Saturday, August 11, 2007
Chak+2
Chak De India
There is a mile-long list of Hollywood sports films that follow the underdog-beating-champ formula. In India too, a film like Lagaan would stand out amidst the small bunch of lesser films.
So when one goes in to see Chak De India (inspired by Miracle among others) one knows exactly what to expect in terms of plot; in this case it’s the ‘how’ that’s more important, since the ‘what’ is known.
Shimit Amin’s Chak De India has a disgraced hockey player Kabir Khan (Shah Rukh Khan) return seven years after he was accused of throwing a match to Pakistan, and offer to coach the women’s hockey team that is to participate in the world cup. In spite of the skepticism of the bureaucrats, he is hired, and 16 girls arrive from all over the country for training.
Amin (and writer Jaideep Sahni) make some throwaway comments about people’s ignorance about their country—the girls from Jharkhand and the North East have to face the silliest questions.
Kabir’s first task is to make the girls rally around into an Indian team, rather that players from various state teams. There is the usual friction between the girls over small matters like bunk allocation. The experienced players—particularly the cynical Bindiya Naik (Shilpa Shukla)—resent the tough regime Kabir puts them through.
The girls get mutinous, till an ordinary incident of eve-teasing unites them, and now they are ready for the game as it should be played. All this is fairly predictable, what is more interesting is what is not underlined—like the dingy room and awful bathroom the girls have to share, while the cricketer boyfriend of one of the girls lounges in five star comfort.
The back-stories of the girls needed more fleshing out perhaps, instead of the inordinate amount given to the world cup matches. The tribal girls from Jharkhand for instance—how did they even get this far? More about the relationships and rivalries between the girls, would have also made a difference to the otherwise conventional story. It’s not as if the actual women’s hockey win at the Commonwealth Games, that inspired Chak De India, rescued the sport from near-oblivion, so it’s not so much the game as the impact it made on the lives of these ordinary girls that would have given the film more meaning. The supercilious cricketer gets dumped by his victorious fiancee, but what about the married girl (Vidya Malavade), for instance? Is she able to go back and become the ideal ‘bahu’ her family wants her to be? Will the hefty Balbir (Tanya Abrol) and the little Komal (Chitrashi Rawat), ever go back to a normal existence after the heady experience of winning.
Instead of the untold little stories, Amin goes for broad patriotic strokes of the flag-waving kind. The essence of the film comes together in Kabir’s “70-minute” speech— where the SRK magic is most prominent—but there’re too few of these heart-stopping moments.
The biggest strength of the film is in the casting of ordinary actors who offset Shah Rukh’s dazzling star power, by becoming their parts—the matronly assistant coach for one, is fabulous.
For sportslovers, the film is still worth the price of a ticket. Amin delivers some fine hockey action. It’s just that you want more than that winning goal.
The Blue Umbrella
Vishal Bharadwaj’s The Blue Umbrella won the National Award for Best children’s film, but it is one of those films that would appeal more to adults. The story of crime, punishment and redemption may be too heavy for kids, but at the same they might enjoy the lighter moments and bursts of colour
Nandkishore (Pankaj Kapur) is a tea-stall owner in a Himachal village, not too popular with kids, because he has the habit of lending them sweets and then grabbing something that belongs to them. The latest episode involves a little boy and his binoculars that Nandkishore covets.
When a little girl Biniya (Shreya Sharma) acquires a beautiful blue umbrella from a Japanese tourist, and trots all over the village with it, Nandkishore wants it too. For Biniya the umbrella is precious and no amount of money and sweets can separate her from it. Then one day gets stolen, and at the same time Nandkishore gets an identical red one, and now he parades about the village like a proud child.
But Biniya finds out that it is her umbrella dyed red, and in punishment for theft, the village ostracises Nandkishore.
Bharadwaj turns the village into an idyllic fairyland, where life is still innocent and pure. An umbrella almost symbolises a sense of corrupt urban (or global) influence of loss of innocence. Even though it turns too dark and moralistic later, the happy ending makes it worthwhile. The beauty of the landscape is as overwhelming as the powerful simplicity (reminiscent of Iranian films) of the story-telling.
