UDAAN

In the gloomy evenings that we spent hanging around the neighbourhood pulia worrying over our JEE exams in that do-or-die summer of 1993, I remember some of my less privileged bihari friends asking me why I was not trying to get into TISCO as an apprentice. I’d scored well in my 10th standard exams. I was supposed to do reasonably well in my 12th too. They told me that if I appeared for the annual apprentice exam that TISCO held every year- I could get in as an apprentice and be set for life. Of course, I’d have to slog my butt off in the first few years-but then I’d be a permanent employee by the time others were finishng college. Wasn’t that good for me?

I was surprised when I heard that. It was something that my parents had never thought of and that struck me as weird. It was weird because each of my (very few ) career options had already been spelt out and ground grimly into my thick skull by my parents on so many occasions-I didn’t think there could be other career options beyond them. I coould either become an Engineer or I could become an engineer. That was it. How was a small town boy who’d never been out of the city alone to blame? I myself had never had a chance of trying to discover what it was that I wanted to become in life. That was 1993.

Now, eighteen years later, when I sit down to watch a small indie film that’s set in JSR after a jog through a light evening drizzle, I find myself swamped by everything that I thought I’d left behind. That is the power of cinematic expresssion of this most basic, unadorned yet tenderly told tale.

In Udaan, I find a promising young director from Mumbai (who’s never been to JSR before) reminding me how some things never change-no matter how much they appear to. What young Vikramaditya Motwane manages to achieve with Udaan is siginficant in the quietest of ways-just like its shy and confused 17 year old protaganist who finds himself getting trapped into a life that he most certainly doesn’t fit into and is dying to run away from.

Udaan is a small coming-of-age film-yes; but its been put together with such honesty of purpose and conviction in its voice that -it makes its surprise shortlisting at this year’s Canne’s Film Fest feels almost obvious in retrospect. Just the fact that the film’s set in JSR makes it a must watch for anyone from the steel city.( The director gets the local lingo+ ethos bang-on right and the parts of the city that are covered look seeped with old-world-colonial-charm ) For everyone else, Udaan still worth a definite dekho as proof of what can be achieved within the framework of a small time-frame, a non star cast, modest physical setting and apparently mundane middle class concerns about the values/concerns that dictate small town urban life.

Rajat Barmecha stars as the poetic protaganist who gets packed off from his boarding school for repeated misdemeanours and is then taken to task by his strangely insular and sadistic father(Ronit Roy) who runs his house like Hitler in the early forties. Ronit Roy wants his teethering son to straighten up, join an engineering college and work in the steel factory but young Rajat would rather take his chances in trying to make a career out of writing. This obvious autobiographical motive forms the pivot around which Motwane spins his very 400 Blowish tale. While the tension between the father and his long estranged son is played out around familiar issues of unrequited love and misunderstandings, the film still manages to make an impact because of the impeccable scene constructs, great dialogues+poetry and uniformly good acting by the entire cast-including a six year old (Aayan Boradia) who has to be the best child actor to grace in the indian screen since Jugal Hansraj in Masoom(1983).

There’s so much of unspoken angst and unexploitative true-to-life aches/pains of growing up in Udaan, writing about the film seems to alternate between redundancy and holding up a cracked, dusty mirror that leads you back to a tree lined road somewhere far behind. Sure the mirror’s small and modest, but if you wipe it clean from edge to edge-you can see your whole life wound up inside the road that links Kadma to Sonari.

ANURAG KASHYAP'S PAANCH

Ever since the emergence of Anurag Kashyap (AK) as the poster-boy of India’s indie revolution, the ill-fated ( & still unreleased ) Paanch has acquired a mythical status amongst the growing legions of his fans. For all those fans, there’s belated news. Paanch is not the unfairly repressed art-house classic that it’s been made out to be. That much is obvious from the film’s pehle Paanch minutes. The casting sequence (visuals+ static fizz laced music) is a direct rip off from David Fincher’s- Seven (1994).

Over the last ten years, Paanch has allegedly gone through so many erase/rewind-restart episodes in terms of its basic storyline that the end result is more of a saath or an aath, nau, dus-bus, maybe. What remains available on Torrent today are the compromised remains of a could-have-been scorching rebel-yell. [According to AK,Kay-Kay Menon’s character was originally a Tyler Durden- totally imaginary and he was later forced to make him human so that he could sing the customary five songs that every commercial film must have. [ At one point, AK got mad enough to add all five songs Right at the beginning~ to be done with the song thing]

Story :-After spending eons doing pot and dreaming of getting rich in a claustrophobic neon lit voodoo lounge, Kay-Kay’s rock band decides to record a demo tape and prove its mettle in the recording industry. They carry one demo song to an agent and what do they hear? The boot-leg song’s already out on torrent!! Koi novelty value rahi nahi.

Actually they’re told to get a professional demo piece done, and that would cost a small fortune. Now where can a down and out band get so much money for nothing? No, they don’t enter a talent contest on TV (since they don’t have any). Instead, they stage a fake kidnapping on one of the band’s amir-baap-ka aerosmith-betas and when push turns to shove- Kay Kay ends up bashing his guitar not on stage but on a hapless bandmate’s head. The bodies keep piling as the fivesome get more desperate for money and unable to keep their secret under wraps. What wracks more than the impossibility of sadak chaap ma-behen taporis wanting to get a rock band going is the control Kay-Kay has on his band-members, especially after they’re all in the thick of goat’s head soup. About 75% of the film unfolds as successive flashbacks that the unforgiven lot narrates in a Police station as a (cheat) confession. This much of the film is almost watchable-at least for AK fans who can discern the same stark shades of red and blue that he painted the galees of Dariyaganj (with DevD). What transpires in the last twenty minutes is like the proverbial levee breaking. A sudden rush of muck that goes downhill and drowns everything. But before that, there are other notable people who deserve honourable mentions for Paanch. The Music by Vishal Bhardwaj( though obscure) is good.

And since Paanch is a film about a rock-band, maverick lyricist Abbas Tyrewala pens gems(!) such as this for the soundtrack:

Kya din Kya raat hai yahan par- Ki sala yahan dono barabar

Na raaste kabhi ho khali- Na band hoti hai gaali

Ma-behen ki yaad Sabko aati hai pahar

Hall-gulla shor-gul Yeh kaisa hai sheher.....

To be fair to AK, a post DevD analysis of Paanch is a bit like comparing Amitabh Bachchan’s goonga act in Reshma aur Shera to his fiery Deewar Days. Even so,AK’s own protégée Motwane’s Udaan is a much better first film effort than Paanch (who-incidentally is credited with the sound design+song picturizations here). The basic idea of a sort of clueless-shoeless rock band set in an alienated teenage wasteland may be interesting to start with but the end result is as believable as a redneck draping a shawl over his shoulder and trying to render ghazals on a Kashmir carpet.

