When Words Fail to Deliver

O' Henry, one of the most prolific and celebrated short story writers of all time gained entrance into the glitzy world of Bollywood, courtesy Rituparno Ghosh's maiden Hindi directorial venture Raincoat (2004).

Based on one of the master's most popular short stories, 'Gift of the Magi', Raincoat deals primarily with two characters—Manu (Ajay Devgan) and Neeru (Aishwarya Rai). Once engaged, now estranged, they meet after a long period of separation at a time when both are undergoing emotional crises.

 What emerges is a tête-à-tête that lasts for the major part of an afternoon and the lion's share of the 117-minute running time of the film.

 A curtain of rain separates the couple from the rest of the world. Confined within the four walls of a room in a house in south Calcutta, they embark on a 'game of words'. Careful not to pry or delve deep into each other's lives, they find that although time has eroded their passion, an ember still glows deep within their hearts.

The film encapsulates the maxim that true love is all about selflessness, sacrifice, and sentiment. It is also about putting on a façade. That is precisely where the implication of the eponymous raincoat comes in.

Protected from the torrential rain, Manu enters the now married Neeru's world wearing a raincoat. He takes it off after he enters her home, but soon finds out that he has to wear a garb to face the harsh realities that stare him in the eye. Neeru realizes the same. The film is all about the mental makeup that we put on when faced with a reality that makes the heart grow fonder about the dreams that one once cherished and wished would one day be realized.

In the consumerist society we live in, the kind of emotion that Manu and Neeru have for each other is antiquated, and is amplified by the mise-en-scène of the room, filled with old clocks, ancient furniture, and similar bric-a-brac. It is as if both the characters are in a time warp, lamenting a past that they treasure, and a future that is as bleak as the weather outside.

It is a story-within-a-story format that Ghosh has implemented, but with little success. Considered by many as the best screenplay writer to have emerged from Bengal after Satyajit Ray, this is precisely where Ghosh falters in this venture. For a film that is solely dependent on dialogues, this is one department where Raincoat fails miserably. 

What could have emerged as an illustration of connotation is ultimately relegated to banality that at times precariously teeters on the verge of being branded inane. The spine of a screenplay is conflict, creation of tension, which keeps the viewer engrossed in the goings-on—aspects that are conspicuous by their absence in Raincoat.

With the single room setting a la Hitchcock's Rope, two-character interaction reminiscent of Gus Van Sant's  Gerry, Raincoat had a lot of potential in it. Deft art direction, mellifluous melodies—which, for once, do not hinder the progress of the film—and able performances by the two protagonists make one feel even sadder for the opportunity that has gone a-begging. 

One emerges out of the theatre after watching the film imagining what it could have been, rather than what it actually is. Add to all this a poster of Sophia Loren that the camera lingers on for quite sometime brings to one's mind Vittorio de Sica's Sunflower starring the legendary actress—a film that dealt similarly with unrequited love, but succeeded in eliciting a sigh of despair in a context diametrically opposite to that of Raincoat!

Watered Down Nationalism

What's the similarity between Sam Mendes, Farhan Akhtar, and Ashutosh Gowariker; apart from the fact that they are all acclaimed filmmakers of the current generation? Apparently, there is none, except the fact that all three made a film (debut in the cases of Mendes and Farhan, and Ashutosh’s fourth after Pehla Nasha, Izzat ki Roti, and Baazi) that wooed critics and the masses alike. The films were all box-office successes, swept the awards they were nominated for, and the trio faced the same expectations when they announced their next film. Add to this the fact that their second film was as different from the first as one could ever think of.

Swades (2004), much touted as Ashutosh Gowariker's second inning after Lagaan, holds on its own. In fact, in certain respects it is a much better film than the 2001 mega-success. True, it has its similarities with its predecessor, but it’s like a novelist using the same words in a different context and emerging with a totally different connotation to them.

It is said that to bring out the effect of light, one needs to know darkness. This basic contrast is used as a backbone in Swades. What can be more apt to bring out the fact of being rooted to reality than some one who as a profession aims for the sky? Mohan Bhargava (Shahrukh Khan) is a Project Manager at NASA working on Global Precipitation Measurement—a technology that takes the guesswork away from forecasting rainfall.

This is the beginning of the recurrent water motif that Gowariker has so masterfully utilized in his film. From the affinity of Mohan to mineral water (one bottle of which he gifts to a minstrel who he picks up on his caravan); to a child water vendor who acts as a catalyst in the protagonist's life; the singular channel of change in a village; the ultimate ablution in a water body where Mohan washes his soiled feet; to Geeta's (Gayatri Joshi) first question to Mohan in a classroom about five rivers of India—the source of life acts as a refrain throughout the film.

Other deftly applied symbolisms abound, especially remarkable is one where Gowariker, the director, removes a great class divide in a village—an erected movie screen—to bring to the fore what the film stands for: a coming together, a unison.

The performances are also remarkable. Kishori Ballal as Kaveri Amma, the mother figure who brought up Mohan, is simply sublime. Gowariker should be applauded for eliciting touching performances from non-actors—a despondent farmer who has all but given up hope of providing for his family; an aged woman whose only reaction to her first interaction with a lit bulb is simply uttering the word 'bijli'...the instances are many.

