Is J.K. Rowling the new Bard?

Click HERE to read a review of J.K. Rowling's The Tales of Beedle the Bard

Review: Burn After Reading

Click here to read the review of Burn After Reading.

Review: Sorry Bhai

There were two good things about Onir's Sorry Bhai and these were Shabana Azmi and Boman Irani. Unfortunately, that was it.

I'm still puzzled about why this film was labelled 'unique', 'unusual' or any such favourable term. It is the most run-of-the-mill story of an engaged couple where the woman realises days before the wedding that she has in fact fallen out of love with her fiance and is now interested in his younger brother. There is the usual feat of parents around to object and to support and there is of course the happy ending.

The film, contrary to any claims of singularity, is a contrived coming together of cliches we had forgotten about. Be it the loving looks the actors give their Casablanca DVDs or the age-old repeat-the-name-three-times technique to demonstrate frustration. In a desperate attempt to appear 'modern', the middle-aged parents are happy to kiss in public, the young couple are happy to have sex before they get married and the best part of the film - suggestion of a live-in Sharman tells Chitrangada at one point, "Ma ne suggest kiya hai ki hum live in karein". It seems the film was trying to explore the undefined territory between the modern and the traditional by its incredibly drab plot and characters. That a young scientist can't play the fool after saying 'Maa kasam' is the point of this film. For me the struggle didn't come through, the silliness did.

Sorry Bhai has only suffered from Chitrangada Singh's mystical star status because the actress who played Gita in Hazaaron Khwahishen Aisi was a whole different person— one who could act. Every sentence she uttered in this film, every emotion she adopted looked forced, and as a result the character is hardly built up in any real sense. Not that I expected much from him, but Sajay Suri was more wooden than usual. The other real disappointment however, was Sharman Joshi. The shift he demonstrated in a few moments in Rang De Basanti was lost in this one. He tried to get away with smiling through every scene in this film, whether he was happy, sad, angry or frustrated. There was no chemistry or urgency in any of the relationships with the exception of Shabana Azmi and Boman Irani who were more charming than they were in Honeymoon Travels. Sadly for the young actors, the ease between Azmi and Irani highlighted the complete lack among the other relationships in the film. It doesn't move in any way and leaves an utterly bland taste.

The idea behind Sorry Bhai was never revolutionary but it could have been handled better. Half of their cinematography work was taken care of as a result of the beautiful locale, the other half was poorly shot. The overwhelming focus on the surroundings is a good give away of how poor the story is. The dialogues could have lifted this from an ordinary story to something a little more, but they only pulled the film back into a greater sense of the ridiculous.

Review: Oye Lucky Lucky Oye

To say that a new dawn is visible in Bollywood is a tad contrived, but somehow that is all I can think of when I think about Dibakar Banerjee, the director of Oye Lucky Lucky Oye. Banerjee’s earlier film, Khosla Ka Ghosla came at a time when small-budget films with relatively unknown or character actors like Parvin Dabbas, Ranvir Shorey and Boman Irani were still treading a tightrope between appreciation and rejection, and yet, the honesty of the film, its complete rootedness, pulled it through, and got Banerjee a National Award.

Oye Lucky... comes three years after Khosla... and it is visible that Banerjee is not sitting smug in the success of his last venture, but is out to deliver a story that is based on real events; it may be based once again in Delhi, it might once again be a combination of fact and fiction, but its originality puts it in a class by itself, and to compare it with Khosla... is actually an exercise in futility.

Oye Lucky... is the story of Lucky (Abhay Deol) a lower-middle class boy whose simple desires are thwarted by his father (Paresh Rawal), only giving rise to aspirations of a different, more affluent lifestyle. Surrounded as he is by bullies and thieves in the making, his desire pulls him towards petty crime and ultimately towards thievery of a much larger scale. He comes in contact with Gogi (Paresh Rawal), a singer with a backdoor business of supplying stolen goods to people. Lucky’s quick style earns him some demand in Gogi’s group, but his dreams are bigger; he isn’t made to serve anyone else, his only aim being profit and of course some fun. He meets the quiet Sonal (Neetu Chandra) through Dolly (Richa Chadda), Gogi’s dancer and begins a relationship with her. He goes on to meet Dr. Handa (Paresh Rawal) who, though initially fooled by his impressive lifestyle, soon puts two and two together and tries to swindle him.

The keen observation that builds this film is unprecedented. From the director to the production designer, we can see a complete and very controlled vision of Delhi. It is not overstated in its filth or affluence or gaudiness, instead the architecture of the houses with its small rooms but open verandahs, the easy access from one wall to the other, the iron doors of some houses are what are competently captured. Little details work wonders, like the red chillies set out on a newspaper in the sun, the clothes drying and of course the public walls with very Delhi ads and election messages. Characters use names on areas in west Delhi, but that is just an added bonus for Delhi audiences who can relate to Lucky’s joy at being able to take a girl from Amar Colony to Rajouri Garden.

A glimpse of the Delhi Police works as an oblique comment in the film. We are used to seeing their brutality, their corruption and an entire host of related things. Some of those things are there in Oye Lucky..., but they too are understated. It is the body language, the things around them, the appearance of police stations that is emphasized. The dark dingy rooms of the thana, inspectors in various stages of undress, the enmity yet a camaraderie between the police and the thief occupy this film, speaking to audience without shouting a message in our faces.

The actors are in sync with the director who has conveyed his pitch, soul and vision of the film to them perfectly. They depict every detail as if it comes most naturally. Abhay Deol is striking in his persona of Lucky. He takes on the anger and desires of the young Lucky and develops it just a notch as ‘he has grown up’. His romantic life serves as a good balance to his otherwise ambitious, somewhat aggressive outlook. It betrays hints of the young, awkward sardar that lives in the suave looking Lucky. The resentment with which he observes the rich around him is well-stated; he may be sitting in a coffee shop like the rich girls around him, but he can never occupy it with as much command as they do. And this is perhaps what draws Sonal to him. She is as accomplished as any of the girls in skirts, but she too resents their ease with clothes she can only aspire to wear. Hers is a touching character who is well aware of her 'sinful' surroundings - be it her sister and her occupation or Lucky and his. She tries in the most dignified way to disance herself from something that she is in close proximity with and that makes her all the more endearing.

Richa Chadda who plays Dolly was an apparent force in the film, one of the most visible comments made by the director. Her need for sympathy, attention and love are conveyed by the things that touch her. Rejection brings out a hardened side natural to anyone, and in particular an emotionally abused girl.

Archana Puran Singh was the comic strength of the film portraying the Delhi Punjabi aunty to the hilt. Mispronunciation, contrived relationship forging and an aspiration for what Delhi folk call ‘high life’ make this character. Agreed that she is something of a caricature compared to most other characters in the film, but she increases the comic quotient thereby making the film more endearing, not to mention the ‘being-able-to-relate’ angle that she brings in.

The only point of disappointment for me in the entire film was Paresh Rawal and that is surprising because I thought he would carry the film. Younger actors around him overshadowed his somewhat artificial performances in all three personae. Three roles and very little to write home about, Paresh Rawal sadly became the weakest point of the film.

Great visuals, actors, story, songs, and Dibakar’s keen observation are things we hardly see packaged together, and it is this that this hearteningly simple film will stand out for.

Review: Dostana

If you're looking for evidence of Bollywood coming of age, then please direct your glance somewhere far far away from Karan Johar. He has never claimed to be anything more than an entertainer, and that is exactly what he is. One wonders what it means when posters of a film say, 'Karan Johar presents Dostana. Directed by Tarun Mansukhani.' Is he merely a producer, or has he somehow stamped the film with the hoo haa Dharma Productions is famous for?

As is well publicised, Dostana, starring Abhishek Bachchan, John Abraham and Priyanka Chopra, is the story of two men in Miami looking for a flat. They find one, and it is perfect because it has two rooms to spare, but it is not meant for them. The landlady tells them only girls (baby-log) can occupy the flat as the third flattie will be her single niece. The two hatch the imperfect plan andpretend to be gay to win the lady's trust and a roof over their heads. They have to continue the pretence in front of the niece, who happens to be the stunning Priyanka, and then in front of some more people, and then some more and it goes on. Needless to say, they fall in love with her and life is all the more complicated.

