Saaheb (1985)

Ahh, the unique, hidden grandeur of mediocrity! The glories of being pedestrian!

If Pixar's The Incredibles showed that not everyone can or should be considered super, then Saaheb shows that not everyone has to be super to be special, needed, happy or loved. It is a veritable celebration of the middle child - the kid that's neither the hero nor the underdog, the one who isn't rebellious, spectacular or often even noticed. In a clever symbolism, the titular protagonist, Saaheb, has only one talent: goalkeeping. Like the goalkeeper, he occupies an unglamorous but critical and unique role. "No one notices whether I'm here or not!" Saaheb says. And yet, like the goalkeeper everyone forgets about or even disparages ("He can't even score a goal!" his father grumbles. "All he does is stand around!"), it's Saaheb who is the family's protector and, in the end, savior. In fact, so touching is this theme of hidden joy and uncelebrated sacrifice that, even as the audio skipped and the cameraman forgot to focus, the PPCC ended up a blubbering pile of soggy, used tissues.


Don't cry, middle child, you're a star!

In a drab, crowded working class house, a hypertensive widower (Utpal Dutt) lives with his three married sons, their wives, his unmarried son - Saaheb! (Anil Kapoor) - and his unmarried daughter, Bulti (Nandita Thakur). Our secret hero, Saaheb, is the typical child lost in the middle: he is the peacemaker and, often, the errand boy for everyone else in the house. His best friends in the family are the young Bulti, with whom he scraps and teases, and his protective older sister-in-law, Sujata (Rakhee). Both Saaheb and Bulti are constantly made by the rest of the family to feel that they're worthless weights: Saaheb because he has failed college (again!) and is jobless and prospectless, Bulti because she is still unmarried. A suitable husband is eventually found for Bulti, but the family despairs: they can't afford the wedding! While their father grieves over leaving his children with nothing and having to sell the house to pay for Bulti's wedding, the older children connive and plan on what they'll do with their share. The only ones who seem to care about keeping the house intact are Saaheb and Bulti. And in the end, it's goofy, forgotten Saaheb who saves the team.


The family.

Grafted over this story is the obligatory romance which, while a little extraneous, is still quite charming: Saaheb's neighbor is the outgoing, tomboyish Natasha (Amrita Singh) who initiates the courtship by brazenly calling over from her balcony: "Hey! Want to be friends?" Saaheb resists for about half a song, and then they frolic around for yet more songs - sometimes on the pavement, sometimes in their fantasy future.


An Anil Kapoor character dominated by a strong woman yet again.

Like Virasat, this is another Anil Kapoor movie that intelligently tackles dharma. Except here the dharmic duty - the submission of the individual to the larger community - is just portrayed as straightforward, poignant sacrifice. So none of those hairy moral consequences and ambiguities - thank goodness for our brain! - but with the same delicate, humanistic touch - thank goodness for our heart!

There was also an interesting Buddhist shout-out in the end. This gives the whole dharma issue a fresh, new spin, as we're not talking about being a cog in the almighty caste system à la Hinduism, instead we're talking about being a drop in the large, amorphous, interdependent ocean à la Buddhism.

OOH! Time out for a completely unrelated Buddhist joke!
What does the Zen Buddhist ask the hot dog man? "Make me one with everything."

Wait, wait - we've got another one!
How many Buddhists does it take to change a light bulb? Two. One to change it, and one not to change it.

Harr harrr harrrrr...

Anyway.

Where were we?

Oh yes - so Saaheb is directly likened to Siddartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism. While this is a bit of a stretch - Saaheb's a great guy and clearly in tune with the Buddhist philosophy of interdependent existence and humble compassion, but uh... - it's still a really novel parallel. Good ol' Siddartha just doesn't come up in movies that often! And maybe it's not such a stretch: compared to his selfish brothers, Saaheb's definitely further along the path to Enlightenment, that's for sure.

The other great thing about Saaheb, as we mentioned earlier, is this glorification of the ordinary. Generally, films either deal directly with the realization of your wildest dreams, or deal with the painful fall-out of realizing that your wildest dreams are not so great or just plain unattainable. Saaheb and his beloved Natasha instead dream small: and yet even these humble aspirations (working as flight attendants or train ticket collectors) are transformed into something Elysian and grand and perfect, just by their sheer joy. In the end, we cried a lot more than Saaheb did for his new future because we just couldn't accept it with the same easy-going malleability as him!


This song became our favorite when Anil and Amrita started cavorting around the airport.


This cap doesn't capture the grand, open-space fun of dancing on the tarmac while planes take off. Wheeee!

All the performances are relatively understated and charismatic (and Anil Kapoor is awfully boyish and skinny!). The production value is low, in keeping with the setting, and there are few songs. Yet this was such a sweet nugget of a film, with such a contented (even enlightened!) message, that we definitely recommend it.

And don't forget, PPCC readers, Anil on Regis tomorrow!

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-.

Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na (2008)

These two lovebirds don't know it yet.

