Filmi Geek

Main Azaad hoon (1989)

मैं आज़ाद हँ

Main Azaad hoon ("I am Azaad"), one of a very few Javed Akhtar films that Shabana Azmi appeared in, is an interesting rumination on how an ordinary - and anonymous - man can be moved to tremendous sacrifice by the plight of his fellow human beings.   

Publisher Gokulchand's (Manohar Singh) newspaper is not selling, and his columnist Subhashni (Shabana Azmi) is facing the ax.  To boost the paper's sales - and to save her job - quick-thinking Subhashni concocts and publishes a letter from a fictional man named Azaad - the name means "independent" - who threatens to kill himself in protest against social injustice throughout the state.  Azaad is an immediate sensation throughout the city, and Subhashni pens more letters, creating an entire backstory for the fictional man.  Gokulchand is delighted with the result in the paper's bottom line, and to keep the charade going he authorizes Subhashni to find a suitable man they can pay to play the role of Azaad.  Subhashni discovers a charismatic vagabond (Amitabh Bachchan) who is willing to take on the role in exchange for a few good meals and a generous handful of rupees.  Azaad's mystique grows, and everyone with a grievance seeks his aid, from slumdwellers in search of clean water to striking factory workers clamoring for a living wage.  Azaad is moved by these causes, and soon he is acting from his heart instead of merely acting the part that Gokulchand and Subhashni have paid him to play.  And his heart is tested when the power players who created him try to use him as a pawn for their own advantage.

Main Azaad hoon's script is little too wordy; there were places where the story dragged.  But Javed sahib's award-winning dialogues deliver with the expected style the film's statements against manipulation of the common man by those in power  - like when one character, an elected official, says that the key to politics is to "make promises to the poor, and make deals with the rich."   Subhasnhi's character arc in particular is compelling.  She starts out just as manipulative as the power players - she is very shrewd in fact, acting in calculation of her own interests only, and is not moved until she sees Azaad willing to commit himself to the fullest for the rights of others.

Indeed, there are parallels to Shabana Azmi's own experience built into Subhashni's story that are so striking I had to wonder if Javed sahib didn't write the script with his wife in mind.  Subhashni begins with the view that her newspaper column is strictly entertainment for the masses.  As the film wears on, she struggles to keep entertainment separate from social responsibility, just as Shabana Azmi herself did, and, again like Shabana, ultimately follows her heart in the direction of activism.  The film contains parallels between Azaad and Amitabh Bachchan too - in one scene, Azaad emerges from his rooms to find an overwhelming crowd of supplicants awaiting darshan; I have read about such crowds at Amitabh's own home, especially in the early 1980s.

Javed Akhtar once said that Hollywood films are short stories while Hindi films are novels. But the characterizations and scope of Main Azaad hoon are, in some ways, more like the former.  Rather than offering reels of epic backstory, Azaad's true origin and life story remain a complete mystery.  We learn a little about Subhashni's father - he was a hero, a freedom fighter on the eve of independence - but no friends or relatives of hers are present in the film.  By filmi standards, the two principals are unanchored and lonesome (though Azaad has a sidekick who makes a few appearances) - these loners are given their sense of purpose by devoting themselves to a wider community to which neither fully belongs. 

Katha (1983)

कथा

With Sparsh and Chashme buddoor, director Sai Paranjpe had already proved to me her great skill at presenting down-to-earth, real, sweet stories about believable characters, so I came to Katha ("fable") with high expectations.  I was not disappointed.

Rajaram Purshottam Joshi (Naseeruddin Shah) lives in a chawl, a kind of boarding house common in Bombay.  A hardworking office clerk, Rajaram is pleased when he is promoted to permanent status at his company, and looks forward to celebrating with his neighbor Sandhya (Deepti Naval), a charming girl with whom he is quite obviously smitten.  Soon Rajaram's childhood friend Vashudev (Farooq Shaikh) - he prefers the hip nickname "Washu" - arrives, and casts a spell over all the residents of the chawl - including Sandhya.  He even cons Rajaram's boss, landing himself a job as Rajaram's superior.  Rajaram sees through his friend's slick-talking charm, but with his gentle demeanor he is powerless to stop the juggernaut that is Washu in pursuit of something - or someone - that amuses him. 

