vishal Bharadwaj and Kumar Mangat
Cast: John Abraham, Ranvir Shorey, Ayesha Takia, and Paresh Rawal

The protagonist of No Smoking, K (John Abraham, in a namesake role as Franz Kafka’s protagonist in The Trial) is a smoker who refuses to give up. His family and friends try every means to get him off it while he cannot see what the fuss is all about. However, when his wife (Ayesha Takia) threatens to leave him for good, he agrees to get help from one Baba Bengali (Paresh Rawal), referred to him by his best friend (Ranvir Shorey). Baba Bengali runs an underground quit smoking laboratory, and once caught in his scheme of things, life becomes a nightmare for K. K’s surreal journey from there on defies logic, and the world, with all its friends and foes, seems to be closing in on him. Baba Bengali spells out a series of brutal rules, on what punishment K will be given for every cigarette he smokes. With the all-seeing, policing eyes on him, K has nowhere to hide and take his daily dose of cigarette. He tries to run away, even retaliate, but he doesn’t have a chance. The paranoia and the frustration splits K’s consciousness. And finally even his soul is taken away, just like Baba Bengali had warned.

K’s exasperation, confusion and desperation will be delightfully familiar to those who have ever smoked. However, it may also be frustrating for an audience if No Smoking is seen as just series of plots aimed at making K quit his habit of smoking. On a thematic level, No Smoking is an absurdist’s view of the Universe. The film showcases a universe where nothing is what it seems, where the idea of freedom is illusory, where the boundary between real and imaginary has collapsed, where family threatens, friends betray, society abandons, and one’s own memory plays tricks. Man here is a trapped animal. He can run to Siberia or stand in the middle of Nowhere, he is still being watched and his actions monitored. He would be a fool to think he can choose. He can control his life no more than Hemingway’s ants. It’s Man against Institutions and however much he may try he will not win, for the rules of this game are inherently tyrannical and loaded.

K’s smoking may be an unhealthy habit, but it is also an act of choice, an assertion of independence. His journey from resistance to partial or forced conformism is also a revelation of how the oppressive institutions and rules of society leave no space for individual choice. His family uses emotional arm-twisting to force him to come around their way, his friends hide behind masks of concern and goodwill to ensnare him, and religion persuades him with promises of salvation or threats of damnation into giving up his independence.

In this absurdist’s universe, language too has lost its meaning. Communication is difficult, with the result that what one says doesn’t need to be true, and what one really feels, one cannot say. K and his wife speak to each other in expletives and often in internal monosyllables that appears over their head as text in comic-book balloons! K’s brother, J speaks to him in German, and Baba uses a deceptive and religious phraseology K cannot decrypt. The alienation is complete – the world thinks K is crazy, K thinks the world has gone nuts. No Smoking ends poignantly, showing how the institutional and societal processes eke out the souls from human bodies, and they’re left dummies conforming to the existing rules. To further its point on brutality of these processes, the film shows that it is not the ‘sin’ of smoking that killed our rebel-hero, K’s soul; K’s soul is instead forcefully gas-chambered by Baba’s religious cleansing squad.

John Abraham as K and Paresh Rawal as Bengali Baba give convincing performances. The art and camerawork successfully create the surreal and smoky atmosphere so essential for this film. The photography by Rajeev Ravi is first-rate and the framing imaginative. There is excellent production design by Wasiq Khan (Baba Bengali’s underground laboratory , the call centers, canister-filled alleys, execution chambers, and police interrogation booths remind one of the set pieces from Terry Gilliam’s apocalyptic films like Brazil [1985] and Twelve Monkeys [1995]). The film is supported by well-composed songs. However, the lyrics could have been used to shore up the thematic aspect of the film; presently they work only at the literal level of the narrative.

No Smoking does not fit any popular film genre produced in Bombay. What complicates the reading of the film is it’s inaccessibility. For narratives that work on two levels- literal and symbolic- it is essential that both work independently. That is, the smoker’s story should be strong enough to work on its own without the support of the absurdist interpretation, and vice versa. However, in No Smoking the two often get mixed up, so the smoker’s story gets surreal at times where as human condition, supposed to look meaningless, occasionally acquires meaning! Also, Kashyap should have made use of topical allusions for the audience to relate to the film better. Contemporary and recognizable issues could also have greatly improved the narrative’s accessibility of No Smoking (for example, Kafka and Beckett texts contain references to the oppressive police state).

