Annabelle: Baby, Doll and the possession

In the milieu of The Conjuring, comes Annabelle. The film starts with the same opening scene from The Conjuring, in which two young women and a young man in 1968 are telling paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren about their experience with a doll they believe to be haunted, known as Annabelle. From there, it goes back in time one year to tell the tale of how the doll came to be imbued with the demonic force that resides within it.

John (Ward Horton) and Mia (Annabelle Wallis) are expecting their first child, as they’re attending Sunday services at their local church. They’re with their neighbours, Pete (and Sharon Higgins. The Higgins have an adult daughter (named Annabelle), who’s been missing for a while, and has probably joined a hippie or occult cult. Later that evening, as everyone is asleep, Mia hears a scream come from her neighbours home, and asks John to investigate. It turns out that the Higgins’ daughter has come home, with another cult member, a man. After murdering Annabelle’s parents, the two go over to kill Mia, John and their unborn child. Mia gets stabbed, while John manages to fend off her attackers, until the police arrive, shooting Annabelle’s partner. Meanwhile she slits her own throat in another room. But as he is dying, Annabelle holds Mia’s brand new doll in her arms and her blood trickles on to the doll’s face.

Wide angles and slow tracking, often ending at a semi-close or close shot of the possessed doll, which does nothing at that point, result in several moments of suspense coupled with predictability, and resultant disappointment. For the rest, an eerie foreboding is well-maintained. Cuts to deafening sounds create the de rigueur jolts that are staple diet to this genre. Competent performances, albeit in weak story situations, give the film some see-worthiness. The second half slips from its groove and the end disappoints. Obviously, the writer and director have taken huge liberties with the true story, but not many of them are screen-worthy.

It must be an incredible co-incidence that Annabelle also happens to be the name of the actress who plays the lead role. Annabelle Wallis (Mia Form) is a British actress who has worked in both film and television. Wallis’ previous film credits include W.E. and X Men: First Class. Her persona is refreshing without being stunning, which goes well with the role.

Ward Horton, who plays her husband, was seen in The Wolf of Wall Street. He is smooth and handles the crisis scenes with some dignity. Alfre Woodard (Evelyn, who has undergone an experience not too far removed from what Mia is expecting) is an Oscar nominated actress (Cross Creek). Also seen and much appreciated in Twelve Years a Slave, she seems lost here. Unable to decide whether the role is sympathetic or suspense driven, she gropes along.

Director John R. Leonetti has enjoyed a long collaboration with producer James Wan, which began when he served as Wan’s cinematographer on the horror film Dead Silence (2007). This was followed by Death Sentence, a revenge drama starring Kevin Bacon.  He also served as cinematographer on Wan’s hits Insidious, and Insidious: Chapter 2, as well as The Conjuring. Leonetti earlier directed Mortal Kombat: Annihilation and The Butterfly Effect 2. He recently told an American publication, "I am open to (paranormal activity), yes. I had my own personal experience once, way back in high school. I was raised Catholic, but I am not religious anymore, but I will say that 'The Exorcist' really affected me and then one little personal experience that I had definitely opened the door. I was in a motel where nobody was supposed to be upstairs, and there were people upstairs, on the ceiling -- like in our movie -- and scratching the door in the middle of the night, so that was kind of creepy," Leonetti revealed. Annabelle is moderately creepy, with no major high points to keep you on the edge of your seat.

James Wan (producer) directed the 2013 The Conjuring, also taken from the case files of Ed and Lorraine Warren. This time around, he leaves the job to his cinematographer. One wonders whether that was a good decision. Gary Dauberman (screenwriter) earlier wrote Swamp Devil. This one is conversation heavy, which is not bad if you want to explain ‘strange goings on’, but not if it is in a film that appears to have intended to give you a tough time suppressing shrieks. It’s alright taking liberties with factual stories, but not all of them are pulled off successfully. James Kniest (cinematographer) makes his motion picture debut with Annabelle. His camera is fluid. If anything, with a cinematographer also at the megaphone, it appears the duo got a little indulgent.

Tom Elkins (editor/The Haunt) directed and edited The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia, and served as editor on The Haunting in Connecticut. All that would have stood him in good stead had he succeeded in triggering more than stock reactions among viewers. A few cuts do have an impact, though. It is true that cinematography, sound effects and editing are the ghosts…oops…souls of horror films. To that extent, we have passable fare here. But without the real soul, the screenplay and direction, they do not add up to much.

Do you remember a film called Rosemary’s Baby, starring MIA Farrow?

Rating: **

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paFgQNPGlsg

Back-story

There is a back-story to Annabelle, who is actually locked up in the Warren Occult Museum in Connecticut, founded by Ed and Lorraine Warren in 1952. Annabelle is visited only by a priest, who blesses her twice a month. In the 1970s, a mother bought the doll at a second-hand store and gave it to her daughter, Donna. Donna and her room-mate, Angie, started noticing that Annabelle would move around the house and move on her own when no one was home. After inviting a medium to their apartment, Donna and Angie learned that the apartment was built on a field where a young girl named Annabelle was killed. The medium said the ghost of the girl was attached to the doll, and that it was harmless. That last bit was not true. Donna and Angie began to find little pieces of paper that read "Help me" throughout the apartment. Then, Donna's boy-friend was mysteriously attacked by an unknown force when he entered the room where the doll was kept. Donna contacted a priest, who connected her with a paranormal investigator and demonologist, Ed, and his wife Lorraine Warren, a psychic medium. After coming in contact with the doll, they determined it was not a ghost but a demon manipulating the doll, who wanted to ultimately possess Donna. After the terrifying incidents, they shifted the doll to the Warrens' home. While at the Warrens, Annabelle would continue to move around, and even levitate. There wasn't an exorcism, but Annabelle now remains locked in a case at the Warren Occult Museum.

Left Behind

A reboot of Left Behind: The Movie, Left Behind is an apocalyptic film, based on the New York Times’ bestselling novel, that brings biblical prophecy to life in the present day world--and on board an aeroplane, during a transatlantic flight, piloted by the protagonist.

The biblical Rapture strikes the world. Millions of people disappear without a trace. All that remains are their clothes and belongings, terror and chaos spread around the world. The vanishings cause unmanned vehicles to crash and burn. Planes fall from the sky. Steele family is caught on the razor’s edge of that darkness. Ray Steele, the pilot, struggles to calm, and ultimately, to save the lives of the passengers that remain on his flight. Ray must guide the plane with the help of reporter, Cameron “Buck” Williams. On the ground, Ray’s daughter Chloe struggles to find her young brother and mother, both of whom may have disappeared in the Biblical event.

Dr. Tim LaHaye is a noted author, minister, counsellor, and nationally recognised speaker on Bible prophecy. It was LaHaye's idea to fictionalise an account of the Rapture and the Tribulation. "Sitting on airplanes and watching the pilots," he told People magazine, "I'd think to myself, 'What if the Rapture occurred on an airplane?'" LaHaye looked for a co-writer for several years and was then introduced to Jerry B. Jenkins through their mutual agent. Jerry B. Jenkins, former vice president for publishing at Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, is the author of more than 175 books, including the Left Behind series. Jenkins assisted Dr. Billy Graham with his autobiography, Just as I Am, also a New York Times best-seller. Jerry spent thirteen months working with Dr. Graham, which he considers the privilege of a lifetime. He owns Jenkins Entertainment, a film-making company in Los Angeles, which produced the critically acclaimed movie Midnight Clear, based on his book of the same name. Jerry B. Jenkins wrote the book, with and from an idea by Tim LaHaye. Paul Lalonde and John Patus, who worked on the World at War (2005) together, have written the screenplay for the reboot.

Great credentials, but less than mediocre movie. Why? Faith and fiction are strange bedfellows. It needed great talent to bring this story to the screen and pull it off convincingly. That has not happened. If the Bible is to remain the pivot, you need a special audience. If the film is made to entertain, many vital things have been left behind. The film does a good job establishing the characters in the first one-third of screen time. But once the Rapture begins, it is crash after crash, fall after fall, narrow miss after narrow miss, disappearance after disappearance, wandering after wandering, befuddled main actors after befuddled main actors.

Director-editor Victor Monroe Armstrong, 68, is a BAFTA winning British film director, stunt co-ordinator, second unit director, and stunt double, the world's most prolific, according to the Guinness Book of Records. The 6-foot Armstrong doubled for 6'1" Harrison Ford in the first three Indiana Jones films. The stunt where he jumps from a horse onto a German tank in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was voted one of the Top Ten film stunts of all time by a panel of experts and Sky Movies. On a private photograph taken on the film set, Ford wrote to Armstrong, "If you learn to talk I'm in deep trouble!" Armstrong's first film as a director was the 1993 action film Joshua Tree/Army of One, starring Dolph Lundgren and George Segal. In Left Behind, the crashes and disappearances, seen in isolation, are slickly done. Where he falters is in putting it all together. At the heart of Left Behind is a deeply emotional story about a man, his religious wife, his girl-friend, his daughter and his son. There are moments when this track holds your attention, but the mayhem submerges the sentiments.

A bad piece of casting is Nicolas Cage as Rayford Steele. What has happened to him? Let us remember that it was Cage’s portrayal of a tormented Vietnam vet in Birdy that first established him as a serious actor. Birdy won the jury prize at Cannes. Cage then received a Golden Globe nomination as Best Actor for his role as Cher’s lover in Moonstruck. Wild at Heart won the Palme d’Or at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival. Cage did some inconsequential action films in the last decade or so, and one would have thought that this fine actor with a highly emotive, soft face would have learnt that a plethora of screen explosions calamities and mean characters are not his milieu. In Left Behind, he often resorts to amateurish hamming that can only be attributed to a newcomer. Armstrong must take equal blame for not getting the actor’s nuances and the reactions right.

Lea Thompson, who plays Irene Steele, is perhaps best known for her role as the various incarnations of Lorraine McFly in Back to the Future I, II, and III. She has a brief role here, and acts passably. Chad Murray (Fruitvale Station, The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia, Cavemen, A Madea Christmas) is cast as Buck Williams. He shows some enthusiasm. Cassi Thomson does a good job as Chloe Steele. Nicky Whelan as the object of Ray’s illicit desires fills the bill.

Rating: *1/2

Trailer: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/08/06/new-left-behind-trailer-reveals-total-and-utter-apocalyptic-chaos-that-unfolds-in-rapture-themed-thriller/

What If

What If (alternate title The F Word) is the story of medical school dropout Wallace, who's been repeatedly scarred by bad relationships. So, while everyone around him, including his room-mate Allan seems to be finding the perfect partner, Wallace decides to put his love life on hold. It is then that he meets Chantry, a flirty animator who lives with her long-time boy-friend, Ben. Wallace and Chantry form an instant connection, striking up a close friendship, that includes bonding over their shared love of the film The Princess Bride (1987). Their friendship soon deepens, leading the pair to wonder, 'what if the love of your life is actually your best friend?' How long can they postpone the inevitable?

The F Word is actually the brainchild of a pair of Phoenix Theatre alumni—solo performance guru TJ Dawe and actor Michael Rinaldi. It is based on the 2003 play Toothpaste and Cigars, co-written by the pair. Toothpaste and Cigars was first produced as a 15-minute play-let, and was later expanded into a full-length play that toured across Canada. “I thought they were really true to the spirit of the original,” Dawe told Michael Reid of the local Times Colonist newspaper. “For it to be made at all, and as a Canadian film, is a miracle. I thought they were really true to the spirit of the original. I loved the movie,” said Dawe.

For his part, Rinaldi described Radcliffe as “funny and humble,” saying he’s “perfect” for the role of Wallace—which was originally the part Rinaldi played in Toothpaste and Cigars. Dawe & Rinaldi were approached with a development deal for their script in 2007. In 2008, the script started generating Hollywood buzz and, in 2010, actor Casey Affleck was assigned the lead role. But then it became a Canadian-Irish project, with Dowse as director and Daniel Radcliffe onboard. Beyond their initial work expanding the world of the play with screen-writer Elan Mastai, Rinaldi and Dawes had little creative input on the film project.

Mastai penned the screenplays for the horror movie, Alone in the Dark, and the Samuel L. Jackson thriller, The Samaritan. He has said about What If, “Everyone is an expert in romantic comedy from their own lives. Most of us are never going to be a hardened beat cop who is tracking a serial killer. Most of us are never going to be stalked like prey by an unstoppable supernatural force, but we’ve all fallen in love. We’ve all flirted. We’ve all had heartbreak. We’ve all had misconnections. We’ve all had the stuff romantic comedies are about, every single one of us.”