Just because Bollywood has managed to say the word 'gay' out loud without being shut down, would be a massive change if the film wasn't the way it is. It walks a fine line between severe homophobia and an ability to get over it and look beyond. In spite of statements by Karan Johar himself, the film indeed does indulge in stereotyping at one level. For instance, the scene where Abhishek tells the two women their 'love story', the visual is of exaggerated effeminacy. There is however Boman Irani who plays M, the editor of Verve. Once I was over the stupendous job Irani did, I realised, here is an actual gay character, who might be a tad too colourful for the Indian male palette, but is also a grand success. He is the editor of Verve, and he leaves the job to become Editor in Chief of Diva. He isn't a perfect person, definitely not a saint, but he is also not a closet case, fighting society and sitting ready to die of AIDS, which is the only place homosexual characters have had in Bollywood so far.

This film isn't meant for the upliftment of the unfortunately suppressed and discriminated gay community in our country, in no publicity campaign has it claimed to be so. It does resort to some tried and tested jokes against gay people, and I am sorry to report that they work like magic with the audience, but I am determined to believe that it also looks forward in some very small ways, perhaps even unintentionally. First, because apart from the usual gay jokes, there is an underlying sense of humour in the film, which would worked for it even without its gay-angle. Second, and most significantly, the end of the film. There is a kind of ambiguity it leaves us with, which, given the masculin ideal of Bollywood, is radical. The thought, that even buffed up, sensitive, 'normal' people can be gay. We may not know it, and even they may not know it.

Dostana has a lot of elements associated in our minds with the undefined entity called 'western culture' - be it the roommate arrangement, the clothes, the career choices, the relationship choices, and of course the girl drinking beer in the middle of the day - and audiences seemed to have warmed up to it. The question in my mind is, will the film, with its mass appeal and a conscious decision to not preach, work as the ultimate 'lesson' and coming of age technique for Bollywood and consequently for its audience?

Review: Hou Hsiao-hsien's Flight of the Red Balloon (Voyage du Ballon Rouge)

Click here to read an article I wrote on Hou Hsiao-hsien's Flight of the Red Balloon.

Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth

Jhumpa Lahiri never loses sight of who she is. An Indian, yet an outsider. It isn't an unusual thing to be, and many old NRIs yearn for their home soil and whatnot, but Lahiri's writing walks that thin line between something is dripping with nothing but nostalgia and one that is eager to forget its roots.

With The Interpreter of Maladies, a new identity emerged which has now taken definite shape with Unaccustomed Earth. There is a new Indian - who is not unfamiliar with India, but knows it in tiny details of that are more or less taken for granted. Be it the sabzi-sandwich she takes to school for lunch, or in the Indian, more specifically, Bengali terms of address she uses most mechanically. Unlike the confused hybrid that inhabit NRI writing, these characters are comfortable with their identities, mostly because their creator has come to terms with hers. She puts this part of herself in each of her characters, but then lets them develop as individuals with their own stories and their own struggles. There isn't a preoccupation with nostalgia, a static Indian-ness that dominates writing of this kind, but an acknowledgment of a world that is somewhere a part of each of the characters, which reveals itself in unusual ways.

There are few writers today who write with as much ease as Jhumpa Lahiri. Every word, every story engulfs you in a hauntingly quiet way. As always, her approach is gentle yet effective, and the stories won't leave you easily. With The Namesake, it seemed Lahiri had lost the absolute control and precision she has over her words. It was a moving story, but a tad rambling, and it seems to me now that it is the comparatively shorter life of a short story that she works better in. The novel seemed to guide her, while she is the master of the short story.

Musings on Hellboy and the superhero

With the fuss around the almost-superhero – James Bond, relooking at this much-loved genre becomes inevitable. A strange dichotomy faces us today, technological advances are at an all time high, to put it crudely, with James Bond all but flying, it looks like very few things are unachievable; and yet, the demand for fantasy is growing. Be it Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, or the any of the superhero films – the craze is unprecedented. The superhero films are particularly interesting, primarily because they provide the link between the human and the fantastical, with characters that look like you and me, but have that extra something that gives them the power to make the world a better, safer place.

Not unlike most superheroes, Hellboy (created by Mike Mignola, filmed by Guillermo del Toro) lives on earth, separated from his actual parents, and is lovingly adopted by someone he comes to think of as father. And like most, he too has a responsibility towards the people, one of keeping them safe. The question that arises at least once in every superhero film, ‘Does the world need xyz?’ is to facilitate the answer - yes, the world does in fact need a hero – and this is the case with Hellboy (Ron Perlman) as well.

In spite of all these similarities, there is an inherent difference with which Hellboy has been approached. The Hellboy films play a tricky game of in and out of the superhero genre – using the popularity when in, and reflecting on the genre when out.

Hellboy came into the ‘real world’ with the American attempt to destroy a portal made by the Nazis to conjure a power that would ensure their victory in the World War. Professor Trevor Bruttenholm, an American doctor, comes with a small army to stop the Nazis. Their attempt is partially successful, and they are left with a little red creature, with horns on its forehead – evidently not human, but also not animal. Bruttenholm adopts the creature and calls him Hellboy. Hellboy grows up to be a big red monstrous looking creature, but has the superhero-special sort of heart, courage and ability to save the world.

What, then, is Hellboy’s origin? Superman’s father was a scientist on Krypton, Spiderman was licked by a radio-active spider who inadvertently passed on his characteristics to Peter Parker — but where did Hellboy come from? He is a result of the darkest magic that was called upon to destroy the world, (actually to provide victory to the Nazis, but it’s the same thing apparently). The Americans found him in the most hellish times, and therefore, Bruttenholm names him Hellboy. The name is a constant reminder of the existence of a dark side, at least potentially, to this heroic character. It goes hand in hand with the horn stubs that are present on his face. In the first film itself, we can see that the dark side has merely been subsided by his constant interaction with ‘the good’ – the changeover being a matter of skill and strategy in the hands of Rasputin. There is a vision of what the world can be, and by suggestion, how safe it is right now.

There is a question waiting to be asked; del Toro leaves it to the audience to ask it – what is maintaining this balance? The answer is – Hellboy. Or rather his sense of right and wrong, that corresponds with ours. He uses his strength for what is right, but can be pulled into using it for what isn’t. The relatively unidimensional Superman stands in sharp contrast. The White man with neatly parted hair, cannot have a compromising side. This is perhaps the reason he is an iconic figure in a sense America itself – given the costume. Hellboy, with his capacity for evil will never be an icon, or a symbol of America, though he is raised there. He likes candy, swigs beer from cans like any average Joe, and cracks the usual ‘I would give my life for her but she wants me to do the dishes too’ jokes, but he can never be American. There is a particularly moving scene in Hellboy 2, when the public has started fearing Hellboy all of a sudden because the mother of the baby he saved thought he was trying to kill him. Just as Hellboy starts to discover his paternal capacity, he is accused of trying to harm the baby. Liz (Selma Blair) keeps trying to say, he’s trying to help, but no one listens. Of course, the moment could have been more powerful if Blair was a better actress, but the idea comes across fairly well. The people he considers his own, who he risks his life to save, suddenly decide he is a monster. Supernatural elements aside, there is a critique of American society that creeps up here, one that comes at an opportune moment.

The first Hellboy film saw del Toro’s fascination with the ugly, not just in the figure of Hellboy himself, but also in the figures of Abe (Doug Jones) and creatures like Sammael that Rasputin invoked. This art of reversing order and making the ugly attractive took definite shape in Pan’s Labyrinth, and reached perfection with Hellboy 2. The big, clumsy Hellboy and a slimy fish-like Abe are together the most effective duo that come to the rescue of human beings. They are contrasted with Tom Manning (Jeffrey Tambor), the Director of the FBI, the normal among the paranormal. He spends his time trying to deny the existence of Hellboy, and looks idiotic not just to the public, but to the Bureau of Paranormal Research as well as he tries desperately to exercise control, and fails (in both films). The figure of Sammael, the foulest creature in the film, is stretched to a limit in its grotesque appearance that you move beyond the initial distaste and start coming to terms with the scale del Toro has in mind. The emphasis on the grotesque creates a beauty that is, in some senses, removed from the Christian ideal of beauty. The troll market in Hellboy 2 is a good example of what I mean. In one film, there are two worlds visible – that of downtown New York, and that of the underworld, where the troll market is, and Hellboy looks visibly happy to be there – because everyone there is like him – no one stares and no one thinks he’s a freak. The complete vision of the troll-market is almost sublime, in a way where awful really is awe-full. The lack of a definite shape, and instead a kind of grotesque mass that pervades the Hellboy films, has a flowing quality, which gains significance when seen from the perspective of history. The first Hellboy deals directly with historical figures like Rasputin, but then push them beyond all sense of logic, time, space and death. The visual of the purple blood flowing everywhere, gives us a sense of excess, which defies the control of a traditional historical narrative. History then goes beyond the human. Its ugliness and animal-instinct provides a perspective to human history that is fast becoming del Toro’s trademark.

