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.

“Shanghai”: The unattainable dream city

The title of my review of Dibakar Banerjee’s latest explains the title Shanghai that seems to elude most of its viewers. The title, indisputably, is far-fetched, and demands of the audience an awareness of the unattainable dreams Indian politicians are famed to peddle. Shanghai is the prototype city of the ultimate development human civilization can envisage at the present moment. So every Indian politician hawks this dream, unconscientiously; they are either oblivious of the predicament of several hundred people the realization of such a dream would entail, or they are simply not bothered. Dr. Ahmadi raises his voice against the brutality of such a project in a fictional Indian state, unimaginatively named Bharatnagar. He is assassinated, and the rest of the film, in a crime-thriller mode, is a search of the assassin. However, the viewer is all along aware who the real villain is. It is the characters, within the film, which has to arrive at the truth already available to the viewer. But, the film never once names the villain and attributes to the viewer such superior knowledge. The irony is the Indian viewer has grown so used to the corruption and evil practices of the State in general, that she can anticipate the end from the very beginning. 

If the end is already predictable from the very outset, why watch Shanghai? Why are people raving about the film? Is it really that great? I would say not quite. The film simply plays to the gallery, recounting and tying up into a single narrative political news that have been making headlines in the past few years in the media. Dr. Ahmadi (a glamorized, younger and suave version of Anna Hazare) is the tragic hero, the kind the nation badly needs at present. His socialist idealism, though undercut by his foreign university degree and teaching career, seeks to dismantle the general scene of aggressive capitalism in the post-global world. However, the popular version of progress that means approximating the dream technopolis, notwithstanding the quagmire such progress thrusts millions of less-privileged people into, barely changes.  

           

The film is realistic enough not to monger another dream of a better future. Rather it lays bare the atrocity of the lust for power, when Dr. Ahmadi’s widow enters into a pact with the political party that killed her husband, and contends the election. Although a responsible and honest government official resign, giving up on a prospective career, nothing changes eventually. In fact, in declaring “Shalini’s book on Dr. Ahmadi’s assassination was banned in India”, the film makes the viewer aware that she is acting voyeur to a forbidden narrative. The farce called democracy becomes all the more manifest in this declaration and the subsequent realization that dawns on the viewer. This is nothing new; official versions of history are mostly fabrications, and fiction has often intervened to relate true history. Shanghai performs the same function, reflecting on a pan-Indian reality at present.

If not for the content, the film is strongly recommended for its three mind-blowing performances: Imran Hashmi breaks new grounds as the porn filmmaker Jogi. With yellowed teeth and a bulging tummy, Imran steals the show with panache. Abhay Deol, who almost grows into the tie and the formal shirt, downplays his dimples to a startling effect to infuse credibility into the middle-class, idealistic, and serious Krishnan. Kalki’s is a passionate performance; she enacts with her eyes and body language what Shalini believes in. She would invariably remind of dedicated women freedom fighters strongly rooted in ideology. Prosenjit Chatterjee’s Dr. Ahmadi is a looker, indeed. But his forced Hindi is a downer. Banerjee could have very well made him a Bengali. Pitobash, Farooqh Sheikh and Supriya Pathak are near perfect.

           

Shanghai incidentally is smarting at the box-office under the onslaught of the agonizingly rowdy Rowdy Rathod. The postmodern lack of political and historical depth becomes ironically manifest in this. The GenY any day would give Shanghai a miss for a conventional garish Bollywood potboiler. Sad indeed! It barely matters whether Shalini’s book is banned or not! Nobody seems to care, right? 

Image Courtesy: apnaindia.com

Long Live the Family Saga!

Disclaimer: I have no intention of injuring anybody’s sentiments. My humble plea is:  ‘think’.

I was pretty much distraught at an invitation that came my way through Facebook to join a reunion of school friends. In fact, this reunion was facilitated by a Facebook forum created by one of our batchmates some three months back. The person who had sent out the invite, I guess, is currently located in Bangalore, and had clicked on the Send All button, not bothering to filter out those who were elsewhere. Of course, I, by the virtue of my very location, was not expected to participate in this reunion; but what immediately struck me as weird was the six-letter word preceded by a preposition within a conspicuous parenthesis: {with Family}. The parenthesis is certainly interesting: at one level, one could feel that the use of this punctuation mark does not assume the naturalness of having a family; at another level, one (more sceptical ones) could feel completely demoralised for the parenthesis is etched in the collective unconscious as a mathematical command −‘take common’. For example: 3ab + 9acb + 12a² is preferably written as 3a (b + 3cb + 4a). Right? Who knew whether the inviter did not invest the parenthesis with this algebraic meaning? If that wasn’t true, the {parenthesis} encapsulating the two words ‘with Family’ inadvertently walled out those ‘without’ one. Thinking semiotically, isn’t the walling-out effect much too conspicuous in the {}?

            

I am not really tetchy about this invite. I am actually trying to use this as a pretext (even a case-study) to voice a concern nagging me for the past few years. In fact, the concern was so very overwhelming that it prompted me to take it up as a part of my doctoral programme. The much sentimentalized and emotionalized six-letter word FAMILY…my thesis investigates into an almost pathologic obsession with the family in postcolonial South Asian fiction. Not only in South Asia, family is of supreme consequence to any capitalist society, and this condition of late capitalism that we blissfully inhabit attributes to the family an unprecedented importance. It is therefore not without significance that 1994 was declared the international year of the family; it is around this time the revolution in information technology occurred, whereby globalization, in true sense of the term, reached its climax. It is interesting to note that as the East/West binary that began to dissolve with lightning-fast speed afterwards, the South Asian pride in the family as against the individualized society of the West no longer held water. For, family as an institution also gained tremendous importance in the West; and that was not surprising at all. For any consumerist society to survive a proper channelization of wealth is absolutely necessary; therefore, monogamous heterosexual marriage, reproduction and perpetuation of progeny are encouraged to such an extent that the possibility of an alternative lifestyle is often wiped out from public consciousness (And notably, in the sanitized space of the middle class deeply rooted in morality, any form of miscegenation, racial, caste or class, through marriage is generally vehemently discouraged). The single independent woman and the gay man (or for that matter the straight metrosexual man as well) with a steady flow of income have definitely gained importance as new potential consumers, but the marketability of the family as collective consumers is of no match to them. So much so that the debate involving queer marriages often addresses the state-sponsored benefits the heterosexual family enjoys in western societies. In fact, the radical opposition to gay marriage (why imitate a heteronormative way of being?) has of late sufficiently sobered down to a comparatively more assimilationist stance whereby the economic advantages of having a family are recognized. 

These advantages are not hard to recognize, indeed. Films, novels, television soaps and serials, magazines, newspapers, and most visibly, ad-films and billboards are much too passionately rejoicing the family as given. For instance, no food bazaar advertisement is ever complete without an over-the-top happy holy trinity of the father, mother and the child. As if no single person can possibly be in need of any grocery ever! Take for example the recent Amway ad: claiming to have brought to the market an amazing range of consumerist products, from arthritis drugs to anti-wrinkle cream, the Indian version of the Amway ad has an old dadaji suffering from joint pain, a middle-aged mother anxious about her sagging skin, a tired father and a child much too eager to become tall. The bourgeois household complete with the holy trinity overseen by the authoritative figure of the old patriarch ostensibly becomes Amway’s target consumer. In fact, it’s indeed difficult to think of ads which have a single man or a woman shopping happily.

