Saturday, September 20, 2008
Three More This Week!
Welcome to Sajjanpur
If today's entertainment-seeking multiplex crowd can be lured into a film set in a village, then Shyam Benegal's Welcome to Sajjanpur, could well turn out to be the filmmaker's biggest hit.
Charming, earthy and witty it is one of the few comedies in the eminent directors vast and varied repertoire. And it boasts of the best dialogue in recent Mumbai cinema—by Ashok Mishra. Set in the fictional, idyllic village of Sajjanpur, the sweet and sour happenings are seen through the eyes of letter-writer Mahadev (Shreyas Talpade), who uses his thwarted literary ambitions to write colourful letters for the illiterate folks of the village.
From urban India, it is tough to envisage a part of India that has "23 hour power cuts," so many illiterates, and very little contact with the modern world. Hilariously, a hick with a mobile phone, needs Mahadev to send and read smses for him. Mahadev's love for a simple potter Kamla (Amrita Rao) leads him to try to fudge her letters and wreck her marriage with her husband (a star making a surprise appearance) in Mumbai, but his repentance and reparation is touching too. Around his mostly uneventful life, is the romance with the compounder (Ravi Kishen) with a widow (Rajeshwari Sachdev), a mother's (Ila Arun) worry about her 'manglik' daughter (Divya Dutta) and the local eunuch (Ravi Jhankal) taking on the 'sarpanch' (Yashpal Sharma) in the elections.
The recreation of the village milieu is authentic—the houses as well as the costumes—and shot lovingly by Rajan Kothari. The problem with the film is that the central track is too slight, and the subsidiary characters not suitably fleshed out. Caste, class and community that are so strong in rural India, barely raise a head, even during the election episode. The tragedy of the widow and her suitor is too briefly dismissed. And the songs just hold up the narrative without adding anything to the film.
Benegal always has got very good performances from his repertory of favorites (like Rajeshwari Sachdev and Ila Arun), but he manages to make Amrita Rao to get out of her simpering act and deliver a lovely performance as the shy and lonely abandoned bride. Ravi Jhankal is impressive as the eunuch, but it is Shreyas Talpade, eyes brimming with mischief and unruffled body language, who holds the film together.
With its minor flaws, Welcome to Sajjanpur is enjoyable in a very gentle, offbeat way—don't expect Priyadarshan style comedy here. Give it a look.
Hulla
Urban housing, traffic and noise are subjects ripe for satire, and Jaideep Varma picks two of them for his debut film Hulla.
Stock broker Raj Puri (Sushant Singh), moves to a distant suburb of Mumbai with his wife Abha (Kartikadevi Rane), in the hope that the peace and quiet will compensate for the longer commute. Raj finds that he is unable to sleep because Mathew the old watchman (Chandrachoor Karnik) of the building blows a whistle at night, on the instructions of the society's secretary Janardhan (Rajat Kapoor). A small request to stop the watchman making a noise blows up into an ego issue between the two men.
Raj gets increasingly obsessed with his need for quiet, picks quarrels with other members of the building and gets no moral support from his wife or friends. It's like road rage—totally irrational, yet in some way justified--- why can't a man be allowed to sleep in peace? Raj's lack of sleep has far-reaching and needlessly tragic consequences for him, Janardhan and the watchman.
The first half of the film is funny and every harried Mumbaikar will identify with it, but it remains a one-idea film, and there's only this much it can be stretched. Varma is unable to turn into a full-blown absurdist farce, and the protagonist's cantankerousness starts grating, even though you sympathise with his plight. Instead, Janardhan comes across as sad, powerless man with a nagging wife, forced into helpless compromise in his business—in fact this track is never fully explored. In the end, it's always the poor and weak who are crushed and the innocent watchman turns out to be the victim here.
Hulla is humorous, poignant, but falls far short of its potential, despite fine performances by Sushant Singh and Rajat Kapoor.
Saas Bahu Aur Sensex
Shona Urvashi's Saas Bahu Aur Sensex is one of those films that has you furrowing your brow in puzzlement. What is it all about? Was it a TV serial condensed into a film?
