The Dreamers (2003)

I saw Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Dreamers” last night. Actually saw the first half the day before and the remaining last night. Its funny having to split Bertolucci movies across days. Anyway, its a truly engaging experience which leads to a very interestingly told story. This is an abstract film and deriving its essence at different levels is possible, though I admit so far I am nearer to the upper layers.

The Dreamers tells the story of a young american guy named Matthew (Michael Pitt). Matthew is in Paris to learn French and experience Cinema. He spends a lot of time in the Cinemathetique, where he meets the twins – Theo (Louise Garrel) and Isabelle (Eva Green). Matthew is drawn towards the twins as soon as he meets them, and is delighted to accept their offer to move into the twin’s apartment. Slowly he gets drawn into their world which is equal parts beautiful and equal parts disgusting.

Matthew vallicates between admiration and repulsion in the apartment, where the three play cinema related games and quizzes all the time. The failure to win at the games result in awkward and often repulsive treatments. They also have endless debates comparing Keaton to Chaplin and Cliff Richards to Beatles. In the background is the students agitations in Paris against Government interference in Arts and Cinema. Initially all three seem to be involved in it, but slowly they just dissolve away from reality into their own dream-like world.

Matthew is attracted to Isa, and her innocence. But slowly he realizes that he has ‘almost’ similar feelings for Theo. At times it looks that the story will take a ‘triangle’ turn with Isa torn between her love for Matthew and her affection towards Theo. But slowly it dawns on Matthew and the us that Theo and Isa are actually a single entity. They do have separate bodies but somewhere inside they share the same soul. Matthew is repulsed from the ‘immoral closeness’ between the twins and tries to get them to date others. But the bond that the two share is too strong to weaken. Matthew realizes that what he earlier mistakes for an incestuous relationship is actually beyond the realms of understanding. They have an almost psychic connection.

The beauty of the movie is that we slowly delve into the lives of Theo and Isa like Matthew and, just like him go on discovering bit by bit the bonding that the twins share. We share his sense of repulsion early on watching their unusual physical closeness. And like him, we slowly realize the depths of the bond beyond physical love. Bertolucci does this beautifully and never lets a dull moment creep into the narrative.

Watch this to explore beautiful and captivating cinema beyond the boundaries of propriety and norms. Not only the narrative, but the story as well accomplishes just that.

Amelie

Expectations kills many a movie. Thats what happened with my experience with Amelie. With all the critical backing that this film has received over the year, I felt let down from the it. It looked more a case of confused storytelling than anything else.

Amelie is the story about a little girl raised by neurotic parents in a weird and lonely household. She grows to be a lonely and introverted child not connecting socially. In her twenties she has no boyfriend or even friends. The movies tells us that she gets her thrill/ happiness from little things like skipping pebbles in a lake. she works in a cafe as a waitress.

Her life takes a turn, when she discovers a long lost metal box hoarding a child’s treasures. She decides she would find its owner and return his childhood treasure to him. After some difficulty she DOES find the old man, who is somewhat as lonely as her and anonymously returns the box. The man is thrilled and touched, and he connects not only with his long lost childhood but also his grandchild.

Amelie feels she has unraveled her calling in life. She finds her own happiness in spreading happiness in people around her. And so it goes on.. Somewhere in between when she is doing her thing she meets Nino, a porn store clerk who has a hobby to collect and collage discarded snapshots of people at the automatic photographic booths. There in starts an almost ‘cat and mouse’ game where Amelie and Nino express their feelings in a puzzle kind of way.

I guess viewed without the weight of all the expectations of watching a hugely-loved AMELIE, this is a nice small feature. It has some amazing cinematography and stylish narration. It sometimes goes into tiny details about secondary characters that are amusing. The narration is swift and smooth, we are never tied to a situation. Plus the number of secondary characters made by her Cafe staff and regulars, the neighborhood folks is large, and Amelie also tries her bit to help these people. Sometimes these miny sub-plots turn comical, reminding us of Tom and Jerry.

I have to summarize that Amelie isn’t the movie I want to watch again. Inspite of its lighthearted narrative and some amusing subplots, this one doesn’t work for me.

Last tango in Paris

This is a very controversial movie from Bernardo Bertolucci, starring Marlon Brando. I saw it in two parts spread over a week, and its hard to make up my mind, how I feel about it.

