Sankat City: What it could have been, what it is.

Originally published on Passionforcinema.com here.

Let’s begin with Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa. One of the few ‘Bollywood’ movies that dealt with a loser’s story. The movie made us sink into his shoes and helped revisit our vulnerabilities. It also commented intelligently on youth’s lack of choices, and only few clearly defined options of future that they gulped. Rather, forcefully. A loser who bent all the rules in the book, but still remained what he was – a loser. Although the last scene got trapped by the contagious disease called ‘Happy Ending’ or ‘binding all the threads together’ that had been prevalent in Bollywood movies since forever, even then the movie was one of the finest of the decade. Pankaj Advani wrote the screenplay for that movie. It always helps to know where the director is coming from.

But, Sankat City’s fault not lies entirely with director’s surprisingly stunted cinematic vision, but rather failing to realise even its most basic requirement. Living up to a promising script. A script that contains some of the most weird, zany characters, but when translated on screen, the consequence is not inebriated laughter, but listlessness . The jokes are inconspicious by their absence, and it hurts the movie’s prospects because social commentary is not the director’s aim here. At least not the primary one. Although Advani’s attempt is undeniably laudable and honest, but, don’t we all understand and appreciate the cliched ‘Don’t talk about the labor pains. Show us the baby’?

The most potent weapon in the movie of these kinds is dialogues. But, that is not a mean feet to achieve. Specially because one attempts to tackle madness with a subtle method. Less effective dialogues only causes the method to appear more wobbly at a tangible level. The method is then no longer hidden, but is rather exposed, bringing all the flaws on surface. Sankat City ails from this major problem. Ek Chaalis ki Last Local and 99 were prime examples of smart dialogue writing in the movies of same genre. Yes, I am not even attempting to raise the bar by mentioning Tarantino and Guy Ritchie. Even in the Bollywood playground, the dialogues of Sankat City are uninteresting and pedestrian.

However, Sankat City doesn’t suffer from hangover of any film. Pankaj Advani’s voice is essentially his own, and that is heartening to note, however detached it may be from tickling the funny bone is a different thing all together. Characters don’t become weird and interesting just by default. They have to prove their madness. The fact that Fauzdaar substitutes ‘j’ by ‘z’ every time he speaks doesn’t make him a very appealing character. There is nothing else he does to hold your attention. The character had a lot of potential to seamlessly switch between aggression and comedy. That’s what these kinds of characters can do. They coax you into their mannerisms, and when they unleash their venom with blinding alacrity, you almost feel guilty by laughing at the wrong time.

Fauzdaar does nothing of the sort. Briefly, when he chides Pachisia for not slapping the captive followed by a hesitant, wobbly camera closing up is one of the few times the character looked interesting. The movie had a motley of potentially interesting characters on paper. Consider this: A gangster who has a thing for sexy sirens, a homosexual baba, a con woman who is not out and out black, a goon who struggles with English as much as with his life and his overtly emotional co-worker, a stupid goon, and his lover, a sex worker. Pretty interesting characters these. However, the director’s inability to go full throttle with them robs the movie of many potentially rib tickling moments. When Fauzdaar meets the Dynamite, it could have been an insanely, complex, comical epic scene. However, Advani trivialized the whole thing by showing us a silly 20 second dance number. Amongst the pack, KK stands out. The consistency in his character is remarkable. Papa will geeo you breakfast, still makes me chuckle. It is not the kind of role we are accustomed to see him play. But, even then his execution looks effortless .

Over the top characters are a dangerous territory, not because they stand the fear of being rejected outright by people hopelessly running after realism. They are a dangerous proposition because they are difficult to carry. Some characters are intentionally over the top to quench people’s quota of laughter(Most of them are formulaic and poorly written too). But, one there is even a remote intention of taking a dig, the character’s loudness seems shallow. Because then, one is sure the mannerisms are supposed to justify the self depreciating humor dedicated to a much higher cause. Sadly, they don’t in this case. So, Chunky Pandey’s ‘Ye role different hai’, and the usual inanites that he mouths merely transports the message the director wants to convey. It doesn’t touch us in any way, and thus doesn’t a warrant a laugh. Same holds true for Lingam, and Dr.Zhivago. They are irritatingly loud and hence, mere caricatures who do not justify their presence. Here the character’s justification is not related to whether they mean something in the context of the story, which is obvious they do, but into the larger context of adding that quirkiness which movies like these are known for.

