Gravity – not a review

It doesn’t happen very often that the price of a movie ticket feels justified, leave alone the extra money we need to cough up if it’s 3D. Off the top of my head I can only think of Avatar and Hugo that justified the cost of 3D. I’m adding Gravity to this short list without any reservations.

It’s one of those movies where you will actually regret not opting for 3D. I’d say go for it.

Of Agneepath & Agneepath.

नाम विजय चौहान, विजय – दीनानाथ – चौहान. पूरा नाम.

In the original Agneepath (अग्निपथ), released in 1990, these lines served the purpose of establishing the character of Vijay Deenanath Chauhan (VDC) and of reminding the audience of his quest to vanquish those who wronged his father Master Deenanath Chauhan. In Karan Malhotra’s adaptation, they are used more as a homage to the original, towards the fag end of the movie, which is a very wise move indeed since it would have been a near impossible task for Hrithik Roshan to match what Amitabh had delivered all those years ago. Just take a look at adult VDC’s opening scene from the original

And if playing the role similar to the way Amitabh played it is near impossible, portraying Krishnan Iyer M. A. (pronounced Yum Yay) is well beyond impossible for any other actor. And since Mithunda is on the other side of 60 now, director Karan Malhotra did the next best thing that he could do – rewrite the story to not have a second lead and allow Priyanka Chopra’s Kali to provide support and comic relief (which didn’t turn out as well as expected I should say since Priyanka is clearly the weakest link in the movie, which is not to say that she has done a bad job).

Hrithik has done a good job of depicting a simmering and quiet VDC, who keeps his sorrows and desires to himself while freely distributing his wealth. His physique does not let him look like someone who has lived in a chawl for fifteen years but that does not take anything away from his performance. He has used his eyes to good effect and the scene where adult VDC is welcomed by a hugging Kancha is a great showcase for that. The conflict between his father’s teachings and his actions on his quest for revenge are again expressed through his eyes. His vulnerability comes to the fore during the song abhi mujhme kahin and it is then that you actually start to feel for this VDC.

The rewrite kept the basic premise of the story same, and played with everything else. VDC is not a larger than life over the top bhai whom people worship and are ready to die for, he is a pure revenge driven soul who is not above assisting in pimping of girls as young as 12-13 years if it will help him build a bridge to reach Kancha (a sharp contrast to the original where VDC’s mentors shoot him for not agreeing to indulge in drug trade, something he considers taboo). His basic desire is still revenge for the way his father was wronged, but it no longer gives the same importance to providing justice to his mother and a lesson to the villagers. He is more subdued now and keeps his desire for revenge to himself, even as he is tirelessly working for it. Even his identity as Vijay Deenanath Chauhan is not too well known. Within the basic desire of avenging his father’s death, the original VDC was content with getting ownership of the village and Kancha behind bars (Kancha escapes and acts up for which he has to be killed, but that wasn’t the plan), the 2012 VDC just wants to kill Kancha even if he has to blow up the entire village for it. He is also short on the planning department (who takes the pain of bringing loads of bomb on the boat but not a single gun?) because of which every time he meets Kancha in the movie he gets beaten to pulp, and it’s only by way of some filmi inspiration that he is able to match Kancha physically. And you have to see the movie to realize why matching Kancha physically is such a tough task.

Sanjay Dutt has come very close to personifying pure evil in his role as Kancha. The original Kancha Cheena, played ably by Danny Denzongpa was a suave suited businessman who never got his hands dirty in pursuit of his business, no such restraints here. Pure evil is soulless, he does not have desires, attachments, reasoning or fear. There is no justification why he does what he does, and that brings about a certain unpredictability in his behaviour, which is a cause of thrill as well as fear for the audience. Sanjay Dutt’s Kancha is pure evil, in looks as well as deeds. A good performance from him after a long long time, the clever use of visuals to establish his on-screen persona and the dialogues of Piyush Mishra, all do a fine job of creating a larger than life and scary Kancha. Looking at him you implicitly justify VDC’s preference to killing him over reclaiming Mandwa, and you actually feel relieved when he is killed, which is a big big achievement for everyone who contributed to this version of Kancha.

