KAUFMAN - "Or cramming in sex, or car chases, or guns. Or characters learning profound life lessons. Or characters growing or characters changing or characters learning to like each other or characters overcoming obstacles to succeed in the end. Y'know ? Movie shit."
Kaufman is sweating like crazy now. Valerie is quiet for a moment - from "Adaptation".
We are all about CINEMA. That movie shit.
NOTHING is sacred.
NOBODY is spared.
Because we talk about films, dammit.
Not your sex life.
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After working in the television industry for about 15 years in various capacities, Rony D’Costa decided to quit it all and pursue happiness. He generally finds it in dark theatres or under the open sky and write about those adventures here and here. Here’s Rony’s recco post on the marathi film Masala.
“Do you do this for your own happiness?”, when this question is asked to the character played by Dilip Prabhvalkar, a scientist experimenting to create bio fuel, he says, “mi anadasaati kaahich karat naahi. Ananddaani karto”. Loosely translated as, “I don’t do things for happiness. I do it with happiness”. Sandesh Kulkarni’s Masala is filled with such gems of wisdom and is casually thrown in scene after scene by characters straight out of Malgudi Days. It almost works like a self-help movie for entrepreneurs without any high-handed preaching. No wonder then that it reminded me of ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’.
Revan(Girish Kulkarni) and his wife Sarika(Amruta Subhash) keep shuttling from one village to another hiding away from creditors. Not because they are dishonest people but, as it’s shown in one scene, they are more worried about the problems of the people who owe them money. From one failed business to another one quietly supported by his wife, Revan reaches Solapur where he meets Sarika’s long lost cousin (Hrishikesh Joshi) and his wife (Sneha Majgaonkar). Thus begins Revan’s encounters with some crazy, quirky and eccentric characters who ultimately become his family.
The film is not in a hurry to reach its destination. It doesn’t even care about the plot much and to go by traditional rule book, it’s devoid of any conflict too. Debutant director Sandesh Kulkarni invests all the screen time in his characters and their bittersweet life. It works like a Hrishikesh Mukherjee film as Girish Kulkarni’s writing is simple and effective and never resorts to melodrama to make a point. Like RajKumar Hirani’s films, this one also chooses to look at the goodness in human beings, so none of the characters have any shades of black.
I strongly feel that Masala should be made compulsory viewing in business schools and can work as an anti-depressant for people who have given up on their dreams. It also reminded me of ‘The Alchemist’ in the way it talks about finding the treasure within you. Add to that the lilting background score which makes its presence felt only if you choose to focus on it. On acting front, Girish Kulkarni plays the role of Revan with the right amount of innocence and Amruta Subhash ably supports him with the silent portrayal of her character. Hrishikesh Joshi’s character is one of my favorites in the film and Sneha Majgaonkar, who makes her debut with this film, has an infectious smile. I loved the scene in which she tells Sarika about her husband’s problems with a smile on her face as if she is praising him.
It also has one of the most romantic scenes I have seen on the big screen in recent times. The scene when Sarika has to take her husband’s name in the form of an Ukhane (a Marathi custom in which the wife takes her husband’s name in the form of couplets).
The film is loosely based on the life story of Hukmichand Chordia of Pravin Masalewale fame. It looks at their struggle in a lighter vein and with the rose-tinted glasses. The next time I look at a packet of Pravin Masala, scenes from this film will start floating in my head.
We first heard about Baboo Band Baaja when it bagged three national awards – for Best First Film of a Director, Best Actress and Best Child Artist. The film has been ready for quite sometime and it finally released last friday. Some of the theatres are screening the film with subtitles. Here’s Mohit Patil‘s recco post for the film.
This is Mohit‘s first post here. When he isn’t busy attending engineering college, he worships Kaufman, Bhardwaj and Scorsese.In the very first scene in director Rajesh Pinjani’s Baboo Band Baaja, we are given a glimpse of the life led by Baboo (played brilliantly by Vivek Chabukswar) – that his family must bank on the deaths/births happening in their village in order to make a living. His father Jaggya (Milind Shinde) is a band player. Once a band party owner, he now earns a (rather lumpish) living by playing at modest wedding processions and cortegès. His mother Shirmi (Mitali Jagtap) works as a Bohareen – selling utensils in exchange for old, used garments. The story begins as Baboo finds his rucksack missing, and so does an endless struggle of this family to change things.
Jaggya wants Baboo to become a band member like him. The reason for this call isn’t a father wanting to see his son to be like him, but his presumption that there is no other way out. “We villagers are in no way helped by the technological advancements,” he argues, “All that has changed is the number of airplanes flying above our heads”. Throughout the film, we see his mother as a heterodox in a comparatively orthodoxical society. She wants to educate her son and goes to great lengths to earn money to buy books for Baboo, whose school master won’t allow him in without books and uniform. She’s elated when she gets a pair of khaki shorts in exchange for a larger vessel, which can be used as her son’s school uniform. And she is enraged when she discovers that the reason for her husband’s anger is the fact that Baboo has lost his rattle and not that he has lost his school bag.
