Sunday 15 July 2012

Film Thoughts: Dil Chahta Hai (2001, Hindi)


[Written August 2006]
I saw Dil Chahta Hai a couple weeks ago and was totally floored. "THIS is the movie I've been waiting for!" I said to myself. I loved Sid and Tara's story- it completely stole the show for me and exemplifies the type of selfless love I was searching for in a Bollywood film. From the moment DCH started I knew I'd love it. The music and visuals and modern style were awesome. Here's my comments:

Songs: The club song was somewhat cheesy but totally fun! I loved noticing how Aamir/Akshaye/Saif all had distinct dance styles, with Aamir holding the most humorous with his pelvic thrusts and Akshaye getting the award for most energetic performance! I also loved the feel of this song because it reflected a lot about the movie, how today's generation is different from the past and unified. I loved this movie because I feel like the generation of young adults currently, of which I'm apart of, share almost a global kinship. While some see it as western culture taking over the world, I think it's brought us together in that we listen to similar music, struggle with similar issues, and live in a new global environment. I feel like no matter where I go, I can identify with young adults in that country. Also, the retro song (Who Ladki Hai Kahan) with Sameer and Pooja was so hilarious, with the Riverdance moves and bird-flapping arms! What happy music too. I also was struck by how much Pooja's character looked like a real old-time bollywood actress. "Kaisi Hai Yeh Rut" song was totally kitschy- I was cracking up at the moon and dolphins, lol. I also loved the title song- "Dil Chahta Hai" just sounds cool and is fun to say.

Saif Ali Khan: Perfect as the love-struck, whipped romantic idealist. He was so adorable and hilarious- you felt sorry for the poor guy! Best line: "I was wondering why not go there and start a bee farm. Swiss honey is world famous." It's all about his voice and delivery.

Akshaye: Holy. Crap. The only other movie I'd seen him in at this point was Taal, in which I wrote him off as a ridiculous actor with permanently furrowed eyebrows. However, this performance was excellent and he looked GOOD! He has wonderful facial expressions and played the low-key, mysterious character well. I found myself wanting to watch the movie again just to see his performance. I loved that he had flaws, he wasn't a perfect black and white character, and at the end of the day he was a momma's boy with his head on her lap. So sexy!

Cinematography: I loved some of the sparse and minimal settings, such as Sameer's low-lit bedroom. I liked reading the reviews about how it wasn't portraying the "real" India because I definitely sensed this in the film, although for me it seemed to fit with the theme of a connected, global generation starting "anew."

Dislikes: I have to admit that Preity's face bugged me for the majority of her screentime, it's like she looks like a 14 year old girl in a 20-something body. However, by the end she had grown on me and looked nicer too. I did start to get almost bored with Aamir and Preity's character relationship, but the wedding confrontation added a nice element. I also wished Aamir's stalker girl, Deepa, had been given a little bit more depth and less laughs. I wish the opera play had been more realistic.

*Spoilers*
Sid and Tara: I found myself a bit conflicted about their relationship after I finished the movie the first time. When I was watching the movie, I first thought "why is he helping her move?" and worried it would turn into a cliched older woman younger man relationship. However, the paintings in the attic scene showed that Sid had a world within himself that he never showed anyone, a world Tara sensed. I could then understand why he would want to paint her, yet I still felt during the later painting episode that he acted like a love-struck boy with romances hormones in overdrive over a sexy older woman, and that she was relishing in a younger boy's attentions to her. Then later, after Tara overheard Sid and his mother's conversation, I didn't understand how she could say "Have I ever made you feel that I loved you or want a relationship with you?" I was thinking to myself "well not an actual committed romantic relationship, but definitely something short of that." Or else she had realized she had acted foolishly with Sid and was just desperate for companionship and someone to care for her, and now realized it, emotionally heightened by the hurt feelings of hearing Sid's mother's words. Or maybe she couldn't stand up against the social taboos. However, I loved the last scene between them, because it seemed to me that a lot had happened in that time, and she realized the special bond they had and so did Sid. It's like both of them fully matured and realized what was between them- a relationship which has no name. They both got over any romantic oversight, any fear of social repercussions, and realized the connection for what it was. When I watched the movie a second time I realized I totally forgot the diagnosis of liver cirrhosis at the beginning, which added more depth to the story and tragicness to Tara's sad life and Sid's completely accepting love of her. What do you think about their relationship? I especially like that someone on here commented that the girl on end might be Tara's daughter Esha, which would greatly improve the ending IMO. When I first watched it, it seemed hastily tacked on in order to give Sid someone to sit with at the table, but if it was Esha, that would be so touching and make much more sense!