Rishi Kapoor as Rauf Lala is a revelation, which is a great achievement considering he’s already had along and illustrious career. Not even for a split second do you feel that he is out of place as the slimy underworld boss who doesn’t skip a heartbeat describing, to possible buyers, a 12 year old up for sale. Nor do you squirm in your seat (as you did when Bomman Irani was fighting with Shahrukh Khan in Don) when he fights with Hrithik. His body language and dialogue delivery are near perfect for the role and I would not be surprised if he finds more offers for such negative roles coming his way in the future. Within the story, Rauf Lala replaces the four mentors of the original and is the stepping stone for VDC’s entry into the crime world, though he remains in the equation much into the second half.

Om Puri, as honest and upright Commissioner Gaitonde, is adequate, though his role and Gaitonde’s equation with VDC is not as well developed here. Zareena Wahab as Suhasini Chauhan (VDC’s mother) is again equal to the task asked of her.

The director makes good use of striking visuals convey characterizations and to make an impact. Some of these would definitely stay with you for a while. It can be Kancha’s entry (Sanjay Dutt’s trademark gait) against a backdrop of the sea, the ill-fated banyan tree set against the evening sky, VDC’s corner of solace atop his chawl building giving a view of the entire chawl or Rauf Lala picking out girls from a storage container much like what you do with goats.

In all, I liked this movie. It kept me involved for 3 hours, which is a tough job; and it did not make the original Agneepath fan in me cringe, which was achieved by making it as an adaptation rather that a remake.

The movie could have been shorter, two of the songs were not needed at all. Gun Gun Guna actually went contrary to VDC’s characterization and the less said about Chikni Chameli the better (actually let me say this, Puke Puke Puke). But as I said, it wasn’t too big a deal for me since I was on board for three hours.

I would say go watch.

Also, consider watching this scene from the original while you here. This is when adult VDC first meets Kancha, so totally different from the new one.

Of Male Vulnerability

‘Pyar ka Punchnama’ is a movie that I’d been hearing a lot about over the past few weeks, and that scene (rant) from it is one of those that has been shared the most across the time-sink that is my Facebook and Twitter timeline. All that had given me an impression of it being one of the many forgettable comedies that the Hindi film industry keeps churning out, albeit one with a few laughs.

I was happy to be proven wrong when I realized that I was laughing harder than I had for a long time (in a Hindi movie), that I was not inclined to be updated on Twitter/Facebook while watching it (as I am prone to do when I am watching something at home that doesn’t have my complete attention). The movie has more than a few laughs, is very close to reality when depicting how guys in general and engineering grads in particular talk amongst each other (unlike for example the fruity exchanges shown in 3 Idiots ) – and this depiction does not come with the impression that the director is trying too hard to show that his guys are cool for speaking like this (as is the attempt here). The conversations are very natural, as are the scene settings – the guys house, though big and spacious, is a mess with the couch doubling up as a storage unit, the office-spaces are shown pretty much the way office-spaces are, most of the guys go for the 11 Rs per plate Aloo ka Paratha leaving the lush office cafe behind in real life (as does Liquid in the movie), and if the girlfriend of one of the guys is visiting all the other guys living in the house do tend to be in some other room, huddled together.

