Saturday, March 14, 2009
Gulaal+Zizou+1
Gulaal
The death of a young boy in a ragging incident is all over the news right now—and this dark world of uncontrolled machismo is what Anurag Kashyap enters once again in his Gulaal.
It’s an ugly, irredeemable world, and the first hour or so of the film is stunning—visually too-- Kashyap hold on the cinematic medium cannot be faulted. He is confident enough to be quirky— the lead character lives in an abandoned bar in the middle of nowhere, complete with neon signs. A loony character is a John Lennon fan, and has for a companion a mute with body paint conveying ‘ardhnarishwar’ -- half man-half woman.
Here, a bespectacled nerd Dilip (Raj Singh Chaudhary), first brutally ragged, is then thrown into the pit of college politics by the authoritative Dukkey Bana (Kay Kay Menon), who wants to create an army of Rajputs to redress the wrongs done to the community by the post-Independent democratic governments. His foes are a cynical princeling Ransa (Abhimanyu Singh—a revelation), and the former Raja’s illegitimate kids – Karan (Aditya Shrivastav) and Kiran (Ayesha Mohan)
Kashyap convincingly establishes this lawless milieu, where people are casually killed (a cop, too) and nobody bats an eyelid; a college professor (Jesse Randhawa) is stripped and humiliated and does even report it; when Dilip is found severely battered, his father says, it could have been worse. After this the film goes all over the place, with characters floating around without apparent purpose (the professor, or Dukkey’s wife, for instance), and after the tantalizing premise of a Rajput revolt, there isn’t even a payoff for the audience. Unless, of course Kashyap thought of a sequel.
Dukkey Bana’s motives are a bit hazy—it’s not like Bihar’s Ranvir Sena that came up to fight the gains of the lower castes from reservations. All the college level politics is to skim off money coming in for a ‘festival’, which seems like an anti-climax. Even more of a letdown is the typical ‘all fall down’ kind of ending that comes from the writer-director not knowing what to do with the complicated web he has woven, so random violence is the easy way out.
The male actors are marvellous— Abhimanyu Singh, Kay Kay Menon, Aditya Shrivastav, Deepak Dobriyal (as Bana’s henchman) and Piyush Mishra, as the loony – he has also written and composed the excellent songs; the parody of Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hai (which Kashyap credits as his inspiration for this film) is award-worthy. The same can’t be said of the female characters – including the supposedly courageous Kiran, who in one ridiculous scene berates Dilip, whom she has seduced, of making her pregnant! There is Mahi Gill as a nautch girl and Jesse Randhawa, who just hovers around in a daze.
In its attempt to probe a provincial dark hole that parts of North Indian have become, Gulaal is a braver film than Kashyap’s recent Dev D. But at best, is remain vaguely disturbing when it could have been powerfully provocative.
Little Zizou
Sooni Taraporevala may just have made the definitive film on the Parsis—and any Mumbai-ite who knows a Parsi family will appreciate the affection and care with which she has captured her beloved and rapidly dwindling community.
The film, part real, part whimsy and beautifully observed is mainly about two families; on one side is the patriarchal Cyrus II Khodaiji (Sohrab Ardeshir), who is hated by his sons, football fan Xerxes (Jahan Bativala) and graphic artist Artaxerxes (Imaad Shah). On the other side is the Presswala family, the father (Boman Irani) runs a community newspaper, his wife Roxanne (Zenobia Shroff) keeps an eye on her two daughters Liana (Iyana Bativala) and Zenobia (Dilshad Patel) and mothers little Xerxes too.
As a war breaks out between the conservative Khodaiji shouting for racial purity, and the liberal Presswala, Artaxerxes and his buddies are trying to create the cockpit of a jet for a flight simulator, in an old abandoned building. Painted in delicate strokes around them are other Parsi characters like Roxanne’s mother (Mahabanoo Mody Kotwal) keeping her crumbing hotel going in Udwada, Khodaiji’s subservient assistant (Shernaz Patel), the half Italian Tito (Thnow Francorsi) or the confused militant (Kurush Deboo)
Such is Taraporevala’s labour of love, that Parsis like Shiamak Davar, Gary Lawyer, Cyrus Broacha, Farid Currim and the half-Parsi John Abraham make friendly appearances and she gets to capture the old world beauty of Parsi homes.
