Om Shanti Om (2007)

The PPCC does not normally review films which haven't made it to DVD yet. It's kind of a rule for us, since we like to do the screencap stuff. But the PPCC is a democratic institution and some members decided it was time to review a movie still in the theatres, mostly because (1) it's timely and (2) there are some pretty awesome movies coming out soon. Also, we're gonna see if we can out-reference it. Our goal is to hit 31, for the number of shameless cameos in one of its songs.

Well, Om Shanti Om (kind of a remake of Heaven Can Wait) should appeal to several types of people:

(1) 1970s Bollywood nostalgists
(2) 1990s Bollywood + Shah Rukh Khan apologists
(3) Phantom of the Opera fans

We at the PPCC are everything except (3), and hence we liked everything about Om Shanti Om except the bit when it becomes a bizarre Gothic horror/romance with protracted violence (of the People Burning Down in Mansions sort) and overwrought revenge plots. Unfortunately this "bit" takes up half the movie. As several other bloggers have noted, however, the cuddly joy of the first half - when Shah Rukh and we, the audience, are just loving life and loving movies - more than makes up for the long, arduous drag to the finish. So basically we'd see it again, but we'd walk out thirty minutes before the end.

The story starts in 1977, in the halcyon days of Bollywood's Golden Era. We are introduced to Om Prakash Makhija (Shah Rukh Khan), the bright-eyed, bushy-tailed extra ("junior artist") who comes complete with mutton chops, outrageously-patterned polyester outfits and a big heart. Om Prakash (yes, named after that Om Prakash) is like Hero Hiralal on hyperdrive: naive, optimistic, alone except for his mom (Kirron Kher) and loyal best friend Pappu (Shreyas Talpade), he lives in poverty but has big dreams of becoming a filmi star. Like Iqbal, Om takes his passion home with him: he and his mother engage in melodramatic, staged arguments where Om is inclined to pose and mug, declaring, "Father was a junior artist! You were a junior artist! And now I'll be nothing but a junior artist too!"

Apart from his movie fantasies, Om, appropriately enough, also harbors an intense crush on Shantipriya (Deepika Padukone), the current superstar. Since he and Pappu are regular gatecrashers to premieres and movie sets, Om bumps into his Shanti more than once. These scenes deserve note; they are reminiscent of Roberto Benigni's courtship of Nicoletta Braschi in Life is Beautiful (or, for that matter, Johnny Stecchino or Il Mostro or La tigre e la neve). She is frothy and elusive, he is joyous and smitten, chasing after her. When the security guards drag Shah Rukh Khan away, and he clutches his heart with a dreamy smile on his face, we at the PPCC were quite smitten ourselves. It was, as Greg Kinnear describes the porn magazines in Little Miss Sunshine, just sweet... sweetness. Similarly with the songs Dhoom Tana, Ajaab Si, and Jag Soona Soona Lage - all three beautiful little snapshots of Om's epic crush on Shanti.


Dhoom Tana. Thank God for the guys in the theatre with the video camera. A perfect capture of the fun and glamour of 1970s Bollywood, as well as the visceral escapism Om and Hero Hiralal and the PPCC experience when watching these things. When Om is compelled to shake out of his theatre seat and start dancing in the aisle, sublime. We've done that too, except at home. And the tennis?


Ajab Si. A gorgeous song. Gush gush.


Jag Soona Soona Lage, featuring Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and his shrieking. There are so many genius shots in this song. Our favorite moment is when Om and Pappu join the Holi filming. Touching and meta, perfect.

Indeed, it's the first half of the film which hits all the right notes. The post-2000 Shah Rukh Khan seems to have only two settings, and they are bubble gum romance (which we prefer) and Darth Vader (which we generally do not, especially when he starts threatening people in English). He plays both settings in the film, with the first Om being bouncy and fun (and wonderfully stupid, a la Raja in Jab Jab Phool Khile) and the second Om being kind of an arrogant dick (a la Shah Rukh in Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna... or Don... or even Chak De India...) who does that whole thing with the tight jaw and the sarcastic English-isms, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." Brrr. Remember Shah Rukh in KANK? "I love you and dammit, you love me too." Ughhh. Is English the Evil Language? Apparently for SRK it is.

We know that the Evil Shah Rukh is, in some circles, considered the better of the two, but we'll take Bubble Gum SRK any day.

Anyway, unfortunately Bubble Gum Om must die in order to move the film forward with its reincarnation theme and get all the satire of modern Bollywood going. Evil mega-producer Mukesh Mehra (Arjun Rampal) decides that the best way to achieve his career goals is to burn down one of his sets and lock his wife, Shanti, inside. No, it's not commentary on widow-burning practices. It's all set-up for a painfully contrived melodrama (and we hate using that word, but here it just is, man). Anyway Om tries his darndest to save Shanti, but he succeeds only in being beaten to a pulp (not dead yet), catching fire (not dead yet), exploding out onto the street (still not dead), and finally getting hit by a car (dead now). Yet, just as Om declared that:
1. If you want something with all your heart, the entire universe conspires to get it for you. (In this case, Shanti.) And,
2. Life should be like movies, with only happy endings (or, as Om said a la Raja, "happees ending"). And if life ends unhappily, the movie isn't over yet!