What If is directed by Calgary-raised director Michael Dowse, whose credits include the rock & roll ‘mockumentary’ FUBAR and hilarious DJ lifestyle spoof, It’s All Gone Pete Tong. Jumping genres with élan, Dowse is in good touch here, except for an attempt at adding a teenage feel to the proceedings by bringing in an animated fairy time and again, as the manifestation of Chantry’s psyche. What If is a twenties’ tale, not a teenage crush. From some great casting to comedy timing, this Kafka and Bukowski fan keeps the interest going, till the inevitable and predictable (what else?) end. Equal credit, if not more, must go to Dawe and Rinaldi for fusing the styles of Neil Simon and When Harry Met Sally seamlessly. There is a hell of a lot of sex talk, but it always stops short of getting vulgar or obscene, thanks to the rendition, which is either deadpan or hilarious. The outdoors angle is obviously the work of Elan Mastai, and to his credit, it does not detract from the stage setting of the play. In fact, one of the most important scenes of the story takes place on a beach. Though the film is a Canadian-Irish production, one-liners and repartee are an integral part of the plot. Thankfully, most of them do not peter down to American clichés. The humour is palpable, even original.

Daniel Radcliffe does not have to be tall to turn in a convincing performance as Wallace. Clarity of diction supersedes his accent, which, in any case, is justified for his character. Zoe Kazan as Chantry is a confused (admittedly), sensual young career-woman whose disarming spontaneity might remind you of Barbra Streisand. Some critics found her unimpressive in Ruby Sparks (2012), which she scripted and starred in. They might revise their opinions after this outing. Strong support comes from Megan Park, Adam Driver, Oona Chaplin (Charlie’s grand-daughter, who is part Cuban) and Mackenzie Davis. Adam has highly unconventional looks and carries a joke with flat flourish. His diction is a bit hard on the ears, though. Speculation is rife about what character is he playing in Star Wars 7.

‘All is fair in love and war’ could have been another title for this ‘love-sex’ ‘boy-meets-girl’ ‘committed-reconsidering’ ‘yes-no-maybe’ tale that is fresh and bubbly, in spite of the age old premise and several takes on it on the stage/silver screen too.

Rating: ***

Trailer: http://deadline.com/2014/05/hot-trailer-daniel-radcliffe-in-what-if-738024/

Stratos: Can a film about a contract killer with a dozen killings be slow and dragging? It is Greek and called Stratos, it can be; amazing faces and impeccable casting, lead character hardly speaks, others repeat every line four times, organic unity in the end. Rating: **1/2

Snow: Cannot but be inspired by American plays of the early to mid 20th century, and must be based on a stage play in any case; stark, slice of life, Iranian in many ways but with a clear linear narrative, the second lead look like Indian actress Sonam Kapoor. Rating:***

What's the Time in Your World?: A tragic love-story that reminds you of Japanese film Time Within Memory, which was adapted in parts by Indian director Gulzar in two of his films; past and present co-exist, but is there any future for the lost Iranian generation? Ode to small town life and case against migration. Rating: ***1/2  

Boyhood: Laudable for its path-breaking concept, smoothly executed, great performances by seniors, spontaneously though monotonously done by the growing children, conversation heavy, shows many shades of life in Texas during 2001-13. Rating: ***

Chimbare: Disturbingly realistic take on human organ trade in Europe, all actors are in good touch, lead actress occasionally goes over the top, but in the context, it is acceptable; end is too gory and too dark, though realistic--reminding you that a film can only highlight, not stop, such beastly crimes. Rating:***

Fever: Complex, pretentious, ambiguous, has a few moments of interest, tons of conversation and debate, apparently the subject is 'crime, mass crimes, motives and following orders'; as the film meanders along, you keep hoping for some moorings and anchorings, hopelessly. Rating: *1/2

Elephant Song: Strangely, the opening and closing of this film are weak but the the entire span in between is super-charged, from the commendable adaptation of a stage-play to the performances of almost all its characters, photography and editing; part Sleuth part Zoo Story, if that is possible, set in an mental asylum. Rating: ***1/2

Back in the mid 90s, a group of Mumbai-based film-enthusiasts felt that it was time the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) stopped alternating every year between New Delhi and other metro cities like Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Thiruvananthapuram and Mumbai, and settled down in Mumbai for good. Some of the strong factors in favour were:

1. Mumbai is the birth place of Indian cinema and the film capital of India, although films are made aplenty in other cities as well.

2. Mumbai makes Hindi films, which are almost pan -national in reach, and also have an overseas market.

3. Offices of bodies like the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC), the Children’s Film Society of India (CFSI), the Films Division (FD), integral to the organising of such festivals are located here. The ‘stars’ also live here.

4. Other such bodies, like the Films and Television Institute of India and the National Film Archive of India (NFAI) are located in Pune, less than 200 km from Mumbai.

5. It has probably the best air and sea port facilities in the country, facilitating travel and cargo.

6. It also has probably the best communication, telecommunication and courier infrastructure.  

7. The city is well-connected through an extensive road and rail network, both inter-city and intra-city.

8. State-of-the art film-related technical facilities and cinemas are located here.

9. A large number of Hotels operate here and wider varieties of food are easily available.

10. It has already hosted several international film festivals and currently holds the Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF) of documentary, short and animation films biennially.

Arguments against any move to make Mumbai the permanent venue were:

1.      The very idea of a travelling festival was to expose different cities to international cinema, and this purpose would be defeated.

2.      Mumbai already had access to a lot of international cinema.

3.      Traffic and parking is a major problem here.

4.      There are no major multiplexes.

5.      Property is prohibitively expensive and it would cost a fortune to build a permanent facility here.

6.      Hindi cinema is not necessarily representative of Indian cinema, which makes films in many languages.

I too participated in such discussions, and proposed a solution to problems 3, 4 and 5--Build a complex in the suburbs of Mumbai, 30-50 kms from the city centre, which would include office of the Directorate of Film Festivals (DFF), cinema halls, storage facilities for film, hotels, technical support and parking lots, among other vital spaces.

Prominent film-personalities like Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Basu Bhattacharya (my neighbour and well-wisher), Shyam Benegal, Amol Palekar, Shabana Azmi, Ramesh Sippy, Gulzar, Manmohan Shetty (producer, lab-owner), Amit Khanna, Kiran Shantaram (studio and cinema owner), Sudhir Nandgaonkar (film society veteran), Supran Sen (Secretary General, Film Federation of India-FFI) held meetings. I am not aware of whether they followed-up the matter with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) which hosts IFFI, and the response, if any, they got from MIB. But they decided to form a as a not for profit trust called Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI), and decided to hold an annual Mumbai Film Festival, starting 1997.

MAMI Board of Trustees clarified in their Mission Statement, "We feel it is the need of the hour to disseminate and inculcate good cinema among Indian audiences. The only way to achieve this is to celebrate cinema by hosting an international film festival in Mumbai (birth place of Indian Cinema), India's film and entertainment capital. Mumbai Academy of Moving Image is committed to start Mumbai's first independent international film festival organised by practicing film makers."  

And so, it began. November 1997 saw the holding of the first, modest, International Film Festival of Mumbai (IFFM), as it was then called. It had a budget of about Rs. 70 lakh (7 mn) of which Rs. 10 lakh came from the Maharashtra state government (Mumbai is the capital of Maharashtra), 200 delegates attended and 65films from 23 countries were shown. Sadly for me, I could not attend. I was away in Singapore at that time, having relocated to the city-state in March 1996, to set-up the India-centric service of the satellite sports channel, ESPN. My first MFF was to happen years later. But once I returned to India, I made it a must attend annual event.

Prominent film journalist and critic Anupama Chopra wrote a highly encouraging piece in India Today, welcoming the festival. That was on 24 November 1997. Little did MAMI, and Anupama herself, know, that 17 years later, Ms. Chopra would be among a die-hard few that would rescue the festival from imminent extinction. MFF 2014, the 16th edition, would not been held, but for the generous support of scores of stars, production houses and funds, both Indian and foreign.

MAMI’s MFF Diary, Part II: 7th IFFM, Jan. 6-13, 2005, Mumbai, India

IFFM was into its 7th year when I returned from Singapore for good, and made got the first opportunity to attend the festival. Covering it for the academic publication, Kinema, I wrote:

MAMI, the acronym for the body that organises the International Film Festival of Mumbai (IFFM), stands for Mumbai Academy of Moving Image. That’s a curiously old-fashioned name for a body that was set up only about eight years ago. Run by film-makers and technicians, as against the central government funded and organised International Film Festival of India (IFFI), IFFM had its seventh staging last January 6-13 in Mumbai.  

IFFM had some good films, a centrally located venue and the ever-enthusiastic captive film-buff audience of India’s film capital. It also had some glitches, little glamour, and very few foreign delegates. Lack of funds is the bane of every festival, and IFFM has always felt the pinch. Money comes from some sponsors, a state (local) government grant, co-organisers in the shape of the central government’s National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) and the P. L. Deshpande Maharashtra Kala Academy (named after the great Marathi language theatre personality)-- but it is never enough. So, the trustees dispense with form and stick to the basics: Films. 

Two juries were in place, one to select the best picture from among the Indian entries and the other for the FIPRESCI award to best Asian film. In the Indian Competition section jury were Indian director Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Amable Tikoy Aguilez from the Philippines, Ms. Fernanda Silva from Portugal and Italy’s Ms. Etami Borjan. Constituting the FIPRESCI jury were Matthieu Darras (France), Ms. Safaa Haggag (Egypt) and local Premendra Mazumder. Around 125 films from 34 countries were screened, with Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Lebanon, Serbia-Montenegro and Colombia making their debut at the festival.

Australia’s Paul Cox, a frequent visitor to the country and an Indophile in the mould of Zanussi, came with his film Human Touch as the inaugural film. While the film had some deft touches, it was not Cox at his best. Shwaas (Breath) competed with14 other films in the Indian competition section. The lot included diverse efforts, ranging from the star-studded commercial war documentary on the recent India-Pakistan military stand-off at Kargil, Lakshya (Goal), to the ably executed AIDS tackling subject Phir Milenge. But the honours went to two debutant film-makers. Anup Kurien’s modern treatment of an idealistic-materialistic self-searching saga of unrequited love, Manasarovar, which missed out at IFFI two months earlier, bagged the Best Indian Picture award and Amu, Shonali Bose’s cry of anguish about the after-effects of riots that followed the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984 by her Sikh bodyguards, won the FIPRESCI Award for best Asian film. In what was seen as a rarity, the Indian competition jury also announced a special award for actor Atul Kulkarni, who starred in two enties, Manasarovar and Devrai. Interestingly, both Manasarovar and Amu were made in English!

Cineastes thronged screenings of the Film-maker in Focus, Peter Greenaway and the Karel Kachyna Tribute package. All eyes were on the much-awaited underworld docu-feature Black Friday, based on the book about the Bombay bomb blasts of 1993. It is a hard-hitting, albeit meandering, collage of the events that rocked Bombay and needs to be commended for daring to cast an actor in the role of India’s most feared underworld Don, Dawood Ibrahim, whose whereabouts are unknown and who is largely blamed for the riots. But the case is still under trial and the film’s subsequent commercial release was stayed by a court order. Likewise, Vinod Pande’s Sins, inspired by a newspaper report on the Catholic priest who turned into a lust-driven murderer, was sure to stir up a hornet’s nest. Sins was released in Mumbai in February, to a roar of protest by the Catholic community. The repulsive sex and killing scenes apart, Sins is a let-down by the maker’s own standards. Pande is known for handling adult themes in a mature manner. Here, he seems to have gone overboard.

Actor (and two-film director) Shammi Kapoor, popularly known as the ‘rebel star’ of the 60s, was honoured with a lifetime achievement award, actor Naseeruddin Shah was given the Significant Contribution to Cinema award, cameraman and FX wizard of yesteryear Babubhai Mistry got the Kodak award for Technical Excellence and singer Manna Dey was honoured for his contribution to Music in Films. Shammi is in his 70s, Dey in his 80s and Mistry must be pushing 90. Dey was not present, while Shammi looked hale and hearty after his serious illness of two years ago. The auditorium at the Ravindra Natya Mandir, the main venue, reverberated with thunderous applause when Mistry came up to collect his trophy, which came with Rs. 100,000 in cash.

Commencing on the 6th of January, IFFM ended on the 13th, with France’s Mon Idole, a take-off on TV’s reality shows, as the closing film. A few aficionados managed to do a double, i.e. attend both IFFI Goa and IFFM, since Goa is not too far from the city of Mumbai, both being on the west coast of India. For those who could not make it to Goa, MAMI’s IFFM was a good substitute. After all, it was conceived and created as a result of the moves to position the travelling IFFI at a permanent venue other than Mumbai.

Every alternate year, Mumbai also hosts MIFF, the Mumbai International Film Festival, which is not a mere rearrangement of the acronym, but the biennial documentary and short film festival organised by the Films Division of the Government of India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. That is due in February 2006, which, coupled with IFFM, ensures a veritable film-feast for residents of Mumbai early next year.