Gowariker's forte, apart from being a brilliant storyteller, has been his character sketches, a trait that is evident in this offering as well. The film brings to light Shahrukh Khan as never seen before—a cliché that is actually applicable as far as his portrayal of Mohan Bhargava is concerned.

Considered a demi-god, Khan sinks into his character albeit a trifle skeptically at the beginning of the movie, but then settles into it in the same manner he dips his feet in the murky water of the village reservoir. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the debutante Gayatri Joshi. While seeing her acting prim and proper, I could not but help wonder if her character was written with Nandita Das lurking somewhere at the back of the mind of the screenplay writer!

Swades is as patriotic in flavor as any release in the same genre, with a subtle difference. Except for two sequences, it makes its statement without resorting to any sort of jingoism.

Look for the brilliant quirks in the film—the reaction of an eight-year old to a huge caravan in a village, a water pipe turning into a musical instrument, an inverted image of a temple as seen through the eyes of a child looking at it in an upside-down manner—these are the small things that ultimately separate the wheat from the chaff and not an elaborately staged, grandiose item number.

Of Contrast, Character, and Credibility

Dev (2004) is a film about choices—choice between duty and morality; responsibility and obligation; friendship and conscience; and most importantly between right and wrong. It is a film that walks a very thin line—the line that demarcates commercial cinema and the so-called 'art' film, and the divider between jingoism and objective portrayal.

Joint Police Commissioner Dev Pratap Singh's (Amitabh Bachchan) character is an easy chair in a battlefield. He belongs to the old school of thought where duty comes first and the honor of the uniform is of the utmost priority. However, he comes at a crossroad in his life and career when he is wrongly suspected of harboring ill-feelings towards the 'minority' (read: Muslim) community.

Tejinder Khosla (Om Puri) is an old friend of Dev, and in more ways than one his mirror image. Over a bottle of malt whisky, he lambasts the ’outsiders’ using expletives, is quite vociferous in his notions, and goads his best friend of 30 years to subscribe to his communal hatred.

The third angle of this triangle is completed by Farhan Ali (Fardeen Khan), a student of law who witnesses his father (Pramod Moutho)—a peace-loving Muslim—being gunned down during a demonstration by a police contingent led by Dev Pratap Singh. Disturbed, distraught, and disillusioned, Farhan turns into a pawn in the hands of Latif (Ehsaan Khan)—a Muslim political leader—receiving training to eliminate his father's killer. But by a twisted turn of fate, he gets betrayed by his own lot and takes resort in the house of the very man he had sworn to kill.

Aaliya (Kareena Kapoor) plays Farhan's love interest. In a strikingly underplayed role, Kareena excels as the innocent victim of a political nexus run by Latif on one hand, and the CM (Amrish Puri) and his henchman Mangal Rao (Milind Gunaji) on the other.

It is interesting to watch Bachchan play a role that is so diametrically opposite to the ones that made him a living legend in the '70s and '80s. Audiences so used to seeing him take the law in his own hands in situations such as the ones that are portrayed in the film would be pleasantly surprised to see a man torn apart by his emotions and duty-bound attitude. True, he breaks his shackles; but then, too, he doesn't turn into a vigilante.

Overall, the film rests on the seasoned shoulders of Bachchan and Om Puri, but equal credit needs to be given to the writer Meenakshi Sharma. This is a writer's film. However, Govind Nihalani's direction fails to leave a mark. The weakest performance comes from Fardeen Khan. His role demanded emotions, expressions, and empathy. Unfortunately, the wooden-faced actor fails on all three counts.

Aadesh Shrivastava's music appears imposed at times; our fascination with a conclusive dénouement stretches the story towards the end. On the brighter side, the film does break free of certain clichés such as maligning entire communities or being reactionary in its treatment, a la Gadar (2001).

In conclusion, a much better outing for Govind Nihalani than his earlier Thakshak. Special gratitude is due to him for providing Bachchan a role that he can really sink his teeth into. Ironically, with a name like Dev, this is Bachchan's one of the most human characters, ever!

For Want of Objectivity, ‘The Kingdom’ Was Lost

When the tagline of a film reads 'An elite FBI team sent to find a killer in Saudi Arabia. Now they have become the target.', one knows before the movie begins that the screen will be laced with dollops of jingoism.

This statement, however, takes nothing away from films such as Gaghan’s Syriana, or Greengrass’ United 93. In fact, of late, at least some filmmakers belonging to mainstream Hollywood have tried to break the shackles, while attempting cinema with political undertones—Stephen Gaghan (mainstream Hollywood film: Abandon), for example, or Paul Greengrass (made The Bourne Ultimatum). To be very frank, I had not heard of either of these directors when I watched their ‘political’ films but was, on both occasions, pleasantly surprised. I did not have much clue about Peter Berg, either, director of The Kingdom. 

But from the opening credits themselves (although splendidly crafted with graphics reminiscent of the credits at the start of Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can), which is actually a short history of the land, beginning with the formation of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932, one understands that this is not going to be a film that does the balancing act. 

In fact, there is one particular sequence in the film involving an Attorney General and Special Agent Ronald Fleury (Jamie Foxx) where it is made amply clear that 'the situation' will be seen through the eyes of the FBI agents. Ironically, this holds true for the entire film.

