“In my time, you were told that you could either become a cop or a criminal. I say that when you are standing in front of a loaded gun, what’s the difference?”

Now, should we take that as the point to start off, or do we smell a rat in here?

The first Scorsese that I had ever seen was Raging Bull. And that ten minute monologue by one of the living Gods of world cinema left me completely spell bound. And then the story unfolded and I was taken over by Martin Scorsese. On a side note, I read somewhere much later that Scorsese at around that time was heavily snuffing up on cocaine. So much so that he had almost given up on making a movie again. His friend, Robert de Niro got him to kick his habit and make another piece of the ‘Marty magic’. It worked, though Scorsese was convinced that he was going to make his last movie – and in the process, he snuffed his life into Raging Bull. That’s why it is the classical classic! Perhaps only!

This is my article, and by now digressions are mandatory. Because when discussing a Martin Scorsese movie, we are talking about a whole institution, a whole school of film making – an institution which is very much Marty, a school where he teaches alone!

He made Raging Bull in 1980 if I remember, and then in 1990 he made another milestone, Goodfellas, hailed by many including me, as the greatest ‘ganstah’ movie ever. Yes, we people are bold enough to put it even before the Godfather series! At this stage you should realise that it would mean something – and those of you who have just heard the name for the very first time should watch it now!

And then in 1995 we got Casino, almost like a de Niro special! I am sure that no one would complain at that, but de Niro of course had that special capability to blend into all types of roles with the most alarming ease. But now this is what I was getting to. De Niro, through no fault of his own, started to look old on screen. That isn’t a negative quality, not for someone like him at all, but the fact remains that there were characters that he could not play anymore. He could not be the Taxi Driver anymore and neither could he play Jack Le Motta. He aged many time when he was young, but now it was a different matter altogether. A new face was sought, a new face we got. Filling in for Robert de Niro was Leonardo de Caprio, who was just not the innocent face from Titanic, but had matured over the years. Let’s not kid around here, Scorsese knows what he is doing.

But hold it there for a second now and let us go back behind the camera and think about the man there. Martin Scorsese. Did he not grow old? Was he stuck in some timeless, ageless vacuum from which he could not be sucked up? Of course not! He’s just as human as the next guy.

But if he did grow old like everyone else, how could he make The Departed? How could slip in with the times so effortlessly?

For mostly everyone, the first Dylan that you hear is “Blowing in the Wind”, I guess! I first heard “The Times, they are a Changing!” And it struck a deep chord within. “... Step aside if you don’t understand”. But the other side of this story would very definitely mean, “Remain where you are if you do understand” and that means that the person has changed with the times. I cannot explain how delightful it is to see a person change with time, to blend in to the next quarter, not cling on to nomenclature and history as a given.

And it is in this context that the sense of amazement that I feel on seeing a Martin Scorsese movie that I speak of the entire ageing process. This to my mind is the best way to gauge a man’s creative genius and this is where Scorsese proves that he is more than merely a director – he proves that he is an iconic legend. Why the two words together you might ask, but well, that is just the way Martin Scorsese is.

My original idea was to write an article on The Departed, but as I went along, I realised that it is just not that one movie which has made me a Marty maniac, it ranges right back from the time I first saw Taxi Driver. That whole “you talkin’ to me” routine kept me fuelled for months after watching that classic. And ever since, Martin Scorsese has remained in my mind as a magical genius. He has moved on from being just another director to being, as I said earlier, an iconic legend.

But there is another point that has become a common refrain in the preceding few paragraphs – and that is that the Scorsese movies that I have so far spoken off are mostly Robert de Niro starrers. And considering the legendary status of de Niro himself, the tide may also sway another way when one can presume that Scorsese proved to be to stoical genius that I make him out to be because of his principal actor. Let’s bite the bullet here. Robert de Niro does carry the reputation of a ‘director killer’. No one realises though that to really be a ‘director killer’ one has to surrender one’s soul and spirit to that very director. Only then can the character be moulded, be developed into something special. And when you become something special, then you become Robert de Niro. But who think so much anyway?

But back at hand to Martin Scorsese. Let us move away from de Niro and go to someone who not many think to be a ‘great’ actor – shifting our gaze to Leo de Caprio here. And when you see say The Beach and compare that to Gangs of New York¸ you see a very palpable difference between the two. You see a difference in performance. And then, you take it from there to say, The Aviator, which mind you is a bio-film, so that is one step above everything else already – and of course, you should also keep in mind that it is not playing an unknown personality like Oskar Schindler, it is playing one of the most popular faces of the twentieth century, Howard Hughes. And if we see de Caprio’s performance there, I think it should be pretty simple understanding what I was saying about submission to the captain of the movie.

And that man is Martin Scorsese. I obviously am not saying that he is the only one, but right now I am talking about Scorsese and so everything is limited to this realm. Just see for yourself – here I was all set to right about The Departed and now I have gone off completely in talking about Scorsese. Because it is the Marty ‘touch’ that made me write about this movie in the first place. Every movie is unique and yet there is a common thread that draws all of them together. Scorsese has moved away from his jazz backgrounds and his classical imprints, to include “Comfortably Numb” and “Coming out to Boston” as his soundtrack here. That is what it means to change with the times.

There is obviously no way in which I can touch upon every Scorsese movie – the man has made too many gems for a single sitting. So there is a lot, like The Colour of Money that I am being forced to leave out of here... Maybe another time!

Yes, but there is also another blow that is quite often dealt on a Scorsese feature and that is pace. Though I’ll be very honest, I don’t know why people get so carried away by the speed of a movie. There are a lot of other things that go on in a frame and most importantly, real time imagery. Therefore, to comment straight forth on the speed is not a very wise thing to do. The whole impact is what needs to be felt.

Scorsese is one of the last remnants of the cinematic movement I like to refer to as “genius”. With him and a few others like Milos Forman, Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Copolla and though he doesn’t direct anymore, Sidney Lumet, the last stand is still present. I’m not saying that we will sink into depravity after that, but we will lose a huge quantum in our cinematic experience.

Carry forth Marty, we need you more than you need us!

“The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” – Edmund Burke

True. And good men. That is a term that comes to renewed introspection each and every time some such act is witnessed. Be it in the realm of fiction, or more so when they are the infallible truth. Of course, the latter course always remains more etched, but I would go with fiction in the same breath. Because I believe that what most people dismiss as the ideal, is something more real than what is prescribed by reality. Because when we dabble in what could be done in a particular situation, in a particular way that is right, only then do we know what was not done in that same real situation and what could be done the next time. To convince ourselves that the ideal is always an unattainable untruth and that we are condemned to remain in a tragic reality is something that always keeps the glass half empty.

