REVIEW 330: PIKU

May 7, 2015, 11:53 pm

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Release date:	May 8, 2015
Director:	Shoojit Sircar
Cast: Language:	Deepika Padukone, Amitabh Bachchan, Irrfan, Moushumi Chatterjee, Jisshu Sengupta, Raghuvir Yadav Hindi

A cantankerous old man obsessed with his bowel movements, a daughter who tires of his petulance yet loves him to death, loyal household help, argumentative yet loving relatives… sounds like your average Indian family. Well okay, fathers who constantly discuss constipation are not that common, but for the most part, the Banerjis of Delhi’s Chittaranjan Park in director Shoojit Sircar’s film are not so different from millions of middle-class parivars across India.

This is the beauty of Piku. That even in its most bizarre passages, it is so easy to relate to the film because you know the absurdity is a reflection of someone’s reality.

What’s equally lovely is the smoothness with which so much social commentary is woven into this film in such an unobtrusive, non-preachy manner.

With all that talk of faeces, Piku could well have turned into a ewww-worthy scatological farce. Instead, I found myself going “hawww” even while laughing out loud as the toilet humour persisted long after I thought it would. But to see potty as the focal point of Piku would be a superficial viewing of this film. What it is, in fact, is a unique combination of family drama, rom com of sorts and road movie, so insightful but so low-key that it would be easy to take it for granted. In the hands of Sircar – he who gave us 2012’s Vicky Donor– it ends up being an endearing, hilarious, emotional yet understated story of love and family in a changing world.

There’s the titular character herself, Piku (Deepika Padukone), an independent and smart young entrepreneur-professional. There’s her father Bhaskor (Amitabh Bachchan) who is selfish about his personal needs, yet loves his daughter deeply and will not tolerate her compromising on her career and freedom for marriage.

In her father’s crankiness, we see what Piku could become in later years if she does not watch out. For now though, her incessant irritability masks a sweet nature, as her friend, business partner and partner-in-other-activities Syed Afroze (Jisshu Sengupta) already knows, and as Rana Chaudhary (Irrfan), owner of the cab service provider hired by her firm, soon discovers.

There are occasions when Piku succumbs to her father’s bullying just to keep the peace. Like Rana, you want to tell her not to, but you also realise with exasperation that this is what women in the real world often do.We haven’t met Piku before she lost her mother, before her father became a 70-year-old hypochondriac, or before she was fettered by her commitment to take care of him; but if he is the reason for her short fuse, we – like  Rana – can understand.  

Also in the picture is Bhaskor’s much-married sister-in-law (Moushumi Chatterjee) who constantly taunts him about the way he treated her late sister, but does not skip an opportunity to visit him and the niece she very obviously dotes on. Bhaskor’s brother and wife reside in Kolkata. The lady is antsy in his presence, but both are clearly fond of Bhaskor and Piku.

It’s no surprise that these fascinating characters in Pikuhave been created by the very same Juhi Chaturvedi who penned the brilliant story and screenplay of Vicky D. With these two films, Juhi has establishd herself as one of the finest writers of her generation in Bollywood.

One complaint though. I could not help but wonder why Piku and Bhaskor don’t have any quiet conversations between their extended bickering sessions, some calmer exchanges which would have helped us understand her evident love for him and her dread of losing him that seems to go way beyond a child’s instinctive attachment. This vacuum got me missing those heart-warming chats between Vicky, his mother and awesome grandmom that Juhi had written into Vicky Donor. It reminded me too of a late-night tete-a-tete between another father and daughter that had made me smile in a film unrelated to this team and far less lauded, Aisha. I also found some of Bhaskor’s open references to Piku’s sex life contrived for coolth. That said, I still loved Piku.

If you have ever had the opportunity to take care of babies, the elderly or the sick, you will know that a pre-occupation with digestion, shit and visits to the toilet do end up naturally finding their way into conversations; that after a while you may even learn to laugh at yourself for such talk. It takes a special kind of skill to weave a gentle story around the less pretty aspects of the human body (semen and sperms in Vicky Donor, poop in Piku) without making it distasteful or low-brow at any point. If you’ve seen Vicky D, you already know Team Juhi-Shoojit has that skill.

More important though is the fact that they are both acute observers of life, they do not indulge in lazy stereotyping, they don’t gloss over the flaws in characters they want us to like and they state things others are afraid to state.

Parents can be selfish, says a character in this film. He is right. Society romanticises parenthood, but rarely acknowledges that many people become parents not out of a love of children but because everyone else is doing it, because they want heirs or because they want insurance for their old age. Do all children then owe it to their parents to take care of them in their later years? Do lousy parents deserve to be taken care of? Is this a job to be done out of a sense of dutiful compulsion, or because we genuinely want to give back to those who were great parents to us?

With brief glimpses of Rana’s nagging mother and sister juxtaposed against the Banerjis, the film suggests these questions to us without spelling them out. Unlike Ravi Chopra’s awfully patriarchal Baghban which glorified a despotic father (also played by Bachchan) and unequivocally damned his kids, Piku’s is a nuanced take on family.

Beyond Bhaskor’s toilet activities, there are two fronts on which Piku could have been over-done: the treatment of the heroine’s singledom and the portrayal of Bengalis. Like Riana (Kareena Kapoor Khan) in Shakun Batra’s under-rated Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu, Piku is comfortable with spinsterhood (yes I insist on using thatword, despite the prejudice attached to it). Unlike Cocktail which also starred Deepika, Piku does not horribly stereotype single women. Unlike Sandra Bullock’s characters in film after film, Piku is not single due to some past trauma, not a deeply troubled soul who is consequently commitment-phobic, not a sad lonely creature who is dowdy and/or a social misfit as a result of a career obsession. Piku is interested in marriage but not fixated on it. At one point, she blames her Dad for not “getting” her married but it’s obvious she’s merely trying to send him on a guilt trip, since it’s obvious too that her choices are her own and no one else’s. A big song ‘n’ dance is not made of this aspect of her life, it’s just there.

It would have been easy too to caricature the Bengali community, getting actors to desperately overdo accents for low-cost laughs. Piku does not do that.

The credit for this goes as much to the remarkable cast as to the writer and director. As the film’s central character, Deepika is utterly gorgeous – and no, I don’t mean her looks, although there is that too. She completely internalises her character so that it feels like she has become Piku Banerji for us. She is without a doubt one of contemporary Bollywood’s most talented and versatile actresses. The lovely Moushumi Chatterjee shines in a brief role. Jisshu Sengupta gets limited screen time but is effective and likeable whenever he is around.

Playing Piku’s companion on a road trip he did not initially want, Irrfan brings amazing depth to the role of Rana, turning the enunciation of each word he utters, every nod, every tilt of the head, every twinkle of an eye into a special moment. Ah those eyes! Those sexy speaking eyes! Both he and Deepika are simply outstanding in this film.

Bachchan faces the challenge of playing the only over-the-top, almost charmless person in the story, but more or less ensures that his performance – unlike his character – does not go OTT. There are passing moments when his Bengali accent sounds strained and a scene here or there where he seems to be trying too hard to play weird, but for the most part he is such fun to watch.

Piku is both moving and rip-roaringly funny. It is also an extremely intelligent film that is modest about its intelligence. I loved the way it barely travels around the streets of Delhi (now a frequent setting for Bollywood films), but when Bhaskor and Piku visit Kolkata, we are taken all overthis captivating city in which Hindi films are only occasionally set these days. I loved the sweet melodies and compelling lyrics, as minimalist as the narrative style. I loved the fact that there’s an important character in the film whose name suggests that he’s Muslim, but no one makes a point about his religion and no one gives a speech about secularism involving him. I loved too the fact that the Banerjis are Bengalis yet Piku is not “about Bengalis”.

For that matter, it’s not “about single women”, “about the New Age career woman”, “about family ties” or about any subject in particular. It’s just a very credible slice of life filled with people who could be you, me or our next-door neighbours.

The thing about great parents is that the memory of them makes you smile and tear up at the same time. If you have known that loss you will know what I mean. Piku is like that great parent. As I write this review, I find myself getting briefly dewy-eyed, but smiling throughout. Dear Juhi and Shoojit, I cannot think of a bigger compliment than that. 

  Rating (out of five): ***1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	U/A
Running time:	125 minutes

Poster courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piku

Deepika Padukone film still courtesy: Raindrop Media

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REVIEW 331: BOMBAY VELVET

May 14, 2015, 8:05 pm

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Release date:	May 15, 2015
Director:	Anurag Kashyap
Cast: Language:	Ranbir Kapoor, Anushka Sharma, Karan Johar, Satyadeep Misra, Kay Kay Menon, Manish Chaudhary, Siddhartha Basu, Remo Fernandes, Vivaan Shah, Raveena Tandon Hindi

The credit roll lists Anurag Kashyap as the director, but this is not an Anurag Kashyap film.

The setting is Mumbai, the team is Indian, but this is not an Indian film.

Bombay Velvet is a film that’s trying to be American or something like it; a film in which Kashyap, it would appear, is trying to be someone else. 

Tum acchha gaati ho par Geeta Dutt ko copy karti ho, a character tells singer Rosie Noronha (Anushka Sharma) at one point in the film, inadvertently articulating what turns out to be the fundamental problem with Bombay Velvet too.

Kashyap reveals up-front that his film is a bow to early-20^th-century Hollywood gangster flicks through an early scene in which buddies Johnny Balraj (Ranbir Kapoor) and Chiman Chopra (Satyadeep Misra) are seen watching the American classic The Roaring Twenties. Johnny is fascinated with that 1939 hit’s iconic climax in which Gladys George cradles the lifeless body of James Cagney in her arms and tells a policeman: “He used to be a big shot.”

It’s a film and a genre worthy of a bow. There’s a difference though between a tribute and a loss of one’s own identity as a filmmaker. Bombay Velvet is not rooted anywhere and ends up like the proverbial dhobi’s dog so frequently referenced by the Hindi language – na ghar ka na ghat ka.

The title of the film comes from a glitzy nightclub in the city owned by businessman Kaizad Khambatta (Karan Johar), proprietor of the tabloid Torrent. It is erected a little over two decades after the Partition brought two young refugees – Balraj from Sialkot (later to become Johnny Balraj) and  Chiman from Multan – to Mumbai. Both boys take to petty crime. When they grow up, Johnny also becomes a streetfighter.

To cash in on the building boom of the 1960s, Kaizad gets Johnny to set up Bombay Velvet. The goal is to make it a sought-after destination among the city’s elite, giving Kaizad a chance to rub shoulders with them and thus an advantage in bidding for lucrative contracts. Kaizad’s bete noir is Jimmy Mistry (Manish Chaudhary) who owns the rival newspaper Glitz, no doubt modelled on Russi Karanjia’s Blitz. Mistry sends Rosie to spy on Kaizad by getting involved with Johnny. What follows is a tale of political intrigue, greed, extreme violence, betrayal, hatred and love.

If looks could make a film, then Bombay Velvet is well off the starting block. The period feel is consistent in terms of production design and the styling of the characters. It is also interesting to see Mumbai as it looked before the birth of most of the film’s audience. Rajeev Ravi’s cinematography presents the city to us in opulent, warm tones that fill the artificial bonhomie of evenings at the nightclub, to be contrasted with the steely gray of the real world in the daytime. Niharika Khan dresses Anushka in luscious gowns for her avatar as the singer who is Bombay Velvet’s star attraction.

Sadly, the efficiency of these departments underlines the lack of soul and heft in the story. It is based on the acclaimed book Mumbai Fablesby Gyan Prakash who is also one of the film’s co-writers. Calling Bombay Velvet flimsily written and lifeless is an understatement. It’s meant to be a thriller but the suspense is poorly handled. Where is the fire ‘n’ brimstone and depth for which we know Kashyap? Answer: not here.

Kapoor has more charisma in his index finger than most people have in their entire beings. He immerses himself in the role to deliver a convincing, layered performance, but cannot save this cold, sterile, garbled film. The leading man is well-matched by the under-rated Misra. Sharma, on the other hand, looks so detached almost throughout that it’s hard to believe hers is the same involved presence we got in PK and NH10. She seems bored. Can’t blame her.

Johar, appearing in his first full-fledged screen role here, tries hard to be intense as Kaizad, but ends up being unintentionally amusing. The one scene in which he is effective – desperately suppressing his contemptuous laughter for Johnny – works because he is just being himself there.

Why has one of Bollywood’s most commercially successful directors strayed out of his comfort zone to do this to himself? He mucks up some of the film’s more important lines, including one about Jinnah and what should have been an electric exchange through car windows between Kaizad and Jimmy. In a scene where Kaizad is contemplating Johnny through narrowed eyes, far from looking sly – an intent that the context suggests – he ends up appearing almost loving. Much later, we get an inadvertently comical moment with KJo’s delivery of a line that conveys heartbreak rather than the intended anger that again we derive from the context.

Amit Trivedi’s music should have been the centrepiece of Bombay Velvet. Instead, his songs are very very pretty but generic, which is a disappointment considering his unique trademark earthiness. On the other hand, there is the rich background score which is one of Bombay Velvet’s biggest pluses. The otherwise limpid screenplay throws up a pleasant surprise with its unusual mother character, far more realistic than the cliched devi of Hindi film tradition.

Since we live in an age of open letters, here’s one:

Dear Anurag,

Please get back to being yourself. Please stick to the unapologetic voice with which you spoke through the writing of Satyaand through your work as the director of Paanch, Black Friday, Return of Hanuman, your short film in Mumbai Cutting and Gangs of Wasseypur 1. If I want to watch a European or American film, I will watch a European or American film. I do not come to you for That Girl in Yellow Bootsor Bombay Velvet. To you I come for films in which I can detect the distinct fragrance of the Indian soil. Jo baat aap mein hai – yeh zameen ki mehek – woh Martin Scorcese, Quentin Tarantino, Brian De Palma vagairah mein nahin. Jo baat unn mein hai, woh aap mein nahin. You are loved just the way you are. I demand the return of the real Anurag, not the guy who made this insubstantial film called Bombay Velvet.

With affectionate regards and continued respect,

Anna

Rating (out of five): *1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	U/A (a strange rating for a film so violent)
Running time:	151 minutes

Photograph courtesy:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombay_Velvet

KARAN JOHAR INTERVIEW / PUBLISHED IN MAXIM INDIA

May 19, 2015, 9:49 am

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             “I’M APPROACHING A MID-LIFE CRISIS”

Karan Johar is convinced he will soon have a mid-life crisis. That’s an unusual admission, coming as it does from one of India’s most successful producer-writer-directors. In this exclusive conversation, Johar – who is also an occasional costume designer, emerging actor, fashion designer, talk show host and reality show judge – discusses what it means to be in his 40s and reminisces about his 20s, which “should have been wilder”.

By Anna M.M. Vetticad 

You’re a director, producer, costume designer, fashion designer, emerging actor, etc etc etc. How many hours do you have in your day?

Not enough. The thing is, I like to fill my day. When you don’t have a personal life, that saves you 6-8 hours, which you would not have if you had a spouse and kids. My family ends with my Mom. Fortunately she understands my hectic schedule. I don’t have other responsibilities on a personal front. I’m not one who likes down time, alone time. My work is my everything. And I love what I do. I enjoy all my avatars.

Are you saying that if you were married you would want your down time?

All relationships need time. And if I had kids, I would have liked to give my kids the kind of time my parents gave me. Parenting is the highest form of responsibility. In the case of my mother, by virtue of the fact that I live with her, there’s enough time spent together. So if I break down my day now, because I don’t have a wife and kids there are those additional six hours with which I can do anything.

A lot of single people say, “I don’t have a personal life”, as you just did. But you clearly invest time and love in your mother, you have friends. Why do you define yourself as someone who does not have a personal life?