Awards

Indian Competition Section: 2 Awards

Best Film – Manasarovar (Anup Kurien, 2004)

Special Jury Prize – Atul Kulkarni, actor (Manasarovar, Devrai, both 2004)

FIPRESCI Award

Best Asian film – Amu (India, Shonali Bose, 2004)

Honeymoon, Review: Obsessed groom, possessed bride

Honeymoon is a horror film directed by Leigh Janiak, and her feature film directorial debut. It stars Rose Leslie and Harry Treadaway as a newly married couple whose honeymoon ends up being ruined by a series of strange events that prove fatal. Though less than 90 minutes long, it can be divided into two halves: First, it is the ambience and the relationship defined, and second—horror and the unknown at work.

Bea (Rose Leslie) and Paul (Harry Treadaway) are newly married and off to have a romantic honeymoon in a rustic cabin set in a secluded forest. During their stay there, they go to a small restaurant whose owner Will (Ben Huber) initially acts hostile, asking them to leave, but later calms down, realising he was Bea's childhood friend. The man's wife Annie (Hanna Brown) then comes in, acting weird, and saying they need to get away.

After that, everything goes normally until their wedded bliss is cut short when Bea goes missing. Paul finds her naked and disoriented in the woods with no evidence as to how or why she got there. He takes her back to the cabin, with her claiming she was sleep-walking due to the stress, and to make nothing of it. However, as time passes, Bea's behaviour becomes increasingly distant and strange. At first, Paul blames Bea's strange behaviour on some encounter with Will, the restaurant owner, but soon he realises there's more going on.

The horror angle comes in towards the end of the first half, and keeps progressively getting more and more grotesque and repulsive. But the main premise is not explained, and there’s no denouement. A cabin in the woods, dark exteriors, strange beams of light, sleep-walking, suggestions of alien or Satanic presence…are all stock material of the horror genre, but the writer-director must take a stand to put it all together. Is it about relationships falling apart? Is it about Satan possessing women? Is it about women getting even with their husbands for undefined excesses?

Rose Leslie (cast on the basis of her performance in Game of Thrones) is confident and stylish in the first half, biting her lower lip suggestively once too often. In the second half, she is unable to make sense of the goings on, as is the audience. Harry Treadaway makes a nice, young husband, who dotes over his wife. When confronted with her physical and mental metamorphoses, he should have had the common sense to escape, but the script compels him to stay and keep taking the murky goings on almost in his stride. It is an unnatural reaction, and he reacts half-heartedly by overdoing it. Ben Huber and Hanna Brown have small roles, with a tiny back-story.

Explaining the influences on her, co-writer/director Leigh Janiak says, “I thought about David Cronenberg and Alien a lot, as far as the effects go, specifically because I really wanted that tactile, gory feeling, and for them to feel really organic. Those were certainly influences, as far as the body horror goes. For the rest of the film, I thought a lot about Rosemary's Baby, inasmuch as you're so grounded with Rosemary, and her paranoia and doubt, during that entire movie. Also Michael Haneke's Amour (really?)—I looked a lot at that film. It informed how I spoke to Rose and Harry about the decay of their relationship, and not knowing what to do when this person you love starts to become someone else.”

Janiak had seen Monsters and Tiny Furniture shortly before she and Graziadei began working on this script. She is quite effective in the little touches that dot the scenes leading up to the crises. Come the second half, she has some serious problems marrying the beginning of a couple’s new life, with the devilish conspiracy to punish obsessive husbands for no fault of theirs.

One thing is sure: Honeymoon is no Alien. And certainly no Amour.

Rating: **

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L33gTyP5AIk

Ouija, Review: Oui et Ja? More like Non and Nein

It’s a Hasbro game. Hasbro is an American company that began as Hassenfeld Brothers. It makes toys and owns franchises like G.I. Joe, Transformers, Mr. Potato Head, Scrabble and Monopoly. Ouija, pronounced Wee-ja, was patented as a spirit board or talking board game in 1890 and acquired by Hasbro in 1991. It currently retails for around S$20. Is the price for the game value for money? No comment, because I have neither bought it nor played it, ever. Is the first movie venture based on Ouija, franchised to Platinum Dunes/Blumhouse Productions/Universal Pictures, a Halloween release, worth spending S$20 or even S$5 on? Read on.

Two young girls often play Ouija. One of them has a younger sister, who is not welcome when the game is on. The two remain friends as they grow up into their teens. Both have boy-friends. One of them, who has a Ouija in her house, makes the mistake of playing alone, which is against the rules. She ends up dead, hanging by a wire of decorative mini-bulbs. Her childhood friend and some other members of the group are unable to accept her sudden death, which appears like suicide. The dead girl’s mother disposes off her daughter’s possessions, giving the Ouija to her daughter’s game partner. So begins a series of attempts at unraveling the mystery using the board game, and serial killings of some of the teenagers, apparently caused by supernatural beings (read paranormal activity).

Does the planchette--sliding triangle that reads the answers to the questions posed by the players using the alphabets painted on the board, and allows the holder to see invisible beings present, through a built-in magnifying glass—move through ghostly kinetics or is it the unconscious but human  ‘ideomotor phenomenon’? All chances are that the evil undead  are ‘beings’ are from a family that lived in the house some 60-70 years ago, a mother and her two daughters. One of the daughters had disappeared mysteriously, while the other was sent to a mental asylum.

Written by Juliet Snowden and Stiles White, who also wrote Knowing (2-009), and The Possession (2012), it is directed by White, who makes his debut at the megaphone. Juliet Snowden and White were hired on to rewrite and direct the Ouija movie. Previous script drafts were penned by TRON: Legacy co-writers Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis, Simon Kinberg (Mr. and Mrs. Smith), and Marti Noxon (Fright Night). Snowden’s name is missing from the final direction credit, as White gets it solo. It took about seven years to see the light of day and was made at 5% of the original budget. Expected to be released in October 12013, it finds itself in cinemas a year later.

With loopholes and unexplained phenomena (even paranormal phenomena have to be justified), White resorts to standard horror practices, like unending slow pans, jumps, loud music and now ‘you see me now you don’t’ ploys. The teenagers never seek professional help while facing horrendous situations and nerve-wracking serial killings. Moreover, they show very little shock or trauma at the deaths of their friend. Ouija itself is portrayed in a totally negative light and the game-board is repeatedly thrown into the fire. That it gets resurrected every time may be good for buyers who might believe that the board will never see wear and tear, and is fire-proof.

Most of the cast are good-looking. Shelley Hennig is killed way too soon. British TV actress Olivia Cooke, and Darren Kagasoff, are up to the mark. Lin Shaye would have been welcome in a brief role, but tends to ham. Ana Coto has a badly defined character. Adequate support comes from Bianca Santos and Douglas Smith.

Oui is yes in French, Ja is yes in German. Unfortunately for Oui+ja, it is a case of two ‘yes’s making two ‘no’s.                           How about NonNein, instead of Ouija?

Rating: *1/2

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBLmBdn2QF8

Fury, Review: What war does to you

April, 1945. As the Allies make their final push in the European war-zone, a battle-hardened army sergeant named Wardaddy (Brad Pitt) Collier commands a Sherman tank and its five-man crew, on a deadly mission behind enemy lines. He is the only survivor in a deadly German ambush, but manages to stay hidden till they leave, and drives his tank back to base. There, after barely recovering from the battle, he is sent on another mission, with a new crew. Outnumbered and outgunned, with a reluctant, rookie soldier thrust into their platoon, Wardaddy and his men embark on two successive but potentially fatal missions against overwhelming odds, in their heroic attempts to strike at the heart of Nazi Germany and keep their supply chains open.

Fury is written and directed by David Ayer (Street Kings, End of Watch, Harsh Times) who said about the project, “It will bring a fresh execution to the genre. What these men went through is worthy of a complex, honest portrayal. This will have incredible, visceral action and complex rich characters. I plan to bring tank combat to life in a way that lands with a modern audience." Lofty words, but not altogether tall claims, by any yard-stick.

Fury is something that Ayer, a US Navy veteran, has wanted to make since he was a kid: “But only in the same outlandish way that I wanted to be an astronaut who goes to Mars.” Ayer grew up as part of a military family. Both his grandfathers served in the second World War, but never talked about it. “My family have always been good at fighting in America’s wars. And even though those experiences might have shaped them, they left those wars overseas. It’s part of what made me curious.”

The film comes across as a war thriller more in the tradition of Guns of Navarone than the broad canvas of The Longest Day, which helps keep the focus. Characters are portrayed not as mere soldiers or war victims but humans who have layers of sensitivity. Hardened war veterans exhibit a hidden soft side while a religious draftee, a former typist, develops a sadistic streak. Personal differences almost break the unit apart, only for patriotic emergencies to re-unite them in no time.

In David Ayer’s script and treatment, there is gory violence and there are heart-rending emotions, no holds barred warfare and the tear-jerking plight of the innocent war victims and pacifists. The protagonists are heroes and skilled fighters, but neither invincible nor angelic. They win some, they lose some. What motivates them is a complete conviction, as enunciated by Wardaddy, that the German SS is the sadistic scum of the earth, and every member of the German army must be annihilated at the first opportunity.

Brad Pitt as Collier is better than his usual self, much better. Even better than Inglorious Basterds, which might have partly inspired this film. He immerses himself deeply into the role and comes up with a worthy performance. Shia LeBeouf (Transformers, Nymphomaniac) plays Boyd ‘Bible’ Swan, the most religious member of the unit, often quoting the Bible and asking people about their denominations. In spite of a soft face and handsome looks, he played the dark character in Nymphomaniac quite convincingly. He is in good form here too.

Jon Bernthal plays Grady Coon-Ass Travis, the mechanic and ammo loader of the team, impulsive and fight-loving. Michael Pena’s character, Trini ‘Gordo’ Garcia, probably gets the least footage. He makes his presence felt, nevertheless. Logan Lerman, the Jewish actor who played one of Noah’s sons in the 2013 film, is cast as Norman Ellison. While his initial trauma at being forced into the army and asked to do battle duty almost immediately is well conveyed, the transformation into a trigger-happy assassin is not as effective. Scott Clinton Reeves Eastwood (the last name says it all; Texas Chainsaw 3D, Gran Torino) plays Sergeant Miles. Anamaria Marinca as Irma and Alicia von Rittberg as Emma, along with Pitt, Bernthal and Logan Lerman, appear in what I consider the most tense, compelling scenes of the film. And these scenes do not involve any fighting, except for Pitt breaking a glass.

A word about the accents: Once again, some vital dialogue must have been lost while international ears grapple with the accents in the film. In turn, that could seriously affect the enjoyment of the film by general audiences and the reviews and ratings done by critics. Another case for sub-titling of even English language films?

Tobacco in the tank

Brad Pitt: "We were driving down the road. I'm in the turret, Shia is at the other turret, and Scott is on the back, spitting juice. And I'm starting to get pissed off, I'm starting to get hot, because this is our home, he’s disrespecting our home, you know? So I said, in the scene with the cameras rolling, 'You're going to clean that (bleep) up’.

Shia saw it and felt the same--he’s disrespecting our home. So Shia had the same reaction I did and started having some words. With LaBeouf involved and cameras rolling, Pitt felt the need to mediate the heated scenario--only to realise later that it was his own fault.

"I had to get in after the cameras were rolling and explain it to Scotty," Pitt said. "The funny thing is, when we got home at the end of the day and read the script, it said Scotty's character is 'chewing tobacco and spitting it on the back of the tank.' He was just doing as instructed in the script! So we were the knobs in the end…."

Last words from Eastwood: "Pitt is a kind and humble person, which is everything in this world."

All was apparently forgotten and forgiven. All was well as it ended well.

Rating: ***1/2

 Nightcrawler is a ‘media thriller’, set in the nocturnal underbelly of contemporary Los Angeles. Lou Bloom, a driven young man desperate for work who discovers the high-speed world of L.A. crime journalism. Finding a group of freelance camera crews who film car crashes, fires, murder and other mayhem, Lou muscles into the cut-throat, dangerous realm of nightcrawling - where each police siren wail equals a possible windfall and victims are converted into dollars and cents. Aided by Nina, a veteran of the blood-sport that is local TV news, Lou blurs the line between observer and participant to become the star of his own story. He does give honest living a try, but when he fails to secure a normal job, he leans towards the completely amoral side of his psyche and hones it to perfection.

Jake Gyllenhaal (highly appreciated in End of Watch, Prisoners and Enemy) turns out what might well be accepted as his best performance till date. Every look, every pause, every smirk, every sneer, every researched, sarcastic, self-help quote, makes you want to applaud. Gyllenhaal lost over 20 pounds and even punched a mirror so hard during one take that he required stitches. He defines his character Louis (Lou) Bloom as “…not just a three-dimensional character. He’s a six-dimensional character. He’s so well-prepared, he’s like the Bobby Fischer of manipulators. I think anyone who has been fed the capitalist idea of what success is--financial success, fame, and attention--has a Lou in them.”

Nightcrawler is as much an outsider film as it is an insider’s look at the TV news industry. Those of you who have read about William Randolph Hearst and his principle of creating news, and Naom Chomsky’s expose on how America manufactures consent, will find another thought provoking dimension here. Is omission as bad as commission? Is with-holding, with apparently justifiable reasons, as punishable a crime as committing the crime itself? 