It is not as if Advani doesn’t have anything to say. He says, and says it rather well in plenty of situations. Most notably in the movie’s climax when KK and Rimi are trying to find the money in the heap of garbage. Isn’t it analogous to trying to make a fortune in a city which is full of scum(people)? Or, that scene when KK plays with his fishes. One of the few things in the movie(or, even in the dynamics of the frenzied city as a whole) that is not corrupted by the shadow of monetary gain. The fact that KK and Rimi Sen’s story don’t have a romantic angle to it. The swapping of bags and the meteor twist is really smart too. The movie has its moments, but few and far in between.

The movie could have been an intelligent homage to all the Bollywood absurdities we have grown up watching, and it gets some of the things right too, but on a macro level the movie leaves a lot to be desired for. It became a slave to a genre and couldn’t justify its place there.

I wish the highly discussed New wave Indian film making doesn’t resort to mere mutual back slapping, but rather cultivate and encourage serious criticism. Where every rebuttal is not encountered with ‘It is his first film’, ‘atleast he made a film’ , ‘the movie was made in trying circumstances’ , ‘go make a film yourself’ ( Lest I be misunderstood, this is a general statement and is not directed at any one particular!). Or, with excessive cynicism such as ‘Look! he is trying to sabotage our baby’. Our collective goal is much more higher and shouldn’t be impeded with such trivialities.

Do Bigha Zameen, Umberto. D and the Bicycle Thieves: Where Do Bigha Zameen falters

Originally written for Passionforcinema.com. The article has been orginally published here

The distinction is important. Amongst good, very good and great. Because, something which is merely good sometimes seeks to shelter and glow amidst the presence of myriad mediocre works, where it stands apart on a strictly relative plane, nudging mediocrity by an iota. And we often confuse and consequently, equate it to as great. Great it is not, mediocre it could have been, but to its credit, it is only good. This is true with respect to Do Bigha Zameen.

I was delighted to find a copy of its DVD in my University library. Having recently seen Umberto D., and earlier in year The Bicycle Thieves, the comparisons amongst the movies is inevitable as these three were not only made around the same time, but even their principal plot point was same – poverty. The predicaments of characters, vacillating needle between right and wrong, the unusual friendship that only poverty can give rise to is similar too.

Do Bigha Zameen dives straight into the problems of farmers, where the babus never give a moment of respite to the farmers. A world where farmers not only live on Zamindar’s money but also on their mercies. The stark contrast between the cunningness of rich and naivety of poor is portrayed effectively. The first half an hour establishes and exposes the grave problem of the protagonist. But, not before showing a fleeting glimpse of romance between Sahni and Nirupa Roy(My first movie, where no one called her Mataji). Fabulous scenes such as: When he coaxes her, and then drags her deceitfully to get drenched in rain. And when they talk like two love struck teenagers in the field, much to the surprise of a fellow tiller who thinks and suggests romance has no role after marriage. Nice observation, interestingly juxtaposed.

Then, Shambhu (Sahni) moves to Calcutta in order to earn quick cash so that he can save his land. His mother, as he calls those two bighas. The city life slaps him and treats him like a proverbial step child. Then the movie moves into the maudlin zone. And sadly, stays there. Bimal Roy along with the dialogue writer injects maudlin, over the top dialogues scene after scene, and paints a more sorry picture than required where the characters speak out aloud their problem. What could have been some quiet, poignant scenes of sharing sorrow turns out to be loud declaration of love and sacrifice.