With my mother, it’s just her and me. I have enough time for her. But spending time with someone is not the same as having a responsibility towards them. They’re your pleasure, your hobby, your fun time. It’s not like you owe them your time. But a marriage is a commitment. Having children is a commitment. Just the way I give my work that kind of committed time, I would have to give them my time. So when I say I don’t have a personal life, I mean I don’t have a committed personal life.

Do you never wonder whether you’re doing too much? Do you ever get the time to stop and smell the flowers? Or, as in the poem, just to stand and stare?

I do, I do stand and stare. That’s what I do for a living. Everywhere I go, at airports, lounges, restaurants, out of the country on streets, even when I’m here, I stare at people, I observe body language, attitudes, what people are wearing, what they’re saying, how they behave. My observations result in my cinema. At the heart of so many moments of my films have been real-life conversations, real-life observations, real-life people, to which I’ve added that coating of celluloid exaggeration. Like after making Kabhi AlvidaNaa Kehna and My Name Is Khan that were very serious films, I felt disconnected from the youth because I felt those who grew up on Kuch Kuch Hota Hai were two generations ago but a lot of today’s kids didn’t know me as a film maker. So I decided that I’m going to make my youngest film when I turn 40. So that whole year all I did was observe young people wherever I went. I found myself having long conversations with Shah Rukh’s son Aryan for example. I didn’t want to make a wannabe film. I wanted to make a film that a 10-year-old would consider cool.

What I’m trying to tell you is that I do stand and stare. I may not smell the flowers literally, but I’m definitely aware of them in the room and I know exactly what they would smell like.

So did Shah Rukh Khan’s son like Student Of The Year?

Oh he’s too cool to watch the film, so I don’t think he has. I think he’s gonna be a huge movie star one day, but he’s not interested in watching many movies right now.

You say you observe real people in the real world for your films, but one of the criticisms you face is that your films are far removed from reality.

But I never said I make real films. I never ever apologise for that. When I project richness I exaggerate. I love beauty, perfection, glamour. To me Hindi cinema was always that. There was a strong parallel cinema movement when I grew up in the 1980s. I watched films by Govind Nihalani, Shyam Benegal and M.S. Sathyu as an academic exercise, but would I make those movies? No. I’m not capable of it. I grew up in Malabar Hill, the snootiest neighbourhood in the world. Yash Chopra was my bhagwan. He was the only man in that time with strong aesthetics. His women looked great, his frames were special, when tea came it was in this silver tea set, which I used to observe. There was always a vase with beautiful flowers in his frame, which no other filmmaker ever had. Nobody else’s films had a monochromatic house. From the rug on the floor to the Delhi winters and the shawls women wore, I was mesmerised by that sense of glamour, that aesthetic. Why am I apologising? I love it. Even in a death scene I made Rani Mukerji put base on her face. I said, “So what if you are dying? You can’t look ugly. What nonsense! We’ll tone down your makeup but you can’t look completely mari hui (dead) even if you are dying. You must look pretty.

Yet you said you observe real people for your work. Those who criticise your films say they don’t seem real.

The problem is nobody scratches the surface. I have felt heartbreak in school and college, and that’s what I showed in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. I have met the Raichand family of Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham. Delhi is full of these patriarchs with double standards. My Name Is Khan stems from a conversation I walked out of in New York with a group of educated Harvard and Wharton kids who were all talking about Islam in a derogatory manner. A friend had invited me there. We got into an argument and I finally looked at my friend and said, “I don’t want to be with this group of people because they’re completely misinformed and ridiculous, and their education means nothing if they can diss an entire religion on the basis of a political event without knowing the facts. You can’t talk about an entire religion or the minority like they’re all the same.” So at the end of the day, every person I’ve met has definitely found their way into a movie, but I’m not denying that the projection, the look, the surface of it is completely unreal and picture perfect. There is a section that would criticise that and a section that says, “When are we going to get a Karan Johar film?” They mean a film that is all about the glamour, beauty, great music. They mean don’t make anything that’s dark, depressing or of any social relevance.

Which of your films has provoked your regular fans to say: “Karan, that was not a Karan Johar film”?

I got that a lotwith My Name Is Khan. I have to tell you the dichotomy of the reality that surrounds any film maker. I was walking through Central Park in New York when a lady tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Being an American Muslim I want to really thank you for My Name Is Khan.” That meant a lot, and for two minutes I thought, “You know, this is why we make movies, for a comment of that nature.” And exactly five minutes ahead I bumped into an Indian family who said, “Kyaaa, aap My Name Is Khan jaise serious picture banaate ho? Make a film like Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham again.” And I was like, “Oh god, in the same stretch of Central Park I had two diverse opinions. And, like, that’s the way it is.” So it depends what your state of mind is. You have to do what you have to do because there will always be a 100 opinions and now that you’re on Twitter, Facebook and all kinds of platforms, you hear and read such polarised opinions about your work that eventually if you listen to everybody you’ll land up needing an MRI.

But you once told me you read every tiny word written about your films.

Yes, I do, I do. It helps that I have the gift of not being deluded. I know what is wrong with my cinema on my own. I know when I make a mistake in a film. And I know when it’s pointed out time and again by illustrious critics, that that’s the reality.

When you say “illustrious” do you mean it?

I do. I’m not that film maker that will diss every critic because it’s the cool thing to do. There are some very bright minds who have opinions that they put down because it’s their job to do so. I read because, you know Anna, when I read the same thing time and again I know I have made that mistake. For instance, I know I messed up the Wilhelmina part of My Name Is Khan, that a certain flamboyance in Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehnatook away the core emotion of the couples that I started off with, that there is a frivolousness and a popcorn bubble gum flavour to Student of the Year. So when I read the criticism, it makes a place in my head stream. You can never go back and correct a film, but you can at least acknowledge what was right and wrong with it. And I like to read because I like to keep my feet on the ground. I go online and I check everyone’s reviews, and nowhere do I cringe and I say, “Oh, what does this person know?” No. It’s an opinion. We have conspiracy theories in this industry and I think that’s ridiculous. Why should you, sitting in your house, when you’re seeing my film, have any negative agenda towards me? I do believe there are certain sections within the trade that could come with an agenda, but I think more or less the media have been very justified in whatever they’ve said or written about me.

Okay, you mentioned that you decided the film you make when you turn 40 will be your youngest film. Is turning 40 something you were very conscious of?

Ya, it’s kind of the midpoint of your life, right? I felt the switch almost immediately. You kind of have to acknowledge that you are popping blood pressure medication, you pant a little heavier than you used to, the hair is dependent on L’Oreal now to make it worth it and you are now called Sir or Uncle wherever you go. Within my head I’m still 18 and I feel like I’m cool enough to hang with, like, an 18-year-old but that’s only in my head. Because when I sit with these kids I’m like, no, I haven’t heard this music and no, I haven’t seen this film and no, I don’t know who this is. So turning 40 was definitely daunting and intimidating.

Did you have to deal with a mid-life crisis?

No, but I’m approaching one. Right now I’m on the edge. I think three years down the line I will succumb to that mid-life crisis or male menopause. There will be something that will make me do something silly enough for me to call it a mid-life crisis. Like I bought a pair of fluorescent green shoes in a sports store in New York this time. I felt stupid when I wore them but I couldn’t help myself. I could tell then that I’m going through the beginnings of a mid-life crisis.

Any regrets?

The only thing I regret is not doing crazy things. I’m too careful. I’m always worried about repercussions and ramifications. I haven’t done anything really wild. I’ve never been the drugs, sex and rock ’n’ roll kind of guy. I was this well-brought-up, well-groomed, well-mannered child who felt like I must always live up to the reputation and goodwill of my parents. I touch senior people’s feet. I hug everyone warmly. I wish them kindly. I do all the right things. I need to start doing wrong things now. I should have been wilder in my 20s, but all I did in the 20s was dedicated to three films. I was an assistant on Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, I directed Kuch Kuch and Kabhi Khushi. I was 29 when Kabhi Khushi released, and when I turned 30 I hadn’t had a single wild night, or taken a sporadic trip with friends and succumbed to, like, vices. I feel shattered that I’ve had such a vegetarian thali type of life.  

You dress like the characters in your films, you know. Would your idea of wildness be landing up at a public event not perfectly turned out?

(laughs) Anna, no matter how wild I want to be, I will never dress incorrectly. To me being casual is just not an option. I go everywhere over-dressed. Even to the beach.

So does the styling in your films reflect your personal style?

Oh totally. I’m as over the top as my movies are.   

Would it constitute wildness for you to make a full-length film along the lines of the short film you made for the Bombay Talkies omnibus?

I don’t know if I can afford to right now. The stakes are too high.

You can’t afford to? C’mon, aren’t you one of the industry’s richest producers?

That’s why, na. Because I can’t afford to drop from that pedestal. When I say I can’t afford to, I mean I can’t afford the risk in the numbers game and the power game we’re all playing. I have the ability to be brave, but the circumstances and timing have to provide themselves as well. Right now is not the time.

Everyone has an opinion about you, but how do you see yourself?

I’m multi-faceted. I’m not the most talented mind in the business but I’m not the dumbest either. I’m a glorious mid-level man who’s trying to get to genius but falls short of it quite often. I aspire to make that one film by which I will be remembered for the rest of my life. I haven’t made my Lagaan, my Mughal-e-Azam or my Awara. One day I will. There is a lot I feel proud of also. I’ve emerged as an entity beyond just being a filmmaker and I’ve enjoyed that. I want to return to your question about regrets. I don’t regret anything but I aspire to make that one film that will be in those books they have about the 100 best films of India. I don’t think I’ve made a film yet that deserves to be in that book. My Sholay is yet to come.

That’s Karan the professional. But who is Karan the person?

Very alone, actually. I feel like no matter what you achieve, you are on your own. That’s not a pitfall. Sometimes it is a great advantage. You just have to know you are on your own. You can’t depend on any one thing to achieve what you need to do. Eventually you are building a memory and you’re doing it for yourself. Like most creative people I feel very alone. Not in a self-pitying martyrdom kind of way. I feel I must realise, acknowledge, accept that I am alone, take the strength of that loneliness and put it in my work.

Any fears on that front?

My fear is growing old alone. Right now the alone time, the loneliness is transferring itself very efficiently into my work space, which I’m leveraging and I’m enjoying that. But I’m low on family. I don’t have siblings, nor does Mum. There’s a cousin and her daughters that I’m really close to. From my father’s side I’m not close to anyone. And I don’t have kids right now. Friends are a huge support system, but that’s what they are – a support system. They’re not your family. It would be lovely to have, like, a life partner. I’ve thought about maybe adopting a child. I don’t know. There are so many thoughts that surround my head all the time right now. That’s one of the things that came with turning 40. It opens you up to the realities of life, and my grand reality is that I have nothing around me. Like when I was asked to make the will, besides my Mum, I didn’t know who else to will anything to in case of a tragedy. The kids in the company become like my family. But they’re a sense of family or they’re friends, but nobody is, like, your own really. So those are my fears. I don’t wanna be that old man being wheeled in by medical help to do tests in a hospital. That thought depresses and saddens me deeply. I don’t know what I wanna do about it, but my mind is ticking in that direction as well.

It’s interesting to hear you talk about this because you, more than anybody else, use the word “fraternity” so much for the film industry, and you’ve often spoken about certain stars like Shah Rukh being like family.

See I come from my father’s DNA of love and thought. He always felt the film industry was a fraternity and it was his family. I grew up believing that. And yes, Shah Rukh and his family are like family. They are like family, they are not family. His kids are like my godchildren, but they are not my children. They’ll be taking care of their parents at that time. Shah Rukh will have to take care of his wife and vice versa. And what I mean by fraternity is that I have a fraternity feeling. It really saddens me when I see people fighting and not feeling that sense of love for each other because I feel that we’re all doing a job. Yes there’s ambition and envy, but why should there be negativity? I envy great films, I don’t feel negative towards them. I want to see more brilliant work to get myself better. So that’s who I am as a person. And when I talk about family, I talk about people who are close enough to have gone past the zone of friendship. They do have that family feeling. But they are not my family at the end of the day. I want to be someone’s first choice. And that only comes when you’re immediately related to people. The way my mother is to me, no other human being will love me that unconditionally. I know that. And that’s what I’m confused about. I feel like, God, am I going to spend the rest of my life not having that feeling for anyone besides my mother? Is this it? Is my pool of unconditional love restricted to my mother and nobody else? That’s what gets me thinking.

So when you refer to the film industry as a fraternity, are those empty words?

No. I say it because I’ve felt it always. But I don’t think it’s reciprocated equally. A sense of negativity surrounds us. It’s actually a myth that people are drawn to success. In Kaagaz Ke Phool a superstar gets all the attention. It’s actually ulta in our industry. When you make a very big hit and you walk into a party, you can feel the anger and jealousy. You make a flop and suddenly everybody will be warm. The first thing I do when I walk out of a great film is, I text every member of the team or call them. Because I feel proud that I saw a great film. It comes from my father’s training. He was a positive man and wished everyone really well from his heart. Some of that has transferred itself to me. I get ambition, I don’t get negativity.

You are perceived as being very popular in Bollywood, yet you’ve had long-running feuds with RGV, Anurag Kashyap, Kareena, Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Salman I believe was reluctant to come on your TV show. Is it possible that you are the most popular and yet the most unpopular person in Bollywood?

I can’t see myself as unpopular at all. There have been skirmishes with people, which is bound to happen when you have many relationships. There have been misunderstandings, some have even been sorted out, some just over-spoken about. I don’t think there’s a problem any more with Ram Gopal Varma, for instance. He used to speak a lot of rubbish, but he doesn’t any more. If we meet we will probably have a pleasant conversation. Anurag and I have sorted out our problems, I’ve even worked with him and I love him. Kareena and I were both young and stupid about a film and now we’re back to being the closest friends that we can be. Salman and I have always had a great equation. He was reluctant to come on my show because he was just not into the syntax of the show. Then finally he came and had fun. I don’t have any large issue with anyone because I don’t allow it to become one. I don’t allow anything to fester. I’m the first one to say sorry if I think I’m wrong, or the first one to say thank you if I feel the gratitude. I think I am popular. I think people like me because I’m naturally affable, amiable and accessible. I’m a people’s person. I’ve always been.

Even with Bhansali, I don’t know where equations changed. I think he’s brilliant and we’ve had some great laughs together. I think he mentioned to me that I never called him after some of the pieces of work he made that I had not liked. A lot of middle people caused a lot of confusion. Recently there’s been a distance and I think I went on record and spoke, which now I regret because one should never take your personal life into print. But I think we’re just a conversation away from sorting things out.

You mentioned that Bhansali said you didn’t call him after some of his films. Do people in the film industry actually sulk over such things?

But he’s never called me after any film of mine. (laughs) Why am I supposed to become a PRO of the film industry and call everybody and tell them how much I loved their film. Maine koi ttheka thhodi na le rakkha hai to wish, to appreciate. If I appreciate I’ll call you, if I haven’t liked your film why should I call you?

People in the industry actually sulk about these things?  

Ya totally. Which is why I avoid going to previews. It is annoying that you have to lie, because if you say “Oh my god I didn’t like your film” you would be hated for the rest of your life. Then you have to start talking about the cinematography, editing and locations. It’s so exhausting that I’d rather go to PVR, pay my money for my opinion and just get out of there. And there are many times when you tweet about a film because it’s a friend’s film, you praise it because you feel the need to, but what to do now? Some of us are friendly with people and we may not love the films of everyone we are friendly with. But you wish them well. And you want people to see the film irrespective. So sometimes you stretch yourself for a friendship but it’s not something that you may believe in. What do you do? You get stuck you know sometimes.

Have you ever been for a premiere, then lied on Twitter that you liked the film?

Oh, many many times.

How can I trust you now that I know that?

Don’t trust. I’m telling you, don’t trust my tweets about films ever.

Ever?

