Saturday, August 21, 2010
LP+ 1
Lafangey Parindey
The Mumbai ‘wadi’-bred tapori isn’t seen around in cinema all that much these days—but if he were to turn up, he certainly wouldn’t look like Neil Nitin Mukesh, and a ‘wadi’ girl would not look as chic as Deepika Padukone. Suspending disbelief to accept these two stars as poor dreamers is the least of the problems with Pradeep Sarkar’s Lafangey Parindey. The words that come out of their mouths may be peppered with Mumbai slang, but don’t sound right. Nor does a chawl girl’s aspiration to be a skating champ ring true—some Hollywood influence as work here. Closer home, inspiration from Gulzar’s Kinara and Telugu film Nuvvu Vasthavani. In short, not a film Pradeep Sarkar seems comfortable with.
One-shot Nandu (Neil Nitin Mukesh) is called by the nickname because he knocks opponents down in one blow in the boxing matches organized by Usmaanbhai (Piyush Mishra). He has the usual filmi bunch of idle cohorts around him with names like Chaddi, Diesel, Gulkand (and not a Circuit among them.) On a rainy night, helping a bhai (Kay Kay Menon) escape, he knocks down and blinds Pinky (Deepika Padukone).
Guilty at ruining her life and her ‘India’s Got Talent’ dreams, he trains her to work around her handicap and reluctantly becomes her dance-skating partner. All this while, a cop doggedly investigates and the threat of Nandu’s secret coming out looms over him.
But, there is hardly any drama, little build-up and no surprises. Both actors look like they were visiting from a neighbouring YRF set, and just trying out lines for fun. A YRF slum can never look convincingly grungy or their characters sufficiently downtrodden. And because of that Pinky’s desire to get out of their just never reaches the viewer’s heart. Plus large chunks of it are dull, and the skating scenes never make the spirit soar, as they were meant to. It just looks like one of those films that was put together because they had the stars’ dates, and a gap in the production schedule.
And Once Again
Even if you missed the credits, it would be quite clear that the Government of Sikkim is associated with Amol Palekar’s And Once Again. The mountain state is seen in all its touristy glory-- the landscape, the monasteries, folk dances and all. Somewhere in there, is a flimsy story about a man coming out of a personal trauma only to be confronted with his past again.
Rishi (Rajat Kapoor) and Manu (Rituparna Sengupta) come to Sikkim, and when they are walking around pointing out the sights to the audience, he sees his ex-wife Savitri (Antara Mali), long believed dead. The plot, tedious enough as it is, tries itself up in knots by needlessly going back and forth in time, when it would work perfectly well in linear format, had it been better written, instead of cringe-makingly florid English.
Eighteen years ago, Savitri has been thought dead in a bomb blast, while Rishi—already suffering from the deaths of his parents and sister in other accidents-- unravels completely. Manu is the daughter of his shrink (Gerson da Cunha), and insists of marrying him, kinks and all. Savitri is now a monk, with shaven head and a neat S-shaped scar on her face, raising an irritating foundling. On sighting her Rishi understandably goes into a funk, and sends Manu into hysterics as well.
All this while, the meagre multiplex audience is probably wondering what happened to the once talented Amol Palekar, some of whose films like Ankahee and Daayra are still memorable. They must have spent hefty multiplex rates to see a trace of the old Paleker, and felt short-changed. Despite the unflattering get-up Antara Mali is the only one among the actors who makes an attempt to do some justice to her part.
The Mumbai ‘wadi’-bred tapori isn’t seen around in cinema all that much these days—but if he were to turn up, he certainly wouldn’t look like Neil Nitin Mukesh, and a ‘wadi’ girl would not look as chic as Deepika Padukone. Suspending disbelief to accept these two stars as poor dreamers is the least of the problems with Pradeep Sarkar’s Lafangey Parindey. The words that come out of their mouths may be peppered with Mumbai slang, but don’t sound right. Nor does a chawl girl’s aspiration to be a skating champ ring true—some Hollywood influence as work here. Closer home, inspiration from Gulzar’s Kinara and Telugu film Nuvvu Vasthavani. In short, not a film Pradeep Sarkar seems comfortable with.