The sense that one goes back with, after watching Hellboy, or any del Toro film for that matter, is far from fleeting. Whether it is a fascination for the superhero, for history or just for sheer theatrics and a grand scale in filmmaking – with Hellboy, he has decided to please everyone.

Confessions of a no-Bond-er

Click here to read article I wrote on the release of Quantum of Solace for NDTVMovies.com.

Naked Voices: The good, the bad, the ugly

A review of a new anthology of Manto's stories.

Rocking is overrated!

I read some film critic calling Abhishek Kapoor’s Rock On, a worthy successor to Farhan Akhtar’s Dil Chahta Hai. I can’t think of a statement further than the truth. There is not a doubt in my mind that, being ‘a worthy successor’, or in less kind terms, ‘cashing in on DCH’s popularity’ is what this film aimed to do. But that doesn’t mean it manages. What it does manage, is to look like a far less competent, ‘inspired’ film, as Bollywood is prone to calling a number of its endeavors.

Here is why I say this, the basic structure of the two films is, a group of male friends as the centre, their wives or girlfriends lurking as side attractions, one major fight – to be more specific – a punch in the face, a broken friendship, changed personalities, and then the patch-up. Dil Chahta Hai came at a time when films about friendship were more or less non-existent in the Bombay film industry. It created this unique new space, a new relationship that is full of mischief, friendship, and nostalgia which is infectious. Some lousy films like Masti tried to recreate that, but were so low in their humour, their look, their acting and direction that they went down badly. To be fair, compared to a lot of muck being produced in Bollywood today, Rock On is a good film. My main complain about it is its lack of originality.

What it doesn’t learn from Dil Chahta Hai is the art of simple and effective story-telling, without compromising on the complexities of relationships between friends and between lovers (or potential lovers).

The structure of Rock On is one that goes nowhere in spite of a great deal of build up. As the film begins, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that there has been a falling out between friends, and that it has changed their lives. But we don’t get to know till three-quarters of the film is over, what the fight was about. And by then, the build up is so great, that almost anything would’ve anti-climactic. In Dil Chahta Hai, the comment that leads to the fall-out was below the belt, and unspeakable in Bolly-world. In Rock On, there is no build up to the actual fight. The tension between the Aditya (Farhan Akhtar) and Joe (Arjun Rampal) starts and ends when the music director starts giving more screen time to Aditya who doesn’t mind and Joe gets all worked up; a fight follows, and Joes punches Aditya. To sit for an hour and a half before you see this little detail, feels like you’ve been cheated.

Where Rock On loses out a great deal in comparison to Dil Chahta Hai is with reference to secondary characters. ‘The evil woman’ who wants to separate male friends was done away with fairly early in Dil Chahta Hai, because slightly unusual relationships were to take that space. I was particularly moved by the relationship between Akshaye Khanna and Dimple Kapadia. The sad turn that Debbie (Shahana Goswami) takes in Rock On is just reinviting the run-of-the-mill. She gets in the way of his reviving friendship, pushes him to do unexciting jobs etc. There is a hint of a woman who’s facing her changed reality, but she is so constantly unpleasant that it is easy to forget that and resent her.

So, yes, Rock On is like Dil Chahta Hai, but only because it is trying so miserably hard. And the only real commonality between the two is Farhan Akhtar, who was much much better in Dil Chahta Hai, as the director.

Lust, Caution

The opening titles of Ang Lee's Lust, Caution situate the film in the years between 1938 and 1942 in Hong Kong. There is the World War, the espionage, the student rebellion, the lust and the caution. But those are mere structures to support one of the most moving war-time films ever made. It digs into the personal sacrifice that shapes any revolution, be it bodily or even spiritual.

It is the story of a group of enthusiastic students who start identifying with the rebellious tone of the play they put up in college and decide to take their action beyond the stage. The group's leader, Kuang Yu Min (Wang Lee-Hom) pulls the group together and they decide to assassinate Mr. Yee (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai), who is a part of the government that has collaborated with Japanese fascist forces. The quiet and beautiful Wong Chia Chiv (Tang Wei) is chosen to seduce Mr. Yee, win his confidence so that he lets his guard down and the group can kill him. Kuang and Wong are attracted to each other, but it remains an unspoken truth, given the intensity of their project. Things go wrong and the group is forced to run away. Years later Kunag meets Wong again; he is now an official part of the secret resistance group. He introduces her to the mastermind and they decide to continue the affair where it was left off. And it does.

Perhaps this would have been a lesser film without the indescribable talent of Tang Wei. She gives a silently haunting quality to Wong, making the few words she speaks in the film the most meaningful and certainly the most powerful. Far from the wounded, but proudly upheld bodies of soldiers that occupy most war films, we see a critique of the idea that has inhabited feminist theory for a while - the woman's body as the space to define political achievements. The interesting thing is that both sides use Wong's body for very opposite reasons.

The resistance movement, from its amateur student stage, assumes that since Wong is the one chosen to seduce Yee, she will have to sleep with him if the affair reaches that stage. There is a poignant moment when she returns from their first date and announces that sex will be on the table the next time, only to realise that the group had hardly waited for her consent to decide that for her.

Even when she rejoins the resistance - now at a more profesional, national scale - the assumptions remain the same. The only difference is that this time, she is wiser and has assumed the assumption herself.

With Yee, the affair is hardly an ordinary one. The physical violence of the intercourse is disturbing, but not as much as the comfort it gives Yee. What surprises is the emotion behind the violence that is gradually commuincated. The desperation and powerlessnes of Yee's position comes through in his relationship with Wong. His actions in this very private sphere become reflective of his lack of power in the political sphere, where he may be part of the government, but it is ultimately a government that is dictated by the Japanese.

The change is Wong's character, from an enthusiastic student looking to change the fate of China - to a broken woman is developed at a masterful pace. She finally breaks her silence about the abuse in the quietest way imaginable - in a moment asking for hysteria, Ang Lee exercises commendable control and the film is all the superior for it. As far as Wong is concerned, it is as if the two groups work in tandem with each other; the resistance group expects and allows a violent sexual relationship to go on while Yee delivers. They are both as guilty of battering her body.

In the climactic moment of the film, we see that Wong and Yee actually serve the same purpose in their respective circles. They are both dictated, used people, who are in ultimate analysis, absolutely alone - as it made very literal in the final move to the jewelry shop when Wong looks around for her fellow conspirators, but finds every post unoccupied. Yee's group too knew of Wong's affiliations, but they never said anything, allowing him to face the risk when it comes. And when that realisation comes through, her 'loyalty' suddenly enters an undefinable space - from political to personal. 'Her people', in that moment, are not the resistance group, but one more like her - whose life is endangered for the cause. The irony is that the two causes are at complete odds with each other.

It has been sixty years and more since the World War, and yet most of us (and that includes most filmmakers) haven't been able to shed the most simplistic good guy-bad guy binary. Even the most celebrated films finally boil down to, or even cash in the sufferings of the Jews, the atrocities of concentration camps or the eternal Red scare. A bit of reflection beyond these hyperbolic tendencies is rare and desirable - and Ang Lee has achieved that and more with this one. Leaving even Brokeback Mountain - his Academy Awarder miles behind, Lee has done his bit to change war films, and maybe even films in general.

Ramchand Pakistani - Review

There's a lot about Mehreen Jabbar's film, Ramchand Pakistani, that can be appreciated. Syed Fazal Hussain, who plays Ramchand, is on the top of that list, Nandita Das is close to the bottom, and the film itself hovers somewhere in the middle.