Ever. Or if you’re clever enough, if you really read between the lines you will know whether I really liked the film or not.

How do people react when you say something like, “I’m amiable, affable and accessible”? Do they think you are full of yourself or that you’re being real?

If people are looking for that chink in the armour, they will find it. If you are, like, looking for somebody who is honest and speaking his heart out, then you will see that. I’ve never ever said anything arrogantly about myself and my work. I’m honest. I feel I’ve always given an honest interview. I don’t make any bones about what’s right or wrong with me. You’re asking, are you brilliant? I’m saying, no I’m not. Have you made your best work? No I haven’t. Are you drop dead good looking? No I’m not. Are you famous? Yes, I am. So what is there to lie about these things?  

Who tends to be drawn more to you? Men or women? Who relates to you? Who tends to confide in you? Who tends to dislike you more easily?

Dislike toh anyway I don’t get. I tend to get my way around people quite easily. But because I’m emotionally connected to my core self, I do find myself talking much more with men, because men are so much more vulnerable and inexpressive. I’ve had long conversations with men about their relationships, their lives, because I think I tap into a certain part of their personality that no one else does. Of course I get along famously with women, but I find the vulnerability and inexpressiveness of a man almost engaging. I feel like they’re saying so little and feeling a lot. I feel I can have that conversation that can get them talking.

Are there things that you have gone out of the way to do in the past because you wanted to remain popular with people, that you will no longer do?

Ya, I’ve been through the whole thing of being overtly out there for a movie star because I feel that’s the done thing to do, but I don’t think I have the time to do it any more. I’ve structured, planned and manipulated relationships at times just to be popular, thinking that there is a great pot of gold at the end of that relationship rainbow. But no, I don’t have the bandwidth any more, I don’t have the time and I certainly don’t have the patience. If I connect, I connect. If I don’t, I disconnect.

(A shorter version of this interview by Anna MM Vetticad appeared in the January 2015 issue of Maxim magazine.)

Photographs courtesy: (1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karan_Johar

(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuch_Kuch_Hota_Hai
(3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Name_Is_Khan

(4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabhi_Khushi_Kabhie_Gham

Note:These photographs were not published in Maxim

REVIEW 332: TANU WEDS MANU RETURNS

May 21, 2015, 12:14 pm

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Release date:	May 22, 2015
Director:	Aanand L. Rai
Cast: Language:	R. Madhavan, Kangna Ranaut, Swara Bhaskar, Jimmy Sheirgill, Deepak Dobriyal, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, Eijaz Khan, Rajendra Gupta Hindi

Tanu Weds Manu (TWM) Returns is, to use a colloquialism, a zabardasti ka sequel. Read: a follow-up that does little to take forward the story or characters of the first film. It’s funny a lot of the time – really really funny – but that’s no excuse for the haphazard plotline.

Director Aanand L. Rai picks up where he left off in 2011’s sleeper hit Tanu Weds Manu, assembles some of Hindi cinema’s most talented actors for the project and then squanders them away with a barely conceived plot.

Writer Himanshu Sharma’s screenplay for the film is steeped in earthy, desi humour which this gifted cast complements with their impeccable timing and dialogue delivery skills. His story, however, wanders all over the place, the characterisation of the leads is weak to say the least, and the plot is riddled with loopholes the size of a continent.

For instance, at one point over the course of a very crucial scene, a significant character kidnaps the sister of another significant character – the film actually does not tell us what happened to her after that! Did the writer and director forget? Or did they not care enough to make the effort?

The woman re-appears briefly during the end credits, but hello, what happened between the abduction and then? Loose ends such as this one are too obvious to have gone unnoticed by the team, which suggests they were left hanging due to indifference, not inefficiency. Since TWM Returns is positioned as sensible – not slapstick – comedy, this is a disappointment.

The story, for what it’s worth, goes like this. Four years after they fell in love and married in Tanu Weds Manu, Tanuja Trivedi a.k.a. Tanu (Kangna Ranaut) and Manoj Sharma a.k.a. Manu (R. Madhavan) are now an unhappy couple in London. The opening scene where they consult a team of doctors at St Benedict’s Mental Asylum, Twickenham, is hilarious. The two stars play off each other brilliantly and Sharma’s dialogues are crackling at that point.

The downslide begins right away though with what happens to Manu at the end of that episode. Was Tanu intentionally cruel to her husband or was she helpless when their open battle led to unexpected consequences? If the latter, then why did she make no effort to save him then and there? If the former, then this instance of evil is out of character for this woman who, in the rest of the film, is portrayed as all heart despite her rough edges.

Be that as it may, both Tanu and Manu return to India. He ends up falling for a Tanu lookalike, a Haryanvi athlete from Delhi University’s Ramjas College called Kusum Sangwan a.k.a. Datto (also Ranaut). And Tanu charms the pants and hormones off her parents’ paying-guest-who-does-not-make-payments, Arun Kumar Singh a.k.a. Chintu (Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub) in her home town Kanpur. She later hooks up with her old love Raja Awasthi (Jimmy Sheirgill). Also in the picture are the lead couple’s three buddies from TWM: Pappi (Deepak Dobriyal), Payal (Swara Bhaskar) and Jassi (Eijaz Khan).

Don’t be misled by the veneer of comedy. At heart, TWM Returns is a serious endorsement of marriage and traditional notions of romantic love. Nothing wrong with that, especially if you share the film’s worldview. The problem lies in the confusion over the heroine’s motivations.

Manu was a sweet yet irritating duh in the romance department earlier too, so his behaviour in the second film is not beyond belief although he continues to come across as a Big Moose in love. It’s a measure of Madhavan’s nice-boy aura that it’s hard to dislike Manu despite his stupidity and his marginally icky attraction for a near-child. Tanu though, remains inexplicable, just as she was in this film’s precursor. The question is not: What the heck does this woman want? There are mixed-up characters in the real world too, so her seemingly muddled head does not defy believability. No, the question is: why the heck does this woman want what she wants?

An artiste who can rise above a script’s limitations is rare. Ranaut has evolved so dramatically in the past four years that she has become that artiste. She does the best she can with the confused characterisation, delivering a slightly toned-down version of the earlier Tanu, still fiery to the point of being belligerent yet also appearing to search her soul more often. She also grabs the screenplay’s big strength – the dialogues – with the hunger of a talented performer, chews them up and spits them out with infectious verve.

Her turn as Tanu’s doppelganger Datto (a better written character) is astonishingly good. There are moments when she manages to make it seem like this could be a different actor bearing a resemblance to Ranaut. Certainly the film’s styling, make-up and costume departments deserve a huge share of the credit for their intelligent work on her, without the use of obvious crutches such as thick glasses or  comparative dowdiness favoured by Hindi films of the past. But Ranaut takes it beyond that, giving Tanu and Datto completely different personalities and beings.

It is also to her credit that though Datto has a thick accent, she is not a caricature of a Haryanvi woman. And I almost fell off my chair in wonderment at how much she reminded me of athletes I’ve seen in training: that walk, that manner of running, all done without a hint of exaggeration.

Kudos too to Ranaut for sorting out the two things that have been her Achilles heel so far: diction and voice modulation. She is remarkable every step of the way in TWM Returns.

Her presence does not diminish this films flaws, however. Tanu’s mixed-up motivations are a glaring gap in the writing. Manu is one-dimensional. And frankly, the tension between Payal and her husband Jassi is far more credible than the stereotypical clash between Tanu and Manu.

What’s truly worrisome about this film though is its carefully masked attitude to women. TWM made light of a man kissing an unknown woman lying passed out on her bed. Manu’s actions in that scene were projected as being romantic. In a world where too many people do not grasp the meaning of consent, this is not cute; it is unforgivable. Then came Raanjhanaa from the same team, a horribly disturbing ode to stalking. This film is less overt.

An early scene in TWM Returns makes light of that kiss from Film 1. And the abduction of a woman by a man who thinks she is in love with him is also passed off as a joke here. Up to that point the fellow has been built up as an endearing character, thus making it hard for the audience to despise his behaviour towards the woman. More to the point, by quietly giving the girl a line to deliver in which she points out to him how wealthy her fiance is, the film plays to the gallery of roadside Romeos and sundry misogynists who believe women are teases and that they are selfishly governed by concerns about financial security in matters of the heart. This suggestion also cashes in on the increasing antagonism one sees from such men towards independent, smart women, I guess to balance out the presence of bright women like Tanu and Datto in the film.

It’s hard not to wonder then if this attitude has also pervaded the creation of the two leads. There can be no other explanation for why the writing is designed to make us enjoy Tanu’s fire, but sympathise with her hai-bechara‘victim’ Manu.

This tone is sought to be masked by such things as Datto’s brother giving a group of Haryanvis in Jhajjar a lecture about women’s freedom. Feminism is the latest fashion going around, and Team Rai-Sharma are the latest to fake it.

Despite its jumbled story and this undercurrent of misogyny, it’s hard to write off the film. Because when the going gets good the dialogues are killers and because of the immaculate acting. Of the excellent supporting cast, the always highly watchable Bhaskar and Ayyub merit a special mention, and Dobriyal is an absolute scene-stealer. Also in the business of stealing scenes are the songs (music: Krsna Solo, lyrics: Raj Shekhar), in particular I’m just an old school girl sung with histrionic flair by Anmoll Malik and, in its Haryanvi version, by Kalpana Gandharv.

These enjoyable positives led by Ranaut are what hold up an otherwise very flawed film.

Rating (out of five): **1/2

Footnote: What does it say about this male-dominated industry that Madhavan’s name precedes Ranaut’s in the opening credits although she was the USP of TWM, she is clearly the bigger star in Bollywood, and she is the name on the strength of which TWM Returns was marketed?

CBFC Rating (India):	U/A
Running time:	121 minutes

Photographs courtesy: 
(1) Poster – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanu_Weds_Manu_Returns

(2) Still – Raindrop Media

INDIA’S FILM CENSORSHIP SYSTEM / FILM FATALE: COLUMN PUBLISHED IN THE HINDU BUSINESSLINE

May 24, 2015, 12:26 pm

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CONSISTENTLY INCONSISTENT

The Censor Board’s ratings for mainstream Bollywood films reveal a gender bias and star obsession, over and above the extreme conservatism of which it is often accused

By Anna M.M. Vetticad

By the time you read this, chances are that the heated discussions about Anurag Kashyap’s Bombay Velvetwould have died down, to be replaced by chatter about Aanand L Rai’s Tanu Weds Manu Returns. Chances are too that in the midst of the din about the quality of Kashyap’s film, a crucial point would have been lost: that its gruesome violence was rated U/A by India’s Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC).

The U/A certificate indicates that it is deemed fit for unrestricted viewing, though parental discretion is advised for children below 12. Producers prefer U/A to an A (adult) rating which affects collections by limiting a film’s potential audience.

Let me make it clear: this column is not against violence on screen. Unless a film glorifies, romanticises or advocates violence (Bombay Velvethas not done any of this) no one should curb a director’s freedom of expression. The issue here though is that the CBFC is consistently inconsistent.

Back when Gangs of Wasseypur 1& 2were released with A ratings in 2012, there was cause for celebration, because the films’ narrative steeped in expletives, crime and bloodshed was expected to incur the Board’s wrath. These assumptions were based on the Board’s track record, which included a refusal to clear Kashyap’s remarkable debut feature Paanch in 2001 on charges that it glorified crime, indulged in double entendre and bore no positive social message. The absurdity of the accusations lay in the fact that Paanch, quite to the contrary, was about the pointlessness of violence.

Over a decade later, GoW was handled by a different Board headed by classical dancer Leela Samson whose tenure (April 2011-January 2015) marked the dawn of a new progressiveness in the CBFC. Samson’s Board was not without flaws, mostly though because of the dated rules under which even liberals are compelled to operate and because the overall system desperately needs an overhaul. Despite these constraints, films like GoW were released.

However, then too, as it is with the abysmally regressive present Board headed by Pahlaj Nihalani, and in fact long before Samson entered the picture, the ratings for mainstream Bollywood films reveal two aspects of India’s Censor system: a gender bias and a star obsession. First, over the years, films by directors who are perceived as ‘artistic’ and ‘serious’ — Kashyap being an example — have been far more likely to get scissored or rated A or both, than films by directors widely considered more mass-oriented and/or mainstream.

Second, films revolving around big-league commercial male stars tend to get gentler treatment than those with younger, less established actors or those primarily associated with off-mainstream cinema. Third, female-centric films seem to be viewed through an entirely different lens from male-centric projects, possibly because they are automatically seen as ‘serious’. Take for instance the A-rated Rani Mukerji-starrer Mardaani(2014). When actor-producer-director Aamir Khan was informed about Mukerji’s reported intention to challenge the A, he was quoted as saying he agrees with the rating because young children should not be exposed to the kind of language and violence depicted in the film, adding: “Most absurd and strange things are shown in some films which are U or U/A. I cannot believe how it is shown in the film. I think we should be careful about what we are exposing our children to.” (Source: ibnlive.com)

That’s a curious statement, considering that Khan appeared to have no qualms about the U/A certification for his blood-spattered 2008 film Ghajiniin which he played a ferocious, murderous hero. Ghajini featured far more gory aggression depicted far more graphically than anything in Mardaani. Yet it was deemed fit for children whose parents thought it suitable for their young wards.

The pattern of the Censor response to women-led films cannot be a coincidence. In a year when Bombay Velvethas received kid-glove treatment, the Anushka Sharma-starrer NH10 was certified A. Yes, NH10is bloody. No doubt too that NH10 and the comparatively mild Mardaanimerited As. The question is: why the double standards?

As already mentioned, women are not the only victims of this hypocrisy. Three years after Ghajini and Aamir Khan got lucky, the John Abraham-starrer Force— with its unrelenting scenes of blood-spurting, bone-crunching police brutality — got away with a U/A. In 2015, while Bombay Velvetheadlined by Ranbir Kapoor has been awarded a U/A, Badlapurwas certified A. Can it be happenstance that Badlapur starred the popular but still emerging youngster Varun Dhawan and gave equal significance to the darling of indie projects, Nawazuddin Siddiqui?

Can it be just chance that Badlapur’s director Sriram Raghavan remains best-known for his non-massy films Ek Hasina Thi (albeit a Saif Ali Khan-starrer) and Johnny Gaddaar? Can it possibly be a fluke that the only two U/A ratings in Kashyap’s filmography of 14 years as a feature director have gone to No Smoking (2007) with John Abraham and Bombay Velvetstarring the hottest hero of this generation?

If India’s film rating norms are to be believed, it would seem that Kay Kay Menon’s highly believable, wild, amoral character in Paanch is objectionable; but not the violence of Ranbir Kapoor’s Johnny Balraj, including a close-up of him wrapping his arm around a man’s neck to crush and twist it. It would seem that a policewoman bashing up a criminal in Mardaanicould ruin our children; but a policeman committing many more grievous acts of violence in Forcecannot. Just saying.

(Anna MM Vetticad is the author of The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic. Twitter: @annavetticad)

(This column by Anna MM Vetticad was first published in The Hindu Businessline newspaper on May 23, 2015)

Original link:

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/features/blink/watch/consistently-inconsistent/article7231697.ece

Photograph courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombay_Velvet

  

Note: This photograph was not sourced from The Hindu Businessline

REVIEW 333: WELCOME 2 KARACHI

May 30, 2015, 6:26 am

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Release date:	May 28, 2015
Director:	Ashish R. Mohan
Cast: Language:	Arshad Warsi, Jackky Bhagnani, Lauren Gottlieb Hindi

It could have been titled 2 Idiots. Welcome 2 Karachi is the story of a foolish Indian duo who get caught in a storm while sailing in the ocean and are washed up on a beach in Karachi. Shammi (Arshad Warsi) and Kedar (Jackky Bhagnani) encounter jehadis, local intelligence officials and the CIA while on Pakistani soil. They also accidentally blow up a Taliban camp, and are caught in a tug of war between India, Pakistan and the US, with each of the latter two countries claiming the men as their own in a bid to get credit for the destruction of those Talibs.

