Yawn - The Review of Farhan Akhtar's Don

A few friends of mine informed me of their intentions to go along and see Farhan Akhtar's latest feature, Don. Having nothing better to do, I decided to accompany them and see what this new, upgraded version was all about. After watching the first few shots, where the new Don (Shahrukh Khan) pics up a Motorolla and croaks into it, "DON", i realised that perhaps a better alternative to vile away my time would have been to go to the neighbourhood canal and watch lackadaizical cows exctrete, rather than move into this thirty rupee hall and slaughter my senses. I really don't know what proposed Akhtar to remake this classic and I think neither does he ... Was he on marijuana or something, when this wierd hallucination gripped his senses? And just because Daddy-dearest collaborated on the original screenplay, i guess it gives you the liberty to massacre it. So Akhtar promised us to give a modern, pepped up and dynamic representation of the Chandra Barot Don, which coincidently had all that this was promising to offer.

So, where did the director go wrong? There must be something really disastrous in it, to make the maker of fantastic movies like Dil Chahta Hain and Lakshya look small. Well, that too is his own doing, since it was his bright idea of signing up Shahrukh Khan for the role of the modern Don. Now modernity is a very abstract term, and that will become clear to you after you finish seeing the movie - i.e. if you live to tell the tale, like I sadly have - because then you shall be caught in this dilemna, as to which of the Dons' was more modern! Was Amitabh Bachchan more modern, or Shahrukh Khan more antique (and I mean it in the Stone Age sense of the word)! He doesn't have the elan, the voice, the movements, the grace - in short he is a terrible Don. Stick to being Rahul or Raj, Mr. Khan, that's the way we love you! (I am NOT talking for myself)

After that comes the epic song, 'Khaike Paan Banaras Wala' and after Kishore Kumar, comes Udit Narayan. Now this chap always has a paan in his mouth, when he's singing romantic number, but here, where the paan was not optional but compulsory, there he decides to go moralistic! (Luckily I wrote moralistic there in stead of moronistic.) Even if you appreciate three pennies worth of your movie, you'll cry when you see this debacle on screen! Lucifer help you people!

See, the list like this is mammoth - Arjun Rampal for Pran, Om Puri as a god-knows who, Kareena Kapoor as Helen, Farhan Akhtar for Chandra Barot, I could make a three volume epic here! But I shall refrain .... Rather, on the other hand, let me try to provide a little relief to the already tormented director. Yes, surprising as it is, Don has a few plus points too. Though they are majorly outnumbered as compared to the flaws, they are positives none the less .....

Priyanka Chopra - hot, sexy, wicked seductress, eyeball popping diva! The shot in her in the pink gown will remain with viewers till the day they die. Words can't describe her!

Boman Irani - Iftekaar saab must be smirking from up there in the sky as he sees Mr. Irani effortlessly slip into his shoes. DCP De Silva's character is given a new impetus and elan as Boman Irani transcends the time barrier and breathes a new vitality into one of the central characters in the movie! Way to go Mr. Irani, you are the best!!

Also, if one sees the way the movie has been shot, its true that it is no great work, but we shouldn't complain, as many hollywood flicks have been represented in the same, sleazy way! So if we don't make a face then, we shouldn't do the same for a director from India. We should leave these neo-colonist viewpoints out of the world of Indian cinema, but if initiated into the reels, we shouldn't smurk!

The Final Verdict - AVOID it like the PLAGUE!!!!

Black - So is the movie!

There are many incentives for a film-maker, specially one like Sanjay Leela Bhansali, to go into a project which marks his departure from the regular fare of monotonous, epic-grandeurish movies that he has made till date, to a songless, seemingly-realistic fare, that plans to convey a message on a very serious topic of discussion. He wants to prove to the world that he has what it takes to deliver on a more aesthetic, 'arty' level of magnificence that is lacking in most directors of the times. He believes himself to be at par with perhaps Guru Dutt or Balraj Sahni, or maybe even a Raj Kapoor. So what does he do after making non-sense like Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam and even great rubbish like Devdas? He goes and makes something which is a mix of the two - he goes and makes Black!

One aspect of art-house cinema, that is firmly embedded in the minds of the current 'trying to go new-wave' directors is that art films need to be boring, slow and accutely didactic. After all the movie is meant to give a message, to make the viewers think of a subject in newer light ... So what if Shyam Benegal made Ankur, he probably meant to give a message! Sanjay L Bhansali now grabs on to his "warriors of darkness" and tries to say something about them. It is the concentration of the message that gets into him so badly, that he obscures it completely within the reels of the movie. He remembers the self-flouted doctrines of pace (or the lack of it) of the film that he ventures into making it melodramatic. He tries to fill us with pathos and agony at the sight of his characters and he tries to forcefully enter into the audience's hearts to make them get up and take notice - and that is where he fails.

Black deals little with the situation of the deaf, blind and mute population of our country, but forcusses primarily on a deaf, blind and mute girl. It deals with her predicament, her sense of belonging in the world of perfectly functioning people. It deals with her struggle for existense, her never-say-die attitude, her optimism and her "teacher". But nowhere does it speak for the deaf, the dumb or the mute. Every event in her life is made into a gargantuan struggle before able bodies and thereby making her success all the more glorifying.

