Movie Review- Welcome To Sajjanpur

Powered by: Chakpak.com	Welcome To Sajjanpur

I have never been a fan of the so called art/parallel/serious/meaningful cinema and by corollary its promoters. Hence I gave a miss to most of the movies favoured by the jholawallahs & the bidi smoking intellectuals. A few that I did see only reinforced my belief that these film makers were the Johnny come lately residuals from the smoky decadent sixties and wannabe rebels full of pretences bent upon glorifying the poverty and slums of India. Wily nilly I had always included Benegal in the same category because I could appreciate only two of his movies namely Ankur & Junoon. The rest of his repertoire didn’t really appeal to me. Too slow and too boring. But with ‘Welcome to Sajjanpur’ he has forced me to revise my opinion.
The first brownie point is won for the original and unusual story related mostly in spoken Bhojpuri. Set in the rural Hindi heartland it revolves around a young village lad who puts his education to practical use in the art of letter writing. It provides him his daily bread and also enables him to keep his hand on the pulse of the lives, politics and love affairs of the village. Like any engaging story this is also a combination of various sub plots in which each character has been carved with affection. There is this political family which wishes to rule by the gun. Yashpal Sharma is in his element as the resident don. I specially loved the expletives that he used. Baggarlandu, Jhapperkanju, Landeroo are just some of the many endearments he uses to decorate his language. Then we have Munni the eunuch who decides to challenge the hegemony of the don but through democratic means.The village compounder, played by the Big B of Bhojpuri films Ravi Kishan, is besotted by the child widow daughter in law of the local fauji. The widow is not portrayed as long suffering and in fact responds to the amorous advances of her suitor. Add to this the undercurrents of attraction between our letter writer hero and his married childhood classmate and we have the makings of a minor revolution in the rural India. Ila Arun is the hyper superstitious mother of an unmarried daughter bent upon marrying her to a dog to ward off the evil eye. If I was heading the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, this year’s Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in a Female Role would go to her. Shreyas Talpade as the letter writer is endearing and a joy to watch. I only hope that his sweet acts don’t limit him to Amol Palekar type of roles.
The movie is a telling commentary on the country’s divisive politics and how a change is desirable. It’s presented through songs taking a dig at religion based politics and how both the mandir and the majsid groups have utterly failed to address the problem of the common man. So the question is asked if a eunuch should now take charge. This is not supposed to be the Third Front but maybe a radically different choice. At the same time the brutal truth of social rigidity and intolerance, the exploitation of village migrants, the rampant superstition is also brought home. You can’t win them all. So while there are some success stories there will remain some evils which will take time to go away. Benegal has taken a practical viewpoint although his winding up of the story could have been a little less weird. It sort of grinds to a halt but that doesn’t take anything away from an otherwise outstanding movie.

Movie Review- A Wednesday

Powered by: Chakpak.com	A Wednesday !

I had thought of writing about this movie on the weekend and suddenly the bomb blasts of Delhi gave it a whole new significance. Why do we react strongly only when something happens at our doorsteps? And how do we define the proximity of disaster? Is the threshold of danger the border of my country or my city or my locality? The blasts of Bangalore and Ahemdabad were disconcerting but Delhi had us all in a spin. Why? My daughter is studying there and I have a number of friends and relatives there. My apathy was suddenly challenged. So am I a good & an aware citizen? What’s my contribution in stemming the rot that has set in the system? Who created the system anyway? The movie explores these stark facets of our daily lives.
Bollywood is finally waking up to the fact that realistic cinema can be both thought provoking and gripping. We can thank the noveau Multiplex culture for making this ideal commercially possible. The producers even had the guts of not permitting any songs in the movie! And the wonder of all is that the movie gets over and you realize you never missed the songs at all. Brilliant stuff!
The story is contemporary. Mumbai faces a threat of serial bombing if certain terrorists are not released. Anupam Kher & Naseeruddin Shah play the cop & the tormentor. Shah places the bombs at strategic locations and then starts communicating with the police using guile & state of art technology. The police react with alacrity & the game of cat and mouse begins culminating in a surprising climax. The forte of the movie is the slick editing which results in the unfolding of the events which are spaced within a seven hour frame at a breathtaking pace. There are no unnecessary emotional histrionics or loud claims of patriotism or religious fervor. People on both sides of the fence go about their jobs with clinical efficiency. They do it because it needs to be done.
Both Kher & Shah are powerhouses of talent which has been unleashed to devastating effect. Kher’s portrayal of a cerebral police officer is as telling as that of Aamir Khan in “Sarfarosh”. Shah is efficiency personified and then some. His seething anger is brilliantly restrained and the beautifully long justification of his actions threw me back to the era of Sohrab Modi movies where powerful dialogues swathed across a person’s consciousness. Jimmy Shergill hardly speaks thrice in the entire movie but his expressions & actions fully justify his role of an efficient if brutal officer. The only weak link in casting is the press reporter played by Deepal Shaw. She can’t talk and she can’t walk and her dialogue delivery was like raucous staccato. Baby Doll seems only good enough for titillating videos.
The movie forces the viewer to ask a lot of questions of him and any work, movie or otherwise, which succeeds in doing that has justified its existence. However it would be tragic if our concerns get diluted with time and daily routine.

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Movie Review- Rock On

Powered by: Chakpak.com	Rock On

“Ajeeb dastan hai yeh. Kahan shuru kahan khatam. Yeh manzilan hain kaun si. Na woh samajh sake na hum.” The Lata Mangeshkar classic from Dil Apna Aur Preet Parai effectively captures the spirit and the innocence of this engrossing work. It’s the story of almost all of us who at their early twenties feel the world is just waiting for us to take it over and ten years later find ourselves where we never belonged in the first place. This is about dreams, about love & heart break, about lasting friendship and above all about music. This one is straight from my heart.
The mainstay of the movie is music and Shankar, Ehsaan & Loy have excelled once again. They have composed rock music before but Rock On’s melodies are special. All the numbers with the exception of “Zehreeley” can be listened to time and again. My car stereo has been blasting the movie’s music & my pony tail bobbing up and down for the past two days and people are beginning to give me weird looks every time I stop at a traffic light. Why can’t it be understood that no self respecting rock fan can hear the music at low volume and with a little bit of head banging? Farhan Akhtar’s talent in the craft of movie making is a proven fact but he has been a revelation as a singer and an actor, in that order. An awesome stage presence and his primal screams were reminiscent of Jim Morrison’s stage acts. The live performances have been flawlessly executed and the enthusiastic participation of the audience beautifully captured.
So far as others performances go everyone has done well but I found Luke Kenny to be a wee bit wooden which was surprising considering his long career as a VJ with MTV. Arjun Rampal has put in a restrained and an intense portrayal of a passionate guitarist torn between his longing for his passion and the daily domestic struggle to earn bread. I also loved his long hair. Sigh, mine are never going to be as long as his. Purab Kohli has walked effortlessly through his role with a smile on his lips and a twinkle in his eyes. His jiving to the song “I Will Survive” was a masterpiece. We ought to see more of him soon.
The pace of the movie is electric and does not slacken even when going through the mushy part. The story is of four friends who pick up the threads of their broken past and strive to realize their unfulfilled dream. Each one is an adept musician and seems made for each other until fate & reality steps in to destroy their dreamlike existence. But since the good guys should always win they are given a second chance by the Man up there. The progression of their quest is peppered with flashbacks of the past which torments their souls but also contains the elements of their salvation. For those who seek happiness with passion, the paths are not always lined with roses. The trick is to keep the passion alive and happiness will follow. Our dudes do just that. Like I said, this one is straight from the heart. We have all been there.