As you can imagine, the basic plotline is brimming with potential for a whopper of a comedy. The presence of Warsi – one of Bollywood’s best – as one of the leads is further cause for optimism. Sadly, these positives fade into insignificance in the face of a loosely written script, Bhagnani’s desperate attempts to act and the lackadaisical, seemingly disinterested direction by Ashish R. Mohan who earlier helmed the Akshay Kumar-starring superhit Khiladi786 in 2012.

Not that Mohan can be blamed for the presence of young Bhagnani in the cast – the child is, after all, the son of this film’s producer Vashu Bhagnani. Ever since he made his screen debut in 2009 with Kal Kisne Dekha, Bhagnani Junior appears to have been trying his best to become worthy of the space before the camera that his father’s wealth has got him. He continues to work out to achieve those ample biceps and that trim torso, but no gym in the world can relax an actor’s facial muscles. After six years of trying, he ought to face the truth that he is not cut out for this.

Warsi is occasionally listless but for the most part throws himself into the film with his trademark gusto. He is, however, done in by direction so directionless that it feels as though Mohan let go of the reins early on in Welcome 2 Karachi.

Slapstick comedy can be fun. Considering that the India-Pakistan relationship is this film’s hunting ground, it had the potential to be insightful and satirical even within the slapstick genre. For that to happen though, it needed to avoid wandering all over the place. That, unfortunately, is where the film fails miserably. In the absence of crispness in its storytelling, Welcome 2 Karachi is a stark reminder to those who are dismissive of effective farces that it is not easy to do what Rohit Shetty and David Dhawan do, on the occasions when they do it well.  

Considering the absurdity of the Indo-Pak reality, there are many situations in this film that are hilarious at the concept level. The execution though is decidedly dull, with a few exceptions such as a scene in which Shammi loses all self control and drops his pretence of being a Pakistani in a crowd of Pathans, while watching a cricket match between the two countries.

Sure there is some stereotyping in the film, but it is good natured and well meant, with potshots being taken at people from both sides of the border. To object to that would be churlish, especially since the ultimate goal of the film seems to be to establish that though governments are bad, people are not, and mushkil waqt main, padosi hi padosi ke kaam aayega (in times of difficulty, it is neighbours who can be most relied upon to come to a neighbour’s aid). Now if only good intentions were the key to good cinema, Welcome 2 Karachi would be a winner.

There are many scenes in which the filmseems on the cusp of becoming something special, but each time it fails to ride over that cusp. As it stands, W2K’s narrative is looser than the drawstrings on a pair of pyjamas that are falling off their wearer.

A song in the film has lyrics that go thus:

O yahaan se wahaan se chal

Bach ke nikal jaa re

Warna kisi tarah na jaan bach paayegi

Chal bhaag nahi toh

Chal bhaag nahi toh

G pe laat pad jaayegi

Chal bhaag nahi to G pe laat pad jaayegi

Bhaag nahi to saali band baj jayegi

Chal bhaag nahi to G pe laat pad jaayegi

Bhaag nahi to saali band baj jayegi.

The polite translation and précis of those lyrics would be: if you don’t run to save your life, you will get a kick in your … err … backside. Perhaps there’s a hidden message in there for potential viewers.

Rating (out of five): *

CBFC Rating (India):	U/A
Running time:	132 minutes

Photograph courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Karachi

REVIEW 334: DIL DHADAKNE DO

June 4, 2015, 7:22 am

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Release date:	June 5, 2015
Director:	Zoya Akhtar
Cast: Language:	Anil Kapoor, Ranveer Singh, Priyanka Chopra, Shefali Shah, Rahul Bose, Zarina Wahab, Anushka Sharma, Farhan Akhtar, Aamir  Khan, Ridhima Sud, Vikrant Massey Hindi

’Tis the season for an unconventional take on relationships in Bollywood. Just weeks after director Shoojit Sircar’s Piku came to theatres with the story of an exasperating father and his indulgent daughter, Zoya Akhtar brings us Dil Dhadakne Do(DDD) which revolves around a philandering opportunist, his doormat of a wife who is too hypocritical or perhaps too lethargic to shake him off, and the two children they’re both bent on suffocating. The standard term for such folk these days is “dysfunctional family”, but that begs the question: which family is not?

Anil Kapoor in DDD plays Kamal Mehra, an industrialist keeping up the appearance of wealth with an extravagant lifestyle even as his company teeters on the brink of bankruptcy. He cheats on his wife Neelam (Shefali Shah) who too is obsessed with maintaining a façade of happiness. Both prioritise this outward show and the survival of the business over even their kids’ welfare.

Matters come to a head on a 10-day cruise to Europe organised for relatives and friends to mark the Mehras’ 30^th wedding anniversary, with the children – Ayesha (Priyanka Chopra) and Kabir (Ranveer Singh) – rebelling against their oppressive, dictatorial parents. For the record, Ayesha is a successful businesswoman in her own right, living in Mumbai with her husband Manav Sangha (Rahul Bose) and mother-in-law (Zarina Wahab), while Kabir works for his father’s company and lives in the family home in Delhi.

From her very first film, Zoya Akhtar has shown a penchant for a naturalistic style of storytelling. Events in both Luck By Chance and Zindagi Na Milegi Dobaraflowed at whatfelt like a pace that mirrors real life, without contrived attempts at twists and turns to heighten the melodrama. Ms Akhtar is part of a small but expanding band of Bollywood film makers whose works remind us that drama is intrinsic to all relationships and there is no need to artificially up the ante for effect. DDD follows the same route, with just one difference: a crazy, slightly silly (and confusing) climax that appears improbable on the face of it, but is so clearly deliberately designed to unapologetically be what we call “filmi” that I suppose it works as a kinda sorta cheery ode to conventional Bollywood madness. 

At almost 171 minutes, DDD is longer than most Hindi films are these days. It is to the credit of Akhtar and the pace she sets from the word go, that not one of those is a minute of flab. Each member of the film’s star-studded cast – including supporting players Anushka Sharma, Farhan Akhtar, Rahul Bose and Zarina Wahab – and every single character get their due, without the effort to do justice to them appearing heavy-handed in any way. Even the narrator Pluto Mehra works for the most part, not counting one somewhat preachy portion where he discusses differing social attitudes towards men and women who sleep around. But you know what, when you are that huggable, you are allowed one passing slip-up.

Aiding the director in maintaining her engaging narrative is the superlative cast. Anil is superb while striking a fine balance that calls for him to be despicable yet hard to hate. It is a challenging role but he plays it as if it is who he really is. God bless this era in Bollywood when a senior actor of his stature can get the role of a hero in a film without having to degrade himself by playing a character much younger than his real-life age.

When a veteran is on a roll, it’s tough to avoid being overshadowed, but Ranveer manages that feat, delivering a remarkably controlled and nuanced performance as Kabir. It helps that he has an incredibly appealing screen presence which he puts to good use here. This is a young man who is both a born actor and a born star. 

The story belongs to these two gentlemen, not because they get more screen time – they do not – but because they have more interesting, layered characters. Despite the disadvantage, Shefali and Priyanka shine as conflicted women, although it requires a considerable suspension of disbelief to digest a 42-year-old Shefali playing Mom to actors who are 29 (Ranveer) and 32 (PC). Can you imagine a male star of the same age – say, John Abraham – playing father to those two?! In MCP Bollywood, even in a liberal story like this one, that would be unthinkable!

The most charming, endearing relationship in this film filled with relationships is the brother-sister bond. Kabir and Ayesha’s unflinching support for each other and perfect understanding of each other is enough to warm the stoniest heart. It is also nice to see two major mainstream stars playing siblings rather than a romantically involved couple. The last time I remember that happening was with Shah Rukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai in Mansoor Khan’s Josh.

That casting decision is one of many reasons why DDD is an unconventional Bollywood film. Another is that it has four leads – the family quartet – and none is given more importance than the other. DDD is also that rare Hindi film with an ensemble cast. Among the many exciting actors in smaller roles are debutant Ridhima Sud and TV’s Vikrant Massey (from Balika Vadhu among other serials) who earlier played Ranveer’s friend in Lootera. The two make their mark as offspring of warring families who are among the Mehras’ invitees on their anniversary cruise.

In its own way, DDD is also a gentle slap in the face of misogynists who stereotype feminists as being: (a) only women and (b) people who overlook the flaws of women. Quite to the contrary, the two great feminists of this film are Kabir and Sunny, Ayesha’s old flame played by Farhan. While Kamal Mehra and Manav Sangha are skewered for lording it over their wives, the women are not let off for allowing themselves to be manipulated when they had a choice to do otherwise.

I wanted to applaud – actually, I did – when Kabir calls out his mother’s cowardice in pretending that she was unaware of her husband’s affairs. It reminded me of Amitabh Bachchan’s character Bhaskor in Piku pointing out to his sister-in-law that her frustrations about her life of professional non-achievement were her fault since it was she who chose – despite Bhaskorda’s encouragement and cooperation – not to take up a job which offered her a pay higher than her husband’s salary. Let us not forget that patriarchy survives on the collaboration of such women.

Another noteworthy aspect of DDD is the absence of community stereotyping. The Mehras are Punjabis but hey look Bollywood – they do not yell “Balle balle” or break into the Bhangra at the drop of a hat. Imagine that!

Of course there is a tiny bit of gender stereotyping elsewhere: the gossips in the film are all women, their men are never shown gossipping. C’mon Zoya, you know better than that!

Music directors Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy deliver a relevant and pulsating background score although a majority of the songs in DDD are disappointingly tuneless. Pehli Baar is the only somewhat memorable melody of the lot.

Oddly enough, despite this I enjoyed all the songs within the framework of the film because they fit the situations in which they come up and because the choreography is thoroughly enjoyable, atypical Bollywood. Particularly worth mentioning are the Broadway-style Girls like to swing featuring a cute-as-a-button Anushka who reminded me of Renee Zellwegger in Chicago and the infectious energy of Gallan Goodiyaan in which the entire supporting cast – yes all of them – throw themselves into the dancing with a joie de vivrethat is irresistible. Who knew that Rahul Bose and Parmeet Sethi could swing like that? You go, boys! And what a joy to see a grey-haired Anil dancing wildly in that same song.

DDD is not faultless, but barring that nutty ending, I had a rollicking good time watching it because it is funny, believable and sweet, the cast is lovely and most of all, because now that I’ve seen it, I’ve fallen in love with both Ranveer Singh and Anil Kapoor.

Rating (out of five): ***1/2

PS: Good job with the guest appearance, Aamir.

CBFC Rating (India):	U/A
Running time:	171 minutes

Photograph courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dil_Dhadakne_Do

ANIL KAPOOR INTERVIEW / PUBLISHED IN MAXIM INDIA

June 10, 2015, 2:54 am

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“I WAS ONCE KNOWN AS A BORING MAN, ULTIMATELY THAT BECAME SEXY”

“MERE KO LAGTA HAI KI MERA HAMESHA TIME CHAL RAHA HAI”

Thirty-sevenyears into his film career, Anil Kapoor seems unstoppable. He stars in two of this year’s major summer releases: Dil Dhadakne Do and Welcome Back. He is also currently producing and acting in a second season of his TV serial 24,the Hindi adaptation of the hit American franchise in which he played a pivotal role in the penultimate season. As an actor-producer across media, a respected face of Indian cinema abroad, a globe-trotter, fitness freak, father and husband, Kapoor says in this exclusive interview that he is having more fun than anyone he knows.

By Anna M.M. Vetticad

You travel so much that it’s almost like planes are your second home. How do you deal with jetlag in such a way that you do not look exhausted?

When you’re as passionate about work as I am, you manage yourself both physically and mentally to stay fit and focused on your work in spite of the travel. Jetlag also depends on how physically fit you are. The fitter you are, the less the jetlag.

So give us some practical guidelines.

This interview will become about jetlag. (Laughs) Okay, here is a small example. I’m just back from Los Angeles. When I left LA, they were serving dinner on the flight but since it was breakfast time in India, I insisted they give me breakfast. That was a way of psyching myself that it’s morning although it was night there. After breakfast, I had lunch. Before landing in Mumbai, I didn’t eat anything. Instead, I came home and had dinner. That’s one way to do it. Then obviously I keep walking on the aircraft, I shower on the flight. Despite all this, jetlag is inescapable. But if you want to do good work and don’t want the tiredness to show, you will find ways around it.

Do you ever feel like being lazy?

I do. Sometimes when I get up in the morning I feel, ‘Not today ya.’ But before my mind can wander in that half-asleep phase, before I get into that negativity, I signal my brain to wake up. So I go for a workout immediately. Once the blood circulation starts because of the workout and endorphins are being pumped into the brain, you’re completely rejuvenated and positive thoughts return.

You speak of passion for work. But film sets can be so boring, with stars waiting for an eternity between shots. How do you sustain your interest during shoots?

It’s about finding that one thing in each project that makes it exciting for you. It could be that the film is completely out of the box, you’re venturing into unknown territory so there is a little anxiety. You want to do something nobody has done, so that keeps you alive even when the work per se gets boring. It could be the role, the filmmaker, the script, the money. All these things can motivate you. It depends now how many times you do it for money, how many times for art, how many times for passion for your work. The degree of all those things must be taken into consideration. Some people get motivated only with money, some get motivated only with art. Both are wrong. According to me it has to be a combination of all these things.

So it does require an effort to keep the passion going on a film set, does it not?

Effort is an understatement.

Yet the outside world often assumes it is an easy job. Do you encounter that?

Not so much now, but I feel my daughter Sonam encounters it a lot. People feel it’s a glamorous job, she’s looking beautiful, walking the red carpet, doing films with the best directors, constantly being photographed and she’s got it all easily. But it’s nerve-wracking hard work. I feel really bad and sad for her because of how hard she has to work. In fact, girls have to work harder than us. If we get up at 7am to get ready, they get up at 5. Everything for them – makeup, hair, clothes, getting ready, undoing what they’ve done – is more complicated and time-consuming than for us.

Were you able to empathise with women co-stars before Sonam entered films?

Yes, and I warned her repeatedly that it would not be a cakewalk. She was aware of what she was getting into, but in spite of that there were surprises and shocks.

How many years have you been in the film industry now?

I started shooting for my first film in 1978, so that’s 37years.

So you are completing your fourth decade in films…

Acchha fourth? Oh God, dangerous yaar! (Laughs for a few minutes) Sounds very old.

It depends on how you look at it. It’s either, ‘Oh my I’m so old,’ or ‘Wow! I have 37 years of work experience!’

Ya. I look at it as 37 years of work experience. Not work, it’s more life. As an actor, life experience really is very handy in your craft.

You say Sonam had to deal with surprises in the film industry although you had warned her of the pitfalls. What about you? Do you still encounter surprises?  

Oh yes. Earlier, people were not into huge contracts, but it was rare for anyone to back out of even a verbal commitment. Now, you can’t rely on a person’s word alone. You can’t blame people, because the stakes have become so high. So these kind of surprises are there, that things you might feel are green lit are actually not. The “ho jayega” (it will happen) attitude that people used to have 7-8 years back is now gone. Everything now has to be written down and planned. It’s better to do that.

There are certain filmmakers still living with that old kind of thinking and that too is a  surprise, that yaar abhi bhi yeh log usi tarah kaam kar rahey hai, kya hoga inn logon ka? (These people are still working in the old way. What will become of them?) You can see that the future is bleak for them, that they will suffer, but they don’t listen.

Have you learnt lessons from watching your contemporaries like Jackie Shroff and director Subhash Ghai whose careers have not survived?

I’m slightly biased. I don’t look at them that way, because I have an emotional connect with them. For me to say things about them will be chhota muh, badi baat.