The seeds of melodrama are sown right from the begining, when the girl's mother revolts against her husband's decision to put her in a special school. I ask, what is so wrong in that? Isn't it the most wise thing to do in such a situation? Her mother's indiosyncratic manouverisms only end up throwing a spanner in her life! And if Bhansali didn't want this drudgery of melodrama to be inflicted on his viewers, he should have made the girl come from a destitute background, whereby her struggle wouldn't have been optional, but incidental. However, if he had done that, how could he fit in the "teacher" in his scheme of things?

Bhansali has merely applied the tools of an art film, but due to his lack of expertise in the matter, what has come out as the final product is anything but the idealist outcome he could have hoped for. In this context, I cannot help mention another movie that was released recently, dealing with the predicament of the third-sex in India. The movie, Navrasa by Santosh Sivan brilliantly captures the hopelessness of a 13 year old girl's uncle, who actually harbours the sentiments of being a woman. It does start of like Black does, but that is where the comparison ends. Instead of going away from a world of similar people, Navrasa goes right into it. Blending reality with myth, Sivan spins magic around the life of enuchs in India and essentially, never makes us feel any pity for them. The audience feels proud that they have created a world of their own. The audience joins them, rather than shower them with tears from the front of the curtain. That is the power of good cinema.

What makes Black a delight to watch are the performances. The young girl, Mitchelle, played by Ayesha Kapoor, is a powerhouse performance. Her eyes, her movements, her body-language, makes you believe that she really is what she is meant to be. Maybe Rani Mukherjee doesn't invoke much prowess in her skills, mainly due to the over-shadowing performace of young Kapoor, but it's true that no one in the Indian film industry could have done what she did. Shehnaaz Patel feels very significant as the lost, hopeless mother of a blind, deaf and mute girl and Dhritiman Chatterjee fits in beautifully as the pragmatic, yet loving father. And finally, the movie belongs to Amitabh Bachchan. At the age of 62, this man is a moving magician (incidently, that's what he is in the movie too, a "magician"). His nuances, his dialogues, his energy levels just fill you with awe. There is perhaps no actor in the world who could have done what he did, at this age too.

Black's significance and power lies in its performace and in its cinematography. Ravi K Chandran makes magnificient use of the predominant colour symbol in the movie and tries to create binary opposites without his camera getting preachy like the director.

Lets hope Sanjay L Bhansali returns to his earlier rubbish in his forthcoming Bajirao Mastani. At least there we can sleep it off in the cool confines of the theatre, rather than try to be awake, hoping that as promised, somewhere in the movie Bhansali will make things turn to something spectacular, to something worth watching.

[PS. There is one thing that I forgot to add, he has one more thing which goes to the film's success as the box-office - a stupid and equally melodramatic audience, who couldn't stop crying at this total hoch-poch, at this NONSENSE ...]

Unpretentious Pretence

When you walk out of Sirish Kunder's Jaan-e-mann, you immediately go back to the opening credit titles and seeth in anger, when you remember having read 'Story - Sirish Kunder'. You feel that did someone really write a story for this bioscope? Did he have something to say? Was there any definite progression in this attempt, irrespective of the narrative being linear or not? And yet you missed it? And then you think, that did this movie (I won't call it a story) having anything new to perform? All that you did see were bits and parts of Gene Kelley's immortal Singin' in the Rain and Nikhil Advani's never-born Kal Ho Naa Ho. Then you turn around and ask me what my verdict is? is this movie worth the price of admission that you paid for, or is it just another bad investment?

If you want to see a quasi-Yash Chopra Kabhi Kabhi or a maybe a new-age Sangam, you are barking up the wrong tree. Taking a cue from his wife, Sirish Kunder lays out his cards within the first five minutes of the movie and that also includes a two-minute title card. Jaan-e-mann, intendedly has no sense nor was it meant to. Full of madness and dream-sequences and seemingly-realistic flashbacks, with the present hovering around the past, the chord of this movie lies in its sequnces, in its moments. Every episode is so well crafted and magically imposed on the audience that you for once do not get the inkling to leave your seat and go home! You never really do focus on the story, though it goes on, without you having to forcfully rely on it. The fare is rather stereo-typed and monotonous, but the effect and touches are innovative!

In addition to it, you get to see a new-improved Salman Khan, who does the same things with newer elan. The walk is the same, the dancing routines are the same, the expressions are the same and so is the body language, but it is a Salman Khan that you have never seen before! Its a Salman Khan that you like and love, a Salman Khan that you can idolize. Though Salman is the lead hero in the movie, the film belongs to Akshay Kumar. he guffowes, laughs, cries and behaves like someone you only associate as the college nerd - and yet he carries you away! The film just rests on his shoulders and he makes sure that the movie does not fall off anywhere. Priety Zinta fails in comparison to her co-actors, but she isn't bad. Its just that like the others, she isn't different, isn't new.

This Diwali, if you want to make your troubles seem lighter, without actually receiving a sermon on how to do that, go watch Jaan-e-Mann. You'll feel better!

Lakshya - Mission Accomplished

His Dil Chahta Hain had created ripples in the Indian film industry, with an unusual script and an even more unusual plot. Some will question that what did the movie have? Others will say everything! Dil Chahta Hain contained in itself all the aspects of a typical hindi film, but it was so differently told that you were not bothered to make any connections. You just enjoyed it in its wholeness.

Farhan Akhtar, the golden boy of the Indian film industry disappeared after that. He was said to be looking for something completely different from his earlier offering, perhaps to show the audiences that he could handle different genres in the same medium. He was so hell bent on producing a stark variation that his father, Javed Akhtar came out of his screen-writing retirement to pen a war story for him, a story of war that had been shown many times before on Indian celluloid, but perhaps seldom potrayed to realistic perfection.