“Last tango in Paris” released in 1972 with a mixed response. The critics were split over whether it was a porn-exhibition or Bertolucci’s masterpiece. Also, some critics claim that this is Brando at his best. Seriously I dont have the answer to either of the questions. The characters speak mostly in French  with some English thrown in occasionally.

Brando plays a middle-aged American in Paris, who gets into an affair with a very young parisian girl. The weird thing about their liasion is that they dont exchange names, their backgrounds, and practically anything about each other. Its based solely on sexual gratification. They meet in his rented apartment which bears a deserted look and indulge in stuff that ranges from machismo to plain cruelty. On the side, the girl has a filmaker ‘fiancee’ who keeps shooting her for his documentary.

That about the portion I saw on my first partial viewing. I found it quite uninteresting and did not derive much meaning from it. However, when I completed the movie last night, I admit it does have its own uniqueness, and a layer beneath the obvious going ons.

The backstory of Brando is slowly revealed, which is about his wife, who has recently commited suicide. Also she was having an affair with someone in the hotel they owned. Brando is shattered with her death, realizing how little he really understood her inspite of their marriage of some years. His faith has been shattered. Its his pain that we see when he indulges in his repungent acts with Jeanne, the young girl. His constant enforcement to ensure no personal details are exchanged is to ensure he is not attached or ‘gets to know’ this girl.

More interestingly, Jeanne is attrated to this man, who forces her in submission in various ways. Inspite all the pain and his lack of affection, she keeps coming back to his apartment. Hers is the more interesting character.

The underlying theme is pain and means how people react to it. Both the central characters react differently to their pain. He looks for an outlet to relieve himself of it. She seems to be attracted towards it… towards the insanity, the almost fantasy she finds in the apartment.

I remember the debate surrounding MEMENTO, and how some critics panned it saying without its reverse narrative, the story doesnt have enough meat to told. Now, I think this holds true for a large number of movies, with “The Last tango in Paris” being a good example as well. Its only because of the fractured narrative, where in we start with Brando already in mourning and embarking on this strange affair with Jeanne, and slowly his back-story being revealed to give us a snapshot of his state of mind, that this movie holds our interest. On a different plane, the narrative IS the movie. And choosing a different approach to tell the ’story’ is what makes the movie.

Anyway, this one is strictly for those who dont flinch on seeing carnal activities on display.

Four Rooms

Four Rooms, I finally got to see the missing Tarantino. Hard-to-find, I was pleased to watch it, though at the end of it, I would have been happier to not have obtained it, atleast Tarantino’s record for me would have remained cent percent.

Four Rooms was the Tarantino followup of Pulp Fiction. Expectedly, he gets a lot of big names to feature in the small roles. But their presence can not really salvage this car-wreck. Also, here he shares the honours with 3 other directors, who each directed a segment of this 4-episode anthology, set in hotel on the New Years eve. The common thread is the lone bellhop on duty, Ted (Tim Roth). Ted on his first day of duty in the hotel has the arduous task to serve as the lone bellhop, since all the staffers are off for vacation. He has some strange encounters that night and meets up with some weird house guests.

The First Segment: The Missing Ingredient
Madonna along with 4 other women rent the Honeymoon suite, to perform some voodoo rituals to reverse a spell on their goddess. Ted, the bellhop is called up to the room for a missing ingredient. I guess you get the drift of the weird nature of the plot. I dont understand what is the arc this story takes. It is a simple goofy story with no excitement. Really a letdown.

The Second Segment: The Wrong Man
Ted walks into the wrong room, while trying to service a guest request. He finds a guy with a gun standing over his wife, who is gagged and tied to a chair. Ted it seems is being mistaken for this woman’s lover. Lot of  hocus pocus here, and the story doesnt go anywhere. Still a little better than the first segment, has some excitement atleast.

The Third Segment: The Misbehavors
This is actually the best segment, the only one that has some entertainment value. This is written and directed by Robert Rodriguez. It stars Antonio Banderas, who plays a spanish mafia type guy who leaves his children in the custody of Ted. How the children screw up the room and their interactions with Ted is what the segment is about. Quite funny and entertaing.

