Film Review: KRITI

Just got here from watching Kriti, and I can't help feeling astonished. That Shirish Kunder could come up with something like this is simply unbelievable. As a Twitterzen, he is all wit. And no one can believe that he is the same guy who tortured us with films like Jaan-e-mann and Joker. Here he shows style and class. 

Of course he receives great support from his two main stars. Radhika Apte is brilliant. As is Manoj Bajpayee. The others are important only in relation to these. The film is about Sapan (Manoj), a writer, who is talking to his therapist and childhood friend, Kalpana (Radhika) about a woman, Kriti, with whom he is in a relationship. After that I won't tell you anything else, because I don't do spoilers.

I was quite impressed with the film. The sets are beautiful (and rather unreal). The wide open spaces, the profusion of white, is quite a treat for the eyes. Radhika's house reminded me of Alice in Wonderland for some reason, the whites on his side of the room, the reds on hers. The music, which is vaguely threatening, adds to the effect. It is suggestive of the faintest whiff of something about to go wrong.

The mannequins all over Sapan's house, the painting with the bloodied tears, they all added an unreal quality to the film. I actually felt disconcerted as Sapan walked through the house looking for Kriti.

As a writer, I know well the importance of names and i see it underscored here. Once again, no spoilers.

Once the film ends you begin to see the clues and you are better able to click things into place. Manoj’s nervous laughter as he speaks, his shyness, the hood he wears, all of them and many other things begin to strike you. 

You get clues but you don’t see them as clues. Not at the beginning. At that time, they are only serving to build atmosphere.

The film is short, just under 19 minutes. Just right, if you ask me. The pace is ratcheted up midway through.

Halfway through I suspected part of the truth, but the whole twist at the end still came out of the blue.

Of course it is Bollywood. So a writer can afford a house like that. So urbane and perfect. No boho chic here.

Also, because it is Bollywood, agoraphobia is reduced to the phobia of stepping out of the home which might beg the question, where did Sapan and Kriti meet? Must have been out of the house. Didn’t she suffer the Bollywood version of agoraphobia then? And even if they met at someone else’s house, how did he transport her from there to his house? In a pizza box? Also, zero marks for research. The psychologist shares the half-baked information on agoraphobia as though that is all there is to it.

Some things are too simplistic. Which writer would use a typewriter these days? Only someone totally clueless about the availability of something better like a PC or a laptop. More real. Try writing a first novel on a typewriter. All that plotting and character delineation that needs to be done – if you tried click-clack-click on a typewriter, your head would burst. Either longhand or word processor is the way to go, for the joy of cancelling and drawing arrows across the page, or deletion and cut-copy-paste.

Sapan's house didn’t look like it was set in Mumbai. It actually looked like a picture postcard snow-covered (snow? Global warming is really playing havoc with our climate) house. And then a Mumbai policeman dropped in.

It reminded me of K3G (Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham), where the palatial London style mansion with its own football field attached was supposedly based in Chandani Chowk. 

None of that takes away from Radhika and Manoj. This was the first time I saw Radhika on screen, and she was just brilliant. She looks sophisticated and fabulous despite the Over-the-top makeup and the large eyes that cause you to step back a pace or two. Clearly, she has left her contemporaries far behind. 

Manoj has always been good, and here he proves his worth yet again. He looks gaunt, like someone who has found love after a long time. He looks damaged in his own way, right at the outset.

Neha Sharma as Kriti doesn’t have much to do even though the film is named after her. 

The writing is good. The details are given out bit by bit. Despite the thread of tension, I laughed when the inspector says to Manoj, "You’re not my wife that I should listen to you."

Great production effects. No shoddy work here. Perhaps other filmmakers ought to adopt the short film as a genre.

You can say so much in such a short time, sort of like the short story as opposed to a novel. In the hands of the master, less can be more.

And that is what Kriti turned out to be.

The last shot with both Radhika and Manoj looking into the camera is too cute. Manoj, especially. Once again, no spoilers.

The biggest surprise is Kunder. I’ve never liked his films. On the cringeworthy scale, they are only marginally better than those of his brother-in-law. But here he might cause you to do a re-think on him. Provided he doesn’t undo what he has achieved here.

PS: Just heard that a Nepali short film maker, Aneel Neupane, has alleged that Kunder has plagiarised the idea from his film, BOB. You can watch Bob and figure out for yourself. Incidentally, Bob was released on May 13 and Kriti on June 22.

Too close for comfort.

Book Review: HIFI IN BOLLYWOOD

Title: HiFi in Bollywood
Author: Rishi Vohra
Publisher: Jaico Books
Pages: 264





Rayhan Arora dreams of becoming a director in the Hindi film industry, the HiFi of the title. His own life is nothing less than a Hindi potboiler. The only way in which this hero differs from the hero of a film he would have liked to direct is that he keeps getting slapped around by some of the other characters.

