Cinema

2010-02-08T11:54:00.001-08:00

Well, it’s that time of the year again… Yes, I expect my thoughts to penetrate into the minds of the Filmfare jury… Therefore the fanfare! All right, let us all get it over with. I have my ideas as to which were the really, really good movies this year, and I am going to speak out my mind. It’s really very sad.

But here goes…

Best Film

(This year was good. In the sense, the difference that I keep talking about has been seen manifesting itself in the Hindi movies that we get to see these days. A lot of actors, directors, et all, re taking risks. Everyone is trying to shed their skin and do something different – and I like that. So, Best Film this year really has all winners.)

Luck by Chance

Dev D

Gulal

Firaaq

Kaminey

Paa

Dev D. No doubt, it has changed the way in which we think about movies. And it has also proved that however experimental your movie may be, if you really make it from within, everyone will love it.

Best Director

(This year I saw a lot of new directors and even the old ones were all ready to make something new. And I loved this year only because of the attempt. Not to mention, most people who thought out of the box went on rake in the money. It had to happen one day, it did.)

Zoya Akhtar (Luck by Chance)

Anurag Kashyap (Dev D)

Anurag Kashyap (Gulal)

Nandita Das (Firaaq)

Vishal Bhardwaj (Kaminey)

Anurag Kashyap (Dev D). You see my dilemma here? Who could I keep and who could I drop. It becomes all the more exciting when you see a situation like this. But I went with Anurag Kashyap because at the end of the day, this man gave us Dev D. The pure execution is alone worth the price of your ticket.

Best Actor

Farhan Akhtar (Luck by Chance)

Abhay Deol (Dev D)

Nasseruddin Shah (Firaaq)

Shahid Kapoor (Kaminey)

Abhay Deol. This is the third time in a row that he has won my non-existent award. Why? Because every year I see him do something different. He has been the best actor we have had in years. And he writes to. More power to him.

Best Actress

Konkona Sen Sharma (Luck by Chance)

Sonam Kapoor (Delhi 6)

Priyanka Chopra (Kaminey)

Vidya Balan (Paa)

Priyanka Chopra. I know many people like mainstream actors not winning anything. But when mainstream actors can slip into their character and go through rigorous training for it, they deserve to win. Not for crappy movies like Fashion! Konkona and Sonam were close behind, but this year it’s all Piggy!

Best Supporting Actor

Hrithik Roshan (Luck by Chance)

Dibyendu Bhattacharya (Dev D)

Chandan Roy Sanyal (Kaminey)

Amol Gupte (Kaminey)

Amol Gupte. For all those who thought that he could only think and write priceless stories like Taare Zameen Par, surprise! Gupte ripped right through the movie with his miraculous performance. And this year, all the supporting actors outdid each other. Even Hrithik’s 20 minute appearance was terrific. But Gupte was the champion.

Best Supporting Actress

Kalki Koechlin (Dev D)

Mahi Gill (Gulal)

Kalki Koechlin. For a prostitute who could seduce in Hindi, English, Tamil and French, winning a mere supporting actor award must have been a walk in the park.

Best Music

Shankar Ehsaan Loy (Luck by Chance)

Amit Trivedi (Dev D)

A R Rahman (Delhi 6)

Vishal Bhardwaj (Kaminey)

Shankar Ehsaan Loy (Wake up Sid)

Amit Trivedi. This has brought out the man to the limelight. When Kashyap decided he wanted to explain his narrative through music, he knew what he was doing getting Amit Trivedi into the studio. Music like never before, Indian soundtracks never had it like this.

Best Cinematography

Luck by Chance

Dev D

Gulal

Kaminey

Dev D. Surely, the colours and the lights could afford no other winner. Magnificently shot and beautifully built, this was one of the reasons why Dev D became what it did.

Best Editing

Dev D

Kaminey

Dev D. Cinematography was one, this was the other part of the story. Stylish, stunning, bizarre, terrific!

Best Story

Luck by Chance

Kaminey

Gulal

Dev D

Luck by Chance. Never ever has Bollywood taken a pot shot at itself with so much love. A movie based on the industry, by the industry and yet so believable. Brilliant piece of writing and alarmingly saucy dialogues.

2009-12-19T02:05:00.000-08:00

“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!

2009-11-23T14:19:00.000-08:00

“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.

2009-11-16T15:53:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-07-25T04:28:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-07-10T14:08:00.000-07:00

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.).

2009-07-07T04:10:00.000-07:00

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!)

2009-06-15T06:42:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-10T11:23:00.000-07:00

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...

2009-05-28T00:40:00.001-07:00

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?

2009-05-23T02:35:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-03-25T13:28:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-03-25T13:24:00.000-07:00

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...

2009-03-20T16:06:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-01-19T00:59:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-01-19T00:49:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-12-05T09:09:00.000-08:00

He never ceases to surprise you.

Actually, the first Tarantino film that I ever saw was Reservoir Dogs and that too was quite some while back. Then there was a brief hiatus before one day, I saw Pulp Fiction. While that was a Class Apart film (not just a Band Apart one), there were brief periods of slump that were pretty much evident. Not in style or panache, but in the general storyline. I’ll level with you – I never understood the Bruce Willis part of the movie. Like, it did not contribute, in my opinion, greatly to the script. It was a great piece of cinema no doubt, and there will always be times when I rewind and watch those sections per se, but then it is not what will draw me to the whole frame.

So after that there was even a bigger pause before I watched my third and Quentin Tarantino’s fourth film (which he proudly advertises on the credits) – Kill Bill Vol. 1.

Boy!

This movie is mad. The director is mad. The storyline is mad. The visual effects are mad. The whole one hour and forty six approximate minutes that you spend with the movie is mad. It gives you a high, if I may say so. And it is also addictive. Though you may have seen it umpteenth number of times, there will be that sudden urge to first just watch one scene and consequently, in the same session, the whole film. What can I say about this movie that is not unique? That is not stunning? That just mesmerises you?

Let me do what Tarantino did to his screenplay. Only thing – I’ll go in descending order of popular choice:

1. Performances: Uma Thurman. Period. How the hell did he even think of casting her (though actually, the character was a part of her creation, when you see at the end, “The Bride” developed by Q & U), and how the hell did she ever pull off madness of such gargantuan magnitude? Her performance was like watching poetry in motion, a complete package of collective disharmony and yet, a sheer solace of unity throughout the whole character. Her emotion of losing her child, her martial art capabilities, even her fluent Japanese, everything goes for her in this movie.

And it’s just not her. We also have Lucy Liu pulling off a fantastic performance as the Japanese Queenpin. Half of her close-ups focus on her eyes and she plays the whole message back and forth from right there. While these are the two basic tangents in this part of the movie, right before you end, you also have the legend put in a line himself – Michael Madsen, announcing his arrival and hooking us on for Vol. 2.

2. Camera/Editing: This is perhaps the only column that warrants no words for it. The name of the director alone guarantees epic novelties – be it the opening credit shots, the action sequences, and most importantly, the blue backdrop fight sequence between Black Mamba and a section of the Crazy 88 – simple, and yet effective.

3. Music: It says Original Music by The RZA and original it is. Seldom has a score been repeated. The maximum hits any score got was around 2-3. And the compositions were novel shots of complete genius. Whether it is the guitar and the whistle, the jazz rock stylized entrees, or simply the panpipe renditions by the legend himself, Zamfir, music has never blended in like this. The opening credit song (He shot me down, Bang, Bang by Nancy Sinatra) is perhaps the best credit sequence that I have ever seen for any movie. And also Zamfir’s The Great Shepherd for the closing credits was also mind blowing. You get to know this director simply from the music that he has played in this film.

4. Screenplay/Direction: To be very honest, there was a burning desire in me to finish those earlier columns as fast as I could and then come over here, to talk about Quentin Tarantino. But now that I am here, I have no words. What do I say? I never stopped once to note down a particular point! I never bothered to do that even on the nth time that I saw the movie. Nothing in this movie is chronologically arranged and yet, he just makes it the only possible way to be. The whole movie just oozes along. Without making you stop to think even for an itsy-bitsy minute. You feel you are a part of the whole drama, and you are receiving first hand information. You feel that this movie was made only for you and no one else has a clue. Black Beatrix/Kiddo/Mamba/The Bride/Mommy is telling you her story, to share it with you and with no one else. This is what Tarantino does for a living. He tells stories.

