So
now, instead of the long rant that I had planned to unleash upon the
unsuspecting audience (which I still will, but only in a few days) I am having
to console myself by merely giving a rating to this book that I finished
reading yesterday.
However,
the out-of-the-box thinking chap that the author is, it would be most unfair if
I rated his book using anything but an out-of-the-box rating scale wherein I
refrain from comparing his book, to books written by other authors who are,
well, not-Rushdie and by that definition simply NOT presentable on the same
rating scale that Rushdie's books can be rated using.
As
a consequence, I have no choice but to present my verdict in the following
manner:
On
a scale of Grimus to Shalimar the Clown, Grimus being the lowest rating
assignable followed- in that order- by Haroun
and the Sea of Stories, The
Enchantress of Florence, Fury, The Moor's Last Sigh, Midnight's Children, Shame and then Shalimar the Clown; with Shalimar
of course being the highest rating possible, Two Years Eight Months & Twenty-Eight Nights, in my humble
opinion, falls somewhere between Grimus
and the Enchantress.
How
I wish the author understood the importance of remaining tethered to a
discernible plot-line!
I
wouldn't say this is a bad novel (because it isn't), but it most-certainly is
one of his weakest stories yet.
At
long last a film where Johny Depp
isn't playing a fucking geeky geek!
As
the notorious crime boss James 'Whitey' Bulger, a menacing make-up laden Depp manages quite brilliantly to lay
low and still stand out at the right places as pure evil personified.
Bulger
is a mob boss who will ask you a seemingly harmless question at random and
whether you end up dead in a dumpster the following night or not will depend on
how serious you sound to him when you answer.
While
it would be a long shot to say that this is his best role ever, I could say
that this might be his best role in the last half decade at least.
And
he is supported by an excellent side cast, including Joel Edgerton (who the film belongs to, in my opinion), Benedict Cumberbatch (pulls off the
Boston accent despite being British and that definitely earned some brownie
points in my books), Julian Nicholson
(is terrific in one scene where Bulger tries to freak her out), Kevin Bacon (bit role) and the
promising Jesse Plemons (bit role
again).
But
despite the top notch acting, I would still say the movie is underwhelming on
the whole. At best a good film. Not mind-blowing.
A
definite one time viewing though.
Watch
it for what has now officially been termed as Depp's return to serious acting and for Edgerton's performance as FBI agent John Connelly who was able to
convince his agency to protect Bulger as an informant for nearly two decades in
which Bulger managed to commit several counts of murder and racketeering
without anybody pointing a finger at him.
What
the fuck did I just watch right now! Seriously!
This
came out of nowhere.
I
wasn't expecting anything when I sat to watch this, but I must admit, this
turned out to be one heck of a goose-bumps inducing and- not to mention-
singularly gruesome viewing experience (Not sure how I will sleep now).
Starring
Kurt Russell as a small-town sheriff
who sets out with three other men to rescue captives taken by a group of
savages living in the mountains, the film draws you in right from the word go
and leaves you as curious as you can get when you have squished a spider with a
Hardcover but haven't yet lifted the book to see what the result looks like.
While
the pace is slow, the film is able to build an excruciating amount of curiosity
as to what will happen next by combining elements from four different genres,
namely- Western, Horror, Gore and Comedy, to brilliant effect.
The
cinematography reminded me of some scenes from There Will Be Blood perhaps because of the coldness.
I
think the usage of still camera shots with little or no focus on giving the
audience a wider view of the background works in favour of the director as it
creates a claustrophobic effect and you keep biting your nails all the time, knowing
that danger is lurking only an inch outside the frame.
Also,
that the acting is top notch (especially Russell)
only adds to the effectiveness of it all.
I
liked it. But you might want to check out the content advisory before going by
my recommendation. Some really gory scenes in this.
For
a film that does not have any threat of death involved, The Stanford Prison Experiment sure did manage to keep me disturbed
enough to keep watching till the very end.
For,
it is disturbing, yes. But not in the sense that one would normally expect when
a film promises to be just that.
Based
on true events, the film is about twenty-four male students who were put into a
simulated prison environment- half of them as prisoners, and the other half as
guards- to study the psychological impact it would have on the subjects over a
period of two weeks.