But then, do we realise that at that very moment, when we shun away the ideal, we do also lift the line on what is good and what is bad. Because the good will always remain an ideal. The good will forever be lost in obscurity. And like the bad-penny realist, we will always come to grips with the term that everything is grey. We can change colours, but we can never really change our mindset now can we?

But I also do admit that being an idealist is difficult. Because when we try to convince others of the utopia that we so badly think is necessary, we necessarily become lanterns that need to light the road for others. And to burn oneself all the time is indeed a painful task. Much rather be the people who just want the light to go to where we want to go. Or better still forget everything and stay rooted to the same spot like an inanimate object.

And the reality does teach us how to come to grips with mostly everything. Even so that when we actually see some good thing happening, we coolly declare, “God did it!” But hold the phone just one second here – did God not send a human being to do what He wanted to do? Didn’t God ask Noah to save mankind from the great flood? Did not God ask Moses to help his flock cross the Red Sea and save themselves from Genocide? Did not God send down the Pandavas to clean up the mess on the earth? Who were these people? God’s chosen ones I suppose… And what if they said, “Fuck you, I’m going to do my own thing. I give a damn about the rest!” But they didn’t, did they? After all that long speech and rhetoric about ‘free will’, do you expect a sinner like me to believe that they had no say in the matter?

I just presume that they realised what was right and what was wrong. They found the line. And they did it. Oskar Schindler. He’s the man. Take him as an example. Or maybe even the Bielski brother. What in the name of your so called sitting on a cloud with a harp in his hand God did they have going on in their head? Why on earth did they do what they did? I don’t believe they ever went to sit on Mt Sinai. I don’t believe they were given a management speech by Lord Krishna. I don’t believe they found the voice of God beating about the bush in their heads. No, I believe that they did it because they knew what was right and what was wrong. And they decided that the right would lead them to one thing and the wrong to a deepening worse.

And it is the right in this reality that leads us to utopia, an ideal world. You may say I am a dreamer, but I hope I am not the only one. And only if you join me, only then can the world live as one. Else we will all want a bigger share of the apple pie. I know that nothing that is going on today is even remotely pointing to the fact that the world is ever going to live as one, but either we decide to bite the bullet and get on with nothing, or we try and see how we can have a better tomorrow. For that too we have to bite the bullet, but not to digest it, to chew through it, and keep chewing it like gum. When the taste dissolves off, then we spit it out and put in another. We need to keep working at it. No miracle is going to happen. Nobody will play the harp from above. Let’s just give a damn and I am sure that we can get somewhere with this whole thing.

Why am I giving his huge speech? What made me rut off like that? I watched Tears of the Sun. And I realised that it is time we give a damn instead of just following what we are told and what we already know. If you think you want to join the millions like me, you can watch it to. Else just watch it for Bruce Willis and Monica Belluci, and also for the fascinating music by Hans Zimmer.

It’s just a thought.

The Pledge, the Turn and The Prestige

“The first part of a magic trick is to show your audience an object... otherwise known as the Pledge. Then you make it disappear, in magical parlance known as the Turn. But that does not interest people and they don’t clap just as yet. The trick really is to bring the object back. That is when the audience goes mad with ecstasy. This part of a magic trick is known as the Prestige.”

Well, I must admit that these are not exactly the words used by Michael Caine when the movie begins, but this I must say is how I sum up this movie when the whole show comes to an end.

At one point of my life, I was heavily into the X-Men and least to add to it, into Hugh Jackman. He was just not the Wolverine for me, he was a showman. How else could you explain the weird horn shaped hairdo and the no-start, no-end beard – and yet be called the sexiest man alive? I always remember telling people that it takes a Hugh Jackman to pull off a Wolverine. Not because he is someone every man on this planet would want to look like, but because he can pull it off. For Christ’s sake, he pulled off everything right in the X-Men Origins: Wolverine. That movie was a crap duster, but somehow, as always, he made it work.

And it was around the same time that I also came to know of this movie, called The Prestige, in which Hugh Jackman played one of the principal characters. Then came our Indian saga, Ghajini, and it was at that time that I came to know about Memento, and consequently, Christopher Nolan. I had seen Batman Begins, but heck, at that time it was all about Batman. I loved that movie, but still, I was more interested in Bruce Wayne starting off as the Batman. And then I managed to see Memento and I was completely blown away. I could never believe that someone could write a script like that and carry it off with such conviction. Truth be told, Ghajini helped.

And of course, I always had a special affection for Christian Bale and Michael Caine. He had after all played my most favourite superhero, Batman and Alfred was the kind of guide that I always wanted in my life. Someone who could always tell me “I told you so”, but yet when the time actually came to tell me that, he’d say, “Today, I don’t want to tell you that!”

And slowly, the pledge was made – everything that was needed to start off finally came into play and I managed to watch The Prestige.

Now to cut the long story short, the Turn was amazing. It was a bloody visual spectacle. And it is by no means a very simple story to show. There is just not one turn in this movie, there are many. The characters, the presenters, the whole goddamned show, it is a whole cascade of turns. And that is why I need to mention that no other director but Christopher Nolan could do justice to this movie. Because he knows how to juggle a storyline, juggle it so well that it all fits into place at the end. His non-linear story progression is a must when making a complex movie like The Prestige. And it is only through these means that the audience can realise the pledge at the end of the movie. Otherwise, it is all a waste.

And what a prestige it was! When it finally came way in the end, it just jolted you out of your senses. The magic trick that Christopher Nolan had planned was now complete. All the while, as you were wondering what happens where and which piece of the puzzle appears where, it just seems to darned simple at the end. And the whole historical acumen with which this movie was made, it was completely unbelievable.

And where would this movie be without Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale and Michael Caine. Each one of these actors were absolutely mesmerising in their efforts. And the counteracted their characters with precision – particularly in the case of Jackman and Bale. One was the showman who was just a magician, and the other was the wizard who could not present his case. One was a Lord, playing under a different name to uphold his family’s honour, the other a simple working class commoner. It was such a wonderful feeling to see such performances on celluloid, such honestly in performances, at a time when everything that we see is ‘abracadabra’. To be honest actors playing magicians is by itself a task, but to play them so truthfully and yet deceive, that is the prestige.

At any rate, I do not think that we shall ever yet see another movie like this in a long time, not even if the whole combination repeats itself. Movies like these are made once in a lifetime, and though I will eagerly away Nolan’s next movie, hopefully a Batman one, I know that he will never be able to make what he did. To say that watching this movie was a magical experience, would just be an understatement.

Abracadabra!