One of the film’s biggest triumphs is that it sticks to its business and tells the story of the family’s endeavor with great simplicity and without diverting its focus towards “shocking the viewer with the appalling reality…” etc. I did find the emotions exaggerated at places with the lurid low angle shots of the school master punishing Baboo or the histrionics of the wily politician, and wished it weren’t as overstated, but it all works nevertheless.
Another very impressive thing about Baboo Band Baaja is that it has a very keen eye for detail. Not a single thing here seems unauthentic or out-of-place. Especially, the language used here, is pure gold. If you couldn’t buy the Hindi speaking characters in some of our recent urban rom-coms, or the characters not referring to Mumbai as Bombay or Bambai in Dhobi Ghat, you are bound to be more than satisfied with the language and the actors’ inch perfect dialect here. The instruments that the bandwallahs play in the film, the songs that they play, selecting the dress code for the grand wedding they are appointed for, the astute observations about the local life in Vidarbha… Discovering these rural life vignettes first hand is pure joy, so I’d rather not spoil it for you.
The characters are very well written, and the actors who play them are terrific for the most part, save for the school teacher who is baselessly portrayed as an evil baddie, as opposed to someone who is just doing his job. Watch Mitali Jagtap and Vivek Chabukswar speak through their eyes in one of the best moments in the film; the scene which has hardly any dialogue, in which Shirmi readies Baboo for school.
<Mild spoilers>
The film uses all its subplots, which rather smartly towards the culmination. There is metrical dichotomy in the way things fall back into place towards the end. The beautiful symmetry between the first and the last scene of the film more than made up for my feeling of redundancy after the final blow.
<Spoilers end>
Baboo Band Baaja is a simple, heartfelt story of what appears to be parents’ struggle to make things better, and turns into something so painful, it takes a piece of your heart.
Times of India’s film critic Srijana Mitra Das has given 4 stars to Sajid Khan’s Housefull2. Who is this enlightened soul? Someone please introduce us to him/her. Seems like a bong. And a bong with such unique taste in cinema must belong to some rare tribe. Anyway, if the 4 stars weren’t baffling eough, there’s more to the story. Take a look at this pic.
This is the Bangalore edition of TOI. Have taken a screengrab of the review page. Reviewer is the same Srijana Mitra Das and rating is 4 stars. Now take a look at this next pic.
This screengrab is from the Chennai edition of TOI. Again, reviewer is the same Srijana Mitra Das. But the rating is 2.5 stars. Who ate up my 1.5 stars?
Same film, same reviewer, same newspaper but two editions and two different ratings.
WTF!
Who writes the reviews? Who gives the ratings? Does Srijan Mitra Das really exist?
Two weeks after its release, trade analysts have announced that it’s a flop. Even critics didn’t like it. Most rated it either 2 or 2.5 stars. I have always believed that hit or flop doesn’t matter much. As long as you deliver a good film, you will always get a chance to make few more. Imtiaz, Dibakar, Anurag, Sriram – all belong to the same club. Their debut film hardly made any money. Paanch didn’t even reach the theaters. Nobody saw Socha Na Tha when it released. And Khosla Ka Ghosla was almost in the coffin before it got a new life.
I remember talking to Sriram after the release of Johnny Gaddar. Trade analysts had already given a Flop tag to it. He said, in the last four-five days Neil (Nitin Mukesh) has got about 30 offers and nine people have called me asking me to make films. If this is flop, then we want more flops like that.
And that’s what i meant by delivering a good film.
For many of us, Agent Vinod was one of the most anticipated film of the year. You can put some of the blame on burden of expectations. But if we can’t expect a good film from Sriram, then where do you go? With Ek Haseena This and Johnny Gaddar, it was easy to spot the distinct directorial stamp of Raghavan and a taste for thriller stories with some priceless quirks, kinks and bit of nostalgia. So what went wrong with Agent Vinod?
Anyone who knows Sriram Raghavan (SR), can tell you how much effort he puts in his films. The number of rewrites he does and how he is never satisfied. When it comes to making movies, you can never doubt the man’s intention and integrity. So when John Abraham and Aishwarya Rai were ready to do a film with him, and he said he doesn’t have a script ready yet, the industry was surprised. You have the stars and you don’t have the script? Nobody had heard that excuse before. You don’t need a script when you have stars. Let the stars say yes and you can fill 120 pages in 2 hours – that’s the norm here.
Thanks to some good souls, i had managed to read the script of Agent Vinod much before i saw the film. My initial reaction was it’s great fun. Starts with a bang. But bit ambitious and all over the place.
My reaction after the film – where’s all the fun gone? Some good stuff in bits and pieces. It started with a bang but not the one i saw when i read the script. Except for that opening scene, it never “plunges in”. Ambitious and really all over the place. And at a time when we are so used to that adrenaline rush with Bond, Bourne and Ethan Hunt, Vinod seems to be just a freshman out of college.
Agent Vinod packed in too much but it offered too little.
Excess is the reason, i believe. Too many places, too many characters, too many locations, too long, too hotchpotch and too little payoff. And it’s over-written. But that’s not the only reason. Let me rewind and go back to the script and film again.
