Rock on(2008)

Why Rock On probably works, is because of the maturity with which the film is handled.The movie has its share of cliches,but in places where you expect the movie to fall flat and you're sure it is contrived, surprisingly you're spared. And of course there's some really good music by the trio Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy(yeh tumahari meri baatein-surely one of the most beautiful songs written and composed); and the actors who seem to be perfectly handpicked by the casting director.Above all, the film has its heart in the right place, and you are bound to like it.

So Even though Abhishek kapoor's directorial debut 'Aryan' was a no show at the box office and his story is suspiciously similar to Dil chahta Hai, the man is quite talented. He sure knows his craft quite well. But then, he plays it safe and the film seems a little bland.

The story of four friends, who form a rock band, which breaks up and then reunites, might sound simple at the outset, but the way it plays out on the screen, with some beautiful vivid imagery-flashes of the past and the present juxtaposed with some 'rocking' music, makes for an engaging watch.

The multi-talented Farhan Akthar who makes his acting and singing debut, is a powerhouse performer, but he slips off at a few places. Television's young starlet Prachi Desai (aka Bani-another Ekta Kapoor find) too makes her debut. The maturity with which she performs is quite commendable, especially after her daily Kasamh se, where all she had to do was sob. After years of flops, Arjun Rampal seems to be choosing the right films. He performs with utmost sincerity.So does Shahana Goswami, who seems like the next Konkona.She's completely natural.Luke Kenny is good too.Purab Kohli, who invariably provides us with the lighter moments in the film, seems a little wasted.

Surely one of the better films of the year.

Manorama six feet under....(warning:no spoilers but a few good dialogues and lottts of hindi!!)

Set in Lakhot, a Rajasthani village which exists in extremes-either fatally hot or lethally cold, and is further personified as “…jahan duniya se alag apni ek alag duniya hai...ghaadi ki sui mein atka hua Lakhot...house wife sa boring,haathi sa sust,bin naade ke pyjaame se dheela dhaala Lakhot”.

“..paranthu registhaan ki ek sach hai…jo dikhtha hai wo hotha nahin..jo hota hai wo dikhtha nahi....yahaan kidon ko bhi nahi pata ki jis reth par wo bistar banaye hai…pata nahin kaun saap,bichchu chupa baita hai uske neeche…”

And so is the life of Satyaveer Randhawa very similar to Lakhot ,one moment it is dreary and unfruitful but the next moment he’s caught in mystery,murder and adventure. And like the nature of the desert, nothing is what it seems.

The movie introduces us to Randhawa,a junior PWD engineer at an abandoned canal construction site with some brilliantly pictorial dialogues, ambiguous surroundings and a surreal painting like setting in the desert.

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“tumhara tho dimag bhi pending hai,poora dept commission le raha hai-aur tumhi ek akele buddhu jo pakde gaye..”

This tells us about Randhawa who is in suspension awaiting the enquiry report for taking small commissions; and about his beautiful but nagging wife Nimi.Randhawa always wanted to be a famous writer and almost got there with his debut detective novel “Manorama”. But the novel corked his soaring dreams as only 200 copies were sold. The first and biggest failure in his life.

“har kisi ki zindagi mein ek aisa waqt bhi aata hai jab sale aaine ko sach bolne ki bimaari lag jaati hai”

But this day, in which he laments his lost glory the most, ends with the buyer of one of the 200 copies knocking on the door late into the night.

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“afsos..!par raghu tho sirf ek character hai na…kirdaar…kehthe hain kirdaar kiraedaar nahi ban saktha,par kalaakar tho kiraedaar ban saktha hai..”

A fan of detective Raghu in Randhawa’s novel, and in need of one such man to spy on her irrigation minister husband P.P.Rathore…she turns to Satyaveer Randhawa for the lack of any trustworthy private detectives in Lakhot. She requests him to find out whether her husband is seeing another woman and to click pictures for evidence, in return for a fat paycheck. Owing to his need for and a spark in life, Randhawa agrees. But the day after he hands over the film roll to the woman, he accidentally discovers that she is not the minister’s wife.