Nonetheless, this is not a film that can be written off, though some reviewers will try. Try they will, for, often, incomprehension leads to rejection. Anurag Kashyap’s achievement lies in refusing to compromise (making the film’s subject even more apt) and in creating what he believed in. And for helping him produce this novel work, the entire team of No Smoking should be congratulated.

This review now also appears on Passion for Cinema website: http://passionforcinema.com/author/padmaja/

Jab We Met

2007-10-29T17:36:00.000+05:30

Director: Imtiaz Ali

Producer: Dhilin Mehta

Cast: Shahid Kapur, Kareena Kapoor, Kiran Juneja, Dara Singh

Watching Jab We Met in a theatre one could not help noticing that for a group of youngsters sitting behind me, the film had turned into an interactive game. Taking turns, they kept guessing the next scene and sometimes even the dialogues. And they got it right most of the times. Why is a film that borrows its plot from half-a-dozen other films, called fresh, and that too repeatedly?

Jab We Met is about Aditya Kashyap (Shahid Kapoor), who has been ditched by his girlfriend and Geet (Kareena), who has plans to run away from home to marry her boyfriend, Anshuman. Aditya and Geet meet on a train and Aditya falls in love with Geet. However, he must still help her get to her boyfriend. When it is time for her to marry her boyfriend she realizes that she actually loves Aditya. So she marries Aditya. Watching the film, you get a sense of déjà vu: instances from Dil Hai Ki Maanta Nahin, Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, Walk in the Clouds… constantly flash before you.

With this thin and as-fresh-as-your-morning-breath plot the film tries to sustain itself on the constant chatter of its heroine Geet. What is even stranger, though, is the willful plotting.

The film opens with Aditya in a shock. His father is dead, his girlfriend is getting married to someone else and his company is in trouble. So he walks out of his own life with a dazed look. It is not made clear which of the above three reasons are actually troubling him or if it is all the three. In any case, in a state of daze, Aditya makes his way to the nearest railway station and boards the first train that moves. On the train, he meets Geet (or Bhatinda ki Sikhni, if you please) who banters away for the next several minutes. She doesn’t know him from Adam but gets down from the train in the middle of the night because Aditya did so, and they both miss their trains! And by some strange logic, the responsibility of getting Geet to Bhatinda falls on Aditya. So they share hotel room, become friends, exchange their life histories and sing their way to Bhatinda. Since it is Punjab (Bhatinda), the extended family of Geet take it upon them to force their warm hospitality on Aditya, have him drinks lassi and do bhangra.

Another forced twist in the plot makes Aditya and Geet run away together and yet again the responsibility to get Geet, this time to her boyfriend Anshuman, falls on Aditya. Geet goes to Anshuman and Aditya goes back to his life a completely changed person.

Now that Aditya is in love with Geet, he sings for his staff in the office and addresses a conference peppered with Punjabi jokes. His joie-de-vivre works such wonders that within a few months, the company starts to flourish beyond imagination! For long, Aditya does not try to find out what happened to Geet after he left her. When he does, he finds out she is not with Anshuman. So, Aditya tries to sort out the differences the two (but then also admits his love for Geet). The quarrel with her boyfriend over, it’s again time for another trip to Bhatinda. In a painfully stretched climax, where everyone talks and no one listens, the heroine is given ample time to make up her mind on who she wants to marry. It is strange she needed so much time to know her mind, for we knew it all along! Decision made, the Aditya and Geet break into an item number on their own wedding!

Kareena Kapoor does a convincing act with her spunk and if it gets tedious at times, it’s probably the script. A few of her dialogues do earn the distinction of being the only fresh things in the film. Shahid Kapoor starts off awkwardly with an unconvincing dazed walk, but his performance is satisfactory afterwards. All other actors are playing stereotypes and they do what is expected of them. Within the scope of the film, the director, Imtiaz Ali extracts credible performances and tells this concocted tale simply and without any pretensions.

What is the point of making a film like Jab We Met? What were the director and the producer thinking? Safe bet and easy money, I guess!