Dan’s wife of over 21 years, Rene Russo (60), plays Nina with élan and conviction. The scenes featuring Jake and Nina are lessons in action-reaction, steely poker and frozen fear. Watch out for Riz Ahmed (a.k.a. Riz MC) as Rick, Lou’s ‘intern’, who is exploited in styles unimaginable. Though Gyllenhaal is brilliant, Ahmed does not deserve to be overshadowed. The actor and rapper, of Pakistani decent, studied acting at Central School of Speech & Drama, London, and had made his film debut in The Road to Guantánamo. At the same time, he was getting famous as the rapper Riz MC. The terrorist spoof Four Lions got him attention. The Reluctant Fundamentalist, directed by Mira Nair, was 10th film, and he put up a strong show.

Bill Paxton as the veteran Nightcrawler who inspires a jealous and extremely greedy Lou to get into the business, hits the right chords. Michael Hyatt (odd name for a woman) plays Detective Frontieri. In what should have been a small, inconsequential role, she adds commendable reality. (Hyatt has appeared in The Good Girl, Washington Heights, Crazylove, Acts of Worship and Two Weeks). Real-life Los Angeles TV journalists--Pat Harvey, Sharon Tay, Rick Garcia and Bill Seward--have featured roles. Considering the film shows the ratings obsessed TV industry in such bad light, it makes you wonder whether they were aware of the thrust of the film before they agreed to play their parts.

Screenplay writer and director Dan Gilroy, like his older brother Tony, has spent years working in Hollywood as a screenwriter, in movies like Real Steel and The Bourne Legacy. Nightcrawler is quite a Gilroy family affair. Dan’s brother Tony is one of the 10 producers (Jake is another), while John Gilroy (The Bourne Legacy, Warrior) is the editor.

Dan’s script is one of the best examples of a taut and well-guided screenplay in recent times. Except for some of the co-incidences and the unobstructed, hurdle-less smooth-sailing that Lou enjoys in executing his ghoulish plans, there are hardly any flaws. Dan and John must surely share some telepathic waves, because the editing is the fourth hero of the film (Jake, Riz and Dan being the first three). Shots blend so beautifully that you find the next development in the plot coming pat on just as the last fades away from your retina and cerebrum.

Now, if you are considering watching Nightcrawler tonight, don't just crawl, run for it! They are playing the rating game, and your eyeballs will have a good time.

Rating: ****

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8kYDQan8bw

(My apologies to the 100 odd followers and readers who might have read the review yesterday and then found the page missing a while later, only to find it reinstated again. Since I was informed about the postponememt of the film's release in India by a week, I thought it might be a good idea to hold back the review. But after I deleted it, some colleagues advised me to reinstate it, since there were many international reviews already posted, and even quoted by the distributors).

Gone Girl, Review: Murderous, disappeared, kidnapped, psychopath

It’s not a bird, it’s not a plane, it’s not Superman; it’s a scheming, vengeful, plotting, suicidal, murderous, ‘gone’ wife.

Gone Girl, directed by David Fincher and based upon the bestselling novel by Gillian Flynn, read by many Indians too, unearths the secrets at the heart of a modern American marriage, one marriage that could typify many more. On the occasion of his fifth wedding anniversary, Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) reports that his beautiful wife, Amy (Rosamund Pike), has gone missing. Under pressure from Amy’s doting parents, the police, and a growing media hyper-hype, Nick’s portrait of a blissful wedded life begins to crumble. Soon, his lies, deceits and strange behavior prompt almost everyone to ask the same dark question: Did Nick Dunne kill his wife and dispose-off the body? 

Author Gillian Flynn has happy memories of having A Wrinkle in Time pried from her hands at the dinner table, and also of seeing Alien, Psycho and Bonnie and Clyde at a questionable age (like, seven). Flynn’s novel tells the story of Nick and Amy Dunne's difficult marriage, which is floundering for several reasons. The first half of the book is told in first person, alternately, by both Nick and Amy; Nick's perspective is from the present, and Amy's from the past, by way of her diary entries. The two stories are very different. Amy's account of their marriage makes her seem happier and easier to live with than Nick depicts. Nick's story, on the other hand, talks about her as extremely anti-social and stubborn. Amy's depiction makes Nick seem a lot more aggressive than he says he is in his story.

Nick loses his job as a journalist due to downsizing. The couple relocate from New York City to his small hometown of North Carthage, Missouri, in part, so the couple can help care for his dying mother. He opens a bar, using the last of his wife's trust fund, and runs it with his twin sister, Margo (Carrie Coon). The bar provides a decent living for the three Dunnes, but the marriage becomes more dysfunctional. Amy loved her life in New York and hates what she considers the soulless "McMansion" which she and Nick rent.

On their fifth wedding anniversary, Amy goes missing. Nick becomes a prime suspect in her disappearance for various reasons: he used her money to start the bar, increased her life insurance, and seems unemotional and dead-pan on TV cameras and in the news. The police later find boxes of violent pornography in Nick's woodshed, further implicating him.

In the three ‘act’ novel's second act, the reader learns Amy and Nick are unreliable narrators and that the reader has not been given all of the information. Nick has been having an affair and Amy is alive and hiding, trying to frame Nick for her "death". Her diary is fake, intended to implicate Nick to the police. It is about here that Flynn decided to rework the novel for the screenplay, also credited to her. She told the press, “There was something thrilling about taking this piece of work that I’d spent about two years painstakingly putting together with all its eight million LEGO pieces, and take a hammer to it, and bash it apart, and reassemble it into a movie…” Affleck was shocked by it. He would say, ‘This is a whole new third act! She literally threw that third act out and started from scratch.’

Written in thriller style, it is full of ingredients that have been very cleverly woven in. These include a race against time, the timings of the events themselves, a treasure-hunt that carries clues planted to frame the protagonist, foreseeing events and predicting human behaviour to perfection, a poker faced comic sub-plot involving a male and a female police officer, another involving a robber couple at a motel, remarkable attention to detail and marvellous use of subjective flashback.

‘Where it goes overboard is in the basic premise itself: can events and behavior be predicted so accurately and can a couple in love (later in a marriage) fail to see the pretence of each other even after years of living together? Also, the series of co-incidences, through craftily introduced as logical developments, remain co-incidences. Though you are learn that Amy learnt the ‘tricks of the trade’ from texts and the Internet, the odds of her being able to pull off what she does pull off would be near zero.

Director David Fincher is a sought after commercial, music video and feature film director.  Starting his career in music videos, David went on to work with some of the world’s most influential artistes, such as Madonna, Michael Jackson and The Rolling Stones. He’s directed ad campaigns for Nike, Adidas, Motorola and Heineken. David has several Oscar nominations to his name, for films that include Seven, Fight Club, Zodiac, The Social Network, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Fincher has an inspired cast at his call and takes a firm grip on the narrative. Pace never slackens and the mysterious plot remains engrossing in spite of so many ‘revelations’ along the way. Editing is brilliantly used, with many overlapping shots carrying over seamlessly.

On first look, it is Rosamund Pike’s film, as you actually sympathise with this psychopathic character, but co-star Affleck holds his own by under-playing and emerging as a light grey character, against Pike’s dark grey, even black. She confides in the camera with confident camaraderie, while he puts up a disarming, ambivalent exterior. Tyler Perry as the lawyer enjoys himself, while Carrie Coon as Margo raises some laughs. Kim Dickens and Patrick Fugit, the police-duo, raise some more laughs. Due credit also goes to Emily Ratajkowski, as the over-sexed Andie, and Neil Patrick Harris and Scott McNairy, as the two former boy-friends of Amy, particularly Harris, who keeps you guessing about his intentions.

Is Gone Girl a thriller or murder mystery or a battle of the sexes or a feminist’s crusade for life/death on her terms or anatomy of an apparently normal marriage or a con game or satire on mutual deception or a DIY kit on disappearance-suicide-murder-kidnapping or a CKD (completely knocked down) reworking of Kurosawa’s Japanese classic, Rashomon or…?

Don’t cloud your mind in advance with such profound pigeon-holing. See the film first. All the analyses can be done at leisure.

Are you still there? Or have you Gone Girl (gone to the cinema-hall, that is; either alone or with someone who is in good Nick).

Rating: ***1/2 (I had decided on four, but in the END, I deducted 1/2 a star).  

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym3LB0lOJ0o

The Best of Me, Review: Trials and Tribulations alias Love v/s Bullets

Author-producer Nicholas Sparks is on a nine-hole course as his ninth novel is shaped into a film by William Hoffman. The Best of Me is a curiously misleading title that could easily have been associated with a Jim Carrey contortion. Instead, it is a heady, mushy concoction of love and dignity, selflessness and eternity.

Former high school sweethearts Amanda Collier and Dawson Cole reconnect after 25 years when their mentor, Tuck Hostetler, dies, and they are summoned back to Oriental, North Carolina for his funeral by lawyer who has been retained to execute his will. One of things that drove Amanda and Dawson apart was that they were from the opposite side of the class divide. But neither one of them got along with their parents; both were intelligent, both had dreams, and over the years, both of them had disappointments. In the spring of 1984, high school students Amanda and Dawson fell deeply, irrevocably in love. But as the summer of their senior year came to a close, unforeseen events tear the young couple apart, setting them on radically divergent paths.

Neither has lived the life they imagined . . . and neither can forget the passionate first love that forever changed their lives. As Amanda and Dawson carry out the instructions Tuck left behind for them, they realise that everything they thought they knew—about Tuck, about themselves, and about the dreams they held dear—was not as it seemed. Forced to confront painful memories, the two former lovers will discover undeniable truths about the choices they have made. And in the course of a single, searing weekend, they will ask of the living, and the dead: Can love truly rewrite the past?

Nicholas Sparks is one of the world’s most famous story-tellers. All of his books have been New York Times bestsellers, with over 97 million copies sold worldwide, in more than 50 languages, including over 65 million copies in the United States alone. Sparks wrote one of his best-known stories, The Notebook, over a period of six months at age 28. It was published in 1996. Safe Haven, Sparks’s eighth film adaptation and on which he served as a Producer, The tenth Spark novel to be filmed is The Longest Ride. Along with The Lucky One, Message in a Bottle, A Walk to Remember, The Notebook, Nights in Rodanthe, Dear John and The Last Song, screen adaptations of Nicholas Sparks’s novels have a cumulative worldwide gross of over three-quarters of a billion dollars. Not bad at all. But is The Best of Me the best of Spark? Not entirely.

Nicholas Sparks: “When I set out to write this novel, I knew I wanted to focus on middle-aged character--people in their forties, who are really beginning to confront the “what-if” questions, and who are starting to second-guess the choices they made when they were younger. For Amanda, this is asking herself what would’ve happened if she married the man she loved, rather than someone else? I actually first used a funeral to bring old friends together in an old, unfinished manuscript, but I used it again in The Best of Me, because it was a natural fit with these characters. When someone dies, it really prompts those what-if questions—it makes you look long and hard at the life you are living in a way that I think is essential to Amanda’s and Dawson’s growth throughout the book.”

Michael Hoffman’s films include the Academy Award-nominated The Last Station and Restoration, and romantic comedies One Fine Day and Soapdish. He draws out intense performances and refrains from letting the sentimental mush get into a rush. The Best of Me is likely to appeal a lot to believers in great contemporary romances and the everlasting quality of first love. As is the norm when it comes to casting actors in characters imaginatively delineated by well-known authors, this film scores too. Hoffman succeeds in garnering well-deserved empathy for his lead pair.

Apparently, the story had less footage allotted to the younger couple, but Hoffman and his screenplay writers J. Mills Goodloe and Will Fetters have divided the pages almost equally. Nature in its various forms is almost a living entity in the film: the ocean, a pond, landscapes, trees, quaint homes, a water reservoir hangout that towers over the land below. Contrast this with the trappings of progress: an oil rig, an explosion, pick-up trucks, two-wheelers, cars, guns, drug-running. But there is an all pervading sadness in the movie that may be largely due to the script itself and partly due to the circumstances that Hoffman found himself in when he took up the project, “My wife left me for my best friend, after 23 years (of marriage).”

Hoffman on the cast: “Michelle (Monaghan) and James (Marsden), they all have moments. She goes to some really powerful places – when she has the moment… breaking down on the stairs, not a lot of actors can go there. He is so charming and open and available. And the young ones! I’m going to put my money on the both of them being movie stars. Luke (Bracey) really has got the big movie star thing. And Liana (Liberato)– there are moments where it’s like… she’s Audrey Hepburn.” Luke is part Australian. As for Liana, I agree that she reminds us of Hepburn, a sensual, bold Hepburn. Her most beautiful face and her most enticing backless dresses, not to mention her….will make many a heart go throb throb throb.