Set in a Mumbai housing society, like this week's other release Hulla, this one's full of stereotypes and caricatures. The building where newly divorced Binita Sen (Kirron Kher) comes to reside with her sulky daughter Nitya (Tanushree Dutta) has a bunch of overdressed women from several communities, who speak with exaggerated accents and do nothing but mind everybody else's business.
Binita's encounter with a Parsi stockbroker Firoz Sethna (Farouque Shaikh), gets her interested in shares, and also a possible middle-age romance. The other building women (including Lillete Dubey and Sharon Prabhakar, both wasted) drop their TV soaps and get drawn to the stock market too. But all this is done very cursorily, while the film wanders off to follow a tepid love triangle between Nitya, her neighbour Ritesh (Ankur Khann) and the building hottie, the gold-digging Keerti (Masumeh). To add to the boredom, the TV is on somewhere or the other, either analysing the stock market or doing a nonsensical spoof on TV soaps called Saas Bhi Kabhi Kanya Thi.
It's all quite tiresome and unwatchable, so not even Farouque Shaikh's careful Parsi mannerisms and Kirron Kher's wardrobe of lovely Bengali saris can salvage it.
If today's entertainment-seeking multiplex crowd can be lured into a film set in a village, then Shyam Benegal's Welcome to Sajjanpur, could well turn out to be the filmmaker's biggest hit.
Charming, earthy and witty it is one of the few comedies in the eminent directors vast and varied repertoire. And it boasts of the best dialogue in recent Mumbai cinema—by Ashok Mishra. Set in the fictional, idyllic village of Sajjanpur, the sweet and sour happenings are seen through the eyes of letter-writer Mahadev (Shreyas Talpade), who uses his thwarted literary ambitions to write colourful letters for the illiterate folks of the village.
From urban India, it is tough to envisage a part of India that has "23 hour power cuts," so many illiterates, and very little contact with the modern world. Hilariously, a hick with a mobile phone, needs Mahadev to send and read smses for him. Mahadev's love for a simple potter Kamla (Amrita Rao) leads him to try to fudge her letters and wreck her marriage with her husband (a star making a surprise appearance) in Mumbai, but his repentance and reparation is touching too. Around his mostly uneventful life, is the romance with the compounder (Ravi Kishen) with a widow (Rajeshwari Sachdev), a mother's (Ila Arun) worry about her 'manglik' daughter (Divya Dutta) and the local eunuch (Ravi Jhankal) taking on the 'sarpanch' (Yashpal Sharma) in the elections.
The recreation of the village milieu is authentic—the houses as well as the costumes—and shot lovingly by Rajan Kothari. The problem with the film is that the central track is too slight, and the subsidiary characters not suitably fleshed out. Caste, class and community that are so strong in rural India, barely raise a head, even during the election episode. The tragedy of the widow and her suitor is too briefly dismissed. And the songs just hold up the narrative without adding anything to the film.
Benegal always has got very good performances from his repertory of favorites (like Rajeshwari Sachdev and Ila Arun), but he manages to make Amrita Rao to get out of her simpering act and deliver a lovely performance as the shy and lonely abandoned bride. Ravi Jhankal is impressive as the eunuch, but it is Shreyas Talpade, eyes brimming with mischief and unruffled body language, who holds the film together.
With its minor flaws, Welcome to Sajjanpur is enjoyable in a very gentle, offbeat way—don't expect Priyadarshan style comedy here. Give it a look.
Hulla
Urban housing, traffic and noise are subjects ripe for satire, and Jaideep Varma picks two of them for his debut film Hulla.
Stock broker Raj Puri (Sushant Singh), moves to a distant suburb of Mumbai with his wife Abha (Kartikadevi Rane), in the hope that the peace and quiet will compensate for the longer commute. Raj finds that he is unable to sleep because Mathew the old watchman (Chandrachoor Karnik) of the building blows a whistle at night, on the instructions of the society's secretary Janardhan (Rajat Kapoor). A small request to stop the watchman making a noise blows up into an ego issue between the two men.
