Omkara

Omkara: ***

I have never read any Shakespeare, and whatever little criminally abridged pieces that had found their way into my school’s English curriculum, have been forgotten. Yes you can read that last sentence again, gape out loud, widen your eyes and fall from your chair. But today, after watching Omkara, it really will be the second time in my life that I felt smug for missing out on a body of work that’s considered universally to be the “ultimate” in drama and literature. (the first time being, if you still are as dimwit to not guess, when I had watched Maqbool 2 years back). Just as the end-credits started to roll, I just couldn’t get this thought out of my head that if I had known the climax way before, I just wouldn’t have bothered with even writing this review. The number of freewheeling shockers jam-packed in the final ten minutes of the movie just wouldn’t have had that impact that (I am so thankful to my ignorance) they had.

But mincing no words now, I have to admit that I was disappointed with Omkara. With a plot pregnant with far far more drama than Maqbool, it simply didn’t have the intensity or the power of the latter. Save for the last ten minutes, when the rein from the bland characters finally passes on to the actual plot which helps it end on an above-average note, the film’s got mediocre written all over it. And that’s not because it settles for anything mediocre but because it always somehow manages to mix something superb with something very ghastly, and the bar, as a consequence, ends up raising only halfway.

Much of the damage for me came from the actors. In a tale that pivots on the central love story, sparks simply fail to fly even when the camera longedly follows Dolly (Kareena’s character) running after Omkara (Devgan) in that supposed-to-be-cutey-and-teasy scene or even when Devgan is furiously necking and pecking the Kapoor lass beneath the covers. When one has a storyline with beaten to death sequences of running away with one’s lover much to one’s family’s disdain, its upto the actors to rise above the banal and deliver. While Devgan does try valiantly to look lovestruck with his beady eyes, Kareena’s just so awfully controlled and held-back, she ends up looking quite uncomfortable and out-of-place. This when really all she had to do was little more than what she did in Refugee–do the simpleton act with a dash of charm.
Both the actors pitch in awfully calculative performances, consistently oblivious to their respective characters’ spirits, and because you are never quite convinced of the characters they are playing and their feelings for each other, right from the onset you care way too less than you should about the aftermath of Omkara’s henchman plotting against his cohort using Omkara’s love as a mere tool. Still, surprisingly enough, somehow both of these performers somehow get their act together in the scene that mattered–the climax. Its about 120 minutes too late to feel for them, but the director’s really given his all to those final fifteen minutes and ends up being successful in squeezing some sympathy from cynical watchers like me for the unpredictable and shockingly brutal end to Omkara’s love story.

It must also be said that there actually are a few things which rival the boredom of watching a whole episode of Bhabhi on Star Plus. One of those is watching Bipasha Basu do a whole 7 minute jhatak-matak dance routine. And to actually survive through two such full-length songs where we have to bear her giving the whole set of adayein complete with nain-matakka from her squint is really so bad, its funny. The girl, with due respect to her miniscule acting talent, is blatantly miscast here and absolutely thanda as the UP nautch girl Billo.

Saving the day from the aforementioned three performers are the next three lead performers who bring in some credibility to the whole set-up. Konkona Sen Sharma is totally identifiable and just downright adorable as Devgan’s sister, Indu. Right from her dialect to her lived-in maternal affection for everyone around her, she’s just right. Not a single wrong note here or there, she really brings a broad smile everytime she holds the chin of the distressed characters around her and utters “hansi badi mehengi ho gayi hai aaj kal” . Thankfully, as the second half draws to a close, her character’s scope becomes bigger and bigger until the spotlight shines solely on her and Konkona’s all too glad to oblige us with some well-felt theatrics. This is the stuff real performances are made of and I am so glad that even in the company of mainstream heavyweights, Konkona’s given enough screentime to leave a lasting impression.

And then there’s Saif, who’s surprisingly convincing as Langda Tyagi. From his hilarious, expletive-filled opening sequence to the slimier-by-every-successive minute routine where he’s supposed to bitch and plot and bitch and plot and bitch some more of how Dolly’s dating Kesu Firangi, how Kesu Firangi gifted the bejeweled waistband from Omkara’s heirloom to Billo and so on and so forth, Saif pulls it off with laudable ease. Though you have seen it all in the form of Pallavis and Mandiras in saas-bahu serials, still its reasonably entertaining watching this despicable character use reverse psychology and perfect timing of letting the wrong people hear the right thing in the wrong way to his own advantage. The havoc that just this one character creates would have carried far more punch if, as I said before, I was affected by how deeply the two protagonists (Omkara and Dolly) were affected. Instead, its the collateral damage on Kesu’s and Billo’s relationship thanks to Langda again that is far more sincere even with one tenth the screentime that Vivek Oberoi [consistently enthusiastic] gets with Bipasha.

