Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!

I missed first 15-20 mins of Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!. It all started with the trouble to reach the theatre. The listing that I checked showed 66th and 3rd Ave but it was actually 11th and 3rd (it is another story how I figured out that, in short it was not easy). When I reached panting, it was already 3:15 pm for a 2:50 pm show (I hope in the beginning they showed trailers of usual Bollywood crap like Dostana which was playing next door). All the trouble was worth it. I was just sad that I was the only one in the theatre, when the Dostana screen had so many people. No Kidding, it was sad.

Lets start with a customary one liner plotline. Lucky, the charming, (an astonishing Abhay Deol) is a superchor, who along with his childhood friend, Bangali (Manu Rishi), works for Gogi Bhai (Paresh Rawal), but owing to his oversized charm and intelligence, he outsizes Gogi bhai and along the way he finds fame and notoriety, falls in love ["Jugnu rehndi sheeshe paar"] and hopes for a happy family life ["jugni hasdi ve hasdi, ke dil vich basdi"]. In this standard storyline, the first and foremost thing that director Dibakar Banerjee does is to literally add Delhi(same as he did in Khosla ka Ghosla, remember quick rajma recipe ["main kenni rajma chawal chadha de, ke do di vajai chaar citeeyaan vaja de, vich thoda soda paade, kal kenda ni si khada khazana waala"] in the opening scene). So a standard scene of seduction translates to that marvellous scene where the girl says "by god, main touch ho gayi" and a dinning table conversation translates to something even more marvellous [ "yeh show piece hai aur yeh khana"]. What is more amazing is that it all happens without a single stereotype, if I can say so (and I mean it as appeciation), they are all humane caricatures written with lots of sympathy for them. One way to explain this is through one of the song in the film soundtrack "Tu Raja ki Raj Dulari", a soulful Haryanavi Ballad (raagni). With raw traditional voice and lyrics, the song is true its spirit but the techno beat (which never tempers with voice and lyrics) is the indication of the milieu where it is used. Our hero is not someone who will write and sing that song, but the one who feels the same emotion (and may be in the same language) just because of the fact that he has grown listening to such sound and music. It is an excellent way for a film to connect to roots of its characters and fly, never giving an impression that such music is "used" for just creating the impression of Delhi like shots of Chandni Chowk to India Gate are cheaply used as "establishing shots" for Delhi in much of Yashraj-Brand Filmmaking.

Not to put the film in any disadvantage of over-expectation, I think Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye! is even better than Khosla ka Ghosla (although I have see Oye Lucky! at least one more time to say anything concrete), and one aspect where the film clearly exceeds is performances (I think for the kind of films Dibakar Banerjee is making, he knows how important the performances are). I did not find any of the performance weak (I only wish that the triple role of Paresh Rawal can be distributed among more actors just in the hope of finding more of Richa Chaddas and Manu Rishis, also I did not find any reason (logical or illogical, something like Ayeshia Takia playing both wife and secretary to K in No Smoking) why they are played by same actor. May be something happened in first few mins that I missed). Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye ! is a treasure trove of performances. A performance like Richa Chadda's Dolly is great by any standards. It is not a central role but its pivotal in a way any character role can be. It is not by chance that when I gave two examples before of how similar situations are translated to Delhi lingo, I quoted both lines said by Dolly, it is because she gets it perfectly right all the time, little here or there would have made those scenes little funnier but much more dispassionate. If Neetu Chandra's Sonal (excellent by the way) is girl next door, Dolly is definitely girl few doors away, a more cinematic entity, a more vibrant character.

The romance between Sonal and Lucky starts with Lucky's usual charm but the director plays with it for Lucky's need to have a family and with the excellent glass door motif, without overemphasizing, he conveys the fragility of this love, and also the emotional distance between lovers. Every visit and every opening of the glass door is a new beginning for the lovers. In few beautiful shots we see Neetu Chandra standing in front of the glass door, both fearful and waiting to open the door. It looked as if the director touched the cornerstone of romantic love.

I should not forget to note the first rate and large-hearted humor of the film which makes it such an entertaining fare. I was time and again amazed by the clever use of Hindi/Punjabi/Haryanavi (remember the first meeting of Special branch cop with Gogi Bhai and his flip to Haryanavi). And do you remember why Bangali is called Bangali? And how can one forget the "Lady Doggy" sequence - the funniest celebration of canine love. It is so heartening to see that even if director is dealing with something dark at the core, but he never raises "its serious cinema" flag. It is heartening to see someone trust his audience that they will understand the void in Lucky's life amidst the flourishes of his adventures and his zest for life.

A word about music, although I have touched it before. I am a minority of the people whom I know who think that Punjabi language and music has an unparalleled emotional power and much of it is wasted in similar-sounding bhangra beat numbers. I still remember the days when I first heard real Punjabi music in a Spic-macay concert at my college, it was amazed how soul-stirring it was. This film gets its music and the tone right and how songs are used without interrupting the narrative and how the mix of folk and funk is just suited for it.

One way to show the life of Lucky Singh is to realistically portray every twist and turns of his adventures and the other way to mythologize (not idolize) it. I personally like the later approach especially when it is used for something where it should not be used in popular culture, partly because its deviant, risky and interesting, but more so because it rescues the film from the typical struggle between good and evil, inspiration and rebuke but puts its in the realms of storytelling and about the passion of the protagonist. I felt that Lucky does not have passion for stealing (although to his credit he never differentiated between big and small, stealing everything with equal love) but a skill for it. His passion was his aspirations (if he were good at anything else, he will use it to pursue his aspirations) which the director beautifully uses to reveal different aspects of society which he interacts with. To the distant, he is a notorious celebrity of India's Most wanted list, and for the near, he is much more complex, evoking awe, love, hate and envy at equal measure, to us film goers he is sort of a middle class myth and director does something in the last shot of the film [a pixelled black and white close-up of Lucky] which comes close to mythologizing him.

To tell the truth, I was little scared before I saw the film. It is usual scare a cinephile experiences when he goes to see the second film of a director whose first film was really good. It was the similar scare which I had when I saw No Smoking, and it will be the same when I will see the next film by Navdeep Singh. It is more than the feeling that the director may screw it (he has all the freedom to screw) but it is a feeling that what ever you so dearly liked about the film was something of a byproduct (may be a fluke) not director's main concern, he does not think the way you thought he does. A second good film reassures all that. Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! does that.

Delhi 6

Few things about Delhi 6.