Raj gets increasingly obsessed with his need for quiet, picks quarrels with other members of the building and gets no moral support from his wife or friends. It's like road rage—totally irrational, yet in some way justified--- why can't a man be allowed to sleep in peace? Raj's lack of sleep has far-reaching and needlessly tragic consequences for him, Janardhan and the watchman.
The first half of the film is funny and every harried Mumbaikar will identify with it, but it remains a one-idea film, and there's only this much it can be stretched. Varma is unable to turn into a full-blown absurdist farce, and the protagonist's cantankerousness starts grating, even though you sympathise with his plight. Instead, Janardhan comes across as sad, powerless man with a nagging wife, forced into helpless compromise in his business—in fact this track is never fully explored. In the end, it's always the poor and weak who are crushed and the innocent watchman turns out to be the victim here.
Hulla is humorous, poignant, but falls far short of its potential, despite fine performances by Sushant Singh and Rajat Kapoor.
Saas Bahu Aur Sensex
Shona Urvashi's Saas Bahu Aur Sensex is one of those films that has you furrowing your brow in puzzlement. What is it all about? Was it a TV serial condensed into a film?
Set in a Mumbai housing society, like this week's other release Hulla, this one's full of stereotypes and caricatures. The building where newly divorced Binita Sen (Kirron Kher) comes to reside with her sulky daughter Nitya (Tanushree Dutta) has a bunch of overdressed women from several communities, who speak with exaggerated accents and do nothing but mind everybody else's business.
Binita's encounter with a Parsi stockbroker Firoz Sethna (Farouque Shaikh), gets her interested in shares, and also a possible middle-age romance. The other building women (including Lillete Dubey and Sharon Prabhakar, both wasted) drop their TV soaps and get drawn to the stock market too. But all this is done very cursorily, while the film wanders off to follow a tepid love triangle between Nitya, her neighbour Ritesh (Ankur Khann) and the building hottie, the gold-digging Keerti (Masumeh). To add to the boredom, the TV is on somewhere or the other, either analysing the stock market or doing a nonsensical spoof on TV soaps called Saas Bhi Kabhi Kanya Thi.
It's all quite tiresome and unwatchable, so not even Farouque Shaikh's careful Parsi mannerisms and Kirron Kher's wardrobe of lovely Bengali saris can salvage it.
Labels: Cinemaah
Sunday, September 14, 2008
3 This Week
The Last Lear
There comes a time in an actor’s career when he gets a role that his whole career seems to have led towards, and The Last Lear is that watershed in Amitabh Bachchan’s career. Only he could have played the part of a crotchety old Shakespearean actor, contemptuous of the world of films and modern life—balancing the theatricality of the character with an unmissable poignancy. And what a voice, what delivery and what an imposing presence. Problem is what is he going to do for an encore? Hope not silly ghosts and gangsters.
That said, Rituparno Ghosh’s film based on an Utpal Dutt play Aajker Shahjahan, has been updated but still can’t shake off its mothballs. For one, is the theatre vs film debate still on? The film within a film about an aging clown—not seen as much as discussed—sounds like it is an old, pretentious Bengali art film.
Still, 75-year-old Harry Mishra (Bachchan) a retired stage actor, now an alcoholic eccentric, interests you and you want to know how he adjusts to life and work outside his cocoon of a house overstuffed with furniture— but instead of more of that, you get three women sitting in his living room griping about men. Actress Shabnam (Preity Zinta), Harry’s companion Vandana (Shefali Shah) and his nurse Ivy (Divya Dutta) all have problems and while Harry languishes in a coma inside, they talk all night and bits and pieces of what happened to Harry emerge, as the world celebrates Diwali and elsewhere, the only film Harry starred in is being premiered.
The shooting of the film ended in tragedy and the director (Arjun Rampal) who had charmed Harry into acting in a film after a very long hiatus, is inexplicably apathetic.
Fine performances all round, but when Bachchan’s not in the frame, the film sags.
1920
Okay, so Vikram Bhatt’s 1920 is a cross between The Exorcist and Bhool Bhulaiya, but those looking for a scare should not complain about being shortchanged.
As is obvious from the title, 1920 is a period film, shot in a grand and isolated English mansion, supposedly in Palampur. The period costumes, furniture, etc., may not be all that authentic, but that’s hardly the point here.
