Love Aaj Kal

Saif Ali Khan has two brilliant monologues. Both involve him starting off with a certain point of view and realizing that his heart has been running on a different track midway through it. He does this switch so naturally, makes this realization seem so unforced, that you really get a sense of how confused his character really is.

The girl who plays Harleen Kaur has a moment on her balcony in Kolkata when she realizes that Veer Singh (Saif again) has come all the way from Delhi to see her and is standing across the road. Watching her smile is a delight.

The structure is interesting: two love stories, one set in the past and one in the present, both differing in how the lead characters approach love. Hao Hsiao-Hsien did it in Three Times a few years ago, I believe — I haven’t seen it, so I’m not sure how much this structure owes to that one. But even if it was inspired, we can credit Imtiaz Ali for having picked a good inspiration.

That’s about it. The rest of the movie is a total loss.

You know the feeling you get when you’re in a groove while writing and it’s all you can do to write as fast as the voice in your head is telling the story to you? When the words start to tumble over one another in their hurry to get out? Contrast this with those moments when you want to write but really don’t feel like it, and have to force the sentences out word by word. If the first half of Jab We Met felt like the former experience, nearly all of Love Aaj Kal felt like the latter.

After two fantastic movies, Imtiaz Ali seems to have lost his way. Watching the movie unfold, I was left with the distinct impression that his heart wasn’t in it. It felt like he first wrote out what the screenplay should be, and mechanically filled in the scenes. We get precision when we need rhythm.

Central to the appeal of his earlier movies was the funny, sassy dialogue. Best of all, it felt natural. This time around, hardly any of the dialogue works. Worse still, the actors don’t seem to have fun with the material. The dialogue delivery is plagued with the split second delay that is fatal to comedy. The characters seem to smile not because they’re happy, but because they are in a movie made by the guy who made Jab We Met. Deepika, especially, spends much of the movie looking like she’s endorsing Orbit chewing gum. She even says “It works” at one point — if she had said “It really works”, I think the producers could’ve raked in a little sponsorship money. Then again, if they had spent the casting budget on a better actress, it might’ve worked a damn sight better for them on the whole.

When the leads don’t seem to have much fun, you look to the supporting cast. Trouble is, there really isn’t one. Friends and family, other girlfriends and boyfriends, none of them have anything to do. Even Rishi Kapoor, one of the most dependable character actors working today, starts off with a good scene and then simply fades back into the woodwork.

That’s it, I guess.

ps: When I write a review, I usually spend some time working on a good opening and closing paragraph. But when the filmmaker doesn’t work towards crafting a good ending, I figure, why should I go to all the effort?

 

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Beware! There be spoilers.

The sixth movie installment in the Harry Potter series is, to be honest, a bit of a disappointment.When I think about it, it seems like a Herculean task for it not to be. But I ask myself, should that really be my problem?

Writing the screenplay for the sixth movie in a series can hardly be a picnic. There is so much exposition that you simply do not have time to cover if you wish to keep the running length reasonable. With a series like this — so rich in detail, its conclusions built on so many little facts accumulated over multiple books…

The sixth book is especially tough because, fascinating as it is to followers of the series, its major driving force is an examination of Voldemort’s childhood and youth, and the clues it provides to his destruction. Not exactly the stuff gripping celluloid is made of, although it is fascinating to the reader.

In the interest of narrative economy, this plot strand has been condensed into two key memories — one where Dumbledore meets young Tom Riddle for the first time, and one where Riddle finds out about Horcruxes from Slughorn. If one had to condense the book into its plot essence, this would be about right — they tell you that Voldemort was a bad penny right from the start, and that he split his soul and stored it in some objects as a way of staying alive.

Not unlike those wonderful B&W fantasy movies we used to have where the evil magician put his life in a parrot or something equally vulnerable. I can almost imagine Ron doing a Dead Parrot sketch with Harry while Voldemort lay dead in the corner of a pet store. But I digress…

The rest of the running time is taken principally by the love lives of the principal characters, and the mysterious doings of Draco Malfoy. The result is a curious mixture. Half the time, you aren’t sure if Harry is more worried about what Voldemort will do to him or about what Ron will do to him if he kisses Ginny. But despite its two-faced nature, this is a uniformly sombre movie. It is dark, grey and moody, even when it deals with the hormonally addled life of Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny.