For those of us who tuned in late, or were not paying much attention to the voice-over that accompanied the beginning credits, the opening sequence left no stone unturned to emphasize the film’s stance. We open inside a secure American compound inside Riyadh. Some are busy playing that iconic of all American sport, baseball, while some are having a barbecue. 

Almost as alien in nature as a vehicle carrying individuals dressed in police uniforms, who in a few moments will inexplicably open fire on the American families, a 'gaze' enters the screen. We find a Saudi father and his son, side by side on the balcony of a tall building. The son has binoculars on. When the individuals in the car start shooting, the boy naturally wants to see what all the firing is all about, but the man urges him to look at the park, instead. 

I was, for a moment, tempted to think that this is some Western point of view of how people in Middle East crave for the American 'way of living', when a blast occurred in the middle of the park—a blast brought about by a suicide bomber. The boy, and his father, of course, watched the entire place go up in smoke.

Now, we cut to an American school, a kindergarten one, where we come face to face with the protagonist, Ronald Fleury. We find Fleury is a father as well, and he is attending his son’s class who is showing a scrapbook full of photos of himself and his father to his classmates.

Subtlety, be damned!

If this acutely insensitive contrast wasn’t enough to drive home the point, Fleury starts relating to the class the 'happiest day' of his life—the day his son was born. The screenwriter, Matthew Michael Carnahan, it seems could not resist the temptation of drawing a simile between a not-so-smooth birth of Fleury’s son with the 'Let’s go in and take it out' attitude of the Special Agents of the FBI.

I balked.

There really is nothing much to the story. The attack on the American compound, followed by another blast, kills hundreds. The US State Department is not really keen on taking any action primarily because of concerns over ‘territorialism’. So, a group of four special agents—bomb expert Sykes (Chris Cooper), forensic expert Mayes (Jennifer Garner), and Leavitt (Jason Bateman), led by Fleury, coax their way into The Kingdom. It so happens that one of their own was killed in the second explosion. Hence, the mission was quite ‘personal’, for at least two of the team members.

Let me be very frank. I did not start watching the film expecting a Battle of Algiers. But I was appalled at the number of stereotypes that were hurled at the audience one after another. The sadistic colonel; the inept local police force, who needs an American to point out that witnesses need to be questioned; the initially reluctant, but ultimately helpful ally; individuals who literally stare agape at the efficiency of an American bomb expert, who knows exactly where to look; people whose aim mysteriously go haywire when shooting FBI Special Agents… the list goes on and on. Needless to say, the film itself becomes a typical ‘search for the killer’ flick.

SPOILER AHEAD

If there is one redeeming factor in the entire film, it is its last scene. Berg goes back to an earlier sequence wherein FBI has just learnt that one of their own had died. Fleury bends down and whispers something (inaudible to us) to Mayes. In the last scene of the film we find a small Arab girl, whose grandfather was the mastermind behind the attack on the Americans, tell us and her mother what the last words of her grandfather was. It seems Fleury and the old man spoke the same exact words: 'Don’t worry, we will kill them all.'

We get your point, Mr Berg.

But it’s too little, too late.

The Price of Fame

In a scene in Satyajit Ray’s Nayak (The Hero), the protagonist arrives at a pre-determined location, at his old friend’s request. When he reaches there, he sees that what his friend wants him to do is to be a part of a protest being held in front of a factory. The obviously uncomfortable, to the point of being embarrassed, protagonist backs out in his car, as he puts on his dark glasses, unable to meet the eye of his friend.

In the words of Fred Allen, 'A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become well-known, then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized.' The dark glasses appear on the faces of both the protagonists in Nayak and Halla Bol—not as a protection from being recognized, but as a means to hide their own conscience. 

And both films deal a lot about conscience.

While Ray’s class act dealt with a single individual leading a screen idol into a journey of self discovery while both are traveling in a first class compartment on board the Rajdhani Express; Rajkumar Santoshi’s film is more about the rise of the fallen.

It was an individual oblivious of the screen idol’s image and charisma that acted as a catalyst in Nayak; while it is being witness to a murder that makes Ashfaque, aka Sameer Khan (Ajay Devgan) question himself. But that’s more or less where the resemblances end.

Before the release of Halla Bol, there occurred a glut of films about films, each dealing with one aspect or another of the entire process of movie making. In Halla Bol, however, the focus is not so much on the process of film making, but the aftermath of joining and making it big in tinsel town—the loss of innocence, for example, made amply clear by the contrast between a despondent Sameer holding a 'Youth Icon' statuette and a jubilant Ashfaque when he is handed a small trophy by his mentor Sidhu (Pankaj Kapoor).

It is said 'The higher they rise, the harder they fall'. But that’s not the only reason that a film star is a perfect character for a film like Halla Bol. Film stars, while they have these legions of fans, are the ones who we all know as people who mouth words written by others, act out stuff directed by others—in other words, being a film star is the epitome of lack of individuality.

It is the crowd who makes a hero, carries him on their shoulders, taking him that much closer to the silver screen on which his movie is being projected. It is the same crowd that tears down the posters of heroes and burns effigies.

So, the ‘hero’ of the film is not really the screen idol, but the masses. Because they are the ones the film is directed at. Call it film activism, if you like. Nothing wrong in that. However, the film goes kinda haywire in its objective.

