A Star is Born: Anuj Sharma

(This article is the property of The Sunday Indian and part of their publication "Ratn-36".)

In 2000, my mother took me to watch “Mor Chhaiyyan Bhuiyyan”; most of the film’s cast and crew were present. Afterwards, we invited them home for tea. But the person I most wanted to meet was absent. I didn’t know his name back then. So, when I met the producers, I asked them “where is the guy, the naughty younger brother Kartik, who lit up the screen every time he was on it; the one who had the audience going gaga…” Before I could finish describing him, they proclaimed his name: Anuj.

A lot has happened during the last decade. Chhollywood, Chhattisgarh’s still-nascent film industry, has gone through a definitive cycle of Rise, Fall and Rebirth. There has however remained one constant: the ever-increasing endearment of Anuj Sharma to the people that speak and sing in his dialect, share his on-screen life, and hope someday to emulate his off-screen Rags to Riches story. I have personally borne witness to this phenomenon on countless occasions, not just when he is performing on-stage but also when we are doing simple everyday things like going for a drive, or having an ice cream or watching a movie. People, especially those one doesn’t generally take note of- the doorman, the auto-rickshaw driver, the maid, the quintessential ‘have-not’- seem to materialize out of nowhere just to shake hands with him, to touch him. And boy, does he touch them- not just physically (something his numerous heroines, no doubt, would vouch for!) but also, much more significantly, at a deeper emotional, ethereal level. This fact didn’t escape The Sunday Times of India when it recently did a one-page cover story on Anuj.

I am not a film critic. But Anuj comes across as something of a Chhattisgarhi Brando: even at his quietest moments, he simmers and sizzles; he is both Chocolaty Romantic Hero and Angry Young Man, all rolled into one. Trade-wise, he remains Chhattisgarh’s most bankable star: 9 out of the state’s 10 biggest-grossing films have Anuj as their lead and not one film has celebrated its Silver Jubilee which didn’t have him in it. To say the least, his producers are never disappointed. His foray into television led to the most-watched show ever in Chhattisgarh’s history, Folk Jhama-jham, on ETV-Chhattisgarh. I’ve seen posters of Anuj’s films not just plastered all over Chhattisgarh- more than any neta, in fact- but also in far-off corners of Bhagalpur (Bihar), where he is a household name. Professionally, he helped re-launch his bosom-friend, Prakash’s fledgling film career, when they made “Maya” (2010), the highest-grossing film in Chhattisgarh’s history. And once every year, he gives a free performance at his native town, Bhatapara, personally bearing all costs.

But the reason I’ve been asked to write this is not to narrate what everybody already knows about Anuj; it’s to tell what you don’t. For instance, he’s completely and totally devoted to his Amma, who raised him singlehandedly after his father passed away. (Amma is, by the way, the best Chhattisgarhi cook I know, and her jimikanda cooked in curd are to die for!) He loves his wife (whom he married out of love) and his newly arrived daughter, Anumita, who has brought him not only joy but also an unending string of hits! He is remarkably down-to-earth, and can keep smiling- not just with his lips, but with his eyes- for a longer time than anyone I know: at his wedding reception, his all-winning smile didn’t leave his face for 7 hours as he personally attended to several thousand guests!

I also know for a fact that he can sing better than he can act: every time Anuj sings, I can almost feel the divine. Also- and this is his big secret- he has ghostwritten tantalizing lyrics for some very titillating albeit hugely popular songs! (Bhoran debe ka, being one such number.) He also has his likes and dislikes, and in particular, one dislike: the shameless exploitation of Chhattisgarh’s immense cinematic talent by a clique of mindless cultural illiterates. (You can also listen to my podcast of Anuj's interview to know more about his views on the subject.) That is perhaps why he was unanimously elected as President of our state’s Film Artistes’ Association: to protect, and if necessary, fight for their often-trampled Rights. Not surprisingly, UNICEF has chosen him as their Goodwill Ambassador for Chhattisgarh.

From there, it’s just a hop-skip-and-jump to Politics. Realizing his immense potential in public life, I’ve often tried to shamelessly lure him into this world, but Anuj hasn’t yielded. No yet, anyway!

Read More (आगे और पढ़ें)......

Best Pictures at this Year's Oscars: The Winter of Discontent & An Unruly Millionaire

In this post, I review the four other films nominated for Best Picture at the 81st Academy Awards (due to be held day after tomorrow, on February 22nd): FROST/NIXON, THE READER, MILK and THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON. I've also included DOUBT because even though it hasn’t been nominated for Best Picture, all four of its principal performers are up for acting awards. SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE has already been commented upon elsewhere. You can also read my film reviews at FLIXSTER and the IMDB websites.

1. FROST/NIXON: THE EYES SPEAK
You don't have to look like Nixon to portray him. That point was already proven by Sir Anthony Hopkins in Oliver Stone's film of the same name. But while Mr. Stone's film was a biopic, this one focuses on only one- and also, what was to become the last- public chapter in the disgraced president's life.

In that sense, Frank Langella's role is far more difficult: he had to convey the entire meaning of a man's life by mostly sitting at an interview, and using nothing more than words and- this, I believe, is the key to understanding his performance- expressions; in particular, the way he uses his eyes. No, he doesn't cry or stare; he doesn't even look away; what he does is that he doesn't look at you. And that's telling a lot about the man he portrays. In the famous interviews, Mr. Langella's verbal evasiveness just doesn't sync with what his eyes are screaming aloud. David Frost, it would seem, already had his confession long before President Nixon uttered those famous lines; long before the interviews started, even.

I guess Frost's real brilliance lay in realizing this before anyone else- and then, risking everything he had to get the interviews. In making this aspect clear, Ron Howard's film makes a contribution no history book or archival footage possibly can. Nixon's confession wasn't redemptive for the American nation only; more importantly, it was an act of self-redemption for the man who made it.

Langella/Nixon doesn't admit this, but we can read it very clearly in his eyes.

2. THE READER: MS. WINSLET’S SECRET
The Reader belongs to Kate Winslet: she is quite simply superb. Everybody else, Ralph Fiennes included, slip into oblivion. The sex scenes are- how does one put it?- both erotic and disturbing. When the Kid (played by David Kross) asks her if she- a much older woman- loves him, she nods. But the nod is everything. It means no and yes and also 'are you kidding me?', all at once.

Her past is demonic, no doubt, but I suspect that the viewer will (like me) come out of the movie sympathizing with her. After seeing the film, the question that perplexed me was why did she kill herself? The most obvious answer is Guilt. Yet, I can't help feeling that it might be something else also. Why for instance didn't this Guilt consume her before? And whether this Guilt also included her abandoning- not loving- the Kid, which, as we discover, leaves him permanently petrified- passive and polite? But she couldn't have known all that, could she? Perhaps- and this is the only answer I could come up with- she was ashamed of not being able to read, so ashamed in fact that she chose to spend the rest of her life in prison than let people know this. Like Salman Rushdie wrote in 'Shame', if you tell the secret, it invites shame; if you don't, you are stuck with guilt. Kate's character chooses guilt.