The story of Lakshya, the movie that was finally made is indeed very simple. The Kargil war of 1999 that it dealt with was incidental. It was never a war movie; it was a humanistic movie of an aimless individual who finally finds his 'lakshya' or aim in life. Progressing through a partial flashback from the present, Lakshya unfolds before us the life of Karan Shergill (Hrithik Roshan), aimless and confused. He wants to do everything, yet is too lazy to even put on his hot water apparatus to have a bath. Then comes a friend who has hopes of joining a 'dashing' Indian army. Karan immediately applies and is even asked to appear for the test. An irrate father (Boman Irani) is furious. Ego clashes appear and Karan bounces into the Army!

Now, everyone knows that the army is not a adventure zone and you can make that out when Karan escapes from the IMA. Romila (Priety Zinta) is absolutely crestfallen on hearing that and leaves him for good. What then changes him, as the screenplay tells us, is not consciousness, but again, his ego. It hurts him when she leaves him, he is humiliated. An interesting thing to be noted in this regard, is the dual perception of the word ego. Earlier, it was an ego which forced him to sit for the IMA exam because his father was furious. Now his ego deciphers the difference between his past and his future, his general incapability to take oncourse to a path his has chosen and a mission to go the full journey.

Karan is back and is now more disciplined and hard working. A collage of his training routine and his zeal is sufficient enough to tell us that, with Shankar Mahadevan crooning in the background. So, what happens next? He passes his course and is appointed lieutanant of the Indian Army. He earns his vacation after a posting under the command of Colonel Damle (Amitabh Bachchan). He returns home to see Romila engaged to someone else. Even as he gets over it, Pakistani infantry cause a breach of trust and cross the border to secure empty Indian checkposts. All army officials are called back and Karan Shergill, the boy who said "Main Aisa Kyun Hoon" (Why am I so incapable) return as a man to the firing line. Due to the advantagious position of the Pakistani infiltrators, thousands of Indian lives are lost. Col. Damle is forced to initiate an impossible mission to capture his designated peak and Karan Shergill completes the journey, he single handedly unfurls the tri-colour after taking possession of the outpost.

Brilliantly told and shown, Lakshya tells the story of a boy into a man, a man who knows what he is to do and how to do it and in a nutshell, do it. Farhan Akhtar consolidates his position as the Indian film industy's new powerhouse by perhaps (and this is only my view) surpassing his earlier Dil Chahta Hain. That movie was just a sequence of events, this is a message. Javed Akhtar cannot be talked of as a subsidiary in this article. His screenplay and dialogues leaves you spellbound. Take for instance the scene where Karan is taken to the border for the first time. He sees the Pakistani checkpost and exclaims that he always knew that he was an Indian, but this was the first time that he actually felt it. Absolutely stunning, it replaces with realism the utopian principle of a globe without borders. He brings out moments and characters that we can connect with, including the protagnist, Karan Shergill.

Speaking of whom, Hrithik Roshan absolutely delivers to the T. He too replaces his dancing image with an image who can portay anything. In Lakshya he plays a character, rather than the usual Hindi film conception of 'being yourself'. Karan is everything that Hrithik is not and that is what makes the character real and believable. You laugh at his earlier antics and you stand up and applaud, perhaps even cry, with Karan hoisting the indian flag on the peak. That speaks of Hrithik Roshan, actor and superstar.

Priety Zinta too matches up to Hrithik in perhaps the only half-baked character in the film. Her hairstlyles change, but she remains Romila Dutt right to the very end. She complements Hrithik throughout the movie, even in scenes that she is missing from, thereby playing the role of the significant other. Amitabh Bachchan looks like the about-to-retire CO, but his performance cannot be faulted. His eyes contain the misery that he must have seen over the years, in different wars and yet they flash genuine moments of bravado in his outfit's capabilities and his stigma. Hardly could anyone else do justice to Colonel Sunil Damle.

On the technical front, Christopher Popp's cinematography, his choice of angles and stock usage takes you into the world of the characters and potrays the various stages that they go through. This is perhaps one of the few moments in Indian cinema where you are transported into the world of the characters. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy score songs that stand out even in seclusion from the screen and the background score haunts like that of perhaps Vangelis or Theodarkis. The simple and monotonous scores keep coming back to make you feel the rush of blood through your veins.

In all the movie is a remarkable effort at signifying its message. And like the message it contains, it goes all out to reach its destination. Mission Accomplished.

Night at the Opera - A night to remember

Who can perhaps not know the famous Marx brothers - no, not as in Karl Marx and Frederich Engels, but Groucho, Chico and Harpo Marx, the famous brothers who had us in splits with their absolutely mad antics in the movies they acted in? The Night at the Opera was perhaps their greatest offering to world cinema, with a crazy plot and even crazier actors. Begining from the begining, they don't end at the end - anyone who has seen the 1935 movie will agree with me that they must have seen the eerie face of Groucho Marx in their dreams for days and nights to come. The impact of the movie is such that you are left breathless (yes, the gasping for air kind), just by severe stints at a hapless, stupid and utterly slapstick comedy.

