Friday, September 09, 2011
Mere Brother Ki Dulhan
Hello Brother!
A man falls in love with a woman who is engaged to another, and she reciprocates Then he uses lies and subterfuge to break up the couple and marry the girl himself. Everybody can identify that as the plot of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. With a little variation, it makes up yet another YRF film—Mere Brother Ki Dulhan. (Replacing Bhai with Brother makes it more original, or what?)
Still, as a character in the film calls it, for today’s “sms generation,” Ali Abbas Zafar’s film does provide some popcorn-aided ‘timepass’, with a liberal dose of Indian hypocrisy. A girl who claims to be wild (she smokes and drinks) says she never crosses the boundary (ie she draws the line at sex). Also, the same 27-year-old London-born and bred girl, agrees to an arranged marriage, because she wants a rich, sorted out NRI whose money she can spend. No career goals of her own? Strange.
Katrina Kaif is named Dimple Dixit in the film—combining the names of Dimple Kapadia and Madhuri Dixit. This is just one of the homages and in-jokes the film is full of. A bit tiresome to see that an enthusiastic first-time director needs to wear his influences on his sleeve so obviously (There’s even an autistic character like SRK in My Name is Khan.)
The plot that takes liberally from Mere Yaar Ki Shaadi Hai, Dan in Real Life,Sorry Bhai and of course DDLJ, has one major diversion. Kush (Imran Khan) is entrusted the task of finding a suitable girl for his London resident brother Luv (Ali Zafar), who has just broken up with his girlfriend Piali (Tara D’Souza) and wants an arranged marriage.
After meeting the usual line-up of psychos and their parents, Kush meets Dimple, who he has met five years earlier in her rock-chick avatar. Now she is demurely carrying the tea tray to impress her prospective in-laws. She has a video chat with Luv, during which she quizzes him and both agree to a marriage without even meeting.
So the band, baaja, baraat starts in Delhi, Kush realises that he is in love with Dimple and she with him, but he will not elope. They will find a painless, face-saving way of solving the problem. And they do… today’s “sms generation” does not believe in heabreak or pain. Never mind that they have to resort to deception to avoid it.
Katrina Kaif is spirited and uninhibited and fun to watch, can’t say the same about the guys. The songs are catchy and exuberantly choreographed—theMadhubala number in particular. Why crib, originality is never an issue — MBKD is a frothy entertainer.
Labels: Cinemaah
That Girl In Yellow Boots
Mumbai By Night
The problem with Bollywood cinema right now is the lack of a viable alternative. On the one end is junk like Bodyguard you don’t want to see; on the other high-quality cinema of Anurag Kashyap (and his followers) that you can’t bear to watch.
That Girl in Yellow Boots is typical ‘indie’ fare that invariably hopes to attract audiences through controversial content. The story follows Ruth (Kalki Koechlin), who has come to India to look for her father. He had left when she was a kid. She has received a letter from him, and set off in search; and while she makes the rounds, she works in a seedy massage parlour and specializes in what is euphemistically referred to as “hand shake.”
Her backstory—troubled childhood, sister’s suicide, difficult relationship with mother—comes through, but not how she acquires a junkie boyfriend (Prashant Prakash) or why she puts up with him. Ruth is portrayed as stoic and world weary, far beyond her years. She deals calmly with several clients (including a paternal Naseeruddin Shah, who comes for a real massage and is shocked at what she does for money), with the chatty woman who runs the parlour (Puja Sarup), a gangster Chitiappa (Gulshan Devaiya) who is there, because you can’t have a Mumbai underbelly film without a gangster, and the many cogs in the wheel that could lead to her father.
This kind of film has to be ugly and brutal, but to give credit to Kashyap, he doesn’t make Ruth’s experiences with cops, officials and sundry riff-raff too violent or sordid; even so the finale that comes up creeping slowly and inexorably is discomfiting, with no catharsis provided. Though incest, child abuse and other evils do take place in our society, watching a film about it—and one that deals with it so casually-- is not an experience to look out for.
Kashyap has populated the film with actors from the theatre, so every little cameo is well-performed—Kumud Mishra, Makrand Deshpande, Divya Jagdale, Shiv Subrahmanyam, Pura Sarup—all known names from the city’s theatre. Kalki, who is described by a character in the film, through her teeth, as “part Bugs Bunny part Julia Roberts” carries the film with her look of innocence and strength. It’s a difficult role that she performs with confidence. But it’s not a film you’d recommend to your best friend.
Labels: Cinemaah
