Saturday, March 20, 2010
LSD+2
Love Sex Aur Dhoka
Dibakar Banerjee hit on a terrific idea-- people are so hooked on to reality TV, why should they not be fed reality cinema too?
He uses the 'mockumentary' style to tell three stories-- cleverly interconnected-- that try to capture a slice of North Indian life, with brutal frankness.
Love Sex Aur Dhoka has one foot in the world where honour killings still take place, and one in which pornography is avidly consumed by ordinary people; there are sting operations by a sensation hungry media, and 'compromises' demanded from showbiz-obsessed girls, by lechy pop stars.
Using handheld camera, and a cast of unknowns, Banerjee recreates a world as realistically as is possible with the artifice of cinema.
It is an audacious experiment, stymied, if at all, but the fact that the characters are slightly caricatured, even though they seem like people we know in Delhi; the speech patterns are perfectly reproduced, the colloquialisms bang on. But the stories themselves are not too interesting.
The film student paying a tribute to Aditya Chopra turns into a spoof, but the real story of the rich girl-poor but taking place while the filming is on, is contrived.
The second story of a poor salegirl conned into a sexual encounter, the video of which is sold for public consumption without a thought for her feelings is tragic. The tone shifts to over the top again, when a TV reporter teams up with an aspiring actress to 'sting' a pop star.
The performances by the new actors are wonderfully rehearsed to look effortless. The biggest problem with the film is that it tries a satirical comment on voyeurism, but turns the viewer into an unwilling voyeur too. If even a section of the audience watches the film for the cheap thrills it offers, the whole point would be lost.
Lahore
You watch with a certain amount of disbelief that the film, Lahore, does not help you suspend.
If the film were to be believed, then kickboxing is a major sport, the political relations between India and Pakistan depend on it, the media headlines it, a sports minister spends an inordinate amount of time on it, players treat tournaments like battles, fans take out processions when an ‘incident’ happens and throngs collect for the funeral of a player.
If that can be accepted, then Sanjay Puran Singh Chauhan’s debut film is an earnest, mostly well shot film; the story is inspired by the recent Apne, and the message at the end is truly noble.
Then again, there are stereotypes like Indians being sportsmanlike, fair and honorable, Pakistanis being murderous sneaks, and so on.
Dheerendra (Sushant Singh) is a promising kickboxer, supported by the national coach Rao (Farooque Shaikh, with an on-off Hyderabadi accent). His main opponent is Pakistani player Noor Mohammad (Mukesh Rishi, competent but overage for the part), whose coach (Sabyasachi Chakraborty) makes every match a matter of national pride.
His brother Veerendra (Aanaahad) is a promising cricketer, who, when crisis strikes, turns to kickboxing and, well, upholds the country’s honour. The last scene, genuinely moving, makes up for a lot of junk that goes before. And in spite of the anti-Pak slant, Chauhan makes a case for forgiveness and friendship.
There are a lot of characters with unexplained or uneven graphs – like another played Gajanand (Kelly Dorjee), who is the sports minister’s (K. Jeeva) darling; the women—mother (Nafisa Ali) and two romantic interests (Shraddha Das-Shraddha Nigam), are so insignificant, as to be dispensable.
Fans of the sport may enjoy the film, some of the scenes of matches are exciting, and Lahore does add to the meagre list of sports films in India. But it’s still puzzling why Warners chose to associate with this film, and how a large cast of credible, if not A-list, character actors (Ashish Vidyarthi, Nirmal Pandey, Surabh Shukla too) signed up for it. Of the lot, only Farooque Shaikh is likeable, accent and all.
Shaapit
Most plots about vengeful spirits have been exhausted, so there is a formulaic feel to Vikram Bhatt’s new horror film Shaapit. It is conventional in structure and approach—scary in parts but not really surprising.
When Aman (Aditya Narayan) wants to marry Kaaya (Shweta Agarwal), he discovers a family curse that kills all girls in her family if they wed. The reason goes back to 300-year-old incident involving her royal ancestors.
Aman and his friend (Shubh Joshi) approach Professor Pashupati (Rahul Dev) for help and embark on a journey to trace the evil spirit that carries the curse, in order to save Kaaya.
There are the stock horror elements, haunted houses, graveyards, loud, startling sound effects and everything shot in the semi dark, so the screen is either sulphurous or hazy blue. There are a couple of different scenes – like sending a spirit to the past to connect with a living being then. After a while Pashupati’s methods get boringly convoluted, the films goes on and on, long after it’s thrills and spills have been stretched to the limit.
A film like it, where atmospherics are bigger than actors is not an ideal debut vehicle, so the best that can be said a about Aditya Narayan is that he is passable as a young man in love; his co-star is just a mask of make-up. Rahul Dev and Natasha Sinha do well in their supporting parts. Shaapit is ok for horror fans, they might enjoy it simply because of their familiarity with tricks of the genre. (Audiences in a suburban cinemahall were reproducing sound effects and shouting dialogue a split second before the scene flashed on screen.)