That she couldn't read was the only secret she wished to keep as her own, having no qualms about admitting to her other more horrific misdeeds: it was indeed the defining characteristic of who she was, the one thing that made her, and what eventually becomes our key to understanding her. Ironically enough, once that secret is gone- she does eventually teach herself to read and write with the help of audio-tapes of books Ralph Fiennes' character sends her- she no longer knows her place in the world...

But we can never know the answer for certain, and that is what makes The Reader such a great, beautifully multi-layered- and might I add, secretive?- film.

3. MILK: PROPAGANDA-PICTURE
The thing with biopics is that they tend to focus too much on their subjects even to the point of obsession, and in the process, they often ignore the fact that there are always at least two sides to every story. Milk is no different- and perhaps, it should not be. But when you go to see a Gus Van Sant film, difference is what you have come to expect (remember his mesmerizing opus on Columbine, Elephant): there is an unmistakable hypnotic quality about them. Milk is anything but hypnotic; at times, it becomes outright jarring.

And of course, it relies too much on the performance of Sean Penn: that is its principal strength but also, in my opinion, its main weakness. There is no doubt that Mr. Penn is a superb actor, the kind who quietly slips into his character's skin. In Milk, he doesn't seek to re-interpret- or worse, re-invent- his real-life subject; instead he blends himself seamlessly into his character. So yes: you can still discern traces of Mr. Penn's temperamental volatility in the determined if somewhat power-driven gay-rights crusader, Mr. Milk. This makes the film so much more interesting- as also the simmering tension between his character and Josh Brolin's, which lies at the heart of Milk.

And yet Milk is really about Milk, the politician, and tells us very little about his personal life. For instance, his lover (played by James Franco) is at best, two-dimensional. When he leaves him, we don't really know why. The script simply doesn't allow this aspect of Mr. Milk to develop.

More to the point: by focusing almost exclusively on his several failed election campaigns, what Mr. Van Sant offers us is not so much a movie as a propaganda film.

4. THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON: ONE GUMP TOO MANY
I love epics. Movies should be made like that: sweeping tales that light up the big screen. But they're not, at least not the ones that the Academy seems to like these days. The Reader, Milk and Frost/Nixon- all of which have been nominated for Best Picture at this year's Oscars- are more HBO-style made-for-TV movies than Epics (which is not to say that they aren't well-made). The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is unabashedly epic, and had it not been for Slumdog Millionaire, it would have, despite its shortcomings, been my favorite film of the year.

If Looks could kill?
I've always suspected that the really great looking actors & actresses suffer from an acting-handicap: their perfect good looks lead us to think of them in terms of gods & goddesses, and therefore any effort by them to play human beings is seen as flawed. This works well for those who can't act at all- like Bollywood’s own Salman Khan- as it compensates amply for their lack of talent; but for those who can act- and I mean, really act- it's nothing short of a curse. Sadly, Brad Pitt falls in the latter category. He is perhaps the most underrated actor of our time- principally because of his extraordinary good looks. No wonder he opted to act in a film in which the first-shot of him is as a horribly deformed baby that even his father doesn't want. And then of course, he begins to grow younger and also, more and more like the actual Brad Bitt...

The trick, I guess, was for Mr. Pitt to look the various ages he portrays in- and as- Benjamin Button. The wizardry of special effects can only do so much; the rest was up to him, really. (Remember Dustin Hoffman in the 1970 film, Little Big Man- back when they didn’t have this kind of technology.) He has terrific company in the form of three extremely gifted actresses: his mother (Taraji Henson), the love of his life (Cate Blanchett), and his fling (Tilda Swinton). Julia Ormond plays his daughter, but she hardly ever leaves the room. In any event, we remember them all having done such kinds of roles before- but not so for Mr. Pitt. (Not that he hasn't but we just don't remember it.)

The entire premise of the film, taken from a 1920s short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, seems to me to be needlessly weird; despite going through great pains to make it look believable, it simply isn't. After all, wouldn't a man who defies the most fundamental law of nature- that we must all grow old and die- attract our news-obsessed society's attention? Mr. Button, however, does not, leading a relatively uneventful unnoticed existence. Also, the whole business of a 90 year old man falling in love with a 9 year old girl edges a bit too close to bigotry for my taste.

But the single greatest flaw with this film is that we've already seen it before. Not one with the same title of course, but the way the tale is told. In case you are wondering, let me give you a clue. Two words: Eric Roth. He was the guy who wrote the screenplay for Robert Zemeckis' Forrest Gump. The only real difference between the two films is that while Mr. Gump grows older; Mr. Button becomes younger. Everything else- every single scene, every single character they come into contact with, every single shot, even the plot- are almost identical.

The Academy has already honored Forrest Gump once before; there is, in my opinion, no point in doing so again.

5.DOUBT: ALL THE FILM’S A STAGE
Great theatre doesn't necessarily make for great cinema. Doubt proves this. (The Lion In Winter, however, doesn’t.) Despite brilliant all-round performances by a sterling cast- for instance, every time Meryl Streep looked into the camera and I mean really looked, that icy stare, something inside me froze, the temperature dropped- there were a couple of times when I found myself thinking 'when will all this end'.

After all, the story doesn't really move, and all the action, so to speak, is intellectual. The expected duel between Hoffman and Streep never really materialized- with the former quietly slipping away. The central question of the film- can love be a sufficient justification for lust?- remains strangely unanswered. The film does little to influence the viewers' views; it ends up merely reinforcing them. (For me, the answer is No, and Doubt hasn't created any doubts in my mind about that.)

The moment of catharsis, when it does finally come, arrives in the form of a dialogue that Ms. Streep's character has with Viola Davis, who plays the mother of the black boy she believes Hoffman's character has 'made advances at.' It's a short scene, but boy does it surprise! Both actresses hold no punches back: morality, it seems, has no place for a mother who only wants her child to get away from the world she has brought him into. There can be no certainty about things like that. Material is prized over the moral, giving way to a new unorthodox kind of morality. Wasn't that incidentally also the theme of Vatican-II being held at the same time as the events this film depicts?

In the end, Doubt is all that remains.

6. Slumdog Millionaire: And the Oscar Goes to...
For millions like me raised on a staple-diet of commercial Hindi cinema, there’s nothing particularly novel about its plot: the relatively lukewarm response it has gotten from Indian filmgoers compared to the rapturous applause elsewhere is proof of this. Its rags-to-riches tale could well be a cinematic-metaphor for India’s own rise during the period in which Jamal, Salim and Latika's lives unfold. In so many ways, it is the story of India as well as those who have lived here through the tumultuous past two decades.

Its phenomenal ‘rules-breaking success’- to paraphrase the longtime film-critic, Roger Ebert- therefore owes equally if not more to the disenchanted times the world suddenly finds itself thrust into as it does to the movie’s delightful intrinsic-charm: after all, what better medicine than a good healthy dose of unbridled Hope wrapped in wondrously uplifting Jai-hos to cure the globe of its seemingly insurmountable Recession-blues? All the other films nominated for Best Picture at this year’s Oscars reflect the Gloom around- but also, within- us; none with the solitary exception of this film offers a way-out: even- or, especially- if the way-out is an implausibly exhilaratingly happy ending. And that is precisely what makes it work.