While Sameer’s rise to fame and simultaneous fall as an individual are depicted by him climbing a staircase; and his fall as a star and rise as a human being are similarly shown by him sitting at the bottom of that very stairwell, the same is reflected in the film, too.

When the film could have reached its zenith, it plummets to a nadir with stereotypical characterizations, trite dialogue and cliched sequences. It’s when Santoshi’s protagonist realizes the true meaning of a ‘hero’, which is off-screen, that he starts becoming a caricature of an on-screen hero.

There was not a single cringe-worthy sequence during Sameer’s rise as a filmstar. In fact, Santoshi has made a fair share of digs at how the cine stars literally sell themselves to sell commodities. But when it came to making his own protagonist rise above such pettiness, both the director and the character fail abysmally. It is during the onset of his self-awareness that Sameer walks the walk and talks the talk of so many so-called ‘heroes’ of the silver screen.

And that is precisely why Halla Bol looks and sounds as fake as the claims by the filmi superstars when they endorse hair oils.

Oh, and one more thing, Mr Santoshi. The fourth ‘P’ after ‘Power, Public, and Paisa’ could easily have been ‘Price’ – the price of fame, that is. Did it really have to be what it turned out to be?

A Vanishing Act

One fine day I noticed that I have around 20-odd films lying with me that I haven't yet watched. So, I rummaged through them and randomly started selecting. Hence, over the past three days, I have watched Turistas (USA), followed by Wolf Creek (Australia), and Spoorloos (Netherlands/France).

Films watched in such a random order almost always entails serendipity. For example, I remember watching Vertigo and Basic Instinct back to back, and I can vouch for it that the change of color of dresses worn by Kim Novak’s character in the former has an eerie similarity to that of Sharon Stone’s character in the latter! Now, can that be true?

This time, the common thread between the aforementioned films was ‘disappearance’. While Turistas deals with disappearance of tourists in Brazil; Wolf Creek is concerned with the same in the Australian outback. As I was watching those two, I was thinking how the depiction of the boogeyman has changed over the years in cinema. We have had the Graf Orloks, Wolfman, Dracula, Frankenstein, Mr Hyde...who were resurrected in the succeeding decades as Freddy Kreuger, Jason Voorhes, Leatherface, and Michael Myers, to name just a few.

With the new millennium, a variant has emerged, which in common parlance is known as ‘torture porn’, made famous by films such as Hostel. While I was watching Turistas and Wolf Creek, I could not but wonder how we are no longer satisfied with the boogeyman being an ‘individual’. It is now an entire nation—sometimes Brazil, sometimes Bratislava, sometimes Australia…Talk about art imitating life!

Anyway, I went a little off-track there. I started writing about this Dutch/French collaboration called Spoorloos (aka The Vanishing), so, let’s get back to it.

If you ask me to give a summary of the film, it really won’t read much—not enough to get you interested in what I consider one of the best mystery-thrillers ever made. Still, let me give it a try.

Rex Hofman and Saskia Wagter are a couple visiting France during the Tour De France. On their way, Saskia enters a store to get some Coke and beer. Then, she disappears into thin air. The most apt word here would be ‘Poof’. Notice how during an ingenious tête-à-tête between two characters, the word makes a magical appearance.

Don’t get me wrong, it is not a mystery, per se, because we, the audience, are already privy to the fact who the kidnapper is. He is a family man, with a wife and two daughters. His name is Raymond Lemorne, and he teaches Chemistry. He meets Saskia for the first time inside the store and kidnaps her.

There is no connection between Raymond and Rex, except their initials. And you will notice how this fact is played into the film. When we first meet Rex and Saskia, they are playing a word game—names of animals that begin with the same letter. It is also a keychain with the initial ‘R’ that draws Saskia to follow Raymond to his car and get abducted.

Three years pass by. Rex, however, does not give up the search and his dogged determination to get to the root of it all is what ultimately lures Raymond to come and meet Rex with an offer that the latter laps up—letting Rex know what happened to Saskia.

What elevates Spoorloos to the level of a classic is the fact that underneath the exterior of a mystery-thriller, it is actually a film about knowledge and how far an individual will go to ‘know’. It is, at the same time, about the power of knowledge and the futility of it. In a one-of-its-kind ending, Rex gets to know the fate that befell Saskia, but he is helpless to do anything with what he has learnt.

There is a preponderance of yellow in the first half of the film—Saskia’s top, a frisbee, on a watch, a canopy, mention of yellow shirts… and the list goes on. To me, yellow symbolizes the act of waiting and wait is what the three main characters do in this film: Saskia for Rex, in a brilliantly conceived sequence inside a tunnel (the darkness inside the tunnel being a harbinger of what is to come) when their car breaks down; Rex for Saskia, when she vanishes into thin air and then to learn the truth about her disappearance; and last, but not least, Raymond waits for three long years before allowing Rex to know about Saskia’s fate.

What makes this film chilling is the ‘everyday’ feel to it. Raymond is no knife-wielding whacko. His ‘everyman’ bit is emphasized by how he meshes into a crowd when he baits Rex to come and meet him at a wayside place. How obviously commonplace he is that even when he is seated two chairs away from the man on whose life he wreaked havoc with one single act, the man fails to notice him.