Little Zizou is charming with its delicate humour, compassion for the community and concern for its future. The performances are wonderful and little Jahan Bativala is an absolute natural. The film may not be commercial, but it is a must-watch for lovers of good cinema.
Jai Veeru
Just how dated in content and look Jai Veeru is, can be seen even more clearly when compared to the week’s other releases – the far superior Little Zizou and Gulaal.
Punit Sira’s film, a sorry remake of a bad Hollywood film Bulletproof (1996) just has nothing going for it, when everybody else is trying to break the formula. Jai Veeru is just so 80s and totally without any surprises.
Veeru (Kunal Khemu), petty crook and car thief befriends Jai (Fardeen Khan), and eventually introduces him to his boss, gangster Tejpal (Arbaaz Khan). Turns out Jai is an undercover cop, and in trying to apprehend Tejpal, he gets shot and Veeru escapes to Bangkok, with Tejpal’s “black book.” In this day and age, a gangster keeps all his contacts in a diary placed for all to see in the backseat of his car, and watches with a puzzled expression as Veeru drives off with it. After Jai recovers from the bullet in his head, he goes after Veeru, chased in turn by Tejpal’s men.
There are two leading ladies too, who turn up when a song-and-dance break is needed, though the heroes get better costumes and more hairstyle changes than the girls.
The combined acting talent of Khan and Khemu is not enough even to keep such a dumb film going, and a villain who speaks chaste Hindi and has a haircut when he is supposed to be kidnapping a girl simply can’t be taken seriously!
The death of a young boy in a ragging incident is all over the news right now—and this dark world of uncontrolled machismo is what Anurag Kashyap enters once again in his Gulaal.
It’s an ugly, irredeemable world, and the first hour or so of the film is stunning—visually too-- Kashyap hold on the cinematic medium cannot be faulted. He is confident enough to be quirky— the lead character lives in an abandoned bar in the middle of nowhere, complete with neon signs. A loony character is a John Lennon fan, and has for a companion a mute with body paint conveying ‘ardhnarishwar’ -- half man-half woman.
Here, a bespectacled nerd Dilip (Raj Singh Chaudhary), first brutally ragged, is then thrown into the pit of college politics by the authoritative Dukkey Bana (Kay Kay Menon), who wants to create an army of Rajputs to redress the wrongs done to the community by the post-Independent democratic governments. His foes are a cynical princeling Ransa (Abhimanyu Singh—a revelation), and the former Raja’s illegitimate kids – Karan (Aditya Shrivastav) and Kiran (Ayesha Mohan)
Kashyap convincingly establishes this lawless milieu, where people are casually killed (a cop, too) and nobody bats an eyelid; a college professor (Jesse Randhawa) is stripped and humiliated and does even report it; when Dilip is found severely battered, his father says, it could have been worse. After this the film goes all over the place, with characters floating around without apparent purpose (the professor, or Dukkey’s wife, for instance), and after the tantalizing premise of a Rajput revolt, there isn’t even a payoff for the audience. Unless, of course Kashyap thought of a sequel.
Dukkey Bana’s motives are a bit hazy—it’s not like Bihar’s Ranvir Sena that came up to fight the gains of the lower castes from reservations. All the college level politics is to skim off money coming in for a ‘festival’, which seems like an anti-climax. Even more of a letdown is the typical ‘all fall down’ kind of ending that comes from the writer-director not knowing what to do with the complicated web he has woven, so random violence is the easy way out.
The male actors are marvellous— Abhimanyu Singh, Kay Kay Menon, Aditya Shrivastav, Deepak Dobriyal (as Bana’s henchman) and Piyush Mishra, as the loony – he has also written and composed the excellent songs; the parody of Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hai (which Kashyap credits as his inspiration for this film) is award-worthy. The same can’t be said of the female characters – including the supposedly courageous Kiran, who in one ridiculous scene berates Dilip, whom she has seduced, of making her pregnant! There is Mahi Gill as a nautch girl and Jesse Randhawa, who just hovers around in a daze.
In its attempt to probe a provincial dark hole that parts of North Indian have become, Gulaal is a braver film than Kashyap’s recent Dev D. But at best, is remain vaguely disturbing when it could have been powerfully provocative.
Little Zizou
Sooni Taraporevala may just have made the definitive film on the Parsis—and any Mumbai-ite who knows a Parsi family will appreciate the affection and care with which she has captured her beloved and rapidly dwindling community.