Just as in Sparsh and Chashme buddoor, Sai Paranjpe shows her gentle touch in Katha, offering characters who are real, relatable, and engaging.  In particular, just like Chashme buddoor, Katha offers adorable humor without outlandishness, real-life believable situations that make the audience laugh because it's not difficult to project them onto ourselves and our neighbors.  The portrayal of life in the chawl is particularly charming and satisfying, and is itself a reason to see the movie for anyone interested in workaday Indian life.  The chawl is a tight-knit community is like a small village or, as one character in the film analogizes, a great joint family, in which individuals and families live in small flats centered on a common courtyard and shared water and other utilities.  There is a bitter barren woman who yells at children playing in the courtyard; a newlywed couple who rarely emerge from their rooms but whose giggles can be heard through the closed shutters; a disabled man who asks incessant favors from every visitor; a grandma who cooks yummy snacks for every young visitor she receives; a couple, whose son is a doctor in Canada, who love nothing more than to show off their richly appointed flat and their refrigerator and television; and more.  Paranjpe paints the inhabitants of this microcosm with great vividness and affection, and their interactions are tremendous fun to watch. 

The enjoyable bustle of the chawl forms a delightful backdrop for the interactions of the main players (they even serve as a Greek chorus of sorts, especially in the film's wonderful songs).  The principals' performances are all executed without flaw, especially those of Naseeruddin Shah and Farooq Shaikh.  Naseeruddin Shah is at his droopy, sad-sacky best; Rajaram wears his frustration physically as Washu runs circles around him, projecting a confused and adorable mixture of disdain and admiration for his friend's antics.  And Farooq Shaikh nails Washu's puff-chested confidence to perfection.  In Chashme buddoor, Farooq's character was charming in part because despite being marginally smarter and more competent than his friends, he was still mostly a dork.   The same is true here, with a faintly sinister edge since Washu is, at base, a con-man.  But the joke which Paranjpe lets the audience in on - a joke that escapes Washu - is that Washu is nothing more than a small-time con, not half the player he thinks is.  For example, while Washu both cons and cuckolds Rajaram's boss, it's established early on that the boss is a weak target, not a very bright guy to begin with.  The result is a sense of desperation and cheapness about Washu, as if he's conned his own low-watt self right along with the easy marks he chooses.   

And so, as in the titular fable that provides the film's bookends - the story of the tortoise and the hare - Katha ends with the satisfying feeling that the wheel will turn and both Washu and Rajaram will get what they deserve from the universe.  And we, the audience, get a warm, delightful, and utterly charming film, another very, very fine feather in Sai Paranjpe's cap. 

Mr. India (1987)

What happens when two masters of populist, allegorical, entertaining screenwriting and a gifted, creative, intellectual director put their heads together with the goal of creating a film that is over-the-top even compared to the most outrageous masala Hindi films have to offer?   Mr. India is what happens.  Screenwriters Salim-Javed and director Shekhar Kapur, with some intrepid help from a terrific cast, pulled out every stop in this all-out goofy entertainer.  It's self-conscious, it's ridiculous, and it's riotous fun - but there's a patriotic moral, too. 

Arun Verma (Anil Kapoor) is a musician with a cheerful disposition who looks after a houseful of adorable orphans.  When his natural charm ceases to satisfy the shopkeepers and landlords from whom he wrangles rice and credit, he sets out to find himself a paying guest to supplement his income.  He rents a room to a persnickety, child-hating reporter named Seema (Sridevi) and they proceed to get on one another's nerves.  Soon Arun learns that his father, a scientist who died when Arun was a small boy, had been killed by some goons intent on stealing an invisibility formula the scientist had devised.  Now the goons are back, at the behest of their despotic boss, Mogambo (Amrish Puri), and they want not only the invisibility formula but all of India to boot.  Arun learns of the terrorist tactics of Mogambo's thugs, who use such nefarious tools as tainted food supplies and explosive-rigged toys to sow the seeds of fear in the populace, and he decides to use the invisibility formula to mete out justice against Mogambo's army of evildoers, transforming himself into Mr. India, the invisible avenger of the people.

