Jurassic Park (1993)

Many people around the world often ask themselves, WWJD? That is, "What would Jeff do?"


The Jeff is pleased.

As we all know from the canon of Jurassic Park, Jeff would disapprove of unchecked scientific progress, especially that which is profit-driven. We cannot underestimate the power of Mother Nature, nor can we think to control it. As Jeff himself proclaimed, "Life... uh, finds a way."

But not only did Jeff warn against the hubris of human beings, not only did he predict our Icarus-like fall when everyone else was still thinking the power was trying to come back on, Jeff was also pretty damn hot. I mean, check out that trendy shirt, half-buttoned up, those trendy glasses, that trendy Adam's Apple. That is one sexy chaotician.

If you are lost, the PPCC can only suggest you watch the wonderful, the inimitable, the highly enjoyable Jurassic Park. Frequent PPCC readers may be asking themselves why we choose to review such a mainstream Hollywood movie. The reason, of course, is Jeff. The PPCC loves Jurassic Park - like love loves - but we also need to recognize the bizarre, cult-like following Jeff Goldblum seems to have. Maybe it was his choice of films in the 70s, 80s, and 90s: many of them creepy, often a little bit sci-fi, a little horror, a little bit eroticized. See, for example, The Fly, or Earth Girls Are Easy, or Invasion of the Body Snatchers, etcetera and so forth. Or maybe it's the characteristic way he delivers his lines: "Uh, I, uh, I... hope you wash your hands... before, uh, before you eat anything!" Whatever it is, there's just Something About Jeff that makes people remember him and want to emblazon his pop icon status in really bizarre ways.


The Jeff, protector of screaming women.

But we don't want the JP review to become a Jeff review, ergo we will focus now on JP as a film, and not simply as a Jeff Godlblum vehicle.

For those who have been living under a rock, the plot of JP is this: based on a popular Michael Crichton novel, scientists have found a way to clone dinosaurs using the old DNA captured in fossilized mosquitos. Megolomaniac billionaire John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) builds a theme park around these next generation dinosaurs, and invites paleontologists Dr. Grant (Sam Neill) and Dr. Sattler (Laura Dern), as well as mathematician Ian Malcolm (the Jeff), sleazy lawyer Gennaro (Martin Ferrero, of Miami Vice fame), and, just to make matters worse, his two grandchildren, Lex (Ariana Richards) and Timmy (Joseph Mazzello), for a weekend touring the park.


Check out the color balance in the costume design. Every detail of this film is touched with genius!

Of course, things go terribly awry when evil employee Dennis Nedry (Wayne Knight) shuts down the security systems of Jurassic Park in order to steal the genetic code. While the guests are alternatively eaten by T-Rexes or trapped in jeeps trapped in trees, game warden Muldoon (Bob Peck) and computer engineer Mr. Arnold (Samuel L. Jackson) try desperately to get Jurassic Park back online. Much excitement ensues.


An example of some excitement.

Being that the film is directed by Steven Spielberg, it is rambunctious, thrilling, intelligently shot and completely manipulative. As per usual, we are Spielberg's puppets and we dance to his tune. We enjoyed it the first time, the thirtieth time, the hundredth time. In fact, it's longevity as a PPCC favorite is admirable. Many of the film's dialogues have gone down in PPCC history, and we often judge people on whether they recognize lines such as, "They do move in herds!" or "It's a veggie-saurus, Lex!" Scenes such as when we see our first dinosaur, and Sam Neill clumsily removes his aviator sunglasses to marvel, have been burned into the PPCC consciousness for eternity. And the music!


The iconic Gape scene.


Lovely shot; a raptor with some genetic code reflected onto him.

Gush. The music is a thing unto itself. It is as mainstream as mainstream can get - John Williams - but let that not tarnish it, oh ye of counter-cultural tendencies. The bit when it goes DOO doo doo DOOO DOOOO (main theme), or just the way the music suddenly leaps alive when the jeep crashes above Sam Neill's head, is just choice.


"Say again?" "We have a T-Rex."

The performances are uniformly predictable and uniformly enjoyable. Sam Neill, another veteran of that creepy, sci-fi, horror road (see Event Horizon or Dead Calm), flexes his eyebrows and stares in terror and generally fulfills the Archetypal Scientist Hero role. Laura Dern, likewise, screams very loudly, and little Ariana Richards even more so. Joseph Mazzello is surprisingly good as a mini-Sam Neill, and of course, then there is the Jeff. But everyone is good, and we have no space, but we could continue gushing.

Perhaps what's so long-lasting about JP is that it should superficially be a pulpy B-movie, and yet it was so wondrously alive that it became a surprisingly fun A-movie. While the shocks are no longer shocking (that goat's leg on the car, for example), the thrills are still thrilling and, with each viewing, it becomes a little bit funnier, a little bit more sweetly nostalgic. Ellie, look! They do move in herds!