And
to the surprise of Dr. Philip Zimbardo
who arranged this exercise and who assumed that this would just be another
boring two weeks spent over nothing, what transpired during the first six days
was so shocking that he had to call the whole thing off before matters got any
more out of hand.
I
found the film to be engaging and- despite being based on a real incident- it
held its own by not just playing out as a simple narration of the facts already
available.
It
has been to shot to induce enough claustrophobia into the prison scenes so that
for the length of the film, you are part of the experiment while also being
outside of it.
You
experience the dread that unlimited authority can create in the average human
mind and the copious amount of corruption that comes with power over other
humans, but at the same time, you are not able to stop yourself from feeling
ridiculous that human beings would actually allow themselves to be treated so
degradingly without a word of protest just because they have been told that there
is no way out- which I thought was a truly remarkable achievement, given (I
repeat once more) how little the stakes of actual physical harm to anyone
involved was.
The
acting is fantastic, especially of the mock guards who seem to get a little too
much into the skin of their roles. Billy
Crudup as Dr. Zimbardo does a competent job.
Overall,
I'd say, worth a watch, even if a tiny bit underwhelming on account of the
source material.
But...
but, before I finish, I cannot help but mention another film of the same kind
that I found to be much more powerful, even if not more disturbing than this
(maybe because it’s NOT completely based on a real life event. Still, a film is
a film, so)- The Wave which is a
German movie (of course, it had to be a fucking German movie!) about a high
school teacher's experiment to demonstrate to his students what life is like
under a dictatorship.
Now
THAT is one experiment where fatality cannot be ruled out. You fill innocent
minds up with enough hatred towards a particular group of persons or object,
teach them to make it their sole purpose of existence and send them on a
mission while you sit back, relax and enjoy the show (or as they so lovingly
put it in India- Mandir wahi banayenge. Of course they have another name for
such 'righteousness' in the middle east but, meh, thats common knowledge so am
not mentioning it here.)
Subodh Bhave's
Katyar Kaljat Ghusali, a film based on the play from the sixties, came quite close
to becoming the best musical I saw in 2015. And given that Whiplash- which released earlier in January that year- was what it
was pitted against for the title of best musical in my list, I must clarify
that Katyar..., despite its flaws, coming
a close second was no mean feat.
Yes,
the film has many flaws.
As
is the case with many other good commercial films that aim at striking a
balance between the film-maker's urge to produce pure art and his burden of
wanting to keep the film accessible to a larger audience that has, to his
ill-fortune, over the years gotten used to being spoon fed with ham acting
disguised as dramatic flair.
The
plot stretches itself too thin at some places and the tight editing from the
first half comes undone post the interval, thus resulting into a good thirty
minutes of additional scenes making it onto the screen, that should have been
left out of the final cut.
The
acting from all three male leads is good albeit not without those few bits and
pieces strewn across the film's length, that come off as overt.
And...
that is all.
I
am- I shouldn't be but I still am- quite surprised at how incapable I find
myself now of jotting down any further negatives about this wonderful film.
And
so, I take a turn- well not as dramatically as Sachin Pilgaonkar's Khan Saab does upon being disturbed when he is
at his egotistical worst, but still- towards
the brighter side, or rather, the melodious one.
It
is but obvious that the element of a 'Musical' that defines its purpose of existence
and that will primarily determine its standing among many others, is the music.
Katyar Kaljat Ghusali
has fantastic songs. They are vibrant, they are vivid and the vocals so
powerfully evocative that I had found myself moist-eyed and clapping with the
rest of the audience (A full-house!) after every good song ended, more often
than not, cribbing at the short length of these musical pieces. The Qawwali
from the second half is nothing short of dazzling.
Shankar Mahadevan
has done a commendable job as the lead singer and music composer. While most of
the songs are from the original play, it is to Mahadevan's credit that he succeeds in replicating the genius of
legendary singers from the past while also making the songs his own.
Apart
from the lyrics, what also packed a hefty punch for me, were the dialogues
(both Urdu and Marathi), the visual effects (particularly the catchy opening
sequence) and the effective usage of montages to convey emotional turmoil.
