Friday, January 23, 2009
SM and Raaz2
Slumdog Millionaire
India has a way of accepting second hand from the West, what was our own to begin with. Like yoga, herbal medicine or curry.
Slumdog Millionaire, with its multiple wins and Oscar nominations, just re-packages Ram Gopal Verma and Mahesh Bhatt.. Raj Kapoor and KA Abbas too if we were to go back further, and gives the waiting world a Bollywood film done Angrez style.. the film equivalent of power yoga or pizza with tandoori toppings.
One is not arguing for or against the portrayal of India as a brutal, squalid country— it’s the director’s prerogative what he wants to see and show—and if he sees only filth and evil, it’s his vision.
As a story, there is nothing in it that the Indian audience has not seen before, but it is to Boyle’s credit, that he t ells the same old story with great flair, a breathtaking pace and impeccable production values, set to AR Rahman’s exhilarating score.
Just taking the idea from Vikas Swarup’s modern-day fairy tale of a novel Q & A and bleaching all the colour and goodness out of it, Boyle tells the relentlessly dark tale of a tea boy in a call centre, Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) whose traumatic experience as a child gives him the answers to all the questions asked in a quiz show. The condescending host (Anil Kapoor) is annoyed enough to get Jamal tortured by the cops (Irrfan Khan-Saurabh Shukla).
In the book, the boy was an orphan, here he gets a mother, a brother and a religion—adding a needless communal angle, as his mother is killed in a riot, so he knows that Lord Ram carries a bow and arrow in his right hand!
Jamal, his street smart brother Salim and Latika, a girl they befriend, go through all kinds of awful adventures—like almost being blinded (another child is in a scene that makes the flesh crawl) by a Fagin like beggar mafia leader (Ankur Vikal), and Latika ending up in a brothel.
As Salim (Madhur Mittal) becomes a gangster, Jamal spends his life looking for Latika (Freida Pinto), finally finding her captive in the home of a gangster (Mahesh Manjrekar), where his own brother has sent her.
He participates in the quiz show to reach out to Latika, and the climax is pure Bollywood— emotion, action, sacrifice, redemption and true love dancing at the railway station (to the Oscar nominated Jai Ho).
Boyle does treat the unsavoury material (at one point little Jamal jumps into a puddle of poo to be able to get Amitabh Bachchan’s autograph—a scene that would make anyone nauseous) with humour and unflinching affection, and never lets the narrative pause long enough for his characters or the audience to catch their breath. The performances, particularly by the kids are wonderful, there is an exuberance and vitality to the film that is admirable, but the West’s over-enthusiastic response to Slumdog Millionaire is baffling. Maybe as others (notably Mr Bachchan and the person who sued because of the insulting title) have pointed out, this is perhaps the picture of India the world wants to see, and hence the honours for this very well made but hardly extraordinary film.
Raaz: The Mystery Continues
Like most recent horror films like Phoonk and 1920, Mohit Suri’s Raaz: The Mystery Continues faithfully follows set horror film conventions, but gives some more thought to the plot — maybe inspired by Stigmata, making an uneasy combination with Ganashatru (based on Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People) and of course, elements of The Exorcist.
Nandita (Kangana Ranaut), a model starts showing signs of mysterious attacks by spirits, which irritates her boyfriend Yash (Adhyayan Suman), who hosts a TV show called Andhvishwas, exposing supernatural phenomena as hoaxes and superstition. Nandita is also stalked by a haunted-looking painter Prithvi (Emraan Hashmi), who paints the unpleasant incidents before they occur to her, and can’t figure out the connection.
Two other people have died with the same kind of wounds that show up on Nandita’s body, and the same message written on the wall by their corpses. The secret lies in a hill town called Kalindi where a big religious festival takes place, so Nandita and Prithvi go there to investigate.
The setting up of the suspense fine-- there are some truly spooky scenes, and Suri resists using horror stock in trades like loud, jarring music or black cats and crows; once it’s time for the unraveling of the mystery, that he gets into a inextricable maze of overwritten scenes.. not to give away anything, but Jackie Shroff appears at some point in Heath Ledger like clown make-up.