           

Therefore, my poor friend cannot be blamed at all. He has been brought up in a society which has attributed to the family such a status of ‘givenness’ that any departure from it is either inconceivable or generally eyed with suspicion, condescension, and sometimes treated with unsolicited sympathy. In fact, a person without a family is perhaps the queerest (as in strangest) person available. A single person is remarkably menacing to the complacency of the family, for his/her very presence threatens to jeopardize the perpetuation of capitalist economy. Therefore, the entire world conspires to pair him/her off, and eliminate the threat. Interestingly, even Shakespearean romantic comedies, which end in happy marriages, alienate those who remain unpaired till the end. Jacques, Malvolio, and even Feste. These plays were written when a feudal economy was stealthily but steadily giving way to a capitalist one.    

The parenthesis containing the phrase ‘with Family’ also struck me as unsettling because I could not comprehend why a reunion of school friends should turn into a family affair. Well, more sentimental folks would argue that it is perfectly ‘natural’ to introduce your school friends to your spouse and children. What’s wrong in that? Well, not really! But, my problem is that a space which could jolly well be my own is sadly usurped by the presence of the spouse and the children. Don’t I desire or am I not entitled to a private space beyond the everydayness of family affairs? A gathering of old school buddies could provide me with a space which would not demand of me to perform in some expected ways (as a parent or a spouse). I can be myself. I have not been to any of these reunions ever, even when these had taken place in my own city, but I am more than certain that these rendezvous would soon turn into over-enthusiastic discourses of kabhi khusi kabhi gham with the family. This is but expected. With very little in common, except for the school which has now become history, what could be the topic of conversation? How long could nostalgic rumination of the past go on? Two weeks, may be three weeks? Then? Of course, many would lose interest and the enthusiasm with which this informal alumni meet had begun would reach a point of precipitation, and would suddenly evaporate one day without any trace. I’m not specifically referring to this reunion of old school buddies; not at all. Actually, in any kind of social gathering where people of myriad backgrounds congregate without any particular purpose it is indeed difficult to zero in on one topic of discussion. Either it has to be the ubiquitous family or cricket…or may be television serials. You can’t expect a group of people of diverse sensibilities and preferences to discuss, say novels. For many, all novels are written by Chetan Bhagat. Not even cinema; for many, art films cannot be commercial and vice versa. Not even fashion; for many, high-heeled stilettos are not at war with the salwar-kameez. Not even economics; for many, it is the realm of Pranab Mukherjee by default. Not even politics; for many, CPM is Marxism. Not even sex; for many, sex does not exist and even if it does it exists only in personified forms as Paoli Dam (it was Mallika Sherawat a few years back)! The erudite snootiness I displayed above is hard to digest I know. Therefore, I hasten to add with humility that there is nothing consequential to confer on usually. This is the general condition of these social meetings. In any case, Bangali adda has of late acquired the status of a genre, and many sociologists might just attack me with vengeance. Who said that every adda has to be esoteric? Of course, not. Haven’t we come a long way off from Socratic Greece? Now does this last comment remind you of Ray’s Agantook? Well, that was one Bengali film that wasn’t middle class.

Returning to where I started. Why drag the family in the private space consisting only of school friends? This is because most of us have never felt the necessity of being alone, or the importance of privacy. Privacy? What is that, anyway? By ‘us’, I specifically refer to the run-of-the-mill middle class men and women who have grown up under the perennial surveillance of a mercilessly monitoring parental gaze, one that could put the panopticon to shame. Most of us have not had the luxury of a room of our own. Woolf might have to modify her thesis had she been aware of the middle-class Indian household where, let alone women, men rarely have the desired room, quarantined from snoopy parents and curious relatives. This lack of privacy becomes such a habit with us that we do not ever question it. Especially after marriage, most middle class men and women cannot imagine having a social circle beyond the knowledge of their spouses (although cyber social networking sites have opened up possibilities of interacting with like-minded people without having to face much hazard). Lend a patient ear to any conversation among middle class people on a public vehicle, and within minutes you would be well-acquainted with everything that concerns their lives: from their daughter’s horoscope to the underwear brand they prefer. Why even try so hard? Roadsides are often converted into loos with a certain sense of triumph. Could there be a more glaring example of the lack of a sense of privacy? The point is there is no privacy in our lives and we have been programmed not to yearn for for any. Therefore, let the family saga rule. Hum Aapke Hain Koun is any day a bigger hit than Arth!

I know most of you might have concluded by now that I am much too frustrated. Why harbour such profound hatred for the family? And who said privacy was a desirable necessity? Well, I don’t harbour hatred for the family as such, but the unnecessary sentiments that are associated with it. But even then the very act of questioning the family might appear weird to many. Plain ranting may be. And that is natural. For hasn’t Louis Althusser been shouting himself hoarse that we are irreversibly interpellated by the ideological state apparatuses? And doesn't the family rank quite high up in that list?  Remember what Raymond Williams’ Keywords reminds us? The root of the word ‘family’ is the Latin famulus meaning ‘servant’. The word has since then evolved remarkably, but somehow its original meaning has not yet been lost. I feel the family has successfully colonized everyone and constantly demands of them a servile consent to remain colonized forever. 

Image courtesy: londonnfp.com

'Laptop': Grim, stifling, confining, and all that

I wont waste much space in reviewing Kaushik Ganguly’s latest, for I have nothing much to say, apart from cribbing about the film’s claustrophobic grimness and raving about Ganguly’s spectacular blind-act. The director gives himself the maximum footage, and quite effortlessly steals the show as a visually challenged writer (Partha) who dictates his novels to Subha (Ananya Chatterjee) all through the day. Subha and her noisy typewriter become his constant companion in the dimly lit apartment smarting under almost palpable depression. Subha’s reticence and sombreness adds to the darkness of the atmosphere; yet, it is in her very presence that Partha feels most animated. Struck by his remarkable insight into feminine desires, Subha once asks him: “Dekhen ki kore?” (How do you see?).


Apart from this part of the story, which incidentally constitutes a major chunk of the plot, Laptop has nothing much to offer. In fact, the way in which the laptop changes hands is rather un-dramatic and a tad incredible. It ruins a family while partially reunites another. It is because of the laptop that Jiyon (Gaurab Chakraborty) has to carry the burden of a failed affair and a false allegation of theft all his life. Indra (Rahul Bose) finds out that his son is being raised by a tea-planter’s family in Darjeeling through some data stored in the laptop. The way in which the film connects the ensemble cast at the very beginning is quite remarkable and raises expectations; but it sadly fails to live up to the expectations as the story unfolds. In fact, there is not a single moment that provides comic relief, and the existential angst becomes a bit too taxing, even when the story moves out of stifling interiors to the hills of Darjeeling. The last part of the film sentimentalizing on impotency and a father having to stay away from his son is unbearably long and monotonous. The film required heavy editing, in general.

The ensemble cast of TV actors is good; but Rahul Bose is atrocious and Churni’s mannerisms grate on your nerves. She is becoming extremely repetitive by the day. Apart from Kaushik, it’s Ananya who stands out. Anyway, at 180 minutes the agony the characters suffer grows into you, leaving you rather distraught. In a word, Laptop is a major disappointment of sorts. The evening show at Fame (Hiland Park) had but a thin crowd, and none seemed sufficiently excited after the curtains came down.

Image: banglasangeet.in

Magic Realty…erm…Reality: The future of the ghosts…well…secure- A review of 'Bhooter Bhabishyot'

In the rather lackadaisical prelude that takes almost 15 minutes to arrive at the core narrative, Sabysachi Chakraborty who volunteers to share a plot idea with the aspiring director Parambrata Chattopadhyay, tells the latter that his story has “layers”. As Aneek Dutta’s Bhooter Bhabishyat (The Future of the Past) progresses with amazing alacrity after that, the audience laughs through the exploration of these ”layers”, while, in the spirit of a good comedy, being compelled to think. Bhooter Bhabishyat is not mindless entertainment, but an amusing social satire that demands considerable attention.

