Saturday, June 14, 2008
MBPA+Summer 07
Mere Baap Pehle Aap
The sight of an oddly-dressed, Om Puri cavorting with beach babes isn’t pretty. That’s how Priyadarshan’s Mere Baap Pehle Aap begins! Things can only go downhill from here.
A remake of Sibi Malayil’s 1991 Malayalam film Ishtam (which must have a 50s
Hollywood source), the film has not even been updated, so little things we take for granted today—like cell phones or landlines with caller id are absent here. From all accounts, people marrying in middle age is not such an oddity either, at least in urban areas – and this film is not set in a backward village.
Paresh Rawal plays Janardhan Rane, who lives in a huge mansion with no servants, is obviously educated, rich and ‘London-returned’, though you couldn’t tell from his manner. His older son has moved away with his shrewish wife (who in true Madras Melodrama style is ‘reformed’ by a tight slap) , the younger son Gaurav (Akshaye Khanna) runs the family’s mall, though he was supposedly an engineering student (a useless fact mentioned several times in the dialogue) treats his father like a retarded child, and this is supposed to be funny.
From the title and the promos of the film, you can guess that it is about a guy who wants to get his father married, so as you watch the cheap antics of the father’s friend Madhav (Om Puri) and some endlessly stretched silly prank by Gaurav’s old classmate Shikha (Genelia D’Souza), you wonder when the film will come to the point. Incidentally, Shikha wants to harass Gaurav because back in engineering college, he had cut her hair during ragging. First of all Genelia and Akshaye don’t look the same age, secondly is belated revenge for a hair-cutting incident worth almost an hour of a film’s running time?
At a wedding (lovely shots of Kerala) Rane runs into Anuradha (elegant and sulky Shobhana, as if she found herself in the wrong film), who used to be his childhood sweetheart. His attempts to look young and attract her attention are mildly amusing, but in today’s world, it isn’t all that unacceptable for a man to talk to a woman he knows, or discuss the matter with his son, but Rane and everyone goes else berserk, and the tone of the film unnecessarily melodramatic.
Shikha’s father (Naseeruddin Shah, definitely in the wrong film) comes down from the US and fumes at the depraved ways of the desis. Ms Anutadha remains silent and sulky throughout—as if her single status snipped off her tongue.
Paresh Rawal still manages to emerge from this with his dignity intact, but Om Puri is painful to watch (made to strip in one scene). Akshaye Khanna cannot bring the required warmth into his character, so come across as an ill-bred crank. Genelia D’Souza is pretty but overdoes that eye-rolling, giggly cuteness. Archana Puran Singh appears as a foul-mouthed cop who gets lines like “you lizard’s piss”, “you brother of an ant” – which sound much worse in Hindi.
Mere Baap Pehle Aap – even with such an appalling title-- could have been a sweet story of family relationships and autumnal romance. Priyadarshan has just done a messy job of rehashing the Malayalam original.
Summer 2007
If there is some concern about the apathy and ignorance found in today’s urban upper class youngsters, Suhail Tatari tries to address it.
But his film, Summer 2007, in which five medical students are thrown into the world of poverty and turmoil in a village, is as heavy-handed as it is well-intentioned.
The first half of the film, rather needlessly stretched, establishes the camaraderie between the five rich students. To escape college elections, that Rahul (Sikandar) has got involved in, they opt for a rural stint, thinking it will be a holiday. Only Vishaka (Gul Panag) called Mother T for her social conscience, really wants to work in a village.
At a broken down primary health centre, manned by the cynical Dr Jadhav (Ashutosh Rana) they are faced with poverty, farmer suicides, exploitation by the landlords, and in spite of themselves, get involved in an underground battle on the side of Dr Jadhav and his friend (Sachin Khedekar) who wants to get the villagers out of crippling debt with micro-credit schemes.
The film is not half as interesting as the plot idea , because Tatari pushes in too many issues (micro credit, Naxalites, village lawlessness, lack of government support) and makes the film too grim and hopeless. Seeing this portrayal of village life, who’d want to go there and help?
There are also odd things— except for one, none of the kids is in touch with parents or any authority figure. They are stuck in the village for lack of transport, but don’t call for their own cars. They are the only five from the college who go on the rural stint, and though they are final year students, when one of the girls is raped and covered with blood, a boys asks, “What happened to her?” when it is obvious to anyone. And, heck, there’s an item number in the village, quite out of the blue. And the supposedly sensitive Mother T, on seeing a family dying after drinking pesticide wants to know, “In logon ki problem kya hai?”
The five young actors (endless costume changes out of small bags) are earnest—Ashutosh Rana whips up the requisite intensity. A film to inspire young people was badly needed, but Summer 2007 is quite off the mark.