To clear the air, it is important to mention that the balanced political standpoint of the film speaks to its credit. For once, an India-Pakistan film isn't about terrorism and the big bad guy across the border. And that is a huge relief. But that is almost all that is convincing about the film. It has moments with immense potential. Whether it is with reference to relationships that build up or even a comment on prisoners and their state, especially the fact of innocent people who have been thrown into jail for small mistakes, as is the case of Ramchand and his father. Unfortunately, they remain mere moments.

The story, as it might be evident already, is about Ramchand, a young, tribal Hindu boy living in Pakistan, his mother (played by Nandita Das) and his father (Rashid Farooqui). One day, the boy unknowingly walks across the border near the Thar desert, and his father follows, trying to stop him. They are both arrested and sent to jail in the Kutch region on the Indian side of the border. The mother tries in vain to locate them, she registers FIRs, makes endless rounds of the police station, but to no avail.

The jail Shankar (the father) and Ramchand are thrown into, would be any prisoner's paradise. The interaction with the police starts with suggested torture but for the rest of the film, it turns into an example of communal, social harmony. With the exception of one potential child molester, the inmates all get along famously, they help each other like family members and all is a little too well in jail-land. The inspectors, both male and female, are sympathetic, kind and concerned. Without any provocation, the head arranges for Ramchand to study and brings in a special female inspector for the purpose. The lady, who has some strangely mixed-Mumbaiya-cum north Indian speech, makes a few remarks about the boy, who is an untouchable, touching her utensils, but one little blurt from him pretty much silences her.

What I'm trying to point out here is the lack of a follow up of any potential leads that could give this film a strong base. There are a few stray interesting incidents, or potential relationships that, for all practical purposes, are in the pipeline, but they just don't develop. They remain connection-less episodes. An example: at one point, Shankar tells the inspector that they treated like dogs in the jail; and while that may be the reality of the actual situation, that is not what is communicated in the film. There is an assumed connection with the real world, and that doesn't work, not when what we see in the film is the very opoosite of 'being treated like dogs'.

There was also the beginning of another relationship, between Champa (Das) and a Muslim member of the community, Abdullah (Noman Ijaz). The tenderness of their relationship is moving and once again has immense potential, but all it takes is one little, almost matter-of-fact comment by a friend that has Abdullah pack his bags and leave the scene. The anxieties of these relationships could be many and they weren't explored in this film. And that is the case with the depiction of jail life as well. I was a bit shocked to realise that the Pakistani prisoners blend in that easily with the rest. No strife? I know people to people relations are good, but there are always malefactors. But they were wished away. Also, who is Ramchand going back to? It is a million dollar question, but it is packed off in one little statement. There is no room for exploration therefore. In fact, i would say that with these mistakes, the film digs its own grave because it chooses to crush the intensity of things in simple statements.

I am not saying, at any point, that everything should be literalised and made all to evident as it is in any run of the mill film. This particular case is more disappointing, precisely because there was so much possible within the ambit of the same film, keeping intact the sensitivity with which it has been approached.

Of ghosts and ruins: Mrinal Sen's Khandar

“I’m going to stop talking now,” said Mrinal Sen as he got up to introduce his film Khandar (1983) at the 10th Osian’s Cinefan Festival, where he is this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award winner. “Because if I don’t, I will contradict myself.” It is hard to believe this of a man who has been known for keeping steady on the path of radical political cinema. He created the Indian New Wave, and he still rules the roost there. No one before or after has had the courage to be the man, so many of whose films were, as he says himself, “popular failures at the box office.”

It seems that Mrinal Sen cannot possibly be content with simplistic emotions. Joy and tears are not nuanced enough to portray reality. Take Khandarfor instance, there is a story, and it has five important characters. The story doesn’t take a back-seat but it lets its characters grow. It is perhaps this aspect of it that made Sen grab it. What is evident is that he directed the actors in such a way that every emotion, every glance, and gesture is loaded. Those who speak the least communicate the most. Sadness doesn’t explain what Jamini (Shabana Azmi) feels when Subhash (Naseeruddin Shah) suddenly agrees to marry her, or when he finally leaves. There is instead a build up of desire, one that engulfs the happy and the sad, hope and curiosity etc etc. And it is the contradiction between an emotion this fluid and the attempt to freeze it that is at the core of this film. Yes, Khandar is very much about ‘the ravages of time’ the ruins it leaves behind. But it is also about the attempt to preserve what is left.
Photography is therefore key to the film. It opens with freeze frames of photos, Jamini’s photos. The pictures have a story behind them but at that point we don’t know that story. The events as they unfold give more meaning to the photo, and in the end when we see him develop it, it is almost as if it is a different picture. Because this time, we know the emotions it captured and in spite of being a photo, it tells the story of the whole film—maybe not the plot, but the crux of its emotions.

This restlessness has a link with the way in which the idea of the film came about. Sen narrates the anecdote, “Every time I completed a film, I passed through a crisis about what my next subject would be. Once, I woke up in the middle of the might and for obvious reasons could not sleep. I left my bed, walked around, ideas popping into my head…I went to my study, stood before a bookshelf and just pulled out a book of short stories by Premendra Mitra. I had read the story so many times, but that fateful night, I read it again and without my knowing how and why, suddenly I could read cinema in the lines, in every line, also between the lines.” Khandar has the dream-cast of almost any director, and they work wonderfully as an ensemble. The three stooges from The National School of Drama (Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapur and Annu Kapur) follow each other well and Shabana Azmi is like we’ve never seen her before, strong yet demure, exhausted and desirable, hopeful and yet without hope…this one can be called her best. Though it can’t be called Sen’s best…that place was occupied soon after his film career took off, and therefore, way before Khandar came about. It is still the scathing critique of society, of bureaucracy and the state that is classic Mrinal Sen. Satire, is a lost art today in Indian cinema, especially one that is political in nature. Stark realism gets ovations wherever it goes, but today it seems, no one has the wit and understanding to create a workable satire. Sen however, remains a staunch supporter of the genre, and takes on the task of defending it, “Not many, but happily quite a few of my films have satirical kicks, because it is a tremendous force…not just in literature and drama, but indeed in cinema as well. Think of Chaplin, he’s a master.”
And he hasn’t lost the will to fight for this ‘other’ in Indian cinema. “Social agendas and aesthetics go hand in hand, gracefully and powerfully,” he insists, brushing away all attempts to gather a preference for one or the other.
And who will follow his footsteps? He is philosophical, “Did I have footsteps at all?” he asks, then answers it himself, “ghosts don’t have footsteps.”

Krishnakanta's Will: Nothing Novel

I did it to myself. I had read the novel, not liked it, but curiosity got the better of me and off I went to watch Raja Sen’s adaptation of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s novel, Krishnakanta’s Will. Did you ever watch The Mahabharata? Well this film seemed longer. In college, we were told this was a novella, a short novel. The film, however, bore no resemblance of this distinction.

A quick recap of the story. There is a patriarch called Krishnakanta Roy, who has disinherited his son, Harilal, for all sorts of reasons. Harilal decides to get a fake will made and with the help of a young widow, Rohini, he manages to exchange the real will for the forged one. Soon the young widow realizes that her action will disinherit the man’s cousin, Gobindalal who is a kind soul and has dealt with Rohini with understanding and affection. Rohini soon falls in love with Gobindalal who is already married. His wife, Bhramar, is jealous. Gobindalal gets attracted to Rohini. They elope. Soon after, Bhramar falls fatally ill while there is trouble brewing between the illicit couple thanks to Bhramar’s father who sought revenge.

It might be evident that it is a fairly stock story. Love, the other woman, jealousy, inheritance, villains, greed, death etc. What I’m struggling with at this point is whether I should even bother to write any more since that is the beginning and end of this film. It is tempting to be critical of Bankim Chandra’s novel because it reeks of his conservative stance in almost every chapter, but that would be unfair—not just because the novel has some unique, appealing features, but because the film didn’t bother with any of the nuances the book had to offer.