Are you being diplomatic?

I swear to god I’m not being diplomatic. I’m just being sensitive.

At any point in your life have you feared that everything that you have now, the stardom, the money, the comforts could all go away?

(Laughs) You might call it arrogance, but I’ve never had the fear of not getting work.

You never thought that after the age of 50 or 60, you may not get good projects?

Destiny always favours the brave. That’s why I’ve always been ready to fail. I’ve always taken decisions which people felt were risky, but I considered sensible and thought they would add to my longevity. I can see certain contemporaries, juniors or seniors who get this feeling ki hamara time chal raha hai (it’s my time now), let’s make hay while the sun shines. I never had that feeling. Nothing has come easy to me. Everything I’ve got has come to me through hard work, commitment and integrity. I knew that no one can stop me from continuing my hard work, so why should work stop coming to me? I could have gone wrong with this assumption, but I felt secure in the knowledge that I know my craft, I can deliver and I’m sincere.

I would sometimes tell my friends, yaar when will it happen to me that I can say, ‘Yaar yeh film mein maine bilkul mehnat nahin kiya aur yeh superhit hui’? Yeh luck kabhi kabhi hona chahiye. Ek-aad film toh miley mujhe aisi jaha mujhe lagey, yeh yaar socha bhi nahin thha aur yeh blockbuster ho gayee. (Will I ever be in a position that I can say I did not work hard at all on a film yet it became a superhit? One should have such luck at least occasionally.) This has never happened to me. For every bit of success, every rupee earned, I’ve had to slog. So I told myself, I’ll keep on doing that and of course I’ll keep on reinventing myself to stay relevant. I also track people who have been consistently successful for years, read about them and 
get inspired.

For instance?

Sean Connery. He was known for being a sex symbol and playing Bond, then he made a brilliant transition to a range of other kinds of films, but remained sexy and a big star. Clint Eastwood made a transition to being such a relevant film maker. Look at his energy levels. At 84, he has delivered one of the biggest successes of his life –American Sniper has become the highest grossing war film ever. And he keeps making films every year. His brain is still ticking. People like him really inspire me – you know, people who have been huge stars, who have not wasted their stardom away by not looking after themselves or by not reinventing themselves.

Whose mistakes have you learnt from?

(long silence) Rajesh Khanna. He could have remained a star for a much longer time. Some of his films, especially the ones he did with Hrishikesh Mukherjee such as Anand, look relevant even today. He was a good actor, but slowly he put on weight, acquired the harmful trappings of stardom such as surrounding himself with the wrong people. The same applies to Marlon Brando – the greatest actor, but he didn’t look after himself. You learn from these people.

I’m also fortunate to have a second generation in my family with whom I can discuss these matters. I’m blessed because I gave importance to the institutions of marriage and family, so I’m reaping the harvest now. I too could have, you know, found easy ways of being popular.

What is “popular” a euphemism for?

Meaning, trying to get into the media by being a bad boy because that kind of person is more attractive to read about, and getting distracted by things that are temporary.

Do you mean genuine philandering or creating an image of being a philanderer?

A combination. So initially being known as a boring man, but ultimately that itself becoming attractive and sexy. At a certain stage, it feels cool to be late, arrive at premieres with arm candy, have multiple relationships, smoke, drink. It adds to your persona. The media and youngsters like it. But I knew these things could harm my longevity and I’m now reaping the harvest for decisions I took back then.  

So the media thought you were boring at one time?

Not the media so much as the industry and friends. For instance, I had a large house compared to my friends and colleagues so it was always open house, like a 24-hour coffee shop. Everybody would be sitting around having fun but at a certain time I’d excuse myself and be sleeping in my room to get up in the morning to go for work. That discipline and professionalism have paid off. That’s why I’m still in a position to say no to people, to make my choices of films and filmmakers I want to work with.

Your role in the American TV series 24 was well-received, but wasn’t it a huge risk to produce and act in a Hindi version, considering that major mainstream Hindi movie stars have not had success acting in TV serials?

No, no, I knew it will work. Look, Woh Saat Din was a film most newcomers would never do, but me and my brother were convinced it would work. Mr India was the first really big mainstream superhero Hindi film and the leading man was invisible for more than half the film, but we felt it would work. You have a certain instinct. This is the difference between people who have not given successes and people who have. And 24 has been successful in so many countries anyway. My confidence paid off. With the Indian version, we got audience segments who don’t traditionally watch TV to watch us. Still, the first season was very niche but hopefully our fan base will increase in the coming seasons.

Did you produce Gandhi, My Father because you thought it was a great project that you respect and you want it to be part of your body of work, or did you think it had the potential to make money too?

I felt I might be able to break through internationally with it. That’s why I made it in English and in Hindi. It was a good film, it won three National Awards, and although it got mixed reactions from critics, I was happy with the final cut. But it must have lacked something because everybody cannot go so wrong. Somewhere it didn’t connect, kuchh toh gadbad thhi, but I can’t pinpoint what.

Is it a regret?

No. When you get bogged down by anything, then it becomes a regret. I don’t go into that area at all. I move on. And what happened is, immediately I got Slumdog Millionaire. So I tell my youngsters and a lot of people who are in this business ki when you work honestly and you give your heart and soul to one project, it’s not necessary that you will get what you really deserve from it. If you get bogged down you might not give your 100 per cent to the next opportunity that comes along, yet it might be the other film which will give you what this film did not. With me in this case it happened back-to-back. I tried my best to make Gandhi, My Father as international as possible, I took it to Miramax, Sony Classics, Venice, Cannes, Toronto, it was rejected everywhere. I showed it to every distributor, they would say yes and then back out. Suddenly I get this small film which wins about 150 awards and becomes a huge success. Somewhere I feel that whatever hard work I put into Gandhi, My Father was reciprocated tenfold with Slumdog Millionaire.

So you have this ability to mentally disassociate yourself from a project that didn’t work out and throw yourself into the next project?

Within seconds. Within hours.

How do you do that?

Mind, mind, mind.

Tell tell tell how.

It’s the mind. You see, if you’re sincere, hard-working, committed, professional, talented, you know your craft, obviously you’re gonna get a job. People need people to deliver. Woh dhoond nikaalenge aapko (People will seek you out).

At any point in your career, have you felt the way you said you’ve seen colleagues feeling, mera time chal raha hai (it’s
 my time now)?

Mere ko lagta hai ki mera hamesha time chal raha hai (I feel that every time is my time). Even when people said things, I just kept on working.

When did people say things are not working out for you?  

I don’t know. I never could pay attention to them. I would just look at them and smile and say, “Really, you think so? Saala bewakoof (Bloody idiot).” (Laughs) Genuinely.

You were hoping Gandhi My Father would be an international breakthrough. Does this mean you were always interested in an international platform?

Who isn’t? Everybody who told me back when Slumdog happened that they’re not interested are all into it now. All of them who said, ‘Nahin, hum India mein khush hai (No, we’re happy in India),’ sab kar rahey hai (now they’re all doing it).

Why did you get so much flak in India for your role in Mission Impossible 4?

I approached that choice very internationally. I had a good role in the film, MI4is the highest grosser of the MI series and it gave me great exposure. Internationally people loved me in it. As a matter of fact, everybody was convinced that I almost saved the third act. The role was supposed to be serious but I completely changed it. Instead of playing him as a one-dimensional bad guy, I made him a multi-dimensional, really funny, little crazy kind of character. The producers were happy with my contribution to the film. In spite of that I knew there could be problems in India. After all, even Slumdog Millionaire was criticised by people here, including some big stars.

You mean Amitabh Bachchan?

Yeah. These things happen. But Slumdog became so hugely critically acclaimed that everybody had to shut their mouths. MI was of course not critically that acclaimed but a hugely successful film. I’m happy with my work in it and I’m happy I did it. But I remember telling Tom (Cruise) that this will be the reaction of a few people in India. 

Hmm, you think it was just a few people?

Or whatever it is, there will be some reaction, there might be some people who might want me to do Tom Cruise’s role. Hopefully I will, you never know, and I respect their opinion, but it doesn’t really affect me because the positive feedback I got from the world was much more. If I’d got negative feedback from the world too and the film had not been a huge success then I would have felt differently.

Was it not a mistake to promote it as much as you did, to not warn people it was a small role? Someone wrote to me on Twitter saying what disappointed him was that when he went to book tickets at a Mumbai hall, there was a standee promoting it as “Anil Kapoor’s film”, so he expected you to have a big role.

I didn’t promote it. And I tried to tell people about the length of the role. Somewhere I feel the producers, the studio were also experimenting (with the marketing), and it did help the business. I did try my best to say, “Make it into a guest appearance”, but at least my experience helped others to learn.

You mean other Indian movie stars, especially Bachchan who made it a point to inform us that his role in The Great Gatsbywas tiny?


Yeah.

You think Bachchan learnt from your experience?


I don’t know, but I think it was a smart way to do it.

So you told Tom Cruise that Indians would want you doing his role in MI? Is that happening?


Of course.

Anil Kapoor as the lead in an MI film?


Not the lead because internationally I look at myself as more of a character actor. Over here too, I’m playing the lead, but a lead who does strong characters in ensemble films. Over there the respectability of an actor is seen differently. My vision is that after 15-20 years I would do roles of the kind Morgan Freeman is now doing in Hollywood. Even after 15 years there will be certain roles I will be able to do there because things are different there. Twitter doesn’t go mad there because Brad Pitt did one scene in 12 Years A Slave.

What is your state of mind right now?

Always looking out for something more exciting, something out of the box. And with this there is a certain calm. I have so many priorities — my children, my production company, the films I’m making, the films my daughter is making, my son’s film, time spent with my wife. And all of us are having a lot of fun. I don’t think anybody is having the kind of fun I’m having. Nobody. Pata nahin, I feel very blessed. There are always surprises in life, kuchh bhi ho sakta hai, but so far so good.

(A shorter version of this interview by Anna MM Vetticad appeared in the May 2015 issue of Maxim magazine.)

Photographs courtesy: 

(1) https://www.facebook.com/WelcomeBackFilm

(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._India_(1987_film)

(4) https://www.facebook.com/slumdog

(3) Photograph of Anil Kapoor with Tom Cruise arriving in Mumbai for the Indian premiere of Mission Impossible 4: Spice PR

Note:These photographs were not published in Maxim

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REVIEW 335: HAMARI ADHURI KAHANI

June 12, 2015, 5:05 am

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Release date:	June 12, 2015
Director:	Mohit Suri
Cast: Language:	Vidya Balan, Emraan Hashmi, Rajkummar Rao, Suhasini Mulay, Amala Akkineni, Prabal Panjabi, Namit Das, Madhurima Tuli, Sara Khan Hindi

This film should not be called Hamari Adhuri Kahani (HAK). A far more appropriate title would be Hamari Aadhi-Adhuri Khokli Film Ki Kahani.

To be fair, Mahesh Bhatt’s story for HAK is not without merit. In particular, the motivations of one character – the terror accused Hari Prasad (played by Rajkummar Rao) – are fascinating, because the extent to which humans will go to get revenge is always worth exploring. It is also worth exploring, as HAK fleetingly does, the motivations of women when they cover their bodies in numerous announcements of their marital status (the mangalsutra/thaali maala, red bangles, sindoor,  wedding ring, the works), take on their husband’s surnames and carry babies through nine months of energy-sapping pregnancy only to round it off with painful labour before blithely handing the child over to be named after the father and socially be deemed his heir, not hers.

Neither of these is an element to be ignored. Sadly, an outdated storytelling style, a surfeit of cliches, an alarming degree of literalness in its metaphors (especially the references to Radha-Krishna and Sita), some conflicted and laboured ‘feminism’ and terrible dialogue writing end up ruining the potential of this Vidya Balan-Emraan Hashmi-starrer.

Bhatt Senior’s basic plotline is interesting, but he fleshes it out poorly. Given the story’s lack of heft, director Mohit Suri’s deliberately languid pace becomes tedious early on. Worse, writer Shagufta Rafique gives HAK some of the most laughably bombastic dialogues to emerge from mainstream, high-end Bollywood in a while. She is clearly aiming for an approach that was popular in 1970s-80s Hindi cinema. Here’s the thing, Shagufta-ji… First, human beings in the real world have never spoken that way, but we were willing to indulge in a collective national suspension of disbelief for a while because it was fun to do so. The fantasy that was enjoyable back then is not so much any more though ’cos we’ve outgrown that era. If you do wish to revisit it, you need the combined panache of writer Rajat Aroraa and director Milan Luthria who pulled it off in Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai (2010) and The Dirty Picture(2011). Mohit and Shagufta, you have delivered some entertaining films together in the past – 2011’s Murder 2, for instance, was neat. But the dialogue-baaziof HAK and its half-hearted direction kill the film.

Why does a hard-as-nails, apathetic police officer unexpectedly decide to help Vasudha Prasad (Vidya) escape her husband so that she can be with Aarav? Kyunki yeh kaaynaath bhi sachche pyaar karne waalon ki madad karne ko taiyyaar ho jaata hai (because all of Creation steps up to aid the cause of true love), the gentleman in uniform explains.

Why is billionaire Aarav Ruparel (Emraan) so in love with Vasudha? Because bahut saare patey thhey mere, par ghar tumne dilaaya (I had many addresses, but you got me a home), he says.

Woven around such lines is the sketchy tale of Vasudha, abandoned by her husband a year after marriage yet clinging – literally – for dear life to her mangalsutra. Why? Because our values are racing through our veins(i.e. nass-nass mein), she says. Sad and pretty Vasudha arranges flowers for a living in a luxury hotel where Aarav arrives as a guest one day. After two meetings, much gazing and some borderline stalking, as floral scents float through the air from Mumbai to Dubai, he develops behad ishq and mohabbat (boundless love) for her.

Aarav is a business wizkid with his own dukhibachpan ki kahaani. He also has a weird reason (Oedipal, though unintentionally so, I suspect) for being drawn to Vasudha: she reminds him of his mother. Combine his back story with her miserable present and a contrived climax involving Bastar, and the result is HAK.

Vidya and Emraan have a flair for bombast-by-design as you can see from their track record (he was in Once Upon A Time…, they co-starred in Dirty Picture). Here though they are completely wasted, with little to do but pose around between those hackneyed conversations and speeches.

The film has evident pretensions to epic emotions, but extreme close-ups of the leads’ faces, her tears and her curls cannot compensate for a weak story. In fact, Vishnu Rao’s long shots of some attractive locations (an overhead view of Mumbai, a garden in Dubai, the sands of the desert city) get tedious beyond a point in this soulless film. Rao shows little imagination in capturing Bastar, though even his regular shots of a spectacular locale are better than the glaringly fake computer imagery used to conjure up a field of flowers in crucial scenes in rural Chhattisgarh.

Suhasini Mulay though gets the worst of the cinematography: when her face is caught in tight close-ups, she looks like a woman possessed by a spirit rather than an elderly relative offering kindly advice to Vasudha. It’s nice to see Amala after so many years in a Hindi film (as Aarav’s mother), but the stand-out member of the supporting cast is Prabal Panjabi (playing Aarav’s employee Apurva) whose inexplicable screen presence gives us one of HAK’s most unwittingly comical scenes: in which he declares his friendship and (platonic?) love for Aarav.

As for the film’s seeming ‘liberalism’, the unspirited Vasudha dramatically transforms into a modern-day Durga in a late scene with her husband to articulate some very valid thoughts about a woman’s identity being inextricably linked to her husband’s, but the point is entirely lost in the speechifying, the trite imagery of Durga’s idols passing behind her just then (Vasudha is very conveniently in Kolkata at the time) and the film’s completely contradictory stance until then.