The trend of mixing something worth lauding with something worth moaning about continues behind the camera as well. While placing a Shakespeare play in the heart of small-time crook infested UP has been done as deftly as one would expect of Mr Bhardwaj (quite unlike others, being a UPite from birth, all those dialects, jokes and expletives really hit home with me), the fact that the politics and action sit very clumsily in the screenplay (atleast to me, the magnitude of Omkara’s strengths and power came across as very vague and rushed), the central love story doesn’t have its moments and things really never warm up in the first half, it does take away a lot.

While the decidedly fresh and earthy soundtrack had gems like “Namak Ishq Ka”, “O Saathi Re”, “Sabse Bade Ladaiya Re” and “Naina Thag Lenge” which literally smelt of a remote Uttar Pradesh kasba (for want of better expression) right from their sound to their lyrics, the fact that my favourite, “Naina Thag Lenge” is used way too carelessly in the movie (as a background score to Kareena’s courtship with Devgan five minutes into the movie and it doesn’t work as the mournful suggestions of suspicion and mistrust are way too early and uncalled for) and that two full-length dance routines have the most bland picturisation ever (thanks to Ms Basu), I hold a gripe here as well.

Even the cinematographer is up playing tricks with the viewer feeding our eyes with reels on reels of unstimulating imagery until the climax *SPOILER ALERT* when a lone camera capturing a newly wed bride swinging dead above the dead groom on the floor has a shock value that’s way higher on the Richter scale than the whole film combined.

To sum it all, I haven’t lost faith in the film-making skill of Vishal Bharadwaj and I sincerely hope he continues to adapt more Shakespeare plays, but doesn’t miscast the way he has with Omkara. Yes, there are emotions running the entire length of the movie, but they are nowhere quite as deep as they should have been. There’s this nagging unshruggable feeling that something really is amiss this time around and surprisingly enough its got nothing to do with the excellent plot.

Still, the film’s worth a watch once for its intricate storyline (a rarity in our films nowadays), for watching Saif and Konkona perform and for a genuinely good climactic half an hour.

Krrish : Movie Review

Krrish: **

One sole reason why I have stopped watching anything that Sanjay Gupta (Kaante, Khauff, Musafr,Zinda) dishes out is because its all blatantly ripped off Hollywood and makes a pretension for being not so by wrapping it all up with swanky music videos. Rakesh Roshan has now entered the very same frame of film-making where chunks of contemporary Hollywood blockbusters get dumbed down and concocted with absolutely nerve-grating 80s style B-grade over-the-top melodrama. But projecting it as a kiddie fare, he’d again rake in probably triple the amount of moolah he did 3 years back with Koi Mil Gaya. And then make another sequel, that’s a concoction of few more Hollywood films dumbed down. And that’s what essentially Bollywood’s come to. What hurts me even more is that the parts of Krrish that can’t be classified under plagiarism are either braindead, or yawningly predictable or so badly directed and so over-acted that one seriously doubts if Mr Roshan’s completely lost it. Yes, the very same film-maker who gave us well-directed, over-the-top but imminently watchable Khudgarz, Kala Bazaar, and Khoon Bhari Maang takes three years to make this outlandish curry of a film, which ends up tasting of nothing at all.

Case in point the film’s first half. Filled to the brim with generic, implausible Bollywood sequences, not a single one of these catches you by surprise. All the characters mouth typical Bollywood lines, do the usual expressions and you can even predict what background score will play at what time. The same silly manipulation and melodrama that keeps the saas-bahu serials TRPs stable for years–its all here, for us to bear. And by us I mean anyone who’s grown out of it. If you are still of an age running in single digits or still discovering Bollywood or suffer from amnesia or oblivious to the fact that Hollywood exists, you probably would lap this all up and deem it as the next big step in Indian cinema’s new age evolution. An opinion that, I, for my rather unfortunate visits down the local DVD library, can’t hold.

Nor can I rate Krrish higher just to applaud Mr Roshan’s effort to make India’s first superhero. Because our heroes never were anything less than superheroes. Pick up any action flick starring anyone from BigB to Mithun to Sunny Deol–they could bash up, fly, leap, jump and still manage to do cross-city runs after trains in film after film after film. So please stop this empty talk of Krrish taking Bollywood to new levels of film-making. This is old Indian wine in a rusty old barrel pasted with a new label that’s translated word-to-word from a Californian wine bottle.

Any redeeming aspects for me then? Well the SFX isn’t quite as bad or as overdone as I had thought they’d be, the toned-down Minority Report interface (added with some bizarre heart-beat scans as passwords–what the hell was that!) and conflict are palpable and Roshan Jr’s physique and agility does lend a streak of believability to almost every Matrix meets House of Flying Daggers scene. He does perform like there’s no tomorrow but its all quite a waste as all he’s really doing from the first to the last frame is trying to infuse life into horrendously written scenes and dialogues. What pains me more is that he’s one of those rare dynamic actors who are capable of giving immense depth to even the most silent scenes (watch Fiza and Lakshya) but all we get to see him do after 2 years of on-screen sabbatical is a circus routine and loud theatrics. If Johars and Chopras brought about the demise of the performer in Shahrukh, rest assured Hrithik’s creative stab will be from within his home.

