Cinema of India

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July 18, 2009

Flashback #64

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Agraharathil Kazhuthai (1978) (aka Donkey In The Elite Colony)
John Abraham
Tamil

“I felt a living thing had come to me for love and affection. I hadn’t the heart to drive it out.”

 

Agraharathil KazhuthaiJohn Abraham’s Donkey in the Elite Colony (1978) begins before its imagery does, with the narrator passionately reciting a fiery poem by Subramanya Bharathi, in praise of fire, during the credits. The first visual of the film follows up the verbal worship of fire in the poem with an extended shot of a sunrise. The tone is set for a leftist kind of film with revolutionary overtones. The seventies was a notorious decade in Indian cinema – both parallel and mainstream – as the permissiveness of American cinema had started showing its influence. And fortunately, it was also the period when cinema was taken most seriously and for the good. Malayalam film director John Abraham’s second film, and his only film made in Tamil, is a controversial film from the era and continues to be rated as one of the most important non-mainstream movies from the country.

Professor of philosophy, Narayanaswamy (M. B. Sreenivasan) returns home one day to find a little donkey at his doorstep. He comes to know upon enquiry that its mother has been killed by a mindless mob and decides to provide refuge to the animal. But staunch opposition from college officials and his students forces him to transport Chinna (that’s what he has named his pet) to his native village, only to trigger a chain of apocalyptic events. The neighbourhood is an agraharam, the settlement of Brahmins (considered one of the higher social classes in ancient India), where the mere notion of a donkey (an icon of the working class) replacing the sacred cow as a domestic animal breeds hostility. Narayanaswamy is single and has a brother who is married but childless. Chinna is taken care of by the mute Uma (Swathi), who is as devoid of the notions of class and caste as Chinna  is and whose fate clearly mirrors the donkey’s.

Agraharathil KazhuthaiDirector John Abraham and scriptwriter Venkat Swaminathan evidently draw inspiration from Bresson’s Au Hasard Balthazar (1966, even overtly referenced early in this film), where too the protagonist’s fate was tied up with the donkey’s. I say fate because none of the central characters (the women and the animals) seem to be able to affect the direction of their lives. Both Chinna and Uma are mute creatures who end up being victims of insecurities and questionable intentions of certain individuals who take refuge under the cover of their social standing. But Abraham is far from being a Jansenist (that Bresson is often claimed to be). He is more interested in doing away with the oppressive forces than in contemplating about the harrowing state of affairs as his opening and closing sequences testify. Towards the end of the film, when the professor finally searches out the whereabouts of Uma, he finds her sitting listless among the ruins of a temple, amidst abandoned idols, subtly raising an intriguing question – Has God forsaken his subjects or is it the other way round?

It is so good to see an Indian film, after a long time, which respects the cinematic form and not just its scenario. Venkat Swaminathan’s script would have been just a hard hitting short story if not for what John Abraham does with it. Although Abraham’s style does become showy at places and the film feels like an uneven student film, the director’s conviction that form underscores and enhances content overwhelms. He draws inspiration from Eisenstein (montage is used regularly in the film), the neo-realists (location shoot and use of non-professionals) and, more extensively, Bresson (lot of detail is conveyed through off screen speech while the camera lingers on the characters’ actions). It is enough to witness just the opening few minutes of the film to see the formalist urge of the film. Following the prolonged shot of the sunrise, using simple cross cutting between the professor and the little donkey, Abraham starts presaging the intrusive and iconoclastic nature of both of them, which will be elaborated upon later in the film.

Agraharathil KazhuthaiBut most interesting is the central piece of the film, where Abraham achieves a unique effect through repetition and montage. It is a sequence where Narayanaswamy’s father is recounting the villager’s complaints about the donkey. Each scene of complaint begins with a villager shouting out his gripe, after which, Abraham cuts to what actually happened. It is revealed to us that in none of the cases, is the donkey guilty of what the villagers are accusing it for. In contrast to the verbose ranting of the villagers, these flashbacks are completely devoid of words, with only a soundtrack playing throughout each one of them, as if stressing the inherent dubiousness in human words. At the end of each scene, we see Chinna and Uma walking past the father-son pair almost in the same fashion every time. This is followed by a section that shows a working class man taking advantage of Uma’s condition, much like the villagers making use of the donkey’s inability to object. The whole sequence of events repeats three or four times and constantly calls attention to itself, making it a bit of an overkill by today’s standards.

Donkey in the Elite Colony has been called an attack on the Brahmin hegemony in rural Tamil Nadu. But Abraham’s film is much more than a simple tirade against a particular caste or class. It, in fact, talks against any system that tries to imitate itself for a reason it can’t understand and imposes upon itself, laws and practices that are either irrelevant to the present or plainly irrational (In one scene, Narayanaswamy tries drinking coffee without sipping – a practice considered a characteristic of the Brahmin household – in front of his mother, only to fail). Donkey in the Elite Colony presents one such social system which blindly attempts to sustain its oppressive structures like class, caste and family and goes any distance to weed out anomalies that may harm the setup. The class divide is as much perpetuated by the submissiveness of the working class as it is by the domination of the elite. The fact that Narayanaswamy is single and his brother’s family is childless seems to be a big taboo. Status quo is restored only when his brother’s wife bears a child. Even the college where Narayanswamy works insists that he get rid of his pet since it is “demoralizing” for the institution.

Agraharathil KazhuthaiThe final act of Donkey in the Elite Colony begins on an ambiguous note, which, in a way, feels like a weak link. We are first shown Brahmins who are repenting for their actions, haunted by the implications of their sins, and then the workers rising to revolt. Is Abraham suggesting that a change has to come from within, rather than through an organized movement (This is a plausible explanation, for Narayanaswamy himself is one of the Brahmins)? Or is he of the opinion that a revolution is the only way for progress? The climactic act, at times seeming indecisive, is brought to a final resolution with the help of another Subramanya Bharathi poem – Dance of Death. The penultimate image in the film is that of burning houses, rendering closure to the film’s first sequence (the opening poem is recited in the soundtrack once more) and providing us with a clear solution rather than an introspective question. Abraham’s leftist tendency overwhelms, taking the film with it into an agitprop mode reminiscent of the Soviet cinema of the twenties. The film closes with a shot of the setting sun – a rather unusual metaphor for a propagandist showdown, for the revolution has just begun.

 

July 11, 2009

Flashback #63

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Om Darbadar (1988) (aka Om-Dar-Ba-Dar)
Kamal Swaroop
Hindi

“To Prime Minister. Subject: The Googly. Dear Raju, Please ban googly in cricket and life in general. Thanks, A freedom fighter, Babuji B. Sankar.”

