KAMINEY: Vishal Bhardwaj loses his plot for once

After the very brilliant 'Maqbool' and 'Omkara', its only too natural for cinema affectionados like me to expect something of same intensity from Vishal Bhardwaj, especially when he attempts his first big real mainstream commercial potboiler all with twins long lost, mumbai gangsters, drug mafia, anti-narcotic police squads and opportunistic politicians. Vishal looses the only way he could have - by overdoing things. Result: too many characters, too much detail and too little plot and emotional depth. In the end, while we appreciate the new frontiers this movie has won technically, not to mention the fantastic music, we feel nothing about the characters or the story. Make no mistake, Kaminey is a honest, brave effort and could be dubbed as the best in Hindi along 'Dev D' in the new genre but its does not leave an impact on the audience like Vishal's earlier movies did. In entertainment, this succeeds largely through its dialogues but is boring at times.

Vishal expresses his admiration for Quentin Tarantino by injecting a scene in which a nurse dressed in white struts her long legs. Maybe the whole movie being dialog-driven with its parallel narrative, with a mix of humor and violence and some excellent background score is supposed to be a tribute to Tarantino but the 2.5 hour movie leaves behind its audience somewhere in between when boredom sets in. In fact, for a minute towards the end, I wondered if I was watching a Priyadarshan movie!

I can think of only 1 reason right now that spoiled the dish and that is too many characters and although they were all excellently written for, they take up the whole time and the plot is left too thin, too thin to make us all wonder at times what the movie is all about. Vishal worked out excellent details for his characters and the actors, including Shahid Kapur, played them equally well. It was a delight seeing Amol Gupte's opportunistic politician character and the 3 Gangster brothers characters bonded typically in loquacious Bengali style. The wordplay in dialogues is exceptionally witty and yes, its intelligent writing with lot to read between the lines. For instance, in the scene involving the 2 elder Bengali gangster brothers, one is engrossed child-like playing video games from his bed while the other rather worriedly keeps dialling the youngest one Mikhail (who didn't return home by then) from the adjoining bathroom. The scene, without a word, speaks volumes about their brotherhood and its only too natural to expect them to come sometime later with their guns blazing seeking revenge. And how they come!

Notwithstanding all this brilliance and hard work, Kaminey could be limited only to the multiplexes in next few weeks due to the the lack of emotional wiring which disables it from reaching broader audience. For all his awe for Tarantino, I wonder how Vishal could have not noticed that Kill Bill, for all its Tarantino style humor-violence mix, had tonnes of emotional undercurrent as a revenge saga. While Vishal may take a bow for all his technical exuberance with Kaminey, he would have to wait until next time for a decent share at the box-office.

PRAYANAM: Yeleti does it again!

One of the few original film-makers in Telugu film industry(TFI), Chandrasekhar Yeleti returns with 'Prayanam'. Known for his deftness for weaving a story around an interesting idea, Yeleti is enterprising enough to switch genres at the drop of the hat. So while he debuted with a low-budget comic thriller like 'Aithe' and followed it up with an urban-thriller like 'Anukokunda Oka Roju', he then switched to an out and out action movie like 'Okkadunnadu'. Now he comes up with something similar to a romantic comedy. 

All right, good things first. We don't see any stale sequences or scenes in 'Prayanam' too as in Yeletis' earlier movies. A wonderful core idea for the movie once again like those in his earlier movies. Remember 'Okkadunnadu' and the blood group premise. If there is any Oscar for true original ideas, Yeleti could well be in the reckoning! Here the central idea is about falling in love and convincing the lover too in 2 hours. More about this later. The casting is excellent, acting job well done. The male bonding seen here is perfect thanks to the wonderful characterizations done. Especially. the guy who played Raman played is perfect as is the one who Moksha. Technicians excel too and some wonderful lyrcis from Ananth Sriram. The 'Meghama,..' lyrics and the picturization of that is exciting and bought back memories of 'Om Namaha,..' song in 'Geetanjali'. Very creatively done. As expected, this movie is a far cry from the regular formula movies churned out. One of the well written movies TFI churned out in recent past. Would the box-office fate reflect that? I am not sure!

Well, well made movies need not always strike gold at the box office. But the problem with 'Prayanam' goes beyond that. It is in the core idea itself. Falling in love and fructifying it in 2 hours. While, no doubt, Yeleti chose this idea as its catchy and could instantly hit well with the youth, this could be the challenge he maybe ill-prepared for. Switching genres not just requires a change in content but embracing the tone and mood of the new genre. Yeleti chose a love story, bought with him the regular comic dialogues which is definitely a plus but overlooked the emotional part. Yeleti writes well, intelligently and that helps him a lot in moulding thrillers. So here he is in time-bound story set in an airport. The boy meets the girl, falls in love, wants to propose her. His accompanying friend (who could as well be Yeleti and his psychology book could as well be the Screenplay!) advises on the steps he need to take in 2 hours to floor the girl. So, Yeleti, like a magician, pulls up one scene after another, some doused with oodles of comedy like in the 'ugra naram' narration :). What he fails to create is the magic that brings in the emotional 'high' that is required in a love story. His one-sided view did not even allow him  to write well for the leading lady. In short, there is no romance in this romantic comedy. There is no 'revelation' to make the audience sit up and register it. So 'Prayanam' becomes more of a comedy than a romantic comedy. Not that we are complaining though. This is clean movie, watchable, enjoyable. All that i am rearing to see is yet an another Yeleti's big moment like the one he had with 'Aithe'. Except for his debut movie, he did not achieve the commericial success he deserves. Like in his earlier two movies, he does all the hard work in writing and lets it go when what is needed is the 'big impact' in the movie, an impact, an emotional high, that the viewer should carry with him back home. Otherwise, what we get to see is some intelligent narration, which for technical reasons, a limited few would appreciate. For Yeleti to connect with the larger audiences, he should allow them to connect with his movies. All Yeleti needs to deliver is that 'high', a 'revelation' in his movies, the 'knock-out punch', like the one Raman, the protagonist's friend, advises the protagonist in this movie to do. Hope he lands the blow the next time around. Right now, this is good enough for us.

Jayaprakash Narayan: Truly New Politics!

"The silence of good men is more dangerous than the brutality of bad men"       -    Martin Luther King

The above quote flashes quite tellingly on Lok Satta's website. Jaiprakash Narayan (JP) decided he was silent enough till 1996 when he resigned from the I.A.S. He found his calling in an NGO Loksatta which campaigned for reforms in governance. Loksatta, now a political party, found its bearings today when JP won with a decent margin from Kukatpally trouncing rivals with money and muscle power. This is an inspiring victory in an otherwise lacklustre election where all parties competed in offering freebies to the voters.

There were quite a few, some said to be active sponsers, who criticised JP when he relaunched LokSatta as a political party. They must have thought about avoiding the dirt in politics by remaining away and just talking about reforms in governance. But JP did the more challenging thing of entering the fray and proving today that with honesty and persistence, a diligent candidate can turn the intelligent voter in his favour, without any muscle and money power. Kudos to him. I strongly believe this is only the beginning and people of his ilk will rise and challenge the rules of the game presently underway in our politics. He clearly showed us the way. And its high time media and our aam janta lend our ear now and then to some issue based discussions of organizations like LokSatta rather than despondently hand our fate to indifferent politicians. If we believe we can do this, we will do this. Its proven today in Kukatpally.

As JP said, the citizens are ready for change and open to accept honest policymaking, but are there leaders ready to bring in the change. Just for once, lets stop blaming the voters for electing bad leadership. They simply had no option.