A prologue with a dead architect, establishes the presence of an evil spirit in this haveli, which for some reason, the unseen owner wants to tear down and convert into a hotel (in a desolate town with no habitation for miles around?). The latest architect comes with newly wed wife Lisa (Adah Sharma), for whom he has fought with his Rajput family and renounced his faith.
Seems a bit odd that such a huge house has just one servant, but the eeriness is turned on like a tap, and very soon strange things start happening, only to Lisa. A priest, father Thomas (Raj Zutshi) tries to help, but matters get worse.
There is a reason behind why Lisa is targeted and how she is connected to a portrait (Anjori Alagh) in a locked room in the house, and that takes up a longish flashback, going back to 1857.
It is inevitable that Arjun will regain his faith, and to get him to recite the Hanuman Chalisa again (he is seen praying and chanting when he is first introduced), there is a crackerjack climax, that allows one to forgive the slow pace and many other incongruities (like the year-long autumn and forever unraked leaves, and totally unwanted Rakhi Sawant item number) of the film.
Unfortunately, the standard of acting leaves much to be desired, though Adah Sharma has submitted to the hideous make up (very scary) and being tossed around with an admirable ease. Bhatt delivers the chills alright, though it is a pity that Indian horror filmmakers are not venturing beyond conventional plots about haunted havelis and spirit possession.
Ru Ba Ru
A first-time filmmaker, trying hard to get his dream across and failing, is pardonable. But why would a filmmaker want to make his debut with a copy of a soppy Hollywood film, make it worse, and that too with actors who are not so charismatic that they can hold an audience all by themselves? One of those unsolvable puzzles of Bollywood.
So Arjun Chandramohan Bali picks up a DVD of If Only (which any sensible person would have chucked into the bin on sight), casts Randeep Hooda and Shahana Goswami, takes them to Bangkok to shoot Ru Ba Ru and blows it. On paper, the idea of being able to relive a day, and repair the damage done, sounds wonderful, but on film (both the Hollywood and its copy), it is simply ‘déjà vu’ boring.
Nikhil (Hooda) and Tara (Goswami) live together, but after two years, the relationship is under a strain. He is busy with work, she nags incessantly, and after many bursts of petty squabbling, she dies in an accident.
The next morning, Nikhil (sleeping a bit too soundly for one who has just suffered trauma), wakes to find Tara by his side, and she is not a ghost. Due to some magical touch by a weird Punjabi speaking cabbie (Kulbhushan Kharbanda), Nikhil has been given a chance to right past mistakes.
The day starts as it was before, but with subtle changes, and Nikhil gives Tara the best day of her life—remembers their anniversary, takes her on a romantic trip, visits his estranged parents and lands up to applaud her rather stolid staging of Romeo and Juliet (in Hindustani! In Bangkok! And she has been working at it for two years? Bah!)
Takes some patience to sit through this one and watch the two stars (and many dud supporting actors) make a bigger mess of it, because they simply can’t get the emotions right. Hooda is not romantic hero material, and Goswami could have been told to cut out the toothy, wide-eyed, cutesy act.. and she was so good in Rock On.
There comes a time in an actor’s career when he gets a role that his whole career seems to have led towards, and The Last Lear is that watershed in Amitabh Bachchan’s career. Only he could have played the part of a crotchety old Shakespearean actor, contemptuous of the world of films and modern life—balancing the theatricality of the character with an unmissable poignancy. And what a voice, what delivery and what an imposing presence. Problem is what is he going to do for an encore? Hope not silly ghosts and gangsters.
That said, Rituparno Ghosh’s film based on an Utpal Dutt play Aajker Shahjahan, has been updated but still can’t shake off its mothballs. For one, is the theatre vs film debate still on? The film within a film about an aging clown—not seen as much as discussed—sounds like it is an old, pretentious Bengali art film.
