Dedh Ishqiya - A Review (* * * *)

I love the fact that the most crackling chemistry in Abhishek Chaubey’s ‘Dedh Ishqiya’ is between the male protagonists. This is no mean feat considering the film has the delicious pairing of Naseeruddin Shah and Madhuri Dixit, both seasoned actors who bring charm and humour to their scenes together. But the scenes involving Naseer and Arshad Warsi are on a different plain, drawing on the yin and yang qualities of their characters and infusing it with quirky comedy that made ‘Ishqiya’, the film’s prequel, such a success.

In ‘Ishqiya’ both Khalu and Babban, the characters played by Naseer and Arshad, vied for the affection of one woman, but fate has been kinder here. So while Khalu pretends to be a Nawab in order to win the hand of Para Begum, played by Madhuri Dixit, Babban acts as his butler and is soon besotted with the Begum’s feisty handmaiden Muniya (Huma Qureshi).

The plot is centred around the Begum’s search for a suitor who can replace her dead husband as the Nawab of Mahmudabad. The Begum has a fondness for urdu poetry, which is conceivable since Mahmudabad is modelled on a princely estate in the heart of Uttar Pradesh. Khalu may not be a Nawab but he is dead serious about marrying the Begum. It emerges that Khalu once saw the Begum dancing, many years ago, and has remained smitten by her since. The elements of urdu poetry and dance in a film that stars Naseer and Madhuri should tell you of the wonderful places this film intends to (and does) go. In scenes where Naseer is serenading the Begum with chaste urdu ghazals, you can literally see the ghost of his performance as Mirza Ghalib in Gulzar’s wonderful tv series of the same name. Madhuri has two dance sequences, which are just as mesmeric as some of her best work.

Much of the refinement in Khalu and Begum’s budding romance is in contrast to the crude, but entertaining banter between Khalu and Babban. For a while, their alliance is tenuous on account of a betrayal that Khalu may have caused Babban. But then there is no honour among thieves, and Babban’s ability to not take deep offence keeps this comedy on track. Levity is one of the many pleasures of ‘Dedh Ishqiya’.

This is a very well written film, based on a story by Darab Farooqui. Because the screenplay is penned by Vishal Bhardwaj and Gulzar, along with Abhshek Chaubey, the comedy in this film is nuanced and draws skillfully on the vast landscape that is the questionable motives of men. Betrayal of trust and manipulation are familiar motifs in films produced by Vishal Bhardwaj. Khalu and Babban may be conmen, but here they are surrounded by characters who are playing out their own schemes. Chief among them is one Jaan Mohammed, a local MLA and potential suitor for the Begum, portrayed inimitably by Vijay Raaz. How Jaan manages to come up with poetry provides one of the best gags in the film. Without revealing anything further, I can tell you that – a) it involves a delightful cameo by Manoj Pahwa, and b) it leads to one of the most hilariously satisfying climaxes I have seen in some time.

 I like ‘Dedh Ishqiya’ for the deep affection it has for Khalu and Babban, who, on the strength of this film, are sure to be consigned to film lore. Its take on the conmen-with-hearts-of-gold premise is both funny and rich with empathy. For all the hell they raise, Khalu and Babban’s romanticism and the grudging attempts to be better men causes us to care about them, which is what makes ‘Dedh Ishqiya’ a delightful film. The place they end up in this film could be seen as a comeuppance or an unfair turn of events. All I know is that Khalu and Babban are tough buggers who can get themselves out of any hole.    

Shuddh Desi Romance – A review (****)

An entire generation shares the predicament of Raghu and Gayatri, the cold footed lovers in Maneesh Sharma’s sparkling romcom ‘Shuddh Desi Romance’. They (sort of) love each other but the thought of marriage scares the shit out of them. This is the kind of film where a loo break acquires a symbolic meaning. You’ll see many of those here. This film has enough shots around the toilet to bring it on par with ‘Delhi Belly’.

Raghu (Sushant Singh Rajput) and Gayatri (Parineeti Chopra) have a vocation that I am informed exists in small towns. They rent themselves out as wedding guests. It’s the sort of profession that requires you to look attractive and speak some English so the family hiring them is perceived as, oh I don’t know, classier?