1. If an artist wants - a confident and cocksure artist, the type we all know - he can make a miniature painting with bold strokes and still feel good about it. Similarly, for the directors who cant help but think big, everything becomes mini-India, so we have standard Hindu-Muslim characters, standard dadima, standard sweet-bitter relatives (large hearted ones have big breasts or big smiles), standard kids (two types - with glasses, without glasses) and other associated clichés but remember that the mini-India of our serious and good-hearted directors is not quite complete without the holy grail of goodness and that can only come from an NRI (preferably man, preferred age 25-27, must be good at heart and good looking too - as they go hand in hand - , must be doing quite well in US, preferably a software engineer, scientist or son of an Indian male, who is doing very good in US, preferably a doctor and married, - as they go hand in hand). He comes, he sees and he reforms us. Whether he stays back or carry on his journey is quite immaterial (or rather depends on whether he gets a girl here. The girl should be fair, preferably long hair. She should be of a kind which should make India look cool - now coolness really depends on director's definition of it. There are basically two types of coolness - Traditional coolness and hip-coolness. Typically girl adjusts to whatever NRI wants. The romance between NRI and girl must follow normal Bollywood standards. The first encounter must be little rough (The only tussle they have is whether they should kiss Bollywood style or Hollywood style, here the guy loses usually), rest goes smoothly. I repeat girl should be fair or become so in due course of romance). We all know and understand that an NRI is the closest approximation to a white man you can find in our family, so it is nothing but natural for us and our film makers to be drawn to them. They are as white as we can ever get. "Son of an NRI" is even cleaner than the NRI, in moralistic terms. Technically he never left the country. He is godlike- if I may say so - with no Original sin. He is a kid, he observes with a zeal of a teenager. He is so young, innocent and beautiful that the whole theatre must feel bad if someone slaps him tight. His voice of reason, his ok-ok Hindi (like the dubbed Tamil and Telugu of South Indian heroines exported from Bombay), his untainted ideals and his open-minded feminism (and he will definitely get chance to show it few times in the film), his goggles, cell phone, laptop and a wiser and purer (if not cleaner) brain. No wonder, he becomes friends only with Dadima and kids, he is beyond (or out of) his time, just like god. His inability to express hints to his innocence, his childlike gaze becomes his purity of observation and his smile becomes the mirror of his pure white soul. NRI (or son of an NRI) is at once, pristine and philistine - a godsend for Bollywood.

2. Nothing irritated me more than the use of Ramlila sketches to push the tick-mark narrative points forward. The worst abuse was made of Sabri's story. Its was like watching a low-intellect children story where references to an age old saga are so badly needed to validate the point that it does not fear from trivializing the story itself. The last best use of Ramleela was done in Rajkumar Santoshi's Lajja where drunk Sita (Madhuri Dixit) refuses to go to Agni Pareeksha and argues onstage with both Ram and Lakshman. It was one of the last instances of feminism in commercial Bollywood. It was much better than when ramlila was used to extreme ends to bring director's point across like in Deepa Mehta's Fire. Attempts like Fire or Delhi 6, use the epic for their narrow ends, but efforts like Lajja's ramleela scene flip-flops it to make us think.

3. Surprisingly, I was alright with the Kala-bandar theme. I know its more or less like Panchtantra, that we all have a kala-bandar inside (Banality of evil for kids and toddlers), but it was done with some humor so it works in parts. But I was most embarrassed by Amitabh's role. Do Bachachan's come in a package. ek ke saath ek free. One can not help but think of Abhishek's reply when the director/producer asked him to work in this film, "Papa ke saath", he would have replied. Amitabh and his tribe (who so ever calls him Amitji, Amit Uncle or Papa) are in so many films now-a-days that one can safely say that there is a Kala-bandar inside every film.

Best Hindi films of 2007

In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. Last night, I experienced something new, an extraordinary meal from a singularly unexpected source. To say that both the meal and its maker have challenged my preconceptions is a gross understatement. They have rocked me to my core. In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau's famous motto: Anyone can cook. But I realize that only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere. It is difficult to imagine more humble origins than those of the genius now cooking at Gusteau's, who is, in this critic's opinion, nothing less than the finest chef in France. I will be returning to Gusteau's soon, hungry for more - Food Critic Anton Ego in his final review of Gusteau's in Ratatouille.

Excerpting this does not mean that any serious criticism is done in this space, but to bring the idea of "discovery and defense of the new". Of all the Hindi films I saw this year, the best ones were from the young directors (most of them making their first films). Also one more reason why Anton Ego's review is evoked here is the effect art has on its audience. When Anton Ego tastes Remy's Ratatouille preparation, something unexpected happens, in a very delightful (even Proustian) montage, Ego's simple childhood memories come back. Not only that they bridge the present to a past of smell and taste, but for that moment, a critic becomes an audience, he is not there to detach and judge, but to involve and get the pleasure. This is what happens when you see a good film. Also, Ego's comments on criticism bring about what I do not like in any art (criticism is a form of art) - arrogance. It is not exactly the arrogance of opinions, but it’s the arrogance of an artist that kill the art if it is reflected there.

Also this defense of new is also about new ideas, contents and approach to film medium. Also, as I have understood, it is not necessary for a artist to know and see and get inspired by all of the great cinema of the world, but it is indispensable to know the medium for what it is i.e. an awareness of the film as a medium of communication and what’s its toolbox. Although it can be both, but the film medium should not be confused either as a mass medium for entertainment or social medium for mass propaganda because (let me state the obvious but important thing) it is be first and foremost about images (or to be more correct, images in motion [motion pictures]) - the way they are associated with each other, the way they spark up in combination with other art forms like music, acting, lighting etc - i.e. its a visual medium, like literature is about language and theatre is about performance. Whenever a young director shows this understanding, hope for the medium surges. So here is my pick of five best Hindi films of 2007. I know, its coming a little late but I wanted to see few more films (and few films again) to make the final list.

5. Jhoon Barabar Jhoom (Dir. Shaad Ali)

Half of Jhoom Barabar Jhoom is about the fantasy of its two lead characters, but as they say that you can only imagine what you have seen, it is actually about real persons these characters know which they put in fantastical situation. Since it is a big Bollywood film, and true to its nature, the fantasies are all about love and marriage. Given all this, JBJ brilliantly manages to put everything that Bollywood offers to its benefit, be it song, dance, overblown fantasies of romance. Also, for the audience it is not only a guilty pleasure, but also tests any of those liars who say they like Bollywood song and dance but whine like morons if they are just given that without any excuse of lame narrative thrills. The song and dance of the film is brave enough to test our patience and throw any pseudo-bollywood fan out of the theatre. One of the songs goes "jo baanware se lagte hain, woh log bhale hote hain", it can be said about the film too. More on JBJ in this post.

