Ankahee...

Saw this beautiful and intense movie today. Ankahee. Starring Amol Palekar and Deepti Naval had won a national award in 1984.

The movie quintessentially talks about the part destiny plays in our lives. How much of our life is our own and how much of it is preordained. In the movie the educated protagonist struggles to find a way out of his father’s (also an astrologer) doomed prophecy which threatens to tear his world apart. He believing his father's predictions loves one woman but marries another. The movie explores the murky space where faith transcends into superstition. Something most people struggle with. I have seen educated engineers from my college turn around when black cat crosses their path and highly qualified doctors run to the nearest astrologers to sort out their kid’s future. Like the doctor in the movie whose patient’s eminent death is predicted by the astrologer says – what is the point in living and inventing if every second of our life is writ in stone? Why bother at all?

On a parellel note the movie also delves on the existence of free will primarily through the choices the girl (whom the protaganist does not marry) makes or is forced to make. How people under the garb of duty, love, pity, guilt and other such varied emotions push people to act against their free will.

Deepti Naval delivers a stellar performance as an innocent village belle struggling with her demons. The story in itself is powerful but Deepti Naval takes it to a different level. Amol Palekar is a superb story teller but the credit of this movie goes to the writer and Deepti Naval.

The last line of the movie actually summarizes it all –

Zindagi har kadam par aadmi ka apna chunaav hai…

Do we need to redefine why we like cinema…LSD

My love for movies grew gradually and over long period of time. While in my teens and throughout my childhood I hardly saw movies. Some old English classics which mom got for us and some movies that doordarshan showed that are the gems of Hindi cinema (but I was too young to appreciate). It was only after I moved to Bangalore and started hanging out with the “intellectuals” in IISc that I discovered cinema and international at that. Discovered Von Trier, Kielowski, Tarkowsky, Bergman etc. And then thanks to these friends who used to watch movies till wee hours of the morning in the lab instead of working on the project as they were supposed to, I saw some beautiful offbeat English cinema. And then with my ex-roommate turned psycho I stumbled onto this beautiful world of regional Indian cinema which to tell you the truth has no equal. And now with my sis I am rediscovering those gems of Hindi cinema. But all this while movies that appealed were always high on emotions, deep with several layers, actors par excellence, direction and editing that would leave you spell bound, music and lyrics that would haunt you even in your dreams.

And now it is Love, sex aur dhoka…

LSD will blow you away. You will struggle to understand why you like the movie. Is it the trashy reality of our lives or are we just giving into the baser emotion of voyeurism? Even after being flooded with the reality shows which you know are not real the movie is gripping. It’s an experiment which has been thought about and planned to the last detail. I admire the precision with which the movie is shot. The three stories connect like an Agatha Christie novel where you understand the intricacies only when the director deigns to reveal them to you. It definitely opens a whole new vista of film making. I do not need to say much about the three stories which to me are just incidental. The movie is definitely not defined by them and for all I care it could have been a cat-mouse chase. Its a smart movie that goes way beyond in an attempt to define entertainment. Watch it without any preconcieved notion.

Highly recommended.

Karthik Calling Karthik

I think it’s very tough to look at movies in isolation without comparing them to the world cinema one has seen and is aware of. But also sometimes given the context of a particular culture\country\industry we should look at movies in a limiting context.

Given that background if I look at KCK reducing the universe only to Bollywood (and not even the extremely vast reserves of regional cinema India has), the movie is impressive. Farhan Akhtar manages the transition from an invisible loser in life to a high flying yuppie quite well. The movie does have a suspense element which the director has successfully carried throughout the film almost till the end. You don’t realize how quickly the harmless phone transitions to an object of terror. The movie is quite crisp. And though it’s the story of the man “Karthik” the love angle with Deepika has been woven without stretching it or giving it more shades then required.

The role suits Farhan and he has played it without melodrama. Deepika on the other hand has all of two expressions in her acting repertoire. She does compensate it with the fact that she looks pleasantly gorgeous and looks good no matter what she adorns.