As the film opens, Raghu is all set to marry Tara (Vaani Kapoor). Since this is an arranged marriage set in Rajasthan, it comes as little surprise that Raghu has met Tara only once. Gayatri is hired as Raghu’s sister to accompany him to the wedding venue. Because Gayatri is played by the lovely Parineeti Chopra, Raghu’s wedding plans are quickly threatened. Sparks fly and, predictably, he runs off from the wedding.

 It isn’t long before Raghu and Gayatri are seeing each other. The scenes between Raghu and Gayatri are written with exceptional warmth and insight. Right from their first kiss to the point where both wonder if they can trust each other, Jaideep Sahni’s screenplay is completely believable and elegant. We sense that Raghu is a tad rash in their relationship, while Gayatri is more cautious. When confronted with the question of marriage, it becomes clear that they both have some way to go before they are sorted and have the correct perspective.

Through an amusing turn of events their relationship comes to a halt, setting Raghu up for a chance encounter with Tara. I liked the fact how in contrast to Gayatri, Tara is written as a more self-assured, wiser girl. She takes Raghu by surprise who may have thought that a woman prepared for an arranged marriage would be dull and conservative. He is smitten, but not to the point that he is over his first love you understand. We sense there may be some guilt over abandoning Tara that drives Raghu in this relationship and brings him once again to the cusp of proposing marriage.   

That is as far as I can get without spoiling anything for you. I will tell you though that this is a very funny film, where the humour flows naturally from the way the characters navigate their feelings and the situations it gets them in. I will also tell you that Raghu gets a lot of counselling from Goelji, a wedding planner, although some of it is suspect, motivated as it is by the prospect of organizing another wedding.

Goelji is played by Rishi Kapoor, whose flair for comedy shines through the constant befuddlement his character faces in confronting young love. The lead characters are also well cast, although the actor who looks the part the most is Vaani Kapoor, who makes a very confident debut here (Notice how she slumps into a chair and calls for a cold drink, after Raghu runs out on her). Sushant Singh Rajput’s performance as Raghu captures the evolution his character goes through in the film. And what a pleasure it is watching Parineeti Chopra. In only her second film as the female lead, she shows timing and range that is miles ahead of her contemporaries.

‘Shuddh Desi Romance’ is Jaideep Sahni’s eighth screenplay, having penned scripts like ‘Company’, ‘Chak De India’, ‘Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year’ and ‘Khosla ka Ghosla’. While he may have slightly tested the patience of his audience with characters who run around a lot before they figure stuff out, there is not a dull moment in this film. Like always, the ink from his pen runs deep. Eventually, Raghu is able to articulate his fear of marriage, likening it to locking the door behind you, killing the possibility of an exit. This is a truth about marriage, but not its point. ‘Marriage can be a lot of fun.’ said C.B. Samuel, a preacher I know who’s been married for more than 30 years. From what I saw of Raghu in this film, I’d say he’ll realize this someday.

Raanjhanaa - A Review (* * * *)

Aanand L. Rai’s ‘Raanjhanaa’ tells a story that is weaned on a close observation of small town romances. Consider the scene where Kundan (Dhanush) has a pivotal rendezvous with Zoya (Sonam Kapoor) at a fort. Great efforts were expended by Kundan to set up this meeting.  This includes stalking Zoya through most of his adolescence, pretending to be a Muslim, mustering the courage to tell her that he loves her and being snubbed 15 times. When Zoya does agree to meet him, he gifts her one of those musical greeting cards as a gesture of his love. I think the card plays ‘Unchained Melody’ when it opens but I can’t be sure. The scene is one of the many instances of sweetfaced innocence that leavens much of Himanshu Sharma’s screenplay.

Interestingly, Zoya shares her name with the lead female character in last year’s ‘Ishaqzaade’, another film that chronicled the tortured path an inter-religious relationship entails. But in ‘Raanjhanaa’ other elements enter the fray. Shocked by the possibilities of a romance with a Hindu boy, Zoya’s parents send her off to Aligarh and onwards to Delhi for further studies, where Zoya outgrows her adolescent love for Kundan and falls head over heels for an urbane student leader, played by Abhay Deol, who we shall call Akram. It is refreshing that Zoya’s attraction to Akram is not based on conventional Bollywood stereotypes of good looks and money. Zoya is inspired by Akram and is drawn to the possibility of being with a man who has ideologies, ambition and is remarkably self-assured.
 