4. Ek Chalis Ki Last Local ( Dir. Sanjay M. Khanduri)

It is the best Hindi comedy that I saw in 2007. Nilesh (brilliant Abhay Deol) misses 1:40 am local train. Since its the last local and he has almost no money (Rs 70) in his pocket, he has to wait for the next local (4:10 am). In the meantime, he meets a girl Madhu (Neha Dhupia who is coming back from her friend's engagement party?), few groups of gangsters involved in a kidnap, a trio of policemen (the senior most of them, Malvankar, is most brilliant who incorporates Bhagwat Gita into his day to day work, the other one, Naidu, is a Ranjikant fan, he even saves a girl when the other cop tries to rape her, in a true Rajni-style. The third, Tavade, is the loyal type who informs us "Biwi ke alawa sab baat-ta hai sa'ab ke saath"), an excellent Nana Patekar duplicate auto-wala, romance-on-the-run, a beer bar (where a middle aged women does an item number), few murders, a bag full of money and a lot of interesting dialogues (admittedly there are few old jokes here but there is more wit in this film than any of this year's comedies. Look for Abhay Deol talking to the mirror here ["Bhagwan bhi, saara charm ek hi chehre mein daal diya, vaise beer peene ke baad chamak aur badh jaati hai"] compared to Manorama ["har kissi ki jindagi mein ek aisa waqt bhi aata hai jab saale aaine ko such bolne ki bimaari lag jaati hai"]). What makes it so funny is that it is comedy of genres [especially of the gangster-genre] and B grade thrillers (even some of actors make appearance here, and one scene from classic B grade film Gunda is given specific homage [the one where a gangster weeps in compassion when his younger brother dies]). And there is a marvellous scene where Nilesh wonders "sahi kaha hai kissi ne, duniya aurat hi chalati hai... aurat-jaat tujhe salaam" and then the role-reversal where Nilesh learns a lesson or two. A comedy with several twists and turns of events and plots, makes us wonder not only about the flickering life of the people involved but also to think whether it really happened or its just a swirl of imagination while Nilesh took a dizzy nap on a local train.

3. Blue Umbrella (Dir. Vishal Bharadwaj)

The best thing about this film is a perfect childhood mood. The old and the young all are children here. Desire is childlike, the joy and the frustration too. When our heroine gets a big beautiful blue umbrella from Japanese tourist she becomes the princess of her small town, all persons - old and young - seem to be thrilled by this but Pankaj Kapur's Nandkishore is possessed by the wide-eyed desire to own it. But the beauty of his desire is its type. Its both childlike and of some Shakespearean proportion which leads us to the dark shadows of his craving and its outcome. Vishal Bharadwaj uses some great narrative eclipses, like only the negotiation of Blue Umbrella is shown but the actually transaction (or implied exchange of amulet and umbrella) is not shown. What we see is happy Biniya playing with the umbrella. Also, as I was stupidly thinking, it was not implied anywhere that the sadness fell upon our little heroine because she traded off her protective amulet for an alien umbrella. In summary, Blue Umbrella might be a simple morality tale for young minds, but Vishal Bharadwaj does not dumb it down, because of the fact that we feel pity for Nandkishore even when we are aware what he had done. Interesting both as the childhood fable and morality tale, but beyond that Blue Umbrella can very well be about compulsion of childlike desires. More on Blue Umbrella in this post.

2. No Smoking (Dir. Anurag Kashyap)

The flip-flop narrative of No Smoking can be mapped to few interesting themes, the foremost being everyday pressure to conform to accepted standards or rather group morality/mentality versus individual choice, but with adequate and valid stretch, even to question of validity of bourgeois arrogance and the reciprocating vengeance. Also we can interpret the film in the light of any organized sector like religion or govermnent, and even to realms where human rationality seems to fail like fate and death. Also one can take everything as a metaphor (an approach which I hate if done in totality. It’s like explaining a film, its boring) like Baba is a money sucking doctor employed by his wife, and cutting of fingers is cutting of urge to hold a cigarette and likewise. But it is already a good omen when a film is free enough to let us to think through, but while doing all this one must keep in mind the visual aspects of No Smoking and its first rate humor, which lets its themes sail smoothly without taking themselves too seriously. We all know that if concept were to be the only yardstick to determine the worth of a film, how one can even justify the use of film medium. This film does not get blown away by its theme's preoccupation that the fun in images is all gone. Also, after a long time I have seen a Hindi film where sub plots are not just a way to add yet another realization in the life of main character, i.e. to serve and suit the protagonist’s world. Here the sub plot, especially the one involving Ranvir Shorey's Abbas might actually be the life of K after the end credits roll. As good as Shorey in this role, Kashyap understands him as someone who has already lived K's life, he understands who is he - one of us, or one of them or as always the case when the day is done - no one.

One more interesting way (and sometimes to me, it looks like the only way) is to see the film from K's sole perspective, everything is tinted with his view of the world. His is ultra-sleek-masculine image, his wife is good, homely and dignified, his secretary is dumb and respectful of her boss, his friends are falling out, world is conspiring against him, he might lose, he might be part of the same world he loathes, he is different, but no more can he be so, he needs to survive, he will succumb, but he will try against it. When I saw the film for the first time I had some problem with the arrogance of K (may be I read somewhere that there is some Any Rand channeled into it which irritated me), but on a second look, I am sure that there is no arrogance of director in K's screen arrogance. Coming back to its humor part, the two flashback jokes (which can be loosely names as 'Puffs and Fags' and 'Newton smokes a cigar') in No Smoking are near great. Both are done in different styles, and have great visual flair. Even when the film works on a whole there are sequences which are dearer than the others. The Bob Fosse number, the scene where a man strikes a conversation with K and calls him the 'thinking type', the one rupee coin sequence, the New Year midnight freedom, and the same actress playing the secretary and the wife are definitely masterstrokes.