The best parts of Mr. India are the moments that are crafted with no purpose other than to showcase the stars' first-class shtick.  In one delightful sequence, for example, Sridevi launches into an extended Charlie Chaplin impression that highlights her talent for adorable physical comedy; in others, she flings her dangerous curves across the screen in both a comical dance sequence and a passionate one.  Amrish Puri is at his bug-eyed, scene-chewingest best in every one of Mogambo's scenes, preening and strutting and ingeiously crafting a seemingly limitless number of ways to utter the villain's signature phrase, "Mogambo khush hua." ("Mogambo is pleased.")  These elements are brazenly, unabashedly entertaining in the manner in which Hindi films are particularly excellent; it is art without artifice.  Even the big-hearted sweetness Anil Kapoor shows nurturing his passel of adorable orphans is calculated more to win the hearts of the audience than to support the story. 

But for all its wanton crowd-pleasing, Mr. India is still a Salim-Javed film, and so the masala can be expected to be served up with an edge and with a generous side helping of social message.  The former manifests in Salim-Javed's willingness to kill even some of their most loveable characters; the latter in Arun Verma's declaration, as the invisible force called Mr. India, of the power of the "aam hindustani," the ordinary Indian.  The film's central message that larger-than-life forces of bloodshed and terror - represented by the larger-than-life Mogambo - can be stopped by the invisible yet undeniable power of the compassionate Indian citizen who looks out for the interests of his compatriots.  Mogambo's critical error is to presume that Arun Verma loves his own life more than he loves his country; Arun's patriotism and his love for every citizen of India, is Mogambo's downfall.  That's a heavy message indeed, that the commitment of the aam hindustani can defeat the devil himself; Mr. India works by lightening the load, delivering it in an outlandish and fun package. 

Mr. India was my (long overdue) first Sridevi film, and for the record I absolutely can see what all the fuss is about.  The three segments mentioned above - the Charlie Chaplin scene, the fantastic comedy number "Hawa Hawai," and the sensual song "Kaate nahin kate yeh din yeh raat" together represent a very nice sampling of her abilities.  She is adorable and precise, thrillingly sexy and at the same time uproariously funny.  It is Sridevi's misfortune that she reigned during a particularly bleak period of Hindi films, but I am nevertheless eager for more of her. 

Mandi (1983)

मंडी

Shyam Benegal films often explore broad social themes through a closely focused lens, in detailed studies of relationships among a handful of people.  Mandi ("market") is broader in scope, featuring a large number of characters whose relationships form an intricate web in which concepts like loyalty, morality, and duplicity are tangled.  A wry film with a healthy dose of black comedy, Mandi presents a sarcastic look at the tension between venerable but questionable traditions and modernity in its various forms. 

Rukmini bai (Shabana Azmi) is a madam who runs her brothel with a stern and demanding hand.  Aided by her melancholy houseboy Dhungrus (Naseeruddin Shah), Rukmini is protective of her girls, especially the brothel's virginal prize, Zeenat (Smita Patil), who is permitted to spend her days practicing her music and kathak instead of submitting to the kotha's more lascivious customers.  When a sanctimonious moralist, Shanti Devi (Gita Siddharth), flexes her political muscle in an attempt to drive the brothel out of town, Rukmini turns to her landlord Mr. Gupta (Kulbushan Kharbanda) for assistance, but finds in him only a conditional ally.  Caught in the crossfire is the town's mayor, Agrawal (Saeed Jaffrey), who is under the powerful Shanti Devi's thumb but also beholden to Rukmini, lest she air his own dirty laundry.  Rounding out the vast network of players is a terrified mute girl (Sreela Majumdar) married under pretext and sold by her new husband to Rukmini; a dirty-minded photographer (Om Puri) who prowls around trying to snap naked pictures of the tawaifs; a police-wala who does his "night duty" at the brothel; Agrawal's son, engaged to Gupta's daughter but madly in love with Zeenat; Shanti Devi's beleaguered assistant (Pankaj Kapur); a crazed and pious hermit (Amrish Puri) who shows Rukmini how to extract wishes from a variety of holy objects; and all the girls of the brothel (including Soni Razdan and Ila Arun), with their varying levels of satisfaction and loyalty to Rukmini.