My response is same after each and every Quentin Tarantino movie – watch it. You'll be "QuERentinED".

2008-12-05T08:53:00.000-08:00

Yuvvraazzzzzzzzzz!

After having watched Yuvvraaj, you obviously cannot expect a ‘review’ out of me. I have better things to do – like sleep, or analyze the colour of the sky, or even hear birds chirp! But a review is certainly out of the question. However, I was putting down a few questions while I was watching the movie (but of course, only up to a point, as soon I got bored just writing rather than stare at Katrina Kaif). So, here are the questions that I wanted to ask myself, the world at large, animals, everyone... Take a look:

1. Does Subhash Ghai ever know why he is making a movie, or more importantly what he is making?
2. Why do Ghai characters always live in palaces?
3. Why does a sports motorbike have to be kept inside the bedroom?
4. Why does anyone ever hire Salman Khan?
5. Czech cops speak fluent English – actually a hint of the Queen’s English!
6. You take A R Rahman and don’t even use his specialization, Western Classical, though your picture is set within the same theme? Why not rope in Himesh Reshammiya? Karz chukao!
7. Why Beethoven’s 5th? Why the cello? Why the trouble?
8. Higher notes play on the left side of the piano and the lower ones on the right?
9. Salman belongs to the Prague Orchestra, but goes to his City of Music in Austria where the whole story continues?
10. Why, must Salman where dark glasses indoors?
11. If an NRI can’t speak proper Hindi, then why can’t she just speak in English?
12. Indian man asks question in English, foreigner replies in Hindi?
13. Rainman? Really? (Take this on the regular Chandler note)

Choreographers and Kabir Lal, well done!

2008-12-05T08:48:00.000-08:00

Ludwig Van Kubrick – A Clockwork Orange Review

The basic crux of the whole matter – the new good Christian is suicidal, dreads Beethoven’s 9th and has the inability to make the moral choice – though the empire, the structure dismisses that as a mere “subtlety of course!”

What does A Clockwork Orange talk about? Nothing and everything really! That is the whole darned beauty of it. And it does so with an odd panache, an acute sense of drama – so typically Beethoven. The movements rise and fall, they mingle, they deafen, they soothe and they cause an overwhelming catharsis – that, my friends, is the beauty of it all.

Is it a tribute to Beethoven also, by the by? Not a tribute, an inspirational drive perhaps, a reinforcement of the great master, in the way he did it the best. In style!

It pulls together everything from society – the swaying politician, well-meaning, yet twisted; the crazed mental scientists, proper intent at heart, but drowned in their own self-belief; cruel police officers, both good and the very bad; holy ministers, who scare people to raise belief in the Almighty, and yet demand that everyone deserves a choice; even fragile parents, torn between parental affection and societal implications of certain actions ruled by the mind rather than the heart – and the new Christian, the new human being, Alex (Malcolm McDowell).

Before Alex the demon breaks into the old lady’s house at the start of it all, he tells her, “I understand ma’am, with so many scoundrels going about, you never know whom to trust and whom not to” – something that we all understand and appreciate more often than not. And yet, when the ‘repaired’ Alex gets back, he sees the new lodger in his room in his parent’s house declare how he would never leave them to the hands of a sycophant. Now, does he want the room, or does he really care? Alex’s earlier quote comes ringing back and we see the same aspect from two different corners of the room. If the sun sets at one point, it also rises at the other. Cruel, evil world!

And this is a story that cannot be told. Actually it can be told, but it is Alex’s narration that has to be seen. Exactly, just not heard, but also seen. That is where Stanley Kubrick comes in. And he is a director that can never be spoken about; he only has to be seen. His vision is all that there ever is to anything that he makes. Be it 2001: A Space Odyssey or The Shining to name a few, it is what he does from behind the camera that is awe-inspiring. A piece of advice though – if you intent to watch this film, then either do it with the subtitles on, or if that irritates you, plug on your headphones to your computer. The dialogues may sell themselves off once in a while, due to the intermingled use of the Cockney accent. Not the director’s problem – we just have to get used to it.

But look at it in today’s context – petty thieves have now given way to dastardly terrorists. That is now the new word for evil on the streets. Therefore, if the sciences can come out with some method of completely altering someone’s criminal reflex at the cost of his moral decision making power, would that really be of much concern to the world at large? And even so, how would we know when it is being used for justice and when for petty ego gains?

Truly, such a complicated film of the 70s becomes so simplistic today.

Music to the eyes and inspiration for the ears – it all works like Clockwork!

2008-11-20T06:47:00.000-08:00

Reservoir Dogs

“Like a Virgin...” No way anyone could put it better. You have seen it for so many years. You have been exposed to it more than it has been exposed to sunlight. But then, when you feel that you know what it is, when you can make the split between the dark auditorium and the lit ticket counter, you feel something like come and bang your brains out. You begin to feel what it would have been understanding the medium again. And you see difference in the same bloody thing. With a severe disbalance of digestic and non-digestic sounds, your senses are real. And once again, you feel “Like a Virgin.”

Mr. Brown made the whole point clear at the beginning. He told his story, no one listened, they argued about tipping and not tipping, Mr. White told Mr. Blonde that he could only shoot him in his dreams, so that then he could get up and apologize to him. Oh baby, is it me you’re looking for?

They then walk off to attend to pending matters. And then foul it up. Not before the Radio blasts its way through one of the most stylish credits ever made.

Oh, it saves you the gore of the heist, but it takes you to things grosser than just bullet sprays. And you also have the most gruesome scene in cinematic history. But even that is done with élan. Imagine picking up someone cut ear, talk into it and then check for reception.

And the shots that crackle through the songs playing on the jukebox, the sudden realisation of something that we already know, that weird sense of amazement and self-loathing, the wall of disbelief, willingly at that – all just crack you up.

In small things always come the best packages. Thank the Lord for restrained monies at times. Everything starts to fit. And the starkness itself becomes the largest virtue of the unit.

And then there is Michael Madsen. And then there is Steve Buscemi. And then there is Harvey Keitel. All three dominating the screen, without seeming to lose their figure of speech in between.

Quentin Tarantino brought forth style. A different kind of style. A style that you just want to watch. So let’s not even try to talk about it. It is the speechless kind of style. Good.

I’d dub it the watershed of a new cinematic experiment. A new movement. Something that had to have inspired filmmakers beyond that point. It had too, however much anyone may deny any involvement. Be it the dialogues, the sound, the camera, or just the whole feeling.

Feel new. Watch the movie!

2008-10-09T03:01:00.000-07:00

Rock On!! Magik

After all that I have been saying so far, after all that I have written so far, this is the only one place where it has come true. Now I know for certain that someone else shares my views and I know that people appreciate it. Now I can stand with a certain amount of conviction. What have I been saying, you ask?

Make it from the heart and you make Rock On!!

It’s just not the name of the band, but it is the whole ride that is magical. Everything is so perfect. Everything fits into everything so well. And yet it is not preachy (hearing Mr. Bansali?) and yet it touches every nook and corner of the heart. It has drama, a certain amount of (if I may use the term) suspense, a certain amount of humour, pathos and thereby, you get wholesome entertainment. No one thing or no one person has tried to hog the limelight –the actors, nor the musicians, not the cameraman, and least of all the director. And the last point that I just mentioned is as per my definition, the best value to have in a film. When a movie can be felt without the director, without the presence of a person governing everything that you see, only then does the whole process become absorbing. You lose the thread between the real and the illusionary.

I have noticed this in many Hindi films lately and of course, you will now definitely add things and understand why I talk of Indian films in most of my articles these days. I felt that this process started completely from Dil Chahta Hain and carried on through many films, right up to Johnny Gaddar. As soon as the director becomes invisible, the movie becomes enjoyable. That is also primarily the problem with movies like Black and to name the most recent one, The Last Lear. Obsessive, self-focused directors more often than not, mar their own movies.

But back to the song that we have on hand as of this moment, I think we were discussing Rock On!! And I still need to tell you what a wonderful picture it is. I won’t divulge the story, because that is something I never do, and no one really reads this site – so that is just a lot of hard-work for no actual purpose. But anyways, we all need to Rock On!!

