Raavan reminds me of Kamal Hassan's 'Guna'

After my experience of 'Raavan', I was wondering what Maniratnam possibly could have attempted before ending up with this product. It is not unusual for serious filmmakers to envision something on paper and end up failing to convey the same on the celluloid. But as far as I know, this is first such case for MR. After all he is supposed to be a dictator on the sets while shooting who wouldn't just let unless he gets the desired sequence and frame to the T. So what possibly did MR attempt?

I am now reminded about the yesteryear Kamal Hassan starred 'Guna' in a odd way. The protagonist there was mentally unsound. He kidnaps a lady to the hills of Kodaikanal and the lady who initially finds him repelling later knowing him changes and even gets married to him. The police who were in search of the lady with all their good intentions play spoiler for the couple and end up harming them. I still remember watching that movie and in the end feeling something deep inside. An irony that a socially unacceptable guy melts our hearts with his emotions while the police with their brute power and our mandate are unfit to comprehend the emotions and play anti-hero. This concept I guess served as a sub-plot in quite a few movies. Here, I guess MR planned to make something like this a main plot on a lavish scale with the Bachchans, AR Rahman's score.

As said in my previous post, I thought MR started with a backdrop of anti-government forces like the so-called Maoists in the the jungles. He could have possibly thought of personifying the deep jungles and its Beera analogically with Lanka and Raavan of the mythology. Beera was supposed to evoke fear. AB Jr didn't.

The Ram-like character Dev is supposed to be strict law-enforcing officer. His uniform itself was supposed to imply his Ram-like characteristics and his actions are supposed to add grey shades. But this didn't translate and he ended up a card board character in RayBans.

Raavan is a very ambitious project and it is such a tragedy that it does not even remotely look like one now. This is in the series of project like Kannathil Muthamittal, Ayutha Ezuthu, Guru and as an idea clearly reflected Maniratnam's ambition. This is what I think is Maniratnam's second innings and I am yet to see him score.

Raavan: Maniratnam's most uninspiring work

For someone who grew up watching and enjoying Maniratnam's movies, it is difficult to like his latest - 'Raavan'. Steadily over the years, the nuances and silences of his Tamil movies disappeared to make way for painstaking Hindi dialogue and loud background scores. And gone with them are the fleshed out characters and we now see the cardboarded ones in 'Raavan'. For an analogy, Raavan is far too simplistic. Ironically, the Ram like character of Vikram shows little benevolence while the Bachchan Jr.'s Raavan has little if not no evil. The movies does not explain why the 'Raavan' is a feared lot and what drives him. Instead the character dishes silly antics, as sillier as most of the dialogues in the movie.

In fact the movie would have made more sense if it stressed on the conflict between forces of establishment and anti-establishment and how the lines between good and evil blur. The movie's excellent camerawork in the hinterlands would have wonderfully reflected the turf war between these forces as does the background score. But all the technical work has been wasted on a confused plot. The award winning editor Sreekar Prasad looks completely uninspired in the first half. He just let the boat sail. I really hope this is Mani's last work with AB Jr. It was a pain watching him in almost every frame in the first half, trying to interpret his character and act. This is a casting blunder. I understand that the Bachchan brand is the only factor in Maniratnam repeating AB Jr. for marketing his movies. This is turning as nightmarish as RGV' stint with Big B.

I hope Vikram did a better job in the Tamil version as 'Raavanan'. Would like to catch up with that sometime and see if Maniratnam indeed had a plot which could have been lost in translation from Tamil to Hindi!

I seriously think Hindi movies are weighing down Maniratnam as his style of making changed adversely in this transition. His movies have now become dialogue driven in Hindi, a language he is not too comfortable with. Maybe his ideas does not quite translate coherently in this scenario and so we get to see a mishmash. Compare the character graphs of Sooriya in 'Ayutha Ezhuthu' (Yuva in Telugu) and Ajay Devgan's in 'Yuva' and you will understand my point. I just wish Mani takes a break now as he did after 'Dil Se' to make a Tamil movie like 'Alaipayuthey' and get his bearings right before he ties himself into another Hindi movie project. This is from an admirer of his.

Kites doesn't quite fly!