 

Om DarbadarIf one is asked to describe briefly what Kamal Swaroop’s Om Darbadar (1988) is, some of the answers could be: carefully constructed non-sense, endless dream of a cinephile, a satire on everything, full stop to Indian parallel cinema, random footage, extremely challenging piece of filmmaking, the great Indian LSD trip, landmark Indian film that aims big. With all the ingredients required to make a cult classic, Om Darbadar is the kind of movie that can easily polarize critics and audiences alike. It is, in fact, surprising that the National Film Development Corporation consented to produce this film. Using image, sound and montage to the maximum extent (and often gratuitously) and dialog that seem like knitted from parts of different sentences, almost always making no meaning (written by Kuku, also the lyricist and the art director of the film), Swaroop’s film is an antithesis to whatever is recognized globally as Indian cinema – a reason good enough to make Om Darbadar a must-see movie.

Here’s the plot of the film: Horoscope, dead frog, cloudy sky, the moon, radio program, caste reservation, bicycle, Mount Everest, women’s liberation, communism, sleeveless blouse, Yuri Gagarin, miniature book, Nitrogen fixation, man on moon, terrorist tadpoles, computer, biology class, turtles, Hema Malini, typewriter, sleazy magazines, hibernation, text inside nose, googly, James Bond, severed tongue, fish rain, shoes in a temple, World War, assassin creed, Gandhi, illicit trade, the lake, goggles, hopping currency, helium breath, counterfeit coins, underwater treasure, diamonds inside frogs, fireworks, the zoo, explosives, town at night, dead man, visit of God, the Panchsheel Pact, foreign tourists, Promise toothpaste, holy men, Fish keychain, Ram Rajya, food chain disruption, anti-cooperation movement, birth control, bagpipes, gecko, Jawaharlal Nehru, Aviation centers, Potassium Cyanide. And I guarantee you, this is as lucid as it can get.  

Om Darbadar

Om Darbadar is, hands down, the most confusing movie I have ever seen and not many movies can come close to dethroning it. Some might propose Buñuel’s first film, but one could at least find one pattern in that work – of anti-narration. This one regularly tantalizes us with a somewhat coherent narrative and just when it seems to get steady, snap! Or Last Year at Marienbad (1961), which is, in fact, an incisive study of the human memory. Om Darbadar, on the other hand, overwhelms us with its utter irreverence for integrity of reality, unity of content and consistency of form. Or the very many avant-garde films of Brakhage, Warhol, Anger, Snow or Smith, which, I believe, have always had a strong theoretical basis. No, this film does not have any single, central factor as its theme or motivation. Of course, one can find shreds here and there in the film that do make it seem like dealing with the idea of identity crisis in suburban India, but that’s strictly on a speculative level.

Often we witness directors claiming to show the world what real India is – a statement negated by the films themselves. Leave alone filming, it is to be accepted that even understanding the dynamics of such a largely diverse country is near impossibility. But, if there was ever a film that attempted to capture the workings of real India almost in its entirety, it has to be this one. Yes, it does bite much more than it can chew, but surely, digestion is not its intention. In a country where science, religion, mythology, arts, politics and philosophy seep into common lives trying to overpower each other, there is no single way to separate these threads so as to examine their influence on the way of life. This is a nation where the apparently inexplicable supernatural walks hand in hand with the most modern of scientific theories (In one scene in the film, Gayatri (Gopi Desai) asks Jagdish (Lalit Tiwari) if women can really climb Mount Everest without the help of men, he tells her: “Why not? After all, goddess Parvati did it”), a culture that is exposed to all the isms of western thinking yet revels in having its own interpretations of them (wearing a sleeveless blouse is equated to emancipation of women) and a country whose emotions are largely dictated by cinema, television and pop culture (Om Darbadar can be seen as a jab at just about every genre in Indian cinema).

Om Darbadar

Conventional (and good) cinema has relied on the fact that human psychology manifests itself in the form of their behaviour and speech and hence, an unhindered documentation of their lives would help us understand them better. But not many filmmakers seem to have embraced the reverse process – an entry into the real via the surreal. Kolker fittingly calls Buñuel “the neo-realist of the unconscious” and each one of his films testifies that. Likewise, the whole of Om Darbadar could well be the ultimate Freudian exercise that could help us (de)construct the actual world that Om lives in – a world that is as much fuelled by a love for pulp novels and thriller movies as it is by an aversion to zoology. But all is not so simple and the film is far from an extended dream sequence. Swaroop could have easily had Om (or his father, who begins the film’s narration) wake up at the end of the film, thereby taking us back to our comfort zones. Instead, he seamlessly blends present reality, past reality and fantastical reality to create an elusive work of cinema that defies literature, science and rationality.

Om Darbadar is an utterly frustrating, endlessly irritating and supremely hilarious film. Is it nonsensical? Yes, that is precisely its function. Is it pretentious? No, that can happen only when a film attempts to be something. Is it a one-of-a-kind movie viewing experience? You bet. Whatever one calls it, you cannot deny one fact – Om Darbadar is an indubitably addictive and thoroughly riveting piece of work that simultaneously repels a viewer by not pandering to his needs and yet, keeps him hooked on to the screen from frame one. Quarter hour into the film, I was completely disarmed and found myself laughing out loud through the rest of the film despite (rather, because of) the meaninglessness of it all. Om Darbadar is perhaps the kind of vision that flashes moments before one’s death. Call it the birth of Indian cinema, call it its death, call it Dadaist, call it anti-art, but be sure to bask in its absurdity while it lasts.

[Meri Jaan A A A…!]

 

April 28, 2009

Flashback #54

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Pather Panchali (1955) (aka Song Of The Little Road)
Satyajit Ray
Bengali

“This is my home, too. But look at it. It’s like living in the forest. “

 

Satyajit Ray’s name has become synonymous with quality cinema from the country and his opera prima Pather Panchali, (1955) its prime example. Made under hopeless production situation like many other great films of that period, Pather Panchali has been hailed by critics, filmmakers and cinema lovers across the world as one of the greatest of all times. And what a legacy it has left behind!

pather-panchali-1Based on a book by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay, Pather Panchali is a series of loosely knit episodes in a poor Brahmin family in rural Bengal. Harihar (Kanu Banerjee) is a priest who also dabbles in play writing. His wife, Sarbojaya (Karuna Banerjee) manages the household and her two children Durga (Uma Das Gupta) and Apu (Subir Banerjee). There is also their old “aunt” Indir (Chunibala Devi) who loves eating the fruits given to her by Durga. Then there are their neighbours, the well-off Mukherjees, who share a love-hate relationship with their family. Mrs. Mukherjee helps out when Durga falls sick almost as her surrogate mother (as Ray hints early in his mise en scène) and Sarbojaya does the cooking in Mrs. Mukherjee’s daughter’s wedding. It’s a warm and isolated little world of theirs.

