Saturday, October 28, 2017
Rukh
Death In The City
Manoj Bajpayee is credited with a special appearance in Rukh, which means that he is not on screen enough, through the plot pivots around the death of the character he plays.
In Atanu Mukherjee’s film, Divakar (Bajpayee) is killed in an accident, soon after scenes with a gloomy meal with his wife Nandini (Smita Tambe) and a game of chess with his senile father. His son Dhruv (Adarsh Gourav), sent away to boarding school after an incident of violence, comes to perform the last rites.
He realizes there were many things he did not know, perhaps because his parents wanted to shield him. Why is his mother living in her mother’s house and not their own home? Why does his father’s friend and business partner Robin (Kumud Mishra) get such a cold reception from his mother? What’s with all the shiftiness in the eyes of his father’s colleagues? Who is following him in a black car?
He sets out to investigate his father’s death, not convinced by the accident conclusion of the police. The script unravels the mystery in stages, though it’s not tough to guess what happened. However, in trying to keep the narrative realistically low key, Mukherjee makes it too slow and rambling. Why Robin and Divakar fell out and why the CBI is on their backs is also not too convincing. Shot at locations like a factory, slum, chawl and warehouse, there is something different about the way the city is captured, but it does not add much value to the film.
Gourav is on screen most of the time, and his permanent sullenness is an irritant. Ultimately, the film does not make Dhruv’s understanding of adult behaviour or his coming of age matter. There is obviously no entertainment in this too-arty film, there is no other takeaway either.
Labels: Cinemaah
Jia Aur Jia
Tedious Trip
Richa Chadda has been quoted as having said in an interview that it took so long for Bollywood to make a girl bonding film. More’s the pity that it should be a sorry mess likeJia Aur Jia, directed by Howard Rosemeyer.
The Indo-Swedish production that hopes to show off the beauty of the country, also commits the sacrilege of naming a drunken lout Bergman.
Jia Venkatraman (Richa Chadha) can’t afford a solo trip to Sweden, so she partners with a stranger Jia Garewal (Kalki Koechlin). Astonishingly, they do not meet or talk before arriving at the airport for the trip. We have already seen that JV is the morose type and JG is the kind who dances while packing her bag and spits toothpaste out of the window. She also talks non-stop, smokes and drinks copiously and picks up random strangers, of which Vasu Bergman (Arslan Goni) is one. He is constantly drunk because he is so rich he doesn’t have to do anything.
The women drive around in a camper, but sleep in motels; the serious Jia wants to go to a cliff, the chirpy one just wants to have to have fun. Bollywood cliché says that if a character looks sad, she has to have a tragedy in her past; it also says that if a character is too chirpy, she has to have a terminal illness, so that’s no spoiler.
How the story unfolds, in an absolutely crazy and melodramatic manner, makes the viewer cringe, and Kalki’s demented act gets tiresome very soon. Richa Chadda’s styling is quite ghastly too—who goes on a holiday with tons of make-up, wispy gowns and towering pink stilettos!
What could have been a fun film about two women’s friendship and their life-altering adventure in a pretty country, ends up as a test of endurance, even with its 92-minute running time.
Labels: Cinemaah
