Once Upon A Time In Mumbai: Review

Successes and Failures aside, Milan Luthria’s works so far reflect his penchant for exploring new vistas. Starting as a Mahesh Bhatt protégé and later venturing out on his own with films like Kache Dhaage, Chori Chori, Taxi No 9211, Hattrick, Deewar and now Once Upon A Time In Mumbai (OUATIM), Luthria has shown diversity in his work. His films had something about them that got him noticed. With OUATIM, he is sure to earn respect.

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Love Aaj Kal - Review

There is a cruel law of the nature that’s called the law of averages. If you are good one day, you are bound to be bad the other day to keep it even. Imtiaz Ali, it seems, is an exception to this rule. After Socha Na Tha and Jab We Met, Imtiaz’s third film Love Aaj Kal promises to hit the bull’s eye yet again!

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Gulal | Movie Review

Anurag Kashyap is an exciting prospect for Indian cinema. In him we have found a film-maker whose regime starts where Bollywood draws its limits. Angst, rebellion and sensationalism symbolize his kind of cinema. After watching both his ventures in the recent past – DevD and Gulal, I felt that through his characters he makes an extra effort to stand out from the crowd. What you get at the end of it all is a set of dysfunctional characters (let me be strong worded as Kashyap himself) who are not exactly real people. But this is what I call cinematic liberty. The same cinematic liberty that sees Yash Chopra create an imaginary Raj or a Rahul. In that sense Anurag is still a part of the same system.

Now coming to the film Gulal. Gulal is an angry film by Anurag’s own admission. He conceived it at a time when his films were facing problems from the censor board and he was listening to songs from Gurudutt’s Pyaasa (he in fact got so inspired from the song Duniya that he decided to use it in one of the songs in Gulal). The anger comes out in the colors chosen for the film. Choosing Rajasthan as the base of the film, Anurag tells the story of a failed Rajputana revival movement in the backdrop of college politics.

As a director Anurag Kashyap delivers. In this attempt he is ably supported by his cast, the music, the songs, the dialogues and the script. He does stay true to the basic premise of the concept – depiction of resentment but it certainly does not depict reality. Most of his characters appear eccentric and look to hog limelight. There is an illegitimate son of the Royalty who doesn’t talk to his father because he did not give him his name and on the other hand does not think twice before using his sister to win over his adversaries. Having said that, I do not hold this against Anurag Kashyap because nowhere does he state that he stands for real cinema. You cannot blame him for exercising his artistic liberty. The best thing about Anurag Kashyap is that through his films he is able to create an ambience that make you become a part of the film itself. So, when you walk out of DevD, you feel drunk and when you walk out after watching Gulal, you carry that anguish he portrays through the characters. The bottomline is that Anurag Kashyap is a thinking director and technically brilliant. His work shows that he is a true blue cinema fanatic. It is only when he tries being too intelligent and experimental with something as abstract as No Smoking that problems surface.

Another problem with his films is the length. A dark film taxes your mind and if it is over 2 and half hours long, you can imagine what you will be subjecting yourself to when you go inside the theater. I refrained from watching DevD and Gulal earlier precisely due to this reason. I finally watched them both over this weekend. That brings me to a pertinent point that I would like to make. You can watch Anurag’s movies only if you are really in the ‘mood’ to. I recently read Anurag Kashyap saying that his films had a lot of unconnected dots and he left it to the viewers to join them. His movies are not the usual run of the mill stuff that you can casually walk through. The result is that despite getting good reviews Gulal might not succeed at the box office.

Veering away from Anurag Kashyap, we come to another strong point of the film and that is the music and the songs. Piyush Mishra (the guy who played Prithvi Bana in Gulal) is the music director, lyricist and singer of a few songs of the film. He is equally important in the context of Gulal. He lends a strong pillar of support to the film through his music that breathes life into the film. Each of the songs is a gem.

The actors cast in the film are also a formidable lot. Kay Kay Menon, Deepak Dobriyal (Omkara fame), Piyush Mishra (Maqbool, Dil Se fame), Aditya Srivastava (Black Friday) and Raj Singh Chaudhary (Sarkar Raj) set the tone for the film and live through their characters. Ayesha Mohan, Mahie Gill and Jesse Randhawa form the female lead of the film and they show that there is space for actresses to perform as well. A welcome change from seeing most of the ‘actresses’ nowadays happy playing decked up dolls and doing item numbers. Another surprise package is the actor playing Rananajay Singh. He reminded me of Irfan Khan in Haasil. This guy exhibits the same level of arrogance and intensity as Ranvijay Singh of Haasil, though the character is far less cunning.

All in all, Gulal is a film that caters to the multiplex audience. Too many profanities would prevent families from watching it and the number of unconnected dots will keep a lot of others away too. The dark canvas would keep off people accustomed to the bright and snowy Swiss Alps as well :)

Watch Gulal if you:

- are an Anurag Kashyap fan

- liked DevD

- like to experiment

- want to spend some time away from the madding world.

