Ended up seeing Swades a day after HKA. What a load of crap Swades is. I mean you can make an unrealistic, mushy, chocolate-coated love story and that's perfectly fine because it serves a purpose in this world but a chocolate-coated social reform story is just ridiculous.
I wouldn't normally care but the general branding of Swades as 'good' cinema is just so irritating.
It's interesting to compare HKA with Swades. In some sense the two are about the same thing-idealistic people going out into the great backward open spaces to do good. (The NRI angle in Swades is just a marketing thing-HKA's Delhi is as far from its Bhojpur as Swades's village is from its Washington, DC.)
But the similarity ends there, and with a vengeance. HKA's woman from Delhi is raped by cops in a police station in remotest Bihar and the movie refuses to make us comfortable by bringing down any justice or revenge upon the rapists. In contrast, Swades' golden-hearted NRI manages to cure casteism by risklessly singing a song and showing the villagers an educational film about the stars above.
And why is this damn movie so long? I think Bollowood believes that any movie whose VCD release requires three disks automatically qualifies as an epic.
Saturday, May 21, 2005
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Hazaron Khwahishein is great
HKA is a great film. After a long time, I saw a Hindi film where the characters were so real to me that my suspension of disbelief was total. I found myself really caring about what was happening to them.
In fact I actually caught myself worrying about what happened to them after the movie ended. Did Vikram ever recover? How did Geeta cope with the rise of the Mandalian social justice crowd fifteen years later? Did she get fooled and campaign for Laloo in the '86 elections? Who'll take care of Vikram if Geeta dies before he does when they grow old? Perhaps her son will. He must be around thirty now. Does he go and meet his mother? Does he help her in what she does? It feels good to be able to connect emotionally to a movie. The fact that the college scenes were filmed in my alma mater is just an added bonus :-)
Of course, most reviewers are too focused on the politics. The politics is just a backdrop, this is really a love story. It's about three people, one of whom has just ideals, one just love but no ideals and the third has both. In the end, the movie tells you that having both is the best, but having just love is better than having just ideals. Not a political message.
In fact I actually caught myself worrying about what happened to them after the movie ended. Did Vikram ever recover? How did Geeta cope with the rise of the Mandalian social justice crowd fifteen years later? Did she get fooled and campaign for Laloo in the '86 elections? Who'll take care of Vikram if Geeta dies before he does when they grow old? Perhaps her son will. He must be around thirty now. Does he go and meet his mother? Does he help her in what she does? It feels good to be able to connect emotionally to a movie. The fact that the college scenes were filmed in my alma mater is just an added bonus :-)
Of course, most reviewers are too focused on the politics. The politics is just a backdrop, this is really a love story. It's about three people, one of whom has just ideals, one just love but no ideals and the third has both. In the end, the movie tells you that having both is the best, but having just love is better than having just ideals. Not a political message.
Saturday, May 7, 2005
Star Wars in a Long Gone Delhi
I must admit that I'm waiting for Revenge of The Sith with as much excitement as any ten year old. Regardless of what the SF snobs say, I can't help it. One day when I was twelve, I was genetically modified to forever like anything connected to Star Wars. This event took place in Delhi's now long-defunct Archana cinema. I was too young to travel across the city by myself so I saw the movie only once.
By the time Episode V released in India (1982 or 83), I was in 11th std in school and travelling on public buses by myself so I managed to see it five times. EP5 ran in Delhi only at Shiela cinema in Paharganj but since that's walking distance from New Delhi Railway Station it was actually quite easy to get to by a DTC bus. In Shiela, they used to sell fabulous Keema Kulchas from Connaught Place's Volga Restaurant during the interval, which would happen in EP5 just as the Millennium Falcon flew into the giant worm's throat during the asteroid chase. Last month, while watching EP5 (for the first time since then) on DVD, I could actually taste the keema when Solo fired his blaster into the creature's tongue. I guess that used to be just the point when I would get to the meaty part of the kulcha after the interval ended.
I can't understand this anti-Star Wars snobbery on so many SF lists. I started with SF because of Star Wars. Within months I was on to Asimov and Clarke and soon after, Ursula LeGuin and Philip K Dick. Which meant that as Gibson and Sterling started producing their masterpieces during the 80s, I was perfectly primed for them. None of this may have happened to me if I Star Wars hadn't made me fall in love with SF.
A confession: I never saw Return of the Jedi when it was released. I was in college at the time and at the height my own intellectual snob period. Truly ashamed.
By the time Episode V released in India (1982 or 83), I was in 11th std in school and travelling on public buses by myself so I managed to see it five times. EP5 ran in Delhi only at Shiela cinema in Paharganj but since that's walking distance from New Delhi Railway Station it was actually quite easy to get to by a DTC bus. In Shiela, they used to sell fabulous Keema Kulchas from Connaught Place's Volga Restaurant during the interval, which would happen in EP5 just as the Millennium Falcon flew into the giant worm's throat during the asteroid chase. Last month, while watching EP5 (for the first time since then) on DVD, I could actually taste the keema when Solo fired his blaster into the creature's tongue. I guess that used to be just the point when I would get to the meaty part of the kulcha after the interval ended.
