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Thursday, March 31, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Life Goes On
Cast: Sharmila Tagore, Girish Karnad, Om Puri, Soha Ali Khan, Mukulika Banerjee, Neerja Naik, Rez Kempton
Director: Sangeeta Dutta
One of the many pleasures of watching this supple evocative family saga is to see the timeless Sharmila Tagore share screen space with her real-life daughter Soha, who by the way, has never looked lovelier. That inner-glow comes from the company she keeps in this gentle drama suffused in melodious whispers and mellifluent suggestions of tunes long-forgotten and yet stored in the most inviolable chambers of the heart. Luckily for us, and the film, the Sharmila-Soha togetherness is not harped upon. There are far bigger issues and virtues to do with family ties and cultural disaffection secreted in the storytelling, propelling our hearts to soar in ways that modern cinema doesn't allow. When did Indian cinema cease to be about emotions? You wonder as you watch the silken cascade of debutante director Sangeeta Dutta’s family secrets and emotions gush out in a Bengali family in London, when one fine morning the mother simply drops dead on the kitchen floor.
The mother-figure, a constant and non-negotiable pivot of every family, here seems to be much more in demand than usual. All her three daughters seem to be stricken with heart problems that no cardiologist can tackle. Blessedly, the mother of the family, Manju, is played by the gloriously imposing Sharmila Tagore. “Life Goes On” captures the suddenness of bereavement in snatches of sounds, visuals and dialogues. There’s far more austerity in the expression of the anguish and despair after the sudden bereavement than in Mira Nair’s masterly study of coming to terms with death in “The Namesake”. At times, you long for more time between the members of the grieving family. There are no big breakdown sequences after the mother’s death. Everyone gets busy trying to pick up the threads of life. Everyone is a bit selfish – that’s the family secret that the film doesn’t get judgmental about.
A lot of vignettes connecting the mother’s memories to the present times appear predictable, even pedestrian. The director, fearless in her maiden endeavour, doesn’t shy away from making her film look familiar. From death to reconciliation, “Life Goes On” moves at a gentle pace. The echoes and resonances of a life that lingers after death is created through a blend of sounds and visuals capturing the feeble but flamboyant light of London at dawn and dusk. The parks, bridges, two store's residential areas and their incriminating quietude are ably captured in the film, as are the pain and postures of grief and mourning.
The Rabindra Sangeet in the original Bengali and a rather quaint Hindi translation suffuse a warm and endearing quality to the proceedings. The cross-cultural references resonate across the film’s somber skyline with unobtrusive emphasis. The film creates a fine balance between real-life elegies and their cinematic rendition. A lot of Sangeeta Dutta’s mise en scene project a first-time director’s effusive affinity to creating a defiant poetry out of the prosaic rhythms of life. Life for the Indian Bengali family in Britain never seemed more complex. At times you feel the director has ‘Britain’ more than she can chew. The sub-plot, on Islam-phobia brought in through Soha’s boyfriend Imtiaz (Rez Kempton) and the rock band that he and his friends put together despite Mullahs’ objections, seems to go off into tangent away from the Bengali’s family’s bereavement. But at the end, when we see the band playing a punk version of Hemant Kumar’s “Ganga Aaye Kahan Se” laced with a French rap section, you smile for the cultural shifts and translocations that the plot endeavours to establish without falling off the map of the human heart.
The performances by veterans Girish Karnad, Om Puri and Sharmila Tagore are uniformly skilled and supple. Among the younger members, Soha Ali Khan as the youngest Cordelia-like daughter to Karnad’s King Lear emerges strong and yet vulnerable. But it is the unknown young actress Neerja Naik who plays Soha’s lesbian sister, who proves a complete natural. The subtle, delicate and utterly disarming play of light and shade, of mellow memories and the hard present-reality, of the various cultural cross-generation clashes all these could have made any film heavy. Not “Life Goes On”, it is a gloriously polished and a poised look at the chaos that rules the bereaved heart in our troubled times. This film is a triumph on many levels and layers. And you don’t have to be a Sharmila Tagore fan to realise how resonant her presence can be even when she is lost to the plot.