Before his shock subsides she stops his bike one dark night to say that her name is actually Manorama and her life is in danger. She runs away after throwing him a cryptic line. What happens later? Like Brij Mohan,his typical-thanedaar brother-in-law, recounts a story of a kid called Bholu…
“jaisa naam waisa kaam....bada bhola bachcha tha Bholu.....choti choti cheejon se kush ho jaata-par saale mein ek hi bimari thi-pichwade mein jigyasa ki khurach thi usse”

Yes, the itch of curiosity got better of Satyaveer Randhawa and he fell headlong into this thriller of a situation only to find more complicated characters and more mysterious and dangerous situations! All this in spite of Brij mohan’s warnings…”zara si saavdhaani,zindagi bhar aasaani”,which he got from a condom ad and “kutte ki haddi aur mantri ki chaddi mein haath nahi dala karte jijje.Ek mein 14 injection lagte hain aur doosre mein tho bas…lag jaati hain,pata bhi nahi chaltha “

Manorama six feet under is of the noir genre and can be termed as one of those DVD hits.Though an indianized take of Roman Polanski’s Chinatown(yep the story is not original..sigh),it does not feel as if it has tried too hard to be baptized Indian.

From the dusty stretch of vast desert and evil looking scrubs in the beginning of the movie to the small flower wetting itself in the unexpected rain, the movie felt like those dark forgotten whodunits with everything clichéd(like brown toothed cackling goons to corrupt politicians) made into a very gripping screenplay.

Vinay pathak-“Rajasthan plays a character in the movie”

I completely agree with him and believe that Rajasthan and the brilliant dialogues by Abhinav Kashyap and Manoj Tapadia play main protagonists followed by the soundtrack in the supporting role.’Dhoka' sung by Richa Sharma gives a sense of mystery and doom leading on to ‘dhundla jo sama’ by Kailash Kher in the end of the movie.

Abhay Deol,Gul Panag and Vinay Pathak did full justice to Satyaveer randhawa,Nimi and Brij mohan respectively. Raima Sen did not go unnoticed in her stint as Manorama’s room-mate Sheetal. Kulbhushan Karbanda fits perfectly into the role of the corrupt politician P.P.Rathore and last but not the least Sarika gives her enigmatic best to ‘Manorama’.

So hats off to Navdeep Singh the director whose belief in his movie is extremely evident and feels like he fulfilled a childhood fantasy.

Ps: It would be great if next time this was done with an original story :D

Anoodha Kunnath

Aamir

Aamir joins the league of movies like Lagaan, Dil Chahta Hai, Yun Hota Toh Kya Hota, Taare Zameen Par, Mithya (these are the only ones I can think of, as of now) and loads of others- movies synonymous with the coming of age of Indian cinema, where the story and screenplay are the real heroes of the film. Never mind the stars attached to them.

So even though it is 'inspired' from a Filipino film Cavite (Have not watched it.-- Talk about Bollywood and originality.) and deals with the same old subject of branding certain people as terrorists just because they are Muslim, debutant director Raj Kumar Gupta, gives it a whole new meaning, with such finesse and control over the medium, rarely seen.

As our protagonist (Rajeev Khandelwal) is coming out of the Mumbai Airport, after a squabble with the immigrations officer- Just because his name is Aamir Ali( his luggage checked thrice-What if he's a terrorist??)-he's given a mobile by two strangers. Soon Aamir becomes a puppet in the hands of a man(Gajraj Rao), who has kidnapped his family and is constantly giving him instructions over the phone, taking him(and us) through a maze called Mumbai, all this leading to a riveting climax. But why is Aamir chosen?- He too doesn't know and so don't we.

Shot on real time locations(all of it during the day) the city of Mumbai comes alive, with some very interesting camera work(Alphonse Roy).Very neat and clean, nothing too gimmicky.Yet there is some novelty in the way the shots are taken. Right from the opening shot where we get to see montages of the cityscape, with "It's a good day....." playing in the background to the scene where there is this chaotic traffic jam or even the abandoned shady alleys which Aamir has to go through. It gives the movie a very raw feel.This combined with Raj Kumar Gupta's adept direction and Amit Trivedi's music and background score, keeps you hooked on till the last minute.

Even though, this drama has a running time of 98 mins, the pace does slacken at some point, and the dialogues (Raj Kumar Gupta again.) get a little repetitive, especially that of the man on the phone.
The cast mostly comprising of unknown actors, except Rajeev khandelwal, performs quite well( Gajraj Rao gets a little annoying though.) Ekta Kapoor's then sone-ka-anda-dene-wala-murgi, Rajeev Khandelwal, who was wasted in two completely hopeless dailies ( Kahin na kahin...and Left Right left) means business, and just does that-act, displaying his wide range of histrionics and proves that he fits the character of Dr. Aamir to the T.