While the editing is crisp and almost manages nail-biting suspense at one or two places, it does have a few stereotypes. The depiction of the therapist for one is very Freudian and kitsch and could have done with some research. I wish the director had actually met a shrink and observed how she functions. Another disappointment is that I doubt if people associated with the movie even understood the details of what entails a mental disorder. What is schizophrenia or MPD? What are the symptoms? How it manifests itself in a person? I wish the script writer and the actress playing the shrink had bothered just “googling” it – it would have taken the film to a different level itself.

3 Idiots

(wrote it way back and forgot to post :))

So my friend wanted to catch a glimpse of Aamir Khan for real…and that’s how it all began…the last minute tickets…the crazy energy levels at work just waiting to leave…the mad rush to the theater…and the endless wait rushing from corner to corner to catch a glimpse…well we finally got a look and my friend almost swooned…well now that’s an exaggeration…she was superbly calm ;)

There is this genre of films which paint a picture perfect life…even the downs are better than the real life ups…and of course its happily ever after…and I shamelessly accept that I love such movies…I love spending those two hours in a dream world which has nothing whatsoever to do with reality…yeah it’s the ideal world, the utopia I want…the dream I live every waking moment of my life…

Rajkumar Hirani has done it with brilliance, once again…college days are especially happy days for almost all of us…reminds us what it was like to be young…hostels, seniors and ragging, exams and assignments, getting crazily drunk, giving it all up for friends, the pranks and crushes…you’ll love it all…supremely idealistic and unreal (after all how many are born Einstein…) but will nevertheless take you to that euphoric place where you will laugh and cry (just laugh actually) with the characters…even if for a moment the movie inspires to take you that leap towards your dream…

The best thing about this movie is the perfection…all characters are etched with brilliance down to the minutest details…it’s a pleasure to watch the chem lab experiment which did not blow up in our face and got us a straight A in school…that sums up the movie for me.

Long overdue…A movie flowing in frames…

I had written this ages ago...don't know why never posted it...anyways here it is now...

As I go about some of my fav blogs and see every one of them writing about Dev-D…I am engulfed with guilt of not penning my thoughts…

If there was ever any hype for any movie for me, it was Dev-D…having close to heart people closely associated with this movie…having heard awesome comments about the script, music, about the movie…I was just dying to see it…

I had heard the music long before the movie was released…the songs in themselves are addictive and psychedelic…so much so that I have heard the songs over and over again…and there is a song for every mood and (you discover later in the movie) for every character…the songs have so much of character in them that they tell a story even when you haven’t seen the movie…”hadh se behad hadh kar di”…need I say more…

The movie is radical in more ways than one…I will begin with the adaptation…having read the original book…having seen innumerable Hindi and Bengali movies on the subject, I still could not have predicted the characters in the movie…they have been adapted with such brilliance and honesty…things, feelings which are there, which we experience but hypocritical as we are, we don’t accept…I was amazed that the director could portray them with such panache….be it paro who is so in touch with her sexuality…or dev who is unapologetic about his addictions and way of life or chanda who discovers life and freedom behind a mask…there are multiple layers to every character…

For the first time I felt the Indian cinema broke the shackles of the plot and ventured into the actual realm of film making…it reminds you of Ingmar Bergman in “Through a Glass Darkly” or Alfred Hitchcock in “I Confess” (I know I repeat these way too often :) ) or Lars von Trier with his “Dancer in the Dark” or “Europa”…

The brilliance is in the making of the movie…the way the movie moved between frames for me flowing seamlessly was awesome…and the fact that the music was so much a part of the movie that you never realize that there are close to 18 songs there…there are scenes which are executed with no nonsense…all I know is that if I have to tell about the movie to someone I will just show some of these frames to them…

One must applaud the actors…Abhay Deol who could have easily let the role slip into that of a “pathetic sex addict cum drunkard and loser” brilliantly manages to internalize the character and deliver a performance par excellence and Kalki for the rendition of Chanda without guilt, with complete awareness of self, without being bogged down with stale morality and judgment…

Overall for me the movie brings o life what was missing from Indian cinema…