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.
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Not your sex life.
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Continuing with our Year-End series, Rewind 2014, in this post our music blogger Rohwit picks up the best sounds of the year – the songs that he loved and we played in loop. In no particular order, this post includes both films and non-films music/talent/songs/album.
(More from our Rewind 2014 series : Musical Gems We Discovered This Year is here, Kaali Zubaan’s bollywood wrap is here, 18 Film Fanatics on 18 Films That Stayed With Them is here, Best of 2014 – Script of Queen is here, Script of Ankhon Dekhi is here)
Jagave saari raina (Dedh Ishqiya) – Much has been written about this underwhelming album from Gulzar-Vishal collaboration. However, Hamri ataria and Jagave saari raina were beautiful exceptions. No, the antraa of ‘Na bolu main to’ weren’t as good as the mukhda, so I won’t include that song here. Even before the videos were released, we knew this would be the song that would capitalize on Mrs. Nene’s grace and her dancing prowess. To hear Pt. Birju Maharaj just sweetened everything that much more. Did I miss mentioning about how charming was Rekha Bhardwaj in the song? Well, you knew that already didn’t you?
Fandry bird theme (Fandry) – No words should endeavor to convey what this cute little piece did to us. Give it a try here. In fact the love theme here is equally good. The use of Oudh and Cello lent a solid, raw feel to the sound and two thumbs up for that! Aloknanda Dasgupta ji, take a bow!
Indian Ocean – If you have been living under a rock, then perhaps you might not have noticed the release of ‘Tandanu’ by Indian Ocean which will go down as one of the best albums by the group ever! From what could be easily termed as one of the most important films of the year, Katiyabaaz, we got the track ‘Kanpoora’, a must hear if you haven’t heard it already! (and what a delightful video!)
Sooha saha (Highway) – Bollywood is running from darkness towards even more darkness when it comes to giving us songs which mothers can sing to their little ones. ARRahman took cognizance of this problem and gave us this tender piece from Highway. While Alia was rightfully showered a lot of credit for this song, we mustn’t forget AR Rahman’s ‘mixing and tuning’ and a solid Zeb who made this song what it is. Heera from this album comes a close second because it’s a delicacy of sorts when Kabir and Rahman are credited in the same song. Here is Sooha Saha…much of the song’s impact was experienced thanks to a superlative Randeep Hooda. The World would be unfair if it doesn’t acknowledge Randeep this year for Highway.
Suno na sang e marmar (Youngistaan) – Now that the well deserved nomination to Oscar has been sent, it would be criminal not to mention the blockbuster Youngistaan to the list. When Jackkkkie decided to diss Mayawati’s hardwork involving sang-e-mar-mar with a song, it gave us this hummable track. Frankly, I thought it took a lot of guts to film the song right where a lot of public money was wasted on sang-e-mar-mar (wink wink). The song was perhaps too good for the film and when Jeet Ganguly and Arijit recreated the magic for the Hindi version, they added some grandeur to the sound. Here is the Bengali version and here is the Hindi version. My favorite is the Bengali version of course!
Title song (Revolver Rani) – the film might have fallen flat on its face but the title track of the film was a riot thanks to the word ‘bhasad’ and Usha Uthup! Do give it a try. Had the film done well, it would have played in a the loop on ‘popular’ charts, just the way they played vomit inducing Kicks and what not! And trust me, it is much more fun than all the garbage music of 100 crore commodities. Watch this video.
Sketches of Darjeeling (Bipul Chettri) – I came across this album when it was released in the month of July, 2014 but didn’t hear it because I was quite occupied with my day job. Then one of the many ‘anonymous’ people who share music with me sent me one track from this album, and I punched myself for about 40 minutes continuously for having sat on the album for so long! Do hear my favorite track from the album titled – Ode to my father here, and then buy the album. The track is free flowing and you will hear the free flowing water as well. Is the track in Hindi? No. Does it matter? No!! So do pick it up!
Ding dong (Finding Fanny) – I couldn’t make sense of fusing this Goa film with a Punjabi title song and a messy song at that, still this one oozed out a lot of love, and we love it for that! Cliched as it might sound to some of us, but the song painted a picture of an adorable Uncle ‘Pedro’, who is liked by everyone, singing this song near a beach, on just another day in Goa. Loved Mathias for this one!
Haider (Album) – It won’t be right to pinpoint a song that was good because this album was the best from 2014. The only underwhelming part was the song by Arijit. I still feel that song was composed FVBV (For Vishal, By Vishal), and Arijit came in as an afterthought. This album is the reason we wait for Vishal and Gulzar to get together more often. All songs are here. Imagine the ‘Aao na’ opening bit and now count your goose pimples. Also, while we are on the subject…here is the Roohdaar theme from Haider.
Oopar oopar renn de – Tanishk and Baba Vayu gave us a laid back anthem this year and I can openly declare with no hesitation that this was the best non-filmi song by a new band I came across in 2014. Hear the song once and tell me if you aren’t of the same opinion. I do hope they put the song on sale soon and that they don’t fizzle out after setting the bar this *high*!
Mikey Mccleary – We all love everything Mikey does. Why else can you explain people sticking to networks which don’t work? May be because their ads are oh-so-musical and cute! It was no surprise that the album Mikey came out with was instantly likeable. If you haven’t heard the album yet, do hear it once! Our favorite – The world is our playground (Sung by Mikey) and Just a little crush (Sung by Shalmali). That said, Mikey’s song in Sonali cable wasn’t bad either. The entire album is available here.
Let me know if you agree with my picks of the year. And yours?
Since the time we saw Nagraj Manjule’s debut feature ‘Fandry’, we have been shouting out from rooftop that it’s a terrific debut and a must watch. Click here to read our recco post. This week, Fandry is releasing outside Maharashtra, and with English subtites.
After the film’s release and the acclaim it got all over, Nagraj wrote a piece for Maharashtra Times. Much thanks to @Shankasur who came up with the idea to translate it in English for wider reach, took the permission, and did it for us. Do watch the film if you haven’t seen it yet. And then read it.
Remembering Fandry
Now that Fandry has been released, I am reminiscing all the memories that are linked with it. These memories have accumulated over a long period of time. The very moment someone mentions Fandry, I am reminded of experiences from
childhood and that of growing. I grew up with a strange sense of fear and a realisation that I was born into an under-privileged life. I was made aware of my limits since my childhood. I would go to watch Ramayana and everybody’s seats were fixed. While watching King Ram from a corner, the invisible “No Entry” signage that was in my mind was getting bold and clear. The surrounding social setup was up in arms that constantly kept reminding me of my deprived social status.
I don’t exactly remember when my innocent courage took a backseat and I became aware of my caste limitations at every step. I never realised when this impotent maturity became a part of my life. Whenever I uttered my or my mother’s name, or even make a reference to my caste while filling forms in school, the class would break into a faint yet violent laughter. To avoid these embarrassments, I would walk up to the teacher and whisper my name and caste into his ears. I made this into a habit since I was in primary school. When one’s identity becomes the reason behind his inferiority complex, he has nothing more to say. I don’t remember since when I feared telling my own name to others. All I carried along was a sense of fear that it would be criminal of me to do so.
