A TRUE BUT INCOMPLETE PICTURE

MOVIE: Firaaq(2009)
DIRECTOR: Nandita Das
CAST: Naseruddin Shah, Paresh Rawal, Suhanna Goswami,Sanjay Suri, Tisca Chopra and Deepti Naval




Now straight away let me tell you that talking about this movie here is controversial. I wont go deep into the political roots of this movie because I do not desire to hurt any section or inspire any section to do something radical. Whatever has happened in the Gujarat riots is unfortunate and inhuman. This movie deals with this issue and is set in the time during the riots. The strength of the movie is undoubtedly the technically sound direction of Nandita Das and the powerful performances by Naseruddin Shah, Deepti Naval, Paresh Rawal and others. Sanjay Suri and Tisca Chopra too were very impressive. The title Firaaq is exceptionally apt. It is an Urdu word which means both hope and separation. And both these emotions form the roots of this movie. The hope that things would get better and the separation from communal harmony and humanity too form the theme of this story.

The educated Hindu intelligentsia in our country today speaks pro-Muslim things rather than facts to prove their secularism. They have somewhere in them that if they praise Ustad Bismillah Khan(RIP) instead of Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia, they could be striking a more secular note. It is a usual human tendency, and it is somewhere reflected in Nandita Das' Firaaq. It is no doubt that this movie is a collection of some true incidents, but the sequencing of these events and the character built up has made it look very much anti-Hindu more than pro-Muslim. I mean the story writer may argue that he has not projected Hindus in general but only one character of Paresh Rawal and that in his story such a thing has happened. He may bring out an incident from the newsreel to support his storyline, but many newsreels and story lines regarding the Hindu sufferings may be omitted. All this because of that "prove to be secular" tendency.

Firaaq deals with the lives of different people in different societies and facing different conditions, the common thread between them being the riots. Naseruddin Shah brilliantly plays the retired musician who is cut off from the happenings of the world outside and immersed in the seven notes. Sanjay Suri and Tisca Chopra play a Muslim-Hindu couple who are migrating Delhi seeing the conditions here. Paresh Rawal and Deepti Naval play a Hindu couple where Rawal is a con fellow and Naval is a fishy woman with a good heart. No real reason for ther fishiness and hallucinations of riot victims was substantiated. Suhana Goswami plays a brilliant role of a woman whose house is burnt in the riots. Like most of the Mira Nair and Deepa Mehta kind of meaningless "meaningful cinema", this movie though superior to a Nair or Mehta flick, is inconclusive even with efforts of conclusion, is controversial unnecessarily and is a true, but an incomplete picture, which can be really dangerous.

NOT REVOLUTIONARY, BUT AMAZING ANYWAY

MOVIE: Revolutionary Road (2008)
CAST: Leonardo Di Caprio, Kate Winslet
DIRECTION: Sam Mendes




The institution of marriage is the strangest of all. While it is the purest form of union, its side effects can never be ignored. The amount of bliss a happy marriage can bring into life and the amount of positive energy it can give you is unbelievable. Similarly abundant is the amount of stress, retardation and suffocation an unhappy marriage can give you. Mr and Mrs. Wheeler have an unhappy marriage(Di caprio and Winslet) in Revolutionary Road. Mrs. April Wheeler aspired to be an actress. Her aspiration remained unfulfilled and her ambition got dug somewhere and her only consolation was a husband who supported her pretty decently. Her husband, Mr. Frank Wheeler, is on the other hand, unhappy with his job and believes the pressure of earning the basics has cut his wings and changed his freestyle mentality and forced him to work at a place where he does not belong.

This seed of unhappiness in this couple grows slowly into a monstrous forest and the after effects of this spoilt love marriage are better if not mentioned. They have two children and April deep inside considers their elder one as a "mistake" rather than a boon. Under all this unhappiness of their life, April one fine day decides that they should move to Paris to start of a fresh life. The decision is apparently childish as Frank does not have any guarantee of finding a job there. The dynamics of these human complexities, the human expressions of love, lust, dissatisfaction, unhappiness, infidelity, ambition, faith, courage and fear make this lovely treat called Revolutionary Road.

