Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011)

Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (You won't meet life again… right?) is another glam, modernist Hindi film, similar in style to Dil Chahta Hai - but thankfully much less irritating. Okay, we may be the only ones who hate that film.

Moving along! BFFs Kabir (Abhay Deol), Arjun (Hrithik Roshan) and Imran (Farhan Akhtar) run the usual gamut of Nice Guy, Moneyzilla and Comic Relief. Nice Guy Kabir is getting married to (incidentally the Tamil-French girl from Dev D with an interesting name!) Natasha (Kalki (!) Koechlin) and the boys go on a long bachelor party through Spain. Along the way, aided by periodic jolts of adrenaline rushes (scuba diving, skydiving, bull… running) and emotional outbursts of tears, shouts and hormones, the boys grow up and grow closer. The moral of the story: marriage is optional! Also, money is nice but also optional!

The film's heart is in the right place - by which we mean it's gauged the pulse of a common (or certainly common-feeling) trend among young, modernizing Indians: the anxiety of marriage, the difficulty in reconciling traditional obligations with Western notions of romance, freedom, individualism, blah blah. Generally, the earnest, if unimaginative, narrative is fine. But there are definite sections that drag - to whit: Hrithik Roshan puts in a nice, jagged performance as the dark, tormented London financier Arjun. His slow emergence from the shell of Scrooge into the sunlight of Zen scuba diver Laila (a tolerable Katrina Kaif) is a nice, poignant narrative arc. But if the PPCC saw one more shot of a brooding, troubled Hrithik… oh my God.

OH. MY. GOD.

Similarly, Kabir's pre-marital woes and Imran's "missing father" angst were dragged out way beyond acceptable limits of storytelling discourse. Incidentally, Imran's missing father was NOT played by Javed Akhtar, which would have been meta and cool. Instead, he is played by a great pillar of Hindi actingdom, one of the PPCC favorites, and a veteran of Missing Father roles. We'll give you a hint, his name rhymes with Sameer Loudon Bah.

Like the rest of the film, the song/dance stuff was anemic and largely unnecessary, though there was a surprisingly nice flamenco-Hindi fusion bit. Olé! Another unexpected treat was the final Adrenaline Rush of Character Development - Pamplona's running of the bulls - which was filmed with great skill. A further notable sequence, filmmaking-wise, was the boys' skydive: a meditative, enchanting bit.

In other news, Akhtar's Don 2 is in post-production (joy) and we have finally found a lovely fat tome about Vedic India (The First Spring by Abraham Eraly, apparently not out in the US yet? wtffff).

As a kid in our theater cried out upon sensing the incipient final credits: KHATM!

Luck by Chance (2009)

Vah, vah, vah! Kya film thi!

Our money's on Luck by Chance - best film of 2009? Maybe. It's a bit early to call, being just February, and we're optimistic this year has even more in store. So while we don't have the courage to already dub it the year's best, we can say that it's a wonderful inauguration to what promises to be a year full of Hindi cinema potential. And what better way to kick out the jams of 2009 than a film about... making films!

Luck by Chance basically covers every single thing you need to know about the Hindi film industry. Sure, it's full of clichés - the desperately ambitious struggling actor, the sleazy producer, the idiotic princess - but it's such well-done cliché that we really have no complaints. This film manages to tackle every industry myth and real-life cliché with a smart cynicism: the filmi families, the superstitions, the light-dark skin tone racism, the Hindi-English dichotomy, the death of theater, the parallel cinema versus masala divide, even the "Bollywood" semantics issue... Not only that, rather than the glittering star parade of 2007's Om Shanti Om - another film about films - Luck by Chance's cameos are intelligent, wry and add depth. That is, the stars don't just walk on to pump up the film's appeal, but rather they serve key purposes: Karan Johar's explanation of the legendary "outsider" success stories at the party, for example. Furthermore, the entire cast is top-notch and there are some surreal, meta performances too (for example, Sanjay Kapoor as a failed hero and youngest brother of the big-shot producer).

