Piku: ‘Feel good’ in a different package

Bollywood’s “feel good” romances of the 1990s, a genre re-inaugurated by Hum Aapke Hain Kaun and reinforced by Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge, had a heyday in the hands of Karan Johar, but gradually began to lose steam, when its gelatinous sweetness began to rack the nerves. Plus, the incredibly affluent families in which these romances were usually set also began to appear tormenting, for the sheer un-realism of the abundance of wealth which they shamelessly paraded: expensive kanjivarams as kitchen-wear and designer jewellery in plush hospitals became difficult to digest, although there was an initial awe at Bombay Cinema’s sudden rise from poverty and exaltation of the propertied class, as opposed to its lachrymose moralising against the latter ever since it came into being. However, an economically devastating downslide all through the second half of the 2000s brought in the need for realism, when even first-string production houses, such as Yash Raj and Dharma Productions, devoted to fantastical melodrama and barefaced revelling in opulence, began encouraging a closer brush with everydayness. In a certain way, Karan Johar’s growing friendship with Anurag Kashyap is symbolic of the ‘commercial’ and the ‘arty’ making a conscious effort to enter into an astutely planned arranged marriage. The family drama, the romance set against it, the songs and the dance sequences – all are still sustained, but in a different, more believable package. Shoojit Sircar’s Vicky Donor and his latest venture Piku are both products (endorsed by movie-tycoon Aditya Chopra) of this new trend, which has proved to be successful not only in urban sectors or among multiplex viewers, but also in small towns and rural areas.

Piku is a family drama, sans the mushy sentimentalism of its 90s counterparts, sans an epic range of sugar-sweet aunts and uncles, greying and sagacious grandparents, well-dressed cousins having nothing to do, and plush weddings and tear-jerking funerals. Piku, despite certain ethnic specificities, manages to rise above two overused stereotypes, at least: first, the conventional Bollywood brand of an Indian family and second, Bengaliness. Although highly emotional, Piku saves the sentimentalism by bringing to familiar emotions a comic distance, or by viewing them with brash sarcasm. Father-daughter relationship has been an interesting emotional (and sexual) tie which both cinema and literature have explored time and again; Piku brings to it a mint-like freshness, despite the family’s endless toilet discourses. It’s hilarious how father and daughter alternatively bond and separate over constipation and bowel movement, Piku finding it hard to deal with the tantrums of an ageing hypochondriac father, never satisfied with his toilet ventures. But what comes through is a profound love for each other, the importance of being together, the pleasures of care-giving.

Piku, without being preachy, successfully conveys a social message which is rather timely. At a point, when even nuclear families are breaking down, with children relocating to other cities, leaving their parents behind, Piku brings together certain moments which inspire a strengthening of the parent-child relationship. Perhaps, the film touches a chord with everyone, by stringing together certain easily identifiable familiar moments, moments of despair and happiness, when one has an ageing, almost child-like parent to look after. While the film critiques the power relationship, in which the parent always takes advantage of being the parent, it also unveils the sheer joy in the ability in successfully parenting a parent. In this father-daughter equation, there is often a role reversal, shifting of power dynamics, but what comes through is the pre-eminence of affect, over and above the politics of emotion. Rana Chaudhury’s petulant mother and her regular squabbles with her son reinforce the message that there’s nothing to romanticise about the family, yet, there’s enough reason to stick to it. By associating a dysfunctional digestive system with emotion, Sircar generates a powerful symbol.

It’s interesting how Piku dismantles middleclass social decorum, by veering the narrative through endless talk on the lower bodily stratum, menopause, loss of virginity, nighties, sex life, and nuances of family feuds. This brings the film closer to everydayness, in which none is saintly, none is heinously evil. The ending divested of sentimentalization, delves deep into questions of unpredictability of life and inevitability of death, bringing to the latter a rare ‘feel-good’-ness, when it seems that there was indeed nothing more for which the old father could live on.

Amitabh Bachchan never appeared so lovably cute since Paa, and Deepika Padukone has never been so next-door. Irrfan underplays Rana with a rare panache, while Moushumi Chatterjee returns to Hindi cinema with her characteristic vivacity and chirpiness. The supporting cast is equally brilliant.