1. Manorama - Six Feet Under (Dir. Navdeep Singh)

Manorama's structural and thematic resemblance to Chinatown does not let it crumble in weight of the later, which can be primarily attributed to the marvelous job that debutant director Navdeep Singh does in building the small town atmosphere such that the plot borrowing is seamlessly assimilated in the coordinates director is working in. Its heartening to see that in the year Hollywood's so-called auteurs were busy giving shape to evil and ambition as Chigurh and Plainview, Manorama hit the nail right - on the rot and the moral decadence under bright clean surface, and the effort albeit hopelessness of one man to deal with it. Our failed-novelist, defeated, married, even corrupted hero's discovery of this malaise provides us with important social, political and even psychological commentary. Abhay Deol gives a marvelous performance as our first noir hero in recent times. The way he was able to convey how this endless investigation has become a passion of his otherwise bored life and how it consumed him affirms yet again how brilliant his is. Coming to important details in film, first of all I must bow to who so ever is the costume designer for the film. In the morning (especially when she comes upstairs to dry clothes), Gul Panag wears gowns that are midway between knee and feet, and the petticoat underneath shows. Abhay Deol wears hand woven sweaters and pants that suit a 30 year old. None of the folk in the background ever look odd one out. The dialect is almost perfect (Although both, Gul Panag and Raima Sen, are quite good, but still they need to work more on their voice. also Raima Sen was not able to bring the mix of brutality and vulnerability in last scenes - she played it straight like a poor man's femme fatale. Probably a slightly older actress would have carried the role better). The two menacing goons that are both funny and also serve as the minor visible tentacles of the huge fungus inside.


The fish motif (Note that Sheetal's fish is bigger and more beautiful that Satyaveer's many fishes), few of the after-murder scenes are mix of something you remember from Manohar Kahaniyaan and still from De Palma films are marvellous. The fate and 'everybody has his god' climax might not please the fans of Chinatown, but it puts the film in the Indian context which connects deed and fate and also Satyaveer's family reunion looked a very honest way of celebrating the life of small town India (things happen, life goes on) in general, and Indian family (Things happen, life goes on) in particular. In the beginning Abhay Deol's Satyaveer says "agar tarakki honi hai to pehle tabahi hogi", on the surface it is direct reference to the canal and the associated false promises, but on a psychological level any progress of mind steps on the ignorance/innocence of the person. Although, we know that Satyaveer is not innocent, (he is also part of the system, he thinks he knows what goes on inside, given all this, its not a story exact about his loss of innocence, but gaining of deeper understanding of degeneration and what goes behind the closed doors. As minister P P Rathore says when reminded of the corrupt system, "aap is system ka hissa tabhi tak rahe jab tak aapko suit kiya", it must be a realization for Satyaveer that his petty bribe too fuels (or rather masks) the bigger rot inside) but the revelations of moral rot he goes through not only makes him more cynical of the people and world he lives in, and also of himself and human nature. Whether it is a compromise, or a comfort, he run back to his family. On that day of return, in true Bollywood tradition, it rains in the desert.

Honorable Mention: Black Friday (Dir. Anurag Kashyap), Johnny Gaddaar (Dir. Sriram Raghavan), Dil Dosti etc (Dir. Manish Tiwary), Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd. (Dir. Reema Kagti), Chak De India (Dir. Shimit Amin)

Overrated: Taare Zameen Par (Dir. Aamir Khan) [Read here], Guru (Dir. Mani Ratnam) [Read here]

Worst: Eklavya: The Royal Guard : All along, I was blabbering about obvious things like cinema is images and sound, but films like Eklavya serve only one purpose - to tell us right images with wrong intentions are most dangerous. Eklavya, in a visual level, is much better than an average Hindi film but its silly climax opens up director's pristine intentions, and his medieval plea to return back to slavery and the age of loyalty, and to muster our frail voices and to sing in Shakespearean chorus "Hail the King". Eklavya is one of those clear instances where a filmmaker has lost his soul.

Year End Post # 4 : Some Underrated Performances!

Here is some of my picks of the undervalued performances of the year.

Ranvir Shorey: Last year, the truly moving scene came from a comedy, Khosla ka Ghosla, it comes when Khosla sa'ab is put behind bars and Ranvir Shorey's 'Bunty' Khosla weeps saying "yeh sab meri galti hai", and asks his younger brother to go to US, away from all this trouble. Aaja Nachle has no good scenes but one, which comes from Shourie. Its a dialogue less scene where Ranvir Shorey's Mohan Sharma weeps (with a big red heart in background) when he learns that his bride has ran away from marriage. What Shorey does in that scene is to elevate Mohan from a poor guy to a poor guy in love. Similarly, he plays a just-married Gujju with required sensitivity, in Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd whose wife runs off during honeymoon. In No Smoking, Ranvir Shorey's squint eyed Abbas is also a performance to watch for. Here again, his performance brings two aspects to Abbas - the unwilling cunningness required for survival and how people yield to it, and the frustration and helplessness of being in a situation beyond ones control. Also it is to director's credit that Abbas doesn’t just become a background character serving the main plot but a valuable addition to it.

Lara Dutta: I know I have soft corner for Lara Dutta and what ever she does, and I think she is a very good actress in mainstream Bollywood (In the star studded "Dewaanagi Dewaanagi" song from Om Shanti Om, she was only next to Tabu). In Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, she plays a French Hotel Manager and British-Indian Prostitute with the same verve and energy. Her performance surely adds to the guilty pleasure of the film.

Amisha Patel: It looks like Amisha Patel was born to play this. Although the character Pinky in Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd, is of a dumb girl who has this romanticized view of marriage and love but she plays it so naturally and uniformly that her dumbness does not irritate, but becomes a part of her charm.

Sonya Jehan: Playing Ratanbala in Khoya Khoya Chand, a Bollywood star of 50s, was all about screen presence, few precise gestures and good diction, and Sonya Jehan gets it all correct. In a year when everybody is singing praises of Deepika Padukone (and to a extend she deserves it), Sonya Jehan's classic act went unnoticed.

Ayesha Takia: Like Amisha Patel's, Ayesha Takia's casting as the dumb and big bosomed secretary of John Abraham in No Smoking is a wonder of casting and concept. But her dumbness is not her natural trait, but a made up thing, may be to please her boss, or it is an image that her boss want her to be like. To her credit, she does not miss a single step. Every move is a delicious treat in itself and a wonderful parody of all the fantasy secretaries of the world.