Laaga Chunari Mein Daag

2007-10-23T02:07:00.000+05:30

Yash Raj Films’ latest offering Laaga Chunari Mein Daag had a lot going for it, despite its regressive-to-the-point-of-insulting title. It had Pradeep Sarkar, a director who had shown promise in Parineeta; it had three good actresses from different generations – Jaya Bachchan, Rani Mukherjee and Konkona Sen-Sharma; it had a talented music director in Shantanu Moitra and an interesting lyricist in Swanand Kirkire; it had the rich locale of Banaras to explore; and it had loads of money. Perhaps the last was its undoing. Was it the production house that sealed its fate or was it Pradeep Sarkar? After all, the director always has a choice – to make the film he wants to or to not make the film he does not believe in.

The trouble is not as much with the story – of a woman who turns to prostitution to save her family – as with the way it is told, which is clichéd, sexist and dubiously plotted. The film is a record of sorts in its collection of stereotypes. The suffering, weeping mother (Jaya Bachchan) on the sewing machine, the passive father (Anupam Kher) pining for a male child who has a heart attack whenever he is expected to act, the wise and responsible elder daughter, the innocent and carefree younger sister (Konkona Sen-Sharma), the villainous chacha (Tinu Anand) in the village, the ravenous employer in the city, the ‘friendly’ soul who gets the heroine into prostitution and, not to forget, Prince charming coming to rescue with just the right dialogue, ‘Pehle to main tumse pyar karta tha (complete with beat, focus shifts, crane up and down), ab main tumhari izzat karne laga hoon’ [Earlier I had only loved you, now I have begun to respect you]!. And as if these stock characters were not enough, the film is full of stock situations and song-and-dance routines.

With the same impudence with which the filmmaker lines up his stale characters and situations, he also eschews every logic and reasoning in telling his story. The Sahay family is shown in financial mess (the struggling family abode happens to be the palace of the ex-Maharaja of Banaras. The choice is either an unintentional commentary in irony to show what has become of the Maharajas of India – their palaces now need repairs, families in such need of money that they are selling away books, their children driven to prostitution and so on. Or this is how big production houses imagines poverty, like the fabled comment by Queen Marie Antoinette of France, who reflecting on paucity of food for her citizens had suggested, ‘if you don’t have bread eat cakes’). In any case, the Sahays have so little money that their elder daughter, Vibhavari (Rani Mukherjee) is not able to complete her schooling (disregarding the fact that the government schools charge next to nothing); instead she sits at home, and occasionally makes a few deliveries for her mother who runs the household by stitching petticoats! And then suddenly, this conventional family agrees to send their daughter all the way to Mumbai on a paper-thin pretext? How the events unfold in Mumbai is all the more implausible. It is not surprising that Vibha takes up prostitution (though not before she changes her name to corrupt and anglicized Natasha). With the kind of money she needs, that too quickly, perhaps prostitution is logical. But what defies logic is her overnight transformation. Soon she not only starts speaking English, but has opinions on Trademarks and Patents! She has a client who gifts her a posh flat without ever being seen enjoying her services (it is also difficult to imagine Vibha/ Natasha being good at her job: she is perpetually shown guilt-ridden and cold to men). The same client (Murali Sharma) gives her a business class ticket to Switzerland and then when she is there, he walks away with two firang babes by his side in a seedy 70s-style (this sub-plot being a pretext for Vibha to meet her rescuer in Abhishek Bachchan). Her sister and father never find out what she does for a living but a cousin (Sushant Singh) from Banaras finds her exact charges for a night. The questions are endless and most remain unanswered.

The film that apparently is about ‘a woman’s journey’, starts on a flawed premise – the patriarchal and tastelessly hypocritical idea of the ‘purity’ of women. The same idea of ‘purity’ that has enabled generations of men to control women’s desires and freedom and so often picked up by its wrong end in Bombay films. The world of Laaga… is controlled by men. The weak and sexist father controls his daughter in a way that she feels forced to prove her worth to him. The evil chacha and his son drive the Sahay family women to despair, the mother has the courage to stop them but cannot do so without her husband’s support. It’s a man that helps Vibha look for a job and it’s a man who sexually exploits her by promising her one. Vibha’s money and pleasures and tortures all come from men. She has a huge flat, sends loads of money home, travels to Europe but is instantly brought to her knees by her cousin’s blackmailing. She is powerless in front of the society and even her family- they can stop her from attending her sister’s wedding. Her family’s acceptance of her is satisfying but short-lived, for the threat of the evil cousin and through him the society, is hanging like Damocles’ sword. And who but a man can save her from a lifetime of ignominy? So, in the end it’s not the sisters, Vibhavari and Shubhavari who come out to confront their uncle and fight for their honour; this job is to be done by their men suitors. The end of the film is as disappointing as the title. Is the filmmaker trying to establish the heroine’s purity by having the hero accept her? Or is he trying to establish the special-appearance-hero’s (Abhishek Bachchan ’s) magnanimity? Whatever the filmmaker’s intentions, what the film says is that without a man’s acceptance and support a woman cannot find her place in society.