I can't understand this anti-Star Wars snobbery on so many SF lists. I started with SF because of Star Wars. Within months I was on to Asimov and Clarke and soon after, Ursula LeGuin and Philip K Dick. Which meant that as Gibson and Sterling started producing their masterpieces during the 80s, I was perfectly primed for them. None of this may have happened to me if I Star Wars hadn't made me fall in love with SF.
A confession: I never saw Return of the Jedi when it was released. I was in college at the time and at the height my own intellectual snob period. Truly ashamed.
Friday, May 6, 2005
Hazaron Khwahishein Kaisi?
The Opinion de Jour seems to be that Sudhir Mishra's Hazaron Khwahishein Aisi is the most politically-aware film to be made in India for a long time. The film is apparently (I haven't seen it yet) about the political movements of the early seventies. (JP's total revolution, naxalites etc) It's being praised as a film that tries to make sure that the political milieu of our time is not forgotten from cinema.
A writer in the Indian Express quotes Shyam Benegal as saying that today's Hindi Cinema doesn't tell you anything about the time it was made in. etc. etc.
There are two problems with this argument. One, there have been plenty of politically aware films in the last decade or so. Machis, Mani Ratnam's film about the Bombay riots. Kamal Haasan's Hey Ram (my personal favourite) was about … well it was about a lot of things.
The other problem is that it assumes in a somewhat patronizing way that contemporary Bollywood cinema doesn't reflect today's milieu. Actually it does. In Khwaja Ahmad Abbas's India, you had no option but to be resigned to your fate. (I mean Dharti Ke Lal, Shehar aur Sapna and films like that and not some of the stuff he wrote at the end) In Karan Johar's time, aspiring to live like his characters is an almost reasonable khwahish. The revolution is not what failed in the streets of Patna and Calcutta yesterday, the revolution is what is succeeding in the glass-walled towers of Gurgaon and Bangalore today.
What I'm saying is that it's perfectly alright if your armaan are the kind more suited to Karan Johar's cinema than to Khwaja Ahmed Abbas'.
Do I actually believe in what I've written above or am I just trying to be a contrarian? I don't really know. Part of me believes that what the other part has written above is rubbish. I truly find myself able to hold both these opinions simultaneously.
By the way, many reviewers are writing about the film without commenting on the title. Even if you have only a passing acquaintance with Urdu/Hindustani, you can't help savour Mirza Ghalib's lines:
Hazaron khwahishein aisi, ki har khwahish par dam nikle
Bahut nikle mere armaan, magar phir bhi kam nikle.
A writer in the Indian Express quotes Shyam Benegal as saying that today's Hindi Cinema doesn't tell you anything about the time it was made in. etc. etc.
There are two problems with this argument. One, there have been plenty of politically aware films in the last decade or so. Machis, Mani Ratnam's film about the Bombay riots. Kamal Haasan's Hey Ram (my personal favourite) was about … well it was about a lot of things.
The other problem is that it assumes in a somewhat patronizing way that contemporary Bollywood cinema doesn't reflect today's milieu. Actually it does. In Khwaja Ahmad Abbas's India, you had no option but to be resigned to your fate. (I mean Dharti Ke Lal, Shehar aur Sapna and films like that and not some of the stuff he wrote at the end) In Karan Johar's time, aspiring to live like his characters is an almost reasonable khwahish. The revolution is not what failed in the streets of Patna and Calcutta yesterday, the revolution is what is succeeding in the glass-walled towers of Gurgaon and Bangalore today.
What I'm saying is that it's perfectly alright if your armaan are the kind more suited to Karan Johar's cinema than to Khwaja Ahmed Abbas'.
Do I actually believe in what I've written above or am I just trying to be a contrarian? I don't really know. Part of me believes that what the other part has written above is rubbish. I truly find myself able to hold both these opinions simultaneously.
By the way, many reviewers are writing about the film without commenting on the title. Even if you have only a passing acquaintance with Urdu/Hindustani, you can't help savour Mirza Ghalib's lines:
Hazaron khwahishein aisi, ki har khwahish par dam nikle
Bahut nikle mere armaan, magar phir bhi kam nikle.
Thursday, May 5, 2005
Fear of Rain
It's May in Delhi and the weather, instead of being hot, dry and dusty, is quite pleasant. It rains every day and right now, there's a mild thunderstorm outside.
Except that where once I would have enjoyed this, now every crack of thunder makes me think of Climate Change.
Only routine weather is unfrightening now.
Except that where once I would have enjoyed this, now every crack of thunder makes me think of Climate Change.
Only routine weather is unfrightening now.
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