The setting of the story is really simple (atleast that's how I'm sure the writers must have written it). Mr Otis B Driftwood (Groucho Marx) has been emplyed by typical rich American widow, Mrs Claypool (Margaret Dumont) to put her into high society. After years and years of only drawing a handsome salary ("that's nothing eh? How many men do you thing draw a handsome salary?" - Driftwood to Claypool), he practically hasn't done a thing he was hired for. Finally, he had got a brainwave - he wanted her to use her money and become a patron of the theatre - the New York Opera and thereby easily present herself into the higher strata of society. So they bring on the Director of the New York opera, Mr Herbert Gottlieb (Sig Ruman) and arrange the plans to get the greatest tenor in the country to sing for them. And who indeed is sent to hunt for this world famous tenor? Why, Mr Otis B Driftwood!

Meanwhile, at some other opera company, Tomasso (Harpo Marx) is having trouble with his owner, the 'greatest' tenor, Rodolfo Lassparri (Walter Woolf King) who is typically an arrogant and dominating bourgeouisie (that's the only link with Karl Marx in this article). Tomasso seeks revenge. Meanwhile Fierello (Chico Marx), fresh out a job (a con man basically) decides to himself appoint himself as a manager to a new tenor Ricardo (Allan Jones) and then he meets the perpetual fool Driftwood. He convinces him that Ricardo is the world's greatest tenor that he was looking for and they strike a deal for the world's best tenor at $ 10.

However, the goof up is soon spotted and the tenor replaced. But Driftwood has to put in Ricardo in the opera. What follows from there onwards cannot be described in this article, or for that matter any article, because words are the weakest symbols to desctibe it. A treat for the eyes (which blead in time), the Marx brothers leave no stone unturned in ruining the Opera. Like the famous saying goes, "its the Marx brothers against the rest of the world."

A laugh a minute saga ensues. And the point to be noted here, is that its just not a fiasco that errupts on the screen. The performances themselves speak volumes. Grucho, Chico and Harpo appear to be this way in their personal lives. They just "come, see and conquer" the stage. This movie is the powerhouse of slapstick.

I recommend this to anyone who can cry laughing. It's a must, must, must see movie. You haven't lived if you haven't been to the Night at the Opera.

Rang De Basanti - Attainable Utopia

Utopia, the ideal, ever since recognized by Plato in the 5th century BC, almost remains an ellusive term - always thought of, but seldom seen. It is for the attainment of this utopia, that the dabblers of art have long pitted their brains in the creation of. This has consequently led to the creation of timeless classics, be they in the form of books, paintings and even cinema - which is also one of the reasons leading to the creations of the superhero, a Batman or a Superman, someone whom we hoped would have lived.

Then in the early 19th century, came the sudden outburst of realism, of depicting things as they were, without corrupting the end users thoughts with imaginative nonsense. After all, why write about Superman, when no such person or planet actually exists? This feature, specially developed in communist countries, like the earstwhile USSR, soon became the dominant literary ideology of the times. Human beings now wanted to test their rationality, instead of getting wayled into an imaginary world. Aristotle's characters of magnitude, got replaced by the common man - new stories began to unravel themselves through people we saw around us. However the search for the ideal still continued through these stories, though their grandeur was far simpler now and constricted to mundane affairs, not the creation of an ideal republic like Plato.

Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's second directorial venture keeps with the module of the new quest of the ideal and by Jove does it succeed! Telling the story of a group of friends, Mehra connects the nations past and the future and miraculously succeeds in converging the two tangents. And that is where the Utopia lies - just like our freedom fighters believed in the utopia we are abusing today, these boys and girls believe in an utopia which they believe they need to create. What is more significant in the storyline is the convergence of nationality along with the convergence of time, overriding all petty idiosyncrasies that the youth hold today.

To cut across to the main story now, it begins with a young english filmmaker, Sue (Alice Patten), all set to eulogize the extremist freedom fighters of India through a documentary. However things don't begin on a positive note for her, as the financers now realize that only Gandhi sells. Abusing them in Hindi, she arrives in India to start rolling, remaining optimistic to the very end.

Here comes in Sonia (Soha Ali Khan), who is her contact in India. They begin with their auditions, only to be thoroughly disappointed (and the viewers thoroughly amused). Sonia decides that Sue needs a break from this comic montage and sets out to meet her friends and introduce Sue to some fun. Now enter poet, philosopher Aslam (Kunal Kapoor), Karan (Siddharth), Sukhi (Sharman Joshi) and of course, the very best DJ (Aamir Khan). They are soon joined by the fanatical student union leader Lakshman (Atul Kulkarni) and a distaste between the latter and the group is quickly established.

Sue then decides that this band would be ideal to fill in the shoes of the characters in her movie. However, the potential actors do not think so ..... they belive that the world she wants to create is a farce, something absolutely untrue. They spit on this freedom and pronounce doomsday for the nation. Some coaxing leads them to the stage before the camera, but the spirit is still ellusive. Heroic references and statements are made fun of and the finger on the lips indicate "Maut ki ungli" (the finger of death).

The comedy progresses rapidly, till the news channels report the death of their friend, Flight Captain Ajay Rathode (R. Madhavan), flying a rickety MIG - 21. An under-current flows through them. They wake up. The Defense Minister aggrevates the issue by proclaiming Ajay to be a bad pilot. This adds fuel to the fire. They stage a dharna in front of India Gate, the country's insignia to honour the unknown soldier. The Defense Minister sends in the cops and brutally breaks up the peaceful protest.