The rest of the cast goes about the motions mechanically (yes, Rekha and Naseeruddin Shah are asked to do the weepy granny and evil scientist routine to the last cliche, and both of them oblige) but the one who really deserves a mention in every Krrish review is Priyanka Chopra. The mademoiselle manages to fake her way through every scene she’s in and bore us to death in the process. Granted, its a stinking Bollywood-dame routine with strikingly sudden heart changes, but there’s something called an actor’s instinct. Maybe too much to ask from an erstwhile beauty queen but didn’t anyone see the rushes or what! She really amplifies Krrish’s mediocrity as a film, and her scenes with Hrithik could really give you a frostbite. Move over Celina Jaitley, the new ice maiden is here. The soundtrack’s filled with nice vocals but the tunes are ancient. Maybe to accentuate the pretence of small-town Krrish, the songs are the way they are but for someone who couldn’t take the movie, the ditties are going to bring up all the bad memories of watching them on-screen.

As I said earlier, if masala Bollywood potboilers still set your heart racing, you’ll be in for a treat. I had to gulp down two ibuprofens to get over the headache of this three hour long ordeal.

Fanaa

A pressing question before you read the review. Do any of you actually see any images in my posts? I insert them through URLs and they show up on some computers and not on others. Please tell me if you can/can't see them to help me decide to a longer, proper method of image posting. Thanks.

Fanaa: * and 1/2

Let's fake one last hug, shall we?

 

This is exactly what happens when an otherwise decent romcom director ventures to handle complex themes of national security, terrorism and physical handicap. The royal mess that he and his braindead script-writer create hurts all the more because Aamir and Kajol are the immediate victims. And its just downright painful for an ardent 90s Bollywood fan like me, watching them lend meaning to utterly spineless characters and B-grade Bollywood sequences.

The real reciever of all the brickbats should be Kunal Kohli, the director. Not a single honest, unseen moment in the whole frig*ing film. Now that's a feat. Neither is there even a remotest sense of plausibility in how the blind girl falls for the first guy she meets in the city (a tour guide who keeps on dropping not-so-subtle hints about having a penchant to bang girls and move on) nor is there any sense of thrill or dread in the army espionage bits. Jumping from one banal filmi sequence to the other, the film reaches a godawfully predictable finale, which is dealt so immaturely and shoddily you really wish you hadn't bothered spending £8 on this crap.

Seems like no critic can gush enough about Kajol's performance, but to be honest, she's woefully miscast. Kunal Kohli is no Prakash Jha or Aditya Chopra who can carve out the quieter nuances of Kads' head-strong wizened persona (remember Dil Kya Kare and DDLJ?) which means she ends up looking very lost mouthing corny dialogues and Urdu shero-shayari. All through the 90s, her contemporaries like Madhuri and Juhi played far more unbelievable characters in the trashiest of movies but with a zing that won us over. Why we loved Kajol back then was for her girl-next-door, urbane, natural charm and wit she lent to all her characters– and that is really where her range as an actor ended (watch K3G or Hamara Dil Aapke Paas Hai for proof). As the still-wet-behind-the-ears town virgin belle, neither has she gone that extra mile to make Zooni Ali Beg stand out from the plethora of characters she's played on-screen already (even Preity-with her cosmopolitan looks-managed to pull off Kashmiri girl characters in Hero and Mission Kashmir far more admirably) nor are there ANY sequences that'd bring out something unseen from her–making her comeback quite forgettable.

She has tried, oh yes she has, but in a film as unbelievable and trashy as this, one needed a far more dynamic actor to transcend the audience's disbelief. Watching her do the typical Bollywood heroine routine in Fanaa is just a bit… boring.

But mark my words, she'd be up there at the Filmfare Best Actress slugging it out with far more accomplished performances and who knows, might even manage to grab some more undeserving trophies.

Aamir's in for an even more lifeless character (something which'd have been lapped up by Anil Kapoor or Sunny Deol 5-6 years back) and it is such an apathetically sketched cut-out that even his Raja Hindustani would anyday be more identifiable. Rishi Kapoor's the only actor with some graph in the character while the rest oblige with their generic Bollywood sidekick/innocuous-hammy child routine. Tabu manages to turn in a below average performance (maybe they gave her the script after she'd signed on the dotted line… its a Yashraj venture after all!)