There is a Hulk in each one of us. And whenever we are pushed in adversity, however meek we may be in our daily existence, the Hulk within us emerges to destroy everything that is trying to destroy us. And we all have it within us. Only thing is that like Dr. Bruce Banner, we never really want to expose this Hulk to the outer world – because if we do, the consequences could be disastrous for all, except ourselves.
This is picking up once again from where I left off with X-Men, the Last Stand, where I was speaking about comic book ideology and polemic. Comic books really are not what they are generically made to believe. They have an ideology, with by itself is a stark contrast to what we conceive them as. They are double intending literature, both to arouse fantasy and leave back a story. A story about the characters is my area of concern. The rest is just to express the means to that concern.
Each and every superhero has a story behind him. And this story is about ourselves, much magnified for the purpose of entertainment. But my very basic question in this matter, containing myself to the character that I am talking about now, the Hulk, is why is Dr. Bruce Banner always scared to unleash the Hulk, even when he is under attack from various quarters. That I believe is the moral victory of good over evil. We all have psychic imbalances – no one is free from that. But the question, as always is, which way are we more prone, or bent. That is what makes the difference between the superhero and the supervillain, or on realistic terms, between us and them. Some of the most iconic villains in this universe are after all beautiful minds, if I may put it so. Be it Osama Bin Laden, or closer home, our very own Charles Shobraj. But the fact is that they are bent over to the darker aspects of psychology and therefore, they turn to acts of terror. Had they been channelized in the other direction, I doubt it if we would ever have a problem with anything in the world.
But the show must go on. For every dark character in this world, there is a good. And good normally wins over evil, because the world has to go on. An anarchist can end our existence, but we can’t let that happen. We have been fighting for our survival since the days of the Amoeba. And now that we are animals with intellect, we have to survive at an even greater cost. It kinds of massages our ego. Thereby the social imbalance, tilting in the favour of the ‘good’. So we see perhaps, that even though Dr Banner wants to put the Hulk to rest once and for all, when the Abomination turns up, he cannot help but get back into the flesh of the Hulk to go and save mankind. That is why the Hulk is a superhero and not the other way round. And the good always comes out in the face of adversity. It happened here, and it always happens under every circumstance. Whenever the world is on the verge of destruction, heroes come up – now they may be shown as Captain America, Daredevil, Wolverine or even Spiderman, we just have to take the cue from them.
And this is the demarcation that people are expected to make. To understand the good guys from the bad. If the bad can come in any package and we are ok about it, then the same professional courtesy needs to be offered to the good as well. We may all look like anything the other person can imagine, but the fact of the matter that differentiates us from the other, is what lies in our heart. If people around us cannot understand that, then truly it is very sad.
There is another legend too that I will need to speak about when speaking of the Hulk. It is the much fabled, Prometheus story that we have heard from our very births. The Hulk, I feel, is indeed a modern day Prometheus. Dr Bruce Banner tried to alter the fundamentals of nature, to control it, but he turned into the Hulk. Now the good or bad Hulk is something that we just spoke of, but the fact again comes to the fore about temperament. Yes, there is a match obtained here with a legendary lore, but should that really be a factor of denial? Should we say that the Banner deserved what he got because he tried to experiment? Do we treat him the same way as the Gods treated Prometheus? Or do we want to make him a hero for trying to do something? We are actually rather content with the way things are. We always talk about changing the world, but we won’t even bother planting a single plant in our own backyard to combat global warming. We just want the whole thing done for us and we’ll just come in there to sweep the glory. That never happens. Therefore, we need a Dr Bruce Banner, who has it in him to find out ways to change things, to develop something for the betterment of all humanity and then, and then if he fails, he channelizes his new found powers again for the betterment of humanity. That’s the way it’s done.
The Incredible Hulk I’d say was a much better movie than the first one. For starters, it has one of the greatest actors in cinematic history playing the much demanding role of Dr. Bruce Banner – Edward Norton. I know that most people have not even heard of his name (at the most, if we see him, we say, “Oh! The Fight Club guy”) but he is truly at league with the best of the world. He understands the whole medium and that is what makes him such a great actor. Don’t get me wrong. Eric Bana was also pretty good and he did try his level best to save that film. But it never really got to it. I did miss Jennifer Connelly in the second movie, but Liz Tyler was alright, nothing to write home about.
And unlike the last movie, here we actually see the Hulk trying to defend the world. The last one was a personal feud between General Ross and Banner. This one feature the Abomination in the sexy climax. It brought in all the ingredients from the comic book – which is very important when trying to make a superhero movie. It should be something that all readers can relate to.
Overall, give it a shot. It’s a cool film, even if you don’t see it the way I did.

Defiance: n. Open disobedience; bold resistance

How true. This definition could perhaps best sum the whole effort. The whole effort which makes miracles seem fragile. The whole effort which allows one to believe that to be human is to be everything; the whole effort that allows one to understand the complexity of actions, the menace of situations and also offers the hazardous solutions.

This happens to me quite a lot. It happened after I saw Schindler’s List and it has happened now once again, after watching Defiance. It leaves me really with no words for the movie. Because in these cases, the movie itself becomes obsolete and redundant. It is the story itself which speaks. And this one more that the other that I just mentioned. Because this was an example of raw courage, of absolute heroism, that, if romanticized, makes the whole effort futile. But purists will scoff at what I said. How could I?

But how could they? How could they keep recruiting Jews to defend them, when they had nothing to offer. Just a few days more maybe, as the way they put it. And in those few days, they lived and surged along, allowing people to make new definitions of miracles, and more importantly of the word freedom. Three poor brothers, smuggling themselves into ghettos, only to smuggle out some more Jews? What more can you say about them. That they were the real Moses? That they were the stories that build myths? That they were the stories that offer an absolutism to theology?

And this is where the profane blunder always happens. By making them messengers of God, we ruin their whole effort. We do not do justice to their deeds. We bring in the hand of a mere abstraction, just to wipe away what is the real in front of our eyes. If we were to just believe that these people were human, we increase our own standards to newer levels. We allow ourselves to believe that really, nothing is impossible. But that is to arduous a task to take up. That is too much work for ourselves, we who are born with silver spoons in our mouths and we who have never faced a crisis in our sheltered life. We believe taking a bus is a struggle, we believe walking in the sun is a struggle, we believe not drinking coffees at Baristas is a struggle. We really do lead charmed lives and never once do we realise that when the moment ever comes, we will be found wanting. Because from there to here, we have learnt nothing, but perhaps to dust matters under the carpet. We as a social, humanitarian being have dissolved away into obscurity. We are critical today of the breath we take, not realising for once maybe that it is because of heroes like these that we breathe any air today. That 1200 people saved through these incredible chapters of human history now allow ten million people to inhabit the world today.

The day when we again know how to get off our cushions and the day when we can know what being brothers to each other is like, maybe that day, we will then learn that our revenge is the fact that we live. That is our defiance.