Do Aur Do Paanch (1980)

Nooooo.

Word on the street was that Do Aur Do Paanch (2 + 2 = 5) was not so spectacular. Apparently despite having a title that Radiohead and George Orwell would be proud of, it just did not have panache. No chutzpah. No je ne sais quoi.

Well, PPCC readership, the PPCC must disagree with the word on the street, because we just loved it! Maybe it was presentation. Our copy of Do Aur Do Paanch has no DVD menu, no censor board blurb, nothing. Instead, as soon as you press play, it unceremoniously BLASTS out with the psychadelic, Pink Panther-inspired cartoon opening, and away we go! Things become more and more surreal as the movie progresses, until, as others have commented, the end just clatters up like a broken-down machine. But the first half is delightfully entertaining; it's comedy in the same self-aware, absurdist vein as Namak Halaal, except we liked Do Aur Do Paanch more (we spent much of Namak Halaal going, "Wait, what?" and it was only with several viewings that we could relax into the surreal). It made us all tickly and giggly.


Cartoon Amitabh.


Cartoon Shashi.

Much of the humor, fortunately or unfortunately, is self-referential. For example, consider Shashi Kapoor's character assuming a very Shashi Kapoor-like role of the Handsome Romantic Lead With a Tragic Past. The fact that he is faking it, and that he is teasing an archetype that he largely defined in the 1970s, makes his scenes with Hema Malini wonderfully satirical for those in the know, and just standard funny for those not. For this reason, we might not suggest Do Aur Do Paanch as an initiation masala film for the virginal Bollywood viewer. It's probably more enjoyable for the seasoned veteran.


Our beloved Om Prakash makes a brief appearance.


Shashi, teasing the earlier roles he played with Hema Malini.

The plot: two criminals (Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor) are always in and out of jail, and always in each other's way. They hate each other, and yet they always end up together as they go for the same bait. One day, they discover a plot to kidnap a rich man's (Shreeram Lagoo) young son, Bittu (MASTER BITTU, OF ALL PEOPLE*). The ransom, rumor has it, is like a billion kajillion rupees, because said rich man is very rich and loves his son very much. He loves little Bittu so much that he sends him to boarding school, in the hope that he will be safe there. Amitabh and Shashi naturally get wind of this news and both arrive at the school in the guise of new teachers: the lanky Amitabh as Ram the Gym Teacher, and the delicate Shashi as Lakshman the Music Teacher.

Clearly the fact that they have picked the names Ram and Lakshman is no coincidence, and their upcoming switch from enemies to brothers-in-arms is now inevitable for anyone familiar with the Ramayana. Indeed, while they spend a lot of time falling over each other in their desperate attempts to get Bittu, and while they both catch the eye of a beautiful lady (Parveen Babi for Ram, and Hema Malini for Lakshman), eventually they uncover an even more sinister plot to kidnap Bittu and decide to:

1. Unite forces.
2. But first get wasted and have an emotionally candid confessional.
3. Get dumped by the girls.
4. But then ask for their help.
5. And finally save Bittu.

The PPCC's favorite scene, where Amitabh and Shashi get drunk and become friends.


Note the Bruce Lee posters on Amitabh's wall. Note also Amitabh's sweaty, teary "drunk face". The PPCC doesn't like Amitabh's "drunk face".


Not that Shashi's is any more flattering.

This is all no surprise. A masala criminal is not evil at heart. If anything, he is misguided. Emotionally immature, perhaps a little selfish. But never beyond redemption! (Examples abound, but PPCC favorites including Vinod Khanna in Chor Sipahee, Amitabh in Kasme Vaade, or Amitabh and Shashi in Immaan Dharam.)

The joy of Do Aur Do Paanch comes from the sparring between Amitabh and Shashi. The film constantly contrasts and compares them; at times, they are identical (how they are dumped), at times, quite different (Amitabh macho, Shashi fey). As die-hard fans of Amitabh and Shashi, we obviously cannot get enough of this. Their chemistry is just wonderful.


And they play funny tricks on each other...


Like force-feeding. Amitabh grois.

Unfortunately, the joy of Do Aur Do Paanch is only that. So if, by some severe head injury, you do not like seeing Amitabh and Shashi together or separately, the film will feel indulgent and flat. If you also enjoy seeing strong female characters, this film is not for you. Hema and Parveen - two wonderfully cheeky, charismatic superstars in their own right - are relegated to the most menial of supporting roles. They serve as merely decoration, and even then, decoration that you rarely see. Everyone else is marginal or forgettable, with the possible exception of Kader Khan (who is always a joy). Also - and other reviews have noted this - after Ram and Lakshman unite (as expected), and after a wonderfully evocative and masala-style humanistic scene of friendship and vulnerability (Amitabh was scared of Shashi! Who knew!), things just degenerate into bizarre tragicomedy. It's almost as if the directors, foreseeing the success of Ram and Lakshman's quasi-serious confessional scene, decided to try and push the drama a bit further by... poisoning all the children (?!). This, of course, works for no one, and it casts a weird, sinister, silly vibe over the proceedings.