When my father would address my friends as “saheb”, “sarkar”, my expectations for friendship, equality would seem unreasonable. If someone loosened the noose around our neck, we would celebrate that as our freedom. But that didn’t stop me from dreaming. Even in this gated social setup, dreams would find their own little ways. A simple jean pant, a sweet dish during a festival, electricity connection at home, a new pair of footwear would seem like dreams that could come true. The system I was living in would stack up these little wishes and desires and make them appear as dreams that were out of my reach. But dreams don’t have labels of caste and religion. They express their desire to be realised in most innocent manner which gives rise to a chaotic struggle between these dreams and our own inferiority complexes. Sadly, the later always wins over the former.
When I entered college, the old nightmare was in front of me all over again. I had expected that at least in college, I would be treated with some dignity. In my first year, we had a story by S. M. Matey in which the protagonist curses the villian as “Hey Kalyaa Wadaaraa!” (Wadar is a denotified tribe (DNT), while Kalyaa refers to a dark skinned man. It’s difficult to translate the heinous undertone of this phrase). I had this habit of reading through all the lessons and stories before the course starts.
When I came across this sentence in Matey’s story, I decided to remain absent in the class the day when this story will be taken for discussion. I bunked classes for a week and thought that the professor must’ve finished discussing this story. To my worst surprise, the professor started with the story the same day I chose to remain present again to the classes. Not to mention, when sir recited those lines, everyone looked at me, trying hard to control their laughter. I felt an immediate need to miraculously disappear from where I was sitting, like a god.
A man starts expecting such miracles to happen at times of these depressing encounters with life. Fandry reminds me of these episodes. It reminds of the haunting space called school. It reminds of those innocent dreams; reminds me of the dreams that were squashed and crushed by the might of my underprivileged caste identity I carried throughout.
“Fandry means what?” is a question that I’ve been asked numerous times. And I’ve refrained telling its meaning in one simple word. Fandry is a word used by a tribe, that lives around us, in their dialect. We do not know of this dialect nor about the tribe. We are unaware of their lives, their dreams, the pleasures and perils of their existence. When you will come searching for the meaning to the word Fandry and spare a moment to understand about lives of these people, I would consider my attempt to keep its meaning a secret a ssuccess.
Fandry is not a secret but an invitation for all of you. Please accept it and face the ugly truth that we always prefer to ignore. A truth that we’ve always been hiding like an epidemic. But when a vaccine to this epidemic would be discovered, we will have to accept that we are struck by it. It is only then I can dream of a clean and compassionate dawn in history of mankind.
6. Because you probably don’t know what ‘Fandry’ means, even if you are a Marathi manoos. And if not, try asking your Maharashtrian friends. Doubt you will get the answer. We tried it all, saying it from experience. You love your little cocoon.
7. Because current Bollywood has forgotten what “adolescence” means. Same with you.
8. Because you don’t know what your caste is. And it has never mattered in your life.
9. Because every time you saw a pig, you felt it’s ugly and so filthy. Nothing humane there. You don’t need a new feeling.
10. Because it’s that rare film whose 2 scenes made it to our year end list of 16 Most Memorable scenes of the year. Scroll down to read why.
Still looking for another excuse?
We discovered the film at last year’s Mumbai Film Festival. This was our first reaction, or you can call it brief review of the film (was posted here) :
Fandry – It’s Beasts Of The Maharashtrian Wild. The pains of growing up, of dreaming about the girl from upper caste, trying to get fair skin, and aspiring to own a pair of jeans. About a family of pig catchers who are considered untouchable in the village, and of adolescent days. The harsh reality might seem like poverty porn, but a line from The Great Beauty came to my mind – you can’t talk about poverty, you have to live it. A daring film where the entire film seems to be set-up for the powerful last 20 minutes.
Later on, for our year-end post, Kushan Nandy and Varun Grover wrote about 2 powerful scenes of the film. One has spoiler alert, other you can read.
Fandry, Nagraj Manjule’s charming story of Jabya, a young boy battling his inner turmoil of being born a Dalit, whose only source of income is rescuing the village from droves of pigs by chasing them out, and only happiness is a teenage infatuation and perhaps a non-existent bird, reaches an inevitable, satirical climax that can truly be described as the successor of the Mahabharata scene from Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro.
Cruelly hilarious and dripping with pathos, the last scene of Fandry is a portrayal of who we truly are. As Jabya is forced to help his aging parents chase the pigs down, the village gathers to celebrate this humiliation, almost like spectators at a T20 match.
At one point, one of the characters uploads Jabya’s plight on his Facebook page. That one moment points out how technology has invaded us and yet human values remain absent.
However, Manjule’s masterstroke is Jabya doing exactly what the viewer had been wanting to do all along. He gathers his frustration and desperation to plant a sounding kick into the belly of the very society that was trying to hold him down. Match over.
Sadly though, Jabya’s non-existent bird somewhere stands for the freedom from society’s humiliation that he shall never ever get.
Only in a state like Maharashtra, where right-wing is so strong that even after the death of their biggest ideologue I don’t feel confident and safe mentioning his name in a post that has no direct criticism of his easily-criticizable styles of functioning, where newspaper offices get ransacked for faintest of hurt sentiments, where people get beaten up for not standing up during the mandatory National Anthem before the film – a film like ‘Fandry’ is possible. (Just like BR Ambedkar and Vijay Tendulkar couldn’t have been anywhere else.) A state of oppression breeds an inventiveness and ferocity of protest like nothing else.
And in a protest film (though treated like a coming of age for the most part) like ‘Fandry’, comes a scene that makes all the protest scenes in the history of our cinema look tame in comparison. A Dalit family is trying to catch a pig next to a school, the Dalit kid is feeling humiliated ‘cos his friends might be watching the reality of his caste he has so carefully hidden from them, the pig evading them like a pro. After lots of chasing the pig finally seems to be cornered. The family now just has to move closer and catch it and end the misery on both sides of this hunter-hunted divide. The kid seems slightly relieved that the ordeal may be over as they encircle the pig. But, just before they could swoop down, the national anthem starts playing in the school assembly next door. Nobody can move now, except of course the pig. As the Dalit family stands in attention, paying ‘due respects’ to the nation they are equal citizens of, the pig walks away into the free morning.
The whole cinema hall jumped up and applauded the scene wildly. I guess the irreverence, cheekiness, and metaphor it stood for connected with all of us, so used to standing awkwardly before the film, one hand carrying smartphone, another carrying popcorn, thinking ‘Pandit Bhimsen Joshi ji, aalaap mat lo itna lamba. 56 second mein khatam hona chaahiye ideally!
– Click here to watch its trailer and for cast-crew and other details.