That said, the movie is decidedly one-sided in depicting the exchanges between the male and female of the species. That isn’t to say that all the stuff that has been shown doesn’t happen, just that gals would have their own share of justifiable pet peeves which are not for exhibition in this movie. Each guys’ equation with the respective gal is used to portray a specific negative aspect of the guy-gal exchange and as I said earlier, you get to see more of the guys’ side. He is the victim and she is the tormentor, that’s it.Still, as the title suggests, this post is not about the movie and it’s treatment of relationships (you would be forgiven if you ask why then am I rambling about it, I said all that I said above since I wanted to say it and I didn’t want to do two posts for the same movie.). This post is about male vulnerability as depicted in the second half of the movie. I have seldom seen a guy’s total submission to his love depicted in a way as close to reality as this one. When Rajat’s girlfriend tells him that she is leaving him (and is looking at possible matches for marriage), all he can do is fall in her lap and cry with helplessness. No signs of any bravado, no show of confidence telling her that he is sure she can’t move on without him, no qualms in bending down and accepting his role as the lesser of the two in the relationship. All he wants is for her to tell him that she won’t leave him, and he is willing to do anything to guarantee that. I don’t know a guy in love who wouldn’t identify with that.Liquid, on the other hand, knows in his heart that the girl that he loves does not want anything to do with him in the longer run. He knows that she is stringing him along just because she could use the help and because she is lonely at this point in her life. Yet he cannot help being at her beck and call, calling her multiple times to check on her, trying to spend as much time as possible with her, spending on her to the point of getting broke, and being miserable through it all.Chowdhary is apparently the least vulnerable of the three. But that is in some part due to the fact that his girlfriend is the most obvious bad one, who has trouble understanding the basic tenets of commitment. It is still not easy for him to question her behaviour when they are in a relationship, and he does have to put up with a lot of stuff before he decides that enough is enough.When the movie starts, our protagonists are three happy-go-lucky fellows who do not take too much tension about anything. Anything and everything that might cause some friction is handled then and there and then pushed to the back of the mind, never to be retrieved again. By the end of the movie these guys are literally pummeled into submission, losing all notions of self-respect and ego, two of them reduced to tears and hopelessness. This is a side of men that hasn’t often been depicted in Hindi movies in a non-filmy way, and the director needs to be applauded for that. Though you get more glimpses into the male mind and heart, it doesn’t mean that the women are cardboard characters. Just that for once they are shown properly in shades of grey rather than the good/vamp/bimbette that we are used to seeing them as.
One of the favourite line for many women is ‘All men are dogs’, watch this movie to understand how a regular guy is turned into one.

Dhobi Ghaat (Mumbai Diaries)

I am not sure if Dhobi Ghaat is an apt title for this movie, just ‘Mumbai Diaries’ would have worked better for me. Or maybe ‘Bombay Diaries’ since no one in the movie refers to the city as Mumbai anyway, not that I am complaining.

Most of our movie experiences depend on two factors – our expectations from the movie and our mood while watching it. This is one movie where these factors become crucial, really crucial. Most of the people watching the movie with me (not just my gang, the entire hall) did not like the movie and were pretty vocal about it (sadly during the movie also), I enjoyed it. This is one movie which wants you to let it be, had no pretensions of being conventionally engaging, does not offer any sort of closure for any of the lead characters, does not have any larger than life characters and does not have any item song (shudder!!!).

Yet it is engaging and interesting, makes you think enough for it to be called smart, and is funny and endearing in enough places. You are invited to view the lives of young Munna (Prateik Babbar, the best of the lot in Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na and very good and endearing here) and Yasmin (Kriti Malhotra, simply the most outstanding performer here), through the eyes of Shai (Monica Dogra, looking okay but performing just adequately) and Arun (Amir Khan being Amir Khan). As an added attraction you also get a peek into the lives of Shai and Arun.

Yasmin is the one you empathize with most even though she has the simplest story. You feel for her as she tries to find (or create) capture-worthy experiences in her apparently routine and to some extent boring life. Her interview of her maid and maid’s daughter is easily the highlight of the film, the one scene where even the naysayers in my theatre were hooked. It was interesting to notice how Arun’s attitude towards her story changes as the movie progresses. At the start he had her story at his beck and call, pausing and rewinding as he pleased/needed. But later, the story took over him and ultimately his decision (of moving house) was controlled by the story, a far cry from him having the control.

Munna is next in the list of characters that made you feel for them. He has dreams, and he is working towards them even though it is highly unlikely that he will be able to realize them, he keeps on working towards them. Even adding Shai to the list of apparently unachievable dreams that he has. Where the film succeeds is in making viewers also want the success of Munna. Prateik is endearing and honest in his performance and I feel this is only the second of many such performances.

