Fooperb !

Kaminey gets get it right. A crime noir film shot against the grey and grime of Mumbai it takes you on a ride that keeps you riveted till the end.

Initially it is the twin characters that Shahid Kapoor plays. One of the brothers lisps and the other stutters. Normally Hindi cinema deals with stories of twins in a typical way. One of them is cool while the other is an imbecile. But not in Kaminey.

Not since Kaho Na Pyar Hai has an actor pulled off twin roles so well working on subtle differences in each persona. Both brothers lead lives which are at the opposite ends of the spectrum - Charlie is part of a gang that fixes horse races while Guddu works for an NGO popularizing HIV messaging in the city.

Slowly we are sucked to their worlds. As their lives get more and more complicated we encounter characters from the city - the aggressive girlfriend, the gun crazy bosses, the Jai Maharashtra politician, corrupt police officers and expat criminals. A Tibetan. And two Angolans. Characters talking in Bengali and Marathi. Full scenes without subtitles.That's how weird it gets. And yet you believe it all. The songs in the film are complemented by a brilliant background score that keeps the pace moving.

As the many stories and sub plots are revealed, the director is able to weave a world of pulp crime writing similar to the cheap paperbacks in Hindi. Charlie's ambition is to become a bookie. His troubles begin when he sets out recover money he lost in a race. Guddu's world is turned upside down when his girlfriend tells him that she is pregnant.

Any film based on the crime world could have been reduced to guns and gore. But not Kaminey. Like Satya or Sholay or Pulp Fiction it alternates between violence, romance and humour.

And well written humour. The kind you would rarely see in cinema. Shahid desperately looking for a condom when he finally gets to be alone with Priyanka Chopra. The policemen interrogating Guddu realise that he stammers, so they get him to sing out the information. The politician trying to bribe his little boy to keep mum about his plans to kill his sister's fiance.

All characters feel that they are in control of their decisions but one by one each of them get trapped in a hopeless situation. And each decision taken by a character affects something else much like the butterfly effect theory. Initially, nothing connects the characters to one another. But as the pieces fall they come together for the gun fight at the climax .

As Charlie would say - Fooperb !

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Public Enemies

Its 1933, John Dillinger is bought to a state prisoner by a cop who is actually his partner John Hamiltion to help him free some members of his gang. Like most bad men, Dillinger lives by principles strong enough to kill one his own men who cause a shootout that results in the death of his mentor.

Tired with Dillinger FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover entrusts Melvin Purvis, one of their finest to nab America’s public enemy # 1. After a failed first attempt to nab Dillinger, Purvis convinces Hoover to bring in more muscle power in the form of some old fashioned lawmen from Texas. A few false starts later Purvis nabs Dillinger but the flashy robber escapes from the Indiana prison where he was to be tried. Dillinger tries to get back with Billie Frenchette, the simple girl who loves him in spite of the reality, but FBI’s constant surveillance keeps the lovers apart. The mob too, which helped him previously, refuses to be party as Dillinger’s wayward ways attracts too much heat.

Dillinger puts together a gang but the score hardly gets them anything instead Purvis nabs one of the members who spills the beans on his whereabouts. All alone and wounded Dillinger eludes Purvis and finally meets Billie. He plans that one last job which would set him up for life but before the job can go down the cops nab Billie. The police interrogate Billie but she never gives up on Dillinger. Going for the kill Purvis forces Anna Sage, a madam, to help nab Dillinger who is hiding in her house. A few hours later Dillinger walks into a movie hall with Sage and another acquaintance. He gets out only to be greeted by FBI agents, one of whose bullets finally finds him.

From the face of it Public Enemies isn’t anything new and tries to work on the same level as Brain De Palma’s Untouchables but lacks its operatic melodrama. Bad men are always loved by the films but Dillinger isn’t Clyde or Butch Cassidy or any nameless gunslinger from some Western. The problem with the film is that even though it’s a true account of real people it is boringly straight. The cardboard cutouts in the name characters never engross beyond the basic and Michael Mann approaches them rather simplistically. He is also let down by the substandard writing that is replete with cheesy lines such as Purvis challenging Dillinger, ‘The only way you're walking out of this jail cell is when we take you out to execute you’ and Dillinger’s retort, ‘Well, we'll see about that.’

Presenting any old wine in a new bottle is one thing but Michael Mann’s Public Enemies is nothing more than a sorry relocation of his previous film, Heat. John Dillinger is Depression era’s Neil McCauley and even mouths the same lines as he leaves some customer’s money for he’s there to rob the bank’s money. The set piece which made Heat stand out some 14 years ago like the getaway after robbing the banks creeps its way into Public Enemies on more than one occasion. Even the cutting pattern of the scene where Billie’s nabbed by FBI agents and John Dillinger helplessly looks on reminds you of Ashley Judd saving Val Kilmer in Heat.