Initially it was the title of the film that made us curious. And strangely, nobody knew the meaning because though it seems like a Marathi word, it isn’t. And then we saw the film at Mumbai Film Festival and loved it. It even featured in our best scenes of the year list.
The film has been written and directed by Nagraj Manjule. The makers have just released the official first trailer of the film. It perfectly captures the mood and the essence of the film. Have a look. And thankfully, it’s with English subtitles.
Official Synopsis
A mesmeric force pulls Jabya onto the other side. The rarest of rare Black Sparrow, he is told, is the cure to his problem. The hypnotic spell of the sparrow makes him wander relentlessly. Completely away from the magical world of Jabya, exists the callous reality of his parents who are working at the most oppressed level of the Indian Class Structure and assume him to do the same work which they have done all their life. The protagonist Jabya has to now struggle between his quest to find the magical sparrow and his parents’ expectations. Will Jabya be successful in his pursuit of the Black Sparrow? Will the magnetic power surpass the class differences between Jabya and Shalu created by centuries of customs.? Will Jabya break the fences and pass onto the other side?
If you have read this earlier post on 17 terrific films of the year, the brief was the same for this new post. And this one is collaborative too. Only film has been replaced with scenes. So here are the 16 most memorable and powerful scenes of the year as picked by 16 film fanatics.
(If you missed our earlier post in this 2013 flashback series, here’s the list – 20 Things We Learnt At The Movies and 13 Unanswered Questions is here, Top 10 Musical Gems We Discovered This Year is here, 15 Film Fanatics on 17 Terrific Films That Have Stayed With Them is here, and 14 Bollywood Song We Played in Non-stop Loop Is here.)
Fandry, Nagraj Manjule’s charming story of Jabya, a young boy battling his inner turmoil of being born a Dalit, whose only source of income is rescuing the village from droves of pigs by chasing them out, and only happiness is a teenage infatuation and perhaps a non-existent bird, reaches an inevitable, satirical climax that can truly be described as the successor of the Mahabharata scene from Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro.
Cruelly hilarious and dripping with pathos, the last scene of Fandry is a portrayal of who we truly are. As Jabya is forced to help his aging parents chase the pigs down, the village gathers to celebrate this humiliation, almost like spectators at a T20 match.
At one point, one of the characters uploads Jabya’s plight on his Facebook page. That one moment points out how technology has invaded us and yet human values remain absent.
However, Manjule’s masterstroke is Jabya doing exactly what the viewer had been wanting to do all along. He gathers his frustration and desperation to plant a sounding kick into the belly of the very society that was trying to hold him down. Match over.
Sadly though, Jabya’s non-existent bird somewhere stands for the freedom from society’s humiliation that he shall never ever get.
Joseph Gordon Levitt’s hilarious Don Jon is the single greatest commentary piece on porn. It isn’t about porn but it’s a guy’s perspective on the necessity of porn. Early in the film in Don Jon explains why he watches porn despite scoring chicks whenever he pleases. He watches porn simply because it is more exciting and entertaining than actual sex. Real women don’t do the things that the ones in the porn videos do. Which is why always slips off the bed in the middle of the night, turns on his computer, rubs one out, and returns to snuggle with the girl in his bed.
Later in the film he falls in love with the Hollywood rom-com buff Scarlett Johnasson’s character Barbara who does everything with him except have sex. This tortures him. She becomes his porn. Whenever he opens his laptop he browses FB photos of her instead of looking at porn websites. After a lot of torment Don finally has sex with her. But as he lies in his bed, his voiceover tells us that he’s in love with Barbara, and he finally got to have sex with her after weeks and weeks of waiting, and that he’s sorry to say that it was STILL not as good as porn. Don skulks off to his computer and proceeds to rub one out.
The scene that brought down the house was the one where Barbara confronts Don about his porn addiction and calls it sick. He enlightens her that firstly, every guy watches porn and those who say who don’t are lying, and she refuses to believe him. And secondly they have sex all the time, whenever she wants, and it’s not like he’s cheating on her. When she asks him how he can even watch that shit, he replies by asking how she can watch those stupid unrealistic romcoms all day. Shell-shocked, she tells him that movies and porn are different things. And they give awards for movies. He tells her they give awards for porn too.
It was a beautiful and hilarious clash of irony, ideals and cultural norms. With one single scene JGL brought down the accepted definitions of ‘decency’ and ‘addiction’. He’s addicted to enjoying a perfect and unrealistic view of fulfilment and emotional satiation. She’s addicted to enjoying a perfect and unrealistic view of fulfilment and emotional satiation. And yet he is called a sicko and is dumped.
And most importantly, JGL pulled this off without coming across as sexist. That makes him a fucking great filmmaker.
I always believed that the past is truly yours and no one can deny you that. It’s like a drug which you crave for (un)knowingly. And this drug called nostalgia, like a termite, can eat through your present, one moment at a time. How many times have we watched that same video from 90s on youtube just to scrape whatever little memory you can from that time and place. When Sajan Fernandez watched Ye Jo Hai Zindagi on an old VCR, it killed something inside me. There is a sweetness to it and melancholy, still, a man lost in time trying to live his present through scraps from his past. That scene has stayed with me ever since i watched the film. Like those scenes where he smoked on his balcony, Irrfan Khan here emotes with minimal muscles and no words, and yet the entire back story of the character, his pain and his longing is laced before you.
The most powerful, stand out scene for me in any movie in 2013 – after careful deliberation – is from Short Term 12. Surprisingly, it doesn’t involve the lead characters, but one from the ensemble. Marcus – played by Keith Stanfield – is the standoffish kid on the verge of turning 18 and getting ‘released’ from the foster-care center for teens. He’s brooding, strong, and intense for most part of the story and, until the moment, paints himself as if pushed into a corner. When he does lash out, he does it – incredibly – with poetry. In a single, long take as his supervisor sits him down to talk, he unleashes a rap song no one knew he had the capacity to write or perform – heartfelt, expletive-ridden, and delivered with a gumption that’d give Tupac goose bumps. It is a remarkable piece of writing – not just the scene itself – but the build up to it. It is so carefully constructed, you will never see the character’s revelation coming. It leaps out at you from the pages, the screen, and yet goes with the grain of the narrative. Stanfield’s steely-yet-vulnerable performance and Destin Cretton’s choices as director only serve to heighten the experience and leaves you forgetting to breathe.