The reason for why Nandita was being attacked is as odd as the wild bull attack in the middle of nowhere; and the film goes on for far too long than is good for a horror film and there are boring bits in between.
Kangana Ranaut – not looking her best—has to look terrified and emit piercing screams once in a while, which she does adequately. Emraan Hashmi is fine as the freaky painter, but Adhyayan Suman needs a lot of improvement. The songs are already on top of the charts, so no shortfall in that department.
The problem is that films like this tend to-- unfairly -- mock people who don’t believe in the paranormal. The better attitude would perhaps be, to each his own, just tell your story without coming down so hard on rationalism.
India has a way of accepting second hand from the West, what was our own to begin with. Like yoga, herbal medicine or curry.
Slumdog Millionaire, with its multiple wins and Oscar nominations, just re-packages Ram Gopal Verma and Mahesh Bhatt.. Raj Kapoor and KA Abbas too if we were to go back further, and gives the waiting world a Bollywood film done Angrez style.. the film equivalent of power yoga or pizza with tandoori toppings.
One is not arguing for or against the portrayal of India as a brutal, squalid country— it’s the director’s prerogative what he wants to see and show—and if he sees only filth and evil, it’s his vision.
As a story, there is nothing in it that the Indian audience has not seen before, but it is to Boyle’s credit, that he t ells the same old story with great flair, a breathtaking pace and impeccable production values, set to AR Rahman’s exhilarating score.
Just taking the idea from Vikas Swarup’s modern-day fairy tale of a novel Q & A and bleaching all the colour and goodness out of it, Boyle tells the relentlessly dark tale of a tea boy in a call centre, Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) whose traumatic experience as a child gives him the answers to all the questions asked in a quiz show. The condescending host (Anil Kapoor) is annoyed enough to get Jamal tortured by the cops (Irrfan Khan-Saurabh Shukla).
In the book, the boy was an orphan, here he gets a mother, a brother and a religion—adding a needless communal angle, as his mother is killed in a riot, so he knows that Lord Ram carries a bow and arrow in his right hand!
Jamal, his street smart brother Salim and Latika, a girl they befriend, go through all kinds of awful adventures—like almost being blinded (another child is in a scene that makes the flesh crawl) by a Fagin like beggar mafia leader (Ankur Vikal), and Latika ending up in a brothel.
As Salim (Madhur Mittal) becomes a gangster, Jamal spends his life looking for Latika (Freida Pinto), finally finding her captive in the home of a gangster (Mahesh Manjrekar), where his own brother has sent her.
He participates in the quiz show to reach out to Latika, and the climax is pure Bollywood— emotion, action, sacrifice, redemption and true love dancing at the railway station (to the Oscar nominated Jai Ho).
Boyle does treat the unsavoury material (at one point little Jamal jumps into a puddle of poo to be able to get Amitabh Bachchan’s autograph—a scene that would make anyone nauseous) with humour and unflinching affection, and never lets the narrative pause long enough for his characters or the audience to catch their breath. The performances, particularly by the kids are wonderful, there is an exuberance and vitality to the film that is admirable, but the West’s over-enthusiastic response to Slumdog Millionaire is baffling. Maybe as others (notably Mr Bachchan and the person who sued because of the insulting title) have pointed out, this is perhaps the picture of India the world wants to see, and hence the honours for this very well made but hardly extraordinary film.
Raaz: The Mystery Continues
Like most recent horror films like Phoonk and 1920, Mohit Suri’s Raaz: The Mystery Continues faithfully follows set horror film conventions, but gives some more thought to the plot — maybe inspired by Stigmata, making an uneasy combination with Ganashatru (based on Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People) and of course, elements of The Exorcist.