Delightfully auto-reflexive, Bhooter Bhabishyat brings back the benign spook, the kind popularized by Ray’s Goopy Gayen Bagha Bayen (Parambrata’s cell often breaks moments of eerie silence with the benevolent Bhooter Raja’s ghostly articulation of the three boons) The crew of ghosts Dutta introduces is comprised of well-known caricatures: the North Kolkata zamindar, a British official of the East India Company, a yesteryear heroine of Bengali cinema, a “Bangal” refugee, a Bihari rickshaw-puller, a royal Muslim chef (from Sirajudaulla’s kitchen), a Naxalite, a colonel who lost his life in the 1999 Kargil War, a pseudo-intellectual band-singer, a college girl spurned in love, and a hilariously ruthless mastaan.

The bhoot is all about recalling history: the arrival of the East India Company, Sirajudaulla, the British Raj in Bengal and the complicity of the Zamindars with the colonial rulers…the Partition…black and white Bengali cinema of the 1940s… the Naxalite Revolution and its martyrs…the Kargil War…Down to the Rizwanur case, and the obsession with band formation…"revolutionary music” that is ear-splittingly cacophonic and demands a lot of attitude! This history needs to be preserved…and hence, the fight to save Chowdhury Mansion which has drawn the greedy attention of Ganesh Bhutoria, the avaricious promoter. Since, everbody (read the State) is completely nonchalant about preserving this heritage the band of ghosts takes upon themselves the Herculean responsibility. The mission is accomplished, and the ghosts “live” happily ever after. The story-within-the-story ends happily indeed. But this is mere wishful thinking…in reality nobody is bothered about the future of the past. Therefore, the story of the past needs to be told…and what can be a better medium than cinema? In order their voices are heard the ghosts produce a film. And the film is Bhooter Bhabishyot. For you!

A superlative ensemble cast keeps you in splits all through: Paran Bandopadhyay brings in his inherent comic talent to the portraiture of Darpanarayan; George Baker plays the representative of the British Raj with a pampering concern for the “natives”, the lesser mortals; Biswajit Chakraborty’s colonel is too full of nostalgia, playing out with utter faith his patriotic leanings much to the annoyance of the other ghosts; Swastika Mukherjee goes full retro with remarkable credibility; Saswata Chatterjee surprises us with his maastan act; Samdarshi, the self-proclaimed revolutionary and Mumtaz, who has been badly betrayed by her boyfriend, bring in the romantic streak; and the Bangal refugee, the Muslim chef and the Bihari rickshaw-puller are much too real…magic real?

One of the most cerebral films made in recent times, Bhooter Bhabishyot uses double-entendre to an amazing effect…the film shows how one can be intelligently crass. The film merges the elitist and the populist to a commendable degree, resulting in full-on entertainment. As I have said earlier, it remains true to the spirit of good comedy, never losing sight of the Shavian dictum that comedy is not about mindless laughter…it should make you think while you laugh.

POSTSCRIPT:

For the first time ever I have been compelled to add to a review written almost a month back. I am precisely talking about “Bhooter Bhabisyot”. Many found the film “bad” for it is simply repeating some caricatures; and caricatures cannot make for a good comedy. I would like to debunk this take by arguing that the film in good humour mocks the cultural memory of middle class Bengalis, which, incidentally, is nothing but a string of stereotypes chronologically placed. The film deliberately reiterated these stereotypes as brilliant caricatures. For instance, post-Partition, the Muslim has entered the collective memory as such a ‘violent’ Other (constructed through several narratives which have by now acquired the status of myth), that the Muslim character is made to speak Urdu/Hindi, but not Bengali. The ‘othering’ is thereby reinforced. This cannot be read as racist, but a comical take on the constructedness of the image of the Muslim in the collective memory.

            The film, reportedly, has displeased some for being much too middle class. But the fun lies here: the film, intentionally or may be unintentionally, addresses the fact that it is the cultural memory of the middle class that hegemonizes and controls all other memories. This is because, the middle class, the neo-colonial class (to allude to Frantz Fanon) has stepped into the shoes of the former colonial master and till date by consent or sometimes even violently eliminated all other cultural memories. This is not only true of Bengal, but the entire postcolonial nation. The film mocks this dominant middle class perception of history, and the source of humour is the film’s auto-reflexive take on the subject. 

Image courtesy: washingtonbanglaradio.com

'Kahaani': Fact of fiction of fictitious fact

What is Kahaani all about? Kahaani is, well, about a fiction…erm…a story. Kahaani, technically speaking, is also about storytelling…as in how to tell a story…Well, Kahaani is also about fabrication, what fiction usually does…and the truth literally turns out to be stranger than fiction…a truth which is fictive, but not impossible. And like all good kahaanis, Kahaani too unfolds catalyzing in every reel a nail-biting curiosity of “What happens next”, finally leaving you bewildered, baffled, and confounded. Once the initial bewilderment wanes and the kahaani sinks in (both these happen in a jiffy), a deep pleasure is all that you feel: it’s akin to having finding your way out of a bemusing labyrinth on your own. Sujoy Ghosh and Advaita Kala (in association with Suresh Nair and Nikhil Vyas) have done a marvellous job! Namrata Rao’s scissors and adhesive have cut and joined the frames with remarkable adroitness attributing to the narrative just the right kind of pace.
The film has employed the mother-motif to an unforeseen effect: a pregnant woman in search of her husband. Sympathy rarely rains on her, as she finds herself caught in a quagmire of dangerous crimes that lurk in the underbelly of an apparently warm city. Kahaani tells a hitherto untold story of Kolkata, jolting the audience into an awareness of evil that resides in the interstices of the city. Here, Kolkata is no longer the romantic city of Tagore’s poetry and rosogolla revolving around the pleasant colonial hangover of the Victoria Memorial; nor is it the city of the unassuming Bengali bhadrolok. In fact, on closer observation, the city does not seem to belong to Bengalis any more. Ghosh de-romanticizes Kolkata to an extent no Bollywood film has ever does. The brief prefatory fragment metonymically related to the main narrative invokes an anxiety about the city that is increasingly intensified not to be resolved ever. A sense of uneasiness refuses to desert you long after the curtains come down. (I was half in mind to avoid the Metro while returning home) Kahaani has ended up defamiliarizing Kolkata sufficiently. The Benjaminian concept of the city as labyrinth has hereby acquired a new dimension.
Vidya Balan enacts a pregnant mother with so much credibility that, well…you know…I mean she carries the baby bump really well. The way she walks, the anxiety of not finding her husband that grows with every passing moment and in her lighter moments with the two children (Vishnu and Poltu)…Vidya, erm, Bidya is perhaps the most believable of all on-screen carrying moms we have seen so far. Next year too the National Award for the Best Actor (Female) should be in her custody. Thanks to Roshmi Banerjee, the casting director. Parambrata, Kharaj, Dhritiman, Nazawuddin Siddiqui and Shantilaal are perfect choices for the roles they have essayed. However, it is Saswata Chatterjee who steals the show, cold-bloodedly. I still feel goose-bumps as I think of his Bob Biswas.
Kahaani is after all based on an age-old theme; I wont tell you which. But it has been given such a makeover that you do not realize that all along you were watching a known story. That’s why I said in the beginning that Kahaani is also about “how to tell a tale”. One of the best films in the recent years, Kahaani deserves no less than a nine out of ten in all the categories, except perhaps in the musical one. In any case, music is not its mainstay. It’s the kahaani!