I leave you with this particular mise-en-scène: as Jamal weaves his way through Mumbai’s reptilian traffic to answer that one last remaining two million-rupee question, a wrinkly old beggar knocks at his car-window. Thinking she has come to ask for money he ignores her at first only to be confronted with the realization that she doesn’t want his money at all; on the contrary, she wants him to win it all. “Béta,” she beams to Jamal as he is driven away, “jeet ke aana.” [Son, win & come.] His victory, after all, would be hers as well.

Much as Slumdog Millionaire’s victory on Oscar Night would be India’s- and also of Underdogs everywhere.
Read More (आगे और पढ़ें)......

Film: स्लमदौग मिलियनैर की सफलता का हमारे लिए अर्थ?

Click here to read the English translation of this post. The translation was done using Google Translate.
मेरे जैसे हजारों-लाखों लोगों जिनके लिए व्यावसायिक हिंदी सिनेमा रोज़मर्रा की ज़िन्दगी का एक प्रधान आहार बन गया है, उनके लिए स्लमदौग मिलियनैर की कहानी के बारे में विशेष रूप से नया कुछ भी नहीं है: भारतीय दर्शकों की फीकी प्रतिक्रिया की तुलना जब इस फ़िल्म को अन्य जगह मिली मनमौजी प्रशंसा से करते हैं, तो यह बात बेहद स्पष्ट हो जाती है. इस फ़िल्म में दर्शित गरीबी से अमीरी के सफर की कहानी एक तरह से भारत के खुद के उस युग की सिनेमाई-गाथा है, जिसमें जमाल, सलीम और लतिका के संयुक्त जीवन का खुलासा होता है. कई मायनों में यह हम सभी भारत वासियों की कहानी भी है जो यहाँ पिछले दो दशकों के तूफानी दौर में पले-बड़े हैं.

इसकी अभूतपूर्व "सभी नियमों को तोड़ देने वाली सफलता" (जैसा कि लंबे समय से रहे फिल्म समीक्षक, रोजर ईबर्ट, इस फ़िल्म पर अपने लेख में कहते हैं) के लिए मैं वर्त्तमान दुनिया की अचानक हुई दयनीय हालत को उतना ही नहीं बल्कि शायद उस से भी ज्यादा जिम्मेदार मानता हूँ जितना कि इस फ़िल्म के हर्षजनक आंतरिक-आकर्षण को: आख़िर, मंदी के इस दौर का जय-हो के अद्भुत स्वरों में लिपटी बेधड़क आशा की एक स्वस्थ ताज़ी खुराक से ज्यादा बेहतर इलाज और हो भी क्या सकता है? इस वर्ष के ऑस्कर में अन्य सभी 'सर्वश्रेष्ठ फ़िल्म पुरस्कार' के लिए नामांकित फिल्में हमारे आसपास- और भीतर- की निराशा को प्रतिबिंबित करती हैं; इस एक फ़िल्म को छोड़, इनमें से कोई भी हालात से बाहर निकलने का रास्ता नहीं दर्शाती; हालांकि-या फिर ये कहें कि विशेषकर जब- ये रास्ता एक अकल्पनीय प्राणपोषक सुखद-अंत (Happy Ending) के रूप में ही क्यों न प्रस्तुत किया गया हो! स्लमदौग मिलियनैर की अप्रत्याशित सफलता का निश्चित रूप से यही सबसे महत्वपूर्ण राज़ है.

मैं आपसे इस एक विशेष दृश्य के साथ विदा लेता हूँ: जब जमाल मुंबई के साँप-नुमा यातायात से जून्झता हुआ उस आखिरी दो करोड़ रुपए के सवाल का जवाब देने के लिए जाता रहता है, तब एक बुढ़िया-भिखारिन उसकी कार की खिड़की पर एकाएक खटखटाती है. पहले तो उसे लगता है कि वो उस से पैसे माँगने आई है, इसलिए उसे कोई तव्वजू नहीं देता; बाद में अहसास होता है कि वह उसके पैसे नहीं चाहती; इसके ठीक विपरीत, वो सिर्फ़ ये चाहती है कि जमाल सारे पैसे ख़ुद जीत ले. "बेटा," वो जाते हुए जमाल को मुस्कराते हुए कहती है, "जीत के आना." जमाल की जीत आख़िर उसकी जीत भी तो होगी. ठीक वैसे जैसे स्लमदौग मिलियनैर की ऑस्कर की रात की जीत भारत की जीत होगी- और साथ ही दुनिया भर के सभी दिलदार आशावादी-उपेक्षितों की भी. Read More (आगे और पढ़ें)......

Slumdog Millionaire: What it means to us?

इसका हिन्दी अनुवाद यहाँ पढ़ें.

Note: You can also comment on this post at the IMDB website. Registration to IMDB is free.

For millions like me raised on a staple-diet of commercial Hindi cinema, there’s nothing particularly novel about its plot: the relatively lukewarm response it has gotten from Indian filmgoers compared to the rapturous applause elsewhere is proof of this. Its rags-to-riches tale could well be a cinematic-metaphor for India’s own rise during the period in which Jamal, Salim and Latika's lives unfold. In so many ways, it is the story of India as well as those who have lived here through the tumultuous past two decades.

Its phenomenal ‘rules-breaking success’- to paraphrase the longtime film-critic, Roger Ebert- therefore owes equally if not more to the disenchanted times the world suddenly finds itself thrust into as it does to the movie’s delightful intrinsic-charm: after all, what better medicine than a good healthy dose of unbridled Hope wrapped in wondrously uplifting Jai-hos to cure the globe of its seemingly insurmountable Recession-blues? All the other films nominated for Best Picture at this year’s Oscars reflect the Gloom around- but also, within- us; none with the solitary exception of this film offers a way-out: even- or, especially- if the way-out is an implausibly exhilaratingly happy ending. And that is precisely what makes it work.

I leave you with this particular mise-en-scène: as Jamal weaves his way through Mumbai’s reptilian traffic to answer that one last remaining two million-rupee question, a wrinkly old beggar knocks at his car-window. Thinking she has come to ask for money he ignores her at first only to be confronted with the realization that she doesn’t want his money at all; on the contrary, she wants him to win it all. “Béta,” she beams to Jamal as he is driven away, “jeet ke aana.” [Son, win & come.] His victory, after all, would be hers as well. Much as Slumdog Millionaire’s victory on Oscar Night would be India’s- and also of Underdogs everywhere. Read More (आगे और पढ़ें)......

Film Review (E): Chak Dé

Like most Indians, I don’t much care for hockey, more so women’s hockey. Once upon a time, Hockey was indeed our National Sport: those were the days of Dhyan Chands & repeated winnings of Gold Medals at the Olympics & inflicting crushing defeats on world-superpowers, which promptly shamed them into abandoning hockey-sticks altogether. But that was long before the Plague of Cricket descended upon India, creeping out of carefully trimmed bougainvillea boundaries of hallowed Residency Clubs with gateposts proclaiming “Indians and Dogs Not Allowed”- upon whose manicured lawns, our erstwhile Rajahs & Nabobs (presumably, the writing on the gatepost did not apply to them) were permitted the pleasure of proxy-battles with their Imperial suzerains but with nothing more lethal than a bat, a ball and three long sticks- and quietly spilling into those wide open spaces that the ‘natives’ used for no particular purpose other than perhaps, answering nature’s call in the wee hours.