What makes this movie so great within its own story line and onomatopoeic existence is the marvel of the flow. The to-and-fro screenplay is so well written that there is never a nagging thought left somewhere at the back of your mind as to what happened where. The flow is completely sanguine and comfortable. And it is not an easy story to tell. It flows at two parallel levels and it manages to focus on both, without leaving anything abrupt. That is the power of a magical story-teller. For instance, if you compare this to Benegal’s Trikaal, you will understand what I am getting at. Trikaal focuses on the retelling of a story by a man who has come back home. Therefore there is no parallel track that lies in the movie. The whole story is set in the past. Here, the attempt is different. Past events lead up to the future and a unilateral progression would make the whole feature boring and monotonous. By keeping both sides of the coin at bay, the whole system is wonderfully created.

The dialogues by Farhan Akhtar are also of top quality. They are not poetry, and that is the point. They are what we speak, what we here. No corny euphony, no stereotypical catch-lines, no slumbered rhetoric – just plain and simple speech and dialogue. I saw that in a Hindi movie after a long, long time. Brilliant!

And that is just the point that I am making. Every aspect of film making has delivered to the T. All right, everyone is going to say that Akhtar sang badly. But every heard any singer in a live performance? At least the ones who sing on stage and don’t lip-sync? If you have, you’ll know what I mean... His songs therefore give me another high before the changing face of Hindi cinema. The attention to detail is immaculate.

Obviously, it goes without saying that all the roles were performed magnificently. The characters were sketched in truism and the players played it to perfection. Farhan Akhtar was a revelation and now he will be a joy to watch both in front and behind the camera. Arjun Rampal has gone miles in these last few years. The sentimental artist is written all over his face and to his credit, he seems to have also learnt some simple guitar chords. Luke Kenny, as well all know, is a master of all trades. And he never seemed to have become a rolling stone. And Purav Kohli – man, you really are a Killer Drummer!

Finally, a rock film which does justice to the genre. Not just a hotch-potch with stupid songs all claiming to be rock songs – you know, people screaming and banging their heads... That’s metal, Rock On!! is pure and simple rock!

Rock On!!

2008-09-06T02:37:00.000-07:00

A Hero we Deserved - The Dark Knight

We all know that this is a Batman film. And we all expected him to take to the fore and deliver one more punch at the ugly side of Gotham. And we knew that the Batman's work is never finished. If Rhaas-al-Ghul dies, someone else will rise. And how he rose. That is the story of the Dark Knight!

The movie begins with blood and gore and a typical bank heist, but they are all wearing smiling faces. The chaos spreads as the Prince of Chaos, the Joker, adds a little anarchy into the whole city. People start falling down dead, indications towards the lext victim is left and somehow the work is done. And boom! We have the Batman after him.

But what can I write about a common story? There is a superhero, there is a supervillain (the word 'super' usually don't come in these days. It's either a freak, or a vigilante). Supervillain kills people, Superhero kills Supervillain. Very good action, very cool gadgets, cool bike and car.

No, that is not what I want to talk about her. This is a common story, one that we have read in every comic book, one that we have seen in every action flick, one that we dream of being in within our imaginative world. But in this flick, there is a slight difference.

It is the Joker, the Prince of chaos. He is what we miss in each and every of the versions I just listed above. He can't be there in the comic book as he is beyond imagination, he is not what we see in every action flick, he isn't what we dream of when we imagine 'cool' stuff. He cannot be from there, for he is a character beyond common imagination. The Joker is an inspiration, the Joker is Satan, just a fallen angel.

It is as if there were no layers, a demarcating point between Heath Ledger and the mask that he was wearing. It seemed so real. It seemed so sharp, so locked. That laugh, that walk, that charisma, no one could have ever told it was Ledger behind that mask. Behind a thin coat of colour. I am sorry, I am not able to talk about anything else other than Heath Ledger. Because this happens at a point where you think you have seen everything and then something like this comes along. Your entire semblence is shattered, you can compare anymore, you cannot be subjective anymore, because you have lost your sense of the establishment, some thing that was created by you applying your rationality. Heath Ledger does that to you!

And though this is a Batman film, it is the Joker who lasts longer in your mind, not because his plans were overtly diabolic, but because he was being played by Heath Ledger, one in the category of legends. This has been, by far one of the very few times when we all hoped that the villain would not die. That he would be back in another part and torment our senses like that once again. However, the Joker lives and yet he died!

Heath Ledger will truly remain the hero that we all know him to be. He indeed is the hero that we deserved and yet we have to chase him now, forever. Because he has to run and we have to run behind him. And we will keep running behind him. Because under no circumstances can we ever catch up to him. We can never ever think about what he did. He will always remain the Joker, one who can make us laugh and shed a tear at that very moment.

Why so serious?

2008-07-13T09:01:00.000-07:00

Everything is personal. Nothing is business. The Godfather may have said it the other way round, but Michael did make everything personal – and thereby he conducted and went forth with his business. Which brings me to what I have been trying to say in these lines above – I cannot conduct my business anymore. And yes, as you could have made out by the opening lines, the reason is personal. But even then, the word personal does entail a lot of myriad stuff that goes along with the whole package – the word personal could be attributed to a mild thought, to a rash decision, to a feeling, to an enigma, to a very harsh jolt, to a state of mind – and then again, may be the whole thing is held together by a larger process, again something personal that makes all the other aspects hostile to foreign attacks. Where do we begin?

And even if we begin, there is a question of what is ethical in this whole matter that also creeps up. A personal process is indeed every bit as the name suggests, personal. And it will remain only to the person who feels it, who has to live with it, who has to bear the brunt of it – for a period of time which, even he or she does not know about. So do I.

And now let me tell you what I have wanted to for quite some time. I have been so washed away personally that I have had to look for solace in things that drain me completely. In such a situation, passions give way and the mental faculties go away into a period of intellectual hibernation. There is an aura around me that has made me completely redundant in the field that I specialised in. And in this case, the point why I am writing to everyone is that the diminished outbreak here will only lead to substandard intellectuality – which is a fallacy that cannot be borne.

I have tried and I have tried hard, but the ability to put pen to paper has now given way to some other kind of lost disability. I have tried my level best to make ends meet, but I have failed. And in this state of mind, I cannot continue writing here anymore. It will not be justice to the movies that I write about, nor to the people who take the time to read them. And if there has ever been an iota of truth in what I have always believed in, about the sanctity of the exposed roll, I cannot take the gamble to go on any further. I surrender!

This site is closed till further notice...

Signing off,

Subhojit Sanyal

2008-06-03T02:30:00.002-07:00

The Critical Scene in Films

After a rather long time, I came across a purely commercial picture that went on to say a lot. It went on to say a lot about the various permutations and combinations that we have drawn about films and a lot of categorizations that have compelled film makers to be more conscious of how they make their movies, rather than have their chief focus on what they make. Films made by the immortals like Fellini, Goddard, Ray – right up to Steven Spielberg, have given critics a tool to be used as a benchmark, as a touchstone to make judgment. When these critics land up to watch a film, they arrive with a kind of pre-conceived notion, where they arrive with a segmented mind – like whose will this film be – Fellini, Goddard, Ray or Spielberg? – and once they are through with the characteristic 12-15 reels, they get up from their seats and start channeling the A list against the B list and find out where they get the most amount of matches. If it hits anywhere, then the film is a sharp critique of transcendental hemorrhage and consequent blah, blah and that goes on to show a deep semiotic transference into further such rubbish … I’m sure you know what I mean!

I would personally feel insulted if someone came and told me, “Oh wonderful! Your picture reminded me of Ray’s Pather Panchali.” Like, hello, have I just made something that someone else already has. Yeah, like great, I am being linked to Satyajit Ray, holy Jesus, but crap, that’s it? He made Pather Panchali in 1951, with technology yet not being able to offer the zoom shot (the one that lay cameras offer as standard equipment today). And consequently, today I made something that was – a) Technologically inferior and b) I just made something that someone already has.