Performance wise, the kid is so unbelievably shoddy that he takes the sheen away from what could have been very poignant last 15 minutes of the movie. His performance is a walking, talking guide of the many Don’ts in acting for child actors. Infact, Bollywood had its share of horrendous child actors, mainly in many Amitabh Bachann movies, where a 8 year old’s mouth was filled with such wisdom that you wondered whether to cry or die. Or, both.
Nirupa Roy’s performance is a delight. Her portrayal of a typical coy Indian housewife is not only accurate, it is heartwarming too. Specially that scene where she is dictating the content of the letter to be sent to her husband, and even a remote suggestion of little romance in the letter makes her shrink in veil. Amazing, little scene. Balraj Sahni is spot on as an idealist farmer, though he gets a bit jarringly repetitive towards the end as he sings paeans of morality every second scene with his son. But, that is just a minor blemish to a very controlled and believable performance.

Contrast it to the relationship between the father and son in the Bicycle Thieves, where there is no histrionics on play, the sorrow has bound the father-son together, and they don’t wail over their problem every now and then. Even in Umberto D, what is possibly the last meeting between Umberto and the Maid, when she knows that Umberto has resigned to fate, there is a only a faint eye contact; small, insignificant promise of keeping in touch, and things move on. Just like life.

While the protagonist of De Sica’s two movies are realistic, edgy individuals, Roy’s Shambhu(Sahni) is just too good to be true. So, when the landlady threatens to throw out Umberto of the house, he doesn’t cry or fall at her feet evoking sympathy from us. Instead, he retorts. His pathetic condition doesn’t rob him of any manipulation a perfectly flawed human being is capable of. Making him ordinary makes the story real, and his struggle all the more important and relevant. The character’s constant see-sawing between the two sides of morality in De Sica’s two movies makes them more interesting as compared to Do Bigha Zameen’s linear characters. There is no battle in Do Bigha Zameen, in fact a uni-dimensional, rigid, too idealistic approach by the characters that raises a huge wail whenever the line of morality is crossed.(Although the kid’s moral does sway a wee bit towards the end but his redemption comes gift wrapped in such a pathetic fashion that you wished it never happened in the first place!). There is no wrong in portraying idealist people in a world where they are misfits. It would have elevated the movie to a new level had it been achieved without being preachy, or without highlighting the halo of every character.

The penultimate shot where Shambhu clutches a piece of land, but isn’t allowed even that is touching. Here not much words are exchanged, but even then the director so effectively captures the essence of the scene. I wished the movie had more of that, but it sadly falls in the categories of many merely good movies which could have been great.

MS Dhoni - Split Personality?

[The article has been originlly published here. ]

India has never been a land where wicketkeeper's willow has dictated the terms to the ball. There have always been wicket keepers who can bat a bit. Yes. And I do remember Mongia's 152 against Australia, and his inconsistent pinch hitting prowess, Dasgupta's innings to salvage our pride against the Proteas. But, these examples are few and far. Wicketkeepers have always been the guardians of the tailenders. Nothing more. Nothing less.

That sunny morning in Vishakhapatnam saw a wicket keeper of a different kind. India was playing Pakistan. And while batting first, a wicket fell in the 4th over, and in walked a batsman, who was heard of only on the domestic circuit, and faintly in the previous series against Bangladesh. He made his way to the centre, and it was a clear indication that he had been sent as a pinch hitter. His first major one day innings, and all the team wants is to utilize the first 15 overs. The whole country would be content with a snappy 40. He begins his innings - for the lack of a polite word - shoddily. He knicks the balls outside off to third man, gets beaten. But, even then manages a brisk start. We don't care either. Runs are important, no matter how they come, one of the staple lines in the annals of a cricket commentator’s book is repeated for the nth time to reassure our woot against a nervous, inept batting display by a newbie.

Slowly, but surely, he settles. Both in the pitch, the international arena, and his own skin. And then he bats, as if there is indeed no tomorrow. He goes down the track, cuts, pulls, hits the ball for a single and steals a two. We are reminded that he would keep wickets for us, later in the day. Damn! He could get into any side just on the basis of his batting. Similar to Sehwag, he hasn't got the best of techniques, but, his hand-eye-coordination has pummeled Pakistan to ignominy. 148 runs at a blinding speed. Take that!