All
in all, Bhave's directorial debut
lacks much but makes up for most by keeping the focus where it should be- on
the art to which it is an ode. The rest are mere ancillary elements...
enablers.
The
film made me ponder hard as to what my stand on religion and God would have
been had music been the only product of believing in them.
I
should be pleased to have come across India's official answer to Bong Joon-ho's South Korean masterpiece
Salinui Chueok(Memories of Murder) in the form of this tight and tense drama
presented as a fictionalized account of the real-life murder case from few
years ago that caught the fancy of many, mostly due to the perverse details
involved.
I
should be very very pleased.
As
a film, Talvar scores high in all
departments right from the script, the camera-work, the sound design, the
dialogues and- most importantly- the acting. Irrfan Khan steels the show again with his effortless portrayal of
the lead investigator assigned to the case by CDI (Read as - CBI), but not
before the local police have irredeemably botched it all up. The casting for
even bit roles is spot-on.
The
drama is restrained and kept subtle wherever possible to not hint at a
prejudiced take on things.
So unlike other films based on real incidents, all
the alleged culprits behave like humans instead of ham actors playing culprits
who know they are supposed to look innocent but cannot look completely innocent
for benefit of not ruining the suspense.
I
am yet to read Avirook Sen's Aarushi and so would not be in a
position to compare fact with fiction. But as a film, this is nothing short of
a Fincher level production from Meghna Gulzar.
For
which, as I have said twice already, I should be very pleased and therefore be
giving the film a four out of five.
But
I will give it a full five.
For
the film, just like Joon Ho's, did
exactly the opposite of pleasing me when the end credits began to roll.
So
Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko
enjoys cult status even two decades after Wall
Street was released and Richard Gere's
Robert Miller from this film totally flies under the radar of almost every
critic I follow for four fucking years!
It’s
just wrong.
So…
So wrong.
And
I am quite sure that I would've been unlucky enough to have missed this myself
had I not happened to have a few people on my friends list who in turn happen
to have excellent taste in cinema.
Gere
brings so much charisma to his portrayal of Miller, a troubled hedge fund
magnate who has lied a few times too many to wriggle out of the combined repercussions
without scarring himself.
A
family that knows Robert too well to overlook signs that things are about to go
south for them, an affair that ends abruptly, the crime that it leads to, a
business transaction gone bad (and the crime that it leads to) and of course
the clever cop who is always one step behind the anti-hero (Tim Roth in great form. As to why and
how I have not seen more than a handful of films he's acted in, I've got no
clue. Shame!)
This
is a great plot and the taut script leaves little or no place for boring
detours viewers usually have to put up with in most non action-based thrillers.
Nicholas Jarecki directs with just
the right amount of gloss to give Gere
enough opportunities to shine as a devious human who has dug a hole too deep to
have any other solution but to keep digging.
In
all, while I may not go too far and proclaim this to be the best that there is,
I really liked this a lot.
An
easy three and a half out of five.
Certainly
worth a shot, especially for Gere
and the charming albeit wicked little 'I know too much to lose' smiles that he
sports at every twist and turn.
Catch
trailer here, but know that it is of crap quality. Makes the film look like an
average rated TV show.
The
Irish are the best when it comes to dark humour.
And
this film proves just that (Although this time it is more dark than humorous).
A
film that begins and ends with two of the most emotionally affecting scenes I
have seen on screen, Calvary is odd in too many ways to describe.
Despite
having seen it many times already, I somehow always seem to fall short of words
when I attempt to pin down what I loved and did not love about it.
The
film is borderline strange. Which is not necessarily bad, but makes the job of
a reviewer not wanting to adore or thrash it outright, very difficult.
Shot
on the picturesque landscapes of Ireland and featuring a power-packed
performance by Brendon Gleeson as a good-natured priest who receives an
anonymous death threat from someone in his community, Calvary contains a whole
variety of characters, whose traits ranging from goofy to hurtful to outright
sinister- and unpredictably so- make the story move ahead a tad unevenly,
albeit never without plucking your interest.
Along
the way, questions revolving around religion and human nature in today's times
are raised directly and indirectly, of which few are quite uncomfortable and
either lay bare the irrefutable logic of there being no real justice in the
world for God's presence to be believed, or make us think on whether sometimes
our messed up expectations from religion and God are more worrisome than the concepts
themselves.
