A Time To Reflect

charukesi August 30th, 2008

Weekend reading - this time from Tehelka - Naseeruddin Shah on the gritty elation of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro (Tehelka does have a way of putting these things- gritty elation, ok whatever) -

In those days, the titles of films were not identified by abbreviations, we just called it “this f—-ing film we’re shooting now

And

The script of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro seemed to have been revealed to Kundan Shah in an inspired moment of transcendental, if not downright hallucinogenic, lunacy. I had never read or seen anything like it at the time, and while I was not absolutely sure that it was even coherent, I itched to have a crack at it.

Totally. Have you not wondered what Kundan Shah was on as he thought up the Mahabharat sequence and the drunk Om Puri talking to the corpse and wheels, and the thhoda khao, thhoda phenko scenes?

Go read…

And if that is too tame, (coming from Tehelka, i.e.), read Kundan Shah as the joker villian…

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charukesi May 13th, 2007

Life in a.. Metro. Caught the show first day (a thing I rarely manage). The movie juggles (mostly unsuccessfully, I think - simply because you just sit and wait for the act to fall apart) several characters, each of them related to others in the movie one way or the other. (Just to tell you - I developed a crick in my already painful neck from keeping track of who’s bonking who and who the who is actually married to and who is related to who else how). The actors all did their bit very well but somehow I kept thinking of what I read somewhere - that Konkana Sen Sharma had signed on the movie without even hearing the script. Not that she got a bad deal - she with Irfan felt the most real… kept the movie together in some ways.

What I loved was how the rain was almost a distinct character in the movie… For all the references to metro (local trains), the rain was what defined the city best in the movie - sudden showers, umbrellas open, people going about their work as usual. Sharman Joshi throwing away his umbrella just to walk under the same umbrella as his love, Kangana Ranaut… ek aleki chhatri me aadhe aadhe bheeg rahe thae… Uma and Baradwaj in their reviews of Metro have mentioned the rain, each giving a different meaning to its role in the movie…

I can think of only two other movies (songs actually) where the Bombay monsoon has been the central character, the actors flitting in and out of it, almost peripheral to the rain which sets the mood. Rimjhim girey sawan - the one sung by Lata, not Kishore (which while is wonderful, does not show Bombay comes to life during the first spells of afternoon showers in June) - Maushmi Chatterji getting wet in the rain in gorgeous, squeaky-cleaned-by-the-rain South Bombay - pehli bhi yun toh barsey hain badal, pehli bhi yun toh bheega tha anchal - but now with romance in her life (a smooth-talking Amitabh Bachhan) the rains suddenly assume new meaning in her life.

And then sawan barse tarse dil in Hariharan’s melting (he surely deserves much beter than what Bollywood has given him so far?) and Sadhna Sargam’s melodious (and non-sqeaky) voices (listen to it here - opens only on ie)- I remember a longish stint I had in Chennai in 2000; unwell and jobless, I was watching television when I caught this song for the first time - and I ached to be back in Bombay. Bheege balam, phisle kadam barkha bahar me - all the romance and magic of the monsoon, with all the mundane and inconvenient phisle kadam (the girl falls in love with a most unsuitable boy - from another caste? religion?).

The rains in Bombay are like your long-awaited trips home - or an eagerly expected guest - the first few days are magical, wonderful, everything you hoped and waited for all this while - and before the week is out, real life slowly pinches its way in… Life goes on as earlier, you work your way around the rain (or the guest) - and also enjoy those rare flashes when you realize all over again how grateful you are for this - the rain - or this trip home with a family that dotes on you…

But for all the slippery muddy roads, the post 26th July paranoia, the clothes that never dry, the trains that run late, the slush and the misery, Bombay rains make me mushy. They mean to me long drives to the hills. The monsoon to me is a time to dream, when you look for excuses to stay back from work, and sit at home, sipping chai, listening to the rain outside. When you want to drive to Marine Drive in those short no-rain spells, just to breathe the smell of corn getting charred on coal, and feel the giant waves leave gentle salty drops on your cheeks.