Meanwhile, Kundan remains in love with his childhood sweetheart and resists the reality checks his friends Murari (Mohammed Zeeshan Ayub) and Bindiya (Swara Bhaskar) try to force upon him. This turn of events is interesting because it calls upon us, the audience, to consider who we sympathize with. Do we sympathize with Kundan for staying on course with his love, although he shows a remarkable lack of direction in his life and shows that he may not be good at anything else but loving Zoya? Could we blame Zoya, having evolved from her small town upbringing to a modern outlook, for choosing to be with a man who she can truly identify with and who possibly loves her as much as Kundan?

There is a soft social commentary underlying the frolicky narrative of ‘Raanjhanaa’, which gives it more depth than we have any right to expect. Remember Ram Gopal Verma’s ‘Rangeela’ and the improbable union between a film actress and a, well, vagrant with a heart of gold? ‘Raanjhana’ heads down a path that is more aware of the realities of its characters and the social divide India inhabits, albeit with a choppy and frenzied third act where Kundan becomes involved in political canvassing for the party that Akram started, all for Zoya.

While Dhanush, Sonam Kapoor and Abhay Deol are well cast in lead roles, this is clearly Dhanush’s film. It’s a clever casting ploy, even making room for his slightly dodgy accent by depicting him as the son of a tamil priest. Dhanush, as some would certainly know, is a big name down south. But the fact that he is virtually unknown to hindi cinema audience frees him from all the baggage of expectations that would have doubtlessly latched to a Bollywood A-lister and he acts with a remarkable lack of inhibition. He is a natural and I doubt if this film would have worked without him. In their supporting roles, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayub and Swara Bhaskar are exceptional and bring a certain chemistry to the friendship between Kundan, Murari and Bindiya.

‘Raanjhanaa’ is Anand Rai’s second film after ‘Tanu Weds Manu’, which was also written by Himanshu Sharma and was also set in a town in UP. It represents an increasingly prevalent & productive creative movement towards stories that emerge outside urban centres and are rich in social themes. Its biggest folly might be romanticizing characters like Kundan who are fools and who perpetually keep a blade close to their wrists. But then you look back to Kundan dancing like a madman, dazed with love, in the middle of a busy Varanasi street and, suddenly, all is forgiven.      

Delhi Belly

Delhi Belly - A Review (* * * 1/2)

Abhinay Deo’s ‘Delhi Belly’ is a brash, irreverent comedy that is so hilariously indecent, it must have set some sort of standard for bad taste in Bollywood. Say what you will about the film’s affection for all things gross, it all fits rather smoothly into the scheme of a caper. There’s a scene where a jar of turd provides the pivotal twist. If the very sound of that puts you off, you’re not the intended audience for ‘Delhi Belly’. To others, I say watch the scene and try telling me that wasn’t even mildly funny.

The plot: Our heroes Tashi, Arup and Nitin are regular 20-something blokes who share a dingy flat somewhere in Delhi. Their bachelor pad is a victory of production design, evoking a cross between a dumpster and a Railway washroom. Tashi (Imran Khan) is a reporter who aspires to strike gold covering some good breaking news story, but is stuck on the bottom rung interviewing starlets and the likes. Nitin (Kunaal Roy Kapur) is the far more content photographer assigned to him and the sleaze of the trio. Arup (Vir Das) is a cartoonist who works for, I think, an advertising firm and we see a dartboard with his Boss’ face on it to indicate his job satisfaction.

Things suddenly take a turn for the worse. Arup gets dumped, Tashi runs afoul of his beautiful colleague’s roughneck of an ex-husband and Nitin, well, comes down with a horrible case of Delhi Belly. The fact that the trio’s flat is always without water provides some of the loudest laughs in the film.

More sinister events are put into motion when Tashi’s girlfriend Sonia (Shenaz Treasurywala), an air hostess, hands him a mysterious package she picked at the airport at the request of a friend, to be delivered to its intended recipient. Fans of Guy Ritchie & Quentin Tarantino films would be quick to realize that the package is the McGuffin and thus it’s sorta crucial that there is some mix up delivering it for the film to work. A series of unpleasant developments sets our boys up against a gangster, played to perfection by Vijay Raaz. By this time the plot has sucked in Tashi’s colleague Menaka (Poorna Jagannathan), the trio’s landlord and a slimy jeweller played by that brilliant character actor Rajendra Sethi (remember him as the ‘Sansani’ reporter in ‘Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye’?).