Scenes are like souvenirs an audience walks out with after a gratifying, enriching or, heck, even a revolting, experience. 2013 at the movies left me wowed, tongue-tied, startled, nostalgic, affected, bored, disgusted, thrilled, the works. But the one scene that stayed with me for all the right reasons and in all probability always will is from Vikramaditya Motwane’s Lootera. Resembling O Henry’s short story The Last Leaf only in the third act, Motwane creates a unique emotional history around Sonakshi Sinha and Ranveer Singh’s star-crossed romance. It’s this melting moment between an ethereal Sonakshi and her on-screen father (played by a brilliantly benign Barun Chanda) that resonates most with me:
Following a bad bout of asthma, the concerned dad is seen comforting his sickly daughter, gently waving a fan on her recumbent frame. They share a lighthearted joke, which leads him to innocuously thwack her wrist and promptly ask, “Laga kya?” Her made-up frown quickly drowns in peals of laughter (and coughing). On cue, with the opening strain of Amit Trivedi’s mesmerising Ankahee playing in the background, he begins to recount the story of an invincible, much feared Bhil King who just wouldn’t die no matter how fiercely the British attacked him. “Phir ek din pata chala ke Raja ne apni jaan ek tote mein chhupa ke rakhi hai.” To find the whereabouts of this peculiar parrot, the British sent out a beautiful spy who lured the King in her romantic trap and the two got married. One day she discovered the truth behind the King’s immortality and smothered the parrot to death without a second’s thought. “Phir?” quizzes his only child, somewhat, uneasily. “Phir…woh mar gaya. Beta, aap mera tota ho. Agar aap ko kuch ho gaya na…,” he doesn’t complete his sentence. He doesn’t have to. There’s so much more at its core though. Apart from highlighting the hearty father-daughter bond, it constructs a context to understand the magnitude of Sonakshi’s consecutive loss, heartbreak and need for retaliation. One has to possess a certain level of sensitivity to convey tenderness that doesn’t feel manufactured. Motwane does. And he lends it to this scene, which works beautifully even as a standalone.
Only in a state like Maharashtra, where right-wing is so strong that even after the death of their biggest ideologue I don’t feel confident and safe mentioning his name in a post that has no direct criticism of his easily-criticizable styles of functioning, where newspaper offices get ransacked for faintest of hurt sentiments, where people get beaten up for not standing up during the mandatory National Anthem before the film – a film like ‘Fandry’ is possible. (Just like BR Ambedkar and Vijay Tendulkar couldn’t have been anywhere else.) A state of oppression breeds an inventiveness and ferocity of protest like nothing else.
And in a protest film (though treated like a coming of age for the most part) like ‘Fandry’, comes a scene that makes all the protest scenes in the history of our cinema look tame in comparison. A Dalit family is trying to catch a pig next to a school, the Dalit kid is feeling humiliated ‘cos his friends might be watching the reality of his caste he has so carefully hidden from them, the pig evading them like a pro. After lots of chasing the pig finally seems to be cornered. The family now just has to move closer and catch it and end the misery on both sides of this hunter-hunted divide. The kid seems slightly relieved that the ordeal may be over as they encircle the pig. But, just before they could swoop down, the national anthem starts playing in the school assembly next door. Nobody can move now, except of course the pig. As the Dalit family stands in attention, paying ‘due respects’ to the nation they are equal citizens of, the pig walks away into the free morning.
The whole cinema hall jumped up and applauded the scene wildly. I guess the irreverence, cheekiness, and metaphor it stood for connected with all of us, so used to standing awkwardly before the film, one hand carrying smartphone, another carrying popcorn, thinking ‘Pandit Bhimsen Joshi ji, aalaap mat lo itna lamba. 56 second mein khatam hona chaahiye ideally!
My pick for the best scene of the year (apart from every other scene from The Great Beauty) is the 9 minute opening scene of Carlos Reygadas’ Post Tenebras Lux ( I wasn’t too impressed by the film). Reygadas has outdone the brilliant time-transition shot from his previous film, Silent Light. Here we have a little girl left out in the open in the middle of barking dogs and horses, running around merrily, unaware of the ominous shift in the sky. Shot almost through the girl’s eye level, the 4:3 frame and the blurry edges shows the constricted world of the girl and in effect, take us closer to her experience. Watch and get hypnotized.
Towards the end of the Bengali movie “Goynar Baksho” a young woman in her 20s rides a scooter to meet a lover who has been incommunicado for a few months. The scene, in which she is accompanied on the scooter by one of the film’s protagonists – another headstrong woman who asks her to drive faster – is remarkable for a number of reasons. It’s a starkly happy contrast from one of the first scenes of the film (dated about 50 years earlier) where a 12 year-old child was married to a man much older than her; was widowed soon after and subsequently had to endure three indignities: of wearing white for the rest of her life, of remaining unmarried and of having her lustrous mane of hair chopped off. Moreover, startlingly, the year is 1971, around the time of the creation of Bangladesh; not 2011. Lastly, it’s a bittersweet reminder of progressive Bengali literary thought and the once ostensibly modern, well-educated and relatively prosperous society that influenced it. Sadly, the great Bengali dream, a burgeoning reality till the late 70s, was crushed by decades of preposterous Communist rule, aided by a general lethargy in the Bengali bhadralok. That one scene holds a mirror to our present, where many observers rightly despair about the position of women in India. In an increasingly intolerant and regressive Indian society, one can only wonder where the next well of inspiration will spring from?
@nagrathnam on Soodhu Kavvum’s confrontation scene
[SPOILER ALERT]
For me, it’s the confrontation scene between the honest minister’s errant son and the Tamilnadu Chief Minister. Only a veteran like Radha Ravi could pull off the dead pan humor with which he dispenses shakti-ka-santulan and casually hands over the mantle to his son, forcing the irritatingly honest minister into retirement. That is the turning point of the film. Fair is foul and foul is fair, Welcome to Kalyug. And followed by the kickass retro montage.
“See how he shakes his head. A minister should like him!”
Don’t worry about the spoiler. Because this isn’t a plot twist. Or a big reveal.
A man who has been told that his ex-wife who is in a coma hasn’t reacted to the smell of perfumes, carries the box out of the hospital room. We follow him out in the corridor. Moments later, he changes his mind. He comes back to the bedside. Takes a bottle of perfume out of the box. His. The one she used to like. He sprays a little on him and leans towards her face and says: “If you can smell this, squeeze my hand.” He holds her hand. We see a solitary tear roll down a still woman’s face. He doesn’t see it. The camera is not interested in that. The camera takes us to a close up of his hand in hers and it’s waiting for the squeeze. The camera lingers on that beautiful composition. The entire film is constructed to arrive at this scene.
This ladies and lads, is the story of modern relationships. We all think we are so bloody mature to move on but the first instance when someone tells us it’s possible to revive the romance, we are quick to go and revisit it. We hold on to the undead person from the past, waiting for signs of life but are rarely in a position to see it.
Absolutely beautiful. Heartbreaking. Depressing. But also reassuring. We are not alone. This is the story of our times. Of fucked up relationships and messed up choices. I liked this film because it gave me the courage to put it all behind and let go. Completely. Cut off. And respect the dead.