The Fourth segment: The man from Hollywood
Quentin Tarantino wrote and directed this segment himself. And boy how bad it is. Its hard to imagine how bad this one is. No plot what so ever. Its about a weird bet that a movie director (Tarantino himself) waggers with a friend, that involves slicing off a pinky, for which they require Ted’s assistance. Bruce Willis plays a sidey role in it too. I fail to understand why Tarantino wanted to play the part himself. He is horrible in the role. He blabbers non-stop and screws it up. Its just not his strength to speak the awesome lines he can write. And moreover, the lines here are not soo good as well. Bruce Willis, in an uncredited appearance doesnt get to do much apart from yell on the phone for a few minutes.

The common thread through it all is Ted. Tim plays him as a goofy and bubling character, and he does it horribly. The overdone accent looks fake. The overly tacky facial expressions are soo over the top and artificial, they get unwatchable.

I fail to understand what motivated Tarantino to assemble so many actors and directors to create this mess. There is no entertainment on display or excitement to be derived. Trash Tarantino Style..

Life in a.. Metro

I have to admit I saw this the day after I saw Cheeni Kum, which I have elaborate upon with immense delight in my previous post. Now Cheeni Kum did raise the bar real high, so it was harder work for Metro to impress me than had I not seen Cheeni Kum, the day earlier.

Metro is not a very new movie, and hence has had a fair share of stuff written about it on the internet, some of which had been exposed to me. From what I read, I believed it was pretty much the first multi-narrative feature not to fall on its face. I guess thats how I would summarize it really.

The first 3 minute sequence tries to show most of the various lead characters (9 if you count!!) criss-crossing through the frame, giving us a fair idea what Metro is about.. threads intertwined in a mess, all trying to push hard in their directions, often snapping a few of them. Well, come to think of it, thats even a better summary of it.

Anyway, Metro starts off in a very tongue-in-cheek manner. The first 20-30 odd minutes introduces us to all the lead characters and their stories. To start with, things are shown with an element of flippancy. The commonality is how everyone seems to be in a mad-rush to get ahead. All of these are in some or the other rat-race, except one (Shiny Ahuja’s character, ironically who remains the only one who kind of joins the rat-race at the end of the film).

And, how crooked, people have gotten to escape from the stresses of their daily lives. Everyone is seeking no-strings attached gratification. It all plays tongue-in-cheek off course. It almost seems like a Madhur Bhandkarkar film, trying to shock us all the while, with that sense of overplay written all over it.

Slowly, you get to know all the stories about the leads. The KayKay-Shilpa track talks about complacency in a married relationship, where both parties start looking for love/ gratification outside of home. KayKay is having an affair with a demure looking Kangana, while Shilpa is getting infatuated with Shiney Ahuja. Sharman track is about ambitions, and how he makes compromises for it. While in love with Kangana, he still can’t help his boss, KayKay have an affair with her, that too in his own apartment. (this sub-plot is a borrow from The Apartment) Irrfan-Konkana track is about finding the right life-partner. And then there is the bonus track featuring Dharmendra- Nafisa Ali, playing an old couple who used to be childhood sweethearts, who are reuniting after 3 decades.

For about an hour the stories keep flipping from one-to-another, with little effect. All the characters seem distant and un-relatable. We now know their backgrounds and their aspirations. But since the movie keeps them at an arms distance, we don’t feel for any of them.

But, somewhere after that, the transitions stop jarring that much. Things start falling into place. The bruising these people carry start becoming more apparent, and to an extent why as well. Interestingly, none of the tracks (out of the 4) is a lemon, and all of them start complementing each other.

Perhaps the first track that starts connecting is the Shilpa-Shiney one. There is this sense of restrain in it, which after a lot of jarring sequences early on in the film, feels like a fresh breath. You can make out the restlessness in both of these characters. Shiney is restless for having finally found ’success’ somewhere in his life. Shilpa feels a teenage type longing, while scared of the implications of the affair. She isnt sure what she wants to do. Then the Sharman character starts opening up. He starts looking less of the bastard he seems early on. A more humane stream is evident in him. Similarly, Irrfan, who initially looks and seems like a jerk (to us and to Konkana as well) comes across as a normal fun-loving guy. The Dharmendra-Nafisa track becomes the reference point to some of the characters to what can happen if you dont go with your heart.