Many times performances by seasoned actors can attach some semblance of purpose to many things stupid. I remember how Heat was sold to us in 1995- Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. Together. Imagine the wow factor. What we got instead was a one four minute scene featuring them together and everyone cried hoarse. A few years’ later people discovered the genius of the screenplay and the set pieces that made Heat a cult classic. It remains one of my favorite films but on some levels it’s the actors who made it possible. Both the leads Johnny Depp and Christian Bale fail in Public Enemies. To be fair to Bale he has always been a one expression actor and that works for him at times but that’s not the case with Depp. He has a huge persona attached to him since the Pirates of the Caribbean series and that is what mars things here. He seems to be unconvinced with the character and everything that he does looks easy. The scene where he charms Billie for dance is just regular tough peppered with some wisecracks. His Dillinger is very rushed and for the most part of it Depp sleepwalks. As for Christian Bale, well anyone could have done that role. Billy Crudup as J. Edgar Hoover is good but the real steal of a deal is Marion Cotillard as Billie Frenchette. The woman is so good that her presence makes us believe that everyone else was probably real but we caught them on their day off.

Perhaps the biggest letdown of the film was the High Definition digital cinematography of the film. This isn’t the first time Mann has gone digital but I fail to comprehend what made him choose the format. Collateral was about one crazy night in the city of lights and maybe that’s why the Thomson VIPER camera complimented the storytelling. Miami Vice was about the war on drugs fought on high waves in Latin America, bars and exotic getaways in between sipping mojitos so the SONY HDW F900 worked as a charm. But Public Enemies is different film. This is a film that is set in the era of gangsters, molls, FBI agents in fine suits, hats, Tommy guns, smoke filled restaurants, cinema halls that played newsreels, trains bellowing steam and the incandescent light bulbs- how can you think of flat digital look? The detailing of the CineAlta might be great but Dante Spinotti’s handheld jerky tight close-ups’ digital look is a failure. High Def kills the film so much that the scenes where Dillinger is being pursued in the woods looks like unused footage from The Blair Witch Project.

There is a raging debate about film being on its way out and high def digital being the future and I’m all game for it but I think each story demands the medium it should be told in. Since Collateral Michael Mann seems to be hell bent on going digital but would the same Michael Mann shoot Last of the Mohicans on digital if he were to shoot it today? Blessed with some great production design, the film could have benefited from some classic camerawork considering the story wasn’t that great. Digital surely adds a sense of realism to the proceedings but this is story set in the 1930’s so how about some real realism? Or are we so used to the images that any deviation and we cry foul…?

Image: www.cinemaverdict.com

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Waltz with Bashir

WwB starts with an empty street under a threatening sky. Suddenly we see a dog running towards the camera. It is joined by other dogs. The tension keeps building as their numbers increase. The music strikes an ominous note and the beat builds up as a prologue to a climax. One keeps watching in anticipation to find out what is it that they are chasing.

Of course one has seen such openings. Films start with a bang. Bullets flying. Explosion. Extreme action. Special effects. But animation? You think this is just the opening credits. The real film will start soon. But it doesn’t. The animation sequence continues. Except this is not any other animation film. This is a memoir, a documentary, a story – all kneaded into a graphic novel meets a war comic.

The film tells round the story of a group of soldiers who were part of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon of 1982. The protagonist has problems trying to remember his role and what he was doing on a fateful night – when Lebanese militia with the support of Israeli forces massacred thousands of Palestinian refugees.

But the story is told in layers and as you meet several soldiers who were part of the invasion tell their version of the story. Most of them refuse to discuss the massacre and like the protagonist want to pretend that they were not responsible for it. They discuss the horrors of the war and their first response to killings and gunfire. The sequence where they are singing as they cross over the Lebanon and their celebrations are brought to an end with a single bullet is telling.

The film uses various techniques to reveal the story. Interviews, discussions, “war footage” played with the audio of someone relating his version of the invasion. However this is not a documentary. In between there are surreal moments where a lady emerges from the sea to put one of the young soldiers to sleep.

The centrepiece of the film is the scene where one of the soldiers grabs a gun and starts firing randomly, dancing around like a waltz since they cannot spot the snipers who are killing the soldiers in the dark. This soldier gets scared that he will not make it with a smaller gun and snatches a machine gun and runs into the line of bullets. The narrator describes the dance as a poetic event but we are never too far away from the horror.

Usually an animation film strips emotions to the basics. Often we assume that one cannot use animation to depict events or complex emotions. However WwB discusses the nature of war and how helpless one feels when faced with its horrors. The reaction of the soldiers’ to the massacre is either helplessness or innocence. The film does not condemn their attitude but tries to look at why they behaved that way and how they continue to avoid facing the truth even today.

Waltz with Bashir does not prepare you for what you are about to see. When was the last time you saw a film where the story and the style flowed one into the other and yet shocked you in the end? This is one such film.

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Love Aaj Kal

*Spoiler Alert! Read at your own risk.