This movie surely needs to be watched.

Mahanagar : The Big City

With Mahanagar (The big city)(1963) Satyajit Ray explores the pathos of the people living in a modern day city.

Subrata Mazumdar (Anil Chatterjee) is a bank employee. The meagre income he earns is not enough to support his middle class family, which consists of his wife Arati (Madhabi Mukherjee), their son, his retired father (Haren Chatterjee) and mother and his young sister Bani (Jaya Bhaduri). After a few hints from her husband, Arati too decides to take up a job with stiff opposition from the elders, especially the father. Arati finds a job as a sales girl selling knitting machines door to door. Her success notwithstanding, Subrata asks her to quit her job. But as luck would have it, Subrata ends up losing his job due to unforeseen circumstances. Now its Arati who is the ‘man’ of the family. But then everything isn’t smooth sailing in the big city…..Thus begins a journey of struggles and hardships, and one has to be optimistic.

Somehow Mahanagar doesn’t have that poetic flow to it, as the other Ray films I’ve seen, especially Pather Panchali and Charulata (I know they can’t be compared, but then….). But he lends the film a raw feel which is much understated and he’s made a film which was completely modern for its time- about people living in 1950’s Calcutta, and it still holds relevance. The issues he deals with in this film are plenty. Like Arati’s racist boss, who has a strong dislike for her Anglo-Indian colleague Edith or her father-in-law, who has a problem with the women of the house working outside. Even though the movie deals small vagaries of city life, not a second does it leave you bored.

This was Madhabi Mukherjee’s first film with Satyajit Ray, after which she went on to star in his Classic Charulata and Kapurush. The transformation of Arati from a timid housewife to a confident working woman is excellently brought about. She underplays her character without being overly dramatic. Ditto with Anil Chatterjee. Even Haren Chatterjee as the father, who is unapologetic about his views, especially women working, but how he slowly ends up surrendering to the ways of modern times, plays his part well.

The camera work is quite impressive, and so is the way a few scenes have been executed. The scene where Arati is looking at herself in the mirror, with her first pay in her hands- the expression on Madhabi Mukherjee’s face and the scene as such is brilliant. A few of the close-up shots, of the main players, throughout the film, have been very interestingly shot with the play of light and shadow.

A film with interesting insights of city life

MITHYA

VK runs for his life after seeing a gang shoot out first hand. He madly runs along what I think is the Mumbai marine drive in the dead of the night. The camera follows him all along till a bird flying above the sea catches its attention. I don’t know whether the camera man got lucky or it was graphic but I loved that shot. That particular bird (among many others) seemed to be fleeing and sharing the same trembling apprehension. Side kicked with a very nice background score by Sagar Desai, Mithiya then on keeps you hooked.

You have to give it to Ranvir Shorey .Desperation, helplessness, charm, oblivion, humor…. and what not, he has portrayed it all. This guy is going places. The other protagonists like Saurab Shukhla ,Naseerudin Shah ,Vinay Pathak, Iravathi mayadev,Neha Dhupia,Harsh Chaaya etc are given equally distributed screen life and do full justice to the black comedy.

I don’t know whether this movie can be put into any one of the commercial or parallel cinema slot. It is so realistic that you can touch the characters, at the same time utterly entertaining .It has no long-muahahaha dialogues before someone shoots down another, no superhuman heroes and no spy cameras conveniently popping up (remember Race!).

Director/writer Rajat Kapoor and co-writer Saurab Shukhla have taken the age old humshakal or the doppelganger concept and beaten clichés into shape.VK an aspiring actor shares his face with Raje an underworld don, whose rivals-Gavde (Naseerudin Shah) and Shetty (Saurabh Shukla) - seize him in order to carry out their master plan. They kill Raje and send a trained-in-captivity VK in his place.VK plays his part well. The aspiring actor got a role of a ‘lifetime’ alright but is terrified. Will the kahani-mein-twists aid his acting or lead to a tragic love story or both!

The rest is mystery… :P

Anoodha Kunnath

Charulata:The Lonely Wife

The closing scene of the movie shows Charulata and the trust-lost Bhupati, hesitantly reaching out to each other, just when the camera freezes, showing us the uncertainty.That's how uncertain I feel, writing about this beautiful film,which has put me in a complete loss of words.

