January 22, 2010

Aayirathil Oruvan: Myth & Reality – the twain don’t meet

Before I begin, I want to take a moment to get this out of my system.

The ad for Aayirathil Oruvan calls it “in the league of The Mummy Returns and Avatar”.

All right Einsteins, Avatar and The Mummy Returns were certainly not in the same league in the first place.

Nor is the cheap CG-infested Aayirathil Oruvan.

Not by the wildest stretch of imagination are these three films in the same league but that’s understandable because Aayirathil was made at a fraction of the budget of the spectacular Avatar or the B-grade no-brainer called The Mummy Returns.

The thing about Twitter is that you get only 140 characters to get to the point and most of the time, two lines aren’t enough to explain the point.

When I wrote that the first half of the film and the second half of the film are of contrasting genres – the first being a B-movie adventure (that works because of the chemistry and sexual tension between the trio) and the second half turning into a dark, Chosen One epic war film, I didn’t really mean to say that’s the problem.

From Dusk Till Dawn and Teen Deewarein are fine examples of completely changing genre halfway and pulling the rug from right below your feet. So I don’t really have a problem with a filmmaker choosing to change genre halfway. The problem is that the filmmaker here has no idea of how to do it smart.

In fact, the problem with Aayirathil is more basic – why does the filmmaker spend half a film investing on chemistry between three people when the interplay between them is not at all relevant to the outcome of the film because well, the storyteller is to lazy to continue that story now that he has found another interesting one to tell halfway?

And why does the filmmaker not understand that the fantasy genre also requires an internal logic. Yes, Superman can also do quite a few things without any explanation and we buy it. Why? Because we also know what can stop Superman – Kryptonite.

We know not just what is possible but also what’s not. The world of fantasy is defined by the scope of the possibilities and exceptions to those possibilities.

In Avatar, we know humans can bomb the hell out of Pandora but we also know they cannot breathe without masks. We know they can fly their machines anywhere into Pandora but we also know that because of the flux vortex, the radars will not work and the machines will have to fly by sight. We know the Eywa can heal but we also know she cannot bring back the dead. And so on…

In Aayirathil Oruvan, characters have magical powers to kinky things like shadow-sex and get a comet or asteroid to set dolls on fire or bring back the dead but suddenly, they also don’t have these magical powers when they need to save themselves from bullets or bombs!

What’s even more silly about this supernatural adventure is that the conflict of the film does not call for supernatural elements or magic.

A Chola king sends off his little Prince along with his people to hide at an undisclosed location when attacked by the Pandias.

Centuries later, a team sets out to a remote island on an adventure, crosses seven hurdles (traps created by the Cholas) and find the lost civilization living in starvation and history repeats itself.

Nothing wrong with the story at all.

What’s wrong is the screenplay – something that requires specialised training and it’s high time Selvaraghavan got himself equipped with the art of screenwriting or employed specialists to do the job for him because he is a gifted filmmaker capable of creating unforgettable moments.

Selva employs three characters to lead the adventure – one’s the woman on a mission, another’s an archeologist in search of her father and the third is the modern day version of a slave. Interesting dynamics between the sexes as sexual tension and chemistry keeps the narrative cruising along the seven hurdles (all shot with B-movie flourish and cheesy computer graphics)… And suddenly, after they reach their destination, the three go crazy because of high intensity sound waves that make their ears bleed…

And the three actors who until this point were sticking to realistic acting (except for an unwarranted cuss-word exchange in English by the leading ladies) switch into over-the-top hammy portrayal of the mentally ill (it’s like a Mani Ratnam film suddenly handed over to K.S. Ravikumar at this point) and the film never quite recovers from this switch in sensibility.

To add to the period setting, there’s plenty of mumbo-jumbo, medieval rituals and an absolute lack of characterisation. Apart from the king and his advisor, an old man with a serious skin disease, nobody in that civilization seems to have a personality… his subjects are all dark savages with hardly any dialogue.

Suddenly, the woman with the agenda (Reema) seems to have acquired magic powers of her own as she takes her top off and produces a tiger tattoo on her back that appears and disappears. And the slave (Karthi) who also has a tiger tattoo on his back conveniently turns out to be the Chosen One.

One moment, the Chosen One is pissed upon by an urchin and a moment of bad visuals effects and hallucinations later, he turns a warrior and rides a rock-shaped yoyo to slay the gladiator and does a dance with a king – that one sequence bonding is entrusted with the responsibility of convincing us that the Chosen One is now one among the natives.

What about the third character we invested in? Well, Andrea finds her father instantly in the second half and but for a couple of scenes, she has nothing to do with the story. The father himself (Prathap Pothen), now a loony man has nothing to contribute to the script.

The film by now has turned into a full-fledged conflict between the Cholas and the Pandias reincarnate – a modern battle between primitive savages and state of the art ammunition with the Chosen One getting to do absolutely nothing! Why was he the Chosen One then?

Just to take the young Prince and run again to bring the story to a full circle! Ha!

Individual performances are not too bad at all. Karthi is brilliant, he makes the first half of the film work with sheer presence.

Reema has never looked hotter and Parthipan though over the top manages to entertain with some charming quips in chaste Tamil (the Linga Darisanam, for example). Andrea is totally forgotten in the second half of the film and has nothing to except to conveniently open up everyone’s handcuffs in the climax. The music, especially, the score is quite interesting, a job well done by the kid who stepped into Yuvan’s shoes for a film of this scale.

What’s been pissing me off is that a few fanboys are trying to convince everyone else who do not agree with them that it’s their fault that they didn’t understand and/or had different expectations. The film’s not that difficult to understand. It’s plays out like a bad dream without logic – you understand what’s going on but also know that it’s stupid that it’s happening.

Don’t confuse issues here, fellows… Selva made a film with balls and utmost conviction. So did Ram Gopal Varma when he remade Sholay as RGV Ki Aag. Effort or daring to walk a road not taken alone does not make a movie a classic. It needs to be executed well too.

I gave a 3/10 rating to the first version of the film because the second half turned into a completely irrelevant, indulgent film altogether that had nothing to do with the first half of the film (by which time we had invested heavily on the three characters).

The smartest thing Selva has done is to understand that he did go overboard and trim the film by over 15 minutes. This contributed to a better flow and removal of a lot of the flab and made me give him with an extra 1.5 points taking it to 4.5/10 being the best this film can be.

This does not mean my rating will increase with every watch. It means I am rewarding him for understanding that he fucked up the narrative.