Nandita (Kangana Ranaut), a model starts showing signs of mysterious attacks by spirits, which irritates her boyfriend Yash (Adhyayan Suman), who hosts a TV show called Andhvishwas, exposing supernatural phenomena as hoaxes and superstition. Nandita is also stalked by a haunted-looking painter Prithvi (Emraan Hashmi), who paints the unpleasant incidents before they occur to her, and can’t figure out the connection.
Two other people have died with the same kind of wounds that show up on Nandita’s body, and the same message written on the wall by their corpses. The secret lies in a hill town called Kalindi where a big religious festival takes place, so Nandita and Prithvi go there to investigate.
The setting up of the suspense fine-- there are some truly spooky scenes, and Suri resists using horror stock in trades like loud, jarring music or black cats and crows; once it’s time for the unraveling of the mystery, that he gets into a inextricable maze of overwritten scenes.. not to give away anything, but Jackie Shroff appears at some point in Heath Ledger like clown make-up.
The reason for why Nandita was being attacked is as odd as the wild bull attack in the middle of nowhere; and the film goes on for far too long than is good for a horror film and there are boring bits in between.
Kangana Ranaut – not looking her best—has to look terrified and emit piercing screams once in a while, which she does adequately. Emraan Hashmi is fine as the freaky painter, but Adhyayan Suman needs a lot of improvement. The songs are already on top of the charts, so no shortfall in that department.
The problem is that films like this tend to-- unfairly -- mock people who don’t believe in the paranormal. The better attitude would perhaps be, to each his own, just tell your story without coming down so hard on rationalism.
Labels: Cinemaah
CC2C
Chandni Chowk to China
The intention was right—get Hollywood (Warner) clout to back an Indian masala-meets-Chinese-kung fu spectacle and conquer the world. Maybe because they aimed too high, the fall was equally hard.
A film like Chandni Chowk to China, inspired by the illogical seventies’ style commercial cinema (the kind Manmohan Desai patented), needs a sense of childish abandon, total conviction in its silliness and a don’t-let-them-think pace, which Nikhil Advani simply cannot accomplish. As a result of which the Chinese martial arts portions of the film (like a live-action Kung Fu Panda) work much better that the Bollywood melodrama.
Sidhu (Akshay Kumar), a simple-minded Chandni Chowk cook’s assistant, keeps making the rounds of astrologers and quacks to get rich quick, and getting kicked around (so hard that he flies across the city) by his foster father (Mithun Chakraborty).
Thanks to the deliberate misinterpretation by his Chinese friend Chopstick (Ranvir Shorey), Sidhu is taken to be the reincarnation of legendary warrior Liu Shen and taken to China by two desperate men, who need him to fight the villain Hojo (Gordon Liu), who is oppressing their village.
The villain is a bald, grinning monster, who decapitates people with his bowler hat and goes around with an albino sidekick. Years ago he had tossed a cop Chiang (Roger Yuan) from the Great Wall, as a result of which he lost his memory and was separated from his wife and twin daughters. One of them, Sakhi (Deepika Padukone—bright and beautiful) now lands up in China too, and keeps narrowly missing her twin Meow Meow, who works for Hojo.
All that is well, and very old-style Bollywood, but what is one to make of a film in which the hero worships a potato, just shed tears most of the time, is beaten, spat and pissed upon by the villain, and wails over the death of his Dada, dispatched with the bowler hat.
Too late in the film, he runs into Chiang, the old cop regains his memory and teaches Sidhu kung fu, so that he can finally fight Hojo and his army. Through all this mayhem on and around the Great Wall (the first time a film was allowed to shoot there), the Chinese authorities are blissfully asleep. The film sputters to life when Sidhu trains, but the long-awaited climax is a let down.
There is a lot of weeping and sermonizing, not enough light-hearted fun in CC2C, and even when you are willing to put up with non-stop nonsense—since the promos promised that-- you are hardly ever amused. The script puts in needless complications and many plodding sequences (like one at the opera); instead of pace and humour, you get Akshay Kumar’s tomfoolery of the kind that he overdid in Singh In Kinng plus some cringe-worthy gags and lines.