The Winslet- DiCaprio pairing is without a doubt one of the most complementing pairs in the world. Kate Winslet yet again features in a complex marriage flick, an earlier better flick she worked in was Little Children. Kate might have been nominated with a BAFTA for the best actress here, but I feel DiCaprio's portrayal of Frank was much superior and deserved more attention. The movie is nothing "revolutionary" in that sense, but just another sensitive tale and consequence of an unhappy marriage. This movie would be remembered for its elegant direction and brilliant performances. Michael Shannon's portrayal of the retard neighbour, forms a pivotal role in the film and is a brilliant performance too(nominated for an Oscar). As I have always said, "If marriages are made in heaven, heaven consists of a bunch of incompetent and wicked devils"

THE DARK COLOURS OF DEMOCRACY

FILM: Gulaal (2009)
DIRECTOR: Anurag Kashyap
CAST: Raj Singh Chaudhary, Kay Kay Menon, Ayesha Mohan




Probably the most important character in this movie is that of Piyush Mishra who happens to be the music director and lyricist of this movie. The movie opens with the fact that it is a tribute to the various poets who have deeply inspired the freedom movement of India. There could not have been a better person than Mishra to give this tribute. His songs will be remembered for the feat of carrying the theme of this movie amazingly. The depth of the words he has used make you a victim of several emotions. You may cry, you may smile, your blood may boil and you may just stay silent admiring the talent of this genius. Gulaal deals with a very delicate issue that revolution today is misunderstood and malpractices are occuring in the name of revolution. No one wants to bring a true change, revolution is a heavy word which serves the purpose of bringing momentum and energy to overthrow a power and to gain....power!

It is the lust of power which is driving the world now. Kashyap brings his world in Rajasthan. Kay Kay Menon plays a mass leader of an association which wants "revolution" and is as usual a brilliant performer. Abhimanyu Singh plays a brief but a powerful role of Ranasa who is the legitimate son of His Highness. He is contesting for the General Secratary post in a university. Fighting for the same post is a young and beautiful girl, Kiran. She too is the daughter of His Highness, but she is the illegitimate one. A ragged student of the college is our protagonist Dileep Singh, fantastically portrayed by Raj Singh Chaudhary.

Gulaal has its strength in the poetry and the dialogues and the brilliant Kashyap direction has made it a masterpiece eye opener. I often feel bad using the word eye opener. The irony with our society has always been that our eyes have been opened, yet we are blind when we actually have to do something to change it. This movie targets almost everything bad in the society and pretty decently carries it too. Depth is the word which is inseparable from Gulaal. The filthy dynamics of politics, the inhumanism of humans, the thirst for power and the power to get power, the paradox that power begets power and only power gets power have been strongly portrayed.

The happenings of the movie might be thoroughly depressing and saddening and maddening to a major section but what comes as a gift is the amazing cinematic treatment of Kashyap. He seems to have the fancy for red, blue, green lighting and unicolour filters and we see its extensive use in his movies. There was too much of yellow in No Smoking, too much of blue in Dev.D and here we see too much of red in Gulaal. These colours are not just for funk, they again as I said, are deep. The red here stands as a symbol to Love, Betrayal, Power and its misuse, Murder and Revolution. Even if you miss out on this movie, dont miss out on the music. The serio comic fast paced number called Ranaji and the meaningful Aarambh are two brilliant tracks from the album. But surely the best and concluding one is the defining one, Duniya. If you can withstand depression and appreciate hindi heartland slangs then that would be a great additional qualities to watch Gulaal . The question this movie deeply leaves on your mind and the answer for which may not exist iss, "What the hell is this circus called democracy?"