Apart from the inanity of the band’s musical range that includes a swinging club cabaret number along with a 70’s metal inspired wallop, AK gets the basic demographics of the aspiring Indian rock group as wrong as could be. In his first film, Kay-Kay Menon is more than competent as the egoistical, psychotic lead singer+driving force of the band but both he and his percussionist (!!) Aditya Shrivastva look as much RSJ cover boys as topiwala Van Morrison looks like a classical hindustani vocalist.

Getting inspired by ‘western cinema’ is fine but how come no one told AK that rock music and everything associated with it in India is the (obvious) domain of the anglicized, college educated youth that do not look like sadak-chaap scum of the earth even when they wear their hair long and run piercings through every non-sensitive visible appendage on their bodies? Tejaswini Kolhapuri, who gets a look in because her brother in law produced the film, stars as the band’s femme-fatale and visual relief. She stands out like a pixie amongst the paunches-what with her bob-cut hair, carefully done up mascara and stand out designer clothing. Ironically enough, the only person in the cast who looks like she might belong to a raap-chick band is the one who isn’t in.

Kay-Kay’s rock band never talks about music or musicians and there is zero bonding established as a precursor to redemption through the idea of ‘rock music’-come what may. Just the fact that Kay-Kay hails from Goa is enough to establish stereotypes. Goan=rock musician, enough said. Predictably, in the end, the idea of a fortune stolen is just a fortune stolen and up for grabs for the last man standing. How guys who themselves look and behave like Lower-Middle-Class scalpers - know / preach /worship /interpret /articulate their creative energy+angst ridden souls through ROCK is never addressed. AK is happy in restricting rock music to an unknown beast that’s an excuse for indulging in other ‘associated excesses’. All Indian fans of rock get in the band’s velvet underground lair are some Jim Morrison sketches and corny graffiti on the wall. That’s all.

APAHARAN

On their initial release, there are some films that don’t make a big splash either by an inherent novelty/glamour factor or due to their modest publicity deals with the voyeuristic media. But then, in the long run, they stand up well enough to elicit multiple viewings from an ever so difficult to please and predict Indian audience and go on to become models for execution on alternate treatments of common themes.
Prakash Jha’s APAHARAN(dec-2005) is one such film that works marvelously well on many levels. At one level, Apaharan is an indictment of the complex socio-political system in Bihar that’s given rise to the ludicrous but lucrative industry of Kidnapping for regular profit. (The phenomenon is not unique to India, anyone familiar with Mexico City can vouch for the same in the American context.) At another level, Apaharan is the study of a souring relationship between an idealistic, senior journalist/professor (Mohan Agashe) and his rapidly degenerating son(Ajay Devgun). At yet another level, it’s a satisfying thriller (without the diversion of song/dance and regular melodrama) that hits you where it hurts and has you worrying about the ultimate consequences of at least three of its central characters (Ajay Devgun as the aspiring police officer who turns into a hardcore criminal, Nana Patekar as a corrupt MLA who’s an expert at milking the political system and his minority card to maximum effect and Mukesh Tiwari as the belittled, upright Police Inspector Salim )
So far, the plot sounds as run of the mill as anything could get. Yes, so what if the film’s supposedly based in the badlands of Bihar and has everyone talking in an authentic bhojpuri dialect? (Apaharan was actually shot in and around Satara in Maharashtra) So what?
So this. Apaharan has the most beautifully written story and screenplay that Jha could lay his hands on after his self-conscious emergence from the badly-lit art house cinema that gave his ilk such a bad name. Like his (Bhagalpur case inspired) Gangajal, Jha re-walks the thin line between reality and myth and emerges with a riveting tale of ambition, organized crime, political machinations, changing loyalties and their clash with truth, conviction and old world values. With Apaharan, Jha proves that a film need not have to be drab and boring to be making an important statement about a system on the verge of a breakdown and also that a thriller does not need to really stretch our imagination beyond the realms of reality to be able to hold our attention.
For anyone familiar with the state of Bihar, Jha pulls the dirty bed linen off the police-bureaucracy-political system and lays it naked for everyone to spit on and lament. ( Nana Patekar’s Tabrez Alam is obviously inspired by the infamous Mohammad Shahbuddin.) But unlike Gangajal, which did not have a satisfactory third act, Apaharan only gathers steam in the last thirty minutes to end in a dramatic yet logical and realistic finale.
For anyone unfamiliar with the state of disgrace in Bihar, the farcical (yet totally true) depiction of criminals/politicians periodically cooling their heels in customized jail quarters has to be seen to gauge the failure of the law and order system in the semi-rural/rural areas of the cow belt. Upstart, hot-blooded young men who spring out of no where and take to a life of crime are hand-picked by local politicians, given political patronage, protection from the police and used selectively to further their own causes. Whenever the situation becomes too hot to handle, these young-guns are quietly advised to retreat behind bars as a sign of the noble dispensation of justice. When the media uproar subsides, these young-guns are let loose on civil society again.
In retrospect, Apaharan should go down as a must watch film, especially for those mourning the demise of the art of conscentious story-telling in modern hindi cinema. Hope lives!

REBEL YELL !!

Sex,Drugs and Rock ‘n Roll


Anurag Kashyap’s Dev.D is not a film.

It is a film that may well earn no moolah at the Box-office but still go down as a remarkable achievement in Indian film history. After a spate of start and stutter projects (Paanch, Black Friday), Anurag Kashyap's Dev.D shows how its possible to make genuinely liberating cinema by simply stretching the realms of our so-called Indian tradition and venerable literature.

Dev.D is high anarchy under the strobe lights-in that it takes Shorot Chondro’s self pitying, weak, emotionally unstable Devdas and turns him into a horny, psychedelic, cocaine snorting Dev-grass of sorts who doesn’t have to die to disapprove of the evils of over-indulgence.

When a noun assumes abjectorial connotations-legends are born. Shorot Chondro’s Devdas is one such cursed character that keeps re-incarnating itself every few years, just to remind us what being a spoilt rotten Bhadrolok meant during the turn of the 19th century. Hence the phrase- ‘Devdas mat ban’. Its a line reserved for every whiny lover-boy who has ever wallowed longer in the inevitability of lost love than his machismo would allow him to.
So when dealing with Devdas, the overall storyline and setting is irrelevant prima-facie. But characterization in those very settings and plot treatment is of utmost importance. As is narrative voice and filming technique.