‘Hugo’: Of machines and emotions!

Martin Scorsese’s Hugo destabilizes the machine/emotion binary, locating human emotions in a labyrinth of revolving clock-wheels literally. The film sufficiently revamps the thriller genre (and the biopic as well) and keeps you on your toes till the end when the mystery is eventually revealed. A strange mystery seems to lurk in the heart of the automaton which Hugo’s father sets out to unravel, but is killed in a museum fire. Little Hugo takes upon himself, the responsibility of completing his father’s unfinished task, only to arrive at a fascinating truth. What is this truth that is hidden in the heart of the automaton? Well, you have to find that out yourself.

Most of the film is shot in a busy railway station, where little stories unfold with remarkable poignancy. The film filters out from the milling crowd those who are stationed for life in this very transitory space, and tells their stories: Madame Emile, the coffee shop-owner and Monsieur Frick, the newspaper seller; the superbly funny Inspector Gustave and the beautiful flower-girl Lisette. Little tales of romantic attachment punctuate a story predominantly torn apart by the war. The Inspector’s ailing leg is a constant reminder of the terrible experiences of the battlefield; while Georges Méliès’ tragedy owes to it completely.

The film offers a powerhouse of performances: especial mention should be made of Asa Butterfield as Hugo and Sacha Baron Cohen as Inspector Gustave. Ben Kingsley as George Méliès brings into his performance a sense of loss that becomes almost palpable.

Hugo is truly different. Shot in 3D, the film is a tribute to the yesteryear masters of filmmaking, the very foundation on which Hugo itself has built itself. I would suggest that Hugo should be seen in conjunction with The Artist (both films being biopics of sorts) which bagged most of the important Academy Awards this year. You would agree with me that Hugo deserved no less. My guess is that the Academy Award jury has of late become more affectionate towards the populist, and this is exactly why The Artist won.

Image Courtesy: butr.com

Eleven Bollywood Flicks and their Woman Protagonists

On International Women’s Day let us recall some Bollywood flicks that have tried to break through conventions in portraying women. The non-agential heroine, providing only the oomph, is still very much a part of Bollywood even today (think of Bodyguard or Agneepath); most films targeting a heterosexual male audience are more often than not incorrigibly sexist. In a male-dominated industry with a male-dominated audience, very few films can afford to be politically correct, for they must play to the gallery in order to conquer the box-office. I select ten plus one films and their woman protagonists here. Please add to the list, for I am surely missing out on many!

Achhoot Kanya (1936): Devika Rani plays a Dalit woman Kasturi in love with Pratap, a Brahmin boy. The film addresses the plight of the doubly marginalized Kasturi poignantly. With a nation struggling in its gestation period, such themes were relevant, for the national imaginary was to be largely dominated by the upper caste heterosexual male, post-independence.

Mughal-e-Azam (1960): The disarmingly beautiful Madhubala plays the love-struck Anarkali with such dignity that she effortlessly overshadows the magnificently powerful Mughal Emperor. She buries alive with herself, as it were, the freedom of choice of which women are usually deprived of, perennially.

Bandini (1963): Nutan as Kalyani shines through as the quintessentially imprisoned woman in a patriarchal set up. Although the film was not iconoclastic, it focused on the contribution of the rural woman to the freedom struggle, a phenomenon often overlooked in history.

Aandhi (1975): Suchitra Sen plays a charismatic politician who meets her erstwhile husband after a period of separation. Loosely based on the lives of Indira Gandhi and Tarkeshwari Sinha, the film tosses with the eternal conflict between women’s liberation and conventional feminine accomplishments. Although the film betrays Aarti’s desire for a happy conjugal life over an alluring political career (much in the same way as The Iron Lady does), Aandhi at least situates the woman beyond the confining boundaries of the home.

Bhumika (1977): Smita Patil in one of the best on-screen bhumikas she has ever essayed! A woman caught in the big bad film industry heroically balances her career and love life, sacrificing a lot in the process. Although essentially a victim, Usha’s tragic predicament unmasks the hypocrisy of the archetypal patriarch.

Umarao Jaan (1981): Spurned in love, an emotionally devastated Rekha pours her soul in this role of a tragic courtesan failing to fathom why Justujo jiski thee usko to naa paaya humne. A poet in her own right, Umraon Jaan Ada left ‘out there’ to be devoured by preying men, braves all odds with a dignity that deserves much applause.

Arth (1982): What Ibsen did in Europe with The Doll’s House Mahesh Bhatt did with this path-breaking film starring a magnetic Shabana Azmi pitted against an equally compelling Smita Patil. Betrayed by her husband, Pooja walks out on him abandoning a comfortable home to live life on her own terms. Refusing to be rescued by a man who professes true love for her, Pooja lives out her independence to the full.

Mirch Masala (1987): Smita Patil’s literally outrageous performance as Sonbai is till date unchallenged. Her war against the lusty subedar and a system at large is a telling tale of a woman’s fight for her very right to live.

Fire (1998): Patriarchy felt a terrible existential crisis when Radha and Sita snubbed men to lock themselves in each other’s arms in this ground-breaking love story of two sisters-in-law. Situating same-sex desire in the Hindu middle class household, Deepa Mehta called into question compulsory heterosexuality. Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das kindled the passionate fire as sparks flew galore.

Chak De! India (2007): An army of rugged women not only beat up prying boys, but also win the World Hockey Championship and how! No make-up, no designer outfits and no conventional affectation the Bollywood heroine is known for. Real women animate the screen even at times shoving to the periphery the majestic Shah Rukh Khan in one the best roles of his career.

Mirch (2010): An effervescent Raima Sen and a mischievous Konkona Sen Sharma throw the conventional womanly virtue of lajja to the winds in this no-holds-barred celebration of woman’s sexuality. The film naturalizes a woman’s sexual urges, and attributes the women remarkable agency that makes the men appear in pitiably poor light.

Please add to this list; there are far too many examples I have left out.

Image courtesy: oldfilmsgoingthreadbare.blogspot.com, en.wikipedia, desivideows.com, forbesindia.com

“The Artist”: Compellingly Retro

A quasi-biopic, Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist swept the Oscars with tsunamic magnificence, and deservingly so. You can’t help love the film; yet, all along, you feel the lack of something. I would not even attempt to define this ‘something’, for honestly, I have not been able to figure that out. Perhaps, I could not really identify with George Valentin’s (modelled on Douglas Fairbanks who continued to make pantomime movies heedless of the triumph of the talkies) sentiments: an adamantine yesteryear hero unremittingly resisting change. In this, Valentin seems to belong to a world far removed from ours. The feeling is intensified by the retro look-and-feel of the film. The contemporary viewers’ alienation, I believe, is intentionally orchestrated; or else, The Artist could not have been a full-fledged retro.

The Artist has captured a very important moment in the history of cinema: the talkies replacing silent films, whereby several acting careers were ruined while several were made. The Artist symbolically refers to this rise and fall in a single shot involving the staircase of the Kinograph Studios, with a stream of people climbing up and down. It is in this scene that a broken George Valentin meets a peppy Peppy Miller, newly recruited by the company, as he comes down the stairs. Apart from this scene, there is not much on the transition a part of the industry had to suffer through. However, the havoc wrought by the arrival of the talkies is metaphorically represented in the heroic battle Valentin puts up against this inevitable change. Interestingly enough, Valentin’s struggle to prove the world wrong is no less heroically melodramatic than the struggles he had so far braved on screen. And, his final predicament and recovery are rather predictable; but this does not really go against the film. This is because Hazanavicius adheres to the generic tradition of the 1920s French romantic comedy drama with orthodoxy and this deliberate stance attributes to The Artist the status of a complete retro. A postmodern metanarrative par excellence, The Artist effortlessly blurs the border between hardcore commercial and art-house cinema.