Amid the constant father-daughter row, what stands out is 

the consensus on need-based sex...well, that was indeed 

pleasantly surprising, for that one thing was powerful 

enough to dislodge all pretensions of moral high-

handedness and purity associated with the ‘tradition’ of 

old North Kolkatan families residing in palatial mansions, 

endlessly stereotyped in popular culture. 

Filmistan: Only connect!

Nitin Kakkar’s Filmistaan could have very well carried the Forsterian subtitle to Howard’s End, “Only Connect”! Alluding to one of the most renowned studios in which some of the biggest Bombay blockbusters have been shot, Kakkar literally deploys it as a metaphor for an ‘affective’ site (read, territory) of connection, which is invisible in the geopolitical map of two warring nations. Bombay Cinema’s immense power to ‘connect’ people across ethno-territorial borders is the driving force of the narrative, with film-buff Sunny Arora as protagonist. Starting from the font of the title (that recalls Sholay) to songs, music and dialogues, Filmistaan unveils populist Bombay Cinema’s far-reaching impact on the masses, notwithstanding their location, race, or ethnicity. And, what’s extremely interesting is that Filmistaan very cunningly merges two very different genres of films: the realistic framework is often undercut by the over-the-top melodrama, Bombay Cinema is famous for. Sunny Arora, is pathologically ‘filmy’, and even in the most anxious moments, he breaks into songs, dialogues and mimicry of Bombay stars. The basic mantra of Bollywood -- ‘Entertainment, entertainment and entertainment!’ (as Vidya Balan so seductively puts it in Dirty Picture) – is what saves Sunny from dying in the hands of his captors.

The film refers back to several Partition narratives and cross-border terrorism stories, in which the aam aadmi becomes the unsuspecting victim of mindless fundamentalism. The concept that borders are but shadow lines which many micro-histories of individuals have time and again revealed is also the crux of this film. But, it reiterates the concept in a unique way, by identifying Bombay Cinema as an affective medium of emotional bonding; that nothing is really different on the both sides of the barbed wire is reinforced through the identification that takes place in appreciating films from Bollywood. Aftab and Sunny become mirror images of each other, and their friendship is appropriated into Bombay Cinema’s much-celebrated trope of male-bonding: Sholay, Sangam, Namak Haram, Dostana, Saajan, so on and so forth. The ending of the film while strengthening this bond, also recalls such blockbusters as Gadar: Ek Prem Katha that reached a resolution through a high-strung dramatic act amid a riot of bullets. The film ends on a tragic note, for it establishes the Hindustan-Pakistan rivalry as a continuous phenomenon, which began with the Partition (and even before that) and has never found a closure since then. As Aftaab and Sunny run towards the fenced borders with bullet shots following them from behind, the end titles begin to roll, underscoring the impossibility of a closure.

Filmistaan while celebrating stardom and glamour, also, very ironically, shows how a good film can be made on the strength of a good screenplay only, not on the strength of stars. None of the actors are known faces, yet all of them perform brilliantly. Sharib Hashmi as Sunny is a very intelligent casting; he brings to his characters the ‘feel-good’-ness of a crazy film-buff and a simple human being, with a big heart. Inaamulhaq as Aftab is also extremely powerful, giving Hashmi a stiff competition in several frames. Kumud Mishra and Gopal Dutt bring to their characters the cold-blooded ruthlessness that often makes shivers run down the spine.

A highly watchable gift from Shringar and UTV Motion Pictures, Filmistaan is one of the most important films which has released very timely...on the occasion of celebrating 100 years of Indian Cinema. 

2 States: Predictable and Frustrating

Bombay Cinema has to a certain extent come out of its formulaic romances and extolling of heterosexual coupledom and family in recent times, examples being Queen and Dedh Ishqiya! Or we thought so! 2 States backpedalled the way forward the two above-mentioned films had shown. Reiterating stereotypes almost shamelessly, 2 States turns the romance between a Punjabi boy and a Tamil girl into a sentimental drama of a cultural tug of war between two families. While attempting to satirise the melodramatic paraphernalia that surrounds Indian marriages, the film fails to sustain its self-distancing mockery and subscribes to the very thing it had went out to ridicule. The Herculean task of convincing parents into accepting a spouse not belonging to the same class, caste, region or race would appeal to the masses certainly; but, the whole thing is so overstretched that it becomes difficult to sit through the mushiness of it all. It’s understandable that how very frustrating and immensely taxing it is to go through and finally surmount obdurate family resistance to personal choices in marriage; but, the problem is the film overdoes it to an irksome extent.