Maybe the Chinese know something Mumbai filmmakers don’t…so they have a better hit rate in crossover cinema. Advani tries so hard that the strain shows, like the veins standing out on his hero’s forehead. And then there’s the added embarrassment of the film giving the impression abroad (going by the many reviews) that this is what Indian cinema has to offer the world.
The intention was right—get Hollywood (Warner) clout to back an Indian masala-meets-Chinese-kung fu spectacle and conquer the world. Maybe because they aimed too high, the fall was equally hard.
A film like Chandni Chowk to China, inspired by the illogical seventies’ style commercial cinema (the kind Manmohan Desai patented), needs a sense of childish abandon, total conviction in its silliness and a don’t-let-them-think pace, which Nikhil Advani simply cannot accomplish. As a result of which the Chinese martial arts portions of the film (like a live-action Kung Fu Panda) work much better that the Bollywood melodrama.
Sidhu (Akshay Kumar), a simple-minded Chandni Chowk cook’s assistant, keeps making the rounds of astrologers and quacks to get rich quick, and getting kicked around (so hard that he flies across the city) by his foster father (Mithun Chakraborty).
Thanks to the deliberate misinterpretation by his Chinese friend Chopstick (Ranvir Shorey), Sidhu is taken to be the reincarnation of legendary warrior Liu Shen and taken to China by two desperate men, who need him to fight the villain Hojo (Gordon Liu), who is oppressing their village.
The villain is a bald, grinning monster, who decapitates people with his bowler hat and goes around with an albino sidekick. Years ago he had tossed a cop Chiang (Roger Yuan) from the Great Wall, as a result of which he lost his memory and was separated from his wife and twin daughters. One of them, Sakhi (Deepika Padukone—bright and beautiful) now lands up in China too, and keeps narrowly missing her twin Meow Meow, who works for Hojo.
All that is well, and very old-style Bollywood, but what is one to make of a film in which the hero worships a potato, just shed tears most of the time, is beaten, spat and pissed upon by the villain, and wails over the death of his Dada, dispatched with the bowler hat.
Too late in the film, he runs into Chiang, the old cop regains his memory and teaches Sidhu kung fu, so that he can finally fight Hojo and his army. Through all this mayhem on and around the Great Wall (the first time a film was allowed to shoot there), the Chinese authorities are blissfully asleep. The film sputters to life when Sidhu trains, but the long-awaited climax is a let down.
There is a lot of weeping and sermonizing, not enough light-hearted fun in CC2C, and even when you are willing to put up with non-stop nonsense—since the promos promised that-- you are hardly ever amused. The script puts in needless complications and many plodding sequences (like one at the opera); instead of pace and humour, you get Akshay Kumar’s tomfoolery of the kind that he overdid in Singh In Kinng plus some cringe-worthy gags and lines.
Maybe the Chinese know something Mumbai filmmakers don’t…so they have a better hit rate in crossover cinema. Advani tries so hard that the strain shows, like the veins standing out on his hero’s forehead. And then there’s the added embarrassment of the film giving the impression abroad (going by the many reviews) that this is what Indian cinema has to offer the world.
Labels: Cinemaah
Prez & Bad Luck
The President is Coming
Kunaal Roy Kapoor’s The President is Coming has several pluses—it is based on a contemporary Indian English play by Anuvab Pal, a major Bollywood production company (the Sippys) have put their money (not a lot, but still..) on it and some of Mumbai's best stage actors get to show their talent on screen. George Bush was always a subject ripe for satire, even though this film comes a little too late for throwing a figurative shoe at him.
Since it is in English, the audience is automatically limited, but its wacky humour, and furious one-liners will go down well with young urban multiplex-going crowds, who get to see a film that speaks their tongue and probably expresses some of their thoughts.
Like the sniggers raised at the expense of the ‘vernie’ communal angry man (Satchit Puranik) who has a chip on his shoulder and says “phuck.” Or the Gujju stockbroker (Anand Tiwari), who thinks everything can be bought. The upper crust comes for some battering too, when the airhead heiress (Ira Dubey) is mocked.