Silly or sinister? (The only song the PPCC had to fast-forward through.)


Sinister of silly? Note Kader Khan's mod haircut.

Speaking of weird and sinister and silly (but in a good way), the music is fab! What with the creepy windchimes that accompany Kader Khan's every move (or motion, piece of dialogue, or reference), and the beautiful little number Shashi sings to win over Hema's heart, the PPCC was left wondering: why not more music? The first song comes after an hour. WTF? We wanted more! And sooner! Also, the cinematography was amazing, especially in the kinetic, slapstick, surreal fight scenes between Amitabh and Shashi - and when the background music of handclaps of rhythmic breathing kicks in, who can't love this? It's like a modern art installation halfway during the movie!


The fights were like modern art.


With kickin' music.


And awesome camera angles.

All in all, the PPCC loved it, but only because it reaffirmed all that we love of Amitabh, Shashi, and masala movies. A better introduction to these three things can be found in the rollicking Suhaag (no, we still haven't reviewed it, and now we're almost too intimidated to do it!) or the more socially-aware and serious Kaala Patthar. Do Aur Do Paanch was just one of the last, wheezy huzzahs of that great decade of Bollywood, and the genre's decline shows in the moments of rickety, self-congratulatory tone and the slightly saggy leads. We love 'em, but we loved 'em before this.

* Master Bittu is one of the few Hindi movie child actors that the PPCC intensely dislikes. For a long while, we were unsure of his gender, as our first introduction to Master Bittu was as young Pinky, the daughter, in the dismal Mukti. Admittedly, Mukti forgave no one, and no one emerged unscathed from it - even our beloved Shashi. Bombay producers apparently saw something in little Bittu despite Mukti, or maybe he was just someone's son, but he went on to torment us in Fakira, Chori Mera Kaam, and now this. Oddly, we kind of liked him in this. Perhaps he was outgrowing his awfulness.

Documenting Beauty: An Objectification of Shashi Kapoor, Or, The Tenets of Shashism

It only took one comment from Beth to tip the PPCC over into madness: yes, we thought, yes, why not, dammit! Why can't we document in painstaking, embarrassing detail all that we love and covet of Shashi Kapoor? With the same celebrity worship that Bridget Jones has for Colin Firth, we too can have journal entry upon journal entry of schoolgirl gushing for the god of our idolatry. We're not worthy!

Let us hence enlist all that we love of Balbir Raj Kapoor, third son of Prithviraj, better known as Shashi.

1. When Shashi smiles, golden rays of the sun shoot from his teeth.

A lightbulb is not a good metaphor, because the power of Shashi's smile surpasses even the strongest, eco-friendliest lightbulb. This is not megawatt, this is ultraviolet. It is rumored that Hema Malini got a bad case of sunburn thanks to Shashi's smile during the making of Janemaan Tum Kamaal Karti Ho in Trishul. After rushing her to the hospital for third-degree burns, she had to go through a week-long regimen of moisturizer and unattractive peeling (hence why she wears such a modest outfit throughout the song). To prevent this from happening again, Shashi was asked to refrain from brushing his teeth for the making of the song in the hope that some plaque would dim the smile. Unfortunately, it did not, as Shashi does not develop plaque.

Scientists are still unsure as to where the powerful light comes from, as Shashi's smile is only meant to be viewed using special sunglasses and even then, most scientists faint at the sight of it, but many theories indicate that it is, indeed, originating in the canines.

2. The croaky-sexy Shashi voice has been known to be more effective than hypnosis and more pleasurable than the consumption of opiates.

While many believe that Frank Herbert was inspired by Alfred Korzybski's General Semantics in the writing of Dune, legend has it that Mr. Herbert actually watched Aa Gale Lag Jaa shortly before he started his novel. Mr. Herbert was so compelled by Shashi Kapoor's voice (particularly in the scene when the latter, "Aur teri khubsoorat khubsoorat Mummy-ka.") that he caught fire and, like Hema Malini, had to be rushed to the hospital and doused in extinguisher. After coming to and recovering from his burns, Mr. Herbert then realized the power of The Voice, and decided to model the hypnotic powers of Lady Jessica's and Paul Atreides' "Bene Gesserit" voice in Dune on Shashi's vocal acrobatics. Examples of the original Voice can be found throughout the late 1970s-early 1980s canon: Kabhi Kabhie ("Poojaaa.", "Kya baa-aat hai, beta?"), Silsila ("Mere bhaaai hai."), and so forth.

