Friday, May 09, 2008
Anamika+MWMB+Pranali
Anamika
A call centre gets a call for an escort for a visitor from Rajasthan. Oh-oh, you think, Hitckcock meets Bhandrakar in Ananth Narayan Mahadevan’s Anamika.. what now?
No such luck, they just don’t the difference between a secretarial help and escort service! Jia (Minissha Lamba) is the escort provided to Vikram Sisodiya (Dino Morea), and so dumb is she, that he proposes marriage! And do desperate is she, living in an overcrowded hostel, that she accepts.
He takes her to his Gajner Palace, magnificent if desolate structure in the middle of the desert. You already know that the film has been inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca, which was based on Daphne du Maurier’s splendid novel and has already been made into the watchable dark musical Kohra by Biren Nag.
How could anyone go wrong with this film? Unfortunately, Mahadevan does. The setting is perfect, but the eeriness just does not build up. Instead of the spooky housekeeper, Mrs Denver, there’s Malini (Koena Mitra), who hangs around the palace, without any purpose, dressed in skimpy clothes.
The palace, which is meant to be converted into a hotel, is severely understaffed, and there’s an inexplicable suited-booted mad man in a twig hut in the desert. Everyone talks about Vikram’s dead wife Anamika, who was so perfect, that the naïve Jia cannot match up to her. Sniffing around for leads to Anamika’s disappearance is Vikram’s cop brother-in-law (Gulshan Grover).
Anamika is not about the innocent young girl being driven mad, it never gives you goosebumps, you just can’t feel for Jia’s plight, because no matter how much she tries, Minissha comes across as silly rather than helpless. And both women seem to be competing in a sexy dress competition (all those bare shoulders and cleavage on display), rather than acting.
If Jia had to be in almost every frame, she needed to be played by an actress far superior to Minissha Lamba in beauty and talent. Dino Morea can carry suit well, that’s about all, and Koena Mitra looks as if her make-up would crack if she showed any emotion.
There’s the grand palace as an attraction, but might as well buy a ticket to Bikaner and see the real thing!
Mr White Mr Black
If by the end of Mr White Mr Black, you forget how it began, it doesn’t matter, director Deepak Shivdasani doesn’t have a clue either.
He just seems to have rounded up any actor he could find wandering around Film City and told them to do anything—he would find a way to fit it into the film later! There isn’t any plot that can you can see or even a rough screenplay. Whoever turned up for the shoot probably ad-libbed his or her lines and hoped their scenes would end up in the same film—once called Gopi Kishen and then renamed Mr White Mr Black, which must refer to the two lead actors’ character traits and not their complexions!
Gopi (Suniel Shetty), in orange dhoti, white kurta, oily hair and silver mace in hand (why?) comes to Goa to look for Kishen (Arshad Warsi) and take him back to Hoshiarpur, where he is to get a piece of inherited land.
Among the many sub-plots is one about three bikini babes (Sandhya Mridul being one of them) stealing a don’s diamonds. The don called Laadla (Ashish Vidyarthi), with a squeaky-voiced sidekick, has a major Oediopus complex and bursts into tear at the sound of the word ‘Ma.’ Funny? Not really!
Kishen has invented a twin, so that his girlfriend (Rashmi Nigam) doesn’t figure out that he is a conman. There is also a crooked taxi river called Tulsi (Manoj Joshi), an inept cop called Mr Brown (Sharad Saxena)—the only one in all of Goa, since everyone goes to him!
There is resort owner’s daughter (Anishka Khosla), who falls in love with the illiterate Gopi, because he lectures her on her wild ways and refuses to kiss her. When you settle down for a caper, suddenly there’s a sister angle – Kishen’s sister has been studying in London, while he pretends to be a hotel magnate. So when she has to get married everyone pretends Gopi and Kishen own the resort, which gives the entire cast an excuse to assemble there for a Priysdarshan style mad scramble climax. In the midst of all this the real owner (Sadashiv Amrapurkar) returns, and instead of just calling his daughter and asking what’s up, he skulks about the premises. There’s also a pointless Sardar character with his spendthrift wife, who must have walked in from another film.