Tisca Chopra: Tisca Chopra's Maya Awasthi (Ishaan's mother in Taare Zameen Par) is one of most heartfelt performances of the year. Her portrayal of Ishaan's mother has care for the child, worrying about the child and attachment to the child - the things inherent in mothers, alongside a feeling that she is not able to understand her son. Tisca Chopra's performance never cries for attention. There was a scene where she watches video tapes of Ishaan from his childhood, I just hope that segment was constructed as a series of memories she had of him. I am sure that would have been more powerful than the taped ones.

Mithun Chakraborty: Mithun Chakraborty’s performance as an idealistic communist in Guru is one of the few times in Hindi films when a Bengali or an oldman or a communist are not stereotyped. It brings back the memories of some of his better performances, especially the marvellous Shibnath from Tahader Katha.

Pankaj Kapur: It can't be said that Pankaj Kapur’s performance is undervalued per se, but it is surely undervalued in comparison to what people say about Abhishek's performance in Guru or Shahrukh Khan in Chak de India (for note, SRK is better than Abhishek, and Abhisek is much better in Jhoom Barabar Jhoom than Guru). At a time when we see simplistic performances in so called adult films, Pankaj Kapur gives a multi-layered and deeply-felt performance in a so called children’s film. The last scene where he tries to dance in a marriage procession is again an example of art, i.e. beauty plus pity.

Small Notes on Few Hindi Films

Jhoom Barabar Jhoom: It is Jaan-e-mann minus the child and associated sentimentalities, also minus some of the Salmaan-only (self-bashing, self-referencing stuff, although Abhishek Bachchan tries it meekly) sheer fun, but is a logical follow-up to it, unapologetic dip into fantasy, fun and dance. And Lara Dutta is as brilliant in the film as Amitabh Bachchan is irritating. Also Gulzar comes out of fake-poetry mode (Geela paani (Satya), Geeli Hassi (Saathiya)) and rhymes France and Baans ("Tu raani hai France ki, main baasuri baans ki, apni society mein yeh chalta nahin"). He did the same excellent job when he rhymed Shaayari and Diary in Jaan-e-mann ("tooti phooti shaayari mein, likh diya hai diary mein"). Also last time, I smelt oral sex in a song; it was Namak ishq ka from Omkara ("Jabaan pe laaga laaga re, namak ishq ka"). Gulzar has finally found his calling. I used to like Gulzar as a child and still find some of his lines great but his clever wordplay is very thin in meaning. Meandering "sust-kadam raste, tez-kadam raahein" cannot stand the piercing directness of "Koi yeh kaise bataye ki woh tanha kyon hain", neither do his better lyrics on assortment of past, memory and romance like "Ek sau solah chaand ki raatien, ek tumhaare kaandhe ka til" age better than agelessness of "Tumhe yaad karte karte, jayegi rain saari, tum le gaye ho apne sang neend bhi hamaari". On gut feeling, his lyrics look artful, rehearsed, discontinuous and showy (see I know a word called "marasim" too. One heavy word in the shallow sea of trite letters. Its just one step better than those who translate Hindi to Urdu by replacing "Main" by "Hum"). Coming back to the film, I found it a very interesting entry in the new-wave Bollywood-musicals, where logic is sacrificed for songs and narrative is told through them, and director confidently makes such a mess.



Chatri Chor: A film that shows how love for a thing and desire for it can be mixed into good-evil madness, and how it (love + desire) quite never dies. The end of the film is quite Shakespearean. It would be too much to see the entry of a beautiful Umbrella in a small village both as an object of desire/lust for the simple folk and also as an object of foreign infiltration into simple lives, but one could not help himself making both the comparisons at some point. It doesn’t hurt till the scrutiny of human nature which seems to be director's main concern remains to the fore. Nice return to sublimity, unforced humor and right mood by Vishal Bharadwaj. There is an ingenious sequence where our heroine kills a snake and becomes Devi, and how the news runs fast through the small village. Its story telling, humor, montage and myth rolled together.


Johnny Gaddaar: Good, but lacking the atmosphere of the films it draws from. And who casts Rimi Sen as love interest. The lead actor is good, but I must say that he is too self-conscious, I mean he acts little too much in limits, in the end I dont know what I felt for him, which may be the exact feeling that director wanted to evoke but we need to feel something for a person portrayed as an evil doer without an evil heart. I also felt little uneasy when dead man's girlfriend was tortured, because I was never able to figure out what the director wanted out of it (may be some Tarantino stuff homage, may be, but the girl was so innocent and so in love that it was not funny at all). Cut the fricking finger!


Chak De India: Good reworking of all of sports clichés (and few others too), and a final embrace into fantasy that we won. A politically correct fairy tale meant to inspire and please. One might rightly argue that girls from each state don’t really represent their state but are symbols of North Indian stereotypes of those states (One girl from whole South like a Sardar can be used in a Tamil movie to represent the whole North India) including North Indian states (Bimbos from Chandigarh, Sector 16). But it is fun. If we see the last half an hour as fantasy and add a last scene where Kabir Khan loses again and returns to his old home, we can have our latest Bollywood noir hero :)

Omkara and Expletives

Disclaimer: Please don't read if you easily get offended.

There was a huge debate over the use of expletives in Omkara. Though very late, but here is my take on it. Just to clarify, I am from the land where the film is supposedly set and I am a big fan of all those expletives, this post is an effort to do justice to what they deserve.

Before we proceed let me have a code of referring to them. They are not meant to be written (especially not in English transliteration) so we are not going to write any one of them here. We are going to refer them by the first English letter in their transliteration. Also, most of the impact of the examples I quote will be lost, because they are written, not spoken. Call me prude but here we go.

To say the least, I hated the use of expletives in Omkara and the way the whole debate was hijacked by was it a right decision to use them or not. No one ever even bothered about how to use them, which was the whole point. Expletives are never used as exclamation marks. There are two reasons for that. Firstly, they become too obvious (which is bad for their ample use), secondly, exclamatory use make them a statement of sort, which they are not. If I say, "kinghe jaa raa, B" (where are you going, B), it doesn't make any sense. No one sensible will use them like this. The correct use is "abe kinghe jaa raa, B sunta hi na" (where are you going, B doesn't listen to me). It makes perfect sense. Here B doesn't qualify the person but his act of not listening. Note that there is a slight tinge of care for the person you use them for.