The acting is mostly good. Shilpa turns out an impressive and restrained performance. A lot many actresses might have used the character to scream shrill and go over the top, she doesnt. Shiney has a minor part. Ironically, his character really takes a reverse arc to a lot of other characters. He ends up poorer in the end, and more or less decides to join in the mindless melee. KayKay is soo natural doing the rogue act. He is turning out to be among the best actors in the industry. Every role he takes, you tend to forget him and watch the character. Thats his biggest strength. Sharman actually renders an impressive performance here, quite a departure from his previous frivolous roles. He doesnt play for the laughs, though there are some sequences that are quite amusing, about his apartment scheduling. Kangana has a minor role, though as always she looks dazzling. Contrary to popular opinion, Irrfan has only a minor part. He plays to the gallery and does it well, but then this role doesnt demand as much from him as his other roles. The same for Konkana.

A lot of people complaint about the music band being featured in all the music videos. I though that was a nice concept. The music is awesome and its feels better to ’see’ the band performing it, than it playing it ’somehow’ in the background. It attempts to join these different threads together, focusing on the similar emotion the different characters are feeling at the same time.

The main theme of the movie, I think was how maddening things appear in the hectic setting of a metro. How weird, unconcerned and selfish people seem. But if you look close and long enough you realize they are as human as anyone else, anywhere. Ultimately, the human emotion remains the same.

Cheeni Kum

This Saturday, on a rainy afternoon, I rented a DVD of Cheeni Kum, a movie that received glowing reviews. With large expectations I settled down to watch it to realize the DVD print not being the best, not a great talisman of things to come. Thankfully the audio wasnt as bad as it could have been. But, 2 hours 20 minutes later I was more than pleased with the experience and for a change, my large expectations (from the reviews) were quite well exceeded.

At a meta-level, Cheeni Kum can be viewed as 2 different movies stitched together. The first movie is nearly 1:30 hours in length, while the other goes on for about 45 minutes. Without a doubt, the first part of it is slendid, an amazingly written and incredibly acted love story. The second part, while doesnt really measure up to the first, is merely a routine bollywood potboiler.

Although, everyone knows and believes that Cheeni Kum is a love story between a 60 year old man and a 30 year old woman. While, that is certainly true, Cheeni Kum (definitely the first part) can be viewed as just a ‘love-story’. To repeat, you hardly need to add the age-factor as much to the proceedings.

Cheeni Kum tells the story of a london based chef, Buddha (Amitabh Bachchan) who runs, by his own admission, the finest indian restaurant. Buddha is a lonely, arrogant, uncompromising and stuborn man who is just not open to a conversation. He knows what he is upto and know how things are to be done. In short, he is mostly an unsocial character. One fine day his ego is punctured bigtime by this girl, Neena (Tabu) who while dining at his restaurant, not only returns a dish but also turns up with her own version, only much better.

Buddha is shaken out of his slumber. How the two come together forms the crux of the first part of the movie (by first part I infer the 1:30 hours duration of the movie as mentioned earlier). The plot-outline sounds simple, actually is very straightforward. But what really sets this one different from the million other lovestories being told, is its amazing script. It isnt about how Buddha suddenly changes from the person he is, or some life-changing events unfold. Buddha retains his core. He remains the difficult character that we are introduced to earlier. Its only that these very idiosyncracies vibe somewhere in Neena. Neena is a similar strong-headed woman, who knows her mind. Both these people find a sense of comfort together and are drawn to each to other. They are, i guess, not put off by the other’s bluntness, which is the probably the reason that they are still single (Neena is also single at 34).

There are so many moments in the first part which were laugh-out-loud ones for me. And none of these were the Paresh Rawal brand of comedy that is lauded these days. All of these moments arise not out of ‘jokes’ being narrated, but because of the way these characters react to each other and things that happen around. The dialogue is mind-blowing. There are just soo many witty lines all over, its really difficult not to enjoy every single moment of this. Also, the spoken word is realistic and is the language of this day. People talk about everyday non-sense, they dont shy away talking about sex and stuff.

What really works here for me is, that this is more of a conventional love story than a age-difference attraction thing, like Nishabd. Both these characters, ever so slowly get drawn to each other, until a point they both know it, in their hearts. And then they just wait until that moment, the other will profess it first, until which time, both keep playing at it. This is done soo masterfully by the director that how you wish you could see more of such love-stories than the KJ variety one has to live with in Bollywood. Suddenly, the love-story genre opens up as something which is so watchable.