The biggest disservice to some one's talent is by labeling his work of genius as a 'fluke'. A one off thing. 148 was a chocolate syrup. But, was he here to stay? The majority was still skeptical. Dhoni blurred the line, some months later at Jaipur. There are some players with which you associate something very personal. For me, if you say Jonty Rhodes, the first thing that flashes my mind is him running out Inzamam-ul-Haq by breaking the stumps in the '92 World Cup. Every cricket fanatic has a distinct remembrance of each player. I never knew I would associate one with M.S. Dhoni, from that day on. It had to be that six he hit over the covers on the bowling of Chaminda Vaas. The beauty of the shot was, it was played with such nonchalance that the outcome of it seemed to be completely divorced with the effort. Effortless. He didn't even step out. He just planted his front foot forward, and the ball sailed into the stands stamped with Dhoni's brilliance. 183 runs he scored, that day. Did I say something about 'fluke' some lines ago? Pardon me.

Dhoni's batting was never high on technique. No one was oblivious to the fact, and we were happy to embrace it, because when he hit those attempted yorkers in the death overs with maddening fury, suddenly, the paragraph number three of the page 23 of the batting manual seemed oh-so-silly and supplementary. Dhoni was the weapon we needed in the death overs. We had always made hay while the ball was nice and hard, courtesy the Sehwags, Sachins, and the Gangulys. The lower half now looked all the more dangerous with the combination of Yuvraj and Dhoni, especially while chasing. Team India had a new swagger while chasing those days. Even 90 off the last 10, wasn't a big deal anymore. The big boys were in town.

Then, the team got embroiled in multiple controversies, and before one could get hold of what was happening - M.S.Dhoni was the captain of the Indian team. With great power comes great responsibility. Every Indian Skipper, it seems, is a big fan of this quote from Spiderman. Captaincy for the Indian players is sadly a license of not playing their natural game. It happened to so many before Dhoni. But, for all we knew Dhoni was the maverick. The new face of the Indian cricket. He took some brave decision, and India was back to its merry ways of winning. But, somewhere down the line, Dhoni metamorphosed from a slogger to an accumulator. Initially, he carried even this job with perfection, even sans any big hits, his strike rate was around 100. But, the question is: Was it required, the change? Is, M.S.Dhoni the man who is destined to rotate the strike, and steady the ship? Just because he is the captain of the Indian Team, now? We can have other players to do the job. Dhoni proved his mettle even in his new avatar (he averages a whopping 58 as a captain, as opposed to 44 as non-captain!), but, didn’t he sacrifice his natural self in the process that hurt the team’s prospects in the long run?( Although his average has increased considerably, his strike rate went down substantially too, and his strike rate in T20 has been abdominally low.)

So, when India required 60 off the last 5 against England to be alive in the recently concluded T20 World Cup, and when Dhoni walked in. It was still possible. After all he was the same Dhoni, who had hit Vass of cover for that six, who used to heave his bat to dug out the yorkers and send them sailing over long on. Or, wasn’t he? He had been playing like a dormant volcano recently. But, the faith that he would explode was still there. He did not. He could not. His identity that he had bartered to shelter the team's interest, ironically, betrayed the very team when it needed him the most.

Chungking Express

There are some movies that numb you, some leave you awestruck by its novelty, some inspire you, some make you laugh your gut out, some make you cry. But, I had never fallen in love with a movie. Not until I saw Chungking Express. This is not a critique of the movie in any way. This is my love letter to Chungking Express. Very few things, let alone movies have given me the pure inherent joy, as much as this movie did. So much beauty is packed into even the minutest of frame that you want to choke yourself with happiness. It is very difficult to describe what it feels like. It is an awful personal experience. Quentin Tarantino, once said in his own inimitable style with respect to this movie, “This movie made me cry. Not because the movie was sad, but, because I was amazed how much I could love any movie.”