Lakshman sees his former mentor ordering and overseeing the police proceedings. After a few seconds, the latter rolls up his window and exits from the scene. Another realisation draws on him personally - the ideals of his party, which he had believed in all this while, suddenly die out before him. His belief that Muslims belong to another nation and other pseudo-nationalistic views are shattered. He looks around to see mass-destruction on innocent protestors demanding justice. He sees Aslam being whacked by a policeman - he forgets the previous interactions between the two and charges at the policeman, snatches his stick and uses it on him itself. Such scenes are seldom seen in world cinema, comparable poorly to Eisenstein's famous "Oddessa Steps" in Battleship Potemkin.

It is at this point, lost for peaceful alternatives, that the group, now with a commitant Lakshman, decide to gun down the minister - Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad and Rajguru live on. They complete the impossible, only to have posthomous awards and recognitions thrusted upon the crook. Their objective is now thwarted. Therefore they once again return to the past - like Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt, they surrender themselves, letting the world decide on their actions.

With the last scene, inspired from the Western classic Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Mehra leaves a great impact on the minds of a certain faction of the youth - now just a fraction of the total youth population; the other refer to the last few scenes as comic relief - because they are still a part of the youth as potrayed in the first half of the movie. I wonder if they will ever progress to the second stage, but that is the omnipresent, ellusive Utopia. However, there is the other faction who stirred at the climax and that is why I say that the movie proclaims attainable utopia, something very difficult to contain in any work of art.

Now returning to the movie, I need not add anything about the filmmaker itself - I think my earlier paragraphs are proof enough of his prowess. On the technical front, Binod Pradhan's camer is lyrical and so is the editing. A R Rahman creates tunes that blend in with the story line. The songs are brilliant and the background score is simply stunning - this belongs in the hall of fame.

Speaking of performances, everybody has delivered to the T. Kunal Kapoor looks simply stunning with his locks and stuble, Siddharth gels as the cool introvert, Sharman Joshi is a revelation and Soha just falls short of her performance in Rituparno Ghosh's Antarmahal. Nothing needs to be said about Atul Kulkarni, who has proved his mettle over the years and Alice Patten is the best import from the overseas so far in the Indian film industry.

However, the movie simply belongs to Aamir Khan. Playing a character fifteen years younger than himself, Aamir excells and breathes life into the movie. Anything said about his performance would be an understatement.

Truly, after decades, theatres around the counrty are running responsible reels, reminding us of why we go to the movies in the first place.

Meenaxi - Running poetry

Ever considered seeing poetry unfold itself, verse by verse, on the celluloid? In case you have, but have never seen it in 'reality', watch Meenaxi - A tale of three cities. The second feature by the noctogenerian artist of the country, M F Hussain, Meenaxi is a far-removed and far more engrossing movie than his first attempt, Gaja Gamini. Though the visual spectacle of the two is accutely mesmerising, Meenaxi deals with a far larger dilemma that it did in Gaja Gamini. And then, the question that everyone who has watched this movie asks, is what does it mean, where does it end .... Precisely, the movie neither begins and neither does it end and through this abstract and unsatisfying closing, it draws in us a greater catharsis than that could be ever drawn by any other movie with a prominent ending.

Keeping with what I earlier said - where does Meenaxi begin? It shows itslef to us through the eyes of an author, Nawab (Raghubir Yadav), using his opera glasses to see things which are right next to him and yet missing out on what could be the subject of his new novel. He is at the moment faced with a terrible case of a writer's block and ponders over myriad possibilities that could absolve him of his drawback. The publisher, his friend, is hounding away for further drafts and all he can do is sit through a cycle rickshaw and peep into the world of Hyderabad.

It's his sister's engagement and preparations are on in full spate. He, as usual, moves around through the crowd, there but not there, till he comes across a woman. Things spark of in him and he tries to move towards her, but she keeps eluding him. He still tries to search her, but fails. And when he fails, she suddenly surrenders herself to him. She is Meenaxi (Tabu), a perfume seller in the city of Hyderabad. She declares herself to be a great fan of his and demands that he write a story about her.

Nawab tries to break free from his block and brings pen to paper. He sets his story around the beautiful sand dunes of Jaisalmer, Rajasthan and narrates the journey of Kameshwar Mathur (Kunal Kapoor), who also happens to be his car mechanic in 'reality', and his affections for a girl, Meenaxi. The story continues towards a love story between the two and time seems to stand still. Then how does the story progress? It doesn't .... An existential theme mocks at us when we try to decipher how this Jaisalmer story will end. And with the muse's 'real' presence the author also looses control of his own thoughts. He can't bring about a conclusion in his own imagination, because his 'reality' is made directionless by an inconstant inspiration.

The papers are burnt and Nawab now picks up his pen again to cast a new setting before us - this time in Prague and his character now is a lonely girl called Maria. Kameshwar Mathur arrives there also and another story unfolds itself to us. This time, Maria is more commitent in the relationship and the viewer tries to forsee the future between themselves and the 'real' imaginary characters. But then even a new setting and a new affair seems to wind its way into obscurity. This story also ends without an ending.

What Meenaxi deals with, are the binary opposites of reality and imagination,or perhaps their contrast that we have created in our minds. The story actually speaks of the thin line between the two abstract terms in the mind of a creative artist. Nawab loses himself in his characters and also in Meenaxi, the simple girl who sells perfumes in Hyderabad. Then the question remains that what is real and what is imagination? If both quarters of the author's mind release him into the same obscurity, then where is the difference? Is Meenaxi more real, or Maria? Is Kameshwar more real or the car mechanic? Or is Nawab the person more real than Nawab the writer?