Kya naya hai picture mein?
Does anyone who’s going to watch Dev.D really care what happens to the alcoholic loser this time around?
It’s a done to death theme. The last time we met him, this dude had the choice of Aishwarya Rai and Madhuri Dixit but still ended up convulsing to death in a frilly dhoti.
What a pity.
Hindi cinema’s enfant terrible Anurag Kashyap pulls Devdas’ veneer of decency off, garbs him in jeans/T shirt/Dark glasses, pumps him with LSD and lets his testesterone loose on every the girl that he comes across in his neighbourhood, family circles and even the loneliness of the dark and dingy drug joints of Pahargunj in Delhi. Though Anurag Kashyap stays faithful to the overall theme of Devdas and even makes it a point to include a Chunni Lal drinking buddy, the salute to Danny Boyle in the opening credits should give the audience of what’s to be expected.
Dev.D is replete with social indiscretions like digressions into the ills of electronic communication, paid-phone sex, leaked MMS scandals, BDSM behaviour, BMW car crashes and totally guiltless exchange of body fluids. In fact, Devdas’ hitherto chaste pining for both Paro and Chadramukhi is successfully subverted to nothing less or more than just lust. The audience who still remember Sanjay Raam-Leela Bhansali’s version cannot be blamed for wondering-OMG, did bengali men ever have libido?

Maybe not-but AK’s Dev.D is punjabi, so there you go.

After all that, is it any wonder that the film’s got every puritan’s proverbial goat?
So then, with all its in your face sedition, is the film deliberately disrespectful, immoral and insulting to women?

Not in the least. Dev.D’s Paro and Chanda are wonderfully characterized as women with personalities that offer alternating crutches to his spineless existence. They are women whose lives are not devastated either by romantic rejection or the loss of their treasured hymens. There is no revel / reprimand cycle that underscores their actions or rules their lives. Their characters are so brilliantly sketched out –that for once they appear as real people and not the Ghore-Baire dichotomy that the Paro/Chadramukhi parable has been granted vis-à-vis Devdas’ relationship with the other sex.

Casting coup- Though Anurag Kashyap is the first person to credit Abhay Deol with the idea of a post-modern Devdas, the credit of moulding Devdas into a gentlemanly, Gen X prince of perversion goes to AK himself. Eventually, Dev.D stops wallowing in self pity and plunging his face into icy blue wash basins to realises that he can never, ever love anybody. This is the coup-de-grace of the movie. He learns to let go of his inability to be involved in true love and moves on. Mahie Gill (Paro ) and Kalki Koechlin (Chanda), who were both picked out of total obscurity for this film, suit their characters even more than Dev.D and deliver performances that would put last year’s Filmfare award winner(Priyanka Chopra) right in the…gutter. The scene where Paro returns from the sugarcane field with a mattress on her back and tears in her eyes does more to define her personality than anything else.Ditto for the scene where Chanda casually slips into a conversation on the semantics of her profession. If these scenes aren’t life defining moments for the Hindi film heroine-what is?

Music- If Aamir was anything to go by, Bollywood should have expected a Dev.D coming from music director Amit Trivedi. In this film, he crosses and mixes genres like a true master and comes up with a uniquely refreshing hybrid sound that’s difficult to pin down-much like Dev.D’s libido. The official audio release of Dev.D has 18 songs on its soundtrack. Yes there are18 numbers, all of which aren’t songs as such but musical pieces that form the backbone of Dev.D. Be it the folky Dhol Yaara Dhol/ the super cheesy-spoofy Emotional Atyachaar/the grungy~new age rock Nayan Tarse/or the trancy Paayaliya, Amit Trivedi shows A R Rahman and Shankar/Loy/Ehshan what being different actually means. His daringly original musical arrangements (like a brass band for a rock song) and the usage of previously unheard of voices is highly commendable. After 2007’s METRO-Dev.D is the next truly rock based musical score that scores. In fact, the whole album has Rock written over it in such big letters that you have to be Javed (Rock On) Akhtar to not notice it. The effect of the songs and background score is such that in hindsight, the whole Film appears to be a psychedelic dream sequence based around the stupendous soundtrack.

Cinematography- Like Dibakar Banerjee’s Oye-Lucky,Lucky- Oye, Anurag Kashyap shoots the first half of Dev.D in the garish, real colours of rural Punjab (without any artificial lighting). Then, when the story moves to the underbelly of Delhi, the usage of strongly contrasted, surreal lighting and zippy camerawork ~( especially in the song sequences ) is nothing short of stunning. Notably, the camera does not resort to the meaningless quick cuts/ zooming / gimmickry that Sanjay white-feather Gupta keeps resorting to but still delivers special Fx that wow you without taking your attention away from the characters. The squiggly neon lights that keep haunting a zonked Dev.D like an unholy Halo and his unsteady in/out of sanity movements truly are a joy to behold. My more learned friends tell me that the overall look/feel is close to Wong Kar-Wai his Chungking Express. I only found some stills online-but the analogy seems fair enough. ;-)

Screenplay- The film is told from three linear, discrete POVs. Paro. Chanda. Dev.D.- that are inconsistent in their weightage of screen time distribution but engaging all the same. After their initial lovers’ spat, Paro and Dev.D are mostly missing from Chanda’s descent from the life of a cocky convent school girl to the inescapable existence as a brazen street prostitute. The Paro portion of the film is clearly the best in terms of defining the characters and the Dev.D part suffers from a bit of excess-especially when Dev.D moves away from Chanda’s life and decides to do some back/pack soul searching ~ where ever the roads may lead him to. The trip may have been necessary to complete the character arc and bring him around to getting over himself-but the film certainly slackens that little bit in the third act. Apart from that, the screenplay (in English, Hindi and Punjabi) does well to liberate Dev.D from every other film that’s been made on the same theme.

Direction- Unlike No Smoking, where he was accused of being too obtuse for Indian audiences, AK makes it a point to keep Dev.D’s characters as humane as possible without compromising on his bigger statements on pseudo morality and crippling social mores. In the end, Dev.D is loads of fun (with references galore to SRK’s Devdas) but is still executed with amazing maturity and existential insight. AK makes it a point to pay his tributes but still dance with the devil while he’s tipping his hat and spinning on the dance floor. It’s a helluva romp to be able to pull through successfully, especially in the light of the baggage attached to its precedents and the dark clouds of doubt that were hanging over AK’s head after Paanch, Black Friday and No Smoking.