When Deepika runs into Ranveer, and they draw out their guns. That frame, that shot, those colours. Wow! The one time I must have cinegasmed at the movies this year. The song that follows. The kiss. Lahoo mooh lag gaya! Truly breathtaking. It jogged me back to how Balam Pichkari was shot in YJHD. The same Deepika, the same sort of boisterous set up, the same use of riotous holi colours, and yet, you can tell the difference in how a film-maker frames his shot. Balam was youthful, zany, messy and the colours were ‘khacha-khach bhara hua’ – no sense of symmetry in it. Look at how Bhansali co-ordinates/’arranges’ his colours – the blues, the pinks, the reds – all evenly sectioned for each one hue to stand out. This is how you separate the men from the boys.
@shripriya on 12 Years A Slave’s roll Jordan scene
To say “12 Years A Slave” is a powerful film is an understatement. Some of the scenes are very hard to watch and that is the point. But of all the scenes, a short scene, with no violence, is, perhaps, the most powerful.
What happened right before:
Solomon (Chiwetel Ejiofor) has just been betrayed by a white farm hand and had to burn a letter he very painstakingly wrote to his wife and with that, his last hopes of ending his bondage.
A slave collapses in the field due to overwork and Solomon and two others bury him. Solomon goes about the task mechanically. He’s even mildly surprised/annoyed when one of the other grave diggers wants to say a few words for the dead man.
The scene:
A group of slaves stand near the grave and start singing “Roll, Jordan, Roll”. Solomon is part of the group, standing right in front, but emotionally apart from the rest of the slaves, as he as been through most of the movie. Solomon, who was not born a slave, has always maintained his distance – protected himself by maintaining a distance.
We then switch to a shot of Solomon’s face. His face is anguished, full of despair and desperation, overwhelmed by the recent events. The camera just stays on his face as slowly, Solomon starts to sing. It is almost like the song is his lifeline and he grasps onto it, at first just mumbling the words. As he sings, his voice gets stronger and his face changes. The song powers him and finally, he accepts that he is a slave. He starts singing even louder and seems to embrace the group with whom he sings as his brothers. And finally, you can hear his voice stand out, powerful. Despite what he is acknowledging, it feels like a positive self-affirmation. Yes, I am a slave, but I will survive. Even as a slave, I will survive.
The shot of Solomon’s face lasts a minute and fifteen seconds. There is no dialog. Just the singing. For this scene alone, for all the complex emotions conveyed, Chiwetel Ejiofor needs to be a front runner for the Oscar. Brilliant.
@fattiemama on Blue Is The Warmest Colour’s break-up scene
I looked away. For a good ten minutes, I kept my eyes away from the scene. I would have loved to shut my ears too but not understanding the language helped. She kept hitting her and she kept crying, pleading for forgiveness. Tears, snot, blood all became one as the searing pain of betrayal and guilt broke through the barriers of language. I have felt all of it and in not a small degree to not acknowledge it, yet the sheer rawness was so testing I wanted to be relieved of it. They were so good together, so happy, so carefree, so intense and so young…young, I think that hurt the most…All of us love ‘happily forever afters’. The most cynical of us too, somewhere in the corner of their hearts they too believe and yearn. And to watch a love so young and so deep break in a moment hurts. It shatters all that we hold dear, dream of. Was it the beautiful performances of the two young actresses? Was it the single long take? Was it the unbridled tears and blows? Was it the resounding thud of a featherlite dream breaking? Was it my own connection to a story that wasn’t my own? The reasons could be all or any but that scene refuses to leave me. Someday it will be replaced with the eternal tenderness she feels towards her. At the end of great love does not lie emptiness or hate. At the end of great love lies great tenderness. Had the scene not escalated to that intensity the end would not have mattered as much as it did. Had the violence not been so visceral, the wound of the soul would not have been bared. Because a love as deep has to hurt as much too. I just wish the blows had not travelled beyond the screen to sear me.
@jahanbakshion Spring Breakers: In which Alien and the Girls become ‘Soulmates’
Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers was certainly one of the most divisive films of the year, lauded and loathed in equal measure. Some found it provocative, others called it puerile. For me, it was certainly one of the most hypnotic and immersive cinematic experiences of the year, and at the center of the film were 2 of the most memorable scenes of the year, one segueing into the other seamlessly.
The first scene begins with a gun-toting Alien jumps around his bed, Brit and Candy kneeling before him, seemingly in awe.
“You like it? You like my shit? Look at you fucking bitches. You fucking love it, don’t you? You a couple of bad bitches, ain’t you?”
He thrusts and rubs wads of money in their hungry faces and then begins to kiss both the girls. One of them picks up a pistol from the bed.
“Careful with that, it’s loaded.”
We see a look on Alien’s face we haven’t seen before. It’s the look of genuine terror. Suddenly, out of nowhere, both the girls have pistols pointed at Alien. The get him down on his knees and shove a pistol in his face, then another.
“Sick motherfucker, aren’t you? You think that you can just fucking own us? Open your mouth. Open your fucking mouth…. You’re a nasty little fuck. Yeah, you are. Do you like that? You like that in there?”
Alien is shitting concrete by now. You can see it in his eyes, almost closed shut out of fear.
“We have everything we need right here. We don’t need you, Alien. What if we just used you to come here? And in five seconds we just shoot you? Blow your brains out. And you’re dead… What do you think, Brit, should we kill him?”
And just then, something happens. Alien opens his eyes and stares into the girls faces. And starts to fellate the gun with unnerving glee. First one, then two loaded guns, and he’s going at them like a seasoned pornstar.
It’s a stunning scene- sexy, shocking, gender-bending, nail-bitingly tense and unpredictable- all at once. That’s what makes it so great, apart from how crucial it is in building the characters, their relationship(s) and the trust that forms the basis of their truly twisted love story.
“Y’all my motherfuckin’ soul mates, swear to god. I just fell in love with y’all…”
This flows into what is the most talked-about scene from the film, in which Alien sings Britney Spears’ Everytime, playing a piano as the girls do a ballet around him in pink ski-masks, bikinis and sweatpants, wielding shotguns like toys. As Franco’s voice fades into Britney’s, the scene cuts to a blizzard of hedonistic violence as Alien and his Angels perform their dance of destruction.
The use of contrasting music as a counterpoint to violence in cinema is nothing new, but Spring Breakers does it exceptionally well, managing to transform Britney Spear’s pop ballad not just into something darkly humorous but also a strangely beautiful elegy to the loss of innocence. It’s one of those scenes that lift the viewer into a trance and the film into transcendence. True to his name, Mr. Korine achieves that rare thing in cinema: Absolute Harmony.