And when we realise this aspect, we are once again taken back to Nawab's sister's wedding and we see Nawab following a girl dressed in white, a contrast to Meenaxi in a black saree a few minutes back. This time he comes up to her and has the opportunity to see her face. His eyes light up as he asks her for her name. She looks at him quizically and replies - Meenaxi.

Magnificently told and shown, Meenaxi, could well be the magnum-opus of the director. The essence of colour to wash away the difference between real and unreal is a delight to watch. The camera movements and angles are simply breath-taking. The opening shot of the Nawab on a cycle-rickshaw will perhaps never be seen in the history of Indian cinema. Santosh Sivan has amazingly given life to the three cities and the five principle characters in the movie. The characters are so well constituted that they feel absolutely real and not just shadows on celluloid.

I feel special mention should be made about the music in the movie. Composed by A R Rahman, they too blend in with the chief objective of the movie. Every city is percieved differently by the changes in the music pattern alone. The songs are mesmerising and absolute. The background score is stunning.

Meenaxi - tale of three cities is a must watch for people who love art as a whole, not just cinema. Not just because each aspect of film-making is beautifully arranged in it, but because the dilemma of art is finally resolved in one of the greatest movies of the Indian film industry.

A small advise for Vishal Bharadwaj before I file my thoughts on Omkara. Stop flogging the Shakespeare part of the film as he had done in Maqbool and now, Omkara. Like Maqbool, it is more relaxing to watch Omkara rather than start linking the original characters. It robs the real charm of the story, otherwise so beautifully told.

Omkara is a true and real representation of the Hindi hinterland and the goings ons in the political activities that we have since been subjected to. It is ironic that the very first acknowledgement card mentioned Amar Singh, for he is one of the real characters in the political scene who helped to move the value chain of Indian politics down to the pits. And it is this very pits is where Omkara is set. Leave aside the Othello, the Casio, the Iago and their desi derivatives, Bharadwaj has crafted a story like a master story teller with strong replication of the essence of the culture and ethnicity of the terrain, including the language. Full marks to Censor Board for being bold to let the film pass with out the cuts.

I am not going to re run the story for the readers as in most reviews as I think films are meant for watching and assimilating and not grasped through the coloumns of the critic, but all I can say is that the ditrector, who has also doubled up as the music man has had the pulse of the Badland completely in his grip and again full marks to Censor Board for allowing full, naked view of the Poltician Police nexus (and the mockery of it) with glimpses of Babloo Srivastavas generously sprinkled all over the story. The end is at once macabre and bizzare, perhaps the only Shakespaeare Seneca combo in the film.

In such a star studded film was it difficult to choose the best? Surprisingly, No! Saif Ali Khan. Langda Tyagi. And Konkona Sen Sharma. Remarkable.

Naseer could not be missed out either, not for the way he gets the Baratis to get in to the dance mood. He should know, after all he had led the cast and crew of the Monsoon Wedding some years ago!

Go, see Omkara. Not Othello.

[This review has been submitted by a guest columnist and an ardent film buff, Mr. Sujit Sanyal - Subhojit]

Colonial revolution in Mrinal Sen’s Interview

Mrinal Sen was pursuing a career as a medical representative, happy with his job, his life and hoping that it would stay that way. This was around the year 1943. Sen was dabbling into a lot of reading, be it the works of Karl Marx, or Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzche. While he was hunting through the shelves of the now National Library in Kolkata, he accidentally came upon a book, titled Film by a certain Rudolf Arnheim. As Sen himself puts it, it was a “gem of a book,” and it was convincing enough to get him hooked onto the aesthetics of cinema. Suddenly things took a turn for him and he went on to direct his first feature, Raat Bhore (The Dawn). What must be remembered to evaluate Sen’s works, are that they were not just tales in motion on a grandeur backdrop. This was also the time, when the Communist Movement in Bengal was slowly taking shape. Young minds like Sen were greatly moved by the idea of a new socialism which meant equality for all and this theme always ran in the movies that he made thereafter. There was always the idea of revolt prevalent in his films – revolt against the bureaucracy in Bhuvan Shome or the revolt against the post-colonial tendencies that were embedded in the subconscious minds of the people in his Interview.

A spurious take on the avant-garde style of film-making, Interview basically in a nutshell deals with an interview - a day in the life of the protagonist, Mr. Ranjit Mullick. The movie begins in the morning and goes on through his quest for the interview during the day and ends in the night. What is this plot around an interview one may ask? It deals less with the actual interview, but more with the decorations that the candidate has to prepare for himself to clear the first hurdle. And what could be the decorations? A suit! Why suit? Because the company is still steeped in the colonial tradition of having English aspirants at their door …

The movie begins, quite literally from Ranjit Mullick (Ranjit Mullick) getting up in the morning, and reciting for the nth time to his mother, the specifications of the new job – “Double of what I am getting now, plus commission, plus something, plus something, plus something …” His mother repeatedly asks him to stop using that refrain – typical Bengali middle class superstition, fearing that it might wear out otherwise – but as Ranjit puts it to her, everything has been taken care of through interior channels, all that was now required, was a suit! Does he now have the suit? No, he had given it to the Dry Cleaners three months back and withdrawn from the reclamation that it would be eaten up by moths in his house. All that he needed to do was go get the suit and arrive at the office on time for the interview.