Let me make an parallel for the use of expletives. We have a sweet-dish up north, its called gur-gajar. In a small setup (its called a Kohlu) where gur (jaggery) is made, when gur is in the last stage of its making, we put some skinned carrots (cut them across the length such that they don't slice into two, like we do in green chilly pickle) into steamy hot gur, stir them for about 5 mins or so till they become soft and juicy, and then taken them out. After half an hour (just to cool down a bit, but still too hot to handle), they are picked out whole and put in mouths (this usually causes mouth ulcers for children, but who cares). Now there is no single entity, - no gur, no carrot, they are joined into holy matrimony of sweet love. As the carrot enters the mouth with juice dipping from chin to chest, it is an experience and sight to behold. Expletives are like carrots, and the language like gur to begin with. It is not to say that language sweetens the effect of expletives, but it is to say that it assimilates it, they are joined seamlessly. Any attempt to separate them is done in bad taste and stinks of vulgar sensationalism.

Experienced and well meaning people mostly use expletives in between the sentence and never raise their voice while speaking them. They go with the flow of the sentence, adding a more lyrical quality and liveliness (immediacy). There is no show off, they are lukewarm honey dropped from heaven in between the sentences, adding the warmth. No one notices them in the sentence, but every one know they are spoken. For Gods sake, please don't use them like the F word. First thing to note is they are not meant for abuse. They are not just fillers. They are the flavor. They should seep in effortlessly and slowly over time, like flavor in hot-soft muffins, not like an add-on of hard nuts. Its a lazy way to use them. If one watches closely, he/she will notice that most of the expletives are used for inanimate things, situations and life as such, not for people. Simple use of expletive comes with inanimate but personal things, which we love, for eg. scooters, "yaar, B, start ho jaa, G lega kya".

In Omkara, barring few occasions by Deepak Dobriyal, no one used them properly. It was one of the biggest reason why I didn't like the film much. You can call be names, but I get really sentimental about expletives. I see them as a part of culture. At last, after all this talking, I should give you an example of the correct use of expletives. In Khosla ka Ghosla, when Khoslaji (Anupam Kher) tells his friend, Sahni sa'ab (Vinod Nagpal) that his son doesn't like his name, he replies "Khosla saab.. aaj kal ke bachche bade mnc mijaaz ke hote hain...unhe ye kabootron waale naamon mein sharmindgi mehsoos hoti hai ...nayi ?.. unke saath ek baar compromise kar lo, saare budhape ki insurance ho jaati hai...ooo jee.. sach poocho to ye saara desh hi B compromise pe chal raha hai.. hai ji...". The honey dropped from heaven and it was a moment of pure bliss.

NB: This post would not be possible without the help of Vivek and Rajeev. Thanks !

Small Notes on Two Films

Don

Don can be described as a roadside tea served in a high-end cool-interior coffee shop. The tea looses its open-air taste, and it costs more. Or it can be described as a tea-stall mass number remixed for Buddha Bar. Or see it as a thinking item girl, who can neither dance nor think well. There can be several such analogies but the point is this film has no charm of material it imitates or rediscover or re-interprets, and it is not saying that it does not have its own charm, which it has, although only at a few places. One more thing which came across my mind is lack of character artists in Hindi films today. We don't have anyone like Mac Mohan (working) today, so that part of Mac goes to an unknown and becomes nothing. I seriously think that small parts should be given to known faces, audience have such a little time and volatile memory to accommodate a newcomer. They could have casted a newcomer in the place of Boman Irani, who was really funny when he should be damn evil. Look at the old Don and we have all the smaller parts to known faces. Also, one more thing which I might not be able to express clearly about the films of DON era. I saw them as a child and while seeing them I used to do little calculations about the good and the bad and try to pick up hints who is the real bad guy, the way camera zooms to some of the characters to give as hints and at times those hints are false (You get all the such tricks when you see bunch of them). So eventually you have the whole kit (at least you feel so), and try to make your own guesses, not only about the evil guy but about plot twists and turns, and when director (or screen writer) beats you in that kids play, you feel strangely satisfied, and add that extra twist in your rules book so that you can apply it for the next film. The new DON turns the old to be either too intelligent or too dumb and the fun of the game is lost. Also remakes of such types, broadly they can be done in two extreme ways. One way is like offering tribute to your favorite deity, write him/her love letters and take it all seriously. The second way is a meta-movie, which is a parody of the old film. I think neither of the two will work. The first one is too religious and the second one is too blasphemous, too intelligent. Farhar Akhtar tried something in between (more towards the former approach), and now we know that too doesn't work.


Jaan-e-mann

Jaan-e-mann is one of the few Hindi films that I saw this year and came out satisfied, and even hopeful. If we see the whole film, there are several moments where it falls in the trap of conventions and cliches (especially in second half with the kid), but this film works as the revival of Bollywood musical, how music and narrative can be mixed with colorful imagination. Overall the film is not path breaking and all, but its quite conceptual in its musically over-the-top grand style. Here also, things are painted and clothes are designer, but they have an intentionally made-up feel with no intend to be real, which has its charm. Also the plot is so thin that we don't care about it, everybody knows what will happen and who will get the girl in the love triangle and cliches are there in place, but here shallowness has self-awareness. This romance is a costume drama, visual gimmick, a Broadway musical and homage to Bollywood. Here is a film where we sit to see the next song, the film moves from song to song, sometimes filling up for dialogues, sometimes for whole situations. There is a song, Kabool kar le, which is there to energize the routine situation, is filmed imaginatively and also works as the parody of all shaadi movies. Salman Khan is as self-aware and self-referential as the film, and he perfectly fits the bill, and so are Akshay Kumar and Priety Zinta. Even in this unreal and bizarre colored setting, somehow we feel the characters are not card board, this is I think, a big achievement. This film is interesting because it shows how cinematic medium can be used to elevate (if it sounds pompous read 'perk up' instead) the usual stuff without taking itself too seriously, most of the times. I sometime feel that life would have seen much more interesting if it had BGM, such movies strengthen that silly belief, as least for the time when you are in theatre.


Note:
1) Who-so-ever comments on this post, please write their favorite childhood movie. To start, mine is Mr. India. I have watched Mr. India more than 20 times and still have appetite for it.
2) Even if you feel its too difficult to answer the first question, feel free to comment. My blog can not afford to loose a comment ;)

Not so bad !