First of all, hooray for another film this year taking its title from an old Shashi Kapoor favorite! What's ironic is that Jaane tu ya jaane na was a fairly typical romantic filmi song - that is, the boy (Shashi Kapoor) was smitten and pursued the girl (Sharmila Tagore) until she gave in - whereas the film Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na (Whether you know it... or not, or JTYJN) tries very hard to break away from this tradition and instead present a new type of Hindi film romance. Rather than relying on lightning bolts, instant infatuations and eternal dedication, JTYJN show us love that is often blurry and indistinct. Rather than a seven-lifetime guarantee, it's a series of ambiguous choices and vague, mutable feelings. Love doesn't happen to the characters in this film, they (sometimes, messily) happen to love.

Generally, the film succeeds, and so it's a breath of fresh air to the seasoned masala veteran (not that we don't unambiguously, lightning bolt-style love masala and remain eternally dedicated to it). The performances are, on the whole, aiming for natural, low-key charisma. No one is secretly related (what?!), there are no cackling villains and the only brother-sister duo is really... normal. Like, they bicker a lot (the brother at one point calling his sister a "stupid, stupid cow!"). This film had great pedigree - financially backed by the thinking man's favorite, Aamir Khan, with music by the genius A.R. Rahman - and we had been listening to enthusiastic endorsements from all our filmi-inclined friends ever since its release earlier this year. So does it deliver? Overall, yes.


Girls jamming on the guitar! Yeah, movie!


An excellent and quirky cameo by Naseeruddin Shah. We love it when the the Shahs play husband-wife in offbeat romantic comedies!

The story centers around a tight-knit group of college friends. Our hero is the sensitive, pacifist Jai (newcomer Imran Khan, nephew of Aamir). His best friend is the turbulent Aditi (Genelia D'Souza). Jai and Aditi are inseparable, and have been for the entire five-year college course, so naturally everyone assumes they're together. However, when Aditi's parents (Anuradha Patel and Jayant Kripalani, who we kept mistaking for Kader Khan) suggest marriage, the two kids recoil in shock. Marry my best friend?! No way! Just to prove how completely not-in-love they are, both attempt to find a perfect match for the other. Jai speedily runs into Meghna (Manjari Phadnis), and sparks fly. A bruised Aditi meanwhile rushes into a relationship with parental-approved Sushant (Ayaz Khan), whose nastiness is revealed layer by creepy layer.

The main theme of the movie seems to be "love is what you make it" - that is, it's not the sure-fire thing often portrayed in movies, but rather is something that is hard to pin down and hard to navigate. Just as Chori Chori satirized marriage, JTYJN satirizes love with the same half-cynical, half-affectionate air. Most of the relationships in the film are less-than-perfect. The happiest couple in the film - the geeky Rotlu (Karan Makhija) and Sandhya (Alishka Varde) - were both jonesing for someone else, got together on a whim, and found that they enjoyed each other's company much more. The "other girl" and "other boy" - Meghna and Sushant - are shown as imperfectly in love as well. That is, Meghna is willingly blind to the mutually abusive relationship between her parents (a surprise cameo by Rajat Kapoor playing the creepy alcoholic very well, and who was the mom?). Meanwhile Sushant is slowly revealed to be a possessive Lothario whose heart (and loins) is still pulled in many contradictory directions.


OMG Raj Babbar and Smita Patil's son!!!! Prateik Babbar!!!!!

This slightly tongue-in-cheek vibe is reinforced by the moments of self-conscious and humorous cliché: Jai mounting a white steed to chase down his beloved, the final climax in an airport. Because these clichés are portrayed with grace and wit (the subplot about how Jai gets on that horse is sweetly silly), we laughed and sighed instead of groaning. Indeed, throughout the film there were moments when we found ourselves a little choked up with tears and laughter - it was really quite affecting! For example, a running subplot (that involves the horse too) centers around Jai's late father, Amar Singh Rathore (a wonderful cameo by Naseeruddin Shah), who proclaims from beyond the grave and a Harry Potter-esque talking portrait that his son must grow up to be a macho mard, pride of Rajasthan. Jai's exasperated mother (Ratna Pathak, Naseer's wife) instead fights to keep Jai on a "Gandhi-Buddha" path of pacifism and sensitivity. A poignant and funny scene occurs when Jai, upset about the tortuous love quadrangles, cries on his mother's shoulder (see, boys can get hurt in love too, world!). She coos maternally ("Let it out, son!") while the painted father rolls his eyes in disappointment. There were other sweet, funny grace notes which fleshed out the film's appeal - we won't give any away, but the officer trying to describe "the terrorist's meowing" on the walkie talkie was priceless.


A very silly, nice moment. And a great shot.

We're very much looking forward to more work from all the performers - well, okay, we're a little wary of Imran Khan's follow-up Kidnap - and we're especially impressed with Abbas Tyrewala, who directed and wrote the film. Some of those shots were amazing! And vah! Kya dialogues thi! Overall, this was a fun, charming movie. We recommend it - especially for showing to Bollywood virginal friends, as its appeal requires no previous masala experience. And Mr. Tyrewala sir: more, please!


That man's sign reads "Mr. Godot". GET IT?!!