Other than this, the other elements of a Hindi film script are all there. There is rebellion against a controlling father, a dream that won’t fizzle out, and a love life that bristles with unpredictability. Along the way, a host of small time characters, at once colourful and entertaining, add their own measure of conflict in his life. To top it all, a stinging case of bad luck ensures that despite his best intentions, he keeps getting into trouble.

While his father wants him to pursue the Great American dream, he would rather make himself a name as a film maker in Bollywood. When his father fixes a marriage alliance for him with Vanita, the daughter of an old friend, he panics and leaves Berkeley for Mumbai, hoping to find a job as an assistant director and work his way up.

In Part II, he moves from Berkeley to Mumbai, where an old college friend finds him PG digs very close to his dad’s home. Despite his best attempts to avoid his father, he is repeatedly sighted by his father’s Friday evening drinking buddies. 

If that much excitement isn’t enough, his life collides headlong with the other characters in the city, including some actors with big egos, a small time goon who dreams of landing a role in a film, a gay film director, a local politician who wants to marry Rayhan’s maid’s daughter, who also yearns for her place in the spotlight, and a mysterious girl called Viola who also joins the film set of Pyaar ki supaari, as an assistant director.

Rishi does a fine job with the characterisation. I must confess that at first I was inclined to agree with Arora Sr and think of Rayhan as a loser who couldn’t get his act together. His penchant for hanging around with the hit-with-the-ladies Dave didn’t do much to change my impression. But then he took the supremely courageous step of leaving his comfort zone America behind to take to the grind in aamchi Mumbai, and the guy began to grow on me.

Since this is a first person account of Rayhan (with the occasional third person viewpoint of other smaller yet significant characters thrown in), we get to see his life inside out, but the author does equal justice to the other bit roles that populate this quirky and fun read. Romesh, his drinking buddies, Laxmibai, the maid, her daughter Mangala, and of course ask-for-Peter, they all come alive in just a few words.

I liked the character of Rayhan. Seen from the viewpoint of his father, he is a loser who hasn’t managed to find a job in spite of completing his degree in Corporate Finance from the University of Berkeley. The only hope he has of redeeming himself in his father’s eyes is if he were to marry Vanita.

Even as Rayhan displays the typical Indian trait of being money conscious, it is clear that he is intent on pursuing his dream and loves his country, and is only biding time in America because of the physical distance it puts between him and his controlling father.

Rayhan has a great sense of humour. His inner monologue especially sizzles with amusement. His interactions with Peter are a case in point.

He is equally amusing when he speaks of his father mastering new forms of communication technologies, or the way he hung up, one order barked out and then a click in the ear of Rayhan.

The humorous streak is particularly on display during his conversations with his father. When Romesh Arora tells Rayhan not to try anything funny with the Indian American Vanita who had once socked him as a child, Rayhan asks, What if she tries something funny with me?

Above all, Rayhan has a totally desi concept of value for money. He goes to get one ear pierced, but is told that he will be charged for two, so he has two rings put into his left ear.



Author Rishi Vohra highlights his protagonist's sense of ambition well when Rayhan says, I wanted to spend my life behind a film camera, while the world in front of it moved to my directions, personified feelings in accordance to my script and danced to my tunes. That was where I belonged and the only place I ever wanted to be.

But the way to the dream isn't going to be easy, as everyone who comes to this city with stars in their eyes discovers soon enough. For Rayhan, the road to good fortune leads him through red-light areas and police stations to disappointments and heartbreaks. But he doesn't lose sight of his dream. And that's the one message that Rishi Vohra's book leaves you with.

Read this book, if you love Bollywood -- and even if you don't.

(I received a copy of the book from the author in exchange for an honest review)

Special 26: Con Banega Karodpati

Special 26 has received rave reviews for being a good thriller. But not much is being said about the skewed sense of right and wrong that the film is unintentionally reinforcing.

The film shows four cheats, Ajay (Akshay Kumar) from Bombay, PK Sharma (Anupam Kher) from Chandigarh, Iqbal (Kishor Kadam) from Jaipur, and Joginder (Rajesh Sharma) from Old Delhi, who pose as CBI or Income Tax officials and raid corrupt politicians and very rich businessmen to steal their ill-gotten gains. For a raid at a minister’s house, they take the help of sub-inspector Ranveer Singh (Jimmy Shergill) and lady constable Shanti Yadav (Divya Dutta). The heist yields them a rich haul.

Leaving Ranveer and Shanti at the minister’s house, the four make a quick getaway. Unwilling to talk about his black money, the minister refuses to file an FIR and is content with the suspension of Ranveer and Shanti.