—> Tone/treatment – That was my biggest issue with the film. I could not make out whether it wanted me to take it like a comic book Bond film or a realistic setting like a Bourne one. The mash-up just didn’t work. Baradwaj Rangan has written about the same in his review. Click here to read. But while reading the script, it seemed completely serious.
—-> Villains – How can you take Prem Chopra, Gulshan Grover or Ram Kapoor seriously? Really? They are so overexposed and are part of the pop-culture now where they exist as characters and not actors. That’s one of the reasons why Adil Hussain works much better compared to others as he is not exposed in the mainstream space. And please don’t dare to cast Dhirtiman Chatterjee as the main villain after Kahaani and AV. You will see him and you get the drift.
—–> Thrill Pill – Now that i look back i don’t remember any sequence that gave me any kind of adrenaline rush. The opening sequence was good, raabta as a single shot sequence and the intercut between Vinod and Prince’s fight in Morocco & Chennai had a stamp of brilliance. But when i have seen Ethan Hunt’s stunt on Burj Khalifa, i have tasted blood. Though the script mentions many action sequences from various films for reference purpose, it hardly manages to create anything similar on screen.
—–> The Big Picture – While discussing the film, a friend suddenly asked, so what was that killing of the man while he was jogging? Remember? Who was he? Even i was lost. Just could not figure it out. What was the connect? Then i came back and went through the script and i realised that Jimmy kills him and takes his identity – Dr Suresh Krishna who works with UN, so that nobody will doubt him. Is there anything else am i missing? If not, do you really need the track? Suppose Adil handed an id to Jimmy saying, you are now blah blah, we would have blindly accepted it. When they have such a huge racket, we will accept whatever is said. Same goes for the entire sequence between Kareena and the Airport officer which i thought was a complete waste. Meeting him, going out with him, spending time with him, going to that hotel and doing the dance number. Ok, some dose of nostalgic fun with o meri jaana maine kaha. But if you remove the entire sequence and we see Adil handing over the airport security card saying this is for your entrance, we would have believed that also. (Strangely Rangan mentions the airport officer as a goon in his review 😉 ) Interestingly, Raghavan connected many small dots together (Remember the camel? I thought why? And then the password) but when you see the big picture, do these two sequences really matter? They seem unnecessary which eats up precious screen time. And there are few more like that which could have been edited out to make the film shorter. What it needed was some ruthless editing on paper.
—-> Such A Long Journey – For everything where it was possible to go directly from A to V, Raghavan goes from A to Z to P to M to B to few more destinations before he reaches V. And just for the sake of it. Sometimes the journey is fun but it gets tiring and boring after a point. Like i remember Raghavan talking about the sequence in Russia. He said he wanted snow in the coffin and he got that. But do you remember what was that sequence for? Try.
In the end, it seemed too dumb for smart people and too smart for dumb. Neither the critics appreciated it, nor it could be in the 100-crore club. The single screen audience didn’t get it, the multiplex audience have Bond, Bourne and Ethan. I am all for indulgence and homages as long as it doesn’t bore me. If filmmakers and artists don’t indulge, who will? The sarkari babus?
As for the good points, Sudhish Kamath has mentioned it his review here – a spy so suave he can even pick up a guy. And as Anupama Chopra mentioned in her review, i do believe that this character has potential. Sooner or later, Raghavan will get it right.
Agent Vinod was one of the most anticipated films of the year. Those who know the filmmaker and love Ek Haseea Thi and Johnny Gaddar, they know what #JaiSriram means. So did he score a hattrick? The Matunga Fanboy is disappointed for sure.
“Hey! Johnny, matlab hi hai aasli yaar…”
Greed, vengeance, love, doom, betrayal, survival.
With little budget and a story to tell, it was all packed in awesomely in his earlier attempts. With more resources to film, more chases and explosions, and a lead actor/producer with adequate passion to “make-it-large”, there was little to tell and a lot to show in quick cuts.
Agent Vinod dangerously fell into the “we-got-a-Great-Title-now-what-to-do” films/PROJECTS. With everything sounding great at the onset – Title, Concept, Cast, Budget, it seems a kick-ass script was the only thing that was left. Probably keeping that as the last thing to do without any other worry puts too much pressure on the one most important thing to begin a film with…and that being kept last, with everything being taken care off, “shayad joote pasand nahi aaye” – One might not be able to pin point what exactly is going right as the support and resource is right there. Tough task and especially for a super self-critical person, that must have been one exhaustive task. It shows. It’s complicated and ironic how one manages with little resource and more imagination and…
A mild mannered middle-class Matunga boy with loads of pulp movies and literature consumed, and some-corner-room-twisted perspectives could add his mild humble magic to anything he touches with his “not so sure” demeanor beneath a killer observer. RABTA being just one Single Shot example of that. The simplicity of those couple of minutes completely overshadows the rest of the Millions spent on the quick cut Peter Hein action.
60% of the times I was either looking at a Peter Hein shot or a second unit exotic pick up shoot. I sorely missed my Desi Jim Gordon’s smooth humble touch to it. There were glimpses of it. But far and few, or maybe when it’s someone who grants some access inside his “Hard-Case” Adventureland gates only once in 5 years, it better be all him – A 100% Sriram Raghavan affair.