Granted, the idea wasn't to create something street smart but all the shero-shayari and the self-congratulatory background score after every "sher" that Aamir cracks on the spot makes your nerves grate. Mothers saying goodbyes to their daughters with advice like "tere dil mein meri saanson ko panaah mil jaaye, tere ishq mein meri jaan fanaa ho jaaye" (an answer to what if the blind daughter finds the man she loves) are unintentionally funny.

Unlike what I've read elsewhere, there's no sense of place at all. There isn't a single person except the actors populating the screen for the whole of second half (apparently, to get around this, an excuse of a snow-storm is in place) , its all too isolated and lifeless to transport the viewer to anywhere. Maybe it was a conscious decision to focus on the characters, but who'd give a toss for these done-to-death Bollywood versions of "real" people? I wouldn't and I didn't. The action scenes are probably there for comic relief and sure enough, each of them will have you rolling with laughter. There's also an attempt to comment on the Kashmiris and nuclear missiles which makes even Veer Zaara's in-your-face banter on Hindustan-Pakistan bhai bhai seem intellectual.

If there really is any respite, its for 5 whole minutes of a ditty "Mere Haath Mein". A superb haunting rendition by Sonu-Sunidhi is brought to life by some amazing cinematography and a duskily lit-and-made up Kajol (finally someone manages to shoot her more beautifully than in Suraj Hua Maddham). The song's shot with passion and instinct- two words that sadly can't be used for the rest of the 130 or so running minutes.

Please avoid this de-caffeinated, tasteless concoction of Satya meets Hero meets 80s Bollywood melodrama. Its kitsch of the most inferior variety.
More to come,

Cheers!

Film-watching 2006 (2)

Taken me ages to write another one of these collection of short reviews, but having finally done with it, feels great. So here they are…

Crash (2005): ****

Its hard to point at, but definitely something bad inside you dies everytime you watch Crash. Quite a thing to say for a movie as exaggerated and as cynical of people as this is. But what the director doesn’t forget in the process is, to pay a homage to humanity. We as humans are capable of doing some of the nastiest crimes, utter some of the harshest words and yet its the same us who do the kindest and the most charitable of deeds without as much a shrug. Its one befuddling contradiction-one that can’t be resolved by any amount of debate. Is it the circumstances? The people around us? The genes? Or the upbringing? Crash tries valiantly to capture this contradiction in a microcosm of a racist LA, and succeeds.

If ever there was a book published called “The Encyclopaedia of Racism”, even that would have found itself wanting of content and emotion in front of this 110 minute video crash course. Boasting of a screenplay that’s written solely to focus on nothing but racism, the film captures almost everything–from confused communication and everyday stereotyping to victimisation in a criss-cross tale of 15 characters who experience everything from bitterness to fear to paranoia to relief thanks to each other in a span of two days in the chaotic racism-infested LA. Or so Paul Haggis would have us believe.

Its a daring attempt at film-making, but one that really leaves one wanting for more. The characters and the situations they find themselves in, despite the criminally short time-frame awarded, are real and raw with a capital R. To boot the awesome concept and direction are the realistic dialogues and an unforgettably moving background score which transports the viewer into the pain and anguish unfolding on-screen, minutes into the movie. The cascade of situations where each of them “crash” into each other brings about some of the most viscerally gut-wrenching yet totally identifiable sequences ever seen on the silver screen. When one sees a racist cop molesting a decent black woman and the same cop saving her life hours after that, its an eye-full sight of irony and humanity. Ditto when one sees a Persian shopkeeper shooting at a Hispanic locksmith and the latter’s daughter leaping that very instant on to her father, or when an otherwise cold and vexed wife of the District Attorney hugs her housemaker–possibly some of the most uplifting scenes you’ll ever see.

A deeper look and one realises that none of the sequences in this collage of a movie are there for their sentimentality value alone. Like the scene where a young cop ends up killing a black guy even though minutes ago you saw him getting disgusted over his racist partner who molested a black woman for no reason. Its a powerful scene where you, the audience, is as shocked as the shooter and the realisation of racism running unconsciously through one’s psyche is laid bare in just a few seconds of a lone close-up shot. Crash has a liberal dose of such intelligently crafted scenes yet not for a single second one’s aware of the manipulation thanks to the emotional punch the film carries from the opening shot right to the credits.

The picture just wouldn’t be complete without a mention of the splendid work each and every actor has pitched in. Towering above them all though, for me, was Sandra Bullock whose 15 or so minutes as the perennially irritated and pampered Jean in the movie filled me with so much respect for the performer in her that no amount of Miss Congenialities, Speeds and Two Weeks Notices could ever have. Thandie Newton, Matt Dillon, Ryan Phillippe and Terrence Howard are all in full form, each stamping their presence on every second of their screen time, yet managing to remain true to their characters. For eye candy, there’s Jennifer Esposito as possibly one of the most drop-dead gorgeous female cops EVER and for humour, there’s the rapper Ludacris babbling on about how buses have big windows so white people could smirk at the coloured people travelling in them and how its more respectable to loot a white man rather than a “nigger”.