Dev. D’s other interesting bits and pieces-
Nugget one- The Twilight Players are the trio that breaks into groovy open-hand dances under frosty blue neon lights of an underground drug joint in Delhi. As Dev.D sinks deeper into his hallucinations, they reappear with their gravity-defying gyrations in the songs Nayan tarse and Pardesi, lending the moments their psychedelic stupor. These super smooth guys are a group of three brothers from London, who are currently visiting their ancestral home in Phagwara, Punjab, and basking in the success of Dev.D. Christened Gurpal Singh Phgura, Amrik Singh Phgura and Sukjeevan Singh Phgura, the three now prefer their “trade” names — Sinbad, Ammo and Jimmy. A smart move given that their clients are often some big international names—they’ve performed with Michael Jackson, Madonna and Kylie Minogue. “Our style is inspired by a number of dance forms and is always about attitude, never just dance,” says Sinbad, 42, the oldest, in a heavy Brit-American accent.

Nugget two-When she takes refuge at her Grandmother’s place, Chanda keeps reading a book called Contempt by Alberto Moravia. The namesake movie is an all time art-house classic and the overriding themes of the Italian author’s books being-Moral aridity, the hypocrisy of contemporary life, and the substantial incapability of people finding happiness in traditional ways such as love and marriage.(source Wikipedia)

Watch it and you may discover more!

GULAL

When was the last time you saw a mysteriously metaphorical figure that was half man /half monkey do to tandav to the tune of utterly exquisite old and new poetry in a film?:-
Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamaare dil mein hai,

Dekhna hai zor kitna baazuay qaatil mein hai;
Waqt aanay pey bata denge tujhe aye aasman,

Hum abhi se kya batayen kya hamare dil mein hai.
When was the last time you heard coarse words like Bhosdi-ke, chuti-yapa & laundiya-baazi being mentioned in a hindi film without the director being accused of cheap exploitation? Gulal gathers a dozen odd characters under the spotlight of college politics and holds up a mirror that strips everyone naked in the harsh, charged atmosphere of casteism, ambition, deceit and violence.Gulal is topical,stronlgy atmospheric and harsh but definitely recommended watching for its sincerity of purpose, powerhouse performances (Kay Kay Menon, Abhimanyu Singh and Raja Singh Chaudhary) and truly exceptional use of music( lyrics and music by Piyush Mishra) as a means of propogation of political thought. In fact, Mishra’s lyrics themselves make Gulal worth a second watch. It’s dififcult to absorb the full weight and significance of songs ranging from “Jaise Dur Deshke Tower Mein Ghus Gaye Aeroplane”/“Iraq Mein Aake Bas Gaye Uncle Sam” to “Yuddh hee to veer ka pramaan hai” in a single viewing.
For a film that been more than five years in the making, Anurag Kashyap’s Gulal holds up surprisingly well for its riveting two and half hours of viewing time, its somewhat predictable third act and unrelenting intensity non-withstanding. Gulal starts with the abominable ritual of hostel ragging, moves onto the treacherous machinations of campus politics and ends with a bitter endictment of love, life and everything that the material world may have to offer. Yeh Duniya agar mil bhi jaaye toh kya hai? Apparently, Sahir Ludhianvi’s song from Pyasa was the sole inspiration for the film’s story.
The metaphor of Gulal as the red-mask-of-revolution is slighlty off-sync and the context of rajput-revolution half/baked in the context of their relative affluence in the state. (Yes, there have been upheavals in Rajasthan in the recent past-but that was in the lower gujjar community) Gulal is conceived as a bloody tragedy of Shakesperian proportions and AK almost pulls it off with a nihlistic, relentless screenplay where every character exists in shades of gray. Perhaps, the film's only flaw lies in its lack of dramatic-relief and its related scope of ambition. There are far too many complexed, flesh and blood characters who are drawn out and then not resolved as well as they deserve to be. The exact stakes and advantages that are up for grabs upon becoming the College General Sec are never elaborated and the character of the teacher (Jessy Randhawa) who is stripped/humiliated in the beginning of the film is abandoned half-way through. Also fluttering unnecesssarily in and out of the second half of the film is Mahie Gill ( Dev D’s Paro) as Kay-Kay’s nachne-waali mistress.
All in all, Gulal re-affirms the status of Anurag Kashyap as one of the few brave new Indian filmmakers who have the talent, vision , courage and conviction required for standing out in the glut of dynastic dip-shit that hails itself as the tuxedoed face of indian cinema. Karan Johar- chal side hat!

Anurag Kashyap has arrived.

A tad late –but he has definitely arrived.

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

If indie director Danny Boyle had known that his modest film would rake in millions at the box office and win brownie points at every award ceremony with its shameless display of poverty porn, he'd have surely struck that exalted jig in a putrid pile of shit instead of his igominable six year old protaganist and scream 'Jai Ho!' in his cutesy British accent.
Like Vikas Swarup's Q&A, Slumdog Millionaire is a one trick pony where the screenplay is an episodic apology as to how a Call centre chai-walla could get all the questions right at the Karod-potty show after getting his toes nicely twiddled by electric jolts the night before. Granted that the film had to be shot exclusively in Mumbai's dirtiest underbelly to underline the harshness and hostility of life in a slum, why did Danny Bhai have to shoot India's most famous monument with the same 'creative vision'? The first shot of the Taj from across the sludge on the banks of the Yamuna is unforgiving to say the least.
But momentarily resurrected National pride aside- I have two other problems with the much celebrated SlumDawg.

One- Simon Beaufoy's screenplay holds no intrigue because of an obvious framing problem. Right from the start, you know that the grimy, scrawny urchin Jamaal who metamorphosizes into chikna Dev Patel is going to get not just the last question, but every friggin question right on the karod-potty show. That's like knowing that a double-fisted hero is going to win every street-fight (with single punches too) before he gets to bash up the main villian in his den. How utterly predictable is that? You're also dished out anomalies like an impromptu riot brought in (without explanation or resolution) just to justify how an uneducated muslim child could know about hindu religious symbolism and sexual come-uppence between teenage brothers to justify the remembrance of the revolver's inventor. The three slumkids around whom the entire film revolves keep falling into one life-threatening/ gut-wrenching calamity after another but manage to somehow escape to unexplained obscurity-only till their destinies conveniently collide in accordance with the lame-ass questions on Anil Kapoor's quiz-show monitor. Suspension of disbelief and a naive Alice in Underworld vision is one thing; a disjointed narrative and exploitative socio-cultural pickings are another.

Two- Danny Boyle decides to toss the issue of Language as a key to cultural identity to the winds. Like most other Phoren film makers who've dared to venture into India-exotica to shoot their jewels in the crown, he deals with the issue by disregarding it totally. As a result, Jamaal the multilingual slumkid speaks in street-lingo (hindi) in his first two (more absorbing) avatars but switches to stiff Brit upper lip quips as a suit-boot Dev Patel. Ditto for his lady love Latika(Frieda Pinto) and older brother Salim(Madhur Mittal).
Pardon my questioning the verisimilitude, but isn't speaking in English supposed to be the passport to a life that's actually beyond the clutches of these impoverished urchins?