The movie begins rather gloomily to a lovelorn cop, and takes us through protagonist’s same predicament in the second story too, but there is an unmistakable strong thread of hope that runs through both the stories. Hope is really an amazing thing. It is free and comes in many forms. For Cop 223 it came in the forms of Pineapple cans. He broke up with his girlfriend on the 1st April and gave 30 days to the relationship by purchasing a pineapple can that expires on the 1st May, each day of the month. If she doesn’t come by the 1st of May,the relationship would expire as would the pineapple cans, he believes. Through his soliloquy, he questions whether every tangible or intangible thing in this world comes with an expiry date? That is one question, that raises some circuituitous answers.

She doesn’t come to him and thus, on 1st May, he eats all the pineapple cans and consequently becomes sick. Relationships, if turned to stomach disorder, should be flushed down the toilet. He finally decides to fall out of love by falling in love (A debatable concept, but, won’t go into that for now!).

Even the protagonist of the second story (cop 663) keeps hoping and waiting for his love to turn up. Foolishly wishing she would leap out of the closet and surprise him. If only wishes structured the outcome of things in life. Meanwhile he keeps meeting the shy May at the Express restaurant, his past doesn’t let go of him to even think about the present. May harbors feeling for him, but their story doesn’t venture via the normal boy-meet-girl caper. Infact, almost bowing to an idealistic definition of love, she just keeps him happy without even being with him. That is where Chungking Express packs a punch, it goes to the idealistic realms of love without being corny. She tidies his apartment, as if the soaps, towels and goldfish are the only way of stepping into the inaccessible 663’s life, and she is happy doing that. She represents the change in his life. In truly one of the movie’s most ironic and poignant scenes, the cop 663 stands in front of the closet hoping to be surprised by his girlfriend. But, nothing of the sort happens. Instead, we see May hiding in the closet. Dejected on not getting any reply, the cop turns back. How often have we been near to love only to turn our back against it?

The movie scoops out dollops of realism moments before its ending. When the cop 663 expresses his desire of dating her, May agrees. She reaches the place of the date and is about to meet the cop 663. About to have an interesting conversation with the man, whose inanimated life she has changed. From a distance. Would the conversation be interesting? She is shy, what would she speak? Does she have butterflies in stomach? Does she see herself or 663? Or, herself and 663? Together? What does she see and think. None of the above. She sees the name of the restaurant she is headed towards, and possibly a beginning of a new life for her. She sees the name of the restaurant emblazoned in golden colours – California. It is raining. She sees the water droplets caressing her most beautiful dream, as if they were her messengers. Now, she sees herself and decides. Obviously, Wong Kar Wai doesn’t sketch the details for us, but the close up of the the california for few seconds is enough to get what is being said. She decides amidst all this, she has been missing herself. She wants to love 663, but, not by compromising herself. She decides its not time. Not yet. She leaves something for the cop 663.

True to her promise, May returns to cop 663. In a fitting display of roles reversal, he is working in the Express restaurant in the same fashion May used to (the loud california dreamin’ song blaring on). May walks in carrying with herself not only a calm satisfaction of having giving this relationship the requisite time, but also living her the life way she always wanted to, so as to carry no regretfull What-ifs of the past. The destination of the economic class boarding pass is unknown. But, it has two passengers. In love.

P.S : I have never believed and will never believe in quantitative estimation of a movie. However, this time I will make an exception.
Rating – 6/5.

The times of Harvey Milk, the times we live in…

Have you ever tried speaking while someone clutched you mouth? Did you ever lie to anyone each day of your life so that you could survive? Did you ever cuss at yourself for being what you are? Did you ever wonder why you were not normal, but deep within the true answer betrayed the answer you wanted to listen? Were you met with the stifled giggles of your classmates when you just walked past them? If the answer to all of the questions above is a resounding No, then you don’t know what it was like to be a homosexual in the 1970’s ( people have been a bit forthcoming of late, but those days were the pits). The times when bigotry spread in the air like a contagious disease, the time when a ‘queer’ man showed how one can fight for his own rights, fight for his own life and in the process leave a legacy which people would admire years later with exalted respect.