Cerebral and emotional, topical and jaw-droppingly original, this Racism for Dummies is one “crash” course you can’t afford to miss.

Wallace and Gromit in the Curse of the Were Rabbit (2005): ** and 1/2

For the team that gave us the awesome Chicken Run five years ago, this new kiddie fest telling yet another fable of a braindead inventor and his dumb hound is a disappointment. Unlocking the mystery of the monster behind the local village’s garden destruction, the film packs in as much humour and action as an episode of Teletubbies. What saves the day however is the character of sensible Gromit whose mouthless face with nothing but the huge button eyes to express is a visual treat. Watching him head-slap, frown, roll his eyes, arch his eyebrows and getting doe-eyed is the sole reason why you don’t press the black square on your remote 30 minutes into the film. Then there’s the claymation. The ample usage of “real” objects means watching even mundane stuff like vegetables getting pulped out is quite cute. And there’s seemingly an awful lot of effort to make every character, every artifact look just that- cute in a made-from-dough, pinch-and-dent-me way. A shame then, that there just isn’t enough content to justify all the painstaking effort put in the visuals. The film just doesn’t pick up, the tired dialogue just doesn’t have that crackling British wit and except for a few puns and innuendoes here and there, it all ends with a funny but decidedly average showdown. Watch-it-and-forget-it affair!

Chicken Little (2005): ***

With every critic panning it left, right and centre this short and cute 3D animation came as a cute surprise. It packs in a lot of old-world cheese and charm reminiscent of Disney together with the wit more at home with today’s CGI animations. And it manages to do both of this, in style. If you are into contemporary Hollywood, there’s simply no way you can miss out on the terrific spoofs on almost every modern-day alien-invasion blockbusters. The best part is they never stop coming. From Signs to War of the Worlds, the chicken here loves to poke at everything alien. Even otherwise, if you look beyond what is essentially a non-stop spoof collection, the story of a chicken out on a rescue mission alongwith 3 (too cute and) nutty friends manages to grip you. Alien-invasion is new ground for CGI animation anyways and its good to see the cutie-fluffy things doing exactly what they should be doing with the genre–having fun. Just watching them playing baseball, dealing with pieces of sky falling, getting abducted by aliens, rescuing each other… its a non-stop roller-coaster that had me in splits every second minute.

Except for some cheesy, Disney moments when the chicken who everyone, even his dad, love to not believe in takes the centrestage (In true Disney fashion there’s also a song with a sulky chicken little roaming everywhere). So yea, if you are anywhere in double digit age, this redemption angle isn’t something that’ll choke you, but other than that its an hour and a quarter of fun you wouldn’t mind having.

Enigma (1999): ** and 1/2

Another of those movies that I always found on the library shelves staring at me but just couldn’t be bothered to pick up. Am a self-confessed hater of everything historical, but with so many copies on the shelves, so many fiesty Kate Winslets staring at me, no sir, I couldn’t help having a peek at it. The conclusion then–its not a bad film by any stretch of imagination. But neither isn’t a very good one. Set in a British code-breaking center circa 1943, i.e. the Second World War and following an intelligent genius (employed to break the then suddenly-changed Enigma code used by the Nazi U-boats) whose lady love has suddenly vanished, its a tale with a good enough sweep of espionage and codes in that era. But that’s a given as its adapted from the famous Robert Harris’ book. What’s worrying is that all the characters are flat. The cliched love triangle enmeshed with the history (which by the way, is grossly inaccurate anyway) is a yawn really and there really aren’t any “real” surprises in-store. What saves the day however is the awesome Winslet whose enthusiasm to go beyond the sketchy character and infuse humour doesn’t go waste. No, she isn’t the fiesty lady that’s pasted on the DVD cover, but a fat, geeky sidekick of a ball who lights up the screen everytime she enters.

Sideways (2004): *

Yet another film I was gutted to hate. And indeed, I actually ended up hating it. Alexander Payne is like the most unbelievably overhyped contemporary film-makers who, sadly the whole media is hell-bent to profess as the next best thing today to Charlie Kauffman. The sadder part, however, is that the movies he makes aren’t even average. They are crap. About Schmidt was crap. Sideways is a truckload of that, and more.

I wouldn’t have bothered rating or reviewing it, but because I knew what was coming thanks to About Schmidt, the film became bearable enough to watch. Its fun when you watch a movie only to tick away everything you don’t expect it to be. Like I didn’t expect it to be a realistic tragicomedy revolving around two men in mid-life crisis. And it wasn’t. I didn’t expect it to be even remotely as funny or remotely as profound as its projected out to be (the DVD cover is slapped with countless 5 stars by acclaimed newspaper critics, who should really be kicked hard, shot dead and have publicists written in their obituaries). And it wasn’t. I didn’t expect it to tell anything substantial in the two long hours it ran for. And it didn’t. You see the trend here? There’s a difference though. Just when you think the director couldn’t have done any worse than About Schmidt you are greeted with utterly stupid and done-to-death sequences. Like the car in which the two lead guys travel is purposely banged into a tree to cover up one of the guy’s bandaged nose (which apparently is a gift of this Asian girl who he was f*cking hard for days and who found out about his engagement).