While all these people have slowly grown into their roles and are fairly comfortable with them, two people get to do more interesting things this time. First up is Horace Slughorn, played by Jim Broadbent with a lot more comic edge than the character seemed to have in the book. The other is Tom Felton — Draco Malfoy faces a test of character in this episode and… succeeds, after a fashion. Although Felton gets very little dialogue, he manages to convey a heck of a lot while just appearing to be skulking around and playing Scotty with a magical cabinet.

Trouble is, the movie never really takes off. Other than for one brief moment when Dumbledore and Harry stand on a rock in the sea while the waves crash all around them, there is never really a sense of exhilaration. Even the Quidditch matches seem obligatory. Maybe the series is just taking a breather before the final rush. I certainly hope so. It would be a pity if we had to poke ourselves with our wands to stay awake when Harry finally faced down Voldemort.

 

Both sides of the lens

Banno has a lovely article on the relationship between a filmmaker and his subject here:

getting up close | Upperstall Blogs

My favourite line from the article, just to get you off your lazy ass and click on that link:

When he chooses to film a bar singer, he also chooses to film his own fascination for her.

I wonder how many filmmakers realize this, even when they don’t put themselves in the frame with their subject.

 

Freeze Frame #139: Quiz Show

I watched Quiz Show on TV eons ago and thought it was a wonderful film. But over the years, my memory of it faded to the point where I could only remember one scene with clarity. Recently, when it came on TV again, I stuck around to watch that scene and then zapped on to other stuff.

The movie tells the story of the rise and fall of a quiz show named 21 which, it turns out, was rigged by its producers in order to get higher ratings. In the third act, when things slowly unravel for everyone involved in the show, there is a meeting between Richard Goodwin, the Congressional investigator probing the scam and Martin Rittenhome, the head of a pharmaceutical company which sponsored the show. The conversation features the sort of cynical truth-telling that we are probably quite used to by now:

You see, the audience didn’t tune in to watch some amazing display of intellectual ability. They just wanted to watch the money.

That Rittenhome is played by Martin Scorsese might have much to do with why I love this scene. Listening to Scorsese’s voice is almost as pleasurable as watching one of his best movies. But this isn’t just me being in love with how the man speaks.

To understand why this scene works so well, you have to listen to the movie rather than just see it. For two acts, the movie seduces you with softly spoken voices of well-mannered people. When you hear Herbert Stempel, the deposed quiz show champion, complain about the show being rigged, it seems like so much whining even though you realize that he is probably speaking the truth. John Turturro does a wonderful job with this character, and a big part of how his character is seen in the movie has to do with how he speaks with a rough, unpolished accent.

Goodwin, on the other hand, befriends the current champion Charles Van Doren — erudite, charming, born to a life of privilege. The movie is seen through Goodwin’s eyes, and his relationship with Van Doren is central to the movie. We, along with Goodwin, are charmed by the other man. We share his illusions about how the television business seems to work, even though we ought to know better. And when the illusion finally shatters, we share in his disillusionment. Again, even though we ought to know better.

Therefore, when the Scorsese character talks about what the show really meeant to the audiences, and when the Kevin Pollak character (who produces the show) talks about how they viewed the quiz show as entertainment and not an actual contest, the tone of these scenes is in stark contrast with the rest of the proceedings.

Rittenhome doesn’t tell us something we don’t know. He just reminds us of something we allowed ourselves to forget for the past 90 minutes.

 

Apropos Kambakkht Ishq

No, I haven’t seen it. And no, I don’t have a burning desire to see it either.

What I was wondering about was this. The reviews (1, 2) of Kambakkht Ishq on rediff mention that the movie involves a bickering couple –  a stuntman and a doctor. So does it borrow, by any chance, a reel or two for Pammal K Sambandham, that Kamalhassan starrer where he plays a stuntman and Simran plays a doc?If anyone who has seen PKS happens to see this one, please do let me know. I’ll even pay for your therapy sessions.