No doubt women like Vasudha do exist – there is nothing wrong in portraying this reality. The problem lies in the fact that the film itself seems to endorse the stupidity of such women, going by the symbolism of a naari as a man’s slave appearing repeatedly through the narrative till then: Vasudha cleans her husband’s feet when he turns up at her house after five years, a filthy, bedraggled creep demanding her affection and loyalty; later she falls at Aarav’s feet on discovering that he intends to save that same abusive husband.

Then of course there is the not-so-minor point that early on in the film when Vasudha dashes off to save Aarav from a fire in a hotel, he yells at the hotel’s security staff with this spectacularly sexist line: ek aurat ko mujhe bachaana pada! A mere aurat! Imagine that!

Spectacularly sexist and spectacularly boring – that’s a lethal combination. It hurts to see Vidya in such a film.

Rating (out of five): *

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	131 minutes

REVIEW 336: ABCD 2 (ANY BODY CAN DANCE 2) (3D)

June 18, 2015, 10:19 pm

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Release date:	June 19, 2015
Director:	Remo D’souza
Cast: Language:	Prabhudheva, Varun Dhawan, Shraddha Kapoor, Lauren Gottlieb, Raghav Juyal, Sushant Pujari Hindi

The first half of Any Body Can Dance (ABCD) 2 seems to be precisely what it set out to be: a tribute to musicals of the Broadway and West End – not Bollywood – style, meaning: a very slim yet not insubstantial story woven through a series of great dance routines. No better introduction is needed to the intended promise of this film than that superb performance by Prabhudheva in a bar  to the song Happy hour hai.

And then it peters out for a sizeable part of the second half.

In a film of this genre, a complex storyline is neither expected nor necessary, but you do need to wrap up loose ends and maintain an unrelenting momentum with your dances. ABCD 2 does not. In some aspects, it seems not to be even trying. Fortunately, after faltering post-interval, it picks itself up to do justice to some of the most fantastic dancers ever to be assembled for a Hindi film.

No, ABCD 2 is not quite what it could have been, but it’s only fair to point out that when the going is good it’s so bloody darned good, that I’d rewatch it without batting an eyelid.

Director-choreographerRemo D’souza’s ABCD 2 is sort of a sequel to ABCD, the sleeper hit from 2013 that featured Prabhudheva as dance guru Vishnu struggling to cope with the politics in his troupe and the games being played by a rival. “Sort of a sequel” because Prabhudheva is back as Vishnu but other actors from the previous film return playing different people.

Vishnu is an alcoholic and a genius who is pursued by disgraced Mumbai dancer Suresh (Varun Dhawan) to train a troupe for a world hip-hop championship in Las Vegas. Suresh’s team had earlier been thrown out of a major Indian contest on charges of plagiarism. Desperate to regain his honour, Suresh courts Vishnu until he relents. The road to the finale in Vegas is filled with potholes, not the least of them being Vishnu’s past, but the central characters, including Suresh’s childhood friend Vinnie (Shraddha Kapoor), refuse to give up on their passion for their art.

This being a film directed by a choreographer with multiple choreographers in the credits and several career dancers in the cast, it is not surprising that the dancing in ABCD 2 often boggles the mind. The cinematography is designed to inspire awe towards the dancers. Particularly interesting is the camerawork for the song If you hold my hand, deliberately designed to make Shraddha, Varun and Lauren Gottlieb seem like Lilliputians in a magnificent natural setting.

Both the cinematography and the choreography are well-suited to a 3D film. In fact, the choice of 3D was clearly not casually made. At many points in the film I felt I was part of the audience on screen. On other occasions it seemed like the audience on screen was seated among us.

The cast too is well chosen. Prabhudheva’s elastic body is part of Indian cinematic lore. Though he does not get enough scenes to showcase his legendary skills in ABCD 2, when he does dance he threatens to bring on a national epidemic of goosebumps.

Varun’s films so far have repeatedly showcased his considerable dancing talent. Though it is easy to separate the god from the disciple when Suresh matches steps with Vishnu, it is still evident that this young man is one of contemporary Bollywood’s best in that department.

The surprise package here is Shraddha. We already know she can act. Well. ABCD 2 shows us that she is a fluid, graceful dancer. It might be an over-statement to describe her as incredible, but it is obvious that she has the potential to get there. In fact, it would have been nice to see a greater focus on Vinnie in many more of the dance items in this film. 

The star dancer of ABCD 2’s youngsters though is Lauren playing the half-Indian Olive (not Rhea, the character she played in ABCD). The impact she makes is a measure of her considerable dancing skills, considering that she makes an appearance late in the second half. Yes the supporting players in Vishnu’s troupe are all amazing – in particular Raghav Jhuyal, Sushant Pujari and Dharmesh Yelande – but the one who chews up the screen with her moves during a solo act is Lauren. Tere naam ka tattoo is one of ABCD 2’s highlights.

The centrepiece of this film though is Hey Ganaraya which the entire team performs in Vegas. It must rank as one of the most beautiful stage dance sequences ever seen in Bollywood, complete with a stunning musical composition and rich costumes. This worthy tribute to Lord Ganesh is a brilliant Indian adaptation of hip hop which is an all-American freestyle dance form.

I wish the film had ended here. It did not.

I wish I could end this review here. I cannot.

ABCD 2 has too many flaws to be ignored. Firstly, too long a portion in the second half feels like a Las Vegas tourism ad. The dancing too, which is stupendous until the clock strikes interval, gets sterile for a while, with the early post-interval performances seeming more technically polished than drawn from the heart. All that changes, thankfully, with Olive’s arrival.

Lauren’s fire underlines a question begging to be asked: why do Remo’s films as director (F.A.L.T.U., ABCD, ABCD 2) have space for only one or two women in large male dancing line-ups. C’mon Remo, women are not exceptions among humans, they are a norm, just like men.

It’s inexplicable too that in a film filled with lovely songs by Sachin-Jigar and imaginative costumes, the director chose to end with a manipulatively patriotic number in which the men are togged out in awkward-looking outfits. Their semi-toplessness somehow does not work (despite the nice bodies on display), and the deshbhakti is just too high strung.

On the story front, the film seems often to be on the verge of telling us why Suresh indulged in plagiarism, yet it does not. How can a cheat be painted as a sweet soul without any explanation? Was the imitation unintentionally done at a sub-conscious level because he idolised the source and immersed himself in their work? Suresh and Vinnie seem to think he was unfairly accused, yet they don’t say why. This glaring loophole contributes to ABCD 2’s less than satisfactory feel.

An air of suspense is also sought to be built around Vishnu in Vegas, with him speaking on the phone to someone about money being arranged, yet we never find out why he needed that cash.

While the screenplay by Tushar Hiranandani and Remo can be faulted on these fronts, elsewhere the writers seamlessly inject sweetness into the proceedings, especially the Olive-Vinnie relationship which threatens briefly to blow up into a clichéd love triangle but does not.

Similarly, I just love the fact that a big deal is not made of Vishnu’s roots. Considering the cosmopolitan nature of Mumbai, it’s strange that there are so few non-North Indian, non-Marathi characters in Mumbai films. From an industry that might once have caricatured Vishnu, it’s refreshing to see that a song and dance is not made about his being a south Indian, or for that matter about his heavily accented Hindi.

It’s just as nice to see notoriously non-inclusive Bollywood feature a significant deaf-mute character (Punit Pathak) in the story. It might have been even better if we could have understood exactly how he operates. There are actually some interesting technicalities involved here, as I learnt from watching Neerav Ghosh’s Soundtrack starring Rajeev Khandelwal as a DJ who loses his hearing, and the film on which it was based, It’s All Gone Pete Tong. ABCD 2 leaves us with this grandiose explanation: if you feel the music anybody can dance.

If only a teeny bit more attention had been paid to the writing of ABCD 2, this could have been a great film. Well, even with its blemishes, it is remarkably entertaining. Now waiting for ABCD 3.

Rating (out of five): **1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	154 minutes

Photograph courtesy:https://www.facebook.com/DisneyABCD2

AGEIST BIASES AGAINST ACTRESSES / FILM FATALE: COLUMN PUBLISHED IN THE HINDU BUSINESSLINE

June 24, 2015, 12:49 pm

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TOO OLD TO BE SEEN WITH?

Age remains a dirty word for women in commercial cinema worldwide, despite occasional flashes of liberalism

By Anna M.M. Vetticad

In an ideal world, being a Bond ‘girl’ would not be seen as a fillip to the filmography of an established, talented actress. This is not an ideal world though. Today’s reality is that mass-targeted cinema is still largely focused on male characters and while age is not a disadvantage for major male stars, even the fittest of fine actresses are sidelined much earlier in their lives than men.

In this scenario, the next James Bond film Spectre and Dil Dhadakne Do(DDD) merit a discussion. Hollywood sprung a surprise on us just months back with the announcement that Monica Bellucci will play Bond’s romantic interest in Spectre. At 50, Bellucci is the oldest actress to get that role, according to Western media reports, and she is even four years older than her co-star Daniel Craig, which would not be news-worthy information but for the fact that a premium is placed on female youth in glamour industries worldwide.

Here in India, it should not have made news that Bollywood star Anil Kapoor was playing a grey-haired, 50-plus father of grown-up children in DDD. But it did, because senior male actors in India tend to play characters much younger than their real age. While Kapoor deserves the kudos he is getting for evolving beyond that, it’s telling that nary a whimper has been raised about the casting of a much younger Shefali Shah as his wife.

Because Team DDD seems to be a progressive lot, it is more important than ever to ask: was no actress of Kapoor’s age found suitable for that role?

Allow me to get briefly literal and mathematical to illustrate my point. Shah is 42 and Kapoor is 58, according to various online sources. In the film, they are parents to a girl and boy played by 32-year-old Priyanka Chopra and 29-year-old Ranveer Singh. If Shah was really their mother off screen, she would have been 10 at her daughter’s birth and 13 when her son was born. Biologically you know that’s a stretch, legally of course this would mean kids born out of wedlock or in a child marriage. You could have dismissed these calculations as fussy and silly if it weren’t for the fact that the screenplay writer is clearly not oblivious to this matter and makes a subtle effort to justify the casting by pointedly assigning the following ages to the four principal characters: Dad 52, Mum 48, kids mid-20s.

When reports earlier emerged that 48-year-old Madhuri Dixit-Nene and 51-year-old Sridevi had turned down Shah’s role, the media was critical of them. The two “got queasy” and Shah “has taken up the challenge”, said a report in a leading national daily. A dear film critic friend is of the view that “Madhuri was being un-adventurous” with her decision. But no one has asked if any Bollywood director would have dared to offer the role of Priyanka and Ranveer’s father to John Abraham (who is the same age as Shah), Akshay Kumar (who is less than a year younger than Dixit-Nene) or the three Khans who all hit 50 this year.

Longevity for female stars is not a favour being granted to them, but every major film industry in the world is guilty on this front, though some are worse than others.

In India, not only are older actresses given limited roles by producers and writers, but older heroes want to romance heroines young enough to be their daughters. It’s as if actresses their age are not worth being seen or worth being seen with.

In his last three films, Tamil legend Rajinikanth has starred opposite Sonakshi Sinha, who is 36 years his junior, Anushka Shetty (31 years younger), Deepika Padukone (age gap: 35 years) and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan (age gap: 23 years).

In interviews I’ve done with them over the years, both Kamal Haasan and Salman Khan insisted they are merely giving in to audience demands by acting with younger heroines. But how can you claim viewers have made a choice, when you almost never give them that choice? And if the audience does indeed make a regressive choice, could you at least have the courage to claim helplessness rather than endorse their illiberal view?

Unlike several Hollywood heavyweights, Indian actresses have rarely been critical of this phenomenon, partly because not every woman is convinced of the need for gender justice, but mostly because it is risky for them to question the status quo in their respective male-dominated industries (which are, let’s admit it, even worse than Hollywood).

Not that gentleman feminists have it easy. It has been four years since Prithviraj Sukumaran, then 29, gave an interview to Asianet in which he bravely called on his senior colleagues in the Malayalam film industry, Mohanlal and Mammooty, to “start playing their age”. Fans of both stars, gender chauvinists and status-quo-ists are still skewering him for the comments.

Speaking up is always a lonely business at first. It is time more men and women slammed film industries worldwide for turning age into a dirty word for actresses but a badge of honour for men. No, it is not a big deal that a 50-year-old woman will romance Bond. And no, Madhuri was not being “un-adventurous” by rejecting DDD; she was simply doing what any sensible male star of her stature and age would do.

(Anna MM Vetticad is the author of The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic. Twitter: @annavetticad)

(This column by Anna MM Vetticad was first published in The Hindu Businessline newspaper on June 20, 2015)

Original link: 

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/watch/too-old-to-be-seen-with/article7329772.ece

Photograph courtesy: (1) Spectre– Sony Pictures Entertainment (2) Dil Dhadakne Do– https://www.facebook.com/DDDTheFilm

Note: This photograph was not sourced from The Hindu Businessline

REVIEW 337: BELASESHE

June 26, 2015, 9:45 am

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Release date:	June 26, 2015
Director:	Nandita Roy, Shiboprosad Mukherjee
Cast: Language:	Soumitra Chatterjee, Swatilekha Sengupta, Shankar Chakraborty, Indrani Dutta, Aparajita Auddy, Kharaj Mukherjee, Rituparna Sengupta, Sujoy Prasad Chatterjee, Indrajit Chakraborty, Monami Ghosh, Anindya Chatterjee Bengali

SPOILERS AHEAD:

There is a warmth that envelops the heart of a certain kind of film buff when a veteran actor walks on to the screen. I confess I am that kind – emotional to the point of being schmaltzy. But even the pleasure of seeing the legendary Soumitra Chatterjee – reunited here with Swatilekha Sengupta, heroine of Satyajit Ray’s Ghare Baire– is insufficient compensation for Belaseshe’s painfully traditionalist view of marriage and almost laughable endorsement of socially dictated pre-designated gender roles within the institution.

Tagore’s The Home And The World on which Ghare Baire was based, gave us a husband who wanted his wife to have a life beyond the home. At one point, it seems that Biswanath Majumdar (Soumitra’s character in Belaseshe) shares that mindset. But Tagore and Ray were not faking liberalism; Belaseshe is. And so, in the end, Biswanath explains that he has come to realise a wife’s role in a marriage is inside the house and the husband’s role is outside.

What a disappointing, conventional conclusion from a film that starts out asking tough questions!

Soumitra here plays an old man who shocks his family by announcing that he wants a divorce from his wife of almost 50 years. Biswanath does not hate Arati (Swatilekha). He simply believes they have become a habit with each other in a loveless marriage that is not worth preserving. When she recounts the pleasant times they’ve had together, he tells her he thinks she loves domestic life rather than him. In a nation that deifies marriage and motherhood, how often do you see a mainstream film with the courage to articulate such thoughts?

Biswanath even alludes to his sexual needs and her disinterest. How often do you hear an old couple discuss such matters in an Indian film?

While hers is a relatively tepid character, she too raises a valid point when, in response to his complaint that she was not available for romance in their younger days, she asks him how she could have possibly spared the time when she was looking after his ailing dad.

These are all issues worth addressing. Is raising a family the sole purpose of marriage? Or should companionship be the primary goal? Is procreation the only purpose of sex? Is sex to be treated as dispensable in a marriage once you’ve had the number of children you want?

Biswanath’s decision to divorce Arati and the impact on their children could have led to a deep, much-needed exploration of the pluses and minuses of marriage along with these crucial questions. What we get after the initial promise though, are cliches, conformism, a cringe-worthy romanticisation of wifely slavishness and a transparent effort to trivialise modernity.

In a scene clearly intended to be highly romantic, Arati seeks to illustrate her love for Biswanath by revealing that she used to pick up the wet towels he would leave around after bathing and re-use them herself, to imbibe the smell of him; she would also eat his leftovers after each meal.

If you are moved by her revelation, forgive me for saying this… Ugh.