That's an awful lot to squeeze into a film, and the squeezing does, to some degree, compress Benegal's characters into two dimensions.  The outstanding talent of the cast offers some compensation, though, allowing each character to be vividly rendered despite the tendency toward archetypy.  The darkly comic tone of the entire film enhances the vividness of the characterizations.  Without it, the film would collapse under the weight of its themes.  Delivering the tale with archness, teetering on the brink of tumbling over the top, allows the actors a breadth of expression that helps them pop out of the screen.  Amrish Puri's bug-eyed ascetic, Saeed Jaffrey's nervously buffoonish aristocrat, Naseeruddin Shah's droopy drunk - each plays to the back of the house in a departure from Benegal's usual hyper-realist style, yet the broad style is precisely what renders each of them memorable. 

Shabana Azmi's turn is the broadest of them all, and her performance is deliciously physical and yet still evoactively subtle.  Rukmini flits between angry snarls and obsequious smiles at a moment's notice, one minute dripping with maternal concern and the next barking orders like a foreman.  And she cannot resist a mirror, interrupting herself often, whether mid-tirade, mid-sob, or even mid-prayer, to smooth a stray strand of hair.  If there is an overarching mood to the changeable Rukmini, it's that she never for a moment displays an ounce of sincerity.  Indeed, most of the characters in Mandi are somehow scheming, double-crossing, or working both sides against the middle.  From the brothel girls whose loyalty to Rukmini is fragile and fleeting, to Zeenat who is not nearly as ingenuous as she seems, and even to the pompous Shanti Devi who (we learn from a throw-away line of Rukmini's) is having an affair with her own son-in-law, each of the characters is concealing a card or two.  And it is this ubiquitous duplicity that gives Mandi its entertaining edge -  it's hard not to laugh watching these colorful characters squirm, hedge, and lie through their teeth. 

Mandi's final scene is a little bit puzzling, but the ultimate message may be that degradation is in the eye of the beholder, and that perhaps the concealed hypocrisy of those who call themselves modern and upright is just as oppressive as the ancient traditions of the kotha.  Whatever the true moral of this amorality tale may be, though, it is a terrific film. 

Chashme buddoor (1981)

चशमे बद दूर

Sai Paranjpe's Chashme buddoor ("begone, evil eye") is perhaps as close to perfect as a film can be.  It is a delicate romantic comedy peppered with affectionate parodies of filmi stereotypes, and there is nothing about it that is less than delightful. 

Three bachelors share a one room apartment in Delhi.  Omi (Rakesh Bedi) and Jai (Ravi Baswani) are a pair of slacker clowns fully devoted to their favorite activity:  chasing girls.  Their studious roommate Siddharth (Farooq Shaikh), in contrast, rarely raises his head from his books.  He professes no interest in girls at all.  One day Jai and Omi spy Neha (Deepti Naval), a pretty girl who has moved into the neighborhood.  Each makes a play for her - unsuccessfully of course - and that seems to be the end of it.  But soon Neha turns up at their door selling washing powder; she encounters Siddharth, and the two are instantly smitten.  Their romance proceeds apace, and soon Siddharth gets himself an office job and starts thinking about marriage.  His roommates, though, can't forget their wounded pride, and they can't bear to see him succeed where they have failed - so they can't resist throwing a monkey wrench into the works.

One of the charms of Chashme buddoor is its picture of simple student life in the city.  The three young men live in a kind of equilibrium in their cramped home, each decorating the wall over his bed - Jai and Omi cover theirs with sexy pinups and clippings from film magazines, while Siddharth's wall sports only a dignified portrait of Gandhi - and, later, one of Neha.  Outside the apartment, their principal social interaction is with an avuncular shopkeeper, Lalan (Saeed Jaffrey), who hassles them to settle the tab they've run up on cigarettes and magazines, but can't help indulging them in their romantic adventures.  And although the boys represent broad archetypes - the horn-dog loafers, the humorless bookworm - they are nevertheless charmingly portrayed.  It's irresistibly sweet, for example, that as clueless and bumbling as Jai and Omi are, Siddharth himself is only marginally less hapless.  While it's clear from the opening scenes that he is the one who will get the girl, there is nothing slick about him.  Both Farooq Shaikh's performance and Deepti Naval's as Neha share an unease, an uncertainty that is very charming, very natural, and very real. 