Sadly,
most of these questions are left for the audience to answer on their own. Which
means, the sub-plots more or less conclude as character sketches that were not
meant to have any story arc to them.
Hence
the mixed reaction.
And
yet, I cannot get enough of the film. I am sure I will watch this again in the
near future.
So,
for now, I rate this 4 out of 5, if not for anything else then at least for how
it starts and how it ends.
A
lot may have been left for us to decipher but one message, however, that did
manage to shine through brilliantly was this:
Patience
and tolerance are and shall always be the right way. And on that I concur.
Disappointed
to say that a somewhat muddled second half makes a good film out of something
that could have been so much more.
The
flow up to the interval is a fascinating mixture of dark and comic elements, well balanced and well-timed for the sequences to not feel abrupt or
unnecessary- two flaws that abundantly plague the run time post intermission.
Same
goes for the editing.
The
acting is competent though.
Alia
Bhat, if we ignore a few unintentionally funny moments of dialogue delivery,
leads the lot. I thought the subplot revolving around her unnamed character was
the best of the three.
I'm not saying some other equally competent actress
couldn't have done the job, but Bhat justifies her selection well enough.
Shahid
Kapoor is in top form. He rocks the stage as Tommy Singh, a rockstar whose
songs are, for lack of a better term, pro-drugs. But his role is mostly
restricted to humor and little else (except for a scene where he is brought
face to face with the effect his songs have on his fans)
Kareena
Kapoor feels totally out of place in the scenes where she is emoting glee.
I
mean, 'happy' is still fine, but glee! The fuck! One doesn't feel 'glee' when
one has succeeded in partially uncovering a drug racket involving political
parties during election time.
One just doesn't.
(Unless
one has read the script and knows beforehand that one is going to be killed off
by the end and one wants the audience to cry more than what one's character
getting killed off genuinely deserves)
Diljit
is a find. He plays his role with zero overt-ness and makes us care for his
fate.
Would definitely want to see more of him in future.
Mind
you, I would still recommend you watch it, but only because there's a lot here to
learn about how to (and how not to) deal with multiple plot-lines and mingle
humor in dark tales.
A
generous 3 out of 5.
I
repeat, I'm disappointed.
PS:
Kick-ass soundtrack though. Amit Trivedi is a genius.
With
Begin Again, Carney presents to us 'Once'
more a film about a pair of down-and-out artists teaming up to make their own
music, albeit this time unlike the last, the focus is more on making the movie
more legit.. more wholesome, which in my opinion works both for and against it.
A
budget much bigger than what he might've had on his first outing, the director
opts for A-lister stars, professional camerawork and a visibly grand production
value to spend it on... which is fine.
But
I wouldn't have minded if there were less substance in the film and some more
full-length songs to remember after the film ends.
Ruffalo
and Knightley as producer and
aspiring singer-songwriter is spot on casting. They certainly have the
chemistry to make the now-romantic-now-platonic pairing feel genuine.
Also,
shots of the band recording songs in public venues all across New York city are
well done.
But
for me the film didn't offer anything new or breath-taking unlike it's heart-warmingly
simple predecessor.
A
generous three out of five seems more than fair for this one.
Watch
it if you have the time. But I won't recommend it over a repeat viewing of Carney's debut film Once. Nothing beats listening to Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova sing their hearts out to some of the most sincere
songs from the past decade you'll ever hear.
PS:
If I wanted to make a fair comparison, I would say that this is to Once, what Bradley Cooper's Burnt
is to Jon Favreau's Chef.
You
wouldn't believe the amount of craving I felt for a cheese burger after I was
done watching Chef. And that was
after I'd already had dinner!
After
watching Burnt though, I mulled over
Bradley Cooper's fine acting chops
for a bit, then took a piss and went straight to bed without a second's glance
towards the kitchen.
I
have to hand it to James Wan. The man knows how to shoot movie scenes.
You
almost always get into the exact mood that he wants you to get into while
watching a particular segment made by him, no matter how unbelievably cheesy
the story-line.
What's
more admirable is the fact that Wan achieves this without employing any fancy
gimmick. No CGI spectacle here.