The biggest curse for Pather Panchali is that it was made immediately after the war. More precisely, at a time when neo-realism was the almost the in-thing. Almost every description or review of the film seems to kick off by assigning the neo-realistic tag to the film, perhaps more so after Ray’s enthusiastic comments about The Bicycle Thief (1947). It is beyond doubt that Ray’s employment of non-professional actors, use of natural locations, refusal of make-up and high-key lighting, the tendency of having the backdrop speak for itself and a complete abstinence from the exaggerated gestures and practices of popular cinema owe their debt to the masters of the neo-realist movement. But broadly calling Pather Panchali a neorealist film, basing arguments on the above conditions alone, is but unfair to Ray and his style. In fact, Pather Panchali often works against the “written principles” of neo-realism that pioneers like Zavattini proposed.

pather-panchali-5The neo-realists strongly emphasized that the neo-realist filmmaker be just a passive observer of reality without imposing his interpretations on it. That whatever the situation of their characters, – glory or misery – the filmmaker must maintain objectivity, always subordinating reason to action. Although many of the staunch neo-realists themselves couldn’t achieve this complete objectivity, they did attempt to do so in theory. However, in Pather Panchali, Ray never claims to be a mere observer. It is true that he does not comment on the characters’ actions and situation or throw hints to the audience so as to tell them what to feel. But that does not mean Ray does not take a stance (or a neutral stance for that matter). Ray is biased for sure, but not towards his characters but towards life itself. He takes immense joy in infusing life on to the screen and providing a channel of hope to his protagonists. Quite in contention with the neo-realist theory, Ray does not hesitate using Pt. Ravi Shankar’s soundtrack generously (but not without much caution) or in concocting sequences with a tinge of humour.

Further, deeming Pather Panchali to be a neo-realist film would only result in an over-simplification of Ray’s knowledge of cinema. Ray, being one of the country’s biggest and most renowned cinephiles, has evidently seen and absorbed a large cross-section of world cinema that spans various decades, geographies and cultures. And Pather Panchali stands as a testament for that wherein Ray incorporates many of his influences without ever making it look contrived or out of place. Apart from the overt nods to the neo-realist customs, Ray constructs sequences that conform to Eisenstein’s rules of montage (the scene where Durga is punished by her mother stands out), employs indoor sets that have an expressionistic touch to them. Some of his compositional practices, too, show closeness to Japanese cinema. If you ask me, Ray’s filmmaking in Pather Panchali is nearer to Fellini’s than De Sica’s. Ray’s penchant for close-ups, the dramatic zooms, the occasional submission to simple melodrama and the sheer lust for life that he paints on screen are closer in spirit to Fellini’s works, especially La Strada (1954), than any other director.

pather-panchali-3Like La Strada (another victim of the neo-realist baptism), that was as much away from its purely neo-realist contemporaries as it was close to them, Ray marries the neo-realist objectivity that avoids hyperbole and his own subjective view of life producing what may be, like Fellini’s film, called “neo-realism with a heart”. But again, Ray absorbs and deviates. Where, like many a film of later years, La Strada compares a road trip to life, Pather Panchali compares life to a road trip. Ray treats life as an inevitable journey which should go on no matter how shattering its events are. He punctuates his film with images of little roads through the woods and of characters arriving or departing from the village. In other words, Satyajit Ray presents life as a train journey where passengers may come and passengers may go, but the train itself never stops. Ray wasn’t kidding when he put that train in Pather Panchali – a train that Durga never manages to get on and one that Apu would, in Aparajito (1957), my favorite film of the trilogy.

But clearly, the most important character in the film is Durga – one that is very close to nature. Durga is Nature. Ray shoots her almost always amidst flora and fauna. She roams freely through the woods, groves, rice fields and in the rain without anyone stopping her. She is intrigued by man-made objects like locomotives and telegraph poles. Why, she even passes away after getting drenched in the rain. So is Auntie Indir who is nobody but a grown up version of Durga. Like Durga, she is also thrown out of house by Sarbojaya and who, too, passes away in the middle of the forest. Ray captures Auntie Indir and Durga regularly together in the same frame as he strikes a parallel by cutting back and forth between them. After all, both of them brought Apu up in their own ways. In the poignant end scene, Apu throws the necklace (that Durga was accused of stealing) into the river without an iota of hesitation – returning it back to Durga who has now returned to her nascent form.

pather-panchali-5

Because Ray lets us see only one world (with the occasional letter being the only mode of communication), – that of the village and its people – one can safely assume that Ray is normalizing the world into it and, consequently, that the statements Ray makes about the village are, in fact, applicable to the whole world (or the country in case of social and political observations). However, contrary to popular opinion that the film just talks about the misery of poverty, Pather Panchali goes beyond trivial economic connotations. Except for a few inherent observations about the class system, economics isn’t even a major concern for the film. So aren’t politics and theology that are kept are remote as possible. But that does not mean that the film is entirely universal and just for the sake of being so. Apart from the universal theme of man and nature, Ray’s major concern is the position of women in the society. Although Sarbojaya is the most thoughtful and resourceful member of the family, Harihar rarely listens to her. She is treated no better than a nanny for his kids. Like Mizoguchi (whom he admires, according to his essays) in Sansho the Bailiff (1954), Ray uses his mise en scène to express more than what the script does. But unlike Mizoguchi who used his aesthetics to denote the inevitability of fate, Ray uses it to comment on the pressing social condition of the family, especially Sarbojaya. Ray films her along the margins of the film frame. She is often seen stifled by artificial (physical and social) structures. Ray and cinematographer Subrata Mitra employ POV shots through doors, holes and ruptures to present a picture like snapshot of the family, with the image of a door often denoting freedom or the lack of it.

If there ever was life on celluloid, it has to be last twenty minutes of Pather Panchali. As the monsoon season takes over summer, skies darken and a breeze picks up. As the surface of the water starts pulsating, flies and other minute life forms start gathering. One wishes that this sequence never ends. The whole scene has a haiku-like visual quality and feel to it, not surprising considering Ray’s exposure to and admiration for Japanese art forms, especially cinema. He notes in his essay “Calm Without, Fire Within” (from his book Our Films, Their Films):

“Then there is the Japanese use of camera, of light. Light is used as the brush is by the painter – to feel and reveal the texture of things, to capture moods, to lend the right expressive weight to a given image.”