While on the top of not-so-promising Akshay Kumar movies, I happened to watch Chandni Chowk to China recently on TV. Aside from the fact that it mixes Manmohan Desai, Kung Fu movies, The Three Amigos and a few fish-out-of-water movies into some sort of diabolical chow mein, what struck me the most was how easily this could’ve been a good movie.

There are around 20 minutes in the middle when Akshay is going through the manddatory training sequence at the hands of a Chinese ex-cop who happens to be Deepika’s dad. It is wonderfully tongue-in-cheek, and Akshay’s comic timing is just spot on. Why the hell couldn’t the rest of the movie maintain that standard? <Sigh>

 

Freeze Frame #138: Love Actually

There is nothing extraordinarily memorable about the movie, but if I’m stuck between watching Citizen Kane and Love Actually, I am likely to choose the latter as often as not.

To quote what is probably the best line in Some Like It Hot, nobody’s perfect.

I very often don’t watch this movie in one go — I just fast-forward to specific portions. Sometimes, I just follow one plotline from start to finish. Sometimes, it’s a specific scene. Like the one where Rowan Atkinson gift-wraps a necklace while Alan Rickman looks on. Or the one where Hugh Grant is first introduced to Natalie. Or any of Bill Nighy’s or Emma Thompson’s scenes. Sometimes all I need in order to make my day is a glimpse of Thompson’s smiling visage when Bye Bye Baby gets played at a funeral service.

But my favourite of all time is the one where Colin walks into an American bar. To quote Ebert’s description of this particular subplot:

There’s also one hopeful soloist who believes that if he flies to Milwaukee and walks into a bar he’ll find a friendly Wisconsin girl who thinks his British accent is so cute she’ll want to sleep with him. This turns out to be true.

Exactly how much this turns out to be true is, to me, the best part of this movie.

 

Little Terrorist

When we watch movies about people finding a way to live a normal life in the midst of an adverse socio-political environment, we marvel at their resilience and their will to live. But if any of these characters had a way to interact with their audience, would they turn to us and ask, “What would you rather have us do?”

I wondered about this in the opening scene of Little Terrorist where a little Pakistani boy crawls under a barbed wire fence into a minefield that represents the no-man’s land between India and Pakistan. He does this so that he could retrieve a cricket ball that has fallen there. We may sit here and wonder about his resilience, but think about this for a moment: How many of us have played gully cricket and found ourselves sneaking into that cranky old couple’s home to retrieve a ball that has fallen there? Aside from the little matter of the landmines, isn’t this probably how that kid views it?

Of course, real life has a way of busrting bubbles like these — the kid panicks as a result of some rifle fire from a distant sentry outpost, crawls past the first barbed wire fence he could see and finds himself on the other side of the border. While the border security forces search for what they presume is a terrorist who has slipped across the border, the boy takes refuge in the home of a kindly schoolteacher who can remember playing cricket at the very same withered tree before the barbed wire and the minefields came up.

At the man’s house, his neice makes them some roti for lunch. The boy, who is not given a plate to eat out of, unthinkingly tears off half the roti and drops it into the headmaster’s plate before anyone could prevent him. The man, of course, cannot eat something that a Muslim boy has touched. Even the plate is broken later so it cannot be eaten out of. The boy’s reaction is muted — it took me a minute to realize that, given the level of homogenization on the other side of the border, he probably doesn’t even understand what has just transpired. This may well be the first Hindu family he has encountered in his life.

His innocence and the family’s own awkward attempts to retain both their humanity and their religion are what make Little Terrorist such a pleasure to watch. The themes it tackles seem too heavy for its running time (well under half an hour), yet the movie skips lightly through them by simply focusing on the story and letting the subtext write itself.

It doesn’t seem like a normal life to us. But when it is the life you have, I guess you just get on with it.

ps: Some days ago, I was requested to review a couple of Ashvini Kumar’s short films on the blog. I agreed to do it on the condition that, if they sucked, I could say so. Thankfully, I haven’t had to do that. This one, incidentally, was nominated for the Oscar for Best Short Film in 2005.

 

Grace

As a die-hard Federer fan, I was both happy and sad to see Nadal lose in the fourth round of the French Open.