And
certainly no Del Toro-esque creature art to grab ones attention.
A
simple combination of long takes, subtle variation in colour and lighting, a constantly
gliding camera, an eerie score, above average to good acting and- last but not
the least- fantastic prop placement is what does it.
Good
old filmmaking techniques used to maximum effect.
But
this time around the story was- for lack of a better expression- too *bleh* to
keep me hooked.
More
than one jump scare, yes. And perfectly executed as well.
But
unlike part one, this one failed to scare the crap out of me, which I mostly
didn't mind, but also missed, in a sick sorta way.
Definitely
worth a watch though.
To
my misfortune, the theatre I saw it first in was fully packed and made me instantly
regret the decision to pick a crowded hall and show.
Some
people start up conversations or just laugh and are too fucking dumb to
understand that its fucking irresponsible and even more fucking irritating.
After
Elizabeth Ekadashi, this is the second Marathi film from my recent viewing list
that has left me simply bowled over by the amount of commitment, patience and
sheer drive to tell a story that seems to have gone into its making.
For,
without these it can never be that what gets captured on camera when ten or
eleven years olds are in front of it, does not feel like forced-down-the-throat
acting.
Stunning
performances from all actors involved. Especially the children; every single
one, right to the last kid who made it onscreen for only a second or two. Pure.
Uninhibited. Natural. Real.
And
the cinematography! Oh, I wouldn't want my petty words to describe something
that is meant to be seen for its praiseworthiness to be believed.
I
thoroughly recommend this film to all.
Watch
it only on the big screen if you truly want to allow the beauty of nature and
the innocence of the characters to hit you, tug at your heartstrings and
involve you so much into it that you end up putting your younger self in the
scene being played- be it sitting alone on the beach or riding a fisher-boat
with the world behind you and the mighty sea in front, its waves blowing a
steady breath of salty air into your face; or finding yourself strolling inside
the walls of that mesmerizingly shot Killa (the fort) touching its moss laden
walls with your fingertips as the rain pattering down hard on rock brings to
your ears, a slapping sound both curious and dreaded.
Watch
it today.
For if nothing else, the least it'll do is make you want to meet
your friends and go on a holiday to some place green.
More
therapeutic than cinematic an experience, Gyllenhaal's latest is a good film,
is what I can tell you.
Depicting
the life of an investment banker who, in the wake of his wife's sudden demise
is left to cope with the fact that he never really loved her or was honest with
her about many things, the film is smooth and swift in narration.
The
camerawork overall and in one particular scene in specific is so fucking
soothing that I've watched that particular segment over twenty times already in
two days.
And
for just that along with the music employed, I rate this a four instead of the
three that Demolition actually deserves.
Neither
as moving nor as powerful as the director's English debut venture Dallas Buyers
Club.
This
season brings closure to the main story arc from Season One while also adding
another fantastic plot about a cop with an unconventional solution to
Baltimore's drug problem.
Got so hooked that I ended up watching all thirteen episodes
(an hour each) in one day.
'tis
how it all began, a show about a bunch of police officers assigned to a special
detail that requires wire taps for surveillance of drug traffickers.
I
must've fallen asleep around six or seven times while watching this. We see the
action shift from the police unit of Season One to a dockyard in Baltimore, a key
player in the drug supply chain.
Almost all episodes were equally boring.
Some
of them drag on and on about nothing in specific and had I not been aware of
the remaining seasons being of a better quality, I would've stopped watching at
episode four, maybe even earlier.
With
no background score to assist in creating the mood, The Wire is one hell of an
example of uncompromising and original writing that is able to bring to the
screen content that is immersive purely for its quality and depth.
HBO
sure did show a lot of guts in backing something of this sort back in 2002,
each season basically being nothing but a twelve hour long movie.
Recommended
for its fascinating story-telling technique where the problem of drugs and its
impact are shown from multiple POVs.
PS:
Omar Little is now one of my most favourite TV show characters.
I
have always had a thing for gritty films. (Lets just say I'm a nice enough guy
in real life and so if I am expected to deal with mush even in the art forms I
partake in, I will retch).
When in the right mood, I get attracted to such films
like a moth to a burning candle. And like most moths that approach a burning
candle, I end up burning my wings, either because the film is plain bad or, if
I am fortunate, because it is so effective that I drown into depression.