Add to this the fact that such disappearance is also something we keep on encountering in all those ‘Missing persons’ columns. It is this ‘it could happen to any body’ aspect, the utter lack of motive behind the crime, and the fact that Raymond looks like any other guy we meet on the streets that add to the chill factor. All of these are summarized in the very first shot of the film where you see a stick insect, which can so easily be mistaken for a twig; or the grasshopper in the last scene, which effortlessly blends into the greenery, unnoticed.

Spoorloos is based on a novel The Golden Egg by Tim Krabbé, which reminded me of that fable I had read as a child, about the man who got a goose which lay a golden egg and how, he, in a fit of greed killed the goose to get all the golden eggs at one go.

That man is Rex Hofman. His ignorance was bliss, and when knowledge dawned on him, it was too late.

Reincarnating Manmohan Desai!

There’s a particular shot in Om Shanti Om, where the director, on a film set, tells the producer that he has three cameras for the next shot—'Ek Satyajit Ray angle, ek Bimal Roy angle, aur ek Guru Dutt angle.' The producer coolly tells him to try out the Manmohan Desai angle because that’s the one that sells.

That sums up the entire film for me.

I have not seen Main Hoon Na, and to be very frank, Farah Khan, to me, has never come across as someone who can make serious cinema. And that’s exactly where I had gone wrong.

In the happiness of my pursuit of cinema, I had all but forsaken the pursuit of happiness that is watching films. I still remember one of the interviews of the late Manmohan Desai, where he had emphasized that there is already a lot of strife, pain, loss, sorrow, and grief in the world. When an individual enters the cinema theater anywhere in India, he wants to leave those behind at the entry gate. For three hours he wants to visit another world where 'Everything is fine in the end. If it is not fine, it is not the end.'

Whether the 1970s was the 'golden age' of Hindi cinema or not, why Manmohan Desai is not studied the way he should be, might or might not have been some of the questions the researcher and/or even the filmmaker had in mind while conceptualizing Om Shanti Om. But it is quite apparent that they have, indeed, expressed their love for that era and the man.

What has really impressed me about the film is the fact that it has the guts to laugh at itself. Being a film about the industry (in fact, considering there’s a literal roll-call of yesterday’s, today’s, and tomorrow’s film personalities in a much-talked-about song sequence—I refuse to use the term ‘star’, because it does not apply to at least 4–5 of them—it can, in fact, be called a film of the industry, for the industry, and by the industry), the little nudges in the ribs that it gives to itself are quite commendable. It has taken almost every stereotype that you can think of from the '70s (there are actual footages from '70s films with OSO's stars inserted in the frame, a la Forrest Gump) and thrown them back at us. In fact, it has delved on certain aspects that I have always wanted to ask while gorging on those stupendously entertaining films by the Desais, Mehras, et al. For example, how does a mole on the cheek so drastically alter one’s appearance?

There are many such references, whether a nod to actual incidents that occurred during shooting (watch out for a take on Mother India with Deepika Padukone doing a Nargis and Shahrukh Khan doing a Sunil Dutt) or characters that were obligatory in those blockbusters—the suffering mother, the selfless friend, and the scheming villain. In fact, it mixes today with yesterday seamlessly and am not talking about the 30 year time-frame that the film covers. 

For example, I know for a fact that everyday thousands of youngsters still arrive in Bombay (I still prefer to call the city that, Mumbai just doesn’t have the correct twang to it) with one dream, like the one Shahrukh Khan’s character has in the film—to make it big: ‘a round bed, velvet slippers, silk coat, loads of servants and to top it all, a FilmFare award!’

The film is not an ode to the 1970s. In fact, it is not an ode to any era at all. It is a paean to the joy of both watching a film and making it. It unabashedly lauds those people who, when they enter the darkened theater, wants to be transported to a world where the hero can do no wrong, where the heroine is 'dreamy', and where the villain will get his due, even if he seeks refuge in Hollywood!

The spoilsports among us might point out the fact that not all oblique insinuations have been in good taste. Especially those who refused to be a part of the 'roll-call number' (for want of a better term) have had quite a few digs made at them, be it a photo on a driving license or anything but parental affinity to girls young enough to be daughters. But, these again, are minor issues as compared to how well the film has tackled the 1970s in the first half, in particular, and filmdom, in general.

Shahrukh, the self-proclaimed 'rockstar' possibly found an even bigger fan following after OSO, because this is the film where those gazillions who come to Bombay everyday will find themselves reflected in the superstar’s persona—at last in a character he plays on screen, they will find themselves. There are, I think only three films of Shahrukh that I like. But this is the film, which has made me realize why he is such a huge star on the film firmament. In between a Chak De, a Swades and a Kabhie Haan Kabhie Naa, this man has, as an actor, carried on the legacy of Manmohan Desai, the legacy of unadulterated entertainment. We all know by now who the real 'Mohabbat man' is, don’t we?

About three-quarters into the second half, many of us, especially the Bimal Roy fans, will know how the climax of the film will turn out. But that, to me, was not a deterrent. It is just Farah’s way of taking her hat off to one of the best films ever made on the same premise that her film is based on. It, to me, was not plagiarism, not even an 'inspiration', but just a film fan’s way of saluting a master and his masterpiece.