The film works somewhat as a collection of some fun moments in the first half that work as a B-movie adventure and some wonderful dark imagery (the breast spurting out blood for example) in the second but never as a whole which is why 4.5 is the most it will ever get.

Yet, the film can be watched once since it at least tries to tell a different story. Don’t go with any expectations whatsoever.

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Filed under Film Criticism, Film Reviews - 2009

January 6, 2010

Five Point Someone v/s 3 Idiots – A closer look

Now, that the parties have laid the issue to rest and have decided to move on with closing statements, it maybe a good time for us the readers/the audience to take compare the book and the movie and give credit where it is due. Also now that everyone has seen the movie, I hope mentioning a few plot details won’t spoil it anymore.

Chetan Bhagat’s Five Point Someone was about three underachievers who come to terms with the system after failed attempts of cheating it. The commentary on the education system, the academic pressure all remained as the subtext as Bhagat chose to focus on the personal lives of three best friends. It was a coming-of-age story where the guys learned a few things about life.

Rajkumar Hirani’s 3 Idiots is about three friends in the top-most engineering college in the country too but Hirani likes to preach and hence turns the smartass among the three into a full-blown wise man… a saint. Baba Ranchoddas.

Given the inherent need of a Bollywood film to have a hero who does the right thing, Ryan’s character from the book became this righteous philosopher who seemed more keen to teach the teachers than learn himself.

I find it hard to believe that a guy like Aamir Khan who spends hours researching his look for every film and goes to insane levels chasing perfection hadn’t read Five Point Someone before he agreed to do the film, much before the script was ready.

Let’s for a minute look at the raw material from the point of view of an actor.

There are three guys in the book – One’s a fat dude called Fatso, the narrator who seems like a wimp except for the fact that he gets the girl. One’s the poverty-stricken geek who is blindly conforming to the system and the third guy is this total dude who teaches his seniors a lesson right in Scene One when they try to rag him. 

So you are this A-list star and are asked to pick one of the three characters. Which one would you pick?

What would be your only request to the makers especially if it makes no difference to the plot if the girl falls in love with the stud?

I do not want to assume that Aamir insisted on the change but whether it was Aamir’s decision or Hirani’s, it is obvious that the changes were made keeping in mind the image of the Bollywood hero – the guy who can do no wrong and in the process of teaching the villain a lesson, also gets the girl.

The hero’s journey in a film is complete only when he wins and hence, the need to show what happens to the guy who didn’t follow the system ten years later.

Take a look at how events in the book translated to film. Alok=Raju, Ryan=Rancho, Hari=Farhan, Prof.Cherian=Virus, Neha=Pia, Venkat=Chatur. 

Prologue:

One of the three guys is being rushed to the hospital and one of them decides he has to tell the story behind it.

The film opts for a different flashback point which is also one of the most significant differences to adaptation. What are these characters doing ten years since they first met – an interesting thought. The film hence begins with some larger than life moments of a passenger faking a heart attack and makes his friend leave his house without his pants on after an old college mate reminds them of the day of the bet – the day they will find out who’s more successful. And since the film’s a commentary on the education system, what better day than Teacher’s Day.

Chapter 1: Bare Beginnings

Ragging episode & What’s a Machine

While Bhagat’s more dramatic in the Ragging episode, Hirani dumbs down the Machine episode by making the professor sound unreasonably stupid by insisting on jargon. In the book, the Professor suggests a machine is anything that reduces human effort and smartass Ryan asks: Then, what about a benchpress?

Chapter 2: Terminator

Alok’s desire to conform to system v/s Ryan’s beating the system

In the book, the boys jump hostel to catch a movie and we realise the differences in their outlooks. Alok wants to conform to the system, Ryan wants to beat it and Hari, the narrator is in between while in the movie, Rancho demonstrates right at the beginning that he likes to bathe in public and learn things himself by opening up parts of machines.

 In the film, this translates to Rancho spelling out his mantra – Aal Iz Well or telling yourself that everything is okay when the pressure mounts up.

Chapter 3: Barefoot on Metal

Mugging Notes & Meeting with the Professor’s daughter

While Bhagat sets the mood in the campus by talking about how the boys mug notes and sets up the hero’s first meeting with the Professor’s daughter, Hirani takes Venkat from the book and give him a meatier role in the film as Chatur to epitomise the malady of mugging notes and memorizing them without quite understanding the meaning.

Chapter 4: Line Drawing

Alok’s typically poor filmi family, Boys night out and Neha’s revelation of her brother’s death due a railway accident.

All these elements from the book have been made an integral part of the screenplay as Hirani makes these guys gatecrash a wedding and bump into the girl for the first time. Though we learn only in the fourth chapter of the book that the Dean’s son had a railway accident, we learn about this quite early on in the film when Virus speaks about how his own son couldn’t get in for three years in a row.

Chapter 5: Make Notes, Not War

First set of exams – pressure. And the author’s budding romance with Neha

In the book, Bhagat speaks about the tension, the pressure in the eve of exams. Hirani uses a song to bring out this angst and unleashes a dramatic twist of a student suicide.

Chapter 6: Five point something

First set of results out – “These were pathetic grades: we ranked in the high 200s in a class of 300 students”

Alok’s rant about his mother not having bought a Sari in 5 years, Alok moves out and moves in with Venkat, the geek

All these are faithfully retained in the film and are manifested in the bathroom sequence when Raju tells Farhan that he’s moving in with Chatur.
Chapter 7: Alok Speaks Out

Alok reveals more about his family background, Dad’s paralysis

Things we learn in episodes in the book are revealed much earlier in the course of the film as with any adaptation.

Chapter 8: One Year Later

Alok begins to hate Venkat, Ryan takes Alok’s Dad to the hospital, wins back Alok

Similarly, Rancho wins Raju back and exposes Chatur in the movie.

This is manifested through a brilliant scene where Rancho uses a Find and Replace to Chatur’s Teacher’s Day Speech.

Chapter 9: Mice Theory

Ryan’s theory: “The system is nothing but a mice race… Name one invention in three decades”

Rancho demonstrates this through that popular Farhanitrate and Prerajulisation scene.

Chapter 10: Co-operate to dominate:

Ryan’s take in the book is to cheat the system

Here is where the film deviates from the book since Rancho can’t do anything wrong. He’s not a smartass like Ryan who is looking to just have fun in college, Rancho’s a wise man… a saint Baba Ranchoddas who in fact tops the class because he’s naturally smart. A Bollywood hero in a mainstream film needs to top the class, right?