Freedom: n. 1 condition of being free or unrestricted. 2 personal or civic liberty. 3 liberty of action (freedom to leave). 4 (foll. by from) exemption from. 5 (foll. by of) a honorary membership or citizenship (freedom of the city). b unrestricted use of (a house etc.).

His name is Robert Paulson! He is the middle child of history, no place or purpose... he has no great war to fight, he has no great depression. His only war is a spiritual one, his only depression is his life.

Is it just him, or is it us all?

What a thought... that only in death do we have a name! A name that will be etched on to our tombstones! That is all that we amount to at the end of the day. That is the only mark that we leave behind. And that is the only way that we are ever known by other people. Not unless we do something big. Not unless, perhaps, if we let ourselves flow along with what we really want to be.

Positivity and negativity are really two sides of a coin. As far as I can understand, it will be absolutely a cardinal sin if we look upon these terms as absolute. It is just the way we want to make the whole story out ourselves is what really adds that dimension to the whole picture.

I know that most people would love to call this a negative nightmare. One that Edward Norton claims to have had. But like I say, it should perhaps more be looked upon as a negative dream. The word dream is always ascribed to something that is considered to be negative, isn’t it? And when we get up all sweaty and scared, we claim it to be a nightmare – a negative imbalance. However, as I was just saying a few minutes back, if the terms are null and void, then the prefix doesn’t amount to shit.

That was my opinion when I finished with Fight Club. Make no mistake about it, not just me, everyone loved it. Because this may be the only movie that we have all seen in a while, which allows us to negotiate answers from the questions we prop. It allows us to gather a vent to the most problematic delusion that we all face in the world today.

We so badly want to be someone today that we never really realise what we are right now. The present is sold for the future, leaving us just with the gory past at the end of it. We do not know what we are doing, we cannot sleep; we live like a consumer product because we are all so full of them that we have become them.

Not unless we all display the potential courage required to unleash the Tyler Durden in us. He’s the man that we all have inside us, the one that we all confide in and the one that we all want to become. Only that we do not have the guts to be anti-establishment. We are all, somewhere or the other, escapists. We all want to have the hottest people around us, we want to fuck the sizzlers, but seldom do we realise that we are nowhere close to getting that – because we are no one in ourselves.

We are all so bothered about living the ‘right’ life that we forget the third party intrusions in our life. And we are so normal with that, that we do not even realise that we are no longer ourselves. We all want the best in life, without being bothered about the fact that we really don’t deserve it. We all think that we are so god dammed talented that we can do anything that we want – only that in the process, we end up being able to do nothing. And yet that does not dampen our spirits, because when people ask us whether they’re talented or not, we generally offer condolence lines, because who want to be known as a party pooper, even if the response in a few light years away from the truth.

Fact be told, we all are living a life of utter confusion, but such normalised confusion that we are not aware that there exists any confusion within us.

But not anymore! Now we all know about Tyler Durden. And if we want, we can invoke him to come to our rescue. For that we need no one else, just to be ourselves at the end of it all. But that is really the most difficult part. Because then we have to tread a rather difficult path. And if we knew how to do it, then we all wouldn’t be in this mess, would we now? Oh yes, there will be ten people who after watching this movie, will start hallucinating that they are Tyler Durden. But he was just a prototype. To become what he is, we have to all try and be a little different. That is, we all have to be ourselves. Never mind if that overlaps with someone else, but as long as it is YOU, till then it’s all fine.

Now if you look at it positively, you will be able to see Tyler in yourself and make the final push towards the envelope – else just look at it as a morose affair and get rid of the whole feeling.

Whether you want your name to be remembered because of what you did when alive, or whether you want to become a tombstone at the cemetery, is something that you will have to decide for yourself. The choice is yours...

(PS. If you ask me though, I would perhaps have preferred to see Mathew Perry in the shoes of Edward Norton. Not that I think that the latter was bad or anything in the movie, there is just something that tells me that Perry would have been able to balance the dopey look and the button pusher role a little more charismatically. That is the only observation that I have from the movie that could perhaps have been given a second look. Otherwise, it was off the hook!)

I should suppose that all the awards – make that popular awards – made out only for Hindi films under the name of Indian films are over, let’s get down to my unpopular awards. Yes, I know, only three people are going to read this, so let’s get over with it fast.
And oh, before I get to the nominations and the awards and all that jazz, let me first congratulate Filmfare for changing their methods this time – they have indeed given some rather good rewarding awards this time, and that truly is a great change.
Now, let’s get on with the show...

Best Film
Rock On...
Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!
A Wednesday
Aamir
Jodhaa Akbar

Best Director
Abhishek Kapoor (Rock On...)
Dibakar Banerjee (Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!)
Neeraj Pandey (A Wednesday)
Rajkumar Gupta (Aamir)
Ashutosh Gowariker (Jodhaa Akbar)

Best Actor (Male)
Farhan Akhtar (Rock On...)
Abhay Deol (Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!)
Nasseruddin Shah (A Wednesday)
Rajeev Khandelwal (Aamir)
Hrithik Roshan (Jodha Akbar)

Best Actor (Female)
No Nominations

Best Supporting Actor (Male)
Arjun Rampal (Rock On...)
Purav Kohli (Rock On...)
Anupam Kher (A Wednesday)
Prateek Babbar (Jaane Tu.. Ya Jaane Na)

Best Supporting Actor (Female)
Sahana Goswami (Rock On...)

Best Music
Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy (Rock On...)
Amit Trivedi (Aamir)
A R Rahman (Jodhaa Akbar)

(I am sorry I don’t remember the names of most of the people nominated in the technical departments – most of them being debutants. I shall list these last few awards under the names of the movies – Subhojit)

Best Cinematography
Aamir
Jodhaa Akbar
Rock on...
The Last Lear

Best Editing
Aamir
Jodhaa Akbar
Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!
Rock On...
Jodhaa Akbar

Best Story
A Wednesday
Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!
The Last Lear
Rock On...
Aamir

Ma Kasam, Maza Aa Gaya!!!

After my friend and I finished watching this one there was only one phase that came to our lips almost immediately and at the same time – Ma Kasam!

I was reading and hearing everywhere that Hollywood is suddenly showing a more rapid interest in India – primarily because the recession has made the working environment a mud pit and therefore they are nowadays looking more towards this country than ever before. For starters, it was believed at one point that the great Steven Spielberg too had tied up with Anil Ambani for his production house, DreamWorks.

But now, let us get off the drab the financials. Financials, recession, marketing, sales, etc – these all somehow add up to justify all the moves that I was talking of till now. However, my inquisition here is different. As a matter of fact, it is indeed rather different. Because here I am talking about the style of writing the scenarios, the whole basic screenplay. This movie relies completely on beaten to death Bollywood clichés and terminology, not from now, but from the 70s. The only thing that they did not make Wolverine say in the movie was perhaps “Mere paas maa hain!”