In fact, the same text can be used to describing Ray’s style in Pather Panchali that flourishes on the strength of its atmosphere, creating its own world and enticing the audience into it. Unlike the director’s later films such as Charulata (1964), which actually starts seeping through once it has ended, Pather Panchali appeals directly to the sub-conscious. Hypnotic may be the proper word. Throughout the film, there is almost no shot where life is not seen. We always see some life form or the other playing around on the screen. Dogs, cats, cattle and humans galore, Pather Panchali is a film that overflows with vitality. However, such reductive mapping would only lead to another over-simplification that Pather Panchali has been regularly subjected to. Both Pather Panchali and Ray have been called, rather labeled, humanist by admirers and critics all over the world. But such a reading of the film would just conform to a pseudo-liberal view of destitution and reinforce Nargis Dutt’s claims of selling of poverty to the West. In Pather Panchali, Ray turns out to be an animist rather than a humanist and the film itself, pro-life and anti-mankind.

pather-panchali-2Mrs. Mukherjee confiscates the family’s grove as a penalty for the failure of repayment of loan. Later, the people of the village persuade Harihar to stay and tell him that this place is their ancestral land. It is as if the people of the village have assumed the land to be theirs despite of the fact that it was already there much before them. Ray touches upon the conflict between man and nature that has been dear to so many filmmakers before and after him. And this is where Pather Panchali gets deeper than meets the eye. Exactly like Herzog would do in Signs of Life (1968), Ray often composes his shot such that there is interaction between man and nature, with the latter overpowering. It is essentially because of nature – the rains and the cold winds – that the family is forced to move out. Nature has indeed taken revenge. Earlier in the film Sarbojaya tells Harihar that it feels like living in the forest, insisting they move on, and Mrs. Mukherjee that no names are written on fruits. She is, in fact, the only adult in the film who realizes that Land belongs to no body except nature itself. As Harihar and his family move out, a huge cobra is seen moving into the now-deserted house of his. At last, Nature has reclaimed what was always its.

 

March 14, 2009

Book Nook: Our Films Their Films

Posted by Just Another Film Buff under All Posts, Books, Cinema of India, Review | Tags: , , , , , , , , , |
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Our Films Their Films
Satyajit Ray
Orient Longman, 1976

 

Surely, God is not a socialist. Why then would he bestow so much talent upon a single person and deprive the rest of the artists of country of any comparable finesse? Be it Japanese architecture, German music, English literature, Chinese paintings or world cinema, Satyajit Ray’s knowledge of the seven arts is everything a connoisseur could ever desire to have. And his book Our Films Their Films clearly shows why a true love for cinema is the only pre-requisite to be a filmmaker.

our-films-their-filmsI have hardly seen Satyajit Ray’s films and was apprehensive about taking up this book. I was afraid that it would require a prior introduction to films he talks about and especially to his own films. But as it turned out, I was completely wrong. Shubhajit here recalls how this book single-handedly induced him into the film culture. Why not? Our Films, Their Films is a rare book that works two ways. I can’t imagine any other book that is as interesting for strangers to cinema as it is for the film buffs.  Ray never does it like an academic scholar churning out one jargon after another nor does he go too low-brow elucidating every shred of observation. Ray’s tone is conversational and at the end of the book, one does feel like he has spent a good few hours with an interesting man.

The book could be plainly called a bunch of essays by Ray assembled in a chronological order. But surely, it can pass off as so many other things too. Each of these articles has the charm of a short story, the depth of a critique, the personal quality of a diary entry and observations of a great essay. With a language that is neither overpowers the content of the text nor undermines its quality (which I think is true of his films too), Ray sets a standard for not only analytical but also for the verbal component of film writing. No wonder he also stands out as one of India’s key literary figures.

Cinematographe has this to say about the book: “The originality of Ray appears in an indirect manner: whilst talking about others, he offers us a subtle self-portrait“. This is so true. The essays in the book gradually and subtly unravel Ray’s perception of cinema and what he believes makes for great filmmaking, all of which reveals itself through the very many critiques of world films he presents. But the fascinating part is that he never takes the role of a filmmaker when he writes these pieces. He could well have elaborated on what lens John Ford used or what editing instruments Kurosawa employed. But the sections where Ray presents his views of international films could only have come from a true-blue cinephile whose very love for cinema is infectious. Look how he presents his opinion on Kumar Shahani’s Maya Darpan (1972), Kaul’s Duvidha (1973), Benegal’s Ankur (1974) and Sathyu’s Garam Hawa (1973), which organically unfolds into a fantastic review of the films.

But what really swept me off my feet are the observations that Ray makes in these early essays, the last of which was written in 1974. These observations – their almost prescient and intensely accurate quality just goes to show how deep Ray’s understanding of cinema was – both as a person behind and in front of the screen. I’ll give you an example. Ray met Kubrick just after he had made Spartacus (1960). He recollects: “On the strength of his Paths of Glory (1957), Kubrick had seemed to me to be one of the white hopes of American Cinema. He had first rate technique, he had style and I had a feeling that he had also something to say.”. Not just that, his opinions of Billy Wilder, Antonioni, Kurosawa and many others prove to be bang on the money.

If one takes a survey of the favorite section in the book among those who have read, it would definitely produce variegated results, for each section has the power to top the previous, no matter what order you read them in. My favorite section in the book Problems of a Bengali Filmmaker (along with Calm Without, Fire Within and An Indian New Wave?) provides an answer to almost every question I have had about the state of filmmaking in India. But again, this is one opinion that may change even before I finish this review. An Indian New Wave? may be just the winner in the long run, I suspect.

Reading the very many experiences of Ray abroad, one is regularly surprised about the range of people he knows in cinema and the dream-like way they meet each other. Reading these is almost like hearing a splendid raconteur recollecting his road trips with wide eyes. But all that is only because he presents himself with such simplicity. And that is partly a reason that this book shines with honesty. I’m sure, there would be hundreds of pages written from the other side of these meetings that would really give an idea of this monumental figure called Satyajit Ray.

 
Verdict:

P.S: Some essays of the book can be found here. Do read it. I think this book is a must read for film-geeks and not-so-film-geeks alike.

 

February 25, 2009

What Made Pinki Smile?

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[4] Comments 
Slumdog Millionaire: Creating Opportunities (pic courtesy: Telegraph)

Slumdog Millionaire: Creating Opportunities (pic courtesy: Telegraph)

There has been a lot of question raised about the recognition Slumdog Millionaire is getting across the world. And things have been made worse as people with no connection to cinema whatsoever have started capitalizing on the situation. Let’s set the latter aside as it speaks for itself. There are claims that it is because an Englishman directed the film that it has gone to such heights and had the same been done by an Indian, it would have been crushed. I say – Obviously. To be recognized, you have to be seen first. And bringing wide visibility to your work by itself is job half done. The gripe that such a film by an Indian filmmaker would have gone unnoticed is more of a scar on the Indian scenario than the West’s.