There’s one prop in the film that encapsulates the spirit of Om Shanti Om. Shreyas Talpade handing Deepika Padukone a wine glass filled with tea. Yes, Hindi cinema has traveled, the form has changed, but the essence of going to a film is still the same old entertainment, like the staple morning cup of tea.

And to those of us who smirked at the issue of reincarnation (in fact a character in the film also asks the same question. It really is amazing how most characters in the film ask questions that we audiences have had in mind) in a film releasing in 2007: you just mistook the '70s to be dead, it is still with us, in ‘spirit’; we simply didn’t recognize it till now.

MKD would have said 'Om Shanti Om—I likes lot!' 

‘This is who I am. This is what I do!’

There’s a certain euphoria involved when one, as a viewer, realizes that one of our childhood heroes has actually brought back a character one eulogized as a kid, and has made a film for all those fans out there.

That’s precisely what Rambo (2008) is all about—a film for the fans of a character that has crossed that threshold and entered the realm of an icon.

Like many others, I also can’t believe that it has been over 20 years since the bow-wielding, machine-gun toting, bandanna wearing Rambo made his last appearance. Yes, it made me feel old, because I still remember watching Rambo III on a VHS. I also remember watching First Blood Part II in a small movie theater in Calcutta, called Elite. Don’t know if the hall is still there, considering the plethora of multiplexes mushrooming in the city I was born and brought up in.

I actually watched the Rambo films in reverse chronology. In a sense, it acted as a boon—the manner in which I watched the then-trilogy, that is.

While we are at the subject of fans and Stallone, I might just touch on the other character that he has immortalized—Rocky Balboa—another alter-ego that Stallone himself brought back the year before Rambo. Well, boxing, as a sport, has never caught my fancy, and the only Rocky film that I have ever watched is the immensely forgettable Rocky IV. So, Rocky has never really been entrenched in my mind as deeply as Rambo.

However, of the little bit that I know of Rocky, I find there is a common thread between him and Rambo. One fights inside the ring of a sport, the other within the ring of life. While Rocky salvages victory amidst apparent defeat; Rambo, on the other hand finds defeat amidst apparent victory.

Created by David Morrell, the character of Rambo, to me, is nothing but a depiction of how every individual, irrespective of caste, creed and faith, will ‘kill when pushed’. Violence, as a trait, is inherent in all of us. And the word ‘Rambo’, quite aptly, (thanks to someone, who knows Japanese), supposedly means ‘violent’ (ranbu) in Japanese.

There are two shots in the film where John is seen trying to forge a piece of scrap metal in fire. That, somehow, to me, stands for the character of Rambo. In every film of this quadrilogy, I find how he is trying to salvage what little bit is left of his life. Irrespective of how much this Green Beret tries to stay away from violence, violence has a habit of finding him—violence and danger, as depicted by those cobras we see him catching in the very first sequence of the film.

'War is in your blood', that’s a part of the monologue that goes on in his mind. And Rambo is, nothing short of a killing machine. In a poignant scene towards the end of the film, John sees Sarah (Julie Benz), one of the Christian missionaries he had undertaken his current ‘mission’ to rescue, running towards one of her compatriots, while Rambo stands far away watching her, clutching his wounded shoulder. Caught in someone else’s war, he is, yet again, while his continuing battle with his own self shows no sign of abating.

It might sound a bit far-fetched, but as John and his band of mercenaries undertook a river ride along the Salween river to a Burmese village wherein a group of Christian missionaries, armed with only food and Bibles had been dropped by Rambo himself around 10 days ago have now been taken hostage, I inadvertently started thinking about Captain Benjamin L Willard’s journey to find Colonel Walter E Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. In both cases, where the journey ended, purgatory began.

And Stallone does not pull any punches (pun intended) when it comes to depicting hell. And hell is what this ‘war zone’ named Burma is. The film is gory, bloody, and uber-violent. Then again, every war is. The second half of the film has possibly a higher body count than any mainstream action film I have seen in a long, long time.

But that’s what Rambo is all about. It’s about how even the most faithful of Christians beats an individual to death when faced with the prospect of his own life being snuffed out. And that, possibly, is the reason as a character Rambo will always be iconic.

While First Blood began with this soldier from Special Forces arriving at the interestingly named town of Hope in Washington; Rambo ends with a long shot of him arriving at his hometown of Bowie, Arizona, to his father’s ranch. The similarity in the shots, one thinks, cannot be coincidental. The recluse, reluctant Rambo has at last returned to his hometown, maybe to see if something has, indeed, changed.

And, if it hasn’t…he can always ‘reload’! 

Shun this Tashan

Being an Aquarian, I am guilty of a bad road sense. I don’t know the Sun-sign (or should I say, Tashan-sign?) of debutant director Vijay Krishna Acharya, but let me tell you, this guy gave me a huge ego boost. Think about this—you go from Mumbai to Haridwar, via Ladakh and if that is not enough, you travel from Haridwar to Rajastan via Ladakh again!


I am not quite sure what the word ‘tashan’ actually stands for. Some say, it means ‘style’; according to others, it means ‘attitude’. However, the most apt description was found in the film itself, mouthed by Ibrahim, the real life son of Saif Ali Khan: ‘Bull shit, with a cherry on top’.

