Ab Tak Chhappan (Movie Review)

Good film. The story isn't that great but atleast here you have a director and an actor that understand the value of silence. Nana Patekar is Nana Patekar as usual. I have yet to see Nana in a role other than that of a slightly mad, junoon-chadha-hua character, but then I'm not complaining because he really knows how to play that well. The film, while being gripping, isn't extraordinary. There are some wonderful scenes like the one where he's talking to the gangster while dropping his wife off. Dialogue was good, action was slick. No complaints. Ending was acceptable. No complaints.

Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro (Movie Review)

I scoured the net for reviews of this movie and didn't come up with a single one. Seems a pity that such a great movie should have its first independent review on the net written by one such as I. The film is about two struggling photographers, blah blah. If you haven't seen it, go see it first. On with the review. It is hard to find fault with this movie. The writing, which for me is the best part of any movie, was superb. Initially I thought some of the plot devices a bit ludicrous, but this ludicrousness is what makes the film so great. How else could you have that whole time-bomb sequence which ends with Pankaj Kapoor et al having a serious discussion with soot on their faces! Ahuja not recognising the drunk d'Mello etc. might seem like bad writing but a clean plot was not the point of the film. Quite the opposite. The nothing-is-impossible writing distracts you while the film delivers a subconscious roundhouse punch. I don't remember them all but the film is so full of great lines and subtle nuances that it is almost impossible to list them all (or is it?) All the actors were wonderful except perhaps Satish Kaushik, who was saved by his lines. (Mr. D'mello, rukiye please!) Bhakti Barve was sizzling in this movie. She didn't spend close to enough time on screen for me. Neena Gupta was forgettable. Om Puri was superb. Everyone was great. What am I saying? There's one scene in particular which really impressed me, the one with the time bomb. With ten seconds to go for the bomb to burst, Tarneja et al start counting the seconds. I don't know if this is an accident or the directors mind-blowing take on James Bond, where there's 22 seconds to defuse the bomb which last for eight minutes of film. Anyways, they start counting and they're counting all wrong, far too slow and then you realise that the clock is ticking off the seconds so you can count and it's already been way more than ten seconds and you're going ha ha, this is cool, when they finish counting to zero and precisely at the moment, the clock strikes eight. The film maker controls the universe. One second is elastic. Wonderful! All the scenes are great. There are some touches which totally blew me away like the photograph of Indira Gandhi in Bhakti Barve's (so hot!) office reminded me that we used to live in a highly authoritarian country. The political commentary is not just on the surface, but everywhere. I'm at a loss for words, so I'm just going to watch it again, take notes and write another review. And then maybe the day after as well. What am I doing on Sunday? Nothing? So maybe another one then.

In America (Movie Review)

A sweetly sentimental story of the unlikely friendship between two Irish immigrant girls in New York with a black artist dying of aids while their poverty stricken parents lose another baby. Utter rubbish. When are we going to see something from the Irish that doesn't involve terrorism or poverty? Some scenes are pure poetry though. They should have shot the writers before the film. This film should have been shot start to finish as a fifteen (make that five) minute montage with no dialogue, because that's how badly the story lets down an otherwise excellent crew. Well, atleast some struggling English actors might get a shot at Hollywood stardom because of this film. It certainly wasn't good for anything else. Note to self. Don't watch any other movies by Jim Sheridan.

Pandit Bhimsen Joshi

I managed to get my hands on an old Films Division documentary about Pandit Bhimsen Joshi. I have to admit, I knew next to nothing about his life and work before I saw the film and I was amazed by it. What a guy! Okay, now since I don't really know anything about Panditji, all of the below might be all wrong, so caveat lector. Anyways, he ran away from Gadag when he was a young boy because he said there was no one to learn singing from in Gadag. So he hitched rides on trains, singing for the ticket inspector in exchange for not having a ticket. Sometimes, he says, I'd get a guy with no ear for music and he'd throw me in jail. It took him two-three months to get to Gwalior. After that he travelled extensively for his music, once settling in Lucknow for a few years to learn Thumri. What struck me most throughout the film was the amazing obsession of the man with music. He'd do anything for it. He had no money he said, and yet he fuelled his obsession somehow. Today, even with all his success and acclaim, he seemed very down to earth, so much so that it began to seem to me as though for him, it was all just about the music. In the guru's house, no one looked at the watch. When the guru felt like giving taleem, that was when taleem would happen. And it would go on for as long as the guru wished. Hours and hours at times. Cut to Panditji saying - artist koi school ya college me se to paida nahi hote na. Reminded me of a conversation two friends of mine were having about the classical music education systems in India and the West (the Western method being more pedagogic). If Bhimsen says that a pedagogical method is unsuitable for his art, then that's enough for me. I'm not going to argue with him. This was a really nicely made film. It was made by Gulzar for the Films Division. The story of the "jugalbandi" between Bhimsen and Manna Dey was really wonderfully told. How come they never showed us films like this when we went to the movies way back when? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Surprisingly, I have actually been to a Pandit Bhimsen Joshi concert. This was when I was in college and fully into my heavy metal phase, but I went because my girlfriend wanted to go. She was at the film institute, so of course she had to give me a cultural education. I reached the venue trying my best to keep an open mind. I needn't have bothered. Panditji blew me away that evening. Transported. Sublimated. Pulverised. From the moment he sang the first notes, even my unworthy ears could tell that what was happening here was no ordinary thing. I'm glad I knew that girl.