The content in films like Slumdog Millionaire and Smile Pinki is very much Indian and is clearly not out of reach of our filmmakers. Indian film industry,  too, is not short of great technicians and it could easily pull off similar films by itself.  The only and the largest concern is that of the big $. The reason that good films are not being recognized in India seems to be that distributors are not willing to take risks or even pay heed to independent ventures. The term “promoting a film” has been used extensively by the media and its importance never explained. Moreover, the films being promoted are mainstream biggies that already have huge banners behind them. On the other hand, the independent and low-budget ventures keep suffering from under-promotion This situation isn’t going to improve unless some angel pours in money like crazy, which is as likely as a coin landing on its edge. But what can be done is promotion via the hard way. One has to give a push to worthy works regularly so that it is lapped up by the rest of the world.

One thing that could help filmmakers to pitch their work to the world is a film festival. No, wrong – a slew of film festivals organized at various levels of governance. This could be done using a hierarchical setup installed across the country. Something like the  TV reality shows of today. Filmmakers get to submit their films at city-level film fests. Winners of each city get a chance for exhibition at the state level. The state level winners could then compete against each other at the national level and finally, the national winner could be made the official representative of the country that year. This would not only be a democratic choice but also one that encompasses a large section of films. When sufficient momentum has been gained from the previous wins, a film would evidently get larger attention. Even the ones that lose out would have been seen by a huge audience at the end of it all. Of course, the country’s film board would have to contribute a lot here. But if the filmmakers themselves could assemble some sort of “unconference” (that wouldn’t cost much would it?), the film development board has to just take care of the higher levels.

And most importantly, a really revered international film festival – a centralized national deal – should be set up. This one should not only advertise the above formed cream of the films from the country but also should prompt international filmmakers to showcase their films. Of course, it can’t be made at the extravagant levels of the Oscars or Cannes and needn’t be too. It could, however, earn a name for itself with its selection of films and the awards it hands out. Once this is done, the films would be automatically taken up for exhibition by other festivals across the world. And when a film is promoted across most reputed film festivals of the world, the Oscars would not hesitate to take note. Why not? What is the Oscar but a grand culmination of extravagant chain of promotions?  

There is a big problem here. I may sound like advocating that we have to work towards the Oscars. No. The Oscars are being widely recognized as the greatest recognition in film world, whereas they are anything but that. The Oscars are as vital as they are being considered, but not for the same reason. The Oscar is not as much important as a consequence of good filmmaking as it is as a cause. Look what happens once the Oscars are announced. The box office results soar. Slumdog Millionaire is back to the top 5 this week at the US box office. The DVD market would now be flooded with the winning films. Even the films that were snubbed by the Oscars, but given nominations would have a chance of making it big a la the Shawshank phenomenon. Distribution of obscured films will become fluid. And if this cascade continues, independent movies would be picked up even before the Award season and given a fair chance (True to their name, Fox Searchlight Pictures found Slumdog in the dumps and have created history now). Multiplexes will be used for the real reason they should be. And if the government is ready to push further, they could pass an ordinance where major multiplexes could be asked to allot one show per day to some of these award-winning films. This would significantly reduce the problem of distribution and film availability.

But then, cinema is not an essential service and all the above could be an exercise in futility. But one should also remember that cinema is a huge revenue winner and if proper platform is set up for international collaboration, this would only increase manifold.  For the good or otherwise, Slumdog Millionaire has become a landmark film in global cinema and has created a climate apt for cross over filmmaking. This is perhaps the most opportune moment for the country’s cinema to resurrect itself and truly find its voice. However, our filmmakers have to be careful about the most natural pitfall that evolves. They should not look forward to cater to an international audience now but to the local one, however with a keen eye on quality. Only then, we would be able to create a unique identity for our cinema on the map of the world. 

 

I’ll reserve the Jai Ho for then!

 

February 13, 2009

The First Monolith

Posted by Just Another Film Buff under All Posts, Cinema of India
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♫ Thus Spoke Zarathustra ♫

♫ Thus Spoke Zarathustra ♫

It’s finally here. The first issue of Indian Auteur is out following the announcement of The Delhi Manifesto last month. My wishes to the whole team behind the effort. Let’s read, spread the word, participate and make it happen…

INDIAN AUTEUR E-ZINE ISSUE 1


 

January 25, 2009

IC101: Intro To India, Bollywood And The Usual

Posted by Just Another Film Buff under All Posts, Cinema of India, Cinema of the UK, Review | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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There is a very evocative scene in Slumdog Millionaire – one of the two that embody the whole film – Jamal watches a European opera being conducted in front of the Taj Mahal. The protagonist rues the loss of a woman holding her in his arms. Jamal doesn’t know a thing about what is going on there. But it entrances him for some reason. He is able to siphon the emanating emotion irrespective of the language, the setting or the form of the gesture. A completely Indian cast, A British crew and a limited release – there could only be a few more reasons for the film to go down unnoticed in the west. But hey, it happened. And how! With 4 Golden Globes and going strong for the Oscars with 10 nominations, Slumdog Millionaire has become the film that everyone is talking about – in one way or the other. 

 

Rediff)

Slumdog Millionaire: Tender Coconut in Tetra Pak (pic courtesy: Rediff)

The story? Not different from what you have heard before. But definitely different from what you have seen before. As the title completely gives away, it is “about” Jamal Malik (Dev Patel), a slum kid who participates in a game show and goes on to win the grand prize at the event. He is also in search of his childhood sweetheart Latika (Freida Pinto) who he meets after religious riots in the city. There are villains who try to stop him and some elements – human and superhuman – that help him achieve his goal. But why is this making waves all over? The answer may be – the right move at the right time towards the right direction. It is a story that could possibly happen to anyone anywhere in the world – one of destiny and fate. So, why Mumbai? Well, Mumbai makes the possible probable. 

 

Here is an excerpt from Mr. Amitabh Bachchan’s blog post on the film: 

“It’s just that the SM idea authored by an Indian and conceived and cinematically put together by a Westerner, gets creative Globe recognition. The other would perhaps not.”

Why is that so?