Chapter 11: The Gift

The visit to Alok’s house when Alok’s Mom cries again and the boys decide to focus on the Mutter-Paneer and how the boys break into Cherian’s house to meet Neha.

Yes, Hirani does use the Mutter-Paneer moment a little before the boys meet the girl for the first time but the breaking in happens much later in the film.

Chapter 12: Neha Speaks

Neha speaks about her feelings for Hari and the three guys and how different they were from the rest

In the film, Pia obviously falls for Rancho based on Ryan instead.

Chapter 13: One More Year Later

Cherian begins to teach their class

“It’s the same Cherian crap. Treat humans like mindless machines”

Cherian’s lecture on efficiency and not wasting time is manifested through his routine in the film – shaving in seven and a half minutes, listening to the opera, wearing a shirt with Velcro to save time etc.

Chapter 14: Vodka

Getting caught drunk in class and Alok’s need to get a Maruti 800 as dowry for his sister’s wedding. Cherian to set the toughest paper

All these details have been loyally retained since the Director wants the students to fail. In the film, he swears that he will shave his moustache off even if one of the two get placed.

Chapter 15: Operation Pendulum

Plan to steal the papers from Cherian’s office using Neha’s keys

In the film, the heroine is only a willing accomplice to this plan and hands over the keys to the boys because the director insists that the boys can do no wrong. The Heroes are Holier Than Thou.

Chapter 16: Longest day of my life – 1

Neha’s brother’s suicide note. He killed himself after failing to get into the Institute 3 times.

We learn about this suicide note in the film through a wonderfully written dialogue. “He wanted to be a writer. All he could write was this suicide note.”

Chapter 17: Longest Day of my life  - 2

The guys prepare to steal the paper against all odds

Chapter 18: Longest Day of my life – 3

The red wax seal and the phone call that got them busted
This happens almost exactly as described in the book.

Chapter 19: Longest Day of my life – 4

Busted, Dean slaps Ryan across the face, disciplinary action

A little dramatised for film, Virus attacks Ryan with an umbrella and insists they move out of college in pouring rain.

Chapter 20: Longest Day of my life – 5

Alok jumps from the Insti roof unable to take the pressure of being rusticated

This happens much earlier in the film after the Director makes Raju choose between his friends and his rustication.

Chapter 21: Longest Day of my life – 6

Alok in the hospital with his legs motionless, survives near death

Raju goes into a coma in the film and needs Bollywood style miracle to make it.

Chapter 22: Ryan Speaks

We learn how the narrator wanted to be an artist and of Ryan’s past

This has been adapted to the narrator wanting to be a wild-life photographer and the sub-plot involving Ryan’s past has been completely changed. We learn at halfway point in the film that Rancho was not even his real name. He was merely a proxy student for his rich master.

Chapter 23: Kaju Barfi:

The three get another chance to write and submit their projects

Omitted from the film except that we learn that Raju’s suspension was revoked when Rancho tells him during the coma.

Chapter 24: Will We Make it

Alok on crutches, the three finish their coursework and resubmit their projects.

Raju too is on crutches and comes back to the Institute as a new man.

Chapter 25: A Day of Letters

Cherian finally finds the letter his son’s suicide note and breaks down.

This happens rather awkwardly in the film since the screenwriters tamper with the narrative a little too much. One scene Kareena is handing out the suicide note to her Dad and the immediate next scene, she’s in hospital and the Father is unable to get the pregnant sister to the hospital. Every time there’s a departure from the book, the writers slap in a larger than life sequence that requires generous doses of willing suspension of disbelief. Like the delivery scene that follows.

Chapter 26: Meeting Daddy

Alok’s interview and Ryan’s research internship

Have to agree that Hirani and Abhijat Joshi do a much better job of writing and fleshing out the interview scene and the actors rock it too. We do learn in the book that Hari wanted to be a writer, so here Hirani makes Farhan talk to his Dad about his dream internship with a wild-life photographer.

Chapter 27: Five Point Someone

Cherian realises how the Education system is flawed in a dream sequence. The boys pass out of IIT and the narrator post a letter to Ryan’s parents for funding his project.

The posting of the letter in the film happens with Farhan. Ryan can’t take favours from anyone because he’s the hero of the film and hence, posts Farhan’s letter and makes his dream come true.

* * *

Well, so almost all of Five Point Someone but for a chapter has found its way into 3 Idiots in one form or the other. And just for that reason alone, Chetan Bhagat ought to have got a story credit right upfront. Coming up with a parallel narrative of what happens 10 years ago alone does not change the entire story, however interesting or entertaining the twists are.

But seriously, imagine the suspension of disbelief and the convenience of co-incidences that Hirani and Joshi in that parallel original narrative that has nothing to do with the book. I mean what are the chances that the girl is getting married the same day as the day of the bet and the day Ranchoddass’s father died and the time Silencer/Chatur has to meet Phunsukh Wangdu and his lost classmate with whom he’s had a bet turns out to be Wangdu?

Yes, Hirani says they have fulfilled the contract and given the writer the credit he was promised but does that really entitle him to claim ownership of the story?

The ‘Work for Hire’ is a generic clause that negates all contribution from the writer and transfers ownership of the idea to the producer and the work is treated as commissioned. Bhagat unwittingly signed a contract with this deadly clause that now leaves him helpless.

There’s what you can do legally and what you have to do morally. Especially, when you teach us moral science lessons film after film.

Hirani has fallen in my eyes. If this can happen to one of the most popular writers in the country, then imagine the plight of the lesser known.

First, it was Aamir taking over a writer’s film as a director. Yes, he did a fantastic job no doubt but there’s no denying the arm-twisting. Then, there was a case about a lesser known writer claiming that Lage Raho Munnabhai was inspired from a concept note he submitted of a film he wanted to make called Gandhi and The Kid.

Hirani and Co ought to learn from Vishal Bhardwaj who credited a rather unknown Cajetan Boy for just the idea of Kaminey right at the beginning of the film and even named a character after the screenwriter he met at a seminar.

 We crib about lack of writers and scripts all the time. But if this is how we treat them, how can we expect writers to come up with original ideas and trust them to Bollywood?

Lucky for Bhagat, his novel is still available for us to compare and discover. God bless the rest.