@miyaamihir on last scene of Star (Bombay Talkies)
हिन्दुस्तान की ही नहीं, शायद विश्व की सबसे प्रामाणिक ग्रामीण फिल्मों में से एक बनाने वाले निर्देशक सत्यजित राय मूलत: एक शहरी फिल्मकार थे। हमारे वर्तमान महानगर के चितेरे। उसकी अाकांक्षाअों के, उसके अपमानों के। मुझे श्याम बेनेगल के उन पर बनाये उस प्रामाणिक वृत्तचित्र का अंतिम दृश्य याद अाता है। राय अपने घर में अपने घर में, अपने कमरे में अपनी वर्किंग डेस्क पर बैठे हैं अौर अपना वही मशहूर सिगार पी रहे हैं। अौर फिर कैमरा ज़ूम-अाउट होता है। एक ही सिंगल शॉट में हम देखते हैं कि कैमरा पैन-अाउट होता हुअा खिड़की से बाहर निकलता है, अौर हालांकि राय अब भी हमारे सामने हैं लेकिन उनके साथ अब अन्य बहुत कुछ इस फ्रेम में है। एक पूरा शहर इस एक सिंगल शॉट में जैसे राय के साथ चला अाता है। एक ही फ्रेम में हम बीच में उनका घर देख रहे हैं जिसकी बीचोंबीच खिड़की में अब भी राय बैठे दिखाई दे रहे हैं, वही सिगार के साथ। लेकिन अब इस वाइड एंगल में चारों अोर से कलकत्ता की बहुमंजिला इमारतें अौर बाज़ार भी चले अाये हैं। यह एक दृश्य फिल्मकार को उसके सबजेक्ट के ठीक बीचोंबीच स्थापित करता है अौर शायद हमें यह भी बताता है कि किसी भी रचना को जैसे उसके समय से निरपेक्ष नहीं पढ़ा जा सकता, ठीक वैसे ही किसी भी रचना को उसके स्थान से निरपेक्ष रख के पढ़ना भी मुश्किल है।
दिबाकर की ‘स्टार’ के उस अंतिम पोर-पोर जादू से भरे दृश्य में जहाँ पुरंदर (नवाजुद्दीन सिद्दीक़ी) अपनी बेटी को अपने जीवन का एक दिन पुन:रचकर सुना रहे हैं, दिखा रहे हैं, ठीक ऐसे ही एक पैन-अाउट होते हुए कैमरे के साथ पूरा शहर उनके दृश्य की सीमा के भीतर चला अाता है। यहाँ वो नायकत्व है जिसका दायरा अपनी चाल की बालकनी से अागे नहीं बढ़ पाया। यहाँ वो पिता है जो अपनी बेटी के लिए रची कहानियों में भी कभी नायक नहीं हो पाया अौर उसे कल्पना की दुनिया में भी सदा किसी ‘िहृतिक’ का सहारा लेना पड़ा। यहाँ वो इंसान है जिसकी असफलता अगर गौर से देखें तो हमारे वर्तमान शहर की वो बची-कुची ईमानदारी अौर असलीपना है जिसके होने के चलते ही पुरंदर अाज भी इस शहर में मिसफिट है।
‘स्टार’ सही मायनों में बम्बई की कथा है। यहाँ मुम्बई की बन्द हुई मिलें हैं अौर बेरोज़गार हुए मजदूरों के घरों का ठंडा चूल्हा है। तमाम सिनेमा की पृष्ठभूमि पर ऊँची चिमनियाँ है उन मिलों की जिनका धुअाँ जीवन की अग्नि की तरह कब का बुझ चुका है। यहाँ कुछ सर्वश्रेष्ठ अदाकार हैं जो विदर्भ से मुम्बई तक कुछ सौ किलोमीटर की दूरी अपने जीवनकाल में कभी पाट नहीं पाये। फाकों पर होता थियेटर है अौर उसमें फिर बराबरी का स्वप्न है। यहाँ अपने बाप की पेंशन पर जीता अौर समाज की नज़रों में एक असफ़ल इंसान है, अौर फिर एक निर्णायक क्षण है जब वह खुद पिता हो जाता है। सिनेमा के दायरों से परे एक अौर दुनिया है जिसमें अाज संतुष्टि को असफलता अौर असफलता को अयोग्यता का मूल मान लिया गया है। ऐसे समय में जहाँ अापके होने से ज़्यादा दिखाई देने का महत्व हो, ‘स्टार’ इशारा करती है कि सफल-असफल के खांचों के परे भी एक संसार होगा जिसमें योग्यता प्रदर्शन की मोहताज नहीं होगी। ‘स्टार’ उस जीवन के बारे में है जिसे अपने दायरे की पहचान करनी है, अौर जानना है कि उसका ‘स्टार’ होना, न होना दुनिया की स्वीकार्यता पर नहीं, सिर्फ एक बच्ची की हंसी पर निर्भर है। अौर इसके साथ ही यह हमें समझना है कि महत्वाकांक्षा का जयगान गानेवाले इस दुर्दांत समय में ‘संतुष्टि’ एक दुर्लभ मूल्य है।
@NotSoSnob on The Great Beauty’s opening party scene
The two most memorable scenes of the year for me are the climax of Frances Ha and Ilo Ilo. Frances Ha’s climax wraps up the film beautifully as its lead character gets what she wants from a relationship. Guess? It’s simple, unusual and still profound. Ilo Ilo’s climax is bitter sweet, as a kid gets slapped, you laugh at the scene first and then you realise what the filmmaker has done – completed the loop between two strangers who fought initially, bonded later and then had to separate. But am writing about another absolute favourite scene of the year. This one is from The Great Beauty.
When you are watching the film for the first time, you keep wondering what’s happening. Where is it going? It seems like a non-stop party music video. And all you see is bodies shaking vigorously in every possible way interrupted by chants of a bald man shouting, I’ll screw you, while looking at a lady dancing on top of the table. You see striptease, a woman shouting for her lost mobile, a dog in a purse, a very short woman lost in the crowd while sipping her drink, and then a tv showgirl appears with 6-5 written on her boobs. As Jep Gambardella turns back, you realise this is his birthday party. It continues for few more minutes, and then everyone starts dancing while matching their steps on the beats of Mueve la colita. After some time the music slows down, Jep gets out of the queue slowly, looks into the camera, the camera zooms in, slowly everyone gets out of the frame and we see only his face as his voice-over starts – To this question, as kid, my friends always gave the same answer – “pussy”. Whereas i answered, “the smell of old people’s houses”. The question was :
This scene not only sets up the film but also sums it up well. As Gambardella’s search continues through Rome’s rich and boring men and fashionable women, the only word that comes to your mind is decadence. I have gone back to the film many times and specially this scene. Just to hear the opening voice-over. But the impact is lost if you don’t watch the entire party scene – the dancer number, the slowing down of music and Jep moving out of the crowd. Because that’s where the separation begins. Jep and the rest. You are going to encounter all these characters in the film through Jep only. To go back to the madness of the scene, i have even saved this image as my computer screensaver. But i still can’t get enough of Mister Jep Gambardella, his voice-over and the insane beginning of his search for The Great Beauty.
Do let us know about your favourite scenes of the year in the comments section.
– Early buzz on Kanu Behl’s Titli : Titli is the most stunning, daring, solid Indian film i have seen this year. Nothing like Indian cinema has seen ever…not a single wrong frame. Too depressing and suffocating at times…but man, this MUST go international. Animal kingdom ka baap hai! And all actors just at their career best roles. (via a friend who saw it). Titli is produced by Dibakar Banerjee and Aditya Chopra. To know more about the film, click here.