The only really “funny” bit in the movie is sex. There are some very un-appetising sights of ungainly obese people having sex, of dialogues like “spank me hard”, of nude men running behind guys who banged their wives last night. And then there’s this bit about wine, which for those who care to listen, is some sound advice on Pinots and Cabernets and Merlots, which is the only reason I gave the movie a star. So, that’s really Sideways has on offer.. some juvenile sex humour and some “Wine-drinking for idiots”. Any takers?

Cypher (2002): *** and 1/2

Apparently, if you swear by sci-fi and you haven’t heard of Vicenzo Natali, you should hang yourself. Now. Or rush to the nearest DVD store to rent this movie. Exactly what I did. And boy, what a treat. Watching this is like playing Sudoku. The twists, the turns, the thrill, the revelations—the film hits you hard every 15 minutes. Although the premise of an unsuspecting man finding himself amidst the labyrinth of corporate espionage in his new job isn’t something that’ll set your heart racing, but slide in the DVD and get ready to be puzzled, re-puzzled, re-re-puzzled and then un-puzzled in the climax.

Its smart as hell, but sadly not swanky enough. Because Vicenzo Natali is no Spielberg, the production values are a bit naff. Though the camera angles and close-up shots are intelligently chosen to mask the tackiness, its still visible. The good news is that the terrific script and brilliant acting (Jeremy Northam and Lucy Liu) are enough to forget about the visual hiccups. Fiendishly clever, this futuristic thriller is right up there with the Minority Report.

Maybe Baby (2000): ** and 1/2

Directed by the famous author, Ben Elton, this is a small British film about a couple who are trying their hardest to conceive a child with the husband also going through a writer’s block (a pain when you have to submit a fresh script to the BBC). In true British fashion, the dialogues and the acting is excellent throughout. Its the terrific, smooth verbal acrobatics that separates a good British comedy from a nasal American one (ouch! that hurt, didn’t it?!) and Maybe Baby is good proof of that. Again, not a modern day classic, but a harmless, little film chronicling a struggling couple in a tragicomedy format, and excelling in that. The climax isn’t exactly how you’d expect a typical romcom to end, but that’s where the charm of this film is.

Some Bollywood, for a change:

Rang De Basanti (2006): **

There are some bad films for which I just can’t give a cold shoulder and huff the whole experience all away with a wave of my hand. And that’s because I am bloody p*ssed off with the film-maker. Exactly what was he thinking when he wrote the final 20 minutes of this movie. For the uninitiated, it sports of a braindead climax where four modern-day guys bump off the country’s defence minister after their friend crashes alongwith his MIG aircraft (fitted with cheap spares thanks to corruption in fund allocation etc for which the minister is held responsible). The hot-blooded quad then surrenders in a radio-station where they all get brutally shot and bombed at by a police force behaving more like some counter-terrorist unit. And then comes the absolute disgrace- the film-maker goes in a self congratulatory mode and we see TV stations playing messages of “inspired” youth. He wants the audience to believe that some kind of revolution has been started. Given the success of the movie and the moolah its raking, the audience has taken the bait and everyone’s coming out of the cinema, adrenalin-filled, ready to kick some ass. Almost everyone seems swept by the idea of making the corrupt politicians stand in a line and shoot them, stab them, smack them, slap them.

I won’t start a monologue here on how things work in real life, and how worrying it is when I switch on the TV and see young kids coming out of cinemas playing RDB and shouting at the Star News camera how “cool” DJ was in killing a minister, but what I can’t help and ask is whether this film even deserved to be made? I mean, for sure, adults can see through the whole allegorical sham of killing, but what about the young teenagers?

What’s more worrying is that the film’s a big hit. And why not–its shot stylishly, it had the most hummable music, some terrific acting, fairly relatable urban characters (don’t we just love them since DCH) and some really good flitting between past and present. All of which sucks you into the on-goings so badly that when the godawful climax plays, you are bound to justify the heinous crime the lead males commit. And don’t even get me started on the parallel that the writers create of this dumb and frivolous mini-gang with the likes of Bhagat Singh and Rajguru. You continue to applaud the fantastic cinematography of the scenes of the bygone era and how neatly they sweep through the numerous events until it slowly dawns that something more shameful is about to unfold on screen. And it does. The readers who have seen the movie know what I am talking about. The climax is just bizarre. More bizarre than Rakesh Mehra’s whole of last film (Aks) put together. But then for someone who made Aks, its not a surprise that this is his idea of New-age patriotism. What’s really upsetting is someone as intelligent and as perceptive as Aamir Khan being a part of this mess.