Plus, when you have a great title, why not exploit it? Casino Royal played it quite well with “Bond James Bond” coming just about when the End Credits began to roll but then that was the 21st Bond film. Why not use Agent Vinod to full effect throughout the film? It’s anyways a kickass name, why guise it, guard it and hold it and not let it breath? As Vinod says, he wants to go back for those 8 minutes on the cable, I too just wanted that feel of those 8 minutes and not the entire film to be about those 8 minutes. What makes Bond and Bourne is that they push me precariously close to those 8 minutes but then get me out and show me more of what happened before and after. Where we cherish those 8 minutes and treasure them, we wanted Sriram to give me those 8 minutes (Rabta give me a couple for sure) not Peter Hein.
We are desperate for comebacks. And we are quick to dismiss too. All it takes is just a status update or 140 characters.
When Tigamanshu Dhulia’s last film, Sahib Biwi Aur Gangster released, it was the usual hype on the social networking platforms. As if friends, family and colleagues were dying to put that “comeback” tag on him. The film had it’s charm but it was nowhere close to what it was made out to be. The usual suspects tried the same with Ramu and his Not A Love Story. To put it mildly, that was unadulterated garbage in every way.
But, this is what a comeback looks like – Paan Singh Tomar. Ironic that the producers (UTV) had to sell the film as “from the director of Sahib Biwi Aur Gangster”. May be it wouldn’t have got a theatrical release even if it wasn’t for SBAG’s success. The film has been ready for quite sometime (about two years). They sent it to few desi festivals in USA where the general feedback was “Irrfan is good, film is bad”. News started doing the rounds that UTV was planning to dump it on tv along with some half a dozen other films. Then SBAG happened. Some strings were pulled, a release date was quickly announced and without much pubilcity or promotions, the film was released.
Those who have seen both the versions of the film, they said that music has surely been changed. But how much can just the “background music” change the film? No clue, not sure.
I went to see the film FDFS. Just because of that actor called Irrfan Khan. Or just Irrfan. Seems he has dropped his surname. Good, we have too many of them in this industry anyway. When i entered the auditorium, it felt like it was going to be a private screening only for me – the luxury that makers provide to few critics to give a bloated sense of being important and score some brownie points. Slowly some dozen people turned up including a director whose film has recently released.
The film opens with Brijendra Kala, an actor who is a delight to watch – the desi Bill Murray who knows his deadpan too well. As Irrfan narrates his story to Kala, it goes into flashback and we get to see the story of Paan Singh Tomar. I have been often told that narrating a story to a character to get into flashback is the worst device in a film. But with two terrific actors in the frame, they make everything mundane look so interesting. There are just counted few scenes between the two, but that thing called chemistry, well, it’s found in strange places between stranger people.
I have always felt that the mark of a good director is in the casting of those actors who have just one or two lines to deliver. You go to watch a film because of the lead actors but you come back home with those “character actors” who steal the show. This is where Paan Singh Tomar scores again. Even Zakir Hussain and Mahie Gill are so impressive in such small roles. Though it seems Nawazuddin had more to do in the film and it was edited out later on.
Paan Singh Tomar is the Tigamanshu we knew, the one we wanted to see again after Haasil. The director who could take us to a new place, away from bollywood where he knows the terrain, its politics and dialect well. Written by Sanjay Chouhan with dialogues by Dhulia, it captures the sound and soul of that barren land with a dose of black humour – a rarity in this industry. So when i saw his other film Shagird, i could not believe it was the same director. From one extreme to other – how could one go so far? As a screenwriter who saw the film with us said, this is Race for intellectuals.
Welcome back, Tigmanshu. It’s been long.
And Irrfan? Well, he can do anything. Just anything. No wonder he is the only Khan they know in the west. It’s our bad luck that he is born in a country and at a time when we are obsessed with the weekend numbers and 100-crore mark, and we don’t make films that can’t justify his talent. Forget films, we don’t even dare to put him on magazine covers. I hope and pray that in your next birth you get a better place which knows how to respect talent.
The actor doesn’t need lines, his glances pack a punch. In the scene where he comes to meet his son and asks him not to touch him, when his son leaves and he looks around, that glance stays with you long after you have left the theater. Much like that awkward hug with his son’s girlfriend in one of my favourite films of all time, Namesake. He is about to hug her, she is about to kiss, and then that slight bend, slow movement and a strange look on his face. He can play young, can play old and even a father of a young man in the same film. He can run and romance with equal ease.
Only weird thing about the film is that it leaves you with a strange vacuous feeling – Not sure how you react to the character in the end. It keeps you engaged through the film but doesn’t hit the spot in the end which you desperately want it to.The emotional hook? Or may be just a bit of empathy.
As for Paan Singh Tomar, in other part of the world the most famous runner’s mom told him that life was like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get. This side, we are sure about one thing – there’s no box, there are no chocolates and life is just a race which you must complete.