Look at the characters that Boyle uses. Note their objectives. Could they be more stereotyped? Jamal – A lad who has grown with Hindi cinema and unconsciously imitates that. He is still the young hero who dreams of taking his sweetheart away from the jaws of the dragon. His morals are those defined by traditional Bollywood flicks – love over money, hard work and righteousness at all costs. The 20 million never crosses his mind as does the cherished idea of a “familial” reunion. Salim – brought up with similar Bollywood dreams like Jamal, but with a different set of films! The gangsta flicks (a la Drohkaal , Satya and Company) that make you drool over the wads of money that flow here and there. The sheer romanticism of pulling the trigger with utmost indifference. The jump cuts. The cigarette smoke and the all-hiding ever-cool sunglasses. He dreams of literally bathing in loads of money, till the very end (At this moment of the film, a shiver ran down the spine when he strikingly resembled Private Pyle of the chilling Full Metal Jacket (1987)). Yet, the urge to remain upright and undo his sins. And Latika – the Rapunzel of the story, resigned to her fate, fantasizing that a prince charming will come take her away some day. The arrogant constable Srinivas, the savage Mafioso head Javed, the one dimensional child trafficker Mamen – now, how many times have we seen them before?

See how Boyle employs the typical plot points to find a resolution. The baddie turns good out of remorse and sacrifices himself to aid the damsel in distress to reach the safe-space of the narrative. The quintessentially Bollywood theme of predetermination and destiny makes the lovers meet again. The inevitable train sequence that separates Jamal and Latika in the first place.  Ring a bell? Well, why Not? These are the characteristic sequences of our cinema (“entertaining mass oriented box office block busters” to borrow Mr. Bachchan). And look how fresh and unseen he makes it all! Boyle has provided the kind of new wrapper to the old sweet that the Indian directors seem to have traded with star power some point down the lane. Indians are masters at storytelling by tradition and cinematically too. But what has happened is that the craft of storytelling always played a second fiddle to the story itself.  And Danny Boyle, thoroughly soaked in the Hollywood-type craft of story telling, notes this. In essence, he bridges the best of both worlds – Form and content – to provide something so familiar yet not so much. A stereotype film with stereotype elements celebrating stereotypes with honesty.

There is a lot of talk going on around about the depiction of slums in the film and how the film is essentially a “consolation and titillation” device for the west. Claims are being made that the film is clearly Danny Boyle’s version of the Indian story and not the truth. Of course it is. And the sad thing is that the film is being criticized for that very reason. This is where I sense absurdity. Cinema, art in general, is most definitely an abstraction of the world that the artist sees though a kaleidoscope of his ideologies and idiosyncrasies. And its appreciation is one that involves its decryption and the discovery of what the artist sees, not what the artist should have seen.  Danny Boyle says in an interview to NDTV that when a foreigner attempts to picture something on a land alien to him, he must be extremely honest in his opinion. Indeed. When I started watching the film, I was afraid that Boyle would be quite conscious of what he is doing and would probably try not to breach certain lines. But gladly, he doesn’t do that. He relentlessly attempts to show what he sees. The child beggars, the riots, the guided tours. Once more, I take to Mr. Bachchan’s blog.

“If SM projects India as Third World dirty under belly developing nation and causes pain and disgust among nationalists and patriots, let it be known that a murky under belly exists and thrives even in the most developed nations.”

Precisely. And that works the other way round too. Take Hollywood for instance. Though plagued with essentially American morals (beautifully parodied in Slumdog Millionaire at one point where the tourists offer consolation to the hurt guide, all in the “American way”), the industry has never flinched from showing the darker side of the nation. One of the most self-criticizing and self-correcting cinemas of the world, Hollywood and its associated branches have regularly treaded to their “dark side”, though unfortunately with considerable romanticism. Now, there is no reason for anyone, leave alone developing nations, to turn away from all the filth going on around. Note that all that Boyle has shown in the film has earlier been shown in Indian cinema numerous times, many times going unnoticed. But when Boyle, the unnamed representative of all foreigners, points this out – to us or the west, immaterial – our pride is hurt as if being frank (note that being frank is not related anyway to being true) is a crime. We argue that a westerner should not make comments about our country without even experiencing it. Now, I don’t understand this newly born possessiveness about our “underbelly” that hitherto was repudiated by “the commercial escapist world of Indian Cinema”.  If what this film is doing is slum porn, the behaviour of ours should be aptly called shameless opportunism.

I have a question. Zana Briski made an Oscar winning documentary about kids in red light areas – Born Into Brothels (2004) – that was hundred times more stomach churning than Slumdog Millionaire. Now, why was no claim made about that film’s portrayal of the slums, though by no means it projects a rosy view of the state of affairs? Was it because it was low-profile? Was it because only Slumdog seriously reminds us of the stale state of our mass entertainment, hence hurting our pride? Or was it because the facts were undisputable there and in that Slumdog, which is a work of fiction, they can be easily disowned? 

Having said these, one must also note that what Boyle has done here is not a consequence of frustration but of brimming hope. True, he does show the most shattering facets of Mumbai’s buzzing life, but he picks up situations that always have an outlet into redemption. Yes, it is typically what a  tourist would see in Mumbai. The contradictions, the happiness in spite of that and “the show must go on” attitude – aspects that residents would naturally be indifferent to. He never condescends on his lead actors. There is no sympathy for them. Boyle always films them from a downward angle.  Yes, he celebrates them during their highs, but does not go for tears during their lows. And amidst all this, he superficially studies the spirit of the city. Jamal’s win is necessarily an escapist entertainment, irrespective of the money, for the people who would go on to live their own lives after the show ends. All they need is a hero, which is a universal desire, who comes up from rags by the moral path (“substitution of their gaze”). Boyle’s film is an escapist fare about escapist fares. Slumdog Millionaire could well be termed as a crash course to Bollywood to the west – only that it celebrates the tradition honestly and in the right way. 

Sorry, but Mr. Bachchan again:

“The commercial escapist world of Indian Cinema had vociferously battled for years, on the attention paid and the adulation given to the legendary Satyajit Ray at all the prestigious Film Festivals of the West, and not a word of appreciation for the entertaining mass oriented box office block busters that were being churned out from Mumbai.”

Now, I’ve read a lot of support for the “Indian mainstream” cinema by people who claim it is purely a manifestation of the workings of the Indian mind and the West can’t possibly judge them using their yardstick. Now, once it has been decided that this type of cinema is clearly democratic (of and for the Indian people), then what is the need to expect admiration and applause from the west? Isn’t it being dishonest trying to entertain locals and requiring admiration world over? Here, in Slumdog Millionaire, Boyle presents escapist entertainment to the west in a form that they would naturally like (incidentally, being liked by the Indian audience too). Thus, it would deserve no more criticism than a mainstream Indian film does. But when it comes to admiration, the craft gains weightage and Boyle scores there. 

Cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle does Christopher Doyle all the way. The restlessly blurred events, the dizzyingly deep focus shots and the skewed camera angles are clearly adapted from Doyle’s features with Wong Kar Wai, but definitely suit this film too. Probably one of those oriental good luck charms!  I will not elaborate upon A R Rahman’s soundtrack as I have been deemed as one of his notorious fanboys. But seriously, it is nothing short of triumphant and a sizeable fraction of the film’s success. And the editing is masterful with snazzy and relevant cuts between the past and the present. The final sequence tops it all where we have three visual sequences intertwined and led by a single soundtrack. It is definitely going to be a tough call between The Dark Knight and Slumdog Millionaire at the Oscars next month. 

I had mentioned one of the two sequences that typify the spirit of the film. The second sequence obviously being the one where young Jamal, covered in filth, celebrates after getting the autograph from the angry young man and the hero of this review Mr Amitabh Bachchan. Placing the celebrity above himself, despite of his own pathetic state. Celebrating life despite its own wishes. This is what Danny Boyle (or any foreigner who admires India) has seen in the country. And this is what he has honestly unfolded in the film, with significant decoration but no other hidden intentions. Mr. Boyle isn’t teaching us what to show, but how to show. He isn’t telling us how India is, but how he sees it. And positively, he isn’t showing us our darker side, but the brighter and more humanistic one.  

Verdict: 

 

November 15, 2008

Flashback #41

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Vanaja (2006)
Rajnesh Domalpalli
Telugu

“Can you believe it? Your own mother used you. Disgusting. ”

Vanaja

Browsing through Rajnesh Domalpalli’s cine résumé, we see more than two dozen awards from various film festivals across the world, against just one film. The sole bullet point in his filmography reads Vanaja (2006), a quiet little film that has conquered its own domain, won its own set of hearts with its sheer brilliance in thematic and visual execution and perhaps gained an entry to the list of best films of that year.

Vanaja opens with a Pulp Fiction like definition of its title – “(a) Water Lily (b) Wild at Heart | Sludge Born, Struggling | Rising | You Bloom So True”. And that is what the screenplay reveals as it measuredly blooms out. Vanaja is a girl untethered by the notions of class, caste, gender and age. Though it shouldn’t be said that she shoots her mouth off, she does express herself firmly when required and restrains herself when it is not. Born in a fisherman family, Vanaja (Mamatha Bhukya) loses her mother at a very young age and her only memory of her mother remains not so sweet. We come to know from the first minute that she loves dance and it is the only driving force to her otherwise ordinary (and even depressive) life.

She agrees to work as a maid at the village head’s house where she wins a chance to learn Kuchipudi. She shines, needless to say, and hopes to make it big one day. All is well until the village head’s son returns from the US for contesting in a local election. He is quick to take advantage of Vanaja’s sexual awakening and vulnerability and she becomes pregnant. After evading the criticizing eyes of the society, Vanaja gives birth to a boy who is immediately given shelter at the village head’s house where Vanaja’s father is forced to relinquish claims on the boy. However, Vanaja’s interest in dance never wanes and she continues to learn, while acting as a nanny to her own son. Troubles increase for her when her father dies of drinking and she is left helpless.

The film is probably summed up in the fleeting dream that Vanaja has towards the end of the movie in which her father is buried neck deep in sand as she tries to free him. However, she is being pulled by the local brats using a fishing net as the village head and her son try to put a garland around her neck while glorifying his political victory. This is the point where Domalpalli surreally stresses on the caste system that plagues the nation. Ironically, it is the same diversity (that makes the country so wholesome and tolerant) that plagues it with ideas of caste system and social superiority. Neither is the so-called upper caste able to accept her with open arms because of her assigned caste, nor is Vanaja free to follow her dreams owing to the society that pulls her down time and again.

I am tempted to compare the film with another collaborative effort that released three years before this film – Manish Jha’s Matrubhoomi: A Nation without Women (2003) – for both are independent ventures that deal with exploitation of women in the arcane hinterlands of the country where women are apparently sacred. But what the latter venture shows us in a somber and positively depressing tone, Vanaja does in a very light and easy atmosphere. It is easy to note Domalpalli’s striking and daring use of colours that almost exhaust the visible spectrum. The wildness of Vanaja’s heart seems to be reflected in this fascinating colour festival.

Also worth contrasting with Vanaja is Jason Reitman’s Juno (2007). Both the films deal with similar issues of teen pregnancy and their responsibilities and morals, but are poles apart in their execution and are so culturally unique. True that neither Juno nor Vanaja knows the graveness of the act they are going to commit by relinquishing their claim on the child, but where Vanaja stands apart is the fact that her situation is a function of the uncontrollable factors that include the caste system and the servile mentality of the village’s residents. Juno, on the other hand, is solely responsible for her action and plight that she gladly accepts and so do her parents and the society, and this makes Vanaja’s situation all the more shattering.

Having said that, it is remarkable that Domalpalli never begs for sympathy for Vanaja. It was so easy for him to tilt the audience’s support towards her but he never does that. Even more striking is that he doesn’t even appeal for antipathy towards any of the other characters. The complete absence of a soundtrack reinforces Domalpalli’s stand in handling his characters. The primary reason for this neutrality arises from the grey characters that Domalpalli has meticulously sketched. He never typecasts any of them and [deliberately] draws out the multi-dimensional nature within each character, thereby leaving the audience assessing their various actions and not the characters as a whole. Viewed with any fixed set of morals, all characters appear equally sympathetic and flawed.

Clearly, dance is a vital part in the narrative and Domalpalli employs stretches of complete dance sequences that highlight Vanaja’s state of mind. The songs move from Radha’s pining for Krishna’s attention to the slaying of the demon Mahishasura. It is also interesting to note that Vanaja never goes down after the child birth. All she wants is to take care of her child as its mother and continue her strides in dance. But once she takes her final beating when none of her old friend Radhamma’s predictions come true, she slays her inner demon of servility and moves towards true independence – one that has been hard fought and has demanded a larger than life sacrifice. Discussing the morality of Vanaja’s decisions are out of the scope of this article for it requires more than a knowledge of two hours, but what is sure is that these are choices of immense practicality and rationality.

It will be a crime if I don’t mention the stellar performance of Mamatha Bhukya who can teach any so-called-veteran mainstream actresses a thing or two. Independent films usually suffer from bad non-professional performances but it his essentially Bhukya’s work that takes the film out of that pitfall and elevates it into extraordinary levels. Now, here is a killer of a trivia – Vanaja was made as the final project to a master’s degree in film studies at the Columbia University! And perhaps this is the reason, Vanaja could not make it into the Oscar race (not that the selection panel passes only great films!). If this is the kind of cinema that we get from a student, I am thrilled to imagine what we can expect of him when he is an established filmmaker. Perhaps Domalpalli is the Indian reply to Florian Donnersmarck.