P.S: I love 3 Idiots as a film, however manipulative it is emotionally and I think Hirani is an excellent filmmaker who knows his craft and despite its flaws. Also Abhijat Joshi and Hirani have put together a decent screenplay with some really well written moments but that’s not the point of this post. The point of the post is if Bhagat should have also been credited for the Story.

As for the film, you can read my review here.

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Filed under Film Criticism, Random Movie Talk

December 26, 2009

3 Idiots: Aal Izz Swell!

Remember how filmmakers used to give us aural cues on when to cry at the movies?

Yes, the one we still remember from Kabhi Khushi Gham Gham (Lata Mangeshkar’s haunting voice going ‘Aaa aaa aaaa?) also employed in other Johar-Chopra flicks. Rajkumar Hirani is the new carrier of that beacon of manipulative melodrama and I say that with great gratitude to Hirani and team. Lata Mangeshkar has been replaced by Shreya Ghoshal.

Over the last few years, filmmakers seemed to have lost their flair for drama. It was either muted and understated Farhan Akhtar style or pretentious cool deadpan from the Sanjay Gupta factory. It was either way over the top by the likes of Anil Sharma and camp or expressed through brooding intensity by Ram Gopal Varma’s ilk.

Good old tear-jerking drama with feel-good that we last saw only in the Munnabhai series is back. Now, Hirani is more Karan Johar than Johar himself used to be.

3 Idiots is your good old Hindi film that milks the Navrasas steeped in the Indian ethos and storytelling culture to make you laugh, cry, think and provoke. A forgotten tradition that only Bhansali, Johar and Hirani carry on.

For that reason alone, 3 Idiots is one of the best films this year.

Read the full review here.

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Filed under Film Reviews - 2009

December 18, 2009

Avatar: An Instant Classic

When does a film become a philosophy?

When does a creator become God?

When does a work of art become a miracle?

When does a dream become so real that we can almost reach out and touch it?

Read the full review here.

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Filed under Film Reviews - 2009

December 18, 2009

Rocket Singh: This Singh is King

Genre: Drama
Director: Shimit Amin
Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Naveen Kaushik, Mukesh Bhatt, Santosh D, Shazahn Padamsee, Gauahar Khan, Prem Chopra and Manish Chaudhari
Storyline: A simple honest sales trainee does a little con to show the big bad world of sales that you can make it big the right way.
Bottomline: One of the best… if not the best film of the Year!

A good writer is a salesman who sells us characters and also makes us buy the odds they are fighting.

In Khosla Ka Ghosla, Jaideep Sahni convinced the odd-ball middle-class characters, one by one, about a con to beat the land-shark at his own game. In Bunty aur Babli, two middle-class protagonists, conned the rich and corrupt and won fans, one game at a time.

In Chak De India, a middle-class hockey coach, won over the rebels in the team, one by one. We saw that happen again in Aaja Nachle when Sahni got Madhuri Dixit to convince the middle-class small-towners to protect their art and heritage, one at a time.

And now, Sahni makes the sale of his career by showing us how the Great Indian Middle Class values can be employed to bring honesty to the way we make our money, even in the ruthless rat-eat-rat, man-eat-dog world.

No better partner to make this sale than the astute Shimit Amin. Shimit is never too worried about the time he takes to tell his story and gives the characters the space they need to breathe and come alive, even if it means delaying the cut by a few seconds more. He knows exactly when to let expressions do the talking and how to keep us hooked with just dialogue. No heightened melodrama or manipulative music, just people speaking their mind. It’s refreshing how Shimit and Sahni tell us their stories, without ever resorting or needing the song and dance.

As a result, Rocket may not live up to its name as far as pace goes but that’s the point. Let’s slow down, not lose focus and do it the right way – to hell with conventions, tricks and gimmicks to tell a story. The Indian audience didn’t ask for six-packs and size zeros, there are still people who will watch a Ramayan re-run all over again.

For years, our stories have been about doing good and fighting our battles the right way.

Even if it takes off from what Jerry Maguire and his mentor Dicky Fox stood for (“The key to the job is personal relationships”), this film beats with an Indian heart.

Rocket Singh is as intimate and layered as films get.

Yes, Rocket does employ types but when have we had a Sikh hero in our films as an epitome of the ‘Work is Worship’ values the faith stands for? You don’t get a Sikh hero by naming a film Singh is Kingh.

What happens to the spirit of entrepreneurship in a country whose work ethic has been colonised by target-defined competitive MNCs, a country where too many people want to bell the CAT and private MBAs are out of bounds?

Unable to afford an MBA with his 38 per cent aggregate, Harpreet Singh (Ranbir) gets a job at AYS, a company that sells assembled computers founded by the experienced entrepreneur Puri (Manish Chaudhari) and learns that he’s a misfit, too straight for the way business is done.

Suffice to say that Rocket is about a sales trainee selling his work ethic to his boss.

Unlike Ashutosh in Swades, the makers here do not want to take the preachy, idealistic way out. Harpreet Singh is flawed. He does not have the conviction or the courage to quit and start his business fresh from Day One. He’s street-smart and honest but knows he’s doing something fundamentally wrong by floating an undercover company of his own from right under the nose of his parent company.

Ranbir is on a roll and he lives this role that’s sure to be one of his best performances ever. The ensemble is solid. Puri (Manish Chaudhari) is not the villain, the way he does his business is and the actor is a credible embodiment of today’s corporate culture. Naveen Kaushik, Mukesh Bhatt and Santosh D are all equally good that it’s impossible to single any one of them out for best supporting actor. Never have we seen a supporting actress (Gauahar Khan) get more footage than the girl our hero is love with (Shazahn Padamsee).

Like all its publicity, the film makes its case with a refreshing understatement. Only a team with confidence in its sincerity could have done this. The writing is fantastic and that alone merits it a watch. “Aap Jaise Ban Na Saka, Lekin Main Banda Ban Gaya” or “Abhi Tak Ande Si Nikla Nahin, Aur Tujhe Butter Chicken Banna hai?” Seriously, we haven’t seen such beautiful lines laced in lovely Hindi in a while.

So here comes the honest film. Now comes a more pertinent question. What are you going to do when an honest film comes your way?

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December 13, 2009

Paa: Amitabh Bachchpan

Genre: Drama

Director: R. Balki

Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Vidya Balan, Paresh Rawal

Storyline: A 12-year-old progeria patient meets his Dad and proves that child is the father of man

Bottomline: Bachchan does not need to try this hard. We already love him.

As the film ended, a hall full of people rose to applaud and I sat there cringing in my seat.

