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Iti Mrinalini: Koko channel in Rina rut

Disclaimer: I don’t know why I am writing this piece. In an industry where scratching backs is the only way forward and where every film is a classic and every performance award-winning, one online rant really matters very little. Unlike Bollywood where good films and bad films, moneymaking films and praiseworthy films all have their own space, Bengali cinema is going through this incredible phase where you have to laud at everything and anything up there on screen. If you do not comply, you are against the growth and prosperity of Bengali cinema. “How dare you? Just because your script hasn’t got funding, you are badmouthing other films!” Honestly, I can’t help myself. I refuse to be party to this mogojdholai (brainwashing). So you can have your own conspiracy theories but I have my own views and I will stick by them. And no I didn’t like Iti Mrinalini. You too have a choice — close the window at this stage or read on.

What goes wrong with Aparna Sen? She makes a brilliant film and follows it up with something so ordinary, you start wondering how could she have possibly made that earlier great movie? One of the frequently asked questions in Bengali movie circles that has refused to die: Did Ray ghost direct 36 Chowringhee Lane? You watch Mr & Mrs Iyer, Paromita’r Ek Din and The Japanese Wife and you know the answer. You watch Yuganto, Sati and 15 Park Avenue and you are not so sure about your answer.

The problem is not just with inconsistency. There are many great directors whose great films are punctuated with not-so-great films. It is the sheer ordinariness of some of Aparna Sen’s films that really complicates the situation. You look at every nook and corner of the frame hoping to spot that Rina-di touch and your disappointment mounts by the minute till the time you want to throw up your hands and leave the theatre.

Sen, along with Rituparno Ghosh, has been the so-called custodian of the modern Bengali woman on celluloid. Her fantastic domestic femmefatales are independent, self-sufficient beings who manage to emerge on top of every challenge that men (and society) have thrown at them. From Paroma to Paromita. Sen herself in the 1970s was this ultimate epitome of everything that was new and clutterbreaking about the Bengali woman ultimately leading to her print revolution, as editor of Sananda.

Mrinalini is a wimp! A namby-pamby, a maudlin… such a waste of human life, that I do not want to watch her wet — strictly tears — life on screen for two hours. I do not care which bits of that life are fictional and which bits are from Sen’s own life, the life is dull, boring and flaccid. She fell in love with a boy in college who was a Naxal and got shot down, she then fell for her director who had a wife and two kids and was never really interested to set up a home with his kept and their daughter, and then she developed feelings for a man who has a very sick wife at home and yet is always there by her side. As is evident, it’s always the men who call the shots in Mrinalini’s life, who is just a ping-pong ball in search of the net.

And this insipid biopic is narrated in the most archaic way possible — an unfinished letter, a bottle full of sleeping pills and lots and lots of glycerine! You get the drift?

The only mildly interesting bit of the film is Mrinalini’s daughter with her director lover Sid who she gives away to her Canada-based brother and sister-in-law but ensures that the girl spends the summer vacation with Pishi and Kaku. It is a unique relationship that these five people share where terms of endearment and lines of blood get beautifully blurred. But then the most important scene of the film, when the young girl Sohini reveals to Mrinalini that she already knows that Pishi is her real mother and Kaku her real father, is so lazily written and treated so matter-of-factly that the emotional fulcrum is not tampered. How can Mrinalini’s reaction line be: “When did this happen?” As if the date and time of the revelation is more important to her — clearly written with the audience in mind — than the fact that her daughter knows she is her daughter. Compare this scene with the heart-wrenching revelation scene between Irrfan and Kal Penn in the car in The Namesake and you know where the difference lies.

The script has no structure or build-up of any sort and have scenes that shouldn’t have ever made it to the screen. Towards the climax we have a scene between Mrinalini and her young director love Imtiaz which goes something like this… “Have the tea Imtiaz.” “I didn’t ask for tea.” “Now that the tea is here, have the tea.” “No.” “Will you have coffee then?” “I can have coffee. But black coffee.” After she has ordered the black coffee for him, she asks: “Have you studied in America?” “Why because I asked for black coffee?” “Something like that.”