Bristling with indignation, Ranveer is determined to bring the criminals to book. He makes some investigations of his own and appeals to the Central Bureau of Investigation for help. Waseem Khan (Manoj Bajpayee), an upright officer, is assigned to help him.

Khan makes it his personal mission to catch the four red-handed, even as they are determined to pull off one last big heist, their 50^th and biggest, before they can retire. In order to pull off their most outrageous caper, they recruit 22 graduates ostensibly for a “top-secret raid.” The four chors, along with the 22 recruits, are supposed to be the Special 26. Keen on catching them red-handed, Wasim Khan succeeds in infiltrating two policemen into the roster of new recruits.

But will the good guy outwit the thieves or will they retire in style?

The film does a very good job of portraying urban India of the mid ’80s. Ah, the glorious days, when they could not tap your phone through remote access but had to send a telephone linesman to your home. The props are all there, including the rotary phones, scooters, Maruti 800s, Premier Padminis and Ambassadors on the roads, the old currency notes, no-colour newspaper, the lack of skyscrapers, the lack of crowds outside the airport and the hoarding for Thril on a Best bus stop (Wouldn’t it have been more thrilling with the second ‘l’?)

We were planning to loot Rs 2 crore in 30 minutes, says Sharma. It didn't seem like all that much until I remembered that the film was set in 1987 when Rs 1000 meant a fortune, average salaries were in the 100s and the 4 anna was in its element. Sigh! The reality shows on TV have really spoiled us.

Special 26 gains much from the thin layer of dry humour that coats it. The sequence where Waseem asks his boss if he should start accepting bribes since his promotion and increment are taking too long and running the home front running is proving to be tough. In another sequence in which the four interview some potential candidates for their final scam, the candidates, when questioned, say that they want to join the Central Bank of India, because they are very honest and want to rid the country of corruption. One guy, told to speak English, answers, “I want to do India.” Another girl tells Ajay, “Milke ukhadenge.”

Unlike some of their recruits, our four chors have no larger-than-life motivation for what they do. It's just the means by which they earn a living. There is no guilt attached to their actions. Even though Ajay tells his ladylove that she makes him want to be a better man, the truth is that the said lady never really mounts any sincere protest against his method of making money.

Robin Hoods they are not. While they steal from the rich, they do not give the money to the poor. On the other hand, they do not splurge on themselves either. So where does the money go?

 

Nor was there any heavy-speak about why they did what they did, except for a wishy-washy explanation about how Ajay was keen on working for the CBI but failed the interview and the test.

The visual narrative goes out of its way to invest the four thieves with a sense of grandeur. The walks towards the camera in slow-mo, the corporate attire and the air of confidence and flamboyance, all key weapons in the tricksters' armoury.

The film begins well with a high-energy raid on the home of a minister. In fact, the heist sequences are the most watchable.

The director ruined his own show with the love track between Ajay and his bland love interest, Kajal Aggarwal. In fact, Divya Dutta with her cameo makes a better impression. She has very little dialogue in the film, but there is one line that she repeats thrice, each time underlying a different significance.

The romance totally marred the story. I guess they felt compelled to put it in, given star Akshay Kumar's lover boy image, but the cat-and-mouse chor-police game was far more interesting, and would have been even more potent without the baggage of the love story and the Punjabi wedding with the mandatory gidda.

Kher is outstanding, one moment playing the part of a law enforcement official to the hilt, secure in the righteousness of his duty, fearing no one, the next moment suffering nervousness and slouching for fear of being caught.

The four actors complement one another well. Unfortunately, Joginder and Iqbal have nothing much to do, except blend into the background and provide able support. Interestingly, not one of the four suffers any doubts or regrets in relation to the work they do.

Unnecessary time and footage is devoted to showing the modes of transport by which the four escape to their respective homes after the heist. Do these irrelevant pieces of information help the story?

How did the four, hailing from four distant regions, meet for the first time and decide to team up to pull off these con jobs? How did they go about their first illegal raid? That would have helped flesh out the characters and their motivations far better than Ajay’s insipid love story, Joginder’s joint family sleeping in the yard, Iqbal washing clothes while his wife nags, and Sharmaji’s hum do hamare chhe family with one more in the making. Unfortunately, the only thing known about their interpersonal relationships is that Sharma and Ajay share a warm father-son kind of rapport.

While the plot of the film, loosely based on the Tribhovandas Bhimji Zaveri robbery in the mid-1980s, works, there are a lot of goofups that ruin the total effect.

For instance, the mantri seemed completely shaken by one raid. I found that hard to stomach. What a blot on the high standards of our elected ministers! Had he no Swiss account? Was he so stupid as to keep everything stashed at home, in such obvious places as cupboards, false ceilings, car seats, in a niche beneath the deity and behind the book case?