3. Shashi's designer curls have healing properties.

Not many know that the ancient herb, myrrh, was actually just an extract from Shashi Kapoor's hair clippings. When Achilles' lover, Patroclus, was killed in the Battle of Troy, Achilles demanded that his lovers' body be wrapped in myrrh. Since myrrh was so difficult to obtain (it required Shashi to get a haircut), Achilles had to wait until the making of Namak Halaal, when Shashi shed his 1970s godly locks and went for a more conventional 1980s style. Similarly, the curls in Shashi's hairstyle are often used as the yardstick against which geometric properties are measured; for example, it was not until Archimedes was watching Immaan Dharam that he discovered the formula for the area of a circle. Leonardo da Vinci modelled many of his drawings on Shashi, and the famed picture of a man standing in a circle is actually (an admittedly poorly rendered) Shashi standing inside a perfect curl of Shashi's hair.


4. The way Shashi wobbles his head has inspired a new form of yoga.

With the increasing popularity of Hatha yoga in the West, not many practitioners realize that many of the original moves were modelled on Shashi's powerful and compelling body language. Even though most red-blooded human beings as well as several species of birds cannot withstand the power of Shashi when he wobbles his head, and more often they are rendered immobile and coma-like by it, ancient yogis deep in the Himalayas have discovered that wobbling your head the way Shashi does (left-right, just so) not only improves blood flow to the brain but also enhances your sense of smell. Thanks to the yogi's many years of deep spiritual practice and mental discipline, they were able to maintain consciousness even in the face of Shashi's head-wobbling just long enough that they could see how he did it (left-right, just so). They were then rendered immobile and coma-like, with several catching fire.

5. Like Schroedinger's cat, direct observation of Shashi Kapoor influences the Power and possibly leads to the exponential implosion of the universe.

In the United States, the FDA has issued a warning label which will soon be printed on Shashi Kapoor DVDs: "Watching Shashi Kapoor is dangerous to your health." This is due to the many documented cases of unknowing viewers catching fire at the sight of a head-shake or a good dance shuffle. Scientists recently discovered the alarming fact that watching Shashi Kapoor DVDs changes the very nature of those DVDs, hence leading to the exponentially-increasing probability of the universe imploding on itself like how the Witch King does in Lord of the Rings. A convention is hence being organized: "Beware the Temptation: How to Look Away." Most Shashist academics think this is futile.

Not an Essay: Race and film criticism

More often than not, the PPCC is confronted with the following line in English-language movie reviews:

"...[insert non-white actor's name] who is [insert said actor's homeland]'s answer to [insert white, American actor's name]..."

Examples include Tony Leung Chiu Wai as China's Clark Gable, Chow Yun Fat as China's Cary Grant, and, most recently, our beloved Shashi Kapoor as India's Robert Redford. That last one broke the camel's back, and the PPCC was forced to exclaim, "Oh, for the love of God!"

How infinitely irritable it is to constantly compare a non-American, non-white actor to the white, American actor he is presumably "aping"! How ethnocentric! And film critics who watch "arthouse" foreign cinema are supposed to be the intelligentsia?

Phrases like that imply that the best the Rest of the World can do is just give us cheap knock-off versions of Hollywood stars. As if the Rest of the World looks first and primarily to white, American Hollywood for its ideas, its inspiration, and its status. Consider the incessant disparagements of Bollywood being an infantile industry forever locked in the 1950s American musical. (As if Hollywood had a monopoly on song and dance in theatre/film!) Consider also the way in which Nanni Moretti's La stanza del figlio is presented in the American trailers. (It doesn't fit into the rigid Hollywood-defined genres, and so the trailer butchers the film so much it's about as accurate as this trailer for Sleepless in Seattle!)

The PPCC shares Amitabh Bachchan's (and many other Indian actors') irritation at being relegated to "non-American-ollywood" status. (That said, the PPCC still uses the term "Bollywood" to mean "mainstream, commercial Hindi cinema" - if only to identify it independently of Parallel Cinema.) The PPCC has also often been frustrated at American reviews' ignorance when it comes to evaluating foreign film. These, however, are lesser evils - in the end, an argument over implicitly patronizing semantics and, well, we can't expect everyone to know everything about everything. However, statements such as Toshiro Mifune is Japan's answer to Tom Hanks are just plain offensive. They are basically assuring the American viewer, "Fear not! You should give this weird foreigner guy a chance because he actually acts a bit like one of our actors!" Whatever happened to evaluating actors on their own merits, within their own cultural and historical contexts? Why this need to homogenize?

Eh? EH?

Disclaimer #1: The PPCC likes Tom Hanks, he's very earnest and charming, but he is unfortunately lightyears behind Toshiro Mifune. In fact, just daring to compare Toshiro Mifune to anyone is sacrilege.