Monica
Cast: Divya Dutta, Ashutosh Rana, Dadhi Pandey, Tinu Anand, Rajit Kapoor, Kittu Gidwani, Yashpal Sharma, Kunika, Saurabh Dubey, Ashish Kapoor, Kurush Khodaiji
Director: Sushen Bhatnagar
Director Sushen Bhatnagar has earlier made a film called 'Soch' (Danny Denzongpa, Arbaaz Khan, Sanjay Kapoor, Raveena Tandon) [2002] which was again a dramatic thriller and had it's moments for most part of it. Now around a decade later with 'Monica', he has taken a big step ahead. To begin with though, you don't have many expectations from 'Monica'. Reason being that there is absolutely nothing known about the film at all. Worse, since its promotion has been zilch, you do end up believing if the makers too thought that it wasn't worthy enough to spend any amount prior to release.
However, the perception about 'Monica' completely changes within 10 minutes of the film's beginning. Even better, the storyline is absolutely original which means you can't really guess what next would be on the anvil. Based on a real life political turmoil that had shook the nation a few years back when a top politician was embroiled in a telecom scam and a young female journalist was murdered, 'Monica' doesn't take names but exposes the nexus between politicians (Ashutosh Rana), media (Divya Dutta, Tinnu Anand), power brokers (Dadhi Pandey) and industrialists (Kittu Gidwani). In fact so smart has been this depiction that despite a similar theme being exposed in dozens of other films, the going-ons in 'Monica' stay on to be top notch which keep you glued on to the screen. To add to this, there is a brilliant culmination around this nexus when it is depicted on a black board and a piece of chalk by a competent lawyer (Yashpal Sharma) who wants to expose the reason behind the murder at all cost.
To keep the narrative engrossing, most of the first half of the film is set as a court room drama. The film opens with the murder of Monica and then goes into a flashback mode around what could possibly have happened. This is where director Sushen Bhatnagar plays a smart game where he brings in elements of facts and fiction and intersperses layers of assumptions/perceptions into it to come up with a cohesive narrative. There are places in the film though where things become a little confusing. Since there is constant movement between present times and flashback, at times one tends to loose track of beginning of one scene and ending of another. Also, there is constant to and from between locations and time due to which one has to be very attentive about the proceedings. Even the story comes with it's own complexity and since audience is used to seeing a linear narrative, at times one looses track of who is siding whom as well as the perception around right or wrong. Nothing wrong with Sushen's intent though; however if only the narrative was kept a little simpler at least, it would have made 'Monica' a far comfortable watch.
Nevertheless, leading these factors aside, the fact remains that 'Monica' is a film that entertains and keeps you staring at the screen with eyes wide open for most of it's duration. Credit for that should go to able direction, unpredictable storyline, smart dialogues (which have liberal use of expletives - all in English) and top notch acts by Divya Dutta and Ashutosh Rana. Really, these two actors are the pillars of the film and make you wonder why are they not seen on the big screen more often. They deserve that for sure. Even supporting cast does full justice to their parts with Yashpal Sharma leading the pack with a serious positive role, Dadhi Pandey impressing with his cool menacing act, Kittu Gidwani at her seductress best with Tinnu Anand being reliable as always.
First thing that strikes you about 'Monica' is the fact that it isn't really a B grade affair that you were dreading all this while. In fact the initial reels remind you of films like 'Seher' and 'Satta', not from the genre or setting perspective but treatment. This is one of those medium budget films where focus is on drama more than any technical wizardry and this is where the win of 'Monica' lies. Go watch it, you won't be disappointed. One doesn't know if the real-life journalist Shivani Bhatnagar was meant to be a kind of promiscuous enigma. But that's how she is purported to be portrayed by writer-director Sushen Bhatnagar. A kind of Madame Bovary (a novel by French writer Gustave Flaubert) of the fringe world. A cryptic woman and a mystery to others and to herself whose story is pieced together after her death through the wonderfully nimble vision of the movie camera. Alas, the camera, contrary to belief, does lie quite often.