Chashme buddoor is also just flat out funny.  From running gags such as Jai's inability to start his moped (he stomps on the kick-start again and again to no avail, before Siddharth takes over and succeeds on his first try), to situational humor like Jai and Omi climbing out the window in a panic when Neha turns up at their door, the movie offers up one giggle after another.  Even jokes that you can see coming are smartly executed and satisfying, and the film strikes just the right balance between clever, brainy humor, and goofy gags. 

Finally, Chashme buddoor's riffs on filmi conventions add another layer to the fun.  One of the songs, as Jai recounts a tall tale about his attempt to woo Neha, parodies a selection of famous film songs.  In another, Neha and Siddharth  spin poetry and romance in classic filmi style, only to be laughed at by onlookers for singing in the park.  There's even a quickie guest appearance by Amitabh Bachchan and Rekha, demonstrating the workings of filmi romance.  And the film's climax adds a distinctly masala touch to this sweet and wonderful film.   

Maine pyar kiya (1989)

मैंने प्यार किया

Boy meets girl and they fall in love - but their fathers don't approve.  Driven by the power of their love, they determine through hard work and honest living to prove to their skeptical fathers that they are a worthy and true match.  Supported by the sympathy of a soft-hearted mother figure, a reliable friend or two, and even some assistance from the animal kingdom, love conquers all.  If Maine pyar kiya ("I've fallen in love") sounds like a film you've seen a few times before, that's because it is - there are no twists, no unpredicted outcomes, no surprises.  But that doesn't mean it can't be enjoyable. 

Kishen (Rajiv Verma) and Karan (Alok Nath) are old school friends who were once inseparable.  Now, though, a distance has grown between them, as Kishen has risen to success at the top of an urban industrial empire, while Karan toils away in his village mechanics' shop.  Still, some vestigial bond remains to connect them, and when Karan takes itinerant work abroad, he sends his daughter Suman (Bhagyashree) to stay with Kishen and his family.  Suman's warmth and sweetness makes her an instant hit in the household, as she charms Kishen's wife Kaushalya (Reema Lagoo), family friend Monahar (Laxmikant Berde), and, especially, Kishen and Kaushalya's son Prem (Salman Khan); Prem and Suman's instant friendship turns quickly to love.   While Kaushalya delights at their plans for engagement,  though, Kishen's scheming, greedy business partner Ranjeet (Ajit Vachani) throws a spanner into the works - he wants Prem to marry his own mercenary daughter (Pervin Dastur), so he convinces Kishen that Suman is a golddigger and Karan is trying to take advantage of Kishen's friendship by using Suman to get at his wealth.  Enraged, Kishen ejects Suman from his home.  Prem follows Suman to her village but finds that her father Karan is not any more inclined to the match than Prem's father Kishen was.  Prem sets out to show that he's no spoiled rich boy, proving his love for Suman through backbreaking hard labor - but the barrier of unwilling fathers may be more than even his strong arms can break down. 

Maine pyar kiya was a massive hit in its day, igniting the Suraj Barjatya hit machine that a few years later perfected the art of delivering sugar-coated confections in cinematic form with Hum aapke hain koun...!  If Maine pyar kiya stands up today at all, though, it is due to the infectious adorableness of its principals.  As a young man, Salman Khan on the screen is fresh-faced, earnest, and sweet; his shaky attempts at keeping "cool" don't even begin to hide his tender heart.  Meanwhile Bhagyashree shines with the cutest smile this side of Hema Malini - I could just have watched her beam for three hours and thoroughly enjoyed the film.  It's a shame that Bhagyashree's big screen career sputtered and stalled, as here she is every bit as radiant and cute as the likes of Juhi Chawla and Kajol, and she perhaps could have had a similar career arc to theirs. 

