Thursday, January 29, 2004
Maqbool
For some reason, post-Satya, almost every filmmaker who wants to make a mark in mainstream cinema feels obliged to make at least one gangster film.
The genre offers an opportunity to be ‘with it’, deal with violence in a stylized manner and explore various areas of darkness – almost as if willfully challenging the feel good mantra of a large section of popular cinema.
After a small children’s film Makdee, music composer-turned-filmmaker Vishan Bharadwaj gets a larger canvas in Maqbool, which is Macbeth set in the Mumbai underworld (a la American movie Men of Respect). Though, if you knew your Hollywood better than your Shakespeare, you’d think the director was simply inspired by Godfather.
Maqbool (Irrfan Khan), is the trusted lieutenant of Abbaji (Pankaj Kapoor) a Mumbai don. Abbaji’s mistress Nimmi (Tabu) lusts after Maqbool and engineers the murder of Abbaji. Maqbool gets the power and the woman he loves, but also a heavy load of guilt and the responsibility of dealing with the ensuing chaos.
Though there is a love story involving Abbaji’s daughter and a gangster’s son, the film focuses on the violence and ugliness of the underworld, with two cops (Om Puri and Naseeruddin Shah) acting as catalysts and commentators.
Though the film works only in fits and starts, Bharadwaj displays enough directorial vision and technical control, for one to be able to tell that he is a filmmaker with the talent to work wonders with better material. In fact this ‘chor-police’ laddish stuff is best left to filmmakers devoid of imagination. Even to this overworked genre, the director has given a touch of poetry and a Muslim ‘nawabi’ grace in parts.
Bharadwaj is blessed with some of the best actors in the business and it is a pleasure to see this group in action. Pankaj Kapoor, plays Abbaji with a benevolent air and a selection of mannerisms that makes him almost likeable. With Tabu and Irrfan playing the brooding guilty lovers, the film sparks to life when Om Puri and Naseeruddin Shah appear on screen.
One has higher hopes from Vishal Bharadwaj now that he has proved his credentials.
The genre offers an opportunity to be ‘with it’, deal with violence in a stylized manner and explore various areas of darkness – almost as if willfully challenging the feel good mantra of a large section of popular cinema.
After a small children’s film Makdee, music composer-turned-filmmaker Vishan Bharadwaj gets a larger canvas in Maqbool, which is Macbeth set in the Mumbai underworld (a la American movie Men of Respect). Though, if you knew your Hollywood better than your Shakespeare, you’d think the director was simply inspired by Godfather.
Maqbool (Irrfan Khan), is the trusted lieutenant of Abbaji (Pankaj Kapoor) a Mumbai don. Abbaji’s mistress Nimmi (Tabu) lusts after Maqbool and engineers the murder of Abbaji. Maqbool gets the power and the woman he loves, but also a heavy load of guilt and the responsibility of dealing with the ensuing chaos.
Though there is a love story involving Abbaji’s daughter and a gangster’s son, the film focuses on the violence and ugliness of the underworld, with two cops (Om Puri and Naseeruddin Shah) acting as catalysts and commentators.
Though the film works only in fits and starts, Bharadwaj displays enough directorial vision and technical control, for one to be able to tell that he is a filmmaker with the talent to work wonders with better material. In fact this ‘chor-police’ laddish stuff is best left to filmmakers devoid of imagination. Even to this overworked genre, the director has given a touch of poetry and a Muslim ‘nawabi’ grace in parts.
Bharadwaj is blessed with some of the best actors in the business and it is a pleasure to see this group in action. Pankaj Kapoor, plays Abbaji with a benevolent air and a selection of mannerisms that makes him almost likeable. With Tabu and Irrfan playing the brooding guilty lovers, the film sparks to life when Om Puri and Naseeruddin Shah appear on screen.
One has higher hopes from Vishal Bharadwaj now that he has proved his credentials.
Labels: Cinemaah
Paap
Paap
In her directorial debut, Pooja Bhatt captures a beautiful and unexplored part of India—when everybody else flies off to the Alps.
The Amish community of the Harrison Ford starrer Witness is turned into a Buddhist outpost in desolate Spiti Valley, where the leading lady of Paap, swims alone in her rather smart underwear. She is supposed to be leading an isolated, austere existence with her stern father (Mohan Agashe), who wants her to join a monastery, but has the latest hairstyle, perfectly coordinated gown-and-accessory ensembles, skillfully applied eye-make-up and manicured nails. Not to mention an over-active erotic imagination.
Kaaya (Udita Goswami) also seems to be the only young woman around, so she is dispatched to Delhi by the Lama to escort back to the monastery a little boy who is the reincarnation of a spiritual leader. In a hotel toilet the child witnesses a murder of a cop. The killers happen to be senior cops, so Shiven (John Abraham), the officer investigating the case, finds himself wounded and on the run with Kaaya.
Shiven recovers from the bullet wound, as Kaaya tends to him and imagines rather vividly – for one who is not exposed to the outside world— passionate clinches with the shirtless cop. Kaaya’s father shrilly admonishes her and Shiven, though the ‘paap’, if any, is only in her mind. The child disappears abruptly, and is brought back for a hurried climax.
So Paap, is neither a thriller, not a romance—the debate between the worldly and the spiritual, as represented by the two men, is also dealt with at very superficial level and left dangling mid-air. And in how many more films will a character chase the vehicle of a departing lover! Couldn’t Bhatt have come up with a better closing scene!
For a film with a title as tantalizing as Paap, the film is curiously devoid of sensuality—if there is a hint of it, the ‘model’ actors are incapable of expressing it. Finally, the locations and the music of the film are its highlights.
In her directorial debut, Pooja Bhatt captures a beautiful and unexplored part of India—when everybody else flies off to the Alps.
The Amish community of the Harrison Ford starrer Witness is turned into a Buddhist outpost in desolate Spiti Valley, where the leading lady of Paap, swims alone in her rather smart underwear. She is supposed to be leading an isolated, austere existence with her stern father (Mohan Agashe), who wants her to join a monastery, but has the latest hairstyle, perfectly coordinated gown-and-accessory ensembles, skillfully applied eye-make-up and manicured nails. Not to mention an over-active erotic imagination.
Kaaya (Udita Goswami) also seems to be the only young woman around, so she is dispatched to Delhi by the Lama to escort back to the monastery a little boy who is the reincarnation of a spiritual leader. In a hotel toilet the child witnesses a murder of a cop. The killers happen to be senior cops, so Shiven (John Abraham), the officer investigating the case, finds himself wounded and on the run with Kaaya.
Shiven recovers from the bullet wound, as Kaaya tends to him and imagines rather vividly – for one who is not exposed to the outside world— passionate clinches with the shirtless cop. Kaaya’s father shrilly admonishes her and Shiven, though the ‘paap’, if any, is only in her mind. The child disappears abruptly, and is brought back for a hurried climax.
So Paap, is neither a thriller, not a romance—the debate between the worldly and the spiritual, as represented by the two men, is also dealt with at very superficial level and left dangling mid-air. And in how many more films will a character chase the vehicle of a departing lover! Couldn’t Bhatt have come up with a better closing scene!
For a film with a title as tantalizing as Paap, the film is curiously devoid of sensuality—if there is a hint of it, the ‘model’ actors are incapable of expressing it. Finally, the locations and the music of the film are its highlights.
Labels: Cinemaah
