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

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

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

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

Best Actor (Female)
No Nominations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ma Kasam, Maza Aa Gaya!!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just don’t look for any...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Love and punishment – Dostoevsky’s Saawariya

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Requiem for a Dream – A Requiem to Remember

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Men of Honour: Indeed...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Watch it. It’s Dev D.

Ghajini – Oh Boy, what a movie!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A True Slumdog Millionaire

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is written.

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".

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!

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!

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!

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!!

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?

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

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.

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.

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!