As for me, I’d rather re-watch a Swades, a Yuva or even a Nayak than coming anywhere near this ideologically flawed (for want of more demeaning words) and repulsively stupid film.

Phew… this is turning out to be one monster post. I guess I’ll save up the rest of my mini-ops for the next batch.

Black

One of my all-time favourite movies reviewed originally for dogmatrix.com. Read on:

Black (2005):*****

45 minutes. Yes, you heard it damn right. For the final 45 minutes continuously, I found myself sitting in the darkness of the cinema and weeping like a 2 year old. Truth be told, good scenes and honest cinematic moments have worked my tear-glands for 5-10 minutes in the past, but 45 minutes! As scene after scene of this unabashedly moving motion picture flowed on screen, so did my tears. If this isn’t proof enough of how emotionally potent Black is, I wonder what could be.

A memoir of an Anglo-Indian deaf-and-blind Michelle McNally (Rani Mukherjee) which commences in her frustrated, violent childhood (as young Ayesha Kapur) that is reformed by a teacher Debraj Sahai (Amitabh Bachchan) who himself gets inflicted by Alzhiemer’s later; this haunting and emotionally intense tale’s effect should be seen to be felt.

Singling out the best scenes of the enterprise would be both unnecessary and unfair as this amazingly edited film is chockfull of never-seen-before scenes in undiluted continuum. But commit this sin of singling the scenes I will, because this review would be so incomplete without them (Spoilers abound aplenty, so those haven’t yet seen the film, stop NOW).

~~The Moments~~

In approximate chronological order, Debraj being told by Mrs Nair to go to McNally house to teach Michelle is the first memorable sequence just for its sheer tongue-in-cheek nature as Debraj translates Mrs Nair’s words in sign language, with hilarious effects. When the lady tells him to stop his sign-language bull-shit, he even contorts his hands to show a bull shitting! Marvellously canned. In the same scene, Debraj realising the irony of his job as a deaf-n-blind teacher (his students waved him goodbye looking in the opposite direction when he gets kicked out of the school for being a drunkard) is heart-rending.

The violence, the power and the energy of the young Michelle is so over-powering on screen, its haunting. Each of the scenes… where she pukes rice on Debraj’s face after being forced to eat calmly at the dining, where she kicks him hard and grabs the cake, tears it like sponge and gorges on it like some beast—the animalistic trait is so effectively captured by the young actor’s (Ayesha Kapur’s) squinting eyes, Debraj’s struggle, the dark-light frantic play of the camera and genuinely chilling background music that witnessing young Michelle finally eating calmly makes you heave a big sigh of relief.

The whole of first half is dedicated to young Michelle learning the connection between words and their meaning, and just before the lights go up to mark the intermission, the impossible happens—she learns the first meaningful word–water. In the very next scene, the way this girl runs around feeling the grass, the flowers, her mother, her dad and finally her teacher is the moment where I personally wanted to jump and scream out aloud (the impact of the emotions in this scene is overwhelming) and at the same time get a strange cognizance of the sheer limitlessness of the world around me.

I guess, it is somewhere here that the viewer develops a very strong affinity for all of the film’s characters and from here on, one winces every time Michelle fails her first graduating year, one aches to hold her and hug her as she phones her mom and struggles to utter “Ma Fail” and one wants to kick her sister Sara for being so evil to Michelle. Every struggle, every victory, every failure of the characters become your struggle, victory and failure. You feel their pain, their glee, their gloom… seldom have I come so close to a film’s characters.

The second half touches another pinnacle of raw emotion with Michelle continuously failing her graduation (the fact that you see Debraj and Michelle working hard through all the texts pronounces the disappointment even more). The scene where she’s made to realise that she’ll remain physically alone by her sister and being told to behave at the latter’s engagement dinner is another memorable scene. Rani’s expressions as she stares empty-eyed into the mirror are piece-de-resistance… her very look makes you wonder aloud if such a pure, innocent person ever deserved the harsh treatment. The very next scene where Sara reveals how in her own small ways, she always succeeded in torturing Michelle and Michelle’s outburst thereafter hits you hard as Debraj reads out Michelle’s small, loving speech for Sara. The beauty of the scene is – one empathises with both Michelle and Sara – innocent victims of sibling rivalry.

The last two sequences I’d love to pen down are where Michelle asks Debraj to kiss her once for he’s as close as she’d ever come to a man (watching Rani going all flaccid and falling back in the chair with a loud sigh before Amitabh kisses her is one helluva cinematic moment!) and where she stands in the hospital ward all decked up in her graduation gown as Debraj, an Alzheimer’s patient, tries to remember Michelle (Rani’s graduation speech and watching Amitabh as he feels the cape n the cap of Rani is a gem and makes one’s belief ever so strong that the film’s got a heart).