Before you present a counter argument, let me pre-empt it: I have no doubt relationships like Biswanath and Arati’s do exist. The issue is that the film pretends at the start to be questioning such marriages, then goes down the same old beaten track of glorifying them.

No effort is spared to please conservatives who are opposed to a dissection of marriage, who deny the intrinsically patriarchal nature of the institution, who believe every marriage is worth preserving at all costs, and who see procreation and child-rearing as the noblest of all causes, to be ranked way above friendship in a marriage, companionship, sexual pleasure and happiness.

Director duo Nandita Roy and Shiboprosad Mukherjee’s Belasesheis not the liberal film it projects itself as being. Nowhere is this clearer than with the difference in its treatment of male and female infidelity. Biswanath and Arati’s son Barin (Shankar Chakraborty) and daughter Mili (Rituparna Sengupta) are both having extra-marital affairs, yet the film makes only brief references to Barin’s indiscretion and ultimate penitence, whereas it dwells at length on Mili’s unfaithfulness and later gives us elongated scenes of her remorse.

In the end, Biswanath does precisely what he claimed he was against at first. He said he was anti a marriage being nothing more than a habit you’re afraid to break; yet when he returns to Arati it is because he misses the presence of the person who would pick up his dirty clothes after him and always knew where his shoes were. Just as he wanted, she has become independent in his absence. He, however, is too dependent on her for his daily needs. Is thatwhat makes a marriage worth holding on to? Why not hire an efficient maid instead of getting a wife? Biswanath seems to have forgotten by then that he had himself earlier made this point to the dutiful Arati.

There is also a clever attempt to deify tradition as symbolised by the old couple, while making light of modernity, personified by their youngest daughter Piu (Monami Ghosh) and her husbandPalash (Anindya Chatterjee). The effort to lend gravitas to Biswanath and Aratiwhile comedifying Piu and Palash is unmistakable. The youngsters are both TV producers. Theirmilieu is treated with the same disdainful attitude that makes the elderly in the real world routinely say, “Aajkal ke bachchon ka kya kehna?” (What is one to say of today’s generation?) Palash comes across as a buffoon. And from Piu’s tongue emerges such trite lines as this one: We are constantly social networking but there is no networking in this room. 

The cast is a mixed bag. Soumitra’s sensitive face is always a joy to watch and despite the faux liberalism of Belaseshe, it is hard not to be drawn to his Biswanath. Swatilekha has her moments but for the most part is deadpan. Of their children and children’s spouses, the most convincing performances come from Shankar as Barin, Indrani Dutta playing his wife, Rituparna as Mili and Indrajit Chakraborty making a brief appearance as her boyfriend. Aparajita Auddy, Kharaj Mukherjee,Sujoy Prasad Chatterjee and Anindya caricature their characters, which is a factor as much of the faulty writing as of their acting. Monami and the grandchildren fare better.

This is a theme that called for greater honesty of purpose and delicacy in approach. What we get instead is a please-all balancing act, verbosity and literalness. Despite the presence of Soumitra-da and the promising premise, Belaseshe is an unremarkable film.

Rating (out of five): **

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	141 minutes

Photograph courtesy: Eros International

REVIEW 338: MISS TANAKPUR HAAZIR HO

June 27, 2015, 11:10 pm

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Release date:	June 26, 2015
Director:	Vinod Kapri
Cast: Language:	Annu Kapoor, Ravi Kishen, Om Puri, Sanjai Mishra, Rahul Bagga, Hrishita Bhatt Hindi

Just reading this film’s credit rolls is enough to bring on an attack of the giggles. When they’re at their best, and given a good script, the four leading men of Miss Tanakpur Haazir Ho have killer comic timing. As luck would have it, the writing and acting hit the bull’s eye all the way up to the interval.The result is unmitigated comedy in the foreground without being insensitive to the tragedy in the background, of a young woman forced into marriage with an old man who gives vent to his frustration over his sexual impotence by physically abusing her.

Striking that balance is an art, and writer-director Vinod Kapri has a steady hand on his brush in the first hour.

The woman in question is Maya (Hrishita Bhatt), wife of the ageing and corrupt pradhaanSualaal Gandass (Annu Kapoor). Maya finds solace in the arms of a village youth called Arjun (Rahul Bagga) whenever her husband is away from home. The wily Gandass and his sidekick (Ravi Kishen) have a third cohort in their dubious games: the local holy man (Sanjai Mishra).

So far so good. The reason why the film works up to this point is that while it does evoke laughter in the first half, it does not seek to do so at Maya or Arjun’s expense. The gags are derived from mocking the villains or having a chuckle at the eccentricities of the locals.

Around interval time though, a chain of circumstances leads to Arjun being falsely accused of raping a buffalo, and that’s when it all goes downhill. From that moment on, as the situation turns grim all around, Vinod seems unsure about what tone to go with. He appears to want to stick to comedy, but does not have the finesse to handle such a grave subject through that genre.

Worse, the film seems unsure about whether bestiality is a grave subject at all. It even gets confused about what the issue at hand is. I thought the combined themes were spousal abuse and systemic corruption until a voiceover in the end announced that Miss Tanakpur was a film about the frivolous cases that crowd Indian courts. A fabricated charge of bestiality was a poor example to pick then, since there is little awareness about this crime in India and a majority of the audience would probably not have a position on it. As a consequence, the impression created – irrespective of the intent – is that the very accusation of a man raping a buffalo is a joke.

Does Team Tanakpur believe that such sexual perversion does not exist or is bestiality not to be deemed a perversion at all? Or do they think human beings should be allowed to do as they please with animals?

It is clear that the film does not want to make light of domestic violence or make wisecracks about rape in general. Its position on bestiality though is less clear, and it does seem at times to be amused by the phenomenon. Sadly, it ends  up trivialising both. Having enjoyed the first half of Miss Tanakpur Haazir Hovery much, it feels bad to say this, but methinks there is a special place in hell reserved for folk who make light of sexual crimes.

I’m not turning this review into a lesson on bestiality. Suffice it to say that having sex with animals is outlawed in some parts of the world (India included) while others have debated the matter. Miss Tanakpur Haazir Ho could have sparked off a discussion on the subject, but in its confusion about the tone it should take and in the absence of a commitment to the cause it seems to be espousing, it ends up being a lukewarm film.

Let’s be clear about this: it is both possible and acceptable to use humour to throw light on the most sombre of themes. Doing so, however, requires incredible skill of the kind Roberto Benigni displayed when he set an entire comedy in a concentration camp in Italy during World War II, in his lovely multiple-award-winning 1997 film Life Is Beautiful. More recently, (though not on a par with LIB) Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg used laughter to take the mickey out of North Korea’s Kim Jong-un in the highly controversial The Interviewlast year.

Step 1 towards pulling off such a blend is conviction. Step 2 is courage of conviction. Step 3 is great writing abilities. Miss Tanakpur Haazir Hofalters at Step 1. What a lost opportunity it is.

Rating (out of five): *

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	141 minutes

Photograph courtesy: Effective Communication

REVIEW 339: GUDDU RANGEELA

July 3, 2015, 10:00 am

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Release date:	July 3, 2015
Director:	Subhash Kapoor
Cast: Language:	Arshad Warsi, Amit Sadh, Aditi Rao Hydari, Ronit Roy, Rajeev Gupta, Dibyendu Bhattacharya, Amit Sial, Brijendra Kala, Sree Swara Dubey, Achint Kaur    Hindi

Last week’s release Miss Tanakpur Haazir Hostruggled to tell a serious story through the medium of comedy. The director of that film would be well advised to watch Guddu Rangeela. This week’s big release is a satirical thriller and consequently a roller-coaster of sorts, swinging from laughter to tears to hope to laughter to heartbreak to seething rage and then back to laughter again, unobjectionable for the most part, and largely staying focused on its central theme: the stranglehold that khap panchayats have on rural societies and state-level politics in Haryana.

For that feat alone it is worth watching.

That’s not all. Among the other reasons that make Guddu Rangeela supremely watchable, there is Arshad Warsi, an actor so charming, so likeable and so natural before the camera that his mere presence on screen is worth the price of a ticket even for a bad film (which this one is not).

Arshad here plays a small-time singer whose stage shows are a front for his work as a small-time crook. Rangeela’s partner in crime is his much younger brother Guddu (Amit Sadh). Their bête noir is the local politician Billu Pehelwan (Ronit Roy). The three get embroiled in a kidnapping that involves a teacher called Baby (Aditi Rao Hydari), a goon called Gora Bangali (Dibyendu Bhattacharya) and the caretaker of a bungalow in Shimla (Brijendra Kala).

Director Subhash Kapoor is credited with Guddu Rangeela’s story, screenplay and dialogues. He has a smooth storytelling style. Satire is his MO as we already know from Phas Gaye Re Obama and Jolly LLB. And he has a feel for the real India, which was most evident in Jolly LLB’s small-town courtroom shorn of all the glamour, bombast and cliched posturing that mainstream Bollywood has lent to the Indian judiciary. There was no “dhaai kilo ka haath” in sight there; only fumbling lawyers, a judge who would not stop eating and Arshad’s warm smile.

If only Subhash had stuck to his strengths – humour and realism – Guddu Rangeela would have been a flawlessly smooth ride. Sadly, he occasionally dilutes the film’s impact with elements that don’t fit the overall tone. For instance, the two romantic songs thrust into the proceedings, one per woman in the lead cast as if that’s a mandatory requirement. I’m not campaigning here for a songless Bollywood, but for songs suited to the narrative, like the hilarious “mowdern” bhajan Maata ka email that Rangeela sings at the start and the delightfully kitschy title track.

The humour in Guddu Rangeela is harmless, with one exception. It is unlikely that if a woman in the film had been raped, we would have been given a scene featuring her friends laughing at her wounded vagina. Why then is it okay to make a joke about a man who has been similarly violated? I understand what the director was trying to do there – he was showing us friends trying to lighten the mood around a man in agony. It might have been a good idea to devote more thought to that situation though, considering that the real world too tends to react with amusement when confronted with the reality of sexual assault on men. That scene is a marked contrast to the inoffensive nature of the rest of the film about which the worst thing that can be said is that it ends with a sexist joke about ghosts and wives already publicised in a trailer.

It’s also hard to understand the compulsion to serve up a love story whenever a woman is  around. It’s as if a female presence must be justified with a romantic angle. The liaison between Guddu and Baby here is incongruous and contrived, since there’s little chemistry between them, they barely speak, they have nothing in common and nothing can explain the ‘relationship’ that blossoms apart from an assumption some people seem to make that when a physically attractive human male and female are in the same frame, lowwwe is inevitable. Fact: it is not.

Far more interesting is the chemistry between Arshad and Amit. Rangeela and Guddu are sweetly in sync and well-suited to the older man-younger man bonding at the heart of the story.

The two of them and other motifs scattered through the film are deliberately designed to be reminiscent of Jai and Veeru in Sholay. The motorbike with the sidecar, the background score and the long-drawn-out climactic aerial shot of the dustbowl that is the Haryana countryside – it’s both amusing and endearing to see the film maker’s ode to one of the greatest Indian gangster films ever made, considering the contrasting tenor of the two films.

A word here about Amit... No actually he merits a paragraph. In a journey that has included TV, the small part a journalist in Maximum(2011) and one of the leads in Kai Po Che(2013), this young actor has displayed potential worth watching out for. In the mildly crude, buffoonish Guddu, it is impossible to spot the sedate Omi from Kai Po Che. Here’s looking at you, kid!

The scene-stealer among the supporting cast is Rajeev Gupta who was so impactful in tiny roles in the Saheb Biwi aur Gangsterfilms that it’s hard to understand why we don’t see more of him in Bollywood. Ditto for Sree Swara Dubey whose charisma was memorable in a brief appearance in D-Day (2013). She is noticeable here even in a fleeting role. He is a hoot as the corrupt cop Gulab Singh, delivering the world’s funniest Antakshari scene in partnership with Amit.

Aditi Rao Hydari is the only one who looks lost. Brijendra Kala delivers a pleasant change from the comical bit part player he has been in too many films. And Ronit Roy is suitably menacing.

For the most part then, Guddu Rangeela remains engaging because of the balancing act it achieves between its grim subject and its light touch. It also repeatedly throws up twists when you are not looking for any. This continues until the plot becomes a stretch towards the end, right from the point when a woman delivers a feminist sermon to a murderous panchayat – so believable, na? Then it turns out that Guddu and Rangeela’s seemingly  grand scheme to corner Billu Pehelwan had feet of clay. And oh yes, their accomplices turn up to support them in a shootout in the end, but we get no inkling of how they figured out where the two would be.

All complaints about Guddu Rangeela though are overshadowed by what’s worth recommending in it. Even when the film flounders, Arshad and Amit remain immensely watchable. Rangeela and Guddu never fail to elicit laughs or tug at the heart strings although, as the title track tells us, “Dono pakke ddheet hain / Aansu peete neat hain…” Such likeable rascals, those two!

Rating (out of five): **3/4

CBFC Rating (India):	U/A
Running time:	124 minutes

Photograph courtesy:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guddu_Rangeela

REVIEW 340: BAJRANGI BHAIJAAN

July 17, 2015, 6:51 am

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Release date:	July 17, 2015
Director:	Kabir Khan
Cast: Language:	Salman Khan, Harshaali Malhotra, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Om Puri, Rajesh Sharma, Sharat Saxena, Adnan Sami Hindi

I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a Salman Khan film so much.

Oh yes, it was Dabangg back in 2010 when director Abhinav Kashyap, Salman, Sonu Sood and the rest of the team struck a fine balance between being playful yet not stupid. Five years later comes director Kabir Khan’s Bajrangi Bhaijaan(BB) in which an excessively dramatised, play-it-safe finale does not kill its overall impact as a heart-warming entertainer.

The story had the potential to be terribly over-done: a six-year-old Pakistani girl called Shahida gets lost in India when she comes visiting Nizamuddin Auliya’s dargah in Delhi with her mother. She chances upon the good-hearted, naïve Hanuman devotee Pavan Kumar Chaturvedi a.k.a. Bajrangi who is constrained in his efforts to help her by the fact that she is mute and too young to write. When he figures out that she is from Pakistan, his attempts to legitimately get her home fail. So he decides to personally transport her across the border and to her family.

Now imagine this core concept in the hands of director Anil Sharma who gave us that India-Pakistan screamfest Gadar: Ek Prem Katha starring Sunny Deol in 2001.

Better still, don’t pain yourself by imagining that. Thank god instead for Kabir. The director of Kabul Express, New York (my favourite in his filmography) and Ek Tha Tiger, does an unobtrusive balancing act almost throughout BB. This film has none of the hollering or populist demonisation of our neighbour that spoilt the moving love story at the heart of Gadar. Nor does it awkwardly deify all Pakistanis in the interests of superficial political correctness. A thumbs up for that and so much else, Kabir.

As with all Salman’s films, BB too gives him the maximum screen time in comparison with his co-stars. As with most of his films, he brazens his way through this one too on the strength of minimal acting skills and oodles of charm. He was cute and likeable in Dabangg, in this film he is completely overshadowed by the supporting cast. Salman has been slow on his feet in films in the past five years, but Kabir has used his star attraction wisely here, giving him only one major song-and-dance sequence to shoulder and no scenes in which he has to race about unrealistically.

The list of scene-stealers in BB is led by Harshaali Malhotra playing Shahida a.k.a. Munni. Yet another great job by casting director Mukesh Chhabra. Not only is she incredibly huggable, this tiny debutant can also act. She is sweetness personified but she does not rely on that innate quality to get by, nor does Kabir over-cutesify her as directors of child actors are prone to doing.

Kareena Kapoor Khan plays Bajrangi’s supportive girlfriend and Delhi-based teacher Rasika. Though she is present in less than half of BB– and what a crying shame that is! – this fine actress does full justice to her role of a strong and broad-minded woman in trying circumstances.