Without a doubt, this overhyped film is an angrez-aadmi's 'vision' of Mumbai and Maadher-India not how he sees it, but how he would like it stitched together in two hours for maximum mileage in whatever quarters the cow's worth milking. And it owes its success abroad to its clever extension of the idea of poverty-tourism, some excellent slum-casting by Loveleen Tandon, bare-to-the-bone cinematography by Anthony Mantle and ultimately the newness factor of its cross-genre theme.
Even without Rahman's peppy music-that's an awful lot of things to get right.

Luck By Chance

Thank Heavens, Zoya Akhtar’s much anticipated film Luck By Chance is not a let down. In fact it’s the first decent film of the year. If Zoya’s written the (admirably feminist) story screenplay herself -she’s inherited the better part of her father’s storywriting skills and if the film’s ghost written by papa Javed Akhtar-then he’s certainly saved his most honest, sincere and fresh material in recent years for his daughter’s directorial debut.
Engaging stories about the mores and morals of the film industry are rare in Bollywood for obvious reasons. The idea is a double edged sword that more often inflicts self injuries rather than cutting through unchartered territory. As they say, the world just behind the camera that creates magic on the tinsel screen is better off not seen.
Hence the Akhtar family deserves kudos for taking up the ‘Chala Murari Hero Banne’ theme afresh and rendering it with wonderful characters ( Rishi Kapoor as a garrulous but lovable film director and Dimple as a domineering & calculating the star mom), astute situations and plausible yet interesting plot turns. The lispy Farhan Akhtar and petulant Konkona Sen give good performances as struggling actors in the film industry who get by on bit roles, borrowed money and the false promises made by exploitative, matlabi big shot producers and directors. After years of waiting for the proverbial big breaks to come their way, their fortunes change as do their relationships as friends, unspoken lovers and kindred souls.
The film follows the couples lives as Farhan gets picked for a big budget launch and konkona is relegated to doing TV serials despite being a good actor . Farhan turns into a chaploos smooth operator for a while to make his way up the slippery ladder of stardom till a few wise words by SRK bring him down to earth. Yes, SRK. LBC features cameos by at least a dozen A grade film stars-most of whom are well placed/used as their original selves. The screenplay is peppered with small, sometimes seemingly random and distanced scenes but the film holds together pretty well as a whole ; especially in the second half when Farhan’s success becomes a barrier between him and everything/everybody that helped him reach there.
If LBC doesn’t do really well-it would only be because of its ironical lack of glam-star power and maybe its lacklustre soundtrack. The songs’ lyrics, though relevant to the script are tacky/unimaginative and the music perhaps suffers in comparison to the sparkling screenplay which is contemporary without being casual and relevant without being blaise and cliched.
As they say in Hollywood, Luck By Chance is good ‘property’( script/screenplay). Well worth a two hour investment , too.

DASVIDANIYA...

A year ago, who could have predicted that the year’s best film would be a First time director’s small budget-small star cast film on the morbid subject of impending Death? Lympho-Sarcoma of the intestine-anybody?
Did I hear the regular Hindi film audiences already running for cover from the doctor’s waiting room? Hasn’t superstar SRK dealt with it so smartly and glibly in Kal Ho Na Ho- a couple of years ago? But the deceptively named Dasvidaniya(goodbye in russian) is in a different league. Less than a quarter of this very Indian film is shot abroad. It has little to do with Indo-Russian platitudes. And there are no rivers of glycerine being shed around the hospital bed as the camera pans from the convulsing hero to the now staple cardiogram with a pulsating green saw toothed line.
Director Shashant Shah’s Dasvidaniya is on par with Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Anand in terms of ingenuity of screenplay & dialogues (Arshad Syed), and sensitivity of approach to a subject that is depressing to say the least. (The only department its found wanting is the music). The strength of the movie lies in the protaganist’s (obvious) acceptance of his situation and the (remarkable) journey of fulfillment of his Bucket List. What are the ten things that YOU would do if you knew you’d die in three months? Learn to pay the guitar? Buy a new car? Travel abroad? Go find the girl you had loved all your life? For a film that rings the death-knell for its darpok protagonist within its first fifteen minutes, Dasvidaniya finishes on a note of upliftment that’s remarkable to say the least.
The double chinned, bespectacled, sadhna-cut Vinay Pathak excels as the shy, reticent and bland Accounts Manager who suddenly finds out that he’s about to kick the bucket in three months and decides to live out the rest of his life by fulfilling the wishes that he’d been too afraid to even admit to himself throughout his beleaguered 37 years of existence. Here’s an actor who’s choosing the right scripts to work on and is growing from strength to strength ( Bheja Fry, Manorama, Khosla Ka Ghosla, Jhonny Gaddar). In a dramatic turn around of sorts from his proven repertoire of mad-cap roles, Vinay Pathak’s character of Amar Kaul harks back to some of the Amol Palekar/ Vinod Mehra Ghar-Gharounda films of the70s or even the classic DD serials of yore like Mr. Yogi/Wagle ki Duniya that people still remember despite their so called ordinariness. Also worth a mention is Sarita Joshi as Kaul’s partially deaf and TV addicted mother who resurrects her limp/distracted existence to try and save her son as the film hurtles towards its predictable but undoubtedly memorable end.

In its simplicity, poignancy, courage and undeniable bitter-sweet charm, Dasvidaniya is almost the best Good bye ever.

WELCOME TO SAJJANPUR !