Pankaj Kapur is magnificent as the wickedly childlike Nandkishore—he even gets the Himachali accent down pat. Shreya Sharma is pretty and totally unaffected as the girl who inadvertently triggers off a crisis in the village. The actors all look like they were picked from the village, so effortless are they.
Kaafila
When they cast for this film, they must have asked for the biggest hams on earth—including director Amitoj Maan himself.
Kaafila has a fairly topical subject—Asians trying to get to the West illegally. A group of Indians set out for the UK, in the hope that the money they earn there will improve the lives of their families back home.
A Pakistani agent takes a loony and incredibly loud bunch of them to Moscow, from they are to be smuggled via a circuitous route over East Europe to the UK. What they were promised and what they have to go through is quite different. After trekking through forests and snow (they can’t light a fire for fear of being caught, but they shout enough to wake the dead in the next continent!) a few die on the way, more when their boat from Malta (where an item girl has been arranged!) sinks.
Till, this point Kaafila was at least slightly believable. Then it gets totally out of control. A green test tube of liquid plutonium turns up, for which the Russian Mafia and Afghan rebels are squabbling. A mysterious man called Sameer (Sunny Deol), an Afghan freedom fighter (Sana Nawaz) turn up to help. There’s a cache of diamonds changing hands too.
The few that survive take a wrong turn and land up in Afghanistan and after fighting people of just about every nationality (border guards are conspicuously absent) are jailed in Pakistan. It’s difficult to find words to express just how absurd the film is and how tedious to watch. Anyone who survives it till the interval will either walk out, or suffer through just to see how much worse it can get. The best thing about Kaafila is that they shot at some beautiful locations in Tajikistan, Bulgaria and Ladakh.
There is a mile-long list of Hollywood sports films that follow the underdog-beating-champ formula. In India too, a film like Lagaan would stand out amidst the small bunch of lesser films.
So when one goes in to see Chak De India (inspired by Miracle among others) one knows exactly what to expect in terms of plot; in this case it’s the ‘how’ that’s more important, since the ‘what’ is known.
Shimit Amin’s Chak De India has a disgraced hockey player Kabir Khan (Shah Rukh Khan) return seven years after he was accused of throwing a match to Pakistan, and offer to coach the women’s hockey team that is to participate in the world cup. In spite of the skepticism of the bureaucrats, he is hired, and 16 girls arrive from all over the country for training.
Amin (and writer Jaideep Sahni) make some throwaway comments about people’s ignorance about their country—the girls from Jharkhand and the North East have to face the silliest questions.
Kabir’s first task is to make the girls rally around into an Indian team, rather that players from various state teams. There is the usual friction between the girls over small matters like bunk allocation. The experienced players—particularly the cynical Bindiya Naik (Shilpa Shukla)—resent the tough regime Kabir puts them through.
The girls get mutinous, till an ordinary incident of eve-teasing unites them, and now they are ready for the game as it should be played. All this is fairly predictable, what is more interesting is what is not underlined—like the dingy room and awful bathroom the girls have to share, while the cricketer boyfriend of one of the girls lounges in five star comfort.
The back-stories of the girls needed more fleshing out perhaps, instead of the inordinate amount given to the world cup matches. The tribal girls from Jharkhand for instance—how did they even get this far? More about the relationships and rivalries between the girls, would have also made a difference to the otherwise conventional story. It’s not as if the actual women’s hockey win at the Commonwealth Games, that inspired Chak De India, rescued the sport from near-oblivion, so it’s not so much the game as the impact it made on the lives of these ordinary girls that would have given the film more meaning. The supercilious cricketer gets dumped by his victorious fiancee, but what about the married girl (Vidya Malavade), for instance? Is she able to go back and become the ideal ‘bahu’ her family wants her to be? Will the hefty Balbir (Tanya Abrol) and the little Komal (Chitrashi Rawat), ever go back to a normal existence after the heady experience of winning.
Instead of the untold little stories, Amin goes for broad patriotic strokes of the flag-waving kind. The essence of the film comes together in Kabir’s “70-minute” speech— where the SRK magic is most prominent—but there’re too few of these heart-stopping moments.
The biggest strength of the film is in the casting of ordinary actors who offset Shah Rukh’s dazzling star power, by becoming their parts—the matronly assistant coach for one, is fabulous.