The most interesting aspect of the novel was its narrator. A playful, opinionated story-teller who made this simplistic series of events and relationships more connected and hinted an oral flavour. The two overt references to widow-remarriage are not the end of the matter. The novel is not about relationships, it is about women, more importantly, about widows and Bankim’s reservations (let’s be polite and call it that) on the idea of widows getting married again. The narrator hints at these social comments of the writer with much more depth than the actual characters do. And the film does away with the narrator. Just to think of how fascinating a film this could have bee had this voice been retained, makes me dislike it even more. Even while reading the novel, I remember being wary of this ensnaring narrator. One had to think with him and then beyond him. And it is that process that made the experience worth anything, not the story. For instance the character of Rohini. We have no choice but to listen to the narrator pass judgements on her character, but then we think of more erudite concepts like desire, sexuality and the possibility of innocence co-existing with these qualities. There was a point early in the film when there was a hint of this understanding. But the moment she falls for a married man, she is shunned to the dark side, and the director seems more than content with that action. The caring, soft-spoken Rohini turned into a devilish creature who decides to raise Bhramar’s envy. The ‘basicness’ —to concoct an obvious word— of the emotions portrayed is jarring. And clearly if the director is happy with these basic emotions, then the actors will not push themselves and will be happy to remain simple actors in a simple story.

Another telling feature of the novel is how it ends. Gobindalal is blinded by jealousy and realization of Rohini’s ‘loose character’ and thereby of Bhramar’s godliness. Both women die (Gobindalal kills Rohini), and a golden statue of Bhramar is erected. For all those who were in any doubt about the intention of this novel and its construction of the good woman and the bad one, this move changes everything. And the film doesn’t deem it important enough to retain. One can argue that being a man of the 21st century, Raja Sen was distancing himself from this literal deification of women. But if that were the case, Sen wouldn’t have picked this novel or rather this writer at all. What’s the point of basing yourself on a novel if you erase all traces of its uniqueness from your rendition?

What I do have to admit is the one sensible thing I saw in the film. The novel has a very vocal working class that is visible in the peripheries of the plot. A kind of social critique comes through with the various servants we encounter and Sen had the good sense to highlight them.
The greatest mystery however is the look of the film that prompted more than one person to wonder when it was made. The director clarified that it was made in 2007. It is difficult to explain what exactly I mean when I say that it seemed the film was made in the 70s. Try to recall the inherent superficiality of colours that is evident to us today when we watch the first few colour films. The colour seems super-imposed and far from natural. That is true of this film. There must be some secret formula Sen used for it because as far as I know, that quality is now so obsolete that it is impossible to achieve.

I don’t know what else to say. Maybe I won’t say anymore because there isn’t anything more to the film. The possibilities were immense and they were obviously not even in the vicinity of the filmmakers thoughts, and besides, the damage has been done.

Aamir: A do-gooder gone wrong

Rajkumar Gupta’s recent film Aamir has created a stir it seems in the country. And not just because it stars Rajeev Khandelwal—a relatively new face on the big screen, but also because it is one of the films that dares to approach the tabooed Muslims-in-India issue. The long and short of the film is that it is about Aamir, a young doctor who has just stepped foot on Indian soil after finishing studies in the UK. No sooner than he has cleared customs starts a harrowing journey that he is pushed into by the Islamic fundamentalist underworld. They are unbelievably well-coordinated with each other and have the longest process all worked out for this less than enthusiastic young man. The journey resembles a treasure hunt of sorts, at the end of which his abducted family will be released.
The film presents a picture of the two kinds of Muslims that there are. The modern, educated, liberal, secular in thought kind and the crazed, fundamentalist, psychotic, terrorist kind. My problem with this film is actually not just with this film alone, it is with the gamut that it belongs to. Irrespective of their religious, political or social inclination, many filmmakers have tread this path of representing the Muslim post 9/11. Thankfully, some recent ones have distanced themselves from the jingoism of Border and LoC (1997, 2003 resp, J.P Dutta) etc. However, if you think about it, most films made in India (and I’m talking primarily Hindi cinema) with central characters that are Muslim, hover around the territory of terrorism in some form or the other. Either that they are terrorist and traitors, or that they invariably get involved in such situations. Perhaps there is a need for bringing the prejudice and the humiliation to the forefront, but the group as it grows in this lone direction, is counter-productive. It doesn’t help the suspicions that plague Muslims in the country. Because in the long-run, it seems, as if they all will without a doubt and maybe without their consent or desire have some role to play in the terror situation. It might be because they don’t have a choice, but that is a small consideration in the larger picture, which seemingly concerns itself with personal and even national safety. And this is troubling because these films flood the mainstream and their superficially balanced approach attracts some undecided or superficially liberal audience, making the film a critical and often even a commercial success. Think Fanaa (2006, Kunal Kohli), Fiza (2000, Khalid Mohammed), Mission Kashmir (2000, Vidhu Vinod Chopra) and now Aamir, among a whole host of films not just in our own country but also from all over the world – most recently Pakistan (Khuda Ke Liye - 2007, Shoiab Mansoor) and the big-daddy of pedantic views on everything – Hollywood. At the cost of appearing impossible to please, I will say that the apparently liberal view is often as damaging as anything else.
Come back to Aamir. Agreed that there is an attempt to portray a new Muslim. Educated, liberal, human. But despite this educated, modern protagonist occupying the screen a good 95% of the duration, his views are weak and remarkably forgettable. What stayed with me after the film was not his meek three lines (literally) about modern secularism, but the guttural and extremely repetitive dialogues of the nameless and nearly faceless underworld don. I’m not sure if one should blame the writer (also Rajkumar Gupta) for his terrible script indicative of a serious lack of imagination or should one congratulate him on achieving his aim of showing the communal fanaticism of this Muslim don. The repetitive use of the word and the idea of ‘kaum’ (community) is not just jarring to the ear; it has a more sinister result—of convincing the audience that this is the only driving, determining force for a large part of the Muslim community. The elaborate Muslims community that is shown to be at work to bomb innocent people (because it is some twisted form of revenge), is hardly dented by Aamir’s secular squeaks. And at a more obvious level, he dies and they don’t. So what kind of Muslim lives on? The terrorist, monstrous kind. The one who says, ‘phone band mat karna mujhe bomb ki awaaz sunni hai’ (don’t switch off the phone, I want to hear the sound of the bomb blast).
The film adopts an ‘aesthetic of garbage’ and takes is very seriously, to the extent of one getting numb to its impact. It seems as if the director is trying to do to the audience what the don is trying to do with Aamir – acquaint us and him to the pathetic, filthy conditions of Muslims in India. There is no doubt that there is lower class that occupies slums all over India. But the determining factor there is class for a better part of it, not religion. Agreed that there are areas where the majority consists of people of one religion, but there isn’t any place that I have heard of, that is one hundred per cent Muslims, all of whom, needless to say are filthy, uneducated, fanatic, butchers. There is one lone modern Muslim in this film. But we don’t see his house, his locality, the hygiene conditions of his surroundings. We are instead thrown into the muck of a few slums that will now be considered the beginning and end of Muslim existence in the country. How does that help the image, for me it only further deteriorates it. Okay, so it maps the city to an extent, so what? Is the context right? Is it balanced? I don’t think so. I find it passive aggressive.

In between Tehzeeb (2003, Khalid Mohammed)—a film most would have forgotten even if they ever watched it at all and more recently, Chak De! India (2007, Shimit Amin), there have barely been any films that think Muslims in India can have any concern other than terrorism. What this group of films that Aamir belongs to is doing is to create a denial in society about a large group of Muslims, who are definitely concerned about the state of affairs in the world, but live in very normal conditions. Those who are not terrorist and never will be. They don’t live in slums, they are educated, they don’t spell every English word incorrectly, they don’t wear short pajamas and a religious cap and they are as enraged as anyone else at the loss of innocent lives in terror attacks.