I was/still am in the minority of people for whom Amitabh Bachchan as 12-year-old Auro just did not work.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge Bachchan fan and I think nobody else would ever fill out the shoes of India’s longest ruling Superstar.

Nor am I even suggesting that Paa is a bad film or that Auro is a poorly etched out character. Far from it.

Balki proves once again that he’s one of the smartest writer-directors around. He tells us another unusual story on age dynamics… This time, an unlikely father-son relationship. Unlikely because the child here looks like the father of the man. Quite literally. And there lies the problem.

You cannot make a film about the child being the father of man by simply casting the father as the child, no matter how brilliant the actor is. More so if the point is to show that the child is the father of the man.

Amitabh Bachchan is God. He shouldn’t be a Clown. It’s blasphemy; casting him in this role is like making him play Clown.

Auro is supposed to be 12-year-old child whose aging process is accelerated. One would then expect to see a child who looks like a frail old man and NOT an old man behaving like a child. There’s a fine line between the two and this is why Amitabh Bachchan as Auro is a huge casting mistake. How poignant and credible it would have been if it were Darsheel Safary (or someone his age) made to look scarily old with no eyebrows or hair and scaly skin!

This takes us back to why Balki made this film. It wasn’t because he wanted to tell us a story about a Progeria patient. He wanted to see Big B play son to Junior Bachchan. That was it. Everything else, including the make-up stunt, was an excuse to arrive at this casting coup even if it means that Bachchan is going to look like half a Zoozoo!

So if you are going into the hall expecting nothing else but just this delicious prospect of watching your favourite Superstar play a boy and his real life son cast as his Dad, you will be thoroughly entertained. You are already sold on the concept. Maybe we love our superstars unconditionally. We just want excuses to celebrate them. Paa is one such opportunity.

But if you are, like yours truly, not at all convinced about a 6-foot-3-inch-tall 67-year-old man play a 12-year-old and then go in to find him covered in prosthetic make-up and watch him talk in a faux child voice, it is a little distracting. You KNOW it’s Bachchan in there. Progeria patients are of short stature, not twice the height of kids in the class. They surely don’t have voter’s ink on the middle finger. Physicality and voice are crucial aspects of casting.

As Sergeant Lincoln Osiris, (Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder) told fellow actor Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller) after the film called Simple Jack, “You never go full retard.”

With an animated voice that tries hard to be cute, Bachchan is in ‘Simple Jack’ territory, especially towards the obvious end when you half-expect him to say: “Goodbye mama, now I can have ice cream in heaven! I’ll see you again tonight when I go to bed in my head movies.” Heh!

Towering over everybody, Bachchan Senior, the fine world-class make-up notwithstanding, is bit of a stretch as Auro but he makes up for it with fantastic body language and posture, employing his eyes to speak more effectively than his voice.

Considering that Bachchan as Auro is Mission Impossible, he does the job to the best of his ability and the effort is phenomenal indeed… However, this character needed someone half his height and weight, with a genuine child-like voice.

Abhishek exudes charisma as the dynamic politician, rocking the intense scenes with his brand of understatement and conviction even in the film’s most ridiculous scene where he teaches the Electronic Media a lesson by buying a slot in Doordarshan!

Gorgeous Vidya Balan plays a yummy Mummy, absolutely solid in her wonderfully etched out role. This is the best she’s looked since Parineeta. The seniors Arundhati Nag and Paresh Rawal provide able support with superb dialogue delivery of those razor sharp lines.

The writing is smart, the characterisation impeccable. But for that silly crusade against the media, the narrative stays quite focussed. Ilaiyaraja haunts us with some of his familiar melodies and Balki relies on P.C.Sreeram’s clever framing to hide Bachchan’s height in many of the scenes.

Though likeable, manipulative Paa ends exactly as you predicted it. If you cry at the movies quite easily, get ready to be choked.

And please, please forgive the guys cringing in their seats.

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Filed under Film Reviews - 2009

December 2, 2009

The Art & Science of Storytelling

The good thing about putting up my film That Four Letter Word online is that I continue to get at least two emails every week (this, three years after the film released) giving me feedback. Given it’s a film I’ve long left behind, I mail back everyone who writes in promptly and thank them no matter what they have to say about the film.

Whatever it was, good or bad, it’s a film that made me a director.

Hence, I always find it a little arrogant when I introduce myself as a filmmaker… I mean are we, the “filmmakers”, really that powerful – or just plain stupid – to believe we MAKE the film?

A film gets made because a lot of people put their heart and soul and of course, loads of money and time into it and we the makers, rarely notice the personality of the film that’s emerging out of these collective efforts during the making of it. Not all of it was conceived or intended by the creator or the maker of the film.

With the benefit of hindsight, I can say that a film acquires a much more powerful personality and dimension than originally envisioned by the storyteller. It’s only when we observe and learn from this natural, organic process – of how the idea became a story that became a screenplay that finally became a film – we begin to understand the art and science of storytelling.

And hence my theory: Film makes filmmaker. Filmmaker does not make film.

No, I am not going to talk about That Four Letter Word… Suffice to say it was written by a 22-year-old writer, made by a 24-year-old, shelved and remade all over again by a 27-year-old. Now that I am 32, I can laugh at the innocence of the boy who decided to become a filmmaker because he wanted to tell the world the story of his life and friends for the stupidest of reasons. (If you are new to this blog, there’s more on that here and you can download my film from  Part 1 Part 2 and Endcredits)

That out of the way, the rationale behind this post is to put some of my thoughts online lest I forget or lose them forever, given my bachelor-pad memory.

There are filmmakers who decide they can tell any story and then scout for stories to tell. For these storytellers, stories are just containers of entertainment. And they make what can broadly be classified as mainstream commercial cinema.

And there are people, like me, who make films only because of an intrinsic need to get a story or thought of their system… Films as expression. Often classified as art-house fare.

Now, it’s not that entertaining films can’t have artistic expression or films made as artistic expression cannot contain entertainment. Smart storytellers have always found a way to mix what they want to say and what people want to hear and do full justice to the story.

We’ve heard filmmakers often say “There’s no art cinema or mainstream cinema. There’s only good cinema or bad cinema,” and have agreed with them because there are so many good commercial films we love to watch over and over again and so many arty-farty pretentious films out there we want to avoid.

Parallel to this art versus entertainment debate runs an equally relevant debate on whether storytelling is an art or a science with the ever-growing dependence on technology.