– Kanu Behl’s Titli also won the DI Award for the Best Work-in-Progress Lab Project. The DI Award sponsors the completion of the Digital Intermediate process at Prasad Labs.
– New York-based BGP Film has picked up the North American rights of Gyan Correa’s film The Good Road.
– Abhay Deol will star in the UK-set thriller, Bounty Hunter, to be directed by brothers Sunandan and Yugesh Walia. They will also co-produce the film rough their UK-based production company Endboard Productions.
– Q to make English-language debut with Brahman Naman, to be produced by Steve Barron’s UK-based Riley Productions. Set in Bangalore in the 1980s, the film is a comedy about a 17-year-old who tops his class but also has whisky addiction, filthy mouth and a porn collection. Q’s Kolkata-based production company Overdose Joint will co-produce.
– France’s ASAP Films to produce Rajesh Jala’s The Spark (Chingari). It was selected for NFDC Screenwriters’ Lab and Co-production Market. The script also won the Incredible India award at Film Bazaar. The Award comes with a cash price of Rs. 1 mn for the best project in the Co-Production Market and is presented by the Ministry of Tourism.
– Ashim Ahluwalia’s film Miss Lovely is set to release in India in January 2014. This will be done through the start-up theatrical distributor Easel Films and Eagle Movies.
– Guneet Monga’s Sikhya Entertainment has announced two new films – Amit Kumar’s Give Me Blood and Vasan Bala’s Side Hero.
– Nikhil Mahajan (of Pune 52) has announced his new film Dainik which will star Rajkummar Rao (Yes, RajKumar Yadav is now Rao). DAR Motion Pictures, IME Motion Pictures and Nikhil Mahajan’s Blue Drop Films will co-produce Marathi action adventure Baji, starring Shreyas Talpade.
– Varun Grover’s film Maa Bhagwatiya IIT Coaching will be produced by Nikhil Mahajan. The script was selected for Screenwriters Lab.
– DAR Motion Pictures, IME Motion Pictures will co-produce Nikhil Mahajan’s Marathi Superhero film Baji starring Shreyas Talpade.
– After Qissa, filmmaker Anup Singh is working on adapting UK author Paul Pickering’s novel Over The Rainbow. The film will be produced by Switzerland-based Saskia Vischer Productions.
– Channel 4 has picked up four titles – The Good Road, Sulemani Keeda, Fandry and B.A. Pass.
Our Day 1 report of the ongoing Mumbai Film Festival is here. And this post has reports of Day 2, 3, 4.
All Is Lost – Robert Redford has no name in the film. He is called “Our Man”. And we hardly know much about our man. He is stuck at the sea and struggling to survive. A one-man show, the film begins with a voice-over, and then has no dialogues except one “Help”. Not your usual fare, needs patience, and at 77, Redford shows he can still be the tour de force. The sea and survival never rarely looked so real and scary. This isn’t your pocorn-ish Life Of Pi.
Locke – Tom Hardy is our man here. He is stuck at the driving seat. A experimental affair in which he loses his wife, family, job in just 2 hours as he faces a personal crisis. Everything happens on the phone. Good fun.
Qissa – Strange, fascinating and ghostly tale. A detailed post here on this gender-bending and genre-bending film. One of the most exciting films at the fest. Must Watch.
Liar’s Dice – Set in difficult weather and tough terrain, Kamala (Geentajali Thapa) is looking for her missing husband. From moutains to plains, from Delhi to a single-bed room in a shady hotel, her companion is a selfish and untrustworthy stranger Nawazuddin (Siddiqui). A stark, grim and almost unsentimental portrayal of urban migration. Has a charming kid too. Looking forward to Geethu Mohandas’s next.
Before Midnight – Linklater ends the third installment in the best possible way. A rare achievement where the third one is better than the second, and the second one was better that the first installment. He burns down every notion of ideal love and relationship that he sets in the first two parts. Linklater, Hawke, Delpy – it’s hard to believe that they actually “wrote” this film, and they were “acting’ the parts. You mean Hawke and Delpy are not a couple yet? That has to be the biggest cinematic lie ever told. Must Watch.
The Great Beauty (La Grande Bellezza) – Easily the best film of the fest. Smart, charming and entertaining. Of vacuous people amidst art, culture, history, and beauty of Rome. Decadence was never so poetic, caustic, beautiful and surreal at the same time. Or as friend described it “debauched shot of caviar existentialism”. Once you are out of the theatre, can bet that you are going to quote the lines non-stop. And if you could not figure out why the tourist dies in the opening scene, go here. MUST MUST WATCH.
Fandry – It’s Beasts Of The Maharashtrian Wild. The pains of growing up, of dreaming about the girl from upper caste, trying to get fair skin, and buy a pair of jeans. About a family of pig catchers who are considered untouchable in the village, and of adolescent days. The harsh reality might seem like poverty porn, but a line from The Great Beauty came to my mind – you can’t talk about poverty, you have to live it. A daring film where the entire film seems to be set-up for the powerful last 20 minutes.
Mood Indigo – Gondry in top form with his insane ideas and visual madness on screen. The amount of creativity he has packed in one film, most don’t achieve in their entire filmography. My favourite game is what-prop-do-you-want-from-Mood-Indigo? Scientists should seriously pursue this one. I am booking the crawling alarm clock. Must Watch.
Mamay Umeng – Pure vegetative porn. The 84 year old man wakes up, eats, walks, stares and sleeps. Only exciting thing in his life is skinny dipping. Long shots without any camera movement. There’s so much thehraav in every shot, i get lost in such vegetative porn films and get philosophical. That’s why i went for it even when i knew what exactly i was getting into.
The Immigrant – Marion Cotillard, Joaquin Phoenix – two great actors and just a boring dead film. Avoid.
The Past– Farhadi is still going strong after bagging the Oscar for The Separation. It’s not a clear knock out like his last one, but still a strong film with all the usual Farhadi elements. A relationship drama which becomes a thriller, and as you get lost in the maze trying to find out the real culprit, he slowly peels his story, one layer at a time. Terrific opening credit and haunting closing shot. It’s worth the price. Must Watch.
Sulemani Keeda – Of versova, by versova, for versova. The bonafide Versova indie that doesn’t look like bhindi-indies. Honest, charming and funny, it’s best when it sticks to Versova tales, the romantic track is neatly done but am generally bored of boy-meets-girl-blah-blah-blah. Liquor in plastic glass, flat owner’s son asking for rent, kabootarkhana, no money for screenwriters, another Kapoor struggling for break – it gets some of the small details so bang on. So Versova-ities, do watch this one. Well acted and directed, a good CV for debutant Amit Masurkar to pitch a bigger film. More about the film here.