These three are part of a group—the others are a snobbish novelist (Konkona Sen Sharma), an accent trainer (Vivek Gomber) and closet-gay IT geek (Namit Das)—who have been chosen to take part in a contest that will pick one, who will get the shake hands with the visiting President Bush, as a representative of the New Indian.
The whole circus is handled by the bossy Samantha Patel (Shernaz Patel) and her ditzy assistant Ritu Johnson (Shivaki Tanksale). The group has to participate in a series of tests—mostly humiliating—but they are all, for reasons of their own, willing to do anything to meet Prez Bush. The quarrel, make fools of themselves and let their worst sides emerge. The film is lampoon of our own insecurity and corruption, using regional stereotypes.
There have been a few alterations made in the play in the attempt to open it out, but it remains a one-location affair, and can’t shake off its staginess and occasional meandering off the point —the humour remains in the lines (by Anuvab Pal) and the actors collectively-- without any attempts at scene-stealing— being their characters alive, clichés and all. For those who haven’t seen the play, worth a look – go see what the fuss was about, and laugh a bit while you are at it.
Bad Luck Govind
In the credits (and the brochure), the characters have names likes Angelic Anu, Hungree Hussain, Krazee Kripalani, Troubled Talpade, and so on… and the wit in Varun Khanna’s Bad Luck Govind ends right there.
The thought of watching yet another Mumbai gangster film is not in the least encouraging, but the title suggested a comedy, so hopes were raised a bit… and dashed soon enough.
A skinny and sad-looking, jug-eared Govind (Gaurav Kapur) believes he brings bad luck wherever he goes… a very unlikely series of errors, leads to his leaving Delhi for Mumbai, and having his luggage stolen on the train.
At a hospital (where he goes to try make some money as a sperm donor), he meets aspiring actor Vishal (Amit Mistry--earnest), who gives the hapless fellow shelter in his chawl room.
The chawl has two sets of warring gangsters – Kapoor (Parmeet Sethi) and gang on one side, and Talpade (Ganesh Yadav) on the other. Mostly they just yell insults across the yard, but there is some complicated betting involving the imprisonment of a don Mahalkar’s (Govind Namdeo) nephew, causing ego clashes between the two sides.
By the time the entire cast of characters is introduced, speaking Bambaiya slang (or what filmmakers imagine they do), you are already yawning out of boredom. Govind (called names like Sukha Bombil by his raucous neighbours) tries to tell Vishal of his bad luck, Kapoor’s henchman Hussain (Vrajesh Hirjee) overhears, and they get the idea of having Govind hovering on the other side, so his misfortune rubs off on the enemy. For a while it does, then Govind starts feeling guilty and lands up in hospital (with some bones broken by Hussain), where he falls for the Doctor Anu Fernandes (Hrishitaa Bhatt). Anu, it is established earlier, has Buddhist inclinations and believes in a positive thinking chant.
The plot goes nowhere, Govind must be the most irritatingly passive and ineffectual ‘hero’ of all time, and the pace—for a comedy—is fatally slow. If there is a small hint of humour it is in the exaggerated reaction of a man (Zakir Hussain), whose muscle-building pills are substituted by female hormones by the enemy camp.
It’s unfortunate that the film turned out to be such a dud, there was a cool idea there, and films about innocents in big bad Bombay (okay, Mumbai) have always appealed to audiences. Director Varun Khanna has made the hard-hitting Beyond Honour earlier (and also the unremarkable American Blend) , but what can say to this no-brainer, but better luck next time.
Kunaal Roy Kapoor’s The President is Coming has several pluses—it is based on a contemporary Indian English play by Anuvab Pal, a major Bollywood production company (the Sippys) have put their money (not a lot, but still..) on it and some of Mumbai's best stage actors get to show their talent on screen. George Bush was always a subject ripe for satire, even though this film comes a little too late for throwing a figurative shoe at him.