The music composer, Shantanu Moitra loses a sense of balance in trying to put local flavour in the songs. So while the Benaras numbers are weak copies of local tunes (in fact, Kacchi kaliyan… is more akin to a Punjabi hip-hop), the ones in Europe are impossible to recall. Something similar happens to Kirkire’s lyrics. The only one that you remember paying any attention to is ‘Hum to aise hain bhaiya… ’. However, this song that presumes to talk about the way of life of the Banarasis seems ill-placed when mouthed self-consciously by the Banarasi sisters themselves.

Some well-intentioned sub plots didn’t fire away as intended. One such plot could have been of the local courtesan (Hema Malini) in Banaras seen with envy by young sisters in the beginning, and who receives the innocence-lost Vibha with knowledge and understanding. In a film as un-original and hackneyed as this, what were the actors supposed to achieve? Nonetheless, Konkona looks natural next to the melodramatic Rani Mukherjee. But Jaya Bachchan is the one who excels in trying to convey the woes and fears of middle-class north Indian women trying to run difficult homes, by being difficult, on other member of the family too but mostly on themselves. To appreciate Jaya’s achievement, one will, however, need to see her act removed from the incredulous situation her character is put in and lines she has to mouth. In a film that is failing at several fronts this must be some accident and is bound to go unnoticed.

Book Review: The Gendered Nation

2007-10-20T04:06:00.000+05:30

The Gendered Nation: Contemporary Writings from South Asia
Author: Neluka Silva
[Sage Publications, New Delhi. 257 pp. Rs. 320. Published 2004]

“The feeling of nation-ness is the most legitimate value in the political life of our time.” Neluka Silva quotes Benedict Anderson to underline the importance of a debate on nationalist discourses in South Asia. The contribution of the use of nationalism in recovery of colonized peoples’ identities is now a well-discussed subject. However, as Tharu and Lalitha (1993, 52) have pointed out, ‘nationalism is not the awakening to self-consciousness of a nation and a tradition that already exist at some deep level. Nations, like traditions and works of art, are (artificially) made, built, created and imagined.’ The processes that construct national identities using ‘pre-determined differentials’ (Silva 2004, 15) such as religion, language, ethnicity and also gender, entails favouring of one factor over the other. In the context of South Asia, the hegemonic constitutions of identities will typically marginalize low-caste groups, working class, minority religious groups and women.

Neluka Silva’s thesis is on gendered underpinnings of nationalist discourses in South Asian countries, particularly on how they are reflected in the literatures of these countries. She also analyzes feminized images of the nation in popular culture, political rhetoric and media, where terms like ‘motherland’, ‘mother tongue’ and ‘mother country’ are naturalized in every day language, literature and cultural idiom. She observes that while the nationalist iconography is predominantly feminine, the practice of nationalism remains a male prerogative. The image of nation as a female body comes with corresponding images of men as the actual actor and protector - as soldier, administrator and fraternal figures. Furthermore, the idealization of motherhood has excluded all non-reproductive sexualities and assigned women the responsibility of preserving and transmitting a nation’s culture. Female body images and references are used as terrains where nationalist battles are fought to create distinction between the submissive and ravaged colonial period and the resurgent purity and newfound strengths of the post-colonial period in South Asia. Silva argues that, when looked closely, the power structures in the post-Independence phase have, however, remained the same, with mere reinvention of the modes of domination.

Neluka Silva usefully illustrates her arguments by choosing specific moments from post-Independence ‘nation-building’ phases in India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh. She highlights two registers of gendering: one in which there is a recurrent pattern of women heads of state who rise to power through male family connections, and the second, in which women are ‘constructed as the emblems of the authentic community’ (Silva 2004, 35). She discusses certain literature-texts by native and émigré South Asian writers, to both produce evidence for her arguments and help decide ‘the place of literature in constructing, reinforcing or challenging nationalist ideologies’ (ibid. 44).