The film, part real, part whimsy and beautifully observed is mainly about two families; on one side is the patriarchal Cyrus II Khodaiji (Sohrab Ardeshir), who is hated by his sons, football fan Xerxes (Jahan Bativala) and graphic artist Artaxerxes (Imaad Shah). On the other side is the Presswala family, the father (Boman Irani) runs a community newspaper, his wife Roxanne (Zenobia Shroff) keeps an eye on her two daughters Liana (Iyana Bativala) and Zenobia (Dilshad Patel) and mothers little Xerxes too.
As a war breaks out between the conservative Khodaiji shouting for racial purity, and the liberal Presswala, Artaxerxes and his buddies are trying to create the cockpit of a jet for a flight simulator, in an old abandoned building. Painted in delicate strokes around them are other Parsi characters like Roxanne’s mother (Mahabanoo Mody Kotwal) keeping her crumbing hotel going in Udwada, Khodaiji’s subservient assistant (Shernaz Patel), the half Italian Tito (Thnow Francorsi) or the confused militant (Kurush Deboo)
Such is Taraporevala’s labour of love, that Parsis like Shiamak Davar, Gary Lawyer, Cyrus Broacha, Farid Currim and the half-Parsi John Abraham make friendly appearances and she gets to capture the old world beauty of Parsi homes.
Little Zizou is charming with its delicate humour, compassion for the community and concern for its future. The performances are wonderful and little Jahan Bativala is an absolute natural. The film may not be commercial, but it is a must-watch for lovers of good cinema.
Jai Veeru
Just how dated in content and look Jai Veeru is, can be seen even more clearly when compared to the week’s other releases – the far superior Little Zizou and Gulaal.
Punit Sira’s film, a sorry remake of a bad Hollywood film Bulletproof (1996) just has nothing going for it, when everybody else is trying to break the formula. Jai Veeru is just so 80s and totally without any surprises.
Veeru (Kunal Khemu), petty crook and car thief befriends Jai (Fardeen Khan), and eventually introduces him to his boss, gangster Tejpal (Arbaaz Khan). Turns out Jai is an undercover cop, and in trying to apprehend Tejpal, he gets shot and Veeru escapes to Bangkok, with Tejpal’s “black book.” In this day and age, a gangster keeps all his contacts in a diary placed for all to see in the backseat of his car, and watches with a puzzled expression as Veeru drives off with it. After Jai recovers from the bullet in his head, he goes after Veeru, chased in turn by Tejpal’s men.
There are two leading ladies too, who turn up when a song-and-dance break is needed, though the heroes get better costumes and more hairstyle changes than the girls.
The combined acting talent of Khan and Khemu is not enough even to keep such a dumb film going, and a villain who speaks chaste Hindi and has a haircut when he is supposed to be kidnapping a girl simply can’t be taken seriously!
Labels: Cinemaah
Monday, March 09, 2009
13B+2
13 B
What would happen if a TV serial makes an appearance in just one household, and mirrors what is happening there?
Vikram Kumar uses this ghost-in-the-machine premise to tell a fairly chilling horror tale, the biggest fault of which is its patience-sapping running time. When strange things start happening to Manohar (R Madhavan) after he moves with his joint family to flat 13B in a highrise, he is unable to explain it – why does the lift refuse to work only when he wants to use it, why can't a nail be hammered into a wall, why does the blind neighbour's dog refuse to enter the house?
By and by Manohar figures out that the TV serial Sab Khairiyat Hai, that the women of his household are hooked to, is mirroring exactly what is happening in their own home, and some events that the serial predicts are scary. (How comes the women don't make the connection too? Does TV sap women's brains?)
Repetitive though it is, till the point that Manohar and his cop buddy (Murli Sharma) are tightly wound up with tension and terror, the story is intriguing. Unfortunately the explanation and denouement are convoluted and long-winded.
The director uses all the standard audio and visual (shot by master cinematographer PC Sreeram) tricks of the genre-- creaking doors, rain, power outages – but to his credit, does not overdo them. The scares are real and not cheated at with sudden noises and tawdry special effects.
The film rests almost entirely on Madhavan's (he tends to tip into overacting often) shoulders, with some help from Sharma, Dhritiman Chatterjee as the blind neighbour, and Sachin Khedekar as the family doctor. The other members of the family (Neetu Chandra, Poonam Dhillon, etc) are there just to make cheerful background noises. The film could have done without songs and tighter editing would have made a world of difference. Still, fans of the horror genre will probably enjoy it.