The second part (the final 45 minutes) which mostly unfolds in Delhi and deals with AB and Tabu trying to convince her dad, Paresh Rawal for this unconventional match gets quite over-the-top and irritating. I know this is something which was hard to avoid, as in, the need to show opposition from some quarters atleast, but it doesn’t play out at the same subtle level as the first part. A lot of weird things keep happening, and all these characters play out much more straighter and in a routine Bollywood fashion. Clearly, the second part lacks the bubbling fizz and the charm inhabited by the first part.

Both Amitabh and Tabu inhabit their characters in ways only they can. Now, these days I am in more of an anti-Amitabh phase, with every other flick ‘starring‘ AB. But this one is a genuine movie where AB doesn’t ’star’ in to add value to it or to oblige a friend. The role suits his to the T, and he makes an incredible outing as the loud-mouthed, smooth-talking Buddha, who is going through the throes of a new attraction. Tabu plays a slightly reticient yet equally stubborn Neena.

In supporting roles, Zohra Sehgal playing AB’s mother is quite amazing. Paresh Rawal has ‘thankfully’ a short role as Neena’s father, who is quite obviously shocked to hear about her daughter’s plans. The script has Paresh doing a lot of hocus-pocus which gets quite irritating frankly. Also, personally, I thought the little girl playing 6 year old cancer struck Sexy, who has this special bond with Buddha, a little irritating initally. Later on, though, I think, I could understand the reason for her character to be the way it was.

At another level, Cheeni Kum is about how in life a person will connect with someone not due to a reason or a design, but only out of destiny. Buddha bonds with only two people in this story, one of them is Neena, clearly a misfit for a typical romantic liasion, and the second is his ‘best friend’ Sexy, again clearly a misfit for a typical friendship. As per the more tradional wisdom, neither relationships can be understood. But they do exist, because they just do. It think this was a very beautiful context within the film.

Another underlying theme in the movie has to deal with how short-lived relationships and friendships can be. The Buddha-Sexy friendship ends abrupty with her death. While Buddha-Neena relationship also doesnt have hopes for a long lasting tenure, with Buddha’s age a factor. But even with the short-termness of these relationships, hapiness can be drawn and maybe even preserved.

Dekalog 3

Yeah.. yeah!!, I am starting with Dekalog 3 or Dekalog, Trzy in polish, the language of the film. I have seen Part 1 and 2 as well, but that was more than weeks ago. And 3 is the freshest in my memory right now. I might review (I surely will watch them again) them to write about them some other time.

Dekalog is a 10 part 1-hour series of short films made by Krysztof Kieslowski for Polish TV in late 80s. Today, most critics consider it among the 5 best cinematic works ever done. My first exposure with Kieslowski was Three Colors Trilogy. I got hooked. And there in came Dekalog or Decalogue as you would call it in English. Dekalog corresponds to Kieslowski’s take on the 10 commandments. It might sound religious and theological, but that would be vastly misleading. The films are not a direct and a faithful implementation of these commandments. They simply take-off from these commandment and Kieslowski provides his own spin to them.

‘Dekalog 3′ corresponds to the commandment that says “Honor the Sabbath Day”. The plot is about a married man lying to his family to help an ex-lover in need, on the Chrismas eve. Now the beauty of Kieslowski films is their subtelty. They dont scream their motto.. They dont say every damn word that the character intends to communicate.. and not every single frame is meant to drastically take the story forward. There is a lot of symbolism and irony in his work.

If I were to be more forthcoming I could really narrate the entire plot/ story in a single line. The plot itself is not the strength.. the way it uncovers slowly, thereby telling us more about the people than the story itself. That truly is Kieslowski’s strength. His characters are real people. Not only normal looking people but people who talk and act like you and me. They make mistakes, talk nonsense, and act wierd as well at times.

The theme of the film is loneliness and pining for lost love. Ewa, the ex-lover disturbs the christmas eve festivities at Janusz house to ask for help looking for his missing husband. Janusz is under no obligation to accompany her on a cold winter night away from family. But he does, that too lying to his family about tracking his stolen car. There is a constant undercurrent of bitterness and a sense of having been betrayed within Ewa. At times it comes out strongly almost willing to destroy Janusz and her too. This sense of longing for Janusz seems soo strong at times that we question her undetered commitment to finding her missing husband. Similarly Janusz keeps up with her trying to locate the missing man, even though we see him doubting if he really is missing. He doesnt just walk away. Infact he feels drawn towards her.. trying to explain his situation when things went wrong in the past. As the story unfolds, it isnt sure whether he will desert his family for Ewa at the end of this night. There is also this sequence where Janusz also begets Ewa’s self-destructive streak. Clearly he isnt there just to help out a ‘friend’ in need. There is soo much conflict in both of these characters that every single frame smolders. Beneath the spoken word, there is a layer or two of unspoken expression, that draws you. You arent really sure of what is happening within them. That for me was truly captivating.