Thematically, The Artist doesn’t appeal much. But, the very experience of watching the film is rather compelling. (I’m surprised that the film did not bag a few more Oscars in the technical categories, apart from Best Costume Design and Best Original Score) Anyone who has watched the film can never forget that scary dream sequence from which Valentin wakes up with a jolt, perspiring vigorously. Again, the last scene of Tears of Love (which leaves Valentin bankrupt) where Valentin sinks into the quicksand and is buried is invariably reminiscent of Ray’s Nayak: the hero sinking into a heap of currency notes. As I have said earlier, The Artist represents a world with a different set of values, where an unpaid butler refuses to resign even after a year. And of course, Uggie, the dog! The second lead actor of the film (if Dujardin is the first), Uggie, steals the show with his humane act.


Jean Dujardin has brilliantly enacted not only a real life character, but recreated an age through his performance. The Oscar could not have been anyone else’s this year. However, what I could not understand is why Bérénice Bejo was nominated for Best Actor Female in a Supporting Role. Wasn’t she very much the lead actor?

Image courtesy: The Weinstein Company
eonline.com

‘The Descendants’: Paradise Lost and Regained

In The Descendants, Alexander Payne treads the beaten track and doesn’t once pretend to be different. Yet, The Descendants strikes you as oddly different, even if you can very well predict the end. As in case of any popular film, you stay on to witness ‘how’ the already known ‘end’ happens.

Set in the Hawaiian archipelago, the film goes beyond the 'showcase' beauty of the land to tell the story of a troubled paradise. This paradise is not just geographical, but also domestic. An extended family glued together by a covetous interest in the land it owns in Hawaii, a few acres that would fetch a fortune in the face of the burgeoning tourist interest in the place. Matthew King is back to settle a deal, while he is faced with an unforeseen misfortune. His wife has a terrible accident and goes into coma. The doctors see no hope of her coming back to life. King soon realizes that he has a bigger deal to settle: two growing daughters who he barely knows and the harsher reality of an adulterous wife, whose days, incidentally, are numbered. In short, the personal paradise of a happy family is lost to King. The rest of the film is an emotional odyssey to restore the lost paradise.

Family as an ‘affective unit’ has gained tremendous importance with the rise of capitalist economy. In fact, the family has constantly acted as a buffer countering the profound brutality of capitalism. As a source of love, affection and emotional security, the family has moved from strength to strength cushioning out, as it were, the insecurity capitalist economy has bred. In the era of late capitalism, the family continues to play a similar role, given that mobility across the globe has increased extraordinarily in the past three decades. Where there is no possibility of taking refuge in the family as such, communities of like-minded people (defined in terms of race, religion, sexual orientation, or even a homeland left behind) are being formed. Family narratives, therefore, naturally dominate popular culture everywhere. In fact, since 1994, the International Year of the Family, films and novels dealing with and actually rejoicing the ‘familial’ have been produced in considerable numbers across the globe. The Descendants belongs to this very genre rooted in the tousled matrix of personal relationships and ownership of private property. The final mission is to save the family, for that matter the monogamous heteronormative family.

The film is a tad too long; but the very lackadaisical pace goes very well with the holiday mood of the place. Mostly shot indoors, the film barely tries to cash-in on the picturesque beauty of the archipelago, sufficiently commoditized by now. And that’s a surprise. On the other hand, by almost glorifying monogamy the film also manages to deconstruct the myths of libidinous excess associated with Hawaii in the popular imagination. However, sexual debauchery seems acceptable only when it is simply physical and not romantic. King would come to terms with his wife’s sexual escapade only if he is ensured that there was no love involved in it. There is indeed sufficient moralising which, however, does not grate on your nerves, for it is not done the preachy way. All of it seems real and identifiable. The Descendants is not an iconoclastic film at all; at times it does seem regressive. But, it’s difficult to walk out midway.

If not for anything else, watch the film for George Clooney’s father-act. He enacts his vulnerabilities with so much grace that they seem natural to him. Shailene Woodley as the angry daughter, exhibiting prominent Electra-complex, does impress despite Clooney’s magnetic presence. Amara Miller provides much of the humour and how!
In fact, the casting, overall, is brilliant.

The Descendants may not create a stir at the Oscars, although it has bagged quite a few nominations. But yes, for a one-time watch, it’s highly recommended. Given that Bollywood is only churning out trash currently, The Descendants might end up conquering the Indian box-office.

'Aparajita Tumi': Storyboard of pretty images?

Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury had certainly raised our expectations post Antaheen, but Aparajita Tumi has thrown some considerable volumes of cold water on those expectations: a beautiful storyboard of perfect frames, but little substance. We’ve seen several films based on this theme in the recent past: the Indian diaspora in the United States and confused and unsorted relationships of the modern urban folk. Sounds familiar? The treatment of this already done-to-death story is also much too familiar. It’s undeniable that each one of us inhabits the emotional vacuum the film rues about. Yet, the film fails to draw sympathy for the characters. Therefore, the alienation.

I thought I should not give out the storyline. But, why not? In fact, it’s so thin it will take no more than a sentence. Here’s the bare outline: First, second and even a third (they’re still kids) generation Bengali diaspora in the United States…nostalgia for the homeland (ilish maachh and chingrir malaikari anyone?)…frustrated middle-aged men inextricably caught in the money-making machine…alcohol…deep sense of rootlessness…beautiful wives…paralytic boredom…shopping…weekend ghetto (read Bengali community) parties…extra-marital affairs…erstwhile boyfriends…estranged couples…confusion, confusion…sickness…loads of tears...back to un-happiness. Now join the dots in your mind. Got the story? But, no sentimental garbage on failed relationships: no relationship is bonded labour, after all. Right?

The following equation would be interpretative enough of what’s actually going on in Aparajita Tumi:

Diasporic anxiety + mindless materialism + meaningless emotional investment =
Existential anguish!

And don’t tell me: ‘Spare me the crap. I hate jargons’.

Well, no more of that. Let’s turn to the actors now: Padmapriya as Kuhu delivers a stunning performance; she has a magnetic screen presence, and more often than not reminds of Tabu. Seriously. How is Kamalinee as Usashie? Well, the film is self-referential: Kuhu tells Ushasie who’s bragging about a lead role she had almost bagged back home: ‘A pretty face and an hour-glass figure are not sufficient for acting. You need to have talent too!’ There you are! Prasenjit has aged remarkably ungracefully and that’s a downer enough; less we talk about his performance the better. Yawn. But Indraneil Sengupta has pulled off Yusuf with panache. His salt-and-pepper hair and that Bangladeshi accent…two thumbs up! Chandan Ray Sanyal is quite believable as someone caught in the money-making game. His low-key deliverance compensates for Prasenjit’s ‘over-the-top’ forced ‘subtlety’. Oxymoronic? Watch the film, and you would know.

Santanu Moitra’s music is something to look forward to. But he has failed to raise the bar. The Roopkatha track is beautiful, indeed! And yes, the cinematography! As I said at the very outset it is a collage of very well-shot moments. Mind-blowing visuals!

P.S: Can you tell me who is Arindam? I mean the person Anis (Kalyan Roy) is still searching for. I could somehow make out Anis’ connection with the Durgapur Steel Plant, but the Arindam factor still eludes me. Anyone?