If we take the first point (a) into highlight here, this should be simple for anyone to understand. While in this category, I need to talk about the current osmosis regarding ‘remakes’ (oh my goodness, how could I even take that name) … Well, it’s not all that bad. And since I am just a writer and consequently should have no idea of what I am talking, let me refer the case to someone else. George Lukas, the maker of the evergreen Star Wars series, once had a very interesting insight into his inter-galactic escapades. He had wanted that different directors should direct the different parts of the series, so as to add the much needed perspective. Perspective is something very unique and therefore, the apparent use of it any work of art is completely brilliant. It gives a different insight into everything. I watched Don with apt attention, and let me tell you that the movie had its moments. While some departments may have faltered, and some snags left uncovered, there was no harm in seeing Don with all the latest technological up gradations and motifs. Like the original ‘red diary’ had now given way to a CD. Just like several other warrior measures were marked with similar concept upgrades. What if Farhan Akhtar had just made the movie, a kind of underworld corpus with similar links, then would the audience and critics cringed equally. No – then it would a great film maybe, to the everyday common critics, an Indian rip-off of James Bond. But when he takes the name of Chandra Barot’s Don, then we all have a problem. Even I did the same thing, though in my defense, I saw it in a bad hall where the cows go to graze and maybe everything went put for me instantaneously. But that is not the fault of the film maker but mine and therefore, I take this moment to apologize to everyone concerned with the movie. There was nothing wrong in ‘remaking’ Don, though some portions were a bit too far-fetched for anyone to like. Pointing those out will require a different time and place altogether.

But then, let me take the instance of another remake to hit the theatres recently. Yes, I sadly refer to Ram Gopal Verma Ki Aag. Now that is a travesty if there ever was any. I am not talking about his audacity to remake Sholay… My point is wholly cinematic and artistic. I still personally believe that Verma is one of the country’s best new-age directors, who provided us with master pieces like Sarkar, Bhoot and so on. But something went horribly wrong in …Aag. The whole blunder starts from the very basic facets of film making … the film stock, tacky lighting (especially the ones that were used for some sort of pseudo diffused natural light settings), a static camera, and finally, horrible performances. And mind you, these horrible performances came from the stalwarts of the Indian film industry. So, the critical question that surfaces here is not whether it stands up to Sholay, but where did the whole thing go wrong? I in my own capacity I have already pointed out some of the factors, though there is scope for improvement in many other streams – music definitely being one of them. That is the demarcation that we have to make and that is where we stand right now.
And now, I move on to the second category that I had been talking of earlier – the point of imitating someone. Critics have gone on to use words that have even been appended to regular dictionaries, globally. Words like Fellinisque and Goddardian have become term for the purpose of analysis. Therefore, when Anurag Kashyap makes No Smoking, reviews call it a Fellinisque film. Because it runs parallel to the kinds of films that Frederico Fellini used to make. But, the question remains, why? Why does Kashyap have to make something on the lines of 8½, and why do critics have to develop terms like the same? It goes through the old cycle – the word follows the action. It because critics categorize films with these terms that film makers see them as a benchmark for popular success and critical acclaim. But techniques like the jump cut can now be termed obsolete, because technology offers us much more. And critical methods employed today, have led to the dearth of originality and … perspective.

Film makers are now heavily engrossed in how they make it rather than what they make… People have stopped making movies from their heart and therefore there has been a sudden dearth in exponential ideas and motifs. With technological advantages beating down the door these days, there is no need to be Hitchcockian in method and style – it is much better to be the same in terms of your own name – as in it is better to Akhtarian in method and style, something which is far more apparent and satisfying – both for the maker and the audience.

Criticism is a very difficult subject to compromise so easily. Everything isn’t about a motive and every style does not give the same result. You can never compare 8½ to No Smoking, simply on the basis that both directors use the motif of jumbled progression and temporal mish-mash. This is not right to either film maker. Another thing that critics need to remember, is that their job is not limited to just finding flaws. It necessitates progressive thinking and a gradual focus towards achievable perfection. It is not the critic’s job to write-off anybody, as much as it is his job to explain what went wrong – and thereby hope that the next film that is made doesn’t have a red mark next to it.

2008-05-07T00:25:00.000-07:00

Worshipping False Gods: Schindler’s List

How many times have we been found in front of a stone god? How many times have we been to Mecca to pray? How many times have we attended church on Sunday?

Many times!

However, how many times, each in these situations, do we realize the necessity for proving the validity of our wishful thinking? I am not going to go into an eternal debate questioning the existence of God, or even speak of religion. All that I am asking is can we for sure ever know whether someone is listening to what we have to say? Or more importantly, what we always hope for, will someone listening to us actually do anything about the situation that we are in? Apparently not! There is a willing suspension of disbelief and we let ourselves go out of it just so that a challenge is changed into an opportunity — and that too through some miracle, not through self-accomplishment. But that is again drifting away from what my point completely is!

But this is challenging! Because what I am about to say, has both parts to it in equal density. Not only will I need to talk about a man who heard when he was called out to, but the people had to also pitch in to get what he delivered. That is where the crux of the whole argument lies. And before I go into my actual argument, let me first tell all my readers to realize and comprehend that what I am going to talk about is a true incident!

And then, came the movie. The man, Oskar Schindler was finally brought into the light by a Jew, Steven Spielberg. At times I do not know which is greater—the man or the movie. But then again, I rationalise and come to the conclusion that perhaps it is the man, who gave the director the impetus and the module to make something as grand as this. This is one of the best movies made by Spielberg and comprehensively then, comes into the category of one of the finest outputs of the cinematic medium ever composed globally.

The picture begins right in the eye of the storm. The Germans are still capturing and killing Jews by the millions—forcing them to concentrate in freshly developed Ghettos, and then after the mathematics and statistics are worked out, making them come face to face with a bullet. That is the crux of World War II and that is where Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) walks in.

He is just a businessman, a member of the Nazi Party, who intends producing material that can be used by the German Army. As he points out to his accountant (Ben Kingsley), he would only be concerned with the show of his factory, what we today mark as PR and Marketing. Therefore we see him at German parties, jostling with the bigwigs of the Army and getting them drunk enough to approve of his estimate and provide him with all the orders.

But he doesn’t stop there. The initial capital for his company is floated by the Jews. After all, they knew that they were going to die. So rather they invest their money and get something back for it, “which they could use in the black market for some use.” A sharp business move yet! But his affair with the Jews does not stop there. He needs workers and there is a sharp paucity of the same. There were hoards of Jews being dug out from all corners of the country and marred in idleness. So he gets most of them approved as essential workers and begins production. An even sharper business move!

Now however, the word is out that no one dies at Schindler’s factory. And there are also these Jews working for him, who are alive and have not faced the bullet primarily because they are “Essential Workers”. Therefore, they start thinking and believing that he is God. He comes to them as a Messiah and changes their destiny. Every time one of his Jews die due to German arrogance, he rakes up the whole German Army and SS think-tank and makes a issue out of it—therefore ‘Schindler’s List’ is dealt with somewhat precariously.

But as always there are always moments that change you completely. Gone riding in the hills, Schindler witnesses the infamous liquidation of the ghettos from a bird’s eye-view and is shaken forever. This is where the movie goes a step over the man, when in a black and white frame, Spielberg brings forth a little girl in scarlet, walking by the stricken people, running away from something that she cannot understand. It is innocence there on the road, a child who cannot find a reason or a cause for whatever was happening there. And yet she walks, jumbles and runs. And then she goes into an empty room, and hides under a bed—to save herself. And as she pulls her head in, she changes from red to black and white. Innocence murdered!

And it is just not the audience that is pulled in by that—Oskar Schindler too can’t see anymore. His eyes shake in horror as he sees his people being killed, a whole religion being wiped out from the surface of the earth, a genocide! And then, as he sits grappling with what he saw, a woman comes in, a Jew, and asks him to take her mother and father into his factory, as it is believed that “no one here ever dies. You are God, Mr. Schindler!”

It is rather difficult to carry this weight on your shoulders and even Schindler is rattled to his very core. He talks to his accountant about it and is furious as people consider him to be a divine form. He is just human! But then he comes to terms with the faith that these people have on him. He tells Stern that he has made a lot of money and now he wants to use it to save the Jews. He bribes officials and asks them to lend him the Jews, so that he can start an armament factory for the German Army. He spends every penny in running a non-productive factory and bribing officials—right till the point where Stern comes to him and asks, “Do you have some money stored somewhere which I do not know of?”