Where are the shoes? In a trunk, kept safely! The trunk turns out to be a Pandora’s Box, which with time had graduated to hold all unwanted junk that had collected in the house – including the pair of shoes. What finally comes out of it is anything but a pair of shoes – completely worn out and dilapidated. However, Ranjit immediately delegates his sister to get the cobbler to operate on them and make them usable. Now for the suit. Where is the bill? Along with all the bills that the mother has had the fortune to collect – it’s like searching for a needle in a haystack. However, like the shoes, even that is found. Now Ranjit is off to collect it from the cleaners. But he can’t do that! Not today … The Dry Cleaning Union in the city has called for an indefinite strike. All shops will remain closed due to their involuntary association with the same. The suit is then lost for the time being.

Ranjit moves around from place to place, pondering on his possibilities. Where could he get a suit from? He goes to his fiancée’s place and repeats his jargon, “Double of what I am getting now, plus …” Kites are flown, and she helps him decorate their future apartment. She even tries to help him get a suit. But luck fails him on all accounts. Another friend now hits upon an idea. One of their common friends from college is a ‘sahib’. He was sure that they could get a suit from there. So, with a little help from Lady Luck, a suit is obtained. All his troubles are over. He is on his way back home with the suit in hand, in a local bus, when he suddenly sees a man pinching a wallet in the vehicle. The socialist ideal in the idealistic youth is aroused and he tucks away his packet in one corner of the bus to catch him red-handed. The plot thickens here, but the suit remains in the bus.

Now when he is finally free from the Police Station, he remembers about this long lost suit. Its only a few hours away from his interview. There is nothing that he can do, to improve on the situation. He goes to the interview in the traditional kurta and dhuti. Needless to say, he doesn’t get the job.

The contact in that office lands up in his house and ventilates his frustration on the boy. He argues that he already has a job and as he continues with his thesis, the music rises to a crescendo and his dialogues are faded out. Did the director mean to say that he was talking rubbish? That he was actually furious at missing out on the interview because of a suit? The camera finds Ranjit, sulking away in the evening in some desolate corner. A nameless and faceless bystander questions him as to what was bothering him. Ranjit evades the questions, he tries to run away and then when finally, the viewer’s questions regarding the suit and “double of what you get now, plus commission …” gets to him, he does what he must have wanted to do for a long time – he pelts stones at a Suit shop, tearing apart the suited mannequin at the window.

The actual movie Interview begins with the demolishment of the English statues at various landmarks in Kolkata, something that had really happened in the early 1970s. It was an impulse to defy the post colonial sentiments that had actually gripped the city, the establishments in the city and as the story unfolds before us, we see how the sentiment actually existed. It is the inability to appear before the company in a suit that denies him a job opportunity, not his abilities and qualifications. It is a psycho-analytical concept that Sen defies. The suit stood for the “propah” English mannerisms that an Indian boy was required to exhibit. It was killing the ambitions and opportunities for the youth. The interview is not dependant on the physical capabilities of the aspirant, not on his mental abilities, but on a suit – a heritage that we have unknowingly acquired from the English during their Raaj in the country. We may not know it, but we do possess it in our sub consciousness and are quite proud of it too. What is wrong with Indian outfits? Just that they are not British?

The Kramer vs Kramer game

I hope you'll read my Kramer vs Kramer review ....... Now its time to have some fun! Send me in suggestions as to who could be cast in the various roles of the original, in an Indian context - you can use any Indian actor, irrespective of regional disparities. The movie will be made in Hindi, keep that in mind! I'll list for you the characters -

Ted Kramer ------------
Joana Kramer ------------
Margaret Phelps ------------
Ted Kramer's first boss ------------
Ted Kramer's interviewer for the second job ------------
The Creative Head at Ted Kramer's second job ------------
Ted Kramer's Lawyer ------------
Joana Kramer's Lawyer ------------

Once you'll are through, I'll give you my combination ......... Enjoy!

I have seen Plato

Satyajit Ray was never known to be overtly political – neither in his films, nor in his private life. Yes, he did hold an election card and like a good citizen he would assemble at the polling booth and get his fingers dotted. As a matter of fact, in one of his letters to Mary Seaton, who later wrote his biography, The Portrait of a Director, he had mentioned clearly to her, that perhaps Pratidwandi (The Adversary) had been his most political work.
The insignia of Indian cinema, Satyajit Ray, only made aesthetic movies, on a large, soft, clourful canvas – the maker of timeless classics like Charulata, Jalsaghar and of course, The Apu Trilogy.
Now, keeping with the rest of my thesis, I have actually chosen a rather controversial film of the same maker. Though I have earlier mentioned that The Adversary remains his main and perhaps most political work, I have chosen one of his comedies, Mahapurush (The Holy Man) as my subject to talk about a psychotic analysis on a completely different level. Before I delve into my discussion, let me first provide the unfamiliar readers with the background of the movie.
Mahapurush, made in 1965 was the second half of a two-movie film made by Ray, titled Kapurush o Mahapurush (The Coward and the Holy Man). Based on a story by the popular Bengali comic writer, Poroshuram, a very serious man in real life, also the author of Ray’s only other comedy, Parash Pathar (The Philosopher’s Stone), Mahapurush tells the story of a certain Birinchi Baba, a first grade fraud, posing as an immortal saint to loot gullible people, of whom the world seems to be so full of.
Without any trace of slapstick, the movie sticks to the laugh-a-minute routine, splitting the audience into hoarse laughter, till they are left wreathing to their stomach pangs. Shuffling once again to the storyline of Mahapurush, as mentioned earlier, it contains the exploits of a certain Birinchi Baba (Charuprakash Ghosh), who is extremely fond of his famous doctrine – the convergence of time future and time past. The optical illusion was indeed so captivating that the minute the show was over at Kolkata’s prestigious Metro cinema, every member of the audience were trying to figure out how the thing worked.