One of my favourite albums of all time is Gulzar-Pancham. I bought the cassettes first and then the CDs. The 2-CD pack is compilation of songs written by Gulzar and composed by R D Burman. But what makes the album special is the introduction to every song by Gulzar. We all know that he can weave magic with words. But the way he narrates it, the way he pours out every bit of nostalgia in his narration, it creates an intoxicating mood. Years later he did another similar album – Amrita Pritam recited by Gulzar. The magic was still the same. And now, there’s a new album – Tera Bayaan Ghalib. Here’s Rohit‘s recco post on the same.
Anything, be it a new song or a poem recitation or a book release or a film by Gulzar sahab guarantees that it will have an aroma of freshness and nostalgia in it. This music album quietly made it’s way into the mind space and thanks to Pavan and Sa Re Ga Ma’s online store I could get a hold of the original tracks.
First up, please know that this is not a ‘tribute to Jagjit Singh’ sort of an album by Gulzar sahab. It goes a step further. Gulzar sahab has convinced Jagjit Singh to sit and recite/sing some lines for all of us and what tribute do we want anyway? Jagjit Singh is still there. Very much there. Gulzar sahab has read/recited Ghalib’s letters enacting as Ghalib and it is NOT a commentary on him. It’s a fact that we can’t get enough of Gulzar sahab‘s voice and when you hear him modulating his voice and enacting Ghalib, you will feel the words with him.
Since the album is aimed at giving a peek to all us in the life and times of ‘Ghalib’, Gulzar sahab has plucked many a gems from his TV Serial on Ghalib in the voice of Ghazaljit Singh.
The album starts with a track that was featured in the TV serial (but wasn’t available in music cassettes or CDs). After this, Gulzar sahab recites some couplets from Mirza Ghalib. The mithaas in his voice will remind you of the times when you were dipping your senses into your favorite food and talking about your favorite person. The album then turns to GhazalJit Singh’s rendition of ‘Har ek baat pey’. The difference (nitpickers like me will notice) is a faint note on the keyboard in the background which is unlike the versions already available with us all. This version ends where GhazalJit Singh ends the recitation in the original.
It won’t be fair to give out the flow of what Gulzar sahab discusses in the album because it will spoil the mood of anyone who listens it. So I won’t go into much detail. All I will say that there is a difference between telling and narrating. Gulzar sahab narrates. Beautifully. Many a times you won’t be able to realize that the ghazal has started and the narration has stopped. It’s all in the same fabric. Like for example, there is a part where Gulzar sahab is talking about the ‘patang baazi’ of Ghalib and the melodious flute makes an entry and GhazalJit Singh recites a line of ‘woh firaq aur wo visaal kahan’. Listen how dearly and affectionately Gulzar sahab goes about telling us why Ghalib chose Ghalib and not ‘Asad’ as his pen name. GhazalJit Singh comes again to recite the beautiful couplet ‘Dost gham’ (which wasn’t available earlier in Music cassettes or CDs of the serial).
Using Ghalib’s lines to create the atmosphere of the old times is a great idea and GhazalJit Singh’s voice comes as a compliment. You can’t help but feel that it’s completely unnatural to live in a world where GhazalJit Singh is no more. The album is full of those unreleased nazms/couplets in the voice of GhazalJeet Singh.
The narrative spans across life and times of Ghalib including the 1857 and how Ghalib shut himself out during that period. And how Delhi was never the same, more or less like Ghalib. There is a lot of pain, especially when Gulzar sahab touches the ‘7 deaths’ in Ghalib family…of all his kids.
Towards the end of the album when Gulzar sahab speaks about old age, the depth of his narration will move you, and on top of it Jagjit Singh’s (unreleased) nazm might move you to tears. You will get goosebumps when you will come across the famous Ghalib composition ‘sab kahan kuch’ because Gulzar sahab accompanies Jagjit (Ghazaljit Singh) in the same. This is Gold. Probably purest form of Gold.
This is not a music album. It’s a melodious session with Gulzar sahab and GhazalJit Singh full of conversations, nazms and ghazals. Anyone with a mild inclination towards Gulzar sahab/Ghalib or GhazalJit Singh will find this album a treasure. A treasure which you will hold on to forever.
You are likely to come across a lot of familiar ghazals in this album but the difference is – this time you live the ghazal rather than just listening to it.
Buy it.
Album : Tera Bayaan Ghalib
Label : Saregama (2-CD pack)
Price : Rs 300 ( Available at Flipkart for Rs 255)
The Oscar buzz is in full swing now. And it’s not surprising that with The Artist, Carnage, Moneyball and My Week With Marilyn in the theatres, it’s one of the best weekends at the movies. Here’s Fatema Kagalwala‘s recco for one more charming film – Woody Allen’s Midnight In Paris. Read On. And don’t miss it.