And then the German Army gives in to the Allies. Schindler gathers his workers and tells them that he shall have to flee because the Allies wouldn’t be too fond of a man producing guns for the Germans. As a token of farewell, the Jews make him a gold ring and hand it to him along with the letter that, would explain things in the event of his being captured. And then we see Spielberg and Neeson take over. Schindler breaks down before his people. He sees the gold ring and tells Stern that if he knew he has that much gold with him, gold enough to make a thin ring, he would have sold it to save more Jews. He tries to reason as to why he had maintained his car, when he could have sold it and again, saved more Jews. He collapses in Stern’s arms, who tries to reassure him that he did all he possibly could. But there is no consoling Oskar Schindler. And then the greatest spectacle in cinematic history grips the scene. All his workers, each and every one of them, cling on to him and crumble with him. There saviour now had to flee while they were free. The man who staked everything was the one who was now facing the axe. Personally, I don’t think I have ever cried that much for anything—celluloid or otherwise! That scene alone was worth the price of the ticket, if not much more!

And well after the movie was over, you sit and grapple with whatever you have just seen. And if you could just feel it the way I did, all you do is sit and ask yourself, “Did this really happen? Could a man do this? Could he stake everything that he ever possessed just to save people that he had no connection with? Why, this man is God!”

It is definitely a brush with the divine. Even though we were not of that age, of that period, just seeing the movie and learning about it from third difference is enough to shatter you. With stunning visuals and breathtaking musical support, it gives the impetus that we all need to understand. Worship your Gods by all means, but do pass a thought for someone who lived and acted in the way we want things to be! Spare a thought for a man who never liked to be called God, but yet did more than what we get through divine ordeals. Then perhaps you can realise that to be human is to be divine. That we all have the power in us to do something for others... And when man takes care of man, maybe we can all sail into the sunset, free and strong.

2008-03-19T12:49:00.000-07:00

Why is it Cinema and me, and where do we go from here...

Who would not want to dance with Priety Zinta? Or rather not drive all those Aston Martins like James Bond? Fly through crowded cities like Superman? Or even pull off weird motor cycle stunts like the Dhoom movies?
This is what had always appealed to me about movies. There was a sense of complete dislocation from our grim realities and a drive into what we always dreamt of—something that we hoped we could do, yet always knew that it was just as distant as perhaps finding the pot of gold at the edge of the rainbow. Movies, as I grew up watching, were all pot boilers for me—the motif of a willing suspension of disbelief always took a grip over me and I would forget myself in the 14 or 16 reels that a normal Yashraj picture would have.
Such was my love and perhaps even addiction for the unreal, for the visit to fantasy land, that I even started bunking school to go and watch my delusory dramas. And at that time, fortunately for me, there were no plexes and this was happening in Kolkata. I shall never forget the joy of watching movies in single-screen theatres, not so much for the inexpensive tickets which were more suited to a schoolboy’s thin wallet, but because of the warmth that you shared with your fellow audience. That time in Border, when we were all getting equally frustrated watching our men die because our planes could not take off in the night—I heard the man next to me get off his chair and yell at Jackie Shroff of the IAF, “Come on, move, you son of a b****!” Or that time in Mission Kashmir, when Sanjay Dutt bared his fangs at the IAS officer, bridging the communal divide with powerful rhetoric; the whole hall would break into peals of contagious applause and thereby a state of collective consciousness somehow got fatally instilled into my brain map.
And then there was a gradual shift. With time there came a greater exposure. Not so much for the shift in movie making, but in the cosmos of DVD players and their resultant DVDs. With the market coming into some stability, a period of plenty was initiated and thereby, directors like Griffith, Fellini, Truffaut, Goddard and many more to mention here, sprung up. The influence also came in more powerfully from my own socio-cultural milieu, in the form of the movies of Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen and Ritwik Ghatak. Obviously, with the dearth of contemporary progressive concepts, a reflective outlook become almost spontaneous with those movies—fighting with the protagonist in Ray’s Pratidwandi (The Adversary), or trying to understand the camera of the ‘other’ through Ritwik Ghatak’s brilliance. And thereby was a great awakening in me—the final comprehension of the medium, a means of expression with more that the uni-dimensional constraints of most art forms. Cinema offered to me a whole process, perhaps the closest imitation of reality, with space for graphic breaks and parallel paths for self-realisation. This was where I crossed the Rubicon.

And that is where I realized the importance of the structure. Filmmakers are not mere entertainers as they are made out to be worldwide. There is much more to them. I read in one of Satyajit Ray’s articles, named ‘The Confronting Question’, his views on the troubles of film making—where he raised a very pertinent point.

“… one hold’s one’s breath on location in fear of a crowd emerging out of the blue… come to watch the film (how can shooting ever be work?)…”

It is from this mentality that one has to break free. It is from this mentality that the approach to film making has to be re-visualized. Making a movie isn’t all fun and games as it is made out to be. Ray goes on his article,

“… No wonder film makers are so prone to heart diseases…”

It is true that most of the grey hairs come with the first film of a director.
There is a whole new element that has to be taken into focus when dealing with film making. If you go through Fellini’s 8½, it may at first seem to be a hotch-potch. It may seem to have no unified progression and that itself can be very nerve racking for most audiences, especially the one we have in India. But within this otherwise translucent zig-zagging, comes a more creative propaganda—one which describes a film maker’s problem of choice, of decision, of breaking the shackles and finding a new path. This was believed to be Fellini’s problem at the time of making this movie and therefore the odd name—8½ (standing for 8 features and one short film)—a seemingly benevolent title if one sees the kind of rigmarole it had to go through. Therefore, it proves that to a filmmaker, nothing is as simple as it seems.
And this was an example of the absurd genre of film making. Let us get to the more political ones or the ones with revolutionary ideals enmeshed in them. And I will not run Griffith’s Birth of a Nation to get to my point. I’ll map the chart back home, through Rakyesh Omprakash Mehra’s Rang De Basanti and Rajkumar Hirani’s Lage Raho Munnabhai. Mehra uses five disillusioned youths to break through a corrupt bureaucracy and become martyrs. While this may assume the shape of crass melodrama to the yet disillusioned people, the fact remains that there was a message—a plea for change and the director believed that the change would come in through the youth, a band of citizens yet holding on to the ideals of Utopia and a certain idealism yet not marred by corruption and dubious methodology. For the purpose of this thesis, it is necessary to keep in mind that the director provides these few boys and girls, the tool of, not violence in the exact sense of the term, but rather the offensive. The youth kill to obtain freedom. And then on the other hand, we have Rajkumar Hirani’s Lage Raho Munnabhai, where the director returns to Gandhian methods of struggle. Non-violence and flowers become tools of self-assertiveness and action. But the end result is common—the pursuit of freedom, a pursuit of Utopia. Mark that these films released with a difference of some months and both attained a great level of popular success and critical acclaim. Within the Indian tradition, both these films contained songs, dances and the other paraphernalia that go with the usual conventional films. But where they marked their difference from the usual, was in the form of rationality and precision. Everything had a purpose (even the completely purposeless youth of Rang De Basanti had a purpose). The films banked heavily on content and where they marked the real difference, was that they contained their package with a lot of style. This is where the future of Indian Cinema has to be.
Even though we always harp about the lack of thought in Indian Cinema, we also acknowledge the fact that Indian Cinema has produced some of the sharpest intellectual brains in the whole world. From Shyam Benegal’s inquisitive Ankur, to Govind Nehalani’s hard-hitting Ardhya Satta, Indian films also have a progressive parallel tract. However, the reason that can be chiefly attributed to the box-office doom of these films (not all, but for the majority of them), is the lack of style. I am not stating that these films didn’t have style—but what I am trying to emphasize is that style in India films have to based on the Hollywood action flicks (Mission Impossible Series, Bourne Trilogy, Michael Clayton, the Matrix Trilogy, and so on…). We cannot try and bring in style elements from French New Wave films, or from the Italian Neo-Realists as factors like the Jump Cut and Jumbled Progression go way beyond the simple comprehension skills of the Indian audience. Proof—a classic Fellinisque film like No Smoking sunk without a trace in the recent past, casting doomsday for the director. We are not ready!
And see the effect the other movies have created—like Rang De Basanti and Lage Raho Munnabhai—a total case of mass hysteria, which has severely altered the course of Indian history. There have been major upheavals in the democratic and judiciary circuits, these films have made justice possible for millions of victims of Indian corruption and power-politics. With directors like Omprakash Mehra and Rajkumar Hirani, the process of change has begun. Indian films are finally doing what cinema tends to do—create the real out of the unreal. For Indian Cinema, the time is now!