For Bollywood, there’s an India where faux-gay men shave their tanned chests, strut about on the beaches of Miami and declare that Indian cinema has 'arrived'-and then there’s Shyam Benegal’s India. Doubtless-his Welcome To Sajjanpur is a charming, winsome yet scathingly satirical film- its simple cause/consequence take on pathos and a rushed fifteen minutes wrap-up notwithstanding. The protagonist’s (a brilliant Shreyas Talpade) insistence in using an old fountain pen to write letters for a rupee each for all the illiterate villagers is a metaphor for the low-on-ambition and grossly under-represented ‘other’ India that continues to grapple with its hardships in the shadow of the media-blitz on the metros that defines the ‘modern India’ today.
Yes, this village where everyone talks in a borderline UP/Bihar accent is a microcosm for all the pleasures and pains that define life in an Indian village. WTS is the Mera Gaon=Mera Desh idea resuscitated from the seventies and presented in a farcical nautanki mode. The film is more character than plot driven and takes the viewer on a rare, lighthearted Malgudi Days like journey through an idyllic Sajjanpur as seen through the eyes (and pen) of it sutradhar- Shreyas Talpade. Everyone in the village needs him to be their spokesperson and he tries his best to keep maintain a sense of parity, balance and a sense of justice through the power of his carefully penned words and little else. There’s a forlorn bride (Amrita Rao) who pines for her estranged husband, an ambitious gunda (Yashpal Sharma) with electoral aspirations, a chat-pati, ‘dog’matic chachi (Ila Arun) who wants to marry off her cursed daughter (Divya Dutta) to a dog and of course the lovelorn village idiot (Bhojpuri star~Ravi Kishen). The characters ranging from a stingy snake charmer to a retired army man are all nothing new, but what makes the film so interesting is its sparkling screenplay and dialogues (Ashok Mishra). Under Benegal’s watchful eye, the characters are funny (in a rustic way) without being crude and loud without being distasteful. So there are no backless cholis on display and no laathi-dacait fights in the middle of the day. In its dignity and poise, WTS is truly captivating.
The film touches upon issues as wide as widow re-marriage, gender roles (Hijra-Sarpanch), wretched superstitions, communal harmony and even thwarted efforts at industrial development (for proposed car-plants). In doing so Benegal conjures up too many characters that use up about three-quarters of the film’s running time in their mere introduction and leave no scope for a satisfactory Third Act finale. Despite all that and the absence of any star-power, Welcome To Sajjanpur is well worth a visit. It’s a small but ambitious and energetic entertainer that showcases the vision of an auteur to a mainstream audience and proves the power of the pen in more ways than one.

OYE LUCKY! LUCKY OYE!

Once in while, sometimes, almost out of some unexpected roll of dice or a divine sleight of hand that dictates the fate of all 'creative' endeavours in Bollywood; comes a small, precocious film that gets everything right and like its protagonist wins everyone over, despite its modest star cast, lack of a memorable original soundtrack and a screeplay thats heavily peppered with a nasal panju-jat accent.
Like S Raghavan's Johnny Gaddar, you know Oye Lucky Lucky Oye is special from the moment its Truck-Body-Kitsch-Art casting starts rolling to the tune of Kishore Kumar's~'Chahiye-thora pyaar-thora pyar chahiye.' The film is a studied overstatement (!) of the aspirations of a typical Dilli lower-middle-class chor like no film before it. And its done with humour, panache and amazing attention to details from start to end~ right from the title which exemplifies the Punjabi way of addressal to its intelligent use of rank newcomers to make the protagonist's audaciously long run from the clutches of the law believable. And no, there are no derisive, stereotypical references to-' Barah baj gaye' type Sardar jokes or Karan Johar types glycerine/ glitterati shaadi tamashas where everyone on screen is gauche personified. Here; the sets look real, the characters flesh and blood and the general energy level and garish colours adopted by the director are as different from KHOSLA KA GHOSLA as the awkward Parvin Dabas was from smooth operator Abhay Deol.
Abhay Deol as the rather sweet, suave but remorseless cut-surd turned compulsive chor with nerves of steel is a joy to watch. He's making mental inventories of 'lift-able' commodities into any house that he walks into. Jewellery, clothes, music systems, TVs, anything will do. Even pet Pomeranians. He's forever looking for a quick gasp at everything that's rich, luxurious and just out of reach~ though he doesn't have a house to keep his stolen booty in. He lives in a car and is perpetually on the run. And he will go as far as his stars take him before his he runs out of luck. Total entertainment to the tune of 30 lakhs worth of good stolen, as per the state Police records.
The film begins with fifteen minutes from the life of a teenaged (& turbaned) Lucky as a precursor to his adult life of 'hi-fi ambition.' From there, there's no slowing down as Lucky steals cars, hearts, almost entire shop-marts. Where OLLO triumphs over regular chor-police romps is also in capturing the strain/changes that come into Lucky's relationship with his lady love (Neetu Chandra), brilliant side-kick (Manu Rishi), father( Paresh Rawal), chief mentor (Paresh Rawal) and a Vet (Paresh Rawal again!).
The overall plot is admittedly nothing to write home about but the hilarious screenplay, dialogues and character sketches score highly without falling into the trappings of ho-hum mainstream-masala movies. In this reality-bite of Dilli ka alu-paratha, entire families live their lives in small, stuffy and unplastered houses, scooters are still the only family vehicle, irate parents still throw pilate-glass at bigade-hue bacchas and the girl next door still looks like the coy girl next door, sans attitude, make-up and parlour hair-do.
Dibakar Banerjee's sophomore venture is one of best entertainers of the year. No question about it, oye!

ROCK OFF

ROCK ON
[Aasmaan Neela-neela kyon, Paani geela geela kyon]


First time Writer/director Abhishek Kapoor’s Rock on is the story of a failed rock quartet that decides to do a reunion after ten years at the lead singer’s wife’s behest and thereby rescue two of its down-and-out members from the depths of despair. The band consisting of the poet-at-heart Farhan Akhtar (vocals), winsome gujju chokra Purab ( Drums), pensive goan Arjun Rampal ( lead guitar) and Relic VJ Luke Kenny(percussionist) keep jamming in the garage and trying to strike record deals till they realise that Javed Akhtar’s corny lyrics

and his son’s hopelessly hoarse voice are really no good.
So Farhan gets a haircut and becomes a savvy but strangely restrained stockbroker while Purab chops his goatee and finds solace in sorting diamonds in his papa’s dukaan. Arjun Rampal continues to play igonimous gigs for small money and Luke Kenny nurses an ugly, clichéd secret (brain tumor) that the last quarter of the film unabashedly holds on to for emo-support. All that after Farhan Akhtar’s listless wife discovers his buried-in-the-past secret in a bunch of band photos hidden in his wardrobe and decides to shake her rock-star swami back to stardom. Jhalak dikhlaa ja! Does the band win the recording contract that had eluded them ten years ago? It doesn’t matter if they do. What stays with you in the end is the massive (musical) let down that floozies through after Farhan Akhtar had gone on record about parallels between Rock On’s Magik and the likes of Coldplay, REM and Green Day.
Pray-what kind of a Rock Band calls itself Magik with a K? Probably a pretty in pink pop/rock ensemble cast from the late seventies with two semi-matronly bovine beauties and two bearded baritones in white suits behind them. Think Heart, think Fleetwood Mac, think Rush. Rock on’s band is conveniently named Magik to fall in line with the split up member’s nostalgia related to the group.Sniff. For the unintiated-there’s no anger /frustration/ un-inhibited expression/disregard for authority/sheer genius or even a single inspired riff worth remembering in Magik’s insipid tale. Just the beginning bars of Pink Floyd’s ‘Coming back to life’ stolen by Shankar-Loy-Ehsaan that keeps popping up every now and then in the background. Last year’s Metro kicks Rock On’s ass for the Best Rock soundtrack (to date) in a hindi film by a long- long way. And urdu poet Javed Akhtar writing lyrics for rock songs is like Bob Dylan penning down a few whiny ghazals while being help prisoner for vandalising the Agra Fort-‘ Na kisi kee aankh ka noor hoon>’ Hey, I’m not the jewels of your eyes, BABE.’ Picture THAT!
To their credit- Arjun Rampal and Farhan Akhtar(when he’s not singing) do put in admirable performances about boys being forced into becoming men; Men that they never wanted to become- staid, straitjacketed, nine to five bread winners who never had the heart to pursue what the really wanted to-somewhere in college when they thought they had what it took to conquer the world. That was Bang on.

kabhi-kabhi oddity!