The movie Milk opens to Harvey Milk confiding his thoughts on to a tape recorder days before his death. He knew his end, because he knew the world well enough. He knew the people cloaked in fear and the repercussions of their action. On November 27, 1978 Harvey Milk was shot two bullets in his head. It took 26 years for the bullet to break ‘that’ closet door, Milk aspired for. 26 years. And this is just a beginning, a good beginning no doubt, but, just a beginning. Many closets are still tightly closed; ’religion’, ‘violation of natural discourse’ are just some of the weak latches. Common sense has never been the forte of human beings, constructing barbed wires and alienating a group has been.

In the first hour or so, the movie plays like a documentary. The camera is an indifferent, emotionally divorced viewer at times, objectively noting points from Milk’s life. It is too reluctant to do anything here, following quietly the phenomena that engulfed the castro streets in 1978. The movie doesn’t place him at the pedestal, but shows Milk as a normal human being, as turned on by power and sex, as any other normal human being would be. It is a transparent delineation of his life, and unlike A Beautiful Mind it never banks on those scenes that never happened in Nash’s life.

Milk is an important movie in todays’ times because our thought process is still a storehouse of conventional, contrite ideas, where the alleged law of God looms large. Neil Armstrong took a giant leap for the mankind in 1969, the very same year when homosexuals raised their collective voice for the first time. Talk about congruency. We make smaller notebooks every other month, but have we really shed our prejudices and moved on? This movie is a a crude reminder of the past, and a subtle gentle suggestion of what needs to be done in the present.

Milk as a movie works on various levels {feels great to use the most abused line in reviews :) }. It is not only about a man who fought for the homosexuals stood against the odds and faced the wind head on, but his life can also act as an inspirational model for he was a man who was proud of being himself. And he never cared a fig of what everyone labeled him as. Because, it is the certification in life from within that matters the most. Harvey Milk knew it. He knew it well. It is about a man who inspired a millions and gave hope.

Milk\’s Hope Speech is one of the most poignant speeches I have ever heard and has the magical ability to lift anyone from abyss and set one free. I am of the firm opinion that things change. That things can change, that things will change. I’m proud to be foolishly romantic. We can’t live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living, said Harvey Milk 32 years ago, and I hope. With a million wishes locked inside.

Are YOU ready to give it to them?

There is something about Delhi-6...

Originally Published here on Passinoforcinema.com

Why do we love Ramayan love so much? Of all the factors that peoplecan possibly come forward with, I’ve a relatively simple answer. We love Ramayana because of Ravan. Because, he distinctly draws that line. He writes it on the wall and declares which side he is standing. Now, that makes our job much more simple of where do we want to position ourselves. We need a hero, so that we may want to be like him. We need a villain so that me may stand on the opposite side of wall. Who the hell are we? Mixed vegetable hain sirjee. Thoda Paneer to thoda mutter.

Roshan( Abhishek Bachchan) comes to India to drop his ailing grandmother. He is flabbergasted by the loudness and madness, where every hour is a celebration of a celebration, where every minute is an event in itself. He neither loves it nor hates it initially, but, is rather fascinated by it. His Motorola cell phone connects him to a world never seen before. He is greeted by a host of interesting characters, who attaches a different meaning to every emotion experienced by him before.

There is not much of a story to boast about in Delhi-6, it is about the journey of protagonist, though to much disappointment, unlike Lucky, he reaches a destination. A forced one. In the first half, the flow of the movie is inconspicuous by its absence, there are sudden stoppages, hiccups, gathering and moving on again. It can be a bit uneasy as an audience to register this, but, since there is so much to show and talk about the Dilli, that the camera is just too busy doing the hopping business. There is just too much going on in the first half.

Mehra’s sense of subtlety, attention to details and metaphors makes it a delightful watch. But, when you have just basked in the essence of scene, Mehra comes back abruptly on to your face and takes care to spell it out. Why would one like to do that? For instance, take the beautiful conversation between Abhishek Bachchan and Rishi Kapoor, where the latter explains how he lost in love, and how desperately he tried salvaging it in whatever way he could. Kapoor’s one line seals it all, but, then, he explains himself again. One doesn’t even get the chance of reveling in that line before being explained like a 8 year old. Same for the fakir’s use of mirror, it was evident, but Kulkarni lectures about it unnecessarily. And these are not the only two scenes.