*End Spoilers*

Overall, excellent movie- good for those wanting a nicely-shot movie that rewards those wanting a more slow-moving, relationship-driven story with lots of humor but also touching depth without being too heavy, cryptic, or overwhelmingly cheesy, IMO.

Film Thoughts: Antaheen (2009, Bengali)

[Written Oct. 23, 2009]
I watched Antaheen last night, and while it has beautiful cinematography and charming acoustic jazz music throughout, it completely failed to engage me as a viewer. I did have high expectations for this one because of the reviews full of praise I kept reading. However, with some more searching I found a good portion of the reviews out there that agree with me!

Antaheen is extremely slow and there were only rare moments in the film that I even had one iota of caring towards the characters. Everything felt staged. It probably didn’t help that the advertisements/endorsements were so ridiculously obvious. Some of the reviews had mentioned that, and I thought “oh so they put some cans of Pepsi around a lot, no big deal!” No, this is *serious* promotion work. Marketing majors take note! In addition to being repeatedly shown obvious Reliance Mobile ads on character’s cell phone screens, computer screens, and on banners behind them, the characters even incorporate the products INTO THEIR DIALOGUE. How in the world can I “get into” a film if the characters are hawking products? Here's a screencap example of the most egregious example:

 

The film starts out with Abhik (Rahul Bose) performing a raid as a police officer. It’s shot in a fuzzy, weird light so I thought I was supposed to believe I was being shown film footage or TV footage. We then are introduced to Brinda (Radhika Apte), a journalist who is covering the event. Then we get to see Paromita (Aparna Sen) and Ronno (Kalyan Roy, her real life husband) playing a separated couple who still hold a special place in their heart for each other, and later we’re introduced to Abhik's aunt (Sharmila Tagore) who chooses to be single but still holds a soft spot in her heart for a man she fell in love with over the phone. There is also a character named V.K.Mehra who is building a development project site- he had the most painful sounding dialogue delivery. Bad acting, and bad dubbing too. I never forgot that I was watching an actor when he was on screen. The “strained” relationship with his wife was given very little screen time and when it explodes between them at the end my reaction was to laugh instead of, I presume, feel stunned as expected.

Everyone in this film loves technology, except for the Abhik's aunt of course. I swear the characters spend half their screen time on a laptop or a cell phone. And unlike other movies, we have to watch the whole process from start to finish. We watch them sitting at a desk, then we hear the phone ring, we see them react and slowly pick it up, then the cell phone screen is zoomed-in on, we see them press a button to answer the call, and when the call is finished we see them laboriously press the end button and resume their activity. At one point we even see a text message auto-correcting the words being typed. Editing please! It also seemed like a lot of effort was put in to make the characters seem “natural,” so they are constantly eating or itching their nose or twirling their fork before reacting or typing a melodramatic response. Argh.

The film is somewhat similar to You’ve Got Mail in terms of the leads Brinda and Abhik's relationship, but in You’ve Got Mail the technology (AOL) was still new and exciting at that time. Now, internet chats and text messages are old hat. We don’t care to watch every part of the process as a viewer. I never was very interested in the little “chats” Brinda and Abhik share. I simply didn't care.

I feel like this film could have been so much more- it could have been wonderful! It needed waaaaay less focus on cell phone screens and characters staring into space and waaaay more character development. Much of what the characters said felt contrived and staged. The entire movie, actually, felt contrived. That’s not to say it’s horrible- many reviewers have loved it, but it did NOT click for me.

Radhika Apte is beautiful in pictures, and yes she is very fresh and spunky on screen, but I became irritated with her facial expressions. And I think the director/cinematographer/someone in production is in love with her because we keep seeing all these extended shots of her walking in her apartment, admiring her lamps, admiring and touching the walls, looking in the mirror, brushing her hair.. blah blah blah. I really couldn’t take it anymore once the Jao Pakhi song came on. Her character’s passion for journalism could have been made much more realistic. She was way too self-righteous and idealistic. Rahul Bose was, I thought, wooden and not believable as a tough street-wise cop. I found his confrontation scene with the distraught gunman laughable. Aparna Sen was such a natural actress that I enjoyed watching on screen. She's great at making you feel like you are watching a real person. I was very entertained by the burly Kalyan Roy and his extremely natural acting.