Sport historians- in this Age of Superspecialities, I’m sure we’ve some of those too- would find that the Rise of Cricket didn’t automatically lead to the Fall of Hockey; some will no doubt attribute it to Cricket’s tremendous potential as a revenue-rainmaker on primetime television (the end of each ‘over’ and every ‘out’ and ‘boundary’ provides plenty of time to advertise such life’s necessities as “Fair & Lovely Men’s Fairness Cream”) vis-à-vis Hockey’s paucity to do so (half times, anyone?); others, not quite content with this slightly ‘Marxist’ interpretation, will cite the example of Football, which suffers all of Hockey’s handicaps (‘it’s Football with a stick, really’) and yet manages to be the West’s most popular sport. What they will not dispute, however, is the imminent coup de grace of Hockey. Not so anymore: “Chak Dé”, a film starring Bollywood’s current heartthrob, Shahrukh Khan and eleven incredibly entertaining women, might well have postponed the Death of Hockey if not entirely Resurrected it to the national centrestage.

Like Hockey, I am not much of a fan of Mr. Khan’s over-the-top theatrics: frankly, I found his stammering-Kks a bit of an annoyance (not to mention the fact that most women I liked crooned over his life-size posters while barely noticing my real-life existence). It was, therefore, after much resistance that I finally yielded to the inevitable: Mummy’s diktat that I see the movie, pronto. Quite sensibly, I did so after a rather satisfying lunch, comprising a delectable Ghost ka Salan prepared by a friend whose ancestors came from Kashmir, carrying with them culinary secrets of the Wazwan; in short, Chak De was intended to be little more than a substitute for a much-needed afternoon siesta. That it wasn’t. Au contraire, it was a movie unlike any other I’ve seen in a long, long time; quite certainly, the year’s best. And not because of Hockey, or even Mr. Khan.


At its heart, lies the full-throttle Celebration of the Underdog's Comeback. Yash Raj Films, Chak De’s producers, are no fools: they haven’t risen to the top of their business by making movies about outdated sports hardly anyone watches anymore; it’s because of their incredible capacity to tell stories that make us feel better about ourselves, about who we are, and what we might become; all of it happily peppered with the age-old recipe of Unity in Diversity. In this case, the story is inspired by real life. India’s humiliating defeat in hockey in the 1982 Asiad Games was attributed to its Goal Keeper, Negi, who apparently “gave away” not one or two- but seven- goals to her archrival, Pakistan. My father was there, sitting in the spectator’s gallery of the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium at New Delhi (thanks in fact to his current archrival and then Sports Minister, Mr. VC Shukla), when it happened: they- the nation- felt betrayed. Mr. Negi, needless to say, was disgraced, and retired to a quite life in Indore (where Papa was posted as Collector) until he resurfaced as the Coach of India’s nondescript women’s hockey team. Under him, it went on to win the Asian Games (if not the World Cup).

On the whole, Chak De remains faithful to this tale: the only notable- perhaps, necessary- difference is that unlike Mr. Negi, Mr. Khan’s character doesn’t quite yield seven goals to Pakistan for even a star of his stature cannot hope to carry the audience after a blunderbuss of this magnitude (notice, that I refrain from using the word ‘betrayal’). Instead, his character is allowed to get away relatively lightly, with no more than a penalty-miss. Let’s just say that it wasn’t his best day. The consequent disgrace, then, is attributed, in part to a witch hunt led by a hyperactive media but mostly to the fact that Mr. Khan’s character, like his real life persona, is also Muslim (hence, it would seem, the affinity with Pakistan). In fact, this subtext of communal ambivalence, so prominent even today in the majority community’s attitude towards their Muslim counterparts during India-Pakistan matches, makes the film’s adaptation prescient to contemporary India’s socio-cultural discourse, and more than justifies this corruption of Mr. Negi’s lifestory.

It also exposes, perhaps for the first time on the silver screen, the sloppy underbelly of “sports administration” in the nation: “the Federation,” remarks one player, “exists for us; not the other way round.” At the Atlanta Olympics, India’s best shot at winning a Gold in the Light Weight Wrestling Category was squandered because some blessed official of the Wrestling Federation entered our contestant (who, like Mr. Negi, also happens to be from Indore) in the Medium Weight Category, leading eventually to his- no, not the official’s but the contestant’s- disqualification. Apart from this evidently insurmountable bureaucratic malaise, the film also criticizes the political compulsion to provide adequate ‘representation’ to all the states while constituting national teams. In an early roll-call scene, Mr. Khan’s character bars players from playing so long as they continue to introduce themselves by shouting their names followed quickly by those of their domicile-states; and it is only after they realize that they are all infact playing for IN-DI-YA that they’re allowed to commence training.

Frankly, I find it difficult to subscribe to the film’s anti-reservation stance: in a Utopia of equalities, it might well be different; but where not every state has the facility to produce world class players on their own, it would be insane, not to mention unfair, to populate the team with players from say, Mumbai, on the sole pretext that they’re better. As it is, better players are, like everything else, increasingly becoming products of laissez affaire market forces, which are yet to permeate into the nation’s predominantly rural hinterland. Sui Mui Kerketta, a key-player in Mr. Khan’s inimitable team, hails from a remote part of Jharkhand (in actuality, however, she is a Tamilian): this fact, more than any other, would have weighed in her favor in ultimately landing her a spot on the national team.

For the record, this Blog believes that Affirmative Action is intended to ‘promote equal opportunities for all’ where they do not formerly exist; to do away it, therefore, would be a validation for inequalities- historical, social, regional and economic- to continue in perpetuity. Needless to say, over time, the scope of affirmative action itself is intended to reduce in direct proportion to the overall reduction of inequalities; to increase its prevalence simply due to considerations of Macphersonian votebank politics, as is often the case, defeats its very purpose. For instance, the basis for the application of affirmative action to Muslims ought to be “The Sachar Committee Report”; not the indiscreet wooing of the minority voter (but this is a subject matter befitting a separate entry).


The issue of Gender Politics is also dealt with somewhat unabashedly: in one mise en scène, the women’s hockey team quite literally beats a bunch of juvenile eve-teasers at a local McDonald's, no doubt drawing inspiration from their counterparts on the women’s wrestling team. In yet another scene, a ‘senior’ player, passed over for captaincy by Mr. Khan, offers her body to him (needless to say, he refuses, pontificating that “this is the reason why you aren’t captain in the first place”). Even more intriguingly, the onscreen portrayal of an ultimately doomed romance between the team’s centre-forward and the celebrity Vice Captain of Team India, who couldn’t care less about his paramour’s profession, becomes a metaphor for the off-screen relationship between the two sports: Hockey and Cricket do make rather strange bedfellows.

In the end, what makes this film work, especially with non-hockey, non-Shahrukh viewers like me, are the heartwarming performances of the eleven women players; none of them are professional actors, and it is perhaps this fact, more than anything else, which imparts to their characters, a kind of spontaneous vulnerability that has us rooting for them all the way: Chak Dé, India!

AJ
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Film Review (D): Namasté London

Note: You can also comment on this post at the IMDB website.
Namasté London is a tedious film: it seeks to readapt Manoj Kumar’s “Purab aur Paschim” [East and West] to our times but the outcome is a yarn based on highly improbable and unbelievable premises.