One-shot Nandu (Neil Nitin Mukesh) is called by the nickname because he knocks opponents down in one blow in the boxing matches organized by Usmaanbhai (Piyush Mishra). He has the usual filmi bunch of idle cohorts around him with names like Chaddi, Diesel, Gulkand (and not a Circuit among them.) On a rainy night, helping a bhai (Kay Kay Menon) escape, he knocks down and blinds Pinky (Deepika Padukone).
Guilty at ruining her life and her ‘India’s Got Talent’ dreams, he trains her to work around her handicap and reluctantly becomes her dance-skating partner. All this while, a cop doggedly investigates and the threat of Nandu’s secret coming out looms over him.
But, there is hardly any drama, little build-up and no surprises. Both actors look like they were visiting from a neighbouring YRF set, and just trying out lines for fun. A YRF slum can never look convincingly grungy or their characters sufficiently downtrodden. And because of that Pinky’s desire to get out of their just never reaches the viewer’s heart. Plus large chunks of it are dull, and the skating scenes never make the spirit soar, as they were meant to. It just looks like one of those films that was put together because they had the stars’ dates, and a gap in the production schedule.
And Once Again
Even if you missed the credits, it would be quite clear that the Government of Sikkim is associated with Amol Palekar’s And Once Again. The mountain state is seen in all its touristy glory-- the landscape, the monasteries, folk dances and all. Somewhere in there, is a flimsy story about a man coming out of a personal trauma only to be confronted with his past again.
Rishi (Rajat Kapoor) and Manu (Rituparna Sengupta) come to Sikkim, and when they are walking around pointing out the sights to the audience, he sees his ex-wife Savitri (Antara Mali), long believed dead. The plot, tedious enough as it is, tries itself up in knots by needlessly going back and forth in time, when it would work perfectly well in linear format, had it been better written, instead of cringe-makingly florid English.
Eighteen years ago, Savitri has been thought dead in a bomb blast, while Rishi—already suffering from the deaths of his parents and sister in other accidents-- unravels completely. Manu is the daughter of his shrink (Gerson da Cunha), and insists of marrying him, kinks and all. Savitri is now a monk, with shaven head and a neat S-shaped scar on her face, raising an irritating foundling. On sighting her Rishi understandably goes into a funk, and sends Manu into hysterics as well.
All this while, the meagre multiplex audience is probably wondering what happened to the once talented Amol Palekar, some of whose films like Ankahee and Daayra are still memorable. They must have spent hefty multiplex rates to see a trace of the old Paleker, and felt short-changed. Despite the unflattering get-up Antara Mali is the only one among the actors who makes an attempt to do some justice to her part.
Labels: Cinemaah
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Peepli Live
Peepli Live
It is to the credit of Anusha Rizvi, that she chose to make a realistic film set in rural India, and got Aamir Khan’s Bollywood clout behind it. Farmer suicides in Indian villages is an issue that doesn’t even create a buzz in the media anymore, except maybe adding a number to the statistics. Two excellent Marathi films—Gabhricha Paus and Jhing Chik Jhing have been made and a really powerful documentary, Nero’s Guests. After these, Peepli Live, with all its merits tends to leave one a bit underwhelmed.
Rizvi’s point is not so much rural poverty as it is media insensitivity and venality —and this has been dealt with in films like Front Page, Network, Ace In The Hole, and many others. Anyone who watches the news, knows how sensational and superficial television news can be, there is no great revelation here. In so many films, elections and caste politics are used as triggers, that’s no big deal either.
What Rizvi does, is make people laugh at poverty and death, instead of evoking compassion for the poor who are forced to die because they cannot repay loans of tiny amounts that urban rich probably blow up in one evening at a pub. When a film with mainstream backing had the opportunity to wring the conscience of people, all it does it entertain them with satire and some black humour. The young urban rich for whom poverty is as alien as ET, will see the film, enjoy it, and come out feeling nothing for Natha (Omkar Das) and his desperately poor family. He and his brother Budhia (Raghuvir Yadav) are cutely dopey, his wife is a dragon—how cute—and that foul-mouthed old mother, is a laugh riot. Haha, how funny! Those media people—especially the one who analyses Natha’s excrement--- are so weird!
