Daam ek fillum anek! Bombay Talkies.

Bombay Talkies

One thing must be said, we have four of India’s best directors directing 4 shorts as a tribute to 100 years of Indian cinema. One goes in the theatre with a lot of expectations and some are fulfilled, others are not.  At the end comes a pathetic excuse for a song which should be shown the trash can immediately….did nobody hear this song before unleashing it on the poor audience? What a history we have of great Indian film music and we come up with this insipid tribute? It’s a shocking spoiler. But what precedes it is definitely worthwhile. Instead of the usual scenario where you have a lot of sound and fury and many crores of rupees spent on a length of 2 and ½ hours, signifying nothing (sorry Shakespeare) we have 4 delightful shorts succinctly told. I hope Bombay Talkies is a success just for the fact that more producers would back directors who would like to make a collection of short stories.  So here’s what I thought of them

Ajeeb Dastaan Hai Yeh…. Karan Johar.

I’m impressed with the tackling of a story with a gay protagonist. Though Saqib starts off on a great note, he falters a bit in his first scene with Rani, coming across as too glib. If I was his boss I wouldn’t have given him a trial run. But Rani’s character is more indulgent. Their friendship is fresh and I love her unquestioning, non-judgmental acceptance of his being gay. We need more sensitive portrayals of LGBT issues in the mainstream. Saqib gradually grows on you, it has less to do with his acting and more with the relationship he shares with Rani. And then, like all relationships, it becomes complicated. Rani I adore….even in films that are bad, she’s done a good job. Because she’s one of the best actresses we have. Maybe I’m biased.  Randeep shows the way to all actors who don’t know what to do in certain roles. When in doubt, play it down. He’s brave too, to play a character who finds his real self, discovers his alternate sexuality after years in a marriage that is pleasant, but one without passion. The use of Madan Mohan’s poignant “Lag jaa gale” is soul stirring. It makes you nostalgic and gooey eyed. The casting of the young street singer is wonderful. What I don’t like is the obvious studio recording of the young girl’s singing which just doesn’t match the rawness of the little girl’s situation.  Both the rendition of “Ajeeb Dastaan Hai Yeh”and “Lag jaa gale” suffers from the same studio sterility. But the first film has shown me a side of Karan Johar that has raised my expectations of him in his further works. Welcome Karan to the 1 and a ½ crore club :D

Star….Dibakar Bannerjee.

The story begins with amazing visuals. Just seeing the solitary mill chimney through the grills of the protagonist's window, brings on a nostalgia for the Bombay that was. Now the 'i'in the mill has changed to 'a'everywhere and the city is just not the same. The actress playing Nawazuddin’s wife is so real. So are the other women who banter with Nawazuddin. The casting director is really a star in this film. Dibakar got an Emu? Wow! It’s surreal….just like what happens to the protagonist (Nawazuddin) in this story based on a Satyajit Ray short story “Patolbabu filmstar”(I want to read the story)

An actor in search of any job (not necessarily acting), lands a walking part in a film shooting. He is given a dialogue  “Ae” to say as he bumps into the hero. And he has to walk away, that’s it! During the waiting period between being selected for the shot and the shot commencing you get to see his attempts at histrionics. You realise he’s a failed actor. Suddenly out of the garbage bin rises Sadashiv Amrapurkar and raises the film to another level altogether. He appears in the guise of an aged actor(who’s died long ago) playing  Vi Va Shirwadkar’s iconic “Natasamrath” in the Marathi play with the same title. Amrapurkar’s is a master class in acting. The energy, pitching, integrity and sheer talent just hits you in the gut. You want to stand up and applaud him and all the unsung heroes of theatre who have immense talent but gain very little in terms of money or fame. His scene with Nawazuddin is the most paisa vasool one for me in all the stories. And pardon me but Nawazuddin really struggles in this scene and also with the Marathi (Marathi bolnyaachaa attaahaas ka?) The scene in which he has to perform the iconic monologues of Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra, just left me cold. (Many people might disagree with me on Nawazuddin’s performance, because it’s not a politically correct thing to do. Even if you are the most powerful critic you NEVER say bad things about the bad performances of Bollywood stars AND star children, but you definitely DON’T talk ill of trained actors who’ve become stars in the event that you come off looking like a fool. But I maintain that even trained actors who have put up consistently good performances can fail if taken out of their comfort zones. And in any case I’m not a critic!) Nawazuddin really works when he doesn’t open his mouth.  And that’s not a compliment. His wife in the film has performed really well. He should have spent more time with her before the shooting perhaps! And of course the Emu leaves you wonderstruck. You are as wide eyed watching Dibakar’s short, as the Emu is watching everybody around it. Dibakar’s film is really magical and the only one out of the 4 that has stretched the brief. What a tribute to our cinema centenary and a tribute also to a man, a master, a genius, one of the greatest film makers in the world Satyajit Ray. And now I’m hungry for more. But it’s interval time. Sigh! When will we do away with intervals?