For one thing, no first-generation NRI-Londoner [Rishi Kapoor] can possibly trick his remarkably liberated and fiercely independent adult-daughter [Katrina Kaif] into marrying a desi Punjabi [Akshay Kumar] while ostensibly “taking a journey across India to see the Taj Mahal”. Moreover, no self-respecting hot-blooded desi Punjabi is going to hang around London watching his ‘wife’ paint the town red with her fiancé- a spoilt and thrice-divorced heir of a British tycoon- in the hope that she will eventually come running back into his arms. As things turn out, that is exactly what happens.

Only two sequences stand out: first, the family’s hilarious interviewing of suitable matches for their daughter, including a lap-top yielding software-analyst from Hyderabad who demands to have a premarital ‘physical compatibility’ test with the prospective bride-to-be, and another loony from Delhi who thinks he is a character in an Ekta Kapoor soap-opera; secondly, a quiet family scene at the dinner table, which stands out for Rishi Kapoor’s efforts at suppressing his laughter. Apart from this, there is nothing else to the film.

Watch it only if you haven’t got anything better to do. Or, as in the case of the incorrigible Mohit Singhania, if your world begins and ends with Ms. Kaif!

AJ Read More (आगे और पढ़ें)......

The Oscar Postscript

Of my three predictions, only one- the Best Actress award for Ms. Mirren- has materialized. Mr. Forest Whitaker’s award winning portrayal of the ousted Ugandan dictator, Idi Amin- his artful depiction of shades of humanity in what is unquestionably the Face of Evil à la Herr Bruno Ganz's characterisation of Adolf Hitler in Der Untergang (2004)- confirms my previously-voiced suspicion regarding “the Academy’s penchant for rewarding reel-life portrayals of real-life figures”. As far as this year’s Oscars go, General Idi Amin has waltzed away with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth (which is probably what happened at the customary post-Oscar Governor’s Ball).

Most intriguingly, The Departed, the one film I had expected not to win, was awarded Best Picture, while its director, Mr. Martin Scorsese, has walked away with the Best Director trophy. I attribute this to two possible factors: first of course is the sympathy Academy members must have felt towards Mr. Scorsese, who hadn’t won a single Oscar despite being nominated at least six times; secondly, the fact that of the five nominated films, only The Departed- ‘my first film with a plot,’ as its director describes it- told a truly all-American tale, and one that felt closest home to members of the Academy: a story of convoluted LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department) cops. The Rest- especially my choice, Babel- might have been, well, a bit too exotic. Ironically, this undermines the much-touted claim of the 2007 Oscar as having been ‘a celebration of international cinema’.

Sympathy also accounts for Ms. Jennifer Hudson’s winning Best Actress in a Supporting Role. She might not have become the ‘American Idol’ but that didn’t stop her from gaining the nation’s sympathy as the hit show’s most loved underdog contestant. In my opinion, Rinko Kikuchi (Babel) was by far, the best choice: her understated performance as an undersexed deaf-mute teenager, especially when juxtaposed against the alienation of contemporary Tokyo, powerfully epitomizes the angst of youth everywhere. Mr. Alan Arkin's role in Little Miss Sunshine, as an over-the-top nymphomaniac Vietnam war veteran heroin-addict 'Grandpa', fits well with the edgy-humour style perfected by him at the Second City Comedy troupe at Chicago. It is well worthy of the Best Actor in a Supporting Role award.

As far as Ms. Ellen DeGeneres’ performance as the show’s hostess went, I think it was just a tad too edgy: vacuuming the red carpet in the middle of the ceremony might make for good slapstick; but it also hints at an unwarranted desperation for getting laughs out of an equally desperate 'we're-here-to-enjoy-the-evening' audience that is only too willing to oblige. Hopefully, she should have several more Oscar nights lined up to hone her comical craft.

AJ Read More (आगे और पढ़ें)......

And this year’s Oscar goes to…

Very recently, my namesake and I made a bet: Amit Tiwari, donning his soothsayer’s cap, has predicted that Little Miss Sunshine will walk away with this year’s golden statuette; I have my hopes pinned on Babel, the intertwined cross-cultural yarn filmed by the Mexican auteur, Alejandro González Iñárritu. The prize: dinner at the Delhi Dublin (inclusive of airfare, and at least, two shots of Pink Breast). In the event that neither wins, and the Oscar goes to one of the other three contenders- The Queen, Letters from Iwo Jima and Departed- then the bet’s off, and we go Dutch.

We do, however, agree on one thing: Helen Mirren’s portrayal of QE is a sure-shot winner for the Best Actress’s trophy. For the record, we are familiar with only two of the other nominees’ works: Meryl Streep (The Devil Wears Prada) and Penelope Cruz (Volver). Be that as it may, the Academy’s penchant for rewarding reel-life portrayals of real-life figures- remember Geoffrey Rush’s David Helfgott (Shine, 1996), Russell Crowe’s John Nash (A Beautiful Mind, 2001) and Julia Roberts’ Erin Brockowich (2000)- together with Ms. Mirren’s meticulous study of her character, right down to Her Majesty’s penguinesque walk, and the Americans’ underlying Anglophilia makes her the top contender. As far as Best Actor goes, I am quite sure that the young and talented Leonardo di Caprio (Blood Diamond) shall have to wait: although his character isn’t quite black & white- something that should work to his advantage- action heroes, as a rule, don’t get rewarded. Personally, my vote’s for Peter o’ Toole: he should have got one long ago, and it’s about time the Academy made amends.

This weekend, a billion cinema-aficionados shall undoubtedly be burning the midnight oil. For my namesake and I, that will mean staying awake till early Monday morning to figure out just who’s going to buy those tickets…

AJ Read More (आगे और पढ़ें)......

Film Recommendations for Diwali and Id

Looking for God
I’ve spent this Diwali in bed, thanks to an epidemic of viral fever. My namesake, Amit Tiwari, brought home three DVDs to keep me entertained during the few waking hours I’ve before the relay-course of medications begin to make me drowsy all over again: Woody Allen’s Match Point, Duncan Tucker’s Transamerica, and the French-Canadian filmmaker, Jean Marc Vallée’s C.R.A.Z.Y. Unlike his previous recommendations, all of them were quite simply brilliant.

Mr. Allen’s film marks a break from his earlier repertoire: Match Point isn’t an ‘intellectually funny’ movie; it isn’t even set in New York. Put briefly, it’s the story of a tennis coach who must choose between lust (his passion for a struggling American actress) and happiness (marital bliss with a wealthy British heiress): or as the character played by Jonathan Rhys-Myer says, between ‘good and luck’. Ultimately, for Allen, good- and God- don’t exist. What’s more: in this case, we, the audience, don’t want Him to intervene, even as Mr. Rhys-Myer’s character turns wickedly immoral.

Mr. Tucker’s Transamerica explores the cross-country relationship between a transsexual woman, played superbly by Felicity Huffman, and her newly found bisexual hustler-son, played by Kevin Zeger. The scene when Ms. Huffman tells Mr. Zeger’s character that she is really his father is to die for. Again: Mr. Tucker, like Mr. Allen, irreverentially shuns all moral judgement, in what is essentially a celebration of Freedom of Expression.