Nobody expected a feature film to go deep into socio-economic conditions in villages, or political opportunism, bureaucratic corruption, government indifference and all that. But still, superficiality is always excused when it comes to entertainment.
Rizvi’s dialogue is sharp, Shankar Raman’s visuals adequately shorn of glamour, the characters look and speak like the people they play, whether it is an elitist English TV journalist (Malaika Shenoy) or a small town Hindi reporter (Nawazuddin).
Under the haha, the real story is that of the poor, starving man who dies while a media circus gathers outside the home of Natha, who only threatened suicide. Rizvi accuses the media in the film of not being sufficiently interested in that man, but she doesn’t care either. People actually dying of hunger don’t interest anybody—because you can’t laugh at them. And if you can, then it says more about you than about the objects of the film’s satire.
Still, the film is to be commended for at least trying to do something other than making ‘it’ stars parade in designer clothes at foreign locations. Peepli-like villages are where the other half lives, and thanks to Anusha Rizvi and Aamir Khan for reminding us of it.
It is to the credit of Anusha Rizvi, that she chose to make a realistic film set in rural India, and got Aamir Khan’s Bollywood clout behind it. Farmer suicides in Indian villages is an issue that doesn’t even create a buzz in the media anymore, except maybe adding a number to the statistics. Two excellent Marathi films—Gabhricha Paus and Jhing Chik Jhing have been made and a really powerful documentary, Nero’s Guests. After these, Peepli Live, with all its merits tends to leave one a bit underwhelmed.
Rizvi’s point is not so much rural poverty as it is media insensitivity and venality —and this has been dealt with in films like Front Page, Network, Ace In The Hole, and many others. Anyone who watches the news, knows how sensational and superficial television news can be, there is no great revelation here. In so many films, elections and caste politics are used as triggers, that’s no big deal either.
What Rizvi does, is make people laugh at poverty and death, instead of evoking compassion for the poor who are forced to die because they cannot repay loans of tiny amounts that urban rich probably blow up in one evening at a pub. When a film with mainstream backing had the opportunity to wring the conscience of people, all it does it entertain them with satire and some black humour. The young urban rich for whom poverty is as alien as ET, will see the film, enjoy it, and come out feeling nothing for Natha (Omkar Das) and his desperately poor family. He and his brother Budhia (Raghuvir Yadav) are cutely dopey, his wife is a dragon—how cute—and that foul-mouthed old mother, is a laugh riot. Haha, how funny! Those media people—especially the one who analyses Natha’s excrement--- are so weird!
Nobody expected a feature film to go deep into socio-economic conditions in villages, or political opportunism, bureaucratic corruption, government indifference and all that. But still, superficiality is always excused when it comes to entertainment.
Rizvi’s dialogue is sharp, Shankar Raman’s visuals adequately shorn of glamour, the characters look and speak like the people they play, whether it is an elitist English TV journalist (Malaika Shenoy) or a small town Hindi reporter (Nawazuddin).
Under the haha, the real story is that of the poor, starving man who dies while a media circus gathers outside the home of Natha, who only threatened suicide. Rizvi accuses the media in the film of not being sufficiently interested in that man, but she doesn’t care either. People actually dying of hunger don’t interest anybody—because you can’t laugh at them. And if you can, then it says more about you than about the objects of the film’s satire.
Still, the film is to be commended for at least trying to do something other than making ‘it’ stars parade in designer clothes at foreign locations. Peepli-like villages are where the other half lives, and thanks to Anusha Rizvi and Aamir Khan for reminding us of it.