Screenwriter John Truby has this software called Blockbuster that will help you put your raw materials for the story, characters and sub-plots together BEFORE you start writing your screenplay. Sreenwriters type away gloriously on Final Draft believing that it’s scientific because you are using a computer to write a film.

I believe these debates – Films: Art or Entertainment AND Is Storytelling an art of science – are not just connected but are essentially responsible for the other debate to exist. In these debates, I found my path, my key to effective storytelling.

What you want to say and want people want to hear is a heart versus head conflict and a truly great story is born when there is no heart versus head conflict. When people want to hear what you want to say.

Now, I’m a man of science. Not atheist, agnostic. I did my Masters in Science (Communication) and have always believed that there’s a lot of science to communication and expression. With the right elements, devices and tools, you can convince people about anything on the planet, we were taught.

Which is why I find the answer to my questions on storytelling strangely spiritual.

Now, we all know that a movie has to move you and entertain you along the way.
A story needs to strike a chord somewhere and connect to the audience.

Though this can be manipulated scientifically, we all know that the more successful films have had something intrinsically powerful within to trigger off those tear-glands without their actors resorting to glycerine-induced allergy.

Which means you need to have something to say first and though this can be constructed or assembled or borrowed or inspired BUT unless you feel strongly about it, what you want to say, has no heart of its own. Once this story has a heart, it can be told scientifically.

I know this may again sound like a formula but it isn’t really.

The story needs to be all-heart (artistic expression) and the telling needs to be all-head (science of entertaining).

The problem with most of our films is that they are scientifically put together with a bunch of guys saying: “Let’s make a film like…” and then they talk about spontaneity and art when it comes to writing that screenplay down.

Science is about manipulation and as people get more cinema-literate (it doesn’t take too much these days to acquire foreign films or read books on the Hero’s Journey across cultures), they tend to know when they are being manipulated. Some of us willingly surrender to the likes of Karan Johar and Sanjay Leela Bhansali while some of us are annoyed at the audacity of the filmmaker to trying to manipulate our emotions.

Now, the story and the telling (the narrative) need to be one and the same, in perfect harmony, to force the audience into submission and that’s the challenge for every screenwriter.

Which is why there’s science needed to flesh out even the basic story and artistic touches needed to empower the narrative. The basic idea of the film, the heart, should be so powerful that it captivates and overshadows the individual vision of the cast and crew to such an extent that even at some subconscious level, they are helping the core idea reach its self-actualizing potential.

The Spirit of Lagaan by Satyajit Bhatkal takes us through this fascinating journey of how one man’s vision made ordinary people do things they would’ve never ever done all their lives, risking marriage, punishing conditions and their careers, of course.

We as directors are just facilitators, mere guardians of the bright idea when we find one. We just need to look within to find this idea… One that makes us feel alive, one that gives us a new sense of purpose. Then, we need to go all out to protect this idea. If we fail to direct it, will be punished. If we do it right, the idea will reward us and bequeath us the title of the “Filmmaker”… the creator.

Which brings me to the biggest grouse I have with our film business. It’s the duty of a filmmaker to respect the script, not the star.

We spend over 40-50 per cent of the budget in star salaries and the rest in assembling elements to worship the star. The ritual of song and dance and stunt sequences continues till date! How will movies not flop?

Joseph Campbell can take a flying fuck, the Hero’s Journey (especially in the cinemas of the South heads just one way: Up, up and up…) The Hero is unassailable, infallible. He cannot be slapped, he cannot fail or fall because the directors/stars believe that the audience sees God in Him. When did we last see a solid villain who made life a living hell for the hero?

Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with star-based cinema provided the director understands the importance of giving the script the due…

Like I wrote in my review of the last decade of Tamil cinema, give the hero a real conflict. Get him knocked down so that he can get up again. Bring back those powerful villains. Let the heroes have their arses kicked, let them fight odds.

I don’t have a problem with all commercial cinema. I have a problem with bad commercial cinema, poor scripts and stories that are best left untold. I don’t have a problem with stories that have been told, I have a problem with those stories told the same way all over again.

Stories are about a conflict. The stronger the conflict, the better the story.

Which is why the Wachowski Brothers kick ass. They nailed one of the most defining conflicts our generation has seen: Humans versus Machines. As more men are trained to be machines, and machines tend to do pretty much everything humans can do and better, where does that leave us frail humans?

Even in an out-and-out action film, Ninja Assassin had to survive a near death experience (again, hats off to you, Joseph Campbell) before he overcame his odds.

There’s a lesson to learn from Ninja. You could train all you want… You could show fantastic work discipline, play by the book, live by rules laid down by the masters but unless you got a heart… And a mind of your own…. the tricks, the technology, the stars, the budgets, the crew – none of it will really matter.

Let’s put our heart out there for the world to see.

Let’s not get fooled into believing that we can make films. Let’s submit to the power of thought in pursuit of a truly great idea to deliver us as filmmakers.

Let’s get back to the basics of storytelling. Tell a story and enjoy telling it in a way they will enjoy. They must know every single detail of the story by the end of it so that they can go and retell it to the world. They must want to hang out in that world you’ve created and bond with your characters.

In the words of my idol Cameron Crowe:

“I think I want them to feel like the characters are real, cause the movies I’ve loved are ones where the characters are so real to me that I feel like I know them and I miss them. And I feel like I know Fran Kubelik from The Apartment – I do, I know her, to the point that when I see Shirley MacLaine in another movie, I go, “That’s Fran!” And I love it, and I have been oddly satisfied a few times in some of the movies I’ve made that the actor has matched the character to the point where they live. And John Cusack was that guy (Lloyd Dobler) – and he is. It’s the thing that when he acted it, it came to life and that’s my favorite thing; like if Kate Hudson is able to twirl and for a moment be a character that you believe is real, Penny Lane…it’s the coolest.”

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Filed under Film Criticism, Random Movie Talk, That Four Letter Word

November 30, 2009

Kill the stars, bring back the actors

Let’s start with the one of the most used devices in Tamil cinema
– the Flashback. It will help us understand the hero better.
Year 1999.

After the invasion of cable TV in the nineties, housewives turned captive to the charms of the idiot box. The cinemas of the North and South acted in diametrically opposite ways. Hindi cinema went abroad, chasing the NRI.

Meanwhile, Tamil cinema took to the streets because only the poor and the wayward (the population that didn’t particularly like staying at home) frequented the cinemas. Only a Kamal Haasan comedy or a rare Padayappa would drag family audiences to the movie hall.