Well, it looked like one of those flop finals Indian cricket team used to end up in choking all too often after some superb league matches (Now of course Team India does not even make it to finals anymore). At least that is what I thought about Kites.

After all the promise Anurag Basu and Hrithik were showing in their work, my own expectations were soaring high, too high for the Kites to match. The solace is that whatever heights the Kites took were because of these 2 guys. Basu's screenplay and direction is top-notch and Hrithik gave his all. What undoes the movie is the lack of depth in the story - the love story. How deep in love the lead couple are in is never quite translates, literally. Did the Hindi, Spanish jugalbandi dialogues end up losing love in translation? I think so. So even as the movie ambles towards its dead-end, we would be wondering if we missed a reel or 2 about how the couple fell in love. Rakesh Roshan holds the credit for story I guess and he may be now feeling the same.

What is of course surprising is that in a movie with such an ambitious love story, we hardly have a sequence which we can recollect after we leave the theatre! Unfortunately, that's the crux Kites failed at. Otherwise it is a honest work bereft of formula and cliche. Viewers loving novelty would embrace this even with its faults. But that is not enough to make this movie India's much eluding cross-over film. Hard luck to Anurag Basu and Hrithik.

LSD : Watch it only if you have the stomach!

Let the cinegoers looking for feel-good movies be warned at the outset. If all you want to get out of a movie is entertainment, LSD is not for you. After all, feeling something hard-hitting and getting disturbed by getting reminded about the reality we live in is no entertainment.

LSD is instead for those who want to see a alternate way of movie-making, one that is nearer to reality in format and content. One that is gutsy, more honest and imaginative. The picturization is novel and is a reflection of today's urban society, where everyone is on camera, knowingly or unknowingly - The offices, the residence complexes, the cinemas, the malls and what not. The 'story' reflects our times - everything real-time, from politics to swayamvars. As a spirited Journo says in the movie "Desh ko seva nahi, prime time entertainment chahiye!" And as another says about the power of camera "Yeh camera nahi khazane ki chabi hai".
LSD defys conventional cinema in format and content. This is the first digital movie entirely made on handheld digicams and CCTV surveillance cameras. This visual medium with candid cameras with the shakyness and hazyness prepare the audience for the dose of realism the movie portrays. It gives the MTV bakra kind of feeling. It is just that the comedy there is replaced by a sort of black comedy here along with some spoof (of DDLJ) and some satire and some irony. There are 3 stories captured on handy-cam, CCTV and a hidden camera. This format adds to the authenticity of the content that is mired in Dibakar Banerjee's blase outlook. Even when the mood in the first of the three stories transform from a spoof mode to black comedy mode, Banerjee does not turn dramatic or over-emphasise. These subtleties in approach makes the 3 stories all the more brutal and matter-of-fact. Banerjee's take on love, sex (voyeuristic videos, MMSs) and Dhoka (sting operations) in 3 stories bear close resemblances to real-life scandals. The love story of a dreamy-eyed youth in a society of honor killings is too close to the Nitish Katara-Bharti Yadav case. The voyeuristic part resembles the Miss Jammu/Mysore Mallige MMS scandals while the sting part reminds us of the episodes involving Aman Vermas and Shakti Kapoors. In all, there is too much of the realism dose to digest that hits the pit of our stomachs. So unless you want to think about the movie the morning after, an evening with this movie may look pointless. This movie leaves such a bitter aftertaste.
What stands out in the movie are the characters. They are with the minutest of details and hard to forget. They are very very real with their dialogues and there is a good chance you think you know similar people in real-life. They engage us even when we think we know where the stories are heading for. LokiLokal, the punjabi sales girl, the 'Adi sir' fan, the frustrated store supervisor, the watchman, It is the characters that had my attention for the 2nd and 3rd stories although those 2 stories seem to run predictably. In fact they even seemed to be unnecessarily dragged lonegr. The movie is littered with profanities and is aptly rated 'A' although it contains almost no instances of sexual acts on screen. The movie is epoch-making and is a step ahead in Hindi cinema after Dev D last year. This is yet another instance of how suitable western technique is picked to tell Indian tales. Bravo Banerjee.