In this interesting though flawed film about a deeply flawed woman who knows not what her body or mind wants, director Sushen Bhatnagar takes a real-life incident from the newspapers and converts it into a well-meaning cinematic treatise. It's done with much restraint but not enough of a grip to keep the slippery characters from slipping off the story board. Frequently the characters appear on screen with very little to recommend them as mere human beings or even as flawed character-studies. Bhatnagar's world of politicians and media persons in and around Lucknow and Delhi appears to be colonised by self-serving stereotypes, trying hard to appear subtle in their devious machinations. Failing in that endeavour, they appear more sinful than sinned against.
Frequently in the course of the narration we feel the characters are being let down more by a lack of creative and financial resources than by destiny. The saga of the small-town girl's ambitious rise from salwar-kameez to skimpy skirts and tops has been done with far more grace in the past. Madhur Bhandarkar's "Fashion" created both the fury and passion of that journey into a hurling doom that small-town girls often undertake in implementing their big-time dreams. Monica Jaitley, as played by Divya Dutta, comes across as a vulnerable vixen. Manipulated and manipulative Monica epitomises the strenuous gracelessness of over-pushy small-towners who topple over the brink in their pursuit of the designer-dream.
The nexus between Monica's world of journalism and the murkier milieu of politics and politicians, as represented by Ashutosh Rana's quietly conniving character, doesn't quite become the heady mix of art and 'vulture' that such cinema has often become in the past (in Ramesh Sharma's "New Delhi" and Rajkumar Gupta's "No One Killed Jessica"). The edges in this hard-hitting story of sex and politics are raw and uneven. The tone doesn't quite catch on the immediacy and urgency required of a docu-drama. The narrative pace sometimes slackens to a slow trot taking away considerably from the why-dunnit's cutting edge. But the effort to recreate the life of a journalist who dared to dream is sincere. Monica is the kind of won't-tell-a-lie cinema that gets trapped in the labyrinth which separates the search for the truth from the truth itself. But the film does create an aura of doomed sensuality around the protagonist without resorting to lengthy cheesy shots of her journey into the bedroom.
The dialogues suggest deeper thrusts of anguish in Monica's life than the ones that she was apparently resorting to for self-enhancement. At the end one isn't sure what killed Monica her ambitions or their inherently absurd nature. For being able to bring out the contradictions in Monica Jaitley's personality, this film deserves some words of praise. The performances of Divya and Ashutosh are tuned well to the theme. But the gifted Rajit as Divya's reprehensible husband is uncharacteristically hammy. The rest of the cast is stiff, self-conscious and unremarkable.
The authentic locations add a hue of familiar discomfort to the film's politics of sexuality. With better production values and more space for the characters to breed credibility, this could've been a remarkable political thriller rather than a film that gets lost in a maze of possibilities. Nonetheless worth a watch for recreating an event from the proximate past that showed how closely and precariously politics is related to journalism And sex. One MJ is a newspaper editor in this film. The reference, I suppose, is to Akbar. And not the king of pop with the same initials. Monica (Divya Dutta), a hot, hungry reporter, works under MJ. She also sleeps under a telecom minister to rise to the top of her profession. What that dizzy top means, we'll get to in a bit.
The minister and Monica have a kid together. Her husband, a failed, frustrated journo takes care of this child; drowns himself in alcohol; watches his wife get abused by the minister in his own house; dips pages of his book that no one will publish into an overflowing bathtub. No one cares for this maimed man (Rajit Kapoor). He should've been central to this story. A catty industrialist (Kittu Gidwani) is, instead. Her name's Pamela Pamelaji. Monica and Pamela, you see, sip on whisky together. Pammi aunty strokes Monica’s bare back as they tuck themselves into a satin bed cover, make love all night. Filmmakers here don’t believe in dull, subtle expressions. It’s New Delhi: the nation’s corrupt capital. Literally everyone’s in bed with the other, if not with Monica.