The film follows a young struggling actor, Vikram (Farhan Akhtar), as he navigates the heady, two-faced world of behind-the-scenes Bollywood. He strikes up a romance with a B-movie actress, Sona (Konkona Sen Sharma), who has been waiting three years for a promised big break. Meanwhile, further up on the ladder is producer Romy Rolly (Rishi Kapoor) and his airhead trophy wife, Minty (Juhi Chawla). Romy's new film, Dil ki Aag (Flames of the Heart) is currently filming with his favored hero, the superstar Zaffar Khan (Hrithik Roshan, in a wonderfully ironic performance) and the debuting star child, Nikki (Isha Sharvani). Nikki's severe stage mom is the aging 70s superstar, Neena (Dimple Kapadia). When Zaffar lands a part in the upcoming Karan Johar film with Shah Rukh Khan - who, the film implies again and again, is at the top of the Bollywood pecking order - he dumps Romy's film. It's then up to destiny, hustling and sweat to get Vikram into the film's coveted lead role instead.

Ultrabrown's review makes a very good point that this film, which is ostensibly about the underdog outsider making it big in Bollywood, is made, instead, by the most gilded of star families: almost everyone in this film comes from a privileged filmi family. But we think this lends the film a knowing, self-consciously ironic air: as we mentioned, many stars have significant, smart cameos and the few actors in this film who are not playing themselves are generally playing parodies of themselves. Take Hrithik Roshan, for example: he has some wonderful moments such as when he laments that he's becoming "mechanical", that he is not Zaffar Khan but rather is the "employee" of the image of Zaffar Khan (something Shah Rukh Khan has said of himself) and when he eyes the rising star Vikram at the glitterati party with a half-predatory, half-insecure glare. And that's just one slice! Speaking of Shah Rukh Khan, his cameo, which is the culmination of the star parade, is the classiest of the lot: it's a real "we've finally reached the wizard of Oz!" moment.

Ultrabrown and Filmi Girl also noted that the film is difficult to connect with on an emotional level. And it's true: this film is primarily intellectual, it's a trendy arthouse movie wrapped in a commercial package, and so its tone is likewise snarky, cynical and ironic. In particular, the romance doesn't really work. And almost everyone in the film is an unlikably two-faced, overly ambitious and selfish social climber - at least most of the time. There is also a lot of gray, and a certain tragic air to the pervasive insecurity everyone seems to suffer from. It's indeed disheartening to see that the rat race never ends, that the top of the heap is a lonely and unhappy existence. The film's sense of humor is also the snort-and-snicker variety, with a lot of sarcasm and ridicule. All this makes it hard to like on a more straightforward, sentimentalist level. Yet there is some poignancy, such as when the aging Romy Rolly/Rishi bemoans the lost dignity of the current generation, and when Neena/Dimple instead reveals the harshness of her early life as a star (and this is interesting in itself; a commentary on the double standards for men and women in the industry, perhaps?). And just as a documentation of a fascinating industry, this film is great. We liked it and we highly recommend it - especially for those just getting into Hindi cinema. It's a crash course in all you need to know to be conversant with the lingo and mythos of Hindi films. Now we can only hope that the Raj Kapoor biopic starring Anil Kapoor (AHEM AHEM PLZ MAKE THIS FILM UNIVERSE) will have that same knowing, harshly cynical, exposé vibe about that era.

Rock On!! (2008)

Rock on, man! Yeah, man!

The much-acclaimed Rock On!! is a pretty bauble of a film, entirely masala-free and resembling other Hindi films only in the language the characters (occasionally) use. It offers an all-too-rare glimpse into the Indian indie music scene - that cultural underdog so often overshadowed by the filmi tyranny. However the film's dedication to a specifically Western cultural legacy - there are nods to The Doors, The Who, The Rolling Stones and so forth - means that the good ol' Hindustaniness gets left behind. For this reason, this is a great film to show your non-filmi Bollywood virginal friends, as these angst-filled rockers are easy to identify with from a Western perspective (and there's none of that pesky song-and-dance stuff). Yet it's also true that we don't watch Hindi films for movies like Rock On!!.

There once was a band named Magik. On vocals was the studly Aditya (Farhan Akhtar, son of Javed), a bit of a prima donna with Italian soccer star hair. On lead guitar: Joe (Arjun Rampal), whose quiet studliness hides an occasionally violent temper. On keyboard: the peace-making Rob (Luke Kenny). And finally on drums, the Puckish goofball, K.D. (Purab Kohli). After a quick opening number, we fast-forward ten years to find the four bandmates adrift in their separate lives, older, seriouser, sadder. Aditya has become an investment banker/emotional zombie, Joe is an unemployed sadsack, Rob is doing reasonably well under the patronage of filmi music director Anu Malik (for realz!) and K.D. is just not getting anywhere with the ladies.