2008-02-25T02:44:00.000-08:00

Now for the most difficult awards .... This is my selection for the best films and performances of the year. Following is a list of the nominees and the final winners are indicated in italics. Feel free to comment and discuss about the final winners:

Best Film
Taare Zameen Par
Chak De! India
Johnny Gaddar
No Smoking
Manorama Six Feet Under

Best Director
Aamir Khan — Taare Zameen Par
Shimit Amin — Chak De ! India
Sriram Raghavan — Johnny Gaddar
Anurag Kashyap — No Smoking
Sagar Bellary — Bheja Fry

Best Actor
Shahrukh Khan — Chak De! India
Darsheel Safary — Taare Zameen Par
Vinay Pathak — Bheja Fry
Neil Nitin Mukesh — Johnny Gaddar
Abhay Deol — Manorama Six Feet Under

Best Actress
Tabu — Cheeni Kum
Kareena Kapoor — Jab We Met
Vidya Balan — Bhool Bhoolaiya
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan — Guru
Gul Panang — Manorama Six Feet Under

Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Male)
Vinay Pathak — Aaja Nachle
Vinay Pathak — Manorama Six Feet Under
Rajat Kapoor — Bheja Fry
Ranvir Shourey — Aaja Nachle
Akshaye Khanna — Aaja Nachle

Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Female)
Konkona Sen Sharma — Life in a Metro
Konkona Sen Sharma — Aaja Nachle
Konkona Sen Sharma — Laaga Chunari Main Daag
Rani Mukherji — Saawariya
Raima Sen — Manorama Six Feet Under

Best Music
A R Rahman — Guru
Illayaraja — Cheeni Kum
Pritam — Life in a Metro
Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy — Taare Zameen Par
Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy — Johnny Gaddar

Best Cinematography
Muraleedharan CK — Johnny Gaddar
Arvind Kannabiran — Manorama Six Feet Under
Sudeep Chatterjee — Chak De! India
M. Sethuraaman — Taare Zameen Par
P.C. Sreeram — Cheeni Kum

Best Editing
Jabeen Merchant — Manorama Six Feet Under
Pooja Ladha Surti — Johnny Gaddar
Suresh Pai — Bheja Fry
Amitabh Shukla — Chak De! India
Chandan Arora — Cheeni Kum

Best Story
Sriram Raghavan — Johnny Gaddar
Amol Gupte — Taare Zameen Par
Jaideep Sahni — Chak De! India
Navdeep Singh — Manorama Six Feet Under
Sagar Bellary — Bheja Fry

2008-02-09T05:36:00.000-08:00

No, smoking is a personal wish – The No Smoking review

“I am never going to quit smoking. Only those people quit, who cannot hold on to anything…”

Everything about this movie is rather Kafkaesque. First you have the protagonist named K, (JUST K), reminiscent of Franz Kafka’s eternal fate struck hero, and then you have flashes from the author’s The Trial, with people looking all over K, silent, yet their eyes reveal the fate of the character, something that K does not know already.

And what is his only problem in the whole equation? The only reason that he has to roam the streets of Mumbai as a culprit, the only reason why he has to leave a restaurant during dinner time with all his friends and family, is that of his addiction to cigarettes. He is treated like a stranger in a congregation of men, a social outcast.

And though, admittedly, K is a bit of an ass, as one might put it, the result of his actions are also made according to some very rash decisions regarding him. For instance, while he is in the lift with the old woman and she asks him to stop smoking, K stops the lift and asks her to take the stairs. Now that may seem to be a rather devilish attitude, but the crux of the story lies in the fact that it is always the smoker who is asked to leave from a gathering. If there is a recommendation to make non-smoking chambers and areas, where do the smokers go? Should there also not be a kind of place demarcated for their use? Somewhere, where they do not have to feel like criminals?

And the introduction of the Prayogshala, run by his Holiness, Baba Shri Shri Bangali, Sealdah wale, reminds us again of Kafka’s dilemma, the Nazi party. Like K rightly remarks downstairs, (yes, that’s where his holiness holds his discourses, under the portals of the earth’s limits, very close to the core of the earth – where surprisingly, a whole civilization exists) that how would they help him get rid of his cigarette smoking habit, by placing a gun on his head? While Babaji may ward off that with a sinister laugh, the fact remains that soon after he does show him a picture of Hitler and speaks of what a great friend he was at once. And then the entire George Orwell 1984 “Big Brother” syndrome is displayed. Every action that he has ever committed is recorded by the rehabilitation center. There is a very surrealistic setting created deep down in the gutters of the earth. And K feels the brunt of it. The consequences of smoking are listed to him –

1) The first cigarette that he smokes will find his brother in a room full of smoke, a cumulative smoke capacity of all that K has ever smoked till today – and his brother is known to have only one lung.
2) The second cigarette that he smokes will have two of his fingers chopped.
3) The third cigarette that he smokes will actually kill his wife.
4) The fourth will kill his mother.
5) And the fifth will kill his soul.

Why would anyone touch another cigarette?

But K does. The Kafkaesque hero is not without a cause. He has the right to smoke, as much right as someone has to refuse a smoke. Another surrealistic situation creeps up, wherein K tries to get one ahead of the holy man. He buys tickets of airlines moving away from Mumbai. And from there he chooses any one. Once he lands at his chosen destination, he has someone buy him all the tickets moving away from that place – from where he chooses another ticket and so on. This way, if even he doesn’t know where he is going, how will Baba Bangali?

But the dream still continues. He gets caught in some remote part of Africa, trying to puff away. And he returns, only to find that his brother has indeed been pushed through what was promised. What else can he do now? He has to give up … And yet the story continues!

No Smoking is just not a Kafkaesque movie, but it also is a Fellinisque movie. It uses the same tools of absurdity and meaninglessness, to point out a fact that is crucial and of utmost importance—like the protagonist (the Kafka tool), the director slips from reality to the imaginary within seconds and frames, making it hard to realize the setting of the situation. Does the whole event happen in a dream, or does K actually go through all the afflictions? No one really can be absolutely certain about the fact, not even K.

What makes No Smoking a delight to watch is the treatment of the film and the message that it gives out—smoking is a person’s personal wish and it should be given in with that in mind. When a person starts to smoke, he does it fully aware of the fact that it WILL harm his health and after that the question of policing does not arise. If people want to ban smoking in public places, they also have to reserve corners for smokers to congregate! Nicotine is not a parallel for narcotics and it should therefore not be treated as a kind of social evil. And yet, the point never was about smoking—it was about a person’s inner desire, his personal wish!

2007-08-12T09:04:00.000-07:00

The World Makes a Circle

“We were all born from The Overcoat. One day you will realize this …”

A crucial book, a crucial juncture and a crucial thought – all these sum up the birth of Mira Nair’s The Namesake. Why do I say Mira Nair’s and not Jhumpa Lahiri’s?

First then to clarify the hypotheses, so that the article makes sense right from the start and does not have to look for cover under anyone else’s ‘overcoat’, thereby perhaps adding an uncanny magical realistic aura around the entire Namesake phenomena.

I have not read the book. Have actually, but even that was loaned from someone else’s library and the recurring thought of returning it to its place of origin always kept a non-existent rush to reach the last page. And even this opportunity that I had to wrestle with the book came to me long time back; thus there remains a kind of scriptural amalgamation that refrains me from laying any claim to the novel. Thus I brand this article completely as an artistic representation by Mira Nair.

I saw the movie with rapt attention. I noticed the nuances that she managed to smuggle into the contours of each frame. I am a Bengali and therefore I regaled at the very ethnicity and imagery that she had attached to even the minutest of details. The accent of the lead actors Tabu and Irrfan Khan (both non-Bengalis) is worth a commendation right at the very onset. Every inscription is noticeable and worth an applause. The Namesake is an example of magical movie making, a concept that drags you into its duration and keeps you secluded from your contemporary reality. Very few movies have the power to do this and The Namesake belongs to this very elite class.