‘My worldview has been wide from the very beginning’: In conversation with Omar Rahim

Omar Rahim impressed us significantly with his performance in Rubaiyat Hossain’s debut film Meherjaan which created quite a stir in the International Kolkata Film Festival 2011. With quite an illustrious background and a keen sense of cinema, Omar has arrived to stay. He is a rare combination of looks and talent. The sheer sensitivity with which he has essayed the role of the Pakistani soldier Wasim Khan in Meherjaan is evidence enough of his potential as an actor. Here is a candid conversation I had with him over e-mail a few days back.


Tell us something about your childhood.

I’m fortunate to have had both a desi as well as cosmopolitan childhood. I was born in Karachi. My family left for Abu Dhabi when I was two-and-a-half where we lived until I was ten. After a six-month stay in Karachi, we moved to New York, where I attended middle school and high school. While the atmosphere at home was quite grounded in South Asian culture – Urdu spoken at home, poetry, cinema and lots of inter-generational socializing – I learned to interact with people from different countries and cultures very early on. My classmates in primary school were from all over the world and even my middle school and high schools, despite being in the US, were very ethnically diverse. I think that has been a great gift. My world-view has been wide from the very beginning.

Apart from acting, what are the things that interest you?

I have had a career as a contemporary dancer and choreographer in the US and in Pakistan. I was a principal in a New York-based postmodern dance company by the name of Susan Marshall and Company right out of university. I have also enjoyed telling stories through movement as a choreographer. These days I am writing a screenplay – a contemporary story about creative artists trying to stay true to their voices in the face of commercialism in the arts/media space. Other than that, I like gardening, cooking, reading and staying active.

How did you get into acting?

I had been interested in the arts for as long as I can remember. I’ve acted in plays throughout my school days. In university I sharpened my focus on dance, and ironically, it was through the dance community that I was recommended for a cameo in a Universal Studios comedy called the Guru starring Kimi Mistry, Heather Graham and Marisa Tomei. My next major role came to me again due to my dance work – this time the music video for Zeb and Haniya’s Aitebar. I had choreographed and featured in the project and a classmate of Haniya Aslam’s from Smith College in Massachusetts was casting for Meherjaan. She sent me the treatment and I accepted the film on the basis of the film’s theme and point of view.

Did you take acting classes? How did you train yourself?

I did all sorts of arts, music, drama classes in primary school. In high school, I auditioned for a Performing Arts/Video production company – not unlike the program immortalized by the TV show Fame. I took classes in vocal singing, acting and even dance from New York City professionals through high school and also learned the basics of film-making – from writing and story-boarding to acting and directing for the camera, to editing and post-production. I have since taken acting classes in New York City and watch films and theatre as much as possible.

How was the experience on the sets on the first day?

Meherjaan was a first film for many of us. Although I had had a cameo in The Guru, Wasim Khan was my first principal role. It was also Rubaiyat’s first film as a director. As a result, the first few days of shooting were exciting if a bit loosely structured. Samiran Dutta, the very talented cinematographer of Meherjaan, sensitively led us through when we encountered a block.

Tell us about the films that you have done so far.

I played the Indian Prince in The Guru many years ago and most recently Wasim Khan in Meherjaan. I have acted in some shorts in the States and made a guest appearance in a Pakistani dramatic serial called Neeyat.

What kind of roles do you prefer the most?

I like complex roles that provide room to explore shades of grey in a character. That said, I have yet to do a comical role, which I think would be great fun!

Are you more into mainstream/commercial cinema or art-house cinema?

I have a great respect for mainstream/commercial cinema although I am probably more an art-house cinema person by temperament.

Tell us something about your fitness regime and grooming.

I stretch and do yoga quite regularly and also try to work out and swim at least once a week.


Do you have any aspirations of working in the Indian film industry, say in Mumbai? If so, name the filmmakers you would love to work with.

I would like to work in Mumbai. I have been to the magical metropolis twice and managed to meet some of the industry’s preeminent directors such as Vishal Bharadwaj, Imtiaz Ali, Nikhil Advani, and Vinay Shukla. I like their work as well the work of Zoya and Farhan Akhtar, Ayan Mukherjee, Dibaker Banerjee and Anusha Rizvi. There is great dynamism in the Mumbai-based industry and I would love to get involved.

Are you aware of the scene in Tollywood (Bengali film industry) at present?

I have seen some excellent Tollywood films and wish that I had learned Bangla/Bengali so that I might have been able to work in the industry! From Satyajit Ray, to Aparna Sen, to Rituparno Ghosh, I have always been deeply moved by the Bengali cinema.

Do you have any filmmaker in mind who you want to work with?

There are so many terrific filmmakers in India and I would be overjoyed to work in India!

"Diaries of Transformation": Delightfully In-between

Title: Diaries of Transformation: Work in Progress
Produced and directed by Anirban Ghosh
Camera: Farah Ghedra, Anirban Ghosh
Music: Satchit-Paulose
Distribution funded by Pratyay Gender Trust
Screened at: Dialogues: The Fifth Kolkata LGBT Film Festival, 2011
______________________________________________________________________________________

Academic debate rages over the fact whether the subaltern can represent herself or is always represented by the bourgeois intellectual. However, Anirban Ghosh’s Diaries of Transformation: Work in Progress attributes sufficient agency to the gender subaltern, although the fact remains that Ghosh does represent the bourgeois intellectual. Interestingly, Ghosh is careful enough to address the issue in the film itself. Oishik Sircar, Human Rights Activist, talks at length on the English-educated bourgeois leadership in queer activism and the inaccessibility of many gendered subalterns to the discourses of contemporary queer politics. However, I felt that Diaries is interesting because it does not treat the sexual subaltern as a subaltern; in fact, the film is appealing because it narrates tales of victory, rather than victimization. True, both Rai and Suman have been maltreated by an insensitive employer and callous Kolkata police respectively; but, eventually, they emerge victorious. Raju, Bini and Pinky also have their share of misgivings; Sabir’s situation is even more interesting; for him it is quite difficult to reconcile his religious and sexual identities. Tista and Sudeb appear comparatively more enlightened, and talk at length on the politics of trans-identities and assimilation. But all of them are unpretentiously candid. Especially, Bini and Pinky impress with their warmth and their humorous, no-holds-barred derision of the hypocritical ‘straight’ population.
As one story effortlessly flows into and mixes with another, shots of the various nooks and corners of the metropolis act as means of transition, as it were. Kolkata is overwhelmingly present in the film. The gender margins are physically located at its centre: the Kalighat temple, the Howrah Bridge, the Book Fair, railway stations, markets and pedestrian alleys occupied by gully-cricketers. The hijra and the transsexual man are very much a part of everyday reality, yet invisible. Of course, the invisibility is not literal, but metaphorical: they are deliberately not seen. A shot of an elderly man, probably chewing pan, with a nonchalant expression on his face speaks volumes. He is standing on the veranda, the space that connects the home with the world, but is significantly indifferent to the world, as it were. Another marvellous shot is that of a little girl making an attempt to fly a kite, while the voice-over (Sudeb) talks about irrational gender construction.
Diaries is not only confined to the issue of transexuality; it also focuses on prostitution at length. Without this, the film would have been incomplete. While it sufficiently challenges the received notion of the transsexual as sexually promiscuous, it also treats prostitution as any other trade, dismantling the moral reservation associated with it. Raju, Bini and Pinky talk about their profession, the occupational hazards, and their aspirations with remarkable forthrightness, sometimes shocking the audience, sometimes drawing hearty laughs.
Family remains an important issue all through. Acceptance by the near and dear ones is at the end of the day important to each of them. Raju and Bini are particularly concerned about keeping their mothers happy, while Sudeb and Sabir are at pains to find acceptability within the family. Social humiliation is integral to their everyday existence, but none of them have given up. I would like to mention Suman’s mother in particular: delightfully simple, yet uncompromising when it comes to supporting her transgender son. Gender liminality is celebrated without any inhibitions, throwing to the winds the puckered brow of the moral police.
Technically too the film is quite brilliant. Ghosh has a keen sense of editing and of course a very clear cinematic vision. In association with Farah Gherda, he has done a commendable job with the camera. And finally, kudos to Pratyay Gender Trust and particularly, Anindya Hazra for promoting such a film!