JUNO

Every once in a while a film comes along that can leave you a bit stunned. Primarily because it’ll trick you into believing that you have a fairly good idea of what it is about. This Oscar season, the dark horse was Juno.
Written by Diablo Cody and directed by Jason Reitman, this film was last year’s charmer. And the charm is a collective effort of the story-tellers and the actors who leave little to be desired. To say that Juno is a pregnancy comedy is doing it a great deal of injustice because it leaves a category as simple as that many miles behind. It is the story of an accidental pregnancy and an inexperienced teenager, Juno (Ellen Page) who decides to have the child and give some parents-in-the-wings “a gift of life or whatever”. The film walks a tight rope between the expected and the unexpected, taking care to be fresh and subtly comment without shocking anyone out of their comfort zone. And the greatest achievement of the film is its approach towards relationships. For once, we are taken on a trip where we see not just the hopelessly crumbling families of suburban America but a family that still has it together without being righteous or sugar-sweet about it. What is evident however is that it takes work. A stepmother who is evidently at her stepdaughter’s side at every step of this less-than-normal situation is a hallmark of this unusual film. Consider, for instance, the parents' response to Juno's announcement of the pregnancy. No hysterics, no broken relationships, no boyfriend dragging yet so real. They are concerned about her health, about her being able to handle this situation she isn’t ready for in any way imaginable. Instead of a trailer park teenage pregnancy of a drug-addict single mother we're in a family surrounding.
Another twist from the usual pregnancy comedy (or tragedy for that matter) is the father of the child, Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera). Before we actually see the boy, we are made to think of him as the jock who knocked up the girl and will then not accept responsibility. There is complete preparation for this image by the film-maker - we see Bleeker's running outfit, his health-conscious food routine, his wrist-bands etc, but then we see him— a shockingly innocent, not to mention, unlikely candidate for such a situation. One who is unsure about how to respond to the girl’s announcement and is further confused at her statement, “it wasn’t your idea anyway” and is left mumbling, “uh…then whose idea was it?”
The best however is revealed to us much later. The seemingly perfect couple Mark and Vanessa (Jason Bates and Jennifer Garner) who are in reality less than perfect. A born mother and a repressed rock-star turned adman. Initially ware led in a direction where we might disapprove of Vanessa’s apparent control over Mark, but once again, we are asked to be a bit less judgmental and see the picture from either side. The scene in the shopping complex is what captures the finesse of the film in the second half. Jennifer Garner outdoes herself in this scene.
The film ends in the only possible way one would (by then) expect the expert drivers to steer it in. Happy and a bit more mature.
One of the most well-deserved Academy Awards went to Diablo Cody who came up with a screenplay and dialogues one wouldn’t expect in one film, examples of favourite lines range from, Brenda asking, “Juno, did you barf in my urn?” to Juno telling her friend Leah “Dude, I’m telling you I am pregnant and you are acting shockingly cavalier.” And as she said in her acceptance speech, Ellen Page really is ‘superhuman’. She makes this film so lovable that most have gone back to it more than once.

Goya en Bordeos – From One Artist to Another

Velasquez's Las Meninas-one of the most talked about paintings in the history of European Art is a mere reference towards the end of Carlos Saura's film Goya en Bordeos. The young artist examines the painting-as it inhabits a dark go down-with growing realisation with each passing moment. It is a while before he can understand the enormity and the complexity of that painting, where Velasquez has painted representation itself. Subject, painter, canvas and mirrors occupy the painting, bringing to mind Saura's self-confessed ideal form of representation-one which is yet incomplete. "What fascinates me is the process, the preparation for a performance where every step that goes into the making of the final performance, every effort is visible." he said in an interview in New Delhi recently.[1]
Saura plays with light and colour in every frame of his films, seemingly prioritising aesthetics over any other principle of filmmaking, yet Goya en Bordeos is arguably Saura's most direct engagement with art. Not unlike some of his other films, Saura invests a bit of himself in his protagonist. Only this time it is surprising because he manages to find the link between himself - a 20th century filmmaker and Goya - a 19th century painter, that goes beyond the Spanish connection. The link is that of camaraderie of art and artists. Through Goya en Bordeos and a number of other films, Saura deliberates on questions of the relationship between an artist and history, both personal and political, on the meaning of art as expression and art as profession.

There is a central image that binds this film - that of the spiral as Goya etches it on the window early in the film. The fact of a centre from which all else is born and by extension that to which everything is connected becomes a symbol not only for art and also for life itself. And it connects the two artistes-Goya and Saura, both of whom were occupied with ideas of representation (a telling example is Goya's two paintings - one clothed and one naked - in the same posture of one woman who was widely rumoured to be The Duchess of Alba), of social commentary through art, prevalence to aesthetics and of course the question of censorship.

The symbol haunts the entire film. At times literally, at times by the power of suggestion. The film opens on a violent note with the image of a dead animal, hung from the ceiling, and the tools of his demise occupying the foreground in the mis-en-scene. The entire surface is drenched in a red light that looks like blood - in fact we can't tell the red of the light from the red of the blood that is probably on the rope and pail that we see before we finally see the entire body of the animal being pulled up, and hung, not unlike the crucifixion. Biblical undertones return towards the end of the film in a long sequence, beginning once again with deep shades of red, this time with actual crosses, another crucifixion-like image and violence directed at people. Buried bodies, lost, dead children, and people in chains - this sequence is at once biblical and contemporaneous for Goya and Saura both of whom saw violence and destruction in their time. In an attention to detail, we see a number of dogs inhabiting the space of the exodus with the people, signifying the barbaric instinct though somewhat ironically because they are the least threatening presence in the scenario. What it does bring to mind is the presence of dogs in a number of portraits (Goya was known for portraiture) to suggest masculinity and loyalty. However, true to the cycle of life function of the symbol, soon after the carnage in this scene and the death of Goya, the film closes with the image of birth. Just as the dying Goya finishes drawing the symbol in the air for the last time and calls out to his progeny, there is a stunning manifestation of the spiral symbol in the staircase from which his daughter Rosarita comes running down. (see above)

Notions of death occur in different ways through the film, particularly in dreams and paintings. The balance is created perhaps with the closed, womb-like set-up of Goya's room, where a majority of the film is played out. (At the very end of the film, as Goya dies, the same room is transformed and a child is born there). A translucent red wall, made, it seems, of cloth, which at once walls in in a confining sort of way, while allowing a view of the outside. Except for one scene in the park, most of the film is set in closed spaces - perhaps because Saura thinks the outside distracts the audience and is superfluous. Yet, the one scene in the open leads to our realisation of a feeling of being closed-up all this while and for time to come. And since most scenes are played out in the interiors of his house, we see the paintings as Goya meant for them to be seen – in the dark, where the painter has control over the light and the consequent effect on the viewing of a painting.

It is curious that a film which occupies closed spaces opens itself out to a history that is constructed by a heady mix of dreams and reality. Saura plays with the narrative, flirting with post-modern ideas of layered time, fragmented reality and memory - but ultimately comes back to the original idea of the bio-pic. And therefore, the spiral returns to assert its focus, which is the artist and the art. He doesn't abandon his focus but it is clear through this film (and others) and his interview that he is a staunch advocate of a wild imagination. "Reality is not just what we see, but also what we dream." he said. And it is this fluid reality that he presents in Goya en Bordeos. The film uses passageways lit in contrasting colors, from a bare white in the beginning to black as a background for his paintings making a connection between an artist's unconscious and his work. Further emphasising the contentious nature of truth, Saura literalises a few probables of Goya’s life, in particular his relationships. For instance, most biographies of the painter throw open a vague suggestion of a relationship with The Duchess of Alba, but Saura makes her the centre of the spiral of Goya's life - his muse, his subject, his only memory - she was ‘Only Goya's' as her portrait says.

Fluidity pervades Saura's style as well - for in spite of being under the influence of Dali, Lorca and his mentor Bunuel, he has never based his work on any one of these celebrated styles. He found his own way to defy linearity even while working in the most straightforward of genres like the bio-pic. I can't think of a literary enough term to classify Saura's work for he uses light and colour like a painter would, creating something so unique that to call it anything more general than ‘Sauraesque' would be doing it great injustice. And it's just as well, because as he said, he doesn't believe in schools.

[1] Carlos Saura came to New Delhi, India and was in conversation with Aruna Vasudev on the 10th of March, 2008.

Charlie Wilson’s War: The Then and Now of the United States?