Calcutta Mail (2003)

Have you guys ever seen the Korean film, Oldboy? It's a great movie. A stylish, intense, hyper-violent thriller with a plot like a bullet train. It's one of the Founding Films of the PPCC - something we always wanted to write about, and decided to start a blog to do just that - yet it lingers on our To Review list for an embarrassing 1.5 years now.

Now that we've just watched a very similar Hindi movie, Calcutta Mail, we're reminded just how good Oldboy is, and how we really should get to reviewing it.


Lots of great shots of Calcutta. See the chawl!


The crowds!

The parallels between the two films are eerie, though the plot of Calcutta Mail differs in several key respects (and it's a remake of a Telugu film, Choodalani Vundi, anyway). In both films, we begin in media res, with a tormented, haunted protagonist getting harried by all sorts of goons and bad memories. (Oldboy shows us at least some of what's haunting protagonist Choi Min-Sik - being forcibly imprisoned for 15 years without any apparent justification.) Both protagonists are likable Everymen who are driven by an intense and mysterious desire for revenge (and gosh, they even resemble each other physically!). Both have iconic moments of totally flipped out intensity - the scene in Oldboy when Choi Min-Sik eats a live octopus, or the scene in Calcutta Mail when Anil manages to blow a police officer's desk aside by the sheer force of his screaming. Both films feature a seemingly implausibly bubbly female foil, a perky potential girlfriend who both aids the protagonists and keeps their tenuous morality in check. And, of course, both films are moody, dark thrillers that leave the final mystery's details unsolved until the very, very last moment. Both have some pretty kick-ass fight scenes, though Oldboy's (especially that legendary single tracking shot in a corridor) are generally better. That said, Calcutta Mail is dark, fun and intense. It is a genuinely thrilling thriller.

Without giving too much away - as the mystery of the narrative is one of Calcutta Mail's strongest points - the film begins with our harried hero, Avinash (an exhausted-looking Anil Kapoor), arriving in Calcutta from Bihar. He is searching for one Lakhan Yadav (Sayaji Shinde), and is, by his own account, bahut pareshan ("very troubled"). As he phones shady-looking goondas at mysterious telephone numbers, he arouses the interest of the evil Lakhan himself, who starts trying to kill him. Meanwhile, Avinash finds a room in a chawl (yay! we love chawls!) with the zesty Bulbul (Rani Mukherjee). Bulbul, an aspiring writer, is immediately attracted to this mustachioed Byronic hero spending sleepless, weepy nights on her balcony, and she - by way of two songs (one which is completely inappropriate considering the film's vibe and one which is an adorable fantasy) and some fake drama - weasles her way by Avinash's side. Her support becomes very useful as knife fights, train crashes and Manisha Koirala scenes begin piling the problems up.


Storm's a-comin'.

The director, Sudhir Mishra, is an expert at building and maintaining tension. He establishes it with brooding "before the storm" moments and punctuates it with excellent editing - for example, there are several scenes where he'll cut away from the drama, just when Anil is to be squished by two oncoming trains, to show us a wide shot of the countryside, or the city. "Argh!" we would scream. "You tease! Show us what happened!" And he always does - don't worry. His camerawork provides excellent pacing - shaky, disorienting fight scenes, sweeping mob scenes, and quieter stuff for intimate moments. The palette - if our crappy VCD can be trusted - is muted and filled with shadow. He makes everything - even the expected comfort of a homey middle-class chawl - look hostile and threatening.


Black and white flashbacks, shaky cameras, scary!

Some things to note, for those that have watched the film:

• Isn't Ishu the Hindi name for Jesus? If so, that's interesting.
  
• Is it just us and our Shashi-shaped glasses, but to what film is Anil referring when he does his Shashi-impression? ("Jahan baaaaap hai to kya baaaaat hai?") It's totally intentional. Aa Gale Lag Jaa?

Anil Kapoor, newest PPCC favorite, is a legend, as usual. One of our favorite things about our favorite actor, Toshiro Mifune, is how he would totally flip out sometimes. He would just lose it! Indeed, our highly-honed and practiced Toshiro Mifune Impression is us, spouting garbled Japanese ("Domo arigato!!! Ohaio gozaimas!!! Toshiro Mifune gas ki des!!!") at an increasingly frenzied pitch. Anil has some similarly demented scenes of maximum voltage - and we loved it! It was intense and it was awesome! He's good at those. We were also impressed by how sleepless he really did look - method acting, or cunning lack of make-up? One of the very satisfying Anil meltdowns. MAXIMUM VOLTAGE!!! Poor Rani had a bizarre role and did what she could with it. Her scenes of light-hearted teasing, her invented drama and total initial misunderstanding of the gravity of Anil's problems were loud false notes in the narrative. Unfortunately, the best she could do was get out of the way. This is a shame, since a well-written girlfriend/sidekick would have been a treat and Rani's always great. Alas, we'll retreat back to Nayak for the Anil/Rani jodi (tho thweet!). Sayaji Shinde was an excellent villain. He managed to project a sort of demented explosiveness coupled with moments of creepy vulnerability (ughh, his scenes with Manisha). Manisha Koirala, who we haven't seen since Dil Se, was acceptable but made us miss Rani.