James Marsden, the star of The Notebook, 30 Rock, 27 Dresses, X-Men, Enchanted, and Hairspray, has a gaze that would melt most hearts. And when he speaks, it is a soft, sad pitch. On the lighter side, “I learned how to cut an onion! I cut my finger doing it, but there’s a proper way to chop vegetables in the kitchen. I needed to look like I knew what I was doing.” And he sure knew what he was doing.

Fifteen years ago, Michelle Monaghan was a journalism student at Columbia College before she left for Manhattan, to pursue an acting career. Monaghan, now 38, has made some waves for her roles in Mission: Impossible III, Gone Baby Gone, and Source Code. Her idols? “I love Annette Bening, Jessica Lange, and my all-time favorite, Gena Rowlands.” Special mention must be made of Gerald McRaney as Tuck. Here’s an old widower who will make your eyes overflow. So will many others in the film, so keep some tissues handy.

Rating: ***

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGXuzIGldME

Fireflies, Review: Only flieting merit

Two brothers, one married and a social climber, the other a drifter, are at the focus. The married brother had an old flame who reappears in Mumbai, while the bachelor meets his soul-mate in Thailand. The old flame kindles forbidden desire while the soul-mate, an American Indian, wants to treat the affair as a ‘some nights' stand’. Her paramour, however, wants to live with her in his ancestral home at Ooty, where he spent his childhood with his brother, and now absent sister. Absent sister? What happened to her? She, like the old flame and the Thai encounter, was a Firefly, known for its incandescence and brief existence. Three females, two adults and one in her early teens, all end up being Fireflies to the men in their lives.

Born in Assam, Sabal Singh Shekhawat, started out with a brief stint as a copywriter at an advertising agency. He soon joined Shantanu Sheorey, prolific photographer and television commercial director. Four years later, Sabal set up his own production house, The Big Picture Company. After 18 years of producing and directing numerous award-winning commercials, Sabal started Wild Geese Pictures in 2012, a feature film production company.

His statement about Fireflies reads, “On a cold night in New York, in the winter of 2005, I got mugged by a group of seven or eight men. I managed to escape without too much damage but it could have been a lot worse. I lay in bed that night, bruised and confused, trying to understand what had just happened. As I drifted into a delirious sleep, the last thoughts on my mind were of abject anger. Where does so much hatred come from? What motivates people to operate so heinously? None of the inadequate explanations that surfaced made the cut, even in my fuzzy brain. The next morning, I wrote 40 pages of a turbulent story.

I grew up in the jungles and tea gardens of Assam, amongst leopards, tigers, and elephants. And fireflies. Those little creations of light always materialised in the blackest of nights, completely unafraid, illuminating the darkness with the spark they carried within. Over the next three months, I wrote Fireflies - a story about change, acceptance and eventual courage.” Fireflies is the company’s first effort to see a release.

Vague and stylised, like a free-verse poem, his script is pretentious, lazy, and half-cooked, though probably well-intentioned. The central premise itself is unable to hold your interest. The sister-narrator act is a clever ploy in the initial stage but becomes a gimmick towards the end. As director, he has some gifted talent around, but is unable to tap their potential fully.

Rahul Khanna (cast as the elder brother) is a second-generation actor, born and raised in Bombay, India. Despite being the son of Vinod Khanna, Rahul chose to pave his own way. After studying at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and the School of Visual Arts in New York, he began his career with MTV Asia, as a Video Jockey. He made his feature film debut was in Deepa Mehta's Earth, followed by her Bollywood/Hollywood. His credits include Elaan, Raqeeb, Dil Kabaddi, Love Aaj Kal and Wake Up Sid. In Fireflies, he has to mouth expletives, do some intimate scenes and then earn some sympathy. No complaints.

As his sibling, Arjun Mathur is in commendable form. The Luck By Chance and My Name is Khan actor thinks that, “Fireflies has been one of the best experiences I’ve ever had.  In fact, when Fireflies first came my way, I was going through a very rough emotional, personal patch, and I was in no shape to work at the time.  I told Sabal that in our first meeting, and I think that’s exactly why he cast me. And through the film, I wasn’t acting; every day, on set I was going through a catharsis, honestly, and I think it shows… let’s see what everyone else thinks.” I agree it shows.

Shivani Ghai, who was seen in Bride & Prejudice, TV series The House of Saddam (played his daughter, Rana), The Bounty Hunter, Everywhere is Nowhere and Cleanskin, grew up in Newcastle. She came to London for an audition, and stayed on. Her first film break came when Director Gurinder Chadha singled her out at a reading, and cast her in Bride and Prejudice (2004). She also starred as Nusrat Preston in Five Days II (2010), the BBC sequel to Bafta/Golden Globe nominated, Five Days. As the earlier romantic interest of Rahul, she has not much to do except mope. How she meets her untimely end, though, might bring a tear to some eyes.

Monica Sharma Dogra is a Maryland raised musician, daughter of Kashmiri immigrants, who grew up listening to Hindu devotional songs, ghazals, and the hits of Lata Mangeshkar. After winning a competition at the age of 16, she debuted at Carnegie Hall. Her screen appearances in India include Dhobi Ghat and David. Playing a confused person is not easy, and the script is not of much help. Yet Monica manages to keep it going, till the act and the character fall apart.

Aadya Bedi grew up in Mumbai. After completing an MFA in the US, she moved to New York She was a part of the cast in Khaled Hosseini's stage adaptation of The Kite Runner. Her film & TV credits include Koel, Geetanjali, Split Wide Open, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Grant Street Shaving Co. In Fireflies, Aadya, playing Rahul’s wife, has two phases to her character, and she goes through the metamorphosis with fluidity.

Music by Zubin Balaporia goes with the film, but will not be remembered for much longer than that. Cinematography (Shanker Raman) is of high calibre, even as it is languorous, not stunning enough to distract from the dull proceedings. Shanker Raman is an award winning cinematographer from the Film and TV Institute of India. Frozen, shot entirely in black & white, won him India’s National Award. Editing, when seen shot and scene-wise, is good. But how can Shan Mohammed avoid at least part of the blame for the dragging narrative? 

When three inter-connected stories of love, loss and coming to terms, shot in picturesque, indulgent style, cannot retain a hold on you for 103 short minutes, barring a few fleetimg moments, it is a disappointment. 

Rating: *1/2

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0oYdVgE-qY

P.S.: For some unexplained reason, the film’s censor certificate identifies the language of the film as Hinglish. Almost no Hinglish is heard, though. It’s English all the way, with some Thai.

Big Hero 6, Review: Disney Marvel in San Fransokyo

Heroes 6 is fine for young children, since there is almost no swearing, the violence is not really graphic, there is no sex, some drinking is seen at a party, the word ‘nerd’ is used tongue-in-cheek, the hero plays an ‘illegal’ game of Bot (robot) Fighting and makes money by illegally betting on it (this is a negative), a fire destroys a building and kills his brother (another negative), but it all equalises to a fun film, with computer generated animation action and comedy prevailing over any possible harmful side-effects on a child’s psyche.

Heroes 6 first appeared in a Marvel Comics series as Sunfire & Big Hero 6 #1, in 1998, and most of the team that has made the 2014 Disney film through rights now owned via their interests in the Marvel parent company in 2009 had never heard of it till they started work on it. The original Heroes were Sunfire and Silver Samurai. Eventually, Sunfire left Big Hero 6 so that he could work at Charles Xavier's X-Corporation office in Mumbai, India (haven’t seen them around yet!). His slot on the team was filled by Sunpyre, a young woman with similar solar-based powers, who was pulled into this reality through the Power Purse. Similarly, after Silver Samurai was seemingly martyred in an encounter with the assassin Elektra in Iraq, his spot on the team was filled by the enigmatic Ebon Samurai. Hiro became the team's new leader. The current comic series team consists of Baymax, Ebon Samurai, GoGo Tomago, Hiro Takachiho, Honey Lemon, Sunpyre

The film is about the special bond that develops between Baymax, an over-sized inflatable robot, and 13-14 year-old prodigy Hiro Hamada. When a series of events that threaten life in the city of San Fransokyo (portmanteau) catapult Hiro into the midst of danger from a masked super-villain, he turns to Baymax and his close friends to help counter it--adrenaline junkie Go Go Tomago, black neatnik Wasabi, chemistry wiz Honey Lemon and billionaire fanboy Fred. Determined to uncover the mystery, Hiro transforms his friends into a band of high-tech heroes, called Big Hero 6. It is the 54th animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series and follows in the footsteps of Frozen and Wreck-It Ralph

Heores 6 is directed by Don Hall (Winnie the Pooh) and Chris Williams (Bolt). With respect to the design of Baymax, Hall mentioned in an interview, "I wanted a robot that we had never seen before and something to be wholly original. " Talking about story-boarding, Williams revealed, “We’ve probably storyboarded 10 movies.” (Shall we read: Sequels)?

Hall and the design team took a research trip to Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute, where they met a team of researchers, who were pioneering the new field of 'soft robotics' using inflatable vinyl, which ultimately inspired the Baymax’s inflatable, vinyl, truly huggable design. Hall stated that "I met a researcher who was working on soft robots. ... It was an inflatable vinyl arm and the practical app would be in the health care industry as a nurse or doctor's assistant. He had me at vinyl. The minute he showed me that inflatable arm, I knew we had our huggable robot." Co-director Williams stated, "A big part of the design challenge is when he puts on the armor you want to feel that he’s a very powerful intimidating presence...at the same time, design-wise he has to relate to the really adorable, simple vinyl robot underneath."Baymax's face design was inspired by a copper suzu bell that Hall noticed while at a Shinto shrine. A software program called Denizen, meaning citizen, was used to create hundreds of characters that populate the city, while a new ‘rendering’ system called Hyperion offered new illumination possibilities, like light shining through a translucent object.

You cannot help but marvel at the technology that is, maybe, just 10 steps ahead of state-of-the-art today, and hence more credible than many alien and other CGI sci-fi flicks that tend to look eons ahead. Some of the funny twists and dialogue humour is well integrated, but most of it is drowned in the pace. In the plot, the fire and the fake death are convenient but not convincing. One ploy used twice ruins its effect: Hiro ‘upgrades’ his team’s weaponry twice, since it proves inadequate the first time. Also, the Microbot angle is overdone, while there is no denying its technical finesse. First San Fansokyo and now BayMax—nevertheless, the health assistant is a clever, if somewhat weird idea. Why was a health assistant, who should obviously look healthy, designed by Tadashi to be so fat, with bulging arms and a pot belly, is beyond logic.

Now, the names and the voices.

Ryan Potter is Hiro Hamada, a 14-year-old robotics prodigy. His brother Tadashi inspires Hiro to gain admission to San Fransokyo's Institute of Technology. Speaking of the character, co-director Don Hall said, "Hiro is transitioning from boy to man, it’s a tough time for a kid and some teenagers develop that inevitable 'snarkiness' and jaded attitude. Luckily, Ryan is a very likeable kid. So no matter what he did, he was able to take edge off the character in a way that made him authentic, but appealing.”

Scott Adsit is Baymax, an inflatable robot built by Tadashi to serve as a healthcare companion. Hall said, "Baymax views the world from one perspective—he just wants to help people, he sees Hiro as his patient." Producer Roy Conli said, "The fact that his character is a robot limits how you can emote, but Scott was hilarious. He took those boundaries and was able to shape the language in a way that makes you feel Baymax’s emotion and sense of humor. Scott was able to relay just how much Baymax cares.”

Jamie Chung is GoGo Tomago, a tough, athletic, non-talkative adrenaline junkie. Hall said, "She’s definitely a woman of few words...We looked at bicycle messengers as inspiration for her character, which uses wheels as discus throw-like weapons."

Damon Wayans Jr. is Wasabi, a smart, slightly neurotic, heavily built neat-freak, who later dons plasma blade weapons on his forearms. On the character, co-director Chris Williams said "He’s actually the most conservative, cautious and most normal among a group of brazen characters. So he really grounds the movie in the second act and becomes, in a way, the voice of the audience and points out that what they’re doing is crazy."

Génesis Rodríguez is Honey Lemon, a quirky chemistry whiz. Williams said "She’s a glass-is-half-full kind of person. But she has this mad-scientist quality with a twinkle in her eye—there’s more to Honey than it seems.” T. J. Miller is Fred/Fredzilla, a laid-back comic-book fan, who also plays the mascot at San Fransokyo Institute of Technology. Speaking of Miller, Williams said "He’s a real student of comedy. There are a lot of layers to his performance, so Fred ended up becoming a richer character than anyone expected."

Daniel Henney is Tadashi Hamada, Hiro's older brother and Baymax's creator. On Hiro and Tadashi's relationship, Conli said, "We really wanted them to be brothers first. Tadashi is a smart mentor. He very subtly introduces Hiro to his friends and what they do at San Fransokyo Tech. Once Hiro sees Wasabi, Honey, Go Go and even Fred in action, he realises that there’s a much bigger world out there than [sic] really interests him."