And then the whole film is explained in one scene. “There are different types of love Minu,” says one of the men in her life. Ok alright, we get it! But Rina-di, have you seen Frida? That film conquered what you set out to achieve. Yes, it’s a biopic of a real person and obviously a far more fascinating person that Mrinalini but it has the same plot points comprising Frida Kahlo and the men in her life. And this feels really silly on my part to tell this to someone like you but just by giving voice to WHAT THE WOMAN WANTS, Frida becomes so bloody awesome. When her husband Diego Rivera learns that Frida has been unfaithful to him, he says: “You’ve broken my heart, Frida.” She gives it back to him: “It hurts doesn’t it? But why? It was just a fuck, like a handshake.” Mrinalini sadly has no venom or vermin.

The Rituparno effect on Aparna is quite telling in this film. The whole analogy to Karna-Kunti Sambad and Raktakarabi bears a strong whiff of Ghosh and company in the way literature is blended into the lives of the characters. Throughout Iti Mrinalini there is an attempt to attach importance to a subject which is obviously not that important. It’s not true to its genre, it tries to be An Aparna Sen film. The political events streaming in the background (Vishal Bhardwaj tried the same in 7 Khoon Maaf) and the baffling ending are the biggest examples. It wishes to leave you dumbfounded, just like the ending of 15 Park Avenue. It’s that last shot in the arm to elevate the film to something substantial but when it backfires – like it does here – it really does more harm to the film.

The only masterstroke of Iti Mrinalini is how Konkona Sen Sharma is asked to perform like Aparna Sen and not the other way round. They both play Mrinalini and Konkona has the lengthier role but yet she tries to ape Aparna. Because the director understands that the better actor should be given the difficult task. And while Konkona cannot possibly start looking like a young Aparna, her body language and especially her speech is ditto her real-life mother. Close your eyes in the theatres and you will know what an outstanding job Konkona has done in Iti Mrinalini.

All the other actors barring Aparna herself — these filmmakers who act really need someone else directing them, as was evident in Ranjana Aami Ar Ashbo Naa recently — are good. The deadly combo of Rajat Kapoor on screen and Anjan Dutt in the dubbing studio makes Sid such a believable character. Koushik Sen is so effective in the few scenes he has. Saheb impresses in his little cameo. Priyanshu has great presence but is saddled with such a strange character, he can only do that much. The late Somak Mukherjee shot Iti Mrinalini with a lot of pizzazz, especially that shot on the beach where the two women are chatting and the camera curls on the young girl sleeping on top of Rajat. Wish there was at least a hint of period detailing, though.

Iti Mrinalini is really a very weak and disappointing effort from Aparna Sen. But sometimes there comes a performance that becomes so much bigger than the movie it comes in that the ordinariness of the films takes a back seat. Konkona has always reserved her best acts for her mother’s films. And while her mother’s films have ranged from brilliant to bad, she has shone in all of them. Personally, I found this performance to be her best till date. Here neither did she have the superficial condiments embellishing a Mrs Iyer nor the free mind of a schizophrenic patient like Meethi. It’s just one of the best actresses of our countries at the top of her game.

But Rina-di, don’t you think Koko deserves better? And maybe we too?

Iti Pratim

First published: http://moifightclub.wordpress.com/2011/08/01/iti-mrinalini-koko-channel-in-rina-rut/

#aparna sen #iti mrinalini #konkona #konkona sen sharma #rituparno ghosh #pratim d. gupta #pratimdgupta #tollywood #mrinalini #frida #namesake #rajat kapoor #review

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Singham review: Roars less, whimpers more

If plexes can give 3-D glasses at the theatre doors, why not earplugs and Google translators? Those are tools as necessary to watch a film like Singham as those dark eyepieces to watch a Transformers. You need the translator because more than half the film — especially all the punch lines — is in Marathi and when you can’t understand the language might as well safeguard your ears given the deafening Dolby drubbing it gets.

Director Rohit Shetty who calls himself Bollywood’s very own Michael Bay and gets a lot of joy in blowing up cars — and even shows in the closing credits how he does them — takes a break from his blockbuster Golmaal series to remake the 2010 Tamil hit Singam. It makes sense. It makes sense to have Ajay Devgn play the angry, dialogue-maroing, dhishoom-phadoing, not-so-young man at a time when Salman Khan has been beating the box-office blues with his south Indian action remakes.