Big Fish - Movie Review

Update: Apparently the ending is more or less as it is in the book. The author, Daniel Wallace, makes a cameo as the economics professer at Auburn. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- So I figure there are enough reviews on the net, so I'll keep this one short. At first I thought this was one of those movies that Anoop likes. Then it got better. And better and better. This movie is awesome. Hollywood endings piss me off though. They're written by market researchers. It's almost censorship! When Billy Crudup starts telling the last story I was torn between the intense emotion of the previous scene and the totally crappy story he tells. All the people are there?? What rubbish. Otherwise spectacular.

The Dark Room by RK Narayan

I'd always been a little wary of RK Narayan. While I, like many others, had thoroughly enjoyed the television series Malgudi days and I suppose, like many others, I too had based my estimation of RK Narayan on them. I don't know now whether it was my naivete or the treatment of the stories or what, but I'd always assumed that Narayan wrote storied in a light Wodehousian vein, a style that is not my favourite right now. Thus, it was with some trepidation that I picked up the collection Memories of Malgudi. Imagine my surprise then, when the first book, The Dark Room was this dark, menacing novela. Narayan muses on the futility of life and the helplessness of his protagonist Savitri, filling each scene with undertones of as many hues as there are facets to human nature. Hypocrisy, deception, kindness and despair are all present in their full glory, coloured and shaded by the characters, their morality and their situations. This book is such a pleasure to read I'm almost ashamed of the review I wrote for it.

Abida Parveen Live at NCPA 12 03 2005

So I figure that Nusrat was truly a God, because Abida - who is clearly the second most famous sufi singer alive today - doesn't even manage to come close. Having said that, let me also say that I probably entered the concert with certain misconceptions abour what I was going to see. I remembered Nusrat's singing as having a strong classical base and an ample amount of improvisation, and so I figured Abida would be more of the same. However, although she has a phenomenal voice and she sings with passion, her entire performance was far more folky than I had anticipated. Once I'd internalised this fact, the concert went much better from there on. Abida and her band were musically monotonous, so much so that even her acclaimed voice couldn't lift the performance to any sort of greatness. It took me the whole of the first set to recognise the modalities of the concert. Like a blues song, Abida would pick her couplets at whim, sing them and then come back to the refrain over and over, almost trance like. The lyrics that I understood were phenomenal, and so once I'd settled back to think of it as a poetry recital rather than a musical concert, things went much better. Musically though, the concert was a disappointment. None of her accompanists got a chance to show off their skill. Abida sang one scale the whole evening. None of this is meant to be disparaging though. Perhaps (very likely) I'm totally ignorant about the Sufi musical forms and what Parveen did was probably exactly what she has won so much acclaim for. It's probably just me.

The Station Agent (Movie Review)

The Station Agent: A mostly pointless film which has little to say but says it well. The character of Finn is quite stereotypical but well protrayed. The other two characters are awful and a little bit unimaginative, so much so that one is thankful when they aren't around on screen. While this might be the kind of film some people enjoy, I didn't particularly fancy it. Watching "an unikely friendship between three troubled individuals" isn't my idea of good cinema. The writing was inconsistent, so I have to admit it was brilliant in parts but somehow falls short in the end. Cinematography was slick but unimaginative. An uninspired film, but a worthy attempt.

Himalaya (Movie Review)

Himalaya is a breathtakingly beautiful film, and that's just the start of it. The cinematography is exquisite and some of the shots are truly stunning. How ever did they film some of those shots? I suppose with such breathtaking scenery, it would be pretty hard to make an ugly film. Even so, this is one beautiful film. Although his IMDB credits are quite slim, director Eric Valli clearly knows what he's doing with the pace of this film. He's taken his time with the shots, letting the movie sink into you. The writing is great, very understated and mellow. A cast of mainly non-actors delivers a Bollywood-shaming masterclass in restraint and expression although since they're speaking a language I don't understand, I'm not sure I'm sure about this :-). What I loved most about this film was the way (for the most part) each scene said what it said without having to say what it said. The storyline isn't great though. The "demons path" device and the fully-resolved ending kind of turned me off a little bit, but then one can't always have everything.

White Noise (Movie Review)

This movie can be proud of itself as it has just displaced Joggers Park as the worst movie ever made. Tip to Vinta Nanda - when your characters discuss mediocrity, make it sound like an aspiration rather than a disparaging remark.