Shai should have been the more intriguing of the two observers since she is an outsider, more than Arun anyway, but it is Arun who is sucked in more. Shai is in turn intrigued by Arun and is apparently oblivious to the feelings Munna has for her, though she genuinely cares for him and is in no way using him. Initially I felt that Shai was looking at everything with Slumdog Millionaire eyes, but her genuine feelings for Arun as well as Munna made me feel otherwise. Her story is the one that comes closest to a closure in that she has something to look forward to when the movie ends. Munna is looking at a life of responsibility and hardships and Arun is plain lonely, but she has a choice and a chance to pursue what she wants.

The best way to watch this movie would be the way Arun watches Yasmin’s videos, at our own pace pausing/rewinding at will – continue if we are interested or just leave it. So once again I would say wait for the DVD, else you might be in the majority who won’t like this experimental movie.

In one of the pre-release interviews Kiran Rao said she was not comfortable being known just as Amir Khan’s wife. While I do feel she is a talented director, I think she will have to face that predicament for some more time. This movie would not have been made, analyzed so much, and gotten an international release without Amir Khan’s name attached to it. Amir’s name has a certain credibility which ensured that scores of people went in to watch a non-conventional movie on the first weekend of its release and the ones who liked it are a small subset of those people. Even the ones who liked it might not have gone for it had it not been an Amir Khan production. This was an Amir Khan film first for most of us. But looking at it, I feel the audience of a Kiran Rao film is already building up.

Road To Sangam

‘Road to Sangam‘ is a movie that was on my watch-list for a long time now, but somehow I never got a chance to see it, not least because it did not get a major release. Thanks to the Fremont Main Library that had a DVD, and to the lazy Saturday morning, I finally got to see it.

I have been watching a lot of movies that I could not catch up on when they released, and quite a few of the recently watched ones had Paresh Rawal in them – and I am in awe of the man now. I will do a separate Paresh Rawal post soon and so here I will keep my awe in check 🙂

‘Road to Sangam‘ is the story of a simple man who is caught between the turmoil of his times. How he chooses to fight being a part of the herd and follow his heart, is what the film tries to depict, and it does a very good job of it

Paresh Rawal is Hasmat Bhai, the most well-written character and the protagonist of the movie, an expert motor-mechanic and a devout muslim. He lives a non-confrontational life and goes about his job with honesty and commitment. His life is thrown into a turmoil when his idea of religion clashes with the preachers. He believes in honouring his word, finishing the job he started – you can say that an honest day’s work is his religion. But when he is unable to deliver on a commitment due to the local Muslim community leaders calling for a boycott of all work (to oppose of arrest of suspects in a blast case, and the death of an innocent in the stampede following a protest), he begins to question the decrees of those leaders. After much debate, with family, friends and community members, and most importantly with his own self, he decides to follow his conscience. The fact that the task at hand involves the ashes of Mahatma Gandhi makes his resolve only stronger.

The movie is about this thought. Can you follow your conscience against the face of any opposition? Everyone has a limit to which he will listen to his inner voice, as is seen by Hasmat Bhai’s various friends helping him covertly. Hasmat Bhai is the protagonist because his commitment to his inner voice is the strongest. He may have his limits but clarion calls to toe the community line do not define them. It is the genuineness with which this thought has been portrayed that makes this movie worth a watch.

Sure, it has its drawbacks. It gets preachy at times, and the sermon to Mr Kasuri (a very one-dimensional Om Puri) by Hasmat Bhai comes very close to overkill. But most of the times the director stays far far away from pretentiousness. The characters other than Hasmat Bhai are not that well-written and do not engage you as much, except when they are interacting with Hasmat. Also, by focusing on one community, the director is providing ammunition to those who might want to dub him partisan. But I feel the story could as well have been set in any community and to look at it with a narrow vision would be a folly.