Armaan (2003)

The unexpectedly true-to-life "It's midday and I've had 2 glasses of wine and you're looking pretty fly" scene. When did we fall into a French sex drama!?

Armaan (Desire) could have comfortably been many other films. It could have been a film from 1956, starring Prithviraj Kapoor and Raj Kapoor as the father-son duo. Or it could have been made in 1977, with Sanjeev Kumar as the patient and put-upon Akash Sinha and maybe Shashi Kapoor as the dallying pediatrician Sanjay - Rekha could have been the crazy lady, and Jaya Bachchan the sane one.

It's already been made in Japan by acclaimed director, Akira Kurosawa, where all the same themes - the wise, humanist pater familias doctor, his team of doctor underlings, the romance, the melodrama, the sweeping shots of mountain vistas - were present. And we got a distinctly European vibe from the movie too - maybe something French and a little family-unfriendly. No wonder they sent it to Cannes.


This is my empowered female gesture. I will bare my shoulders. I will kick your ass, professionally.

A little bit all of these things, with a dash of filmi masala, Armaan is a very familiar story. Elder Dr. Siddarth Sinha (Amitabh Bachchan, in a terrible wig) is the standard kind-hearted, humanist country doctor. His adopted son is Dr. Akash Sinha (Anil Kapoor), who shares basically all the same qualities - good heart, good work ethic, pure vanilla inside. These two bachelors live and work in their beloved country hospital and, when not saving poor little old ladies, they like to jam on the violin and - BANE OF ALL INSTRUMENTS - saxophone.

One day, the cute new anesthetist arrives, Dr. Neha Mathur (Gracy Singh). Neha and Akash butt heads for a bit, but quickly fall in love. They are, after all, carbon copies of the same, personality-less being. Their romance, which begins to look more and more like a heavily Photoshopped L.L. Bean catalog, features such vanilla courtship rituals as: watching waterfalls, examining flowers, having picnics on blankets and wicker chairs. YAWN. (What? After the drug-addled Anil and Rani licking cream off each other's faces in Nayak, it's a bit hard to see the two doctors as anything more than incredibly, tortuously dull.)

The random agent arrives in the form of spoiled, OTT rich girl Sonia Kapoor (Preity Zinta) - daughter of tycoon Gulshan Kapoor (a sweetly elderly Randhir Kapoor). Sonia is introduced to us as bored, Westernized and a little crazy. She immediately takes a fancy to Akash - is it the mustache? his studly righteousness? who knows! - and proceeds to pounce him.

We'll stop there. Something then happens - which, if you know movies, shouldn't be very surprising - and, as has happened before in other Anil movies, Akash ends up whoring himself out for his ideals. Tears flow, etcetera.


Awww, Randhir! So gosh-darned adorable and paternal!

This film is unique for having a distinctly non-Hindi feel to it. The first act, especially, could have been a British doctor drama. All the actors were subdued, nuanced and highly naturalist. It wasn't until the token vamp, Sonia Kapoor, showed up that things went a bit more masala. Even those early songs, like we said, were less Swiss-top romp, more Abercrombie & Fitch ad. We were really impressed with the performances - especially, of all people, Amitabh. Yes, Amitabh! Amitabh is such a force of personality that we always feel the weight of his superstardom in all of his films. In his recent attempts to go a bit off-beat - Black, for example - he always came across as a bit self-indulgent. Instead, in this film, he is a pleasant surprise - subtle and natural. His performance reminded us (indeed, the whole film did) of his work in H. Mukherjee's Mili - another "middle-class" Hindi film.


The Scene of Maximum Awkwardness. Nota bene that the guy on the far-right is the modern-day masala Shashi. We kept waiting for him to wobble his head slowly and croak, "Arreeee...Baaaaaat kya hai, yaar?"

Anil is, again, incapable of doing any wrong. Although in the end, after all the drama had resolved itself, we realized just how incredibly dull his character was, we still enjoyed watching him work his usual magic. And we are once again impressed by his choices - every film we've seen this week has been a distinctly different role and context, and he's thrived in all of them. Vah! Preity Zinta did very well considering her thankless role. She did the thing that everyone went crazy for Ellen Page doing in Juno - that is, she used the spaces between the beats to paint her picture. It was a very "read between the lines" performance - a pained glance quickly smothered by another forced, evil smile - stuff like that. Gracy Singh, unfortunately, couldn't revive her character from the depths of dullness in the same way Anil did his. Aamir Bashi, as we said, was basically playing a late 70s Shashi Kapoor... which only made us miss late 70s Shashi. (SHAAAASHIIII!!! KAHAN HO TUM!?!) Actually, speaking of the khandaan, Shashi's nephew Randhir was nice to see. Like brother Rishi, we prefer when that Kapoor generation plays paternal, 50+ roles. They're just so gosh-darned cute!