Disclaimer #2: The PPCC is not multilingual, and so we can vouch that, while we've never seen the opposite ("Tom Hanks is America's response to Nanni Moretti") in foreign media we could understand, we accept that maybe somewhere out there, in some distant land, untouched by American cultural imperialism, there is a place where they wield the same sort of entitled ethnocentrism as certain reviewers!

My Son the Fanatic (1997)

A beautiful moment in the film. "Remember two things. There are many ways of being a good man. And I will be at home. Will you come and see me?"

During one scene in the wonderful My Son the Fanatic, a character vulgarizes the line from Shakespeare: "The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven."


The impossibly sweet romance.

Although the character was talking about female genitalia, the line could capture the film's main theme itself: morality as defined by easy-going tolerance and humility (i.e. not strained), or morality as defined by a strict set of rules (i.e. strained). The former is embodied in Parvez (Om Puri), the naive, good-natured protagonist, and the latter embodied in Farid (Akbar Kurtha), his proud, angry son. While Farid is all righteous indignation, Parvez takes everything in stride - the prostitutes plying their trade in the back of his cab, the obnoxious German client, Schitz (Stellan Skarsgard), incessantly calling him "little man", the racism and humiliations of living as a South Asian immigrant in northern England. There is the irony that Parvez, who still speaks with his heavy Pakistani accent, should be lectured on re-connecting with his roots by his son, who has vowels like Sean Bean. The irony that all of the rage at living as the "wrong" ethnicity in England, the former colonizee, all of the resistance to assimilation and retreat into fundamentalism should, again, be the son's domain, not the father's. Because it would be so much easier for Farid to assimilate; he has been raised in England, he speaks without accent, he understands the culture. And it would be natural for Parvez to idealize the country he left long ago, to feel threatened by the alien city he has, for economic reasons, migrated to. Yet it is just the opposite, and Parvez doesn't think listening to Louis Armstrong undermines his cultural heritage - he simply likes the music. And, more importantly, he sees no problem with befriending a white prostitute, Bettina/Sandra (Rachel Griffiths), who later becomes his bodyguard (in the Paul Simon sense) and confidante.

Things become complicated when Parvez's friendship with Sandra turns into full-blown romance. Just as this happens, Farid invites a fundamentalist maulvi to stay at home, and his local group of angry, young men begins to terrorize the prostitutes in the neighborhood, making them the scapegoats for what they see as an immoral society "soaked in sex".


Farid and the maulvi at dinner.


Schitz, the German immigrant. Beware, Stellan Skarsgard fans, this is a spare and awful role.


Schitz being creepy to Parvez.

In the usual style of Hanif Kureishi's stories, the film is very complex, with several more themes (important and obvious ones being postcolonialism, migration and racism, and the most poignant one being forbidden love). Yet there are probably many ways of interpreting the story. Our personal interpretation was that the moral dichotomy between Parvez, who is a flawed but ultimately good man, and his son, greatly favors Parvez. This is not just because Fundamentalism Is Bad, but this is also because the film makes no effort to sympathize with Farid's fundamentalism. While it is explained as a reaction to the constant humiliations his father suffers (and boy, does Parvez get kicked around!), the film ridicules and infantilizes Farid's decision to fight back with radical conservatism. Indeed, the direction is scathing at times: consider, for example, the scene where the maulvi is watching cartoons at Parvez' kitchen table. He is watching a cartoon woman get smashed into a trash can by a cartoon man, and he is laughing his head off. The maulvi is then further undermined by the scene where he asks Parvez to help him migrate to the UK.


The maulvi in Parvez's home.


Great composition.

Meanwhile, Parvez is all sympathy. Partly this could be Om Puri's talents and inherent lovableness, but there is a compelling underdog quality to Parvez. He is so earnest and naive: happily chattering away with Sandra about his son, joking with his wife about pulling the maulvi's beard off, or telling Schitz about his youthful dreams of being a cricket star. It's when this emotional honesty is abused by the other characters that the film is most painful. Several scenes depicting Parvez's humiliation at the hands of explicit and implicit racism were so awful they made the PPCC's guts churn. One scene made us start crying. And then the scenes when Sandra offers Parvez a chance for escape were similarly emotionally affecting. Never mind the fact that seeing Om Puri naked was LIKE WHOA and seeing Om Puri sex scenes was LIKE OMG MY EYES. Conventionally beautiful he may not be, but the PPCC was so fond of Parvez and we empathized so much with him that the romance was almost impossibly sweet. And whatever, Om Puri is strangely attractive, too. (For readers who seek more in the Om Puri's Ocean of Love genre, please see Droh Kaal or Sparsh.)


Oooh, Om!

