Saturday, April 19, 2014
2 States
Aiyyo Meets Balle Balle
A romcom like 2 States can
take place only in India. A young man and woman in love want their parents not
just to like their choice of mate but also each others’ families. When one set of parents is Punjabi and other
Tamilian, the task is made even more difficult.
Based on Chetan Bhagat’s bestselling novel, the plot is Ek Duuje Ke Liye crossed with Meet The Parents, and one that makes
liberal used of stereotypes to create conflict where there isn’t any. Because
Ananya (Alia Bhatt) and Krish (Arjun Kapoor) are today’s independent urban
youngsters who ought to be able to solve their problems without the full-blown
melodrama. Bhagat’s book that was silly
and funny with corny humour is just overblown on screen, so that you really
want to hit the two lovelorn protagonists on the head and tell them to get on
with it.
Still, in there somewhere is a kind of truth that Indian youngsters will
identify with, that they can move away from their families, but parents and
siblings still provide an emotional support system that often makes them more
significant than a lover... if a choice has to be made.
Krish and Ananya, fall in love at IIM, but have to go through the
complicated parental rigmarole that might have been valid 20 years ago, but
seems dated today.
Still, the shallowness packaged in Karan Johar (he is a co-producer)
aesthetics—where even middle class people live in grand homes and students’
hostel rooms look like something out of interior design magazines—ensures that
the film will appeal to its target audience. Even though, while watching this
film in Hindi, you have to suspend disbelief; would IIM students speak to each
other in Hindi, would the teachers teach in Hindi and would a Tamilian family
converse in the hated Northern language with such ease?
Never mind, this is Bollywood. Casting two fresh and appealing young
actors in the roles helps along too, and Alia Bhatt, without making any effort
to be an authentic Tam-Brahm girl, brings out the perkiness of the
free-spirited character, who does as she pleases when she is out of parental
influence. Arjun Kapoor is charming, but comes across as one-note, hangdog in
comparison. The supporting cast—Amrita Singh, Ronit Roy, Revathy, Shiv
Subrahmanyan and Achint Kaur—play their parts with a gung-ho spirit, aware that
they are representing cultural stereotypes (dour Tamilians, aggressive Punjabis,
etc).
Trying to remain faithful to the book makes the film too long with large
chunks of banality. The novel needed updating and adapting instead of slavish copying
to make it relevant to the times. But
even as it is, 2 States serves its
commercial purpose—romance, laughs, some sniffles, music, dance, family values,
wrapped with a glittery bow.
Labels: Cinemaah
Dekh Tamasha Dekh
Yeh Hai
India
The subject hits déjà vu notes, but Feroz Abbas Khan takes a true story
narrated to him by former cop Satish Sawhney and lets playwright Shafaat Khan
give it the full dramatic treatment.
Dekh
Tamasha Dekh is set in small sea-side town which is a microcosm
for India. Here, Hindus and Muslims take periodic bashes at each other, to vent
their frustration (according to a character.)
A new, secular cop (Vinay Jain) posted to the town, halts a pooja at his police station and soon
enough finds himself dealing with a full scale communal conflagration. A man is killed when the cut-out of a local
leader Mutha Seth (Satish Kaushik) falls on him. He was originally Hindu but
married a Muslim woman, so people from both communities want to conduct his
last rites according to their religion, though the dead man’s stoic wife (Tanvi
Azmi) takes no sides. (Sounds like what happened to saint-poet Kabir.)
Khan bungs in a whole lot of sub-plots—an inter-religious romance, a
writer facing fundamentalist wrath for his book, a newspaper editor who is
challenged by a ‘foreign-returned’ marketing man... and so on. None of them
particularly novel, but Khan peppers the film with absurd humour—like the
courtroom scene in which a baffled judge has to decide what is to be done with
the corpse, or the pungent exchange between the men trying to erect the
politician’s gigantic cut-out. There are religious leaders and opportunists on
both sides, who want to grab power and put down the other community.
The violence is treated with restraint, the many killings with a curious
indifference-- the attempt always being to underline the latent evil with black
humour. Even with caricature characters, and broad strokes, Khan shows up a
mirror to our crazy society, and forces a response of exasperation, horror and
amusement. The cast mostly made up of theatre actors, do their parts well, and
help enliven the drama—standing out are Sudhir Pandey as a hate-spouting
mullah, Sharad Ponkshe as the Hindu rabble-rouser and Dhiresh Joshi as the sly
editor.
Labels: Cinemaah