Maya Rudolph is Aunt Cass, Hiro and Tadashi's aunt and guardian, who owns a popular San Fransokyo bakery and coffee shop (actually referred to as café in the film).

James Cromwell is Professor Robert Callaghan, the head of a robotics program at San Fransokyo Institute of Technology, and Tadashi's professor and mentor.

Alan Tudyk is Alistair Krei, a pioneer entrepreneur and tech guru. Also one of the most distinguished alums of San Fransokyo Institute of Technology and owner of the biggest technology company in the world, Krei Tech.

Mention must also be made of Daniel Gerson as the Desk Sergeant and Paul Briggs as Yama, Hiro’s opponent in Bot Fighting.

All these voices are okay, without being distinguished. They match the characters for a large part, but there are occasional flat or contrived bits of dialogue. Adsit, Wayans Jr., Miller and Gerson get to deliver some laugh-raising lines.

And by the way, if you think having a hero named Hiro is a novelty, look up an Indian Hindi film called Hero Hiralal!

Rating: **1/2

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD5OA6sQ97M

Interstellar, Review-- Gravity of the situation: Galactic Wormhole or Earthy Dust-bowl?  

Mainly based on the scientific theories of Kip Thorne, Interstellar is a film that Steven Spielberg was to direct, and took about nine earthly years to land on planet IMAX (probably the last one to be shot on IMAX 15/70 format), courtesy spaceships Warner and Paramount. Thorne is an American Caltech physicist theoretical physicist who has written academic books on general relativity, collaborated with Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking, and is one of the world’s leading experts on all things gravitational.

Lynda Obst commissioned the original treatment and Steven Spielberg came aboard in 2006, when Paramount owned DreamWorks, after Obst became intrigued by Thorne’s theory that ‘wormholes’ exist and can be used for time travel. Spielberg set Jonah Nolan to write the script, which made it easy for Christopher Nolan to come aboard, after Dreamworks moved to Disney, and Spielberg left the project.

In the near future, the earth is no longer able to sustain humanity. Crops are routinely ravaged by blight, dust storms scour the land, and mankind has regressed to an agrarian society. Cooper, a former NASA test pilot and engineer-turned-farmer, lives with his family, including his father-in-law, son Tom, and ten year-old daughter Murphy—lovingly called Murph—who believes their house is haunted by a ghost that is trying to communicate to her. Challenging Murph to prove the ghost's existence through scientific inquiry, Cooper discovers that the ‘ghost’ is directing them to a secret NASA installation.

They head for the place, where they are brought face-to-face with physicist Dr. Brand, who is working with a skeletal team of scientists, to salvage NASA’s reputation, ruined by what people believe were several fake missions involving billions of dollars in taxpayers’ expense. Brand reveals to Cooper that humanity's fight to survive is a losing battle, and proposes that the solution is to colonise another galaxy. Cooper is recruited to pilot Endurance, in search of a viable home world by way of a wormhole that has formed off Saturn. Endurance will follow the Lazarus Mission, a series of manned probes sent through the wormhole to survey potential planets as to their long-term sustainability. The data from Lazarus has given NASA three potential candidate locations, planets named Miller, Edmunds and Mann, after the astronauts who went there in search.

Cooper's decision to join Endurance breaks Murph's heart, as Cooper could take decades to return, or never come back at all. The two part on bad terms. He joins Brand's daughter Amelia, physicist Rommily, geographer Doyle, and a multi-purpose robot called TARS, on a two-year trip to Saturn, before crossing over into the new galaxy. While traversing the wormhole, Amelia encounters an extra-dimensional presence that she believes has placed the wormhole to save humanity.

Once through, Endurance follow the signal left by Miller's expedition, but the team quickly encounter a problem: the candidate planet is in close proximity to Gargantua, a nearby black hole, and due to its gravitational pull, time on the surface is distorted. Cooper proposes a solution to minimise the amount of time spent on the surface. They discover that the planet is inhospitable, as giant tidal waves race across its surface. Doyle is killed, Amelia barely saved and the ship is inundated with water, as the crew attempt to retrieve Miller's probe. When they return to Endurance, they discover that twenty-three years of relative time have passed.

Back on earth, Murph is now an adult and has joined NASA, where she attempts to solve a physics problem that has troubled Brand for years: the question of how humans can escape the earth's gravitational pull, en masse. Brand's health deteriorates and he admits that there is no hope Endurance will ever return, instead putting his faith in Plan B, a mass repopulation project using fertilised embryos to start human-kind over on a suitable planet.

With the time-consuming mission to retrieve Miller's data having consumed valuable resources, Endurance is forced to choose between following Mann or Edmunds, the remaining two options. Cooper and Amelia clash, with Cooper accusing her of being compromised by her emotional attachment to Edmunds, her lover. On Cooper’s command, the crew seeks out Mann, finding him on an icy, ammonia-saturated planet, and reviving him from induced deep slumber. Endurance receives a message from Murph, who reveals that Brand lied to them about their mission, and Cooper realises Mann lied about the viability of his planet. 

London-born film-maker Christopher Nolan started making 8 mm films from the age of seven, and studied English Literature at University College London, graduating to 16 mm, through borrowing equipment from the college's film department, to make short films in his spare time. His ground-breaking film Memento was inspired by a story his brother had written and told him about during a cross-country trip.  Nolan's next project was a remake of the tense Norwegian thriller Insomnia (1997). His 2005 venture, Batman Begins, pleased most audiences. The Dark Knight (co-scripted with Jonathan), truly established Nolan as one of his generation's most formidable film-making talents. Nolan next teamed with Leonardo Di Caprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ellen Page, for the mind-bending 2008 thriller, Inception. Inception won four Oscars. 2012's The Dark Knight Rises was another big hit.

To research for Interstellar, director Christopher Nolan visited NASA as well as the private space program SpaceX. Christopher kept in place Jonathan's conception of the first hour, which is set on a resource-depleted Earth in the near future. The setting was inspired by the Dust Bowl that took place in the United States during the Great Depression in the 1930s. But he revised the rest of the script.

Nolan said he became interested in casting Matthew McConaughey after seeing him in an early cut of the 2012 film, Mud. Anne Hathaway was invited to Nolan's home, where she read the script for Interstellar. Other well-known actors eventually joined what would become "an all-star cast". Indian actor Irrfan Khan said he declined a role since he wanted to be in India for the releases of The Lunchbox and D-Day.

Naming influences, Nolan cited Metropolis (1927), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and Blade Runner (1982). You can't pretend 2001 doesn't exist when you're making Interstellar." He also said Star Wars (1977) and Alien (1979) influenced Interstellar '​s production design: "Those always stuck in my head as being how you need to approach science-fiction. It has to feel used—as used and as real as the world we live in."Andrei Tarkovsky's The Mirror (not Solaris?) influenced "elemental things in the story to do with wind and dust and water". (Quentin Tarantino has compared Nolan to Tarkovsky). For further inspiration grounded in real-world space travel, the director also invited former astronaut Marsha Ivins to the set.

Interstellar is one film that is likely to put any cine-analyst in multiple dilemmas. It’s not a masterpiece, but I’ll recommend it to everyone. Is Christopher Nolan ambitious?  More than ambitious, but the ambitions are not fully realised. Is it visually stunning? It is visually attractive, but the number of seat/arm grabbing scenes are few in. Does the narrative cast a spell and rivet you? It does, but only in the middle one-third. Is the jargon explained and comprehensible? Yes and no. Too much jargon, too much explaining, and still too much confusion. Is Nolan able to blend his brother’s Dust Bowl Act with his gravity/black-hole/worm enterprise? Not entirely. Does it conform to the space/fiction genre? No, which would be welcome, but then it surfs almost every genre, causing black holes in your absorptive capacity. Are the performances applause-worthy? Largely, no. In 3-4 scenes, yes.

Matthew McConaughey as Cooper looks spaced out in most scenes, arrogant in others, and confused in some. While this goes partly with his predicament, there is not enough motivation to justify his behaviour. All the technology and jargon he is confronted with seems to put him ill-at-ease. His accent and diction must take some blame too. Yet, he has his moments of glory, when he plays a loving father. Nolan favourite Michael Caine (Dr. Brand) is Michael Caine—convincingly direct when doing credible scenes, half-hamming when put into stock situations. Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty), a favourite for next year's Academy Awards with A Violent Year, is cast as the adult Murph, a part that changes gears unpredictably and gets some real footage only towards the end, on earth. Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables) as Amelia Brand gets into the role quickly, and stays there. Surprise packet Matt Damon could have been better utilised. As the script goes, his Dr. Mann, designed to provide a twist, behaves in a predictable line. John Lithgow (Cooper’s father-in-law) and Ellen Burstyn (old Murph) are dependable, the latter re-kindling the warmth of the old beloved in Titanic.

A film that tries to incorporate humour, even using the two-robot ploy (one is named TARS—try shifting the S to the beginning), is unable to blend it in smoothly. The dialogue (in American English?) sounds, instead, as if it was written in a language that is an admixture of archaic, effete, future-speak and riddlish English. Some real gems, like the references to Murphy’s Law, and Lazarus coming back from the dead, lose impact, thanks to the staccato verbiage.

Sometimes you wonder…did all this really happen? Was it all a dream? Is it all an allegory? Or is it that dream which has ‘dream’ written all over it yet one that we enjoy dreaming, and do not want to end? Breath-taking ice-scapes, dust-scapes, fire-scapes, mountain-scapes, sea-scapes, not to mention space-scapes.

Rating: ***1/2

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSWdZVtXT7E

Rang Rasiya/Colours of Passion, Review: ‘Playboy’ painter and the pin-up prostitute

At last, the much-talked about and mired in censorship issues, director Ketan Mehta’s Rang Rasiya/Colours of Passion finds release in India, with a For Adults Only certificate. There was similar controversy with his 1993 Maya Memsaab, based on Flaubert’s 19th century novel Madame Bovary, and starring ShahRukh Khan opposite Mehta’s wife Deepa Sahi. Twenty years ago, it was exposed female (and some male) anatomy that raised many eyebrows. Curiously, Raja Ravi Varma, the original Rang Rasiya of the title, was a poet who painted his muse semi-nude and faced the wrath of religious fundamentalists, who wanted to censor his art. The film, made 100 years after his death, faced the censorship mores of the same nation. Twenty years later, it is Ketan Mehta again, in the same scenario, only the earlier film was fiction while this is a fictionalised biopic.

Raja Ravi Varma’s grand-daughter found that the film was “fraudulently claiming to be based on Raja Ravi Varma’s life. She wanted to stop the release of the film, days before it was to reach there. She said, “It is highly derogatory as it picturises Hon’ble Raja Ravi Varma as a playboy.” Following this, the Prime Minister’s Office asked the Information and Broadcasting Ministry to look into the matter. The ministry found that the movie had been cleared by Central Board of Film Certification with an ‘A’ certificate five years ago, and that its release had got delayed because of distribution-related issues. Realising that there were no reasonable grounds to either “recall” the movie or force a re-release, with more deletions, the ministry declined to intervene. And so we get to see Rang Rasiya.

I saw it at a Mumbai single-screen cinema, one that can seat 1,100, along with, maybe, 29 others. (There had been a regular press preview, but, like in the case of most Hindi films, I was not invited. Wonder what have I done in my 45 years as a Hindi critic to now be branded an English film critic? I have always been reviewing Hindi films). An audience of 30 in a single screen cinema on a Saturday evening show, the day after its release, augurs badly for any film. So much for the box-office prospects of Rang Rasiya!

Now for the story. This is the story of a little boy who grew up making charcoal sketches on freshly whitewashed temple walls, and went on to earn the title ‘Raja’ in the Thiruvananthapuram court, Kerala, for his artistic prowess. His painting of a ‘low-caste’ woman, who worked in his wife’s palace, brought him wrath and recognition alike. He soon moved from Kerala to Baroda to Bombay. Varma’s deep involvement with Sugandha, the Maharashtrian prostitute who became Menaka, Damayanti and Urvashi in his most acclaimed works, caught the fancy of many critics and admirers. He was accused of remaking gods in the image of men, and insulting them by portraying them in the nude. He countered that he saw divinity in both gods and humans, and that nudity was the purest form he knew.

After his last commercial release, Mangal Pandey: The Rising (2005), a film about nationalist soldiers’ uprising against the colonial British forces, Mehta chose to make this film because “Varma was the most fascinating artist of that era” and his character, persona and paintings fascinated Mehta’s from his days as a student of film direction at the Film and Television Institute of India. After reading Desai's novel, he formulated the script of his new film, along with Sanjeev Dutta and Sitanshu Yashashchandra. Now what is it about the 19th century that prompted Mehta to makeas many as three films positioned in that epoch?