Love Aaj Kal is a very well crafted tale of modern love which this reviewer greatly enjoyed. Barring a couple of instances where I was let down, by and large this is a good film. Yes, people know when the soul mate light goes off but ladies and gentlemen people aren’t stupid enough to live life by some light, now are they? Jai and Meera meet in London and start living out a relationship. Two years later when Meera has the opportunity to come back to India to work, Jai refuses to let go of his ambition of moving to San Francisco. So they both break-up as it seems to be the only practical possibility.

Isn’t very obvious from the break-up scene that Meera isn’t as kicked about it as Jai seems to be? From that point onwards Jai leads a life based on living it for the moment but Meera starts operating on two planes. Therein one knows that this is going to be one long tale of the woman realizing something that she knew three years ago!

Jai meets Veer Singh, a friendly restaurateur, who takes it upon himself to make Jai realize that love can’t be practical. Through parallel stories of Veer Singh in the 1960’s and Jai in the 2000’s we see the things people do for love. Jai and Meera continue to keep in touch and even end up coaxing each other to move on. Jai meets a foreigner and Meera falls for her boss. Jai surprises Meera by landing in Delhi and in the time they spend together they both realizes that some where they need to end the bond if life has to go on.

A year later Meera is all set to marry and Jai becomes a part of the festivity. Just before the marriage Jai realizes that he can’t go on without Meera but perhaps it’s a little too late. Meera doesn’t think so for she too realizes that Jai means more than the past to her. She calls him to from her honeymoon to confess but Jai breaks the news of finally moving to San Francisco. Meera gives up and returns to her marriage.

Why?

Even at the airport when Jai is forced by Veer Singh to see her off, Meera is happy to see her now ex boyfriend and yet chooses not to say anything that will go against the break up. Is she doing all this to send some message to her boy-trapped-in-a-man’s-body boyfriend?

Meera and Jai continue to keep in touch and in some respect of the term do carry out a long distance relationship, the one reason they broke up for. Meera is angry when he meets someone new and he isn’t too keen that some other man would be holding what was ‘his’. Even when they meet in Delhi while trying to relive the olden days without performance anxiety they are clearly still into each other. When he boyfriend proposes marriage to her Meera asks for Jai’s approval of sorts. Why couldn’t she just tell him how she felt?

Looking at Meera it’s hard to believe that someone would be in a relationship for two years, break-up when marriage is all over mind, then keep in touch with the ex, spend time with the ex as if the clock were turned back a few years, marry someone else when she is clearly still hopelessly in love and tell her husband that she wants to solve the thing with her ex-boyfriend? Meera is still not over Jai whereas he comes across as someone who is still in love with Meera. Some of you might see that as a sexist take on the whole thing but the fact that the lead actor happens to be the producer of the film might just about exercise more than some control over the setting.

Of course, this is a film to showcase Saif Ali Khan’s all round talent and to this reviewer he doesn’t fail. I was having a conversation with a friend who was of the opinion that perhaps Imtiaz Ali had to rewrite the story once Saif Ali came on as producer and maybe that’s why some times in the film the nuances on the character feel forced. That could be the case but this is something that could happen with a lot of scripts. You rarely get everything that you desire and the stars, the celestial variety, are never too crazy about alignment. Some people might also want to see the flavors of the season like Abhay Deol or Shahid Kapur play Jai but this is a character that needs a very wide range of acting flair and at the same time not be too distinct; this is something that a younger Aamir Khan or Shah Rukh Khan would have managed. This is something that Saif Ali Khan does with much ease. Jai is Saif and Saif is Jai. Sadly I don’t share the same sentiments when it comes to Deepika Padukone. Love Aaj Kal is like a blessing for the lady for it will save her from being considered a one trick pony. Not that she is the best thing since Sridevi when it comes to performing but Love Aaj Kal gives her ample space but there are a few scenes where she goofs up big time. The conversation on the phone when Meera and Jai are bitchin’ each other out loses some of its fizz due to Deepika Padukone not-trying-to-act acting.

The strangest thing about the screenplay is that even though it is spread over some five years none of the characters grow beyond a point. That is a disappointment as the entire exercise is about turning over and realizing the worth of what one has and appreciating before it dissipates.

What is the point then of the parallel stories, two generations, two different times and people? By the end of the whole thing if both the stories were to culminate on similar lines why does Veer Singh go on harping about times being different now? If Harleen didn’t have any say in her marriage and if Meera feels let down when Jai suggests breaking up instead of marriage why does she agree? Why would Meera go on forcing to live her life in the opposite direction of what her heart desires? Why would wait all these years only for Jai to ‘grow up’ for things to get right? On one hand she will be modern woman enough and not tell him how she feels and on the other hand she doesn’t mind telling her husband in the divorce court that she will wait for Jai to show up once he realizes her value. It’s like saying 40 years later women have a choice but if and when they exercise freewill it will be a wrong deal! Also the only thing apparent in this day and age is that people in love are egoistical and won’t say what they feel and go on doing what they don’t want.

Am I being naïve in seeing things so simply? At the end Love Aaj Kal the only thing that was as clear as the sunlight that greeted me outside was that internet and cellphones have convinced us that even though we break up, we will always be close to an inbox to set things right. In the mean time we twist!

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