Labels: Cinemaah
Aisha
Aisha
There was a time when films used to be talked about for their content or performances; now they are talked about for their style. Before the release of Rajshree Ojha’s Aisha, Sonam Kapoor made sure she was seen in public wearing trendy designer togs, and be crowned style queen. That image is what she capitalizes on in the film.
Aisha is the ‘Dilli’ version of Clueless, which was an update of the Jane Austen novel Emma. The original was set at a time when there was the big divide between the aristocracy and ‘commoners’, and the wealthy had nothing to do except party and picnic, and marry in the right social circles. Transplanted to contemporary Delhi, the film, does, up to a point capture the lives of the idle rich with a wry sense of humour, and well-written dialogue.
Emma in the Austen novel was an inveterate matchmaker, which young girl today would be worried more about the love lives of her friends and relatives, rather than her own? Aisha, as her neighbour and nemesis Arjun (Abhay Deol) says, is “shallow” – all she does is parade around in stylish clothes, shops, dabbles in ‘causes’ and treats her friends as ‘projects’ to be improved. Such a heroine is amusing up to a point, but her very shallowness drags the film down, because that’s all there is to it.
Aisha and her friend Pinky (Ira Dubey) try to get a ‘behenji’ Shefali (Amrita Puri) into stylish mode and match make for her with a mithai tycoon Randhir (Cyrus Sahukar). Aisha’s meddling causes the poor Shefali a lot of anguish, and complicates her own life too.
Because the film tries to be light and all pretty looking, it misses having any emotional connect with the audience, except perhaps teenage girls who are busy admiring the clothes and accessories. It’s not as if one has anything against chick flicks about airheads, but they should be funny and enjoyable, which is a prerequisite for romcoms. Or, one should end up rooting for the main character—by the time Aisha is left standing alone on a dance floor to emphasize her isolation, the viewer is part caring.
As far as performances go, Amrita Puri as the helpless innocent being tossed around for the amusement of her rich friends, is charming and nicely cast. Sonam Kapoor’s ‘look’ is more impressive than her performance, and Abhay Deol sleepwalks through his role.
There was a time when films used to be talked about for their content or performances; now they are talked about for their style. Before the release of Rajshree Ojha’s Aisha, Sonam Kapoor made sure she was seen in public wearing trendy designer togs, and be crowned style queen. That image is what she capitalizes on in the film.
Aisha is the ‘Dilli’ version of Clueless, which was an update of the Jane Austen novel Emma. The original was set at a time when there was the big divide between the aristocracy and ‘commoners’, and the wealthy had nothing to do except party and picnic, and marry in the right social circles. Transplanted to contemporary Delhi, the film, does, up to a point capture the lives of the idle rich with a wry sense of humour, and well-written dialogue.
Emma in the Austen novel was an inveterate matchmaker, which young girl today would be worried more about the love lives of her friends and relatives, rather than her own? Aisha, as her neighbour and nemesis Arjun (Abhay Deol) says, is “shallow” – all she does is parade around in stylish clothes, shops, dabbles in ‘causes’ and treats her friends as ‘projects’ to be improved. Such a heroine is amusing up to a point, but her very shallowness drags the film down, because that’s all there is to it.
Aisha and her friend Pinky (Ira Dubey) try to get a ‘behenji’ Shefali (Amrita Puri) into stylish mode and match make for her with a mithai tycoon Randhir (Cyrus Sahukar). Aisha’s meddling causes the poor Shefali a lot of anguish, and complicates her own life too.
Because the film tries to be light and all pretty looking, it misses having any emotional connect with the audience, except perhaps teenage girls who are busy admiring the clothes and accessories. It’s not as if one has anything against chick flicks about airheads, but they should be funny and enjoyable, which is a prerequisite for romcoms. Or, one should end up rooting for the main character—by the time Aisha is left standing alone on a dance floor to emphasize her isolation, the viewer is part caring.
As far as performances go, Amrita Puri as the helpless innocent being tossed around for the amusement of her rich friends, is charming and nicely cast. Sonam Kapoor’s ‘look’ is more impressive than her performance, and Abhay Deol sleepwalks through his role.
Labels: Cinemaah