A biopic would have needed to capture the soul of the painter, whereas a biographical novel has all the licence to touch-up and colour the real story. With no ready-reckoner references at hand, one can only guess how much was imagined by Ranjit Desai, the novelist, and what has been added or subtracted by M/s Mehta, Dutta and Yashashchandra. What comes across in this broad-canvassed tale is a narrative that has jumps in time, geography, tone and tenor. In the film, Varma is painted as a tall, attractive man, with a toned, sculpted physique, who is first the object of desire among women and then turns indulgent and a libertine himself. Neither is effectively treated. There is almost nothing of his lineage and childhood, though, from all accounts, they were key elements in the moulding of his persona.

To create the 19th century ambience, Mehta often resorts to dark, translucent hues covering popular landmarks. Dialogue is largely apt, except for the numerous court scenes, and the outburst by Sugandha towards the end, both falling flat. Varma’s egotistical dismissal of Sugandha’s being appears baseless and contrived, not to say illogical. In some scenes, all ambient sounds go silent and only one character speaks, softly, without any visible reason. On many occasions, you get the distinct feeling that the 132 minute long film has been trimmed by 20-30 minutes, and not only to make it censor-safe, but perhaps, to try and retain audience interest. As a consequence, the film is never utterly boring, but in the process, some of the roles have been shortened or deleted altogether, and some shots/scenes have suffered the same fate.

On the plus side, colours are a feast for the eyes, as they should be, in a film like this. Nitin Chandrakant Desai’s production design and Niharika Khan’s costumes are above par. Sandesh Shandilya’s music is generally mood-enhancing, especially in the songs. Singers Roop Kumar Rathod, Sonu Nigam, Kailash Kher, Sunidhi Chauhan, Anwar Khan and Keerthi Sagathia have all done a good job. The sufi touch, although well blended in the song, seems out of context. Rhythm-wise, one wishes the drums weren’t so loud and the beat less frenetic.

Randeep Hooda, who was steely dark and natural as the Devil in The Coffin-Maker, is a little awkward here, one of his earliest films, and delivers his lines as if under some kind of light intoxication, and walks as if suggesting a limp or a sprain. Was he told to suggest addiction? He is shown smoking some narcotic and participating in orgies, so it would not be too shocking to see him sway a bit almost all the time. But without getting any hint, one wonders. Moreover, his generally deadpan persona suits cold-blooded characters, like in The Coffin Maker and Highway. Mehta cast him after seeing him D and Risk. He proves no risk here, while offering limited dividend. What could have been a great opportunity pans out as just above par effort. Nine years younger than Nandana, he manages to keep his stage presence in the key scenes and gets tp act-out a whole gamut of emotions. Nandana Sen (daughter of Nobel laureate Amartya Sen) trained at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, New York, as well as the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London. Her films include Black, Tango Charlie and My Wife's Murder. She half-jokingly calls Sugandha “...the first pin-up girl, in Indian art!” Acting-wise, she too, like Randeep, is unable to match the demanding requirements, and her peep-show too is sensual without being earth-shaking. There is little question that she has unconventionally attractive looks, and is bold and uninhibited. It is in the dramatic moments that her limited prowess shows. And her diction, like that of most women in the film, is, strangely, Westernised. Part of the blame must go to the script, which does not allow her much characterisation. No, I am not saying she is bad, far from it. But, like it is for Hooda, more was expected in a role offering as golden an opportunity as this. Was her willingness to do a Zeenat Aman (Satyam Shivam Sundaram) or a Mandakini (Ram Teri Ganga Maili), in terms of uncovering mammary gland(s) for the camera, a deciding factor in the casting?

Paresh Rawal shows that bereft of over-acting or hamming, he is an even better actor. Rajat Kapoor, Tom Alter and Suhasini Mulay are wasted in inconsequential parts, though Tom has some footage as an English judge. Vipin Sharma, Sachin Khedekar, Shrivallabh Vyas and Ashish Vidyarthi try to enliven their brief roles. Darshan Jariwala is a bit stagey, as the religious opponent of Varma, but that is not too far from the brief. Vikram Gokhale underplays the prosecutor, with only occasional modulations, thereby flattening the performance. Rashaana Shah is a comely Kamini, the seductress and Varma’s first model. Since the story is narrated by Ravi’s brother Raj as an audio flashback, it is disappointing to see Gaurav Dwivedi get a raw deal on screen.

Rang Rasiya is the kind of film you can see, reflect upon for a moment or two in the cinema foyer, and then go back to the real world. In the process, you might discover that the father of Indian cinema, D.G. Phalke, was an apprentice at Varma’s printing press and feel the wiser for this piece of general knowledge. As for 'one for the road' nudity, it was a major issue way back in 1890. It might have been a minor issue ten years ago, when work on the film began, but in 2014, it is a non-issue. To patrons of art and of good cinema, it is a trifling detail. To the wolf-whistling and sexually deprived/depraved class of viewers, it is 'half' baked much ado about nothing. 

Rating: **1/2

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TC8o690ns0

The real Raja Ravi Varma

India’s most celebrated painter. As controversial as he was gifted, Ravi Varma moved the Hindu gods and goddesses out of temples and into the common man’s home, and immortalised many people and moments in history through his brushstrokes. Deeply influenced by European art, Varma won many international contests and was honoured by many princely states in the country. Ravi’s mother, Uma Amba Bai Tampuratti, was a poet, his father, Ezhymavil Neelakantan, Bhattathiripad, was a Sanskrit scholar and his uncle, Raja Raja Varma, was an amateur artist who taught young Ravi his initial art lessons. As a little boy, Ravi Verma used to draw and colour the walls of his home with pictures of characters found in everyday life. At the age of 14, Ayilyam Thirunal Maharaja took him to Travancore Palace, and he was taught water painting by the palace painter, Ramaswami Naicker. After 3 years, Theodore Jenson, a Dutch/British painter, taught him oil painting.

Once he decided to take up painting as a profession, he went on foot to Mookambika temple in South Canara district of Karnataka, to worship the goddess there, and make an auspicious beginning. His first professional painting was a portrait of a family in Calicut, and he received the first paid commission. His paintings later on became so popular that keeping any of his works at homes and palaces came to be considered a matter of status symbol. He also became internationally acclaimed when he won the first prize in the Vienna Art Exhibition in 1873. Most of his oil paintings are based on Hindu epic stories and characters. In 1873 he won the First Prize at the Madras Painting Exhibition. He was also India’s first ever calendar artist.

Ranjit Desai, author of the biographical novel

Ranjit Desai (1928-92) was born in Kolhapur district, Maharashtra. Biographical novels were his forté. His most famous works are Morpankhi Sawalya, Shriman Yogi and Swami, based on the life of Madhavrao, the third Peshwa (Maharashtrian royal). He won the Maharashtra Rajya (state) Award (1963), Hari Narayan Apte Award (1963), the Sahitya Akademi Award (1964) and the PadmaShri, from the Government of India (1973). 

Beauty and the Beast, Review: Beauty liVes in the eyes of the beholder

Rarely does a fairy-tale manage to pack-in all the ingredients that would appeal to a cross section of audiences--stunning visuals, great special effects, mind-blowing CGI--and also portray characters as credible, in spite of being part of a fable. Beauty and the Beast is one such laudable attempt. That it comes not from Disney (who made it in 1991) or Pixar or any of the regular cartoon/animation studios is a marvel. That it is a French-German co-production is an even greater rarity, though the legend was already made in native French in 1946. Definitely recommended.

In the year 1810, a financially-ruined merchant, a widower, exiles himself in the country-side, with his six children (three sons and three daughters) to avoid a ruthless creditor. One day, during an arduous journey across a forest, in the midst of heavy snowfall, the merchant stumbles across the magical and treasure-filled domain of the Beast, and enjoys his incredible and unexpected hospitality. The Beast, however, sentences the merchant to death, for stealing a rose from his enchanted flora and fauna, albeit with the noble intention of gifting it to Belle/Beauty, his youngest daughter and favourite child, a joyful girl, full of grace.

When she learns about the predicament of her father, Belle feels responsible for the terrible fate which has befallen her family, including the death of her mother while giving birth to her. Belle decides to sacrifice herself by taking her father’s place, hoping to convince the Beast to kill her instead. She mounts her father’s horse and asks him to lead her towards the Beast’s realm. At the Beast’s castle, it is not death that awaits Belle, but a strange life, in which fantastical moments mingle with gaiety and melancholy. Every night, at dinner, Beauty and the Beast sit down together, but he does not eat.

They learn about each other, interacting and analysing one another like two strangers who are total opposites. While she has to repulse his amorous advances, Belle tries to unravel the mysteries of the Beast and his abode. And when night falls, the Beast’s past is revealed to her bit by bit, in her dreams. It is a tragic story, which tells her that this solitary and fearsome being, who looks like a cross between a wolf, a lion and a large rodent, was once a popular prince. You will learn some 15 minutes into the film that it is more about the beauty (called Belle, as in French for beautiful) than about the beast, who really comes into his own in the second half of the film.

Conceived with the same lead pair in mind, the film finds Léa Seydoux (Inglorious Basterds, Mission Impossible-Ghost Protocol) doing a job distinctly better than her lesbian role in 2013’s Cannes Best Director winner, Blue is the Warmest Colour. The youngest of seven children, Seydoux was born in 1985.  Her grandfather is chairman of Pathé films (which has co-produced Beauty and the Beast), and her mother, Valerie Schlumberger, is a former actress. Vincent Cassel, the prince/beast, has used his early training in mime express the physical manifestations of man/animal whose human face is not seen for the greater part of the film. There is good support from the rest of the cast, particularly André Dussolier as the merchant. He could have easily come across as a raving, doting, wallowing in self-pity stereo-type, had he not carried himself with dignity. You might feel, though, that the sisters and brothers tend a tad towards caricatures. Special mention must be made of the adorable little creatures called tadum, who might be products of cross-fertilisation between ET, squirrels, puppies and owls.  Their alien chatter stays with you much after the film has ended. In the end, Beauty and the Beast is a triumph for director Christophe Gans, and his co-writer Sandra Vo-anh. 

There are some loose ends, mainly related to the nature of the forest, the undefined power limits of its overlord and the way in which the creditor’s gang is allowed to pillage and plunder the treasure trove in the castle till the extended ending sets in, otherwise the narrative moves along convincingly and seamlessly. A highly clipped British accent, on Belle, is, perhaps, misplaced, in a film that is so essentially French. Some other characters speak with ‘accent Francaise’.  The flashbacks are introduced with remarkable novelty, and this helps avoid predictability. Top angles and slow zooms, sometimes tangential and swirling camera movements--photographic tools employed to create additional dimensions and perspective--are commendably executed, to give you the feeling of 3D, of being there. Sounds are created and inserted with precision, to complete the spell and suspension of disbelief, and the transportation across time and realm. 

There’s plenty in it for everyone--for all age groups, for all types of visages--the beautiful and the beastly!

Rating: ***1/2

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9g2w6XPoYs

Christophe Gans, Director

“The first time I saw Jean Cocteau’s (French) film La Belle et la Bête, I must have been five or six. I remember having a strange feeling of dreaming with my eyes open. There was something about that film that was absolutely hypnotic, not only in terms of the image but also the sound. I added some things of my own (to the story), for example with the symbol of the arrow which, at the same time, kills the prince’s wife, then strikes him in turn. It is both an object of evil, but at the same time, Cupid’s arrow.

I was struck when I saw Léa Seydoux in a small role in Robin Hood, by Ridley Scott, in which I found her absolutely sumptuous in front of the camera – the camera of a director who has great importance for me. I really wanted Belle’s point of view, and I needed an actress who is at once classical, youthful, feminine, modern, radiant and with depth. And in fact, Léa has all that and is in a class of her own. Vincent is the Beast just as you might imagine him, a sort of embodiment, at once virile, yet arrogant and ‘cyclothymic’. The combination of these two actors was really great for me because they have a really balanced ‘yin’ and ‘yang’. Léa has a masculine side, which gives her an absolutely sensational charm, and Vincent has a feminine side, which allows him to embody this character who, as I said, is grandiose, noble and a little creepy, which I think was perfect for the Beast.

There’s a scene on which I had worked a great deal, in which I had invested a lot, emotionally: it was the death of the princess. It was shot in a sandpit. The poor actress was there with a minimal set, but otherwise the studio looked like an industrial wasteland. There was a sandpit, and she was naked on the ground. I had to project onto this scene – just like the actress – everything that was going to come later: the French garden, the fact that she’s an animal and that she is killed by her own husband.

When Léa runs through the woods after the deer before stumbling on the rosebush, she’s running along a blue carpet with an automatic camera, which is filming on a rail with a little motor. In other words, there’s nothing there: no squirrels, no deer, there’s no moss on the ground, nothing.

Shooting in Babelsberg, near Berlin, was a very moving experience for me. It was there that masterpieces of the German cinema like Metropolis, Die Nibelungen, and The Blue Angel were shot. Evenings, I would sometimes wander the set alone thinking of Fritz Lang working in the same place. Apart from the hunting scene, that starts the third flashback, which was filmed in the adjoining forest, we shot the whole film in a studio. So we filmed the hunt for half a day with the dogs, and everything else that you see is in the studio.