Mr. Vallée’s C.R.A.Z.Y. is a sympathetic film about the childhood and youth of a Quebec man coming to terms with his sexuality, especially with relationship to his conservative family, which includes his parents and four brothers. The title of course is a tribute to Patsy Cline’s number, and becomes a character in itself in the movie. Once again, God remains notably absent; or if He does make his presence felt, it is in a most enigmatic- but ultimately redeeming- way.

I recommend them all highly.

Happy Holidays!

AJ Read More (आगे और पढ़ें)......

Film Review (C): Lagé Raho Gandhi Ji

INTRODUCTION: The Iconic Context
To make Gandhi relevant all over again, it became necessary to bring him back from the dead: this is precisely what Lagé Raho Munna Bhai (LRMB) does. Not surprisingly, Puritans, like a recent contributor to The Hindu Magazine, tend to disparage the ‘oversimplification’ and the ‘misrepresentation’ of the Mahatma’s philosophy in the film. Admittedly, in light of the vast corpus of Gandhi’s writings running into well over 90 voluminous volumes- personally, I can’t think of any other thinker who has contradicted himself more often during the constant if somewhat turbulent evolution of his ideas (to use his own words ‘...I claim for them nothing more than does a scientist who, though he conducts his experiments with the utmost accuracy, forethought and minuteness, never claims any finality about his conclusions, but keeps an open mind regarding them... Yet I am far from claiming any finality or infallibility about my conclusions... For me they appear to be absolutely correct, and seem for the time being to be final’) - it is virtually impossible to summarize his Thought within the structural constraints of contemporary cinema. Sir Richard Attenborough, who more than anyone else is responsible for the creation and popularization of the Gandhi-legend in mass media, took over three decades scripting his magnum opus, and still couldn’t quite succeed in satisfying all the Gandhians, each of whom prefers to ‘cast the Father of the Nation in his/her own image’. Rajkumar Hirani, the creator of LRMB, too, therefore can be forgiven the liberties he might have taken in resurrecting Gandhi. Even so, what does the LRMB-Gandhi represent?

At the heart of Mr. Hirani’s ‘Gandhigiri’ lies the New Testament concept of ‘Love thy enemy’. It is in total opposition to Bollywood’s most celebrated cultural icon that propelled Amitabh Bacchan to superstardom in the late ’70s- early ’80s: the Angry Young Man, who was only too happy to take the law into his own hands to achieve his ultimate objective: vindication by means of total annihilation of his enemy. If it is true that the icons we worship reveal something of ourselves- our hopes, aspirations and fears- as also the nature of the times we live in, then the cinematic rise of Mr. Bacchan mirrored the ascendance of yet another superstar on India’s political firmament: Sanjay Gandhi. Unlike previous superheroes, they didn’t subscribe to a Black & White morality but instead chose- rather bravely, one might say- to inhabit the in-between Gray. More often than not, breach of personal ethic- ‘thou shalt not kill’- was justified in the name of public good: the world after all is better off without the bad guys. Both took on the morass and corruption of the ‘System’ to the point of demolishing it altogether; both displayed little respect for the Rule of Law, which too was considered, in many ways, part of that System; both attained superstardom by means of untimely deaths (in Mr. Gandhi’s case, a real-life plane crash).

SYNOPSES: 3 in 1
All three aspects of the fin de siècle transformations of Bollywood’s cinematic cult-icons- from the Angry Young Man to the Romantic anti-hero (epitomized by Mr. Bacchan’s successor Shahrukh Khan) in the ’90s to the Gandhigiri-proselytizing don at the dawn of the new Millennium- symbolically come together as a Trinity in the story of the good-hearted goon Munna, as it unfolds in LRMB and its prequel “Munna Bhai, MBBS” (MBMBBS).

At the beginning of MBMBBS, we encounter Munna ‘Bhai’ (the latter being a polite euphemism for a don of substance) and his outrageously funny crony, fondly called ‘Circuit’, in the seedy but slightly sanitized Ram Gopal Verma-like Mumbai underworld. When Munna receives a telegram informing him of his parents’ arrival from his Haryana village, he and his gang hastily convert their double-storied shanty into a hospital, and Munna Bhai becomes ‘Munna Bhai, MBBS’. The charade, however, soon gets blown, and Munna undertakes to become a real doctor by enrolling in the local medical college. Through not-so-subtle methods, he persuades the previous year’s topper to take the entrance examination for him. Once at the medical college, Munna demonstrates that professionalism must be supplemented by passion- what he calls ‘jadu ki jhappi’ (lit: the magical hug)- in order to bring about complete healing à la Robin Williams in ‘Patch Adams’. Not surprisingly, he falls in love with his bête-noire, the Dean’s doctor-daughter, who represents the ideal blend of professionalism and passion. The message of the first Munna Bhai film is both simple and powerful: ‘Love heals.’

While the stage of MBMBBS is limited to a hospital, in LRMB, Mr. Hirani decides to let Munna Bhai take on the world. And who better than Gandhi- by far, the Greatest Icon to emerge out of the subcontinent- to guide him through it?

The plot is simple enough: Munna falls in love with the voice of a radio-jockey (RJ), Jhanvi; in order to have a mano-à-mano tête-à-tête with Jhanvi on the program, he enrolls in a telephonic radio-quiz on Gandhi, and with a little ‘persuasion’, wins; when she asks him how he knows so much about the Mahatma, he hurriedly declares himself a Gandhian Professor, and this faux-declaration gets him invited to her beach-front house, wherein live a bunch of testosterone-brimming geriatrics abandoned by their worldly offspring. In order to keep up the charade, Munna decides to digest every book he can find in the Gandhi library, and comes face to face with the Mahatma himself. Of course, nobody else except him- and the good Circuit, who professes to do so in order to humour his boss into believing that he is in fact not deranged-, can see the great soul. All is well until Munna’s partner-in-crime, the realtor-Sardar Lucky Singh decides to dupe him into taking Jhanvi and her gang of geriatrics to Goa on a fully-paid holiday so that he can take illegal possession of the house, which he must gift as dowry to have his only daughter married to a astrology-obsessed tycoon’s son. Now, in the ordinary course of things, Munna could well have forcibly repossessed the house for his paramour, but Gandhi has other plans for him, not very dissimilar from the unorthodox advise he gave Churchill in face of Nazi blitzkrieg: to shame the possessor into returning the property that is not his by making him realize the error of his ways. In this case, he wants everyone in town to send Lucky, who is no doubt ‘sick’, flowers and ‘get-well-soon cards’. So begins the rocking career of Munna Bhai as a Gandhian advise-dispensing RJ, and very soon, all of Mumbai is caught in the throes of good-natured ‘Gandhigiri’.

REALITY CHECK: ‘Cinematic Locha’
Does Gandhi really speak to Munna? Or is he hallucinating? To test this, the skeptic Lucky tricks him into attending a press conference where he has a psychiatrist ask him questions that only the Mahatma would know the answers to. When quizzed about his mother’s name, Munna’s Gandhi remains dumb. Our hero fails the test. He realizes that in fact, it wasn’t Gandhi speaking to him at all; but only an echo of what he had already read about him at the Library. The vision of Gandhi, therefore, was nothing but a residue of a chemical imbalance of the brain; or as Munna puts it, a ‘chemical locha’. Is the LRMB-Gandhi also something of a ‘cinematic locha’?