Also, when we know that mantris care little about transferring senior police officers for their honesty and ineptitude alike, it was strange to discover that this mantri did not even know the commissioner of police looked like.

Also, the visual effects shriek ‘fake’ and Opera House seems to have shifted to Fountain.

I didn’t like the impression the film conveyed, that crime pays and how, and that the good guys, played by Manoj Vajpayee, are just a bunch of smart fools. Had the cops been corrupt, one would not have felt so guilty about cheering the thieves on.

I certainly resented being arm-twisted into rooting for the sheer audacity of the four chors, when my sympathy should very clearly have gone to the good guys, who had been gypped in spite of their hard work and intelligence.

I wondered, is our moral compass so off that when Ajay sends Rs 100 back to Waseem, saying that he will not take the earnings of an honest man, he seemed to rise in our estimation. So much so that he nearly dwarfed Waseem whose sense of honour and honesty is actually beyond question.

Unfortunately, everyone comes out of the cinema hall having a good time, not questioning the four phonies for outraging our morality. It just goes to show how willing we are to adjust our morals to suit the occasion, in a world in which the disclosure of yet another scam leaves us blasé.

Director Neeraj Pandey's debut film, A Wednesday, raised high expectations, which he let down here somewhat. The film is an above average thriller, hampered by the love story, but it missed out on the opportunity to take a moral stance. Today we are sufficiently deluded and disillusioned with the moral realities of today. We don't need our films to emphasise the rewards that await those who choose to muffle their conscience.

Book Review: BOMBAY DUCK IS A FISH (NaBloPoMo Day 14)





Title: Bombay Duck is a Fish
Author: Kanika Dhillon
Publisher: Westland
Pages: 317









When we first meet Neki Brar, the lead heroine in the drama that is Bombay Duck is a Fish but actually treated more as a stand-in and a sidekick, she is sitting on the parapet of her building terrace, with a bottle of wine and Nano, her diary, preparing to jump off.

Rebelling against her parents' middle class instincts, small-town girl Neki has fought for the right to travel to Mumbai and pursue her dream to be a film maker, rather than working for an MNC in Delhi. In Mumbai, she shares a flat that is the size of her room in her Amritsar home with three other girls, who have come from other parts of India to chase their own dreams in a city that has become a byword for magical aspirations.

In her quest to be a great Bollywood director, she takes up a job as a runner, the lowest in the hierarchy of assistant directors (AD), on the sets of choreographer turned director Fiza Kareem's latest film.

The other ADs are none too happy with her and her days on the set become a long agonising drama as she lives through numerous embarrassing situations in her attempts to gain Fiza's approval and the respect of her peers. While her life takes on the shape of a chaotic Bollywood melodrama as she suffers humiliation, betrayal and confusion in varying measures, her letters to her mother are clinically shorn of all these negatives and reflect her own optimistic view of reality.

So many things go wrong and Neki soon begins to wonder if she has done right in following an elusive dream in an industry in which nothing is real and loves, hates, feelings and emotions can be switched on and off, seemingly for the perfect shot. Lured by the magic she has seen on screen, she quickly becomes disillusioned and disenchanted as she comes face to face with the ugly side of this make-believe world. She learns that the magic of the movies is a sham. What Neki is left with is a sordidness that affects every aspect of her life, her love, her friends and her very existence.

Kanika Dhillon's writing brings us an inside view of the emptiness of life on the set and the futility of chasing after glamour and success. While the writing is racy most of the time, there are more than a few occasions when the prose rises above itself. She pays obeisance to Shahrukh Khan, at whose Red Chillies Entertainment she is a screenplay writer, by weaving him into the plot of Fiza's film script for a cameo role.

Kanika's own experience as an AD on the sets of Farah Khan's Om Shanti Om may have provided her the background material for this book. Farah, who is undoubtedly the inspiration behind Fiza, has endorsed the book.

Every learning of Neki's is measured against that espoused by her grandfather and in her father's favourite book, Siddartha by Herman Hesse.

The name of the novel is not only a reference to an embarrassment that Neki suffers in an upscale hotel, but also to the deceptive nature of relationships in Bollywood where nothing is as it seems.

I don't know if the name Neki is fairly common in Punjab. This was the first time that I saw the word used as a proper noun. It reminded me of the phrase, Neki kar aur dariya mein daal (Do good and throw it down the river), which incidentally most of us learned from Bollywood.

I would have preferred another ending. This one was a disappointment. This is not the way a girl who was feisty enough to want a career in Bollywood would have wanted. Especially when everyone who follows Bollywood with even the remotest interest knows that scandals are good and that the most salacious bit of gossip does not occupy public memory for long. All in all, I thought the book was good for some leisure time reading.