By the time, the heroes, the various girls, villains, sidekicks, cops, dads and the large floating population assembles for the climax, it’s a wonder someone remembered who was playing what, and the continuity department deserves kudos for keeping track of Suniel Shetty’s silver mace, though the bag of diamonds keeps changing shape and colour.
Arshad Warsi is just about the only decent actor in the bunch, and it really isn’t fair to him to have to carry so much deadweight. He tries hard and almost collapses with the strain. Hope someone will give him an award for valour.
Pranali: The Tradition
Pranali: The Tradition claims to be “a never ending journey of a devdasi,” but if unfortunate viewers who stray into the cinema expect a sensitive Ahista Ahista kind of movie, they will be shocked to find a C-grade exploitative film, which, if the makers were honest about its intention, would have had a less pretentious title.
The devdasi bit is dispensed quickly, with a lascivious looking priest, forcing a poor girl into become one, and then keeping her in the temple to ‘serve’ him. He passes her on to a minister in return for land and Pranali (Nargis) ends up in the red light district.
The film then piles on the clichés—the madam, the helpful cabbie, girls giggling and exchanging notes about their ‘exploits’, Pranali’s kid not getting admission in school and a token ‘mad’ woman, who looks rather well-scrubbed. Director Hridesh Kamble avoids obvious vulgarity, there are no extended rape scenes, for instance, but the camera is still made to go lecherously over women’s bodies—even that of a little girl skipping rope.
What is kept off screen is far worse than what is shown on screen –like the death of a child at the home of a pervert. It was punishment sitting through the film beyond the interval, and wait for “Vijay NRI” (Raman Trikha) to come and work with the sex workers and write a book on them. The brochure, full of hilarious glitches puts it thus, “he brought the lives of other helpless sex workers alongwith (sic) Pranali back on track, who were waiting desperately for a reformation which could change their lives for better.” Indeed!
If a film about the flesh trade has be made, it needs sympathy, fresh insights and definitely more taste than Pranali manages—this one just dishes out the dirt and then pretends to be holier-than-thou.
A call centre gets a call for an escort for a visitor from Rajasthan. Oh-oh, you think, Hitckcock meets Bhandrakar in Ananth Narayan Mahadevan’s Anamika.. what now?
No such luck, they just don’t the difference between a secretarial help and escort service! Jia (Minissha Lamba) is the escort provided to Vikram Sisodiya (Dino Morea), and so dumb is she, that he proposes marriage! And do desperate is she, living in an overcrowded hostel, that she accepts.
He takes her to his Gajner Palace, magnificent if desolate structure in the middle of the desert. You already know that the film has been inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca, which was based on Daphne du Maurier’s splendid novel and has already been made into the watchable dark musical Kohra by Biren Nag.
How could anyone go wrong with this film? Unfortunately, Mahadevan does. The setting is perfect, but the eeriness just does not build up. Instead of the spooky housekeeper, Mrs Denver, there’s Malini (Koena Mitra), who hangs around the palace, without any purpose, dressed in skimpy clothes.
The palace, which is meant to be converted into a hotel, is severely understaffed, and there’s an inexplicable suited-booted mad man in a twig hut in the desert. Everyone talks about Vikram’s dead wife Anamika, who was so perfect, that the naïve Jia cannot match up to her. Sniffing around for leads to Anamika’s disappearance is Vikram’s cop brother-in-law (Gulshan Grover).
Anamika is not about the innocent young girl being driven mad, it never gives you goosebumps, you just can’t feel for Jia’s plight, because no matter how much she tries, Minissha comes across as silly rather than helpless. And both women seem to be competing in a sexy dress competition (all those bare shoulders and cleavage on display), rather than acting.
If Jia had to be in almost every frame, she needed to be played by an actress far superior to Minissha Lamba in beauty and talent. Dino Morea can carry suit well, that’s about all, and Koena Mitra looks as if her make-up would crack if she showed any emotion.
There’s the grand palace as an attraction, but might as well buy a ticket to Bikaner and see the real thing!