It was fun to watch an English movie like that for the first time. No, I don’t mean to say that the Americans have never made a typical Bollywood pot-boiler before, but this time they surely did take the cake. Instead of having Shah Rukh Khan ham over his dialogues, this time we got to see Hugh Jackman tell them. Well, how he told them will be examined in detail later on.

No, why later on? It should be done right now. Because if this movie really has anything in it, it is really the principal actor, the hero of the film – Hugh Jackman. I know that this is not the first time that he is playing this particular character. He is the Wolverine. But however, I feel that there is a difference between playing the Wolverine in the earlier X-Men parts and now. Because at that time, though he did manage to hog most of the limelight himself, there was a certain egalitarian distribution of the screen between all the other major X-Men characters, like Storm, Cyclops, the Phoenix and so on. But here he was the movie. His name was on the movie poster. He was the name of the movie. And only he could pull it off the way in which he did it. I do remember telling Hitesh that it takes a Hugh Jackman to pull off a Wolverine get up – the crazy beard and the horn-like hair-do. And the fact of the matter is that he does is marvellously. He really pulls off a rather half-baked script with complete control and precision. He is truly the most popular X-Men ever – both as a character, and as an actor.

Also, I should mention that the SFX used in this film were a shade higher than that used in the earlier versions. It gave Jackman some company at the lonely end of the film. As mentioned, he was the forerunner in this movie, with the SFX allowing him to carry it one step further.

I have in my last article spoken of in detail about the various sociological developments in comic book characters and the part that I wrote about the Wolverine becomes all the more logical when we see this movie. It has allowed me to ratify the points that I had spoken of. Therefore, if you have read on through whatever I droned on earlier, this will suitably provide you with the audio-visual supplement and allow you to grapple the fact in a more convenient manner. Particularly the whole Vietnam thing.

This is just a simple feel-good movie, so watch it if you really have nothing else to do – and if you can, watch it for Hugh Jackman.

Just remember, “... there is no redemption where I’m going!”

Just don’t look for any...

Superhero movies – the actual real ones, the ones that had a lot of thought going into them – always serve a double purpose when they are made into movies; and good movies at that! See, when we were young and were introduced to say Batman, we saw him as a cool guy with the utility belt, a smooth car, and oodles of intelligence and mesmerising muscles. Obviously, we never decided to venture into the areas of the vigilante, the social circumstances and the very basic need for a selfless hero. But as adults our horizon increased. We slowly started to realise the importance of Vietnam in the creation of the superhero – the anti-establishment, anti-authority individual, who does not waste his time in speeches, but rather uses his fists to get things done; because the anti-Vietnam individual knows that speeches really get you nowhere, that the word democracy is a farce, used by people who form the superstructure to form your ideology for you and make you believe you are responsible for it. It’s the same thing when politicians here in India ask you to vote. They say that your one vote can make or break a good government. But when they themselves don’t know who they are going to align with after the election results are out, how can the government really be your own? And how did your vote really help?

Anyway, that was just to prove a point, but I think I digressed a little too much. Back to the situation at hand, I was talking about the superhero genre of films and as I have already explained the sociological reasons for the formation of the superhero in the minds of the creator (in most cases our very own beloved Stan Lee), I hope now it can be understood how the Wolverine developed the way he did. And the most surprising thing – the Wolverine was a rather late entrant into the world of the X-Men, but within a few issues he became one of the most popular X-Men ever. Because at the end of the day, people never did like Vietnam, and here you have an individual who had all the qualities that people wanted during the Vietnam era. Who thought that a simple comic book could really be so complicated?

And now, in the new millennia, almost 30 years down the line, the Wolverine is still so popular that look who played him in the motion picture – the sexiest man alive, Hugh Jackman. And he played it with style, with panache. Clearly, the most popular X-Men character, played by the most popular actor of today – a clear indication that even today, the Wolverine has all our votes as the most popular comic book character ever.

And of course there is also Dr. Xavier, Storm, Cyclops, Jean/Phoenix, the Beast – and a host of new entrants like Kitty, Iceman (Bobby) and Colossus (Peter). And this time the problem is greater than ever. A new antidote has been invented, one from a mutant itself, whose special powers allow other mutants to become human again through him. And the government allows mutants to voluntarily take this shot if they want to convert themselves into humans. But Magneto believes that the word ‘voluntary’ is just a play of words – the real intent behind the ‘cure’ is to exterminate the mutant race and therefore he decides to act, creating his ‘brotherhood of mutants’. And to that we now have a class V mutant on the loose – yes, our very own Jean Grey, who now bears the persona of the Phoenix, the evil side to her who had been embedded in her subconscious by Dr. Xavier. Not only does she kill Scott (Cyclops), but also the Professor, leaving the X-Men short-handed. They are now joined once again by Dr. Henry McCoy, Secretary of Mutant Affairs of the US Government, the Beast. And of course the young Turks that Storm has been training – Iceman, Kitty and Colossus. So the six of them now have to decide whose side they are on – the humans or mutants, or between good versus evil.

The movie does not have to be told more beyond this point. It can be seen. It should be seen, because another aspect of the superhero genre is also how to work as a team to get the desired results. The criminals do it as well – be it the Riddler and Two-Face in the legendary Batman Forever, or now in this movie.

Speaking of criminals, the question of where to fit in Magneto is also a rather debatable thought. Yes, he wants a war and he intends to fight it, but is Magneto really a villain – Because he had seen the eradication of Jews at Nazi camps as a child. He lost his parents that way and it is, I feel, perfectly natural for him to suppose that the same will also happen to mutants all over the world. And in this world, it is always ‘better you than me’. Understanding the superhero genre is never easy. Not unless all you are interested in is to see some god SFX and get on with it. But the real fun is in peeling the layers. I have always found comic books to be extremely educative – be it X-Men, Batman or even Tintin.

So grab a DVD, watch the movie, and if you already have watched it earlier, see it again and try to understand it once again. It should allow you to open newer avenues and yet allow you to have fun at the same time.

Superhero genres – good for children and adults. You just need the vision to see it.

Its X-Men, the Last Stand. Whose side will you be on?