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charukesi February 23rd, 2007

Now that the dust has settled over Guru, the reviews have been written and read, and reviewed in turn [many bloggers in the entertainment space - and otherwise - seem to live by this simple adage - when in doubt, write about Maniratnam], I can say this aloud. Why did the movie need Gulzar? for ta ne na ne and moyya moyya and emo emo emole? And I listened to the tape again and again in the car….

Gulzar was not in the gimmicky hummable nonsense - he was in pheeki pheeki beswadi yeh ratiya… who else could write about flavorless nights with such ease and elegance? Surely, when it comes to things earthy and physical, there is no one to beat Gulzar. Geela man shayad bistar ke paas pada hai [Izaajat] - I cannot imagine anyone else using the word bistar in a song and making it sound oh, so romantic and soulful and not crude and item-numbery. And raat kat jaayegi toh kaise din bitayenge [Sitara]. Matter-of-fact acceptance of the ease with which nights get spent in the company of the loved one. And from the same song,

Mere ghar ke aangan me chhota sa jhoola ho
saundhi saundhi mitti hogi, lepa hua chulha ho

The simple pleasures of living close to the earth. Lepa hua chulha. The closest I have come in a movie to Bharati’s Kaani nilam vaendum…

Thandi safed chaadaron me jaagein daer tak [Mausam]. Anything to do with the senses…

From Humne dekhi hi un aankhon ki mehkti khushboo [Khamoshi] to (aankhein) personal se sawaal kartey hain [Bunty aur Babli]

Since I am anyway in a rambly mood, I may as well mention those phrases in tamil that have stuck to my mind the same way. Here I consider Vairamuthu to be Gulzar’s counterpart - smells, sounds, senses… pasi konda naeram thaalikkum osai sandosha sangeetham [Minsara Kanavu]

From his fist song in Nizahalgal and this memorable line - vaanam enakkoru bodi maram

and the metaphor in Payanangal Mudivadillai,

varum vazhiyil pani mazhaiyil paruva nilaa dhinam nanaiyum
mugileduththu mugam thudaiththu vidiyum varum nadai pazhagum

to the physical, sensual in AlaiPayuthey,

sonnadhellaam pagalilae purivaen
nee sollaadhadhum iravilae purivaen…kaadhil koondhal nuzhaippaen

I think Vairamuthu was there at the right time with the right people - Ilayaraja, Bharatiraja, and then A.R.Rahman and Maniratman. So, even as the debate goes on about whether there can be a great poet than Kannadasan… and what about Kavignar Vaali?, Vairamuthu remains the popular lyricist, so to say.

But as it happens, the most evocative line in Tamil film music remains for me one penned by Vaali (in the movie Nizhalgal where Vairamuthu and Gangai Amaran also wrote other songs) - pudu raagam padaippadaale naanum iraivane - create and you are god.

Go ahead, add to the list…

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charukesi June 24th, 2006

And then some more.

For instance, sun protection inside the ladies loo.

[another in the series of things a mobile phone camera is meant for - and I need a better one surely]

I don’t know how to break this to you gently, Hindustan Lever - or the whiz media planner who thought of yet another spot to find the “captive audience” - but I am not thinking about six signs of sun damage when I am inside the loo at the theatre (no, not even at home for that matter). [Dear media planner, here is a handy tip for you because someone seems to have misled you - Imax does not have an open air loo. Really, you must believe me when I say that there is just no exposure to the sun when I am inside]

Yes, I am sitting and staring at the door, purely for lack of anything else to stare at, at that particular moment, but not because I am thinking about what the harsh sun is doing to my skin. No, believe me.

[While on this, please do me a favour and don’t ever ask me what I was doing thinking of blogging about this then]

And perhaps, it irked all the more because I had just spent a good(?) one and half hours with Kkrish, watching him drink Bournvita, telling the little kid how Bournvita makes him strong, how his grandmother always washes the glasses with Tide before serving him with Bournvita, and how Lays chips are the ultimate word in Bournvita-time snack. And how after washing the said glasses, his grandmother places the packet of Tide on the kitchen shelf next to gleaming brass and copper tumblers just so it is always in front of her eyes. And so on.

The point is this - what is it with companies spending good monies on product placements. How does it work? If it does at all? Oh, I know you are going to tell me about about how see, I remember all the brand names. But you must remember also that I am a blogger. And a market researcher and avid advertising industry watcher to boot.