Since it is in English, the audience is automatically limited, but its wacky humour, and furious one-liners will go down well with young urban multiplex-going crowds, who get to see a film that speaks their tongue and probably expresses some of their thoughts.
Like the sniggers raised at the expense of the ‘vernie’ communal angry man (Satchit Puranik) who has a chip on his shoulder and says “phuck.” Or the Gujju stockbroker (Anand Tiwari), who thinks everything can be bought. The upper crust comes for some battering too, when the airhead heiress (Ira Dubey) is mocked.
These three are part of a group—the others are a snobbish novelist (Konkona Sen Sharma), an accent trainer (Vivek Gomber) and closet-gay IT geek (Namit Das)—who have been chosen to take part in a contest that will pick one, who will get the shake hands with the visiting President Bush, as a representative of the New Indian.
The whole circus is handled by the bossy Samantha Patel (Shernaz Patel) and her ditzy assistant Ritu Johnson (Shivaki Tanksale). The group has to participate in a series of tests—mostly humiliating—but they are all, for reasons of their own, willing to do anything to meet Prez Bush. The quarrel, make fools of themselves and let their worst sides emerge. The film is lampoon of our own insecurity and corruption, using regional stereotypes.
There have been a few alterations made in the play in the attempt to open it out, but it remains a one-location affair, and can’t shake off its staginess and occasional meandering off the point —the humour remains in the lines (by Anuvab Pal) and the actors collectively-- without any attempts at scene-stealing— being their characters alive, clichés and all. For those who haven’t seen the play, worth a look – go see what the fuss was about, and laugh a bit while you are at it.
Bad Luck Govind
In the credits (and the brochure), the characters have names likes Angelic Anu, Hungree Hussain, Krazee Kripalani, Troubled Talpade, and so on… and the wit in Varun Khanna’s Bad Luck Govind ends right there.
The thought of watching yet another Mumbai gangster film is not in the least encouraging, but the title suggested a comedy, so hopes were raised a bit… and dashed soon enough.
A skinny and sad-looking, jug-eared Govind (Gaurav Kapur) believes he brings bad luck wherever he goes… a very unlikely series of errors, leads to his leaving Delhi for Mumbai, and having his luggage stolen on the train.
At a hospital (where he goes to try make some money as a sperm donor), he meets aspiring actor Vishal (Amit Mistry--earnest), who gives the hapless fellow shelter in his chawl room.
The chawl has two sets of warring gangsters – Kapoor (Parmeet Sethi) and gang on one side, and Talpade (Ganesh Yadav) on the other. Mostly they just yell insults across the yard, but there is some complicated betting involving the imprisonment of a don Mahalkar’s (Govind Namdeo) nephew, causing ego clashes between the two sides.
By the time the entire cast of characters is introduced, speaking Bambaiya slang (or what filmmakers imagine they do), you are already yawning out of boredom. Govind (called names like Sukha Bombil by his raucous neighbours) tries to tell Vishal of his bad luck, Kapoor’s henchman Hussain (Vrajesh Hirjee) overhears, and they get the idea of having Govind hovering on the other side, so his misfortune rubs off on the enemy. For a while it does, then Govind starts feeling guilty and lands up in hospital (with some bones broken by Hussain), where he falls for the Doctor Anu Fernandes (Hrishitaa Bhatt). Anu, it is established earlier, has Buddhist inclinations and believes in a positive thinking chant.
The plot goes nowhere, Govind must be the most irritatingly passive and ineffectual ‘hero’ of all time, and the pace—for a comedy—is fatally slow. If there is a small hint of humour it is in the exaggerated reaction of a man (Zakir Hussain), whose muscle-building pills are substituted by female hormones by the enemy camp.
It’s unfortunate that the film turned out to be such a dud, there was a cool idea there, and films about innocents in big bad Bombay (okay, Mumbai) have always appealed to audiences. Director Varun Khanna has made the hard-hitting Beyond Honour earlier (and also the unremarkable American Blend) , but what can say to this no-brainer, but better luck next time.
Labels: Cinemaah