All this gushing should not lead the readership to think that this is a film without flaws. Unfortunately, there are several false notes - like in Kureishi's other excellent sketch of postcolonial Anglo-Desi culture, My Beautiful Laundrette, they usually occur when someone is Proclaiming Something Important or just being a little too obvious (such as Roshan Seth's despondent, "They hate us here!" urgh). Kureishi's strength is his ambiguity - of plot, of characterization, of blame - and so when he becomes declamatory, the PPCC goes cold. Similarly, the character of Schitz (who, yes, is a shit), while very interesting in what he represented, was nonetheless a little one-dimensional and stylized - especially for Stellan Skarsgard! As an example of racial determinism in migration, and as part of the racist machine in how he (mis)treats and condescends to Parvez, Schitz is very effective. The Wiki article notes Schitz' mirror-like persona: like Parvez, he is a migrant, yet he is white and succesful. He is everything Parvez's son hates about the West, even as the blame is often cast on Parvez. Also, importantly, Bettina is Schitz' companion of choice too. Yet Schitz is also inhuman. He is just a representation: for privilege, for sin, for the empowered businessman. Never do we see any glimpses of humanity, and for a writer who works so hard to give us interesting shades of gray, Schitz was just a little too black-and-white.


It should be noted that Parvez is the only one who treats Sandra with any degree of respect.


Farid and Mom, at home, plotting things in tenebroso light.

Nonetheless, this is a wonderfully evocative, provocative film. It makes you think, but it is also emotionally affecting. Rarely is it manipulative (though, as mentioned above, there are some misses - Bettina/Sandra's bruises, for example, were not needed). As in My Beautiful Laundrette, the film strongly features themes of a forbidden romance, the lower fringe classes of English society, fathers and sons, and colonial history. It is highly satisfying, but never facile. The PPCC preferred this to My Beautiful Laundrette, partly because the narrative was more focused and the protagonist more compelling. Culture Vulture's review makes a very good point in emphasizing the mid-life crises/rebirth of Parvez as the main thematic arc. Thanks to the riches of Kureishi's writing, a viewer could easily watch this and interpret it all as that. Or they could interpret Parvez as the true hypocrite and his son as misguided. Or an East-West cultural clash. As with most good art, it is highly flexible, your choice of interpretation is probably very revealing, and you probably take away what you had already brought with you when you sat down to watch.

See also another interesting review.

La stanza del figlio (2001)

Nanni Moretti's Cannes-approved masterpiece in the wonderful tradition of Italian hyperrealism.

Concisely, La stanza del figlio (The Son's Room) is a hyperrealist sketch of one family's grief after the tragic death of their son. It is a short movie - barely over ninety minutes - and many of the scenes are silent, or punctuated only by character's tears. This might make it sound heavy-handed, melodramatic, or at least indulgent. Yet the PPCC guarantees that it is none of these things. Instead, The Son's Room is an evocative and compelling glimpse into life As It Is. The director, Nanni Moretti, rarely falls into the trap of turning this film into a tear-jerker, indeed it is bereft of cliché altogether. Instead, it is direct and hyperrealistic - and ultimately much more poignant than any standard sob movie.

The film opens in Ancona, Italy. In a series of brief, vignette-style scenes which characterize the film, we are introduced to Giovanni (Nanni Moretti) and his family. Giovanni is a psychoanalyst with a variety of patients. His wife, Paola (Laura Morante), is a publisher, and his two children, Irene (Jasmine Trinca) and Andrea (Giuseppe Sanfelice), are happy and healthy. In these early scenes, the family is portrayed as perfect: well-adjusted, content, comfortable with each other. Yet this perfection rings authentic, and so it was with increasing unease that the PPCC watched the proceedings. Remember, if you're a character in a film and you're happy early on, you're doomed.


Happy...


...and yet doomed.

One Sunday, Andrea is killed in a scuba diving accident. This happens suddenly and unexpectedly, and the film continues apace: there is the funeral, short scenes of intense grief, and the more long-term fall-out. Giovanni begins obsessing over what could have been if he had insisted that his son go out for a jog with him on that fateful day. Paola in turn becomes alienated from Giovanni, and begins to cling to a letter she has received from someone named Arianna, a girl who claims to have known Andrea the summer before he died. As things slowly unravel for the grieving family, Arianna appears unexpectedly on their doorstep.



The composition of the scenes, as well as the quietly charming music from Nicola Piovani (of Life is Beautiful fame), is really what drives the film's beauty. The PPCC has seen this film many times, and every time we are so touched by the film's aesthetics that we do practically no intellectualizing. The film is small, elegant and absorbing. We identify immediately with these over-real characters. Also, it is very human: even in the pathos, there is gentle humor. For example, when Arianna has appeared on the family's doorstep, and the parents are in a rush of emotion, Paola asks, "Are you tired?" and Giovanni immediately follows up with, "Would you like to have a shower?" A variety of patients also provide relief whenever the family's tragedy takes center stage for too long.