3 Cheers for 3 idiots

Following up the Munnabhai series on one hand and also doing justice to something like Chetan Bhagat's 'Five point Someone' on the other must have made Rajkumar Hirani evolve his 'Aal izz Well' philosophy! And it worked, just like 'Jaadu Ki Jappi' and Gandhigiri. Rajkumar Hirani, the man who resurrected Gandhi for the theatre-goers is back with a rehash of Chetan Bhagat's 'Five point Someone' and with his honesty intact. Chetan Bhagat would be proud of this take on his novel. But did he actually get the credit? I am not sure I saw his name in the opening credits!!

The novel's critical take on Indian education system and its lush portrayal of the joe de vivre spirit of the 3 friends the system takes it toll on is the perfect canvas for Hirani, who excelled the art of hammering in messages through comedy. So here he is taking the essence of the novel, especially its humor and adding the Bollywood masala and deducting the matter-of-fact tone of the novel. While the Five point graders in the novel go thru unbelievable lows to salvage something in the end and pass out, this 3 hour Aamir starrer is designed as triumph of the underdogs, as is the filmi wont. The humor is multiplied many times over.

To start with, The IIT background is shifted to some prestigious private college so as to not arouse a scandal by commenting on its education system. The Ryan character becomes Rancho, borrows Rajesh's girlfriend here as he is playing 'hero' here, again because of which he ends up a top-of-the-line scientist, not some research assistant. Ditto with other 2 friends who in the novel just manage to scrape through into software careers (man, are we so cheap!!). Here in the movie, they are made for better things. One even follows his heart to become a wildlife photographer. The novel didn't have the lofty ideals of follow-ur-heart thing and it just was a coming of age story of 3 folks, even as it enlightens the Hitleresque HoD of Mech Engg. While the HoD thread continues to be the emotional core here, the movie includes more sub-plots in its canvas to add more masala. Rancho is more altruistic here than Ryan was, there is also some drama thrown in for his background which helps the flashback narrative. And here we have a Chatur Ramalingam's character who is fully-blown out from the mugger Venkat in the novel (to elevate the 'success' of Rancho towards the end). So much blown up, he stinks all time! His on-stage Hindi performance is outrageously funny (Why do the southies suit so well for the studious characters is something to ponder! Remember the bespectacled medico Nagarajan in Munnabhai).

Aamir suits the central character to the T. In fact the project wouldn't have been possible without his dynamism. 3 idiots is the first serious take on Indian education system and that very fact keeps it in good stead to become a huge blockbuster. Madhavan and Sharman do well too. Boman Irani seems to be a resident evil in all Hirani's ventures and with a very good reason. He makes it very easy for us to loath him with his menacing. The first half of the movie just flies by in all wit. The second half slows a bit and even the dialogue at some places look laboured but the joyous mood of the movie so overwhelms that these technicalities don't matter much except to rank 3 idiots a few steps below the finesse of the Munnabhai series. But then, maybe, we don't always need Hirani's best to keep the viewers agog and the box office on fire. Hirani would have feared matching his early successes and must have said 'Aal izz Well' to keep himself going! And it works big time in all its honesty. 3 cheers to 3 idiots :)

Rocket Singh doesn't quite hit the target!

Shimit Amin's Rocket Singh is an ambitious venture content-wise and that is in itself commendable. On the lines of Munnabhai series, it tries to unravel the humane angle, this in the murkiness of the cut-throat businesses like Munnabhai did in the medical profession and like its sequel did in the context of day-to-day life.

The Movie has all honesty and heart, an endearing protagonist, real characters. We relate to the Rocket Singh who, with rose-tinted glasses, comes to the big bad dog-eat-dog world straight from college. He gets insulted, abused by the roughshods to mend himself as one of them - corrupt, street-smart liers. Rocket does not relent and insists on having his way -business with a human touch!

While Rocket Singh gets our sympathy for his ordeals, the movie looses our sympathy when it starts dragging for too long over the nitty-gritties of computer selling/servicing business. The dialogues too are found wanting for such a powerful theme and most importantly the entertainment quotient, which is the reason for the tremendous success of Munnabhai series, is low. So we do get to yawn now and then. From someone like Jaideep Sahni and Shmit Amin who dished out 'Ab Tak Chappan' and 'Chak De', we could have expected something a tad better in script and screenplay. The plot has the holes. We wonder how would a business honcho who is in a service-centric business for so long does not know buying a brand without the brains and service behind it would mean nothing! Rocket Singh's character graph does not quite peak from an underdog to that of a victor. While Ranbir does quite well, his characterization is flawed and that that is why this despite being such a morality tale, he does not quite elicit an elation when the end credits roll. YashRaj's Rocket Singh with all its good intentions does not hit the target.