Like Federer himself says, he doesn’t have a problem on clay, just a Nadal problem on clay. And now that the problem lost to Robin Soderling, the path was finally cleared of its biggest obstacle. But I have to admit — him not getting a chance to win at Roland Garros against Rafa in the final is a bit of a let-down.

However, what the defeat did was make me a Rafa fan.

Think about this: At the beginning of the tournament, the only bets punters were taking on Rafa was how many sets he would lose on the way to his fifth title. Losing in the fourth round has got to hurt. And to a player you don’t even like very much? Double ouch. Now go read that post-match interview here.

So when one player bad, must lose. That’s what happened today. I have to accept with the same calm when I win than when I lose. After four years I lose here, and the season continue.

When offered an opportunity to frame an excuse about the wind causing him to play very short, he responded:

No, no, no, no. The wind is there for both players, so no, no? I not going to put any excuse right now. I think I played short because I played short. I didn’t have my day.

Now, this isn’t news. He’s always been gracious in defeat. When he loses, he simply says, in his broken English: I played badly, my opponent played well, I lost. It is when it comes at this venue that it begins to seem poetic, I guess.

Contrast this with someone like Serena Williams. A couple of US Opens ago when Serena lost to Justine Henin in the quarters, she started off blaming everything from her back to her ankle to butterflies flapping their wings in Tokyo to her fairy godmother having PMS. And when she did talk about her own faults, the gist of it was: my opponent didn’t do anything special to win this match, I lost it.

So my new resolution is: If Rafa is playing anyone other than Federer, I’ll root for him. If these two are on court, I’ll try not to pray that he trips and sprains his ankle. And if Federer wins a Grand Slam final against him, I’ll limit my happy dance to thirty minutes.

Because unlike Rafa, I think Grace is an actress who married the Prince of Monaco.

 

Shahrukh Aman?

I just watched bits and pieces of Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi last night and it occurred to me suddenly that it was essentially a gender-swapped version of Satyam Shivam Sundaram, with SRK in the Zeenat Aman role and dancing instead of boinking.

Does anyone else agree, or is it just me?

It’s genetic, I think. My dad happened to watch Bombay on TV one day and commented that the song Kannalanae was simply a gender-swapped version of Maankuyilae Poonguyilae from Karakattakkaran, with Manisha in the Ramarajan role.

ps: While on the topic of SSS, could someone please assure me that it was all meant to be symbolic? Otherwise, I’d be up all night screaming at those characters to have their tubes tied and do the gene pool a favour.

 

Freeze Frame #137: Pasumpon

I remember watching Pasumpon years ago on TV and thinking, there’s no earthly reason why this movie should work.

The son (Prabhu) of a zamindar is estranged from his mother (Radhika) for two decades because she remarried after her husband died. He grows into adulthood and still carries around that resentment, although by now it has become more of a habit than a conviction. Indeed his own actions as the local lawmaker are in favour of widow remarriage. It is only in the end, when his mother is on her deathbed, that he manages to swallow his pride and reconcile with her.

The entire movie is replete with scenes of dramatic excess. Take the timing of the reconciliation scene, for instance. The son finds out that his mother is seriously ill, and spends an entire night lying awake before walking over to her (and his stepfather’s) home. Why would he do this other than to draw out the tragedy?

And yet, the closing moments manage are so powerfully moving that it comes as a surprise. Nothing about the scene is surprising, you could second-guess every line of dialogue, subtlety isn’t even on the same continent… And yet it worked. Or is it just that I am an utter sap? (Most people who know me reasonably well would nod, smile and say yes, that’s exactly it. But humor me for a moment, will you?)

My choice of standout scene in the movie, however, wouldn’t be the aforementioned. It would be one that comes a bit earlier, where the son beats up a local goon who insults and hits his mother and half-brothers. At the end, he tells the goon that, if anyone has the right to beat up on his brothers, it would be himself.

I was midway through my groan when the camera panned to his mother’s face. As she is led away from there, she speaks in a voice tinged with such pride in her firstborn, yet such sadness at their separation… Two decades worth of price and sadness, distilled into two minutes of dialogue.