I have spoken about my source of information and have also accounted for the director’s abilities to make magic on the celluloid. Now I come to issues that deviate from the trend that made me begin my thesis. Though primary focus on the events in the film would generate from the namesake of the film, the whim to name his son after his favorite author, Nikolai Gogol, I have chosen a different perspective to gauge the reels by.

A motif that reverberates through the film is Ghosh’s (the passenger at the beginning on the accidental train, played by a charismatic Jogonath Guha) words – “Grab your pillow and blanket and set out to see the world.” That coupled with Gogol’s The Overcoat provides a view of the fact that the ‘view of the world’ could mean different aspects to different individuals.

The film begins with Ghosh asking Ashok the object of his enquiry, the book he was reading and he answers, “The Overcoat by Gogol.” Couple this with what Ashok tells Gogol later … “We were all born out of The Overcoat.” There is a double emphasis generated here out of the word “born”. Gogol’s Overcoat is the point from where the movie begins as also the story of Ashok’s life. Ashok was earlier a student at Kolkata, who would make occasional trips to his uncle at Jamshedpur or as he mentioned, “I had been to Delhi once.” Ghosh gives him a new outlook, the advice to move out and see the whole world. The train goes and rams on to another vehicle on the track, thereby killing mostly everybody. However, these final words of Ghosh also get rammed into Ashok’s head and it is there that he takes the decision to go ahead and move to a settlement outside the confines of his own country’s national borders.

So as we can see, this is the point where the movie begins, it is born and then again, from The Overcoat. Thus there is some realism attached to Ashok’s words when he tells his son that they have all been born out of The Overcoat. And does the signification end there?

No. There is something else that is also attached to this feeling. The point of origin of the movie coincides with the point of origin of Ashok’s life. It is at that juncture, lying at his house in a crippled state that he realizes the focus of Ghosh’s words of conquering the world. Bursting inside his memory, these words are all that gave him the impetus to move out of his national confines and settle abroad. So in another aspect of the word ‘born’, we see Ashok being re-born, again out of The Overcoat. Ashok’s life has a unique attachment to Ghosh’s instruction. All his life he has lived in this focus. And this is signified even in his death, dying in a far off place in America, far away from all his family members who incidentally are born with him in America. The motif of moving along places never seems to end and the only possible end that can be achieved is through death.

And then we come to Gogol, the son. Completely within the folds of an American heritage and culture, Gogol feels a sense of alienation towards India, towards Kolkata. He feels completely out of place in a land where it id dangerous to go out to jog on the roads, or even to inhumanly drive a rickshaw puller by an extra person’s weight. However, an artist by profession, bordering towards architecture, Gogol in India, witnesses the beauty and splendor of the Taj Mahal. It is looking at a structure with awe and admiration that he had never seen before, something that actually belongs to him, but is yet so far away. It is a rather crippled existence, but the intensity of its actualization is far away from Gogol’s realms.

And towards the end, Gogol recounts what his father had told him when he took him to the edge of the sea. Due to the lack of a camera, he asked Gogol to remember it by realizing that they had gone to a place from where they could go no further. And that pseudo hypocritical statement, a harmless paradox, firms Gogol’s mind much later, when he realizes in the New York underground that maybe he should move towards India, to “see the world”.

It is at this moment that Lahiri (I cannot comment on the storyline, but the literary aspect of the same has to be attributed to the author and not to the filmmaker) stumbles the viewers and readers upon a post colonial influx that boils down to a West fixation. There is, as Ghosh points out, a kind of “dream” that draws Indians towards the West, somewhere where people do not spit on the roads, where everything is kept clean and tidy, on the verge of making it a very idyllic setting. Yet there is a lot more to it than just “opportunities” for the youth (which the very reason why Ashok wants Gogol to be brought up in America). Even the mysticism that is generally attributed to the East can stand as a marching order for people from the West, both foreigners and Indians who had long back migrated to the West and their families. This is why we see Ashok take Gogol to the edge of the sea and then tell him “remember that we came to a place from where we could go no further”. He was trying to justify to himself that he can seen the world. He was trying to tell himself that he had seen it all. He had indeed taken in all that Ghosh had told him but obviously he never did really believe in it. And he never wanted his son to believe in it, though it remained such an inextricable part of him.

The Namesake deals primarily with the thought of exploring the other and thereby being complete in vision. The difference remains also in the very realms of difference that actually defines the two hemispheres. The west enthralls the Easterners for its development in modern times, while the East draws people from the West because of its development in ancient times. And thereby they complete the world; because the world is round and as you start from one end, you come back to where you begun from. Thus we can see that The Namesake remains a post-colonial book, a post-colonial West centric phenomenon and a brilliant movie.

2007-05-13T01:12:00.000-07:00

The Postman Delivers

And it was at that age ... Poetry arrived

in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where

it came from, from winter or a river.

I don't know how or when,no they were not voices, they were not

words, nor silence,but from a street I was summoned,

from the branches of night,

abruptly from the others,

among violent fires

or returning alone,

there I was without a face

and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth

had no way

with names,my eyes were blind,

and something started in my soul,

fever or forgotten wings,

and I made my own way,

deciphering

that fire,

and I wrote the first faint line,

faint, without substance, purenonsense,

pure wisdom

of someone who knows nothing,

and suddenly I sawthe heavens

unfastenedand open,

planets,

palpitating plantations,

shadow perforated,

riddled with arrows, fire and flowers,

the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesimal being,

drunk with the great starry

void,

likeness, image of

mystery,

felt myself a pure partof the abyss,

I wheeled with the stars,

my heart broke loose on the wind.

Poetry - Pablo Neruda

I never knew who needed the poem? Or who was in greater need of poetry? The person who wrote it, or the person who "needed" it. And then like Poetry arrived for Neruda himself, searching him out, Il Postino came in search of me and I wrote my first faint line. A film is an art form and no where has the intermediacy of the modes of films and poetry been so beautifully intermeshed, as in Il Postino. Truly remarkable, truly unbelievable.

The simple story of a fishing community in rural Italy. There are no educated people here. All that they need is provided to them through the fishing business. Mario Ruoppolo (Massimo Troisi) is just a poor guy, who knows how to read a little, that too at a very slow pace and all that he has read, belong to the poems of a certain Pablo Neruda. He is a bad fisherman and therefore he applies for the job of a postman in the village. But what good is that job, because no one there knows how to read and therefore, who would send them letters?

But Pablo Neruda (Phillepe Noiret) has just been exiled from Chile and has sought refuge in Italy. Under severe politcal pressure, Italy conscents to let him have his own little space in a non-descript Italian village, where he could stay for as long as he wanted. Since no one else in the village can read or write, the letters then end up being delivered to only one person - Pablo Neruda.

Therein begins the movie. Letters, parcels, all in bulks of a few hundreds, start arriving. From a mere government postman, Mario becomes something like a personal secretary of the great poet himself. And he brings him all his messages, all his communication from the outside world, a dictaphone from Chile and eventually, he also brings him a message from the Nobel foundation of Sweden that they were seriously considering awarding the Nobel Prize to the Chilean for his unparalleled contribution to poetry.

And the friendship grows. When you see a face for everyday, when you exchange words with that face everyday, even if it be for a few seconds, you do develop a certain bonhomy with that person, don't you? And this is just what happens between the poet and the postman. Their meetings signify a convergence between the internal world and the external world; carrying the news of millions of strangers, receiving letters from millions of strangers, they develop their own personal space, their own personal communication. And that is where Mario asks for help.

He is madly in love with the namesake of Dante's beloved, Beatrice (Maria Grazia Cucinotta). She is an absolute beauty, and there is no way that Mario can make any inroads into her heart. But now things are far different. He has the help of the greatest exponent of the romantic verse, Pablo Neruda. Neruda inspires, Mario writes. And together, a Marxist, an aethiest, brings two individuals before the alter. Love can make you do many things.

Neruda eventually serves out his asylum in Italy. Pinochet wins over the political mess that had led to Neruda's exile originally and therefore it is time for the master poet to return. There are a few tears shed, as an unspeakable friendship comes to an end. Neruda promises to write, but then once back, he must have been engulfed in the Chilean power mess and therefore all that Mario receives are mails from his secretary, asking Mario to send along items that the poet had left behind in Italy.