Mr White Mr Black
If by the end of Mr White Mr Black, you forget how it began, it doesn’t matter, director Deepak Shivdasani doesn’t have a clue either.
He just seems to have rounded up any actor he could find wandering around Film City and told them to do anything—he would find a way to fit it into the film later! There isn’t any plot that can you can see or even a rough screenplay. Whoever turned up for the shoot probably ad-libbed his or her lines and hoped their scenes would end up in the same film—once called Gopi Kishen and then renamed Mr White Mr Black, which must refer to the two lead actors’ character traits and not their complexions!
Gopi (Suniel Shetty), in orange dhoti, white kurta, oily hair and silver mace in hand (why?) comes to Goa to look for Kishen (Arshad Warsi) and take him back to Hoshiarpur, where he is to get a piece of inherited land.
Among the many sub-plots is one about three bikini babes (Sandhya Mridul being one of them) stealing a don’s diamonds. The don called Laadla (Ashish Vidyarthi), with a squeaky-voiced sidekick, has a major Oediopus complex and bursts into tear at the sound of the word ‘Ma.’ Funny? Not really!
Kishen has invented a twin, so that his girlfriend (Rashmi Nigam) doesn’t figure out that he is a conman. There is also a crooked taxi river called Tulsi (Manoj Joshi), an inept cop called Mr Brown (Sharad Saxena)—the only one in all of Goa, since everyone goes to him!
There is resort owner’s daughter (Anishka Khosla), who falls in love with the illiterate Gopi, because he lectures her on her wild ways and refuses to kiss her. When you settle down for a caper, suddenly there’s a sister angle – Kishen’s sister has been studying in London, while he pretends to be a hotel magnate. So when she has to get married everyone pretends Gopi and Kishen own the resort, which gives the entire cast an excuse to assemble there for a Priysdarshan style mad scramble climax. In the midst of all this the real owner (Sadashiv Amrapurkar) returns, and instead of just calling his daughter and asking what’s up, he skulks about the premises. There’s also a pointless Sardar character with his spendthrift wife, who must have walked in from another film.
By the time, the heroes, the various girls, villains, sidekicks, cops, dads and the large floating population assembles for the climax, it’s a wonder someone remembered who was playing what, and the continuity department deserves kudos for keeping track of Suniel Shetty’s silver mace, though the bag of diamonds keeps changing shape and colour.
Arshad Warsi is just about the only decent actor in the bunch, and it really isn’t fair to him to have to carry so much deadweight. He tries hard and almost collapses with the strain. Hope someone will give him an award for valour.
Pranali: The Tradition
Pranali: The Tradition claims to be “a never ending journey of a devdasi,” but if unfortunate viewers who stray into the cinema expect a sensitive Ahista Ahista kind of movie, they will be shocked to find a C-grade exploitative film, which, if the makers were honest about its intention, would have had a less pretentious title.
The devdasi bit is dispensed quickly, with a lascivious looking priest, forcing a poor girl into become one, and then keeping her in the temple to ‘serve’ him. He passes her on to a minister in return for land and Pranali (Nargis) ends up in the red light district.
The film then piles on the clichés—the madam, the helpful cabbie, girls giggling and exchanging notes about their ‘exploits’, Pranali’s kid not getting admission in school and a token ‘mad’ woman, who looks rather well-scrubbed. Director Hridesh Kamble avoids obvious vulgarity, there are no extended rape scenes, for instance, but the camera is still made to go lecherously over women’s bodies—even that of a little girl skipping rope.
What is kept off screen is far worse than what is shown on screen –like the death of a child at the home of a pervert. It was punishment sitting through the film beyond the interval, and wait for “Vijay NRI” (Raman Trikha) to come and work with the sex workers and write a book on them. The brochure, full of hilarious glitches puts it thus, “he brought the lives of other helpless sex workers alongwith (sic) Pranali back on track, who were waiting desperately for a reformation which could change their lives for better.” Indeed!
If a film about the flesh trade has be made, it needs sympathy, fresh insights and definitely more taste than Pranali manages—this one just dishes out the dirt and then pretends to be holier-than-thou.
Labels: Cinemaah
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