There were some things we liked a lot about the film. We liked the easy, taken-for-granted non-filmi-ness of it. Good girl Gracy wore jeans and tank tops, wasn't pressured to get married, shed only minimal filmi tears - she even gets a self-reference, "Oh gosh, I thought they only do that in Hindi films!" Ha! There were more hyperrealist touches: the doctors' on-going cricket commentary in the washroom, for example. Another thing we liked was Honey Irani's direction; her use of lighting, while stark, was very impressive at times (e.g. the soft glow of lanterns and the distant twinkle of soft-focus fireworks in this song (which has some spoilers)). Also, sometimes the acting was re-eally real. The scene when Sonia comes onto Akash at the party was surprisingly true-to-life, with that vibe of semi-tipsy flirtatiousness.


This is the lighting we're talking about.


And here. Gosh, that's lovely. Impressionist!

However, there were some things we didn't particularly like. Since the film seemed to start on an intentionally un-filmi route, every sign of filminess - things we usually tolerate with benign, knowing patience - became a flaw. The fact that Amitabh apparently has no idea how to play the violin. The fact that Anil Kapoor removes his mask in the operating room when brains are still exposed to bellow something (doesn't he worry about spittle, for the love of God?!). The fact that Sonia is such a shamelessly shallow vamp. The glaring plot holes, inconsistencies, and needless drama. Gosh darned it, Honey, if you wanted something un-filmi, you should have made it all un-filmi! For example, leave out the songs. With the exception of Preity's excellent come-on "love me or I'll kill myself" song, most of the other songs - especially the boring people in boring love one - were forgettable throwaways that made the narrative stutter and clunk around. The film could have easily dropped them, to its benefit.

Black & White (2008)

Subhash Ghai's Black & White is, unlike its title, full of ambiguity. Though the story itself may feel typical, its presentation is (surprisingly!) low-key and subtle. This was a refreshing change, since we had just finished criticizing Subhash Ghai for his overwrought and awkward directing in Yuvvraaj, and we were a little worried.


One big happy family. Sort of.

"Humanizing the terrorist" is a strange subgenre in Hindi films - all the films we've seen which tackle this issue inevitably come out like half-formed art films. They're not quite mainstream, but they're certainly already provocative because of the subject. Dil Se is one such film - and one of our favorite Hindi films ever - which examined the twisted infatuation of a naive Delhi boy for the tortured female suicide bomber. Dil Se was intelligent, dark, disturbing and fascinating - we highly recommend it. Another film from this genre which was made with less success was Fanaa. We would place Black & White somewhere between these two - not quite as engaging as Dil Se, but a lot better than Fanaa.

Mehmood (impressive newcomer Anurag Sinha) is a young, angry Afghan - the "Mr. Black" of the title. He is speedily introduced to us as a cold-hearted terrorist who kills a spying reporter in the first scene. Like Dil Se's Meghna, Mehmood plans to blow himself up in the Red Fort, Delhi, on Indian Independence Day (August 15). He changes his name to Numair Qazi, develops a cover story, and travels to Delhi's bustling Chandni Chowk area, where he is to lie low for the two weeks before the act.


The studly Anurag Sinha. And check out that composition? Is this the same guy that made Yuvvraaj?! How?!


Hey, it's Evil Guy from Devdas, Droh Kaal and Parinda. Looks like he's grown a new head, but no heart yet, alas.

Chandni Chowk is a hustling, bustling labyrinth of picturesque alleys and market stalls. It's also fairly representative of India's pluralism: the neighborhood is infused with Muslim culture, though there are also strong Hindu and Sikh presences. Generally, it's all very agreeable - everyone's friendly, everyone knows each other. Indeed, Numair/Mehmood eventually meets the locally famous Professor Mathur (Anil Kapoor) and his wife, Roma (Monsoon Wedding's Shefali Shetty). These two are an adorably wholesome, enlightened, activist Hindu couple - they're the type of people who would read The Guardian in the UK or listen to NPR in the States. Professor Mathur is a Professor in Urdu at the local college, and he's clearly well-versed in and enamoured with Islamic culture: he quotes Mirza Ghalib, corrects his Muslim pals on their Qur'anic interpretations, and is generally a peace-loving "Can't we all be brothers?" kinda guy. Yep - "Mr. White". Roma is instead a fire-brand social worker who has no qualms about publicly confronting ignorance and communalism. Yeah! You go, girl!

By some deviousness, Numair/Mehmood connives to enter their happy life. Since the Mathurs are well-known and well-respected in Delhi, he knows that they will be able to get him a VIP ticket for the upcoming Independence Day celebrations. However, as is typical of the genre, their goodness - and the humanity around him, including an unexpected infatuation from the girl next door - slowly wears down his badness until... well, you'll have to see just what happens and why.


Yet another fantastique composition. Go, Subhash!


The hustle and bustle of busy Chandni Chowk.

What's so satisfying about this film - apart from the fantastic set-up (strong women! religious pluralism! moral reformation!) - is how underplayed everything is. Never once does Subhash Ghai use aesthetics to emphasize Professor Mathur's goodness and Numair/Mehmood's badness. Instead, the realist treatment meant that we saw only their actions, sans embellishments. Gosh, it was almost hyper-realist! Not something commercial Hindi films are known for. Even the songs were fully-integrated into the plot: for example, when Numair/Mehmood and Professor Mathur visit a party or when Numair/Mehmood overhears the local garage band jamming out their most hypnotic qawwali tune.