Hence the film fasts forward to 2007, where Om has been re-born into the illustrious Kapoor dynasty, complete with all the pampering and stardom that that guarantees. Here the film finds time to poke fun at nearly every aspect of modern Bollywood: from Sanjay Leela Bhansali's taking-itself-very-seriously Black to Abhishek Bachchan's taking-itself-very-seriously ego. And everyone shows up, old (Rekha! Rishi Kapoor! Dharmendra! Shabana!(!) AMITABH!) and new (Salman Khan! Saif Ali Khan! Akshay Kumar! Kajol! Rani! ABHISHEK!). But then Farah Khan remembered she had some plot strings to tie up, and hence we are subjected to a laborious revenge plot which is part-comedy and part-horror and leaves everyone unsatisfied, except for those damn Andrew Lloyd Webber fans.

There were a few moments when we found ourselves laughing very hard at something that should not have been quite so funny and was actually a bit offensive. The entire satire of South Indian films, reportedly more outrageous than even Bollywood and its Industrial Strength Escapism, with Shah Rukh sporting a handlebar moustache and red pleather, as a hero who continually reminds the villains to: "Mind it!" (While hippie on-lookers twist their hands, "Vah! Vah! Kya acting hai! Kya flying hai! Kya tiger hai!") Also, and we are ashamed of ourselves, but the parody of Black, where Shah Rukh is reduced to a Monty Python-esque Black Knight-esque torso (who is also blind, deaf and mute). (Another time when we laughed similarly hard and were similarly ashamed of ourselves was during a skit depicting Lincoln's assassination.)

For those who love SRK, the Chia pet of your love will be cultivated and well-fed during Om Shanti Om. For however much he is criticized, and we agree with much of the critics' criticisms (mostly the one about how he's become a pre-packaged media product with a pre-packaged selection of five faces), he is nonetheless an intelligent performer with great timing and instinct. He hasn't lost his magic ability to channel vulnerability; of particular note being Jab Soona Soona Lage, where the man is, once again, not afraid to cry. Newcomer Deepika Padukone barely registers; she's a pretty face and, while cute in some scenes (such as her melodramatic 1970s "Ek chutki sindoor!" scenes), she lacks the charisma of other, more formidable Barbies to SRK's Ken (notably Kajol, Juhi Chawla and Rani Mukherjee, who often not only hold their own but out-charisma him). In fact, Om's friendship with Shreyas Talpade's Pappu has more electricity than his supposed romance with Shanti. But that could be, of course, Shreyas Talpade's excellentness, playing on his own strengths of sidekick goofiness and, later, gravitas. Kirron Kher is, as we've already mentioned, our all-time favorite Hindi Movie Mom, and she continues to be. We especially loved her own melodramatic faux acting in the early scenes. Arjun Rampal is flat and bland enough that we still confused him with John Abraham.

And of course, the final and most ultimate reason to see Om Shanti Om is to get a faceful of THIS, BABY:


Huuuuuzzaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Final count: 19. Damn!

Dor (2006)

The train station finale, always wonderful.

Just like the enjoyable Paheli, Dor (String) is a feminist treatise set in the heart of patriarchal Rajasthan. While Paheli was a song-and-dance folk tale that used fantasy to make its point, Dor tells a much more real story of female empowerment through the unlikely bond created by two very different women. First, there is Zeenat (Gul Kirat Panag), independent, strong-willed and Muslim, hailing from mountainous Himachal Pradesh. Then, there is Meera (Ayesha Takia), subdued, dainty, Hindu, living with her husband's family in Rajasthan. Both women are happily married, and both women's husbands go to Saudi Arabia in hopes of bettering their fortunes. An ironic and tragic turn of events occurs when Meera's husband falls from an apartment window, and Zeenat's husband is accused of pushing him. Since the husbands had been roommates and friends, Zeenat is convinced her husband is innocent. Yet the only way she can free him of the death penalty is if she receives a signed pardon from Meera.


Zeenat in Himachal Pradesh.


Meera and her husband in Rajasthan. The director was fond of these back-to-us shots.

Thus Zeenat embarks on a crazy quest armed only with a picture of the two husbands and her iron will: to find Meera and obtain her signature. Along the way, she meets Behroopiya (Shreyas Talpade), an itinerant conman-slash-actor with a heart of gold and talent for impressions. For hardcore and in-the-know fans, Talpade will no doubt be a joy for us. As hardcore as we are, we are hardly in the know, and hence the only impression we picked up on was one of the lovely, the amazing Pran.


Shreyas!

The story seems brief and simple compared to other Hindi cinema fare. Slowly and hesitantly, the women strike up a friendship. Things are put on trial when the Ugly Truth comes out, but there are few hysterics or melodrama. The only gasp-worthy moment is when Meera's father-in-law plans to prostitute her off in order to keep get money to buy back his sweet ancestral pad. Yes, the pad is sweet, we agreed, but WTF?! Meera's reaction is much the same, as is the sympathetic grandmother's.