Having said that, I should also concede 2 States is very real! But the problem lies in the title itself. How can you stereotype and homogenize people of two different states, here Punjab and Tamil Nadu. Are all Punjabi mothers so uncouth and unrefined? Are all Tamils so restrained and solemn? This is the story of two families, not of two states! One loud, garish, aggressive, over-the-top, revelling in excesses; the other, subtle, profound, quiet and minimalist.

2 States set in Delhi, Ahmedabad and Chennai cuts across the Indian nation-state, at least metonymically, playing up the hassles of being in a relationship, faced by post-liberal, urban, heteronormative couples. It uncannily reminds of Hum Apke Hain Kaun and such family dramas that dominated the Bombay film factory in the 1990s, with Hindutva fundamentalism spreading its tentacles in an alarming way. Nothing has really changed in these twenty years. Only that young boys and girls no longer moralise about pre-marital smooches. Or that’s what the film unwittingly projects!

All of this can be seen from a very positive perspective too. One can infinitely sentimentalise about how this film based on the Chetan Bhagat novel of the same title makes an attempt to bridge the differences among several Indias that is geographically contained between Kashmir and Kanyakumari, through love. How realistically it portrays the problems of the modern urban youth, bent on starting a family! How marriages are not so romantic as they seem! But, what needs to be noted is the film’s much too willing subscription to the status quo; it eliminates rebellion against hierarchy as not an option at all, and extols conformity to rules and customs. That way, it takes Bombay Cinema back by a few miles.

The only saving grace in the film is Alia Bhatt. Her effortless performance, her innate vivacity, and her grace keep the film going. Arjun Kapoor is easy on the eye, but needs to undergo speech therapy, it seems. His heavy tongue eats up half the dialogue he delivers with effort! Revathy has been completely wasted. Ronit Roy is re-cast as the tyrannical dad aka his role in Udaan; another typecast! Amrita Singh tries hard to be funny and aggressive at the same time, but does not succeed much. She draws a few laughs from the audience, but such Punjabi mom act has by now become an annoying stereotype in Bombay Cinema. 

'Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani': Neo-liberal constrictions and romance

Notwithstanding its fabulous music, picturesque locations and overall modishness, YJHD very cunningly delivers a moralistic discourse on conforming to certain set patterns. Apparently liberal and cosmopolitan, YJHD subtly conveys its belief in nationalism, heterosexual coupling, woman’s sacrifice and above all obedience to tradition. Ayan Mukherjee serves the same old cocktail of the nineties’ romance genre, maybe, in a more desirable and chic stem-glass. It repeats some very well-known tropes of the Hindi film romance: the main narrative of the film is set against a posh wedding, with occasional flashbacks to the past, where one finds the well-known stereotypes of a playboy hero, a pedantic heroine, a devil-may-care tomboy (mistaken for a lesbian), and well-known situations of the coming-of-age hero’s chance encounter with a prostitute (Madhuri Dixit in a raunchier Chandramukhi avatar), a Holi song (Balam pichkari, recalling Rang Barse from Silsila), end of college days (recalling Dil Chahta Hai), doting parents (reminiscent of Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaayange), elaborate shaadi ka rasam (recalling any family drama of the 1990s), the taming of the shrew (Aditi’s final submission to a happy conjugal life, recalling Kuch Kuch Hota Hai), and the termination of the virgin heroine’s apparently eternal wait for her lover in a much-anticipated happy ending. 

It’s seemingly modern in that it addresses the confusions which assail the minds of the current generation of youngsters; but, it ingeniously draws up a list of ‘Do’s’ and ‘Don’ts’, while doing so. It pretends to fly the kite of neo-liberalism high, but knows exactly where it needs to restrict its flight. It pretends to liberate its heroines, but doesn’t forget to inscribe around them the lakshmanrekha: while Naina (Deepika) remains a virgin (or at least that is suggested) until she eventually falls in love with Kabir (Ranbir Kapoor), Aditi (Kalki) abandons her punk ways and surrenders to normative dictates by getting married to a quintessential ‘good guy’ (Kunal Roy Kapoor), carefully outgrowing her amorous feelings for the ‘bad guy’ (Aditya Roy Kapoor). The film portrays the eternal conflict between the global and the local, the nation and the trans-nation, tradition and modernity. And as it always has been with the romantic comedies produced in post-liberalization India, the film ends up celebrating glocalization, albeit with a warning: there’s no harm in being liberal and cosmopolitan, but certain boundaries cannot be crossed.