Because of the lack of emotional cues, Numair/Mehmood remained a frighteningly ambiguous figure: he kills several people in the film, and yet he is not necessarily demonized. Rather the camera often pulls in to examine his expression: tormented and driven. There were several excellent subtleties which added texture: Numair/Mehmood witnessing the ground-level corruption of Hindu-Muslim youth leaders who jokingly threaten communal rioting in exchange for political gifts, for example, or the cynicism of his superiors. This was certainly the first film we've seen, Western or Hindi, which examined terrorism as not only religious fundamentalism (and, whoo boy, Numair/Mehmood's a pretty hard liner) but also as something which is driven by Machiavellian realpolitik. Indeed, ideologically-driven Numair/Mehmood's disgust and disappointment at these things were important catalysts in his road to redemption - again, another first! It wasn't just the gooey love of the Mathurs, it was some cold, harsh realities, too.

The whole "redemption" thing is treated in several other new ways. Gosh, we can't give too much away, but let's just say the ending was ambiguous and very un-masala. Also, following along this realpolitik cynicism, the movie seems to advance another interesting notion unlike other films in the "terrorist" subgenre (even Dil Se!): that is, horrible tragedy does not necessarily lead to revenge. Again - massive spoiler that we won't reveal - but Numair/Mehmood witnesses some pretty gruesome stuff and, most importantly, witnesses Professor Mathur's painful but iron-willed acceptance of it. This reminded us of Paul Collier's work on the socio-economic causes of civil war; his basic argument is that it isn't ideology or ethnicity or race or religion, those are just cards played by economic players seeking what everyone else wants: economic and political power. Black & White was surprisingly complex film in that it seemed to be saying the same thing. It therefore seemed to imply that terrorists may not be totally to blame - it's the people that guide them, lure them in and use them. As one character in the film says (incidentally, the terrorist leader himself!): "You have to understand the causes of terrorism to end terrorism, you can't just target the terrorists themselves." Watching Numair/Mehmood's gradual awakening to these realities - the fundamental reality that the world is never black and white, and he's been essentially conned into thinking so - is especially powerful.

The performances - on which so much depended in a film like this - generally delivered. Anurag Sinha was especially impressive as the tormented, brooding Numair/Mehmood. He toes the very fine line between remaining true to the character's intolerance, ignorance and ruthlessness while also displaying the character's humanity. Such a performance could have easily been mishandled - too evil, too maudlin, too fake. Instead, Anurag Sinha managed the amazing task of making Numair/Mehmood appear both vulnerable and frightening, both boyish and far from naive. And all he did was basically glower! Amazing. He has a great intensity of expression and we look forward to his future work.


Goodness us! Can Anil Kapoor do any wrong these days? Well, yes. But this guy is just on the up and up on the blog circuit and in our dil. Go, Anil, you amazing performer you!

Anil Kapoor... ah, well, Anil. We're starting to think there's been some big mistake in Mumbai. Why did Anil even waste his time going for that brand of SRK/Salman Khan/Amitabh Bachchan Bollywood hero performing in the 80s and 90s? He's clearly a very talented actor - on the par with Om Puri or Naseeruddin Shah or Raj Kapoor - and he clearly has only just started to do roles which merit his time. We're also happy that after five (or six?) Anil movies so far, he's provided profound, complex performances in all except one. In Black & White, he is generally very good again, but not great. In particular, his performance reminded us of Naseeruddin Shah's performance in Chakra - both began with a sort of forced light-heartedness and only came into their own towards the end, post-some trauma. There's a scene in particular which was very impressive (and affecting), as Anil attempts to hide his grief, it could have been something straight out of The Son's Room. And no one is doing that sort of work in Bollywood right now - except maybe Naseer. So, happy to report: Anil Kapoor Month continues merrily along at the PPCC!

We had high hopes for Shefali Shetty, as we hadn't seen her since Monsoon Wedding and weren't even aware she worked in mainstream/semi-mainstream Hindi cinema. Although her character was great, we felt there were several moments when she bordered on becoming a caricature of the fiery, headstrong woman. If we can fantasize, this would have been a perfect role for Neetu Singh - Neetu, where are you?! When are you coming back to the industry?! Pleeease!


Shefali's character was a bad-ass and we loved her. You tell 'em, girl!

That's all a lot of gushing, you might be thinking, but alas, the film is far from perfect. The most glaring problem is that it failed to emotionally engage us. That is, our brain was happy, but our dil was mostly left out. We blame this completely on whoever wrote the background music. Background music is a pretty integral part of the movie-watching experience - at the most facile, it gives us our emotional cues. While we appreciate Subhash Ghai going for a tamer, more documentary-style style in this film (complete with hand-held cameras!), we couldn't make heads or tails of the background music. It was mostly tinkling piano tunes that ranged from sounding weirdly elevator jazzy to Mister Rogers-esque. Suffice to say, it didn't engage us and instead impeded a lot of our emotional involvement (dude, you don't want to be thinking about Mister Rogers when you watch this movie). The songs, however, were all tasteful (considering the gruesome topic!) and enjoyable.