But
I will reserve that comparison for another day as that wasn't the case with
this film.
Titli
is an effective debut. I believe thats a fair way of putting it. But neither am
I able to write about it as being brilliantly dark like Ugly or some such indie
production nor would it be justified if I wrote it off as a lame attempt at
making serious cinema.
The
film made me sick in the stomach. I'll give it that. The characters and the
plot are adequately twisted and the camera-work powerful enough to accomplish
that much.
The background score, which in my opinion should have been used more
generously, is haunting and sets the right tone.
Shashank Arora as the film's
male lead proves that he has what it takes to carry an entire film on his
shoulders. Ranvir Shorey is plain genius. He has an air of helpless menace
around him that makes him both dangerous and unpredictable.
But
all of this, and many other aspects that might make the film technically
perfect fell surprisingly short at holding my attention through till the film's
end. There are portions, especially in the second half, that felt empty.
I
believe budget constraints could be the main reason for that. But I thought the
plot needed some more development too, to bring out the intensity that the
international trailer I watched a year ago promised to offer in abundance.
While the scene right before the end credits is executed perfectly, because of
the underwhelming nature of what precedes it, the impact that that particular
scene, again mixed with the haunting score, is supposed to have on you is
somewhere lost.
If
I were to rate it, I would give Titli a stern three out of five.
Its
a good film and a mandatory viewing, at least for lovers of indie cinema is
warranted. Rest can join too.
PS:
I counted eight people in the hall I saw it in. THAT made me feel more sick in
the stomach than the film itself. I mean, seriously people, your definition of
good cinema is fucked up. Period. I see no point in even expressing my
disappointment with you.
Catch
the trailer here and decide if serious films is your thing too. Do note though,
you only have two days to do that because just like other indie films that see
a release once in a blue moon, this is going to disappear from theaters in no
time:
I
cannot recollect having seen a more heart-warming film than this in recent
times. Jason Segal, yes folks, you're reading correctly, the comedian Jason
Segal, embodies one of the most endearing and intriguing characters I have come
across on screen.
His
voice is the voice of a man you would want to pay to listen to, just so you
feel all the noise around you become irrelevant at least for the time the
conversation lasts.
Segal
is David Foster Wallace, the renowned American novelist most know for his novel
Infinite Jest, who committed suicide at the age of forty six after battling two
decades of depression.
But
thats not what the film is about.
Spanning
across five days, the film is a series of conversations between Wallace and
David Lipsky, a writer working for Rolling Stone magazine (played by an in-form
Jesse Eisenberg) who wants to interview the former.
Both
actors get so brilliantly under the skin of their respective characters that
what you are left with by the end of the film is a profound sensation of having
witnessed two intelligent and philosophically well-versed people from another
generation talking about life, the purpose of life, fame, addiction,
materiality, the awareness of how hollow a material life can get, and also the
helplessness that comes along with such awareness.
Mind
you, a false note here or there could've easily undone the impact that the film
leaves you with. But to give credit where its due, the straight-from-the-heart
style of direction and the simplicity of the screenplay ensure that doesn't
happen.
In
my experience as a movie buff, a quality I have found lacking in most films of
the feel-good genre (if there ever was such a genre) is nothing but plain and
simple honesty.
And
I am very pleased to conclude my review of the film, (of course with an
expected recommendation for one and all to give it a shot), by putting it on
record that this is indeed an honest piece of film-making, with a soul of its
own, a soul so personal that I felt awakened- after a very long time- to a part
of me that still wishes to remain lost in the abstract, away from the hassles
of trying to make a name among people who won't even know the real me after I
am gone.
Far
from being 'magnificent' as the title claims, this is as ordinary as cinema can
get.
Denzel
Washington's entry scene aside, am not sure if I liked anything about this film
at all.
The
soundtrack is lacklustre, the dialogues stereotypical, the storytelling
conservative and the shootout from the second half is nothing short of a
magnificent mess (I hope they weren't referring to this when they picked the
name).
It
takes a special kind of talent to produce an average film with such a stellar
cast at one's disposal. And from watching his previous films I had a fair idea
that Antoine Fuqua had the potential to display this talent.