Playing Pakistani TV journalist Chand Nawab, Nawazuddin Siddiqui enters the picture almost one-and-a-half hours into the narrative and walks away with the film. He owns the screen every single time he appears, which is why it is ironic when in that scene in which Chand and Bajrangi finally discover the name of Shahida’s village and Chand breaks into a celebratory dance, the camera zooms into Salman and the kid, cutting Nawaz out for a while. His dialogue delivery, his laughter, a rousing PTC (piece to camera) and that fleeting moment when he leans over to tap a colleague’s shoulder – every second that we see him is evidence of his genius. 

BB is blessed with other strong supporting actors too, among them Rajesh Sharma as a Pakistani police officer and Om Puri in a brief but memorable role as a Muslim clergyman in Pakistan.

What’s nice about BB is that it doesn’t rest primarily on its hero’s popularity as most Salman films do. V. Vijayendra Prasad’s story is affecting, timely and carefully crafted considering the hyper-sensitivity of elements in both major religious communities portrayed here. Kabir’s dialogues are for the most part bereft of bombast and intermittently humourous.

DoP Aseem Mishra not only delivers extravagant visuals in naturally beautiful settings, but also turns run-of-the-mill canvases into something special. I particularly enjoyed those shots of Munni, Bajrangi and Chand on a bright yellow bed of corn in a mini truck (though I confess I’m not sure corn would be transported without its natural casings in real life).

Though Pritam has not created any extraordinary song here, most are enjoyable while they last. Selfiele le re is particularly unmelodious, but all is forgiven in the face of the way Bhar do jholi meri is utilised to take the narrative forward when it is performed in a dargah in Pakistan featuring singer Adnan Sami in a guest appearance.

More than the music, it is the lyrics of some of the songs that leave an impression. I thoroughly enjoyed both the writing – by Mayur Puri– and the enactment of Chicken Song, which goes thus: Thodi biryani bukhari / Thodi phir nalli nihari/ Le aao aaj dharam bhrasht ho jaaye…

The situation quietly weaves in a message for vegetarians who demand segregation from non-vegetarians. In fact, apart from the overt lesson about India-Pak and Hindu-Muslim amity, what is interesting about BB are the many such neat asides touching upon various issues from media indifference towards positive news to a woman defying patriarchy, all without sermonising. Note, for instance, Rasika’s refreshingly non-DDLJ response to her autocratic father’s ultimatum to Bajrangi to get a house in 6 months if he wants to marry her.

That being said, there is much in this film that defies logic, but those flaws are overshadowed by the emotional pull that had me rooting for Shahida, Bajrangi and Chand throughout the second half. I confess though that the over-wrought climax almost ruined it for me, stretched as it was to breaking point, with too much use of slow motion, not a single situational possibility left for after “The End”, and the director’s balancing act between communities becoming strained for the first time. I cannot tell you what happens, of course, but it did make me wonder what we would get if Kabir remade Balu Mahendra’s Moondram Pirai/Sadma with Sridevi and Kamal Haasan. Would he allow Sri’s character to leave without knowing that Kamal is the one who had helped her while she was suffering from amnesia? Come back and read this question after you see the film.

Again without giving anything away, I could not help but wonder if under the present dispensation in India, where Hindu fundamentalists hold far greater sway than Muslim fundamentalists, a liberal film maker felt compelled to ensure that if he shows an Indian Hindu making a move towards saying Allah haafiz (Bajrangi never actually utters the words) then he had better pre-empt any offended sentiments by ensuring that this is immediately followed by a Pakistani Muslim screaming out the words Jai Shri Ram– more than once. Perhaps the prevailing negativity in our country has led me to over-think this, but I did wonder about it.

It’s a good thing this scene came after I had already dissolved into a puddle of tears as I watched Bajrangi Bhaijaan. My vision of that long-drawn-out climax is clouded by the tears and laughter that preceded it, by the touching transformation of the prejudiced and insular Bajrangi as a result of his encounter with Shahida, and by those two rockstars Harshaali and Nawaz.

Rating (out of five): ***

CBFC Rating (India):	U/A
Running time:	159 minutes

Photographs courtesy:https://www.facebook.com/BBThisEid

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PRO-HINDI & PRO-BOLLYWOOD PROPAGANDA / FILM FATALE: COLUMN PUBLISHED IN THE HINDU BUSINESSLINE

August 23, 2015, 12:10 am

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IT’S NOT JUST BOLLYWOOD, STUPID!

Language propagandists or a lazy media? Who floated the myth that the Hindi film industry a.k.a. Bollywood is India’s only — or largest — film industry?

By Anna MM Vetticad

“Aapki yeh karambhoomi Bambai hai. Aapka Kurukshetra ka maidan Mumbai hai (Bombay is the land where you will work, Mumbai is your battlefield),” he declared to listening students of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune. The speaker was actor Mukesh Khanna. The comment came during a recent panel discussion on NDTV India about Gajendra Chauhan’s selection as FTII chairperson.

Why did Khanna assume that the students’ karambhoomi would be Mumbai? Did he not think these youngsters would, could or should work in any of the other dozen-plus Indian language cinemas emerging from centres located across the country?


Khanna — current chief of the Children’sFilm Society India — sidestepped my annoyance as a fellow panelist. Not surprising. As he struggled during the show to name Dadasaheb Phalke Award-winning Malayalam director Adoor Gopalakrishnan, calling him “Gopal Adoor” instead, it became clear that he knows and/or cares little about Indian cinema beyond the Mumbai-based Hindi film industry aka Bollywood.

He is not a solitary example.

Indian cinema is not just Bollywood. Try telling that though to the vast sections of the public — especially, though not only, those from northern India — and the supposedly ‘national’ media headquartered in Delhi and Mumbai who casually use the terms “Indian cinema” and “Hindi cinema” / “Bollywood” interchangeably. Sometimes they at least acknowledge the existence of what is patronisingly termed “regional cinema”; sometimes not even that. Sadly, the rest of the world is picking up this vocabulary.

So what has led to the common misconception that Bollywood is India’s only — or largest — film industry? The answer lies in a near-invincible cocktail of political propaganda, parochialism, historical happenstance, media laziness and marketing.

India’s three largest film industries — Hindi, Tamil and Telugu — have rivalled each other since the days of the earliest talking films. According to Ashish Rajadhyaksha and Paul Willemen’s Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema, the first talkie in each of these languages — Alam Ara (Hindi-Urdu), Kalidas (Tamil) and Bhakta Prahlada (Telugu) — were all made in 1931.

In other areas too, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu run neck and neck. Annual reports of the Central Board of Film Certification show that 206 Hindi features were certified in 2011, followed closely by Telugu with 192 and Tamil at 185. The previous year’s figures: Hindi – 215, Tamil – 202, Telugu – 181. The costliest Indian film till date is reportedly Bahubali from the Telugu film industry a.k.a. Tollywood. As per media speculation, Tamil film legend Rajinikanth is India’s highest paid actor.

Hindi’s distinct advantage over the other two is in terms of reach since the language is spoken in more states than Telugu and Tamil. Now combine Bollywood’s laudable marketing efforts here and abroad with the underhand success of Hindi language propagandists who have learnt well from this theory attributed to Hitler’s minister Joseph Goebbels: A lie repeated a million times becomes the truth. Their efforts have entrenched another myth inIndian public consciousness: the myth that Hindi is the national language, when in fact India has no constitutionally designated national language.

It’s a vicious circle. English
 newspapers and TV channels headquartered in India’s political capital New Delhi and com
mercial capital Mumbai are
 physically closer to Bollywood than to the Tamil and Telugu industries based in Chennai and Hyderabad respectively. As is the norm with all lazy journalism, what is closer is given more importance.

Besides, most of these media houses have north Indian owners and/or editors who tend to see north Indian culture as the Indian norm while traditions of other regions are deemed exceptions. Most, therefore, hire critics to review Bollywood and Hollywood films, invest resources in extensive Bollywood reportage, and treat Telugu and Tamil as asides to be occasionally acknowledged for exotica (example: visuals of fans bathing Rajinikanth’s cut-outs in milk) or when that rare, heavily promoted, tentpole project comes around (example: Bahubali). Smaller industries are treated as intellectual footnotes (example: Satyajit Ray).

Nothing exemplifies this bias better than the coverage of the National Film Awards by English TV channels. In what is now an annual ritual, every tiny award to a Hindi film or star is headlined, while major awards such as Best Film are downplayed if they don’t go to Bollywood. The more the ‘national’ press ignores industries other than Bollywood, the more they help increase Bollywood’s market while also furthering the impression that it is — we come back to that — India’s only film industry or the largest one.

And so we have the bizarre phenomenon of an entity that calls itself the International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) appropriating the term “Indian film” to hold a travelling annual awards function for Hindi films. Equally bizarre was then Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit’s faux pas in 2012 while addressing the audience at the Cinefan film festival in her city: Indian cinema had completed a century that year, but Dikshit chose to term it “100 years of Bollywood”. Last year, Amitabh Bachchan delivered a 25-minute speech purportedly about “Indian cinema” at the International Film Festival of India in Goa. Out of the scores and scores of films and personalities he cited though, only four were not from Bollywood.

As the Central government prepares to celebrate Hindi Week in September, it is worth asking: if your karambhoomi is not Mumbai’s Hindi cinema, does it not count?

(Anna MM Vetticad is the author of The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic. Twitter: @annavetticad)

(This column was first published in The Hindu Businessline newspaper on August 22, 2015)

Original link:

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/watch/its-not-just-bollywood-stupid/article7561938.ece 

Photograph courtesy: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathanayakudu_(2008_film)

Note: This photograph was not sourced from The Hindu Businessline 

Previous instalment of Film Fatale: “The Rape of Avanthika”

http://annavetticadgoes2themovies.blogspot.in/2015/07/romanticising-rape-film-fatale-column.html

REVIEW 344: PHANTOM

August 27, 2015, 12:39 pm

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REVIEW 345: WELCOME BACK

September 3, 2015, 12:29 pm

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REVIEW 346: HERO

September 11, 2015, 12:35 am

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September 12, 2015, 6:38 am

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LIES, DAMNED LIES AND STATISTICS

Three months since FTII students went on strike against crucial government appointments to their institute, the propaganda war against them continues

By Anna M.M. Vetticad

They’ve been called “anti-Hindu”, “Naxals”, “freeloaders” and “Sonia’s followers” among other things.

In the three months since they began their strike against certain crucial appointments to the governing council of Pune’s Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), all sorts of labels have been bestowed upon students of this prestigious establishment by ruling party spokespersons and supporters. If the newly appointed FTII chairperson Gajendra Chauhan has displayed an exceptionally thick skin in bearing the open ridicule of his credentials across media platforms during this period, the students are no less than dermatological wonders.

June 12 was the first day of the strike. Irrespective of how the Central Government resolves this impasse, one thing needs to be said: that the defence of Chauhan has been done through an insidious propaganda exercise aimed at maligning both FTII and its student body.

Every propagandist knows the efficacy of mixing slivers of facts with large helpings of fiction to confuse the public. Repeat such grey lies often enough and even well-intentioned mediapersons could be convinced that they are truisms.

No better example of this strategy is required than these ‘accusations’ thrown at FTII student rep Yashasvi Misra by Rakesh Sinha — representative of the ruling BJP’s ideological parent, the RSS — during an NDTV debate on August 19. “In the last 17 years there was no convocation in that institution…,” Sinha raged. “There are students from the 2008 batches… for the last eight or nine years they are overstaying there.”

From all accounts, that figure of 17 years is correct, but here’s a question: how is the current crop of students to blame for this? Convocations are organised by educational institutions, not by students. Besides, the 17 years leading up to 2015 would include BJP’s own brief term in the ruling alliance at the Centre, followed by the party’s 1999-2004 reign, then the two successive Congress-led coalitions from 2004-2014 and finally, the past one year with BJP at the Centre. So, rather than an FTII student, shouldn’t Sinha explain why convocations haven’t been held?

As for the much-maligned 2008 batch, it took journalist Mridula Chari to point out on Scroll.in that they, on the contrary, were victims: FTII reportedly “doubled the size of its student body”, without increasing infrastructure, after a Supreme Court order that government institutions should raise the number of reserved category seats “even while it maintained the number of general seats”. Result: students struggling for facilities to create their mandatory graduation film. The 2008 batch apparently “were particularly unfortunate” because, according to FTII alumnus Jabeen Merchant who is quoted in the article: “At one point the institution, including the administration and the dean, realised that the backlog would spin out for all future batches. So they decided to contain the damage by giving priority to the batches after them. Students admitted later have finished their diploma films while the 2008 students continue to wait their turn.”

This is just a sampler of the effort being made to undermine the striking students. It is possible too that the ground is being prepared for privatisation of the institute in the future. That could explain why an impression has been created that FTII alumni of the past couple of decades have been worthless.

During a debate in early July on Times Now, actor Anupam Kher said: “In the last 15, 20 years… FTII has gone to dogs.” (sic) Kher’s comment was significant because it came even as he, an unapologetic BJP supporter, criticised the selection of Chauhan.

Gajendra Foot-In-The-Mouth Chauhan was himself widely quoted in the press soon after his appointment as saying: “Barring Rajkumar Hirani, the institute has not produced any important artiste.” He later insisted that what he had actually said was: “In the ’60s and ’70s the world knew the FTII students who passed out... Especially after Rajkumar Hirani, the common man doesn’t know...” (Source: rediff.com)

Well then, he should be educating the common people. In the nearly three decades since Hirani graduated, droves of FTII alumni have earned national and international laurels.

Resul Pookutty, a 1995 graduate, is an Oscar and BAFTA winning sound artiste. And from the 2011 batch comes Avinash Arun, director of Killa, which won 2014’s National Award for Best Marathi Film and a Crystal Bear in the category of films about children at the Berlin Film Festival. If money is your only measure, then FYI Mr Chauhan, Killa raked in big cash at theatres this year; if Bollywood is your only area of interest, then FYI Arun is also the cinematographer of the Ajay Devgn-starrer Drishyam and Masaan, which received two prizes at Cannes 2015.

Other significant figures who graduated from FTII in 2000 or thereafter include:

Gurvinder Singh, director of the multiple National Award-winning Punjabi film Anhey Ghorhey Da Daan (2011) and Chauthi Koot, which was selected for the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes this year.

Pankaj Kumar, cinematographer for Vishal Bhardwaj’s Haider (2014) and Anand Gandhi’s Ship of Theseus(2013).

Director Umesh Kulkarni who is at the forefront of what is seen as a Marathi cinema Renaissance in the past decade.

National Award-winning Bollywood actor Rajkummar Rao (Shahid, Queen, CityLights).

National Award winner G Murali, cinematographer of the Tamil films Madras (2014) and Rajinikanth’s next, Kabali.

And… That’s the point, there is not enough room here for an exhaustive list.

It’s not about being anti/pro-BJP/Congress/Left/Hindus/Naxals. There is only one position worth taking in this battle, and that, dear propagandists, is pro-cinema.

(Anna MM Vetticad is the author of The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic. Twitter: @annavetticad)

(This column was first published in The Hindu Businessline newspaper on September 12, 2015)

Original link:

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/watch/ftii-controversy-lies-damned-lies-statistics/article7637655.ece

Photo caption: (From top to bottom) Still from Avinash Arun’s Killa;Still from Haider which was shot by Pankaj Kumar; Rajkummar Rao in Shahid

Film stills courtesy: 

(1) Killa– Avinash Arun (2) Shahid– Effective Communication 

(3) Haider–https://www.facebook.com/UTVMotionPictures

Note: These photographs were not sourced from The Hindu Businessline 

Previous instalment of Film Fatale: “It’s Not Just Bollywood, Stupid”

http://annavetticadgoes2themovies.blogspot.in/2015/08/pro-hindi-pro-bollywood-propaganda-film.html