For sportslovers, the film is still worth the price of a ticket. Amin delivers some fine hockey action. It’s just that you want more than that winning goal.
The Blue Umbrella
Vishal Bharadwaj’s The Blue Umbrella won the National Award for Best children’s film, but it is one of those films that would appeal more to adults. The story of crime, punishment and redemption may be too heavy for kids, but at the same they might enjoy the lighter moments and bursts of colour
Nandkishore (Pankaj Kapur) is a tea-stall owner in a Himachal village, not too popular with kids, because he has the habit of lending them sweets and then grabbing something that belongs to them. The latest episode involves a little boy and his binoculars that Nandkishore covets.
When a little girl Biniya (Shreya Sharma) acquires a beautiful blue umbrella from a Japanese tourist, and trots all over the village with it, Nandkishore wants it too. For Biniya the umbrella is precious and no amount of money and sweets can separate her from it. Then one day gets stolen, and at the same time Nandkishore gets an identical red one, and now he parades about the village like a proud child.
But Biniya finds out that it is her umbrella dyed red, and in punishment for theft, the village ostracises Nandkishore.
Bharadwaj turns the village into an idyllic fairyland, where life is still innocent and pure. An umbrella almost symbolises a sense of corrupt urban (or global) influence of loss of innocence. Even though it turns too dark and moralistic later, the happy ending makes it worthwhile. The beauty of the landscape is as overwhelming as the powerful simplicity (reminiscent of Iranian films) of the story-telling.
Pankaj Kapur is magnificent as the wickedly childlike Nandkishore—he even gets the Himachali accent down pat. Shreya Sharma is pretty and totally unaffected as the girl who inadvertently triggers off a crisis in the village. The actors all look like they were picked from the village, so effortless are they.
Kaafila
When they cast for this film, they must have asked for the biggest hams on earth—including director Amitoj Maan himself.
Kaafila has a fairly topical subject—Asians trying to get to the West illegally. A group of Indians set out for the UK, in the hope that the money they earn there will improve the lives of their families back home.
A Pakistani agent takes a loony and incredibly loud bunch of them to Moscow, from they are to be smuggled via a circuitous route over East Europe to the UK. What they were promised and what they have to go through is quite different. After trekking through forests and snow (they can’t light a fire for fear of being caught, but they shout enough to wake the dead in the next continent!) a few die on the way, more when their boat from Malta (where an item girl has been arranged!) sinks.
Till, this point Kaafila was at least slightly believable. Then it gets totally out of control. A green test tube of liquid plutonium turns up, for which the Russian Mafia and Afghan rebels are squabbling. A mysterious man called Sameer (Sunny Deol), an Afghan freedom fighter (Sana Nawaz) turn up to help. There’s a cache of diamonds changing hands too.
The few that survive take a wrong turn and land up in Afghanistan and after fighting people of just about every nationality (border guards are conspicuously absent) are jailed in Pakistan. It’s difficult to find words to express just how absurd the film is and how tedious to watch. Anyone who survives it till the interval will either walk out, or suffer through just to see how much worse it can get. The best thing about Kaafila is that they shot at some beautiful locations in Tajikistan, Bulgaria and Ladakh.
Labels: Cinemaah
Monday, August 06, 2007
Gandhi and Cash
Gandhi My Father
This year, when the quality of films has not been too exciting so far, at least Gandhi My Father by Feroz Abbas Khan stands out for its attempt at brave and offbeat cinema.
Based on the hugely successful play Gandhi Viruddh Gandhi, the film tells of the tragedy of Mahatma Gandhi’s (Darshan Jariwala) oldest son Harilal (Akskaye Khanna), whose life was blighted by his birth into the family of man who has already dedicated his life to the cause of the nation’s freedom.
Mahatma Gandhi’s wife Kasturba (Shefali Shah) and presumably, the other (unseen in adulthood) children understood that. Harilal’s defiance and rebelliousness just made him self-destruct. He died destitute in a Mumbai hospital a little after the death of his father—the film begins with a dying vagabond being brought into hospital, and goes into flashback.