- like solving ‘Expert’ level Sudokus

- want to write a review!

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Hindi Films | A Historical Account | Phata Poster Nikla Hero

Blessed with the power to survive a mighty Tsunami, heroes in Indian movies are a privileged lot. It takes a lot of conviction to reverse the order of nature and let one bleed profusely through a nerve wrecking climax of a movie and emerge victorious after beating the shit out of a 100 villainous contrivers. But our heroes do it. And they do it with so much of passion that you at times want to believe that it is possible for a man to survive 5 close range gun shots and then come out raging against the enemies and raze them to dust. The bottomline set for the Indian movie hero is - You hit him, you beat him but you can’t defeat him.

Although all heroes fall under the phylum of an all-conquering breed, there is a major difference between the heroes in Hindi films and their regional counterparts. Hindi film heroes change faces rather quickly to keep pace with the changing times unlike in regional movies where they believe in the power of preservation. Regional movies follow the adage of – “ Once a hero always a hero.” South Indian movie industry, for example, is capable of producing a movie and then its remake 30 years down the line with the same hero in the lead.

Anyways, despite calling myself a movie freak, I find myself severely handicapped while discussing regional cinema. So, rather than being all that judgemental and condescending, I will stay put on the safer bastion of Hindi films and the evolution of heroes there. I will choose actors as my reference point to discuss the era. I could be insanely prejudiced in my views so I expect you people to shed some light through your comments as well:

Ashok Kumar era : The heroes were real people then. They even sang their own songs and didn’t fight a lot. They were epitomes of gentlemen-like behavior and stuck to playing the good guy in what could be called escapist cinema. The World was engulfed in the Great Depression and that reflected in the movies. It is strange but true that in the 1930’s when there was hardly any hullabaloo over ‘female empowerment’, most of the movies were female oriented. Sample these top grossers of the era – Ghar ki Lakshmi, Bombay Ki Mohini, Daku Ki Ladki, Miss 1933, Hunterwali, Kisan Kanya , Bhabhi and the list goes on. Ashok Kumar was the first genuine hero of Hindi movies and with his arrival the scene changed. The movies started to focus more on the hero as the central character and then there was no looking back.

Dilip Kumar era : Dilip Kumar led the trio of Dev Anand, Raj Kapoor and himself to emerge as the first super star of Hindi film industry. As the brooding tragedy king, he struck chords with the audience and in the melancholy of the characters he portrayed; he smiled his way to super stardom. The heroes in the 50s-60s remained the gentlemen that they were when it all started and alongside grew another strong class of charatcer called the villain. Villains did exist even earlier on but now they started to get ample screen space. Even though the romantic heroes held sway during this period, movies based on social issues and movies that promoted nationalistic sentiments gained impetus.

Rajesh Khanna era: A very short lived one but important none the less. It marked the arrival of the tantrum throwing superstar whose birthright was to act snooty. Thousands of girls wrote love letters in blood and his popularity achieved enormous proportions before he messed it all up. It was also a time when growing resentment in the youth of the country called for a change in the hero of our movies. The love-dovey roles took a backseat and in came a force that arguably became the biggest superstar that Hindi movie industry ever produced – Amitabh Bachchan.

Amitabh Bachchan era: The angry young man had the backing of two prolific script writers going by the name of Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar. They were the heroes behind the scene that created the character of Vijay – the representation of the angry youth in the country. This era saw the rise of big blockbusters that captured the fancy of the nation. It was neither escapist nor socially relevant. The movies of this era can be categorized into the larger than life portrayal of situations. There were bandits like Gabbar who wreaked havoc in Sholay, then there was the super successful and wronged hero of Deewar, Trishul and Shakti. Amitabh’s success was so huge that other stars looked a pale shadow of him. Vinod Khanna, Shatrughan Sinha, Shashi Kapoor and Rishi Kapoor did hold on to the second wrung in the stardom ladder in the 70s and early 80s. This period was however accommodating to the alternative cinema that was made on smaller budgets and gave precedence to stories rather than the scale of production. Amol Palekar and Farookh Sheikh who never fitted the bill of a typical Bollywood Movie hero did manage to create a name for themselves during this time.

