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

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

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

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

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

Go, see Omkara. Not Othello.

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

Colonial revolution in Mrinal Sen’s Interview

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Kramer vs Kramer game

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

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

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

I have seen Plato

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

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

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

The Kramer vs Kramer review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy viewing!