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)…