The screenplay by Akshat Verma is clearly inspired by Guy Ritchie films and perhaps the biggest leaf it picks is to introduce conversational chemistry between the lead characters. Tashi, Arup and Nitin speak that peculiar Delhi lingo that’s random, zippy and (ahem) robustly profane. It’s not exactly Hinglish but, as the certificate says, mostly English with a bit of Hindi. Acoustically speaking, the dialogue evokes our own desi version of the cockney sound in Ritchie films.

Watching ‘Delhi Belly’, I was reminded of Krishna DK & Raj Nidimoru’s excellent ‘99’, a superior crime caper because it was quieter, had better stakes and featured more fleshed out characters. But as far as capers go, I suppose audiences prefer quirks over depth and a capacity for going over the top. And that kinda says something about Aamir Khan’s knack of helming successful productions. You have to hand it to that guy. If this film doesn’t work for you, wait till you see him slip into his disco shoes and butt pads & try telling me that wasn’t even mildly funny.

Waltz with Bashir

How deeply does war scar a soldier? ‘Waltz with Bashir’ opens with a stunning & eerie evocation of a war veteran’s nightmare. He sees a pack of feral dogs charging down the streets in pursuit of him. Soon, we cut to his wartime experience that explains the context of the dream so specifically, we see clearly the strongest emotion he must have towards having gone to war-Guilt.

This film from Israel has been called an animated war docudrama, which, right there, is a genre of its own. It was made by Ari Folman, a filmmaker who also fought for Israel in her invasion of Lebanon in 1982. A night of drinks with a fellow veteran leads Folman to the confounding realization that he has no memories of the war, but the conversation triggers a flashback where he sees himself entering war ravaged Beirut on a night lit up by flares. Everything that happens next is a build up to explain this vision as Folman retraces his role in the invasion through interviews with fellow soldiers. This may be the most productive work of art attributable to memory lapse.

Folman chose animation because of the girth of what he intended to show. His subjects share candid details about their experiences & visions during the war, and animation helps in depicting them through surreal, haunting visuals, set to a brooding electronic score by composer Max Richter. One scene evokes a scared soldier’s vision of a giant amazon carrying him away from the ship that ferries his regiment to a surprise attack. Shooting this scene in a regular film could be possible with CGI but it wouldn’t be nearly as beautiful as it is here. Then there’s a fascinating recreation of a soldier escaping towards the seashore after his commander has been shot down and his tank blown up. He hides behind a rock, hoping that his regiment would stand their ground and rescue him, but they retreat. Seeing his forces abandon him to imminent death, he instinctively recollects the overwhelming security he felt in his mother’s arms as a child. Folman cuts to show mother & child locked in embrace in the middle of the crossfire. The interlude captures the trapped soldier’s trauma with rare poignance. The soldier slips into the sea in the dark and lives to tell the tale.

Folman’s own troubling memories resurface during the course of the interviews and the film shows them correspondingly. They include a bizarre trip to the Beirut Airport, where he wanders through his hallucination of a swanky airport complete with duty free shops lining the hallway. We see Folman snapping out of it to find the airport wrecked & the segue between illusion and reality is kinda awesome in underlining the devastation. The context of his flashback is revealed in the final interviews recounting the massacre of Palestinian refugees in the Sabra & Shatila refugee camps at the hands of the Lebanese Phalangists, out to avenge the assassination of their leader Bashir Gemayel.

Keeping with the phantasmagoric mood of the film, the title is derived from a scene where a soldier literally breaks into a waltz while shooting at Palestinian radicals, in the backdrop of a huge poster of Bashir Gemayel. At one level perhaps, Folman may have chosen the name as a sublime allusion to Israel’s complicity in allowing Bashir’s partymen (largely Maronite Christians) to enter Palestinian refugee camps and commit genocide. Yet this is a film that’s less about Bashir or the politics behind the Israeli invasion than it is about the waltz, the mad futility of going to war and the consequent spiritual toll.

