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.