Paresh Rawal as Hasmat Bhai is a not a revelation since we know how good an actor he is, but it sure is refreshing to see him play a not over the top character for a change. Being from Lucknow, I can appreciate the nuances he brought to the role to depict an Allahabadi, and his portrayal of the internal struggles of Hasmat is too good. Pawan Malhotra, as the Maulvi was a revelation because it took me a while to realize that it is him. The voice that he used, the mannerisms, the expressions, and his diction all added to the character and showed how he could be revered by some and feared by others. Om Puri, as I said, carried the same expression throughout and didn’t have too much to do. The rest of the supporting cast was adequate and the interactions that Hasmat had with them which made the movie watchable.

I would have recommended watching this one on DVD, but since it is not running in cinema halls anymore that is a moot point. It is not engaging throughout, and has a few troughs among more frequent crests. But the central thought has been depicted with simplicity and genuineness, and for that you should watch it.

Avatar

It is not often that you are witness to a human-alien war and you side with the aliens – Avatar is the experience that will bring this change in you.

I’d been hearing about this movie for a long time now, and saw the first visuals only last year. And I was so hoping that it is not one of those movies where the special effects guy takes over as the director. Well it turns out the director here took over as the special effects guy, and found a way to let us peek into his mind and see what he is visualizing. Yes he did do that.

For once you will not feel betrayed at paying the prohibitively costly ticket prices, you might in-fact feel lucky to be able to witness something so path-breaking and so revolutionary for a couple of hundred rupees. As it happened in my case, you will also not mind the long wait for parking, the utterly mis-managed queues for 3D glasses distribution, and the jostling crowds. Yes it is that kind of a movie.

There is nothing much to say about the story, it is fairly predictable. But the depiction, the visualization and the execution are AWESOME. Every little detail has been tended to, and there is so much rich content on the screen in almost every frame that you just HAVE TO watch this in 3D. I am hoping to get a chance to watch it in IMAX for my second viewing. Yes a second viewing is a very real possibility – It is such a great movie.

Hindu mythology says that Vishnu will come to earth in an avatar whenever the right is over-powered by the wrong; and he shall do so for not more than ten times in total (out of which nine incarnations are already past us). There is an interesting theory on PFC about how Avatar is the story of the tenth incarnation of Vishnu. It is very well possible that JC himself is the supposed tenth guy burdened with the task of salvaging movie-making (since the world seems to be beyond Vishnu’s saving power anyways :P) and Avatar is his way of doing it. Yes, it is such an act of brilliance from him.

Go watch it, in 3D.

Gulaal

It is surprising in a way that this is the first Anurag Kashyap movie I have seen (since I watch pretty much anything) but I can only say this : ‘better late than never‘.

One of the most difficult tasks at this time would be to find faults with this movie simply because it has been so well made. And it gives me a bad feeling to know that it will not make as much money as a film good as this should make; but I guess the makers also knew this beforehand.

The movie packed a whole lot in itself and as such can mean different things to different people and the impressive part is that none of these different people would feel short-changed by the director. For me, it was about the extent to which politics has crept into our day to day lives, even in personal relationships. The way Dileep is exploited by Kiran (obvious to everyone but Dileep) and the way Kiran is exploited by her brother Karan (which is not as obvious); reflects at a personal level how the office of general secretary is exploited by Dukey Bana at a political level. In the end the clear winner, or the last man standing, is the one who was the least obvious in his manipulations; which says a lot about how politics is played out.

The strengths of the movie are many: dialogues, songs (used very effectively as background score), performances, screenplay, use of lighting (notice the place where Dileep and Ransa reside, and also the scene when his highness learns of his son’s death…you will know what I mean) and the writing. What’s great is that every character has story and a part to play, no one is a filler. And nobody’s story is dictated out to you, you are assumed intelligent based on the fact that you bought a ticket for this movie.

I would recommend this movie to all who love good cinema…and would like to say that Anurag Kashyap and Piyush Mishra have gained a new fan who is starting his research on them as of now 🙂

The Dark Knight cometh :-)