Mahatma Gandhi leaves Harilal in India when the rest of the family moves to South Africa; he opposes Harilal’s marriage to Gulab (Bhoomika Chawla)—not clear why. Later he refuses to send Harilal abroad to study law, which is his life’s ambition. His explanation is that he does not want people to think he is partial to his son, and also that there is more to life than formal education.
Again it’s not clear if Harilal had any talent at all—he seems to fail his matric all the time, even when he returns to India with his own, rather large, family. Later, Gandhi’s attempts at reconciling with his son fail repeatedly, as Harilal falls deeper into a cycle of failure and despair. His drinking, debauchery, bad business decisions, conversion to Islam all seem more like cries for help rather than revolt, but father and son just can’t reach each other, and Kasturba sorrowfully witnesses the widening gulf.
While the film is strong at thematic level, Khan’s handling leaves something to be desired. Aesthetically the film is fine and the period recreation top class. The problem is with the scattered screenplay at the absence of a point of view.
Did Gandhi’s control over his family’s fate border on cruelty? If not, then Harilal is just an idiotic loser with no skills—or why was he the only one who turned out this way? The lack of a contrast, or any connection with the other siblings, is a glaring flaw. If Gandhi is not to blame for Harilal’s doom (which is what the original play suggested) then why are we supposed to sympathise with the son?
Khan also has a stage-like approach to scenes, with obvious entries and exits. Oddly, whenever there is a dramatic scene going on between two characters, other people in the frame remain stony faced.
The constant coming close and moving away scene get repetitive after a while. Also Khan brings the outside in, which halts what is essentially a family drama. The frequent interruptions (the old newsreel style black and white footage is excellently recreated in Forrest Gump style) take away from the conflict, so that the tragedy of the black sheep son never reaches the operatic heights it ought to have, to be really moving.
Darshan Jariwala and Akshaye Khanna have roles to bite into, and they do well, but the women—Bhoomika Chawla and Shefali Shah really work wonders with their secondary parts.
Gandhi My Father is relatively superior cinema, but it also requires patient viewing—because the effort counts for something.
Cash
Dus was a fairy decent thriller, but with Cash, Anubhav Sinha overreaches to attempt a stylish Ocean’s 11 (12/13) kind of heist caper and fails.
He uses the odd device of one of the characters telling the story to a woman on a plane, and then uses a lot of animation, randomly, when it is not really required. A good caper should allow for suspension of disbelief, but not treat the audience as a mass of complete idiots.
Cash gets into a garbled explanation about a set of diamonds in South Africa, which a gangster Angad (Sunil Shetty) wants stolen for some other sleepy don called Uncle. His cohort Aditi (Dia Mirza) assigns the job to Doctor (Ajay Devgan), who gets squabbling thieves Danny (Zayed Khan) and Lucky (Ritesh Deshmukh) from Mumbai. Their back stories are told in boring detail.
Doctor lives with a Shanaya (Shamita Shetty), some kind of security chief, who makes a hair-brained scheme to reach the diamonds. But Doc and gang steal the stones and her money, and then get into trouble because the notes are marked. She doesn’t know that her dumb-looking bespectacled writer housemate is a criminal wanted by cops “in 15 countries.” Some security expert!
The plot, such as it is, forms an excuse to hang several stunt ‘items’ and a few needless dances— gangster’s pal Pooja (Esha Deol) is also seen in a cabaret number, just for the heck of it. All the songs (in Hindi even in South African nightclubs) are picturised like item numbers with a lot of scantily clad foreigners gyrating grimly.
Typical of Hindi films, that everybody carries guns, but in the climax, there is a lot of time-wasting fist-fighting. Don’t even start to count plot holes.
The actors seem to have been cast just for looking good in vests (the guys) and bra-tops (the girls) and they must have had a blast in South Africa, since all they have to do is strut in trendy clothes.
This year, when the quality of films has not been too exciting so far, at least Gandhi My Father by Feroz Abbas Khan stands out for its attempt at brave and offbeat cinema.
Based on the hugely successful play Gandhi Viruddh Gandhi, the film tells of the tragedy of Mahatma Gandhi’s (Darshan Jariwala) oldest son Harilal (Akskaye Khanna), whose life was blighted by his birth into the family of man who has already dedicated his life to the cause of the nation’s freedom.