Dhoondte Reh Jaaoge
You don't know whether to commend Umesh Shukla for his taste or berate him for his audacity in stealing the plot from one of the best-loved comedy classics-- The Producers, in which a down on his luck film producer and a creative accountant plan a scam that involves making such a bad film that it flops, so that they can escape with the investors' money.
In the original, a part of the ingenuity lay in making a film so designed to fail that ends up becoming a hit-- the film-within-film called Springtime for Hitler, was a mini comic masterpiece in itself, while in his Dhoondte Reh Jaaoge, Shukla has put together, a juvenile extended skit, knitting together plots from several Hindi films and calling it Solay se L'gaan Tak.
A lot of our directors and actors don't seem to realise that comedy works best if it isn't played out like an exaggerated farce, if actors didn't look as if they were trying too hard to make the audience laugh. In DHR, only Paresh Rawal gets it right. He plays flop producer Raj Chopra, who has creditors at his door and no financier or actor willing to touch him.
Anand Pawar (Kunal Khemu) is a chartered accountant, who gets fed-up of being poor and jobless, so comes up with the scheme of making the ultimate flop. They get a broke hero (Sonu Sood), Anand's homely girlfriend Neha (Soha Ali Khan) to act, an obviously nutty writer (Johny Lever) to script it and Neha's moronic uncle (Dilip Joshi) to direct. Despite their best efforts, the film succeeds.
A few scenes are funny, but most gags are stretched till they sag (like the one involving the hero's broken affair and his duplicates). Can be watched on a really idle day, but certainly not a must-see. Catch the original Mel Brooks' classic instead, not the 2005 musical (from the stage version) remake.
Karma Aur Holi
Karma Aur Holi would do well to market itself as a comedy-- going by the raucous laughter at a preview, it was certainly funnier than this week's 'official' comedy Dhoondte Reh Jaaoge.
What makes the experience of watching it infinitely worse, is that it had been dubbed very badly into Hindi, so even American characters speak stilted Hindi and say stuff like, “Main item se saath jacuzzi mein masti kar raha tha.”
The least the producers and director Manish Gupta could have done, is had some respect for the audience and let the Americans speak English. In any case the target audience for the film is the urban multiplex cinegoer, who understands English.
Cliché ridden though the idea may be, on paper it doesn't sound so bad. A group of disgruntled NRIs with a variety of secrets and problems land up at the mansion of a yuppie couple Meera and Dev (Sushmita Sen-Randeep Hooda) a day before Holi, to celebrate the festival.
There's Meera's hyper older sister (Rati Agnihotri) with her husband (Suresh Oberoi), and troubled teenage son (Chandan Sethi); there's an MCP doctor (Shauvik Kundagami), his subservient wife (Suchita Krishnamoorthy), and her sexy sister (Deepal Shaw); an aspiring Muslim filmmaker (Armin Amiri) with a black girlfriend (Naomi Campbell), a tarot reader, a business partner and so on.
The hosts have financial problems and a marriage straining at the leash, the others have it much worse. So to defuse a potentially explosive situation, the assembled guests get drunk and decide to play Truth or Dare. Out come the hidden traumas, and you know, come Holi, there will be a threatened divorce, a pregnancy or two, one character liberated and another sexually awakened... thankfully no funeral.
Gupta must have aimed at a Monsoon Wedding, but just ends up in a lot of slush. Even with a decent cast, the film is unforgivably trite and amateurish; it tries and fails to bring up several NRI issues (racism, for one), and actually manages to make Sushmita Sen and supermodel Naomi Campbell look dowdy.
What would happen if a TV serial makes an appearance in just one household, and mirrors what is happening there?
Vikram Kumar uses this ghost-in-the-machine premise to tell a fairly chilling horror tale, the biggest fault of which is its patience-sapping running time. When strange things start happening to Manohar (R Madhavan) after he moves with his joint family to flat 13B in a highrise, he is unable to explain it – why does the lift refuse to work only when he wants to use it, why can't a nail be hammered into a wall, why does the blind neighbour's dog refuse to enter the house?
By and by Manohar figures out that the TV serial Sab Khairiyat Hai, that the women of his household are hooked to, is mirroring exactly what is happening in their own home, and some events that the serial predicts are scary. (How comes the women don't make the connection too? Does TV sap women's brains?)