When we asked around, it seemed that no one's seen this film. "The trailer looked terrible," one friend said (rightly, we think). But come on - are we really the only ones? If so, all you PPCC readers, get thee to a DVD place and check this out. It's not the best, but it's different and thoughtful and we want to hear your opinions too!

Anari (1959)

Disclaimer: This is not going to be a very good review. We'll just say that up front. We wrote this when sick, when it felt like our brain had a light fuzz on it, much like jam gone bad. Ughh. Woe. We also watched this film with the most excellent Memsaab, so we were more interested in happily chatting away than picking up any filmmaking nuances. Who knows how much we missed. In fact, a better bet would be not to read this review but to proceed apace to Prof. Lutgendorf's review. If instead you'd like a painfully simple and slightly incoherent (our brain = jam gone bad!) review written by a grumpy PPCC, yes, you've come to the right place.


We also managed to cap everyone when they were blinking. Anyway. We thought Raj's tired, aging look worked very well, juxtaposing nicely against his inner child. Being naive takes its toll!

Anari (often subtitled as Idiot but "an inexperienced, unsophisticated, or naïve person" according to Prof. Lutgendorf) is but a simple story of a simple man. Or so we thought. It then adds some simple melodrama and becomes a bit less simple, but ultimately the message is clear:


Cap courtesy of Memsaab.

Yes. As Marx and Engels noted, history has been one long class struggle between the 'Softies' and the 'shrewd-shrews'. And Raj is here to tell you something: 'Softies' of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your dils!


Nutan and the PPCC slowly fall for Raj's bumbling anari-ness.

Meet Raj (Raj Kapoor). Raj is just your regular old simpleton, all bright eyes and bushy tail and charming male ingénue-ness. He is a boarder with the irascible, adorable Mrs. D'Sa (Lalita Pawar). Mrs. D'Sa harasses Raj day and night for the rent, and yet in her heart beats a great, big pumping sweetness - she loves Raj as a son, since her own son passed away years ago. Raj, who seems too idiotic to get a job or keep it for very long, is characteristically slow on the uptake.

Here then are the two major themes of this film: big, big juicy dil (that is, heart) and stupidity. Well, maybe "stupidity" is a bit harsh. Let's replace that with "naïveté to a lethal degree". Yes, lethal. See melodrama.


Nutan was FAB in this. But such a liar.

Anyway, one day Raj meets Aarti (an awesome Nutan), who is rich, smart and sassy. Aarti, much like the PPCC, is quickly charmed by Raj and, half in jest, she trades places with her lower-class friend and servant, Asha (Shubha Khote) in order to put herself on Raj's level. A courtship begins - and you just know it's not gonna fly because such love never flies for liars. Indeed, in the requisite Hindi Movie Irony, Raj ends up (finally) landing a job with none other than Aarti's uncle (Motilal), a man who likes a hard worker but is not such a fan of having poor folk in the family. And if you foresee disaster already - wait 'til Mrs. D'Sa catches the flu right when a box of poisoned medicine is accidentally at large! Oh no!

There's probably some big theme going on about the relationship between cynicism, morality and class matters, but the PPCC is too befuddled to figure it out or care. Onto what we do understand: Raj's histrionics!


CRY!


CRY!


AND AGAIN!

Crying is important to the PPCC. We like a good cry. Some films - like 1989's Civil War flick Glory - get watched merely so we can have a good cry. We also are easily charmed by actors that can cry convincingly - like Naseeruddin Shah's hyperrealist tears in Monsoon Wedding or Kenneth Branagh's dramatically Welsh Welshness in Henry V. Oh, the humanity!

Raj does a lot of good, meaty crying in Anari. Memsaab wasn't as charmed as the PPCC was during Raj's various sniffles, but we found these scenes endearingly open-hearted and satisfying, "Aww, look! He's a 12-year-old boy trapped in a 40-year-old man's body! It's like Big, only with fab songs!" And maybe that's the best way to take Anari.

Baseraa (1981)

First, a funny meta story: For many weeks, a Friend of the PPCC had been badgering the PPCC to go get a pedicure, since the local pedicurist kept telling the friend that the pedicurist had a Shashi movie for the PPCC. Long ago, the PPCC had gone for a pedicure, and, oh, the fun we had, discussing Shashi this and Shammi that. Anyway, the PPCC was skeptical - a Shashi movie we had not yet seen? Ha. But today the pedicurist delivered (and how!): a double-whammy of Shashi/Rekha films, including Gulzar's notable Baseraa and the Shashi-Rekha-Pran Do Musafir. Yes. YES! One, a movie with a thoughtful, early 80s Vijeta-era Shashi, all greying temples and wormy moustache (YEAH! we love that look!). The other, 1978 and including PRAN. Could it get any better?!


No, it clearly cannot get any better. Shashi and Rekha are fab! And remember Koncam Koncam?! (Ooh-ooh-ooh!)