A SWEET LITTLE EXPERIENCE

FILM: Little Zizou
DIRECTOR: Sooni Taraporewala
CAST: Jahan Bativala, Imaad Shah, Boman Irani




I cannot forget my days in the Dadar Parsee Youths Assembly High School. Apart from the great school that it was, the beauty of its locality, the Five Gardens is something beyond expression. Five gardens are not the world's most beautiful garden, nor are they peaceful with the plenty traffic, pollution and kissing couples all around. Obviously the chaat walas, the horse carts and the toy wala, everyone coexist in harmony and not so harmony at Five Gardens; a place which bears testimony to the history of one of the great communities in India; the Parsees. The Five Gardens is one of the few places in Mumbai where you will find a dominant Zorastrain population. The Parsees are few in number and mostly the other communities often fail to relate themselves with the Parsees. A major reason to that also is a closed policy of the Parsees. They do not endorse mixed marriages and the rights to the entry to their worship place(Agyari) is chopped down even if you are a Parsee and have married a non parsee. All this makes the community shrink in size and conditions have reached such a horrible extent that in some cases just for the sake of protecting the community to community relation, often closely related cousins marry each other which has led to many biological problems amongst the community.

Coming to the movie, we are talking about Xerxes, played with outstanding maturity by Jahan Bativala, the new child artiste on the block. His elder bro Artaxerxes(Imaad Shah) is into his own weird world of making sketches and is working on a "Flight Simulator" along with two more engineers. Apart from that he runs a very interesting blog. They do not have a mother. Their father is a religious fanatic ;who in the name of "blessing does boob pressing" amongst the many other inhuman things he does. Artaxerxes compares him to Idi Amin(the cannibal Uganda president) and Atilla the Hun (leader of the barbaric Hun tribe). Boman Irani is a neighbour who knows this person's shady ways and wants to expose him through a modest newspaper he runs. With few more characters and a lot of depth to each of them, Little Zizou pulls out a very sensitive tale which makes you laugh, cry and most importantly learn.

More publicised as an All-Parsee film, Little Zizou surely does deal with the life of only this community but the way it has captured the slightest of dynamics of all age groups and lifestyles of the community makes it so human that any other community can relate to it and think of society and its problems in general. Bickram Ghosh, one of my favourite musicians, did not really work hard on the background score. He just pulled of few scores from his superhit Rythym Scape and used them here. More interesting were the ethnic oldies sung in normal voice by Boman Irani with his impeccable dancing. Few know that Boman is a brilliant dancer and has been training Imaad post Little Zizou.

Little Zizou mostly deals with the shady ways of the people in power exploiting religious sentiments. Power and religion often form the perfect cocktail for the con dividers and hence have been heavily mixed from centuries. This small little movie, with a very fresh approach tells you a lot about this cocktail. Go for this one, this could well make your dull day shining!

THE UNDERRATED JOHNNY

FILM: Johnny Gaddar (2007)
CAST: Neil Nitin Mukesh, Dharmendra, Rimi Sen
DIRECTOR: Sriram Raghavan




Rene Brabazon Raymond wrote many outstanding thriller novels and his writing life which ranges from the 1930s to the mid 1980s has captured the changing thrills of the American society. His books were bestsellers in Asia, Africa, France and Italy and many of his books were made into movies. Few have heard of Raymond, but many have read his works under the pseudonym he chose: James Hadley Chase! Johnny Gaddar is a tribute to this legendary writer. Raghavan also pays tribute to the Vijay Anand thrillers. My favourite has to be Guide. but Raghavan chose Johnny Mera Naam. Johnny Gaddar has to be one of the most underrated movies of 2007. Initially damned by critics coupled by blank theatres, this classic did not get its due.

The story is intelligent and complex and carved out of simple locations and characters. The movie deals with a caper gang which involves itself in making gray deals with an honest and old criminal Sheshadri (Dharmendra) heading the gang. Shardul (Zakir Hussain) and Prakash(Vinay Pathak) are the two other members of the gang apart from Shiva(Daya Shetty) and Vikram(Neil Nitin Mukesh). A commisioner Kalyan (Govind Namdeo, brilliant) offers Sheshadri a deal with which the caper gang can make a big killing. But Vikram the trusted one has other plans and he goes on to eliminate his fellow members to try and eat up all the food himself.

With brilliant performances by almost everyone, Johnny Gaddar is an intelligent, fast paced, interesting and an edge of the seat experience. Probably the best performance of Dharmendra and a perfect debut start for Mukesh, makes this flick unforgettable. The movie has a closed end, yet I heard that a sequel is being made with the name Johnny Tokyo. The successful creation of brand Johnny is completely credited to Raghavan's intelligent direction. No doubt, we want more of this Johnny!!

THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE OSCAR NOMINATION

FILM: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button(2008)
DIRECTOR: David Fincher
CAST: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett




Time is a confusing thing yet it is so simple. It is probably the simplest thing when we perceive it as the ticking of the clock. The ticking of the clock is monotonous with a repeating tick sound but what events occur during this ticking are so random, so confusing, so interlinked and so many. This concept was beautifully dealt with in one of the scenes of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, where Daisy(Blanchett) meets with a road accident. The concept of change is the central theme though. The thought that Nothing is constant except change is the essence of this curious story. Our protagonist Benjamin Button is a peculiar case. He is born as an old man and is ageing reversely. The events that have followed as the after effects of this reverse ageing are very nice and deep but the flaw of this movie is that it never substantiated a reason for the reverse aging. When Clarke Kent can lift cars with his thumb, we have been shown that it is so because of the gravity adjustments of that of Krypton and Earth are dissimilar in Superman. It is so because the gravity at Krypton is stronger and to lift objects there one has to put more effort than that on earth. As the earths gravity is weaker, Kent can easily lift even heavy objects here and so he is Superman. No such explanation of reverse aging was provided, though several attempts were made, but nothing was dealt with conviction.

Performances are unquestionable. Brad Pitt has added yet another brilliant performance in his lustrous filmography. Cate Blanchett too does full justice to her role. Though The Curious Case of Benjamin Button has its moments, it fails due to certain flaws. Firstly, as I said earlier, no explanation of the reverse aging was given. Secondly, the editing was extrememly poor and it becomes an extremely long screen watch which becomes boring at some in between parts also because of a not so brilliant background score. Thirdly, there were some technincal flaws regarding the camera work. Whenever the camera focuses on a light source, some sort of dispersion takes place and one often sees a rainbow on the screen. That should not happen. The director should make sure that one is seeing the movie from his eyes and the cameraman's eyes. Surprisingly, it occurs six to seven times in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Even though the story line is pretty curious the slow screenplay often takes off the curiosity and intrigue at certain points, much unlike any other Fincher flick. Apart from these things, the movie is a pretty decent watch and may put you into some sort of thinking. The fact that even though Benjamin had a boon of growing backwards and it made him so different from others yet he was so similar to them and had to face the same consequences as others do, but in a different way, was well captured. But still if one speaks honestly then this flick does not deserve an Academy award Best Film nomination. It deserved that make up oscar, but certainly not a nomination in the Best Film category. Especially, when all time greats like The Dark Knight, were left out. When Heath Ledger would come to know that Nolan's great has not been even nominated for the Best Film, he would simply open his eyes and with his joker grin would ask, "Why so Curious?"

Rest In Peace, Ledger.

MILK FLOWS "STRAIGHT" INTO YOUR HEART

MOVIE: Milk (2008)
CAST: Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch,
DIRECTOR: Gus Van Sant




Homosexuality has got different interpretations and is viewed with different eyes in different parts of the globe. While its a human right to chose who you want to be with, homosexuality is also perceived as a threat to the family lifestyle and the natural phenomenon of having kids. Some sections say that all that homosexuals have given to the world is AIDS. Well its true that AIDS was spread from a gay couple in the United States in the year 1981, but that's not all that the homosexuals have given us. They have set examples of true freedom and have displayed courage to do what their heart wanted. Many call homosexuals sick and that homosexuality is rather a disease than a conscious choice. It was and it still is a highly controversial and debatable topic this, but one thing is for sure which no one can deny, homosexuals are humans and ought to be treated as humans!

Harvey Milk (Sean Penn) believes in his homosexuality and wants gay men to unite and be a force so that they are treated as equals and they get their rights as much as any other citizen. Based in the span of 1970-1978, Milk deals with how Harvey rises in popularity and from owning a camera shop which was more of a gay hangout spot, goes on to become the voice of homosexuals for USA and set a global example. Milk beautifully captures the moments of evolution of Harvey with amazing cinematography and real video clips from the 70s. This year's Academy for the best film may have been unfortunately Slumdog Millionaire, but no force could deny Sean Penn his best actor award. One of the best performances ever in the history of cinema, It was as if Penn lived in the character and not for a moment would you feel that you saw Sean Penn, it was Harvey Milk all along. Another brilliant aspect of this movie was its casting plus the make up, which you would realise in the last scene when you get to see the real life characters as well.