Perhaps the most beautiful emotion to feel and soak in, besides love, is nostalgia, humankind’s singular tool to change the past, otherwise believed to be unchangeable. It is our very own time-travel device that takes us to places that never were but have become because of the way we choose to remember them. Present is drudgery but over time, after events have collected a dust of distance, they get shrouded in a mist of romance that becomes our haven, a cocoon which protects us from the unbearable banality of the present. A dreamworld we can escape to at will, and stay there for as long as the common concerns of the present do not summon us back with brutal force. With no control over the future and saddled permanently with a present we can never be content in, we are left with only this. This ability of re-writing our history to have something to be proud of. This gift, as it maybe perceived as, is the backbone of the much-loved Midnight in Paris. Above and beyond the travels of Gil into the depths of Time, it harks us back into the territory of rosy nostalgia, the blindfold behind which everything is safe.
This love for the past is almost lyrical. As poetic as Woody Allen presents in his dreamy albeit slightly woolly-headed Gil. And as precise as science, he makes him a writer, dwelling in the poetry of yesteryears, seeking the mirage of a gold-dusted past. Allen makes him choose Paris, the most fabled (at least in the Western world) romantic city full of the mystique and exoticism of art and expression. As we watch Gil engage with the city, we begin to crave the opiate of escape and begin to wear his shroud of nostalgia with pride and a certain willingness beyond the power of Gil’s experiences to arouse. We give up to the visions of our own Golden Age, whatever it might be, and revel in the feeling of the enigmatic ‘if only’. We thirst to find our own Parisian street we could roam at midnight and enter our perfect world, a world that never was but that which always lives within us.
It is this thirst, accompanied with Allen’s intuitive writing that steers us through fundamental truths of our relationship with time. None of the wonder that consumes Gil in his nightly sojourns is part of the lives of Adriana, Hemmingway or the Fitzgeralds. But the cyclical obsession for yore shows up in Adriana’s climactic choice when a somewhat misplaced wisdom shakes Gil back into the present. Misplaced because it seems out-of-character and sync with the young, idealist we see seeking truth and beauty with the innocence of a child. As a climactic turning point his revelation appears without notice and motivation, almost like a screen-writer-induced epiphany, diluting the entire premise of Gil’s character, thirst and search.
But it is with his ‘epiphany’ that the strong undercurrent of post-modern ennui, resonating in every single of Allen’s work, suddenly comes into play. It is logical and it makes the most sense. And as unpoetic as it is, it draws that familiar blanket of dejection around the theme, particularly in the way we now perceive Adriana and her delusion in contrast.
In that sense, Midnight in Paris, in the true tradition of Allen’s films, isn’t a hopeful picture even if Gil’s ultimate ‘escape’ may seem victorious. There is that unmistakable, underlying thread of pessimism that is a founding trope of all of Allen’s films. This juxtapositioning of reality and delusion is subtler than the film would have us believe and almost missable. But it is this juxtapositioning that brings home the universal truth of what we may not hurry to see, that this too shall pass. Apply it to the living present or the living in the past as it were.
However smart this juxtapositioning may be, its smartness becomes the undoing of the deeper and more significant sub-text. Were Gil’s realisation a result of a character growth or an outcome of an event, the smartness would have suddenly transformed into a more studied expose. We, in our terrific rush of having limply succumbed into the arms of yesterday, accept it because the act of breaking his suffocating engagement becomes our direct point-of-reference for his character growth. But it is merely a diversion that we mistake as the destination.
At first glance, Owen Wilson seems an unlikely actor to play the part of wide-eyed Gil. His demeanour and biography is hardly striking enough to carry off a character that sparks off dreamworlds in the most magical manner. But as Gil, he is transformed in front of our eyes into the part-naïve, part-grounded, part-dreamy idealist charming us into his utopia compelling us to love his journey as much as we would love our own. Marion Cotilard, on the other hand, does not have to ‘do’ anything for us to love her. She is undoubtedly the perfect choice to play the pixie-like, porcelain Adriana whom we can’t help but want to protect, even if it is from her own self-destructiveness. The wispy, ethereal beauty of Marion does half the work and the rest is superbly accomplished by the stunning actress herself. Coming away, we are forced to admit, no one could have played the parts better than these two.
Allen chooses his Golden Age with art and its main protagonists with a tongue-firmly-in-cheek. The Fitzgeralds were almost as mythical in their own time as they are now, and so was the Jazz Age. He picks the best representatives of the time but presents them as trophy heroes. We are left star-struck, as much as Gil is and hunger for more. But the legends, as we know them to be today, seem bound by a necessity to shock and entertain. And it is here that Midnight in Paris falters. As legends after legends flood Gil’s dream, ours is disrupted. A certain dishonesty of intent creeps in and the onus veers towards gimmick, taking away the artfulness it has carefully built so far.
But by now they have created a beautiful world, a world neither we nor Gil would like to ever be taken from, a dream we would never like to be awakened from. Probably for this, Midnight in Paris will forever remain a very dear piece of cinema to us. Because despite the choices the film makes, it brings us close to a world we all yearn for. But more importantly, it brings to us very vividly, the joys of attaining the perfection that is humanly impossible. It is this affirmation we cherish which is far, far beyond the artistry of the film. Yet, it is a gift, an ascertained gift the film gives us so that we can continue to look for our time in the rain, at midnight, when we can escape into our Golden Age, even if momentarily. Meanwhile, we can turn to Gil’s. Even if it is for less than two hours, and which even though smaller than our own love for the past, will suffice.
