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Saturday, December 05, 2015

Angry Indian Goddesses  


Ladies’ Special


If a young woman is seen cavorting in the garden with a hose, dressed in her inners, Bollywood logic has it that something bad will happen to her.

If a bunch of women are having a good time in Goa, they will be made to suffer for their happiness.

If gun appears somewhere in the middle of the film, it has to be fired by the end of it (at least the filmmaker obeys Chekhov).

Pan Nalin’s Angry Indian Goddesses can’t be called a Bollywood film, but if a Mumbai filmmaker were to make a female buddy film, it would have the same trajectory. Only the suffering women would probably not be dressed in tiny shorts and strappy tops, showing smooth, depilated, cellulite-free skin.  (Might just send hormonal male teens to the multiplex to watch it!)


That women in India get more than their share of male chauvinism, is true, but all ‘types’ gathered together in the film, have problems caused by men or a patriarchal system, which is a bit much. Freida (Sara-Jane Dias), a photographer, gets sick of being told to shoot fairness cream ads, and chucks it all  to move to a lovely cottage in Goa.  She invites her female friends Joanna (Amrit Manghera) an aspiring actress, forced to swing her hips more;  Pamela (Pavleen Gujral) whose arranged marriage to a boor is reaching a childless dead end; Suranjana (Sandhya Mridul) a high-flying corporate type, who doesn’t notice the loneliness of her little daughter (Nia Dhime), a singer Madhureeta (Anushka Manchanda), forced to sing before drunken men because her careers is going nowhere and Nargis (Tannishtha Chatterjee), a tribal rights activist. To balance the class-caste issue is the fiery maid Laxmi (Rajshri Deshpande).  Freida says she has called them to attend her wedding but won’t tell them who the groom is, as if audiences can’t guess… after so much foreshadowing.

Even though their constant shrillness starts grating after a point, there is still come freshness and joy to this bonding, away from the male gaze.  In fact, the women ogle the shirtless neighbor as he washes his car; Joanna even has the hots for him, but a half-English, modern girl simpers when he is around, but doesn’t simply say hello and start a conversation!

Then, the problems start-- a run-in with some local male toughs, depression, marital problems, maternal guilt, alternative sexuality and every other cliché that can be thrown into the cauldron. And then the resolutions, building to an incredibly hokey climax.

Pity that nobody thinks of making a happy female buddy film, in which women’s issues are discussed—like they are in many living rooms—but not chucked at the audience like stones at rioters.  It’s easy to see why the film worked for an international audience—they haven’t seen too many films about independent (well, somewhat), high-spirited, urban Indian women.  But for an urban Indian woman watching this film, it is so overwrought that it makes for a tedious watch, in spite of the jumpy camerawork and frantic cutting in an attempt at edginess. 


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Monday, November 30, 2015

Tamasha 

Revolving Stage


Ever since 3 Idiots has put the do-your-own-thing ‘keeda’ into people’s heads, film heroes and heroines now want to escape the rat race, explore their inner selves and follow their dreams.

Ved Sahni (Ranbir Kapoor) of Imtiaz Ali’s Tamasha wants to give up being a product manager and do plays, because as a child he was fascinated by a scruffy story-teller who fired his imagination. For this he goes through more soul-searching than is good for him (or us).  As an aside, Ali could perhaps be informed that many people who do theatre, at least in Mumbai, have day jobs!

Ved and Tara (Deepika Padukone) have a meet-cute in Corsica where they decide not to share any details, not even names. They are too old to be doing the gap year—she is there because of her love for Asterix comics (really?), why he is there, is not clear.  But he becomes ‘Don’ and she ‘Mona’ with an all fun but no touch arrangement.  Corsica is beautiful, there is a fair amount of ‘matargashti’  before she goes home. And though she pines for him, for four years, she makes no effort to find him—and she could if she had some sense.


 When they do meet up again and start dating, she sees that he is a marketing drudge, not the “animal” he was in Corsica.  Why Ali thinks that a marketing person cannot also be fun-loving and adventurous is baffling.  Anyway, so both do some weeping and wailing—he acts as if seeking independence is the same as behaving badly with everyone and then running home to Daddy (with his Partition hang-ups) to seek his approval to become a theatrewalla.

The just out of adolescence guy in Wake Up Sid (also played by Ranbir Kapoor) had more spunk that this befuddled wimp. Why Hindi cinema cannot understand the concept of growing up, falling out of love and realizing that the world doesn’t offer happiness on a platter, has something to do with current Bollywood’s immaturity. This could have been in the league of Before Sunrise, but it remains a partially enjoyable, partially tedious film with Ranbir Kapoor and Deepika Padukone scorching the screen with their talent—both actors at the top of their game and deserving of much better films.

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