Yes, the cinematography was lovely. But after a while, it started to distract me. It was obvious a shot was being framed and lingered on for artistic value. I could imagine the cogs in the visual director's head turning as the scenes unfolded, like when we keep seeing shots of Ronno sleeping or staring into space while the city lights come into focus and the camera sweeps away from him. Multiple times.

That brings me to the ending. I was NOT expecting it, at all. Big surprise! HUGE SPOILER:
Spoiler (hover to show)

Screencaps:

Aparna Sen's real-life husband, Kalyan Roy, playing her (separated) husband Ronno on screen


Aparna Sen as the business woman Paromita


Rahul Bose as the cop Abhik


Radhika Apte as the spunky opinionated journalist Brinda

 

Sharmila Tagore as Abhik's aunt, a woman who once fell in love with a stranger on the phone


Product placements galore with a heavy emphasis on Reliance
 
 
 

Pretty cinematography that seems to detract from the story after a while
 
 
 

Laptops and cell phones are like second children to the characters- they even sleep with them!
 

Film Thoughts: Vijaypath (1994, Hindi)

[Written Oct. 26, 2009]
Ahhh… Vijay Path. What an unabashedly and ridiculously over the top mid-90s revenge-filled fabulous slice of cheese. I was amused and laughing at regular intervals. And Tabu! I’ve never seen her like this! She is fun and silly and does crazy dance moves in some of the songs- quite the opposite from her more “serious” films of later years (and what I used to assume were the only kinds of films she had done!).

The story revolves around Karan (Ajay Devgan) who spends the entire movie avenging the deaths of his family killed one by one by Dilawar Singh (Danny Denzongpa), a guy mad that his brother was sentenced to death by Karan’s judge uncle. It sounds like it would be a dark and violent film; yes, it’s violent, but in that laughable ridiculous way, and the whole thing is so silly you never take it seriously. I was extremely amused by the live-tiger cage fighting (complete with stuffed-animal takes mixed in with real-tiger shots with an Ajay double) and the incognito-rifle that Karan’s uncle (Suresh Oberoi, Vivek Oberoi's dad) fashions out of a crutch. Though the best part had to be when Karan shields himself from oncoming bullets with a muscle-man cardboard cutout sitting in Dilawar's home.

Ajay Devgan has a hero-introduction scene involving sunglasses that so reminded me of present day Tamil and Telugu hero-centric films that my heart got a little warm and fuzzy. They even froze the screen on him for a few seconds! Though the icing on the cake would have been seeing the words “Ajay Devgan” flashed across the screen!

Tabu comes into the picture as Mona, the niece of Dilawar who meets Karan when she’s rescued by him from a group of baddies. She first does a hilarious item-ish number singing about the pitfalls of the male gender (Ladke Aaj Ke), and when she gets the cold-shoulder from Karan later, she launches into the adorable song “Ruk Ruk Ruk” (Wait Wait Wait). Karan gets over his coldness later to allow for some romantic songs that sounded like a thousand other mid-90s Hindi songs. Unfortunately, Tabu doesn’t have as much screen time as I would have liked, especially in the second half. Nor does she have much to do. She got a Filmfare "Best Debut" award for this which I'm a bit perplexed by...

The whole film is completely off-the-charts OTT. There are a couple very gross scenes- one of the mullet-sporting nephew of Dilawar getting attacked in a cage full of pigeon’s with nails on their backs, and the other with Mona removing a bullet from Karan’s back with a knife (we have to *watch* it, eww!). The violence is mostly ridiculous and implausible, but occasionally it gets a little bloody. I was bemused seeing how many ways the characters could seek revenge on each other. I think my favorite was when Dilawar pretends to be a priest; in fact, he had quite a few funny getups!

It’s been a long time since I’ve watched a 90s revenge masala flick, so I enjoyed this one. I would put it in the same category as Koyla, which I also enjoyed. :)

Screencaps:

"Ladke Aaj Ke" - Crazy lyrics
 
 

"Ruk Ruk Ruk" - Tabu's silly dance moves
 

Tabu-Ajay Jodi
 
 
 

Ajay shielding himself from bullets with... huh?
 
 

Homemade rifle/crutch apparatus!


Ajay's hero introduction that reminded me of South films
 
 

Ajay whistling to the camera and sporting some terrible fashion
 

The baddie Dilawar Singh! Be afraid! Be very afraid!