The sight of an oddly-dressed, Om Puri cavorting with beach babes isn’t pretty. That’s how Priyadarshan’s Mere Baap Pehle Aap begins! Things can only go downhill from here.
A remake of Sibi Malayil’s 1991 Malayalam film Ishtam (which must have a 50s
Hollywood source), the film has not even been updated, so little things we take for granted today—like cell phones or landlines with caller id are absent here. From all accounts, people marrying in middle age is not such an oddity either, at least in urban areas – and this film is not set in a backward village.
Paresh Rawal plays Janardhan Rane, who lives in a huge mansion with no servants, is obviously educated, rich and ‘London-returned’, though you couldn’t tell from his manner. His older son has moved away with his shrewish wife (who in true Madras Melodrama style is ‘reformed’ by a tight slap) , the younger son Gaurav (Akshaye Khanna) runs the family’s mall, though he was supposedly an engineering student (a useless fact mentioned several times in the dialogue) treats his father like a retarded child, and this is supposed to be funny.
From the title and the promos of the film, you can guess that it is about a guy who wants to get his father married, so as you watch the cheap antics of the father’s friend Madhav (Om Puri) and some endlessly stretched silly prank by Gaurav’s old classmate Shikha (Genelia D’Souza), you wonder when the film will come to the point. Incidentally, Shikha wants to harass Gaurav because back in engineering college, he had cut her hair during ragging. First of all Genelia and Akshaye don’t look the same age, secondly is belated revenge for a hair-cutting incident worth almost an hour of a film’s running time?
At a wedding (lovely shots of Kerala) Rane runs into Anuradha (elegant and sulky Shobhana, as if she found herself in the wrong film), who used to be his childhood sweetheart. His attempts to look young and attract her attention are mildly amusing, but in today’s world, it isn’t all that unacceptable for a man to talk to a woman he knows, or discuss the matter with his son, but Rane and everyone goes else berserk, and the tone of the film unnecessarily melodramatic.
Shikha’s father (Naseeruddin Shah, definitely in the wrong film) comes down from the US and fumes at the depraved ways of the desis. Ms Anutadha remains silent and sulky throughout—as if her single status snipped off her tongue.
Paresh Rawal still manages to emerge from this with his dignity intact, but Om Puri is painful to watch (made to strip in one scene). Akshaye Khanna cannot bring the required warmth into his character, so come across as an ill-bred crank. Genelia D’Souza is pretty but overdoes that eye-rolling, giggly cuteness. Archana Puran Singh appears as a foul-mouthed cop who gets lines like “you lizard’s piss”, “you brother of an ant” – which sound much worse in Hindi.
Mere Baap Pehle Aap – even with such an appalling title-- could have been a sweet story of family relationships and autumnal romance. Priyadarshan has just done a messy job of rehashing the Malayalam original.
Summer 2007
If there is some concern about the apathy and ignorance found in today’s urban upper class youngsters, Suhail Tatari tries to address it.
But his film, Summer 2007, in which five medical students are thrown into the world of poverty and turmoil in a village, is as heavy-handed as it is well-intentioned.
The first half of the film, rather needlessly stretched, establishes the camaraderie between the five rich students. To escape college elections, that Rahul (Sikandar) has got involved in, they opt for a rural stint, thinking it will be a holiday. Only Vishaka (Gul Panag) called Mother T for her social conscience, really wants to work in a village.
At a broken down primary health centre, manned by the cynical Dr Jadhav (Ashutosh Rana) they are faced with poverty, farmer suicides, exploitation by the landlords, and in spite of themselves, get involved in an underground battle on the side of Dr Jadhav and his friend (Sachin Khedekar) who wants to get the villagers out of crippling debt with micro-credit schemes.
The film is not half as interesting as the plot idea , because Tatari pushes in too many issues (micro credit, Naxalites, village lawlessness, lack of government support) and makes the film too grim and hopeless. Seeing this portrayal of village life, who’d want to go there and help?
There are also odd things— except for one, none of the kids is in touch with parents or any authority figure. They are stuck in the village for lack of transport, but don’t call for their own cars. They are the only five from the college who go on the rural stint, and though they are final year students, when one of the girls is raped and covered with blood, a boys asks, “What happened to her?” when it is obvious to anyone. And, heck, there’s an item number in the village, quite out of the blue. And the supposedly sensitive Mother T, on seeing a family dying after drinking pesticide wants to know, “In logon ki problem kya hai?”
The five young actors (endless costume changes out of small bags) are earnest—Ashutosh Rana whips up the requisite intensity. A film to inspire young people was badly needed, but Summer 2007 is quite off the mark.
Labels: Cinemaah
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