                 

A tad too long, YJHD despite its fun moments and rocking music (Pritam), grates on the nerves towards the end. Ranbir Kapoor has already become a youth icon, so has Deepika; the casting proves highly conducive in conveying the message the film wanted to convey. Aditya Roy Kapoor fits the role but needs to work hard on dialogue delivery. Kalki has put in her best efforts. Madhuri Dixit’s cameo as Mohini has the appeal of a dream, but such a dream begins and ends much too abruptly, and stands ‘out’ as an item number. 

The film seems to have taken the box-office by storms, and seems to be making money like no other blockbuster in the recent past; but what one needs to remember is that Hindi Cinema has always encouraged romance as long as it doesn’t remarkably destabilize the normative. It allows freedom, but never loses control on the chains of confinement. YJHD does exactly the same. 

Image courtesy:

gallery.oneindia.in

The Burning Tiger

I

On Independence Day, I was on my way to a friend’s place on Prince Anwar Shah Road, in south Kolkata. As I approached his house, I was struck by a moving mass of people jostling on the road at a distance. I was taken aback. It seemed to me either a carnival or a terrible riot was underway. I headed towards the crowd, rather curiously with a beating heart, almost in half-a-mind to retrace my way to the Prince Anwar Shah crossing and take some other road. I inched towards the crowd and realized that it was particularly concentrated in front of Navina, an old stand-alone cinema hall on Anwar Shah Road. But why? Well, I did not have to wait long. Garlanded life-size cut-outs of Salman Khan were soon gazing at me with intently penetrating eyes of a majestic tiger, ready to pounce on its prey. And a swarm of cheering and jeering young men were engaged in a passionate ritual of hero-worship. 

Men, men, men! It seemed to me that the male desire for Khan had won hands down over the female desire for the brawn hero with soft romantic eyes. Where were the women? They have deliberately stayed away from the carnivalesque ruckus, thereby allowing an intense homoerotic male-bonding, cemented by the collective desire for the ‘roaring’ Khan!  Men had arrived in hoards, in wife-beaters or body-hugging T-shirts, tight jeans and a patta tied around their heads. The masculine energy that flowed was not only restricted to the glistening sweat on their faces and its patch-marks on their shirts, but also in their ribald alacrity to hail the greatness of their hero. I gathered that the ‘First Day First Show’ of Ek Tha Tiger, as all other opening shows of Salman Khan films must have been, was indeed a hypermasculine affair, much in tune with Salman Khan’s screen avatar. In their collective desire for self-identification with Khan’s epic stature, these men also unwittingly betrayed a homoerotic camaraderie: among many other attributes, the desire for Khan’s perfectly sculpted body is perhaps domineering. Salman Khan had originated the trend of using the body to the effect of spectacle since his Karan Arjun (1995) days. Since then, he has often gone shirtless on-screen as well as off-screen, thereby establishing the perfect body as the primary criterion not only for aspiring actors, but even those already doing well. Even the phenomenally successful Shah Rukh Khan had to submit to that demand (Om Shanti Om, 2007), after having reigned at the box-office for fifteen odd years. In any case, whether it’s Salman Khan or John Abraham, the camera loves their bodies and caresses their biceps, triceps, bulging pectoral muscles and perfectly chiseled torso. The gaze is double-edged; since mainstream Hindi has always assumed a preeminently male audience, the gaze cannot be simplistically interpreted as a heterosexual female gaze; it is a queer male gaze too, that simultaneously desires that spectacular body and also aspires to achieve its perfection. 