Bhagyashree's character, Suman, lacks much of a personality - though she's loyal, dependable, and gentle, there's not much fire or willfulness to her.  But no matter - Maine pyar kiya is not about people, it's about Themes - about the power of love, about the value of hard work, about the parental generation trusting young people to find their own way, and about the importance of being loyal to one's friends even in hard times.  And it's about kindness to animals - Suman and Prem are aided by a pigeon (called "Handsome") to whom Suman has been kind, and, notably, to whom Prem's nemesis (Mohnish Behl) has been cruel; the pigeon carries messages of love between Prem and Suman when they are separated, and takes a pivotal role in the film's climactic melee.  It's not at all hard to imagine why a film like Maine pyar kiya would have resonated with its audience; it's a film in which young people exercise their autonomy with resourcefulness and love, transcending barriers of wealth, and achieve an autonomous happy ending.

It's not a Suraj Barjatya film without an excess of cheerful songs, and Maine pyar kiya delivers, with a soundtrack by Raamlaxman that the composer raided freely for melodies and themes when writing the songs for Hum aapke hain koun...! some years later.  I like HAHK's songs better, but that may just be because that movie is a cherished favorite that I viewed early on in my filmi perambulations - or maybe because their picturizations have the benefit of the incomparable Madhuri Dixit, whom even Bhagyashree's undeniable cuteness can't touch.   Still, the music of Main pyar kiya is an overall plus for the film,  showcasing the sweetness of the actors and adding frosting to very, very light substance of the plot.  My favorite songs include "Kabutar ja ja ja" ("Go pigeon go," in which Suman's animal friend gets put to work), and a fantastic antakshari medley of classic songs.  (The weakness in the soundtrack is the opening song, a shameless rip-off of Stevie Wonder's "I just called to say I love you," which is a cloyingly bad song to begin with.)  For more on the music, please visit Sanket at Bollywood Music Club, who has also written about Maine pyar kiya today. 

36 Chowringhee Lane (1981)

Taken at face value, this quiet film by Aparna Sen is a melancholy tale about a lonely woman facing her twilight years.  It has a clear allegorical reading, however, that is a forceful commentary on the role of the British in post-Independence India.

Violet Stoneham (Jennifer Kendal) is a mousy, quiet Anglo-Indian woman.  Living in 1970s Calcutta, she teaches Shakespeare to inattentive little girls, occasionally visits her senile brother (Geoffrey Kendal) in a nearby nursing home, and returns home to her tiny flat and the company of her cat, Sir Toby.  One day Violet encounters one of her former students, Nandita (Debashree Roy) and Nandita's boyfriend Samaresh (Dhritiman Chatterjee).  Eager to reminisce - and starved for companionship - Violet invites the young couple to her home for tea, and they politely, if reluctantly, agree.  In Violet's flat, Samaresh smells opportunity - the flat would offer a perfect, discreet hideaway for afternoon trysts with Nandita.  Nandita explains to Violet that while Samaresh is a writer, he finds it difficult to concentrate on poetry in his family's crowded home, and Violet is delighted to offer him the use of her flat.  Nandita and Samaresh frolic there every day, taking care to be dressed and presentable when Violet returns from school.  Often they serve Violet her tea or take her out for walks in the city, and their daily company cheers and energizes her.   It seems a very genuine and tender friendship, but Samaresh and Nandita see it quite differently from Violet.

At its face, 36 Chowringhee Lane is a very sympathetic tale.  Violet Stoneham is a lovable character, and her loneliness will resonate with anyone who has ever thought about getting older and being alone.  Her increasing isolation and marginalization is poignant.  And the tenderness that Nandita and Samaresh show her - at least while it appears sincere - and the warmth and joy in her response to it is touching. 

But the film seethes with symbols suggesting that its real message is a strong critique of the Anglo presence in India:  You are dated, you have outlived your usefulness; you aren't wanted or needed, so get lost.  The young couple uses her while it's convenient, but as soon as they have the opportunity to take off on their own, they do so.  The new principal at Violet's school - the school's first Indian principal, we are told - cuts back on her course load, assigning her a dreary grammar class while a new young teacher takes over the Shakespeare; even teaching quintessentially English subjects, Violet's English perspective is no longer needed.  Violet's visits to her brother are particularly unsubtle; a relic of the colonial era, he is now weak, helpless and disoriented, and Violet must repeatedly explain to him that the Raj is over, that India is independent. 