Birinchi Baba, or babas of the world, are according to me and many people for that matter, the biggest psychotic killers in the world – because they do not declare their killer intentions openly, they are disguised killers. And the garb that they use is in itself the pretentious killer – religion. What the ideal side of religious practices had originally meant to dictate, has just got lost in obscurity over the years. From true souls like Ramkrishna Paramahans and the Sai Baba of Shirdi, we are actually left to these Birinchi Baba’s, who are pathetic liars to rationality. But then the golden question is if these people offer lies, how are they killing and what?

They are killing rationality – the very same rationality that would be used against them. From the opening shot of the movie, we see how a foolish man is tricked by the Baba to believe that he administered the sunrise by ordering it to get up. He breaks down like a child, surrendering himself completely to Birinchi. The man’s rationality has now been murdered – he has forgotten about the earth’s rotation, revolution, planetary position, everything! Birinchi has struck.
Now, leaving ourselves to our own rationality, we may also judge this particular man in this train to be thunderously weak-minded. However, Birinchi’s exploits do not end their. In order to solve the man’s problems, Birinchi moves into his house and starts sermonizing. Soon people flock to his house, the erudite Bengali gentleman, the wealthy but stupid Marwari – all kinds – would we call all these people weak-minded? But they too believe his words, that he has “met Plato, Jesus (a young child) and also the Buddha, taught E=Mc2 to Einstein” and calls the Crucification of Jesus crucifact, because he actually saw it with his own eyes. Another shot by Birinchi, is that the assistant of his (Robi Ghosh), was actually found by him in a crowded market place at Babylon! The Marwari is so dumbfounded; he turns to the sophisticated Bengali and asks – “Who Plato?” The Bengali replies, “Plato, Plato, Greek Philosopher.” The Marwari turns back, no more enlightened than he originally was.
Birinchi baba goes on with his exploits, fooling and murdering, claiming to have eaten a hippopotamus, to the point where he can bring down a God – with the magic words, “OM ores, OM nific, OM nescience, OM nibus, OM nivorous!” to which Satya, one of the principal characters retorts, “Is he a tantric?” A cynical procurer negates it by saying “he is a Dhanatantric,” – which in Bengali means, A Capitalist.
Moving on to the last shot, when Satya and his friends catch him and threaten him to leave, he escapes with his assistant, who was supposed to be Goddess Kali that night, with his attachment of four wooden hands – however, a significant aspect of the four hands, reveal that they hold four wallets in them – the final heist from this place before moving on.
The second murder – this time that of religion as a whole. Birinchi baba subverts the concept of religion to satisfy his own personal needs, he stops people from finding out that ideal, scriptural religion by dictating to them his own beliefs, policies and other dictates, which are of course false!
Therefore, I can perhaps now safely put that this is the worst killer amongst us, one that is the hardest to catch.

The Kramer vs Kramer review

I was just browsing through the stacks of the new DVD shop that had opened in my area a few weeks back. I was fresh from seeing The Graduate and to be quite honest, I was still swaying under Dustin Hoffman's performance. It had been quite some time, since I had seen one of his movies, The Rainman and I was looking around for some more of him on the shelves - anything!

Lady luck was with me, as I fished out Kramer vs Kramer from one corner and didn't even think twice as I walked out of the place, holding it under my arm in a brown paper bag. I could hardly wait to get into my easy chair and take my Home Theatre remote in my hand and peek into the personal lives of Ted and Joana Kramer. The movie begins with a light strumming of the guitar and just as the title appears on the right of the screen, a mandolin joins in, to offer, I think, one of the opening titles tracks that I have heard in a long, long time. Simple, yet very effective.

Mrs Kramer fades into the screen, wishing her son goodnight and goodbye, finally beating off the creative seclusion that she had been facing under her workaholic husband for the last eight years of their married life. Even as he comes into the movie, we see that Joana Kramer has reason to complain - even as she prepares to leave, he tries to make a phone call, leaf through some papers and look very distracted. Even as she walks out on him, he thinks she's just pulling a fast one and will be back within a few hours at the most.

What begins from there is Ted Kramer balancing home and office for the next few months and doing so pretty well. So what if he doesn't know how to make French toast for this son in the morning, he sure can learn! And he does - he learns it so well, that you feel he had been doing this all his life. The way he and his seven year old son balance each other, you forget that Joana Kramer ever existed. But will she allow you to do that?

She had tried her hand at various occupations and now she is back in New York. She earns a fat salary and now, she wants her son back. They go to court - she wins the case, but she can't take the boy back. "This is his home..." she says!

What really stands out in this movie, more than Dustin Hoffman's and Meryll Streep's performance, are the situations that are created. The first day between father and son, where Ted Kramer makes French Toast for his son, shows his absolute inability to come to terms with household needs and the day when Billy is to be taken away by his mother, both father and son make better French Toast then perhaps the French themselves. The scene where Billy meets his father's business associate in the nude is remarkable and cannot be explained in words.

The music, like I said, is simple yet striking. Only the use of the guitar and the mandolin in most cases, makes the soundtrack alone, heard over and over again. Great performances come in from Justin Henry and Jane Alexander. The photography is simply amazing and yet, like the music, simple!

Kramer vs Kramer is a must for all cinema lovers, leave alone Dustin Hoffman fanatics like me .......

Happy viewing!