As filmmaker Saran once observed, the audience in the cinema halls was all-male… and you know how much the boys love a little sex and a lot of violence.

The Tamil film hero had turned into a full-blown rowdy. He could send ten guys flying with a single blow. He loved to stalk, sexually harass women and would occasionally give the heroine lessons on how to dress.

Javed Akhtar, during an interview, remarked that the Hindi film hero was turning self-centred. It was no longer about the society, but about the individual. The hero was busy wooing the girl, sorting out his relationship woes and later went serial-kissing women, including some who were already married.

By contrast, the Tamil film hero still stood up for the people when
provoked. Superstar film plots were rehashed again and again. Captain Vijaykanth continued to make films for the rural centres, Sarathkumar began to experiment once in a while, Satyaraj bravely went full-on arthouse and, Prabhu returned to do weighty character-roles.

During the first half of the decade, Tamil cinema shamelessly
celebrated the hero and new matinee idols were born. Vijay, Ajith and Vikram together sent hundreds of stuntmen flying and once they became popular, they came with a premium for producers and rarely did anything remotely offbeat.

Meanwhile, Hindi films turned their attention to multi-starrers and
scouted around for fresh stories and newer conflicts, rarely
succeeding but at least, filmmakers tried. A new breed of multiplex
films was born and corporates were encouraged to put their money on newcomers.

Tamil cinema saw the arrival of a fresh batch of filmmakers
responsible for making stars out of actors – directors including
Saran, Bala, Dharani, Ameer, Selvaraghavan, Murugadoss, Linguswamy and Gautham Menon who believed in their script more than the star. And there were those (like Perarasu, Ramana and Hari) who continued to hero-worship the star.

The seniors Mani Ratnam, Shankar, K.S. Ravikumar and Cheran continued doing what they did best and succeeded with great consistency while the ruling demi-gods Rajni and Kamal made a conscious effort to stay clear of formula and experiment with offbeat scripts. They set a fine example for the younger breed of actors like Suriya, Madhavan and Dhanush who followed their path of alternating commercial films with offbeat roles. Simbu seems to have a taken a cue too signing up with Gautham Menon and Prashanth is set to make a comeback with an offbeat
role.

The young and the brave pioneered Tamil cinema’s foray into the road less travelled during the second half of the decade that saw the arrival of Venkat Prabhu, Vishnuvardhan, Mysskin and Sasikumar.

Encouraged by the cinema produced and promoted by Shankar and Prakash Raj, talented filmmakers such as Balaji Sakthivel and Radhamohan flourished and the script once again turned hero.
For want of stars to back these scripts, filmmakers turned actors
following the example set by Cheran and S.J.Suryah. With scripts back in focus, half a dozen women filmmakers (Janaki Viswanathan, Priya V, Anita Udeep, Gayathri Pushkar, Nandhini JS, Madhumita) got a break.

As stars churned out flops, the business became risky and distributors turned wary of Minimum Guarantee. Ironically, this only made it more difficult for films without stars to be sold.

Film families saw this as an opportunity to launch a new generation of stars – Jeeva, Vishal and Jayam Ravi – who were open to the idea of doing script-based films.

To add to the list of problems including escalating star salaries,
production and marketing costs, increasing cost of popcorn,
old-fashioned policies on satellite and video rights and the lack of
takers for script-based films, the film business continues to be
plagued by pirates. No visible solution seems to be in sight.
But there are some problems that can be fixed.

Observes Anjum Rajabali, professional screenwriter and Department Head of Screenwriting at Film and Television Institute of India, Pune and Whistling Woods, Mumbai: “Flops are always attributed to every other reason other than the script. It’s like the elephant in the room. Nobody wants to admit that the film failed because of a bad script.”

The inherent problem with star-based cinema is that the star wants to play a character so powerful that there can be nothing that can affect him. The hero cannot be slapped since it amounts to blasphemy and villains are reduced to caricatures. The hero’s journey is, well, a cake-walk.

It’s high-time filmmakers and actors realised the importance of
conflict in storytelling. The greater the struggle, the greater the
glory. The sweet is not as sweet without the sour. The hero must get knocked down so that he can get up again.

But the Tamil movie star is too busy counting his money, perennially scared of losing his market. Unless he remembers the way back to the road that brought him all the way, he will continue to be lost and films will continue to flop.

Let’s have more films like Chennai 600028, Paruthiveeran, Mozhi and Subramaniapuram. Let the filmmaker make the film he wants to make. Let the director call the shots, please.

(Have removed the list of films because people seem to assume these were good films despite the Disclaimer!)

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Filed under Chennai, Film Criticism

November 27, 2009

A day in the life of Metro Plus: All play, all work

“Ready to get trounced?”
“Oh! you can’t beat a midget playing TT.”
“I’ll make you eat mud!”
“I can stick the bat up my socks and still beat you.”

Over-confidence takes its toll and the loser gracefully admits in a
part-Kung-Fu-Panda-part-Balls-of-Fury Chinese accent: “Your master
Shifu taught you well, Gweilo!”

Since it hasn’t been clearly proven who is a better player (Ahem!
Also, because this is my story), we won’t get into the specifics.

Let’s just say there’s just one regular winner – Prince Frederick,
affectionately referred to as Master Shifu – who can beat even Boss
when he really sets his mind to it. And you can tell when that
happens. Prince becomes a picture of concentration, becomes
extra-competitive, a far cry from the saintly Master who throws away
matches just to encourage us.

Shonali learnt TT in school but still, even if occasionally, loses to
those of us whom she claims to have taught.

Divya “Why-do-people-think-I-am-a-boy-reading-my-byline?” Kumar who
picked up the game around the same time as me too manages to beat me
most of the time.

Hence, my favourite whipping target is Priyadarshini Paitandy, the
youngest of the lot, who until a few weeks ago hadn’t beaten any of
us. But these days, even if rarely, she manages to do to us Goliaths
what little David did. Damn! I need to go to office more often to
practice.

“Shows how much TT you guys have been playing,” as Boss observes,
after losing that rare match to Prince.

One hour ago.

The weekly Saturday Metro Plus meeting is on.

Kritika Reddy, who runs the Metro Plus Chennai Desk, has a printout
that lists out the stories we filed the previous week. It’s like that
report card Shonali would have liked to hide back in school when she
flunked yet again. (What? She never flunked? Too bad. This is my
story.)