Sheila Ki Jawaani…. Zoya Akhtar.

The most disappointing of the 4 stories was Zoya’s “Sheila ki Jawaani”. There was so much potential in the story and the superb performances by the two child actors were to die for. But it was like an unfinished dream. Something was missing. I also didn’t like the choice of the horrid “Sheila ki Jawaani” as a song to gyrate to at the end of the film. As a parent I was disturbed. Not because the boy protagonist wanted to dress up like a girl and dance, but because I wouldn’t want even a young girl to gyrate to this adult song.  I felt the subject of gender specificity was not really tackled well. The story boiled down to a pair of really bad parents who had a pair of sensitive, creative children. The brother-sister relationship was so beautifully written and performed; Zoya needs to be lauded for that. Unfortunately she doesn’t seem to extend the same standards of acting to her adult cast of Ranveer Shorey (one expression throughout this film and in fact in most films he’s acted in), the actress playing his wife (totally forgettable and sorry, don’t know her name) and Katrina Kaif. I’m flummoxed by Zoya's choice of Katrina to tell one and all in an interview, that you can achieve your dreams if you believe in them strongly enough….all of us know if she was not associated with one of the biggest stars in Bollywood and he hadn’t taken her under his wings, she would be still walking the ramp after doing Kaizaad Gustaad’s forgettable “Boom”. To give it to her she looks every bit the fairy and I know kids adore her. Like Nawazuddin in Dibakar’s film, Katrina is most effective when she’s not speaking.  Theek hai…..at least one got to see two delightful children who performed with a rare maturity…..

Murabba….Anurag Kashyap

I expect a lot from Anurag who according to me is the ‘God of small films’ (sorry Arundhati Roy). I mean he is connected to 4 (or is it 5?) films showing at Cannes this year? That’s no small feat and should be applauded loudly. Here’s a maker who the French take seriously! (That’s saying a lot!) But as Spidey says, “With power comes responsibility” and I would add, “Expectations”! Is Anurag’s Murabba sweet? I would say, “Yes” for the most part, par rass kaa mazaa nahi aayaa! Rass thhaa hi nahi! There are some painfully contrived parts in this short that really made me wince,especially the breaking of the murabba bottle in the train. But the flaws that Anurag fails to cover up in terms of the flow of the narrative, he amply makes up for in the way he has shot the film and his complete command over the milieu, language and subject. Finally in the film, when Mr Bachchan meets the young fan from Allahabad, my jaw dropped more than the lucky actor playing that fan.  And he has really played the part well. I also loved all the other actors playing their small parts to perfection, especially the actor playing the security guard outside Prateeksha. This film is the sum of all these small parts. Finally,I have seen the crowds outside both Prateeksha and Jalsa a thousand times. And this story reflects the dream that brings so many people from all over India to Mumbai; a dream that very few realise. But in this khatta-meetha murabba there is a teekha ending when the half eaten murabba ends up in an achaar ki botal and one wonders why the father of the protagonist sent him on a painful mission to Mumbai at all? But then, how many people get to meet Mr. Bachchan in person? Magical? Just the thought….definitely!

Don’t stop here guys….bring more and more of it on….show the way for the next wonderful, exciting, path breaking 100 years of Indian cinema. Happy 100! J