Infact, taking a departure from Kieslowski’s subtelty, there are a few sequences that seem to indulge in an over-the-topness. But if you revisit these sequences, you realize it isnt really about the action taking place outside, but inside these characters, which is still subtle and needs empathy to really unravel.

I dont claim to being a great cinema critic or even someone who follows all the symbolism that the great masters capture. But I feel that Dekalog-3 is one instance where I did catch on to the drift that Kieslowski drew. Maybe it really is empathy.

Shootout at Lokhandwala

Shootout at Lokhandwala came recommended, as a part of the new-age Bollywood wave. Hard-hitting and gritty depicting of a 1991 ‘encounter’ between Bombay ATS (Anti Terrorist Squad) and a bunch of mobsters. I quite disagree on its new-wave status.

SAL is a Sanjay Gupta film. SAL is also a Ekta Kapoor film (duly stamped with a Tushar Kapoor presence). As it turns out its just a hashed up soup of plenty of ingredients from both their books. I quite well accept Sanjay Gupta films, in general. Zinda was awesome, Kaante rocked. He positions himself as the Indian equivalent of Quentin Tarantino, the man. Its quite another story that he is not as prolific in constructing stories (but ripping them off, very well actually !!). Nevertheless, an adulterated Sanjay Gupta film (if there is such a term), I will watch.

I am not really a fan of Ekta Kapoor genre of movies, whichever way you were to define it. My limited exposure to it has vacillated between uncontrolled laughter (not for comedic content, mind you!!) and an uncontrolled headache. Krishna Cottage was an exercise how to scare the shit out of the audience, by its jarring sound effects and pathetic plot twists.

SAL falls somewhere in between the two genres (again the word genre loosely used here). It aspires to be a hard-hitting, no-nonsense no-kitsch fare but it meanders exactly those by-lanes. There are the familiar item-numbers, glamorized swagger for the mobsters (notice how Vivek Oberoi’s Maya Dolas is forever swinging to an unheard hip-hop tune), the forced under-the-belly humor bits, the token ‘big movie star’ cameo.

But the problem with it is not just this superficiallity. SAL is supposed to be about the shootout. It only spends about the final 20 minutes on the event. The rest is supposed to be the buildup for it. Nothing wrong in it, but the screenplay doesnt quite manage a decent build-up. We start off things with a caricaturish Amitabh Bachchan as lawyer grilling ATS members on their gun-happy past. Sanjay Dutt playing ATS chief along with Arbaaz Khan and Suniel Shetty (members of ATS) defend their actions.

The story subsequently unfolds in flashbacks (Bollywood’s favorite formula) uncovering sub-plots. The track between Sanjay Dutt and his harried house-wife, badly played by Neha Dhupia is trash. There really was no need to have this subplot but to attempt to give Dutt a more well rounded character, which really fails.

The meatiest part goes to Vivek Oberoi, who plays Maya, the upcoming mobster of Bombay. Vivek is a decent actor, although I have no particular liking of him. He plays Maya as a megalomaniac with the swagger that goes with it. Cool glasses, black body hugging attire reduce him just to an over-the-top caricature. This is not entirely his undoing, the director is equally to be blamed.

Tushar Kapoor plays his sidekick, Buar. Gosh, this is miscasting at its best. Supposed to be the best sharpshooter in business, instead of a streak of ruthlessness, he portrays a moron. Rolling out expletives, he evokes un-intended  amusement. Then there is the item-girl Arti Chabria, who adds nothing to the story. The other sidekicks though not as much comical as Tushar, still don’t inspire an awe of danger and menace.

Sanjay Dutt attempts to bring in a flavor of realism with his character, but it doesn’t really add up to salvage the production. Still I feel he is pretty much the best thing here. Although at the very end, he does take on a more heroic act fighting hand-on-hand with the antagonists. Infact the last 15 minutes are really what ensure there remains no doubt that this is a mainstream masala sambhar. Token shots of the other residents of the building caught in the cross-fire still dont attack the biggest issues of the event. Dia Mirza as a daring journalist is supposed to add to the realism, though its hard to see through her barbie doll looks.