Dark Age era: 80s was a lull. Amitabh became wayward and dabbled in politics and there was a vacant spot that needed to be filled. Art house cinema gained prominence but it never got the due through commercial success. Naseeruddin Shah and Om Puri became the pioneers of this kind of cinema but they didn’t taste monetary success. It was a time when not many dared to dream big. It was a ‘flat’ period or rather a downward slope A third kind of cinema that brought in a lot of talent from South India made merry during this time. The standard however was poor. Jeetendra led the charge with a number of south Indian movie remakes. The oft repeated Juhu beach was replaced with Marina beach that had elaborate sets. 251 dancers shook their booty as the macho hero whose major task by the end of the movie was to avenge the rape of his sister/wife/girl friend sang a Bappi Da tune into the ears of his sweetheart – “Tohfa Tohfa Tohfa..laaya laaya laaya”. The successful heroes of this era looked more like caricatures in their Disco dancer clothes or the embarrassing wigs they donned. There was nothing heroic about them. The only good thing about this period was the rise of Anil Kapoor (the longest serving hero in hindi movies) who was rated as a potent candidate to topple Amitabh from the throne. Amitabh helped in the act by giving movies like Toofan and Jaadugar.

Khan era: Shahrukh Khan, Salman Khan and Aamir Khan ruled the next phase of Bollywood Movies. Shahrukh became the most saleable star due to his popularity abroad. These three catered to different classes of the audience. Salman was a hero of the masses, Aamir was the perfectionist who got the thumbs up from the other section and Shahrukh captured the fancy of the NRI audience. With the dawn of globalization, Hindi movies started to see the light of the day abroad and Shahrukh Khan became one of the most recognizable faces. Each one of them stuck to enthralling their own set of audience until ambition did them in. There was competition in everything – be it in shaping up their bods to incorporate 6/8/10 abs, changing their hair styles to suit the characters they were playing or grabbing lucrative brand endorsements.

With the entry of non-Khan stars such as Akshay Kumar and Hrithik Roshan in the fray, it suddenly seems that there is a war of survival at the top. With media having a field day covering the pot-shots they take at each other, the end of the war is still awaited. I can however say it with a level of assuredness that the public mandate is pretty fractured in this regard. With so much of money in the business, there is room for all of them to exist but there can be no clear cut number 1 now.

In the 80 years of his substantial existence, Bollywood Movie hero has managed to build a mammoth clout. From the days when they were called Bhaands to the present day when they are treated like kings, from the obese looking-mustachioed Pradeep Kumar playing Shah Jahan to the perfectly sculpted Hrithik Roshan playing Akbar, the change has at times been dramatic but many a times for the good. The movie hero is revered and accorded God-like status in our land. The aura surrounding him has been left untouched.

So, the next time you see the bruised and battered and almost dead hero taking the long walk to deliver his monologue in the climax of a movie, remember that it is not about some larger than life portrayal having no bearing on reality. The walk is a ritual and an ode to the HERO who has always won.

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Gulal | The Music Review | Anurag Kashyap’s next Movie

Dev D.’s soundtrack gave me sleepless nights; not that it scored a new high in the purity of music but for the fact that it broke the genre barrier. It got onto me and a lot of other people – its mediocrity were its biggest virtue and it won hearts as well as heads. The movie may have had extreme reactions and opinions – the music surely stood out for reasons that are not very common. There was something about it – which is hard to explain and appreciate but you could for sure sense it if you poured yourself into it.

I wasn’t aware the next from the maverick maniac would come up so soon. So I was pleasantly surprised to know that OST for Gulal was out. Interestingly, Gulal is as original as it gets!

Again the music is not mainstream – which probably is the highpoint. Gulal is an experiment which unfortunately does not happen very often. It is Anurag Kashyap’s attempt to bring Poetry to Cinema. Before we go further, let’s get it right – it’s not your everyday dose of contemporary music. It is honest to what it is supposed to be.

Some research reveals – Gulal is a tribute to the song Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hai in the movie Pyasa by the poet and lyricist Sahir Ludhyanwi. Campus Politics is used as the vehicle to drive the story. It has been under production for many years now and the director has had a tough time struggling with the Censor Board.

Talking of the music, Lyrics take the centre stage. The movie has heavy influence of the Chaayawaad era of Hindi Poetry. Apparently the works of Suryakant Tripathi “Nirala”, Sumitranandan Pant, Mahadevi Verma and Jaishankar Prasad seems to the motivation behind. The mood is “Veer Ras” or the poetry meant for the battlefield.

I know you are surprised to read all of this in a music review. But I warned you – this is not your everyday dose of music. The music director Piyush Mishra simply weaves magic around his own words and uses the lesser heard voices in Bollywood that score very high in terms of their singing talent. For some reason I think it’s as much his movie as it is Anurag’s. He has acted, given music and written the lyrics for the same.

I know I am expected to talk about the eight tracks (not 18 this time!). But I want you to go out and explore. I am sure I have made it clear beyond doubt that if you enjoy variety in your music – if you like chewing the lyrics of the music that you hear – and if you understand Hindi (read “Bhavaarth”) this is the soundtrack you should not miss. I am sure by now people who want to hear this would have been excited. For the rest, there would always be a lot of pop music- that too just around the corner. Would be happy to see your comments on the Soundtrack! :)

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