Quiet Prince always tops the class, having filed the most number of
stories given his weekly commitments (the columns: Man and Machine,
Things People Keep, Mush Register) apart from his regular set of
stories on birds and eccentric people. Always missing from all our
social outings, this workaholic has a standard mock excuse: “A married
man has many problems”.

Understandably, Boss is always pleased with Prince, especially since
he takes on the burden of that Memories of Madras column that requires
us younglings to be familiar with achievers over the age of 65.

Divya too cheerily chips in for that column makes some of us want to
rename the supplement as Retro Plus on Wednesdays. Any event on art,
music or books, you can be pretty much sure it’s geek-loving Divya
who’s covering it. When she’s not writing, she sways randomly, sighs,
pokes people around and remains indecisive about any party plans the
girls make with her.

Shonali has her plate full with food for her weekly column The
Reluctant Gourmet, apart from the regular restaurant, book reviews and
theatre features. Let’s just say it may not be a good idea to
accompany her to over half the hangouts in the city if you don’t like
spit in your food. Notorious for her ‘fowl’ mouth, she hates birds and
believes that the only way to enjoy nature is to, well, eat it.

Paitandy giggles full-time when she’s not colour-coordinating her
wardrobe before every assignment and prepares to shop for sun-screen,
lip glosses and Fendi umbrellas even if she’s just been asked to check
whether it’s raining or not. When Miss ‘Parrys’ Hilton is not too busy
with her desk-work and learning profanity from friendly auto-drivers,
she also does trend stories and celebrity interviews, standing in for
Kritika who has been covering fashion for over a decade.

During the meetings, Shiv Kumar, who co-ordinates stories for Metro
Weekend, brainstorms for city-bred personalities we can feature on the
cover. Everyone gives a list of stories planned for the week, along
with intended deadlines and not all stories suggested make the cut
because Boss is a tough-to-please connoisseur of high art (and Fine
Wine… ok, that’s a shameless plug for his fortnightly column on
Metro Weekend).

And every morning, the desk waits for the promised stories to arrive.

Now, this editing team takes on the responsibility to clean up, assign
captions and headlines to stories hurriedly sent in at the last
minute, often leading to some tense moments that ultimately require
the Boss to intervene, make peace or pull up the defaulter.

By one p.m, the page is laid out and sent for printing. The stories
are also simultaneously sent to the Internet Desk with photo options.
While the writers then breathe easy, the desk begins every post-lunch
session planning the page for the next day, laying out those few
stories that have miraculously arrived on time.

Okay, why does this seem to lack the detail associated with our
regular A Day in the Life Of… column?

The truth is, the author rarely gets to work before the team packs up
for the day. So he wouldn’t, for the love of God, know how things
work.

It’s Saturday again. Another meeting, another brainstorming session.
And I have been asked to write this since everyone else has serious
work to do.

One hour later.

“I am gonna introduce you to a world of pain… You are going down!”
“Oh yeah? Bring it on”
“Eat this, Joker. The Bat-man’s in the house.”
eom

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Filed under Chennai

November 11, 2009

Jail: What wrong did we do?

Genre: Drama

Director: Madhur Bhandarkar

Cast: Neil Nitin Mukesh, Mughda Godse, Manoj Bajpayee, Atul Kulkarni

Storyline: A young man wrongly sent to prison learns to cope and survive

Bottomline: No bottoms were harmed in the film. Many in the screening though.

The Bhandarkar formula continues, this time with surprisingly less
perversion than usual. Yes, though it is a relief to watch a Madhur
Bhandarkar film set in prison without a sequence where the hero
unwittingly drops the soap and loses his er… innocence of course,
there’s nothing in it that you already didn’t know.

Another newcomer enters the world of *insert name of film* and learns about its workings, its ugly side involving stereotypes involved in assorted perversions you have heard about, struggles to cope with the system and finally learns to survive in the environment. The protagonist loses more than he gains before he finds his peace in life or death.

Since I am tired of repeating what I have to say for every Bhandarkar film, here’s a wholesale review of some of the films we can expect from him in the future.

Bathroom: An illiterate unemployed youth/abandoned old man takes up the job of a janitor in a multiplex/five-star hotel and slowly gets a ringside view of the dirty, stinking underbelly of deprivation and perversion beneath all that gloss and sheen. Someone’s got to clean the system but what if the function of the system itself is to be soiled. A system whose destiny is to be used and abused by the rich, the frustrated and the constipated. How long can our protagonist take it before events reach a flush-point?

Bollywood: I spy an autobiography here. A struggling filmmaker comes to Mumbai with hopes of making realistic films on the lives of strugglers. He ends up replacing one formula with another and
surrenders to the workings of the big bad world of showbiz. Soon, he’s accused of deploying casting couches, waits for the matter to die down before making another hypocritical film replete with racist stereotypes. In Jail, we learn that for every nine Muslim criminals who will not reform, there is one kind-hearted Muslim murderer!

Gym: A married couple, a thin man and a fat woman join a gym to look good and save their marriage. Soon, he starts pumping iron, aspires for a six-pack while she strives for a size zero figure. She has an affair with the gym instructor and he realises he was gay all along. They both become drug addicts, take to steroids, become super-model good-looking and lose their morals. The guy dies because of drug overdose and side-effects and the woman battles her demons at the rehab only to end up fatter than before. She decides to go for liposuction and enters Hospital – The sequel to Gym.

Post Office: An old postman shunted to a desk job a decade ago now licks stamps for a living. He suffers from withdrawal symptoms when stamps that need to be licked are replaced with computerised systems that generate stickers. Nobody can relate to him anymore. He hopelessly watches young couples foreplay over SMS, have sex over the phone and he’s heart-broken when he catches his wife cheat on him over a video-chat. His longing for touch and feel of the brick and mortar world culminates in frustration when he strangles his wife with his bare hands after breaking a brick over her head. On her death, all their relatives get a telegram. Killed Wife. Stop. Killing Myself. Stop. Save Post. Stop. Email. Stop.

Cemetry: A grave-digger is on the verge of a personal landmark. He has performed the final rites for 24,999 dead people when the system calls for his retirement, insisting his services are no longer required because of his age. The world around has changed. The cemetery is to give way to a shopping mall. The man is shattered for he has had a lifelong relationship with a ghost – a girl who keeps him company until late in the night. So digs a grave and arranges to bury himself and unite with his lover. The film ends with a shot of the epitaph: You can take my life away from me. But you can’t take my spirit. Ab Tak Pachees. RIP.

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Filed under Film Reviews - 2009

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