A sweet reinvention of one of our favorite songs.

The performances are uniformly restrained. Both the leads are likable, with Zeenat's slight extroversion just a couple notches louder than Meera's slight introversion. Shreyas Talpade is charmingly hammy as the conman-with-a-heart-of-gold. The director was fond of direct, head-on close-ups, in retrospect, giving things a nice air of childlike inquisitiveness.


Widowed.

Not as big and brash as its Bollywood brothers, nor as depressingly gritty as ye olde Parallel stuff, Dor is a nice, family-oriented film that promises and delivers something small but effective. It's not really escapist, but it makes for a nice viewing nonetheless.


Shah Rukh Khan's presence, almost mockingly pop in this film of realities.

Iqbal (2005)

We at the PPCC... do not like Iqbal.


The lovely compositions of Iqbal. It's like a Vermeer painting.

Why? We just don't know. We like all the actors in it, very much so, in fact. We like most of the music. We think the cinematography is pretty. We admit that the story is indeed "feel good". But there's just something about it, a certain we don't know what which makes us go, "Oh, Iqbal. Brrr." We watched it once and thought, "OK." We tried to watch it twice in order to write this review, but we had to stop halfway. There was just something about it; something which felt forced and tired and uneventful. Judging by our friends' reactions though, we might be alone on this one.


We luurrrrved Shreyas Talpade though.

Iqbal is the story of Iqbal (Shreyas Talpade), a deaf and mute teen from a small village in India. Iqbal is absolutely nuts about cricket, and we means CRAZY. He's named all the family buffalo (oxen? Err, we are city people) after famous cricketers, he practices every day, all day, in the fields, and he secretly watches the local cricket school practices, hoping to read lips and learn some new tips. His younger sister, Khadija (an excellent and adorable Shweta Prasad), helps him out and decides one day to really help him out by alerting the team coach to Iqbal's secret devotion. The coach invites him to try out for a place in the school, and of course Iqbal is magnificent.


Magnificent, we said!

For a short while, Iqbal blossoms at the school. But of course, there is some jealousy, especially from the smarmy and handsome Kamal, Son of a Rich Man. So after some tussles, Iqbal finally just bowls the ball into Kamal's head and is thrown out of school. There are brief scenes of devastation and despair. But fear not! Iqbal pulls some of his cricket magazines out of the fire and sees, yes, the familiar and comforting face of a young Naseeruddin Shah! Naseer, who has already been introduced to us as the town drunk, was apparently a nationally recognized bowler, back in the sober days. Joy. Iqbal proceeds to hound Mohit (Naseer) until the latter agrees to coach him.


Another lovely composition. Naseer being curmudgeony and old.

And coach him he does! And blossom they do! And happy we are! After a mutually beneficial training session, where Iqbal learns to bowl with such accuracy that he can hit numbered buffalo, and Mohit conveniently decides that being an alcoholic was a bad idea, they drive off to the city for the state team tryouts. And Iqbal makes it! And off he goes to Hyderabad to play for the Andhra Pradesh team, which suddenly begins to win every single match. Everyone is happy, except for Iqbal's father (Yatin Karyekar), who has always disapproved of cricket and blamed it for stifling India's and his own economic growth. However, after some helpful and tearful confessionals, Iqbal's mother (Prateeksha Lonkar) convinces Iqbal's father to stop being a grouch and so everyone really is happy. Except - oh no - we have now entered the world of professional cricket, and shady men are approaching Iqbal and giving him cheques to throw the Big Match. And a scout for the national team is in the stands! What to do, what to do. We wring our hands, and we won't tell you how it ends.


The brother-sister POWER ACTION DUO of the new generation!

The acting is very impressive. Shreyas Talpade, in particular, is absolutely lovable - and he plays Iqbal well, meaning he plays him as a very optimistic, sunny kid with an obsession with cricket, not a pity case who "deserves" to become famous because of his hard lot in life. We will be keeping an eye on him. Little Shweta Prasad, who plays his sister, is also adorable and very impressive for a child actor. We particularly liked her scenes with Naseer, where she was all like, "You suck, I don't trust you." Naseer delivers a workaday performance. You'd think with such a (stereotypically) interesting character - battling demons of the past with a bottle and finding precarious redemption with a younger version of himself, blah blah - we'd have enjoyed it a bit more, but it was all very, "Ehhh..." We just weren't that interested, even when he talked out loud to God (OK, that was enjoyable).


There are some minor snags on the path to greatness.

Generally, the movie is up to Hollywood standard. It's slick and well-made and, well, a little soulless. It has that veneer of feeling, but we just didn't buy it completely. It felt like we were supposed to cheer for Iqbal, fear for Iqbal, etcetera, but since it was the bog-standard underdog story, who's really surprised when Iqbal makes the state team? Is there any doubt that he'll make the national team? None at all. And so we didn't really feel good when any of these things happened, as it all just felt a little too easy.