The first time the two leading ladies of the film, the sensuous lovers, had met, was at an "aalishan" (grand) party in Lucknow. Monica was Divya Duttacovering universities for a local newspaper then. By now, she is already a special correspondent. A special frikin’ correspondent, no less, from a "mamuli (ordinary) sub-reporter," the filmmakers suggest. They probably mean a cub reporter, or a sub-editor. But never mind that. Monica can now become associate editor if she listens to her boss, who has no control over what she publishes as lead stories and headlines in the paper he edits! Filmies in Bombay share a common grouse against scribes. They find their lives misrepresented in the press. If this film is any indication of what journalism could be like, God save the news! Anyway. You didn’t quite walk into a movie called Monica for its striking realism. You went in for the laughs. There’s plenty. And plenty else as the heroine sits around, for most of the flick, always partially clothed, with Classic Ultra Mild's between her fingers, a drink in hand, cellphone stuck to the ears, under a heavy bathroom shower (now that’s the water-proof cellphone we should all want; lost my third-rate one to a wet Holi this week. Damn).
You can tell, this is a B movie that was suddenly allowed better budgets later in its making. The picture is supposedly based on the mysterious murder of Indian Express journalist Shivani Bhatnagar in '99. It could even be inspired by death of poetess Madhumita Shukla, who was allegedly involved with a local don/minister in 2003. No One Killed Jessica on Jessica Lal case (this year). Hit. Check. Politics is pivotal to the plot. Raajeeti on state elections (last year). Hit. Check. This is how cheques get released for pictures like these. Everything else remains in the credit, or edit. Heroine’s on the run. Minister, editor have sent out goons to hunt her down. She gets killed at a Lucknow apartment. Narrative goes back and forth. It’s hard to tell what’s going on. Courts hear the matter. Telecom minister, now about to become chief minister of Uttar Pradesh (Ashutosh Rana), attends hearings everyday. The lawyer finally reveals the truth. He brings in a blackboard to the courtroom, draws three circles "Media, Industry, Politics". At the intersection of this Venn diagram is Monica. If the three circles gang up, they’ll form one circle. Who would they have to eliminate? You got it. "Judge sahiba" is impressed. Murder mystery is solved. Who would not pay for this priceless education? I would.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
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Monday, March 21, 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Monday, March 7, 2011
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Yeh Faasley
Cast: Anupam Kher, Pawan Malhotra, Tena Desae, Rushad Rana, Kiran Kumar, Suhasini Mulay, Sudha Chandran, Seema Biswas, Rajendra Gupta, Jagat Rawat, Satyajit Sharma, Natasha Sinha, Mazhar Syed, Rachita Bhattacharya
Director: Deepak Pandit
The movie “Yeh Faasley” is based on father-daughter relationship and how the daughter is perturbed by psychedelic thoughts that the man whom she loves the most, that is her father, is the possible murderer of her mother. Arunima (Tena Desai) comes back home after the completion of her studies, and is very thrilled to spend time with her dearest dad Devinder Devilal Dua (Anupam Kher). Her mother passed away long ago, when Arunima was a child, in a car accident. Devinder is a broad-hearted man, does everything to please his daughter, and not at all a strict dad. He even helps, Arunima’s boyfriend Manu’s sister, for her marriage. In this way, everything was going on well, Arunima was happy with her dad, even though she missed her mom. But one day, she caught sight of a will made by her mom for her. She could not understand, why would her mother who was only 28, and died accidentally, leave a will? After she enquired a few people who knew her mother, she came to know that her mother was very different from what her father used to tell her. After that, Arunima meets an old friend of her mother, who says her mother was not happy with the marriage.
Eventually, her father comes out of his shell and the daughter gets to know how violent he gets at times. She is in a dilemma, and is disturbed by the fact that she suspects her father whom she loves the most, might be the reason for her mother’s death. Her journey to unravel the paradox commences. Will she be able to unknot the mystery and take vengeance on the murderer even if it is her father? You will have to watch it, to find it out!Aah, now this one could really have been better. This is what one ends up exclaiming as the concluding reels of 'Yeh Faasley' start running. Reason being that what seemed to be a really promising idea, as conveyed through intriguing promos, turns out to be something that wasn't fleshed out to the fullest. Ultimately what one ends up seeing is a movie that would have been better off had it been made as a tele-film or an hour long 'Saturday night suspense' kinda show for television.