The music of the film, needless to say, is nothing but jaw dropping. Rahman. Period. Let’s move on. The dream sequence in Dil Gira Dafatan is nothing but amazing, but, after watching the movie, the standout song of the movie without even a speck of doubt is, Rehna Tu. Before watching the movie, I could almost imagine a Chupke Se kind of a treatment being done to it. But, after watching the movie, one realises that Mehra almost reverses the conventional treatment this song could have been meted to. And the lyrics makes perfect sense when viewed in that context. Mind Blowing stuff. Rehman, Joshi and Mehra killed me then and there. Drop dead. Watch the movie and experience the scent of these lines:

Haath tham chalna hiTo dono ke daye haath sang kaise
Ek daaya hoga ek baaiya hogaTham le haath yeh thaam le

And,

Mujhe teri barish mein bheegna hai ghuljana hai

Now, comes the most important part of the film. Climax. Rakeysh Mehra has a penchant of shockingthe audience, he just has to do it. He is not satisfied until and unless, he doesnt’ find anything out of the ordinary to end his film with. He almost killed a beautiful RDB with the garish climax, same happens here too. it seems Mehra is more comfortablelewith the journey rather than the destination. In both the movies, the first two hours flows naturally, while in the last twenty minutes you can almost imagine Mehra scratching his head and thinking about the climax. Thinking too hard. It looks as if he comes up with a ’solution’ to a problem more than anything else. Almost analogous to a 5 paragraph model students have been ‘programmed’ to write in most of the schools. Where is the fucking ‘conclusion’? Mehra wonders aloud. Why it has to be so forced? You may want to retort back. The last 15 minutes killed it. Almost. I say almost because because the first two hours is so damned well made that it would be atrocious of me to deride this movie. Logically, Maths does not allow me to do so. Nor does my conscience.

Film-fare? Awards...

Originally published here on Passionforcinema.com

It is that time of the year again. When Filmfare announces its award for excellence( in movie making? well, that’s for you to figure out). You might want to scratch your head and wonder why this article is there in the first place, isn’t it PFC? The place where we don’t look beyond Oscars, Golden Globes, BAFTAS and their likes. Where it is assumed(yes, yes, you guessed it right, the ‘intellectual types’) we think A stands for Akira, instead of Aditya and K stands for Kieslowski rather than Karan. I know. But, then the fact that these awards are the alleged representatives of one of the best movies to come out of our country( National Awards, you may argue, but then, is the majority of ‘aam junta’ really bothered?) makes one cringe with irritation after glancing through the nominations. I didn’t even think twice when one of the many illegetimate sons of Filmfare awards, gave Race the Best Screenplay. But, this is Filmfare, and in its 54th year. Oh darling ye hai India, we are different. By almost every means. We award a Maine Pyar Kiya over Salaam Bombay, when a portrayal of Aman Mehra wins the best supporting award, and portrayal of Bhiku Mhatre is given a consolation nomination. Well, I could go on and on.

The question I want to raise here is: What should be the yardstick of these awards? Should it go by awarding genuinely good movies, or, the movies which the masses lapped up? Once in a blue moon, a Hindi movie qualifies, which can do both. When did the Black lady lose its moral? For as long as I can remember the awards of early 80’s and the decades preceding it were still applaudable. ( Ardh Satya, Kalyug, Khubsoorat.etc were awarded the best movie).

Shouldn’t there be that balance, heck, I would even settle with that. But, year after year, what we have is senseless movies having a bagful of stars making it to almost all the categories. There is always a critics award, to keep everyone happy. A Power award so that the tube lights of the venue can be switched on. This year too, has been no different. Most of the movies about which people debated here and intricately pointed out flaws have been shamelessly put there. It is a starry night after all. Where is Mumbai Meri Jaan, Dasvidanya, Mithya, Aamir, and for me the best movie of the year - Oye Lucky Lucky Oye?

Bol Bol, why did you ditch me WHORE?