For example, Silva traces Indira Gandhi’s rise to power, and her political maneuvers to design a political mask for herself by adopting a cluster of gendered images - daughter, wife, mother and widow. Neluka Silva draws resemblances between Indira Gandhi, Benazir Bhutto and Chandrika Kumaratunge, the women heads of the state in South Asia who confirmed to the patriarchal codes of behaviour and political practice. They adopted gendered images for political purposes but largely dissociated themselves from women’s issues. Silva argues that co-opting mythical or familial or religious icons for political expediency is ultimately disempowering for women because these icons are fundamentally constructed and situated within patriarchal discourses. She discusses two texts that critique the type of political discourses deployed by Indira Gandhi. Nayantara Sahgal’s ‘Rich Like Us’ exhibits how the national emergency period in India (1975-1977) had challenged and destabilized gendered identities in the country. The effects of Indira Gandhi’s leadership and policies are felt by characters ranging from elite middle class to the subaltern woman. Silva also appreciates the complexities created by the multiple identities of the Widow in Salman Rushdie’s ‘Midnight’s Children’. While pointing to the book’s misogynist underpinnings, Silva admits that the Widow character has been effectively and innovatively used to portray the male protagonist’s sense of betrayal and the masculine reaction to the threat posed by a woman (and a widow at that) who gains power and agency. Similarly, Silva’s discussion of the literature from Sri Lanka reveals the denial of histories of multi-ethnicity and cultural mixing. The question of identity becomes the central issue in contemporary Sri Lanka, where the ideal of the ‘pure woman’ works against women who are of mixed ancestry. Indu Dharmsena’s play ‘It’s All or Nothing’ unveils popular prejudices against the Burgher woman while Michael Ondaatje’s ‘Running in the Family’ deals with the impossibility of a fixed, homogenous and natural identity in Sri Lanka.

The role of religion and language in the process of formation of nation’s and individual’s identity is Silva’s main concern when she discusses texts from Bangladesh. The valorization of mother tongue (Bengali) as being central to one’s notion of self, and women’s marginalized position in the liberation struggle is the subject of Munir Choudhary’s plays. Sangari and Vaid too have pointed to how language can become a reason for contest and pivotal in identification of class and gender. They cite the case of the purification of female vernacular in the nineteenth century Bengal, where linguistic sophistication becomes a marker for social status and gender (Sangari and Vaid 1989, 12). Through discussions of Rushdie’s ‘Shame’ and Rukhsana Ahmad’s ‘We Sinful Women’, Silva illustrates how religious fundamentalism impinges on the rights and identities of women both at the level of culture and national polity in Pakistan. Silva elaborates on Rushdie’s concept of ‘palimpsest’ and its subversive potential to expose elements that are suppressed or erased in the nationalist rewriting of history. In ‘We Sinful Women’, the woman author is argued to have used a traditionally male-dominated genre to expose the patriarchal devices of manipulation. Neluka Silva’s discussion of the various aspects of the nationalist debate is well informed and detailed. However, at times it threatens to go beyond the stated agenda of analyzing its gendered underpinnings. A less detailed description of the background of the context of the source texts would have given Silva space for including more contemporary writings from South Asia. The texts she has chosen well reveal how literature can be used as a tool to challenge the nationalist ideologies. However, there is little evidence that shows how literature can be used also by the state to construct and reinforce gendered national identities (as is one of the stated aims of her book). Also, a discussion on the place assigned to women in the nation’s economy and analysis of claims of the nationalist ideologues on women’s role in reform and development would have enriched the author’s arguments. Nonetheless, the book makes a valuable and original contribution to the existing debates on gender and nationalism. The strength of the book lies in the insightful details and the connection it makes between the common past, culture and political traditions of the South Asian countries. The book should interest academics and students of gender studies, postcolonial theory and cultural studies.

[This review was published in Progress in Development Studies journal, UK, 2006]

Naina

2007-10-16T01:59:00.000+05:30

Naina is the story of a girl living in London who lost her eyesight and her parents when still very young. As a young woman now she is offered a chance to see again through a cornea transplant. After the operation she discovers that she can see a lot more than she is supposed to. She sees dead people and those who are going to die. When she discovers that the image she sees in the mirror is not hers she decides to find a reason to it all. That takes her to Gujrat from where her cornea had been flown in. she finds out that her eyesight had come from a girl who could foresee other people’s deaths and was branded a witch by the villagers. Cursed and abused by her mother in a moment of anguish she committed suicide. Only by laying her soul to rest can Naina find peace. Despite doing that she retains her ability to foresee death and tries to save hundreds of people in a London tube accident where she too loses her eyesight. At the end she is happy for though she has lost her sight she has also lost the visions of death. Does the story remind you of some other film? Sixth Sense? That’s one of the greatest problems with Naina; so much of it has been taken from elsewhere. The posters remind you of The Ring, the story and many scenes remind you of The Sixth Sense, another episode is taken from Dark Waters, and so on.