Perhaps. Yet the fact of its immense mass-appeal cannot be denied. Soon after the release of LRMB, the venerable Fathers at the Loretto Girls’ Convent at Lucknow decided to perform a ‘resurrection’ of their own: the result was an auditorium packed with panic-stricken schoolgirls as they were made to bear ‘witness’ to the spirit of Jesus- whose message, in the words of Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi embodied- enter into the body of a monk. What followed was anything but Gandhigiri as zealots of the ABVP- the right-wing BJP’s student outfit- vandalized the institution. Admittedly, bringing back people from the afterlife isn’t the sure-shot way of spreading their message. The answer therefore must be sought elsewhere, in the mystery of both the medium and the message.

The medium, in this case, is Munna; while the message is Gandhi personified. The principal reason, in my opinion, for Gandhi becoming anachronistic- outdated- lies in the fact that before LRMB, we- the nation in general and its youth in particular- found his message both impractical and ineffective. Munna demonstrates that it is not necessarily so. A corrupt clerk can be embarrassed into paying the pensioner’s stipend when the latter decides to hand him the bribe in kind: in this case, by doing a veritable Full Monty. Likewise, a chronic paan-chewing spitter can be made to amend his ways by repeatedly wiping off the stains in his presence. In yet another scene, Munna shows the courage it takes to apologize, or even to tell the hard-truth. Indeed, Gandhigiri works best at an interpersonal level: its social impact is cumulative, as an epidemic- ‘break-out’- of love.

While composing his obituary for the Mahatma, Albert Einstein had warned us of the dangers of disbelief: "Generations hence shall scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked this earth." In the final analysis, I believe that the best way to make Gandhi relevant to our times is to demonstrate that he was more practical than most of us imagine him now to be. In other words, it becomes important to rescue his Humanity from the ever-burgeoning Mythology: to make him more believable to our age. To this end, subsequent entries in this blog will seek to reexamine the practical dimensions of the Mahatma's method and ideology throughout this month of his 143rd birth anniversary.

AJ
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Film Recommendation: LAGÉ RAHO MUNNABHAI

Every once in a while, there comes a movie which makes you feel good about yourself: suddenly, the possibility that we can all be better human beings becomes all so real, if only for the next two days. And then, when the feeling seems to be getting stale- movies after all are make-believe- you go again and watch that film. Over and over again.

Frank Capra did it with Mr Smith Goes To Washington and The Lost Horizon. Spielberg worked that magic by reviving the child in all of us with ET. More recently, there was As Good As It Gets. But that's Hollywood. In European cinema, Kieslowski's Three Colors trilogy stands out. Such films are rarer still in India, more so Bollywood. Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Anand was definitely one such film. Now, after a gap of over three decades comes Lage Raho Munnabhai.

I will not discuss the film here. But if you do not leave whatever it is you're doing and rush to the nearest cinema-hall near you, then you are really missing out on one helluva an experience.

Remember: don't walk. RUN!


AJ

Post Script:

For a full film review by this blogger, click HERE. Read More (आगे और पढ़ें)......

Film: SCRAP TO A YOUNG FILMMAKER

A young filmmaker recently asked me about adapting the Marquis de Sade to Indian cinema. This is what I wrote him.

Dear R.S.,

About the Marquis, I believe there is a film about him- Hollywood ishtyle, of course- with Geoffrey Rush: pitting him on head-on collision with the Holy Roman Catholic Church has the effect of accentuating his 'work'; in the end, he succeeds in posthumously transforming his would-be reformer into an acolyte of sorts. Personally, I didn't care much for the film, especially the necrophilia: how Hollywood loves to shock!

The cliché that 'there is a very fine line between pleasure and pain', in my opinion, best sums up de Sade's peculiar premise. Freud of course situates the 'de Sade meme' in his almost universal archaeology of stages of infantile development. I don't buy that either. A better explanation comes from the most famous occupant of Reading Gaol: 'variety is the spice of life,' he said, and went on to create the complex character of Dorian Gray. Here is a man at war with himself: every grain of right and wrong, every principle, every sense of aesthetic, every norm that has been 'constructed' into him. That's how I would personally like to see the Marquis, anyway: a child of dissent; the Robespierre of Sexual Politics.

We live in a post-modern age, but still tend to define ourselves using the 'modern' vocabulary, based on a very specific notion of Reason. Film, more than any other medium, has the potential of inventing- creating- a new language: Citizen Kane made a beginning; Fellini, with his 8 1/2, went even further. Remember the 'dream sequence' when the mother suddenly- shockingly- kisses Guido, only to be visually transformed into the wife in the next frame. Even Freud- the presiding deity of the Oedipal Complex- couldn't have communicated it better. Given your taste in cinema, I'm surprised to see- or rather not see- Warhol and Morrisey. Pasolini, the high-priest of 'neo-realism' (personally I've never been able to understand what that means), reached his creative-orgasm with 'Theorem'; after that its all been downhill: it is one thing to be eccentric, but to force those absurdities down an often-forgiving audience is simply not done: the same of course goes for Fellini and the rest of the post-war Italian noveau-wave. Should we watch a film just because it's 'Pasolini/Fellini/Godard'?

The greatest contribution of these filmmakers, as also those of the French avant-garde, is to restore the film to the auteur. Each misé-èn-scene is contrived to penetrate the human mind, like an arrow: most of the time, they do not since most of us have become 'immunized' against anomalies. But does that mean we- or rather, you- stop trying? No.

Non! I rather fancied an Indian de Sade. There are many, you know, but all neatly tucked away somewhere in the closet. Numerous references to 'apadh' (in extremis) in our venerable sastras vouch for their discreet existences. A former chief minister of Orissa had a thing for pre-pubescent boys, who kept disappearing mysteriously; after a while, their bodies were found, brutally mutilated: it was said at the time that they were 'sacrifices' to the goddess Kali. Of course, we may never really know. The last RSS sarsanghachalak once remarked when asked about Narendra Modi's marital status (separated, if you must know) that 'in India, everything is allowed; yet nothing is permitted.' Nobody has defined our ethos more succinctly. Or for that matter, more precisely.

The post-modern cinematic-auteur must endeavour to penetrate- expose, dismantle- this Ethos of Duplicities. What we will get, in the end, will be The Dance of the Seven Veils. Of course, with one difference: we as Salomes dancing- à la Madhubala in Mughal-é-Azam miming Naushad's Pyaar kiya to darnaa kya- in an endless Hall of Mirrors.

AJ Read More (आगे और पढ़ें)......