Love and punishment – Dostoevsky’s Saawariya

I have never really enjoyed Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s films. He is a rather egoistic director, who blows his canvas way out of proportion. He has the right intent every time he makes a movie, his heart is in the right place, but his brain is all screwed. Be is Khamoshi, where he beautifully segments the story of a girl who sings when her parents are deaf, be it the story of a love between the person who teaches a girl how to love and her husband who teaches her how to hold love in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, or the story of a deaf, dumb and blind girl who makes it in this world on her own in Black, each of these movies he has messed up with his over the top direction. I always felt that SLB would make a very good writer, and a very good maker of fantasy tales – not that he can make a Pan’s Labyrinth because he does not have that vision, but he weaves tales around love and hope and that too appeals quite a lot in this dark world.

So I watched Saawariya, because I had nothing better to do and it’s alright just to give him a look. It wouldn’t hurt me. And even this time, the story was right on the block hole, credit to that should first go to Fyodor Dostoevsky and since this is a semi-fantastical setup, he managed to hold my attention in bits and pieces. Yes, he does drag as always, but if you can keep skipping forward, you can make something out of it. At least you can see it once.

But the point in this movie that really appealed to me was the storyline. Dostoevsky’s White Nights is credited right at the beginning and this is a wonderful story. It is a little larger than life and the problem with these tales are that they are too filled with the milk of human kindness – we do not see such characters around us. But I like it. We don’t see these characters may be, but it feels good to know that there could be people like this. Like Federico Fellini had once said, “Only the idealist is the true visionary of the world,” similarly it is such idealism that gives us a faint hope of a better tomorrow. Not that it will happen, because there are too many selfish loafers in this world, currency has gained the first place as a class divider and corruption manager, and because people just care for themselves – they couldn’t give a damn to spread a smile (unless they get full credit for it and make it to Page 3, or any small 2x2 column somewhere).

And when the boy and girl fall in love for a couple of minutes, only to find that her lover has finally arrived, she asks him whether she can go... and he sends her off, with a smile. It was beautiful. His love and his punishment – he spent all his life making others happy, today he was left to do that once again. It’s a painful story no doubt, but those three minutes make up for it. You can be one with the guy – and you can feel his pain, his joy and his suffering. Really, a Pandora’s box.

What SLB does well though, is he gets Ranbir Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor to fill in the characters and they bring a wide array of freshness into the whole film. RK takes off from where his father left off, including his father’s “Kya tumne kisi se pyar kiya?” line. He has the looks and the talent and he’ll make it well on his own. Sonam Kapoor though on the other hand has one of the most beautiful smiles I have ever seen. Her character’s innocence and childishness have come to the fore because of her. Though Deepike Padukone’s hot air tricks may have edged her out in award ceremonies, Sonam Kapoor will go a long way in films. She has the makings to be a legendary actress – her down to earth looks, he laugh, her smile, her emotions are all in the right place.

SLB seems to have repaid Salman Khan from taking away Aishwarya Rai in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam and he does not have much to do in the film anyway. Maybe that’s why he has done well. Rani Mukherjee, as the film’s narrator has done rather well, though she isn’t on the scene all the time. She left her mark each time she came on. But the real darling of the whole film was Zohra Sehgal. She was simply amazing and she brought the real essence on screen. Be it her clipped English, or her amazing tantrums, she is the Kohinoor in the queen’s crown.

It’s an alright movie. But this is Dostoevsky’s movie. SLB is just a facilitator. So see it only if you can skip through a lot of the movie and see it only for the writer and the actors. Some songs are good, the rest you can skip. I’d give it 2.5 stars, the remaining 2.5 being murdered by SLB alone.

Requiem for a Dream – A Requiem to Remember

There have been millions of pictures on drug abuse; but all this pictures have had only one side to the whole story. They have always been showed from the point of society, where a teenager is ‘tricked’ into drugs and then how he ruins himself and so on and so forth. Never before have I seen a movie, where the screenplay runs parallel from the point of view of the teenager and why he needs drugs in the first place, and why drugs are not the sole prerogative of the teenager alone. Yes, when every drug addict loses authority over his own life, is also shown in the movie, it becomes evident why it need not be done and should be avoided on the whole. The focal point is drug abuse and not “Oh my God, Satan’s minions at work!”

Requiem... comes in with this new story that really needs to be told. It’s about drug abuse, not about why it’s wrong, where the latter comes in as a dictum. And the brilliance of the movie is that it is not just the youth, but even adults who can get sucked into it.

And would you believe it, that the adult we are talking about here is the mother of the so called drug-ruined teenager? Miraculous, isn’t it? And the point more miraculous in this whole picture is that the whole point is shown with such conviction and realism that it becomes more real than it is actually represented.

And even the gore of drugs is so brilliantly depicted. Yes, I know, most people like to claim this picture as another show of American ‘glass is half empty’ kind of concept. To all you people, either get stoned and watch the picture, or just sit it out without any distractions, alone somewhere, where you can let yourself get absorbed into the whole flow. You don’t have to be friend of the devil alone to get involved with this picture ­– you just need to be you. And yes, you can do that without any intoxication also.

And beyond the screenplay, and also the acting, which was top-notch by the way, there is the editing that needs special mention. I once told a friend of mine that the editor of this movie must have scissors in place of fingers on his hands. Maybe on his feet also! The smart cuts on the actual drug taking process were innovative, novel, all the words that your thesaurus can find on the same. Cocaine consumption for instance – the dump, the five dollar bill roll, the pull, the veins beating that extra pulse, and the pupils dilating. The story has been told, shown and though you never saw the whole continuous process, yet you can feel it as if someone stuffed cocaine into your own nostrils. Amazing!

Oh, and did I mention the music? The whole string quartet that plays the leit-motif throughout the whole movie is an amazing piece of composition. Each movement gather impeccable momentum as it dies out slowly. So much thought has gone into something that we normally perceive as moment breakers in our films. That is what makes Hollywood so much better in the first place. They think about the whole package. We believe that once the casting has been completed, we are kings.

If this Requiem... has to be compared to any musical treatment, I’d tell you it isn’t Jim Morrison and The Doors, but Jerry Garcia and Grateful Dead at work. Slow and lazy lyrics, innovative, poetry and yet swings from time to time.

It’s an intoxicating movie. Just watch it when you can.

Men of Honour: Indeed...

I never thought I’d ever write this next line down, but here I am, doing that after keeping a huge block of stone of my heart; because at one point, you have to keep all subjective preferences aside and write the truth; however hard the truth might be for you to tell it, to accept it, you have to tell the truth when the truth needs to be told; and this is the truth – Robert De Niro was outshined this time. Cuba Gooding Jr, more famous because of his famous Oscar acceptance speech, a speech that became a style by itself, overshadowed the legend. That in no way demeans De Niro’s performance – now that is a truth if there ever was one – that De Niro is a legend, a God for us people who make living souls our Gods, but in this movie, if he was good, CGJ was better. And that alone is a whole lot of a testimony that any actor can ever ask for.