So you have Devgn playing the upright cop Bajirao Singham who is an inspector in a small village called Shivgarh near the Maharashtra-Goa border. Since big cars cannot do somersaults in such small villages, Singham himself does amazing acrobats while bashing the baddies.

His usual routine is to first run a mile or so, then jump high up in the air and come down with a thump on the head of whoever is unfortunate enough to be around. He follows that up with the regulatory “Wham! Bam! Pow!” punches and then whips off his belt and goes on a lashing spree. Since all this happens in slo-mo, the film clocks all those extra minutes.

And all through, “Singham Singham” goes ham-ham on the soundtrack. We mentioned earplugs, remember?

Devgn’s big adversary turns out to be an extortionist named Jaikant Shikre (Prakash Raj) who is like this epitome of evil. So, when Singham has him drive down 300km to sign a conditional bail and then calls him a maamuli gunda, Shikre’s “ego is hurt”. He has the cop transferred to Goa, so that the game can be played according to his rules on his turf.

This archaic honest cop-vs-bad man duel is turned in the last couple of reels into a statement on the sanctity of the police force. How only they have the lion stamped on their heads and are supposed to roar and protect the citizens. Now, if all of this sounds uncannily familiar, it’s because you might have seen (or heard of) the recent Jeet-starrer Shatru. Yeah, yeah that’s the Bengali remake, coming before the Bollywood copy-paste for a change!

To his credit, Shetty is able to reprise the visceral energy of the original Tamil film. Because like Suriya did in Singam, Devgn in Singham is able to impart on screen a raw, brutal force that merges perfectly with his brand of earnestness and integrity. His lines may not have the throw of a Salman but are delivered with so much heart, that your blood’s put on the boil.

Prakash Wanted Raj, who also played the villain in the original, is the perfect foil to Devgn’s Singham. One of the better actors of our time, having created celluloid magic in movies like Mani Ratnam’s Iruvar and Priyadarshan’s Kanchivaram, Raj has channelised himself perfectly to be these loud, playful Bolly baddies who are part of a formulaic set-up, yet so much fun.

Unfortunately, Devgn and Raj do not have the whole film to themselves and without the heat they generate together, Singham is more of a whimper than a roar. Devgn’s romantic track with Kajal Aggarwal is insipid and almost redundant in this whole small village-big city, good cop-bad cop tale.

The songs could have been left out as well. Barring the title track, which has the dum, the rest of Ajay-Atul’s numbers are forgotten even before they finish. The action set-pieces (directed by Jai Singh Nijjar and ‘designed’ by Shetty himself) are executed with elan but these too are not original. Like Devgn’s now-famous stunt of stepping out of a spinning car shooting is a straight lift from the Bruce Willis film Red.

All that doesn’t seem to matter to these men. Thanks to Salman ‘bhaijaan’, big Bolly has found a hit formula and there’s a lot of money to be made here over the first weekends. There will be many similar roars, but you’ve got just one pair of ears.

                                                                                  Pratim D. Gupta

First published: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110723/jsp/entertainment/story_14275348.jsp

#singham #ajaydevgn #devgn #ajay #rohit #rohitshetty #bollywood #pratimdgupta #pratim d gupta #pratim #telegraph #t2 #prakash raj #sinham #suriya #shatru #kajal aggarwal #ajay devgn #salman khan #review

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Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara review: The pureefication of the soul

Hawa ke jhokon ke jaise azad hain hum, Tum ek dariya ke jaise lehron mein behna seekho, Har ek lamhe se tum milo kholey apni baahein, Jo apni aankhon mein hairaniyaan leke chal rahe ho, toh zinda ho tum. Har ek pal ek naya samaa dekhi yeh nigaahein. Dilon mein tum apni betaabiyan leke chal rahe ho, toh zinda ho tum.

These potent words from Javed Akhtar in daughter Zoya Akhtar’s second film voiced by son Farhan Akhtar’s character of a closet poet brings the curtains down on Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara. The title of the film comes from a line in the title song of Rock On!!, also written by Javed Akhtar. But interestingly “milegi na” there has been changed to “Na Milegi” here.

After spending two-and-a-half hours with Arjun (Hrithik Roshan), Imran (Farhan Akhtar) and Kabir (Abhay Deol), you may understand the lines a little better and may even have your own little theory as to why those two words were swapped in the phrase. Our theory? Rock On!! was bursting with pain and anger, this one’s wrapped in love.