To think of it, the premise of 'Yeh Faasley' (leave aside a really weak and an inconclusive/non-enticing title) was quite decent. A girl (Tena Desai) really close to her father (Anupam Kher) only to realise that he could possibly have been a murderer of her mother now there haven't been stories on the same subject shown on the big screen in the past. Of course the genre by itself isn't anything overtly original; after all there have been instances of such films made in the past when a close relative/friend is suspected of being a murderer. However when a first time director comes on board, in this case being Yogesh Mittal, you always have some good hopes that there would be some new story telling at least. Reason being that there are fresh ideas taking form all over the industry today (case in point being 'Tanu Weds Manu' that released recently). With the knack of making even common stories interesting by means of the way they are being told, even the common subjects start looking interesting on screen if presented well.
Unfortunately for 'Yeh Faasley' though, this isn't really the case as the film fumbles, especially due to the curse of the second half (which by the way is getting more and more troublesome in last couple of years especially). Hence, what starts off with a promise of an interesting tale only leads one to boredom as it progresses. Now that's particularly disappointing because in a suspense drama, one actually looks forward to the graph only going up as the story reaches it's culmination. It doesn't happen in case of 'Yeh Faasley' due to which as a audience you truly feel that if only there was more meat put into the written material, Yogesh would have managed to make the film half-interesting at the least. Not that the film is a total let down though. Leaving aside the fact that you aren't quite engrossed with the tale, especially during it's latter moments, there are portions in the first half of the film which do bring you on the edge of the seat. Tena realising that there is something really wrong with her father, his aversion at not quite letting out the truth, their conversations that seem to be meeting abrupt ends, her own investigation as she comes across various people with whom her mother had interacted in the past, Kher being tried in the court of law one does stay on with the characters here in the quest of 'right' v/s 'wrong'. However as stated earlier, for any suspense drama to work, there has to be a good enough culmination, something which turns out to be a weak link here.
Performances are good here though and that is one silver lining that ensures that 'Yeh Faasley' isn't an unbearable watch. Anupam Kher in a central role is quite good yet again and showcases that he deserves to be seen in more deserving parts. Tena is decent though one wonders how far would she go from here as in 'Yeh Faasley' she isn't seen as a quintessential leading lady. Pawan Malhotra is reliable as well while Rushad Rana is decent. Technically, the film is just average, whether in terms of production values, cinematography or music. Over and above the fact that 'Yeh Faasley' isn't quite a film that makes it to the top of the must watch activities over the weekend, another factor that would severely hamper it's prospects is a near-to-nil promotion. With nothing known about the film and no one knowing if this film has even released, 'Yeh Faasley' would largely go unnoticed.Independent films often hold a promise. You know that they are made of lesser money and more passion. But the passion for filmmaking does not always make a good film. There are a lot of elements that are required to sustain the audience's attention. Yeh Faasley falls because it tends to tire you out rather than keep glued to your seat.
Yeh Faasley is an absolutely slow journey. Having said that, it's undeniable that the film has a very good story! A human drama and battle of emotions pitched into a murder mystery is refreshing. Also the fact that the truth could be so much more than what someone sees, hears or is informed is a concept that is very rarely handled. Yeh Faasley is about father daughter relationship. As Arunima Dua (Tena) is glad to back with her father Devender Dua (Anupam Kher) after staying away for quite some time because of her education. But things turn sour as she stumbles upon clues which point finger towards her father, indicating he is not really the person he is and neither was he true about the death of Arunima's mother. What ensues is Arunima's struggle to find the truth and that distances her from her father - and also makes her feel quite guilty.
The writers establish the characters very well early in the story. The last few minutes of the film are very well handled. The story takes twists and turns, turning up a new surprise every time you think it is over. However the way it moves ahead is not quite welcome. A slow, bookish pace is not appreciated. And the director adds to it by constantly repeating shots to emphasize on effects he wants to create. He loses the game and our attention. Yeh Faasley could and should have been shorter by half an hour. Technically, the film is a misery. Its grainy look does not help and things only gets worse when you find certain scenes completely out of focus, as if it has been shot on a handy-cam! What manage to hold attention throughout the film are performances. Anupam Kher and Tena have good roles and do complete justice with superlative performance. Pawan Malthotra is measured and good as usual. Rushad Rana does his bit. But performances never made a film good. Yeh Faasle fails. You won't miss much if you give this a pass. Rather you could save some time.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
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