"The Dirty Picture": What’s not so dirty about it?

I watched The Dirty Picture sitting in the rear stall of Roxy Cinema amongst a raunchy, unsophisticated crowd whistling suggestively at every drop of the pallu and every hard-hitting dialogue! The 80s were exuberantly revived in the theatre as well as a marvellously uninhibited Vidya Balan bosom-thrust the narrative forward in a believably recreated well-known and often disparaged cinematic garishness of that decade. I was too small to have been to the theatre in the 80s; my first-hand experiences of the cinema hall had begun after the mid-90s, when multiplex comfort could not be even dreamt of. In the 80s, till the late 90s in fact, the educated middle class, especially Bengalis, had strong reservations against Hindi cinema, its mindless violence, titillating choreography and awfully ear-splitting cacophonies that posed as songs. Silk Smitha, the Southern siren, was as tabooed as pornography, or perhaps a moral sin! In fact, I clearly remember I was not allowed to see an otherwise ‘clean’ Sadma on Doordarshan, simply because of Silk Smitha’s erotic cameo! I guess more than the issue of clothes or rather the lack of it, Silk Smitha posed a major threat to the bourgeois hypocrisy about sexuality and sexual desire, by her totally no-holds-barred gestures and parade of socially ‘hidden’ body parts. The Dirty Picture self-reflexively satirizes this moral pretension by exposing the bawdy reality that lies underneath.
The most interesting aspect of the film is the format: reviving the 80s format to tell a 80s story is rather commendable. The sets, the costumes, the choreography, the songs, and the dialogues are all moving intertexts of what we have seen in the 1980s blockbusters. The dialogue gets as cheesy as Bahuton ne touch kiya hai, lekin kisi ne chhuya nahi, yet is so compellingly appropriated by the over-the-top narrative that you really feel drawn in. Vidya Balan makes it all sound and appear so convincing, as she almost effortlessly moves from cleavage-revealing, navel-flaunting raunchiness to sentimental vulnerability.
The film is commendable because it deconstructs what it seeks to construct almost in the same breath: while cashing-in on the female body as the most marketable commodity, it turns upon itself to satirize the practice with credibility you can’t help marvelling at. However, the film is rather weak in several points: especially, Silk’s acceptance speech at the awards function stand out like a sore thumb. The second-half of the film sufficiently loses the punch of the first, for Silk’s downfall is much too drastic and somewhat unexplained. Yet, what is interesting is that, the film could make appear the downfall tragic rather than engaging in moral judgement. But again, despite her boldness and unpretentiousness, Silk somewhat disappoints in death. Why that red sari and the vermillion? I mean the bridal makeup? She could have thrown conventional desires to the wind in the end as well! The film had not prepared us for this.
If not for anything else, watch the film for Vidya Balan: she has cautiously toed the line between the vulgar and the sexy, mouthed the mushy sentimental lines with tremendous credibility, and moved from the compulsively naughty to the lovingly vulnerable with so much sincerity that you can’t help ask yourself whether she is the same demure Lalitha. Naseeruddin Shah has given lechery a new meaning altogether. Emran Hashmi has definitely improved as an actor. But Tusshar is an eyesore! Had he not been there!
Well ‘dirtiness’ gets a makeover in this Milan Lutharia venture: remember it is not a biopic of sorts. It is perhaps the story of several so-called B-grade female actors who rise and fall without perhaps making any difference to the industry, but whose stories need to be told.

Gangor

Director: Italo Spinelli


I remember reading Mahasweta Devi’s ‘Choli Ke Pechhe’ (‘Behind the Bodice’) some ten years back, when the memory of the rage this Khalnayak song had stirred up was still quite fresh. It was amazing, and excruciatingly painful, to experience how this Bollywood song was ironically used to bring home the unspeakable plight of a tribal woman. The sexual titillation of the seductively choreographed song with a voluptuous Madhuri Dixit gyrating with occasional bosom-thrusts was frowned upon by the censor board; but the way in which Mahasweta Devi used it gave a complete new meaning to the sensation the song had created. The story not only obliquely questions the shameless parade of female sexuality for public consumption; it also unravels the woman’s vulnerability in a society where beastly sexual hunger for the female body lurks in every corner. Reading Gangor with reference to the hardcore commercial flick Khalnayak is extremely important. While Khalnayak puts the modern day Sita (renamed Ganga) through the fire-test of keeping her chastity inviolate in a defenceless world of lustful men, and makes her emerge victorious, Gangor hammers home the reality of the powerlessness of the woman, doubly marginalized.
However, the Italian-Indian production Gangor, based on the short story, reverses the irony, to some extent, as it were. The story was about how the picture Gangor’s exposed breasts (a journalist from the city captures her feeding her child and publishes the picture in the papers) spells disaster for her; how she is raped multiple times and is transformed into a prostitute. The film has to a great extent ameliorated the grotesqueness of the story, the effect of which was mind-boggling. But, nonetheless, the message is more or less the same. However, the irony is reversed in the sense that the film by literally exposing the bosom of the protagonist cashes in on the same thing it goes out to critique. What a literary text can do without being sexually titillating, the film cannot afford to.
I agree that there wasn’t any pretension in what the director was aiming at. Priyanka Bose, as Gangor, has dropped all inhibition and has believably animated the character. Yet I am sure the film would never be released in India. The censor board would certainly step in and recommend several cuts. The irony is that even when a song like Choli ke Peeche can play uncut on national television with all its licentious suggestiveness which is more objectionable (as regards to the representation of women in films), the ruthless reality of a woman’s sexual vulnerability would come under the censor-scissors.
However, I thank KFF for showcasing this film. I am not sure about its fate, though.

"Meherjaan"

Director: Rubaiyat Hossain

Meherjaan, primarily a love story, is bitingly political; the setting of the film, the 1971 war involving East and West Pakistan, is a terrible historical milieu etched in blood in the collective consciousness of the people on both the sides. The film unearths those painful experiences amidst a lyrical rendition of a beautiful love story.
Meherjaan is saved by a Khan soldier of West Pakistan; and the latter, in turn, is given shelter by the girl. Caught in the dilemma of whether to betray her own nation by falling in love with the enemy, Meherjaan holds her emotion back for a long time. But, she does fall in love eventually: Wasim’s humanitarian world-view that calls into question the grand narrative of aggressive nationalism wins her over. The greater part of the rest of the film is devoted to help Wasim return to his country safely.
While Meherjaan’s personal world unwittingly merges with the political, the war grows more intense with each passing day. A new nation is about to be born, but the political vision of its makers is seriously challenged. Feudalism is soon to be replaced by a new social order that anticipates communism; but, the positive dimensions of feudalism cannot be totally ruled out. An affectionate zamindar, the father-figure of the unnamed village in the interiors of East Pakistan, becomes the principal target of the Peace Committee. Eventually, he is murdered, and the village is set afire. A new country is on the verge of birth, but the bloodbath that precedes it is grotesque.