By the way, India Weekly: it's been a month now, and we are still waiting on Vijeta. Any day now. Any day now.

The real review: First of all, large kudos to Gulzar for tackling a thorny, oft-mishandled subject - mental illness - with sensitivity and sympathy. Baseraa is a quiet, unassuming movie that instantly appeals by combining (1) the painful emotional ironies of your standard, squishy masala dil with (2) interesting variation, intelligence and maturity. It reminded us a lot of Masoom, in that it was a naturalist portrayal of domestic life gone horribly awry. Also, like Masoom, the narrative structure was like an onion: as things progressed, important points were revealed, layer by layer. This was in startling contrast to the usual 1970s masala convention of beginning immediately on a prologue/info dump. Baseraa, instead, often teases you with allusions to unknown past events which are only later explained. Despite our love of straightforward, populist masala, we at the PPCC are actually BIG BIG fans of zero exposition. We like to work for our narrative. Hence, we were lovin' Baseraa.


Have Rekha and Rakhee been in anything else together? They were fab!


More wonderful Shashi-Rekha. With some angst, plz.

The story follows the your usual happy family clearly on the way to destruction. There is, as per usual, the jolly father, Balraj (Shashi Kapoor), the good-humored mother, Nima (Rekha), and their two sons, Sagar (Raj Kiran, who played Shashi's romantic rival in Bezubaan released the same year) and Babbu (Master Vikas). Sagar is now of marriageable age, and he has fallen in love with the pretty, smart med student Sarita (Phoonam Dillon). Sarita is clearly your Perfect Daughter-in-Law, and in one sweet scene, she stuns the family by singing early morning pooja. The parents heartily approve, and all seems well.


There's even a children's song, like the one in Masoom.

However, already there are cracks in the perfect façade. It is revealed that the mother of Sagar is actually Sharda (Rakhee, real-life wife of Gulzar) - Balraj's first wife, Nima's older sister. Fourteen years ago, it seems Sharda had been having psychotic episodes. Eventually, she had to be taken to the local asylum. The family still grieves for Sharda, and they are in close contact with her doctor, Dr. Gokhale (Iftikhar, who is always in everything!). Sharda has recently had a minor accident in the asylum. When she recovers, however, her mental illness seems to have dramatically improved, and Dr. Gokhale decides to try to continue the improvements by sending her home to heal. He informs the family, however, that Sharda's mental health is fragile, and so no big emotional shocks, please. Ergo, Balraj and Nima must revert to their roles from 14 years earlier: Balraj as Sharda's husband, and Nima as a widow. The rest of the film watches this impossible drama unfold.


There is much angst, as you'd expect.


Which is juxtaposed nicely against flashbacks where everyone was a lot happier. Rekha, in particular, is so much fun when she's allowed to be a bit crazy! (e.g. her Punjabi disguise with Amitabh in Suhaag!)

The weakest point of the film, for us, is the somewhat tenuous tension. Sharda's mental illness is never specified, and Dr. Gokhale's advice that everyone must pretend it's fourteen years ago is a little hard to believe. Sure, it must suck to be Sharda, when your sister has wed your husband, but we couldn't really imagine her going demented over it - at least, the movie seemed far too realistic to resort to such a filmi convention. Another weak point was the misguided use of whatever drum that was. It was your standard comedy slapstick drum sound, but they kept using it whenever they needed to emphasize a tragic point.

Nonetheless, the film was so well done in other ways that we overlooked the kind-of-silly plot idea and the drum. Rekha, Rakhee and Shashi all gave good, honest performances - in other words, they were in their 'Parallel Cinema' modes, which we love! But the best aspect, for us, was the portrayal of Sharda's mental illness. Rather than exploiting it for laughs or demonizing it, Sharda's illness is portrayed as just that - an illness. In one poignant scene, Balraj loses patience with Sharda, and she reminds him that she never wanted to be ill, and she hates it as much as he does. Another effective scene is in a brief flashback, when Balraj and Nima remember the day Sharda was taken away. In a very long tracking shot from the bedroom, down the stairs, to the living room, the camera follows the tumult as hospital workers restrain Sharda, while her husband and her doctor try to calm her. It's very painful to watch, and thankfully it is presented honestly and straightforwardly, with little melodramatic embellishment.


The most painful scene, done with a great tracking shot.


Poor Rekha, too! Poor son! Poor all of you!

The songs were mostly OK, with our favorite being the one where Balraj remembers his life with Sharda. It had a lovely haunting quality, relying mostly on Lata's voice and the piano. But we don't feel confident to judge the songs or the dialogue, since Gulzar is always lauded as being such a poet, and yet we can't understand Hindi all that well (and our subtitles kind of sucked too).

Overall, we've been really enjoying these early 80s Shashi films. After all the excitement of the 60s and 70s, they are a welcome respite. One of these days, we'll make a list of our favorite Shashi movies, and a lot of these 80s movies are definitely going to show up. And ARRGH India Weekly! Now we're dying to see Vijeta - especially after this wonderful clip and after learning that it was directed by Govind Nihalani, who directed the powerful Droh Kaal! Aaarghhh.