These two levels of meaning make 36 Chowringhee Lane a full meal, engaging, poignant, and thought-provoking.  The performances are smooth and natural - unlike some of Aparna Sen's later films (such as 15 Park Avenue and Mr. and Mrs. Iyer), in which her actors sometimes fumble stiffly with English dialogue.   The result is a satisfying film, and if it is a little bit sad for the increasingly irrelevant Violet Stoneham, it also portrays a confidence in the rising of an independent India.

Khamosh (1985)

ख़ामोश

Khamosh ("silent"), a 1985 mystery thriller by Vidhu Vinod Chopra, is clever, self-referential, satirical, and thoroughly entertaining. 

Shabana Azmi and Amol Palekar - playing themselves - are at an idyllic mountain resort with a film crew, shooting a thriller.  When their co-star Soni Razdan (also playing herself) turns up dead, the crew and the local police assume it is a suicide.  Then a taciturn CID inspector (Naseeruddin Shah) turns up and begins his own investigation.  He is convinced that Soni's death was no suicide, and as he learns of the secrets and feuds that seethe among the cast and crew, his eye shifts from suspect to suspect - the producer Dayal (Ajit Vachhani), publicly humiliated by Soni; the mother of a young starlet competing with Soni for a part in Dayal's next film; Dayal's drug-addled brother Kuku (Pankaj Kapur), desperately in love with Soni, and others.  As the body count grows and the red herrings proliferate, it quickly becomes apparent that few of this rag-tag bunch are who they appear to be.

The plot is a straight-up murder mystery, quite Agatha Christie in feel, since it features a tense group, confined to close quarters, criss-crossed by passions and rivalries.  What makes Khamosh different from other exemplars of the whodunit genre is that it is stuffed with in-jokes, references, and homages.  It pokes fun at slapdashery in Bollywood filmmaking, when the director spontaneously decides to rewrite the script and orders the dialogue-writer to produce new scenes for the actors to shoot the next day.  Vidhu Vinod Chopra pokes fun at himself with a running joke of the director repeatedly saying, "This is just a thriller!  Wait until my next film!"  And the actors poke fun at themselves as well - the Shabana Azmi of Khamosh, for example, sleepwalks, reads stories about herself in the gossip rags, and declares that she "can't understand politics."  Khamosh also acknowledges its debt to the films that went before it; one standout scene pays explicit homage to the shower scene in Psycho with a reference to The Godfather for good measure.

Having the actors Shabana, Amol Palekar, and Soni Razdan play themselves - rather than playing fictitious movie stars with made-up names - was a stroke of absolute genius that added a self-referential layer to the film, lifting beyond the realm of cute, entertaining murder mystery.  The film operates on several layers at once, playing with the viewer's sense of movie-reality and suspension of disbelief.  I am accustomed to seeing Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi together on screen, but here there is a strange and pleasant disconnect; he is in character, and addresses her as "Shabana ji."  The loopiness also alters the viewer's expectations about what can happen to the characters and what they can do.  It's difficult to explain the full scope of this effect on my experience of the film without giving away too many of the plot details!  But it was very enjoyable.

The sleuth at the center of the story, Naseeruddin Shah's Bakhshi, was entertainingly fallible - far from the flawless master of deduction, he jumped to conclusions and acted rashly as frequently as he showed investigative insight.  And the story itself was sufficiently twisty and surprising to sustain the suspense.  My friend Amit points out that Khamosh suffers from a few plot holes.  To a certain extent, I think he's right - it rare that a script with complex twists can stand up to detailed scrutiny.  But I barely noticed these small weaknesses on first viewing, because I  was just having too much fun enjoying the ride.  It may be "just a thriller," but it's a solid, suspenseful, and thoroughly entertaining film. 

Do aur do paanch (1980)

दो और दो पाँच

Amitabh Bachchan, Shashi Kapoor, Hema Malini, Parveen Babi - sounds like a foundation for a great masala film.  Unfortunately, Do aur do paanch ("Two and two are five"), apart from a handful of top-notch moments - driven by the talent of its two leads - fails to measure up to its whimsical promise.