After madly having hunted for a Satyajit Ray film for quite a long time, I finally managed to get my hand over this classic.Based on Rabindranath Tagore's short novel "Nastanirh"(The Broken Nest), this 1964 Bengali film is a masterstroke by one of India's most celebrated directors.

The story is set in late 19th century Calcutta. Charulata/Charu(Madhabi Mukherjee) is an intelligent bored lonely upperclass housewife.Bhupati(played very well by Sailen Mukherjee), loves his wife, but is engrossed in political work and his own printing press.To give her company, he invites her brother Umapada(Shyamal Ghoshal) and sister-in-law Manda(Gitali Roy).In the meanwhile,a happy-go-lucky Amal(Soumitra Chatterjee), Bhupathi's cousin also arrives.Charu and Amal share similar interests in literature and poetry, and on Bhupati's request Amal starts mentoring her, so that her talent in writing wouldn't go wasted.But Charu soon starts harbouring other feelings for Amal.

It is so difficult to write about a film like this, which is so simple yet so complex. Satyajit Ray brilliantly plays with just the basic human emotions so well, nothing overly dramatic. Its the silences that speak more in this movie. The first few minutes of the film, of how Charu observes the outside world through the window using her opera glasses,barely has any dialogues in it.It's just beyond words.It leaves you dumbstruck.

The kind of contrasts he creates within the film and between the characters, are so obvious, yet shown with subtility.The film is so modern in its outlook,making it relevant even in such times.Even the references he makes to Bankim Chandra, show his eye for details.The camera work (Subrata Mitra) throught the movie is exemplary.Satyajit Ray also gives music for the film, which is another highlight.

The beautiful Madhabi Mukherjee as the intelligent, lonely, childless wife,Charulata, plays her part so well, that you believe she is actually Charulata.The kind of chemistry Soumitra Chatterjee and she share is brilliant.

Satyajit Ray considered this film as one of his best and the one with least defects.This classic of a movie should not be missed.

THE FEEL-GOOD FACTOR

What is it that makes us watch some movies over and over again?
Why is it that sometimes after a dreary depressing day, we seek the reel world to escape?

Medical research has proven that cinema therapy is one effective tool to cure depression. Those random images on screen woven together to form a canvas to paint a story have an infalliable formula of feel-good inherent in it!

Take for instance the timeless Balachander flick 'Ethir Neechal'. The tale of a struggling yet ambitious errand boy and his ultimate triumph in life still inspires us, while simultaneously making us double-up with laughter at its interwoven comedy track!

'Life is Beautiful', although dealing with the holocaust, is one movie that makes us cry at the brutal nature of the human mind while at once showing us to what extents we can stretch our strengths to survive.

So what is it that makes these movies a sure-shot cure to replenish our hope every once life deals them a blow?

Movies have this innate ability to make us take a break from reality and portray the very same reality in a way that the make-believe seems more real than the existent reality. This surreal space where we connect with the players on-screen is where the director plays with our mind and gives us the impression that the recorded thing going on a piece of canvas cloth, with some story enacted by random people is what is happening then and there. Our worries get suspended, our responsibilities-tossed in the air. For a while, reality gets redefined. And in that time-space, when a director portrays a tale that showcases the ultimate triumph of the human spirit, it touches some part of our soul and it feels good!

This triumph of the human spirit is served not just with a simple direct narrative but with some extra doodling of ideas on reel- comedy, action, drama, music, dance etc. Comedy makes us laugh our hearts out. ‘Thillumullu’ proves us that point! Bruce Lee flicks tell us why we love it when the baddie gets bruised! Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, through its breezy romance sweeps us off our feet. Mr.And Mrs.Iyer, Mouna ragam, Paasa Malargal, Abhimaan speak volumes about the drama of life. Dance and its gusto in movements and the emotion-churning ascent and descent in music somehow leave a joyous footnote to the proceedings.

With popcorn or without your cold coffee, sprawled in your favourite couch or standing in the aisles of a crowded touring talkies, in that short span of a few minutes or hours, what is going on in screen somehow does something within you and makes you smile. They may just be puppets danced around by a story-tellers’ hand, but they tell us a tale so very like our own- hardships, struggle, heartbreaks, tears and the ultimate quest of success and smiles. Ah.. feels good!