II

In his last few films in particular, Khan has been performing a certain kind of aggressive masculinity which, for a certain section of the audience, has, indeed, become a prototype of which all other forms of masculinities are but mere approximations: he parades his muscles turning them into a desirable consumer product to be had at the local gymnasium; he destabilizes the corrupt system single-handedly; he dances ‘like a man’, with pelvic thrusts and booty shakes, easily imitable by the roadside tapori in the Ganesh Chaturthi or Durga Puja processions; and he is disarmingly vulnerable, a vulnerability that is a manifestation of innocence. In fact, none of these characteristics have been invented by Salman Khan; Bollywood heroes have always been like that, with the exception of perhaps the sinewy show of which Khan was the originator. But, what is interesting is, just when we were thinking that the superhuman Bollywood hero was dead, Khan reincarnated him in his full glory. After a few debacles and average hits, Salman Khan returned, as it were, with Wanted in 2009 which was his first hit after the sleazy adult comedy No Entry in 2005, where he played a promiscuous middle class man, cheating on his wife without any qualms.  A few flops later Dabaang hit the screen in the middle of 2010, and broke box-office records. The runaway success of Dabaang brought in its wake a few other films on the same line: Ready and Bodyguard released back-to-back in 2011, and to some extent replicated the success of Dabaang. Although frowned upon by the critics as mindless and bawdy, by 15 August 2011, when Ek Tha Tiger released, a new hero was already born. The phrase “Ek tha…” (recalling the beginning of folk/fairy tales) in the title of the latest Yash Raj film attributes to him the status of a legendary figure and situates him in a timeless zone where all mythological heroes belong.  Naming him after the national animal, the title of the film cashes in on the cultural symbol of the tiger, as the King of the forest, the most stately, dignified and potent or perhaps the most dabaang (fearless) of all beasts. This new Salman Khan avatar, again, has its antecedent in the South Indian superhero whose salability in a pan-Indian market had been already ratified by his immense popularity on television. Tamil and Telegu films, dubbed in Hindi, have been earning noteworthy TRP since the day Sony Entertainment’s Set-Max started to run these films. At present, these films are often aired in prime-time slots. It is with the Salman Khan films (and more recently some of Akshay Kumar) that he has gained a national status.

The two blockbusters Hum Aapke Hain Kaun…! (1994) and Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge (1995) sounded the death knell of the action hero, and gave birth to the rich, sophisticated, foreign-educated, self-indulgent upper middle class hero whose most recognizable ambition in life was to soak himself in consumerist abundance. However, the action hero lived on in B/C grade Bollywood films. Several such films with the 80s superstar Mithun Chakraborty in the lead, made on an alarmingly paltry budget, did immensely good business in the interiors. In the cities too, in a few single-screen theatres catering mostly to the urban poor, these films ran to full houses. The action hero was still relevant to those who had not palpably felt the impact of the economic liberalization, despite their considerably easy access to mobile phones and satellite television. But in A-grade Bollywood flicks, he was sufficiently dislodged and replaced by the new middle class consumerist hero.  These were the “India Shining” years of the BJP reign, with the urban middle class tasting the fruits of the economic liberalization and salivating their way to compulsive consumerism, scarcely considering its fatal side effects. There was apparently nothing to be angry about; it was time to revel in the goodness of ‘good life’. The action hero barely had a cause to fight for.

Despite its brazenly extravagant attempt to sell the image of a shining India in the 2004 election campaign, the BJP lost out to Congress, by which time, the negative effects of economic liberalization had started to make visible impact on everyday life. Excessive price of essential goods that rose uncontrollably made life difficult for the masses. Besides, militant Hinduism had reached its crescendo, and communal riots between the Hindus and the Muslims achieved a new benchmark of unspeakable violence in the bloody Godhra riots in 2002. Saffron had already become the color of terror for many. The 2004 elections saw the UPA government, led by the Indian National Congress, coming to power. Although it was re-elected in 2009, under the UPA government things have barely improved. While demand for Gorkhaland continues to plague the beautiful hills of West Bengal, the demand for Telengana in Andhra Pradesh sporadically gathers fuel leading to terrible pogroms. On the other hand, Maoist rebellion against the State has more often than not proved devastating, and largely beyond control. The troubled water the country has slipped into has been further contaminated by a staggering number of scams that have taken place in the past three years. Corruption which was always there, acquired the status of evil personified as it were, when Anna Hazare launched a non-violent anti-corruption movement in the Gandhian mode amid much fanfare and media hoopla on 5 April 2011. The clarion call was answered by many, and Hazare became a hero overnight. There was, finally, a cause to fight for. Although the Anna Hazare movement lost wind within a few months, the movement has in any case, made the most unimpressionable and apathetic Indian, aware of a generally bad state of things.