So, what is the cherry, one might ask. It is a red convertible, which changes during a seesaw ride that ultimately lands itself into deep water. No, nothing Bond-ish happens. It is just that the number plate of the convertible gets converted from 'UG...' to 'MH...' somewhere midway!


In my opinion, the car, in many ways, stands for the film itself. The driver, Bachchan Pandey (Akshay Kumar) and the passenger Jeetender ‘Jimmy Cliff’ Kumar Makhwana (Saif Ali Khan) play with the stereo system of the car in a manner befitting a couple struggling with the same remote while choosing between IPL and a K-serial The songs they are trying to reach a consensus between were AC/DC's 'Highway to Hell' and the title track from YRF's very own Kabhie Kabhie. Tashan, if the expressions of people coming out of the theater were of any indication, has definitely taken the highway to hell, while kabhie kabhie we can't help but think that the YRF banner came up with gems like Deewar (which we shall get to shortly), Kaala Patthar (also bastardized in the film, transliterally) and numerous other classics.


Just like the car, the film also nose dives into a pool of cold water! So, I firmly believe that the car is symbolic of the film itself!


Vijay Krishna Acharya made a name for himself while writing scripts for films like Dhoom and Dhoom 2. Now, some of us might vehemently refute the usage of the term 'script' in the context of the aforementioned two films. But what both of those lacked in the story department, they at least made up in 'looks'. Unfortunately, when it comes to Tashan, you just do not know where to look, because it lacked in both departments (unless you think 'This film looks like bull shit with a cherry on top'; then, it’s a different issue altogether!)

Now, a little bit about the ‘characters’ in the film. First up is Anil Kapoor who plays the spoken-English-challenged ‘Bhaiyyaji’. I once read somewhere that the English language has been raped so much that you can now drive a truck through its genitals. Here, we found the truck. Lampooning one of the sequences that is synonymous with the YRF banner—the temple scene towards the end of Deewar—Anil’s character mouths the 'Aaj khush toh bahot hoge tum' in such a language, that had that been in the actual Deewar, am sure the idol would have raised from his pedestal and did something quite unidol-like to him.


And for those who had no clue of what Bhaiyyaji was saying (I must admit, after 10-odd minutes, his pendulum act between broken Hindi and decimated English made me think of the swerving car again) there was this poster of Deewar just behind Bhaiyyaji. As Bhaiyyaji would have said 'Sub-tellity eej naat this philm’s fortress'!


Next up is Akshay Kumar—the current reigning superstar of Bollywood. I have caught only glimpses of his recent super hits. Hence, I thought this film will give me a much better idea about his popularity. So, when he enters, as Bachchan Pandey, about 40 minutes into the film, wearing a Ravana costume with all ten heads having his face, I understood.


This guy is the same Akshay Kumar, no matter which film you put him in. And he also has a nice way of acknowledging the audience’s love for him—for want of a better name, let us call it a 'crotch hitch'. Or maybe it has a crotch cultural symbolism as well, who knows!


Now, the hullabaloo about Saif and Kareena. Before that, a little bit about who they play in the film. Saif is a call center executive who would give you Sunny Deol’s number if you want to 'ukhaado' a hand pump from your locality. No, I stand corrected. He will only give it to you, if you are Pooja Singh, who is actually a secretary (with a secret) who works for Bhaiyyaji. The two, I mean Pooja and Jimmy, meet when the former comes to the latter asking if he is interested in giving private tuitions to the English enamored Bhaiyyaji. But...Bachchan is the one interested in 'privates'—another irony!


So, did we get a 'Rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain'? Nope, instead we got a lot of pain. As Bhaiyyaji kept on molesting the Queen’s language, Saif and Kareena decided to give him the slip and run away with his money. Actually, I stand corrected again. Kareena gave Saif the slip as well, and slipped into a two-piece. And there it was, on screen, the dance number that has made more headlines than Harbhajan slapping Sreesanth. However, it came and it went before we could say 'Hero aur zero'. Possibly because, when we are told ‘zero figure', we inadvertently think of ‘zero’ as well-rounded!


Then there is this subplot, involving Bachchan and his childhood sweetheart. At that time, Bachchan was someone who used to climb up poles and fix electricity lines. Curious, isn’t it? He fixed the lights and we got the jolts? If only he was equally generous towards the director and fixed his ‘dimaag ki batti’, as well. But then, I am digressing again. I think the red car got to me.

Now, for the Hollywood connection in the film. As has happened on numerous occasions, Hollywood comes to the rescue of Hindi cinema—but this time, in the form of two truckloads of singing, dancing, and gyrating extras for a Hollywood film, called ‘Bolly-widow’! So, our threesome don some wigs that will make their head disappear and look like they are ostriches when they dig a hole and jump in it head first (not a bad idea, actually) right in the middle of Rajastan. At the end of it all, the director of the Hollywood film profusely thanks Bachchan Pandey, believing he is this ‘huge star’ of Hindi films. As if the violation of Deewar wasn’t enough!