Blue Is The Warmest Colour– The explicit sex scenes in the film were so long that you could fall asleep while watching. And the moaning sounds were so loud, you could go deaf. Strangely, these sex scenes were the only scenes which seemed out of the place in this terrific coming of age tale of intimate first love, heart break and loneliness. And that impossible task of getting over it. To get all those emotions right without any background score, quite an achievement. Long takes, all conversations in close ups, and director in no hurry to wrap up things, this is uncompromising individualistic stamp of filmmaking which doesn’t mind going to the extreme. I guess that’s the reason why Spielberg and the jury members decided to hand Cannes Palm d’Or to it. Here’s the video where he explains. Adèle Exarchopoulos is a complete show stealer and owns the film. Remember, orgasm precedes essence. And sex and snot before Sartare. Must Watch.
– cilema snob
(ps – Kartik Krishnan managed to catch many more movies than us. But his internet is down, or so he claims. So please pray for his internet connection. We will get more posts)
London Film Festival (LFF) has announced its schedule for this year. The 57th edition of the festival will run from 9-20 October and will screen 234 feature-length films & 134 shorts from 74 countries.
India seems to have a good score at LFF this year as seven desi films have been selected for the fest. The titles include Buddhadeb Dasgupta’s Anwar Ka Ajab Kissa, Ritesh Batra’s fest favourite The Lunchbox, Nagraj Manjule’s Fandry, Richie Mehta’s Siddharth, Shaina Anand and Ashok Sukumaran’s From Gulf To Gulf, Rituparno Ghosh’s Jeevan Smriti and Uday Shankar’s Kalpana. The Lunchbox is in official competition section of the fest.
But the one that we are most excited about is Anwar Ka Ajab Kissa (Sniffer). We have been hearing about it for sometime and now more details have come out.
ANWAR KA AJAB KISSA
Master Bengali filmmaker Buddhadeb Dasgupta teams up with India’s hottest indie actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui in this richly textured black comedy, set against a magical, surreal tableaux of the Bengali city and countryside that’s typical of Dasgupta’s eye. Anwar (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) is a well meaning if clumsy private detective, or ‘sniffer’, who can’t help getting personally embroiled with the clients he is spying on. His only true companion is an old dog. His pet and his regular drunkenness put him at odds with the local orthodox Muslim housing block, who want him out. At the same time, Anwar increasingly struggles to cope with his small-time sleuth work that shows him that, in the modern world, even love is for sale. When a case takes Anwar back to his rural homeland, he’s forced to confront his own love tragedy. Siddiqui lights up the screen, displaying a talent for deft comic timing that makes Sniffer a joy to watch.
– Director-Screenwriter : Buddhadeb Dasgupta
– Producers : Ajay Sharma, Archismaan Sharma
– With Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Pankaj Tripathi, Ananya Chatterjee
– Duration :132 mins
FANDRY
The ‘untouchable’ Jabya struggles to reconcile his status with his dreams in Nagraj Manjule’s uncompromising indictment of India’s caste system.
– Director-Screenwriter : Nagraj Manjule
– Producers : Vivek Kajaria, Nilesh Navalakha
– With Somnath Avghade, Suraj Pawar, Kishor Kadam
– Duration : 105 mins
– Production company Navalakha Arts and Holy Basil Combine
Nagraj Manjule’s film is a scorching indictment of the caste system that persists in modern India despite legislation introduced since independence. It is depicted through the eyes of an intelligent Dalit (untouchable) teenager, Jabya, who has a deeply rooted inferiority complex about his looks, caste and his family’s staggering poverty. These feelings prevent him from expressing his affection for his fellow classmate and cherished love, the fair-skinned Shalu, who is the daughter of a higher-caste family. His father is against him going to school and aspiring too highly and fellow villagers expect him to do menial work like the rest of his clan.
SIDDHARTH
A modern-day quest to find his missing son leads Delhi tailor Mahendra on a perilous journey into the unknown in Richie Mehta’s cautionary tale.
– Director-Screenwriter Richie Mehta
– Producers Steven N Bray, David Miller
– With Rajesh Tailang, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Anuray Arora
– Canada-India 2013
– Duration 96 mins
– Production company Poor Man’s Productions
– Sales : Fortissimo
Director Richie Mehta returns to London with a powerful tale that is all too sadly a common story in today’s Indian cities. In Delhi, a door-to-door tailor, Mahendra, and his long-suffering wife, played by Tannishtha Chatterjee (Brick Lane), are struggling to make ends meet. They send their 12-year-old son Siddharth off to work illegally in a factory in Punjab, but when he doesn’t arrive back on the agreed date, the couple go to the middle men who arranged their son’s job and then the police. As they don’t have a photo of their son, identification is near impossible. As tales of child abduction are raised the desperate father borrows money from his fellow local street vendors and sets off on a quest to trace his son’s journey into the unknown.
FROM GULF TO GULF
Mobile phone video from the sailors who brave the routes between India and the Persian Gulf form the basis of grassroots true-life adventure.
– Directors : Shaina Anand, Ashok Sukumaran
– Producer CAMP
– India-United Arab Emirates 2013
– Duration : 81 mins
– Production company : Sharjah Art Foundation
‘A film based on actual events, and videos of actual events.’ Four years ago the Indian artists’ collective CAMP started to work with the boats that crisscross the Arabian Sea from the Gulf of Kutch between India and Pakistan to the Persian Gulf. This film draws from these years of dialogue, friendship and video exchange with sailors, most of whom are from Gujarat in India, Southern Iran and Pakistan. Rather than directing, the filmmakers act as editors, deftly compiling from the sailors’ mobile phone footage an authentic grassroots picture of the experiences of these usually invisible sea workers. But, with the impressive wooden boats and the joyous soundtrack (chosen by the sailors themselves), this humble material is ultimately transformed into a modern adventure on the high seas.
JEEVAN SMRITI
The swansong of the late Rituparno Ghosh is a fittingly personal take on the LFF favourite’s own inspiration, the poet-artist Rabindranath Tagore.
– Director-Screenwriter : Rituparno Ghosh
– Producer : Sanjoy Nag
– With Sanjoy Nag, Samadarshi Dutta, Raima Sen, Anirban Ghosh
– Duration 78 mins
– Sales : National Film Development Corporation
This is a sumptuous, very personal docu-drama about his own inspiration – the legendary poet and artist Rabindranath Tagore. Flamboyant Rituparno, with his camera team, set off from Kolkata in the monsoons to Tagore’s country birthplace, on a journey of love and poetic admiration. On the way they uncover the lesser-known personal life of this Bengali hero. A stunningly photographed dramatic story, backed by great actors like Raima Sen, depicts the inner struggles of the young, introvert Tagore who, in spite of his comfortable background, was constantly tortured but also inspired by love and terrible loss.
Kalpana is Uday Shankar’s classic which has been restored by World Cinema Foundation at Cineteca di Bologna/ L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory in association with the National Film Archive of India.
F.i.g.h.t C.l.u.b 