Still, 75-year-old Harry Mishra (Bachchan) a retired stage actor, now an alcoholic eccentric, interests you and you want to know how he adjusts to life and work outside his cocoon of a house overstuffed with furniture— but instead of more of that, you get three women sitting in his living room griping about men. Actress Shabnam (Preity Zinta), Harry’s companion Vandana (Shefali Shah) and his nurse Ivy (Divya Dutta) all have problems and while Harry languishes in a coma inside, they talk all night and bits and pieces of what happened to Harry emerge, as the world celebrates Diwali and elsewhere, the only film Harry starred in is being premiered.
The shooting of the film ended in tragedy and the director (Arjun Rampal) who had charmed Harry into acting in a film after a very long hiatus, is inexplicably apathetic.
Fine performances all round, but when Bachchan’s not in the frame, the film sags.
1920
Okay, so Vikram Bhatt’s 1920 is a cross between The Exorcist and Bhool Bhulaiya, but those looking for a scare should not complain about being shortchanged.
As is obvious from the title, 1920 is a period film, shot in a grand and isolated English mansion, supposedly in Palampur. The period costumes, furniture, etc., may not be all that authentic, but that’s hardly the point here.
A prologue with a dead architect, establishes the presence of an evil spirit in this haveli, which for some reason, the unseen owner wants to tear down and convert into a hotel (in a desolate town with no habitation for miles around?). The latest architect comes with newly wed wife Lisa (Adah Sharma), for whom he has fought with his Rajput family and renounced his faith.
Seems a bit odd that such a huge house has just one servant, but the eeriness is turned on like a tap, and very soon strange things start happening, only to Lisa. A priest, father Thomas (Raj Zutshi) tries to help, but matters get worse.
There is a reason behind why Lisa is targeted and how she is connected to a portrait (Anjori Alagh) in a locked room in the house, and that takes up a longish flashback, going back to 1857.
It is inevitable that Arjun will regain his faith, and to get him to recite the Hanuman Chalisa again (he is seen praying and chanting when he is first introduced), there is a crackerjack climax, that allows one to forgive the slow pace and many other incongruities (like the year-long autumn and forever unraked leaves, and totally unwanted Rakhi Sawant item number) of the film.
Unfortunately, the standard of acting leaves much to be desired, though Adah Sharma has submitted to the hideous make up (very scary) and being tossed around with an admirable ease. Bhatt delivers the chills alright, though it is a pity that Indian horror filmmakers are not venturing beyond conventional plots about haunted havelis and spirit possession.
Ru Ba Ru
A first-time filmmaker, trying hard to get his dream across and failing, is pardonable. But why would a filmmaker want to make his debut with a copy of a soppy Hollywood film, make it worse, and that too with actors who are not so charismatic that they can hold an audience all by themselves? One of those unsolvable puzzles of Bollywood.
So Arjun Chandramohan Bali picks up a DVD of If Only (which any sensible person would have chucked into the bin on sight), casts Randeep Hooda and Shahana Goswami, takes them to Bangkok to shoot Ru Ba Ru and blows it. On paper, the idea of being able to relive a day, and repair the damage done, sounds wonderful, but on film (both the Hollywood and its copy), it is simply ‘déjà vu’ boring.
Nikhil (Hooda) and Tara (Goswami) live together, but after two years, the relationship is under a strain. He is busy with work, she nags incessantly, and after many bursts of petty squabbling, she dies in an accident.
The next morning, Nikhil (sleeping a bit too soundly for one who has just suffered trauma), wakes to find Tara by his side, and she is not a ghost. Due to some magical touch by a weird Punjabi speaking cabbie (Kulbhushan Kharbanda), Nikhil has been given a chance to right past mistakes.
The day starts as it was before, but with subtle changes, and Nikhil gives Tara the best day of her life—remembers their anniversary, takes her on a romantic trip, visits his estranged parents and lands up to applaud her rather stolid staging of Romeo and Juliet (in Hindustani! In Bangkok! And she has been working at it for two years? Bah!)
Takes some patience to sit through this one and watch the two stars (and many dud supporting actors) make a bigger mess of it, because they simply can’t get the emotions right. Hooda is not romantic hero material, and Goswami could have been told to cut out the toothy, wide-eyed, cutesy act.. and she was so good in Rock On.
Labels: Cinemaah