And this movie was never about the way it was made. It was a pretty badly made picture, I can tell you that – this is what I do most of the day, watch movies, read about movies and then write about movies. I can now spot a loophole if there ever was one. So let me tell you, before you start thinking that this could be some great work of art, that it is more pretentious than it is good. But at the end it never really matters; because of the two other things that make it work – the story and the performances. And once you get on to that, you will never realise where the loopholes were. And frankly, they don’t matter. They aren’t malignant. They just stay there from time to time. They are mostly wiped out by the two actors.

And to say ‘what a story’ is a rather large understatement, because this is a true story. And when such a story is believed to be a true story, you understand the meaning of life in an altogether new way. You understand the will of the human spirit; that is if the humans will, they can do anything. And this is not philosophical anymore. It really happened. This is not a Slumdog Millionaire. This is a story that can be found in the annuls of history. It is a recorded fact.

And again, it’s just not about the person itself. It’s also about friendship. It’s about a person who wanted to thwart you because of pressure on him, but when he realised that you were the best, he bowed out and he stood there for you till the ultimate trial. That is something we never see today. It’s all about frauds and manipulation today – I can say that from personal experience, though I am lucky enough to have one such friend. They really are hard to find these days. Maybe that is why the picture connected to me even more, because I couldn’t believe that a person can do that for another person without having something for himself at the end of it all. Truly mesmerising! And it really happened...

The story is the true winner and it is the winner because the actors made it so. This is where the whole matter of Men of Honour lies. You have to see the colour of life. Maybe then it can make you live again. It can give you that hope to do whatever it takes to go there and do it. And then you also realise the road to personal glory as well. It comes by helping others. Not the objectivist methods of that dumbass Fountainhead writer. This man became a hero because he helped people whom he perhaps never even knew. And after that, when his own misfortunes befell him, he was in turn helped by the whole universe. It’s give and take. This is the world. Fountainhead methods are also shown in this movie and they reek of shame and disgrace. Not because someone felt it, because it really happened. It’s not about Marxism, or Communism, it’s just about helping the people around you in any way that you can. It’s about humanity... or if a word may so be used, humanism. And when you believe in humanism, only then can you be called a Man of Honour...

Finally. The ‘old wine in a new bottle’ concept has been completely ruined. The man with the magic marker has dealt his blow once again.

And this is the perfect film. No doubt in my mind about that. With No Smoking I will still try and make a compromise with idiots on the bench, but with this one, I will fight till the last nail. Because this is the moment to be really proud of. To see Indian cinema reach the pinnacle of perfection. This is the coolest, most psychedelic, haunting, elevating piece of cinema that I have ever seen. I knew even with the last one that this man was a magician, this time I can fight with people on that claim.

And what a perfection! The story, the performances, the cinematography, the editing, the music... oh the music! And such marvellous shifts, it carries you away. This is the only time that Devdas’ true flaw is pulled out into the open, leaving no dubious balances required between father and son. It’s his insecurity, his insecurity about Paro’s chastity that brings about his downfall. And then again, you can only be sure of yourself. If you could be sure about the other person then the whole effort would seize to be romantic, right?

And what has created this insecurity? It’s is the distance spent over time between each other that leads to these captivating mind games. And who creates this distance? The father! So it’s the same old story and yet the narrative suddenly achieves greater comprehensiveness this time. And then there is the irony also – father comes and tells his son that London has changed him. And this time it was the father who wanted the girl in the house, not Dev. But yet it has always been the father.

Without Abhay Deol this film would never have been created – in both senses of the term. So fine is his performance that he has beaten all other Devdases hollow. The way he moves, the way he looks, the way he thinks, the way he acts – every detail that you see is unseen. This ladies and gentlemen, is what a performance should be like. It’s like jazz for the eyes.

And it is really so wonderful at the end. Dev and Chanda share such wonderful moments together that you start thinking that it was a good thing that Paro was kicked. And then you catch up to the line which says “... aakhon ka hain dhoka, aisa tera pyar, tera emotional attyachar...” See what I mean? This is surely the most positive Devdas ever made, albeit with the darkest tools ever prescribed by society.

I must even make special mention of the face-painting narrative style in the movie. The point where Chanda tells us her story, how her motionless face remains motionless irrespective of whatever trapeze acts her make-up man may do before her... And yet when she paints a simple clown face on Dev while recounting her whole story is so amazing. His face holds the expression by remaining motionless, but tweaks it at the end to bring a new twist into the transient expressional face. So beautiful!

Watch it. It’s Dev D.

Ghajini – Oh Boy, what a movie!

Don’t get me wrong. That little exclamation at the beginning was not out of joy, it was a yelp! Like I have seen Bollywood making worse movies, but this one takes the cake. Maybe this is what happens when Bollywood mixes with a hardcore South Indian masala entertainer – the result is Ghajini. I understand the director’s concerns and his final output, but what was Aamir Khan thinking? Maybe he too had some short-term memory loss while reading the script. He must have kept forgetting that what he was reading what pure crap. Actually, in the case of this movie, even the word crap is a massive understatement. I think even I have developed a case of short-term memory loss after watching this film and have therefore decided to ‘write’ about this film. And oh ye Southies, pardon my ignorance (and as I see it now, my good fortune) that I have not seen the “original” Ghajini and will therefore draw my parallels with the real original, Christopher Nolan’s Memento. Parallels. Yeah, that’s the word.

First things first – this is a direct lift from Memento. Well not completely direct, in the sense the whole Memento screenplay kept going from the back – you know the reason? Because the protagonist cannot remember more than a day’s work, remember? That’s the only way he can remember. And therefore, that is the only way in which he can tell you his story. So you see, copy director, making a film doesn’t just mean using your camera and marshalling your actors, it also needs the primary aspect that you missed throughout your whole feature – BRAINS! Though I also pity Bollywood in this regard – poor chaps come to the Bengalis to make Hindi films with brains and you get Raincoat and The Last Lear, which are even worse. At least these Ghajini kinds of films get your money back and though pictures like Raincoat and all are made with no money, yet I really don’t know how much they recover. So whichever way you look at it, you are in a lose-lose situation. Oh, I forgot, I was here to talk about Ghajini.

Yes, so where was I? Wait; let me consult my ‘notes’. Yes, half of the time I was writing notes since there was nothing much to watch in the movie anyway. Yup, let’s go from the basics. I’ll list out some of my cardinal grievances and see if you can identify with them.