JTYJN…marks Abbas Tyrewala's directorial debut. It's a campus-caper where the students never have to bother about class or the campus. They're always meeting up in a purana-qila on the waterfront with waves spalshing around them or in a tacky club/disco where quarrels/misunderstandings can easily break out at the slightest of provocations.
Imran Khan ( who's 6 inches taller than his chacha Aamir Khan) and Genelia ( whose name sounds like some exotic tropical flora-that might give you rashes if you venture too close) are 'best friends' in college for five years on a stretch. Fair enough. But he's a chikna 'gareeb-larka' with a posh-urban accent and politeness personified and she's as cute and bubbly as soda pop. They're inseparable( always in each other bedrooms) and always hugging and rubbing shoulders. But there's no feeling only. What to do?
The girl's parents step in to play agony aunt and ask the couple to try dating other people and see if there's any chemistry. For a moment there is-and then the couple realize that its better to turn platonic love into the real thing when faced with the prospect of drunken in laws and abusive fiancees. For somebody who has some other decent screenplays to his credit, Tyrewala's first solo endeavour is the definiton of hypocrisy in the broadest sense of the word. The film comes packaged as a new-liberated-post-millenia-urban-youth tale but revels in sordid cliches that equate drinking, partying and failed adult relationships with bad behaviour and low morals. A drinker, a partygoer and someone who's been through relationships is definitely a 'bad person' and a girl whose parents have a had a fall out and stuck on together for her sake is social stigma. That's a na-na.
The plot is a bunch of scenes pasted around the idea of the guy with a grand sher-singh lineage being a darpok. He badly needs to break out of his shell-crack a few jaws to prove his libido to his sweetheart. Throw a few fists-khoon nikaal. Haath-paaon thor- Rathod!
There isn't one nuanced scene in the whole film apart from the one where Genelia gets jealous of the other girl that Imran's going out with after a party. That's saying a lot for a love story-where everyone keeps howling a 70's RD Burman love song –apparently to evoke familiarity and cuteness. All the characters are cardboard cut outs and the screenplay is full of howlers like-' Woh gareeb hai,fir bhi?' Pray, which cool-college-dude talks like that? Also adding to the buffonry are heavy weights like Paresh Rawal, Ratna Pathak and Naseeruddin Shah and those thespian Khan brothers- Sohail and Arbaaz Khan. The real clincher is a 'Aashiqui' type climax where Imran must 'prevent' Genelia from 'going to the USA for 15 days.' Well-she was coming back-wasn't she? He breaks through the departure lounge and goes down on the floor screaming her very cute pet name like she's being led away to the gallows. This isn't the eighties when going saat-samandar-paar meant gone for good. Genelia would probably be online on her cell phone the moment she landed abroad. That's that.
If the film does well before people find out what its truly about-it could only be due to AR Rahman's R &B inspired music. Nothing else can save this oddity, Aditi.

JAB WE WET

Imtiaz Ali’s Jab We Met is another re-hash of DDLJ(Shahrukh+Kajol) with some scenes scraped in from Pyar toh hona hi tha(Ajay Devgun+Kajol~French Kiss) to tie up the loose ends and bring the insipid drama to an end. What speak of story or characters, even the costumes and camera angles are the same. Wohi sarson ke kheton mein phudakti hui kudi aur unke beech mein baitha banjo bajata hua apna reluctant raajkumar. Its been ten years since DDLJ was released and which great film doesn’t deserve a few deferential remakes ? Ali’s strategy can be gauged from the fact that the title was picked from an SMS competition and then positioned to target the teens who are tapping in Hinglish now but were still in their nappies when the original was released. Get the talk-of-the-town couple into a film and what do we have? Voila! You get- Jab We Wet.
If Shahid Kapoor is a reduced xerox of Shahrukh and bears one tenth of his talent and charisma then the runaway tart Kareena is twice as large as Kajol and ten times as irritating. Needless to say, he looks like her chota bhai instead of she looking like his lugai. As better sense would dictate, the bechara boy tries to keep safe distance from her after bumping into her in a running train and having to stick to her for the sake of developing some chemistry and keeping the story going. Kareena Kapoor’s antics in first twenty minutes of the film are admittedly interesting but how long can u blow one measly strip of bubblegum before it bursts and sticks to your cheeks like nosey goo? The chalk and cheese duo keep meeting and parting by chance for two hours that zips back and front over a time period of an year to justify the impact that gems like ’Tum mujh par line mar rahe ho?’ have on a young bairag industrialist (Shahid Kapoor).
JBW has precious little going for it apart from one superhit Shreya Ghosal song (Yeh Ishq hai...jannat dikhai ) and more scratch-beneath-the-surface-proof of the degeneration of Bollywood’s precocious genes. Shahid Kapoor isn’t a phati-chaddi patch on his father(watch Pankaj Kapoor’s Dharam) and Kareena Kapoor doesn’t even have to look that far back. Her sister Karishma was dignity and poise compared to her-even when swinging from Govinda’s technicolour Taanga in-‘ Maine cycle se ja raa tha-tumhe paidal se aa rahi thi.’
Time for a nappy change, perhaps.