Avatar had a great influence on me. It’s a film that I liked far beyond what I’d expected. I was very struck by the fact that here was a director who came along and created an entire biosphere from his imagination. Avatar’s strength was that the hero is disabled. It’s insane as a choice. James Cameron was smart enough to think: I’m going to create a universe which is in my head, and the hero of this universe is a man who no longer has the use of his legs, and whose inner emotions will make a hero of him. That’s a real film-maker’s way of reasoning.

Jean Marais had to undergo torture in the 1946 version of Beauty and the Beast. He was daubed in glue at around 3 O’clock in the morning, which meant he developed really bad eczema, and the poor guy found himself having to project his emotions through a thick mask, which was all very problematic. In my film, the mask was made by seamstresses who attached the Beast’s hairs individually for hundreds of hours. Only this mask wasn’t stuck on Vincent’s face with glue, it was applied to his face using digital techniques. The mask was scanned in very high definition, then superimposed on the actor’s face. So the actor no longer has to get up at 4am, I don’t have to wait for him to arrive, and he doesn’t develop a horrendous bout of eczema.

And he can act, because the mask isn't the same thickness as the kind of masks we had before. It’s like a second skin. The mask is literally placed like a skin over his expressions, so unlike before, the actor’s performance is respected, since the mask today is so fine.

Before this film took off, I was actually working on two projects, both of which had stalled, for different reasons. One was none other than Fantomas (famous old French series, about an Inspector and an elusive criminal, starring Jean Marais) and an adaptation of Leopold Perutz’s The Swedish Cavalier.

I’ve always seen the monster as an intermediary step between mortal and God. In that sense, they are indeed mythological creatures, like cyclopses, Titans, or the whole pantheon of classic mythology.”

In mid October 2014, the Press Information Bureau (PIB) of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, started calling for accreditations from media-persons. Soon after the International Film Festival of Mumbai (IFFM) got over, journalists started applying for the same. It would be 10 years since the travelling festival moved to Panaji, Goa, and took-up permanent residence there, and in power was Goa's Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, who had been in office in 2004 too. Attendees have admired his hands-on and no fanfare approach whenever he is at the helm during IFFI (his party has been in and out of office a few times in these 10 years). Once, in 2004, I was pleasntly surprised to discover that the man supervising the road repairs outside the main venue late at night was he, and also once again to find him supervising, but effectively standing as an usher, at a major function held at Kala Academy, during IFFI.

During late October, one started hearing about several friends trying to register as media-persons and others as delegates, but unable to do so due to PIB's website issues. It happened to me too. Copies of the filled-in online registration form, which just did not go through on clicking SEND, were sent to half a dozen persons, both at PIB and at the Directorate of Film Festivals (DFF). Nobody responded. The problem persisted for two weeks, and repeated reminders were sent. Nobody replied. A regular attendee told me not to use Google Chrome but to use Internet Explorer, since PIB's website is more accessible via IE. Ironically, I always use Internet Explorer. Even more ironic was the fact that when my form did go through, three weeks after I started my attempts to register, it was through Google Chrome.

Hotels in Panaji are in great demand and rooms are in shoprt supply due to the special Exposition of Saint Francis Xavier, which clashes with the festival. Parwinder Gavas of Hotel Delmon, had assured me back in May of a room at an affordable rate for my two-week stay for IFFI. He backed out in August, quoting the Exposition. Later, he offered to find me a room at another, similar hotel, within my budget, but then became incommunicado. When I spoke to him again in September, he said he would still try, but did nothing. Last week, he said he had one room, but he would charge me twice the rate which I had been assured, and that was after a generous 30% discount. That ended the poossibility of staying at Delmon. My regular, Trimurti, is out of the running, because my body is unable to withstand the night-time heat and humidity in Panaji, and I cannot sleep under the agingTrimurti fan, which is far from fast. Old-timer journalist and friend Mohan Siroya suggested Hotel Keni's, an affordable, air-conditioned option, and luckily they had a room available. Mr. Dilip Kumar from the hotel's management confirmed my booking. So, I will be reaching Goa on Tuesday, the 18th, late evening, and staying at Keni's.

A week ago, some 10 days before IFFI is scheduled to begin, Parrikar was summoned to New Delhi to take over as Defence Minister, and thus forced to vacate his CM's chair in Goa. It was felt by a host of Indians, especially numerous Goans, that Goa's loss was New Delhi's gain. Some doubts are now being raised whether IFFI 2014 will have the same ambience that it did during the years when Parrikar was in-charge. Is New Delhi's gain going to be IFFI's loss too?

Meanwhile, some announce ments have been made by DFF.

*The Chief Guest for the inauguration ceremony will be Amitabh Bachchan

*Indian Centenary Personality of the Year will be Rajanikanth

*Wong Kar Wai will be given the Lifetime Achievemnt award

*The 26 films to be shown under the Indian Panorama are:

S.No. Title of the Film Language Director

1. Othello Assamese Hemanta Kumar Das

2. Punashcha Bengali Souvik Mitra

3. Chotoder Chobi Bengali Kaushik Ganguly

4. Bodhon Bengali Ayananshu Banerjee

5. Jodi Love Dile Na Praane Bengali Ms. Sudeshna Roy & Mr. Abhijit Guha

6. Teenkahon Bengali Bauddhayan Mukherji

7. Gour Hari Dastaan - The Freedom File Hindi Ananth Narayan Mahadevan

8. Ankhon Dekhi Hindi Rajat Kapoor

9. 1-December Kannada P. Sheshadri

10. Ri Khasi Pradip Kurbah

11. 1983 Malayalam Abrid Shine

12. North 24 Kaatham Malayalam Anil Radhakrishnan Menon

13. Njan Steve Lopez Malayalam Rajeev Ravi

14. Drishyam Malayalam Jeethu Joseph

15. Munnariyippu Malayalam Venu

16. Swapaanam Malayalam Shaji N. Karun

17. Njaan Malayalam Ranjith

18. Ek Hazarachi Note Marathi Shrihari Sathe

19. Elizabeth Ekadashi Marathi Paresh Mokashi

20. Killa Marathi Avinash Arun

21. Dr. Prakash Baba Amte - The Real Hero Marathi Samruddhi Porey

22. Yellow Marathi Mahesh Limaye

23. Lokmanya – Ek Yugpurush Marathi Om Raut

24. A Rainy Day Marathi Rajendra Talak

25. Adim Vichar Odiya Sabyasachi Mohapatra

26. Kuttram Kadithal Tamil Bramma G.

A 40 minutes delayed flight on Jet Airways from Mumbai to Panaji, accreditation badge not ready on arrival, late first night due to checking into the hotel, unpacking, settling down, dinner with a friend, etc, missing the next morning's Indian film preview screening because it clashed head-on with the Curtain-Raiser Press Conference (PC), missing the next one while trying to get the badge made, going for the third film of the day, KUTTRAM KADITHAL-Tamil-director Bramma G-2014-122 min-Blu-Ray-Colour--and walking out 16-17 minutes into the screening, out of sheer diappointment at the content. Add to that poor sound. Learnt from a colleague that the other film, on Lokmaya Tilak, had DVD problems and was mediodre too. Felt rather sad that I could see only 16-17 minutes out of 6 full films screenings. That, in short, is what happened in the 24 hours since I reached Mumbai doemstic airport. Far from ideal start to what, I pray, will be a much more memorable period of 11 days, from now till the 30th.

Keni's Hotel has idiosyncratic staff, Raphael and Dilip Kumar. Famous names both. The room was okay, but the lift would not stop at the first floor. Ordinarily, it would be no issue, but when you arrive with luggage to last out 14 days, from the 18th till the 2nd of December. But they sent a man along to help. They don't accept credit cards, or even debit cards, and insist on daily advance payment. Two days paid. But where was Mohan Siroya, who suggested the hotel in the first place? He managed to get a room in his usual choice, Hotel Neptune Deluxe. Keni's is 15-minutes' walk from the festival centre, while Neptune Deluxe is 5 minutes away. I am tempted to shift, provided the management can find a room for me by Thursday afternoon.

Shankar Mohan, the Director of the Festival (in his last appearance in this capacity), Rajan Satardekar, CEO Entertainment Society of Goa (in his first appearance) and Ira Joshi (Director, Press Information Bureau, making her first visit to IFFI) addressed a press conference, which was long-winded and boring. A colleague asked for tea,  noticeable by its absence at all IFFI press conferences, and, surprise, surprise, tea came with potato vadas, a popular Indian snack, courtesy ESG.

Sulemani Keeda, Review: NOde to Fellini, Tarkovsky and out-of-the box thinking

With the title meaning a ‘giant bug up the backside’, and the tag line saying a ‘bromantic comedy’, you more or less know what the genre of Sulemani Keeda will be. Writer-director Amit Masurkar moves away from the brooding tragedy of Kaagaz Ke Phool, the star-fixation of Guddi and the misadventures of an aspiring actor as in Chala Murari Hero Banne to concoct a modern-day ballad of two aspiring (slackers?) writers who go through the Mumbai film industry grind to discover success and ‘love’ respectively. Since the film is also touted as a ‘slacker comedy’, here is the dictionary meaning of the word slacker, which might not be widely understood in India: Slacker: One who shirks work or responsibility: "In terms of their outlook on the future, slackers regard tomorrow with a studied cynicism or . . . don't even conceive of one.”

One of the characters in the film, a producer’s 35 year-old son (Ganesh/Gonzo) who is to be launched as a hero in his father (Sweety Kapoor)’s next film, wants the writers to write a script which does not have a story, yet has one. He wants them to cast him as a college student, include full frontal nudity in the film and a weave in a quadrangle, as opposed to the usual love ‘triangle’ seen in Hindi films. Of the duo, Dulal, walks out of the project, hoping to find love with his third muse, Ruma, while the other, Mainak bows to the whims of the hard-nosed tightwad father and gets down to writing a formulaic film. Along the way, there is tons of swearing (liberal Indian censors), standard loser situations and constant references to classic directors like Tarkovsky and Fellini. Dulal remains dead-pan and serious while chasing his woman while Mainak is out for sexual adventures at the drop of a hat, one with a girl called ‘Oona from Poona’. So, will Mainak turn out a blockbuster and will Dulal win over his love interest?

Most situations in the film seem possible, but also improbable. Sulemani Keeda moves from contrived laughs to genuine chuckles with amazing ease. Unfortunately the whole track between Dulal and Ruma, though interesting in terms of execution, is at variance with the rest of the film. That apart, you are forced to keep guessing whether the maker is empathising with the characters or ridiculing them. Is it a black comedy or an existential treatise.

At 89 minutes, the brevity works to the advantage of the film. It was shot largely in Amit’s office in suburban Versova, and cut down from a mere 17 hours of rushes to 1.5 by the editor, Khushboo Agarwal, who felt “Every exposed frame counted. The scenes were shot mostly in longer takes and had a limited number of magnifications.” Cinematography by Surjodeep Ghosh is partly hampered by lighting issues and frequent filtered refraction colours, which might be attributable to budget constraints.

When Amit Masurkar wrote to Roger Avary, co-writer of Pulp Fiction, expressing his interest in film-making, he wrote back telling Amit to quit college and make films if he had the passion. So, he quit engineering college and headed for tinsel-town. A staff writer on the TV series The Great Indian Comedy Show, he directed the ‘making of’ documentary of Dibakar Banerjee’s Love, Sex aur Dhokha (LSD), and then co-write the screenplay of Murder 3, with Mahesh Bhatt. Amit does have an eye for characterisation and most of the cast is well chosen. Each one is given either a mannerism or a distinct style of diction, though the self-conscious half chuckle that Ruma dons after every piece she speaks gets irritating. Given the ambience, the attempt to use back-ground music and sympathetic premises to draw sympathy for Dulal stick out as patches.

It is difficult to believe that the lead pair, Naveen Kasturia and Mayank Tiwari, are true life struggling writers, friends of Amit, and not actors. Their parts will appeal to multiplex intelligentsia while their language and predicaments will jell with masses.  Aditi Vasudev is an indulgent Ruma and Rukhsana Tabassum is oomphy Oona. Karan Mirchandani as the ‘out-of-the-box’ falsetto Gonzo, and Razzak Khan in a cameo as Sweety Kapoor strike the right notes. In the censor chief track, Amit goes slightly over-board. Dilip Prabhavalkar is somewhat ill-at-ease donning the hat, though the woman in the frame is very subtly ‘exposed’. Watch out for Mahesh Bhatt, Anil Sharma, and Amrita Rao, playing themselves!

Films about the Indian film industry have had variable successes ever since the 40s and 50s. Insider jokes, irreverent humour, self-parodying, or cries of anguish from victims of hopefuls with dashed aspirations, do have potential for interesting tales, but they also have the twin pitfalls of lack of distancing and a tendency to get carried away. Sulemani Keeda had more potential than it delivers, and the bug ends up biting somewhere near the halfway mark.

Rating: **1/2

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-qfjTQb1Hk