Mahatma Gandhi’s wife Kasturba (Shefali Shah) and presumably, the other (unseen in adulthood) children understood that. Harilal’s defiance and rebelliousness just made him self-destruct. He died destitute in a Mumbai hospital a little after the death of his father—the film begins with a dying vagabond being brought into hospital, and goes into flashback.
Mahatma Gandhi leaves Harilal in India when the rest of the family moves to South Africa; he opposes Harilal’s marriage to Gulab (Bhoomika Chawla)—not clear why. Later he refuses to send Harilal abroad to study law, which is his life’s ambition. His explanation is that he does not want people to think he is partial to his son, and also that there is more to life than formal education.
Again it’s not clear if Harilal had any talent at all—he seems to fail his matric all the time, even when he returns to India with his own, rather large, family. Later, Gandhi’s attempts at reconciling with his son fail repeatedly, as Harilal falls deeper into a cycle of failure and despair. His drinking, debauchery, bad business decisions, conversion to Islam all seem more like cries for help rather than revolt, but father and son just can’t reach each other, and Kasturba sorrowfully witnesses the widening gulf.
While the film is strong at thematic level, Khan’s handling leaves something to be desired. Aesthetically the film is fine and the period recreation top class. The problem is with the scattered screenplay at the absence of a point of view.
Did Gandhi’s control over his family’s fate border on cruelty? If not, then Harilal is just an idiotic loser with no skills—or why was he the only one who turned out this way? The lack of a contrast, or any connection with the other siblings, is a glaring flaw. If Gandhi is not to blame for Harilal’s doom (which is what the original play suggested) then why are we supposed to sympathise with the son?
Khan also has a stage-like approach to scenes, with obvious entries and exits. Oddly, whenever there is a dramatic scene going on between two characters, other people in the frame remain stony faced.
The constant coming close and moving away scene get repetitive after a while. Also Khan brings the outside in, which halts what is essentially a family drama. The frequent interruptions (the old newsreel style black and white footage is excellently recreated in Forrest Gump style) take away from the conflict, so that the tragedy of the black sheep son never reaches the operatic heights it ought to have, to be really moving.
Darshan Jariwala and Akshaye Khanna have roles to bite into, and they do well, but the women—Bhoomika Chawla and Shefali Shah really work wonders with their secondary parts.
Gandhi My Father is relatively superior cinema, but it also requires patient viewing—because the effort counts for something.
Cash
Dus was a fairy decent thriller, but with Cash, Anubhav Sinha overreaches to attempt a stylish Ocean’s 11 (12/13) kind of heist caper and fails.
He uses the odd device of one of the characters telling the story to a woman on a plane, and then uses a lot of animation, randomly, when it is not really required. A good caper should allow for suspension of disbelief, but not treat the audience as a mass of complete idiots.
Cash gets into a garbled explanation about a set of diamonds in South Africa, which a gangster Angad (Sunil Shetty) wants stolen for some other sleepy don called Uncle. His cohort Aditi (Dia Mirza) assigns the job to Doctor (Ajay Devgan), who gets squabbling thieves Danny (Zayed Khan) and Lucky (Ritesh Deshmukh) from Mumbai. Their back stories are told in boring detail.
Doctor lives with a Shanaya (Shamita Shetty), some kind of security chief, who makes a hair-brained scheme to reach the diamonds. But Doc and gang steal the stones and her money, and then get into trouble because the notes are marked. She doesn’t know that her dumb-looking bespectacled writer housemate is a criminal wanted by cops “in 15 countries.” Some security expert!
The plot, such as it is, forms an excuse to hang several stunt ‘items’ and a few needless dances— gangster’s pal Pooja (Esha Deol) is also seen in a cabaret number, just for the heck of it. All the songs (in Hindi even in South African nightclubs) are picturised like item numbers with a lot of scantily clad foreigners gyrating grimly.
Typical of Hindi films, that everybody carries guns, but in the climax, there is a lot of time-wasting fist-fighting. Don’t even start to count plot holes.
The actors seem to have been cast just for looking good in vests (the guys) and bra-tops (the girls) and they must have had a blast in South Africa, since all they have to do is strut in trendy clothes.
Labels: Cinemaah