Vijay (Amitabh) and Sunil (Shashi) are competitive crooks.  Wherever one goes, the other is always at his heels, vying for the same heist.  They hate each other, and they take their adversarial rage with them even into jail.  After their release, Sunil's uncle - a standard-issue masala-film villain who lurks in an elaborate lair surrounded by an army of incompetent goons - engages Sunil to kidnap a rich man's son.  But Vijay wants the boy, too - the promise of a king's ransom is too good to resist.  With Vijay posing as Ram, a gym teacher, and Sunil passing himself off as a music teacher, Laxman, both men secure positions at the boy's school, and the race is on.  With a series of wacky pranks and clever ruses each tries to outwit the other and snatch the boy away from the protective gaze of his teacher Shalu (Hema Malini) and the headmaster's daughter Anju (Parveen Babi). 

That plot is less complicated than other masala films of the era, and that is part of what makes Do aur do paanch considerably less satisfying than its more ridiculous kin, like the delightfully absurd Namak halaal.  Still, Do aur do paanch does sport a few interesting features.  Amitabh and Shashi are always a treasure; even in a relatively weak film like this one, their unparalleled and starkly contrasting charm lights up the screen, and their antics as each tries to one-up the other with pranks and deception are definitely the most enjoyable part of the film.  The pseudonyms that Vijay and Sunil take on for their stint at the school, their teacher-avatars - Ram and Laxman - hint at the brotherhood that ultimately grows between the rival rogues, and there is some pleasure in watching that develop.

On balance, though, despite a few outlandish moments - Sunil skinny-dipping in a river as an angry Shalu (prodded by Vijay, of course) runs away with his clothes; a bizarre song featuring more than a dozen actors in animal suits - Do aur do paanch is just too much "dishoom dishoom" and not enough silly.  Hema Malini is utterly wasted - after a promising entrance in which she tosses sundry obstacles in the way of the bad guys' cars, she gets virtually nothing to do.  Not even the songs provide the over-the-top sparkle that the movie lacks.  The title song is a good solid exemplar of its Amitabh-Kishore pairing, and its reprise on a hoarse but triumphant Shashi is fun too.  Beyond that, though - apart from the odd song with the dancing mascots - there's not too much that is memorable. 

(Do aur do paanch is available for download from Jaman.)

Jaane bhi do yaaro (1983)

जाने भी दो यारो

This black comedy pits a pair of hapless knuckleheads against the vast and wealthy machinery of official corruption.  It's not exactly a fair fight, but it makes for a movie that is funny, textured, and rich with symbolism. 

Photographers Vinod (Naseeruddin Shah) and Sudhir (Ravi Baswani) are struggling to get customers into their portrait shop when opportunity knocks - a tabloid editor Shobha (Bhakti Barve) hires them to snap stealthy shots of the surreptitious meetings between the corrupt Municipal Commissioner D'Mello (Satish Shah) and the real estate developers who bribe him for construction permits.  First the photographers discover a bidding war between rival developers, the slick Tarneja (Pankaj Kapur) and drunken Ahuja (Om Puri).  When the competition escalates to murder, Vinod and Sudhir are determined to fight the good fight and expose the crimes and corruption they have discovered.  But they find themselves in a perilous tangle of deals and double-crosses, where everyone is on the take.   

From the outset Jaane bhi do yaaro ("Let it go, friends") has the tone of a zany caper.  Its guileless heroes zigzag their way from bluffing into D'Mello's home to photograph secret documents, to chasing a wayward corpse, to staging an impromptu takeover of a theatrical production of the Mahabharata, and each stop on the journey is more hysterical than the one before.  But the prevailing mood of the film, and presumably of its audience as well, is that the bumbling efforts of feckless interlopers, no matter how well-meaning, is not enough to jam the well-oiled gears of official corruption. 

The film strikes a nice balance with a madcap approach to a weighty subject; Vinod and Sudhir's naive earnestness is funny and charming.  And it's not just farce and slapstick; there are layers of meaning even in the silliest scenarios.  My friend Amit at Cross-cut has a nice comment on the complexity of the Mahabharata scene, for example, in which the film's characters usurp the stage performance of a familiar myth.  Amit notes that this is a metaphor for the people of India who sit and watch passively as the spectacle of corruption is carried out before them. 

While the characters are engaging and the antics side-splitting, Jaane bhi do yaaro's message is ultimately very bleak, with a flavor of no good deed going unpunished.  It is an excellent, entertaining, and provocative film, but be prepared for a sucker punch or two amidst all the mirth.