One of the patients.

Indeed, a wonderful touch of Moretti's as a director is how he weaves the scenes of Giovanni with his patients into the overall plotline. More often than not, the patients - although speaking in an unrelated context - will voice exactly what Giovanni is feeling in that moment. "Finally, I can cry," one patient says, the day after Andrea has died, "I just want to cry forever." Later, when Giovanni is wracked with guilt over internal What Ifs (What if I had not let Andrea go diving with his friends?), a severe patient says, "You always find excuses. But sometimes you just have to pay. I don't understand those people that don't want to pay." In an especially poignant scene, an elderly patient is speaking of her life as a young mother in Rome, "They asked me, 'When are the children coming?' I love children," and Giovanni begins to cry.


Giovanni's fantasies about a perfect day out jogging with his son. This was also the original Italian cover.

And then there is the son's room, literally. In three instances, characters enter Andrea's room in his absence. In the first case, Giovanni enters Andrea's room after the latter has been accused of minor shoplifting. The father searches his son's things vaguely, examines the room of a son he sometimes fails to understand. In the second case, Paola enters Andrea's room after his death, just after learning of his secret girlfriend. And in the third case, Giovanni is given pictures of his son in his room, new pictures he had never seen before. Each time, the son's room becomes a place of absence, longing, and bittersweet revelation. Each time, a new layer of the son's personality is revealed for the parents, and, after his death, their grief is accented as they realize that they did not know him so well.

Nothing really happens apart from this. The acting is very good - subdued and honest. If anything, the PPCC noticed that Nanni Moretti's acting has staled with repeated viewings. However, the first few times, we found it very evocative and, indeed, he still carries the weight of the film. It is, of course, impressive that he directed and co-wrote. Laura Morante is elegant and both the children, Jasmine Trinca and Giuseppe Sanfelice, were effective.

Cheeni Kum (2007)

The PPCC's favorite moment, aesthetically. We just love the fake background.

Cheeni Kum (Less Sugar) is a conventional romance in the guise of a provocative "arty" film. The two main themes - sugar and Electra May-December romances Electra - are interestingly presented, but all in all, we have the usual, not-provocative message: 30 year age gaps are perfectly acceptable between aging male superstars and much younger actresses. For example, Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt.

Still it's odd that Amitabh should be playing romantic roles in his 60s, when he spent most of his virile youth cavorting with gangsters rather than girlfriends. Consider the fate of Amitabh's Angry Young Man's various heroines: poor Parveen in Deewaar, poor Jaya in Silsila, poor Rekha in Silsila, poor Rakhee in Kasme Vaade, poor Rakhee in Trishul. Rarely did the big B deign to pay attention to his female accessory, and when he did, something terrible usually happened to him or her. And even amidst all this seemingly inevitable tragedy (AYM must have been jinxed as a boyfriend), the romance always felt like an afterthought. His iconic status wasn't built on his prettiness (we cannot resisting mentioning Shashi here: Shashi Shashi Shashi), it was built on rage and tallness.


The bustling restaurant.


The Big B, suddenly going soft and mellow in old age.

Buddhadev Gupta (Amitabh Bachchan) is the crotchety head chef and owner of London's hippest, trendiest Indian restaurant, spice6. Lush interiors, crisp exteriors - London is bustling and happening and with it. Buddha has lived here for many years and, no doubt because of his ogre-like social skills, he is unmarried, alone and living at home with his mother (Zohra Sehgal, as usual, and we were so happy to see her). When Buddha is not terrorizing his staff or being sarcastic to mom, he chats with his only friend and neighbor, Sexy (Swini Khara). Sexy is an eight-year old cancer patient. (Members of the PPCC readership are no doubt groaning about how manipulative and shameless the inclusion of such a character is. We agree, but we also think she fits into the whole Electra theme. See below.)

One day, someone in the restaurant sends back a dish, claiming it has "too much sugar". Buddha is appalled and he confronts the restaurant guest, Nina (Tabu), humiliates her, and demands that she bring him a better version of the dish, since she thinks she's such a better cook. A few days later, the same dish is sent back. Buddha tastes it, remarking on how perfectly cooked it is, and then is told that the dish comes from down the street. Buddha is flabbergasted. He goes outside, and there is Nina, coyly smiling as she walks triumphantly down the street. Buddha is smitten. We are smitten. The music is smitten. Voila, love!

The rest of the film is standard courtship, with the major conflict arising when Nina's father (Paresh Rawal) refuses to allow Buddha and Nina to marry. A somewhat superficial Gandhian, Nina's father decides to emotionally blackmail the couple by fasting until they call the wedding off.