FILM REVIEW: (B) Black

To label Black “unusual” would be an understatement: indeed, with his fourth film, Sanjay Leela Bhansali has, to paraphrase the iconic Star Trek cliché, “boldly gone where no Indian film-maker has gone before”. Paradoxically enough, this tale of an Anglo-Indian deaf-blind girl’s peregrination into adulthood, and her relationship with a somewhat eccentric mentor, who, as it turns out, must embrace his own ‘blackness’ as advancing Alzheimer’s corrodes his memory, is a feast for the senses: in his previous film, the extravagant remake of Sarat Chandra’s early twentieth century novella ‘Devdas’ promoted as ‘the costliest Indian movie ever’, Mr Bhansali had exhibited an uncanny penchant for conjuring opulent mise-en-scenes reminiscent of a Raja Ravi Verma canvas (which, this reviewer posits, had the sometimes unfortunate effect of subsuming the characters, even the plot, altogether), but Black artfully balances the visual décor with an intensely poignant narrative, and all-round stellar performances. In Khamoshi [lit: Silence], his first film, silence gave birth to song, in a story about a deaf-mute couple’s daughter’s quest to discover music through love; here, the absences of sound and sight produce a world populated by words, and touch: a celebration of the senses sought in their absences. The circle, it would appear, is complete.

In Black, none of Mr Bhansali’s characters are blessed with heroic gifts: gone are the prodigious songstress of Khamoshi, the pristine, almost divine, beauty of Hum Dil Chuke Sanam, and the doomed melodramatic lover of Devdas; in Black, all Mr Bhansali grants his characters is an extraordinary measure of determination to overcome their all too frail human conditions. Amitabh Bachchan is a ‘pathetic’ singer; Rani Mukherjee is anything but a bella donna. It is refreshing to see how, under this dominating-demanding auteur’s defintive direction, Mr Bachchan- whose angst-ridden portrayals of the ‘angry young man’ stereotype almost two decades ago propelled him to unrivalled superstardom- is stripped of all glamour: in a career spanning over four decades, the Actor- undilutedly fierce in his determination to rescue his protégé from the inevitability of madness and perpetual dependency but also eerily human with his peculiar foibles and quirks- has emerged, perhaps for the first time, and the experience is nothing short of glorious; even Mr Bachchan’s at times over-the-top performance à la Al Pacino- the acerbic one-liners, like when he asks a colleague, who is devotedly putting drops in his eyes, what she sees in them, she replies ‘love’ to which he quips “you must be blind”, or in his letters to her, dictated as sarcastic soliloquies- become inherent to the characterization, as the ‘teacher’ metamorphoses into a ‘magician’.

Ms Mukherjee’s depiction of the deaf-blind girl is at once both heart-wrenching and heart-warming; Jaya Bachchan (then: Bhaduri) had done it once before, in Koshish, again a film about a deaf-mute couple’s romantic devotion for each other, but her’s was an acceptance of fate, not an outright struggle to overcome it. Ms Mukherjee, minus the cosmetic makeup, allows the viewer unbridled access into the brutal intimacies of her black-world: towards the end, as she delivers a ‘speech’ eulogizing her “teacher”, the movement of her fingers, the jerky sways of her frail body and eruptions of expressions on her face make their translation into uttered words meaningless. Here is ‘exposure’ of the supreme kind, which is more than can be said of certain other contemporary starlets. Not surprisingly, Mr Bhansali acknowledges Helen Keller as his inspiration.

The real surprise however is Ayesha Kapur, who plays the young Ms Mukherjee’s character for the first half of the film: she is, quite simply, marvellous. Mr Bhansali’s Simla, where the story unfolds, is not the cluttered city that it has become today, but glows, drenched in deep Oxford tones of the Raj, in ethereal timelessness, almost as if it were a character by itself: relics of another era- enormous Graeco-Roman busts, elaborate paintings done in the style of the Grand Manner, Victorian furnishings, vintage motorcars, wooden staircases, the Gaiety Theatre and the Cathedral restored to their former glory, the Woodwille Palace which serves as Ms Mukherjee’s family home, an Angelic fountain- accentuate visual density and amplify emotional impact, like a Peter Greenway film where each scene of the movie flows from one painting to another (isn’t that why a film is also called ‘motion-picture’?).

What works for the film is not so much the individual performances, or for that matter, the beautifully staged scenes with their complex dance of light and shadows, but the interpersonal bonds that Mr Bhansali’s characters establish among themselves. Themes considered taboo by many- such as the chrysallisation of Ms Mukherjee’s character’s feelings for Mr Bachchan’s character, from devotion to romantic infatuation as she becomes aware of her own sexual needs, and implores him to kiss her on her lips- are tackled with subtle poignancy, hitherto unwitnessed in Bollywood cinema, elevating this student-teacher tale into one of unrequited love, akin to the greatest love stories of any age. In the final scene, the student leads her teacher, now almost totally without recollections, to a window; together they stare-out at the falling snow, all communication limited to the intertwining of their fingers. The world has grown silent again, and another struggle begins.

For Indian Cinema, Black inaugurates the dawn of a new era.

Amit Aishwarya Jogi
Mumbai: February 10, 2005
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FILM REVIEW: (A) Fanaa

Fanaa- the latest offering from Yashraj Films- isn’t at all unusual: the tale of ‘a pair of star crossed lovers’ is as old as Time itself. Come to think of it, even the movie’s plot isn’t novel: profligacy of films depicting die-hard militants redeemed by their all-consuming love for unsuspecting would-be partners- who epitomises the syncretic nature of a now forgotten 'Kashmiriyat'- constitutes a distinct contemporary Indian cinematic genre in itself. In this context atleast, the shroud of secrecy surroundig Fanaa’s release- its producers remain remarkably tightlipped about its story- seems wasted. Does this mean that one shouldn’t go through the trouble of seeing it?

Well, that depends on whether one watches a film simply for the novelty of its plot or for the way it is told. In Fanah’s case, it’s the telling of the tale that counts. Yashraj is Bollywood’s Cupid: Hindi cinema’s unsurpassable- if somewhat mischievous- god of love. Not surprisingly then, the onscreen chemistry between Rehan (Aamir Khan) and Zooni (Kajol) is simply delicious: prolific use of Urdu couplets - at once flirtatious and powerful- as the characters woo each other amidst Delhi’s majestic medieval ruins during the film’s first half gives their romance an aura of timelessness. Even historical inaccuracies can be forgiven: it wasn’t Shahjehan who compared Kashmir to ‘heaven on earth’ but his father Jehangir. And speaking of fathers, I think Rishi Kapoor is wonderfully restrained as Zooni's doting father. It would be a pleasure to see more of him.

Fanaa's problem lies with its second half: the whole issue of counter-militancy is tackled in a rather cosmetic manner. Even Tabu’s casting as a RAW (it’s no longer called that but who’s keeping score?) officer in hot pursuit of Rehan- who despite his character's calculated cold-bloodedness retains our sympathy throughout the film simply because he comes across as someone who sincerely believes in what he does- does little to make it convincing. The action- most notably a high-adrenalin cat-and-mouse chase cutting across an icy glacier- is reminiscent of sequences from what could well be a James Bond film.

Fanaa's political message is far more 'liberal' than any previous film: militancy effects both India and Pakistan; and Kashmiris have been betrayed as the promised referendum never took place. That may not necessarily be true: Sheikh Abdullah, the most popular leader of the Valley, was decidedly pro-India at the time the instrument of accession was signed with the then maharaja Hari Singh.

Despite these minor flaws, Fanaa is a good film: after all, it is at heart a love story. And both Aamir and Kajol (making a comeback after five years of marital absence) keep the screen sizzling. If for nothing else, one should go and watch Fanah for this. Dev Kohli, the director, has given us yet another treat.

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