 

Under such circumstances, it is quite natural for Bollywood to construct a messiah-like hero of superhuman dimensions. He is not as intense as the Angry Young Man of the seventies, born in the wake of the Emergency, or as volatile and brooding as the anti-hero of the early nineties, a product of the gory communal riots that tore the country asunder. Rather, he has affiliations with Superman or Batman, and demands of his audience unwarranted suspension of disbelief. His is a literally physical action that seeks to destabilize the system and purge it of its impurities almost magically. He is more brawn than brainy, and acts on his impulse. He caters to the desire of the modern Indian youth for whom physical action is more desirable than intellectual exercise; the Indian youth, in general, doesn’t want to put to use his rational faculty, and is easily seduced by surface gloss. Seriously lacking in historical knowledge, and more importantly, having no ideology to adhere to, the current breed of young people are much too frivolous and shallow. They neither have time nor the desired knowledge to get to the root of things. For instance, they know there is something called corruption that is ruining our nation, but very few takes interest in unraveling the causes behind it. The new action hero who barely cares for logic and acts impetuously incarnates the ethos with which the majority of the Indian youth identifies. Nonetheless, he alienates the multiplex audience to a certain extent as testified by the box-office collections; but, for a section of the urban audience too, he is an amusing ‘time-pass’, who does not demand of them painstaking attention and, therefore, offers a delightful break after a trying week. However, he is gaily celebrated by the urban poor, and in small towns and farther interiors. And this section of the audience is a numerical majority in India, and therefore, of tremendous consequence to the producers. The first day collections have of late become determinant of the film’s fate at the box-office; and none of these films have significantly disappointed their makers in this respect. No matter how infuriatingly illogical he might appear to some, the Tiger as he is aptly called, will continue to rule. That he still sustains his popularity is clearly attested by the carnivalesque celebrations on Prince Anwar Shah Road on his opening day.

'Sahib, Biwi aur Gangster': Love, Sex and Politics

Tigmanshu Dhulia transposes Abrar Alvi’s Sahib Biwi aur Gulam (a Guru Dutt production) to contemporary Uttar Pradesh, precisely to the realm of a decadent Raja (Jimmy Shergill as Sahib), unable to outgrow his faded feudal glory and cope up with the rise of the common people, once their subject. Set in the bleak backdrop of dirty politics, Sahib, Biwi aur Gangster is a nerve-racking tale of crime and passion told with a spine-chilling honesty. The film in many ways recalls Vishal Bharadwaj’s classic Maqbool, especially in the love/power nexus in which the three main characters are caught.

Chhoti Rani (Mahie Gill) is way too modern and remarkably less passive compared to Chhoti Bahu of Sahib Biwi aur Gulam. In the game of power that unfolds Chhoti Rani plays a pioneering role that is almost destructive. Enigmatic and whimsical, Chhoti Rani has fallen from grace in Sahib’s eyes for having harbouring amorous feelings for a certain Lalit; the details of the love story, however, is left undisclosed. Under no circumstances is she ready to transgress class boundaries, even though she falls in love all over again with her ex-lover’s namesake, incidentally her chauffer (Randeep Hooda). A clandestine steamy love affair ensues whereby Lalit is ensnared by Chhoti Rani into acting the way she wants him to. Lalit too is no simpleton; madly in love, he throws morality to the winds and embarks on a vicious mission of overthrowing the Sahib and usurping his throne. What he realizes with a fatal blow is that he, despite his cunning and daredevilry, cannot outgrow his class. Class remains central to the narrative; and every human emotion subservient to the necessity of preserving the hierarchy.

The world of Sahib, Biwi Aur Gangster is not very unfamiliar to us. Besides Maqbool, we are also reminded of Anurag Kashyap’s Gulal, one of his finest films till date. In terms of storytelling the film scores the most for it keeps you glued to the screen as endless surprises await you till the end. The film is also worth a watch for the powerhouse of performances it delivers: Randeep Hooda is reinvented as the macho Lalit (alias Babloo); equally credible as a passionate lover and a compulsive evil-doer, Hooda steals the show almost effortlessly. Jimmy Shergill dons the turban of royalty with dignity, and delivers with aplomb. Mahie Gill is good, but needs more experience, it seems.

I am somewhat enjoying this new trend of reworking classics that have crazily caught up with Hindi filmmakers, and interestingly, most of them are doing justice to it. This is a very postmodern phenomenon, which not only offers a reinterpretation of the classics, but also calls into question the sanctimony of authorship and originality. Thanks to the emergence of the multiplexes, again a very late capitalist event, that films such as Sahib, Biwi aur Gangster, are finding producers and of course a doting audience.