KURBAAN: A refreshing watch

*ing : Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Vivek Oberoi

Music : Salim-Suleiman:

Dialogues: Anurag Kashyap, Niranjan Iyengar

Screenplay,

Direction: Rensil D' Silva

Qurbaan becomes Kurbaan because it is Karan Johar's production and as we all know he has a thing for K. And maybe he will get more superstitious now that Rensil D'Silva makes a good debut with Kurbaan. Kurbaan is treated well and if you liked Fanaa, you will like this too. Despite the loaded backdrop of Islamic terrorism, D'Silva does not fall for the familiar traps - of justifying (like some of the recent harebrained Bollywood movies) or judging the terrorist acts. Kurbaan is no treatise on post 9/11 terror. It instead is matter-of-fact about how things are post 9/11. Terrorists in here are calculating, suave and driven. And more importantly not much rabble- rousing dialogue of type allah hu akbar is made to convey the point. Kurbaan is about how a terror camp operates from a New York basement and how one in the camp looses his way in the journey of Jihad to instead Kurbaan his life for his ladylove and his unborn child. In one scene, the protagonist after cold-bloodedly killing one comes home and lays beside his pregnant wife and starts lovingly feel the unborn through her tummy. He, the Jihadi, in the end Kurbaans his life not for some one's death but for his own unborn child's life.

The first half is gripping with thoughtful dialogues by Anurag Kashyap and Niranjan Iyengar. The screenplay is taut and paces the movie treating it like a thriller. Saif, Kareena, Dia Mirza and Vivek Oberoi are well cast and they do very well. It is only in the second half that despite the obvious grind towards the climax, nothing new, like a twist or some developments in characters, spices up the proceedings and for a 2 hour 40 min movie, this matters. The main loss here is for Saif's character and so the whole point of the movie gets diluted a bit. Saif's character should have been explored a little more towards the end to show his vulnerability, predicament. Instead, the movie here masquerades as an action thriller which it is not. The writer D'Silva should have also implied that this terror camp has some other centres of support apart from the NY basement. Otherwise, it is tough to sell the audience that this basement camp blew up a plane full of high-profile US and UN delegations and yet continued to operate from the same base evading the CIAs and FBIs. And in 2nd half, thrown in are more and more amateur American extras playing FBI and cops. Inadvertently, the b-grade cops make some scenes comical. But yes, they are much better American cops than those we have seen earlier in Indian movies!

However, despite these minor flaws, the movie does not cease to engage till the end. The background score, photography and acting is excellent. After some sensible writing for Rang De Basanti and Maniratnam's forthcoming Ravan, Rensil D' Silva makes the big transition into direction. He is the reason for me watching and I am not disappointed. And I hope so would you be.

Blue: Bollywood's shame

AR Rahman could have as well made Blaaze and co sing '....Blues...' instead of '..Blueeeeeeeeeeee, Buluuu..'! The headache we are rewarded with for watching this far overwhelms the only plus of the movie - the songs. It is entirely believable if we are told Rahman took up this assignment just because if was paid a bomb. Nothing else could have inspired him to take up a dumb project like this. Well,my focus in this post is on him because his association lured me to go watch this. Otherwise i would have struck to my long standing rule of watching movies based only on the sole criteria - the filmmaker. A debutant director here poured in a 100 crores to dish this trash, almost with a confidence of making another Dhoom2 on an extra large scale! It's unbelievable. Not a single scene looked imaginative! Dialogues are dumb and aimless. Even the superb songs are picturised with little taste. Just see Fiqraana to get my point. There is no soul. All we are dished out are those stunts we can sit home and watch in star movies. Collectively, all actors can say this is their worst movie in acting department. The credit goes to the debutant director. It is a shame to call this Bollywood's most ambitious project just because the makers had too much money to waste. And about Rahman's choices, I learnt my lesson. I will Stick to my rules.