Aditya (Farhan Akhtar) has become a beige DRONE. Or should we say just another brick in the wall?! Nyuk nyuk nyuk...

Aditya's wife, Sakshi (Prachi Desai), finally gets tired of living with a zombie and, via a chance finding of Aditya's secret "band memory box" in the attic, she works to reunite the four boys in the hope that this will reignite Aditya's lost joie de vivre. As this plays out, we are treated to interlinking flashbacks which show us how the band broke up and why.

Farhan Akhtar, the well-regarded director of Dil Chahta Hai, makes his acting debut in this film - and he seems to be turning into an auteur for movies which directly address the dreaded quarter-life crisis through the lens of bourgeois hipster twenty- and thirtysomethings. Dil Chahta Hai was a smash hit since it touched a chord with the growing yuppie class in India, and Rock On!! follows much in that vein. The characters here are all relatively privileged, well-off individuals who live in swanky pads and dress in designer clothes. The only character who seems at all concerned about money is the slightly more middle-class Joe who, interestingly, is portrayed as a Goan Christian and therefore exhibits some characteristically Goan hippie trendiness. We say "interestingly" because more typically, in a masala film, poverty or middle-classness comes with a whole host of conservative norms, usually going hand-in-hand with Hinduism or, more rarely, Islam. Given that Christians are often seen as pretty fly cats in Hindi films - see Amitabh's boisterous Anthony Gonsalves in Amar Akbar Anthony or SRK's wacky parties in Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa - this gives Joe the liberty to, well, be a dreamy-eyed rock star rather than an angry young tapori.


And God said, LET THERE BE A TOTALLY KICKASS POWER CHORD!


The best scene and the only one that lived up to its promise was the final concert. When Farhan Akhtar hit those falsetto notes (which, btw, he's a triple threat: actor, singer, director!), and with all those streaming colors, we had Radiohead at Glastonbury flashbacks. Joy...

All this means that this'll be a great film to show your Bollywood virginal friends, as it's no different from a Hollywood film. The aesthetics - bright colors, slap-dash camera angles, inventive editing and heart-meltingly gorgeous focal depth - resemble the energy and youthfulness of a tamer Danny Boyle (ironically!). There's even the presence of the mystical Hipster Color Combo - blue and orange - found in hipster movies and hipster books! Eerie, man.


GASP! Blue and orange! The official colors of our people!

The only problem is that these hipsters may come from the Planet Cool, but they seem to have forgotten their Hindustani heart. The only times when Hindi music is even considered as a possibility, it's presented as the very antithesis of rock, and it's either shown to be soul-deadening (Rob's work with Anu Malik), worthy of ridicule (the band's Dandiya concert), or tongue-in-cheek cutesie (Sakshi's karaoke moment).

Yes, we feel a little silly saying this, as we constantly criticize the overwrought nationalism of other, more jingoistic Hindi films, but we really missed Indian culture in this film. The characters lived in a bubble of globalized, heavily Western-influenced luxury, completely detached from the realities present in the usual Hindi film: familial demands (the guilt trip!), institutional corruption, poverty, the often-constrictive dharma. So while Rock On!! should be pretty enjoyable to a Bollywood novice, it won't be particularly enlightening. (For this reason, we're much more looking forward to Farhan Akhtar's upcoming Luck By Chance, which satirizes the Hindi film industry with the same knowing, angst-filled hipster aesthetic.)


So when's this coming out on Guitar Hero?! And look: Pink Floydy triangles!

Don't get us wrong. The PPCC is all about cross-cultural fertilization and the glories of fusion. Jhoom Barabar Jhoom is a good example of a film that manages to take Western and Indian aesthetics and create a quirky, lively, fresh hybrid. Heck, even the outrageous tackiness of Tashan merits praise for forging brave, new paths of fusion fashion. Rock On!!, for however pretty it is, often comes across as a mediocre mimicry: we weren't impressed by the songs, which sounded like uninspired and recycled pop (except for the outstanding Tum Ho To with the Baba O'Rily-esque ending), and the costume design was metrosexual but standard.

That said, we can see how Rock On!! is a necessary breath of fresh air to Hindi commercial cinema. While it doesn't seem very relevant except to trendy hipsters thick in their quarter-life crises (PPCC bell goes CLANG!), and it doesn't have much to Say, it does attempt to introduce the indie culture into films and that is a worthy target indeed. Today's grade is a B-.