Buddha and Nina.


A comical moment when Buddha has to ask for condoms from the local chemist.

Sugar is everywhere in this movie. The film tries very hard not to be saccharine and, for the most part, succeeds. While Tabu's Nina is elegant and romantic, Buddha is just a cranky old man. Characters talk about sex in a blunt, open way. They do not go on filmi dates, they do not say or do melodramatic, filmi things . They are very subdued, and, as a result, almost quirky.

Sugar itself also shows up several times as a symbol for romance: the chef who mixed up salt with sugar in the first sequence was dazed by a photo of his distant wife; Nina's father, who refuses to believe that love can be blind to age, is diabetic. Eventually, even cranky old Buddha is forced to admit that a little sugar can be just what a person needs.


Sexy, AKA Electra 1.


Nina, AKA Electra 2.

And then the bizarre Electra thing. We specify Electra (that is, the "feminine Oedipal complex") rather than just May-December romance, because there are a number of scenes where Amitabh is (well, justifiably!) identified with father figures, and neither of the women have mothers. First, and most obviously, his age in relation to Nina and Sexy. Second, the fact that there is a Sexy - that is, a second much-younger female character who has the hots for Buddha. Indeed, Buddha's mother says Buddha's only meaningful relationship before Nina was with Sexy (creepy as that may sound). Buddha is often shown in worried consultation with Sexy's father; her mother is never mentioned. Similarly, Nina's mother is not present, and the comparisons between Buddha and Nina's father are constant. Buddha is older than the father. He claims the father is "jealous" of losing his daughter to him. And (massive spoilers) in the pivotal scene, when the father lets go of his daughter and little Sexy passes away, Nina soon says, "I wish I was Sexy," to which Buddha replies, "You are very, very, very sexy." But did he mean sexy or Sexy?

The PPCC finds this creepy, but symbolically it seems like Sexy and Nina were the same person. As soon as Nina was allowed to marry, she effectively "grew up", and hence Sexy, the little girl, died. Indeed, throughout the film it seems that Buddha's feelings for Nina and Sexy are largely the same. There is the name thing (again, making everything creepy) with Sexy and the explicit "let's have sex" song sequence with Nina, and there is the scene when Buddha is once again flummoxed by Sexy and Nina's contemporaneous medical crises. (It does seem like he spends a lot of time bewildered, doesn't it?) When Buddha wants to marry Nina, he wraps his arms around Asoka's pillar. Immediately, he gets his wish granted: Nina calls to say they can marry. When, later in the same scene, Buddha wraps his arms around Asoka's pillar again and begs to have Sexy back (insert your own Justin Timberlake joke here), his wish is again granted. Nina arrives, and "assumes" Sexy's identity via the dialogue exchange above.

Are we being too intellectual? Well, it gives us something to do!

Especially in those moments when, aesthetically, everything is just every which way, higgledy piggledy. Who thought Amitabh with a rat tail was a good idea? Who thought the "Mujhe Sexy chahiye!" ("I want Sexy!") would be anything but slightly farcical and disturbing and painful to watch? And what was up with Tabu's robotic delivery in the early scenes?


Zohra Sehgal as Buddha's mom, kickin' it old style.

Segue, segue. As Buddha, enlightened and grumpy as he is, Amitabh plays on his strengths. That is, a rough paternal figure who's soft in the middle and lovable because of it. See also Black. Others have mentioned his talent for delivering sarcastic lines, and that is well on display in this film. If anything, the PPCC does not like to see Amit ji cry. Not only because we are empathetic, but also because the Tears of Amitabh are just blubbery and excessive and always somewhat indulgent. See Muqaddar Ka Sikandar. Ugh. We just feel compelled to yell, "Oh, get a grip!" But mayhap we are cruel. Though, we should say that Muqaddar Ka Sikandar's O Saathi Re plays during one emo-Amitabh scene. Coincidence? We think not!

Tabu was oddly rigid in her role for much of the film. The PPCC is starting to wonder why we think Tabu is so good and the natural heiress to Shabana Azmi, because she was equally awkward in Fanaa, the last film we saw with her. Beautiful she may be, but her delivery felt very wooden, sometimes during crucial moments. Things picked up considerably when the story moved to India, but still. Hmmm.

Zohra Sehgal as Buddha's Mother was comforting to see again - oh, we just love our Hindi Movie Moms - and Swini Khara as Sexy was just sweet enough, not too sweet. The PPCC did not think any of the chef subplots were funny, as they seemed to be based on repeating the same two jokes over and over again: "Look, the head waiter has big teeth! Isn't that funny?" and "Look, the British waiter speaks Hindi with a silly British accent! Isn't that funny?" The PPCC did not find either joke funny.

Music, cinematography, colors and composition were all sleek. There were no properly "Bollywood" songs.