But that’s not where the Hollywood connection ends. I have been told a leading action coordinator was brought from Hollywood to choreograph the stunts. I won’t be surprised if he was handed films like Hukumat, Elaan-e-Jung, Mardon Waali Baat and the likes. Because that is precisely what the action sequences resembled. Remember those '80s and '90s films where the hero—a cross breed between Spiderman and Superman and equally adept at handling machine guns, pistols and, even lamp posts—single handedly annihilated an army in such a manner that he would have made Leonidas scratch his head in utter dismay and send a missive saying 'Forget 300. One will do. You are hired'? Now think Tashan. You get the idea.


While I was going through the ‘credits’, (Yep, people do get credited, no matter how the film is), I found one guest appearance had been left out, I don’t know why. It was a speed boat, which appears out of thin air while a ‘fight’ akin to what we often see in Parliament was going on.


On my way back home, I was trying to gauge what the film outline might have looked like. A gangster who wants to ravish English, a call center executive who is hired to teach him the nuances, a secretary that every ‘body’ dreams of, a recovery agent with a Tendulkar itch (ironically, Bachchan has the itch while Bhaiyyaji wields the bat in the film!)—it all must have sounded quite hunky dory on paper. But when it came to execution, after all those 'the' in the film (the opening credits say The Akshay Kumar, The Anil Kapoor…), the only 'the' you crave for throughout the 2 hr and 45 minutes is 'The End'.


In fact, to think of it, this film might have started a whole new movement, after Dadaism, called 'The-The-ism!'

The Burden of War

Bertolt Brecht had once said ‘War is like love, it always finds a way’. In Iranian director Bahman Ghobadi’s third full-length feature film Turtles can Fly (2004), on the eve of the American invasion of Iraq, war has quietly crept into the lives of each of the residents of a Kurdish refugee camp situated on the Iraqi-Turkish border.

The children in the camp are all orphans. They, along with others from nearby villages, spend their days clearing the local peoples’ land of mines. These ‘American’ mines are then sold to the arms dealers in the neighbouring town. For such perilous work, they are paid a few dinars on a daily basis. Some of them have already lost one or more limbs in the process, but that has not deterred them from raising their hands when the localites want more landmines disarmed and collected.

The elderly are hankering after news of the war. They carry cross-like antennae on their world-weary shoulders only to find that there is no picture reception on their TV sets. Moreover, there is censorship—certain channels are ‘prohibited’; thankfully, not news channels.

And this is exactly where Satellite (Soran Ebrahim)—a 13–14-year-old boy comes in. As his nickname suggests, Satellite is adept at installing dish antennae. He also speaks broken English. For these two qualities he is hero-worshipped by a horde of children, especially Shirkooh; can get away with ordering others around, primarily Pashow; and is called to translate the English news in the presence of the governor of the village. A resourceful teenager, satellite knows which shopkeeper to approach to exchange radios (‘Radios are of no value anymore’) for a satellite dish. On behalf of his people, he even negotiates the price of mines. Satellite encourages others to pick up a few words of English, and eagerly awaits the arrival of the US troops.

One day, Satellite meets a girl named Agrin (Avaz Latif), who approaches him for a length of rope to prevent the blind toddler Riga she carries on her shoulder from wandering away. Enamoured by Agrin, Satellite learns from Pashow that Agrin has a brother, Hengov, who lost both his arms in a landmine explosion, but since then seems to have developed the power to see the future. In a manner similar to any other teenager, Satellite pursues Agrin, volunteering to carry pails of water for her; offering to dive into a pond to catch red fishes for her; and tries to impress her with his bicycle, which he proudly proclaims the villagers use to carry their brides. However, Agrin does not reciprocate, while Hengov is ostensibly hostile to Satellite.

Agrin, just like the other kids in the camp, has grown up way too fast. She has the responsibility of taking care of a blind tiny tot and a physically disabled elder brother. She pleads with Hengov to leave Riga behind and cross the border, but Hengov refuses. Agrin is visibly apathetical towards Riga, who she considers to be a constant reminder of a truly painful memory.

The scythe of war ripping innocence apart has been visited often in other films—from the gut-wrenching and gritty Come and See (1985) that dealt with Byelorussia during World War II, to the emotion-soaked Grave of the Fireflies (1988) that depicted life in WWII Japan through the eyes of a brother and a little sister, to name just two. However, unlike those two films, in Turtles can Fly, war merely serves as the backdrop. Like an ominous shadow it looms large, and makes its presence felt via proxy. A kid playing with a gas mask, an open-air market from where children buy rifles and bullets, expended artillery shell casings stacked like drain pipes—no wonder in such a scenario, kids dream like adults. Some of them, like Shirkooh, want to earn more money; while others like Agrin, simply aspire to crossing the border.

In Ghobadi’s own words: ‘The slow-moving turtle is like the Kurds: With all of our problems, we have managed to move forward, and we always end up upright.’ But for me, the turtles were the children of the refugee camp. Each one of them carries a burden on his/her shoulders—be it the life-long scar of having lost a limb or two, having to harbour a secret deep within the recesses of the heart or at a more apparent level—Agrin, with little Riga hanging from her back.  

The characters in Turtles can Fly lay a lot of emphasis on ‘seeing’—the elderly want to watch the news; Hengov is clairvoyant; in one scene Shirkooh tells Satellite that he had seen a nightmare; Agrin sees no future with Riga in tow; while Riga is blind. Ironically, it is Satellite, the one who used to help others ‘see’, who could not fathom how he would end up battered in body and soul once the Americans marched in.