And, of course, interspersed is the tale of the woman who loses her lover to partisan animosity, and is raped by the soldiers. These tales have been often deliberately evaded by history; nobody has ever bothered to record the trauma and the unspeakable suffering of these women molested brutally during the war. Neela’s daughter born out of rape comes back to Dhaka to research on these women to find very little.
Then there is Salma. Her world is confined to a huge wooden almirah; her fantasies, her dreams and all her idiosyncrasies play themselves out there. She is looking for her knight in shining armour, who, eventually, comes. One good thing is the film, despite the agonies and pains, it portrays is not too awfully dark.
One drawback of the film is that the screenplay is a tad convoluted. It could have been slicker. However, Meherjaan, like Guerrilla, deserves to be released commercially in Kolkata. Bangladesh art-house cinema is certainly going places. It’s time they got wider international recognition.

'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.

'Baishey Shrabon': Death of Poetry and a Deadly ‘System’!

It’s extremely difficult to review a thriller, for you often tend to give out the plot, which, of course, is commercially murderous for the film. Srijit Mukherjee’s Baishe Shrabon is primarily a thriller, but it is much more than that. The very title of the film, I believe, underscores the hegemony of the poet who has of late become so literally omnipresent (thanks to the farce the new government has made of him) that all other Bengali poets have been swept into oblivion. Sukanta, Sukumar, Binay, Shakti, Joy Goswami, and others are still esoteric property while Tagore has found access to the popular domain: none can deny Tagore’s superlative potentials as a poet; but this is also irrefutable that a politics of canonization can be discerned in analysing Tagore’s massive popularity and the comparatively lesser recognition the other poets have received. The climactic moment of the film therefore coincides with 'Baishe Shrabon', the day Tagore breathed his last. Interestingly, both Abhijeet and Prabir have to take the assistance of Google to find out the days on which the ‘lesser known’ poets have passed away.


On the other hand, the film is also about the death of poetry. A mad poet, who had set fire to the Calcutta Book Fair for publishers had time and again refused to publish his poetry, is at the centre of the narrative. Baishe Shrabon is different from other thrillers because it is not just about finding out with bated breath ‘whodunit’; it also engages the audience in working out the clue that may be hidden in the poetic lines found in the chits beside every victim. Interestingly, the victims are all from the lowest stratum of society, and the verses found next to them are predominantly proletariat in nature. Although the film does not clarify the choice of such verses, the silence speaks volumes. In fact, there is no criminal in Baishe Shrabon! It is the system! The reference to the anti-Establishment poetic movement (Hungry Movement) of the 60s is of special significance here.


Baishe Shrabon has adroitly blended the esoteric and the populist to a marvellous effect. The handling of the camera, especially in the narrow alleyways of the slum and in the last scene, is simply brilliant. Anupam Ray has not been able to recreate the Autograph magic though. However, Gobhire jao, profoundly rendered by Rupankar, stays with you long after the film is over.


The most promising performance is offered by Parambrata: it is his best, till date. He emotes perfectly, almost flawless; his comic timing is enviable; his accent, recalling his ‘Bengali medium’ background, is awesome. Prasenjit does not disappoint either, as was expected, although the character he plays has affiliation with several suspended police officers we have seen in numerous Hindi films; but, nonetheless, he is good. Raima Sen is effortless and Abir is loveable. The surprise package, however, is Goutam Ghosh. He animates Nibaran Chakraborty with so much life that you do feel your eyes moisten at his death.


Big Cinemas had a considerable number of viewers on Ashtami morning, and that speaks for the success the film is already enjoying. Wishing Baishey Shrabon a long run at the box-office! And a request: Those of you who have already watched the film, please do not give out the end! It does not deserve to be given out, really. People must go and find out for themselves, and believe me, it’s worth it.

'Rang Milanti': Queen of Hearts: Polyamory to Compulsory Monogamy?

Kaushik Ganguly’s Rang Milanti returns to the age-old theme of the woman’s search for the right mate, vaguely recalling innumerable Bernard Shaw plays, particularly Man and Superman, minus the Shavian concept of the woman’s duty of creating higher beings and preserving them. However, the biological primacy of the woman over the man is certainly assumed. Kamalika is in love with four of her very close friends (Rik, a computer engineer; Tito, an aspiring filmmaker; DJ, a DJ; Laden, a clothes supplier), but cannot make up her mind. Deeply despaired of the separation her sister goes through, Kamalika does not want to take any hasty decision in settling on her partner, lest she too ends up in an unhappy marriage.
The interesting part is that film does not moralise about Kamalika’s polyamorous disposition; rather it approves of it jubilantly. The rest of the film is a delightful journey whereby Kamalika puts her four lovers through a series of tests, assisted by an equally delightful fake psychiatrist, suggestively named Anu Ghatak (which translates into catalyst). Kamalika’s brother-in-law (Saswata Chatterjee in an amazingly fun-filled role), lovingly patronizing as he is, doubles up as the psychiatrist to help her choose the right partner. The ten tests he designs for her lovers have names drawn from film titles: Kapurush Mahapurush (test for bravery), Bajimaat (test for presence of mind), Saheb (test for fluency in English), Father (test for baby-sitting), Kori Diye Kinlam (test for financial standing), Amanush (test for sanity in a drunken state), Ashukh (test for fitness), Abhijaan (test for adventurousness), Apanjan (test for love for family), and Lathi (test for respect for old people). Surprisingly, there is no test for sexual compatibility. Either the assumption is that the woman has no sexual desire, or the director did not have the guts to shock his middle class Bengali audience by making the heroine sleep with all the four lovers. The question of sex arises only when Kamalika has decided upon her partner and is thoroughly disappointed by his approach to sex. Then again, she accepts him for the message is that nobody is perfect. It’s disappointing that sex features last in Kamalika’s search for the ideal partner. The search is interestingly more class-conscious and value-oriented: actually, in order to survive happily in the upper/middle class bracket the woman is compelled to judge her partner on the basis of his social functionality rather than sexual prowess. Therefore, sex takes a backseat in the quest for the ideal mate, and practically so.
The four men surprisingly do not fight over the girl; they rather exhibit an incredible sanity in this whole affair, accepting gladly the girl’s agency in deciding upon her partner. They are too careful not to fall out with each other, notwithstanding who Kamalika eventually chooses. I was wondering when men became so civilized and rational. Ganguly’s men have finally come of age, at least on screen. It’s a tad difficult to believe that none of the four men really protest having to play a remarkably passive role.
The final message is that nobody is perfect, and one has to settle on the best out of this imperfect lot. Kamalika is ultimately not agential in this whole affair of making up her mind for the right partner. Her brother-in-law directs her through this utter confusion: the woman does not get the opportunity to consider her own priorities. Her final choice is conspicuously conditioned by the demands patriarchy makes upon women. Her desire for the right partner is given free play so as not to disrupt an existing social structure. The man eventually wins, all over again.
Nonetheless, Rang Milanti is an amusing watch. It is a fun-filled journey, thanks to Saswata’s amazing performance, Churni’s sophisticated demeanour, Ridhima’s vivacity and the credibility of the four men, Gaurab Chakraborty, Gaurab Chatterjee, Tanaji and Indrashish. Ringo as the snobbish Prakash is also praiseworthy. The music is a downer though. What is after all important is unalloyed entertainment, and Rang Milanti does not disappoint you to that end. A packed Star Theatre on Panchami evening was frequently breaking into splits and cheery claps, and that’s all a director wants.