Mario continues the Communist dream and gets killed in a stampede operated by Italy's fascist nexus. Mario is dead and gone and he is survived by his wife Beatrice and son, Pablito. And then it happens ... Neruda returns to the village to meet his long lost friend, only to find that he is lost forever.

A truly remarkable piece of film-making, Il Postino is a tribute to the world of cinema. A film where verses rule supreme as the primary lyric, the music is completely breathtaking and awe-inspiring. The camerawork rules the roster, complementing the theme sequnce of the film, poetry. And so are the performances - simply poetic. The film is a metaphor of poetry and vice-versa. What is a metaphor? Go watch the movie ...

Man has no business with the simplicity or the complexity of thigs - Pablo Neruda (Il Postino)

2007-03-27T04:01:00.001-07:00

Welcome to Rockyland!

"Its not how hard you can hit … It's about how hard you can get hit and still keep moving ahead!"

It is inspirational stuff like these which made Rocky a cult amongst all the fighting tigers of the world and now that he is back, in perhaps the last part of the entire series, Rocky Balboa doesn't disappoint.

Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) is back, this time, a sixty-year old man, a legendary boxer, who owns a small restaurant, making in the small bucks. He has put his boxing career way behind him. He's not the same old Rocky anymore. He's far more subdued, albeit a little old. He's retired. His days go by running this shop, plus visiting Adrian Balboa's grave and sitting there for hours on end. Rocky now is any other man, in any other place, leading a normal citizen's life.

On the boxing scene, Mason 'the flying' Dixon (Antonio Tarver) is having a similar bad time. He is the reigning undisputed champion of the world, but his popularity is on the downslide. His managers are getting rather anxious about his public relations. It's not about winning, it's about remaining a demigod in the eyes of your fans, like Rocky has remained till today. Plus there is this virtual reality thing, where the organizers go about tallying Mason's prowess against the all-time greats, with the temporal passages taking hold on the latters' abilities as boxers. First up for this comparison, is the legendary, two-time champion of the world, Rocky Balboa. The results are more defaming for the current champion, as they hold the result of Rocky beating him.

The comparisons spark off newer controversies over the champion’s fanfare. His managers get more nervous about the developing situation. There is perhaps only one salvo in the whole affair – a fight with Rocky, where not only does he beat the legend, but does it, leaving the veteran with his respect, his dignity – the outcome; not only does he consolidate his position as the undisputed boxer of the world, but also gains public support for “taking care of Rocky” through the ring.

Rocky, in the meantime, is having his own share of ideas. The virtual match provides him with the idea that he can actually return to the ring and take on a few people. Even at this age. Obviously he’s trying for the local level boxing matches just do realize some dreams of his. So he tries for a license and eve gets it, clearing all the scheduled tests. So Mason’s managers get in touch with him and Rocky consents to the fight. His son, Robert (Milo Ventimiglia) is furious. He claims that all he got in life was because of his last name. And now, when his father makes himself to be a laughing stock, he’s going to be included in that. What you then get, is vintage Rocky – “You gotta do, what you gotta do! The world is not sunshine and rainbows. It’s a mean world out there and no matter how hard you try, its gonna beat you to your knees and keep you there, no matter how tough you are. It’s not about how hard you can hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit … and keep moving on! I’m a fighter … that’s the way I am! You can’t change what we are!” Rocky goes into training. All muscle and heat, Rocky-style!

The stage is set. Rocky takes on Mason. Commentators are absolutely sure that Rocky won’t be able to last even two rounds - A straight K.O. for Mason. The bell for the first round rings. Rocky is pushed around; beaten up. Predictions seem to be running according to their words. Will Rocky be disgraced? But even before the bell for the second round’s termination could ring, Rocky turns on the heat. It’s a kind of pounding that Mason perhaps had never got at the hands of any of his current opponents.

The commentator’s words resonate through the arena – “welcome to Rockyland!” From there onwards, it’s Rocky all the way. Mason too gets to throw in his blows, Rocky also receives sufficient damage, but it’s not one-way traffic as expected. Mason is carried on through all the scheduled ten rounds of the match, Rocky style!
At the end, it’s not about winning or losing anymore. It’s about Rocky, the legend, the veteran, the larger-than-life figure. Rocky Balboa, the heavyweight champion. Rocky Balboa.

It must have been a very emotional moment for Sylvester Stallone, the last walk back from the arena. What started out as dream in 1976 has finally come to an end. Rocky will never fight again. It’s the story of Rocky, seen through the eyes of Stallone. But then again, “if I can change, you can change – everybody can change!” Rocky is transcendental, the center of the structure – both inside and out. Rocky is Stallone, the sixty-year old man, who can give a sixteen-year old man a run for his money. The determination, the will, the power – it’s just all Rockyland.
The cinematography and the music of the film (Bill Conti) deserve special mention. The camera was never handled better in any Rocky movie. The angles and the lighting, make it the magnum-opus and the ultimate swan-song of Stallone. Conti uses tracks from the old Rocky movies and the situations, in which they are added, make the scenes more stimulating.

The verdict – Rocky is the best! Be it the man, or the movie!

2007-02-06T15:35:00.000-08:00

Pratidwandi

The sequel to his critics' entitled 'Calcutta Trilogy', Pratidwandi marks Satyajit Ray's legitimate entry into the world of politics. Perhaps his only clearly defined political film, The Adversary uses the "through-the-eyes-of-one-man" theory to expound typical Communist ideals of the late 1980s in Kolkata. And the elan in which the entire composition has been structured, amplifies Ray's mastery over the lens.

Deeply indebted to the French New Wave, in photography and montage to be precise, Ray uses to the metaphor of a crowded bus to align a class basis for his protagonist Siddharth Chowdhury (Dhritiman Chatterjee). He is on his way for an interview in a Government organisation. The questions are all placed thoroughly in clipped-British English and it ranges from the definition of the mitochondria, right up to what the applicant reserves as the most important milestone of the last decade. Instead of their wish of hearing about man's landing on the moon, Chowdhury speaks of the war in Vietnam, of which we were "completely unprepared. It is remarkable, because it showed us about the courage of the people of Vietnam." The bosses break into a thin line of sweat and stammer, "Are you a communist?"

Ray even uses Fellinisque dream sequences to break into the subconsciousness of the protagonist. From seeing his best friend, a revolutionary being shot by the police, to even himself coming before a guillotine - Chowdhury's mind is a complete mess. He can't land up a job, though his attractive younger sister works 'overtime'. Her boss' wife complains to her mother as to how she was having an affair with her husband. Chowdhury's troubled state wants him to kill the boss. But what can he do in the end? There is a an entire episode of his going to her boss' house to sort out the matter and yet he can do nothing. Its the money game, ostensibly the youth's take on capitalism. He returns from the boss' house and sees a driver of a limousine crash into a young girl. The people drive him out and beat him up. Even Siddharth tries to break in through the crowds, but his anger is not vented out on the poor proletariat, but at the Mercedez-Benz logo. Another take on capitalist tendencies in the naxalite injected state.

So where does his fervour end up? How does he fight this? He goes for another job and there too the crowd is enormous. People are waiting for their term to come, its summer and the interviewers have not only put in lesser number of chairs for the people coming for the job, but have also made available the use of only one fan. Siddharth leads a retinue into the office, rasing their demands. But they are subdued and just made to sit out and 'adjust'. The proletariat again adjust to the capitalists' tune. But then one of them faints. Siddharth is furious. Enough is enough. he breaks down the door and tramples over everything that comes into his sight. The table is wrecked, the people are pushed out of their chairs, a complete upheaval! The metaphor of a revolution. Siddharth has begun it.

But where does it end? How does he survive? How does he start working? Does he change in the system, or does he fall prey to it? He leaves the system, goes back to the pastoral, into the other line, where he starts work again. He may not have achieved anything, but he does not stay in there!

2006-11-14T05:59:00.000-08:00

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!!!!

2006-10-22T14:53:00.000-07:00

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 ...]

2006-10-21T09:41:00.000-07:00

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!

2006-08-20T01:27:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-08-08T08:51:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-08-06T03:27:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-08-05T11:12:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-30T05:39:00.001-07:00

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]

2006-07-28T04:17:00.000-07:00

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?

2006-07-28T04:00:00.000-07:00

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!

2006-07-28T03:48:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-26T08:31:00.000-07:00

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!