Dibakar Banerjee hit on a terrific idea-- people are so hooked on to reality TV, why should they not be fed reality cinema too?
He uses the 'mockumentary' style to tell three stories-- cleverly interconnected-- that try to capture a slice of North Indian life, with brutal frankness.
Love Sex Aur Dhoka has one foot in the world where honour killings still take place, and one in which pornography is avidly consumed by ordinary people; there are sting operations by a sensation hungry media, and 'compromises' demanded from showbiz-obsessed girls, by lechy pop stars.
Using handheld camera, and a cast of unknowns, Banerjee recreates a world as realistically as is possible with the artifice of cinema.
It is an audacious experiment, stymied, if at all, but the fact that the characters are slightly caricatured, even though they seem like people we know in Delhi; the speech patterns are perfectly reproduced, the colloquialisms bang on. But the stories themselves are not too interesting.
The film student paying a tribute to Aditya Chopra turns into a spoof, but the real story of the rich girl-poor but taking place while the filming is on, is contrived.
The second story of a poor salegirl conned into a sexual encounter, the video of which is sold for public consumption without a thought for her feelings is tragic. The tone shifts to over the top again, when a TV reporter teams up with an aspiring actress to 'sting' a pop star.
The performances by the new actors are wonderfully rehearsed to look effortless. The biggest problem with the film is that it tries a satirical comment on voyeurism, but turns the viewer into an unwilling voyeur too. If even a section of the audience watches the film for the cheap thrills it offers, the whole point would be lost.
Lahore
You watch with a certain amount of disbelief that the film, Lahore, does not help you suspend.
If the film were to be believed, then kickboxing is a major sport, the political relations between India and Pakistan depend on it, the media headlines it, a sports minister spends an inordinate amount of time on it, players treat tournaments like battles, fans take out processions when an ‘incident’ happens and throngs collect for the funeral of a player.
If that can be accepted, then Sanjay Puran Singh Chauhan’s debut film is an earnest, mostly well shot film; the story is inspired by the recent Apne, and the message at the end is truly noble.
Then again, there are stereotypes like Indians being sportsmanlike, fair and honorable, Pakistanis being murderous sneaks, and so on.
Dheerendra (Sushant Singh) is a promising kickboxer, supported by the national coach Rao (Farooque Shaikh, with an on-off Hyderabadi accent). His main opponent is Pakistani player Noor Mohammad (Mukesh Rishi, competent but overage for the part), whose coach (Sabyasachi Chakraborty) makes every match a matter of national pride.
His brother Veerendra (Aanaahad) is a promising cricketer, who, when crisis strikes, turns to kickboxing and, well, upholds the country’s honour. The last scene, genuinely moving, makes up for a lot of junk that goes before. And in spite of the anti-Pak slant, Chauhan makes a case for forgiveness and friendship.
There are a lot of characters with unexplained or uneven graphs – like another played Gajanand (Kelly Dorjee), who is the sports minister’s (K. Jeeva) darling; the women—mother (Nafisa Ali) and two romantic interests (Shraddha Das-Shraddha Nigam), are so insignificant, as to be dispensable.
Fans of the sport may enjoy the film, some of the scenes of matches are exciting, and Lahore does add to the meagre list of sports films in India. But it’s still puzzling why Warners chose to associate with this film, and how a large cast of credible, if not A-list, character actors (Ashish Vidyarthi, Nirmal Pandey, Surabh Shukla too) signed up for it. Of the lot, only Farooque Shaikh is likeable, accent and all.
Shaapit
Most plots about vengeful spirits have been exhausted, so there is a formulaic feel to Vikram Bhatt’s new horror film Shaapit. It is conventional in structure and approach—scary in parts but not really surprising.
When Aman (Aditya Narayan) wants to marry Kaaya (Shweta Agarwal), he discovers a family curse that kills all girls in her family if they wed. The reason goes back to 300-year-old incident involving her royal ancestors.
Aman and his friend (Shubh Joshi) approach Professor Pashupati (Rahul Dev) for help and embark on a journey to trace the evil spirit that carries the curse, in order to save Kaaya.
There are the stock horror elements, haunted houses, graveyards, loud, startling sound effects and everything shot in the semi dark, so the screen is either sulphurous or hazy blue. There are a couple of different scenes – like sending a spirit to the past to connect with a living being then. After a while Pashupati’s methods get boringly convoluted, the films goes on and on, long after it’s thrills and spills have been stretched to the limit.
A film like it, where atmospherics are bigger than actors is not an ideal debut vehicle, so the best that can be said a about Aditya Narayan is that he is passable as a young man in love; his co-star is just a mask of make-up. Rahul Dev and Natasha Sinha do well in their supporting parts. Shaapit is ok for horror fans, they might enjoy it simply because of their familiarity with tricks of the genre. (Audiences in a suburban cinemahall were reproducing sound effects and shouting dialogue a split second before the scene flashed on screen.)
Labels: Cinemaah
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