I saw KANK yesterday and I must write about it asap because it is one of those movies which you forget soon, and with all honesty that I can gather, I must say it is not a bad movie that I thought it would be, given the big constraints it has, it has Shahrukh Khan and Rani Mukherjee - together, its directed by Karan Johar. As in one of the interviews, I heard SRK saying that it is Karan's most mature effort. Actually it is, and the most honest too. This honesty at times tips the movie to the other side which Karan Johar may not have even desired. Those of us who have seen Karan Johar movies (or its types) know that they are shot with excesses, everything is much more than required, the great Indian family throbs in every frame, love is too pure to handle, movie runs for hours, SRK overacts, every frames is lush green or blood red - color coded, excesses everywhere, and when it come to what we call substance, they have passionate confessions of love to parents or lovers and excessively choreographed songs. There is no denying that KANK has it all. We also know that a Karan Johar film is a cliché extended for hours. Given all that the question may become how well rounded the cliché is, but it is also not the case. So when I say KANK is not bad, what I want to say.

First of all, KANK has some decent performances, mainly Preity and Abhishek, it may not make the film any good but balance the Rani Mukherjee tear tub drill. I stopped hating (that doesn't mean that there is any love) SRK after Swades and here too amidst all the mandatory overacting, he gives moments, and more than that he is not a god here, he is ordinary man, a bit abnormal too and people may say (as the girls sitting behind me said), he is a loser, and he remains so till that supposedly happy ending. And here comes that honesty bit I was talking to before, to show his lover such a loser, bad tempered soul, KJ shows great courage. Perpetually irritated SRK is an opposite to his good old charms that irrirated us for years. KJ does suffer from Substance Syndrome, but at times he delivers too on a commercial scale. There is another bit about this honesty part, the spouses are not only shown loving their partners but their sides are presented equally, if not well. Actually when Preity Zinta slaps SRK (yes, she do), the whole theatre burst into clapping, this might not be the response KJ expected. Actually KANK puts Abhishek and Priety's arguments against the monumental Chopra's hogwash of love, reason against emotions, and in an unintentional, almost self destructive way, puts that evertrusted love in despair of disbelief, even KJ's reel romance looks anti-romantic, although in the later part of the movie, director tries to undo the damage but fortunately it was too late by then.

Apart from some good jokes that go to Abhishek, the humor is KJ types, lot of butt jokes and toilet sort of humor, its cheap but it works for me. At one point SRK's character even says something like "cheap is good', I totally loved the scene following it, it's cheap and done is bad taste, but it works for me. Actually, these are not the things that pain me in KJ type movies, its their smugness on paper-thin wisdom that kills me. 2/3rd of KANK is manageable in that respect; it has its paper thin wisdom but not so much of smugness. Its the last third where Rani Mukherjee starts to cry to dehydration and director starts giving her every filmic toy to console, the film drags and drags and at last SRK and Rani weep together (Rani's cry is inducive) and the film eventually ends. Is this film really a mature film, yes, for KJ, its really so. It is naive if one says that it shows honest efforts of saving marriages, but it does work to some extent if one says that it shows such efforts fail, surprisingly so.

The Kids must Die !

A big question is why the kids died. Some obvious answers will be because we don't want to see the film for another half an hour or because its an Indian commercial film or it must be true to the story it emulates. But the kids must die in the end to put a logical end to their insolvable problems or to justify their situation or to just become more sacred as dead. The kids should also die to wash off their unintentional wrong doings or to balance the zero-sum game. Anyway death is inevitable for the the poor bunch because they can't just be wild at heart and get away in a Hindi film. Also they should die giving some hope to others but with a despair in their eyes speaking volumes of the hope that has extinguished in the darkness of death. They must die because death immortalize a man and more so if death is shown more of as a martyrdom.

The bigger question seems is there no other way to end a film but the easy way out to kill the kids. Here in some way, the story also deviates with the original story (story of Bhagat Singh and his friends) because they died knowing that they are going to die and that's where the narrator refers to them as the people of the third kind. But Karan and friends did not kiss death with smile, they actually wanted to live, if the director had given them some living space. But then our director turned to the audience who are ready for their death and to drop a tear or two.

I think this break of similarity between the two stories tells us more about the state of film making than about the film itself. Our films drives audiences to the theaters just to feel for the characters but not to think for them or rather think with them. I am not against what is shown in the film, as I myself enjoyed the movie but in the end it overwhelms you which is bad for any sincere effort, it should make you think rather than make you feel just sad for the characters. I couldn't help but draw parallel between Rang de Basanti and Taxi driver, although they are different movies with very different motives. What if our gang of heroes in Rang de Basanti were acquitted somehow, will the audience be able to 'relate' to them as they do it now. As in my case it took me some time to understand Travis Bickle and found that everyone is Travis to some extend when it comes to find purpose to our nothingness, would the director of Rang De Basanti ready to give us that time of appreciation of a movie, No, he wants us to feel what ever we can in the cinema hall itself and let it go. Had the kids escaped the AIR building, can our director be able to gather that much sympathy for them in the given duration of the movie. No... absolutely no. and so with no other feasible option available, the kids are killed but I must say they are not of the third kind.

Swades

I watched Swades last night. Before I went to Swades, I need to prepare myself, first thing is to leave behind the hatred for Shahrukh Khan and secondly to ignore extremes reviews to form any bias or prejudice and I must say it helped.

Its difficult to write about Swades as this movie is a moral science lesson but things here are done subtly that at times you resonate with those feelings and emotions. Also as per the demands of commercial cinema, sometimes it looks like that stuff is explained to level that it becomes prey of over-simplification or a few times even banality. I have been long thinking about the pace and the ending of Indian movies, here in Swades also, pace tends to go slow especially during the second half. The pace could be improved by some 'intelligent' editing with a dual benefit of not over-expaining things too, but again since the movie starts and goes on (for the first half) with a placid pace, any hurried look would have effected the mood of the movie. Now coming to the ending of the movie, and I feel quiet lost when I ponder on the alternate ending to cinema which fall inside that commercial bracket. But on the end part also, although expected we see a sense of fulfillment and hope which is so necessary to a movie that preach the same. I almost abhor preachy movies, but as I said earlier the moral talk in Swades is done in a rather 'equivocal' way. There are tinges of idealism and its obvious clash with realism, and there are some not so light hearted discussion on some holy-cow-topics like parampara and sanskruti. Swades has lot of emotions but almost all the times it never retorts to cheap melodrama or nationalism.