Repetitive though it is, till the point that Manohar and his cop buddy (Murli Sharma) are tightly wound up with tension and terror, the story is intriguing. Unfortunately the explanation and denouement are convoluted and long-winded.
The director uses all the standard audio and visual (shot by master cinematographer PC Sreeram) tricks of the genre-- creaking doors, rain, power outages – but to his credit, does not overdo them. The scares are real and not cheated at with sudden noises and tawdry special effects.
The film rests almost entirely on Madhavan's (he tends to tip into overacting often) shoulders, with some help from Sharma, Dhritiman Chatterjee as the blind neighbour, and Sachin Khedekar as the family doctor. The other members of the family (Neetu Chandra, Poonam Dhillon, etc) are there just to make cheerful background noises. The film could have done without songs and tighter editing would have made a world of difference. Still, fans of the horror genre will probably enjoy it.
Dhoondte Reh Jaaoge
You don't know whether to commend Umesh Shukla for his taste or berate him for his audacity in stealing the plot from one of the best-loved comedy classics-- The Producers, in which a down on his luck film producer and a creative accountant plan a scam that involves making such a bad film that it flops, so that they can escape with the investors' money.
In the original, a part of the ingenuity lay in making a film so designed to fail that ends up becoming a hit-- the film-within-film called Springtime for Hitler, was a mini comic masterpiece in itself, while in his Dhoondte Reh Jaaoge, Shukla has put together, a juvenile extended skit, knitting together plots from several Hindi films and calling it Solay se L'gaan Tak.
A lot of our directors and actors don't seem to realise that comedy works best if it isn't played out like an exaggerated farce, if actors didn't look as if they were trying too hard to make the audience laugh. In DHR, only Paresh Rawal gets it right. He plays flop producer Raj Chopra, who has creditors at his door and no financier or actor willing to touch him.
Anand Pawar (Kunal Khemu) is a chartered accountant, who gets fed-up of being poor and jobless, so comes up with the scheme of making the ultimate flop. They get a broke hero (Sonu Sood), Anand's homely girlfriend Neha (Soha Ali Khan) to act, an obviously nutty writer (Johny Lever) to script it and Neha's moronic uncle (Dilip Joshi) to direct. Despite their best efforts, the film succeeds.
A few scenes are funny, but most gags are stretched till they sag (like the one involving the hero's broken affair and his duplicates). Can be watched on a really idle day, but certainly not a must-see. Catch the original Mel Brooks' classic instead, not the 2005 musical (from the stage version) remake.
Karma Aur Holi
Karma Aur Holi would do well to market itself as a comedy-- going by the raucous laughter at a preview, it was certainly funnier than this week's 'official' comedy Dhoondte Reh Jaaoge.
What makes the experience of watching it infinitely worse, is that it had been dubbed very badly into Hindi, so even American characters speak stilted Hindi and say stuff like, “Main item se saath jacuzzi mein masti kar raha tha.”
The least the producers and director Manish Gupta could have done, is had some respect for the audience and let the Americans speak English. In any case the target audience for the film is the urban multiplex cinegoer, who understands English.
Cliché ridden though the idea may be, on paper it doesn't sound so bad. A group of disgruntled NRIs with a variety of secrets and problems land up at the mansion of a yuppie couple Meera and Dev (Sushmita Sen-Randeep Hooda) a day before Holi, to celebrate the festival.
There's Meera's hyper older sister (Rati Agnihotri) with her husband (Suresh Oberoi), and troubled teenage son (Chandan Sethi); there's an MCP doctor (Shauvik Kundagami), his subservient wife (Suchita Krishnamoorthy), and her sexy sister (Deepal Shaw); an aspiring Muslim filmmaker (Armin Amiri) with a black girlfriend (Naomi Campbell), a tarot reader, a business partner and so on.
The hosts have financial problems and a marriage straining at the leash, the others have it much worse. So to defuse a potentially explosive situation, the assembled guests get drunk and decide to play Truth or Dare. Out come the hidden traumas, and you know, come Holi, there will be a threatened divorce, a pregnancy or two, one character liberated and another sexually awakened... thankfully no funeral.
Gupta must have aimed at a Monsoon Wedding, but just ends up in a lot of slush. Even with a decent cast, the film is unforgivably trite and amateurish; it tries and fails to bring up several NRI issues (racism, for one), and actually manages to make Sushmita Sen and supermodel Naomi Campbell look dowdy.
Labels: Cinemaah