And there was not much more by way of entertainment in the movie otherwise.

And then the welcome interval. And then the fairness cream (with sun control mechanism) in the loo. Enough already.

Merchandising, sure. Free gifts and promotion, surer [I know this because I did a mini poll among friends sitting in the neighboring seats about how their kids would respond to such blatant - to me atleast - endorsement in movies and was told that kids respond better to free gifts. Smart of them and so on]. But what does product placement do for the viewer? And repeated ones at that…

[More on this coming up - wait with bated breath. And oh, go drink Bournvita while you wait]

• Advertising , Branding and Marketing , - Cinema
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charukesi July 15th, 2005

This is worse than Sholay. How can they do this?

Theatre in Vashi, late night show of Dus. Me shivering in the AC and all smug - hah! of course Abhishek Bacchan will be saved miraculously.

And he was not.

How can they do this?

It is all my parents’ fault - for letting me watch Hindi movies (and Tamil movies too but no English movies - dirty) as a child - I have grown up with a screwed up sense of reality. Good will win over bad. Hero will live while villian will die. Or atleast be marched away by the police in the last scene to rot in jail (by which time his evil long haired lawyers are also in jail - so no more bail for him).

When I have a nephew*, I will make sure he does not get to watch Hindi movies till he is 16. By which time his sense of reality will be all warped anyway. In any case he will not naively hope that good will triumph and the hero will survive through bomb blasts and all that.

****

The other thing I am going to talk about - and I guess it is better to say this directly to you, nephew, is this contrived pairing of each male character in the movie. Oh did I say contrived. Sorry, I meant to say cute.

There are four of them males in the movie, all with varying levels of testesterone - and therefore degrees of swagger. Basically all male type males (give or take a bit with Zayed Khan but what the heck)…

And - here is the clincher - each of them has a female jodi - who may or may nor be part of his present life but features in a definite way in his future. While the fiance (he-souten) of one of them is conveniently bumped off by the terrorist (who for some unknown reason leave her intact), another is given a chance by the terrorists to see her hindustan times husband in a new light, what with killing a few terrorists and saving cute innocent school children from death. The third one just stares moonily at her man every time she is with him in the same room - which is all the time - while he deflects these looks with professional poise (of course he loves her in his heart of hearts).

And finally, the bad woman who naturally has no business being alive after all those bad things she has done, prefers to die with her man rather than live without him. Which brings me back to my original ‘why did they have to kill Abhishek Bacchan’ thingy.

(Here I must mention that my husband gently pointed out that it was unpatriotic of me to expect them to break away completely from cinematic tradition and leave the heroine partnerless for the rest of her life. We have our culture to think of after all).

But.

But, here is the bit for you, child - it is not essential to find a woman and cling to her (even if she is a terrorist type bad woman) in life and death. It is perfectly okay to live in the world single - or to find and cling to a man you love (perfectly okay by me atleast - and in any case considering you are fictitious, perfectly okay. Period.)

I know, I know that Yash Copra has told us long ago that god has made us all (in her infinite wisdom) in pairs. But Noah’s Dus will sail all the same without that, you know…

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* Highly unlikely considering I do not have a brother or sister, but letters to nephews is all the rage in blogs now - these are usually written by compulsive writers of letters to the editor who have now made their homes in cyberspace. What with HT and DNA and all - kis kis ko kya kya likhein? So here is my own to a non existent nephew…

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charukesi June 21st, 2005

Found this very interesting post on chutneyspears (oh, I love the name!) - Looking with one eye shut (the picture produced below is also from that blog)

Dominic Emmanuel, a Catholic priest from the Delhi Catholic Archdiocese together with the omnipresent Samaritan, Mahesh Bhatt, is leading the efforts to make a Bollywood style movie on HIV/AIDS. The main motto of this movie ‘Aisa Kyon Hota Hain’, full with song and dance flicks, is to communicate to masses that “The best way to evade AIDS is by avoiding promiscuous relationships”. The movie doesn’t ever mention the word “condom”!!!!!!!!!!!!

32-04699r, originally uploaded by Road Blog.

Forget ‘condom’, am sure the movie does not even mention the word ’sex’ - after all, the censors might object. Think about our culture and ancient heritage.