Click on the play button to enjoy the opening scene of the film.
Early reviews in bollywood are unlike anything in the rest of the world – you can never trust them. And at a time of social networking, everything spreads like wild fire. So when i heard good things about Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu, the first person who was skeptical about it was film buff and screenwriter Navjot Gulati and rightly so. Big banner, big stars, screening for friends and family and early review by so called trade analysts – why would anyone trust it? And then he saw the film and ran in other direction. Why and how? Read on. Has SPOILER.
The heading is a popular line from a popular tv campaign. However, the Pappu in question here is director Shakun Batra, who did an Aamir Khan impersonation in the song Pappu can’t dance saala (from 2:46 ).
Now, before I start talking about the film, let me tell you that this post is about the film and also about the director. How a rank outsider was able to make such a big debut? And to top it all, he was able to make a “perfectly average” film with the same banner that made great films (NOT) like Agneepath, Kurbaan, We are Family ( I call it We all Act Hammily) and I Hate Luv Stories. You may wonder what is so common between all these five films including Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu. Interestingly, all of them have been directed by debutant directors.
What sets Shakun Batra apart is the fact that he made a big budget romcom with an indie feel, and, with a banner which is known for making candyfloss films set in unreal world. Shakun is also the one who started the Assistant Director’s community on Facebook which has helped thousands of people since its inception around five years back. One would think it has to be good karma as he was able to make his debut after assisting in just four films. I know people who have been working with top production houses and have assisted in more than eight films and still can’t even write a story, forget about making a film. The point being if you are talented and smart, you will always be able to make a film. Shakun’s smartness was in striking friendship with Imran Khan, who, let’s face it, may not be a great actor but he certainly has an eye for “good” scripts. Yes, if you are an outsider wanting to make big films, this is one way which can work.
Now coming to the film.
EMAET is a film which almost 80 percent of the population of Indian will be able to connect to because every character in the film is relatable. The Goofball dad Philip, sexed up Boolani, demanding Kapoors, not-in-a-zone-to-get-in-a-relationship Riana, highly-under-the-influence-of-family Rahul and my favorite, the Granny. We all have seen such people around us and that is what makes you believe that this is “your” story.
It starts off as little over the top but it was refreshing to see the detailing in the film and the body language of Imran Khan, an actor known for NOT knowing what acting is. Imran’s family was bit over the top too but then came Kareena, almost like a breath of fresh air and the film was never the same again. She reminded me of Summer Fin from 500 days of Summer – a girl every boy wants to fall in love with. As the film progresses, you know that this is going to end up in only one way but you still want the guy to get the girl and so the movie works.
The movie does not go over the top even in any of the dramatic sequences, like the dinner table chopstick scene and the one in the school corridor. Kareena is so good that I fell in love with her all over again. Last time it was in 2007 with Jab We Met. The character she plays is the girl every guy wants to end up with for the rest of his life. Sweet, sexy, adventurous and caring.
But the one who steals the show is Imran Khan. Finally, the boy becomes man and learns to act and changes his hairstyle too. Watch him in the scene where he goes on a date with Anusha. He is damn funny! This is the first romcom to not have a kiss in the end, or the Indian equivalent to kiss – “hug” or better “marriage”. The film breaks all the clichés of Hindi romcoms and does it in style by having an ambiguous end. Although it is very clear that she does not love him but what the director leaves us with is that lil’ hope, that she may come back to him sometime in the future.
The photography along with the background music sets the mood perfectly and lets you flow with the story smoothly. Just listen to the way Clinton Cerejo jazzes up aaja aaja main hoon pyaar tera. Music by Amit Trivedi is of timeless variety – a rarity in today’s times when music is forgotten a week after the film releases. To sum it up, this is one of those rare films where I could not find a single thing that would put me off, everything was “Perfectly Average”, just like the 90 percent of the world’s population.
(P.S – I know the film has been inspired from various romcoms like What Happens in Vegas, 500 days of Summer, and desi flicks like Jab We Met and Wake Up Sid. But i did not mind the inspiration because the writers made something of their own from the inspired material.)
And our favourite writer, Subrat is back. After many requests, much cajoling and few smses, he managed to sit down and write this post on a film that he really liked. Read on.
We like to deal with the big issues. Those that are significant. The crisis of capitalism. Saving the earth. World peace. On the fabric of society, these are the big pictures. Acknowledging them is mankind’s acceptance of its collective failure. There’s something charmingly uplifting when we discuss our frailty in plural. It ennobles us. With such vexing problems to solve for the collective, why are we then, individually, beset with the trivialities of life? Why does the insignificant ground us? Betrayal. Loss. Estrangement. These warp and weft of life that should have subsumed themselves to the grand design. Instead, they force your attention to them. And to you. To your imperfections.
Imperfection is what Alexander Payne wants us to meditate over in his new film The Descendants. It’s seven years since Payne gave us Sideways and, on the evidence of this film, it’s reassuring to note these years were well spent on the minutiae. And, on imperfections. This gives us a film that is in turns profound and farcical while managing a lightness of touch that is often sought but seldom achieved. There is an unhurried pace to the story that eschews dramatic highs and showdowns though there’s ample opportunity in the script for both to surface. More importantly, the director avoids the trap of caricaturing the shallow, ordinary American family that seems veering towards dysfunctionality.