This year’s Oscar nominee, Charlie Wilson’s War (Philip Seymour Huffman for Best Supporting Actor) is a puzzle. It could be one of two things: an incredibly clever, subtle scathing comment on the history of American foreign policy, or a fairly uni-dimensional – not to mention jingoistic – addition to the ‘great America’ series that occupies a significant place in Hollywood.
The film is based on the life of Congressman Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks), who, in spite of being a rampant womaniser and a person of generally questionable morals, was greatly moved by the plight of the Afghan refugees in Pakistan during the Cold War when Soviet Russia was attacking Afghanistan.
The US believed in erring on what they considered the side of caution as far as Communist or for that matter any left-wing radical tendencies were concerned. Caution being represented by unsubstantiated accusations, murders, curbs on intellectual, artistic freedom and in more extreme cases, bans and the overall witch-hunt that started in the McCarthy era. One is tempted to admire their handiwork in creating mass-hysteria for generations to come against leftist tendencies or beliefs. Charlie Wilson is upheld as a force that may have changed the history of the world, saving it from drowning in the deep waters of Communism and domination by the godless Soviets.
The film too, at least in its surface structure, charts the journey of this small-time congressman who overcame great hurdles, both political and personal, to make drastic changes in not just US foreign policy, but also diplomatic affairs of other countries like Pakistan. Wilson moves from a courtesy call to President Zia ul Haq to the undying commitment he developed to bettering the plight of the Afghani people and fighting on their behalf. Why this film seems like it might be yet another piece of American propaganda is because like all propaganda films, it shows just one point of view – statistics and images of death and despair selected with a clear agenda — to clarify the good from the evil. Russian pilots are shown for a sum-total of thirty seconds, where they display their soullessness (since they were godless they had to be soulless as well, right?) very satisfactorily. Gradually, Wilson had the US parliament convinced that it is their moral duty to help Afghanistan fight the Soviets. And slowly, the Government of the United States of America increased the arms budget for the Mujahideen of Afghanistan from $ 5 million to a whopping billions dollars.
However, there could be a deep structure to this film, a kind of subtlety we haven’t witnessed in a long time, if ever. And this structure is imaginable only because of the decade we are in, where the US and Afghanistan have once again found mention on the same page, only this time, not so friendly. In this decade, the US graduated to a new pet-hate after Communism – Islam. Signifiers of a critique in the film are so small that in the success story of Charlie Wilson, they can elude us. The keywords are Afghanistan, Mujahideen and the Arms supply and budget from the US to the Mujahideen. The film went as far as to specify that the Mujahideen ran schools that trained students for armed battle against the enemy. What they don’t obviously mention is that Osama bin Laden, 9/11 and a number of world terrorist attacks are a result of the Mujahideen. For once there was a mainstream American film accepting responsibility for arming and funding the Mujahideen. Is there an acceptance of their role in the world terror situation? An acceptance of the partial amnesia that the US has undergone about this little heal-the-world project it undertook? In my opinion, Mujahideen is too topical, too well-known a word for the filmmakers to expect an overlooking. Another contributor to this sneaking hope is one image in the film. Tom Hanks with his back to us, standing with the Mujahideen, holding a big gun, raising it to the sky as if dedicating it to God. I was instantly reminded of so many pictures of terrorists in a variety of media. Once again, too loaded an image to have used lightly. I am reminded of Soldier Blue where dominant images of the Vietnam War (the soldier holding a dead girl) were used in the mis-en-scene of the film’s final sequence.
Like most political films about the US in recent times, this has an opinion – by means of implication – on the Iraq war. In the final scene, when Wilson tries to get funds for education and the rebuilding of Afghanistan, he meets disappointment. US officials weren’t interested in any actual development activity once they had achieved the defeat of Russians. The Mujahideen went on to ruin any semblance of order in the country, ultimately giving rise to the Taliban. The question is: Is history being repeated in Iraq? This sequence of the film doesn’t actively question the fact of interference in the affairs of another country (the Soviet Union was invited by the government of Afghanistan), maybe not even question the US’s hysterical stance on Communism, but it does bring forth their role in the destruction of a country – one they had set out to save.
In the wake of growing sympathy for the US forces stationed in Iraq and in the increasing strength of the demand to call them back, Hollywood is playing its very crucial part by exploring all the reasons why US should retreat from Iraq. Robert Redford’s Lions for Lambs is more explicit since it takes names and is more openly self-critical. I have a feeling, Charlie Wilson’s War has that inclination too, only it does it very subtly, perhaps too subtly. And maybe not at all. But that’s not what I like to believe.

No Disgrace

There are some writers who can justifiably be subjects of legends true and false. J.M Coetzee is one such. It is said that he never laughs, and his Nobel Prize winning work, Disgrace confirms it. Disgrace had shaken me out of the comfort zone of politically correct and somewhat idealistic views on the much celebrated end of apartheid in South Africa. There were parallel stories, imagery, comment on history, violence, society etc…and all captured with a kind of precision that seems impossible. I feel ridiculous building up a book so much, but it really was the perfect novel. With this baggage it is only too easy to guess what I expected from Slow Man, Coetzee’s next novel. And I have to say that I was a little disappointed.

Paul Rayment’s life changes when he is hit by a speeding car. His leg is amputated and he is maimed for life. He hires a nurse, Marijana, who he is attracted to. There is no evident future with Marijana because she is married with a large family of three children, all of whom Paul tries to win over. In an unexpected turn of events, Australian novelist Elizabeth Costello comes into their lives, into Paul’s home, uninvited, with no promise of leaving.

In Slow Man, J.M. Coetzee moves out of South Africa, into Australia, and in the process seems to lose some of his grip. Perhaps because he belongs, in more ways than one, to South Africa. He hasn’t completely acclimatized to this new literary locale. One would think that this physical move is a mere detail since his position remains essentially the same, that of the settler, one who has been assimilated into the culture and lifestyle he inhabits, even though his origins lie elsewhere, in white Europe to be specific. Like a lot of Australian literature, in this novel, Coetzee dabbles with ideas of identity, of language, of origins and ultimately of history.

In classic Coetzee style, there is careful deliberation on each sentence, on the very use of language, which the writer often discusses with the reader. The novel opens with these lines, “The blow catches him from the right, sharp and surprising and painful, like a bolt of electricity, lifting him up off the bicycle. Relax! he tells himself as he flies through the air (flies though the air with the greatest of ease!), and indeed he can feel his limbs go obediently slack. Like a cat he tells himself: roll, then spring to your feet, ready for what comes next. The unusual word limber or limbre is on the horizon too.”
He does something similar in his comparison of the two women of almost identical names, Marianna, a call-girl of sorts who Elizabeth Costello arranges for, and Marijana, who Paul loves. “He says Marianna, she says Marianna, but it is not the same name. His Marianna is still coloured by Marijana…not the French Marianne? (he asks)…Not French. A pity. France would be something in common, like a blanket to deploy over the pair of them.”

The question of identity is central to this novel. Why does Paul fall in love with Marijana, is he really in love or is it just desire, fulfillment of which will provide him with a sense of superiority? Paul talks of being in love and in the same breath he says he wants to look after Marijana and her family, including her husband. In this attempt he offers to fund her son’s college education, and pays a considerable amount to bail out her daughter of a petty theft accusation. Coetzee invites his reader to join him in observing his protagonist, no doubt with a knowing smile. For instance, Paul writes a letter to Marijana’s husband clarifying his position, “It is not just money I offer. I offer certain other tangibles too, human tangibles…I employ(ed) the word godfather. I do not know whether in Catholic Croatia you have the institution of the godfather. But you must be familiar with the concept…the godfather is the personification of the Holy Ghost.”
At the same time, Paul doesn’t find it in him to be condescending to Elizabeth Costello of white European descent like him. He isn’t in love with her, but she forces him to treat her like an equal, in her mystical way she insists that she didn’t come to him, rather he came to her. There is no explanation as to why she came, from where and when she will go back, and in the way the story develops, she becomes a counterfoil to Paul. She offers him a better life, away from the present, she offers her company and support, a bit like Paul’s Holy Ghost analogy, only more subtle, more humble! She seems to know everything Paul knows or has been through and even those things that he suspects, but doesn’t speak of.
But what is identity without history, arguably Coetzee’s favourite topic. In each of his novels, Coetzee designs different ways of representing history. At times it is through people, some times through spaces, through language. Slow Man uses a metaphor more predictable, photographs. Paul is ready to go miles to help Drago or any member of Marijana’s family, but when Drago steals an original photograph from his collection, we see, for the first time, a stern Paul. In a sequence of events not out of the ordinary, Drago steals the original and makes a copy in which he has superimposed his grandfather’s image. The idea of rewriting history is only too obvious, especially since Paul has made it abundantly clear that it is through his collection of photographs that he wants to immortalize himself. The pictures aren’t his, neither are they taken by him, but they belong to him. To add to it there is the usual conversation about how he has left France far away and is a mere speck in his memory, it isn’t a culture he can blend with any more. It’s too direct, it’s lacking the usual craft that one associates with Coetzee’s writing. The gamut of emotions, conflicting, tearing the reader apart that are signature Coetzee in so many of his novels, The Master of Petersburgh, Youth, Waiting for the Barbarians, Disgrace etc, are compromised in favour of the discourse of identity. A limiting of thought that is disappointing.