HALLA BOL -SAFDAR HASHMI HAAZIR HO

Rabble rouser Raj kumar Santoshi who had lost some ground with a few lacklustre films(Chinatown,Family,Lajja) regains a part of it with Halla Bol – albeit in the same jarring vein as his early films( Ghayal, Damini ,Ghatak ). HB has its heart in its right place but its 20 minutes too long and 200 Decibels too loud.
It starts off as a reprising Madhur Bhandarkar’s super-cynical Page-3 and then latches onto two separate but related stories from the past to bear redemption for its sold-out superstar-Sameer Khan (Ajay Devgun). The first is the citizens’ vigilante~ Jessica Lal murder case and the second is the lesser known gangster slaying of Commie Street theatre activist Safdar Hashmi that not many outside the world of niche Indian theatre know about.
Ajay Devgun(in a thinly disguised personification of Shahrukh Khan) rises up from the streets to the dizzying heights of Bollywood and loses sight of everything along the way-his ideals, morals, even his family and the man he used to be. Then when he inadvertently becomes a witness in a high profile murder case-he turns to his Guru Panjaj Kapoor (Safdar Hashmi~parthasarathi) for some Geeta-vaani and guidance on how to stand up for truth and justice.
HB is bound to be an uncomfortable film for upwardly mobile multiplex audiences but may do well in non-metro centres that are still receptive towards
80’s style cliched-socialist messages & tedious moral posturing against the establishment, its cunning politicans and scheming top-cops.
The film addresses difficult questions about star activism and collective social conscience but fails to make the desired impact because the screenplay changes tone from the farcical to coarse reactionary melodrama-complete with looting, arson, swordfights and unruffled sniggering villians issuing diktats from ‘hedonistic swimming pools’. Real life personalities (including Liquor Barons and New Age Gurus) are quickly painted in shades of black and white to hasten the understanding of the mass subversion of justice and the dialogues seem to be deeply inspired by C-grade Mithun’s ‘Ooty’ potboilers like ‘Jallad’ or ‘Hitler.’
While Ajay Devgun’s already receiving flak for mouthing lines that show his co-stars and the film industry in bad light, Pankaj Kapoor spouts poetry, breathes fire and makes a fine display of his under-rated histrionic abilites in the little screen time that’s allotted to him. If the film’s title is taken from Safdar Hashmi’s slogan then the story should have centred around him. That would have been really worthwhile.

HEAVY FUEL

Anurag (Black Friday) Kashyap’s ‘No Smoking’ is hindi film-noir way ahead of its time. Which is not another way of saying that it is self-indulgent mumbo-jumbo that sacrifices comprehension, logic and a corroborative plot at the altar of superficiality.
Smoking as an abhorrent & destructive indulgence is taken as the moot point of argument between morality, righteousness and social responsibility on one hand and individualistic freedom of choice on the other (maimed one). What begins as the cocky John (Kafkaesque) Abraham’s reluctant battle to quit his addiction at the nagging of his wife (Ayesha Takia) and the coaxing of his freshly liberated squint-eyed pal (Ranbir) quickly turns into a nightmare from the deep dungeons of hell. K goes down to meet Paresh Rawal (Shri Baba Bangali of Sealdah) at his no-retreat Prayogshala and is forced into signing an agreement (tome) to the effect that he wishes to quit smoking. K acts irreverent, stubborn, incredulous and is outright disobedient at the apparent omnipotency of the Baba but is forced to fall in line when the default penalties start to come true. As part of his ‘treatment’, he loses his hearing, friends, brother, wife and finally his soul; that last treasured possession that defined his existence. His astitva finally dissolves in a pink ghoulish soul-soup. But then, wasn’t it his soul that had compelled him to do as he pleased? Not have to listen to anybody?
At the film’s promo-events, John spoke naively about the film being a timely message to the youth about the dangers of smoking but what unfolds is a tangential tale. Stephen King's Quitters Inc ' inspired' No Smoking is replete with black humour, delusional fantasies, paranoia (of the kind caused by withdrawal symptoms) and retributive gore attached to the difficulties of extreme choice. There are excesses like cartoon thought blurbs, quirky references (infidel castro castrated cigars) and an over exposed yellow, grease stained rusty underground atmosphere that’s too reminiscent of C grade torture flicks like Saw and Hostel.
No Smoking’s production values are top notch and out of sync with its target audience. There isn’t any. What target audience can a film which starts with quotes from Plato, Socrates & a Sinatra blurb and then ends with a mandatory Bipasha Basu item number have?
Therein lies NS’s identity crisis and its predictably short life. But here’s a niche film that dares to burn new ground. It provokes without closing its loops and rebukes without passing judgment.

STARRY STARRY NIGHT

In Taare Zameen Par, Aamir Khan plays a sensitive, poised, junior school art teacher who sports a rolex watch, ubercool gelled hair( that’s soon imitated by his favourite pupil) and designer casual t- shirts at an ultra-conservative Tie & Blazer Boarding school. Maybe, he should have paid a visit to Shantiniketan(W.B.) or even Baroda for a clearer picture of the vocation of art education( and educators) in our country. In his one hour in front of the camera, the acclaimed method actor looks like anything but an Art teacher and his smart myopic directorial vision makes a fine mockery of the purpose of Art towards self-revelation behind it. But then, that’s ‘pop-realism’ for you. TZP is sensitive, refined cinema only for those recently glutted by Om Shanti Om. It is indigestible for anyone who can tell his Monet from his Manet.
After normal (in-sensitive) teachers respond to the ‘special needs’ of the dyslexic child by rapping him on his knuckles, making him stand outside class everyday and flunking him summa-cum-laude; Aamir appears as the proverbial knight with a shining brush in hand and paints everything in different shades of oxy-moron. He mouths deep philosophies to nine year old boys who’re trying to sketch still-life, quotes from Oscar Wilde in the Principal’s room and convinces a dyslexic child’s parents that academic success is not everything in life. Then, after a lot of sniffing and touching songs, his film climaxes with the buck-toothed brat beating the whole school in an Art competition. The under dog gets his moment of glory. Face it- mister.Success is everything in life. And Art is just another subject that everyone’s trying to excel in.
The film begins with Darsheel’s charming pranks but starts to wear thin and tear after his condition is diagnosed and he is packed off to Boarding School. There on, there is too much water and not enough paint on his paper and Aamir khan tries to mitigate it with strangely dsylexic contradictions of his own.
Art-as Aamir states is ‘a display of emotions.’ What then –is an ‘Art competition?’ A ‘competition of emotions?’ To its credit TZP has wonderfully written (Prasoon Joshi) and picturised songs, a talented child actor (Darsheel Safary ) and radically different subject matter plus some good intentions at its core. But Aamir Khan messes the film up in trying to reconcile his confused philosophy with the larger parameters of mainstream, commercial Bollywood. In trying to make a strong statement, all the characters emerge as stereotyped caricatures and the situations they find themselves in are absurd while trying to be profound. Pray, in what kind of a school are children openly allowed to point fingers at their teachers and openly laugh at them? And what kind of an Art teacher announces an Art competition that he (the TEACHER) himself competes in along with his students? No surprise then-that he emerges with one of the two best paintings(A vibrant wet-on-wet Samir Mondol watercolour).
If you want to see a classic coming-of-age school story go re-watch’ Dead Poets Society’ or even the recent ‘ The History Boys.’ And if its disabilities in the Indian context- then its Koshish (Sanjeev kumar/Jaya ) or Sparsh (Naseer)…