Apoorv Lakhia, the director has earlier made a couple of movies – Mumbai Se Aaya Mera Dost (which I havnt seen) and Ek Ajnabee, which was similarly hyped as a hard-hitting drama, but was really a similar carwreck. I have serious doubts his next production will sell with the same label(new-age realism) again.

I wouldn’t recommend watching this movie, unless gangster dramas is what you digg at any cost. Mindless Popcorn charade at its best.

Obaba

Last evening, with nothing better to do, I was fiddling away with my remote to find a foreign language movie playing on Zee Studio, Obaba. Well, what really attracted me to the movie was the warm hues of the movie. It had this amazingly warm color tone highlighting some breathtaking European countryside. After a few minutes I rightly guessed the language of the movie – Spanish.

Obaba is a very patchy movie. In parts its really gripping, keeping your eye-balls glued to every single frame. And in parts, so underplayed that its hard to keep your concentration on it. This happens since the movie is in a chapter format.

Obaba tracks the lives of the inhabitants of a fictional area in Spain called Obaba. We uncover the lives of 3 (or was it 4) men from the boyhood/ schooltime days to present day, as a young and quite pretty aspiring filmaker makes a journey to Obaba and interviews folks. In between the flashbacks is a very shabbily done love track between the young girl and a guy living in Obaba.

The best parts of the movie are those involving a young schoolteacher, played by Pilar López de Ayala who is the common thread to all the stories. All these guys were students in her class. There is one episode that is primarily the schoolteachers story, which in my opinion is the best. Another one that surrounds a pen-pal friendship is also quite interesting. The chapters about some seriously horrible lizards and a psychologically ill man are quite misfits here. Rest of the movie plays out in a smooth soft flow, letting us enjoy beautiful spanish countryside. While these episodes are jittery and really disturb the tone of the movie.

The direction is mostly lucid and smooth, apart from the two tracks as mentioned earlier. The camerawork is astounding.

I realized very little material exists on the internet on the movie, which is quite strange considering it was nominated for the Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards in 2005.

Do watch this to feast your eyes on smashing Spanish visuals and two beautiful women.

Groundhog Day

Tuesday night, while surfing through the channels I hit across Sony Pix playing Groundhog Day. BTW, Sony Pix and Zee Studio are the places these days to catch real cinema. Anyway, I had been looking forward to watching Groundhog Day, having read its reviews and rave-outs from lotsa folks.

I was well aware of its time loop based plot, and infact I started on the movie with the first 20 or so minutes already gone. Anyway, I had no trouble latching onto the plot and the story. Its a nicely done feature using the time loop device. Bill Murray plays a jerk of a weatherman who is forced to cover a ‘crap’ ceremony called Groundhog Day on a cold winter day in a small town. Once the tragic day passes away and he wakes up the ‘next’ day, he realizes its Groundhog Day all over again. And so it goes on and on..

The plot seems innovative and it is. But the beauty of the movie is not just its plot, it really about this guy who is forced to overcome ‘himself’ caught in this loop. I could actually argue that even without this time loop concept the story still is forceful and thought-provoking. After all how many of us do run through days that dont seem much different from the ones that just passed.

What elevates this ’simple’ story is the screenplay and editing. Even with the story all about repetition, there is hardly any of it for the viewer. The editing ensure we dont see the reruns of the same mundane stuff all over again. Its (editing) is soo crisp that you only really see what Phil (Bill Murray’s character) tries to do differently this iteration to contrast how his own character is changing.

The screenplay is very well paced and constructed. From being frustrated to trying to use the situation (the most comical parts) to depressive to finally realizing what he ‘can’ really do within the situation, its leads the viewers mood with great skill.

Acting is terrific. Bill Murray is amazing as the Phil. He brings along his own eccentricity to the role, which is soo damn essential to the movie. Andie MacDowell plays the channel producer accompanying Phil, whom he tries to woo sooo damn hard and soo unsucessfully. She has more of a supporting role really, but does pretty well.

I guess I will want to view this one again, right from the starting shot this time. But if you are looking for a thought-provoking yet light movie, this is a good choice.

Adieu