On the surface, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara is about a bachelor holiday of three men, where each one of them has a daredevil task planned that all of them have to do. But beyond all the fun and games it’s a beautifully scripted (Zoya and Reema Kagti) journey of catharsis for this trio, who are all battling some episode from their past. Some long past, some a little recent.

When you first meet Arjun, Imran and Kabir, you may find it a tad disconcerting why these 30-year-olds (college was 10 years back, someone muttered at some point) are behaving like the boys from Dil Chahta Hai. But once they are on the road in Spain, you realise these guys have actually grown up together right from their school days. And don’t we all drop our guards and turn back our clocks shamelessly — or shamefully! — with our friends from school?

Arjun was resisting it. Initially. He had become A Good Year’s Russell Crowe, too busy making money to dive wholeheartedly into an adventure sports trip with childhood buddies. He even has a line ditto Max Skinner: “Don’t say I am on a holiday!”

But then what do you do when Katrina Kaif wants to hold your hand and show you the true meaning of life? She is Laila the deep sea diving instructor who is ZNMD’s first horcrux. The other two are Imran’s father (Naseeruddin Shah) and Kabir’s fiancee (Kalki Koechlin). How they all add up to the soul of the film, you have to discover for yourself. A Dumbledorean clue? The stunt chosen by one becomes nirvana for the other.

Zoya, who made that brilliant — but underseen — first film in Luck By Chance has this amazing knack of making her actors mouth music in every line. You don’t just remember the dialogues, you remember their cadence. Also, she is fearless in the way she shoots and doesn’t hide behind overcoated background scores. And that’s why most of the times she is able to latch on to a precious and raw cinematic moment. Like the drunken Doordarshan scene at the bar.

ZNMD is perhaps 15 minutes overlong, espcially towards the end when the Abhay-Kalki track becomes a bit clumsy. And it also lacks the energy of Dil Chahta Hai. Perhaps it is Spain that dictates the laidback pace of the film. Zoya can argue otherwise but she must have chosen the European nation because her cinematographer Carlos Catalan hails from there. He captures the cities of Barcelona, Girona, Bunol, Seville and Pamplona with so much heart, the images just take your breath away.

The film’s dialogues have been written by Farhan and he’s kept the best lines for himself! For someone who 10 years back had written some of the funniest lines on the Bollywood screen for other actors to write crisp one-liners for himself, completes a cycle in itself. “Tumhara naam kya hai?” “Laila. Tumhara?” “Imran, par dost mujhe Majnooh bulaate hain.” In a film about letting go, it’s Farhan who lets go the most. His flamenco scene in the bedroom is an instant classic!

Hrithik is effective as the stuck-up finance broker who is completely transformed in the latter half of the film. Perhaps we should stop looking for a Red-Bulled screen-tearing performance from him every time and just enjoy his light turns.

Abhay is effortlessly good as the pacifier, the man in the middle, well aware of his own life being parked on the wrong side of the road. Katrina starts out like an apparition in the film and then develops this electric chemistry with Hrithik. When those two beautiful people first share an oxygen mask and then do a ballet of sorts under water, it’s pure magic. Just like their kiss a few reels later.

Shankar Ehsaan Loy’s score is breezy and goes perfectly with the atmosphere the movie creates. Ik junoon brings the sexy Tomatina festival alive, Senorita is a lot of fun but it is the love ballad Khaabon ke parindey which moves you the most. A shoutout should also go out to editor Anand Subaya who must have had to knife through cans and cans of stunning Spain.

She may not personally come and whisper in your ear, but Katrina’s words to Hrithik hold the key to Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara and maybe to zindagi itself. “Be alive to each and every moment.” Not in each and every moment. It’s different, and this film in all its bewitching beauty urges you to make the switch.

Squash the tomato and ketch-up on life.

                                                                              Pratim D. Gupta

First published: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110716/jsp/entertainment/story_14244177.jsp

#znmd #zindagi na milegi dobara #zoya akhtar #farhan akhtar #hrithik roshan #katrina kaif #abhay deol #carlos catalan #spain #bollywood #pratim d gupta #telegraph #review #dil chahta hai