A
consistent absence of any unique directorial style, thats what I have noted in
the five films of his I've seen so far. (Training Day was really good. But only
because it wasn't a director's film).
Fuqua
seems to prefer being in the backseat and that- as you would agree- does not
bode well if the script isn't singularly powerful on its own.
I
would rate this two out of five. I found myself rolling my eyes at the deaths
of key characters in the third act, and that speaks volumes.
But
that scene where Washington's Chisolm appears first in a bar is just really
well done.
So,
a two and a half still seems fair.
Its
films like these that make me wonder if all that criticism Tarantino's western
The Hateful Eight received (including from me) was a tad unjustified.
At
least that man knows how to take charge of his fucking film.
A
choice presents itself to the audience when they see a film that is shot in an
intentionally ambiguous manner:
A)
You call it a pretentious attempt by the filmmaker at appearing more profound
than it is possible for the average Indian filmmaker to be, and you leave the
theatre before the end credits have started to roll without putting a second
thought to it, or
B)
You prepare yourself for this not being a film thats going to deliver to you a
simplistic one liner 'moral of the story' that'll fall right into your lap; a
film that will probably not unveil itself to you in its entirety if you aren't
observing everything thats happening. Then, having calmed your baser instinct
of keeping your brain idle, you understand- or rather 'attempt' to understand-
the meaning of all that is being shown while judging the film purely on its
artistic merit and not its ultimate objective. Then, you watch it a second
time. And, if the artistic merit continues to hold true, a third and a fourth.
Now
logic dictates, that anybody who has seen the trailer of Highway Ek Selfie Aarpar and subsequently ventured out to see the
film, will be wary of both A & B above and also of the implication of
selecting A over B, or B over A.
The
hall I watched the film in was packed (which was heartening to see albeit only
a puny consolation to the fact that the film currently has only one show per
day at only one theatre in the whole of Bombay).
The crowd guffawed at all the
right places in the first half, seats getting slapped and people rocking back
and forth with laughter as they saw on screen the little details from ordinary
lives that make for stand-out idiosyncrasies when presented in a particular
fashion, on celluloid.
Then
came the second half, sacrificing pace for meaning. Somewhat flawed in
execution, I can be honest here, but still- effective.
And
some fucker decided to exit while the film was still playing.
A
over B.
'Good
riddance', I said to myself as Mangesh
Dhakde's melodiously piquing background score lured me back into the story,
that had by then reached a point of philosophical high.
Two
more exits. Then four.
Then
a whole row got up followed by another two rows, as if the first fucking A-hole
who had exited the hall had decided it for the whole lot of them that 'A over
B' is THE guaranteed path to attaining oneness with the universe.
As
the end credits rolled. My friend and I, and a handful of other 'B over As'
stood at our seats, pondering, replaying the scenes in our heads, each of us
fascinated at Umesh Vinayak Kulkarni's
capacity to enthral and make a viewer feel the need to ask questions, all
without resorting to high-handed, Rust Cohle-esque monologues.
'I
need to watch this again. Atleast one more time before I can say that I got all
of it', I said to my friend and he nodded, his eyes reflecting the same hunger
that my eyes must've been shining with; hunger to know more about a film that,
if you ask me, boasts of many things, a few of which I am listing below for
your benefit:
-
stunning camerawork
-
well paced screenplay
-
grounded dialogues
-
stellar performances from the cast including Girish Kulkarni, Mukta Barve and
Shrikant Mohan Yadav among numerous others
-
excellent music
-
and (last but not the least), one of the best opening shots I have seen till
date in any film- foreign and Indian. A shot that is bound to induce nostalgia
in any man who has walked the streets of Bombay and witnessed the level of
economic divide that is so blatantly visible in this city.
It
is saddening to see the strength in numbers of the unappreciative 'A over Bs'
and their equally unappreciative companions who snubbed the film altogether
without much cause.
A
selfish reason it may be, but I am very disappointed that because of the
collective many whose choice of cinema is as bad as their choice of political
leadership, I am now deprived of a second viewing of a film that deserves one,
to perhaps understand its motives, its loose threads, a little better.
I
only hope that other films like this meet with a brighter fate.