Homosexuality has been the hottest topic of controversy even during US Presidential election campaigns. Evolution of the homosexuals as a united force has changed the script of a lot of presidential speeches and has altered the content of interviews and TV shows all over the world. If someone says that homosexuality is a threat to the institution of straight marriages then I say that the nuns and virgins and the big respected saints too are a threat to marriage and the notion of having kids! If you say that gays are the reason for the biological menace called AIDS, I say its the immorality and irresponsibility of the so called straights which is fuelling it and today its spreading faster than forest fire. Films like Dostana make fun of such sentiments, whereas films like Milk, are a food for thought, deep thought and with the stream of your thoughts they flow right into the hearts of not only all homosexuals, but all humans!

BAD RGV FILMS ARE MUCH BETTER

MOVIE: Street Kings(2009)
CAST: Keanu Reeves. Forest Whittacker
DIRECTOR: David Ayer




I had a great impression of Forest Whittacker after watching his Academy Award Winning performance in The Last King of Scotland where he played the eccentric Uganda dictator. Here for no reason he makes those similar eccentric expressions and does not deliver anything special. Reeves plays a cop, Detective Tom Ludlow whose job is to get angry, push people when angry and drink lots of vodka while driving. Street Kings has that same old story of a cop falling in trouble and getting caught in charges of murdering another cop and all evidences are against him. It is his pursuit of coming out clean which forms the story.

The movie has nothing new to it and looks very silly most of the time. Martha Higareda's looks might be of some solace to the viewer but the remaining minutes of repititiveness brings no good to a viewer. Like I have mentioned in the headline, Ram Gopal Verma's films like Satya. Company, Sarkar and also the bad ones like Shiva, James, D and Contract are much more entertaining action movies than this.

With predictable and repitive screenplay, okay cinematography, nothing great direction and nothing great performances, Street Kings is far from striking any impression.

CANNOT DEPART FROM OUR HEARTS

MOVIE: The Departed (2006)
CAST: Leonardo Di Caprio, Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg, Jack Nicholson
DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese




Leonardo Di Caprio became the household heartthrob with his cute looks and romanticism in Titanic (1997). Since then he hasn't looked back and has delivered master stroke performances in brilliant movies like Gangs of New York, Catch Me If You Can, Blood Diamond, The Departed and the most recent The Revolutionary Road. This article is dedicated to his brilliant portrayal of Billy Costigan in The Departed which is surely one of the all time best movies, no wonder IMDB has kept it at #50 in its prestigious top 250 list.

The Departed is the story of two undercover agents, commonly called "rats". One poses to be a mafia serving a cop and the other is a cop and serves the same mafia. The mafia, Costello is amazingly played by Jack Nicholson. The Massachusetts State Police has launched a special investigation to gather evidence against Costello for which they have planted a rat, Billy in Costello's den. Mark Wahlberg plays an over abusive cop, Dignam who plays a pivotal role in the movie, beautifully blossoms the character he played. Martin Sheen plays another cop called Queenan. Queenan and Dignam had recruited Billy to keep an eye on Costello's whereabouts. Whereas Costello had a rat in Colin(Matt Damon) inside the cops. With twists and turns and thoughtful screenplay, the fate of Colin and Billy collide more than once.

The Departed beautifully captures the idea of good souls residing in bad lanes. And bad dogs ruling with a mask of good. The dynamics of relationships amongst people which has so much to do with the work they do is also an aspect in the story. Scorsese's power direction and the amazing performances as a whole takes The Departed to a very high level altogether. One memorable dialogue which I can recollect is, ": Marriage is an important part of getting ahead: lets people know you're not a homo; married guy seems more stable; people see the ring, they think at least somebody can stand the son of a bitch; ladies see the ring, they know immediately you must have some cash or your cock must work."