‘Waltz with Bashir’ is one of the most significant, extraordinarily profound & oddly beautiful film of our times. We’ve seen war films projecting soldiers who are stirred purely by patriotism. Folman seems to be hinting that this may not be true, at least not for his subjects anyway. They were just boys who may not have had a full grasp of what they were doing and why. One of the interviewee shares that he became a soldier to escape being branded a nerd. Consider that Folman himself was obsessed, not with ideology, but his own death so it riddles his ex-girlfriend with guilt for breaking up with him. Lives were lost in service to these motives. This is not the coming of age they’d hoped for. I think the filmmaker regards this with sadness.

The supreme point of this work, I suspect, is to come to terms with the scars that Folman & his brothers carry & must live on with. It was perhaps Bertrand Russell who once said that war doesn’t determine who’s right, just who’s left. Yes, and it’s the soldier who pays the biggest price.

Back with a Bang!

Ah freedom. After being continually flustered by domain name providers and their complex e-registration processes, I've set aside the dream of owning my custom domain name for now. I need to care for the ramblings more than a customized access to them. And so I am back with blogspot and this time i intend to post on topics other than films...so help me God. For my previous movie reviews click here.

The Dark Knight - A Review (* * * * *)

Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight’ is so phenomenally good, it makes other films on superheroes look like also-rans. This film is cutting-edge and has the kind of compelling drama rarely seen in blockbusters. It defies expectations of its genre and sets new (read difficult) ones, be it in terms of performances, writing & technical finesse.

While ‘Batman Begins’ finally tapped the mystique of the caped crusader, ‘The Dark Knight’ takes us deeper into the realms of moral conflicts that are endemic to the Batman Series. So deep, in fact, that the film looks & functions more like a thriller than a comic book flick. Principal to this effect is the film’s villain, the Joker played by Heath Ledger in a performance that channels loud hints of the acting legend he could have been. When Mr. Ledger’s Joker is on, you can’t take your eyes off him. It is such a creepy, magnetic portrayal that it justifies the film’s strange infatuation with the character. His method involves trapping his adversaries in ‘games’ that pits their morals against instinct. The film’s rendition of the Joker is so twisted, that he easily upstages the bustling pantheon of comic book villains seen on screen so far.

Picking up from where the last film left, the plot introduces the character of Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), the new district attorney, bent on seeing the mob off the streets of Gotham. Feeling cornered by the collective efforts of Dent, Batman (Christian Bale) & Lieutenant Gordon (Gary Oldman), the mob turns to the Joker. Using the links of the mob with the Gotham Police department, the Joker sets about executing sensational crimes, holding Batman responsible for not coming out in the open & revealing his true identity. Rachel Dawes, now played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, returns as the Assistant DA and as Dent’s girlfriend. So do the redoubtable veterans, Michael Caine as Alfred and Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox.

The film continues the vein of developing Batman’s wardrobe. The Batsuit is now more compact, more futuristic with a cowl that enables Batman to move his head more freely. Other details include the introduction of Bat sonar and the Batpod, a behemoth of a bike that neatly breaks free from the Batmobile.

One of the truly marvellous things about ‘The Dark Night’ is how well it develops parallel story threads to create a dense atmosphere. As one scene plays out, you can still sense what is happening in the background elsewhere. Nolan is helped by David S. Goyer and brother Jonathan in carving a canvas that is broad & engaging. Consider for example the opening heist scene or even the spectacular car chase. The pounding soundtrack composed by Hans Zimmer & James Newton Howard serves to create the queer effect of quickly jumping from one frame to the next, much like in a comic book.

Indeed, the whole production is so intricate and polished that ‘The Dark Knight’ justifies the tag of the best superhero movie ever made. But curiously, it delivers more resoundingly as a complex moral drama, one that thrives on tension and clash of personalities rather than pervasive action sequences. And all of the film’s virtues stack up around Heath Ledger’s final performance, the one thing that most truly exemplifies how far ‘The Dark Knight’ has gone to conjure an extraordinary experience. On being asked why he cast Heath Ledger as the Joker, Nolan reportedly said it was because Mr. Ledger was fearless. I had anticipated this film & Mr. Ledger’s performance since last year and the news of his passing before the film released seemed unfair and tragic. After having seen this film the only solace is that he went out on top.