What, you mention Konark and Khajuraho in this context? They were obviously the work of a foreign hand, a conspiracy to tarnish the image of India as a cultural superpower…

UPDATE : Maybe the movie is going to be called ‘Kya Fool Hain Hum’

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charukesi May 27th, 2005

My husband’s 13 year old nephew on Kaal : it is a great movie - it is just like Jurassic park - except there are tigers in this and not dinosaurs.

And while on dinosaurs, here is a funny theory from the Natural History Museum in London - dinosaurs seemed a pet theme there…

A suicide pact among dinosaurs

Originally uploaded by Road Blog.

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charukesi November 24th, 2003

On Saturday evening on NDTV 24*7. Amidst many platitudes about religion and secularism (there is that damned word again), ShahRukh said something very perceptive : Movies are selling everything but the movies.

That is so true….. From one film in Hindi and one in the regional language per week, television is now entirely cinema-centric. Apart from as many as fifty-plus movies in a day across channels, there is little else on tv except count-down shows, film talk shows, film trailers…..

Who would have ever thought radio could make a come-back, and such a come-back as FM has done? And on the strength of film music alone….

Newspapers (not the dish-rag alone) thrive on cinema….not to mention the numerous film and “general interest” magazines.

Stage Shows, Remix Albums…. you name it……

Except movies….. the state of the Hindi film industry is such that any movie that stays in the theatres for more than three days is declared a super-hit !

• Media Matters , - Cinema
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charukesi November 14th, 2003

Watched again His Highness Abdullah, a Malayalam movie…. Fantastic movie… No other description…..

As someone said, music has the charms to soothe the nerves of a wild beast…. and the movie is based on this simple theme.

A hired assassin, Mohanlal, whom the world knows as a ghazal singer, comes down from Bombay to kill a Raja. The Raja, a patron of music, is surrounded by greedy relatives after his wealth. Once in Malluland, Mohanlal has a change of heart, induced purely by the music around him.

The music is still ringing in my ears; gives me goose-pimples every time I hear the songs. What makes the Mals such connoisseurs of good music, in good cinema ?

Not to worry, this is not a eulogy of Mals but a lament about the lack of good cinema otherwise.

How do the Mallus churn out movie after awesome movie ? With the wafer-thinnest of story-lines and non-existent formulae ? And all in “main-stream” cinema. (Sure, I saw a “chorus white-dressed extras in the open spaces” kind of song recently in a Mal movie but then I think that is an aberration rather than the norm)

Regional cinema still manages to produce a few gems every year. I can speak for Tamil with certainty. Am not qualified to comment on other languages but I suspect there are good small budget movies being made in languages like Bengali and Telugu.

But Hindi cinema ? What goes by the name of main-stream or popular cinema is an insult to the average cinema-goer’s intelligence, whether he is from a metro or a small small town….

True, there have been some good films recently, 3 Deewarein, Mr and Mrs. Iyer, to name just a couple. But :
1. these are few and far between
2. they go by the name of alternate cinema (saying art is passe in film and a cultural gaffe, and the term parallel cinema reminds me more of geometry than cinema)

I keep wondering : why is there so little experimentation ? is there lack of creativity in main-stream cinema professionals ? or is it lack of guts to deviate from the formula ? Or the belief that Hindi film audiences are dunces ? too dim to appreciate the nuances of fine cinema ?

There must be some reason….

And some day when intelligent and sensitive cinema is available to main-stream (how I hate this word) audiences.

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charukesi October 16th, 2003

Read this to understand the heights of sycophancy and toadying in Indian politics.

The Tamil movie Deham which is a remake of Pooja Bhat’s Jism was under fire in Tamilnadu for a long while.

And why ? The heroine (or whatever Bipasha Basu is in the movie) is called Sonia in the movie.

So ?

So, how can anyone else in the country can be called Sonia ? She of the Gandhi - Nehru clan….. Apparently, now the movie has been cleared and there is a bleep wherever the name crops up !

All I can think is : Thank God, ShahRukh is called Raj in every movie and not Rajiv……

By the way, there is a new Tamil movie on the floors called Jay Jay….. this should be FUNNNNNNNN…….

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