1. When you are showing Aamir as a freak, the way he screams on seeing his tattoos and then his sudden bursts into strenuous exercise and all, don’t you think that a freak is more likely to shower without his shorts on? I know Bollywood has a problem with showing male nudity, but there are ways to show Aamir’s ass without showing his ass.
2. Who the hell in India has a collection of ten baseball bats, which too is used to beat him up?
3. The scene were Asin helps the blind man to cross the street is a straight lift from Amelie, only that it is in no way comparable. Amelie was a breathtaking scene – so was this, but for completely different reasons.
4. And oh yes, do please watch Jiah Khan’s performance at her ‘college fest’. Believe me even the Russian circus could not have done a better job.
5. The way in which Jiah Khan misleads Aamir into after their little chase scene, is a direct lift from... guess where?
6. And I always thought tattoos were permanent? Where had Aamir got his – in Photoshop?
7. Oh and also, after a man gets hit on the head and he develops a case of temporary amnesia, does he also get immune to pain and all? Like they kept hitting Aamir with anything they could lay their hands on, but he just kept standing there – he even defied all the laws of Rest and Motion that Sir Isaac developed after getting hit on the head by an apple.

Enough! Now let me come to the ‘acting’. I was extremely disappointed with Aamir. I never expected this from his. And I don’t mean his concept to take up this script, I am talking about his performance. He just wasted the whole role. Maybe the script also buggered his performance but then just see Guy Pearce in Memento. I understand that we may lack in technical support, but what about human performances? And that too from a man like Aamir Khan, our most cerebral actor. Really disappointing! The others were there and yet not there. You wouldn’t notice them or miss them.

Rahman needs to be beaten up. When he composes for Danny Boyle, he composes music like we know him to. But then, when he composes here in India, he composes such crap. Forget the songs (which were very substandard anyway), I am talking about the background score. There was a lot of scope in here, and he just blew it all apart. Again, very disappointing.

I have lost sight of why we are doing this. You want to screw your own happiness. Go ahead, watch the movie!

A True Slumdog Millionaire

It took a Brit to do what Indians could not do all their lives. And when the case in question happens to be within the spheres of filmmaking, we could not even get it done in the city where the film industry lives – Mumbai. For before I come to the actual picture and its various aspects, I must first take a moment to speak of how, people who do not live in Mumbai, can learn the city through this film. And as I said, it took a Brit to do this. First things first – Shame on us!

Surprisingly, this is the only ugly text that may feature in this whole article. Wow!

What do I say about this movie? Beat me to death, but you will not get the story out of me. So, what do I say about this movie? What words can I find to describe this movie? And where do I begin? Because after all it is the story which is the true champion of this movie. Everything else is secondary. But then again, is it? It’s all very confusing. Not the movie. But the aspect of talking about it. I know, in most of my articles, I keep saying how we need to watch this or that film to really understand it. And then again, I say that only for films that I think really need to be seen. And is this the grand daddy of them all! Because this picture is a new age miracle. A tight impact on all the colours of the rainbow. It does not follow any set ideology and yet it covers all of them, without weighing down one over the other. It is truly what we know as being a true Bollywood film. And it has been made by a Brit.

It does seem, even to myself, that I cannot stop emphasizing on that fact. This is not the first time that a foreign film has been made on an Indian backdrop. There have been classical magnum-opuses like A Passage to India which have become landmarks in the annuls of global filmmaking. There has been of course, the picture that all Indians will remain indebted to for all their lives, The River by Renoir, because it was on the sets of this film that Satyajit Ray crossed the threshold and took the final step. But though these films have been made in India, or on an Indian subject, Slumdog Millionaire is something way different. Never before have I seen Dharavi captured with such magnanimity. The cuts leading away, with the canvas getting tighter and more lose with the predominant blue covers was absolutely mesmerising. The everyday communal clashes covered with reason are also endearing. A simple dream, covered with conviction, is so ‘Indian’. It contains all the flavours that Bollywood films have to offer and yet it is something that Bollywood has never made. Not the greats, not the mongrels, not nobody.

The photography throughout this movie is copybook and yet unseen. Handheld cameras are definitely back in business, but the fact that they can cover the majority of the whole movie without giving you a headache is what the whole matter is more about. And when photography is being praised, lighting appraisal becomes a given.

Even performances were text book. Save aside Anil Kapoor though. As a matter of fact, what he must be thinking was a great performance does actually add that certain vigour of comic relief. Yes, you can laugh at him most of the way, but that was the only weakest link. Even Dev Patel’s accent has been brilliantly covered through the rouse of a call centre. Each and every actor has delivered to the T. However, I must say that the child artists were the real epicentre in the whole movie. I do believe that children often make the best actors because they perform without any inhibitions or expectations. They are not there for an Oscar, and are not even concerned with the box office success rate of a film. They are taken to the sets and told to behave in a particular scene in a particular way. Take some of the best performances in recent history – Black, Navrasa and now Slumdog Millionaire. They really add the impetus to the whole movie right from the start. If anyone deserves an award for acting in the movie, it definitely should go to the children, not Dev Patel or Frieda Pinto, though theirs’ too were great performances.

All in all, it is the director who is in control of the whole situation. He has made everything possible. Otherwise, why would we, after seeing Bollywood films all our lives, suddenly appreciate what we have been disapproving of all our lives? It has to be the director. It cannot be anything else.

And yes, you think why I have still not spoken about the music? You think I will let that pass? I could write a whole PhD thesis on that alone. And it’s just not the whole harmony, it is for me particularly, a matter of great pride. It has finally happened. A R Rahman has done it. He made his impact on the world stage. The man, whose music Time magazine has claimed as one of the ten greatest soundtracks globally over time has finally told the world that we Indians can make music like never before. We have it to be everything like Hollywood and yet we are Indians in our unique small way. He has made the nation proud. Like I said, I could write a whole PhD thesis on the man himself.

And Danny Boyle was right when he said that everything in India is extreme. When we like something we go a long way to re-iterate that we like it. And he brought that out in the best way possible when he showed the whole country tune in to watch Jamal Malik go for the final answer and win gold. Be it in the slums of Dharavi or the rich urban class houses to even a gangster’s safe house, each and every Indian looked into their television sets. We are extreme. This would never have happened in America. Because everyone is on their own there. If they are not in it, they couldn’t give a damn. We on the other hand are bound by a very strong sense of nationalism and fellow-pride. We will all sit in front of our television sets and watch A R Rahman win a Golden Globe. Not because we are mere fans, but because an Indian is going to win the award. When the Taj Mahal was on the verge of being eliminated in some cockamamie Wonders list, we all messaged. More than once if need be. That’s what we are and Danny Boyle, making that movie in India remembered to show it. That shows that he’s just not a master story teller, he’s also a fine craftsman who keeps his eye open for every single detail.

It just felt good to see a movie like that after such a long time. When twenty years down the line, some critics will sit together to make a list of the greatest movies made in the last few decades, we can all be certain that Slumdog Millionaire will definitely be in that list.

It is written.