Slow Man still has some features of a classic Coetzee novel. The central protagonist is a middle-aged, single, lonely man, who is very difficult to identify with, and sometimes impossible to sympathise with. There is desire that appears almost perverse, but also very real. There are the women that come out looking stronger than the men in spite of being secondary characters.
Slow Man took its time coming, but it hasn’t been able to match the standard Coetzee had set with Disgrace. Not by a mile.

Taare Zameen Par: Review

It Matters coz its Black or White

It often happens that when you have low expectations of a film, you end up enjoying it because it has something that you didn’t expect it to have. When I read the tagline of this film – Every Child is Special – every cynical bone in my body had low expectations of the film. Unfortunately, even that could not redeem the painful experience that was Taare Zameen Par. For a person hailed as a perfectionist, Aamir Khan sure didn’t deliver in his directorial debut.

Some may think that this is the view of a cynic, who doesn’t appreciate the moving journey of a little boy’s struggle with dyslexia. And I would like to set the record straight by saying I was moved by the boy, but not because his story was depicted with any complexity, but only because Darsheel Safary (who plays Ishaan, the dyslexic child) gave a memorable performance. In fact, the emotional quotient is the root of the problem of this film. Aamir Khan is a thinking, responsible individual of the film community and he has proved this more than once by joining hands with social causes that need support. And one appreciates that. However, in this film, in his attempt to bring this issue into mainstream cinema, he seems to have lost his grip. The film is a long, trite and preachy classroom lecture on dyslexia. The humour in the first forty minutes of the film, that showed some promise in terms of treatment of a serious social-medical issue, soon gave way to a good two hours of constant weeping. I'll begin with the mother, a character that held immense potential for the depth of the film, was brutally limited since her response to any of Ishaan’s or her husband’s activities or decisions was to cry. I can’t recall a single scene in which she didn’t have tears in her eyes. This is not to be insensitive to the struggle and frustration of a parent who can’t understand her child’s disability, but really, I feel that the insensitivity isn’t mine, but that of the filmmaker who has created such a formulaic mother - who will be read as the archetypal woman who has no opinions at all, and if she does (considering she is an educated woman who cares a lot for her son) she doesn’t feel the need to voice them.

Continuing with the poor characterisation, there is the father. Even if I am to be extremely kind and say that perhaps the father stands for the competitive, straitjacketed world, he falls miserably short. A trained actor, Vipin Sharma, is one of the weakest presences in the film. His responses as an actor are extremely contrived, as if out of a very dated Acting for Dummies kind of manual. He has three major conversations with Mr Nikumbh (Aamir Khan) in the film, and the graph of each is strikingly similar. It starts with him on the offensive about his son’s weaknesses, about his role as a father and Nikumbh’s place as a teacher. This is followed by an inspirational (read extremely trite) speech by Nikumbh about how every child has his strengths and how parents don’t understand this and pressure the child. And this is followed by the previously mentioned predictable facial responses of the father who looks down to show understanding and shame. The question to ask is, if this tempo was followed in the first conversation where there was a sense of understanding and shame in the father, why does he come back to repeat the pattern? It is a real waste of effort and not to mention our time, if the father is back to a tabula rasa state by the second conversation.

This brings us to Nikumbh, the character who makes this film the painful diatribe that it is. He enters the scene as a clown with big ears and a funny moustache, dressed in bright colors, uttering gibberish and basically establishing himself as the anti-thesis of the teachers we witnessed before (images of a whistling Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society haunted me). The greatest problem of Taare Zameen Par is that polar opposites define the film. There isn’t any scope of layers, or of shades of grey of any character, particularly the teachers, who therefore become caricatures rather than characters. That the cartoons of the three teachers at the art mela captured their entire essence should have been a clue to Aamir Khan. Ishaan and his brother, the mother and the father are the other polar opposites that exist in the film. Coming back to Nikumbh, quite predictably he is an art teacher. Predictable not just because a dozen films have used it before (Mona Lisa Smile and Notes on a Scandal to name a few recent ones) but because it is an easy way out to make art the polar opposite of any ‘actual subjects’ that are taught by the other teachers. I certainly expected Aamir Khan to think a little more out of the box. There is almost nothing believable about Khan’s character (and here I am willfully ignoring the fact of a singing and dancing teacher). He legally teaches in two schools, he addresses little eight-year-olds as ‘doston’, and comes up with the most didactic, unreal dialogues about how a table is too small to handle the weight of a child’s imagination etc. The listing of famous and successful dyslexic people was accompanied by technical sounding descriptions of their achievements that were out-of-place to say the least. Somewhere in the film, it seems, as if Khan got confused about how to treat these eight-year-olds, like adults or to become a child along with them.

Moving on to the theme of the film. I am in two minds about the ethical question behind the treatment of dyslexic people and in effect people suffering from any misunderstood mental disorders who have to struggle harder than others to survive in society. I strongly agree that there need to be more avenues for creating awareness and sensitivity about neurological disorders. At the same time, I feel that we do the sufferers a great injustice by pitying them. Perhaps the greatest oversight (in some ways an oversight is the opposite of perfection) is that dyslexia is equated with physical and mental challenges. That is completely incorrect. "Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that manifests primarily as a difficulty with written language, particularly with reading and spelling. It is separate and distinct from reading difficulties resulting from other causes, such as deficiencies in intelligence...Evidence suggests that dyslexia results from differences in how the brain processes written and/or verbal language. Although dyslexia is the result of a neurological difference, it is not an intellectual disability." [1] So, all the connections made with the school for mentally and physically challenged children and the documentary footage used with the closing credits only succeeds in evoking pity which is a response that results from a sense of superiority. And in the simplistic treatment of the life of Ishaan in the film, I believe the film hasn’t achieved any real sensitization, rather only a long weeping trip that wears off soon after we leave the cinema-hall because apart from anything else, all was well at the end of the film and it seemed to take precious little to cure the boy. Three quarters of the film was about Ishaan’s struggle with dyslexia, while it took just the duration of a song to fix it all. It seems to reduce the pain and the effort it must take to even begin to make some progress in cases of dyslexic children.

Besides by the end of the film, he has 'won' in the traditional, somewhat conservative sense - his report card has moved his parents to tears (sadly that is their response to a good and a bad report card)...he has achieved it all - he is on the front and the back cover of the yearbook. The feel-good factor ruins the aim of the film. Let me justify this, while interpreting Walter Benjamin’s stance on television, Alan Meek says, “TV positions us as subjects of a technological imaginary and…virtual participants in what modernist theorists once called ‘mass culture’.”[2] We can extend this argument to the experience of a film in the cinema hall as well, in fact it perhaps works better that way because with television we are still aware of other people and things around us to bring us back to our reality, but in the cinema hall, the attempt is at building an intimate relation between us and the film. Another form of mimicry, this leads to viewers responding as characters in the film. As a result, what remains at the end of the experience is not the hard part, but the warm feeling inside of having done something good. If we are so satisfied with the way things turned out the process of sensitization is over with the film.

But one must end on a positive note – Darsheel Safary is a treat because he is the only actor who has a character that goes through a journey in the film and he does great justice to the role. We see him transforming from a wonderfully spirited child to one who seems to have given up on the world. He cries and makes you cry, but that is not his defining feature – he has captured the frustrations, joys and the life of Ishaan in a way that makes him the only believable character in the entire film. The flip-book was a great device but its greatness is slammed in your face till you are tired of it and its sentimental implications.

So I guess while every child may be special, every film might not be, and this one certainly isn’t.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyslexia

[2] http://www.latrobe.edu.au/screeningthepast/firstrelease/fir998/AMfr4e.htm