The story is weak and is sometimes spread so thin that the dialogues go ridiculous. The first half is episodic and tells you little, just so many incidents of Naina seeing ghosts in every nook and corner of the city, though funny in a way because these ghosts look familiar, like visitors from other famous horror flicks. The second half has some interesting scenes of Naina’s counterpart Khemi in the rural Gujrat. Here too, the cultural difference between the two girls, Naina and Khemi, and the resulting potential for complexity is not utilized by the director. On the whole the film looks like the director was hoping to stretch a two line story idea into a two hour film with some spooky ghost scenes as fillers.

On the acting front, it seems difficult to decide who is worse, Anuj Sawhney, the Doctor or Kamini Khanna, the Grandmother, who single-handedly reduces the film to a B-grade television drama? Urmila Matondkar is only marginally better, what with her continuous jaw-dropping. Despite all these weaknesses the film is worth seeing once, if only to shame our cinematographers and visual effects supervisors. The visual effects are so clean, the editing so silent, it makes other Bollywood films look like belonging to the stone age. The entire technical crew is non-Indian. I would hate to think that is the reason for the high technical standards. And yes, Naina mercifully, has no songs.

written on 20 May 2005

Hazaaron Khwahishen Aisi…

2007-10-16T01:49:00.000+05:30

Director: Sudhir Mishra
Producer: Rangita Pritish Nandy, Etc
Cast: Kay Kay Menon, Shiney Ahuja, Chitrangada Singh, Ram Kapur

The title of the film, taken from a Ghalib couplet, aptly describes the hopes, dreams and disillusionments of a generation that saw itself as harbingers of change. The naxalite movement, two decades after the Indian Independence, was fuelled like all other movements and revolutions, by the ideals of justice and equality, and like all great movements ended in bloodshed, disillusionment, hopes crushed and dreams abandoned. It is surprising how naxalism (and Emergency) have failed to excite the imagination of our film-makers. Hazaaron… was a tale waiting to be told. Fortunately it found one of the best story-tellers around.

In a classic fashion, Mishra’s film begins at the very beginning. By pointing out the sentimental and somewhat indulgent fallacies in Nehru’s vision of India, Mishra opts for an involvement that lends credibility to his story without getting propagandist. The three main characters in the film reflect as much of their class concerns as their individual love conflicts. Siddharth has an identity crisis and tries to find a mooring in ideology. Vikram feels he cannot afford to get distracted by ideologies or ethical concerns in his struggle for social and financial security. They are both in love with Geeta who, trying desperately to keep her love and relationship with Siddharth going, makes sincere efforts to understand the cause Siddharth is fighting for. She is rational enough to see some of the discrepancies in the intellectual- ideological vision of the college going intelligentsia who fail to relate to the simple-minded, uneducated masses they are fighting for (there is a Sholay-esque question from a man in a crowd, “Who was Hitler?”).

Seeing revolution and love as exclusionary, Siddharth chooses to part ways with Geeta. The characters go their separate ways. Geeta marries an IAS officer, Vikram climbs the social ladder while Siddharth begins his lessons in reality in the villages of Bihar. In a delightful sequence where a mob of unruly villagers turn from being blood-thirsty to deeply concerned for their exploitative zamindar, Siddharth learns something about the people he is fighting for - only he cannot figure out what. The sequence is full of humour and irony and very few directors can pull it off the way Mishra does.

Geeta leaves her husband and makes the journey from the comforts of city to the violence- ravaged village. She starts doing her own bit here; not by helping Siddharth and his group in slitting throats of Zamindar’s henchmen, but by teaching in a village school. When the national Emergency is declared state institutions become instruments of repression and destroy whatever freedom remained. In Bhojpur village, the police become the naked manifestation of institutional power. Siddharth and Geeta are taken into custody where Siddharth is beaten to pulp and Geeta is brutally raped in front of him. People around them are casually butchered. Siddharth comes to see death in the face for the first time in reality and has his moment of self-realization. Vikram travels to the village to help his friend and ends up at the receiving end.