~~The Players~~

Like candles in a room burning the wax and spreading light, each of the performers in Black burn in their characters spreading raw emotion. Each shine with his own brilliance and in doing so, complements the brilliance of others.

If there’s anything eluding the status of “legend” to Rani Mukherji, Black is going to make sure its removed and she gets it much before any Indian actress ever did. The Bengali lass goes from strength to strength in every passing frame and is excellent throughout. That staring-in-space gaze (no, I can’t get that look out of my head) , those few words she utters with immense difficulty (“Ma Pass”, “Ma Fail”), the loud throaty sighs when she’s uttering her words, fuming or is excited; her reactions to the world around her (besides the above sequences, watch out for scenes where she learns walking with a stick, or bumps into a candelabrum-fells down and laughs at herself), and that daffy-duck walk… Rani’s made Michelle timeless.

I so dreaded coming to this part of the review as I am at utter loss of words for Amitabh Bachchan’s performance. Let’s not call it a performance to make my job easier. He’s reacted (not acted) all through like Debraj Sahai would. That pain in the bloodshot eyes, that energy in the animated hands, and that fatherly concern in the baritone… its all there to watch and relish. Though it’s surprising how someone so intellectually stimulating could develop Alzheimer’s but when Debraj does develop it, an emptiness envelopes you, the viewer. As the camera pitilessly captures the I-don’t-know-what-you-are-talking-about look on Amitabh’s face time and again, one’s moved beyond words. Its such a towering performance, I doubt whether BigB himself would ever better it.

Criminal it would be to not appreciate the quality of work that Shernaz Patel (watch the lady weep on realising her baby Michelle is deaf-n-blind and when Michelle learns her first word), Nandana Sen (as Michelle’s sis, Sara– she’s one of the reasons why the engagement sequence is memorable) and most importantly Ayesha Kapur (as the young, violent Michelle) have put in and who together with the efficient supporting cast make Black an intense experience.

At times reminding one of Devdas’s theme, Monty’s background score is an ace and the composer’s ability to carefully dissect every moment and inject a bang there and a tinkle there takes Black’s sequences to new levels. The film’s theme carries as much soul and emotional weight as the film’s story. And so does the visuals. The constant black-white play of the light and the sets, the visual metaphors which are abundant all through (cold, snowing exteriors and warm, oak-wood interiors of McNally House), the leisurely camera “watching” the life of Michelle from hidden angles only seldom going into “celebratory” mode (there’s the Bhansali favourite overhead shot where the camera rotates above the dining table as everyone raises a toast to Sara’s engagement and as it “flies” away into the whiteness towards the climax with Michelle-Debraj feeling water) and the wonderfully crafted out McNally House (its dark and opulent yet never overbearing or distracting). The difficult-to-place geography and ethnicity of the performers, contrary to what I read elsewhere, go that extra mile to make Black a universal venture.

Very snappy editing further polishes Black and in fact sometimes the scissors being run are so sharp, the film resembles a collage of images played in quick succession (the scene where Michelle finds Debraj tied to a bedpost with metal chains— one shot sees her struggling to free Debraj and screaming. Cut to next one—she’s walking with the chains down the corridor. The effect of editing makes this otherwise gut-wrenching sequence bitter-sweet). At 120 minutes long, there isn’t a single wasted scene, a single ill-chosen sub-plot or sequence… every scene is momentous, every character in very moment present for a reason. There’s little relief from the dramatic sequences in the 2nd half and coupled with the sympathetic tone that the film possesses all through, it makes it extremely difficult to sit-through the screening dry-eyed.

Everything kept aside, if there’s a man who deserves a bow from the viewers, its Sanjay Leela Bhansali who weaves this powerful tale with such astute precision both aesthetically and emotionally, that its doubtful if Black actually came out of Bollywood. There’s so much implosion of pain on screen in the film to take in for the senses, its overwhelming. If the man took everyone’s breaths away with his craftsmanship in Devdas, he does that again with his storytelling in Black.

Hope after watching this film, the so-called bigwigs and showmans of the industry sit-up and realise what’s cinema actually all about and what tosh they have been dishing out in the name of cinema in the past years. 2005’s already turned a vintage year for Bollywood with Black’s release– hope there are more such honest, heart-rending films from the world of Indian cinema.

Even as I wrap up this critique, I can’t help but wonder if there’d be anything as rich, as warm and as wise as Black this year, or for that matter the coming years (yep, call me a big pessimist you can). Seeing the immensely lovable characters struggle through their darkness and finally finding light—this is cinema at its best. Played beautifully, its combination of gentle realism in the dark worlds of mentally and physically disabled people makes for what is essentially a modern day masterpiece. A masterpiece just as dark, warm and magnetic as the colour BLACK.