 

 

October 8, 2008

Flashback #38

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Mahanagar (1963) (aka The Big City)
Satyajit Ray
Bengali

“I think you should apologize to Edith”

Mahanagar

The other day I was reading some of the reviews of Deepa Mehta’s Oscar nominee Water (2006) and almost in every one of them, I could find a comparison of Mehta’s work to Satyajit Ray’s films.  What is more surprising than the fact that Ray’s films are universally accepted with open arms and considered timeless, is that a large part of the west is able to relate only to works of Satyajit Ray whenever cinema of India is discussed. Similar to how Satyajit Ray’s phenomenal body of work eclipses all other commendable efforts from the country, his own Apu trilogy overwhelms his other worthy films. Case in point – Mahanagar (1963).

Mahanagar is a decidedly contemporary story of a middle class couple Bhambal and Arati Mazumdar (With a ‘Z’, not ‘J’!), struggling to make ends meet in the ever happening City of Joy. As the money crunch intensifies, Arati decides to take up a job as a sales girl in a company owned by a chauvinist, Mukherjee. It is here that she meets Edith, an Anglo-Indian, and instantly bonds with him. She learns courage and assertiveness from Edith and shines in her job. Things go sour as Bhambal starts envying her and asks her to quit. But just as she proceeds, she comes to know that her husband has lost his job. Arati musters faith and asks Mr. Mukherjee for a pay hike and works harder than ever. But when she sees discrimination against Edith based on race, she does the unthinkable.

There is also a thread about Bhambal’s father, a retired teacher who is restless at his dormancy at home and is surprised to see the vast change in times that he had been unknowingly moving along with now. He seeks out his old students in search of consolation and respect in order to tell himself his contribution to society has been quite vital. Being a staunch conservative he is visibly disappointed with his self-indulgent son’s attitude and his daughter-in-law’s decision of taking up a job. And there is also Bhambal’s daughter, played by a very young Jaya Bhaduri, adding warmth to an otherwise tense household.

In Mahanagar, Ray does not merely suggest that women should be given an opportunity to work, but also makes larger statements about their present and ideal positions in society. He put forth the idea that equality is not just a right for women, it is their responsibility. He suggests that women have to stand up against all odds and voice their opinions for their needs. If they witness injustice, against them or otherwise, it becomes their duty to fight it.  And yet, Mahanagar is not one of those feminist films that are made only to put forth principles and theories. It follows a single woman’s choices with as much honesty as her impulsive acts.

I do not have much knowledge about Calcutta, but I have heard that the streets of Calcutta have the potential to change the way you look at life. Indeed, Bhambal’s and Arati’s ordeal may be just a tiny drop in the vast ocean of happenings of the city. Ray captures the microcosm of the society in the family and depicts the most realistic picture of the then Indian society without once going over the top or making it overtly dramatic. The entire drama one feels while watching the film is internal. And as we watch Arati develop into a truly independent and morally strong character, we can’t help but admire the hope that the character instills in us.

 

 

October 6, 2008

Flashback #37

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Hyderabad Blues 2 (2004)
Nagesh Kukunoor
English

“If divorcing you was the only way to get you back, I would do it all over again”
 

Hyderabad Blues 2

“Indie Cinema” and “Indian Cinema” – Totally unlike the way they sound similar, the two terms have come to bear quite an adversarial relationship to each other. Undoubtedly, Nagesh Kukunoor forms a vital milestone in the history of Indian Independent cinema and stays in the cream of my list of most important contemporary film directors from the country in spite of his recent debacle Bombay to Bangkok (2007) whose elusive charm eluded most of us! Nevertheless, his films like Rockford (1999), Hyderabad Blues (1998) and its sequel still have the potential to inspire anyone to take up a camera and have taken the esoteric world of Independent films into the households.

And I felt Hyderabad Blues deserves an article in spite of the flak it faces regularly from the lovers of the earlier film. The central character Varun (Nagesh Kukunoor) has already been introduced to us as a broadminded, level-headed and immensely cool gentleman who has been charmed into staying in India by his bold and independent wife, Ashwini (Jyoti Dogra). Varun hangs out with his group of friends consisting of married and single men but most importantly with Sanjeev (Vikram Inamdar) who warns Varun about all the difficulties in having a baby that he has learned the hard way. Ashwini, meanwhile, hangs out with Sanjeev’s resourceful and cunning wife Seema (Elahé Hiptoola).

All is fine with the lead couple until the wife wants to have a child. Varun, however, is totally unprepared and tries to avert the matter. Things don’t help when Varun’s employee Menaka (Tisca Chopra) is found wooing him in the office by another resentful employee and the issue promptly goes to Ashwini. And just like that, they land up in court debating divorce and eventually getting it. Hyderabad Blues gets all the characters right. Be it the consciously flawed Varun or his voluntarily subordinating mother, you see them all in everyday life. And herein lies Kukunoor’s keenly discerning eye that penetrates into the real workings of the society, without the regular mainstream makeup.

I always thought Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage (1973) was a great idea (with performances of a lifetime by Erland Josephson and Liv Ullmann) overstaying its welcome. But after watching a series of films on the subject culminating with Hyderabad Blues 2, I have come to realize that divorce, in most cases, is itself a very precipitous event and to portray one, the film’s runtime has to be suitably long in order to highlight the impulsive nature of the decision. And Hyderabad Blues does that without making the film once gloomy or overly melodramatic. All this apparent lightness never takes the solemnity of its objective and only aids the film to move closer to reality.

Hyderabad Blues 2 bears a relation to its predecessor somewhat in the same way Toy Story 2 (1999) is linked to its path breaking prequel (1995). In both cases, arguably the sequel is better in terms of the production values and the wholesomeness of the film. However, it is the prequel that is revered unanimously since they are the ones that gave birth to the sequels and they are the ones that changed the way people looked at films of their kind. Hence, the prequels naturally become close to heart and their successors easily dumped. When Hyderabad Blues came out, it was an instant hit. It captured, with near perfection, the way how anyone in the position of Varun feels, trying to cope up with the increased moral and cultural standards and decreased technological advancements.

Hyderabad Blues 2 is as hilarious as it is outrageous. Though most of the dialogue is in English, they never once feel contrived or out of place. Be the typically American wit of Varun or the bumbling acts of Sanjeev (“Pardon my wife. She has a problem with truth. Always speaks it out” is a knockout), they put one instantly at ease even if the sudden dose of iconoclasm as compared to the first film catches one unawares. By iconoclasm, I do not refer the film’s reflections on the society but on the country’s cinema itself. I wonder if the film would have been so open had it been made under the big banners. And thank god that wasn’t the case.

 

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