Siddharth moves to London and Geeta stays in a village school. Why? You ask. The rich boy, after his brief, confused affair with the proletariat, moves out of the mess he has helped create to the comforts of a foreign land; while the middle class, unwilling participant in this revolution, Vikram, ends up paying the real price. Vikram, of course, is not blameless. He has been a clog in the system without realizing, or perhaps ignoring the inherent violence of power. Geeta can never go back to the old comforts, for she is the one who has most closely felt and experienced this violence.

There are always more questions than answers at the end of any revolution. But isn’t asking questions a clearer sign of freedom and democracy? Sudhir Mishra’s film makes us conscious of the times we live in, and wonder whether it is better to fight for a lost cause or not having a cause to fight for. Yes, the generation of Hazaaron… is idealistic, confused and angry. But is the present generation any wiser with its quick distrust of ideologies and revolutions? When Vikram raised a toast to the revolution the audience laughed well before Siddharth did.

It is unfortunate that more films like these are not being made. You can only imagine what Mishra must have gone through to get this film produced and released, because he himself graciously avoids that story in his interviews. But some of the pressure of production shows in a couple of unclean cuts in the film. And also, the scenes on Emergency are not as hard-hitting as one would have expected. The political situation is not just a background to the love story, it is what shapes it. Mishra need not downplay the politics in the film. It should not worry him that a part of the audience is more interested in the love story. Good films, unlike government billboards on female foeticide, need not be understood by everybody.

written on 22 May 2005

Main Aisa Hi Hoon

2007-10-16T01:13:00.000+05:30

Director: Harry Baweja
Producer: Sanjay Gupta, Etc
Cast: Ajay Devgan, Sushmita Sen, Esha Deol, Rucha Vaidya

After having made half a dozen mediocre films with indistinguishable titles (Dilwale, Diljale, Diwane), storylines and songs, Harry Baweja graduated to making an action thriller Qayamat (2003) a copy of Michael Bay’s ‘The Rock’ with Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage in lead roles. Now comes Main Aisa Hi Hoon. What made Harry Baweja choose ‘I am Sam’ from all the other potential-for-copying films doing the rounds in Bombay. A closer look tells you why? The film is about an autistic man and his seven year old daughter. The mental age of the father is seven years, and as his daughter crosses that age an important question is raised. Can he raise her beyond this age? While ‘I am Sam’ was widely criticized for emotional manipulation (was called a cross between ‘Rain Man’ and ‘Krammer versus Krammer’), Sam’s acting performance was seen as its only redeeming feature.

Now over the top stories are not a bad sign in Bollywood. Harry’s main task was to find somebody to play Sean Penn’s character, which well, was hardly a task. His muse, actor Ajay Devgan who too has made a climb from being a B-action flick star to doing well-reviewed roles, must have seemed just suited for playing Sam. Sorry, doesn’t work. Ajay Devgan is no Sean Penn. He cannot support a weak film on his shoulders alone (Kaal is another example). Sushmita Sen plays Michelle Pfieffer in a flavour that reminded me of a cross between Shah Rukh Khan and Anoop Jalota’s raaga at the end of which you feel forced to clap. In a recent interview headline, Sen even claims to have beaten Michelle Pfieffer (Pfieffer was asking for it, wasn’t she?). Child actor Rucha Vaidya is fresh and sincere and it would be unfair to compare her to Dakota Fanning.

However, Main Aisa hi Hoon has succeeded in carrying all the drawbacks of the original. The storyline was weak to begin with, but the adapted screenplay and Hindi dialogues don’t help it either. The heavily criticized product placement of Starbucks in the original is replaced with Café Coffee Day (though there isn’t one in Simla). Hand held cameras are used here too; only that the cameraman of Main Aisa… gets so involved with Devgan that the camera pans violently and shakes rhythmically every time he enters the frame. But wait, everything in the film is not a copy. Harry Baweja is too conscientious to give himself credit for the film and not lend some originality to it. So, there are again half a dozen forgettable songs. There are nauseating hugs and tears. There is a humanitarian confusion of how stupid an autistic should be. There are those great Indian crowd scenes. And yes, the hero and heroine get married.

written on 23 May 2005