Plot here is simple. Swades is about an NRI returning India for some emotional hunger and journeying through it, transforming others and getting transformed. It depicts the state of India (particularly villages) in quiet unapologetic way. At times it looks that the movie is dealing with more issues that it can handle. The issues include NRIism ('returning to roots', 'unfinished responsibilities and the guilt associated'), poor infrastructure ( water, electricity, education), caste-system, enterprising, unity etc etc. And there is a obvious 'Lagaan' effect on the movie in the setting and some of the characters.

Of late, Shahrukh Khan has done good work, and looks like he can shed the SRK mask if he wish ( or may be if forced by the directors ). Shahrukh looks restraint, barring one or two scenes where we becomes his usual self. He delivers humor well. The best part of him comes during the rent-collection-journey. The images of waterboy counting coins is real and moving. And this journey is probably the best shot part of the movie.

As far as Gayatri Joshi is concerned, she looks very beautiful. But what annoys is her out-of-parlour look, with every fold of saree and every bit of lips, nails and hair perfectly done. This could have been toned down a little and I am pretty sure Gayatri would have not lost an iota of her charms. On the acting front, she has done a good effort, but just not managing her final break down scene that beautifully.

When we talk of Govarikar movie, we expect that other characters too are decently developed. They are not just say-and-go types. Here too we have Kishori Balal as very motherly Kaveri Amma and Daya Shankar Pandey as US-aspiring, Mela Ram.

I am filled with mixed feeling after watching Swades but the feelings are more for the movie. I shared some of the universal emotions and sometimes moved by the flashes of brilliance. Govarikar should be applauded for a sincere effort and making a thoughtful movie.

And how can we leave the music of the movie, like any ARR stuff, some of the songs will take time to sink in. My favorite is the shehnai version of 'Yeh jo des hai tera'.

Top Fives

This is almost year-end and I had an interesting idea to put my top fives in movies (Ten will be too much of rating others :)).
Of course, it is a stupid thing to do but someone has to do the 'dirty' job ;).

I am restricting to what ever Indian movies I have seen in 2004. Also I haven't included Mughal-e-Aazam, as it will be too hard a competition for others.

According to me, the liking for a movie is very subjective. I also regard the fact that as a movie-lover we are always ready to take some amount of illogical stuff and when it comes to Indian cinema this amount is not that small. Therefore logic don't guide you here in totality. At times you watch movies to get a fulfilling experience, at times you cry for realism and at other times you believe in a fantasy to be real.

For sometime now, I have tried to judge a movie by the honesty of the effort, and it does give fairly good results.

Coming to this year, I will not say it is bad year because 2003 wasn't great either. There were only countable good movies ( Bhoot, Dhoop, Jhankar beats, 3 Deewarein, Waisa bhi hota hai...) in 2003. The criteria which I followed include:
1. Honesty of effort
2. Minimum Cliché and Minimum melodrama
3. Innovation in theme/presentation
4. Performances
5. Would I like to see it again ?

So here the lists goes on...
Top five 2004 movies
1. Maqbool (Excellent Performances by one and all, interesting story-telling and good direction)
2. Ab tak Chappan (Good Dialogues and real characterization, end is little bit filmy)
3. Chameli (Kareena's performance and creation of a great rainy-night-with-two-strangers ambiance)
4. Naach (A true musical)
5. Hum Tum (Saif's performance)

Those who can't make to the list but are worth a mention here:
1. Morning Raga (For Music, Shabana's sincere work, Perizaad's beauty)
2. Yuva (Good direction and performances)
3. Khakee (Thoroughly entertaining stuff and Aish as Vamp)
4. Dev (Solid performances by Amitabh and Om Puri, and excellent kiss between Kareena and Fardeen)
5. Madhyanam Hathya (Very realistic, cinema which doesn't take any sides)

5 movies I regret, I didn't watch
1. Shwaas (So much hype !)
2. Chokar Bali (Mixed reviews, Heard Raima Sen has done an excellent work)
3. Phir Milenge (Revathy movie, I missed 'Mitr' too)
4. Raincoat (Looks like some sensible cinema)
5. Meenaxi: Tale of three city (They say its poetry on screen)

Now coming to worst 5 and it has all the competition, but fortunately for some I haven't seen many movies this year.
Five Worst movies
1. Vastu Shastra
2. Main hoon na
3. Dhoom
4. Gayab
5. Paap

Also this year was not any big step forward in Indian Cinema. It hasn't stopped its ways of making duplicate movies if one works ( 'Murder' followed by 'Hawas', followed by 'Girlfriend', followed by 'Julie', followed by 'Ab Bas'... and many more to come). If I try to get a trend, the only one which I can think of is item numbers. Every movie should have at least one, by hook or by crook. Another trend is kissing on screen. The only Kiss which conveyed some real passion was seen in 'Dev', otherwise all this kiss-business is so fake. All the Yash-chopras and Karan-johars still keep fixating on family values (which is nothing but dancing, loving and marrying), saccharine romance, deep melodrama and 'sarso ke khet'.

Hope 2005 is better. Hope to see Karan Jahar make a song-less murder mystery and Ram Gopal Verma a family drama.

Dance on the tip of iceberg

Dance on the tip of iceberg without caring it will melt soon... dance in the dusk, without caring it will be dark soon... Dance as a metaphor of life is not new. In fact it is one of the oldest.

You have seen all dancing and singing in so called Bollywood-musicals, but 'Naach' is so satisfying an experience mainly because it uses dance and music for all the right reasons, not for what its counterparts use them shamelessly. The characters are real, representing different philosophies ranging from hard-line idealistic and hard-line practical, there are mature discussions between characters and this new-age-dance becomes the duct to ventilate out emotions, showcasing love to frustration to hard-core imagination.

Although the storyline is not new but director never show any guilt for it, all those seen-there-done-before scenes are handled with such smooth novelty that you can hardly point a finger. All this intensity demanded good performances and free-flowing images to match. Antraa Mali has done a brilliant work with all her body-work (elastic dancing) and eye-work (expressive acting). There are times when she hasn't much to speak, as all the dialogue department is given to Abhishek Bachchan. People can argue (including me) that the movie has a slow (rather placid) pace but on a second thought it looks that changing the pace of the movie had not matched the content of the movie, there may be other views for that too. On technical front, it is almost flawless.

This movie may be a hit or flop, but I am glad its made and I saw it.
There is scene in which Abhi (AB) tells Rewa (AM) that it is not easy to achieve what you want to, next cut shows Rewa walking deftly on the spine of an inverted boat, she replies 'Yes, I know'.