In a society that worships achievement, it is interesting how being ordinary is celebrated in American literature and films. May be it is the impact of American Realism; of Mark Twain and Henry James who crafted their stories around everyday people facing moral choices. How deep is their impact on American culture can only be gauged by the currency that stories of ordinary lives have enjoyed for the better part of last century in America. From Faulkener, Updike, Franzen in literature to a whole host of films that have rightly (or, wrongly) won critical acclaim for protraying ordinary lives. Just run through the list of Oscar winners over the years to see the impact that realism still holds on American psyche. Strong enough to have Ordinary People win the Best Picture nod in the year of Raging Bull (a more compelling case for the entire lot of voting members face the firing squad hasn’t been made).
That aside, if any contemporary director in Hollywood can lay claim to that real tradition of realism, it has to be Alexander Payne. Payne has an instinctive grasp of an ordinary life, its tribulations and, like the realists of the yore, he lets the character stumble his way through reaching the right conclusion. And, like them, he understands locations. From Omaha, Nebraska (About Schmidt) to Napa Valley (Sideways) or even that last segment that he directed of Paris je t’aime, Payne has few peers in weaving in the location into his films. In The Descendants Payne takes the unlikeliest of locations for depicting a family in strife, Hawaii, and makes it integral to the film.
Matt King (George Clooney) isn’t an ordinary Hawaiian as he informs you in the voice-over that starts the film. While disabsuing us of the notion that Hawaii is a tropical paradise (yes, there’s poverty and grime there), he quickly establishes his bloodline that traces its history to the tribal royalty and the early white settlers in the middle of the 19th century. He is a partner in a real estate law firm who has worked hard to build his identity separate from his ancestry. Matt, though, is burdened by this ancestry that has bequeathed on him the responsibility of disposing off a large virgin tract of land in one of the islands for ‘redevelopment’. This is big news locally as it pits the alleged forces of development (malls, amusement parks et al) against environment. Matt and his sprawling extended family of cousins (there’s a cousin popping up every minute in the film in brightly coloured shirts and chappals) are indifferent to the debate. There’s no less messy way of dividing up the family fortune and quite a few cousins are hard up.
These, seemingly, larger issues hardly match up to what fate has dealt Matt. His wife of many years, Elizabeth, lies in a coma in a Honolulu hospital with doctors ruling out any chances of survival. Matt’s younger daughter Scottie (Amara Miller) is a 10-year old who is precocious in the wrong way whose favorite pastime seems to be to confuse her friends on adult issues. Matt, admittedly, has never been a hands-on parent (a backup as he calls himself in a voiceover) and, in Elizabeth’s absence, he finds Scottie a handful. There’s also Matt’s older daughter, Alex (Shailene Woodley), who’s been sent away to a boarding school to rid her off her drug habit. Matt brings her back to make sure the family is together when the doctors pull the plug on Elizabeth. He had hardly bargained for the secret that Alex carries that seems to make her loathe her mother – Elizabeth was cheating on him. Matt becomes obsessed about finding out Elizabeth’s lover and breaking the news of her impending death squarely to him.
The narrative arc is quite familiar from here on. Matt has to pull his family together, learn to be friends again with his daughters, put his wife’s transgressions behind him, do the right thing on the land deal and seek redemption. This is a territory susceptible to high melodrama and in the hands of lesser director would have turned into a soppy, sentimentalist work. But Alexander Payne elevates this into a whimsical and wry look at life by keeping sentiments at a safe distance. He is ably supported in this by an ensemble cast that is completely in step with the director’s alternating profound and farcical treatment of the subject. Especially noteworthy are the cameo turns – Nick Krause as Sid, the irascible boyfriend of Elizabeth who isn’t as shallow as he seems, Judy Greer, who chews up the scenery in just the two scenes she is there.
The triumph of The Descendants is how it meanders through this familiar arc. There is no pre-determined denouement that the film is hurtling towards. There are no certainties here, like life. It appears like everyone has time to spare. Unhurried is perhaps the term. Matt, who has all the emotional cards dealt to him, is often driven by petty instincts. You are bound to be sympathetic to him but you are intrigued by his fickleness and his decisions. Payne isn’t judgmental in his portrayals. You take each character from your own station of life. It’s rare for a film to achieve this.
The cynic in me wanted to see through all of this. This whole calibrated business – of ordinariness, of making George Clooney look stupid, of having a bunch of kids dysfunctional on surface but being alright at the end and of making a statement about development versus environment. I have let the cynic question it all. I have done my best to see through the deception. It’s been over a month since I saw it and I have failed.
May be, for once, there’s something real here. You be the judge.
But take my advice. Don’t bet against The Descendants this awards season. There’s no Raging Bull in the ring. And, The Descendants is no Ordinary People. Though that title may have fitted it perfectly.
F.i.g.h.t C.l.u.b 